B-Team Jiu Jitsu: Craig Jones, Nicky Rod, and Nicky Ryan | Lex Fridman Podcast #363
- How would a kangaroo attack a human?` - Knock 'em down and then they choke him. - Who, the kangaroos do? - They choke each other. Yeah. - They don't choke each other. - You don't believe me? You gotta watch the video. They choke each other out. (chuckling) - I've seen this, yeah. - I mean, probably the most annoying one
was obviously the one where I had Gordon in Armbar was like, tap bro. And he wouldn't tap.
- Yeah. - So, I let him out. (laughter) - I didn't get surgery. I didn't do essentially any rehab. I just have no ACL in my left leg. - So, what's it like having no-- - The surgeon goes,
"You've got two options. Surgery, rehab only." Nicky goes, "I'll do nothing." Yeah, yeah. I mean, what could possibly go wrong if you are the world's
best grappler hates you, and you are gently provoking him behind the scenes every day? - Well, I mean,
- In Texas. - And you've stolen his
brother, held him for ransom. - It is like a story of a shitty Western. - The last part of a
difficult wake up for me, is I try to find a sad
movie and at least cry about a pound out.
(soft chuckling) That really gets me over the line. - What are the rules in the streets? - Do you think, if you're on steroids, you would've finished the choke? - I mean, for sure. - Who knew that the cure, to the Dagestani Wrestling, were the Aussies? - The following is a
conversation with Craig Jones, Nicky Rod and Nicky Ryan. Who together with Ethan
Cranston, and others make up the B-Team, a legendary jiu-jitsu team
here in Austin, Texas. It was formed after the
so-called Danaher Death Squad. The team headed by John Danaher split up into New Wave Jiu-Jitsu
and B-Team Jiu-Jitsu. Both located here in Austin, Texas. There has been a lot of
trash talk back and forth, including accusations of
greasing and steroid use. And I, as a practitioner and
fan of grappling, jiu-jitsu, and martial arts in general, am here for it. To see the best grapplers in history go at it both on the mat and on Instagram. I like the people on both teams, and train with both. And am really happy to see
the exciting rapid evolution of the sport that these athletes
and coaches are catalyzing. This is, The Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Craig Jones, Nicky
Rod, and Nicky Ryan. Craig, can you introduce everyone? - Yep. So, we got Nicky Rod here. Brown belt, two-time ADCC silver medalist. Nicky Ryan, here. That's it. (laughter) - Okay. Who are you? - And I'm Craig Jones. Also, two-time ADCC silver medalist. - Silver medalist. So, the number one loser. - Number one loser. - And maybe a little bit more, your bio says, "Widely known
as the black belt slayer, hails from New Jersey, the
land of pizza and biceps." - Ah, yes. That's pretty accurate. - Okay. You also do carry a gun on you a lot? - Yeah. I keep it loaded, you know?
- Yeah. - Keep it on me.
- Uh huh. - Do you have one today? - Uh, in the car. - That was a mistake. That was your first mistake. - Yeah, I think you're too close. (laughter) - It's very uncomfortable. - And you are Nicky
Ryan, what else is there? What else do we know? - Gordon Ryan's brother. - Gordon Ryan's brother. - Thanks for that one. (laughter) - All right. So, and you're all together
part of the leadership of the the B-Team here in Austin. Let's just get out some
introductory questions. What in general, accomplishment
of the things you mentioned are you most proud of? - I mean, I'm proud
just to not have to work a full-time job just to get by on the bullshit I've done so far. - Yeah.
- Honestly. - [Lex] Just making money
of a thing you love. - Exactly, yeah. - When was the first time you made money on a thing you love? - Oh, probably a jiu-jitsu tournament. I think maybe in Abu Dhabi
where I won a thousand dollars. Thought I was rich. - Yeah, yeah. What'd you spend a thousand dollars on? - Probably something bad? Probably drugs or something at the time. Maybe blew it at the after party. (light chuckling) - That's a good introduction to Craig. So, what about you? When's the first time you
made money on jiu-jitsu? Or, what's-- Actually, stepping back, like, what's the thing
you're most proud of? Is it a similar kind of thing? - I think I'm most proud of is, I mean, for sure two ADCC silver medals, which hurts cause you're so
close to getting that gold. But, you know, it takes time. I'm understanding that, you know, the sport of
jiu-jitsu takes quite a while to be at the tip top to
be the absolute best. So, and I'm just being
consistent in my training and my craft and, you know, I'll get that number one spot one day. - What failure or loss is
the most painful to you? - I don't know. I have probably a pretty
short term memory. So my losses, I just like,
I'll just forget about 'em. Yeah, I mean, for sure my loss at this
past ADCC in the finals, you know, that one stung a bit, cause I definitely
thought I was gonna win. I mean, like, it takes a
while to produce the skills or the reactions more
so, that you need to have to be, you know, to be that
number one pound for pound guy. And, you know, pre-ADCC, I was coming off of
injury so it took me a little bit to find the right
mentality and physicality that I needed in order to, you know, get the wins that required gold. So yeah, it's just a process. - Interesting. You keep saying process, like
it takes a while to build up. So, you're not like thinking of a loss, like ADCC as like a specific failure. You haven't gone long enough
in a particular process to being a champ. - Well, I mean, for me, I'm closing in on five
years of specifically jiu-jitsu training. I'm at about four and a half right now. And yeah, it's just the, you constantly have these
ups and downs in training where like, as long as
you stay consistent, you'll have a gradual raise. But you know, it's still, you'll have these peaks and lows. And you know, just trying
to get better every day. I'm definitely not where I will
be in a few years from now, but I'm striving to get there. - Are you actually a brown belt? Or was that a joke? - Brown belt, yeah. - You're a brown belt. Like how many stripes? - No stripes. - No stripes. Okay.
- Stripeless. - Okay. Is that part of the process,
that you're working through? - Definitely part of the process. I mean, I think a black belt is
just based upon how much knowledge you have. Obviously, like, you know, if you're talking competitive wise, like from when I started, I was able to beat most black belts. That's just kind of how I was gifted from my wrestling experience. And you know, the time
will come when it's right, but I'm not in a rush at all. I'm continuing. I just kind of take
every day for what it is, and try to improve upon that. - I mean, I wanna give him the black belt. Nicky Ryan says he's not ready. (Nicky Rod laughs) - Are you guys, like as No-Gi folks, do you take that seriously? Like, the black belt? Or like, how much does
it come into play into-- - Yeah, I mean it's like
Nicky Rod said, you know, it's based off of knowledge, not just, you know, what you do out
on the competition mats. Cause you know, like he said, he had years of wrestling experience, and obviously he's very physically gifted. So, we grade based off of
the amount of knowledge that you have. - Like, how do you measure knowledge? - I think teaching is a
good measurement of it. Like, how well you're
able to show the moves, and you know, really
make sure that you have an understanding of what you're doing. - Yeah. It's an interesting rank. It's like, it's something that takes
many years to accomplish, and for a lot of people
it's truly meaningful. It's like it represents a
particular step in a journey. But for you guys, it's almost like different, because you've been so
focused on competition that I guess if you take it seriously, it is a big step for you too, like as martial artists,
that's bigger than just being like top of the world competitors, right? So, I thought it was a joke. You guys are actually taking it seriously. Like--
- That he's a brown belt. - That he's a brown belt and he's, and you're taken seriously, the rank of black belt and like, it's part of your journey. - I think by the time I get a black belt, I'll be no more pound for a pound. I think it'd be pretty
nice to accomplish that as a brown belt and then maybe
toss a black belt on top. - Maybe get promoted on the podium. What do you guys, do you love winning or hate losing more? - I definitely don't hate losing. If it pays the bills, I don't mind. - [Lex] Oh really? - Yeah. But, honestly if I win I feel
more relief than anything rather than like excitement and stuff. I'm like, "Oh, thank God that's over." You know?
- What about you? - I hate losing for sure. But I understand that it's
necessary to get, you know, to get to where you want to be. And then winning is like, I mean, what I think winning is probably the closest you can think, you can get to like heroin or something. Cause I mean we're on a high-- Like if you do have extreme success in a tournament that
you've been, you know, adamant about training for,
and competing in for a while and you end up winning it, I mean I feel like you're on that high for days at a time afterwards. - Heroin's gotta be better. - You think so? I'ma stick with no, but. - I'm not gonna suck dick to win. (laughter) - You sucked dick for heroin? (laughs) Okay. I guess that's a good point. Yeah. - But you know like, because you coming from a little bit of the wrestling culture. One of the things I really
love is at the end of the match when they lose they just, there's no, they just run off. - Yeah. - They're like almost pissed off. It's like some mixture
of anger and frustration at themselves. - I think sometimes that people
like freak out on the mat. And I think that's just to show everybody, like, they're acting
like they cared a lot. And really maybe they didn't
work enough to you know, get to where they want to, where they expected to be. And they lost and then they
had this big boost of emotion like after their loss. But yeah, I mean, I think, you just cry in the mirror not to everybody else, you know? - Have you ever cried watching a movie? - I don't think I've ever cried, period. - Okay. Have you cried watching a movie? - Not yet. Not yet. - The notebook. - [Craig] I try to avoid those movies. Actually, - Lion King,
- I lie. Actually,
- Titanic. - The last part of a
difficult wake up for me is I try to find a sad
movie and at least cry about a pound out. That really gets me over the line. Low energy, cutting. - The tears. (chuckling) There's other following liquids
I could talk to you about, but let's just continue on. - Low energy. - What about you, Nicky? Love of winning versus hate of losing? - I'm a very competitive person. So, I for sure hate losing
more than I like winning. I do think it's something
that's kind of held me back over the past few years cause, it makes it so that I'm not
as active as I should be. Cause it's like I really hate
that feeling of, you know, after a match that you just lost. So, it kind of prevents me from competing. So, it's definitely something
I need to work past. - So, like when you think
about a competition, the possibility of losing, which is always there in competition, is the thing that like weighs heavy on you in the months and weeks leading up to it? - Yeah, my whole life, you
know, my financial stability, everything depends on, you know, my ability to go out there and compete, and my ability to teach. So, you know, it's a huge
hit to the brand if you lose. So, you know, leading up to matches. That's definitely something
that's in my mind. - So, you guys are like
world class athletes, but for me, more like
a hobbyist competitor. I compete a lot. The thing I was-- Cause I really wanted to win. The thing I was probably most
afraid of was not just losing, but like embarrassing myself. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - Even actually winning by stalling. That was the thing I hated
the most about myself, in terms of crying in the mirror, is like being too afraid to take risks after I'm up
on two points or something. - I think you gotta, in competition, sometimes it's good to
take the emotion out of it. It's too easy sometimes
to like think about, oh my girls in the crowd
and my family's watching. Like, I wanna win cause they're there. But at the highest level,
if you're emotional at all, that's affecting you. - Yeah. That's tough though. (lightly chuckles)
That's tough. Especially like leading up to
when you're on the map maybe, but leading up to it. - I think it's okay to be emotional prior. Like, you know, if we know ADCC or it's coming
up and we have a big match, like definitely I'll go out and practice, and I'll visualize, I'll put myself in that competition. That way when it's game time, it's like, I've been there
a thousand times already. - So, not the actual competition,
but even leading up to it, like stepping on the
mat, like all the walk, walk towards it, all that. - All that stuff. Like, I'll do the same exact
warmup for weeks on end until my competition day comes. That way, you know, when I compete I'm just like, Oh, it's another Tuesday at practice. - What about you, Craig? Like, how do you prepare
mentally for tournament like ADCC? - I push it completely outta my mind. Don't even think about it. Try to avoid any visualization, any rituals, warmups, anything like that. Block it out until the last second. Yeah. Try not to think about it. I just kinda train to
have fun, learn a bit. So, I try to approach
competition the exact same way. I don't warm up in training, do very little warmup for competition. - Uh huh. And do you just step on the mat? - Step on the mats. My philosophy is there's
no warmups on the street. (chuckling) - We're so vastly different. (laughter) - All right. So, you like legit don't warm up? - No, I probably should now I'm 31. But I would just like in the gym, take it easy the first round. You know, like if I look around the room and Nicky Ryan's down, might go, "All right, we'll have an
easier first round today, so." (light chuckling) - So even for like the
most high stakes matches, you try to push it out. - Yeah, I didn't even think about it. - What about like all the social, like Instagram posts you
have to do about that match? You just make a joke
out of it and kind of-- - Yeah. I mean, it's all kind of pretty silly. You know? We're just wrestling each other, you know? - [Lex] Yeah.
- We put the meaning into it. But to someone that
doesn't follow the sport, it looks stupid. - Well all of human
existence is pretty silly. Like what are we doing? None of us really know what's going on. We kind of have sex to reproduce. We get hungry, we eat. And then we're all chasing money and cars, and whatever the hell,
in a capital society. Or we worship a dictator
in a authoritarian regime. Yeah. And then we get off on, we'll let power abuse us and
then we just murder others because we get off on it. Yeah. And then eventually all of us will die because the sun will run out of energy. Cause colonizing other
planets is very difficult. So, none of it matters. It's a good, good philosophy. It's pretty good. - That's exactly what I was thinking. - How does the sun run out of energy? (laughter) You caught me there. - It burn out. It's like a, it's a nuclear fusion engine
and eventually burns out. - Like, when you get tired at training. - Yeah. It's never happened. I try to get tired. I was like, dude, it's like dude's like I not working. (laughter) - All right, cool. So, you legit don't care about losing? It doesn't weigh heavy on you. - I try not to list-- Like if I win, I try to block
out all the compliments, all the niceties and stuff. So, I try to do the same with losing. It's happened. Move on to the next one. You know, don't dwell on it too much. - And sometimes make a joke out of it. - Yeah, exactly. Winning or losing, with the right joke, we can make money off of the
event that's just transpired. That's what's most important. - Excellent. Thank you. I have a bunch of your merch. - Oh nice. This one's the Jordan Burrow's rip off. - All I see is silver. The way he pronounce burrows is very sexy. Okay. - I throw lines at people and
I try to gauge their reaction. Like sometimes I'll say something
to Nicky and I'll be like, all right, that's probably
crossing the line. You know what I mean? We'll tone it down to the public. - So, what-- Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not just right. You have to think, is
this crossing the line? - Yeah, yeah. I get as close to it as possible. Yeah. I feel like he can't really-- - And then cross it. Just a little bit. - Just a little bit, yeah. - Okay. Speaking of which, you said that I'm
Switzerland in World War II since I'm friends with both
you and Gordon and John. - Yeah. Very rich country. - Are you a Hitler or a Stalin
by the way, in this analogy? Would you like to be Hitler or Stalin? And should you make a
T-shirt out of it or? - I mean, honestly a T-shirt, I don't know how well that sells. You know?
- I think it would, you know, I think that--
(chuckles) Let's brainstorm on this one offline. (laughter) I think since Hitler lost. So, you got second place in World War II. - That's true. That's true. - I think that makes you Hitler. Anyway, to the degree that you can, can you tell the story of how
the time you've had with the Danaher Death Squad and why you split up? - I competed against Gordon for ADCC and EBI in 2017. And I remember I competed
against him at a ADCC and then we had the EBI event, and then I had a Kasai. I used to compete all
the time, every week. I wouldn't even do the
preparation or anything. I'd just be like trying to do seminars, make money and then jump in and compete. I remember I showed up to
Kasai after I faced him twice. And there were like four locker rooms, and they put me with all the DDS guys. It was just me and all of DDS. And I think we had competed
the weekend before. So, I thought it was
gonna be super awkward, but it was actually, it was actually pretty chill. And the Kasai was in New York, and they suggested to
come train that week. So I came trained, hung
out with 'em a bit. Ultimately, the goal
was to move to America and join a bigger team
just cause that flight to Australia is death. Australia is so far away from everywhere. It's kind of like, not realistic to base
yourself in Australia when all the tournaments are in America. And then I went and trained with the guys and they just had a massive, massively deep talent pool in that room. Like show up to like
a meant to be 7:00 AM, actually 8:00 AM class, on Brazilian time. And there'd be like a
hundred people in there, maybe, I don't know how many black belts, but a ton of elite guys. And I was coming from Australia
training with Lachlan Giles. But really, that room was pretty shallow and like most people had
serious jobs and stuff. So, it was like basically me
just training with Lachlan, maybe a couple of other guys. And then to go to New
York and have access to a wide array of training partners, and guys that are training twice each day. I feel like that's what you really need. You need people that can
train as much as you are. - You get humbled? - Humbled? - Do you get humbled
in that room at first? - For sure. Cause my style at the time was basically a rip off version of what they were doing. - [Lex] Yeah. - Leg locks came in. I remember just watching
Eddie Cummings nonstop, and just seeing this guy
rip people's legs off and I was like, "You know what? That's probably a good move." You know, that looks like an easier path to victory than trying to beat these guys at what they're good at already. You know? My philosophy at the time was, if it's bothering old Brazilians, - [Lex] Yeah. - It's bothering them for a reason. - [Lex] Yeah.
- It's probably effective. And that's the path I took to sort of try to rip off their moves, and then obviously to go into that room, try to do 'em to them, it's
gonna be a bit more difficult. - All right. So, that's how it started. How did you end up here? - How do we end up here? - We're in Austin, Texas. - I mean, I like to think of
Puerto Rico as Apocalypse now. John Danaher as Colonel Kurtz. Things got very weird in the jungle, and the teams went into
different interactions. But honestly, I mean it's
not really my story to tell. I had some issues with
some of those people. At the time of the split, I
got along very well with John. I feel like me and him
connected very well. I don't know why that was. Maybe it was just cause of, he missed home. He missed the familiar accent. Australian-New Zealand accent. But, I mean, I basically followed Nicky. - [Lex] Yeah. - Left with Nicky. Sort of that core group
of guys left with Nicky. And I mean, I just backed, there was personal problems, and I just backed Nicky, basically. - Got it. Just sticking on you for a bit. Is there a part of you that, you know, finds it heartbreaking that DDS split up? Does part of you miss working
with John and everybody? Can you steal me on the case for that? - I mean, I miss certain aspects of it, but I also do prefer the
freedom of being apart from it. It's obviously a very strict
regime under John Danaher. You know, obviously there's parts of it. I miss the parts that the
public doesn't see of John, the behind the scenes banter. I feel like he's very
conscious of the imagery he portrays to the world. But basically, closed doors, he's always making jokes, always finding, I guess, more in line with the Australian Kiwi sort of culture. But you don't really see
that in the public eye. So that perspective, I do miss
that relationship with John. In terms of setting aside
personal differences, Gordon was a good training partner. Definitely a good training
partner to train with. But obviously, the negative things we can't really talk about
outweighed all of those things. And we obviously had to make
a decision to leave, but yeah. - What is that happening in the jungle? - The things happen in the jungle. - Shall never be spoken of. - That I personally cannot speak of. Yeah, but obviously I do
miss certain aspects like, I mean, nothing's all bad,
nothing's all good, you know? - Yeah. This goes back to your like, everything we're doing is silly. - Yeah, exactly. That's why I didn't get
people take it so serious. Martial arts so serious. It's just... It's just pretty stupid really. Especially in the Gi, it
looks just, it looks bad. And then obviously--
- I mean, it's pretty silly with and without the Gi. It's just a bunch of apes rolling around. - What's silly about No-Gi
and what's silly about the Gi and just mixed and match bottoms there, you know what I mean? - Wait, which one?
- Sambo. Yeah.
(laughs) - I see what you're doing. Brother. (laughter) You come to my house and defend my people. All right. (chuckling) We're gonna go to every
dark place, apparently. Nick, how did you get with DDS? Like what was that journey like? Is there, try to see if there's things
that you remember fondly, that you've gotten from the experience. - All right, so the way I
started training with DDS, initially I was training for like, well initially I was a bouncer, right? I dropped outta college to pursue this fitness modeling career. I ended up signing with a
Wilhelmina models up in New York, and I was like trying
to get in better shape. And while I was bouncing kind
of the talk of like, you know, whose tougher came up
between the wrestlers and a few of the bouncers
that trained jiu-jitsu. And you know, they convinced
me to go to a practice. And I went to my first
practice over there, and for the most part, I just controlled everybody,
got on top of 'em, was able to avoid like, kind of like, you know, shitty submissions. Cause I had an awareness of the sport, and you know, I'm a fan
of fighting and whatnot. So, you know, I kind of
understood it pretty well. And then soon after
that I joined a school, and my second week of
jiu-jitsu I started competing. Had pretty good success. You know, I was like
subbing a few black belts, and beating everybody like, you know, pretty decisively with points and stuff. And about three months
into training locally, I got connected with Gordon
Ryan and John Danaher up in New York. And I started, I committed to, you know, make the drive up there
as many days as I could. At the time I lived in South Jersey, and it was about two and a
half hour, three hour drive without traffic to New York. - Where in South Jersey? - Gloucester County. Clayton, New Jersey specifically,
but Gloucester County. Yeah. So, it was about 130 miles. And without traffic, it was about two and a half hours or so. But on the way back, man, we,
it'd be three plus sometimes, you know, you're catching that rush hour. - What year was this? Do you remember? - This was in 2018. - I forget how young you are. I was there before, before all that. All right, cool. Anyway, you're doing the
long drive and then what? - Yeah, doing the long drive and then, you know, once I won ADCC trials, I was able to make a couple bucks. And then, you know, I got
my silver medal at ADCC, and I was able to afford to
live up there in New York, in north Jersey area. So I lived up there, trained there full-time
every day and you know, just kind of stuck with
the team throughout the turbulent times and
found ourself in Austin. - In the jungle. - In the jungle, yeah. - One of the things we shall not speak of. What, are there things that you remember that you've learned from John Danaher from your time you spent with him? - Yeah, I mean I definitely
learned a ton from John and the team as a whole. Like, you know, you have to be the guy that asks questions in that type type of environment, right? Cause there's not, it's not, you're not gonna get singled
out to be that specific like star or the the best guy in the
room when you have all these other, you know, stud athletes. So, I really had to
seek out and figure out the kind of questions
that I needed to ask. And once I became a bit
more verbal with my training and you know, I'm showing, I'm expressing all my curiosities
about grappling to these guys definitely helped boost my technique and my career as a whole. - Yeah. Did you understand what kind of stuff, like technically you want to get good at, what fits your body? What, like, what would be good for you? What are your weaknesses and all that? - So initially, and when
I started grappling, I had an innate ability to
just get to opponents back. So I was like, all right, I'm
good at getting to the back. Let me perfect controlling
the back and then submitting opponent via rear naked choke. And then besides that, I really
focus on leg lock defense, and then eventually came
the Rody lock pass where, you know, I'm really good at body lock passing my opponents now. And yeah, just takes a quite a long time, cause you have to find
different sequences, and then there's always these an abundance of opportunities
that your opponent gets from these specific sequences. So, takes a while. (Lex breathes deeply) - Is there part of you
that finds the fact that DDS split up heartbreaking? - I definitely, you know, having one person to go to that runs practice every day, that's, you know, consistent. It was definitely a gift. But now, I'm also gifted with
many, many other partners. I have Nicky Ryan, you know, Craig Jonesy. (laughter) - You just paused. Craig Jones. - Yeah, yeah. We have Ethan Crelinsten, Damien Anderson. So, a full team of knowledgeable athletes that I can continue to go
to with multiple questions. But yeah, definitely, it took
me some time to adjust to training or to learning from, you know, specifically my team
and not just one person. - We should mention, for
people just listening, cause you can't visually see that Nicky Ryan is currently terrified. (light chuckling) And Craig Jones is currently enjoying the fact that Nick Ryan's there. But anyway, can you talk about your-- Nicky, can you talk
about your time with DDS? - I started training when
I was like around 13. You know, my brother Gordon
had started prior to me. And, I really just went into training just as like a means to
exercise and lose weight at the beginning, cause I
was pretty fat as a kid. So, I went to the first class, loved it. And then just started training every day at Gary's Gym Brunswick. And then, during the summer
when I'd get off from school, they would take me up to New
York to train under John. And, you know, I just absolutely loved it. I knew what I wanted to do
with my life at a young age. So, I ended up dropping
outta school actually, after my freshman year in high school. So yeah, 15 I ended up dropping out and just pursuing jiu-jitsu full-time. You know, training every
day up in the blue basement. - Like what aspects of jiu-jitsu made you know that this is the thing for you? - It was just something I
just enjoyed being, you know, like on the mats every day. I love that there's, you know, a problem solving aspect to it. So it's, you know, it's
mentally challenging, it's physically challenging,
helps me get in shape. So, I just, yeah, right off the bat, I knew I loved it. - Okay, so then we'll go to the jungle. What happened in the jungle? (chuckles)
- Yeah. - And in general, like... (chuckling) I like this, I like this
like shroud of mystery that shall never be penetrated. That should never be like-- - We've got a book deal. It's coming. - Book deal?
- Yeah. - All right. - Obviously he left high
school, he's not writing it. - Okay. I'll do the Russian translation. (laughter) Okay. So, what are, what are things that you
enjoy that you remember from working with John Danaher? - Yeah, I mean, you know,
obviously he's considered one of the best coaches in the world. You know, very charismatic guy
when you see him in person. You know, I pretty much was, you know, kind of raised in the DDS. You know, that's where I spent the majority of my time every day. So, I obviously had very
deep connections, you know, with John, my brother, Gary, you know, even Eddie
Cummings and stuff back then. So obviously, I miss interacting
with those guys every day. And you know, it's like they said, it's good to have somebody to kinda crack the whip at you every day. And John was very good at that. - When you're like younger
in your teenage years, you can kind of, you like
have to get humbled, right? There's like a process to that. - Yeah, for sure. And... - That's a pretty good room
to get humbled in, I guess. - Yeah, exactly. I mean, I was, I started training with them just when like everybody
started to break out. Gary was like the
biggest name at the time, just cause he had won ADCC trials already, and he had a crazy match with Kron, at Kron Gracie at ADCC. But Eddie was just starting to break out. Gordon just started winning EBI. So, I started training
under John, you know, right when everything was exploding. - What are the good things about life, about jiu-jitsu you
learned from your brother? - Both me and my brother never
really wanted to, you know, work a full-time job doing
something that we hate. And he was always, you know,
a very confident person. So he just went, you know, fully started pursuing jiu-jitsu. So, I'm very happy that, you know, he did that and I ended up
following in his footsteps because you can ask these guys, I'm a lazy sack of shit
outside of the mat. So, that's definitely one thing
that I'm very grateful for. - That he paved the way, like, you can make money
doing stuff you love. - Yeah, exactly. And he was a big reason, you know, why my parents eventually
let me drop outta school. Because, you know, when
they were coming up, there was no money in the sport. It was very hard to make a full living. Like, if you wanted to
actually make a living, you'd eventually have to transfer to MMA. And I feel like Gordon and
Gary and those guys were, you know, some of the first people to make a very good living
off of just jiu-jitsu. - Does part of you find it heartbreaking that you've split up from DDS, but also from your brother in terms of spending time in the mat every day? - Yeah, for sure, you
know, I mean, growing up, you know, obviously he's my big brother. I looked up to him a lot. So I definitely, like I said, I miss interacting with those guys. I was pretty much raised, you
know, in that blue basement, you know, that John was like, you know, a father figure to me. So I definitely, you know, miss seeing those guys every day. - Do you have animosity towards Gordon? And does he have animosity toward you? And what is the source of that? And do you think you'll ever
be able to forgive each other? - Definitely initially,
during the initial split, we definitely hated each
other at the beginning. But it's definitely started to calm down. Actually, just prior to, you know, all this social media drama
that's going on currently. (laughter) He had reached out to me and
that was literally like the first time that we have actually talked since the split happened. So, we didn't talk to each other for, what is it now like, almost two years? And that was the first
time that, you know, we interacted again. And overall, you know, he wasn't, you know, aggressive towards me. I wasn't aggressive towards him. We were cracking some jokes. So, hopefully the animosity is going down. - Well, there's this godfather
quote that I wrote down, I recently re-watched it. From the Don, from Don
Corleone, Vito Corleone. "The strength of a family, like the strength of an army lies in its loyalty to each other." Is there some aspect
of family that you miss of the blood that kind of connects you, that you can count on? - Yeah, my parents, you know,
they both raised us that, you know, like family is everything. You never, you know, betray your family or anything like that. So I definitely, you know,
miss him from time to time. - Okay. Imagine you're like 40 years from now, sitting on a porch with a
shotgun drinking whiskey, looking over like all the
land you've conquered. Looking back to this moment, is the reason you split
up a bullshit reason? Or is it a good reason? From the perspective of the
king who has now conquered the lands, have proven himself,
have done everything. - I think it was definitely
like a justifiable reason for the team splitting. Like it just, with the way things were going, it just was not gonna work with, you know, all of us in the same room together. It started, you know, affecting training. People didn't feel comfortable in things. So, I definitely think that it was a justifiable reason to split. - The things that happened in the jungle. (Nick Ryan chuckles)
- Yeah. - To be told about in the book. Is it gonna be an audio book
or is it just gonna be... And who's gonna voice it? - Might be a play. (laughter) - A musical?
- Yeah, a musical. - On Broadway. How's your singing voice? - Mine's not so good, but
Nicky has a beautiful voice. - Does he? Of an angel? I bet. Okay. Speaking of the social media drama, I should mention that
I've talked to recently to Gordon, a bunch. I've talked to him about
talking to you guys. And he's had nothing but
really nice things to say about you, Nicky Ryan. And he has had nothing but bad things... (giggles softly) - What was some of the things? - Um...
(chuckles) (laughter) There's... Well, let's just go to
the social media first. (chuckling) Cause the social media
stuff that he said publicly is just like, a warmup. It's like foreplay, I guess. So, Gordon sent you, Nicky Rod, flowers for Valentine's Day. A posting on Instagram, quote, "I've been fucking him in
every round in competition since we met in 2018. The least I can do is buy him flowers." - We didn't get the flowers. - No, so... Yeah, that was the question. Did you get the flowers? You never got the flowers. - He sent it to the wrong address. - [Lex] He did?
- Yeah. - Where do you think he sent it? - It was close, but it was wrong. - Did you appreciate the romantic gesture? - I did. I was looking forward to
the flowers and potentially chocolates in there, but you know, it was a bit of a letdown. - Can you describe your
recent match against Gordon? The EBI match. - Okay so, EBI match on UFC Fight Pass was a 20 minute match.
(breathes heavily) And, immediately, you know match starts, I pulled guard and then I stand up, he pulls guard and we have this
kind of like back and forth where he is trying to dig for underhooks, trying to get on top of me and
he can't really find success. And in the midst of me trying
to work my body lock pass, Gordon's able to underhook
a leg and we end up in a leg entanglement. And then I'm able to transfer
that leg entanglement to a 50/50 position, still
in the leg entanglement. From that 50/50 position, I'm
able to separate his feet, and actually get a few
pops and he actually said I broke his foot in that exchange. - With a toe hold.
- With a toe hold, yep. And you know, after that, we had a a bit more. I was just being working on top positions trying to get my body lock. Time runs out and we go to overtime. In overtime-- - Can you hold on a second, actually? - Yep. - What does it mean to break a leg? What does-- I was very confused about, - Okay, so-- - Is this like a expression
or what do you mean? What do you mean broke? Which part breaks in a toe hold? - Okay, so in a toe hold there's a few different grades of it. Like you could get a
few pops and have some, you know, walking issues. And people consider that a break. And then you could break it
fully and have your foot be like a limp noodle, you know? I think what are those? Achilles? Is it was the front of
the Achilles or something? - I mean, probably the ligaments. I mean it's funny like,
a lot of people say they broke something. But like to me, you break
bones, you tear ligaments. So I would imagine, you
probably had a grade three tear. - Grade three. - How hard do you think is it to, I always wondered that with
like a straight foot lock, how hard is it to break the shin, or like the actual bones
versus the tear stuff? - Depends how many steroids they're on. And obviously how much you're on. - You're one of the few guys
that have actually broken bones in competition. - Uh, yeah, have I? - [Nicky Rod] Oh yeah, many.
- A couple, yeah. - Which bone did you break? - Spiral fracture of the fibula. - Hmm. - Very specific. - [Nicky Rod] A lot of power out there. - Was it a twisting? How did you break it? - Oh, it was a heel hook. Vinny always used to say
heel hooks don't work, leg locks don't work. But unfortunately, age
gets the best of all of us. I think he had some
mileage on those ligaments. - [Lex] Yeah.
- And the bone, I guess. - So it's actually what? The bone... - Yeah, his ankle like disconnected from the tibia and the fibula. But the fibula definitely
snaps pretty bad there. - That's fascinating. The dynamics of that. Okay. Anyway, it went into overtime. What happened in overtime? - Okay, what happened in overtime? Let's see, trying to hang. Oh, okay. I go with defense first. Whistle blows, I'm able to escape in like 17 seconds. And then immediately
after, I go on his back, and he gets out in exactly 17 seconds. I'm like, shit, all right. I thought I had a good start. And then he gets on my
back right after that, and he's able to ride me out for pretty much the entire round. After that, I got back on his back, he escapes in maybe like
a minute and some change. I think where I went
wrong in the overtime is I should've been less adamant
about chasing the submission, and more aware of collecting time. If I kind of diverted my
attention towards acquiring, you know, time on the
clock, it would've been, you know, more of my favor. But yeah, at the end of my overtime round I'm able to lock up rear
naked choke over the face, but there just wasn't
enough time to fully finish. You know, I got a few
seconds of squeeze in there. I didn't have enough time to adjust and. Go ahead. - Do you think if you were on steroids you would've finished the choke? - I mean, for sure, for sure. - That's what I thought too. - If you're on gear, it you're, you're changing the biology
of your body, right? You're adjusting your DNA. For sure, if I adjusted my DNA, I mean, - Yeah.
- It's a finish. - So, you're implying
you're a natural athlete, is what you're saying? - Oh, I'm definitely a natural athlete. Yeah. Heavy immolation. (laughter) - Okay. So, for people who don't
know the EBI rules, it's an interesting rule
structure where the overtime, you put yourself in like
the worst possible position. And the task is to escape, and then the other person
gets the same thing. What do you guys think
about that rule set? - I like it just because... First of all, I don't like the idea of having to put somebody on my back, but I do like the definitive
answer in the match. Like, either you escaped in time or you got, you know, written out. So the absolutely, like you have a, you get to the final winner. That's great. I'd much rather have that
than a close decision and it kind of goes the other way. - What about you? - I mean honestly, there's
all the different roles. When I look at the role sets, I just try to think of what role set I could beat that individual in. And I sort of gear myself towards that. That's really the strategy there. I think there's some guys that like, that stall a lot, that you would love to have
EBI overtime with at the end. You know, they're stalling until they have to give us a good position. But then there's some guys
that are so good in those positions I'm like, ooh, maybe
we just do a regular match, you know? - What are the rules in the streets? - The streets? No time limit. - Yeah, that's one of it. There's also like concrete
and cars and stuff. - Concrete, biting. - Biting, yeah. Poking. Yeah. So, you don't like that rule set? Are there some people you
would prefer in the street as a rule set? - Me? Probably not. (laughter) I don't know though. EBI, I mean, it's tricky, you know? It depends on the opponent,
which rule set I'd wanna do. - What about you Nicky Ryan, what do you think about
the rule set of EBI? Yeah, so I think EBI is
very good from a spectator point of view. You know, people find it
very entertaining to watch. You know, cause people
wanna see submissions and you're putting people,
- [Lex] Yeah. - Yqou're putting the athletes
in a position where you know, you have like the highest percentage submission in the sport. So obviously, you're gonna
get a lot of submissions. My issue with it is, it is a
rule set that allows somebody that's overall worse at
jiu-jitsu to win a match. You know, a guy can go
out there and just stall and just get completely dominated for the entirety of regulation, and then he gets to
start on the guy's back. So, that's my one issue with it. - But also, I mean isn't
it interesting to see, like the best people in
the world have to be put in a really bad position? And to see how good their
escapes are, for example. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah, I think-- - It's interesting.
- [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - But it doesn't feel like, realistic. It's a fun thing to watch, but it doesn't feel like the real fight. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - It feels weird. - I'll claim it, if I start an overtime on
someone and finish 'em, I'll claim it. But if they submit me an
overtime I'm like, ahh. - You're gonna deny it. - It's not a real submission. - Good. (Lex chuckles) - The issue is people like stalling to just win the overtime. - Yeah. - So, where you got this guy, his whole training camp is just, not get subbed and win the overtime. It's a bit boring. - By the way, I have a a rose behind you. Somebody gave me a Valentine's flower. So, if you miss the one from
Gordon, I got one for you. - Well, I'd appreciate that. Thank you. (laughter) It's good to feel loved. - Yeah. All right. (chuckling) So, what did you learn from that match? Like, a takeaway as technically speaking? Like, what do you need to work on? - Well, I learnt that I
am pretty good, and uh... (laughter) Yeah, pretty good. I got a, you know, a few-- I know exactly what my weakness is. You know, it's the leg lock department. And I'm doing a lot to, you know, get better in that specific aspect. - Attack in defense. - I would say, yeah. But attack, defense, re-attacks, even if I wanted to
offensively enter a leg, you know, I could use
some work there as well. But I feel like once I solidify like my, like if I become a black belt specifically in the leg lock department, I feel like I'd be unstoppable. - If you, Nicky Rod,
definitively beat Gordon Ryan, how would you do it? - Buggy choke. - Buggy Choke. - Buggy choke. For the listener, (soft laughter) I don't even know how
to describe buggy choke. What's the definitive like,
conclusion on that choke? Does it work? It's a choke that you do when you're in a, what's the opposite of a dominant, it's not submissive in
a non-dominant position of bottom of sight control. - Yeah. Just embarrassing submission
to get caught with, really? - Yeah. But, does it work? - It works on certain people. (Nicky Ryan giggles softly) - For the listener, he
glanced over at Nicky Ryan. It's embarrassing but it's also what? It's a way to frustrate the opponent. - For sure, yeah. It's a new part of the sport. I feel like the Ruotolo's
brought it back into fashion. And even if you don't get it, because it's one of those
moves that's so embarrassing, at the first sign of danger, the top guy abandoned ship. And you can basically retain God by attempting a very
embarrassing submission. - So, the threat of embarrassment. - [Craig] Yeah.
- To everybody. - People pull out very quick to avoid suffering the consequences. - I think some people underestimate how good of a submission it is. I mean like once you're locked in there, there's not too many
defenses for a buggy choke. - Are you... Is there an instruction on
the way from you on the-- - Jay Rod, actually, your
little brother has one. - Oh yeah? For real? You actually legit have.. Oh, wow. (laughter) That's awesome. We'll check it out. So I mean, there is, I mean,
you're making a joke out of it, but it is real, like,
there's a system to it. - I mean, yeah. I don't know if we'd call it a system. (laughter) It's a good move. - I mean, you take an
opponent that was just winning in a greatly dominant
position and then boom, in that same position, they're
pretty much, they're losing. You know, it's an interesting move. - What's the name of the, what's the name of it? - [Male] It's called, The
Buggypedia by Jay Rodriguez. - Okay. The Buggypedia. I thought there'd be something like, very Craig Jonesy about it. Okay, awesome. I know you don't want to
sort of reveal the secrets of what you're working on. But in general, what does it take to beat Gordon? I guess, is the question.
- Okay. So, it would've to be
some kind of a choke. I think any joint lock
or anything like that, he's just gonna let it
break and stay in the match. So, I don't even think he'd tap from like, a rear naked choke. I think I would have to put him to sleep. So, putting him to sleep is how I'd win. - So, Gordon is somebody
who really hates losing. - Yeah, like he won't even
tap in the practice room. I remember like, I had a
toe hold a couple times in practice room, and
he was just comfortable like, working there. I'm like, I'm not really
putting much on it. I think he just, you know, maybe because of situations
like that in practice, he kind of didn't respect
my toe hold's ability in competition. - You've done that to me in the practice. - I have, yeah.
(Craig chuckles loudly) Yeah. I gave you a little, you know? - Gave me a little pop and then he let go. (chuckles) - That was only 10% right there. Imagine--
(laughs) - [Craig] Hey, don't get into math. - [Nicky Rod] Ha ha! - [Lex] Okay. Is there some part of that
you think is necessary to be a champion as to like, this almost unwillingness
in competition to tap? - I think there's definitely
something to be said for people that are just like, you know, willing to go that extra mile, or to take that damage
to secure their victory. - Is there part of you that like, would hate to tap or hate to tap? - Yeah. I mean, all of me would hate that. (laughter) Yeah. The whole part of me. - Isn't there a John
Legend song like that? All of you and all of me? - Very romantic, yeah. - Yeah. Now, we're sticking on that theme. Okay, I'm sorry. (soft laughter) Oh, one of the things Gordon asked, - Uh oh. - I forget how you put it
because I think there's a lot of words that would need
to be censored involved. But he said, "Ask them how it feels to have a zero five record against me with four submissions combined." - I mean, first of all, I wasn't sure he could count to five. - [Lex] Yeah. - That's an impressive thing. - [Lex] That's impressive. (Lex chuckling)
- Oh and five. I mean, I will say one thing, nobody beats me four times. (soft laughter) - I love you so much, Craig. - I did have a question. I did have a question for you. There was some controversy
on your Twitter. - [Lex] Yeah. - About a list of books. - [Lex] Yeah. - And I was wondering why Gordon's book wasn't
featured amongst that literature? - Well, it was only the first 30 books or like the first 20 books. And it would of course be in the-- - Something interesting about Gordon, he's the first author that's written more books than he's read. - Pretty good. (laughter) If you face him and beat him, what's your take on what
it takes to beat Gordon? I mean, you guys are kind of joking, they go pretty hard
recently on each other. But as a fan of jiu-jitsu,
I'm all in on this rivalry. It's just fun to watch. - I mean, first of all, I don't think I go really hard with him. I think Gordon is, he's pretty sensitive,
you know what I mean? He's looking for a large
insult in a small insult. And for me, like Australians, we just attack each
other, all day, every day. And for me, like if I see someone that
takes himself very seriously, that's like blood in the water. That's funny to me. To me, if I can just gently provoke and get a strong reaction, that's hilarious. Like Aussies, we'll just attack each other, and the first person that gets upset, he kind of loses the exchange. So, I think that is
very, very entertaining. - Like if you were to beat Gordon, would the mental game off
the map be part of it? - I think it would be a factor for sure. But I mean, I'm never gonna come out too crazy direct with him. You know? Like I don't, I can't, I find that like if you
get too upset online and you're going crazy, I find that-- I'd be embarrassed to do that myself. Obviously, everyone's different. Everyone has a different style, you know? But like, yeah, I think mental, the mental aspect would play a big factor. I mean, mainly because
if I were to beat him, I would send him a message
every day until I died. - [Lex] Yeah. - Just to gently remind him
that I got the last one. The last one. It's all that matters. We're not keeping score here.
- Win it back. - Yeah, we're not keeping score. - So like, once you beat him, you're going to run for
the rest of your life. - I mean run, but look back. - Yeah.
- You know? Look back and laugh. - Run with messages or something. - A sidestep. - Ride your horse to into the sunset. Okay. Well by the way, you've
talked very lightly. You've talked shit very lightly against Alexander Volkanovski's
opponent, very lightly. Have you received death threats or, how are you still alive? - Like Gordon, I would say people from
Dagastan take a joke very well. You know what I mean? - Do they really? Do they really?
- No. (laughter) - Oh, I was waitin' for you. Oh, sorry. I'm slow. I'm way too aggressive mode in my head. - Now honestly,
- [Lex] Half listening to you. - Islam is pretty cool. I wanted to stir it up a bit, you know? Cause like I felt like
that was a massive fight and it probably should
have added more attention than it was receiving. So, I wanted to just
gently stir it up a bit. I feel like Sambo guys
are in the same lane as catch wrestlers. Very sensitive. You know, like obviously,
there's only three people in the world that do catch wrestling. Sambo, maybe 10 to 15. So, I figured we could really
provoke them with that sort of jiu-jitsu sambo stuff. Islams took the jokes very well. The Russian fans not so much. They're very serious. There's not many smiles
in Russia, you know? They didn't take it as well. - I'm trying to suppress the anger. The rage is building inside me, slowly. So, you guys mentioned steroids. - I like that you bring that
up after we talk about Russia. For the record. Smooth, smooth segue there. - I did not condone the
statements said by the Aussie. But, I would love to
travel with you to Russia. - That would be a good time.
- [Lex] Yeah. - You might get killed with me, now. - No, I would be like the
first to turn to backstab you. (laughter) - Like I got him. - All right. Are most of the top grapplers on steroids? - I mean, it's hard to say. You know, some people look like shit and they're on steroids. Some people look excellent
and they're not on steroids. It's so, so hard to tell. - But that seems to be
the general consensus, that a lot of people on steroids. I'm always a little bit, I don't know, so I'll be honest, I've never
seen anyone take steroids. I've never taken steroids. I don't even know if that's
the right term to use or like TRT, any of that. So, I'm very careful like,
to not let my naivete like, lead me to take conclusions. But, I do feel a little bit
weird about the witch hunt nature of it. That some people a little
bit too eagerly claim that others are on steroids just
because they're successful. But at the same time, it does
seem that a lot of athletes will do whatever it
takes to be successful. - Yeah, I mean if a sport doesn't test, you gotta assume most
people are gonna do it. And especially now, as more
money comes into the sport, you gotta assume more people
are gonna do it, you know? - But generally, like, do ADCC and like, does jiu-jitsu test? - [Craig] It's actually encouraged. - What's encouraged?
- No, I'm kidding. - You get a pamphlet. Okay. They don't test? There's no testing? - They test to make sure we're on steroids cause obviously it's a big show for the UFC five plus in the future. (laughter) You don't want anyone
coming in outta shape. - [Lex] Very nice. Do you think using steroids
in that kind of context in sports is wrong? Like stepping away if it's not illegal? - [Craig] I mean, from my perspective. - Do you think ethically speaking? - I like to assume everyone's on steroids so I have to feel bad about
using steroids myself. - Yeah.
(soft laughter) Do you use all of the steroids? - I'm over 30. It's TRT, you know, that's
the medical definition. (giggling) - That's the medical def-- Okay. I'd like to meet your doctor. - [Craig] Therapeutic use, you know. - Therapeutic, right. Like, how do you just feel about it? - I mean, it is cheating for sure, whether they test for it or
not, I think it is cheating. Obviously some people are gonna say, "Oh fuck it, everyone's on it. I should be able to get away with it." Makes it even playing field. You know? But it kind of becomes Russian
roulette cause it's like, if one guy's taking a small amount, and the other guy is taking a huge amount, he's gonna reap huge
rewards in the short term. Probably be dead, pretty early. But die a champion, mind you. You know what I mean? So it's like, I don't know where line is yet. - Yeah. What do you think about that? Do you think it's worthy
to take health risks just for the glory? - I think if you're 40, about to die, looking at a cabinet of gold
medals for wrestling other men, it's probably not gonna hit
the same way on your death bed. You know? - What? Sorry. In which direction? Like, is that a good thing or not? - No. You're probably gonna feel like, "Oh fuck, I probably wasted
a bit of health on that." You know?
- You think so? Isn't that like the glory of it? Like you said, other men? Yeah. (Craig chuckles)
(soft laughter) Yeah, yeah. - Well, I mean, in my opinion, I'll maybe rest of a woman as well, but. - What'd you do with
Gabby on Valentine's Day? Where did you take her? What'd you guys-- - We filmed some new stuff for Only Fans. - [Lex] For Only Fans. - [Craig] We never stop working. - So, the love affair
is also a work affair. Okay. I don't know. There's something too that made like... Like Olympic gold medalist
accomplishing like the heights sacrificing everything. Just everything. The first 20, 30 years of your life for this silly little piece of metal. I don't-- I think there's something
beautiful to that. That like, conspires a
lot, a lot of people. And that's like the height of
the human condition in a way. - What did you survive? I'm just saying if you're in
your death bed early in life. - We all die. All men die, Craig Jones.
(Craig chuckles loudly) But, not all men truly live. - How many years are
you willing to shave off for a gold medal? - That's a good question. How many? How many are you willing to
shave off for a gold medal? What year for silver medal? - For silver. I mean for a silver medal,
I'd shave a few off. - I think two silvers makes a gold, so. (laughter) - It's worth five years. - Five to ten maybe, yeah. Shave off the bad years and
haunts the good ones, you know? - Well, I mean, you've sacrificed, you guys sacrificed a
lot, a lot of your life. You continue to sacrifice. Or you don't see it as sacrifice? - It's fun. I think training's fun,
being bit adamant about it. Consistent. I mean, I think we have a
great routine, great ritual. Definitely enjoy the process. - All right. Well, do you guys know, this is bro science. Or I'm talking bro scientist, but do you know how long
steroids stay in your system? - Forever? - Forever. Oh, because it's like-- - Hey, once you do it, y'all want it. (laughter)
- Yeah. Just the knowledge. Yeah. All right. - I think it's different
for each steroid, right? I think some of 'em
last longer than others. It depends if it's a year. - You would think I would do
a little research before this, asking these questions. Why do you think most athletes and coaches don't talk about steroids? Like, why is it such a, like a secret? Why is it so embarrassing? - I think they probably
talk about it like, amongst the team and whatnot. Again, I mean, it's gonna be
more shady if it's like a, your sport is tested or not. We're kind of in the Wild West, in the grappling world, you know? - Yeah. But why don't grapplers talk about it? Because the team's cheating. - I mean, it's kind of
insinuated as a bit of cheating. Even if it's not, like, if it's not tested, I mean, still, you're taking a
person that could, you know, maybe has good jiu-jitsu, good mechanics, you're putting 'em on the leg
and they're subbing you with a heel hook versus breaking
your leg with a heel hook. You know, something as
subtle as that can make, you know, big differences. - All right. This is gonna make me sound dumb, but is it possible that steroids are not a huge help in grappling? - I think if you're bad at
jiu-jitsu and you do steroids, you're gonna continue
to be bad as jiu-jitsu. But if you're great at gear, I'm sorry, if you're great at grappling, (laughter) If you're great at grappling
and then you also do gear, it's gonna enhance what
you're already, you know, good at and make you much better. - But like how much is the enhancement? I guess is the question? - How much is muscle valued? - Right.
- Like if you're, - That's the question. - If you're doing gear and you're not changing weight that much, like maybe it helps you a little bit. But if you know, you're gaining
50, 60 pounds of pure muscle and it's like, that's a huge enhancement. That's another human. - Does muscle-- A small human, yeah. Does muscle matter in jiu-jitsu? I guess is the question. Is it possible that it gets in the way? - I'd say muscle matters,
but technique matters more. - I also think that it'll help you develop technique as well. Because obviously, you know, testosterone
helps with recovery rate. So if you're on gear, you're
able to train a lot more. Now with that being said,
if you're not able to learn, obviously it's not gonna
help in that aspect. But, if you're somebody
that knows how to learn and get good at jiu-jitsu, and then you add gear on top of that, you're able to do
significantly more sessions throughout the week. - Okay. And by the way, gear is steroids? - [Nicky Ryan] Steroids, yeah. - Okay. - I also think that you don't
have to be as consistent in like your sleep, in
your food and stuff, if you're on gear. You have a little bit of leeway. But I mean, being consistent
in your diet and your sleep definitely would help,
you know, the process. - Since you use most steroids, - Most steroids, yep. - of any athlete I've ever met, do you think steroids help jiu-jitsu? Oh man. - I think obviously it helps recovery and your ability to train more. But I think some, I've seen some guys go on steroids and then suddenly they feel
like the incredible Hulk and now in the training room, they start to rely more on strength, - [Lex] Yeah. - than the techniques they had. And it actually in some respect, hinders them, and makes
'em gas more in competition cause then they're
using more of the muscle they never used to have. - So, you've implied that
you're a natural athlete. - Mmhm. - [Craig] You said that, you said that skeptically. (laughter) Why are you skeptical Lex? (laugher) - Is this something you
do for social media, to talk shit to Gordon, to imply that he's not a natural athlete? - Well, I only pretty much
recently on social media I had this rebuttal, you know? Saying that, you know, Gordon's on gear. And I only said that
because after our match in our most recent match. You know, the EBI rules match, he accused me of greasing,
which is like lubing up. So, I'm slippery during our match, so. - And you and you did not? - I did not. I was checked multiple
times before and after our grappling event. And he still, you know, went
out and accused me of this. So, I was like, all right, as opposed to telling a lie,
I'll just tell the truth about, you know, your steroid use. Which it shouldn't be that
big of a deal in retrospect cause he kind of admitted it and whatnot, you know, previously. So, it's yeah, I just kind of felt
like I had to rebuttal. And I didn't do it immediately
cause I was like, all right. I know I have this podcast
planned so I'll wait to do it on, you know, my friend, Mark Bell's podcast. You know, could be a little more, get a little bit more exposure on it. - Sure. - And yeah, I knew he
was gonna bite the bait. But I didn't think he was gonna, you know, bite the bait that hard. I know he's a little stressed
out about the comment, but, you know. - And that was the origin of you guys going back and forth on, - Well it wasn't so much
back and forth, it was just, I went forth and then he
kept going back, back, back. Like, I remember one of my guys
DM'd me and they were like, "Gordon's made like 68 Instagram stories, and 67 of them were all about you." I was like, all right, well
I'm in his head for sure. - Got us a few followers. We appreciate that. - We did get followers. Even shouted out our
B-Team White Belt Program. So, thank you.
(chuckles) - Yeah. (chuckles) Okay. Speaking of which, what's the B-Team? How's it run? And why is it called the B team? - Well, I mean Craig named it. - Was the A-Team taken?
(laughter) - I would've picked. For me, B is for best. - Okay. Best. All right. What does B stand for, for you? What does it represent? What is the ideal like the, you know, Miyamoto Musashi, philosophical
foundation of B-Team? - Aim low and achieve.
- Hm. If the bar is set low,
you can't help but win. Okay. - That's Nicky's philosophy
with women as well. (Nicky laughs) Set the bar incredibly low. Overachieve. - So, what is the B-Team? How do you guys run it? Like what's, yeah, I mean can you just talk about
the school, how you found it? What is it? What's it like? - I mean, pretty much just
a regular jiu-jitsu gym. We started a as sort of a pros only purple belt and above team. And we have me, Nicky
Rod, Nicky Ryan, Ethan, Damien as coaches. Am I missing someone? - Oh, JB. - Your memory,
- [Craig] JB. - with your old age. - Impeccable memory, yeah. And we got JB coming on
to teach white belts. But just your stock
standard jiu-jitsu team. We focus on more, we lean heavily towards the professional athlete side of things. We have a lot of high level guys in there. - [Lex] Yeah. - Class structure, regular instruction and positional sparring open rounds. But we sort of took a
heavy slant on marketing side of things. We really try to blow
up the YouTube channel. Obviously, we sell a lot of
clothing, merchandise and stuff. So yeah, we just sort of
took a modern approach to a standard jiu-jitsu
gym because I mean, jiu-jitsu gyms are full
of some of the most boring human beings on earth. So, we try to highlight. - Strong words, Craig Jones, strong words. - Highlight the other
side of things, you know? Keep it pretty lighthearted. - [Lex] That it can be fun.
- Yeah. That jiu-jitsu can be fun. I guess that it can be cool too. You know, it's not just
full of steroided up autistic people, you know? - Question from Reddit, quote, "Need to hear some of the
stories about drop-ins that led to the making
of the gem of a video, 'The Dos and Don'ts of
Training a B-Team.'" Any fun stories? - Any ones that stands out? Do you guys remember any? - Police involved ever? - We had a guy coming
about to kick him out. He was stalking two of the members. Yeah, well I mean, there's
just crazy people, you know? Like, I portray a pretty
insane image online, and I guess I am that, a lot of the time But at training, try to
keep it, while training. Around training I'm insulting everyone. But while training, I try to keep it pretty serious. But obviously, the image
of a Trey Lu is in some of the crazier members. - I mean like the thing is
about the gym you guys run is really professional. It's like friendly. It's like the lighthearted
joking is there obviously. You know, like shit talk
and all that kind of stuff. But like, it's a pretty safe environment. - [Craig] Yeah, cause-- - But the public persona
might attract some-- - Some maniacs.
- [Lex] Yeah. - I won't say which
places I've trained at, but obviously there's some
places you walk into the room and it's very, very serious.
- [Lex] Yeah. - There's no smiles around. Obviously, it's pretty an
average training room in Russia, but no smiles. Very serious environment, you know what I mean?
- [Lex] Yeah. - And I definitely totally like that. I don't wanna show up to training and be walking on eggshells, not knowing what the
coaches' moods like that day. I wanna go in, have a good time. Keep it lighthearted. - What was in the video? What are the dos and don'ts? Because like the address is
public, like anyone can show up. - Anyone can show up. Yeah. What were the dos and don'ts? - Does anyone challenge you? Like, to a fight? - Not yet. Not yet. I mean, probably from other gyms in town, that's probably coming down the line. But, dos and don'ts-- - I'm all in on that. I would be excited as a fan to just watch. - [Craig] I love the drama. - Not the drama. No, no, no. Well, a little drama, a
little drop of poison is good. But ultimately, it's the
best grapplers in the world kind of going at it, yeah. And it's fun. Because, maybe I'm wrong, but I think there is an
underlying deep camaraderie at the end of the day. When you're like at the top of the world. - [Craig] Yeah.
- And you're like in the same town. - What could possibly go wrong? - It's like a shitty Western, but like an epic Western. Where like, Clint Eastwood with like, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". Of course I love it. I'm here just eating popcorn like that. - Stirring the pot. - I'm not stirring the pot.
(laughter) I'm not staring the pot. - These questions are from
Reddit, but not from you. (laughter) - That one for sure. - Yeah. I mean, what could possibly go wrong if you are the world's best
grappler hates you and you are gently provoking him behind
the scenes every day? Well I mean,
- For sure. In Texas. - And you've stolen his
brother, held him for ransom. - Kidnapped. It is like a story of a
shitty Western, I think. You now allow white
belts to train with you. What's it like to open it
up to a bigger audience? - We haven't opened it up yet, but it'll be interesting to see. I mean, I feel like your higher belts, they really understand
what the training room is, you know what I mean? White belts early, they're trying to find
their place in the gym, could be kind of awkward and
stuff in that environment. So, I think obviously
those white belts coming in will change the dynamic. But the white belts will have
a separate white belt classes obviously for 'em. Cause given it's such a high level gym, it'd be tough a beginner
to be able to enter the more advanced classes. Well obviously, we're teaching
more advanced techniques. So yeah, we've separated
a white belt program, I believe 6:00 PM,
- Yeah. - Monday to Friday. Yeah, maybe we'll have
a Saturday one as well. But, it'll be interest to see how it goes. We're trying to do things
different, you know? Like, we're trying to do your traditional jiu-jitsu
gyms, obviously you're not gonna teach beginners wrestling at all. We're trying to split it
at least 33% top game, bottom game, and wrestling. So, at least create more
well-rounded athletes from day one. Whereas, I feel like most
traditional jiu-jitsu gyms might have No-Gi once a week. They don't touch wrestling
very IBJJF heavy techniques. But again, the sport's changing for sure. - Just to take that on. How does a beginner get good at jiu-jitsu? Like given that you're
starting this white belt, what's your philosophy on that? - Obviously buy all of my instructionals. - [Lex] Yeah.
- At full price. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Not during a sale. - [Lex] Okay.
- That would go a long way. - For those of you who are
Russians, I'll give you, I'll send you instructions, or all the forms, so you
know how to steal it. - [Craig] Yeah, a discount card. - I bought 'em all so I'll
just send it to you for free. - I mean, we do have the
Makhachev 50 discount code, you know? - [Lex] Yeah. - Offering discounts to help
him out for the rematch. - Nice. (laughing)
Makhachev discount. Well, I got a hundred
percent discount for you if you need it. But, that aside, your instructional are both hilarious and brilliant. And it's one of the most respected
instructionals out there. - [Craig] Oh, thank you. - [Lex] With incredibly great names. - [Craig] Yeah, it probably
loses me Silas honestly, if you're removing seriousness of the-- - [Lex] Oh, cause they think
it's gonna kind of suck. It's gonna be some funny gimmicky thing? - [Craig] Or, I mean, some
people don't even know if it's a real product. (Lex laughs) That's a big hurdle I have to overcome. If they see it and they're
like, is that a real thing? That's a problem. But how does the white belt get good? I think they just, I mean
you just have to show up, just have to put in the effort, try to focus on using
techniques in training, rather than just fighting to the death. You know? Although, that is
entertaining for us to watch, two white bells fight to the death. - [Lex] Yeah. But, what are the techniques
you should focus on? Like, what's the process,
what does it mean to show up? Like, how much drilling,
all that kind of stuff? Like, if you were to
optimize the first six months of a beginner. There's a lot of people
who would listen to this and haven't tried, they've been curious. I have a lot of friends who haven't, who are like jiu-jitsu curious. They're constantly looking
for an excuse to start. - I think it's just gotta
be as simple as possible. You know? Like, we shouldn't be teaching
more advanced movements. I mean obviously, in the
grand scheme of things there's highly advanced techniques, and then there's slightly advanced. And I think, trying to teach those guys real specific positions, even like real specific types of guard, is just beyond them. I think the best way to learn
is through problem solving. And I think if you show the
technique before they've discovered that problem, the
learning is sort of held back. So, I like the idea of
using kids style games to show them a problem and
then use the techniques to fix the problems
they've just discovered. I think that's the best way to learn. - Can you give an example of a problem to show them before you
give them the techniques? Like, what are we talking about. - All right, so say you wanted to teach posture in wrestling. You could create a game where one guy, the game might be get to
a leg or get to two legs, control the leg. Like, super simple. But the rules, the constraint would be one guy is forced to keep upper posture
and one guy is forced, well not forced, but he's allowed to keep a bent
of the hips, lower posture. And obviously within that constraint, the guy with the better posture is going to have more success. He's gonna have a better posture to secure a leg or secure both legs, and therefore, you've
demonstrated the flaws of bad posture without
having to explain it to 'em before they really tested that out. - Okay. And then the result of
that you would realize that the bent over posture is better. - Yeah, you have that Aha moment rather than just being having been spoken to. - You wrote Craig, "I'm a big fan of
constraint based learning," I guess, was what you're talking about. "I love presenting
beginners with a problem before the solution. Like here, attempt to hold side
control with no cues on how. Then I see how the guy got out and address issue by issue. Crossface and hemp control and so on. Okay, so what are some other examples? Like side control? - Yeah, that would be an
excellent one, side control. Like obviously, we say
oh you secure a crossface so they can't turn into you. Much easier to have them
try to hold someone down without explaining what a crossface is, and then use that technique
to address the problem they've just encountered. So, I think you could do that with a lot of areas of jiu-jitsu. Like even more advanced, say 50/50, obviously a mirrored position where you both have access
to each other's heels. Most people will stall
out in that position and keep their feet crossed. I think a great constraint
for both of them, you can't cross your feet. Now, you have to learn how to slip the heel hook when they expose it, and how to safely re-attack of your own. So, the constraint is you
can't be too defensive in that position. And I think the rate
of learning increases. - Why do you think the
rate of learning increases? Like, why do you think that works? - Because you encounter more problems. Say in that situation, they're
gonna get you heal a lot more in whatever period of time
you allocate the drill for than if the legs are crossed. I don't think the hard
part's splitting the legs to get to the submission. I think the hard part's practicing control while they're trying to
slip it at a later stage. And then obviously,
trying to slip your heel when you're in more danger. So, it makes you more
comfortable in that bad position, if you're used to doing it with open legs. - Yeah, I think that probably
that style of teaching forces people to focus on. Cause it's so easy to fall into
focusing and like memorizing a particular details of a technique without thinking like, why
the hell does this even work? - [Craig] Exactly, yeah.
- And if you don't have that, you get to focus on like, from like, as cliche as it sounds, from first principles. Like, why the hell? How the hell do I get out of this? Like, why does this even work? Why does wrestling work? Why do you have a bent over posture? You get to like start to ask
those kinds of questions. Which is kind of interesting
cause it's not obvious to me that bent over posture
is the right posture for jiu-jitsu, right? I'm confused actually about that. I don't know. - [Craig] About the correct posture? - Yeah, for jiu-jitsu. Like, what's the right answer? - I think bent over posture's
still good for jiu-jitsu. - Even with the judo and all of that. Like, why are so many jiu-jitsu people, like at a high level,
the posture is higher up? - Well, I think wrestling posture is just a bit too low because
it's not necessary, right? If wrestlers are like
low enough to the ground where your hands could touch the mat. But in jiu-jitsu, you know, it's kind of a mix between
like wrestling and like, judo or Greco-Roman wrestling. So, I think it's just a bit more lax, and it's bent over but it's not upright. And it's also not super low, you know? - Bit more room for error too, because obviously the jiu-jitsu guy's shot isn't gonna be as athletic
or as quick as a wrestler, especially a wrestler who shoots. - So, it actually comes down to the fact that jiu-jitsu people just on average, even at the top level, are not good at shooting. - I think so, yeah. I think obviously, I mean, all the wrestlers
in America and stuff, they're starting super early, super young. You know what I mean? By the time they get to
the same age we are really, in our sport and stuff, they've spent much longer
doing the actual sport than the average jiu-jitsu guy. - And then there's another
level of wrestling of course, with the Soviet block, that was just unachievable for your kind. - Who knew an Australian rugby, - [Lex] Yeah. - A former rugby player. - Rugby, is that kind of
like American football, but much less money? Is that what that is? - Much less money. Much tougher, I would say. But, who knew that the cure to the Dagestani wrestling
were the Aussies? - Was the Aussies? Okay, let's go there. (laughter) Your friend, your training
partner, Alexander Volkanovski, you helped him prepare
for the Islam Makhachev versus Volkanovski fight. Who do you think, first
of all, won that fight? - That's a tricky one. - How is that the tricky question? - [Craig] I will say, when I was-- - Of all the shit talk you've been doing, how is that The tricky question? - When I was in the corner
going into the fifth, I personally believed
live that Volkanovski probably needed a finish
to take the victory. - But you have to think that way, right? In general? Or do you like legitimately, - It's a gray area cause
the judging, who knows? Plus I was like, wait, we're in Australia, where's this bias? You know?
- [Lex] Yeah. - We've got some Australian judges here. - [Lex] Yeah. - I was really hoping we
get a bit of bias on that. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Unfortunately, not. Hopefully, they lose their jobs. But, again yeah, it was a close one. I think sometimes you're
blinded in the moment because again, everyone counted Volkanovski out. The crowd's behind him. So, everything he does is
gonna get a huge cheer. You're bias towards the smaller guy. You're bias towards the underdog. So, you're sort of, whatever the underdog does has
a bigger impact in your mind. And sometimes that can bias
as the fight goes along. But yeah, super, super close fight. I would really love
them to have a rematch. But obviously, that's gonna
hold up both divisions. So, I don't know if
they'll be able to do it. - Do you think they'll do a rematch soon? I mean, that was an epic fight. I was listening to the
fight companion during that. - They all thought-- - And so, they biased
strongly, the opinion. - Round two is the tricky one. - [Lex] Yeah. - Round two is the tricky one. - Anyway, I'd love to see
that like, run it back and do three, actually. There's an epic fight. What was the brief conversation you had with Islam Makhachev and his team? - I didn't know how he
would take the joke. Cause obviously Khabib
tried to flying eagle kick Dillon Danis in the face. So, I wasn't sure how my humor would go. - [Lex] Yeah. But, I mean Dillon must have
said some worse things to me. I was just playing around. I mean, you can't really
take anything I say serious. - [Lex] Yeah. - Come across like an idiot. But, so when he was coming up
to me afterwards I was like, oh, I don't know what he's gonna say. And again he maybe he
would've been more upset if he had lost, but he had just received the judge's decision.
- Yeah. - But he came up, I
went to shake his hand, he gave me a big hug and
then pretended to throw me. And then, I thought the
interaction was over, and then he circled back. So, that's why I was so awkward. I was like, oh, he's coming back. He wants to say, he wants something else. But he just said, why didn't you teach
your boy how to escape the body triangle? - Oh, wow. Interesting. What did you say to that? - I said well I mean,
obviously, you've gotta learn how to finish a rear naked choke. - Is that what you said? - No, I didn't say that. (laughter) Just laughing, I was laughing. By the end of the day,
they ushered us out. They were like, "Get out of here before the Aussie crowd attacks here." You know? - What do you think about
the body triangle position they were in? It seemed like for the first time, it seems almost like Welk was
dominant in that position, which is kind of weird. - I mean damage is meant to Trump control. MMA judging damage is
the number one factor. - Do you think the judges saw that? What did they score that as? - I think they all scored
four towards Islam. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Three and five. Two of the judges scored towards Volks. One of the judges scored three for Islam. One of the-- It was 49-46 for one of them. And the other ones were 48-47. I think the... Again, the confusing round was round two. I don't think anyone scored
the body triangle round for Volks, which I wish they had. - Volkanovski was and is still
arguably, pound for pound, greatest fighter in the world. How long have you known him? - I don't know the first-- I met him before he was in the UFC, when I used to live in Melbourne. He came down to train at Absolute. - [Lex] Yeah. - And then we really
connected on Ultimate Fighter. One of his guys who was
gonna bring to a fighter, Brad Riddell, pulled out last second. So, he called me when I was
in Puerto Rico, and he's like, "Do you want to coach on
tough for five weeks?" And like I said, Puerto
Rico was apocalypse now. I was like yeah, get me out of here. So, I jumped on that opportunity, and we were in Vegas five weeks together. Cause he was meant to fight Ortega. And then he got hit with Covid real bad. Got stuck in, I think he was in hospital
for maybe one to two weeks. And then before he flew back
to Australia, they were like, all right, maybe we just do you guys as the Ultimate Fighter coaches. So, I jumped on board with that. And that's really when we've become close. - [Lex] Yeah. - Obviously, I was useful
in the Ortega fight. Helped him get out of submissions. He fought then Korean
zombie, Max Holloway. I basically just held
the bucket at that point in the corner. Couple striking fights And then again, yeah, we had
to tackle the Islam problem. So, I did spend five
to six weeks down there preparing for that. - How did you tackle the Islam problem? - How did I tack-- - Was you, somebody who
barely knows anything about wrestling, having to-- - Helps he doesn't take much, you know? - [Lex] Yeah. - Especially, wrestling wrestling. - Did the beard help or like, what? Like, in all seriousness, what were some of the key
ideas that you worked on with Volkanovski to prepare for it? - I had the help of Frank Hickman. Hickman was down there too, one of the Hickman
brother's wrestling coach. So, we were sort of like, problem solving and I mean basically, we were confident in Volk's
fence wrestling, his cage work. He's super good on the cage, super like, under
respected in that position. And we knew that if you were able to take the scrambles to the cage, he would be effective against Islam. Cause again, Islam is background in Sambo
of freestyle wrestling. But I mean, honestly, he's probably got the same
experience on the cage as Volks. Obviously, some of those wrestling skills will translate very well to the cage, but the cage is still somewhat
of a gray area, an equalizer. And Volks, again, incredible
ability to stand up. Incredible defense on
the cage, which you saw. We worked on strategies to get up, and a ton of submission defense. Islam loves Kimuras, obviously
rear naked from the back, arm bars, those are sort of-- And arm triangles dominant submissions. But again, the guys he
submitted, not grapplers. Apart from Charles Oliveira. And again, Charles Oliveira
was basically knocked out at that point. So, I was still impressed
we submitted him. But again, I always told people this, they thought it was crazy. I was like, Charles Oliveira versus Islam at a grappling match. Oliveira is gonna win that match. - [Lex] Like submission grappling. - Submission grappling. Yeah. So, in pure, grappling is a skillset. I think Oliveira's a
more dangerous grappler. So, we didn't even come into
it thinking Islam was this unstoppable boogeyman that
people make him out to be. So, we approached it from that, just focused on the techniques, ability to get back up,
using turtle to get back up. Using turtle to scoot to
the cage to get back up, and hand fighting from there. Keeping it pretty safe. But what makes Volks so special
I think is his gas tank. Gas tank and his willpower. He's just unbreakable. The Dagestani guys, Khabib, Islam, they are good at submissions. But,
- [Lex] Okay. - They break guys mentally. And they fatigue 'em, and then they take the
submission that's offered. Oliveira is a guy that
can jump on submissions, and have an incredible technical ability to finish those submissions, whether you're fresh or you're tired. And then you combine
that with Volkanovski, who incredible willpower,
never gets tired, you're never gonna break him. And as you saw, he only
attempted one submission, the whole fight. - Is that learned? Is that trained? Or are you just born with
that mental toughness? - It's a good question. I mean he's like an anomaly. Like, the entire fight
camp, not nervous at all. Supremely confident. The whole fight week,
completely confident. He just has an attitude like, "Oh, everyone cast me out? We'll see." You know what I mean? Islam, he's like, let's see. - [Lex] No doubt.
- No doubt at all. Super relaxed up until
about five minutes before, and then he starts to amp himself up. He's like, "You are not taking
this belt from my family". He gets into that sort of mindset. - [Lex] He actually says that out loud? - You can't teach that survival he did in the Ortega fight, you know? - Have you guys ever been like
pushed to the limit like that or broken in a grappling match? - I'll do it in practice. Like I'll push myself to like, you know, "I think I my pass
out or die or something." Like, as far as like how
tired you get, you know, cause like, in a match, you-- - You try not to ever get
close to that in a match. - Yeah, you try to, cause you know, it's
important to understand where you're exhaustion point is. But yeah, if you have to push
to that limit in a match, you're probably doing something wrong. You know? Like, you've seen in
matches where guys sprint the last like minute, they try to win the
match in the last minute, and it's like, you
definitely had some mistakes leading up to that if
you have to, you know, gotta go balls to the wall. - Okay. But has there been ever
times in competition? Especially like early
on cause you're like, you wrestled pretty hard and
wrestling is pretty exhausting. Like, not wrestling but you know, wrestling style kind of thing. Going against the best
people in the world. - Yeah, I mean I definitely, Again, I think in
practice it's important to do that hard work. That way, competition is much easier. You know, I think if you
red line in practice, and you really pushed
through like death's door, then once you're in competition
and you're working with, you know, you're being fresh in a comp, I mean, it's much better. - Have you ever been to that thing where Dan Gable talks about,
always wanting to be to a place where you can't get off the mat? Like, when you work so
hard in the training room, you can't get off the mat. I think he says he's failed
at that in his career. He was always able to at
least crawl off the mat. - Yeah, I definitely never
like actually died on the mat. I felt like I was gonna die, you know? (chuckling) - Sure, sure. What about you? Do you quit all the time? - I get a leg cramp,
I'm like, you know what, you got me in mount. Let's do this again tomorrow. (giggling) - Dude, if I'm asking Craig for a roll, he's in the bathroom somewhere. (laughter) - Do you see the value
of pushing yourself? Like, to that place where
you're knocking on death's door? - Yeah, but it within safety, you know? Cause obviously the most serious injuries occur when you're tired over
training and stuff like that. So, I think like taking a page outta what those MMA fighters do, especially
Volks with his training. Like, he's not necessarily
pushing crazy in each round, but he's doing extra
conditioning, assault bike stuff, crazy workouts outside. And he does do some
crazy training workouts, but all safe, very safe. Like when he's redlining like
that in the training room, it's a very controlled, safe setting. I think to do that in jiu-jitsu against some of these lunatics out there that are trying to kill you, especially when you have
a name, can be dangerous. - So, your approach is just is, don't warm up and don't try too hard. (chuckling) - [Craig] No certainty, but yeah. - For safety.
No, for safety though. (Craig chuckles)
- Yeah. Longevity, you know? - And talk about Russians. (laughter)
I got it, I got it. I hear you. Oh, but you mentioned cage work. What's interesting to
you that you've learned over all this time about cage work? What's like, what's interesting about
the dynamics of that? Are you talking about
both like the control in the dominant position,
but also getting up from the bottom while
you're at the guest cage? All of that? - The added dimension of that cage, that wool being there changes
a lot of stuff, right? So, obviously in some ways, it's a much lower impact wrestling style because you can't be sprawled on. You can shoot, the cage
is gonna block their feet, you're gonna be able to
chase down their hips. It's just a completely different fight. And again, because of Islam's judo skills, that upper body controls
you see he's able to use against the cage. Like the inside trips, sort of the Uchi Mata
style, Hirajoshi throws. So, obviously those skills do translate. But yeah, I think the
cage is a great equalizer for a lot of things like
athleticism and stuff. It takes away a huge speed
advantage aspect of the fight. - So, he's really good at standing up. Is there, I assume he learned all
of that from you and your instructional, "Just Stand Up." - I mean we were so confident. I was like, you know what? Why don't we put this thing
out a month before the fight? - [Lex] Yeah. - Maybe the illegal download hasn't made its way to Russia yet. - [Lex] Yeah. But, it was their for him. - Can you explain to me, what's in the instructional
"Just Stand Up?" Like, what are the ideas? - I mean, the old school way to stand up people talk about the technical get up, you know the old Gracie, put the hand, but I mean, that doesn't work. It hasn't worked for 20 years, you know? If you look at everyone
that gets up at MMA, they're using turtle to get up, they're using wrestling to
get up, you know what I mean? - [Lex] Yeah. - Which is counter to
what pure jiu-jitsu says. They say don't expose the back,
don't ever expose your back. I think jiu-jitsu's a terrible
way to get back to the feet because if you were to retain guard and go half guard or closed guard, super hard positions to get up, you're basically putting yourself in a leg tuck for wrestling. So, I think you need to
borrow from wrestling to learn how to get up in an MMA fight. So, basically how to
safely expose your own back while not allowing them
to get hooks and use that to get back up or at least not
allow them to get two hooks. - And that applies for MMA especially? - For MMA especially, because obviously striking is a factor. But if they are striking, they don't have locked
hands around your body, means you are able to move. You are able to make an
attempt to get back up. They have to choose between
control, submission, or strikes. - Post from Reddit. "Why does Craig Jones push so hard for a bottom is bad jiu-jitsu? What is so bad about playing bottom guards such as half guard or De La Riva?" (chuckles softly) Those are the two options. - No one likes the bottom. - Why would I want to get up? Is the question for all of you. Is the bottom a bad place to be? - I mean, the bottom's bad
if you don't want that guy on top of you. That's the way I look at it. You know? - Yeah. That sounds like something
a cowboy would say. But I don't know if that has much meaning. (light chuckling) I think the point of jiu-jitsu
is both are dangerous, being on bottom and on top. - I think the longer the matches, probably favors the top guy more, just cause every movement
the bottom guy makes is probably carrying your weight, carrying that gravity on top of you. So, I think it's a bit more
efficient passing from the top as opposed to sweeping from bottom. - Bottom's reactive, top is active. The top player decides how to engage, how to approach the guy. They can use angles,
they can use footwork, they can throw people, throw the legs by. So, it's an active position. Bottom's reactive. Reactive, you're gonna get fatigued. - Yeah, I think it's very
difficult to gas somebody out while playing guard. But I think it's very
easy to gas somebody out when attempting to pass it. - Well, you guys are talking
about gassing people out, but is there more dangers from the bottom? Like, in terms of submissions and all that kind of stuff or no? - I'm back and forth
cause I'm a top player, but I understand the
value of being on bottom. Like when I do play guard, the bottom, I feel like the submissions
come much easier. And when I'm on top, they
come also pretty easy. But, maybe I just take a different route. (giggling) - Two cowboys talking about jiu-jitsu. - Top on the streets,
bottom in the sheets. That's Nicky Rod.
(Nicky Ryan giggles) - What was the hardest
part of the training for the training camp for at Wal Kanowski? Like you're just experiencing
world class MMA fighters training and given your
approach of jiu-jitsu of not trying to hard, no matter what. - [Craig] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean from my perspective, there's a lot of pressure for that. You know? Like, that's a lot of
pressure for me to go in and think that I could
possibly figure out a way to help this guy address
this guy that's basically never been beaten. I think he got knocked out once, but, basically not really even
been put in bad positions, you know what I mean? So, that's a lot of pressure on me. Especially cause Volkanovski
is such a great guy. - [Lex] Yeah. - Jiu-jitsu's different, you know, like you coach a guy, he
loses, he has time to tap, but he never make you gets severely hurt. - [Lex] Yeah. - There's a lot more weight in what you need to do as a coach. You have a greater sense of responsibility to their health and wellbeing. You know? Like obviously, I know Volks' kids, I know his wife, you know what I mean? They're putting faith in you
to not just win the fight, but keep this man safe, you know? So, from my perspective, a hell of a lot more pressure coaching him as an MMA fighter. - So, almost like the
psychological aspect of like, of doing the best you can for him. - Exactly. Yep, yep. - What was the hardest
about the actual training? Was it the technical aspect
of trying to figure out the puzzle of Islam or was it like, being a good training partner in the... Like, in figuring out how
the grappling would work, basically playing your best
impression of Makhachev. Were you trying to
actually impersonate him? Like not just visually, but like in style. - Yeah, definitely. Definitely, visually. - You're not as good looking but go ahead. - Ha, a little taller, but--
- [Lex] All right. - No, in terms of the training, yeah, I mean Islam's known as
incredibly strong guy, so obviously, I'm heavier than Islam. So theoretically, I should
be able to replicate that strength difference, And then in terms of grappling, targeting those submissions
that Islam does, like focusing on those
in the training room, focusing on the way he holds half guard. And really fo--- In the grappling sense, trying to replicate him on the ground. And then, yeah, I wrestle with him on the wall
a ton, trying to replicate, obviously to the best of my ability, a lot of the stuff he does on the wall. Body lock heavy, inside trip, Uchi Mata's. And just constantly put
in the work on Volks, you know what I mean? Like, constantly chaining
attacks against him. Really replicating that. - As he's trying to get up and escape and all that kind of stuff. So, all these submissions
like, both judo and submissions just attacking, attacking.
- Exactly. And there's only so much he can do really, cause obviously he's been, I think he's been fighting a long time. So, it's like you are trying to polish what he already is good at. You can't just completely
create an entirely new game for him in the space of six weeks. So, you're trying to take what
he's already effective at, add to it. And luckily a lot of the stuff
he's already very good at was easy to add to for the fight. - Question from Reddit, "I'm very curious why other MMA fighters don't employ high profile
grapplers from B-Team and New Wave to improve their grappling. That's from the sub-writer. "By now it's clear that
they are levels above almost everyone in MMA simply
because fighters there don't specialize in grappling. But, it doesn't seem like
fighters, even champions, get training partners from
the most successful teams. Why is that the case?" From your experience, why doesn't Khabib call you? - He might now.
(chuckles) (Lex chuckles) Put in a good word for me. - Oh, oh I will. Yeah. (laughter) - That's right. He takes a joke pretty well. - [Lex] Yeah. - No, you'll be welcome with open arms. (Craig laughs) - I think your average jiu-jitsu coach, MMA fighters have bad
experience with jiu-jitsu guys. Jiu-jitsu doesn't have
a massive place in MMA. Obviously, rounds, standups. It's hard to submit people. Your average Brazilian
jiu-jitsu black belt doesn't know anything
about holding a guy down, doesn't know anything
about how to stand up. - [Lex] Sure. - So, I think if you over overly
utilize that jiu-jitsu guy, that hasn't had experience
in more modern No-Gi, or training MMA fighters previously, it's gonna be a complete
waste of time to 'em. I think they're smart
enough to realize that. - Do you have, and do you guys, do you have interest in MMA at all? Just not even like, well certainly, just competing yourself. But like, just understanding
the puzzle of MMA? - Yeah, I mean, I've been a
fan of mixed martial arts, you know, for a very long
time before I trained jits. Personally, I'd much
rather coach than fight. But I mean, I'd fight somebody for, you know, a good check and
I get to pick the opponent. And have a proper camp. - Okay. (laughs) - I can think of a good
opponent, you know? - Which dude was that? All right. (laughter) Who do you think is the greatest
MMA fighter of all time? Craig, we can start with you. Just as a fan of the sport, as somebody who's been deep in it. - I mean, from my perspective,
after that performance, I'm gonna say Volkanovski
because he was able to decisively outstrike Max Holloway, one of the greatest strikers in the sport. - [Lex] Yeah. - [Craig] And he was able
to hang with the wrestling of Islam Makhachev. And in terms of Ortega, he was able to survive Ortega, who has some of the most dangerous
submissions in jiu-jitsu. So, I think in my opinion, technically, he's the best. - So even though, he technically
lost, he still has a crown. - [Craig] I believe so.
- Proven himself, - Given the size difference, given he's moving up in weight. - [Lex] Yeah. - I think all those factors really. - The underdog, everything, the pressure. - Did you think he
would be able to hang in any of the wrestling exchanges with Islam? - No, no, no. I was really surprised. That's why my eyes like, it's kind of funny. Like, winning at the end of the day, I feel like judges influenced that. Although, I did think
Australian judges would, would rob the other way.
(chuckling) But I was assuming they kind of, somebody paid somebody
and not enough maybe. But in general, I just thought
he won sort of in the eyes of what martial arts stands for. Like, sort of go to the
fire and survive and thrive. And finish the last round strong, which is kind of was like
spiritually is what a victory is. So, I wish we kept going like. - [Craig] One more rounds.
- Yeah, exactly. That kind of thing. Well, what about you? What do you think? Like, who are the fighters you admire? Like, who do you think is
the greatest of all time? - I think the fighter I
paid most attention to was John Jones. You know, he has a great
ability just to mix the high level striking,
high level grappling. Although his, you know, jiu-jitsu
by itself isn't, you know, probably isn't like, you
know, super high level. But his ability to mix
everything together, I would say he's the best. And he's a fellow, you know, heavier guy, heavyweight now. So, it's nice to see, you know, how those guys move at that weight. - And a fellow natural athlete? (soft laughter) See what I did there? All right. What about you, Nicky? - Yeah, if I had to pick a G.O.A.T. I would probably have to say Khabib, just because he was undefeated. And he had a very, you
know, high finishing rate. You know, very few of his fights actually went to a decision.
- [Lex] Yeah. - So he just, overall, he dominated
almost every single opponent he went against. - The dominance. I mean, we've been joking about it, but Craig, what do you think makes the Dagestani fighter so good? Like, from this small region of the world? So, much dominance has come. - I mean obviously, the amount of freestyle wrestling
champions from that region probably puts their wrestling
above and beyond the best in all of MMA. And obviously, even in the Olympics, a lot of champions outta there, right? So, I think that skillset
combines with them adding effective pin
controls on the ground and jiu-jitsu submissions. But I mean, again, I think it's that hard training those guys like Khabib,
would maintain that pressure throughout the entire
fight and break guys down. Their ability to fatigue
guys to a breaking point, I think is something they do best. - I wonder what that is. What is that, technique? What is that? What is it about their upbringing? Cause it's just that part of the world. Or the Saitiev brothers with
the freestyle wrestling side to all the mixed martial arts people. Like, it must be part
of the culture, also. They must be doing something. I don't think, I've never, I haven't seen a convincing
explanation of why, yet... Of what's specific about their training, what's specific about their
culture that creates that. Okay. What do you think about
like the flip side? Do you admire somebody
like Conor McGregor who knows how to create a spectacle? You Craig, who likes spectacles. - Spectacles, yeah. I mean, I really admire
early Conor McGregor, cause I found him absolutely hilarious. You know? Like, I felt like that was peak banter. I feel like he just took
the American world by storm. Aussies, British, Irish, Kiwis. I believe we have a way
better level of banter and attacking each other. And it's almost too easy
to pick on Americans to take themselves very seriously. I mean, arguably even, other
parts of the world too. The far east of Europe, you know? - Well, that's the
tricky thing with Conor. I think he was, I feel like you could've gotten
in the same kind of trouble cause the Russians really took
everything very seriously. They weren't joking around. - Yeah, that's the problem. It's like, it's a bit of, I mean, some things he definitely
takes too far, you know? But I felt like early on
he had the right balance, where he wouldn't really
cross a line but he would do, he would do enough. He just took it to another level, Obviously, later in his career. But I think early on,
bit of innocent banter. - He gets a lot of eyes
on the sport though. He's probably by far the
most popular combat athlete of all time because of that. - [Craig] Yeah. - I feel like you have to cross the line. I don't think enough people
appreciate like the values he's brought by crossing the line. - He's making a sacrifice
crossing the line that's gonna affect him for
the rest of his life, you know? - I see. I don't think so. I think you can always walk back. Cause I think unlike-- People might disagree with this. I, well, yeah. I thought he always radiated
a respect for the opponent. Like, afterwards. And underneath it. It felt like the same way you do. When I hear you shit talking, I don't see a person who really means it. I see a person who's having fun with it. I always saw Conor McGregor the same way. I don't know. But people took it like
extremely seriously. But, I saw the respect, like the common respect
that martial artists have for each other, that felt
like it was always there. If you don't like that individual, you are gonna perceive,
- [Lex] Yeah, yeah. - What they say more negatively than if you obviously were. So, I feel like if you like someone, you're gonna never think
they really crossed the line. - That's true. So, you're saying I like you. That's why I'm perceiving
- It must be. - Your bullshit in a positive light. Are there people that hate you? - I mean, some of the family
members, its a staple. (laughter) - People that really get
to know you all hate you. All right. - The fans love me, the friends hate me. - It's a good place to be. Keep your enemies close. All right. What do you think is the
most important muscle for jiu-jitsu? Is it biceps? - Oh, I think a strong, I think a strong back. I think back one, core
second, and then biceps. - Okay, biceps. Cool. Do you legitimately think like weightlifting helps jiu-jitsu? It's kind of the discussion
on the steroids is like, the muscle mass and strength and power, and explosiveness, all of that. - I think sometimes when we're at that upper echelon of
competition, there's only, there's like little minute
battles that you have to win in. And if you're relatively
close in technique, then a lot of times, a
stronger opponent pulls it out. - But it could be also
just a limitation, right? You hold position too long. What about for hobbyists? Do you recommend weightlifting? Like, when you've seen people in the gym? - I always recommend weightlifting. I almost see muscle as
the body's armor, right? The more armor you have, the more damage you can kind of take. And, you know, maybe recovery
is a little bit better. And I've always seen
weightlifting as a means to stick to my routine. There's no point in lifting
if you're not eating right and you're not sleeping right. So, if you kind of put it all together, then it's beneficial. - What about you guys? Do you go to the gym? - I go to the gym, yeah. - Do you go to like, the hotel gym, to using an elliptical
and that butt machine or. - Yeah, I focus on the glutes heavily. - All right. (giggles) What about, like, what about
injury prevention and so on? How do you train to
minimize the risk of injury? You guys have all been pretty beat up. You've gotten a major injury with the ACL. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - So, how do you train to minimize injury? - Probably not the right guy to ask, eh? (Nicky Ryan laughs)
- Yeah. Definitely. - Actually, can you talk
through your injury? Like what happened? - Yeah. So, about one week
prior to this last ADCC, I was wrestling with this guy named Kenta, who was also competing. And I went to go lift him
from like a rear body lock, and he hooked the outside of my leg, and we just felt something pop. You know, he felt a shift with his leg. And, when it first happened, it hurt for like the first 30 seconds. And then I honestly debated,
I was like, maybe it was just, you know, some freak thing. I was like, I literally thought about
continuing the session. Then the next day I woke up
and it was like super sore. I was, you know, limping around, couldn't do a full squat. So, it pretty much
killed all of my training for the entire week
leading up to the event. So, I couldn't train or
anything, messed up the cut. Obviously, there's added
nerves with that too. You know, when you're
not in the gym every day leading up to the competition. I went out there. I wasn't really able to pull
guard cause I couldn't get, you know, full heel to butt connection. Which is inevitable with playing guard. And I was very hesitant to shoot as well. So, I came out with the idea of just trying to use hand fighting to tire my first opponent out. And then mainly look to get to underhooks or over hooks and do mostly
upper body wrestling. In the beginning of
the match, I, you know, successfully got to an underhook. I got to a rear body lock, he tried to roll and I
ended up in top position and side control. But it was during the no points period. And then as the match went on, I gassed out and eventually,
he ended up taking me down and then scoring with
two hooks on the back. - So, what's the injury? - Yeah, so I got an MRI
actually, after the event. I didn't know--
- So, you waited. Wait, wait. You waited until after the event? - Yeah, I waited until after. - Like acknowledge, or
ignorance is bliss? Is that-- - Yeah, exactly. I was like, I honestly, I don't even want to know what's wrong. I was like, I just go out there compete. You know, I knew it was
like the biggest event to date, and I really wanted to do it. - Did you think about not doing it? - It definitely was a thought in my head. Especially, the day after. You know? It's always the worst
day whenever you have like a serious injury, is the day after. And I was like, man, I
really can't do a full squat. I was like, I don't even know how I'm gonna be able to do this. It got a bit better as the week went on. But I was like, man, I have
to go out there and compete. I was like, it'll always
be in the back of my mind. Like what if? If I ended up pulling out. - What did you think about this whole? - I thought he was just being a pussy. - Yeah. (laughter) - Just slap him around. Just yell at him. Was that the-- - I didn't think we pressured you. We just saw you make
your own decision, right? - We're just like, yeah. - Is that tricky thing to do? Like with a heavily, like
a serious injury like this? - We don't know.
- We didn't know that was the thing, we didn't know. Honestly, initially I thought it was, I had tore my lateral meniscus. But that ended up not being the case. It ended up being a full ACL tear. I was actually super surprised
when I got the MRI results. So yeah, we didn't know
how bad it actually was. - What do you think about that situation? - I think Nicky's a tough kid. And I mean, when you're so
close to that competition, you know, there's not many, you don't get many opportunities
like that to compete in front of, you know, 15,000 people. It's like, you know, props to you for pushing
through it and getting it. And man, he had a close match
with one of the best grapplers in his weight class and
it's like, you know, a few adjustments here and there. And especially, you know, if he was able to train previously, leading up to that match,
I think Nicky pulls it out. - So, some of the things
you mentioned is nerves. So, there's extra nerves just
because you're under prepared. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah, I mean, you know, - Or feeling under prepared. - You wanna go into a
competition with, you know, the confidence. I did everything that I could
leading up to this event. I trained as much as I could. And then when an injury prevents that, you start to doubt yourself more. - How do you guys think about injury? How do you train, you know, training with the best in the world, training to be the best in the world, and avoiding injury. Cause you've gotten-- You tore your bicep?
- Yeah. Yeah, I tore a bicep. - Doing curls or?
- Ha ha. Dude, honestly, I was body building, you know, for like seven years. And no lie, I did, I trained biceps like most days. Like, almost every day
in those seven years. Pretty much, I injured myself. - That's so jersey, man. That's great.
- [Craig] Anything else? Or just the bicep? - Just, I mean, no.
(laughs) Yeah, I injured the bicep pretty much the day before our wrestling
practice I had like, a killer arm day and by arm
day I just mean training biceps very rigorously getting a sick pump. And I go to wrestling
practice the next day, you know, pretty late. I should have been there. I didn't get a proper warmup in. And the first thing I do is I shake hands and I go to shoot a single leg and boom, I just blew my arm out,
the first movement I did. So, just not being warmed
up properly in addition to, you know, having a very vigorous
arm day, few hours prior. - You hear that about warmup. So like, what are some
lessons about avoiding injury? - I would say number one
is, warming up properly. Making sure your body's hot
before you do hot stuff. - Okay. And what does warmup look like for you? Is it jiu-jitsu or non jiu-jitsu stuff? - Yeah, just for a warmup in general. I'll do something like a, if I'm talking competition,
something like, a jog walk back and forth a few times, then a sprint jog a few
times to get that heart rate, you know, up and down. - Yeah. - And then I'll grab a partner. I actually just filmed
the DVD or instructional, specifically on the pre-match ritual. In addition to that, I'll,
you know, grab a partner, I'll drill some movements. Typically, I'll drill some bad things. Like I'll start from bottom, bottom mouth, bottom side control, workout from there. And then pretty much like 20 minutes in, I'm hot and I'm ready to
go for, you know, rounds. - Well, what about you, Craig? So, what's the way to avoid injury? What's the worst injury you've had? - What's the worst injury? I don't even know. I'm pretty good, pretty healthy. Yeah. - Whenever you quit in practice, I'm like, it's a mental injury. - Has your heart ever been broken? - Oh, many times. Many times. But, there's a thing I notice, people that spend the
most time warming up, often the most injured. (soft chuckling) It's a strong correlation. - All right. You can't argue with science. - I remember training with Oliver Taza. Oliver Taza would have a 60 minute warmup. - [Lex] Yeah. - Surprise, surprise. Always injured.
- [Lex] Yeah. - Very common.
- [Lex] Yeah. - I find that very common
in the training room. Now, I think people, it's how they train. Like, if you, Like me, first sign of discomfort, Ooh, back pedal. You know? Push through that stuff. Go too hard, go when you're too tired. You know what I mean? Get too emotional in the role. I feel like those are the
times that I've been hurt, where I've just like, Ugh! I can't let this guy get me. When I have that attitude and tra-- I believe it's how you train
and sort of obviously-- - So, what does this come from? Like positionally, too? Cause you're training
against some killers. I mean, you're training with him and going probably pretty hard. - [Craig] once a month. - When Craig gets a little tired, he's like, "Yeah, I'm good for today." - Once a month, with Nicky Rod, that's it. (Nicky Rod laughs) - And then you quit like 30 seconds in. - I mean, yeah, you know? You gotta be safe, you know?
(Nicky Ryan giggling) - I like it. What about you? What have you learned from the ACL tear? - Do rehab, yeah.
- Yeah. Rehab definitely would help. - [Lex] Oh, so you haven't been in like-- - I didn't get surgery. I didn't do essentially any rehab. I just have no ACL in my left leg. - So, what's it like having no-- - The surgeon goes, "You've got two options,
surgery, rehab only." Nicky goes, "I'll do nothing." (laughter)
- Yeah. Definitely should pick up on the rehab. - What's rehab for that look like? Like twice a day doing some weird, - [Nicky Ryan] I don't know. (laughter) - You're clueless. - Like, bands or something. - It's good, he's learned from these. He's learned some valuable lessons about taking care of his body. - Yeah. - What's it like just
training with no ACL? - So, at the beginning it
was definitely a little iffy. You know, I would have
an occasional buckle, like I'd just be wrestling with somebody and go to step back and
it'd buckle backwards a bit. But honestly now, like I haven't had a single
buckle instance in a while. It feels a hundred percent
normal when I train. It feels better than my
other knee, to be honest. Like I've had,
(chuckles) I had my meniscus taken
out in my right leg. And that one gets sore more
often than the no ACL leg. - Okay.
All right. So, putting that aside, is there wisdom you've
learned from that experience? - Yeah, definitely should
be doing rehab and prehab. You know, I think that, you know, especially if you're a hobbyist
or a professional athlete, you should be lifting, you know, whether you're rehabbing an injury or just for injury prevention. - So, I'm actually closer to Craig, cause I've trained my whole
life like pretty hard. Obviously just the hobbyist,
but like, twice a day. Did judo, wrestling, all that, and never broke anything, never injured. Kind of like similar philosophy. Except, like last year, I guess, a year and a half ago. I got a tiny like groin pull injury, and it still hasn't healed. And I've been using your
approach of not giving a shit. - Yeah. - And like, all right, surely this is gonna heal, it'll be fine. But, it hasn't. But, of course if I was
like an actual athlete, I would like probably
still train through it. Just fuck it, figure it out. But when you have other stuff going on, you just kind of wait it out. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - But no, I think probably rehab, especially as you get older, you have to do that kind of stuff. - I think it's important
for people to, you know, determine whether what
they're going through, is it injury or they're
just hurt a little bit. Because injury, you
know, for sure take time, rehab it, and get better. But a lot of people like
they'll stub a toe or something like, oh, you're out for a few weeks. You know, so. - Well, that's the problem
with the injury I have. It feels like a stubbed toe. So, I was like, all right, I'll just wait a couple
days, it'll be fine. And then a couple days
later, it's not fine. And you wait and then I never got an MRI, never got any of that. It's like, I'm sure I'll be fine. Yeah. So, it's hard to know sometimes. Like, what? It's hard to know. I feel like a lot of people
will just not check it, oh, I'll be fine. Well, because there's
several failure cases. There is a failure case of
where everything is a stub toe. You're like, fuck it. Like you're bleeding everywhere,
you know that's fine. Whatever. So, you have to be careful a lot of people can fall into that too. I think I'm in that category. Go to the doctor. Why do you go to the doctor?
- Yeah. - Your best approach is typically wait until something else gets hurt, so that you'll forget about the grind. - Yeah, exactly. That's what I was hoping, I was hoping to get hurt, waiting for the broken heart, maybe. Okay. That was very helpful. Oh, you mentioned you're doing a whole thing on the pre-match ritual. Can you kind of preview like what kind of, what's involved in your pre-match ritual? - It's pretty big in the wrestling culture and the fighting culture,
like kind of what, what to do before your competition. But I think a few of our, a few people are just kind of missing out exactly what to do. So, I break it down for them. I break it down to people
like four weeks in advance, how you should prep, you know? Your trading and your nutrition, and your sleep for competition. In addition to that, I break it down even
like to a smaller scale with like, how early you
should get to the event, when you should be visualizing,
you know, your competition, what to do, like, you
know, 30 minutes before, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes. And the kind of mentality
you should have throughout those times before you
actually step onto the mat. - When are you visualizing? Like, how much are you visualizing? When you say competition, you're talking about the
tournament or the actual people you might be competing against? - A little bit of both. I'll spend time just
visualizing the crowd. Like, if it's gonna be, you know, an arena with 15,000 people, I'll spend time in practice and whatnot, like putting myself inside
that arena and visualizing, you know, stepping on the mat, and hearing the crowd scream and whatnot. That way, you know,
when competition comes, the time comes, it's
kind of the same deal. I'm accustomed to it. In addition, when I get to the arena, I'll step on the mat, I'll
kind of look at everything, I'll expose my senses
to what it's gonna be. And then I'll kind of shut
everything off like a lot. Some people, you know, scroll through their phone
and can treat it like normal, have this normal conversations. For me, I like to limit my sensory intake before I go out and compete. I just feel like sometimes we only have so many decisions
you can make in a day. And I want all of my
best decisions to be made when it matters, when it counts. - Uh, what about you? Do you limit your sensory input? - On game day? Honestly, no routine, nothing. I don't, yeah, I don't do anything. - [Nicky Rod] This guy's a double silver. - We're both double. (laughter) - You should get it. You should buy his instructional. It might help you. I'll get another silver. (laughter) No, honestly, nothing. Hey, I just try to relax, treat it like it's before training. - Try to visualizations or no. - No, no visualization. - So, the opposite of
visualization, you just avoid it? - [Craig] Yeah. - Before thinking about it. - Yeah, I don't even think about it. I'm just like, yeah, we'll have a good time, you know? Try to appreciate it, that I can do it. - By the way, when you visualize, are you visualizing tough positions or you visualize winning, mostly? - Definitely visualize winning. I'll visualize how I'm gonna get to my most dominant positions. Cause you know, in comp, I wanna do what I'm best at. And also see, I see my opponent in his best positions and how I'm gonna escape
those if necessary. But most of the time I'm just visualizing exactly what I'm gonna do in that match. And I go out there and do it. - Okay. So, when your teammate Craig is, you know, another like world class athlete has a fundamentally different
philosophy than you, do you visualize being frustrated at him? - No, not frustrated, but I'll definitely come into
practice with like solutions to problems that Craig gives me. You know, like if Craig's, you know, catching me a sub
or giving me issues like, you know, I'll go home, I'll watch him a match
that he lost for motivation and I'll come back and I'll put it on him. (laughter) - Just DM him like a
highlight reel of him losing. - Yep. (soft chuckling) What about you? Like, does it affect you that
you're a bit of an outlier? - Usually before I compete, or right before I go out there,
I go, why am I doing this? - [Lex] Yeah.
- Do I still need to do this? - [Lex] Yeah.
- And I think, fuck, hopefully I don't embarrass myself affect my instructional sales. That's the last thought. But, I didn't even put too much thought into the whole competing thing. I'm just like, you know what? Train hard, hopefully have
a good time out there. - What about the motivation aspect? Like, that voice that says
like, why am I doing this? That voice can break a lot of people. Like, in the weight cut, it
can break a lot of people. Like, why am I doing this stupid,
silly sport like you said. A bunch of dudes just rolling
around like, what's the point? - I'll come up to someone
with a 9 to 5 job, and I'll be like, yeah,
that's why I'm doing this. You know? Avoid that. (giggles) - [Lex] Sure. - [Nicky Rod] With all those DVDs, man. - Yeah, I didn't get
too deep on competing. - [Lex] Yeah. - We're so polar opposite. (Craig cackles) It's like almost uncomfortable
to be around you. - Obviously, one of us is a clean athlete. (laughter) - You should do a DVD on that. What about you in terms of
preparing for competition, Nicky? The day before, the day of, are there rituals that you follow? - Honestly, like the few
days leading up to it, it's different for me every time. Like, sometimes I'll
warm up before I compete, sometimes I won't. Sometimes I'll fast, sometimes I'll eat. So I literally, it's
just completely random. I don't follow any specific thing. But in the training room
leading up to the competition, I'll definitely, you know, like Nicky Rod, visualize
that I'm walking out onto the competition mats. You know, I'll pick somebody that's, you know, a similar body type to the person that I'm competing against. And then, you know, we'll start out with some distance between us. We'll come out, smack hands, and you know, act like everything's a real competition. I'll even sometimes have, you know, corners that will yell out
times and things like that just to replicate it as much as possible. - That's funny, because
I've talked to a lot of Olympic gold medalists. I used to do a podcast
with like, athletes. And they all sound like Nicky Rod. The two of you are outliers. I don't know, sometimes
I'll do this, sometimes. So anyway, but that's also
jiu-jitsu culture, I think. Maybe the chaos of not
taking things too serious is actually really, really helpful. Sometimes the pressure of
taking everything way too seriously can break you. - I mean, I just don't think
it's that big a sport really. You know? Like-- - I think if I compete
every day in practice, it'd just make competition much easier. So, I just put the pressure on there. - On the competition, yeah, yeah. On the, sorry, on the training, on the competing in the training. I don't know. Olympic sports aren't that
big either, financially. And people take it extremely,
extremely seriously. Like, you don't really even
get that much money from judo. - I mean, I just don't take
jiu-jitsu that seriously cause like, I was just partying,
having a good time until 21 and then I was like, oh fuck. Do I get a job, or do I
pursue professional sports? And I feel like if I can made a career in jiu-jitsu
with a decision at that point. - And now you just
stumbled your way somehow, into like being at the top of the would. - Yeah, that's what I feel like. I just walked into it. I feel like I couldn't just
do that in wrestling, boxing. I couldn't do that in other sports. - What was the toughest
match you've ever had that pushed you mentally,
physically, technically? This doesn't have to be
the best person you faced. But was there like a moment
in your career that was like, really defining for you? - I mean, I would say like
the toughest mentally, was just this last ADCC, you know? I just had a big injury leading
into it that kind of screwed the whole camp and weight
cutting everything up. So yeah, I would say the last ADCC. - Are you proud of your performance there? Like, you stepped on the mat that you pushed through all of it? - Like I said, I'm a very competitive
person and I hate losing. So, definitely not, yeah. - You had a collapsed lung. (Nicky Ryan giggles)
- Yeah. (Nicky Rod laughs hysterically) - [Nicky Ryan] Actually, - K, can we elaborate on this? - [Nicky Rod] Oh, man. Dude.
(laughs) - He was so physically
exhausted afterwards, couldn't breathe. We had to get medical intervention. He thought he had a collapsed lung. (giggles)
- No, no. I was the most tired that
I've ever been in my life in that match. I actually popped a
blood vessel in my eye. I was trying so hard. - He comes out, he walks off of the ADCC
mat backstage and I'm like, I'm kind of getting
warmed up for my match. And Nicky run comes, he walks over huffing and puffing. And his mom's right next to me. He looks at her, he is like, "I think I need help. I think I got a lung collapse." - That's not true. (laughter) - [Nicky Rod] No? That's not true? - My mom's the one that
called for medical help. - Oh, okay, okay. - I was just laying on
the warmup, fucking dying. (laughter) - Well, we're happy you're fine. (chuckles)
- Yeah. - Two working long. - Laid it all on the line. What about you, Craig? - Defining or toughest matches? - [Lex] Mhm. - I mean, they're all
pretty tough, you know? I don't know. I can't really pinpoint one. I mean probably the most annoying
one was obviously the one where I had Gordon Armbar. I was like, tap bro. And he wouldn't tap, so I let him out. (Nicky Ryan laughs) Mentally, I was like, I
shouldn't have done that. - Do you ever have a thing
in your brain where it says, should I should shit talk now or not? And you ever, you say, no, I'm gonna be respectful. - I just can't be serious
- [Lex] Yeah. - About some of these things, you know? I don't know, it's just silly. It seems silly.
- Yeah. All of it. The whole thing. What about you, Nicky Rod? - Dude, honestly, most
of my toughest matches are in the training room, right? Because I started with these guys, I started training under
them like, you know, started training at DDS when
I didn't have any knowledge. Like, I knew wrestling, I knew like a knee cut in jiu-jitsu. But like, I started training
with them when I knew almost no jiu-jitsu. And then I had to like, you know, really work my way up. So definitely, in the
training room, like being, like having one of these
guys on my back or like, there's a stretch of like a
few weeks or months when Covid first hit and there was just like, four of the best grapplers in the world. And we just did drilling and live rounds with these four guys and
it was just, it was hard. It was very hard, you know, every round we're doing six rounds, seven days a week with the
best grapplers in the world. And it's like, you get no break, and you're forced to learn on the go. So, I think, for me in the training room, that was definitely my toughest matches. And that's where I built, you
know, those mental callouses. - That was a period where I
drew with Nicky Rod probably, what, nine months? 12 months?
- [Nicky Rod] Yeah. - And typically speaking, like I said, no warmups the first round, we
usually take it pretty easy. First round you start in mount. The whole room, the rest
of the training room, they take mount very lightly. Me and Nicky Rod would be
fighting to the death every day. I felt like we did an
extra round every day. It was very grueling-- - I'm very mean when I'm in
the midst of drilling or live. Like, we would do, we would drill wrestling, you know, quite a bit, like stand up. And in the drilling, like, I just wouldn't
let Craig take me down. Like we're not gonna
lie, we're just drilling, but I just wouldn't let
him put me on the floor. So, things like that, you know? (laughter) - I know it escalate. - Yeah. - So, you mentioned mount, like, so you do positional training? So is that, would that be the hardest
versus like live training open like, starting from guard? - I would say mount and turtle definitely, definitely made me very tough. Cause you spent all this effort
getting off of bottom mount, and then you gotta get on top of a guy. At the time I'm not that
good at holding guys down, so they escape quick and I'm like, fuck, I just tried to hold him down. Gotta go back down. Same thing with a turtle. It's like, you start bottom turtle, you're trying to explode,
get out and get away. And then you know, you switch and this guy
gets up pretty quick and you're like, damn, I
gotta go right back down. It's that constant circle man. It's very tough. But definitely, you know, built
some character on the mat. - What do you think is the
value of positional training in general in jiu-jitsu? Actually, this one just
interacting with you guys. It's not commonly done in just
like regular jiu-jitsu gyms. What do you see? Because probably it's not
commonly done cause it's so-- Most of the experience
is just frustrating. Like, if you're evenly matched, you're basically
frustrated the whole time. If you're doing it right. - There's a psychological
battle that happens in like the mountain turnarounds. It's like, you know, cause maybe you get
close to subbing a guy, or maybe you do sub him, you know, when you start on
turtle and you're on their back, you finish 'em and then you
get this high point and then immediately you gotta go back
down to defensive posture. - Yeah. - And it's very like, it's emotionally like up and down. So, it's hard to deal with. - Super important if you are one of the better people in the gym. Cause it just puts you in positions you don't find yourself
in, in regular training. So, I think like a lot of, if you're a big fish in a small pond, you don't do positional sparring, you're probably gonna get
exposed in competition. You might even look
silly in those positions. So, you really have to
force yourself to do it despite the fact that you've
given someone worse than you a position where they might catch you. So, you have to sort of put the ego aside. - Yeah, that's one one of the things when I was training regularly, of course training with you
guys, it's like trivial. But, I didn't work on putting
myself in bad positions. When you get better and you regret it. Cause, the big negative thing
it has consequence it has on competition is you don't
take as many risks, cause you're kind of afraid
for your back to get taken. All that kind of stuff. - That was me before I went to DDS. I remember I showed up
there in that old position, I was like, fuck this.
(laughter) You better earn this position, you know? - [Lex] Yeah, exactly. - I didn't really have escapes. That was a learning
curve for me, for sure. - Do you see the value
in positional training? Or is it just the source
of tremendous frustration? - Yeah, I definitely think
it plays a big part in, you know, your confidence
when you step out onto the competition mats, you know? Being confident that even
if you get put in the worst possible situations, you know what to do and
know how to work out of 'em. - So, I had a long
argument with Roger Gracie, when you visited and he thinks mount is the most dominant position. Even No-Gi versus Beck. Is there a case to be made for that or no? - I think all of your opponents utensils, their tools are in front of them. So, like if you're on mount,
they still have, you know, there's a few ways to get out mount. I think if you're on somebody's back, I'd personally much rather
be on somebody's back than, - Flattened out. I'd rather have someone's
back than flattened out. - Boots in, flattened out. Yeah. - Boots in, flattened out. So, not even body triangle,
but just flattened. - Just completely flat. Almost like they're position
MMA where you see guys get finished cause they can't get out. I think that position is probably the hardest
position to escape. - Can you see what Hodge's
talking about with mount? Or is he just that good
at mount that he says? - He might mean the Gi,
cross collar, you know? I don't know. Or did he mean--
- Well, he says controlling-wise. He just believes that you can complete-- That there's, he actually thinks there's
more ways to get out from the back than
there is from the mount. - Prior to--
- Getting up, including like, physically. - Prior to the keeping escape, I would probably agree with him. But that keeping escape's
so difficult to manage. It's the funny looking escape. We--
- [Lex] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Craig] Legs are wiggling. People have a lot of trouble. It's like super hard to learn how to do. But then once you learn how to do it, the effectiveness is just huge. - [Lex] Yeah, it's a weird one. When did that come to be a thing? Is that pretty recent? - [Craig] I mean, I saw DDS
guys using it first, I think. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - Who was the first guy to
discover something like that? This seems like a ridiculous
thing to discover. - Yeah, like what if I just wiggle? (laughter) - I thought it was a joke at first. I was like, you guys really doing this? He's like, "Yeah." All right. (laughter) I remember somebody
showing me like a technique where like, if you just
like walk your hand on a mat or something like that. - Maybe an arm triangle
or something like that? - Yeah, yeah. - Trying to walk the arm behind the arm. - It's just like a funny discovery like, as opposed to like
trying to like shove it in, just like, walk it. - I like doing that to people, but with things that aren't true. (Lex laughs)
- You know what I mean? I'll just tell 'em this is
a technique and watch 'em try to work out if I'm
being serious or not. - Yeah, that's what you do
when you achieve guru status. They'll just listen to you
like you're Steven Seagal. - See what they'll believe. - Speaking of which, how do you balance, you have to travel all across the world. How do you balance that
with running a school or being a world class jiu-jitsu athlete? - Oh, me. I mean, the secrets of
travel for me are two drugs, Xanax and Modafinil. That's how we time adjust and
we hit the ground running. - What does Modafinil do? Xanax puts you sleep. - I mean, I have narcolepsy. So, it's a narcolepsy medication. (laughter) - How does that work with the steroids? - [Craig] How does it work? I mean, they work well together, you know? - Yeah.
Nice. - Focused and physical recovery. But in terms of traveling and
training and stuff, it is, I mean we're lucky cause we've
got so many high level guys. So like, we can travel and
they're still in good hands. I mean, it would be a
problem if me, Nicky Rod, and Nicky Ryan left and the gym had Ethan. That would be a problem.
- [Lex] Yeah. - But, we gotta make sure
it's not just him there. - Although everyone says
they're happy when you're gone. So, that's the rumor I heard. - Happy when I'm gone,
but they do miss me. - [Lex] Yeah. - For sure, until I get back. - All right. What about you? Just like balancing it, do you try to stay completely
focused on competing, like for some of the big
matches you have coming up? Or are you able to kind of diversify? - Well, I like to, yeah,
diversify my training to where, you know, if I don't have
a competition scheduled, I'm more focused on skill
development and you know, getting better and
broadening my tool shed. But you know, if I'm like
six weeks before comp, I really start amping up the intensity that I bring into the mats
against bringing some of that visualization towards practice. And maybe I train less
volume pre-competition, but higher output per session. - Yeah. What's a perfect week
of training look like? - If I'm not in competition mode, I would say Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, twice. Every other day, just once. If I'm pre-comp, just Monday
to Sunday, once a day. - So, that's on the mat. You're doing the full
like, positional training, live training. - [Craig] Bicep curls. - Bicep. Oh yeah, I do a lot of bicep curls. Yeah, I'll lift a few times a week now. - Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah. - Cardio or no? Cardio's all mat, though. - Cardio's all mat stuff. I do, do some CrossFit
workouts like CrossFits. I'll do like some EMOMS, or some AMRAPS, or CrossFit, you know, terms. - That's for Instagram. - Yeah. But yeah, CrossFit is a good
way to kind of like push that that threshold sometimes on
the mat cause I'm so good, I can't always get that
like full red line. So, I'll hop in across the
gym and I'll do some workouts that, you know, bring me closer to death. - What about you, Craig? What is a perfect week
in training look like? Like when you're back home training. - I try to be at the gym twice a day, every day, when I'm back. Just cause I travel a
bit more than these guys. So, I try to be there
eight and 12 every day. Hang out in between. I usually, Definitely usually, train
both of those sessions, depending on how my body feels. - You're doing positional,
doing every like technique, positional, live. - I should probably do more positional because I'm just trying to
work on wrestling and stuff. And especially leading up
to Volkanovski's last fight, I was trying to wrestle more
and focus on those areas even before I traveled over there. Just some experimentation
with some stuff, but yeah. - How do you experiment with stuff? Like how do you, So, there's like regular positional stuff, but when you have ideas, like, where? Do you do it in during
the training sessions, or do it outside of that? Do you get together with somebody? - Usually, every session I show up with something I'm thinking of. Usually something from top,
maybe something from bottom. And then I just try to
maybe pick the right people. Some people obviously I'm just
fighting to the death with. It's not a good time to experiment. And then others obviously you can, you can play around with ideas on. - Okay. What about you? What's a perfect week look like? Maybe. Well, you said you're
a hundred percent now. - Yeah. See, yeah, honestly I have pretty much
the same schedule as Nicky Rod. So, Monday, Wednesday,
Friday, I do twice a day. Every other day, once a day. And then normally, noon practice
is like our biggest class. That's where, you know,
all the pros go in. So, I tend to do more open rounds there. And then we have a 7:00 PM class as well, which is more hobbyists. And that's where I'll do my
positional rounds and you know, force myself to be put in bad positions. - So, you have what you do? 8:00 AM, 12, like in
terms of what B-Team has. 8:00 AM, 12, and 7:00 PM. And the hobbyists are more 7:00 PM. - Yes. - Okay. Do you believe in over training? Do you think you can overtrain? - I used to not believe in it.
(laughter) But, then I got hurt.
(laughs) I was like, all right. - Oh, you attribute that to over training? The biceps. - I think, dude, I'm
telling you I trained, I lifted like a bodybuilder
for like seven years. And by lifting, I mean, I was
lifting seven days a week. And I trained arms most days. Like, almost every day I
would do like, you know, four or five sets and get
a pretty good bicep pump, in addition to my lift. I think that had to contribute
somewhat towards my trade. - Fair enough. Well, what about on the
actual mat over training? Like explaining too
much time with the mat? - Well, I-- - Like, psychological,
physical over training. - I think you can definitely
overtrain but it's more of a, like, as your body's healthy, you have to make sure your mind is sharp. Like sometimes, maybe
taking a day away or even diverting your attention in a
different aspect of training can help you be a little
bit sharper overall. Sometimes it can be like, it can get a little like stagnant, cause you're doing the
same stuff over and over. But I think if you just keep like, you know, over-training,
then your overall baseline just gets higher and you become, you know, accustomed to that. - What about you? You don't seem like a guy that over. - I've heard of it. Never been close to it. Nah, I think controlling
how hard you train is definitely protects you from injury, you know what I mean? Like, if you are redlining yourself and then you're fighting
to the death in the gym, that's a hundred percent when
you're gonna get injured, gonna get sick. So, I try to make sure
I've had enough sleep, I've had obviously enough
food post-training. And that sort of helps me
to train a bit harder, but, (chuckles) still try to avoid
redlining myself too much. - I think I established also like, what days are gonna be your peak days. Because throughout the week, if you're training seven days a week, you're gonna have ups and downs. Like for me personally,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday usually my best days. And besides that, I also
have other great days. - Oh, my days are great. But Monday, Wednesday,
Friday are also great. You're like, I'm able to admit that some
days are awful than others. I love that. I'm always on, bro. Okay. What advice would you give to people who are not always on hobbyists? How to get better. Like, people that are already there. I don't know. Purple belts, brown belts, black belts, they're just like doing
like a couple times a week or something like that. Like, how do you get better? - I think being consistent, like find a schedule that
you can consistently train. Maybe it's like, you know,
three, four times a week. Or even a little bit less. Just be consistent over the years. I think too often people are like, "Oh, I wanna get really good really fast." And it's like, definitely takes a long time
to get to where you wanna be. What about the, what you're doing during,
like while being consistent, what kind of stuff you're working on? - So honestly, I think one
big thing for me, which I, something I actually started
doing once B-Team was formed was filming all of your rounds and then watching it every day. Cause then you can see what
specific problems you're having and then you can base
your positional rounds around those problems. - That's really interesting. It's kind of depressing though. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - Like sometimes I have to, you know, I edited this podcast for a long time. I still do in part and I
hate the sound of my voice, and like what I look like. It's tough. But it does make you better. - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah. - And I also hate the
sound of Craig's voice, and what he looks like.
(laughter) So, editing this podcast
will be especially difficult. This would be doubly difficult. But I'm glad the rest of you are here. I don't know. That's a real thing. Do you watch competition
footage of yourself or no? Like to analyze, like to see. - It's my confidence. That's fucking good. - While you're doing curls. - Yeah. - I try not, and still watch
him to boost my confidence. - Is there advice you Craig, you would give for
hobbyists to get better? - I mean, just... Not every round has to be a
fight to the death, you know? - [Lex] True. - I feel like you're gonna get injured, burnt out that way and you're
not gonna learn as much. - [Lex] It's tough. I would say, just as a black belt who took jiu-jitsu very
seriously for a very long time. Basically, when you become a hobbyist, your skill is basically slipping. Your age and your skill. And so, not taking stuff seriously is actually its own psychological
skill of like you're... That, it's tough. It's tough. Like, it's tough in a way that is different when you're like
a blue belt or something. That if you work hard
and you train correctly, you're gonna get much better. Here, you're kinda-- - You're looking downhill. - You're looking downhill, and you're like, "Yeah, I guess I'm gonna
enjoy the art of it." - Reframe the victory. You know? Like, if it's a young upcoming
guy and he constant meet you, you're like whoa, that's
a moral victory, you know? - Yeah. But then that has to happen. You have to be able to not do that to avoid the injury, sometimes. Like if you want, So yeah, it's a different,
it's a different thing. Plus with me, just because some
people recognize me, they... - They're coming. - You have that probably. You guys definitely obviously have that. - I've solved that problem. - How did you solve that problem? - Travel around. You do a seminar or anything like that? - [Lex] Yeah. - It's believable that you
could get submitted once. - [Lex] Yeah. - But if they catch you give 'em a few. - [Lex] Yeah. - If people tell their friends
they submitted me to seminar. - [Lex] Yeah.
- One time, believable.
- [Lex] Yeah. - They got me four or five times. - [Lex] Four times, yeah. - You've robbed them of that. - Okay. That's pretty funny. But it's also, they have
this energy like they think, you know, they're coming in hot. And I usually like to just
basically get submitted quickly twice and just, it changes everything. It makes it more fun. I see. I've noticed it. - Let them submit you twice?
- Yeah. Just like very quickly. What are the options? (laughter) - [Nicky Rod] We're not, we're not saying they can
last longer, hold off. - But then it's like,
it's very hard to like, Yeah. If you're a very serious
competitor and so on, you take it seriously then, yes. But like then people go-- People, what they try to do. This is probably is what
happens to you guys. They try to impress you
by going super hard. - I have people every day come to my gym, try to take me out.
- Yeah? - You gotta, I just stay sharp. Come to practice, let's get it on. - Do you feel that energy? I feel like I need to talk
to Craig here for a second. (laughter) Like, at a seminar, like somebody is coming
in like really hard. Like, a brown belt will come in. And they really want to
impress you with like, their technical side. They're a big fan. They've been watching your DVDs. Like, what do you do with a guy like that? - I make a complete joke out of the roll. You know, give him the
pass, mess with him, do stupid shit, you know? Like, rob them of the realness of it, because it's stupid. I'm not gonna roll hard
with strangers, you know? I feel like you should roll with a circle of people you trust. Injuries happen rolling
hard with strangers cause that's the same way you
get injured in competition. Cause you don't have that
relationship with 'em. - And I should also mention, that's probably not a good
way to impress somebody, by just going ape shit,
going a hundred percent. - Oh yeah, not at all. - I think the beauty of just
is like the camaraderie of it. Like, as you get to know
each other's like technical, like different ideas you
have and all of that. Yeah. Okay. Do you think Gi jiu-jitsu is
dying in popularity, Craig? - Yeah, it's long dead. I think it's just, I
mean it just shows like, I mean, I have heard some
numbers on the viewership for the Gi World's finals
and they don't even compare to the undercard of like,
who's number one events. So, I think like when I
was coming up and competing in the Gi all the time, you looked at those guys that
won black belt championships, and you were like in awe of them. It almost had that ADCC champion feel. But now, that's not the case. You know, I just feel like
that the younger generation aren't looking at who's
winning black belt Gi Worlds. I personally don't think, and I don't think they're
like, they wanna be that guy. They wanna be like a Ruotolo, Gordon. You know, those are the
people they wanna emulate. - So, you think like the Gi,
like IBJJF Gi tournaments will just keep declining in popularity? - Oh, I think people will still do it. I mean, it's easier I
think as you over 30, cause the Gi's a bit of a slower thing and the master's participation
is bigger in the Gi. Cause obviously in No-Gi is now heading in a wrestling direction. Wrestling and heel hooks, you're over 30. That's a terrifying prospect, you know? What's terrifying about the Gi? Less, so I think in a participation rate, the IBJJF will still be good. But I just don't think
people are as interested as they used to be. - Well, why is wrestling
in heel hooks terrifying? Like heel hooks, I can vaguely understand, if you don't understand heel hooks. - If you work a desk job
and you've never wrestled and a guy double legs you, that's gonna probably break you back. You know? I think the older guys
are scared of wrestling. - [Lex] Huh. - It's hard to wrestle at 40. - [Lex] To learn wrestling at 40. - Is it? Yeah, it's hard, yeah. I mean, I think it's
even just hard in general to do wrestling at 40. But it's easy to pull half
guard in the Gi at 40. - I think it's harder to do judo at 40, and people still do it at 40. Judo hurts more. - Judo's scarier than all of them. - Yeah. I think, does wrestling really hurt at 40? I don't know why I'm looking at you. - I don't know. I got a couple of years. - It does? Interesting. I mean--
- I feel, I agree with you saying that Judo looks like the most dangerous. Like, even they're practice partners, they're just getting slammed flat. Bueno. - Yeah, I did. I mean, I did judo for a really long time. There's a lot of people
that are 40, 50, 60 do judo, and they get. - They're the ones that
are still alive though. (Lex chuckles) - It's true. Survivor bias. You do a little bit of judo, right? - [Craig] Me? I'm a yellow belt. - You're a yellow belt in Judo? I should be your instructor. (soft laughter) Promote you to orange. - I got a yellow belt in the sixth grade. I believe it was the sixth grade. I did it for about, I don't know, sixth months. - But you're also using judo
in competition, basically. Aren't you doing like Harai
type throw like you're doing? - Yeah, I don't know where I learned that. I just started doing it. - You just started lifting
your leg in various ways until it works.
- Just figured it out. Yeah.
- [Lex] Okay. Doing different kinds of tricks. - I looked at the Sambo guys doing it, I was like, "It can't be that hard." - [Lex] Yeah.
- Gave it a crack. - Well, they looked at your foot locks and they said that can't be that hard. - They said it can't be that hard, ban it from the tournaments. (laughter) - All right. What do you think is the best
take down in No-Gi jiu-jitsu? Like what? Like, if people were trying
to train for a competition and so on like, where do
you see the trends heading? - I think those foot sweep is
like catching fire nowadays. Seen a lot of foot sweeps. Foot sweeps and arm drags. I would say pretty, pretty
popular in our sport. - Arm drag. It's just go arm drag to Okay. - Arm drag either to get 'em, like, get to behind them or
even just to cause reactions, make them pull away and
we can start reattacking. - Are you talking about it in a context of what's the best takedown to score? What's the safest takedown
to mitigate the risk of guillotine submission? Or most effective in general? - Yeah, most effective combined. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hopefully it's about scoring. - I think any sort of body
lock, you know what I mean? Locking your hands around the body. You've been able to put
'em to the floor that way. I feel like that's most effective, safest, might even have arisen
out of a leg attack, leg entry, upgrade to the body. - What about like foot sweeps? Like outside foot sweeps? What do we-- - I would say yeah, you know? Foot sweeps from outside
foot sweeps or even like, something like you're
tossing and pulling by and you're sweeping the foot. - Yeah, those are all pretty safe. See, why is that scary? I don't understand. It's not scary at all. - I think it's the lift that is scary. - [Nicky Rod] The lifts, yeah. - Who's lifting people. - Your buddy--
- Not like a good lift. - No, not you. I mean, in master like, we're talking about
older guys doing No-Gi. - Some of those old bosses
take it very serious, you know? - [Lex] They should start lifting. - TRT Worlds. - TRT Worlds.
(laughs) - They're coming. They're coming to impress.
- Grab a lift. All right. Just for the gram. Okay. What about submission? What's your favorite submission? And what do you think is the
most effective submission? Except the buggy choke? - I would have to say the rear naked. It's definitely the one
that's hit the most, and the highest level of competition. - Was that uh-- That was pretty interesting
to see you escape all that and to put put it on. That's the cool thing about EBI, to see like the world class athletes. I was surprised that
it's possible to escape with you on his back. - Gotta try some B-cream. - Oh yeah, B-cream. And has it helps? What's in the B-- What's the formula or is that a secret? - That is a proprietary blend for sure. - Okay. But that's what you use for greasing. That's what you greased before. - [Craig] Allegedly. - Allegedly. Is there other application
outside of grappling? - I'm sure you can get creative. - [Lex] All right. Thanks. Asking for a friend. Is that the R&C for you as well? Rear naked choke?
- Rear naked choke, I mean overall favorite for
like solidifying a finish. Cause like, you could put
somebody to sleep, right? Even if they don't want
attack, put 'em to sleep. But, as far as like something
I've been working on now that I'm now starting to
implement in competition, Yoko Sankaku's side triangles. Like, it's a beautiful thing. You have multiple options. You have the triangle to finish. If that fails, you have the
Kimura, you could break the arm. You could also just
transfer and take the back. So, Yoko Sankaku, I'm a big fan of, and I continue to progress
and be better at it. - Have you ever broken anyone's arm? - Oh yeah. I mean the first few competitions cause I was like, you know, pretty athletic grappler
or athletic wrestler going against local black
belts and brown belts. Like, one of my first matches
I broke somebody a Kimura. Pretty much every time
I've got a heel hook, which is only twice
I've broken an opponent. If I have a joint lock,
it's probably gonna break. Like a lot of times it
breaks before they tap. (Lex chuckles)
Yeah. - You seem like a really friendly fella. How hard is it to break an
arm or any break a joint? - Well, I don't think it's that hard. I think, like if you're
talking about an arm bar, we have this position to where like people are kind of holding on,
holding on, and then it slips and their arm starts going. - Sure. - And then it just
breaks before they even, you know, get a chance to tap. - I love this sport. - I knee barred a guy and
he didn't tap one time. And it was actually, it was surprising. I had to put a lot of force into that. As opposed to arms, shoulders, and the ligaments in the knees and ankles. But to fully, this kid, Sambo a kid,
- Mhm. - fully let it go and he tapped it. I think the angle is like up here. - Cause they're built different. (hesitant laughter) - Hopefully, he can be reconstructed. - He's rebuilt different. - Yeah.
(chuckling) - All right. What about a straight foot lock? You've ever, do you guys do straight
foot locks at all or no? - Yeah, I mean I'm learning them now. We had some kid come into
practice one day and like fucking pull out all of us do it. - Pull a straight foot lock? - Straight foot lock. Just this little like Polish kid. - Not only did he foot lock everyone, but he told the entire world. (laughter) He's sending out fucking emails. (laughter) Calling his friends and family. - We practically put a hit
out on him in practice. And you just sold everybody.
(laughs) - Yeah, it's always
interesting when you get like, people that specialize can surprise you that this could be effective stuff. Do you think there's other
stuff that could be still discovered in jiu-jitsu? Like, what areas do
you think are ripe with techniques to discover? Like wrestling is really interesting now. There's a lot of innovation
happening in wrestling. - I think there'll be more innovation when we get people that
are more adamant about standing up from bottom position. I think when if we get more of
the community, they're like, all right, I want to get off the bottom. I think--
- "Just Stand Up." - "Just Stand Up." - How'd you just, it doesn't work. - We actually changed the name. How Sambo doesn't work,
if you just stand up. - [Lex] Did you really?
- Yeah. - [Lex] All right.
(Craig laughs hysterically) I'll change it to jiu-jitsu
when I hired it and sent it for free to the entirety of the Soviet block. Hey, Nicky Rod, do you think ego is
useful for martial arts, or does it get in the way? - Okay, I think you need
to use it in both ways. For sure, have an ego, like if you're training competition mode. But also it can prevent you
from learning and progressing if your ego's too high. Like you really have to shut the ego down when you're in the mode
of learning and trying to, you know, develop skills. Cause you're gonna put yourself
in these bad positions. You're gonna have issues
with training partners that aren't necessarily, you
know, up to your skill level. But because you're in these bad positions, you have to make these certain sacrifices. And for sure, ego can
be a good or bad thing. But if you're able to shut
the ego off and learn, then that'll have huge
progression when it's time to put the ego on into
use during competition. - When's the last time
you shut the ego off? - It's been a long time. (soft laughter) (Lex laughing) - What about you, Craig? Do you, I mean, you seem
to be super easygoing. Is there, like, is the
ego just not part of it? - Oh, for sure. I just don't want anyone to
know they've damaged my ego. You know? You have to suppress it deep down. - There's a child underneath
all of it crying, always. - For sure. I think ego's good for a bit
of perseverance, you know? Like, it'll help you stick it out against a tough battle with a
training partner for sure. A bit of ego's on the line. Plus the banter back and forth. We're trying to like,
stir each other up a bit. - [Lex] Talk with the shit, yeah. - I think that helps hone,
sharpen the ego a bit. - What about you? You, did you try? You seem like a super humble guy? Is there like a monster underneath? - Oh, it's a total act. - [Lex] It's an act. Who's in the basement? - I think ego's a big motivator. You know, I think it's very good to have in the aspect that it, like, it'll drive you to help to want to be one of the best in the world. But like Nicky Rod said, you need to be able to turn
it off in the training room, and, you know, force
yourself into bad positions where you may not be winning. - Are there, like, you know,
Danaher's mentioned Boris. Are there like grapplers, like Boris, this is a question from Reddit actually. Boris-like characters, anybody you've trained with in
the past who doesn't compete, but is just an absolute beast in training? Like, people you've
met that are just like. - Well, somebody that
I think has a probably the best like submission grappling in MMA, I think like Gilbert Burns is a-- His submission grappling, that's something that's very, very good. I trained with him early
on in my grappling career, and I was really impressed
by his ability to move, hold down opponents that
are trying to stand up, and as a whole, you know,
he can get submissions and put people away. - When's the last time? Have you trained with him recently or no? - No, it's been a few years. - Which is impressive ability
to submit, you're saying? - Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, I'd see Gilbert go against a few, like, pretty decent black belts in
the room, and fair well and, you know, maybe he gets to their back, puts a choke and it's like
Gilbert's super high level submission grappling. - Yeah. But he's pretty widely
recognized as a monster. So, I don't know if that's even the right answer to the question. It's like you're not
even listening anymore. - I don't even remember. What was the question?
- [Lex] Doesn't matter. (laughter) All right, well... Is there people, like you've done all these
seminars are they're just, especially in the eastern
block that you see. - [Craig] Ah, yeah. - Like you went to Kazakhstan. Is there killers out there that? - Oh yeah, there's tough guys out there. Obviously, I don't remember the names, nor could I pronounce it if I did. But, definitely some tough guys out there. Obviously carrying skill sets
over from wrestling for sure. Not Sambo, but wrestling. - Wrestling. But yeah, are there just
people that surprise you that just don't compete
that are really good? Have you met those? - I feel like it's less so
today, cause there's so many, so many more athletes in the sport. But definitely when I was coming up, back like in Australian and stuff, there were guys I'd trained
with that wouldn't compete and there would be like
super tough rounds for me. - [Lex] Yeah. And there's so many more avenues
for competing in general, so, yeah. What about you? Have you met some monsters? - Yeah, one guy I could think
of in particular is Jason Rau. He trains up in Long Island, I think. Right? Opened up his own gym out there. - [Craig] Vanguard? - [Nicky Ryan] Yeah, Vanguard. He used to compete, but he would never be able
to compete at the same level he would train at. So, now he's just focused on mainly, you know, opening up a gym
and teaching his students. But he was a guy that was, you know, extremely good in the training room. You know, world class. I still think to this
day he's legitimately one of the best in the world, but just doesn't compete anymore. - Who wins in a fight, a lion or a bear? - [Craig] Polar bear?
- This for you, Reddit. No, not a polar-- Well, yes, it's a good ques-- See, you're on-- Polar bear is pretty impressive. No, grizzly bear. - Grizzly bear. I think a grizzly bear wins. - Well, what's the most
threatening predator in Australia? A kangaroo?
- Well, I mean, it's a tricky question here, cause everyone's scared of
the animals in Australia. But I mean, you get bitten by a snake, bitten by spider.
- [Lex] True. - That's not that bad. Bear. America, bear would just
hold you down to eat you. That's a much more
terrifying prospect for me. Even sharks. Shark's gonna be quick. No one sees the shark coming. The shark's just gonna bite you in half. - [Lex] A bear will take a bite and chew. - A bear just holds you down and eats you. So, that's frightening for me. Australia's a bunch of just
weird shit that can kill you. - Did you see Cocaine Bear
the movie that's coming out? - I saw the trailer. It looks good. - [Lex] Yeah. Yeah. So, there's not every bear. There's like black belts
and there's black belts, there's bears and there's bears. So that, I think that's what they
often don't talk about. Everybody puts lions and
bears in the same category. I think there's just some weak bears. - A lion would kill a black bear, I think. - Not every black, again,
I'm trying to tell you, there's differences.
(laughter) - But grizzly and polar
bear, I'm betting on those. - Yeah, no, I think
grizzlies have the size, but actually every video
I've seen of grizzlies, they tire out within like 20 seconds. They get bored. - That's the gas thing? - [Lex] Yeah, that's the gas thing. - That's a Nicky Ryan gas thing, right? - That's all they got. Tree mold.
(laughter) - And they try to just take a breather. Like there's these crazy
fights between bears and they last like 20 seconds. - I heard this story
about a Russian family that was attacked by a bear
in Russia and killed the dad. And it took so it took so
long to eat the daughter, she made three phone calls to her mom while it was eating her. And the first call, the mum
thought she was pranking her. - [Lex] That's crazy. - That's way scarier than what we thought. - [Lex] Yeah, that's terrifying. - Gimme a snake bite any day. - [Lex] Yeah. Hey, you know what?
Let me change the question. Is like, if you had to
fight a bear or a lion, how would you try to defeat it? Do you think you have a chance at all? - Well, I think I'd, I'd attack a lion a little bit differently than I'd attack a bear. - What would be the difference? - Okay. Well, I've seen this video where lions are eating and you
have three like scrinny guys walk up behind them and
kind of scare the cat off of - Yeah.
- Off their food. I think, maybe I produce some
props, scare the lion away. Right? But if I have to fight it, if I have to fight it straight on, I mean, the thing is that you can't,
even if you take that back, like you can't like bite it or choke it. The mane is too big to lock
your hands around, you know? - Are you sure about that? Cause the mane's just hair. - Yeah, the mane's hair. - [Nicky Rod] Yeah, but it's thick hair. It's like matted hair, right? I dunno. So, I think, - You think you can maintain
back control on a lion? - Maintain, yeah, yeah.
(laughter) But, getting there. Getting there, I think I fake high go low. Right? Make 'em think I'm going
for the foot or something. A little paw sweep and I take the back. - What about a bear? I feel like they're easier. That might be easier to
take to hold back control. - Yeah, maybe, The thing is if the
bear falls on its back, it's just gonna crush you. It's so big. It's substantially bigger
than a lion, right? Like a full grown lion. - Yeah. And they're also like terrifyingly like, loud with their roars and stuff. - Yeah, I think, So, first of all, if I saw
grizzly I'm like, all right, he's gonna attack me. I try to yell a little bit louder to them, maybe deter him a little bit. Like, give him a (grunts softly). - Yeah. - And then yeah, for sure, I'd try to get behind it. I'd probably go like something weird. Maybe like pull the eyes
out or something, you know? For sure. I mean, I'm going for the
vital organs, you know? - Play dead.
- [Nicky Rod] Play dead. - And then over check it. (Lex laughs)
- There's no pride in that. - Wow. Pride even matters. See the ego, the same advice you gave, you gotta put the ego aside with the bear. Even then, even then. How would you fight a bear or a lion? Just play dead? - Play dead, yeah. Could you beat a kangaroo? A kangaroo? - [Lex] Oh, yeah.
- Kangaroo? I'd beat the shit out of a kangaroo. (laughter) Yeah, yeah. I mean, are we boxing glove? We just like-- - How would a kangaroo attack a human? - Try to kick 'em with the claws. - Knock 'em down and then they choke 'em. - [Nicky Rod] Stand on that tail. - The kangaroos do? - [Craig] They choke each other, yeah. - They don't choke each other. - [Craig] You don't believe me? You gotta watch the video,
they choke each other out. (Nicky Ryan chuckles) - I've seen this, yeah. (laughter) - It's real?
- [Craig] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - With which? Headlock or what? - Yeah, they knock 'em, and just grip like this and hold 'em. - [Lex] What's the grip? They have like little paws. How are they gripping? - [Craig] I promise you. I'm not lying to you. - [Nicky Ryan] Pretty
sure I've seen the video. - [Lex] They also do strange shit like if there's a predator around, they'll wait in a pool of water. And then if it comes to
attack, they drown 'em. They're pretty smart. (Lex chuckles) - Okay. Speaking of which, what's the most effective martial art for winning a street fight? You talked about rule sets and streets. I think you've talked
about being in a street-- Have you ever been in a street fight? - Yeah, just one. - [Lex] Yeah. - Nothing special. Nothing crazy. - [Lex] Yeah, you don't
talk about that time? Like, for self-defense purposes, what will be a strategy on the street? A little advice. - Whoever wins the street fights, whoever's willing to take it
the furthest, the fastest. You know what I mean? If you're thinking you're
gonna box and he's biting you, poking your eyes, that guy's gonna win. He wants it more, you know what I mean? That's why the crackheads fight. They go for the kill
straight away, you know? So, I feel like it's more about
who's willing to do the most that's gonna win that fight. - Fastest. The most, the fastest. - Who's got the least to lose, you know? - Okay, we could also
define winning differently cause you could also run away. But in terms of technique-wise, wrestling? Judo? - I think if it's a one-on-one, I'd go, wrestler wins. But, if it's like, you know,
it's like a multiple people, you gotta go Muay Thai,
stay on their feet. Can't go down to the ground
if it's more than one person. - Big double leg maybe. - Yeah. Double leg, put 'em asleep
on the impact, right? Forehead to the ground. - Yeah.
What's the goal here? Is to win the fight and not go to prison? - I haven't thought of
it through that way. (Craig laughs) Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Not go, not to kill the person. - We got mutual combat
here in Texas, we good. - Is that in Texas?
- Mhm. - Do you know what the
paperwork for that looks like? Do you have to actually sign
something, or can you just say? - I hope I don't need to find out. (Lex chuckles) I did hear a story where
guys were on Sixth Street and they looked at a cop. They were like mutual
combat, mutual combat. - Yeah. - And just got like the cops to say yes and just duped it out. They could be false though. - That sounds crazy. - [Nicky Rod] I'm saying. - I kind of admire that, but I've also been playing
Red Dead Redemption recently. So, I like internalized the
cowboy a little too much. Just to return to gym stuff. No, because it's a business. Because you're running a
business, there's money involved. But, you're also friends. But, you're also training partners. Is there a tension that money creates that can threaten to destroy friendships? That's something I always
worry about with money. I try not to go do any kind of business with friends or family. - I think if you're all very
clear and honest and open at the start, makes it much easier. I think people have
issues when there's like, kind of like things are
written and fine print, and nobody knows the exact answers. - And a lot of jiu-jitsu guys can't read. You know, that makes
it challenging as well. - [Lex] We're learning that today. - Yeah.
(laughter) - [Lex] Uh, no. - Definitely complicated though. - Yeah I mean, it's not always obvious how to be transparent and
stuff about everything. Have you felt that tension? Because in the jiu-jitsu world, money's not really unlimited. Just running a school. What's that like? Because it's the first time
you're running a school, running a gym. - Yeah, I mean it's just
constantly updating people about what's going on, what your expectations are. You know what I mean? We've had some problems with coaches who I feel like think the
pies bigger than it is. You know what I mean? They feel like maybe we're
getting rich out of this, and they're missing out on things. So, it's like even amongst managing staff, that can be challenging too. So yeah, I mean it's a constant
work in progress to make. Not only to make sure everyone's happy, But to make sure they're
comfortable enough to reach out and tell you they're unhappy. But I feel like those
challenges are common amongst any small business. - Still, it sucks. Just to mention, I'm clueless to this. But I'm just now learning this. Somebody I met and talked to
and I really like is Isaac. And he just learned because
you're also active on Reddit. What's your name on Reddit? John Belushi's mom.
- John Belushi. As under cover as possible, you know? - Oh, it's not you. It's actually John Belushi's mom. Right. (chuckles) So, I've done my research, I guess. And I guess you guys had a
falling out and have split. I just wanna say that, I don't know the few
interactions I've had with him, he's a beautiful human being. So. And that just shows to me, - Visually, maybe not internally. - And sexually, just the experience. No. He's just a kind person. I don't know. I liked him a lot. Like to me, in a business setting, yeah, tensions are created and it sucks. I don't know. I mean, I suppose money, all the stuff that happened
in the jungle aside, probably money had a role to
play to create extra tension. Money and egos about
like who was the leader, who was not the leader, it's tough. It's tough to manage that kind of stuff. I've seen it happen with
jiu-jitsu schools a lot. I don't know exactly what. Cause it's like there's
also a hierarchy inside grappling jiu-jitsu schools. Like people that are better or not. There's literally ranks
black belt and brown belt. There's like competitors that are better. I mean I don't, it's a weird dynamic in which to operate. Cause like usually, there's more politeness and like humanity layered into the way a company works. But here there's just a bunch of, I mean, it's like violence
laid on and on display. Plus money. It's crazy. Is there something you could say to that? Like, how you try to minimize? Or something you want to comment on Isaac? - Yeah, I mean it was
unfortunate situation. But it just didn't work out. You know, like, there's
gonna be personality clashes. Some people... - I can't imagine anyone having a personality clash with you. - [Craig] With me?
- Yeah. - It's hard to imagine. - Yeah, it's surprising. You know, I mean, I don't
even know what to say on that. I don't want to touch on it too much, but obviously his expectations
about his role in the gym, obviously different from ours. Led to some personality clashes that were sort of unresolvable. You know, some things happen
that can't be resolved. You can't fix those things.
- [Lex] Yeah. - You know? Obviously, a lesson I hope for both of us. Definitely a lesson for
me from a management role to try to address these things sooner. But also, sometimes I came
up in a different time where there was no
money, no opportunities. I had to pave that. I had to pave that way totally for myself. Especially coming from Australia. Like, being a professional
athlete in jiu-jitsu was not, I think so I had to pave a lot
of opportunities for myself. And I feel like sometimes, ohh, I don't know what the right word is. Sometimes people don't appreciate some of the ways you help them. And they just think, feel like almost they deserve or are entitled to certain things. And that is very difficult to manage. But I think again, like we both
see the situation different. I do hope he finds a better, a more comfortable place to train. But yeah, obviously I've
known him for a long time. Sort of like a brotherly relationship. So, that's gonna really make
personal problems a lot worse when you're that close
to someone, you know? - I just hated that like I've
seen in jiu-jitsu especially, but in other places, where like close
friendships were destroyed because of like gym stuff. Like, people running gyms. And as a person who is, in this case just a fan, but like in general, just like a student, it like sucks. - But again, in my position, sometimes I wonder if there
really was a friendship or mere opportunity. I have to be careful of that
with some people in the sport. Is it a sincere relationship? Or like, I mean it's
difficult for me to tell. Or am I means to an end? - Sure. But I think it's actually a trade off because I think a lot of
close friendships we have like even relationships we have. Like, when tested, like, can break if they're
not properly communicated. Like, some of it could
be just misunderstanding for a prolonged period of time. It's not explained to religious. Just like a lack of integrity. It's just like you have to
like talk through that shit. Like, just be honest with each other. - Take some MDMA, or
really get down to it. - Drugs solve everything.
(Craig chuckles) If you've learned anything
from this conversation. I've actually haven't done MDMA yet. People say that that's
something I would enjoy a lot cause my brain is I think natural on MDMA. - I'd recommend it for sure. - [Lex] For sure. All right. - Is that what you did with Gabby? Okay, nevermind. - She drugged me. (laughter) - In general, why is there
always seems to be drama in the jiu-jitsu world? Like outside of what's going on here. Or is that just, - I think it's universal to anything. - [Lex] Drama's everywhere? And then drama rises to the surface. - Drama makes the money. - [Lex] Yeah. I wish there was a little bit less. You have a bunch of-- Like, we mentioned some of them. You have a bunch of instructionals out. What are some interesting things
that you're looking forward to like exploring in terms of teaching? So, "Just Stand Up" is your
most recent one, right? Yeah. You also have one called, "Power Bottom, An Inclusive Modern
Approach to the Guard." (light chuckling) - [Craig] Yep. Yep. - [Lex] What are some other ones? - [Craig] "False Reap Allegations" - "False Reap Allegations", yeah. By the way people talk
about "Power Bottom", again, hilarious title. But they say it's a
really good instructional, unlike the guard. - Yeah, I try to at least
be innovative, you know? Like, everyone else I
feel like's ripping off John and Gordon, putting
some sort of slant on that. So, I'm trying to take sort
of a different approach. I think you can actively
influence the sport with what you release
cause people are gonna try to emulate that. So, I think those type of instructionals, "Just Stand Up", "Power Bottom," like approaching the sport differently, I think definitely has
a positive impact on how people play the game. - Are you working on something now? - Probably a fundamentals course. Just cause we're bringing out, we've got the white
belt program coming in, so I'm trying to develop
a fundamentals course along the line of the
constraint based learning stuff we were talking about today. Like, a way to approach
learning as a beginner to sort of speed up the process a bit and not make it as so technique dense. At least have it a bit more fun. - And focusing in on just like, examples of problems to solve. - Exactly, yeah. Approaching jiu-jitsu, learning that way. Like, I mean, kids learn
quick through games. I think adults are capable of that to a certain extent as well. - You're releasing that instructional on pre-match preparation?
- Yes. - What other stuff? Do you ever think on a body lock pass? - Yeah, I have a body
lock or Rody lock DVD, or instructional. Yeah, I had the pre-match
ritual coming out. I also have, I'm filming, "How to Build
Athleticism for Grappling." I'm just really trying to
capture different angles. Kind of like the same, you
know, what Craig's doing. Trying not to do the same
thing that everybody else does. You know? There's a ton of wrestling, ton
of jiu-jitsu instructionals. - And the steroid results are coming in. - Oh yeah, yeah. More plates, more dates. You know, Derek that runs that, hit me up for a blood panel test, like an impromptu thing. And I did it a few days ago, and I believe the results
will come out shortly. - Oh yeah? Do you know the results? - What are you betting on, Lex? - What do you think? It's hard to believe. I know. - Yeah, it's very, very impressive. (laughter) You're putting me in
awkward position here. (laughter) Do you think you'll face Gordon soon? - I'm open to it. I don't know how soon, maybe in the next six months. I could see me facing
him before ADCC Worlds. - I think that's a great rivalry. I think it's a really interesting one. - It's fun for me. - Is there any chance that the two, the Soviet Union and Nazi
Germany get back together? That DDS under whatever
name gets back together? - No. Absolutely not. - Highly unlikely. I mean, we kind of did this to, you know, to back up Nicky Ryan and, you know, we're sticking with our guy. - So, what do you think? - Yeah, I think there's just
too many personality conflicts for it to really ever work again. - Do you think there will
always be war in the world? - War?
- Yeah. - Oh yeah. I think from the beginning of time, it's been, you know, some kind
of war, some kind of battle. Controversy, it's what
helps people evolve. - Until AI, super intelligent AI becomes way more powerful than humans. And humbles all of us with its
power before it destroys us. - Well, until it runs outta batteries. (laughter) You guys are screwed. (laughter) - Just unplug it. - That's awesome. I'm really fortunate to be
able to hang out with you, to train with you. And thank you so much for talking today. This was-- - All right. - That's the best ending. Thanks for listening to this
conversation with Craig Jones, Nicky Rod and Nicky Ryan. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Miyamoto Musashi. "You must understand that
there's more than one path to the top of the mountain." Thank you for listening. And hope to see you next time.