Ep. 384: Secret Gracie History, feat. Jeff Shaw

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I just want to let you know, we released a new mindset course featuring Rob Bernaki from Island Top Team and BJJ Concepts. It's called Mindset for Betas. It's an amazing resource that breaks down a new way to build a resilient jiu-jitsu mindset. It's part of BJJ Mental Models Premium. I will spare you the full sales pitch because you can try it for free. Just go to BJJmentalmodels.com/beta. I will give you a free month, you can check out the course and if you decide that it's not worth your money, you can cancel, you won't have to pay a cent. I've already been told by subscribers that this is the most valuable piece of jiu-jitsu content they've ever received, so I hope you like it too. Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to BJJ Mental Models, episode 384. I am Steve Kwan and BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent jiu-jitsu approach and I am back again with friend of the show, favorite guest, I have black belt and Bellingham BJJ head coach Jeff Shaw on the line. How is it going, Jeff? Speaker 2: Everything is amazing, Steve. Thanks for taking the time today. Speaker 1: Well, I am especially excited to have you here today because normally when you and I get together, we talk shop, right? We talk about how to raise great jiu-jitsu athletes or build successful jiu-jitsu gyms, but this is a little bit different. People not may not be aware of this, but your background extends beyond just training in the art. You also work in education, you're a prof, you study the history of jiu-jitsu and that's kind of the angle that we want to take today because my understanding is you've got some cool facts you've uncovered recently, but I'll pass this over to you. Why don't you tell people about your background here if they aren't familiar with the work that you've done off of the mats directly? Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. So, I'm actually coming to you live from the future from 20 hours ahead on a research trip to New Zealand. So, uh the future looks bright. But uh the past, I've been teaching a history of martial arts class at Western Washington University. I've published some scholarly research on jiu-jitsu history in a couple of peer-reviewed journals and this has become a thing that I really enjoy. I also did a thing for mental models uh called This Is Why We Fight, which is a a 12 episode series on history of and specifically the history of jiu-jitsu. And during this, I uncovered a couple of things, uh some of which we talk about in the history class, but I'm happy to be breaking some news uh for y'all today. Uh in that we we've talked a little bit about Florence LeMar, who was uh at the time around the turn of the 20th century, the world's famous jiu-jitsu girl, a native Australian who brought uh uh jiu-jitsu to Australia. But I've uncovered some facts about a little known historical figure that doesn't get enough run, which is Horden Gracie. And a lot of the people, even those that think they're really familiar with the Gracie families, may not be aware of the legacy of Horden Gracie, who uh stems from one of the he he he's not from the Helio or Carlos line, he's uh from the Oswaldo Gracie line. But because most of the famous Gracies descend from Carlos and Helio, people don't always understand that there are more than a hundred Gracies who have contributed to the art's development. And so part of why I'm here in New Zealand is uh sussing out some of the history involved with Horden Gracie, who was in some ways thought of uh as a black sheep in the Gracie family. Speaker 1: Fascinating. That I mean, this is all really exciting to me because like many of our listeners, I have heard the name Horden Gracie. I've heard the legend and I'm aware of some of his biggest accomplishments in the sport, but in many ways he's almost like a ghost. It's hard to find good information about him. If you want to look up anything from the Carlos Senior or Helio lines of the family and look down at what their children have done, because that was so intimately entwined with the UFC and the IBJJF and Gracie Barra, it's easy to find information there. But Horden in many ways is more of a legend. And it's been hard to get good quality information about his true contributions to the sport. I'd love to know what you've found so far and what you're doing to kind of source out the history of this guy. Speaker 2: Yeah, so part of why it's difficult uh to find information on him is not only because a lot of this material is not available in digital format, but also unlike a lot of his family members, he never really wanted to be a fighter, whereas, you know, we know that a lot of the the prominence of Gracie jiu-jitsu came from challenge matches with other fighters. But he uh for whatever reason wasn't interested in doing the Gracie challenges, which we saw at the time with karate gyms and Hapkido fighters and things like that. He never really wanted to be a fighter. His perceived lack of interest in the combat arts led his family to actually nickname him the woke Gracie. The term woke goes back a little further than you could. Uh, but yeah, he he was one of the he's mostly unknown, I think, because a lot of his biggest accomplishments happened in the early days of jiu-jitsu. And actually a lot of which happened outside of Brazil, outside of the United States, although he did return to the United States. A lot of it happened right here in New Zealand. So that's what uh this research is taking me uh in in the direction of. I didn't expect it. Uh this was supposed to be just a family vacation, but as it turns out, um, so for those of you who haven't been to New Zealand, it's a beautiful and largely agricultural society. Famously, it has more um sheep than it has people. And so Horden actually first came here uh to study turf grass science and abandoned that promising career to to turn his attentions to jiu-jitsu full-time. And so, although these career achievements both in terms of teaching and in terms of competition, and we'll get into his uh his competition achievements at ADCC 1997, I think later in the show, that uh a lot of what we would consider uh think paths to fame and fortune today, like winning world championships, um doing mixed martial arts, Vale Tudo challenge matches, were not something that really he was interested in. Speaker 1: That's interesting for sure, because that definitely falls out of line with the, I guess what you would call the traditional Gracie story of so many of these people were, you know, they're born into this fighting family and that had always been their career path. So a an alternate career path in New Zealand turf grass science. This is something quite unexpected. Maybe that explains why we don't hear so much about him. Um, maybe talk a little bit about his early career. How did this guy who was this so-called black sheep of the Gracie family, who didn't really ever want to become a fighter, how did he wind up going down that journey and become the legend that he is today? Speaker 2: Well, one of the the things that happened, he he had he had a a medical condition that was an allergy. And I don't know whether this was as a result of his uh affection for turf grass and farm science. Uh, but he was actually allergic to the material that goes into rash guards, into Lycra and spandex. So he only did gi jiu-jitsu. So if you watched some of a lot of the earlier submission grappling matches, you would not have seen him. And by the way, if you're a student of the game, you owe it to yourself to find some of these matches. They're somewhat difficult to find these days. I've been talking with Jake Whitfield about this a lot. Jake has uh some old uh did some some old VHS uh footage that he was able to download from RealPlayer back in the day. Um and so I'm hoping to get some of that digitized, but like if you're listening to this and you're interested, I urge you to search the internet rigorously for some of these matches because if you can find them, they're definitely worth finding. One of the one of the things that people give him credit for, uh his contemporaries as well as some of his intellectual antecedents, was the invention of side control. And there the two main like I think technical um contributions he made to the art was he invented that position. It was never used before in jiu-jitsu history. And the guard as we know is sort of the signature position of jiu-jitsu. Many people many martial arts teach you how to win fights from the top or to win fights from standing, but jiu-jitsu teaches you how to win fights from the guard. But Horden uh one of his his things was, how do I defeat the guard? And so part of what I'm looking into here in New Zealand is he wrote some papers and he wrote in his memoir that the side control happened that his invention of side control happened when he was stuck in his cousin's guard and he wondered, what would happen if I just did not accept this? What would happen if I just went around the guard? And really most of what we know about modern jiu-jitsu can be traced back to this single discovery because without side control, you don't have mount, without mount, you don't have the back. And if you don't have those things, the guard is the only position in jiu-jitsu history. So we we owe that we owe that to Horden Gracie. That's one of his I think technical achievements. His second technical achievement, and this is both a technical and a tactical breakthrough. You know, techniques are the moves that we do, tactics are how we use those moves either to uh win fights, to win competitions, things of that nature. And one of the things that he had in common with some other Gracies is that he hated leg locks. He believed that leg locks uh represented the moral decay of jiu-jitsu. And this is where one of the things that we've heard before from many of the old school practitioners. But where Horden differentiated himself was uh his tactical differentiation because almost half of his recorded competition matches he won via foot locks. IBJJF legal foot locks, mind you, like the straight ankle lock or if you know the Texas clover leaf. And so this is something that was never fully explained why these things that he believed were responsible for the moral decay of jiu-jitsu were also responsible for about 57% of his competition wins. But you know, uh the world loves a paradox. Speaker 1: Fascinating. And it kind of reminds me of some of the more modern Gracie stories. You hear these stories of people who have said, you know, well, I hear that this particular Gracie, maybe they said or did or believed some terrible things, but they're always a really nice guy to me. And juggling that paradox, that kind of duality of man is one of the interesting things I find about the study of history. So, it's fascinating to hear about this Gracie who dominated so many competitions with leg locks, but still hated the technique. It's kind of a weird self-loathing thing, this weird dichotomy, this like you said, this paradox that makes studying a historical character like this so fascinating. Speaker 2: Yeah, and in a lot of ways it had to be a psychological burden that you believe this is wrong and you do it anyway. You know, I I think that we can identify some major figures in society that this could be true of. Um and I I said I so so those I think I would consider two of his technical breakthroughs, but in terms of his competition success, probably if you have heard of him, you've probably heard of his legendary run and the subsequent controversy that happened at ADCC 1997. And you know, Steve, that I'm a fan of the omoplata, your buddy Rob Bernaki, amazing omoplatas. These are, you know, and and I'd like to think, I like to think that both Rob and I have brought some level of technical innovation to the omoplata, but like what we've whatever we've done pales in comparison to what Horden did at ADCC 1997 where he invented uh what we now call the Hordenplata. And it's jiu-jitsu's first uh truly like some people say it's jiu-jitsu's first and only full body submission that attacks basically every part of the body at once. The one thing I'd compare it to is the Bas Rutten cheeseburger chest compression, if you're aware of that. And if not, like uh these things I think are very comparable to each other. And one of one of this is also a tactical, I think, uh lesson from him because, you know, plota, you know, most of us know omoplata is Brazilian Portuguese for shoulder blade, plota meaning the shoulder. And so, although Hordenplata may not seem like an appropriate name for a submission that attacks the entire body at once, um, I think this is a tactical thing that he did to make you think he was going to attack your shoulder when in actuality, he was just going to do everything everywhere all at once to take uh a line from a prominent film of the last 10 years. Speaker 1: Makes sense, makes sense. Fascinating that, you know, he would use this Hordenplata submission, a whole body submission, which to him was a shoulder submission, but to the rest of us was so devastating that it attacked really the whole body at once. The thing I always find challenging about understanding Horden's legacy is that ultimately, as you mentioned earlier, this was a man who was allergic to the elements that go into no-gi fabric. So he was traditionally just completely a gi grappler. How do we balance that? How like, I mean, he ultimately won ADCC. How was he able to convince the ADCC officials and groups to allow him to compete in the gi? Did he get an exemption because of his allergic status? Because that seems to be quite an anomaly in the history of jiu-jitsu. Speaker 2: It really is, and I think what he convinced them of was that it would be a uh a disadvantage for him in that he would have to compete covered in hives. And you know, I don't know if you've ever been covered in hives, I sure have. And it it's uh it's like being having stinging nettles over you all the time. Now, whether this was actually a disadvantage for him or not, I mean, he did win the event and so it couldn't have been that much of a disadvantage. But um, whatever he would whatever magic he was able to uh to weave with his words, I think, you know, was was was ultimately something that the jiu-jitsu uh technical evolution benefited from. Uh although unfortunately, like it should, you know, some of y'all younger practitioners who weren't around for ADCC 1997 are probably thinking already like, hey, how do I learn this move? And this is where we get to sort of the unfortunate part. Uh and I I'm I'm fascinated by banned techniques because I always say rule sets drive behaviors. And so what you ban and what you privilege sort of um determines how your art evolves. And so ADCC 1997 is the first and only time that the move was used because they made it illegal immediately afterward. Now, some people will say that that was because they didn't want to repeat of of, you know, this guy in a gi beating all these no-gi grapplers at submission only uh at a submission grappling event designed to be no-gi. Some people might say that, and you know, I think they might have an argument. But the justification they used was because it is an all body submission, it technically attacks things that are illegal to attack, like the small joints of the fingers and the groin. And so if you're going to ban joint locks that attack small joints, you have to also ban the Hordenplata. And so I think of this very much like um uh the the the Yama Arashi technique in judo that there is still a move of that name, but the one that was used by Shiro Saigo uh 120 years ago was lost to history for because people deemed it too dangerous for competition. And so unfortunately for those of us that want to learn the Hordenplata, um there are no instructionals out there. I think that that would expose uh expose instructional websites to too much legal liability, which is why I think that it's been lost to history. Speaker 1: That makes a a lot of sense and explains why the Hordenplata is not taught in a lot of classes. I mean, imagine what it would be like to be attacked by a submission that targeted not just your arm, not just your leg, not just your neck, but your whole body at once. That would be devastating, dangerous, and clearly it would break the rules because of course, if you attack the whole body at once, you've got small joints in there, you've got the groin in there, you've got the eyes in there. You can't be attacking the entire body with a single move. So, a controversial decision for sure. And I I remember the controversy surrounding this when of course Horden famously won at ADCC 1997, only to have his victory overturned afterwards. Maybe talk about the controversy that came from that and what that did to Horden's career, how that kind of took the steam away from his just incredible, promising start as a an ADCC world champion. Speaker 2: Yeah, so unfortunately, there are always going to be haters, right? When people uh innovate, there is always going to be a backlash against that innovation. And so there were rumors had been circulating for years that he was abusing performance enhancing drugs in competition. Despite the fact that although every test he ever took consistently came up negative. And the rumors stemmed from the fact that despite the negative tests, he he repeatedly insisted that he was a user of steroids. And so this confusion was finally cleared up in an interview that coincided with the release of his memoir. And they asked, hey, how come you said that you were using steroids, but that uh eventually like but you came up clean every time. And he said that uh when asked about that conflicting information, he said steroids are just a mindset. And so your mind is a performance enhancing drug. But unfortunately, uh that sort of language barrier or mental uh disconnect uh led to his eventual disqualification and the and why his name was stricken from the ADCC record books. Speaker 1: Understandable. And I mean, this is just I think another great example of how sometimes the greats in the sport, they're just operating on a level that the rest of us really fail to understand and only now, so many years after his incredible accomplishments, are we starting to figure this out. Um, I would love to understand because again, most of this guy's footage, this is going to be living on RealPlayer or, you know, 1990s technology. This was a different time. For kids these days who don't understand it, the 1990s, this was a very dark, very different time. A lot of the things that today we would consider to be cultural norms, a lot of the conveniences that we're used to, those didn't exist back in historical periods like the 1990s. And so, for people who weren't familiar with Horden or can't find his footage, maybe talk a little bit about his jiu-jitsu game. The first thing I'd love to ask you about is there were always rumors going around that he had this unfair advantage in the gi because of some genetic mutation. Were you able to find any information about this? Speaker 2: I was able to find information about this. And let me say two things off the top. First of all, I do not believe what I'm going to describe was actually an advantage. I'll explain why. And second, I want to explain the reason that it's so difficult for you to find this information because the the most prominent media coverage that we found of Horden Gracie was here in New Zealand. And most New Zealand newspapers are small town newspapers, uh the Whangamomona sheep herder, for example, the Tirau coffee house press. These are some of the the most prominent media reports of Horden Gracie that we see. And so if you're not willing to go to a place like Oamaru, New Zealand, which is uh famous as the steampunk capital of New Zealand, then you're not going to be able to see and many of the original manuscripts and any of the original reports. But and this I was able to factually verify, he was born with six fingers on each hand. And some people said this was an advantage due to grip strength. Uh if you got six fingers, six is better than five, right? If you had 10 fingers on one hand, you would be able to grip twice as strong. And this is sort of the the line that most people pitch in order to undermine his achievements. But I I I personally do not believe this was an advantage. A lot of us, and I learned this from David Porter, use only two fingers, uh like the sort of crab claw grip for doing things like the uh Bonero choke. And so, but you can see the argument and you can see why the kind of whisper campaign might have happened because it seems like six is more than five. I don't really think that's true. But he did suffer from this in terms of public perception. Particularly here in New Zealand, I think a lot of the people uh that didn't really understand jiu-jitsu because he he he helped to bring it here. I think a lot of the folks down here who were early adopters just kind of assumed this dude has freakish physical attributes that would allow him uh to succeed when in actuality, I don't think that was fair to him. Speaker 1: And I mean, the the thing that I always hear when people talk about Horden Gracie is these persistent accusations that he's AI generated, which I understand because he has six fingers, right? So obviously people are going to look at that and they're going to think this is not a real person. But really, I think that just speaks to the the undocumented greatness of Horden Gracie that way back in the 1990s, this guy was being accused of being AI generated, even though things like ChatGPT and Claude wouldn't become popularized until decades later. So that's just a I think another testament to the greatness of this guy and just another way that um society at large has held him back, has kind of created this hater doubter culture around him and has never really given him his flowers. Speaker 2: Yeah, most definitely. And and and there's politics involved here too. Let's not let's not deny that. And this is why I needed to go here to New Zealand to see the original sources because the original sources are which are the only things that are going to allow you to eliminate these accusations of AI. And when I say politics, the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, actually accused Horden Gracie of being A1. And although he is A1 in our hearts, one of his nicknames is the uncle of jiu-jitsu, he's everybody's favorite uncle, the woke one. Uh that although he is A1 in our hearts, he is not A1 in the sense that Secretary of of of Education Linda McMahon accused him of being same. Speaker 1: Well, that definitely makes sense, right? I mean, if the majority of jiu-jitsu legends descended from Carlos or Helio, and Horden descended from Oswaldo Gracie, then by definition, he would be the uncle of jiu-jitsu, right? And I think that's probably why he's both acknowledged for his greatness, but never really given the true love that Carlos Senior and Helio were given. Um, I'd love to maybe understand what his jiu-jitsu looked like. You know, we can talk about his greatness, but I'm sure that many of the people listening will want to understand what did his game look like when he went out there and competed against the best in the world at the time. How would you describe his style, Jeff? Speaker 2: Watching Horden fight was like watching an escalator swallow a toddler. He would envelop and consume his opponents until nothing visible was left. Uh, when he got media coverage in Brazil, which was rare, the media called his style "com fome", which translates roughly to hungry. And you can interpret that as a synecdoche, right? Was he literally hungry? Was he physically hungry? Probably a little a little of the above. I I think that if you've ever rolled against that really tough brown belt that hasn't uh hasn't had a snack in about six hours, you probably have a pretty good idea about what it was like to scrap with him. You also have to consider his mental toughness. Remember, this is the person who first uh became like maybe the first practitioner of that mental sports science approach, which was just like, I am going to pretend the guard isn't real. And if it's not real, it can't hurt me. Speaker 1: That's really incredible to think about here. And it's always great to kind of learn the mindset of the greats because mindset is one of those things that just is really timeless, right? It it transcends the era. Um but I can also understand how people at the time, just like how today, you know, people might have considered Horden's style boring because if your style involves enveloping and consuming your opponent until they're no longer visible, that's just not much of a fun thing to watch because you can't see what the opponent is doing, right? Everyone wants to see stand-up action and dynamic throws and really crazy submissions, but to just see one man completely envelop and consume another, as you said, like an an escalator swallowing a toddler, that just I you can understand how the crowds at the time might have found that to be boring or uninteresting and maybe that plays into why he's not talked about so much today despite his incredible accomplishments at the time. Speaker 2: Being here in New Zealand, you really understand the roots of that style. I would also compare it to a glacier. And when you drive through the central New Zealand countryside and you see where the glaciers carved out these draws, these valleys, and you imagine watching that in real time. There's a reason the term glacially slow exists because this is geologic time. And the glaciers eventually uh, you know, carve out these valleys that we rely on today. Now, is it interesting to watch from our limited human perspective? No. Are we going to be bored? Maybe. But I'm a fan of effectiveness and you can't deny the effectiveness of a glacier. Speaker 1: Absolutely, man. I mean, glaciers have been around since time immemorial, right? And that's the kind of jiu-jitsu we want. We want timeless jiu-jitsu that doesn't just chase trends or metas, but is going to be just always, always useful, always applicable. And I think that's part of the reason why Horden's style was so impressive at the time. Now, you talked about his amazing and legendary run at ADCC 1997, but you also talked about the controversy and the fallout afterwards and the negative impact that had on his career. Maybe we should talk about that because when most people think of Horden Gracie, I mean, of course, they think about the memes, but they also think about the amazing ADCC 1997 run and casual practitioners may wonder why we never heard much from him on the competition scene after that. Maybe talk about what happened and how that fallout affected him personally. Speaker 2: Yeah, so unfortunately, today Horden is mostly alienated from the rest of his cousins, and that's why you rarely hear them speak of him. We've all seen, you know, anybody who's from a large family understands that there's going to be uh fallout and you're going to get along with some people a little bit better than you do others. The cracks had already been forming over the course of the past decades, but the last straw happened, and this is, you know, related to another element of jiu-jitsu history. The final straw happened in 2008 when Horden attempted to trademark the phrase "oss". This led to a bitter legal dispute with some of his cousins who also claimed to be the inventors of "oss". And although the true originator of "oss" is still unknown, and the lawsuit has not been definitively decided, unlike the Gracie versus Gracie lawsuit where Horyan and Carly had a legal dispute. Um, they've potentially missed out on millions of dollars in licensing royalties as the popularity of "oss" exploded throughout the 2010s and beyond. And so, you know, if you're saying "oss" today, um I would say two things to you. First of all, you know, you should know the origin of this and where it comes from and you should know your roots. And second, because this case hasn't been decided, I would hate for anyone to get themselves in trouble because um ultimately, the court may decide that every time you say "oss", you owe Horden Gracie $5. Speaker 1: That's wild. I mean, you know, it makes me think of the history of Tetris where the original creator never really achieved the the fame and the fortune that should have come with such an amazing invention. And I think it's the same thing here and it's just tragic to see this family drama get in the way of, I mean, look, everyone who trains now knows that, you know, the the the "oss" industry has gotten gigantic, especially over the last 10 years. There are potentially millions, if not billions of dollars in royalties that the Gracies and Horden in particular would have been entitled to, had they settled this amicably. But unfortunately, yet another example of a bitter Gracie family dispute that has really prevented them from truly capitalizing on their contributions to the sport, correct? Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And I I do have to in the interest of fairness and in the interest of full disclosure, I do have to disclose that I have a personal financial conflict of interest here in that I have uh trademarked the image of a stop sign with an N in front of the word "oss" to signify "noss", because my feeling is if the Supreme Court eventually decides in in Horden's favor and every jiu-jitsu practitioner owes $5 for every time they've said "oss", uh a stop "ossing" t-shirt designed by that is probably going to be something that is going to make me able to retire. Uh I know that the sweet jiu-jitsu history money is eventually going to uh create a CJI level payment for me, but this is the backup plan. Speaker 1: Really good point, right? I mean, if "oss" has had such a a positive impact on the sport, then theoretically the op, I mean, look, we're just being logical here, right? Theoretically, you invert the logic, a a "noss", the opposite of "noss" should also have as much value, especially as the "oss" counter meta evolves and all of these people who have co-opted "oss" into their personality. Now that that's the meta, someone who can come along and shut that down, that's just going to be more valuable than it ever was before. Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and it's sort of like the um the movie Candyman where if you walk into a a bathroom, look in the mirror and say "oss" three times, I think Horden appears and Hordenplatas you. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, I mean, we've talked about the technique, we've talked about the history, but one of the things about Horden Gracie that probably did escape containment, that he is still known for despite the suppression attempts is mindset. This is a guy who attributed mindset to being a huge part of his career success, especially again at ADCC 1997. Have you looked into this? Are there any lessons we can learn from Horden's mindset that we could adopt today in terms of historically what he did that worked for him? Speaker 2: Certainly. And these are the people you have to admire is before sports science was even a discipline and before you could go on to Google Scholar and read papers about mindset and attitude, um you had people that were pioneering things um that worked for them. Almost an ecological mindset approach, if you will. And so Horden's technique was, he covered every inch of his desk with motivational sticky notes and affirmations. He claimed he would write his opponent's names on pieces of paper and then eat them, like symbolically swallowing them before his jiu-jitsu would envelop them. And you know, leading up to competitions, these types of mental techniques were the things he would use. I couldn't find a a primary source for this. I hope to sometime in the next year, but rumor has it, he was the first person in history to put a motivational quote on top of a picture of a lion. And so, uh, you know, I'm not saying that folks that have lions in their logo also owe him royalties, but they at least owe him a tip of the cap as well. Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing. And let's talk about nutrition. I mean, in the past, you know, Gracies have always they they've always talked about the importance of nutrition. Of course, there's famously the Gracie diet, but I understand that Horden had a very particular mindset around diet and how especially leading up to camps. Do you have any insights on that that you've discovered? Speaker 2: So leading up to competitions, basically the entirety of his nutritional diet was trail mix. Now, I'm not saying he was a vegan because he wasn't, and I'll talk about the exceptions to his veganism in a moment. But he claimed that he ate nothing but affirmations and trail mix in the three months leading up to ADCC 1997. The reason he claimed he did this was the fiber in his diet kept him regular, which helped his body flush out toxins and weaknesses. And uh so that type of regularity, if you're regular in your diet and you were regular in your bowel movements, your competition will have regular success. So, the thing that made him non-vegan was the lion, uh which was his, you know, his iconic sort of uh totem animal. Uh the lion uh hunts meat. And so the only meat he would eat was the one was the meat that he would hunt himself uh in the in the veldt. And so that's another thing that I think he was drawn to New Zealand for is that the amount of sheep and uh cows, uh wild game in this country, I think allowed him to not just subsist on trail mix, but also uh incorporate that into his diet as well. Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff. I mean, I always am interested to hear about the the dietary and nutrition strategies that these people use to achieve greatness at the highest levels. It's just so fascinating to hear about the methods they use and how much that varies from how just, you know, regular people like you and I manage our diet. Just they they put this extra level of thought into it that the rest of us just don't. But man, I guess the last thing I want to ask you is, let's talk about the legacy of Horden Gracie. I mean, we've talked about his competition success. What might surprise people to understand is despite the fact that this guy's career primarily took place in the 90s, Horden is actually still alive. And in fact, as far as I can tell, he's still training today, even despite the fact that his glory days were so long ago. What is he up to now? Where can you find Horden now and what has he done since ADCC 1997 and the subsequent fallout? Speaker 2: So, after retiring from competition, he kept on defying expectations. And where most folks in the industry moved to California, to New York, to Miami, these days Austin, Texas, warm places, coastal places. Horden chose to settle in Des Moines, Iowa. And I have it on pretty good authority, the reason he chose Des Moines, Iowa was because of the Dead Milkmen song, Stuart. So if you haven't listened to that tune, uh you should probably listen to that to understand why Des Moines, Iowa. And now some folks say that the reason he headquartered there after ADCC 1997 resulted in Des Moines becoming the world-renowned jiu-jitsu hotspot it is today. I debate with a lot of my friends about what the top five American states are for jiu-jitsu or what the top 10 world locations are for jiu-jitsu, and you probably hear the same names I hear, New York City, uh Long Beach, California, San Diego, uh Des Moines, Iowa needs to be up there again, for example. And in addition to building his his academy there in Des Moines, he raised his children there, Horden Jr. I'm not sure uh whether we'll see Horden Jr. compete, Hordinho, Hordenson, Hordinha, Horton, Michael B. Horden, and Horatio. Speaker 1: Amazing stuff. And yeah, this is I don't know about you down in Bellingham, but up here in Canada, we have a saying, which is, you know, if you if you're going to travel for jiu-jitsu, the number one destination is Austin, Texas. If you can't go to Austin, the number two destination is Des Moines, Iowa. Just an amazing hotspot of jiu-jitsu. The amount of stuff that's coming out of there is unbelievable. And it's interesting to learn that Horden was really the the first mover in this journey, right? He was I think the first major athlete to go to Des Moines and establish a a just an amazing jiu-jitsu competition gym. And that's why that city is such a hotspot today. Speaker 2: Here's a great thought experiment for you. What if he stayed in Oamaru, New Zealand? If he had stayed in Oamaru, New Zealand, would this be the the the um the Austin, Texas of today? Would this be the San Diego, California? Um and we don't have an answer to that, right? We don't have a a crystal ball, our hindsight is always 20/20. But, you know, the reason Des Moines is where it is is because of that decision. Speaker 1: Absolutely amazing, man. Well, I I find all of this fascinating and I suspect a lot of the listeners who hear this, they're going to want to learn more about Horden. And you mentioned earlier that he published his memoir recently. If people want to check that out or maybe find him today, how can they go about doing that? Speaker 2: Well, so the best way, you know, not everybody has the means to travel to an international uh jet setting hotspot like Des Moines, right? Unfortunately, we don't all do that. And and uh his memoir, which is called Man Lion, How I Humbled My Way to the Top of the Podium, is available exclusively from Liberty Self-Publishing. Now, unfortunately, um it's only available in the original Portuguese. So, uh, you know, if you do know some Brazilian Portuguese, obviously, if you know "oss", you know, uh most of us that have competed know um that, you know, "parou", um you you might think, okay, I can't read this book. I only know the competition words. But English speakers are still going to benefit from picking up this book because it's mostly pictures anyway. And remember that um if one of his primary attributes was mindset, that just seeing these pictures is worthy uh, you know, it's it's a worthy strategy to incorporate that lion mindset into your own personal training. Speaker 1: Amazing. Sir, well, what what happened to Horden? I mean, obviously, you know, he disappeared to to Iowa. He's been focused on raising his academy. He he wrote his memoir. He's been raising his kids. What is he up to today? Where could you find him if you were looking for him? Speaker 2: Well, I have good news for folks who don't have the means to travel to Oamaru, New Zealand or to Des Moines, Iowa, which is Horden eventually found a home on Reddit. And he is actually, along with of course Craig Jones, the only active coral belt who is participating on r/BJJ. Although I think Josh Wetworth will get there one day. Uh, so you can still find him posting there and inspiring the next generation. And uh, so we're just the beautiful thing about living in this modern era, you know, we may not have access to the video footage easily from these icons of the past, but we're just an internet connection away from connecting uh with these legends. Speaker 1: Amazing, my friend. Well, great story here. I mean, of course, you have done a tremendous amount of of research on this, but I'm sure that a lot of people are going to listen to this and think, you know, beyond the research, the next thing I want to do is choke this guy. If people want to train with you, how can they go about finding you? Speaker 2: Well, it is no more than I deserve. And so if you want to give me the chokes I so richly deserve, uh I'm training and teaching every day in Bellingham, Washington. Uh you can check us out at BellinghamBJJ.com. You can also uh I'm I'm on Instagram at Jeff Shaw BJJ. Speaker 1: Amazing. And if you want more from me, you can find all of our free stuff, plus our paid stuff, or you can send me hate mail at BJJmentalmodels.com. Thanks a lot for listening. Thank you, Jeff, for doing this. And I'll talk to the listeners soon. Thank you so much. See you then. Speaker 1: Hey, hey you. This is Steve. Got a secret for you. This episode, it's an April Fool's Day joke. Don't take it too seriously. It was originally launched on April 1st. So, before you unsubscribe from the podcast in a fit of rage or send me hate mail about the content of this episode, not intended to be taken seriously. If you want actual useful information, just skip to the next episode in the feed.