Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace | Lex Fridman Podcast #125
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Ryan Hall is a jiu jitsu black belt, UFC fighter, and a philosopher of the martial arts. Please check out our sponsors to get a discount and to support this podcast:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Ryan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanhall5050
Ryan's Website: http://www.ryanhallmma.com/
Ryan's School: https://www.5050bjj.com
Ryan's Online Courses: https://ryanhallonline.com/

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Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
7:22 - Greatest warrior in history
11:48 - Genghis Khan
17:32 - Nature is metal
21:49 - Cancel culture
36:11 - Sci-fi books and movies
44:50 - Essence of jiu jitsu
51:17 - Jiu jitsu is a language
1:01:12 - How to get started in jiu jitsu
1:14:01 - The value of a good coach
1:25:42 - Lex training with Ryan
1:31:06 - Toxicity on the internet
1:34:41 - Joe Rogan
1:42:25 - Alex Jones
2:07:02 - Donald Trump
2:09:45 - The American ideal
2:17:33 - What does it take to be a jiu jitsu black belt
2:49:06 - Elon Musk
2:57:39 - Fighting BJ Penn
3:04:13 - Conor McGregor
3:12:08 - How to beat Khabib Nurmagomedov
3:16:00 - Top MMA fighters of all time
3:24:41 - Mike Tyson
3:41:13 - Fear of death

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 The following is a conversation with Ryan Hall, one of the most insightful minds and systems thinkers in the martial arts world. He's a black belt in jiu-jitsu, accomplished competitor, an MMA fighter undefeated in the UFC, and truly a philosopher who seeks to understand the underlying principles of the martial arts. Jiu-jitsu is such an important part of who I am, and I was hoping to share that with folks who might know me only as a researcher. I think there's no better person to do that with than Ryan, who somehow, remarkably, I can say is a friend, and also a modern day warrior philosopher of the Miyamoto Masashi line of especially dangerous and brilliant humans. Also, his amazing wife, Jen Hall, was there as well, so if you hear a kind of voice of wisdom coming from above, you know who it is. Quick summary of the sponsors, PowerDot, Babble, and Cash App. Please check out the sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that renaming this podcast to just my name gave me intellectual freedom that I really didn't anticipate was so empowering, especially for someone who's trying to find their voice. I hope you allow me the chance to really try and do that, to step outside of AI and even science, engineering, history, and so on, and on occasion, talk to athletes, musicians, writers, and maybe even comedians who inspire me, especially up-and-coming comedians and musicians like Eric Weinstein, who yes, will do a third conversation with soon. I think if I allow myself to expand the range of these conversations on occasion, when I do return to science and engineering, I'll bring you perspective and also a little bit more fun and a few extra listeners that may not otherwise realize how fascinating artificial intelligence, robotics, mathematics, and engineering truly is. All that said, please skip the episodes that don't interest you. You don't have to listen to all of them. Trust me, as someone who is a bit or a lot OCD, that idea is quite unpleasant. But life, friends, is full of unpleasant things. But as Hunter S. Thompson suggested, and I suggest as well, you should still buy the ticket and take the ride. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars and up a podcast, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but I give you the timestamp, so please skip if you don't wanna listen to the ads, but it does mean a lot to me when you do. And still please do check out the sponsors by clicking on the links in the description. It really is the best way to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by PowerDot. Get it at power.com slash Lex, and you just go Lex at checkout to get 20% off. I use it for muscle recovery for legs and shoulders, but you can also use it to build muscle, endurance, or even just warm up. In fact, I first heard about this kind of electrical muscle stimulation device in reading that Bruce Lee used it. He was an inspiration to me as someone who practices first principles thinking, especially in a discipline where conventional thinking is everywhere. He created a martial art called Jeet Kune Do that is in many ways, at least philosophically, in its hybrid approach, a precursor to modern day mixed martial arts. There's a special kind of deep philosophical thinking that combat athletes or Jiu Jitsu practitioners do that is unlike any other. I think it's grounded in the humbling process of getting your ass kicked a lot that removes any illusion of intellectual superiority. I think the journey towards wisdom starts when you humbly admit to yourself that you know very little or almost nothing. Anyway, go to power.com slash Lex and use code Lex at checkout to get 20% off on top of the 30 day free trial. This show is also sponsored by Babbel, an app and website that gets you speaking in a new language within weeks. Go to babbel.com and use code Lex to get three months free. They offer 14 languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, German, and yes, Russian. Let me read a few lines from a Russian song by Vladimir Vysotsky called Anabala Parizha. You'll start to understand if you sign up to Babbel. Navierna ya pagib, glaza zakroi vizhu. Navierna ya pagib, arabeya patom. Kuda mne de nio, anabala parizha. Ya vchira uznal, ne toka v nyeom odnom. This song always made me smile because it resonates with my own life. It translates loosely to she's been to Paris. Paris for a Russian, I suppose, symbolizing a fancy life and that the guy can never quite fit into that kind of life. Expensive things, nice restaurants, cars, all of that. I was thinking about what song is equivalent in English. Maybe Uptown Girl by Billie Joe is similar in spirit, but very different in style. I just watched the video on YouTube for Uptown Girl and it's basically Billie Joe dressed up as a mechanic, but dancing in a way that I'm pretty sure no mechanic has ever danced, turning the old cringe factor up to 11. Anyway, I always felt like I didn't really fit in with the fancy people and that's what this song represents. But back to Babbel. Get started by visiting babbel.com and use code Lex to get three months free. This show is presented by the great, the powerful, the OG sponsor named unofficially after one of my favorite musicians, the man in black, Johnny Cash. That's Cash App, the number one finance app in the app store. When you get it, use code Lexpodcast. The Cash App folks are truly amazing people and are teaming with ideas for cool contests, giveaways, and all that kind of stuff. I've been thinking of doing some kind of little contest and giving away 42 bucks to a bunch of people who win. It's not so much about the money, but the glory and a delicious taste of victory. If you have ideas for a contest, let me know. I was thinking of something like asking people to submit funny, inspiring photos or videos or audio of using Cash App or any of the sponsors of this podcast really, or maybe even just funny things related to the podcast, like different weird places you might be watching or listening to me right now. I'm pretty sure there's somebody out there right now sitting in a hot tub with some wine watching me say this. I salute you, sir or madam. I may be opening up some floodgates I deeply regret later, so please make sure you're wearing clothes in whatever you sent me. There'll be no naked people in the hot tub as part of this podcast. I have integrity and standards. Let me know in the comments what ideas for contests you might have. Again, if you get Cash App from the App Store or Google Play and use the code Lexpodcast, you get $10, and Cash App will also donate $10 to First, an organization that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education for young people around the world. And now here's my conversation with Ryan Hall. Who in your view is the greatest warrior in history, ancient or modern? That's a tough question, and again, I'm no historian by any measure, so I'll probably do the worst. It's like, what are your best bands ever? I'm like Metallica, and you know, so I'll pick the- Metallica just came out with a new album, by the way, for the entire orchestra. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Metallica will always be one of the greatest. Yeah, that's awesome. They were a bad example. They were a well-known yet awesome band. Let me say, it's like Nickelback or something like that. But I feel that feels cheap because everyone makes fun of Nickelback. Yeah. I don't know, I guess it depends on how you want to define warrior. Something that I think about when it comes to trying to evaluate various people or situations or things that I've read about or heard about are the circumstances that they were involved in, because I think a lot of times it's easy to look at the outcomes. And obviously outcome, we live in an outcome-driven world and outcomes do matter, but at the same time, like you look at, let's say what Cuba has been able to pull off from a combat sports perspective, it's staggering. Like the amount of successful Olympic level competitors they have in wrestling, boxing, judo. I mean, they're a tiny little island with no money and no people. That's shocking. When you think about the Olympics in the United States doing well, of course we should do well. I mean, Russia should do well, China should do well. India should do better than they do, honestly. Obviously it means like they're not into it as much or at least certain sports because they have the resources people-wise. So talent's not gonna be an issue. So there's something to like where the starting point is. Like that's the argument with like why people say Maradona, I don't know if you're into soccer. Oh yeah, big soccer. Okay. They say Maradona is better than Messi because he basically carried the team and won the World Cup with a team that wouldn't otherwise win the World Cup. And then Messi was only successful in Barcelona because he has like superstars. He's playing with other superstars. Right. Yeah, that's fair to say. I mean, like United there's a lot of factors that go into, let's say winning a soccer game and obviously Barcelona, particularly for various points in time had a ridiculous all-star squad of world-class players. But, and I'll say for instance, maybe they didn't have the creative players in Argentina. They needed to get the ball up to Messi. You know, they didn't have like the NES, and you know, the, you know, the, again, the backing there in the midfield. But, because obviously Argentina's always had ridiculous attacking players, like even alongside Messi, but they're like the three killers up front and then little less behind. So it's interesting you say that, depends how you define warrior, because you can probably take like some of the civil rights leaders. You can go into that direction, like leaders in general. But if we just look at like the greatest martial artists in history, in that direction, do you have somebody in mind? I would say at least three, three that pop into my head and would be Hannibal, Alexander the Great, and then maybe Miyamoto Musashi. You know, the two commanders and then one, you know, guy. But, so it's interesting. And then again, you mentioned warriors being able to make a lot out of a little, you know, Musashi's famous for winning duels, you know, that were oftentimes one, there were one-on-one. You know, the Alexander and Hannibal were, you know, military commanders and one of them faced Rome. And that was an interesting thing. Oftentimes, you know, coming up with novel tactics, different strategies, sometimes under resourced, having to do novel and crazy things. There's skin in the game. That's an interesting thing too. I think a lot of times, you know, if you're playing a video game, I don't think you can be a warrior because there's no skin in the game. You get hurt, you lose, and that's a bummer. It stings a little bit, maybe it makes you feel slightly disappointed. But, you know, Musashi loses, he loses. Hannibal loses, he loses. Alexander loses, he loses. And they lose, I guess the people around them lose. So that's almost like you could use, even from a combat sports perspective, a Muhammad Ali. I mean, you consider also their quality of opposition. Musashi was fighting high quality opposition. Obviously Hannibal and Alexander, particularly Hannibal were fighting unbelievable opposition. Muhammad Ali fought phenomenal opposition, but he had skin in the game, both in the ring and out. And that actually meshes with, as you mentioned, like a civil rights type of situation where you are under-resourced, you're pushing the stone uphill. And that was a neat thing I think about Muhammad Ali was how much personal conviction the man had to have in order to pull off what he was able to pull off, both in and outside of the ring. And that reminds me of, again, some of the other great leaders or great fighters throughout history. So what do you make of the kind of very difficult idea that some of these conquerors like Alexander the Great and somebody that, if you listen to Hardcore History, Dan Carlin, who apparently Elon Musk is also a big fan of is the Genghis Khan episode. A large percent of the world is, can call Genghis Khan an ancestor. So the difficult truth is about some of these conquerors is that there's a lot of murder and rape and pillage and stealing of resources and all that kind of stuff. And yet they're often remembered as quite honorable. I mean, in the case of Genghis Khan, there's a lot of people who argue, if you look at the, historically, the way it's described, in full context, is he was ultimately like a, given the time he was a liberator, he was a progressive, I should say. You know, like in terms of the violence and the atrocities he committed, he, at least in the stories, has always provided the option of not to do that. It's only if you resist to, so you basically have the option, do you wanna join us or do you want to die and die horribly? So that's the progressive sort of, that's the Bernie Sanders of the era. Nice. So what do you make of that? That there's so much of these great conquerors, there's so much murder that to us now would just seem insane. It's funny you mentioned it. I think that maybe it's a human nature thing that we want to, or maybe a misunderstanding thing that we want to cast all of our characters and ourselves, maybe is entirely good or is entirely negative when, I guess the phrase or the saying, one man's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist, is accurate. And a lot of times I think you can understand as long as you're able to look from various people's perspective. Like if you look at the TV show, The Wire, which was obviously, you know, widely, everybody loves The Wire. I thought that there were everyone, I'm not saying anything that's not been said before, compelling characters from all angles, whether you like the character, dislike the character, you were able to understand the motivations of people doing various things. Even if they did wrongly, they did rightly. You know, we want to cast all of the demons throughout history as completely inhuman when I think that makes it difficult for us to understand them. And we want to look back at the people that we think of as great and entirely great. And I think that we're experiencing the problems with this, you know, even right now, socially and politically, as we're trying to look back and decide the people we thought were good are not good, or people we thought were bad are now good, rather than going, hey, there's good and bad to all things. And there are, as you mentioned, the Genghis Khan thing, you don't have to fight back. You do, I respect you for it, but then we're gonna have a conflict and then we'll see what happens. And if you lose, you're gonna be sorry that you did, because I have to make it that way if I want to continue utilizing this kind of MO, because I need to discourage the next guy from doing what you're doing right now. And ultimately though, I guess that's an interesting thing. Imagine you put every single person on planet earth in a cage, crime drops, you know? Also, there are certain positives to that. And it's just things are as they are, it's difficult, but that is ultimately more the law of the jungle. And I think that we're able to supersede some of that now in modern times, and I think we're fortunate. But as you mentioned, we look back and say, oh, this is horrible. Say, no, that just is what it is. That's how life is at a base level. And again, if you're a lion and I'm a gazelle, I don't really like it very much, but we don't call the lion the bad guy. We don't sanctify the gazelle or the other way around. So it's interesting when you pull back some of the controls that we put on our behavior in modern life, which I think are generally speaking positive, we get down to how things often are. And at the same time, modern life was built by people like Genghis Khan. So then you get down to the ends justifying the means. It's a tough question. These aren't things with easy answers, or at least if they are, I certainly don't have the smarts to figure out the answers to them. But it's difficult, I would just say people in the world are complicated and layered. And depending upon which side of the line you're standing on at various times, you may like or dislike someone, but I can't remember whose idea it was, this is killing me, but it's the veil of ignorance, I guess, the philosophical idea of the veil of ignorance where I go is sticking everyone in the cage, the right thing to do, when I say, or everyone but me. And I say, well, no, why? Well, it would make my life easier if I just went over and took all of your stuff as long as you couldn't stop me. I mean, of course that's a great idea, that's what everyone does in every video game. But in Skyrim, you steal stuff when people aren't around. But ultimately you go, well, this isn't the right thing to do because if I were on the other side of it, I would not appreciate it. It's inherently not a good thing to do. I'm only doing it because I think I'm gonna win. And that's a fine way to be, but you don't have the white hat on, I guess I would say. So I think without those philosophical underpinnings to rein us in, I guess morally speaking, it's very difficult to say what's right or wrong. And you'd say certain actions have a reaction, almost like a physics sense. If you kill everyone in your way for as long as you're able to, your life will be easier. I mean, you're setting the table for someone doing the same to you when you're no longer the tough guy, but it is what it is. Yeah, if you look at the Instagram channel, Nature is Metal, it hurts my heart to watch, to remind me, a comfortable descendant of ape, how vicious nature is, just unapologetically. I mean, there's a process to it where the bad guy always wins. The violence is the solution to most problems or the flip side of that, running away from violence is the solution, depending on your skillset. And it's funny to think of us humans with our extra little piece of brain that we're somehow trying to figure out, like you said, in a philosophical way, how to supersede that, how to move past the viciousness, the cruelty, just the cold exchange of nature. But perhaps it's not so, maybe that is nature, maybe that's the way of life, maybe we're trying too hard to, we're being too egotistical in thinking we're somehow separate from nature, we're somehow distant from that very thing. I couldn't agree with you more, in fact, I think actually Orson Scott Card, who's the writer of a great book called Ender's Game, this was a statement that the main character, Ender made in the book, his brother was brilliant, his brother was like kind of sociopathic, brilliant kid that was ended up kicked out of the school that they were all into for battle commander. Dealing with his brother taught him that ultimately strength, courage, the ability to do violence for all the good and the bad of that is one of the fundamental most important things to be able to do in life, because if you can't cause destruction, if you can't cause pain, you will be forever subject to those who can. And I think that you mentioned egotism, I think that that's a disease that could obviously strike any of us, but it's something that we're looking at now, I think we should be unbelievably thankful as people that live in the world that we do, that we can walk down the street without having to worry that I'm like, well, don't worry, that six foot six, 270 pound person over there is just gonna leave me alone. And I have a Rolex on, but whatever, I'll be fine, because that person is deciding to leave me alone because we've all agreed to live in this relatively, sane and or constrained society because it benefits all of us. And we're doing it because of a philosophical underpinning, not because nature dictates it be that way, because nature dictates it go in a very, very different direction and the only person, the only thing stopping that person from doing something to me is either me, that person or someone else that will stand in between us. And if I can't do it and there's no one there to stand in between us, then the only thing stopping that person is that person. And I have to hope that they're either disinterested or disinclined to do that sort of thing. And I think that, you know, it's keeping in mind that that is the fundamental nature of the world, whether we like it or not is important. And I think the quest to fundamentally alter human nature is gonna be ultimately fruitless. And then also it's, it is a little bit egotistical. A lion does what a lion does, you know, we can try to box it in and we can try to, you know, guide this direction, that direction, but you know, nature is as it is and as it always will be unless we wanna start to constrain it significantly. But now I'm starting to get into individual rights, who put me in charge, who says that I should be the one to make the choice is constraining because many of the most awful things have happened throughout history. One group or one person has decided to constrain others. And we don't like Genghis Khan doing that. Well, I'll do that on a little level. Are there gonna be benefits and beneficiaries? Absolutely, but there'll be losers in that too. So I guess it's a dangerous game. It's almost like putting on the one ring. We remember when Frodo offered the one ring to Gandalf and Gandalf said, no, no, I would take it away. I would put it on, I would use it out of the desire to do good, but through me, it would wield a power so terrible you can't imagine. I think that's the big question for anyone that decides that's able to have reach and able to have power. I mean, obviously I can't speak to that, but imagine you did have national level, global level power, how would you use it? Would you try to change the world? Would you be glad that you did down the line? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing we're struggling now as a society, maybe it'd be nice to get your quick comment on that, which is the people who have traditionally been powerless are now seeking a fairer society, a more equal society and in attaining more power justly, there's also a realization at least from my perspective that power corrupts everyone, even if the flag you wave is that of justice, right? And so, not to overuse the term, but it'd be nice if you have thoughts about the whole idea of cancel culture and the internet and Twitter and so on where there's a nuanced difficult discussions of race, of gender, of fairness, equality, justice, all of these kinds of things, there's a shouting down oftentimes of nuanced discussion of kind of trying to reason through these very difficult issues through our history, through what our future looks like. Do you have thoughts about the internet discourse that's going on now? Is there something positive that we can pull out of this? It's an interesting thing to see, I guess, as you mentioned, that the internet is not just a tool for us to use, it's an interesting thing to see, I guess, as you mentioned, anytime you're wielding power, whomever you are, doing so carefully is important and it's very, very easy to look at the people that have power and that are using it poorly or have used it poorly and go, hey, you're the bad guy and then go, well, of course, if I had power, I'll use it properly and I may intend to use it properly and maybe I will, but at the same time, people are people are people. I think that a lot of the, I think if you believe that human beings are all one, which I do, no matter whether you're here or there, you got two arms, two legs, a heart, a brain, we all live a similar experience and obviously with variations on a theme, but you're no less a human being if you're a person I've never met from China than some person in Virginia. We're all people and I guess ultimately, if I believe that human beings are corruptible and that power corrupts and that we're all fallible and we say and do things that either intentionally or unintentionally that we wish we'd not, I think that I have to allow for a space, I guess the word, it's almost a religious term, but I guess it would just say grace and that's something that I see disappearing from discourse in the public or maybe it wasn't there, I'm not sure, but it's interesting watching this occur on the internet because also now no longer are you and I just having a talk sitting on a bus stop, it's now in writing, everything's in writing, the old saying like, don't put that in writing, don't put anything in writing, that's how you get in trouble and basically with the degree to which everything is recorded but recorded in tiny little bites, it's very, very easy for me to wave every last little foolish, ignorant, incorrect or correct thing that someone has ever said or done in their face to support whatever argument that I'm trying to make about them or a situation and I think that you mentioned cancel culture or as it seems to exist, obviously this is poisonous, on its face this is poisonous. It's the sort of thing that doesn't incentivize proper behavior, I mean you look at, let's say, one of the great monsters of history, Adolf Hitler, obviously who's done awful, awful things, but also for anyone that's even a minor student of history, did some positive things as well. We don't have to, I don't have to embroider this person's crimes, I don't have to act as if there was nothing good a monster has ever done and nothing bad that a great person throughout history has ever done, but imagine the ghost of Adolf Hitler were to pop up and go, oh my gosh guys, I'm so sorry, I know what I've done but I'd like to apologize and start to make it right. Well, I mean you'd hope that if he popped up over here, you'd go, well I don't really like what you've done and I don't like you, but at the same time, I'm glad to hear that you're attempting to make this right and push in a positive direction, even if you can't make it right, because otherwise, what am I doing? I'm disincentivizing change for the better. I'm looking to wield whatever power I have in a punitive fashion, which does not encourage people to do anything other than double down on the wrongs that they've made, knowing that at least they're gonna have some support from the people that support that. And I guess I want to, you would hopefully look at the use of the internet as a tool that can educate, and I guess I don't like the word empower, but empower people to do various things, extend their reach, but educate and learn rather than to further solidify little tribal things that exist, which I think everyone in humanity and human history is vulnerable to. I mean, look at the course of human history, it's deeply tribal. And the tribes or the groups that have been on top at various points in time have done a lot of times bad things to the ones that have not. And you'd hope that we could learn lessons from the past and rather than committing the crimes that were committed against us, recommitting them when we slide into the top position, say, I could do this now, but I'll not. I understand the urge to seek vengeance is strong. Anyone that says differently, I wouldn't trust. But at the same time, we have enough experience in history, enough experience in life, enough hopefully wisdom time in to go, this isn't the right answer. This is only gonna replay the things, the worst parts of our history, not the best. And I want to encourage positive behavior. And if I just, again, further lash out at people, although understandably, done understandably, I'm simply just gonna just perpetuate the cycle that's gone on to this point. So you hope that even though we're seeing a lot of turmoil societally at the moment and globally at the moment, that I guess our better angels can prevail at a certain point, but it's gonna take a great deal of leadership. And I think that we're sorely missing like a Martin Luther King style character at the moment or a great leader. And I just, I'm hoping that one will show up. For sure. And by the way, a word I don't hear often, and I think it's a beautiful one, which is grace. That's a really interesting word. I'm gonna have to think about that. There is a religious component to it, but it's exactly right. You have to somehow walk the line between, you mentioned Hitler, I've been reading the rise and fall of the Third Reich. I'm really thinking about the 1930s. And what it's like to have economic, my concern is the economic pain that people are feeling now, quietly, is really a suffering that's not being heard. And there's echoes of that in the 20s and the 30s with the Great Depression. And there's a hunger for a charismatic leader. Like you said, there's a leader that could walk with grace, could inspire, could bring people together with sort of dreams of a better future that's positive. But Hitler did exactly everything that I just said except for the word positive, which is he did give a dream to the German people who were great people, who are great people of a better future. It's just that a certain point that quickly turned into the better future requires literally expansion of more land. It started with, well, if we wanna build a great Germany, we need a little bit more land. And so we need to kind of get Austria, then we need to kind of get France, mostly because France doesn't understand that more land is really useful. So we need to get rid of them. And look what they did to us in Versailles anyway. But so the Jewish, the Holocaust is a separate thing. I don't know, well, I don't know. I don't know what to think of it because, so me being Jewish and having a lot of, so the echoes of the suffering is in my family of the people that are lost. I don't know because Hitler wrote all about it in Mein Kampf. So I don't know if the evil he committed was there all along. I mean, and that's where the question of forgiveness, I mean, Hitler is such a difficult person to talk about, but it's the question of cancel culture, who is deserving of forgiveness and who is not. Like the Holocaust survivors that I've read about, that I've heard the interviews with, they've often spoken about the fact that the way for them to let go, to overcome the atrocities that they've experienced is to forgive. Like forgiveness is the way out for them. It's interesting to think about. I don't know if we're even a society ready to even contemplate an idea of forgiveness for Hitler. It's an interesting idea though. It's a good thought exercise at the very least to think about all these people that are being canceled for doing bad things of different degrees. Think of like Louis C.K. or somebody like that for being not a good person, but what is the path for forgiveness? And also what's a good person? What is a good person? If that's a sliding scale that we could all find ourselves looking at the uncomfortable end of a gun on, particularly down the line. I mean, you hope for the best, but these definitions, I guess, like you said, are important and who's doing the canceling, who's being canceled. I'm not necessarily, as you said, saying that that's entirely unjustified or it's certainly understandable. And particularly you mentioned like a monster, like an Adolf Hitler, but it's also interesting. I couldn't help but notice, like you mentioned as a society, us being able to apply forgiveness to someone who's done so much horror, but people who are personal, I mean, of course, many of the so many people are personally affected, but directly personally affected someone a survivor of the Holocaust, being able to let go on that. I'm nowhere near big enough a person for that sort of thing. But I guess that's an interesting thing. The person who was physically there, potentially able to let go. I don't know, that's unbelievably powerful. It's interesting. I guess you have to wonder sometimes, and this isn't obviously in regards to the Holocaust, but why I'm holding on to various things. Have I, what is it doing for me? And what is it doing to me? Is it facilitative, is it not? And I guess that's something else that I really enjoy. When I was on Ultimate Fighter, they don't let you have any music or any books. I've been in religious tech, so I've brought a Bible and I brought a Quran, and I started to read them side by side. And it was really interesting reading. The Bible's a little drier, Quran's more interestingly written. But I think something that was consistently brought up was the way most merciful. People want, I don't think any of us want justice. We think we want justice, but I don't think we want justice. Justice is a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous game because maybe this person's wronged me deeply and I want justice. I wanna balance it out, because what is justice is not a balancing of the scales. And sometimes you can understand it, and on a societal level, I think it's fine. I mean, there's crime and punishment, and we can go for the benefits and the drawbacks of that. But I think what any of us want is mercy within reason. Grace, as you mentioned, because justice is a very, very, very dangerous thing, and it's a valuable and important thing. But who gets to decide what's just, what justice is actually meted out? Maybe I get to meet out justice, but I don't get my comeuppance. Well, that sounds great. But what happens when it's pointed back at me? And I guess that comes back to the veil of ignorance. The idea that one day I will have to live in the world in which I've envisioned, in the world in which I've created. I think that a lot of times people love the idea of they're a judge for your crimes and a lawyer for theirs. And I heard that the other day. I thought that was great. And I think that's a dangerous thing, and hopefully it gives us all pause before, rightly or wrongly, but always understandably, you know, wielding serious power. Yeah, justice is a kind of drug. So if you look at history, also been reading a lot about Stalin. I mean, all those folks really, I don't know what was inside Hitler's head actually. He's a tricky one, because I think he was legitimately insane. Stalin was not. And Stalin was like, he literally thought he's doing a good thing. He literally thought for the entirety of the time that communism is going to bring, like that's the utopia, and is going to create a happy world. And in his mind were ideas of justice, of fairness, of happiness, of, of yeah, human flourishing. And that's a drug. And it somehow sadly pollutes the mind. When you start thinking like that, what's good for society, and believing that you have a good sense of what's good for society, that's intoxicating, especially when others around you are feeling the same way. And then you start like building up this movement, and you forget that you are just like, you're like barely recently evolved from an ape. Like you don't know what the hell you're doing. And then you start like killing witches or whatever. Like you start, you start doing- They did math. Let's be honest though. I mean, sometimes you got a witch has to go. A witch has, yeah, we can all agree that a witch, a witch has to go. If it floats or sinks, which one, I forget which one is. Whichever one we need at the time, honestly. Is it floating? It should have sunk. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, we can definitely agree that witches have to go. Because you brought it up, I tweeted recently, but also just, I'm one of the things I'm really ashamed of in my life is I haven't really read almost any of the sci-fi classics. Really? Yeah. So like I, my whole journey through reading was through like the literary philosophers, I would say like Camus, Hesse, Dostoevsky, Kafka, like that place. Like that's a kind of sci-fi world in itself, but it's, it just, it creates a world in which the, the deepest questions about human nature can be explored. I didn't realize this, but the sci-fi world is the same. It just puts it in a, it like removes it from any kind of historical context where you can explore those same ideas in like space somewhere elsewhere in a different time, in a different place. It allows you almost like more freedom to like construct these artificial things where you can just do crazy, crazy kind of human experiments. So I'm now working through it. The books on my list are the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov, Dune, Snow Crash by Neil Stevenson, and Ender's Game, like you mentioned. That's just kind of, and then, so I posted that, and then of course like Elon Musk, John Carmack, I don't know if you know him, creator of Doom and Quake and all that stuff. See, they all pitched in, these nerds, these ultra nerds just started like going like, did these, do you need to read this, that, and the other, so I've like started working out, okay. But it seems like the list I've mentioned holds up somewhat. Is there a book, is there sci-fi books or series or authors that you find are just amazing? Maybe another way to ask that is like, what's the greatest sci-fi book of all time? Well, I'd like to start by sharing something that I'm embarrassed about, is that I haven't read anything other than, Orson Scott Card, JR Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Tolkien, yeah. Dune. Yeah, I'm aware through Wikipedia and through surface reading of things that like a book called The Republic was written once. There were some other good ones. So you read Wikipedia, you're a prolific reader of Wikipedia articles. Well. Or occasional. Occasionally, exactly, and in between whatever else it is that I waste my time on. But yeah, so I also, I should say, I posted on Reddit questions for Ryan Hall, and there's like a million questions, but like half of them have to do with Dune. No, not really. But like people bring up Dune. I don't understand why. Did you mention Dune before? Well, we actually have a showy role, actually made us a Dune-themed gi one time, which I thought was kind of cool. I'll send you one, I'll give you one. We got extra. It's awesome. But actually, to your point, actually this is an Orson Scott Card quote, actually the writer of Ender's Game, fiction because it's not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. And I think that's a neat thing because I have heard other people whom I respect and very sharp people actually every now and then dig their heels and go, I don't like fiction, I only like nonfiction. It's more instructive. And I would go, I completely disagree with that. I think we have a hard enough time figuring out what happened at 7-11 three hours ago that let me tell you what happened 600 years BC. I'm like, hey, I'm interested, but don't tell me this isn't a story too. There's factual components, I have no doubt, but we struggle sometimes to, I guess what I like about fiction is that you can tell me a story, it's all about people. I mean, every now and then there's more and less believable things. And I think Dune would be an unbelievably well-written, in my opinion, for what do I know, but I really like Dune, I'll say that, a well-written example of human beings interacting with one another, the political component to that, the emotional, the intellectual, the relationship components to all of that. And I think that Dune is neat because it's a sci-fi novel, but only in the loosest sense. It's really a story about religion, about group dynamics, about human potential, about belief, learning, politics, governance, ecology. The best stories remind me of history, the same way history, hopefully, is not just a list of facts that I try to be able to recall or factoids that I try to recall, but a story that I can understand and see how the threads of time kind of came together and created certain things. And a lot of times, like we say, I'm like, ah, how the heck is, what's going on right now, or 100 years from now, or 100 years in the past happened? And you can look back far enough, if we had accurate knowledge, if we had that hypothetical perfect pool shot, at the beginning of time, we would see an unbroken chain of events that led us to where we are, and where we are will potentially lead us to where we're going, which is, again, why hindsight's helpful. But I think it's neat, like, I guess I really enjoy, for instance, a book like Dune, and they're actually making a movie out of it, which I'm skeptical of, to be honest, because it's gonna be difficult to bring that to the screen for a variety of reasons, but one of the- Yeah, there's at least 100 questions. Ask Ryan what he thinks about the new Dune movie. I am not enough of an authority to have any sort of decent opinion, but I guess what I would say is, so much of it goes on in the character's mind. Like, how much of any of our day, any lived experience, as it were, is internal? The majority, how many times are people walking around and, you know, they can, like, hey, what do you see right now? I'm like, oh, well, I see this picture, I see a wall. Hey, there's Lex. But really, what I was paying attention to was what was going on inside of my head for a moment, and almost the rest of the world tuned out and kind of dimmed, and I guess that, I think that's gonna be a struggle. To any time you wanna bring that type of a written story to a visual medium, I think it's gonna be more difficult, but it'll be interesting. It's definitely one of my favorite stories, and it's been, it's honestly helped me become better at life, in my opinion, better at martial arts, and I think the writer, I think Frank Herbert, was absolutely brilliant, whether those were all his ideas, which in reality, none of us, all of our good ideas aren't ours, or a combination, maybe he came up with something, you're a curator of other good ideas, and some things you borrowed from somewhere without even realizing it, but I think the way, the messages and the themes and the ideas that were conveyed, particularly in the original novel, are just absolutely brilliant. Is that to you one of the greats, and the flip side of that, or another way to ask that is, if somebody's new to sci-fi, is that something you would recommend? That is an entry point. I'm not well-read enough in the sci-fi world. I haven't read a lot of Isaac Asimov or anything like that, but I just, I'll recommend Dune. I'll be an obnoxious evangelist for Dune to anyone who'll listen, so I would strongly recommend it. So the other thing you mentioned, now, I should probably be talking to you about much more important things, but the other thing you mentioned is Skyrim. Do you play video games? What's your favorite game? What would you say is the greatest video game of all time? Because I'm a huge fan of Elder Scrolls. Oh, cool. Yeah, I mean, I play a little bit at this point, a little less, finally moved into a new house. So you're like an adult. No, no, no, I'm like a better-funded 12-year-old. Yeah, that's entirely accurate. Better-funded 12-year-old, but somewhat better-funded 12-year-old. Not as well-funded as I wish, but whatever. But historically, did you play video games? Oh yeah, I played as a kid. And I was, again, I've always liked playing sports and liked reading, and I always enjoyed video games, but my favorite video game I think I've ever played was Knights of the Old Republic. It was a Star Wars game. I'm a huge Star Wars fan until it became less so recently. Disney. You don't like the, I haven't watched it yet. Mandalorian. Oh, actually, I like Mandalorian. That was actually pretty cool, yeah. Just like the waving this off, canceled. Yeah, I will. If I could cancel one thing, I would cancel Disney Star Wars. I'm gonna edit that part out. Okay, let's go to the next. But this is where, if people are wanting, if you're watching this on YouTube and the dislike amount is like 80%, it's because of that comment, so good job. Good job for making the internet hate you. I regret nothing. What about Baby Yoda? Yeah, I guess, he's like, he's little, he's got ears and he uses the force sometimes and he passes out. No qualms with Baby Yoda, yeah. You don't have a heart, okay. Let's go to Jiu-Jitsu if it's okay. So the audience of this podcast may not know much about Jiu-Jitsu, or they do because it's really part of the culture now, but they don't really know much. They see that so many people have fallen in love with it, have been transformed through it, but they don't know much about like, what is this thing? Is there a way you could sort of try to explain what is Jiu-Jitsu, what is the essence of this martial art that's captured the minds and hearts of so many people in the world? I think that Jiu-Jitsu is a philosophy that's expressed physically and that it's the kind of development of the mental capacity and physical capacity of working in unison to move efficiently and almost flowingly, unresistingly with a given situation, with a physically resisting opponent. Learning how to generate force on your own and how to steal force from the floor, how to steal force from the other person and move in concert with it as opposed to clash against, which if you watch two untrained people fight, it's almost entirely a clash. It's a runaway in clash, a runaway in clash. If you watch Jiu-Jitsu done well, it looks like water moving around a solid structure. And I think that that is expressed physically and I think that all of the things that anyone has really been able to do very, very well in Jiu-Jitsu end up kind of exemplifying that. But I think that that's true of martial arts in general. I think that a lot of times, like the clashing that we see going on and working well is just the fact that you get very, very physically powerful people every now and then that are able to get away with this. But I don't think that that's, and that's fantastic because ultimately it's a results driven thing. But I think that the essence of the martial arts is learning how to make more out of less and how to move with and be yielding. Almost like real life Aikido. And... So you think of martial arts, Jiu-Jitsu, as like water or flowing. So Aikido, so moving around the force as opposed to sort of maybe the wrestling mindset is finding a leverage where you can apply an exceptional amount of force. So like maximizing the application of force. I guess maybe that's a better way to, I'd like to marry the two ideas, because I think you flow until the point at which you are the greater force, at which point in time you can apply. But if you look at the best wrestlers, and then when I say best, I don't necessarily mean the most successful, although of course most successful are always very, very good. Throughout the course of history in boxing, in wrestling, in Judo, they're magical. They disappear and reappear. It's like fighting a ghost that is like incorporeal when you want to find it, but then when you don't want to find it, it finds you. And I think that we see that in the Buwaisar side tubes of wrestling. And I guess you could look at Floyd Mayweather or Willie Pepp or Purnell Whitaker in boxing as brilliant examples of disappearing and reappearing. And when you're strong, it's almost like guerrilla warfare. When you're strong, I'm nowhere to be found. When you're weak, you can't get rid of me. And I think that's what we're looking for. Yeah, the T.F. Brothers are incredible at that. They look like skinny Starbucks baristas, and they just manhandle everybody effortlessly. Effortlessly. They look like they just kind of woke up, rolled out of bed, fighting for the gold medal at the Olympics, and just effortlessly throw. There's a match against, I guess, Yoh Romero. Yeah, so if you look at who is the guy who's intimidating in this case, and terrifying looking, it's Yoh Romero, just a physical specimen, and obviously a super accomplished wrestler. I think this is for the gold medal, yeah, in 2000. 2000. Yeah, Cindy. And then there. This is the year you all took silver. And what you, just to show you, there's a inside trip, effortless. Oh gee, and he does it again. Yep. You know, it's a really creative kind of wrestling where. It's organic. Yeah, you throw in all these kinds of things. It's just a mix of judo, a mix of weird kind of moves. It's not as funky as Ben Askren. It's just legitimate, basic. Well, it's not funky for funky's sake. And I'm not poking Ben Askren to imply that that's what he's doing, but it's funny. It's a lot of times, it's almost like Musashi talked a lot about that, that the only goal of combat is to win, is the outcome, it's outcome driven, versus flourishing, cool looking movements. It's like, unless that had a utilitarian purpose, what are you wasting your time with that? Both in the fight and also in practice. But as you mentioned, it's almost like it looks like judo. It looks like wrestling. It looks like jiu-jitsu. It's almost like, I guess, that reminds me, all of the martial arts is, again, deeply tribal as well. I wanna learn Lex Fridman martial arts. And then I wanna learn another, I guess, transcendent person's martial arts. And it just happened to be the set of movements that you tended to do most of the time, thanks to your body type and your opposition and whatnot. But then I try to codify that and force those to work, as opposed to going, I wanna understand how the body works in concert and in Congress with something else and other forces and move appropriately. And that's why it's like, it always struck me that the Scythe brothers are great examples of just moving like water. But they, to use Bruce Lee, which is a little tripe, but again, he's brilliant. It's like, water can flow or water can crash. And they would crash when they needed to crash. And they would flow when they needed to flow. But they would flow for the purpose of dissipating and then crash when they would win. And at the right moment, then go back to flowing the second that the other person found them. And it's just, it's beautiful to watch. It's artistic. And I think that the great expression of anything physical is ultimately studied as a science, but expressed as an art. And I think that that's something that gets lost in Jiu-Jitsu a lot of times when it gets a little bit, a little nerdy, like do this, hand here, hand here. Like, it's like the more details I have, the better. When in reality, that's just not in my experience how it's done. It might be a fun exercise of saying like, what are the main positions and submissions in the art of Jiu-Jitsu? You don't have to be complete. That's a ridiculously, I apologize for putting you on the spot like this, but it might be a nice exercise to think through it. Sure. I mean, I would just say that there, you have your arms bend in various ways. You have key lock Americana, straight arm locks, Kimura, Omoplata. Omoplata is a Kimura. Kimura is an Omoplata. It's just executed. That's submissions. It's like breaking off your arm in all kinds of ways. But ultimately, the question is, let's say you were a Terminator, like a robot that I, which of course you are. Go on. Go on. It's like, all right, we're being completely literal. But, and I couldn't harm you with any of these things. Would I still use these positions? The answer is yes. They create leverage, they create control, they create shapes that I can affect and that can affect me. And they can be affected through other forces than other objects or structures like the ground or the wall. I enjoy mixed martial arts because there's another component rather than just me and you and the floor, there's me, you, the floor and the wall. And it's another player in the game that doesn't exist in a grappling context within a non-enclosed, I guess, area of combat. But you can strangle me or choke me, what do you call it, without my arms being involved or you can use one of my shoulders to pin one side of one carotid artery off and you can enclose the other. You can turn my knee in the exact same ways that you can turn my arm, straight, this way and that way. You can add a rotation to that or it can be directly linear against the joint. So I guess what I would say is the more that I've been able to understand Jiu-Jitsu, the more that I've been, it's given me a look into how we learn language where rather than learning five bazillion adjectives, I go, I understand what an adjective is. And of course we are all read into some degree of vocabulary. I understand what an adverb does and I understand what an adverb is. I know what a noun is. I know what the component parts of a sentence are. I know what, I guess a clause, a contraction, any of these things. And it allows you to be interesting and artistic with your language to the extent that you can. But I can't, like I can speak a degree of Spanish, but I'm not even slightly artistic in Spanish. I would be something, I speak like a child with a head injury. And anyway. Your basic understanding of the English language allows you to then be a student of Spanish. 100%, but I'm limited by my experience. I'm limited by my understanding of techniques. I'm limited by my understanding, almost like let's say techniques are like vocabulary. So even if I kind of sort of grasp the sentence structure and the thought process and the thought patterns of Spanish, which it's interesting because just even the orientation and the organization of a language, and I've thought about this a great deal, the way that I perceive the world is affected deeply by the language that I learned. Again, if I learned, I have no idea how the Chinese language structures, but I can only imagine that it would affect, it's like a different lens. We're all looking at the same thing, but I have a different set of sunglasses on than you do. And that's very, very interesting. I'll use the Quran as an example. Apparently it's unbelievably poetic in Arabic. Still neat and was interesting reading in English, but I'm told by people that I trust that it just one doesn't bear resemblance to the other. And I think that's a very interesting thing that you may be able to say the same thing, but in a more, I guess in a different way, in a more artistic way that may not translate on a one-for-one kind of fidelity. But the more that we're able to understand about how the body works, the more examples of the body working this way, the body working that way, the body working that way, the more that I'm able to eventually become an artist, but it has to be studied as a science first. And it does start with technique collection, vocabulary collection, the same way we learn in school, where you remember how to say quickly 17 different ways. And let's say I speak Spanish, I only know three. So you might use quickly, you might use an adjective like quickly in Spanish, but use one of the many, many options to describe that that I don't understand. And now I sit there and go like, wait, what? I can't be artistic. I can't be as organic with the language as I'd like. So I believe that Jiu-Jitsu a lot of times starts with the acquisition of a lot of, hey, do this, this drill, this technique, here's an Americana, Americana to an armlock, armlock to a triangle. But the problem with that is oftentimes we get stuck in that phase. And people eventually become move collectors or sequence collectors. And I noticed this when I'm trying to do DVDs or I guess like an instructional series now, or even teaching in class. I don't believe in that form of learning anymore. Not that it's not valuable, but I don't believe, I don't understand Jiu-Jitsu on that level anymore. So what I'm trying to do is get across the basic ideas to people and say, hey, you need to fill in the gaps with going to class all the time. You need to go, hey, learn this move, learn that technique, learn that technique. Because otherwise I'm basically just throwing at you like 75 different words that you could use, but that hasn't really taught you how to speak a language. Whereas if you give me a language structure, you can fill in these pieces on your own and then eventually speak organically in lex form, which will be ultimately unique to you because otherwise you just end up being like a weird facsimile of whatever it is that I'm doing for mostly the worst I'd say. But- Yeah, that's what people, I mean, people comment, like is this, especially people who haven't listened to me before, is this guy drunk or high? Does he, does MIT really allow slow people to be- Quotas. Quotas, yeah. Like what's wrong with him? Is he getting sleep? Are you okay? Does he need help? So that's similar with my Jiu-Jitsu is like, is this guy, is this guy really, whatever rank I was throughout, I remember just like, is this guy really this rank? I just have a very kind of certain way of sitting and being slow and lazy looking that there was ultimately the language that I had to discover. And it was, yeah, it was a very liberating moment, I think, of probably a few years of getting my ass kicked, especially with Open Guard and Butterfly to where you really allow yourself to take in the entirety of the language and realize that I'm not, I'm a unique, I'm unique and like I have a very, I have a language, I have a set of techniques, a way I move my body that needs, that I'm the one to discover. Like it's, you can only, you can learn specific techniques and so on, but you really have to understand your own body. And that's the beautiful thing about Jiu-Jitsu, like you said, is like the connection about your philosophy, your view of the world with the physical and like connecting those two things, how you perceive the world, how you interpret ideas of the world about exhaustion, about force, about effortlessness, like what it really means to relax, all these kinds of loose concepts, and then actually teach your body to like do those things and like, you know, and be able to apply force and spurts, be able to relax and spurts, and like figure all that stuff out for my, for my individual body. But it's, as you mentioned, that's, I couldn't agree with you more, it's a discovery process and no one can cheat that process, which is at the same time, it's almost like imagine I wanna start writing books in second grade, unless maybe I'm like staggeringly brilliant, like which I can only conceptualize someone being able to do that, but maybe a Mozart of the English language where you're out there doing it. But for most of us, we don't have enough knowledge, enough information, enough experience to be able to be, to express ourselves. So we have to basically input, repeat, which is important, but it's the process as you say of going through that, of getting your ass kicked, or just like, well, that didn't work, well, that didn't work, that felt right, but I don't know, nobody else does that, I guess I don't believe in that. Versus eventually going, I don't know, I'll just try going my own way and see what happens, and now I'll get yelled at and people won't like me, and if it works, they'll say I got lucky, and if it doesn't work, they'll say I was dumb, but which maybe all is right. But basically, you know, going through that iterative process that allows you to eventually find your self-expression and find your voice so that you fight the same way that you speak, the same way that you write, the same way that you think in a way that is uniquely you, that will also ultimately allow you to understand other people being uniquely them, because even if you can only conceptualize, and I think about this a lot for society stuff, where I go, well, this is how I feel about this, but am I objectively right? Maybe about a couple of things, but that's a small box that I have to be very, very careful about what I think is objective versus what's not, and I have to be open to the possibility that all the things that I think are objectively correct may or may not be, and that should allow me to have some degree of compassion or consideration for other people, both in their martial arts journey and in their journey, you know, as people, as human beings, because I understand that they're on a, it's a, we're all on a path where it's all, and again, an iterative process of eventual self-expression, but I think that's one of the things that we see having trouble when we see tribalism, which I mean, racism expression of that, political affiliation to expression of that, all of these things that can go in really uncomfortable directions. People are looking for, hey, where do I plant my feet over here? Where's the thing that I know is right? And we can all agree on the following, and I think that we see that in martial arts, we're like, oh, I do this style, I do that style, I do that style, it's like, hey, man, we're all just pushing forward in a certain direction here, trying to do our best, and I understand why you feel the way you do. I may have felt like that at one point too, but you know, I'm just trying to learn and understand versus I've already acquired enough knowledge, let me cross my arms and start to look who's fucking up around here, and I think that it's an interesting trap that I think is very human trap to fall into, but it definitely happens early on. It's a joke in the jiu-jitsu world, right? Like, oh, the blue belt that knows everything. Well, initially it's like, what, I know nothing, and I at least think I know nothing. Then I learn a little bit, and I think it's a lot bit, and then the more you learn, the more you go like, I don't even know what I'm doing. Yeah, that's exactly right. We kinda talked about it a little bit, but once again, a lot of people that listen to this have never been on the mat, have never tried jiu-jitsu, but are really curious about it. Everybody at all positions, like I think Elon Musk's kids are not doing jiu-jitsu, Andrew Yang is, like they're all, you know, the world is curious. It's a nice, it seems to be a nice methodology by which to humble your ego, which to grow intellectually and physically. So people are curious about it. So the natural question is, if they're curious about it, how would you recommend they get started? Maybe like, what do you recommend the first day, week, month, year, first couple years look like? Like, how do you ease into it and make sure that it's a positive experience and you progress in the most optimal and positive way? The first thing you can do is simply ask yourself why. Why you wanna be involved. You know, I remember the first day that I walked into Ronan Athletics in New York City to train under Godfather of my son now, Christian Montes. And I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I played baseball through high school and I was at Manhattan College in the Bronx and I wanted to go and learn martial arts because it was always something that was interesting to me, but it was never something that I knew was accessible. And it definitely wasn't really around in Northern Virginia where I grew up, whereas then you stick yourself in Manhattan and there's stuff everywhere. So anyway, I guess I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if I was gonna get beat up, if people were gonna be nice, people were not gonna be nice. But what I began with was, I think, expectation management. And I think that that's something that I would, that'd be the first thing that I would start is almost imagining what is it that I'm getting myself into? Because I love the martial arts, martial arts has given me everything in life and I'm so thankful I wouldn't be sitting here without that experience, that journey, the people that I've met, the places that I've gone, I could never, ever have ever imagined. And I'm just unbelievably thankful for that. But I think that the thing that helped me most of all was starting with going, my mom said something to me one time and she said, there's two types of people in various situations. There's why and there's why not. And it's understandable to have questions, concerns, things like that. But maybe sometimes it's a little bit easier when you're younger to just trust people or just say, I don't know, you know, but we go, hey, you wanna climb that rock? I'm like, yeah, why not? Let's go. Hey, you wanna jump in that river? Yeah, why not? Sure. Versus if I have to reason my way into everything, if I have to be talked into everything, a lot of times I'll talk myself out of it. And I think that a lot of times, this is the thinker's disease. You wanna figure out what's gonna happen and what you should expect to have happen before you get involved versus going, using the old Bruce Lee saying, again, it's like no amount of thinking or training on the side of the river will teach you how to swim. You have to jump in. And there are risks associated with that. And so, I guess, psychological are usually the biggest ones. That's the biggest hurdle. And physical. But the biggest thing that I guess I would suggest anyone to say, well, why do you wanna do this? You're like, well, I wanna challenge myself. I wanna learn, I would like to learn to fight. I want to learn to fight so that I could protect myself. And if anything else, other people, if only within arms reach, I perceive that if I had some small degree of power, I generally wouldn't use it, which is why I was like, yeah, I'll give it a try. I'll try to be reasonable. And hopefully if I make a mistake, I'll apologize to people. But basically, I said, yeah, I'd like to have that. And I know this is gonna be challenging and we'll see what happens. And that means that getting beat up, and I didn't get like hurt, but getting roughed up, getting my arm bent this way or that way, getting choked. I was like, well, this is all supposed to happen. That's no big deal. It would be like going and joining the army during peacetime and then going, oh, I'm just doing this for a college education. You're like, okay, that's cool, man. And then all of a sudden war breaks out and they wanna send me somewhere. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't sign up for that gig. Actually you did, whether you realize it or not. You may not have thought that you did, but you did. So getting your mind right and just going, what are my expectations of this activity? What is it that I'm looking to do? And of course, you're going into a gym, you're going into a place that you don't know people or you probably don't know people and you don't know the coach. And even if you do wanna, hey, how you doing? Shake your hand type of level, 95% of my students don't know me, not really. I'll try to be polite and not annoy them too much, but they don't know me and I don't know them. I understand if they don't trust me, I wouldn't trust trust me either if I were them. But at the same time, someone has to take that leap. And one of the things that I've noticed as a martial arts instructor, that's the biggest struggle with dealing with adults, which is why a lot of people like to teach kids is because kids don't ask, don't argue. Now that also means there's all sorts of pitfalls with that sort of thing and that can be an issue. But I guess a lot of times people get to a point in their life, in their 20s, early 30s, where now I'm a manager now, I know what I'm doing. No one talks to me like that versus like, hey man, you go join bootcamp, I don't care if you are Elon Musk, they're gonna tell you to shut up and do pushups. And that's what's great about it. So you are taking a leap of faith into a world that you're gonna be a tiny fish. And you gotta hope that the people who are guiding you in that journey are gonna have, I can't say even say your best interests at heart because they don't even know you, but they'll try to do no harm and they'll try to help you in the way that they would understand. And I guess that's, for instance, that's what I would try to do with anyone that comes into my gym. I would try to help them in the way that I understand they need as best I can and as safe and reasonable a way as possible. But sometimes in a way that's gonna make them uncomfortable, particularly if physical combat and it's not something they've done before. If they've, a lot of people go in without even having played contact sports. And so that can be a big jump and you have to understand if that's where you're starting from, no worries, but you're gonna have to kind of work your way to it and it's gonna be uncomfortable and that's okay. It's part of the process and you're gonna have some bumps and bruises and you're not gonna wanna roll with that guy in the corner because that person's rough and they beat you up and they're like, okay, but is this a big hurt or is it a little hurt? If it's a big hurt, okay. If it's a little hurt, shh. Need you to soldier up a little bit. Yeah, it's such an interesting balance because to find, I think one of the most important things as in anything I think in life is the selection of the people that you put around you. I mean, that's true with like getting married. That's true with like if you go to, if people ask me like graduate students, like your PhD advisor can be the difference. It's everything. It's like you spend five years with somebody, they're going to basically define more impact on you than anybody you marry, anybody you hang out with. It's a huge impact. And the same with the coach selection, which is like the school selection is going to be really important about in terms of like who you select will define how happy, like the trajectory of your growth and how happy you are with the entirety of the experience. And yet like the flip side of that is, especially if you have an ego, especially if you are the manager that needs to let go of some stuff, you're going to feel like shit with the best kind of coach. That's what you need. But there's a weird balance there to find. Like, I mean, like, and everybody needs a different thing. Like I'm much more, I enjoy being sort of like, it sounds weird, but like I'm, you know, from the wrestling background, I enjoy feeling like crap in the sense like the coach, like getting beat up. I don't actually enjoy it. It's not like some masochistic thing or whatever. I know what you mean. It's the growth. Like I like the anxiety. I like feeling like shit when I go home, like emotionally, physically, it's like it's growth. It's a sign of growth, right? Like if you're not having to feel those things, you're probably in your comfort zone, which is fine, but that's not your growth zone, right? And everybody has a different threshold for that. And I mean, the beautiful thing about Jiu-Jitsu is like, it's also has like a yoga feel to it. Like you're learning about your body. So depending on the gym and depending on, in fact, the coaches, the people around you, within the gym, you can select little groups too, kind of like. The people with who you roll, like if you're a smaller person, it doesn't mean you have to go against big people. You can go against the people who like smoke a lot of weed and they're chill, or you can go against like that crazy ripped blue belt competitor who's like out to destroy everybody. And depending on like what your mindset is, you can kind of select that. It's such a fascinating journey of like basically self-discovery. I couldn't agree with you more. It's been what you need may change over time, right? Maybe what you needed, what you need today could change six months from now or a year from now. And that's something that I experienced. I'll use my first coach, Christian, again, as a great example of someone who I really look up to and respect and someone who helped me a lot. Like at a time when I really needed some guidance, and I needed to learn martial arts, but get into... Hensel Gracie's gym was right down the street from where Christian was teaching. And Christian was a blue belt at the time. He was teaching at a place called Fight House, which is this awesome like 90s, early 2000s, warehouse area down on Fashion Avenue in Manhattan off of like between seventh and eighth. And it was like two basketball courts wide, but like there was the Samba guys over here. There was the Kali guys over there. There was Wing Chun over there. There was Jiu Jitsu in the corner. And Hensel's was one of the most famous academies in the world at that time, still is. And I just didn't know what Hensel Gracie was. And I mean, it's a great gym and it's a fantastic place for people to train. But I think what was right for me at the time was to, I stumbled into like a two person elevator up and found a place where six people trained at that time. And I had someone that could give me some, like in addition to martial arts advice, like personal guidance. And that made a big difference. And then when initially we would have like competitions or like intra gym competitions with the Samba guys, we would roll with them. And like, again, it was great. Cause they were just a bunch of like Russian dudes from like Brighton Beach and they would come down and then we would all fight and then everyone would train and we'd all drink tea and then go home. And anyway, what was- Oh, Russians. It was super tough. And they were like, again, just a tough group of people. It was great. And then I remember when I decided after like four or five months, I'm like, man, I really wanna try to take this seriously. And I told Christian about that. And he's like, well, hey, I think you need to do the following. And it was, you know, like, hey, there was a guy named Jeff Ruth, who was a purple belt at the time, which was a much bigger deal than it is now, but it was 10 and always an MMA fighter, a lot of amateur box spirit, super tough dude. And Jeff was the best person at that time that I'd ever trained with. And I just got squashed. Christian used to beat me up too, but like Jeff would just absolutely kick the crap out of me. And I was like, this is awesome. And this was back when I was at home. I went home for the summer for that. And Chris was like, hey, I think you should stay. Because I told him that's what I was thinking. And this was a coach that, you know, when initially was exactly what I needed. And then he's like, well, hey, that's not what I'm doing here. Maybe they're gonna be able to help you onto a path that's kind of commensurate with what your goals are at the moment. And then, you know, that was an interesting thing. And I really got, I feel that I was fortunate to start at a place where my coach was able to transition roles and do so comfortably. And I think that that also was probably a factor of the fact that, you know, where he'd done some of his training prior, like there've been issues with the coach there. We're like not supporting, not having the support, you know, feeling like, hey, like I'm gonna hold onto my students. I'm gonna hold onto my best guy or my best girl even if I can't take them where they need to go. So that was an interesting thing. And just recognizing also though, that the people, like the same way you're an individual going into a gym and you don't know what you're getting into, your coach is a person too. And he or she, you know, they may have been doing this activity longer than you, but they're not, they're not some weird little, you know, all-knowing God. They don't know anything. They may say something that pisses you off. They may, they may yell at you. They may help you. They may inadvertently cause you some sort of, you know, some sort of issue and just being able to recognize that even though I say this to people and I've said this to people in my gym, I'm like, you know, we're in the service industry, man, but I'm not at your service. Like don't get it twisted. Like I will absolutely do my best to help people. I'm there to do my best as a martial arts coach, but I'm here to do my best as a martial arts coach. And I'll do my best and periodically I make mistakes and I owe an apology or two and I'll try to give them out when I can. But we're not McDonald's. It's not, oh, you gave me a hundred bucks so you do whatever you want in here. This is my house. This is my gym. This is my dojo. This is, this is the martial arts. This is not a basketball team. Yeah, there's something beautiful about martial arts. Like exactly as you said, is the coach, like in wrestling and at least collegiate, like high level wrestling, it's like, there's a dictatorship aspect to a coach that is very important to have. Like this ridiculous sometimes nature of like master and so on and bowing all these traditions. There's something, it seems ridiculous from the outside perhaps, but there's something really powerful to that. Because that process of you said, why not, of letting go of the leap of faith requires you to believe that the coach has your best interest in mind and just give yourself over to their ideas of how you should grow. And that's an interesting thing. I mean, I've never been able to really see coaches I've had as human. They're always, you're always, it's like a father figure or like this, you always put them in this position of power. And I think that's, I think at least for me, it's been a very, it's been a very useful way to see the coach because it allows you to not think and let go and really allow yourself to grow and emotionally deal with all the beatings. They'll push you where past oftentimes where you would have stopped yourself, right? Which is great. And then hopefully they know if they're paying attention and they're still a person, they can make mistakes, but they'll push you further than you would have gone, but not so far that it's not facilitative, right? That's something that I can say like Faraz Zahabi, the head coach at TriStar, my head coach for MMA, Kenny Florian, one of the other head coaches for MMA, have both been phenomenal influences. Paul Schreiner, who's one of the assistants at Marcelo Garcia's Academy, coached me in Jiu-Jitsu for a long time, brilliant instructor, they've all been able to do that. And I think what's interesting about all of those guys, they're very sharp, but they're very intuitive as well. And I think that Faraz actually, you know, told me about something that John Wooden said, John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, just a simple philosophical idea, just he said, some people's life is a bowl of shit. It needs some whipped cream in it. Some people's life is a bowl of whipped cream, needs a little bit of shit in it, just to balance it out. And it's an interesting thing, coaching everyone the same way doesn't work. You know, that's, I think the difference between a coach and an instructor. And a lot of times people think they wanna coach, but they really want an instructor. I'm like, hey, Lex, tell me what to do, not how to do it. And then other times people think they want, you know, an instructor and they really wanna coach. I'm like, man, this guy's just giving me information. A coach is so much more than an instructor. And that's a huge leap. And that's something that I think that people need to understand when they're going into martial arts. And I understand, and I can totally grasp why they don't, because how would they know? But I think about this a lot, like me giving you $150 for a month, which is not nothing, that's for sure. That does not, that pays for instructor really. Coach is a relationship that gets developed. Because can you imagine, like just the amount of emotional investment and time thinking away from like, oh, Alex isn't here anymore, but what can I do to help him? What does he need? Like that's serious. And that's the difference between, that's oftentimes the difference that getting over the hump in various situations. So it's an interesting, you know, bargain that's being made, like commitment by the instructor who becomes a coach, commitment by the student, you know, like there's a financial transaction. There's a lot of things going on there, but I feel very fortunate to have had, not just instructors in my time, but coaches. And that means sometimes we've butted heads. And sometimes I look back and I think I was right. And other times I look back on my own, no, they were definitely right. But there was always the trust, with the exception of one time that I feel that trust was greatly betrayed, that rightly or wrongly, whether mistakes, mistakes will be made, but everyone is attempting to do the right thing under no circumstances would I intentionally do anything malicious, you know, versus, hey, I might've done, I might've burnt your house down, but you can be darn sure it wasn't on purpose. And I think that as long as there's that mutual understanding and mutual belief of goodwill, which again, doesn't just magic up out of nowhere, I understand, I think that that's when then great things can happen. And I look at all the athletes that I know, you know, the guys and girls that I've watched become fantastic in various places, almost invariably, it never happened alone. Yeah, you know, I'm really torn about that. Like maybe you can help. Have you seen the movie Whiplash? Mm-mm. So it's, I would say from an outsider's perspective, people should watch it. It's, I guess jazz band, it's a movie about a drummer and the instructor. And he, it's a basically, I would say, from the outsider's perspective, it's a toxic relationship, but he's really the coach, whatever we call him, pushes the musician, the drummer to his limits, like to where he just feels like shit emotionally. It's a, it looks like a toxic relationship, but it's one that ultimately is very productive for the improvement of the musician. I have the same, like in my own experience, I had, I got a chance to train at a couple of places regularly and so one of my coaches, who is a great human being, a lot of people love him, but when I was a blue belt, he was pushing me a lot for competition. And every time I step on the mat, I was anxious and almost afraid of training because of like the places I'm gonna have to go. And then the, I can't, I don't know what's good or bad because I think I've become a better person because of that experience. Like I needed that. And on the flip side, like the place I got my black belt from, it's Balance Studios, I remember also a blue belt, the coach sitting down and I was going to competition and he saw something in me where he said, you know, like good luck, but win or lose, we always love you. Like I remember that because I really needed that at that time. Like I was putting so much pressure on myself. Like I'm not an actual professional competitor, you know? I just competed, like I'm a PhD student, but like it was clearly having a psychological effect on me. And that's what a great coach does is like, you know, it's like life is more important than Jiu Jitsu since it's bigger. So they find, you use Jiu Jitsu when you need it to grow as a person. And when it overwhelms you, you have to pull that person out. Like look at the bigger picture, always look at the bigger picture. It's fascinating. And I don't know what to make of it. I don't think I would have it any other way is both the anxiety and the love. Yeah. I think that I couldn't, that's a really interesting thing that you're describing that I guess it kind of brings me back to a lot of the other things we've been discussing is just almost like the reciprocal nature of everything where no pressure, that's great. Everyone's happy all the time. It's either, I mean, let's use an example of sci-fi movies, let's say the Matrix, which of course the first one was amazing and then each subsequent movie made the series worse. But basically- They're working on a new one by the way. Yeah, I've heard. We'll see, we're hoping for the best. But basically, you know, let's say, hey, we started with our first initial world, Agent Smith says to Neo, he's like our first world was a utopia where everyone was happy and nothing ever went wrong. It's like your primitive cerebrum rejected it. And I think that there's obviously, I mean, what do I think? But I guess, well, I'm here, so I might as well say what I think. I guess, you know, great things are fantastic. A kind, gentle place is fantastic. And this is again why I love Dune because I think Dune does such a great job of expressing, Frank Herbert does such a great job of expressing, again, the reciprocal nature of these ideas. You know, look at Sparta, for instance, or at least what I understand of Sparta from the reading and also watching 300. You know- And reading the Wikipedia article. And reading the Wikipedia article about the movie, not the place. But it's, that's a hard, brutal place. And that was there benefit to that? Like, absolutely. Was there drawback to that? Absolutely. Is it sustainable? I should, I would think probably not. I mean, granted it hasn't sustained, but I mean, that type of a thing, it burns too hot almost, and it destroys the host at a certain point. And, you know, I guess that type of unforgiving nature, but entirely permissive has its own issues. And I guess coming back to what your description of like describing a toxic relationship is a very dangerous and tricky thing because it's almost like, it's like bird's eye view, me. You know, you see, let's say a husband and a wife arguing. They're like, all right, well, sort of somebody hitting somebody. I need to keep myself out of this because I have no idea what, I'm seeing something, but I don't know what's going on or why specifically. And again, short of it going to a place that's just out of bounds. I don't know who's right here. I don't know who's wrong. And I don't know what phase of this things are in. So I guess- And long-term what's good for both people. Right, it's dangerous for it. So if I want to put my finger on the scale, I can understand the desire to do them. I'm like, hey guys, let's break it up. But, and that may be the right thing at the time, but at the same time, I'm not sure. So I think back to all of the times that, you know, that like you mentioned, your coach pushing you when it's very, very hard. And then other times going like, hey, let's put it in perspective here. I think that's an interesting thing for high performance. And I think that we're seeing that again, societally, you know, now, or at least maybe that's, it just pops up on my internet feed periodically. But coaches shouldn't be allowed to do this or yell at this person to yell at that person. Like, well, have you ever been, go to a boxing gym. It's not a commercial entity, not really. I have real boxing, not LA boxing, not a UFC gym. Like a real place. You're going to see what things are like when it's entirely performance based. Go to a wrestling room at a high level. You know, again, there's left and right limits and there are such things, obviously as abuse, of course, but, and that should never be tolerated. But it's not a commercial entity. I don't need to be sweet to you if you're screwing up, if you're dropping the ball and in fact, recognizing that I'm not doing you a favor or the team a favor by being permissive of that type of behavior, I think is important. Everything in its context and at its time is important. And I guess I can think again of the times that I've been put or had put on me, like a great deal of pressure to do X, Y, or Z or to succeed or to push for success. And I can't look back fondly enough on those times. They were tough at the time, but without that, I'm not sitting here. Without that, I don't go from growing up in a very nice family in the suburbs to fighting at the highest level in Jiu-Jitsu, Gi, Nogi, and now in mixed martial arts, starting a career at age 27. You know, it just doesn't happen because people generally speaking from that background don't get pushed hard enough physically to be able to make that transition. And that has benefits and it has drawbacks. You know, when you stare into the abyss, it stares back. And I think that that's an important thing to understand. You know, you stare long enough, you can become something that you don't, that you would be sorry that you did. You don't look enough and you don't have perspective either. You know, and I think that that's an interesting thing. I can speak to someone who's relatively articulate and reasonable, I try to be reasonable, but you know, I'll say inspiring. If people get crazy with me, they get a warning and then I'm a crack them. And what did they expect? Oh, they hear the guy on an interview, but who did they think they were meeting? Cause there's also the guy in the ring. And there's layers there too. I remember training with you, it was kind of funny. There was like, there's, well, you didn't know who I was. I mean, you still like, I have a really good strain ankle out by the way. Yeah, that, so I don't remember what rank I was, but it might've been purple or something like that. And I did some, like I, you had this look on your face, which I've often seen in black belts. It's like, here he goes again. Like here's him trying this thing. And then when I kind of annoyed you a little bit with it, now I get that it was a good, like, I, you know, I did something somewhat effective, like some, like maybe a little bit off balance. Yeah. There's, I just peeled off a little layer of Ryan Hall to where I was like, okay, let me, let me like, there's like layers underneath. The dog is like Mike Tyson somewhere in there. Like, so it was like, okay, this like new guy rolls in here. He thinks he can do the stupid thing. And then, and then you started to beat the hell out of me. But the point is there's layers here from the guy who was being interviewed now to like Genghis Khan. But it's, but it's fine. It's all in the same body. Right, but it's like, all of us are like that, right? In various different directions and recognizing that's okay. It's just, there are consequences to all, every choice that we make has a consequence. Sometimes there's like objectively wrong or objectively right. But at least in my mind, that's a pretty small box. Everything else is just, there's a consequence to that. Do you like that consequence? Do you not? And who do I wanna become? What do I wanna try to hone myself or anyone else into? And also like, but this is something I've screwed up as a coach plenty of times. You know, like if someone says, if you're, if like I come to them like Lex, I really, really wanna take, you know, research very seriously. Like, okay, I believe you. Now I haven't shown you that, but I believe you. Like, okay, and now me not showing up to research or to study or not being up until three in the morning thinking about this is no longer acceptable. There was a time like five seconds before me making that statement that if I went to bed without reading the book that I needed to read, no worries. But the second that I made that statement, your expectations for me changed. And maybe it's something that's something that I've screwed up a whole bunch of times in my, as a teacher. Cause it's an interesting thing, obviously, you know, being a like running a martial arts school as your principally an athlete is sometimes I don't pay enough attention to what people are doing. I just go, oh, okay. You say X, Y, Z. I'm like, Roger that. I believe you, cool. I will now put you in category X. And whether rightly or wrongly, like maybe this person didn't understand what they were asking for, or I didn't express this or the other end. It just, it caused cross wires. And then most of the times you just, you hash it out. You have a discussion. You figure out, you get to the bottom of what people are trying to do or what they want. But if I was paying more attention, I think I could have been a lot more effective. Or if I had more experience and sometimes maybe I'm not sharp enough or I don't perc, I'm not perceptive enough to be able to, to see what's going on. And maybe with years more down the line, I'll be able to have a sharper perception. But I think that's another one of those interesting things that some, that sometimes I would caution or not caution, but just inform a prospective martial arts student, depending upon where you're going. You know, this, you, both you and also your coach or other people in the room, they wear many hats. And sometimes there's a, I had the wrong hat on. You were talking to me as Lex the guy. I didn't realize you were talking to me. I thought you were talking to me as Lex the guy. I didn't realize you're talking to me as Lex the martial artist. I'm like, oh crap. I was talking to the wrong person. So it's almost like if you had a, like I run my gym with my wife, she's a black belt. So she's my wife. She's my peers as a martial artist in Jiu-Jitsu. Like here by the way, in judging. So exactly. All right. Well, so, but a fellow black belt. And I guess like another thing, she doesn't have a microphone. So you can't hear all the trash she's talking. Exactly. But it can be tough. And that's something that we've had to work through a lot. And it's like looking back and it's like now being where I'm at now. And it's easy for me to say that cause she's in the room and I don't want her to stab me, just continue to slowly poison me over time. Which frankly I understand. It's the sort of thing that is now way more effective than anything else I could really reasonably expect to have. But there were times when both of us were justifiably annoyed at the other because of crossed wires. And sometimes you just have disagreement anywhere or misunderstanding anyway. But again, like I coach some of my friends. I coach my friend who I've known since I was four years old. Sometimes I don't go, hey buddy, how you doing? Sometimes I was like, what the fuck are you doing? Put your hand over there. How many times have we talked about this? And then you walk away and you can see him look at you crooked and you're like, oh crap. Oh yeah, he thought I was talking to him as his friend. Yeah, well, all right, we need to talk this one out, hash it out and not, he's wrong. How could he possibly think that way? Like, oh no, I totally understand that. But if I was 22, doesn't he know I'm a purple belt? Some nonsense like that. And it doesn't come from a bad place, but it's just, I guess that comes back to society, to anything people only have the perspective that they have and the awareness that we have. And so again, going back and going, hey guys, grace, like I don't expect, it's not fair for me to go, I fight UFC. Why doesn't this guy who came in as an attorney understand how hardcore this needs to be? And like, how could he? And at the same time though, if I'm using the language of someone that is interested in at least performance from a martial arts perspective, I understand how that could be off putting, let's say for instance, someone that's like, all of that will be out of bounds in their normal workplace. But if they think of the gym as my office, then whether they agree or disagree with what's going on, they go, okay, I see why that might've happened. Let's talk about this. And we can, again, all push forward in a positive direction that benefits, I guess, everyone's journey throughout the activity. And on top of all that, there's moods, okay? I mean, especially lately, I think two days ago, maybe yesterday, no, two days ago, I've never been that cranky in my life. I think, I don't know what it was, but I wanted to tell everybody how much they annoyed me. It was like, I was just very conscious of this feeling of like, why is this happening right now? So I consciously decided, as I usually do in those cases, to not say anything to anybody. How do you do that? Well, you know, it's, yeah, meditate, because it's not, I tend to then visualize what's gonna happen in the next, like how is this gonna make my life better? Like, if I say something that mean to somebody else, I have just started a conflict that will just escalate, will continue, will add more conflict to my life. It'll make things, I just don't like the feeling it will create. And so you live enough life to know that like, it's just like with like street fighting. You know, I would get into a lot of fights when I was younger, just on the street, but then you realize like, it's not like a jujitsu match or something like that. It's not, it'll escalate. It might come back at you. It'll like, that person might find you again, but more importantly, the anxiety of it, of having created little enemies in this world, distorts the way you see the world. So I've noticed that like, if I am shitty to people on the internet, which I haven't been, I think in a long time, is like, it somehow brings the shittiness to you more and more, it escalates. Like the more love you put out there, the more like the people who put love out, like surround you. Well, you mentioned forgiveness as well. Like you said, like, I guess back to the original, you know, the Holocaust survivor scenario, where like, oh my God, you think of the ultimate in like, I've never experienced one billionth of that level of pain and horror. And it's like, and I can't let this little thing go. You know, I guess that's an interesting thing. I think you're just making the point in your personal life, I guess the same way, right? Yeah, they're, yeah. And on the internet, it's hard. I've somehow gotten, I mean, you've had a level of celebrity for a while. I've recently gotten some level of like celebrity. And like these people who are just shitty for no reason come out from all places, like calling me a fraud or anything else. I mean, it's- It was a J.N. Simon Bob, strike back. They find out a movie is gonna be made about them and people are talking shit on the internet. And they're like, what's the internet? And then someone shows them and they're like, what? And they go to a message board and they go to Hollywood to try to stop it from being made. And they eventually get money for their likeness and they use the money to buy plane tickets and fly around and beat the shit out of all the people that talk bad about them. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I'm having trouble with it because there's people like, yeah, there's posts and forums and like heated discussions about is Lex Fable a fraud? I don't know. What has he really done? And then there's people like, well, I think he's an all right guy, but I'm not sure. Like there's like literal discussions. And I'm like, if you increase the level of celebrity, there's going to be like, one of the things that hurts my heart a little bit is like some level of toxicity around Joe Rogan, for example. There's like communities of people that now like talk about him selling out, for example, all that kind of stuff. And I don't, you know, and Joe, I've talked to him about it is amazing that he, he says, don't read the comments. He legitimately doesn't read the comments. His heart and his soul doesn't give a damn about the comments. All he gives a damn about is his friends. Like one of the things that's really inspiring to me and that's, I've had a conversation with them offline about Spotify and the removed episodes. People are curious. What's Spotify? It's a thing on the internet where I think you can play Taylor Swift songs on. I'll write that down. But you can also now play Joe Rogan podcast. Oh, cool. And they gave him a hundred million dollars. So that's, you know, that's, That's awesome. It's yeah. But the thing I've had a discussion with him and I made a video about it that I took down because the toxicity is like, it's hard to put into words but he will give away the hundred million in a second if he ever has to compromise who he is. Like he doesn't, I mean, he already said, as he talked about, he's made quote unquote, fuck you money a long time ago. He doesn't need any more money. He doesn't care. It's nice to have money, whatever, but he'll give it away. So the, it's nice to see when people like him at a level of celebrity, level of success and financial success, don't change at all. They're just the same thing that makes you happy is talking in his case, talking shit with his friends in case of most of us really, just hanging out with friends, doing the things you love. In his case, doing the things he loves without any, like, you know, the Texas way, the freedom, like without any corporate bureaucracy bullshit that rolls in and says, well, maybe you shouldn't say fuck, you know, like more than 20 times a podcast or something like that. Like those kinds of like rules, like people, like he says in a suit and tie, they show up and say stuff. Oddly enough, people that could never have done what he's done. Yeah, exactly. And it's kind of inspiring to see that. And I hope people, I hope people realize how special of a human he is. He's inspired like people like me, like I'm just, I'm a scientist, right? So he inspired somebody like me from a very different walk of life to be like kind to others, to be open-minded. I don't know, that is a special dude. So like people need to support that and treasure that as opposed to, as opposed to be toxic about it. I mean, what, people really for a long time have told me that it would be awesome if Ryan Halls goes on Joe Rogan. I definitely think that would be an awesome thing. Have you listened to Joe? Has he been a part of your life in some kind of way? Well, Joe's always, I remember watching Joe on Fear Factor when I was a little kid, which is cool. So I've actually gotten a like from a bird's eye view, watch his kind of just path through life. But one of the things that I always appreciate, and again, I barely know Joe or then to shake his hand, he interviewed me after the briefing in the ring after the BJ Penn fight. But one of the things that I've always admired about Joe is that I think he had fucking money from the start. I think that $0 is fucking money for Joe. I think, and that's something I respect about him a great deal, because as you say, it's interesting to watch. It's like you hope that George St. Pierre's like this. It's really neat. I'm not super close to George, but we're teammates at TriStar, and he's never been anything but a gentleman. He's one of those people that if you didn't know George was famous when you walk into the gym, you'd have no idea. He's not holding court, not doing it. He's just training, and he'll help out an amateur doing this. If you have a question for him, he'll help me. Like I'm nobody, man. He would give me advice and train me. It was super cool. He didn't kill me, which I really appreciated. He's a gentleman. But it's like you meet someone and you go, man, it's so cool that this is the guy who's the best, that this is the guy who has been successful. And then you go, why are they successful? Like I said, true to what they're doing. They haven't changed. They're the same as they've been. And I remember I got to TriStar in 2012, and George was already George St. Pierre. But I remember watching and talking to people, and they're like, oh man, George is the same as he's always been, and it's neat. I see him in the gym training now, and again, giving advice now. And it seems like Joe has always been consistent, and it's neat to watch someone not compromise on their values and not change who they are. And periodically, again, we all make mistakes. Like you have a bad day or this or that, and an apology needs to be issued, or even my bad or this or that. And again, they just move on. They're not afraid to be themselves, and they're not afraid to be wrong. They're not afraid to make a mistake. As you mentioned, open-mindedness. I'm like, so what are the correct beliefs to have about this that I know going in, everyone's gonna be okay with what I'm saying? Which is usually the beginning of a conversation that's gonna go nowhere, right? And it's neat to see the things, I guess, that he's created on his own as a result of the authenticity that's there. And it reminds me of like Dave Chappelle. And again, I don't know, I've never met Dave, but it's neat to see someone that's clearly, again, authentic in their own way, doing their own thing. And because of that, they're above the corporate nonsense. But what's funny, I think the message behind all of it is, hey guys, we all are. I can't promise you that I'm gonna have money. Joe couldn't promise you that he's gonna have money. Now it ended up working out, but he was above that nonsense from the jump. And he just continued to be above it by never giving it any mind and just going like, yeah, I'm gonna be a reasonable person. I'm gonna try to learn, I'm gonna try to grow. And if I say something annoying, you can come and talk to me about it. We can get to the bottom of it. And I'm like, if I need to say my bad, thanks, appreciate it. You know, I will. And if I don't need to, I'm like, hey, I still appreciate the talk, thanks, man. Shake your hand and we carry on. And we go our separate ways and hopefully I'll treat you with respect, you treat me with respect. And that's about it. And I guess, I think it's a lesson that it can work out no matter what. You don't have to kowtow to like these weird powers that be. And whether you're at this level or at this level, but you can live your life the way that you want. And as you mentioned, talk to your friends, hang out, be happy. And it just so happens that that resonates with people. It actually reminds me of like speaking at MIT and being in Boston is like a goodwill hunting. You know, like, again, that's what do they really wanna do? He could have gone this way, he could have gone that way. And it was an interesting story, but it's like, this person wants to hang out with his buddies and wants to do other things. And again, happens to be brilliant and happens to be able to do all these other things. But there was, I guess it's like at least in my mind, a story of authenticity as well. And it was both the same thing in the Robin Williams character. And I just think that that's a message because watching things occur on the internet as they do now, so many things playing out in the public eye. I feel like so many private or otherwise formerly private discussions and disputes and interactions now become, they all have a, well, what is this gonna say when it goes public? So how can I couch what I'm saying? Or how can I word this in a way that's gonna get people on my side or use the right buzzwords or not use the wrong buzzwords? And it's just neat to see people, you know, in their own way, flip the bird to the head. Because I just think that that's just not how a human being is meant to think or interact. I'm curious what you think about the thing that recently has, you know, me like hosting this podcast, I sometimes think about like, who should I talk to and not in terms of like, it's the old Hitler question. Now Hitler I would definitely talk to because, post World War II, because everyone knows he's evil. The question whether you talk to Hitler in 1937, like when people who are really students of what's going on understand that this is a very dangerous human being. But large part of the world are like, well, he's a leader who cares for Germany. So the question I have, it's interesting to me, it involves a particular person named, who also lives in Austin, Texas, named Alex Jones. I don't know if you're familiar with the guy. I am familiar with Mr. Jones. I've actually recently just listened to Infra Wars, like one episode of his show, I guess, that he does every day. And it kind of reminded me of a time in college when I drank too much tequila. Like there's no turning back. Like, it's like, the mistakes you make that like, I mean, you don't know where you're gonna wake up. You don't know who you're gonna kill or not kill or steal or rob. It's unclear. So it felt like I was getting pulled into a dark place where pretty much everybody is a pedophile that's trying to control the world. So Bill Gates definitely is a pedophile. Everybody in power, anybody in power, there's a kind of a deep skepticism about power and a conspiratorial way to see the world where everything is like dark forces in all corners. It's like the way you feel when you're a kid that there's a monster hiding in the closet. Which is also why you leap over the bed from like four feet away. There's a strategy. Yes. So, but he says that you're just being weak. You need to look under the bed. Under the bed, there's monsters and we need to be aware of them because they're growing. They're multiplying. You should be- And they're touching children. They're touching children, exactly. So it all connects. But the, I, when I listened to him and I thought about like, do I wanna talk to him on this podcast, for example? When I listened to his conversation with Joe Rogan, the two times he talked on there, to me it was somehow entertaining. Like it was fun to listen to. It's fun to listen to a madman go on for four hours because it's almost like theater. Like this is what I talked to Joe about. When people try to censor Alex Jones, Joe says that the people who try to censor him don't give enough credit to the intelligence of human beings to like understand. Like that, like what a person says on a large platform does not necessarily, is not the truth. You can be a madman and say crazy things and people are intelligent enough to hear certain things when they're said, like the earth is flat. They can be intelligent enough not to all of a sudden start believing that the earth is flat. Like they're intelligent enough to sort of select different ideas and be able to enjoy the theater of a particular ridiculous over the top conversation without being sort of influenced the way they start believing like toxic set of beliefs. Now there's a lot of sort of other kinds of people, especially now with cancer culture that say, well, you don't wanna give platform to crazy people that ultimately whose beliefs might lead to dangerous consequences. Like, and I see it very often now with conspiracy theories that go like way too far. Like for example, I haven't looked into it, so I'm sorry. I will look into it, but it hurts my heart to see that on Bill Gates, in my opinion, the person who has saved and improved more lives than probably any human in history, literally because of the money he's invested in helping like just the work he's done on like malaria in Africa, the number of people he's helped is huge. And yet every interview, anything you see now on Bill Gates, everyone is calling him, I believe, haven't looked into it, but I believe everyone's calling him a pedophile, I don't know the full structure of it, but it's just a very, it feels like an army of like, it feels like it's hundreds of thousands of people. That's what it feels like. It might be a much smaller percentage, but it feels like a huge number of people are calling him a pedophile. So that's the flip side. If you allow, if you give platform to conspiracy theories like that, then you start to have bigger and bigger percent of the population believe in these crazy things. I just, I wanted to put it out there because I don't know what to think of that. If you put yourself in Joe Rogan's shoes, if you put yourself in my shoes, if you put yourself just in your own shoes, I mean, I'm in my shoes right now. Great, if you're staying in your shoes, just stay in your shoes. Can I have your word? Would you talk, would you give platform to people like Alex Jones? Would you talk to somebody like Alex Jones or not? Yes, I would. And I feel very strongly about this, honestly. Well, I think that it's an interesting thing. And I would just say a lot of times I can understand, very, very clearly why people would take issue with the idea of, I guess what they proceed to be amplifying this man's voice, this man's reach as a demonstrable negative. But I think when you take a step back further, the cure is more damaging than the disease and significantly so. I guess, I think that I'm very, very wary of, I think being wary, you mentioned Alex Jones being wary of power and people with it. That's a lot of times there's a lot of truth and validity to crazy things that people say. The conspiracy theories that stick are the ones that sound credible, at least quasi credible in some aspect. And it's almost like it seems to me like an anchor in people's mind. And it is also funny to me, obviously, the Bill Gates, it's funny to tar people with things like pedophile, racist, rapist. Like these are things that we're basically trying to pick words that no one can ever support someone who does these things. And that's, you know. And that changes year by year. Currently, pedophile is totally in as a thing to call somebody just as a, it used to be communist or Marxist. Cleveland Browns fan, you know, like come on. You know, who would want that? Actually, nobody likes the Browns. So I'll agree with you. That's why I picked them. That's the trick is you find a group of people that nobody likes. We're good here? All right, that's the move. But yeah, that's a creepy thing though, because that is the creepy thing. It's like people are always looking for, groups of people are always looking for, and I find this really deeply disturbing. Like, hey, so who's the guy that we can all get away with, you know, just treating like dirt? Who's the guy that I can be a dick to? I can just walk up and punch in the face and no one's gonna say anything. And it's even if, you know, people do that with, whether it's literal Nazis or someone that I called a Nazi, you know, I guess what's the bigger issue? This person's ridiculous beliefs or what I'm doing? And you mentioned Hitler before, and obviously Mein Kampf being like the outline for some of the things he did later and when the evil was it always there? Did it take root later on or flourish later on? But was Adolf Hitler a problem because he had crazy ideas or because he did things? I think it's because it's not, I think. I know it's because he did things. Now, if I'm gonna start punishing thought crime, I'm gonna have to start punishing thought crime. And that's a terrifying concept. Even if I'm right about the certain, about the objectively correct about the things that I decide to call out of bounds, who put me in charge and made me arbiter of good taste? And how long until I decide that something else is out of bounds? It's always a sliding scale or it's always a sliding standard. And I find that, you know, to be more of a concern than people doing crazy things, because I guess if you mentioned Alex Jones, you know, putting out ridiculous ideas, ridiculous theories, I think that most people don't look at Alex Jones as a credible person. Now, I'm not gonna pretend to be deeply read into all of his beliefs or the things that he's trying to peddle. But there's plenty of things that are quasi mainstream that I think on this side or that side that maybe not comparably ridiculous, but are, you know, particularly in hindsight or, you know, are silly. And I guess the idea of getting a group of people together to decide what we're not going to tolerate is a very, very tricky thing. And I think that, you know, it reminds me of law or, you know, even, you know, religion when it gets to, like, what are the things that we don't like? How do we feel about rape? It's like, no, under no circumstances is that an acceptable behavior. Murder, no, that's not acceptable behavior. Killing, I don't know, kind of depends on the situation. Are you at war? Were you justified? Were you acting in self-defense? Okay, so it's not, now, murder is a specific type of killing. The same way, you know, other things should be a specific type of something else, but I guess we draw the line of murder. We say, if you want to exist in our society, you can't do this. This cannot be done. And then we go, theft. If someone said, hey, I murdered that guy, can you understand where I'm coming from? I might say, yeah, I'll hear you out. Doesn't mean that I think you're right, but I'm like, have you ever been wronged so deeply that you could imagine that you could kill someone? I'm like, no, I haven't. But I could conceptualize someone doing that, and I'm like, yeah, okay, and you still need to go, you still need to face, you know, criminal justice as we have it in our system, or at least that's how we've decided. Yeah, it's interesting. You have to be able to, like, there's, if you look at the history of discourse in this country, I think it's still true, but I'm not sure it's changed since 9-11, is it used to be impossible to criticize a soldier. It was easier to criticize war. It was harder to criticize soldiers for allowing themselves to be the tools of war. I tend to be, maybe it's the Russian upbringing, it's the combat thing. I tend to romanticize war and soldiers. I see soldiers as heroes, but I've also heard people that not only say that soldiers are, war is bad, they say soldiers are bad. What's their argument? It's the kind of a libertarian view that they're basically slaves to evil, right? War is evil, and they're given, they are suspending their moral and ethical duties as a human being to become the tools of evil. That's sort of the argument, if you see war as evil. I mean, I think it's useful to hear that, but there's for a long part in history that was completely unacceptable. Same with abortion. You see abortion as murder. I mean, if I put it in that basket. It starts, we're living in the midst of a genocide. Looked at from that perspective, could you feel how people could be deeply upset by abortion? You go, of course. Looked at from a different perspective, you say, I don't believe it to be murder. That's not how I see it. Then you go, well, if that's the genesis of your thought process, then you're like, yeah, okay, now I see how we can come to a different thing, but I guess we go, well, abortion is murder, period. Therefore, if you support it, you support murder. That's a convenient way for me to tar you, right? But I guess that's kind of coming back to the Alex Jones. I'm- It's the nuance. You have to have the nuance in these kinds of conversations. And I have to be willing to have the conversation, and I have to be willing to sit down. If I can't sit down across from the most violently racist, angry, hypothetical internet conceived person that none of us have ever actually met in real life, but are hopefully not, and go like, well, of course I believe that this person's wrong, but allow me to change, do my best. I'll hear them out and I'll go, no, I can go point by point and explain where this guy or this girl is wrong, and hopefully bring them over to a more reasonable position where they will have better beliefs, and they will objectively better beliefs, and beliefs that will, and they'll treat other people better. Why would I wanna marginalize this person? Now, I might not wanna talk, I might not wanna invite them to my barbecue if they're acting like a jerk all the time, but how could I, would it not make the world a better place if I'd hear them out and they go, look, if you're gonna sit down and talk with me, we're gonna have to have a discussion. I'll hear what you have to say, and if I can't explain to someone why their ridiculous belief is wrong, then I must not be so confident in my position, and I guess that's where I come back to the Alex Jones thing. As you mentioned, with Bill Gates, and you're much more familiar with the specifics of all the good that he's done, but again, he's been an unbelievable force for good in this world. You can list A, B, C, D, things that the man has done, that his foundation has done, and positive things, and then the other people could speculate about ridiculous, crazy levels of evil, but you can't produce any evidence for that sort of thing, because if you could, the man will find himself in some trouble. And anyway, I guess what I would say is that, you can't force me to accept the truth the same way you could write down two plus two equals four on a piece of paper and show me how it works, and I could say, nah, uh-uh, but that doesn't make it not true, and you've still given yourself an opportunity to present your case, you've presented it to me, and you've also, for anyone listening and watching, you've been able to critically assess what's gone on, or critically address back and forth the discourse, and I think that you're making your case for the public, so I guess when it comes to just not engaging with these people, that seems to me to be cowardly, and I think that that's something that we're seeing in society right now. I think we're seeing a crisis of courage in society all over the place, and I think that's where we're seeing poor leadership, I think we're seeing understandable things happening everywhere, but we need stronger voices and stronger beliefs that have a conviction and are willing to engage with others, not just turning into a shouting contest, and not, I didn't win because there's more of me, oh, I voted you, that's nice too, but that's a stand-in for bullets, that's saying I won because there's more of me, that doesn't mean that I'm right, because plenty of horrible and unpopular now things have been very, very deeply popular in the past and would have won a popular vote, does that make them right? I'd say clearly not, so I guess you'd hope that we engage with these people and that you can do your best to bring them over to a more reasonable position if you believe that you have one, and if you can't, well, at least you made the effort, and I think that that's something where martial arts shows the value, it's like, do you know if you're gonna go win your next fight? I'm like, I have no idea, I will proceed forward with full effort, and I will fight with dignity, I'll fight with honor, and I'll fight with courage, and I'll use everything that I have, and I will play within the bounds of the game, and that's that, and the result will be what it'll be, but I will walk into and out of that ring with my head held high, because I will know that I did my part, I did my job, the outcome, the specific outcome is not in my control, it's just strongly in my influence, and I think that that's something that helped me, that martial arts has taught me, because other times, even when I was successful or unsuccessful, I would focus on, if I won, I won, therefore I'm good, I lost, therefore I'm bad, this other guy won or lost, therefore, as opposed to evaluating their method, and I think it's so easy when we're taking a bird's eye view of things, to not evaluate how someone's doing things, you're not evaluating my process, you're simply evaluating my outcome, and I could have stumbled into something very, very good or very, very bad, and we can look back, and I think that's the value of history, I mean, I don't mean to get on my dang high horse, but it's like this, evaluate history, is we can see the unbroken chain, or the chain of events that led us somewhere, and then only with the eyes of history can we truly evaluate things, unless we're in the room watching it happen, and I guess, that's again where we start to go, most of the big, bad, scary things that have happened in history that are done, particularly on an industrial scale, which implies governmental power and things like that, or the equivalent, involve groups of people getting together and going, hey, we're not gonna deal with that guy, giant groups of people, so maybe we're right this time, but maybe we're wrong next time, and I guess I would be back to the Gandalf putting on the one ring, I would be very, very hesitant, even if we thought we were in the right, to simply try to marginalize just on general principle, even people like Alex Jones, who on their face are pretty ridiculous, like you said, you should sit down with Adolf Hitler and talk to the men. I agree with you, to play a little devil's advocate, Please. Is Alex Jones might be a bad example, but if we look at, because he has a face, he is a human, he's a real person, there's also trolls on the internet, 4chan, the worry I have with those folks is that, and there might be parallels to martial arts, is they practice guerrilla warfare, meaning they don't necessarily want to arrive at the truth, they just always want to cut at the ankles of the powerful, they want to always break down the powerful, and even if they turn everything into a game, so they, let's see if we can make the world, let's see if we can make a trend that Bill Gates is a pedophile, right? They make it into a game, they get excited about this game, they see the powerful, let's see if we can convince that, like who is the most positive person we can think of, let's see if we can turn them into evil, and they've tried that with like everybody, and it seems to stick, and they're good at it, and some would argue, or whatever you think about our current president, that he has some elements of that, which is he's figured out whatever this music of social discourse that's going on, he's figured out how to always troll the mainstream like flow of consciousness, that's the media, he always kind of says stuff that annoys a very large number of people, and he enjoys that, because it's like taking the powerful, taking the way things were before, and he like shakes it up by saying the most inappropriate thing, almost on purpose or instinctually and so on, the problem I have with that is that doesn't, the powerful thing there is it brings the power, those in power down a notch, that's a great thing, the negative thing is it doesn't push us closer to a nuanced, careful, rigorous discourse towards truth, it's like showing up to a party and just like starting to yell, it doesn't create a good conversation, it just makes everything into a game where truth doesn't even seem like a thing we can even hope to achieve. I mean that makes sense, and I guess as you mentioned, they'll come back to another movie, because I don't do books and do movies, some people just wanna watch the world burn, right, and I guess that's a creepy, creepy kind of urge that some people have, and also is some people you're like, hey, would you like to throw a brick through that glass window? You're like, yeah, sure, like no, I'm not gonna do that, because I think about what's going to occur, like something's gonna be hurt, someone's property, not gonna do it versus, hey, you wanna see what'll happen? Like yeah, sure, kids are always like, I have my son, he just grabs Spider-Man and drops him on the table, Spider-Man fell, like Spider-Man didn't fall, Sean, like you dropped him, you knocked him off the table, and he'll grin, and basically, it's an interesting thing, like you said, playing that these people are appealing to, and also almost like the little dog factor of like people do wanna watch the powerful get taken down a notch for all the good and the not good of that, just plenty of people, it seems to me that have found their way to incredibly high positions, some have just found themselves there, and many, many, many, many, many people, men and women of all backgrounds are brilliant and have worked hard, and yeah, of course there's luck, and there's luck into everything, there's LeBron James, in spite of being the best basketball player on God's green earth, is fortunate that he didn't get hit by a car, it's fortunate that he didn't tear his knee, but thankfully, we get to see all these things, but I guess it's, if people don't have any skin in the game, you never know what they're gonna do, and I think that's the problem with the internet, that people get to be nameless, be faceless, that's why guerrilla fighters are outside of the bounds of war, like you don't have a uniform on, like I don't know who you're from, you don't get the same treatment that a soldier gets, for, and people go, well, that's crazy, and actually there's reasons for this, because otherwise people are able to assail things, and there's no one responsible, there's no way to go and say, hey, where did this come from, what's the root of this, how can I address this, and I think that's the problem of the internet, it's the problem of Twitter, it's the problem of places like 4chan, I wouldn't mind seeing that type of stuff go away, if I'm frank, but that's not the same thing as people with a face, people who are willing to stand there and say, hi, my name is so-and-so, even if I have ridiculous beliefs, hopefully people will hear me out, and then if I'm wrong, educate me, but I guess you hope that the real, I guess in my mind antidote to all of this silliness is education, and I think that that's something that critical thinking is not necessarily, I went to school in America, and I feel very fortunate, but critical thinking is not something that's focused on, I mean, and it's tough, it's almost like talking about Jujitsu, it's tough to teach critical thinking when I don't know any words, you have to teach me techniques, you can't teach me to be an artist, but recognize that the techniques are the beginning, not the end, ultimately it's the artistry that we are searching for, not just the science or the by-rote memorization, and I guess you'd hope that people's ability to think critically and recognize that majority rule or whoever's loudest does not mean that they're right by any stretch of the imagination, and we don't appeal to that, and we don't bow to that, will help them to, help inoculate them against the ridiculous things that come out of these places, these dark places that are objectively not great, but I guess all circling back, even if we swatted these bad things out of existence right now, we've got to be very, very careful doing that, because it's who's doing the swatting, this political group that's in power right now, the people that support our current president would maybe feel a certain way, the people that support another option would feel differently as to what exactly defines toxic, and I guess that's what gives me pause. Yeah, but also the grace thing, I tend to believe that the technology, you said education, but the platforms we use like Twitter and the Reddit and all these platforms have a role to play to teach us grace, meaning they should help us incentivize the kind of behavior that is incentivized in real life. Like being a dick in real life is not incentivized, like one-on-one interaction. There's cases where it is, but usually being kind to each other is incentivized. On the internet, it's not. Like you get likes for mocking people in a funny, in a humorous way, and it can be dark kind of mocking, depending on the community. You can go to the appearance. If somebody's a little fat or a little too skinny, you can comment on their appearance, the hair, the way their hair looks, like the appearance stuff. It could be on the people comment all the time on the level of eloquence of my speech. Go fuck yourself. I like it. It's creepy though watching previously, like this used to be lowbrow though, like people doing this type of stuff. It's creepy watching like our political figures get into this type of game. Yes, but again, it's a little bit refreshing, right? My hope with Donald Trump was, is that he would shake up the people who wear suits usually. The, like if you're from DC, I remember like showing up. I actually didn't wear what I usually wear in DC, cause I was like, everybody's wearing a suit and tie when I was like giving talks and stuff. Except for Mudge who wears jeans and a t-shirt. Mudge doesn't give a damn. He said. Mudge is a forever renegade. But I don't even remember what, oh yeah. So my hope with Trump was the huge shake up that system to say like, to inject new ideas, to inject new energy. Of course, the way it turned out is different, but like there's, it turns out that you might wanna have somebody who's like an Andrew Yang type character, who is full of ideas that are very different and inject the energy, new energy into the system through youthful new ideas versus through the troll that like, that's very good at sort of mocking and like playing outside the rules of the game. But Trump did reveal powerfully, I don't know what to think of it, that it's just a game and you don't have to play by the rules. That's both inspiring and dark. Deeply depressing, right? Yeah, and I don't know what to do with it. I don't, I mean the same, I'm not drawing parallels, not drawing parallels between our president and Adolf Hitler, but it's certainly, and there's a lot of, in history, a lot of positive and a lot of negative things happen when charismatic leaders realize they don't have to play by the rules. You can just flip the table. What's that Kevin Spacey show? Oh, House of Cards. House of Cards, where you just flip the table or whatever. You don't have to play by the rules of the chess game. You can flip the table. One wonders if that's always been done in private, you know? I guess, cause that's, I mean, even look, obviously, in the United States as a republic, but we had Bush, then we had Clinton, then we had more Bush, then we had President Obama, then we were about to have another Clinton. That's fairly creepy. Yeah. Even on its own. But now we added another, I mean, I'm sure we'll have a generation of Trumps now. Gee. We, you know, I'm Russian, so I think we humans like kings still and queens. There's something we're attracted to. The thing we talked about, coaches, there's something in us that longs towards that authoritarian control. One of the beautiful things about America, the second amendment is we also like individual freedom. That's one of the unique aspects at the founding of this country and still, and for me is the beacon of hope that somehow there's the fire of freedom burns in like that Texas feel that gives me hope. The FU energy that revolts against the power, which as we discussed, power corrupts and ultimately leads to sort of degradation of the whoever's ruling the people. It's interesting though. It seems to me, maybe I'm just, I don't know if I'm reading this properly when I see it, but it seems to me that, like you said, that flip the bird, I'm gonna do me within reason. Like as long as I'm not hurting you, is idea that very much, at least in my mind, defines the American ideal or at least part of the consciousness of the United States is under attack to a certain extent. If only like I can think to like, maybe generation behind us, it's becoming more collectivist for all the good and also the not good of that. And it's not in terms of policy at this point, but just in terms of like the consciousness. And I wonder if that's an internet thing. People are more in touch with one another than they've, as far as I can tell, that we've ever been or at least more than in my lifetime. And the rest of the world seems much closer than it did. Living in Virginia, California seems very far away. Being on the internet, it's just right there. I can hear about it, I can see it. I can interact with people from there. I remember being in Tennessee at one time and then reading about events taking place in the Middle East. And that just seemed like a mile away. It seemed like a unbelievably far distance. And then another time when you're in DC, you just feel like, oh, you read about something happening in Paris and it just feels like it's just right around the corner because DC is a seat of power where things are just occurring all the time. And I guess you wonder about, that's where I come back to the group decisions to not listen to this person or to cancel this or to, we all, the moral majority shall do the following as opposed to as long as you're not hurting me and long as you're not hurting anyone else, I have to let you do, I have to let you be on general principle. Even if I don't like you, I'm very free to not like you. I'm free to speak out against you, but I'm not, it is not within my right or, and not with it. And it's not, I would not be right to attempt to attack you. And that is an interesting thing though, when we see words being redefined or words being defined, whether it's toxicity, whether it's violence, if I think that what you're saying is, your speech is by itself, a violence or a precursor to violence, I'm justified in doing all sorts of things. And that creeps me out significantly because again, even if it ends up being pointed in a good direction, initially, it's only a matter of time. And actually that brings me to another- Dune quote? Oh yeah, I got all day. How much are they paying you? But we have about say the Frank Herbert estate, not enough frankly. Let's see. And how many books are there in Dune? That's a Jen question. You're also a fan of Jen. I read the whole series, but not a couple of the, I read all the prequels as well, with the exception of a couple. Is there a book one for Dune? Dune, it would be book one and even the prequels, it's still all better if you start. Like I read Dune and then read the original, what is it, six? And then I went back and started to read some of the- It's just like watching Star Wars. You wanna start at episode four or whatever? Yeah, I think so. That's the move and then stop at six, call it a day, watch the Mandalorian. Well, I thought you're not walking back here. No, I liked the Mandalorian. Yeah, it's not that- That is what I said. I was told that I was heartless for not liking Baby Yoda, who I- We don't talk about a couple of the movies, not including the Mandalorian, the Mandalorian's fine. It's the more recent movies that we don't like to talk about. Oh, the, what's his name? The goofy guy. Ryan- No, no. No, the creature, the goofy creature with the- Jar Jar? Yeah, Jar Jar. Did you ever see the Jar Jar Binks is actually the Dark Lord of the Sith theory that fixed the whole initial trilogy? Where like he's like goofing around and like making it all the way through battles and when you're like, wait a minute, he oops his way, walks over to a pool, does a triple back flip, falls in. You're like, it's just bizarre that you- This is the Alex Jones theory of Star Wars. This is like he's actually running everything. He was the one that actually was like, hey, we should vote in Chancellor Palpatine or Senator Palpatine like right before. They put Jar Jar in charge. First off, what did they think was gonna happen? And second off, that was, I would just think that'd be great. You're like, oops, oh man, I guess he's the emperor now. That would have been great. But actually to the cancel and all the other stuff again, it's just, you'd hope that it gives pause. And I think about this for fighting because a lot of times, I'll use this as an example, people like fight fans and like UFC, they love people that run out and try to murder each other. And it's entertaining and it's super entertaining. But Floyd Mayweather doesn't resonate with people as much. It's like people started, I remember the time when Floyd was not as popular. Now people think people love Floyd because he's 50 and 0 Floyd. And oh man, and finally he had so much success that we all can't help but recognize the man's genius and greatness. But prior to that, oh, he's boring, he's this, he's that. He fights with, he's circumspect, he's cautious, he's pressing, he's intelligent, deeply intelligent. And when you watch people go out and try to murder each other, you can flip a coin a hundred times and you can be lucky enough to get a hundred heads, but it's still a coin flip. And I think that that's what's going on all the time is people are getting an outcome that they want, but it wasn't a well-thought out situation. And that's why you'll win by five in a row by knockout and then lose three in a row. And then people will go, well, what happened to that guy? He used to be so great. And you're like, no, he's doing what he's always been doing. It's just, it was getting great outcomes on a coin flip prior, and it's getting negative outcomes on a coin flip now. But I guess what I would say is it's interesting watching, I guess, societal beliefs become such a thing that we're almost adopting on a religious level if we're not careful. If when I say religious level, I mean like pan life, like this is guiding all of my choices for all the good and the bad of that. And this is a dune quote is, when religion and politics travel in the same car, the writers believe that nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget that the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late. And I think that that's again, the pause we go, oh man, thank goodness we have this guy that wants to rebuild Germany. He'll put us back where we need to be. And you stop questioning your own judgment, your own, just you start, you stop thinking essentially. Right, I'm not allowed to question this. Oh, well, of course this is correct. Of course this is correct. Of course I'm right. I intended to do right. So of course my actions are correct. I mean, how many times have any of us intended to do something helpful and ended up doing something less? And plenty of people who intend to do harm could by accident do something decent. And I guess it's, I'm not saying anything terribly, terribly insightful, but it's just one of those where it's hard to say in the moment and that's where you hopefully caution, you would counsel some degree of caution. And that's what worries me with people deciding that we're all so right about this or we're all so right about that. And attempting to, rather than win the argument, silence the counter argument, no matter how crazy it may seem. Because I just think that that idea, even when it's pointed in a good direction initially, it's only a matter of time. You're amongst many things, a jujitsu black belt. One of the things that people are really curious about, white belts and blue belts in jujitsu, but also people haven't tried the art, is what does it take to be a jujitsu black belt? I think that everyone's journey is a little bit different, but the one thing that the, what is it? Calvin Coolidge quote, determination, persistence is the only thing that will win in the end. It will always win in the end. Not brilliance, not toughness, not education, it's persistence. And I think that having the belief that no matter what happens to me, I will proceed forward and I will figure out how to make this happen, hell or high water, I think is the one thing that ties together all of the people that I've ever met that made it through whatever it was that they were going through. Because sometimes you can get lucky and you can have an easy time or, and that luck could be, you had a good situation, it could be, I mean, like in the obvious sense of like where you're living, where you're training, what's going on, you had a good situation, you're unbelievably athletic. Oh, you're gonna be an astronaut, you're brilliant, and an Olympic athlete, you know, like, well, that's a fantastic situation. You know, you won the genetic lottery and you've worked hard as well, but you also won the genetic lottery. It's, determination is the one thing though, because that person could have a very easy go of it initially and then tear their knee. And then they're no longer the superhuman physical specimen that they were. The only thing that will keep them going is persistence. And I think that that, I would just say that persistence, I say, I'll just put one foot in front of the other. And sometimes I can see the path ahead. And sometimes it's beyond my vision, but I will not stop. I may even slow down, but I won't stop. And that's the only thing that I can say that I've seen tie everyone together, because there's so many ways to the top of any mountain. And there's so many different personalities and skills and backgrounds involved, but everyone carries on. So at the core, the foundational advice is just don't quit. Just keep going. That's the lesson of martial arts, I think. You know, we think it's like how to be strong or how to win, but in reality, it's like how to persist, how to endure, because it's, all of us have been beaten so many times and gotten beaten up so many times and thought about quitting. Have I ever thought about quitting? Absolutely. Have I ever quit? Never, I will never, ever quit, ever. I can say that. I will be damned if I quit. What's the darkest moment? Is it injury related? Like is it, so like to me, like two possibilities. I've fortunately never been seriously injured, but I think that's a dark place to be, like having to be out for many months for, as Jen was saying, like with a head injury especially, like the uncertainty, that's one. And then the other side is if you have big ambitions as a competitor, realizing that you're not as good. Like those doubts were like, I kind of suck. How am I supposed to be a world, the greatest fighter of all time if like several people in the gym are kicking my ass? Those are the two things that paralyze you. I think that everyone's darkest moment is maybe different. Looking from the outside for Ryan, I wouldn't say that he's had injuries and he's had bad ones. I wouldn't say that was his darkest moment. I think for me, I would say some of my head injury was my darkest moment. Absolutely, and I've torn my ACL twice. I've torn my shoulders four times. I've had lots of surgeries. For me, the orthopedic injuries were not the most difficult, it was the brain injury. For others, that might be the case for them. Maybe they've never experienced an injury and maybe for them, that's their darkest moment. From the outside, obviously Ryan can speak to this more, but for Ryan, I think it was the inability to perform at certain points, the missing of opportunities that for him, from my perspective, watching him go through and having seen various points of his growth from early purple belt on, I think the hardest time for him looking in, obviously, was when he would hit moments where he wasn't able to perform for various reasons. He couldn't get fights. He was having difficulties there. I think that was the hardest point for him. Did you think with a head injury that you might never be able to do jiu-jitsu again? Yeah, mine was really bad and it was just the one hit, but I had a looping memories for seven months. Didn't know it because when your brain's messed up, you're not even aware that you're looping. That's great. And so I saw two different neurologists. I finally, it took a very long time. I didn't know if I was gonna be able to have linear thoughts or read a book. I didn't know at certain points if I could listen to music again without it making my head hurt. And so it was almost two years before I woke up in the morning without a headache, just waking up before I even start my day. And so that- So that's even bigger than jiu-jitsu. That's just life. That's just hard. And I think that you can experience so many things. I've had all these injuries. We lost a baby when I was 15 weeks. We've had all these experiences and what the hardest point for me, not saying all of those things weren't hard, but it's kind of like, you go through these, you just realize life goes on and you have to keep working at it and you have to keep going. And you asked me earlier offline, did I feel depressed? And not for my head injury. I don't think that at least in the moment I had any recognition of that. It's kind of like, but I think different people's personalities, I have kind of the buckle down and just keep going. And sometimes it's not until lots of time later that you realize, wow, that was really hard because you're just struggling to live and function and do the things that you need to do along the path. Do you mind jumping on just like this part of the conversation just for a few minutes? I'm sorry, I need to over. Do you mind just sitting together? Oh, no, no. Just for a little bit. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to jump in there. It'd be cool if we put a face to it. Is it okay with you? Yeah, it's fine with me. It's fine with you. By the way, what was the head injury, if you don't mind sharing? Someone had dropped their knee on the back of my head during training. It was a lot bigger than me. So one strike to the back of the head is too much for someone. There's a reason that's outlawed in MMA, right? Someone 50 pounds heavier than you, drops their knee on the back of your head once. That's the funny thing about getting hit, right? You never can really be sure what's gonna happen. I think that's actually one of the magical parts about Jiu-Jitsu where like, if you choke me, if you, we know what's gonna occur. You hit someone, they might be completely unharmed. Like you might be punching Tony Ferguson in the face and like you need to hit him with a sledgehammer to affect this man. And then other people, they could get really badly hurt, which I guess it's back to your point about, street fighting and things like that and the serious, serious potential, second, third order consequences of any action that we take. But yeah, that's a tricky thing about getting hit. How does it make you feel that, like the really shitty thing about injuries to me was that like, you start thinking like, well, if I didn't this one little thing different, like this wouldn't have happened today. Like one moment changes your entire life. Is that, do you think that way or is that totally counterproductive? You can't help but think that way. When you've had the amount of injuries I've had, because I've had more than most people's fair share, as my orthopedic says, you don't wanna win that. You don't wanna win the contest of who's had the most. But since you have, that's building me a pool. Yeah, but I think you can't help but think that way sometimes, but I definitely don't think it's, I think it can be facilitative if you don't beat yourself up too much. Because thinking about why have I been subject to so many injuries and a lot of it comes to just, almost all of mine in particular, people a lot heavier than me. But if I've been training martial arts 15 years, I'm obviously on the much smaller side, I'm a woman. I've done thousands and thousands of rounds with people, 50 pounds plus heavier than me. I've been years not training with anyone less than 50 pounds, which is 50 pounds is almost half my body weight. And when you also add testosterone, the natural physiological advantages of men, not just are they heavier with more mass, they're faster, they're more explosive, they're stronger, if they're the same size. And so I think that the willingness to be in that environment over and over and over again, creates a lot of strength, resiliency, willingness to continue. But it also, like in order to do that, you almost have to, for me, the way I was approaching, it was like pretend like I wasn't more vulnerable and just be willing to step in and step in and step in. Fake it until you make it kind of thing? Fake it until you make it kind of, yeah, like I'll just one day I'll be strong enough. And you avoided injury for most of it. For most of those rounds I would injury. The problem as Ryan points out is that, like you could do thousands of rounds, but if one person that size, that strength, that hover reacts in a way that you don't expect, it doesn't, it's not like an oops, it's like always major. Do you regret any of it? I think that most, no one I know has experienced the degree of injuries that I've experienced. And I started at a time when, in 2005 it was very different than now, where you have, the coaches have more control over what you're doing, they're more aware in general about a lot of the injuries. There's a lot more people who are hobbyist than when I started. They were hobbyist, but it was different kind of hobbyist than now. Now our girls can train with other girls. They don't have to do thousands of rounds with somebody significantly more powerful than them. For the drawbacks and the benefits of that, as with anything. So I think that, I don't think I would go back and change it. There were times after one of my injuries where I said to Ryan, I said, I quit, I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. I probably said it more than once, but there was one time I was really serious. In 2012, I was really serious. I had torn my shoulder. I was looking at missing a big competition again in the world for my second or third year in a row after injuries. And I said, I'd quit my job two years before and I'm like, I'm done. And Ryan, before that had always been, you know, keep your focus. And then he kind of said, okay, if you want to be done, be done. Just have a good time. No, I'm really done. I don't even want to train anymore. Okay, okay. And then, you know, I think he helped facilitate a moment for me to go visit some friends, some girls that were doing a girls camp who were close to my size or some friends of mine to go train. And I was like, oh wait, I do love this thing. It's just harder for me on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean I don't love this thing. And it really helped change my mind. I started to connect with some other people, travel more myself. Because previously he had done that, but I hadn't really done that. I think there was a point where, when I started Jiu Jitsu, it was just for fun. I just wanted to sport after college. I played sports as a kid. I just wanted to exercise. I wasn't into the martial arts. He used to give me a hard time about it because he was always very, how can you not care about martial arts? I don't know, I just want to play sports. And Ryan was really big into kind of the philosophy side of the martial arts aspect. He used to give me a hard time. And I think after that moment, this moment where I looked at myself and I said, Joe, I want to keep doing this, is when I started to appreciate Jiu Jitsu. It took off some of the pressure I'd been feeling, I think, as Ryan's girlfriend, but I had a full-time job a long time. It was never my goal to be a Jiu Jitsu world champion. And I think after that moment where I was like, I really do like this. I really do want to keep this. I had this moment, like any time where you're like, I'm doing this for me, I'm not doing this for him. And I think that that's, I think that that was really lucky for me because how often in our lives do we have a kind of a challenge where we have to stop and we have to say, is this really what I want? How often in a relationship do you do that? How often in any type of lifestyle or job do you stop? And do you really ask yourself, is something really difficult happen that you look and you go, am I just doing this because it's convenient and easy, or is this what I really want to do? Yeah, I've had those moments. Like this podcast is one of those things, is like you stop and think like, I actually love this. And it's, I had that with you just too. I don't think I had sat until like Brown Belt that I stop. I mean, yeah, it's when you first face real challenges, you think like, why am I doing this? I think most of my progression was why not? I think that's the right, the leap of faith. And then at a certain point you think like, why am I doing this? And if you can answer honestly that because I love it, it's kind of a liberating feeling. It's a, yeah, it's so powerful. It's an acceptance. You feel thankful for the opportunity to be there, right? Because you love it and you go, man, I- Yeah, it's great gratitude. Yeah, it's ultimately gratitude, yeah. Let me ask you this. So Ryan said like, what is it? I took over your thing. Yeah, nobody cares about Ryan. I wouldn't. I'll Photoshop him out or whatever. However you edit. If you could do that, it'd be great. Put Sean Connery's head. Yeah, just like a Dune ad over here. Exactly. Sean Connery, I could get down on that. Is that the sexiest man in Sean Connery? In the Dune universe, that's my understanding. I think in any universe. Yeah, well, mine doesn't give a- We actually named our son after Sean Connery. Oh yeah. Sorry. 35 nos in a yesh, we did. He was in the rock. That was, I love all those lame- Nicholas Cage. Oh yeah. Connery was probably the greatest movie of all time. There's his accent and Connery was so awesome. I don't know where it's from. Alabama, I guess, or something. I love that they got Steve Buscemi in there. We need Steve Buscemi in this thing. We got him. Dave Chappelle. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. He's a prisoner in the eight ball. Yeah, that's right. Yep, greatest movie of all time. Should have won an Oscar. Dave Chappelle also in Blue Street with Martin Lawrence. And in, what do you call it? Robin Hood Men in Tights. Oh, Robin Hood Men in Tights was one of my favorites as a kid. That was a big, but yeah, that's a good, wow, we just listed off some really bad 90s movies. But- You take that back. For telling our age. Yeah, that's all right. Speak for yourself. So what, in your view, I don't mean to, from a smaller person, I guess, that's an interesting thing. Well, Jiu-Jitsu is like, that small, I don't, hopefully that's not a bad thing. Elf. Elves are taller. Yeah. Like with all these bigger people, you can still enjoy the art. What does it take to get a black belt to excel, to quote unquote, master the art? Gosh, everyone has such a different path. Ryan's promoted six, seven people. Something like that. And I think about half of them have had, have kids, have families, have other careers. At the time, some of them competed a lot. Some of them have never competed or rarely competed. Some haven't competed in a long time. Some had started different places. Everyone's had different journeys, even in our own little group of seven. I think only, maybe only two or three were high level competitors of that group. At the higher belts, very like brown, black, maybe. And so, it's just different for every person. And that's something that we try to tell our, since we have 400 students, and do we have, we don't really have anyone who's, you know, a stated, other than like other coaches, like Adam, but we don't have anyone that's like a stated high level competitor as a student at the moment. People look at our gym and go, oh, it's lots of competitors. It's not lots of competitors. It's never been lots of competitors. And we've had ones and twos here and there. But really everybody's in it for the long term, if they're in it. Sometimes the high level competitors are the ones that are more likely to drop off because they have a bit of success, particularly at blue or purple. And then they realize how hard it is at brown and black. And then they have a hard time continuing on that path. And then they can't look at themselves as a non-competitive, a hard time continuing with Jiu-Jitsu, I think. Whereas sometimes it's the guy who comes in as the white belt and he trains, you know, twice a week, every week. And the next thing you know, he's been there for two or three years, like, oh, he's a blue belt, he's a purple belt, he's a brown belt. And he's just consistent over a long period of time and willing to take the path. And no two people's path is exactly the same. No two people's lives are exactly the same. You have, we have students who started as a white belt as a young adult with no responsibilities. And they train all the time. And then they have a job, you know, then they graduate college, then they have a job, then they have married, then they have kids, then they have different points in their careers. And at different points in your life, Jiu-Jitsu will be there, you know, for whatever way that you're willing to accept it. It's place, I think. That's actually kind of what, back to the initial question we discussed about, you know, what makes a warrior, you know, and also like what makes something or someone, you know, particularly impressive in my mind, is like what they make out of what they have. You know, one of my favorite movies ever is Forrest Gump. And it's obviously, it's just, if you can't, because I've heard people go, Forrest Gump sucks. I'm like, I don't like you as a person. And like you have no heart at all. But basically, it's the story of someone that tries hard. And it's like, yeah, but it's a funny movie. But it's like, you know, I guess you meet each person where they are, you know? And obviously, you want, everyone needs to be pushed. We all need to be pushed. We need friends and people around us that push us to be better versions of ourselves all the time. And as you mentioned, the people you spend all of your time around deeply impact you. And we have to be willing to be pushed. It takes a leap of faith for me to trust, for me to put some of my self in, my, you know, I guess my ability, my control, my personal agency, as it were, in the hands of someone else that I trust and that I respect. But if I can do that, again, maybe I never become, you know, high level black belt competitor, but you know, I had four of the things I was doing in my life. I also have a family. I have this, I have that. You know, what that person was able to accomplish in the martial arts relative to what they were able to put in this phenomenal. You know, other times someone could be a very successful black belt, and in my mind, be a bum because they could have been a lot more. And you know, they could have done more. They could have focused more. And there's no shame in deciding that you don't want to do that. But whatever it is that you're invested in, I remember the, Take It Uneasy podcast. And that I loved because, you know, I'll just chill out. I like resting. It's like vacation. Oh, who wants to go on vacation? Yeah, I'll go on vacation for a day or two. You want to spend three weeks on vacation? Like I kill myself. Like, get me out of here. Like, this is horrible. This is, I'm a waste of life. I'm not doing anything useful. I hate vacation. You're technically on vacation right now. Right. Well, this is fun though. Yeah. You're on a one day vacation. Oh yeah, exactly. But you know, if you had to, I'm sure you're thinking about jumping off of the building right now. But if you had to talk to me for, you know, like three days, I'm sure you'd probably shove me off the building. I don't blame you. I would be dead. Five hours in. But yeah, but you know what it is, it's like you want to be pushing towards something. Because otherwise what's the purpose of being here? You know, it's not just a college. It's doing something useful, building, growing as a person, helping others do the same, if that's within your power at any given time. But I think that's kind of the neat thing about martial arts is it can be many, many different things to many different people. You know, I finally, for instance, was able to get a college degree this year. That which, I mean, it's not a big deal for most people. But for me, it was a big deal because I was- You went back and finished. Yeah. And I never envisioned ever going back. And- That's a hard step to go back and finish. That's a, it weighs heavy on you if you don't. It's interesting. Yeah, I was just, I was more proud of that than most things I've ever done, if I'm honest. You know, and it was neat and I really enjoyed it. And it was the process of doing it. But, you know, are my academic credentials impressive? Like not in the least. But for me, it's like it was a big deal for me personally to take that step and to go back and do that. And I was proud of the direction. And cause it would have been easy. Like, do I need to do it? Like, no, I'm, you know, I'm business. I'll do okay. I'll try it. I'll keep fighting. But I was happy to take the time in between fights when I was, when I was unbooked for an opponent to do something productive rather than just, I'll just hang out. You know, like I can still train every single day, but I can also train and go to school. People go to the Olympics while going to school. I can, I can do martial arts and go to school. One thing I gotta ask is, you know, a bunch of women listen to this podcast. If they haven't done Jiu Jitsu, I think it'd be kind of intimidating to step on the mat with a bunch of bros that like enjoy somehow killing each other. Like, how do you succeed in that environment to where you can learn this art, learn how to beat all those people up? Gosh. Is there any advice? I mean, another way to ask that is like, if any women listening to this are interested in starting Jiu Jitsu, like, is there advice for that journey? Honestly, I think it's just walking in the door and starting. Sometimes I don't know how to respond to that because I'm not, I don't view myself as typically anxious, particularly in interactions with other people or new people. You're just sleeping. Shy is not a word that has been used for me by, if you ask my family, and they joke because our son talks a lot. He's advanced verbally and they're always like, oh, well, let's, we know where he gets that from. Like, he just doesn't stop talking. He narrates everything he does. And so they always tease because that's, like, I'm known for kind of talking a lot. But, so I haven't been typically, I don't consider myself a shy person. So for me going into a new room, a new group of people is, you know, there's always a, you don't really know who they are, how they're gonna treat you. But I don't have a lot of anxiety with that. So I don't, if that's something that's gonna put something up, I don't really know how to address that particular feeling. But in terms of all of the rooms I've been in, I have popped into Jiu Jitsu gyms before I knew Ryan in Florida. Like, I traveled for my job, so in Germany and Florida and California and places where I don't know anyone, they don't know me. And I have never once had anyone be anything other than kind and solicitous and helpful. And long before when I was a white belt and a blue belt and didn't know anything and didn't know anyone. And I just think that it's a community of people that it's so cool that no matter where you go in the world, I walked into a gym in Prague one time where only two people spoke English. And it was just... Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. It's weird that like... Instantly you're like part of a group and they're like, oh, let me tell you about a place to go. It's like being part of a cult, right? Yeah. But it's like a positive cult. Like it for sure. That's what we would say as cultists. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's true. I mean, we do need to murder everybody who practice like keto. I mean, yeah. That's this cult deeply believes it. No, but there is a... Like if you look at different kinds of games like chess and so on, like there's a skepticism. I mean, there's not a brotherhood, sisterhood feeling. With Jiu-Jitsu, it's like you can roll into most places. Even like with Judo, like I can see the contrast. Cause I've trained in Judo places. It's more like tribal. Like you walk in and like, who is this? Like there's that kind of feeling. With Jiu-Jitsu, there's less so. There is a little bit with like the competitors. There's always like the competitors feeling each other out, usually like the blue belts. But like outside of that, in terms of if you don't get the, if you walk in with the vibes of just loving the art and just willing to have a good time, you're like welcome. It's really cool. It's really fascinating. It's a really great thing. I think, and as a woman, I think you think you're walking into these rooms of these big, strong, tough guys. And if anything, I would say that they're almost like much more solicitous when a woman comes in there and not like they're just like hitting on you all the time. It's just that you walk in and everyone is like, oh cool. You wanna do this thing that I love. Let me make sure you have a good experience and take care of you. And I think that's an experience that I hope people have when they come into our gym. And I've always felt when I walked into other gyms. And so we try our best to make that comfortable. And it can be a little uncomfortable because there are, when you walk into a male-dominated environment, there's conversations and topics. There's a different style of camaraderie and joking that a lot of men will do that maybe some women are more uncomfortable with. I grew up with four brothers. So I kind of maybe was a little more desensitized to that. And I worked for the Department of Defense for a while too. So before I- So you were with the government. Yeah, so I did that for a while after college. I'm already skeptical. Yeah. I left, I left. Oh, you left. I'm not gonna ask you about UFOs then because you're not gonna tell me the truth. No, they exist. Yeah, no, you just freaked out a lot of people. Okay. But yeah, by the way, where's your school? Cause people always ask like where- Well, we're outside of Washington DC in Northern Virginia in Falls Church. You always wanna pick like, what's the best school if I travel to this place or if I wanna move to this place. So that's- Well, I mean, obviously we're biased, but yeah, we're in the Washington DC area. The best. Okay, we just took a little break. Now we're back. Let me ask you one thing that a bunch of people are curious about. You're one of the innovators. First of all, you're one of the great innovators and philosophers and thinkers in Jiu Jitsu, right? But you're also one of the innovators in terms of leg locks and the 50-50 position. And just like the fact that legs have something to do in Jiu Jitsu. The other popularizer innovator in the space is John Donahue and his whole group of guys. Do you have thoughts about their whole system of leg locks and their ideas about Jiu Jitsu and so on? Sure. I guess, obviously, John and the students at HENSO who've been able to do fantastic things competitively in the past number of years, you mentioned innovators in that kind of section of Jiu Jitsu. I would love to bring up some guys like Dean Lister, of course, Masakazu Imanari. In fact, a lot of what was going on in like 90s Japan, like combat submission wrestling, there was some crazy gnarly stuff that it's on grainy VHS tape, but stuff that if people were doing now, they go, oh my God, that's brand new. There's, it's been, I think these are things that have been around for a while in various places. I first learned the 50-50 position, just like the leg entanglement of it from Brandon Vera, actually at a seminar at Lord Irvin's Martial Arts, I think in 2005. He learned it from Dean Lister who used it to submit Alexandre Kakareko, really, really tough Nogi guy at ADCC in the run that Dean made to the gold medal in the absolute division, which was a great performance at the time, first American to do that. And I actually saw a video, I mean, first of all, Boss Rutten actually broke, I think, Guy Mezger's foot with a 50-50 heel hook, did he actually grab his heel and his toes? And in pancreases back when they had like the man panties and the high boots on, and dude, that was gnarly. Boss Rutten is underappreciated as like- He double grabbed like- Oh yeah, like, you know, his leverage is leverage. That's like a toehold that goes the other way. It's like it either doesn't work or breaks in half. Well, he's, people don't often think of Boss Rutten as an innovator, but he is in a way. Like, he, you know, talk about like Elon Musk and first principles thinking in terms of physics. He like just feels like he just gets the job. He figures out like the simplest way to get the job done of breaking things and establishing control and hurting people. Remember that was back in the day, if you listen to Boss Rutten do any like commentary for any of the big MMA shows or any MMA show way back when, anytime guys were clenched, he's like, the guy should roll for a knee bar. He was saying that way back when, and now people are doing it all the time with varying degrees of success. It's funny, it's like, it's also tough to be, I think like a breakaway thinker. I mean, you know, group think is a real thing in group inertia. And it's neat to see, you know, particularly at a time when maybe that type of stuff was less accepted, you know, someone going, hey, I'm gonna run off in this other direction. I think, you know, whoever, you know, the inventor of electricity in my mind is a lot more impressive than whomever, not to say that the person down the line isn't impressive, that comes up with an interesting way to use it. Both are cool, but when you think about just, can you imagine we're sitting here and like, yeah, people, I'm gonna build an airplane. You're like, what are you talking about? It's crazy. People don't fly. I'm like, no, I'm gonna do it. And of course, that's not gonna be as good as the airplane down the line, the iterative things that happen later on. But just being able to go to dream something into existence that you haven't seen before and then make it happen, like takes an unbelievable, like strength of character, almost like a force of will, because you have, you're blazing a trail that hasn't been walked before. That's the BJ Penn factor in, you know, winning the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, first non-Brazilian to do that. That was back in 2001. And then Rafael Lovato later on, it's like, he's, you know, both of those guys are so unbelievably impressive in my mind for the same reason, you know, because they were out there winning at a time when that wasn't a common thing. Not that it's easy to win now, it's just, there's not a psychological hurdle that needs to be leapt. I remember, you know, when I was early in Jiu-Jitsu, like Americans weren't winning the World Championships at any belt. I mean, BJ, we all knew BJ Penn because BJ Penn did it, but it was really, really uncommon. Now it happens, you know, on a semi-regular basis. Of course, the Brazilians are still strong, Europeans are still strong, but, and Australians are coming on as well. But it's definitely kind of an interesting thing. So to come back to, you know, John Danaher and the Hensler team, obviously they're doing fantastic things. John's had some really, really great innovation there. And the systematization and the methodology that they're using is great. And it's neat to see that it's getting out there. I would just also, I would encourage people to make sure that they're, you know, catching up on their history. Because obviously, you know, John's a brilliant instructor and has done things, you know, for the sport that are fantastic, that haven't been done before. But, you know, none of us exist in a vacuum and I've learned things from everywhere else. So, you know, John would say the same, I'm sure. And, you know, Dean Lister would say the same. And it's just neat when you can kind of trace the history of all of this happening, because we've had, humanity's had two arms and two legs for some time, at least as long as I've been alive. But you mentioned like airplanes. Do you think there's something totally new to be invented in Jiu Jitsu still? Not totally new, but like the, you know, flying isn't new, but airplanes nevertheless made that much more efficient. Is there like new ideas to be discovered in Jiu Jitsu still? I'd say, the reason I'd say yes is the same reason I would say I believe in alchemy, even though I don't. No, I'm serious. Like I've got some backing for this. Okay. You know, I guess I talk about this with a buddy of mine a lot, like, and facilitative versus not facilitative beliefs. And if I don't believe something is possible and I do no investigation towards it, I'll never find something even if it's there. It's almost like, it's no different than me walking up on a group of people and going like, oh man, look at these jerks, this is gonna suck, versus me going, oh, I wonder what these guys are up to. I'm about to have two very different conversations, even though the players in the game are no different. My internal constitution has changed because of how I've decided to approach the situation. So although I wouldn't personally want to spend all my time trying to turn lead into gold because I don't believe that it's likely to work, only a person who's willing to spend his or her life in that pursuit will actually get to the bottom of that. And also in the pursuit of that, they're likely to find other things. So I think a lot of times the idea is that humanity is pushed forward by, again, it's another Orson Scott Carb when it's like human beings are in this slog, it's paraphrasing just in this slog over time. And then periodically humanity gives birth to genius, like someone that invents the wheel, invents electricity, pushes us forward, comes up with the idea of governance that doesn't just start and end with the point of a sword. And these aren't common things. These are unbelievable advancements that, not just me sitting here, I didn't come up with them, but I just get the benefit of it. So I guess what I would say is a lot of times these ideas are called crazy, like as we discussed on kind of offline, it's like Einstein was brilliant in his 20s and it was brilliant before that I would suspect, but basically gets recognized later on in life. And of course we all thought those were great ideas. The man was probably roundly mocked for giant chunks of his life. And I guess so it's neat to, I would say there's definitely in my mind things that, even if it's just combinations and new to me, new ways to see things, new ways to understand different depth of understanding, possibly new things, new positions, new ideas, because even if that's not true, the process of going through and acting as if it is and believing like that and focusing and trying to investigate will make any of us, will push us all forward. Whereas sitting there, obsessing over the cult of our current knowledge, I think is the biggest danger and the biggest cause of stagnation that exists anywhere. Yeah, and it starts with believing the impossible, which is kind of interesting. One of the things that's really inspiring to me is to see people out there, which sadly are rare, who kind of have a combination of two things. One is they have a worldview that involves, that includes a lot of ideas that are crazy. And the second part is they're exceptionally focused and competent in bringing that, whatever the ideas in that worldview to reality. So there's certainly a lot of people with crazy ideas. There's a lot of conspiracy theorists. They have way out there beliefs about things, but they're not doing much to like make the, like build stuff grounded. And like they're not engineers or whatever. They're just like espousing different crazy ideas. But that's why you get like the Elon Musk type characters. And the reason I bring him up a lot is because like there's not many others to bring up. It's like there's not many examples of it through history. The people, I mean, the guys convinced that we're going to colonize Mars. And basically everybody on earth thinks that's insane. Everyone except the guy that's gonna do it, right? Except that's gonna do it. And like you can imagine like a couple of hundred years from now people will, I mean, first of all, they won't, certainly won't remember the haters. They won't remember all the people. If they do remember them, they'll remember them in a sense like people were silly to think that this isn't the obvious path forward. Like from a perspective, that's what Elon talks about. Like it's obvious that we're going to expand throughout the universe. Like so- From his perspective. From his perspective. Like, but to me it is also obvious because like either we destroy ourselves or we'll expand beyond earth. Like there's not many, you know, well, maybe it's not completely obvious. I guess I share that worldview. There's the other possibility that we humans find a sort of an inner peace where the forces of capitalism will calm down and we'll all just meditate and do yoga and jujitsu and like relax with this whole tech thing where we keep building new technologies. But it's cool to have those kinds of people that just believe the big, ambitious, crazy dreams. Because that's where it starts. If you want to build something special, you have to first believe that. And you also have to believe strongly enough that you're not vulnerable. And I'm speculating, but it's like, I can only imagine how many people have told Elon that what he's doing is crazy. So not only did he dream it up, he dreamed it up, went with it and also went with it in the face of being told that it's not going to work. And then also stepped away from the bitterness because he's done a series of really crazy impressive things. And that's only those little things that I'm aware of. And also staying away from the bitterness of every single time you did something good. Initially, all I do is talk down about you. And then eventually I act as, of course, of course, I never apologize. And yet you don't let that dampen your spirits for the next innovation, which is pretty incredible to me to watch. Yeah, it's kind of cool. I mean, it's contagious to spend time with the guy because he's not, Rogan has the same look to him, which is interesting about these people. There's like a hater shield. That he's like, he doesn't even like sense them, it feels like. He thinks to Elon, it's obvious. I mean, he keeps calling it like first principles thinking. Like physics says it's true, therefore it's true. Like he has convinced himself that like his beliefs are grounded in the fundamental fabric of the way the universe works. Therefore the haters don't matter. And I mean, that's kind of like a system of thought. He developed himself through all the difficulty, through all the doubt, he's able to take huge risks with basically putting everything he owes on the line multiple times throughout his life. I mean, it's all the drama, and it's all the doubts, and it's all like the, he's still able to make just clear headed decisions. I don't know what to make of it, but it's inspiring as hell. Well, I think it's something that's funny. I think like, I can only imagine that, history will look back on him as a brilliant person, but that's not the only, there's a lot of maybe not numeric, not statistically speaking, but a lot numerically on a giant planet of billions of people, a lot of brilliant people. Well, time, place, luck, fortune, all that other stuff, but at the same time, that clearly isn't the only determining thing in making Elon Musk, Elon Musk, and obviously I don't know the guy from Adam, but it's an interesting thing that it's not just his intellect, his belief system, his structure, how he's viewing the world. Like that's, did he reason his way to that? Did he not? What other factors came in? I'm really curious about that because I guess coming, it's, again, I feel really strongly about people's belief structure and how they view the world being more important than the engine behind it. It makes someone resilient or not, it makes someone positive or not, because you could have 10,000, I think about this for competitive stuff, you could have 10,000 things going properly and one thing going improperly. If you focus on the improper, you'll probably fix it at a certain point, which is good, facilitative for development in the long term, but if you had to go and try to perform a task in the next five minutes and you're focusing on the negative, your confidence and your belief in the positive outcome of the future is likely to be damaged, whereas you could have 25 things going wrong, but you go, man, I sure am happy to be alive. How fortunate I am. This is great. I have problems to solve. This is awesome versus I list the problems and I start bitching about them. Both of them are technically accurate, but it's, I guess, different lenses and I think that's a really neat thing to see someone exemplifying that for us. So maybe to look at the fighting world, there's a million questions I can ask here. Like one, you mentioned BJ Penn. First of all, you're undefeated in the UFC and one of the fights you've had is against BJ Penn, which is kind of an incredible fight. You won performance of the night. What did it feel like to face BJ Penn and to beat him definitively as you did? Like what's that whole experience like? I'll be honest, I didn't know if I was going to ever be able to fight again after beating Gray Maynard in 2016. I've had a couple periods of those. I was about to join the army actually in when I was 30 before the UFC, before Jen sent me over to Ultimate Fighter. I didn't want to go because I was like, one, they're never going to pick me. Two, I'd be terrible for TV. Three, I'll probably say something and I'm going to get burned to death in the streets. I'm like, this isn't a great idea. And then she said, we'll go out there, see what happens, do it anyway, you'll regret it if you didn't. And then I ended up doing Ultimate Fighter. And then, so I fought three times on the show and then I fought for the finale. So that's four times in like five or six months, which was great. And then it took me a year to get another opponent. And that was Gray Maynard. And then Gray was obviously a very tough guy, managed to get a good outcome there. Then it took two years to fight BJ Penn. And that was, obviously I'm training all the time every single day and that never stops. But that was, I'll be honest, pretty deeply frustrating because as a human being, as an athlete, I think as an athlete, you die twice. Like you have an athletic peak or area and then you go on with the rest of your life. It's a bit of a mystery, but it is a microcosm for the rest of your life. It's like you're seeing the sand tick away in the hourglass or drop away. And you're going, man, these are the years between 31, 32, 33. I'll be at my best at this time, my absolute best physically. Now not technically, I'm a lot better now than I was before on our planet. But at a certain point, you will, unless you're Bernard Hopkins, you will reach diminishing returns. And I guess that- The long wait, you can feel the clock ticking. Is this frustrating? It's like, why does it take two years for BJ? That's the question people ask a lot. It's like, why does nobody want to fight right now? I don't know. They probably think they'll get infected by whatever this is, but I don't blame them. But I would- I mean, you're a really tough opponent is the bottom line. I'll say that I'm different. Maybe they perceive that the threat is greater than the reward. I'm hoping that now that we're ranked number 12, in the UFC rankings, that that will change. And I know that if we're one more win and then we're in the top 10, that now you're there. But what I've consistently found is that like randoms want to fight. And I'm like, go away. I didn't come here for you. Because if I wanted to just fight anybody, I could go down to a Waffle House and yell until like DMX shows up and we can fight, because he'll be at the Waffle House too. Who am I kidding? I really want to hang out with DMX. But it's like, you want to, when I had the opportunity- Ryan Hall and DMX at Waffle House. Oh my God, that was so cool. I would never- Sounds like a Netflix show or something. I would never fight DMX. We'd be on the same team. No. Anyway, I guess I accepted fights against, I got asked about Lamas. I said yes. I got asked about Dennis Bermudez. I said yes. You know, like long periods of time. And they, at that time, well, you know, in between 2016 and 2018, I was struggling to have opponents who would sign up. And I haven't turned down fights. I've just said, hey, you know, keep the, I don't care about fighting the randoms. And it's just- And you have a successful school. You're like, you're running, you're a martial artist, broadly speaking. So it doesn't make sense to take fights that aren't like- Right. That fit a certain kind of trajectory for your career. And that's when BJ Penn, they said, well, BJ is looking for an opponent. I was like, I'm your guy. And I think that, you know, BJ accepted that fight because I'm another Jiu-Jitsu guy. I don't think he perceived that I was much of a threat on the feet. And, you know, I was able to, it was neat to get it to compete against someone, you know, who's one of my heroes, one of the people I looked up to in MMA for the longest time. Were you intimidated by that? No, no, I love competing. I don't really get nervous or scared before fights. I'm not afraid to get hurt. I'm not afraid to win. I'm not afraid to lose. It's, I'm just excited for the, I feel thankful for the opportunity to compete and the opportunity to play when it matters. You know, I just, but that's the only time I'm interested in playing anymore is when it matters, when the opposition is, I know that, you know, it's funny because people pick on a lot of some opponents, particularly after the fact. Like if you get a good outcome, well then, oh, of course, Lex beat that guy. That guy wasn't that good. I'm like, well, I wasn't, that's after the fact, I get to say that. And also as the person in the ring, you know, BJ Penn has hurt a lot of people in mixed martial arts cage. And I could actually absolutely have been on that list. So it was neat to get to compete against someone that I really respect, someone that I looked out to for a long time, someone who has a great skillset. And also I went up in weight to fight him at his weight class. He didn't have to come down to mine, which is where he'd take him. It was lightweight? It was lightweight, yeah. I generally have featherweight. I walk around at like 158 pounds. So- What's lightweight and featherweight? Lightweight is 155 with a day before weighing, and featherweight is 145 with a day before weighing. So I'm a little bit more properly sized for featherweight. But anyway, you know, so I didn't feel like, obviously he was giving up a couple of years of age, but I was giving up size and all this other stuff. And it was, you know, I was just excited to have the opportunity to step in against someone like BJ. And, you know, we managed to get out of there with a good outcome without getting too banged up. But just, it was cool, because we tied up on the fence. And just even the second, you know, is when you're rolling with somebody and you touch and you can feel what they're doing, you go, oh man, this guy's really good. You can feel the calm. You can feel the small minor adjustments that they're making, the subtle things that they're doing. And that was one of those things that was really neat and gratifying, because, you know, you never know. Sometimes people that you've heard of are a little bit less technically proficient than you thought. And other times you'll meet some guy that you train, you're like, who the hell is this guy? How have I not heard of this person? And BJ was exactly, as a jiu-jitsu guy, what I would have thought. And another thing, that's another thing that bugged me about how people reacted after the fight is, you know, basically going, oh, BJ screwed up this, screwed up that. And I'm like, all right, yeah, tell him. That's so interesting. That's sad. That was, you know, one of the, to me, I mean, as a fan of both, that was a beautiful moment, is a kind of passing of a torch, in a sense, of exceptional performance. Like another one that stands out to me, maybe you can comment, is I don't understand, well, maybe I do, why Conor McGregor gets as much hate as he does. He probably revels in it. But I think he doesn't get enough credit for Jose Aldo, for the, for like, for basically, you know, knocking him out in the first few seconds of a fight. I mean, Jose is like one of the greatest fighters ever. That's true. Maybe some people could even put him in the top 10. No question. And the, like, I don't understand why it's, doesn't get as much, like, Conor McGregor doesn't get as much credit for, you know, Conor McGregor doesn't get as much credit as I think he deserves for that, and for Eddie Alvarez and all the fights. For some reason, whenever Conor McGregor beats somebody, well, they were not that good then. Like, it means like they were, they were, there's something was off. Right. That's convenient, isn't it? Yeah, it's quite strange to me. But I mean, what are your thoughts on the, on Conor McGregor? Maybe one way to ask that. I'm Russian, so I'm obviously also a Khabib fan, but I'm also a Conor fan. It seems like there's not many of us who are like fans of both. Right. What are your thoughts? You and Artem Lobov. The two of us, which also is a good fight. Tough dude. Yeah, really, really tough dude. Especially like five languages, really interesting cat. Oh, so, oh wow, I didn't know that side of it. There's a brain there. Well, on the Khabib versus Conor, what do you make of their first fight? What do you, do you agree with me that they should fight again? Because I think it would be awesome if they fought again in Moscow. And do you agree with me, I'm just gonna put, say things that piss people off, but I believe is that Conor actually has a chance to beat Khabib. One, that Conor absolutely has a chance to beat Khabib. Conor has a chance to beat anyone that he steps into that ring with and not just like a mathematical chance. You're like, oh, one of the billion, but like, you know, like he absolutely, it's funny, because I won't pretend to know Conor really well, but I first met Conor in 2010 when I was teaching a seminar in a straight blessed gym, Ireland in Dublin. And that's actually where I first met all of the coaches that ended up being on Conor's team. John Kavanaugh, Owen Roddy, Gunnar Nelson. So for, I actually, I enjoyed being on Ultimate Fighter and being on your high-favorite team and getting to train with all the guys there. But at the same time, the people that I was actually, I knew better were actually the European side, all of Conor's coaches. And that was a neat thing because I got to, I met Conor, I didn't know who Conor, Conor wasn't Conor at that point. Yeah, that was before his UFC division. Oh yeah, well before, yeah. I think he got in like 2014, maybe something like that. Yeah, and anyway, but he was doing well in Cage Warriors, winning the titles there, I think prior to that. You know, I remember going, seeing him on the show and also then getting to see him train, because I competed, I was initially slated to fight David Tamer for the Ultimate Fighter finale before getting put in to fight Artem for the title for the show. So I went over to Ireland to train for a couple days. And basically it was neat to watch him work. I mean, man, he's focused and trains a lot and he's very, very smart and very, very hardworking. And I think a lot of times people get stuck in this, you know, and they almost want to believe that this was lucky or this person, you know, they're not working that hard, they're just out there, they got there with their mouth. And that's just not the case. And you know, I don't know what it's like, you know, obviously Conor's very well off right now and I don't know how hard, how serious he's training, what he's doing, I can't speak to any of that. But there's no question that he has skills to be dangerous. And one of the funny things, obviously, that could be fight when it could be his way, it could be he was a great fighter and also has the chance to beat anyone in that ring at any given time. But there was, Conor, you know, it's one that he can put anybody away. And as you mentioned, I think that he doesn't get the credit for the Eddie Alvarez fight, he doesn't get the credit for the Jose Aldo fight because it was almost so much of a letdown. I remember that happened the same weekend at the Ultimate Fighter Finale. And you're like, wait, what? Yeah, it almost doesn't feel like a fight happened. But we mentioned Miyamoto Musashi. I mean, Musashi was famous for the way he poked and prodded at people with what he was doing, whether overtly or not. It's like, oh, we're supposed to fight to the death and, you know, at 3 p.m. tomorrow, great. 4 p.m. rolls around, I'm just not there. Five, I mean, you remember all the antics and nonsense that Conor was pulling prior to that. Like, speaking personally, that's not something I would feel comfortable doing, but it's like everyone's different. And the effect that it had on Jose was, I mean, beyond evident. When was the last time Jose started the fight with leaping left hand, leaping right hand? You're like, wait, what? And then he was obviously, you know, living rent free in Jose's head at that point. And that was a combination of psychological ability and wherewithal and then physical. And it reminded me of the way Muhammad Ali would bother people and whatnot. And the fact that he's a polarizing figure, I think makes some people not give him his due. And then at the same time, sometimes certain fans maybe go overboard. But remember the knee that Ben Askren got knocked out with by Masridal. I mean, that was an amazing, unbelievable thing. But three inches to the right, three inches to the left, I guess whichever side his head wasn't, now you could have been square. But, and that fight starts with Ben Askren on top of you in the first five seconds. Well, Conor ran in through a knee just like that. It could be even, could be, got right around it. That could have easily gone the other way. Can you imagine what would have happened if after coming back from boxing, after coming back from the Mayweather fight. Conor rocks could be- In the first 10 seconds it's over and you're like, he would, it would have been intolerable. But basically- Yeah, but see, here's the thing. Let me actually push back slightly. I mean, to the fans, correct me if I'm wrong, but Conor seems to, because I've competed a lot and there's a tension, there's a negativity sometimes, depending on the opponent. And there's a respect afterwards that happens. When you understand that there's a deep respect and almost like a love for each other. I always seen that in Conor. All the trash talk afterwards, there's a, it's a subtle thing. You can't always see it, but there's a respect. I agree. And I almost, on the Khabib side, I almost feel like Khabib really took it personally. He didn't, he lost the respect for Conor. I thought the whole time Conor had the respect. So what I wanted to say is like, if Conor won that fight, like rock Khabib, I could see like, I wouldn't see trash talking. I could see like trash talking stop right there. I think so too, but at the same time, I'm sure you recall like Conor, Conor crossing some pretty personal territory, both religiously and also familiarly with Khabib. And it's, I mean, I think it's the sort of thing that, I don't know, it's an interesting, that's one of the reasons. Well, it depends. Like you have to know the difference. So obviously I know the Khabib, the Dagestani people, they don't- Play around like that. They don't play around like that. You know, I mean, they take offense to basically, I mean, you don't do that. So like Conor didn't, maybe he did on purpose, or maybe he wasn't even just aware of- Totally fair. Of- There's cultural differences. Of the box he opened. Like you can talk to Floyd Mayweather, you can go anywhere with him. You can say the most offensive things, but with Khabib- It's hard lines. It's yeah, hard lines. But you, I mean, a lot of people ask, I know you're a featherweight, but if you were to face, it feels like Khabib is one of the hardest puzzles to solve in all of mixed martial arts. If you were to face Khabib, do you think, how would you go about solving that puzzle? Like almost, the question is almost from a Jiu-Jitsu perspective too. What do you do with a guy that's exceptionally good at controlling position, especially on top, very good at wrestling and taking down and controlling position? Like, let's say, so forget maybe striking. On the ground, how do you solve that guy? Like, what do you do with your guard if you get taken down? Or do you create an entire system of not getting taken down or escaping? Is like, what ideas do you have for that? Well, I guess I would say in my mind, fighting is a game of trading energy. Kind of, there's two things, there's damage and there's energy. So like when I say energy, I mean like tired, not tired, how much gas you've got. And then damage counts, obviously as well. You could be feeling, I could be feeling great and then you get to kick me in the head hard, really hard three times. It doesn't matter that I could get up and run a mile, I can't get up. So anyway, I think what Khabib does so well is he makes the fight look like Khabib in a Magomedov fight. He does a great job of avoiding damage on the feet for the most part and really sucking the life out of people with how suffocating and oppressive his control is. His chain wrestling is as good as anyone we've ever seen in the UFC, it's fantastic. But that poses a really serious threat for people that need to maintain a certain amount of space and try to hurt them on the feet because unless they're able to inflict an adequate amount of damage, they're gonna, each time, let's say for instance, let's say him taking them down as a four-gun conclusion at some point. If every single time Khabib takes you down, you get right back up, it's not that big a deal because it's actually more, we've all experienced this. Let's say you and I are rolling, you tap me 15 times in one round, who's more tired? Probably you are. My ass so badly that it's like you're the only one working. But- So if you're comfortable with the up and down of it, like being taken down. If you don't get hurt badly or tired on the bottom, you have a chance. But that doesn't involve just cracking him on the feet before he gets ahold of you. That's a lot. That's a lot to ask, that's a lot to ask. That's difficult to do. It seemed actually that Connor, it seemed like it when he was being kind of taken down or the take down attempts against Khabib, he seemed to be somewhat relaxed the whole thing. I thought he was doing well actually. I think that particularly for the first round, I thought he did a very good job. It's just one of those things that I think like Khabib being, the fights taking place in Khabib's world in large part. And I mean, set aside that one giant, what is it, right hand that Khabib hit Connor with. By the way, Connor reacted like an absolute champion. He got crushed by that overhand and then drop and his eyes went right back on Khabib. It was immediate positive, great response. So even though that was, I think, that was a bit of a surprising thing, Connor reacted really, really well. But if you're gonna be on bottom with Khabib for four rounds, that's gonna be tough. And also Connor's a way better grappler than people like to give him credit for, but he's not the type of grappler that can do, that's too tall of an order. But there are grapplers that could do that or at least would have a much, much better shot at being able to weather that type of a storm. Do you see yourself being able to be relaxed through that kind of storm? Yes. Well, I guess. I can't. Remember, being savagely beaten is very relaxing. The timing of that answer was like, okay. That's a dumb question. No. That's ultimately the goal of Jiu Jitsu is to be relaxed through the fire. For sure. And remember, like every UFC fighter, I win all hypothetical matchups. Yeah. For sure. That's true. Since I'm one to ask ridiculous questions and we've been talking about sci-fi and all that kind of stuff, let me ask the kind of big question that everybody disagrees about, certainly with me, is who are the top five greatest MMA fighters of all time? Oh man. And why is Fedor number one? Okay, well first off, Fedor is number one. Oh really? Oh yeah. Right there with you. Really? Oh yeah. Talk about people that just get completely underappreciated. Even though he's never succeeded in the UFC? It's not his fault it came along after him. At the time that Fedor was at his height, the UFC was not where it was at for heavyweight fighting. I mean, not that there weren't good heavyweights there, but Fedor was unbelievable. I mean, you remember Minotaro Noguera, I was a massive fan of him. I still remember watching, what is it, Pride 2004 when Noguera fought Cro Cop and got blasted with that left kick and dropped with like seconds left in the first round. Pride was great because it had a 10 minute first round and that five minute second, which again, materially alters the fight big time and just the texture of the fight. It's borderline a different sport than getting a five, a pause in a five. But anyway, similar sports, like one of those swimming things where they have nine gold medals for different types of swimming, right? But still swimming, but anyway. Well, yeah, they would disagree. Yeah, I don't mean I'm not trying to. They specialize in that. But it's totally true. 10 minutes is different than five minutes. Sorry, I'll take, don't drown me swimmers. I don't swim very well. It's easy for me to downplay it. But anyway, yeah, and then- So better than John Jones, like the modern era. Well, I mean, I guess it's tough to compare across eras. It would be like going and saying like, oh man, how would such and such great grappler from today fair against someone from 1995? I'm like, well, probably pretty well for them, depending upon who they are, what's going on. You know, there's some people that would, their skillsets might transition across eras, but a lot of times not, but that's not fair. We get that, they'll be like comparing Spartans to modern day, you know, like army guys. They're like, well, who's gonna win? I'm like, well, did modern day army guys get modern day weapons? Well, yeah, but who's the toughest ruggedest group of people at the very least? So I guess it's tough to say, but at least in my mind, the people that I think about for great fighters, their quality of opposition, their level of like lasting, like success, their level of lasting innovation, like the courage that they have to demonstrate. Because again, it's like being a big fish in a small pond takes no courage. Doesn't mean that there's nothing there, but it just requires something a little bit different. So Kazushi Sakuraba is one of my guys too. BJ Penn also, I mean, BJ Penn fought Lyoto Machida. That's insane. You know, that was a time, it was a different sport. It was a different time in the sport where, you know, some guys were bouncing around doing different things, but let's, so I guess the Gracie family, I mean, they never had an, like obviously hoist was there, but they never, and that was definitely a different sport. Weight classes being open, things like that. But you have to say that hoist is up there. It's one of the greatest ever. I think so too. And again, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if it weren't for him. So the Gracie family as a whole, but I mean, who's the better, I mean, I think the hoist would tell you himself probably that Hickson would have handled business back then, but they didn't put him in. So again, he's the greatest fighter, the greatest fighter, the greatest fighter that we saw do his business. So hoist up there for sure. What about, so this is like, nobody seems to agree with me on this, but like this connects to soccer again and Messi. It seems that people value like how long you've been a champion, how many like defenses of the championship that you've had successfully. To me, I highly value singular moments of genius. So like, like I don't, like if you look at Conor McGregor, he hasn't, I guess, held, been a champion very long, very much. Well, he didn't defend either title, right? He didn't defend any other, either of the titles. But like, if you, and the same with Messi, if you look at Lionel Messi, there's just moments of brilliance unlike any other in history for both Conor and Messi. And people don't seem to give credit. It's like, well, how many World Cups have you won? But to me, like, why is it about this arbitrary World Cup thing or championship thing? I think it's easier for people to wrap their head around, right? It's like the NFL combine. When was, I mean, Tom's, yeah, numbers. It's something, well, again, if I go and I, if I pick Tom Brady in the first round, you know, and it works out, they call me a genius. If I had to pick Tom Brady in the first round after his combine, and it doesn't work out, I get fired and I'm never hired again. I have to work somewhere else. But it's like, I'm insulating myself from criticism, I think almost, if I go by the numbers. Well, he had more bench presses. It's like, how many times have the guys that are like the super studs in the NFL combine ever been on the greatest players in the NFL history? In NFL history, like zero or close to zero? And even if there's some, it's certainly not a one-to-one correlation. So it's so funny though, I think it's just like, how many days did he hold the title? Ah, your title reign was X times longer. That means nothing. So if we wanted to find greatest fighter ever, like you said, I think individual moments of like, you're like, that was transcendent, that was different. That was something else. Because people can win or lose for any number of different reasons. And that's an interesting thing. Again, I don't blame Argentina not winning the World Cup on Messi. You know, that's not fair. You know, how many times has, I mean, I'll use the, I remember when Trent Dilfer was the quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens. And they had such a strong defense. I'm not trying to pick on Trent Dilfer, but it's like, they had such a strong defense that they were to make it. That was the Ray Lewis, you know, Chris McAllister era, you know, and they won the Super Bowl. I don't think anyone is going to say that, you know, Trent Dilfer is a better quarterback than, you know, or put him in the same category as Dan Marino. But he got the W. He's got the Super Bowl. How many times, let's use March Madness or Super Bowl. I love it. Like that guy always makes the finals, but he just never gets it done. So let me get this straight. Getting to the finals nine times doesn't count because you didn't win the end game. I'm not saying it wouldn't be better, but that guy won the game once. He got over the hump. Well, how many other times was he in the finals? Zero? You're like, all right. It's interesting what we, yeah, that we were obsessed with these numbers. Like... Well, cause we can't assess their method, right? I think most of the time, most of us can't assess the method of anything. It's like, oh, look at that guy do X, Y swimming. I'm like, how do I know Michael Phelps is great? I don't know, he was faster. I can't look at his technique and say anything other than, well, that's way better than anything. I know how to do, but I can't say the difference between him and the next guy. So I guess that's, I wonder if it's like, I need a concrete identifier. And a lot of times people don't like saying, I don't know. And most people won't put like a Ronda Rousey in the top even 20 or 50 of, but like she changed more than, more than almost anybody else. She changed the martial arts history. I don't know if that even, I don't think I'm exaggerating that. She made it okay for women to be fighters. Yeah. And it, and like changed the way we see, like she's one of the great feminists of our time. In her own way, yeah. In a weird kind of way that like, I don't know. Maybe I'm just a Ronda Rousey fan, but yeah, but she's not in the conversation cause then you start converting into numbers. Well, how many did she win? Is she among the greatest fighters or did she do the greatest things? You know, I mean, I don't, I think it's something, I mean, obviously Ronda is a great judoka who was competing in MMA at a time when a lot of the girls like where did you get your skills in the Olympics? Oh, where'd you get yours? High school. You're like, yeah, you're gonna, Olympic girls gonna beat you up. But I guess that that doesn't diminish her. Just that accomplishment is what it is. I don't have to, I don't, Fedor is not diminished by the fact that he would, like if he were to fight Stephen Miocis right now, it probably wouldn't go great. Or that John Jones exists. I don't now have to like knock Fedor's accomplishments down or say, oh, because BJ Penn or so and so, let's say he has a mixed record at this point that somehow invalidates the things that they've done before. I guess it kind of brings us back to a lot of the other people we've talked about. The fact that the brilliant people throughout history that we love or some of the monsters throughout history that we rightly revile in a lot of cases were complicated people and their legacy is more than just one thing. And someone doing something amazing doesn't invalidate, doesn't mean they didn't do anything bad. And someone doing terrible things doesn't mean that, doesn't invalidate the positives that they did. But I guess we're fighting the urge to put people in one category. And same with ourselves. I think that's why people get depressed. Oh, I'm good right now. Oh, I'm bad right now. Versus, hey, we're all at work in progress and we're trying to do X number of things and legacy is a tough thing to figure out anyway. And it's all speculative. Last time or no, on Reddit, you said that, last time too, that you don't experience much fear before fights. I'd like to ask you a couple of Mike Tyson things if it's okay. It's just interesting to me. Maybe I'm just weird. So there's a, I don't know if you've seen this clip of Tyson talking about how he feels leading up to a fight that he's kind of overtaken with fear as he gets closer and closer and closer to the ring his confidence grows. Dad, have you seen the clip? I'm aware of it. Okay. I haven't seen it in a while. Here, let me play it for you. George St. Pierre said something similar to me one time. While I'm in the dressing room, five minutes before I come out, my gloves are laced up. I'm breaking my gloves down. I'm pushing the lever at the back of my leg. I'm breaking the middle of the glove for my knuckle pierced through the lever. Feel my knuckle piercing against the tight leather gloves on that Everlast boxing glove. I come out, I have supreme confidence, but I'm scared to death. I'm totally afraid. I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of losing. I'm afraid of being humiliated, but I'm totally confident. The closer I get to the ring, the more confidence I get. The closer, the more confidence I get. The closer, the more confidence I get. All during my training, I've been afraid of this man. I thought this man might be capable of beating me. I've dreamed of him beating me. But I always stayed afraid of him. But the closer I get to the ring, the more confident. Once I'm in the ring, I'm a God. No one could beat me. I'm a God. I mean, first of all, he's cognizant of both his demons and whatever the hell ideas he has about violence. It's so interesting. Is there something about the tension that he's describing about being confident and scared that resonates with you? Or do you hold to this idea that you've kind of spoken about before that you're really not afraid? No, I can appreciate what he's saying. I think that I can speak to feeling concerned about, let's say for instance, if you feel a certain way, I think people are a lot more like computers than we like to admit. And just because a lot of times I can't parse what's going on and why, doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense. I see. And I think that at least in the times of like, if I'm concerned about a situation or about a person or about something happening prior to the fight, or I'm like, there's a reason. There was a reason. I had to push that down and bury it. There's a reason. Like why, what have I not thought about? What have I not done? What am I missing? Why am I feeling this way? As you mentioned, for yourself prior, you'd be like, why am I feeling like this? I don't do this very well in certain aspects of my life if not that I mentioned it or not that I think about it. But when it comes to competing, I think I do an all right job and I'm trying to learn to be better. And it's going like, well, why do I, if I feel this way, there's a reason. Okay, am I thinking about this the wrong way? Have I not adequately prepared for something? I have to address it. And then maybe I'll be up for four hours that night, like extra hours thinking, what have I not addressed watching sparring, watching this, watching that. And then when I am thinking about things more accurately or when I've addressed what that concern was, I feel any of that concern kind of dissipate. And I guess if I honestly thought that, when it comes to it, I know I'm gonna die at a certain point, obviously. I'm gonna get hurt. I mean, pain happens, but the pain of loss would be nothing compared to the, or the pain of injury would be nothing compared to the pain of running away. And so I guess if I think about where's my value, it's like, I feel like I'm a winner every single time I step into that ring and fight with everything that I have. I can't promise that I'll win my next fight. I know that I have the skills and the tools to beat anyone in grappling or in mixed martial arts at this point. It's just, I know that for certain, I've trained enough people, I compete with enough people. I know where I stand, but I also know that I'm not perfect. And also the better fighter, even if I perceive that I was that thing, doesn't win on the night. The man who fights better wins on the night. And if I give credence in my mind to only the person that's one has value versus going, what's your process? What's your path through this? How are you going about this? How are you thinking about this? How are you behaving? Then if I can focus on the process, then I will respect my opponent and I will respect myself and I'll respect anyone that behaves with a certain level of consistency to that. And they could win, there's plenty of winners in history that are shitbags and there's plenty of losers that are not. But winning doesn't make you a bad or good person and losing doesn't make you good by default either or bad by default. So, and I think that that can be the truth socially, that can be the truth, you know, athletically, and you know, academically. So I guess- Is there a primal fear though? Like a primal fear of getting hurt, the running away and not facing the threat long-term is the bigger pain than any pain you can experience in the fight. That's pretty powerful. But what about the violence of, I mean, you don't have that on your face, but like, I don't know if you've also seen Tyson talk about, he was on Rogan recently and he was talking about, he was trying to psychoanalyze himself about why he enjoys violence so much. I mean, he called it orgasmic. I don't know, have you seen that clip? I haven't. Okay, we're playing it. Cause I need to, cause Trump also retweeted it, which is hilarious. I don't know how to contextualize that our president retweeted the clip of Tyson saying- Maybe he's just doing it like, they're not gonna, it's like, I'm gonna throw him a curve ball. No one's gonna have any idea what that is. But yeah, he did no explanation, just here you go. There you go. Well, I think that's kind of like what you were describing. It's like, if I give you an answer, it has to be a good one. Better to just let your imagination run. Exactly. Yeah, he's like the Kubrick of our time. No, what's really interesting, that sometimes, periodic, it's not real, but sometimes I struggle with the fact of why, is there a possibility I can really hurt somebody? Like you don't wanna hurt them. What do you mean, when you struggle with the possibility that you could hurt them? That is sometimes, it's orgasmic sometimes. Yeah. Like some fights, like particularly like Tyrell Biggs, or someone that you had problems with, someone that you- Joe's not getting it. You had animosity towards, so when you finally get your hands on them. Hey, what does it mean when fighting gets you erect? What does that mean? It's a good question. Means you're getting excited. Yeah. So that's going through your mind right now. Well, that's how I get when I was a kid. Sometimes I get the twinkle. The twinkle. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying, is like you reached a state as a human being, as a champion, as a ferocious fighter, you reached a state of ability and of accomplishment that very few humans will ever touch and feel. That's why I'm asking you, when you're running, when you're hitting the bag, when that heart's beating again, and that you know who you are, you're Mike motherfucking Tyson. So when you're doing all this shit again, you're still Mike Tyson. Those thoughts have gotta be burning inside you again. It's gotta be pretty wild. I don't know. It's wild, but I believe it's rightfully so to be that way. And I just know how to, I don't think I mastered, but I just know how to deal with it. I don't let it overwhelm me. I mean, he goes on to try to, they don't ever, like Joe doesn't bite. Well, the interesting thing about that conversation is Mike was trying to figure himself out. Yeah. Like he's trying, on the spot. Like, why do I feel this way? To me, it was like, to me, it's so real and honest to feel like pleasure from hurting somebody. Like that, you rarely hear that. In this society, it's like, you rarely like talk about, like you feel pleasure from winning. You feel pleasure from like the relief of overcoming, like all the stress you have to go through. Pleasure from just like the specifics of the fight, the techniques you use, the maybe overcoming being down a couple of rounds. But like, how often do you hear somebody say, I just enjoyed, he's not even saying because I hate the opponent. He's saying like, I enjoyed purely the violence of it. It's crazy. I mean, I don't know, it's honest. It made me ask like, I wonder how many of us are cognizant of that. I'd say Mike is uncommonly seemingly honest. I think athletes make a full-time job at a line. People make a full-time job at a line. That's fair. I mean, you tell yourself, or you tell others what you feel you need to, or maybe whether you even know what you feel you need to, but why should he not? I mean, again, did he run up and just hit somebody that didn't sign up for this? No, they sign up to be there. Well, that's the interesting thing about Dyson is there's that weird non-standard behavior. I mean, your fighting style is non-standard. He's non-standard to another degree of like, who else has that? In Jiu Jitsu, Paul Harris has this kind of weirdness. Like, what's in there? Like, there's a fear that I think most opponents would have because it's no longer about, it takes you out of the realm of it's game. It takes us back to the thing we were talking about before is it strips away several layers of Ryan Hall, the podcast guest, Ryan Hall, the Jiu Jitsu instructor, Ryan Hall, the Jiu Jitsu competitor. It keeps going down to a point where Ryan Hall, the murderer of all things that get in his way, that lies underneath all of it, seemingly. Like, in this society, we put all that aside, but it makes you wonder, like now society's being tested in many ways. It makes you wonder, like, what's underneath there? Well, do we want the answer to that? Because I guess it's, what is it, you've seen Paul Fiction, the best character in the movie, in the best scene in the movie. It's like, if my questions, if you're, what do you call it, if my answer's scary, you should cease asking scary questions. And I guess you wonder, I mean, all of us, that's something that I think it's funny. We go, oh, that's not okay. I mean, versus, maybe not appropriate for situation X, Y, or Z, but what should make any of us think? I mean, humanity is a different place now. And I'm not saying anything crazy out there, but humanity is a different place now than we were 5,000 years ago, where all of us are descended from people who have killed things with their teeth and fingernails in order to be where we are. And whether it was in, whether it was an animal or it was in conflict with another person, I mean, think about the chances of dying by violence now are so, so slim, at least in most countries and most places, like shockingly small, thankfully. But there was a period of time, like the most period of time where dying by violence was mostly how it went down. And I guess what would be facilitative, what would allow you to win back to Ender's Game? What allows you, if you can't do that, you are forever subject to people who can. And that's a real thing. And we're fortunate to find ourselves in a situation where we don't, where other things matter. But that is a funny thing periodically, where people, you'll see people kind of drawing at each other like in videos or out in the world that clearly neither of them expect this to get serious. Like, I'm just gonna yell at you, you're gonna yell at me, and it's like this weird LARPing thing where we're both gonna go on our own separate way. All it takes is one person to be like, well, I wasn't kidding. And it's like, oh, you'll go to jail. I'm like, oh, I know. You're gonna go to the morgue. And it's, that can happen like that. Like society, I mean, obviously, anyway, you could jump across the table, stab me in the eye. I mean, I appreciate, I'd hope if you don't, and there will be consequences if you do, but not from me, from the rest of society will potentially get you at a certain point. But you can decide to not play by the rules any time you want. And- It's fascinating that, yeah, that's, we've created rules based on which we all behave, but underneath there, you know, there's things that doesn't, there's motivations and forces that don't play by the rules. And it's still there. Nature is metal is under the surface. Seriously, and again, I pull out my phone and I'm basically saying like, hey, I'm gonna, you're gonna get caught. But really I'm further antagonizing you, rightly or wrongly, you know what I mean? Like, and that's an interesting thing. And I feel like just people need to remember, any of us need to remember, just for any reason, just that's one step away at all times. You ever, I've had people say to me before, like, oh, I don't feel safe. I'm like, you're not safe. I'll kill you before you get out of this room. Nothing you can do to stop that, nothing. I mean, but don't worry, you can do the same to me, which means I'm like, oh, thank goodness. Can you imagine like how many guns are there are in this country? Like, I mean, everywhere. I mean, seriously, everywhere. But that's a heartening thought, not the other way. Cause people usually freak out and go, oh my God, gun violence, gun violence, gun violence is like really not a serious issue in the United States compared to what it could be. Because it means that, I mean, with the amount of guns and the amount of bullets that are out there that are in circulation, can you imagine if like one in every thousand was used in anger each day? I mean, this would be a terrifying place to live. You couldn't go anywhere. So, I mean, although you could say, hey, this is more than we'd like or X, Y, Z. It actually means that people are much more reasonable and sane than we're saying. Then, or then I, then sometimes I might, my might argue. So I guess what I mean is like, oh man, I walked to 7-Eleven and I didn't get stabbed. I'm like, oh, well that's good. Because not because I protected myself with my karate, it's basically no one decided to run over and stab me because I wasn't protecting myself. It's, they stopped. So I guess we're all fortunate to live in a society that like you said, nature being metal, doesn't become that big of an issue all the time. But it is funny when you get people in the ring and you go, hey, let's peel back from Mr. Tyson, many layers of that and say, hey, now it's okay. And it's cool that, I mean, that's what society is doing. So I've lived in Harvard Square for a while and we add extra layers of what safe means. Like now there's a discourse about safe spaces, about like ideas being violence or like, yeah, but the ideas or minor slights against your personality being violence. But that's all like extra layers around the nature is metal thing that it's cool. That's what progress is, but we can't forget that like underneath it is still the thing that will murder at the drop of, at any moment. If aroused. One thing that I find funny though, or ironic maybe about the words of violence, offenses violence thing is that of course, that if that the belief in that then justifies my violence, like my, and whether maybe not physical violence, but my response to my aggressive response to things. And I guess like, which it can be gets a further aggressive response and like a, kind of a tit for tat sort of situation or it goes to like, well, there's 10 of me and there's one of you, so we'll get you and you can't do anything about it. But that's not morality. That's just saying that's might makes right. So I guess, again, you can understand why people do it. And there are certain, there is a progress aspect to it. But again, I guess without proper examination, I'm effectively with my 10 friends, and the force of the law, Mike Tyson-ing people, but not admitting to myself what I'm doing. And at least Mike Tyson again is honest. Are you afraid of death? I mean, it's easy for me to say no, as I sit here probably not about to die, but. Is this like the UFC question? Can you defeat any opponent? Exactly, the answer is yes. The answer is of course yes. And I don't have, they're not around, they're not here, are they? Yeah, exactly. But I mean, do you ponder your own mortality? Maybe another context to that is you mentioned two deaths for martial artists. I think that's actually why, honestly, even though at a relatively young age, I think mortality is something that I'm aware of, maybe more than the average person. I think probably most athletes can speak to this, and anyone that's had trouble. I've managed to slide out of a couple near-death experiences personally, mostly river-related, because I'm an idiot. But I regret nothing. But yeah, thank God we're here. But yeah, it is an interesting, seeing the end, and seeing going, well, what's gonna happen. I guess, I think it comes back to kind of what we were discussing about belief structure and belief system. I think a lot of times, if I recognize that no matter what I do, it's all gonna end one day. Then you go, well, why were we here? What would I do? Am I gonna make it to 40? I have no idea. I'd like to hope so. I had no idea that I was gonna make it to the age that I am now. Am I gonna make it to 80? How much of that is in my control? Much of it is not. I mean, it's so funny. It's an interesting, like back to the belief structure again, like internal and external locus of control. What's facilitative versus what's true? And I think accepting personal responsibility for more than is on my control is probably a positive. But at the same time, recognizing that much is not in my control. I was fortunate enough to be born in the United States, fortunate enough to not knock on wood, have a serious disease that I'm not aware of right now. I didn't do any of that. I just showed up. That was really fortunate. And I guess that doesn't diminish the fact that I've tried to make decent choices, but it works in concert with it. And I guess when you go, is death what I want right now? No, no, I should think not. And again, it's easier for me to be relatively calm about it as I'm not staring it in the face. But what I would care a lot more about is how you live. That's what's in my control. And I can't control if as I walk out of this building, a helicopter falls on me. Worrying about that, I can't control. Maybe I have cancer now and I don't know it. And I really hope not. But- There's something about meditating on the fact that it could end today. Outside of your control, they can clarify your thinking about the fact that life is amazing. Like just kind of, yeah, helping you enjoy this moment. Even if life was horrible, let's say for instance, it was, you live at one of those times or places and those places still exist in this world today, that life is brutal and metal and whatever all and short and painful, would you still want it? And again, as I'm sitting here, not on fire physically, it's easy to say yes, but I would, I am confident. I still all plant my feet and say yes. Any life is amazing and beautiful and a gift, an unbelievable gift. That none of us have earned for the record. I hate the word earned. A lot of times earned, yeah, you earn, but it's like, there's a lot of good fortune in earning. And that's back to, do I want justice or do I want grace? And I guess we're all fortunate to be where we are, no matter where we are. And hopefully it should give us some sense of perspective, some sense of compassion for other people, but also like you said, a sense of peace. If it all ended right now, would I be happy with life to this point? I'm like, of course. Would you like to live a little longer? Yeah, I would try to do more and try to live rightly to the best that I know how, which over time will hopefully continue to evolve in a positive direction. But if the answer to that is no, I guess that's always, that's a sign that what I'm doing is not what I'm meant to be doing. And I mean, you're familiar with the Tecumseh? Before, I've got one actually, if you could give me 10 seconds, I'll read this one out. This is a personal favorite, basically. And I think it sums up, I mean, again, it's one of those quotes on the internet, like when Abraham Lincoln said, don't believe everything you read online. But this is, again, attributed, but it's like, so live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion, respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long in its purpose and the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word of sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes, they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. Powerful words, I don't think there's a better way to end it, let me just say, we've spoke maybe five, six years ago, I don't even remember when, but I'm not exaggerating saying like, you had a huge impact on my life because of the podcast. You're the reason I was doing the podcast as long as I have, you're the reason I'm doing this podcast. And it's a little, it's a stupid little meeting that you probably didn't know who I was, I didn't really know who you are, it was just like a magical moment, it's a bit flap of a butterfly wing kind of situation. And yeah, I'm forever grateful, you're one of the most inspiring people in my life. So Ryan, it's a huge honor that you would come here, Jen, and talk with me and waste all this time, I really appreciate it, it was amazing. Thank you so much, Lex, it's just been a pleasure, I really appreciate you having us on, thank you. Thanks, brother. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ryan Hall, and thank you to our sponsors, PowerDot, Babble, and Cash App. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman. And now let me leave you with some words from Frank Herbert in Dune. Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
 The following is a conversation with Ryan Hall,
 one of the most insightful minds and systems thinkers
 in the martial arts world.
 He's a black belt in jiu-jitsu, accomplished competitor,
 an MMA fighter undefeated in the UFC,
 and truly a philosopher who seeks to understand
 the underlying principles of the martial arts.
 Jiu-jitsu is such an important part of who I am,
 and I was hoping to share that with folks
 who might know me only as a researcher.
 I think there's no better person to do that with than Ryan,
 who somehow, remarkably, I can say is a friend,
 and also a modern day warrior philosopher
 of the Miyamoto Masashi line
 of especially dangerous and brilliant humans.
 Also, his amazing wife, Jen Hall, was there as well,
 so if you hear a kind of voice of wisdom coming from above,
 you know who it is.
 Quick summary of the sponsors,
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 As a side note, let me say that renaming this podcast
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 I hope you allow me the chance to really try and do that,
 to step outside of AI and even science,
 engineering, history, and so on,
 and on occasion, talk to athletes, musicians, writers,
 and maybe even comedians who inspire me,
 especially up-and-coming comedians and musicians
 like Eric Weinstein, who yes,
 will do a third conversation with soon.
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 of these conversations on occasion,
 when I do return to science and engineering,
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 and a few extra listeners that may not otherwise
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 All that said, please skip the episodes
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 I use it for muscle recovery for legs and shoulders,
 but you can also use it to build muscle,
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 In fact, I first heard about this kind of
 electrical muscle stimulation device
 in reading that Bruce Lee used it.
 He was an inspiration to me
 as someone who practices first principles thinking,
 especially in a discipline
 where conventional thinking is everywhere.
 He created a martial art called Jeet Kune Do
 that is in many ways, at least philosophically,
 in its hybrid approach,
 a precursor to modern day mixed martial arts.
 There's a special kind of deep philosophical thinking
 that combat athletes or Jiu Jitsu practitioners do
 that is unlike any other.
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 This song always made me smile
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 And now here's my conversation with Ryan Hall.
 Who in your view is the greatest warrior in history,
 ancient or modern?
 That's a tough question,
 and again, I'm no historian by any measure,
 so I'll probably do the worst.
 It's like, what are your best bands ever?
 I'm like Metallica, and you know, so I'll pick the-
 Metallica just came out with a new album, by the way,
 for the entire orchestra.
 That's kind of cool.
 Yeah.
 Metallica will always be one of the greatest.
 Yeah, that's awesome.
 They were a bad example.
 They were a well-known yet awesome band.
 Let me say, it's like Nickelback or something like that.
 But I feel that feels cheap
 because everyone makes fun of Nickelback.
 Yeah.
 I don't know, I guess it depends on
 how you want to define warrior.
 Something that I think about when it comes to trying
 to evaluate various people or situations or things
 that I've read about or heard about are the circumstances
 that they were involved in,
 because I think a lot of times it's easy
 to look at the outcomes.
 And obviously outcome, we live in an outcome-driven world
 and outcomes do matter, but at the same time,
 like you look at, let's say what Cuba has been able
 to pull off from a combat sports perspective,
 it's staggering.
 Like the amount of successful Olympic level competitors
 they have in wrestling, boxing, judo.
 I mean, they're a tiny little island
 with no money and no people.
 That's shocking.
 When you think about the Olympics in the United States
 doing well, of course we should do well.
 I mean, Russia should do well, China should do well.
 India should do better than they do, honestly.
 Obviously it means like they're not into it as much
 or at least certain sports
 because they have the resources people-wise.
 So talent's not gonna be an issue.
 So there's something to like where the starting point is.
 Like that's the argument with like why people say Maradona,
 I don't know if you're into soccer.
 Oh yeah, big soccer.
 Okay.
 They say Maradona is better than Messi
 because he basically carried the team
 and won the World Cup with a team
 that wouldn't otherwise win the World Cup.
 And then Messi was only successful in Barcelona
 because he has like superstars.
 He's playing with other superstars.
 Right.
 Yeah, that's fair to say.
 I mean, like United there's a lot of factors
 that go into, let's say winning a soccer game
 and obviously Barcelona,
 particularly for various points in time
 had a ridiculous all-star squad of world-class players.
 But, and I'll say for instance,
 maybe they didn't have the creative players in Argentina.
 They needed to get the ball up to Messi.
 You know, they didn't have like the NES,
 and you know, the, you know, the,
 again, the backing there in the midfield.
 But, because obviously Argentina's always had
 ridiculous attacking players, like even alongside Messi,
 but they're like the three killers up front
 and then little less behind.
 So it's interesting you say that,
 depends how you define warrior,
 because you can probably take like
 some of the civil rights leaders.
 You can go into that direction, like leaders in general.
 But if we just look at like
 the greatest martial artists in history,
 in that direction, do you have somebody in mind?
 I would say at least three,
 three that pop into my head and would be Hannibal,
 Alexander the Great, and then maybe Miyamoto Musashi.
 You know, the two commanders and then one, you know, guy.
 But, so it's interesting.
 And then again, you mentioned warriors being able
 to make a lot out of a little, you know,
 Musashi's famous for winning duels, you know,
 that were oftentimes one, there were one-on-one.
 You know, the Alexander and Hannibal were, you know,
 military commanders and one of them faced Rome.
 And that was an interesting thing.
 Oftentimes, you know, coming up with novel tactics,
 different strategies, sometimes under resourced,
 having to do novel and crazy things.
 There's skin in the game.
 That's an interesting thing too.
 I think a lot of times, you know,
 if you're playing a video game,
 I don't think you can be a warrior
 because there's no skin in the game.
 You get hurt, you lose, and that's a bummer.
 It stings a little bit,
 maybe it makes you feel slightly disappointed.
 But, you know, Musashi loses, he loses.
 Hannibal loses, he loses.
 Alexander loses, he loses.
 And they lose, I guess the people around them lose.
 So that's almost like you could use,
 even from a combat sports perspective, a Muhammad Ali.
 I mean, you consider also their quality of opposition.
 Musashi was fighting high quality opposition.
 Obviously Hannibal and Alexander,
 particularly Hannibal were fighting unbelievable opposition.
 Muhammad Ali fought phenomenal opposition,
 but he had skin in the game, both in the ring and out.
 And that actually meshes with, as you mentioned,
 like a civil rights type of situation
 where you are under-resourced,
 you're pushing the stone uphill.
 And that was a neat thing I think about Muhammad Ali
 was how much personal conviction the man had to have
 in order to pull off what he was able to pull off,
 both in and outside of the ring.
 And that reminds me of, again,
 some of the other great leaders
 or great fighters throughout history.
 So what do you make of the kind of very difficult idea
 that some of these conquerors like Alexander the Great
 and somebody that, if you listen to Hardcore History,
 Dan Carlin, who apparently Elon Musk is also a big fan of
 is the Genghis Khan episode.
 A large percent of the world
 is, can call Genghis Khan an ancestor.
 So the difficult truth is about some of these conquerors
 is that there's a lot of murder
 and rape and pillage and stealing of resources
 and all that kind of stuff.
 And yet they're often remembered as quite honorable.
 I mean, in the case of Genghis Khan,
 there's a lot of people who argue,
 if you look at the, historically, the way it's described,
 in full context, is he was ultimately like a,
 given the time he was a liberator,
 he was a progressive, I should say.
 You know, like in terms of the violence
 and the atrocities he committed,
 he, at least in the stories,
 has always provided the option of not to do that.
 It's only if you resist to,
 so you basically have the option,
 do you wanna join us or do you want to die and die horribly?
 So that's the progressive sort of,
 that's the Bernie Sanders of the era.
 Nice.
 So what do you make of that?
 That there's so much of these great conquerors,
 there's so much murder
 that to us now would just seem insane.
 It's funny you mentioned it.
 I think that maybe it's a human nature thing
 that we want to, or maybe a misunderstanding thing
 that we want to cast all of our characters and ourselves,
 maybe is entirely good or is entirely negative when,
 I guess the phrase or the saying,
 one man's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist,
 is accurate.
 And a lot of times I think you can understand
 as long as you're able to look
 from various people's perspective.
 Like if you look at the TV show, The Wire,
 which was obviously, you know, widely,
 everybody loves The Wire.
 I thought that there were everyone,
 I'm not saying anything that's not been said before,
 compelling characters from all angles,
 whether you like the character, dislike the character,
 you were able to understand the motivations
 of people doing various things.
 Even if they did wrongly, they did rightly.
 You know, we want to cast all of the demons
 throughout history as completely inhuman
 when I think that makes it difficult
 for us to understand them.
 And we want to look back at the people
 that we think of as great and entirely great.
 And I think that we're experiencing the problems with this,
 you know, even right now, socially and politically,
 as we're trying to look back and decide
 the people we thought were good are not good,
 or people we thought were bad are now good,
 rather than going, hey, there's good and bad to all things.
 And there are, as you mentioned, the Genghis Khan thing,
 you don't have to fight back.
 You do, I respect you for it,
 but then we're gonna have a conflict
 and then we'll see what happens.
 And if you lose, you're gonna be sorry that you did,
 because I have to make it that way
 if I want to continue utilizing this kind of MO,
 because I need to discourage the next guy
 from doing what you're doing right now.
 And ultimately though, I guess that's an interesting thing.
 Imagine you put every single person
 on planet earth in a cage, crime drops, you know?
 Also, there are certain positives to that.
 And it's just things are as they are, it's difficult,
 but that is ultimately more the law of the jungle.
 And I think that we're able to supersede some of that now
 in modern times, and I think we're fortunate.
 But as you mentioned, we look back and say,
 oh, this is horrible.
 Say, no, that just is what it is.
 That's how life is at a base level.
 And again, if you're a lion and I'm a gazelle,
 I don't really like it very much,
 but we don't call the lion the bad guy.
 We don't sanctify the gazelle or the other way around.
 So it's interesting when you pull back some of the controls
 that we put on our behavior in modern life,
 which I think are generally speaking positive,
 we get down to how things often are.
 And at the same time, modern life was built
 by people like Genghis Khan.
 So then you get down to the ends justifying the means.
 It's a tough question.
 These aren't things with easy answers,
 or at least if they are, I certainly don't have the smarts
 to figure out the answers to them.
 But it's difficult, I would just say people in the world
 are complicated and layered.
 And depending upon which side of the line
 you're standing on at various times,
 you may like or dislike someone,
 but I can't remember whose idea it was,
 this is killing me, but it's the veil of ignorance,
 I guess, the philosophical idea of the veil of ignorance
 where I go is sticking everyone in the cage,
 the right thing to do, when I say, or everyone but me.
 And I say, well, no, why?
 Well, it would make my life easier
 if I just went over and took all of your stuff
 as long as you couldn't stop me.
 I mean, of course that's a great idea,
 that's what everyone does in every video game.
 But in Skyrim, you steal stuff when people aren't around.
 But ultimately you go, well, this isn't the right thing to do
 because if I were on the other side of it,
 I would not appreciate it.
 It's inherently not a good thing to do.
 I'm only doing it because I think I'm gonna win.
 And that's a fine way to be,
 but you don't have the white hat on, I guess I would say.
 So I think without those philosophical underpinnings
 to rein us in, I guess morally speaking,
 it's very difficult to say what's right or wrong.
 And you'd say certain actions have a reaction,
 almost like a physics sense.
 If you kill everyone in your way
 for as long as you're able to, your life will be easier.
 I mean, you're setting the table for someone
 doing the same to you when you're no longer the tough guy,
 but it is what it is.
 Yeah, if you look at the Instagram channel,
 Nature is Metal, it hurts my heart to watch,
 to remind me, a comfortable descendant of ape,
 how vicious nature is, just unapologetically.
 I mean, there's a process to it
 where the bad guy always wins.
 The violence is the solution to most problems
 or the flip side of that, running away from violence
 is the solution, depending on your skillset.
 And it's funny to think of us humans
 with our extra little piece of brain
 that we're somehow trying to figure out,
 like you said, in a philosophical way,
 how to supersede that, how to move past the viciousness,
 the cruelty, just the cold exchange of nature.
 But perhaps it's not so, maybe that is nature,
 maybe that's the way of life, maybe we're trying too hard
 to, we're being too egotistical in thinking
 we're somehow separate from nature,
 we're somehow distant from that very thing.
 I couldn't agree with you more, in fact,
 I think actually Orson Scott Card,
 who's the writer of a great book called Ender's Game,
 this was a statement that the main character,
 Ender made in the book, his brother was brilliant,
 his brother was like kind of sociopathic, brilliant kid
 that was ended up kicked out of the school
 that they were all into for battle commander.
 Dealing with his brother taught him
 that ultimately strength, courage,
 the ability to do violence for all the good and the bad
 of that is one of the fundamental most important things
 to be able to do in life,
 because if you can't cause destruction,
 if you can't cause pain, you will be forever subject
 to those who can.
 And I think that you mentioned egotism,
 I think that that's a disease
 that could obviously strike any of us,
 but it's something that we're looking at now,
 I think we should be unbelievably thankful
 as people that live in the world that we do,
 that we can walk down the street without having to worry
 that I'm like, well, don't worry,
 that six foot six, 270 pound person over there
 is just gonna leave me alone.
 And I have a Rolex on, but whatever, I'll be fine,
 because that person is deciding to leave me alone
 because we've all agreed to live in this relatively,
 sane and or constrained society
 because it benefits all of us.
 And we're doing it because of a philosophical underpinning,
 not because nature dictates it be that way,
 because nature dictates it go in a very, very different
 direction and the only person,
 the only thing stopping that person
 from doing something to me is either me,
 that person or someone else that will stand in between us.
 And if I can't do it and there's no one there
 to stand in between us,
 then the only thing stopping that person is that person.
 And I have to hope that they're either disinterested
 or disinclined to do that sort of thing.
 And I think that, you know, it's keeping in mind
 that that is the fundamental nature of the world,
 whether we like it or not is important.
 And I think the quest to fundamentally alter human nature
 is gonna be ultimately fruitless.
 And then also it's, it is a little bit egotistical.
 A lion does what a lion does, you know,
 we can try to box it in and we can try to, you know,
 guide this direction, that direction, but you know,
 nature is as it is and as it always will be
 unless we wanna start to constrain it significantly.
 But now I'm starting to get into individual rights,
 who put me in charge,
 who says that I should be the one to make the choice
 is constraining because many of the most awful things
 have happened throughout history.
 One group or one person has decided to constrain others.
 And we don't like Genghis Khan doing that.
 Well, I'll do that on a little level.
 Are there gonna be benefits and beneficiaries?
 Absolutely, but there'll be losers in that too.
 So I guess it's a dangerous game.
 It's almost like putting on the one ring.
 We remember when Frodo offered the one ring to Gandalf
 and Gandalf said, no, no, I would take it away.
 I would put it on, I would use it out of the desire
 to do good, but through me, it would wield a power
 so terrible you can't imagine.
 I think that's the big question for anyone
 that decides that's able to have reach
 and able to have power.
 I mean, obviously I can't speak to that,
 but imagine you did have national level,
 global level power, how would you use it?
 Would you try to change the world?
 Would you be glad that you did down the line?
 I don't know.
 Yeah, I mean, that's the thing we're struggling now
 as a society, maybe it'd be nice to get your quick comment
 on that, which is the people who have traditionally
 been powerless are now seeking a fairer society,
 a more equal society and in attaining more power justly,
 there's also a realization at least from my perspective
 that power corrupts everyone, even if the flag you wave
 is that of justice, right?
 And so, not to overuse the term, but it'd be nice
 if you have thoughts about the whole idea
 of cancel culture and the internet and Twitter
 and so on where there's a nuanced difficult discussions
 of race, of gender, of fairness, equality, justice,
 all of these kinds of things, there's a shouting down
 oftentimes of nuanced discussion of kind of trying
 to reason through these very difficult issues
 through our history, through what our future looks like.
 Do you have thoughts about the internet discourse
 that's going on now?
 Is there something positive that we can pull out of this?
 It's an interesting thing to see, I guess,
 as you mentioned, that the internet is not just
 a tool for us to use, it's an interesting thing to see,
 I guess, as you mentioned, anytime you're wielding power,
 whomever you are, doing so carefully is important
 and it's very, very easy to look at the people
 that have power and that are using it poorly
 or have used it poorly and go, hey, you're the bad guy
 and then go, well, of course, if I had power,
 I'll use it properly and I may intend to use it properly
 and maybe I will, but at the same time,
 people are people are people.
 I think that a lot of the, I think if you believe
 that human beings are all one, which I do,
 no matter whether you're here or there,
 you got two arms, two legs, a heart, a brain,
 we all live a similar experience
 and obviously with variations on a theme,
 but you're no less a human being if you're a person
 I've never met from China than some person in Virginia.
 We're all people and I guess ultimately,
 if I believe that human beings are corruptible
 and that power corrupts and that we're all fallible
 and we say and do things that either intentionally
 or unintentionally that we wish we'd not,
 I think that I have to allow for a space,
 I guess the word, it's almost a religious term,
 but I guess it would just say grace
 and that's something that I see disappearing
 from discourse in the public or maybe it wasn't there,
 I'm not sure, but it's interesting watching this occur
 on the internet because also now no longer
 are you and I just having a talk sitting on a bus stop,
 it's now in writing, everything's in writing,
 the old saying like, don't put that in writing,
 don't put anything in writing, that's how you get in trouble
 and basically with the degree to which everything
 is recorded but recorded in tiny little bites,
 it's very, very easy for me to wave every last little
 foolish, ignorant, incorrect or correct thing
 that someone has ever said or done in their face
 to support whatever argument that I'm trying to make
 about them or a situation and I think that you mentioned
 cancel culture or as it seems to exist,
 obviously this is poisonous, on its face this is poisonous.
 It's the sort of thing that doesn't incentivize
 proper behavior, I mean you look at, let's say,
 one of the great monsters of history, Adolf Hitler,
 obviously who's done awful, awful things,
 but also for anyone that's even a minor student of history,
 did some positive things as well.
 We don't have to, I don't have to embroider
 this person's crimes, I don't have to act as if
 there was nothing good a monster has ever done
 and nothing bad that a great person throughout history
 has ever done, but imagine the ghost of Adolf Hitler
 were to pop up and go, oh my gosh guys, I'm so sorry,
 I know what I've done but I'd like to apologize
 and start to make it right.
 Well, I mean you'd hope that if he popped up over here,
 you'd go, well I don't really like what you've done
 and I don't like you, but at the same time,
 I'm glad to hear that you're attempting to make this right
 and push in a positive direction,
 even if you can't make it right,
 because otherwise, what am I doing?
 I'm disincentivizing change for the better.
 I'm looking to wield whatever power I have
 in a punitive fashion, which does not encourage people
 to do anything other than double down on the wrongs
 that they've made, knowing that at least they're gonna have
 some support from the people that support that.
 And I guess I want to, you would hopefully look at
 the use of the internet as a tool that can educate,
 and I guess I don't like the word empower,
 but empower people to do various things, extend their reach,
 but educate and learn rather than to further solidify
 little tribal things that exist,
 which I think everyone in humanity
 and human history is vulnerable to.
 I mean, look at the course of human history,
 it's deeply tribal.
 And the tribes or the groups that have been on top
 at various points in time have done a lot of times
 bad things to the ones that have not.
 And you'd hope that we could learn lessons from the past
 and rather than committing the crimes
 that were committed against us, recommitting them
 when we slide into the top position, say,
 I could do this now, but I'll not.
 I understand the urge to seek vengeance is strong.
 Anyone that says differently, I wouldn't trust.
 But at the same time, we have enough experience in history,
 enough experience in life, enough hopefully wisdom time in
 to go, this isn't the right answer.
 This is only gonna replay the things,
 the worst parts of our history, not the best.
 And I want to encourage positive behavior.
 And if I just, again, further lash out at people,
 although understandably, done understandably,
 I'm simply just gonna just perpetuate the cycle
 that's gone on to this point.
 So you hope that even though we're seeing a lot of turmoil
 societally at the moment and globally at the moment,
 that I guess our better angels can prevail
 at a certain point,
 but it's gonna take a great deal of leadership.
 And I think that we're sorely missing
 like a Martin Luther King style character at the moment
 or a great leader.
 And I just, I'm hoping that one will show up.
 For sure.
 And by the way, a word I don't hear often,
 and I think it's a beautiful one, which is grace.
 That's a really interesting word.
 I'm gonna have to think about that.
 There is a religious component to it,
 but it's exactly right.
 You have to somehow walk the line between,
 you mentioned Hitler, I've been reading
 the rise and fall of the Third Reich.
 I'm really thinking about the 1930s.
 And what it's like to have economic,
 my concern is the economic pain
 that people are feeling now, quietly,
 is really a suffering that's not being heard.
 And there's echoes of that in the 20s and the 30s
 with the Great Depression.
 And there's a hunger for a charismatic leader.
 Like you said, there's a leader that
 could walk with grace, could inspire,
 could bring people together
 with sort of dreams of a better future that's positive.
 But Hitler did exactly everything that I just said
 except for the word positive,
 which is he did give a dream to the German people
 who were great people, who are great people
 of a better future.
 It's just that a certain point that quickly turned
 into the better future requires literally expansion
 of more land.
 It started with, well, if we wanna build a great Germany,
 we need a little bit more land.
 And so we need to kind of get Austria,
 then we need to kind of get France,
 mostly because France doesn't understand
 that more land is really useful.
 So we need to get rid of them.
 And look what they did to us in Versailles anyway.
 But so the Jewish, the Holocaust is a separate thing.
 I don't know, well, I don't know.
 I don't know what to think of it because,
 so me being Jewish and having a lot of,
 so the echoes of the suffering is in my family
 of the people that are lost.
 I don't know because Hitler wrote all about it in Mein Kampf.
 So I don't know if the evil he committed was there all along.
 I mean, and that's where the question of forgiveness,
 I mean, Hitler is such a difficult person to talk about,
 but it's the question of cancel culture,
 who is deserving of forgiveness and who is not.
 Like the Holocaust survivors that I've read about,
 that I've heard the interviews with,
 they've often spoken about the fact that
 the way for them to let go,
 to overcome the atrocities that they've experienced
 is to forgive.
 Like forgiveness is the way out for them.
 It's interesting to think about.
 I don't know if we're even a society
 ready to even contemplate an idea of forgiveness for Hitler.
 It's an interesting idea though.
 It's a good thought exercise at the very least
 to think about all these people that are being canceled
 for doing bad things of different degrees.
 Think of like Louis C.K. or somebody like that
 for being not a good person,
 but what is the path for forgiveness?
 And also what's a good person?
 What is a good person?
 If that's a sliding scale that we could all find ourselves
 looking at the uncomfortable end of a gun on,
 particularly down the line.
 I mean, you hope for the best,
 but these definitions, I guess, like you said,
 are important and who's doing the canceling,
 who's being canceled.
 I'm not necessarily, as you said,
 saying that that's entirely unjustified
 or it's certainly understandable.
 And particularly you mentioned like a monster,
 like an Adolf Hitler, but it's also interesting.
 I couldn't help but notice,
 like you mentioned as a society,
 us being able to apply forgiveness
 to someone who's done so much horror,
 but people who are personal,
 I mean, of course, many of the so many people
 are personally affected,
 but directly personally affected someone
 a survivor of the Holocaust,
 being able to let go on that.
 I'm nowhere near big enough a person for that sort of thing.
 But I guess that's an interesting thing.
 The person who was physically there,
 potentially able to let go.
 I don't know, that's unbelievably powerful.
 It's interesting.
 I guess you have to wonder sometimes,
 and this isn't obviously in regards to the Holocaust,
 but why I'm holding on to various things.
 Have I, what is it doing for me?
 And what is it doing to me?
 Is it facilitative, is it not?
 And I guess that's something else that I really enjoy.
 When I was on Ultimate Fighter,
 they don't let you have any music or any books.
 I've been in religious tech,
 so I've brought a Bible and I brought a Quran,
 and I started to read them side by side.
 And it was really interesting reading.
 The Bible's a little drier,
 Quran's more interestingly written.
 But I think something that was consistently brought up
 was the way most merciful.
 People want, I don't think any of us want justice.
 We think we want justice, but I don't think we want justice.
 Justice is a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous game
 because maybe this person's wronged me deeply
 and I want justice.
 I wanna balance it out,
 because what is justice is not a balancing of the scales.
 And sometimes you can understand it,
 and on a societal level, I think it's fine.
 I mean, there's crime and punishment,
 and we can go for the benefits and the drawbacks of that.
 But I think what any of us want is mercy within reason.
 Grace, as you mentioned,
 because justice is a very, very, very dangerous thing,
 and it's a valuable and important thing.
 But who gets to decide what's just,
 what justice is actually meted out?
 Maybe I get to meet out justice,
 but I don't get my comeuppance.
 Well, that sounds great.
 But what happens when it's pointed back at me?
 And I guess that comes back to the veil of ignorance.
 The idea that one day I will have to live in the world
 in which I've envisioned,
 in the world in which I've created.
 I think that a lot of times people love the idea
 of they're a judge for your crimes and a lawyer for theirs.
 And I heard that the other day.
 I thought that was great.
 And I think that's a dangerous thing,
 and hopefully it gives us all pause before,
 rightly or wrongly, but always understandably,
 you know, wielding serious power.
 Yeah, justice is a kind of drug.
 So if you look at history,
 also been reading a lot about Stalin.
 I mean, all those folks really,
 I don't know what was inside Hitler's head actually.
 He's a tricky one,
 because I think he was legitimately insane.
 Stalin was not.
 And Stalin was like,
 he literally thought he's doing a good thing.
 He literally thought for the entirety of the time
 that communism is going to bring,
 like that's the utopia,
 and is going to create a happy world.
 And in his mind were ideas of justice,
 of fairness, of happiness, of,
 of yeah, human flourishing.
 And that's a drug.
 And it somehow sadly pollutes the mind.
 When you start thinking like that,
 what's good for society,
 and believing that you have a good sense
 of what's good for society,
 that's intoxicating,
 especially when others around you
 are feeling the same way.
 And then you start like building up this movement,
 and you forget that you are just like,
 you're like barely recently evolved from an ape.
 Like you don't know what the hell you're doing.
 And then you start like killing witches or whatever.
 Like you start,
 you start doing-
 They did math.
 Let's be honest though.
 I mean, sometimes you got a witch has to go.
 A witch has, yeah, we can all agree that a witch,
 a witch has to go.
 If it floats or sinks, which one,
 I forget which one is.
 Whichever one we need at the time, honestly.
 Is it floating?
 It should have sunk.
 Yeah.
 Yeah, but yeah, we can definitely agree
 that witches have to go.
 Because you brought it up,
 I tweeted recently,
 but also just,
 I'm one of the things I'm really ashamed of in my life
 is I haven't really read almost any of the sci-fi classics.
 Really?
 Yeah.
 So like I, my whole journey through reading
 was through like the literary philosophers,
 I would say like Camus, Hesse, Dostoevsky, Kafka,
 like that place.
 Like that's a kind of sci-fi world in itself,
 but it's, it just,
 it creates a world in which the,
 the deepest questions about human nature can be explored.
 I didn't realize this,
 but the sci-fi world is the same.
 It just puts it in a,
 it like removes it from any kind of historical context
 where you can explore those same ideas
 in like space somewhere elsewhere in a different time,
 in a different place.
 It allows you almost like more freedom
 to like construct these artificial things
 where you can just do crazy,
 crazy kind of human experiments.
 So I'm now working through it.
 The books on my list are the Foundation Series
 by Isaac Asimov, Dune,
 Snow Crash by Neil Stevenson,
 and Ender's Game, like you mentioned.
 That's just kind of,
 and then, so I posted that,
 and then of course like Elon Musk,
 John Carmack, I don't know if you know him,
 creator of Doom and Quake and all that stuff.
 See, they all pitched in, these nerds,
 these ultra nerds just started like going like,
 did these, do you need to read this, that,
 and the other, so I've like started working out, okay.
 But it seems like the list I've mentioned
 holds up somewhat.
 Is there a book, is there sci-fi books or series or authors
 that you find are just amazing?
 Maybe another way to ask that is like,
 what's the greatest sci-fi book of all time?
 Well, I'd like to start by sharing something
 that I'm embarrassed about,
 is that I haven't read anything other than,
 Orson Scott Card, JR Tolkien, Frank Herbert,
 Tolkien, yeah.
 Dune.
 Yeah, I'm aware through Wikipedia
 and through surface reading of things
 that like a book called The Republic was written once.
 There were some other good ones.
 So you read Wikipedia,
 you're a prolific reader of Wikipedia articles.
 Well.
 Or occasional.
 Occasionally, exactly,
 and in between whatever else it is that I waste my time on.
 But yeah, so I also, I should say,
 I posted on Reddit questions for Ryan Hall,
 and there's like a million questions,
 but like half of them have to do with Dune.
 No, not really.
 But like people bring up Dune.
 I don't understand why.
 Did you mention Dune before?
 Well, we actually have a showy role,
 actually made us a Dune-themed gi one time,
 which I thought was kind of cool.
 I'll send you one, I'll give you one.
 We got extra.
 It's awesome.
 But actually, to your point,
 actually this is an Orson Scott Card quote,
 actually the writer of Ender's Game,
 fiction because it's not about somebody
 who actually lived in the real world,
 always has the possibility of being about oneself.
 And I think that's a neat thing
 because I have heard other people whom I respect
 and very sharp people actually every now and then
 dig their heels and go,
 I don't like fiction, I only like nonfiction.
 It's more instructive.
 And I would go, I completely disagree with that.
 I think we have a hard enough time
 figuring out what happened at 7-11 three hours ago
 that let me tell you what happened 600 years BC.
 I'm like, hey, I'm interested,
 but don't tell me this isn't a story too.
 There's factual components, I have no doubt,
 but we struggle sometimes to,
 I guess what I like about fiction
 is that you can tell me a story, it's all about people.
 I mean, every now and then there's more
 and less believable things.
 And I think Dune would be an unbelievably well-written,
 in my opinion, for what do I know,
 but I really like Dune, I'll say that,
 a well-written example of human beings
 interacting with one another,
 the political component to that,
 the emotional, the intellectual,
 the relationship components to all of that.
 And I think that Dune is neat because it's a sci-fi novel,
 but only in the loosest sense.
 It's really a story about religion,
 about group dynamics, about human potential,
 about belief, learning, politics, governance, ecology.
 The best stories remind me of history,
 the same way history, hopefully,
 is not just a list of facts that I try to be able to recall
 or factoids that I try to recall,
 but a story that I can understand
 and see how the threads of time kind of came together
 and created certain things.
 And a lot of times, like we say, I'm like,
 ah, how the heck is, what's going on right now,
 or 100 years from now, or 100 years in the past happened?
 And you can look back far enough,
 if we had accurate knowledge,
 if we had that hypothetical perfect pool shot,
 at the beginning of time,
 we would see an unbroken chain of events
 that led us to where we are,
 and where we are will potentially lead us
 to where we're going, which is, again,
 why hindsight's helpful.
 But I think it's neat, like, I guess I really enjoy,
 for instance, a book like Dune,
 and they're actually making a movie out of it,
 which I'm skeptical of, to be honest,
 because it's gonna be difficult to bring that to the screen
 for a variety of reasons, but one of the-
 Yeah, there's at least 100 questions.
 Ask Ryan what he thinks about the new Dune movie.
 I am not enough of an authority
 to have any sort of decent opinion,
 but I guess what I would say is,
 so much of it goes on in the character's mind.
 Like, how much of any of our day,
 any lived experience, as it were, is internal?
 The majority, how many times are people walking around
 and, you know, they can, like, hey, what do you see right now?
 I'm like, oh, well, I see this picture, I see a wall.
 Hey, there's Lex.
 But really, what I was paying attention to
 was what was going on inside of my head for a moment,
 and almost the rest of the world tuned out
 and kind of dimmed, and I guess that,
 I think that's gonna be a struggle.
 To any time you wanna bring that type of a written story
 to a visual medium, I think it's gonna be more difficult,
 but it'll be interesting.
 It's definitely one of my favorite stories,
 and it's been, it's honestly helped me become better at life,
 in my opinion, better at martial arts,
 and I think the writer, I think Frank Herbert,
 was absolutely brilliant,
 whether those were all his ideas, which in reality,
 none of us, all of our good ideas aren't ours,
 or a combination, maybe he came up with something,
 you're a curator of other good ideas,
 and some things you borrowed from somewhere
 without even realizing it, but I think the way,
 the messages and the themes and the ideas
 that were conveyed, particularly in the original novel,
 are just absolutely brilliant.
 Is that to you one of the greats,
 and the flip side of that, or another way to ask that is,
 if somebody's new to sci-fi,
 is that something you would recommend?
 That is an entry point.
 I'm not well-read enough in the sci-fi world.
 I haven't read a lot of Isaac Asimov or anything like that,
 but I just, I'll recommend Dune.
 I'll be an obnoxious evangelist for Dune
 to anyone who'll listen, so I would strongly recommend it.
 So the other thing you mentioned,
 now, I should probably be talking to you
 about much more important things,
 but the other thing you mentioned is Skyrim.
 Do you play video games?
 What's your favorite game?
 What would you say is the greatest video game of all time?
 Because I'm a huge fan of Elder Scrolls.
 Oh, cool.
 Yeah, I mean, I play a little bit at this point,
 a little less, finally moved into a new house.
 So you're like an adult.
 No, no, no, I'm like a better-funded 12-year-old.
 Yeah, that's entirely accurate.
 Better-funded 12-year-old,
 but somewhat better-funded 12-year-old.
 Not as well-funded as I wish, but whatever.
 But historically, did you play video games?
 Oh yeah, I played as a kid.
 And I was, again, I've always liked playing sports
 and liked reading, and I always enjoyed video games,
 but my favorite video game I think I've ever played
 was Knights of the Old Republic.
 It was a Star Wars game.
 I'm a huge Star Wars fan until it became less so recently.
 Disney.
 You don't like the, I haven't watched it yet.
 Mandalorian.
 Oh, actually, I like Mandalorian.
 That was actually pretty cool, yeah.
 Just like the waving this off, canceled.
 Yeah, I will.
 If I could cancel one thing, I would cancel Disney Star Wars.
 I'm gonna edit that part out.
 Okay, let's go to the next.
 But this is where, if people are wanting,
 if you're watching this on YouTube
 and the dislike amount is like 80%,
 it's because of that comment, so good job.
 Good job for making the internet hate you.
 I regret nothing.
 What about Baby Yoda?
 Yeah, I guess, he's like, he's little,
 he's got ears and he uses the force sometimes
 and he passes out.
 No qualms with Baby Yoda, yeah.
 You don't have a heart, okay.
 Let's go to Jiu-Jitsu if it's okay.
 So the audience of this podcast
 may not know much about Jiu-Jitsu,
 or they do because it's really part of the culture now,
 but they don't really know much.
 They see that so many people have fallen in love with it,
 have been transformed through it,
 but they don't know much about like, what is this thing?
 Is there a way you could sort of try to explain
 what is Jiu-Jitsu, what is the essence of this martial art
 that's captured the minds and hearts
 of so many people in the world?
 I think that Jiu-Jitsu is a philosophy
 that's expressed physically
 and that it's the kind of development
 of the mental capacity and physical capacity
 of working in unison to move efficiently
 and almost flowingly, unresistingly
 with a given situation,
 with a physically resisting opponent.
 Learning how to generate force on your own
 and how to steal force from the floor,
 how to steal force from the other person
 and move in concert with it as opposed to clash against,
 which if you watch two untrained people fight,
 it's almost entirely a clash.
 It's a runaway in clash, a runaway in clash.
 If you watch Jiu-Jitsu done well,
 it looks like water moving around a solid structure.
 And I think that that is expressed physically
 and I think that all of the things
 that anyone has really been able to do very, very well
 in Jiu-Jitsu end up kind of exemplifying that.
 But I think that that's true of martial arts in general.
 I think that a lot of times,
 like the clashing that we see going on and working well
 is just the fact that you get very, very physically
 powerful people every now and then
 that are able to get away with this.
 But I don't think that that's, and that's fantastic
 because ultimately it's a results driven thing.
 But I think that the essence of the martial arts
 is learning how to make more out of less
 and how to move with and be yielding.
 Almost like real life Aikido.
 And...
 So you think of martial arts, Jiu-Jitsu,
 as like water or flowing.
 So Aikido, so moving around the force
 as opposed to sort of maybe the wrestling mindset
 is finding a leverage where you can apply
 an exceptional amount of force.
 So like maximizing the application of force.
 I guess maybe that's a better way to,
 I'd like to marry the two ideas,
 because I think you flow until the point
 at which you are the greater force,
 at which point in time you can apply.
 But if you look at the best wrestlers,
 and then when I say best, I don't necessarily mean
 the most successful, although of course most successful
 are always very, very good.
 Throughout the course of history in boxing,
 in wrestling, in Judo, they're magical.
 They disappear and reappear.
 It's like fighting a ghost that is like incorporeal
 when you want to find it, but then when you don't want
 to find it, it finds you.
 And I think that we see that in the Buwaisar
 side tubes of wrestling.
 And I guess you could look at Floyd Mayweather
 or Willie Pepp or Purnell Whitaker in boxing
 as brilliant examples of disappearing and reappearing.
 And when you're strong, it's almost like guerrilla warfare.
 When you're strong, I'm nowhere to be found.
 When you're weak, you can't get rid of me.
 And I think that's what we're looking for.
 Yeah, the T.F. Brothers are incredible at that.
 They look like skinny Starbucks baristas,
 and they just manhandle everybody effortlessly.
 Effortlessly.
 They look like they just kind of woke up,
 rolled out of bed, fighting for the gold medal
 at the Olympics, and just effortlessly throw.
 There's a match against, I guess, Yoh Romero.
 Yeah, so if you look at who is the guy
 who's intimidating in this case, and terrifying looking,
 it's Yoh Romero, just a physical specimen,
 and obviously a super accomplished wrestler.
 I think this is for the gold medal, yeah, in 2000.
 2000. Yeah, Cindy.
 And then there.
 This is the year you all took silver.
 And what you, just to show you,
 there's a inside trip, effortless.
 Oh gee, and he does it again.
 Yep.
 You know, it's a really creative kind of wrestling where.
 It's organic.
 Yeah, you throw in all these kinds of things.
 It's just a mix of judo, a mix of weird kind of moves.
 It's not as funky as Ben Askren.
 It's just legitimate, basic.
 Well, it's not funky for funky's sake.
 And I'm not poking Ben Askren to imply
 that that's what he's doing, but it's funny.
 It's a lot of times, it's almost like Musashi
 talked a lot about that, that the only goal of combat
 is to win, is the outcome, it's outcome driven,
 versus flourishing, cool looking movements.
 It's like, unless that had a utilitarian purpose,
 what are you wasting your time with that?
 Both in the fight and also in practice.
 But as you mentioned, it's almost like it looks like judo.
 It looks like wrestling.
 It looks like jiu-jitsu.
 It's almost like, I guess, that reminds me,
 all of the martial arts is, again, deeply tribal as well.
 I wanna learn Lex Fridman martial arts.
 And then I wanna learn another,
 I guess, transcendent person's martial arts.
 And it just happened to be the set of movements
 that you tended to do most of the time,
 thanks to your body type and your opposition and whatnot.
 But then I try to codify that and force those to work,
 as opposed to going, I wanna understand how the body works
 in concert and in Congress with something else
 and other forces and move appropriately.
 And that's why it's like, it always struck me
 that the Scythe brothers are great examples
 of just moving like water.
 But they, to use Bruce Lee, which is a little tripe,
 but again, he's brilliant.
 It's like, water can flow or water can crash.
 And they would crash when they needed to crash.
 And they would flow when they needed to flow.
 But they would flow for the purpose of dissipating
 and then crash when they would win.
 And at the right moment, then go back to flowing
 the second that the other person found them.
 And it's just, it's beautiful to watch.
 It's artistic.
 And I think that the great expression
 of anything physical is ultimately studied as a science,
 but expressed as an art.
 And I think that that's something that gets lost
 in Jiu-Jitsu a lot of times
 when it gets a little bit, a little nerdy,
 like do this, hand here, hand here.
 Like, it's like the more details I have, the better.
 When in reality, that's just not in my experience
 how it's done.
 It might be a fun exercise of saying like,
 what are the main positions and submissions
 in the art of Jiu-Jitsu?
 You don't have to be complete.
 That's a ridiculously, I apologize for putting you
 on the spot like this, but it might be a nice exercise
 to think through it.
 Sure.
 I mean, I would just say that there,
 you have your arms bend in various ways.
 You have key lock Americana, straight arm locks,
 Kimura, Omoplata.
 Omoplata is a Kimura.
 Kimura is an Omoplata.
 It's just executed. That's submissions.
 It's like breaking off your arm in all kinds of ways.
 But ultimately, the question is,
 let's say you were a Terminator, like a robot that I,
 which of course you are.
 Go on.
 Go on.
 It's like, all right, we're being completely literal.
 But, and I couldn't harm you with any of these things.
 Would I still use these positions?
 The answer is yes.
 They create leverage, they create control,
 they create shapes that I can affect
 and that can affect me.
 And they can be affected through other forces
 than other objects or structures like the ground
 or the wall.
 I enjoy mixed martial arts because there's another component
 rather than just me and you and the floor,
 there's me, you, the floor and the wall.
 And it's another player in the game that doesn't exist
 in a grappling context within a non-enclosed,
 I guess, area of combat.
 But you can strangle me or choke me,
 what do you call it, without my arms being involved
 or you can use one of my shoulders to pin one side
 of one carotid artery off and you can enclose the other.
 You can turn my knee in the exact same ways
 that you can turn my arm, straight, this way and that way.
 You can add a rotation to that or it can be directly linear
 against the joint.
 So I guess what I would say is the more that I've been able
 to understand Jiu-Jitsu, the more that I've been,
 it's given me a look into how we learn language
 where rather than learning five bazillion adjectives,
 I go, I understand what an adjective is.
 And of course we are all read into some degree
 of vocabulary.
 I understand what an adverb does
 and I understand what an adverb is.
 I know what a noun is.
 I know what the component parts of a sentence are.
 I know what, I guess a clause, a contraction,
 any of these things.
 And it allows you to be interesting and artistic
 with your language to the extent that you can.
 But I can't, like I can speak a degree of Spanish,
 but I'm not even slightly artistic in Spanish.
 I would be something, I speak like a child
 with a head injury.
 And anyway.
 Your basic understanding of the English language
 allows you to then be a student of Spanish.
 100%, but I'm limited by my experience.
 I'm limited by my understanding of techniques.
 I'm limited by my understanding,
 almost like let's say techniques are like vocabulary.
 So even if I kind of sort of grasp the sentence structure
 and the thought process and the thought patterns
 of Spanish, which it's interesting
 because just even the orientation
 and the organization of a language,
 and I've thought about this a great deal,
 the way that I perceive the world is affected deeply
 by the language that I learned.
 Again, if I learned, I have no idea
 how the Chinese language structures,
 but I can only imagine that it would affect,
 it's like a different lens.
 We're all looking at the same thing,
 but I have a different set of sunglasses on than you do.
 And that's very, very interesting.
 I'll use the Quran as an example.
 Apparently it's unbelievably poetic in Arabic.
 Still neat and was interesting reading in English,
 but I'm told by people that I trust
 that it just one doesn't bear resemblance to the other.
 And I think that's a very interesting thing
 that you may be able to say the same thing,
 but in a more, I guess in a different way,
 in a more artistic way that may not translate
 on a one-for-one kind of fidelity.
 But the more that we're able to understand
 about how the body works,
 the more examples of the body working this way,
 the body working that way, the body working that way,
 the more that I'm able to eventually become an artist,
 but it has to be studied as a science first.
 And it does start with technique collection,
 vocabulary collection, the same way we learn in school,
 where you remember how to say quickly 17 different ways.
 And let's say I speak Spanish, I only know three.
 So you might use quickly,
 you might use an adjective like quickly in Spanish,
 but use one of the many, many options to describe that
 that I don't understand.
 And now I sit there and go like, wait, what?
 I can't be artistic.
 I can't be as organic with the language as I'd like.
 So I believe that Jiu-Jitsu a lot of times starts
 with the acquisition of a lot of, hey, do this,
 this drill, this technique, here's an Americana,
 Americana to an armlock, armlock to a triangle.
 But the problem with that is oftentimes
 we get stuck in that phase.
 And people eventually become move collectors
 or sequence collectors.
 And I noticed this when I'm trying to do DVDs
 or I guess like an instructional series now,
 or even teaching in class.
 I don't believe in that form of learning anymore.
 Not that it's not valuable, but I don't believe,
 I don't understand Jiu-Jitsu on that level anymore.
 So what I'm trying to do is get across the basic ideas
 to people and say, hey, you need to fill in the gaps
 with going to class all the time.
 You need to go, hey, learn this move,
 learn that technique, learn that technique.
 Because otherwise I'm basically just throwing at you
 like 75 different words that you could use,
 but that hasn't really taught you how to speak a language.
 Whereas if you give me a language structure,
 you can fill in these pieces on your own
 and then eventually speak organically in lex form,
 which will be ultimately unique to you
 because otherwise you just end up being like a weird facsimile
 of whatever it is that I'm doing
 for mostly the worst I'd say.
 But-
 Yeah, that's what people, I mean, people comment,
 like is this, especially people who haven't listened
 to me before, is this guy drunk or high?
 Does he, does MIT really allow slow people to be-
 Quotas.
 Quotas, yeah.
 Like what's wrong with him?
 Is he getting sleep?
 Are you okay?
 Does he need help?
 So that's similar with my Jiu-Jitsu is like,
 is this guy, is this guy really,
 whatever rank I was throughout,
 I remember just like, is this guy really this rank?
 I just have a very kind of certain way of sitting
 and being slow and lazy looking
 that there was ultimately the language
 that I had to discover.
 And it was, yeah, it was a very liberating moment, I think,
 of probably a few years of getting my ass kicked,
 especially with Open Guard and Butterfly
 to where you really allow yourself
 to take in the entirety of the language
 and realize that I'm not, I'm a unique,
 I'm unique and like I have a very,
 I have a language, I have a set of techniques,
 a way I move my body that needs,
 that I'm the one to discover.
 Like it's, you can only,
 you can learn specific techniques and so on,
 but you really have to understand your own body.
 And that's the beautiful thing about Jiu-Jitsu,
 like you said, is like the connection about your philosophy,
 your view of the world with the physical
 and like connecting those two things,
 how you perceive the world,
 how you interpret ideas of the world about exhaustion,
 about force, about effortlessness,
 like what it really means to relax,
 all these kinds of loose concepts,
 and then actually teach your body to like do those things
 and like, you know, and be able to apply force and spurts,
 be able to relax and spurts,
 and like figure all that stuff out for my,
 for my individual body.
 But it's, as you mentioned, that's,
 I couldn't agree with you more,
 it's a discovery process and no one can cheat that process,
 which is at the same time,
 it's almost like imagine I wanna start writing books
 in second grade,
 unless maybe I'm like staggeringly brilliant,
 like which I can only conceptualize someone
 being able to do that,
 but maybe a Mozart of the English language
 where you're out there doing it.
 But for most of us, we don't have enough knowledge,
 enough information, enough experience to be able to be,
 to express ourselves.
 So we have to basically input, repeat,
 which is important,
 but it's the process as you say of going through that,
 of getting your ass kicked,
 or just like, well, that didn't work,
 well, that didn't work,
 that felt right, but I don't know,
 nobody else does that,
 I guess I don't believe in that.
 Versus eventually going, I don't know,
 I'll just try going my own way and see what happens,
 and now I'll get yelled at and people won't like me,
 and if it works, they'll say I got lucky,
 and if it doesn't work, they'll say I was dumb,
 but which maybe all is right.
 But basically, you know,
 going through that iterative process
 that allows you to eventually find your self-expression
 and find your voice
 so that you fight the same way that you speak,
 the same way that you write,
 the same way that you think in a way that is uniquely you,
 that will also ultimately allow you
 to understand other people being uniquely them,
 because even if you can only conceptualize,
 and I think about this a lot for society stuff,
 where I go, well, this is how I feel about this,
 but am I objectively right?
 Maybe about a couple of things,
 but that's a small box that I have to be very, very careful
 about what I think is objective versus what's not,
 and I have to be open to the possibility
 that all the things that I think are objectively correct
 may or may not be,
 and that should allow me to have some degree of compassion
 or consideration for other people,
 both in their martial arts journey and in their journey,
 you know, as people, as human beings,
 because I understand that they're on a,
 it's a, we're all on a path where it's all,
 and again, an iterative process of eventual self-expression,
 but I think that's one of the things
 that we see having trouble when we see tribalism,
 which I mean, racism expression of that,
 political affiliation to expression of that,
 all of these things that can go
 in really uncomfortable directions.
 People are looking for,
 hey, where do I plant my feet over here?
 Where's the thing that I know is right?
 And we can all agree on the following,
 and I think that we see that in martial arts,
 we're like, oh, I do this style, I do that style,
 I do that style, it's like, hey, man,
 we're all just pushing forward in a certain direction here,
 trying to do our best,
 and I understand why you feel the way you do.
 I may have felt like that at one point too,
 but you know, I'm just trying to learn and understand
 versus I've already acquired enough knowledge,
 let me cross my arms and start to look
 who's fucking up around here,
 and I think that it's an interesting trap
 that I think is very human trap to fall into,
 but it definitely happens early on.
 It's a joke in the jiu-jitsu world, right?
 Like, oh, the blue belt that knows everything.
 Well, initially it's like, what, I know nothing,
 and I at least think I know nothing.
 Then I learn a little bit, and I think it's a lot bit,
 and then the more you learn, the more you go like,
 I don't even know what I'm doing.
 Yeah, that's exactly right.
 We kinda talked about it a little bit,
 but once again, a lot of people that listen to this
 have never been on the mat, have never tried jiu-jitsu,
 but are really curious about it.
 Everybody at all positions,
 like I think Elon Musk's kids are not doing jiu-jitsu,
 Andrew Yang is, like they're all, you know,
 the world is curious.
 It's a nice, it seems to be a nice methodology
 by which to humble your ego,
 which to grow intellectually and physically.
 So people are curious about it.
 So the natural question is, if they're curious about it,
 how would you recommend they get started?
 Maybe like, what do you recommend the first day,
 week, month, year, first couple years look like?
 Like, how do you ease into it
 and make sure that it's a positive experience
 and you progress in the most optimal and positive way?
 The first thing you can do is simply ask yourself why.
 Why you wanna be involved.
 You know, I remember the first day
 that I walked into Ronan Athletics in New York City
 to train under Godfather of my son now, Christian Montes.
 And I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
 I played baseball through high school
 and I was at Manhattan College in the Bronx
 and I wanted to go and learn martial arts
 because it was always something that was interesting to me,
 but it was never something that I knew was accessible.
 And it definitely wasn't really around
 in Northern Virginia where I grew up,
 whereas then you stick yourself in Manhattan
 and there's stuff everywhere.
 So anyway, I guess I didn't know what to expect.
 I didn't know if I was gonna get beat up,
 if people were gonna be nice,
 people were not gonna be nice.
 But what I began with was, I think, expectation management.
 And I think that that's something that I would,
 that'd be the first thing that I would start
 is almost imagining what is it that I'm getting myself into?
 Because I love the martial arts,
 martial arts has given me everything in life
 and I'm so thankful I wouldn't be sitting here
 without that experience, that journey,
 the people that I've met, the places that I've gone,
 I could never, ever have ever imagined.
 And I'm just unbelievably thankful for that.
 But I think that the thing that helped me most of all
 was starting with going,
 my mom said something to me one time and she said,
 there's two types of people in various situations.
 There's why and there's why not.
 And it's understandable to have questions,
 concerns, things like that.
 But maybe sometimes it's a little bit easier
 when you're younger to just trust people or just say,
 I don't know, you know, but we go,
 hey, you wanna climb that rock?
 I'm like, yeah, why not?
 Let's go.
 Hey, you wanna jump in that river?
 Yeah, why not?
 Sure.
 Versus if I have to reason my way into everything,
 if I have to be talked into everything,
 a lot of times I'll talk myself out of it.
 And I think that a lot of times,
 this is the thinker's disease.
 You wanna figure out what's gonna happen
 and what you should expect to have happen
 before you get involved versus going,
 using the old Bruce Lee saying, again,
 it's like no amount of thinking or training
 on the side of the river will teach you how to swim.
 You have to jump in.
 And there are risks associated with that.
 And so, I guess, psychological are usually the biggest ones.
 That's the biggest hurdle.
 And physical.
 But the biggest thing that I guess I would suggest
 anyone to say, well, why do you wanna do this?
 You're like, well, I wanna challenge myself.
 I wanna learn, I would like to learn to fight.
 I want to learn to fight so that I could protect myself.
 And if anything else, other people,
 if only within arms reach,
 I perceive that if I had some small degree of power,
 I generally wouldn't use it,
 which is why I was like, yeah, I'll give it a try.
 I'll try to be reasonable.
 And hopefully if I make a mistake,
 I'll apologize to people.
 But basically, I said, yeah, I'd like to have that.
 And I know this is gonna be challenging
 and we'll see what happens.
 And that means that getting beat up,
 and I didn't get like hurt, but getting roughed up,
 getting my arm bent this way or that way, getting choked.
 I was like, well, this is all supposed to happen.
 That's no big deal.
 It would be like going and joining the army
 during peacetime and then going,
 oh, I'm just doing this for a college education.
 You're like, okay, that's cool, man.
 And then all of a sudden war breaks out
 and they wanna send me somewhere.
 And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
 I didn't sign up for that gig.
 Actually you did, whether you realize it or not.
 You may not have thought that you did, but you did.
 So getting your mind right and just going,
 what are my expectations of this activity?
 What is it that I'm looking to do?
 And of course, you're going into a gym,
 you're going into a place that you don't know people
 or you probably don't know people
 and you don't know the coach.
 And even if you do wanna, hey, how you doing?
 Shake your hand type of level,
 95% of my students don't know me, not really.
 I'll try to be polite and not annoy them too much,
 but they don't know me and I don't know them.
 I understand if they don't trust me,
 I wouldn't trust trust me either if I were them.
 But at the same time, someone has to take that leap.
 And one of the things that I've noticed
 as a martial arts instructor,
 that's the biggest struggle with dealing with adults,
 which is why a lot of people like to teach kids
 is because kids don't ask, don't argue.
 Now that also means there's all sorts of pitfalls
 with that sort of thing and that can be an issue.
 But I guess a lot of times people get to a point
 in their life, in their 20s, early 30s,
 where now I'm a manager now, I know what I'm doing.
 No one talks to me like that versus like,
 hey man, you go join bootcamp,
 I don't care if you are Elon Musk,
 they're gonna tell you to shut up and do pushups.
 And that's what's great about it.
 So you are taking a leap of faith
 into a world that you're gonna be a tiny fish.
 And you gotta hope that the people
 who are guiding you in that journey
 are gonna have, I can't say even say
 your best interests at heart
 because they don't even know you,
 but they'll try to do no harm
 and they'll try to help you in the way
 that they would understand.
 And I guess that's, for instance,
 that's what I would try to do with anyone
 that comes into my gym.
 I would try to help them in the way
 that I understand they need as best I can
 and as safe and reasonable a way as possible.
 But sometimes in a way that's gonna make them uncomfortable,
 particularly if physical combat
 and it's not something they've done before.
 If they've, a lot of people go in
 without even having played contact sports.
 And so that can be a big jump
 and you have to understand
 if that's where you're starting from, no worries,
 but you're gonna have to kind of work your way to it
 and it's gonna be uncomfortable and that's okay.
 It's part of the process
 and you're gonna have some bumps and bruises
 and you're not gonna wanna roll with that guy in the corner
 because that person's rough and they beat you up
 and they're like, okay, but is this a big hurt
 or is it a little hurt?
 If it's a big hurt, okay.
 If it's a little hurt, shh.
 Need you to soldier up a little bit.
 Yeah, it's such an interesting balance
 because to find, I think one of the most important things
 as in anything I think in life
 is the selection of the people that you put around you.
 I mean, that's true with like getting married.
 That's true with like if you go to,
 if people ask me like graduate students,
 like your PhD advisor can be the difference.
 It's everything.
 It's like you spend five years with somebody,
 they're going to basically define more impact on you
 than anybody you marry, anybody you hang out with.
 It's a huge impact.
 And the same with the coach selection,
 which is like the school selection
 is going to be really important about
 in terms of like who you select will define how happy,
 like the trajectory of your growth
 and how happy you are with the entirety of the experience.
 And yet like the flip side of that is,
 especially if you have an ego,
 especially if you are the manager
 that needs to let go of some stuff,
 you're going to feel like shit
 with the best kind of coach.
 That's what you need.
 But there's a weird balance there to find.
 Like, I mean, like, and everybody needs a different thing.
 Like I'm much more, I enjoy being sort of like,
 it sounds weird, but like I'm, you know,
 from the wrestling background,
 I enjoy feeling like crap in the sense like the coach,
 like getting beat up.
 I don't actually enjoy it.
 It's not like some masochistic thing or whatever.
 I know what you mean.
 It's the growth.
 Like I like the anxiety.
 I like feeling like shit when I go home,
 like emotionally, physically, it's like it's growth.
 It's a sign of growth, right?
 Like if you're not having to feel those things,
 you're probably in your comfort zone, which is fine,
 but that's not your growth zone, right?
 And everybody has a different threshold for that.
 And I mean, the beautiful thing about Jiu-Jitsu is like,
 it's also has like a yoga feel to it.
 Like you're learning about your body.
 So depending on the gym and depending on, in fact,
 the coaches, the people around you, within the gym,
 you can select little groups too, kind of like.
 The people with who you roll,
 like if you're a smaller person,
 it doesn't mean you have to go against big people.
 You can go against the people who like smoke a lot of weed
 and they're chill, or you can go against like
 that crazy ripped blue belt competitor
 who's like out to destroy everybody.
 And depending on like what your mindset is,
 you can kind of select that.
 It's such a fascinating journey
 of like basically self-discovery.
 I couldn't agree with you more.
 It's been what you need may change over time, right?
 Maybe what you needed, what you need today
 could change six months from now or a year from now.
 And that's something that I experienced.
 I'll use my first coach, Christian, again,
 as a great example of someone who I really look up to
 and respect and someone who helped me a lot.
 Like at a time when I really needed some guidance,
 and I needed to learn martial arts, but get into...
 Hensel Gracie's gym was right down the street
 from where Christian was teaching.
 And Christian was a blue belt at the time.
 He was teaching at a place called Fight House,
 which is this awesome like 90s, early 2000s,
 warehouse area down on Fashion Avenue in Manhattan
 off of like between seventh and eighth.
 And it was like two basketball courts wide,
 but like there was the Samba guys over here.
 There was the Kali guys over there.
 There was Wing Chun over there.
 There was Jiu Jitsu in the corner.
 And Hensel's was one of the most famous academies
 in the world at that time, still is.
 And I just didn't know what Hensel Gracie was.
 And I mean, it's a great gym
 and it's a fantastic place for people to train.
 But I think what was right for me at the time was to,
 I stumbled into like a two person elevator up
 and found a place where six people trained at that time.
 And I had someone that could give me some,
 like in addition to martial arts advice,
 like personal guidance.
 And that made a big difference.
 And then when initially we would have like competitions
 or like intra gym competitions with the Samba guys,
 we would roll with them.
 And like, again, it was great.
 Cause they were just a bunch of like Russian dudes
 from like Brighton Beach and they would come down
 and then we would all fight and then everyone would train
 and we'd all drink tea and then go home.
 And anyway, what was-
 Oh, Russians.
 It was super tough.
 And they were like, again, just a tough group of people.
 It was great.
 And then I remember when I decided after like four
 or five months, I'm like, man, I really wanna try
 to take this seriously.
 And I told Christian about that.
 And he's like, well, hey, I think you need to do
 the following.
 And it was, you know, like, hey, there was a guy named
 Jeff Ruth, who was a purple belt at the time,
 which was a much bigger deal than it is now,
 but it was 10 and always an MMA fighter,
 a lot of amateur box spirit, super tough dude.
 And Jeff was the best person at that time
 that I'd ever trained with.
 And I just got squashed.
 Christian used to beat me up too,
 but like Jeff would just absolutely kick the crap out of me.
 And I was like, this is awesome.
 And this was back when I was at home.
 I went home for the summer for that.
 And Chris was like, hey, I think you should stay.
 Because I told him that's what I was thinking.
 And this was a coach that, you know,
 when initially was exactly what I needed.
 And then he's like, well, hey,
 that's not what I'm doing here.
 Maybe they're gonna be able to help you onto a path
 that's kind of commensurate with what your goals are
 at the moment.
 And then, you know, that was an interesting thing.
 And I really got, I feel that I was fortunate to start
 at a place where my coach was able to transition roles
 and do so comfortably.
 And I think that that also was probably a factor
 of the fact that, you know, where he'd done some
 of his training prior, like there've been issues
 with the coach there.
 We're like not supporting, not having the support,
 you know, feeling like, hey, like I'm gonna hold
 onto my students.
 I'm gonna hold onto my best guy or my best girl
 even if I can't take them where they need to go.
 So that was an interesting thing.
 And just recognizing also though, that the people,
 like the same way you're an individual going into a gym
 and you don't know what you're getting into,
 your coach is a person too.
 And he or she, you know, they may have been doing
 this activity longer than you, but they're not,
 they're not some weird little, you know, all-knowing God.
 They don't know anything.
 They may say something that pisses you off.
 They may, they may yell at you.
 They may help you.
 They may inadvertently cause you some sort of, you know,
 some sort of issue and just being able to recognize
 that even though I say this to people
 and I've said this to people in my gym, I'm like, you know,
 we're in the service industry, man,
 but I'm not at your service.
 Like don't get it twisted.
 Like I will absolutely do my best to help people.
 I'm there to do my best as a martial arts coach,
 but I'm here to do my best as a martial arts coach.
 And I'll do my best and periodically I make mistakes
 and I owe an apology or two
 and I'll try to give them out when I can.
 But we're not McDonald's.
 It's not, oh, you gave me a hundred bucks
 so you do whatever you want in here.
 This is my house.
 This is my gym.
 This is my dojo.
 This is, this is the martial arts.
 This is not a basketball team.
 Yeah, there's something beautiful about martial arts.
 Like exactly as you said, is the coach, like in wrestling
 and at least collegiate, like high level wrestling,
 it's like, there's a dictatorship aspect to a coach
 that is very important to have.
 Like this ridiculous sometimes nature of like master
 and so on and bowing all these traditions.
 There's something, it seems ridiculous
 from the outside perhaps,
 but there's something really powerful to that.
 Because that process of you said, why not,
 of letting go of the leap of faith requires you to believe
 that the coach has your best interest in mind
 and just give yourself over to their ideas
 of how you should grow.
 And that's an interesting thing.
 I mean, I've never been able to really see coaches
 I've had as human.
 They're always, you're always,
 it's like a father figure or like this,
 you always put them in this position of power.
 And I think that's, I think at least for me,
 it's been a very, it's been a very useful way
 to see the coach because it allows you to not think
 and let go and really allow yourself to grow
 and emotionally deal with all the beatings.
 They'll push you where past oftentimes
 where you would have stopped yourself, right?
 Which is great.
 And then hopefully they know if they're paying attention
 and they're still a person, they can make mistakes,
 but they'll push you further than you would have gone,
 but not so far that it's not facilitative, right?
 That's something that I can say like Faraz Zahabi,
 the head coach at TriStar, my head coach for MMA,
 Kenny Florian, one of the other head coaches for MMA,
 have both been phenomenal influences.
 Paul Schreiner, who's one of the assistants
 at Marcelo Garcia's Academy,
 coached me in Jiu-Jitsu for a long time,
 brilliant instructor, they've all been able to do that.
 And I think what's interesting about all of those guys,
 they're very sharp, but they're very intuitive as well.
 And I think that Faraz actually, you know,
 told me about something that John Wooden said,
 John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach,
 just a simple philosophical idea, just he said,
 some people's life is a bowl of shit.
 It needs some whipped cream in it.
 Some people's life is a bowl of whipped cream,
 needs a little bit of shit in it, just to balance it out.
 And it's an interesting thing,
 coaching everyone the same way doesn't work.
 You know, that's, I think the difference
 between a coach and an instructor.
 And a lot of times people think they wanna coach,
 but they really want an instructor.
 I'm like, hey, Lex, tell me what to do, not how to do it.
 And then other times people think they want, you know,
 an instructor and they really wanna coach.
 I'm like, man, this guy's just giving me information.
 A coach is so much more than an instructor.
 And that's a huge leap.
 And that's something that I think that people need
 to understand when they're going into martial arts.
 And I understand, and I can totally grasp why they don't,
 because how would they know?
 But I think about this a lot,
 like me giving you $150 for a month,
 which is not nothing, that's for sure.
 That does not, that pays for instructor really.
 Coach is a relationship that gets developed.
 Because can you imagine,
 like just the amount of emotional investment
 and time thinking away from like,
 oh, Alex isn't here anymore, but what can I do to help him?
 What does he need?
 Like that's serious.
 And that's the difference between,
 that's oftentimes the difference
 that getting over the hump in various situations.
 So it's an interesting, you know,
 bargain that's being made,
 like commitment by the instructor who becomes a coach,
 commitment by the student, you know,
 like there's a financial transaction.
 There's a lot of things going on there,
 but I feel very fortunate to have had,
 not just instructors in my time, but coaches.
 And that means sometimes we've butted heads.
 And sometimes I look back and I think I was right.
 And other times I look back on my own,
 no, they were definitely right.
 But there was always the trust,
 with the exception of one time
 that I feel that trust was greatly betrayed,
 that rightly or wrongly, whether mistakes,
 mistakes will be made,
 but everyone is attempting to do the right thing
 under no circumstances would I intentionally
 do anything malicious, you know, versus,
 hey, I might've done, I might've burnt your house down,
 but you can be darn sure it wasn't on purpose.
 And I think that as long as there's that mutual understanding
 and mutual belief of goodwill,
 which again, doesn't just magic up out of nowhere,
 I understand, I think that that's when
 then great things can happen.
 And I look at all the athletes that I know,
 you know, the guys and girls that I've watched
 become fantastic in various places,
 almost invariably, it never happened alone.
 Yeah, you know, I'm really torn about that.
 Like maybe you can help.
 Have you seen the movie Whiplash?
 Mm-mm.
 So it's, I would say from an outsider's perspective,
 people should watch it.
 It's, I guess jazz band, it's a movie about a drummer
 and the instructor.
 And he, it's a basically, I would say,
 from the outsider's perspective,
 it's a toxic relationship,
 but he's really the coach, whatever we call him,
 pushes the musician, the drummer to his limits,
 like to where he just feels like shit emotionally.
 It's a, it looks like a toxic relationship,
 but it's one that ultimately is very productive
 for the improvement of the musician.
 I have the same, like in my own experience,
 I had, I got a chance to train at a couple of places
 regularly and so one of my coaches,
 who is a great human being, a lot of people love him,
 but when I was a blue belt,
 he was pushing me a lot for competition.
 And every time I step on the mat,
 I was anxious and almost afraid of training
 because of like the places I'm gonna have to go.
 And then the, I can't, I don't know what's good or bad
 because I think I've become a better person
 because of that experience.
 Like I needed that.
 And on the flip side, like the place I got my black belt
 from, it's Balance Studios, I remember also a blue belt,
 the coach sitting down and I was going to competition
 and he saw something in me where he said,
 you know, like good luck, but win or lose,
 we always love you.
 Like I remember that because I really needed that
 at that time.
 Like I was putting so much pressure on myself.
 Like I'm not an actual professional competitor, you know?
 I just competed, like I'm a PhD student,
 but like it was clearly having a psychological effect on me.
 And that's what a great coach does is like, you know,
 it's like life is more important than Jiu Jitsu
 since it's bigger.
 So they find, you use Jiu Jitsu when you need it
 to grow as a person.
 And when it overwhelms you,
 you have to pull that person out.
 Like look at the bigger picture,
 always look at the bigger picture.
 It's fascinating.
 And I don't know what to make of it.
 I don't think I would have it any other way
 is both the anxiety and the love.
 Yeah.
 I think that I couldn't,
 that's a really interesting thing that you're describing
 that I guess it kind of brings me back
 to a lot of the other things we've been discussing
 is just almost like the reciprocal nature of everything
 where no pressure, that's great.
 Everyone's happy all the time.
 It's either, I mean,
 let's use an example of sci-fi movies,
 let's say the Matrix,
 which of course the first one was amazing
 and then each subsequent movie made the series worse.
 But basically-
 They're working on a new one by the way.
 Yeah, I've heard.
 We'll see, we're hoping for the best.
 But basically, you know, let's say, hey,
 we started with our first initial world,
 Agent Smith says to Neo,
 he's like our first world was a utopia
 where everyone was happy and nothing ever went wrong.
 It's like your primitive cerebrum rejected it.
 And I think that there's obviously,
 I mean, what do I think?
 But I guess, well, I'm here,
 so I might as well say what I think.
 I guess, you know, great things are fantastic.
 A kind, gentle place is fantastic.
 And this is again why I love Dune
 because I think Dune does such a great job of expressing,
 Frank Herbert does such a great job of expressing,
 again, the reciprocal nature of these ideas.
 You know, look at Sparta, for instance,
 or at least what I understand of Sparta from the reading
 and also watching 300.
 You know-
 And reading the Wikipedia article.
 And reading the Wikipedia article about the movie,
 not the place.
 But it's, that's a hard, brutal place.
 And that was there benefit to that?
 Like, absolutely.
 Was there drawback to that?
 Absolutely.
 Is it sustainable?
 I should, I would think probably not.
 I mean, granted it hasn't sustained,
 but I mean, that type of a thing,
 it burns too hot almost,
 and it destroys the host at a certain point.
 And, you know, I guess that type of unforgiving nature,
 but entirely permissive has its own issues.
 And I guess coming back to what your description
 of like describing a toxic relationship
 is a very dangerous and tricky thing
 because it's almost like, it's like bird's eye view, me.
 You know, you see, let's say a husband and a wife arguing.
 They're like, all right, well, sort of somebody hitting somebody.
 I need to keep myself out of this
 because I have no idea what, I'm seeing something,
 but I don't know what's going on or why specifically.
 And again, short of it going to a place
 that's just out of bounds.
 I don't know who's right here.
 I don't know who's wrong.
 And I don't know what phase of this things are in.
 So I guess-
 And long-term what's good for both people.
 Right, it's dangerous for it.
 So if I want to put my finger on the scale,
 I can understand the desire to do them.
 I'm like, hey guys, let's break it up.
 But, and that may be the right thing at the time,
 but at the same time, I'm not sure.
 So I think back to all of the times that, you know,
 that like you mentioned, your coach pushing you
 when it's very, very hard.
 And then other times going like,
 hey, let's put it in perspective here.
 I think that's an interesting thing for high performance.
 And I think that we're seeing that again,
 societally, you know, now, or at least maybe that's,
 it just pops up on my internet feed periodically.
 But coaches shouldn't be allowed to do this
 or yell at this person to yell at that person.
 Like, well, have you ever been, go to a boxing gym.
 It's not a commercial entity, not really.
 I have real boxing, not LA boxing, not a UFC gym.
 Like a real place.
 You're going to see what things are like
 when it's entirely performance based.
 Go to a wrestling room at a high level.
 You know, again, there's left and right limits
 and there are such things, obviously as abuse, of course,
 but, and that should never be tolerated.
 But it's not a commercial entity.
 I don't need to be sweet to you if you're screwing up,
 if you're dropping the ball and in fact,
 recognizing that I'm not doing you a favor
 or the team a favor by being permissive
 of that type of behavior, I think is important.
 Everything in its context and at its time is important.
 And I guess I can think again of the times
 that I've been put or had put on me,
 like a great deal of pressure to do X, Y, or Z
 or to succeed or to push for success.
 And I can't look back fondly enough on those times.
 They were tough at the time,
 but without that, I'm not sitting here.
 Without that, I don't go from growing up
 in a very nice family in the suburbs
 to fighting at the highest level in Jiu-Jitsu,
 Gi, Nogi, and now in mixed martial arts,
 starting a career at age 27.
 You know, it just doesn't happen
 because people generally speaking from that background
 don't get pushed hard enough physically
 to be able to make that transition.
 And that has benefits and it has drawbacks.
 You know, when you stare into the abyss, it stares back.
 And I think that that's an important thing to understand.
 You know, you stare long enough,
 you can become something that you don't,
 that you would be sorry that you did.
 You don't look enough and you don't have perspective either.
 You know, and I think that that's an interesting thing.
 I can speak to someone who's relatively articulate
 and reasonable, I try to be reasonable,
 but you know, I'll say inspiring.
 If people get crazy with me, they get a warning
 and then I'm a crack them.
 And what did they expect?
 Oh, they hear the guy on an interview,
 but who did they think they were meeting?
 Cause there's also the guy in the ring.
 And there's layers there too.
 I remember training with you, it was kind of funny.
 There was like, there's, well, you didn't know who I was.
 I mean, you still like,
 I have a really good strain ankle out by the way.
 Yeah, that, so I don't remember what rank I was,
 but it might've been purple or something like that.
 And I did some, like I, you had this look on your face,
 which I've often seen in black belts.
 It's like, here he goes again.
 Like here's him trying this thing.
 And then when I kind of annoyed you a little bit with it,
 now I get that it was a good, like, I, you know,
 I did something somewhat effective,
 like some, like maybe a little bit off balance.
 Yeah.
 There's, I just peeled off a little layer of Ryan Hall
 to where I was like, okay, let me, let me like,
 there's like layers underneath.
 The dog is like Mike Tyson somewhere in there.
 Like, so it was like, okay, this like new guy rolls in here.
 He thinks he can do the stupid thing.
 And then, and then you started to beat the hell out of me.
 But the point is there's layers here
 from the guy who was being interviewed now
 to like Genghis Khan.
 But it's, but it's fine.
 It's all in the same body.
 Right, but it's like, all of us are like that, right?
 In various different directions and recognizing that's okay.
 It's just, there are consequences to all,
 every choice that we make has a consequence.
 Sometimes there's like objectively wrong or objectively right.
 But at least in my mind, that's a pretty small box.
 Everything else is just, there's a consequence to that.
 Do you like that consequence?
 Do you not?
 And who do I wanna become?
 What do I wanna try to hone myself or anyone else into?
 And also like, but this is something I've screwed up
 as a coach plenty of times.
 You know, like if someone says, if you're,
 if like I come to them like Lex,
 I really, really wanna take, you know,
 research very seriously.
 Like, okay, I believe you.
 Now I haven't shown you that, but I believe you.
 Like, okay, and now me not showing up to research
 or to study or not being up until three in the morning
 thinking about this is no longer acceptable.
 There was a time like five seconds before me making
 that statement that if I went to bed without reading
 the book that I needed to read, no worries.
 But the second that I made that statement,
 your expectations for me changed.
 And maybe it's something that's something that I've screwed
 up a whole bunch of times in my, as a teacher.
 Cause it's an interesting thing, obviously, you know,
 being a like running a martial arts school
 as your principally an athlete is sometimes
 I don't pay enough attention to what people are doing.
 I just go, oh, okay.
 You say X, Y, Z.
 I'm like, Roger that.
 I believe you, cool.
 I will now put you in category X.
 And whether rightly or wrongly,
 like maybe this person didn't understand
 what they were asking for,
 or I didn't express this or the other end.
 It just, it caused cross wires.
 And then most of the times you just, you hash it out.
 You have a discussion.
 You figure out, you get to the bottom
 of what people are trying to do or what they want.
 But if I was paying more attention,
 I think I could have been a lot more effective.
 Or if I had more experience and sometimes maybe
 I'm not sharp enough or I don't perc,
 I'm not perceptive enough to be able to,
 to see what's going on.
 And maybe with years more down the line,
 I'll be able to have a sharper perception.
 But I think that's another one of those interesting things
 that some, that sometimes I would caution or not caution,
 but just inform a prospective martial arts student,
 depending upon where you're going.
 You know, this, you, both you and also your coach
 or other people in the room, they wear many hats.
 And sometimes there's a, I had the wrong hat on.
 You were talking to me as Lex the guy.
 I didn't realize you were talking to me.
 I thought you were talking to me as Lex the guy.
 I didn't realize you're talking to me
 as Lex the martial artist.
 I'm like, oh crap.
 I was talking to the wrong person.
 So it's almost like if you had a,
 like I run my gym with my wife, she's a black belt.
 So she's my wife.
 She's my peers as a martial artist in Jiu-Jitsu.
 Like here by the way, in judging.
 So exactly.
 All right.
 Well, so, but a fellow black belt.
 And I guess like another thing,
 she doesn't have a microphone.
 So you can't hear all the trash she's talking.
 Exactly.
 But it can be tough.
 And that's something that we've had to work through a lot.
 And it's like looking back and it's like now being
 where I'm at now.
 And it's easy for me to say that cause she's in the room
 and I don't want her to stab me,
 just continue to slowly poison me over time.
 Which frankly I understand.
 It's the sort of thing that is now way more effective
 than anything else I could really reasonably expect to have.
 But there were times when both of us
 were justifiably annoyed at the other
 because of crossed wires.
 And sometimes you just have disagreement anywhere
 or misunderstanding anyway.
 But again, like I coach some of my friends.
 I coach my friend who I've known
 since I was four years old.
 Sometimes I don't go, hey buddy, how you doing?
 Sometimes I was like, what the fuck are you doing?
 Put your hand over there.
 How many times have we talked about this?
 And then you walk away and you can see him
 look at you crooked and you're like, oh crap.
 Oh yeah, he thought I was talking to him as his friend.
 Yeah, well, all right, we need to talk this one out,
 hash it out and not, he's wrong.
 How could he possibly think that way?
 Like, oh no, I totally understand that.
 But if I was 22, doesn't he know I'm a purple belt?
 Some nonsense like that.
 And it doesn't come from a bad place,
 but it's just, I guess that comes back to society,
 to anything people only have the perspective
 that they have and the awareness that we have.
 And so again, going back and going, hey guys, grace,
 like I don't expect, it's not fair for me to go,
 I fight UFC.
 Why doesn't this guy who came in as an attorney
 understand how hardcore this needs to be?
 And like, how could he?
 And at the same time though,
 if I'm using the language of someone that is interested
 in at least performance from a martial arts perspective,
 I understand how that could be off putting,
 let's say for instance, someone that's like,
 all of that will be out of bounds in their normal workplace.
 But if they think of the gym as my office,
 then whether they agree or disagree with what's going on,
 they go, okay, I see why that might've happened.
 Let's talk about this.
 And we can, again, all push forward in a positive direction
 that benefits, I guess, everyone's journey
 throughout the activity.
 And on top of all that, there's moods, okay?
 I mean, especially lately, I think two days ago,
 maybe yesterday, no, two days ago,
 I've never been that cranky in my life.
 I think, I don't know what it was,
 but I wanted to tell everybody how much they annoyed me.
 It was like, I was just very conscious of this feeling
 of like, why is this happening right now?
 So I consciously decided, as I usually do in those cases,
 to not say anything to anybody.
 How do you do that?
 Well, you know, it's, yeah, meditate,
 because it's not, I tend to then visualize
 what's gonna happen in the next,
 like how is this gonna make my life better?
 Like, if I say something that mean to somebody else,
 I have just started a conflict that will just escalate,
 will continue, will add more conflict to my life.
 It'll make things, I just don't like the feeling
 it will create.
 And so you live enough life to know that like,
 it's just like with like street fighting.
 You know, I would get into a lot of fights
 when I was younger, just on the street,
 but then you realize like,
 it's not like a jujitsu match or something like that.
 It's not, it'll escalate.
 It might come back at you.
 It'll like, that person might find you again,
 but more importantly, the anxiety of it,
 of having created little enemies in this world,
 distorts the way you see the world.
 So I've noticed that like,
 if I am shitty to people on the internet,
 which I haven't been, I think in a long time,
 is like, it somehow brings the shittiness to you
 more and more, it escalates.
 Like the more love you put out there,
 the more like the people who put love out,
 like surround you.
 Well, you mentioned forgiveness as well.
 Like you said, like, I guess back to the original,
 you know, the Holocaust survivor scenario,
 where like, oh my God,
 you think of the ultimate in like,
 I've never experienced one billionth of that level
 of pain and horror.
 And it's like, and I can't let this little thing go.
 You know, I guess that's an interesting thing.
 I think you're just making the point in your personal life,
 I guess the same way, right?
 Yeah, they're, yeah.
 And on the internet, it's hard.
 I've somehow gotten, I mean,
 you've had a level of celebrity for a while.
 I've recently gotten some level of like celebrity.
 And like these people who are just shitty for no reason
 come out from all places,
 like calling me a fraud or anything else.
 I mean, it's-
 It was a J.N. Simon Bob, strike back.
 They find out a movie is gonna be made about them
 and people are talking shit on the internet.
 And they're like, what's the internet?
 And then someone shows them and they're like, what?
 And they go to a message board and they go to Hollywood
 to try to stop it from being made.
 And they eventually get money for their likeness
 and they use the money to buy plane tickets
 and fly around and beat the shit out of all the people
 that talk bad about them.
 Yeah, it's tough.
 I mean, I'm having trouble with it
 because there's people like, yeah, there's posts and forums
 and like heated discussions about is Lex Fable a fraud?
 I don't know.
 What has he really done?
 And then there's people like, well,
 I think he's an all right guy, but I'm not sure.
 Like there's like literal discussions.
 And I'm like, if you increase the level of celebrity,
 there's going to be like,
 one of the things that hurts my heart a little bit
 is like some level of toxicity around Joe Rogan,
 for example.
 There's like communities of people that now
 like talk about him selling out, for example,
 all that kind of stuff.
 And I don't, you know, and Joe,
 I've talked to him about it is amazing that he,
 he says, don't read the comments.
 He legitimately doesn't read the comments.
 His heart and his soul doesn't give a damn
 about the comments.
 All he gives a damn about is his friends.
 Like one of the things that's really inspiring to me
 and that's, I've had a conversation with them offline
 about Spotify and the removed episodes.
 People are curious.
 What's Spotify?
 It's a thing on the internet where I think you can play
 Taylor Swift songs on.
 I'll write that down.
 But you can also now play Joe Rogan podcast.
 Oh, cool.
 And they gave him a hundred million dollars.
 So that's, you know, that's,
 That's awesome.
 It's yeah.
 But the thing I've had a discussion with him
 and I made a video about it that I took down
 because the toxicity is like, it's hard to put into words
 but he will give away the hundred million in a second
 if he ever has to compromise who he is.
 Like he doesn't, I mean, he already said,
 as he talked about, he's made quote unquote,
 fuck you money a long time ago.
 He doesn't need any more money.
 He doesn't care.
 It's nice to have money, whatever,
 but he'll give it away.
 So the, it's nice to see when people like him
 at a level of celebrity, level of success
 and financial success, don't change at all.
 They're just the same thing that makes you happy
 is talking in his case, talking shit with his friends
 in case of most of us really,
 just hanging out with friends,
 doing the things you love.
 In his case, doing the things he loves without any,
 like, you know, the Texas way, the freedom,
 like without any corporate bureaucracy bullshit
 that rolls in and says, well, maybe you shouldn't say fuck,
 you know, like more than 20 times a podcast
 or something like that.
 Like those kinds of like rules, like people,
 like he says in a suit and tie, they show up and say stuff.
 Oddly enough, people that could never have done
 what he's done.
 Yeah, exactly.
 And it's kind of inspiring to see that.
 And I hope people, I hope people realize
 how special of a human he is.
 He's inspired like people like me,
 like I'm just, I'm a scientist, right?
 So he inspired somebody like me
 from a very different walk of life to be like kind
 to others, to be open-minded.
 I don't know, that is a special dude.
 So like people need to support that and treasure that
 as opposed to, as opposed to be toxic about it.
 I mean, what, people really for a long time
 have told me that it would be awesome
 if Ryan Halls goes on Joe Rogan.
 I definitely think that would be an awesome thing.
 Have you listened to Joe?
 Has he been a part of your life in some kind of way?
 Well, Joe's always, I remember watching Joe
 on Fear Factor when I was a little kid, which is cool.
 So I've actually gotten a like from a bird's eye view,
 watch his kind of just path through life.
 But one of the things that I always appreciate,
 and again, I barely know Joe or then to shake his hand,
 he interviewed me after the briefing in the ring
 after the BJ Penn fight.
 But one of the things that I've always admired about Joe
 is that I think he had fucking money from the start.
 I think that $0 is fucking money for Joe.
 I think, and that's something I respect about him
 a great deal, because as you say, it's interesting to watch.
 It's like you hope that George St. Pierre's like this.
 It's really neat.
 I'm not super close to George,
 but we're teammates at TriStar,
 and he's never been anything but a gentleman.
 He's one of those people that if you didn't know
 George was famous when you walk into the gym,
 you'd have no idea.
 He's not holding court, not doing it.
 He's just training, and he'll help out an amateur doing this.
 If you have a question for him, he'll help me.
 Like I'm nobody, man.
 He would give me advice and train me.
 It was super cool.
 He didn't kill me, which I really appreciated.
 He's a gentleman.
 But it's like you meet someone and you go,
 man, it's so cool that this is the guy who's the best,
 that this is the guy who has been successful.
 And then you go, why are they successful?
 Like I said, true to what they're doing.
 They haven't changed.
 They're the same as they've been.
 And I remember I got to TriStar in 2012,
 and George was already George St. Pierre.
 But I remember watching and talking to people,
 and they're like, oh man, George is the same
 as he's always been, and it's neat.
 I see him in the gym training now,
 and again, giving advice now.
 And it seems like Joe has always been consistent,
 and it's neat to watch someone not compromise
 on their values and not change who they are.
 And periodically, again, we all make mistakes.
 Like you have a bad day or this or that,
 and an apology needs to be issued,
 or even my bad or this or that.
 And again, they just move on.
 They're not afraid to be themselves,
 and they're not afraid to be wrong.
 They're not afraid to make a mistake.
 As you mentioned, open-mindedness.
 I'm like, so what are the correct beliefs to have
 about this that I know going in,
 everyone's gonna be okay with what I'm saying?
 Which is usually the beginning of a conversation
 that's gonna go nowhere, right?
 And it's neat to see the things, I guess,
 that he's created on his own as a result
 of the authenticity that's there.
 And it reminds me of like Dave Chappelle.
 And again, I don't know, I've never met Dave,
 but it's neat to see someone that's clearly,
 again, authentic in their own way, doing their own thing.
 And because of that, they're above the corporate nonsense.
 But what's funny, I think the message behind all of it is,
 hey guys, we all are.
 I can't promise you that I'm gonna have money.
 Joe couldn't promise you that he's gonna have money.
 Now it ended up working out,
 but he was above that nonsense from the jump.
 And he just continued to be above it
 by never giving it any mind and just going like,
 yeah, I'm gonna be a reasonable person.
 I'm gonna try to learn, I'm gonna try to grow.
 And if I say something annoying,
 you can come and talk to me about it.
 We can get to the bottom of it.
 And I'm like, if I need to say my bad, thanks, appreciate it.
 You know, I will.
 And if I don't need to, I'm like, hey,
 I still appreciate the talk, thanks, man.
 Shake your hand and we carry on.
 And we go our separate ways and hopefully
 I'll treat you with respect, you treat me with respect.
 And that's about it.
 And I guess, I think it's a lesson that it can work out
 no matter what.
 You don't have to kowtow to like these weird powers that be.
 And whether you're at this level or at this level,
 but you can live your life the way that you want.
 And as you mentioned, talk to your friends, hang out,
 be happy.
 And it just so happens that that resonates with people.
 It actually reminds me of like speaking at MIT
 and being in Boston is like a goodwill hunting.
 You know, like, again, that's what do they really wanna do?
 He could have gone this way, he could have gone that way.
 And it was an interesting story, but it's like,
 this person wants to hang out with his buddies
 and wants to do other things.
 And again, happens to be brilliant
 and happens to be able to do all these other things.
 But there was, I guess it's like at least in my mind,
 a story of authenticity as well.
 And it was both the same thing
 in the Robin Williams character.
 And I just think that that's a message
 because watching things occur on the internet
 as they do now, so many things playing out in the public eye.
 I feel like so many private or otherwise
 formerly private discussions and disputes
 and interactions now become, they all have a,
 well, what is this gonna say when it goes public?
 So how can I couch what I'm saying?
 Or how can I word this in a way
 that's gonna get people on my side
 or use the right buzzwords or not use the wrong buzzwords?
 And it's just neat to see people, you know,
 in their own way, flip the bird to the head.
 Because I just think that that's just not
 how a human being is meant to think or interact.
 I'm curious what you think about the thing that recently
 has, you know, me like hosting this podcast,
 I sometimes think about like, who should I talk to and not
 in terms of like, it's the old Hitler question.
 Now Hitler I would definitely talk to because,
 post World War II, because everyone knows he's evil.
 The question whether you talk to Hitler in 1937,
 like when people who are really students of what's going on
 understand that this is a very dangerous human being.
 But large part of the world are like,
 well, he's a leader who cares for Germany.
 So the question I have, it's interesting to me,
 it involves a particular person named,
 who also lives in Austin, Texas, named Alex Jones.
 I don't know if you're familiar with the guy.
 I am familiar with Mr. Jones.
 I've actually recently just listened to Infra Wars,
 like one episode of his show, I guess, that he does every day.
 And it kind of reminded me of a time in college
 when I drank too much tequila.
 Like there's no turning back.
 Like, it's like, the mistakes you make that like,
 I mean, you don't know where you're gonna wake up.
 You don't know who you're gonna kill or not kill
 or steal or rob.
 It's unclear.
 So it felt like I was getting pulled into a dark place
 where pretty much everybody is a pedophile
 that's trying to control the world.
 So Bill Gates definitely is a pedophile.
 Everybody in power, anybody in power,
 there's a kind of a deep skepticism about power
 and a conspiratorial way to see the world
 where everything is like dark forces in all corners.
 It's like the way you feel when you're a kid
 that there's a monster hiding in the closet.
 Which is also why you leap over the bed
 from like four feet away.
 There's a strategy.
 Yes.
 So, but he says that you're just being weak.
 You need to look under the bed.
 Under the bed, there's monsters
 and we need to be aware of them because they're growing.
 They're multiplying.
 You should be-
 And they're touching children.
 They're touching children, exactly.
 So it all connects.
 But the, I, when I listened to him
 and I thought about like,
 do I wanna talk to him on this podcast, for example?
 When I listened to his conversation with Joe Rogan,
 the two times he talked on there,
 to me it was somehow entertaining.
 Like it was fun to listen to.
 It's fun to listen to a madman go on for four hours
 because it's almost like theater.
 Like this is what I talked to Joe about.
 When people try to censor Alex Jones,
 Joe says that the people who try to censor him
 don't give enough credit to the intelligence
 of human beings to like understand.
 Like that, like what a person says on a large platform
 does not necessarily, is not the truth.
 You can be a madman and say crazy things
 and people are intelligent enough to hear
 certain things when they're said, like the earth is flat.
 They can be intelligent enough not to all of a sudden
 start believing that the earth is flat.
 Like they're intelligent enough to sort of select
 different ideas and be able to enjoy the theater
 of a particular ridiculous over the top conversation
 without being sort of influenced
 the way they start believing like toxic set of beliefs.
 Now there's a lot of sort of other kinds of people,
 especially now with cancer culture that say,
 well, you don't wanna give platform to crazy people
 that ultimately whose beliefs might lead
 to dangerous consequences.
 Like, and I see it very often now with conspiracy theories
 that go like way too far.
 Like for example, I haven't looked into it, so I'm sorry.
 I will look into it, but it hurts my heart to see
 that on Bill Gates, in my opinion, the person who has saved
 and improved more lives than probably any human in history,
 literally because of the money he's invested in helping
 like just the work he's done on like malaria in Africa,
 the number of people he's helped is huge.
 And yet every interview, anything you see now on Bill Gates,
 everyone is calling him, I believe,
 haven't looked into it, but I believe everyone's calling him
 a pedophile, I don't know the full structure of it,
 but it's just a very, it feels like an army of like,
 it feels like it's hundreds of thousands of people.
 That's what it feels like.
 It might be a much smaller percentage,
 but it feels like a huge number of people
 are calling him a pedophile.
 So that's the flip side.
 If you allow, if you give platform
 to conspiracy theories like that,
 then you start to have bigger and bigger percent
 of the population believe in these crazy things.
 I just, I wanted to put it out there
 because I don't know what to think of that.
 If you put yourself in Joe Rogan's shoes,
 if you put yourself in my shoes,
 if you put yourself just in your own shoes,
 I mean, I'm in my shoes right now.
 Great, if you're staying in your shoes,
 just stay in your shoes.
 Can I have your word?
 Would you talk, would you give platform
 to people like Alex Jones?
 Would you talk to somebody like Alex Jones or not?
 Yes, I would.
 And I feel very strongly about this, honestly.
 Well, I think that it's an interesting thing.
 And I would just say a lot of times I can understand,
 very, very clearly why people would take issue
 with the idea of, I guess what they proceed
 to be amplifying this man's voice,
 this man's reach as a demonstrable negative.
 But I think when you take a step back further,
 the cure is more damaging than the disease
 and significantly so.
 I guess, I think that I'm very, very wary of,
 I think being wary, you mentioned Alex Jones being wary
 of power and people with it.
 That's a lot of times there's a lot of truth
 and validity to crazy things that people say.
 The conspiracy theories that stick are the ones
 that sound credible, at least quasi credible in some aspect.
 And it's almost like it seems to me
 like an anchor in people's mind.
 And it is also funny to me, obviously,
 the Bill Gates, it's funny to tar people
 with things like pedophile, racist, rapist.
 Like these are things that we're basically trying
 to pick words that no one can ever support someone
 who does these things.
 And that's, you know.
 And that changes year by year.
 Currently, pedophile is totally in as a thing
 to call somebody just as a,
 it used to be communist or Marxist.
 Cleveland Browns fan, you know, like come on.
 You know, who would want that?
 Actually, nobody likes the Browns.
 So I'll agree with you.
 That's why I picked them.
 That's the trick is you find a group of people
 that nobody likes.
 We're good here?
 All right, that's the move.
 But yeah, that's a creepy thing though,
 because that is the creepy thing.
 It's like people are always looking for,
 groups of people are always looking for,
 and I find this really deeply disturbing.
 Like, hey, so who's the guy that we can all get away with,
 you know, just treating like dirt?
 Who's the guy that I can be a dick to?
 I can just walk up and punch in the face
 and no one's gonna say anything.
 And it's even if, you know, people do that with,
 whether it's literal Nazis or someone that I called a Nazi,
 you know, I guess what's the bigger issue?
 This person's ridiculous beliefs or what I'm doing?
 And you mentioned Hitler before,
 and obviously Mein Kampf being like the outline
 for some of the things he did later
 and when the evil was it always there?
 Did it take root later on or flourish later on?
 But was Adolf Hitler a problem because he had crazy ideas
 or because he did things?
 I think it's because it's not, I think.
 I know it's because he did things.
 Now, if I'm gonna start punishing thought crime,
 I'm gonna have to start punishing thought crime.
 And that's a terrifying concept.
 Even if I'm right about the certain,
 about the objectively correct about the things
 that I decide to call out of bounds,
 who put me in charge and made me arbiter of good taste?
 And how long until I decide that something else
 is out of bounds?
 It's always a sliding scale or it's always
 a sliding standard.
 And I find that, you know, to be more of a concern
 than people doing crazy things,
 because I guess if you mentioned Alex Jones,
 you know, putting out ridiculous ideas,
 ridiculous theories, I think that most people
 don't look at Alex Jones as a credible person.
 Now, I'm not gonna pretend to be deeply read
 into all of his beliefs or the things
 that he's trying to peddle.
 But there's plenty of things that are quasi mainstream
 that I think on this side or that side
 that maybe not comparably ridiculous,
 but are, you know, particularly in hindsight
 or, you know, are silly.
 And I guess the idea of getting a group of people together
 to decide what we're not going to tolerate
 is a very, very tricky thing.
 And I think that, you know, it reminds me of law
 or, you know, even, you know, religion when it gets to,
 like, what are the things that we don't like?
 How do we feel about rape?
 It's like, no, under no circumstances
 is that an acceptable behavior.
 Murder, no, that's not acceptable behavior.
 Killing, I don't know, kind of depends on the situation.
 Are you at war?
 Were you justified?
 Were you acting in self-defense?
 Okay, so it's not, now, murder is a specific type of killing.
 The same way, you know, other things should be
 a specific type of something else,
 but I guess we draw the line of murder.
 We say, if you want to exist in our society,
 you can't do this.
 This cannot be done.
 And then we go, theft.
 If someone said, hey, I murdered that guy,
 can you understand where I'm coming from?
 I might say, yeah, I'll hear you out.
 Doesn't mean that I think you're right,
 but I'm like, have you ever been wronged so deeply
 that you could imagine that you could kill someone?
 I'm like, no, I haven't.
 But I could conceptualize someone doing that,
 and I'm like, yeah, okay, and you still need to go,
 you still need to face, you know, criminal justice
 as we have it in our system,
 or at least that's how we've decided.
 Yeah, it's interesting.
 You have to be able to, like, there's,
 if you look at the history of discourse in this country,
 I think it's still true, but I'm not sure it's changed
 since 9-11, is it used to be impossible to criticize
 a soldier.
 It was easier to criticize war.
 It was harder to criticize soldiers
 for allowing themselves to be the tools of war.
 I tend to be, maybe it's the Russian upbringing,
 it's the combat thing.
 I tend to romanticize war and soldiers.
 I see soldiers as heroes, but I've also heard people
 that not only say that soldiers are, war is bad,
 they say soldiers are bad.
 What's their argument?
 It's the kind of a libertarian view
 that they're basically slaves to evil, right?
 War is evil, and they're given,
 they are suspending their moral and ethical duties
 as a human being to become the tools of evil.
 That's sort of the argument, if you see war as evil.
 I mean, I think it's useful to hear that,
 but there's for a long part in history
 that was completely unacceptable.
 Same with abortion.
 You see abortion as murder.
 I mean, if I put it in that basket.
 It starts, we're living in the midst of a genocide.
 Looked at from that perspective,
 could you feel how people could be deeply upset
 by abortion?
 You go, of course.
 Looked at from a different perspective,
 you say, I don't believe it to be murder.
 That's not how I see it.
 Then you go, well, if that's the genesis
 of your thought process, then you're like,
 yeah, okay, now I see how we can come to a different thing,
 but I guess we go, well, abortion is murder, period.
 Therefore, if you support it, you support murder.
 That's a convenient way for me to tar you, right?
 But I guess that's kind of coming back to the Alex Jones.
 I'm-
 It's the nuance.
 You have to have the nuance in these kinds of conversations.
 And I have to be willing to have the conversation,
 and I have to be willing to sit down.
 If I can't sit down across from the most violently racist,
 angry, hypothetical internet conceived person
 that none of us have ever actually met in real life,
 but are hopefully not, and go like,
 well, of course I believe that this person's wrong,
 but allow me to change, do my best.
 I'll hear them out and I'll go, no,
 I can go point by point and explain
 where this guy or this girl is wrong,
 and hopefully bring them over to a more reasonable position
 where they will have better beliefs,
 and they will objectively better beliefs,
 and beliefs that will,
 and they'll treat other people better.
 Why would I wanna marginalize this person?
 Now, I might not wanna talk,
 I might not wanna invite them to my barbecue
 if they're acting like a jerk all the time,
 but how could I, would it not make the world a better place
 if I'd hear them out and they go, look,
 if you're gonna sit down and talk with me,
 we're gonna have to have a discussion.
 I'll hear what you have to say,
 and if I can't explain to someone
 why their ridiculous belief is wrong,
 then I must not be so confident in my position,
 and I guess that's where I come back to the Alex Jones thing.
 As you mentioned, with Bill Gates,
 and you're much more familiar with the specifics
 of all the good that he's done,
 but again, he's been an unbelievable force for good
 in this world.
 You can list A, B, C, D, things that the man has done,
 that his foundation has done, and positive things,
 and then the other people could speculate
 about ridiculous, crazy levels of evil,
 but you can't produce any evidence for that sort of thing,
 because if you could,
 the man will find himself in some trouble.
 And anyway, I guess what I would say is that,
 you can't force me to accept the truth
 the same way you could write down two plus two equals four
 on a piece of paper and show me how it works,
 and I could say, nah, uh-uh,
 but that doesn't make it not true,
 and you've still given yourself an opportunity
 to present your case, you've presented it to me,
 and you've also, for anyone listening and watching,
 you've been able to critically assess what's gone on,
 or critically address back and forth the discourse,
 and I think that you're making your case for the public,
 so I guess when it comes to just not engaging
 with these people, that seems to me to be cowardly,
 and I think that that's something that we're seeing
 in society right now.
 I think we're seeing a crisis of courage in society
 all over the place,
 and I think that's where we're seeing poor leadership,
 I think we're seeing understandable things
 happening everywhere, but we need stronger voices
 and stronger beliefs that have a conviction
 and are willing to engage with others,
 not just turning into a shouting contest,
 and not, I didn't win because there's more of me,
 oh, I voted you, that's nice too,
 but that's a stand-in for bullets,
 that's saying I won because there's more of me,
 that doesn't mean that I'm right,
 because plenty of horrible and unpopular now things
 have been very, very deeply popular in the past
 and would have won a popular vote,
 does that make them right?
 I'd say clearly not, so I guess you'd hope
 that we engage with these people
 and that you can do your best to bring them over
 to a more reasonable position if you believe
 that you have one, and if you can't,
 well, at least you made the effort,
 and I think that that's something
 where martial arts shows the value,
 it's like, do you know if you're gonna go
 win your next fight?
 I'm like, I have no idea, I will proceed forward
 with full effort, and I will fight with dignity,
 I'll fight with honor, and I'll fight with courage,
 and I'll use everything that I have,
 and I will play within the bounds of the game,
 and that's that, and the result will be what it'll be,
 but I will walk into and out of that ring
 with my head held high, because I will know
 that I did my part, I did my job,
 the outcome, the specific outcome is not in my control,
 it's just strongly in my influence,
 and I think that that's something that helped me,
 that martial arts has taught me,
 because other times, even when I was successful
 or unsuccessful, I would focus on,
 if I won, I won, therefore I'm good,
 I lost, therefore I'm bad, this other guy won or lost,
 therefore, as opposed to evaluating their method,
 and I think it's so easy when we're taking
 a bird's eye view of things, to not evaluate
 how someone's doing things, you're not evaluating
 my process, you're simply evaluating my outcome,
 and I could have stumbled into something very, very good
 or very, very bad, and we can look back,
 and I think that's the value of history,
 I mean, I don't mean to get on my dang high horse,
 but it's like this, evaluate history,
 is we can see the unbroken chain,
 or the chain of events that led us somewhere,
 and then only with the eyes of history
 can we truly evaluate things, unless we're in the room
 watching it happen, and I guess,
 that's again where we start to go,
 most of the big, bad, scary things that have happened
 in history that are done, particularly on an industrial
 scale, which implies governmental power
 and things like that, or the equivalent,
 involve groups of people getting together and going,
 hey, we're not gonna deal with that guy,
 giant groups of people, so maybe we're right this time,
 but maybe we're wrong next time,
 and I guess I would be back to the Gandalf
 putting on the one ring, I would be very, very hesitant,
 even if we thought we were in the right,
 to simply try to marginalize just on general principle,
 even people like Alex Jones, who on their face
 are pretty ridiculous, like you said,
 you should sit down with Adolf Hitler and talk to the men.
 I agree with you, to play a little devil's advocate,
 Please.
 Is Alex Jones might be a bad example,
 but if we look at, because he has a face, he is a human,
 he's a real person, there's also trolls on the internet,
 4chan, the worry I have with those folks is that,
 and there might be parallels to martial arts,
 is they practice guerrilla warfare,
 meaning they don't necessarily want to arrive at the truth,
 they just always want to cut at the ankles of the powerful,
 they want to always break down the powerful,
 and even if they turn everything into a game,
 so they, let's see if we can make the world,
 let's see if we can make a trend
 that Bill Gates is a pedophile, right?
 They make it into a game, they get excited about this game,
 they see the powerful, let's see if we can convince that,
 like who is the most positive person we can think of,
 let's see if we can turn them into evil,
 and they've tried that with like everybody,
 and it seems to stick, and they're good at it,
 and some would argue,
 or whatever you think about our current president,
 that he has some elements of that,
 which is he's figured out whatever this music
 of social discourse that's going on,
 he's figured out how to always troll the mainstream
 like flow of consciousness, that's the media,
 he always kind of says stuff
 that annoys a very large number of people,
 and he enjoys that,
 because it's like taking the powerful,
 taking the way things were before,
 and he like shakes it up
 by saying the most inappropriate thing,
 almost on purpose or instinctually and so on,
 the problem I have with that is that doesn't,
 the powerful thing there is it brings the power,
 those in power down a notch, that's a great thing,
 the negative thing is it doesn't push us closer
 to a nuanced, careful, rigorous discourse towards truth,
 it's like showing up to a party and just like starting to yell,
 it doesn't create a good conversation,
 it just makes everything into a game
 where truth doesn't even seem like a thing
 we can even hope to achieve.
 I mean that makes sense, and I guess as you mentioned,
 they'll come back to another movie,
 because I don't do books and do movies,
 some people just wanna watch the world burn, right,
 and I guess that's a creepy, creepy kind of urge
 that some people have,
 and also is some people you're like,
 hey, would you like to throw a brick
 through that glass window?
 You're like, yeah, sure, like no, I'm not gonna do that,
 because I think about what's going to occur,
 like something's gonna be hurt, someone's property,
 not gonna do it versus, hey, you wanna see what'll happen?
 Like yeah, sure, kids are always like,
 I have my son, he just grabs Spider-Man
 and drops him on the table, Spider-Man fell,
 like Spider-Man didn't fall, Sean,
 like you dropped him, you knocked him off the table,
 and he'll grin, and basically,
 it's an interesting thing, like you said,
 playing that these people are appealing to,
 and also almost like the little dog factor
 of like people do wanna watch the powerful
 get taken down a notch for all the good
 and the not good of that, just plenty of people,
 it seems to me that have found their way
 to incredibly high positions,
 some have just found themselves there,
 and many, many, many, many, many people,
 men and women of all backgrounds are brilliant
 and have worked hard, and yeah, of course there's luck,
 and there's luck into everything,
 there's LeBron James, in spite of being
 the best basketball player on God's green earth,
 is fortunate that he didn't get hit by a car,
 it's fortunate that he didn't tear his knee,
 but thankfully, we get to see all these things,
 but I guess it's,
 if people don't have any skin in the game,
 you never know what they're gonna do,
 and I think that's the problem with the internet,
 that people get to be nameless, be faceless,
 that's why guerrilla fighters are outside
 of the bounds of war, like you don't have a uniform on,
 like I don't know who you're from,
 you don't get the same treatment that a soldier gets,
 for, and people go, well, that's crazy,
 and actually there's reasons for this,
 because otherwise people are able to assail things,
 and there's no one responsible,
 there's no way to go and say,
 hey, where did this come from, what's the root of this,
 how can I address this,
 and I think that's the problem of the internet,
 it's the problem of Twitter,
 it's the problem of places like 4chan,
 I wouldn't mind seeing that type of stuff go away,
 if I'm frank, but that's not the same thing
 as people with a face,
 people who are willing to stand there and say,
 hi, my name is so-and-so,
 even if I have ridiculous beliefs,
 hopefully people will hear me out,
 and then if I'm wrong, educate me,
 but I guess you hope that the real,
 I guess in my mind antidote to all of this silliness
 is education, and I think that that's something
 that critical thinking is not necessarily,
 I went to school in America, and I feel very fortunate,
 but critical thinking is not something that's focused on,
 I mean, and it's tough, it's almost like talking
 about Jujitsu, it's tough to teach critical thinking
 when I don't know any words,
 you have to teach me techniques,
 you can't teach me to be an artist,
 but recognize that the techniques are the beginning,
 not the end, ultimately it's the artistry
 that we are searching for, not just the science
 or the by-rote memorization,
 and I guess you'd hope that people's ability
 to think critically and recognize that majority rule
 or whoever's loudest does not mean
 that they're right by any stretch of the imagination,
 and we don't appeal to that, and we don't bow to that,
 will help them to, help inoculate them
 against the ridiculous things that come out of these places,
 these dark places that are objectively not great,
 but I guess all circling back,
 even if we swatted these bad things
 out of existence right now,
 we've got to be very, very careful doing that,
 because it's who's doing the swatting,
 this political group that's in power right now,
 the people that support our current president
 would maybe feel a certain way,
 the people that support another option
 would feel differently as to what exactly defines toxic,
 and I guess that's what gives me pause.
 Yeah, but also the grace thing,
 I tend to believe that the technology,
 you said education, but the platforms we use
 like Twitter and the Reddit and all these platforms
 have a role to play to teach us grace,
 meaning they should help us incentivize
 the kind of behavior that is incentivized in real life.
 Like being a dick in real life is not incentivized,
 like one-on-one interaction.
 There's cases where it is,
 but usually being kind to each other is incentivized.
 On the internet, it's not.
 Like you get likes for mocking people
 in a funny, in a humorous way,
 and it can be dark kind of mocking,
 depending on the community.
 You can go to the appearance.
 If somebody's a little fat or a little too skinny,
 you can comment on their appearance,
 the hair, the way their hair looks,
 like the appearance stuff.
 It could be on the people comment all the time
 on the level of eloquence of my speech.
 Go fuck yourself.
 I like it.
 It's creepy though watching previously,
 like this used to be lowbrow though,
 like people doing this type of stuff.
 It's creepy watching like our political figures
 get into this type of game.
 Yes, but again, it's a little bit refreshing, right?
 My hope with Donald Trump was,
 is that he would shake up the people
 who wear suits usually.
 The, like if you're from DC,
 I remember like showing up.
 I actually didn't wear what I usually wear in DC,
 cause I was like, everybody's wearing a suit and tie
 when I was like giving talks and stuff.
 Except for Mudge who wears jeans and a t-shirt.
 Mudge doesn't give a damn.
 He said.
 Mudge is a forever renegade.
 But I don't even remember what, oh yeah.
 So my hope with Trump was the huge shake up that system
 to say like, to inject new ideas, to inject new energy.
 Of course, the way it turned out is different,
 but like there's, it turns out that you might wanna have
 somebody who's like an Andrew Yang type character,
 who is full of ideas that are very different
 and inject the energy, new energy into the system
 through youthful new ideas versus through the troll
 that like, that's very good at sort of mocking
 and like playing outside the rules of the game.
 But Trump did reveal powerfully,
 I don't know what to think of it,
 that it's just a game
 and you don't have to play by the rules.
 That's both inspiring and dark.
 Deeply depressing, right?
 Yeah, and I don't know what to do with it.
 I don't, I mean the same, I'm not drawing parallels,
 not drawing parallels between our president
 and Adolf Hitler, but it's certainly,
 and there's a lot of, in history, a lot of positive
 and a lot of negative things happen
 when charismatic leaders realize
 they don't have to play by the rules.
 You can just flip the table.
 What's that Kevin Spacey show?
 Oh, House of Cards.
 House of Cards, where you just flip the table or whatever.
 You don't have to play by the rules of the chess game.
 You can flip the table.
 One wonders if that's always been done in private, you know?
 I guess, cause that's, I mean, even look, obviously,
 in the United States as a republic,
 but we had Bush, then we had Clinton,
 then we had more Bush, then we had President Obama,
 then we were about to have another Clinton.
 That's fairly creepy.
 Yeah.
 Even on its own.
 But now we added another, I mean,
 I'm sure we'll have a generation of Trumps now.
 Gee.
 We, you know, I'm Russian, so I think we humans
 like kings still and queens.
 There's something we're attracted to.
 The thing we talked about, coaches,
 there's something in us that longs
 towards that authoritarian control.
 One of the beautiful things about America,
 the second amendment is we also like individual freedom.
 That's one of the unique aspects
 at the founding of this country and still,
 and for me is the beacon of hope
 that somehow there's the fire of freedom burns
 in like that Texas feel that gives me hope.
 The FU energy that revolts against the power,
 which as we discussed, power corrupts
 and ultimately leads to sort of degradation
 of the whoever's ruling the people.
 It's interesting though.
 It seems to me, maybe I'm just,
 I don't know if I'm reading this properly when I see it,
 but it seems to me that, like you said,
 that flip the bird, I'm gonna do me within reason.
 Like as long as I'm not hurting you,
 is idea that very much, at least in my mind,
 defines the American ideal or at least part
 of the consciousness of the United States
 is under attack to a certain extent.
 If only like I can think to like,
 maybe generation behind us,
 it's becoming more collectivist for all the good
 and also the not good of that.
 And it's not in terms of policy at this point,
 but just in terms of like the consciousness.
 And I wonder if that's an internet thing.
 People are more in touch with one another
 than they've, as far as I can tell,
 that we've ever been or at least more than in my lifetime.
 And the rest of the world seems much closer than it did.
 Living in Virginia, California seems very far away.
 Being on the internet, it's just right there.
 I can hear about it, I can see it.
 I can interact with people from there.
 I remember being in Tennessee at one time
 and then reading about events taking place
 in the Middle East.
 And that just seemed like a mile away.
 It seemed like a unbelievably far distance.
 And then another time when you're in DC,
 you just feel like, oh, you read about something happening
 in Paris and it just feels like it's just right
 around the corner because DC is a seat of power
 where things are just occurring all the time.
 And I guess you wonder about,
 that's where I come back to the group decisions
 to not listen to this person or to cancel this or to,
 we all, the moral majority shall do the following
 as opposed to as long as you're not hurting me
 and long as you're not hurting anyone else,
 I have to let you do,
 I have to let you be on general principle.
 Even if I don't like you, I'm very free to not like you.
 I'm free to speak out against you,
 but I'm not, it is not within my right or,
 and not with it.
 And it's not, I would not be right to attempt to attack you.
 And that is an interesting thing though,
 when we see words being redefined or words being defined,
 whether it's toxicity, whether it's violence,
 if I think that what you're saying is,
 your speech is by itself, a violence
 or a precursor to violence,
 I'm justified in doing all sorts of things.
 And that creeps me out significantly because again,
 even if it ends up being pointed in a good direction,
 initially, it's only a matter of time.
 And actually that brings me to another-
 Dune quote?
 Oh yeah, I got all day.
 How much are they paying you?
 But we have about say the Frank Herbert estate,
 not enough frankly.
 Let's see.
 And how many books are there in Dune?
 That's a Jen question.
 You're also a fan of Jen.
 I read the whole series, but not a couple of the,
 I read all the prequels as well,
 with the exception of a couple.
 Is there a book one for Dune?
 Dune, it would be book one and even the prequels,
 it's still all better if you start.
 Like I read Dune and then read the original,
 what is it, six?
 And then I went back and started to read some of the-
 It's just like watching Star Wars.
 You wanna start at episode four or whatever?
 Yeah, I think so.
 That's the move and then stop at six, call it a day,
 watch the Mandalorian.
 Well, I thought you're not walking back here.
 No, I liked the Mandalorian.
 Yeah, it's not that-
 That is what I said.
 I was told that I was heartless
 for not liking Baby Yoda, who I-
 We don't talk about a couple of the movies,
 not including the Mandalorian, the Mandalorian's fine.
 It's the more recent movies
 that we don't like to talk about.
 Oh, the, what's his name?
 The goofy guy.
 Ryan-
 No, no.
 No, the creature, the goofy creature with the-
 Jar Jar?
 Yeah, Jar Jar.
 Did you ever see the Jar Jar Binks is actually
 the Dark Lord of the Sith theory
 that fixed the whole initial trilogy?
 Where like he's like goofing around
 and like making it all the way through battles
 and when you're like, wait a minute, he oops his way,
 walks over to a pool, does a triple back flip, falls in.
 You're like, it's just bizarre that you-
 This is the Alex Jones theory of Star Wars.
 This is like he's actually running everything.
 He was the one that actually was like,
 hey, we should vote in Chancellor Palpatine
 or Senator Palpatine like right before.
 They put Jar Jar in charge.
 First off, what did they think was gonna happen?
 And second off, that was,
 I would just think that'd be great.
 You're like, oops, oh man, I guess he's the emperor now.
 That would have been great.
 But actually to the cancel and all the other stuff again,
 it's just, you'd hope that it gives pause.
 And I think about this for fighting
 because a lot of times, I'll use this as an example,
 people like fight fans and like UFC,
 they love people that run out and try to murder each other.
 And it's entertaining and it's super entertaining.
 But Floyd Mayweather doesn't resonate with people as much.
 It's like people started,
 I remember the time when Floyd was not as popular.
 Now people think people love Floyd
 because he's 50 and 0 Floyd.
 And oh man, and finally he had so much success
 that we all can't help but recognize
 the man's genius and greatness.
 But prior to that, oh, he's boring, he's this, he's that.
 He fights with, he's circumspect, he's cautious,
 he's pressing, he's intelligent, deeply intelligent.
 And when you watch people go out
 and try to murder each other,
 you can flip a coin a hundred times
 and you can be lucky enough to get a hundred heads,
 but it's still a coin flip.
 And I think that that's what's going on all the time
 is people are getting an outcome that they want,
 but it wasn't a well-thought out situation.
 And that's why you'll win by five in a row by knockout
 and then lose three in a row.
 And then people will go, well, what happened to that guy?
 He used to be so great.
 And you're like, no, he's doing what he's always been doing.
 It's just, it was getting great outcomes
 on a coin flip prior,
 and it's getting negative outcomes on a coin flip now.
 But I guess what I would say is it's interesting watching,
 I guess, societal beliefs become such a thing
 that we're almost adopting on a religious level
 if we're not careful.
 If when I say religious level, I mean like pan life,
 like this is guiding all of my choices
 for all the good and the bad of that.
 And this is a dune quote is,
 when religion and politics travel in the same car,
 the writers believe that nothing can stand in their way.
 Their movements become headlong faster and faster
 and faster.
 They put aside all thoughts of obstacles
 and forget that the precipice does not show itself
 to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.
 And I think that that's again, the pause we go,
 oh man, thank goodness we have this guy
 that wants to rebuild Germany.
 He'll put us back where we need to be.
 And you stop questioning your own judgment,
 your own, just you start, you stop thinking essentially.
 Right, I'm not allowed to question this.
 Oh, well, of course this is correct.
 Of course this is correct.
 Of course I'm right.
 I intended to do right.
 So of course my actions are correct.
 I mean, how many times have any of us
 intended to do something helpful
 and ended up doing something less?
 And plenty of people who intend to do harm
 could by accident do something decent.
 And I guess it's, I'm not saying anything
 terribly, terribly insightful,
 but it's just one of those where it's hard to say
 in the moment and that's where you hopefully caution,
 you would counsel some degree of caution.
 And that's what worries me with people deciding
 that we're all so right about this
 or we're all so right about that.
 And attempting to, rather than win the argument,
 silence the counter argument, no matter how crazy it may seem.
 Because I just think that that idea,
 even when it's pointed in a good direction initially,
 it's only a matter of time.
 You're amongst many things, a jujitsu black belt.
 One of the things that people are really curious about,
 white belts and blue belts in jujitsu,
 but also people haven't tried the art,
 is what does it take to be a jujitsu black belt?
 I think that everyone's journey is a little bit different,
 but the one thing that the, what is it?
 Calvin Coolidge quote, determination, persistence
 is the only thing that will win in the end.
 It will always win in the end.
 Not brilliance, not toughness, not education,
 it's persistence.
 And I think that having the belief that
 no matter what happens to me, I will proceed forward
 and I will figure out how to make this happen,
 hell or high water, I think is the one thing
 that ties together all of the people that I've ever met
 that made it through whatever it was
 that they were going through.
 Because sometimes you can get lucky
 and you can have an easy time or,
 and that luck could be, you had a good situation,
 it could be, I mean, like in the obvious sense
 of like where you're living,
 where you're training, what's going on,
 you had a good situation, you're unbelievably athletic.
 Oh, you're gonna be an astronaut, you're brilliant,
 and an Olympic athlete, you know, like,
 well, that's a fantastic situation.
 You know, you won the genetic lottery
 and you've worked hard as well,
 but you also won the genetic lottery.
 It's, determination is the one thing though,
 because that person could have a very easy go of it
 initially and then tear their knee.
 And then they're no longer the superhuman
 physical specimen that they were.
 The only thing that will keep them going is persistence.
 And I think that that, I would just say that persistence,
 I say, I'll just put one foot in front of the other.
 And sometimes I can see the path ahead.
 And sometimes it's beyond my vision, but I will not stop.
 I may even slow down, but I won't stop.
 And that's the only thing that I can say
 that I've seen tie everyone together,
 because there's so many ways to the top of any mountain.
 And there's so many different personalities and skills
 and backgrounds involved, but everyone carries on.
 So at the core, the foundational advice is just don't quit.
 Just keep going.
 That's the lesson of martial arts, I think.
 You know, we think it's like how to be strong
 or how to win, but in reality, it's like how to persist,
 how to endure, because it's,
 all of us have been beaten so many times
 and gotten beaten up so many times and thought about quitting.
 Have I ever thought about quitting?
 Absolutely.
 Have I ever quit?
 Never, I will never, ever quit, ever.
 I can say that.
 I will be damned if I quit.
 What's the darkest moment?
 Is it injury related?
 Like is it, so like to me, like two possibilities.
 I've fortunately never been seriously injured,
 but I think that's a dark place to be,
 like having to be out for many months for,
 as Jen was saying, like with a head injury especially,
 like the uncertainty, that's one.
 And then the other side is if you have big ambitions
 as a competitor, realizing that you're not as good.
 Like those doubts were like, I kind of suck.
 How am I supposed to be a world,
 the greatest fighter of all time
 if like several people in the gym are kicking my ass?
 Those are the two things that paralyze you.
 I think that everyone's darkest moment is maybe different.
 Looking from the outside for Ryan,
 I wouldn't say that he's had injuries and he's had bad ones.
 I wouldn't say that was his darkest moment.
 I think for me, I would say some of my head injury
 was my darkest moment.
 Absolutely, and I've torn my ACL twice.
 I've torn my shoulders four times.
 I've had lots of surgeries.
 For me, the orthopedic injuries
 were not the most difficult, it was the brain injury.
 For others, that might be the case for them.
 Maybe they've never experienced an injury
 and maybe for them, that's their darkest moment.
 From the outside, obviously Ryan can speak to this more,
 but for Ryan, I think it was the inability
 to perform at certain points,
 the missing of opportunities that for him,
 from my perspective, watching him go through
 and having seen various points of his growth
 from early purple belt on,
 I think the hardest time for him looking in, obviously,
 was when he would hit moments
 where he wasn't able to perform for various reasons.
 He couldn't get fights.
 He was having difficulties there.
 I think that was the hardest point for him.
 Did you think with a head injury
 that you might never be able to do jiu-jitsu again?
 Yeah, mine was really bad and it was just the one hit,
 but I had a looping memories for seven months.
 Didn't know it because when your brain's messed up,
 you're not even aware that you're looping.
 That's great.
 And so I saw two different neurologists.
 I finally, it took a very long time.
 I didn't know if I was gonna be able to have
 linear thoughts or read a book.
 I didn't know at certain points
 if I could listen to music again
 without it making my head hurt.
 And so it was almost two years before I woke up
 in the morning without a headache, just waking up
 before I even start my day.
 And so that-
 So that's even bigger than jiu-jitsu.
 That's just life.
 That's just hard.
 And I think that you can experience so many things.
 I've had all these injuries.
 We lost a baby when I was 15 weeks.
 We've had all these experiences
 and what the hardest point for me,
 not saying all of those things weren't hard,
 but it's kind of like, you go through these,
 you just realize life goes on
 and you have to keep working at it
 and you have to keep going.
 And you asked me earlier offline, did I feel depressed?
 And not for my head injury.
 I don't think that at least in the moment
 I had any recognition of that.
 It's kind of like,
 but I think different people's personalities,
 I have kind of the buckle down and just keep going.
 And sometimes it's not until lots of time later
 that you realize, wow, that was really hard
 because you're just struggling to live and function
 and do the things that you need to do along the path.
 Do you mind jumping on just like this part
 of the conversation just for a few minutes?
 I'm sorry, I need to over.
 Do you mind just sitting together?
 Oh, no, no.
 Just for a little bit.
 Sorry about that.
 I didn't mean to jump in there.
 It'd be cool if we put a face to it.
 Is it okay with you?
 Yeah, it's fine with me.
 It's fine with you.
 By the way, what was the head injury,
 if you don't mind sharing?
 Someone had dropped their knee
 on the back of my head during training.
 It was a lot bigger than me.
 So one strike to the back of the head is too much for someone.
 There's a reason that's outlawed in MMA, right?
 Someone 50 pounds heavier than you,
 drops their knee on the back of your head once.
 That's the funny thing about getting hit, right?
 You never can really be sure what's gonna happen.
 I think that's actually one of the magical parts
 about Jiu-Jitsu where like, if you choke me,
 if you, we know what's gonna occur.
 You hit someone, they might be completely unharmed.
 Like you might be punching Tony Ferguson in the face
 and like you need to hit him with a sledgehammer
 to affect this man.
 And then other people, they could get really badly hurt,
 which I guess it's back to your point about,
 street fighting and things like that
 and the serious, serious potential,
 second, third order consequences of any action that we take.
 But yeah, that's a tricky thing about getting hit.
 How does it make you feel that,
 like the really shitty thing about injuries to me
 was that like, you start thinking like,
 well, if I didn't this one little thing different,
 like this wouldn't have happened today.
 Like one moment changes your entire life.
 Is that, do you think that way
 or is that totally counterproductive?
 You can't help but think that way.
 When you've had the amount of injuries I've had,
 because I've had more than most people's fair share,
 as my orthopedic says, you don't wanna win that.
 You don't wanna win the contest of who's had the most.
 But since you have, that's building me a pool.
 Yeah, but I think you can't help but think that way sometimes,
 but I definitely don't think it's,
 I think it can be facilitative
 if you don't beat yourself up too much.
 Because thinking about why have I been subject
 to so many injuries and a lot of it comes to just,
 almost all of mine in particular,
 people a lot heavier than me.
 But if I've been training martial arts 15 years,
 I'm obviously on the much smaller side, I'm a woman.
 I've done thousands and thousands of rounds with people,
 50 pounds plus heavier than me.
 I've been years not training with anyone less than 50 pounds,
 which is 50 pounds is almost half my body weight.
 And when you also add testosterone,
 the natural physiological advantages of men,
 not just are they heavier with more mass,
 they're faster, they're more explosive, they're stronger,
 if they're the same size.
 And so I think that the willingness to be
 in that environment over and over and over again,
 creates a lot of strength, resiliency,
 willingness to continue.
 But it also, like in order to do that,
 you almost have to, for me, the way I was approaching,
 it was like pretend like I wasn't more vulnerable
 and just be willing to step in and step in and step in.
 Fake it until you make it kind of thing?
 Fake it until you make it kind of, yeah,
 like I'll just one day I'll be strong enough.
 And you avoided injury for most of it.
 For most of those rounds I would injury.
 The problem as Ryan points out is that,
 like you could do thousands of rounds,
 but if one person that size, that strength,
 that hover reacts in a way that you don't expect,
 it doesn't, it's not like an oops, it's like always major.
 Do you regret any of it?
 I think that most, no one I know has experienced
 the degree of injuries that I've experienced.
 And I started at a time when,
 in 2005 it was very different than now,
 where you have, the coaches have more control
 over what you're doing, they're more aware in general
 about a lot of the injuries.
 There's a lot more people who are
 hobbyist than when I started.
 They were hobbyist, but it was different kind of hobbyist
 than now.
 Now our girls can train with other girls.
 They don't have to do thousands of rounds with somebody
 significantly more powerful than them.
 For the drawbacks and the benefits of that,
 as with anything.
 So I think that, I don't think I would go back
 and change it.
 There were times after one of my injuries
 where I said to Ryan, I said, I quit, I'm done.
 I'm not doing this anymore.
 I probably said it more than once,
 but there was one time I was really serious.
 In 2012, I was really serious.
 I had torn my shoulder.
 I was looking at missing a big competition again
 in the world for my second or third year in a row
 after injuries.
 And I said, I'd quit my job two years before
 and I'm like, I'm done.
 And Ryan, before that had always been,
 you know, keep your focus.
 And then he kind of said, okay,
 if you want to be done, be done.
 Just have a good time.
 No, I'm really done.
 I don't even want to train anymore.
 Okay, okay.
 And then, you know, I think he helped facilitate a moment
 for me to go visit some friends, some girls
 that were doing a girls camp who were close to my size
 or some friends of mine to go train.
 And I was like, oh wait, I do love this thing.
 It's just harder for me on a daily basis,
 but that doesn't mean I don't love this thing.
 And it really helped change my mind.
 I started to connect with some other people,
 travel more myself.
 Because previously he had done that,
 but I hadn't really done that.
 I think there was a point where,
 when I started Jiu Jitsu, it was just for fun.
 I just wanted to sport after college.
 I played sports as a kid.
 I just wanted to exercise.
 I wasn't into the martial arts.
 He used to give me a hard time about it
 because he was always very,
 how can you not care about martial arts?
 I don't know, I just want to play sports.
 And Ryan was really big into kind of the philosophy side
 of the martial arts aspect.
 He used to give me a hard time.
 And I think after that moment,
 this moment where I looked at myself and I said,
 Joe, I want to keep doing this,
 is when I started to appreciate Jiu Jitsu.
 It took off some of the pressure I'd been feeling,
 I think, as Ryan's girlfriend,
 but I had a full-time job a long time.
 It was never my goal to be a Jiu Jitsu world champion.
 And I think after that moment where I was like,
 I really do like this.
 I really do want to keep this.
 I had this moment, like any time where you're like,
 I'm doing this for me, I'm not doing this for him.
 And I think that that's,
 I think that that was really lucky for me
 because how often in our lives do we have
 a kind of a challenge where we have to stop
 and we have to say, is this really what I want?
 How often in a relationship do you do that?
 How often in any type of lifestyle or job do you stop?
 And do you really ask yourself,
 is something really difficult happen that you look
 and you go, am I just doing this
 because it's convenient and easy,
 or is this what I really want to do?
 Yeah, I've had those moments.
 Like this podcast is one of those things,
 is like you stop and think like,
 I actually love this.
 And it's, I had that with you just too.
 I don't think I had sat until like Brown Belt that I stop.
 I mean, yeah, it's when you first face real challenges,
 you think like, why am I doing this?
 I think most of my progression was why not?
 I think that's the right, the leap of faith.
 And then at a certain point you think like,
 why am I doing this?
 And if you can answer honestly that because I love it,
 it's kind of a liberating feeling.
 It's a, yeah, it's so powerful.
 It's an acceptance.
 You feel thankful for the opportunity to be there, right?
 Because you love it and you go, man, I-
 Yeah, it's great gratitude.
 Yeah, it's ultimately gratitude, yeah.
 Let me ask you this.
 So Ryan said like, what is it?
 I took over your thing.
 Yeah, nobody cares about Ryan.
 I wouldn't.
 I'll Photoshop him out or whatever.
 However you edit.
 If you could do that, it'd be great.
 Put Sean Connery's head.
 Yeah, just like a Dune ad over here.
 Exactly.
 Sean Connery, I could get down on that.
 Is that the sexiest man in Sean Connery?
 In the Dune universe, that's my understanding.
 I think in any universe.
 Yeah, well, mine doesn't give a-
 We actually named our son after Sean Connery.
 Oh yeah.
 Sorry.
 35 nos in a yesh, we did.
 He was in the rock.
 That was, I love all those lame-
 Nicholas Cage.
 Oh yeah.
 Connery was probably the greatest movie of all time.
 There's his accent and Connery was so awesome.
 I don't know where it's from.
 Alabama, I guess, or something.
 I love that they got Steve Buscemi in there.
 We need Steve Buscemi in this thing.
 We got him.
 Dave Chappelle.
 Yeah, that's right.
 Yeah.
 He's a prisoner in the eight ball.
 Yeah, that's right.
 Yep, greatest movie of all time.
 Should have won an Oscar.
 Dave Chappelle also in Blue Street with Martin Lawrence.
 And in, what do you call it?
 Robin Hood Men in Tights.
 Oh, Robin Hood Men in Tights was one of my favorites
 as a kid.
 That was a big, but yeah, that's a good,
 wow, we just listed off some really bad 90s movies.
 But-
 You take that back.
 For telling our age.
 Yeah, that's all right.
 Speak for yourself.
 So what, in your view, I don't mean to,
 from a smaller person, I guess,
 that's an interesting thing.
 Well, Jiu-Jitsu is like, that small, I don't,
 hopefully that's not a bad thing.
 Elf.
 Elves are taller.
 Yeah.
 Like with all these bigger people,
 you can still enjoy the art.
 What does it take to get a black belt to excel,
 to quote unquote, master the art?
 Gosh, everyone has such a different path.
 Ryan's promoted six, seven people.
 Something like that.
 And I think about half of them have had,
 have kids, have families, have other careers.
 At the time, some of them competed a lot.
 Some of them have never competed or rarely competed.
 Some haven't competed in a long time.
 Some had started different places.
 Everyone's had different journeys,
 even in our own little group of seven.
 I think only, maybe only two or three
 were high level competitors of that group.
 At the higher belts, very like brown, black, maybe.
 And so, it's just different for every person.
 And that's something that we try to tell our,
 since we have 400 students,
 and do we have, we don't really have anyone who's,
 you know, a stated, other than like other coaches,
 like Adam, but we don't have anyone
 that's like a stated high level competitor
 as a student at the moment.
 People look at our gym and go,
 oh, it's lots of competitors.
 It's not lots of competitors.
 It's never been lots of competitors.
 And we've had ones and twos here and there.
 But really everybody's in it for the long term,
 if they're in it.
 Sometimes the high level competitors
 are the ones that are more likely to drop off
 because they have a bit of success,
 particularly at blue or purple.
 And then they realize how hard it is at brown and black.
 And then they have a hard time continuing on that path.
 And then they can't look at themselves
 as a non-competitive, a hard time continuing
 with Jiu-Jitsu, I think.
 Whereas sometimes it's the guy who comes in
 as the white belt and he trains, you know,
 twice a week, every week.
 And the next thing you know,
 he's been there for two or three years, like,
 oh, he's a blue belt, he's a purple belt,
 he's a brown belt.
 And he's just consistent over a long period of time
 and willing to take the path.
 And no two people's path is exactly the same.
 No two people's lives are exactly the same.
 You have, we have students who started as a white belt
 as a young adult with no responsibilities.
 And they train all the time.
 And then they have a job, you know,
 then they graduate college, then they have a job,
 then they have married, then they have kids,
 then they have different points in their careers.
 And at different points in your life,
 Jiu-Jitsu will be there, you know,
 for whatever way that you're willing to accept it.
 It's place, I think.
 That's actually kind of what,
 back to the initial question we discussed about,
 you know, what makes a warrior, you know,
 and also like what makes something or someone,
 you know, particularly impressive in my mind,
 is like what they make out of what they have.
 You know, one of my favorite movies ever is Forrest Gump.
 And it's obviously, it's just, if you can't,
 because I've heard people go, Forrest Gump sucks.
 I'm like, I don't like you as a person.
 And like you have no heart at all.
 But basically, it's the story of someone that tries hard.
 And it's like, yeah, but it's a funny movie.
 But it's like, you know, I guess you meet each person
 where they are, you know?
 And obviously, you want, everyone needs to be pushed.
 We all need to be pushed.
 We need friends and people around us
 that push us to be better versions of ourselves all the time.
 And as you mentioned, the people you spend all of your time
 around deeply impact you.
 And we have to be willing to be pushed.
 It takes a leap of faith for me to trust,
 for me to put some of my self in, my, you know,
 I guess my ability, my control, my personal agency,
 as it were, in the hands of someone else
 that I trust and that I respect.
 But if I can do that, again, maybe I never become,
 you know, high level black belt competitor,
 but you know, I had four of the things I was doing in my life.
 I also have a family.
 I have this, I have that.
 You know, what that person was able to accomplish
 in the martial arts relative to what they were able
 to put in this phenomenal.
 You know, other times someone could be
 a very successful black belt, and in my mind, be a bum
 because they could have been a lot more.
 And you know, they could have done more.
 They could have focused more.
 And there's no shame in deciding
 that you don't want to do that.
 But whatever it is that you're invested in,
 I remember the, Take It Uneasy podcast.
 And that I loved because, you know, I'll just chill out.
 I like resting.
 It's like vacation.
 Oh, who wants to go on vacation?
 Yeah, I'll go on vacation for a day or two.
 You want to spend three weeks on vacation?
 Like I kill myself.
 Like, get me out of here.
 Like, this is horrible.
 This is, I'm a waste of life.
 I'm not doing anything useful.
 I hate vacation.
 You're technically on vacation right now.
 Right. Well, this is fun though.
 Yeah.
 You're on a one day vacation.
 Oh yeah, exactly.
 But you know, if you had to,
 I'm sure you're thinking about jumping off
 of the building right now.
 But if you had to talk to me for, you know,
 like three days, I'm sure you'd probably shove me
 off the building.
 I don't blame you.
 I would be dead.
 Five hours in.
 But yeah, but you know what it is,
 it's like you want to be pushing towards something.
 Because otherwise what's the purpose of being here?
 You know, it's not just a college.
 It's doing something useful,
 building, growing as a person,
 helping others do the same,
 if that's within your power at any given time.
 But I think that's kind of the neat thing
 about martial arts is it can be many,
 many different things to many different people.
 You know, I finally, for instance,
 was able to get a college degree this year.
 That which, I mean, it's not a big deal for most people.
 But for me, it was a big deal because I was-
 You went back and finished.
 Yeah.
 And I never envisioned ever going back.
 And-
 That's a hard step to go back and finish.
 That's a, it weighs heavy on you if you don't.
 It's interesting.
 Yeah, I was just, I was more proud of that
 than most things I've ever done, if I'm honest.
 You know, and it was neat and I really enjoyed it.
 And it was the process of doing it.
 But, you know, are my academic credentials impressive?
 Like not in the least.
 But for me, it's like it was a big deal for me personally
 to take that step and to go back and do that.
 And I was proud of the direction.
 And cause it would have been easy.
 Like, do I need to do it?
 Like, no, I'm, you know, I'm business.
 I'll do okay.
 I'll try it.
 I'll keep fighting.
 But I was happy to take the time in between fights
 when I was, when I was unbooked for an opponent
 to do something productive rather than just,
 I'll just hang out.
 You know, like I can still train every single day,
 but I can also train and go to school.
 People go to the Olympics while going to school.
 I can, I can do martial arts and go to school.
 One thing I gotta ask is, you know,
 a bunch of women listen to this podcast.
 If they haven't done Jiu Jitsu,
 I think it'd be kind of intimidating to step on the mat
 with a bunch of bros that like enjoy
 somehow killing each other.
 Like, how do you succeed in that environment
 to where you can learn this art,
 learn how to beat all those people up?
 Gosh.
 Is there any advice?
 I mean, another way to ask that is like,
 if any women listening to this are interested
 in starting Jiu Jitsu, like,
 is there advice for that journey?
 Honestly, I think it's just walking in the door
 and starting.
 Sometimes I don't know how to respond to that
 because I'm not, I don't view myself as typically anxious,
 particularly in interactions with other people
 or new people.
 You're just sleeping.
 Shy is not a word that has been used for me
 by, if you ask my family,
 and they joke because our son talks a lot.
 He's advanced verbally and they're always like,
 oh, well, let's, we know where he gets that from.
 Like, he just doesn't stop talking.
 He narrates everything he does.
 And so they always tease because that's,
 like, I'm known for kind of talking a lot.
 But, so I haven't been typically,
 I don't consider myself a shy person.
 So for me going into a new room, a new group of people is,
 you know, there's always a, you don't really know
 who they are, how they're gonna treat you.
 But I don't have a lot of anxiety with that.
 So I don't, if that's something that's gonna put something
 up, I don't really know how to address
 that particular feeling.
 But in terms of all of the rooms I've been in,
 I have popped into Jiu Jitsu gyms
 before I knew Ryan in Florida.
 Like, I traveled for my job,
 so in Germany and Florida and California
 and places where I don't know anyone, they don't know me.
 And I have never once had anyone be anything other than kind
 and solicitous and helpful.
 And long before when I was a white belt and a blue belt
 and didn't know anything and didn't know anyone.
 And I just think that it's a community of people
 that it's so cool that no matter where you go in the world,
 I walked into a gym in Prague one time
 where only two people spoke English.
 And it was just...
 Yeah, it's weird.
 It's weird.
 It's weird that like...
 Instantly you're like part of a group
 and they're like, oh, let me tell you about a place to go.
 It's like being part of a cult, right?
 Yeah.
 But it's like a positive cult.
 Like it for sure.
 That's what we would say as cultists.
 Yeah, that's true.
 Yeah.
 That's true.
 I mean, we do need to murder everybody who practice like keto.
 I mean, yeah.
 That's this cult deeply believes it.
 No, but there is a...
 Like if you look at different kinds of games
 like chess and so on, like there's a skepticism.
 I mean, there's not a brotherhood, sisterhood feeling.
 With Jiu-Jitsu, it's like you can roll into most places.
 Even like with Judo, like I can see the contrast.
 Cause I've trained in Judo places.
 It's more like tribal.
 Like you walk in and like, who is this?
 Like there's that kind of feeling.
 With Jiu-Jitsu, there's less so.
 There is a little bit with like the competitors.
 There's always like the competitors feeling each other out,
 usually like the blue belts.
 But like outside of that, in terms of if you don't get the,
 if you walk in with the vibes of just loving the art
 and just willing to have a good time, you're like welcome.
 It's really cool.
 It's really fascinating.
 It's a really great thing.
 I think, and as a woman, I think you think you're walking
 into these rooms of these big, strong, tough guys.
 And if anything, I would say that they're almost like
 much more solicitous when a woman comes in there
 and not like they're just like hitting on you all the time.
 It's just that you walk in and everyone is like, oh cool.
 You wanna do this thing that I love.
 Let me make sure you have a good experience
 and take care of you.
 And I think that's an experience that I hope people have
 when they come into our gym.
 And I've always felt when I walked into other gyms.
 And so we try our best to make that comfortable.
 And it can be a little uncomfortable
 because there are, when you walk
 into a male-dominated environment,
 there's conversations and topics.
 There's a different style of camaraderie and joking
 that a lot of men will do that maybe some women
 are more uncomfortable with.
 I grew up with four brothers.
 So I kind of maybe was a little more desensitized to that.
 And I worked for the Department of Defense for a while too.
 So before I-
 So you were with the government.
 Yeah, so I did that for a while after college.
 I'm already skeptical.
 Yeah.
 I left, I left.
 Oh, you left.
 I'm not gonna ask you about UFOs then
 because you're not gonna tell me the truth.
 No, they exist.
 Yeah, no, you just freaked out a lot of people.
 Okay.
 But yeah, by the way, where's your school?
 Cause people always ask like where-
 Well, we're outside of Washington DC
 in Northern Virginia in Falls Church.
 You always wanna pick like, what's the best school
 if I travel to this place or if I wanna move to this place.
 So that's-
 Well, I mean, obviously we're biased,
 but yeah, we're in the Washington DC area.
 The best.
 Okay, we just took a little break.
 Now we're back.
 Let me ask you one thing
 that a bunch of people are curious about.
 You're one of the innovators.
 First of all, you're one of the great innovators
 and philosophers and thinkers in Jiu Jitsu, right?
 But you're also one of the innovators
 in terms of leg locks and the 50-50 position.
 And just like the fact that legs
 have something to do in Jiu Jitsu.
 The other popularizer innovator in the space
 is John Donahue and his whole group of guys.
 Do you have thoughts about their whole system of leg locks
 and their ideas about Jiu Jitsu and so on?
 Sure.
 I guess, obviously, John and the students at HENSO
 who've been able to do fantastic things competitively
 in the past number of years, you mentioned innovators
 in that kind of section of Jiu Jitsu.
 I would love to bring up some guys like Dean Lister,
 of course, Masakazu Imanari.
 In fact, a lot of what was going on in like 90s Japan,
 like combat submission wrestling,
 there was some crazy gnarly stuff that it's on grainy VHS tape,
 but stuff that if people were doing now,
 they go, oh my God, that's brand new.
 There's, it's been, I think these are things
 that have been around for a while in various places.
 I first learned the 50-50 position,
 just like the leg entanglement of it from Brandon Vera,
 actually at a seminar at Lord Irvin's Martial Arts,
 I think in 2005.
 He learned it from Dean Lister
 who used it to submit Alexandre Kakareko,
 really, really tough Nogi guy at ADCC in the run
 that Dean made to the gold medal in the absolute division,
 which was a great performance at the time,
 first American to do that. And I actually saw a video,
 I mean, first of all, Boss Rutten actually broke,
 I think, Guy Mezger's foot with a 50-50 heel hook,
 did he actually grab his heel and his toes?
 And in pancreases back when they had like the man panties
 and the high boots on, and dude, that was gnarly.
 Boss Rutten is underappreciated as like-
 He double grabbed like-
 Oh yeah, like, you know, his leverage is leverage.
 That's like a toehold that goes the other way.
 It's like it either doesn't work or breaks in half.
 Well, he's, people don't often think of Boss Rutten
 as an innovator, but he is in a way.
 Like, he, you know, talk about like Elon Musk
 and first principles thinking in terms of physics.
 He like just feels like he just gets the job.
 He figures out like the simplest way to get the job done
 of breaking things and establishing control
 and hurting people.
 Remember that was back in the day,
 if you listen to Boss Rutten do any like commentary
 for any of the big MMA shows or any MMA show way back when,
 anytime guys were clenched, he's like,
 the guy should roll for a knee bar.
 He was saying that way back when,
 and now people are doing it all the time
 with varying degrees of success.
 It's funny, it's like, it's also tough to be,
 I think like a breakaway thinker.
 I mean, you know, group think is a real thing
 in group inertia.
 And it's neat to see, you know, particularly at a time
 when maybe that type of stuff was less accepted,
 you know, someone going, hey, I'm gonna run off
 in this other direction.
 I think, you know, whoever, you know, the inventor
 of electricity in my mind is a lot more impressive
 than whomever, not to say that the person down the line
 isn't impressive, that comes up with an interesting way
 to use it.
 Both are cool, but when you think about just,
 can you imagine we're sitting here and like, yeah, people,
 I'm gonna build an airplane.
 You're like, what are you talking about?
 It's crazy.
 People don't fly.
 I'm like, no, I'm gonna do it.
 And of course, that's not gonna be as good
 as the airplane down the line, the iterative things
 that happen later on.
 But just being able to go to dream something
 into existence that you haven't seen before
 and then make it happen, like takes an unbelievable,
 like strength of character, almost like a force of will,
 because you have, you're blazing a trail
 that hasn't been walked before.
 That's the BJ Penn factor in, you know, winning
 the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, first non-Brazilian
 to do that.
 That was back in 2001.
 And then Rafael Lovato later on, it's like, he's, you know,
 both of those guys are so unbelievably impressive
 in my mind for the same reason, you know,
 because they were out there winning at a time
 when that wasn't a common thing.
 Not that it's easy to win now, it's just,
 there's not a psychological hurdle that needs to be leapt.
 I remember, you know, when I was early in Jiu-Jitsu,
 like Americans weren't winning the World Championships
 at any belt.
 I mean, BJ, we all knew BJ Penn because BJ Penn did it,
 but it was really, really uncommon.
 Now it happens, you know, on a semi-regular basis.
 Of course, the Brazilians are still strong,
 Europeans are still strong,
 but, and Australians are coming on as well.
 But it's definitely kind of an interesting thing.
 So to come back to, you know, John Danaher
 and the Hensler team, obviously they're doing
 fantastic things.
 John's had some really, really great innovation there.
 And the systematization and the methodology
 that they're using is great.
 And it's neat to see that it's getting out there.
 I would just also, I would encourage people
 to make sure that they're, you know,
 catching up on their history.
 Because obviously, you know, John's a brilliant instructor
 and has done things, you know, for the sport
 that are fantastic, that haven't been done before.
 But, you know, none of us exist in a vacuum
 and I've learned things from everywhere else.
 So, you know, John would say the same, I'm sure.
 And, you know, Dean Lister would say the same.
 And it's just neat when you can kind of trace
 the history of all of this happening,
 because we've had, humanity's had two arms
 and two legs for some time,
 at least as long as I've been alive.
 But you mentioned like airplanes.
 Do you think there's something totally new
 to be invented in Jiu Jitsu still?
 Not totally new, but like the, you know,
 flying isn't new, but airplanes nevertheless
 made that much more efficient.
 Is there like new ideas to be discovered
 in Jiu Jitsu still?
 I'd say, the reason I'd say yes is the same reason
 I would say I believe in alchemy, even though I don't.
 No, I'm serious.
 Like I've got some backing for this.
 Okay.
 You know, I guess I talk about this
 with a buddy of mine a lot, like,
 and facilitative versus not facilitative beliefs.
 And if I don't believe something is possible
 and I do no investigation towards it,
 I'll never find something even if it's there.
 It's almost like, it's no different than me walking up
 on a group of people and going like,
 oh man, look at these jerks, this is gonna suck,
 versus me going, oh, I wonder what these guys are up to.
 I'm about to have two very different conversations,
 even though the players in the game are no different.
 My internal constitution has changed
 because of how I've decided to approach the situation.
 So although I wouldn't personally want to spend all my time
 trying to turn lead into gold
 because I don't believe that it's likely to work,
 only a person who's willing to spend his or her life
 in that pursuit will actually get to the bottom of that.
 And also in the pursuit of that,
 they're likely to find other things.
 So I think a lot of times the idea is that humanity
 is pushed forward by, again, it's another Orson Scott Carb
 when it's like human beings are in this slog,
 it's paraphrasing just in this slog over time.
 And then periodically humanity gives birth to genius,
 like someone that invents the wheel,
 invents electricity, pushes us forward,
 comes up with the idea of governance
 that doesn't just start and end with the point of a sword.
 And these aren't common things.
 These are unbelievable advancements that,
 not just me sitting here, I didn't come up with them,
 but I just get the benefit of it.
 So I guess what I would say is a lot of times
 these ideas are called crazy,
 like as we discussed on kind of offline,
 it's like Einstein was brilliant in his 20s
 and it was brilliant before that I would suspect,
 but basically gets recognized later on in life.
 And of course we all thought those were great ideas.
 The man was probably roundly mocked
 for giant chunks of his life.
 And I guess so it's neat to,
 I would say there's definitely in my mind things that,
 even if it's just combinations and new to me,
 new ways to see things, new ways to understand
 different depth of understanding, possibly new things,
 new positions, new ideas,
 because even if that's not true,
 the process of going through and acting as if it is
 and believing like that and focusing
 and trying to investigate will make any of us,
 will push us all forward.
 Whereas sitting there,
 obsessing over the cult of our current knowledge,
 I think is the biggest danger
 and the biggest cause of stagnation that exists anywhere.
 Yeah, and it starts with believing the impossible,
 which is kind of interesting.
 One of the things that's really inspiring to me
 is to see people out there, which sadly are rare,
 who kind of have a combination of two things.
 One is they have a worldview that involves,
 that includes a lot of ideas that are crazy.
 And the second part is they're exceptionally focused
 and competent in bringing that,
 whatever the ideas in that worldview to reality.
 So there's certainly a lot of people with crazy ideas.
 There's a lot of conspiracy theorists.
 They have way out there beliefs about things,
 but they're not doing much to like make the,
 like build stuff grounded.
 And like they're not engineers or whatever.
 They're just like espousing different crazy ideas.
 But that's why you get like the Elon Musk type characters.
 And the reason I bring him up a lot
 is because like there's not many others to bring up.
 It's like there's not many examples of it through history.
 The people, I mean, the guys convinced
 that we're going to colonize Mars.
 And basically everybody on earth thinks that's insane.
 Everyone except the guy that's gonna do it, right?
 Except that's gonna do it.
 And like you can imagine like a couple of hundred years
 from now people will, I mean, first of all,
 they won't, certainly won't remember the haters.
 They won't remember all the people.
 If they do remember them, they'll remember them
 in a sense like people were silly to think
 that this isn't the obvious path forward.
 Like from a perspective, that's what Elon talks about.
 Like it's obvious that we're going to expand
 throughout the universe.
 Like so-
 From his perspective.
 From his perspective.
 Like, but to me it is also obvious
 because like either we destroy ourselves
 or we'll expand beyond earth.
 Like there's not many, you know,
 well, maybe it's not completely obvious.
 I guess I share that worldview.
 There's the other possibility that we humans find
 a sort of an inner peace where the forces of capitalism
 will calm down and we'll all just meditate
 and do yoga and jujitsu and like relax
 with this whole tech thing
 where we keep building new technologies.
 But it's cool to have those kinds of people
 that just believe the big, ambitious, crazy dreams.
 Because that's where it starts.
 If you want to build something special,
 you have to first believe that.
 And you also have to believe strongly enough
 that you're not vulnerable.
 And I'm speculating, but it's like,
 I can only imagine how many people have told Elon
 that what he's doing is crazy.
 So not only did he dream it up, he dreamed it up,
 went with it and also went with it
 in the face of being told that it's not going to work.
 And then also stepped away from the bitterness
 because he's done a series of really crazy impressive things.
 And that's only those little things that I'm aware of.
 And also staying away from the bitterness
 of every single time you did something good.
 Initially, all I do is talk down about you.
 And then eventually I act as, of course, of course,
 I never apologize.
 And yet you don't let that dampen your spirits
 for the next innovation,
 which is pretty incredible to me to watch.
 Yeah, it's kind of cool.
 I mean, it's contagious to spend time with the guy
 because he's not,
 Rogan has the same look to him,
 which is interesting about these people.
 There's like a hater shield.
 That he's like, he doesn't even like sense them,
 it feels like.
 He thinks to Elon, it's obvious.
 I mean, he keeps calling it like first principles thinking.
 Like physics says it's true, therefore it's true.
 Like he has convinced himself that like his beliefs
 are grounded in the fundamental fabric
 of the way the universe works.
 Therefore the haters don't matter.
 And I mean, that's kind of like a system of thought.
 He developed himself through all the difficulty,
 through all the doubt, he's able to take huge risks
 with basically putting everything he owes on the line
 multiple times throughout his life.
 I mean, it's all the drama,
 and it's all the doubts,
 and it's all like the,
 he's still able to make just clear headed decisions.
 I don't know what to make of it,
 but it's inspiring as hell.
 Well, I think it's something that's funny.
 I think like, I can only imagine that,
 history will look back on him as a brilliant person,
 but that's not the only,
 there's a lot of maybe not numeric,
 not statistically speaking,
 but a lot numerically on a giant planet of billions of people,
 a lot of brilliant people.
 Well, time, place, luck, fortune, all that other stuff,
 but at the same time,
 that clearly isn't the only determining thing
 in making Elon Musk, Elon Musk,
 and obviously I don't know the guy from Adam,
 but it's an interesting thing
 that it's not just his intellect, his belief system,
 his structure, how he's viewing the world.
 Like that's, did he reason his way to that?
 Did he not?
 What other factors came in?
 I'm really curious about that because I guess coming,
 it's, again, I feel really strongly
 about people's belief structure
 and how they view the world being more important
 than the engine behind it.
 It makes someone resilient or not,
 it makes someone positive or not,
 because you could have 10,000,
 I think about this for competitive stuff,
 you could have 10,000 things going properly
 and one thing going improperly.
 If you focus on the improper,
 you'll probably fix it at a certain point,
 which is good, facilitative for development in the long term,
 but if you had to go and try to perform a task
 in the next five minutes
 and you're focusing on the negative,
 your confidence and your belief
 in the positive outcome of the future
 is likely to be damaged,
 whereas you could have 25 things going wrong,
 but you go, man, I sure am happy to be alive.
 How fortunate I am.
 This is great.
 I have problems to solve.
 This is awesome versus I list the problems
 and I start bitching about them.
 Both of them are technically accurate,
 but it's, I guess, different lenses
 and I think that's a really neat thing to see
 someone exemplifying that for us.
 So maybe to look at the fighting world,
 there's a million questions I can ask here.
 Like one, you mentioned BJ Penn.
 First of all, you're undefeated in the UFC
 and one of the fights you've had is against BJ Penn,
 which is kind of an incredible fight.
 You won performance of the night.
 What did it feel like to face BJ Penn
 and to beat him definitively as you did?
 Like what's that whole experience like?
 I'll be honest, I didn't know
 if I was going to ever be able to fight again
 after beating Gray Maynard in 2016.
 I've had a couple periods of those.
 I was about to join the army actually
 in when I was 30 before the UFC,
 before Jen sent me over to Ultimate Fighter.
 I didn't want to go because I was like,
 one, they're never going to pick me.
 Two, I'd be terrible for TV.
 Three, I'll probably say something
 and I'm going to get burned to death in the streets.
 I'm like, this isn't a great idea.
 And then she said, we'll go out there, see what happens,
 do it anyway, you'll regret it if you didn't.
 And then I ended up doing Ultimate Fighter.
 And then, so I fought three times on the show
 and then I fought for the finale.
 So that's four times in like five or six months,
 which was great.
 And then it took me a year to get another opponent.
 And that was Gray Maynard.
 And then Gray was obviously a very tough guy,
 managed to get a good outcome there.
 Then it took two years to fight BJ Penn.
 And that was, obviously I'm training all the time
 every single day and that never stops.
 But that was, I'll be honest, pretty deeply frustrating
 because as a human being, as an athlete,
 I think as an athlete, you die twice.
 Like you have an athletic peak or area
 and then you go on with the rest of your life.
 It's a bit of a mystery, but it is a microcosm
 for the rest of your life.
 It's like you're seeing the sand tick away
 in the hourglass or drop away.
 And you're going, man, these are the years between 31, 32, 33.
 I'll be at my best at this time, my absolute best physically.
 Now not technically, I'm a lot better now
 than I was before on our planet.
 But at a certain point, you will,
 unless you're Bernard Hopkins,
 you will reach diminishing returns.
 And I guess that-
 The long wait, you can feel the clock ticking.
 Is this frustrating?
 It's like, why does it take two years for BJ?
 That's the question people ask a lot.
 It's like, why does nobody want to fight right now?
 I don't know.
 They probably think they'll get infected
 by whatever this is, but I don't blame them.
 But I would-
 I mean, you're a really tough opponent
 is the bottom line.
 I'll say that I'm different.
 Maybe they perceive that the threat
 is greater than the reward.
 I'm hoping that now that we're ranked number 12,
 in the UFC rankings, that that will change.
 And I know that if we're one more win
 and then we're in the top 10, that now you're there.
 But what I've consistently found
 is that like randoms want to fight.
 And I'm like, go away.
 I didn't come here for you.
 Because if I wanted to just fight anybody,
 I could go down to a Waffle House
 and yell until like DMX shows up
 and we can fight,
 because he'll be at the Waffle House too.
 Who am I kidding?
 I really want to hang out with DMX.
 But it's like, you want to,
 when I had the opportunity-
 Ryan Hall and DMX at Waffle House.
 Oh my God, that was so cool.
 I would never-
 Sounds like a Netflix show or something.
 I would never fight DMX.
 We'd be on the same team.
 No.
 Anyway, I guess I accepted fights against,
 I got asked about Lamas.
 I said yes.
 I got asked about Dennis Bermudez.
 I said yes.
 You know, like long periods of time.
 And they, at that time,
 well, you know, in between 2016 and 2018,
 I was struggling to have opponents who would sign up.
 And I haven't turned down fights.
 I've just said, hey, you know,
 keep the, I don't care about fighting the randoms.
 And it's just-
 And you have a successful school.
 You're like, you're running,
 you're a martial artist, broadly speaking.
 So it doesn't make sense to take fights that aren't like-
 Right.
 That fit a certain kind of trajectory for your career.
 And that's when BJ Penn, they said,
 well, BJ is looking for an opponent.
 I was like, I'm your guy.
 And I think that, you know, BJ accepted that fight
 because I'm another Jiu-Jitsu guy.
 I don't think he perceived
 that I was much of a threat on the feet.
 And, you know, I was able to,
 it was neat to get it to compete against someone,
 you know, who's one of my heroes,
 one of the people I looked up to in MMA for the longest time.
 Were you intimidated by that?
 No, no, I love competing.
 I don't really get nervous or scared before fights.
 I'm not afraid to get hurt.
 I'm not afraid to win.
 I'm not afraid to lose.
 It's, I'm just excited for the,
 I feel thankful for the opportunity to compete
 and the opportunity to play when it matters.
 You know, I just, but that's the only time
 I'm interested in playing anymore is when it matters,
 when the opposition is, I know that, you know,
 it's funny because people pick on a lot of some opponents,
 particularly after the fact.
 Like if you get a good outcome,
 well then, oh, of course, Lex beat that guy.
 That guy wasn't that good.
 I'm like, well, I wasn't, that's after the fact,
 I get to say that.
 And also as the person in the ring, you know,
 BJ Penn has hurt a lot of people
 in mixed martial arts cage.
 And I could actually absolutely have been on that list.
 So it was neat to get to compete against someone
 that I really respect,
 someone that I looked out to for a long time,
 someone who has a great skillset.
 And also I went up in weight to fight him at his weight class.
 He didn't have to come down to mine,
 which is where he'd take him.
 It was lightweight?
 It was lightweight, yeah.
 I generally have featherweight.
 I walk around at like 158 pounds.
 So-
 What's lightweight and featherweight?
 Lightweight is 155 with a day before weighing,
 and featherweight is 145 with a day before weighing.
 So I'm a little bit more properly sized for featherweight.
 But anyway, you know, so I didn't feel like,
 obviously he was giving up a couple of years of age,
 but I was giving up size and all this other stuff.
 And it was, you know, I was just excited
 to have the opportunity to step in against someone like BJ.
 And, you know, we managed to get out of there
 with a good outcome without getting too banged up.
 But just, it was cool,
 because we tied up on the fence.
 And just even the second, you know,
 is when you're rolling with somebody
 and you touch and you can feel what they're doing,
 you go, oh man, this guy's really good.
 You can feel the calm.
 You can feel the small minor adjustments
 that they're making, the subtle things that they're doing.
 And that was one of those things
 that was really neat and gratifying,
 because, you know, you never know.
 Sometimes people that you've heard of
 are a little bit less technically proficient
 than you thought.
 And other times you'll meet some guy that you train,
 you're like, who the hell is this guy?
 How have I not heard of this person?
 And BJ was exactly, as a jiu-jitsu guy,
 what I would have thought.
 And another thing, that's another thing that bugged me
 about how people reacted after the fight is, you know,
 basically going, oh, BJ screwed up this, screwed up that.
 And I'm like, all right, yeah, tell him.
 That's so interesting.
 That's sad.
 That was, you know, one of the,
 to me, I mean, as a fan of both,
 that was a beautiful moment,
 is a kind of passing of a torch, in a sense,
 of exceptional performance.
 Like another one that stands out to me,
 maybe you can comment, is I don't understand,
 well, maybe I do, why Conor McGregor
 gets as much hate as he does.
 He probably revels in it.
 But I think he doesn't get enough credit for Jose Aldo,
 for the, for like, for basically, you know,
 knocking him out in the first few seconds of a fight.
 I mean, Jose is like one of the greatest fighters ever.
 That's true.
 Maybe some people could even put him in the top 10.
 No question.
 And the, like, I don't understand why it's,
 doesn't get as much, like, Conor McGregor doesn't get
 as much credit for, you know,
 Conor McGregor doesn't get as much credit
 as I think he deserves for that,
 and for Eddie Alvarez and all the fights.
 For some reason, whenever Conor McGregor beats somebody,
 well, they were not that good then.
 Like, it means like they were, they were,
 there's something was off.
 Right.
 That's convenient, isn't it?
 Yeah, it's quite strange to me.
 But I mean, what are your thoughts on the,
 on Conor McGregor?
 Maybe one way to ask that.
 I'm Russian, so I'm obviously also a Khabib fan,
 but I'm also a Conor fan.
 It seems like there's not many of us
 who are like fans of both.
 Right.
 What are your thoughts?
 You and Artem Lobov.
 The two of us, which also is a good fight.
 Tough dude.
 Yeah, really, really tough dude.
 Especially like five languages, really interesting cat.
 Oh, so, oh wow, I didn't know that side of it.
 There's a brain there.
 Well, on the Khabib versus Conor,
 what do you make of their first fight?
 What do you, do you agree with me
 that they should fight again?
 Because I think it would be awesome
 if they fought again in Moscow.
 And do you agree with me, I'm just gonna put,
 say things that piss people off,
 but I believe is that Conor actually has a chance
 to beat Khabib.
 One, that Conor absolutely has a chance to beat Khabib.
 Conor has a chance to beat anyone
 that he steps into that ring with
 and not just like a mathematical chance.
 You're like, oh, one of the billion,
 but like, you know, like he absolutely,
 it's funny, because I won't pretend
 to know Conor really well,
 but I first met Conor in 2010
 when I was teaching a seminar
 in a straight blessed gym, Ireland in Dublin.
 And that's actually where I first met all of the coaches
 that ended up being on Conor's team.
 John Kavanaugh, Owen Roddy, Gunnar Nelson.
 So for, I actually, I enjoyed being on Ultimate Fighter
 and being on your high-favorite team
 and getting to train with all the guys there.
 But at the same time, the people that I was actually,
 I knew better were actually the European side,
 all of Conor's coaches.
 And that was a neat thing because I got to,
 I met Conor, I didn't know who Conor,
 Conor wasn't Conor at that point.
 Yeah, that was before his UFC division.
 Oh yeah, well before, yeah.
 I think he got in like 2014, maybe something like that.
 Yeah, and anyway, but he was doing well in Cage Warriors,
 winning the titles there, I think prior to that.
 You know, I remember going, seeing him on the show
 and also then getting to see him train,
 because I competed, I was initially slated
 to fight David Tamer for the Ultimate Fighter finale
 before getting put in to fight Artem
 for the title for the show.
 So I went over to Ireland to train for a couple days.
 And basically it was neat to watch him work.
 I mean, man, he's focused and trains a lot
 and he's very, very smart and very, very hardworking.
 And I think a lot of times people get stuck in this,
 you know, and they almost want to believe
 that this was lucky or this person, you know,
 they're not working that hard, they're just out there,
 they got there with their mouth.
 And that's just not the case.
 And you know, I don't know what it's like,
 you know, obviously Conor's very well off right now
 and I don't know how hard, how serious he's training,
 what he's doing, I can't speak to any of that.
 But there's no question that he has skills to be dangerous.
 And one of the funny things, obviously,
 that could be fight when it could be his way,
 it could be he was a great fighter
 and also has the chance to beat anyone
 in that ring at any given time.
 But there was, Conor, you know,
 it's one that he can put anybody away.
 And as you mentioned, I think that he doesn't get the credit
 for the Eddie Alvarez fight,
 he doesn't get the credit for the Jose Aldo fight
 because it was almost so much of a letdown.
 I remember that happened the same weekend
 at the Ultimate Fighter Finale.
 And you're like, wait, what?
 Yeah, it almost doesn't feel like a fight happened.
 But we mentioned Miyamoto Musashi.
 I mean, Musashi was famous for the way he poked
 and prodded at people with what he was doing,
 whether overtly or not.
 It's like, oh, we're supposed to fight to the death
 and, you know, at 3 p.m. tomorrow, great.
 4 p.m. rolls around, I'm just not there.
 Five, I mean, you remember all the antics and nonsense
 that Conor was pulling prior to that.
 Like, speaking personally,
 that's not something I would feel comfortable doing,
 but it's like everyone's different.
 And the effect that it had on Jose was,
 I mean, beyond evident.
 When was the last time Jose started the fight
 with leaping left hand, leaping right hand?
 You're like, wait, what?
 And then he was obviously, you know,
 living rent free in Jose's head at that point.
 And that was a combination of psychological ability
 and wherewithal and then physical.
 And it reminded me of the way Muhammad Ali
 would bother people and whatnot.
 And the fact that he's a polarizing figure,
 I think makes some people not give him his due.
 And then at the same time,
 sometimes certain fans maybe go overboard.
 But remember the knee that Ben Askren
 got knocked out with by Masridal.
 I mean, that was an amazing, unbelievable thing.
 But three inches to the right, three inches to the left,
 I guess whichever side his head wasn't,
 now you could have been square.
 But, and that fight starts with Ben Askren
 on top of you in the first five seconds.
 Well, Conor ran in through a knee just like that.
 It could be even, could be, got right around it.
 That could have easily gone the other way.
 Can you imagine what would have happened
 if after coming back from boxing,
 after coming back from the Mayweather fight.
 Conor rocks could be-
 In the first 10 seconds it's over and you're like,
 he would, it would have been intolerable.
 But basically-
 Yeah, but see, here's the thing.
 Let me actually push back slightly.
 I mean, to the fans, correct me if I'm wrong,
 but Conor seems to, because I've competed a lot
 and there's a tension, there's a negativity sometimes,
 depending on the opponent.
 And there's a respect afterwards that happens.
 When you understand that there's a deep respect
 and almost like a love for each other.
 I always seen that in Conor.
 All the trash talk afterwards, there's a,
 it's a subtle thing.
 You can't always see it, but there's a respect.
 I agree.
 And I almost, on the Khabib side,
 I almost feel like Khabib really took it personally.
 He didn't, he lost the respect for Conor.
 I thought the whole time Conor had the respect.
 So what I wanted to say is like,
 if Conor won that fight, like rock Khabib,
 I could see like, I wouldn't see trash talking.
 I could see like trash talking stop right there.
 I think so too, but at the same time,
 I'm sure you recall like Conor,
 Conor crossing some pretty personal territory,
 both religiously and also familiarly with Khabib.
 And it's, I mean, I think it's the sort of thing that,
 I don't know, it's an interesting,
 that's one of the reasons.
 Well, it depends.
 Like you have to know the difference.
 So obviously I know the Khabib, the Dagestani people,
 they don't-
 Play around like that.
 They don't play around like that.
 You know, I mean, they take offense to basically,
 I mean, you don't do that.
 So like Conor didn't, maybe he did on purpose,
 or maybe he wasn't even just aware of-
 Totally fair.
 Of-
 There's cultural differences.
 Of the box he opened.
 Like you can talk to Floyd Mayweather,
 you can go anywhere with him.
 You can say the most offensive things,
 but with Khabib-
 It's hard lines.
 It's yeah, hard lines.
 But you, I mean, a lot of people ask,
 I know you're a featherweight,
 but if you were to face,
 it feels like Khabib is one of the hardest puzzles to solve
 in all of mixed martial arts.
 If you were to face Khabib,
 do you think, how would you go about solving that puzzle?
 Like almost, the question is almost
 from a Jiu-Jitsu perspective too.
 What do you do with a guy that's exceptionally good
 at controlling position, especially on top,
 very good at wrestling and taking down
 and controlling position?
 Like, let's say, so forget maybe striking.
 On the ground, how do you solve that guy?
 Like, what do you do with your guard if you get taken down?
 Or do you create an entire system
 of not getting taken down or escaping?
 Is like, what ideas do you have for that?
 Well, I guess I would say in my mind,
 fighting is a game of trading energy.
 Kind of, there's two things,
 there's damage and there's energy.
 So like when I say energy, I mean like tired, not tired,
 how much gas you've got.
 And then damage counts, obviously as well.
 You could be feeling, I could be feeling great
 and then you get to kick me in the head hard,
 really hard three times.
 It doesn't matter that I could get up and run a mile,
 I can't get up.
 So anyway, I think what Khabib does so well
 is he makes the fight look like Khabib
 in a Magomedov fight.
 He does a great job of avoiding damage on the feet
 for the most part and really sucking the life out of people
 with how suffocating and oppressive his control is.
 His chain wrestling is as good as anyone we've ever seen
 in the UFC, it's fantastic.
 But that poses a really serious threat for people
 that need to maintain a certain amount of space
 and try to hurt them on the feet
 because unless they're able to inflict
 an adequate amount of damage, they're gonna,
 each time, let's say for instance,
 let's say him taking them down as a four-gun conclusion
 at some point.
 If every single time Khabib takes you down,
 you get right back up, it's not that big a deal
 because it's actually more, we've all experienced this.
 Let's say you and I are rolling,
 you tap me 15 times in one round, who's more tired?
 Probably you are.
 My ass so badly that it's like you're the only one working.
 But-
 So if you're comfortable with the up and down of it,
 like being taken down.
 If you don't get hurt badly or tired on the bottom,
 you have a chance.
 But that doesn't involve just cracking him on the feet
 before he gets ahold of you.
 That's a lot.
 That's a lot to ask, that's a lot to ask.
 That's difficult to do.
 It seemed actually that Connor,
 it seemed like it when he was being kind of taken down
 or the take down attempts against Khabib,
 he seemed to be somewhat relaxed the whole thing.
 I thought he was doing well actually.
 I think that particularly for the first round,
 I thought he did a very good job.
 It's just one of those things that I think like Khabib being,
 the fights taking place in Khabib's world in large part.
 And I mean, set aside that one giant,
 what is it, right hand that Khabib hit Connor with.
 By the way, Connor reacted like an absolute champion.
 He got crushed by that overhand and then drop
 and his eyes went right back on Khabib.
 It was immediate positive, great response.
 So even though that was, I think,
 that was a bit of a surprising thing,
 Connor reacted really, really well.
 But if you're gonna be on bottom with Khabib
 for four rounds, that's gonna be tough.
 And also Connor's a way better grappler
 than people like to give him credit for,
 but he's not the type of grappler that can do,
 that's too tall of an order.
 But there are grapplers that could do that
 or at least would have a much, much better shot
 at being able to weather that type of a storm.
 Do you see yourself being able to be relaxed
 through that kind of storm?
 Yes.
 Well, I guess.
 I can't.
 Remember, being savagely beaten is very relaxing.
 The timing of that answer was like, okay.
 That's a dumb question.
 No.
 That's ultimately the goal of Jiu Jitsu
 is to be relaxed through the fire.
 For sure.
 And remember, like every UFC fighter,
 I win all hypothetical matchups.
 Yeah.
 For sure.
 That's true.
 Since I'm one to ask ridiculous questions
 and we've been talking about sci-fi
 and all that kind of stuff,
 let me ask the kind of big question
 that everybody disagrees about, certainly with me,
 is who are the top five greatest MMA fighters of all time?
 Oh man.
 And why is Fedor number one?
 Okay, well first off, Fedor is number one.
 Oh really?
 Oh yeah.
 Right there with you.
 Really?
 Oh yeah.
 Talk about people that just get completely underappreciated.
 Even though he's never succeeded in the UFC?
 It's not his fault it came along after him.
 At the time that Fedor was at his height,
 the UFC was not where it was at for heavyweight fighting.
 I mean, not that there weren't good heavyweights there,
 but Fedor was unbelievable.
 I mean, you remember Minotaro Noguera,
 I was a massive fan of him.
 I still remember watching, what is it, Pride 2004
 when Noguera fought Cro Cop and got blasted
 with that left kick and dropped with like seconds left
 in the first round.
 Pride was great because it had a 10 minute first round
 and that five minute second,
 which again, materially alters the fight big time
 and just the texture of the fight.
 It's borderline a different sport
 than getting a five, a pause in a five.
 But anyway, similar sports,
 like one of those swimming things
 where they have nine gold medals
 for different types of swimming, right?
 But still swimming, but anyway.
 Well, yeah, they would disagree.
 Yeah, I don't mean I'm not trying to.
 They specialize in that.
 But it's totally true.
 10 minutes is different than five minutes.
 Sorry, I'll take, don't drown me swimmers.
 I don't swim very well.
 It's easy for me to downplay it.
 But anyway, yeah, and then-
 So better than John Jones, like the modern era.
 Well, I mean, I guess it's tough to compare across eras.
 It would be like going and saying like,
 oh man, how would such and such great grappler from today
 fair against someone from 1995?
 I'm like, well, probably pretty well for them,
 depending upon who they are, what's going on.
 You know, there's some people that would,
 their skillsets might transition across eras,
 but a lot of times not, but that's not fair.
 We get that, they'll be like comparing Spartans
 to modern day, you know, like army guys.
 They're like, well, who's gonna win?
 I'm like, well, did modern day army guys
 get modern day weapons?
 Well, yeah, but who's the toughest ruggedest group
 of people at the very least?
 So I guess it's tough to say, but at least in my mind,
 the people that I think about for great fighters,
 their quality of opposition, their level of like lasting,
 like success, their level of lasting innovation,
 like the courage that they have to demonstrate.
 Because again, it's like being a big fish
 in a small pond takes no courage.
 Doesn't mean that there's nothing there,
 but it just requires something a little bit different.
 So Kazushi Sakuraba is one of my guys too.
 BJ Penn also, I mean, BJ Penn fought Lyoto Machida.
 That's insane.
 You know, that was a time, it was a different sport.
 It was a different time in the sport where, you know,
 some guys were bouncing around doing different things,
 but let's, so I guess the Gracie family,
 I mean, they never had an, like obviously hoist was there,
 but they never, and that was definitely a different sport.
 Weight classes being open, things like that.
 But you have to say that hoist is up there.
 It's one of the greatest ever.
 I think so too.
 And again, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you
 if it weren't for him.
 So the Gracie family as a whole, but I mean,
 who's the better, I mean, I think the hoist would tell you
 himself probably that Hickson would have handled business
 back then, but they didn't put him in.
 So again, he's the greatest fighter, the greatest fighter,
 the greatest fighter that we saw do his business.
 So hoist up there for sure.
 What about, so this is like,
 nobody seems to agree with me on this,
 but like this connects to soccer again and Messi.
 It seems that people value like how long you've been
 a champion, how many like defenses of the championship
 that you've had successfully.
 To me, I highly value singular moments of genius.
 So like, like I don't, like if you look at Conor McGregor,
 he hasn't, I guess, held, been a champion very long,
 very much.
 Well, he didn't defend either title, right?
 He didn't defend any other, either of the titles.
 But like, if you, and the same with Messi,
 if you look at Lionel Messi, there's just moments
 of brilliance unlike any other in history
 for both Conor and Messi.
 And people don't seem to give credit.
 It's like, well, how many World Cups have you won?
 But to me, like, why is it about this arbitrary
 World Cup thing or championship thing?
 I think it's easier for people to wrap their head around,
 right? It's like the NFL combine.
 When was, I mean, Tom's, yeah, numbers.
 It's something, well, again, if I go and I,
 if I pick Tom Brady in the first round, you know,
 and it works out, they call me a genius.
 If I had to pick Tom Brady in the first round
 after his combine, and it doesn't work out,
 I get fired and I'm never hired again.
 I have to work somewhere else.
 But it's like, I'm insulating myself from criticism,
 I think almost, if I go by the numbers.
 Well, he had more bench presses.
 It's like, how many times have the guys that are like
 the super studs in the NFL combine ever been
 on the greatest players in the NFL history?
 In NFL history, like zero or close to zero?
 And even if there's some,
 it's certainly not a one-to-one correlation.
 So it's so funny though, I think it's just like,
 how many days did he hold the title?
 Ah, your title reign was X times longer.
 That means nothing.
 So if we wanted to find greatest fighter ever,
 like you said, I think individual moments of like,
 you're like, that was transcendent, that was different.
 That was something else.
 Because people can win or lose
 for any number of different reasons.
 And that's an interesting thing.
 Again, I don't blame Argentina
 not winning the World Cup on Messi.
 You know, that's not fair.
 You know, how many times has, I mean, I'll use the,
 I remember when Trent Dilfer was the quarterback
 for the Baltimore Ravens.
 And they had such a strong defense.
 I'm not trying to pick on Trent Dilfer,
 but it's like, they had such a strong defense
 that they were to make it.
 That was the Ray Lewis, you know, Chris McAllister era,
 you know, and they won the Super Bowl.
 I don't think anyone is going to say that, you know,
 Trent Dilfer is a better quarterback than, you know,
 or put him in the same category as Dan Marino.
 But he got the W.
 He's got the Super Bowl.
 How many times, let's use March Madness or Super Bowl.
 I love it.
 Like that guy always makes the finals,
 but he just never gets it done.
 So let me get this straight.
 Getting to the finals nine times doesn't count
 because you didn't win the end game.
 I'm not saying it wouldn't be better,
 but that guy won the game once.
 He got over the hump.
 Well, how many other times was he in the finals?
 Zero?
 You're like, all right.
 It's interesting what we, yeah,
 that we were obsessed with these numbers.
 Like...
 Well, cause we can't assess their method, right?
 I think most of the time,
 most of us can't assess the method of anything.
 It's like, oh, look at that guy do X, Y swimming.
 I'm like, how do I know Michael Phelps is great?
 I don't know, he was faster.
 I can't look at his technique and say anything other than,
 well, that's way better than anything.
 I know how to do,
 but I can't say the difference between him
 and the next guy.
 So I guess that's, I wonder if it's like,
 I need a concrete identifier.
 And a lot of times people don't like saying, I don't know.
 And most people won't put like a Ronda Rousey
 in the top even 20 or 50 of,
 but like she changed more than,
 more than almost anybody else.
 She changed the martial arts history.
 I don't know if that even,
 I don't think I'm exaggerating that.
 She made it okay for women to be fighters.
 Yeah.
 And it, and like changed the way we see,
 like she's one of the great feminists of our time.
 In her own way, yeah.
 In a weird kind of way that like, I don't know.
 Maybe I'm just a Ronda Rousey fan,
 but yeah, but she's not in the conversation
 cause then you start converting into numbers.
 Well, how many did she win?
 Is she among the greatest fighters
 or did she do the greatest things?
 You know, I mean, I don't, I think it's something,
 I mean, obviously Ronda is a great judoka
 who was competing in MMA at a time when a lot of the girls
 like where did you get your skills in the Olympics?
 Oh, where'd you get yours?
 High school.
 You're like, yeah, you're gonna,
 Olympic girls gonna beat you up.
 But I guess that that doesn't diminish her.
 Just that accomplishment is what it is.
 I don't have to, I don't,
 Fedor is not diminished by the fact that he would,
 like if he were to fight Stephen Miocis right now,
 it probably wouldn't go great.
 Or that John Jones exists.
 I don't now have to like knock Fedor's accomplishments down
 or say, oh, because BJ Penn or so and so,
 let's say he has a mixed record at this point
 that somehow invalidates the things that they've done before.
 I guess it kind of brings us back
 to a lot of the other people we've talked about.
 The fact that the brilliant people throughout history
 that we love or some of the monsters throughout history
 that we rightly revile in a lot of cases
 were complicated people and their legacy
 is more than just one thing.
 And someone doing something amazing doesn't invalidate,
 doesn't mean they didn't do anything bad.
 And someone doing terrible things doesn't mean that,
 doesn't invalidate the positives that they did.
 But I guess we're fighting the urge
 to put people in one category.
 And same with ourselves.
 I think that's why people get depressed.
 Oh, I'm good right now.
 Oh, I'm bad right now.
 Versus, hey, we're all at work in progress
 and we're trying to do X number of things
 and legacy is a tough thing to figure out anyway.
 And it's all speculative.
 Last time or no, on Reddit, you said that,
 last time too, that you don't experience much fear
 before fights.
 I'd like to ask you a couple of Mike Tyson things
 if it's okay.
 It's just interesting to me.
 Maybe I'm just weird.
 So there's a, I don't know if you've seen this clip
 of Tyson talking about how he feels leading up to a fight
 that he's kind of overtaken with fear
 as he gets closer and closer and closer to the ring
 his confidence grows.
 Dad, have you seen the clip?
 I'm aware of it.
 Okay.
 I haven't seen it in a while.
 Here, let me play it for you.
 George St. Pierre said something similar to me one time.
 While I'm in the dressing room,
 five minutes before I come out, my gloves are laced up.
 I'm breaking my gloves down.
 I'm pushing the lever at the back of my leg.
 I'm breaking the middle of the glove
 for my knuckle pierced through the lever.
 Feel my knuckle piercing against the tight leather gloves
 on that Everlast boxing glove.
 I come out, I have supreme confidence,
 but I'm scared to death.
 I'm totally afraid.
 I'm afraid of everything.
 I'm afraid of losing.
 I'm afraid of being humiliated, but I'm totally confident.
 The closer I get to the ring, the more confidence I get.
 The closer, the more confidence I get.
 The closer, the more confidence I get.
 All during my training, I've been afraid of this man.
 I thought this man might be capable of beating me.
 I've dreamed of him beating me.
 But I always stayed afraid of him.
 But the closer I get to the ring, the more confident.
 Once I'm in the ring, I'm a God.
 No one could beat me.
 I'm a God.
 I mean, first of all, he's cognizant of both his demons
 and whatever the hell ideas he has about violence.
 It's so interesting.
 Is there something about the tension that he's describing
 about being confident and scared that resonates with you?
 Or do you hold to this idea that you've kind of spoken
 about before that you're really not afraid?
 No, I can appreciate what he's saying.
 I think that I can speak to feeling concerned about,
 let's say for instance, if you feel a certain way,
 I think people are a lot more like computers
 than we like to admit.
 And just because a lot of times I can't parse
 what's going on and why,
 doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense.
 I see.
 And I think that at least in the times of like,
 if I'm concerned about a situation or about a person
 or about something happening prior to the fight,
 or I'm like, there's a reason.
 There was a reason.
 I had to push that down and bury it.
 There's a reason.
 Like why, what have I not thought about?
 What have I not done?
 What am I missing?
 Why am I feeling this way?
 As you mentioned, for yourself prior,
 you'd be like, why am I feeling like this?
 I don't do this very well in certain aspects of my life
 if not that I mentioned it or not that I think about it.
 But when it comes to competing,
 I think I do an all right job
 and I'm trying to learn to be better.
 And it's going like, well, why do I,
 if I feel this way, there's a reason.
 Okay, am I thinking about this the wrong way?
 Have I not adequately prepared for something?
 I have to address it.
 And then maybe I'll be up for four hours that night,
 like extra hours thinking,
 what have I not addressed watching sparring,
 watching this, watching that.
 And then when I am thinking about things more accurately
 or when I've addressed what that concern was,
 I feel any of that concern kind of dissipate.
 And I guess if I honestly thought that,
 when it comes to it,
 I know I'm gonna die at a certain point, obviously.
 I'm gonna get hurt.
 I mean, pain happens, but the pain of loss
 would be nothing compared to the,
 or the pain of injury would be nothing compared
 to the pain of running away.
 And so I guess if I think about where's my value,
 it's like, I feel like I'm a winner every single time
 I step into that ring and fight with everything that I have.
 I can't promise that I'll win my next fight.
 I know that I have the skills and the tools to beat anyone
 in grappling or in mixed martial arts at this point.
 It's just, I know that for certain,
 I've trained enough people, I compete with enough people.
 I know where I stand, but I also know that I'm not perfect.
 And also the better fighter,
 even if I perceive that I was that thing,
 doesn't win on the night.
 The man who fights better wins on the night.
 And if I give credence in my mind to only the person
 that's one has value versus going, what's your process?
 What's your path through this?
 How are you going about this?
 How are you thinking about this?
 How are you behaving?
 Then if I can focus on the process,
 then I will respect my opponent and I will respect myself
 and I'll respect anyone that behaves
 with a certain level of consistency to that.
 And they could win, there's plenty of winners in history
 that are shitbags and there's plenty of losers that are not.
 But winning doesn't make you a bad or good person
 and losing doesn't make you good by default either
 or bad by default.
 So, and I think that that can be the truth socially,
 that can be the truth, you know, athletically,
 and you know, academically.
 So I guess-
 Is there a primal fear though?
 Like a primal fear of getting hurt,
 the running away and not facing the threat long-term
 is the bigger pain than any pain you can experience
 in the fight.
 That's pretty powerful.
 But what about the violence of, I mean,
 you don't have that on your face, but like,
 I don't know if you've also seen Tyson talk about,
 he was on Rogan recently and he was talking about,
 he was trying to psychoanalyze himself
 about why he enjoys violence so much.
 I mean, he called it orgasmic.
 I don't know, have you seen that clip?
 I haven't.
 Okay, we're playing it.
 Cause I need to, cause Trump also retweeted it,
 which is hilarious.
 I don't know how to contextualize
 that our president retweeted the clip of Tyson saying-
 Maybe he's just doing it like, they're not gonna,
 it's like, I'm gonna throw him a curve ball.
 No one's gonna have any idea what that is.
 But yeah, he did no explanation, just here you go.
 There you go.
 Well, I think that's kind of like what you were describing.
 It's like, if I give you an answer,
 it has to be a good one.
 Better to just let your imagination run.
 Exactly.
 Yeah, he's like the Kubrick of our time.
 No, what's really interesting,
 that sometimes, periodic, it's not real,
 but sometimes I struggle with the fact of why,
 is there a possibility I can really hurt somebody?
 Like you don't wanna hurt them.
 What do you mean, when you struggle with the possibility
 that you could hurt them?
 That is sometimes, it's orgasmic sometimes.
 Yeah.
 Like some fights, like particularly like Tyrell Biggs,
 or someone that you had problems with,
 someone that you-
 Joe's not getting it.
 You had animosity towards,
 so when you finally get your hands on them.
 Hey, what does it mean when fighting gets you erect?
 What does that mean?
 It's a good question.
 Means you're getting excited.
 Yeah.
 So that's going through your mind right now.
 Well, that's how I get when I was a kid.
 Sometimes I get the twinkle.
 The twinkle.
 Yeah.
 Well, that's what I'm saying,
 is like you reached a state as a human being,
 as a champion, as a ferocious fighter,
 you reached a state of ability and of accomplishment
 that very few humans will ever touch and feel.
 That's why I'm asking you,
 when you're running, when you're hitting the bag,
 when that heart's beating again,
 and that you know who you are,
 you're Mike motherfucking Tyson.
 So when you're doing all this shit again,
 you're still Mike Tyson.
 Those thoughts have gotta be burning inside you again.
 It's gotta be pretty wild.
 I don't know.
 It's wild, but I believe it's rightfully so to be that way.
 And I just know how to,
 I don't think I mastered,
 but I just know how to deal with it.
 I don't let it overwhelm me.
 I mean, he goes on to try to,
 they don't ever, like Joe doesn't bite.
 Well, the interesting thing about that conversation
 is Mike was trying to figure himself out.
 Yeah.
 Like he's trying, on the spot.
 Like, why do I feel this way?
 To me, it was like, to me, it's so real and honest
 to feel like pleasure from hurting somebody.
 Like that, you rarely hear that.
 In this society, it's like, you rarely like talk about,
 like you feel pleasure from winning.
 You feel pleasure from like the relief of overcoming,
 like all the stress you have to go through.
 Pleasure from just like the specifics of the fight,
 the techniques you use,
 the maybe overcoming being down a couple of rounds.
 But like, how often do you hear somebody say,
 I just enjoyed, he's not even saying
 because I hate the opponent.
 He's saying like, I enjoyed purely the violence of it.
 It's crazy.
 I mean, I don't know, it's honest.
 It made me ask like,
 I wonder how many of us are cognizant of that.
 I'd say Mike is uncommonly seemingly honest.
 I think athletes make a full-time job at a line.
 People make a full-time job at a line.
 That's fair.
 I mean, you tell yourself,
 or you tell others what you feel you need to,
 or maybe whether you even know what you feel you need to,
 but why should he not?
 I mean, again, did he run up and just hit somebody
 that didn't sign up for this?
 No, they sign up to be there.
 Well, that's the interesting thing about Dyson
 is there's that weird non-standard behavior.
 I mean, your fighting style is non-standard.
 He's non-standard to another degree of like,
 who else has that?
 In Jiu Jitsu, Paul Harris has this kind of weirdness.
 Like, what's in there?
 Like, there's a fear that I think most opponents would have
 because it's no longer about,
 it takes you out of the realm of it's game.
 It takes us back to the thing we were talking about before
 is it strips away several layers of Ryan Hall,
 the podcast guest, Ryan Hall, the Jiu Jitsu instructor,
 Ryan Hall, the Jiu Jitsu competitor.
 It keeps going down to a point where Ryan Hall,
 the murderer of all things that get in his way,
 that lies underneath all of it, seemingly.
 Like, in this society, we put all that aside,
 but it makes you wonder,
 like now society's being tested in many ways.
 It makes you wonder, like, what's underneath there?
 Well, do we want the answer to that?
 Because I guess it's, what is it, you've seen Paul Fiction,
 the best character in the movie,
 in the best scene in the movie.
 It's like, if my questions, if you're, what do you call it,
 if my answer's scary, you should cease asking scary questions.
 And I guess you wonder, I mean, all of us,
 that's something that I think it's funny.
 We go, oh, that's not okay.
 I mean, versus, maybe not appropriate for situation X, Y, or Z,
 but what should make any of us think?
 I mean, humanity is a different place now.
 And I'm not saying anything crazy out there,
 but humanity is a different place now
 than we were 5,000 years ago,
 where all of us are descended from people
 who have killed things with their teeth and fingernails
 in order to be where we are.
 And whether it was in, whether it was an animal
 or it was in conflict with another person,
 I mean, think about the chances of dying by violence now
 are so, so slim, at least in most countries and most places,
 like shockingly small, thankfully.
 But there was a period of time,
 like the most period of time where dying by violence
 was mostly how it went down.
 And I guess what would be facilitative,
 what would allow you to win back to Ender's Game?
 What allows you, if you can't do that,
 you are forever subject to people who can.
 And that's a real thing.
 And we're fortunate to find ourselves in a situation
 where we don't, where other things matter.
 But that is a funny thing periodically,
 where people, you'll see people kind of drawing
 at each other like in videos or out in the world
 that clearly neither of them expect this to get serious.
 Like, I'm just gonna yell at you,
 you're gonna yell at me,
 and it's like this weird LARPing thing
 where we're both gonna go on our own separate way.
 All it takes is one person to be like,
 well, I wasn't kidding.
 And it's like, oh, you'll go to jail.
 I'm like, oh, I know.
 You're gonna go to the morgue.
 And it's, that can happen like that.
 Like society, I mean, obviously, anyway,
 you could jump across the table, stab me in the eye.
 I mean, I appreciate, I'd hope if you don't,
 and there will be consequences if you do,
 but not from me, from the rest of society
 will potentially get you at a certain point.
 But you can decide to not play by the rules
 any time you want.
 And-
 It's fascinating that, yeah, that's,
 we've created rules based on which we all behave,
 but underneath there, you know,
 there's things that doesn't,
 there's motivations and forces
 that don't play by the rules.
 And it's still there.
 Nature is metal is under the surface.
 Seriously, and again, I pull out my phone
 and I'm basically saying like, hey,
 I'm gonna, you're gonna get caught.
 But really I'm further antagonizing you,
 rightly or wrongly, you know what I mean?
 Like, and that's an interesting thing.
 And I feel like just people need to remember,
 any of us need to remember, just for any reason,
 just that's one step away at all times.
 You ever, I've had people say to me before,
 like, oh, I don't feel safe.
 I'm like, you're not safe.
 I'll kill you before you get out of this room.
 Nothing you can do to stop that, nothing.
 I mean, but don't worry, you can do the same to me,
 which means I'm like, oh, thank goodness.
 Can you imagine like how many guns are there are
 in this country?
 Like, I mean, everywhere.
 I mean, seriously, everywhere.
 But that's a heartening thought, not the other way.
 Cause people usually freak out and go,
 oh my God, gun violence, gun violence,
 gun violence is like really not a serious issue
 in the United States compared to what it could be.
 Because it means that, I mean, with the amount of guns
 and the amount of bullets that are out there
 that are in circulation,
 can you imagine if like one in every thousand
 was used in anger each day?
 I mean, this would be a terrifying place to live.
 You couldn't go anywhere.
 So, I mean, although you could say,
 hey, this is more than we'd like or X, Y, Z.
 It actually means that people are much more reasonable
 and sane than we're saying.
 Then, or then I, then sometimes I might,
 my might argue.
 So I guess what I mean is like, oh man,
 I walked to 7-Eleven and I didn't get stabbed.
 I'm like, oh, well that's good.
 Because not because I protected myself with my karate,
 it's basically no one decided to run over and stab me
 because I wasn't protecting myself.
 It's, they stopped.
 So I guess we're all fortunate to live in a society
 that like you said, nature being metal,
 doesn't become that big of an issue all the time.
 But it is funny when you get people in the ring
 and you go, hey, let's peel back from Mr. Tyson,
 many layers of that and say, hey, now it's okay.
 And it's cool that, I mean, that's what society is doing.
 So I've lived in Harvard Square for a while
 and we add extra layers of what safe means.
 Like now there's a discourse about safe spaces,
 about like ideas being violence or like,
 yeah, but the ideas or minor slights
 against your personality being violence.
 But that's all like extra layers
 around the nature is metal thing that it's cool.
 That's what progress is, but we can't forget that
 like underneath it is still the thing that will murder
 at the drop of, at any moment.
 If aroused.
 One thing that I find funny though,
 or ironic maybe about the words of violence,
 offenses violence thing is that of course,
 that if that the belief in that then justifies my violence,
 like my, and whether maybe not physical violence,
 but my response to my aggressive response to things.
 And I guess like, which it can be gets
 a further aggressive response and like a,
 kind of a tit for tat sort of situation
 or it goes to like, well, there's 10 of me
 and there's one of you, so we'll get you
 and you can't do anything about it.
 But that's not morality.
 That's just saying that's might makes right.
 So I guess, again, you can understand why people do it.
 And there are certain, there is a progress aspect to it.
 But again, I guess without proper examination,
 I'm effectively with my 10 friends,
 and the force of the law, Mike Tyson-ing people,
 but not admitting to myself what I'm doing.
 And at least Mike Tyson again is honest.
 Are you afraid of death?
 I mean, it's easy for me to say no,
 as I sit here probably not about to die, but.
 Is this like the UFC question?
 Can you defeat any opponent?
 Exactly, the answer is yes.
 The answer is of course yes.
 And I don't have, they're not around,
 they're not here, are they?
 Yeah, exactly.
 But I mean, do you ponder your own mortality?
 Maybe another context to that is you mentioned
 two deaths for martial artists.
 I think that's actually why, honestly,
 even though at a relatively young age,
 I think mortality is something that I'm aware of,
 maybe more than the average person.
 I think probably most athletes can speak to this,
 and anyone that's had trouble.
 I've managed to slide out of a couple
 near-death experiences personally,
 mostly river-related, because I'm an idiot.
 But I regret nothing.
 But yeah, thank God we're here.
 But yeah, it is an interesting, seeing the end,
 and seeing going, well, what's gonna happen.
 I guess, I think it comes back to kind of
 what we were discussing about belief structure
 and belief system.
 I think a lot of times, if I recognize that
 no matter what I do, it's all gonna end one day.
 Then you go, well, why were we here?
 What would I do?
 Am I gonna make it to 40?
 I have no idea.
 I'd like to hope so.
 I had no idea that I was gonna make it
 to the age that I am now.
 Am I gonna make it to 80?
 How much of that is in my control?
 Much of it is not.
 I mean, it's so funny.
 It's an interesting, like back to the belief structure
 again, like internal and external locus of control.
 What's facilitative versus what's true?
 And I think accepting personal responsibility
 for more than is on my control is probably a positive.
 But at the same time, recognizing that
 much is not in my control.
 I was fortunate enough to be born in the United States,
 fortunate enough to not knock on wood,
 have a serious disease that I'm not aware of right now.
 I didn't do any of that.
 I just showed up.
 That was really fortunate.
 And I guess that doesn't diminish the fact
 that I've tried to make decent choices,
 but it works in concert with it.
 And I guess when you go, is death what I want right now?
 No, no, I should think not.
 And again, it's easier for me to be relatively calm
 about it as I'm not staring it in the face.
 But what I would care a lot more about is how you live.
 That's what's in my control.
 And I can't control if as I walk out of this building,
 a helicopter falls on me.
 Worrying about that, I can't control.
 Maybe I have cancer now and I don't know it.
 And I really hope not.
 But-
 There's something about meditating on the fact
 that it could end today.
 Outside of your control, they can clarify your thinking
 about the fact that life is amazing.
 Like just kind of, yeah, helping you enjoy this moment.
 Even if life was horrible, let's say for instance,
 it was, you live at one of those times or places
 and those places still exist in this world today,
 that life is brutal and metal and whatever all
 and short and painful, would you still want it?
 And again, as I'm sitting here, not on fire physically,
 it's easy to say yes, but I would, I am confident.
 I still all plant my feet and say yes.
 Any life is amazing and beautiful
 and a gift, an unbelievable gift.
 That none of us have earned for the record.
 I hate the word earned.
 A lot of times earned, yeah, you earn,
 but it's like, there's a lot of good fortune in earning.
 And that's back to, do I want justice or do I want grace?
 And I guess we're all fortunate to be where we are,
 no matter where we are.
 And hopefully it should give us some sense of perspective,
 some sense of compassion for other people,
 but also like you said, a sense of peace.
 If it all ended right now, would I be happy
 with life to this point?
 I'm like, of course.
 Would you like to live a little longer?
 Yeah, I would try to do more and try to live rightly
 to the best that I know how, which over time
 will hopefully continue to evolve in a positive direction.
 But if the answer to that is no,
 I guess that's always, that's a sign that what I'm doing
 is not what I'm meant to be doing.
 And I mean, you're familiar with the Tecumseh?
 Before, I've got one actually,
 if you could give me 10 seconds, I'll read this one out.
 This is a personal favorite, basically.
 And I think it sums up, I mean, again,
 it's one of those quotes on the internet,
 like when Abraham Lincoln said,
 don't believe everything you read online.
 But this is, again, attributed, but it's like,
 so live your life that the fear of death
 can never enter your heart.
 Trouble no one about their religion,
 respect others in their view,
 and demand that they respect yours.
 Love your life, perfect your life,
 beautify all things in your life.
 Seek to make your life long in its purpose
 and the service of your people.
 Prepare a noble death song for the day
 when you go over the great divide.
 Always give a word of sign of salute
 when meeting or passing a friend,
 even a stranger when in a lonely place.
 Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
 When you arise in the morning,
 give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
 If you see no reason for giving thanks,
 the fault lies only in yourself.
 Abuse no one and no thing,
 for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
 and robs the spirit of its vision.
 When it comes your time to die,
 be not like those whose hearts are filled
 with the fear of death, so that when their time comes,
 they weep and pray for a little more time
 to live their lives over again in a different way.
 Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
 Powerful words, I don't think there's a better way
 to end it, let me just say,
 we've spoke maybe five, six years ago,
 I don't even remember when,
 but I'm not exaggerating saying like,
 you had a huge impact on my life because of the podcast.
 You're the reason I was doing the podcast
 as long as I have, you're the reason I'm doing this podcast.
 And it's a little, it's a stupid little meeting
 that you probably didn't know who I was,
 I didn't really know who you are,
 it was just like a magical moment,
 it's a bit flap of a butterfly wing kind of situation.
 And yeah, I'm forever grateful,
 you're one of the most inspiring people in my life.
 So Ryan, it's a huge honor that you would come here,
 Jen, and talk with me and waste all this time,
 I really appreciate it, it was amazing.
 Thank you so much, Lex, it's just been a pleasure,
 I really appreciate you having us on, thank you.
 Thanks, brother.
 Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ryan Hall,
 and thank you to our sponsors,
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 Please check out these sponsors in the description
 to get a discount and to support this podcast.
 If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
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 or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
 And now let me leave you with some words
 from Frank Herbert in Dune.
 Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need
 for a logical universe that makes sense.
 But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.