Why BJJ Camps Need Less Jiu-Jitsu

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to Fighting Matters. I am Steve Quan from BJJ Mental Models. And we got a lot of friends today here. We got a full crew. We've got Jesse Walker from Rough Hands BJJ. Jesse, how's it going? Speaker 2: Uh, it's going as well as can be expected, I guess, Steve. Great to see everybody. Speaker 1: Same answer every time. You know what, if anyone these days says it's going great, that's an immediate red flag. It means they're either very ignorant or worse. But anyway, Mike Mahaffey from Old Bastard BJJ and Magic BJJ in Lansing, Michigan. How's it going, Mike? Speaker 3: It's going about as well as can be expected, Steve. Speaker 1: I see the guns are back out. I can tell it's summertime over there. It's getting nice and warm. Yeah, it's getting over 20 degrees here, Celsius in Canada, so I'm very happy. And we've got a mutual friend from Snowblind BJJ in Washington. We've got Neve Brin on the line. Neve, how's it going? Speaker 4: Hey, I'll be the blindly positive one here. It's gone great. Speaker 1: It's fantastic. Awesome. Well, people who have listened to BJJ Mental Models have heard us talk before Neve, but you're new to this audience. Do you want to give a quick introduction and then we'll dig into the topic? Speaker 4: Yeah, sure. Um, I own Snowblind BJJ in downtown Seattle, Washington, uh, for about the last three years, a transplant from Orlando, Florida, uh, veteran of a ton of years of Jiu-Jitsu, probably about 20 plus now, um, and mutual friends with with all these guys. Speaker 1: And friendship is the topic today that we are going to get into. We are going to talk about community and building community. Um, this has been something very much on my mind recently. And of course, Jesse, you guys just hosted your annual camp down there in Louisville, Kentucky, and it sounds like it was an absolute blast. And I mean, we've all been talking offline about this, but I think really the the cool thing about Jiu-Jitsu is its power to bring people together as a community. And that's something that is getting harder and harder to do these days, but it's more essential than it's ever been. Jesse, maybe just give everyone a quick update on how it's been going and what you found. Speaker 2: Yeah, so like you said, we hosted our annual spring camp over the weekend. We had, I think, about 70 to 75 people, um, from not only all over the country, we actually even had somebody come in from Mexico. Uh, so it was a, it was a very wild and varied group. Um, some folks that I knew, lots of, you know, lots of old friends, um, but lots of new friends as well. Neve and I had yet to meet in person, so it was great to connect and, uh, there there was a lot of that over the weekend and it was just, it was really fantastic. We wanted to come on and talk about it some. Speaker 1: Well, I will turn it over to you guys then to drive this conversation because you've got a lot more experience at things like camp management and event management than me. I guess maybe Jesse, back to you just to kick the ball off here. What were your findings this year? I know this isn't the first year you've done one of these camps, but any new realizations or insights that you think other people could benefit from? Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, I I'm always struck by the the, you know, like we've already said, the power of community. Um, and how so much of this, although there was a ton of Jiu-Jitsu, we, you know, we were just talking about that before we hit the record button, how exhausted we all are after, you know, four days of what what should seem as a, you know, relaxing Jiu-Jitsu weekend, but, um, as much Jiu-Jitsu as there was, um, I feel like people probably left even more energized because of the community aspect and because of the new and old connections that they got to, uh, you know, work with and and develop, uh, and, you know, we we're already talking about next year and the lineup and people excited about coming and other camps moving their dates around so they could come to this one. Um, so from a computer, uh, a community aspect, it was a really powerful weekend. Speaker 1: Something that I've had on my mind for a while is maybe when we do these camps, it makes sense to devote more time to the community side of things and just having off calendar time where people can get together and just do what they want and hang out. So often when you put together one of these camps, you're trying to max out the value for people and cram as much Jiu-Jitsu into these things as possible, but that comes with its own risks because you can wind up just burning everyone out. I mean, the the human body is not meant to do eight hours of Jiu-Jitsu a day for how however many days in a row. It's very challenging to do at any age or experience level. And that then means that after sessions are done, people are just so tired, they just go back to the hotel and crash. And I kind of wonder if maybe just doing a few hours a day and keeping it lighter and then having more open time to do whatever makes more sense. Um, I don't know. What do you guys think? I mean, Mike, you've also done one of these. You guys did one at Magic with us a few years back, and so you've got some experience there. Neve, I know that you're knee deep in all manner of community stuff, so I'd love to maybe pick your brains about what's worked for you and what you think people should be doing that they're not. Speaker 4: Yeah, we, um, we do a lot of, um, community organizing events, and a lot of the stuff that we organize is Jiu-Jitsu peripheral, um, you know, maybe driven by martial artists or there's some pretense of Jiu-Jitsu to to cause the event to happen, but, um, a lot of ours are not drawing people who are so deep into the Jiu-Jitsu world that's the only thing they're there for. Um, so when we run a multi-day event, we're not necessarily always trying to maximize the the Jiu-Jitsu part, right? Like we're trying to introduce people to Jiu-Jitsu, give them some good information. But yeah, largely bring the community together. Uh, and a lot of that is like, I think you can have a a centerpiece, uh, seminar, so to speak, right? Um, you can have a couple of like good things a day or maybe space them out, uh, in a way that bookends the rest of an event. Um, I don't know. I I actually thought Jesse did a great job with this. Um, people, you know, people came there as much for the potluck and the fireworks as they did for any of the seminars. You know, not not to discredit any of the instructors, all of that was amazing too. Um, but actually like, Steve, I think, uh, we kind of talked about this at the camp, the the group that's kind of attracted to this like emerging mental models social group that's starting to happen, right? Um, that's sort of organically built up over time. I think came about because you have a lot of like like-minded individuals who maybe didn't really buy into the whole go hard Jiu-Jitsu mentality and so weren't attracted to a seminar that was like either a photo op or like, let's train 70 hours, you know, so hard that it's like inaccessible to the average person. Um, so you're seeing a lot more of these camps have a a more healthy environment, you know, um, better spacing and more space for a a diverse group of people, you know, like Jesse was saying, right? So. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the diversity is a hugely important part. That's the best thing about the camps is you get to meet new people who have different experiences. You get to discover weird idiosyncrasies about regional Jiu-Jitsu that you would probably never otherwise discover. The the one thing that always kills me is just the different names that people have for everything. I remember we had a Shanjero come up to Vancouver one time and I got into this like giant debate with him over whether it should be called uh quarter guard or three-quarter guard. And to this day, I'm sorry, Shanj, but I insist you were wrong on this. But it's just interesting because you learn that people have different different languages that they use for things and different ways of thinking about stuff. And you're even if you train at the other gyms in your area, you're only going to get so much of that if you stay in the same region. So I I love the idea of traveling to Jiu-Jitsu. I mean, honestly, unfortunately, world events are making that really challenging right now. First of all, because a lot of people don't want to travel to the states, but also because fuel costs are going through the roof. And so I think a lot of people are going to hesitate to hop on flights for the near future. But the counter to that is we might wind up seeing the same kind of thing that we saw post COVID, where after people are able to travel again, whenever that that may be, there's so much pent-up demand for that that people make up for lost time. So, I mean, my thinking is that it might not be a great time if you're planning to start your Jiu-Jitsu seminar training tour next month, but if you start planning and you're looking at maybe 2027 or 2028, it could be a completely different environment. I mean, you might see like a post COVID boom where Jiu-Jitsu suddenly gets hotter than it's been before and just everyone wants to travel and train. Who knows? Um, but I I do think that yeah, the the community side of things and getting out of your bubble are such a cool part of travel and Jiu-Jitsu and one of the reasons why I love doing it so much. Speaker 3: It's the only reason I love doing it. I mean, Jiu-Jitsu's fantastic and I love to train Jiu-Jitsu and I love to practice Jiu-Jitsu. Uh, but my favorite thing about the past few years of Jiu-Jitsu for me has been the uh opportunities to travel and attend events like this and, you know, even travel and teach my own seminars and just and just meet new people and make new friends. Um, you know, we had some people at camp, uh, like uh Thomas Forzinski from Roll Radio, who uh was at camp because I had met him and then Jesse had met him. We'd both traveled to his place to to teach, um, in the past year and we thought he was a great addition, you know, uh, to add to the mix. And so he brought a handful of students too. Um, and so I really these opportunities to meet and connect with new people and learn about new people and make new friends is what really drives me to keep doing Jiu-Jitsu at this point in time. Speaker 4: I think it also, um, drives a like positive force towards, uh, giving us some like name recognition, uh, and credibility of of guys like Thomas, right? Like who we should all know and talk about because he was great. Like, um, who, you know, in the past might have just gone unnoticed, like people in his region might talk or his town might talk about him or at his gym might say, oh, this guy's really good, right? But, you know, ultimately we kind of know previously if you weren't the big competitor, like who knew who you were in the world of Jiu-Jitsu. So I I think this operates as a somewhat positive force in that regard too, as far as like making people more aware that there's a bigger ecosystem than like who's winning the gold medal at worlds this year, you know. Speaker 2: I think this is so important and it's it's something I've always tried to really do in terms of who I bring to the school to do seminars and things is it is I think in all of our best interest to showcase good coaching. Um, and I think that was on full display at camp and looking at the lineup for next year, it's going to be on full display again. Um, but these are necessarily people that are ultra Jiu-Jitsu famous. Um, you know, some folks have different notoriety than others. Um, but so I I put out a survey already about the camp and and the positive feedback I've been getting, uh, about the the quality of instruction, uh, without having, you know, any of these superstars, uh, I think is really important and I I think it speaks to what Neve was just saying. I I I think there's a an untapped resource of great coaching out there that, uh, we're just leaving sit because they're not winning all these gold medals, which I think is the wrong metric to measure good coaching. Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. I think that it is a gigantic fallacy in the Jiu-Jitsu community where people gravitate only towards whoever's winning the gold medal. And I think the whole ecosystem for camps and events and seminars is kind of faulty in that capacity. It's all geared around how can we get some A-list Jiu-Jitsu celebrity here to basically put on a meet and greet and then through that we can justify much higher ticket prices to get people to come out and kind of package this as a luxury event. And I think when you do that, you wind up pricing out the vast majority of people who would really benefit from this stuff. I mean, because look, even if you're in an okay situation financially, you don't want to be in a place where you're spending like five figures to sort out a Jiu-Jitsu camp. It's just a bit much. Um, and so I'm always mindful of the fact that you know, you could structure a camp and and maybe not put it in Hawaii or somewhere super expensive. Put it in somewhere that's that's less expected as a destination. And really take advantage of the local people that you have there who probably have great stuff to share and there's probably great local experiences, but they never get advertised and they never get those opportunities because everyone wants to go and train with Marcelo in Hawaii if they're going off to a camp for something. And you know, nothing against him there, but if everyone is beating down the door to go visit the same famous Jiu-Jitsu person, what that tells me is there's a lot of knowledge that's just being left on the table. I've actually pivoted a lot on the mental models front over the last few years to focusing almost entirely on people who can make an impact rather than people who have a big name. Because my finding has been like if you get a celebrity on with few exceptions, most of the time it does not lead to a significant uptick in growth or audience or anything. And most of the time, honestly, it's not even that great a conversation. And it's not even their fault. It's just because look, these people are probably given the same podcast interview 200 times at this point and I'm just trying to pick at them from a different angle. Um, but there are people who like Thomas, right? Um, you guys talked about just an incredible mind for Jiu-Jitsu. I would love to see people like that get more of a platform. And I think that the when we share Jiu-Jitsu with people and we use it to elevate people who might not otherwise have a chance to talk about stuff, you uncover so much hidden knowledge and so many hidden gems that no one ever thought to ask about before, right? Um, if you start if everyone is just going to the same three people for Jiu-Jitsu knowledge, the the knowledge gets really inbred because we're all just sort of digesting and parroting the same talking points. But I mean, look, there's only so much you're going to learn studying Gordon Ryan because at the end of the day, you're not Gordon Ryan, right? You're statistically speaking, you're probably a completely mid mediocre old ass out of shape blue belt. And no matter how much you study Gordon Ryan and no matter how conceptual he is, he can never understand what it's like to be you and vice versa, right? You're just not talking the same language. And sometimes learning from a normal person can be much more valuable than trying to cosplay as a world champion and pretend that you could just like drop that knowledge into your brain and it'll work the same as it does for Gordon. Right? So, anyway, there's my rant. Speaker 3: Good rant. I appreciate it. I I'd really like to talk about how, and I think we touched on this, um, at least in the pre-recording session, about how diverse that not only the coaching staff were or the coaches were at the camp, but like just the huge spread of uh different folks at the camp, like, you know, some people who are really athletic and then soccer moms and, you know, Speaker 1: Little people. Speaker 3: Young people. Big people and young people and all. It really just every everything. Speaker 2: You know what wasn't represented very well though? Uh, the middle belts. So, Steve, I I don't know if we've talked about this offline yet, but there was a real horseshoe effect in in the belt distribution. There were about 25 black belts, there were about 25 white belts, and then there was like 20 to 25 of everything else. Speaker 1: Interesting. I wonder what the psychology of that is, because I I'm sure that's what it comes down to. You know, a black belt probably has enough of an understanding of what's going on to know how to get value out of this and to know that they can provide value. A white belt is probably so enthusiastic, they're just not thinking much beyond that. But it it does make me wonder what Speaker 2: And blue and purple belts think they know everything already. Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, maybe, but it it does make me wonder what can be done to encourage those people to come out because they're an important part of the Jiu-Jitsu ecosystem as well. Speaker 3: Well, black belts were free, so I think that helps a lot. Speaker 1: That'll do it. Free is a good price. Speaker 3: Right, right. I mean, we just had to get ourselves out there. Um, you know, uh, and I I don't know if we want to cover talk about this on on air, but like I wonder if some sort of, uh, discounted rate like, like if if Neve brings, you know, five students, uh, there's each student gets a discount based on how many more students Neve brings, you know. Speaker 2: I mean, I just heard lots of things. Speaker 1: I I'm all for just turning this into a pyramid scheme if that's what we want to do, guys. Speaker 3: It's the whole economy now, right? It's all gambling and pyramid schemes, so let's just get in on that. We waited too long, you know. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 3: Right. Does that mean we pay our shares up to you? Is that how it works? I see what you're doing there. Speaker 1: I I don't know, but if that results in me getting money for doing nothing, I'm always going to take that deal. Speaker 3: But I I'd be super interested, especially hearing from Neve, hate to put you on the spot, but, uh, because this was your first camp with us, um, and, you know, mine and Jesse's first chance to meet you in person, which was awesome. You've been on my radar for a while and I was really excited about that. I hope I didn't fanboy too much over you when I first, uh, first saw you at camp. But I'd love to get your perspective on like, uh, what what maybe was good about the diversity in the room and what you would feedback you might have like for attracting more people, especially like those middle belts that we really struggled to get. Speaker 4: So, I think the real like effect that you get with the middle belts is kind of the same thing that you see in the gym in that like, we all know, like, I mean, like like you said, white belts are excited, right? About everything. Everything's somewhat new. Um, so it's just the I have a new hobby effect, right? Like, um, they want to participate in everything. And black belts have been around enough that it's perhaps a social event as much as it is a learning event, um, or, you know, networking, things like that. But, you know, a lot of your a lot of your middle belts are kind of in the long grind process of learning Jiu-Jitsu. Um, so they might not necessarily see the benefit of either going and meeting people that they've already met, um, or spending the money, you know, and um, they just think, well, I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow, you know, what does it matter if I go to a a seminar or something like that? I'll wait till we have one here. Uh, so I don't know. I I think it is just generally difficult to get a a blue, a purple or a brown belt to participate in stuff anyway, and that's always been my experience. Um, they'll they'll show up if you host something at your own gym and you tell them they have to be there. Um, but, you know, if you make it optional, you're really going to miss a lot of that middle content. Um, they they do have their kind of own ideas about what their pathway might be. And I don't I don't really know what a what a good answer to that is. You, um, you have to involve them, I think, in some more direct way, uh, think of some sort of direct engagement with them that says like, hey, here's the tangible benefit you're getting out of this. Um, here's this like specific thing we're going to do and, hey, you know, you're bad at that. So, like, maybe this would be a good event for you to participate in. But I I think without some degree of direct engagement, it's just it's hard for your average person who's like kind of good at Jiu-Jitsu to, uh, also then think that they want to spend all the money and set the time aside and stuff like that, you know, so. Speaker 3: You know, I it may be pretty obvious that I'm not exactly an introvert. Uh, and so like a big draw to these kind of events for me is the the social and community and networking aspect. Um, and, uh, I wonder if we were able to push that even more in the future, if that might get more people involved. Um, not that we haven't. Like, I think that especially with the the Louisville camps, uh, there's been a lot of advertising about all the fun social stuff that we're going to do and and ways we can connect with people. Um, but I wonder if we really went heavy on that. Um, and even kind of made the Jiu-Jitsu secondary. Yeah, we're going to learn some Jiu-Jitsu, but you're going to meet people from all over the country and maybe the world and get get networks and gyms to visit and all this stuff. Uh, maybe that would help attract even more people that we're missing. Speaker 2: So, that was something I was going to bring up, Mike, and you just hit it in there in in the rest of the sentence. But I think one of the really interesting and fun things about events like this, uh, you know, certainly for my students, I've already heard it, but I'm guessing from everybody, like you now have a huge group of a huge network of people to go visit, right? And, you know, I'm constantly getting questions and even for people outside of my school of like, I'm going to Seattle this weekend. Where's a safe place to go train? I'm I'm headed up to Michigan, kind of around the Detroit area. Is there is there anywhere for me to go? Um, and now people are starting to fill in those holes and those gaps. Like, oh, if I'm in this region, I should go see this person. And, oh, this person said I can visit anytime. And, um, I think that's I think it's really valuable. Um, you know, it gives you at least for me, you know, the I know a lot of people love visiting Jiu-Jitsu gyms when when they travel. Um, I myself don't particularly love going into unknown spaces. Uh, so I you know, I like to kind of know what I'm getting into and I'd I'd love to know if I had a friend there or not. Speaker 1: It's interesting. I love dropping in at Jiu-Jitsu gyms when I travel, but I find that's just not feasible really anymore. I mean, now that I'm old and I got a family and I've got a kid, if I'm traveling all the way across the continent, I'm going to unless I'm going by myself, which is often a negotiation, right? But if I'm bringing the family, I'm going there to spend time with them and it feels kind of kind of dicey to just disappear and go and train when they're off in a hotel room or they're doing something else because they came to be with me. So I do find that difficult, but the nice thing about a seminar is instead of just being a day away, you can turn it into a whole thing, right? And I wonder sometimes if there's benefit in making a sort of family-friendly Jiu-Jitsu seminar to accommodate even just the people who might be coming along who don't train, but have a Jiu-Jitsu person in their family who really wants to go. Right? I think the challenge with doing a full packed day every day is you can't do anything else during that time. But if you did sort of like you said, make the Jiu-Jitsu almost secondary to the community and have events and stuff you can do. Well, now you can bring your partner and your children even if they don't train, even if they hate Jiu-Jitsu, you can bring them, right? And they that's fine and you still get your training in. So maybe that is the the better way to do this. I don't know. And that also allows it to be more open and free form and less planning work on behalf of the person organizing the camp because as you know, Jesse, it's the planning work that gets you. That is like, oh, that is a job in and of itself. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 4: Well, if you look at, um, some of the most like successful, uh, seminars, if you want to call them that, like look at the Globetrotter camps, right, which sell out instantaneously 10 minutes after they go up every year. And like, you know, of all the people who have gone to those, I bet if you asked 90% of them probably couldn't tell you a lot of the Jiu-Jitsu they learned there. But all of them could probably tell you all the friends they made there, um, or, you know, the weird events they did or whatever, or, you know, the castle they stayed at, something like that. That's that's really like the entire appeal of their system. Um, you know, networking, uh, and, you know, setting it in a place that in and of itself is appealing with a Jiu-Jitsu as a backdrop. Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. I I think that they benefit so much from having this community that they've built and that also creates um a reliable infrastructure, right? If you can get the same people to come to the camp every time it happens, that makes it so much more predictable. I mean, running a camp is incredibly expensive and time-consuming. And so if you can create reliability where you have a a group of people who always come to those camps, it makes it easier to put on the next one and then the next one. Speaker 2: That is certainly what I'm finding. Speaker 3: What are some of the, uh, or are there any drawbacks that we can think of to camps in general and how these, especially the ones that we've done, have been organized, right? I is there is there anything about about them that, uh, we'd want to drop or change? Speaker 1: One thing that I can think of, and I don't know if this comes up at at the camps that you've been doing, Jesse, but, um, I was talking to some friends a while back and they brought up a big concern, which was, um, healthcare and insurance and medical, right? Ultimately, we're doing something that is, I mean, I guess to some degree high risk, right? Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a combat sport. And sometimes people are afraid like, what if I'm traveling out of state, even out of country? Now I'm somewhere I don't know. And some goon breaks my arm with an arm bar. Like, how do I get medical care? What's that going to cost me? How do I even do it? You know, it becomes a a big consideration. I think we have the benefit of running camps where people are not trying to kill each other, so that comes up less, but Speaker 2: The goons don't come to these camps. Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the nice thing. I think we're able to self-select a lot of the goons out and that probably solves the problem for us. But if someone were listening to this and they wanted to kind of create their own camp culture, their own training environment like this, their own seminar circuit, I can imagine that being a problem that might come up is like, well, what if someone gets injured while they attend your camp? How do you how do you deal with that, right? What do you is there any disclosures you have to put forth in advance to let them know what to do and what to get ready for, where to get their health insurance or what have you. Speaker 3: So, how do we that's a great what you just said really, uh, gets me thinking. How do we set this up to self-select so those goons aren't coming in, right? I mean, I have my own thoughts about this, but, uh, I I'd I'd love to hear what you folks think, because because we've done that. We've been very successful with I think all of the BJJ Mental Models camps, the ones in Louisville, the ones in Lansing, the ones that, uh, Josh has done, uh, down in Atlanta, um, at having a safe, friendly environment. Um, so what are we doing that makes that happen? Speaker 1: That's a that's a really good question. I mean, I think we have the benefit of having some degree of public visibility. You know, if people come to one of our camps, probably they've heard us on a podcast or they've seen us somewhere. Usually it's in the context of like shit talking the Nazis or something on the internet. So, so there's a pretty good chance people aren't going to attend our camp if they're a proud boy or something. But I can imagine that being a concern for someone who just wants to create a camp, right? This this is a massive problem, uh, that I know with people who create Jiu-Jitsu businesses, whether it be a gym or even just a brand, is they start attracting the wrong types of clientele. I mean, quite famously, there are a lot of brands which have been picked up and got really popular within like the neo-Nazi community. They never wanted that, but it happened, right? And now you've got they've got to do damage control around that. Um, I would definitely be worried if I were starting a camp cold, like how do I make sure that I don't attract a bunch of total weirdos here? How do I filter these people out and not have them come in and create a bunch of trouble? Because if you run a gym and someone comes in and creates trouble, you can kick them out. But if they flew across the country to come here and they've got four nights booked at the hotel, it's a lot harder to tell them to get lost. Speaker 2: I will still kick them out. Speaker 1: You still do it. But but definitely it get it gets harder, right? You can imagine that turning into some drama that you probably want to avoid. And if there's it's tricky though, because it's hard to front screen these people, right? You I mean, theoretically, you might not know who they are. I think this kind of structure works better if you sort of know who these people are in advance, but you can never be totally sure. Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean, even then, I certainly and I don't I don't know what impact it had on the behavior throughout the weekend. Um, but certainly in kind of the opening remarks of the camp, I tried my best to set the tone and the expectations for, you know, what I wanted the energy to be at the camp, what I wanted the training to look like at the camp, what I wanted the open mats to look like at the camp. And the only time that I kind of kind of waved the caution flag at people is we did an open to the public open mat on Sunday. And, you know, just letting everybody know, we got folks coming in potentially from anywhere and everywhere. Um, so you may need to be a little bit more, uh, guarded and cautious about who you're rolling with and what you're doing. Um, but beyond that, I certainly from my vantage point, I didn't even see so much as a hiccup, uh, in any of our training. Speaker 1: How did the public session go, by the way? For those who don't know, the the camp filled up real quick. So you put on sort of a free open to the public session, I think the day before, just so that people could come in if they couldn't make it otherwise. That's a new thing for us. How did that turn out? Speaker 2: So, the open to the public open mat was interesting. I think it got advertised a lot more than it got taken advantage of. We we certainly had, you know, we probably had 10 people come in. Um, but, you know, based on the number of shares and all that stuff I was seeing, I was actually expecting a lot more. And, you know, I don't know whether that was, you know, who knows from the outside looking in, it may have been a a really intimidating looking and sounding open mat. I don't know. Um, so I I I wish I could pick the brain and and hear feedback from people that saw it and chose not to go. Um, and and figured out kind of why they made that decision. Um, but I got from the people that did attend, uh, both campers and non-campers, we got terrific feedback on it. It went really well. Speaker 3: Well, it's because Neve and I are just so intimidating looking. Speaker 1: That's correct. Speaker 3: Walk into the gym and see the two of us geared up and ready to roll, then they're like, no way. Speaker 1: People can't tell from the podcast, but I've met Mike. He's like seven feet tall. Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike's scary. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: That's just that's just my head. Just my giant bald head. It's the glare that that messes up with your depth perception. Uh, Neve, do you have any thoughts on, uh, creating, uh, I mean, I don't want to talk all about filtering people out, but making sure that the the right folks who are going to add to the, uh, value of the event and not subtract from it are are showing up. Speaker 4: I I think it's not even necessarily like, um, you don't have to think about this necessarily even in like an exclusionary way. Um, I think Jesse did great presenting exactly like what his goals were. Uh, so it was really clear to everybody, you know, like what type of gym it was, what everyone was expected to do, how everyone was expected to behave, you know, like, and you totally got the vibe that everyone was 100% on board. But just speaking more generally about that sort of culture, um, I mean, you know, we know that's kind of like top down to start with. Uh, if someone is dictating that, it's like a lot easier on everyone else coming in underneath to know what to do because sometimes people just don't, right? Like, we all have students that come in and are a little rough up front. Um, and, you know, you don't kick them out, right? Like, you show them how they're expected to behave. I think you can do that same thing in a seminar. Um, that may be is someone's first exposure to behaving properly. Maybe they train at a terrible gym and it's not their fault, right? Like, maybe they go to some super competitive gym where it's like go 100% every day and this is their first exposure to, oh, maybe don't do that, you know, like, um, so I think it's just it's just welcoming people in and setting the tone. But like, we like I was mentioning earlier, I I think around especially like the mental models camps, you do have a certain type of person who has sought those out to go to. It's not necessarily someone randomly signing up because they saw Jiu-Jitsu camp, you know, like, um, but even more than that is like, uh, if you went and looked at the wording or the presentation of the camp, it wasn't presented as something where Jesse was like, here's my expectation. Everybody gets here and then we're going to start rolling and then we're going to roll the whole weekend and, you know, like, you're going to learn finishing moves from Mortal Kombat and tear people's heads off and stuff like that. And you can definitely get that vibe from a camp for sure. Um, and that's that's not, you know, looking at this one, that's not what you're seeing. Um, and you could tell that's the atmosphere of the gym too, right? Um, it's Jesse is sharing what he has already cultivated with a larger group of people. And and I think that's kind of what makes a camp healthy is if you're not trying to make compromises, you're trying to say, come see like what we've already built and participate within the framework of how our gym already operates. And if you have done a good job to build a good culture and a healthy environment, people are happy to be there and do that, you know, like, of course, you know, you're probably going to have some outliers, like, you can't prevent everything. But, you know, what are you going to do about that, right? Like, someday you just have to ask someone to leave. Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that's a hard thing to get to the bottom of. I mean, I I think you touched on it perfectly though. A lot of people use Jiu-Jitsu as a crutch when they probably should actually be getting therapy or or bettering themselves in other ways because Jiu-Jitsu by itself it it again, you know, this whole thing about how like Jiu-Jitsu makes you humble, makes you a better person. I don't know about that. I I think it can maybe make you more confident. It can make you a more bolder, pronounced version of yourself, but I there's I I have not seen any evidence that if you're a raging A-hole, you'll come into Jiu-Jitsu and just become a wonderful person. If anything, it can bolster that behavior and those bad habits. And you especially as you have, you know, get older and you've been training and teaching for a while, you can get a feel for this just when you talk to someone, you can sort of understand what their motivations are for getting into this and maybe you can guide them. But you want to make sure that you don't wind up having to do that in the middle of a camp, right? A big problem with one of these events is you've got so many people to keep an eye out for. Um, and Jesse, I'd love to actually get your feedback on this. It's already enough of a handful to run a room full of Jiu-Jitsu people, but if you're the instructor and it's your regular crew, at least these are people that you mostly know and you've got a rhythm and, you know, you've got some degree of control. But if you've got getting close to 100 strangers coming in from all over the world, how do you juggle that? The dynamic has to be different than how you would monitor and run a regular class. Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, luckily, I wasn't having to, uh, run that mat the whole time. Uh, you know, I had an hour on the mat just like all the other coaches. The rest of the time I was emptying garbage cans and cleaning toilets. Um, but in all seriousness, and it's something you and I've talked, uh, before about on mental models is, you know, this this idea of, uh, you know, cultural guardianship, right? Um, I can't be everywhere all at once and I can't have eyes on everything. Um, but I have a few trusted internal people and trusted external people. Um, you know, I know Mike, if he sees something that is awry, he is going to start working on dealing with it. Uh, I could tell from the first moment we met that Neve was ready to step in there if need be, uh, if if something went askew. Uh, and trying to bring, uh, trying to deliberately bring people in that are going to kind of protect the sanctity of the camp, um, you know, while still allowing, you know, all these dynamics to, uh, play out is is really important and it it goes into, you know, I think some of that is, you know, inviting the black belts and and letting them come for free because I know that they're going to help be those guardians. Uh, you know, being picky and selective about who we let be coaches and representatives out in front. Um, I think all of that goes into it, but it cannot possibly be especially at that scale, be something that I can carry alone on my shoulders. Speaker 1: Well, that's that's a really interesting point. When you're talking about how to build a culture in your gym, these are people that you work with on the daily. And so you can identify and cultivate leadership from within and help as you said, create culture guardians who who enforce and champion the kind of culture that you want to have. It's a bit harder when you're doing a seminar because you're often bringing in instructors from all over the place. A big mistake that at least I think it's a mistake that people make when they book seminars is they look for the name first and then they sort out everything else after. So they'll think like, you know, well this person is a really well-known Jiu-Jitsu celebrity. So I want to book them based on that basis alone. And there's no consideration about whether this person is a culture fit or not or how they're actually going to interact when they just show up at your gym and start teaching. It's more just this person has a name and so I suspect I can sell tickets based on their name. And I find that often this falls apart for a variety of reasons. One of it being is very disingenuous and inauthentic. You know, if you bring in someone that you don't really know and you've never met this person and you're trying to promote them, they've got to have a heck of a reputation if that if their name alone is actually going to bring people in. I find that a lot of people get disappointed when they try to book camps and seminars because they think like, oh, if I get this semi-famous person, then 200 people will want to buy tickets and then like 10 people buy tickets. You know, we we got to remember we live in a bubble a lot of the time. And just because we think someone is like Uber famous because we watch their instructionals, it doesn't mean their name really carries that much cachet. And even if it does, there's no guarantee they're going to do anything to help you promote it at all, right? Just because they have a big name, doesn't mean they're going to bring in 300 people who are going to sign up the next day. And so you see a lot of camps losing money on that basis. Whereas if you actually know this person that you're bringing into teach, even if they're not the most famous person in the world, if they're personally invested in your culture and in making that camp a success, I think you're going to be way better off than just bringing in some hot shot that you've never even met just based on reputation alone. Speaker 2: You know, I think that's absolutely right and I, you know, at least internally, I felt like over the years, I've built quite a bit of goodwill capital with with my own folks that, you know, just because they're not seeing this person on Flow Grappling or BJJ Fanatics or, you know, whatever else. If I'm bringing them in, there's a good chance that they are they bring value, um, to the folks that are going to be in attendance. And, you know, from from the sounds of it, uh, certainly spring camp is is building a reputation, uh, of the same that just because you don't know everybody on the, uh, on the wall there, uh, you know, the coaches, doesn't mean that they're not going to, you know, knock your socks off once once they get in front of the room. And and boy, they put on a show this weekend. It was awesome. Speaker 1: So, what did you guys get up to? I mean, obviously, I saw the footage, but other than the techniques, what was kind of the vibe and the teaching style that worked so well? Speaker 3: Well, everybody except that guy in the pink ghee was really cool. Uh, Speaker 1: The pink ghee guy's a bit of a jerk, huh? Speaker 3: Yeah, he is. Speaker 1: Mike's talking about himself if people don't know. Speaker 3: He owns Magic BJJ. No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. No, I don't. Um, I mean, so the the coaching vibe, like all the coaches were super personable, uh, you know, obviously good public speakers because you kind of become that, I feel like, even if you're not at the beginning, like you coach enough, you have to get comfortable running a room. Um, but like what really struck me was just how lighthearted all of it was and, you know, everybody up in front, uh, was having a really good time and that rubbed off on everybody else, I felt. And you know, none of it and like everybody engaged the rest of the room. It wasn't like, okay, everybody shut up so I can show you my awesome things and, you know, uh, it it was a very much give and take. Even though like all the sessions were recorded professionally and a lot of them are going up on the Rough Hands YouTube channel, uh, promo plug promo, right? Uh, you know, there was still like a lot of back and forth interaction, which really made it feel special, right? We weren't I didn't feel like I was just there watching somebody demonstrate some awesome stuff. I felt like I was part of like this community and this room with all my friends and watching one of my friends show some really cool Jiu-Jitsu. Speaker 2: And we were all in on the jokes, right? Speaker 3: Yes. Yes. Yeah, none of none of the humor, none of the the lightheartedness was, uh, um, picking on anybody in particular. And if it was, we were all in on it. Like, you know, I got Matt let me have it a few times when he was up there, which is to be expected. That's how he shows his love. You know, but I'm in on it. Like, I don't that's just part of our relationship, right? So, uh, what what did you what did you think, Neve, since it was your first time with us? Speaker 4: Um, yeah, I thought it was great. I, um, you know, it's somewhat of a a running joke in my gym that I'm I'm very picky about teaching. Um, I roll my eyes at, you know, 90% of other schools that I go to because people don't know what they're doing. Um, some of us do, right? Like, uh, but I mean, like, Steve, I think you and I have talked about this before, uh, the idea that like a lot of seminars nowadays are photo ops. Um, or, you know, people are doing their like some ridiculous super extreme version of Jiu-Jitsu that's a party trick trying to show off how cool they are. And it's like, you can't replicate that, right? Like, if if, you know, Craig Jones or or Gordon Ryan shows you something that only they can do, like, what value is that to the average person who saw that lesson? It's like nothing. And then you paid a ton of money for it. Um, one thing I really, really appreciated about the camp was every single person showed stuff and some of it was like essentially fairly basic stuff. Like, Mike, I think your lesson was like fairly basic, but that doesn't mean it wasn't like deeper valuable, right? Like, everyone got something out of that. There were little details that were useful to every belt level. Um, you presented it in such a way that it was like digestible. Um, you know, how can you get value out of one hour? That's pretty hard, right? Like, we know the investment it takes to get good at Jiu-Jitsu, so it's like, what does a one-hour class bring to a random person seeing someone new teach for the first time? That's that's hard, right? You need to present the right material in the right way. And I felt like every single one of the instructors, like, really came with something good. Um, which, gosh, that's hard, right? I should be saying like, oh, 50% of them were good and that makes Jesse like a a brilliant success, right? But no, like, actually all of them were good. I had zero complaints and I usually have a lot of complaints, so. Speaker 1: Yeah, I I think that these kinds of camps work better when it's a more collaborative thing and everyone's coming in and chipping in what they what they know and also passing the baton off and helping other people. That really stood out to me the first time we did one of these camps at uh at Apex MMA in Conyers with Josh Wentworth, who was just how collaborative it was. And there was almost like a like, you know, everybody's kind of sitting around like in a drum circle and just passing the baton back and forth and sharing information. And that really sort of became the pattern that we use when we do those camps in Georgia with him is just deviating from um, I guess the traditional camp structure of one person is at the front of the class just showing their top 10 moves and everyone is just sitting there in silence and just not paying attention or not getting it at all, right? I think that collaborative approach helps a lot more. Um, but it does require you to be a bit more agile and nimble because you have to kind of adjust to what's going on in the room and what people want to work on. Um, but it is cool that when you got like eight people, 10 people who all have something they want to contribute and that's the benefit of having so many black belts at these camps is a lot of these people they don't have to run the whole camp. They've just got their their one hour to give their sermon on the mount and they generally make it really count. Um, which is what I love about these things, right? Whereas if you do a, you know, a more traditional camp with like one marquee instructor and you give them two, three days to do it. Man, they're going to run out of stuff to talk about within the first few hours. And then you got to sit there and just listen to their greatest hits for the rest of the time. And at some point it feels like I could have just watched this on YouTube and I would have got the same value. Whereas I think the real value of a camp comes from that collaborative element and that's also where the community comes from too. Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the awesome things that I think all of the coaches really embraced was that they were also campers, right? So, as soon as their thing was done, they went right back to being a camper and a learner or just being a resource on the floor and letting people come ask questions about their session and, um, everybody just made themselves unbelievably available to help. Um, you know, and I so much feedback about like, there were all these black belts on the floor and they were all so helpful in sharing their knowledge and explaining things that was happening in the set, you know, it was great. Um, so being able to be both a camper and someone in front of the room kind of simultaneously, I think was really awesome. Speaker 1: It's almost uh, you mentioned the idea of uh of potlucks before and it's almost kind of like the idea of a Jiu-Jitsu potluck. I I'm wondering if that might That might even be a fun idea at some point is what would happen if you ran a camp and just didn't announce any instructors? It's just everyone comes, bring what you got. This is not an this is not about the the instructor at the head of the class. It is a collaborative opportunity to just get people together and see what shakes out without advertising anyone. I wonder how that would go. That might just be a crazy idea, but it could be fun. Speaker 2: It gives me a lot of anxiety. Speaker 1: I I could definitely see that going the wrong way, but it it could also be a a lot of fun because then you're just laser focused on the cool part of the camp, which is the exchange of ideas, right? To to me, that's always the real value of a camp. Like you said, Jesse, is you're kind of just experimenting with stuff and there's just a whole bunch of experienced people walking around the room and a bunch of them come up and just give you an idea here and there. It's like, what about this? Well, here's what I would do. And then someone else comes up with, here's what I would do. And all of that kind of mixes together with what you're already doing and create something new and interesting. And many many traditional seminars don't do that, right? There is no collaborative element like that. There's there's one coach talking and everyone else is listening and then they rep whatever he showed and then there's a photo op. Speaker 2: Oh, he did my move. Speaker 1: There you go. Well, there was some maybe some variations. I think you'll enjoy it. Check it out. Okay, I'll have to I'll have to give that a go. Um, he's not here, but I would probably not be doing my job if I didn't also mention that Jeff Shaw, uh, for Bellingham BJJ, does have a cool event coming up. It's called G to C. It's something that he does every year. This year, it's a big big production that he's doing with uh Bernardo Faria and Dominica Oblanite. I think everyone knows who Bernardo is. If you are a BJJ Mental Models fan, you almost certainly know who Dominica is as well. That is going to be a blast. Again, I think that is in early June and it's somewhere around Bellingham where Jeff is in Washington. But I will put all of the details up on our events page. You can just go to BJJ Mental Models.com/events and I will have that there if you want to register. Always a good time. And I don't know, Neve, are you going to be there? I could be fun. Speaker 4: I'm in. Speaker 1: Yep. Amazing. Well, there you go. An opportunity to meet Neve. Thanks a lot, guys. I really appreciate it. That was a fun chat. I mean, this is something I'm personally quite passionate about is how do we really emphasize the inclusivity and the community that Jiu-Jitsu can bring to people. I I think especially as we all get older, we all start to understand that's the most important thing about this sport, right? The your your need to do arm bars effectively becomes less important as you get older, but you start to really realize the importance of community the more you you do this. You know, when you do these camps like this, no one ever writes in and says like that that detail you showed me about elbow mechanics changed my life. But people will always talk about how the experience of the camp was so memorable and valuable to them. So that's the thing that people remember about Jiu-Jitsu. It's not the technical stuff. Speaker 4: Steve, I really hope that people appreciate the Jiu-Jitsu community that you woke up one day, went mad with power, told everyone they should start listening to you and now you've uh formed this beautiful empire that has like empowered a lot of the the good side of Jiu-Jitsu. Speaker 1: I appreciate that. We we haven't figured out how to turn it into a pyramid scheme yet, but I'm open to ideas. I mean, maybe maybe this is it. I don't know. We got to get in on that crypto thing, right? Or is that I guess crypto's old news. We need to Speaker 2: I mean, we could create a shit coin and just see if we could pump it and dump it. Speaker 1: That shit coins. That's such a 2025 thing. I feel like we need agentic AI somehow. Can we there's got to be some scam there that we'll figure out. But anyway, Speaker 2: We'll mark it on it. Speaker 1: Got to be a way for you to start a cult, Steve. Speaker 2: We'll we'll workshop it. Speaker 1: Great. Yeah, I'll I'll an AI driven Jiu-Jitsu cult. I'm sure someone's thinking of that already. Well, thanks a lot, guys. This is a great chat. Always a blast hanging out. Speaker 2: Thanks. All right. See you next time. Speaker 1: Love you guys. See you guys. Take care.