#363 – B-Team Jiu Jitsu: Craig Jones, Nicky Rod, and Nicky Ryan

Craig Jones, Nicky Rod and Nicky Ryan, together with Ethan Crelinsten are founders of the B-Team, a legendary jiu jitsu team based in Austin, TX. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings – Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex to get 1 month of fish oil – BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off EPISODE LINKS: B-Team’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/bteamjj/ B-Team’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/bteamjiujitsu B-Team’s Website: https://bteamjj.com/ Craig Jones’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/craigjonesbjj/ Nicky Rod’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/nickyrod247/ Nicky Ryan’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/nickyryanbjj/ Craig Jones’s Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/craig-jones Nicky Rod’s Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/instructional-videos/fighter_nick-rodriguez Nicky Ryan’s Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/instructional-videos/fighter_nicky-ryan PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (06:21) – B-Team (11:57) – Winning and losing (19:43) – Danaher Death Squad (DDS) (37:13) – Nicky Rod vs Gordon Ryan (53:47) – Steroids (1:08:31) – White belts (1:16:40) – Alexander Volkanovski vs Islam Makhachev (1:36:15) – Greatest MMA fighter of all time (1:38:43) – Dagestani fighters (1:40:00) – Conor McGregor (1:42:39) – Strength training and injuries (1:55:03) – Pre-match ritual (2:01:34) – Toughest match (2:05:25) – Positional training (2:11:59) – Perfect training week (2:14:49) – Overtraining (2:17:08) – Advice for beginners (2:25:17) – Takedowns and submissions (2:30:55) – Ego (2:35:24) – Lion vs bear (2:40:15) – Street fights (2:42:17) – Money and friendship

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Craig Jones, Nicky Rodd, and Nicky Ryan, who together with Ethan Crelinsten and others make up the B Team, a legendary jiu-jitsu team here in Austin, Texas. It was formed after the so-called Donahue Death Squad, the team headed by John Donahue, split up into a new wave of jiu-jitsu and B Team Jiu-Jitsu, both located here in Austin, Texas. There's been a lot of trash talk back and forth, including accusations of greasing and steroid use. And I, as a practitioner and fan of grappling, jiu-jitsu, and martial arts in general, am here for it, to see

• 0:40Lex Fridman?

  the best grapplers in history go at it, both on the mat and on Instagram. I like the people on both teams and train with both, and am really happy to see the exciting, rapid evolution of the sport that these athletes and coaches are catalyzing. And now, a quick second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got BetterHelp for mental health, Eight Sleep for naps, and Athletic Greens for daily multivitamins. Choose wisely, my friends. And if you want to work with our amazing team, we're always hiring. Go to

• 1:21Lex Fridman?

  lexfridman.com/hiring. And now, on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you must skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help. There's that quote from Jack Kerouac, the book on the road that I recently finished reading, or rereading. Rereading for like, I don't know, the 10th at least time in my life. And there's a quote in there about the mad ones, that the main character, Sal, it's strange how bad my memory

• 2:04Lex Fridman?

  is, but something tells me that his last name is Paradise, Sal Paradise, and Dean Moriarty. And Sal is Jack Kerouac. And the real life name of Dean Moriarty, I don't remember, but the character name is Dean Moriarty, and he represents sort of the weird, the crazy, the chaotic friend.

• 2:30Lex Fridman?

  Shaman guide through life. The drop of poison in a perfectly calm drink, or a perfectly calm pond, or town, like Tom Waits says. Anyway, those people and that part of ourselves is really powerful. That weirdness, that darkness, that chaos. You have to have control of it, I think. I think being self-aware and introspective about that, and bringing it to the surface, and knowing that that part of you exists. Check them out at betterhelp.com/lex and save on your first month.

• 3:10Lex Fridman?

  This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep and its Pod 3 mattress. As I record these very words, it is extremely late at night. It has been a long night before then and a long day. And the thing that carries me through is a beautiful power nap, or a couple of those, when I'm deprived of sleep, because of various curveballs that life throws at me, as it does for everybody. I think I at least maintain my sanity and my well-being by taking power naps. Sometimes I'll actually drink a coffee right before the nap, and I take that nap, and about 30 minutes after,

• 3:53Lex Fridman?

  I pop up all refreshed, ready to go. Not like no, actually physically, mentally, spiritually refreshed. Now I'm more calm and zen, ready to take on the darkness that waits for me when I finally close my eyes. And I'm laying on that Eight Sleep bed as I'm ready to very soon. It is a source of happiness for me. A cold bed with a warm blanket. It's a peaceful escape from the chaos of life outside. It's a weird little feature of biology that we get to sleep.

• 4:33Lex Fridman?

  And that is both necessary and it's just wonderful. Anyway, check it out and get special savings when you go to eightsleep.com/lex. This show is also brought to you by Athletic Greens and its AG1 Drink, which is an all in one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. It is delicious. I've drank it twice today because I'm traveling. I packed a few travel packs to go with me, like little travel companions that represent home. And then I get to the hotel and I unpack it. And that's a little reminder, a little habit that I get to carry with me that represents home.

• 5:18Lex Fridman?

  That makes me feel like I'm at home because what is home after all? But a set of habits and a set of people that bring joy to our lives and a set of habits that bring joy. And Athletic Greens is that. It brings joy to my life. Above all the nutritional excellence it does for me, above all of that, it just makes me happy. A lot of things in my life make me happy. This is one of the consistent ones. They'll give you one month's supply of fish oil, one of the only supplements I take when you sign up at athleticgreens.com/lex. This is the Lex Freedom Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

• 5:58Lex Fridman?

  And now, dear friends, here's Craig Jones, Nicky Rod and Nicky Ryan.

• 6:21Lex Fridman?

  Craig, can you introduce everyone?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yep. So we got Nicky Rod here, Brown Belt, two time ADCC Silver Medalist. Nicky Ryan here.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 6:35Lex Fridman?

  Who are you?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  And I'm Craig Jones, also a two-time ADCC silver medalist.

• 6:41Lex Fridman?

  Silver medalist, so the number one loser.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Number one loser.

• 6:44Lex Fridman?

  And maybe a little bit more, your bio says widely known as the black belt slayer hails from New Jersey, the land of pizza and biceps.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Ah, yes, that's pretty accurate.

• 6:54Lex Fridman?

  Okay, you also do carry gun on you a lot?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I keep, I keep it, keep it loaded, you know, keep it on me.

• 7:00Lex Fridman?

  Uh huh, you have one today?

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Uh, in the car.

• 7:04Lex Fridman?

  That was a mistake, that was your first mistake.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you're too close.

• 7:11Lex Fridman?

  And you are Nicky Ryan, what else is there? What else do we know?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Gordon Ryan's brother.

• 7:16Lex Fridman?

  Gordon Ryan's brother. I was waiting for that one.

• 7:20Lex Fridman?

  Alright, so and you're all together, uh, part of the leadership of the, the B-team here in Austin. Let's just get out some introductory questions. What in general accomplishment of the things you mentioned, you most proud of?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm proud just to not have to work a full-time job, just to get by on the bullshit I've done so far.

• 7:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Honestly.

• 7:41Lex Fridman?

  Just making money of a thing you love.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 7:44Lex Fridman?

  When was the first time you made money on a thing you love?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Oh, probably a jujitsu tournament, I think maybe in Abu Dhabi where I won a thousand dollars, thought I was rich.

• 7:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, what'd you spend a thousand dollars on?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Probably something bad, probably drugs or something at the time, maybe blew it at the after-party.

• 8:02Lex Fridman?

  That's a good introduction, Craig, so what about you? When's the first time you made money with, on jujitsu? Or what's, actually stepping back, like what's the thing you're most proud of? Is it a similar kind of thing?

• 8:12Speaker 02

  I think, I think I'm most proud of is, uh, I mean, for sure, two ADCC silver medals, which hurts because you're so close to getting that gold, but, uh, you know, it takes time. Uh, I'm understanding that, you know, a sport of jujitsu takes quite a while to be at the tip-top, to be the absolute best, so, uh, and I'm just being consistent in my training and my craft and, you know, get that number one spot one day.

• 8:34Lex Fridman?

  What failure or loss is the most painful to you?

• 8:38Speaker 02

  I don't know, I probably have a pretty short-term memory, so my losses, I just like, I'll just forget about them. Uh, yeah, I mean, for sure, uh, my loss at, at this past ADCC in the finals, you know, that one sunk a bit because I definitely thought I, I was gonna win. I mean, like, it takes a while to produce the skills or the reactions more so that you need to, to have, to be, you know, to be that number one pound-for-pound guy. And, you know, uh, pre-ADCC, I was coming off an injury, so it took me a little bit to, uh, find the right mentality and physicality that I needed in order to, you know, get the wins that required gold. So, yeah, it's just a process.

• 9:15Lex Fridman?

  Interesting. You keep saying process, like it takes a while to build up. So you're not like thinking of a loss like ADCC is like, a specific failure is you're not, you haven't gone long enough in a particular process to being a champ.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, for me, I'm coming, I'm closing in on five years of specifically jiu-jitsu training. I'm about, about four and a half right now. And, um, yeah, it's just, uh, you kind of, you constantly have these ups and downs in training where like, as long as you stay consistent, you'll have a gradual raise. But, you know, it's still, you'll have these, uh, peaks and lows and, you know, just, just trying to get better every day. I'm, I'm definitely not where I will be in, in a few years, in a few years from now, but I'm striving to get there.

• 9:55Lex Fridman?

  Are you actually a brown belt? Or was that a joke?

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Brown belt, yeah.

• 9:59Lex Fridman?

  You're a brown belt? Like, how many stripes?

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Uh, no stripes.

• 10:03Lex Fridman?

  No stripes?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Stripeless.

• 10:05Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Is that part of the process that, that you're working through?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Part, definitely part of the process. I mean, I think a black belt is just based upon how much knowledge you have. Obviously, like, you know, if you're talking competitive-wise, like, from when I started, I was able to beat most black belts. That's just kind of how I was gifted from my, my wrestling experience. And, uh, you know, the time will come when it's right, but I'm not in a rush at all. I'm, I'm continuing. I just kind of take every day for what it is and, and try to improve upon that.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I want to give him the black belt. Nicky Ryan says he's not ready.

• 10:36Lex Fridman?

  What is, hey guys, like, as no G folks, do you take that seriously? Like the black belt? Or like, how much does it come into playing to?

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's like Nicky Rod said, you know, it's based off of knowledge. Um, not just, you know, what you do out on the competition mats, because, you know, like he said, he had years of wrestling experience. And obviously he's very physically gifted. Uh, so we grade based off of the amount of knowledge that you have.

• 10:58Lex Fridman?

  Like, how do you measure knowledge?

• 11:01Speaker 03

  I think teaching is a good measurement of it, like how well you're able to show the moves. And you know, really make sure that you have an understanding of what you're doing.

• 11:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's an interesting rank. It's like, um, it's something that takes many years to accomplish. And for a lot of people, it's truly meaningful. It's like it represents a particular step in a journey. But for you guys, it's almost like different because you've been so focused on competition. That I guess if you take it seriously, it is a big step for you too. Like as martial artists, that that's bigger than just being like top of the world competitors, right? So I thought it was a joke. You guys are actually taking it seriously.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  That he's a brown belt?

• 11:38Lex Fridman?

  That he's a brown belt and he's and you're taking seriously the rank of black belt and like it's part of it's part of your journey.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Think about the time I get a black belt, I'll be no more pound for pound. I think it'd be pretty uh, nice to accomplish that as a brown belt and then maybe toss a black belt on top.

• 11:53Lex Fridman?

  Maybe get promoted on on the podium.

• 11:57Lex Fridman?

  What do you guys, uh, do you love winning or hate losing more?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I definitely don't hate losing. If it pays the bills, I don't mind.

• 12:06Lex Fridman?

  Oh, really?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, but honestly, if I win, I feel more relief than anything rather than like excitement and stuff. I'm like, oh, fuck, thank God that's over.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  I hate I hate losing for sure. But I understand that it's necessary to get, you know, to get to where you want to be. Um, and then winning is like, I mean, what I think winning is probably the closest you can think you can get to like heroin or something. Cause I mean, we're on a like, if you do have extreme success in a torment that you've been, you know, adamant about training for and and competing in for a while. And you end up winning it. I mean, I feel like you're on that high for days at a time afterwards.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Heroin's gotta be better.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  You think so? I'm I'm gonna stick with no, but.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna suck dick to win.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  You suck dick for heroin?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  I guess that's a good point, yeah.

• 12:53Lex Fridman?

  Well, you know, like, because you you you come from a little bit of a wrestling culture. One of the things I really love is at the end of the match when they lose, they just, there's no, they just run off. They're like almost pissed off. It's like some mixture of anger and frustration at themselves.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  I think I think sometimes that people like freak out on the mat. And I think that's just to show everybody like they're acting like they cared a lot. And really, maybe they didn't work enough to to, you know, get to where they want to where they expected to be. And they lost and then they had this big boost of emotion like after their after their loss. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I shouldn't. I think you just cry in the mirror and not to everybody else, you know?

• 13:34Lex Fridman?

  What? Have you ever cried watching a movie?

• 13:36Speaker 02

  I don't think I've ever cried, period.

• 13:37Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Have you cried watching a movie?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Not yet. Not yet.

• 13:42Lex Fridman?

  The The Notebook?

• 13:43Speaker 01

  I try to avoid those movies. Actually, I lie. Actually.

• 13:46Lex Fridman?

  Titanic?

• 13:47Speaker 01

  The last part of a difficult wake up for me is I try to find a sad movie and at least cry. I better pound out. That really gets me over the line. Low energy cutting.

• 13:57Lex Fridman?

  The tears.

• 14:00Lex Fridman?

  There's other following liquids I could talk to you about, but let's just let's just let's just continue on.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Low energy.

• 14:07Lex Fridman?

  What?

• 14:10Lex Fridman?

  What about you, Nikki? Love of winning versus hate of losing?

• 14:13Speaker 03

  I'm a very competitive person, so I for sure hate losing more than I like winning. I I do think it's something that's kind of held me back over the the past few years. Because it it makes it so that I'm not as active as I should be. Because it's like, I really hate that feeling of, you know, after a match that you just lost. So it kind of prevents me from competing. So it's definitely something I need to work past.

• 14:38Lex Fridman?

  So like, when you think about a competition, the possibility of losing, which is always there in competition, is a thing that like weighs heavy on you in in the months and weeks leading up to.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, my whole life, you know, my financial stability, everything depends on, you know, my ability to go out there and compete and my ability to teach. So, you know, it's it's a huge hit to the brand if you lose. So, you know, leading up to matches, that's that's definitely something that's in my mind.

• 15:01Lex Fridman?

  I know. So you guys are like world class athletes, but for me, more like a hobbyist competitor. I compete a lot. The thing I was, uh, cause I really wanted to win. The thing I was probably most afraid I was not just losing, but like embarrassing myself.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:16Lex Fridman?

  Even, even actually winning by stalling. That was the thing I hated the most about myself. In terms of crying in the mirror. It's like being too afraid to take risks after I'm up on two points or something.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  I think you gotta, in competition, sometimes it's good to take the emotion out of it. It's too easy sometimes to like, uh, think about, oh, my girls and in, in the crowd and my family's watching. Like, I want to win because they're there. Uh, but at the highest level, if you're emotional at all, no, that's affecting you.

• 15:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's tough though. That's tough, especially like leading up to it when you're on the mat maybe, but leading up to it.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  I think it's okay to be emotional prior, like, you know, if we know ADCC or it's coming up and we have a big match, like, definitely I'll go out and, and practice and I'll, I'll visualize, I'll put myself in that competition. That way, when it's game time, it's like, I've been there a thousand times already.

• 16:09Lex Fridman?

  So not the actual competition, but even leading up to it, like stepping on the mat, like all the walk, walk towards it, all that?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  All that stuff, like I'll do the same exact warm up for weeks on end and, uh, until my competition day comes. That's way, that way, you know, when I compete, I'm just like, oh, it's, it's another Tuesday at practice.

• 16:25Lex Fridman?

  Uh, what, what about you, Craig? Like, how do you prepare mentally for a tournament like ADCC?

• 16:29Speaker 01

  I push it completely out of my mind. Don't even think about it. Try to avoid any visualization, any rituals, warmups, anything like that. Block it out until the last second. Yeah. Trying not to think about it. I just go to training to have fun, learn a bit. So I try to approach competition the exact same way. I don't warm up at, uh, training, do very little warm up for competition.

• 16:51Lex Fridman?

  Uh huh. And, uh, you just step on the mat?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Step on the mats. My philosophy is there's no warmups on the street.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  We're so vastly different.

• 17:02Lex Fridman?

  All right, so you legit don't warm up?

• 17:05Speaker 01

  No, I probably should now I'm 31, but I would just like in the gym, take it easy the first round. You know, like if I look around the room and Nicky Ryan's down, I might go, I will have an easier first round today.

• 17:18Lex Fridman?

  So even for like the most high stakes matches, you try to push it out?

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't even think about it.

• 17:25Lex Fridman?

  What about like all the social, like Instagram posts you have to do about that match? You just make a joke out of it and kinda?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's all kinda pretty silly, you know, we're just wrestling each other, you know? We put the meaning into it, but to someone that doesn't follow the sport, it looks stupid.

• 17:40Lex Fridman?

  Well, all of human existence is pretty silly. Like, what are we doing? None of us really know what's going on. We'll kinda have sex to reproduce. We'll get hungry, we eat, and then we're all chasing money and cars and whatever the hell in a capitalist society. Or we worship a dictator in a authoritarian regime. Yeah, and then we get off on, we let power abuse us and then we just murder others because we get off on it. Yeah, and then eventually all of us will die because the sun will run out of energy. Cause colonizing other planets is very difficult. So none of it matters. It's a good, good philosophy. It's pretty, pretty good.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  That's exactly what I was saying.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  How does the sun run out of energy?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  You caught me there.

• 18:25Lex Fridman?

  It's burned out. It's like, it's a nuclear fusion engine and eventually burns out.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Like when you get tired of training?

• 18:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  It's never happened. I try to get tired. I just like, dude, it's not working.

• 18:37Lex Fridman?

  All right, cool. So you legit don't care about losing? It doesn't weigh heavy on you?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  I try not to list, like if I win, I try to block out all the compliments, all the niceties and stuff. So I try to do the same with losing. It's happened, move on to the next one, you know? Don't dwell on it too much.

• 18:52Lex Fridman?

  And sometimes make a joke out of it.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Winning or losing, with the right joke, we can make money off of the event that's just transpired. That's what's most important.

• 19:02Lex Fridman?

  Excellent, thank you. I have a bunch of your merch.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Oh, nice. This one's the Jordan Byers ripoff.

• 19:09Lex Fridman?

  All I see is silver. The way pronounced Burrows is very, is very, very sexy. Okay.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  I throw lines at people and I try to gauge your reaction. Like sometimes I'll say something to Nikki and I'll be like, all right, that's probably crossing the line. You know, maybe we'll tone it down for the public.

• 19:26Lex Fridman?

  So yeah, yeah. So it's not just, right. You have to think is this crossing the line?

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I get as close to it as possible.

• 19:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  I feel like you can't really.

• 19:34Lex Fridman?

  And then cross it just, just a little bit.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Just a little bit. Yeah.

• 19:39Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Speaking of which, you said that I'm Switzerland in World War II since I'm friends with both you and Gordon and John.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Very rich country.

• 19:50Lex Fridman?

  Are you a Hitler or Stalin, by the way, in this analogy? Would you like to be Hitler or Stalin? And should you make a T-shirt out of it or?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  I mean, a Nazi T-shirt, I don't know how well that sells.

• 20:01Lex Fridman?

  I think it would, you know, I think, let's brainstorm on this one offline.

• 20:07Lex Fridman?

  And I think since Hitler lost, so you got second place in World War II.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  That's true. That's true.

• 20:11Lex Fridman?

  That makes you Hitler. Anyway, to the degree that you can, can you tell the story of how the time you've had with the Donahue Death Squad and why you split up?

• 20:23Speaker 01

  I competed against Gordon for ADCC and EBI in 2017. And I remember I competed against him at ADCC and then we had the EBI event. And then I had a casai. I was, I compete, I used to compete all the time, every week. I wouldn't even do the preparation or anything. I'd just be like trying to do seminars, make money, and then jump in and compete. I remember I showed up to casai after I faced him twice. And there were like four locker rooms and they put me with all the DDS guys. It was just me and all of DDS. And I think we competed the week, weekend before. So I thought it was going to be super awkward, but it was actually, it was actually pretty chill. And the casai was in New York and they suggested to come train that week.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  So I came trained, hung out with them a bit. Ultimately, the goal was to move to America and join a bigger team just because that flight to Australia is death. Australia is so far away from everywhere. It's kind of like not realistic to base yourself in Australia when all the tournaments are in America. And then I went and trained with the guys and they just had a massive, massively deep talent pool in that room, like show up to like a meant to be seven AM, actual eight AM class on Brazilian time. It'd be like a hundred people in there, maybe, I don't know how many black belts, but a ton of elite guys. And I was coming from Australia, training with Lachlan Giles, but really that room was pretty shallow and like most people had

• 21:49Speaker 01

  serious jobs and stuff. So it was like basically me just training with Lachlan, maybe a couple of other guys. And then to go to New York and have access to a wide array of training partners and guys that are training twice each day. I feel like that's what you really need. You need people that can train as much as you are.

• 22:07Lex Fridman?

  You get humbled?

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Humbled.

• 22:08Lex Fridman?

  Humbled in that room at first?

• 22:10Speaker 01

  For sure. Cause my style of the time was basically a rip off version of what they were doing.

• 22:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Leg locks came in. I remember just watching Eddie Cummings nonstop and just seeing this guy rip people's legs off. And I was like, you know what? That's probably a good move. You know, that looks like an easier path to victory than trying to beat these guys at what they're good at already, you know? My philosophy at the time was if it's bothering old Brazilians.

• 22:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  It's bothering them for a reason.

• 22:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  It's probably effective. And that's the path I took to sort of try to rip off their moves. And then obviously to go into that room, try to do them to them, it's going to be a bit more difficult.

• 22:49Lex Fridman?

  All right. So that's how it started. How did you end up here?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  How do we end up here?

• 22:56Lex Fridman?

  We're in Austin, Texas.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I like to think of Puerto Rico as apocalypse now. John Danaher as Colonel Kurtz. Things got very weird in the jungle and the teams went in two different directions. But honestly, I mean, it's not really my story to tell. I had some issues with some of those people. At the time of the split, I got along very well with John. I feel like me and him connected very well. I don't know why that was. Maybe it was just because of the, he missed home. He missed a familiar accent, Australian, New Zealand accent. But I mean, I basically followed Nikki, left with Nikki, sort of that core group of guys left with Nikki. And I mean, I just backed, there was personal problems and I just backed Nikki, basically.

• 23:41Lex Fridman?

  Got it. Just sticking on you for a bit. Is there a part of you that, you know, finds it heartbreaking that DDS split up? This part of you miss working with John and everybody? Now, can you still man the case for that?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  I mean, I miss certain aspects of it, but I also do prefer the freedom of being apart from it. It's obviously a very strict regime under John Danaher. You know, obviously, there's parts of it, I miss the parts the the public doesn't see of John. The behind the scenes banter, I feel like he's very conscious of the image he portrays to the world. But basically, at closed doors, he's always making jokes, always funny, I guess, more in line with the Australian Kiwi sort of culture. But you don't really see that in the public eye. So that perspective, I do miss that relationship with John. In terms of setting aside personal differences, Gordon was a good training partner. Definitely a good training partner to train with.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  But obviously, the negative things we can't really talk about outweighed all of those things. And we obviously had to make a decision to leave.

• 24:47Lex Fridman?

  But yeah, that happened in the jungle.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  The things that happened in the jungle.

• 24:50Lex Fridman?

  Shall never be spoken of.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  That I personally cannot speak of. Yeah, but obviously, I do miss certain aspects, like, I mean, not, nothing's all bad, nothing's all good, you know?

• 25:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, this goes back to your, like, everything we're doing is silly.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. That's why I don't get people take it so serious, martial arts so serious. It's just, it's just pretty stupid, really, especially in the gi, it looks just, it looks bad.

• 25:14Lex Fridman?

  And then I mean, it's pretty silly with with and without the gi. It's just a bunch of apes.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  What's silly about no gi and what's silly about the gi and just mixed and mashed bottoms, that, you know what I mean?

• 25:24Lex Fridman?

  Wait, which one?

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Sandbag, yeah.

• 25:26Lex Fridman?

  I see what you're doing, brother. You come to my house and offend my people. All right.

• 25:38Lex Fridman?

  This is, we're gonna go to every dark place, apparently. Nick, how did you get with DDS? Like, what was that journey like? Is there, try to see if there's things that you remember fondly that that you've gotten from the experience.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  All right, so the way I started training with DDS. Initially, I was training for like, well, initially, I was, I was a bouncer, right? I dropped out of college to pursue this fitness modeling career. I ended up signing with a Wilhelmina Models up in New York and I was like, just trying to get in better shape. And while I was bouncing, kind of the talk of like, you know, Who's tougher came up between the wrestlers and a few of the bouncers that trained jujitsu. And, you know, they convinced me to go to a practice and, and I went to my first practice over there. And for the most part, I just controlled everybody, got on top of them, was able to avoid like, kind of like, you know, shitty submissions because I had, I had an awareness of the sport and, and you know, I'm a fan of fighting and whatnot. So, um, you know, I kind of understood

• 26:37Speaker 02

  it pretty well. And then soon after that, I joined a school and my second week of jujitsu, I started competing, had pretty good success, you know, I was like subbing a few black belts and beating everybody like, you know, pretty decisively with points and stuff. And about three months into training locally, I got connected with Gordon, Gordon Ryan and John Danaher up in New York. And I started, I committed to, you know, make the drive up there as many days as I could. At the, at the time, I lived in South Jersey and it was about two and a half hour, three hour drive without traffic to New York.

• 27:09Lex Fridman?

  Where, where in South Jersey?

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Gloucester County, Clayton, New Jersey specifically, but Gloucester County. Yeah. So it was about, it was about, about 130 miles and without traffic, you know, about two, two and a half hours or so. But on the way back, man, we, it'd be three plus sometimes, you know, catching that rush hour.

• 27:25Lex Fridman?

  What year was this? Do you remember?

• 27:26Speaker 02

  This was 2018.

• 27:28Lex Fridman?

  I forget how young you are.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was there.

• 27:31Lex Fridman?

  Before, before all that. All right, cool. Uh, anyway, you're doing the long drive and then, and then, and then what?

• 27:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, doing the long drive and then, uh, you know, once I won ADCC trials, I was able to make a couple bucks. And then, you know, I got my silver medal at ADCC and I was able to afford to live up there in New York and, and North Jersey area. So I lived up there, trained there full time every day. And, uh, you know, just kind of stuck with the team throughout, throughout the turbulent times and found ourselves in Austin.

• 27:57Lex Fridman?

  In the jungle.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  In the jungle, yeah.

• 27:58Lex Fridman?

  With the things we shall not speak of.

• 28:02Lex Fridman?

  What, uh, what are there things that you remember that you've learned from John Donahue, from your time you spent with him?

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I definitely learned a ton from, uh, from John and the team as a whole. Like, uh, you know, it's, you have to be the guy that asks questions in, in that type of environment, right? Cause there's not, it's not, you're not going to get singled out to be that specific, uh, like star or the, the best guy in the room when you have all these other, you know, stud athletes. So I really had to seek out and, and figure out the kind of questions that I needed to ask. And, um, once I became a bit more verbal with my training and, you know, uh, I'm showing, I'm, I'm expressing all my curiosities about grappling to these guys. Definitely helped boost my, uh, boost my technique and my career as a whole.

• 28:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Did you understand what kind of stuff, like technically you want to get good at? What fits your body? What, like what would be good for you? What, what are your weaknesses and all that?

• 28:54Speaker 02

  So initially, uh, when I started grappling, I had an innate ability to just get to opponents back. So I was like, all right, I'm, I'm good at getting to the back. Let me get, let me perfect controlling the back and then submitting opponent via rear naked choke. Um, and then besides that, I really focused on leg lock defense and then eventually came the rodial lock pass where, you know, I'm, uh, I'm really good at body lock passing my opponents now. And then, and, um, yeah, it just takes a, quite a long time because you have to find, uh, different sequences. And then there's always these, uh, an abundance of opportunities that your opponent gets from these specific sequences. So it takes a while.

• 29:31Lex Fridman?

  Is there part of you that finds the fact that, uh, DGS split up heartbreaking?

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Um, I definitely, you know, having one person to go to that runs practice every day that's, you know, consistent. Um, it was definitely, it was definitely, definitely a gift, but now I'm also gifted with, uh, many, many other partners. I have Nicky Ryan, um, you know, Craig Jones.

• 29:54Lex Fridman?

  Pause.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, we have Ethan Crellis, Damian Anderson. So a full team of knowledgeable athletes that I can continue to go to with, uh, multiple questions. But yeah, definitely, definitely, uh, it took me some time to adjust to, to training or to learning from, you know, uh, specifically my team and not just one person.

• 30:16Lex Fridman?

  We should mention for people just listening, because you can't visually see that Nicky Ryan is currently terrified. And Craig Jones is currently enjoying the fact that Nicky Ryan is terrified. But anyway, can you talk about your, Nicky, can you talk about your time with DDS?

• 30:32Speaker 03

  I started training when I was like around 13. You know, my brother Gordon had started prior to me. And I really just went into training just as like a means to exercise and lose weight at the beginning. Cause I was pretty fat as a kid. So I went to the first class, loved it. And then just started training every day at Gary's Gym Brunswick. And then during the summer, when I'd get off from school, they would take me up to New York to, to train under John. And you know, I just absolutely loved it. I knew what I wanted to do with my life at a young age. So I ended up dropping out of school, actually after my, my freshman year in high school. So yeah, 15, I ended up dropping out and just pursuing jiu jitsu full time, you know, training every day up in the, the blue basement.

• 31:14Lex Fridman?

  Like what aspects of jiu jitsu was, made you know that this is the thing for you?

• 31:20Speaker 03

  It was just something I just enjoyed being, you know, like on the mats every day. I love that there's, you know, a problem solving aspect to it. So it's, you know, it's mentally challenging. It's physically challenging, helps me get in shape. So I just, yeah, right off the bat, I knew I loved it.

• 31:34Lex Fridman?

  Okay. So then we'll go to the jungle. What happened in the jungle? And in general, like, I like this, I like this, this is like this like shroud of mystery that shall never be penetrated. That should never be like. We've got a book deal. It's coming one. A book deal? Obviously he left high school. He's not writing it.

• 31:59Lex Fridman?

  Okay. I'll do the Russian translation.

• 32:03Lex Fridman?

  Okay. So what are, what are things that you enjoyed that you remember from working with John Donahue?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously he's considered one of the best coaches in the world. You know, very charismatic guy when you see him in person, you know, I, I pretty much was, you know, kind of raised in the DDS. You know, that's where I spent the, the majority of my time every day. So I obviously had very deep connections, you know, with John, my brother, Gary, you know, even Eddie Cummings and stuff back then. So obviously I miss interacting with those guys every day. And you know, it's like they said, it's, it's good to have somebody to kind of crack the whip at you every day. And John, John was very good at that.

• 32:42Lex Fridman?

  When you're like younger in your teenage years, you can kind of. You like have to get humbled, right? There's like a process to that.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. And uh.

• 32:49Lex Fridman?

  It's a pretty good room to get humbled in, I guess.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, I I was uh, I started training with them just when like everybody started to break out. Gary was like the biggest name at the time, uh, just because he had won ADCC trials already. And uh, he had a crazy match with Kron at uh Kron Gracie at uh ADCC. But Eddie was just starting to break out. Gordon just started winning EBI. So I I started training under John, you know, right when when everything was exploding.

• 33:16Lex Fridman?

  What are the good things about life about jiu jitsu you learned from your brother?

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Both me and my brother never really wanted to, you know, work a full-time job doing something that we hate. Um, and he was always, you know, a very confident person. So he just went, you know, full fully started pursuing jiu jitsu. Um, so I'm very happy that, you know, he did that and I ended up following in his footsteps. Because you can ask these guys, I'm a lazy sack of shit out of out outside of the the uh the mat. Uh, so that's that's definitely one thing that uh I'm very grateful for.

• 33:48Lex Fridman?

  That he paved the way, like you can you can make money doing stuff you love.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And he was he was a big reason, you know, why my parents uh eventually let me drop out of school. Because you know, when when they were coming up, there was there's no money in the sport. It was very hard to make a full living. Like if you wanted to actually make a living, you'd eventually have to transfer to MMA. And I feel like Gordon and Gary and those guys were, you know, some of the first people to make a very good living off of just jiu jitsu.

• 34:14Lex Fridman?

  At this part of you find it heartbreaking that you've split up from DDS, but also from your brother in terms of spending time in the mat every day?

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. You know, I mean, growing up, you know, obviously he's he's my big brother. I I looked up to him a lot. Uh, so I definitely, like I said, I miss interacting with those guys. I was pretty much raised, you know, in that blue basement, you know, that John was like, you know, a father figure to me. Um, so I definitely, you know, miss miss seeing those guys every day.

• 34:42Lex Fridman?

  Do you have animosity towards Gordon and does he have animosity toward you? And uh, what is the source of that? And do you think you'll ever be able to forgive each other?

• 34:53Speaker 03

  Definitely initially during the the initial split, we definitely hated each other at the beginning. Um, but it's definitely started to to calm down. Actually, just prior to, you know, all this social media drama that's going on currently.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  He had reached out to me and that was literally like the first time that we have actually talked since uh since the split happened. So we didn't talk to each other for, what is it now, like almost two years? Um, and that was the first time that, you know, we we interacted again and um overall, you know, he wasn't, you know, aggressive towards me. I wasn't aggressive towards him. You were cracking some jokes, so hopefully the the animosity is going down.

• 35:36Lex Fridman?

  There's this Godfather quote that I wrote down. I rewatched it uh from uh from the Don, from Don Corleone, Vita Corleone. "The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other." Is there some aspect of family that you miss? Of the blood that kind of connects you that you can count on?

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, my parents, you know, they they both raised us that, you know, like family is everything. You never, you know, betray your family or anything like that. Uh, so I definitely, you know, miss him from time to time.

• 36:08Lex Fridman?

  Okay, imagine you're like forty years from now sitting on a porch with a shotgun, drinking whiskey, looking over like all the land you've conquered. Uh, looking back to this moment, is the reason you split up a bullshit reason? Or is it a good reason? From the perspective of the king who has now conquered the lands, have proven himself, have done everything?

• 36:31Speaker 03

  I think it was definitely like a justifiable reason for the team splitting. Like it just, with the way things were going, it just was not going to work with, you know, all of us in the same room together. It was started, you know, affecting training. People didn't feel comfortable and things like. So I definitely think that it was a justifiable reason to split.

• 36:49Lex Fridman?

  The things that happened in the jungle.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:52Lex Fridman?

  To be told about in the book. Is it gonna be an audiobook or is it just gonna be? And who's gonna voice it?

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Might be a play.

• 37:01Lex Fridman?

  A musical?

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:02Lex Fridman?

  On Broadway? Um, how's your singing voice? Mine's not so good, but Nikki has a beautiful voice. Does he? Of an angel? I can bet. Okay. Speaking of the the social media drama, I should mention that I've talked to recently to Gordon a bunch. I've talked to him about talking to you guys. And he's had nothing but really nice things to say about you, Nicky Rod. And he has had nothing but bad things.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  What was some of the things?

• 37:35Lex Fridman?

  It was, uh, well, let's just go to the social media first.

• 37:41Lex Fridman?

  Cause the the social media stuff that he said publicly is just like a warm up. It's like a foreplay, I guess. So Gordon sent you, Nicky Rod, flowers for Valentine's Day. Posting on Instagram, quote, "I've been fucking him in every round and competition since we met in 2018. The least I can do is buy him flowers."

• 38:05Speaker 02

  We didn't get the flowers.

• 38:06Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:07Lex Fridman?

  That was the question. Did you get the flowers? You never got the flowers.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  He sent it to the wrong address.

• 38:13Lex Fridman?

  He did?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:14Lex Fridman?

  Where do you think he sent it?

• 38:15Speaker 01

  It was close, but it was wrong.

• 38:17Lex Fridman?

  Did you appreciate the romantic gesture?

• 38:19Speaker 02

  I did. I was looking forward to the flowers and potentially chocolates in there. But, you know, it was a bit of a letdown.

• 38:26Lex Fridman?

  Can you describe your recent match against Gordon, the EBI match?

• 38:29Speaker 02

  Okay, so EBI match on UFC Fightpals was a 20 minute match. And immediately, you know, match starts, I pull guard and then I stand up, he pulls guard. And we have this kind of like back and forth where he's trying to dig for underhooks, trying to get on top of me and he can't really find success. And out and then in the midst of me trying to work my body lock pass, Gordon's able to underhook a leg and we end up in a leg entanglement. And then I'm able to transfer that leg entangle to a 50 50 position, still like still in the leg entanglement. From that 50 50 position, I'm able to separate his feet and and actually get a few pops in. And he actually said I broke his foot in that exchange.

• 39:11Lex Fridman?

  With a toe hold.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  The toe hold, yep. And, you know, after after that, we had a. A bit more, I was, I was just being, uh, working on top positions, trying to get my body lock. Time runs out and we go to overtime and overtime.

• 39:25Lex Fridman?

  Can you hold on a second, actually, what does it mean to break a leg? Was, I was very confused about.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Okay, so.

• 39:30Lex Fridman?

  Is this like a expression or what do you mean? What, what do you broke, which part breaks in a toe hold?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Okay, so in a toe hold, uh, there's a few different grades of it. Like you could get a, a few pops and have some, have some, you know, walking issues. Um, and people consider that a break and then you could break it fully and have your foot be like a limp noodle. You know, I think what goes Achilles, well, is the front of the Achilles or something?

• 39:52Speaker 01

  I mean, probably the ligaments. I mean, it's funny, like a lot of people say they broke something, but like to me, you break bones, you tear ligaments. So I would imagine you probably had a grade three tear.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Grade three.

• 40:04Lex Fridman?

  How hard do you think is it to, I always wondered that with, um, with like a straight foot lock. How hard is it to break the shin or like the actual bones versus to tear stuff?

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Depends how many steroids they're on.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  And obviously how much you're on.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  You're one of the few guys that have actually broken bones in competition.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, have I?

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  A couple, yeah.

• 40:24Lex Fridman?

  Uh, which bone did you break?

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Spiral fracture of the fibula.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Very specific.

• 40:32Lex Fridman?

  It's like a twisting, how did you break it?

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Oh, it was a heel hook. Vinny always used to say heel hooks don't work, leg locks don't work. But unfortunately, age gets the best of all of us. I think he had some mileage on those ligaments.

• 40:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  And the bone, I guess, yeah.

• 40:46Lex Fridman?

  So it's actually what the, the bone?

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, his ankle like disconnected from the tibia and the fibula, but the fibula definitely snapped pretty bad though.

• 40:54Lex Fridman?

  That's fascinating. The dynamics of that. Okay, anyway, it went to overtime. What happened in overtime?

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Okay, what happened in overtime? Let's see, trying to hang, oh, okay, I go defense first. Uh, whistle blows, I'm able to escape in like 17 seconds. And then immediately after I go on his back and he gets out in exactly 17 seconds. I'm like, shit, all right, I thought I had a good start. And then, uh, he gets on my back right after that. And, uh, he's able to ride me out for pretty much the entire round. After that, I got back on his back. He escaped in maybe like a minute and some change. I think where I went wrong in the overtime is I should have been less adamant about chasing the submission and more aware of collecting time.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  If I kind of diverted my attention towards acquiring, you know, time on the clock, it would have been more in my favor. But yeah, at the end of my overtime round, I'm able to lock up a rear naked choke over the face, but there just wasn't enough time to fully finish. You know, I got a few seconds of squeeze in there. I didn't have enough time to adjust and.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Do you think if you're on steroids, he would have finished the choke?

• 42:04Speaker 02

  I mean, for sure, for sure.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  That's what I thought.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  If you're on gear, you're changing the biology of your body. You're adjusting your DNA. For sure, if I adjusted my DNA, I mean, it's a finish.

• 42:17Lex Fridman?

  You're implying you're a natural athlete, is what you said.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm definitely a natural athlete, yeah. Heavy immigration.

• 42:25Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so for people who don't know, the EBI rules, it's an interesting rule structure where the overtime, you put yourself in like the worst possible position and the task is to escape. And then the other person gets the same thing. What do you guys think about that rule set?

• 42:41Speaker 02

  I like it just because, first of all, I don't like the idea of having to put somebody on my back, but I do like the definitive answer in the match. Like either you escaped in time or you got, you know, ridden out. So the absolutely, like you have a, you get to the final winner, that's great. I'd much rather have that than a close decision and it kind of goes the other way.

• 43:03Lex Fridman?

  What about you?

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, all the different rules, when I look at the rule sets, I just try to think of what rule set I could beat that individual in. And I sort of gear myself towards that. That's really the strategy there. I think there's some guys that like, that stall a lot, that you would love to have EBI overtime, but at the end, you know, they're stalling until they have to give us a good position. But then there's some guys that are so good in those positions, I'm like, oh, maybe we just do a regular match, you know?

• 43:30Lex Fridman?

  What are the rules in the streets?

• 43:32Speaker 01

  The streets, no time limit.

• 43:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's one of it. There's also like concrete and cars and stuff.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Biting.

• 43:39Lex Fridman?

  Biting, yeah, poking.

• 43:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so you don't like that rule set? Are there some people you would prefer in the street as a rule set?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Me? Probably not.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  I don't know, the EBI. I mean, it's tricky, you know, it depends on the opponent, which rules that I'd want to do.

• 43:59Lex Fridman?

  Wow, what about you, Nick? What do you think about the rule set of EBI?

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Yes, I think EBI is very good from a spectator point of view, you know, people find it very entertaining to watch. You know, because you're, people want to see submissions and you're putting people, you're putting the athletes in a, in a position where, you know, you have like the highest percentage submission in the sport. So obviously you're going to get a lot of submissions. My issue with it is, it is a rule set that allows somebody that's overall worse at jiu jitsu to win a match. You know, a guy can go out there and just stall and just get completely dominated for the entirety of regulation. And then he gets to start on the guy's back. So that's, that's one, my, my one issue with it.

• 44:38Lex Fridman?

  But also, I mean, it's interesting to see, like, the best people in the world have to be put in a really bad position. And to see how good their escapes are, for example.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:49Lex Fridman?

  It's interesting.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:50Lex Fridman?

  But it, but it doesn't feel like a realistic, it's, it's a fun thing to watch, but it doesn't feel like the real fight.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:59Lex Fridman?

  It feels weird.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  I'll claim it. If I start in overtime on someone and finish them, I'll claim it. But if they submit me in overtime, I'm like, awesome.

• 45:05Lex Fridman?

  You're good to know. Yeah. It's good.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  The issue is people like stalling to just win the overtime. So where you got this guy, his whole training camp is just not get subbed and, and win the overtime. It's a bit boring.

• 45:19Lex Fridman?

  By the way, I have a, a rose behind you. Somebody gave me a Valentine's flower. So if you, if you missed the one from Gordon, I got one for you.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  Well, I'd appreciate that. Thank you. It's good to feel loved.

• 45:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. All right.

• 45:34Lex Fridman?

  So what did you learn from that match? Like a takeaway is technically speaking, like what, uh, what, what do you need to work on?

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Well, I learned that, uh, I am pretty good.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty good. Uh, I got a, you know, a few, I know exactly what my weakness is, you know? It's the, the leg lock department and I'm doing, I'm doing a lot, um, to, to, you know, get better in that specific aspect.

• 45:56Lex Fridman?

  Attack and defense?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Attack, I would say, yeah, but attack, defense, re-attacks. Even if I wanted to offensively enter a leg, you know, I could use some work there as well. But I feel like once I solidify like, um, my, like if I come, I'll become a black belt specifically in the leg lock department, I feel like I'd be unstoppable.

• 46:16Lex Fridman?

  If you, Nicky Rod, definitively beat Gordon Ryan, how would you do it?

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Buggy choke.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Buggy choke.

• 46:24Lex Fridman?

  Buggy choke. For the listener, I don't even know how to describe buggy choke. Uh, what's, what's the definitive like conclusion on, on, on that choke? Does it work? It's a, it's a choke that you do when you're in a, uh, what's the opposite of dominant? It's not submissive, in a non-dominant position of bottom of side control.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, just embarrassing submission to get caught with, really.

• 46:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but does it work?

• 46:49Speaker 01

  It works on certain people.

• 46:52Lex Fridman?

  For the listener, he glanced over at Nicky Rod. It's embarrassing, but it's also what? It's a way to frustrate the, the opponent.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  For sure, yeah, it's a new part of the sport. I feel like the Rotolas brought it back into fashion and even if you don't get it, because it's one of those moves that's so embarrassing, at the first sign of danger, the top guy abandoned ship and you can basically retain guard by attempting a very embarrassing submission.

• 47:15Lex Fridman?

  So the threat of embarrassment.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. People pull out very quick to avoid suffering the consequences.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  I think some people underestimate how, uh, good of a submission is. I mean, like, once you're locked in there, there's not too many defenses for a buggy choke.

• 47:31Lex Fridman?

  Are you, is there an instructional on the way from you?

• 47:35Speaker 02

  J-Rod, actually, my little brother has one.

• 47:37Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah, for real? You actually legit have? Oh, wow.

• 47:43Lex Fridman?

  That's awesome. Well, check it out. I mean, there is, I mean, you're making a joke out of it, but it is a real, like, there's a system to it.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, I don't know if we call it a system. It's a good move.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  I mean, you take an opponent that was just winning in a greatly dominant position, and then boom, in that same position, they're pretty much, they're losing. You know, it's an interesting move.

• 48:08Lex Fridman?

  What's the name of the, what's the name of it?

• 48:10Speaker 02

  It's called the Buggypedia by Jay Rodriguez.

• 48:13Lex Fridman?

  Okay, the Buggypedia. I thought there'd be something like very Craig Jones-y about it. Okay, awesome. I know you don't want to sort of reveal the secrets of what you're working on, but in general, what does it take to beat Gordon, I guess?

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Okay, so it would have to be some kind of choke. I think any joint lock or anything like that, he's just gonna let it break and stay in the match. So I don't even think he'd tap from like a reiniger choke. I think I would have to put him to sleep. So putting him to sleep is how it would.

• 48:39Lex Fridman?

  So Gordon is somebody who really hates losing?

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, like he won't even tap in the, in the practice room. I remember like I had a toe hold a couple of times in practice room, and he was just comfortable like working there. I'm like, I'm not really putting much on it. I think he just, you know, maybe because of situations like that in practice, he kind of didn't respect my toe hold's ability in competition.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  You've done that to me in the practice.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  I have, yeah. Yeah, I gave him a little.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Give me a little pop and then he let go?

• 49:06Speaker 02

  And I was only 10% right there.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Hey, don't get into math.

• 49:12Lex Fridman?

  Okay, is there some part of that you think is necessary to be a champion? Is to like this almost unwillingness and competition to tap?

• 49:21Speaker 02

  I think there's definitely something to be said for people that are just like, you know, willing to go that extra mile or to take that damage to secure their victory.

• 49:31Lex Fridman?

  Is there part of you that like would hate to tap or hates to tap?

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, all of me would hate that. Yeah, the whole part of me.

• 49:40Lex Fridman?

  Isn't there a John Legend song like that, All of You and All of Me?

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Very romantic, yeah.

• 49:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, we're sticking on that theme. Okay, I'm sorry. Oh, one of the things Gordon. Asked, I forget how he put it because I think there's a lot of words that would need to be censored involved, but he said, ask them how it feels to have a zero five record against me with four submissions combined.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  I mean, first of all, I wasn't sure he could count to five.

• 50:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  That's an impressive thing.

• 50:10Lex Fridman?

  That's impressive.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Oh, and five, I mean, I will say one thing, nobody beats me four times.

• 50:19Lex Fridman?

  I love you so much.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Lex, I did have a question. I did have a question for you.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  There was some controversy on your Twitter.

• 50:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  About a list of books.

• 50:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  And I was wondering why Gordon's book wasn't featured amongst that literature.

• 50:37Lex Fridman?

  Well, it was only the first 30 books or like the first 20 books and it would of course be in.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Something interesting about Gordon, he's the first author that's written more books than he's read.

• 50:49Lex Fridman?

  Pretty good.

• 50:53Lex Fridman?

  If you, if you face him and beat him, what like, what's your take on what it takes to beat Gordon? I, you guys kind of joke and you go pretty, pretty hard recently on each other, but as a fan of jiu jitsu, I'm all in on this rivalry. It's just fun to watch.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  I mean, first of all, I don't think I go really hard with him. I think Gordon is, he's pretty sensitive. You know what I mean? He's looking for a large insult in a small insult. And for me, like Australians, we just attack each other all day, every day. And for me, like if I see someone that takes himself very seriously, that's like blood in the water. That's funny to me. To me, if I can just gently provoke and get a strong reaction, that's hilarious. Like Aussies, we will just attack each other and the first person that gets upset, he kind of loses the exchange. So I think that is very, very entertaining.

• 51:43Lex Fridman?

  Like if you were to beat Gordon, would the mental game off the mat be part of it?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  I think it would be a fact of a sure, but I mean, I'm never gonna come out too crazy direct with him, you know, like I don't, I find that like if you get too upset online and you're going crazy, I find that I'd be embarrassed to do that myself. Obviously each, everyone's different. Everyone has a different style, you know, but like, yeah, I think mental, the mental aspect would play a big factor. I mean, mainly because if I were to beat him, I would send him a message every day until I died.

• 52:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Just to gently remind him that I got the last one. The last one is all that matters. We're not giving, yeah, we're not giving score.

• 52:25Lex Fridman?

  So like, once you beat him, you're going to run for the rest of your life?

• 52:30Speaker 01

  I mean, run, but look back.

• 52:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  You know?

• 52:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, ride with messages. Ride, ride your horse into the sunset. Okay.

• 52:40Lex Fridman?

  Oh, by the way, you've talked very lightly, talked shit very lightly against Alexander Volkanovski's opponent, very lightly. Have you received death threats or how are you still alive?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Like Gordon, I would say people from Dagestan of take a joke very well.

• 52:59Lex Fridman?

  Do they really? Do they really?

• 53:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 53:02Lex Fridman?

  Oh, like, oh, sorry, I'm slow. I went through aggressive mode in my head.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Now, honestly,

• 53:08Lex Fridman?

  I'm listening to you.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Islam was pretty cool. I wanted to stir it up a bit, you know, cause like I felt like that was a massive fight and it probably should have had more attention than it was receiving. So I wanted to just gently stir it up a bit. I feel like Sambo guys are in the same vein as catch wrestlers, very sensitive, you know, like obviously there's only three people in the world that do catch wrestling, Sambo, maybe 10 to 15. So I figured we could really provoke them with that sort of jujitsu, Sambo stuff. Islam took the jokes very well. The Russian fans, not so much, are very serious. There's not many smiles in Russia, you know? They didn't take it as well.

• 53:42Lex Fridman?

  I'm trying to suppress the anger, the rage is building up inside of me slowly. So you guys mentioned steroids.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  I like that you bring that up after we talk about Russia, for the record. Smooth, smooth segue there.

• 53:56Lex Fridman?

  I do not condone the statements said by the Aussie, but I would love to travel with you to Russia.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  That would be a good time.

• 54:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  You might get killed with me now.

• 54:07Lex Fridman?

  No, I would be the like the first to to turn to backstab you.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Like I got in there again.

• 54:15Lex Fridman?

  All right.

• 54:17Lex Fridman?

  Are most of the top grapplers on steroids?

• 54:20Speaker 01

  I mean, it's hard to say, you know, some people look like shit and they're on steroids. Some people look excellent and they're not on steroids. It's so, so hard to tell.

• 54:30Lex Fridman?

  But that seems to be the the general consensus that a lot of people on steroids. I'm always a little bit, I don't know, so be honest, I've never, I've never seen anyone take steroids. I've never taken steroids. I don't even know if that's the right term to use or like TRT, any of that. So I'm very careful like to not let my naive vete like

• 54:52Lex Fridman?

  lead me to take conclusions. But I do feel a little bit weird about the witch hunt nature of it. That some people a little bit too eagerly claim that others on steroids just because they're successful. But at the same time, it does seem that a lot of athletes will do whatever it takes to be successful.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, if a sport doesn't test, you got to assume most people are gonna do it. And especially now, as more money comes into the sport, you got to assume more people are gonna do it, you know?

• 55:20Lex Fridman?

  I generally like do AGCC and like does Jiu Jitsu test?

• 55:25Speaker 01

  It's actually encouraged.

• 55:27Lex Fridman?

  What's encouraged?

• 55:29Lex Fridman?

  You get a pamphlet? Okay, they don't test? There's no testing?

• 55:32Speaker 01

  They test to make sure we're on steroids because obviously it's a big show for the UFC five pass in the future. They don't want anyone coming in out of shape.

• 55:39Lex Fridman?

  Very nice. Do you think using steroids in that kind of context in sports is wrong? Like stepping stepping away if it's not illegal?

• 55:47Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 55:47Lex Fridman?

  Do you think ethically speaking?

• 55:49Speaker 01

  I like to assume everyone's on steroids and I have to feel bad about using steroids myself.

• 55:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 55:54Lex Fridman?

  Do you use them, use all of the steroids?

• 55:56Speaker 01

  I'm over 30, it's D O D, you know, that's the medical definition.

• 56:00Lex Fridman?

  That's the medical, okay. I'd like to meet your doctor.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Therapeutic use, you know?

• 56:06Lex Fridman?

  Therapeutic, right.

• 56:09Lex Fridman?

  Like, how do you just feel about it?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  I mean, it is cheating for sure, whether they test for it or not. I think it is cheating. Obviously, some people are gonna say, oh, fuck, everyone's on it. I should be able to get away with it. Makes it even playing field. You know, but it kind of becomes Russian roulette, because it's like, if one guy's taking a small amount, and the other guy is taking a huge amount, he's gonna reap huge rewards in the short term. Probably be dead pretty early, but die a champion, mind you. You know what I mean? So it's like, I don't know what that one is yet.

• 56:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What do you think about that? Do you think, do you think it's worthy to take health risks?

• 56:43Speaker 01

  I think if you're-

• 56:43Lex Fridman?

  Just for the glory?

• 56:45Speaker 01

  I think if you're forty, about to die, looking at a cabinet of gold medals for wrestling other men, it's probably not gonna hit the same way on your deathbed, you know?

• 56:54Lex Fridman?

  What? Sorry, in which direction? Like, is that a good thing or not?

• 56:58Speaker 01

  No, you're probably gonna feel like, oh, fuck, I probably wasted a bit of health on that, you know?

• 57:02Lex Fridman?

  You think so? Isn't that, isn't that like the glory of it? Like, you said other men. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, in my opinion, I'll maybe wrestle a woman as well.

• 57:16Lex Fridman?

  What'd you do with Gabby on Valentine's Day? What did you take her?

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Uh, we filmed some new stuff for OnlyFans.

• 57:22Lex Fridman?

  For OnlyFans?

• 57:22Speaker 01

  We never stop working.

• 57:25Lex Fridman?

  So it's a love affair is also a work affair. Okay. I don't know, I, I, there's something to that, I mean, like, like Olympic gold medalists accomplishing like the heights, sacrificing everything, just everything, the first twenty, thirty years of your life for this silly little piece of medal. I don't, I think there's something beautiful to that, that's like inspires a lot, a lot of people. And that's like the height of the human condition in a way, like-

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Why don't you survive? I'm just saying, if you're in your deathbed, early in life-

• 57:58Lex Fridman?

  We all die. All men die. But not all men truly live.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  How many years? How many years are you willing to shave off for a gold medal?

• 58:08Lex Fridman?

  That's a good question. How many? How many are you willing to shave off for a gold medal? What year, for a silver medal?

• 58:13Speaker 01

  For silver, I mean, for a silver medal, I'd shave a few off.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  I think two silvers makes a gold.

• 58:19Lex Fridman?

  It's worth five years?

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Five to ten, maybe, yeah. We should have the bad years and haunts the good ones, you know?

• 58:27Lex Fridman?

  Well, I mean, you've sacrificed. You've guys sacrificed a lot, a lot of your life. You continue to sacrifice. You don't see the sacrifice.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  It's fun. I think training is fun, being adamant about it, consistent. Gives you, I mean, I think we have a great routine, great ritual. Definitely enjoy the process.

• 58:43Lex Fridman?

  All right, well, do you guys know, this is bro science? Or I'm talking bro scientist, but do you know how long steroids stay in your system?

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Forever.

• 58:53Lex Fridman?

  Forever? Oh, because it's like, hey, once you do it, you own it. Yeah. Just the knowledge. Yeah, all right.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  I think it's different for each steroid, right? I think some of them last longer than others. Depends if it's a urine.

• 59:07Lex Fridman?

  You would think I would do a little research before this, asking these questions. Why do you think most athletes and coaches don't talk about steroids? Like, why is it such a, like, a secret? Why is it so embarrassing?

• 59:18Speaker 02

  I think they probably talk about it like amongst the team and whatnot. Again, I mean, it's all, it's gonna be more shady if it's like a, your sport is tested or not. We're kind of in the wild west in the grappling world, you know?

• 59:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but why don't grapplers talk about it? Because it seems cheating.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  I mean, it's kind of insinuated as a bit of cheating, even if it's not like, uh, if it's not tested, I mean, still, you're taking a person that could, you know, maybe has good jiu-jitsu, good mechanics, you're putting them on the leg, and they're subbing you with a heel hook versus breaking your leg with a heel hook. You know, something as subtle as that can make, you know, big differences.

• 59:54Lex Fridman?

  All right, this is gonna make me sound dumb, but is it possible that steroids are not a huge help in grappling?

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  I think if you're bad at jiu-jitsu and you do steroids, you're gonna continue to be bad at jiu-jitsu. But if you're great at gear, I'm sorry, if you're great at grappling, if you're great at grappling and then you also do gear, it's gonna enhance what you're already, you know, good at and make you much better.

• 1:00:17Lex Fridman?

  But like, how much is the enhancement, I guess is the question?

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  How much is muscle valued?

• 1:00:21Lex Fridman?

  Right, that's the question.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  If you're doing gear and you're not changing weight that much, like, maybe it helps you a little bit, but if, you know, you're gaining 50, 60 pounds of pure muscle and it's like, that's a huge enhancement. That's another human.

• 1:00:35Lex Fridman?

  This muscle, a small human, yeah. Does muscle matter in jiu jitsu? I guess is the question. Is it possible that it gets in the way?

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  I'd say muscle matters, but technique matters more.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  I also think that it it'll help you develop technique as well because obviously, you know, testosterone helps with recovery rate. So if you're on gear, you're able to train a lot more. Now, that being said, if you're not able to learn, obviously, it's not going to help in that aspect. But if you're somebody that knows how to learn and get good at jiu jitsu, and then you add gear on top of that, you're able to do significantly more sessions throughout the week.

• 1:01:09Lex Fridman?

  Okay, and by the way, gear is steroids?

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  Steroids, yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  I also think that you don't have to be as consistent in like your sleep and your food and stuff. If you're if you're on gear, you have a little bit of leeway. But I mean, being consistent in your diet and your sleep definitely would would help, you know, the process.

• 1:01:27Lex Fridman?

  Since you use most steroids of any athlete I've ever met, do you think steroids help jiu jitsu?

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  I think obviously it helps recovery and your ability to train more. But I think some I've seen some guys go on steroids and then suddenly they feel like the Incredible Hulk. And now in the training room, they start to rely more on strength than the techniques they had. And actually, in some respect, hinders them and makes them gas more in competition. Because then they're using more of the muscle they never used to have.

• 1:01:59Lex Fridman?

  So you've implied that you're a natural athlete?

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  You said that. You said that skeptically. Are you skeptical, Lex?

• 1:02:09Lex Fridman?

  Is this something you do for for social media to talk shit to Gordon? To imply that he's not a natural athlete?

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Well, I only pretty much recently on social media, I had this rebuttal, you know, saying that, you know, Gordon's on gear. And I only said that because after after our match in in the our most recent match, you know, the EBI rules match, he accused me of greasing, which is like lubing up. So I'm slippery during our match, so.

• 1:02:34Lex Fridman?

  And you did not?

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  I did not. I was checked multiple times before and after our grappling event. And he still, you know, went out and accused me of this. So I was like, all right, as opposed to telling a lie, I'll just tell the truth about, you know, your steroid use, which it shouldn't be that big of a deal in retrospect because he kind of admitted it and whatnot previously. Um, so it's, uh, yeah, I just kind of felt like I had to rebuttal and I, I didn't do it immediately. Cause I was like, all right, I know I have this podcast planned, so I'll wait to do it on, you know, my friend, uh, Mark Bell's podcast, you know, be a little more, more, get a little bit more exposure on it. And, uh, yeah, I knew he was gonna bite the bait, but I didn't think it was gonna, you know, bite the bait that hard. I, I know he's a little stressed out about, about the comment, but you know.

• 1:03:18Lex Fridman?

  And that was the origin of you guys going back and forth on?

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  Well, it wasn't so much back and forth. It was just, I went forth and then he kept going back, back, back. Like I, I remember one of, one of my guys D M'd me and they were like, Gordon's made like 68 Instagram stories and 67 of them were all about you. I was like, all right, well, I'm in his head for sure.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Got us a few followers. We appreciate it.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  We did. They get followers. He even shouted out our, our B team white belt program. So thank you.

• 1:03:49Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Uh, speaking of which, uh, what's the B team? How's it run?

• 1:03:55Lex Fridman?

  And why is it called the B team?

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, Craig.

• 1:03:57Lex Fridman?

  Was the A team taken?

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  I would have been. For me, B's for best.

• 1:04:01Lex Fridman?

  Okay, best. All right. What does B stand for, for you? What does it represent? What is the ideal? Like, you know, uh, Miyamoto Musashi philosophical foundation of B team?

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Aim low and achieve.

• 1:04:18Lex Fridman?

  If the bar is set low, you can't help but win. Okay?

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  That's Nicky's philosophy with women as well. Set the bar incredibly low, overachieve.

• 1:04:28Lex Fridman?

  So what, what, what is the B team? How do you guys run it? Like what, uh, yeah, I mean, can you just talk about the school, how you founded it? What, what, what is it? Uh, what's it like?

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  I mean, pretty much just a regular, uh, jujitsu gym. We started it as sort of a pros only purple belt and above, um, team. And we have me, Nicky Rod, Nicky Ryan, Ethan, Damian, um, as coaches. Am I missing someone?

• 1:04:54Lex Fridman?

  Your memory with your old age.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Impeccable memory. Yeah. And we got JB coming on to teach wipeouts. But just your stock standard Jiu Jitsu team, we focus on more, we lean heavily towards the professional athlete side of things. We have a lot of high level guys in that.

• 1:05:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Class structure, regular instruction and positional sparring, open rounds. But we sort of took a heavy slant on marketing side of things. We really try to blow up the YouTube channel. Obviously, we sell a lot of clothing, merchandise and stuff. So yeah, we just sort of took a modern approach to a standard Jiu Jitsu gym. Cause I mean, Jiu Jitsu gyms are full of some of the most boring human beings on earth. So we try to highlight.

• 1:05:32Lex Fridman?

  Strong words, Craig, John. Strong words.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Highlight the other side of things, you know, keep it pretty lighthearted.

• 1:05:37Lex Fridman?

  That it can be fun?

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that Jiu Jitsu can be fun. I guess that it can be cool too. You know, it's not just full of steroided up autistic people, you know?

• 1:05:45Lex Fridman?

  Question from Reddit. Quote, need to hear some of the stories about drop-ins that led to the making of the gem of a video. The do's and don'ts of training a B team. Any, any fun stories?

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Any ones that stand out? Do you guys remember any?

• 1:05:59Lex Fridman?

  Police involved ever?

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  We had a guy come in, we had to kick him out. He was stalking two of the members. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's just crazy people, you know, like I portray a pretty insane image online. And I guess I am that a lot of the time, but at training, try to keep it. While training, around training, I'm insulting everyone, but while training, I try to keep it pretty serious. But obviously the image I portray lures in some of the crazier members.

• 1:06:25Lex Fridman?

  I mean, like the thing is about the, the Jimmy guys run is, is really professional. It's like friendly. It's like the lighthearted joking is there, obviously this, you know, like shit talk and all that kind of stuff. But like it's, it's a pretty safe environment.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:38Lex Fridman?

  But, but the public persona might attract some.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Some maniacs.

• 1:06:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  I won't say which places I've trained at, but it's obviously some places you walk into the room and it's very, very serious.

• 1:06:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  There's no smiles around. Obviously it's probably average training room in Russia, but no smiles. Very serious environment. You know what I mean? And I definitely don't like that. I don't want to show up to training and be walking on eggshells. Not know what the coach's moods like that day. I want to go and have a good time. Keep it lighthearted.

• 1:07:07Lex Fridman?

  What was in the video? What, what are the do's and don'ts? Cause like the address is public, like anyone can show up.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Anyone can show up. Yeah. What were the do's and don'ts?

• 1:07:15Lex Fridman?

  Does anyone challenge you like to a fight?

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Not yet, not yet. I mean, probably from other gyms in town, they're probably, that's probably coming down the line, but um do's and don'ts.

• 1:07:26Lex Fridman?

  I'm all in on that. I'm, I'm, I would be excited as a fan to just watch.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  They love the drama.

• 1:07:32Lex Fridman?

  Not the drama, no, no, no. Well, a little drama, a little drop of poison is good.

• 1:07:38Lex Fridman?

  But ultimately, it's the, the best grapplers in the world. Kind of going at it. Yeah, that's fun. Cause I may, maybe I'm wrong, but I think there is an underlying deep camaraderie at the end of the day. When you're like at the top of the world and you're like in the same town.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  What could possibly go wrong?

• 1:07:56Lex Fridman?

  It's like a shitty western, but like an epic western, where like Clint Eastwood, like the good, the bad and ugly. Of course I love it. I'm, I'm here just eating popcorn like that.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Staring the pot.

• 1:08:09Lex Fridman?

  I'm not staring the pot. I'm not staring the pot.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  These questions were from Reddit.

• 1:08:13Lex Fridman?

  Well, that, that one for sure.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, what could possibly go wrong if you're the world's best grappler hates you and you're gently provoking him behind the scenes every day? Well, I mean.

• 1:08:22Lex Fridman?

  For sure. In Texas.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  And you've stolen his brother, held him for ransom.

• 1:08:26Lex Fridman?

  Kidnapped. It's, it is like a story of a shitty western, I think. You now allow white belts to train with you. What's it like to open it up to a bigger audience?

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Uh, we haven't opened it up yet, but it'll be interesting to see. I mean, I, I feel like your higher belts, they really understand what the training room is. You know what I mean? White belts early, they're trying to find their place in the gym. It could be kind of awkward. And stuff in that environment. So I think obviously those white belts coming in will change the dynamic, but the white belts will have a separate white belt classes, obviously for them. Cause given it's such a high level gym, it'd be tough for a beginner to be able to enter the more advanced classes. Well, obviously we're teaching more advanced techniques. So yeah, we've separated a white belt program, I believe, 6pm. Monday to Friday. Yeah. Maybe we'll have a Saturday one as well, but it'll be interesting to see how it goes. We're trying to do things different, you know, like.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Trying to do your traditional Jiu Jitsu gyms, obviously you're not going to teach beginners wrestling at all. We're trying to split it at least thirty three percent, top game, bottom game and wrestling. So at least create more well-rounded athletes from day one. Whereas I feel like most traditional Jiu Jitsu gyms might have no gi once a week. They don't touch wrestling, very I would just have heavy techniques. But again, the sport's changing for sure.

• 1:09:42Lex Fridman?

  Just to take that on, how does a beginner get good at Jiu Jitsu? Like, given that you're starting this web, but what's your philosophy on that?

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  Obviously buy all of my instructional.

• 1:09:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  At full price.

• 1:09:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Not during a sale.

• 1:09:53Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  That would go a long way.

• 1:09:54Lex Fridman?

  For those of you who are Russians, I'll give you, I'll send you instructions or all the forms. So you know how to, how to steal it.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Lex Fridman?

  I'm sure I bought them all, so I'll just send it to you.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  We do, I mean, we do have the Makachai fifty discount code, you know?

• 1:10:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Offering discounts to help him out for the rematch.

• 1:10:09Lex Fridman?

  I got the, nice.

• 1:10:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, I got a hundred percent discount for you if you need it. But that's like your instructional are both hilarious and brilliant. And it's one of the most respected instructional.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:10:23Lex Fridman?

  Out there with incredibly great names.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it probably loses me sales, honestly, due to removing the seriousness of.

• 1:10:30Lex Fridman?

  Because they think it's gonna kind of suck, it's gonna be some funny gimmicky thing.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Or, I mean, some people don't even know if it's a real product. That's a big hurdle I have to overcome as they see it and they're like, is that a real thing? That's a problem. But how does the white belt get good? I think they just, I mean, just have to show up, just have to put in the effort. Try to focus on using techniques and training rather than just fighting to the death, you know? Although that is entertaining for us to watch, two white belts fight to the death.

• 1:10:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but what are the techniques you should focus on? Like, what's the process? What does it mean to show up? Like, how much drilling, all that kind of stuff? Like, what, if you were to optimize the first six months of a, of a beginner? There's a lot of people who would listen to this and haven't tried, they've been curious. I have a lot of friends who haven't, who are like Jiu Jitsu curious. They're constantly looking for an excuse to start.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  I think it's just got to be as simple as possible. You know, like, we shouldn't be teaching more advanced movements. I mean, obviously in the grand scheme of things, there's highly advanced techniques and then there's slightly advanced. And I think trying to teach those guys real specific positions, even like real specific types of guard is just beyond them. I think the best way to learn is through problem solving. And I think if you show the technique before they've discovered that problem. The learning is sort of held back. So I like the idea of using kids' style games to show them a problem and then use the techniques to fix the problems they've just discovered. I think that's the best way to learn.

• 1:12:00Lex Fridman?

  Can you give an example of a problem to show them before you give them the techniques? Like, what are we talking about?

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  All right. So say you wanted to teach posture in wrestling, you could create a game where one guy, the game might be get to a leg or get to two legs, control a leg, like super simple. But the rules, the constraint would be one guy is forced to keep upright posture. And one guy is forced, well, not forced, but he's allowed to keep a bent at the hips, lower posture. And obviously, within that constraint, the guy with the better posture is going to have more success. He's gonna have a better posture to secure a leg or secure both legs. And therefore, you've demonstrated the flaws of bad posture without having to explain it to them before they really tested that out.

• 1:12:43Lex Fridman?

  Okay. And then the result of that, you would realize that the bent over posture is better.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have that aha moment rather than just being, having it spoken to you.

• 1:12:53Lex Fridman?

  You wrote, Craig, I'm a big fan of constraint based learning, I guess was just what you're talking about. I love presenting beginners with a problem before the solution, like here, attempt to hold side control with no, with no cues on how. Then I see how the guy got out and addressed issue by issue, crossface and hip control and so on. Okay. So what are some other examples, like side control?

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be excellent one. Side control, like teacher, like obviously we say, oh, you secure a crossface so they can't turn into you. Much easier to have them try to hold someone down without explaining what a crossface is and then use that technique to address the problem they've just encountered. So I think you could do that with a lot of areas of jiu jitsu, like even more advanced. Say 50 50, obviously a mirrored position where you both have access to each other's heels. Most people will stall out in that position and keep their feet crossed. I think a great constraint for both of them, you can't cross your feet. Now you have to learn how to slip the heel hook when they expose it and how to safely re-attack of your own. So the constraint is. You can't be too defensive in that position.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  And I think the rate of learning increases.

• 1:14:01Lex Fridman?

  Why do you think the rate of learning increases? Like, why do you think that works?

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Because you encounter more problems. Say in that situation, they're going to get your heel a lot more in whatever period of time you allocate the drill for than if the legs are crossed. I don't think the hard part's splitting the legs to get to the submission. I think the hard part's practicing control while they're trying to slip it at a later stage and then obviously trying to slip your heel when you're in more danger. So it makes you more comfortable in that bad position if you're used to doing it with open legs.

• 1:14:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I think that probably that style of teaching forces people to focus on. This is so easy to fall into focusing on like memorizing a particular details of a technique without thinking like, why the hell does this even work? And if you don't have that, you could get to focus on like, from like, as cliché as it sounds, from first principles, like, why the hell? How the hell do I get out of this? Like, why does this even work? Why does wrestling work? Why do you have a bent over posture? You get to like, start to ask those kinds of questions. Which is kind of interesting because it's not obvious to me that bent over posture is the right posture for jiu jitsu, right? I'm confused actually about that. I don't know.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  About the correct posture?

• 1:15:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, for jiu jitsu. Like, what's the right answer?

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  I think bent over posture is still good for jiu jitsu.

• 1:15:13Lex Fridman?

  Even with the judo and all that? Like, why are so many jiu jitsu people, like, at a high level? The posture is higher up.

• 1:15:21Speaker 02

  Well, I think the, I think wrestling posture is just a bit too low because it's not necessary, right? Wrestlers are like, low enough to the ground where your hands could touch the mat. But in jiu jitsu, you know, it's a, it's kind of a mix between like wrestling and like judo or, or Greco-Roman wrestling. So I think it's just a bit more, more lax than it's, it's bent over, but it's not upright. And it's also not super low.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Bit more room for error too, because obviously the jiu jitsu guy's shot isn't going to be as athletic or as quick as a wrestler, especially a wrestler with shoes.

• 1:15:56Lex Fridman?

  So it actually comes down to the fact that jiu jitsu people, just on average, even at the top level, are not good at shooting.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  I think so. Yeah, I think obviously, I mean, all the wrestlers in American stuff, they're starting super early, super young. You know what I mean? They're they've by the time they get to the same age we are really in our sport and stuff, they've spent much longer doing the actual sport than the average jujitsu guy.

• 1:16:20Lex Fridman?

  And then there's another level of wrestling, of course, with the with the Soviet block that's just unachievable for your kind.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Who knew an Australian rugby?

• 1:16:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  A former rugby player.

• 1:16:32Lex Fridman?

  Rugby, is that kind of like American football, but much less money? Is that what that is?

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Much less money, much tougher, I would say. But who knew that the cure to the daghestanny wrestling were the Aussies?

• 1:16:47Lex Fridman?

  Were the Aussies? Uh, okay, let's go there.

• 1:16:51Lex Fridman?

  The uh, your your friend, your training partner, Alexander Volkanovski, you helped him prepare for the Islam Makhachev versus Volkanovski fight. Who do you think, first of all, won that fight?

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  That's a tricky one.

• 1:17:04Lex Fridman?

  How is that the tricky question?

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  I will say when.

• 1:17:08Lex Fridman?

  Of all the shit talk you've been doing, how is that the tricky question?

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  When I was in the corner going into the fifth, I personally believed live that Volkanovski probably needed a finish to take the victory.

• 1:17:20Lex Fridman?

  But you have to think that way, right? In general, or you like legitimately?

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  It's a gray area because the judging, who knows? Plus, I was like, where we're in Australia, where's this bias? You know, we've got some Australian judges here. I was really hoping we'd get a bit of bias on that. Unfortunately, not. Hopefully, they lose their jobs. But again, yeah, it was it was a close fight. I think sometimes you're blinded in the moment because, again, everyone counted Volkanovski out, the crowds behind him. So everything he does is going to get a huge cheer. You're biased towards the smaller guy. You're biased towards the underdog. So you're sort of whatever the underdog does has a bigger impact in your mind. And sometimes that can bias as the fight goes along. But yeah, super, super close fire. I got I would really love them to have a rematch. But obviously, that's going to hold up both divisions. So I don't know if they'll be able to do it.

• 1:18:08Lex Fridman?

  Do you think they'll do a rematch soon? I mean, that was that was an epic fight. I was listening to the Fight Companion during.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  They all thought.

• 1:18:15Lex Fridman?

  So they biased strongly the the opinion?

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  Round two was the the tricky one. Round two is the tricky one.

• 1:18:21Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, I'd love to see that, like, uh, run it back and do three, actually. There's an epic fight.

• 1:18:29Lex Fridman?

  What was the brief conversation you had with Islam Makhachev and his team?

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  I didn't know how we'd take the joke because obviously Khabib tried to flying eagle kick Dylan Dennis in the face. So I wasn't sure how my humor would go.

• 1:18:40Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  But I mean, Dylan must have said some worse things to me. I was just playing around. I mean, you can't really take anything I say serious.

• 1:18:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  Come across like an idiot. But so when he was coming up to me afterwards, I was like, oh, I don't know what he's gonna say. And again, maybe he would have been more upset if he had lost, but he just received the judge's decision.

• 1:18:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:59Speaker 01

  But he came up, I went to check his hand, he gave me a big hug and then pretended to throw me. And then I thought the interaction was over and then he circled back. So that's why I was so awkward. I was like, oh, he's coming back. He wants to say, he wants, he wants something else. But he just said, why didn't you teach your boy how to escape the body triangle?

• 1:19:13Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow. Interesting. What did you say to that?

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  I said, well, I mean, obviously you've got to learn how to finish a rear naked choke.

• 1:19:20Lex Fridman?

  Is that what you said?

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  No, I didn't.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  I was laughing. But then they ushered us out. They were like, get out of here before the Aussie crowd attacks here, you know?

• 1:19:28Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about the body triangle position that we're in? It seemed like for the first time, it seems almost like Volk was dominant in that position, which is kind of weird.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  I mean, damage is meant to trump control. MMA judging, damage is the number one.

• 1:19:43Lex Fridman?

  Do you think the, the judges saw that? Who, what did they score that as?

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  I think they all scored four towards Islam.

• 1:19:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  Three and five, uh, two of the judges scored towards Volk's. One of the judges scored three for Islam. One of the, it was forty nine, forty six, uh, for one of them and the other ones were forty eight, forty seven. I think the, again, the confusing round was round two. I didn't think anyone scored the body triangle round for Volk's, which I wish they had.

• 1:20:12Lex Fridman?

  Uh, Volkanovski was and is still arguably pound for pound greatest fighter in the world. How long have you known him?

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  I don't know. The first, I met him before he was in the UFC. When I used to live in Melbourne, he came down to train at Absolute.

• 1:20:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  And then we really connected on Ultima Fighter. He, one of his guys he was gonna bring to Ultima Fighter, Brad Birdell, pulled out last second. So he called me when I was in Puerto Rico and he's like, do you want to coach on Tough for five weeks? And like I said, Puerto Rico was apocalypse now. I was like, yeah. Get me out of here. So I took, jumped on that opportunity and we were in Vegas five weeks together. Cause he was meant to fight Ortega and then he got hit with COVID real bad. Got stuck in, I think he was in hospital for maybe one to two weeks. And then before he flew back to Australia, they were like, all right, maybe we just do you guys as the ultimate fighter coaches. So I jumped on board with that. And that's really when we've become close.

• 1:21:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Obviously I was useful in the Ortega fight, helping him get out of submissions. He fought then Korean Zombie Max Holloway. I basically just held the bucket at that point in the corner. Couple of striking fights. And then again, yeah, we had to tackle the Islam problem. So I did spend five to six weeks down there preparing for that.

• 1:21:18Lex Fridman?

  How did you tackle the Islam problem?

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  How did I tackle?

• 1:21:23Lex Fridman?

  Was you, somebody who barely knows anything about wrestling, having to.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Obviously it doesn't take much, you know? Especially Russian wrestling.

• 1:21:32Lex Fridman?

  Did the beard help or like what?

• 1:21:35Lex Fridman?

  In all seriousness, what were some of the key ideas that you worked on with Volkanovski to prepare for it?

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  I had the help of Frank Hickman. Hickman was down there too. One of the Hickman brothers wrestling coach. So we were sort of like problem solving. And I mean, basically we were confident in Volk's fence wrestling, his cage work. He's super good on the cage, super like under respected in that position. And we knew that if you were able to take the scrambles to the cage, he would be effective against Islam. Cause again, Islam is background in Sambo, freestyle wrestling. But I mean, honestly, he's probably got the same experience on the cage as Volk's. Obviously some of those wrestling skills will translate very well to the cage. But the cage is still somewhat of a gray area and equalizer. And Volk's again, incredible ability to stand up, incredible defense on the cage, which you saw.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  We worked on strategies to get up and a ton of submission defense. Islam loves kumuras, obviously rear naked from the back, arm bars. Those are sort of, and arm triangles, dominant submissions. But again, the guy, he submitted, not grapplers. Apart from Charles Olivera. And again, Charles Olivera was basically knocked out at that point. So it was still impressive. He submitted him. But again, I always told people this, they thought it was crazy. I was like, Charles Olivera versus Islam in a grappling match, Olivera is going to win that match.

• 1:22:58Lex Fridman?

  Like submission grappling.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  Submission grappling, yeah. So in pure grappling skillset, I think Olivera is a more dangerous grappler. So we didn't even come into it thinking Islam was this unstoppable boogeyman that people make him out to be. So we approached it from that, just focused on the techniques. Ability to get back up, using turtle to get back up, using turtle to scoot to the cage to get back up and hand fighting from there. Keeping it pretty safe. But what makes Volk so special, I think is his gas tank, gas tank and his willpower. He's just unbreakable. The Dagestani guys, Khabib, Islam, they are good at submissions. But they break guys mentally and they fatigue him and then they take the submission that's offered.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  Olivera is a guy that can jump on submissions and have an incredible technical ability to finish those submissions, whether you're fresh or you're tired. And then you combine that with Volkanovski, who incredible willpower, never gets tired. You're never going to break him. And as you saw, he only attempted one submission the whole fight.

• 1:23:55Lex Fridman?

  Is that learned? Is that trained? Or are you just born with that, that mental toughness?

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  It's a good question. I mean, he's like an anomaly, like the entire fight camp, not nervous at all, supremely confident. The whole fight week, completely confident. He just has an attitude like, oh, everyone cast me out, we'll see. You know what I mean? Islam, he's like, let's see.

• 1:24:15Lex Fridman?

  No doubt.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  No doubt at all. Super relaxed up until about five minutes before. And then he starts damping himself up. He's like, you are not taking this belt from my family. Gets into that sort of mindset.

• 1:24:26Lex Fridman?

  He actually says that out loud?

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  You can't teach that survival. He didn't even attack a fight, you know?

• 1:24:34Lex Fridman?

  Have you guys ever been like pushed to the limit like that or broken in a grappling match?

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  I'll do it in practice. Like I'll push myself to like, I don't know, I think I might pass out or die or something. Like as far as like, uh, how tired you get, you know, cause like in a match, um.

• 1:24:52Lex Fridman?

  You try not to ever get close to that in a match?

• 1:24:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, you try to, cause you know, it's important to understand, uh, where your exhausted, exhaustion point is. But yeah, if you have to push to that limit in a match, you're probably doing something wrong, you know? Like if you, like you see in matches where guys sprint the last like minute, they try to win the match in the last minute. And it's like, you definitely had some mistakes leading up to that. If you have to, you know, kind of go balls to the wall.

• 1:25:17Lex Fridman?

  Okay, but has there been ever times in competition? Especially like early on, because you're like, you wrestled pretty hard and wrestling is pretty exhausting. Like, not wrestling, but you know, wrestling style kind of thing. Going against the best people in the world.

• 1:25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I definitely, again, I think, I think in practice is important to do that hard work that where competition is, is, is much easier. You know, I think if you, if you red line in practice and you, you really push to like death store, then once you're in competition and you're, you're working with, you know, you're being fresh in, in a comp, I mean, it's, it's much better.

• 1:25:52Lex Fridman?

  Have you ever been to that thing where Dan Gable talks about always wanting to be to a place where you can't get off the mat? Like, you work so hard in the training room, you can't get off the mat? I think he says he's failed at that in his career. He was always able to at least crawl off the mat.

• 1:26:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I definitely never like actually died on the mat, but I felt like, I felt like I was gonna die, you know?

• 1:26:14Lex Fridman?

  Sure, sure. What about you? Do you quit all the time?

• 1:26:17Speaker 01

  I get a light cramp. I'm like, you know what? You got me, mate. Let's do this against a bar.

• 1:26:22Speaker 02

  Dude, if I'm asking Craig for a role, he's in the bathroom somewhere.

• 1:26:26Lex Fridman?

  Do you, do you see the value of pushing yourself like to that place where you're knocking on death door?

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but within safety, you know, because obviously the most serious injuries occur when you're tired, overtraining and stuff like that. So I think like taking a page out of what those MMA fighters do, especially Volks with his training, like he's not necessarily pushing crazy in each round, but he's doing extra conditioning, assault bike stuff, crazy workouts outside. He does do some crazy training workouts, but all safe, very safe. Like when he's redlining like that in the training room, it's a very controlled, safe setting. I think to do that in Jiu Jitsu against some of these lunatics out there that are trying to kill you, especially when you have a name, can be dangerous.

• 1:27:08Lex Fridman?

  So your approach to Jiu Jitsu is don't warm up and don't try too hard?

• 1:27:13Lex Fridman?

  For safety, no for safety.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, longevity, you know?

• 1:27:16Lex Fridman?

  And talk shit about Russians. I got it. I got it. I hear you. Oh, you mentioned cage work. What's interesting to you that you've learned over all this time about cage work? What's like, what's interesting about the dynamics of that? Are you talking about both like the control in the dominant position, but also getting up from the bottom? While you're against the cage, all of that?

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  The added dimension of that cage, that wall being there changes a lot of stuff, right? It's obviously in some ways, it's a much lower impact wrestling style because he can't be scrolled on. You can shoot, the cage is going to block their feet. You're going to be able to chase down their hips. It's just a completely different fight. And again, because of Islam's judo skills, that upper body controls, you see, he's able to use against the cage, like the inside trips, sort of the Uchimata style, herai goshi throws. So obviously those skills do translate. But yeah, I think the cage is a great equalizer for a lot of things like athleticism and stuff. It takes away a huge speed advantage, aspect of the fight.

• 1:28:18Lex Fridman?

  So he's really good at standing up. What is, is there, I assume he learned all of that from you and your instructional just stand up?

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  I mean, we were so confident. I was like, you know what? Why don't we put this thing out a month before the fight?

• 1:28:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Maybe the illegal download hasn't made its way to Russia yet.

• 1:28:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  But it was there for him.

• 1:28:36Lex Fridman?

  Can you, can you explain to me what's in the instructional just stand up? Like what are, what are the ideas?

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  What are you, I mean, the old school way to stand up? People talk about the technical get up, you know, the old Gracie, put the hand. But I mean, that's, that doesn't work, hasn't worked for 20 years, you know? If you look at everyone that gets up in MMA, they're using turtle to get up. They're using wrestling to get up. You know what I mean?

• 1:28:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Which is counter to what pure jiu jitsu says. They say, don't expose the back, don't ever expose your back. I think jiu jitsu is a terrible way to get back to the feet. Because if you were to retain guard and go half guard or closed guard, super hard positions to get up. You're basically putting yourself in a leg tuck for wrestling. So I think you need to borrow from wrestling to learn how to get up in an MMA fight. So basically how to safely expose your own back while not allowing them to get hooks? And use that to get back up, or at least not allow them to get two hooks.

• 1:29:27Lex Fridman?

  And that applies for MMA especially.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  For MMA especially because obviously, uh, striking is a factor. But if they are striking, they don't have locked hands around your body. Means you are able to move. You are able to make an attempt to get back up. They have to choose between control, submission or strikes.

• 1:29:45Lex Fridman?

  A post from Reddit, why does Craig Jones push so hard for a bottom is bad jujitsu? What is so bad about playing bottom guard such as half guard or deli? Those are the two options.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  No, it likes the bottom.

• 1:29:57Lex Fridman?

  Why would I want to get up? It's the question for all of you. Is, is the bottom a bad place to be?

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  I mean, the bottom is bad if you don't want that gun on top of you. That's why I look at it, you know?

• 1:30:09Lex Fridman?

  That sounds like something a cowboy would say, but I don't know if there's much meaning. I think the point of jujitsu is both are dangerous being on bottom and on top.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  I think the longer the match is probably favors the top guy more. Just because every movement the bottom guy makes is probably carrying your, your weight, carrying that gravity on top of you. So I think it's a bit more efficient, uh, passing from the top as opposed to sweeping from bottom.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  Bottom's reactive, top is active. The top player decides how to engage, how to approach the guard. They can use angles, they can use footwork, they can throw people, uh, throw the legs by. So it's an active position. Bottom's reactive, reactive, you're gonna get fatigued.

• 1:30:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, uh, I think it's very difficult to gas somebody out while playing guard. Uh, but I think it's very easy to gas somebody out, uh, when attempting to pass it.

• 1:30:57Lex Fridman?

  Well, you guys are talking about guessing people out, but is there more dangers from the bottom? Like in terms of submissions and all that kind of stuff or no?

• 1:31:05Speaker 02

  I'm back and forth because I'm a top, I'm a top player, but I understand the value of being on bottom. Like when I do play guard bottom, I feel like the submissions come much easier. Uh, and when I'm on top, uh, they come also pretty easy, but, uh, maybe I just take a different route. Two cowboys talking about jujitsu.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  Top on the straights, bottom in the sheets. That's me.

• 1:31:29Lex Fridman?

  What was the hardest part of the training for the training camp for Volkanovski? Like you're just experiencing world-class MMA fighters training and given your approach of to Jiu-Jitsu of not trying too hard, no matter what?

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, there's a lot of pressure for that, you know, like that's a, that's, that's a lot of pressure for me to go in and think that I could possibly figure out a way to help this guy, address this guy that's basically never been beaten. I think he got knocked out once, but basically not really even been put in bad positions. You know what I mean? So that's a lot of pressure on me, especially because Volkanovski is such a great guy.

• 1:32:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Jiu-Jitsu is different, you know, like you coach a guy, he loses, he has time to tap. But in MMA, he gets severely hurt.

• 1:32:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  There's a lot more weight in what you need to do as a coach. You have a greater sense of responsibility to their health and wellbeing. You know, like obviously I know Fox's kids, I know his wife, you know what I mean? They're putting faith in you to not just win the fight, but keep this man safe, you know? So from my perspective, a hell of a lot more pressure, uh, coaching him as an MMA fighter.

• 1:32:32Lex Fridman?

  So almost like the psychological aspect of like, um, of doing the best you can for him?

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yep. Yep.

• 1:32:39Lex Fridman?

  What was, uh, what was the hardest about the actual training? Was it the technical aspect of trying to figure out the puzzle of Islam? Or was it like being a good training partner in the, in the, in the, like, in figuring out how the grappling would work, basically playing your best impression of Makarchev? Were you trying to actually impersonate him, like, not, not just visually, but like in style?

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely, definitely visually.

• 1:33:04Lex Fridman?

  You're not as good looking, but go ahead.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  A little taller, but, uh, no, in terms of the training, yeah, I mean, Islam's known as incredibly strong guy. So obviously I'm heavier than Islam. So theoretically I should be able to replicate that strength difference. And then in terms of grappling, targeting those submissions that Islam does, like focusing on those in the training room, focusing on the way he holds half guard and really in the grappling sense, trying to replicate him on the ground. And then, yeah, I wrestle with him on the wall a ton, trying to replicate, obviously to the best of my ability, a lot of the stuff he does on the wall, body lock heavy, inside trip, uchi madas, and just constantly, uh, put in the work on Vox, you know what I mean? Like constantly chaining attacks against him.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  Really replicate.

• 1:33:49Lex Fridman?

  As he's trying to get up and escape and all that kind of stuff. So the submission, like both judo and submissions, just attacking, attacking.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Exactly. There's only so much you can do really, because obviously he's been, I think he's been fighting a long time. So it's like, you're trying to polish what he already is good at. You can't just completely create entirely new game for him in the space of six weeks. So you're trying to take what he's already effective at, add to it. And luckily, a lot of the stuff he's already very good at was easy to add to for the, for the fight.

• 1:34:19Lex Fridman?

  Question from Reddit. I'm very curious why other MMA fighters don't employ high profile grapplers from B Team and New Wave to improve their grappling. That's from this, somebody. By now, it's clear that they are levels above almost everyone in MMA, simply because fighters there don't specialize in grappling. But it doesn't seem like fighters, even champions, get training partners from the most successful teams. Why is that the case? From your experience, why doesn't, could be, call you?

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  You might now.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  Put in a good word for me.

• 1:34:57Lex Fridman?

  Oh, I will.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  That's all right. He takes a joke pretty well.

• 1:35:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. No, no, you'll be walking with open arms.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  I think your average jiu jitsu coach, MMA fighters have bad experience with jiu jitsu guys. Jiu jitsu doesn't have a massive place in MMA. Obviously, rounds, stand ups, it's hard, hard to submit people. Your average Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt doesn't know anything about holding a guy down, doesn't know anything about how to stand up.

• 1:35:24Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  So I think if you overly, overly utilize that jiu jitsu guy that hasn't had experience in more modern no gi or training MMA fighters previously, it's going to be a complete waste of time to them. I think they're smart enough to realize that.

• 1:35:36Lex Fridman?

  Do you have, and do you guys, do you have interest in MMA at all? Just not even like, well, certainly just competing yourself, but like just understanding the puzzle of MMA.

• 1:35:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, I've been a fan of mixed martial arts, you know, for a very long time, you know, before I, I trained jits. Personally, personally, I'd much rather coach than fight. But I mean, I'd fight somebody for, you know, a good check and I get to pick the opponent and have a proper camp.

• 1:36:05Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  I could think of a good opponent, yeah.

• 1:36:09Lex Fridman?

  Who's that? All right.

• 1:36:15Lex Fridman?

  Who do you think is the greatest MMA fighter of all time?

• 1:36:19Lex Fridman?

  Craig, we can start with you, just as a fan of the sport or somebody who's been deep in it.

• 1:36:23Speaker 01

  I mean, from my perspective, after that performance, I'm gonna say Volkanovski, because he was able to decisively outstrike Max Holloway, one of the greatest strikers in the sport, and he was able to hang with the wrestling of Islam Akachev. And in terms of Ortega, he was able to survive Ortega, who has some of the most dangerous missions in jiu-jitsu. So I think, in my opinion, technically, he's the best.

• 1:36:45Lex Fridman?

  So even though, even though he technically lost, he still, he still has the crown.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  I believe so, given the size difference, given he's moving up in weight, I think all those factors, really.

• 1:36:56Lex Fridman?

  The underdog, everything, the pressure.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Did you think he would be able to hang in any of the wrestling exchanges with Islam?

• 1:37:02Lex Fridman?

  No, no, no, I was really surprised. That's why in my eyes, like, it's kind of funny, like, winning at the end of the day, I feel like judges influence that. Although I did think Australian judges would rob the other way, but I was assuming, they kind of, somebody pays somebody and not enough, maybe. But, but in general, I just thought he won, sort of in the eyes of what martial arts stands for, like, sort of go into the fire and survive and thrive and finish the last round strong, which is kind of, like, spiritually is what a victory is. So I wish he would have kept going, like.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  One more round.

• 1:37:40Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly, that kind of thing. What about you? What do you think? Like, who are the fighters you admire? Like, who do you think is the greatest of all time?

• 1:37:47Speaker 02

  I think the fighter I paid most attention to was John Jones. You know, he has a great ability just to mix the high level striking, high level grappling. Although his, you know, jiu-jitsu by itself isn't, you know, probably isn't like, you know, super high level, but his ability to mix everything together, I would say he's, he's the best.

• 1:38:10Speaker 02

  And he's a fellow, you know, heavier guy, heavyweight now. So it's, it's nice to see, you know, how those guys move at that weight.

• 1:38:18Lex Fridman?

  And a fellow natural athlete.

• 1:38:21Lex Fridman?

  See what I did there?

• 1:38:23Lex Fridman?

  All right. What about you, Nicky?

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, if I had to pick a goat, I would probably have to say Khabib, just because he was, he was undefeated and he had a very, you know, high finishing rate, you know, very few of his fights actually went to a decision. So he just overall, he dominated almost every single opponent he went against.

• 1:38:42Lex Fridman?

  The dominance. I mean, we've been joking about it, but Craig, what do you think makes the Dagestani fighters so good? Like from this small region of the world, so much dominance has come.

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  I mean, obviously the amount of freestyle wrestling champions from that region probably puts their wrestling above and beyond the best in all of MMA. And obviously a lot of, even in Olympics, a lot of champions out of there, right? So I think that skillset combines with them adding effective pin controls on the ground and jiu jitsu submissions. But I mean, again, I think it's that hard training. Those guys like Khabib would maintain that pressure throughout the entire fight and break guys down. Their ability to fatigue guys to a breaking point, I think is something they do best.

• 1:39:26Lex Fridman?

  I wonder what that is. Is that technique? What is that? What is it about their upbringing? Because is that just that part of the world? Or were the Setia brothers with, on the freestyle wrestling side to all the mixed martial arts people? Like it must be part of the, the culture also. They must be doing something. I don't think, I've never, I haven't seen a convincing explanation of why yet, of what's specific about their training, what's specific about their culture that creates that. Okay. What do you think about like the, the flip side? Do you admire somebody like Conor McGregor who?

• 1:40:05Lex Fridman?

  It knows how to create a spectacle. You, Craig, who likes spectacles?

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  Spectacles, yeah. I mean, I really admired early Conor McGregor because I found him absolutely hilarious. You know, like, I felt like that was peak banter. I feel like he just took the American world by storm. Aussies, British, Irish, Kiwis. I believe we have a way better level of banter and attacking each other. And it's almost too easy to pick on Americans that take themselves very seriously. I mean, I could believe in other parts of the world, too, the far east of Europe, you know?

• 1:40:39Lex Fridman?

  But that's the, that's the tricky thing with Conor. I think he was, I feel like you could have gotten in the same kind of trouble. Because the Russians really took everything very seriously. They weren't joking around.

• 1:40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's the problem. It's like, it's, it's, it's a bit of, I mean, some things he definitely takes too far, you know? But I felt like early on, he had the right balance where he wouldn't really cross the line, but he would do. He would do enough. He just took it to another level, obviously, later in his career. But I think early on, a bit of innocent banter.

• 1:41:09Lex Fridman?

  He gets a lot of eyes on the sport, though. He's probably by far the most popular combat athlete of all time because of that.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Lex Fridman?

  I feel like you have to cross the line. I don't think enough people appreciate like the values he's brought by crossing the line.

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  He's making a sacrifice crossing the line. That's going to affect him for the rest of his life, you know?

• 1:41:26Lex Fridman?

  See, I don't think so. I think he can always walk back. Because I think, unlike, people might disagree with this. I, well, yeah, I, I thought he always radiated a respect for the opponent, like, afterwards. And underneath it, it felt like the same way you do. When I hear you shit talking, I don't see a person who really means it. I see a person who's having fun with it. I always saw Conor McGregor the same way. I don't know, and but people took it like extremely seriously. But I, I saw the respect, like, the common respect that martial artists have for each other that felt like it was always there.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  If you don't like that individual, you're going to perceive

• 1:42:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  what they say more negatively than if you obviously were. So like, I feel like if you like someone, you're gonna never think they really cross the line.

• 1:42:15Lex Fridman?

  That's true. So you're saying I like you. That's why I'm perceiving you.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  It must be.

• 1:42:18Lex Fridman?

  You're bullshit in a positive light. Is there, are there people that hate you?

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  I mean, some of the family members are disabled.

• 1:42:28Speaker 02

  People that really get to know you all hate you.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  The fans love me, the friends hate me.

• 1:42:34Lex Fridman?

  It's a good place to be. Keep your enemies close. All right. What do you think is the most important muscle for jiu-jitsu? The biceps?

• 1:42:42Speaker 02

  Oh, I think a strong, I think a strong back. I think back one, core second, and then biceps.

• 1:42:51Lex Fridman?

  Okay, biceps. Cool. Do you legitimately think like weightlifting helps jiu-jitsu? It's kind of the discussion under steroids is like the muscle mass and strength and power and explosiveness, all of that.

• 1:43:02Speaker 02

  I think sometimes when we're at that upper echelon of competition, there's only, there's like little minute battles that you have to win. And if you're, if you're relatively close in technique, then a lot of times a stronger opponent pulls it out.

• 1:43:17Lex Fridman?

  But it could be also just a limitation, right? You hold position too long. What about for hobbies? Do you recommend weightlifting? Like when you see people in the gym?

• 1:43:25Speaker 02

  I always recommend weightlifting. I almost see muscle as the body's armor, right? The more armor you have, the more damage you can kind of take and, you know, maybe recovery is a little bit better. And I've always seen weightlifting as a means to stick to my routine. Like if, there's no point in lifting if you're not eating right and you're not sleeping right. So if you kind of put it all together, then it's beneficial.

• 1:43:47Lex Fridman?

  What about you guys? Do you go to the gym?

• 1:43:49Speaker 01

  I go to the gym, yeah.

• 1:43:51Lex Fridman?

  Do you go like to hotel gym? So you use an elliptical and that butt machine or?

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I focus on the glutes heavily.

• 1:43:59Lex Fridman?

  All right.

• 1:44:01Lex Fridman?

  What about like, what about injury prevention and so on? How do you train to minimize the risk of injury? You guys have all been pretty beat up. You've gotten a major injury with the ACL.

• 1:44:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:12Lex Fridman?

  So how do you train to minimize injury?

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  Probably not the right guy to ask, eh?

• 1:44:17Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 1:44:18Lex Fridman?

  Can you talk through your injury? Like what happened?

• 1:44:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, so about one week prior to this last ADCC, I was wrestling with this guy named Kenta, who was also competing. And I went to go lift him from like a rear body lock and he hooked the outside of my leg. And we just felt something pop, you know, he felt a shift with his, with his leg and. When it first happened, it hurt for like the first 30 seconds. And then I honestly debated, I was like, maybe it was just, you know, some freak thing. I was like, I literally thought about continuing the session. Then the next day, I woke up and it was like super sore. I was, you know, limping around, couldn't, couldn't do a full squat. So it pretty much killed all of my training for the entire week leading up to the event.

• 1:45:04Speaker 03

  So I couldn't train or anything, messed up the cut. Obviously, there's, there's added nerves with that too, you know, when you're not in the gym every day leading up to the competition. I went out there, I wasn't really able to pull guard because I couldn't get, you know, full heel to butt connection, which is inevitable with playing guard. And I was very hesitant to shoot as well. So I came out with the idea of just trying to use hand fighting to tire my first opponent out. And then mainly look to get to underhooks or overhooks and do mostly upper body wrestling. In the beginning of the match, I, you know, successfully got to an underhook. I got to rear body lock. He tried to roll and I ended up in top position in side control. But it was during the no points period.

• 1:45:48Speaker 03

  And then as the match went on, I gassed out and eventually he ended up taking me down and then scoring with, with two hooks on the back.

• 1:45:57Lex Fridman?

  So what's the injury?

• 1:45:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I got an MRI actually after the event. I didn't know.

• 1:46:02Lex Fridman?

  You waited, wait, wait, you waited until after the event?

• 1:46:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I waited until after.

• 1:46:06Lex Fridman?

  Cause like knowledge or ignorance is bliss?

• 1:46:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. I was like, I honestly said, I don't even want to know what's wrong. I was like, I just go out there, compete. You know, I knew it was like the, the biggest event to date and I really wanted to do it.

• 1:46:20Lex Fridman?

  Think about not doing it?

• 1:46:21Speaker 03

  It definitely was a thought in my head, especially that, that the day after, you know, it's always the worst day whenever you have like a serious injury is the day after. And I was like, man, I really can't do a full squat. I was like, I don't even know how I'm going to be able to do this. It got a bit better over, as the, the week went on. But I was like, man, I, I have to go out there and compete. I was like, I'm, it'll always be in the back of my mind, like what if, if I ended up pulling out?

• 1:46:47Lex Fridman?

  What did you think about this whole?

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  I thought he was just being a pussy.

• 1:46:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:52Lex Fridman?

  Just slap him around, just yell at him.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  I didn't think we pressured you. We just say you make your own decision, right? We're just like.

• 1:46:59Lex Fridman?

  Is that a tricky thing to do, like with a heavily, like, like a serious injury like this?

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, we didn't know. That was the thing. We didn't know. Honestly, initially, I thought it was, I tore my lateral meniscus. But that ended up not being the case. It ended up being a full ACL tear. I was actually super surprised when I got the MRI results. So, yeah, we didn't know how bad it actually was.

• 1:47:21Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about that situation?

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  I think Nicky's a tough kid. And, I mean, when you're so close to that competition, you know, there's not many, you don't get many opportunities like that to compete in front of, you know, 15,000 people. It's like, you know, props to you for pushing through it and getting it. And man, he had a close match with one of the best grapplers in his weight classes. Like, you know, a few adjustments here and there. And especially, you know, if he was able to train previously, leading up to that match, I think Nicky pulls it out.

• 1:47:51Lex Fridman?

  So some of the things you mentioned is nerves. So there's extra nerves just because you're underprepared?

• 1:47:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you know.

• 1:47:56Lex Fridman?

  Feeling underprepared?

• 1:47:57Speaker 03

  You want to go into a competition with, you know, the confidence, I did everything that I could leading up to this event. I trained as much as I could. And then when an injury prevents that, you start to doubt yourself more.

• 1:48:07Lex Fridman?

  How do you guys think about injury? How do you train, you know, training with the best in the world, training to be the best in the world and avoiding injury? Cause you've got, you tore your bicep?

• 1:48:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I tore bicep.

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

  Dude, honestly, I was, I was a body, I was bodybuilding, you know, for like seven years. And no lie, I did, I trained biceps like most days, like almost that, almost every day in those seven years. Pretty much I injured my, I injured myself.

• 1:48:35Lex Fridman?

  That's so Jersey, man.

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  Anything else or just the biceps?

• 1:48:37Speaker 02

  Just, I mean, yeah, I injured the bicep. Pretty much I.

• 1:48:43Speaker 02

  The day before a wrestling practice, I had like a killer arm day. And my arm day, I'd just been training biceps. Very vigorously getting a sick pump. And I go to wrestling practice the next day, you know, pretty late. I should have been there. I didn't get a proper warm up in. And the first thing I do is I shake hands and I go to shoot a single leg. And boom, I just blew my arm out the first movement I did. So just not being warmed up properly in addition to, you know, having a very vigorous arm day a few hours prior.

• 1:49:16Lex Fridman?

  You hear that about warm up? So like, what are some lessons about avoiding injury?

• 1:49:20Speaker 02

  Uh, I would say number one is warming up properly. Making sure your body is hot before you do hot stuff.

• 1:49:28Lex Fridman?

  Okay. And what does warm up look like for you? Is it jujitsu or non jujitsu stuff?

• 1:49:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, just for a warm up in general. I'll do, I'll do something like a, if I'm talking competition, something like a jog, walk back and forth a few times. Then a sprint jog a few times to get that heart rate, you know, up and down. And then I'll grab a partner. I actually just filmed a DVD or instructional specifically on the pre-match ritual. In addition to that, I'll, you know, grab a partner. I'll drill some movements. Typically I'll drill some bad things like I'll start from bottom, bottom out, bottom side control workout from there. And then pretty much like 20 minutes in, I'm, I'm hot and I'm ready to go for, you know, rounds.

• 1:50:10Lex Fridman?

  Well, what about you, Greg? So what, uh, what's, what's the way to avoid injury? What's the worst injury you've had?

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  What's the worst injury? I don't even know. I'm pretty good, pretty healthy.

• 1:50:20Speaker 02

  Whenever you, whenever you quit in practice, I'm like, I have some mental.

• 1:50:23Lex Fridman?

  Has your heart ever been broken?

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  Many times, many times. But, um, there's a thing I noticed. People that spend the most time warming up, often the most injured.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  It's a strong correlation.

• 1:50:39Lex Fridman?

  All right, you can't argue with science.

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 1:50:42Lex Fridman?

  You're right.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Training with Oliver Tass, Oliver Tass would have a 60 minute warm up.

• 1:50:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Surprise, surprise, always injured.

• 1:50:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Very common.

• 1:50:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  I find that very common in the training room. No, I think people, it's how they train. Like if you, like me, first sign of discomfort, oh, backpedal, you know? Push through that stuff. Go too hard, go when you're too tired, you know what I mean? Get too emotional in the role. I feel like those are the times that I've been hurt. Where I just like, oh, I kind of let this guy get me. When I have that attitude in training, I believe it's how you train and sort of.

• 1:51:12Lex Fridman?

  So what does this come from? Like positionally too? Like, because you're training against some killers. I mean, you're training, you're training, you're training with him and going probably pretty hard. If Craig gets a little tired, he's like, yeah, I'm good for today. We go.

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Once a month with Nikki, right? That's it.

• 1:51:27Lex Fridman?

  And then you quit like 30 seconds in, just say.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, you gotta be safe.

• 1:51:33Lex Fridman?

  I like it. What about you? What have you learned from the ACL?

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  Rehab, yeah.

• 1:51:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, rehab definitely would help.

• 1:51:42Lex Fridman?

  Oh, so you haven't been like.

• 1:51:43Speaker 03

  I didn't get surgery. I didn't do essentially any rehab. I just have no ACL in my left leg.

• 1:51:49Lex Fridman?

  So what's it like having no?

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  Surgery goes, you've got two options, surgery, rehab only. Nikki goes, I'll do nothing.

• 1:51:58Speaker 03

  Definitely should pick up on the rehab.

• 1:52:01Lex Fridman?

  What's rehab for that look like? Like twice a day of doing some weird?

• 1:52:07Lex Fridman?

  Like bands or something?

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  It's good he's learned from these. He's learned some valuable lessons from about taking care of his body.

• 1:52:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What's it like just training with no ACL?

• 1:52:16Speaker 03

  So at the beginning, it was definitely a little iffy. You know, I would have an occasional buckle. Like I'd just be wrestling with somebody and go to step back and it'd buckle backwards a bit. But honestly, now like I haven't had a single buckle instance in a while. It feels a hundred percent normal when I train. It feels better than my other knee, to be honest. Like I had, I had my meniscus taken out in my right leg and that one gets sore more often than the, the no ACL leg.

• 1:52:41Lex Fridman?

  Okay, alright, so putting that aside, is there is there wisdom you've learned from that experience?

• 1:52:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely should be doing rehab and prehab. You know, I think that, you know, especially if you're a hobbyist or a professional athlete, you should be lifting, you know, whether you're rehabbing an injury or just for injury prevention.

• 1:53:04Lex Fridman?

  So I'm actually closer to Craig, because I've trained my whole life, like, pretty hard. Obviously, just a hobbyist, but like, twice a day, did judo, wrestling, all that. Never broke anything, never injured, kind of like similar philosophy. Except, like, last year, I guess, a year and a half ago, I got a tiny, like, groin pull injury, and it still hasn't healed. And I've been using your approach of not giving a shit.

• 1:53:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:31Lex Fridman?

  And like, alright, surely this is gonna heal, it'll be fine, but it hasn't. But of course, if I was like an actual athlete, I would like probably still train through it, just fuck it, figure it out. But when you have other stuff going on, you just kind of wait it out.

• 1:53:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:45Lex Fridman?

  But no, I think probably rehab, especially as you get older, you have to do that kind of stuff.

• 1:53:49Speaker 02

  I think it's important for people to, you know, determine whether they're, what they're going through is an injury or they're just hurt a little bit. Because injury, you know, for sure, take time, rehab it and get better. But a lot of people, like, they'll stub a toe or something, like, oh, you're out for a few weeks, you know, so.

• 1:54:03Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's, that's the problem with the injury I have, it feels like a stubbed toe. So I was like, alright, so I'll just wait a couple of days, it'll be fine. And then a couple of days later, it's not fine, and you wait. And then I never got an MRI, never got any of that. It's like, I'm sure I'll be, be fine. Yeah, so it's hard to know sometimes, like, what, it's hard to know. I feel like a lot of people will just not check it out, be fine. Well, because there's several failure cases. There is a failure case of where everything is a stubbed toe, you're like, fuck it. Like, like you're bleeding everywhere, yeah, that's fine, whatever. So you have to be careful, a lot, a lot of, a lot of people can fall into that, too. I think I'm in that category. Go to the doctor, why do you go to the doctor?

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Your best approach is typically wait until something else gets hurt, so that you'll forget about the groin.

• 1:54:53Lex Fridman?

  That's, yeah, exactly. That's all I was hoping. I was hoping to get hurt, so waiting for the, for the broken heart, maybe. Okay, that was very helpful. Oh, you mentioned you're doing a whole thing on the pre-match ritual. Can you kind of preview like what kind of what's involved in your pre-match ritual?

• 1:55:12Speaker 02

  It's a pretty big in the wrestling culture and the fighting culture, like kind of what to do before your competition. But I think a few of our, a few people are just kind of missing out exactly, you know, what to do. So I break it down for them. I break it down to people like four weeks in advance. How you should prep, you know, your training and your nutrition and your sleep for competition. In addition to that, I break it down even like to a smaller scale of like what, how, how early you should get to the event. When you're, when you should be visualizing, you know, your competition, what to do like, you know, 30 minutes before, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes. And the kind of mentality you should have throughout those, those times before you actually step onto the mat.

• 1:55:56Lex Fridman?

  When are you visualizing? Like, how much are you visualizing? When you say competition, you're talking about the tournament or the actual people you might be competing against?

• 1:56:04Speaker 02

  A little bit of both. I'll spend time, uh, just visualizing the crowd. Like if it's going to be, you know, an arena with 15,000 people, I'll spend time in practice and whatnot, like putting myself inside that arena and visualizing, you know, stepping on the mat. And hearing the, hearing the crowd scream and whatnot. That way, you know, when competition time comes, it's kind of the, the same deal. I'm accustomed to it. In addition, when I get to the arena, I'll step on the mat. I'll, I'll kind of look at everything. I'll expose my senses to, to what it's going to be. And then I'll kind of shut everything off. Like a lot, some people, you know, scroll through their phone and can treat, treat it like normal, have this normal conversations. For me, I like to limit my sensory input, my sensory intake before I go out and compete. I just feel like sometime, I feel like sometimes we only have so many decisions you can make in a day.

• 1:56:48Speaker 02

  And I want all of my best decisions to be made when it matters, when it counts.

• 1:56:53Lex Fridman?

  Uh, what about you? What's, do you, uh, limit your sensory input?

• 1:56:59Speaker 01

  On game day, honestly, no routine, nothing, eh?

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. Yeah, I don't do anything.

• 1:57:06Speaker 02

  That's why this guy is a double silver.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  We're both double silver.

• 1:57:10Lex Fridman?

  You should get it. You should buy his instructional. It'll help you.

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  I'll get another silver.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  No, honestly, nothing. Hey, I just try to relax, treat it like it's before training. Have a good.

• 1:57:20Lex Fridman?

  Visualizations or no?

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  No, no visualization.

• 1:57:24Lex Fridman?

  So the opposite of visualization, you just avoid it.

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't even think about it. I'm just like, yeah, we'll have a good time, you know, try to appreciate it that I can do it.

• 1:57:34Lex Fridman?

  By the way, when you visualize, are you visualizing tough positions or you visualize winning mostly?

• 1:57:38Speaker 02

  Uh, definitely visualize winning. I visualize how I can get, how I'm gonna get to my most dominant positions. Cause you know, in comp, I want to do what I'm best at. And I'm also see, uh, I see my opponent in his best positions and how I'm gonna escape those if necessary. But most of the time I'm just visualizing exactly what I'm gonna do in that match and I go out there and do it.

• 1:57:58Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so what, when, when, when your teammate Craig is, you know, another like world-class athlete has a fundamentally different philosophy than you. Do you visualize being frustrated at him?

• 1:58:10Speaker 02

  Not, no, not frustrated, but I'll definitely come into practice with like solutions to, to problems that Craig gives me. You know, like if Craig's, Craig's, uh, you know, catching me or something or giving me issues like, you know, I'll go home, I'll, I'll watch a, a match that he lost for motivation and I'll come back and I'll, I'll, I'll put it on.

• 1:58:27Lex Fridman?

  Just DM him like a highlight reel of him losing.

• 1:58:29Speaker 02

  Yup.

• 1:58:31Lex Fridman?

  Uh, what about you? Like, does it, does it affect you that you're a bit of an outlier?

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  Usually before I compete, right before I go out there, I go, why am I doing this? Do I still need to do this? And I think like, hopefully it doesn't embarrass myself, affect my instructional sales. That's the last thought. But I don't even put too much thought into the whole competing thing. I'm just like, you know what? Train hard. Hopefully have a good time out there.

• 1:58:54Lex Fridman?

  What about the motivation aspect? Like that, that voice that says like, why am I doing this? That voice can break a lot of people. Like in the weight cut, it can break a lot of people. Like, why am I doing this stupid, silly sport? Like you said, a bunch of dudes just rolling around. Like, what's the point?

• 1:59:08Speaker 01

  Oh, cool. Someone with a nine to five job? And I'll be like, yeah, that's why I'm doing this, you know? Avoid that.

• 1:59:14Speaker 02

  Sure. Sell those DVDs, man.

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't get too deep on competing.

• 1:59:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:20Speaker 02

  We're so polar opposite. It's like almost uncomfortable to be around you.

• 1:59:23Speaker 01

  Obviously, one of us is a clean athlete.

• 1:59:28Lex Fridman?

  You should do a DVD on that.

• 1:59:33Lex Fridman?

  What about you in terms of preparing for competition, Nicky? The day before, the day of, are there rituals that you follow?

• 1:59:42Speaker 03

  Honestly, like the few days leading up to it, it's different for me every time. Like, sometimes I'll warm up before that I compete, sometimes I won't. Sometimes I'll fast, sometimes I'll eat. So it literally is just completely random. I don't follow any specific thing. But in the training room, leading up to the competition, I'll definitely, you know, like Nicky Rod visualized, that I'm walking out onto the competition mats. You know, I'll pick somebody that's, you know, similar body type to the person that I'm competing against. And then, you know, we'll start out with some distance between us. We'll come out, smack hands and, you know, act like everything's a real competition. I'll even sometimes have, you know, corners that will yell out times and things like that, just to replicate it as much as possible.

• 2:00:23Lex Fridman?

  It's funny, because I've talked to a lot of Olympic gold medalists. They used to do a podcast with like athletes and they all sound like Nicky Rod. The two of you are outliers. I don't know, sometimes I'll do this, sometimes. So anyway, but that's also Jiu Jitsu culture, I think. Maybe the chaos of not taking things too serious is actually really, really helpful. Sometimes the pressure of taking everything way too seriously can break you.

• 2:00:47Speaker 01

  I mean, it's just, I think it's that big a sport, really, you know?

• 2:00:50Speaker 02

  I think if I compete every day in practice, it just makes competition much easier. So I just put the pressure on there.

• 2:00:55Lex Fridman?

  On the competition, yeah, yeah. On the, sorry, on the training, on the competing and the training. I don't know, Olympic sports aren't that big either financially. And people take it extremely, extremely seriously. Like, you don't really get that much money from Judo.

• 2:01:10Speaker 01

  I mean, I just don't take Jiu Jitsu that seriously, because like I was just partying, having a good time until 21, and then I was like, oh, fuck, do I get a job? Or do I pursue professional sports? And I feel like if I can make a current Jiu Jitsu with a decision at that point.

• 2:01:23Lex Fridman?

  And now you just stumbled your way somehow into like being at the top of the world.

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I feel like. I just walked into it. I feel like I couldn't just do that in wrestling, boxing. I couldn't do that in other sports.

• 2:01:34Lex Fridman?

  What was the toughest match you ever had that pushed you mentally, physically, technically?

• 2:01:40Lex Fridman?

  This doesn't have to be the best person you faced, but was there like a moment in your career that was like really defining for you?

• 2:01:48Speaker 03

  I mean, I would say like the toughest mentally was just this, this last ADCC, you know, I just had a big injury leading into it that kind of screwed the whole camp and, and weight cutting everything up. Uh, so yeah, I would say, I would say the last ADCC.

• 2:02:03Lex Fridman?

  Are you proud of your performance there? Like you stepped on the mat that you, uh, you pushed through all of it?

• 2:02:07Speaker 03

  Uh, like I said, I'm a very competitive person and I hate losing, so definitely not. Yeah.

• 2:02:13Speaker 01

  You had a collapsed lung.

• 2:02:17Lex Fridman?

  Can you elaborate on this?

• 2:02:21Speaker 01

  He was, he was so physically exhausted afterwards, couldn't breathe. We had to get medical intervention. He thought he had a collapsed lung.

• 2:02:29Speaker 03

  So I was, I was the most tired that I've ever been in my life in that match. I actually popped a blood vessel in my eye. I was trying so hard.

• 2:02:36Speaker 02

  He, he comes out, he walks off the ADCC mat backstage and I'm like, I'm kind of getting warmed up for my match and Nicky Ryan comes, he walks over huffing and puffing. His mom's right next to me, he looks at her, he's like, I think I need help. I think I have a lung collapse.

• 2:02:51Speaker 03

  Not true.

• 2:02:51Speaker 02

  Dude, no, not true.

• 2:02:53Speaker 03

  My mom's the one that called for medical help. I was just laying on the warm-up mat, fucking dying.

• 2:03:01Speaker 02

  Well, we're happy you're fine.

• 2:03:05Lex Fridman?

  Laid it all on the line. Uh, what about you, Craig?

• 2:03:09Speaker 01

  Defining or toughest matches?

• 2:03:11Lex Fridman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:11Speaker 01

  I mean, they're all pretty tough, you know? I don't know. I can't really pinpoint one. I mean, probably the most annoying one was obviously the one where I had Gordon Armband, I was like, tap, bro. And he wouldn't tap, so I let him out.

• 2:03:26Speaker 01

  Mentally, I was like, I shouldn't have done that.

• 2:03:28Lex Fridman?

  Do you ever have a thing in your brain where it says, should I shit talk now or not? And you ever, you say, no, I'm going to be respectful?

• 2:03:35Speaker 01

  I just can't be serious.

• 2:03:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  About some of these, you know, I don't know. It's just silly. It's just.

• 2:03:39Lex Fridman?

  Nah, all of it, the whole thing. Uh, what about you, Nicky Rod?

• 2:03:43Speaker 02

  Um, dude, honestly, most of my toughest matches are, are in the pri- the training room, right?

• 2:03:50Speaker 02

  Cause I started with these guys. I started training under them, like, you know, started training at DDS when I didn't have any knowledge, like of, like, I knew wrestling. I knew like a knee cut in jiu jitsu, but like, I started training with them when I knew almost no jiu jitsu and then I had to like, you know, really work my way up. So definitely in the training room, like being like, having one of these guys on my back or like, there's a stretch of like a few weeks or months when COVID first hit and there was just like four of the best grapplers in the world and we just did drilling and live rounds with these four guys and it was just, it was, it was hard. It was very hard, you know, every, every round doing six rounds, seven days a week with the best grapplers in the world. And it's like, you get no break and you're forced to learn on the go. So I think in the, for me in the training room, that was definitely my, my toughest matches.

• 2:04:36Speaker 02

  And that's where I built, you know, those mental calluses.

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  There was a period where I, I drew with Nicky Rod, probably what nine months, 12 months? And typically speaking, like I said, no warmups. The first round, we usually take it pretty easy. First round, you start in mount. The whole room, the rest of the training room, they take mount very lightly. Me and Nicky Rod would be fighting to the death every day. I felt like we did an extra round every day. It was very grueling.

• 2:05:02Speaker 02

  I'm very, I'm very mean when I'm in the midst of drilling or, or live, or live, like, we would do, we would drill wrestling, you know, quite a bit, like standup. And in the drilling, like, I just wouldn't let Craig take me down. Like, we're, we're not going live. We're just drilling, but I just wouldn't let him put me on the floor. So things like that, you know?

• 2:05:23Lex Fridman?

  Uh, I knew it'd escalate.

• 2:05:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05:25Lex Fridman?

  Uh, so you mentioned mount, like, uh, so you do positional training. So is that, would that be the hardest versus like live training, uh, open, like starting from guard?

• 2:05:33Speaker 02

  I would say mount and turtle definitely, definitely made me very tough. Cause you spent all this effort getting off of bottom mount and then you gotta get on top of a guy. And the, at the time, I'm not that good at holding guys down. So they escape quick. And I'm like, fuck, I just tried to hold them down. Gotta go back down. Same thing with the turtle. It's like you, you start bottom turtle, you're trying to explode, get out, get away. And then, you know, you switch and this guy gets up pretty quick and you're like, "Damn, I gotta go right back down." It was that constant circle, man. It's very tough, but definitely, you know, build some character on the mat.

• 2:06:04Lex Fridman?

  What do you think is the value of positional training in general in jiu-jitsu? Actually, this one, just interacting with you guys, it's not commonly done in just like regular jiu-jitsu gyms. What do you see? Because probably it's not commonly done because it's so, most of the experience is just frustrating. Like, if you're evenly matched, you're basically frustrated the whole time, if you're doing it right.

• 2:06:25Speaker 02

  It's a psychological battle that happens in like the mountain turtle rounds. It's like, you know, because you, maybe you get close to subbing a guy and, or maybe you do sub them, you know, when you start on turtle and you're on their back, you finish them and then you get this high point and then immediately you gotta go back down to defensive posture. It's very like, it's emotionally like up and down. It's hard to deal with.

• 2:06:45Speaker 01

  Super important if you're one of the better people in the gym because it just puts you in positions you don't find yourself in in regular training. So I think like a lot of, if you're a big fish in a small pond and you don't do positional sparring, you're probably gonna get exposed in competition. You might even look silly in those positions. So you really have to force yourself to do it despite the fact that you're giving someone worse than you a position where they might catch you. So you have to sort of put the ego aside.

• 2:07:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's one of the things when I was training regularly, of course, training with you guys, it's like trivial, but I didn't work on putting myself in bad positions. When you get better and you regret it. The big negative thing it has consequence it has on competition is you don't take as many risks because you're kind of afraid for your back to get taken, all that kind of stuff.

• 2:07:32Speaker 01

  That was me before I went to DDS. I remember I showed up there in that old position. I was like, "Fuck this. You better earn this position."

• 2:07:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:07:39Speaker 01

  I didn't really have escapes. That was a learning curve for me, for sure.

• 2:07:47Lex Fridman?

  Do you see the value in positional training? Or is it just the source of tremendous frustration?

• 2:07:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I definitely think it plays a big part in, you know, your confidence when you step out onto the competition mats, you know, being confident that even if you get put in the worst possible situations, you know what to do and know how to work out of them.

• 2:08:06Lex Fridman?

  I had a long argument with Hajar Gracie when he visited and he thinks mount is the most dominant position.

• 2:08:13Lex Fridman?

  Even nogi versus back, is there a case to be made for that or no?

• 2:08:18Speaker 02

  I think, I think all of your opponent's utensils, their tools are in front of them. So like, if you're on mount, they still have, you know, there's a few ways to get out of mount. I think if you're on somebody's back, I'd personally much rather be on somebody's back than.

• 2:08:30Speaker 01

  Flattened out. I'd rather have someone's back and then flattened out.

• 2:08:34Speaker 02

  Boots in, flattened out. Yeah.

• 2:08:36Lex Fridman?

  Boots in, flattened out. So not, not even body triangle, but just flattened.

• 2:08:40Speaker 01

  Just completely flat, almost like the position in my may where you see guys get finished because they can't get out. I think that position is probably the hardest position to escape.

• 2:08:47Lex Fridman?

  Can you see what Hajar's talking about with mount or is he just that good at mount that he says that?

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  He might mean the gi, cross collar, you know, I don't know.

• 2:08:55Lex Fridman?

  Or did he mean? He says controlling wise, he, he just believes that you can complete, that there's, he actually thinks there's more ways to get out from the back than there is from the mount.

• 2:09:05Speaker 01

  Prior to.

• 2:09:06Lex Fridman?

  Getting up, including like physically.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  Prior to the kipping escape, I would probably agree with him. But that kipping escape is so difficult to manage. It's the funny looking escape where uh,

• 2:09:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  legs are wiggling. People have a lot of trouble. It's like super hard to learn how to do. But then once you learn how to do it, the effectiveness is just huge.

• 2:09:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's a weird one. When did that come to be a thing? Is that pretty recent?

• 2:09:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I saw DDS guys using it first, I think.

• 2:09:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09:34Lex Fridman?

  Who, who's the first guy to discover something like that? This seems like a ridiculous thing to discover.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, what if I just wiggle?

• 2:09:42Speaker 02

  I thought it was a joke at first. I was like, you guys really doing this?

• 2:09:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:48Lex Fridman?

  I remember somebody showing me like a technique where uh, like if you just like walk your hand on a mat or something like that.

• 2:09:55Speaker 02

  Maybe arm triangle or something.

• 2:09:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  On the arm high.

• 2:09:58Lex Fridman?

  And it's just like a funny discovery, like as opposed to like trying to like shove it in, just like walk it.

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  I like doing that to people, but with things that aren't true. You know what I mean? I'll just tell them this is a technique and watch him try to work out if I'm being serious or not.

• 2:10:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's what you do when you achieve guru status. They'll just listen to you like you're Steven Seagal.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  See what they'll believe.

• 2:10:20Lex Fridman?

  Speaking of which, how do you balance, you have to travel all across the world. How do you balance that with running a school with being a world-class jiu-jitsu athlete?

• 2:10:29Speaker 01

  I mean, the secrets of travel for me are two drugs, Xanax and modafinil. That's how we time adjust and we hit the ground running.

• 2:10:37Lex Fridman?

  What does modafinil do? Xanax puts you asleep.

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I have nacolepsy, it's a nacolepsy medication.

• 2:10:45Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:10:48Lex Fridman?

  How does that work with the steroids?

• 2:10:50Speaker 01

  How does it work? I mean, they work well together, you know?

• 2:10:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, nice.

• 2:10:53Speaker 01

  Focus and physical recovery. But in terms of traveling and training and stuff, it is, I mean, we're lucky because we've got so many high-level guys. So we can, we can travel and they're still, still in good hands. I mean, it would be a problem if me, Nicky Rod and Nicky Ryan left and the gym had Ethan. That would be a problem. But we've got to make sure it's not just him there.

• 2:11:12Lex Fridman?

  Although everyone says they're happy when you're gone, so that's the moment I heard.

• 2:11:16Speaker 01

  Happy when I'm gone, but they do miss me. For sure, until I get back.

• 2:11:21Lex Fridman?

  All right, what about, what about you? Just like balancing, do you try to stay completely focused on competing? Like for some of the big matches you have coming up? Are you able to kind of diversify?

• 2:11:30Speaker 02

  Well, I like to, yeah, diversify my training to where, you know, if I'm, don't have a competition scheduled, I'm more focused on skill development and, you know, getting better and broadening, broadening my tool shed.

• 2:11:43Speaker 02

  But, you know, if I'm like six weeks before comp, I really start amping up the intensity that I bring into the mats against bringing some of that visualization towards practice. And maybe I train less volume pre-competition, but higher output per session.

• 2:11:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, what is, what's a perfect week of training look like?

• 2:12:02Speaker 02

  If I'm not in, if I'm not in competition mode, I would say Monday, Wednesday, Friday twice. Every other day just once. If I'm pre-comp, just Monday, Monday to Sunday, once a day.

• 2:12:14Lex Fridman?

  So that's on the mat. You're doing the full like positional training, lat training.

• 2:12:18Speaker 01

  Bicep curls.

• 2:12:20Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I do a lot of bicep curls. Yeah, I lift a few times a week now. Yeah.

• 2:12:24Lex Fridman?

  Cardio or no? Cardio is all that stuff?

• 2:12:26Speaker 02

  Cardio is all that stuff. I do, I do do some CrossFit workouts, like CrossFits. I'll do like some EMOMs or some AMRabs or CrossFit terms.

• 2:12:35Lex Fridman?

  That's for Instagram?

• 2:12:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. But yeah, CrossFit is a, is a good way to kind of like push that, that threshold sometimes on the mat. Cause I'm, I'm so good. I can't always get that, that like full red line. So I'll hop in across the gym and I'll do some workouts that, you know, bring me closer to death.

• 2:12:57Lex Fridman?

  What about you Craig? What, what does a perfect week in training look like? Like when you're back home training?

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  I try to be at the gym twice a day, every day when I'm back, just because I travel a bit more than these guys. So I try to be there eight and 12 every day, hang out in between. Usually definitely usually train both of those sessions, depending on how my body feels.

• 2:13:17Lex Fridman?

  So doing positional, doing everything technique, positional, lat?

• 2:13:21Speaker 01

  I should probably do more positional, but because I'm just trying to work on wrestling and stuff, and especially leading up to the Volkanovsky's last fight, I was trying to wrestle more and focus on those areas even before I traveled over there. Just some experimentation with some stuff, but yeah.

• 2:13:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. How do you, how do you experiment with stuff? Like how do you, so there's like regular positional stuff, but when you have ideas? Like, like where do you do it in during the training sessions? Do you do it outside of that? You get, you do get together with somebody?

• 2:13:47Speaker 01

  Usually every session I show up with something I'm thinking of, usually something from top, maybe something from bottom. But, and then I just try to maybe pick the right people. Some people, obviously I'm just fighting to the death with. It's not a good time to experiment. And then others, obviously you can, you can play around with ideas on.

• 2:14:06Lex Fridman?

  Okay, uh, what about you? Uh, what's a perfect week look like? Uh, maybe, well, you said you're a hundred percent now.

• 2:14:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, so yeah, honestly, I have pretty much the same schedule as Nicky Rod. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I do twice a day, uh, every other day, once a day. And then, uh, normally, uh, noon practice is like our biggest class. That's where, you know, all the pros go in. So I tend to do more open rounds there. And then we have a 7:00 PM class as well, which is more hobbyist. Uh, and that's where I'll do my positional rounds and, you know, force myself to be put in, uh, bad positions.

• 2:14:38Lex Fridman?

  So you have, uh, what you do 8:00 AM, 12, like in terms of what B Team has, 8:00 AM, 12, uh, 7:00 PM, and the hobbyist some more 7:00 PM?

• 2:14:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:14:48Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Do you believe in overtraining? Do you think you can overtrain?

• 2:14:53Speaker 02

  I used to not believe in it, but I, then I got hurt. I was like, all right.

• 2:14:58Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you attribute that to overtraining?

• 2:15:01Speaker 02

  I think, uh, dude, I'm telling you, I trained, I lifted like a bodybuilder for like seven years and by lifting, I mean, I was lifting seven days a week. And I trained arms most days, like almost, almost every day I would do like, you know, four or five sets and get a, get a pretty good bicep pump. In addition to my lift, I think I, that had to contribute somewhat towards, towards my, uh,

• 2:15:24Lex Fridman?

  What about, okay, yeah, fair enough. Well, what about on, on the actual mat overtraining? Like spending too much time on the mat? Psychological, physical overtraining?

• 2:15:32Speaker 02

  I think you can definitely overtrain, but it's more of a, uh, like if your body's healthy, you have to make sure your mind is, is sharp. Like sometimes, uh, maybe taking a, a, a day away or even, even diverting your attention in, in a different aspect of training can help you be a little bit sharper overall. Sometimes it can be like, uh, it can get a little like, um, stagnant because you're doing the same stuff over and over. But I think if you just keep like, you know, overtraining, then your overall baseline just gets higher and you, that become, you become, you know, accustomed to that.

• 2:16:04Lex Fridman?

  What about you? You don't seem like a guy that overdo-

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  I've heard of it. Never been close to it. Nah, I think controlling how hard you train is definitely protects you from injury. You know what I mean? Like if you're redlining yourself and then you're fighting to the death in the gym, that's a hundred percent when you're gonna get injured, gonna get sick. So I try to make sure I've had enough sleep, I've had obviously enough food post-training, and that sort of helps me to train a bit harder. But still, try to avoid redlining myself too much.

• 2:16:37Speaker 02

  I think establish also like what days are gonna be your peak days? Cause you're throughout the week, if you're training seven days a week, you're gonna have ups and downs. Like for me personally, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, usually my best days. And besides that, I also have other great days.

• 2:16:53Lex Fridman?

  All my days are great.

• 2:16:56Lex Fridman?

  But Monday, Wednesday, Friday are also great. You're like unable to admit that some days are rough for the others.

• 2:17:05Lex Fridman?

  I'm always on, bro. Okay. What advice would you give to people who are not always on? Hobbyists? How to get better? Like people that are already there, I don't know, purple bells, brown bells, black bells, there's just like doing like a couple of times a week or something like that, like how to get better?

• 2:17:23Speaker 02

  I think being consistent, like find a schedule that you can consistently train. Maybe it's like, you know, three, four times a week or even a little bit less. Just be consistent over the years. I think too, too often people are like, oh, I wanna get really good really fast. And it's like, definitely takes a long time to get to where you wanna be.

• 2:17:39Lex Fridman?

  What about the, what you're doing during, like while being consistent, what kind of stuff you're working on?

• 2:17:45Speaker 03

  So honestly, I think one big thing for me, which is something I actually started doing once B-team was formed, was filming all of your rounds and then watching it every day. Cause you can see what specific problems you're having and then you can base your positional rounds around those problems.

• 2:18:03Lex Fridman?

  That's really interesting. It's kind of depressing, though.

• 2:18:07Lex Fridman?

  Like, sometimes I have to, you know, I edited this podcast for a long time. I still do in part. And I hate the sound of my voice and like what I look like. It's tough, but it does make you better. Yeah. And I also hate the sound of Craig's voice and what he looks like. So editing this podcast would be especially difficult. This would be doubly difficult. But I'm glad the rest of you are here. I don't know. That's, that's. Do you, what, do you watch competition footage of yourself in it?

• 2:18:36Lex Fridman?

  Like to analyze, like? Oh, yeah. It's my confidence. It's fucking good. While you're doing curls? Yeah.

• 2:18:43Speaker 01

  I try and also watch it to lose my confidence.

• 2:18:46Lex Fridman?

  Is there advice you, Craig, you would give for hobbyists to get better?

• 2:18:49Speaker 01

  I mean, just, uh, not every round has to be a fight to the death, you know? I feel like you're gonna get injured, but it's out that way. You're not gonna learn as much.

• 2:18:59Lex Fridman?

  It's tough. I would say, just as a black belt who took jiu-jitsu very seriously for a very long time, basically, when you become a hobbyist, your skill is basically slipping, your age and your skill. And so not taking stuff seriously is actually its own psychological skill of like, you're

• 2:19:21Lex Fridman?

  that, it's tough. It's tough. Like, it's tough in a way that is different when you're like a blue belt or something, that you're, if you work hard and you train correctly, you're gonna get much better. Here, you're kinda.

• 2:19:35Speaker 01

  You're looking downhill.

• 2:19:36Lex Fridman?

  You're looking downhill. You're like,

• 2:19:40Lex Fridman?

  yeah, I guess I'm gonna enjoy the art of it.

• 2:19:42Speaker 01

  Reframe the victory, you know? Like, if it's a young, upcoming guy and he constantly, you're like, whoa, that's a moral victory, you know?

• 2:19:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but then that has to happen. You have to be able to not do that to avoid the injury sometimes, like if you want. So, yeah, it's a different, it's a different thing. Plus, plus with me, just because some people recognize me, they.

• 2:20:02Speaker 01

  Coming.

• 2:20:03Lex Fridman?

  You have that probably. You guys definitely obviously have that.

• 2:20:06Speaker 01

  I've solved that problem.

• 2:20:08Lex Fridman?

  What? How did you solve that problem?

• 2:20:10Speaker 01

  Travel around, you do a seminar, anything like that?

• 2:20:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:12Speaker 01

  It's believable that you could get submitted once.

• 2:20:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:16Speaker 01

  But if they catch you, give them a few.

• 2:20:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:19Speaker 01

  If people tell their friends they submitted me to seminar.

• 2:20:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:21Speaker 01

  One time believable.

• 2:20:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:23Speaker 01

  They got me four or five times.

• 2:20:24Lex Fridman?

  Four times, yeah.

• 2:20:24Speaker 01

  You've robbed them of that.

• 2:20:26Lex Fridman?

  Okay, that's pretty funny, but it's also, they have this energy, like they think, you know, they're coming in hot. And I usually like to just basically get submitted quickly twice. And just, it changes everything. It makes it more fun. I've noticed.

• 2:20:44Speaker 02

  Let them submit you twice?

• 2:20:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, just like very quickly. What are the options? We're not, we're not the same.

• 2:20:52Speaker 02

  Make it last longer. Hold off.

• 2:20:55Lex Fridman?

  But then it's like, it's very hard to like, yeah, if you're a very serious competitor and so on, you take it seriously, then yes, but like, then people go, people, what they try to do, this probably is what happens with you guys. They try to impress you by going super hard.

• 2:21:10Speaker 02

  I have people every day come to my gym, try to take me out.

• 2:21:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:13Speaker 02

  You gotta, I just stay sharp. Come to practice, let's get it on.

• 2:21:20Lex Fridman?

  Do you feel that energy? I need to talk to Craig here for a second.

• 2:21:25Lex Fridman?

  Like at a seminar, like somebody is coming in like really hard, like a brown belt will come in like, and they really want to impress you with like their technical side of their big fan. They've been watching your DVDs. Like, what do you do with a guy like?

• 2:21:36Speaker 01

  I make a complete joke out of the role, you know, give them the pass, mess with them, do stupid shit, you know? Like rob them of the realness of it. Cause it's stupid. I'm not going to roll hard with strangers, you know? I feel like you should roll with a circle of people you trust. Injuries happen rolling hard with strangers because that's the same way you get injured in competition because you don't have that relationship with them.

• 2:21:58Lex Fridman?

  And I should also mention, that's probably not a good way to impress somebody's, but just going ape shit, going a hundred percent.

• 2:22:05Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that's not at all.

• 2:22:06Lex Fridman?

  I think the beauty of jiu-jitsu is like the camaraderie of it, like as you get to know each other, there's like technical, like different ideas you have and all that. Yeah. Okay. Do you think gi jiu-jitsu is dying in popularity, Craig?

• 2:22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's long dead. I, I think it's just, I mean, it just shows like, uh, I mean, I have heard some numbers on the viewership for the G.I. World's finals and they don't even compare to the undercard of like, who's number one events. So I think like, when I was coming up and competing in the G.I. all the time, you looked at those guys that won black belt championships and you were like in awe of them. It almost had that ADCC champion feel. But now that's not the case. You know, I just feel like that the younger generation aren't looking at who's winning black belt G.I. Worlds. I personally don't think, and I don't think they're like, they want to be that guy. They want to be like a Rotolo, Gordon, you know, those are the people they want to emulate.

• 2:22:59Lex Fridman?

  So you think like the G.I., like ABJJF G.I. tournaments will just keep declining popularity?

• 2:23:06Speaker 01

  Oh, I think people will still do. I mean, it's easier, I think, as you're over thirty, because the G.I.'s a bit of a slower thing and the masters' participation is bigger in the G.I. because obviously No G.I. is now heading in a wrestling direction. Wrestling and heel hooks, you're over thirty, that's a terrifying prospect, you know? What's terrifying about the G.I. less? So I think in a participation rate, the IBJF will still be good, but I just don't think people are as interested as they used to be.

• 2:23:31Lex Fridman?

  Why is wrestling and heel hooks terrifying? Like heel hooks, I can vaguely understand if you don't understand heel hooks.

• 2:23:36Speaker 01

  If you work a desk job and you've never wrestled and a guy double legs you, that's gonna probably break your back, you know? I think the older guys are scared of wrestling. It's hard to wrestle at forty.

• 2:23:46Lex Fridman?

  To learn wrestling at forty.

• 2:23:47Speaker 01

  Is it? Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I think it's even just hard in general to do wrestling at forty, but it's easy to pull half guard in the G.I. at forty.

• 2:23:54Lex Fridman?

  I think it's hard to do judo at forty and people still do it at forty. Judo hurts more.

• 2:23:59Speaker 01

  Judo's scarier than all of them.

• 2:24:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I think, does wrestling really hurt in forty?

• 2:24:04Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:24:05Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, I'm looking at you.

• 2:24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:08Lex Fridman?

  It does. Interesting.

• 2:24:09Speaker 02

  I feel, I agree with you saying that judo looks like the most dangerous. Like even their, their practice partners, they're just getting slammed flat.

• 2:24:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I did, I mean, I did judo for a really long time. There's a lot of people that are forty, fifty, sixty, do judo and they get.

• 2:24:24Speaker 01

  They're the ones that are still alive, though.

• 2:24:28Lex Fridman?

  It's true. Uh, survivor bias. You do a little bit of Judo, right?

• 2:24:33Speaker 01

  Me, I'm a yellow belt.

• 2:24:34Lex Fridman?

  You're a yellow belt in Judo? I should be an instructor.

• 2:24:39Lex Fridman?

  Promote you to orange.

• 2:24:40Speaker 01

  I got a yellow belt in the sixth grade. I believe it was the sixth grade. I did it for about, I don't know, six months.

• 2:24:46Lex Fridman?

  But you're also using Judo in competition, basically. Are you doing like harai type throw like you're doing?

• 2:24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know where I learned that. I just started doing it.

• 2:24:56Lex Fridman?

  You just started lifting your leg in various ways until it worked?

• 2:24:58Speaker 01

  Just figuring it out, yeah.

• 2:25:00Lex Fridman?

  Doing different kinds of tricks?

• 2:25:01Speaker 01

  I looked at the sambo guys doing it. I was like, can't be that hard.

• 2:25:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:04Speaker 01

  Gave it a crack.

• 2:25:05Lex Fridman?

  Well, they, they looked at your foot locks and they said, that can't be that hard.

• 2:25:09Speaker 01

  They, they said, can't be that hard. Ban it from the tournaments.

• 2:25:15Lex Fridman?

  All right.

• 2:25:18Lex Fridman?

  What do you think is the best takedown? In no gi jiu jitsu? Like what? Like if people were trying to train for competition, so on, like where you see the trends heading?

• 2:25:31Speaker 02

  I think those foot sweeps is like catching the fire nowadays. See a lot, a lot of foot sweeps. Uh, foot sweeps and arm drags, I would say pretty, pretty popular in our sport.

• 2:25:40Lex Fridman?

  Arm drag. She's just go arm drag to, okay.

• 2:25:43Speaker 02

  Arm drag either to get them, like get to a, uh, behind them or even just to cause reactions, make them pull away and we can start reattacking.

• 2:25:50Speaker 01

  Are you talking about it in a context of what's the best takedown to score? What's the safest takedown to mitigate the risk of guillotine submission? Or most effective in general?

• 2:26:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, most effective combined, combined. Yeah, yeah. I mean.

• 2:26:07Speaker 01

  I mean, I think.

• 2:26:07Lex Fridman?

  It's about scoring.

• 2:26:08Speaker 01

  I think any sort of, uh, body lock. You know what I mean? Locking your hands around the body, you've been able to put it to the floor that way. I feel like that's most effective, safest. Might even have arisen out of a leg attack, leg entry, upgrade to the body.

• 2:26:20Lex Fridman?

  What about, uh, like foot sweeps, like outside foot sweeps? What, what do we?

• 2:26:24Speaker 02

  I would say, yeah, you know, uh, foot sweeps from outside foot sweeps or even like something like you're tossing a point at body and you're sweeping the foot.

• 2:26:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, those are all pretty safe. See, why is that scary? I don't understand. It's not scary at all.

• 2:26:36Speaker 01

  I think it's the lifts that are scary.

• 2:26:37Speaker 02

  The lifts, yeah.

• 2:26:38Lex Fridman?

  Who's lifting people?

• 2:26:40Speaker 02

  I like a good lift.

• 2:26:41Lex Fridman?

  Return? No, not you. I mean, in master, like, we're talking about older guys doing old gigs. Some of those old bosses take it very serious, you know? They just start lifting. TRT welts. TRT welts. They're coming. They're coming to impress. Grab a lift. All right. Just, just for the gram. Okay. Uh, what about submission? What's your favorite submission? And what do you think is the most effective submission? Except the buggy choke. Uh, I would have to say the rear naked. It's definitely the one that's hit the most and the, uh, the highest level of competition. Was that, uh, that was pretty interesting to see you escape all that and to put, put it on. That's the cool thing about EBI, to see like the world-class athletes. I was surprised that it's possible to escape with you on his back. Gonna try some B cream. Oh, yeah. B cream? That helps?

• 2:27:26Lex Fridman?

  What's in the B? What's the formula? Or is that a secret? That is a proprietary blend, for sure. Okay. Uh, but that's what you use for greasing. That's what you greased before. Allegedly. Um, does either other application outside of grappling? Or? I mean, I'm sure you can get creative. All right. Asking for a friend. Is that R and C for you as well? Rear naked?

• 2:27:48Speaker 02

  Uh, rear naked choke, I mean, overall favorite for like solidifying a finish, cause like, you could push, you could put somebody asleep, right? Even if they, they don't want to attack, put them to sleep. But as far as like something I've been working on now that I'm, I'm now starting to implement in competition, Yoko Sankaku's side triangle is like, it's a beautiful thing. You have multiple options. You have the triangle to finish. If that fails, you have the kumora. You could break the arm. You could also just transfer and take the back. So Yoko Sankaku, I'm a big fan of, and I continue to progress and get better at it.

• 2:28:18Lex Fridman?

  Have you ever broken anyone's arm?

• 2:28:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I mean, the first, first few competitions, cause I was like, you know, pretty athletic grappler, or athletic wrestler going against like local black belts and brown belts. Like my, one of my first matches, I broke somebody a kumora. Um, pretty much every time I've got a heel hook, which is only twice I've broken an opponent. Um, if I have a joint lock, it's probably gonna break. Like a lot of times it breaks before they tap. Yeah.

• 2:28:43Lex Fridman?

  You seem like a really friendly fella. How hard is it to break an arm? Or any, uh, break a joint?

• 2:28:49Speaker 02

  Well, I don't think it's that hard. I think, um, like if you're talking like an, about an arm bar, we have this position to where like people are kind of holding on, holding on, and then it slips and their arm starts going.

• 2:29:00Lex Fridman?

  Sure.

• 2:29:00Speaker 02

  And then it just, just breaks before they even, you know, get a chance to tap.

• 2:29:06Lex Fridman?

  I love this.

• 2:29:07Speaker 01

  I knee barred a guy and he didn't tap one time and it was actually, it was surprising. I had to put a lot of force into that as opposed to arms, shoulders and the ligaments and the knees and ankles. But to fully, this kid, Sambo kid, fully let it go and he tapped it. I think the angle is like up here.

• 2:29:26Lex Fridman?

  They're built different.

• 2:29:30Speaker 01

  Hopefully can be reconstructed.

• 2:29:31Speaker 02

  He's rebuilt different.

• 2:29:35Lex Fridman?

  All right. What about a straight foot lock? You've ever, do you guys do straight foot locks at all or no?

• 2:29:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I'm learning them now. We had some kid come, come into practice one day and like fuck it, full on all of us.

• 2:29:49Lex Fridman?

  For the straight foot lock?

• 2:29:50Speaker 02

  Straight foot lock, just this little like Polish kid.

• 2:29:53Speaker 01

  Not only did he foot lock everyone, but he told the entire world. He sent out fucking emails, called his friends and family.

• 2:30:01Speaker 02

  We practically put a hit out all over the practice and he just slapped everybody.

• 2:30:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's always interesting when you get like, yeah, people that specialize can surprise you that this could be effective stuff. Do you think there's other stuff that could be still discovered in jiu jitsu? Like what, what areas do you think are ripe with techniques to discover? Like wrestling is really interesting now. There's a lot of innovation happening in wrestling.

• 2:30:28Speaker 02

  I think there'll be more innovation when we get people that are more adamant about standing up from bottom position. I think if we get more of the community, they're like, all right, I want to get off the bottom.

• 2:30:37Speaker 01

  D D D, just stand up.

• 2:30:39Speaker 02

  Just stand up.

• 2:30:39Lex Fridman?

  How jiu jitsu doesn't work.

• 2:30:42Speaker 01

  We actually changed the name, how Sambo doesn't work if you just stand up.

• 2:30:45Lex Fridman?

  Did you really? All right. I'll change it to jiu jitsu when I pirate it and send it for free to the entirety of the Soviet block.

• 2:30:55Lex Fridman?

  Hey, Nicky Rod, do you think ego is useful for martial arts or does it get in the way?

• 2:30:59Speaker 02

  Okay, I think you need to use it in both ways. For sure, have an ego, like if you're, if you're training competition mode. But also, it can prevent you from learning and progressing if your ego is too high. Like, you really have to shut the ego down when you're in the mode of learning and trying to, you know, develop skills. Cause you're gonna put yourself in these bad positions. You're gonna have issues with a, a training partners that aren't necessarily, you know, up to, up to your skill level, but because you're in these bad positions, you have to make these certain sacrifices. And for sure, ego can be a good or bad thing. But if you're able to shut the ego off and learn, then that'll have huge progression when it's time to put the ego on, into use during competition.

• 2:31:38Lex Fridman?

  When's the last time you put, uh, shut the ego off?

• 2:31:41Speaker 02

  It's been a long time.

• 2:31:46Lex Fridman?

  What about you, Craig? Do you, uh, do you, I mean, you, you seem to be super easygoing. Is there, like, is the ego just not part of it?

• 2:31:53Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I just don't want anyone to know they've damaged my ego, you know? You have to suppress it deep down.

• 2:31:58Lex Fridman?

  There's a child underneath all of it crying, always.

• 2:32:03Speaker 01

  For sure. I think ego is good for a bit of perseverance, you know? Like, it'll help you stick it out against a, a tough battle with a training partner, for sure. A bit of egos on the line. Plus, the banter back and forth, we're trying to like stir each other up a bit.

• 2:32:15Lex Fridman?

  Talk some shit, yeah.

• 2:32:16Speaker 01

  I think that helps hone, sharpen the ego a bit.

• 2:32:20Lex Fridman?

  Uh, what about you? Did you try, you seem like a super humble guy. Is there like a monster underneath?

• 2:32:24Speaker 01

  So, it's a total act.

• 2:32:27Lex Fridman?

  Who's in the basement?

• 2:32:29Speaker 03

  Ego's a, a big motivator.

• 2:32:32Speaker 03

  You know, I think it's very good to have in the aspect that it like, it'll drive you to help, to, to wanna be one of the best in the world.

• 2:32:40Speaker 03

  But like Nicky Rod said, you need to be able to turn it off in the training room and, you know, force yourself into bad positions where you may not be winning.

• 2:32:47Lex Fridman?

  Uh, are there like, uh, you know, Donna Hurs mentioned Boris, uh, are there like grapplers? Like Boris, this is a question from Reddit, actually. Uh, Boris-like characters, anybody you've trained with in the past? Who doesn't compete but is just an absolute beast in training? Like, people you've met that are just like?

• 2:33:05Speaker 02

  Well, somebody that I think has a pride, the best like submission grappling in, in MMA, I think like Gilbert Burns is, is a, is a, his submission grappling is very, very good. I trained with him early, early on in my grappling career and I was really impressed by his ability to, to move, hold down opponents that are trying to stand up. And as a whole, you know, he can, he can get submissions and put people away.

• 2:33:28Lex Fridman?

  Have you, when's the last time, have you trained them recently or no?

• 2:33:31Speaker 02

  No, it's been a few years.

• 2:33:33Lex Fridman?

  Was it just impressive, uh, ability to submit, you're saying?

• 2:33:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, I mean, you know, you would see, I'd see Gilbert go against a few, like, pretty decent black belts in the room and farewell and, you know, maybe he gets to their back, puts a choke in, and it's like Gilbert's super high level grappling or submission grappling.

• 2:33:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but he's pretty widely recognized as a monster. So I don't know, that didn't really answer the question. I think you're not even listening anymore.

• 2:33:57Speaker 02

  What was the question?

• 2:34:01Lex Fridman?

  All right, well, what, uh, is there, is there people, like, you've done all these seminars, are there just, especially in, in the, in the eastern block that you've seen? Like, you went to Kazakhstan, is there killers out there that?

• 2:34:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, there's tough guys out there. Obviously, I don't remember the names, nor could I pronounce it if I did, but definitely some tough guys out there. Obviously, carrying skill sets over from, from wrestling for sure, not Sambo, but wrestling.

• 2:34:25Lex Fridman?

  Wrestling, well, yeah, are there, are there just people that surprise you, just don't compete, that are really good? Are there, have you met those?

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  I feel like it's less so today, because there's so many, so many more athletes in the sport, but definitely when I was coming up, back like in Australia and stuff, there were guys I'd train with that wouldn't compete, and that would be like super tough rounds for me.

• 2:34:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and there's so many more avenues for competing in general, so, yeah.

• 2:34:50Lex Fridman?

  What about you? Have you met some monsters?

• 2:34:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, one guy I could think of in particular is Jason Rao. He's, uh, he trains up in Long Island, I think, right? Uh, opened up his own gym out there.

• 2:35:02Speaker 01

  Vanguard.

• 2:35:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, Vanguard. He used to compete, but he would never be able to compete at the same level he would train at. So now he's just focused on mainly, you know, opening up a gym and, and teaching his students. Uh, but he was a guy that was, you know, extremely good in the training room, you know, world class. I still think to this day, he's, he's legitimately one of the best in the world, uh, but just doesn't compete anymore.

• 2:35:25Speaker 01

  Who wins in a fight, a lion or a bear?

• 2:35:30Speaker 01

  Polar bear?

• 2:35:30Lex Fridman?

  This is for you, right? No, not a polar, well, yes, it's a good question. See, you're all, yeah, a polar bear is pretty impressive. No, grizzly bear.

• 2:35:36Speaker 01

  Grizzly bear.

• 2:35:39Speaker 01

  I think a grizzly bear wins.

• 2:35:41Lex Fridman?

  Well, who was the most threatening predator in Australia?

• 2:35:45Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's a tricky question here because everyone's scared of the animals in Australia. But, I mean, you get bitten by a snake, bitten by a spider. That's not that bad. Bear, America, bear will just hold you down and eat you. That's a much more terrifying prospect for me. Even sharks, shark's gonna be quick. No one sees the shark coming, the shark's just gonna bite you in half.

• 2:36:06Lex Fridman?

  Bear will take a bite and chew.

• 2:36:07Speaker 01

  A bear just holds you down and eats you. So that's, uh, that's frightening for me. Australia is a bunch of just weird shit that can kill you.

• 2:36:13Lex Fridman?

  Did you see Cocaine Bear, the movie that's coming out?

• 2:36:15Speaker 01

  I saw the trailer, it looks good.

• 2:36:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah. So there's not every bear, there's like black belts and there's black belts, there's bears and there's bears. So that, I think that's what they often don't talk about. Everybody puts lions and bears in the same category. I think there's just some weak bears.

• 2:36:30Speaker 01

  A lion would kill a black bear, I think.

• 2:36:32Lex Fridman?

  Not every black, again, I'm trying to tell you, there's, there's difference.

• 2:36:36Speaker 01

  But grizzly and polar bear, I'm betting on those.

• 2:36:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, no, I think grizzlies have the size, but actually every video I've seen of grizzlies, they tire out within like 20 seconds. They get bored.

• 2:36:47Speaker 01

  That's the guest thing?

• 2:36:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's guys.

• 2:36:49Speaker 01

  That's a Nicky Ryan guest thing, right?

• 2:36:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's all, that's all they got.

• 2:36:52Speaker 03

  Dream old.

• 2:36:54Lex Fridman?

  And they try to just, uh, they try to just take a breather. Like there's these crazy fights between bears and they last like 20 seconds.

• 2:37:01Speaker 01

  I heard this story about a, a Russian family was attacked by a bear in Russia and, uh, killed the dad. And it took so, it took so long to eat the daughter, she made three phone calls to her mom while I was eating her. And the first call, the mom thought she was pranking her.

• 2:37:14Lex Fridman?

  That's crazy.

• 2:37:15Speaker 01

  That's way scarier than.

• 2:37:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's terrifying.

• 2:37:17Speaker 01

  Give me a snake bite any day.

• 2:37:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. You know what, let me, let me change the question is, um, like if you had to, uh, fight a bear or a lion, how would you try to defeat it? Do you think you have a chance at all?

• 2:37:32Speaker 02

  Well, I think I'd, uh, I'd attack a lion a little bit differently than I'd attack a bear.

• 2:37:37Lex Fridman?

  What would be the difference?

• 2:37:38Speaker 02

  Okay, well, I've seen this video where, um, a lion's are eating and, and, uh, you have three like scrutiny guys walk up behind them and kind of scare the cat off of, off of their food. I think, uh, maybe I produce some props, scare the lion away, right? But if I have to fight it, um, If I have to fight it straight on, I mean, the thing is that you can't, even if you take the back, like you can't like bite it or choke it, the mane is too big to lock your hands around, you know?

• 2:38:05Lex Fridman?

  Are you sure about that? The mane is just hair.

• 2:38:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, the mane's hair.

• 2:38:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's thick hair, it's like, it's like matted hair, right? I don't know, so I think.

• 2:38:13Lex Fridman?

  You think you can. Back a draw a lion?

• 2:38:17Speaker 02

  Maintain, yeah, yeah, but, but, but getting there, getting there, I think I fake how I go low. Alright, make them think I'm going for the foot or something, a little paw sweep, and I take the back.

• 2:38:26Lex Fridman?

  Uh, what about, what about a bear? I feel like they're easier, that might be easier to take, um, to hold back control.

• 2:38:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe, the thing is if they, the bear falls on its back, just gonna crush it, so, so big, substantially bigger than a lion, right, like a, uh.

• 2:38:41Lex Fridman?

  And they're also like terrifyingly like loud with their roars and stuff.

• 2:38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think, so first of all, if I saw a grizzly, I'm like, alright, he's gonna attack me, I try to yell a little bit louder than them, maybe their turn a little bit, like give them a huh. Nope, uh, and then, uh, yeah, for sure, I try to get behind it, I probably go like, uh, something weird, maybe like pull the eyes out or something, you know? For sure, I mean, I'm going for the vital organs, you know, I'm.

• 2:39:04Speaker 01

  Play dead.

• 2:39:05Speaker 02

  Play dead.

• 2:39:05Speaker 01

  And then I will check it.

• 2:39:07Speaker 02

  There's no, there's no pride in that.

• 2:39:10Lex Fridman?

  Wow, pride even matters, see the ego, the same advice you gave, you gotta put the ego aside with the bear.

• 2:39:17Lex Fridman?

  Even then, even then, uh, would you, how would you fight a bear or a lion, just play dead?

• 2:39:24Speaker 01

  Play dead, yeah. Could you beat a kangaroo?

• 2:39:27Speaker 02

  I'm telling a bad joke.

• 2:39:27Speaker 01

  A kangaroo.

• 2:39:28Lex Fridman?

  Uh, yeah.

• 2:39:29Speaker 02

  Kangaroo, I'd beat the shit out of kangaroo.

• 2:39:32Speaker 01

  Dragon?

• 2:39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd, I mean, are we boxing gloves, we just like?

• 2:39:35Lex Fridman?

  How would a kangaroo attack a human?

• 2:39:37Speaker 02

  Try to kick him with the claws.

• 2:39:38Speaker 01

  Knock him down, and then they choke him.

• 2:39:40Speaker 02

  Stand on that tail.

• 2:39:41Lex Fridman?

  The kangaroos do?

• 2:39:42Speaker 01

  They choke each other, yeah.

• 2:39:43Lex Fridman?

  They don't choke each other.

• 2:39:45Speaker 01

  You don't believe me? You want to watch a video, they choke each other out.

• 2:39:49Speaker 02

  I've seen this, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:39:51Lex Fridman?

  Is it real?

• 2:39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:52Lex Fridman?

  With which, like headlock or what?

• 2:39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, they knock him, and just grip like this and hold him.

• 2:39:58Lex Fridman?

  What's the grip? What, they have like a little pause, how are they gripping?

• 2:40:01Speaker 01

  I promise you, I'm not lying to you.

• 2:40:03Speaker 03

  Pretty sure I've seen the video.

• 2:40:04Speaker 01

  They also do strange shit, like if there's a predator around, they'll wait in a pool of water, and then if it comes to attack, they drown it, they're pretty smart.

• 2:40:14Lex Fridman?

  Okay, speaking of which, what's the most effective martial art for winning a street fight? You talked about rule sets and streets. I think you've talked about being a street. Have you ever been in a street fight?

• 2:40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, just one.

• 2:40:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:27Speaker 01

  Nothing special, nothing crazy, hey?

• 2:40:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you don't talk about that time. Like, for self-defense purposes, what would be a strategy on the street?

• 2:40:35Speaker 01

  I feel like whoever wins the street fights, whoever's willing to take it the furthest, the fastest. You know what I mean? If you're thinking that you're gonna box and he's biting you, pugging your eyes, that guy's gonna win. He wants them all. You know what I mean? That's why the crackheads fight. They go for the kill straight away, you know? So I feel like it's more about who's willing to do the most that's gonna win that fight.

• 2:40:57Lex Fridman?

  Fastest, the most fastest.

• 2:41:00Speaker 01

  Who's got the least to lose, you know?

• 2:41:02Lex Fridman?

  Okay, we could also define winning differently, because you could also run away. But in terms of technique-wise, wrestling, judo?

• 2:41:11Speaker 02

  I think if it's a one-on-one, I'd go, I'd go wrestler wins, but if it's like a, you know, it's like a multiple people, you gotta go Muay Thai, stay on your feet, can't go down to the ground if it's more than one person.

• 2:41:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, big double leg, maybe?

• 2:41:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, double leg, put him asleep on the, on the impact, right? Forehead to the ground.

• 2:41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's the goal here? Is to win the fight and not go to prison?

• 2:41:34Lex Fridman?

  Um, I haven't thought of it through that way. Yeah, certainly, yeah. Yeah, not go, not, not to kill the person.

• 2:41:41Speaker 02

  You got mutual combat here in Texas, we're good.

• 2:41:44Speaker 01

  Is that in Texas?

• 2:41:45Lex Fridman?

  Do you know what the paperwork for that looks like? Do you have to actually sign something or can you just say?

• 2:41:49Speaker 02

  I hope I don't need to find out. I did hear a story where guys were on Sixth Street and they looked at a cop, they were like, mutual combat, mutual combat? And just got like the cops to say yes and just duked it out. It could be false, though.

• 2:42:04Speaker 01

  That sounds crazy.

• 2:42:06Speaker 02

  I'm saying.

• 2:42:09Lex Fridman?

  I kinda admire that, but I've also been playing Red Dead Redemption recently, so I've like internalized the cowboy a little, a little too much. Just to return to gym stuff. No, because it's a business, because you're running a business, there's money involved, but you're also friends, but you're also training partners. Is there a tension that money creates that can, threatens to destroy friendships?

• 2:42:35Lex Fridman?

  That's something I always worry about with money. I try not to go do any kind of business with friends or family.

• 2:42:41Speaker 02

  I think if we're all very clear and honest and open at the start, makes it much easier. I think people have issues when there's like, kind of like, things are written in fine print and nobody knows the exact answers.

• 2:42:54Speaker 01

  And a lot of Jiu Jitsu guys can't read. That makes it.

• 2:42:57Lex Fridman?

  We're learning that today.

• 2:42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:43:01Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 2:43:03Speaker 01

  Definitely complicated, though.

• 2:43:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I mean, it's not always obvious how to be transparent and stuff about everything.

• 2:43:13Lex Fridman?

  Have you felt that tension? Because in a Jiu Jitsu world, money's not really unlimited. Just running a school, what's that like? Is this the first time you're running a school, running a gym?

• 2:43:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's just constantly updating people about what's going on, what your expectations are. You know what I mean? We've had some problems with coaches who I feel like think the pie's bigger than it is. You know what I mean? They feel like, maybe we're getting rich out of this and they're missing out on things. So it's like, even amongst managing staff, that can be challenging too. So yeah, I mean, it's a constant work in progress to make, not only to make sure everyone's happy, but to make sure they're comfortable enough to reach out and tell you they're unhappy. But I feel like those challenges are common amongst any small business.

• 2:44:01Lex Fridman?

  Still, it sucks. Just to mention, I'm clueless to this, but I'm just now learning this. Somebody I met and talked to and I really like is Isaac.

• 2:44:15Lex Fridman?

  Learned, because you're also active on Reddit. What's your name on Reddit? John Belushi's mom.

• 2:44:21Speaker 01

  As undercover as possible, you know?

• 2:44:22Lex Fridman?

  Oh, it's not you. It's actually John Belushi's mom, right?

• 2:44:28Lex Fridman?

  So I've done my research, I guess. And I guess you guys had a head of falling out and have split. I just want to say that, I don't know, the few interactions I've had with him, he's a beautiful human being, so. And that just shows to me.

• 2:44:41Speaker 01

  Visually, maybe not internally.

• 2:44:43Lex Fridman?

  And sexually, just the experience, no. He's just a kind person. I don't know. I liked him a lot. Like, to me, in a business setting.

• 2:44:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, tensions are created and it sucks. I don't know. I mean, I suppose money, all the stuff that happened in the jungle aside, probably money had a role to play to create extra tension. Money and egos about like, who is the leader? Who is not the leader? It's tough. It's tough to manage that kind of stuff. I've seen it happen with jujitsu schools a lot. I don't know exactly what, because it's like, there is also a hierarchy inside grappling, jujitsu schools, like people that are better or not. There's literally ranks, black belt and brown belt. There's like competitors that are better. I mean, I don't, it's a weird dynamic in which to operate. Because like usually there's more politeness and like humanity layered into the way a company works.

• 2:45:39Lex Fridman?

  But here there's just a bunch of, I mean, it's like violence laid on and on display. Plus money. It's crazy. Is there something you could say to that? Like how you try to minimize? Or is something you want to comment on, Isaac?

• 2:45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was unfortunate situation, but it just didn't work out. You know, like there's going to be personality clashes. Some people.

• 2:46:01Lex Fridman?

  I can't imagine anyone having a personality clash with you.

• 2:46:05Speaker 01

  With me?

• 2:46:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. It's hard to imagine.

• 2:46:08Speaker 01

  Surprising. You know, I mean, I didn't even know what to say. And I don't want to touch on it too much, but obviously his expectations about his role in the gym, obviously different from ours, led to some personality clashes. It was sort of unresolved. You know, some things happen that can't be resolved. You can't fix those things. You know, obviously a lesson, I hope for both of us, definitely a lesson for me from a management role to try to address these things sooner. But also sometimes I came up in a different time where there was no money, no opportunities. I had to pave that, I had to pave that way totally for myself, especially coming from Australia.

• 2:46:50Speaker 01

  Like being a professional athlete in jujitsu was not, I think, so I had to pave a lot of opportunities for myself. And I feel like sometimes.

• 2:47:00Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know what the right word is. Sometimes people don't appreciate some of the ways you help them and they just think, feel like almost they deserve or entitled to certain things and that is very difficult to manage. But I think again, like we, we both see the situation different. I do hope he finds a better, a more comfortable place to train. But yeah, obviously I've known him for a long time, sort of like a, a brotherly relationship. So that's going to really make personal problems a lot worse when you're that close to someone, you know?

• 2:47:33Lex Fridman?

  I just hate it that like, I've seen in jujitsu especially, but in other places where like close friendships were destroyed because of like gym stuff, like people running gyms. And it just, as a person who is, in this case, just a fan, but in like, in general, just like a student, it's like sucks.

• 2:47:54Speaker 01

  But again, in my position, sometimes I wonder if there really was a friendship or mere opportunity. I have to be careful of that with some people in the sport.

• 2:48:06Lex Fridman?

  It's tough, yeah.

• 2:48:07Speaker 01

  Is it a sincere relationship or like, I mean, it's difficult for me to tell or am I means to an end?

• 2:48:13Lex Fridman?

  Sure, but I think it's actually a trade off because I think a lot of close friendships we have, like even relationships we have, like when tested, like can break if they're not properly communicated. Like some of it could be just misunderstanding of like for prolonged period of time. Um, not, not, it's not explained through just like a lack of integrity. It's just like you, like you have to like talk through that shit. Like just be honest with each other.

• 2:48:41Speaker 01

  Take some MDMA and really get down to it.

• 2:48:43Lex Fridman?

  Drugs solve everything. You'll learn anything from this conversation. And I've actually haven't done MDMA yet. Uh, people say that that's something I would enjoy a lot because my brain is, I think, natural on MDMA.

• 2:48:54Speaker 01

  I'd recommend it for sure.

• 2:48:55Lex Fridman?

  For sure. All right. Um, is that what you do with Gabby and I'll tell you, like I never.

• 2:49:02Speaker 01

  She drugged me.

• 2:49:05Lex Fridman?

  Well, in general, why is there seem, always seems to be drama in the jujitsu world? Like outside of, outside of what's going on here? Or is it just, uh?

• 2:49:12Speaker 01

  I guess universal to anything.

• 2:49:14Lex Fridman?

  Drama's everywhere? And then drama rises to the surface?

• 2:49:17Speaker 01

  Drama makes the money.

• 2:49:19Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I wish there was a little bit less. You have a bunch of, like, we mentioned some of them. You have a bunch of instructional out. What are some interesting things that you're looking forward to, like, exploring in terms of teaching? So "Just Stand Up" is your most recent one, right? Yeah, you also have one called "Power Bottom: An Inclusive Modern Approach to the Guard."

• 2:49:41Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 2:49:42Lex Fridman?

  What are some other ones?

• 2:49:45Speaker 01

  "False Reap Allegations."

• 2:49:47Lex Fridman?

  "False Reaper Allegations," yeah. By the way, people talk about "Power Bottom," again, hilarious title, but they say it's a really good instructional, unlike "The Guard."

• 2:49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I try to at least be innovative, you know, like, everyone else, I feel like, is ripping off John and Gordon, putting some sort of slant on that. So I'm trying to take sort of a different approach. I think you can actively influence the sport with what you release, because people are going to try to emulate that. So I think that's, those type of instructional, "Just Stand Up," "Power Bottom," like, approaching the sport differently, I think definitely has a positive impact on how people play the game.

• 2:50:22Lex Fridman?

  Are you working on something now?

• 2:50:24Speaker 01

  Probably a fundamentals course, just because we're bringing out, we got the White Belt program coming in, so I'm trying to develop a fundamentals course along the line of the constraint-based learning stuff we were talking about today, like, a way to approach learning as a beginner, to sort of speed up the process a bit and not make it so technique-dense, at least have it a bit more fun.

• 2:50:45Lex Fridman?

  And focusing in on just, like, examples of problems to solve.

• 2:50:48Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. Approaching jiu-jitsu learning that way, like, I mean, kids learn quick through games. I think adults are capable of that to a certain extent as well.

• 2:50:57Lex Fridman?

  You're releasing that instructional on pre-match preparation?

• 2:51:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:51:01Lex Fridman?

  What other stuff? Do you have a thing on BodyLock Pass?

• 2:51:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have a BodyLock or RodyLock DVD or instructional. Yeah, I have the pre-match ritual coming out. I also have, I'm filming "How to Build Athleticism for Grappling." I'm just really trying to capture different angles, kind of like the same, you know, what Craig's doing, try not to do the same thing that everybody else does, you know? There's a ton of wrestling, ton of jiu-jitsu instructional, so...

• 2:51:27Speaker 01

  And the steroid results are coming out.

• 2:51:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah. More plates, more dates, you know, Derek that runs that. Hit me up for a blood panel test, like, an impromptu thing, and I did it a few days ago, and I believe the results will come out shortly.

• 2:51:40Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah. Do you know the results?

• 2:51:43Speaker 01

  What are you betting on next?

• 2:51:46Speaker 02

  We think it's hard, it's hard to believe.

• 2:51:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's very, very impressive.

• 2:51:53Lex Fridman?

  You're putting me in awkward position here.

• 2:52:00Lex Fridman?

  Do you, do you think you'll face Gordon soon?

• 2:52:04Speaker 02

  I'm open to it. I don't know. I don't know what, how soon, maybe in the next six months. I could see me facing him before ADCC Worlds.

• 2:52:12Lex Fridman?

  I think that's a great rivalry. I think it's a really interesting one.

• 2:52:16Speaker 02

  It's fun for me.

• 2:52:19Lex Fridman?

  Is there any chance that the, the two, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany get back together? The DDS under whatever name gets back together?

• 2:52:33Speaker 02

  No, absolutely not. Highly unlikely. I mean, we kind of did this to, you know, um, to back up Nicky Ryan and, and we're sticking with our guy.

• 2:52:42Lex Fridman?

  So what, what do you think?

• 2:52:43Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I think there's just too many personality conflicts for it to, to really ever work again.

• 2:52:50Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there will always be war in the world?

• 2:52:54Speaker 02

  War?

• 2:52:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I think from the, from the beginning of time, it's, it's been, you know, some kind of war, some kind of battle. Controversy is what, what helps people evolve.

• 2:53:05Lex Fridman?

  Uh, until AI, super intelligent AI becomes way more powerful than humans and humbles all of us with his power before he destroys us.

• 2:53:14Speaker 02

  Well, until it runs out of batteries.

• 2:53:17Speaker 02

  You guys are screwed.

• 2:53:19Lex Fridman?

  Just unplug it.

• 2:53:24Lex Fridman?

  I'm really fortunate to be able to hang out with you, to train with you, uh, and thank you so much for talking today.

• 2:53:30Speaker 03

  That's the best ending.

• 2:53:33Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Craig Jones, Nicky Rod and Nicky Ryan. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Miyamoto Masashi. You must understand that there's more than one path to the top of the mountain. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.