I Almost Quit Jiu-Jitsu… Here’s Why Most People Do (ft. Raspberry Ape)

Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. God damn, we got a special guest here, Dan Strauss, joining us for the big one. Welcome, bro. Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, guys. I just got in last night and I'm psyched to be here. Beautiful space and looking forward to chatting to you two fine gentlemen. Speaker 1: Um, Dan Strauss, Raspberry Ape, more, you know, more I think more folks know you by that name. Speaker 2: Yeah, they do actually. Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. Um, how'd you come up with that, by the way? Speaker 2: Oh, man. I usually I have I have a lot of creative stories to throw people off the scent. It's just uh I I like raspberries and I've been compared to an ape. So that was really the main reason. And um, I guess you just need if you're going to have like a personal brand, it's got to be something that Speaker 1: Stands out. Speaker 2: That stands out. Yeah, if you search for Raspberry Ape, I'm the the other guy. Speaker 1: And the guy who comes up. Speaker 2: So yeah. Speaker 1: I I the um, the connection I always made was like most of the Brits that I know get like rosy cheeks. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: You know, because you you you have quite tan skin, but most Brits, you know, quite white. And then I thought, oh, maybe it's some reference to the rosy cheek piece. Speaker 2: Look, Raspberry Ape is whatever you want it to be. Speaker 1: I like that. I like that. He's an artist. Speaker 2: That's truly. That's truly. It's the interpretation, exactly. Speaker 1: But Jake, I don't know if he's allowed. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Um, I'm actually really happy that you're here because, you know, JT came and I I believe podcasted with you and hung out at your place and I thought that's probably the last we're ever going to see of Dan. No, I'm here by choice. Speaker 2: Oh. Speaker 1: Yeah. We're not holding him hostage. Speaker 2: Yeah. Fucking cool. Amazing. Speaker 1: Um, I there's a bunch of things I'd love to talk to you about, but one thing that we, you know, we were chatting earlier about, you know, what's what's on your mind and uh I've got a knee injury at the moment. And um, like fucking no big news there, right? I've had this thing and it it's flared up at the moment. And uh I actually posted about it on my stories the other day and a bunch of people are like, oh, man, sorry to hear it. And I was like, oh no, it happens all the time. Like just part of the thing, you know. And then I thought I was what, you know, I was reflecting on this um how the elite uh jiu-jitsu athletes use a lot of steroids. And I thought there's a performance enhancement aspect to it. But I think for a lot of these guys, it's just managing their injuries. Speaker 2: Repair. Speaker 1: And then I thought, well, we've got a guy here that's from the elite level of competition, clearly used a lot of steroids in his time. Speaker 2: How was that? You chose that. Speaker 1: This motherfucker. All the cope. Um, no, that's a joke, absolutely. But but I thought, no, fuck, let's let's have a chat about injuries and the experience because I think for a lot of people they look at they would look at people such as yourself on, you know, Polaris and like ADCC and big events. And then they'd be comparing that with their journey, showing up three times a week and just trying to get by and like, how the fuck do you get to that and not get railroaded by injury constantly? Speaker 2: Uh, you do. Is the is the short answer, you know, I that has been, you know, I'm I'm not competing at the elite level of competition anymore. I'm 35 now and, you know, especially in my in the last five years, injuries has been a significant part of the game. You know, I've had two uh shoulder surgeries, I had back uh issues when I was in my early 20s and knee issues at some point. So, Speaker 1: Time out. Yeah. Time out, time out. You say back issues. Didn't you break your back, Daniel? Speaker 2: I did break my back. Speaker 1: You fucking broke your spinal. It's spinal. You broke your fucking back. Like, just so no one thinks he's playing it down, brother. Come on. Speaker 2: Uh, the back injury was a funny one. It was uh I hurt my back when I was about 15, uh doing some sort of martial art thing and then it it healed, but probably not correctly and then and then I heard it again lifting. Uh, but I managed to recover that. That's a whole another story. We do a whole episode on that if you want to talk about back recovery stuff. But sort of getting on to to what you're talking about, um, with the injuries. The short answer is is that most elite level competitors are dealing with. I think there's a big genetic component to your injury and not just a genetic component, but uh what you did in the first 13 or 14 years of your life is going to set you up. If you did sports as a kid, uh generally you tend to be a little bit more resilient than if you, you know, assuming that you're not killing your body as a kid. But if you did sports as a kid, which I never did, I started jiu-jitsu was the first sport that I ever took even moderately seriously. I started that when I was about 14, 15 years old. So I'd already missed a lot of that early adaptations for resilience. Uh, so I have been plagued with uh injuries on and off for a long time. As I've been less serious about jiu-jitsu competition, and as I got a little bit older, I could focus more on on longevity and health and understanding that that is ultimately for the long term. You know, it's a sacrifice that you make. It's a trade-off that you make when you are young and if you're really trying to compete at the very highest level, that you sacrifice some of your long-term health and some even some of your acute health for performance. Um, but that that has a time limit on that. So for people who aren't elite competitors, it's really not worth it because if you're 35 and you've got three kids and you're just doing jiu-jitsu as a hobby and you're a purple belt, really what you want to do is you want to train as good as you can for as long as you can and you don't want to burn that that candle too too aggressively early on. So, to answer your first question, elite level competitors do deal with that. If they're lucky and they train super hard, they get, you know, a lot of the benefits of competition before those injuries really start to take their toll, but they take their toll. You know, they they certainly do. So, for yourself, it's something that's complete, you know, you're you're you're comparing apples to oranges really when it comes to how you should be dealing, how you should be even looking at injury, uh because the sacrifice of performance for longevity isn't really worth it for you. Speaker 1: I mean, I, you know, I think of myself as a high-level competitor. I go pretty hard at the open mat on Saturdays. Speaker 2: That's true. That's true. Speaker 1: Just saying. Speaker 2: Elite elite Saturday warrior. Speaker 1: But I mean, in saying that, Dan, like most people who we know through BJJ are coming to it later in life. So regardless of if they played sport when they were a kid or they had hangover injuries from that time, you talk about adapting. You actually started BJJ relatively young compared to majority of people. Like a lot of folks we know are starting in their mid to late 20s and sometimes they're coming at it 35, 40 years old and that's great, you know. We we we that's awesome. I mean, I found BJJ when I was like 25, but I'd done 15 years of training prior to that. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Which helped me a lot. In terms of like managing an injury or training around an injury, because this is this is a tricky thing, you know, um, what is great about BJJ is it teaches a degree of toughness. You know, it's this idea of like kind of do it anyway, which is is in a lot of ways an antidote to a lot of the softening of culture around us in the Western world. But there's a point at which this becomes detrimental that the coach is like, oh, just strap it, do it anyway, and then people are injured and this is like a a downward spiral can lead to surgeries and and more worse things. Uh, now, correct me if I'm wrong here, Joe, like, I mean, Joe's a fitness professional. He knows rehab. He's seen the physio. He's done all the right things. Many of our BJJ brethren and sisters are not doing that. They're just kind of trying to work around it. Do you have a particular philosophy or approach? Because you've taught and you've been in the scene for such a long time and been been around other jiu-jitsu folks. You've managed your injuries quite well, I would say from an external perspective. Do you have particular advice for folks who are like, oh, I've got this like, I want to keep training. It's not so bad. I can't train. What do I do? Like, do you have an approach to that? Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%. You you know, the the cliché, the meme when it comes to jiu-jitsu injuries is, you know, you go to the doctor and they say you shouldn't do anything for for three months and then you you put some tape on it and you go back and you train that afternoon. And uh unfortunately, it's not just a meme, it's a reality. You know, people train through injuries all the time and and it's incredibly stupid. And if you're a professional athlete that has a fight coming up and this is your livelihood and you need to get to this competition because the bills are late and if you don't compete, you're going to be in trouble. You can you can you can do a a pros and cons over that and you can decide that it's worth the sacrifice. But if you're not, it's really silly to be doing stuff like that. Uh, my advice for people when it comes to injuries is yeah, the analogy maybe would be you're low on petrol. So either you pull over and you fill up or you slow down to 10 miles an hour for the next hour. You know, what you feel like you're moving still. I've got to get to where I'm going, so I'll keep on moving. Yeah, but you're going to have to stop at some point and you're going slower on the way there. I'd rather pull over, fill up the tank, get back on the road. And I think that's for jiu-jitsu injuries as well. Obviously, there are some injuries that are more severe than others. Some of them need surgery. Uh, even even in those big injuries that require a surgery where you're going to be out for six months. Six months sounds like such a long time. And it feels like such a long time whilst you're in the six months. But six months after that, you can't remember it at all. Really funny. I've been out for I've had uh pec surgery here, a labrum reattachment here, and both of those, you know, I was off the mat for three months on one, four months on the other, completely off the mat and obviously a little bit longer to get fully back into it. Um, but when I look back at those and I try and remember how much time I was off the mat, I can't remember a single second. It's it's all theoretical almost. You know, I can't in my head there's no vivid memories of me, you know, shaking and scratching the walls trying to get out. Uh, you you you just forget about that stuff and what that means now is that I am healthier now. I don't have a detached uh pec that is going to be interfering with me for the rest of my life and I'm going to be regretting it just because oh, I don't want to have the three months off. Um, George Hackenschmidt for me, uh who's such an inspiration when it comes to physical culture. Uh he says, I can't remember the exact quote, but it's something like uh strength can or health cannot be divorced from strength or strength cannot be divorced from health. If you are dysfunctional, you have an injury, then then ultimately you won't be able to express your physicality in the optimal way. So you look at so many people look at health as an antithesis to performance. In the acute, maybe that's right, but in the long term, I think that's always wrong. And unless you have a good enough reason for ignoring that and you know, that's a personal decision to make. I think that taking the time, fixing the injury, uh even if it's a couple of weeks or months or even if you just got to go a little bit lighter or you got to train with the with with with the lighter person, you know, you're going to be I think for also the people who haven't been training that long, if you've been training for two or three years, the idea of taking two months off sounds it's a significant amount of the time that you've been training. Once you've been training for 20 years, taking two months off is not a long time. You know, taking a week off is really insignificant. You'd do that by accident sometimes. You know, I'm traveling around and I'm not training for a week. So be it, who cares? You know? Uh, you got to look at the bigger picture with that. I think that's true not just I think that's a really good analogy for life as well. Not just for jiu-jitsu injuries. Speaker 1: It's kind of like a a maturity thing, right? Like when you're a kid. Speaker 2: It's a maturity thing, yeah. Speaker 1: When you're a kid, if you're a five years old, a month is such a huge portion of your life. So you're like, oh, it takes so long. But when you're when you're 30, what's a month, right? Like it it's Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're a kid, that six weeks off you get for summer feels like a year. And then when you're when you're 40, the six months off feel like or six weeks off feel like a weekend. Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. 100%. And then when you're an adult and your kids get six weeks off, it feels like a lifetime. Speaker 2: In the worst possible way. Speaker 1: Really fucking slow at times down over here, guys. Speaker 2: Hey, time moves fast, man. If something slows it down, that's probably not a bad thing. Speaker 1: No, yeah, can't get mad about it. The child adult quantum superposition of time. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: But so Dan, Joe, you've been because you've worked around this for a while and you've had you've had good times and and you've had less good times. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1: How are you kind of managing it at the moment? Because you're still training. Yeah, fuck. Speaker 2: I'm that guy. Speaker 1: Oh, it was so funny. I I showed up to, you know, my knee just it was actually I was doing some plyometric work, which was part of my sort of rehab post surgery some time ago. And uh I just do a bit of that most weeks because it's just good stuff. And uh I was doing some of the plyo stuff and came out of a rep and was like, oh, that didn't feel great and sort of just kept kept going anyway. Um, and then, you know, whatever the knee got swollen and it's been a bit stiff now for a couple of weeks. Um, but I showed up to coach Jitsu on Monday morning and I was like, boys, just so you know, knee's a bit cooked. I'm not rolling today. Everyone's like, yeah, no worries, man. Speaker 2: Knee bars. Speaker 1: Fucking Chris the Butcher shows up. Speaker 2: Oh my god. Speaker 1: Fucking He's a big fella. Strong fella. Yeah, great fucking legend, you know. He hasn't been in the gym for ages. He's a brown belt, you know, and and then I think I, you know, someone was sitting out in the rounds and I was like, Jack, why don't you just jump on my back and I'll just defend your back attacks because my knee's going to be fine. Did that and then I was like, Chris, why don't you jump on my back? Fucking and then, you know, then that turned into an escape and then a pass and then, you know, before you know it, you know, you're rolling and and and felt great. And so, you know, I I you know, it's important I think for the listeners to know because we talk about this shit all the time, right? And being responsible and looking after yourself and aware and whatnot. I break those rules all the time. You know, and uh and I'll probably do it again this Monday and it's probably going to take me a few weeks. You know, and and maybe some worsening of the injury in order for me to go, all right, for respect it. Guys, yeah. Speaker 2: But come on, look, look. I could tell you off here. If you know, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it, you know. If you're telling me that you're you know, Speaker 1: I'm a fucking grown ass man. Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know what? Just because just because you're a grown up doesn't mean you make the good decisions all the time, you know. And the thing is if you're self-aware of it, it it sounds it sounds more disciplined to do the thing when you're injured and you shouldn't, but it's not. Doing the thing is the easy part. That's actually a cop out. It's to to train to train through an injury is the cop out. That's the easy thing. The hard thing, the thing that actually requires discipline is to do the thing that you know you should be doing that you don't want to do. And if you know that, if you don't know that, you have a good excuse. But if you know it, Speaker 1: Oh, I know that. Speaker 2: Oh, if you know it. Speaker 1: I fucking I mean, absolutely. Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Speaker 1: I think absolutely. You mean you're preaching to the choir, right? This is the conversation I have with people. Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you don't if you don't take your own advice, Speaker 1: Well, that's true. Speaker 2: You got to do it. Speaker 1: That's true. I think Speaker 2: I'm going to keep it I'm going to I'm going to get your phone number off of JT and I'm going to check you in two weeks. Speaker 1: This is like that moment in Fight Club where they pull the guy out of the convenience store. He's like, where's your license? Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. What do you want to be when you grow up? A veterinarian. You got you got to lead like sometimes you you got to go through that. You got to because it's it's not easy. Speaker 1: I I think the the challenge here and we've talked about this before is, you know, Joe's coaching. Yeah. And I I don't know if you've experienced this um yourself, Dan, where there's this strange obligation it's not a real obligation. It's not even FOMO. It's like, I'm here for my guys. You know, it's an odd. It's easier if it's even because then you can just teach. But sometimes it's like, Speaker 1: When one of your boys is sitting out solo. Speaker 2: You kind of like, yeah, but do you know what? I'll give you I'll give you the uh I'll give you the other side of that coin. Speaker 1: I feel I feel this is a conundrum for many coaches and we've talked about this. Speaker 2: 100%. Speaker 1: Coaches being injured and Speaker 2: Here's the thing. When you're a coach, you have a responsibility to lead by example. Sure. And when you know, my coach, Nick Brooks, he was the absolute worst for this. He was the worst. He was the toughest son of a bitch you'll ever meet in your life. And he would have surgery, uh he had a lot of injuries because he would just train through everything. He was just a tough bastard, you know, just old school British just a tough guy. And he had a lot of problems with his hips as he got a little bit older and he would have surgery on his hips. And he would be, you know, he's meant to be off the mat for months. And two weeks later, he's on he's teaching a private, but then they're doing a little bit of sparring because he loves to spar. And I remember times where I'd get phone calls, Dan, Dan, Nick's on the fucking mat. He's rolling. And I jump in my car and I drive down there and I walk in and I go, Nick, off. He looks at me, you know, he's a 45-year-old man. I'm like a 20-year-old kid. And I'm like, Nick, off. And he and he sticks his head down sheepishly and he walks off because he knows that he shouldn't be doing it. And and and what did that mean? That means he had hip surgery after hip surgery. This one didn't take. This one wasn't right. And it gets worse and worse. And the problem is is that when you are a student, um, you are looking, you're not just learning jiu-jitsu from that person. You're learning everything from that person when you're on the mat. And when you see someone who's just had surgery and they're back on the mat training, what do you think that student's going to do when they have surgery? Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, model the same thing. Speaker 2: They're going to model the same thing. So I actually think it's a responsibility of the instructor to lead by example, not just in the way that they teach or train or conduct themselves or behave, but but also in how they deal with injuries. You know, you can't say, you can't tell someone because I know that you're going to tell someone you got to rest. You can't say that and then not rest. Speaker 1: Yeah. I agree. Absolutely. Absolutely. Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Speaker 1: Tell me this, um, do you do you have, you know, I'm sure you cop injuries in how much you train jiu-jitsu at the moment? Speaker 2: Two or three times a week. Speaker 1: Okay. You cop little injuries here and there? Not yeah, a little bit. Speaker 2: A little bit. Like niggles. Speaker 1: Yeah. Today's show is brought to you by our good friends at Raised Nutrition. Raise the bar. They've got all the flavors. They've got tropical acai. If that doesn't speak BJJ, I don't know what does. They've got salted caramel, which is delicious. And they've also got rich chocolate and roast almond, which goes awesome with coffee. So, if you're looking for a snack to power your BJJ, this is built for you. It's all the clean good stuff without the nasties. Whether you're trying to get some energy before training or you're trying to speed your recovery after. Go to raisednutrition.com and use the code bulletproof and you'll get yourself some free bars. Get it today. Do you have that same thing where you're coming home from training and you're whatever, shoulder sore, knee sore and you're like, fuck jiu-jitsu. I don't think I need this anymore. Speaker 2: Uh not not not recently, not in the not in recent years, but previously. I I mean, I remember the worst time I ever had that. I was 23. Uh 2014, I was 23. I was a black belt and I was training for Polaris 2. So Polaris 1, I was meant to be on Polaris 1 against AJ Agazarm and I hurt my knee at ADCC trials. And then they gave me a second opportunity for the same match on Polaris 2. And I had a shoulder injury. I'd had this shoulder injury for about six before the competition about six months prior. And for that entire six months, it it would get bad and then it would get better and bad and better. And then it just went bad and stayed bad. And the effects that it was having on me for training were were really bad. Basically, after about five minutes of rolling, my arm would just shut down, something with the nerves or whatever. And I would, you know, I was tucking my hand into the belt or I was grabbing on and I was rolling with one hand. But I I felt like I couldn't pull out because I had this incredible opportunity to be on Polaris. I would be the only, you know, initially I was the only Brit invited to be on in the, you know, it was big at that point. There weren't a lot of people competing on there. And I was going up against a world champion. So I thought if I pull out of this with injury, I'm not getting a third shot. So I don't have a choice. So I pushed through it. I pushed through it. I was getting massages every almost every day just to keep myself on the mat. Um, and I remember just before the competition, I remember I was out with my family and I was I was feeling so disheartened every single session I left. I was I was so like upset and and and and angry and just, you know, it was so such a negative feeling every time I left the gym and you start to correlate that negative feeling to the jiu-jitsu. This incredible frustration and I remember thinking, I think I'm done with jiu-jitsu. It's the only only one time in my life I ever felt like this. It was it was a few weeks before the AJ match where training was just going to shit. I said, I thought I'm done with jiu-jitsu. I think I don't think I can do this half-assed. So I think uh if I if I take myself out of really being serious about the sport, I think I'm going to have to step away entirely. I'm going to go into property or, you know, I'm going to get a real job and make some money and do something else. And a few weeks passed and then I have the match with AJ. Somehow. Speaker 1: Legendary. Legendary match. Speaker 2: That's the match. Speaker 1: That's the match. Speaker 2: Yeah. Somehow. Speaker 1: Check that out on freaking YouTube. That's the best. Speaker 2: That's a fucking great match. Yeah. And and and somehow, you know, my my training partners who came and watched, they were so terrified of the match. It was a 15-minute match and they just know that I could not roll for more than five minutes. And something happens and the adrenaline hits and I had a and I was able to go full 15 minutes. My shoulder I couldn't feel my shoulder once, no problem. You know, I wasn't I wasn't my best because I'd barely been training, but I could I could do the match. And obviously that was a a a bit of an iconic match certainly. Speaker 1: Yeah, man. I think that's the first time I Speaker 2: Most people. Speaker 1: Became aware of you. Speaker 2: Most people, if they uh some people became aware of me through the strength stuff, some people through the podcast and some people through that AJ match. You know, so many people, oh, that's the first match that they saw of me. That that really took me to a more global um fan base. And off the back of that, I was able to then start teaching full-time and was able to make it a career. That was the moment for me. That's when I almost quit jiu-jitsu. And and almost the bad example of everything that I was saying beforehand. Speaker 1: The crux of my career was built on pushing through injury. So the lesson here, kids, Speaker 2: But but but also it does support what I was saying as well at the same time, which is at that time, I was in my mid to uh my early to mid 20s. Jiu-jitsu was my life and for me, pushing through that injury at that time was the right move to make and it paid off. If I had that injury now, I'm not taking the match. Because I know that it's not that that the Speaker 1: Juice isn't worth the squeeze. Speaker 2: The juice isn't worth the squeeze at this point. So that's where there's nuance to this conversation. I'm not saying, uh, you know, if you get a niggle, you sit at home and you stick it on ice or whatever you want to do. Uh, but you got to be a bit more intentional about what you do with it. Speaker 1: You were uh fighting for the people that day. Fucking AJ. Speaker 2: Fuck AJ Agazarm. Speaker 1: You're not wrong. You're not wrong. Did you guys did you guys were you guys getting along off the mat or is he just a fuck wit 24/7? Speaker 2: No, I hadn't met him, but so when I when I had to pull out of the first one, my friend uh Ollie Geddes stepped in and took the match instead. Now, Ollie Geddes, who unfortunately passed away last year. Speaker 1: RIP. Speaker 2: Um, but he was just he was the nicest guy he's the nicest guy in jiu-jitsu, you know. And he fought AJ and yes, AJ was certainly a significant favorite there. Ollie was a big underdog. He took the match from relative short notice. And AJ was just doing AJ, which is Speaker 1: Stolly and Speaker 2: Very cocky, showboating. He was taking the piss out of him a little bit and, you know, he was taking his mouth guard out of his mouth and putting it behind his ear and putting it back in and he was he was just uh mocking him a little bit. And that really upset me because I go, I get that you do this to you can do this to people who are on the same level as you, who are who kind of deserve that, who are up for it, but not Ollie's the one guy you don't do that to. He's just a nice guy. It's not cool. So it was personal for me with that. Speaker 1: It was. Yeah, it was. Speaker 2: It was. Yeah, it was. I said, I said like, you don't take the piss out of out of Ollie Geddes, the nicest man in in jiu-jitsu and get away with it. And I said, I had the spirit of Ollie with me. He actually was in my corner. I drove up and he cornered me as well. So it was uh that was a cool experience. So we we were we were fine afterwards. Uh but and fine before. I didn't I I you can't be you can't have a problem with someone that you don't really know very well, you know. Um, but uh but when we when we stepped onto that mat and I and the switch went off, yeah, I was there for war. And I remember saying beforehand, I said, if he takes his mouth guard out, I was saying this to my buddies at the gym for weeks. I said, if he takes his mouth guard out, I'm grabbing it and I'm throwing it. And about three or four minutes into the match, I see the mouth guard and I get laser vision onto the mouth guard and he goes to take it out and he goes to put it behind his ear and I grab it and I and I throw it backwards and it it was lost to the seats of uh of of the Cardiff Arena or wherever it was. Yeah. Speaker 1: That's fucking cool. That's amazing, man. Yeah, it's it's a real challenge. Like I I think um, uh, because the truth of BJJ is injury. And how well you manage it will most likely dictate how long you can stay in the game. And it the the irony of jiu-jitsu is balancing this and you know, I'm I'm somebody who wants to get results as fast as possible. I want to get better yesterday. But we all acknowledge that the past to the black belt is a long one. And it can only get longer depending on when you start. But you never get there if you don't, you know, like we we we're so impatient. I want that next stripe. I want it my blue belt. I want my purple. But speed to belt doesn't dictate quality of jiu-jitsu either. But then quality of life, which is the hardest thing, when we look at our heroes, they're rinsed by the time they're not even 30. You know, if you think about Nicky Ryan, youngest veteran ever. He's had three knee surgeries before he's 25. Like he performs so well so young. Amazing performances, but never you know, like and I and I say this with full respect because I'm a huge fan of Nicky Ryan. That really you would say the amount of knee surgeries he's had has limited his ability to be to realize his potential. Even looking at the, you know, the Meows, like obviously they've achieved many great things, but they're so crippled. Speaker 2: Yeah, they can't they can't write their name now because their hands are so fucked. Speaker 1: Well, just the knees. And it's the crippled nature of them that's also made them famous in a way. Speaker 2: Yes. But but but for every for every Meow who who paid the price and became a legend, how many paid the price who we don't know? Speaker 1: Of course. You know. Speaker 2: And never it got there. And that's the thing. And and for me, it's sort of we were talking about this yesterday a little bit. Um, it's sort of that Achilles mentality, right? Which is, you know, Achilles is given a choice. He's it's either you don't go to Troy, you'll live a long and happy life and no one will remember your name. Or you go to Troy, you'll die, you'll never come back, but you will your name will live for a thousand years. And Achilles, who a lot of people don't realize it, he's very, very young when he goes to Troy. He's in his teens when he goes to Troy. And of course, as everyone knows, thousands of years later, we're still talking about him. But the thing that people don't the interesting part for me, that was that was a big inspiration for me when I was in my teens. Right. Um, and what people don't realize is that the sequel to the Iliad, uh the Odyssey, Achilles appears again. Don't know if you guys read read the Odyssey. Achilles appears again. This is a lot of people don't don't know this and he appears when Odysseus goes to basically he goes to hell to find someone to find the way home. And whilst he's there, he sees Achilles or the shade, the ghost of Achilles. And Achilles says, you know, Odysseus says, you know, how how is it? You're almost wondering, you know, was it worth it to die for glory? And he says, I would rather be the slave to a poor farmer than king of all the dead. Speaker 1: Oh. Wasn't worth it for him. Speaker 2: Impressing. You know? And and and when you get that, you get the other side. You have the you see now you see these 20-year-olds, they're blasting steroids. They don't care about making it to 30 because as long as people remember their name. But when you get a little bit older, that perspective completely changes. And you realize that actually maybe I want to see my kids and I want to play with them when I'm in my 50s and I want to meet my grandkids. And and killing yourself by 30 because you want to make a name for yourself is probably not the way to go. Speaker 1: It's another way to look at it. Fuck it. Completely unrelated, but I I met a guy called Achilles the other day. Speaker 2: Cool. Speaker 1: And I had this very funny exchange. I got to share it with you guys. Yeah. I was at the park with my boy and another father with with a boy turns up. And they walk over. His boy was a bit older. And I said, hey, man. And he was like, hey, how are you? And he had an accent. And uh at some point we were chatting and boys and and then uh he said, oh, my name is Achilles. And I was like, oh, I'm Joey. And I was like, man, that's a hell of a name. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, he said, I'm from Greece. Yes. It's pretty common name, you know. And I was like, oh, cool. And then he said, um, this is this is uh Roman. His boy. And I was like, that's a bit contentious. You got the Greek name, Roman. And he looked at me and he said, what do you mean? And I was like, the Italian Greek thing. And he said, it's my stepson. And I was like, oh, fuck. Where do I go from here? You're banging the enemy, is that what you're saying? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Uh, lovely guy anyway. Yeah. It's it's it is this trade-off. It's this idea that men men will die trying to live forever. You know, that that concept and that's I think the thing that's confounded me because I always wanted to be the best at something because I thought it meant something. That a guy like Bushesha or Half a Mendes or whoever's the goat, whoever you consider to be the goat. Yeah. There's people today who they don't even know. And even you look at a guy like Gordon Ryan, two years later, there's people who are like, give it 10 years. Yeah. Which is because in the context of your jiu-jitsu journey, that matters because you were in it at that time. Similar to music or art or anything. It's emotionally meaningful to you because that person was the best in the concentrated energy of your attention. As soon as it gets outside of that, it's not irrelevant, but I I would I would never be as great as any of those people and they are gone like in terms of the conscious memory of the culture. That's crazy. That so quickly it can fall out of the Speaker 2: That that that is celebrity culture though, but do you know who isn't forgotten quickly? It's it's it's the well not even that, I mean, it will eventually. Yeah. Of course. But the people who you know, when when you're looking up at who the top dog is, that's going to change every year. Yeah. You know, and it'll be Gordon and then it'll be whoever's next. Joseph Chen and then after that it'll be someone else and the the the ones that if you really want to be remembered, it it can't be you were the best and some guy who you never met knows your name. It's the people around you. Yeah. You know? Who don't you forget? You don't forget your first instructor. Right. You don't you don't forget the guy who taught you this. You don't forget the guy who mentored you here. Those are really the the relationships where they might not hear your name for 20 years. You might pass away. 20 years later, I still remember I remember Ollie Geddes. I remember Nick Brooks. Those are more important to me than a Roger Gracie or Gordon Ryan. Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. You know, that makes me think of um, the point you made earlier about like that, you know, people sort of chasing chasing the next promotion, chasing the belt. And I actually don't I think for most people that's probably not at the forefront of their like that's not the the motivating thing for them. It's the I don't want to lose in training. I don't want to tap to this guy. It's the desire to to win in and I mean, you know, we all have this. Um, in the training room and in a in a way, that's almost like a I see that on the same kind of continuum as this thing of like the Meows and whatnot, the people that make those sacrifices to win competitions that at the time are like big in the culture, but actually don't mean shit in the scheme of life. But we all do that in the training room, right? Where you're like, I don't want to tap to this fucking inside heel hook. And it's some fucking dude I don't know. I'm visiting this town at an open mat and I'm fighting to the death. Yeah. You know, because in my mind it's so important. It is, yeah. You know. Speaker 2: It's like a it's like every man needs their last stand. Yeah. Right? They need to go out on their bloody shield. You bleed out in the snow. And for some people that that event is ADCC finals, but for the 45-year-old dad of three, that's just the Tuesday night open mat. Speaker 1: Is this the is this the the heel hook hill that you die on? Speaker 2: You know, this is it. This is like, okay, this is where I go, but this is where I make my last stand and you know, later on you got some ice on your knee and you're going, that was probably a pretty stupid idea. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. After the fact. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that that original question of, you know, do you do you, you know, do you think about fucking just jiu-jitsu, fuck it. Because I I I grapple, no pun intended, with that question a lot still in my mind where it's like, usually injury related and I'm just like, oh, fuck, is it even worth it anymore? And I I I like to share that with folks because I think a lot of people who who haven't done it anywhere near as long as I have or we have, um, you know, ask themselves that question all the time and probably think that maybe it's an unhealthy thing to be considering that. I'm like, no, I think for some of us that's just a that's a thing that's there quite often. Speaker 2: I don't think I think for most people there are there are some people where, you know what, you go. This is probably not for you anymore at this point in in the long term. But I think it's less so you don't need to break up with jiu-jitsu. You just need to change the relationship a little bit. Yeah. You know what I mean? So for me, Speaker 1: But this is this is hard for folks, no? Speaker 2: Yeah, it is hard, but lots of things in life are hard. The the most important things to do very often are hard. Um, and that goes true in real relationships, not just your relationship with jiu-jitsu or your relationship with food or your relationship with alcohol or cigarettes or whatever it is. Uh, your relationship with your phone, you know, all of these things. Um, it's not you know, and I I guess this will probably probably be a good point to finish this on, but I think the most dangerous mentality that people have for jiu-jitsu or or for really anything is they say, I'm an all or nothing person. Right? Speaker 1: This how how dare you, Daniel? Speaker 2: You know. Speaker 1: You feel like this is the only way to live. Speaker 2: So many feel that way. I'm an all or nothing person. Speaker 1: It's I I'm going to say right now, it sounds strange. It's easier for things to be black and white than to deal with the gray, right? Speaker 2: 100%. Speaker 1: As as a as a possibly undiagnosed bipolar person. Speaker 2: It's just Oh, no, it's diagnosed. Speaker 1: It's fucking What'd you say? So it's just because then it's I I'm not I'm not I'm not justifying this. This is just more a perspective on that that you don't have to you either emotionally commit or you don't. And then that makes life easier to navigate. It doesn't mean that your life is easier. You often make your life harder by living these extremes. That's right. So there's less effort in making the decision, but that can make your whole life harder, especially if you've Speaker 2: Exactly. You have to confront those things, though. Yeah. Speaker 1: Oh, definitely. Speaker 2: For for me, all or nothing is the most dangerous attitude you can have because I guarantee you at some point you will not be able to give all. And if your attitude is all or nothing, that means at some point it will be nothing. And the reality is is that it shouldn't be all or nothing. It should be all or something. And if you can pull back from from all to something, then you can find an equilibrium where you can train jiu-jitsu, you're smart, when the knee hurts, you take a few weeks off, you select your rolls more carefully, and you can develop a relationship with jiu-jitsu where you're never thinking again, is this is this not for me anymore? And that's that I think is the goal. Like I said, when I say this, I'm not talking about the 21-year-old who sees making it to the UFC and being a champion is their way of getting out of the situation that they're in in life and the only thing that they care about. We need some of those crazy people. But once you get past the point where jiu-jitsu is not going to be paying the bills for you competitively, and it's all about longevity and having a good relationship and and and having jiu-jitsu be a positive impact in your life, you got to start making those hard decisions. And I think that's that that's something that I had to deal with. It's something that sounds like you're dealing with right now. Something that you've dealt with before. You're speaking to Garrett yesterday, he doesn't train jiu-jitsu because of the injuries. You go, you don't have to be injured training jiu-jitsu. You just got to be a bit smarter with what you do. Speaker 1: Yeah. There it is, folks. I think that's a very good note to put a pin in it and fucking dropping those gems. Good to have you in, brother. Speaker 2: Pleasure to be here.