Hero Worship vs. Admiration In BJJ (Episode 402)

What up guys? Welcome to this episode of the Chujitsu Podcast. Uh on today's podcast, we're going to get into some of the um different stuff going on in jiu-jitsu right now with like the allegations of, you know, sexual misconduct and bad behavior, um and, you know, a lot of that stuff that's going on right now at the time of recording this, it's like February of 2026. Um as we'll talk about in the podcast, I kind of waited a little bit to kind of think about it and see what was going on and kind of gather up some of my thoughts. I didn't want to make some sort of post about it or some sort of podcast about it where uh I feel like people are it's kind of like the news. It's like, you know, like when the news comes out really quickly and they get the story really wrong because they didn't think it through. They're just trying to be first. You know, I I don't really care about being first and I'm not and especially with something like this where I feel like a lot of people are just making memes and profiting off of people who are experienced have experienced something like really bad, traumatic, gross in some cases, like, you know, different different variations, different intensities as far as emotions go, but just not good, right? I don't want to profit off that. You know, I wanted to like sort of talk about it, but and I I but the thing is I did want to talk about it from a standpoint of like what I what I see it as and also to just sort of calling it out and also talking about that some of this behavior is not just affecting women. There's also a male side to it, although the way that it's the way that it manifests is a little different, right? And this but this breaking down of boundaries of trust. And so we'll talk about that. We'll talk about some different ideas around it. We'll also talk about the idea of how hero worship in a certain way, I think is almost necessary um or is very valuable to us. Um but when it goes too far and how to uh sort of kind of think about that. Uh but anyway, thank you guys for being here on the podcast today. Appreciate you guys for listening and watching. Uh if you guys want to check out our sponsors to support the podcast, you can do so by going to uh athletic, A T H L E T H C.com. They are a company that makes uh essentially microdosed THC mints with other cannabinoids along with it to produce a an effect or a sort of state of, you know, state of being that could be supportive to things like exercise, training, recovery, the whole deal. They have three different mints right now. They have one called rebound, which obviously, you can associate with sort of recovery and rest and that kind of thing. 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If it's great, great, keep buying the product, enjoy it, you know, get the benefits of it. If you don't, everybody's body is different. Maybe you don't feel it the same way. But if you do want to check out their products, use their website, charlottesweb.com and use the promo code Chujitsu 30 for 30% off the order. C H E W J I T S U 30. Also guys, you can check out our Patreon at patreon.com/thechujitsupodcast. And with that, you get a bunch of other perks and things like that. You guys know how Patreon works, right? Like you you support us for a very nominal fee and then on turn, we give you a bunch of extras. With that, one of the things that uh we just we just posted um or we'll be posting up in the next little bit, um it kind of goes to this idea of hero worship. And we sort of get into the topic of Helio Gracie and, you know, there's this mythological idea of who he is and there's kind of what I think is probably a more accurate version, which is a flawed human being. And I talk about in that Patreon with Eugene, kind of why it's a better thing. I think it's it's a better thing for Jijitsu. I think it's a better thing for for mentors, right? Um that that he's a human, right? Like opposed to being this mythical like figure that's never done anything wrong and um just invented leverage. But uh we'll talk about that and again, it's definitely not a diss to Helio as I talk about in that Patreon extra. I actually feel more admiration about for him after knowing more about him and what he did to help create the environment that we are in right now. It's like, I mean, again, without that guy doing what he did, we don't have what we have now. We're not training Jijitsu. That's just what it comes down to. So I have all the respect in the world, but after getting to know more about him through different readings, both Robert Drydale's book, Hickson's book and everything else. I have a lot more respect for him. Flawed human being but more admirable, more relatable. You can check out our Patreon at patreon.com/thechujitsupodcast to get more information on the Patreon and to join up. Also thanks to you guys for joining up who joined my regular um daily email that I send out. If you aren't one of the thousands that read it every day and you want to become one, go to the website at chujitsu.net/join j o i n and when you join up, you'll get access to a ebook that I give away and a video that go into being more focused with your jiu-jitsu, the whole idea of the guide is to help you have more focused training, goal-oriented training so this way you can get better at jiu-jitsu faster. That's the big goal and to get more from your open rolling instead of just going into the gym and having no ideas of what the hell you're doing. And then along with that, you'll then get my daily email where I go through uh whatever and anything that I think might be interesting or useful to you. Um Monday at the time of recording this, I went through a book that I just recently read and was sharing some ideas that I thought were really useful. Um timely ideas. Um and then the next day was a Q&A with one of uh with one of the members and then, you know, I think today is going to be some just some random idea that that came about when I was training the other day and a conversation happened and just sharing it with you guys to give you some ideas to to chew on. Um but again, people love reading the email and if you guys want to check it out and see if you like it, go to my website at chujitsu.net/join to join up. So, guys, with that said, let's get into this podcast and uh jump into it. All right guys. So welcome to the podcast today. We're going to get into um sort of a pretty it is a both very simple topic and a very complicated one at the same time. Um, you know, right now there's at the time of recording this, there there's been all these allegations towards um Atos and Andre Galvao. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And uh, you know, again, they they may or may not be true. I don't know. But you know, although I would say that it's pretty damning that like his whole team basically fell apart. Um, I've seen Exoduses like those in gyms before. I've actually been a part of one myself and um usually where there's some smoke, there's fire. And there was probably stuff going on and this was kind of it was like probably building up like a powder keg and boom, there you go. Again, I don't know this to be true. This is just kind of what I'm gathering from looking at it from the outside. Um where everybody just sort of falls apart and sort of leaves. But there's those things that are going on. And also, by the way, I I say this as a person who like I was a fan if you guys have listened to me long enough, I was a fan of Galvao's. Like I I really I watched him coming up in uh like 2008, 2009, 2010 when he was, you know, basically climbing up and I watched his career grow and I really liked watching his jiu-jitsu because I learned a lot from the guy. So I I say that with no like excitement or whatever, right? And I'm and and we're doing this episode kind of a little bit later because obviously I've watched a lot of people just crank out content like the next day as soon as the allegations were thrown out, as soon as stuff was happening, they're just chiming in and and doing the whole thing. I didn't want to do that because I don't want to feel like personally, I don't want to feel like I am uh trying to bank in on someone's on an awful occurrence that I hope nobody has to go through, right? I I you know, that that that's the reality. I see people like it's this idea where the news, I mean, they'll say whatever they can to get some views and I don't want to be that guy on YouTube or on social media that like will basically just, you know, parade someone's um terrible occurrence around and be like, well, I don't care. I'm just trying to get YouTube famous kind of thing, right? Um granted, I don't have to do that anyway. Like it's the channel's already built. I don't have to do any of that stuff, but I don't want to do it anyway. Speaker 2: You're not trying to exploit anybody. Like you're just trying to yeah. Speaker 1: But but it is a it is a subject that's worth talking about and there's a lot of angles to talk about it which we're going to get into today. Um, you know, and I'm not also let you guys know like I'm not going to sit here and virtue signal and be like, oh, this is so wrong. Of course it's wrong. We know it's wrong. Like again, you know, like sexual misconduct is wrong. It's very clear cut objectively wrong. Although I would say I was talking to my wife about this. Like people sometimes don't think about this. Sometimes like the western idea of what we think is wrong is not universal across the world. You know, like because because you know, I I I think it's objectively wrong to hurt children. Um Of course, yeah. You know, I I I think that, right? But again, there's other cultures that exist right now that have no so no such qualms um with doing bad things to children, right? No problem at all, right? It's part of their culture is normal. Um but again, I think for me, growing up in the culture that I did and looking at things the way that I do, and you know, when you see what those sorts of things do to children's brain structure and everything else, I think it's just objectively wrong. Um but at the same time, it's very it's a very complicated and tricky subject because you think about how close we are in Jijitsu, right? We're so close and we grab each other and we're wrestling around and um we touch each other constantly in in ways that, you know, if very subtly changed would be inappropriate, right? And I think that's sometimes some of the issues, right? where like, okay, this person says, oh this this guy he touched my neck in an inappropriate way. Well, we're touching each other's necks every day, right? Like it's kind of it there's this thin line that we that we play. We know when it's wrong, we know when it when it crosses a line. Um but again, it can be very tough for the person to come out and speak about it if they feel like that's happened to them. Um so you know, so hats off to those people for doing it if that those things did in fact happen to them. Um and they should, right? And so with that, we're going to get into the subject, talk about some different ideas that again, I'm trying to look at it a couple different ways so that it might be useful to people um for some different ways. So first off, um I've seen some people ask me, they've asked me this and I'm going to go through some of these questions and this is really what's been coming at me. You know, one is there just like a why are there so many bad people in Jijitsu, right? And um the reality is is I don't think there's some abnormally amount some abnormal amount of bad people in Jijitsu because you know, you think about it this way. It's kind of a signal versus noise issue, right? There is noise constantly happening, right? There's all kinds of jiu-jitsu stuff happening all the time. Most of it's positive. Most of the time when you see jiu-jitsu stories, they're positive, it's people competing, it's jiu-jitsu save my life, so forth and so on. That is the most common stuff you get all the time, right? And so that becomes noise. It's just blends in. You know, just like none of us um talk about the millions of flights that are happening happening safely and routinely every single day. But then there's a plane crash. All of a sudden everybody's freaked out to fly. They're scared to fly. They're, oh, I can't fly anymore, whatever or, you know, they're freaked out about it. That becomes a signal. And you know, again, for us as humans, we're trying to avoid certain um, you know, our bodies are wired for survival. And so it becomes a a signal. Ah, these these extreme signals basically then help us to avoid potential um harm. Also, you got to think about this, there's there's always this negativity bias that exists in us, right? Um, bad events typically weigh out or are weighted in our our thinking more than the good ones. This is why again, everybody ignores all the good stuff that's going on around them constantly, but somehow they'll fixate on this one bad story. It's why you can see puppy dogs looking at children's face and having this beautiful moment, but you can't stop staring at a car wreck. Um, you everybody has this negativity bias. And so you know, you get those things together and all of a sudden it's like you see, you know, a handful of stories that have come out. Also too, think about it this way. It started off with one story and now you're getting a lot of women too who are coming forward and saying, hey, this happened to me, this happened to me, this happened to me. So now you're having like probably a decade's worth of stories that could have been spaced apart and they're all happening at once. Right? Yeah, it's an influx. Because everybody feels like they can come come forward with it, right? And all this is coming forward and so it gives you this this sort of thought, oh man, this is we've got this terrible, this terrible culture and everybody's terrible and all the coaches are awful and so many bad coaches and I heard some guy say like Jijitsu culture's trash. There's so much bad stuff. I'm like, yeah, I don't think so. And again, this is because are there bad things that happen? Of course there are, but like think about it this way. This is not unique to Jijitsu. Think about how many every year there's a a number of teachers that we see that have inappropriate relationships with, you know, their young students. Most of them are female student uh female teachers, right? Some male some male teachers, right? So it's not a guy or a woman problem. It's just a you get put into this position of power and influence and all of a sudden, some people are messed up. Now, are most teachers bad? of course not. Most teachers are good people. They're doing a good job. They're they've got a noble profession um that they're that they're I mean that I I don't envy sometimes is with the way that society sort of just here basically people want to like here raise my kid. Um kind of thing, you know, and then they're supposed to make do with with limited resources and everything else, right? So you have this, but most teachers are good people. You have like doctors, lawyers and judges. I've seen all these stories where someone in this position of power, men and women alike will use it to force and coerce people into doing things they don't want to do. Sometimes it's, you know, sexual misconduct, sexual behavior, sometimes it's other stuff. And so you see it everywhere. But again, it goes back to this idea that I think most people are decent people. It just goes it's even like a political thing, right? Like you can you get into that idea where like right wing and left wing and all these stupid labels and you know, there are extremes to different groups. But you get you actually talk to people in person, get to know them, most people are decent people. They're just they're all trying to get by doing it doing the thing that they can do, right? Um and so I don't think that most coaches are bad coaches. They're decent you're usually decent people that are they doing this thing that they're passionate about and they want to share it with someone else, right? But I think again, because Jijitsu is getting bigger, it's growing, you know, you're going to have bad bad bad apples in the bunch. Um and then also too, you have the the this issue of closeness and contact. And so that can lead to, you know, an increase in it. But again, I don't think it's necessarily just, oh, there's so many bad people in Jijitsu. I think it's just you have you're playing a numbers game. There's always going to be bad people in any profession, in any space, and anytime people get a little bit of power, the I think power has a tendency to accentuate or maybe um perpetuate whatever sort of natural inclinations you have. So if you're like a really cool person, a great person, I don't think it's going to like turn you into an awful human. But if you maybe have some issues and you're kind of a messed up human being and you get some power, well, probably just going to make you a more messed up person because now you feel empowered to do it. Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of those uh people that are in power or have a lot of power, have a lot of control, we talked about the people around them. Like you have a lot of maybe yes men or the people you bring up or people are going to be kind of in maybe close to your line of thinking possibly. So I I think you're going to if someone's in power and they're not a great human being and they have some ill intentions, they might bring up people that are kind of like-minded. Right. They may not want the people that will call them out on on stuff to be close to them because that, you know, that's uncomfortable and that's not they're not feeding into their I guess their line of thinking. Um, but you did say something important about like the proximity and like the we're talking a little bit about before the podcast about intent, right? Like when you touch somebody's neck in a certain way, like I'm trying to get a choke versus I'm trying to touch them in a certain way that that maybe has different type of intent to it. Um, we're in such close proximity and we're touching and grabbing and holding on and and having, you know, our bodies like in close proximity, that can somebody has bad intentions, it's a perfect environment for someone to, you know, to do things they're not supposed to be doing or in a way they're not supposed to be doing and even play it off as something that is quote-unquote appropriate, you know, I just think it it it blurs those lines a lot and it makes it really tricky. That's why maybe somebody that is you know, trying to get some kind of uh sexual assault or whatever they're trying to do, they can maybe get away with more and for a longer period of time because it may not look like a whole lot. you just never know. Speaker 1: Well, and especially from what I understand kind of like you got to test the waters, right? So you don't go you don't go like let's say if you're um a person that's going to try to take advantage of this, you know, child, teenager, you know, you're not going to go up to them out of the blue and randomly just drop trow and then expect something, right? Sure. What do you do? You kind of like you you you test the boundaries. Maybe you do a little something, see how they react and then keep pushing it, pushing it, pushing it, right? Um I remember reading a story about a female inmate who would basically she had a system for how she would lure these prison guards, these male prison guards into doing stuff with her, into doing sexual acts with her. And it basically from what I remember and I could have this wrong, but what I remember she would that you had to have your shirt buttoned up to a certain button. She would undo that one button and just just one and just see what they would do. And if they didn't check her on it, she's like, I got him. And she had this whole elaborate process of how she would slowly simply chip away at this male guard and then until eventually they like I remember I actually went to um I actually went to this this prison um where it was happening. This is like 2010 or whatever. and they had this this this area it was called the Wall of Shame. and it had all the prison guards faces up on it who had done this. Really? You know, yeah, yeah. So like, you know, basically getting lured in and roped in. So, you know, I think people that do that, it's like they have a they have a process that they go through. I don't I don't know about it, but from what I understand, right? And so, you know, obviously starts off very small and then slowly, you know, things lead to places that they shouldn't. Um you know, and with this really comes down to to in my sort of thought is, you know, like I said, the breakdown of boundaries. And those can exist both this is like a sexual misconduct thing, right? And this is happens especially against women, not not only against women, but primarily, you know, against women. But then there's other issues that can happen with men that are inappropriate um and and different. I'll give you some ideas. So, I had an issue where years ago, one of my first coaches, like I started training with him and great like as far as the jiu-jitsu goes, everything seemed to be good. But the guy just outside of the gym wasn't great. And again, not that I necessarily expected a person to ever be great or perfect. I don't. Never did. Um didn't really care, you know, I didn't really hang out with him that much outside of the gym, but I remember there was a point where a lot of times with money and with certain relationships, he would use his position as the coach that people wanted to help out and he would basically burn these people. You would see these people come in and he would use them, you know, they would come in and, you know, he would, you know, get them sucked into this this group that we had and would, you know, extract in some cases lots of money from them and, you know, or other things and things like that, use his power there and uh his influence with them and then they would just get screwed over. And I saw it and this amongst other things was like I didn't like it. And there were other complaints that a lot of us had, so I left the gym, right? This was back in like 2007. I remember after I left about five or six other guys left, high ranking guys in the gym at the time. Granted, you got to keep in mind, this is 2007. This gym probably was rocking, you know, maybe on like a really, really big day was like 20 people. Um total memberships because at the time I was one of the gym owners, total memberships at the time was like 50. You know, maybe 50 people. You know, like not not much. So you say like, oh, it took like, you know, 10% of the gym away. It's a big number, you know, and so what had happened was is when I left, all of a sudden you saw this, oh, we we can leave. And it's kind of like, yeah, we're kind of upset about this stuff too and I guess, all right, I'm going to leave too. And I remember um, you know, people left within about a year, a bunch of people left and we all kind of had problems. We just didn't talk about it that much and then eventually we were just tired of it. And you know, and this is why I was saying that, you know, some of these allegations that are coming out for these different coaches, I don't know that they're true, obviously, because again, there's there's a whole lots of stuff that can be going on. I have no clue whatsoever, but again, the damning thing is that a lot of these high ranking people from these gyms, they're not staying there. They're not standing with them. And and you know, to me, if you if you truly believed in your heart of hearts that the person did nothing wrong, you you're like, I don't think they did anything wrong. I know the person, I know them well. I don't I think this is all BS. And you don't stand with them because you're scared of the mob. Well then that that makes me kind of sad because, you know, I would rather you like stand by your guns and, you know, maybe eat some some some some, you know, nasty comments or whatever, but stand by your friend if you thought that they were true, you know, uh uh not doing those things. But to me it's sort of telling that everybody just left and you know, they're all doing their PR piece like, you know, I stand with this person and uh I am now separating myself. It's not spoken like a human. It's like they're very they're dotting their eyes and they're trying to keep it nice and whatever. To me that's damning. To me that's like, oh, you're you're not speaking like a human. It's even like like the the post to the post that were coming out to deny it, it wasn't like a guy getting on his phone and saying, no, this is this is not true. It was very like contacted a lawyer, hey, what do I say? To me that's damning, right? To me that's damning. So everybody's leaving. So you know, and again, that's what happened at our gym. There was all these problems going on and everybody left. High ranking people, not not like not low ranking people. And I'll give you one more point and then I'll let you jump in. There are different boundaries that are crossed and you really when you're talking about a coach, you simply have to ask yourself the question, would it be inappropriate for someone else to do this if they weren't my coach? Right. And if the answer is yes, then it's probably, you know, there could be some exceptions. It's probably, you know, not appropriate. And if you have something in your gut telling you that something's wrong, you should probably trust your gut because there's probably something going on, right? Um, I can tell you that I had a message from a student and this is crazy because I remember when I started doing the YouTube videos about 10 years ago, I started getting all these messages about these crazy ass jiu-jitsu coaches that would just flip out on their students, right? And don't get me wrong, Eugene's been around the gym long enough like, you know, sometimes some of us we've gotten scraps. You get in those hard scraps, you know, you're both kind of getting a little hot with each other, but then afterwards you bro hug it out and it's all fine. Right? Those those are very normal instances and I think honestly those are healthy to learn how to regulate and deal with those emotions, right? Like a lot of people in society don't know how to deal with it when they when they get kind of hot and uh frustrated or whatever. Um and so, you know, you um, you know, that's normal. That's happened plenty of times in the gym. You know, I I can I can definitely tell you I've I've gotten rough before with people and then afterwards like we kind of bro hug it out and it's fine. But like there was this video that I was watching and this was like an older blue belt. He's probably like 50-ish, right? And he sent me this video in confidence, by the way, which I'm not going to post it because if you guys actually know what confidence means, it means, you know, between you and me. And he was looking for some for perspective on it and I watched this video because everybody, you know, has their video they have their cameras on tripods now where they can record their rolling so they can watch themselves roll, which I think is a good idea. Um so they can see kind of what they look like. And he has the coach in the Kesa Gatame. The coach gets out of Kesa Gatame and starts cussing at him and then proceeds to yank and again, this is an older guy, yanking him around, throwing him down, putting knee on belly, just I mean, like the whole team stops rolling and just watches. And again, if that was just a really rough roll, they wouldn't have thought anything about it, right? But a boundary had been crossed where his intentions were no longer about training. It was just to be mean because he was frustrated. And again, the guy wasn't doing anything wrong. He had a Kesa Gatame, a traditional Kesa Gatame pin, probably was sitting putting some pressure on the neck, but again, you just tap tap the F out, no big deal. Hell, I was rolling with one of my blue belt or purple belts the other day. He tapped me out, no big deal. You just move on. And so he gets up and he's cussing at him, he's yelling at him, getting frustrated. And you know, this blue belt like he's kind of like, oh shit, what just happened? He sent me the message and I was like, bro, that's super inappropriate. You know, I would definitely talk to because I think this was an assistant coach. I would talk to the head coach 100% and if you don't get some sort of, you know, some sort of apology, something to like, you know, reconcile that, I I would leave because that's inappropriate. And that's a crossing of a boundary because, you know, it's not sexual misconduct, right? But there is a boundary that we know of with when it comes to trust and safety. And so when we roll, no matter how hard we're going, there's still that lining that like, hey, we're trying to be safe with each other so we can train tomorrow. And if all of a sudden, I start yanking you around out of anger and I'm pissed off and cussing at you, we're no longer there. And so those boundaries there, again, and again, as I said, that roll that that when the coach turned it on like that and started being if you took out the cussing and it just turned into like grunts and like two guys getting after it, probably wouldn't have been a thing. You know, even if the if the coach's intention was just to have a hard roll, probably wouldn't have been a thing, but because of the intention. This is like Ralph Waldo Emerson would talk about the idea that the I'm going to bring it up. It's a great quote so I don't want to just paraphrase it here and then I'll let you jump in Eugene because I know you got some ideas to I have you thanks, yeah. The effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. So again, the the the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. So if you like you and I are going, if the the where those actions proceed from is a place of like, I'm just trying to do this technique and I'm trying to push my training partners and I'm trying to make myself better. If you're going hard, you're going to feel it, right? If I'm rolling with you and I'm like, I I just want to take this guy's face off and mess him up real bad, whatever, even if it's the same level of like overall intensity and everything else, it's going to feel different, right? And this is why, hey, like when we were talking about like with like the inappropriate behavior, okay, maybe I I breathe in your ear a little heavy. Maybe I touch your neck in a certain way. Because I can tell you, I've I've touched plenty of men and women in places where it would be completely inappropriate if it wasn't for me trying to do a technique in jiu-jitsu, right? Of course. You know what I mean? It's just it's it's the intent behind it. And that is where that goes. And so we it can be it can be really tough sometimes to put your finger on it, but we know it when we see it and we know it when we feel it. And so it's a crossing of boundaries and I think that's what you have to be on guard for. And again, um it's if it's inappropriate, like and something happens, you have to go to the coaches, the people above it and if not, then leave. Don't let it progress. Don't let it continue, just get the hell out of there. Um go find a different gym and you know, whatever else. No no amount of world championship medals are going to, you know, make you feel good and reconcile that if you if you deal with that kind of stuff. So. Speaker 2: Yeah, if you if you get a a world title but you know that like you're in this terrible environment, it's not going to be what you it's not going to be what you wanted it to be. It's going to be tainted. It's going to feel tainted. It's going to feel bad. So you have to kind of give up a almost like Speaker 1: It's like a Faustian it's like a Faustian agreement. You're dealing a deal with the devil. Speaker 2: Yeah, you're kind of giving up like part of your soul for this like thing essentially, which is kind of hard, right? Yeah, it's like well and that's not Speaker 1: I'll give you I'll give you everything you want if you do this, right? You give me your soul. Speaker 2: I think you brought up a couple of good points. one is like the ultimate line, the ultimate boundary is safety, right? Like I've got my kids in Jijitsu. I've got um, you know, I've been doing Jijitsu for a long time. There's other people that are at the gym like safety is the ultimate thing because like we whether it's physical, uh like emotional, all this other stuff. I mean literally like I mean like you could have my arm in an arm bar and and freaking break my shit if you had to. If you wanted to, if you were mad at me, if you wanted to do that. Like so we have to have this ultimate trust in each other on safety and like if that's that if you don't feel safe in your gym and everybody's got a different boundary or maybe different things. That's kind of the question I was going to ask you. It's like when do you know like when is it enough? Like when have you reached your point of like, hey, this is the point of no return, I got to leave, right? Whether it's seeing your your uh training partners that you care about get, you know, taken advantage of, whether it's seeing even something or yourself dealing with something inappropriate or somebody like roughs you up, you know, like that it's just there's not like just one specific like hey, everybody has this boundary at this at this level. Like it's it varies for everyone. Um, Chewy for you, like being the first one or being one of the first ones to leave a gym is kind of hard, right? And it's like it takes a lot. You got to like, man, I'm giving up a lot. I'm leaving friends, I'm leaving uh this environment that's helped me be successful. It's like you even though you may not like everything about your coach, they did help you get to a certain level of accomplishment. leaving that's kind of scary too, right? Speaker 1: Well, it's scary and there's still aspects of that person that I still care for and like. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, and does the good outweigh the bad kind of thing. Um for you like just in your situation leaving your gym, what was like the breaking point for you? Because you saw certain things like, man, this shit's not right. It doesn't feel good to me. Something internally is telling me. What was like the point for you that was like, I just can't. I just can't continue to be here. Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, sadly it's it wasn't because of like just um him, you know, screwing people over with money or whatever, right? At the time for people to have like sort of some context, I was a purple belt and at the time like I was the main, the best student, right? I was like the best guy on the mats and I was I was holding, I wasn't like I wasn't really I wasn't making any money from it, but I was the I was the holder of the of the lease. And so the lease was in my name to the gym. And so like every month like I was responsible for making sure that that gym payment got made. Um, you know, stupid me doing that, shouldn't have done that. And so what happened was is when I left, that payment was still due for like like another two years. I mean like, you know, I remember that used to sit on like a pit in my stomach every day, like every month and there was a couple months where they were late and the landlord would message me and I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to come up with this like, I think it was like just under 2,000 bucks. I was like, I don't know how I'm going to come up with this money. Uh, whatever. Maybe in 1500, I can't remember. Um, but it it was a it was a it was a money enough money that at the time I did not have. But for me, like it started off where like just many of us would kind of talk about stuff we didn't like that was going on, uh, especially stuff that would revolved outside of the gym, you know, that kind of thing. Everything from the conduct of our of of the way that they would sometimes show themselves online through message forms and things, um, you know, sometimes the way that they would not um stick with the financial agreements that they had made with people and different stuff like that, right? And so all these things and then sometimes there was, I don't want to say there was never any there was never any inappropriate behavior that I knew about with any of the female students in the sense of like on the mats or anything else like that, but there were times where you could see I they maybe sometimes a little bit weird or inappropriate outside of the gym kind of thing. And again, never like never to the point that I know of where there was any sort of assault or anything like that, but just like, you know, just not not not ideal. Not not what you want to see from a leader. Right. And so for me, eventually there was a point where you see this stuff going on, the team's still together. So you're like, you know, when we're in the gym, everything's fine. Just outside of the gym, I'll stay out of it, right? I'll just kind of go my separate ways and I'll stay out of it and just kind of train. And then the training started to really suffer because, you know, this particular coach just sort of like, you know, just wasn't giving their all. I remember coming my my job had taken me off the mats in a in a big way for about six months because I had a really crappy schedule and then once I got my schedule switched, I came back to training and the training was just was just you could just tell it was the coach wasn't interested. It was they were just I don't know if they were dealing with, they just weren't interested in that stuff. So I left after that because at that point it's like, all right, we're already unhappy about all this stuff. None of it's overtly illegal or anything else. It's just not like it's not the leader that I want personally, right? Because I I'll talk about this in a second, hero worship versus admiration. If I'm going to have a leader, I want a leader that I can look up to. I want someone that I want to aspire to be, right? And so I was like, I don't I don't really want to be this. And but it's like, you know what, the training's good, the team's together, so we're all right. Like we'll just I'll focus on that stuff. And then when like the training got really bad, it was just like, I I I there's no reason for me to be here. And that's when I left. Right. Um, you know, amongst other things. And even sometimes the environment inside the gym would get toxic where I remember me and uh one of the guys Robert, we talk about this where when he and I would roll, we were both kind of like the the good students, the best students and a lot of times it was like we felt like we were in the gladiator, you know, the Coliseum where the emperor is watching, you know, like telling us to beat each other. It made it really hard to experiment and play around with different things because you felt like you were constantly being held to like you have to win this round, which I don't think is a healthy environment for growth. You know, it can make you tough. It can make you tough and sharp, but it's not going to be a healthy environment for growth. And so that was when I leave. So I didn't leave at the first sign of anything. I you know, and again, I don't think most people do. you left when it felt like there was just no reason to be here anymore. And I think probably that's for like what you see what's going on right now, it's probably a lot of people's situations. There was probably stuff going on in those gyms where people are leaving from and there were probably stuff going on and you know, it maybe was different stuff. It may have be maybe wasn't what they see going on right now, but maybe there was different stuff. And you know, you just kind of deal with it, whatever, you know, like that's okay. And then eventually it piles up, piles up, piles up. Like I said, like a powder keg that just needs a spark. And as soon as it gets that spark, it's like, okay, there's no reason for me to be a part of that. And that's kind of what happened. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just yeah, it makes sense. It's unavoidable. Like I think it goes to the point of no return. I think everybody reaches that point of no return where like, you know, the the bad outweighs the good and and you you know, I I think like Speaker 1: Well, have you ever been in a relationship where like a like a relationship with a woman or a man, right? And for for everybody listening, obviously Eugene has not been in a relationship with a man, but you've been in a relationship with a woman where there's warning signals, you know, and you ignore it and you ignore it, you work around it, you see the good in them, you know, there's good times you've experienced and so you try to work around them and you know, that whole thing sometimes you underplay what's going on and then eventually you're looking at it and you're like, damn, this is what am I doing? You know, and then eventually you got to cut it loose because at that point you're like, you're hanging on to a person that probably was never real anyway. It's like a a this person that you've attached to maybe in the beginning, this person was trying to show that they were or maybe they were in the beginning, but that person is gone and you're still kind of hanging on to those memories of that person as if that's who they are versus look at you look around you and see, oh, this person is a very different person than I expected once we got past the, you know, the early early phase. Speaker 2: The honeymoon phase, right? Yeah, it's like they're real it's like once the facade fades away, like the realness comes through. We were talking about, you know, with leaders and people in power, like is it like does power corrupt them or are they just always had this these things that were kind of inside of them, maybe hibernating and then they get more power and so there's like the the guard rails come off and like, wow, I'm I'm powerful. I'm I'm a leader, people look up to me. I have all this control. Like I can kind of do what I want. So I'm going to let these these little inner things I've been hiding kind of come out and see what I can get away with essentially, which is the chicken or the egg, right? It's like were they always like this and now they're just coming out, the stuff's trying to starting to show because the guard rails are off or are they, you know, they weren't like this and then the power corrupted them and you know, we seem to think that those things were probably inside of them is just kind of put them puts a magnifying glass onto them and it starts to really show in a more prominent way because they don't because the environment they've built, they're kind of you're you're the person. Like you're you don't have to answer to anybody. So it's like nobody can tell you what to do and you're like you feel that you can get away with anything. That's not the case. You know, obviously, you got to you have to if you're a a teacher, an instructor, whatever, you have to, you know, your students are the ones that are going to pay your bills essentially and you don't have students, you don't have a gym and you don't have a livelihood. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean there's there's that obviously the livelihood part, but even just your own soul, man. I don't know. I um Yeah. you know, this this is just me man. you know, I I think again we're going back to your idea of like what came first. It's like, you know, the the artist's idea, did the drugs come first or did the artist's creativity? Which which one was there? Did they need the drugs for the creativity or was the creativity there and the drugs came next? Who knows? Um I tend to think that all those compounds and things like that simply bring out more of you. It's like steroids as an example. You know, back in the day they would always say, oh, steroids are going to give you a roid rage. You're going to turn into some raging butthole, right? They even have that made for TV movie. I think I think it was with Ben Affleck where he like they South Park did a great episode on it with uh Jimmy where he just beats every beats everybody up. Um when he's getting ready for the special Olympics, he's just like juicing up and then, you know, like his girlfriend's like, what are you doing, Jimmy? He just like beats her up, beats her his mother up, the whole deal. And you know, everybody that I've ever known to use them and I've known plenty because I've hung around, you know, weight meat head circles and you know, I used I I'm on TRT now, but like back in the day like when I was in my early or younger days, I would actually use heavier doses when I was lifting weights and stuff like that. And I remember like you you saw guys and like if they were cool people, they were just cool people. Like that's just what happened. Um but then you would sometimes see where a guy was kind of a jerk already and as soon as he started to kind of get a little bit bigger and felt kind of better about himself, he would get become a bigger jerk. You know, it wasn't like you it wasn't like you took the coolest dude you've ever met and then all of a sudden you give him a little like testosterone and he just flips out and starts beating people up, right? That that was never the case. And I think sometimes that's what happens, right? Like these these experiences or these these places of status that people hold, I don't think they create something that wasn't there. I think they simply just give it an outlet. They give it they give them the opportunity really is what it is. You know what I mean? Like when you think of money, they people talk about money corrupts. To me, money is just opportunities. Really, that's what money gives you. It gives you opportunities to do what you want to do. And so when you get a when you get a lot of money, that just gives you opportunities to do things that maybe you wanted to do already and you're like, okay. I don't like you see all these, you know, the Epstein stuff going on right now. Like I don't think you take a reasonable human being and give them money and all of a sudden they want to go like, you know, um molest young girls, right? and assault young girls. I don't think that's what happens. I think you're just a you're a effed up human being and that simply gave you a means to do it. Uh personally, that's my my thought, right? Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Um but there is an idea that I wanted to touch on that I think is important because you know, I've seen this idea of we need to, you know, end hero worship in Jijitsu and that kind of thing, right? And I'll make a distinction between them, right? Between hero worship and sort of an admiration. So hero worship where you worship someone like they're some infallible God and you don't see wrong in them and you just turn a blind eye to that stuff. Yeah, that's that's probably a bad idea, okay? But finding someone that you can project onto some of the things that you want to see in yourself can be a beautiful thing. It's something that we do all the time, right? Like my son, just as an example, he watches everything that I do and mimics everything that I do. Like we'll literally be sitting down and if he sees my leg crossed, he'll cross his legs like me. You know, and like we read he'll see me reading a book, he'll go grab a book and sit on the couch with me and he'll look through the pictures and we're reading books together because he's projecting onto me, right? And we do this sort of unknowingly, but then there can be you can do it intentionally too. Um but going back to that idea, right? Like I remember seeking out leaders at different times, um and looking for people that were doing things that I wanted to do. Um I remember one of my coaches, Sean Hammonds, I went down to his gym in 2000 and 2008, 2009 and I would go down, I would like basically get up at 6:00 in the morning. I would drive from Louisville to Nashville. I gained an hour because it's on central time, we're on Eastern. And so we'd go down there and would usually get there around 10:00, do their like early morning competition training and then would stick around for their like sort of afternoon session and then I would take whatever I was learning, I would drive back up to my gym and that night I would teach the same teach it to my students and would sort of show them, you know, would actually just use it on them and then kind of do that whole thing. But when I went down there to train with them the first time I did it, I did it for a week. I went down there for like a full week. And I remember just seeing just watching, seeing how he was with the students, seeing this big group he had developed, um saw the champions, saw the sort of atmosphere that was there. And I was like, I I want this. I want I want this kind of atmosphere. I want an atmosphere where everybody's training hard and everybody was buddy buddy with each other and there was this common push of like we got to do like we're in this together kind of thing and you had this leader bringing people together to do something super cool. I I really enjoyed that atmosphere. And so like I'm not trying to be Sean, but I projected using him to sort of use him as a model that I could work with, to give me to give me some road map, right? Because you know, a lot of times as humans we're trying to figure out ways of being and modes of being and how to get here, how to do this and we all do this unknowingly or we can do it intentionally. And so I did it. Um, you know, and again, it's not that I don't admire Sean because of course I still do. He's still a good friend and a coach and everything else. The the issue is is that when you mentor with someone like whether you hold someone as a mentor or you as a hero, I don't think hero is a bad term, right? Heroes can be broken too. We can understand that they're human. The difference between worship and admiration is that hero worship is admiration that basically never came home. There's a book, um, it was an idea from a guy, you'll hear some of these esoteric sort of like neo-ans and uh and psychologist talk about this idea of gold. And again, you know, you could not like it. again, I I think the idea is useful. there's I read this one book and I couldn't read any of the other chapters because I thought it was pointless, but there was this really cool idea where the guy I think his name is Robert Johnson, talked about this idea of inner gold and he was talking about the fact that we we project on we project our gold onto other people that we want to see in ourselves, right? We we we get them to hold it, we get them to help we get them to help bring it out of us, but then we got to take it back, right? You can't be there forever. You know, just like our our sons and daughters, right? They they look up to us, they project their gold onto us and then they take it back and then they got to go look for someone else. As a kid, maybe there was a a boy or a girl that you looked up to who was a little bit older than you and you projected onto them because you thought they were so cool, the way they did things, the bike that they had and then you eventually look to someone else to help you, right? And I think that that's the difference, right? Like it's hero worship again again like people like where they're like they don't make mistakes, terrible. Having a leader that mentors you or gives you guidance and gives you a mode of being that is that gives you this this thing that you can look up to that, you know, brings this whole group together. I think can be an absolutely beautiful thing and I think honestly in some cases it's necessary. You know, I see even some of the there's a lot of women that are coming out in Jijitsu speaking out about the subject and you know, talking about the idea of ending hero worship and stuff like that. and I'm like, there are going to be women right now that are going to admire you and they are going to in a way worship you. not as not as infallible, but they're going to do it because they're going to see you as a leader and they are going to project onto you the person that they want to become, right? And they're they're doing that. And so it's like to me it's like it's not about it's like the idea I've seen people say like we want to get rid of this hierarchical structure or whatever. Good luck on that. That's just how humans sort of organize themselves. They just do it over and over again. It's you have a million different groups and governments and everything else and always there's like a pecking order. Even in a wrestling room, you you get a guy where there is no rank and you will know who the guy, the best the best men and women are on the mat, you will know who it is. They they've risen up in the pecking order and they have a a sort of a of disproportionate share of the influence and say on the mats, right? Um because of what they can do. And so you can't necessarily get away with it. I just think it's more of like understanding human nature so that then you can you can work with it. And the idea of like hero worship terrible, but hero admiration, like following a hero, following a leader, those kinds of things with the understanding that this person is broken, they're they're a broken human being and if they do bad things that you should hold them accountable or not turn a blind eye to it. I think that's a really good and useful thing uh for us. Speaker 2: No, I I agree. I think having admiration for someone, you know, you see them they've accomplished some things that you maybe are seeking to accomplish. I think that's huge. I think everybody needs a a mentor. Like everybody does. That's how we, you know, why do we go to a Jijitsu gym? Because we see someone that can teach us how to accomplish, you know, learning Jijitsu or a world title, whatever that is. But we also shouldn't go to them and think that they're perfect in every way because they're not. I mean, they're human. And we know humans are fall. Like we all had heroes growing up, you know, I'm big into comic books. like my favorite, you know, comic book hero is or superhero is Wolverine. Well, he's incredibly flawed. Incredibly flawed. He's got you know, he's powerful and he can regenerate, but he's also has his rage and lack of control and there's just a lot you just have to understand there's qualities that this person may have if you're looking at a mentor, but also they're not perfect. Speaker 1: Which makes him more entertaining by the way because he because we all can relate with that. Speaker 2: Right, right. Yeah. So like I think um if you have hero worship, you're kind of blind to that. you see this someone is like untouchable almost, like infallible, like they don't have any any kind of flaws or perfect in every way. and I think that's just going to lead to disappointment. Um, you know, admiration I think is kind of knowing that they're also flawed, not perfect, but you are willing to learn from them and understand that there's there's certain things you're going to hold them to a standard too. like you're not going to get get let them get away with murder, you know, with anything. like you understand that they that's they're human just like you know, just like everybody and they have accomplished great things, they have great skill set, but that's kind of that's where you have to and I think you have to have a leader. I think we all have to have a leader. like because then there's chaos. If we don't have leaders, we're not going to have chaos. We have to have someone that's kind of maybe has the best interest of whatever if it's the school or has gives some direction for growth and for, you know, progression. Speaker 1: There's a book, um, if you guys have ever read it, the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, uh fun book, very like esoteric stuff. So, um, if uh it's all about like sort of archetypes, sort of based off like sort of neo-an ideas. Um, and you know, in the book they they talk about this idea that there is each one of us has kind of a a warrior, magician and lover sort of brewing inside of us, right? And there's this there are different spectrums in which they can exist. There's the sort of well-actuated sort of, you know, version of say the warrior and there's also this like shadow version of the warrior, right? Um, and you have these different things. Then you have the king energy that's in every one of us and that's kind of your centering. So as an example, your warrior is almost like the archetype archetypical sort of side of your brain, your body that basically is going to assert himself into the world, right? Um, maybe this is through fighting, maybe this is through business, whatever, right? Well, the warrior that doesn't have a worthwhile goal is just a just a disaster, right? They can become a sadist, they can become a masochist, they can become a mercenary that's just fighting everywhere, fighting every battle that there is. But a warrior in their idea that is aligned with their king energy is fighting for a noble cause, a worthwhile goal, right? And then you can see that these some people embody different elements of these of these four in big groups, right? We we know people that are like the just the hard charging warriors, we know the people that are your magicians or your you're basically your the guys that can just like, you know, intelligent people that can make things, that can create, right? And then you have people that are the king energy, your leaders. And those leaders have to embody that because people, again, we do it all the time, right? Like you just look at everywhere around you, people are looking for leaders to give them something again, like you said, to eliminate the chaos, bring order to the the world around them. And a lot of the times in the mythological stories, you know, there's a lot of times where the king is sick, uh the king is hurt, the king is dead. There's something about the king, something bad's happening to the king and when something bad's happening to the king, think of Lord of the Rings, you know, and Gondor, the king is what there's this and what happens when the king is not where he needs to be, the whole kingdom is in chaos. And then when the king is either healed or a new king is, you know, crowned or whatever, all of a sudden there is order back in the kingdom. And this is true for again, for us as people, as we sort of come in line and we embody that, we can bring order into our own lives and get rid of the chaos. And then when you have a a leader that embodies that, they can bring that that that ordering energy into the group. And I think that's one of the reasons why this is just me personally. This may be my own sort of thing. And again, I'm not perfect by any means. I'm a complete shit head in some ways and so make no mistake. If you spent enough time with me, you probably would find things about me you didn't like, right? It's fine. But I would tell you that there's certain behaviors that I don't think that as leaders, we should be we should allow ourselves to give into because we have to hold that line for the people around us. Um, you know, for instance, I was telling Eugene about this, when my wife and I first got together, um, she had been cheated on in a previous relationship and there was some friction initially where like like women would like make a pass at me or whatever. And again, meant no business meant no business to me and I reassured her of that, but I could tell that there was some uncomfortable feelings there for her, right? We, you know, had to do some discussions with it. Um obviously, you know, we've been together long enough time now, she doesn't care, you know. But uh I remember telling her, I was like, listen, first off, I don't want to because I thought my wife was gorgeous. Don't care. Like I I I'm not a man that was in need. But I also told her, even if I wanted to, let's say, like I couldn't because if I did and I'd have to go back to my gym and if they found out, I mean it would be it would be just awful. It would just destroy nobody would be able to look at me the same way. I'm not saying that like they wouldn't forgive me. I'm not saying that they wouldn't train with me, but they would never look at me with the same way that they did before because I'd be like, oh, look what you did to that poor girl Jess. Oh, that's gross. I can't believe Chewy did that, right? And I'm not saying that heroes have to be perfect, but I think that there's certain behaviors we can't give into. Even like, you know, if I, you know, if you get frustrated about something, you know, you can't be to me, you're not you're not being a good leader when you jump online and you get into troll arguments and you're just going back and forth with that. I see I see coaches and leaders, if you want to call them that, do that. It's like it's not it's not a good it's not a good look for you, right? Um, you know, maybe if you're like a young competitor who's trying to just get attention, whatever, but if you're a leader leading people, different story, right? Um, nobody wants to be led by a troll on the internet, right? Um, they don't look they don't look kindly upon it, no matter what they say. It'll build up. Um, there's just certain behaviors we can't give into. And so I this is my own sort of philosophy by the way. You could have your own and I think that everybody should have their own philosophy, but if you are a coach, if you are a leader, if someone looks up to you, there's certain things you can't give into. Even as a a father or a mother, right? You're a leader in your home. There's certain things you just can't do. And there's certain behaviors like for instance my my phone, I don't want my son to ever see me dicking around on my phone when he and I are supposed to have playtime, right? So it's like if it's playtime, it's you and me, bud. You're not going to see me messing around on my phone, doing that. If, you know, we're outside playing, we're playing. That's what we're doing. I'm not going to I don't want you to look back in your childhood and think, man, dad just played with his phone. I want to be that example. You know, if if I want my son to eat a certain way, I got to eat that way. He has to see me doing it, right? Like I can't expect him to eat I mean I don't mind this, but I don't can't expect him to eat good and eat really good food and vegetables and fruits and everything else. Meanwhile, I'm like chugging down over on McDonald's because he's going to look at like so you lead by example. You have to you have to hold that line. Whatever line you wish to be held for other people, you got to hold it yourself. That's my opinion, of course. It's not an opinion that's always shared amongst obviously with our political uh elites and everything else. They don't necessarily hold this line, but I think for all of us like that is the line that we should try to hold. Um and if you guys are interested in the book, it's a fun book. Again, if it's very esoteric, so if you're not into kind of like some of that stuff, it may not be for you, but I I think it's a fun read. Um and you can think about those ideas as just ideas for looking at different sides of yourself and you they use the terms like king and warrior as just means to give you something to work with, right? Because it's those are words that we understand the meanings of and so and things that we feel like we can embody. And so, um, yeah, those are some ideas uh to that off the sort of off the cuff there rambling about that, but leaders have to I think leaders have to hold themselves to a higher standard uh than the rest. Speaker 2: Chewy, what do you think does Jijitsu need to do anything different as a community? Like I mean, we've seen all these gyms kind of de-affiliate and kind of of course, it's like, hey, this is wrong. Like any kind of sexual harassment, assault, even physical harassment, assault and stuff and you know, in a gym, men, women, children, whomever, it's absolutely wrong. Like is there anything Jijitsu can do or needs to do like to moving forward, obviously, certain things are happening now, you know, like we like I just mentioned, but like is there anything we can do different? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think um, you know, one, if stuff happens, people have to speak up, right? Um, obviously, if something actual like if you get assaulted, go to the police. Don't talk to your coach. Like let's say if it is your coach, obviously then whatever, but even if it's not your coach, maybe it's someone else on the mats, maybe it's one of your training partners, go to the cops, go to the police. Don't like your coach doesn't need to like whatever, just police, go. Um, you know, if it's something a little bit less heinous, then obviously you talk to your coach, talk to the higher ups and then, you know, if they don't, then you need to leave that gym. It's hard because the thing is is we don't have a governing body that looks over everything, right? So it's hard that we don't necessarily have some higher authority that we all answer to, which there's pros and cons to that. I think mostly it's a pro. I think it's mostly a good thing because I'm not a big fan of how judo and the IGF sort of lean on it and whatever else. I've seen people say we need to like sort of um, you know, have some organization like a I think a company there's like something called safe sport. I don't know enough about safe sport. I don't know what they do. I know that when we were doing our Jijitsu open competitions with one of the other with another company, we would all have to go through this like like online course thing where we had to listen to it, which I mean was the biggest waste of time because it's stuff like it's like the most nonsense basic stuff like, hey, if you, you know, have a female student or a female athlete and you're traveling, she should be in a hotel room by herself or with her parents or whatever, not with you. I'm like, well, of course. But if you're like a if you're a a freaking pervert, like you think that this watching this video is going to make me not do that? Like, no. I think you just have to I think you have to find a way where you can hold people accountable. And I think at least on some sense, like I thought I think someone sent me a message and they said, Chewy, um, you know, when is Jijitsu going to change, right? When are we going to change? Because first off, by the way, I I absolutely hate the term do better. Like I see people use this term, we need to do better. Got to do better. What the hell does do better mean? I absolutely hate those terms because you never get a goal post. There's no there's no like objective. It's like we just got to do better and when the hell have we done better? When do we know when we've done better? Um it's like one of those you see people in all sorts of different areas. We got to do better. What the hell does that mean do better? I think to do better, what it means is we have to find a way for people to have a means, an outlet to go to when bad stuff happens where we can hold those people accountable. And I think you see Jijitsu changing right now because the way that this is going on, more women feel empowered to speak about what's happened to them. And maybe we'll get some men out there too. I don't know if it's happened to them, but maybe maybe, you know, in the future, you know, men will speak about it too, who knows if they're stuff that's happened to them. Um maybe there hasn't. I know of one such case years ago of inappropriate behavior with a male student and a like a minor male and a older black belt. Um so, you know, it it does happen. I doubt it's as as as common because obviously usually it's, you know, men on women that's the bigger problem, right? But giving them a means to speak where they don't feel like they're going to get in trouble, be silenced, be sort of sort of blackballed, that kind of thing. Right? And you're seeing that now. You're seeing that change because you just saw you saw allegations against Andre Galva. We haven't had a court case, there's no rock solid because everybody's about evidence, which again, I'm I'm definitely one of those people like I want to be measured about the approach. I'm not going to like, you know, I'm just I'm not going to believe every single thing I hear, but like if you have something to say, I'm willing to listen. 100%. I'm not going to shut you down. I'm willing to listen to, you know, because I because I think you have a voice and we should hear your voice, right? But some people are like, oh, see the evidence. Like we need to hear this person out first. But even with no hard rock solid evidence with just an allegation, a whole team just was destroyed, right? Just completely disbanded. I don't think that happens 10 years ago. You know. And I don't think you would have as many women coming forward in the public sort of square that we have, um, online if they didn't feel comfortable enough to do so. And so I think that we're doing better, if you want to say it that way. But change is not exactly instant. We know this in Jijitsu, right? You don't get better overnight. You don't you don't create change in a cultural group overnight. Takes time. It's not instant. And so I think at least right now, you're seeing a positive sort of move where people are feeling like they can come forward and talk about the bad stuff that was happening to them and they're they know that they'll, you know, there's going to obviously be turds online that were always going to troll people and say negative stuff and if if someone's listening to this, if you ever do come forward with stuff, just understand that's going to happen. Don't don't don't worry about it. Don't pay too much attention to it. You make your post and just ghost. Just just leave. Don't pay attention to it. You can turn off the comments and stuff too. But yeah, people are going to say stuff. So what, right? But at the same time, you're getting most people where they feel comfortable enough to come forward and they'll they feel like they'll be heard and they'll be in arms where people are saying, yeah, we're we're willing to listen. Come forward, let's hear what you want to say. And some people obviously are like, you know, they say, you know, they'll instantly believe you no matter what. Some people are like, hey, we're here to listen to you. What what happened to you? let's get this out. let's let's let's see what we need to do to take the right steps um to get justice for you or get you into a safer environment. And I think that that's a good route. I think overall it's getting better. I think it's improving and you know, just because people feel like they can come forward which back in the day they didn't feel like they could or in some of these situations where they would just get shut down in their gyms or get coerced into just keeping their mouth shuts, you know, we've gotten away from that and I think that's overall it's a good thing. Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it if that's the case, it might decrease the amount of these instances going on because people are going to feel more comfortable coming forward. a lot of avenues. I mean literally, you know, you go to police. Speaker 1: You have repercussions. Speaker 2: Yeah, there's repercussions. I mean, if if these allegations are true, um we don't know. I mean, like Andre Galva, I mean his like legacy is ruined essentially. I mean, everything he's accomplished, which he's accomplished a lot. Maybe like the most uh maybe he's the most successful ADCC grappler of all time. I mean it's like all that's I mean, he's someone so many of us looked up to, especially got into Jijitsu and it's like you can't really look up to that guy. I've got his book. you know, when they had Jijitsu books, I've got like uh Andre Galva's book. It's on my bookshelf. I'm like, jeez. It's like it's just uh it's crazy, man. And it's thinking about like to his wife, you know, she may have had a part in kind of silencing and then Speaker 1: Yeah, because apparently she said uh don't bite the hand that feeds. Speaker 2: Yeah. And and you know, I think they just said his daughter is going to be like the head coach of Atos. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Which she's 19 and like, you know, man, like a year in the purple belt. Speaker 1: Well, and that whole thing's weird, right? Because the the because does Andre not own it? Does he not have ownership in it? Like, you know Speaker 2: I think they have like, I think from what I understand, there's multiple obviously investors or whatever. who knows the structure. Um but yeah man. Speaker 1: So Sarah's going to run the run the gym and collect the money and give it to back to her dad or something. I mean, how does that work? Speaker 2: I don't know, but she's not Andre, you know, and then you lose like a lot of your black belts, your world champions, your high-level people that have already, you know, so. And who's going to want to send their kids there or like young athletes going to go there. Speaker 1: You you'll get people. Speaker 2: I guess. I don't know. I you know, I don't know. It's like you'll get people that'll do it, you know what I mean? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And also it'll be interesting to see if anything what comes out of this because from what I understand, I heard that there were like there may have been some anti-defamation like charges and then, you know, I I I I've seen that there's some some legal stuff going on behind the background, right? So maybe that's something. You know, what's been interesting is I posted a little bit about this on Instagram and generally most people were kind of uh um positive about it, right? Like, yeah, okay, this is good, right? This this girl felt like she had the an ability to come forward and we're hearing her out. That's good. But what was interesting was is there was a woman and like this isn't like an AI account. I've I've, you know, this this woman has followed me for probably close to like probably nine years or not probably like seven, seven years-ish, right? Whatever. So it's not like an AI account or anything. An actual legit human being. And she's just like, this is all BS. This is not real. Like, what are you talking about? So like and I was asking her and she's like, her thing is she doesn't believe it. And she doesn't train with Andre. She's like, I don't believe it. She's like, I think everybody's just running away because they're afraid of uh being associated with certain charges and stuff and they don't want to lose their sponsorship money. And I I I I doubt she's right, but it was interesting that like the only negative comment I got was from another woman that was angry about it. You know, like that would that surprised me. I wasn't expecting that, you know. Um obviously again in confidence, you know, I can disagree with the person, you know, I don't think it's just for sponsorship money. Um I think that there was stuff going on. You know, and again, I don't know what stuff, but something going on that you did not like that made you turn tail and run at the first sign of of anything happening. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Um Chewy, what what do you think? We'll kind of end with this. And this might be obvious, maybe it's not obvious, I don't know. Like red flags, things to look for, if you're a parent, you know, and you're like maybe like you have a a kid that's pretty high level and you're switching, whatever the case. Maybe a parent that's starting their kid at Jijitsu. What do you look for? What do we how do you kind of stay involved, stay with your finger on the pulse, kind of just just there's no way to prevent, you know, and maybe decrease the risk of this happening. Yeah. Things you look for. Speaker 1: So, I don't know about the exact, you know, how do you the red flags? Because, you know, again, what we just talked about today, there are a lot of different boundaries that could be crossed. Yeah. It could be it could be more of like on the of a sexual nature, it could be of a bullying nature, it could be a lot of different things could happen, right? But a lot of times most of us have some sort of gut instinct from a very early age. I remember like when I got I mean this was, you know, when I was in seventh grade when I got jumped, I remember walking down the street and I noticed that someone was following me. And I didn't think anything of it, but man, there was something in my stomach, a feeling, my spidey sense was tingling, right? Like I felt like something was off. And sure enough, I got the I got the crap kicked out of me a few minutes later, right? I knew. My body knew before I could really figure it out. And so I trust that gut instinct. When something's off, I'm like, Like there was an example where one of our family members, um, you know, who's no longer is like an in-law, like no longer a family member anymore. I remember this, you know, this is when like Luka was very young. Like he's maybe uh maybe he was two-ish. Yeah, he was just he just turned two. And so, you know, he's out playing whatever and this in-law like I'm I'm in my kitchen eating because everybody came over to our house for a big Easter egg hunt, right? Because we got a big bunch of property, Easter egg hunt. I'm sitting in my um in my kitchen eating some food, getting a meal in and the family was outside playing. And they'd been playing in a big water slide thing, big blow up water slide. And so when they um when they were getting ready to do the Easter egg hunt, they were like going to go dry off or whatever. So this in-law, this guy takes Luka into the house and like I'm sitting there and watching him and he just beelines. He goes in the house, doesn't talk with me and say, hey, do you mind if I change his diaper and get him dressed, whatever, did nothing. Just goes in the house and then goes into his room and starts like looking around and I start following him like, what is he doing? So I like look and like he's got Luka on the bed and he's like looking around for clothes and you know, whatever. And I'm thinking, you're going to you're going to strip my kid down and change his clothes without talking to the parents. Hmm, that seems fishy to me. And I remember feeling a little weird, right? So I was like, okay, I'm going to just like take over. I was like, I was like, hey man, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm going to change. I was like, I got this. You know, no problem. I got this, man. You know, you go out there, whatever. Um, had he given me any lip, I probably would have uh pile drived him into the floor. And I came out and talked to Jess about it. I was like, did he talk to you? She's like, no. I was like, okay. And I talked to I was talking to some of the guys at the gym because I'm a young father now. I'm like, hey, like, is this normal? They're like, no, it's not normal. Come to find out the dude has some, you know, some stuff like later on that came out. It's like, okay, there was probably something going on there, right? Like not good. And I could feel it. My body could feel it, right? And so I think the thing that like me and my wife talked about with our son is like we want him to feel very comfortable with his body, right? So like, you know, he's almost three, he knows what his penis is, he knows what all this is. It's not a taboo thing, it's not weird. It's like I want you to feel very comfortable with talking about this stuff with us because if something ever happens, I want you to be able to come to us without any sort of shame, guilt, worry. Right. You know, that kind of thing. And so I think that, you know, ultimately as as as parents, we got to make sure that the kids know that we're there for them. You know, we're here for you and look, you know, if you ever have something happen to you, you come to us and we got your back and we're here for you. And obviously, I think that that that girl probably has that because obviously she came to her parents pretty quickly when stuff started happening, but you know, making sure that they know that we're there for them because obviously as a kid, they don't have the ability sometimes to navigate these situations. They they have such a limited experience of life. And so we have to do it, but I think it ultimately we have to make sure that no matter what happens, they can come to us to talk and and speak for them if need be. Um and and make sure they feel comfortable doing that. Whether that is with, you know, parts of their body or just different behaviors they don't like. Um, you know, and then help them navigate those situations and make sure they feel empowered to tell someone no, like you can't do you shouldn't do this, whatever, right? Um, amongst other things. Like that's my personal belief on it. I could be completely wrong, right? So again, that's my belief on it and I think that is my thought. And as far as specific red flags, again, black belts don't make you a good person. Being a black belt doesn't make you a good person. Treat the person like a person. If they're doing stuff that's wrong, wrong is wrong. That's just the way that it is. Like wrong is wrong. If you know, there's a lot of things that we do in the gym that is rough and tumble and whatever else, but you can clearly see it's not wrong. Wrong is wrong, no matter what the belt level, no matter who the person is, right? And when you see it, you got to be willing to recognize it for what it is, um, and either call it out, whatever it is and and and not just turn a blind eye. Speaker 2: I think a really important thing, um, if you're a parent going into a gym with your kid or if you're uh, you know, a student, brand new to Jijitsu or you've been in Jijitsu for a while, that intuition, that feeling of something's right and something's wrong. I think that that's there for a reason. It's um we've all had our intuition kind of something, you know, spark that uh attention and we're like, this is this something feels weird, something feels off. Don't uh extinguish that. Go with that. like don't don't don't listen to that thing. because it it it could potentially keep you from a bad situation, but like you know, have people at the gym you can talk to as well. Like, hey, is this something like, you know, you have training partners, you have buddies, you have battle buddies, people that we have you know, trained with for for some time or we started Jijitsu with or whatever. I think having those people you can confide and just say like, hey, is this normal? Are you dealing with this? kind of just having somebody to bounce ideas off of is important, but also your intuition. Your intuition is probably so incredibly important because sometimes like like you said, if there's like a we can say a predator or whoever at the gym, like you brought up such a great point that they have like a almost like a systematic way of like, you know, breaking down the barriers a little by little and pushing a little bit and seeing what's okay and what's not. And I think that having your intuition, feeling something's not right and saying it's not right or kind of putting a stop to it could could potentially help you out. So yeah, intuition is a huge thing. I think it's a great point. Speaker 1: And as coaches, right? coaches and gym owners, um definitely do background checks. Um Yeah, it's great, yeah. Definitely do background checks. So there's stuff that like, you know, me and my business partner like years ago, like we had to do deal with some different stuff because of not doing a background check and having to let people go and stuff like that. Um so it's good to do them. Good to do them if you with any of people you employ. Um and again, you know, if you're a coach, there's a certain line you got to hold. Like obviously like me at my gym, I'm not going to tell coaches that they can never date a student because obviously I met my wife there. It just happens sometimes, right? You get people around each other. But um there are certain lines that obviously we can't cross inappropriate behaviors, inappropriate, you got to be able to hold that line and when it gets crossed, like you got to be able to, you know, take care of things um and do what's right. So, um because if you don't, it's going to be a terrible disaster and for you, for the organization, for your team and for the person that's coming to you for help, right? So, um and again, that that can be that can exist for a lot of different reasons, right? Like you said, it goes back to safety. You know, if you're the person that's that's holding the space for people that they come into, they're coming into this space, they need to have that like you said, that emotional, physical safety where, you know, they feel like they can do certain things and they don't have to worry about someone doing something that is either inappropriate or just downright illegal. So. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: All right guys, thanks for listening with us here today. Um before we wrap up the podcast, I'll get into the sponsors in a second. You guys know how it works. Um we said we would end with a quote. And uh I just sort of I've I've got a list of quotes. Um like a whole folder full of quotes on my uh my computer. I was um looking up one, it's just kind of the one that came to and it's such a good one. I think it's an interesting one. Um because it talks about the a condition that we all deal with, which is fear. Um Steven Pressfield always talks about start before you're ready. You know, because a lot of times people, you know, they have the great idea, this great thing they want to do and they put it off, they put it off, they put it off. Just you got to start at some point, right? So, it was from a Russian soldier's journal during the Napoleonic wars. And he said, quote, veteran soldiers observed that fears disturbs the heart of a young soldier only before a battle begins because his thoughts still consider the deathly horrors that leave a bad impression. But once he's in the midst of battle, fear is eclipsed by rage. As he puts his life in danger, a soldier ceases to be an observer and becomes an active participant, and death ceases to frighten him. His heart fills with blood and disregards the danger. I was in such a condition. And so again, we're not talking about war, we're doing jiu-jitsu, we're doing like life stuff, but you can think about what happens, right? You ever been to a competition where the worst part, we always say it is waiting around. Once you're on the mat doing it, it's like it's over, right? It's like now you're doing it, you're an active participant. If someone is watching this or listening to it and you haven't started training, you may have all kinds of nerves about training in jiu-jitsu for the first time. But if you once you do it, you're like, oh, this is so much fun. Um, you know, many of you guys who are afraid to start businesses or whatever, right? Like I I can I can relate with that. But like once you're in it, you're in it and you don't get time to think anymore. You just have to do. And so, you know, the uh there's that idea that the antidote to anxiety is action. You know, you feel the anxiety before the thing. Once you're in the thing doing it, once you stand up to do the thing, you're all right. And I would tell you that this sort of comes back around to what we've been talking about today where I imagine many of the women and people who came forward initially talking about this stuff probably felt a shit ton of anxiety when it came to talk about the subject because they're not sure what's going to happen. What are the people going to say? What's going to happen to me? And they did it. And I would imagine if you were to talk to them, a lot of the anxiety washed away after they did it. They posted, they said what they had to say, they let it out. People are, you know, negative about them, some people are positive about them, but nonetheless, they took action and I think they probably feel better because of it. And so, um, a lot of us have different things in our lives. We're all guilty of this at some point where there's something we know we need to do and it doesn't have to be a fight, doesn't have to be standing up to, you know, your jiu-jitsu coach. It doesn't have to be getting ready for competition. There's stuff that all of us put off doing because we build this thing up. You know, get into it. Just do it. The it washes away and most of us have had that experience where you say, man, I wish I would have done this sooner. And so uh just a just an idea to chew on from a uh an 18th uh a Russian soldier in the 1800s. Speaker 2: Very cool. Yeah, relevant and also very important. That's the hardest part is the waiting. We talked about on previous podcast, the waiting game and that's that's it, man. Once you get in there, that's the best way to overcome your fears, just do it. Just get in there and do it. Speaker 1: And uh so guys, with that said, thank you all for listening and if you want to support the podcast, you can do so by continuing to listen. that we appreciate that and obviously you can give us a rating on the podcast app that you have that has a rating option to it. Um but also if you uh if you want to check out our sponsors, you can do so by going to their websites. Athletic, A T H L E T H C is one of our sponsors. They make microdose THC mints along with other cannabinoids and they have several different products right now. One is called flow, one is called rebound, the other is called power. They have obvious effects that they're trying to support with the names that they imply. And again, if you guys want to check them out and see what kind of effects you have and see what the products are like, um you can check them out at their website and use the promo code Chujitsu 10 for 10% off. I'll just say this that again, you're not going to take these and sort of, you know, be off your rocker or be super high or anything like that. It's very mild, very subtle. Uh so you don't have to worry about like it being like one of those crazy gummies that you ate from that your buddy gave you and then all of a sudden you're like like passed out on the couch 45 minutes later. Nothing like that. Very, very subtle. Um so you can check them out at c.com. Also thanks to our buddies over at Epic Roll. You can check out Epic Roll at epicrollbjj.com. The the promo code is Chujitsu 20 for 20% off the order. G, rash guards, shorts, t-shirts, joggers, fanny pack, anything and everything they make it. They got great designs, good quality, good customer service and I really like the people over there. I think they're good people. And if you guys want to check them out, go to their website and again, the promo code is Chujitsu 20 for 20% off the order. If you guys want to check out our long time sponsor, Charlotte's Web, they have a ton of products, everything from traditional CBN and or CBD and CBN products. CBN by the way can be really useful for sleep. They also have other things like functional mushroom products, Lion's Mane, Reishi, uh using other supplements along with them to produce a synergistic effect to support different functions, whether that's cognitive or rest, relaxation, whatever it is. Um and then along with that, they have muscle bombs and rubs. They have a whole catalog of stuff. If you want to check out any of their products and save a few bucks when you buy them, use the promo code Chujitsu 30 for 30% off the order. And again, just in case you're curious, I think these products tend to lend themselves to recovery the most. At least that's been my my my experience with them. I like their products that help with either supporting sleep or recovering, resting, that kind of thing. And so again, uh if you guys want to check out any of their stuff, save 30% off the order with that code. Also, if you guys want to support the podcast directly, you guys know how to do that. It's the Patreon. Uh patreon.com/thechujitsupodcast. And again, when you sign up for the Patreon, you guys know how it works. You get access to some exclusive content that we do. Um one of the things that we do is a little podcast extra and in the podcast extra that we that we're going to be releasing soon is going to be on Helio Gracie. Um it's a short episode that just kind of goes into some ideas on personally why I admire him more after learning more about him through some of the different books I've read like Hickson's book or Robert Drydale's books where you kind of dispel this mythical figure and you see them as a flawed human being. Like I talk about in the uh, you know, the the the the episode, you know, he's he's a founding father of Jijitsu. And like our founding fathers in the United States, they have this mythical status, but when you really read about them, like when you read a biography by like a guy like Ron Chernow, if you guys have ever read Ron Chernow, I mean the books are like, you know, like a like a half a foot thick. I mean they're huge books um that take you months to like really dig through. Afterwards, you get a sense of who this person was. And to me, I have so much more admiration for those people because it's like you realize they made a hell of a lot happen with like without having a fully stacked deck. You know, so more admiration, more respect goes to them and I think it's been my experience with Helio, you know, you see this flawed human being and he was still able to do something amazing. I mean, the guy helped change the world. I mean, you and me listening or you and I are listening to this or you're listening to me, I'm talking to you through this thing precisely because of in part of his contribution, right? Because he wasn't the only one that led the led the charge, but he was one of the most important. And so, you know, respect goes to him, but I like hearing about who he really was or like different sides of him that sort of dispel this sort of this ailing fragile kid who somehow just beat everybody up, right? Like not true. Um but anyway, if you guys want to check it out, uh patreon.com/thechujitsupodcast. Also guys, if you want to check out our uh or check out my daily email that I send out, you can do so by going to my website at chujitsu.net/join. I'll send out emails about interesting stuff that I think you might like. I also, if you like the podcast, you'll like the emails. And I also give out exclusive offers and sales through that that I don't offer anywhere else. Um we have our jiu-jitsu camps coming up soon and the dates are going to be released through there first before it ever gets to anybody else and sometimes they sell out pretty darn quick. Um so again, if you guys want to check it out, chujitsu.net/join and when you join up, I will give you an ebook and video that will help you uh be more focused with your training to get more uh deliberate, clear focus during your open roll. So this way you can help you can hopefully improve faster in your jiu-jitsu. And so, um that is uh that is the idea guys. So thank you so much for uh for being here with us. Hopefully you enjoyed the podcast and we'll talk to you next time.