From Gangs to God: Professor Kenny Tenny’s Journey Through Jiu-Jitsu & Redemption

On this episode of The Front Porch Chronicles, I sit down with my brother and teammate, Professor Kenny Tenny. Kenny’s journey is nothing short of powerful — growing up in a tough environment, running with gangs, and facing struggles most wouldn’t survive. But through Gracie Barra Jiu-Jitsu and his walk with God, he found redemption, brotherhood, and purpose. This is more than a story about martial arts… it’s about faith, resilience, and transformation.
🎧 Tap in, because this conversation will remind you that no matter where you start, there’s always a way to fight your way forward.
#FrontPorchChronicles #GracieBarra #FromGangsToGod #FaithAndFighting #Podcast 

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-front-porch-chronicles--5999017/support.

🎧 Front Porch Chronicles — real conversations on healing, growth, fatherhood, and fighting through it. ▶️ Full Episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thefrontporchchronicles
🤝 Collabs / Booking: [phone] • [e-mail]
🔔 Subscribe & drop a comment—tell us what hit home.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, Front Porch Chronicles. I'm your host, Clinton Folk say,
and you know, we talk about the struggles, the breakthroughs,
the legacy we're trying to build. I got one of
my day one brothers over here. I personally don't know
what I would do without this man. He is my
left hand man, right hand man, Henny, Henny, thank you

(00:24):
so much for coming on.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Bro. Ain't no problem, man, It's good to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
No, you got a lot of stuff going on. Let's
get right into it. Where were you born and raised?
For the people we're gonna tell him about love Ken
little Kenny.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
So. I was born in southern California, San Diego and
Balboa Hospital, and yeah, I know the hospital when I
got when I came when I got older, my sister
took me there and this is where you were born.
I was like, god dang. But soon thereafter moved to
Italy and I lived in Napoli, Naples, Italy. Lived right

(00:56):
on the coast for some of my adolescents. But it
was weird because I was in the coast. I was
on Italy, but summers from the Philippines with my grandmother
and that was pretty cool because we lived we lived
Gilligan Island style. Man. We lived in a hut on
the beach. You want to open the window, you got
to push the flap out, put a stick, you know,
the whole shablam. And my grandmother had like fighting roosters
and it was straight up just no electricity, Filipino style.

(01:18):
Then I came back to United States, you know, and
I kind of lived all over the place in United States.
I lived in North Carolina, different parts of California. I've
lived in Sacramento all the way down to San Diego
and everywhere in between. But my dad was in the military,
so I was in military school. I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I'm glad you said it, because I was, like people
gonna think Papa was a rolling stone.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
You was all over the My dad was a rolling
stone in the streets. Now, my dad was in military.
Three he served three tours in Vietnam. But yeah, no,
but yeah, So all that moving was when my parents
were together. When I got like, you know, when we
came back to the United States, my parents split me.
Moving around was for a different reason. It wasn't because

(01:59):
the military. So how was life growing up? Man, It's
almost like I grew up in I lived too. It's
like my growing up, my childhood and my upbringer was
two different worlds. One side of the world was I
mean not just no pun intended, like being another part
of the world. But you know, growing up in a
somewhat quasi structured family in Italy, you know, going to

(02:22):
military school, and the rules there are different. Like when
I was in military school, I've never seen someone not
do their homework, Like when you show up in the morning,
you like public school in America where like, hey, you know,
where's your homeory and you know, Timmy be like, ay,
it's for the schools for dummies, dude. When I first
came to public school in the United States, it made
it gave me anxiety. I was like, this fool thing

(02:44):
to do was homework? Is he insane? Because we were
so about homework, physical fitness, you know, just getting after everything, man,
And then come to public school here. Man, it was
just like it was. It was crazy. It's crazy contrast.
So I had that structure. But when I was a
public school system here, call it a system, because that's
what it is, the public school system.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Here.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Hold on, let me tell you something. This is how
wild military school was. And ask anyone who's went to
military or Department of Defense school out of the country,
especially in Italy. Our buses we didn't have like orange
buses the United States. They private contracted it out to whoever,
so the best buses drivers would show up, you know,
get the contracts. So our buses back then, Benz leathered

(03:25):
out some of them. Yeah, some of them had TV
screens in a man, Yeah, like multiple screens. And this
fort it was even big technology. They had the big
you know. Yeah, they tried to get the best. We
had the best everything, even the food. They cooked it
there like it was really like someone it was a
kitchen and they actually cooked in the kitchen as opposed
to you know, just heating up crap like they do nowadays.
But that's the difference, man. And so coming here, my

(03:48):
parents divorced, you know, and I end up you know,
running the streets, man, just you know. And so that's
what I mean by it's two different worlds because I
went from being a very advanced student to you know,
essentially selling drugs, participating in the street violence. And but
this has took time. It took a few years, you know,
to fault, for the wheels to come off and you know,

(04:09):
and do a lot of and see a lot of
see a lot of real bad things. But I will say,
this is what's crazy, because I was thinking about reflecting
back on my life, and you know, they're you know,
you got to go to therapy when you're jacked up
like me. And so dude, I remember, like, I'm out
here hanging with a bunch of thugs. But I would
still read the newspaper still I did. I was odd

(04:30):
to them. Man, They're like this fool. But I've always
I always liked knowledge, man, so you know, and I
would say this. I know you didn't ask this, But
the saving grace, one of the saving graces is that
I was fortunate enough to see a different world outside
the neighborhood. Like a lot of my friends, they never
their entire lives were in our neighborhood. They've never they've

(04:51):
never like here's they've never bound the neighborhood. Like one
of my friends, he was in high school, was the
first time leaving the hood in high school because he's
on the basketball team and he didn't he never seen
a carpool lane before, and he was like, he thought
the carpool lane was for people from out of town,
you know. So if you're in LA and there's a
carpool and those are people who don't live here, like,

(05:12):
that's because he's always in the carpool lane when they
go out of town. So that's the That's the type
of folks I hung around with. But me, dude, I've
I had lived around the world, Dude, I've I've seen
Mediterranean sunsets and eating authentic Italian pizza. Man and I
lived on the beach in Italy, and then I lived
in the beach in the Philippines. You know, so I
knew there was another world that was better. I know

(05:33):
life could be better. But I was so broken and damaged.
I was acting up. But fortunately I was exposed to more,
which I think made it made an impact. It made
an impact.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Let me let me ask you this, what do you
think drove you down that path of making I hate
to say bad choices because I feel like everything that
we go through shapes who we are today. But what
do you think led you to making, you know, decisions

(06:06):
that weren't the best during that time?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Hey man, I own a dog. It's bad bad choices,
bad choices, you know, because I look at it this way. Man,
it's a reality. Even though I don't make excuses for
anything I've done. You know, I'm ashamed of a lot
of the things I've done during that time of my life.
But they're bad choices, man, Like, if you do things
to harm people and harm people just to be leaving

(06:31):
it at harmon people, that's a bad choice. There's no
gray area with that, man. And so I think what
it was what caused me to do that way was
an accumulation of you know, my mother was hospitalized and
she wasn't all there when she came out of the surge.
She had massive brain surgery. So I basically you know,
and my dad rejected us, like just left me and

(06:51):
my sister. So the pain from abandonment, the pain from rejection,
the pain from living in the streets, you know, like
like you know, like we had no food, man, we
had no food. Local churches would feed us. The American
Red Cross started feeding us. You know, I was in
seventh grade wearing clothes from fifth grade, man, Like they
didn't even fit anymore. I couldn't button my zip up
my pants or button my pants. I mean it was horrible, dude.

(07:13):
It was so when you get like that what happens
is you don't know. I couldn't internalize it. I began
to just act out. I started not doing my work,
started staying out, like I had no parent telling me
to be home, no one telling me anything, you know.
And then you know, gangs the one there's there's there's
a there's a multi approach to it, Like my families
have the involved in gangs, so I never had to

(07:34):
get jumped in. You know. It's those are people who
I don't know. I mean people who are not family involved,
like a lot if your family is like generational gangs
and and I have some family in the Black Gorilla family,
a lot of people don't never heard of that, but
it's it's the it's a organized crime organization and or

(07:54):
carteil wherever you want to call it. So if you
have generational stuff like that, you don't have to get
jumped in you have to do anything. So I just
hung out with them and they get It's like a
surrogate family. They give you love. It's weird, you get love,
but at the same time, and it's like that family union.
You feel that they care about you, but at the
same time you're out there just destroying yourself, destroying other people,

(08:14):
destroying the community. You don't, I look at it this
so I believe in God, and I really look back
in retrospect, and I feel that is demonic. Man, It's
a demonic type of spirit. It's a demonic type of entity.
And yeah, yeah, like you might if I to share
a story with you real quick, yes, of course, of course.
Like I got a friend of mine, her name, her
name is Stacy Craig. I was a woman, you know

(08:35):
sometimes Stacy, you know the hood that it could be
a man or Stacy. Stacy's cool, man, and she's she's
actually a screenwriter and she writes movies, used to be
one of the top writers at Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon will just
write kids shows, they write movies and all kinds of
crap and they sell it. But with that said, she
and I were just talking about God because she had
rededicated her life to God, and we're talking about because
she's like, we're just talking about always tell I said, man,

(08:57):
I've done so much wrong, Like I can't you know
what people, things go around, they go how could this
happen to me? God? Yeah, you know, I can't. Man
too I've done too much. I'm in no position to
question God. I can't hate on another person for being
more blessed to me. So we're talking and she's like really,
like it's really I go, dude. I gave her a
light example. And this is story I want to share

(09:17):
with you. One time, my cousin and I were just
sitting around my family, my cousins, you know, like there
was this I can't I don't give away too many details.
I don't even know if this is still a crime
or whatever. You were serious. We were hanging out limitations
check yeah, ocause some stuff doesn't happen. I have to
be very careful. And so the the like, we were

(09:38):
hanging out by this this venue, and one of the
top dope dealers in the area came whipping around his
sports car right, And I'm very ashamed of this, by
the way, like I'm not glorifying crime or anything like.
This is something that ate me up for years. Like
he whipped around the corner and he was he was
I think I'm pretty sure he was drunk, driving intoxicated.

(09:58):
Those guys are always high and drunk, and he just
crashed his car like right, like not even half a
block from us. So we go over there and this
dude is he's in a real bad way. He's bleeding
out of everywhere, you know and everything, and instead of
calling nine one one, we just rob him. We literally
rob him. We steal his car, stereo, his money, everything
he has on his car and leave him, you know,
leave him there to you know things that have you know,

(10:21):
did they get him? Who they're ambulance he got? I
don't know. I've never seen him again after that. He
was never around. But see crap like that, man, Like
that's the kind of things like I was fourteen years
old and I was with my cousins and I thought
we were gonna go help, and they and I just
kind of went with it, you know, and we just
like uninstalled everything expensive out of his vehicle. Then you know,

(10:44):
emptied his pockets and took everything else within his car
and it's left him and I and I sometimes I
look back at that and I'm like, that's evil, man,
that's straight up evil. Dude.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
You've you've done some evil, but you've done a lot
of great things with that. Have grace and mercy on
yourself because you've done a lot of positive things going
into that. What do you think the biggest influence was
for you during that time, either positive or negative and

(11:16):
how that shaped you?

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Oh, man, I think the biggest influence for the It's
weird because I had both pulling looking back, God was
trying to do both, and so I had. I had
a friend of mine. His name is Wade TOI Warn,
way TOI Warn the Second, or way TOI Warn Junior.
We call him Wade. He was a rapper man and
he was my best friend, and he had hit, but
I hate his rapping names, like his his names were

(11:38):
just like one of his rap times he went by
trifle and I'm like, dude, no one likes trifle. That's
a negative. He goes, yes' right, you know what I'm saying.
I'm just trying. But he didn't rap gangster. He rapped
kind of like you know, you know, there was a
time where hip hop was real clean and positive, man,
where you know they're like kidding play Style or Kwame,
Yeah yeah, and just kind of fun. You know. He

(11:59):
was like that, and he had a very positive influence
on me, you know. And he actually he's the him
and my sister obviously, because my sister had to take
care of me. She had to be my mother, you know,
because I didn't have one. And so my sister god
became my legal guardian, took care of me, and you
know him and like he was the first person because
my sister was poor with me. We're in the same boat.

(12:19):
So she'd always tell me happy Birthday on my birthday.
But Away was the first person actually just buying me something.
He bought me a baseball hat, you know, and we're
just broke kids. There was a time wait and I
lived in in an abandoned house together, not abandoned, but
what's it called, man, when when the house is up
for sale, but it's just sitting on the market, you know,
vacant vacant. So it wasn't like a crackout. It was nice,
but we just lived in it market like yeah, yeah,

(12:46):
we know. We literally lived in in the one of
the room. We kept our stuff in the rear closet
and so we wind no one to look from the
front and think people were in it, you know, but
yeah we So Way was my friend and he always
he had a very positive influence. He always told me
to talk me out of He talked me out doing
a lot of bad things. A lot of the time.
But unfortunately Wade himself was not a gang member. He

(13:07):
was murdered also, and so his dad when I when
I got married his dad, I'm not married anymore. A
few ladies out there just don't it out there. Yeah,
I'm out in the streets. Yeah. But Wade's dad was
my best man at my wedding man and I put
him a moral for him, but he was he was

(13:28):
unfortunately murdered, you know, out in the streets. And that
also had an impact on me. That impact, it's crazy,
it had a positive impact. It got me. It got me.
That and the birth of my son happened within the
same timeframe. I think I had my son in high school.
It changed me. It completely changed me. I was I
felt like I lived a hundred lives at that point
and seeing seeing enough death and carnage, you know, I've

(13:52):
just seen a lot of horrible things, and it's I
had reached my peak. A friend, my best friend dying.
That was that was like my cup overflowed of pain
and confusion, and I just I said, I can't do
this anymore. So those are the influencers, but the bad influences, obviously,
I'm sad to say. It was actually my own family.

(14:13):
My own family. You know, they're very involved in gangs, drugs, crime, crime,
everything from I mean, I don't know if they listen
to this, but I mean every look at the Ten Commandments.
Broke them all a lot, all of them. I'm dead serious, Like,
don't think, oh this one too, yeah, that one too. No,
I'm laughed the Air One album everyone multiple times repeatedly.

(14:38):
So yeah, that's that's going from there.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
When was it that you actually found jiu jitsu and
did that help you have a positive How did that
help you have a positive impact?

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, Oh that's crazy, man, It's interesting you say that.
I actually because as you know, I'm I'm a small
dude man. You know, petite, right, so you know, standing
five six, I weighed about one hundred and thirty five pounds,
but I was always very strong, Like I got receipts
for this. I know this sounds crazy, but I had
won up a high school. I was in a continuation
school called Vista p This is in Bakersfield, and we

(15:14):
used to call it Vista Penitentiary. It looks like a
penitentiary and it's for all just kids that are bad
and I had gotten kicked out of there for getting
in a fight and punching a teacher. But the teacher
was an accident, you know, the teacher got in between
It's like, hey, break it up, and the teacher started
after damage. Oh yeah, man, dude, I would come irrational,
insane with a small guy complex back ton. So I
had dabbled in boxing and kickboxing because there's always someone

(15:36):
in the hood and then helping you out or you know,
like teaching you how to fight and box. So I
had to learn because I was so small, but I
was I was one hundred and thirty five one hundred
and thirty one pounds at the time. I was hundred
thirty five when I graduated in thirty one. I had
won the school districts freaking the continuation school were part
of school. This were allowed in it. I had won
the bench press. They had one where you could they

(15:57):
count all through but the individual best press I press
three fifteen at one hundred and thirty. Dude, I was
retard strength. Still have it, but you know, but it
was crazy. I'm sorry, special need strength to be I
think the world has changed special needs strength. But you
know what I'm saying, what so I started looking in

(16:20):
the book man, like you know, there's a heavy, heavy
influence when I wanted to like after I started, you know,
leaning towards changing, before my friend was murdered, I already
started looking for something else, man, to occupy my time.
And I remember looking to the phone book. This is
how long ago was. It was looking through the phone book.
And do you ever do this? You ever do this,
Clinton where you look at the phone book like for

(16:41):
martial arts, and it's like you gotta think. I'm in
Bakersfield and it's like become a ninja. You know, it's
like a Bruce le all these school pages, they're like
a ninja. And depending on how big the ad was, yeah,
you're like, oh they must be legit. They have a
real ad, you know. And I looked through it and

(17:02):
I was like I had enough wherewithal They ain't no
ninja in Bakersfield, Man, this is this is country out.
What would a ninja be doing here? But there's a
ninja that ain't no ninja. Yeah know what I'm saying,
that's my ninja. Yeah. So yeah, so the I remember
doing that, man, and you know, I got to give
a plug. This guy had a very big impact on
my life. Eric Nolan, he's in Bakersville, California. He runs

(17:26):
and he didn't I didn't even mean to say this,
but I gotta say this, Eric Nolans. I think it's
called extreme Martial Arts. He used to be called Eric
Nolan's Academy of Martial Arts, but I think he put
extreme on there because he's branched down the MMA and stuff.
But that guy changed my life. He brought me in
and he gave me a safe place to That's where
I started. I actually started judo initially, and I started

(17:46):
training under Jen Label and Judo Gene and we travel
up to LA to train with Judo Gene, but his
black belt would go to Eric's school and just train
his proxy. So then we'd go up there, and then
I would have to doubt jiu jitsu because the first
year of CE happened, there weren't ney jiu jitsu schools anywhere, man,
Like you know, I eventually, Yeah, I have friends that

(18:09):
were driving from to Larry, California, which is like deep
central California, driving into LA or Orange County to be
at the Gracie Baha School, the first Gracy Ball school,
which was that was like a four or five hour drive,
maybe five hour drive each way, and they were doing
that three four days a week. So all the that's
when the real Dollharts came out. Man. And I and I,

(18:33):
you know, I dabbled with them, but I'm still doing judo.
I dabbled in jiu jitsu, but I was still doing judo.
But I competed in jiu jitsu tournaments. And Eric showed
up as my coach man in that mental locked room,
so I didn't even have a dad around, you know,
and Eric would show up and no joke, man, I mean,
I love Eric, I love you Eric, but he reminded
me of that bad coach on Karate Kid Dog. Even

(18:56):
look he no sleeves. He wore one of those dogs.
But the thing is with the difference with Eric is
that he was nice to us, but don't mess with
his students. Like I'm at the tournament and somebody says
something crazy to me. One of the coaches said something crazy.
Why I'm on the map, Like I told his told
his student, oh you got this, like what like a
fight almost broke out in the tournament, and I was like, oh,

(19:18):
this is my tribe.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Man.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
And then I eventually got over to you know, Gracie
Baja and I trained back when it was one school
and I trained under a guy named schin Ghia and
uh and master calls would rotate in Master calls, Gracie
Junior would rotate in every few months like he does now.
And I just I just never looked back. And that's
always been my outlet, you know, my outlet you know,

(19:43):
for for everything. What drew you to Gracie Baha. The
first yuf C, Dude, here's the thing. The first year
of see happened, and I saw this gracy, you know,
just beat the brakes off for everyone. A lot of
people lost some money on betting against him, you know,
cause you saw him come out, you know, like that dude,
the karate suit man. You know, well, wrestler's gonna smash

(20:04):
him or whatever. Nah, dude, Like I thought Kim Karmrock
was gonna win everything, right then? You think so all
the time. Yeah, Kim Shamrock looked like Hercules, the Faction
figure if you put him in person, like this dude
looked like and he looked mean as hell. Man, he
looked like first Blood. Yeah, and so he after that,

(20:28):
I wanted to get in with them, man, And I
was like, who is this? And I knew that. You know,
there was a website called bjj dot org. This on
the internet was new. It was so new. There was
this lineages of jiu jitsu of who's who, and I
saw a lot of people came under Gracie Baja and
at that time they were dominating the world in almost

(20:49):
any division from Purple belt up gold, just killing everybody
there were. There was no one on their level. It
was like Don Danaherst team but back then, and I
was like, I need to get on. And then all
the big names like Henzo Gracy's fires, they all from
Gracy Baja. I was like, dude, I'm going to the source.
And the founder of jiu jitsu is Carlos Gracy Jr.

(21:09):
This is his son. So I'm like, I mean Carls
Gracy Senior, this is his son, Carlos Gracy Jr. So
that's who drew me in, man. You know, and through
you know everything, there's politics, there's you know, division, this
person leaving or big whatever. I've always stuck with Gracy Baja, man,
I've always stuck with them. And even now it's a
different type of organization when I joined. When I joined,
it was like a gang. Dude. School was more than

(21:31):
thirty forty students. Never was class three hours warm up
is one hour of just running, spreading, shooting, taking takedowns.
I mean it was if only a competition gym, there
was no I wonder.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
If that wow. A lot of the ogs. A lot
of the OG's show up late because they don't want
to do the warm up.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, yeah they do, but I mean, yeah, but one
thing too. Man, Like I'm approaching thirty years of training. Man,
it gets to the point where you're like, I've done
that so many times. Man, I just want to get
in there and get at it. Dude, Like I want
to warm up already, Gotta have in my mind what
I want to work on, and I'm gonna go work
on it. You know, you don't want to get It's
sometimes like hold your hands like this, and I'm like,

(22:10):
I've done that for decades. Man, I'm you know, so
when you schedule your day, you're just like, unless i'm competing,
I'll do the fool everything because I'm like I'm every
little I'll take it. I'm a sponge. I'll take in everything.
But if I'm just recreational like I am right now
until I finished school and then everybody's gonna get the smoke.
H Yeah, I just go to the regular class man.

(22:31):
But that's what drew me in. I was and still
I'm very proud be a black belt under Carllege Tracy Jr.
I mean my lineage also, your lineage is Callous Gracy
Senior Callous Gracy Jr. Than us, Like, it doesn't get
any it doesn't get any closer to the source than
that of at least Brazilian jiu jitsu. And it's it's

(22:51):
something that's as it's an accomplishment, man. And you know yah, you.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Know a lot of people think that being a black
belts or becoming a black belt is just physical, but
it's way deeper than that. It's spiritual, it's emotional, it's mental.
What do you feel like that that journey demanded from you?

Speaker 2 (23:13):
It made me may have honest conversations with myself, you know,
self reflect you know, like like even now, man, like
you know, as you know, I'm not a big person,
so I can be like I've put on I've lifted
and took creating and got up to the one seventies
or whatever, which didn't look right. But I'm not a
big person, and like say, I'll train with people who

(23:34):
go wild, right, they go hard. But I thought I
was worse than that, you know, like I've injured so
many people, man, And like when I put a choke
on on people back in the day, it's one hundred percent.
There's no like gradual, You're gonna tap nah dog, I'm
squeezing the life out of you. And the problem was
that's how I was initially trained. I was trained competitive

(23:54):
for years. It was hard to deprogram it and have
like recreational rolling because everything was competitive. So but now
I had to look into myself and go one, I
can't believe too mad at the newer generation or someone
who's coming in who's competitive spirit and they're doing that.
But then also, man, I had to learn for me
to improve, I have to allow myself to lose the

(24:15):
people that I'm better than. I have to put myself
in bad news. And I wasn't okay with that before.
Like if someone even got side control on me, right,
and side control of those of you listen know do
jiu jitsu w it's basically a think a wrestling pin.
Someone just laying on the side and you can't get up.
You know they're your daddy now right, And so they're
on my list. And I know you probably know what

(24:36):
I'm talking about, claim, but you have a thing, You're like, oh,
I'm gonna get you back. So ten, I got one
you already, no lock down, Rather you got a novel.
You got you have a yeah, you have a scroll,
not unless you have a hit scroll. You're like, all right,
but yeah, so no. So I had to learn to
accept it, and I had to learn to allow myself
to get in that position, because the only way to

(24:58):
learn how to get out of a really really good
side control is allow someone to get you in a
really good side control. The only way to learn how
to get out of a deep armbar is sometimes let
somebody get you in it and they can get out
and get your reps in of escaping. Before I didn't
think that way, and then when I got that position,
you know, panics would go off and I'd go extra hard.
Now I don't care what somebody does, So it may

(25:20):
be more then that it's it's it's it's yeah, I
don't know, man, It's it's weird A lot of people
say it's therapeutic. Jujitsus therapeutic. I definitely think it is
because it's not just the training that gets your mind
off of whatever's going on in the world. It's not
just that, but it's that it's the fellowship of the
people there. Like I have different degrees of friends in

(25:42):
the gym. I got jim acquaintances. I say, what's up,
there's something I'll even go to events with. But then
I have real close people like you, like Philip di Lamonica, like,
we're cool, We're close. You know, there's there's there's a
there's a spectrum everyone there. I said, hey, we're all
in the same tream. Gracie all has a tendency of
saying eight we're all one family, which is true, but

(26:02):
it's a loose term of the It's more of a
slang when we say family. You know what I'm saying,
But it's it's the the like I have my little
inner circle and people and you know, but it's it
served like a family for me, because when you're someone
who doesn't really have family, it helps out a lot.
But the trick is I got to distinguish between like,
who's really my family and who's just some you know,

(26:25):
fair weather friends. You know what I'm saying. If the
hospital me, so you taught me you you grasshopper? Oh,
get out of here. You taught me that from grasshopper?
Grape folks. Look, were there ever.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Any setbacks with jiu jitsu or moments where you were like, hey,
you know what, I'm over it, like I want to
move on.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Or is it just ingrained in you? It's crazy. I've
actually had an internal fight. That's a good question. I've
had an internal fight over the years with jiu jitsu.
If there's times I thought, is this my God?

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Man?

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Like why do I keep going there? Everywhere I go
there and more a person goes to church, and I
had to reconcile with myself. There's times like I'm gonna
get a different hobby, but then I can't escape it.
And what it is is that one I like it
a lot, and two I didn't realize it serves so
many purposes. If I had a rough day, just even

(27:19):
my friends like yo yo, I'm just cracking jokes and
arguing about stupid crap that we cannot have an impact
on in the world at all, but arguing about it.
Training the fellowship that occurs there, even among people I
barely know. We just like yo, we're stretching, laughing and
cracking jokes. That plus I'm getting in hour and a
half minimum of just cardio and workout, like that's way

(27:41):
better than going to a gym. And so there's a
lot of benefits to it. Man, there's a lot of
benefits to it, you know. And over the years, man,
I've made some very good business connections, friendship connections that
people write me letters like when I wanted to when
I went into teaching from the Jiu Jitsus school, guys
that even I just trained with, I didn't even consider them.
I consider, you know, jiu jitsu friends, but they weren't

(28:02):
like we weren't hanging out. Man, write me letters of
recommending this guy is solid and you know, doing whatever
pulling connections. Hey, I might know someone to do this,
Like it's it's a beautiful thing if you really sit
back and look at it, you know, And there's a
lot of advantages to it, man, It's it's besides just
learning how to to whip some tail. I think I
think what's his name, Jay Rod from the B Team?

(28:24):
Are they still called the B.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Team, No no more, I think distinguished gentleman something I don't.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
I don't know. I have to live. J Rod was fighting.
He goes, dude, you do you understand what jiu jitsu? Man?
This is one of the benefits a guy could train
jiu jitsu for like a year. Do you see that
anybody's talking about that? He says he can man handled
beat up anyone on the street, like if someone doesn't know,
especially someone doesn't know and he goes and then people
be like, yo, well I got a gun. He goes,

(28:52):
I got a gog too, dog, and I know jiu jitsu.
But that's man, It's that ability, dude, Like there's a
confidence that comes with it because you already know, like
you you man handle people so much larger than you
in the gym on a regular basis, going full going
one hundred percent, that you're like you already know you have,
you already know you already. You just feel confident like
you're okay handling yourself. But a crazy part that I've

(29:15):
noticed too, is that you don't go looking for fights.
You don't fight all damn week. You know what I'm saying.
By the end of the week, I done been in
thirty forty fights. Man, I don't want any more fights.
I want to relax. You know.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
It's funny I tell people that all the time because
people think that people with jiu jitsu are like hot hits,
and there are like your guys that think that they're
like ultimate fighters or whatever.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
But for the most of us, the real ones that
that are down, like I don't, I don't go.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Look like I've told people before, like, look, dude, this
is not the smoke that you want. And one good
thing about calliflower ear is usually when they see that,
they're like, oh, this man knows what he's doing. We
don't want that smoke. But you know, for me, I'm like, hey, bro,
this ain't what you want. Let's just agree to disagree.

(30:09):
But you touch me and it's gonna be all bad
for you.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah. I've been in I've been in a situations. I've
almost got in a fight. I'm ashamed of this as
an adult. I think the last one I got in
was like if my mid thirties, but I couldn't get
out of it. I was trying to help someone else.
I was trying to break up a fight. Now they
won't even find this arguing the bully. Someone was trying
to bully someone else at a gym, like an exercise gym,
you know, like a twenty five business and the guy

(30:32):
getting bullied was my at the time, her classmate, and
I got into a fight with that cat and it
didn't end well for him. But the thing is, it's weird.
I don't I don't even have that dialogue like that.
They're like, like I've been told like full you know,
I'll do this, this is this, Hey, you don't even
have to say anything, just come do it. It's like,
I don't even get engaged like that, you know, to

(30:53):
come do it him. And when they say.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Where I'm from, where I'm from, we don't even play
like that, Like if you say I'm gonna bring harm
to you, I'm gonna bring harm to you first, because
there ain't no just walking like you're gonna have to
show and they will quit fast and then a hurry.
That was one of the things I had to get
used to move into Orange County was where I'm from.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Bro. When they say, oh, you're.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Gonna okay, well, like we're gonna have to We're gonna
have to just go ahead. You're gonna catch this two piece.
Why wait until Tuesday when we can do it now.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yep, yeah, yeah, that's how it was, man like, I
was like even like, I think one of the one
of the most criminal type of fights because I got
in fights, so I think it was a criminally the
dude startify with me and I fought. You know, I
came out on top. And I've always been I've been fortunate.
I'm not the toughest guy in the world at all,
as you know, I'm I'm I'm especially hanging out at Irvine. Dude,

(31:50):
Baseball Irvine. There's so many MMA champions and Crafta've been there.
You know you're not the toughest, So I'm saying that
humble saying to somebody. But I've never been beat up before.
I've always gotten lucky, man, even with guys who are
significantly bigger than me. I've got the first hit in
well one, you bought your fist. You're getting hit if
you are you mean you bought your fist up by
your waist, You're getting rocked. So but I think one

(32:12):
of the most criminal ones I got into. This is
back in the day. My son knows about this now,
but I beat up his uncle. Man and I beat
him up, like right at the door of his grandmother's house, right,
my son's grandmother's house, and knocked him into the house
and then picked him up, banged him in the head
into the television like in the movies. Do them in
the sync like a sink there with dishes and it

(32:33):
break the dishes. I just did it like a movie, man.
And but that's that's irrational me. You know, I'm not
like that anymore. But did you? Yeah? Yeah, it took
about a decade. The dad was like, you know, they
called the police on me, but their dad didn't press charges.
He said, I'm gonna kill you myself, say come do it.
And you got think they're wild, dog, This is how

(32:54):
wild they are, man, real life. That dude that I
beat up their dad, he got in a fight with
his dad. Him and his dad used to fight. Oh
hands in the house, right, his dad shot him, dude,
his own dad shot him twice. He survived. So that's
the kind of the hood, violent environment. Like he was.
He was just as messed up as me. Oh but now,
cause I couldn't imagine get shot by my dad. Man,

(33:15):
that'd have to hurt your feelings pretty bad. Yeah, we
don't have to. I'm mnna get the family reunion on
that one. Yeah. No, dude, when you're in the hood, man,
you just see a lot of crimes that most people
don't even imagine. They don't even imagine, Yeah, they don't fathom.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
You know, we got an amazing Bible stetic group. And
one of the things on the flip side, one of
a million reasons why I respect you is your faith.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
You know, was there ever a time.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Or breaking point in your life where faith was more
than just words.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Like you actually felt something deeper. Oh yeah, that's happened
a few times, and obviously, as you've known, a fallen
back backslid from it. But when I first in my
early twenties, man, when I first was learned, like truly
truly learned of God, I was raised atheists. My dad
hated God. I'm talking. My dad would be like, f God, Like,

(34:15):
if there is a God, I got something to say
to him and my dad would go off. But you
got to think my dad had a major PTSD. They
didn't call it PTSD back then. They call it shell shock.
He had major shell shock or PTSD for more. Like
my dad one time he broke down and because he's
got nightmares and you know, they were using napalm. He's
seen I think some of the bad things. He had
mentioned that he's seen kids on fire, you know, like

(34:39):
just because they would drop napalm just on civilians. And
so he's seen kids on fire, and he's seen like
a dead woman still holding her baby was alive, you know,
and stuff like that and nothing. He was eighteen years old, dude,
and so he was very angry with God. But with
that said, when I was fully learned about God, I
actually went to seminary man, and went to seminary, studied Hebrew,
Aramaic and Greek, the languages of the Bible. When dived

(35:01):
in deep, you know the guy Wes who's in the study,
he went to seminary, He went to seminary with me.
He was actually one of the top performers. And I
got heavily involved in evangelism. I did prison ministry and
this one I felt called by God man like Wes,
and I used to go into the hospitals, dude, and
people are on breathing machines dying and we're laying hands
on a praying, you know, just kind of being there

(35:23):
as they pass like we were. We were doing a
lot of things man, and well God was doing a
lot of things to us. We're in prison seeing dudes
nineteen years old with three strikes, no chance of getting out,
and I was like, no possibility of parole, Like it
was just crazy this one. They were just throwing away
the key on people man, non violent offenders getting you know, life,
and they're nineteen years old. So long story short, things

(35:45):
happened with my son. I never lost my faith in God,
never stopped believing in God, but I gave up on
ministry because when you do ministry you get attacked, like
even now with our Bible study, I do get attacked
with temptation is crazy and just other parts of my life.
But that during that time and even now, like I
feel God, I always knew God's gonna call me back
to ministry, and I think that's what He's doing. The

(36:05):
Bible study is just to I think the is to
be for me at least in my journey is just
the beginning, because I feel that God's calling me into
not just evangelism. I don't think evangelism like Benny hen
Or or was it the no Or on TV? You know,
like send your money. You know, if you hand on
train and like that, don't you talk about krapflow. You know,

(36:28):
let's kid, not that man. But a real evangelist goes
out and just brings people to God. And then I
also feel as part of that, there's a differentween the
advantages in the past, the pastors to be at the
church bearing and bearying people and all that other good
stuff vanges out there. He's they're out there on the
front lines getting it. And I've I've always felt called
to like doing things like, you know, delivering people who

(36:48):
are demon possessed and stuff like that. But I got
to really be right before I take that step. I
think I should. I need to be married because I
got problems or not problem. You know what I'm saying.
I need a woman in my life, I need other things.
I need to be right. Right to do that, you
really get attacked to me do that. But I feel
that evangelism in the spiritual warfare like that. I feel
like that's exactly what God's called me to. I don't
even get scared now. People get scared, like, oh man,

(37:09):
that's just my game, and I enjoyed. I love doing
it for God. The apostles did it. And I feel
that that you'll see in a few years from now,
God's gonna call me to that for sure. Wow, I
could see definitely that. I know.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
The Bible study is something I look for to every
Thursday with our group. You know, is there ever been
a time where or moment where you were like that,
ain't even but God that pulled me through? Now?

Speaker 2 (37:36):
I know we know that everything, but was there some
time that you were just like I ain't No, Yeah, yeah, dude,
there's times when God's pulled me through and I didn't
even know. I didn't even know about God. Like I've
been in, I've been in shootouts with people at age
of fifteen oolong shootouts. I've had my car riddled with bullets.

(37:57):
I've been shot through the windshield. I've been with my
sister these days. You meet my sister shoot up all
the time. She and I dance and you can hear
gunshots called. You know, we're dancing like at a I
was wanted and pretty bad and it's by the grace
of God. Like I've been in, I could tell you
I've been in shootout so bad. I've run this guy
named Rick Walker. He's my friend on Facebook. If he's listening,

(38:17):
I'll tell them to listen to this podcast. Rick remembers,
this is that we his name is rich It's Richard.
Now I'm sorry. He goes by Richard, Richard walked or rigid.
But his name in the who was Pooh believe it
or not, but he he We were getting shot at.
We were at a party getting that was getting shot
up and they were getting shot It was getting shot
up by my own family. They didn't know I was

(38:40):
at the party. I could see them and they're shooting
at me, right and Rick, you don't go, hey, guys,
is that you're gonna get lit up? So we turned
and we're running towards the back of a house and
there's a fence there. You could see the fence get
blown away, the chunks of the fence blown away as
we're running to it. And Rick fell down and he
just like froze and I picked. I said, let's go,
let's go. We gotta go. We had to run in

(39:01):
the backyard and we're gonna run and hop the fence.
But there's this guy in front of us. His name
is Sheridan. Sheridan has since been he's a friend of ours.
Sheridan was also murdered about two months after this. But
Sheridan jumped over the fence before us, and we were
on the top of the fence and a rot waller
just ate him up, dude, and we're like, it was
the craziest night. But that's by the grace of God.

(39:22):
I was shot at so directly. You could you could
hear the grounds cracking past us, and you can see
it blowing away the fence, you know those fences just
would yeah, know, the fence glowing away. So that's God, man,
one hundred cent God. And I could take it all
the way to today. Man, where you know I had trauma, trick.

(39:45):
I had a real bad trauma situation a few years back,
and it brought back all this trauma, like this stuff
I'm telling you. I couldn't even used to talk about it, dude.
It was so you know, you're you're not supposed to
see murder. You're not supposed to be your friend dead
at fifteen years old. You know, had a friend of mine.
He was killed. He got shot in the sh and
it just like, you know how shocked everyone was was
seeing Charlie Kirk was killed. Imagine around that more than

(40:09):
once as a kid with no therapy, no one talking
about it, no one cares, you know, So that kind
of trauma stacking on top of each other. And I
had it all trigger off a few years back, and
God had the right support system in place. Had you have.
My friend Steve West reached out, like all these different
people at the same time to help pull me out

(40:30):
of it, because I had got to the end of
my rope, man, and that's when I got into EMDR
and it literally saved my life. Man. That therapy. I'd
highly recommend it for anyone who's going through who has
trauma or any kind of thing going on. They just
can't deal with something from the past, And doesn't matter
how long the past is. But it that's only by God. Man.

(40:50):
Like I was, I kid you not, man, I was
that closed to just not being here anymore. And it
was It was a very dark time. But it didn't
even feel dark as in depression. It felt dark. It
was like the way I explained that I think I've
explained it to you before in the previous conversation. The
people at nine to eleven and those towers, the people
that jumped out the towers running from the jet fuel.

(41:10):
They weren't thinking like what's my wife gonna think, you know,
or what's my whatever. They just needed relief, relief from
that fire that's gonna make darkness. Yes, and that's what
it is. That trauma could be that intense. Man, I
need out. I can't breathe, I can't, you know. And
it just I got overrun man. You know, like they

(41:32):
say in the war movies, when the enemy gets inside
the base, they said, was that the enemies inside the gates, man,
or whatever is inside the gate, you know, I'm sorry,
it's inside the fence, yeah, or whatever. I've seen those movies,
you know, like you're calling for, Like, no, the enemy
is inside the it's inside the wire. The enemies inside
the wire, man, they're just on top of us. That's
what it felt like, man. And God pulled me out

(41:53):
and I'll never go back there again. And those things
that I've been running from my whole life, that I
always pushed down in those memories, they're in a healthier
place now, like I could understand. And I mourned the
child who I was that saw those things and experienced
those things and even participated in those things. I've forgiven
myself or God's forgiving me. But I've never been able
to forgive myself. I've forgiven myself and that's all God. Man,

(42:17):
it's one hundred percent God.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Like had you said forgiven yourself, because a lot of
times it is God. But God holds a door open
for us to walk through, and there's a lot of
people that don't walk through. There's a lot of people
that walk the other way because they can't handle.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
So you know, I've always.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Respected you because you've always had such a positive light
when you could have went all the.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Way to the opposite side.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
So you know, if you were to talk to that
version of you back then, what would you say?

Speaker 2 (42:55):
I don't know, man, I've thought about that before. I
saw a video on TikTok that is, if you could
see your twelve year old self, what would you do?
And I was like, I mean, what would you say
to him? And I don't know because it's and it's
like it's like it'd be like talking through a kid
in a concentration camp through the fence. Words don't unless
I could go and rescue him. I'm like, man, you're

(43:16):
about to go through it, dude, like losing your mother,
like that, you know, at least for your childhood until
you're an adult. Because my ask who my mother woke
up out of her you know, came out of her
state like that. There's you would think that that's the worst,
and it's like, no, dude, it gets worse. And your
best friend you're hanging out with, he's gonna get you know,
part of his head blown off, you know, and it's

(43:37):
just you're gonna and your friend Jason, you're gonna see
him in the casket, you know, and watch his mom crying,
and you're still going to be a kid, you know,
and it's too much. I don't even know what I
would say because there's nothing. I don't think there's anything
I could say to that kid. For me, I would
tell that kid, you should be proud. You've been through
a lot. Week you've been through yeah, yeah, yeah, or

(44:01):
the kid like the young kid about to go through it,
like advice. I was like, I don't know if I
could tell them, oh sorry, no, no.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
No, no, talking about that kid give it not necessarily advice,
but like what would you say?

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Like for me, I would say, you're gonna be proud, like.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
You you've been through a lot of stuff, a lot
of stuff that would make a lot of men, women,
whatever gender, whatever tag crumble. And your resilience, your perseverance,
your kind good hearted person.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
If you were to go back and tell yourself then
you wouldn't believe it. But looking at you now, you
would be you would Yeah, No, I feel you. That
makes sense, that makes sense. I kind of maybe I'm
my view of I needed a rescue even when I
forgot how that I needed someone to rescue me. That's
what I needed. So I kind of look at it

(44:55):
through that lens of life. If I told them they
did a good job, I would feel good now me,
but that person, yeah, it would have been like you know,
so for me, I wonder if it was the same
for you.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
I know, for me looking back now at myself, I
was running in the streets, I was getting shot at
may or may not have been returning fired. Like all
of these things that I was doing, I think was
my tempter, my way to try to get now looking back,
trying to get somebody to help me, and then mixed

(45:31):
with a little bit of I just don't care whether
I live or die. Do you feel like that was
the same for you?

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yes? Well, the violent part you remind me, so can
I can I answer a questions? Of course, it's by
the grace of God that there's someone I never even told.
My ex wife used to be my best friend and
she was closest person to me for fourteen years and
I never told her this, never in her life. And
the only person I told first was my sister. After

(45:58):
going through all the EMDR therapy and I was able
the heal. And but I think it's God that protected me.
When I did attempt to take somebody's life. I put
them on they were on life support, but they survived
and and I thank God for that. You know, I
don't know how I would feel about that and about
myself if that person had passed away, because I tried

(46:21):
several times to get different people, and that's probably him.
Is probably the one I got the most the bath,
not the beat the most efficiently. And that you dude,
I had to bury that deep in my psyche. But
just to answer your question about the time, and it
was God. That was God allowing him to live, because
allowing him to live allowed me to live, Like I'm
attached to that. But going back, like you're saying, my

(46:44):
mindset back then was I don't didn't have a compass, man,
I didn't know. The only thing I can say is
is not only did I not care if I lived
or died, I did not want to live. It wasn't suicidal.
I didn't think, All'm gonna take my own life, but
I didn't want to live. It was actually I remember
thinking like why do my parents have me? No? Like,
why are you gonna have me and leave? Dude? Like

(47:06):
what Like? I hated that I hated. I hated that
I existed, and it it and I felt like that
for years. You know, I just hated it. Man, I
hated I hated that I existed. And so it's a
it's a weird headspace to be in. But it's like
his young people got dying to cancer, praying to God
let them live. I'm like, I don't want to. I

(47:26):
didn't even want to be here in the first place.
I didn't sign up for this. But with the violence,
I would just say, dude, Like, the only thing I
could look back at now through twenty twenty, through more
of a healed place, is that it's just demonic. Man.
It's just demonic. Like if someone did something to me,
no matter what is it not no matter, Like if
you break in my house trying to kill me, obviously
I got to shoot back or whatever. If there's no

(47:49):
reason to take somebody's life, man, there's no reason. It's stupid.
And there's environmental influences from the music to movies to whatever.
And when you don't have a male role all on
your life, for any kind of adult structure, you just
kind of become what's around. Like remember when when Doctor
Drake came out with that album The Chronic, all of
a sudden, all my friends were smoking weed. And then

(48:09):
when when Still started talking Dilizzle, all my friends and
all the people talk like there's an influence there that
people don't realize. What you put in your mind, it
absolutely influences you. And it took. I had a d
program even though I was starting to go with the
church as evangelist. We were dating first my fiance who
became my wife, who became my ex wife. I like, no,
I know she would. She bought me a shirt that

(48:30):
had some red on that get that out of here.
I still had that in my head, like I'm trying
to go to church and be an evangelist. I wouldn't
wear red like it was that ingrained I had a
D program. Let me ask you a question. Did you
still do that to that red? No? Anything? Yeah like
gang stuff? Yet like do you?

Speaker 1 (48:48):
So I'll give you a friends, I always in my
mind think like, okay, what am I gonna wear today?
And so I'm from the South, so like I've got
the Brizigers, I got the hold on.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
You got to have the match you like you got
to have him.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
So so I think to myself anytime like for Instant's
my Mallories family, their big time crips, and so like
anytime I think like I'm going to their house, their
neighborhood or whatever, like I have to be careful with

(49:24):
what I wear it.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Do you still do that to this day? Because I
still do that in a different way, not like that.
When i'm I could tell who's real and who's not. Again,
you know when you're around that you could tell who's
walking not trying to be and who's not. So I
could tell that. I have a habit of looking at hands,
so you know, I want to make sure you know,
I gotta see hands like I need when I'm walking,
I'm looking at hands, I'm looking around the waistline to

(49:46):
see if they have a gun your posture. But yeah,
I just I'm looking to see who's high. I just
I just do analysis. It's not as bad as before.
I'd be ultra vigilant where I walk in and I'm like, hey,
what's up. When I'm saying what's up to someone I'm inspecting,
I'm like, hey, what's up? Man? And I'm looking in
their eyes. Okay, they're a little high. Yeah, who's he with?
Who's that? Who's this? Like I need to know all

(50:07):
this stuff. But now, like I unfortunately, I've had some
friends pass away from the neighborhood, and I've had with
the funerals. No, I just casual, but I am strapped
to the gills, like I have extra magazine, I have
my my night handgun on me and at the funeral
because it's put this way. One of my friends, he

(50:27):
had passed away a few years ago. His name's Casey.
He's a good friend of mine. Casey's not even a
gang member. Casey was a DJ rapper, cool dude. You know,
some stuff he got happened to him, you know, later
in life. And the funeral before his because the funeral
home was in the hood, the funeral before his has
got shot up. So I'm at his funeral and there's

(50:48):
bullet holes in the wall. Dude, I kid you not, Man,
I kid you not, dude. There's bille holes on they
try to pay some of them was but the walls
were like kind of like this dark kind of sand color,
like a dark bait. But they have the white pasty
that we fir to dry what you called me the
putty wherever it's called the yeah it but yeah. So

(51:08):
I'm in there, stop man, and I sit in the back.
So I'm like.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Always I still to this day, I tell people when
you've been through so much like ingrain. So it's kind
of like if you've ever seen the movie Terminator, and
like when he's looking around, like it'll pop up like
thirty eight year old male or like pedophile or like
whatever my brain steal. Like when I go in places,

(51:33):
I'm like and I'm reading, like I hope maybe one
day you know, I'll give.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Save your life. Man, that will save your life. I
think that's a smart thing to have. I think law
enforcement people learn that because you have to be you
have to be aware of your environment. That's how people
end up going viral. On TikTok and World Star because
they walk around, hey man, and the dude's already posturing
to punch you. You oh man like you today? Yeah dudes, yeah, yeah,

(52:07):
so you you really have to pay attention. Yeah, you
just have to pay it.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
But no, those I'm trying to think of those tendencies.
It's just I think that just analyzing people and paying
attention to the environment is is something that never went away.
I wasn't born like that. I had to learn, you know,
from bad things happen to people. So uh, yeah, dude,
I'm sorry. I'm just thinking of stupid stuff that that

(52:31):
costs me to learn. But yeah, but yeah, no, but
I'm just I stay armed, man, like I not that
I'm paranoid. I'm not armed all the time. But if
I have to go back to the hood, yeah dude,
there was no way. There's no way, because I know
how things could get. You know, you have people fragile
egos and and they don't know how to shoot a

(52:53):
gun and they're gonna you know, yeah, it's in the
police like when you have funerals like that, or in
in the hood police like oh, we'll put a police
car unmarked vehicle there for safety, but the cars outside. Dude,
by the time he comes in there that whoever's inside's
gonna light everybody up. Which happened? And I want to
say the funeral homes name. Afterwards, I could show you
made the news. We're talking about it. We'll talking about

(53:16):
it before a Bible study. Yeah. I don't want to
ask man, but let me I ask you.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
How do you helpe that your story inspires others that
are struggling that.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
I just hope it. I hope that at least provides
some type of blueprint, you know, to how to on
what to do. Like I wish I had someone to
mentor me, you know, like say with you your kids, right,
you teach your kids like they have a problem with
school or they don't, or say someone's teasing. Let me
tell your kids who cares what they say? Make new friends? Right?

(53:50):
I didn't have meant that simple mentorship. We didn't have
not we were We're just like what do we do?

Speaker 1 (53:56):
You know what I'm saying, Angers the easiest emotion and
we were tall anger before anything else.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, and it works. You knocked somebody up. The messages out.
Don't make fun of Clinton. I don't right, Yeah, they
don't mess with you. That's how you so. But those
little things like I hope that my life could be
a blueprint that someone could look at, not that my
life is not that I'm anyone of significance, but if
they decided to look into my life, they can go, oh, man,

(54:26):
well that worked for him, maybe there's hope for me
because I'm similar, I have a similar you know situation,
or I have a similar traumas, I have similar you
know things.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
You So, just to clarify significance, you are you, I know,
just for me. You've saved me time and time again.
And you're more of a light. And it's hard because
we grew up the way we grew up for us
to see our value and worth. But your value and worth,

(54:59):
you're a light to a lot of people, and it's
hard for you to see, but you're You're a light
to a lot of people, and they I know, for me,
I appreciate you. You know, someone's listening right now, and
you talked before about being in a very dark season,
and somebody's in a very dark season. What's one piece
of encouragement that you would want them to hear from you?

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Well, a few things. One is that nothing lasts forever.
It might feel like forever, but nothing lasts forever. When
you're in it. It feels like, say, if you're overwhelmed
by something, whatever it is in your life, it feels,
you know, a day. I'll just use an example for
people listening to who's had their heartbroken before. You know,
when your heart broken, one day seems like a year, right,

(55:45):
like when's the sun goingnds, Like you go to sleep
so off thinking about this woman. Then when you go
to sleep you have dreams about her. When's the day
going to start? Sec Like you're just running.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
From yourself, whining, springing, crying. Yeah, so so wait, I say,
on quick. I was talking to John, you know, professor Johnny.
We were talking like this is yesterday. We were talking like, man,
isn't it great?

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Man? How jiu jitsu just gets your mind off the things?
And you could come here because you know, because you
know he worked hard there at the he's he actually
freaking work that works very And I said, yeah, but
there's tailand jiu jitsu. Man, you got stuff so sad,
like you can't even training jiu jitsu you're thinking about it.
And he goes really, and I told him aout the
time when I found out my wife was cheat having

(56:28):
an affair, not cheating, not going out and getting drinking,
having a booty call, on accident or whatever, full on affair, right,
And I said, I tried to come to jiu jitsu
and I was in line, you know, and I remember
Professor Philip walked on me. He looked at me and goes, Achidy,
are you all right? And dude, like, I just started
weeping right there. I walked out of the gym to
the back fence where the train track is. Yeah, held

(56:51):
out of the fence, no joke. I cried for like
two hours straight. Man, I couldn't stop. I said, Man,
jiu jitsu couldn't save me on that one, dude. But
it passed. But it passed. So I'm saying, one who's listening,
nothing lasts forever, nothing, not even giant kingdom's like Rome,
ancient Rome, or you know, whatever you see going on
in the world, Everything passes, and all the trauma that

(57:12):
you've been through, it's passed. And there's people that have
went through what you've went through. And I'm speaking to
people who may be listening that are in this space fun.
It's you. You can make it out, and it's you
will make it out, and it will pass. It's not
gonna stay feeling like it's on ten all the time
and seek help. There are solutions. Science and technology is
so advanced now. Like I did EMDR, which is a

(57:35):
drug free approach. It worked better than at that point
I've already done over a decade or half of my
adult life doing talk therapy. I got in and it
hooked me up to this machine and got my brain
fired off, and it just gave me all these breakthroughs fast,
immediate per session, not like dragged out. So I would
just say, you know, I know it's hard to think

(57:56):
about people around you, like cause you're in that spot too.
You you don't think about other people. Go, well, who were
they thinking about before they ended it? Nobody they're thinking
about getting They're thinking about, you know, jumping out that
building because that jet fuel you know, in the world, Jason,
that's what they're thinking about. So try to focus on
people around you, because whatever pain you have, if you
do hurt yourself, you're gonna dump it on the people

(58:16):
around you and they're gonna have to carry that burden.
For the rest of their life. I'm unfortunate where I
have a friend of mine I won't say his last name,
and for his first name. He's a blue belt from Gracie.
Baja's name is Andrew. I used to give him a
lot of privates and stuff, and he took his own
life in twenty eighteen, and I was the last person
to speak to him. Talk to him, Hey, bro, just
checking out blah blah blah, YadA, YadA YadA, so like
I can't forg jiu jitsu anymore. I was like, yo,
I'll cover the bill. I'll get you worked out it out.

(58:40):
He got off the phone with me three hours later
hung himself and I went to his funeral and everything
and it, you know, had a five year old daughter,
a four year old daughter and everything, and it was
just like it wasn't I saw his dad. It was
so bad, dude. I saw his dad ask see going
to heaven, And the guy who was officiating the funeral
was like yeah. And I remember thinking to myself, I

(59:01):
don't know if he went to heaven or not. Right,
it's what if someoney, what if he asked to me
that would I have said the same thing And I'm like,
I have to. It's mercy, man, you know what I'm saying, Like,
sometimes it's merciful to withhold any theological debates of who knows,
cause you know, the Bible says national I child, and
he did this, and that was one of them. I'm
getting sidechecked, But that was one of the most like

(59:23):
christ Like moments I've ever seen, In one of the
most painful moments of watching a parent. His biggest concern
is that my son go to Hell for this and so,
but bringing it back circles that, Hey, uh, what do
you call it? I would say for someone who's been
it myself, have been pushed to the brink like that,
you can get out and you'd seek help. There's I
would recommend the MBR off as trauma related or there's

(59:45):
a lot of free resources and if you don't know
what to do, use chat GBT, ask CHATGBT about what sources.
There's always something, or reach out. Reach out to Clinton
or Clinton knows a lot of things. Write them on
social media and say, hey, man, I'm going through this.
Do you have any advice or any resources you could
provide me And maybe they could reach out to you
and you could just you know, yeah, yeah, because yeah,

(01:00:07):
it's it's a serious thing. And once you do that,
there's no coming back, man. Like once you once you
take that final step to to you know, not delete yourself,
you you can't take it back, man. And and like
for me, they used to even scare me that I
went that dark. But now I look back at it
and I understand what it is. And there is a
spiritual component too, which I won't go into this podcast
go forever, but which I don't mind, but I don't

(01:00:29):
know I you have. But it's it's gonna be okay.
It's what I'm saying. It's gonna be okay. And there's
people around that will help you. And and the world's
not a dark place. It's not a dark place forever, dude. Everyone,
even in the Bob, even Jesus went through the grind
where he's like, God, if it's your will take this
from me, like he's been under that level of yeah,
take yeah. So everyone's been there, and you're talking to

(01:00:51):
Clinton and I are both survivors of that situation, those
types of situations, and we're both here and look at us.
We're happy, we're doing our thing. And the same could
happen to you. And I all emphasize one thing, give
your life to God. I don't mean to say it,
I don't mean to sound like a cliche or anything
like that. But there's actual there's healing. There, there's healing.
There's healing. You don't have to jump into the Bible
or jump to them church. You can just literally hit

(01:01:13):
your knees and say God. Even though my brain, my
psyche is saying one thing I don't believe or I
don't just don't make sense, say God, Please ask God
to reveal himself to you, and he will, but you sincerely,
If you sincerely reach out to God, he'll reveal himself
to you. And I've seen him do it to many people.
And that right there is one thing that I think
plays a major role because once you get your soul

(01:01:35):
and your spirit replenished with the Holy Spirit, with something
that's with a positive entity. Because everybody believes in ghosts,
but no one believes in the Holy ghost, right, Like
everyone's like, oh, man, don't come in that house's hearted
or the ghost shows, right, but they got what about
God in his spirit? I don't know. I don't know.
And I was like, but you believe in the negative,
but you don't be in the positive. Even though the
guy I can't remember his name right now, there's a

(01:01:55):
big atheist. They should go on Joe Rogan's podcast and
he debates people's eight Sam Harrison, Sam Harris, he believes
in ghosts, but you don't believe in God. He believes
in ghosts. He wouldn't even stay it. Yeah, there's a
hotel he's supposed to say, and he said it was haunted. Dude,
he doesn't mess around, but he believes he doesn't believe
in God. That's what I'm saying. No, but see that's
how that's spiritual warfare at its finest, where you just you.

(01:02:20):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
It's like you and if you by listening, want to
uh come into our Bible study, let us know we'd
love to have you. I gotta bet you first make
sure you ain't gonna come in there and cause commotion.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
But uh now, but just so you guys know, it's free.
It's it's open like that. But I get what you're saying,
Like there's someone I can't let in because he has
a drug problem and he be saying something's off the chain, man,
Like it's it be offensive to everybody. It's not that
I'm coming from a place of judgment.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
It's just coming from a place we want everybody to
be comfortable in. Everybody need to be respectful to everybody
in the class.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
And some some folks just ain't gonna be back, you know. Yeah,
if you're intoxicated, for sure. Yeah. I mean, like there's
a guy's high all the time. I'm trying to get
him in a man. He is the most bizarre. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
Yeah, So yeah, that's a wrap for today's episode of
The Front Porch Chronicles. Kenny Man, I can't put into
words how grateful I am for you and for your brother.
You've always been there for me and I truly appreciate you,

(01:03:38):
and I'm always there for you as well.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Thank you, and.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Anybody that's going through a tough time. Like Kenny said,
ask God to come into your life. If you want
to come to our Bible study, slide into d MS,
will have a conversation and go from there. If you
ever have any thoughts of self harm, please reach.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Out and I'll help you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
You get any recommendations and help you with that as well.
Until next time, keep showing up, keep fighting forward, and
fighting a good fight, peace, love and blessings to you all.