Learning to Fight! Conversations in Combat Skill

Learning to Fight - Episode 23

• Scott Sievewright and Ben Schultz

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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.

SPEAKER_00

Stay on track.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

You watched his fight Saturday night?

SPEAKER_01

I watched the fight Saturday night. I was thoroughly entertained, especially by the van fight. I thought it was a cracking fight.

SPEAKER_00

He is really good.

SPEAKER_01

And apparently I was it was Ben that was telling me yesterday. He was on Mighty Mouse's podcast. You know, like no formal boxing training. I'm trying to put a timeline together on Van, which I'm sure you can might be able to help me. I see he had his first fight back in 2021 as an amateur. Okay. And he's now a champion at 24, which is definitely makes him an outlier in the UFC.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Big a big time outlier. But what I really what I was most impressed with, it wasn't, it wasn't as striking. What I was most impressed with was his um he could have made a really bad error in that fight because the guy was fighting is a back control specialist. And so you watch the fight. If you don't know that and you watch the fight, you start to question why he was flat on his back, why he was getting mounted, why he never turned to his hands and knees to stand up. But when you realize that that was his opponent's bread and butter, um, it makes perfect sense. Very high IQ uh approach to the to the ground exchanges.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, he he he didn't even because I want to talk a wee bit about that, especially my point on uh um Strickland's performance. So I agree the takedowns uh what how do you say the other guy's name? Tiara, maybe Tiara. Yeah, his first couple of takedowns where he just drove through and got it were really impressive. But again, maybe maybe maybe Van's elite wrestling's not there yet. So that makes sense. But he was he never saw these punches coming in the end. He was just taking them square on the fucking snout.

SPEAKER_00

He is not um, you know, his la it's like his lack of striking prowess that made Van look like the the greatest striker we've seen since this this is uh maybe a terrific example of that of skill being relative.

SPEAKER_01

Because I thought Van looked like a fucking striking god at the end, but it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I'm like, this kid's not even seeing the shots. Just getting clubbed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, just getting clubbed. Uh Tar is definitely not a very good striker. And so Yeah, it's so that's skill is are you we're saying skill is relative in the sense that uh you know, between the fighters, but also MMA is is such a large problem space that you can make a pretty good run for quite a while and be completely deficient in certain areas of the of the sport. I think we I think we know this intuitively.

SPEAKER_01

I can go in the gym tonight and look like a striking god my cell or a grappling god, depending on the partner I pick. And it kind of goes full circle back to what are we even what are we even assessing? Or how do we even assess skill? It's just it's completely relative.

SPEAKER_00

But now, is it crazy that his last that Chiara's last fight he knocked out Brendan Moreno?

SPEAKER_01

Well MMA is crazy, but yeah. Give me two seconds. Anyway, I I I thoroughly and thoroughly enjoyed that match and the back and forth and whatnot. And to be honest, because you know Adam, I don't I don't watch as much fighting as I could. I'm a bit done with fights by the end of the week. So I know I hadn't I saw Pan the Pantoja Van fight, but I hadn't seen Tiara if I'm saying his name right. I hadn't seen him before. So I went into that fight, not really knowing either fighter, or not really knowing what to expect, because I don't really follow the hype and the the the the follow-ups, like the the the pre-fight stuff. So I was I'm I'm never I'm never that excited to watch the lighter weights, but it was it was a real fun fight. I really enjoyed it. Good off to them both. And that Chinese kid, he's tough as fuck. Japanese. Oh, excuse me. Excuse me, Japanese.

SPEAKER_00

No, it's funny, it's funny because uh uh DC did that all week on the lead up shows. He kept he kept calling him Chinese and he kept being corrected, and he kept calling him Chinese, and I'm just pretty sure DC doesn't care, doesn't know. Probably thought he was somebody totally different. So all right. Just don't don't let Japanese people hear you call them Chinese. They don't like that.

SPEAKER_01

Don't call him a Chinaman. Okay. All right, moving, moving on. Um, suddenly everyone seems to be a fucking expert of what happened and what went on in the Strickland Hamzat fight. Um I thought that it feels felt a little uh odd that Hamzart hardly shot in a couple of the rounds, but anyway, I take it away on that because I I I picked that one wrong. We spoke about it last week. I'm a huge fan of Sean Strickland's at what he does at his minimum seeming like a reduced skill set. You can't you're not saying it's a broad set of tools he uses. He showed more of it the other the other night, but so I wasn't really surprised that Strickland was gonna see all these shots coming and whatnot. But I thought Hamzat was gonna run through them, quite frankly. And I thought it would do it just being the first round. And if he didn't get it in the first round, it would be the second round. So what did you think of that fight? Do you think it was a fair result? And are you like everyone else that weren't surprised at all and exactly what was going on?

SPEAKER_00

No, I I was surprised, partly because I had never seen Strickland in those situations, so I you don't know what to expect. I I would have expected a very similar outcome to what happened with um Dracus. You know, I I was really prepared for a very boring um fight. Um all the stuff about Hamzak cutting weight and and whatnot. I mean, okay, but he did the same thing when he fought Usman. He he took off the whole second round. And uh he gets clipped with a shot in a second round that actually puts him out on his feet for a split second. I think if you watch it, you can see he's a right hand that you know completely stuns him. And so I don't know what to make of that other than the fact that the rest of that round, you know, he he was a little more tentative. Um, I thought it was a you know, I don't like Strickland. I think I've said that before. And it's not as a human being, I don't like him as a human being, but that's that's neither here nor there. I don't probably better that we don't think of athletes necessarily as human beings, we just think of them as entertainers. Um I hate to see a guy win a fight throwing jabs moving backwards.

SPEAKER_01

That's where we'll have to that's where we'll have to respectfully disagree. That's what I meant last week. You said to him he's got a limited uh limited skill set. I went, well, he's he's here, he's fighting for titles. So and he's able to do it against a comp uh uh a guy, an elite level unbeaten fighter with a completely different skill set. Now, do you run that back ten times and get the same result? I'm not so sure about that, but maybe I'm maybe I'm not giving Strickland uh Strickland's ability to adapt the respect it deserves. And I go back and forward on Strickland because I'm I've spoken about him before now I'm I think his ability to see shots coming, and I think we saw that on Saturday night. There was five rounds, four of four of the rounds are mainly on the feet, and yeah, he got beaten up and his nose was twice the size. But if you watch him, really watch him, and you know this, he's see he he perceives everything coming, he sees the shots, so even the shots are getting are tagging him, they're not hitting him that hard. He's always taking just a wee bit of the heat off him, and I'm really impressed with that. Yeah, I think he lost.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I think he lost some of those stand-up rounds, though.

SPEAKER_01

You could make the case, but I'm saying he was getting he was getting clipped, but it's not like he's he's getting clipped in like like the tiara fight. Tiara never even saw these coming. These shots were just banging, and his head was getting snapped back, and you don't really see that with Strickland. Of course, you're gonna land a couple of them. He does a beautiful job with range.

SPEAKER_00

Sure, and and when you are also fighting a guy whose Hamzat's striking is limited, um, it does make it easier for you to see those strikes. I mean, Hamzat doesn't mix, he wasn't mixing up any level changes, he wasn't threatening to take down when he wasn't very head-hunty. He wasn't threatening to take down when he wasn't going for the takedown, he doesn't kick. And so I'm not taking anything away from Strickland's ability to see shots, but the easiest shots to see, the easiest fighter to fight is someone who's just throwing at your head.

SPEAKER_01

And I don't get too caught up in the pre-fight stuff, but there didn't seem to be a lot of malice during or uh after the fight. And I get it, after the fight, they're always hugging and making up.

SPEAKER_00

But probably my guys were my guys were saying that there were some uh I don't know if it was true or not, but there were betting lines on on glove touches, right? Because these guys talk, sounds like they want to kill each other before the fight. Like Sean is saying horrible things, Hansat's saying horrible things, and then I think we counted like six glove touches.

SPEAKER_01

I thought they were going to hug towards the end.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And that's sort of like I get it, you're selling the fight, but well, it's the what is it, the W efication of the world, right?

SPEAKER_00

Well, the the flip side is I don't want to see like I don't want to see basketball players hanging out and and grab ass and before they play each other. Like I don't want to see football players in a prayer circle before they play each other. Like make show me that it means something to win and lose.

SPEAKER_01

So can you hear me? I just changed my yeah, yeah, okay perfectly.

SPEAKER_00

So I am less impressed with Strickland. I am I am I have never been impressed with Hamzat. Um, I did think Strickland did some fantastic work in the first round to almost put Hamzat on the defensive with his takedowns. Like it is it is not easy to continuously have to put the guy back down, put the guy back down. And I think Sean really tested Hamzat's gas tank in the first round. To me, that was the most impressive new skill set that I saw from Sean. Um and I wonder if some of the some of the meta around how you approach the grappling and standing up is starting to change, where except for some of the elite guys like Islam, I don't know else who else, um, formerly Kabib, um, painting in top games seems to be slightly behind now people's ability to just stand up. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01

Do you want me to be completely honest? I was thinking the next question and I kind of glazed over. Ask me that one more time because it was all about me. Ask me one more time.

SPEAKER_00

It appears to me that in MMA there's now been a little bit of a shift where the guys on bottom are able to get up easier than the guys on top are able to hold them down. So standing up is beating pinning right now, except for the really elite guys. And maybe even the elite guys, because Marab had a hard time holding down Sandagin, had a hard time holding down Jan. Uh Islam had a hard time holding down uh Volkonovsky. Um, and so you're seeing a lot of mat returns and a lot of volume on these takedowns, but there used to be a point where you could take someone down and hold them down. And it seems like the bottom guy is starting to catch up to that. What do you think of that?

SPEAKER_01

I don't disagree. I'm curious what you think the which is the easiest endeavor over time if everyone was able to put as much time as they could into it. Is there something I mean, you would you would assume that the advantage was, of course, the advantage as far as uh control and scoring is on the top, but you would assume the advantage of being able to maintain that position would be the top guy. So I'm not sure. But it's like 25 years ago or 20 years ago, when you start grappling, you get anyone's back, it was over. Now it's not that easy. Now it's not that easy to finish someone's back on someone's hand.

SPEAKER_00

No, and that's and that's another that's another thing we I think we've seen change a little bit. Sean did it, and we've seen it in other fights, is that guys were really getting beat up with their belly facing the mat and a person on their back. So like a chest to back, but the bottom person's hands were on the mat. Either one, yeah, either one hand or both hand, just trying to to stop the hooks from coming in. That was their main focus. And because of that, with their hands on the mat and trying to peel hooks, they were getting beaten up and they were giving up their neck. And we're seeing a lot of chokes entered right there. I think we are now seeing guys realize that if they are belly up with the guy, with the other guys back on the mat, that at a minimum it is very hard to choke someone there.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And they are carrying your weight, and it is easier to remove hooks and start your escape process. Right. Now, the the the figure four makes it more difficult, obviously, but that's not as dominant as it was before. Um, and so I think that that changes a little bit of like that Khibib Islam game where they want you on your hands. Like they want you to, they want to handcuff you and drive you to a shoulder. They they don't want, they're not going to jump on your back. They're not going to look for hooks there. Um, and I think that's that's changed. Now it's given the bottom man more tools. So now the bottom end, we we saw just you know, over the last couple of years, the bottom player just selling out to go their hands and knees, just selling out. And then we saw the top players start to figure out how to deal with that, figure out how to trip, put your back on your hands. Then we saw guys standing up and going against the cage face first, and that mitigated some of it. And now I think we're seeing just so the top players are gonna have to evolve a little bit and improve their pinning ability.

SPEAKER_01

I think I think you you you nailed it because we always say, you know, you change the rules, you change your behavior. But within the rules, there might be these spaces, these problem areas that haven't they been fully developed as a community. So now they're all catching up. This is why I love I was talking to boys last night. This is why so I I'll backtrack a minute. So I'm watching the guys are kind of doing their own training. Um, I we come and watch, we observe me and me and Coach Ben uh Mondays, they've changed it to earlier training. So they're doing just a lot of open spar and it's it's it's nice to watch, they're getting a bit of playing the whole game. Um, but um I noticed some of the stuff that I'm maybe focused on with them in when we had the later team practices, they were kind of more kind of foundational stuff, and I feel they're getting away from that. So we're bringing that back. But my point is the the reason I really love teaching, excuse me, I'm careful with the word teaching. The reason I love uh coaching MMA from this approach where it's all live is there's a ton of that kind of stuff we can do that's not that hard on the body, you're not having any kind of brain damage with it. So these positions that you're talking about, I just think it's experience, I just think it's time on math. And you have to kind of drive that evolution in your own room from these little places. And so again, uh we've got Adam, Hanula, and that over in the UK that are trying to kind of do mostly live training with boxing. I I I I'm I'm not envious of that at all. But with MMA, there's so much, there's so much you could do, and it and this probably maps on to you know why we talk about maybe some of the isolated stuff or the silly stuff. What's the point? There's there's so much, there's so much we can do without fucking up our athletes and fucking up their bodies and get a lot out of it, and that's like that positional stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, and and I think our job, and I think it's part of the framework you and I discuss is just how can we nudge them to explore things that they generally hadn't explored before. So this is a good example. Um, I I saw the power of guys standing up and going to the cage, right? We saw Corey Sandigan really was a great example of almost a uh a repeatable system, if you will. And I don't I don't love that word, but I it's the best word I have, where he just he responded the same way every time and forced the game to look a certain way. And so and Narmagomegov, the the other Nermagomegov. And so just for a couple weeks with my guys, when we were doing, when we were doing any kind of pinning, and and I just said, all right, you can do whatever you usually do. You can do whatever you're good at, but I'd like you to prioritize coming to your your hands and knees, building up, standing up, going to the cage. I want you to, and they had all seen that the standing in fights, they had seen the value of that. And so I just said, whether it works or not, whether it gets you in trouble or not, let's prioritize this and let's see what we can get out of it. Let's see where we end up. And I think that that is, and it wasn't like here's a series of moves, do this, do that. This is the it was just let's explore a different solution. And I think that we have so much room to do that as coaches, that should take up so much of our time that there is no time for nonsense.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and that's kind of what again, I was talking to the team last night. I'm saying, why don't you start trying to have maybe your warm-ups a bit more um intentional? So they usually come in, they move around, they box around and uh get the warm-up in them like grab each other and wall pummel, take each other's back and just practice your defense or stopping rotation or or or escaping. Um doesn't need to be a deathmatch right away, but these minutes will add up, and each day you do it, you're getting more and more uh excuse me, you're getting more and more tuned to the dynamics of that that situation, and it can it can only pay off. You know, you know, you know what you're trying to do. Intentionally implied.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Um yeah, I've I've started, so the way I always let my classes start is I just let everyone, because I'm not really a stickler for you know, like time and like so the class starts at six, and I let everyone just sort of come on as they get there, as they get their gear on. And when I see everyone sparring, I start a clock. And sometimes I'll stop them and I'll say, okay, make sure you have some intentionality, make sure you're you're trying to. I don't want you just standing around throwing shots at each other. I want you to be working on something, I want you to be improving something, I want you to be exploring something. I'm not telling you what it is, I don't know what it is, but I do want to see some intentionality. And it's made a it's made an improvement for the for the guys that understand it and are are want to try that. Um and I agree with you that that some of these exchanges are so there are pieces of these exchanges that always look the same. I'm not calling them invariants, I'm not calling them fundamentals, I'm not calling them anything like that, but all these exchanges have pieces that we that have to happen every time. And so I just want them to stack that that over and over and over. And so, yeah, like hand fighting, right? I mean, hand fighting is I I might I might go as far as to say hand fighting is the most important part of grappling. And I've now just started like they're striking, there's grappling. I'm I'm I'm not separating the cage from the ground and the shots from the, it's just easier. We're striking, we're grappling. And hand fighting is one of those things that I don't think we can ever get enough of. So in all my classes, we try and stack hand fighting. On the cage, off the cage, on the ground, wherever it is. And so, like you're saying, like that's I think we can nudge them to those spaces, we can have them try and be intentional, we could force them. I think we have a lot of tools that we can use, but at the end of the day, we're trying to just get live engagements in these important places.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh my my my friend Sam that I talk about, he's teaching this bunch of ninth graders MMA, but they're doing it at their school and it's carpet on the floor and stuff. So he was saying, you know, they were they were doing some positional round on the stuff on the ground, and I was saying, Christ, it must have been full of carpet buns. I said, Sam, see their age. You know, and the fact that you're you're just doing a a series of classes here that's that's not going to be very long, just get them hand fighting. I said, You we saw that at the weekend. So deny someone's deny your opponent the opportunity to actually grab a hold of you and connect to you. That's a huge part of the sport. That's you you could you could like you said, I don't think you can do too much of it, to be quite honest.

SPEAKER_00

Now, I and I agree 100%. I I have learned something, probably something I was ignoring, but something that I that's can you pick your volume up a bit?

SPEAKER_01

You're a bit low. I'm a bit low, yes. I'm full of blast here, and I can hardly I can't hear you that well. All right, one second.

SPEAKER_00

I have to figure out how to how to do all this stuff. Okay, wait. It might be you though. Oh no, it's me. It's me. Okay, sorry. Okay. All right, cool. Um and this is gonna sound like like you're gonna say, of course, but I I had always hoped that if they if I let's say I did a warm-up drill where we were just hand fighting on the feet. I had always hoped that once we went on the ground, they would hand fight. But I I have really come to understand that context is is so important that for most beginners, for most newer people, even intermediate people, hand fighting vertically is different than hand fighting horizontally, even if I don't think it is, and you don't think it is because we have that level of experience, they can't just transfer hand fighting from here to here. Sure. They no matter how much I want them to. And it just tells me how silly it is sometimes to think that we can program a move and expect it to work when every time it's different. Because hand fighting should be hand fighting. And eventually they get the context in all those places and they can do it. And good hand fighters end up being good hand fighters. But the idea that I that I thought that they could just transfer that on their own is probably a mistake I made for a lot of years.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Different context. Different context, but you wouldn't think, right? If grappling is grappling, hand fighting is hand fighting, but it's not.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's the same thing, it's the same thing. Striking's not really striking, right? Same or change you well, you change your rule set and it's it's completely different. You change the size of the gloves. That's why boxing looks different from Moikai, and Moikai looks different from kickboxing, and kickboxing looks different from Taekwondo and all the rest of it. It's fundamentally the same. You're trying to hit that motherfucker without getting hit. But the behaviors are different. I think that's two part. I think that's culturally and historically the way the the techniques that we value and we have our the students do. I'd be curious to see if you just had the rule set, just had the rules set, and that's all we're operating in. Um whether whether styles would change. Because I'm reluctant to call like I think striking it sounds really wanky, right? But I'm reluctant to call our team anything other than kind of a freestyle, because it is a freestyle.

SPEAKER_00

Right. How quickly do you think that people like a high-level striker? How long does it take them to calibrate or recalibrate to something like a glove change or something like the size of the area or something like that?

SPEAKER_01

Uh probably not that long. It depends. Like I think it depends. If we're talking punches and kicks, probably not as long. If we're talking boxers going into kicking sports, then then that's a whole other tool. Right. So we're not saying you're getting new tools, we're saying you're adapting the tools. This we're adapting the tools that you have. Not saying they're different skill sets. They're just there's different demands and characteristics, just with subtle changes in in the rules.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

I'm thinking of I'm thinking of the tie boxers coming over to the one rule set with the small gloves and the bigger area of the fights. I know you do, but to me, that that seems to be causing some difficulty um for guys who grew up you know fighting and developing a personal style with the big gloves and a small ring, and almost the scripted, you know, tie boxing is a very scripted sport. Um and now they some of them are having a harder time adapting to the this new rule set to the point that it's almost a different sport.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

No, I do enjoy these small glove muay fights in one. I mean, it's it's it's it's crazy the amount of damage both sides generally are taking. But these kids are these kids are quick and uh powerful, and yeah, it does look like it does look, it does look completely different, I'll give you that.

SPEAKER_00

Right, so it's not it's not tie boxing. No. And so to call it tie boxing, I think does a disservice to what this new emergent sport is versus you know the traditional type of tie boxing. It's different. What would you call it? I don't know. In when Rory, Rory and Forrest fought in South Africa, that promoter had this idea he called extreme standup, which was MMA without takedowns. So it was small glove kickboxing, and no fight made it out of the first round, and every fight ended with a pretty brutal, uh, a pretty brutal knockout. Um, so I don't I don't know what you'd call it. Um but I think a person and go go past so the rule set, we include the environment, we include the judging criteria, we include all of that. And so it seems like when you change all of those things, you are no longer playing the same game. Yeah, don't disagree. Uh one of the things that that they pointed out for the fight this weekend was that Tiara was at a disadvantage because they did not allow the 12 to 6 elbows in New Jersey. And so when he was mounted, this tool that he would have used to get Van to turn over was not available. Now that's I think it's a minor thing for a high-level fighter to lose. But if that's a tool that guys train and use and and they use it to set up their methods and things like that, taking it away has an effect.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, don't disagree. The I think furthermore, are we making small talk here? Have you been reading anything interesting? I know we didn't have a topic today, we're just riffing.

SPEAKER_00

Well, no, this is I I think this fits in with with the thing I'm really reading right now and loving, but just one more point. I also think that over time, when you change the rules, you change the athletes that play the game.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. But I've I've thought that for does a well, I think MMA might be, you know, there's because there's way more variability. Yes. Yeah, so if not, does uh do you pick the sport or does a sport sport pick you? A bit of both.

SPEAKER_00

I think a bit of both. I think MMA maybe because there are so many ways to win, there are so many ways to do it. Um, but some some other sports, you know, they they force a certain body type. I was I use the example of um of football, American football. But we could probably say any football, if you change the size of the field, then you probably select for different athletes. So in American football, if you change the width of the field, then you have to have smaller offensive linemen because they can't move laterally the same way. And so I it's interesting when you see a guy fighting one rule set and then fight another rule set, and it's the same guy. But I wonder over time if if they would be different, you'd have different people fighting those skill sets. And maybe striking is not different enough, but right we do see the we do see a plethora of of south paws in kickboxing sports, more so than in the general public. So it obviously selects for that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think we see that generally in sport, right? I think that's been established. That generally in sport, there's a um what you say, a disproportional advantage to to uh lefties, depending on how tightly they're like how you know I would imagine lefty versus righty, maybe, well, even maybe tennis, some of that. I'm sure baseball, right? I'm sure there's a disproportional amount of lefties, left-handed pitchers in baseball and sluggers. It's different, it's different information. Right.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh I think a left-handed pitch.

SPEAKER_01

But I think I would say that confidently, that whatever the whatever the baseline or the average number of lefties are in the general population, I think you find more of them in sport. I think I've read that a dozen times.

SPEAKER_00

I I yes, and I think you made the statement where where it is um sort of effective. Because like in in football, you s you do not see a lot of left-handed quarterbacks. Okay, interesting. Because the the whole sport is basically right-handed.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. And we and would there would there necessarily be an advantage from throwing lefty? Is there is that just like a smaller uh the information that a a lefty versus a righty's giving you, maybe from a quarterback, isn't quite as I would say, it's not quite as potent or there's it's not quite as rich as you would get maybe in a fight, or even say tennis or baseball and stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I know I I remember that there was a joke that if you had a if you had a son who was left-handed, the best, the easiest path to being a professional athlete was a left-handed pitcher. Because they they there are so many advantages with the way the ball travels. And when we think about striking, orthodox, orthodox, when when you open that up, so much changes. The angles, the distances, it's not just a simple change. And what always what always interests interests me is when I see two southpaws fight. And it is obvious that one of them is much more comfortable fighting another southpaw than the other one.

SPEAKER_01

Well, Southeast Southie is usually the way I can fuck everyone's game up. Uh lefty righty, we do a lot of that, but lefty lefty, there's the shots aren't there, the you know, and it it's it's well, it's it's interesting to me at least. Um, because I uh as a golf guy, right? You don't see many lefties in golf. It doesn't matter. It matters in some sports more than others. Is that because the courses are are right-handed, if you will? No, I don't think so. I think you just because it doesn't really matter, you get closer to what that you probably get a little bit closer to what the the amount of lefties are in the general population. I'd love to keep we keep you yapping. I'm just gonna I'm curious.

SPEAKER_00

I I just typed it in myself. Left-handed golfers are minority in the sport, have achieved significant success with 18 lefties having one on the PGA tour. Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, I don't know anything about Roy Robert, I don't know that guy. I don't know if it's enough to make any kind of any kind of claim here. But Wikipedia has a whole page on left-handed golfers. You'll have to go down that rabbit hole at some point.

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, and I don't really watch golf now. So overall prevalence is roughly 10% of human beings are left-handed. Okay. I think there's well curious now to now we really need to. I'm gonna have the answer for it.

SPEAKER_00

I'm curious now to see the the It's calculated that only 5-7% of golfers play left-handed.

unknown

Huh.

SPEAKER_01

So less generally a little less. Less?

SPEAKER_00

And so there's so there's definitely gonna be a survivor bias there, and so it'd be hard to hard to say anything about if it's better to be left-handed or not. Seems like they've been weeded out a little bit. But it's probably harder to get left-handed clubs.

unknown

Right?

SPEAKER_00

You don't just turn the club around, right? I don't know anything about golf. I played one side. Yeah. Um, you asked me what I was reading. I'm always reading a bunch of shit, but the thing I'm I'm reading and loving right now is um David Epstein's new book, Inside the Box. And I don't know if you've read, did you read any of his previous books?

SPEAKER_01

You said the other one was, is it was it Thrive or Drive? Or he wrote Range. Range. No, I haven't read that, but I'm gonna I'm gonna get him.

SPEAKER_00

You you um you spoke, you know, we spoke about that idea when the Nature paper came out about early specialization versus um, and uh I'm still not so sure that the nature paper was a well-written paper, but that's neither here nor there. So the the thesis of this book is how constraints shape everything, right? And it it has very little to do. There's a there are like two pages on the constraints-led approach. And the rest of it is just about how people in historically um or systems historically have constrained themselves or constrained people, um, and what has come out of that creatively. And I picked up some things for my practice design that I'm sure I had read about in more academic settings, or but he just is uh he's explaining it in just such a simple manner that I've really enjoyed it. So there was like one of the chapters he was talking about the idea of constraining people away from their preferred solution, but then also guiding them to attempt other solutions. There was some, he called it something, but the I thought, you know, that that's we do that all the time as coaches.

SPEAKER_01

And what is it book? Is it books implying constraining?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Okay, yeah. And his his point, his main thesis is that complete freedom does not allow for creativity, and that by applying some level of constraints, you end up being more creative, you end up being able to explore differently and setting yourself up for success in some in some places.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I can see that. Why I'm why I might I it might, I might, the charge might be that I've suggested this before, but I don't think that just open sparring all the time is the best way. I don't believe that. I'm always trying to have some kind of problem to solve in their unique way. Here, I pulled this up here and it's from Chat GPT mine, so it's obviously true. Um or or a hallucination. Yeah, 10 10% of baseline for human left-handedness. Um the UFC sample, 50 of the 245 UFC fighters are coded as left-handed southpaw. I thought there was more than 250 45 fighters, and then of the top active male pro boxers, 25% are southpaw. So it's interesting. So there is definitely an advantage. Where 17 17 again, chat, chat, right? 17% of boxers are considered left-handed, but 25% of elite level boxers are southpaw. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00

So what I would what I would want to know, just being uh just being a uh a science geek or whatnot, is how many were born Southpaws and how many fight as Southpaws or or maybe they're ampidextrous, but I'd love to know a little bit more about the Southpaws. Because like Michael, you know, Michael Moore, you remember Michael Moore? Yes. Right? He was uh he was a uh orthodox fighter who fought as a southpaw to have his best punch closer. And I think we've had a couple boxers like that in the past that have been champions. I'd have to look into that.

SPEAKER_01

So the thing through the lens of a boxing purist, and again, this could all be level, uh, this can all be relative. I'm not saying you put Strickland in a um title fighter boxing, his job's gonna be effective. But does Strickland have a good job?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Yes. I I can considering I I believe you and I agree that the jab or a jab or is not uh not a like it's not judged on one thing. And so he has a he has a very good front hand in the sense that no, he doesn't have a jab like Burns, where it snapped heads and it set up his two and it it had it was an offensive weapon. He has a jab that disrupts the other person's distance, it disrupts the other person's timing, it is uh slappy. Um and so it is effective. Uh maybe, maybe we don't use, I know you and I don't the word good is a it doesn't help us that much, but it is an effective weapon, it's an effective tool. Yeah, and the fact that he can use it going backwards and forwards, and and um he did set up a great two in the second round. I mean that that's the punch that I think changed the fight a bit. So yeah, and I I think when he's able to, um he has a really good teep, and so you put that together, I think he has a really good feel for distance management.

SPEAKER_01

Um, I think that's what he does best. Like you have to, I'm not saying I have an eye for it. I'm saying if you watch closely, again, if we're scoring these, if we're scoring these fights on damage, and I know he was bloodied up, he went 25 minutes in a fist fight, but a lot of the blows that even score on him, they're no damage in him. He's just got this beautiful ability to redirect the force or be fading out. I really enjoy watching.

SPEAKER_00

Um, I don't from a an entertainment value.

SPEAKER_01

The the fading, the fading and the redirecting is entertaining to me. I think that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00

I meant uh I mean just as in a totality, like a a guy moving backwards, throwing jabs and and weird peeps to me is not that entertaining. And and I try and, you know, on a night like Saturday night, I try and not watch it as a coach or an expert or or knowledgeable. I I wanted to just sit on my couch with my friends. I had some of the fellows, some of my young guys came over to watch with me and Rory, and I just wanted to be entertained.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, here, uh both both camps, if you will, kind of got the dig digging. You see what uh Jim Miller said. I did. And I'll tell you this.

SPEAKER_00

So um I have I have to do it. What did he say? Just in case. He said that he had drilled that guillotine a thousand times, and he doesn't understand his. I don't know the quote. He took a dig at eco, basically. Right. And I immediately went to his record, pulled up his record, and the irony that he has been using a guillotine to win fights. If you asked me even before he said that, what is Jim Miller's best finishing move, I would have said guillotine. Because I follow Jim Miller. I used to follow his brother also when he was in the that team fighting thing, because his strengthing edition coach and one of his best friends is a good friend of mine by the name of Martin Rooney. And Martin has been Jim's strengthing edition coach since Jim started fighting. Um and I and he's always in the corner for him. So I just thought it was funny that he makes this claim that his guillotine is so good because he does thousands of reps. First off, that sounds like total bullshit. That at this point in your career, he's what? He's 40, he's 42 years old, he's coaching, he is actively fighting, he's a black belt in jujitsu for a long time. He's spending, he's doing thousands of reps of anything is silly. But if you go back, he's been guillotining people since 2008. That was his first win by guillotine. And he has since that he's won like 10 fights, I think, by guillotine. There's one, two, a lot of rear naked chokes, too. I wonder if he's doing thousands of reps of rear naked chokes also. Four. He's got like 10 wins, it looks like, maybe by guillotine and and or like maybe six guillotines, six rear naked chokes. And what what Rory said when he said that is how in his head is eco that after winning this fight, that's what he commented on. Isn't that weird?

SPEAKER_01

A little bit, but the the the other side got it back too by saying, you know, about Strickland because all he does is spar. We're kind of almost holding Strickland up as a poster boy. I saw that comment a couple of times.

SPEAKER_00

I don't want to hold Strickland up as a poster boy either. I don't want to hold I I would just prefer people to shut the fuck up about all of it, right?

SPEAKER_01

Well, um we we're doing a bit of it too, right? Um, but the post fight post fight narratives are the they're just drip with hindsight bias and um you know they're they're unfalsifiable. Made this mistake too. Like we're a good example of this. You a fighter, fighter A knocks fighter B down. Okay. They either go in for the kill or they'll let them up. But then two different things can happen. They can go in for the kill and get G teamed right away, and you say, Why the fuck did you why did you fuck not let them up and knock them down again? Or they'll let them up and they end up losing the fight. Why didn't you go in for the kill? These are these are unfalsifiable comments. We never know. They're pure speculation. So after a fight like that, where everyone has an answer, either they weren't surprised or this is what they should have done, or this is what you did do, and whatever, it's just storytelling.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

I should not talk about other than we're kind of doing it ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_00

I I I try not to. I mean, I am when I am analyzing, and I think what you're analyzing, we're just talking about what came out of the relationship, not why did they do it, but what actually happened. Because all we can talk about is what actually happened. We can't make a story about it, we can't build anything else other than Sean Strickland moved backwards and threw his jab and rolled punches, and that was effective for him. I'm sure that's not what he was trying to do or planned to do or whatever the fuck it is. I don't, I'm not gonna make those statements. And I don't think he, I mean, that's what he does in every fight. If Jim Miller had won by a submission he had never won with before, and came on the mic and said, for the last three months, all I've done is a thousand reps of that move every day. I never did it live, I never tried it before, and it just came out fuck eco, then that would have made more sense than what he said. Or all I did was visualize this. Every night before bed, I visualize this submission.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then in that case, I'd be like, you're a high-level black belt fighting a guy with limited grappling, so don't be too impressed with that.

SPEAKER_01

I like Jim Millerfield, other than his hair.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I I like I like Jim, I like his brother. They're Jersey boys. And I hope he keeps fighting. They gave him a new that was the last fight on his contract, they gave him another contract.

SPEAKER_01

So how many fights till he gets to 50? What is he? 48, 48, 7, 48 fights in the oh, in the UFC.

SPEAKER_00

Let's see. I that I don't that I'm not totally sure. But the dude wrestled, he was a college wrestler, so he's been grappling this whole life. Tremendous longevity, huh?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I just started speaking to that. We'll give um Sean Mishka's uh new book a shout out. And I'm telling you. Did you get it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, hold on. All right, you'll have to do some math. He was 12. So his 12th fight was in the UFC. Okay. Okay, so 12. And then the other night was his 59th. So you take 11 off that.

SPEAKER_01

So it was 48, I think. The first fight was his 12th fight. First fight UFC was his 12th fight, right? I think so.

SPEAKER_00

Let's see, Jim Miller UFC record. Is it says no? That's his re that's his whole record. I'll have to go to Chat GPT. 47 fights in the UFC. 47. And they just signed him with a contract. He'll get to 50.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. Shout out to Sean Grace. My thing's blurred here. You're blurred. Switch about it.

SPEAKER_00

So tell tell me about tell me about it, because I'm gonna you know what surprised me the most?

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna send him a message, but I'm gonna read a bit more into it. Um it's really simply a written. Okay, it's very, very, you know, um digestible and accessible. And I was I was unsure because I've never it's the first book that I've read that Sean's written. I think he's probably a written one number four, but I was expecting a bit more kind of jargon and academic high fluent speech. Because you can you can tend to talk a uh a bit more technically. That never came through at all. I really like it. And the the I'm not quite there yet, but chapter three, which I've said for the long time, because you know, I'm 50 this year. It's uh you didn't lose it, you stopped solving movement problems. And I want to I'd agree with that. Anyway, it's called The Lifelong Athlete Reclaim Your Movement and Rebuild Your Edge after 40. That's from uh at movement my aggie, and it's uh I'm enjoying it so far. And actually, page 15 I've got a bit of a shout out, that's maybe why. But um nice, it's in my card. Um I I've been thinking about that. I think what happens as we age, because I was waiting for this cliff at 40. And granted, I didn't start combat sports till my late 20s, but I was waiting for this cliff at 40 and it never came. I have more new m boo-boos and nagging injuries now that kind of accumulated over time. But I'm 50 now and I still feel pretty good. And I think it's possibly because I keep deluding myself and thinking I can I can still do this and I can still hang with these youngsters, and I just keep moving. And I think there's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy in the agent athlete. Whereas you're getting older, so you you maybe don't train as much. So your your um ability, your performance starts to go down, and then you you just you go in this cycle. And for me it's a bit training a little bit smarter now. I kind of like red line every fucking day, but every two or three days I'm on the mats going hard and it and then um every day I'm doing I'm doing something. I'm moving around with the boys and doing something. A bit of light sparring, a bit pummeling, this kind of stuff. So I think that was uh I'm looking forward to that chapter. But that would be the message to all the old folks at there. Keep keep keep on keeping on if you can, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean I I and I think we could have a more in-depth discussion when you're done with the book. I'd like to read it. I I do we do lose a lot of action capacity. Um, and there's nothing there's nothing you could do about that. I mean, we there are declines in in certain areas that are really important for this sport, especially um declines in in power output and things like that. Um, so I think we have to keep challenging ourselves if we want to keep doing this. I uh it obviously we'll you'll we'll do it at whatever level we're capable of, but I'm like you, I try and do something every day. Saturday morning, um, we ended up the gym had an in interschool tournament. So my sparring class got pushed to the back mat. And so we had like a 20 by 20 space, and we had about 10 groups at two. And I was like, all right, you know, figure out, figure out what it looks like when there are people all around you, and and you know, and we just sort of boxed mostly. And the guys are nice to me because they know I want to do this and I have a value, but they also treat me a little bit with like with kid gloves, which I appreciate. I don't want to get I don't want to get bonked around even by guys lighter than me or smaller. I don't want to get bonked around. I have no desire for that. I just want to play, I want to have some fun. Um, and I don't go near any of them when they're gearing up for a fight because I don't want to have them calibrate for the old man. But if they're nowhere near a fight and they're just they're just there working out, then there's no reason I can't spar with them.

SPEAKER_01

That's probably it. They're probably then my boys are listening, they're probably going, listen to this silly old bastard, still thinks he's got it. They're probably just they're probably just giving me bones here and bones there.

SPEAKER_00

Uh what I can do something on and which they're like, damn. But it's not, you know, if we did 10 three minute rounds, then there are just glimpses of that that are fun and cool and they really appreciate it. But the rest of the time I'm just mostly protecting myself, and they are taking it easy on me. And I think that's I don't see a problem with that. Um grappling's, I'm sure grappling's the same way, you know. But I can I can hold my own grappling more than I can striking at this point, because that the speed is less important than grappling. Um but what I agree, what I I my the the point that you made, I think is the most important one is I think we used to have this idea as we get older, we needed more rest and recovery. But I don't think those words are synonymous. I think we need more recovery, but that doesn't necessarily equate to rest. And so uh a rolling stone gathers no moss. I think we should do something. As we get older, we should have less off days. And we should find a way to do something every day. And I remember uh spending time with Randy Couture, and it's hard to think about how old he was back then, but when Randy was the UFC champion, he was 40, right? And I remember talking to him in a group, and we were talking about, you know, how many rest days, how does he structure his training, what does he do? And he said he trains six days a week, and on a seventh day is his rest day, and he goes out for like a five or eight mile hike with his dogs. And so basically he was saying he never did nothing. And that it took me a while to figure that out, but it makes sense, even if it's just a walk, even if it's just moving around with the guys, even if it's a light grapple, I think the more we stay and the more we do, the more we stay involved, the better it is for us as we age.

SPEAKER_01

Well, if we if if if we buy in to what we talk about, right, is that we're adaptable organisms and our bodies are constantly adapting to the the environment and the the stress and the action we're trying to put on it, it makes complete sense. Are we going to be able to do that at peak output and peak volume? Clearly not, but we're constantly adapting. And that's I think that's the point that that Sean's making on the book. We didn't get old, we stopped adapting.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Well, don't don't them there are similar there are similar maxims about, you know, we didn't like about stopping. Like you you didn't get old because you stopped playing, you didn't get old because you couldn't play, you got old because you stopped playing, or things like that. I don't I don't clip that out because that's that's not what it is. But you know what I'm saying. Like it is that self-fulfilling prophecy. We are less physically capable because we have stopped challenging ourselves to be physically capable. And every time I see some old guy, you know, run a track and field record faster than I could now, or complete some ultra marathon, or compete in masters 10 world championships, then it gives me it gives me a little motivation that maybe I can do this longer than I thought I could originally.

SPEAKER_01

Have you had any knee or have you had any surgeries or like catastrophic injuries?

SPEAKER_00

I have not had any catastrophic injuries except for my neck. Well, well, I and that I don't that wasn't catastrophic in the sense that I was fine one day and bad the next day. That was a wear and tear over time thing. Um because there was there was a period of time where I was much heavier, and so all my training partners were much larger. And that put a lot of unnecessary stress on my neck. And so there was a period where I was off the mat for maybe even a year um recovering from from that, but I haven't had any surgeries. I've been very lucky with that. I learned very early to protect myself. Um, that that that was the most important thing I could do is keep myself safe. Um, I did drop a 10-pound plate on my foot and ended up in the ER on Sunday. All right.

SPEAKER_01

Or knee shoes on.

SPEAKER_00

No, I always I always left barefoot. I own the gym, so I always left barefoot. I don't think a shoe would have mattered. Maybe it would have stopped the putt that that what I was just pulling a plate off and I wasn't paying attention. And I've been in weight rooms since I was 12. This is the first time I've ever done that. I've had close calls before, but and I just was pulling it, and then the next thing I know, I felt it. Oh, and I looked down and there's just blood everywhere, and I thought maybe I severed my toe. And so I don't like blood. I don't, I was like, the guy I was with, Alex, I was like, get me a towel quick. Because if I had to look at it, I was gonna fucking pass out. But it wasn't, it was so painful it had gone numb. Yeah, yeah. I had a stress fracture on my big toe and a chip fracture on the toe next to it. It's pretty nasty looking. Okay, it's just your toys. Yeah. Well, I but you know, you know what went through my head, and and I think it's a good way to wrap up, and and then I I gotta what I was what I am terrified of is something that causes me a period of inactivity. Sure. Um something, a catastrophic injury, a surgery, uh, a sickness. You know, if I had broken, you know, if I had to lose a toe or have a toe reattached and I was out, like something like that terrifies me, that keeps me going.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, when I blew my ACL, I think four years ago, I was, you know, uh really it was really upsetting because I was I've had away off the mats for nine months, and I'm trying to coach and stuff too. So that that was difficult. Um the other thing is when it comes to rehab with me, I'm not very disciplined. I'll do it, I'll do it just long enough so it feels better, and then then I then I stopped doing it. But I tried to take that quite seriously. We had three blown, we've had three blown ACLs in the space of a month, two other coaches and me in the gym, just kind of a fluke, I think, because we haven't had any prior to, we haven't had any since. But the other two got surgery, and they've never been the same as their knees, and I don't get knee pain. In fact, I have to take a couple of seconds to remember which knee it was a blow. And if I've got an ACL, I don't know. There's apparently there's some evidence to say if if depending on the anatomy of your knee, it it could regraft itself. I've no idea. But I get zero knee pain, no arthritis. I've got my range of motion back, um, which is interesting because and I never got the surgery. So if anyone's and this is maybe something, if anyone's blows their ACL, the reason I never, I was 45, I'm like, am I really going to go and get surgery? My insurance was less than stellar. And when I did a lot of reading about it, apparently, it's you it's generally in the States that they push for they push for surgery on ACLs. And the reckoning that most people who get the surgery probably wouldn't need it because you have copers in your and people who don't cope, and I wasn't buckling that much. So if anyone that has blown their ACL or recently blown or gonna blow it, gonna blow it, just I would be cautious about I'm not a doctor, this is not medical advice, but I would be cautious about jumping right into surgery because the people I've spoken to that heard surgery, it's it's not always the best outcome, I don't feel. So I'm using a gain of one, which is me, which is meaningless, but well, I can tell you this.

SPEAKER_00

I and this is it's um when they've looked at long-term outcomes of meniscus surgery, I know it's not the same thing, but it's related. When they've looked at long-come long-term outcomes of meniscus surgery, there's almost no definitive proof that getting surgery and not getting surgery have any difference in outcomes.

SPEAKER_01

Now there are some meniscus as well, which never got in and done.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Now there are some meniscus tears that cause locking, and you probably need to get that clipped out. But the meniscus repairs where they they glue it or certain long term, there doesn't seem to be much difference between uh physical therapy outcomes and surgical outcomes.

SPEAKER_01

Well, as we say all the time, it's complex and the body is uh the body's always much smarter than us, generally speaking.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I'm sorry, my tomorrow Rory and I head to a symposium that we go to called Summer Strong. Okay. And it is a gathering of probably all the top college, especially college and some pro uh strength and additioning coaches, some some private facility owners, some uh some Olympians, some just there are probably about 600 people that show up at this event. Um and so Rory and I get invited to to get to spend like a lot of the VIP time and we get to go to VIP dinner tomorrow night with all the speakers and stuff. Um, and so I always I always get to spend some time picking some coaches' brains and and arguing with them about these things and stuff. So I'm I'm really looking forward to um that opportunity. But one of my one of the guys who's gonna be there that I've spent some time with before is Bo Sandoval, who was with the UFC PI for a long time and now he's a uh now he he's a coaching educator at Texas AM. And so I I've already prepared him to have some discussions about these topics. So I'm looking forward to you know talking to some people that have have never even thought about an ecological approach or or or exploring ecological approaches without ever knowing what it is. So I'm looking forward to that. So I'll report back on that. That's Thursday night, Friday, Saturday.

SPEAKER_01

All right. Well, I'm gonna wait to take my son at work. So you have a good day, and I'll uh I'm really sorry to Mladen. We had uh Mladen Yovanovich meant to come on today and I fucked up, I overslept, and I never got back to him. So I don't know if I've burned that bridge, but he's a PhD, he does all the um agile periodation skills.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I had some I had I had a bunch of questions for him.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, sorry, Mladen. Hopefully I've not fucked this up, but um, if not, we'll see him next week.

SPEAKER_00

All right, I'll see you next week. Have a good day. Bye bye.