Learning to Fight - Episode 28

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 0:11

Today we're just shooting a shit. No, Scotty, Scotty wrote in uh Substack about grifters. And I think Rory, you and I have spoken about this in in other contexts, right? Like when someone when I see someone teaching someone nonsense, I think that they're stealing from people. And I think that they are endangering people, especially in martial arts. If you tell people I'm teaching you how to survive or protect yourself, and it's garbage, then you are outright dangerous. And so Rory and I have always called those people out. But Stadi, you are now on a rampage against what you're calling drifters. Would you like to share some thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Uh rampage is a strong word. I'm trying to pick my battles because I'm not particularly proud of myself. Damn near 50. I shouldn't even be getting in internet squabbles. But the gentleman that we'll probably talk about today, um, I feel a little differently because his content is just dripping with shit talk about everyone else in the combat sports industry. And he has hoodwinked and fooled and convinced a lot of high-level fighters that his pseudo-profound bullshit is worth taking their valuable development time upon.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Alright, do we want to mention his name?

SPEAKER_02 1:28

We'll get there, we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Here's the thing. I don't you're you're being 50 and internet squabbles and all that shit. I mean, it's important.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

We're getting there.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

It's not. Well, I was just there a couple weeks ago, but it's not. I don't I don't believe, as Adam said, you know, we we see people in in the space teaching self-defense and bullshit, and we we get on all of those people, at least I know Adam and I do, I beside because they're stealing money, they're dangerous. And if you're also then saying they're taking up people's valuable resources and time and they're not helping, then I don't think it's squabbling to try and point out to people that pseudo-scientific bullshit and and other nonsense because you can say a lot of words and uh are valuable.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

I I've just can I just interject there? There's two cohorts, right? The biggest cohort, they're hobbyists, they want to lose weight. I put a reel on last night. We've had this kid Nate that joined us uh four months ago. He's in every day, he's giving it his best try, and he's 48 pounds down in four months. And again, anyone that brings people in a sport and a community and to get moving, I'm all for it. We're talking about serious fighters who are serious about their careers and serious about development. So I want to just put that like preface anything we say today is I have no interest in being a gatekeeper or any kind of authority on who should be allowed to uh share ideas in the sport. We should always be able to share our ideas in the sport, but we should also be able to let our ideas uh be challenged and let them be scrutinized. That's all.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Well, so and and I think one of my coaches last night asked me, we were talking about um how we approach feedback, instruction, interventions, and stuff. And he said a very fair question. He said, How do we know this is right? And I said, We don't. We don't I said, but no, but whatever other theory there is, we don't know that that's right either. And at a minimum, we seem to be willing to say, this is what we believe, this is a an underpinning, a framework, and try and defend why we're doing what we're doing. And what I find infuriating about some of these people we're talking about is they'll put up a drill, they'll put up an idea, and you will just ask a very simple question, like, why do you think this transfers, or what is the effect you're looking for, or et cetera, et cetera. And they will never engage with that. And I know that we, at least the three of us, are very willing to engage with that question. We may none of us on the I think it should be the question. I agree. And no one on either no one on either side of the ledger has like can present a bunch of evidence. We're all just experimenting. It's impossible to control for all the variables and say this is this, but at least we are willing to engage and answer questions and be challenged and challenge each other. And what I see from the other people is an inability to defend why they do what they do, to rationalize why they do what they do, other than this is what we've always done, or I do this and my fighters win fights.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

I don't really see a problem in rationalizing it. I think we can rationalize it, rationalize it easily and readily. I just question the rationalization. I mean, you can say shadow boxing works because everyone does it and it's uh and you can visualize and so we can make stories up about everything we do, right? So the rationalization part is is simple enough. But does it hold up to further scrutiny? What does that scrutiny look like? The scrutiny asks what your fundamental like what like on ontological or what's your what's your grounded assumptions, what is your framework and your approach based upon? How do you think people learn? How do you think people move? And when someone it's such a fascinating question to me, and it's it's getting redundant now to ask it so much. When two fighters come to the middle of the cage and get ready to throw a strike at each other, what is going on? What and that's that's what we're spending, you know, a little bit tragic, but that's what we're weird to watch our lifestyle, understanding what is going on.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

And what infuriates me a little bit about asking those questions is how can that be going on when you are doing it by yourself? Or how could that be going on when you're doing it on hand pads? Or how could that be going on when you're doing kata, right? That that someone on our our thing today posted again. What it all look like kata to me. I do this, they do this, I do this, they do this, then I do this. And I really thought we moved past that when we sort of all left the traditional martial arts. But we see it in striking, we see it in Brazilian jujitsu, we see it in wrestling, these trying to ingrain these patterns of I do this, they do this. Well, what what if they just do something slightly different? Well, there's another pattern. Say again, there's another pattern for that.

unknown 6:34

Right?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

But they there isn't. So they believe that there's some online adjustment that occurs.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

It's just it it's impossible. Yeah, well it's because if again, if you ask them why they think that's occurring, I don't believe they have an answer. I don't believe most people we I think that if someone questions me, I at least have an answer, like you said earlier, to why we do what we do. Whether it's academic underpinnings, it's theoretical underpinnings, it's but there's an answer. And if we're wrong, well then, you know, okay, we're wrong, but then why are you right? And if all you have is because I learned it this way, they learned it this way, and they learned it this way, then that's not an answer to any that that shouldn't be. No one should be okay with because I learned it this way. You could have learned it completely and utterly wrong. And his coach could have learned it wrong from his coach, and all these coaches could be doing it wrong if you can't answer a fundamental why. And if all the coaches postmodern verbiage bullshit, then that's not an answer either. That's just you obfuscating people with language, and that's what makes you a grifter.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

I had I had a good conversation with Forrest the other day, and what what ended up, what the conversation ended up going towards is that regardless, like he he sees what we were talking about, right? He sees that in a perfect world. This is probably how he would train people. But our discussion is not about what's right, what's wrong. These people win, these people lose. It was just the difficulties involved in applying some of these things in a world where there's a mixture or people expect certain things, or safety, or you know, cultures, things like that. And and I think that's a that's a great conversation. Because those are real world difficulties. But that's not that's not what people are engaging in. So, Scotty, you want to tell us who you're who you're when when you have this Mount Rushmore of grifters, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:32

I think who's uh just left me and didn't want to play. I have two. Who are your two? Who are the two?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Oh, there's two. He has two.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

I think one of two. There's really one. It's uh it's coach Barry Robinson.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Okay. Tell us what what bothers you the most about what is he doing.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Let me start off with some something nice to say. I do think he has uh I do think he's a tactician and his strategies, and I think he clearly has an eye for fighting. I wouldn't I wouldn't take that away from him. I think the I think and I'm I'm more comfortable, I I never like I never like talking shit. I'm never that comfortable even talking it now. But when I watch some of his content, it's just constant bashing of everyone else. Everyone else's ideas, no one knows what the fuck they're doing, and then proceeds to talk about this layering the cake with 30 rounds of walking and uh and he's doing this for elite-level fighters. And umce or twice I've you know, I've had a conversation with him, someone put me in for an IG Live and that went off the rails quickly. We were talking past each other, so that was a complete mess. Um but is he he will not engage with anything that even remotely challenges or pushes back. Hence the reason when I we kind of flirted with each other last week and now I'm banned from all his accounts, removing my comments. And just to give a little bit of context, he's working with a high-level Bellator fighter or a or a Bellator fighter. He had one of these aqua bags with a broomstick on the top, and he had the guy, and it was like one of these Daleks from Doctor Who, and you had the guy doing all this stuff and whatnot. And we got a little bit of uh uh back and forward from that, and I've been um I've been banished from his uh social media press. So I'm fucking gloves are off.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

So what could he say to you? What could he say to you that would not create a further like what could he say to you that would would make you say, okay, like we'll agree to disagree, but at least I understand where you're coming from.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

I'd help you think about that.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

But has he hasn't provided anything? That's the thing. He hasn't even looked at the. No, he has. I mean, he Okay. His I believe that he would say, and I'm just trying to steel man him for for, I believe that he would say that his ideas are rooted in military drilling. Right? He was in the army, and he is a big basketball fan. And he would sort of take those two worlds and say, in the military, we teach people to do very dangerous things by rote repetition. And in the basketball world, those players spend a lot of time on rote repetition. And so he would watch a video of a fighter uh of a strategy or tactic working in high-level fights, and he would say the way to do this is to tease it apart and do rote repetition on each of these parts, much like some BJJ coaches that you know we know about. Lloyd Irwin is a good example. I mean, he not not um he's a big drill guy for very similar reasons. Um, I think that's what Barry would argue. The interesting thing is some of his ideas on defense being a priority, some of his ideas on on, you know, if you're not defending, if if you're having a problem defending the jab, then then you're gonna have a problem fundamentally boxing. Things like that uh make total sense to me. And I think all of us. But if you questioned him about that drilling, that that in isolation, walking around, and and why you need to do eight layers of just layering the cake, which I fucking hate that term, by the way. Gotta hate that fucking term.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Well, I know there's plenty of people glazing the cake. There's no story to glaze at the end of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah. Uh uh, there's no room for anybody else. And he's charging an exorbitant amount of money. And and when you ask him a question about what he said or did on Instagram, he he says, well, join my Patreon or pay for this, or he he says, Have you taken enough notes? Have you watched my shit? And I find that I I get it, his time is valuable, but I find his lack of answering anything very disingenuous. Yeah, that's where I'm at with. But again, I ask you, could he say anything to you that would at least you may not agree with?

unknown 12:57

Right?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Because like when we talk to someone who's big on pad holding, and they say, Well, I think pad holding is a good way for my fighters to get precise or faster or hit harder, and I try and make it alive, we may not agree with that. We may not agree that they can actually do that, but at least it's thought out. Could he say something to you where you were like, okay, at least it's well thought out, even if I don't agree with you?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Um I think it would I think it'd be very, very hard pushed to ever be convinced that taking a fighter who who's been training for many, many years has achieved uh higher level of success that being able to overload and reprogram the way they work walk left and right. Okay, let's grant let's grant that can happen. We know we know again, I would I would like to I would like them to explain to me the disconnect for when the live interaction begins and the perturbations come, the noise is added to the system, why it rarely holds up. Why we can look at fights, and it's it w there's a whole industry of that, right? Uh post hoc analysis of fights and it's been the wildest disconnect that I've spoken about for the longest time. We don't see that. We don't see the flowery drills and the perfect technique. It's absent from fighting. We just watched the I mean uh you could make a case, you could take little snips of the uh Elia Justin fight where he was ripping these body shots, and from that little moment there when when Justin was blowing up, you could say that looked like some good technical work, good rotation, good punches, all that. But for the rest of it, it's just there they are glimpses, there they're there's glimpses of it in fights, but the vast majority of fighting is chaotic organization and reorganization of the fighters. And so I beg the question, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

I said this to my my group last night afterwards, because we were doing a lot of first, we're doing a lot of offense, defense work, and a lot of first. And I was like, the only thing that you sort of have control over as you know, the only thing that can be really clean is your sort of first or second strike. Like that's the only thing. After that, by the third strike, it started your everything started to degrade, you're counter-striking, defending, like all that's chaotic.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

I I totally agree, and that's why we we spoke about that last year, right? That the stuff that everything is going on outside of the exchange, and I think to be fair, this is what uh may maybe it is maybe there is more value in that, right? I can't hear you, Rory. You put yourself on mute, Rory. Okay. I'm only interested when the exchange starts. I think everything else is uh more or less irrelevant. Yes, we've got ringmanship where you are in the cage, are you too close to the to the cage wall or the ring ropes or whatever? These things can have an effect once the engagement starts. But we're interested in what's happening when the exchange starts. What happens when the two systems come together and start exchanging? That's what's interesting to us, right? That's the world that we're trying to. That's the that's the puzzle we're trying to solve.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Yeah. I I might extend when the exchange starts a little further than than that.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Um just sorry to your point, I think I think you can make a a good case that that that I could accept that the initiation of that exchange, the the initiation of it, is something that that could probably be developed or could probably benefit from from maybe isolated work. Maybe. It's the only time you know where I went to throw it. Sorry, I'm rambling.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah. No, I agree with you. It's the only time that I watch guys and I want it to sort of look a certain way. I think Rory feels the same way. The only time that I want to see more of an aesthetic quality, for lack of a better term, is when they initiate that initial one or two strikes. Because that's the only time that they are generally throwing from the most balance, the most structure, the most, you know, everything is right. They're they're they're on platform, if you will, who are talking about throwing a football or something. After that, after the first sort of one or two things, then we know everything starts to degrade. Nothing will then look like anything we can control. Stuff is coming back, they're they're missing. So as you miss a punch, then Patty reorganized as you're as you're falling or recovering or defending, like all that's fucking chaos. There's no way to plan for that. The only thing I think you could quote unquote plan for is your first jab cross or your first double jab. It's why every hook we see comes off the hips. I think it's almost like a of a 10-segrity type thing. The cross goes and you sort of bring that hook down and around. I just don't think we control for any of that after the first couple beats. Although there's only And I don't want to do that out of and like you said, I don't want to do that in isolation from an opponent, obviously. But I think we can do a lot of drills on first contact drills or whatever you want to call them. What do you call them? You have a different name for them. That's just going first.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Initiation, whatever. Yeah. Servant return, I call them. Yeah. Um and then I see a performance like Hagare's last week against Yoza, and how he's able to remain stable through his combinations and his movement is really impressive. Really impressive. But if you watch Hagari, he does five or six things. He does them beautifully, he does them wonderfully. He can do more than five or six things, but he's almost chunking these kind of um these exchanges together. I was I'm extremely impressed with that young man. But then it's Muay Thai as well. It's it's it's a smaller, it's a smaller, you know, possibility space. So pure striking is always going to look a little cleaner.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I saw things in the Did you watch the Bootsinas fight versus Ice? You should watch it. You can find it. It's only six rounds. I mean, they are doing things, they are moving and and and in fight. It has some of the best in fighting I've seen. And they're moving around each other and they're doing all these things that I would love fighters to be able to do. I would love to to to quote unquote teach that.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

But how? So we get to that point. So we're seeing this this beautiful expression of movement in these fights. Um so that then so we acknowledge it it it it we can get somewhat close to it, right? So there's the there seems to be this caveat. So it's not a law, right? So some fighters seem to be able to break it. So then ask the question, what contributed to that? I don't think it's enough to say, well, they do a lot of pad work, they practice a lot of pads. I would be curious to know, well, what is the volume of sparring? How's their sparring experience been? What is the the volume of live work? How many fights have they had, or whatever? Because I think, again, we we we go around in circles with this, right? Um we look at uh guys like Lomachenko and Uska now, just so much, so much competition experience. Eight, nine hundred fights between them. You know, that's a development.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

We should not point to someone like Hagerty or Enos or Usik or whatever and try and reverse engineer that. Like that is there is a causality issue in a lot of of what we're seeing, and that's that's what Barry Robinson is guilty of. There's this causality, like, because we did this, they can do this. No, they can do that because they can do it, because they are a rare athlete. Right? And and it's the same thing with with strength and conditioning, where they're like, oh, if if we achieve these strength and conditioning goals, they'll be better football players. Well, maybe they can achieve those goals because they're already at the top of the top. And the the idea that we can reverse engineer, we can watch uh uh Lomachenko do those movements and then think we can reverse engineer that. Okay, we can't reverse engineer 350 high-level amateur fights. We can't reverse engineer that he boxed and wrestled from the time he's 12 years old. Like it's ridiculous. Give me two seconds. Keep talking. All we can do is put them in live exchanges and nudge them towards these things and they'll develop the way they develop. At least that's what we believe. And but I think I think the evidence holds that out because there's only one Lomachenko, there's only one boots in us. If you could reverse engineer it, there'd be a bunch of those guys.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

And how and how many and how yeah, I mean, it's in any athletic endeavor. There are the reason why those guys get to the highest level, if they're all most of them are doing the same stuff, most of them are in the same environment in a sense, and doing similar things, bad work, bad work, uh, getting the coaching from the coach, and this is how you do it, this is the best way to do it, and this is what you know, this is what we want, and this is the technique. And the the the percentages of any of those people out of any of those gyms across the world is it's it's you know, you look at those charts with with how this is how many kids play uh tackle football when they're young. This how many make it to college, this how many make it to the pros, and it's like you're you're better off trying to play lottery because you have a better chance at winning the lottery than you do of being a professional football player.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

There's no one else mimicking Lomachenko. Lomachenko's was has been around as a professional long enough that enough coaches tried to mimic that, tried to show that footwork. Uh we even have a friend who tried to create a system around it, and and you just don't see it. It's not possible. Like there, I remember I'm a bigger boxer fan than you guys. Yeah, I think the I think the only way to move like Lomachenko, to move like Boutzinus, to move like Haggerty, is to have been those, is to be those guys. And the only thing we can do is nudge them towards things and let them develop the way they have to develop, not look at Lomachenko and say, oh, I want my guys to move like Lomachenko. That is ridiculous. And we we don't, and that's the reason we don't see, look, jujitsu had this movement with lapel guards. And you don't see a bunch of guys playing lapel guards. In boxing, you had all these guys who were like uh customado acolytes. They were all trying to teach the the Tyson you had almost nobody achieved any. I remember Jeremy Williams was was one of the guys. No one achieved that a level that Tyson did with that, and you don't see that system or or winky right becoming playing like this kind of shit. No one else can do that. It just points to me the fact that live work, nudge them, get out of the way, they will develop the way they need to and can develop.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

I think this is important too. Well, and there's also the uniqueness in it, Rory. I mean, there's there has been there's been a handful of high, high-level fighters who who who've who their sons have gone into the sport. They haven't either achieved the success, they don't quite move like them, yet the template, presumably, the coaching template has most likely tried to be faithfully uh recreated.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Well, Fraser's a good example. I was just thinking of Fraser, young Marvin, right? Yeah. I mean, he he wasn't his father. He didn't have that, those stones that his father had. His father was a fucking killer. You can't just download that. You see, you know what you saw in the NBA had its draft recently, and there was a tremendous percentage of guys drafted who had parents who had played either high-level college basketball or high level or in the NBA. And some of that's just genetics. Like, if you want to be a high-level basketball player, it's probably good if you have two parents that are high-level athletes. Okay, so we can't do anything about that. That that just happens. And then it probably helps if your parents were like, hey, here's a basketball when you were young, and let's just play in the driveway. And if you play in the driveway from the time you're eight years old to the time you're 16 with a high-level parent or whatever, probably a decent path to getting good at basketball. You know, genuine.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

At the same time, though, you have to enjoy that. Like you're out there for eight years because you don't want to upset your dad, and then when it's time for you to be like, I'm out of here, fuck all this basketball. I want to go play golf or tennis or whatever else, or I just want to go learn how to play chess. Like, there's it, there's so much involved.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

And you've got to be over six foot. Even if your parents are six eight, you may not be over six foot. So you can't you can't play bat, you can't play pro basketball then.

unknown 25:29

No.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Maybe go over six foot.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Yeah, I wonder if you're I'm starting to see, and actually, I've had some feedback from from visitors that have been coming in. I had a tick come a guy come in yesterday. He's a he's a he's a eight six year brown bell or whatever. So I consider him uh, you know, he's a he's a good grappler, he's been around the sport, and he and he was saying to me, you know, you guys are getting really good, and when you opened this and you were going down this approach, it was like you took a chance, right? Because everyone just thought it was a bunch of horseshit. He says, but the the evidence, evidence is starting to come. Like it's on the match, right? I mean, it's we still need to do the proven in the cage, it's still an amateur team. Um but this week uh of open match, because we do it twice twice a year, right? We open the gym to the community for the whole week and people come in and it's just a big free-for-all. And it's just the vibe's great, it's it's wonderful, everyone's sharing ideas, you're getting new looks. And I was curious, are you familiar with the term learned helplessness? What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Go ahead, Rob. I I I couldn't define it. I've I just was reading something. I didn't want to put you on a spot.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I didn't want to put you on a spot, but I think I think it's like it's it's when it's like you're repeatedly in like uncomfortable, stressful situations, and then you basically just stop trying to fix it. You're like it's almost a an internalized victim mentality. It's a kid who's abused their whole lives, you know, almost settles into a life where abuse sort of finds them.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

I think there's something similar going on. Like the the the classic example is the dog, right? They'll shock the dog. Yeah. And then they'll get to a stage where you know there's some behavioral things they'll have there, and the dog just has fuck it, you know. Uh and they still have an insect.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Cover the fleas and then fleas jump and hit the top and then don't jump anymore once they take the top off because they were stopped every time. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

The the reason I bring that up is our clips always been, you know, uh embrace the chaos, learn learn how to learn and embrace the chaos, right? And the learn how to learn part is really important to me. But it's been a struggle, as you might have it too, right? Because I just don't go there. Um I I I want these guys to eventually get it. So it's almost like I'm I'm I I I want to walk behind my fighters, no, no, pull them, pull them along with me, if that makes sense. And some of my guys really get it. And they've learned how to learn, and now they're sharing ideas. I mean, what what can I really tell them? They're exploring, uh, they've they've they understand, they've internalized that that learning is an active process, it's not passive. But to the point is that I've never really been able to convince anyone by my words. They have to get in and experience and just find out for themselves. And it takes some some people never get there, they never really truly buy in. Uh but once they have this perceived competency that that that's all fighting is movement, solving movement problems, exploring and discovering. Then the conversations get much richer. Then we'll go off to the side and we'll say, What do you think of this? And then we'll break something and say, Why do you think this why do you think this is working? Oh, well, that's and there's usually two or three things going on in every position in the sport. And so I could force them into that and be the sage on the stage and give them all the knowledge. Not that I have it, but I've presumably I've got a little more than them when they come in. Um so this is what I'm trying to you know extinguish. This this idea, this helplessness. We I need a coach. The coach needs to answer my answer my questions and and I think or solve my problems for me, and I think that's that's kind of my issue. I think that's where Barry Robinson's made made his career, right? Only he can fix all your problems and listen to him. And go back to that mentality where you're this empty vassal and he's gonna shape and mold you through his his cake layering approach. And uh I'm not sure a fighter can ever truly express them true selves until they learn how to learn.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. Well, for just one sec before I come back, you know where uh learned helpless helplessness uh is the basis of CIA interrogation tactics. It's like all over, it's all over their manuals and stuff. So it's been used for those experiments, have been used for some pretty shitty things. Um Rory was there the other night. My fighter James had this weird epiphany. It's like the things I do in practice aren't the things that I do in fights. And what the epiphany was, I think, for him is that that's because in the fight, that's a different person. And so we're not trying to train do this in the room, do this in a fight. We're trying to train we throw all this variability at you, and you deal with that every night in your sparring, and then when you get into the fight, when that guy throws variability at you, we deal with that. That it can't look like we don't want it to, it could never look like we program you in the room and then you run that program in the fight. We want you to be confident comes from competence, and we want you, I mean, confidence comes from competence. So we want you to be confident, and we're building that here, but the fight in the cage that night can't look like the fight in here. And I I think that was a I think that that was a good thing for him to sort of figure out on his own because it also means that he can fail in the room during sparring, he can have exchanges where he loses, or this partner's better than him in certain places, and it doesn't matter. It's all valuable. You know, the your idea about we we we actually are teaching them fighty things, not how to fight. They can't learn how to fight unless they're in a fight. We just throw all these fighty things at them. Their partners throw these fighty things at them, and then they get in a cage and they fight or they don't fight well, or they fight well or they don't fight well.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

I think it's important just to reiterate, we we're fucking guessing too, right? To the best of our ability.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, look, this is I wish more of us embraced this idea. Fucking uncertainty. This is this is the basis of everything in the in physics, and I wish the coaches, even our contemporaries, our cohort, embraced more uncertainty. We don't know. And I don't know if we can know. What will we measure? Hopefully they get more skilled, but we don't necessarily even know if that's us. You know, maybe leading up to maybe leading up to the last fight, they were having fights with their girlfriend, and leading up to this fight, they are relationship stable, and all of a sudden they perform better. Hey, congratulations, coach. We didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

We we see guys get more skilled in in the in a room every day, and then they sure even perform well.

unknown 32:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Because it's just there's one because in the room, it's it's it's safe, it's comfortable, they they they have no real expectations in their training, so to say, except to have a good time, get better, be a good training partner, be a productive member of the tribe and a community, and then they go out and all the internal dialogue that they never truly experience in the room because it has no, there's no there's no consequence, they go out and now all the internal dialogue totally screws with them.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

I don't know. I don't I don't know if that's totally all it is. I mean, I get that that's part of it, but it's also everyone is not a fighter. Yes, I've told you that for years. But but I don't I you're pointing at something, you're trying to parse it out.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I'm not pointing at anything. I'm just saying there's all these other variables that then happen come fight time. So in the room, they're participating.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Don't don't say it's internal dialogue. That I I think that's that's your your point is something you can't back up.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Well, I mean, you can hear that from people themselves. So they're not.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah, but that's a post hoc, that's a post hoc thing. That's a narrative they're telling you. They're saying, oh, when I got in there, I thought this, I felt this. We don't know if that's true or not. We do know that we we are doing fighty things in the gym, and when they get in a fight, sometimes they fight and sometimes they jolt. But we've also had a guy come out and tell a story afterwards, but the real reason they lost the fight is because they did a shitty job defending the double egg in the second round. Not because of internal monologue, not because they're not fighters, because the truth of the matter is there is an exchange that they lost because we win and lose exchanges. And I would hate for that guy to think that he lost because of an internal dialogue or something when if he had just defended that double eight a little bit better earlier, harder, whatever, he wins the fight. And now we're not having this discussion about uh I I thought this, I felt this, this, this, this.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

Sometimes you're swinging your miss. I enjoy hearing you to go back and forward. I think Dorothy's point where we defend though, we can say, well, it's not the story, it's just it's not it's not an internal monologue, but regardless, I think these stories matter. I think the narratives and the stories we tell ourselves, I think they matter, and we all tell ourselves stories. Fighters tell themselves stories. It it it it it it fundamentally changes their affect, how they're relating with their performance and stuff. So whether it's having uh uh so I I think it probably can have an effect. Um I know you're a big you're you're you're a boxing fan. What do you think of Ben Whitker?

SPEAKER_00 34:25

I I think that that will only last until it gets matched up with a with a non-tomato can.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Oh, because that's that's that's the charge that's often thrown, and I'm not, you know, I don't follow boxing that much. So you don't think he's really been tested yet?

SPEAKER_00 34:38

I I don't think he's been really tested yet, and and here's the thing that here's the thing that's not it's not that it's not fair, but it's that we'll never know, is that he's 29. He started late, right, because he was an Olympian. I don't know what Rory, you're my you're Jamie. What was Whitaker an Olympian in?

SPEAKER_03 34:55

What's the first one?

SPEAKER_00 34:56

So he was an Olympian, so he's he's a high-level Ben Whitaker, boxer. Ben Whitaker. English, English, brother.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

English Benjamin, professional boxer. Okay, so Jamie.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

You just do the Julian Bodyman of uh Nazi and Hamid.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Or that Augustus guy, the drunken master. So my my point is he's 29, so he's at he's at his prime right now, right? Or he's entering his prime. But I don't think he has enough experience because he started late, that I don't think will I don't think he'll ever be able to fully express what he's trying to do at a higher level. Because I think he's just he's a little behind the experience curve. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 35:39

It makes sense. And here's what without the risk of sounding a bit woo, it seems like he's always in complete flow state. It'll be interesting to see what happens when he perhaps gets knocked out of that flow state.

unknown 35:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Silver medalist boxing.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

2020 silver medalist, uh 2020 Olympic silver medalist.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Okay, so 2020 Olympic silver medalist. How many fights did he have?

SPEAKER_01 36:03

He was 53 and 13 as an amateur, and he now stands at uh 12 and oh as a professional with one draw, nine knockouts, three by decision.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

66. So 79 times he's he's got through the ropes and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Okay, I'm a little I was a little off. I I didn't realize um that he was that it was 2020, so six. He hasn't had a lot of fights in in his pro career, right? He I think he's been a little bit. Interesting. All right, so I take back a little bit of the experience question that I have. Um he's 29, so they're gonna have to put him up against someone soon, right? I mean, I think if you look at the record of the guys he's fought, he has not been tested yet.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

He's talking to his weight class. I don't might need to ask Jamie again. Jamie.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Light heavyweight, which is also like not oh, it's the B, it's the B's. The top of his weight class is Beavel Benavides.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

So WBA, WBC, W Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Um Callum Smith. Uh because Bertobev is retired. Callum Smith is is but he's already, I bet he's already in the top ten uh of that weight class, because it is a it is a bit of a weak weight class. So but the next fight, I bet the next fight's a real fight.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

I'm curious though, because he's he's he's constantly facing kind of the the orthodoxy of of boxing, right? similarly. Yes. Obviously, not the same similarly. Whether when he comes to a harder fight, they'll be able to solve the novelty problem that is Ben Whitaker.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yes, and so can he can he you said recalibrate, uh can he adapt?

SPEAKER_02 37:57

Adapt, yeah, that would be a better one. Because recalibrate would be probably going against other orthodox kind of fighters, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

I've always felt I've always felt that it is easier for a guy to I can't loosen his structure. That's not I I wish I had a better word. I think it is I thought it was always easier for a guy to be more creative when when he has a solid base than be really creative and then need the solid base. And I I think I'm doing a shitty job explaining what I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Yeah, not a shitty job, but I I would I I would I would push back and ask you because that's that's what is what is a solid base mean? Because yeah, it's like fundamentals. I mean, I don't want that. It's just a fucking throwaway word to me now.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

What if he needs to what if he needs to bite down on his mouthpiece, sit in there and fucking fight, and fight? Like, can he do that? You know, um, I think that that happened to Xander Zayas a little bit versus Boutzinus. Xander Zayas is not built to fight the way he fought, but Boutzinus sort of forced him into that fight. And it didn't go that well for him. But he's young.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Who's it that bust the Nazim bubble? We're going back now. Is it Marquez? Oh, Nazim came over to the stage.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, you got you gotta get your well, you guys don't stop talking, so I can find out all the information in the world and sit it here on my computer, but you guys gotta take a breath. All right. I have I have that uh Whitaker is number two in the WBC, number three in the IBF, and number 13 in the WBO. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Already.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Prince the Seam.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Well, did you talk about Prince Nasim? Barrera. It's Marco, it's uh it's Barrera, I think maybe. Yeah, Marco Antonio Barrera. 2001. I mean, that was a unanimous, I mean it was a unanimous decision. Yes. He beat he did beat him up a little bit. He's also speaking of Prince Nasim, have you seen what he looks like now? He got big.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

He's like a fucking blue.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

He got big. I was talking, we were talking about this the other night at the wedding, because that like I have a we have a young black belt who uh who has started lifting and is probably wrestled in college at like 140 and now outweighs some of us. And and my our guy who fought at 145 outweighs us. And like it's interesting to see these guys who spend their whole lives cutting weight and never giving themselves a chance to fully develop. What happens when they just stop cutting weight, eat and lift a little bit? And I wonder if if we stop the weight cutting until they hit a certain age and then see where they sort of land and then cut weight from there, if they wouldn't be way better served.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Lifting and eating, it's all there is to do in a motherfucking pen.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

True that. True that. It's like those gymnasts, right? The female gymnasts who the second they stop practicing four hours a day and pounding their bodies like that, it just their whole bodies change. They get taller, or something. Sometimes they even get taller at 20-something years old.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

I think isn't gymnastics the the one sport that they uh they say they need to get started, everything.

unknown 41:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Although Simone Biles is is starting to change that. Um, but it was so bad the Chinese were starting kids so young that they had to change the rules on the age they could be to compete. And then the first year they put that in, the Chinese cheated their asses off. They were like, Yeah, these girls are 16, and you're like, no, these girls are not 16. But there used to be a statistic like you had to be born a certain year to match up with the Olympics because you wanted to hit the Olympics exactly when you turned 16.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

But I think Bild's crazy, isn't it? It's crazy because 18. That fucking blows my mind.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

16. That's right, 16. That blows my mind. And the Chinese had 14-year-old gymnasts and 14-year-old divers and things. Because they, you know, smaller people spin faster, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Strength uh weight ratios and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah. So I think I was challeng I was channeling you a little bit last night, Scotty, and and I came to this, I came to my own little epiphany. We're talking about how there's sort of an uh if you want to be as fast as possible, then you will sacrifice some precision. And if you want to be as precise as possible, you will sacrifice some speed. And if you want to hit as hard as possible, you'll probably sacrifice both of those. And I had this thing popped in my head that the people that can shrink that gap the most throw as fast and as precise as possible, get paid forty million dollars a year. And it's the same discussion as Lomachenko, all these other people. It's we can't force someone to be able to throw fast and precise. There are just some human beings who can do that. And they are rare. There are like three or four guys on the planet right now who can throw a baseball over 100 miles an hour and hit this target. And we can't reverse engineer that.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Why do you think, and I'm guilty of it, why do you think there's a tendency to say, well, you know, we we can't really don't pay attention too much to the outliers? I'm not saying you say that, but I've been guilty saying that, looking more across uh generally speaking, but isn't probably the outliers that are really worth investigating. I mean, Gladwell wrote a book on it, didn't he? Yeah, but it was almost all bullshit. It was a Gladwell book, of course it was bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Uh Gladwell is is as guilty as exactly what I'm saying, where he starts with a premise and reverse engineers it. It is the opposite of science. He has a cool story and he cherry picks things that fix it, that fit it. Now, he was right about the hockey ages. That has that is held true, but it's as simple as physical maturity. It has nothing to do with anything else. And so it's an easy thing. Uh Ducked Worth wrote a whole book on grit, and it was a bestseller for a hundred years. And if you asked her, okay, great, how do you develop grit? There's no answer. Right? All she can do is say, hey, in a population of high achievers, they have more grit. Okay, I could have fucking told you that. We already have those things in the big five traits in psychology. We didn't need to rename it to sell a book, but she sold a lot of books, and I don't want to sound like a hater. But the only value of identifying grit. Yeah, I know whatever. I don't give a shit. The only value of identifying grit would be to tell us how to develop it. And guess what? You can't. You can select for it. No, stop. We don't believe it. Listen, there is no here. No, no, no. There is no duality. We are not mind and body and environment. It is one thing. Every time you do this, I want to jump through the screen and choke you because we don't believe in this separate from this. It's all one thing. It's an emotion.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

We're going to give you boys a timeout here. I'm on vacation today, baby, so I'm relaxed. Um, Mr. Singer. What's new about muscle memory? You've been softening your position on that, or at least having more of a nuanced take. I don't think it's softening, and I don't think it's nuanced.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

So I don't want to give myself credit for nuances.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

No, I think I mean he it's just he's trying to be more welcoming to other people who say things who totally know what they're saying. And I think that's fair. People say muscle memory, and it's like, well, what is that? We, you know, do they even know what they mean when they say that?

SPEAKER_02 45:28

What's the most generous interpretation of what?

SPEAKER_00 45:29

So here, Marco, I was talking to Marco about this, and he said.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Oh, excuse me. Sorry. I just want to say congratulations on Marco. Um, I'm really congratulating. He's a serious coach, and he's put a ton of fucking work in. And he just graduated. It was the first cohort of the skill acquisition uh master's degree, and he graduated with a first class honors. I'm very proud of him. Because I know how hard he's worked.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

I am so glad that I got hooked up with him. He is first off, he's my people. Like he's he's in he's in the Northeast. Uh so we we vibe. Um, and and I love he he's just like us. It's like you got challenge yourself, challenge each other, don't don't believe anything just because we want it to be true. And um, yeah, I'm I'm I'm very proud of him. Um and I'm I'm enjoying a lot of the back and forth. He he was saying basically like if if somebody's training a barista to to make coffee, right? And and they say, oh, you know, I'm trying to build their muscle memory, you're not gonna be like, no, you're you're you're attuning them to the environment and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it doesn't help. So when someone says, Yeah, I'm trying to build muscle memory, saying, where is that stored? What does that mean? Is muscles don't have memory? Doesn't help. But the flip side is there are plenty of things that we throw around and take for granted that are just as unsubstantiated or unknown as muscle memory. Like attractor wells. Like we can say, oh, they organize under the constraints every time, blah blah blah. But what the fuck does that even mean?

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Oh, that that's where I am, because we can talk all this high fluent science stuff and eco, and this is a way, and maybe it is the way, or maybe it's not, but just say it is a way. Okay, now what? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

That's all with design practice. It's like so it's all label gazing. That's the discussion.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

And I think what we're saying is go back to the barista, and I I threw that in the chat the other day. The word to teach is becoming a little vague to me, a little fuzzy. I don't know what that means because at the end of the day, they have to experience making the fucking coffee. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

And is it habituation? Is it is it behavioralism? I don't care. I do care when the idea of muscle memory influences you to run practice in a way that doesn't jive with what we think. So when someone says I'm doing these drills to build muscle memory, then I want to engage them about that, not what muscle memory is.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

What do you think the effect is? What is the effect that's occurring that you're doing this that you say is muscle memory? Great. I don't care about your language so much as what do you think the eventual effect or outcome is by doing all of this and how why do you think that's happening?

SPEAKER_00 48:26

And and I would love to go in the coffee shop and randomly move all the equipment around one day, and you'll see a whole different the barista will be totally confused. Like, so I don't I don't know what it is, but we would agree that myelination does occur, right? And now I don't know what role that plays in movement, but it occurs. Muscles the muscles innervate, the nervous system works differently. When you lift weights heavy, you don't necessarily put on muscle mass, but you get stronger. That's some effect. So there are things that happen, there are changes, there are adaptations. I don't know what they are, where they are, but it doesn't help us to say to make someone feel stupid because they use the term muscle memory. We know what they're trying to say. They're saying, I did this for a while and I got better at it, and it's unconscious. So I just want to meet people where they are, but maybe muscle memory, maybe one day we will steal the term muscle memory.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

But it's still let's grant that it's the what people think it is, or some thereabouts. We still have to do the thing. It's still a history of experience.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Yes. Yes, and I wouldn't want to build a muscle memory of only being able to do it this way. I would not want to build a muscle memory that is so strictly organized that when stuff just goes here, I don't know what the hell to do. So if there was a muscle memory, then it would it would be this incredibly broad adaptive thing, which is what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

I think it's the difference between people believing that there's muscle memory, and if we do all these rote repetitions, we're learning. And what what we're saying, or what we believe, is that it's the decision-making process that is the most important to someone's success. How well can they decide, and where that happens, I certainly don't know, but how well can someone decide to do something to adapt to a thing in that moment that will lead them to being more or less successful in that moment? What what why would we even want to have muscle memory? I go back to, I think about something Forrest said uh a few weeks ago, or when you had him on, and he said to the effect that he's, you know, working on the hand pants, he's learning these ways to do things, and sometimes he does them and it's not even the right thing to have done. So I'm like, if you have cemented some way to do something and in that moment it wasn't even the right thing to be done, wouldn't it have been better for you not to have had that program and you could have done something else that might have been better even in that moment? Like, why would you even want to have a memory of anything if that thing could is so varied in the moment anyway? How does that help you?

SPEAKER_00 51:11

You know, one of the things that Rob said that was that was so it was so simple to me, but I hadn't even thought about it when we were talking about if you know a fastball is coming. You're like, well, what does that even mean? Is it 95? Is it a hundred? Because it's still not always in the same place. It's there's just too much. So going just to wrap, put a bow on it. I've not softened on the idea that we need to build muscle memory. I think that's silly. I think rote repetition to build muscle memory is where a lot of people go wrong. But first off, first and foremost, we will do a better job meeting people where they are than to immediately say things like, where is the muscle's memory? What does that mean? And put them on a defensive to defend something that they haven't thought deeper of. It's just a way to package an idea.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Yeah, I keep coming back to the word experience. And I think if you could categorize or maybe redefine the idea that or muscle memory has just mean a history, a history of that repeated experience.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Yeah, I I agree. It's the same like uh attractor wells. Like nobody we can't talk to someone that doesn't know what we're talking about about attractor wells and stuff. But I do know if you if the barista has been working in a restaurant in that coffee shop for a year and you come in and move all the equipment around, they will go back to where the equipment used to be over and over and over. It will take some amount of new experience for them to figure out where the equipment is now. And and Rory and I were talking about this. I took the garage door opener. I was thinking that. I took the garage door opener off the it was on my visor. I took it off and I programmed it into my mirror. So now I just press the button. I reach for the garage door opener all the time. I don't know, is that muscle memory? Like, I didn't do it a million times, I did it once a day for a couple years. That's is that an or is it just who the fuck knows? It's it's funny to me. It's you know what it's not funny? It's not funny when I had been squatting 135 for about six weeks working on my form, and then I decided to squat 155, which is a 10-pound plate on the outside, and because I had so I was brain dead that day and fatigued, I pulled the 45-pound plate off without thinking about the 10 that was there.

SPEAKER_02 53:44

Just curious, what is your husband lift?

SPEAKER_00 53:47

She's she's pretty strong, actually. She's pretty strong. It was for my form. Yeah. I don't want to get too hey, listen, I don't want to get too bulky. I'm already big enough. Then you'll really be the bear. Yeah, I don't want to be too bulky. So I want to, it's I I want to I want people to reevaluate how they're talking to people outside of our area. And I also want them to re-evaluate their own because I'm starting to see too many of our contemporaries start to think their shit doesn't stink.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

See you, son. Have a good day.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Like they have all the answers. Like what and we know that that's full of shit.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Oh, Scott's son. Uh lumbering through. How tall is he?

SPEAKER_02 54:36

How tall is he? What is it? Well, he's got his high heels on today. He's got you know. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

There you go. Some big boots. So I am now getting to the point where I am challenging like somebody that I'd worked with in the past put up this this beautiful graphic. Everyone's making these fucking graphics. I don't know how they're making these graphics where you can slide over on Instagram, you know. And it was um just photo.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

It was just photo.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

It was it said CLA versus the traditional approach. And I was like, that is just gobbledygook. It is what do you mean versus? What is what do any of those things mean? And so I sent them a message, and I was just like, hey, not for nothing, but you're new at this and this doesn't help. Like, because now I I sent that message to you guys the other day. There's a coach I just saw. He's doing all these interviews with his students about CLA, CLA. You've been doing CLA for two years, CLA for two years. It's better, right? And then I look at the next Instagram post, and it's this dude saying, Here's how to escape the mount. Here's what white belt should know. Here's the perfect way to do this. Here's and I'm like, what the fuck is going on now? Is the CLA just now a marketing tool that replaces the word drill? It's starting to piss me off.

unknown 55:56

Of course.

SPEAKER_03 55:56

Everyone's a fucking expert now.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

I am I am 10 books behind in my reading to try and figure out what the fuck I what the fuck is going on. We all are. I'm I got a stack of papers that people keep sending me that I can't keep up with, but everyone's a fucking expert now. They just the word CLA, we have CLA class on Tuesday night. What the fuck does that mean? CLA versus traditional. What does any of that mean?

SPEAKER_01 56:21

People are actually making money off of taking things Souters has done and repackaging them for the rest of us.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

And it's a telephone game. That's what happens. And it's a telephone game. And it really gets better. No, it's a telephone. No, the fidelity, the fidelity goes down because yes, Souters has dug and dug and dug and understands, but you didn't do that. And so all you can repackage are the pieces that you understand, which is just such a surface level. And you're not repackaging them well, and now all of a sudden, and I'm seeing these guys on podcasts now. I'm just fuck. And I don't, I'm not the I'm not trying to gatekeep anything, but I want to do some fucking work, man. Get some experience. If you're a look, if you're a if you're a brown belt or purple belt that hasn't trained anyone from zero to something and hasn't read all the books and done all the work and engaged and questioned and been challenged, just shut the fuck up. Shut up. Get off Instagram. Maybe it's my Instagram, maybe it's just my algorithm. My algorithm feeds me bad ecological stuff and people doing nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 57:30

Mine's all about Barry Robinson until a few days ago. You didn't tell us who else is on your Mount Russian. No, it's just there's it's some quick hate shit and it's um getting you. I'm gonna just stick to one. I'm gonna I'm gonna put all my head in the one hitting basket. You stick with Barry. Wait, no, I know. I know who else you hate. No. Okay, not anymore.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

They're best buds now.

SPEAKER_02 57:53

I'm rolling I'm rolling all up to one big ball of hate and I'm just putting in one place.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

They got an apartment. Except the other guy is in the same space we were in, claiming he said a hundred percent, I am a hundred percent sure this will change the way people coach and learn. And you said you basically just said, hey, that you're really confident. Why?

SPEAKER_02 58:14

I just said that's a bold claim. And I asked what what what um didn't use the word ontological because that would be really wanky. I said, what what what what what foundational what theoretical foundation are you working on?

SPEAKER_00 58:26

And he basically called you an asshole.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

He called me an asshole.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

And you said, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but there's the bold claim. And then he his response to you is was just dumb. And it died.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

People are fucking absurd. They're absurd.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Yeah. It's so he is he is on your mountain, and that dude in New Jersey who is all about kata, he's on mine. I jab and they jab.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

What? Is that the one with a good hair?

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Yeah, I hear me. Yeah, I'll take a yeah, I'm gonna we bet hate for hairlings.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

I jab and then they jab and an iJab head.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

What's that? You're not getting a pass.

unknown 59:06

What?

SPEAKER_00 59:08

That's starting to. My grandfather kept like some amount of hair on his head until he died. But it was it at some point it was all combed over and it was shellacked a little bit, and it was but there was it was all bald up here.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

So and and really, I'm just saying. D-level celebrity right here.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

And I think Rory is Rory is going down that path. His name was Sydney Lavender. And Rory is going down that path. It's a wonderful name. Sydney Lavender. That's why I named my my daughter's my daughter Sydney is named after him. Yeah, my grandfather. Jews, Jews name their children after dead relatives. As opposed to other cultures that name their kids after themselves. So you have, you know, 18 John Smith, John Smith VIII, or that kind of shit. So my daughter's named after. No, that guy, that guy, no, that guy has nothing to do with an ecological approach. No, no. This guy has created his own, he is definitely a do-it-this way, like, here's the best way. How do you not know how to do this? Um, and he's been like that for many years. He used to be in South Carolina, actually. I don't know if he still is. He looks like he's with Greg Jackson now.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:30

The claim was that he's 100% sure he's going to change the way coaches coach and fighters train. And I just said that was a bold claim. I'd like I maybe could have worded it a bit more play. I said, you know, I'd like to like you to elaborate.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Let's dig into that a little bit. Let's unpack that a little bit as they said.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

Just give it a wee, just a wee fraud. Dude's got a half million followers.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

I mean, so what are we up to? About 140? Oh, for sure. And that's not a thousand. That's 140. You know, you know what's really kind of tragic? Because YouTube is a treasure troller. I look at all these uh uh like academic conferences and these big speakers and whatnot, and it's just there's zero engagement. And I've often felt we're like the we're kind of like the middlemen, right? You got all these fucking egg eggs and geeks just devoting their lives to to really trying to understand human behavior and development and to get know of. And we're kind of their mouthpieces in a way, right? They do all this work for athletes in the sporting community. Much of them not even any sport, but I think we have a bit of a duty to bring that to the mass, to bring it to the people, to get their message out there. But it ain't clickbaiting, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

No, you're not nearly enough of a douche to uh to get eyes to get because you need I think you need an immense amount of haters to attract some amount of you know people that like what you have to say. Uh and then it's just it's it's it's like cultish, it's cultish in a sense. Here's a person who has all the answers, follow them, and you will forever, you know, whatever. You'll just you'll ascend to greatness if you just follow them because they are the only ones who know how to help you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

And right, and that's what that's why this dude is selling an affiliate package. Yeah. And and he hasn't accomplished anything from what I can tell.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

No, but there are a lot of stupid people in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

And every time I start to write something, I get hit with so much anxiety about it because I don't know if it's right or wrong, that I just I can't. And I could never make splashy Instagrams. And I could, and if I when I videotape, I'll I'll run a drill. Like last night, I had a drill. It was good. I started videotaping it. I watch it, I'm like, you can't tell what they're doing. It's just like they're sparring. Because all live work of it just pretty much looks like that. Unless you describe it for people, it's just gonna look like people are sparring.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

What a tragedy this attention economy is and this clickbait economy. To your point about the half a million followers, that's twentyfold what Coach Greg has. And if you're in the jujitsu community and you're interested in the CLA and ecological, there's you put some respect on a man's name, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

Dude, we went to his, we went to DeAndre was out in Atlanta. I'm sure you and Adam have spoken about it offline, but DeAndre uh Corbey, right? Yeah, yeah. He was in Atlanta, so you know, didn't want to want to go check him out. Like, what is he bringing to the table as someone who's now spent all this time with Greg? And I'm I believe he's doing a lot of his own understanding and stuff. Like, there's there's gonna be something there. How many people were there? Not nearly enough. There were probably 20 odd, 30 matchs. 20. I bet, I bet we didn't need a lot of drilling when he started.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

Well, he came off. It's just he's trying to pull your chain. But like we better wait. I bet within a 20-mile radius of where that seminar was, thousands. We we have one of the highest number of jujitsu people in the world. Atlanta. Thousands. Uh uh uh 50 jujitsu schools.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

Yeah, for sure. He had 20 people. And and and uh most uh like at least 25% of those people were the people that he had been training with helped helping the event because their events were also getting some work and making some money and trying to spread the gospel, so to say. Yeah. Uh there were two people in that room that were so dead set against this idea, and yet were there learning from someone who was spreading the gospel about, you know, ecological dynamics through the energy translated approach, and and not many years ago would have shit all over it because it's been a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

I still think that it's I still think I still think by the questions they were asking them, they don't get it. They they didn't get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Well, they can't get it unless they spend more time with it, but we went because there had to, there was likely something to be gained. I'll tell you what, there were some things he said and some things that he did, and it's immediately made a difference in my understanding of of doing it this way and and my and and helping me to maybe even my practice design and stuff. And like Adam and I were talking about, you know, we have dudes in our room who are really heavily invested in leg attacks and stuff that have sort of gained some of this knowledge on their own and are watching things and seeing things and bringing it because they like it. But it was one of the first times that Adam and I had ever been to a leg, a leglock seminar.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

Yeah, it was so weird. And it was fantastic. Yeah, it was great. DeAndre did that. I would go back to it, I would go back to a DeAndre seminar. He is obviously a gamer, and so he used a lot of language from gaming. And I stole some of that language immediately, and it made it easier to convey some of my ideas.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

And I just picked up one or two things within the practice design, within the game design, and I'm like, and my my leg entanglement game, which is something I don't play a lot with, but has already improved. You know, like hips closer. Like it was just simple.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

And my it's already improved. Scotty, you were saying he did a lot of drilling. You were saying that sarcastically, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:54

Because that's that's of course, of course, because I mean they they need to find something to discredit. He was already a black belt. Yeah. Wasn't as high level of black belt as he as he is now. Fucking black belts have ten a penny these days. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

You can spend 30 grand and get a black belt, apparently, and then start selling people your own methods about how you spent 30 grand to get a black belt or whatever has been spent.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

Yeah, black black belt is certainly when we say someone's a black belt, I think we're past the point now where it's like, oh, they're an expert.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:25

Oh, someone shared this with me the other day. There's some someone's come out with someone. I hope it takes traction, but it was, and they've got thousands of jujitsu people in it, and I'm not sure where they're getting the data from, but it was a yellow rain, like a light yellow kind of system.

unknown 1:06:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:46

I'll promote you. You want a black belt? Black belt. Sorry, brown belt.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

Black belt. Roar and I just gave you a black belt. Black belt.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:53

I'm a fourth degree black belt.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

I'll put you on my tree. You're on a tree.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

It's done. Black belt. Thank you very much. And now uh call me professor going forward, please. Um fuck it. Now I've lost my train of thought. Uh no, no. My point was, now that I'm 50, my skills are clearly, despite my fucking delusion, they'll be degrading a little bit. I'd like to be able to go and compete at purple or brown. So you can't, we can't have the discussion's over for me. Whether is is skill a component of does skill c correlate with belt level? Of course. But you can't tell me it's based on skill. Because if it's based on skill, not only skill, skill is fluid. Skill goes up and down. Skill is relative. Yeah. We we were at a seminar many years ago. My handicap goes up in golf. Sure. I don't really get to scratch and be scratch golfer for the rest of your life. I was played off two when I was 15.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

We were at a camp many, many years ago, we were to camp, and Chris Howder, who is one of the original American black belts, he stands up in front of the camp and he says, I am standing in front of you right now, a purple belt. He's like, I am old, I have been injured for a while, I have been off the mats. He's like, that's what I am, you know, that's where my skill level is today. And it it resonated with me. And Rory and I were talking about this recently with stripes on the black belts. And I was like, I think they are just ego, their hand jobs for the ego of black belts, because you get more stripes as your ability degrades. Right? Because it you the next strike we get is five years. My abilities over those five years are not going up. I'll be 55 when I get the next stripe. There's a big fall-off between 50 and 55. Is there? 49 to 55. And so I agree with you 100%. It's like, look, I still think it's hysterical when you complain that that black belt wasn't giving you his A game. I'm glad because he didn't need it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:51

He didn't need to, huh? But he's 30 years old.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

That's but I I agree with you, right? We are black belts in achievement in time. But that's like anything, right? Like you get a PhD at 30 years old. By 50, 60 years old, you're not as sharp as you were. You're not as intellectually curious or capable. But you probably know more, but you know, maybe yeah, I know more I know more about jujitsu now. And and I'm rolling sometimes, and I'm acutely aware of the fact that five years ago I could have done something. And now now I now I can't. Striking makes it even more apparent when I'm when I get hit with like a two when I get hit with a two-piece and I'm like, shit. I I like five years ago I could have pulled the trigger on some counters here, but that button is rusty and fucking janky now.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:46

I got a tremendous young athlete, a couple of years in, two and a half years in, he just debuted there, it was a beautiful, lovely performance. And he gets it, right? And he came up to me last night and said, Coach, I'm because it was open math. He said, People are asking me how I'm doing things. I I I don't he said, I don't know how to explain it. I said, That, my boy, is just what I want to hear from you. Your knowledge is implicit, it's embodied. I said, Maybe you'll maybe one day you'll you'll build up this explicit knowledge, you'll be able to explain it better. I really don't care what you can tell me about the thing you're doing. Well, I'm delighted with that you just you're able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

That's why some of the best athletes are never some of the best coaches. And it's why there's all the studies have been done about looking at athletes and you ask them what they're doing when they're doing things, and then you watch them do things, and it does nothing. They're not doing anything like they think they're doing it. Because it takes a lot of time and energy and effort and mental, you know, and and the brain work to say, how do I get someone to be as good as me? Or how do I get someone to be even better than me? Because as a coach, that's truly what you're doing. So, how do you take your knowledge about or your knowledge of and then pass it on in such a way that eventually your students are better than you? And not everyone can do that, and especially, in my opinion, if the only way that they know how to coach is because then someone someone coached them like this, and then someone coached them like that, and so on and so forth, then how do you how do you really make anyone better than you? It's always going to be limited by your knowledge of jujitsu, your techniques, your moves, your whatever. Uh, if if there's not more to how you're helping others become good at this sport or any sport for that matter. You're the limit. If it's a coaching-centric thing, then you're the limit.

unknown 1:11:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:32

Let's oh, sorry, I do um let me judge down so I don't forget to get uh yapping. Um so let's ask ourselves a tough question here, because we've just sat and we've we've just fucking moaned and been frustrated today. So the question would be is why don't we just fuck shut the fuck up and go on with our own rooms? Why is it sour grapes? Uh is this frustration coming from sour grapes? Is it is it because there's a almost um it's gonna sound a little um unbearable, but like this Clair's cave, right? We're fucking up here in the sunshine. Come up, come up. And I don't know if all this grumbling and frustration and the the the the that that we're expressing today. I mean why why are we even why are we talking about this publicly? Why are you talking about this publicly?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

That's that's a really good question.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:18

I know why I am. Why? Because I I want I mean, and again, this I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal, but I would like to I can't affect all the people, right? I'm here in Athens, Georgia, with with that. A, when people go other places in Athens, I think they're making a giant mistake. So outside of Athens where people aren't necessarily my competitors and taking food off my table, because I I mean that's just facts. I want people to come to me, A, because I have the best product and B, I have bills and coaches to pay. But I get frustrated when we when I see people at places giving their hard-earned money to people that I don't think deserve their money. So maybe people watch this and they're better prepared to help their students and truly give value to their students for the investments that their students are making in them. And whether we can I can affect that change or not, maybe after having been doing this for 30 years, there's there's a point that says maybe someone will catch on. Maybe some of this will catch on. Maybe people will not only have a good time and sweat and whatnot, but actually gain the knowledge that someone has told them that they will gain, or the abilities, the skill that someone has told them they will gain by giving them some amount of money every month that they worked hard to earn. It's always a bit of money.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:42

Scotty, why why are you doing it, Scotty? Why are you engaging with Barry Robinson and and the other dude and bullshitting people? But what do you care? It's not bullshitting your students. It's not taking money out of your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:55

Um that that's not entirely correct. When I see because now on Instagram you can see who follows and who likes and whatnot. Um, not my students, but but because you know I I think the reason is twofold. And I may have just rationalized this and convinced myself. I've talked I don't love it, but I don't like the violence of the sport, but I love this fucking sport. This sport's, you know, my life has given me like I I'm deeply committed to investigating skill and how we develop the sport. Because this sport's giving me so much joy and uh being a big part of my life, I want to contribute to it. I think we're all we're fighters coaches, right? I care about the f I I actually care about the fighters. I think fighters are abused, I think they're misled, I think they're exploited, and I think they're fucking thrown away at the end of it. And this might, you know, I I don't know how that that's going to sound coming across, but I'm a fighters coach. I care about like if I go to other gyms and other fighters, I hate the shit talk. Like, I feel like there's a unique group, uh mostly young men, and I'm I want to help them. I want to make the sport generally better for them. I want to leave this leave it's not about legacy or people going, well, this guy knew this or whatnot. I want to contribute because that's what progress is. That's where I'm at. And I think in doing that, I get frustrated when I feel all these fighters getting held back or misled. This is an incredibly fucking hard vocation to have for young fighters. And I think we have the durious coaches if we really give a shit. Not just to care necessarily about our own, we want our fighters to win, we want our fighters to be the best. But I think if we truly care about the the the community of fighters, and Rory, you were a fighter, you've been there, you fought at the highest level, right? I care about that. I care about the development. I care that there's that there's a fucking sea of bullshit out there, and I want to help clear the way a little bit, and maybe it'll be long before we're gone, and these ideas I'll just be seeds. And you can see it already, you're saying, you know, again, Adam, I think um if I go back and listen to some of my earlier podcasts, which I don't, but if I was to go back, I was probably again way ahead of my skis. And that's pretty much comes up in every conversation now, right? We really don't know what the fuck we're doing. But it's an endeavor to get a wee bit closer every day through these conversations and just challenge people and challenge ideas, because ultimately I think we have a responsibility and a duty. If we put on a label as coach, we have a duty, not just to our own people, we have a duty to our community and our sport. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

So I will just set that part better than I did.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:15

Yeah, and I will just give one final piece that I I look at it through. I have been in this sport for a long time. I will never be on the list of the world's greatest coaches. I will never be on the list of any greatest coaches there are. They're like greatest dads. Yes, exactly. World's greatest dad t-shirt. Um, they're never gonna talk about me like that. Uh hopefully, when after I'm dead, someone will remember me. But I what I love coaching fighters, but I've also always been a coach's coach. And so part of what I like to do is help other coaches. Um and so the way I believe now is the best way to help other coaches is to challenge their assumptions. And I am I am so I believe in what we are doing so strongly. I believe that it is the best way for us to keep going. I I think we are just at the beginning of this road when it comes to MMA and and grappling. And I want other people to start going down this road so that eventually we will be able to challenge each other and help each other and build this. And so when I see coaches grifting, it's almost impossibly for me not to have an immediate reaction to that. And I'm not saying that I know better, I'm doing it better, I am smarter, but I am saying, hey, challenge yourself. You're doing what you're doing now, you're coaching athletes the way you are now because of something that you can't even put into words. So maybe you should figure that out.

unknown 1:17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:56

You know, I've always I I if I wasn't so full of crippling self-doubt, I might put up a I might start some consulting, I might offer services, I might but I won't. But it'd be nice if I could.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:09

Two things to round off there. There was another one. I I try not to Oh wait, before yeah, round off and I gotta say one other thing. Round it off. Um I did make a comment on another post today, uh post the other day, and it was this I I forget the name, but a couple hundred thousand followers made up what made someone up about what really fucking sticks in his craw is when students are uh unengaged and not paying attention. He says I spend five minutes showing the details and the technique and they're no they're sitting around not paying attention. And I just said I think that's I think that's a coaching problem. That's not a student problem. It's our it's it's not easy, right? But it isn't it our job to engage your students. Yes. And if you're spending five, if you're spending five minutes talking the details of a move, that's not about the student. That is not about the student. That's about the coach.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:00

And I figured out years ago when we had this new cohort of fighters, if I spoke 10 seconds too long, and I said, okay, one, two, three, go, and I would look over at you know, my two 18-year-olds, Griffin and and and Nick, and they would just be looking at each other. And be like, what's up? And they're like, Yeah, we don't know, we don't know what you want us to do. And I'm like, all right, that's on me. Like, I would love to change the world and make everyone who's 18 have an attention span that's more than 10 seconds, but they don't.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:29

That's my information. That's but that's my quick. I would say if if one person's confused, if one person doesn't know what they're doing, that's their problem. If more than one person doesn't know what they're doing, that's my problem.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:38

Exactly. And so last night I laid out a very simple drill. I started and I saw one of my female students was lost. She was just standing there trying to figure it out with the other girl. And I walked over and I said, Is this am I explaining it wrong? Am I talking too much? Am I using the wrong language? Is this too complicated? I said, I am not asking you that in a passive-aggressive manner. I am really trying to do better. Help me help you. I said, or do I just need to come over here after I say one, two, three, go? Do I need to just come over here and help you for an extra 30 seconds? And she said, let's try that. I said, okay. That's all that we can do that. When when we went and worked with the pirates the first time, they were bringing in experts to help their older coaches talk to these new 18-year-olds. Because they didn't even know how to communicate with them. So that's that is a job us old fucking coaches are going to find that. And and I really believe that this methodology works better with this generation.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:36

I think this methodology works better just in general, because I've been in that same room as a black belt, listening to a black belt go through seven iterations of a move. I'm the visitor, I'm working with a purple belt, and I'm like, all right, uh, you can go first because I I I don't even know what the first fucking step was. And that's, you know, again, that's the world champion black belt. I'm a black belt, I'm in a US. I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? So it's not even a younger, older generation. It is an attention span that you were asking someone to take in details for 10 fucking minutes and then that shit just doesn't work with anyone you think it does because you are not asking questions, because you are a self-centered narcissist who thinks that you were not.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:22

Yeah, you're fucking running it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

Our black belt Travis was talking about having gone to visit a school, and he ended up partnering with a blue belt, and the instructor was teaching these multi-step things, and the blue belt was looking at Travis to be able to do these things and go first and guide them. And Travis is like, yeah, I have no idea what he wants us to do. I have no idea how to do like I can do that move, but I can't do what he wants me to do.

unknown 1:21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:49

So um, at some point are we gonna have an episode where we talk about the upcoming Connor McGregor Holloway fight? We would get big views, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:56

Yeah, we'll get up to maybe 200 on the YouTube. Uh yeah, I think Sean Miskell wanted to do that. Um I'm going to do Sean, right? I've I have no idea. It'll be pure speculation on my end.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:06

Yeah, so that's what I'm like, and he's like, you could do it before or after. And I'm like, I don't know which one I'm more cultural with. Or am I? Should we pontificate? But we have no idea what Connor is going to show up. I think he's completely washed. So what are we pontificating about? Connor six years ago. They do a good job of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:24

They do it, they do a good job in the market, and we'll go into that flight thinking it's going to be a certain way. They're very, very good at both for it every fucking time, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:32

And Holloway is is he's not washed, but he's coming close to the end, and it's the wrong way class. It's like two-way classes wrong for him. Or do we do it afterwards where we sit around and make believe that we knew what was going to happen and why it was going to happen? And so we hesitate to do either.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:47

We should do both and then see how it matches up. And then that should be your that should be your headline to get eyes. Connor McGregor is washed. Question mark, and people are gonna fucking flop that.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:55

So let's next abuse. Maybe maybe we get a guest for next week, but also we do like a quick special half-hour Connor Holloway episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:05

I I was thinking about that today. Here's the here's the one question I'm curious about. Is Connor getting honest training because he's a fucking superstar? Is he getting honest training? Is he getting partners that are giving him what he needs? No. Or is he getting some big fanboys to make him look good? I don't know that. I don't know that. But that would be that would be interesting to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:23

I saw a video of him beating up some 60-year-olds recently, so I don't know what the fuck he's doing. Well, that's why I like that. Is that a club or was that in the gym? Both. He beats up old men at the club. It was at the gym. Right. They didn't bring in, he's a what, a 170-pounder? They didn't bring in three or four high-level 170 pounders for him this forward. There's no way.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:45

Yeah, that would be I don't know. I wouldn't have thought so. And to the point, uh, I'm rooting for Max because I don't get emotionally uh involved or attached to fighters, but Max Hollow and Justin Gagey just seem like wonderful human beings, and I will root for them till the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:58

Oh my god, I'm I'm rooting for Holloway. Now, I know what Dana White wants, right? When Gecy won, Dana White's hard on was for Connor to win and make a Gecy Connor fight. But holy shit, I hope Holloway fucking ends him and he goes away.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:15

You're right. Dana will have a boner, a cat couldn't scratch if if Connor wins. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:20

And look, that's something to say that. If you love Gecy as much as you do, then you want Connor to win because that makes Gagey life-changing money. Yeah. I mean that, but I've got to go now and drive my daughter around.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:35

That was fantastic. I love you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:37

Love you guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:37

Love you too. That was uh we got a lot of for chest today.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:40

I loved it. Happy fourth. You're welcome. Happy fourth, America. You're welcome. World Cup Champion, America.

unknown 1:24:46

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:47

World Cup. Now now you're now yeah, yeah. Okay. Stick to fighting, okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:51

Every here, wait, this is all I know about soccer. Every time something exciting happens, they call off site.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:56

I tell you what soccer. See if the see if see if they're flopped as easily as that and fighting. I'd be a world champion, wouldn't I? Flopping in red cards, ruining it. Have a good day, boys.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:06

Talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:07

Bye.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:08

Bye.