Learning to Fight - Forrest Griffin - Episode 17

Learning to Fight Podcast — Conversations in Combat Skill

After a year-long hiatus, the Primal MMA Coaching Podcast is back—Rebranded, and refocused as the Learning to Fight Podcast: Conversations in Combat Skill.

Your hosts are:

Adam Singer — Co-owner and head coach at SBG Athens, BJJ black belt, long-time MMA coach, with years of developing novice to elite level fighters. Student of Matt Thornton and SBG's philosophy of 'aliveness'.
Scott Sievewright — Co-Owner at Primal MKE, MMA skills coach and obsessive student of how humans learn to move and fight. 

Together, we dive deep into the art and science of coaching, training, and skill development in combat sports.
 Expect honest conversations about MMA, striking, grappling, practice design, contemporary research, traditional approaches, ecological dynamics, and the messy realities of learning under pressure.

No gurus. No dogma. Just two coaches trying to understand fighting a little better each week.

Same curiosity. New lens.
Learn how to learn.
Find your own style.
Thrive on the mats—and in the cage.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

I went in the bathroom to take a pick. And I threw my phone in the toilet. And the toilet was full of cigarette buttons. It was not a fun way to start my trip today. So you remember that? I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

And I remember you were then like uh working off your iPad the whole time. Your iPad off your iPad.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

But we wrote we grappled. That's like the last time we ever grappled. Is that the last time you ever grappled?

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Uh no, when was that?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

That could be 10 years ago, 12 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

No, I uh I was actually got back into it and I was grappling up till COVID. When was that? Like 2020?

unknown 0:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

And then I I quit for COVID and I went on like this hardcore workout thing. Um, you know, you kind of went one way or the other over COVID and I said, fuck it, I'll get shoulder replacements, and I just worked out really hard. And then um I tried to come back and grapple after COVID, like 2021, and I was like, oh no, no, this is not happening. I'm not doing this at all. Like, no, no part of this is good. I have no athleticism to rely on. Uh, every other position, I gotta stop. Um, and then like even not even the next day, but that night, my neck was locked up, my shoulders were locked up, and I was like a T-Rex and I couldn't function like the next day. So I was like, Yeah, I'm not gonna do this anymore. And also, too, um, you know, things are either fun when you're good at them, or things are fun when you perceive progression, you know? Like you guys used to beat me up for the first six months every day, but every day you beat me up a little less. Do you know what I'm saying? So I got okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I remember how quickly well, we weren't that far ahead of you at that point, right? When you started training with us, we were still like we had a few lessons in jujitsu. We had videotapes, we weren't so the three of us. Sure. That's a great point, right? I had a lot of knowledge about jujitsu when we met, but you very quickly caught up with the knowledge of jujitsu the because you were a good athlete. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

And things just always kind of came to me, you know. Like I could usually play large large motor coordination things would would usually come to me, you know. Like hitting a baseball, no. Catching and throwing a baseball for whatever reason, yeah, I was great at that. You know, shooting a basketball, mediocre. Um, but like, you know, like run, push, pull, those things are always easy for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So, Forrest, that's Scotty up there, the bald guy.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Yes, uh D right? Siv right, yeah. That was a good idea. Yeah, it makes more sense. Well, Scotty, good to meet you. Real real quickly, I apologize. We'll go ahead and get started. What's your background?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Uh my my background is uh I started late in sport, but I've been um I I started with Dick Rufus just over 20 years ago with him for a few years. Then I moved on to train and start cutting my coaching teeth with a red uh Red Schaefer. Oh yeah, Red Schaefer, that's that's funny. And then uh six years I've been running Primal. I met Adam about three years ago. Wait, where's Primal? Primal's in Milwaukee as well. Okay Primal Red Schaefer, uh the late Duke, you know, as Duke Duke. Um they they're they were all in Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Oh, that's awesome. Awesome. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

You you've been up here for one of the APFC shows, haven't you?

SPEAKER_02 3:09

I have not actually. I've I've almost been. Um uh I'm sure I'll get there eventually. That's Anth Anthony, you know, he's he's a stud. He's always around here doing something, and uh yeah, he'll get me up there one time.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, they just had a show last week, uh the new landmark um uh event center here. It was a beautiful show. Does it they do a great job? Great fights.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, part you one of Anthony's training partners.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yes, that was before he was well, he I knew uh it was quite apparent he was going to be something special, but yeah, so I've been hitting the head a lot too, Boris. Many of them from a young Anthony Pennis. That sounds horrible. Anyway, I don't think we need any introductions, but maybe one ticket away.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I don't uh so uh no introductions. So you're sitting you're sitting in your office in uh UFC Performance Institute. Tell us about what you do and what the UFC Performance Institute is.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Okay, that's great. Let's start with the Performance Institute. So Performance Institute, and I'm sure I've got a uh a spiel here, but it's it's a holistic performance training center for the UFC fighter. So if you think about everything that every other major athlete has, um in 2016, 2015, the UFC said, uh, you know, we should we should figure out a way to support the athlete because they they seem to be getting hurt more than they need to, and we're losing a lot of main events, uh, and they seem to have trouble making weight, or even if they make weight, they perform and they say how poorly they perform because of the weight cut. So, you know, uh taking that into account is all right, well, we got to figure out how to help them. So those were the two big drivers. And then um kind of as we went, I said, well, you know what, I've been doing a lot of strength and conditioning, and I actually think it made me worse, not better, you know. So you have we have to have some sort of strength and conditioning tied into uh you know, tied into a holistic MMA plan as opposed to get bigger, faster, stronger, and that's the goal, even if there's some interference with your technical training, which obviously that's it's a bad trade-off. Um, and then you know, uh physical therapy became sports medicine, chiropractor, athletic training. Uh, we now have the physician's assistant on staff for those weird, weird, uh, weird red marks. What are they? Do we, you know, do you need antibiotics for this? Um, you know, you you get sick, you break down in the sport, you're rolling against other people, you have a lot of you know, weird stuff like that. So uh they brought a P in a PA in. Uh and then there's a they call it the performance nutrition team now, but it's a team of dietitians and like chef-level chefs that travel around to every event, prepare the athletes' meals based on uh you know, based on what they weigh, where they're trying to get, how much water they're gonna cut, uh, and you know, what their weight descent for competition looks like, right? So they could dial them in, help them out. They've got all the you know, the DEXA, the metabolic readings, everything to really get an athlete where they need to go to be optimal for that weight class. With that said, athletes, independent contractors, they're gonna decide what weight class they want to fit in, and then we'll support them from there. Um, you know, with that, and I keep saying holistic, but it's it's just damn true. Um, you know, your nutritionist, dietitian is gonna talk to your SNC coach and say, hey, we're actually trying to mitigate hypertrophy. We need some strategies for that. Well, we want to be powerful, we can't afford to gain lean mass, which is a funny thing uh for me as you know, a wannabe football player. Like these guys are working to not gain muscle. But um, and then then obviously we have an operations team that helps athletes schedule everything. Uh sport psychology, that was the latest. Well, no, that was one of the later offerings, but that's been five years now. Um, and uh there's probably something else. And then we have two academies that teach the sport of MMA. So we we try to be agnostic to the athlete as far as what they do MMA training. One of the things I get to do that's very cool is I help them uh basically intake what what training they do, what their blocks look like, and how do we how do we wrap our services around that, right? So how do we put the SNC in so it doesn't interfere with your sparring or your hard wrestling? How do we, you know, how do we formulate that recovery plan from physical therapy? What injuries do you have that that would maybe suggest, you know, uh either a mobility workout, warm-up before this workout, or maybe even removing, reducing, etc. Um, you know, and you'd be surprised how common that is. Three weeks out from a fight, a guy or gal is banged up, and then they're gonna we're gonna help them modify their training um so they can get their skill work, but in a manner that allows them to make it to the fight. Um and then, you know, we've got sports science. I didn't mention that. It's called performance science now. And you know, there's two big things. You know, I I didn't actually know what sports science was when we started, I had no idea. But but the two big things I use them for is load management, uh, which is the big one. So they're the ones that kind of track what everybody else does and make sure it's on the same spot. And then the other one that's very cool that's one of my favorite things that I've been slacking on recently is understanding the sport of itself. Understanding the sport itself. What are the characteristics uh that make you good at the sport? What is actually happening in the sport at your weight class? Um, you know, what are the things you need to do? Uh what is the you know fancy way to say it is we want to discern and disseminate the best practices for training for and competing in the sport of MMA. And that's something I get to work with the sports science team on. Um so that that's that's pretty much the the big um um you know kind of pillars of service that we provide. And again, our our team, our sports med and sports uh nutrition performance nutrition, whatever they're calling themselves now, and and chefs, they go to every event and prepare all the meals, everything, oversee the weight cut, the acute water cuts, and then give you a plan for your descent for competition. So um, and again, this place uh what happens is we athletes come in, we get a need, a sense of what they need, and then you know, we we we adapt to meet that need, right? Um so sports psych, not my idea originally. Like I wasn't uh I was almost uh it's not something I ever needed, and maybe I was just almost afraid. If you go poking around in people's head, you might find some shit, you know. But um it's it's a service the athletes wanted, and so we do it. Um and and now that I know what it is, I love it and I actually want to go back to school for it. But anyway, um, yeah, I think that's a good kind of representation of what we do. And you know, it's always growing. We have a lot of um, you know, one of the things uh I was just doing with with my boss is actually talking to uh the commission and the regulation about when weigh-in should be. Like what what what is what is fair and what is safe, you know, as far as the rehydration, what's gonna happen, you know, how how do we set weigh-ins up so athletes aren't you know cutting so much and et cetera, right? But but there's still a similar weight come fight night, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

I think um I I think it's a good place to explore right now is a couple of points here uh for us, because I'm I'm really interested in how you guys are are over overseeing the weight cuts and your your thoughts on it. I've I've and UFC has have the resources to do something different from most amateur shows, more regional promotions. I've talked spoken with Adam a lot. I don't have a I don't have a great answer for for weight cuts. As long as fighters are going to be gaming the game and getting it the absolute most amount of advantage, perceived advantage they can get, is there are you gravitating towards someone? Is there something coming up? My question is what would be what would be ideal for you? You've spoken a little bit about changing weight in times or the hydration issues now. Tell me a bit more about that, please.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Well, here's the thing, to an extent, and I don't mean to sound insensitive, it it solves itself because if you do cut X amount of weight and you put it back on, you don't feel good. Like you feel bad. Um and then you just you know you just create an energy deficit on you know one of your more important days. And um, you know, you talk to a lot of guys, is it worth it to go through two fights? Like I've had some rough weight cuts, and I can tell you I didn't I used the fight in Ireland. I fought in Ireland once and I had a horrible weight cut. Um just travel, time in excuse, excuse. Um was disciplined when I needed to be the most disciplined, and um, you know, I was afraid to press the gas in that fight, um, you know, because I just didn't know what was what was in the tank, and I knew it wasn't much, you know. I didn't I didn't feel like a guy that could really uh you know go. So um yeah, I mean, and then they they they uh they have day-in checks so you get your weight when you walk come to the arena. And for me, as long as those are reasonably close, as long as everybody's playing the same game, it it's safe. Um let me just jump in and say this is not my area of expertise. Uh it's something I assist with and I you know I give thoughts on, but but we have a sports dietetics team that would probably answer that question a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

All right, so maybe over the course of the next couple of weeks, we might ask you to hook us up with with some of those people if you don't mind. Um but you do have some data on um like how much weight guys and are still successful, how much guys put back on and are still successful. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Well, that's actually uh I don't know if that's released, but they're releasing that in uh in a white paper shortly. So that's again, that's a that's more of a Charles Stell question, our leader, our lead guy.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Okay. Um you sort of glanced over it. Your the institute you work at in Vegas is not dedicated to skill development because it wouldn't be oh sure.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Well, I mean, you know, if you think about it, let's say you guys are fighting, the second I start teaching one of you a skill, I'm I'm working against the other one. Whereas if I'm just trying to make you, the best athlete, come in, feel the best on fight date, the healthiest, best, high performance, and then the same for Scott, well, that that's that's fine. But once you get into the technical arena, um, you know, it it just really becomes a conflict of interest, right? Also, they're independent contractors, so uh there's just a lot of reasons not to do that. But yeah, to your point where you're going with that, Mexico City and Shanghai, China, we have talent uh development, what we call academies, and um I'm not super familiar with the football academies in Europe, but that's kind of the model that I've tried to steal and kind of run with, you know. So you get local kids come up, we bring them through, um, you know, we put them through some sort of tryout combine, um, you know, then then we we you know we we keep some, train and release some, and then you know, you you we're trying to create ecosystems in uh you know in Shanghai and in Mexico City. So for UFC fighters, for other up-and-comers, just for um, you know, kind of a place for the best fighters in the region to gravitate. Um, and this is kind of part two of it. I've skipped part one of it, but I'll just jump into part two because I'm already there. Um, you know, if you think about the old talent development program, the UFC would go around Sean Shelby and and I think Joe Silva back then, and they would take four or five of the best athletes from the region and they would put them in Jackson Winklejohn, put them in um what was it on Black House or whatever, you know. Uh they would they would put them in a gym in the States, you know, with the old Iron Sharpens Iron philosophy. And sometimes that worked. You know, Brandon Moreno, uh he came from there, a lot of a lot of good fighters came from those programs. Um, a couple of the first Chinese fighters came from those programs. Uh, but but what we really want to do is, you know, deincentivize talent flight and get people to train, you know, in their in their hubs. Like Vegas has become a hub of training, which is awesome. I get to see and get to get exposed to a lot of different kind of practices and and you know, uh, you know, just just kind of methods of of learning, training, and practicing the sport. And then, you know, we we we're trying to make Shanghai or Mexico City very similar to that, where it's a USA athlete will go there, they'll have all the access to the services, and then they'll they'll kind of stay as they graduate the academy and then build up, and then the local gyms become stronger there. And then instead of I'm a good fighter in South America, instead of like, oh, I have to go to the States, well, why don't I go to Mexico City? It's cheaper, it's less, you know, and make that kind of the hub, right? And that's that's kind of like a phase two of the project. Phase one is just to find the best fighters from the region and get them into the UFC.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

I I want to go back to the wait because I have a specific question. If we were to pick out 55. So I I work just with amateurs, so that's my area. There, I I don't get out of my wheelhouse just now and talk about high-level pros because I don't work with high-level pros. But I have seen this and it's been a long, long time, right? Even since I had uh amateur, some amateur fights 15 years ago. I call it the UFC vacation amateur fighting, where amateur fighters are cutting these huge weights. I I I don't like it, I don't advocate for it, but often when I take my guys in the in the cage, they're significantly smaller. What would you speculate um if you've got a rough idea? Just say for a 55er, what are they typically coming down from? Walk out weight, walk around weight? What are they maybe a week out? And how much are they cutting that last that last day or so? I know that's kind of a general question.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm I'm I'm not your guy for that question. Um, and and I, you know, there's too much variance to give you an answer. Okay. That's fair. What I what I can say is what I encourage is for an athlete to figure out what you're gonna weigh on on the fight day. Like what's the heaviest point you'll get to on the day you fight, right? Walk around at that. And that's what I did in my own career. I would cut from about 225 and I would get back up to about 220. And that for me, that was, you know, I felt good. Uh I thought I was synesick, I got up to 226. I felt fucking horrible. I felt like I had a cannonball on my stomach. Um, I was just like slow and oh god. I needed like literally another day just to recoup from hydrating and eating so much, just to kind of let it wash through me, you know. Um, so yeah, that that that's always my advice to a guy. Figure out what the heaviest point is on fight day and try to walk around and train it that way. It's just I just try to tell athletes the importance of training the body you're gonna fight in, um, which a couple times I didn't do. I was training 230, 230-ish. Um, it's not percentage-wise to 206, it's not that bad, so I can make the cut without too much stress. But the last couple weeks, um, you know, I had traumatic like stress getting out wrestled by Jay Heron, who fights at 170, just because I was like coming down and late, I didn't have any calories and you know, I was just that last two weeks of training was uh, you know, it was just almost pointless. When when you need to be deriving confidence from your training, when you need that that that boost to feel good the most, you feel horrible. And the idea is that your taper and your cut will sync up with your reduced calories so that you're not doing a two-week major reduction in calories. It's more like a week, eight, ten days, and then that is also falls in line with your um with your D load or your taper. Let's see it's taper, would be the word, right? So that that's that's the uh you know, again, that's that's the advice I would give you. And it's advice, not information, because I am a professional.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Well, and sure, and I I don't have an answer to you. Sorry, I'm just you mentioned you weighed the athletes the day they come to the the arena or the fights. I've always been curious of that figure, and I'm uh I'm curious why maybe they don't they they don't share that. I'd love to see that.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

They're doing um there's a lot to it, right? So if you've ever been involved in research, you know like what are the what are the athletes wearing, uh, what times, you know, you've got you've got to standardize these things. Otherwise, I'm just getting the number like this guy was 232. Well he had fucking boots on, you know, he wouldn't take them off. You know, athletes are not super compliant on fight day. So you've got to you've got to kind of figure out uh a way to get athletes to do what you want from them, um, you know, kind of without making it a punishment, right? So there's a lot to that.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, I'd just say that I'd certainly like to see the the the weight they're walking in the cage up.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah, well it's it's gonna be. They're they're releasing it, they've got it, they're doing you know an actual research paper on to make sure that the numbers aren't bullshit. Having I've gotten involved in a lot of uh scientific research. Um even I got to be in a study at UGA once, and um, yeah, it's uh I don't know, it's it's not always as good as you think. Um you know, there's a whole uh there's a whole industry where they go back and look at papers through AI now. Um it's like they it's like a game, and like a lot of the papers that we've base stuff on are you know they're not they're not being validated or reproduced.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

So that's the one of the biggest there are two huge crises in in scientific research right now. One of them is the reproducibility crisis. Reproducibility, yeah. Because you take a study from this environment and move it to another environment, and all of a sudden you can't reproduce it. And then the other has to do with statistical nonsense and feed hacking and stuff, which are totally separate things. What bothers me about amateurs cutting weight is if you think about what you just said, is there uh so there are there's like two weeks before the fight where they're just dragging. So right, so now that two weeks of development that doesn't happen. They fight, then they have to recover from injuries for a week or two. And then so every fight you're losing a month of development time early in a fighter's career. And if you cut more weight, they may be stuck for three weeks before their fight. And it's very frustrating. And now you got guys, if they fight three, four times a year, they're losing three, four months of prime development time.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Well, they're they're not gonna be able to fight that much. That's another thing. That's another thing, Scott. The the more minimal weight cuts are gonna allow you to fight more often. You know, if it's if it's a whole setup and I gotta, you know, it's it's uh yeah. Well, you know, and just to kind of the big thing too, Adam, is you're you know, I didn't even think about all the training loss for an amateur, which is huge. Um I was thinking more like, you know, two weeks out, you're losing. And even if they're not full live situations, you've got situational goes, you're still doing stuff to stay sharp for the sport, and you're not sharp because you're calorie depleted and you're you're you're already burnt from training hard for four or five weeks. And now here you are, like you're losing the guys you usually beat. You know, you're you're getting stuck in positions and you're just like, fuck, I feel tired. And that's when you need the most confidence, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I I spend and I did this when you were fighting as well, and something like when when we're in those last couple weeks and I'm watching those things, if I see a the partner getting the upper hand, sometimes I'll I'll just catch their attention and be like, Yeah, you know, don't don't let them win, but maybe don't finish it right here.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

This is yeah, I I got that from you. And that's that's something I kind of explained to everybody, you know. Uh yeah, I I got that from you. I've taken it with me my my whole you know kind of career now, coaching and developmental career. And uh yeah, I mean that's just important. In a sport like fighting, where it is a bit mental, you you really need to go in uh with some wins, some confidence. And um, you know, Tim Tim Crater actually picks on me because I didn't so much get that uh when I was coaching, the ultimate fighter. I was I was a lot of time sparring with the guys, and I wasn't like beating them up or anything, but I wasn't letting them get wins, you know, a week before their fight when I was sparring. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

You know, it's why I'm careful, I'm careful with shark tanks and stuff now, because there are some guys that relish it, and there are some guys that it is disruptive for them.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah. Yeah. But but it's it's as simple as what what a guy used to work with called pre-framing. You know, so you get the partner like, this is what you're gonna do, this is what you're not gonna like by, you know. Right. And and again, I I would just kind of on the side here, I think the best training tool ever invented is a good partner. You know, if you can have a partner slightly better than you and a partner slightly under you, that's that's the best training tool for any MMA athlete.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

See now if we were gonna get into uh discussion about ecological dynamics or anything like that, that is exactly what we would talk about. That a room full of guys offering all kinds of different variability, all kinds of different looks, all kinds of different everything is the number one training tool. It's not as much as iron sharpens iron, it's it's it's more about you know, variability creates growth. Yeah, variability creates growth.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

I like that. I'm off chance I remember it, I'll try to use that. I'll write it down for you. Uh did you have an amateur career forest? I guess I did. Yeah, I had six amateur fights. You had six. Yeah. Which your first amateur story. Um which were great. Adam can attest. We agreed on the rules at Weigh ins.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Sometimes, yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah, well, I remember the uh Waller's fights. Like I remember uh correct? No, I'm I know I'm right. Somebody asked, can we hit as hard as we can? Somebody asked that question. I was like, holy shit. But you know what? I was like, there's such knuckleheads here. That gave me more confidence. I was like, these guys are clowns. Of course we're gonna hit as hard as we can. What the hell is this guy talking about?

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Like, this guy, what the in one of Forrest's amateur fights, he was trying to box with a guy whose only real skill was boxing. No, no, I was it's Scott's fault.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

I was trying to elbow because it was the first time they made a big deal about elbows being legal. And I was like, Stan standing elbows, not on the ground, standing elbows. So I was like, oh, okay. So it just turns out that like the fist has has a longer range than the elbow. That's what I learned.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Okay, so for whatever reason, Forrest is getting beat up a little bit. So they have a break, and Forrest shoots a double end. And he runs. We're fighting in a ring, not a cage. This is how old Forrest is. Shoots the double, drives this guy, the guy folds backwards over the ropes. And that was it. He won a fight.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

So that's when I knew uh that I just have a high level of empathy. Because yes, he was beating me, and he was gonna fall over outside the ring. And I thought, I could let him fall. And then I didn't know he was gonna be hurt. I was like, I could let him fall, and then when we go back to fighting, he's gonna be really messed up, you know. Uh I'll it'll do like some damage to him because he might fall. He's gonna fall on like people, it's gonna be bad. And um, you know, I could let him fall, it'll be worse. And then I didn't. I grabbed him and pulled him back in. Yeah. I like pulled him back in so he didn't fall outside the ring. And I was like, man, it's it's good to be empathetic, but maybe there's a time to not be empathetic.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah, he went out on a stretcher. Now you claim to be empathetic, yet you let the oldest man to ever fight MMA almost die in the c in the ring.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yeah, he was he was totally conscious, and he was literally like looking at me like uh he just wanted to weigh out. He just didn't want, you know, I was like, well, what are you doing? I don't know. Yeah, that's another story. That's that's uh yeah. Empathy. Yeah. Maybe don't drink beers before you ref fights.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Do you have an do you have an opinion on that? How you know if if we map onto other sports and the and the amount of game time we get, and then we look at some of the the amateur model here, where six amateur fights is probably about average for us. But I'm seeing guys turn pro much earlier and whatnot. Um when we look at boxing, Muay Thai and whatnot, we're talking dozens, scores, maybe even hundreds of fights. Uh I'm curious if you've got any thoughts on like from a development perspective, whether you you'd like to see fighters spend more time in the amateur circuit.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Absolutely, yeah. Especially, you know, it depends on the rule set too, like the amateur rule set, right? Um, I think uh God, what's his name? Chiwiwi, I forget his real name. Um he's a good example. Sorry? Yeah, yeah. Ralph Rosis, yeah. So he had a ton of amateur fights. Um, you know, where he was fighting so young it was like no strikes to the head, you know, like so it's and what what what did that create? Starting young with no strikes to the head, it created a really good grappler. Now he's actually had some trouble uh now that there are strikes to the head, um, you know, in the pros, right? And I think it's because he had made so many fights without strikes to the head, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

That's really interesting. That's really interesting to me because I put my guys through. So we run we call it pank creation, right? So it's Norbus MMA with strikes. We just had our 40 fight uh card last weekend. Um we're on our 17th event. For the most part, it's really competitive. It's two minute rounds, they're all fucking exhausted at the end of the going in the second round. Uh, I think it's so I'm trying to recreate the kind of the some of the context, you know, you're fighting in front of your friends and your girlfriend and whatnot, which I think is really valuable. Uh and I'm seeing a lot of I'm seeing a lot of perceived success with that. So what I'm trying to do, my amateur team is getting a ton, especially under 18s, right? I don't let them get hit in the head at all, but they're they're doing a bunch of these, maybe 10, 15, 20 pinecraft matches, and then they're getting ready for their amateur careers.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah. So you're just talking about the game day, you know, again, yes, competing 2.3 times a year, um, you know, it's a lot better if you go through a wrestling season and you're like, oh god, I gotta every you know, I remember football and basketball, like basketball, there's like games three times a week. So you don't even it it becomes very normalized. Whereas, you know, um, yeah, I mean there's you know uh that that that's my overall point.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

I don't think I don't know if we're developing these young athletes maybe as as much as we should be. They're taking a they're they're they're gonna pull out I mean the model around the Midwest is you know, three or four amateur fights, then you're gonna fight a couple of three or four cans, and then you're gonna fight someone who's fought three or four cans, and then now you're looking for the big show. And I you you'll you'll be way more privy to this. I think there's a lot of guys getting to the UFC that probably probably aren't quite ready.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Um, well, I'll tell you an opinion. Again, this is I mean, I work here, but this is not anything the UFC. This is uh my opinion. I think some guys and gals got in over COVID, over that break that maybe would not have gotten in at another time. And I think they just kind of needed people to fill cards and they, you know, it's like, well, oh shit, I'm available. I'm a you know, I don't need a visa, and I can fight, okay, you're in. So I think that maybe the criteria changed a little bit, and then um, you know, the the criteria is is gotten strict again. Um, you know, it's gotten has gotten more, I guess, more relevant to to what you're looking for. Uh, but but no, just on the amateur thing, yeah, I I think that would be great, you know. And it again, it's a it's a different skill set. But the one thing that I think is I don't know if it's ironic's the right word, but if you look at it, um you're uh you're you've taken out the number one technique in a UFC fight, which is a punch to the head, right? So you've taken that out of the amateur game. So you've taken out the most impactful thing in a fight from the amateur fight.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

So, you know, it's definitely but you know that that's in my room also. Those guys you saw fight spend a lot of time just shoulders check shoulders, but yeah, then there is still a next level where they learn how to deal with punches to the head before they fight with punches to the head. Yeah. So I I wonder what Rojas did between like how much time did he get between those fights without punches to the head before he was in the UFC? And if that period was really small and not handled right, I could see why that would be an issue.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Well, what I can tell you, having seen a lot of his early fights before he was in the UFC, is because he was so dominant grappling and his striking into wrestling and his wrestling specific for MMA, which is really good, he didn't ever have to deal with it. He was smoking these guys that were like seven and one strikers because he would just come in, they would throw once, they would get a chance to hit him once, and if they didn't capitalize, he was good enough to take them down, and they didn't get back up. You know, so they would they either got submitted or got beat up, you know what I'm saying? So he didn't, so he probably had he had what what the matchmakers are looking for. You know, he had like five or six first round finishes, and then you know, so you're talking about a guy that's still six, seven pro fights has still not got a ton of experience. Right. Yeah, he's developing. But you know, as a guy that kind of gets to look for some fighters sometimes, I see a guy with six first round finishes, I say, hey, I'm gonna send that guy to Mick, put him on the contender. Hey, Sean, this guy, he's got look at he's he's beaten decent guys in the first you know, three minutes of the fight. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Again, it's uh yeah, ups and downs to everything. Well, Ilya Ilya Taporia, his first like seven or eight pro wins are by submission. Yeah.

unknown 29:45

Right?

SPEAKER_00 29:46

So he was developing the striking outside of the fights. He found a way to just win. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

You know, and he does the discrete skill training or trained skills in isolation until he gets to the final five or six weeks.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah, but is that you know can we extrapolate that to people that aren't already at his level? Like, how do you what do you think? So let's get into let's get into some skill talk.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Well, that's what Rich Franklin always did, too. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Until we went to Matt Hume later in his career. That's what we did. In the first two years we did it. We we just went around, we went to Atlanta and got beat up by some Jets guys. We went, got beat up some kickboxers. I went and got beat up by boxers, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

But wait, but that's in the room we all we did all MMA training. Yes. But we didn't we didn't have we only had so many, we only had so many training partners, so we had no choice but uh Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Yeah, it well in the room, it would just be me, you and Roy going again and again, which kind of sucked, you know. Dave, Dustin, I mean it was ten of us, maybe. Yeah, maybe. But but honestly, like we even like you hit two guys that are bigger, but I remember in early days it was us and then everybody was smaller. That happened for a while, yeah. I had to go box at that boxing gym all the time with pro boxers.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

I had to box with Willie Walker.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, so we all did. We all boxed with all those guys, and we went boxed, and then we went, I was on the judo club for a while because there was a couple big guys. Um, you know, I did the club wrestling. Um, I did so I did I would work every skill individually, and I think that probably was a good thing. Uh, except that I was also working 40 hours a week and in school and trying to train 20 hours a week. Other than that, it was it was a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

All right, so what about so let's say now, let's say you have you have two rooms. You have a room where guys are doing everything in MMA context. It doesn't mean they're not boxing or kickboxing, but they're doing everything in the context of MMA versus having a boxing class and a kickboxing class and a wrestling class and a BJJ class. What what do you think about which of those models do you like and why?

SPEAKER_02 31:43

I mean, again, it's it's just like trying to get me to tell you who's gonna win a fight. I just point out the strengths and weaknesses of both, you know. If you're doing the individual sports, you're getting that foundation. And I have found uh well, I'm gonna get too too down um too specific, but um originally I thought maybe you can money ball the sport, you know. Uh maybe you can just, hey, what's happening at the UFC fight? What if we spend most 80% of the time training and the things that happen, you know? Uh what are the techniques that are most likely to be used? Um but what I found is when you do get in any kind of scramble or unsure position, those guys that have no wrestling base, no jujitsu base, kind of tend to fall apart and get stuck. Do you know what I'm saying? Or like in the in-betweens, they'll get hit when they shouldn't get hit because they haven't really been working that. So that's that's the downside of just doing MMA. Uh whereas I think if you have this fundamental wrestling like, wait, wait, wait, you think that's the downside of just doing MMA?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

I would think that that's the positive of doing MMA.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Well, I was doing it in kind of um I wasn't doing maybe what you would call foundational MMA because you're still doing shrimps, sit-outs, you're still doing those. You're not doing those.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

No, you you you should we've had this talk before. There is none of that in my gym. There is zero. For four years, probably. There is not all those guys you just saw fight learned how to fight by now. I'm not saying that they don't sometimes just kickboxes, yeah, but almost all of our striking takes into account shots.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

And and so it's interesting that you So we're not doing any of that. The in-between bits are part of the context of MMA. We try not to pull them away.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

No, and I and I love that. I'm just saying, all right. So what I'm saying is like I I'm not really talking about your model. I'm talking about two models that I'm trying now with our academy. One, let's just do the sport. And and not even like, let's do what what we see, like 80% of what you see on a Saturday night. We're just gonna do that. Oh, okay. You know what? We we actually we get lost in the transitions, we don't have the fundamentals. That other 10%, 20% becomes very important if if it's just a hole, a gap. Whereas I did jits my whole life, or I, you know, I I went up, I went through the geek, I know how to get to this weird position. Like, I'm out, I'm cool. Um uh and and then you know, so so there's definitely uh I think something that worked for me pretty well was after a fight, I would just do like two weeks of lifting and jits and just try not to get hit in the head. And I like maybe breaking down two weeks where you're specifically trying to just roll and wrestle. And then maybe two weeks where you're maybe doing a maintenance dose of rolling and wrestling, but um, you know, working on your striking. Um, you know, and it's just kind of different ways to flesh out these skills and and um you know, kind of almost put it in like training blocks where you prioritize one part of the sport while just trying to maintain with one or two practices the other parts of the sport. And you usually see guys try to do that with what they do at.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah. So you you are talking about sort of a linear periodization. Yeah. So I would so in that language, I would almost say that I am trying to apply a conjugate periodization. Right. Okay. And so there are, there is, and my guys grapple like I you know, I have separate grappling class, I have a whole separate grappling program, and I expect the I expect the fighters to be in as many of those classes as possible. Like I am still a believer that you need to be an A plus level grappler to be a UFC tech. Yeah. Um But I I think so I am trying very similar idea to what you're talking about. I'm just trying to apply a conjugate idea where they are working all of those qualities in every class, and sometimes it'll be more of one or less than another. Yeah. Because everyone needs something different. If you're working in a room full of a bunch of people, it's hard to individualize. They have to individualize a little on their own.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah. Yeah, you both mentioned the in between words. Adam and I call the in between bits. And I think we we rub that experience sometimes when we when we split it up into just we're just gonna grab or we're just gonna wrestle, we're just gonna do uh um jujitsu or whatever. And um like the way I think Adam and I run our rooms together when he calls them drilling, I I don't love the word drill, but whatever, um, these little games and scrambles that we create. We're always we're spending as much time in in these little transitions and in-between bits as possible. Because I don't think because they're so random, they're so chaotic, and they're they're they're so unique every time. That's that's the worry I have when we and I do it too, right? Because I've got guys who just want to kickbox sometimes, they just want to grapple and whatnot. So we just because of our business, we do split the classes up. But uh I do see a case to be uh keep it as holistic as possible, and you mentioned that word too. Otherwise we're robbing we're robbing the the repetitions of that, these in-between bits.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

So uh how do you see the difference between uh how we should approach uh the training and development at a lower level versus how you see people uh approaching it at the higher level? So for for me? Yeah. So I mean you you know you've been around the lowest levels of the sport. You're not that much anymore, but but you still are sometimes. And well, I mean, I do kickboxing with the amateur class. Okay. So what do you see as some of the differences between how you would approach younger, less experienced, newer people versus how you see the coaching and skill development being done at the higher levels?

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Uh I mean, you know, I kind of uh, you know, like the Dreyfus' pyramid, right? Uh Dreyfus's like skill acquisition model, whatever it is. Um, you know, if you're young, I mean I've got it on I've got it here somewhere, but um I just kind of bastardize his stuff and put MMA words in it. But yeah, if you're young, it's the foundation of the sport, right? It's the it's just foundations. And then it then it moves to, you know, kind of more specific, specific for your body type. And then as we get up to the very top of the pyramid, that's the highest level UOC guys. And now we're designing a game plan specific to our opponent. Whereas here, what what aren't we good at? We're working more at weaknesses, right? And then, you know, another way to look at that is as we get closer to the fight, we try to fill as many weaknesses as we can, but now we start working strengths. Where do we actually want the fight to go? What are we good at? What are we better at than the average person? And that's kind of the amateur level, where you're not, you know, you don't have so much footage of your opponent unless, you know, like they're a leg lock specialist or an Olympic level wrestler, you know, you're like, well, I don't really know that much about them, right? Which is good. Whereas you get up to the top, you have tons of fight footage on your opponent. So you can really start to break them down, what are their habits, etc., right?

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Um let's see about what do you do with that information? So you have all this footage, you you have this analysis um of what your opponent does. Yeah. What do you do with that information? How do you how do you apply that information?

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Uh well, you want to you want to figure out what are you better at than your opponent? Like what, you know, do you have four submission wins on your record, or or do you know in the gym better yet, do you know in the gym that you're really good at submitting people? And has your opponent been submitted twice out of six fights? Like he's only got two losses or both by submission, or you know, maybe he lost the decision by getting stalled out on the ground. Well, now I know the best thing to do is um, you know, to to take him to the ground. I know that's gonna be my game plan for this fight. Yes, I need a secondary and tertiary game plan if I can't take him down, but um, you know, can I find him and say, okay, you know what? He fucking didn't know how to defend a single leg. Maybe he's learned, but in his last fight he sure didn't know. I'm gonna I'm gonna try to single leg, you know? Uh or you know, all right, this guy's he's gonna, if I hit him, he's gonna shoot desperate. All right, I'm just gonna get in his face. He doesn't defend punch as well. I'm gonna punch him, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to put him in a panic situation of defense. He'll shoot low. I'll either try to catch him with a knee or I'll just try to cut an angle when he shoots low. Like as he comes in, I'll try to just get out of his way and then turn around and continue to pop, you know. Um, but so I was talking about like the developmental model. You'd start on the base skill acquisition, then you'd move up skill uh integration, then you'd move to tactical application. So where do I where do I employ the skills that I've learned here? And then you would go to uh you know game planning and then game plan, specific game plan implementation based on your opponent's strengths and weaknesses, right? So that's that's the kind of the bastardized Dreyfus model I have. And then elite performers, right? Like once you're here at the top, it's kind of the other way. Hopefully you've developed the base so you'd spend more time working on the specifics. What am I gonna do? What's the specific things for this fight, right? And then it it's it's a lot about fight IQ. It's um oh what's this what's the saying here? You know, you you've got to master the basics. And I was like, my guy is always Anderson Silva. I feel like he does a lot of things wrong because when he was 15, he mastered the basics of kickboxing. So now he's able to act freely. Um here it is. Yeah, it was it's called uh Shuhari, maybe. I don't know. Learn the rules, master them, move beyond them. So that's the concept, right? So you've got to learn what MMA is, you've got to master that, and then you become free to do whatever you want to start exploring. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 40:36

So and it's interesting, Scott Scotty, so Scotty was when we were talking about the idea of fundamentals, basics, whatever you want to call them. Um I think Scotty and I defined this the simplest definition of fundamentals or basics as the rules of the sport. Yeah. And so that's sort of what you're saying at the bottom, is is at first we have to spend a lot of time building these skills around the rules of the sport, the fundamentals. Yeah. So, but you're talking a lot about game planning and stuff. I want to know how you how do you apply that in a practice room.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

You're saying I want to do this, he does this. No, no, no. I thought I thought that's what I was doing. So my opponent got taken down by single legs. So guess what I'm doing? What is single eggs? Not just single eggs. How am I setting the single eggs up? Where am I going from there? So I'm I'm the whole spectrum of what could happen. So what do I need to do to set my single leg up? You know, uh, for me, it'd be fake the cross, cross hard, but but not really trying to close the distance, slapping hook, drop in, and that's my head outside single, immediately ripping. Um, if I rip, I rip, he doesn't go, I come around, waist, waist, I want the body lock, and then I'm usually I'm pretty good from there. For for me, that I know that's my money spot. I'm gonna get him here. We're gonna hit the ground, I'm gonna be in a bastardized cross side. Where am I going from here? What did he do in his fight? Did he turn his back in his last fight? He turned his back on cross side.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

What the fuck? All right, I'm taking his back. So I'm not super comfortable with this programming type example. So let's just cut back for one sec. What you're saying is, though, you're setting an intentionality for your live training. Yes?

SPEAKER_02 42:10

We're starting, yeah, we're drilling that. Drilling. And I don't know why a scout would be uncomfortable with the word drilling. Well, because I need to know what you mean by drilling. Yes. So drill, drill is a resistance, but there's a fixed outcome. So there's going to be a struggle, but at the end of the day, the fixed outcome is I'm going to get some variation of the takedown, right? So a drill has a fixed outcome. We go wherever we go. A drill, we're trying to stay in this spot. So this is working. This can yeah, exactly. Constraint's a better word. We're constrained to this. Now, you know, it depends depending on your practice design, we're gonna we're gonna do this. All right, we got that. That's pretty good. Now it goes where it goes. And that's the old jujitsu model. We'll learn three moves, we're gonna start in we're we're learning moves from half guard today, and then we just go live 30 minutes uh from half-guard and see what happens, you know.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

We don't we don't use that model in jujitsu either. We did though. We did. We did use the model. That's 40 years ago. The last the last 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

I I don't like teaching. Well, we use the iMethod, if anything, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Yeah. Introduce, what is it? It's introduce, isolate, integrate. You got it. Yeah, I mean, you know, I was at the seminar.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

I don't know what seminar that was. You taught a seminar recently. Yeah, and that's what you sort of did. That that is exactly what I did.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

It's because we we we have the same thing. I've just gone in a slightly different direction based on uh, you know, even uh even when when I was talking about what do you guys, what's your sight line? It was the same sight line I used that we got together 25 years ago. Um, I think that's kind of cool. We we started in the same place, like you taught me how to coach, more or less. Uh, and then you know, I I moved out here, I worked with different coaches, and then you know, I'm I'm so fortunate, it's pretty cool. I I get to see what two or three of the best. Gyms in the world do right now, you know? Like there's this kid, what is his name? I forget. John Paul JP, I forget his last name. Super talented kid. He just fought Phil Phil Rowe. Anyway, he's a U of C guy. He has it's just the way they do their training. And his dad was a coach, too. So the way you they do their training is very um, you know, it's very, it's just a little different than anything I've seen. You know, he's is so he grew up, he's you know, he's been training jujitsu since he was like six, right? And you know, uh his dad's an MMA coach. So it's it's just pretty funny, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:33

To see uh LeBon Le Bon Suryani. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

See why I can't say the name? You can't say the name either.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

I can't see either, and I'm reading it.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

I'll stick with JP. But but yeah, no, it's just like, okay, so you know, anytime I can I try to watch and like, well, why do you do that? Why you do that? What's what's that? You know? Um, I always say that you got the best job for me that you could ever have gotten. Yeah, I still don't understand, but I would keep asking to watch it. Uh but yeah, so it's pretty, you know, but it's kind of a lot of variations of the same themes though, you know? Probably. Um but but I hope that that that framework, that that kind of the you know, bastardized Dreyfus model or Maslow hierarchy of needs and inverted hierarchy kind of made sense, right? Uh you know, it's uh you gotta you gotta build the base and and you can I'm not trying to put a time against it, but we're gonna spend the bulk of our early years building the base of fundamentals, you know, just doing the sport. And then as we kind of find our own game, we could specialize to our offensive, like where we want to go. So we're specializing to our offense, and then ten weeks out from a fight, what is my opponent good at? And how do I need to, you know, how do I need to create a situation that my opponent doesn't deal with well? And look, maybe it's been six months since this last fight. We throw that out the window. Holy shit. Uh what's his name in their second fight? Great single leg defense. Uh Marab and and the Russian kid. Great single leg defense. Yeah. I don't feel, and this is again, I shouldn't talk about UFC fighters like this, uh, but I don't feel like there was a good adaptation when plan A didn't work. You mean Mirab? Peter Jan in the first fight couldn't stop shit. In the second fight, stopped it great, you know? So then you've got to, okay, shit, what's next? All right, what's how do I go back to and and then again we're we've we've moved away from you know the strengths and weaknesses approach to the fight, and then we've back to what am I good at? What am I fundamentally good at? All right, I've just I'm gonna try to do that. So like for me, it would be like I would pull back, I would try to fight you at range, and I would, you know, just touch you and move and have you know, try to like rely almost on being a little bit boring and moving around more than you're used to, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Do you think that as coaches, part of what makes that difficult for fighters is coaches try and program the fight, and then it's hard for the fighter to get out of that and go back to what they were naturally good at or what their normal, like their overall skill set is.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Yeah, and and well, let's go back to the you're talking about the conjugate periodization. How much time do we spend just on this fight versus how much time did we spend just doing basic stuff? So, okay, let's go back to the basic stuff. Hey, we we've still been doing it. Maybe we haven't been prioritizing it as much or hitting it when we're fresh, but we've still been doing the basics. Like we've still been checking kicks, we've still been, we've still been doing all the things that happened at MMA. Um, one of the risks though, for your room that I thought was everybody kind of does similar things. So, what if somebody comes in and has a new thing that you guys haven't seen? They're not gonna deal with it, it's gonna take them some time to adapt. So, you know, it's like I think that's the thing Vegas has going for it. Is there's new people injected all the time with a different skill set. So athletes are like, shit, I have to adapt to this skill set, or I have to prepare for this guy who's really good at this, or this type of scramble wrestling that I'm not used to because I've been working with the same five or six guys. So you know, and it's not it's not complacency because all your guys are growing and learning and getting better at different things and finding out, oh, this works for my body. I'm really good at this. Um, but there could be like a new technique that comes in and the kids haven't seen it yet, they're gonna get caught off guard for a period of time. So I I guess the the best thing is to always kind of leave like you've got your base training, but then you always want to inject some new people, you know? So literally catfishing, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:22

So, you know, bring the catch up and stir everybody up. We've been lucky. Um, as I now have a room full of guys making a name for themselves, we're getting more guys come to visit again. When when you were when you were coming up, Brian was coming up in my room, everyone in Georgia came to our room.

SPEAKER_03 48:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

So we always had that. That stopped for a while. It's starting again and getting more. So my guys are getting uh more um are seeing more looks and things again.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

And there's a lot to be said about when I used to drive to Atlanta to spar to spar pro boxers. There's a lot to be said for an away game vibe, you know? Like those guys that come in, those guys that come in, whoo, they're they're tense, they're nervous, they're in a room full of guys they don't know, they're trying to choke their face off. But your guys are also like, oh shit, I never so there's just an increased uh sense when you're with somebody you don't know. And I think the appropriate time to do that is all the time, except when you're in a return to training phase and when you are in a pre-fight kind of camp thing, whatever, whatever you call that, you know? And it's just again, risk of injury, risk of the unknown. Um, just you're already calorie depleted, like we were talking about earlier. Don't bring the new guy in bed. You know, but in the last two weeks, two weeks when you're just kind of getting back in shape, don't bring the new guy in debt. But after that, after you return to training phase, let's let's go. Let's let's get these people in that that again catfish it, stir everything up, shake it up, make us think, reevaluate. Um, you know, a good example was when um Dan and Chetta got held down by Jason Miller in a position none of us had seen, like the double under D grab. We we were just we didn't know what to tell him to do.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

We didn't know what was going on. We're just like, oh fuck. Jason Jason Miller is a good example because he's also the guy that you and Rory could not finish because he could he was so double jointed. Yes, yes. He was also the first guy to knee. He was also the first guy to knee bar me. Yes, I remember that. And it was also a good example because if you remember, he lost the UFC fight because he was training with the new guy two weeks before in his room and got cut. Yes. Yes. So everything you're saying makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Yeah. And some of the best workouts I got were when me and Big John went to Atlanta and sparred with the K1 guys, you know? Selby? Mark? No, not just Selby. We had uh Dixon, um, uh what's his name's brother? Actually paid me to spar with him, one of the few people, Rick Rufus. Rufus, paid me to spar with him. That was great. I was like, wait, he gave me money? This was amazing. And then John was like, Oh, you're paid for the gas. So I was like, okay. So we didn't actually make anybody, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

I think the reason I was uncomfortable with the word drill, and I know Adam uses it in a certain context, that just conjures up for me the idea that we're doing this, repeating this role repetition against some passive unresistant partner. So if we agree it's not that, and that's why I don't like to use it because I think it's an ambiguous word. Um but we what you said regarding the single leg is that you're gonna constrain and you're gonna get plenty of repetitions in that in that space.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Repetitions with a different reaction, but it to me it's a drill because it's gonna end how it's gonna end. But anything can happen until then. But then if you break off, well, we just go back. Right. You get away, we we just go back. You know, so so uh and here's the other thing, I'm gonna tell both of you guys, seminars are doing just fine. Like people that come in and teach rote dead shit for two or four hours, they're they're actually doing quite well. You know, there's a lot of like seminars being taught, and you know, guys, and that's kind of what I do. It's not like uh I got I don't know, my seminars are okay. I teach the technique, I teach the defense of the technique, we go hard on the bag with it, and or no, we will go we'll play with it on each other and then we'll go hard on the back, you know. Like, can can I, you know, can I catch your teeth? Okay, well, what if there's a jab and a tea? Okay, well, what if there's this? You know, and so I just keep releasing the constraints until we're we're sparring, and the only thing we're doing is, well, we're we're starting with the teeth.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

Yeah, you mentioned too, uh I I completely agree with you, right? Uh the variability in there. We're trying to get as much novel in practice so we're not experiencing it in the cage. When I was down in uh Vegas a couple years ago when I popped in a syndicate, it's like a who's who of UFC fighters and that there. I mean, that's just it's an incredible training environment. You've got so many different bodies where coming from different environments, and they're they're again all there. That's that's almost difficult to fuck up as a coach.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

It's difficult. Yes, it is amazing, but the tendency, so two things. It is awesome. One, guys get excited. Uh, who's the little fucking Jits guy? I forget, the little Jits guy with glasses. He'll just come in. This happens. He came in. He came in and he was doing a grappling class. Everybody just went and grappled with him for two hours and they did this cool grappling class and they learned a bunch of stuff. Well, now they they they're shot. Like they're gonna like they're shot for sparring to wrestling the next day because they have that cool thing where Musamachi's run into two-hour hard practice. Okay, we're gonna go, everybody does the practice, and then the rest of their weeks are kind of out of order because they have that cool novel thing and they wanted to go explore it, which is understandable, you know. Uh and then the other thing is you get people that don't know each other, you have some ego working with each other, people get injured. You know, I mean you try to control the room, but but there's only so much, too. You know, and and you know, one thing I do is I always explain the rules of the class. Like, this is what is happening here, this is what is not happening. Is this clear? And then, you know, if you if you violate that, we gotta ask you to go.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

You use I took the term from you, uh rules of engagement. Yes, yes. And I I I'll do that before a lot of practices.

SPEAKER_02 53:38

I took that term from an awesome movie.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Called rules of engagement? Yes. I use that though, and no uh no no unpadded strike. Right.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

And this includes your fucking heel, okay? It includes your heel. I don't know why you would think it doesn't include your heel. That's really hard. The concern is vote is really hard. You cannot hit people in the fucking head with it and expect everything to be okay. Uh, you know? That's not how you make it. No, we're not we're not scissoring. We can we can train that move in isolation against a partner that knows it is coming, but we're not fucking doing that in sparring.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

100%.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

So if we're all on similar pages here where we need a lot of novel aid, there's a lot of variation, everyone's different, and we need to build a foundations program. How does a foundations program look then? How how how do we go and teach or learn a certain position or a certain move if we already acknowledge that it's so fucking chaotic and random and novel? Like, is there an ideal? Do we go towards an ideal at that? And I think this is what Adam and I are kind of trying to get away from is this idea that there is an ideal.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

I think Adam is is a concepts guy, right? Is this correct, Adam? You know, I'm an application guy. An application, all right.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

But you think guys, yeah, right. So let's I just want to be careful because most people, when they say the word concepts, you say to them, well, how do you practice that? I am a concepts guy, but I want to practice that. What does application mean? I don't think I know. Well, just how do you how do you drill it? Right? So if you say that that here's the concept introduced to uh inside space, under hooked, well that's all good and well, but it means nothing unless we're creating drills that help fighters find under hookers, uh find inside space, enforce inside space, uh prioritize inside space, things like that. So to me, that's concept is sometimes used as a just as a different word for studying technique. And I'm I'm saying I like concepts, but how do you functionalize those in drills? And then wouldn't the application of a concept be through techniques? No, I would think it would be through live training.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Like underhooks is a good example, right? If someone comes on the first day and they're doing an MMA foundations class, um, we might start with some shoulder tap shoot boxing just to try and grab that leg. So we're starting to build that stability right away, which takes time. But like our catch and release or no takedown wrestling games might just be getting body locks or underhooks. So from day one, they're constantly playing for this position. I don't think there's a there's not necessarily a technique. A technique doesn't map on that well to that.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

I know I'm I'll give you a good example for us. Well, we always used to do the swim drill. Yeah, yeah. Well, I haven't done a swim drill in four years. Now we just say, okay, we're gonna we're gonna work to get double underhooks. We're gonna work to lock our hands around a body and let them explore that, and they get much better faster at wrestling that way. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

And that's I think that's what I uh uh Adam and I are probably coming back to is that if if we uh appreciate all this randomness and complexity and the novelty and the variation in the game, it begs the question how do how does teaching technique fit in at all?

SPEAKER_02 56:44

Probably a lot more for me than for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

Well, I know we got to talk about this, right? You had tried to apply some of this in a class, and what you weren't comfortable with was how messy it looked.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

Yeah, I I this is not I mean, I think the ecological approach, what I found is not something you can dip your toe in. Um it's gotta be something you do every day. Like I I don't run a class, but once or twice a week. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So if I'm only working with guys once or twice a week and I'm throwing stuff at them, it it's it doesn't seem to, you know, they're not used to it. Uh there and and then we also have multiple coaches working with these athletes with different teaching styles, different curricula, you know. Um, you know what I'm saying? Like it's uh so yeah, it just I just kind of went back. I I'm trying to take the concepts of aliveness, you know, basically what what you know the ecological approach is is we're gonna agree upon a resistance and we're gonna go and you know, we're gonna see where it goes, and then we're gonna stop and we're gonna go back to that position and we're gonna go and we're gonna see where it goes. But I will give them, you know, three or four, like, hey, what I want to do is I want to pull this wrist down, shoot this hand up, tap the knee. If the knee's not there, I'm gonna come back to the single leg or to the body, you know. So you know, I'm still teaching moves, you know, or like I'm teaching a teeth. I'm still saying, hey, I want to put my foot here and I want to, you know, here, this is the angle I want my foot. Play with it, find your own angle. Turns out you got different legs than me, you know. Um, so I guess I teach the technique as like this is what I do, or if I can't do the technique, this is what the guy in the fight on the iPad did, this is what you're trying to do, but you have a different body than this guy, so you do something close to that that becomes your move. So I have a lot of techniques that are mine. I didn't create them, I just couldn't do other techniques, so I bastardized them for my body, and they became stuff I do. They're people like, oh, you're really good at that. I'm like, yeah, I I didn't, that wasn't mine. I tried to steal that from somebody, but you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Yeah, it makes it makes sense. I mean, it it takes a while for your room to have a shared experience, a shared vocabulary, uh a culture. And if you have people coming in and out or lots of coaching stuff, I could see how difficult that would be. I know, I know we're working up against the time here. Um Scott, you got any final things you want to ask for us?

SPEAKER_01 59:01

No, no, I was just uh I'm curious about that kind of early stage and where the kind of technique fits in it. And and I don't want to create a a straw man at blowdown. It's not my intention here, but uh I do see a lot of you know refining techniques on mechanics of punches and kicks and jabs and getting these really nice mechanics on bags and pads and whatnot. I don't see a lot of that expressed in the UFC to be honest. If you slow down and watch UFC fighting, you there's glimpses of ideal techniques, but it's pretty fucking chaotic and messy. I think that's a reality. And I think that's that's that's where we like to train. I uh uh for me I don't know I I don't know what a good I don't know what a good jab is other than one that's effective. Yeah. Effectively hand.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

Uh yeah, I don't know. That I don't know that I agree with your your conclusion there about UFC fights not being I think obviously they're messier, but I see um a lot of what guys are trying to do on the pads, which I know is verboden. I see that attempted, but okay, now I'm gonna adjust because it's a moving thing, and I know that's kind of your point, that's the eagle agreed approach. One thing me and Adam uh saw years ago was Chuck Liddell punches pads like a normal person. But then when he throws in a fight, it's it's like I mean it's it's not like he hits pads. Like he looks really good on the pads, but then he doesn't really do that in a fight. Now he does throw an overhand on the pads, but but you know, it did, it did, it was funny. It looked a little different. I'm like, yeah, it's not really like me. I tried to make my padwork look like the ideal of a fight, right? So that's the bag work, the pad work, uh, the sparring, that's the idealized version. Um, and then when you're actually in there with the the you know everything, um you're you're throwing as close to that version as you can with you know speed, power, intensity, and getting out of the way, you know. So uh, you know, I'm fine with a crappy jab if it lands, and you move out of the way afterwards. Otherwise, you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna throw a crappy jab and get a nice right hand over the top. And there was uh a UFC about five UFCs ago where there were literally four knockdowns off shitty jabs, you know? It was like, eh, uh, boom. It was like four, four, like, you know, that was like guys starting in with a crappy jab. So yeah, I mean, we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

But isn't that something isn't that something they have to learn through sparring?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

Yeah, and I I thought the same thing. I think the best way to learn is through sparring, but how do you do that without the risk and the load associated with multiple sparring and something you guys do in your room well is a lot of like not play sparring, but functional light sparring. Right. Um, for me, and this might just be personal, um, well, for me, it's definitely the way I feel is it's the speed change. Game speed is game speed, and I need to see game speed once a week. Otherwise, I'm gonna start flinching in the fight.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

I need you to punch me as fast as you can. Right. We do that once, we do that once a week, but we try and keep the speed up and the power down. And I know those are sort of counter So I try to divide out when I'm doing the rules of engagement.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

I fight with I still spar with a great intensity. I have I'm in I'm gonna get in your face, I'm gonna hit you, I'm gonna move around a lot, I'm gonna lock. You know, I'm I'm still pretty intense. Like my heart rate's like 178 when I spar, like I'm going. But there's no intent. If I hit you with a clean shot, I hit you fast, I pop you, but it's not, I'm not following through. And also that helps me say, you know, I'm not, I'm not, and I'm definitely not taking a follow-up shot. If I get a free one to be turned away, I'm gonna touch you with a leg kick and then defend myself so you don't do something stupid like spin at me. Because I've had guys do that where I was like, you know, intentionally got them turned around, not taking advantage of them and they spun around with some crazy shit, you know, because they're like pop. I was like, oh, wait, wait, I was I was you know, but but yeah, so and and that's you know, that's something that took me like years to learn how to do. Um and I and if you tell me I gotta fight in three weeks, I don't know what I could do with them. I think I would start like you know, you know, really start getting in again. I don't know, but I'm very, you know, we we we have good good spars. I I want speed. You should get hit. Um and then it's just a good time, like start targeting for the forehead, not the nose. You know, even targeting wrong, even targeting at a different spot will engage the concept of targeting. I got to talk to Boss Rutin a lot about this, and I realized like, you know, he's like, no, no, what are you punching for? I was like, I don't know, uh, you know, an inch beyond their head. And he's like, okay, you know, you do want to go a little past, or you want to, you know, if you're punching through, but but like what point are you punching for the nose, you punch for the mouth, you punch for the chin? And I was like, Well, I I never thought about it. I'm punching for what's available, not covered by their hands. So maybe like shooting a gun, I'm going for center mass. Whereas he's like, no, go pick out what you're trying to hit and see if you can hit that like with as much speed as possible. And I'd really like that concept. And then I think like, so I punch guys in the forehead. Like if you give me an open shot, I'll smack you right in the forehead, you know? But so I'm practicing targeting and I'm practicing being aware of what I'm actually doing, and I'm also making it safer for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:47

Yeah, I like the idea of the targeting because that's a clear intent. You mentioned two things, yes, game speed and intent. That's that's definitely a challenge with the the way we we approach sparring and stuff. I think yes, you can get the game speed up. It's hard to get that intent in the room without fucking your training partners up.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:01

Well, we don't have intent. Intensity, high heart rates. So we use a lot of heart rate monitors and stuff. We can get intensity, high heart rates, high stimulus, you know, high cortisol, all the things you're gonna get, but without the intent. And then, you know, I'll put guys aside and say, hey, guess what? We're gonna do your partner up 10 seconds, hit the bag as hard as you fucking can. We rest for 10 seconds, other guy hit the bag as hard as you fucking can, and we'll do that for three or five minutes, you know. Like throw your your fight techniques, what you were just throwing, but with 100% intent. Knock somebody out, 10 seconds, hard as you can on the bag, 10 seconds rest, other guy go, and you know, so you're going 10 10 out of every what 40 seconds. Um, you know, it's it's uh just to kind of get that that that feel. I really like that myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:43

I I think so. I know you're we're closing out here. I I think the biggest difference between let's go back to the the pad work and the technique thing, um, is that from an ecological perspective or from a traditional information processes perspective or whatever, what do coaches and fighters actually think is going on when we when we continually try to repeat the same technique on on bags and pads? I'm gonna kind of answer that anyway. It's not not really it's a historical question. Um I think there's a sense that we're we're kind of programming the body or we're creating this motor program and whatnot. But then if we say we're seeing glimpses of it in the UFC or we're seeing they're trying to try that, it doesn't really map on well to this idea that we have this this program or this motor pattern all ready to go. I think it's gonna be similar, but similar is not the same. That makes sense, Adam.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:22

Yeah. Yes. So it's still your basic mechanics. Like I I don't know. I kind of depart from it when I say, hey, you should turn your if you want to throw a powerful punch, you should pivot. You're you should pivot. There should be a transfer away. You should fall forward to some extent. You should be practicing that on the back. So this is kind of where I I depart from that. Um, like, yeah, hit hidden mitts is good timing if you're with somebody that doesn't just let you hit it every time. You know, like yeah, I mean mitts is debatable. I I won't go into that, but but yeah, I mean there there's there's a reason for these things, and you know, yeah, I see some pretty slick shit out of guys. Like I see some really good uh you know, some good striking combinations, even Heavyweight. I saw the last heavyweight fight with some good boxing. Good uh in this just this past weekend, I think. Some you know, pretty good boxing for heavyweights.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

I don't and you know what? It's not that I disagree that like that those things are important. I mean, in baseball, we wouldn't argue that there is a way to hit a ball that includes weight transfer back and weight transfer forward. Yeah. Those are those are things that every pitcher will do. So I don't disagree that there are those mechanics. I think where I start to really question is when and who and how do we give those things to people? Like, is it important that a beginner focuses on pivoting and putting out a cigarette and and standing still and hitting a bag? Or is that something after a person has sparred and has a context, we can help them mechanically later, get a little more power, or get a little more when they've already spent a bunch of time throwing across at a moving target, if that makes sense. I think that's what I'd like coaches just to think about a little bit, not whether they help with mechanics or not. I think that's that's not a winning battle for me. I want them to think about when is that most valuable? And I think if it's more in the middle than it is in the beginning. And it's more individualized, I think, than it is everyone has to learn how to sit down and pivot on a cross.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

Yeah, the only, and I see what you're saying, and I agree. The only kind of thing I'll throw up is it's kind of hard to get two beginners to work with each other. You know, when you got two guys that both don't understand the technique and you're having them jab tat, jab tat jab chat. It's it's it becomes a little bit of a mess.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

Right. So I don't I don't I don't do that. I don't Scotty doesn't do that. We we go chest shoulder, we move around, we throw straight punches only, and I really don't care what it looks like. I want them to experience what it's like to move around with another person because that's the hardest part. Punching people is easy to do.

unknown 1:07:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

Um, before you run, I wanted to ask one question. And then um, what do you see as so years ago you and I were having a discussion about switching stances, and I was on the wrong side of that for sure. I I let my guys do what they want to do. Um, what do you see as sort of the next pieces of evolution in MMA? What can we get ahead on? What should we be looking at? What can we be doing with our guys to stay evolved?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:14

Well, there needs to be an upskilling of fence work. The biggest thing is there needs to be, you know, people need to understand how to strike more on the fence and to use that to set up the takedowns or to use the takedown to strike. So there needs to be more uh, you know, just more more kind of fluidity on the fence. Like everybody drills it, everybody drills it a lot, but everybody seems to be getting stuck in the same positions. Um there you need to learn how to work extricating yourself and then landing the big elbow. Why don't we do this? Because you're not fucking elbowing people in practice in a drill. You know what I'm saying? So it's a hard skill to learn. Or what am I? I'm gonna need you. You know, it's not like we don't really want to set that up as okay, I'm gonna pull off, I'm gonna yank the head, I'm gonna elbow, I'm gonna exit out, bang, bang, and then I'm gonna drop down. You know, it it it's just a hard thing to drill, um, you know, without like, you know, just because I think the the obvious weapon there is the elbow. But um, you know, people are so good at head positioning that they're kind of stopping other people's offense. So I'd like to see uh, you know, a kind of uh a better link to striking and takedowns on the fence specifically.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

We spoke about that last week, Adam. I was surprised there wasn't more elbows in that in that that clinching range. And I and that's exactly what we said, just what you said for us. They're hard to drill, so they're not salient, right? They're just not they're just not in that kind of what we call it affordances, um that intentionality is just maybe not quite there.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

Well, we should do this again. We just got to the good stuff, and now I gotta go do my job. But thank you guys. I I appreciate it. Thanks, my brother. Thanks for watching. Thanks.