BONUS: Updated Pedagogy, feat. Rob Biernacki

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I have huge news. She actually did it. We're pleased to announce that Beatrice Jin, top-ranked women's competitor in North America and long-time BJJ Mental Models premium community member has published her first ever course with us, exclusive to BJJ Mental Models. It's called Stop Being Nice. It's a three-part audio series designed to solve real mindset problems that regular folks experience in Jijitsu. If you struggle to be aggressive and competitive in Jijitsu, you'll find the solutions here. If you're already a BJJ Mental Models premium subscriber, you've already got access, and if you are not, good news, you can get it now and get your first week free. Go to BJJmentalmodels.com and check it out today. Hey, welcome to BJJ Mental Models. I'm Steve Kwan. BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent Jijitsu approach. Here today with a bonus episode. This one is not in our regular release schedule, but there was a bunch of timely stuff that my guest here wanted to talk about. And hey, I know my listeners, they're never going to say no to more Rob Bernaki in their ear holes, right, Rob? Speaker 2: This is in another time, I would have made a joke about that, but continue. Speaker 1: In another time, what, like an hour ago? This is your whole brand. Speaker 2: No, another another timeline, I guess I should say. Speaker 1: Oh, got it, got it. Well, today, there were actually three or maybe four different things going on on your side that are all kind of related, and we wanted to talk about them here. I thought getting out a a bonus emergency episode would be fun. So, I'll turn it over to you to cover this. We're going to be talking about pedagogy. Now, I know how the Jijitsu community is, so I just want to confirm for everyone so they understand. Pedagogy has nothing to do with the Epstein files. This is a completely different thing. Speaker 2: What Epstein files? That whole thing is a hoax, haven't you heard? This you know what, this timeline is designed to reveal the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet. Anyway, continue. Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Um, the important thing is that pedagogy has nothing to do with any of that. Um, pedagogy is about quality instruction, but Rob, um, you're the smart one here, so I will turn it over to you to maybe explain this to people. Speaker 2: Only in Jijitsu am I the smart one in the room. Speaker 1: Hey, you know, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, right? Speaker 2: Um, I yeah, I mean, I guess we're going to talk about a few different things. Uh, one of which being our new revised, um, teaching methodology module in the pedagogy section on BJJ Concepts. Speaker 1: Absolutely. So, one of the things that I always love about your site is that you guys actually have dedicated content for teaching, for pedagogy. So, Speaker 2: To my knowledge, we're still the only site that does. Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there are other bits and pieces, you know, you can go on Fanatics and you can find uh certain instructionals about teaching, but number one, I haven't seen anyone else who's put together kind of a holistic program for this, like an online academy, uh a submeta, so to speak, for coaching. Uh but also, additionally to that, a lot of the instruction that I've seen when it comes to how to teach Jijitsu, um is mostly vibes-based, right? Someone runs a gym and they're talking about what they're doing and what they like to do, but it doesn't necessarily tie down to any best practices. They're basically just doing a show and tell. So, I always love that your stuff is kind of held to a higher standard. And yeah, I heard that you revamped the whole module. So, let's talk about that. What have you learned recently on the topic of pedagogy and how does that kind of influence the way that Speaker 2: It's not so much learned recently, it's just that anything that's on the site is like we like to have a fair bit of, um, you know, on the ground, uh, development time before we put anything out there. So, what we've really done is just taken everything that I'm currently using and have been using for the past couple years, because it's crazy how time flies. The site is now seven years old. We launched in 2018, which sounds kind of absurd, uh, because it still feels very new to me. Uh, and and the the the pedagogy material that we put out was mostly put out, so like the the modules that are in the uh, the pedagogy section, almost all of them are, you know, five years old or older. Um, so we and I'm constantly updating how I teach, uh, and not just what I teach. So, like, obviously there's two sides to it. There's at least two sides to what I view my job to be. Uh, one side is trying to stay on top of, you know, what is the the current meta, what are the, you know, the the techniques that are, uh, you know, making the rounds, what is successful at the highest levels of competition, what are, you know, the best in our sport, uh, doing, and, you know, how can I, uh, both integrate that into my own Jijitsu, but also the the Jijitsu of anybody that I'm, uh, able to teach. And the other side is, you know, staying current on teaching methodology. So, that's been something that I've done from the outset, uh, of my career. Uh, and, you know, information is changing kind of constantly. So, we just we we wanted to update, uh, basically everything that we've been doing. And what we did add in, uh, so we basically added a new module that replaced, so we used to have, um, a module called Integrating Concepts and Techniques, which is where we would show people how do you, you know, how do you teach this stuff? How do you go from a conceptual approach to, you know, this is these are the specifics of the technique, how do you weave those things together? And we've just entirely, like, basically removed that and replaced it with a, um, a module called Teaching Methodology, which has two, um, currently, uh, two courses on there. The first one is basically an overview of teaching methods. So, it's called Understanding Teaching Methods. And we kind of go over what the current, you know, annoying conversation is in Jijitsu, uh, about, uh, ecological dynamics, information processing, and the constraints-led approach. We don't really get into differential learning, which is another fairly, you know, um, hot topic in cognitive learning strategies and sports and stuff like that, uh, because that's just not something that I use very much and doesn't have a lot of, um, I don't want to say application right now, but like it just hasn't gotten a lot of traction in the Jijitsu community. Uh, so I I I wanted to kind of keep it to like, this is what everyone's talking about, here are these things. We talk about whether these things can be mixed, we talk about concepts versus techniques, we talk about games versus drilling, pros and hobbyists, blocked versus interleave practice. And then we introduce our specific methodology, which is, uh, the adaptable problem-solving method is what we call it. Um, and then the other course that we have, uh, is the actual like, like the full-on adaptable problem-solving method. Like there's an actual course on like, this is how we teach. Um, we've got the, you know, the the pillars that make it up. We talk about concepts, we talk about skills, we talk about constraints, uh, and fuck your Jijitsu, and how those things are similar and how they're different. We talk about specific sparring, we talk about contextual drilling, we talk about learning mindset, we talk about the, uh, complexity and intensity dials and how to use them. We talk about modeling, uh, you know, a whole bunch of stuff. I could like, you know, there's there's a ton of lessons in there, but it's basically an over, you know, part one is here's what the landscape of teaching methods looks like, uh, in, you know, the the zeitgeist of Jijitsu at the moment. And then here is like exactly my take on it, and here's how I teach at my academy, and here are the systems that I use to teach. Speaker 1: Right, right. Now, there's always an interesting conversation to be had about how people build their their programs for teaching in Jijitsu. Sometimes people come in and they pull in academic info. So, maybe they will take a look at what the current uh scientific evidence says, or maybe they'll take a look at what other sports are doing and try to find a way to migrate that into Jijitsu. Then there's also other people who basically say like, I'm focused on empirical stuff. I want to look at what's getting results from other teams in Jijitsu and then basically try to copy that. Um, of course, I think that honestly, you need a bit of both, but I'd love to know how you pull information and where you look when it comes to monitoring the zeitgeist and finding new good ideas that you can put into your program. Speaker 2: Um, I guess all of the above. Uh, the with the added, so like, yes, I try to look at the science stuff. The problem with the science stuff is and and this isn't like necessarily a criticism, it's just like something you have to bear in mind is that one, none of the science we're referencing is on Jijitsu. It's all on like stick and ball sports for the most part. Um, two, the science that we are referencing is still very soft science, right? It's not like we've got people hooked up to FMRI machines while they're doing Jijitsu with a, you know, placebo controlled double blind, et cetera, et cetera. Like, we don't have, uh, I know the term gold standard science has been co-opted by anti-vax grifters, but like actual gold standard science, uh, is not really what we're talking about here, right? Um, we're talking about a lot of self-reported stuff. So, like, you you do have to take some of the science with a grain of salt, even though it's like, it's all we got, it's not like it's as definitive as you want it to be. Um, so you you you can't just like, oh, I'm just going to go entirely by the science. And then there's also like the fact that there isn't the science. There's there's, you know, there are kind of, you know, differing studies that show different things. And anyway, um, point being, it is it is just one tool. Um, the other one, like you said, is like, you know, what are the best teams doing? What are people that are getting a lot of success doing? But then the problem with that becomes, um, there is a, um, a very strong element of survivorship bias to any, um, like, I I refer to them as meat grinder rooms. So, you know, a lot of teams, especially if it's just like, you know, a particular, uh, like when I say teams, I don't mean like Gracie Barra where there's like 400 of them around the world. I mean like, you know, if you got a room like, you know, the room at Atos, or the room at, uh, you know, New Wave or at B-Team or, you know, at at Standard or whatever. Like you've got a room where it's like these people who train together, um, uh, Pedigo is another example of that. Like, you're talking about rooms sometimes where the training is so fucking hard that I would argue that regardless of the training method, if you put a hundred guys into a room and they just beat the fuck out of each other for five years, the people who end up surviving are going to be awesome at Jijitsu almost regardless of the method. Because you're just going to get like, the the the genetic freaks and the lucky people and the incredible learners, and they'll just get good. So, I am very weary to also use that alone as like, well, you know, I'm a great coach because I've got these two guys who are fucking amazing and they won, you know, this tournament or that tournament. Um, or even ten guys, right? Uh, versus like, okay, but how many of your guys got staff and blew their ACL in the first six months of training? You know, like, so, uh, the like the the the hyper intense, you know, we roll hard all the time stuff, um, that can create incredible results with certain people. So, any room that has, you know, that kind of super hard training, you're going to get good results. So, it's hard to tease out what are the good results that are because of that versus the, you know, the specific techniques that you use or the teaching methods that you use. Again, not saying that that's all of it, it's just that's something you have to think about whenever you have people who just train like like animals. Um, so those are the two things that although I'm drawing from both of those sources, I kind of use that on top of what I'm kind of like experimenting with and trying to have happen at my academy, because I have neither of those things, right? Like, I'm not fully relying on the science, I'm not fully relying on this is what the best guys are doing. Although I am trying to model those two things to the best of my ability, but I'm also using the whatever methodology I'm using, I'm using it to develop myself. So, you know, I'm 49 and I'm not chemically assisted. So, my training intensity level has to be way lower. And my students are entirely, at least the students that I have at my, uh, you know, home gym in Nanaimo, are entirely hobbyists. So, we don't have a meat grinder room. I don't have incredibly, you know, talented, gifted people who are on gear training twice a day, uh, or three times a day for that matter, and doing all the stuff that these other guys are doing. So, I am using that empirical process of like, man, if it works for me and it allows me to improve really dramatically, and if it works for my students who are even less invested than I am, and it allows for them to improve dramatically and have success, then I feel like whatever initial source I've drawn from, that ultimate filter is what I use to be like, yeah, I think this works pretty well. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I like how you brought up the limitations of like empirical and anecdotal data, especially in the context of Jijitsu. You hear people all the time say, well, this is what so and so is doing and so therefore it works. Um, and people in Jijitsu are way too eager to give out advice like that and basically they just copy what the coach did or what one of their Jijitsu idols claims to be doing. Um, but that's not really evidence for the reasons you brought up. I mean, if we want to be scientific about this, if your method works, it should be repeatable and it should be repeatable under control, meaning you should be able to grab, you know, any rando and it should be at least marginally effective. Um, you brought up a good example of how the problem with going totally empirical with your decision-making is there's a lot of gyms out there that are meat grinders and just through survivorship bias, whoever's left over is going to be probably pretty good, but that doesn't mean the method works. It just means that the method failed 99% of people and you you identified the one outlier who can survive that shitty training process. Speaker 2: Classically, that's been most gyms, right? Like, there are like empirically bad gyms, like gyms run by frauds that will put out one good grappler because that person is doing all the work on their own outside of the the bad instruction that they're receiving and can still become a decent grappler, right? So, yeah, like and and and not even referencing like the the the shitty fraud gyms, but like the gyms that have really brutal teaching methodology, that like, you know, the the 45-minute warm-up, the random techniques and then spar gyms, they still have created, you know, there are world champions that have come out of gyms like that. Uh, not many, but they have, right? So, like you can use the shittiest methods, uh, not just sub-optimal methods, but like literally the shittiest methods and you'll still get the results sometimes. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that doesn't even get into the whole issue with self-fulfilling prophecies, where if a gym becomes famous enough and develops the reputation as being a competitor gym, they will draw, um, an undue amount of attention from other people who already have what it takes to be good competitors. Speaker 2: Exactly. Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean, for example, if you were an amazing Jijitsu athlete and you want to be a world champion and you feel like you're not getting that at your home gym, wherever you train, I mean, where are you going to go? Probably, if you're listening to this, you probably got like five famous gyms in mind that just by reputation, you think would be a good fit for you. Those gyms benefit from that reputation because it means that they draw in people who already have gone through someone else's meat grinder. You know, they they've already, uh, kind of been self-selected as one of the just naturally exceptional people at Jijitsu. And now these people are all flocking to the same place to train together. Um, so that gym might even wind up producing a bunch of amazing results, but that doesn't mean their coaching methods are great. It could just be that through cultural conditioning, they created a place where some of the naturally best people in the world got together. Um, and that's not to take away from their accomplishments at all, but just to say that if you're looking at empirical evidence only, and you were to copy what one of these gyms are doing, that does not at all mean you are likely to get the same results that they got. So, that's kind of the limitations of using empirical, anecdotal data as the basis for making your decisions in Jijitsu. I just wanted to double-click on that because so many people in Jijitsu make their decisions anecdotally, right? They see what one of their their favorite coaches is doing and they just emulate it, but that's not always the best way to make decisions. Speaker 2: Agreed. And not just Jijitsu, I mean, I think a lot of people don't understand the difference between anecdotes and data. Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, it it is understandable if you haven't been trained in it, right? Because when you're looking at evidence, you tend to be looking at broad swaths of data, which are normally anonymized and several steps away from any direct impact on you. Whereas, if you're looking at something that is empirical, you're looking at a person's direct story, a person that you probably have some familiarity with. And just the way that humans are and the way that our emotions work, we we just weigh stories, especially when you can tie them to a personality that you know or a person that you know. Whereas broad data and broad studies just sounds like, ah, that's boring, grandpa, right? And it's easy for people to turn tune out and not understand that this broad collection of data can actually impact them significantly, even though it doesn't mention you by name, right? So, I think that's where that fallacy comes from sometimes. Speaker 2: But yeah, and and like the fact that poor decision-making has been propagandized into our like society, but yeah, continue. Speaker 1: I can tell you that like half of the business model around here is poor decision-making, right? Especially when you get into creating content for stuff like YouTube. Um, but I do also want to pick your brain on something else you brought up, which is the concepts versus techniques discussion. Now, I think you are probably in the same boat as me where because of the name of your brand, BJJ Concepts, people sometimes erroneously assume that you're all or nothing in on this concepts bandwagon and you're like, techniques are dead, they don't exist, only concepts. Um, and I know, of course, that that is not entirely your approach. So, I thought maybe this would be a good time to have you explain like, where does the line between concepts and techniques start to blur together? And what's your current teaching understanding of how you like to present that balance to your students? Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the simplest way to put it is just that like, techniques are just, uh, concepts in action. Right? Like, that's, you know, uh, it's just that the when we say techniques, again, like, I hate to say it, but like some of these phrases have just like, the well has been so poisoned, but like, when we talk about a technique, the way that somebody processes a concept or applies it is the technique. And some people have a more advanced or more effective, at least within a a certain time span, because obviously all this stuff is cyclical, uh, and things get solved and things get new things get developed. Um, but like within our current understanding, there are sort of like best practices. Uh, and that's, I guess, where I would say the technique stuff, uh, comes about is like, I can understand conceptually what I'm trying to achieve, uh, in a given context, in a given, you know, battle that we're having. Uh, but I may not have the absolute best, uh, way of doing it. And then I see that like, so and so who is, you know, a specialist at this particular approach, does their, you know, arm bar or does their, you know, knee cut pass or whatever, this way with this particular focus. And it that particular focus might not always translate, but if I can isolate why conceptually that particular focus works for them, then I can enhance my understanding. So, you know, the way that I teach folks is like, if you're trying to like, we talk about the like the the heart of our teaching method is, we want you to experience the problem live, and we want you to experience the solution live. And in between that, there are a lot of ways that we can arrive at that, right? So, the experience the problem live is just like, whatever we're working on, you need to be trying to do it on somebody who is trying to not let you do it. Um, so like this idea of which, you know, I think this is a bit of a straw man, but the idea of like dead drilling where there's just like a ersatz corpse laying next to you and you're just doing it on them. Like, I don't think that exists that much in very many gyms. I'm sure there are some really shitty gyms that do that, but like, I just I really don't know anyone that does that. So, uh, I I believe, but again, though, Rob, Speaker 1: I think that might be a survivorship bias or a self-selection thing, because there are many people in my community who say the same thing, like, I don't know any gyms that still do this dead drilling, is this even still a thing? But of course, the people who get into our types of communities tend to be the kinds of people who are looking for a better way to coach already. I mean, I can tell you, I started, this is I look, I'm an old ass man now, but back in my day, you know, when I started training at Gracie Barra, this was absolutely how they trained, right? It was like you would spend a third of the class just drilling on a corpse. Speaker 2: Oh, I I'm not saying these gyms don't exist. I'm just saying that at this stage in the like, in the Jijitsu world, if you're at one of these gyms, I mean, there are still really bad gyms, but there's there's they're becoming fewer and farther between. Like, when I opened my gym, and I I think I've used this phrase quite a bit, is like, it was hard to find a good gym. In like, let's say like the the the Vancouver area, it was really hard to find a good gym. Uh, not that I'm in the Vancouver area, but like my experience, I'm not going to reference Vancouver Island because Jesus fucking Christ, what a disaster. But like, you know, the the when I would go to Vancouver and we'd go to tournaments, you know, I could look at the gym name next to somebody, uh, who was competing against one of my students. I'd be like, well, that guy's going to suck. Like, there's literally no way that guy can be good because the gym they come from is not capable of creating competent grapplers. Whereas nowadays, I'm like, fuck, I can't like there's there's no process like that because it used to be hard to find a a good gym. Now it's hard to find a bad gym. They do exist, but I think that the the like, by and large, even if people aren't using the best methods, not very many gyms are using the worst methods anymore. So, I'm I'm just saying that I think it's a little bit of a, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Maybe it's 30%, maybe in some areas it's 60, 70%. Hell, there are probably a few towns where it's 100% of the gyms. I I mean, again, I live on an island where that is definitely the case. But I, you know, I think we're geographically isolated and as you get farther away from geographically isolated areas and you get more into like real time cities, you're not dealing with that very much anymore. Sorry for like the the big side track. Uh, but Speaker 1: No, I think I think it's important to discuss, right? I mean, like I said, my personal, talking about anecdotal data, right? My personal experience with these kinds of gyms, that's like 17-year-old experience now. I have no idea how those same gyms are training today. They could have grown out of this. But just to say that I I know these gyms do still exist because I hear about them, but I also think the growth of the sport and particularly the the efforts of people to improve the quality of coaching has made it less likely that you're going to wander into one of these gyms. Speaker 2: Much less. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I do I do live on the mainland of Vancouver, right? And when I started Jijitsu, there were maybe three gyms in the not just Vancouver, but the lower mainland who had like a legit, well-known black belt instructor who actually was like putting in effort to teach. There was basically three places you could train. That is not the case now, right? Now, people keep telling me like, hey, Steve, have you heard of like Sudden Death Martial Arts in Vancouver? And I'm like, I have no idea who that is. I've never heard of them. These gyms just pop up all the time. There is so much Jijitsu now that that that competitive pressure, I think, makes it harder for gyms to be crappy, right? It's probably a lot easier to be better quality than it would have been when you and I started. Speaker 2: Agreed. 100%, yeah. Um, yeah, but so to to back to the point, which is like the the experience the problem live thing, uh, usually means very much that. Like, we start almost every, uh, class, well, almost, when I say almost every, I mean, we've got we've also got classes where I don't do like instruction. There isn't, uh, like a a prepared class or there isn't a format of like, I'm going to show you this today. We have, um, a skills development class that's basically a flipped classroom, uh, or a reverse classroom model where people come in and each person is just working on something and I'm just available to answer questions. But like, outside of classes like that, uh, the the classes are going to start with, here's the situation that we're dealing with today. Partner A is is trying to achieve this, partner B is trying to achieve this, go. And then problems are going to arise. And then we we reconvene after a round or after a few minutes of people having these, you know, exchanges, doing these rounds. And we're like, okay, what what kind of problems are you running into? Oh, that problem, that problem. Okay. And now, once we start trying to solve the problem, that's when we get into, in some scenarios, it's just a really simple guideline. It's just, hey, try, you know, person A, try focusing more on this. If we're if we're trying to get, uh, one of the participants more skillful at a particular thing in that class, we might just give guidance to one of the participants. And then we just do it again. Okay, what results did you get? Okay, you're not getting what you want. Okay, now, let me tell you this specific thing. Here's this move called, let's say we're working on passing and people are getting to good knee cut positions, but their partner is constantly just framing their, uh, their torso or their shoulder, uh, with their top arm. We're like, hey, there's this thing called a rauw drag. It goes like this. And then we just go again. And then people start hitting. So, like, there there are multiple ways of arriving at, uh, you know, a usable solution. Sometimes it's just task-focused, and sometimes it's, here's a specific technique. It fits really well in this context. As long as we're getting them to understand that there is a context, and that's the thing that like, you know, if we want to talk about techniques, if you're trying to teach techniques absent context, that's where the idea of a specific technique really falls apart. Because you're like, hey, this here's this really great tool. It's a, it's a screwdriver. Okay, yeah, but like, I need to pry two objects apart. Well, if the screwdriver isn't a flathead and isn't shaped kind of like a crowbar, now you don't have a tool that's particularly useful. So, like, if the problem you're trying to solve isn't amenable to that particular tool, so like again, you could use a screwdriver to do the thing that a crowbar does, but it's going to have to be a certain kind of screwdriver. So, if you don't understand the context and what you're trying to solve and why the technique might solve it, then the technique of like, I'm going to grab your wrist and I'm going to push your hand across and I'm going to trap your triceps the way I would in a rauw drag. That's not very useful. So, I I think if as long as people understand that a a technique is really just a a movement that exists in the right context for a concept to be expressed, you're going to be fine. If you try to, you know, teach a technique without the without transferring to the student that like the context is what makes this available, then then techniques are terrible and then you should only teach concepts, right? I think it's it's just having a little bit of understanding of what goes where, uh, like solves a lot of problems. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well said and I I agree completely. When I got talking about time flying, when I started BJJ Mental Models, that was over half a decade ago at this point. And I used to advise people and say, you know, prioritize concepts over techniques. But I don't prescribe to that anymore. Um, there have been a lot of coaches, yourself included, but also Emily Kwok, Francesco Fonte, Charles Harriott, they've all been on the podcast recently talking about looking at, um, kind of the the difference between concepts and techniques, rather than looking at them as separate things, looking at them almost like a spectrum, right? Things can be more conceptual or more technical, and there's no right or wrong answer to which is better. You actually need them both, but a good coach will try to figure out which is going to be more helpful in the given moment. Um, techniques without concepts are a bit of a disaster because then people are kind of training blind. They don't really know what they're doing and they'll they'll probably eventually stumble into it, but not as efficiently as they could. The flip side, concepts without techniques is a problem too, because then you're basically just, you know, you're just giving yourself analysis paralysis. You're you're thinking but you're not really doing. You don't understand how these ideas that you have materialize in practice. So, a good coach will balance the two of those and they'll know which lens is best at any given time depending on what problem the student is working at. So, you brought up a great example there of sometimes, you know, you're 90% of the way there, but there's one little detail, one little variant that if you just thought of that or tried that, it would be a missing puzzle piece that fits into your conceptual understanding. Speaker 2: Exactly. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's where these two things balance. And I think that that polarities approach of putting concepts and techniques on the same spectrum is really important because at to your point, there's a lot of very combative coaching styles right now where people are basically trying to sell theirs as like, this is the way to do it. Um, but I I whenever I unpack this, I often find out there's a lot more nuance to this than people market it as, right? There there's good ideas everywhere, but Speaker 2: I mean, marketing is essentially the death of nuance. Speaker 1: That's a good that's a good point, right? Um, and I understand it, right? Because when people want to present their ideas, they want to present their strongest point first, but sometimes that results in either, um, those ideas getting overplayed or people misinterpreting how strongly they need to follow this advice. Um, and so often people will get something into their head like, conceptual thinking is the way to go. And they will go all in on that, but a good coaching process has like a spectrum of tools at its disposal, I think. Speaker 2: Agreed. Speaker 1: Yeah. So, something I want to ask you about then, Rob, I mean, you've been doing this for quite a while, not just Jijitsu or even teaching Jijitsu, but Speaker 2: But living, being being on this planet, it's been too long. Speaker 1: You you have definitely been alive for too long. I can agree with that. Um, but beyond that, just even within the realm of making Jijitsu coaching content, like you said, you've been doing that for over half a decade too. What do you do differently now in terms of the way that you teach today and what you've learned versus maybe the way that you would have taught say five years ago? What what's the evolution look like recently? Speaker 2: Um, man, it's that's that's it's it's hard to say when you're in it because like I I've been teaching the way I'm teaching right now for like the last probably three or four years. So, there's I'm sure there's been some gradual, maybe even longer than that. It's really hard to like, I would have to sit down and like, because I I don't take notes the way I used to. Like, when I was learning before I got my black belt, I used to take a lot of notes and I really don't anymore. So, it's hard for me to be like, what do I do differently now? Uh, I mean, I definitely try to, and I mean, this isn't differently, this is just this has been an ongoing process from the beginning, which is I try to teach less. Uh, you know, in the sense that like, I try to have people experience as much of the the material as much as possible and receive it as little as possible. Uh, so like the way that I would have taught a class 12 years ago versus six years ago versus three years ago, it's it's I try to I try to do less talking unless I think it's really important. There are like, one of the things that I've noticed, so like, okay, I I can pinpoint one thing. Okay. Um, so one of the things that I'm trying to do nowadays, and I and I don't think this is as much like, um, you know, coaching about Jijitsu. I think this is more just in general, I think people are fucked in the head a lot more than they were five years ago. I think we're living, you notice, huh? Yeah, I think we're living through, I mean, I think, I think it's it's obvious that we're living through pretty like, uh, you know, shitty like, uh, you know, drastically unpleasant times. Uh, you know, historically, across the world, like it's bad shit. We are just experiencing a a crazy amount of trauma. And so, I think that, uh, the awareness that I'm trying to bring to classes is there's a, uh, a term in psychology called, um, emotional dysregulation. And so, probably the biggest thing that I'm doing differently in the last year or two, aside from like anything specific to do with, you know, technical or conceptual or whatever, like Jijitsu instruction, is just trying to bring people's attention to the idea of emotional dysregulation and the fact that folks are showing up to class with their head firmly ensconced within their asshole and trying to get them to remove it from there so that they can actually pay attention to what is going on. Because people are literally like, absolutely not able to hear a fucking thing I say sometimes. They're so up in their head. Like, I can give a unbelievably simple instruction. And people are like, so hang on a second, so what are we doing? I'm like, dude, you're starting with both ankles and you're trying to get past the legs. I didn't sit there and like give five minutes of detailed instruction on how to do a reverse della worm entry to the worm bar, right? Like, I gave you a very basic fucking task. How did you not hear me? And it's literally just because like, whatever the fuck is going on in their life, they came in and they're just all fucked up. And you actually have to draw attention to that for people. I'm like, hey, folks, just a reminder, whatever was going on in your life before you set foot in the door, you're now in Jijitsu class and you are responsible for the safety of your body and another human being's body. Please, bring the necessary focus to that so that, you know, whatever's going on in your head, you have to leave it somewhere else. So, that is just something that I am trying to do is just like make people aware of emotional dysregulation and just like where to bring their focus. Speaker 1: Well, I think that this is a problem that has actually been going on for a long time and I think, you know, you could probably trace the start of it back to the emergence of social media and just what that's done to our attention spans and, uh, just constantly being bombarded with things that are intended to take our attention and get Speaker 2: Social media and and and what's it it's accelerated with uh quote unquote AI even though it's not actually AI, that's a marketing term. Speaker 1: My my actual hope with so-called AI is that it creates a whiplash effect where because people realize that anything could be fake, people close their minds to a lot of garbage and just become a bit more skeptical about the stuff that they see on the internet. That would be amazing if that happened. Speaker 2: Unfortunately, that's not how this shit works, right? Like, are you familiar with the quote from Hannah Arendt about how like the the purpose of constant lying isn't to make people believe the lies, it's to make people not believe anything? Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like intellectual nihilism, right? And so, the problem then is you can get people who just completely tune out and and opt out, which is its own problem. Speaker 2: I I think the downside is that if people think that anything can be fake, they'll just choose to believe whatever they want to believe even more than they did before. It'll be worse than social media alone. Speaker 1: Yeah, you could be right. Well, I think that again, this is actually where Jijitsu has a particularly unique ability to to reach and help people. I've been thinking about this a lot recently and, you know, what is the real benefit to Jijitsu? Why do we actually do this? In a world where it is increasingly difficult to get people together and engage in person as humans, um, Jijitsu is a really powerful opportunity to get people to connect with each other and to do something, to take them outside of their comfort zone. And I think that a lot of modern Jijitsu teaching needs to focus on that human side of things. Like, how do we how do we get people into the room, make them want to come here, make them engage with the crew? And it sounds like you're kind of thinking about that as well. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's it's honestly not one of my strong suits. I'm a pretty asocial person, um, and I I I don't think about that. Like, I I don't love Jijitsu for the social interaction. If anything, it's an unfortunate like, necessary adjunct. Well, I just like, you know, if if I could if I could do Jijitsu with robots, I'd probably prefer it. Um, like I I just I don't like I I don't easily, uh, adapt to or figure out social interactions and certainly not with large groups of people. Um, so it it's it's not a strength, but I do have people at my gym for whom it is a strength. And I do want to like, I do recognize that for most people, like, for me, it's about the Jijitsu and it's about being as good as I can be at it. I realize that that is not the case for like the vast majority of my students. Um, it it is a social thing and the the better job that we've done, uh, or as we've done a better job at, uh, recognizing that and accommodating that, we've become more financially successful as an academy. Um, I still don't fully, uh, swing in that direction as a business owner. For me, the priority is has always been like, the Jijitsu needs to be the the best it can be. Uh, but as I've gotten more and more away from that, I like I said, I've gotten more successful. Um, like only as a, uh, brick and mortar, uh, club owner, as a content creator, website owner, the the priority being the best Jijitsu possible has been the driving force with my success in that regard, well, that and the dick jokes. Uh, but the, uh, yeah, like the the the social aspect is important. Uh, it's just I'm not the guy that's driving that. There is a, um, there's kind of an organic community at my club. A lot of the people are friends and we do try to like have a, at least as far as the top-down stuff goes, we do try to have it be like, you know, let's not develop clicks, let's try to be friendly to everybody. Let's make sure that everyone is here for everyone else kind of thing. Uh, so that's the only area in which I try to steer the the social aspect of it. Um, but yeah, like I I definitely am not the like, you know, go and be super buddy-buddy with people kind of, um, Jijitsu coach. Uh, I just my my social, um, gas tank is not that big. Uh, I like I I basically use it up, uh, going to class and and teaching and being in a room with like, you know, 30 people. Uh, so I just I can't be the guy that, uh, that drives that, even though I do acknowledge the importance of it. Um, it's not my strength. Speaker 1: Well, there are some interesting social programs that you guys do at Island Top Team, which are pretty unique. I mean, the visiting student and I guess the visiting teacher program are two examples of that, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's you know, talking about like not being socially adept, one of the things that I I like as far as strengths of mine, I think one of them is self-awareness and knowing that I have pretty significant deficiencies in social interaction. So, what I've tried to do is compensate for that by implementing protocols that can help me improve in those departments. And the visiting student program is one of those. Not that that's the main driver of it. The main driver behind it was always trying to like give back to a community that, uh, that I received a lot of kindness from. Um, I should say they give back, pay forward. Because the the the part of my Jijitsu journey for those of you that haven't heard is like, I had a friend of mine who allowed me to stay at his house while I was training in South Florida. And I basically got to stay there for free. Uh, and I had coaches, uh, who allowed me to train at their clubs at various places in South Florida. So, I just received a lot of kindness and generosity, uh, while I was, you know, traveling around and like living on not very much money, uh, and trying to get good at Jijitsu. So, I've just tried to like pay that forward rather than like, obviously my, uh, my millionaire friend, multi-millionaire friend, uh, he could give a shit about me giving him my, you know, a couple hundred bucks for back rent from from 15 years ago. Uh, but I can, uh, definitely like turn around and try to offer something similar to people. So, that was the idea behind it. Uh, and yeah, we've we've hosted at this point, I mean, I'd say hundreds, but it's it's it's definitely more than just hundreds. It's it might even be in the thousands at this point. Uh, of people, uh, or like a thousand people that have come through Nanaimo, that have stayed at my house, that have trained for free for, uh, a week or more. Some people have come and visited and like stayed for a summer and stuff like that. Um, so that's a a program that we use both to enhance the experience of the people visiting. They get to experience our school and our teaching methods and they get to hang out with me, which is probably as much of a detriment as it is a positive, but nonetheless, some people seem to enjoy it. Speaker 1: Look, we just call it the authentic Rob Bernaki experience, okay? You know, it Speaker 2: Basically. Speaker 1: It's like drinking a really strong scotch, right? A lot of people are going to like it and get value out of it, but you know, it it comes with an aftertaste. Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, So, the uh, you know, like if you enjoy getting to experience drifting on your way to the academy, and then this is this might be something for you. Um, so yeah, it's uh, it's a program that we've run for, you know, the existence of the club. It didn't get any notoriety until I became mildly internet famous. So, for the first couple years, we didn't really have too many people coming out, uh, unless somebody, you know, met us at a tournament and was interested. And, uh, or it was friends of mine who just knew me and knew that I would do this for them. They'd come out and visit, but after 2015, 2016, um, when people started to hear about this through the work that I did with Stefan, we started to get, uh, a lot of inquiries, uh, and yeah, we've steadily hosted people since then. But, uh, it is coming to an end. I am retiring from the head instructor position at Island Top Team, uh, next summer. So, uh, I will still be teaching, but I won't be living full-time in Nanaimo. I'll I'll only be coming into town, uh, a couple days a week to to teach some classes. And I won't be the the guy who like, right now, I teach all of the evening classes. I teach the noon classes. I basically, the only classes I don't teach are the kids classes and the morning classes. So, I'm just reducing my teaching schedule, uh, here and, uh, I'm planning to increase my travel schedule. Uh, but also, while traveling, decrease the amount of teaching that I do. Like, it's right now, if I go, you know, like I just I did a a seminar tour not long ago and it was whatever, 17 days and I think I taught 14 seminars. I'm not really looking to do that after, um, uh, you know, I I'll I'll be in Europe a couple times next year, but like, other than those kinds of things, I'm not really looking to do those like grind seminar tours anymore. So, uh, the visiting student program will come to an end in its current format, um, sometime next year, probably around spring. I think May might be the last available month. We're we're currently booking like February, March, I think January and February are pretty booked up. We might have a bit available in March, um, and May. But, yeah, we're we're we're bringing that to a close, at least in the format that it exists. So, like, right now, people who visit can come and stay with me at my house. That won't be an option because I won't be living full-time in Nanaimo. We may continue the program in the sense that like, anytime anybody wants to visit and get their own place to stay, they're always welcome. Like, we we love visitors. We get tons of, you know, like this last weekend, we had, I think, 10 people visiting us. None of them were only one of them, sorry, was staying at my house. So, we had a bunch of visitors from Washington State. Uh, we had, uh, somebody from another club on the island. We had, uh, somebody from another club somewhere in Canada. Like, so we we we're still like, we're not trying to tell people not to come and visit. We get tons of visitors that don't stay with me. But as far as like that, uh, the the the Rob Bernaki, the authentic Rob Bernaki experience, that's coming to an end, uh, next year. And we'll we'll try to figure out how to still accommodate visitors. We might create, uh, a dorm situation at the academy. Uh, we're not really sure what we're doing, but if you want to come and like stay with me and, uh, yeah, experience drifting in my car on the way to the academy and all that, um, then definitely hit me up because we've we've really only got like a handful of spots left available. Speaker 1: Got it. Something else I wanted to ask you about too. You had mentioned a teachers program that you were thinking of kicking off. Do you want to talk about that a bit too? Because that's interesting. Speaker 2: Yeah, so because I plan on traveling a lot more, uh, and just like slowing down the pace of of my life because especially right now as I'm like racing towards retirement, I'm working so much. Um, I'm like extraordinarily burnt out. Like, um, to the point of like, basically to the point of depression in in in like certain periods of time where I'm like, fuck, I do not get to put my take my foot off the gas until this point. And it's like, man, some weeks are really hard to get through. Uh, especially when you're doing a ton of like conditioning work, getting ready for a tournament. Because like, last year, I worked at a a pretty high pace, but I wasn't competing at all. This year, I'm competing and I've tried to like add strength training and gaining a little bit of muscle. And I'm just like, unbelievably burnt out. Uh, so I'm very looking forward to really reducing the pace of my life. Um, but I also really enjoy, uh, going places and teaching new people. And so, I was kind of thinking of replacing, uh, the visiting student program in its current iteration with a visiting teacher program where it's sort of like the inverse where if somebody is interested in how I teach and wants me to come to their club and basically like show them, hey, this is how I run classes, you know, I could go somewhere for, let's say, a week. As long as you get me there, you don't have to pay me. Or if like somebody wants to bring me out for a seminar, let's say, and I teach the seminar on Saturday, but then I spend the entire week there and just kind of show you how I run classes and and how I teach and train people. Um, I'd be really interested in doing that. Provided somewhere I want to go. So, like, I don't want to say which countries, but I'm definitely less likely to say yes to certain places, certain locations. Uh, you know, like if you've got a fucking school in Bali, hit me up. Uh, but no, like there there's there are tons of places in the world that I'm interested in going. Um, and as long as you can get me there, uh, I will happily hang around and teach. Uh, and and also, frankly, the like the genesis of this is that I've got a, um, a pretty good group of affiliates that I really like, um, like I like them as people. I like spending time with them. Um, my affiliate program is not a commercial venture. I don't like the kind of pyramid scheme aspect of affiliation in Jijitsu. So, like, I don't charge for it. So, the people that I'm affiliated with are pretty much people that like, I just like them. And so, the idea originally was just like, hey, I'm probably going to go to my affiliates. Uh, like, I'm going to spend more of my time in, you know, retirement or semi-retirement or or whatever you want to call it, just going around to the affiliates and rather than just like going there for a weekend, I'll just go down for a week and I'll just kind of teach there and hang out with my friends and and do Jijitsu with my friends. And so, uh, you know, once I have met my commitments to my affiliates and I've got some extra time available, I just wanted to put it out there that like, anybody that's not part of like, it's not exclusive to my affiliate network. Obviously, that's those are my priorities and I'm going to go there before I go somewhere else. But any extra time or free time that I have to travel, um, I will happily go, uh, anywhere and just hang out for a week and show you guys how to teach Jijitsu, how I teach Jijitsu. Speaker 1: Nice, nice. Well, amazing, man. I mean, as I always do, I will put links to all of your stuff in the show notes. Of course, probably the best way for people to contact you is just a a DM to Island Top Team on Instagram, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, it's or just, you know, email me Islandtopteam@gmail.com. Speaker 1: Got it. You got a Gmail, man. We got to fix that for you. We got to get you like an @bjjconcepts.com or something. Speaker 2: I mean, I've got those, but I don't anyway, that's just the easiest one because it's like if you don't anyway, whatever, just use that. I don't want to get into why. Um, Speaker 1: Sounds good. Yeah. Speaker 2: Uh, we we going to hit up the uh the camp? Speaker 1: Sure, sounds good. So, I mean, I just want to give this stuff a shout-out because I know, Rob, you've got a a bunch of camps you're doing in the local area to where we live in BC and in Calgary up here in Canada. It's an awesome, awesome trip if you want to make it. I mean, if you've never been to this part of the world, I strongly recommend it. Um, it's coming up in the very near future, um, just a few weeks from now. It's also probably pretty affordable and easy for a lot of people. I'll start off with the Invermere one. So, for those who don't know, Invermere is just an absolutely gorgeous, like nature area in British Columbia, Canada here. One of the gyms in our community, Jijitsu Invermere is hosting Rob. So, if you listen to this and you think, man, sleeping on Rob's couch for a night sounds great, or having him sleep on my couch for a night sounds great. But what I really need is to be locked in the woods with this guy for three whole days, then that's probably where this camp is the best option. Um, I'll just talk about the area a bit because a lot of people don't know it. Um, but Invermere is actually not that hard to get to. You can fly to the Calgary International Airport and from there, um, there's a beautiful, uh, drive to Invermere. It's about three hours, so it's a bit long, but it's super scenic. Um, that said, though, we did talk to the organizers of the camp and they said that like, if you want to come, as long as you can get to the Calgary International Airport, they can probably arrange some way to get you to the camp. Um, but I would suggest if you love driving, it's an awesome drive. Speaker 2: It is. Yeah, so I just just to interject, uh, I bought a car in Calgary a few years back. Uh, it was, uh, a Jaguar F-Pace SVR. Uh, and I drove that thing back to Vancouver. And that that stretch that you're describing was absolutely epic, uh, in that car. It was a lot of fun. Speaker 1: Yeah. So, a lot of ways to get there. Speaker 2: So, the one that I'm really looking forward to is, uh, is wake surfing. Uh, so like Lake Windermere, I believe it's called, is real nearby. And we are going to be doing wake surfing on Lake Windermere, uh, in between or after the Jijitsu sessions. And there's like catered food and all that like, it's it's the usual like luxury Jijitsu retreat. But, uh, as somebody who has I personally run, uh, a surf Jijitsu retreat and surfing is just it's not for me. Um, but wake surfing where you're just getting dragged behind a boat, uh, sounds fucking awesome. So, I really can't wait to try it. Speaker 1: I will put links to check all of that out in the show notes. Um, if you want to make it easy, I'm going to put a link on our events page that's just BJJmentalmodels.com/events. Speaker 2: I've really grown to favor the camp format over any other type of like, you know, uh, temporary teaching format. I prefer it to to seminars. Speaker 1: Me too. Speaker 2: Um, not that seminars aren't great, uh, and like not everyone has the time commitment to go to a camp. But, uh, I think both from the learner's perspective and for me as a teacher, the camp format is is my preference. Uh, so, yeah, other than that, uh, if you're if you know, if you are in the Calgary area and you can't make it, uh, to this thing, um, we are doing a camp at Affinity, uh, which is my affiliate in Calgary, that's based around kind of like the ADCC rule set and optimizing your Jijitsu for ADCC, which I know that that might sound to people like, oh, well, I don't I'm not interested in competing or I'm not interested in competing in the ADCC rule set. Uh, therefore, this isn't for me. And so, like, I want to do a little bit of a pitch on like, why you should, if you're at all interested in revealing the deficiencies in your game and having a more complete, uh, grappling style, the ADCC rule set does funnel people into certain like, all rule sets have their, uh, like, I don't want to say like, they're they're cheater versions, right? Like, there are versions of a certain, you know, there are 80/20 or mini-max, whatever, like versions of preparing for a rule set. And with some rule sets, the mini-maxing makes you a worse overall grappler. Like, I would argue that the EBI rule set, if you try to mini-max the EBI rule set, you actually become worse as an overall grappler. Um, but the, um, the ADCC rule set, while there are that is a possibility, um, the way that I approach the rule set, rather than trying to mini-max being obnoxious at certain shit, um, I try to approach it from the perspective of there are things that I can get good at, and there are things that I need to be good at to defeat the people who are obnoxiously mini-maxing, uh, the ADCC rule set. And I've had pretty good results. For people who don't know, uh, my club has won back-to-back, uh, team championships at the ADCC Vancouver Open. Uh, I think we're the only club to do that in the ADCC open format. Uh, certainly in Canada. Um, and I myself have won every match that I've had in the ADCC rule set, except for one. Uh, and won the vast majority of them by submission. But not only that, I've won every kind of version of winning in an ADCC. So, like, I've won by points in regulation. I've won by submission during the points period. I've won by submission during the no points period. And I've won in overtime using, you know, takedowns. So, like, every way there is to win, I've won. Uh, so, I I think I have a pretty good understanding of this. And over the three days of this camp, we're going to be going over basically how to become the sort of complete grappler that you can beat people who are trying to be stingy in this rule set, which again, even if you're not interested in the rule set, even if you're not interested in competing in ADCC, adding these skills and how to gain and optimize these skills will just overall make you a much more complete grappler. So, September 12th, 13th, and 14th is the Affinity camp. And the Invermere camp is the previous weekend. So, that is, um, September 5th, 6th, and 7th. Speaker 1: I will put those links in the show notes just to make it easy for people to find. Uh, I'm just want to make people aware of this because this is a really great chance to not just have an awesome trip, but get some awesome Jijitsu in at what is just a fraction of what these kinds of things normally cost. So, do consider it if you're around in early to mid-September dropping in at these camps. Um, if nothing else, right, it's a great chance to have a mini-vacation. But again, links in the show notes. Rob, anything else that we want to say or should we tie this one up? Speaker 2: Uh, let's tie it up. Hit it over the head with a shovel and bury it. Speaker 1: I I thought you said we weren't talking about Epstein. Speaker 2: I guess we're the only ones that are. Speaker 1: Okay. Well, thanks, Rob. I really appreciate that as always. Good, uh, good tips on pedagogy, something I always love to share and talk about here. Um, and yeah, best of luck with the camps. Speaker 2: Thank you, man. Speaker 1: Thanks, man. Thanks to the listeners too, and we will talk to you in the next one. See you then.