BTG 55 - Meat and Luck

[Music] hey guys what's going on david avalon here with my co-host robert drysdale for another episode of breaking the guard this time not one month apart like three days four days yeah yeah yeah we're getting better yeah it's like it's the travel schedule max like if i'm not traveling you are and then sometimes i got the kids there's always something going on right we don't for both of us to get quiet time even though we live like literally like four blocks away from each other no excuses really i mean we yeah we could probably be more organized dave we could probably pull it off once a week but it's not always easy you know like [ __ ] is changing my my schedule special is like all over the place well like today i i bribed you with bison so that made it easy right that's the only reason i came here by the way because dave probably showed me a picture of him like grill and bison i'm like alright i'm on my way for another episode of breaking the guard that was great by the way thank you oh you're welcome man it's my favorite meat no it's super lean man clean um it's you know like i've gone through a phase like i'm gonna eat less meat and then i hear guys like you're pretty much carnivores all you want to eat is me i love meat i crave it yeah i go back and forth on the ethical issue like um you know the animals are poorly treated ah man i love it you know it's it's not an easy it's not an easy one man like i could never move away from me but i've told myself many times i'm gonna eat less meat and and just be try to just maybe have ten percent of my diet be meat based maybe less i just can't do it man i grew up in barbecue like twice a week yeah no i gotta say you're from brazil like south america in general yeah a lot of me it's a there's it's cheap too like poor people would snake in brazil every week no problem you know it's not it's it's very compared to here at least it's very very accessible yeah and i don't have any ethical issues eating meat it's a thing i i've seen like you watch i don't know if you guys are listening you've seen one of those documentaries and how the animals are treated it's awful it's terrible yeah that part gets to me not the fact that like oh i think that all species or animals are created equal like no i don't believe that i think there is a hierarchy and yeah i can eat a cow because a cow can't eat me you know it's it's nature i would prefer animals that are treated ethically like i would rather buy grass-fed would it like that oh for sure i i again i would agree with the same i also see it from the other perspective even if i didn't care about the animals welfare itself as far as living a happy life if it is living a life trapped up in a pen and walking around his own [ __ ] you know it's not going to be a good food either i mean yeah and it's it's ethically and exactly it's health-wise taste-wise yeah so even if you're selfish like you don't want to eat something that's been good mistreated that's why like to me like the uh hunting is probably like the most ethical way of getting your meat because animals living free wild the way it's supposed to and then you just pump getting it really quick you know it doesn't have to suffer yeah in the ears or live you know kind of like i think chickens probably have the worst of any animals they get pinned up really they're they're like in the matrix you know where like yeah their eggs are being taken away it is kind of like the matrix for them isn't it yeah it's a freaking like in particular places are sketchy sometimes the feed is like ground up chicken that's getting ready to crazy fast they grow the chicken oh it's great with hormones like it's like in a matter of like weeks or days they go from birth to adulthood they had said doing again like we could be butchering this but from what i recall during like the avian flu scares like if they had to call the entire chicken population and essentially give birth to a new chicken population that would be like genetically resistant to this avian flu it would take like two years to replace the population all the chickens okay globally yeah damn that's crazy yeah yeah because we i mean we just consumed the thing is that the thing about it is um we've never eaten so much meat like meat has not been like we it's readily accessible to everyone like it was it was a treat you know not every place had easy game depends like some populations had easy game tons of protein right but you know many many hundred gather populations they were protein deficient because of where they happen to be in geographically right so very dramatically there's nothing that was like oh we were eating that much meat some people or some people barely had access to it um and there's a super interesting book i read it back in college not really related to you know meat per se but talks about the diversity of the globe and how that affects how civilizations develop guns germs and steel german jared diamond very famous book very popular won a bunch of prizes there's a documentary about it if you don't want to read the book watch a documentary guns germs and steel and the central argument of the book is uh you know because of evolution and how some species evolve in some places some continents were at a geographic advantage in terms of the rise of civilization so you can explain the rise of civilization the fertile crescent what is now the middle east northern africa because they had the pig they had the cow they had horses they had i think ducks they had chicken they also had wheat barley what else do they have basically everything i mean just a real i mean you go to places like australia what do the aborigines have yeah they're not domesticated they're not animals you can you can't domesticate a kangaroo yeah you can't can't domesticate a koala so they're limited as to what they can do whereas a horse you think of a horse what kind of advantage that will give you like in terms of like competing with other peoples or just like just think about like uh uh like transport sure warfare think about leather bones meat milk it's huge so if people don't have a certain animal they're a huge disadvantage right the great books fascinating theory when you think about it but it goes to explain why civilization arose where it grows because it has not just the animals but also the plants necessary to actually farm because if you don't have plants you can farm like you're you're lost how are you going to start how are you going to settle and start a civilization start a village and you know make that transition from a hunter and gather society to farming right to post agricultural society really interesting read i'm not sure why i remember they were talking about geography but um yeah like that's uh highly recommended man like it gives you a good idea because i think there's something people trying to explain in the past they have done this it has been politically incorrect explain why some people came out on top right why why did this people colonize that people and not that i must be race right and that was the explanation 200 years ago clearly you know wider europeans are superior and it can't be the case because there's a moment in history where chinese are far more advanced than europeans were there's a moment in history where doctors in northern africa like they had a very good understanding of medicine right of how to treat disease whereas doctors in europe like there was there's like how they would treat mental illness back in the dara i still call it the dark ages i know you're not supposed to say that anymore but it was pretty dark man they they would cut a cross on the back of your head and let the demons bleed out and that was treatment that was europe for you these people didn't shower either yeah that's to develop these super germs as the germs became like their biological warfare against people they were colonizing so it's not like there's any sense of real superiority it's just that they happen to be in a place in time in history that gave him a huge advantage to colonize other people right but like a lot of the inventions that allowed europe to colonize the world if you take a close look at them they're not from europe they're from northern africa or the middle east or china they're not of action if you look at most inventions like cartography um metal like bronze iron the compass they're not european inventions right but europe had to be a place in time with that technology was made available that allowed them to colonize the rest of the world right so i'm not doing the book justice but it goes to explain like why the world turned out the way to be the way it is but his main argument goes back to geography what do a given people have available for them to compete against other people yeah it sounds uh similar to what i've read malcolm gladwell's uh you know outliers where similar concept in that you have a particularly talented person but he's in the right place the right time yeah with the proper resources yes to exploit the talent and it goes as you know even the sports there's many athletic people all over the place but some of them are just not in the position where they can train with somebody who's can elevate their talent to the next level and then just like you said i know i think you've told me this but like there's guys doing jujitsu and the favelas are like superstars but like nobody knows them because they're just you know unfortunately they just they get someone pregnant when they're 20 and then they're gone they just gotta get a job now like career is over like that you know whereas if you have rich parents yeah you're like okay you can continue your jiu jitsu career will help take care of the child you know these are abandoned dude luck is a huge people underestimate the role of luck it's all about like when it comes to athletics or business or all these other things we see success right and people go oh you're successful because you're hard work like hard work is half the equation the other half is what you're talking about right like where you are i mean if michael jordan had been born in zimbabwe you think he'd be michael jordan right yeah you know like these things matter like there's a lot of yeah that people don't like using luck and i and i understand that as well because it's kind of discrediting somebody it shouldn't be seen that way because you even if you're very lucky you still have to prepare for it right like uh i could be born you know having a basketball player like jeans even though clearly i don't right but let's say i was like superstar i still have to practice i still have to train i still have to compete i still have to show up you know i mean so because sometimes people like oh that guy's a genetic freak he was always going to be really good like i've seen a lot of people were genetic freaks that are now not good at all yeah they only train yeah so like it's a combination of things but yeah many factors but like particularly when we're talking about elite level athletes yeah they there's obviously some luck involved in where they were you know their location resources and genetics you know that all of them combined like i think that's what made martial arts very interesting early on was that there wasn't as much as a luck factor because we didn't really have high level athletes yeah you look you ufc one you know like keith hackney a sumo wrestler you know but it made it more interesting yeah because then it was more about technique and battle will yeah i think more will than anything to be honest you know because if you look back at some of those early ones they're like man the technique's horrendous i mean they thought they knew how to fight yeah i mean i mean it's easy for us to judge you know but like there's nobody anything yeah but compared to today yeah like you but it's it's what you're saying man like it's so important if people don't realize is the the role of that genetics environment like even your upbringing like even your environment i talk a lot about this when your social environment is super important having that support network makes things a lot easier man like life can be very difficult if every person around you is trying to like convince you to get a job or do something you don't want to do you know but the thing is people have this view and i talk a little bit about this in my book and i've always always bothered me they have this but i call it a binary view it's a or b it's black or white there's no nuance in the world and the world is like people aren't good oh that guy's a liar there's no such thing as that guy is a liar that guy lied is a good statement that guy is a liar it's like an idiotic statement everyone's a liar everyone lies right who doesn't like who's never done anything dishonest in their life like is it really anyone who could say i've never lied to mike so everyone's a liar it's just that you know when are you lying that person lied in that event there's nuance is my point right why is it that people have such a hard time seeing that things can coexist like you can have luck and work ethic coexisting in perfect harmony is it so hard to understand like if you sell you tell me that i'm lucky no i'm telling you yes you were lucky i'm not saying that what you didn't work hard as well i'm saying that these things coexist in perfect harmony i'm laughing because it reminds me of an argument i had with with my girlfriend jamie uh when i went to go hunting she's like oh you're just doing this just uh as a hobby right i'm like no no i'm doing this because one i want to be able to bring in my own meat two if you're actually successful yeah you save money a considerable amount of money by bringing in something and three yeah i'm gonna have fun doing it but like in her view it's one of the other it was only a hobby or friend she just wanted me to admit it's only about hobby fun i'm like look if it was just about shooting and that would be like a sports shooting if i wasn't allowed to take the meat or harvest the meat i would not go hunting it's like oh i don't believe you i'm like oh no you don't know yeah yeah you know it's it's but i saw what you're saying like people have that it like it's very common i do this too i think we all do it at some point where we go you know it's this or that because we have her tied into a certain view like a certain narrative um but like if you pay close attention i think most situat there's a lot going on not it's just not only one force or two in place sometimes you have multiple forces in play and that's what makes human behavior so complex it's not one it's not it's not linear man it's like all this influx of inputs and different kind of pressures and different kind of wills even within yourself there's conflict like dave wants to do this well now sometimes dave wants to do complete different opposite things you have part of you that wants to go i'm going to eat there's a party who wants to go i want to go home you know like it's not always it's very conflicting um which is why like i think i think language a lot of times makes communication difficult because language tends to be this or that there's not a lot of we can't always say exactly what we mean it's difficult to do it because you have an idea in your head it's something that's let's say something within that gray area but language is always it's black it's it doesn't always give you the tools to describe what you're trying to say so a lot of times i'm saying i'm i'm arguing something with you and you're reading something completely different and we're arguing about something we don't even agree on what we're arguing about that's a huge that's a problem everywhere you pay attention people are constantly doing they're arguing about things and if you stop asking questions they go what is it that you guys are actually arguing about and you realize they're actually arguing about two different things but they're using the same word to describe it i mean i i see this a lot i think it's in politics a lot i see this in like even at home and debates like i'm arguing with people sometimes i have to stop like okay what is it exactly that we're disagreeing about and a lot of times you'll find that you have a lot more agreement than this agreement is just so you got to get the language down yeah we can't always see that these things co-exist right you start paying attention there's a lot of these things are craziest but people do get offended if you say that talent if you say that they're lucky they don't like to hear that it's like i've reached a conclusion i'm exceptionally lucky i got so lucky in my life i think about it i mean you started looking at things that had to go because i think you know the the you have to take the good and the bad too like some of the bad things they seem like awful things at the time it turned out to be some of the greatest things that's ever happened to you yeah like you just gotta you know like nietzsche has got this concept because they're more fatty right yeah the love of fate supposed to love your fate whatever it is the bad is a lesson the good is gonna enjoy you know but it's it's part of the cycle man it's part of life he's gonna have the good and bad but not to acknowledge the the the role of luck i think it's i i think it's not just yeah it's almost like you have to because you because it's easy to judge people like oh you didn't make it as far as i did in life you know and then you take a look at your life in a second man like dude i lived with my mom until i was like 24 in brazil she took care of me financially like that gave me time i actually kicked me out of the house i've been different yeah you know i'm saying like i was in brazil not paraguay brazil happens to be a place for jujitsu at the time you know i have an american passport that made my life so much i was born here i said my life is so much easier than it is for some of my brazilian friends who are also in brazil said train jiu jitsu but they had to struggle so much more to be able to live here right whereas to me was just like i don't even know what it's like to apply to it i've never applied for visa in my life you know that because any country i go to like i got two passports right little things like that you know i'm healthy like it's it's easy to take it for granted say oh it's all me like no man that's a lot not to mention the people in my life start looking at the people in your life that make your life easier that allow you to live the life that you want to live i think it just uh by acknowledging some of the gifts that you get you had just by being born into existence is just being grateful you know acknowledging the opportunities that you may have had that other people wouldn't have had you know just like i mean even something as simple as just having good parents which yeah huge that's that's probably the most important one yeah yeah you know and that you don't control that right you as a kid you have no impact on that whatsoever so that's kind of a lottery in a sense that you got good parents and you you're already set up significantly well compared to a massive amount of the population i feel very fortunate i had great parents i still do and uh i have a really good relationship and i'm sure like you with your mom you know like they backed me through the whole martial arts like even though my family's professional family like engineers and lawyers and doctors when you're like oh i'm gonna do martial arts everybody's like uh it's a hobby right yeah yeah yeah so like just having someone support you there is is huge because being able to stay in that martial arts journey takes support yeah it's because as you know when you start up you're not making anything especially well maybe nowadays it's different but like when we got going there's no there's no reward inside yeah there's no guarantee you're out i mean i thought i was going to be broke for the rest i was convinced i was okay i had made my peace with it actually you know you know so that you the the goals were different we were i feel like earlier martial artists were more about the development and teaching like there's something very fulfilling about passing on knowledge yes right yes i'm glad you touched on that one and you know like for example here it's crazy i think it's the first time i actually had lunch with you as far as like i made you a lunch right to me that's something that i enjoy like i like i could make something for my friend yeah that he enjoyed it that's like a good way for me like of sharing something that i have and martial arts knowledge is the same yeah especially when i can teach something to somebody and see it make a profound impact on their life it's rewarding they get confident so they you know they might in turn teach somebody else and help them like whenever i have stories of someone using self-defense and something that i taught i'm like okay this is far more valuable than somebody winning like a world title yeah like i had actually taught a self-defense seminar at a sorority in fort myers it was like one of the one of my former students she was one of the heads of the sorority said oh you know come over and teach the girls stuff and i brought like four guys it was a huge it was like 60 girls there and uh we taught them all basic guard arm bar triangle choke grenade choke you know and you know they're college girls everybody's laughing and you know i'm like i'm not sure if anybody actually learned anything here you know people are messing around the following weekend the girl calls me goes hey i just wanted to let you know one of the girls was attacked by her boyfriend but apparently a knife or gunpoint and she arm barred him broke his arm and was able to call the cops and it saved her life i was like damn yeah man that's a home run that's a home run you know it's a big win it's amazing save that woman's life you know and that's like that's impactful you know we have and that's just a handful of stories i'm sure you've had many of those as well so that's like the value you know like being able to change someone's life and in a positive impact you want to think that like you know i have this as a measuring something that for some reason always been somewhere in the back of my mind i i think a lot about dying i know i'm not scared of dying but i think a lot about death right and i'm like what would i want to be my death bed is something that's always like haunting me it's like what am i who do i my last thought i wanted to be a very positive one yeah i i have that in my life i don't know what kind of life i'm living on the way to the end but i want my last few thoughts to be happy thoughts i'm like i did more good than bad because you're going to do bad there's no way around you [ __ ] someone over you've done something they're not even aware the [ __ ] you've done wrong sometimes you know you do stuff wrong you don't even know oh like five years later oh man that was messed up right a matter of maturity sometimes you don't even know but you would like to look back and go i've done more good than bad like the positive outweigh the the negative you know and i think that's a good way of looking at things and i think that martial arts does do that and i think people miss out on that though we become so selfish i think this is where like it's it's cliche to say that money poisons everything but man it's kind of true yeah it is true like it really is i remember like talking about the old days again like you trained because you love jiu jitsu there is zero expectation to get us i mean if you got a dude when i got off my first sponsor dave i won this like regional title in brazil it was a purple belt and the world championship was in a week and the guys hey man you compete in the world championship i'm like yeah i give you one of my gigs while you wear it i'm like what i'm getting a freaky it's like like you know how much like a hundred dollars that's that's i was so happy i had one i'm a sponsored athlete you know yeah like i was so happy dave you know and and but that's not why we did it is my point yeah you can enjoy those moments but i think that a lot of people are doing it for they want to make money they want to be popular to be famous they want that recognition and i think that they miss out on all this other stuff that we're talking about which is more important but it's more valuable yeah um there's there's something about like passing on information like you're talking about like i i told this story recently it might have been on the podcast your podcast back whenever but like when leo would travel man i drive to sao paulo to teach class for him he'd ask me to teach right like yes me out of all these black belts here like 20 black belts on the mat he asks me to teach class for him i'm honored the wheels are turning man i'm driving what am i going to teach i teach a good class man and i never crossed my mind to get paid never crossed my it wasn't even a thought i was so honored that i got like 20 world-class black belts on the mat i'm going to teach them that's crazy to me right what an honor some of these like i get like some of my bluebells purple bells i ask them to help with the white belts they want to help it's in their face they're like disgusting like i'm taking advantage of them or something and i'm like man like first of all that's kind of a dickish thing not to want to help people who need help right regardless if you paint and be a pain member or not still help people man these people need to learn jiu jitsu as well maybe people become so selfish and self-centered they can't fail yeah the thought of like maybe giving something and what they're missing out on going back to what you're saying is that actually feels really good to help you then watch them execute the move that you taught them man that's very rewarding that's way more and it is more rewarded in the tournament because a tournament when you win it's very short-lived yeah you have like a high it's almost like compared to a drug it's like you know taking a hit i've never been addicted to drugs but i imagine you're gonna you get your fork for a minute and then it goes away and doesn't mean anything anymore all but man like knowing that you're actually impacting someone's life like that's something that's i know it stays man it's they're very rewarding i think if people underestimate that the power of that and and you know fulfilling us and giving us satisfaction true happiness and yeah like it's just we become so individualistic and selfish like i literally have purple belts like you look at me like i'm taking advantage like oh my god robert's such a horrible person asking the purple to help the white belt i think that's shocking like i don't know what happened to it it wasn't like that i used to be honored to help people now it's like oh i'm too good everything's below them yeah i know like uh even when i'm doing classes under you or marcelo sometimes you you guys pair me off with the white belt i'm fine with that uh you know like uh we're both gonna learn i don't like to train with white belts i'm teaching the training is a different story i yeah even care of that either as long as i don't get the white elbows that's one in ten people one in ten is gonna elbow you pull your hair you know like they all they don't they're so spazzy and willing to show themselves prove themselves yeah they end up like kicking you in the nuts like you know three times in a five minute round i've been pretty good with that lately as far as like a lot of is how you control because you kind of set the pace as the the senior belt and of course there's anomalies but for the most part if i'm going really chill people will generally match the energy right and especially if you've been cool with him the whole time you know if i've been like teaching you as a white belt as a dick and then we go to roll you're probably not going to be as nice right you're probably going to try to show this guy what's up yeah i if i've been super cool with you doing the drilling and the technique when we go live odds are you know you're going to probably match my energy yeah you know and that's generally it is like and you know like i might roll with a white belt we're going really chill and then i'm going with you and then okay now we're like 20 minutes finally you know whatever you know but like you can switch that way you know so i i feel like it's like you're saying the younger up and coming guys i feel like it's beneath them because the culture has changed yeah they see themselves as professionals they don't see themselves as students anymore but even like in our teams like we used to have like fight uh fight training and stuff like that where only fighters are there but after a certain point we just integrate them all together you know and then of course during sparring sessions we part partner up the fighters or pro level guys together but nobody's beneath training somebody else you know and you'd be surprised what you could learn from just your normal average student you know like i said i used to have this guy uh jimmy if he's listening to manteca that he would get moves from wrestling japanese wrestling video games and he would tell me hey dave do you think this will work and like well there's only one way to find out and i've actually used two of his techniques and i remember one of them was a takedown off a single leg and like you essentially you're in a low you know hand side single you're getting stuff down and you spiral underneath the leg yeah and you spin and i immediately showed to me like ah it looks like it could work and i did it to a d1 wrestler twice boom and took him down both times like it's legit okay so kids at home he's not suggesting you should not go to the gym and just play video games to learn moves just in case someone misunderstands what he's saying no but i get what you're saying but like it's um yeah there's a uh yeah there's a um there's something about like sharing that experience with students like i i love teaching and i'm not crazy about the jobs of politics i think my biggest beef with jiu jitsu is like how much the culture has changed like it's changed the last 10 years 20 years it's got it's gotten very very um very self-centered i feel like it does know there's less community and it's not it's it's i think it's a minority but because the minorities in the forefront they're shaping culture so you can have a minority but if they're the ones that are constantly being seen by everyone else that becomes the norm so the rest of the culture kind of follows suit right if you go to most jiu jitsu gyms like 99 of your students don't even care about competition they're just having a good time rolling around but they'll still be affected by that culture sure because that culture if they see like all the best black people in the world behave in that way oh that's how jiu-jitsu is that right so it's not something that happens very quickly but i think that you know i think sometimes we i think we should kind of take a step back and and think more in terms of community and less of individuals like people used to give that back that creole cheer you know what you mean yeah it's a traitor right they got a bad rep because i think there's some there's there's two sides to this discussion right like i think loyalty is something that is commendable i think you should be loyal that being said you have to be loyal to important to you as well there are times i think it's the right thing to do to leave a gym i've left gyms before they've and i have zero regrets i think i did the right thing it was like i feel like i was giving a loyal to the team that they weren't giving me because they weren't training with me or i had no one to train with and i just had to move on and i think there are moments where that's justified i think you can ratio i can justify that no problem but there's just something about like the complete lack of loyalty that we have today it's like the other way around now it's like there's like people have zero guilt like i remember when i left james man i just went off for weeks and i'm like it's hard and i'd sit down with my structure and try to tell and look them in the eye and tell them why i wasn't gonna train with them anymore super hard to do it's hard to do it but like i think that's the right thing to do like if i'm gonna leave i'm gonna tell you why i'm leaving and it's not personal it's just that this is what's happening right yeah but today they do it like man it's just like changes changing underwear it's just like just like that phone gone i've been fortunate in the sense that i've never had to leave a team i've pretty much been oh your own instructor too your whole life right well in essence but like so when i started wrestling i wrestled with my wrestling coach tears ovals and remember my senior year i actually moved to fort lauderdale weston so technically i wasn't supposed to be going to school in miami with him and i could have transferred to a different school which would have actually been an easier regional tournament for me because the south florida region or i mean i guess it's a south miami region the four places and regionals were the same four that place in state so pretty much it's like if you can make it out of the regions you could you're probably going to play some state but i didn't want to leave my coach behind because i felt that was my guy i mean so i ended up living with my grandmother who still had her house in miami for like the wrestling season just so i can you know compete and train with him and uh once we got out of that trained with my uh randy ibera who was like my brother's street fighting mma by the total coach and uh we trained with him until he moved and then that's when me and my brother essentially were on our own and we started our own association but all the people like i've always affiliated i'm still in contact with you know like i'm i'm fortunate that my wrestling coach still trains with us in her gym he was actually i think he got to a pro bowl before he got too busy there's a way to do it man like you can you can maintain good leave a gym and still have a good relationship i have a good relationship with every single one of my former coaches i don't have beef with any of my former training partners or coaches not a single one but what you're saying is like the proper approach as far as essentially our visions are no longer aligned right because if you're training with a coach or with a team there's a shared vision right like we want to get to this point and this is how we're going to do it you know and unfortunately sometimes we still want to get here but my path is like this and your path is like this they're they're not congruent you know i'm going to be upset you're going to be upset at me this is where we split yeah and i've had those splits before yeah it's like a relationship yeah yeah as long as you're mature about it right unfortunately most people are immature about it they can't reconcile like how can this person think differently no they're just they're just trying to cheat me they're trying to screw with me you know and we've seen a lot of those as well yeah yeah but like device splits like i've had one of our fighters who isn't it ufc fighter and all that but we had a split he wanted a training camp one way we went in another way but you know what it's not a fit anymore not a fan anymore no i i i think that but that like the maturity is the key word here like like honestly man like i don't get offended at people that don't want to like the way i train you know like i always say that i teach the center i don't teach the margins i can't teach jiu jitsu for some people i have to teach for the majority of the group right so if you have a diverse group you have to teach think something that's going to work for everyone right some people want different kind of methods or maybe it's whatever reason they don't like me they don't like i'm fine with that but like i think that there's a level of respect that you ought to pay people who instructed you because you'll have that the conflict comes down it goes back to money that's where the conflict lies because you have a student master approach which is very traditionalist let's say let's call it the japanese approach right that that hierarchy like this traditional martial arts right i am the sensei you are the student if i tell you to go get me water you sprint yeah that's kind of how it was like that's that's and and on the other end it's like oh i'm a customer you work for me i'm paying you so i outrank you right we're in in jiu jitsu at the moment we're what we've seen is a conflict of those two hierarchies they're overlapping each other right it's creating a problem because like we don't know what the boss is anymore right this is why i love wrestling because it's government funded you don't have that problem if you're a wrestling coach and someone starts acting like an [ __ ] you throw them the [ __ ] off right like you can tell me anything i mean you can really talk to me any way you want you can train any way you want if you don't like it there's someone in the debate right there's a hierarchy that's why it works just so we don't really have that anymore it's changed like it's kind of like i'm the boss but kind of not really you get students that are whining for belts and then like all of a sudden as a gym when you're under pressure because you don't want to lose a student like it's financial too right so you worry about these like it's it's so conflicting because you can't it's not clear who the boss is who is on top is technically in theory on the surface it's the instructor but the student doesn't see it that way so when he's like leaves you he doesn't feel like he owes you anything i paid you it's sort of like his mindset right which is true like that's there's there's there's a there's a logic there it's not unreasonable to say that i just like think that jiu-jitsu is more than a business transaction i feel that way maybe other people feel differently like i developed a friendship with you with like other people at the gym i couldn't just go oh by the way i'm moving cities now i'm not going to train with you anymore we don't talk anymore no we're still friends wait a second we train together for 10 years like what are you talking about right like to me that those bonds they don't break when there's no longer a financial attachment so if you're not in business anymore you're not my student and paying me a membership it doesn't mean that you don't owe me respect right it doesn't like i was your teacher for a long time i think that that's where i think that things get lost is that people see everything as a business transaction and not everything should be yeah you know it's particularly it's funny as you mentioned like that people kind of discommunicate and rewrite history in essence right i've had students that are now like top fighters and black belts they train with me since they started and then there's not a mention of my brother and i in their bio in their history it's insane they and uh that's so insane to me yeah and then one of them was interviewed major podcast and they asked how did you get started it's like skipped over i'm like so like you skipped over your origin story you know it's like man that's kind of weird you know it's kind of a weird thing to do like even if you were upset at somebody to pretend that they didn't have any role in your life you know it's called it's called the racing of history yeah orwell's memory hall that's what you call it you just it's gone it's like you erase it because it's not convenient you know yeah so and yeah i've seen that quite a bit you know i'm sure you have as well as like people try to pretend like you didn't have a role in their in their life or whatnot you know it's kind of weird it is it's i think it's because human almost it's like it means like what are you a robot or something like it's it's it's unethical i believe but again it's our fault i think anyone who has an expectation is the ones that fault because we ought to know better yeah if you're giving it's giving yeah there's no expectation well taught me that was liborio i was having this conversation with him years ago and he just went like that give something like that give donate that's it give it it's a gift that was it it was like one of those light bulb moments i'm like okay i'm wrong i'm expecting loyalty like you shouldn't expect it's nice if you receive it i think you ought to give it but that's you you can't control what other people do you give you do your part if other people are gonna do their part you can't control that like why are you worried about it yeah like am i gonna stop giving maybe i should i think i should be more selective about who you give to i think that should happen but i don't think you should stop giving because you know most people won't appreciate it like no man i think i don't know there's there's a part of me that is stubborn and being hopeful you know you don't want to be too cynical i guess no it can be easy too when you've been you deal with a lot of people who unfortunately take advantage or you know they mistreat the relationship and they're like it's kind of like people who get jaded from bad relationships like oh no every relationship is shitty like no no you just you've been looking at the wrong places yeah yeah wrong character flaws like you have to find the right people and yeah they're they're out there you know so it's the same thing as far as i think don't go on gender but man like um now you're right like it's it's you could be easily become you know jaded over all this and i think that's part of the struggle it's not going to cost like i've been thinking a lot about this like it's it is almost like an internal fight that you you fight you know for not allowing the negativity or allowing the the bad experience to shape how you see the world because i think to some extent it should but you got to keep a balance between i call it the balance between hope and cynicism you can't have if you're too cynical you're going to be sad if you're too hopeful you're gonna be disappointed they're both bad a little bit of both yeah you need to be a little realistic right yeah i i tend to be on the optimistic side of things no that's that's a good it's a it's it's a good place to be you just you just have to balance it because if you're too optimistic you're going to walk out there with your hands down into a fight the world's a fight man you got to keep your hands up oh for sure it's a fight and you're the other thing i you should almost approach like and i i've always approached like oh man my hands down like now i sort of approach people i think i'm wise if i kind of walk up to people like all right what is this going to be about your hand like this just yeah i'm just in case and if i see you putting your hands down i'm like okay we're putting our hands down but i think it's almost like a better approach that you start relationships with your hands way up high and then put your guard down as they develop i think that's safer um at least you don't get hit because i'm not gonna hit you but i just wanna be sure i don't get hit back right yeah uh because man like it's especially with money man like people getting greedy like it's very very unethical you know what it dawned on me i used this example multiple times before on how unethical the world has become it's getting worse i know i sound cold but like it is getting worse there are people just really look up to pablo escobar can you believe that i'm serious i saw the other day i've walked in like i don't care where i was i saw this kid he was wearing a shirt had pablo escobar's like face on holy [ __ ] pablo escobar is a hero to america's youth it'll like let that [ __ ] sing yeah might as well put like a ted bundy shirt on yeah like i don't feel like why not like while we're at it like genghis khan you know it's it's just like wow that's the kind of person you admire you want to emulate in your life and say it is right because it's like you know made money so everything is permissible like you got to draw the line somewhere i like money too but [ __ ] i'm not willing to do anything for money you know anyway no it's like you're saying essentially the value system has skewed a lot and i think coming back to something you were mentioning earlier as far as like martial art influencers it does have an effect when you have your top guys like conor mcgregor you know like yeah to say he hasn't had a cultural impact his massive understatement he's absolutely he's shifted the whole landscape into being more sensational more over the top you know and as martial artist for the culture that's a minus you know on the business it's a plus but once again then you have these batteries for him too though like i mean how many how many yeah to do more people maybe more fighters on average make more because of him possibly but like you got to see like he's benefited most 90 percent of the benefits of that have gone to him in the u.s sure yeah yeah maybe the other fighters benefited the other the fat like the the leftovers you know yeah yeah but like that he essentially has changed a lot even in grappling and stuff you see how that like called the mcgregor effect has you know dribbled down there right now like i thought it was kind of silly when they made a thing between uh mikey musa messi and gio martinez yeah i followed that briefly yeah i didn't really understand what happened but i i see it's almost impossible for like someone like mr messi to be upset you know i know that's what that surprised a lot of people because you saw how pissed he was yeah and you've never seen him anything but with a smile on his face yeah and that didn't make any sense to me i guess he got offended because geo didn't want to be his friend or whatever and like at the same time they just got out of a fight yeah you know like some people oh they're not fighting it depends man like to me like i've played flag football games that were like a fight you know like fight is a subjective war it's your mentality how you approach things like i am this is a funny story i was playing football with some college buddies and they were doing like mechanical engineers for civil engineers or electrical engineers i was an electrical engineering team which are typically nerdy kids right and it was essentially four stick figured characters and then me going against a bunch of mechanical engineers which were more broad guys and like oh we're playing flagpole fall whatever but i see one of this boom lay out one of my guys i'm like oh it's [ __ ] odd now yeah so like it was a tackle pretty much at that point i was like running people over and like four people have to get on me to try to rip the flag out it became very physical my buddy's doctor was like damn dude that's like i was very aggressive like it's probably why i don't play football like every time i compete especially if it's a physical sport it's it's it's gonna be i'm gonna be doing everything i can to win you know within the rule set so like when you say oh grappling's in a fight like man i've been hurt more grappling than i have been in like yeah and here's the thing it's not that that's not definition of fighting like because i've gotten to have this debate so many times with people because they get upset if you say that grappling is fighting i'm like look it up on a dictionary simple just end the debate just read the definition of a fight in dictionary and your definition of fight is the one that doesn't apply to the dictionary so you're the one who has an odd definition of fighting you got to write your own dictionary buddy like i'm going by what the oxford dictionary says what we do is a fight not to mention one could fight cancer yeah one could fight traffic i suppose one could fight i mean there's a million different things i mean fighting is a very broad word it is a fight it's just it doesn't necessarily i think the strikers are the ones that get bugged by this that's what i noticed because they see punching is a fight oh choking someone out isn't that's a pretty dumb definition it's like oh you have to be punching someone for it to be a fight so if i'm trying to choke you to death that's not a fight yeah like you know what i'm saying like yeah that doesn't even make sense it doesn't ring to me because to me that i always saw fighting as like you said literal yeah like you're struggling yeah it's a it's a struggle it's whatever you take it as mentally like for that's why like i always compete till like i'll be dead right so everything's a fight to me i i you know like i said i was playing that flag football game like it was a fight you know i was going all out so it's kind of to me it's almost insulting you're saying well i'm not fighting because i get some people play sports like it's a game like you're not on my level you know you're not seeing things away i don't play sports i play to win yeah i i play for keeps i mean uh like a duck holiday he's playing for blood that's when i compete that's what it's about you know i'm coming in for everything and that's good yeah i i think it's good it's it's intense right but it's but yeah it's it's fulfilling yeah and also for the person who loses it's also good because they're going to learn something yeah it's america there's merit there like there's i'm not one of those like oh just compete for the fun of him like you can if you want that's one way of doing it but i think competing to make progress is more fulfilling for sure yeah and you also if you're competing that way chances are you're training to support that style of competition and even if you do lose there's no regret right you're like well i you know i wasn't the better man today but i did everything i could you know i've lost matches where i'm like oh you know like uh when i lost to you like well i did what i could man like i i gave it all you know and freaking long-ass arms you got me that i remember because it's my only takedown by the way i i love under hooking people off shots and catching shots and normally when i get back when they can get that underhook i can pull you up yeah but your arms wrapped completely around me with the underhook on the double i was like oh [ __ ] you just dragged me down into a half guard i think uh david's being like uh he's being generous he for those of you who don't know the the real story the whole story dave had a 30 or 40 minute war with shut up it was 25 minutes 25 minutes but it was a war a wrestling ride mostly right there's like a lot of takedowns oh no like i i i don't i remember vaguely the fight i'm not gonna use that as a that's not why i lost you i lost you because you took me down because my cardio was on point that's why i remember i told you i think we talked about the last podcast when i was going against sanji i knew well i was counting on 20-minute match double overtime easy and i also knew what i was dealing with because i had no grips i didn't train grips at all so i remember when i was trying to submit uh even the first guy i grappled with on day one my submissions were off like i could barely grab anything i'm like well i'm not submitting anyone today it's gonna be all points but my legs were great because that was after my bulldog fight so i remember i had my hand messed up i had a messed up knee and a pop rib so i wasn't grappling i was running i ran seven miles a day so my cardio was amazing that's why like when i i got barely any rest between that match and and when i went with you but it didn't affect me because my cardio was never an issue it was still a lot man it was only the only issue i was going to have was technically you know that's what got me i was i never i don't grapple people usually that tall so i know now you off man it does it does throw you off you know because even though like we're sitting here and i look up look at the camera i look like i'm taller than robert i'm not it's because i'm like i'm like no actually you have like i got long legs my upper body is not that i haven't yeah we're about the same height upper body wise yeah that's a weird thing so i've actually had my chair i don't know but like i have long legs that's where my my torso is really tall yeah i have short legs because i i've noticed this now mechanically because the way i deadlift is affected by my like most people when they deadlift is a lot of hamstring i get minimal hamstring activation me it's all hip hinge so like everything's a little bit different from that body mechanic but regardless grappling with someone taller like i love underhooks but underhooks suck against taller guys because you can't really bear them down as much so they get them the big overhook on you you know or they they can reach over but again miami i'm dealing with my team was i was always the heaviest guy in my team which doesn't matter it's different it's different so like my pace is also revolved around that it's very fast paced very and i i play loose and fast usually which is opposite of somebody in the heavier division the heavier division that you usually playing tight so you know there's pros and cons to it but uh yeah like fatigue wise i've i've rarely had issues in training you know in competition rather i've always known like early on that was my advantage i knew like i could gas people out and like to especially when technically because you know like guard passing a lot is an issue of attrition right like when someone's guards fresh generally you're not gonna pass it you gotta break them you gotta break them right and i i always felt guard passing for me was kind of like that scene in the in the matrix when they're trying to hack into morpheus's brain it's just a matter of time right i just got to keep grinding yeah so with people like i just need to be able to stay on top and grind grind grind i'm not going to get tired and i know i'll get them a little bit more break before i do it i tell myself the same thing yeah don't break before i do yeah they're going to break especially the heavier divisions yeah um you know but the height thing that you said you said so funny you say that because i had the same problem in brazil like my tallest training partner was damien maya everyone else was shorter than me when preeta was my height and weight but he lived in rio so i only trained with him maybe three four times a year really everyone else was like middleweight lightweight and i'm like super heavy i'm like 100 kilos and my most of my training partners are 80 85. that's a lot man i'm talking like 35 that's a big phrase and and not only that they're like it's a lot shorter than me too so all of a sudden i'm fighting roger was like half a foot taller right he was like he's that tall dude i i i feel i don't know how i feel like he's a good he's i'm looking up you know i'm so tainted because i'm used to like looking when i grapple people i'm always the tallest person cause you're like what six two three six three so he's gotta be at least six six i don't know jesus christ minimum i i i feel like i'm i throws me off right and i'm not like it's just very strange to grapple with someone that has a style that has nothing to do with what you're used to in the gym every day this is where and i've been always been an advocate that you don't need a lot of training partners but i think every now and then it's good to have someone that is if you have like don't have a big pool of guys you all feel the same and fight the same every now and then you're gonna be thrown off in competition yeah you're gonna find that one guy that has a style or some athletic ability or height or whatever it is it's going to throw you off and it's something you could have adjusted to after you got taken down or your guard passed two or three times use like a vaccine you know like now i'm adjusted i've assimilated what you're doing i just have to make these adjustments and i'm good to go but you gotta you know you gotta eat [ __ ] for a little bit until you make those adjustments you can't do that in competition yeah it's on the go you gotta imply on the spot very quick um yeah man that's uh and i imagine like you know if you're that tall like you don't have that same experience on the other end sure yeah but if here's the thing like you might have felt less going against a guy like roger than i did oh because you had shorter bolts but someone who is used to but from someone's like a middleweight that is used to going against tall people might have felt it less than you did that someone like me who's never grappled with anyone i've never i mean other than like blue belt every now and then like i've never had someone better and taller than me to grapple with no no i i it's funny because and the same token the worst matchup i hate to go up against grappling it's another wrestler short stalking yeah i'm like [ __ ] because it be it's it's a bad matchup for your style yeah because now it's like well back in the day i remember like when my brother and i were starting we were like the wrestlers yeah and people might not know this i only wrestled in high school yeah i never even made state so like i wasn't like a world-class wrestler i was just but you were better than 99.9 percent of the guys are in grappling tournaments yeah yeah back then there was that was like a gable pretty much right they thought you were an olympian yeah it was a george pereira they called me black belt wrestler i'm like i'm not even like thank you i think it was supposed to be an insult but i took it as a compliment okay but uh yeah so i think one of my first tough matches with another really good wrestler was jay herron or jeronimous he used to train here thinking vegas what's his name again uh jay herron he used to you're on yeah yeah yeah yeah i remember i fought him in a grappler's quest in the first round and it was the first time that i had to play more off my back because he's a good wrestler he's a really good wrestler and i hadn't i wasn't used to it like you said like i was always wrestling so i'm like okay no i got in there and like i think he got the first take down or whatnot and then i ended up getting him an arm bar but like it was like one of those rare moments where i played off my back you know and then uh another tough wrestling match that i knew i was going to have was dave tyrell dude people said that they froze i never rolled with him i know he is they say that back in the day he was a monster man he was really good uh so my match with him was supposed to be like the unofficial best u.s grappler at that time for like 200 pounds i ended up losing to him by a takedown or two i think it was two takedowns but it was like 80 cc rules first 10 minutes no score last 10 minutes score so the first 10 minutes were very strategic you know like we like we measured ourselves out a little bit i pulled guard just to see how he would work on passing or whatnot and then we got into a good match i had a few close takedowns he scored one a good ankle pick almost had me in a couple like uh dar strokes and whatnot i threw a flying triangle the engine like i always doing a hill hook it was a good scrap and he was legit you know i met her i think i i think this was before he fought he took a bronze in the adcc i know he got ricardo all made up with a flying heel hook you know which flying foot straight full lock i think he jumped over and he landed like face down on the footlock yeah i remember i was there 2003. yeah yeah like so i remember that was a match i was nervous that might be probably the most intense baddest sickest submission seriously i've never thought i've seen a better submission in my life yeah because he is like a flying foot lock how do we even do that like it's never been replicated i've never seen anyone else especially that early on you know because i mean that's early for like yes it's very i think you can't train that he improvised but he was like in a single with the ankle yeah and then he just threw himself in the air yes and landed face down like brutal man i think he broke his foot i mean certainly there's no way there's no time to tap there's no way he didn't get hurt from that because he landed like face down straightforward it's beautiful oh yeah so he he was definitely legit so yeah i remember those but to your point long story short when you go against styles that you're not used to or maybe the styles that you're used to dominating and then you get challenged it throws you off big time i mean because now like you're saying if you're tall and then someone is suddenly taller than you it's like a holy crap the only way is if you are able to impose your a-game right off the bat and never fight them in their world yeah and that requires like aggression intensity confidence lack of no hesitation just go full force impose your world and i think that would be will be because if you get into a strategical fight with someone like that you're gonna be thrown off i think you have to wait the only way you can counter someone you're like it's a very odd style for you is just like right off the gate impose your style don't give them a chance to even come close you know to put it setting up their their uh their game yeah it kind of like in you know i always always say um in wrestling they always say always make first contact you know mma or fighting always get the first hit and you're like you want to start imposing your will right away and that's more towards like the strategic element of things but it's it's super crucial psychological yes psychological is super important you know you see happen fighting all the time like they measure yourself out for like one minute sometimes you see like three four minutes i forgot which fight it was it was like one of the heavyweights i think it was like derrick lewis and my god know what now where it was like a very i'm not sure if i'm thinking of the right fight but there was one fight where like it was like maybe 10 punches thrown in the first round he's like yeah yeah these people are so tight of gun shy because they know like once they start opening up it's heavyweight division it's like i get it man like this is why i like that sometimes like women's fight can be more exciting because they don't have as hard to knock each other out there's more room for errors yes so there's like they can bang i mean heavyweight division man it takes one yeah yeah yeah that's it get close just like one anywhere they hit so hard the brain is the same man like your brain is about the same size but like the amount of damage it can take doesn't change but like the size of the impact on the other end like that's dude that's huge yeah anyway dave i gotta get going man yeah work day but let's do this uh well today is thursday let's do this next week again i'll be i'll be here i'll be in town i'll shoot for another one all right awesome guys see you guys next time thank you for everything thank you for watching and yeah see you again ciao [Music] you