Georges St-Pierre, John Danaher & Gordon Ryan: The Greatest of All Time | Lex Fridman Podcast #260

humans are fascinated by violence and. you've got to ask yourself why is it the. rash guard yes. and i talk so much shit that i'm like. man if i lose this is going to be rough. you're learning this shut the fuck up i. got you man you were powered by. mcdonald's and coca-cola i want more and. then i smacked him and he didn't want to. fight anymore uh i'm not impressed. if george st pierre. and khabib nurmagomedov face each other. in their prime who wins.

i'm here with three individuals each of. whom are considered by many to be the. greatest of all time in each of their. respective disciplines. the greatest mma fighter of all time. george saint pierre. the greatest martial arts coach of all. time. john donahue. and the greatest submission grappler of. all time. gordon ryan. so let me ask the first question. you guys didn't see the question no. preparation here what is the key to your.

success each of you one thing or. multiple things that come to mind. john go first. [Laughter]. um. is it the rash guard. yes. [Laughter]. i like that you choose john right off. the bat you seem the most nervous please. inspire us to. give the right. answer for for me it's about um. finding a way to work.

in a world where. most of the answers are already known. okay in any developed sport by the time. you enter that sport most of the basic. precepts the the. the major techniques the major. mechanical understandings of the sport. are long since worked out. and so. in a highly developed world. the key to success. is to be able to identify.

some area of the industry that you're in. which is currently. undervalued to do what the other people. are not doing. deeper than that. your. everyone has a view of okay these are. the the main skills of the industry i. work in. at any given time some set of skills. attributes. um. will always be somewhat undervalued. they're underappreciated by the people.

in the game. you see that at any in any given. industry there are always trends. which. change. uh the nature of the industry over time. so. uh fashion trends. in the clothing industry you'll see at. any given time there's a a a general. wave of fashion which pushes most of the. people in the industry in a given. direction at a given time. what makes people stand out is the. ability to. look at the various possibilities out.

there and say here is something which is. genuinely useful. but which is currently being underused. underutilized. and i want to bring that back in. and develop it. and because it's an inherently useful. product it will be very very successful. in its initial applications against. people who aren't currently using it. um. if you can do this in whatever industry.

you're in i believe you'll be highly. successful. so this implies both for actual specific. like techniques. and the also tactics as well in the case. of of jiu-jitsu so for example. in my sport leglocks have always been. around okay there's. no shortage of people you can look back. in history who are applying leg locks. nonetheless as in. across the industry. leglocks were undervalued and. underappreciated there was a general. sense in which most of the leading. figures of the sport.

uh. for most of the history of the sport of. judas who tended to de-emphasize. leglocks and uh. when i looked at them i said there was. there was immense potential but it. wasn't being realized and needed to be. changed um. since then that. has more or less occurred now most. people coming into the sport understand. that leglocks are an important. aspect and they're no longer undervalued. if anything it's gone too far the other. way and now perhaps they're a little. overvalued. um.

and then. this kind of. fashion trend exists in every industry. and. the job of anyone who wants to excel in. a given industry is to be able to. identify okay what are the things that. are currently out of fashion and. undervalued and then. look at what is their actual objective. value. and then work uh to to. to bring them back to the forefront so. john brought up fashion uh george is. wearing a really sexy shirt so.

assuming that's not the reason is there. um. is there something that comes to mind as. the key to the success of your. incredible career well of course. everybody knows the famous sensor that. every athletes are saying oh it could be. genetic i was maybe gifted i had certain. predisposition i worked really hard. but i think. something that. people don't talk enough is when. everybody sometimes go right. i was never afraid to try to go left.

and i felt many times. trying to do things that were not. uh. uh. known to be things that would br. brought me success but i i i tried it. you know i was very often i was the. first of trying new things. and i felt many times but certain times. it gave me a certain advantage and. for example. i was sometime fighting guys that had.

much better wrestling background than. than me on paper and nobody before that. fought those guys never nobody had there. to try to. take them down because their wrestling. pedigree were so good and i didn't have. on paper like wrestling pedigree to take. these guys down in a fight but. when everybody. tried to go right i was going left i i i. fought them in a different way and that. was. the blueprint to beat cert some of these.

guys you know what i mean you know what. i mean so yeah so we'll actually talk. about a few fights where you did just. that this is fascinating um but let me. let's stay at the high level so gordon. again sticking on fashion. may compliment your. incredible badass hat trying to fit in. here. we should say we're in texas now so he's. uh. become a texan overnight uh so what is. there something you can speak to that. you would attribute to as the key to. your success yeah so first of all it has.

to be a rule where you don't ask us all. the same questions because. how am i supposed to compete with the. answer john just came that was like. there's nothing i can do that's going to. top that yeah um but uh i think it's uh. there's many things but i think the. number one thing is just is john. when i came in i was a blue belt and i. was beating brown and black belts in. competition already. uh but he really changed my way of. thinking about the sport i would just. come in and if something wasn't working. i would just do it harder and faster and. more aggressively and that just. degenerated me into degenerated into.

me spastically knee sliding into cross. hashigarami against eddie cummings for. six months and then just getting heal. hooked repeatedly. and uh i'm like this is not working and. eddie like when i met him was like a. chubby librarian looking guy and i'm. like there's i'm like six to like a. jacked like 170. and i'm like there's no. way i'm losing to a guy who looks like. this but he just kept healing me so i. would just go harder and harder and it. wouldn't work and then john's like well. if you learned leglocks you might you. might have some more success and then i.

was like yeah that probably makes sense. and uh from then on i kind of just. changed the way i thought about the. sport instead of doing doing things. harder i would actually try to get. better at jiu jitsu do you remember like. a turning point where. you became as opposed to being mediocre. not just in technique but an approach to. uh to great um i think it was somewhere. around brown belt level when i was. training consistently i started training. full-time with john when i was purple. belt mid-level purple belt.

and towards the end of my brown belt. days i was beating up like legitimate. like adccc champions in the gym. so i think like brown to black belt was. a big thing for me and then when i won. my first ebi and i was i submitted yuri. who won abcc and i beat roostam so i. think that was like my turning point as. a competitor. but i think i started to to reach world. level a little bit before that i think. somewhere around brown about mid-level. to late level brown belt so is some of. that mental like. it was there a moment when you like.

after a training session. you realize. i could actually do this. like i could be at the top of the world. like world class the critical moment for. me was when uh i think it was right. right when i got my black belt maybe a. few months before i got my black belt uh. we had a former adcc champion come into. the gym and uh we did a hard round. together and i think i submitted them. like four or five times and uh no one. who i was i never won anything up until. that point and i was like okay like if. this is like one of the best guys in the.

world and i could submit him multiple. times around i think that this is like. something that i actually could do. professionally and make a make a career. out of this. okay so the actual performance was the. like you didn't need to uh believe. before you could perform like a lot of. olympic gold medalists. they they have to believe before they. can perform because like they're they're. getting their ass kicked for a long long. long time yeah i think but the best way. for me to believe in something is to. have repeated success doing it against.

high level guys like i'm not gonna just. believe i can do a double leg if i can't. hit a double egg on anybody um so for me. the the belief came from the repeated. success in the gym. yeah but to get to the point where. you're submitting somebody like yuri. samoa is like one of the greatest. grapplers ever. it's like a long journey. yeah but i i had the confidence i had. the belief in myself because of the. success that i had in the gym prior to. that got it to that event even and it's. one step at a time first it's the brown. bell it's not it's the black belt it's.

world class okay um george was there a. turning point for you when you you. thought like i can actually do this. yes i um. i always dreamed to become champion. but i think the turning point that there. was there was two turning point. and and there were my two losses. uh. first. my losses to matt hughes i went into. that fight. just. to not lose i i was not fighting to win.

and it's after the fight when i watched. the. the replay of the fight i realized i was. like i was doing pretty well but during. the fight in my own mind. i was not seeing it that way i i thought. i was getting dominated by use like a. hundred percent but when i watched the. replay. i was like man i can i can beat this guy. i was beating him until i made that. stupid mistake so. it was very frustrating but but.

that's what gave me the mentally the the. championship level mentality and then i. became a little bit overconfident. because i start beating everybody after. that. and. i start to believe the hype of people. when they look at me they were like oh. he's the new upping coming superstar and. he's going to be unstoppable and. and then when i became champion i. i lost to to to matt to matt sarah.

so. before i i believe. my first failure was because i had a. lack of confidence. and. and my second failure was i was because. i was overconfident so i think it's. there's a perfect uh. center of confidence i mean i mean it's. good to be confident. because john taught me like confidence. it's it's like money in your bank. account if you you can have all the. skills in in the world right and and if. you're uh if you don't have the.

confidence it's like you it's like you. can you can be a millionaire but you. don't have access to your bank account. so so it's that's a little bit the. analogy that john told me so that's how. i feel confidence plays for an athlete. but to be overconfident i think it's. always good to. to be aware to be afraid. of what can happen. so to have a perfect balance of. confidence and fear. to me. that's what mentally gave me the edge to. become i believe successful in my sport.

playing off that uh john gave me a. speech one time and he was like you have. to be able to. like flip a switch and turn it off where. like a guy like mayweather or someone. who goes out who's super confident. and he plays the character of someone. he's like no one can beat me i'm the. best that there ever was and that's it. but if you look at me actually trains. very hard you can't you can't play the. persona of no one can beat me and have. it translate into your life and just. think that you're so good that you don't. have to do anything and no one can ever. beat you you have to be able to play.

that public persona of no one could beat. me but then you have to actually do the. training to make that happen you can't. just you can't believe your own hype and. say say that you know i can just do. whatever i want no one's ever going to. beat me you'd be able to switch between. the persona and the actual athlete and. that made a big difference for me. it's tough because uh like you're. you you dominate. such a large fraction of the world in in. grappling. and george too just the perfect. dominance after those two. um it's hard for the confidence not to.

just. like how do you avoid the confidence not. becoming a thing that weighs you down. where you completely um. deludes your mind. um for me it's just well number one the. guys in the gym are so tough so the guys. and the. guys in the gym that i train with are. always like nipping at my butt and. always giving me new problems to solve. um and for me it's really just about. trying to learn new stuff over time um. so that keeps it interesting for me and. it's not really about. um you know no one can beat me i don't.

have to train i have to do it i can do. whatever i want uh it's more. what keeps me in the gym is more about. the fact that i'm learning new stuff all. the time i'm working on something new. and progressing to new levels at all. times it's not i don't just come in and. do the same thing over and over again. and uh that gets boring you just come in. and you don't learn anything new and you. just do the same stuff for years at a. time and okay okay this is boring but. when you have new stuff to work on and. new goals short-term and long-term goals. to reach then it makes it interesting. it's uh. for me it's a little bit like uh gordon. says is is the fair because sometime in.

the gym i even before when i was. competing i was i was getting my butt. kicked. but i don't care what happened in the. gym i mean it it hit my ego of course. because i'm a proud person i'm a. competitor even in the gym but it's not. a malicious competition competition in. between each other when you fight you. have to be malicious you go there to. hurt the guy. but it. it hit it hit me in terms of my pride. when i get. beat in a gym of course. but. that fear.

that. i don't want it to happen in public. especially not during a fight that what. keeps help me keeps the balance between. confidence and and and and fear you know. what i mean it's kind of weird it's a. mix. it's a mixture of both that. i believe. i to me it. helped me uh succeed to have the right. mindset to fight. and i talk so much shit that i'm like. man if i lose. this is gonna be rough so yeah you put a.

lot of i mean that's that's the hard. thing to do when you talk shit when you. when you play the heel. is so much to perform the pressure is. i mean you have to be good under. pressure it's the conor mcgregor thing. you know the reason i actually started. talking shit was actually like. indirectly because of george. because. because i would become the opposite of. george. i won my first ebi and i i didn't talk. shit and everyone was like being like oh. you know he only beat yuri because uh.

because he was tired or uh. you know this or that and if they have a. rematch under any of the rules that he. would have lost. and am i trying to figure out what i'm. going to do so i'm scrolling through. george's feed one day and he posted a. clip of him beating someone and i look. at the comments and i'm with this in. mind now my george is the nicest person. of all time and if you look at the. comments it's like ten thousand comments. and like nine thousand and nine hundred. are just people calling him like all you. do is lay and pray you pussy you suck. you can't finish anybody and i'm just.

i'm looking at this and i'm like people. are to say what they're going to say. regardless they're going to talk shit. regardless so you may as well just say. whatever you want and then just be. yourself. is there some aspect that's mentioning. conor mcgregor he uh he crossed the line. with khabib. at least in the eyes of khabib is there. something you ever regret about crossing. a line or does that you ever feel like. there is a line or do you just keep. pushing the line. uh i i basically play it per per person.

i just i basically fire back with like. one step above what what they do it's. always plus one yeah yeah okay. um so i go i usually go hard like they. fire a bullet then i drop a duke. and then and then after that initial. shot then we go back and forth and i'll. just keep one upping them. so you know there's a lot of people that. love you. but there's also a lot of people that. love to hate you yeah it's so. like what. do those people like energize you or do. you just.

uh or is it funny to you like what as an. athlete as a performer you should not. think about them it's like a fun thing. it's like it's just like a fun thing. that keeps me occupied. like because like because most of them. that like talk shit they like just say. stuff that's factually incorrect so then. i just argue with like actual statistics. yeah it's just like. you suck or you're not gonna beat this. person i'm like i've already submitted. that guy um so it just it riles them up. and. it's just it's just a fun thing for me. to do my down time yeah your responses. are usually very factual it's very.

scientific. i appreciate. like you actually you start by talking. trash but then you respond with science. yeah it's great okay it's good mix. that's a good mix um. i mean on topic of haters are more. specifically sort of. doubts within yourself adults around you. as you're coming up um. maybe george you can comment and we'll. just ignore john completely in this. conversation. i was going to ask you another question. but let me just ask you on this on this.

topic um are there times in your life. yet uh. you were surrounded by people that that. doubted you. all the time and so what is there. something you could say as in by way of. advice how you overcome. the doubt either yourself or others. around you i all the time. the first time i i manifest my desire to. become a professional mixed martial art. athlete everybody doubt me. just not even i'm not talking about ufc. just to become a professional fighter.

everybody doubt me. and i became a. i became a professional fighter i had. few amateur fight i won them all. then i i fought my first fight in in. montreal i won and i became a. professional. then i i told people that i wanted to. fight in ufc everybody doubt me again. so. it's a normal thing. so i worked my way up i beat a few guys. then i. at the time uh pete spratt was uh.

just knocked knocked out robbie lawler. with leg kick and uh. the person who was my agent at the time. did a great move uh for me so he brought. peace pratt and montreal to fight me. pete spratt came to montreal and i. believe. he didn't know who i was so he thought. that he was coming to collect an easy. paycheck and i and i end up beating him. so that. gave me the opportunity to fight in ufc. then after i was in ufc i wanted to. become champion of the world you know. but matt hughes was there and he seems. invincible at the time so.

everybody doubt me again and i became. world champion and after when you when i. was world champion i wanted to be. i was competing against other world. champion of other weight class. for. the title you know for the legacy and. everything so i was not no longer. competing against my opponent i was you. know as a competitor you always you. never wanted to be you never want to be. satisfied because when satisfaction is. the death you know when you're satisfied.

you better retire because it's over so. always i have to find motivation what. you can have more i want more don't be. satisfied in life so i wanted to be. like the best you know i was i was. competing you know like to become the. best and and you know of course people. doubt doubt you all the time every time. you say something that it's outside of. the norm of the normality and when i say. there there's nothing normal but i'm. talking about. when you.

you manifest your desire to do something. that. takes special attribute to to to succeed. or that is something that is hard to to. do it's for sure you're gonna always. have people that doubt you it's so. strange that people don't. they don't lean into supporting like. people that love you too yeah even. people that love me used to doubt me and. i believe i i you need to use that as. a positive positive thing as a. motivation to prove them wrong yeah so.

for me that was a thing when someone. doubted me nothing gave me more. this more energy because i want to prove. him wrong i want to look at him in the. face and say hey you see. i got you man i i did it. so uh john do you ever use this in one. way or the other by saying i don't think. you can do this to motivate them to to. prove you wrong or. more general question. of you know uh the the mental toughness. required to achieve. or confidence required to achieve.

greatness like what's your role as a. coach when you have these two athletes. with regards to your your first question. would i ever say to someone. you can't do this. as a kind of reverse psychology i know. my job is to prepare people first and. foremost with their skills and. as gordon pointed out earlier if you're. in any way a rational human being and. you're noticing that you're getting.

tremendous success. with a given move in the gym against. high level opponents who. give a good read on what your actual. opponent in a competition is is like. you would have to be a moron to. not recognize that kind of success and. say this is something i should be. building into my game and you will carry. the confidence that you earned in the. gym into the arena. so i never try to use. reverse psychology i build up.

everything i do in terms of confidence. is to give people physical skills i know. people say oh this physicality on the. one hand is mentality on the other and. confidence is. squarely in the the mental aspect of the. game. but all the underpinnings and beginnings. of confidence are physical. okay a rational human being will see. where they're having success and where. they're having failure and confidence. will. uh surround those areas where they're. having success and will degenerate in.

cases where they're having. failure. so my job as a coach is to set them up. for success in the gym. with a given set of skills. and. i don't have to do anything. psychologically after that. i just. if i can set you up to be highly. successful with a given move or a set of. tactics 10 times in a row against. quality opposition in the gym. i don't have to do a damn thing when it. comes to instilling confidence. i i will tell people hey you're doing a.

really good job with that move it's. working well for you. but. when they're not in agreement i'm not. trying to force anything on them they're. recognized they were they already. recognized that long before the words. came out of my mouth. but on the other hand intelligent. rational people will recognize when. they're failing with given moves and no. amount of talk on my part can ever. change that. if i teach gordon. uh a given arm lock and. 15 times in a row he tries it over a.

month and all 15 are failures there's. nothing i can say verbally to come up. the goal and say hey you're really good. at that move he's going to look at me. and say bullshit i'm terrible at it. and. that will create a crisis of confidence. where gordon no longer believes the. words coming out of my mouth. so i will never compromise that but. isn't there a lot you just said 15. you have to believe. that uh. doing this arm lock 15 times over a. period of a month is worth it because. eventually you might get it like yeah.

that's a separate issue that that's a. separate issue. there are times where i've. more or less pushed athletes to. go in a certain direction for example um. when i first met gary tonan he never had. a guillotine strangle and i i would say. don't gary you know. you're a scrambler like one of the. greatest weapons a scrambler can ever. develop as a guillotine like it should. be in your arsenal. and he was like no i just scrambled for.

the back and i said well there's gonna. be a day you can't take someone's back. and it's always good about a strangle. from front and back okay of course we. all prefer strangles from the bank that. makes sense but there's going to come a. day where it's going to be useful for. you and so that was one of the few times. where i put my foot down and said you're. learning this shut the fuck up. and um uh he like literally wouldn't. teach him any anything else until he got. a guilty and you know gary would like. ask him a question he's like let's see. your guillotine. and um for the first three months.

as gifted as as gary tony is in learning. most moves most moves gary gets it like. in in minutes. there was something going on with gary. just couldn't get a guillotine on people. and uh finally after around three months. he started having some success until. ultimately became one of his best. weapons. um we had to go through like 15. different variations of guillotine until. he found one which actually worked. reliably for him. and that was one of the few times where.

i put my foot down and said no. you you have to learn this so the long. search had to do more with the physical. characteristics like you couldn't figure. out the right like it made sense it made. sense in the case of gary tony because. there were more opportunities per minute. of his grappling for guillotines uh that. the investment in time was worth it for. another athlete i might have said well. he hardly ever gets in the situation but. front headlocks are guilty so it's not. even worth. investing the training time. let me ask you a question on the on the. competition side you mentioned haters. and. do you think about this aspect of the.

competition with the athletes is this a. great question and um the answer is no. um. uh. i'm. you can see that you could you couldn't. find two more polar opposites. psychologically than. george st pierre. and this monstrosity on my left. and um. i've i've never said to my athletes hey. i think this is the. sort of demeanor you should carry. yourself with i'm myself a very flawed.

character and i'm the last person on. earth who should be delving out moral. advice to other people um the only thing. is that i i you know of course i believe. some things are off limits but as long. as it's done in the context of sport. where no one's physically attacking. people or doing anything crazy where it. just goes completely over the top then i. give almost zero. moral advice to my athletes i'm a. jiu-jitsu coach not a preacher. alex i i if i can if i may.

we we are entertainers. you know we're athlete we're. professional athletes but we make. we make. a living because of people or. want to see us perform. same thing an actor or something a. singer. and a lot of the time. especially in the fight game. an event is promoted it needs to be. with emotion. love me hate me but do not ignore me.

um. and. you know it. when it's authentic. it's done well i think me my personal my. my favorite fighters to watch are the. one that are that. that that have a. some sort of a bad persona. i really enjoy watching those guys. because. they bring an emotion element into a. fight which is great you know i i i feel. to me it's more interesting to watch. when there is an emotion involved.

and i believe that's why. some fighters make more money than. others you know you know what i mean. that's the reason why we may we can make. a living out of this yeah they're better. entertainers but you're right the. authenticity seems to be really. important. there's actually something very. interesting then um it's time to break. out some some secrets. do you know who like like you think of. george st peter you think of like the. highly technical polished. martial artist that's just gonna be.

great do you know. who his favorite fighters to watch. were. you'd probably be thinking oh probably. someone who's really technically. advanced. actually. it was mark coleman i don't know kevin. randleman and phil baroni. he used to love watching that was a. hammer house that was his favorite he. would love those guys and uh whenever. their fights were on georgie watching. the hammerhouse crew and uh. it's funny what you said about how those.

guys brought an intensity to. to mma that was off the charts have you. ever met those guys in. uh in their prime let me tell you it was. it was something to behold and um i had. this crazy larger than life personality. most of the things they did made no. sense whatsoever but i mean technically. but that was their appeal yeah and and. these guys and george would love to. watch them more than anyone else you. never knew what could happen with these. guys i remember when mark coleman won.

the pride grand prix it wasn't my living. room i was jumping i was so happy i was. like yeah. he beat igor varchar chef chin i was. like. like for to me it was amazing you know. what i mean. because of the emotion that they they. brought into the fight george is. actually very um interested by something. you said that normally when i. um. ask what is the appeal of a given. fighter um and what makes people watch a. fight you talked about the idea that. fighters are entertainers and that's.

absolutely correct they are. um. it's this weird weird industry where. you're. you're. both an athlete and an entertainer and. you need to be successful in both. regards to become. financially successful. insofar as. uh. your favorite athletes. to watch at least were people who are. almost like the polar opposite of who. you are. um i've always said that most people. if you look at. uh say a million people watch a.

pay-per-view event. what percentage of those million people. have a genuine technical understanding. of what's happening as they watch a. fight. it's tiny. it's absolutely tiny the vast majority. of people who watch a professional fight. have almost no technical understanding. of what's going on in front of them so. how do they relate to the fight. what's the only way they can.

it's through emotion. and so when they get a sense that these. two don't like each other. then they can relate to the fight. but only a tiny percentage of people. watching a given professional fight can. relate to it on a technical level. the overwhelming majority will always. form an emotional attachment to the. fight that's why when you see things. shows like ufc primetime they never. focus on. the tactics and the techniques of the. fight they focus on the emotional.

elements the preparation the view of. their own family members as athletes get. ready it's always an emotional pull. because that's how 99 percent of the. viewers relate to the fight if i even. think about chairs okay. if i have minimal knowledge of two world. champions. coming to to fight each other and. or match up against each other in a game. of chess i know so little about. chess tactics and i can't really form. any kind of technical. appreciation of what's going on on the.

board. but if you tell me that these two chess. players hate each other's guts and. they've got a rivalry which goes back. five years and they've said this and. that about each other in public then. suddenly my ears prick up and i'm like. oh okay this sounds interesting um. because i just don't have the the. knowledge to appreciate what's going on. on the board in a chess game to be able. to to appreciate the uh the technical. nuances of what they're doing so any. interest that i have in the chess match. is going to have to come from some kind.

of emotional level because i'm just not. qualified to make technical assessments. and that's exactly how it is in the case. of both grappling and mixed martial arts. that's why the ones who evoke the most. attention are always the ones who can. form some kind of emotional appeal conor. mcgregor was the all-time master of this. i i believe also. uh emotion can be used as a weapon. for example i've learned i've learned. this from my favorite boxer is sugary. leonard. sugary leonard i remember i was very.

young so i watched his fight later when. i was older but i know that sugary. leonard. was the best boxer of his era to me. personally. and i don't think nobody could. beat him i think it was skill skill wise. it was the best. however when he fought in montreal. roberto duran. roberto zuran. made it in a way that leonard became. very emotional he wanted to stand in.

front of duran and fight a different. fight that. that he normally does because he wanted. to show that he's a man. and he lost that fight which was a. mistake. so by by. then later on he beat roberto's around. in. quite easy you know the if the fair. everybody remember the nomas thing but. my point is. emotion can be used. in a way. that it can make your derail your.

opponent. out of his game plan and i felt a lot of. my opponent trying to do that with me so. that's why i never got involved that was. my way to defend myself against. some kind of bullying to put like a like. a shield in front but some other guy. like uh. gordon he expressed himself differently. of course there's a language barrier but. for him he's better at. giving giving giving back that's his. he's a better counter attacker you know. that's the way you respond to to to the.

aggression of of a. of an emotional attack i think everybody. is different in that regard what's. interesting that john said that he. doesn't. uh study the tactics of this game or. maybe you're not interested in the. tactics of this game because it seems. like this is more than just being an. entertainer it seems like it could be an. effective part of the match yeah i just. feel like whatever investment you make. in that. is. it's going to get negligible rewards. first of all it's probably only going to.

pertain to one match in front of you. rather than the totality of your career. and. whatever gains you get out of. psychological trickery and play. typically. don't last long you raised an excellent. example with sugar ray leonard he did. fight outside of his usual. manner in that regard but rather than me. try to tell. someone hey. uh behave like this before a fight i. would have been probably more forceful.

between rounds with an athlete and. saying no no you're fighting this right. the wrong way and that would have a much. more beneficial impact on my athlete. than. psychological trickery before a fight. i believe another example of. emotion that leads to failure is. jose aldo against conor mcgregor i think. it was. it was uh on purpose that conor mcgregor. did this try to bait aldo to become over. aggressive to open him himself because.

he's an excellent counterpuncher puncher. that's what i believe and made a mistake. there's another great one my match. against cyborg. 2018 nogi worlds where he didn't even. try to win he just like wanted to smack. me in the face the whole time because he. was so angry that was talking shit to. him before the match and uh it was like. the finals of the absolute it was like. the biggest. match of the weekend and he just didn't. even try to pass my guard to do anything. he just wanted to hit me in the face and. i was like sick i just won.

it was incredibly frustrating it's. fascinating to watch like a grown man. sort of lose composure. um gordon one thing i've always. been very impressed with you and that's. um. no matter how heated torque gets. before a match with you. when you go out to grapple you're. absolutely cold. like i've you've never gone into a match. carrying anything other than just.

cold-blooded calculation. and you've always been able to separate. very well. the idea of words and deeds and i think. that's always been one of your um one of. your strongest assets a way i often. measure this is when a match is over i. will ask the athlete questions about the. match. and if they can't answer the question. what were you doing in the fourth minute. okay what was that setup you used in the. in in the third minute that got you into. the kimura along if they can't answer.

that that tells me. they were just fighting on instincts and. emotion but with gordon it's like a log. book you see. it's like okay in the seventh minute you. went for that uh. judy gutami set up from. on the left side. what were you thinking he can always. give an answer he's absolutely stone. cold. speaking of emotion. gordon you will potentially if you're. healthy face andre galvao in the adcc.

coming up super fight. uh who is andre galvao for people who. don't know can you tell the story of. your beef with. uh the the emotional interaction with. the man yeah so uh andre is uh. he's considered the greatest. adcc competitor of all time uh multiple. time blackbaud world champion uh. winningest abccc champion every has six. six gold medals and uh. i've been trying to compete against him.

pretty much forever like since i got my. black belt in 2016 i've been trying to. get matches with him uh he was in the. first ebi that i did and he ended up. pulling out and that i've been trying to. get matches with him. and uh he would always say no and give. one reason or another and then uh. after the last adcc. i was like hey andre said he was. retiring after this after this uh this. competition so if he wants to retire you. know he's he's the greatest adcc. competitor of all time and.

i think it's great but if he wants to. compete and that's great i was like. super nice and then he started like. posting like passive aggressive. instagram. uh. uh captions and uh then we started going. back and forth on the internet and there. was like one point where i saw him in. person when he. acknowledged he's like i understand like. what you're doing like we're gonna pump. this fight up and he was like totally on. board but then there must have been. something that happened where like it. changed from like him like going along. with it to be like actually pissed. and then uh there was that one night at.

flow where i went to go shake his hand. and he he flipped me off and then he. followed me backstage and started to try. to fight me and then i smacked him and. then he didn't want to fight anymore and. then we've been going back he's actually. blocked me on instagram now so he will. he just won't engage no one from athos. will engage now but. it's gonna be interesting how he shows. up if he can keep it under control or. not do you think how do you explain that. level of emotion is this fear of losing. your throne is it. or is it just a human being like with. cyborg just.

just becoming emotionally unstable it. might just be me i just have a way to. get and get under people's skin it's. just i don't know uh he's he's. he was he was cool for a while and then. i just i don't know it just. everyone gets like this they're all so. emotional by the time they actually step. up to compete that it's pretty easy to. read them they're either so emotional. that they want to actually come forward. and and beat me like like tim spriggs is. a perfect example at abcc i posted like. uh. on my story on instagram like 10 minutes. before a match uh i said like what i'm.

going to do to tim spriggs is going to. be criminal and he's like a very staley. guy and he came he saw that and then he. came out and actually tried to fight me. like he came and actually engaged my. guard and i ended up submitting him so. it either has that effect or it has the. effect where they know i've talked so. much shit leading up to the match. that they're so afraid to lose that they. just get super stally and they move away. so it either has one effect where they. come forward and they want to they want. to beat me beat me or they want to just. they're so afraid of getting submitted. that they know if they engage they're.

super cagey and they just back away and. don't really do anything. do you think this match happens. there's a lot of variables what i have. to see how my stomach is and two. if i'm actually going to show up and. compete my stomach's healthy i doubt. that andre will actually show up to. compete i've been trying to compete. against him for six years and he hasn't. done it so there's no reason to think he. would now is it possible for you to. speak to where like your estimates are. about your stomach or is it too unclear. for now still too early to tell i have. this round of treatment that i'm doing. until late february and i'm pretty sure.

that i need to do the same test i did. initially to retest all my levels and. then go from there so i've been feeling. a little bit better like it's not nearly. as bad as it used to be i was explaining. to someone the other day like for the. last four years i would be so nauseous. that every time i would walk into a new. room i'd have to actively locate a. garbage can in case i have to throw up. so i'm like one step above that right. now i'm like doing a little bit better. than that um so it's definitely getting. a little bit better but it's not it's. not where it needs to be.

can we talk about diet for just a sec. because uh both of you uh george and and. gordon. like suffered from stomach issues. different kind. and have arrived for now for different. places so can you maybe george speak to. um. the general question of what is the best. diet for performance for training like. what have you learned through your. career about this well i i think. everybody is different um to me. personally. uh.

i implement fasting. um. time restricted eating and and. prolonged fasting. what's the longest you've done so far. the longest i've done is five days. you've done i do it quite often i do i. do four times a year i do. three to five days. uh water fast. and i i liked it it helps me with. inflammation i think it boosts the. immune system. and uh that that's about the i read. papers about about this and i it helps.

me also feel. feel good it's kind of. very therapeutic. physical and mental just mental. mental and physical because when i eat. my when i break my fast and i sit at the. table with with other people. it doesn't matter what i eat if we all. eat the same thing i always tell them i. said my my food right now tastes better. than all of yours you know because i you. know i i have this. thing that i i believe sometimes you.

need to put yourself into suffering to. realize how. pleasurable something is. and. i uh. tend. personally like diet wise i eat whatever. i want. whenever i want i don't i no longer have. any problem with this. but if i would have a competition coming. up like. knowing that i what i know now about my. body i would. orient myself.

more towards an animal based diet. that's because i've tried different. things and that's the kind of diet that. i believe helped me. having less inflammation and feel better. in terms of performance for for for. doing something physical so high protein. high fat low carbs. well. this is is different between. animal-based diet and keto. i mean there's carbs there's a lot of. fruit i get a lot of the the the carbs.

from the fruit okay uh a lot of organs. organs um. i know a little bit about paleontology. and in the the past. on. about prehistoric human and i i know. that. um and not not only about that i know. because i have traveled. certain places in the world i want to to. visit the maasai in africa the. hunter-gatherer tribe and i know that. when they kill an animal. they go for the organs first and i know. i pray most predatory animal they do the.

same thing so organs i believe is. something that normally in in our. culture in the western part of the world. we don't really eat but it's something. that is very nutritious. have you been able to convince gordon to. try fasting. we always talk about diets. it's a different situation i think for. gordon because he's a heavy weight he. doesn't want to lose weight you don't. want to heavy weight the range of uh. like my range was like i was a. welterweight and middleweight but. heavyweight it's like some of the guys.

that you compete can compete against. their they might be 300 pounds so. if you lose weight. it's a it's a big problem you know what. i mean so it. and there's things that will work for me. that might not works for gordon you know. so you have to make his own experience. and and i told gordon sometimes when. everybody goes left try to go right see. how you feel with certain things. experiment. not not a topic uh. that's part of your optimization. optimal performance formula well uh what.

i used to do before my stomach issues. and for those of you listening who don't. know i had recurring staph infections in. 2018 and i took a bunch of oral. antibiotics and it just completely wiped. out my stomach so. i just was diagnosed i was misdiagnosed. as gastroparesis so for those of you. messaging me on instagram who are just. watching rogan asking me about my. gastroparesis that's not what i have um. they misdiagnosed it and uh i did some. other tests and for four years i didn't. even know what it was. and then i got this uh i went to this.

doctor in california who. uh diagnosed me with i have h pylori and. then a fungal and a bacterial overgrowth. of my small intestines so the issues in. the small intestines um so what i used. to do was i used to do like seasons. where i'd have a very clean season when. i was competing and i would have a lower. body weight and i would do like an off. season kind of like a bodybuilder where. i would eat a lot more food and a little. bit dirtier food and i would have. cheeseburgers and pizza at night time to. have the extra calories. but now i can't eat those foods because. they upset my stomach so now i pretty.

much just try to eat whatever i can and. maintain the weight the best i can. based on how my stomach feels so right. now it's like. rice chicken. eggs fish. vegetables fruits. and pretty much nothing else like. anything hard to digest. anything spicy red meat. fast food all that's all that's hard for. me. which sucks because in texas. barbecue. and i mean this diet is really important. for you john i can tell um.

like is it is that something you think. about for athletes at all again this is. part of the i've um to be honest with. you um i've never seen. any measurable. improvement in sports performance in. jiu-jitsu by change of diet. i do believe that diet is important for. longevity. in human beings and i do think it makes. a difference especially once you get. past the age of 40. with regards to longevity. for older athletes i do believe it makes.

it some difference but my observation is. in athletes and. in their youth and working up into their. prime. i've seen athletes have the worst. diets. god bless travis stevens but that guy. won an olympic silver medal basically on. mcdonald's and candy yeah um. uh george st pierre for 80 of your. career you were powered by mcdonald's. and coca-cola eugenia alfredo that was. my yeah yeah my meal of choice before a. championship fight uh gordon for him his.

youth was just five guys hamburgers gary. told the same thing. i've worked with japanese judo players. who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day in. one olympic gold medals. i've worked with russian wrestlers who. just. ate. whatever was put in front of them and. their athletic performance was. outstanding. i've worked with other guys who did have. what would be considered a very clean. diet and. their performance was no better than.

anyone else on the mat so i've i've. never. i've never seen someone say okay i. changed my diet and because of that. there was a measurable improvement in. sports performance another way to phrase. it though is um i have noticed with a. lot of lead athletes what they eat. they begin to believe that that. either is not a hindrance or it's. actually good like travis steve is an. example of somebody who eats shitty. because he believes. it's like it's like a power because.

whatever he's traveling across the world. he can't rely on healthy good food to be. there so i'm going to eat shitty. so that that's that like my body knows. how to perform under whatever skittles. or whatever everybody's got mcdonald's. everywhere's got mcdonald's so that. makes like and they've convinced. themselves and you talk about russian. athletes a lot of them have very strong. beliefs about like this. a particular food being good for them. but there's no agreement among them. exactly there's no agreement yeah so.

belief is more important than the actual. diet yeah. if i can. after. you know after a a night out when you're. hanging over. i think the best thing and i'm saying. this in all certain sincerity i think. the best thing to eat to me was like. like. cheeseburgers with it's we call that a. puts in back home because it's very fat. it's greasy so that so the next day. when you wake up i think you feel better.

because it absorbed the alternative. there you go. but you. my mom told me the same story once and. then i tried i was like i was hungover. for some party and uh i woke up i was. like probably i don't know 19 or 20 i. woke up and uh my mom's like yeah just. have it have a cheeseburger go go go eat. something greasy and i did and i was. like oh i feel kind of better now. i do not know the science the exact. science behind it but i i i always. notice and i don't know if it's. plausible but i always notice that if i.

if i'm if i'm if i party hard and i've. been drinking a lot. if i don't eat before i go into bed if i. don't eat shitty food the next day will. wake up and feel worse than if i eat. shitty food i feel better i know it. sounds crazy i don't know why but it. works for me. yeah but it's also hard to do science on. extreme performers so the discussions. we're having is amongst the very. you know that this might not apply to a. general like recreational athlete but.

for the elite i've just seen champions. in every kind of combat sport and i've. never seen a correlation between dietary. habit and performance in people under. the age of 30. i do believe that diet is important for. longevity however and. for that alone it may well be worth. investing time in it but with regards to. sports performance at least in jiu-jitsu. i've never seen any significant. difference well we had a little bit of a. a difference of opinion on this i think. what about strength training and muscle. building or at least we had a discussion.

about this so what do you believe is the. value of. um. of you know training outside of the. sport so fitness. lifting heavy lifting explosive. all kinds of lifting. personally for me i believe and i've. learned that from from john. i used to to do like. to train like a bodybuilder before. because i thought in my early days of. competition that was. the most efficient way to do things to.

because it was like i was watching. jean-claude van damme. arnold schwarzenegger we thought back. back in the day that was the thing. that that's how we should do it you know. for to get ready for a fight. but i realized. later on. uh. that it's all about efficiency. and some guys they don't lift at all and. they're doing pretty well so i. do cross training mostly for longevity.

more it's mostly for the rapid to rep. like a therapy it's more therapeutic. than for performance it's to keep my. body healthy to do a certain movement. that are different than what i do every. day in the gym in combat sport to keep. me. healthy and and. athletic so all the interesting movement. stuff that you've done outside the sport. that was for. the therapeutic mostly the reputation i. think it does it could. transcend to performance but it's mostly.

the republic i do not believe that. squatting. five plates or bench bench pressing. three plate will make me a better. fighter i do not i believe actually it. could hurt me more it could damage me. more than than benefit me. so. according to somebody who on instagram. posts. a lot of pictures of you being shredded. and huge. uh what's the value of of strength so i. do like a combination of uh.

john got us big into like gymnastics. type movements like toes to bar and. muscle ups and things like that when we. were young. like toes to bar because that's like the. exact motion you have to do when you're. retaining guard is knees to chest. so i do a lot of that stuff. in combination with i do a lot of. opposite of george i do a lot of. bodybuilding workouts um where i do like. a basic split like a chest and triceps. back and biceps day. and my idea is that.

weightlifting should always be a. supplement to jiu-jitsu so you shouldn't. be missing a jiu-jitsu session to lift. weights um so i don't do i do probably i. train jiu-jitsu every day and i lift. three to four times a week um i feel. like lifting seven days a week for me is. is too much and the lifting takes a lot. of energy when you do like hard lifts. like that um but my idea is if you want. to get good at jiu jitsu do jiu jitsu. and if you want to be bigger and. stronger lift weights and uh and eat. food and um.

i i generally don't go super heavy when. i lift you start putting crazy weights. then start tearing muscles and stuff um. so i usually do moderate weights with a. with a very high rep rep range like four. sets of 20 with a drop set at the end to. fatigue the muscles break the fibers and. grow. okay so. four sets of 20 that's interesting so. that that's more for endurance and raw. strength yeah and also i think. close to the competition i'll pick the. intensity up and while there's no real. way to get significant gains in vo2 max.

i think that lifting and just getting. used to mentally redlining. gets me kind of in competition shape. because a lot of times in jiu jitsu the. guys i'm training with. they're not on a technical level where. they can. physically exhaust me to the point where. i feel like i'm gonna die. but uh i get most of that like when i'm. wrestling because i'm not as efficient. in wrestling so i get a lot more tired. and lifting when you do like if you do. like four sets of 20 leg press to squat. and you go back and forth like you're.

like about to die at the end and. i think i feel like gets me in the. mental habit of redlining before. competition but does muscle help you. it's like the actual mass of muscle. like this so i think being stronger will. always help in a combat will always help. yeah. to some degree it's not going to be. to a degree where. it overrides efficiency but i think that. they can't help being strong or can't. hurt being stronger well there's a bunch. of people who believe depending on the. sport that um.

strength can quickly become uh. that have detrimental effects to. efficiency. i like it i agree with that certain kind. of. i mean if strength is purely is like. very cleanly purely applied to the exact. movements of the sport so in judo the. explosiveness you need is very difficult. to replicate in any kind of way except. by doing judo yeah i mean. for us uh. you always have to understand there's. only so much technique that can overcome. a certain amount of strength like if we.

all try to fight a silverback gorilla. it's going to kill us. um but that that being said um i do. think that. like for example heavyweights are. usually the least technical because they. rely on their size and strength to beat. smaller people um but i think that if. you stay with this with the discipline. of doing everything very precise and i. train with a lot smaller people most of. the time so. i get out of the habit of using uh using. my strength um i think if you're very. precise with the way that you train i. think that the extra size and strength.

can help you quick question how would. you fight a silverback gorilla. i mean is that which animal do you think. you can actually defeat that would be. impressive that most people would say. you can't. you know i actually. i don't have an an answer to this i. thought you got to say i want i want i. want to say that me and john had like a. four hour discussion on this one time. i'm like what would win bear or gorilla. and he went like this whole dissertation. about how like jaguar spin underneath.

and like baron barambolo silverbacks and. kill them and like rip their rip their. artery and their legs out it was amazing. i guess okay so before we talk about. strength john let me ask you what. do you think people would be surprised. by if two animals faced one of them. would win and people wouldn't predict. that. so they would be surprised by the. effectiveness of certain animal at. fighting. in the whether it's in the forest in the. jungle so let's. slow down. so there's two animals of different. species fighting and most people would.

pick. so for example the lion gets a lot of. credit for some reason i'm not exactly. sure why the king of the jungle. well. you know a lot of people told me that. the lion. for example the tiger can. be a lion yeah this is one of those. age-old debates. in grappling in fighting it feels like. some animals use. teeth. and some use. other parts of their body also like bear.

actually i don't even know how they. they have extraordinarily powerful. and long claws and in addition they're. powerful biters as well so i wonder and. the same with the silverback. i don't know how much there i love that. we're having this discussion. we need joe rogan for this discussion i. think so yeah i think so um. so. uh. your your question has gone in in about. five different so it started with. strength uh and let's go back there. which is.

do you think. for for an athlete and you just let's. let's stick to grappling. uh do you think strike strength is. helpful or detrimental uh i've always. believed that. two things. will. create whatever. whatever effectiveness you have in. grappling those are. your skill set and your attributes. and the best athletes are those who. excel in both. um. don't kid yourself if someone gets twice. as strong.

by some kind of magic potion they're. going to be a more effective grappler if. someone gets. twice the level of endurance that they. had previously they will be a more. effective grappler these physical. attributes have a very important outcome. on the uh sorry a very important effect. upon the outcome of matches. um it's always a good thing to be. stronger it's always a good thing to. have better endurance it's always a good. thing to have better balance or whatever. other attribute you throw out there um.

gordon's point was okay everyone agrees. on that but there's a problem in order. to build these things. you have to carve into other elements of. your training regimen and then it. becomes which becomes more important. increases in strength or increases in. skill. there comes a point where investing. in strength training starts to get. diminishing returns. i can't tell the difference between. someone who bench presses 300 pounds on. the mat versus someone who bench presses.

400 pounds but that's a big difference. that's a hundred pound difference and. for an athlete to go from bench pressing. 300 pounds to vulnerable that would. require a great deal of. of training effort and focus. but if i can't tell the difference when. i grapple and then why bother okay once. you get to a certain strength level. it doesn't really help that much to go. from a 400 pound bench press to a 450. pound bench press at that stage you're. really getting a diminishing returns on. your training investment.

now skills on the other hand. experience far far less in terms of. diminishing returns every new skill. you develop. can translate. very very well into big increases in. performance look at the example of gary. tonen that we talked about earlier. investments in guillotine. made a significant improvement in his. effectiveness in matches and led. directly to some of his most important. victories.

um. but if he had invested the same amount. of training time in developing a bench. press that was 25 pounds more than. previously that would have had no. outcome no. influence on the outcome of those. matches. so the question always becomes yep. everyone acknowledges that these. physical. uh. attributes are important and everyone. understands that becoming stronger or. fitter is a desirable thing and every. athlete should work on them the. interesting question becomes okay at. what point.

do you start to say. i'm not going to be helped by further. increases. in in strength training or endurance. training. and my point with my athletes is in the. overwhelming majority of cases. if there's any kind of doubt invest more. heavily in skill training than attribute. training especially once you get to a. certain level on the attributes well the. interesting thing that i think you. should account for with strength. training. is um.

there's instagram. there's the world. it's uh it seems to be more fun. to build muscle mass it's like an. addiction yeah people have. there's also economic elements too like. most people i i hate to say this but. it's true. most people are more concerned with. image. than function and. it's hard to sell. a fighter or a jiu-jitsu athlete who. doesn't look like one looks like fedor.

yeah it's it's a tough sell now you can. do it in fighting and jujitsu because. ultimately it's about whose hand is. raised at the end of the match and you. could even use it as a selling point you. can be. a guy that doesn't look like you should. be winning but he is winning that is a. selling point but if you give most. people a choice between. looking like arnold schwarzenegger and. winning matches versus looking like. fader and winning matches most people. will select i wish i'd rather look like. arnold schwarzenegger and so most. athletes feel almost like an economic.

compulsion to be in good shape and in. order to advance their marketability. yeah nike's not gonna sponsor fedor or. tank abbott. yeah tank habit. no. fatal maybe. but yeah yeah we need at the very top. there's there's something about. aesthetic. like image of strength and power it's. also an also a personal thing if you. look at yourself in the mirror do you. like what what you see you know what i. mean yeah do you find yourself. attractive you know what can you do to.

make you look better and i think to me. to me it was something one of the. reasons i work out it's also for that. well i'm sure if fedor looks in the. mirror he says i look damn good today. it's also a genetic factor some people. you know it's harder for them i mean. yeah. all right so the question on training. you guys john gordon trained. often three times a day every day. um georgia had a different.

like um. a different approach to training so like. what what is uh for no i don't mean that. in a kind of the opposite or something. it's just not every single day so. and obviously you are. legitimately at the very top. uh in terms of performance. accomplishment in in the field so what. have you learned about. what it takes to train. to become not just the lead but the best. well i i um.

a lot of people when you say train they. they see training hard. i believe you need to be very constant. and very disciplined you need to train. but you don't need to train hard every. day that's what john taught me. um. for me is the nervous system sometimes i. feel if i. load it up too much it comes to a point. that you're. it's too much there is no no more. information that i can absorb. so.

uh. and i do believe that it's something. that you can train to your the capacity. your capacity of being able to learn of. absorbing certain thing. and uh i did a lot of volume of training. but when i when i was getting ready for. a fight especially during sparring day. i like to do it quick because my when i. fight it's five round of five minute. i don't like to to spend um. [Music]. an hour or two hours in a gym because.

i need to know how hard i can be. going for 25 minutes you know not for. two hours for 25 minutes. and my last fight. john and i we we. we were thinking of how could we. make me more. uh. of a better finisher you know more. opportunists. and then john i remember we when we were. training with gordon jake shill came. gary tony.

my round of grappling were different. than if i would be training for uh. abu dhabi you know for for ebi or like. some like in grappling the round or. longer but. in a mixed martial art fight. it's very rare that you're gonna spend. more than. four minutes or four minutes and a half. on the ground it's it's very unlikely i. mean it couldn't can happen but. so. i. do you remember we did the around three. minutes we did all the round i was doing.

were three minute round so it gives a. different. rhythm to the training it forced me to. be more opportunist. to be more of a finisher because i had. only three minutes to to do what i. needed to do. so if i if i see something i need to to. go for the kill right away i cannot be. too over patient you know what i mean. and it it serves me well in my last. fight and i think it that's a good. blueprint to follow. um when you're a mixed martial art.

fighter i if i would if. the result was great and i think. maybe i should have done that before it. was a great great idea that we had not. to do uh be very careful and doing too. much volume. yeah just try to get out and then try to. focus on finishing and getting getting. out of it i mean. to build up your foundation i believe. you need a lot of volume but yeah when. you get ready for competition you need. some to be something that replicate. what you're gonna be facing what are you.

what are we talking about what do you. think. like is there rest days five days a week. twice a day once a day is there any one. formula like that or no this this i. don't i do not believe in over training. i believe in under arrest. i believe. you can be under arrest and. people. always link that immediately to the. volume of their how much volume they. they train. which it could be something else how are.

you feeling um emotionally are you are. you having uh. problems uh personal problem do you ever. have a hard time sleeping because you. have a like someone died or yeah i don't. know like. you hold money you're broke or what like. you know what i mean it could be. anything. uh there's something that can affect you. psychologically or emotionally. that made it in a way that you cannot. sleep well because you're your stress. your cortisol level is high.

you're you know what i mean all these. factors need to be take taken in. consideration it's not only about the. volume of training people. always think. the volume of tr the training is not the. only thing. that can affect recuperation which is. not you know yeah he said to minimize. the amount of stress from all kinds of. factors it's a very stressful job to be. a professional. combat athlete whether you're a grappler. a boxer a kickboxer a fighter and you. need to be taking.

as a. into account. is it more or less stressful than. marriage just kidding. uh next question uh. um. so. i don't know how to ask this question. given what george just said but you're. training three times a day. and finishing and what what have you. learned about what what brings out the. best in you as as the elite level. grappler um so over the recent years. i've actually changed it up a little bit.

when i was. coming up through. from white to black belt. i felt that the volume was the most. important so it would be anywhere from. like three. to seven sessions a day. um. going from school to school from new. york to new jersey. and i think the volume was very. important to build the skills. where i just. didn't know how to move my body at. purple belt the way that i should um so. i think that building the skills.

is uh is super important i think that. early on volume is very important. now that i already have the skills built. i think that acquiring more knowledge is. the most important. so i find that if i do. so many sessions a day like if i do. three sessions a day. i feel sometimes by the third session. i'm just like so mentally like there's. just there's so much information that's. went through my head the first two. sessions that i feel like i'm not even. there mentally on the third session. so i feel like doing less volume now but.

having more mental clarity per session. is more important because i already have. the foundational skills acquired. so a lot of your training is almost like. just thinking. like learning a lot of it yeah so i'll. do like i mean our schedule has been. messed up since the pandemic because. henzo's got shut down and they were. using a french gym in puerto rico and. now we're using a french gym in our in. in austin but once we have our own. school we'll have a setup schedule where. i can pretty much just be there all day. long.

right now i do like a lifting session in. the morning and then i'll come in and. help teach. at henzo so i'm there mentally i'm. seeing what's going on and i'm playing. around with ideas in my head. and then i'm there physically and very. sharp mentally for the competition class. during the 1pm session and then after. that i'll go home i'll rest and get. ready for the next day. what have you learned on seeing all. these different athletes is there a. a universal rule that applies or is it. um athlete specifically uh.

first one thing you need to address is. that george and gordon play very. different sports with very different. athletic demands um gordon can be in. matches that range from anywhere from. six. minutes to. literally hours long. as a result uh the overall. uh pacing and intensity of matches is. massively different most obviously there. is no striking in gordon's sport. striking by its very nature is a much.

more explosive physical action than. grappliness grappling is primarily an. isometric. kind of sport based around isometric. tension and endurance. georgia sport is. does feature a significant amount of. isometric tension but. the majority of it is based around. explosion so the physical demands of the. two sports are radically different. in addition the time of application is. is radically different george raised a. very interesting point his matches seem.

long 25 minutes for a championship match. um but always understand that. a mixed martial arts fight at. championship level. if it goes the distance is really. five five minute matches each round. is a match in itself and that's exactly. how you're scored you're scored by who. wins the most matches over five matches. as a result the application of the. techniques especially the grappling. techniques has to be done at a certain.

pace as george pointed out realistically. the maximum application time you're. going to get in most situations is. somewhere between. 15 seconds and three minutes. even for a specialized grappler like. damien meyer there's still a significant. part of each round which is spent in. setup time to actually get the match to. the ground. um it's very likely that at some point. your opponent will stand up out of. grappling and you'll have to reinitiate. the entire process again so that even.

for specialized grapplers you might be. spending only. three minutes out of a five minute round. uh. on the ground. and as a result you've got to get your. work done. in a very short time frame. gordon ryan. once it goes to the ground and it can go. to the ground because he chooses to sit. to the ground. may spend the entire match in ground. positions. um. as a result the matches have completely. different pacing and completely.

different physical demands and the. preparation that the two athletes go. through will reflect that. uh. if george st pierre in training for. mixed martial arts becomes fatigued to a. point. where he's no longer physically. effective and able to defend himself the. consequences for that and mma training. can be very deep indeed. okay if you make a mistake in mixed. martial arts because you're fatigued and. tired and you take a full power. roundhouse kick to the head. that's some deep consequences a grappler.

doesn't have to face that you can be. completely exhausted and grappling and. just sit in the bottom of the mountain. just practice just survival skills we. just don't get submitted from bottom out. and that can still be an effective. training session. complete and utter physical breakdown of. fatigue. can be. can end an athlete's career in mixed. martial arts. the consequences of training through. fatigue and mma are. potentially very deep and very. disturbing. the consequences of training through.

complete physical exhaustion and. grappling aren't really that severe okay. you just tap whenever there's a problem. just tap. um. and so they're very very different. sports in the way you you prepare for. them. um and a grappling. athlete like gordon ryan we can take. many more liberties with physical. exhaustion and the amount of hours a day. you spend in training than you could. with a mixed martial arts athlete like. uh exhaustion as a.

as a framework of learning so like from. a place of exhaustion. is there any benefit do they you want. you said being at the bottom of mouth. sort of understanding jiu-jitsu or. grappling somehow deeper because you're. physical absolutely absolutely because. then the only thing you have left in. your favor is your technique and then. you'll see how technical you are in. addition you'll get to explore realms. inside your mind that we don't spend a. lot of time in and you'll learn a lot. about yourself and your ability to.

endure which will. have uh. potentially great benefits in similar. situations and matches yeah there's uh i. mean for me for a recreational person. getting. exhaustion allows you the great benefit. to experience what it feels like to. really get dominated. at an even greater frequency than you. otherwise would. and that there's something there there's. some animalistic thing that's very. unpleasant. and then afterwards it takes you to a. nice to a place of.

like um humility and. and you get it forces you to rethink. life in positive ways. there's something about dominance it. gives me if you get dominated a few. times you can uh rationalize it somehow. you say okay well i've screwed this up. but when you're exhausted and you have. to do like 30 minutes or 40 minutes or. an hour of just being domi over and over. and over being submitted. it uh i don't know it's a very good.

process for. for other avenues of life i find. i can't explain why because i'm i'm i'm. uh driving home. crying afterwards listening to bruce. springsteen but afterwards. you this. afterwards somehow you can think clearly. you can see clear about what is the. right path through life in all walks of. life like relationships work but also. the grappling. actually the grappling is the hardest. one to see what you have to do.

it clarifies other avenues the humility. it removes the bullshit. it's like we see. the world through some kind of fog and. it just removes it and now you can see. things clearly i don't know what that is. i think i think it's important like you. mentioned to push yourself like. sometimes. to see. how far you can go because sometimes you. you can go further than what you think. and it can boost your confidence you. know you can push yourself through a. certain limit.

and maybe you thought your limit were. was before that point and you pushed to. it. but. like john just mentioned. it's a risky thing to do in. striking because if you're exhausted. you're gonna get brain damage. and grappling it's. you know you tap if something wrong but. you can do it also in strength. conditioning i like to run track i do it. all the time and track and fill. it it helps me to. to to know myself better i think it's. important so it's a good point uh.

it's like it's like the scrimmage. wrestling rounds we do it's like you. know if you stop moving. that you're gonna get scored on and you. know in your mind like there's no. mechanical reason. why i am why i should give up a score. here. but you're so exhausted that you're like. oh man this is terrible if i if i stop. moving i'm a pussy. if i don't stop move if i don't stop. moving i'm going to be twice as. exhausted when we actually do stand up. so it's an interesting game you have to. play inside your mind it's your pride. very often that that.

keep you. that keep you. sharp you know what i mean because you. just want to lay down and beat it. because you're completely exhausted you. know. what do you think uh is the connection. john between this ego pride thing. martial arts and actual violence in our. with our ancestors. do you think. you ever plug into that you think. there's echoes of something going on. there or like you mentioned you have. flaws and demons.

is it. deep in there somewhere do you think. we're struggling with those demons. yeah. you'll need to patch up your question a. little bit though it's going in several. different directions wow that was. not only am i being dominating jiu jitsu. i mean dominating in interviewing no no. no no no no no no no. like okay now we interview you yeah but. you you went down the evolution. i mean do you think. do you um. i don't mean just the line between what. is what is martial arts and what is.

violence i mean there there seems to be. a gray area. that connects us to. the the evolutionary ancestors. absolutely yeah yeah i mean i i think. there's a deep. recognition in all of us. that. um and this is. the evidence for this is is so easy to. uh to see in in daily life um. if you're walking down the street. and suddenly you hear a commotion and. two people are fighting.

you will see. literally everyone on that street stop. whatever they're doing. and watch the fight. humans. are fascinated. by violence. and you've got to ask yourself why and. of course it's a recognition. that for a significant part of our. evolutionary history. violence was one of the most important. elements. in human existence. as much as we curse it as much as we.

talk badly of it um. the juxtaposition between humans social. nature and their their need to for each. other to get along and to express. love amongst the. the various members of a given community. there are. disputes between humans that can't be. resolved and ultimately. throughout history violence has been the. number one method of. conflict resolution. um.

for better or for worse and there's a. recognition in all of us that. this is where we come from. and there's a reason why. combat sports have this. thing where. people will watch them and they might. even be repulsed by them but they find. it difficult to take their eyes from it. and. [Music]. i do believe that most combat athletes. carry that sense. of their. even if it's on a subconscious level.

this kind of. belief that. this is who we are um george you use the. word pride and i believe that's a big. part of it i believe that. um. most. humans have this sense of self-worth and. pride which they're willing to fight for. and uh if it gets crossed by someone. else they're willing to stand that. some people will stand more early and. some people could be pushed further back. but everyone's got that line. beyond which they won't be pushed.

and there's some kind of deep. recognition in all of us that we have. that somewhere within us no matter how. hard we try to bury it or what have you. and that's why i believe there will. always be this eternal. interest in combat sports. um. now. i don't believe that most people today. have any kind of respect for. unrestricted violence or. non-consensual violence. um i think most people most good people.

are repulsed by that now i'm. i'm sure that as humanity. improves out into the future that will. become more and more widespread. but that's not to say we we can't. exercise these these. old evolutionary demons inside of us and. um. and. sometimes there are just disputes. between different people different. cultures different nations where. ultimately it's going to come to. into into a shoving match and that will.

degenerate further into violence there's. always going to be. a need for humans to be able to. to uh express themselves. through violent methods and to use. physical force to get to their their. goals and objectives. um. our. our need as humans is always to find a. balance between. the two forces of conflict and. cooperation. we need cooperation because humans. isolated from each other.

more or less helpless and useless. in order to. advance human communities need to build. and grow. and so that sense of cooperation. occurs in most of our daily lives. but there will also be irresolvable. conflicts where physical force has to be. used to form a resolution and so most. human beings find themselves. swinging like a pendulum between. conflict and cooperation. and. and that is something which.

really gives birth i think to combat. sports because sorry. well i really have to ask you about this. then there's a guy in harvard. uh named richard rangham and there's a. lot of people that believe this he wrote. this book that um. basically there's a lot of people. studying is what happened how do we get. from apes to humans like what was the. magic thing right a lot of people. attributed to fire and ability to cook. meat. there's a lot of different theories. so.

he actually um. his theory. how do i describe this is basically that. that the beta males one. that the the. the. apes that were able to cooperate. so you you the way you develop. cooperation is that there's a big bad. leader. that uh the the alpha male. that you can only. um knock off their throne if you.

cooperate and so we built big tribes. that just excelled the cooperation by. practicing the overthrowing the leader. and so. and anytime an alpha male would rise up. they would get we would we would uh. develop our skill further and further of. cooperation. and so we're all just beta males uh the. descendants of beta males that's his. kind of theory that cooperation is. fundamental and it's so distinct to the. the rest of the. neighboring animal kingdom.

so fascinating i i wonder what you think. about this tension of violence and. cooperation how important is this. cooperation to the core of yeah uh. if you you can look at it in the uh in a. given training room um. jujitsu and mixed martial arts is solo. sports a solo athlete steps into the. cage or steps onto the mat. but all of your preparation is done in a. cooperative training environment with. many peers and. as much as it's an individual sport.

all of your preparation is done as part. of a group. um. there's a sense in which that's. an interesting metaphor for humanity. itself everything we do in life we do. alone but we grow up in this given. community and and what have you. um. with regards to the whole. alpha male beta male thing um. humans are. it's true this fellow is correct we you.

know. most. primates do have very strongly defined. alpha males who. rule the roost and determine the entire. direction of the um. uh. of of. the community they build around. themselves. humans on the other hand. don't have. an alpha male in that strict biological. sense of someone who's responsible for. the next generation dominates all the.

female population etc. physically dominates but we do on the. other hand have our own version of alpha. males as far as we have political and. sociological leaders who have a. disproportionate impact on the direction. of a community. so was the cooperation allowed us to. to have a greater scale of hierarchy. with the alpha male on top or the alpha. creature on top yeah yeah.

no that's a fascinating theory. okay in in nature were were very weak as. a species so we needed to cooperate. cooperate in order to. to evolve that i think. made us uh the. top of the food chain if you look at um. humanity in in nature. really the two things that seem to. more than anything else determine. whether or not a given human community.

will be. successful in a predatory world on. numbers and technology. okay the more your numbers increase and. then the higher the technology of the. weapons and support systems you have. around you the more successful you'll be. in a predatory world um. so it's not clear that just. killing off the idea of an alpha male. was the the single biggest thing. the rise of technology uh and the growth. of community. after the imposition of language these.

are other things that would have been. very very important factors and and. humanity's rise. george you made an interesting point if. you look at humans. just the raw material of humans we're. we're fucking pathetic. in a predatory animal kingdom we're just. the absolute bottom of the food chain. we don't have a single. effective. weapon other than better than average. endurance that's about it. but you put us in a community. who can talk to each other with language.

and give us the time. to come up with technological advances. such as metals. and suddenly a human. will go from. no combat effectiveness in the animal. kingdom to a a human armed with a simple. metal tip spear can kill. damn near any animal in the uh. in the animal kingdom and working as a. group. i'll beat your silver back you know how. oh i'll fight him in a deep water pool. because he cannot swim so i don't have.

to touch him. you'll drown and i i can't get him into. the pool you know why because someone. told me because if we live in a. community someone told me that. information so i know he passed it on to. me. yeah. he taught you. well you have to convince him too. you have to somehow convince him to join. you in the pool which is very difficult. yeah yeah exactly it's a very problem. very very difficult um. from a. technical perspective john you've looked. at.

mixed martial arts fighting in general. and grappling what's the difference. between fighting and grappling. that's something i'd love to. ask all of you maybe john you can start. like um well uh. when you talk about fighting you mean. unrestricted. uh mma tough time fighting yeah well. this is funny you said unrestricted mma. type mma type fighting so there's. there's there's stream fighting yep yeah. there's mma fighting and then there's. grappling that's really the sport of. grab you're saying okay what's the. difference between mma and grappling yes.

okay um see that would have been a much. better question yes um well the uh uh. the single. when you talk about grappling you're. talking about jujitsu rules or. yeah i mean you could maybe also mention. different rule sets that somehow. fundamentally chan challenge that. changed the sport you know. in the sport of mixed martial arts. uh. you've got two. ways to inflict damage on the human body. you've you've got kinetic energy which.

is done through striking. kicking knees elbows fists. and you've got. isometric tension used along the lines. of. lever and fulcrum. which can be used for strangulation and. joint braking. in grappling you lose one of those. you're no longer allowed to hurt your. opponent with kinetic energy you can do. it accidentally through a throw but. you're not allowed to just. you know knock someone out with a throw. in most grappling spots it can happen. but it's relatively rare and it's it's.

not encouraged by the rule set. so um cyborg with uh. yeah he got close um uh. so. there's a sense in which in mixed. martial arts you got twice as many. problems to deal with. and. and they occur. in. a much shorter time frame the single. biggest difference between grappling. technique as a weapon. in human combat versus striking.

technique is time. grappling technique takes a huge amount. of time to apply. okay. the great advantage of grappling. technique is certainty of outcome once. you get there. it takes a huge amount of time to. set up a takedown. physically take them down. work their way work your way towards a. dominant position culminating in your. opponent's back and then apply a. stranglehold that's a long chain of. events. as opposed to.

a strong punch or kick which can take a. quarter of a second an application from. start to finish and the match is over. um. and so. there's a sense in which uh grappling is. is. it's. it's fighting for the patient and the. calculating. whereas striking. is much more for. in this short time frame where. everything gets done and. in the blink of an eye there's a sense.

also in which grappling is a much more. forgiving sport you can make a terrible. mistake. end up in a terrible position and still. fight your way out and win. in mixed martial arts it's. much much less forgiving. if you get hit and stunned your chances. of recovery are minimal you're going to. get swarmed on and unless it's right at. the end of the round you it's very very. hard to recover from getting hit and. swarmed on. um.

so there's a sense in which. the biggest difference between them is. time for application of technique. in mixed martial arts it's incredibly. unforgiving in terms of time even the. smallest error can have the deepest. consequences. in grappling you can make massive errors. and still come back and win. um. grappling will typically be won. in a much higher percentage case by the. more skilled and conditioned grappler. whereas there is.

much more of what they call a punches. chance. in mixed martial arts where. there's a much higher likelihood of a. lesser athlete defeating a greater. athlete in mma than there is in. grappling simply because of time of. application of the techniques even the. smallest period of inattention in mma. and the match is over gordon ryan could. fall asleep for 30 seconds. have his opponent mounted on and wake up. and finish him five minutes later it's. not going to happen in mma.

okay so the the stakes so much higher. you could do a lot of damage in a very. small amount of time and just the. dynamic the temporal dynamics of how. things happen is very different. everything you'll see will be a. reflection of that then you go further. into things like rule sets. in the sport of grappling if gordon ryan. comes out and sits down. in the middle of the mat his opponent. must follow him to the ground and engage. in mixed martial arts. if you come to the center of the cage. and sit down. the other guy can just walk away from.

you they're completely. oriented in different directions. grappling is ground-centered mma is. typically standing centered at the. beginning of every round you have to. start standing again if i disengage from. a ground grappling situation stand up. and walk away from my opponent my. opponent must follow me up to the feet. in grappling it's the exact opposite if. i sit to the ground my opponent must. follow me to the ground it's written. into the rule set and so one is. inherently ground oriented and one is.

inherently standing oriented so it's. more it's more difficult to dictate. where the fight happens in mixed martial. arts yes you have to be able to impose. where the fight is whereas in grappling. you can simply choose it. so. george what is uh your sense of the the. difference in terms of how you. approached it. uh between the two sports so you also. are a student of wrestling and grappling. so in preparing for fights. what parts of grappling purely the sport. that you have to leave behind.

well i i uh. i'm very lucky i had the opportunity to. i i trained with i consider the best. mentor trainer i ever ever had and i. have. some the best grapplers that i can train. with they were they were there to help. me through my career. so. for my training is. of course because i do not dedicate as. much time in one specific area it's hard.

to be. you know. a world-class athlete and that in in. only one particular area always. for me. like the idea to be more well-rounded to. be very competent in every of those. areas striking grappling uh. takedowns and and all those areas then. being just. very good at one. and not as good at as as others you know. because i like the idea that. it gives me more option when i fight.

someone. i can. mold myself to become the perfect. nemesis to. that person better if i'm more. well-rounded. if i do not have those well-rounded. skill. i don't have that option you know. you have less tools to work with less. technology. what about you gordon what um. you know what do you think is very. distinct about grappling in the way you. approach it versus fighting i think most.

of it was covered but i think that. though the one one of the big things is. the fact that when you're looking at mma. you have a pretty general agreed-upon. and unified rule set where. if you look at ufc versus bellator there. they have slight differences in the. rules maybe um but it's pretty much the. same thing whereas in grappling you have. ebi rules then you have adcc rules you. have ib gf rules you have no time limit. rules. and. each rule set will play to the skills of. different athletes.

if you have if you do adcc rules. it generally is slightly biased towards. wrestlers or if they can stall to the. overtime. and then hit a takedown in the overtime. and not really do any jujitsu but they. score a takedown they're going to win. whereas if you have like an ebi for. example you have to finish the guy in. regulation or you start in a jujitsu. position with your back taken or. in an arm bar. so i think that you have. certain rule sets that play in the favor. of certain athletes um and certain.

athletes can win in one rule set but. then they just have no chance of winning. in the other like when i fought yuri the. first time in ebi i beat him in ebi the. chances of me beating him on that night. under an adcc rule set were probably. pretty low um when i fought leandra lowe. under an adcc rule set he beat me that. day but the chances of him beating me in. the same day in an ebi rules that were. like next to zero. so i think it's interesting that. in mma you have one unified rule set. which have small differences but they're.

all generally the same. and in jiu jitsu you have a wide variety. of different rule sets that. have. biases towards. certain athlete skill sets you mentioned. andrew lowe. i gotta ask you again about adcc. you have lost very very few times in. your career. uh one. i mean this is the same is true for. george and uh the only person who has. ever submitted you is felipe pena black.

belt yeah at blackboard. he is a dcc world champion multiple time. ibj jjf guillotine world champion. you may face some adcc or elsewhere in. the future. um. will you beat him. uh yes i mean i have to say yes right. but uh. i fought him initially when i first got. my black belt that i fought him a year. later so 2016 and 2017 um and despite. what people remember about the match.

and whenever people talk about it like. oh yeah the guy who strangled gordon but. no one remembers that the first match. was like a 45 minute war. um and then the second match with the. full 20 minutes of adcc and if i didn't. get my back taken in like the last. minute and a half two minutes it would. have went into an overtime that could. change the outcome of the match. i think that if you look at felipe's. performances especially nogi. specifically nogi since then it looks. like he's almost gotten worse whereas. since that match.

uh in 2017. uh the only match i lost after that was. against vinny magalesh by my points and. uh. i'm on like a 55. match win streak um over the course of. four years um winning all the major. tournaments nogi and uh felipe since. that match i think is like five and two. uh nogi. and he's lost his last two match matches. one was convincingly where he was. dominated by andre and one was by. submission so i don't think that he's.

progressed nearly as fast if anything he. looks like he's worse than he was when. he beat me in 2017 based on his previous. performances. that being said i know he's going to. come in. training very hard for this one and he's. going to be prepared but i just don't. think. that. in terms of technical ability he's. anywhere near my level and. he was much bigger than me. both times we fought um the first time. he was much bigger than me the second. time he was one-way class above me. so now there's not going to be an.

advantage in. technicality and it's also not going to. be a physicality advantage so i think. he's just going to be beat everywhere. this is uh this is a good example of the. scientific response to a um. to a comment to a question yeah so he's. not um. that that's a match you're you're not. deeply concerned with. in terms of the set of opponents because. you have and you will be facing a lot of. really difficult.

that's actually in my opinion one of the. easier matches because of the fact that. we're relatively the same size. um if i show up at 230 pounds like a lot. of the guys are. 260 270 plus so that extra weight does. make a difference i think out of that. entire bracket. felipe is probably going to be the one. of the easiest matches because of the. fact that i can easily take him down and. if i take him out i'm going to pass his. guard whereas i feel like the other guys. because they're so much bigger and. they're very cagey. it may take me a while to actually.

take them to the ground. and get on top of them and i think it. may be they may be longer drawn out. matches because of the fact that they're. so much bigger and stally it's hard to. take them down but felipe is relatively. my size and as wrestling is atrocious so. and i've already taken them down in the. last adcc match so i'm pretty sure i can. just easily put them down pass them and. then finish them. well i'm not sure what response i was. expecting but uh that was. that was phrased beautifully um.

we talked about the thiago alves fight. that george had. and john barred up in class yesterday. i believe but the point is we're talking. about wrestling and i think that that's. a fascinating fight that um. there's an incredible display of. strategy of skill of heart. uh george could you maybe. talk about that by john maybe too what. lessons you gained from that fight. go ahead it was your fight not mine. well oh maybe it also tell what happened.

in terms of your injury i think they're. around oh yeah um. so i was fighting tiago alves and uh in. the third round i um. tear my adductor muscle. um it happened when i was on the bottom. and he i think he pushed my knee down. tried to pass my guard and i heard a pop. i don't know what i think you were going. for an umba. you were on his back you switched to. armbar and he cleared the leg by pushing. on your leg and you went in with the. pre-existing injury and it tore. yes and and it it it got worse and and i.

heard a pop i don't know what it was but. i know it really hurt so i came back. standing up and. there's a. famous video one that goes on the. internet about when i go back in the. corner and i tell my coach i'm like i. don't know what it is i think i tore my. my my adductor muscle and greg jackson. is like i don't care hit him with your. groin. i was very worried because i wasn't pain. but i didn't i did not know what what i.

had. so i didn't know the gravity of it and. it it plays on your mind so but i had to. bite down my mouthpiece and finish the. fight you know i knew i was ahead on the. on the scorecard and now i need to. finish finish strong so what was your. strategy there in terms of strikes in. terms of wrestling so he's exceptionally. difficult opponent to take down yeah. well at first i i i knew i would had a. good jab a good you know to stay always.

from the outside you know fight him from. the outside and use my footwork because. he was like a tank he was much bigger. and much. stronger than me. and uh. i didn't want never wanted to stay in. front of him so it was all the way out. or all the way in and when i was coming. all the way in it was with my uh. proactive or reactive takedown. where i. myself initiated the takedown by uh. using a distraction like a jab to make. it is.

and goes up and then i go with a. single double leg. or uh to react like baiting him for him. to come hit me and then. while he's coming to hit me i go change. level and. that's the way i like to take my. opponent down you know some guys for. example like like uh cabbie for example. he is very good at at. bringing his opponent to defense and use. chain wrestling to to take his opponent. down i find that for me for myself i. specialize more into.

explosive take down in the center of the. actagon because i found it. more economical for me. what did you see you were you're. commenting john about the wrestling. those that was quite interesting i mean. also can you generally comment on the. fact that george saint pierre who don't. i don't think you wrestled. i wrestle i started saying i was 19. years old but i wrestled some very good. russian guys so they took me underneath. their wing and but. my ability to cover distance.

come from karate does not come from. wrestling wrestling is how i finish once. i get the leg how i finish the takedown. so the the timing and the movement and. the explosion required for the squad. yeah. i think an important distinction to make. here is um one which. george. uh made throughout his career and i. believe george you were the greatest. innovator in mma history. with regards to this. and this is uh.

the creation of what george calls shoot. boxing which is the amalgamation of. striking technique in george's case. mostly karate because that was his. martial arts background. into grappling and in particular. takedowns. uh. when most people say. so-and-so has better wrestling. in mixed martial arts. you have to be very careful what they. mean by this there are many highly. credentialed wrestlers.

in the early days of mixed martial arts. who went in and truly struggled to hit a. takedown. now these are very very good wrestlers. who in a wrestling match would easily. put down their opponent. but. in a striking situation where the ranges. are completely different and the setups. are entirely different the stances are. different even the. the overall conditions are different. you're no longer wearing shoes people. underestimate just what an impact it is.

for a wrestler to take the shoes off you. lose like 20 of your forward drive the. minute you take off the shoes. all of these make massive differences. in whether or not you're going to be. able to even make contact with an. opponent for a takedown. as george pointed out the true value of. wrestling in mma is finishing the. takedown once you've established contact. but that's only about 20 percent of the. action of a of a mixed martial arts. takedown 80 percent of it is an.

understanding range rhythm set up. opportunity. etc etc. and. that's not part of wrestling at all you. even the overall conditions are. completely different in the sport of. wrestling you start at very close range. in a very bent over stance and you're. expected to wrestle for in international. styles for three minutes at a time. um now suddenly you're completely. upright. uh. and. you're not wearing shoes all the. conditions the the the rhythm and speed.

of it is different the counters are. completely different it's just an. entirely different animal. and so george was an early recognizer of. this. and started to put the emphasis on. direct training for shoot boxing. in addition to wrestling so he practiced. with very good wrestlers in the montreal. wrestling club. just the sport of wrestling and that's. what made him very good at finishing. takedowns but it was in a shoot box in.

training. which he himself largely developed. remember george started at a time when. mma was pretty damn young. and um. he we were when when you entered the. sport of mixed martial arts george it. wasn't even allowed on tv. like it was completely banned it was in. his country it was physically banned uh. they had to fight on indian reservations. and oh and this is way back in the wild. west days of mma. and so as a as a young developing. athlete he had to.

more or less do this by himself if you. ever want to hear some incredible. stories talk about teenage george st. pierre. had a coach who used to make him. put on boxing gloves now he was 16 17. years old and just put him on a hardwood. floor against a professional boxer who. was in his. late 20s at the peak of his career and. he said george you're not allowed to. punch you just got to take him down. while he tries to knock you out. and there was a it was crazy like. darwinism yeah he was like.

it's like you're gonna you're gonna. adapt or you're gonna die. literally and he could have been very. bad but it turns out to be great it. admitted. but there's a sense here in which. people think oh you know what determines. your takedown ability in mma is your. wrestling skill. that. your wrestling skill will determine your. finishing ability on takedowns but. there's so much more to it than that. um. whenever people say you know what what.

are the broad. elements that determine the outcome of a. mixed martial arts fight okay on the. broadest possible level i always give. the same three things. the athlete who can dominate the pace. of the match. the athlete who can dominate the. direction of the match and the athlete. who can dominate the setups will win the. vast majority of fights they're in. those three things. the direction the pace and the setups.

you dominate all three of those. you're going to win 90 of the matches. you're in. um george could always dominate the. direction of the fight because he could. stop the other guy taking him down. and he could impose his own takedowns at. any point in a match so whether it went. to ground or whether it stayed standing. was always up to him. george had the most sophisticated array. of setups into takedowns. that i've personally ever witnessed. the whole distinction between reactive.

and proactive takedowns came very early. in george's career and he excelled in. both most people tend to favor one or. the other. most athletes have a very hard time. imposing. their setups on an opponent and as a. result they have to use. the cage as a crutch for their for their. setups where they just pull someone. towards the cage and then put them down. on the cage george is one of the very. few people who was equally good against. the cage or in the open and could do so.

in both proactive and reactive. situations. and the scary thing is that as good as. all of you saw him look in the octagon. anyone who knows george. as a coach will tell you he was twice as. good as that in the gym where he would. often go against people's several weight. divisions above himself i could sit here. all day i won't name names but i always. laugh when people say oh this is the. greatest.

uh pound for pound guy of all time and. i've personally seen george. take that guy down and crush him in the. gym and i can't say anything because. it's rude to talk about that in public. because it's just training but i've seen. george go with people all the way up to. light heavyweights some of the greatest. names in the history of the sport put. them down. advanced position on the ground and. dominate them in training it's it's what. he did during that time i uh george i. gotta say i deeply admire. many of the things i saw you do not just. in the octagon but.

in training as well it's um. the the the impact that you had. on. uh. the degree to which. takedowns where we use this sport was. absolutely inspirational that's why one. of one of the reasons why i always say. you're one of the only athlete i ever. met who taught me. more than than i taught you because you. opened my eyes to a whole new world of. of shoot boxing and how. i grew up in a time when uh you i was. laughing before when you talked about.

sugar ray leonard i was a kid watching. that match and. i grew up in a time where there was. boxing and there was kickboxing and then. i came to america and i learned. grappling and. this young man here was the innovator. when it came to the integration of the. two. well then i have to ask because george. sits here uncomfortably being. complimented. um. if george st pierre and khabib. nurmagomedov face each other in their. prime who wins. cool that's it very very loaded.

questions how yeah like what are the. different trajectories you see. okay how does each one win in your view. if one wins or the other one with what. happens interestingly they're actually. very similar in size despite the fact. that. george fought it welterweight and could. be fought at a lightweight if you. actually see them stand next to each. other they're of similar height khabib's. actually a little more thick set. yeah he's actually heavier than you. walking around um. george walked around most of his career.

between 188 and. 191 pounds. and so khabib actually would ironically. have. a kind of size and strength advantage uh. despite being in the lighter weight. division that's been the general trend. as mma. has grown is that athletes will come. further down and wait to make weight. divisions um. uh. i believe that george has the best. takedowns in history. uh in the open in the cage.

um khabib was his great strength was. using the fence. to facilitate takedowns. um. khabib's. other great strength was not only his. ability to take people down but to keep. people down for extended periods of time. both of them were. powerful strikers on the ground and. could do terrible damage to opponents. on the floor so. they're both very similar in that regard. khabib was mostly a.

puncher from the back george is mostly. an elbow from the front. but both of them could lay waste to. opponents. with strikes on the floor. um both of them were highly competent. with submissions on the ground there. weren't submission specialists in the. sense of someone like gordon ryan but. they were. certainly um. no slouches with submission holds. um. yeah it's just a fascinating idea so. it's almost like who gets the first take.

down yeah i do believe. that. they could probably stand up on each. other. i don't think either one of them would. be able to hold the other down for a. whole round. um both of them are notoriously. difficult people to hold down so i don't. think that whoever won the first date. and wins the match i don't think it's. like that. um i do believe that george would hold a. decisive advantage in striking and. distance management um the few times. that khabib did look shaky is.

when he. could be was either advancing forward. menacingly but when he had to. to fight moving backwards. there was a definite asymmetry between. his ability to fight going forwards. which is very good and his ability to. fight going backwards which was. noticeably. weaker. um george would often fight both. forwards and backwards and with thiago. elvis fight. most of the standing time yeah was was. going backwards. um.

that's. probably the the single biggest. difference between that two athletes and. skill level would be in the standing. position. um. on the ground uh. khabib slight edge and takedowns on the. fence george slight edge and takedowns. in the center. um ability to inflict damage on the. floor roughly equal ability to fight off. the back roughly equal. ability to stand up from bottom roughly. equal it's a very very hard match.

in terms of the biggest. difference in skill level is going to be. in a standing position and so it would. come down to. um that doesn't necessarily mean that. khabib would lose in the standing. position he might just push it to the. fence and just use match tactics where. he. kept the fight on the fence for. significant periods of time. and you can win rounds in that fashion. so it's a match that could go either way. both of them are uh absolutely the best. that you'll ever see i've always. believed the three greatest mixed.

martial artists i've ever seen in my. life were. george st pierre khabib nurmagomedov and. jon jones. the three of them have some interesting. similarities and differences. all three. beat every single person they ever faced. i i know john jones officially has a. loss by dq but no one believes that was. a loss um. uh george does have two losses but he. uh. defeated both athletes decisively uh in.

rematches gabe did it by having no. losses. interestingly all three athletes have at. least one match which is controversial. in terms of who won and who lost um. jon jones has had several matches which. could have gone either way on the. judge's scorecard khabib's uh. match against grayson thibault could. have gone either way uh george's match. with hendrix was could have gone either. way they all had matches that they won. which people would dispute the outcome.

so that was a similarity between the. three of them. um. all three of them. have had the ability. to dominate the direction of fights when. they want it to go down it goes down. when they don't want it to go down it. doesn't. um. that's why i put such a heavy emphasis. on that idea that a mixed martial arts. champion must be able to determine the. direction of a fight it's the single. most important attribute that they all. must have. um. as to which of the three.

is the best it's going to come down to. criteria. you you can't pull them apart. which answer you give as to which of. those three is the greatest of all time. will come down to the criteria that you. use. okay is it being undefeated. um. is it the amount of time was it the. quality of the opponents that they had. if you do it by quality of opponents i. think you probably have to give it to. george if you do it by. um uh measured dominance through not. being defeated and it has to go to.

compete. arguably you could say the same with jon. jones since his won. losses. by dq but then you could also say the. last three or four fights that john's. had haven't been the same measure of. dominance as as we saw previously so. ultimately. you've got those three guys in my. opinion and which one you choose will. come down to who it says more about who. you are as a viewer than it does about. the respective level of the athletes you.

could throw a blanket over them the. three of them are just that good and um. uh and which one you select will. probably say more about who you are as a. viewer than it does about them. as athletes. i i believe the best fighter the goat is. not even born. because. the generation. that is. present. benefit of a huge advantage. they have knowledge technology that we. didn't have before. and we had the the knowledge that the.

other generation did not have before. but. i believe the best the goat is not even. born yet as good as they are today i. think you. in sport where you can measure the. performance uh track and field. olympic lifting you can you know someone. is better than the other one because you. can measure the performance fighting. it's all subjective we always debate of. who would win. but. 10 the tendency in sport.

is that. performance get better i don't think. it's because the athlete necessarily get. better is because they have access to. better technology knowledge. and they learn from their predecessor. as long as that knowledge is transferred. forward. something tells me that the greatest of. all time lived a few thousand years ago. and it's forgotten some of the greatest. warriors like you imagine the kind of. grapplers we just the history didn't. record them. there could have been small tribes where.

they developed many ufcs and they've. developed the kind of things we you have. to think of like uh the gracies just a. small family was able to develop so much. so quickly i i often. as this this discussion with johnny i. think it's very important like to. mention i asked you very several times. like what would happen if we would take. a fighter of modern days facing the. champion of pancreation this is an. interesting question and you you brought. something incredible good point and and.

people don't don't realize it you know. yeah no i think um one of the great. tragedies of martial arts history is our. loss of. uh the historical records of pancration. like most of what we know was uh from. what i'm told is actually lost in the. fires of the library of alexandria and. we're left with only a pitiful amount of. information on uh pancreation managers. but what we do know is that there was a.

very. large. uh participation in the sport and that. it was. widely considered the most popular. sport in the ancient olympics and that. it was represented in the ancient. olympics for many hundreds of years plus. a long period of time before its. introduction into the ancient olympics. and so the development time. that it may have had would have been. very significant it. uh as far as we know most of the. development would have been in the major.

greek city states for. uh literally hundreds of years of. development um given its prestige as an. olympic sport then the best athletes. would have been doing it some of the. sharpest minds that we know of. in human history were involved in the. sport. um plato the great philosopher. was a pancreaticist in his youth in fact. his name plato is a nickname. platus is like plate it means broad or.

big guy like. the big guy and um. uh he spoke often about pain creation. and his written works. um imagine people with the intelligence. of plato. thinking about. grappling technique for hundreds of. years in the most popular olympic sport. of that time. significant numbers of people with. financial backing as city-states put. great prestige upon olympic success they. would have funneled athletes in.

bought in the best coaches and they had. that for many hundreds of years like. it's quite conceivable that the best. pancreasian athletes were of the. absolute first quality. and um uh it it's. it's so sad to think we'll never know. what was their skill level and. it's interesting to think about what. kind of techniques that developed. whether. there's stuff we haven't discovered yet. in class you were talking about the most. effective. takedown strategy in wrestling in.

collegiate wrestling so maybe let me ask. first because we offline talked about. this too. what is the highest percentage. submission in grappling overall you have. to go with the rare naked strangle. strangles from the back. if you look at most tournaments in most. rule sets. it has success across all rule sets um. all weight divisions. all body types it doesn't require any. kind of specific physical advantage such. as height.

in order to be effective. it works equally well in both fighting. and grappling um. it will work regardless of how. physically and mentally tough your. opponent is okay a heel hook is a very. high percentage technique in in modern. day competition but if your opponent. simply makes up his mind that he's not. going to tap and is willing to take the. physical damage. it won't result in the end of a match uh. a stranglehold by. contrast will always end the match.

regardless of your opponent's mental. toughness. so. um i believe it's fair to say that at. the end of the day the single most high. percentage. method of uh submitting people and. grappling is a rare naked strength so. when you look at an athlete maybe gordon. you can speak to this like what. what's the best uh you mentioned gary. with the guillotine. what's the best submission to really. invest in is it the rear nicky choke. to really invest your development like. understanding the entirety of the system. that leads into that.

i think that i mean you have to do them. all obviously but if i had like one. submission that i would only one. submission i could pick for the rest of. my life it would definitely be a rear. naked. can you explain maybe some of the actual. technical details of why that's the case. well as john spoke about they're. different in joint locks whereas. you don't have to tap you can just let. your leg break and then keep going with. the strangle there's there's no uh. there's none of that um and then it's. just an inherent.

advantage you have being behind someone. um whereas if you go for an armbar you. stop you start from top mount and you're. facing the guy and then you put them. down and you're not directly behind them. with leg locks you're facing the guy. whereas when you're on someone's back. you have them in a pin where you can. your chest to back you have a body. triangle and you you're pinning the guy. in place you can't explode out he can't. grease his way out most of the time. and there's an inherent advantage you. have being behind them due to the fact. that we're poorly set up to deal with. threats behind us. so would you say that's the most.

dominant position jiu jitsu like more. than mount. more than yeah. side control more than i think uh if you. look at most matches historically. most guys who get stuck in positions for. long amounts of time are guys that. they're back taken um if you get. an explosive guy from bottom mountain he. can bridge and he can off bound to you. and lock half guard maybe and then work. back to guard but someone locks a body. triangle on your back that's where you. see most guys getting pinned in place. for long amounts of time.

was uh was the body triangle like a well. understood thing. was that an invention at some point like. it's just as a system as a as a um. perhaps some of your your listeners can. correct me on this but i believe there. was a technique banned in judo called. doji main which involved crossing feet. or locking a triangle around the. abdominals from the back and it was. banned in judo i believe because. of intestinal injuries which occurred in. the early developmental days of of of.

judo. and. in the modern era when i first began. jujitsu body triangles were relatively. rare they were not a standard part of. class. um. and sometime around the late 1990s early. 2000s people started to realize hey this. is a stronger method of control. um. it. it greatly increases the amount of. control you have of your of your. opponent's hips and torso over regular. hooks. uh it's not for all athletes it's.

difficult for most people who are of. shorter thicker statue. to. employ on on on big people if your. opponent is very broadly built through. the stomach it's almost impossible to. apply. and so because it can't be applied by. all people it tends not to be taught. much at beginner level. and. so as a result it was always seen as a. kind of a specialist move for taller. athletes at a higher level of. competition rather than a broad-based.

move for everyone or every body type in. every class to employ so it just didn't. get emphasized that much but in top. level competition now i think you would. see that it's very apparent that the. vast majority of athletes whenever they. have the opportunity or a choice between. body triangle and regular rear mounts. the majority of modern athletes would. choose a body triangle. so we also had this conversation about. wrestling and maybe george you can. comment on like what's the uh the. highest percentage. not statistically speaking perhaps.

that's also interesting as john talked. about but just for you. in terms of mastery of the takedown. what's what's the best way to take down. a human being. in wrestling well i i. personally for me it depends. for every fighter are different they. they have a different set of skill. for me i. when i look someone. want to bring down a tree. a big strong high tree. he cut it from the base.

so. the legs that that's what we stand. on so it was to attack the leg but is it. single leg double leg is it we talked. about like uh well there's also the the. john smith low single. actually i don't even know if that's. applicable for jiu jitsu at all. you can use it but it runs the problem. with submission halls yeah it's it's not. impossible to use but without shoes and. in a situation where there's a whole. plethora of submission holds in the. scoring that.

it's a little more difficult to use you. know. it is interesting something being a high. percentage in terms of effectiveness. tells a story you're saying that every. athlete is different but. if it's more effective for most people. i mean it's interesting it's it's. interesting what john talked about is. that. the highest percentage thing. is actually. in collegial wrestling that he was. talking about is. on the defensive side so blocking your. takedown and spinning around to the to.

the back. so that's an interesting idea then also. there's all of these kind of going in. for a single and switching to a double. or. wizard position and doing knee tap like. there's all these kinds of combinations. that seem to be effective when you look. at the statistics and it seems like. there's maybe it's a scientific way of. thinking but it seems like there is some. conclusion to be drawn there oh yeah i. believe you need to the high percentage. move there's a reason why it works i. think it's.

it's made. for a bigger amount of people um. for example i i one of my main. strength. uh athletic strength is i'm i'm an. explosive person so i'll use technique. that are explosive if i get a single leg. my my one of my thing i like to do is to. go for the double power double but for. uh. someone else who got for example in a. single leg position maybe he likes. like body true better he's more a greco. guy like so he or he's a judo guy he's.

going to go for some something else so. but there is move that are i would say. like you just mentioned are universal. like statistically speaking they're. the highest percentage move that works. for pretty much everybody everybody. pretty much can do a an adequate jimmy. you know it's very easy. but it's not everybody that can lock a. triangle with their legs so. so those move like a rear naked choke a. dakajimi is the highest percentage move.

because it's maybe more accessible. it's accessible for a bigger range yeah. based on the physical characteristics of. the people do you draw in your wisdom. from these high percentages john uh for. like in terms of what to focus on yeah. absolutely um jiu jitsu has an ocean of. moves and you can get lost on that ocean. you can drift for a long period of time. and and end up with very little to show. for it so my whole thing is focus we. only live one lifetime. and your training lifetime is even.

shorter than your actual lifetime. so. in that time. i must die on the mat. that's just the same. um. uh i i put a very high. value on. choosing what i believe to be the most. high percentage. moves and putting an extraordinary. amount of focus on them. the only problem is that in one. generation a move which can be. considered low percentage might actually. turn out to be high percentage in.

another generation for example we talked. earlier about leg locks when i was first. started you said they were considered. the ultimate low percentage move and. a big part of my career has been. convincing people that in fact that was. that was incorrect that they can be a. high percentage move if we just change. our approach to them. um. so we can't just. follow tradition. and say oh this is low percentage this. is a high percentage it has to be part. of. a fairly systematic study where you.

investigate. what are the reasons why it's high. percentage or low percentage with. regards to takedowns. if you look at what. we can consider the most high percentage. takedowns if you're in front of someone. the single most high percentage way of. taking them down is to get a hold of. both of their legs and push them. backwards. okay if you get a hold of one of their. legs and put a force on them they can. use their other leg to defend themselves. and hop around and funk their way out of. takedowns and cause all kinds of. problems for you i don't care how.

athletic your opponent is if you get a. hold of firm grip. of both of his legs and start pushing. him backwards he's going to fall down to. his butt. now he might be able to recover from. there but he will fall down. even easier than that is to be behind. someone. take downs for in front of someone are. difficult you go right into their hips. their head their hands you go into all. their defensive weapons if you're. already behind someone and you're doing. what in america they refer to as a matt. return this is significantly easier than. taking someone down from the front.

if you have control of their head in a. front headlock position. you've already closed distance on your. opponent you already have close contact. you don't have to worry about shooting. anymore there's no sprawl out of that. you don't have to worry about. guillotines kimuras or the. standard defenses those will. intrinsically be easier takedowns out of. front headlock and so if we're going to. talk about high percentage technique i. always go back to the mechanics of it. rather than just historical tradition. because historical tradition can be. wrong it was wrong about leglocks it.

could be wrong about other things too so. my primary thing is okay talk to me. about mechanics. that's what ultimately is going to. determine whether something is high. percentage or not um. gordon pointed out earlier that when. you're behind someone you have innate. physical advantages over the other guy. the human. the human body is set up entirely to. defend threats from the front. we are poorly adapted to defending. threats from the rear we don't have eyes. in the back of our head we can't apply. pushing strength backwards.

if you get behind someone take downs are. ten times easier from behind someone. than they are when you're in front of. someone. if you have to take someone down from. the front get a hold of both of their. legs. if you can get a hold of both of the. legs and a part of pushing force you. will almost always knock them down. if you can get a hold of their head. and work take downs from there again. it's much easier because most of the. defensive apparatus has been taken away. from them before the takedown even. begins and so.

for me the most high percentage. takedowns will always be from the front. double legs from any takedown from the. back is going to be significantly easier. than any takedown from the front so all. manner of mat return takedowns are going. to be very high percentage. and takedowns done out of situations. where the opponent is broken down in. front of you and you have either front. headlock or front chest right position. are going to be significantly easier. than takedowns from the open. of course. you have to consider the full.

spectrum of mechanics involved here it's. possible that an outside low single. leading to a double leg is much higher. percentage it's like there's a lot of. chain wrestling yet you know that needs. to be considered as a possibility maybe. a straight-on double and part of this. cultural too. are people afraid of this kind of thing. that they came to be the case with. leglocks are people aware of this. are they worried about this are they. training for this to defend this. and then his opponent specific of course. that um. you know with jordan barros people are.

preparing for the double which is why he. had to develop. a whole other kinds of different stuff. and then the head to all the different. controls all the different ties. within the rule set. and that's where it's so fascinating to. see the effect of rule set and all this. judo over the past i think 20 years went. through this every olympics different. changes to the rule set like. fundamentally different in terms of. what's allowed to grip whether you're. allowed to touch the legs at all that. was a big one in 2012 i think.

and and that changes the sport. completely and so interesting it's so. interesting to watch how tiny change in. the rule can change in sport. at the highest when you're talking about. people competing at the highest level. and the cool thing there is. the rule change happens on a scale of. every four years. so you get to see people that are at the. top of their game. have to like recompute. so it's not like you have a new. generation of people coming up with the.

rules they have to figure oh shit you're. not allowed to like it's it's the. equivalent of saying you're not allowed. to kick anymore in mma. because you were not allowed to grab. legs anymore in judo. interestingly if you look at the. case of judo. if you look at the world rankings. of athletes when they went through one. of the most significant rule changes in. judo history where they banned any form. of grabbing the legs. the ranking of athletes didn't change.

much. yeah that tells you that they're um. there's a reason why those guys are at. the top yeah and it doesn't have to do. that they're specific to a rule set. yeah think about that in terms of. imagine for example in mixed martial. arts if they just said hey. starting next week. instead of having three five minute. rounds it's going to be 15 minutes. straight. that would massively change the. preparation of the athletes. it's a different game at that point and. judo literally was a different game.

before 2010 and after 2010. and yet. the international rankings didn't really. change that much the countries that were. dominant before. remain dominant the athletes that. remained before largely remain the same. you would think with such a massive. change all the rankings would have been. thrown upside down but they weren't and. uh again it goes back to this idea that. there's a reason why the guys at the top. are at the top.

and now for something completely. different we talked about aliens earlier. say uh george brought up bob lazar i i. um. we'll likely probably talk to bob lazar. on this podcast and then. [Music]. and then john had a skeptical look on. his face about about aliens so let me. ask uh john and gordon. uh do you think there's intelligent. alien civilizations out there in the. universe outside of our own the universe. is unimaginably large the idea that we.

are the only life forms in a cosmos as. large as this. is. i think naive and foolish. um. there's a very high likelihood that if. life could evolve on this planet that it. could have done so on many many other. planets around the uh around the. consoles i think anyone who puts even a. moment's thought into this would realize. that there's. almost certainly other forms of life out. there. the real question with regards the alien.

community is um have they got here and. are they surfing our planet. in um little silver sources and making. observations and periodically stealing. people. for experimentation purposes doesn't. have to be silver saucers it could be. different other color saucers um and. that question i'm i'm i'm not all. convinced no i didn't recently um navy. footage. has come out showing. some very interesting phenomena if you.

talk to almost any experienced pilot. they will tell you they've seen things. in the upper atmosphere that are very. difficult to explain uh i'll be the. first one to agree with you on this. there are some things out there that are. extremely difficult to explain like. literally ufos unidentified yeah i mean. we just don't know what they are but to. go from the idea that there's things out. there that we don't understand to. this. like. little creatures running around and um. and these somehow exist.

uh. i just reserve judgment i just say i'm. agnostic about these things i think it's. possible but. all the evidence that i've been shown so. far was insufficient to come to any kind. of definite conclusions until. aliens land in central park on tuesday. afternoon at 3 p.m and get out with. little alien ray guns and start shooting. people i didn't believe in. many of the stories that get told. well what about if it's not little. aliens with ray guns but something very.

different very very difficult to detect. for us humans that's very human. at that point it's a it's a fascinating. idea and it's certainly possible but. show me the evidence. all right what about you gordon. do you do you uh look at the cosmos and. ponder the stars often i think it's fair. points john raised. something really interesting i saw the. other day was uh. someone posted like. if an alien organ or civilization. 65 million light years away somehow.

managed to look. at earth. they would theoretically see the. dinosaurs because they're 65 million. light years away so like imagine us. looking at. galaxies that are 100 million light. years away that's 100 million years ago. you have no idea what it looks like now. so that's what's super interesting to me. about it. yeah the the expanse is huge. and so much cool stuff could be going. out there. the scary thing of course is if they. haven't visited us yet the.

there has to be a good reason for it. and the the set of scary reasons of all. the fact that they maybe once you get. sufficiently advanced in your. development you destroy yourself. naturally as humans seem to be. approaching now. we more and more have the tools to. distort ourselves completely. in terms of our weapon systems. um and we're developing them more and. more and they're becoming better and. better. and we're starting to get angry and. angry on twitter and instagram with each. other.

those are good points you're raising. history has taught us that. everything that lives one day will die. so we will we will perish one day yeah. there's also just the the sheer. difficulty of um. of. of travel through space like space is an. unimaginably inhospitable environment. and to the best of our knowledge. this even the theoretical speeds that we.

can attain in space even if we could. travel at the speed of light we're not. even remotely close to that. still the distances that need to be. traveled to get to even relatively close. solar systems are. very very long if you look at astronauts. who have spent significant amounts of. time and space just orbiting the earth. it has severe health effects on them. which is not built for space we're. supposed to be. in a gravitational environment but we. you're referring to your biological mean.

bag that's containing the essence. of the mind that is john donahue maybe. we can transfer the mind. alone so the the the the bag the me the. meat bag is not designed for space but. maybe the game this is all confidence of. the mind that's. that's possible but what do you think of. concrete evidence you folks who like. difficult things. uh what do you think about elon musk. going to colonize mars. is this something you find an.

interesting or. a um. pursuit i think it's a must or a. salvation we need to leave at some point. the planet because historically in the. past we know that we've been bombarded. by asteroid volcano. their crazy things happen here it's very. unstable you know we. if you look at it to. through a lifetime of a human being it's. nothing but just look 12 000 years ago. what happened you know so there is.

cataclysm that happen all the time it's. very unstable so. if we want to survive as a species i. think it's it's we need to get out to be. able to get out and. spread our seed. so these are the early steps on on a. really long journey but is there. something about like. you know we don't get that exploration. from most modern society you know the. kind of exploring that people did. throughout the centuries of uh you know. coming to the. north america just throughout we were.

shrouded in physical uncertainty of. what's out there. and now we get to do the same kind of. exploration with mars. is there so i mean is there any aspect. of you that wants to. travel out to space that wants to travel. to mars. there. you know the goal is to allow civilians. to travel. perhaps in our lifetime. meaning affordably you can do so now. unaffordably. traveling to space and traveling to mars. are. two different things i think i would. like to travel into space.

i don't know if i would like to travel. all the way to mars because of the risks. involved. just because. boring. is there some part of you that enjoys i. think that if i was like towards the end. of my life i would like to travel to. mars because that's just just the. experience yeah but if i go to mars i'm. not coming back. like that's it. one-way ticket. with the technology we have now maybe in. the future maybe our. the children of our children will will. be able to to experience that to go to.

well the the weekend. on mars. uh well the whole design of the starship. that the spacex is working on is. supposed to come back. it's supposed to be reusable so it's not. it's not a one-way ticket that's the. whole point just it's always going back. and forth back and forth what's the time. frame between two planets like to travel. from i think the current thing you'd be. stuck on mars for two years. but how long does it take to get from. earth to mars oh it's pretty. i'm not exactly sure but it's pretty.

quick. that's pretty quick like i don't know on. the scale of months not scale of years. you might not be healthy when you come. back you know all the astronauts they. experience health issues you know they. lose a lot of muscle mass bone density. so. yeah i don't think the technology is. good right now i mean. let's say that if it is i would love to. be doing it for a weekend if it's safe i. will. or a professional fighter who sacrificed. his body for something so there's some. sacrifice we do in life right i don't.

want to be there first i wouldn't want. to i leave the other one but when i know. it's it's safe. okay count me in so one of the things. that people say and this is something i. wonder about is. it's like having children or something. once you see once you're out in space. and you look out and you see earth you. look back at earth that's an experience. it's unlike anything else like you can't. replicate it here. um is is to look back at that like blue. dot. and that's nerve-wracking.

you see like earth disappear into the. distance. yeah yeah disappear into the distance. and then you get this actually stand on. mars and see. and just to look you're standing on the. ground and you're looking out. and you see the planet from which you. came and. where you might not be coming back but. there's a challenge to the whole thing. whereas the risk is tremendous. and. i don't know i find that risk really. compelling for some reason but that. could be just the exploration. i guess that's a genetic thing too how. much do you want to explore.

there's a sense though in which even in. the best case scenario where they did. get the technology to whisk you to mars. and. in a fairly short period of time. it's kind of an inauthentic sense of. exploration because. your participation in it is. no more exciting than. your participation in an airline flight. to a foreign country you basically. you didn't have anything to do with the. creation of the of the vessel you're not. in command of the vessel you're not in.

any way shape or form important to the. mission you're just the person sitting. in a passenger seat and you get off in a. destination the same way you would if. you flew to singapore or london or some. place like that well there's a hierarchy. of there's a leadership and then there's. a bunch of people and they all have. roles you don't get to go to mars. without having a skill set but. you made it sound like space tourism. where you just pay a ticket i don't i. think it's a long time before you have. space tourism to mars where you have. nothing to contribute.

okay like you will have to what do you. do you go through like a training. program you go training program and then. there's uh there's technical things. you'll be contributing so there they. would bring. people. you know in terms of agriculture i don't. know okay so this is this is better this. sounds like they're actual they're more. like explorers like if you you talked. before about explorers and and human. history where magellan sets off on his. boat and every person on the boat had a. specific function they were they were. all. into the mission in a very authentic. fashion if they weren't on the boat the.

performance of the crew would somehow. suffer so this sounds much better and. with just with like with magellan i. think most of the crew died. a significant number did yeah. and from uh yeah from bacteria i mean. from things that are unexpected and so. on and if we discover life on mars i. mean who knows what that entails because. that's like a manned mission to mars. would likely be very driven by the. research to do all the kind of.

exploration required to define life. now from. mr musk's. point of view as a developer presumably. there has to be some kind of financial. incentive here too. is there. some kind of financial benefit to mars. missions is. presumably. um. there wouldn't be that many people on. earth that could afford a ticket to pay. for the kind of research and development. that would require this is there some. kind of mining on mars of minerals that.

would be useless i think there's a lot. of answers to this but the only honest. answer is the one that looks back into. human history where we did a lot of. things just because we. could. a lot of hard things just because we. could and that led to a lot of. innovation that ultimately made our life. better so this is more this is why you. have nasa this is why you have. government organizations like what's the. purpose of nasa nasa would answer that. by saying okay well we're helping. launch satellites up there all they'll. have a bunch of answers but the reality.

is the programs. were. funded in large part by our desire to. explore the unknown. and um there's some aspect to which we. have to all invest into that because. historically speaking. that has produced a lot of cool things. along the way they were totally. unexpected like uh but nasa is funded by. public funding the taxpayer uh how is mr. musk going to fund this well currently. most of the funding was the spacex is.

nasa giving. money. uh to so they're making a competition. who can who can get our satellites we. need to go to. um. you know was for the space station to uh. resupply the space station or we need to. launch satellites up who's going to. carry those quote-unquote payloads they. just need so nasa is paying whoever the. heck wants to. uh get. kilograms of thing up into space. why did this is nasa's specialty why did.

they just give up on that well they why. are they realizing where mr musk came. along and then bezos and others that. said we can do it for one tenth the. price. so why did the why should the taxpayers. pay for the why don't you nasa do what. you do well. which is like test out cutting edge. stuff make sure they're safe. and now. that we've developed. a car. let us let us ups and fedex take care of. doing this at scale doing it cheaper.

doing it better. i mean that's the argument. and nasa took what they realized is it. took way way too long to do stuff. when you're investing millions as. billions of dollars into a project. the. the bureaucracy builds up. and the conservatism builds up to where. you're i mean you really have to test. everything out so projects take years. and then you have somebody like elon. musk coming along and says well let's do. launches every. every week. and as opposed to.

just throwing away the rocket will reuse. the rocket that was one of the sort of. cutting edge inventions. it's a dumb obvious idea. like elon says why do you throw away the. pla it's the equivalent as if you flew a. plane every time you threw it away why. are we every time throwing away the. plane but nasa's tried that kind of. thing with the space shuttle since the. 1970s yes well they did that with the. space shuttle but not not at the scale. here that uh it was the space shuttle. was seen as this. like majestic amazing thing that.

requires a huge amount of investment but. the elo musk is like no every basic. rocket. should be reusable. cut cost. do you do you think like. the more technology we have the more. advanced we become the more specialized. we need to be like is that for that. reason that now they. there is different branch like you just. explained now nowadays there's precise. in this but they're left you know other. branch yeah there's there's greater and. greater specialization as we build up. more stuff which is fascinating because.

is is it making us. more. dumb in a way do you think like. like yeah i don't know like. you you know. i use a cell phone but i don't know how. to build it up from yeah. i mean it's that beta male is building. up this whole society um because we're. this collective intelligence we rely on. each other more and more. and. it. i do also see sort of the rise of. conspiracy theories and all those kinds. of things because.

like i've been talking to a few folks. about flat earth recently it's. fascinating. it's fascinating there's a large. community of people that believe the. earth is flat and. that idea takes hold in this day and age. of all the ideas that's the one that. takes hold for a large number of people. and. i think that's the consequences this. kind of specialization where it's just. huge amount of experts. but if you look out into our world and. try to reason simply about our existence.

we we are losing the skills to do that. because more and more people are. specialized as opposed to general. thinkers we're like extremely good at. specific things are we capable now to do. uh a robot that is self-aware. that's that's one the legged one i need. uh it's self-aware like it's not. self-aware it's been listening but it's. it's not self-aware but do you think a. human being is self-aware or that's a. good question. i mean i ask this question all the time. when the robots move there's a sense of.

when they turn on. something entered that robot. wow and when it turns off something left. if they move in a certain kind of way. and if they're if they surprise you. there's certain elements. that enable us. to see the magic in. in a living being and some of them i. mean we can character we can maybe list. them. but it's the ability to surprise you.

it's the. ability to make mistakes and learn from. them visibly there's a bunch of things. that you just. i don't know it just feels. like it has the magic of what is a. living being and which is what humans. have and i try to think about how do you. replicate that into a machine so so when. you turn it on enough you feel like it. dies every time and it re reborn right. so for most machines we don't feel that. way we don't when we unplug things.

we don't feel that way i don't know why. we don't feel that way that's an. interesting question. but i think when. when the robot has certain qualities. like memory. like ability to recognize you. yeah you start to feel like you're. turning off an organism. so so whenever i have like the robots. that recognize me. and remember. this is important that all the things. we've experienced together. then it's like holy shit.

that's a that's a living thing but does. he really feels it feels like a living. thing does he remember. your robot does he remember things that. happened before you unplugged in is it. like he's sleeping. like is he wake up or is he like that so. right now start to zero everything uh no. it doesn't start at zero remember it. remembers everything that's the key. every time you like you you unplug wow. it's storing the story in the memory but. the memories are basic they're like okay. we walked around the kitchen and then.

um you looked at me i mean the memories. it's like data it's just. it's not like we've experienced it's. able to actually. uh experience anything deep like we. humans can but just the fact of memory. it's like the toaster or the microwave. don't don't give a shit about me. they don't know me they don't know me by. name they wouldn't recognize my face. as being different from gordon's they. wouldn't know the difference and they. wouldn't. remember. the microwave currently doesn't remember.

you know the times i've been sad or. happy like what food i put into it it. doesn't remember this. when i was being a fat ass or what i was. being in good shape and all all just. those memories are enough to make you. feel when you turn a thing off. it's like. shit wow that's a little that's that. that's a living thing disappearing of. course that's kind of an. anthropomorphism we do to each other. but uh that's something. it's you know that. that's some that makes me believe it's.

possible to create um. systems with which we can have a. connection that are non-human. like similar to dogs and cats and so on. it just makes me. and that's what's interesting to me. because ultimately i feel like they'll. help us understand. ourselves. and maybe practice grappling moves. anyway um. well let me ask the uh advice question. uh now that we're together i've asked.

i've spoken to john i spoke to george. what what advice would you give to young. folks whether. we're talking about. sport like excelling becoming great at. grappling becoming great at fighting. becoming great at whatever sport they. take on or life in general whether. they're maybe in high school or in. college. what advice would you give them to uh. excel. at that thing they take on i don't know. if i'm qualified to answer this because. i'm only 26 so.

you're at the top you said giving advice. to young people um. for me i think the two biggest things. are. find something that you're both talented. in and you enjoy um i think that if you. enjoy something but you're terrible at. it it's going to be hard for you to be. successful. in life at that given in that given area. and it's going to be hard to do. something for long amounts of time. if you're talented at it but you don't. enjoy doing it.

it's easy to come in. and. train. hard for a month or two months or for a. year. you can be very talented at it but if. you come in it's but it's a different. story to come in every day for five. years in a row for 10 years in a row for. 15 years in a row so i think. i think finding something that you're. both talented in. and something you enjoy are probably the. two biggest things for me how do you. find the joy in it so you've been. training insane amount you know a lot.

you've been doing it for a long time is. there's is there ways to rediscover the. joy in it. yeah for me initially. it was just. learning new stuff you know you come in. as a white belt and every day you learn. you see a different move and you're like. oh man that's that's awesome. um. and then when i started to compete more. seriously towards my professional career. it was. uh the joy of doing camps and seeing the. result of those camps and beating. high-level athletes. and then i got to a point where.

i've beaten all the high-level athletes. already so. who am i going to compete against. so now for me the joy is just. being. the best athlete i can possibly be until. i reach my prime which i'm hoping is. somewhere between 35 and 40. um so. instead of competing against the other. athletes. i'll be bored already because i already. beat all the rest of the guys. um but. i know that now i know that i can be. better in a year from now or two years. from now than i am today and that for me.

is exciting. by the way is there some aspect of. teaching that's exciting to you yeah. yeah because you've become a. better and better teacher over the years. yeah yeah i i definitely uh i enjoy. teaching and. i used to teach um. a lot before i met john and then i met. john and i was like yeah i just have no. idea how to teach um so that's like a. completely different element. of the sport um you know doing things. and being good at doing things or being. good at winning.

and actually being able to communicate. those skills and knowledge to to a vast. amount of people is two completely. different things. george advice for young people. like yourself. well. first i was i would tell them find. what you want to become what you want to. do. and long term. use certain things maybe sometimes you. don't love but where you want to propel. yourself at the future not what your. parents your your friend wants you to.

become what you you you want to become. so one once you find it. you cannot. doing it by yourself everything better. that is big achievement in life we. cannot do it doing it by ourselves so. what i would say is second thing is. try to build up your team and try to. build up your team to be able to achieve. your goal. of people that are competent. and people that you trust. you need both competency and trust.

i sell a lot of people sometime in. business for example they hire people. they. that are that they trust but they turns. out to be incompetent. so now you have to fire a friend or. otherwise your business going down the. same problem if you do the opposite uh. you're someone that is competent but you. cannot trust is gonna it's gonna screw. you you know. so it's very important to stay away from. the negative build up your team people. you trust and that are competent. and i would say the third one is to work. to work hard to sacrifice yourself yeah.

you have to go through hell sometime but. yeah you have to see the light at the. end of it you know to. keep your dream in mind it's going to. give you the motivation to go through. the tough times nothing easy to go work. work work is nothing you can accomplish. without hard work. the fourth one i would say. to invest on yourself constantly. if you do not invest on your cell phone. whatever you are in which business and. sport. the game will catch up to you. for example if you're if you become.

champion at something and if you stop. improving the other guys that are trying. to be champion are going to catch up to. you. so you need to invest on yourself and. most people. most athlete they make the mistake when. they start to having money. they buy luxury stuff. and that's one thing i didn't do when i. started making money i was investing of. on traveling to new york training with. john garden and the guys to learn. what is new in the the game of jiu jitsu. i used to go in thailand train muay thai.

in los angeles to perfect my boxing. skill. so instead of taking that money to buy. me jewelry cars and to do what a lot of. guys do because it's a mistake. i i invested on myself because i know. there were people coming they don't want. my place so i want i didn't want them to. catch me. and the last one i would say it seems. weird. i would say. to give back. and it's not because i'm a nice guy and.

it's not that. i don't say that to look good i say that. when you you make it. it creates opportunity where you can. help certain group of people. but when i say give back not give back. to everybody to anybody give back only. to the the cause that you want i give. back. not because i'm a nice guy i'm kind of. it's kind of selfish i only give back to. the people that i want to give back. because i give back to them and i know.

that if i'm more successful i'm going. gonna be able to give back to people i. loved the cars that that that count for. me so it's it brings me more motivation. because i don't compete. for myself anymore i compete to help. people i love in a way. so when you you reach the top in your. game you need to find new motivation if. you satisfy is. is the end of it your success will go. down so you need to. to find new motivation what can motivate.

you you know what do you want i want to. help this so i need to to be successful. i want to. you know you need to find reason who you. what do you want to do with your success. so when i say give back it's not because. i'm not because i'm necessarily it's not. to be to look like a nice guys to keep. your motivation. to be able to. keep climbing the ladder even more. that's beautiful george um. john. um. first off the two responses given so far. covered i think the most important.

things or already um. gordon talked about the the need for. an underlying passion and enjoyment if. you don't have that. you're not going to have the longevity. that is required in order to build. skills which is ultimately everything's. going to come down to your ability to. build skills you've got to have some. kind of underlying passion and enjoyment. which will keep you in the game long. enough. to build world championship skills it's. going to take a minimum of five years. and quite possibly considerably longer. than that.

george talked about the idea of. community you're not going to make it by. yourself so you've got to be able to. build people around you and. and build a trusted environment around. you to develop those skills. um. what i would add to the the excellent. points that both already raised. alludes to what i said at the start of. this podcast you've got to be able to. identify. some kind of undervalued. elements in whatever industry you're in.

and show the world what their true value. is. in addition. you can't go through life. doing the same things as everybody else. and expecting to get different results. this is straightforwardly irrational and. worse it's even arrogant it's. essentially the statement that i'm going. to do the same thing as everyone else. but i believe i'm different. and so they'll work for me. but they didn't work for everyone else. that's like saying no i'm special.

no you're not special we're all pretty. much the same. and. in order to be special you're going to. have to exhibit skills that other people. simply don't have. thirdly i would say if you want to. become something truly impressive in. life you've got to be able to focus on. one or two things. that you do better than anyone else in. your industry. you can't learn everything but you can. take one or two skills and the more.

innovative those skills are the better. and you can truly excel at them for. example at the peak of his career. no one in the world was better than. george st pierre at integrating striking. and takedowns. no one in the world was better at. integrating grappling and striking on. the ground. he had two things that he could. confidently say he was the best in the. world at was he the best at every mma. skill nope. but he was. absolutely the best at those two skills.

and those two skills were skills which. he used throughout his career to win the. vast majority of his matches. gordon ryan at the onset of his career. could confidently say. there's no one in the world better than. me at leglocks. he could also say there's no one better. in the world than me at late stage. defense. to submission holds across the board. as he went through his career he started. adding more and more elements it's. gotten to an extraordinary degree now. where you could absolutely say he's the.

best at guard passing the best of guard. retention. the less this keeps going on and that. goes back to what. um. gordon said earlier about keeping things. interesting over time because we're. always introducing new skill sets the. day you start saying. i'm satisfied with my skill set is the. day you get bored. and bored boredom to an athlete is a. precursor to. death by boredom um. as long as you're still growing in those. directions you'll stay in the game.

for very long periods of time so the. main thing i would add to these uh. statements by gordon and george is this. idea of. finding something which is currently. undervalued and showing the world what. its true value is. understanding. that you can't just use the same. training methodologies as everyone else. and somehow expect to be different from. everyone else you've got. almost every great rise in human. civilization whether it be groups of.

people or individuals requires some kind. of innovation you've got to look for. that new angle okay george st pierre. found it with shoot boxing early on in. his career. uh gordon ryan found it with leg. leglocks early on in his career and they. branched out from that. from that angle. add to this the idea that you want to. become the absolute best in the world in. your industry and one or two things that. make a difference. find out what they are and focus on.

those things and you'll go far. john. gordon george this is an incredible. conversation thank you so much for your. extremely valuable time george as. somebody. who's become famous in part. by commenting on people's performance. um. how do you think. we did. how would you evaluate our performance. today. i'm not impressed. thank you i love that i i've learned all.

the time i've talked to you guys. it's great i loved it it was very. stimulated i and really enjoyed it yeah. it's uh it was it was something i really. was looking forward to i was hoping that. we'd get together. it's so rare that at the same time in. history there will be some of the greats. together and the fact that you guys. would be willing to come together and. talk like this this is awesome and that. gordon would even wear a cowboy hat i. mean this is just historic this is like. churchill getting together with whoever. you know this is great and all but the.

next one is just going to be us just. quizzing john on which animals would win. in fights yes for the whole three hours. it would be just so we'll invite joe and. it'll just be we'll we'll make it a. systematic it'll be announced between. joe and john on which animal would win. john and i we have a thing that we send. each other. footage all the time of animal fight. were. we are. very intrigued about animal fight. i guess you guys i get until like 3 30. a.m on instagram he's like check this.

out like a rhino taking a like a pig. like poor like like like literally it's. not always fair no no it's not ever but. interesting stuff if you people would. see what we send the stuff that we. they would judge you harshly yeah. all right all right thanks so much guys. this is awesome. thanks for listening to this. conversation with george st pierre john. donahue and gordon ryan to support this. podcast please check out our sponsors in. the description.

and now let me leave you some words for. miyamoto musashi. there's nothing outside yourself that. can ever enable you to get better. stronger richer quicker or smarter. everything is within. everything exists. seek nothing outside of yourself. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time.

you.