March 30, 2024 • 46 mins
In this episode of Inside the Wave podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing my BJJ coach and mentor, Jon Friedland. Jon shared his journey into the world of Jiu-Jitsu, starting in the late 90s after being inspired by the performances of Royce Gracie in the early UFCs. He discussed how the perception of martial arts shifted after witnessing the effectiveness of BJJ in real combat situations.
Jon also shared a humorous anecdote about receiving his black belt in Taekwondo while in basic training in the military, highlighting the challenges and unique experiences he faced during that time. He emphasized the empowering nature of jiu-jitsu and how it transformed his life from being a victim to feeling confident and capable.
The conversation delved into Jon's transition from being an athlete to a coach and eventually a gym owner. He shared valuable insights on the importance of creating a supportive and empowering environment for students, especially children, in jiu-jitsu. Jon emphasized the significance of keeping jiu-jitsu fun and safe for kids to foster their growth and development both on and off the mat.
As the discussion progressed, Jon reflected on his MMA career, sharing lessons learned from his fights and the importance of resilience and perseverance in the face of challenges. He highlighted the role of teamwork and support in overcoming setbacks and finding success in BJJ and life.
Jon also touches on the concept of balance in his life, emphasizing the power of saying no and prioritizing what truly matters to him. He shared his excitement for the future of his Jiu-Jitsu journey, looking forward to seeing how others use jiu-jitsu to grow and evolve, both personally and artistically.
Overall, the episode provided valuable insights into the mindset and experiences of a dedicated BJJ practitioner, coach, father, and gym owner, showcasing the transformative power of Jiu-Jitsu in shaping lives and fostering a sense of community and growth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
Welcome to Inside the Wave podcast, episode two. And
today I have my jujitsu coach, my mentor,
Jon Friedland joining us. Welcome, Jon. Happy to
be here. To the podcast. You're as much my coach as I am yours. I appreciate
that. So tell me a little bit about you. You've been doing jujitsu for a minute
or two. You have a academy or two. Let
(00:37):
Well, I started jiu-jitsu in the late 90s, right?
So, like most people at that time, inspired
And you didn't really start in the 80s because it didn't even exist in
Right. But you're right. What was neat about those,
martial arts did. So like, that was like the, the
(01:00):
Chuck Norris era and then all that. And, and then like the, the,
the fantasy, other Asian arts, like Kung Fu,
like these mystic things, like Kung Fu and then of
course, Taekwondo. And I was a Taekwondo and all that, like everybody else at
the time. And that's what made us look at the
UFC when it came out a little differently than regular people, I
think, because we always theoretically thought,
(01:23):
oh, Kung Fu is better than Sumo, better than Karate, better than Jiu-Jitsu. We've
heard of Jiu-Jitsu, of course, but to see it put to
the test opened our eyes a little differently than,
I guess, the lay person that watched the first UFC. So I think we had that slight
little advantage or at least different way
of looking at it, and it hooked everybody. Everybody
(01:44):
that you know has been doing Jiu-Jitsu from that era, that
So did you discover Jiu-Jitsu For one,
Taekwondo. What rank were you? You
It'd be the spite of the military. I think this is absolutely
hilarious. I had just tested for my black belt right
(02:05):
before I quit my Pizza Hut job to join the military. I
received my black belt in the mail while in basic training in
Georgia, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but there you
give up all your rights. They read your mail in front of everybody. They open your packages. They
take your food, all your care packages, all the stuff. You were only like
high fives. It was not, it was like, Oh, what is this? What
(02:27):
is this? I'm like, Oh no. So then I'm the bane of everyone's joke.
Cause I still can't fight. Yeah. And then, uh,
And so that, that was, uh, I mean, anybody that's in the military, if you could just imagine that
your drill sergeant pulled out a
black felt of like the skinniest guy in the platoon pulls in front of
everybody. I mean, as, as horrifying as
(02:51):
Awesome. And is that before or after you
Uh, I, so, you know, I joined the military in
the, in 94, 93 technically, but it was, the UFC was I think 93 or
92 or something. It was early nineties. We saw it and it
was just like, jujitsu, okay, jujitsu, man, this little guy, dragging
(03:15):
the energy out of everybody and tying them up and
mysteriously making them quit with this tapping out action. Yeah.
You know, and it was, it just planted the seed where it was like, okay, Jiu-Jitsu
seems to be the one that just no
matter if they came in striking, swinging, or even grappling,
it always came up ahead. So me getting beat up in the military later,
(03:39):
I flashed back. I'm like, what can I possibly do? This
is stupid. These guys are all bigger, just like you would expect. They all did
some wrestling or they did better karate or whatever. Yeah. And
I just remember flashing back to this, that Royce Gracie guy. Yeah.
You know what I mean? So then shortly after I
got in and stationed in Germany, me and my buddy who
(03:59):
had a similar story, just started
privately trading under the tutelage of
Hoist and Hori and Gracie with a VHS tape in our barracks. When
everyone else was out doing their Friday night shenanigans, we were there
And that was, You know, like all
(04:20):
the martial arts can be empowering, right? But nothing was
more empowering to me and probably ever since then,
always being on the bottom, always being the
victim of bullying. always losing every challenge I
ever made and definitely every one I ever accepted just suddenly and
almost overnight, realistically a few months, but it felt like
(04:42):
overnight. We just stopped losing. No,
we didn't win all of our fights. We stopped losing. And
like, when you're no longer afraid your capital is going to be taken. you're
more likely to move on theirs. And it just, it was so, it was so, and
I just, that's, I think that's one of the first and quickest gifts
you get in jujitsu or any, you know, realistic applied
(05:03):
fighting art is, um, the,
the, the, how quickly you go from, the
And I think sometimes, like, you
don't have to always win. Sometimes, like, surviving is thriving, right?
Like, a kid's getting bullied in school. You don't have to beat up
(05:23):
the bully, but if you show the bully that what they're doing to you
is not effective, that is a victory. That's sometimes a larger victory.
And a service to every other kid, too, 100%. And so, you know, self-defense
is, sure, you're defending yourself, but you're also defending everyone
else. Yeah. because you're willing to put yourself in a
situation where I'm going to show you that your bullying isn't working
(05:46):
So you found jiu-jitsu in the military, training
in like the super classic Gracie like garage gym
kind of where you're just like all self-discovery, all
self-learning, no real instructor besides Mr.
V, Sensei VHS. Yeah. If you guys don't know what VHS is,
it's before DVDs, which is before Netflix. What
(06:10):
Because I remember it was VHS and beta were the two competing things, I
think. What is it? I don't know. But,
but, uh, it was, yeah, they're big and ugly. Any
of the first video tapes, yeah. Back when we were training too, people would try
to record us. Not enough, unfortunately, but they would stick
those big VHS tapes in a bigger thing. Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah. And it was nuts. So they had smaller tapes, so they
(06:33):
evolved that way. Now the phones are super, super nice, but so sorry.
So then, so you found jujitsu in the army.
You kept practicing jujitsu. You did your services, your
tours. And you eventually came back to
When was that? So that was cool. So I got back, holy
(06:56):
God, at the end of 96, early 97. Jumped right in
the university. I wanted to get a quick transition back
to Green Bay where I was. And I was just raving. I told everyone I could tell
my family. Nope. When you start Jujitsu, you want
to tell everybody and no one wants to hear it. You know what I mean? There's like a crossfit. There's
some advice for a new person. It's saying exactly, it's crossfit. We're really kind of,
(07:20):
Nobody wants to hear it. Especially if they see it, they're like, and what
are those two guys doing? It's so, it's so, yeah.
So, but I was one of those, I was that guy. I went to that, I went to that, that
face. I'm like telling everybody and they're like, yeah. And. You know, he heard us
do the Nintendo game, you know, or heard about the Green Bay Packers. And
so, but one of my friends was paying attention and he said,
(07:42):
he said, you know, I just saw, I heard a radio announcement about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
It's as far away as Appleton, 30 minutes. Now, who wouldn't give an hour now?
But I'm like, it's not the Jiu-Jitsu
I'm talking about. This is just what we were talking about before we knew what Jiu-Jitsu
was. And he's
like, I'll go down there with you. whatever, he couldn't do
(08:03):
it at the last minute or whatever. So I drew it all by myself. And I went in there
and I'm like, I'm just going to- From Green Bay to Appleton. Yeah, which is nothing. And that's what, yeah.
And I went in there and I saw a bunch of people in
geese. Yeah. Doing exactly what
I thought jiu-jitsu was, the new jiu-jitsu that I saw, Royce Gracie. Yeah.
And it looked like the grainy, you know, you
(08:24):
call this out, the garage jiu-jitsu stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real grainy, it just, it
just, Big Midwestern guys roll around though. I was like, and
the guy's like, oh, how are you doing? I'm still little. Yeah. And I'm like,
I want to sign up for this. Like, just try a free class first. Like,
no, I want, what's the maximum I can do right now? We could do six months
or whatever. I'll pay it full right now. Yeah. It's like, you know, most people that do this don't
(08:45):
make it a week or two. I'm like, no, no. Think I'm all hers. Fact.
Well, it's still a fact, right? And I think it's, and I think as a side note,
I think it's on us too as the leaders to try to soften that blow. A
hundred percent. Right. Like to just widen that funnel of,
like, give them a little bit of a treat. And even in your early days too,
it wasn't the most accepting environment, right? No. And, but I mean, and
(09:06):
not to get off track too much, but like people don't have to
come in hard. Yeah. You can build resilience, you know, and
we can, and we can, knowing that, but so back then it was like,
Which we've actually, and I've seen you evolve. your
curriculum in your gym, like you've removed some things from the warmups that
are like super intimidating for newer people. The hard way you change stuff
(09:29):
up to adapt, right? Because our goal, like we still want to
create hard individuals and people that can defend themselves.
We want to create a lot of them, not a few of them. And if you kind of like face
everyone out, filter everyone out right away, they don't get a fair shot
Yeah, that's right. And if steel truly hardened
(09:49):
steel or iron sharp as iron, We need more of
it. Yeah. And we both saw each other. It's like, uh, I was using the analogy of
like, um, like doing laundry or, or. I hate
doing laundry. What about it? Imagine that person that
loves doing laundry. I don't see people, they actually,
I should take it back because people do it as like meditation. It's like, just like dishes, but
(10:10):
laundry is one thing, but we're like a rock and a tumbler. Do
you remember what tumblers are? Are tumblers a thing? Yeah. What is it that makes
it smooth? Shining? Yeah. Yeah. That thing will
get smooth faster with more rocks. Yeah. The
piece of clothing you try to get cleaner will be cleaner with other
clothing bumping up against it. Yeah. You know, people wash
(10:31):
it by itself. Careful, it won't get as clean. But what? Also, if
You know, we fight for mass space every day. Nobody can move. You have to take turns. And
the same in the wash too. Yeah. So you're welcome for the laundry too. But I
mean, that's, I think that's a, you would have that perfect balance of, of contact
(10:52):
Right. So you did, you signed up
for six months in Appleton. How many other like gyms
were in the area in Wisconsin? Like night where it were like
And we have to look back at the history. There may have been one, it would have
been Justin Morris probably, or maybe a Madison thing way
(11:13):
back then. Everywhere else that we were training was either, like where
Yeah, I was gonna say, it's not a jujitsu. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, hey,
we're a karate school and we saw a jujitsu dominant in the UFC,
so we're gonna practice some pajama. That was all of it, yep. Okay.
And so, or people's bases. And
(11:34):
that was the thing. On Friday nights, it was kind of like a tradition. We'd go way up into Door
County, of all places. We'd go down to Milwaukee, of course, Madison, Beaver
Dam, Appleton. And then I started venturing to Chicago,
and then Atlanta, and LA, and New York. And I just tried to get That
was like the days of like, you went on like exploratory missions and
brought it back. Everybody was. So we were mixing it up. Like
(11:55):
that's how like the, the Melty Pot started, at least for
Yeah. You know, and that's crazy because you in
97, you had to go travel to find a jujitsu school. Even
when I started in 2007, 10 years later, if
I wanted to train with like a handful of color belts, like more
(12:16):
Yeah. Cause it comes in phases, right? So to find anybody at all that wanted
to train Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah. You had to, you had to travel
an hour or more has time. And I remember one of the, one of the
big concerns was like, how do I cover my
rug burn? Not Matt Berg, but Rugbert.
Half of us didn't have mats, half of us didn't have geese. We certainly didn't have bells with tabs on
(12:36):
them that we used to... Even in your early days, I believe my
Hockey tape, that's it. We made our own tabs. We wanted to have, like,
And I think the only way, and this is dating ourselves because
e-commerce like wasn't that baby thing, right? Go online and order it. Like if
you wanted a jujitsu gi with a jujitsu belt, you bought it from
(12:59):
a tournament. We're like, oh yeah, we did vendors. We're like Fuji was
there as a vendor at a Naga tournament. That's right. That's right. Otherwise
you're just getting a judo gi or karate gi from Norm
I was just talking about this a couple of
weeks ago. On my scooter with my army duffel bag, very symbolic to
(13:19):
you, with my army duffel bag. And I remember hitting
the gas. I had it loaded up with all our keys we could possibly have. Hitting
the gas, maybe do an involuntary wheelie after we went through the intersection at
the green light. People would tip me back. Yeah. I
don't miss that. I mean, I do actually. I'm nostalgic about
So you were a part of jujitsu pretty
(13:41):
much since it started, at least in the United States. And
he's kind of seen its evolution. Um, and from my understanding, like, and
with most athletics and cool things,
right, they kind of start on the coast. They kind of move their way
in, they'll get to Chicago before they get to us. When
did you start seeing jujitsu actually start becoming a
(14:03):
thing in Wisconsin? Like where you can go like, Hey, there's a
jujitsu school, man. There's a jujitsu. So like, man,
So he, I'm sorry, man. I'm trying to think where the first
place, cause we used to drive down and I, I could
have the order messed up. Yeah. The order of the places, but like
(14:23):
it was the brickyard gym, but before that there was, an
old salon that I think is now a guitar store on Kinnick Kinnick
and before that it was in a oh wait um
at the corner of Lincoln and KK it's now
like a bake no no it's it's Voyager it's a it's a wine
bar right now yeah um and so that was
(14:46):
so I guess I mean that would have been oh man I don't screw up
the dates but I bet I'm just saying around 2000 I could
be off by sure two or three years but The first person that
showed me that having a jiu-jitsu school as
like a profession, whereas everyone else was, everybody you knew,
if they did have a school or the beginnings of a school. Also, let's
(15:09):
not forget about Adrian Serrano, too. Oh, let me, let me not. Oh,
legend. Yeah, like, I mean, like, He's
got an amazing story and a million fights and
Like legitimately a million fights. Well, over a hundred, I think. I
Documented. Yeah. I know for a while he was like the top five, at
(15:31):
least, of number of MMA fights or whatever. Yeah. But
it's just another one too. And
then he was in the back, kind of a side project or a side program,
I should say, at Duke Rufus Gym or whatever. Then he
starts to get popular and
then they need their space. So then things kind of happen like that. But
(15:56):
back to Justin Morris, he was the guy that... I
heard that he quit his job. What are you going to do? How are
you going to keep the dojo? He's like, the dojo is going to keep itself. Kind
of thing. He didn't say those words, but like he, I'm like, what's your
job is you just have a dojo? That doesn't hurt. Yeah. He didn't do
His head at the back of my mind is I was really in the jujitsu space. Yeah.
(16:18):
Right. Like karate and taekwondo, like they found that down of,
you know, how do you actually make it a career? And we
100%. But yeah, the jujitsu was just like, I'm going to get you.
I'm going to fight you. I'm going to go back to my job. Yeah, we all have day jobs. Yeah.
And so to make it your day job was really cool
to watch him go through it. Because I remember him struggling to it and being open about
(16:41):
it and having his jobs. And he's still
kicking butt, rocking it. Yeah. And so that, that was, and then,
you know, things started popping up and they fizzle out, pop up, fizzle out, like quantum jujitsu
for a while. Oh yeah. But then, you know, then you got, and there's
always something, I bet you new schools open it up every year. Not
(17:03):
The more, the better new ones open some split into two, some
open up other locations, some close different angles. That's
true art, but it's definitely not been like, it's been
fairly exponential growth, right? Like I don't have a data
scientist to analyze this, but it's not like linear by
any means. Like it's, it's blown up in the last, you
(17:26):
overheard in conversation by people that don't even practice it, is,
you know, I would have never seen that coming. A
hundred percent. And back in the day, just to even hear someone know what jujitsu
was was uncommon. Now it's like, well, I'm going to jujitsu you. That
So I thought that, I think that's pretty crazy. So what made you want to go
from athlete to coach and from coach to
(17:49):
gym owner? Athlete to coach to coach. Cause like you
were just doing jujitsu for a while. And then I know that you were coaching at
other people's places, right? I know you were coaching at Rufus sport for
a while. Um, helping out at other academies, kind
of had your own little thing going on, but then you're like, there was a moment in time where
Yeah. So the, the, the first part of, of just, I
(18:12):
just, I was young. I loved the empowering feeling.
Like, like I mentioned of, of just. I won't be a victim and
no one around me will. And I'm gonna set the example. It was just a powerful, like
they all wanted more of it. And I, and I, and then, you know, once you get past
that 1% we're kind of talking about, it's like, I want
to beat the other guys that can do jujitsu too. Like, and then,
(18:34):
and it's just, I fell in love with the first, I
fell in love with the martial part of the martial art. Yeah. But
the second and the most important part is falling in love with the art of it and Once
I got obsessed with all the intricacies of it, all the variations of
it. It never stops. It never stops. And
that sounds intimidating if you're still in the martial phase. Yeah. but
(19:00):
Yeah. And I love that concept because I tell people all the time when I'm talking to new
students, like it's like drinking from a firehouse, but
Yeah. Or, or how to just take it in doses. You push your
Yeah. A hundred percent because like still go to a seminar that's two
hours long with someone and I'll be like straight over my head. So
(19:21):
much information. And I've been doing jujitsu for, I don't even know how long
now, but like 17 years. It's funny the longer
you do is a lesson, but like I still feel like this, but
I love it now It's it's less intimidating. It's more like every
time that happens to me. I'm like, there's still so much for me to learn I
I think that's a that's it goes from intimidation to exhilaration And
(19:42):
you'll never feel never once you click over to that once you flip
into that You're a true artist you like just
because you're up a great potter doesn't mean you won't appreciate another painting
gallery or musical performance. Like, art
is art, and there's no two that are the same. And even if you're using the exact same
colors, what are you going to do with those colors? We talk about this all the time, too. There's some undeniable facts
(20:04):
in the universe. In art, red and blue make
purple. They make purple. That's undeniable. You can't fight
that, right? You can't get any more leverage. You can't get any more torque on anything than 90 degrees.
These are just, there's certain unalienable rights, or
not rights. But laws. Laws. We
teach those early, right? And that's, those are undeniable. But
(20:27):
what you do with those, that's the Perry of Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah.
That's the Jon of Jiu-Jitsu. That's every single teammate we have. You make it
your own. Yes. So if you're still in
that, I don't understand the basics phase, well
then there's just too much to learn. Why would I do this? This is dumb. But if you show, look,
there's only a few principles. It's a few things. There's only certain ways you can mix
(20:47):
colors. Mm-hmm. Once you get
past that, then they're like, wait, I can do this? Yeah.
And we always say too, like, you know, when you're a new person, answers are
great. You're looking for the answer. You're looking for the keys. You're looking for the answer, the plug
and play. You know, you're getting better at jujitsu when
(21:10):
That's real life. Which is like almost always the
answer in jujitsu. It is. The answer is like almost always
it depends. Right. And there's always multiple right answers. And as
Yeah. You want the answer. Tell me what the answer is. How do you escape mount? They
really do expect, and I don't blame them. How do I get out
(21:31):
Okay, we use a couple tools. And I think that's great for a new person because it
Just like checkers is good. Yeah. You have certain things that just... It's
easy. Black and white, good and evil, super bad, Lex Luthor. Real
Everything depends. Then you add in like chess, and then it's another
layer. And then you do whatever chess is on Star Trek, that
(21:52):
You know, I tried to make one of those boards, a
homemade board. We
And then, but just like real life too, like when you're a little kid, there's good and evil.
(22:13):
There's black and white, literally all the pieces. Even in
politics, there's red and there's blue and there's, like
I said, Superman likes Luther. Like, real life isn't like this. It's
And that's where you have to be, you have to jujitsu your way through. That's
what I think one of the greatest benefits of jujitsu, all off the mats, is
(22:36):
your ability to look at it more realistically than idealistically. What
really is happening here? Just because there's a hand in my collar doesn't mean
It's just there. It's a fact. It's not a threat. It's
not an opportunity. It's just you can view it how you want to view it.
The classic, no way to hold them, no way to fold them, no way to run. But
(22:58):
based on your data- No way to run? No way to run. We
don't run. Children of thieves run. No,
but I think that's one of the big
things, too, is just that ability to zoom out and be like, oh, maybe what
seemed right at the moment is wrong from the strategic picture and
vice versa. I think I got all the idea. We'll get down to the weeds, take a
(23:18):
look. That zoom in, zoom out, I think that's a
powerful life lesson that I learned at Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah. Luckily,
or maybe I would have learned it anyway doing underwater basket weaving. Yeah. But
Yeah. And I think it's a life skill everywhere. Every
(23:40):
Do you think maybe there's more to your situation? One
analogy I heard from one of my mentors about that is like, You
know, I see things from my perspective, but then I need to be able to see things from your
perspective. Then there's this zoomed out global perspective. Like,
hey, I'm not in my shoes. I'm not in your shoes, but I'm in the camera
shoes right now, looking at everything that's going on, the worldly perspective. The
(24:01):
bird's eye view. Yeah. Yeah. And jujitsu really gets
Well, and even in a literal interpretation of that, me
and you are rolling, and you ask me a question. Well, wait, it depends. Am
I you or are you me? Yeah. Or I'm watching you roll with somebody else. How do
I advise you? As I stand out, like you said, I'm like the bird's-eye view. It's nice
to have a bird's-eye view. You see everything going on. Like it is. It's nice to
(24:22):
have a mentor, or a therapist, or something that looks over. Take
Mm-hmm. And just, how does this look to me out? Just, like, completely detached.
Yeah, and how would I be if I was acting this way? A hundred percent. Yeah. I like
put yourself in the other shoes. Yeah. That takes wisdom
gained through applied living. Yeah.
(24:49):
And so we talk a lot about jiu jitsu. I
also don't want to neglect that you had a pretty successful and long MMA
career too. How many fights over 30? 32. 32 fights.
All over as well. Russia, fights in Russia. You never ended up fighting in
No, I did two combat wrestling things.
(25:18):
I never wanted to get into MMA. 30 fights
later. So one of the beautiful
things about starting jujitsu at the cusp of it when it started was
You could kind of just do MMA, but just do your jujitsu and still
win. Yes. Where MMA was still different
(25:43):
was just tough and they could fight. Yeah. But jujitsu,
even, even wrestlers would just, they, they
could only wrestle. So there, the wrestling wasn't as effective early on. Yeah.
When they learned how to, when they throw in a little bit of jujitsu, then
Well, they, they brought it, they brought us the ground and pound and lay and pray and all that. Like,
but I mean,
(26:09):
But yeah. What's the biggest lesson you learned from them than they. Maybe
Like what's your takeaway that you could give me from MMA so I don't have
Oh, yeah. Well, MMA is just another, uh, I
think MMA is just like jujitsu. It's just like other things. Like you
(26:32):
get out of it what you put into it. There's some guys that got out of the MMA thinking,
well, if I could have just, Ooh, that guy, I wish I could have, but it
taught me like, you know, Life
is a team sport, but
you are fully responsible for what you put
into it and out of it. And when you're in that cage, it closes
(26:55):
behind you and you are by yourself, even though
you're part of a big team. Yeah. And you have a corner van. And
one without the other is impossible. You can't do
what you're about to do win or lose in that cage without the
support and backing of the team that's
part of your tribe, right? Yeah. And the tribe fails without
(27:16):
the individual efforts of each one within it. And
MMA brings that to light. One of my favorite memories
of MMA was actually one of my most embarrassing, humiliating, quickest losses. All
of them. Actually, you were there. I was gonna say, was I cornering you? I hope not. It wasn't
your fault, Des. Because again, it was on me. It was one of
those... I don't believe in luck, but... I
(27:38):
got just cleaned right in the first seconds of
All it takes is one good punch and sometimes people don't realize that. Yeah.
That's what they call the striker's dice roll or whatever. But I remember
my, you mentioned Star Trek, my legs going in and out, in and out as
I was going. I remember his leg against
my face as I'm trying to take him down and be sprawling and hammering and
(28:04):
Is that when you got punched going, like you got punched and you'd come fall, you
got knocked out on your way to a double leg and then walk back on the siding?
Or I don't even remember that fight. And try to tackle the referee when I came to. Yeah.
Who was Al Wickers? Oh, Al Wickers. Yeah, that's right. Uh,
let legend, let's ask legend Jeffery. He's probably ref
more matches than anybody on Earth here. But, um, but
(28:26):
so I I'm blacking out. I'm actually out that
with that wake up and they're like, what's going on? And I remember. Pucci
said, what do we do? What do we do? And I'm like, get me to my feet. I don't
know. And then we, you know, we got this for the belt. So
we made sure the guy won the belt over me. And then
I was so, uh, uh, so
(28:49):
just humiliated and yeah, that's on me. Right. Humiliation is a choice. Yeah.
I just, I just couldn't, I couldn't deal with the emotional whatever. And
I remember going back to the locker room and you could just feel the
crowd and just like, But here's the
thing, this is back to the old, it takes a team. Even though I fought with
myself, I'm sitting there and I'm crying. I'm sitting on a
(29:09):
chair and I got tears running down my face. My, my, my glumped
hands are over my face. I'm like, what did you, what the, what the hell did
you just, you know, really beat myself up. And one of
you guys are tapping me on the head saying, Hey, oh, the doc, the
ring doctor wants to see you and make sure you're okay or whatever. I just, I'm like, I'm like,
why? I look up and you guys have a freaking cocoon
(29:30):
built around me. Yeah. It was like, we
rehearsed this and it's like, Oh, let him in. He opens up
like a, like a cocoon action like that. And it lets him in, you guys close around
to him. He said, you guys are protecting me from whatever.
And nobody's getting to me with, with all
my, it was really, really. And then it was again, that Duke Rufus himself, the
(29:50):
promoter of the thing comes in like, Hey, you okay? I'm like, I'm so sorry. He's like, you
did great, man. This happens any given Sunday. So he's real support. But
you guys opened up and closed around me like this. We never had
a contingency formula. Right. So that's not us, but
to, to watch the way you guys came together, it was one of my favorite, proudest
moments, uh, well in my life, but in MMA and certainly Jiu
(30:13):
Jitsu and the whole journey was because like, I'm part of
that. If I saw that from the bird's eye view, watch how
they cocooned over that guy. Yeah. That guy happens to be Jon or
whatever. And they just- True team and family. Yeah. You guys didn't have a
plan. You guys didn't know what to do, but you knew it would protect him. Yeah. And
he's one of us and he would do the same for us. I just, I,
(30:34):
and that really like, it gives me chills thinking about it right now. For sure. And so
talking about, I could have had just that one fight
and not done 31 others. Yeah. But I, I really took
that as a really, it made me feel like my purpose in Jiu-Jitsu is proper.
So now at this point in time in your career, you have all
(30:54):
those fights on your belt. You have a lot of years of training, a lot of traveling
jujitsu. Oh yeah. Um, you have two
academies, you have your kids in
jujitsu now. Yeah. Uh, For
the parents out there, what's like your, what's your biggest tip coming
from a person that's been doing Jiu-Jitsu for so long and owns
(31:15):
academies? What's your biggest tip for parents around getting
their kids involved in Jiu-Jitsu? Especially if you like, really
This is a sore subject for me because it's a hard one. I'll tell you, I'll tell
you why I'm going to nail this answer though. Cause I screwed up
with the first and succeeded with the second. I screwed up initially.
I learned from the mistake of the first. Yeah. But, um, It's
(31:39):
just play. It's just another game. And, you
know, it's all stuff that we all should know better. Just,
it's like baseball or football. This is just jujitsu. You get to wear karate pants,
karate outfit and just play, play, play. It's fun. And
yeah, there's no reason unless somebody's in danger. Yeah. Like
(32:03):
we've already got kind of a four ten star kids program. Like number one,
keep it safe. If all, if everything is gone haywire, just
keep, you're there. Right. Always on board. Right. Uh,
and then number two, before character development, before A
tactical prowess is keep them having fun,
because if they don't have fun, they're never going to be able to work on their character or their... And that's
(32:25):
what I stay with, that they're going to want to quit right away. So in that order, you
go in there thinking, I'm going to teach you how to do an armbar or pass the guard
or take somebody down, but what's more important than that is, hey, who's being a
turd? Like this is how you light up, you respect
your instructors and communicate and control your emotions and try to... then,
(32:46):
And let's be honest, there's no difference between that perspective that we should
have for our kids and adults. It's true. Like adults, it needs to be
safety and fun. Like if you joined Jiu Jitsu and you want
to learn how to beat other people, but it needs to
be fun. Yeah. It's, it's, it's even, and losing can
be fun, but you have to find a way to make it fun. It is. And it takes a
(33:08):
A paradigm shift, right? Yeah. Because what does it mean to lose? It just means that
person had their hand raised. I've seen people get greater victories out
of their losses, and some people lose worse with the wins. And
in the same way, I've been
more physically damaged by victories sometimes.
I've gone out with the worst for wear. And
(33:30):
that's a physical example of what could actually be a spiritual or emotional or, you
Yeah. So a lot of times those one hit knockouts are the
safest. Yeah. It's the one that takes 30 hits
Well, that's why I'd rather be at a bare knuckle fight than an
(33:51):
I don't want to get in a pillow fight where I get 100, hit 200 pounds, 200 times in the
head. I'd rather get one clean one here that might open me, but I'm
So main message is just keep it fun, safe. Oh yeah, so
fun in that order. Yeah. And
Because then you start slipping with your, what's
(34:12):
neat about jujitsu as opposed to adults, what's not as neat about adults too is as soon
Yeah. Right. And, and I've been telling
a lot of my, my blue belts that lately, cause they get to move out. They're like,
what now? And I'm like, find something fun to
work on. Yeah. Find a position, find a concept, find
a, a sequence that like, you're not doing it
(34:33):
to win jujitsu and you're just doing it because you find it fun.
Yeah. Like you need to find fun again. I think that's why a lot of times people
get the blue belt blues. Yeah. Right. It's because they put all that work
in to get their blue belt and then they keep putting that work in and they
That white to blue belt we just talked about this last night, uh, after class.
(34:54):
the white to blue belt, and kind of talking about the blue and through, what
do you call the blue blues? Blue belt blues. Blue belt blues,
yeah, for sure. And I think one causes the other. The blues cause the, we
have, there's such a, it's still the majority stay,
right? But when someone gets a blue and they're through, I
think it's, you're like that seed under the soil and
(35:16):
you're just getting watered. And when you're a white belt, you're just getting watered. It's like, I
just got taken that information is a little bit of water. That's some warm soil. That's
the nutrients of the soil. But once you are blue belt, you sprout and
you've got leaves sticking out of you like
this. There's a lot of pressure, literally pressure, air pressure
and wind in the form of,
(35:37):
Oh, you got a blue belt now? If I get a blue belt, that means I have to hammer you. Yeah.
Or I'm a purple builder, brown builder, like I'm going to put you to the test. You
have all these extra stressors now because you are exposed to direct sunlight and
wind and cold and animals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I,
that's what leaps them to purple is if they can weather those storms and
use them. This sunlight's not going to burn my leaves. It's going to grow them. This
(35:59):
rain is not going to flood us. It's going to nurture us. And
purple will try to rip my head off. That's a compliment to me. That just means I'm trying to do that.
It's so like. We have to almost let them know, here it comes. Now
with your blue belt, you have all this new exposure that you weren't to
before. You're no longer protected by the soil, at least the visual. So
I think that's part of the blues of the blues.
(36:21):
What's your trick to balancing everything that you have going on
between owning two academies, teaching classes, training
for yourself? You have your kids. You have your kids doing classes. You
have a pond and a cold plunge
in your backyard. You're making your own yogurt now. Like how
do you, how do you balance all this as a school
(36:43):
owner, as someone who's doing their own athletic training to
a parent? Um, unlike.
By saying no. That's my favorite. Is
Yeah. No, is it really hard to do at first? Yes.
(37:03):
Because here's the thing. Successful people know how to say yes. very
successful in order to say no. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't have
the bravery to say yes to opportunities when they come, or
yes to yourself, I can do this. But that only gets you so
far until you have the ultimate bravery to say no, because
every time you say no, you have the option of saying yes to other things, but every time you say yes,
(37:24):
you don't have any other options. I looked at the, what's the phrase? No
is a complete sentence, and yes is an obligation. That's true. And
so I, because of that, every
time I have a new endeavor, a new adventure, a new whatever, oh, is
your life harder now? Is it harder now? It's actually easier because
if it doesn't fill into my categories of my life that are
(37:46):
important, most important to me, they just, they're just not,
And sometimes no doesn't have to be no. It could be not right now. Yeah.
It is. And it's, it shouldn't be your knee jerk. Yeah. I
think, you know, but if you're, if you're, if you're 20 years old
or 21 or even 70 and you haven't whipped
(38:09):
it out yet, say yes then. Say yes to just about everything. Yeah.
But as you start getting constricted, as, as the fronts start to,
Now you got to pick, okay, which one, you know, you got to explore it out. You
What do you look forward to the most from like
today onwards, right? You have your, you have your two academies,
(38:30):
you have a ton of students, you have your association, you have your kids doing
Jiu Jitsu. What are you looking forward to the most in your Jiu Jitsu
I just, going forward with Jiu-Jitsu, I just like seeing all,
what it's done for my life, Jiu-Jitsu specifically, to see
others using Jiu-Jitsu in different directions, but still using
(38:53):
Jiu-Jitsu and the foundational concepts of
Jiu-Jitsu on and off the mat. It inspires me. I
want to see, I want to see what art they come up with. Yeah. Literally
or figuratively, like I love watching, again, like I
always fall back on it for I'm
getting through stuff in my life and, and just really trying to thrive with,
(39:14):
with these concepts to see other people doing that and having a part of
that is so fulfilling. So, so like, like emotionally
fulfilling to me, like it, like just it completely like
gives me that like thing that I think a lot of us are missing and
that's a job. that
you have passion for because you
(39:34):
don't have service, it matters. You matter. Like, and if
I could be of any service to any of them, I don't want to give up. I
Like, you know, like because you make a difference. Yes. And
it's not in you. It's. the jujitsu that you're sharing
with us. You're almost just opening their idea, their
(39:57):
There's ways that they- And they do it to me too. They do it right back. A hundred percent. So
like every time you go inside every black belt, there's a white belt. Every white belt
is a black belt to be at, right? Every time I'm
exposed to another person that may have helped with jujitsu, they're exposing me
And I tell my students this all the time, but I have this
thing around. Anytime I help someone else with their goals, they
(40:18):
help me with my own. So the more people I can help, the more help
I give in return. If I don't help anyone, then I'm flying solo. That's
What do they say about... If you want to go fast, go alone. Yeah.
If you want to go far, go together. I like that. Yeah, that's awesome.
Quotes matter to me. I wake up with a quote. I don't
(40:42):
I'm going to hit you up with 10 rapid fire questions. Oh.
They might not be super rapid fire, but we'll close with
this. Do I have a time limit for each one? No.
I do more gi, but I'm way more into no-gi right now.
(41:02):
I love it. What are you currently working on in your Jiu-Jitsu gang?
For me personally? Yeah. Or
for... For... This timer! The
best way to describe it is, I guess I haven't described it in
words, like looking at a position that we're in, so
(41:23):
the technical position we're in, and how from another angle that
might be just one hip switch away from a
Like, for example, like- Like the global perspective we were just talking about.
Yeah, zooming out from the outside and being like, what's the classic humorous one?
In space, the mount is also the guard. Yeah. Almost like that, but
(41:44):
I love it. Cool. Favorite submission of the moment? The
one they give me. Top
person you would love to train with given the opportunity? Alive or dead, doesn't matter.
Alive or dead? Both
(42:04):
Oh, very cool. Best advice for beginners?
Take off the street belt and put on the white belt if that's where you are in
your stage and trust the process. It's
it, there's a lot being thrown at you. Listen or
don't listen. Just keep coming back. Just keep just twice
(42:26):
a week, making your goal. Any more, you may burn out any
less. You may fall out. Trust the process. A
lot of this thinking has been done for you. You don't have to be a master of anything. Everybody in
One word to describe your Jiu Jitsu style. Fumbly.
That was me last
(42:49):
I bet. I had those days. I would say in progress. Well, that's
Oh, love it. What's the toughest aspect
We almost talked about it before, or we were kind of talking about it before. I think the toughest
part of Jiu-Jitsu is learning how to turn obstacles into
(43:10):
advantages and failures or losses into wins. But
Could be saying no. Saying no is a good one. The most
up before the enemy. I, I, I, it's
(43:33):
like being an early riser. Yes. And it doesn't necessarily be
in the morning, but be ready before
anything. So to be like third shifters, for example, not, I just, for me, it
And I know one thing that you always told me in Jiu Jitsu, you're
always the first person off the mat. Like whether you
(43:56):
I thought I was off the map. Like, wait, what do you mean? No, not off the map, but like when you're on the
ground and you reset, like you are up before that, your
You remember. Yeah. I still try to be. Yeah.
That's a, if you don't know what that is, you know, right. Okay.
All right. We're all down. Okay. Everybody get up. Try to be the first one up. Yeah. Just
What's one habit that has successfully improved, significantly improved
(44:25):
didn't have passing it on. I see this too.
I've watched it with my own children, but even with white, blue,
purple, any belt, when they are helping somebody else out with
And last one. I know you have a lot of these. Favorite book.
Favorite book. That sucks because
(44:48):
that depends on the audience. I
love this audience. this audience, which
is basically anybody interested in Jiu-Jitsu? Yeah, or doing Jiu-Jitsu. Oh,
(45:09):
It's gonna make it easier. Let me tell you. Here's what grabs me, what I return to
the most. Okay. Marcus
Aurelius' Meditations. Everybody knows that one. That's a classic, right? He's
like my ultimate advisor. Even though it's written weird
and everything, but meditation is always—we'll say that. That's a good one
(45:29):
to start with. Any of the letters of Seneca that he's
I like the kind of old Greek and Roman. I haven't read meditation specifically,
but I've done the Daily Stoic, which brings in information from... Both.
Anything by Ryan Holiday, the author of that, he has good stuff too. And
what's nice about him, I actually should probably recommend those. The
(45:53):
Or Diego was the enemy. He's a good job at breaking down the
Yeah. He'll make Marcus Aurelius fun again. That'd be a good, uh, yeah.
Anything by Ryan Holiday, I guess, would be, cause he's a good gateway. And
then once you fall in love with all that and you want to go deeper, then you go look at,
(46:13):
Yeah. Well, that was it, man. Anything else you'd like to share with the, uh,
Inside the Wave audience, your students, your jujitsu family, your
No, just if you're not on the journey, give it a shot. Give it
at least four seasons. And I mean four seasons like of
a year, four seasons of your jujitsu development, ups and downs. Give
it a shot. Stay the course. Trust the process. Pass
(46:41):
You're welcome. Well, it's been awesome. I appreciate you. I
want to thank you personally for being my
coach and helping me on this journey. You know, you didn't bring
the energy to, but you've kept me in it and you've supported
me with everything I've done along the way. Back at you. I've learned so much from
you including this. So thanks for checking in. Thank you,
(47:01):
Jon Friedland. Uh, subscribe to this, like this, share this.
Welcome to Inside the Wave podcast, episode two. And
today I have my jujitsu coach, my mentor,
Jon Friedland joining us. Welcome, Jon. Happy to
be here. To the podcast. You're as much my coach as I am yours. I appreciate
that. So tell me a little bit about you. You've been doing jujitsu for a minute
or two. You have a academy or two. Let
(00:37):
Well, I started jiu-jitsu in the late 90s, right?
So, like most people at that time, inspired
And you didn't really start in the 80s because it didn't even exist in
Right. But you're right. What was neat about those,
martial arts did. So like, that was like the, the
(01:00):
Chuck Norris era and then all that. And, and then like the, the,
the fantasy, other Asian arts, like Kung Fu,
like these mystic things, like Kung Fu and then of
course, Taekwondo. And I was a Taekwondo and all that, like everybody else at
the time. And that's what made us look at the
UFC when it came out a little differently than regular people, I
think, because we always theoretically thought,
(01:23):
oh, Kung Fu is better than Sumo, better than Karate, better than Jiu-Jitsu. We've
heard of Jiu-Jitsu, of course, but to see it put to
the test opened our eyes a little differently than,
I guess, the lay person that watched the first UFC. So I think we had that slight
little advantage or at least different way
of looking at it, and it hooked everybody. Everybody
(01:44):
that you know has been doing Jiu-Jitsu from that era, that
So did you discover Jiu-Jitsu For one,
Taekwondo. What rank were you? You
It'd be the spite of the military. I think this is absolutely
hilarious. I had just tested for my black belt right
(02:05):
before I quit my Pizza Hut job to join the military. I
received my black belt in the mail while in basic training in
Georgia, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but there you
give up all your rights. They read your mail in front of everybody. They open your packages. They
take your food, all your care packages, all the stuff. You were only like
high fives. It was not, it was like, Oh, what is this? What
(02:27):
is this? I'm like, Oh no. So then I'm the bane of everyone's joke.
Cause I still can't fight. Yeah. And then, uh,
And so that, that was, uh, I mean, anybody that's in the military, if you could just imagine that
your drill sergeant pulled out a
black felt of like the skinniest guy in the platoon pulls in front of
everybody. I mean, as, as horrifying as
(02:51):
Awesome. And is that before or after you
Uh, I, so, you know, I joined the military in
the, in 94, 93 technically, but it was, the UFC was I think 93 or
92 or something. It was early nineties. We saw it and it
was just like, jujitsu, okay, jujitsu, man, this little guy, dragging
(03:15):
the energy out of everybody and tying them up and
mysteriously making them quit with this tapping out action. Yeah.
You know, and it was, it just planted the seed where it was like, okay, Jiu-Jitsu
seems to be the one that just no
matter if they came in striking, swinging, or even grappling,
it always came up ahead. So me getting beat up in the military later,
(03:39):
I flashed back. I'm like, what can I possibly do? This
is stupid. These guys are all bigger, just like you would expect. They all did
some wrestling or they did better karate or whatever. Yeah. And
I just remember flashing back to this, that Royce Gracie guy. Yeah.
You know what I mean? So then shortly after I
got in and stationed in Germany, me and my buddy who
(03:59):
had a similar story, just started
privately trading under the tutelage of
Hoist and Hori and Gracie with a VHS tape in our barracks. When
everyone else was out doing their Friday night shenanigans, we were there
And that was, You know, like all
(04:20):
the martial arts can be empowering, right? But nothing was
more empowering to me and probably ever since then,
always being on the bottom, always being the
victim of bullying. always losing every challenge I
ever made and definitely every one I ever accepted just suddenly and
almost overnight, realistically a few months, but it felt like
(04:42):
overnight. We just stopped losing. No,
we didn't win all of our fights. We stopped losing. And
like, when you're no longer afraid your capital is going to be taken. you're
more likely to move on theirs. And it just, it was so, it was so, and
I just, that's, I think that's one of the first and quickest gifts
you get in jujitsu or any, you know, realistic applied
(05:03):
fighting art is, um, the,
the, the, how quickly you go from, the
And I think sometimes, like, you
don't have to always win. Sometimes, like, surviving is thriving, right?
Like, a kid's getting bullied in school. You don't have to beat up
(05:23):
the bully, but if you show the bully that what they're doing to you
is not effective, that is a victory. That's sometimes a larger victory.
And a service to every other kid, too, 100%. And so, you know, self-defense
is, sure, you're defending yourself, but you're also defending everyone
else. Yeah. because you're willing to put yourself in a
situation where I'm going to show you that your bullying isn't working
(05:46):
So you found jiu-jitsu in the military, training
in like the super classic Gracie like garage gym
kind of where you're just like all self-discovery, all
self-learning, no real instructor besides Mr.
V, Sensei VHS. Yeah. If you guys don't know what VHS is,
it's before DVDs, which is before Netflix. What
(06:10):
Because I remember it was VHS and beta were the two competing things, I
think. What is it? I don't know. But,
but, uh, it was, yeah, they're big and ugly. Any
of the first video tapes, yeah. Back when we were training too, people would try
to record us. Not enough, unfortunately, but they would stick
those big VHS tapes in a bigger thing. Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah. And it was nuts. So they had smaller tapes, so they
(06:33):
evolved that way. Now the phones are super, super nice, but so sorry.
So then, so you found jujitsu in the army.
You kept practicing jujitsu. You did your services, your
tours. And you eventually came back to
When was that? So that was cool. So I got back, holy
(06:56):
God, at the end of 96, early 97. Jumped right in
the university. I wanted to get a quick transition back
to Green Bay where I was. And I was just raving. I told everyone I could tell
my family. Nope. When you start Jujitsu, you want
to tell everybody and no one wants to hear it. You know what I mean? There's like a crossfit. There's
some advice for a new person. It's saying exactly, it's crossfit. We're really kind of,
(07:20):
Nobody wants to hear it. Especially if they see it, they're like, and what
are those two guys doing? It's so, it's so, yeah.
So, but I was one of those, I was that guy. I went to that, I went to that, that
face. I'm like telling everybody and they're like, yeah. And. You know, he heard us
do the Nintendo game, you know, or heard about the Green Bay Packers. And
so, but one of my friends was paying attention and he said,
(07:42):
he said, you know, I just saw, I heard a radio announcement about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
It's as far away as Appleton, 30 minutes. Now, who wouldn't give an hour now?
But I'm like, it's not the Jiu-Jitsu
I'm talking about. This is just what we were talking about before we knew what Jiu-Jitsu
was. And he's
like, I'll go down there with you. whatever, he couldn't do
(08:03):
it at the last minute or whatever. So I drew it all by myself. And I went in there
and I'm like, I'm just going to- From Green Bay to Appleton. Yeah, which is nothing. And that's what, yeah.
And I went in there and I saw a bunch of people in
geese. Yeah. Doing exactly what
I thought jiu-jitsu was, the new jiu-jitsu that I saw, Royce Gracie. Yeah.
And it looked like the grainy, you know, you
(08:24):
call this out, the garage jiu-jitsu stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real grainy, it just, it
just, Big Midwestern guys roll around though. I was like, and
the guy's like, oh, how are you doing? I'm still little. Yeah. And I'm like,
I want to sign up for this. Like, just try a free class first. Like,
no, I want, what's the maximum I can do right now? We could do six months
or whatever. I'll pay it full right now. Yeah. It's like, you know, most people that do this don't
(08:45):
make it a week or two. I'm like, no, no. Think I'm all hers. Fact.
Well, it's still a fact, right? And I think it's, and I think as a side note,
I think it's on us too as the leaders to try to soften that blow. A
hundred percent. Right. Like to just widen that funnel of,
like, give them a little bit of a treat. And even in your early days too,
it wasn't the most accepting environment, right? No. And, but I mean, and
(09:06):
not to get off track too much, but like people don't have to
come in hard. Yeah. You can build resilience, you know, and
we can, and we can, knowing that, but so back then it was like,
Which we've actually, and I've seen you evolve. your
curriculum in your gym, like you've removed some things from the warmups that
are like super intimidating for newer people. The hard way you change stuff
(09:29):
up to adapt, right? Because our goal, like we still want to
create hard individuals and people that can defend themselves.
We want to create a lot of them, not a few of them. And if you kind of like face
everyone out, filter everyone out right away, they don't get a fair shot
Yeah, that's right. And if steel truly hardened
(09:49):
steel or iron sharp as iron, We need more of
it. Yeah. And we both saw each other. It's like, uh, I was using the analogy of
like, um, like doing laundry or, or. I hate
doing laundry. What about it? Imagine that person that
loves doing laundry. I don't see people, they actually,
I should take it back because people do it as like meditation. It's like, just like dishes, but
(10:10):
laundry is one thing, but we're like a rock and a tumbler. Do
you remember what tumblers are? Are tumblers a thing? Yeah. What is it that makes
it smooth? Shining? Yeah. Yeah. That thing will
get smooth faster with more rocks. Yeah. The
piece of clothing you try to get cleaner will be cleaner with other
clothing bumping up against it. Yeah. You know, people wash
(10:31):
it by itself. Careful, it won't get as clean. But what? Also, if
You know, we fight for mass space every day. Nobody can move. You have to take turns. And
the same in the wash too. Yeah. So you're welcome for the laundry too. But I
mean, that's, I think that's a, you would have that perfect balance of, of contact
(10:52):
Right. So you did, you signed up
for six months in Appleton. How many other like gyms
were in the area in Wisconsin? Like night where it were like
And we have to look back at the history. There may have been one, it would have
been Justin Morris probably, or maybe a Madison thing way
(11:13):
back then. Everywhere else that we were training was either, like where
Yeah, I was gonna say, it's not a jujitsu. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, hey,
we're a karate school and we saw a jujitsu dominant in the UFC,
so we're gonna practice some pajama. That was all of it, yep. Okay.
And so, or people's bases. And
(11:34):
that was the thing. On Friday nights, it was kind of like a tradition. We'd go way up into Door
County, of all places. We'd go down to Milwaukee, of course, Madison, Beaver
Dam, Appleton. And then I started venturing to Chicago,
and then Atlanta, and LA, and New York. And I just tried to get That
was like the days of like, you went on like exploratory missions and
brought it back. Everybody was. So we were mixing it up. Like
(11:55):
that's how like the, the Melty Pot started, at least for
Yeah. You know, and that's crazy because you in
97, you had to go travel to find a jujitsu school. Even
when I started in 2007, 10 years later, if
I wanted to train with like a handful of color belts, like more
(12:16):
Yeah. Cause it comes in phases, right? So to find anybody at all that wanted
to train Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah. You had to, you had to travel
an hour or more has time. And I remember one of the, one of the
big concerns was like, how do I cover my
rug burn? Not Matt Berg, but Rugbert.
Half of us didn't have mats, half of us didn't have geese. We certainly didn't have bells with tabs on
(12:36):
them that we used to... Even in your early days, I believe my
Hockey tape, that's it. We made our own tabs. We wanted to have, like,
And I think the only way, and this is dating ourselves because
e-commerce like wasn't that baby thing, right? Go online and order it. Like if
you wanted a jujitsu gi with a jujitsu belt, you bought it from
(12:59):
a tournament. We're like, oh yeah, we did vendors. We're like Fuji was
there as a vendor at a Naga tournament. That's right. That's right. Otherwise
you're just getting a judo gi or karate gi from Norm
I was just talking about this a couple of
weeks ago. On my scooter with my army duffel bag, very symbolic to
(13:19):
you, with my army duffel bag. And I remember hitting
the gas. I had it loaded up with all our keys we could possibly have. Hitting
the gas, maybe do an involuntary wheelie after we went through the intersection at
the green light. People would tip me back. Yeah. I
don't miss that. I mean, I do actually. I'm nostalgic about
So you were a part of jujitsu pretty
(13:41):
much since it started, at least in the United States. And
he's kind of seen its evolution. Um, and from my understanding, like, and
with most athletics and cool things,
right, they kind of start on the coast. They kind of move their way
in, they'll get to Chicago before they get to us. When
did you start seeing jujitsu actually start becoming a
(14:03):
thing in Wisconsin? Like where you can go like, Hey, there's a
jujitsu school, man. There's a jujitsu. So like, man,
So he, I'm sorry, man. I'm trying to think where the first
place, cause we used to drive down and I, I could
have the order messed up. Yeah. The order of the places, but like
(14:23):
it was the brickyard gym, but before that there was, an
old salon that I think is now a guitar store on Kinnick Kinnick
and before that it was in a oh wait um
at the corner of Lincoln and KK it's now
like a bake no no it's it's Voyager it's a it's a wine
bar right now yeah um and so that was
(14:46):
so I guess I mean that would have been oh man I don't screw up
the dates but I bet I'm just saying around 2000 I could
be off by sure two or three years but The first person that
showed me that having a jiu-jitsu school as
like a profession, whereas everyone else was, everybody you knew,
if they did have a school or the beginnings of a school. Also, let's
(15:09):
not forget about Adrian Serrano, too. Oh, let me, let me not. Oh,
legend. Yeah, like, I mean, like, He's
got an amazing story and a million fights and
Like legitimately a million fights. Well, over a hundred, I think. I
Documented. Yeah. I know for a while he was like the top five, at
(15:31):
least, of number of MMA fights or whatever. Yeah. But
it's just another one too. And
then he was in the back, kind of a side project or a side program,
I should say, at Duke Rufus Gym or whatever. Then he
starts to get popular and
then they need their space. So then things kind of happen like that. But
(15:56):
back to Justin Morris, he was the guy that... I
heard that he quit his job. What are you going to do? How are
you going to keep the dojo? He's like, the dojo is going to keep itself. Kind
of thing. He didn't say those words, but like he, I'm like, what's your
job is you just have a dojo? That doesn't hurt. Yeah. He didn't do
His head at the back of my mind is I was really in the jujitsu space. Yeah.
(16:18):
Right. Like karate and taekwondo, like they found that down of,
you know, how do you actually make it a career? And we
100%. But yeah, the jujitsu was just like, I'm going to get you.
I'm going to fight you. I'm going to go back to my job. Yeah, we all have day jobs. Yeah.
And so to make it your day job was really cool
to watch him go through it. Because I remember him struggling to it and being open about
(16:41):
it and having his jobs. And he's still
kicking butt, rocking it. Yeah. And so that, that was, and then,
you know, things started popping up and they fizzle out, pop up, fizzle out, like quantum jujitsu
for a while. Oh yeah. But then, you know, then you got, and there's
always something, I bet you new schools open it up every year. Not
(17:03):
The more, the better new ones open some split into two, some
open up other locations, some close different angles. That's
true art, but it's definitely not been like, it's been
fairly exponential growth, right? Like I don't have a data
scientist to analyze this, but it's not like linear by
any means. Like it's, it's blown up in the last, you
(17:26):
overheard in conversation by people that don't even practice it, is,
you know, I would have never seen that coming. A
hundred percent. And back in the day, just to even hear someone know what jujitsu
was was uncommon. Now it's like, well, I'm going to jujitsu you. That
So I thought that, I think that's pretty crazy. So what made you want to go
from athlete to coach and from coach to
(17:49):
gym owner? Athlete to coach to coach. Cause like you
were just doing jujitsu for a while. And then I know that you were coaching at
other people's places, right? I know you were coaching at Rufus sport for
a while. Um, helping out at other academies, kind
of had your own little thing going on, but then you're like, there was a moment in time where
Yeah. So the, the, the first part of, of just, I
(18:12):
just, I was young. I loved the empowering feeling.
Like, like I mentioned of, of just. I won't be a victim and
no one around me will. And I'm gonna set the example. It was just a powerful, like
they all wanted more of it. And I, and I, and then, you know, once you get past
that 1% we're kind of talking about, it's like, I want
to beat the other guys that can do jujitsu too. Like, and then,
(18:34):
and it's just, I fell in love with the first, I
fell in love with the martial part of the martial art. Yeah. But
the second and the most important part is falling in love with the art of it and Once
I got obsessed with all the intricacies of it, all the variations of
it. It never stops. It never stops. And
that sounds intimidating if you're still in the martial phase. Yeah. but
(19:00):
Yeah. And I love that concept because I tell people all the time when I'm talking to new
students, like it's like drinking from a firehouse, but
Yeah. Or, or how to just take it in doses. You push your
Yeah. A hundred percent because like still go to a seminar that's two
hours long with someone and I'll be like straight over my head. So
(19:21):
much information. And I've been doing jujitsu for, I don't even know how long
now, but like 17 years. It's funny the longer
you do is a lesson, but like I still feel like this, but
I love it now It's it's less intimidating. It's more like every
time that happens to me. I'm like, there's still so much for me to learn I
I think that's a that's it goes from intimidation to exhilaration And
(19:42):
you'll never feel never once you click over to that once you flip
into that You're a true artist you like just
because you're up a great potter doesn't mean you won't appreciate another painting
gallery or musical performance. Like, art
is art, and there's no two that are the same. And even if you're using the exact same
colors, what are you going to do with those colors? We talk about this all the time, too. There's some undeniable facts
(20:04):
in the universe. In art, red and blue make
purple. They make purple. That's undeniable. You can't fight
that, right? You can't get any more leverage. You can't get any more torque on anything than 90 degrees.
These are just, there's certain unalienable rights, or
not rights. But laws. Laws. We
teach those early, right? And that's, those are undeniable. But
(20:27):
what you do with those, that's the Perry of Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah.
That's the Jon of Jiu-Jitsu. That's every single teammate we have. You make it
your own. Yes. So if you're still in
that, I don't understand the basics phase, well
then there's just too much to learn. Why would I do this? This is dumb. But if you show, look,
there's only a few principles. It's a few things. There's only certain ways you can mix
(20:47):
colors. Mm-hmm. Once you get
past that, then they're like, wait, I can do this? Yeah.
And we always say too, like, you know, when you're a new person, answers are
great. You're looking for the answer. You're looking for the keys. You're looking for the answer, the plug
and play. You know, you're getting better at jujitsu when
(21:10):
That's real life. Which is like almost always the
answer in jujitsu. It is. The answer is like almost always
it depends. Right. And there's always multiple right answers. And as
Yeah. You want the answer. Tell me what the answer is. How do you escape mount? They
really do expect, and I don't blame them. How do I get out
(21:31):
Okay, we use a couple tools. And I think that's great for a new person because it
Just like checkers is good. Yeah. You have certain things that just... It's
easy. Black and white, good and evil, super bad, Lex Luthor. Real
Everything depends. Then you add in like chess, and then it's another
layer. And then you do whatever chess is on Star Trek, that
(21:52):
You know, I tried to make one of those boards, a
homemade board. We
And then, but just like real life too, like when you're a little kid, there's good and evil.
(22:13):
There's black and white, literally all the pieces. Even in
politics, there's red and there's blue and there's, like
I said, Superman likes Luther. Like, real life isn't like this. It's
And that's where you have to be, you have to jujitsu your way through. That's
what I think one of the greatest benefits of jujitsu, all off the mats, is
(22:36):
your ability to look at it more realistically than idealistically. What
really is happening here? Just because there's a hand in my collar doesn't mean
It's just there. It's a fact. It's not a threat. It's
not an opportunity. It's just you can view it how you want to view it.
The classic, no way to hold them, no way to fold them, no way to run. But
(22:58):
based on your data- No way to run? No way to run. We
don't run. Children of thieves run. No,
but I think that's one of the big
things, too, is just that ability to zoom out and be like, oh, maybe what
seemed right at the moment is wrong from the strategic picture and
vice versa. I think I got all the idea. We'll get down to the weeds, take a
(23:18):
look. That zoom in, zoom out, I think that's a
powerful life lesson that I learned at Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah. Luckily,
or maybe I would have learned it anyway doing underwater basket weaving. Yeah. But
Yeah. And I think it's a life skill everywhere. Every
(23:40):
Do you think maybe there's more to your situation? One
analogy I heard from one of my mentors about that is like, You
know, I see things from my perspective, but then I need to be able to see things from your
perspective. Then there's this zoomed out global perspective. Like,
hey, I'm not in my shoes. I'm not in your shoes, but I'm in the camera
shoes right now, looking at everything that's going on, the worldly perspective. The
(24:01):
bird's eye view. Yeah. Yeah. And jujitsu really gets
Well, and even in a literal interpretation of that, me
and you are rolling, and you ask me a question. Well, wait, it depends. Am
I you or are you me? Yeah. Or I'm watching you roll with somebody else. How do
I advise you? As I stand out, like you said, I'm like the bird's-eye view. It's nice
to have a bird's-eye view. You see everything going on. Like it is. It's nice to
(24:22):
have a mentor, or a therapist, or something that looks over. Take
Mm-hmm. And just, how does this look to me out? Just, like, completely detached.
Yeah, and how would I be if I was acting this way? A hundred percent. Yeah. I like
put yourself in the other shoes. Yeah. That takes wisdom
gained through applied living. Yeah.
(24:49):
And so we talk a lot about jiu jitsu. I
also don't want to neglect that you had a pretty successful and long MMA
career too. How many fights over 30? 32. 32 fights.
All over as well. Russia, fights in Russia. You never ended up fighting in
No, I did two combat wrestling things.
(25:18):
I never wanted to get into MMA. 30 fights
later. So one of the beautiful
things about starting jujitsu at the cusp of it when it started was
You could kind of just do MMA, but just do your jujitsu and still
win. Yes. Where MMA was still different
(25:43):
was just tough and they could fight. Yeah. But jujitsu,
even, even wrestlers would just, they, they
could only wrestle. So there, the wrestling wasn't as effective early on. Yeah.
When they learned how to, when they throw in a little bit of jujitsu, then
Well, they, they brought it, they brought us the ground and pound and lay and pray and all that. Like,
but I mean,
(26:09):
But yeah. What's the biggest lesson you learned from them than they. Maybe
Like what's your takeaway that you could give me from MMA so I don't have
Oh, yeah. Well, MMA is just another, uh, I
think MMA is just like jujitsu. It's just like other things. Like you
(26:32):
get out of it what you put into it. There's some guys that got out of the MMA thinking,
well, if I could have just, Ooh, that guy, I wish I could have, but it
taught me like, you know, Life
is a team sport, but
you are fully responsible for what you put
into it and out of it. And when you're in that cage, it closes
(26:55):
behind you and you are by yourself, even though
you're part of a big team. Yeah. And you have a corner van. And
one without the other is impossible. You can't do
what you're about to do win or lose in that cage without the
support and backing of the team that's
part of your tribe, right? Yeah. And the tribe fails without
(27:16):
the individual efforts of each one within it. And
MMA brings that to light. One of my favorite memories
of MMA was actually one of my most embarrassing, humiliating, quickest losses. All
of them. Actually, you were there. I was gonna say, was I cornering you? I hope not. It wasn't
your fault, Des. Because again, it was on me. It was one of
those... I don't believe in luck, but... I
(27:38):
got just cleaned right in the first seconds of
All it takes is one good punch and sometimes people don't realize that. Yeah.
That's what they call the striker's dice roll or whatever. But I remember
my, you mentioned Star Trek, my legs going in and out, in and out as
I was going. I remember his leg against
my face as I'm trying to take him down and be sprawling and hammering and
(28:04):
Is that when you got punched going, like you got punched and you'd come fall, you
got knocked out on your way to a double leg and then walk back on the siding?
Or I don't even remember that fight. And try to tackle the referee when I came to. Yeah.
Who was Al Wickers? Oh, Al Wickers. Yeah, that's right. Uh,
let legend, let's ask legend Jeffery. He's probably ref
more matches than anybody on Earth here. But, um, but
(28:26):
so I I'm blacking out. I'm actually out that
with that wake up and they're like, what's going on? And I remember. Pucci
said, what do we do? What do we do? And I'm like, get me to my feet. I don't
know. And then we, you know, we got this for the belt. So
we made sure the guy won the belt over me. And then
I was so, uh, uh, so
(28:49):
just humiliated and yeah, that's on me. Right. Humiliation is a choice. Yeah.
I just, I just couldn't, I couldn't deal with the emotional whatever. And
I remember going back to the locker room and you could just feel the
crowd and just like, But here's the
thing, this is back to the old, it takes a team. Even though I fought with
myself, I'm sitting there and I'm crying. I'm sitting on a
(29:09):
chair and I got tears running down my face. My, my, my glumped
hands are over my face. I'm like, what did you, what the, what the hell did
you just, you know, really beat myself up. And one of
you guys are tapping me on the head saying, Hey, oh, the doc, the
ring doctor wants to see you and make sure you're okay or whatever. I just, I'm like, I'm like,
why? I look up and you guys have a freaking cocoon
(29:30):
built around me. Yeah. It was like, we
rehearsed this and it's like, Oh, let him in. He opens up
like a, like a cocoon action like that. And it lets him in, you guys close around
to him. He said, you guys are protecting me from whatever.
And nobody's getting to me with, with all
my, it was really, really. And then it was again, that Duke Rufus himself, the
(29:50):
promoter of the thing comes in like, Hey, you okay? I'm like, I'm so sorry. He's like, you
did great, man. This happens any given Sunday. So he's real support. But
you guys opened up and closed around me like this. We never had
a contingency formula. Right. So that's not us, but
to, to watch the way you guys came together, it was one of my favorite, proudest
moments, uh, well in my life, but in MMA and certainly Jiu
(30:13):
Jitsu and the whole journey was because like, I'm part of
that. If I saw that from the bird's eye view, watch how
they cocooned over that guy. Yeah. That guy happens to be Jon or
whatever. And they just- True team and family. Yeah. You guys didn't have a
plan. You guys didn't know what to do, but you knew it would protect him. Yeah. And
he's one of us and he would do the same for us. I just, I,
(30:34):
and that really like, it gives me chills thinking about it right now. For sure. And so
talking about, I could have had just that one fight
and not done 31 others. Yeah. But I, I really took
that as a really, it made me feel like my purpose in Jiu-Jitsu is proper.
So now at this point in time in your career, you have all
(30:54):
those fights on your belt. You have a lot of years of training, a lot of traveling
jujitsu. Oh yeah. Um, you have two
academies, you have your kids in
jujitsu now. Yeah. Uh, For
the parents out there, what's like your, what's your biggest tip coming
from a person that's been doing Jiu-Jitsu for so long and owns
(31:15):
academies? What's your biggest tip for parents around getting
their kids involved in Jiu-Jitsu? Especially if you like, really
This is a sore subject for me because it's a hard one. I'll tell you, I'll tell
you why I'm going to nail this answer though. Cause I screwed up
with the first and succeeded with the second. I screwed up initially.
I learned from the mistake of the first. Yeah. But, um, It's
(31:39):
just play. It's just another game. And, you
know, it's all stuff that we all should know better. Just,
it's like baseball or football. This is just jujitsu. You get to wear karate pants,
karate outfit and just play, play, play. It's fun. And
yeah, there's no reason unless somebody's in danger. Yeah. Like
(32:03):
we've already got kind of a four ten star kids program. Like number one,
keep it safe. If all, if everything is gone haywire, just
keep, you're there. Right. Always on board. Right. Uh,
and then number two, before character development, before A
tactical prowess is keep them having fun,
because if they don't have fun, they're never going to be able to work on their character or their... And that's
(32:25):
what I stay with, that they're going to want to quit right away. So in that order, you
go in there thinking, I'm going to teach you how to do an armbar or pass the guard
or take somebody down, but what's more important than that is, hey, who's being a
turd? Like this is how you light up, you respect
your instructors and communicate and control your emotions and try to... then,
(32:46):
And let's be honest, there's no difference between that perspective that we should
have for our kids and adults. It's true. Like adults, it needs to be
safety and fun. Like if you joined Jiu Jitsu and you want
to learn how to beat other people, but it needs to
be fun. Yeah. It's, it's, it's even, and losing can
be fun, but you have to find a way to make it fun. It is. And it takes a
(33:08):
A paradigm shift, right? Yeah. Because what does it mean to lose? It just means that
person had their hand raised. I've seen people get greater victories out
of their losses, and some people lose worse with the wins. And
in the same way, I've been
more physically damaged by victories sometimes.
I've gone out with the worst for wear. And
(33:30):
that's a physical example of what could actually be a spiritual or emotional or, you
Yeah. So a lot of times those one hit knockouts are the
safest. Yeah. It's the one that takes 30 hits
Well, that's why I'd rather be at a bare knuckle fight than an
(33:51):
I don't want to get in a pillow fight where I get 100, hit 200 pounds, 200 times in the
head. I'd rather get one clean one here that might open me, but I'm
So main message is just keep it fun, safe. Oh yeah, so
fun in that order. Yeah. And
Because then you start slipping with your, what's
(34:12):
neat about jujitsu as opposed to adults, what's not as neat about adults too is as soon
Yeah. Right. And, and I've been telling
a lot of my, my blue belts that lately, cause they get to move out. They're like,
what now? And I'm like, find something fun to
work on. Yeah. Find a position, find a concept, find
a, a sequence that like, you're not doing it
(34:33):
to win jujitsu and you're just doing it because you find it fun.
Yeah. Like you need to find fun again. I think that's why a lot of times people
get the blue belt blues. Yeah. Right. It's because they put all that work
in to get their blue belt and then they keep putting that work in and they
That white to blue belt we just talked about this last night, uh, after class.
(34:54):
the white to blue belt, and kind of talking about the blue and through, what
do you call the blue blues? Blue belt blues. Blue belt blues,
yeah, for sure. And I think one causes the other. The blues cause the, we
have, there's such a, it's still the majority stay,
right? But when someone gets a blue and they're through, I
think it's, you're like that seed under the soil and
(35:16):
you're just getting watered. And when you're a white belt, you're just getting watered. It's like, I
just got taken that information is a little bit of water. That's some warm soil. That's
the nutrients of the soil. But once you are blue belt, you sprout and
you've got leaves sticking out of you like
this. There's a lot of pressure, literally pressure, air pressure
and wind in the form of,
(35:37):
Oh, you got a blue belt now? If I get a blue belt, that means I have to hammer you. Yeah.
Or I'm a purple builder, brown builder, like I'm going to put you to the test. You
have all these extra stressors now because you are exposed to direct sunlight and
wind and cold and animals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, I,
that's what leaps them to purple is if they can weather those storms and
use them. This sunlight's not going to burn my leaves. It's going to grow them. This
(35:59):
rain is not going to flood us. It's going to nurture us. And
purple will try to rip my head off. That's a compliment to me. That just means I'm trying to do that.
It's so like. We have to almost let them know, here it comes. Now
with your blue belt, you have all this new exposure that you weren't to
before. You're no longer protected by the soil, at least the visual. So
I think that's part of the blues of the blues.
(36:21):
What's your trick to balancing everything that you have going on
between owning two academies, teaching classes, training
for yourself? You have your kids. You have your kids doing classes. You
have a pond and a cold plunge
in your backyard. You're making your own yogurt now. Like how
do you, how do you balance all this as a school
(36:43):
owner, as someone who's doing their own athletic training to
a parent? Um, unlike.
By saying no. That's my favorite. Is
Yeah. No, is it really hard to do at first? Yes.
(37:03):
Because here's the thing. Successful people know how to say yes. very
successful in order to say no. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't have
the bravery to say yes to opportunities when they come, or
yes to yourself, I can do this. But that only gets you so
far until you have the ultimate bravery to say no, because
every time you say no, you have the option of saying yes to other things, but every time you say yes,
(37:24):
you don't have any other options. I looked at the, what's the phrase? No
is a complete sentence, and yes is an obligation. That's true. And
so I, because of that, every
time I have a new endeavor, a new adventure, a new whatever, oh, is
your life harder now? Is it harder now? It's actually easier because
if it doesn't fill into my categories of my life that are
(37:46):
important, most important to me, they just, they're just not,
And sometimes no doesn't have to be no. It could be not right now. Yeah.
It is. And it's, it shouldn't be your knee jerk. Yeah. I
think, you know, but if you're, if you're, if you're 20 years old
or 21 or even 70 and you haven't whipped
(38:09):
it out yet, say yes then. Say yes to just about everything. Yeah.
But as you start getting constricted, as, as the fronts start to,
Now you got to pick, okay, which one, you know, you got to explore it out. You
What do you look forward to the most from like
today onwards, right? You have your, you have your two academies,
(38:30):
you have a ton of students, you have your association, you have your kids doing
Jiu Jitsu. What are you looking forward to the most in your Jiu Jitsu
I just, going forward with Jiu-Jitsu, I just like seeing all,
what it's done for my life, Jiu-Jitsu specifically, to see
others using Jiu-Jitsu in different directions, but still using
(38:53):
Jiu-Jitsu and the foundational concepts of
Jiu-Jitsu on and off the mat. It inspires me. I
want to see, I want to see what art they come up with. Yeah. Literally
or figuratively, like I love watching, again, like I
always fall back on it for I'm
getting through stuff in my life and, and just really trying to thrive with,
(39:14):
with these concepts to see other people doing that and having a part of
that is so fulfilling. So, so like, like emotionally
fulfilling to me, like it, like just it completely like
gives me that like thing that I think a lot of us are missing and
that's a job. that
you have passion for because you
(39:34):
don't have service, it matters. You matter. Like, and if
I could be of any service to any of them, I don't want to give up. I
Like, you know, like because you make a difference. Yes. And
it's not in you. It's. the jujitsu that you're sharing
with us. You're almost just opening their idea, their
(39:57):
There's ways that they- And they do it to me too. They do it right back. A hundred percent. So
like every time you go inside every black belt, there's a white belt. Every white belt
is a black belt to be at, right? Every time I'm
exposed to another person that may have helped with jujitsu, they're exposing me
And I tell my students this all the time, but I have this
thing around. Anytime I help someone else with their goals, they
(40:18):
help me with my own. So the more people I can help, the more help
I give in return. If I don't help anyone, then I'm flying solo. That's
What do they say about... If you want to go fast, go alone. Yeah.
If you want to go far, go together. I like that. Yeah, that's awesome.
Quotes matter to me. I wake up with a quote. I don't
(40:42):
I'm going to hit you up with 10 rapid fire questions. Oh.
They might not be super rapid fire, but we'll close with
this. Do I have a time limit for each one? No.
I do more gi, but I'm way more into no-gi right now.
(41:02):
I love it. What are you currently working on in your Jiu-Jitsu gang?
For me personally? Yeah. Or
for... For... This timer! The
best way to describe it is, I guess I haven't described it in
words, like looking at a position that we're in, so
(41:23):
the technical position we're in, and how from another angle that
might be just one hip switch away from a
Like, for example, like- Like the global perspective we were just talking about.
Yeah, zooming out from the outside and being like, what's the classic humorous one?
In space, the mount is also the guard. Yeah. Almost like that, but
(41:44):
I love it. Cool. Favorite submission of the moment? The
one they give me. Top
person you would love to train with given the opportunity? Alive or dead, doesn't matter.
Alive or dead? Both
(42:04):
Oh, very cool. Best advice for beginners?
Take off the street belt and put on the white belt if that's where you are in
your stage and trust the process. It's
it, there's a lot being thrown at you. Listen or
don't listen. Just keep coming back. Just keep just twice
(42:26):
a week, making your goal. Any more, you may burn out any
less. You may fall out. Trust the process. A
lot of this thinking has been done for you. You don't have to be a master of anything. Everybody in
One word to describe your Jiu Jitsu style. Fumbly.
That was me last
(42:49):
I bet. I had those days. I would say in progress. Well, that's
Oh, love it. What's the toughest aspect
We almost talked about it before, or we were kind of talking about it before. I think the toughest
part of Jiu-Jitsu is learning how to turn obstacles into
(43:10):
advantages and failures or losses into wins. But
Could be saying no. Saying no is a good one. The most
up before the enemy. I, I, I, it's
(43:33):
like being an early riser. Yes. And it doesn't necessarily be
in the morning, but be ready before
anything. So to be like third shifters, for example, not, I just, for me, it
And I know one thing that you always told me in Jiu Jitsu, you're
always the first person off the mat. Like whether you
(43:56):
I thought I was off the map. Like, wait, what do you mean? No, not off the map, but like when you're on the
ground and you reset, like you are up before that, your
You remember. Yeah. I still try to be. Yeah.
That's a, if you don't know what that is, you know, right. Okay.
All right. We're all down. Okay. Everybody get up. Try to be the first one up. Yeah. Just
What's one habit that has successfully improved, significantly improved
(44:25):
didn't have passing it on. I see this too.
I've watched it with my own children, but even with white, blue,
purple, any belt, when they are helping somebody else out with
And last one. I know you have a lot of these. Favorite book.
Favorite book. That sucks because
(44:48):
that depends on the audience. I
love this audience. this audience, which
is basically anybody interested in Jiu-Jitsu? Yeah, or doing Jiu-Jitsu. Oh,
(45:09):
It's gonna make it easier. Let me tell you. Here's what grabs me, what I return to
the most. Okay. Marcus
Aurelius' Meditations. Everybody knows that one. That's a classic, right? He's
like my ultimate advisor. Even though it's written weird
and everything, but meditation is always—we'll say that. That's a good one
(45:29):
to start with. Any of the letters of Seneca that he's
I like the kind of old Greek and Roman. I haven't read meditation specifically,
but I've done the Daily Stoic, which brings in information from... Both.
Anything by Ryan Holiday, the author of that, he has good stuff too. And
what's nice about him, I actually should probably recommend those. The
(45:53):
Or Diego was the enemy. He's a good job at breaking down the
Yeah. He'll make Marcus Aurelius fun again. That'd be a good, uh, yeah.
Anything by Ryan Holiday, I guess, would be, cause he's a good gateway. And
then once you fall in love with all that and you want to go deeper, then you go look at,
(46:13):
Yeah. Well, that was it, man. Anything else you'd like to share with the, uh,
Inside the Wave audience, your students, your jujitsu family, your
No, just if you're not on the journey, give it a shot. Give it
at least four seasons. And I mean four seasons like of
a year, four seasons of your jujitsu development, ups and downs. Give
it a shot. Stay the course. Trust the process. Pass
(46:41):
You're welcome. Well, it's been awesome. I appreciate you. I
want to thank you personally for being my
coach and helping me on this journey. You know, you didn't bring
the energy to, but you've kept me in it and you've supported
me with everything I've done along the way. Back at you. I've learned so much from
you including this. So thanks for checking in. Thank you,
(47:01):
Jon Friedland. Uh, subscribe to this, like this, share this.
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