Jimmy Park, Black Belt, Entrepreneur, Climber, Photographer, Bonsai Stylist - Beyond the Belt #20 - Beyond the Belt

Episode Transcript
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(00:26):
Hey Jimmy, thanks for being here.
Hey Eric, good morning.
How are you today?
I'm doing pretty well.
I'm excited for this conversation.
Great, so am I, thank you.
Yeah, so tell me what was it like for you to get your black belt?
Oh, it was crazy.
It was crazy.
and, know, I was a Brown Belt for two years.

(00:47):
So, part of you feels like it's about to come and then part of you doesn't know when it'sgoing to come.
And so, but, um, it was, uh, it was a, it was a great morning was when we just finishedmorning training session.
And then there were a few of us who are sort of tournament players who have placed well inthe, worlds.
And we're all sort of due for our black belts.

(01:09):
And so my instructor, Mike Jaramillo, who's one of Danaher first black belts, think he is,he and Brian Glick, think are his first black belts.
Anyway, so they brought in Renzo, he came in and gave us our belts and it was, it wascrazy.
It was an amazing morning and you never think you're going to get it.

(01:33):
And then when you finally get it, it's
It's not anti-climatic, but it's definitely not what I expected or what I expected when Iwas a blue belt.
In a blue belt, you think that you're going to get a black belt and all of a suddenyou're, you know, I hope I'm good enough to be a black belt in that.
And then you're thinking that, when I arrive at black belt, I'll be able to crush peoplein the room and that type of thing.

(01:57):
And of course you, by then you're already in that world and you're already doing well andcompetitive.
tough in the room and that type of thing.
But it's funny by the time you get there, you're at that place, but at the same time, nowyou've got this realization that there's so much more to learn.

(02:19):
so you arrive in this place, but it's almost, it's so cliche, but it feels like it's thebeginning of the journey again.
And so I feel like I'm right at a place that actually can learn Jiu-Jitsu.
at a good rate and understand what's going on.
it was sort of an ambiguous feeling, but it was great.

(02:41):
It's definitely great to be there.
it?
Did you feel like immediately that you deserved it or were you like, did it take a littlewhile?
You know, I think that I was at Brown belt for two years and people in my academy werelike, hey, you're gonna get one soon, you're up, you're ready and surprisingly, so you

(03:05):
hear some of that.
I don't think, not from like an imposter syndrome or felt like I didn't deserve it oranything, but.
And it's not I deserve or didn't deserve, didn't come into my mind.
It's just that, my gosh, I'm at the beginning again is really what the feeling was.

(03:30):
It's so interesting.
feel like that's one of the most common things I hear from people is that it feels like aweight off your shoulders and now you can start to enjoy the journey more.
Yeah, you know, and I didn't think in, and a lot of people say belts don't matter.
And, and I think it depends.
It depends.

(03:51):
You know, one, we're in a, in a very NoGi environment.
I barely train with the Gi just because I've rock climbed so much that with the Gi androck climbing, it's just bad for my fingers.
But
You know, the belts are good.
The belts sort of keep you in the game.
The belts give you something that you sort of want to achieve.

(04:13):
It's nice to have some sort of hierarchy system and that type of thing.
But at the same time, it doesn't matter at all.
so, but it was a good feeling.
I think that it's...
It doesn't matter like when you're walking in the room and I think, you're a black belt orthat type of thing, but it does make you feel, it does make me feel like I accomplished

(04:40):
something.
In fact, my, first jujitsu instructor is a Renzo Gracie OG black belt, Pete Lawson.
I trained under him until blue belt.
remember I was a white belt.
He, I was a white belt on a couple of stripes in and I'm talking to him.
I was like, you know, I think I might want to go.

(05:01):
for the black belt and he said, Jimmy, you gotta be a black belt at something in the life.
And I don't know why that little simple statement hit me because, okay, so if I've rockclimbed for 20 something years or whatever, who knows what it is, but when you sort of get
a black belt, you're like, hey, I'm a black belt at something, it's good.

(05:21):
I mean, to be honest, that's kind of the basis for this podcast.
That's kind of why I, one of the reasons I started this was because my thesis is that ifanybody who.
gets to this level of black belt in jujitsu, that's a level of like commitment and likestickiness and understanding of information and all of that and passion and some, that

(05:44):
almost certainly applies outside of jujitsu as well.
And so I found that most people who make it to that level inside of jujitsu are like, theygot other cool stuff going on.
And that's a lot of what we're gonna talk about today too.
Definitely.
I mean, without the belt, mean, who knows?
Yeah, you're going to train, you're going to do this and that type of thing.

(06:05):
But when you get there and it's like, did it.
It's sort of, it is a nice feeling.
And I think deep down inside, it's really hard for anybody to say it's not a good feelingto finally get there.
That's totally fair.
That is kind of what I expect.
I mean, you also trained at basically one of the meccas for jujitsu.

(06:26):
I mean, how do you think that influences how you feel or how others may feel about thattwo inches of black fabric?
Yeah, you know, the the Renzo Gracie Academy, the Blue Basement, it's it's a tough roomand and I was there during many years and Danaher was the our top instructor and for any

(06:52):
black belt.
It doesn't matter where you're at or what.
who your instructors are, what's the room like, nobody gets to black belt without a greatdeal of sacrifice.
I don't care who you are.
You're going in every single day as a white belt.

(07:13):
know, jujitsu is one of those sports that I say that you can get throw up tired.
And almost everybody in their journey has tried so hard and exerted so much energy thatthey've thrown up.
or had to lay on the side of the mat, trying not to throw up or something, throw up tired.

(07:34):
And they've done that a hundred times.
And there's some injury, there's definitely pain and there's definitely suffering andthere's discipline, especially if you're in tournaments, you've got weight, you've got all
of these different things.
And just to psychologically walk in a room as a white belt or...

(07:57):
in a tough room and just get you get beat down.
There are times that you just have to psychologically take the suffering and so butsometimes you wake up and you don't want to you don't want to get out of bed or you feel
intimidated to walk in the room or whatever to get to a black belt.

(08:17):
There's an enormous amount of sort of grit to get there.
And I say this in the Renzo Gracie Academy.
So I trained a lot in the Gi to blue belt and then moved from an affiliate school to theblue basement.
And I remember I went to a couple of places.
I checked out Marcellos.
I checked out Renzo's, but I had a friend who trained under Donna her and he was a bluebelt and he had trained there years before and he had stopped training, but he said, Hey,

(08:46):
go to the Renzo Gracie Academy and go see John Danaher He's like,
the Yoda of jujitsu.
And I said, okay.
So I went there, sat there and I said, okay, and this is the place.
And my instructor was a Renzo Gracie Black belt.
So was, it was an easy transition, easy decision.

(09:07):
So I walk in and I'm like, okay, the no gi class.
go into the no gi class and get, I must've got tapped out 35 times that first day and 20,
The 30 times I got tapped out for at least six months, never won, never not even one,never even threatened somebody.

(09:32):
Just lost every single day because one, it was a tough no-gi room, two, it's a tough room.
So add both of those together from a decent gi player.
Getting beat down, I'm pretty good at taking suffering.
Koreans, I mean, that's our culture.

(09:53):
We're, we're, we're built to suffer, know, study hard, do whatever.
But it was tough.
It was tough to walk in there every single day and get beat down and beat down and beatdown for six, seven months.
It was tough.
And so that definitely taught me something.

(10:14):
It, it, that room teaches you.
that there are levels to Jiu Jitsu and just to keep on going and you sort of, there'sareas of the room, it's a huge mat, know, sort of beginners are over here and then the
professionals were over here and then the OG black belts are over here and so there'sthese sort of spots, informal spots in the room.

(10:40):
such a great lesson though, like for everybody to kind of look at that and be like, causeyou know, not everybody gets beaten down for that long.
You know, not every room is that tough, but I feel like if you are the kind of person whogets beaten down as like, I can do this, I can keep going.
That's also not just a different level of jujitsu that you'll end up at, but you're alsomaybe a different level of crazy or sadistic maybe.

(11:07):
It takes a little bit of crazy to walk into Jiu-Jitsu.
And then there's different types of crazy.
There's, you know, obsessive crazy, fanatical about sports crazy, workout crazy, toughcrazy.
Some MMA guys are just tough, just different breed of people.
And then there's recovery sort of, you know, PTSD recovery sort of dealing things.

(11:35):
There's a, but we're all crazy in some manner for sure.
To walk into a room to get beat up or beat, you know, to choke people out every morning atseven in the morning is something a little crazy.
you know, Danaher kind of a legend.
Do you have any like fun stories about him that kind of typifies the experience for you?

(11:56):
Yeah, John is an amazing teacher.
I mean, it's a savant.
Like if you've ever run into someone who is sort of savant in something, in math, memoryor something, he's of that sort of genetic quality.

(12:17):
And he's intimidating.
People...
You read online and people talk smack and other things.
Just get in the room with him for a couple of days or weeks and you'll understand.
He doesn't demand respect, but you have to respect the guy.

(12:38):
And everybody respects the guy.
And he has this calm tone when he comes in in the morning and...
And he's got a bad hip and he's got a little limp.
And so he goes in and he stretches on the side and he comes in and silently walks in themiddle of class and everyone sort of goes around them.

(13:04):
And he goes and does these instructions.
And then he sits in the front of the room and he just watches.
And the way that he runs the room is sort of the upper belts.
It's a waterfall.
He teaches the top of the room, the top of the room teaches the rest of the room.
And it works.
and the room works, the, I trained with them for, you know, seven years or something, thenprivates with him for two and a half, three years.

(13:34):
and I didn't know if he knew my name.
And, but one day you start training and, and there was this thing that I was trying someguard retention thing and, and did something.
And then he sits in the back of the room or in the front of the room and he'll see watchand say, nice guillotine, Mr.

(13:58):
Tonin.
nice knee cut, a look or say something.
so then all of a sudden I hear
Nice guard retention, Mr.
Park.
And I said, did he say Mr.
Park?
then so you're at the end of the class and you're going to do the shake the hand thing.
He sits in the front, everyone shakes his hand and Black Belt comes up and he says, hey,you got a call out today.

(14:23):
I said, did I?
And he's like, yeah.
And it's funny because.
The praise and the acknowledgement comes so few and I think it's calculated that when itdoes, it's a powerful motivation tool.
If you got a call on the morning, it made your week.
But it's great to train under him.

(14:46):
Yeah, there's a bunch of stories.
I could talk for two hours about that for sure.
Yeah, I'm sure I don't want to spend too much time because I feel like he gets a lot ofair time from a lot of people and I'd like to make this a little more about you.
But I just feel like your experience of him as not the top person in the room is probablyone that doesn't get heard often.

(15:08):
And that's why I was hoping you could share something.
you know, he teaches the professionals, but me and my friend Paul, we would do privateswith him every Friday.
We'd walk in there and they were interesting.
You would go in and it was nice because he then got to know us very well and he's veryfriendly.

(15:30):
When you're going up one-on-one and you first sit down, tell a bunch of funny stories fora little bit.
And then he's like, all right, well.
let's, what are we going to work on today?
And sometimes you would say, you know, I'm trying to work on a guillotine on, and I havethis problem.
And he's like, okay.
And then he just doesn't do anything of what you ask.
And then he just goes into what he wants to do.

(15:52):
But sometimes, and then sometimes you would come in and we learned that on some days, Ithink that his hip or his knee would give him problems.
And if he was particularly grouchy that day, we were a little scared to do the private.

(16:13):
And sometimes, the level of jujitsu that he has is amazing.
We would be doing something like Kimuras.
And I don't want this to come out wrong.
It wasn't like he was doing anything to prove anything other than the effectiveness of themove.
But he would teach us to do...

(16:37):
jitsu move and kimura like elbow shoulder shoulder even if they're if they're even in astraight line the kimura is tight if your angle of the elbow to the shoulder shoulders and
like this it's not as tight so you bring the elbow line equal to the shoulder lines andthat thing is tight and he would show you and i felt like my shoulder was within one

(17:01):
millimeter
of becoming injured and he would hold it right there.
And then every move for two and a half years, it got to the point where his sensitivity toanybody's point, he just knows it.
The precision is amazing.

(17:22):
But yes, and from the effectiveness of it, I was a blue belt, going through blue belt,losing tournaments.
you know, every third place or whatever.
so one day he comes in, he says, you know, there's three submissions that are everywhere.

(17:43):
Footlocks, guillotines, and kimuras.
There are so, so many entry points.
I said, okay, I'd love to work on the footlock.
So he showed us how to do the straight Achilles' lock.
And it...
gets it so tight that you can just explode an ankle.
We work on that thing, we get this thing, it becomes sort of my move.

(18:07):
And then I go to a tournament and then, and if I didn't get something, hey, what if theydo this, if I'm in Ashi Garami, okay, then you do this and boom, then I would go back to
the tournament and do it.
And then, so we learned from the precision of the foot lock all the way to entry points,different entry points.
counters and just sort of like a tree from that middle of the...

(18:31):
And then worked on that for three, four months and then I would go test at a tournaments.
then, then I started to win.
And then I started to win, I started to win.
And then I won blue belt worlds.
I won purple belt worlds all off this foot lock sequence that he taught me.
So it works.

(18:52):
He's, he's an, I mean, I was in the master's division and...
whatever, but it's still, I was losing local tournaments to winning the IBJJF Worlds andit was on that footlock.
And so he's amazing.
Do feel like competition is important for hobbyists?
is that a thing that changed your world or do you think it's not necessary?

(19:15):
I think that from what I've observed, the people who compete regularly advance faster.
And it could be for a whole slew of reasons.
For me, I progress faster for a couple of reasons.
One, you enter the tournament and there's a goal.

(19:37):
And there's a goal that's not going to move and you cannot cheat it.
And it's like signing up for a marathon.
You sign up for a marathon, you better get on that program.
It's not like you're going to come in at the last day and then try to run that marathon.
It's going to work.
No, there is, you cannot cheat that training.
Same with the tournament.

(19:57):
If you want to win, you sign up for that thing.
And for me, it makes me want to go on the days I don't want to go.
It makes me work on the areas and very specific areas with, with, with thoughtfulness and
And, and attention.
so, so for the months proceeding, you're, you're going more regularly and reliably, you'retraining more deliberately.

(20:27):
And I don't, I don't remember if I've ever lost to the same thing twice.
And so when, when you lose, you know, that's.
Silly cliche, you never lose, learn, or you either win or you learn.
It's true.
You go in and you remember the losses more than the wins.

(20:50):
And then so you go and you lose and you come in the next week and it's like, hey, I lostthis, what should I do?
And then some black belt tells you, yeah, I'll try this.
And then maybe that doesn't work for you.
And then you go and ask another black belt or another somebody or somebody who's good atthat particular defense.
And then you get this vocabulary and all these different techniques and then you go toapply it.

(21:13):
Hey, get me in a Kimura, Let me see if I can get out.
And then then of those five techniques that are all good, maybe two of them work for youbetter than the other three.
And then so you try all these five and then these two work and then you bring those to thegame.
You've got two options for the next tournament and you don't lose to it again.
And so I think for all of those reasons, that's why tournaments.

(21:37):
make me, I know that I'm better.
If I, if I sign up for a tournament and I trained for six months, I would be better if Icompeted without, if I didn't compete.
And so I don't really get nervous at tournaments.
And the reason why is two, two, three things I would say one, who cares if you losenothing reflection upon you.

(22:04):
Nobody cares if you win or lose.
That's a hard thing for most people to understand.
I mean, I agree with you personally, but I think the ego for most people makes that numberone point very difficult to swallow.
Exactly, exactly.
first you realize nobody cares.
It's just like the Bronx Tale.
Nobody cares.
The what were my other two points?

(22:26):
Oh, the second point is if you prepare 100 % and you don't skip and you lift and you doyour cardio and you do your technique and you go to class and you do some tough rounds and
you do competition training or whatever, know, tougher rounds.
You've done everything you can.
What does it matter if you lose?

(22:47):
You've done everything you can.
If you lose, they're better than you.
And if you don't, then you won.
And so if you prepare as much as you possibly can, then who cares?
And then the last, if you know at the end, one, you don't care, two, you've doneeverything you can, but three, that you are better.

(23:12):
even if you win or lose, but you're better that you entered the tournament and tried.
That's the real goal anyway.
It's not for a medal.
No one cares even if you win.
And so what are you going to win some local thing?
Unless you're winning ADCC, who cares?
I mean, as someone who doesn't compete, kind of feel that same way.

(23:35):
I'm always like, have, I'm not very competitive in general.
And so I, when people are like, I lost, I'm so upset.
And I'm like, yeah, but you, went out there, you did it.
You prepared mentally, physically.
So what?
So you lost.
No one here is going to think less of you.
You're still here.
You're still training.
Like, you know, keep your head up.
You've, you've done a lot for yourself.

(23:57):
And I've seen people going out there and competing.
And this sounds sort of corny, but man, just getting there is a win.
is...
Okay, so I don't get so nervous now.
I've competed so much and that type of thing.
I did, at first, your first couple, it's so new.

(24:19):
It's scary walking.
onto the mat, under the mic, it's a giant fish bowl.
Everybody's watching and you're not, it's not like MMA that you're gonna get punched inthe face or something like that, but it's a battle, a one-on-one battle.
It's definitely exposing, it's, and it's scary, but you know, I tip my hat to anybody whohas the courage to go into a tournament and you know, it's...

(24:49):
with the right attitude and going having fun.
It's a great, great thing.
And I would recommend it for anyone who wants to progress.
here's the last thing about a tournament.
You're in a training room and yeah, you put a foot lock on somebody or whatever and theytap and you do something and then they tap.

(25:11):
Sometimes these tournaments, especially the bigger the tournament, you know, some peopleare training for months.
Some people have bought a plane ticket, spend a thousand bucks to go there.
They're not going to tap easy.
And a lot of these people in the tournaments, they prepare, they've lifted.
They're the best person in their room at that weight class or each division or belt.

(25:32):
you go in there and they're not gonna tap, they're not gonna give you something easily.
And they're going 100%.
White belts are tough and they're crazy and some blue belts because they're going 100%.
They haven't learned to not go 100%.
But that's what makes them a little bit tough and crazy.
In a real situation, you go against somebody huge and they're a little bit tougher becausethey're just trying so hard.

(25:57):
At a tournament, you've got a brown belt trying that hard.
spent that much money, that much time preparing.
They got their family watching.
They got their coach watching.
They are not going to tap easily.
So to really test if your jujitsu works and that you can really tap somebody out orcontrol somebody, a tournament is when you really find out.

(26:22):
There are stuff that works in the training room and there's stuff that works attournaments and those are two separate things.
That makes sense.
I've definitely heard that from a lot of people.
What role does Jujitsu play in your life these days?
Oh, yeah.
Well, I don't like lifting and I don't like running.

(26:43):
I don't like doing exercise for exercise.
And I saw some some quote of some funny things like I'm not trying to get good atexercise.
And some people love it and all the power to them.
Endurance sports and that type.
I'm not that type of person.
And so one, it is a I have seen myself.

(27:07):
52 years old this year, think, yeah, 52 this year in May, and in decent shape.
And I attribute a lot of that to, almost all of that to jiu-jitsu.
It keeps you in shape physically, which helps you mentally.

(27:28):
It's definitely taught me how to learn the ways from
Drilling, figuring out what works for me and my body type, testing, experiencing,drilling, understanding the concept of something that goes from memorization to feel.

(27:51):
There's that transition of you do something, you don't even realize that you did it.
It's just because you've got a feel for it.
all that is, it teaches, it's taught me how to learn.
and to be able to process something and develop a skill.

(28:11):
It's taught me how long it takes to become an expert at something.
Definitely the grit factor.
And so now as a black belt in jiu-jitsu, I sort of look at my other activities like, ohyeah, spearfishing, you know, not even a blue belt in spearfishing.

(28:33):
And so that's a sort of a measurement.
It allows you to gauge it.
If you go to like a hospital or something, they ask you, what's a pain scale of one to 10?
And you're like, oh, it's a seven, because that relative scale is good.
And so the belts give you a little bit of a relevant scale in life.
So it's good.
use the skill scale for that all the time too.

(28:55):
I went out with a bunch of people doing karaoke a couple of weeks ago and they're like,how good are you at singing?
And I'm like, not even a blue belt.
Fortunately, there were like one or two people there who did Jiu-Jitsu and they're like,you're that bad?
And I'm like, well, you haven't heard me yet, but yes, I actually am that bad.
Thank you for noticing.
Exactly.
And it teaches you some, all these little things.

(29:16):
Friendships and relationships, I always feel are built on time and how much time that youare spending around others.
in Jujitsu, you are spending time every day, two to three hours a session with people for10 plus years.

(29:38):
And so
you start to know personalities and really know personalities and you can see are theyinsecure, they don't want to get tapped out or they don't care, they let you do something,
are they a teacher, are they not a teacher, are they a know-it-all or whatever.
And so it certainly gets you intimate with a lot of different personalities and with somany people in the room and it helps you read people a little bit as well.

(30:05):
Yeah, actually that dovetails really well into talking about your career because you'vestarted a bunch of companies and sold some and in order to do that effectively, at least
in my experience, I've done that as well, you need to be good at like reading people tothe extent that you find out who they are, how they can fit in a team, what their
strengths are, what their weaknesses are.

(30:26):
And I feel like I picked up a lot of that from jujitsu.
I mean, is there is that sort of where you feel like you got an edge or was thatbeforehand?
Well, I would say that, you know, I did business and management and coaching andentrepreneurship before Jiu-Jitsu, but I would say that both have taught each other and

(30:49):
both are similar in different ways in terms of work.
Yes, there's in Jiu-Jitsu, there's the sort of...
person with a little bit of ego and fear.
So they're hard to engage and you sit there grip fight for two minutes because they justwant to disengage every time you get close or they explode out of things to get tapped.

(31:16):
You know, there's that type.
then there's people that only want to, you know, there's the teacher, you know, the onesthat are very instructive and helps you and that type of thing.
And work in entrepreneurship, I've created these sort of personas.

(31:37):
so, you know, I think the best hire in the world is the organized warrior.
The organized warrior, if you have an organized warrior in your team and in your company,that is such a gift.
Find those people.
The organized warrior is sort of like a mother hen and they...

(31:58):
They make sure that everything that you're hitting this deadline, this task, this followup was done.
They're highly, highly organized and they're worried about this thing.
Every task you're getting done, they can't sleep at night because if something's behind orsomething's not getting done, they'll call you, hey, I don't mean to say something, but I

(32:22):
don't want to make anyone look bad, but we really need to get this thing done.
The organized warrior is, yeah.
That's interesting that the thing that I think I look for when I'm hiring the most is likestructured thinking problem solver like systemic thinker like.
you know, one of the characteristics of that might be somebody who is like a musicianhobbyist, right?

(32:46):
Where you need that like structured creativity or, you know, programmers, I look for thoselike, what are they doing that structured creative and jujitsu is a great version of that
or really most martial arts end up being versions of that.
But I think my optimal version is often that that structured creative thinker and problemsolver.
It's funny when you say the structured creative thinker and the musician.

(33:10):
One time my business partner, Jack and I were doing some interviews and we came down totwo candidates and one we're doing the interview.
I said, Oh, it's candidate A.
He's like, why?
And I was like, she plays the harp.
And she's, and she's, she's, she's really, she's an expert at it.
Why the harp?

(33:33):
who picks the harp and who becomes good at the harp.
know, harp is a big instrument.
It's sitting in a room.
You're by yourself, tediously doing it, sort of like a piano, but even higher.
And so that is a perfectionist.
We're hiring the harpists.
So that's who we hired.
But yes, you know, amazing.

(33:55):
Really, really good.
Really.
Exactly.
And then another one is the ruthless implementer.
Yes.
having a ruthless implementer is a really good compliment to the visionary.
And so those are some of these personality types.

(34:17):
There's personality types in the jujitsu room and definitely at work as well.
I like the ruthless implementer one.
I think about that.
I think in my head, I call that like the dedicated executioner.
Like they'll just keep going, keep like the Paul Graham version of that as people who arerelentlessly resourceful.
And I like that term.
But I think oftentimes what I look for more than that is what I call the duct tapeexecutioner.

(34:45):
which is somebody who's like, hey, they'll get you something.
It might be 80, 90%, but, it might be held together with duct tape, but it's gonna work.
It's gonna stay there and it's gonna be effective in ways that you're like, wow, I did notexpect that to be as good or as functional as it is, but somehow they duct tape that
together and it's still, you know, humming along.

(35:07):
Definitely, definitely.
I'm like a visionary problem solver and that's my role and I'm really good at it, but I'mnot a process person.
Put me as a process person.
I can barely follow processes.
so, but, I'm sure the jujitsu room, I'm sure you have these sort of personality typeslike, oh, he's that guy or, oh, they're one of those something.

(35:35):
actually am that duct tape person.
Like I didn't know that that's what I was when somebody had described it to me a decadeago, but I look back and I'm like, yeah, that's me.
And that's, that's me on the mat too.
Like, this is close enough.
And if it's not, I'll just like shift over to another thing.
And it's like, if I don't quite get that attack, like, something else will be there.
You know, it's funny that you say that on that, that attack thing, because anytime I'mtalking with people in jujitsu on or in, in blue belts and that transition to purple belt

(36:06):
is, is at purple belt.
I realized, or I did started doing this thing that if I couldn't get a submission at 60%,it means something else is there to switch.
so 60 % exertion or switch 60%.
exertion or switch and it's very like that and I think when that concept clicks in aplayer, that's that purple belt transition that okay, the only way is through, that's the

(36:42):
blue belt and then that purple belt is like, oh, that means that's there and it switchesand then once that's programmed, they're brown belt.
I'm the same thing except I'm like 30 to 40%.
If I cannot get a submission at 30 or a sweep or something at 30 to 40%, I move on.
Okay, I'm not there yet, but I just very much, it's not that I mind exerting myself, butit just feels like I don't wanna force something and if I can move on, I'll find something

(37:14):
and I'll keep moving until something else is there.
Yeah.
And I think that's why Brown belts get sort of that lazy rap.
They're not lazy.
They're just moving around.
so exactly.
Exactly.
But yeah.
one of the things that you one of the things that you had told me before we startedrecording was you had done like a whole bunch of very interesting campaigns like you have

(37:36):
been a part of some very big name brands and like how do you feel like those that brandwork has.
Because those that just to contextualize for people that don't know when you work on thosebig name brands, they have very high expectations of professionalism and executions.

(37:56):
Like how does that work translate for you from somebody who is maybe not as processoriented and more visionary?
You know, and I don't know how or if, me just answer the question.
And if there is some sort of tie into Jiu-Jitsu there, there is, but from a, a, a, from a,it's funny, sometimes working with the bigger brands, there's a couple of different cases.

(38:22):
Either they are really buttoned up and efficient and you're just tweaking some of thosethings, or they have a specific campaign that they're working on that they're, that they
need work on.
Or you look under the hood and it's crazy of how disorganized it is and how much theyaren't doing right.
And there's so much infrastructure and it's hard to get things done.

(38:44):
so there are many different cases of working on some of these sort of world-class brandsor well-known brands.
But yes, it can happen in both cases.
and you see it all over the place.
And it's sort of surprising sometimes about how dysfunctional under the hood somecompanies are.

(39:13):
I think that's the thing that most people don't know in general.
Like I've worked with a bunch of quite large companies, Fortune 500s and they'reeverybody's every company is broken in their own way.
Yeah.
Yes, that is that is is an absolute truth right there.
Do have any favorite thing, any favorite campaigns you've worked on?

(39:37):
Favorite campaigns.
Yeah, you know, there's, so the area that I work in is digital marketing.
And I first learned with organic search, making things rank in Google, number one, whichis like the real estate of the web.
And the way that I learned it was I was part of an acquisition of a public company thatacquired an e-commerce shopping cart.

(40:04):
and that e-commerce, like a Shopify or something, and it had 700 websites.
I saw this one business that had those vitamins and vitamins and supplements and a name, abrand name that's out there.
And they had 50 locations running onto this shopping cart.
And they were doing, I think like 40 grand a month or something like that.

(40:26):
Then there was another company that was doing the exact same thing, but it was a mom andpop shop, thousand square foot location.
running this e-commerce shopping cart and they were doing $750,000 a month.
This was back in 2007 or something like that.
And so I had just taken over this division and I went to my developer and I said, hey, runme the revenue by month of everyone.

(40:49):
want to see who's the largest customer on our website platform.
And when I saw that, it's like a tale of two cities, huge brand.
less 40 grand a month, mom and pop shop 750,000.
So I called the guy.

(41:10):
I said, Hey, this is Jimmy Park.
And we're and I took over the division and I say you're doing some of it.
How are you doing that?
He said, Oh, you guys never call because it was like Shopify, they don't call you orsomething like that.
So I said, how do you need to say, Oh, I'm doing it through the search engines.
I said, Well, what do mean?

(41:30):
They said, Well, we get ranked on protein
shakes and that brings us business.
I said, I understand now.
I just never thought about it.
And then so I called the second person, which was another mom and pop shops and the onesthat were winning the web back then, they were these mom and pop shops that were hacking

(41:53):
search engine optimization.
So I called the number two, same story.
Number three, same story.
Like a shoe store or whatever.
So then I go back to the first guy and I said, well, how do you do it?
And he said, well, I'm not telling you, it's a secret.
And I said, oh, I see that.
Yeah, it's a competitive advantage.
And I said, well, don't tell me what you do, but I have the code.

(42:17):
Tell me what you need.
And they said, we've been asking for things for years, but they wouldn't listen to us.
And I said, yeah, but I understand what this is.
So tell me what you need.
And they said, I need.
this part of the code gone and I add this field.
So I went over to my developer, Hey Brock, go code this and get it to me in a week.

(42:39):
So he codes these two things for me, pushes it live.
And I call the guy, Frank, go check.
He said, Oh, I put it in, go check here, check here.
he said, my gosh, you did it.
And I said, what's next?
And then I called the second person and the third and the top 15 or so.

(43:00):
all had their own hacking little SEO guy there.
And over the course of months, I started to learn all of their techniques, building trust.
And so I had sort of a bird's eye view of portfolio, multiple companies while they werejust doing their own little thing.
Sort of like Jujitsu back in the day, it was more siloed and everyone was secret and theno thing was out and this school was good at this and this school was good at that.

(43:26):
It was like that.
You basically were just product managing at that point, right?
You were just like doing your market research, finding your customers.
just managing a web-hosted shopping cart.
And then so I said, think I can do this.
So I called this company that sold dolls.

(43:49):
Barbie dolls, ceramic dolls.
So I called them and I said, hey, I think I can do this thing called search engineoptimization.
Have you heard of it?
And they said, no.
And I said, well, I'm going to do it for you for free because I just need to guinea pig.
And all you have to do is do the sales.
And they said, yeah, we'll try it.

(44:11):
So I did that.
And then in three months,
I had them rank number three on Barbie dolls, number one on American girl dolls, numberone on ceramic dolls, and they went from $4,000 a month of revenue to $400,000 a month of
revenue.
And then from that point on, I said, hey, I went to my CEO.

(44:32):
said, I think we can do this.
Here's the test case.
I need an investment.
I want to hire two people.
And they said, OK.
And then I hired a smart kid out of Georgia Tech, Jack, and then
We did that for a year and then we left and we started our own company about a year and ahalf later.
That's such a great story of like looking into the market and seeing what people are doingand what's working and then just doubling down on it.

(44:55):
That's amazing.
stumbled across.
But to answer your story, there's a company called Greenlight.
And if you have kids, they have debit cards for kids.
And so you're 13, 14 years old.
And instead of carrying cash, you put money on their card.
And they're huge.

(45:15):
If you go look at credit card for kids or debit card for kids on Google, they're numberone.
but they didn't for debit cards for teens.
And I had kids at right around that same age, 12, 13, 14 years old.
And kids, if you have a kid, you're thinking six, seven, eight, and that's a little bitearly to have to give them a debit card.

(45:40):
You're still giving them lunch money or whatever.
So I said, I think teens is the one you want to go for.
And they didn't have the most simple thing.
They didn't, they weren't targeting teens.
They didn't have it on the website correctly to do so.
And this is a big brand.
mean, you go and check it out.
They're, they're, they're against the biggest banks in the world, which are tough playersin organic search.

(46:07):
And, but you go now, we made a couple of changes in the site and then boom, they flew up.
And now if you go Google debit card for teens, they're number one.
And so that's a little bit of, of one.
That's one of my favorite campaigns because it was such an easy example of something thatyou can change and then boom, they moved up to number one in a very competitive industry.

(46:30):
that was a fun one and a good example.
That's great.
It's so cool to hear those kinds of success stories because I feel like not everybody getsthose kinds of big successes in their career.
And so to hear it is like, yeah, okay, you found something, you figured out the niche, youworked on it and you got it there.
That's pretty awesome.

(46:50):
And it's fun.
Organic search is sort of fun.
It's, you know, and we do paid search and all kinds of different things.
the last company, we were doing data analytics and some very, it becomes very complex.
But early in the game, it was, you know, you're just sort of hacking the algorithm andit's sort of, you know, you're on the fringes of a, of this industry, but.

(47:16):
new AI kind of search, whether it's perplexity or whether it's even chat GPT or open AI,with all of these things that are doing search in a completely different way, what are
your thoughts about where search engine optimization will be in the next 12, 6, 12, 18months?

(47:39):
definitely transferring every single year they talk about is SEO dead or organic searchdead or is traffic dead.
And I don't think so.
I think that it's always going to have its place, but it's definitely eroding.
And it's definitely as in everything in digital now, it's democratizing in some sort ofform.

(48:00):
you know, music started, music was one of the first ones and, and, and now
You know, you used to have a record that you bought in a record store and there were thesenames and if you got a record and you were there.
And now on Spotify, everybody can toss something up there and make their own thing andrecord at home with technology.

(48:26):
They don't have to run a studio.
So it's democratized a great deal.
Same with video.
That's why, you know, people aren't even going to the movie theaters or
broadcast television now everybody has a channel now it's a You're you're fighting to sortof get heard in search if you take a look right now if you go Google pretty much any

(48:48):
question, what is a black belt in jujitsu or or how do how do you what's you know, threecamera types that are good for photography for bird photography and what happens is you
will get this AI search result and
And companies used to blog about things.
Let's say, for instance, they are a finance company.

(49:10):
They would write things such as what is GDP or what's the difference between a 401k and anIRA.
And they would write these things.
They would get traffic and they would get business from it.
But now that's being answered in that top block of search.
And so now what's called a zero click search that they get the search, they get theanswer, but they're not clicking anything.

(49:33):
And so these companies that have these large blog strategies that we're bringing to top ofthe funnel traffic through these articles and informational type pages, they're losing 20,
30 % of those clicks now and having to really rethink of what they are going to do andwhat they're going to target.
so AI on Google alone is changing a great deal, but for chat GPT, early adopters are

(50:04):
have been using chat GPT to find an answer, but it's starting to move to a little bitmore.
It's starting to spread out a little bit more to others, but it's definitely moreconversational search, but how it will be monetized, we'll see.
I think that's the interesting thing is that the monetization strategy changes.

(50:26):
But one of the things that I like the most about this shift is that it switches fromsearch to knowledge management.
because basically you're looking at search engine optimization was, hey, there's so muchstuff out there.
Give me what you think is the best Google or Bing or whatever your search engine of choiceis, DuckDuckGo.
And knowledge management shifts to like, okay, we know there's a bunch of stuff out there.

(50:49):
Here's what
Here's the synthesized top X answers put together in a response to your question kind offormat.
And I think that's a beautiful thing for humanity, but for capitalism, it sort of wrecksthe market a little bit.
It definitely can and I think...

(51:12):
people are going to buy the same amount of things.
And so it's just how they're going to do it.
And so it will be monetized or monetization will still occur, but it's just going tohappen in a different way.
It's going to take less clicks to do so.
And it's going to be more focused on good clicks and intent type searches for conversionsversus

(51:40):
uh...
question and informational type of searches but i remember you know being in search ingoogle uh...
you know i do i probably audit forty to fifty to up to a hundred sites a month and so andi can see what people are searching for and you become an expert search you become an

(52:01):
expert and you give me something to find on on google and could probably do it in lesssearches than most people
And ChatGPT and a lot of these AI tools is people are getting good at learning at how towrite the prompts.
And so who knows if the technology will be good enough that we'll need to get good atwriting prompts.

(52:24):
But right now getting good at writing the prompts or learning how to ask and thelimitations of AI is where it's at now.
And so it's, it's learning how to use the tool to its best of it.
of its ability.
a really good side effect that's happening here that I'm a little bit happy about.

(52:44):
One of the nice things about large language models, is what most people understand AI tobe these days, one of the nice things about it is that they speak the language in a way
that we do.
And so this prompt engineering thing is basically like, like, hey, person, try tocommunicate your request better.
Whereas, which I think is a really wonderful skill for more people to be getting,especially as more folks are spending more time on the internet or on social media, on

(53:10):
their phones.
It's like, learn how to communicate better if you want information, which is
Not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.
Yes, and ask a specific question, get that answer, and then build off of that instead of18 questions at the same time to get some muddled answers.
And you find that in conversation in humans.

(53:32):
I talked to my wife and she's asking me five questions before I answer the first one.
so chat GPT is nice that sequential, you get a little bit more value out of it.
I got to tell you, that's something that I struggled with initially when I was doing theseconversations at first.
My first few episodes, I can look back at myself and see myself asking three, four, fivequestions.

(53:53):
And then the person's like, okay, I got to register that one, register that one.
And now I've gotten better at like one question at a time, trying to be a little bit moresequential at the building concept to it.
That's a hard skill, I think, for most people to learn.
And I think LLMs offer that in a very intuitive and unintentional way.
Definitely, definitely.
have a business partner now who is amazing at AI.

(54:19):
And the other day I wrote something and he responded, said, the way that you wrote that,you actually sound like an AI response.
It's becoming influenced by the language coming back.
It's almost like a digital accent coming back.
I think that's gonna happen, right?
Especially with kids who are using ChatGPT or any of these LLMs to write reports, itchanges the way they speak and they start to use words that weren't.

(54:46):
necessarily used by children as often before.
And you can start to see the influence of the AI type of speaking and their and itsvocabulary on native language.
And there's like some really interesting etymologists that are talking about how this ischanging the way humans speak.
Like the two I forget exactly where I heard it, which which etymologist I think isetymology nerd.

(55:10):
But he said there's two really big influences right now on the way people speak.
One of them is
LLMs and AI and the second is people dodging the social media censoring algorithms and soall of these new words that are coming up like you can't say you know kill you have to say
unalive like like these kinds of things are changing the way people speak

(55:35):
That's amazing.
Really, really interesting.
And the subject of how it's going to sort of change the world is so common and so overdiscussed.
But I can say having kids, my daughter is 19, I've got a 19 year old daughter, 17 year oldson that are in this area of what are they gonna study for college?

(56:01):
What are their careers?
And right at this cusp,
You know, that's a very interesting, very interesting generation, high school, middleschool for COVID and all of this.
And now getting into this AI thinking about what they're going to do.
And I have to sort of think and talk to them like, Ooh, that one, that one's that careeris going to be a goner.

(56:23):
I wouldn't, know, that one AI is already on it.
And so what, what jobs are going to be out there and what careers are going to be outthere with.
For the people who work with it on a daily basis, it's amazing to see the value.
And I haven't even been able to extract the potential of it.

(56:48):
And what it can do is amazing and we'll see what it does with the world.
But I really think that it will hopefully, or my hope is that it enables people to havemore hobbies, right?
And start doing things that they love more.
You know, like one of the things that AI isn't gonna be able to do is specifically like...
one of your hobbies, which is photography, right?

(57:09):
Like there's no way that like sure, an AI drone could fly around, take pictures and findthat that moment that whatever.
But I think that there's like the nuance that humans find in beauty and moments.
And I don't think that's going to be taken away by AI.
And I think that there's like real value there.
It's just a different kind of value.

(57:30):
I mean, like is that why you do photography?
Well, you know, answer that first question of AI, this is the first year, 2024, 2025.
2025 will be the first year, I believe, that photos will come out that are AI created,that even a trained eye will not be able to tell.

(58:01):
Yeah, that's already happening.
It's already, it's right now, probably three or four months ago, I could look at a photoand say, there's an AI.
Let me go look for it.
Yes, there's actually, if you take a look at that hand way in the back, it's got sixfingers or something that's little odd that if you scan over it, you won't see, but if you

(58:25):
dissect it, oh no, that couldn't happen.
The shadows going this direction or something like that.
You'd find one tell in there.
But in the last month or so, there's a couple of them that are like,
that that will not be detectable unless you get into the pixels or something like that.
Three months ago, it would fool 85, 95 % of the people.

(58:47):
But those of us who are looking at it could could find something.
But this year, it's going to get past that it's going to get to the point where we just wejust can't tell.
But I do think that there's always going to be a place for true photography.
And I see it a lot with film.

(59:08):
Film is making a huge comeback.
And for multiple reasons, but I think it's because that old process and feel and tones andgrain, it's not what AI is trying to achieve.
AI is trying to achieve that super precise, very perfect.

(59:30):
It looks too perfect where film...
does not look perfect.
And I think that that's why some of the trends are sort of moving back there.
shoot with film or do you shoot digital?
I shoot both and I go in spurts.
Right now I am in a film heavy cycle.

(59:50):
And so I always have one next to me here.
And so, but I'm shooting probably 85%, 95, 90 % film right now.
Do you do the development yourself or do you bring it somewhere to get it developed still?
Do you trust those people?
Yeah, no, I bring it in.

(01:00:11):
I live in New York City and Brooklyn, New York, and so we don't have a lot of room here.
I have done it before, but it's not something that that it's magic to do that, to toprocess and develop and print your own film.
I do print at home.

(01:00:31):
And so I have a photography mentor and his name is Dan DiNardo.
And he told me of
something that he got from one of his mentors.
said, you know, it's not a photo until it's printed.
And it's true, to be able to see it not on the screen, printed in something, it's greatand it's also a great gift.

(01:00:55):
it's good.
How did you get into like street photography specifically?
Cause I feel like everyone's got their niche of what they like shooting, like what drawsyou to street photography?
It's funny, I've been doing photography for 40 years or something and I'm 52, I think Istarted doing it between 10 and 11 years old or so.

(01:01:16):
And always been fascinated by it and it would be different things.
And there was a point in time where I didn't want people in the photos, landscape or evensort of city photos.
And I wasn't really into people, but living in New York, it's amazing.
And so for 15 years, I had used the phone and I was snapping these photos of these thingsin New York that would happen, not even knowing that street photography was a thing.

(01:01:49):
I didn't even know.
It wasn't a thing to me.
I was just taking photos of interesting things.
so, and then I looked back at those photos like, oh my gosh, I was doing a lot of streetphotography.
I wish I would have.
I wish I was taking it serious.
At that point in time, I was doing a little bit more bird photography.
I was going birding with my son and landscape photography, climbing and that type ofthing.

(01:02:12):
But over the past three, four years, I've switched a lot to street photography.
Then I realized that it was a thing.
And then I saw a couple of documentaries and I'm like, oh, this is really a thing.
And now I'm heavy into it and starting it.
But New York certainly helps that.
living here.
of people watching that could be done in New York.

(01:02:34):
And it's never boring here.
We've been here 15 years and never gets old.
But you can walk outside and see amazing, and not only see things, but I've got thisseries that I'm working on on three legged dogs.
So anytime I see a three legged dog, I go take a picture or even sort of two legged dogs,the ones that are sort of paralyzed and have a little cart.

(01:02:58):
I've got this folder and
on my computer that's three leg of dogs.
so once I get 10 of them or something, I'll probably post it, but, and.
Interesting random story.
One of my friends here in Berlin has a dog three legs and named Kimi and I hadn't I didn'treally know I just met the dog at Kimi and then all of sudden I heard them say the full

(01:03:21):
name and I was they were like Kimura come here and I'm like you named your dog Kimura likethe three-legged dog Kimura they didn't know anything about jujitsu so it's just
accidental but I was like it's interesting that you named a three-legged dog a shoulderlock yeah exactly
That is hilarious.
That is hilarious.
Yeah, so, but yeah, photography is a lot of fun.

(01:03:44):
Do you have a favorite photo that you've ever taken?
I don't know if I have a favorite photo.
There's a couple of ones that personally that I that I like Let me let me share two ofthem
Yeah.
It's just crazy, crazy.
It was right when I discovered what street photography was.

(01:04:07):
And I had this camera and right when I was going I was taking pictures in the city.
And I stopped right in front of the Flatiron building.
It was a rainy night and there was an umbrella that was sitting there by itself.
But it wasn't an exploded umbrella or anything like that.

(01:04:29):
It was perfect umbrella.
on the side, right in front of the flat iron, night, was raining.
So I said, oh, that's a good shot.
And I took the photo.
Then I was walking down from 23rd down to 14th, going to this book store called TheStrand.
And The Strand, and I went to the photography section.

(01:04:52):
I said, oh, let me go look at some photography works.
And there's this one, is a collection of street photographers.
And I go, oh, oh, street photography.
I guess that's what this is.
And so I was flipping through and I said, and it had a different name.
so I said, it might be good to study other street photographers.

(01:05:13):
So I buy this book and then I go home and I open up to the first page and it was thisphoto by a guy named Edward Steichen.
I think that's how to pronounce his last name, S-T-E-I.
CHN and it was sort of the first street photo and it ended up being the highest pricedstreet photo ever sold.

(01:05:44):
It's iconic and it was the first page, the very first page right there and it's a pictureof his 19, I don't know, 17 or some problem.
of a guy on a horse carriage under a tree in front of the flat iron building.

(01:06:09):
I go to my pole, said, wait a minute, I go pull the thing off my camera.
And within six feet of where he took that photo is where I took that photo of theumbrella.
I'll have to send this thing to you.
I looked at it, I said, my gosh, that is so weird.

(01:06:31):
And it wasn't, I don't know, you know, some supernatural force telling me to go downphotography, but it certainly was one I said,
what are the statistical chances that I took that photo, I decided to go to the Strand, Ipick one of the books off the shelf.
And the very first page is of the photo of a place that I just took a photo eight feetaway at night in the rain, both of them were at night in the rain in the same spot under

(01:07:00):
the same tree.
It was crazy.
Yeah.
And then
Another photo that is probably the first one that's pinned on my account is this photo ofthese bikers, bicyclers.
It's like a bicycle gang.
And there were probably 1500 kids on bikes.

(01:07:26):
And I said, that's a good photo.
I'm going for it.
So they took over Park Avenue.
And I think they do this once a year.
learned certain years later that they do this once a year and they take over Park Avenue.
And it's just a social online community.
They meet up once a year and boom, they ride through New York City.

(01:07:49):
There were thousands of them.
And I was just walking by and I said, okay, so I run into the middle of the street andthese kids are wheeling and they pass cars.
I mean, they can do...
things on one wheel that we can't even do on two.
So they're very good.
I said, they're skilled enough that they are going to use me as an obstacle.

(01:08:14):
So I ran to the middle of the street, I dropped to one knee and I just stood in the, likea river.
That was like a little rock on the river and they were going past me and I just sat there,got on one knee and caught a couple of photos and then boom, I got one.
That was good.
And so that's the one on my Instagram, but it was definitely one that.

(01:08:37):
the Instagram?
Yeah.
EasyStreetNYC on Instagram.
And it's the first one that's there.
And you can see that it's these kids wheeling by me and there's 100 of them down thestreet.
it's, it was one that happens by itself.
You just happen to be there.
But New York sort of gives you that.

(01:08:57):
There is always something going on in New York.
One of the other things I actually still want to make sure we talk about is climbing.
Like you, you climbed for 25 years.
You, know, like that's a lot of time to do one thing.
Cause you, you haven't even done jujitsu for that long and you've already hit that blackbelt level.
Like, you know, how, how did you get into climbing and how did you stick with it for sucha long time?

(01:09:22):
Yeah, know, climbing is a sport that around the late 90s has sort of opened up to morepeople due to climbing gyms.
I was living in Florida, sea level Florida, where it doesn't have a hill in all ofFlorida.
And a climbing gym opened up and went and took a lesson.

(01:09:47):
And by the time we finished,
I knew it was one of those things, you there's a couple of sports in life that are acouple of activities that I think that people become fanatical about.
And those are the ones that can be also therapeutic.
Jiu-Jitsu is one, surfing is another, climbing is one, CrossFit, CrossFit has thatcommunity aspect.

(01:10:12):
People are fanatical about it.
And so...
By the time I was done, I didn't even make it home.
I went straight to the outdoor store and bought all the gear.
I knew that it was something that I was going to do.
And that was just from a gymnastics perspective in an indoor climbing gym.
And so, but from that, the owner of that gym was a very strong climber, of course, that'swhere he got into it.

(01:10:41):
And his particular style of climbing,
that he enjoyed the most was multi-pitch traditional rock climbing.
And what that means is there's different types of climbing.
There's bouldering.
Think of it like a sprint.
You're only doing 10 moves, really hard, powerful moves on the ground.
You fall, you land on a crash pad or on the ground.

(01:11:02):
No rope.
Then there's sport climbing where there is, in the wall, they've drilled a bolt in thereand they've hung this thing and it's
those things can hold on the small car.
They're so strong and you go and you clip and that's what you see in the Olympics a lot issport climbing.
You climb up to something, you clip in and you climb up and you get to the top and youlower down and you pull your rope down.

(01:11:26):
But it's usually one pitch or one rope length up and then down.
So think of that like a the miler or something like that.
And then multi-pitch rock climbing is where you've got
mostly two people and then the first person goes up a whole rope length stops at the topand then on the way up there's no protection so you're carrying these devices either some

(01:11:57):
sort of stopper that that locks into the wall or a camming device with springs thatexpands the more you pull on it and you place them in every 15 20 feet and then
And then if you fall, that thing catches you.
And then you get to the top of that rope length and the second person comes and then grabsall that gear, meets you at that top there, and then you go up again.

(01:12:23):
And so you're going up multiple rope lengths, sometimes 10, 15, 20 pitches.
so, and those are usually bigger mountains, ones that you find in like Sierra.
That's a lot of equipment trust.
Like how do you build up that equipment trust that that stuff's going to hold you?

(01:12:44):
Well, placing that gear is definitely something that you learn from and that first person,Jason, was a mentor of mine and I went on a couple guided trips with him and he had gone
to college, I think at UC Davis and had a lot of experience in the Eastern SierraMountains where a lot of this multi-pitch climbing is and it's great mountains, clean

(01:13:10):
rock.
Meaning you're not gonna, it's less chance of a rock falling and hitting you in the headand killing you.
And the weather's really nice out there.
It's predictable, which is another thing is lightning is a big danger out there.
so he learned out there.
then so I went on a couple guided trips out there, but you sort of learn.

(01:13:35):
You get one of these devices, you sit on the ground, there's a little crack in the wall,and you.
figure out what size fits in there perfectly and what direction.
And so there's a lot of different things to learn to be safe.
20, 25 years ago, the equipment, I wouldn't say it wasn't as good, but it was earlier.

(01:13:55):
It wasn't early in the career of the maturity of the technology.
But back then in traditional rock climbing, they had a saying that the leader does notfall.
And so you would be climbing well within your
ability so if you were a black belt you'd be like rolling with a blue belt or somethingand you know pretty much you're not going to get tapped and so the

(01:14:20):
has come a long way in the last 20, 25 years.
mean, the ropes are much better quality.
don't get damaged as much, you know, rubbing along the rock the way they used to.
Water doesn't damage them the way they used to.
Like, material science has come a very long way.
Definitely.
And just like something like big wave surfing, new generations are just pushing the limitsmore.

(01:14:43):
And so with added technology, with more daring, with another generation, now people arepushing the limits of traditional rock climbing much, much more.
For example, if you've seen that documentary, The Dawn Wall, that was mostly traditionalclimbing that they were, there was a couple places I think that they put bolts in, but

(01:15:04):
they were.
They were bringing their gear there, but they were taking falls all the time on differentareas.
think most of the places they were doing, they had bolts where they had a lot of thefalls, but they're pushing the limits, the younger generations.
And so they fall more and try to hear.
averse compared to the younger generation?

(01:15:24):
Is that more your style, given just age and family or?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I do a lot of these sports that are that looking from the outside, it seems likethey're adrenaline filled or risky or things like that.
But I'm not that brave.
And I am not that courageous at all.

(01:15:45):
I just systematically build over time.
There was this one
I went on one of my first trips with Jason and I remember we hiked out to this mountainand we saw a mountain called Bear Creek Spire.
And if you're watching or one day go Google Bear Creek Spire Sierras in California andyou'll see this mountain.

(01:16:08):
And it was the first time I ever saw something that I said, my gosh, I want to climb that.
I'm not a person who looks at something and say, my gosh, there's a beautiful line.
I must climb that.
I'm not like that.
But this one, it did something.
was there that I said I wanted to climb this mountain.
So I did more trips, I did more climbing, and 10 years later, I felt that I was ready forit.

(01:16:33):
And I could have followed, you know, had a guide and a leader, and I could have done itthat day behind somebody, but to lead it on your own where you're the one who's the sort
of the senior climber and the one who's doing the route finding and that type of thing, Iwanted to do that.
And, it took me 10 years to get to a point where I knew the mountains enough and you know,those are, the mountains are big out there and, and things can happen and, and it's so

(01:17:04):
big.
It's like an ocean.
Just finding where to go.
Yeah.
You have a little map that tells you go up the left facing corner to a ledge, to a tree,to this.
and you have all these things, but when you're on there, it's a different perspective.
It's hard to see.
You're just looking at the wall.
Did you open any of those routes yourself or was that, do you just follow the map?

(01:17:30):
Okay.
followed the map to a thing and it's not even that hard of a climb, but it's big and Irespect it.
And again, I'm not that brave.
so, but on the pitch before the crux pitch, which is the harder pitch on the, of the 12pitches, one's hard.
One of the, is the hardest on the one below it.

(01:17:54):
I got off route.
And so I went too far to the right and I got onto this really blank section of really hardclimbing.
And I'd made a couple moves that I didn't want to down climb and I thought I can make thisthing up there.
And I went and I went for it and I fell.
And it was the first time I took a fall on trad gear and I fell.

(01:18:20):
luckily the rope stopped me right when my butt hit the ledge.
So it was a soft fall, but I was sitting on my butt before I even knew what happened.
It was happened so quick and yeah, it was scary.
then, then I had ropes got stuck.
Then it took me an hour to clear this rope getting stuck.

(01:18:40):
had to fix the line, go down, Jumar back up the thing.
And then, and then that took an hour.
So we got up late.
So we started maybe at four in the morning, hike to the bottom.
started to climb, took a long time, I was a little slow, stuck rope off route, was mayhem.

(01:19:04):
Got to the top when the sun was setting, which is not good.
And we had to go all the way down.
my climbing partner, Jack, who was my business partner, the Georgia Tech guy, we becameclimbing partners and he had just started his climbing career, but.

(01:19:24):
I eat a lot and he drinks a lot of water.
And so we got to the top.
We finally were making our way down, pitch black at night, didn't know if we were gonnawalk off a ledge.
For us, it was exciting and not in a good way.
And then we got to this bottom.
We thought we were at the wrong gully and then...

(01:19:48):
I ran out of food, he ran out of water, and this is how we know we were good businesspartners because I was like, hey, you take my water, and he's like, you take my food, and
when shit was looking bad, we were really calm.
We were together, we were sharing, it was like, we're going down together or we're doingthis thing, and then it was 12 o'clock, one o'clock at night.

(01:20:15):
And we're like, I don't know if we're gonna be able to find our camp.
We might have to just spoon to stay warm.
we're like, all right, well, now we're gonna be really close.
But then we finally found the camp and then got in and rolled in about 1.30 in themorning.
But it was good day.
about that fall.
Like I know that when I used to climb many years ago and I would fall like that, thatstill kind of messed with me a little bit and made concentration difficult.

(01:20:41):
Like you took a fall that was a little scary and yet you had to do all the unsticking andgetting back on route and whatever.
Like how did that affect you?
Well, it's funny, the fall happened so quick.
Sometimes you know you're going to fall, especially with sport climbing.
You know you're going to fall and then it's a little scary.

(01:21:03):
With this fall in particular, maybe it was just because I was already sort of scared and Iwas off-route and you're alone on the side of it's like the side of the Empire State
Building.
And it just happened so quick that I didn't know, but.
By the time I finished and I got to the next ledge, we were at the bottom of the cruxpitch.

(01:21:27):
And when I was bringing Jack up from belaying him from up top, my hands were cramping andmy fingers weren't letting go of the...
Cause I was pulling the rope and you're gripping the rope and it was a little cold, alittle dehydrated.
So I got to the top.

(01:21:49):
And I knew the toughest pitch was coming up, but my hands were cramping.
And I said, Oh my gosh, what am going to do?
And I was like, man, my hands are cramping.
And he, he's changing the gear and putting it on me.
Cause I have to take all the protection and go lead up again.
And I was like, let me just get some water.
I drank the water and we're a little not nervous, but I had just fallen.

(01:22:14):
was adrenaline was a little bit.
So I said,
I said, I don't even want to think about it.
Just let me get water.
I'm going.
And when I remember when I used to ride BMX bikes when I was little, or we would go cliffjumping in college, you go to the rock quarries and you jump off of like 40 foot things

(01:22:35):
into water.
I know myself and if I looked at the jump, I would get scared and I would psych myselfout.
Or if I looked over the edge too many times of the rock quarry jump, I'd get scared andI'd get more scared and I'd get more scared.
And sometimes in a big bicycle jump, I would look at it and ride up and go and check outthe jump and look at it.

(01:22:59):
And then I would psyche myself out and I wouldn't do it.
So over the years, I realized at the rock quarry, I'd take one look, I'd go back and I'djump.
so I don't think about it.
And so, or when I did a bike jump, would just ride to the end, not stop, turn around andjump.

(01:23:19):
And yeah, so I learned that.
So when I got to that pitch and my fingers are cramping, I didn't want to think about it.
So I just switched gear and I just went.
And luckily it was an easy pitch actually.
And my hands loosened up and then we finished the rest of the climb.
What grades were you climbing to feel like you were ready?

(01:23:41):
You know, like, because you said you waited 10 years and Jack was relatively new in hisclimbing journey.
Like what grades were you doing to feel that you had hit the right point?
Yeah, on Yosemite scale, could climb easy 5.12.
And I would call myself a 5.11 climber, like comfortable leading 5.11 at the time.

(01:24:06):
And then I could make it up a 12 or something like that, but I'd have to work at it.
And so the, and that climb was like a 5 8 plus.
And so I was well below.
My, but the mountains are different.
It's not the grade of climbing that's out there that, that I had to work up for.

(01:24:27):
was more the mountain knowledge, how you climb a multi-pitch route and tried to reduce therope drag.
Being able to find the right piece and the right size quickly, because over 16 pitches,you're putting in five, ten pieces of gear.
And then the switching at the belay.

(01:24:48):
You have to do it fast and efficient because you're going to do it 12 different times.
If you take 10 minutes more per ledge, that's two hours of climbing, you won't get done intime.
And so a lot of it was learning the rope.
techniques, protection techniques, that reading the weather when you go, the routefinding, all of that is what took a little bit longer.

(01:25:13):
at that time, the climbing was easy.
It was the easy part.
that's interesting.
I think that's not a thing that a lot of people think about is like all the a little bitexternalities, but you know, it's like the 90 % of the work is preparation thing.
Yes, definitely.

(01:25:34):
My mentor, Jason, I remember he told me this, and this was before Jiu Jitsu, he said,train hard, fight easy.
But he told me that as a climber before I even started Jiu Jitsu.
You know, it's so interesting.
You've said a couple times you're like my mentor, my mentor for this, my mentor for that.
I think that's, I, I'd always wanted to have mentors in life and I never was reallyfortunate enough to have them.

(01:26:02):
And it sounds like you've been very fortunate.
Like what kind of role do you think mentors have played on your life?
I think it's one of the most important factors in learning something.
And I've been both lucky as well as have put a large priority in finding good mentors inanything that I've done.

(01:26:33):
And so I sort of fall, I fell into it.
and a couple of times like with climbing and then learn like, oh, that was so helpful.
I need to find a mentor for this.
And yes, so I go out and I seek and have become very, very lucky in a lot of the endeavorsthat I have that I've had really, really good mentors.

(01:27:01):
I spearfish and I'm not that good, but.
I just fell into it.
were in Hawaii on vacation.
The wife and the kids, want to do, they want a rest day or something.
I'll go, go, go.
they're I don't want a rest day.
said, oh, well, let me, I've always wanted to try free diving, spearfishing.
So I'm here, we're here for this.

(01:27:21):
Might as well get certified.
So I call a guy and was set up, but that guy couldn't do it.
And then I went to his, person he knew.
His name is Mike Judt.
lifeguard North shore.
He's now a fireman and this guy's like Rambo in the water.
He is amazing.

(01:27:42):
And so we'll swim off a shore, couple hundred yards, 400 yards or something.
Shoot a tuna, which is a huge fish.
You probably shouldn't shoot without a float attached to the thing.
wrestled the thing and carried it up the cliff.

(01:28:03):
mean, it's amazing, but he was a mentor in spearfishing and had several in jujitsu andseveral, a couple in climbing and one in photography.
Do you mentor people also?
Yes, every chance I get.

(01:28:23):
from a business perspective, I've become a mentor to many people over my work career.
And that happens sometimes fairly easy as they work for you and then they move to adifferent job and then they'll call you a month later, hey, I've got this or I'm thinking
about this or even during the time that I'm working with them.
And so from work, I've become a mentor to

(01:28:48):
a lot of people.
And in some of these other sports, climbing probably with Jack, he may say that.
yeah, I enjoy teaching, I enjoy sharing.
And so yeah, that's certainly a big part is being able to pair it forward.
And I do it every opportunity I can.

(01:29:09):
I love that.
I'm the same way.
never, like I said, I wasn't lucky enough or fortunate enough to have mentors.
And so now I try to do my best to teach others and help them with the lessons that I nevergot coming up, whether it's professionally, whether it's jujitsu, whether it's, you know,
even back when I was skydiving, I did a lot of coaching there.
And I feel like that kind of...
mentorship is lacking and that's that sort of service and purpose-filled life with serviceis one of the things that is I feel like lacking more nowadays than it used to be when

(01:29:40):
information was that was the way to access information was through people and mentors.
Yes, and those who can mentor in a really good way.
spearfishing with Mike Jutt, Dan DiNardo in photography, Eric Sherman in jujitsu.

(01:30:03):
They have a way to give you just enough information and at the right time and push you butnot push you.
It's a fine line, good mentors.
are able to do that and like, okay, let them figure it out here on their own or here's onepiece of advice or, it's never really rarely advice.

(01:30:29):
Sometimes it's like, hey, you know, do this.
And sometimes just watching them is a really good thing to do as well.
But yes, it's enjoyable and I've been very, very lucky.
I also want to talk about that bonsai tree behind you.
I've got to say, I've, always see it in movies, but I never see anybody.

(01:30:53):
I don't know anybody who has actually like done who does does bonsai gardening.
Like how did you get into that?
I've...
My photography mentor, he laughs at me because one of the first things that we becamefriends with, was our shared love of trees.

(01:31:16):
I don't know why, but I love trees.
And my love of trees, those grand looking old trees or the ancient bristle cone pineforest over by the Sierras is a place that I always try to go to.
If I'm on a climbing trip, I'll sneak over to the white mountains over there and see thesetrees that are 8,000, 9,000 years old, all gnarled and crazy.

(01:31:44):
growing up in Florida, these grand Southern Oaks with huge canopies and in the middle ofa, of a, of a farm field.
And it's just a single solitary tree out there or in.
Costa Rica, some of the Guanacaste trees out there, they've got these layered reachingarms and trunks, it's like 10 feet, it's amazing.

(01:32:10):
And redwoods, the sequoias, all of them.
And so I really liked trees first.
And the Kokodi laughed at me, was like, yeah, I'll travel for trees.
And so.
the which is sort of odd, but they're really cool looking.
And so from that, exactly.

(01:32:36):
And so I, because of that, the art of bonsai is to make a small tree look like a 3000 yearold tree.
And so some of the concepts are is
you know, sort of a wide trunk that sort of tapers like that, like an old tree would andhas roots that spread and finger out for that foundation.

(01:33:04):
And, and then that sort of that twisting gnarled aspect to it.
then, then branches that reach out and you want to start off with trees that have smallleaves because the leaf to the trunk and height ratio needs to be proportionate to make it
look like an old tree.
And so.
Because of that, you're basically trying to recreate that.

(01:33:28):
It's something that I decided to try and learn and it's taken a long time.
The learning cycles of a tree is long.
You make a mistake in August.
You don't even find out sometimes that mistake until next March and then you don't have away to change it until the next August again.

(01:33:49):
your learning lessons are sometimes a year or
or you'd make you this, this branch right here is a little yellow right here because Itwisted it a little bit too much.
And so now it's going to take a full year to recover that thing to it's perfectly green.
And now I know how much I can tweak a juniper when it's at a top branch.

(01:34:13):
And so, and what time of year to do it.
So it's not weakening it before the winter time.
So it's these lessons that sometimes takes a year.
to do and maybe a year to three to recover and so about 26, 27 years.

(01:34:36):
just to use the grading system from earlier.
Are you like a black belt at that?
Are you a purple belt in Banzai?
Yeah, I mean, can, I could work on, you know, there's black belts and then there's likeworld-class black belts.
I am not a world-class black belt and, the decent one, tournament play, whatever.

(01:35:02):
But there are some world-class bonsai people that are out there that know way more than meand have spent their life doing it or a five-year apprenticeship in Japan and that type of
thing.
But.
I would say, yeah, I can handle myself in any room, you know, and can keep trees alive.

(01:35:25):
And not only that, now I'm pretty good.
I've got a pretty good green thumb.
Because once you understand how plants are, then, you know, I can flower an orchid, youknow, the ones that you get at Home Depot.
then can't get them to flower.
I learned how to do that or I got gifted some plant that somebody is killing and like, allright, yeah, I think I can get this thing back in its legs or something like that.

(01:35:53):
yeah, I think.
Banzai do for you though?
Like what is the, is it the patience?
Is it the art?
Is it is it meditative?
What does it do for you?
Yeah, it's, I've never thought of myself as an artistic person.
I wasn't born to draw.
I'm not really good at, I can't sing.

(01:36:17):
I can't draw.
can't paint.
I can't do any of that stuff.
But people tell me, or my family will say, like, my gosh, you're so creative with thephotography or with bonsai.
And but it's a lot of technique.
It's a lot of technique of of what to do.
I just like it to make there's different styles to there's ones that look like bonsaitrees.

(01:36:40):
I like to make mine look like a tree.
And so I know how to tree looks like I know what a tree looks like.
And I know the characteristics of those.
For example, you don't want parallel branches.
You barely see a tree going up with two branches going up here.
They sort of stagger and and they go from
larger branches that are reaching out for the sun.

(01:37:03):
So they have to be thicker, go from the bottom and then they sort of reach out until theyget light.
So they sort of go in a little bit of a triangular shape.
And so, so I know that I know how they grow.
So I'm able to recreate that into the tree and it's sort of nice to be able to do that.
And so I don't think it's creative.

(01:37:26):
but some people would say that it is.
So maybe it's a creative outlet to do something like that, to make something.
I just like looking at them.
How many do you have?
I live in New York, so don't have an outdoor area.
So I put them on the fire escape.
Most people don't realize that bonsai trees are outside 300 days of the year.

(01:37:48):
You only bring it inside for a call like today, or I'll bring this in for a week and I'llwork on it and I'll put it back outside.
And so they're outside most of the time.
I'm on the fire escape.
So I think I've got seven of them.
You know, some of them, the oldest ones are
50 years old, 50, 60 years old.

(01:38:10):
so 20, 40 years old, that type of thing.
so there are some of them are some in the major nurseries in Japan and Washington, DC.
And they're they've they're 400, 700 years old.
It's quite amazing.
Yeah.

(01:38:31):
Do you, if somebody wanted to get into it, what would you tell them?
Start with an easy tree.
Start with an easy tree that's hard to kill, that's easy to recover.
Japanese maples are actually fairly easy.
Korean hornbeams, I think, are a little bit easier too.
If you break a branch, it's going to grow back.

(01:38:54):
They also change leaves in the wintertime if you're in the right temperate zone.
They'll fall color.
They're fun.
There's maintenance to do on them.
and they're fairly hardy to work on.
Junipers like this one here are the ones that are sold the most, but they're not theeasiest.

(01:39:17):
So I would say get an inexpensive tree.
water more than you think and give it more sun than you think and then give it a shot butyou're probably going to kill a bunch of trees.
It does happen, I would imagine.
Yeah.
You're going to have to get tapped out and you're going to have to kill a lot of trees toget to a point where you know where the mistakes are and to get good, you kill a lot of

(01:39:47):
trees along the way.
You have so many hobbies in addition to your life.
How do you balance all of this?
Some of them are very time intensive, like climbing, jujitsu, and you have family andkids, and how do you balance all that?
Yeah, lot of the things, know, jujitsu is constant all year round, three to five times aweek.

(01:40:10):
And I'm in there if I'm not injured like I am now with a popped rib.
I've got to rest for like four weeks.
Then I don't, my mother was born in a way that she didn't really, she's never needed a lotof sleep in her life.
She sleeps four or five hours a night.

(01:40:31):
her whole life and I got that gene and and
A lot of the times it's good, you get a lot of times to do things, but growing up it washard because it was always hard to fall asleep and that can be stressful, not being able
to sleep.
People who can sleep well, it's a gift.

(01:40:52):
It's a gift, it's something that I wish that I had, but I just don't, I sleep, when I'masleep, I probably get two sleep units per hour versus one per hour like most people.
So I rest.
the same way.
I have the same thing.
I'm very lucky.
I don't have trouble falling asleep, but when I'm asleep, I can five hours and I'm five,six hours.

(01:41:13):
I'm fine tops.
Yeah.
go.
Yeah, so I wake up four in the morning and then, but I learned to do that because it makesit easy for me to fall asleep at night.
If I don't wake up at four, I cannot fall asleep at night and that's stressful.
And so I just learned very young to, had to wake up early to not get that stress at night.

(01:41:35):
So I have more time in the day.
That's one thing.
I don't really watch TV.
I don't watch fiction.
I don't.
You know, fiction and entertainment TV is not something that I do much.
So that gives you a lot of time back as well.
Climbing, I go to the climbing gym for fitness.

(01:41:57):
And then to go outside, I usually go in the summertime.
So I'm not doing a lot of trips outside throughout the year because I like climbing in theSierras and the Sierras, the climbing season is...
depending on what mountain you're climbing between June and October.
And so that's the climbing season.

(01:42:19):
And so I'll go out there and do one or two big trips a year climbing.
Spear fishing is only a couple of times a year that I'll go.
I'm not really good at cold water.
So if I'm gonna go surf or spear fish or something, I'm gonna usually fly somewhere warm.
It is a mental challenge to get into cold water on a regular basis.
Yeah, I'm awful with cold water.

(01:42:41):
went in Long Island here and I was freezing.
We went like a hundred miles out to Hudson Canyon and it was cold, was sharky and cold.
Yeah, I'm always two mils more than everybody else too.
Is there any piece of advice that you kind of wish everyone knew, you know, given all yourvaried experiences?

(01:43:04):
Um, I think you hit one and I was going to say it and, which is finding good mentors,finding a good mentor can, can shortcut a lot of things and, the wisdom and advice,
sometimes you'll sort of hear it and not get it and you'll get it a year later, but it's,it's a really good way to, to advance your learning.

(01:43:27):
I would say finding, you know, whether it's business, jujitsu,
Any type of activity that your skills development to find a couple of good mentors in thatarea is is huge.
I would say that that's a pretty good one.
Some things I say to my kids is you get better on the days that you don't want to go.

(01:43:52):
It's easy to go on the days you want to go and everyone goes on the days they want to go.
But if you want to get better and really good at something.
It's you got to go on the days that you want to go.
Don't want to go.
And I believe it's from a frequency perspective to learn something.

(01:44:13):
And let's just assume it's an hour or two every session.
You got to go three times a week to get better.
Two times a week to stay sharp, to stay exactly where and one day a week you're going todigress.
three days a week to get better, but if you go four days a week, you'll be 25 % betterthan if you went three times a week.

(01:44:40):
It's weird.
You think about it in those numbers.
You go four times a week, three times a that's 25 % better.
I don't know that I, I get the logic, but I don't know that I agree with that.
I mean, I think there's a certain amount of like information overload or recovery orinformation processing that people need.

(01:45:00):
And for some people, they might actually be way more effective at three days a week thanthey are at four.
Like for me, when I used to train five days a week, it was too much.
I couldn't ingest that information.
I couldn't do it.
I went down to four.
I started progressing faster.
And then the older I get, my body doesn't handle four days as well.
And now I'm ideal at three.

(01:45:21):
And if I do a fourth, I can do it as long as I give myself good recovery after that.
Absolutely, and it's funny because what you just described is why I don't progress that tofive days a week.
Because I think that there is a diminishing return at a certain point.
I think during the learning stage, three and four days a week is a really good area.

(01:45:46):
If you're in that sort of blue belt, purple belt stage, I think four days a week isreally, really good.
You get really sharp on it.
and you're not forgetting, but you have enough rest time.
I think at the brown and black level, the difference between three and four is a lot lessbecause you're getting so much out of those three days.

(01:46:13):
And the difference of what you're learning per day is a little bit less.
you're not learning so much through a fire hose early.
That you can you can do that and you know every day you're learning so much so much butnowadays I go to class our instructor Mike Jaramillo Who's amazing this guy knows?

(01:46:38):
he's one of those guys that can see 12 moves in advance and Set you up like a chess playeron the first move knowing that he's gonna get you on on the 12th but He'll
teach something and let's say it's 10 moves altogether in terms of the sequences that youlearned that day.

(01:47:02):
You do this one, you do five and then the counter another five and say there's 10 or 15moves.
All those 10 or 15 moves are probably let's say 10 out of 10 moves.
I probably know eight of them or nine actually nine of them.
But there's one little thing where he put a knee that has nothing to do with the move thathe's teaching.

(01:47:23):
But I was like, look how high he moves up there at that spot.
And that's what I'm catching now.
And that little inch or two inches of where his knee placement from here to here can makea huge difference.
so it's those little subtleties that I'm looking at now, which, you know, so the three tofour day may be a little bit less now, but I do think.

(01:47:49):
to look for.
Right?
Like we know what to look for when you're at the upper belts and at the lower belts, youdon't know what's useful, right?
You might have a move that's taught to you by somebody who's got short legs and you havelong legs and you're like, I'm doing what they're saying.
And you don't know that that's a thing that you have to pay attention to.
It's like, I need the long legged version, or I need to deal with this long arm thingthat's different or my torso length that makes it so this move doesn't work as well.

(01:48:13):
So we like at the upper belts, you kind of know that that's a thing you need to look for.
And you're like, maybe I need to make this adjustment.
And then you can ask
that question and you're able to utilize the time and the person more effectively.
It's so true.
When we would do privates with John, John would give us almost too many.

(01:48:35):
We'd have to finish our private and go write it all down or because we wouldn't or wewould record ourselves doing it right afterwards or we wouldn't remember it.
Whereas later I was working with Eric Sherman, excuse me, who's about my height, my bodytype.

(01:48:57):
and trained under John for years has a photographic memory of jujitsu just the same way.
So when I would ask him a question, instead of giving me five, he would give me two orthree and all three of them were right down the pipe into my game.
He was a very efficient person to be trained under to have as a mentor.

(01:49:19):
But yes, the body types are different, just like the footlocked sequence.
It took me a long time to realize that in one configuration, I use this one game ifthey're the same height as me.
I use another one if their legs are shorter than me, if they're shorter than me.
And I use a different one if they're taller than me.

(01:49:39):
And so, and it's all different to be able to do at a black belt level, not saying that I'manything great or anything like that, but those are the nuances.
Yeah.
It's different by height or person even.
Yeah, it makes sense.
What are you excited for in the future?

(01:50:00):
Like, what are you looking forward to these days?
You know, let me, in Jiu-Jitsu and you know, from a Jiu-Jitsu, let me start off withJiu-Jitsu.
From a Jiu-Jitsu perspective, it's, I've had a couple of these upper OG multi-stripe blackbelts afterwards.
They're like, hey, now you're right.

(01:50:22):
Now it's a point that you're really going to learn, but you're, you're going to progressmore in this year than you've done in the last five years.
And it's been true.
It's amazing.
I don't know what it is that you're sort of, if you're getting 10 % of your brain that youwere unconsciously thinking about a belt or a progression or something, that that's all

(01:50:44):
gone, that it's just free and clear, but I'm definitely learning much, much faster.
Literally the day after I got my black belt.
I don't know why, but for me it's been true.
And so I'm really looking forward to.
fixing a lot of what I would call holes in my game.

(01:51:06):
So the areas that aren't strengths to make them strengths in a long, systematic, patientway.
And so it's nice.
It's allowed some patience and some focus and I'm ready for that in Jiu Jitsu for sure.
In life in general, my kids are about to go into college and...

(01:51:28):
and start picking their careers and my daughter's found hers, my son will find his and soit's sort of nice to see that I would say and the thing that I'm.
in the most accelerated and fastest progression is the photography work.
And so I go out and I'm out shooting on the streets 20 hours a week and studying at homeanother 20 hours a week.

(01:51:59):
so that's, I'm really looking forward to doing that, which is going to be a good activityfor me once my body starts breaking down in jujitsu and less rolling, more teaching and.
Yeah.
You know, if I get into some sort of teaching of jiu-jitsu, which I'd look forward to inthe next 10 years, I'll still have photography to go out and walk the streets with.

(01:52:25):
Yeah.
You know, it's one thing that's funny about, about photography and jujitsu.
One thing that jujitsu, everyone thinks you do jujitsu and like, you talk to your buddiesor something and they're like, okay, you're in a bar.
Like, could you take that person?
And, and they're thinking like, oh yeah, now you're a fighter.

(01:52:47):
You could do all this stuff.
And yeah, we do the sport of jujitsu.
And yes, you go up to somebody on the street.
It's gonna help you a great deal.
But heck no, I don't wanna mess with anybody.
I know people that don't look like they could do anything and have learned that they candestroy me in 35 seconds.

(01:53:09):
And I've trained for a decade of jujitsu and there are people that are...
No, I don't ever want to do that.
But it definitely makes me more comfortable in situations in which you never have to usejujitsu.
But there's something about how you carry yourself on the street.

(01:53:34):
There's lot of interaction with photography and street photography.
I had this one guy who thought I took a picture of him.
A homeless guy thought I took a picture of him.
And I didn't and wanted to fight and started to come be aggressive.
just because not that I wasn't scared or wasn't ready or something, but being prepared, Iwas just like, no, no, I didn't take a picture of you.

(01:54:05):
And it just made me calm.
And then I think that they see that, that you're calm.
And then they don't want it.
They choose not to go any further, which is
And that's happened to me probably 10 to 15 times.
And I think it's because of Jiu-Jitsu.
I don't know, but I do feel it just gives you a little bit of a different demeanor thathelps avoid stuff.

(01:54:33):
Calm in the face of danger for sure.
Oh yeah, and my cardio is pretty good.
I probably can outrun these people.
Even if I think that, yeah, I could do whatever on some jujitsu thing or whatever, I wouldrather run.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

(01:54:53):
I get hurt getting out of bed sometimes.
I'm not gonna wrestle with anybody.
That's the funny thing, the more you age, the more you're like worried about the standingup the wrong way or getting out of bed or getting off the couch in an awkward way.
I know.
Is there anything you'd like to promote?

(01:55:16):
Yeah, I would love if anyone enjoys photography to come check out my Instagram account.
It's EasyStreetNYC and I focus on black and white street photography, mostly New YorkCity.
If I travel, I'll do photos, but I really love the city and New Yorkers in general.

(01:55:38):
And so if you like photography and want to see some photos, maybe give me a follow.
EasyStreetNYC.
Yeah, I'll link to it in the show notes as well.
So hopefully people will be able to find it.
Cool.
Jimmy, this was a wonderful conversation.
I really enjoyed it.
And thank you so much for your time.
yeah, didn't know.

(01:55:58):
Wow, it's it's I didn't know that time flew by so quickly and but yeah, I hope it'sentertaining and helpful for for others.
I never know, but I hope so too.
Yeah.

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Jimmy Park, Black Belt, Entrepreneur, Climber, Photographer, Bonsai Stylist - Beyond the Belt #20

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jimmy Park, Black Belt, Entrepreneur, Climber, Photographer, Bonsai Stylist - Beyond the Belt #20