Ep. 4 - Scotty Smith: 2nd Degree BJJ Black Belt / Preparing the Next Generation - Miracles in Meat

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.

(00:05):
You're listening to the Miracles in Meat Podcast. I'm Shane Thibodeau,
a fourth-generation butcher at one of the oldest meat markets in the world.
My great-grandfather started this business by slaughtering one cow or pig at
a time and selling the cuts door-to-door on horse and buggy.
Today, our products are enjoyed across the globe.
I'll attempt to give you some insight as to how we got here and explore the

(00:26):
challenges we've had along the way. At Bourgeois, our mission is to preserve
our heritage generation after generation through legendary Cajun flavors and
the development of relationships, not customers.
Since 1891, Bourgeois has maintained age-old culinary traditions that fuel the
South Louisiana lifestyle.
Over the past 133 years, our Cajun products have gained global recognition,

(00:48):
and for tens of thousands of
folks around the world, the Bourgeois Cajun Lady logo is a symbol of home.
Today the fourth generation butchers sit at the nine foot maple block with loyal
customers to discuss the adventures skills and passions that guide each of their legacies,
these conversations will become priceless resources for future generations of
any industry this is our way of maintaining the spirit purpose and traditions

(01:13):
of our lost arts in the world of change 133 years four generations we're just getting started.
Music.
All right, this is episode number four. I have Scotty Smith,
who is the owner of Next Generation Martial Arts in Thibodeau.

(01:35):
Scotty's kids jujitsu program is absolutely impressive.
If you ever get to stop by on an afternoon and go watch that class and what
happens in there and how he can keep, you know, 50, 60 kids entertained and engaged,
it's unbelievable to watch. It really is. It's awesome. It's really cool.

(01:58):
And, you know, it's a lot deeper than it looks from an outsider's perspective. I know Scotty very well.
And I know I can see behind the things he's doing and the things he's saying in that class.
And if everyone knew what was going on in his head, I think it'd be a little
more special to him like it is to me.

(02:18):
My kids have been training with scotty for a while now and
while they're young this is something that
my wife and i decided but while they're young and we're
making the decisions for them and we know what's best for them jujitsu
is going to be a non-negotiable it's you know they can still do
sports and other things on the side but that isn't
going to replace what they're going

(02:40):
to learn from jiu-jitsu outside of it
being you know self-defense and and
a martial art talking about the life skills scotty's
vision for these kids and for the
future of our youth goes far beyond sports and hobbies and extracurriculars
he's approaching martial arts as a life skill that these kids can use to accomplish

(03:04):
anything you know now or later in life for us we you know we understand these benefits and it's,
it's no different than sending them to school.
That's how we're viewing it. You know, it's, you, you need to learn how to swim,
right? It's the same thing.
Scotty can, you know, he's a little different than maybe some of these other gym owners.

(03:26):
He can care less about how well a child might place in a tournament or if they
can do a fancy submission.
He's really focusing on fundamentals such as respect and courage and confidence
and, you know, verbal communication skills, leadership, humility,
all these things that we need.

(03:47):
And there's no doubt in my mind that the kids who are running through his class
will be prepared for anything.
Any challenge that's thrown to them now and, you know, when they're 30,
they're going to be able to pull tools that they learned from Scotty's class.
And I don't think it'd be fair to talk about our education system or even like

(04:10):
youth leadership in our city or parish without mentioning Scotty.
So here we go. See what we can get into. to
miracles and meat podcast i'm shane and i have my
cousin beau bourgeois the owner of bourgeois meat market beau say hi so everyone
knows your voice hey guys that's beau and then we have with us scotty smith

(04:30):
scotty smith say hi you're just trying to sound scary am i trying to sound scary Yeah. Oh, God.
What did you get yourself into? Oh, dude. No, no. I have no idea why my voice sounds like this.
All right. That's Scotty. And Scotty is a second degree black belt in Brazilian jujitsu.

(04:54):
And Bo and I have been training jujitsu for quite some time under Scotty.
And Bo has been Bo's actually the one who's gotten me started in jiu-jitsu,
several years ago but Bo Bo started
when I was a sophomore in high school like 2002
or 3 and Scotty started when oh seven and I was like July June yeah July of

(05:20):
07 so right around 17 years so and then I met Scotty around 2016 ish,
through Bo.
We started training in back of the, there was a classroom behind Hoffman's in
Thibodeau and Scotty was renting out some classroom space and he had some mats

(05:41):
down and Bo was just picking it back up.
He'd maybe take some time off. You were coming back from Tulane, right?
Yeah, like six years off. Yeah. So Bo had taken a long time off and then getting
back into it and begged me to go train with him and prove to me why I needed to train with him.
At the time I was, I had just come out of the Marine Corps and I was like 210

(06:04):
and I was, I was powerlifting and I was my strongest ever.
And I was, I just thought I was awesome, but Bo could just do,
and I also had some, some, you know, a lot of time spent grappling in the Marines.
And I really thought I was something until Bo wanted to do some drills with
me at the, at the gym and had me try to hold him down on the,

(06:28):
you know, hold him down on the mat or he held me down and would have me try
to get up, you know, get to my feet or something like that.
And he just wrecked me and I didn't understand it.
I didn't understand how, how him being weaker than me could do the things he
was doing and could hold me down and submit me whenever he wanted and do anything.

(06:51):
My strength didn't matter.
So that confused the crap out of me. And, and I took the bait and went to first
few classes with him, with Scotty.
Bo, when did you meet Scotty? Originally, I met Scotty when he first started
training in probably 07 or 08.
I was at Nichols at the time. We were training in Bayou Blue and I use a fresh,

(07:18):
white belt, but he was, I was a blue belt at the time and he was already pretty
good. And so that was aggravating.
But, uh, then I don't think he remembers me, but I don't, we,
I didn't see him again until 2000, late 2015, when I started training again in Houma at Evolution.

(07:39):
It was Waffle's place, but I think Scotty was teaching and he was a brown belt
about, I think he got his black belt like within six months of me coming back or something like that.
But yeah, then he, then why did you open the school in Thibodeau?
For some reason, I want to say it was Jonah's fault. Is that true?

(07:59):
Partially, partially. So I remember opening the school.
Well, I got to step back. I can't say I remember opening before I tell why.
So I remember as a blue belt. So when I decided to stop fighting,
I just had the dumb idea that I'd be able to open a business with no clue and no idea of how to do it.
And I started looking, I said, well, where are there no jujitsu schools around?

(08:23):
And I wanted it to be close enough to where I lived so that I can actually drive
somewhere, but somewhere that, you know, I thought couldn't be a good spot to open.
And so I just started looking at the map and I'm like, well,
Thibodeau's 30 minutes from where Waffle's at.
It shouldn't conflict with any student base there.
And Blacklist was in Houma, so it made sense to go about a half hour away.

(08:45):
And that was the initial reason. Like, I didn't know anybody in Thibodeau.
Didn't know a thing about the city.
I just knew there was Thibodeau if I went that way. Because it's so far away
from home. Because it's so far away from home.
But you knew the people there would be a little better.
I didn't know anything about the people. You got to remember,

(09:05):
look, I was a blue belt at the time, right?
And I, so you're talking about 08, 09 when I started thinking this.
Like, again, I didn't know anybody there. I didn't really know anything about
the people there, but I thought it was kind of the same.
And then Jonah started training
somewhere I think Jonah started training right
at the tail end of my blue belt and maybe a few weeks before

(09:28):
I got purple so it was like maybe 2011 so
real quick before we go go too far into jiu-jitsu
remember that most people that are going to listen to this they don't understand
what really what jiu-jitsu is yet and we'll get to that but they also don't
have any of the terminology that we use they don't they don't know what a blue
belt is so let's quickly explain the belt system when we say blue belt or brown belt or whatever.

(09:53):
So for the adult rankings you start as a white belt like any martial art and
then the next progression is blue then purple then brown then black the kids
have a whole nother belt structure but that that's like a bunch of belts it's
not we're talking about and you know you start you sign up you get your white
belt and then roughly what's it how many years to black belt,

(10:14):
uh like eight and a half somewhere around there
that that'll kind of help and that's that's training
how often i was training too man i was
training teaching competing fighting so
i was on the mats at least five to six days a week during during that eight
years on average i would say i would say yeah probably average of five teaching

(10:36):
multiple times a day so i think i think people People don't understand that
when they hear it, when they just hear whatever,
you know, my uncle is a black belt or my uncle is whatever.
They probably don't think about that when it comes to jujitsu,
which we'll get back to jujitsu.
But let's talk about your first time in the meat market.

(10:59):
When was that? And what do you remember about it? So I remember being a kid
and it was actually my dad.
It's one of the one of the members I do have as a kid with him.
And it was, I don't remember my age, but I remember him talking about the jerky.
And we drove all the way to Thibodeau from Houma to come buy some jerky.
And I do remember walking in, seeing the market, because it's an old market,

(11:20):
just seeing it does look pretty much exactly the same as I remember it as a kid.
But yeah, it was to buy some beef jerky when, I don't know, eight,
nine, maybe 10 years old, somewhere around there.
I don't remember anything else outside of that and trying to remember if we
never really made it a frequent stop,

(11:42):
but it was like a special stop, it's like, we were going to get jerky and he
drove to Thibodeau to go get it, it was an hour commute, you know, total to go get jerky.
So that is something I do remember as a kid and yeah, he would do that periodically,
not, not very often, but yeah. Nice.

(12:02):
So what do you get these days? well i don't
get a whole lot of stuff anymore because i try to send my wife to
go pick everything but everything up but i will stop
if i'm passing so a lot of times i'll catch like
anytime i go to get a haircut right i go i still go back to home to get my haircut
with neil dubois at it's called royal cuts so i stop and i grab a a boot and

(12:24):
burrito every time i pass and i try to get in and out and just pass grab it
give me a water and drive to my haircut yeah but hold up
i still stop you still borrowing that uh smoking pit
pretty regular yeah probably need
to start doing it more but yeah so i'll
smoke some pork butts and we get the meat to do that and that's that's kind

(12:47):
of like a special thing now like people start asking like okay can you make
some pork butts for whatever right so like whether it's smoking something for
i don't know an individual that
wants for a party or like blacklist with derrick bro he started really
running pretty good tournament as a cancer benefit for their charity.
And we do smoke for that annually.

(13:09):
So like, I know y'all sponsor the event and we kind of do the same.
So we borrow them. I saw Warriors. Yeah, the Warriors of Hope.
Which is, yeah, it's a, it's a real good local charity and they,
they keep the money pretty, pretty local and they help out a lot of people.
So they actually go to the place and they pay the medical bills for the individual
instead of sending it off to some insurance or whatever.

(13:32):
So it's a pretty neat thing they, they have going with that.
And what makes a good pork butt? Time.
Time. I think, I think what I've figured out so far, and that's up for people
to figure out if they They think it's good or not, but what I like is just smoking
it with post oak wood and,
you know, you just got to manage a fire and getting good airflow on the, on the meat.

(13:55):
That's what I like about the smoker that you guys have. It's,
it's a good smoker and it's easy to run.
Like it's, it's way easier than the one, the one that I have at my house because
the firebox is bigger and I think you can hold heat better because it's,
it's, it's an actual smoker.
It's not just a job that you picked up at, you know, Academy, like I have at the house.
But yeah it definitely cooks cooks real well

(14:16):
what's wrong with the pellet smokers and stuff why
not just get a pellet smoker throw a hook butt on and go inside watch some fights
so this is something i've been thinking about right i've been thinking about
getting one just because i want to be lazy sometimes and still have smoked meat
but the reality is it's just not as good,

(14:37):
it's not and it can't be so like
what a lot of people i don't think realize about burning actual wood
is there sugars in the wood and you have your moisture
content all that you're not getting any of that stuff in the pellet so the
pellets yeah you know if
you use the pellet grill and you're calling a barbecue you you got

(14:57):
a smoky oven you're not really burning wood
that's that's the way I look at and that's why none of those big places you
go to in Texas that when you you think you have good barbecue somewhere and
then you go to Central Texas and you you eat at at the well-known places in
that area and you bite the food and you just can't understand how it tastes
so good with so little ingredients.

(15:18):
It's all because of the way that they smoke it with the wood.
It's a totally different thing. And they'll tell you the same,
like you're not going to get that out of the pellet smoker.
You might be able to get something that tastes decent, you know?
And if you're, if you, if you don't have the time to like sit by a fire and
watch it and shovel coals and, you know, build a good fire and check the wood
to make sure it's heavy enough at certain points.

(15:38):
Like you, You can get by with a pellet smoker and you might be able to impress
somebody that's, you know, not eating a whole lot of barbecue,
but anyone that kind of knows what it's supposed to taste like and what it can
taste like, they'll sniff it out in a heartbeat.
It's just not the same. It's not the same. And that's one thing that I do love
that you guys still do over here is y'all still, y'all haven't given into any

(16:00):
pellet smokers or any commercial smokers when it comes down to your jerky.
And I think that's why y'all sell it all over the world. And a lot of times
that gets missed. that gets missed. It's way easier to do it the other way.
Kind of like i tell tell the kids like if it's too easy and it doesn't have
any value it's not worth it you know if it's hard it's probably worth doing

(16:21):
it's good stuff that'd been my argument too
you go to aaron franklin's and terry blacks and all
that he i'm sure if they could get a a
good product out of a pellet smokers they wouldn't
be uh up all night smoking i mean dude like terry
blacks and then i try to tell this to anybody that's interested
in barbecue like if you go to the terry blacks what i do know about going there

(16:42):
is they're cool and you can go on the back and they're happy to
show you around the smokers and you get to go look at those big old i don't
know thousand gallon smokers that they run they got three of them in austin
and the fire boxes are i don't know 30 inches around and they're deep and big
and they have so much wood stacked up on that back fence and they go through

(17:03):
like a the whole width of the fence in like a week,
Like it's a stupid amount of wood, but I mean, they're running the smokers like
daily, all day. Like they're constantly running the smokers.
And I think they work everybody in three shifts, three to eight hour shifts,
and they have to cycle them in and rotate them just to be able to keep up with
the demand of that place.

(17:24):
Because I mean, dude, they're doing, I don't know, probably 300 briskets a day
plus the sausage and whatever else they're doing.
That's a ridiculous amount of meat. and they
would not have that flavor with a with a pellet smoker you know
and it's funny it's funny like like even like joe rogan right so you'll
hear joe rogan a while back a few years ago he was really big on the tragers

(17:45):
and when he moved to austin he went to terry blacks and you can look on like
his instagram feed and he'll start saying stuff about terry blacks and now he
i think he's He's doing the same thing,
like burning his own wood and not saying he wouldn't use the Traeger or anything anymore,
but he notices the difference because there's an enormous difference,

(18:07):
you know, it's, it's not the same thing.
And it's the tinkering that's involved too. For people who like to get into
what they're doing, building a fire is cool.
Like you can't deny that it's, it's cool to just sit there and watch it and
make a decision on what you want to happen next.
And then you have to figure out how to, how to do it, you know, and you can fail and you

(18:28):
can waste time and you can you know not impress
people with with your crappy pork butt if
it comes out wrong but it's cool I love that that tinkering aspect what about
that place in the looling you talked about Oh God those kinds of condos is good
man he's he's as good as you're gonna get around here I don't think there's

(18:48):
anybody better as far as pure barbecue like smoked pork butts and.
Brisket for sure brisket i think i think pork butt you probably have a few different
things that people do around that equivalent but as far as briskets like beef
the way he does the beef is
pretty pretty much on par with with a place like terry black's he's really good

(19:12):
though but sometimes man like a couple times i've went it's been like hit or
miss so i don't know if it was maybe they cut a meat that day or maybe he was
running behind but generally he's he's very very
good, but it's just hard to get out there, man.
Like he's, he's only serving food one day a week.
And as far as barbecue, I think he serves like burgers or tacos or something
like that on Thursday, but Friday is his barbecue day.

(19:34):
And man, he's, he's good, dude. And it's just tough to get there.
Tough to get there. You need to make plans to go out there on a Friday.
Oh dude, go there and like, get like some of the boudin that he makes is really
something I think to y'all be interested like really interested in trying because
uh he does like brisket boudin
he makes it himself yeah so he smokes the brisket and i think what he

(19:56):
doesn't sell like if he doesn't sell out of some or maybe he cuts some
and puts it on the side yeah but he puts it in his boudin and that's
probably one of my favorite things over there is his sounds cool the
brisket boudin some of the stuff he does with the boudin he's got
kind of a mexican flair to some of the stuff and yeah
it's just good he what else
did he do that's really really good so he's got a good pork butt

(20:19):
his briskets are always good some of the
stuff that he does every once in a while i may not be the
biggest fan of but it's just because some of the flavors aren't like what i
want i'm not a big sauce person but in general man he's he's really really solid
briskets briskets the thing because like i'm no pit master but i can make a

(20:39):
a butter some spare ribs come out pretty good but But, man,
a brisket or short ribs or something, that stuff is hard.
Yeah. Yeah, dude. So I haven't done any beef in a long time.
It's been a while since I've done some beef. Actually, the last time I did beef, I screwed it up.
So I had the smoker, and I was doing, it might have been the last time I did

(21:00):
the ones for Derek for the charity event.
I think I did five butts. I think I did five butts that day.
And then I had a brisket. and I made a stupid mistake and I put the brisket
too close to the firebox thinking it was still going to be okay and I charred
all the bottom of the brisket.
Everything else came out great, but that brisket was, dude, I should have not done that.

(21:22):
I really messed that piece of meat up.
But yeah, I've been practicing with pork butts to try to do a brisket well.
Brisket's tough. So your son, Ty, and also your sister, Kristen,
both work for us at the Tibro location.
What's that like? Ty's got his first job. He lives at home, but he also kind

(21:48):
of lives on his own, right? Yeah.
What's that like? What's that like right now as part of your parenting journey?
So with him, he's a pretty independent individual as far as like I don't have to worry about him.
I don't have to worry about him being like, he's going to do some dumb stuff
because he's, he's 18, but he's not going to do anything idiotic for the most part.

(22:12):
I guess I shouldn't say that depending, depending on what we're talking about.
But I guess what I mean is like, I don't have to worry about him going out and
getting on drugs or anything like that.
So part of what I wanted to be able to do is get them around like good mentors
and good people in his workplace, because I remember how bad it was for me when I was that age.
So when I was 18, I worked at Gulf Island and you have no idea what you're getting

(22:34):
yourself into when you're working with people from all over,
right? People that are just trying to get a job.
And so I remember some of the characters that I had to be around in that, in that line of work.
And, and let's just say, it's probably not the best place to start trying to
get influences from people or having people influence you where every,
every single time you turn around, somebody's screaming at you or hollering

(22:54):
at you or cussing you out.
It doesn't really build good good character i
think it builds a lot of negative character so when y'all agreed to let him
work it was at least a burden off of my back to say like okay i know he's around
a bunch of other good men and they'll be able to shoot him straight and you
know make sure he stays in line with some stuff you know so so that was a big

(23:17):
part of me wanting him to be able to work with y'all
just to kind of give him some guidance and mentorship and in life just about
being a man Because, you know, like we all know, like you can,
your dad can tell you sometimes and you're not necessarily going to listen to
it just because it's your dad.
And I think that's helped a lot with actually he and I for him being able to

(23:37):
take criticism and not get too angry because he hears the same,
similar type of message on a regular basis, constantly with being around the market.
So I think just being, just being around good people, I mean,
you have a really, really good, good group of guys that, that stick together over there.
And I think that's all just, you know, probably a part of what your family has

(23:57):
done over the past hundred something years with the market, you know?
I think it's pretty awesome. So, Scotty, you're a good dad.
I see you with your kids and, you know, with all the kids that you teach every day at jujitsu.
But, yeah, what was your childhood like? You told us about your first job, but tell us more.

(24:17):
Yeah. So, as a kid, see, that's a tough one because there's going to be a whole
bunch of different parts.
So, growing up, parents were divorced when I was pretty young.
I was maybe four or five when the divorce started. I don't remember the exact
time frame. I know by the time I was six, everything was done.
I remember real early on as a kid kind of having misunderstandings about what

(24:40):
certain things were supposed to look like as far as relationships or how to act.
So I grew up to be a pretty rebellious, angry, wild-ish sort of kid.
And that didn't stop until, man, what age? age.
I was probably about 17 before I started really thinking about,

(25:04):
okay, what life is supposed to look like.
And I remember at that age, all I knew is I wanted a family,
right? So from the time I was very young, very misguided, I had a stepdad.
He tried his best, but you know, just nothing really got through.
And yeah, it took me a long time to figure out what I really wanted to do with
myself. And even once I thought I had it, I didn't really know.

(25:26):
So childhood was a mixture of a lot of anger, bad emotions,
very misguided from certain parts of the family, attempts to be guided in the
right direction from other sides and not knowing what's right and wrong for
certain things and being dumb, doing stupid stuff.
Never really got in any crazy amount of trouble, but But I hung around a lot

(25:50):
of kids that did end up getting in a lot of trouble.
A couple of my good friends ended up dying early in their 30s from a heroin overdose.
Those guys I grew up with, like some of my best friends, actually.
So I grew up around a bunch of kids like that, that everybody was just misguided
and not necessarily bad-hearted people, just didn't have the right guidance.

(26:12):
And I never really fell that deep into that world. but I guess I was just lucky
enough not to be around the whole wrong group of people.
And so got to be around 17, met my future wife, and wanted to try to have a family.
And that's what led me to end up getting a job at Gulf Island and all that other stuff, right?

(26:36):
So dropped out of high school right when I could, as soon as I could,
just because I hated school.
Just bad school system. Ellender High School is not necessarily known for academia.
They, I think it's just, it is what it is, man.
You know, wasn't in a high school that pushed me, you know, like you could sleep

(26:57):
and make it through a class.
It's like, that's, it's not necessarily a good education, but yeah,
it took me quitting high school and then having to go to work and really start
trying to figure out what it is I wanted to do.
And that's kind of how I ended up finding my way into martial arts honestly
so that was going to be my question was yeah

(27:18):
what what redirected you and got you back onto the
right path but I guess I guess you're telling me it was Naomi yeah that's
awesome yeah at 17 is probably when
I started being an idiot so let's hear
more yeah I
was an idiot from like 17 to 25 just roaming the streets tip tibido yeah just

(27:40):
chasing ducks getting yelled at by cops yeah but okay so when did you get started
in martial arts so i have a younger brother and he started taking karate classes.
At homa martial arts i think it was called homa h-o-m-a homa oriental martial
arts it was a was it on west park yeah the blue building on the on the by side

(28:03):
yeah so he started going over there And the guy that had that school was named
George Claymore, right?
And George was a Tang Soo Do guy. So like, like, like Korean karate is basically what it is.
And my brother started going there, which probably was largely due to me.
Cause I would just beat on him all the time.
Cause I'm like, I don't know what else, but I'm gonna make him tough.

(28:25):
So I'd like just beat him up.
I used to be a mean, mean to that kid, man, probably.
I just knew that he needed to be tough and that's the only way I knew how to do it.
You know? So every time I got in trouble, I got, you know, spanked or hit with
something or whatever it was.
And so it was like, okay, well that'll make him tough.
And I remember one day he started doing this karate class and I thought it was kind of stupid.

(28:49):
And he's a couple of years younger than me. He's like three years younger than me.
And he came back one day and he wanted to spar. So we're playing around in the bedroom.
And I remember thinking, I'm like, ah, he's, he's getting better. right
and so i i said you
know what if he's getting better i'm gonna go too so partially because i didn't
let you a little brother yeah i couldn't let him i couldn't let him beat me

(29:11):
right because i still needed to be his big brother but at the same time also
i also realized that it'd be good to learn that like if he's learning it then
probably wouldn't be bad for me to learn it well Well, I did that for a couple of years.
How old were you? I was 18. Okay.
And did that for a couple of years. And during that timeframe,

(29:33):
I met a guy that I got to be really close with. His name's Cody Horn.
He actually moved. He was in Baton Rouge for a while.
Started doing a lot of real estate stuff and he's moved to Texas.
I want to say he's around College Station now.
But he was one of the main guys that I would train with.
And we would get together on the weekends and we would spar with each other.
And he was a lifeguard at the YMCA.

(29:55):
And he started doing this thing called jujitsu at the YMCA. And I had no idea what it was.
Shows up he points out a couple things and teaches
me like a triangle choke right he didn't know what
he was doing but he just knew that one move and i
thought it was cool and you know a little while later we

(30:16):
start grappling a little bit more often and we would like
go in somebody's house and grappling in a stupid bedroom
right so like we're grappling like look like like this desk right here so i'd
be buried under the desk rolling with a guy and like smashed into a corner like
he's basically just fighting in the rooms like just all out fighting yeah like
and that's kind of what got me started into jiu jitsu before i actually started

(30:39):
training jiu jitsu which is kind of crazy.
But yeah i mean i even remember going as far back i don't remember if he was at the ymca,
before he was across from terrible was which one was first do you remember across
from terrible was first so i walked into that that facility i say facility was
like a hole in the wall yeah it's like a, like a, it looked like it was a,
like an old mechanic shop or something like that.

(31:02):
And I remember going in there before the Y then where I walked in,
I watched the, I watched the class and I sat down for like an hour and a half,
two hours watching this whole class.
I didn't get on the mat cause I didn't know what to expect.
And I'm watching the dudes and they just broke close guard for the whole time.
Like that's, that's all they did all night. And I remember I remember thinking,

(31:23):
definitely not going to do that.
So I didn't go back. For those of you that don't know what it looks like,
yeah, it doesn't look very fun. No, it was like the most boring thing ever.
It's a very awkward position.
And so it was after that where Cody actually started showing me stuff.
So I had to backtrack a little bit.
When he showed me a move and we started grappling around and eventually i ended

(31:44):
up deciding to take it a little bit more serious and cody's actually a big a
big proponent of me even teaching because,
well cody decided he was going to take a fight and this fight was in galliano
i believe it was down the bay somewhere and uh he fought a guy named justin
martinez justin actually still still around he lives in tibeto now and he's

(32:05):
like hey you want to corner me for this fight I'm like, yeah,
sure, I guess. Like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll go.
So it takes a fight on one of Justin's shows.
And LaRose, might have been like the LaRose Civic Center, Galeano LaRose,
somewhere around there.
And he fights Justin. He comes out in the first round. And I thought it was
interesting because Cody was like, you know, like the best dude at the karate school.

(32:26):
And he never once hit the dude on the feet.
Like, not once. Okay. So he's got all these years of karate under his belt.
And none of it mattered. like none of it mattered and
so justin just grew up fighting justin came
from nonabaya just all the time fighting and he wore cody out in the first round

(32:47):
when i tell you he beat the snot out of cody like till this day i still think
gabe gabe barahona could have stopped the fight like and i would have never
complained because cody was out on his feet he makes it through the first round,
and he comes out for the second round and Justin got tired.
And so the round started back on the feet. Cody ends up getting taken down again.

(33:10):
Couldn't keep it on his feet where he thought he wanted to be anyway. He's getting beat up.
Justin gets tired. Cody does a sit over sweep, mounts him and then punches him
and the ref called it. Like he hits him a few times, kind of puts him away.
Cardio thing as why cody won but i remember
thinking like man that's kind of crazy like cody's only been doing jiu jitsu
for maybe five or six months and i don't even think he

(33:32):
was going all the time i think he would do it like once a week and that's
what saved him in a fight so i remember thinking i was pretty pretty odd okay
and the other thing with cody was that was the first time he had ever gotten
into a fight ever like he had he never got into a fight as a kid so this first
time actually getting in with somebody actually really trying to hurt him was

(33:52):
in front of a crowd in a cage.
And when we left that night, I told Naomi, I said, I could have did better than that.
And she's like, how do you know you, you've never done that before.
Everybody, everybody at that place left and thought the same thing. Yeah.
So, so I told her that. And when she told me that she didn't realize that she

(34:14):
challenged me to prove my point that I could do it.
And I remember thinking, well, I guess that means I got to go learn some of that jujitsu stuff.
So I was the guy, guy literally the guy
that when i walked in i was trying
to make a decision on whether i was going to drive all the way to the rose to go
to blacklist or if i was going to drive to buy a blue to go
with toro and i said man it you know i'm trying to figure out how i'm a you

(34:39):
know pay for fuel to go to to the rose a few times a week right because it was
so broke at the time so when i started like trying to do some math to figure
out how many miles i could drive to go to the road or buy a Blue.
The only option to train was to go to Bayou Blue. So I, uh, I walk in and talk
to Toro, who Tori Bienvenu, he was the guy that kind of, I think he's the one

(35:01):
that mainly brought jujitsu to the area,
to the Homa Thibodeau area.
Him i said hey i i want to start learning jiu-jitsu he's like well why i said
because i want to fight in a cage and now it's it's funny because like you hear
so many of those stories and guys don't stay,
and i did a jiu-jitsu tournament about seven months in and i took a fight nine months in and,

(35:24):
that's pretty much how this whole thing started was because my wife didn't think
i could win a fight and bo you started with toro as well yeah so they had just
moved so all right real quick but you remember James that used to work here way back when?
Okay, so I'm in high school. I'm working, I don't know, over the summer or Christmas or whatever.
I'm stuck in the vacuum packing room with this guy, James, who's one of these

(35:48):
guys that knows a little bit about everything.
And I'm like, hey, I'm thinking about starting a martial art. Which one should I do?
And he kind of gives me a rundown of all the martial arts because that's just
something that he knows.
He knew all of them. and uh brazilian jiu-jitsu
sounded cool because it has the word submission in it
and i like the idea of making somebody else quit and so

(36:11):
what you had to do back in those days was you open the phone book and go to
the yellow pages and you look up martial arts or brazilian jiu-jitsu and i called
the number the address the address was for the place across from tarragon but
when i called him I was like, all right, so I'm gonna meet out.
Yeah, there's class on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I'll meet you at,

(36:33):
across from the terrible anxiety. No, no, no, we just started at the Y. So meet me at the Y.
So yeah, that's how I started.
Jeez. And, but y'all, were y'all in the same room together? Back then?
Oh, that's the thing. Like, I don't really remember too much.
See, he remembers me, but I don't really remember a whole lot of the guys there.

(36:53):
And I remember hearing Bo, I remember hearing the name.
Remember a ton from from like then and i don't know why to be quite honest the
only thing i remember was dr stiegler and i remember alvin so i remember alvin
stiegler james morgan and toro,
those are pretty much the people i remember i remember you remember both scotts don't you,

(37:18):
yeah scott porter scott pritchard yeah yeah but i remember stiegler because
he was always the one that just if you rolled with him he was probably going
to get you like i got my eye almost scratched out by him when he was drilling
an Orenbohr and it was my fault, apparently.
So the only person that could hurt you and then get mad at you for it.
Yeah. He could hurt you and then say, this is why I don't like drilling white belts.

(37:40):
It made me mad. See what you did.
All right. So what exactly is jujitsu?
Oh man. What is jujitsu? What does Brazilian jujitsu mean without,
without getting into the history?
Just what is it? there's a lot of people that have been hearing it this
whole episode and they don't know what it is so jujitsu is

(38:03):
japanese right so this is one thing that i think needs to be it's not brazilian
so the jujitsu is not a brazilian word the the words jujitsu they translate
to the art or set of techniques that flow or go with so that's what like the
meaning of jujitsu is the the actual words,
if you, if you look up Jew and Jitsu, that's what it's going to tell you.

(38:25):
So Jew is to flow or go with, and Jitsu is the art or the set of techniques,
art or set of techniques.
So from a fighting standpoint, I guess that's what it is.
Most people recognize it because they watch the UFC and they see people say
that, oh, he has such good Jiu Jitsu and they see the grappling on the ground.

(38:45):
But I don't think jujitsu is really about the fighting. For me,
it's more about the individual.
It's a way for people to improve themselves, and they're drawn to it because
of the fighting nature of it.
I think jujitsu is more than just a martial art or a fighting art.
Yeah, it's more than a fighting art. I think martial arts are mainly a way to

(39:07):
help people develop themselves into better people.
So that, that, that, that can end up being a whole, whole nother topic in its
own self, like talking about that.
But it's, yeah, it's a grappling art that's based around chokes,
joint locks, and get into positions that allow you to do those things.
That's what most people would recognize it as. That's good. Can we do a little sidebar right here?

(39:32):
Shane, what do you like about jujitsu? Why do you go every time?
Man there certainly is
there certainly is addiction right
addiction exists and some people are
more prone than others to be addicted to things i have
an addictive personality and the layers and

(39:53):
layers and layers of jujitsu keep unpeeling
for me because i keep i keep digging into it i'm
i'm the type that is going to keep digging into it
i'm not just going to show up whatever it is three times a week train and then
it's off my mind with almost all the little shenanigans I get into I get way

(40:13):
way too into it and that's absolutely absolutely happened with jiu-jitsu and
the more I take the more I learn the more.
Unfolds and the more I'm interested in it and I'm sure it's the same for you
because you have actually led me down a lot of the rabbit holes.

(40:33):
I'll find whatever, maybe a technique or a guy or a piece of history or a video
I watch and I'll mention it to you.
Be like, hey, I need you to check this out. Check out this guy I've been watching.
And you'll be like, oh yeah, him. Yep.
And then you'll spit off a few facts about him, where he trained, who, who trained him.
And then you'll say, if you like him, why don't you check out this other guy?

(40:56):
And then there's the next three months just digging and digging and digging.
Yeah. It's an endless rabbit hole for sure. But like, that's the problem for
you though. Like you see, you're just good at everything you do.
So like everything you end up doing, you go down a deep rabbit hole and you
get really, really good at it.
Like that's just seems to be the case with Shane. To me, here's how I can answer your question.

(41:20):
For me, I love to learn. I really like to learn. I did not like to learn in school.
Wasn't very good at that. Didn't care about the learning process.
But I guess that's what it is for me.
It's taught me throughout any endeavor that I choose how to learn the endeavor.
Whatever the skill is, if I do the, if I treat it the same way that I treat

(41:43):
jujitsu, I get good at it.
I know, I know I will, you know, I'm not going to be the best at it,
but I'm going to know, I'm going to know how to find the guys who are the best
and I'm going to know to study those guys, you know?
And I understand the levels of skill involved in anything.

(42:05):
So, you know, when you start to feel like you're good at something,
jujitsu teaches me that, hey, there's guys that, there's guys down the street
who used to do this 30 years ago who don't anymore.
And you're just coming into it.
And you've got to realize that those other guys are out there and they have a lot to offer.

(42:29):
And if you, if you kind of tune that out and you get too caught up in the,
into this, I think you miss a lot of the, the benefits of it,
you know, of, for me, any skill that I, that I attempt.
Nice. That's a good point. So Scotty, you started doing jujitsu so that you
could be a cage fighter and.

(42:50):
No, I started, I started because my wife said I couldn't.
Fair enough. She's going to listen to this. Thanks Naomi. At the time,
you were probably cross-training with maybe some Chinese kickboxing,
some tangsudo, some boxing.
Who knows? The point is, why is it, what is it about jiu-jitsu that you decided to stick with?

(43:11):
Why aren't you a Muay Thai black belt? I don't know.
Or whatever. You know, so I think that, so like, this is the first thing outside
of my marriage that I've stayed doing for a long period of time.
It's the only thing that's kept me interested for
this long so like i tried a whole bunch of stuff as a kid you know got got decent

(43:35):
at some things but never really had the want or desire to pursue something for
a long long period of time like even even when i did karate for a while even
when i did karate for a while it was like a couple years,
Cheers. Wait, let's stop.
That was Bo's neck. I hope that sound comes through. For anyone listening, don't do jiu-jitsu.

(43:59):
No, no, no, no. Don't relate that to jiu-jitsu. I thought it was like a chiropractor thing.
I thought you did that on purpose. You need to go see Carrie, man.
All right. Sorry.
So, did karate for a while. And
even I stopped that because I just kind of got bored with it, you know.

(44:20):
Jiu-jitsu, yeah, I don't know. Something different about it.
There's just a different way to challenge myself. And...
Know i have i still don't know why i've stayed with it as long as i have 17
years later and i still don't know why which has turned out to to be a good
move for me i guess but i think,

(44:41):
after i got my black belt i started realizing how dumb it was for me to pursue.
The selfish goals of training and i think that's when i really really wanted to start trying to,
teach more because i always found more benefit or
more gratification out of seeing people will get better
than it mattered to me about winning competitions because

(45:03):
like i would go to tournaments and you know i'd
do well or whatever and i just didn't care like it didn't it didn't really make
me feel as good as when i can help somebody get better and so seeing them pursue
their goals and seeing them achieve them was always more more rewarding for
me so i think that's probably the thing that's gotten me yeah probably over
the past i don't know 10 years.

(45:25):
Yes yeah probably probably about 10
years now that's really gotten me to to stay interested
in it and yeah it's just that
you know i was never never truly worried
about doing much else outside of
trying to figure out how to make people better on the mat and just
overall and whatever way i could help so that's

(45:47):
probably what's kept me around more so than the the actual grappling
itself to be honest maybe people don't realize i
mean definitely they don't realize a lot about jiu-jitsu but
from an outsider's view they might think that you
if you want to sign up for jiu-jitsu you start and that
means you have to compete and they're scared they don't want to compete
so explain that like i know

(46:09):
that was confusing for me when i started too i kind of assumed well if you're
if you're going three nights a week four nights a week to train at this gym
with all these guys you must be training to go to a tournament with them is
that just talk on that i mean you can you know you can i don't think it matters
i think for some some personalities it's good.

(46:31):
But it's not what everybody should do. People think jujitsu is a sport.
You'll hear people talk about the sport of jujitsu and they completely leave
out the fact that it's supposed to be a martial art first.
When you start getting to the sportative side of it, you think it's a game.
It can be played as a game, the same as people play basketball and football
and all that stuff, tennis, whatever, whatever game you want to figure.

(46:55):
But jujitsu is not for you
to go out and compete you can compete at it but
a lot of places teach for competition specific scenarios
right and they want to be able to push their their students
out there and and be able to try to market it that way so that they can try
to gain a bigger student base and and build a bigger academy and make more money

(47:17):
and all that but you know what they're really doing i think a lot of times is
maybe they're doing some good for a community or they're doing good for their
students And it's, it's not for me to say they are or not,
but I think if you push people into competing, that their personality isn't
right for competing, you might be doing a disservice to that person.

(47:38):
So if you're training three to five days a week, I mean, nobody questions,
Hey, you're going to do a bodybuilding competition because you go work out three or four days a week.
Like, like it's, it's a good analogy. Yeah. Like, like nobody,
nobody, nobody ever asked that question to somebody that goes to the gym.
Oh, they just, oh, he goes to the gym, he goes workout.
He wants to stay in shape. Well, people do that with jujitsu.

(48:00):
They do that with a whole lot of stuff. You don't, you know,
how many people play pickleball nowadays and they're not going to be,
I don't know, play a professional pickleball.
I've been hearing that word way too much.
Like, I still want to know how they came up with the name for it.
So yeah, you don't have to compete. No, no. Then why? Then why do it?

(48:21):
To challenge yourself. All right. So this is the way that Waffle talked to me about it.
Who's Waffle? Waffle was the guy that I trained with after I got out of training with Toro.
Waffle basically walked in on the mat one day when I was still at Toro.
It was about two months in.
And I seen the way he was training with everybody. And I thought he looked a
little different in his approach.
And basically, I started training with him whenever he decided to start teaching.

(48:45):
And I stayed with him for quite a long time. I still, still have a solid relationship
with him, but I was ranked from white all the way through to black with, with waffle.
But one thing he told me about competing, he, and he's a, he's a psychologist as well.
And he said that competing can be good for certain individuals, but it really depends.

(49:08):
He said, if you take somebody and it spikes their their anxiety level up to
a 10 to go compete, he said that same person that hits a 10 at a competition,
they might get the same anxiety spike just by going to visit another academy.
He said, so when they hit that anxiety level.
No difference to them whether they're going to another place to go visit somewhere

(49:30):
or a competition. He said, so going to a competition makes no sense for them.
If you get somebody that like a first day person, you would never tell a first
day person or a personal weekend that they need to go do a competition because
they're still getting that same height of anxiety walking through the door of the gym.
And, you know, after they do that for a year or whatever, you know,

(49:51):
maybe they go visit somewhere else and it still does it for them.
They go visit a new place, their anxiety spikes, you know, if they can go all
over the country and they don't get a spike in their anxiety level and it,
and it never maxes out at a 10 and they're at like a three, well, sure.
Maybe that guy needs to go do a competition to feel like there's some sort of,
some sort of thing at stake for him. Right.
But even, even still like guys compete enough and it just kind of lowers it,

(50:14):
you know, like, like, I don't know, everything becomes normal the more you do
it. So depends on the individual.
Some people, you know, if they know what it feels like to have to deal with
the jitters before a match and, you know, they, they, they know how they handle that stress.
Then I think when people realize that, then if you know the answers to it,
then why, why go pay $120 to compete in a tournament against people that you're

(50:40):
going to be able to train with anytime you want, you know, like, just think about it.
You go to a local tournament here in New Orleans, right? Like let's say IBJJF comes to New Orleans.
Who are you going to be competing against? You're going to be competing against
all the guys within an hour radius.
You're going to have a handful of people that pop in, maybe they drive four
or five hours, but you may or may not even have that person in your bracket.

(51:02):
So it's like, you're going to be training with the dude that you went to visit.
To train with in New Orleans like three weeks ago. And that's the guy you're
competing with. Doesn't even make sense.
You know, like you just go train with them. And so for people to think that
they're doing some great thing by competing not to not to crap on anybody's
accomplishments because i do think it's it does have value.

(51:23):
It's like, after we look at it enough, it's kind of, it kind of just doesn't
make sense to compete. Like, if you know, some people need to prove to themselves
that they're good enough to win.
And I think when you know you are, you realize like, eh, it doesn't really matter.
You know, like it, so what? So, you know, you're good. Like,
do you need to keep proving it to yourself?
And that's another thing that I've heard from guys that are like multiple time

(51:45):
world champions over and over and over and over again. They always end the same way.
Every last one of them, they always end the same way. so you
listen to any dude that's won multiple world titles in jujitsu they
all say this when they're done they all say helping
their students is far more fulfilling than

(52:06):
winning any any any world title and so
they all come to that same conclusion so like i don't
think they wasted their years of winning competitions but at
the end says that all of those guys come up with the same answer why are we
worried about white belts winning tournaments or blue belts or whatever you
know like it's really not that important when the end goal is just to help people

(52:28):
and they all come to that all of them every last one that i know of anyway or
that i'd be willing to listen to them,
to them or get advice from them you know i'm gonna find it interesting i'm gonna
play a little devil's advocate here go for it i've competed before i don't particularly
care for it but at times in the past is something that I really wanted to do.

(52:52):
My argument might be more along the lines of, I think everyone should try it once.
Yeah. I don't, I don't see much value in doing it regularly,
but it's such a shock to the system that most people haven't experienced,
especially like even, even for people like Shane and I that played football

(53:12):
on Friday nights, right.
In high school or soccer or whatever it might've been is different when you're
the only, it's different in a solo sport.
And the nerves that you get competing in
that adrenaline dump especially if you've never done it before i
think there's some value in knowing how your body is going to react yeah especially
maybe from a like a self-defense standpoint oh yeah yeah no no and that's what

(53:36):
i was meaning earlier when i said like once you know how you handle that stress
level then i don't think it's really that important to continue doing those
type of things so like yeah i do think it isn't it it
can be a good thing depending on the individual.
So it goes back to the idea of if somebody's getting really like,
I guess the word would be physiologically.

(53:57):
Like if, if it triggers all those same, all those same stress hormones in an
individual just to walk onto a mat, right?
Like, like, like, okay, this is an example. We got a, we got a girl that trains with us.
And when she first started, I don't know if you remember, but she would sit
on the side And she didn't even want to get on the mat. She was nervous to get on the mat.
I think her getting on that mat, her body response the first time would have

(54:22):
been no different than her going to a competition. Right.
And so after a couple of years, year and a half, whatever it was,
she actually did a competition and I wanted her to do it just for her to know she could.
I didn't care about the results, you know, like, yeah, I don't even think winning
should be, I didn't even care.

(54:42):
I didn't even care about the results because she was so terrified to get on the mat on day one.
It was like a confidence thing for her to know that she could at least walk
out onto the mat in a competition setting and still go out there and do something. Right.
And it's crazy because it took her like a match or two.
She lost both matches, but I want to say it was after her second match.

(55:03):
I think she finally got over the nerves of it, like
midway through the second match she crap i
don't even remember which one it was but i know at some point there was
like a definite difference in her body language and she ended up getting smashed
for the first half of whatever round it was and she ended it on top like going

(55:24):
after the other girl she ends up losing on points but she something clicked
in her head to like no i can do it that's You know, and,
and to see her make that move, it's like, okay, she'd done it once.
I don't think she ever needs to do it again. Correct.
You know, because I think that particular person, if she's ever attacked,
she's probably going to do okay.

(55:47):
Like, I think she's going to be able to handle herself well enough,
you know, but you know, the, the emotional stuff that she had to get over just
to get on the mat in the first place.
I think her getting into a competition, just, I don't know if it was any different.
So I think after guys, like guys that keep going to compete to win,
to win, to win, just to keep proving themselves that they can,

(56:07):
I'm not sure what drives them or motivates them, but I don't think it's to deal
with the nerves after a certain amount of time.
I think they just want to see if they can keep winning. And the truth is,
it's going to be a bunch of medals later on that they're probably going to put
in a box and never take out.
So what's that worth? worth not saying it doesn't have value

(56:29):
but i'm still questioning like what is it worth you know like i
think the value the value you write is
not in the metals the value is that you know when push comes to shove that your
heart rate's gonna stay steady and you're not gonna panic yeah yeah well it's
like you know y'all had y'all let ty shoot a pig right and so he shot the pig

(56:52):
and you told him, he said, hey, let me see your hands.
And he goes, and you're like, ah, that's pretty good. He was,
I don't know, 10, whatever it was, right? I don't remember his age. He was decently young.
It didn't affect him like some people don't got that yeah
most people don't got that yeah but he also competed a
lot yeah so like he he knows how

(57:14):
he deals with those those type of moments you know and he's done it enough that's
why after a certain time of him competing i never forced him to compete like
if he goes and competes it's because he wants to now like i didn't tell him
he needed to do this thing the other day or or the other events that he's done
throughout like he decided he wanted to do that.
And I think putting him in some of that stuff earlier on helped him learn how

(57:38):
to do it. But I don't think it's something he had to be doing when he was eight.
You know, I don't think you need to know that answer when you're eight.
You know, I think people just need to learn it eventually, you know,
cause like, look, people are dangerous that think that they have a capability that they don't.
And I think jujitsu, like being on the mat, just in general forces you to realize
like, yeah, I couldn't really do that.

(57:58):
Right. Like I couldn't really do that if i needed to and competition can be
a way of trying to make people realize it but,
it's also turns into a game so it kind of changes what people would really do
in real scenarios you know so what i just heard is that we need to find all
these deer hunters they get buck fever,
and just throw them in a bunch of competitions they'll steady their hand when

(58:22):
that big bug comes out we could do a camp yeah could do a mini camp before every
hunting season buck fever camp.
Limited space I like it yeah just put you through like a gauntlet and get that heart rate down.
All right. So, Bo, when did you get your black belt?

(58:43):
Last year. I think it's March 2nd. It's up on the wall right there.
Is it March 2nd? What is it? March 4th. March 4th. I think it's 2nd.
So, yeah, I got my black belt on March 4th, and then we opened the new market
on March 10th. Man, that was cool. Yeah.
So, what did you used to think that meant, and what do you think it means now?

(59:04):
God, dude, so much. much i used to think it would mean i was good i mean you
are good and it don't do that.
I don't know honestly i never i never thought about
getting a black belt until i was well into my brown belt
because i just i
don't know i i can't explain it but i guess

(59:26):
coming up through the ranks and all like you know
toro was a purple belt and he was the only the
only purple the only only guy that had any jiu-jitsu down
here and we learned from him and then waffle got here
as a brown soon to be black maybe and he
was like a cheat code you know he was in california learning
from some of the best guys in the world so

(59:49):
but you got to realize i never rolled
with a black belt until 2015-16 when
i started coming back so it didn't seem
like something that could happen in yeah i guess
it's a lot different a lot different for you for you than me
and both y'all yeah i mean.
When i started the idea of black belts

(01:00:12):
around yeah you saw one every day right so
it it seems doable yeah but the
guy that's been teaching me for the last four years is still a
purple belt right you know scotty what
about your view what what does it mean not let's
ditch your view of what it was back then but what is it now so what would it

(01:00:34):
be in a black belt now what's that mean i don't know i think it means a whole
lot less than i think it used to speak to a white belt it's a tough question
yeah that that makes it hard sorry white belts.
No it makes it difficult because it's like okay how do you try to explain something

(01:00:56):
to somebody on day one after you've been doing it,
let's do this two decades and you're the
depth of the way you're going to think about
it it's like how do you put that into words let's
do it from this angle because i think this is what everyone's familiar with
people hear terms like sensei and master and grandmaster and professor grandmaster

(01:01:19):
to the sensei no i can't stand it so when they hear black belt where did where
should they what is what is going on what is it what's this whole thing what's
the what draws them to it what's What's what's black belt mean?
What's being a master, a karate grandmaster?
What is all that? I mean, you want to know what I think of it?
Yeah, I think it's stupid.

(01:01:41):
Throw the belts away, guys. No, I think. All right. So I think the idea of calling
somebody master is dumb.
Right. That's that's part of the reason why I've never wanted anybody to call
me since a master professor. Like I think all of it doesn't even make sense.
I think it's, it's one of those deals where it's, it's a way to get people to
try to become subordinates, to get them to bow down to you in a specific way

(01:02:03):
so that you have some form of control over them and something to hold over them.
Because think about this, right? Like how many times would somebody have to
call you master such and such before it's just a normal thing and it creates
a view in your mind that they are over you.
Like, that's the thing I don't like about it. And people can disagree with it, right? I'm pretty sure.

(01:02:25):
Like, I know guys that are referred to as master such and such.
I have no problem with those guys at all.
But I don't believe in it. Like, I don't, I would never ask somebody to do that
because that's just not what I believe.
Now, when people take that thing on, like we used to call Master George,
Master George, right? George Claymore.
That was just a tradition. Like, once you got up to this certain rank,

(01:02:47):
you were considered a master.
And I get it. you you you have masters grandmasters
whatever there's all these there's all this
tradition in the yeah in those martial arts too but like
jiu-jitsu is more relaxed dude we live in america yeah
like master especially is not a good dude i just don't like what i just i don't

(01:03:09):
i don't understand how we could still we could still like call people that like
you're it's like a grown man right like think about it like you're calling another
grown man your master it's like yeah Yeah, it's just weird.
So I just don't buy into it. That's why I've never picked up on the sensei,
professor, whatever. People call coach, whatever. People want to call coach. All right, I get it.
But I'm good with just being called by my name.

(01:03:31):
And I just don't like the way that it can create some of these really,
really weird scenarios that end up not being too good when people like have
people call them by that label.
So yeah i'm just never like
that i never did like it for that

(01:03:52):
reason um but as
far as what is a jiu-jitsu black belt i think
you got to be at least you got to be a solid grappler you
know you got to be able to somebody that
goes and wins competitions as a black belt i don't think that
they are necessarily it doesn't mean that they're going to be what i would consider

(01:04:13):
or a black belt to be you might be able to go roll with black belts but that's
not gonna make you a black belt i think it should be somebody that has stability
in their own life to a degree,
they live with a certain amount of happiness they can give guidance in certain
directions because they have some

(01:04:34):
life experience and whatever it is that they're going to be able to do.
How, how good is a black? Well, I guess this could be a question.
How good would a black belt be if the guy is the most bad-ass dude,
but he ends up in prison for something that's just so grotesque that you can't
even imagine how you would have ever taken any advice from an individual like that.

(01:04:56):
I'm not talking about some dude that, you know, lost his mind because he,
you know, got in a wreck and seen his, his kid bleed out and die in the back seat.
And he goes grab the a dude that hit him and just beats the dude to 11 points.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about somebody that just does something so foul.
Like there's a dude named Cameron Earl, right?

(01:05:17):
Cameron Earl was one of the top dudes in the grappling world in the 90s.
He's got windows over some really, really high-level competitors.
He is in prison now because apparently he was raping women. It's like,
but he was a black belt. Like, was he?

(01:05:38):
You know, so like, I don't think that's a black, I don't think that's what makes a black belt.
I think he has all the ability of a very good competitive guy,
but I don't think he's somebody we should, we should try to gain advice from, you know?
So maybe a black belt is a person that has a certain level of ability as a martial
artist in whatever it is that they're teaching,

(01:06:00):
but can also provide some guidance for newer people in that realm.
So it's somebody that's got some stability in their life that they can be trusted
to shoot people in the right direction.
You don't have to worry about them being on some kind of crazy thing like that.

(01:06:22):
A good person in the community that knows how to grapple, I guess. I have a side question.
So how many bike belts have you given out? Me? Yeah.
How many do you consider? I guess it's not a simple of a question.
Two. Jonah and yourself, I would consider.
Waffle did Jonas, but Jonah primarily trained, like I taught Jonah more than anybody else.

(01:06:48):
So you could say that and you so how much thought did you like that i feel like
that's a big deal giving a bike belt to another person so like how much thought
did you have to put into that,
for y'all to like your first your
first or second one yeah like i mean i
guess once it gets to a certain point you know what you're looking for and all

(01:07:09):
but well i mean y'all y'all for sure
are example of what i just tried to explain right like y'all
are dedicated in the gym y'all y'all
train consistently so like on the mat stuff i feel like you you show up and
you train you're gonna get better you're gonna improve and at some point it's

(01:07:29):
like well why isn't he getting his black belt yet and when i start thinking
about that that's when it's like probably about a you
know, a year before that person gets it.
But yeah, I'm not worried about like exactly, oh, the person's got to know this
move and this move and this move, but it's like, no man, he's on the mat. He's training.

(01:07:49):
He can roll with other guys at that level.
Whether it's like, like you, you can train and you can keep yourself safe for
the most part when you're rolling.
Right. Like, so you can go roll with a world-class black belt and And you can
keep yourself safe, rolling with that absolute monster if he plays by the rules
and y'all play by the rules. Like to me, that's good enough.

(01:08:12):
And you can present some problems that that person's going to have to deal with,
you know, like to me, that's, that's, you're there, you're playing the game
at that level versus the guy that doesn't know anything that can,
you got to worry about them getting hurt because they don't know when to tap
or they don't know. And that's another thing too, man.
Like, like if you're a black belt and you don't know how to tap and you don't

(01:08:34):
know when you should, that's a problem.
Like that's a big problem. And so I questioned whether or not the guy's a black
belt based on and the way some of them tap.
Like for me, I've rolled with guys for sure that are of that rank and you're
like, yeah, you should be tapping right now.
And then they don't. It's like, all right, that tells me all I need to know.

(01:09:00):
It's like you got to respect a roll enough as a black belt or you got to understand
how to roll like a black belt, which I think boils down to like,
no, you're not going to get pissed off.
You're not going to get aggravated you're not gonna gonna you know
be butthurt if you get submitted or whatever it is
but you know how to handle that scenario

(01:09:20):
you're not gonna you know
come after with all the fire in your eyes and everything because you're just
angry that you got caught by somebody or whatever it is but you can handle that
with the same same level of energy that you you had before it like to me that
means just as much as being able to tap some money.

(01:09:43):
So you guys know how to do that and y'all
are effective enough like like you
don't have to be some world champion black belt you know but people can respect
your ability and i think by that time it's like they're good enough to be a
black belt and then it's just making sure that you try well Well,

(01:10:05):
for me, it was a big deal to try to make sure I gave it.
Like, I never want anybody to feel like it's a, it's a gimme because that's
going to devalue it in the person's mind.
Like you want them to know that what they did was worth it. So like if somebody
trains for two years and you give them a black belt, they know it's BS, right?
Like they know that you, eh, whatever, right? Yeah.

(01:10:25):
Think as long as we are sticking to that idea where the person knows that they
put the time in i think that's a that's that's a huge component and to go along
with the other stuff you know like,
you know if i got to worry about somebody coming unhinged
maybe it's not time to promote them to that you know
it's part of the reason why like even my son right like ty's 18 and i can tell

(01:10:48):
you right now he's not getting his black belt before he's 22 you know like ibjjf
says you can do it at 19 he's still a blue belt you know because i want him to make sure that he is.
Committing enough of his self before he gets promoted anymore and as a black

(01:11:09):
belt i don't want to have to worry about him going out to a bar and getting
drunk and getting into some kind of crazy altercation like i want to know at
least he had a year to to find out if he's going to be that individual or if
he's going to be able to leave,
you know? So like, I don't want to have to worry about that stuff with him.
And I think, I think when you know that about somebody's personality,

(01:11:29):
then okay, they're ready to be a black belt, you know?
Like, I don't worry about Jonah going out and getting into some stupid thing.
I don't worry about that with you.
Right. I don't worry about that with Shane. I wish somebody would step up to Jonah.
Like, it's a lot to it so there is some stuff to think about but it it's it it's making sure that,

(01:11:52):
you have the right individual to award it to for what you think it is and i
think you have to have the on the mat ability and the personality to represent
what you believe martial arts should be.
To me, that's a big deal, right? Like, I'm not worried about a good jiu-jitsu

(01:12:15):
guy, right? To me, that's.
Us to have good martial artists that get there
by training jiu-jitsu and i believe that
you guys are and that's that's why i promoted y'all to that i say i promoted
y'all but that's that's why i got that promotion so yeah i think i think everybody

(01:12:38):
needs to to take that into consideration you know it's it's it's i don't know
it is a tough decision because you don't want to shortchange somebody body, you know?
Yeah. All right. Good stuff. So Shane, you're on the cusp of your bag belt. What is it?
What do you think it's going to mean to you when you get there?
Been a brown belt for a year, over a year.

(01:13:00):
It's, I mean, it's going to mean a lot. It's going to mean, I guess it gets
to mean a different thing for, for everyone.
And I think that's what's cool about it because you don't really get to teach anyone what it means.
You can explain what it meant for you, but it doesn't mean it's going to mean
the same things for the guys you give it to, which is pretty powerful.

(01:13:22):
You know, like anything in life, the more you put into something,
the more the rewards mean, whatever the rewards are.
So if you train, you know, seven days a week for a tournament,
it's probably going to feel better to win than if you trained three
days a week and when you if you're promoted to black belt it's probably going

(01:13:43):
to mean a lot more if you've been doing it for 20 years than if you were doing
it for seven years and you won a world championship you know because you're
really fast and you're really strong.
That sure it's going to mean a lot to that guy, but he doesn't,
he doesn't get to understand the deeper meaning or the deeper feeling that the

(01:14:04):
other guy gets to feel, you know, and there's no way to explain it.
It's just the only way to feel it is to, is for it to happen to you.
And I think it would also plays a big part is who you're getting from and the,
you know, the, the crew that you're surrounded with, you know?
So I think our gym is, it's the place I would want to get that credential from,

(01:14:30):
you know, that means a lot.
You know, once you, once you have respect for, for some guys and you think they
have respect for you, it, man, it all, it all makes a lot more sense.
It all feels different. All, all feels better.
For me, the, what I've been thinking about a lot lately is I've been thinking

(01:14:50):
about the idea of, you know, black belt skill level, but across all walks of life,
across all industries, across all hobbies, sports, whatever.
I really like that. Like go to a, you know, you go to a doctor's office and
there is a one year tech and then there's a doctor, a guy that's been a doctor

(01:15:15):
for 30 years and just listen to the way they talk to the patient.
And when you hear the doctor, you go that, that he's been doing this for so long.
Like his communication skills are just, they're black belt. Like,
look, look how good he can make this patient feel.
You know, whereas this tech is just raising anxiety because they're,

(01:15:38):
they sound like they're grilling you for questions.
And then you're, you know, you're kind of panicky and you're stressed and then
the doctor comes in and he can make everything,
like at ease you know everything's normal everything's
okay just by the the communication skills he has that the confidence and the

(01:15:59):
the effortlessness you know and that that's everywhere no matter where you go
you i look for those guys and i and i try to think about all right what are they doing?
What is the skill behind what are they doing? And really how good are they at that?
To bring more belt systems to other industries sure we've talked about doing

(01:16:21):
uh belt systems for our butchers we'll do acorn colors yeah for a long time
so maybe it's time to implement,
no it's it's real and if i think if you
use martial arts and you use the ideas that you know
we've come accustomed to and you do apply it to
all the other things you're doing and you
pursue i remember scotty saying this a long time
ago don't you know don't get

(01:16:44):
tunnel vision on becoming a black belt like you
don't want to be a black belt you want to do black belt
things so that resonated with
me and that then it i mean makes total sense like it doesn't
matter if like you said you if a guy
comes in and scotty wants to give him a black belt in three years he can do
it right but can that guy do black belt things with his black belt you know

(01:17:08):
and that that's up for interpretation it's up for what you think black belt
things are so scotty says he He thinks black belt things is,
you know, being a good man,
like being, setting an example out in town and, you know, taking care of your shit and your life.
For other gyms, maybe not so much. Maybe they don't really care about what you do outside the gym.

(01:17:30):
You know, if I'm the gym owner and I'm a black belt and you can tap me, you're a black belt.
Yeah. You know, and that's probably running rampant in our country,
I would assume, right now more than ever.
And so I, I think why I have a strong connection to, to the way Scotty sees

(01:17:50):
things is I do see it sort of like this place.
Like I see it. I know he likes the old school mentality and the,
and the art of it and the specialness of it, just as we do with our things that,
you know, our calf cuts and the processes in which we do things. And, and.

(01:18:11):
Me that means a lot you know to
a to another guy who just didn't have
the same experiences and the same conversations it might
not and that's fine you know but i would like to and i think we should like
we we owe it to the next generation to like hey it doesn't have to just be this

(01:18:32):
it doesn't have to just be coming to class three nights a week like it can also
be this it can also be this It can also be this. It can also help your relationship.
It can also, you know, with your spouse, your kids, your employees,
whatever it is, you can use these concepts and you have to realize,
like, you have to look at every aspect of your life and say,

(01:18:53):
man, what belt am I in this?
Business, finance, health, your diet.
Everyone should be able to say, once they've trained for a few years,
they should be able to say, man, what is my skill level with dieting?
Am I a black belt? If not, who do I know that's a black belt in dieting?

(01:19:16):
Let me go ask that guy some questions.
You know, that's how I've learned to look at things.
And that absolutely comes, came from jiu-jitsu the
other cool thing about not just jiu-jitsu but all of
these things that we do and learn more about
is like the bleed over into other often
unexpected like aspects so for example

(01:19:38):
getting getting good at jiu-jitsu doesn't just
make you better at grappling another person right it
teaches you how to deal with pressure and tough situations and
a lot of that bleeds over into you know into
work and and whatever else so it yeah
it's more the more you put in the more you get out yeah
you see and that's something that i can tell you for sure gets missed

(01:20:01):
off a lot like i had a guy black belt tell me one day he's like he's like you
know i can't stand some of these jiu-jitsu guys and i'm assuming he was talking
about me he said uh he said i can't stand some of these jiu-jitsu guys that
think just because they got a black belt that they know things about things
or they know things about everything or whatever.
And I'm like, thinking in my head, huh, that's interesting for a black belt to think that way.

(01:20:23):
You know, it's like, to me, that's so far off of the way that he should be thinking about it.
It's like, no, no, it doesn't mean, you know, everything about everything,
but I think what it should be able to tell people and teach them is like,
whatever it took you to get to that level in training,
like to get that level of recognition from whoever it is that you're training

(01:20:45):
with or under or whatever it might be.
Whatever they seen that got you there, if you take that same formula and just
apply it to everything else that you do, you're going to get better at everything
else too. It's like, so...
Doesn't mean you're a pro at finance because you're a black belt in jujitsu.

(01:21:05):
But I think if you take the same approach to your finances or whatever it is
you're doing, you're going to get better at it.
It's just knowing how to develop or create a process for improvement.
And jujitsu can very much be maybe a metaphor for that.
It's not just a metaphor, Scotty, and thank you for that beautiful segue.

(01:21:26):
So you dropped out of high school, didn't, didn't get any college learning,
but you figured out how to run a very successful martial arts school.
And you figured out how to do marketing, how to build a website,
how to keep and retain clients, how to teach kids, how to talk to parents,
how to sell yourself and your product all on your own.

(01:21:51):
And I'm assuming me it's because you're a black belt but maybe you
have a better answer i don't know how did
that go dude you started a school from nothing in a
new town so you didn't just make
it work like you don't have to have another job no so
part of it was listening to jonah if i'd have listened to jonah i'd have started

(01:22:11):
it way sooner so that's i don't know if that was a good decision on my part
or a bad decision but the reason why i didn't start it as a purple belt honestly
i think what jonah was trying to do was get me into Thibodeau so that he didn't have to drive to Houma.
I think that's what Jonah was trying to do. Correct. And I would have started back training sooner.
So, but I was a purple belt and I knew that I couldn't promote people to certain
ranks until I got a black belt.

(01:22:32):
So I didn't want to, I didn't want to have to hold anybody back because of my rank.
And I also knew that I needed more time to figure out how to develop a curriculum and all that stuff.
Right. So it was probably about five years of figuring that out before I actually
And so, listening to Jonah, Jonah is an enormous part of why the gym actually survived.

(01:22:58):
Another thing that a lot of people don't know about the gym making it is that,
Johnny Perez's wife, Ana, Ana, I think Ana might've been the one that got me
set up with the little space inside of the VOW, but I don't know.
She put in a good word for me. And that's, that's something that I even forget

(01:23:21):
about every once in a while that, that they played a role in that.
So I'm pretty sure she, she was a big reason as far as that happening.
So like I had good people that I met from teaching their kids or them that helped
get this whole thing started.
I think without that, all of that might've took a lot longer to get going.
So, you know, I think I was lucky enough to have those individuals,

(01:23:46):
but I didn't know what I was doing.
Like I have a clue. I just showed up and did it.
And I made sure that if there was a class, I was going to show up and I was going to teach.
And so the things that I learned out of necessity was just because I had to,
like I had to show up and I had to open and I had to have a class.
And I knew if I did that and just got everybody body training.

(01:24:09):
If I kept doing that, stayed consistent, then that's all it took for me to get
the black belt was show up and train.
So then I just did the same thing, but tried to do it as a teacher.
And I also learned a lot of stuff teaching while I was teaching at Waffles too.
Because you got to remember, I was teaching a lot of the, pretty much almost
all the classes there for a pretty long period of time.

(01:24:32):
So I got a lot of trial and error, made a lot of mistakes teaching kids you
know trying to play with the kids too much and kids ended up with bloody noses
because we're having big dog piles and like i'm rolling with like 10 kids and
kids are kicking each other in the head hell yeah you know like like bring it
back so yeah bring it back so.

(01:24:52):
Like thunderdome that still happens now but uh it's not me anymore trep trep
and jordan sometimes get dog piled by the kids yes they do but the kids love
it you know but too much of it is not good because kids just get hurt and they
get rambunctious and they start not necessarily respecting instructors the way
they should but you know i made a lot of mistakes like that.

(01:25:13):
Able to learn from before opening but like the intention was always to do better
and i think that's why i've learned how to do some of the stuff you know i do
i know how to build a website,
kind of sort of i can get by but it's like i'd have to relearn it every time
i try and that only happened because i got messed over online by a guy i wish i remember his name,

(01:25:37):
can't remember his name but you know he told me he was going to build a site
and got paid for it, and halfway finished it. Oh, shit.
So I was left with trying to figure out, okay, what did he...
I guess I should have just learned it to start with.
Right. So I took it as a very expensive lesson on, hey, just figure out how
to do it just in case somebody ever does that again, or you don't have to ask.

(01:26:00):
So I pushed myself to learn how to do that. As far as marketing goes,
man, I still don't know how to do that.
I just know that if you put something on social media, sometimes it works.
I never wanted to sell anything to anybody.
And I was told pretty early on, hey, you're now you're selling stuff.
You need to get good at selling stuff.
And I remember thinking my whole sales pitch was going to be like,

(01:26:22):
well, like I hate going to a shoe department and go and pick out shoes.
And the guy's trying to sell me a pair of shoes. It's like, no,
I want people to just want to come train the same as I go buy me a pair of shoes.
It's like, if I know I need shoes, I go somewhere, I try on shoes and I buy the one I like.

(01:26:43):
I wanted people to be able to walk in the gym and do the same thing.
Like, yeah, go here, go there, go wherever you want.
But if you want to train, pick the one you like. Like, you know,
I didn't want to have to have some kind of big old sales pitch as far as why
you need to train with us versus the people down the road or try to try to have this spreadsheet,
you know, basically set up for, you know, how do you take a call?

(01:27:07):
Well, you ask this question, you do this question, you do this question.
I never wanted it to be that way, you know, because of the way I looked at it
is like, if I get on the phone with somebody, I don't need to tell them much
if they're not going to walk through the door.
And that's supposed to maybe be the point of having a call sheet is to get them to come into the door.
But it's like, I'm not going to be any different in person than I am on the phone.
So, you know, they'll sign up and if they didn't like me on the phone,

(01:27:29):
they're probably not going to like me in person. So why make it seem like something it's not?
It was just more trying to just show up and be the individual that I try to
be every day and let it do what it's going to do.
Not necessarily worry too much about making the money of it.
I never really cared about that.

(01:27:50):
It just kind of worked its way to where that's how I make a living now.
And I think I probably put in just as many hours a day now as I used to when
I was working at Gulf Island.
It's just I'm not aggravated every morning when I wake up. So I'll give Scotty a little sales pitch.
He is, of course, really good at jujitsu. Any adult classes are a lot of fun.

(01:28:11):
So if you're thinking about joining, do it.
But if you have kids, you shouldn't think about it.
You should just bring them to class because Scotty is a phenomenal,
phenomenal with the kids. It's my kids go and I help teach sometimes.
And it's, it's something really cool even to just watch him work with them.

(01:28:31):
And the way that they listen to him way better than their parents is,
is really awesome to see.
Plus they're learning how to defend themselves and getting a good workout in.
And the other thing is since Scotty is a friend and we talk a lot,
he's constantly working on his curriculum, adding, taking off.
He doesn't stop jujitsu.

(01:28:52):
You know so not that's to take that look man we we've we've got a lot of good
people that are involved now right so like what's crazy to me is i didn't realize
it until the other day i think it might have been joey joey's like man you you
got a lot of business owners that come over here.
And i stopped and thought about him like yeah he's actually right like we

(01:29:15):
got a lot of people that train with us that actually either own a
business or you know have something that they do on the side for
themselves and it dawned on me i'm like crap like
that is that's true you know and those individuals are
actually taking a lot of like some some
of the guys in particular like jeremy right jeremy's got
his own business jeremy finds time to come help with the kids

(01:29:36):
classes which i find is awesome right like trap does
the same thing and so all these people that actually or entrepreneurs themselves
for whatever reason they're they see the value in helping the kids which makes
everything that happens at the gym way easier for me like it helps out so much,

(01:29:57):
so i can't say that you know like you say scotty scotty scotty it's like no
like enough individuals have gotten involved to to kind of help the gym get
to where it is and so i can't i can't say that That's, that's definitely not all me,
you know, just having extra sets of eyes changes the way that the kids in the
room act, you know, like seeing, knowing there's other adults around changes

(01:30:19):
the way it act, they act, you know, like Jordan, Jordan being there on a regular
basis to help with the kids.
He's, he's there almost every, every single day, Monday through Friday,
just him being there, the kids knowing he's around, just having the adult there, you know.
To behave differently you know and all that makes a
difference so that kind of goes back to saying like the

(01:30:41):
parents are involved a lot more here that i've
noticed and that's not to say anything about people in homo i think it's just
different different for whatever reason
but they they really are like they involve
themselves far more you know it's interesting
and that all plays a role with the kids you know like shane
you jump in every once in a while with the kids too he comes in

(01:31:03):
the back and gets dressed and he's on a mat with his belt and
just having those those parents do that it's huge
man and and it shows how much they
actually care about the kids you know and i think it's awesome like
you know that's the most important important asset
we have is kids our
youth like i thought about this a long time ago

(01:31:25):
even when i first opened the gym said i
wanted to do something that was going to be really really good and i
also knew that the kids are
who takes care of you later so like if i can have a martial arts facility that
helps kids develop and turns them into really successful individuals like those

(01:31:49):
successful individuals later on in life who are are they going to become and
what are they going to do?
And if you show up as a 60 year old and you need a, I don't know,
a hip replacement or whatever, right?
Like I would much rather the kid that I trained when he was a teenager,

(01:32:11):
be the one working on me than some person that I've never met before in my life.
Cause like, you'll, you'll know who that kid is. You'll know who they are.
They're going to know who you are and they're going to actually,
you have played a role in their life where they're going to say,
no, I want to make sure he's taken care of.
And like, who's to say like, who, what are kids going to become?
You know, like, I don't know who all the kids are going to become,

(01:32:33):
but they're, they're going to be somebody and whoever they are,
you just hope that they become valuable people in the future for,
you know, the old people and that they pass that down on the kids as well.
I think that's a big, a big important thing that I really do take like a lot
of, a lot of care in is with the kids like that, you know, cause yeah,

(01:32:58):
I mean, we're going to need them, you know.
I mean, it's pretty cool to think about is, you know, 20 years from now,
30 years from now, there's going to be a group of 40 year olds around Thibodeau,
Houma, wherever else else in the world.
And they're all going to have that one thing that they did.
They're all going to have that thing that even if it was for,

(01:33:20):
you know, from 10 to 15 and or whatever, 10 to 20, and they're all going to have that thing.
They're all going to be able to have the stories of training that next generation
and, and the things they learned.
And man, if they don't, If they don't attribute some of their success and their,

(01:33:44):
whatever you want to call it, manlyhood to what happened in that gym, I'd be surprised.
I'd be really, really, really surprised.
I think we're seeing that already. This is something that I know that we have
now for sure. Or what's been interesting to see is that we've had a group of
kids now that have gotten to an age that started early and they've graduated high school.

(01:34:10):
And so this is something that I've been waiting for, you know,
for sure for the past 13 years, even before the next generation was open.
So this year we had three kids that graduated that started training very early.
So Ty, Thomas and Paul. Right.
So Ty, Thomas and Paul all started, you know, by age 10. Ty started when he

(01:34:33):
was five. I think Thomas started at five.
And then Paul started when he was like, I think Paul was about 10 or 11 years old.
Stayed consistent you know some more
than others like thomas has been hit or miss but he still comes in
the gym he still trains he still trains here and there ty has been
very consistent mostly because he didn't have a choice and

(01:34:54):
then paul has been consistent without having to be told like hey go train right
it's something that kind of kept him interested and to see how those those young
young men handle themselves next to their peers, I find it really, really interesting.
You know, like it's just, they have a different thing about them that a lot

(01:35:18):
of kids their age don't. And I think it is all from training.
You know, it's, it's, it's from, it's from, you know, from Ty being on the mat
when he's 14 talking trash and getting his butt kicked and knowing that he got
his butt kicked and then realizing that, yeah,
he's probably going to do it again and he's gonna get his butt kick again but

(01:35:38):
it got to the point where he doesn't care.
And it and it develops a certain amount of respect with
the older guys that most kids that
age aren't gonna get because they're not willing to put themselves in that and
and deal with it you know same thing with paul you know paul's paul's tough
man and you know he's he he gets a i bet you he gets a lot more respect in the

(01:36:02):
gym than maybe he did even from other kids in high school,
You know, so the kids that he went to high school with probably don't respect
them the same as the guys that are in their thirties that train with them a
day in and day out, you know, and, and shame on the kids in high school for not getting that.
But it's just the respect level is different.
I think with, with guys that are young men like them that, that have come up

(01:36:22):
around other, other men, they, they typically don't have teenagers mixing in
with like grown adults that early for whatever reasons.
And it's like, you just don't want to be around teenagers, you know,
but in, in training, like it, it, it has to happen at some point.
And so I think they put up, pick up some of those little bits of knowledge that
they hear from guys just talking or training or whatever,

(01:36:44):
you know, and then something that's really cool to see is when you have a kid
that's 15, 16 years old and they got a guy that walks in, that's 30 something
and they can smoke that guy.
And then you watch them not do it. That is amazing.
That's pretty cool to see. Yeah. No, no other place in the world would that
happen. And they'll roll with them and give them a, give them a tough time or whatever.

(01:37:06):
And then give them a five, give them a hug after. And then like,
it's like, they don't have to prove that they can.
And so that's a certain level of on the mat maturity, you know,
that, that they, they realize like they, they know they can and they don't.
And you know, when, when they do know that it means that they realize that and other things as well.
So it's easier for them not to feel like they got to prove that they're good

(01:37:29):
at something because they're already good enough at something that they don't
have to prove it anymore. more.
So I think it makes it easier for them to learn certain things later on in life.
You know, now I think certain, certain individuals might take a little longer
to figure that out, even if they do train, you know, but.
Got to be good at something before you can be okay
with being bad at something and i think that's what they
they have that a lot of kids their

(01:37:51):
age maybe don't and and i think it changes the way that they see respect you
know it's a lot easier to to admit that you suck at doing x y and z if you know
you're really good at something because you know you can be good at something
versus individuals that aren't really good at anything that have to prove that
they're trying to be or or whatever, you know?
And I think they realized that early, you know, you know, it was funny.

(01:38:12):
Like, you know, Ty did that little match with over the weekend.
And my aunt, she said, well, how old is the guys that he was competing against?
It's like, I mean, they're in their thirties, you know, and he's 18.
She's like, how? It's like, it's like, I mean, you know, like he got in there, they did the thing.

(01:38:34):
And afterwards they're in the back, just, chatting and hanging out like, like dudes.
And just from seeing them, if you didn't know age and you just heard them talking
to one another, you'd never know that was that big of a difference.
Like, like one was graduating high school and the other one was,
you know, like five, you would, you would never know that age gap was there.

(01:38:56):
That age gap is something interesting that maybe just mentioned too.
So there's not like a lot of places you do that, right?
Like in sports, in high school and stuff you
know you're always around your your peer group and of course the
coaches are older but they're they're separate they're they're apart
aloof and so like shane and i got that just from working at the market a lot

(01:39:19):
as kids you know the the workers were were older and and they were mentors for
us and and that that's a really cool uh dynamic that at some point you kind of have to,
you don't want your first experience of that to be after high school,
whenever you get a job for the first time.
And so jujitsu is another cool place that that can happen.

(01:39:39):
Like when, when I started training, I was the only kid in a room full of,
you know, 30 year old cops, firefighters, military guys, all those guys back
then were, were very tough.
And so it's cool to be in the room as a, you know, as a young adult to,
to see how, you know, how you adult. So, yeah.

(01:40:03):
Yeah. And that's, that's something that I've, you know, when,
when you ask like having Ty work at the market and I said, I just wanted him
to be around good people.
It's like when I was his age I
was never good enough at anything to be okay with being bad at anything and
that's kind of where why I say that right so like when I was working in the
all-field it's like anybody told me anything negative now granted they could

(01:40:27):
have had a much better choice of words you know when you work in an all-field
it's a lot of a lot of vulgarity that everybody throws at one another but,
You felt like everybody was just crapping on you. At least I did because I didn't
know how to do this, this, or this, right? Because they wouldn't take the time to teach you.
It's just you would either figure it out or they would bust your balls and,

(01:40:48):
you know, say certain things until you tried to figure it out.
And so that creates a lot of conflict, you know, when you don't have one thing
that you know you can do really, really well and you're just not good at anything. thing.
And those boys know, you know, like they know that they'll be good.
And, you know, you mentioning being around those older guys,

(01:41:10):
like it gives you that same opportunity when you were younger to be able to
do a lot of that same stuff.
So at least you knew how to be around a group of men by yourself,
you know, earlier than most, I would say, because like, I'm sure your dad wasn't
sitting through classes with you, you know, day in and day out and,
you know, walking you by your hand getting you to class so it's
something you took upon yourself to put yourself in that arena and you know

(01:41:33):
there's a lot of benefits from that man and i think that's part of
the reason why you you're you're able to handle this place like
you do you know it's it definitely
does something different when when that's the case you know and i'm sure it's
the same thing like with the marine corps right like you having to be in in
in a group of men where you knew like Like these guys have been to war and whether

(01:41:57):
or not they're just a couple of years older than you or 30 years older than you,
like it's like knowing,
all right, I need to hear what that guy has to say and then listen to it and
really take it into consideration that they're coming from a place that they
have experience and you can bypass a whole lot of mistakes by listening to what

(01:42:17):
that individual is talking about.
You know, it's, it's difficult to, to know how to spot that or see it if you
don't have examples of it and you get examples about being around experienced men,
not, not just, you know, 30 year old dudes, you know, like men that have some experience and.

(01:42:40):
Definitely changes the way a young man or woman shapes their reality as they get older.
I think it's important that people see it as, you know, for their kids looking
forward, you know, as another form of education, schooling.
Like I don't see it as, as much of a sport or an extracurricular or a hobby

(01:43:03):
like I used to, you know, now I see it as it's a life skill.
And it's just like, I think I shared it with you the other day,
little write up on, you know, comparing it to swimming lessons.
Like everyone's got their, you know, the kids five years old,
they know it's important for the kid to learn how to swim.
You know, it's something they all go through, but they look at martial arts

(01:43:26):
as an optional, an optional thing, you know, and maybe there's other things in place, other sports,
other, maybe parenting styles to fill in those gaps that jujitsu would or a martial art would,
but not for most people, you know, for most people, they'll,
they're just letting their kid.

(01:43:48):
You know, make their own choices way too early.
Like you don't let your kid decide if they're going to go to school or not. No. You know, why?
Because you think education is important. You know, you're going to let them
decide if their if their life is important or their humility is important.
Like if you want them to have respect when they're 20, if you want them to work

(01:44:11):
hard, you know, and and, you know, take control of their own success.
I want all those things for my kid. And I know my kid's not smart enough to
decide that on her own just yet.
So I'm going to I make the decision for her. And I say, those are important
things. things, here's where you're, here's where you're going to learn it.
Just same, same thing I do with school, you know, you're going to school,

(01:44:33):
here's, here's where you're going to go.
It's the same thing. Yeah. And the reason why you have that is because you got
30 something years on this planet,
and your daughter's got what, six, you know, like she can't understand what
five plus times of her life is supposed to look like, you know, and,
and that happens a lot is we end up, well, you know, little Johnny doesn't want to do this.

(01:44:55):
So we'd rather him make his own choices.
It's like, I get it. You don't want to upset your kid, but it's way easier to
deal with a five or a six-year-old that's upset than it is a 30-year-old that's
upset, you know, like, cause none of those problems go away.
Like eventually they got to do stuff they don't want to do.
Like, just make sure you get them to do the right things that they don't want

(01:45:17):
to do. You know, it's like, like, Hey, hey, eat good food.
Like, you're either gonna pay for that now, or you're gonna have an eight year
old that weighs 200 pounds.
Is not supposed to weigh that, you know, and, and it happens and I'm not saying
anything bad about the kids, but it's, it's those things that when you look
at it, it's like, it's a bunch of small decisions that add up to those, those issues,

(01:45:39):
you know, and now you say an eight year old, that's 200 pounds.
Well, what's his heart going to look like when he's 30?
You know, that thing's been working real hard for 22 years at that point.
And, you know, you could either not let them have the sugary foods that they
want when they're a child, because they get the, the, the chemical reactions
and the addiction to sugar or whatever else it might be,

(01:46:01):
you know, and like, hopefully you don't lose your kid early in life because
of, because of those, those bad choices, you know?
And, and I don't think we think about that enough, you know,
like we were worried about the emotional state now versus what it's going to look like in 20 years,
you know, and, and make those good decisions now so that you can have a better,
a better life and and and see your

(01:46:23):
kid get happy you know and and not have
to worry about him you know like look i don't worry about
ty when he leaves the house naomi still does but like that's a mom right like
if ty's out i know if i text him or i call him he's gonna answer and he's gonna
be okay like i'm not worried about him going you know do like i said not some

(01:46:46):
stupid things he's He's going to do some dumb stuff,
but nothing that's probably going to get him killed or hooked on drugs.
So I generally just think he's going to be okay. You know, like if he's pulled
over on the side of the road by a cop, he probably deserves to get pulled over.
But he's not going to run from the police.
You know, he's not going to run from cops and get himself, you know,
at gunpoint eventually.

(01:47:06):
Like it's a bad decision, you know.
So knowing those things, it's like, try to make good habits that your kids make
good decisions that you're not worried about them when they leave the house,
you know, because that worry will drive you crazy.
And that'll make you age real fast too, you know, and, and I think just small
decisions day in and day out or what would make or break those,

(01:47:31):
those scenarios and making your kid do things they don't want to do as part of it.
Like, otherwise they would just play video games all day.
Yeah. And eat crappy food. You end up with a mess of chips around a desk and
a computer screen in front of them with a controller in their hand and they never get up.
Like they would never get up. I like what Shane said, too, about the life skills thing.

(01:47:54):
You know, as a kid, I have kids that are in elementary school and stuff,
and you hear so much these days about bullying, and I think a lot of that comes
from a lack of confidence in kids.
And there's no better confidence than the confidence jiu-jitsu gives you.
So, number one, life skill.

(01:48:15):
I know you have the I-wills. You have the kids.
So before every class they line up you You ask the whole class who knows the
I wills Every one of them raises their hand and then you select,
Somehow you make a selection somehow on who not who you think knows it I I've

(01:48:36):
been watching you do it and you're strategic on it and I watch you call out
kids that are you know you in.
Pushing them like you know they're uncomfortable and you're
you're doing all this stuff very strategically and behind
the scenes that even the parents watching they don't understand what's
happening but it's very it's very different than

(01:48:57):
what you see happening on a ball field you know it's it's way deeper than that
and you you're tailoring your your leadership styles and your and your coaching
and your instruction based on the individual kid and what you know they need
And what you know they don't need.
Like I heard you, you know, speaking about one of the kids, you know, with this kid,

(01:49:20):
you don't need to tell him good job after everything he does,
even if it's awesome, because you know that he's got very involved parents and
he hears praise from his parents on a daily basis.
So you make the decision consciously that for that kid, your role doesn't need to be that.

(01:49:41):
And you, you actually actively remove yourself from that role.
Like, yeah, I'm sure time to time you give them a good job, but part of this
kid's lesson he's learning in his place is that you don't always get a good job.
Like learn to do something awesome. Try your best and no one's going to say nothing.
And you need to be fine with it. Right. And you need to do it anyway.

(01:50:03):
I thought that was very profound.
And I don't know where you learned this stuff, but you developed it along the way.
But so back to the I wills, what are they? How did you come up with that? And what are they?
So I don't remember exactly what had me come up with it.
I just remember thinking like, okay,

(01:50:23):
I needed to have something that would reinforce belief in their self.
So i started writing stuff down like okay what do kids need to be able to do
right and so they're in an order right so it's i will work hard right like kids
just need to know how to work hard right i think that's if they just do that

(01:50:44):
and nothing else they'll at least be able to,
provide themselves with some sort of decency as they get older right you take
a kid that's not ever gonna be academically smart, or maybe they just not high
on the IQ scale, if they just show up to work every single day,
like they'll keep a job, right?

(01:51:04):
Whether or not they do right or wrong with their money, but if they just willing
to work hard, they could spend every dollar they make, but they're willing to
work hard to make more money. They'll probably be okay.
That was the first one. And then it's like, okay, I will work hard.
Well, what else do they need to do if they work hard? Well, they need to focus.
They need to focus while they work hard. Right.

(01:51:24):
And so I will work hard. I will focus. I will learn. That's the next one.
So then it started morphing into like the whole class setting.
Like you show up, you work hard, you focus, and you're going to learn.
And then during that process, you're going to become mentally tough
and then improve every day so i
started when i was writing it's like okay

(01:51:45):
i will work hard i will focus i will
learn i'll become mentally tough i'll improve every day and i kept saying it
over and over again i'm like okay i think i think that's something they can
remember and i think it's going to reinforce their belief in themselves that
they can accomplish something If they believe that for sure in their head.

(01:52:07):
And so getting them to say it over and over again, I just wanted to reinforce
it every single time they come to the gym.
Like I want them to be able to say it. And that's why they all say it after
the other kid. It's not just one kid getting up there and saying it.
So the reason why I pick certain kids on certain days, it's like,
well, I want to see who's confident enough to actually raise their hand.

(01:52:28):
Now, sometimes the kids that raise their hand are just raising their hand because
they want to raise their hand. And I know they don't know it.
And so it's like, oh yeah, you, you make straight A's in school.
Are you talking about one of my kids?
Negative. No, but sometimes it was at one point, but like, like her in general, right?
Like I wouldn't want her to not get it right too many times because I would

(01:52:50):
still want her to raise her hand.
But like, okay. So like the kid that gets praised at home all the time that
raises his hand and I know he doesn't know it. I'm definitely going to pick that kid sometimes.
You want, you're allowing him to fail. And then when it fails,
I'm going to say, oh, you didn't really know it, did you? Well,
why'd you raise your hand?
Oh, it's embarrassing. Oh yeah. Yeah. It should be embarrassing because you

(01:53:12):
don't know everything just because you hear good job at home.
Doesn't mean you know everything about everything. Like that'll get them in
trouble later on in life. Like imagine the kid that like shows up to the market.
That's 19, 20 years old that you're trying to teach them something like, oh, I know how to do that.
Like, and that's your response to everything. Right.

(01:53:32):
Like, like you're like, okay, but still let me show you anyway,
because even if you do know, like, just, just go through this,
like see this first and then, then go and, you know, do what you're going to do maybe. Right.
Know like if they have that attitude it's like crap like you
what do i have to work with now do i need to break through all

(01:53:54):
of that before i can actually get them to understand what we're trying to do so
like if the kid learns that at eight or seven or nine like they're gonna benefit
way better than if they learn it at 25 so like yeah sure i'm gonna embarrass
them and i'm gonna make them upset and i'm not gonna leave them like that forever
and here and there i'm gonna take that kid I'm going to tell them something good,

(01:54:16):
but I'm probably not going to tell them good all the time until they start actually
like showing that behavior on a regular basis. Like, like they're starting to get it.
And some of the hardest ones to get through like that are the kids that they
get used to getting all the awards at school.
They get told they're smart all the time.
Like it's awesome for the kid to hear some of that, but maybe they don't get

(01:54:39):
enough negativity to offset all
the positive stuff that they just think everything's great all the time.
And like a lot of times that ends up being the kids that'll try to correct the
adults, you know, when they shouldn't, you know, or, or it comes off as disrespectful
as the way they talk to people.
So I think that plays a big role and then take the other side of it where you
have a kid that that's not confident, like that kid that's not confident.

(01:55:03):
I'm probably only going to call
that kid when they have the balls to raise their hand, to get up there.
And then if they don't get it, I'm probably not going to just send them back.
Feeling like they, they couldn't do it. Like, I'm probably going to take that kid.
And when they can't, when they can't like remember which one,

(01:55:24):
I'll give them a hint to see if they can remember it.
And then if it's somebody that I know, like, no, he does not have the confidence,
but he, he did have the confidence to get up there.
Like I'm going to give them the answer and then let them say it.
And then two or three classes later, I might call that same kid up and then
they might get them all right.
And they might not, but I'll start getting them to speak even louder,

(01:55:47):
to say it louder. So they get like develop a voice.
And then eventually you do that for two or three months, four months.
And all of a sudden it's like the kids got so much more confidence because now he knows he can do that.
And then if they learn that at four or five, it totally changes the way the
kid's going to approach a whole bunch of stuff in daily life, you know?

(01:56:08):
And like that has an immense level of value, you like like far beyond getting
an a on a test you know like for sure like it that that alone,
that confidence developed at four that real confidence and then also knowing what it was like.
In that short amount of time for that kid to be not confident you know because

(01:56:29):
that's the other thing with kids too is like they might or might not remember
what it was like when they weren't confident but if they can know the difference
in that amount of time and they can kind of still to hold onto that,
like they, they know they can do things.
And you know, some kids, if they're just goofy, like.
Them up, if they get it right or wrong, you kind of pick on them a little bit

(01:56:51):
about it. They're going to laugh and they're going to like shake it off anyway, you know?
So like those kids, you kind of, you want them to do good, but they'll probably be okay.
But yeah, each, each kid's got to be dealt with differently.
You know, that's why like all the parenting books and all that get wrote now,
I don't know if they're, look, I didn't go to school, but it's,
it's one of those deals where I don't know if you could write a book that suits all kids.

(01:57:15):
It's just reinforcing behaviors that you like, I think is important.
You know, some, if like, you know, I remember hearing Jordan Peterson talk about this.
He's like, he's like, why would you let your kids ever do anything you don't like?
Like if you're letting them do things that you don't like, like don't,
don't let them do it because you don't like it. And if it's enough stuff,

(01:57:37):
you're not going to like your kid.
So like thinking about that, like when I heard him say that,
I'm like, okay, I don't need to know anything else, but if a kid's doing something
I don't like, I just try not to let them do it.
Yeah like i'm not smart enough to think about it the way that guy thinks about
it but i can i can figure that out so yeah man kids life skills man yeah it's the next,

(01:57:59):
next generation yeah and hopefully we end up with some that are doing that you
know soon you know and that's another big deal eventually like with the gym i want to be able to,
have it set up hopefully one day hopefully and this is the four ways off but
i think we could probably do it within the next five to ten years being able
to say like look if your kid trains from this time to this time.

(01:58:23):
Be an opportunity for your kid to if they
do these things over this time frame there could
be an opportunity for your kid to own their own facility
and have the gym be able to help make that like a reality right and and hopefully
be able to have kids set up to where yeah they started when they were five and

(01:58:45):
they kept training until they was 18 and they graduated high school so So those
13 years of experience that they have of doing this thing,
like, you know, if you put them in certain roles over that certain period of
time and they actually stick to it like a job when they're in school,
being able to set them up.
So when they go to college or graduate college, they can take over their own business that's there.

(01:59:08):
And then no longer is it like a thing where parents are like,
oh, I don't know if I want to spend the money to put the kid into this.
It's like, okay, you could either think about it as spending the money,
or you can just think about it as a, you know, 20 year investment where,
you know, the, I don't know, the, the, the $30,000 that you would spend over
that 20 year timeframe, your kid's going to have a business.

(01:59:32):
Versus spending that $30,000 to get them college debt.
You know, like, like, I don't, I don't, I don't know how to make that make sense
yet, but I think it could very well be an equivalent of a doctrine in martial arts by the age of 22.

(01:59:53):
To get, it could become that. And I want to be able to see it do that.
And it's just figuring it out. I think I have it figured out,
but it would take the, the individuals that can see it, you know,
and I think that's why it's important to have these like, like Ty,
Paul, Thomas, that age group, be able to start taking over some of the classes
and at least have an example set of it to where the parents could see it.

(02:00:14):
Like, Oh no, he that's, that's what, that's how he started. He's teaching the
classes now, you know, like Ty right now is teaching class.
If parents, you know, if parents my age would see, would watch Ty teach a group of 40 kids,
I think they would be blown away at how that 18-year-old can command that room.

(02:00:36):
I mean, it is, it's impressive.
He's very good. He's very good. He is deep.
You watch him play the little games with the kids and the same things you're doing, he can do.
He's an 18-year-old. And he's understanding some of that stuff,
you know, calling out specific kids for specific reasons and not calling out

(02:00:56):
other kids for, you know, it's, man, there's, there's college football coaches
that don't, that can't do that, you know?
Yeah, but the thing is, like, he's been seeing it since he's five. Yeah.
And so, like, that goes back to that whole, you know, the influence and the,
you know, just being around that in the room where they're going to pick up
on some of those habits just from being in the room.

(02:01:18):
And, you know, I think that having those boys start to set the example of it
is, you know, potentially the start of that.
You know, and look, I think he's still a ways away from being able to have a school.
But I think, you know, if he gets his head set to like, no, I'm going to do
that and he makes it his sole focus,
I think he can be there in another three years, four years, you know,

(02:01:42):
um, which is right around that timeframe that I would hope that boys would be
ready and girls would be ready to shoot for it.
You know, I think, I think he's, he's got one factor that he's, he's got to make sure of.
It's probably the same thing that got me shot in the right direction as far as with, with myself.
So that's still, still yet to be determined, but I think, I think it might be there.

(02:02:05):
So, yeah, I mean, we'll see in a little while when I, when I go there and we're
going to see how the kids are doing.
This is a big step. Yeah. So explain what's happening right this second.
So right at this second, so I had, I had to give my phone to the,
to, to the guys earlier so they can plug it up.
And the reason why I was, cause my wife was texting me, she's like,
Hey, you're going to make it back in time to teach his class. I'm like, I hope so.

(02:02:29):
I hope so. And you know, I said, well, can you get Ty to bring y'all to the
gym? I said, Ty, Ty might have to teach.
And right now it is 429, 431. Shoot. And.
First class of the day today and it's a four and five-year-old group which he's taught plenty
times but normally i'm there right so this is a big step yeah so for him it's

(02:02:52):
like no you gotta step up now yeah and you think we didn't know that that's what's interesting no.
No i know exactly that y'all know my schedule but you know he big step yeah
i think he's gonna be fine.
It's just him knowing that I'm not going to be there, you know?
And so, you know, I've been prepping for this anyway.

(02:03:16):
You're like, that's part of the reason why I have everything rolled out on a
curriculum now is because like it needs to get to a point where I can say the
curriculum is wrote to a point where almost anybody that's been around for a
while can look at it and say, okay, I do this with the clock.
This is round one, two, three. And, and you, if you just go by that,

(02:03:39):
guys can figure it out because, you know, the reality is like the gym needs to outlast me.
And it's not like I have a death wish or anything, but, you know,
realistically, like you need to have procedures wrote out that,
you know, if you want something to stick out and last,
you want to invest in something that's, uh, you believe is truly important,
then you need to make it so that it can work and you

(02:04:02):
know how does it work if you're not there you know
does it fall apart if you're not there or can it last even
after you're you're you're not around you know and so putting together the curriculum
like that is hopefully hopefully it's going to work out good enough to where
you can look at and say okay i can make enough sense of this i've been through
thousands of classes and i should know how to how to be able to do this you

(02:04:25):
know so we'll see in a little bit.
It'll be interesting. So those four and five-year-olds, about the six to ten
of them he's going to have, they're going to give him a little bit of something today.
That four and five-year-old class is rough.
I haven't seen it many times. It's the worst, dude. I come in at the tail end,

(02:04:46):
and I'm usually just smiling.
It's entertaining, for sure.
It's funny how they're just a whole different human, man. But it's funny how
just that one or two years right there makes such a huge difference.
Because, yeah, the next age class, it's a whole different animal.
And sugar, too, man. The way sugar makes a difference.

(02:05:09):
Some days. Tell which ones had sugar before. Some days, it's phenomenal.
Dude, it's like I've seen so many different things on the mat.
Snacks? Dude. What did you have? Fall Out of the Kids, Guy?
A bunch of stuff peanut peanut butter jelly something like that less jelly,

(02:05:32):
just a pb and sandwich some cheez-its
some some skittles something that starts with
a p that's happened to tom oh man okay i've had the one of the funniest ones
is a one of the guys in town he's brings his kid and the kid for whatever reason
he he had something in his pocket right So I still don't understand how kids do it.

(02:05:57):
They'll put their gi pants on over their pants.
They all are wearing their school uniform under their gi. They got three layers
of clothes on. It's incredible.
And they just train like that. It's like, oh, okay. Well, this little dude,
he has something fall out of his pocket.
And I didn't see him do it, but Naomi's seen him do it. And so he's got something under his foot.

(02:06:21):
And he's doing jumping jacks, but he's only moving one foot, right?
And he's going through the whole motion. Boy, he's got his arms swinging and
he's got that one foot moving.
And I look at him and I'm like, hey, why are you not doing your jumping jacks
right? And he just doesn't really say anything.
It's like, okay. So I walk over, I start looking at him and I'm like, hey, move your foot.

(02:06:43):
And he moves his foot and he had a whole like Hot Wheels that he brought with
him in his pocket on the mat and it fell out of his pocket and he's doing jumping
jacks trying to hide that,
that stinking toy car i kicked it so far dude it's like it's one of those things
that's so funny like you can't i try my hardest not to laugh at him because

(02:07:04):
it's it's like oh no he knew
but dude he was trying to hide it the best he could i've seen toy cars i've seen,
any type of animal cracker or Cheez-It or goldfish.
Why do you got so much food in their pockets? They hungry, man.
Who's walking around with food in their pockets? Welch's fruit snacks. Yes.

(02:07:27):
I've been thrown up on good had kids pee on the mat with other things you know some some kids it,
what's funny sometimes kids man like i've had
two kids pee on the mat right for for two totally different reasons and this
is the first part the only reason should be that like you know you couldn't

(02:07:48):
hold it right oh no oh no no so this is when i started realizing like oh man like okay okay,
these kids, like you have some influence over the kids,
but you really need to like watch it.
And so one kid did not, was just terrified to ask to go to the bathroom,

(02:08:09):
like did not want to have to ask.
Cause she was scared, like scared she was going to get in trouble.
It's like, I don't know why they would think they're going to get in trouble
for asking to go to the bathroom. Right. But they're scared.
Right. So it's like, okay. So instead of asking, she just did the thing.
And what made it worse is like are you peeing like just go to the bathroom so she

(02:08:32):
runs and then she slips and busts her butt on the concrete which made it worse
she was more embarrassed and it's like okay well that's that's one instance
so you have a kid not one to ask because they're scared to go like,
Right. So they don't have the confidence to say, Hey, I need to go pee.
Right. They just hadn't built that confidence. Nothing wrong with that because
I've seen grown men do it in bootcamp.

(02:08:53):
Yeah. Well, you know, afraid to ask. That's, that's even, that's even better.
But what happens when they do that? They shouldn't have asked.
But what happens if they pee on themselves? You should have. Is it worse?
They don't need to do anything. So, so what would be worse?
It's peer pressure yeah what would be the worst dealing with the peers or dealing with,

(02:09:17):
the other the other guys what's worse like you're in a barracks where you're
the dude that pissed on himself in formation man there's no way out you know
there's there's really just no way out might as well just join the air force at that point,
and look i have one other girl she uh she knew she had to pee but she was not

(02:09:40):
gonna ask Ask because she was not going to do anything that was going to make her miss her stripe.
Oh, man. That breaks my heart. Hey, just ready. So, dude.
Ready to get it. So, she did the thing that was like, no, it's going to cost
me a stripe. I will piss on myself.

(02:10:01):
So, there's multiple reasons. She made the right choice, though.
She definitely got a stripe after. I can tell you that. Striped up.
Earned that one. Yeah. but nah it's interesting man like you don't realize like
what kids are thinking or whatever so,
trying to trying to figure that out is difficult kids can be influenced and

(02:10:22):
just hope hope my kids are influenced in the right direction yeah well that
goes back to the whole black belt thing right.
Influence or a bad influence and if if this
is what i can say yeah yeah this this might be a good way of getting back around to
that whole question is like i couldn't give a black belt to somebody that i

(02:10:44):
wouldn't want my kid learning from because that might be the people that are
teaching my grandkids or my great-grandkids that's deep so yeah like why would
you give that to why would
you give somebody that type of authority if you wouldn't trust them with your
loved ones so yeah that i've been thinking about it enough that's probably my

(02:11:04):
answer that's a long way to find that answer yeah plus they need to know something
about jiu-jitsu man speaking of grandkids,
don't look at me like that speaking of grandkids let's just play this pretend
that you have a grandson or a granddaughter one day and they're listening to this,

(02:11:25):
out of the whole, out of this whole conversation, the martial arts,
the jiu-jitsu, the leadership, the business,
what's something they should go back and listen to?
What do you mean as far as go back and listen to?
Where at in our conversation do you think is the most important information?

(02:11:48):
I mean, by my calculations, you're
trying to get me to remember about two and a half hours worth of
things that were say just make up something new there
i would say yeah follow
the i wills and then apply it to something that you like something that you
enjoy and then keep doing that day in and day out i think if they follow that

(02:12:12):
type of path it's going to shoot them in the right right direction for success
and i wouldn't have kids say it every day if i didn't think it It was true, you know?
So I think, I think whether they're five, 20, 25, 30, whatever,
like if they just apply those things to themselves a day in and day out,
they're going to find something they like and they're going to find some sort of happiness.

(02:12:32):
And that roadmap's there for them. Yeah.
Up man my answer might change in another 10 years but i think
it shoots everybody in the right direction i believe you know because
you know that's kind of i think
it just sets a good framework i think kind of sets a good framework for for
success and i think sex success is you can't be successful unless you're have

(02:12:56):
a certain level of happiness in your life you know you could be a billionaire
and be unsuccessful if you're you know drowning yourself in pills day in and
day out and you don't have anybody that wants to be around you you know you don't know what love is,
like that's not success so all of
that is uh tied to happiness and yeah
i wouldn't want them to pursue happiness because if

(02:13:18):
they're doing that then at least at
least you know they're putting something something good in the world right so
i would hope i would hope that they do that and then
yeah tune in 10 years from now maybe we
do another one so i i love the
i wills and and they kind of remind me
of like a vision or a mission statement for like you know for a business and

(02:13:42):
it's there's a reason that that people do that and it's i think it's great yeah
you know another thing i've been tossing around with the kids i'm not sure if
i'm gonna do it or not i have I have no reason not to. I just want to make sure
it's the right thing to do.
And like, I would, I would actually love to hear what you guys think about it,
but I've been very much debating on having them say the pledge before every class too.

(02:14:07):
And see, what does that do? Like, I don't even know if they say it in schools
that much anymore. I think Ty told me at Thibodeau high, they still did it every morning.
But is that something that should be there?
Or is it just one of those things where it's like the high world,
are good enough saying the pledge may or may not be needed but i don't think

(02:14:29):
it would hurt man i think it's one of those things that being a business owner
it's a it's a it's a luxury that,
that you've earned you get to you get to make the decision you know and if someone
doesn't like it and that's why they choose to go to a school that doesn't say
the pledge then happy on them yeah Yeah, but that's also the thing,
too. I can't go there and say, you know, pledge.

(02:14:51):
Yeah, well, look, we're at that point now. That might be a thing,
you know. Yeah. But I also think that's a way to separate the people.
You get the right people, right? And I think getting to the point where it's
like, no, I don't think I have to worry about the gym surviving anymore.
I think it's going to be okay.
But I also want to make sure that it's something that, you know,

(02:15:12):
you guys know how I try to do certain things.
And when it comes to promotions, I was actually just having this talk yesterday.
With a couple of guys after class. Like.
Sure that i rely on the important people
that have played a role and been around since the beginning think certain
things are a good idea before any major things are
changed and i wouldn't think that y'all would think it's a bad idea but

(02:15:33):
i'm wondering if it could be one of those things that people are like i
don't know if you need to you know yeah it could you
could do it you could not not not really that big of a deal it means
a lot to me like i know you say it almost every time every
time you give a belt out for sure you say it
and you you let everyone
know that hey this isn't just this isn't just what I

(02:15:54):
think you you know you know to
have a guy get his blue belt and he knows hey no I asked Bo I asked Jonah all
the guys they all said go ahead like he's ready you know that's an extra that's
an extra confidence thing and kind of gets them you know started on on that next journey for them,

(02:16:15):
you know, definitely means a lot to hear.
I don't, I don't know if it's, it's needed, but I know for sure I would like
to hear, you know, I'd like to hear that the guys I look up to,
they're also, it's like, no, I feel, I feel, I can feel confident because I don't, I don't feel,
you know, kind of delay that, that imposter syndrome, you know? Right.

(02:16:37):
No, it's true. That's actually one of the reasons that I
was glad that Dave was there for my black
belt promotion was just because like you're my
friend and i don't i know you know what a boat looks
like but i don't want it i don't want to feel like it's you
know yeah whatever i'm trying to say yeah well i mean that that's you know to
have that son you know with him it's yeah he's got a long reputation in that

(02:17:03):
community and like i know i
was okayed by him so i had to go through three people pretty much, right?
So it was Waffle first, then Waffle sent me to Brian, and then Waffle sent me to Dave.
Necessarily has to do all of those you know i think i think it could be a bit
overboard but i understand what waffle did it like he was very unsure on whether

(02:17:24):
or not to to pull the trigger on that but i do still think it's important for
our guys to have exposure to those individuals,
that may change in the future as far as how many of those guys but you know
knowing that like i I know what Dave's guys in general have felt like when I go there and train.

(02:17:48):
And that's why I was confident as far as on the mat with Bo.
Like I've trained with enough of them, you know, and there's, I know how people feel.
Because a lot of times guys can think that, you know, you're sitting there and
you're rolling to try to beat them.
Like I'm rolling with a lot of guys over there, not necessarily,

(02:18:09):
you know, the time that I would go train.
Wasn't necessarily to prove a point you know like when i got
sent there as a brown belt it was to prove a point so i
wanted to make sure that i i deserved the respect
of him saying yes or no to that and from what i understand it was like waffle
was told yes give him his black belt like two thumbs up like do you need to

(02:18:31):
do it so after knowing that and then training with some of the other guys that
was in the room i was like okay there's a there's a there's a difference between all of these guys,
but it'd be foolish of me to think that, you know, one guy that gave me a really
hard time and the other guy that maybe wasn't the same as that,
that one deserved it more than the other.
It's like, no, he gave that to those guys for a certain reason.

(02:18:53):
And that person has something that they can pass on. That's,
that's worth other individuals listening to when they're on the mat.
And, you know, I'll always remember that, you know, because,
you know, even training with Waffle, right?
Like Waffle's 50, I think he's 52, 51 or 52 now.
It's like, if, if I would take, you know, 28 year old me rolling with 52 year old Waffle,

(02:19:19):
and think that there was nothing to gain from learning from that guy because
of the way he may or may not be on the mat these days, you know,
that'd be so foolish of me.
And And when somebody gets to a certain point where they know,
yes, they understand this and this and this, it's like, okay, good.

(02:19:41):
You know, you're going to run into guys that you can wipe the floor with that
are black belts when you're a purple belt, you know, and then you're going to
run into other guys that you're going to get your black belt and you're going
to be better than a lot of the other dudes you train with.
And you're going to have dudes that just beat the snot out of you and there's
nothing you you can do about it, but that doesn't mean that you're not deserving of that rank.

(02:20:02):
You know, it's just understanding that what is your niche and what are you good
at and then making sure that you stay to those strengths and try not to deviate
too far from it because, you know.
Why would you you know and that's one thing we're learning about in jujitsu
is like when you're training you're playing around you'll do stupid stuff but
if you need to have a hard role like you're going to do the stuff you're good

(02:20:23):
at you're not going to try to mess around the things that you know could get
you in trouble so why would you why would you try to shift any of that over to,
to people to shoot them in the wrong direction you know
that's that's part of the reason why i try to stick to fundamentals now more than
anything else and try not to teach too much of the stuff that i think is stupid and
if i do teach it i'll tell people like hey look you might see me

(02:20:44):
you do it but it's still kind of dumb or it's it's flat out
stupid but it's fun you know like doing stupid
stuff sometimes it's fun but it might not be what you want
to do if somebody's trying to like you know punch you in the face like probably
not gonna want to pull you know x guard when somebody's trying to hit you with
a bat you know but if that's all you know and it's all you know haters gonna

(02:21:08):
hate yeah until they get hit in the face with a bat.
Hey man i'm telling you i was training with
brendan savann before he got his chance
to go to the ultimate fighter and i remember thinking ah you
know i'm gonna i'm gonna try doing some
of this guard stuff and see how it goes when when he's got gloves on and did

(02:21:30):
x guard and i'm like let me see if i can sweep him and after i got punched in
the face multiple times it's like okay i'm not doing that again like i'm not
gonna get good enough at x guard to stop him from punching me in the face. It's a bad idea.
So that's, that's why I don't even teach it in curriculum anymore.
I mean, I'll show it here and there if people ask about it specifically,
but it's not something that I have in curriculum because it's gonna,

(02:21:51):
it's kind of one of those, one of those things that you can get really good
at it and it's fun, but it could cost you.
So it's more like what they call it a novelty item, you know.
With for sport so you don't
have to know x square to get a black belt good because i
don't know it i was gonna ask all right

(02:22:12):
guys any any closings this was
awesome yeah this is really really good i'm sure
we can i'm sure we can go for three more hours i
mean look i still got uh i still got time i guess ty's
good naomi says uh so far so good you'll be
here for the second kid class question it's like just i
could just turn your phone off that's what that's my advice i'll just

(02:22:35):
tell the phone today yeah but text
it to her so she knows new phone who does oh man
all right guys this is good let's do it again and
we'll maybe just kind of narrow in on a topic next
time and maybe do like a q a or something that would
be cool have guys from the gym or for from
wherever ever maybe submit some questions there's plenty

(02:22:57):
plenty left to learn here and plenty of ideas to
dig into oh dude i'm sure like there'll be
a lot of overlap and a lot of things with some of the guests you have planned
um i'm looking forward to to hearing from some of the some of the more recent
guys you've been exposed to that that you'll have on it's gonna be really cool
to to hear those different perspectives you know like when you started talking

(02:23:18):
earlier about you know You've got this guy that's been doing this for so many
years and you just started.
You've definitely created a solid network of individuals to hear things from.
It's going to be really, really cool to tune into some future episodes because
you've got a wide range of things that you are interested in.

(02:23:38):
I don't know. Shane Thibodeau might be the next Joe Rogan individual that everybody's
like, oh, no, Joe Rogan plays pool.
He does jujitsu. Yeah, but is he on the Miracles and Meat podcast?
No, not irrelevant. No, not yet. Not yet.
Yeah, I don't know. Kind of got some big plans, and I hope we can see him through.

(02:24:01):
Want to do this again with you and make different um
combos of individuals to get on.
Music.
And see what we can say anytime all
right appreciate y'all later later all right that's it for this episode of the
miracles to meet podcast we ask that you share it with at least one person in

(02:24:24):
your life that you think needs to hear it um you know if you got a little something from it you got some
little goose pimples, or just gave you some feel goods, um,
you know, send it to someone else, let them, let them feel that too.
And if you loved it, please leave us a five star review. That'll really help out.
And if you only loved it, like four stars or so, please do not leave a review.

(02:24:45):
Same thing with the one through three, not interested in any of those only five stars.
If you have any personal questions or comments about the episode,
shoot them over to Bourgeois Meat Market on Facebook or Instagram,
and we'll reach back out.
And if you have any ideas for any cool future guests, please shoot those over too.

(02:25:06):
We're always interested in
hearing who else is out there and what kind of cool stories we might share.
Music.

All Episodes

Ep. 4 - Scotty Smith: 2nd Degree BJJ Black Belt / Preparing the Next Generation

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Crime Junkie

Ridiculous History

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 4 - Scotty Smith: 2nd Degree BJJ Black Belt / Preparing the Next Generation