Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
ryan hall his second time in the podcast
he's one of the most innovative scholars
of martial arts
in the modern era quick mention of our
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as a side note let me say that i've
gotten a chance to train with ryan
recently
and to both discuss and try out on the
mat his ideas about grappling and
fighting
what struck me is his unapologetic drive
to solve
martial arts it reminds me of the
ambitious vision and effort of google's
deep mind
to solve intelligence in ryan's case
this isn't some out there martial arts
guru talk
this is a style of thinking about the
game of human chess
of seeking to define the rules and to
engineer ways
from first principles of escaping the
constraints of those rules
this style of thinking is rare but is
ultimately the one
that leads to the discovery of new
revolutionary ideas
if you enjoy this podcast subscribe to
it anywhere or connect with me
lex friedman and now here's my
conversation
with ryan hall you're known as
a systems thinker in martial arts but
you
also i think are willing to think
outside the rules of the game outside of
the system
when you're thinking about strategies of
how to you know solve the problem
particular problem of an opponent
whether that's
jiu jitsu or in mixed martial arts
what's your process for doing that
for figuring out that puzzle i would say
i don't know if i have a specific
like a to b to c process for that sort
of thing i try to do my best to uh
appreciate that i think a lot of the
thinking um or
maybe not all the things but a lot of
great thinking on
conflict on battle on war on martial
arts has been done already
um not that we don't have to do any sort
of uh background investigation or
reassessing of these ideas or axioms
that have come down through things like
the book of five rings or the art of war
or you know like von klosterwicz even
anything like that really
but is uh trying to understand
the the lessons of the past that i think
often times we we don't take with us
um problem solving we pay lip service
and like a
uh you know a victorious fighter uh the
great fighter uh you know
he knows victory is there then he then
he seeks battle everyone else is looking
for victory
in battle yeah moving on and that's why
i'm going to double jab and throw my
left hand
and i think a lot of times our actions
don't reflect
our stated belief structure and i think
that oftentimes you can tell
what i believe really or what my
fundamental operating system is
based on my actions whether i'm aware i
have an operating system internally
whether i'm aware of it or not or
certainly whether i'm fully aware of it
so i guess uh when it comes to
strategy i try to think about how things
interact you mentioned
systems thinking and i try to do my best
to understand how systems exist but i
think that
systems have a fundamental strength and
a fundamental weakness
they work how they work and that's great
but they're
readable so if you are aware if i am
operating on a system
of which you're you're not really read
into then i think oftentimes i can seem
like
shockingly effective particularly if my
system preys on certain weaknesses
uh that that maybe you are uh you're
given to
but what happens when you've read the
same books that i have
i think that a lot of times that makes
me deeply predictable i think about
systems in jiu jitsu
you know and uh a lot of times people
think that they're doing jiu jitsu when
in reality they are doing an expression
of it let's say i'll use there's the
marcelo garcia system
there is the uh henzo gracie current
henzo race system there's the old gracie
baja one there's a
you know the gracie academy classic
crazy jiu jitsu there's the
art of jiu jitsu um you know kind of
otto's approach and you know there's
some crossover between a lot of these
but uh oftentimes i think um you know
when it comes to
understanding how i'm making decisions
and how my opponent is making decisions
i have to appreciate whether or not
i'm an end user of something and i'll
use my my phone as an example
i was thinking of this the other day and
as an end user of my phone i can't
i have no idea what it does you know
like edward snowden comes up and goes
hey guys you realize your phones are
listening to you from like
really what yeah all right i believe you
and then of course that that comes out
but uh to what extent
i have no idea um what is my phone
capable of i have no idea i can mess
with the font though i really like blue
screens not purple screens
so like as an end user i can change some
of the bells and whistles that have
nothing to do with the underlying source
code of it all or how it functions the
same way my car
i'm an end-user of my car if i do this
with the steering wheel it goes if i
push on the gas
it goes um if i yeah i know how to fix
it when it's out of gas i know how to
fix it when it's out of oil
and i know how to fix it you know when
uh when a flat tire comes but
short of that or actually beyond that i
have nothing so i think that oftentimes
um you know i've been around in jiu
jitsu long enough to encounter like a
new wave of like good grapplers
and it's very very interesting sometimes
how they're running systems they don't
realize they're running
like i'm like oh yeah i trained at
marcelo garcia's academy for a long time
you know and a big fan of marcellus was
a student there uh
encountered a lot of the the otto style
jiu jitsu a number of years ago
uh been you know a very very you know
deep into foot locking and leg attacks
and whatnot for a long long time i
understand your system better than you
do or i may
and let's say you understand my system
better than i do that would be a huge
issue that was something that i
encountered a long time ago
trying to come up in jiu jitsu where i
was trying to utilize
systems that were
created by let's say hoffman mendes or
someone else and i'm basically trying to
do what you're doing i'm just not doing
as good of a version of it so not only
am i
not doing it well but i'm entirely
predictable and i think that that can be
a big issue so
to come back i think of systems a lot of
times now in terms of you know
particularly like end user type of
systems like uh
an iphone is a really really fast way
for me to be able to do all sorts of
things
if you were to take it from me i
couldn't recreate any of that so you
want to be
more the nsa unless the end user exactly
exactly that way that way i'm listening
i'm going to be the idol
of combat that's right we're watching
you p but basically
you know it's uh i guess what i would
what i would come back and say is uh
if you understand how things interact on
a fundamental level and what type of
games exist
and what type of interactions is this
then you can transcend a lot of the uh
the systems it's almost like a cook
versus if i can make certain things in
the kitchen i can
but i am not a chef you could give me a
bunch of ingredients and i
could probably cook not well but a
couple of different things
but a master chef you know would be
aware of the implications of all of the
things that they're doing
you know extra time in the oven less
time in the oven putting this you know
flavoring or spice in
you know what you're doing with various
things and also they could make they
could turn all of these ingredients into
chinese food they could turn all these
ingredients into italian food and they
could turn all these italian food
ingredients
into chicken parmesan or it could turn
into lasagna but
they're not limited to a specific thing
because they have knowledge of how
food interacts how what it does to
create taste what it does create texture
so to come back let's take rock paper
scissors rock paper scissors is built on
the idea
of a couple different things actually
i'll tell you what can i you might have
may ask you a question
yeah what's your favorite dinosaur on
the same on three we'll go
one two three t-rex t-rex i'll meet soon
man this is we're gonna be best friends
so uh it's
okay uh if so what's the first question
when you say hey let's play rock paper
scissors it's like is it rock paper
scissors or rock paper scissors shoot
and like rock paper scissors shoot
you're like okay because if we go
rock paper scissors shoot i'm like oh
man i got lucky
and i won imagine i won 100 times in a
row yeah
i'd be luck give me luck if i was
honestly doing that
but now let's say for instance i go on
rock paper scissors and you go on shoot
rock paper scissors shoot
here comes the rock right if you lose
whose fault is it
it's yours this is built on a parody
thing where
i don't get to pick second if i get to
pick second
it's like being able to investigate your
background before going to meet you and
then i'm like oh hi
oh i too love the new jersey you know
the new jersey nets which is a statement
that no one in their right mind would
ever make
when i was growing up so anyway you'd
have to have personal knowledge of
somebody
so anyway to come back let's you're if
if you understand
how games are structured
you can start to realize that there's
huge gaps and huge holes in a lot of the
the thinking behind all of it and if you
can create the illusion of choice i'll
play one more if you don't mind it's one
of my favorite ones to do this in class
all the time
uh have you seen this before no okay um
may ask you some questions please sure
okay fantastic
i'm scared oh there's everybody wins
don't worry um all right
so could you could you please i would uh
could you please pick three fingers
and tell me what they are uh your thumb
okay
your uh pinky okay and your middle
finger okay
so could you please pick uh two fingers
your middle finger and your pinky okay
could you please pick one finger
uh i'll go with the middle finger okay
could you please pick one finger
oh pinky okay let's play again can you
pick one finger please
[Laughter]
uh your middle finger okay can you pick
one finger please
your thumb yeah your pinky
okay now pick uh two more fingers please
your uh
middle finger and your uh ring finger
okay
could you please pick one more finger
damn it so
i thought that enhanced the illusion of
choice
it's the illusion of choice if i'm
asking the questions
provided i ask the right questions there
can be no correct answer
it doesn't mean that ultimately if if
that's what you wanted let's say
like i thought i was guiding you to
something i wanted it turns out that was
the outcome you want to
well let's now let's here's now i'm
going to ask the wrong questions i might
not get what i want so
by the way sorry to interrupt uh for
people that might be just listening to
this
that uh no matter what trajectory we
took through that decision tree that
ryan was presenting it was always ending
up with the middle finger ironically
enough
i was surprised so and all of us were
surprised
and we're both winners yeah we all
everyone i
felt like a winner all right so now it
now i'm gonna then i'll ask some
different questions if you don't mind
uh can you please pick two fingers to
put down
uh your middle finger and your pinky
all right oh that's so awkward that's
like the worst finger positions
okay can you please wait a minute that's
oh hold on
yeah well what if you pick two other
fingers to put down
uh you throw me a pinky okay my thumb on
my pinky can you please pick two fingers
to put down
well whatever two you like okay your uh
middle finger and your pointy finger
ah okay can you pick two fingers to put
down what's the name is index finger
index finger that i don't
call it the point it's the point one
that's the one we usually point it's
weird to point with the ring finger
uh uh sorry what dude put two more to
put down please
uh the middle finger and the ring finger
ah man
is it what if you pick my my ring finger
and my index finger
yeah yeah i win yeah so even though i'm
asking the questions it's not impossible
that i arrive at a good outcome for me
but it's it's no longer guaranteed i
went from a situation where i literally
can't lose
yeah it's pretty low probability right
super low probability
and the second you realize what i'm
doing you would never let me win
because the ball is truly in your court
so i guess that that's kind of what i'm
fundamentally trying to put into play
almost all the time
can i ask the right set of questions can
i develop the ability
um skills wise understanding wise and
then discipline wise
and then have the courage and the
constitution and the and the discipline
necessary the patience necessary to
ask the proper questions and wait for
the proper answers
and if i can
all assuming like the perfect world
i win period oh yeah so does that make
sense yes it totally makes sense
so i don't know if you know sort of the
more mathematical discipline of game
theory
there's something called mechanism
design so game theory is this
field where you model some kind of
interaction between human beings
you can model grappling that way you can
uh
model nuclear conflict between nations
that way and
you set up a set of rules and incentives
and then use
math to predict uh what is the likely
outcome
depending over time based on the
interaction given those rules
mechanism design is the design of games
so like the design of systems that
are likely to lead to a certain outcome
and so what you're suggesting is you
want to
create you want to discover systems
whose decision tree all the possible
things that could happen
feel like there's choice being made but
ultimately one of the parties doesn't
have
any choice in what the actual final
outcome is
uh you're making them feel like they're
playing a game too so it's not like
you don't feel trapped it's kind of like
well the best traps
i don't you don't look very threatening
so i'm like oh i'll walk over there
i guess wouldn't that i guess that's
kind of an interesting thing if a lion
when is a lion roar it's an interesting
thing when you watch like lions hunting
don't roar when they hunt they want to
when they want to move you back
they do stuff like that when they
actually want to come and get you
they're pretty slinky it's like
water covered it's like furry water yeah
and and i guess like
when you keep that in mind um it's funny
how
like a frosted hobby actually a
brilliant guy like one of my mma coaches
and head coach at tristar
um he brought this up one time i thought
it was a really salient point he said
let's say we have a million
person bracket impossibly huge like
frank dukes went in the kumite level
huge bracket
he claimed to knock out like 250
consecutive people and you're like that
is
all of hong kong was in that thing and
everyone kept their mouth shut
but anyway that's pretty cool but uh
it's a comeback a little improbable
pretty cool
um so let's say for instance like
there's no cheating going on
no cheating going on and we're flipping
coins right
someone is going to have an unbroken
string of victory
through that bracket which is pretty
insane how many how many consecutive
like
toss-ups this person won and then at the
end of it all
imagine we like aliens show up and we go
hey they want to flip a coin for they're
not earth whether or not earth uh you
know gets to
gets to continue they're like oh i'll do
it
i'm good at this yeah that would be
tempting as a person to to do you're
like well i'm a lucky guy
oh yeah are you sure maybe i mean maybe
effectively you are we could argue they
effectively are incredibly lucky but
basically
is that an actual ability it's like a
perk in a video game or is that just
this thing that happened
so anyway uh how many times are someone
you could go through an entire career
you know particularly in a fights board
well let's say you get 15 knockouts in
15 toss-up scenarios because you see
that happening all the time in the fight
game a toss-up scenario it's not like
you're mounted on me and like and
that's not a toss-up scenario many many
many many many striking centers a lot of
grappling with
tons of striking scenarios are dead toss
toss-ups and uh
somebody wins by knockout they win five
times in a row then they lose a couple
times in a row and we go what happened
you're like what do you mean what
happened they were always flipping the
coin
and then they win five more they go ah
back on track can you imagine that
you're flipping a coin on like heads
heads heads heads tails what
tails those heads again oh man i'm back
on it i'm flipping good now
that's basically what's going on i think
the vast majority of the time and then
humanity's you know tendency to see a
sign in almost anything
you know it starts to present itself and
then we build a narrative in our mind to
imp to convince ourselves that we're in
some sort of control when in reality
i was in a marginal situation at best
the whole time yeah without having much
control without having a deep
understanding of the system the same
story is told the stock market with many
of the human
these distributed human systems we start
telling narratives
and start seeing patterns without
understanding actually
the system that's generating these
patterns so if we can see the system
that's incredibly valuable but then you
go well what system is above all of the
systems i guess
maybe physics maybe it's not like game
theory explains these things but like
i guess what are the what aspects of the
system can i can i put my hands on that
i can touch and understand
and what am i what am i missing what
what's going on in the world all around
me to continue to
lean on on dune that i don't have uh
that i don't you know you talk to a
blind person about
about the world about sight and talk to
someone that doesn't have everyone
who's got coronavirus now so no one can
taste or smell like this is delicious
like
is it so anyway uh you know again
what what senses am i missing or what
understanding am i missing
that's preventing me from seeing the
dots connect
in the world all around me and i think
sometimes if we uh
oftentimes at least personally i've
screwed this up a lot i'm so nose-deep
in the
in the trench of trying to understand
what i'm doing that i can't take a step
back and realize
you know that i'm in a forest not just
head-butting a tree
and i may be doing both maybe both two
things should be true at once
but uh so i would say when it comes to
strategy trying to understand that but
then also
you go well okay well how can that
sounds cool but how can you actually do
that
and then i'd say that's a really good
question because if i imagine i say man
i should fight like stephen thompson i
should fight like wonder boy he's like
good idea go do that i'm like
i'm not thinking about the guy i would
fight like could be even banging made of
if i could
you know it seems to work so anyway uh
you go well what if i could develop what
if i could take my time
developing skills so that when these
strategies become apparent that you are
they are executable to you
you actually have the ability to like
enter to again to be the person in the
arena to be the person required
whereas there's plenty of great ideas
like dunking a basketball is a fantastic
idea
alas for me unless there's a small
trampoline nearby i'm not the guy
but that doesn't make it any less good
of an idea i just don't i haven't
developed the ability
or i lack the ability so anyway i think
a lot of times at least when i watch
people in fighting i'll use an example
um we're so can we're so concerned with
trying to win early on
rather than develop skills that i'm
going like well what's the best way to
fight with my current set of skills
and usually the the path forward is like
the barbarian route like the
you put on the one ring take the damage
you need to take to hit that guy and
that was something i realized very early
on in my mma career was like i'm not
that good at striking at that time
i'm not a world-class striker now but
i'm way better at striking than i'm
giving any credit for because it helps
people sleep at night i think
but um i'm serious but uh um yeah yeah
you're always introduced as like this
message
like master grappler i'm like that's
nice of them to say that maybe i'm not
that good at grappling we haven't even
seen that
and but the funny thing is i'm like just
because if people almost go like well
lex like
see you're really good at this but you
gotta understand like we're equal man
like i'm good at this other thing
maybe you're really good at what you do
and i'm just mediocre that's also
possible
so there's plenty of people that define
themselves as a striker that do that
just because that's for lack of other
options not because they're a really
good striker like i'm a grappler i was a
grappler as a blue belt
not really so anyway i guess to come
back uh if
if i'm constantly going how can i win
with what i've got right now i think
often times i never take the time to
develop the skills that i want to
develop and i also never take the time
to develop the strategies that i want to
develop and that has actually been one
big blessing
of uh fighting someone frequently which
has been really frustrating as a result
of injury
and time away and you know some of those
people being hesitant to get in the game
but uh it gives you so much time to to
be out of the trenches and focus on
developing your abilities so that now
it's almost like developing money
like you mentioned the stock market that
you can now put in as you told me
bitcoin was a great idea
five years ago and i had eight bucks man
if someone told me bitcoin was a great
idea five years ago and i had
you know 50k oh my god i'd be sleeping
in my bed of money that i would then set
on fire later today just to do it
so all the due to all the injuries
you've been mining bitcoin all this time
and now you're a rich man well no
actually someone told me i was trying to
mine for bitcoin actually like in a cave
and then i found out recently that it's
actually mining is like a
figure of speech not like a literal
thing that you do but i mean in my
defensive english
language is difficult it is it really is
next time
russian is more uh is a ritual language
you should learn
you should learn russian i'll help you
out i believe you thank you so can you
do a whirlwind
overview of uh your career
in mma leading up to this point with the
injuries
and the undefeated record and then
what's next
since we're on the topic well i i did my
first fight in a
as a blue belt and i've been training
for about a year and a half i did nine
uh judicial tournaments in ten weekends
or eight maybe eight
tournaments in ten weekends prior to my
first fight in uh
april 2006 um i got punched in the face
a whole bunch i didn't realize it was a
professional fight
and found that out like the day
beforehand that was great
thanks coach uh it was in atlantic city
where another place no one ever goes on
purpose so that wasn't great
i got into three actually three car
accidents
in the preceding 36 hours before the
fight
i had my car totaled um i wasn't driving
for any of them that was great
uh it was 2006. it's 2006. yeah and then
you're a blue boat uh yeah yeah i've
been training for about a year and a
half to blue belt
you're getting i mean if you haven't
lived if you haven't gotten punched in
the face in
atlantic city that's true i mean i so
these are
i would a lot would have loved to have
it happen for different reasons yeah but
uh
yeah well what's funny is you know i i
remember you know getting punched in the
face a bunch trying to do inverted guard
i won one round lost two rounds
definitely lost the fight
you went for inverted sorry to interrupt
you went for inverted guard like can you
tell the story of that fight
yeah sure it was three three minute
rounds which is not a professional fight
length although i don't know if
professional fight length would have
been any better it's more time to get
punched
uh but uh i found out part way through
is like i remember walking back to my
corner in the first round i'm like this
guy can't hurt me and he's like yeah
my corner was my friend tom and then
someone else and he's like yeah
i would still encourage you to stop
blocking so many punches with your face
i'm like that's a good idea time i
appreciate that i'm gonna try that
um anyway uh i remember like i was not
you're not allowed to upkick so i'm like
great i was
i had no martial arts skills it really
at all but if i had anything at all it
was jujitsu it was very very little jiu
jitsu
uh but definitely no wrestling
definitely no striking like i was
basically a magnet for punches
so that was your time uh that was you
know roughnecking out
in atlantic city as we all do once in a
while can we fast forward to when you're
actually dominating
as a black belt well actually because i
took a little bit of money that they're
like hey we're paying him like
really okay stories with ryan hall
well then i went to i went to the casino
i went to whatever like the traffic
canada that was right there
the casino because that was a boardwalk
call and i'm like you know what man this
was this has been a not great not great
evening i'm gonna
this is i'm gonna win it back it's gonna
be great
15 minutes later they had all the money
that i had from the fight was gone
yeah i remember like walking out of the
casino super pissed
and like i don't know what i was
thinking like i'm not good at gambling
why
this was not going to make my night
better i just thought that there was
going to be some sort of cosmic
balancing and maybe it was the cosmic
balancing all at once for the things
i've done in the longer term though
yeah the the balancing we'll see
i hope so but to come so we're all dead
in the end though that is true time will
get us all
yeah well that was so that was the first
one and that was when i realized
i'm terrible at mma but i like it i
should just stop this until i one day
learn how to actually grapple much less
learn how to fight but i remember this
guy named dave kaplan who's the reason
my ears are all messed up
who was on the ultimate fighter and got
punched in the face and knocked out by
tom lawler who i'll always appreciate
for doing that
um but uh anyway uh david tom uh
i appreciate tom i appreciate dave too
david was great dave was just a huge
bully and used to like
really not completely unmercifully but
relatively unmercifully beat the crap
out of me and
uh anyway uh the ears look good so i
appreciate that i tell people it's a
tumor that i got and i'm gonna if they
want in on our class action lawsuit with
atmc they should you know
send me an email but uh anyway you're
very financially savvy
i'm very good no i just give the
impression like dave basically said hey
don't worry man you're never going to be
good at
mma and you're never going to be good at
grappling either but even if you are
good at grappling which
in my opinion you will never be you will
never be good at fighting and i said
dave if i do nothing else in my life i'm
going to keep training until i can make
you pay for that
and now that i can make him pay for that
really easily he doesn't train anymore
but i love dave dave's awesome he
actually won the singing b what an
interesting dude
super interesting guy but anyway uh none
of the virginia like speaks couple
languages super interesting guys like
shockingly good at jeopardy too um not
that i'm any good but still shockingly
good to jeopardy so anyway years later
met for as a hobby actually john danaher
i met john danaher and he put me in
touch with for as a hobby i started
training at tristar i you know
immediately loved uh working with frost
and learning under for us started
training at tristar and i did my first
real professional mma fight um
as someone that actually does had
practiced a little bit prior
in i think august 2012 um and uh
that was against a guy he was four and
five at the time so you know had some
experience um good kind of like first go
for me honestly and i won that fight by
tko
and then it was a little bit of uh time
off and then i did another fight against
a tough guy named uh magic hammer um he
was five and two at the time i think he
was three and i was an amateur she had a
good good little bit of fighting
experience
um won that one in the first round uh
via rear naked choke and then uh
started to experience difficulty getting
getting fights at that point
um you know what you continuously
introduced as like the
the master of grappling the submission
at least that would that was my thing
i don't know if i was that was the
source of the fear for people i think so
because
i mean that definitely wasn't much at
striking at that point you know i
definitely am a lot i'd like to think
i'm pretty hard to hurt although i try
not to lean on that and i
played baseball for like 16 years so i
can hit things pretty hard i just
wasn't able to uh i i recognized pretty
early on that i had no idea how to
actually hit things
hard without becoming hittable myself so
i think that's kind of the big thing is
a lot of times like we almost were
mentioning
before if you try to go and get people
too early you can hit them if they're
not that good
but you're going to get hit yourself so
you're making you're basically making a
wager you're making a trade of your own
life for the ability to hit them when
you watch guys like israel
sonia floyd mayweather stephen thompson
uh conor mcgregor when he's fighting
really well
it's not a trade they're not you're
hitting them and they're hitting you
it's they're hitting you but it takes
years and years and years and years to
be able to learn how to do that tom lee
is another great example of that and you
know my closest training partner one of
my best friends
and uh currently now uh one champion uh
with one championship
in uh in asia the champion of the uh
featherweight or i guess lightweight
featherweight
um 155 uh over there now and he recently
defeated uh martin nguyen in a really
great fight and
ton knocked him out long time champion
and tan doesn't let you hit him he
doesn't let you touch him i feel so
fortunate to have met guys like stephen
and ton
to go early on in career and go holy
moly i can't even
it's not even like oh you'll let me walk
over and find you it's like fighting a
ghost that periodically shows up with a
hammer and smokes you in the
melon and then disappears into the ether
again so the way to approach the
fighting game is thinking how can i
attack without being hit because every
every strategy every idea you have about
what you're going to do
has to do with uh like that uh
minimizing the the return abs absolutely
i mean that's what all good
fighting has done all poor fighting if
you know throughout the course of
history most generals whether they saw a
read or
you know they they did battles by
attrition yeah you know it's like yeah
man i've got 150 guys you've got 50 like
yeah 60 of my guys die killing your 50
like that's great for me
yeah but uh that's not so great for the
60 guys that died you know i hope it's
worth it so when you realize that not
only you're not just
kobe bryant and you're phil jackson too
you got to do everything
you know if you've got to run across the
beach in normandy so be it but that
better be
you should have we make sure we thought
this through and there's like hey
there's no way we can like
you know walk around the side huh
because oftentimes there
there is and i think a lot of times
there's a lot of incentives in
professional fighting to
for people who want to do that and we
come up with all sorts of well i'm
trying to be exciting
are you is that really what you came
here to do because i came here to win
and i think that anyone that that's
really successful came there to win and
if it ends up being exciting well that's
fantastic i hope that people enjoy
watching something and that's great but
that's a qualitative assessment anyway
you know you want to also be able to
you know live the rest of your life i
think it's easy you know i'll
use meldrick taylor i'm a big boxing fan
alger taylor was an excellent fighter
um came this close uh to a world title
and was stopped with like
he was in a fight that he was winning
with seconds remaining literally seconds
remaining and they probably could have
just let it go and he would have been
world champion and
it was brutal if you ever watch
legendary nights like hbo boxing show
it's it's great
but um it's heartbreaking it's
absolutely heartbreaking and also like
the beating that he absorbed in that
fight changed him for the rest of his
life
and also you know don't think he'd ever
been hit before but it was one of those
where you go
it's it's all fun and games until you
can't remember your name at age 44 years
old
and i didn't come here what are they
what did patton saying nobody nobody
wins the war by dying for his country
make the other poor bastard die for his
and uh i think that
that's kind of what we're shooting for
and you know the
lionization of absorbing damage and
that not being a big deal like you hear
that all the time so and so can take
shots that would put a lesser fighter
down
what does that even mean yeah you know
like let's let me get this straight your
ability to absorb
damage is a part of you i mean i guess
that don't get me wrong that is an
attribute that's nice to have if you if
you need it
but there's plenty of people that
actually have really porous defense
that are just very very difficult to
hurt for whatever reason
that's a fascinating fighter's
perspective on the thing i mean the
the the story that is
inspiring and i know it goes against
the artistry of fighting is when you
have taken the damage
to still rise up and be able to defeat
the opponent
so it's uh but that
that's a flip side of a basically you
failing to defend yourself properly
right
i agree but let's say for i think it's
it's trying that's a triumph of
of humanity that's triumph that's
amazing it's to witness such a thing is
unbelievable
but you still go this is there is a cost
here it's like i i
i've been fortunate enough to spend some
time working with with the military
and i've been like around and read medal
of honor citations they're unbelievable
like you read the story music
it it's it'll floor you but it's all a
cost and you don't want to be paying
that cost
or the long term and most of the time
with the cost was everything and then
sometimes you go hey yeah the value here
it's worth everything it's like i
defend your family you defend your
country under certain circumstances and
if that point is extension of your
family
you're like hey this is worth it to
casually throw your life away or throw a
hufflepuff it's foolish there's nothing
there's nothing
great about that and and like you said
it's still an amazing thing to see
yeah but but it's also amazing to see
you not take damages the floyd
mayweather it's the artistry of like not
being hit
and i wonder if maybe that's why people
don't resonate with floyd as much as
obviously muhammad ali was such a time
and place a great man for so many
different reasons although it was funny
to remember like
there were times when he wasn't very
popular we love him now because of time
of context
you know time to move away from some of
the nonsense he had to deal with
but uh we got to see him struggle and
also he had unbelievable sacrifice both
in and out of the ring you know that
that we all got to witness we've never
really seen floyd struggle like that and
granted obviously floyd isn't like a
civil rights figure like
muhammad ali was it's different time
different place and he's a different man
but basically uh
you know i wonder if part of the thing
that made us made everyone think of
muhammad ali as the greatest in addition
to of course
the unbelievable things that he did out
in the world and the stands that he made
we saw him struggle in the ring it's
it's almost it's humanizing
you know it's it's weird when people the
person yeah people respect b but again
it's
we saw gsp lose and gsp came back
stronger
khabib is amazing but i wonder i wonder
how
people feel about him long term not like
they won't think of him as amazing and
great
and he's been a respectable person and
champion but uh
the time he hasn't he hasn't had to fall
yeah if that makes sense and also
coupled with uh
ali had uh a way of being poetic
about sort of the way he was in the ring
sort of being able to explain the
artistry that he
i mean there's like joking as being
playful but really he was
able to describe the the flow like a
butterfly's thing that could be like he
was able to
actually talk about his strategy without
talking
without crossing that line into the
floyd mayweather when you're just
talking about money and and just talking
shit that's true
actually conor mcgregor when he's not
talking shit is pretty good at like
talking about the art of the marshall
and like first time and uh i wish khabib
did the same
actually uh from uh
like the satya brothers there's a few
there's a culture of like being poetic
about like being scholars
and also uh bards or whatever poets
of the game and khabib is more
like just simple and he lets his actions
speak which
is is great too in his own way yeah it's
great but
it's nice when you can tell stories and
uh
you know that that that's probably why
ali was the great catch me
up to you went to three fights i think
undefeated yep bj penn you we talked
about last time you defeated bj penn
that's a
that's a i mean that's an incredible
accomplishment
but you fought a lot of really tough
guys um
when was your last fight and then catch
me up with the injuries
well a lot of people kept more and more
and more were
unwilling to fight you yeah that's been
that's that was why i was out for two
years following the grey maynard fight
between uh
the fighting gray um and bj and the
great major fight was actually what i'm
really proud of because
um gray was very tough he's very big
very strong very experienced i had
only five fights at the time um and i
didn't have a lot of skills i don't get
to fight gray with what i
have today i had to fight great with
what i had in december 2016.
and that i it really took a lot of
discipline a lot of
focus a lot of challenge you know to
stay the course to do what i need to do
in the fight and to win
in in ultimately dominating fashion just
not in the dominating obvious sense that
you see when someone runs across and
just
does that to somebody but that wasn't on
the list for me at that time
you know so um that was a that was an
interesting one but the time away again
was very frustrating it was incredibly
difficult
before that fight uh after that fight
that well because i uh
i beat artem lobov in the final of the
ultimate fighter in autumn
is another guy that's tough a lot of
experience and uh gets
gets you know he he's a funny guy and he
said some things on the internet so i
think he gets a lot of heat for that
but uh you know he just knocked out
three of my teammates i'm like he
put a couple people in a pretty rough
shape at the end of that so he was doing
well and that was a tough fight again
if i got to go back and fight that fight
now it would be not competitive at all i
mean it wasn't competitive at that time
but it very it was completely phased it
wasn't close but it was competitive
so you were improving and growing fast
yeah and it was nice to have time away i
wish i had more time in the ring but
again i'd only been doing mma for three
years at that time so the
improvement from doing what the bitcoin
mining
was over uh overriding the ring rust
i think so i don't really believe in
ring rust if i'm honest you know i can
understand why
uh you know people could feel a certain
way but if anything it's almost like you
just kind of forget what competition's
like
and you realize like oh you feel
butterflies or something like that you
go oh my god this is different versus no
that's your body getting ready to
perform it's okay it's normal
how do you not have ring rust i think i
try to watch try to practice performing
no matter what
you know like whether it's sing karaoke
i'm not very good but like anything you
name it talking in front of people like
you embrace the butterflies um yeah
it's almost like i remember my last
fight i'm just staring at the wall and
i'm like
huh i guess i guess i'm gonna fight in a
couple minutes
all right hey you give i mean of course
we all heard the phrase like you can
never walk in the same river twice
because even if you're this even if the
river's the same you're a different man
that's uh
i think it's a really important thing to
understand because at various points in
my martial arts career of
thought oh man how should i feel i
remember when i used to do well in
competition i would feel
i would think these thoughts listen to
this song think think about this
i would feel a certain way and then if
you don't feel that way i would start to
become stressed because uh i was
self-inflicted versus going you'll feel
how you feel
your job is to show up with what you
have on the day do your absolute best
like i will never quit i can be sure of
that i didn't say i can't be beat i
can definitely be i could have lost
every single fight that i've ever had
but
i control my effort and i control my
attitude and that's i will
i will do my very best to execute my
game plan and the event's not working
if i have to i'll put my hands up and
walk dead forward if i need to at
somebody
you know we hope that that's not where
it goes but you know like again that
humanizing moment where you're shooting
for like just the inner like the inner
you sacrifice the outer and all you have
left is will and
you hope it doesn't happen but if it
does you'll be there but i guess to come
back like the extra periods of time
um in between fights i think was uh
valuable because
it was it was deeply challenging it was
incredibly it was it's
heartbreaking sometimes i'm honest man
it's like i didn't wanna it's just
waiting
oh my god dude is there politics
involved does it
some sometimes you know like i i i
i you know it's every single time you
step into the ring nothing's guaranteed
um it's uh you could be hurt you could
hurt somebody you could
win you could lose you know throwing
away just like i said throwing away your
healthier life cheaply makes no sense
for anyone um
and you know having demonstrating some
degree of
of temperance is not cowardly either i
mean but again you're
if you wait too long you have nothing so
i guess like uh
i was trying and always being i'm always
open to fighting the absolute best
people possible i'm never turning down
fights
ever um you know some random jabroni
decides that he wants to fight him to go
away if i wanted to just fight randoms i
would just start at stand to the you
know
on the table at denny's and start
yelling and i'm sure would have you know
some people who'd be willing to indulge
me
but uh you know you want to fight um you
know
meaningful opponents challenging
opponents and i know who and where they
are
and so you did fight in atlantic city
you know i did the denny
but you put the denny's behind you i did
and you know and i'll be honest if they
were if i just stood up after that fight
i don't know if i was in
great shape to expect to win in the
other fights that evening but i could i
could have tried it i'm sure there was
some takers in the crowd particularly
after they watched me fight they're like
yeah i'll fight that guy
so okay so when was the last fight that
was uh darren elkins that was
six months or seven months after the bj
fight which was great because that's you
know i love maybe five really tough a
very tough opponent very tough guy
super tough dude and uh that was in uh
july 2019 and then right when i was
about to fight
uh so you're ready to fight regularly
after that yeah
trying to fight and then you're trying
to find a fight yeah incorrect we got
ricardo llamas so no one else none of
the
i was ranked in the top 15 at that point
and then uh
people didn't want to fight we were
struggling to find an opponent and
ricardo llamas a great you know former
title challenger you know
mma you know really great history and
mma recently retired but
we were supposed to fight in uh i think
may
march march may of uh 2020 and then
coronavirus happened
and uh so that scrapped the whole show
you know training we were just
scrambling to try to keep the gym alive
and take care you know i have five or
six four five six i think five full-time
employees that i
you know they're my responsibility i
have to their livelihood is in my hands
and it's
um to be irresponsible of me to to not
take that seriously so anyway uh
we were able to navigate through that
time and then uh we were able to
reschedule the llamas fight and that was
in august
of last year and i got a a
medical like flag like oh hey like you
you have a medical condition that we
need to look into
you when i got pulled from the fight and
i immediately was concerned because of
course any serious medical condition you
want to go oh man
well i guess i would like to look at
that yeah it turns out it was a giant
false positive
and you know we find that out you know
all of five weeks later and you go
you gotta be kidding me that's
frustrating and then we're still waiting
for our fight waiting for a fight
waiting for a fight waiting for a fight
people won't sign up
um asked for a number of different
opponents basically said hey i'm willing
to fight anybody that's that's tough and
moving forward um
finally got a you know a great opponent
in dan ige
um for uh i guess it would have been uh
this uh
this march yeah and then um i was
training in january working on
working on some stuff i was out training
with raymond daniels in uh
in california raymond's amazing um
unbelievable you know kickboxing karate
style kickboxer
fantastic martial artist great teacher
great training partner and good friend
and uh
you know just really bad luck uh you
know kind of a fall in the middle of
in the middle of training and i tore uh
my hip flexor halfway off of my femur
so yeah that wasn't great and you go
like man right at the time where you're
like oh man all right finally moving
forward
you know having the opportunity to fight
dan's a really tough guy you know you
have to fight well if you want to have a
good chance to do well with him if you
don't fight well it's going to be a
rough night i'm like that's exactly what
to sign up for that's what we want bj
that's what we went with
elkins that was gray and then the
universe goes hey man i hear you but
there's also this so anyway uh yeah
unfortunately it's healing up and then
hopefully uh
which we think you yeah i think um may
this year may of this year yeah so it's
been it's been
it's been about five weeks since the
injury you'll be able to heal up you
think
yeah i think it'll be okay by then like
i don't need a big camp at this point
i've had
years of camp um i'm not going to
curtail my drinking or anything like
that obviously you know come on man
life is meant to be live and uh you know
so it's uh you know
i i'm in good shape i always i'm always
training i'm trying to do my best to
train around the injury to the extent
that i can right now without
you know hurting myself long term so is
there a particular opponent's you're
thinking about
yeah anybody anybody forward you know i
mean i tried to i asked uh
i asked this second that i got hurt i
sent a message to dan and i said hey man
like
i just wanted you to be the first person
to know um
i you know i just was pretty reasonably
injured you just got an mri doctor says
like
hey man you're out and you need to take
like three weeks off off don't do
anything or you're gonna immediately
you're gonna tear it the whole way and
this is going to be surgery
and then it's going to be an additional
like eight weeks on top of that to start
to rehab it through pt
and anyway uh you know so i let him know
hey if you can push this thing back i
would love to
keep on the car i would love to keep the
fight you know it's like i respect you a
lot as an opponent and also it's been
brutal trying to get anybody to sign on
so if you're into it i'm still there
unfortunately he turned that down i
understand he had other things going on
he and his wife were expecting a child
coming up
so uh he needed to he needed to fight
and anyway uh
yeah i guess we'll see who's coming
forward um is there somebody's like
super tough in the featherweight
division that you
you seem to like enjoy the difficult
puzzles is there somebody especially
difficult that you
would like to fight i would like to
fight i know that i'll need to win
at least one fight before this um and i
look forward to coming back and giving
my best effort to do that
i want to fight to beat uh megaman
sharapov i want to fight yeah rodriguez
i want to fight um uh korean zombie
and b is complicated man yeah that would
be a
guy i would love to see that fight
that's a fascinating fight that would be
fun
um he would be very challenging all
those guys are very challenging
and uh so i look forward to just staying
healthy to the extent that we can coming
back and i'm gonna fight multiple times
this year hell our hot water
hell yes hey by the way uh i completely
forgot because you were talking about
systems
and decision trees and the illusion of
choice
made me think of sam harris and i forgot
to mention it
so he talks about free will quite a bit
huh
and that there's an illusion of free
will
so it's like old claim cotton that the
you know maybe the universe constructed
that little game where
it makes us feel like we have a bunch of
choices but we really don't
we're really always ending up with the
middle finger that should be hilarious
yeah that's it that's that's what you
see before you die
it's just a giant middle finger it's
like oh fuck
i knew it uh i knew it what do you think
do you think there's a free will like we
feel like we're making choices so you're
thinking again we're talking about okay
here's a system of martial arts
that's