What Jiu-Jitsu Can Learn From Skateboarding | Ivan J | Game Plan Ep. 023

Ivan joins the podcast to talk about how jiu-jitsu culture has changed, why big sponsors still keep their distance, and what combat sports can learn from skateboarding, branding, and authenticity. The conversation goes from current jiu-jitsu drama and professionalism to Ivan’s background in Barcelona skate culture, his time working at Nike, and what makes a brand actually connect with people.  

We get into:
 • the current state of jiu-jitsu culture
 • whether jiu-jitsu is a sport or a lifestyle
 • why money changes underground communities
 • why some athletes and brands last longer than others
 • Ivan’s path from skateboarding to Nike
 • what authenticity really means in branding and in life  

If you’re into jiu-jitsu, skateboarding, creativity, branding, or building something real over time, this one’s for you.


0:00 This Conversation Might Upset People
1:00 Meet Ivan (Why His Perspective Matters)
2:01 Jiu-Jitsu Drama Is Getting Out of Control
6:13 The Truth About ADCC Money
8:41 Jiu-Jitsu Isn’t Really a Sport
12:10 Nobody Is Actually In Charge
15:05 Money Changed Everything
18:42 Brands Want Nothing To Do With This
20:06 You Have to Pick a Lane
23:29 Building a Brand on Drama Fails
25:10 Say It With Your Chest
26:51 Social Media Is Warping People
29:23 Why There’s Still No Governing Body
33:32 One Mistake Can Cost Millions
38:02 From Skateboarding to Nike
42:08 How He Actually Got In
47:19 The Part of Nike Nobody Talks About
50:37 Did Nike Ruin Creativity?
55:15 The Qatar Story Is Crazy
58:39 This Would Blow Up Jiu-Jitsu
1:02:48 Why Skateboarding Took Over
1:06:23 Jiu-Jitsu Lost Its Edge

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Creative sex symbol, anything.

SPEAKER_03 0:04

International sex symbol.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

That sounds about right. That's the one. Latin lover. Latin lover.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Welcome back to Game Plan the Podcast. I'm your host, Davis Cole, and joined as always by our producer Juice.

unknown 0:17

Yo.

SPEAKER_03 0:18

Today's guest is a creative as well as a Brazilian jujitsu black belt. Please welcome to the podcast, Ivan J. Um, but then when you say there's an ear, that's the logic behind it. That's overtly sexual right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

And when they decide contact in an ear, that's when it gets weird.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Yeah, I mean, I think about this for a lot of like the spicy creators. It's like when you're just at home and you make that stuff and then you stop recording. You just gotta like deal with who you are as a person who's just like tongue-punched a fake ear for a half an hour and how's next.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Maybe they pay the rent with that one ear moment.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Yeah, that's one of my biggest regrets in life is not starting an OnlyFans sooner. You know? 2020? Sooner. 2020, dude. It would have been the time. Everybody's getting stimulus checks bored at home.

unknown 1:26

Oh fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Alright, Roland? Yeah, we're all good. You didn't need a clap last time. Do we not need a clap? Um, we never really need a clap, but I like to do it for continuity. Okay, let's do it. As I said, clap, I could smell that I still have wet dogs now. You can smell your clap? Yeah, I can smell the clap.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Go ahead, give me, give me clap. Just one clap for the mic. Sick boom.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Well, my my first order of business with you guys was did you see that Gordon Ryan, I guess, doxxed? Is that the word I'm looking for? Doxed? Train Angry MMA.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Oh, really? Oh, I read about it. Did you see that last morning? Something about the family and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Yeah, so Gordon's post. He even took his uh Guy Fox mask. Like this is Gordon's post, but it looks just like Train Angry's. And the first slide is Is social justice warrior train angry MMA really a wife beater? And then it shows his Facebook. And then from the California Fresno County Arrests inflict corporal corporal injury on spouse, co-inhabitant, felony, false imprisonment with violence. 2017.

unknown 2:47

Fuck.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

So I don't know if this is actually the guy. Um, but it's like Gordon trying to talk to both of them in Instagram DMs and like this is the guy.

unknown 2:57

Fuck man.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

So not good.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Uh I wonder how that happened.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Are you like how he figured out who it was? Or or or he got someone on Instagram and somebody just like well, the guy had a tag on his Facebook to Train Angry MMA. So I bet if you spent enough time on Google typing in Train Angry and like Train Angry Facebook, you could probably just find it just from searching. Probably you would have to be very dedicated, which I feel like Gordon or somebody else was super dedicated to figuring out who this guy was.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yeah for sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

And then Train Angry says, This isn't about me trying to hide anything, it was never my story to tell. The only person who had the right to tell that story was the victim. Um part of me knows they come at me hard because they know I'm right. I mean, it just doesn't look good because he's trying to take this stance of being like the perfect social justice warrior and standing up for women in jujitsu. But like if you have a case against you for violence against women, most dudes I think will just kind of write you off. Yeah. You know? Does seem a little bit hypocritical. And I just gave him a shout-out on like our two episodes ago of like, hey, at least he's trying to cover all this stuff and say who said what.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I think that everything is just going downhill, man. I mean, it just if you think how it all started, all this drama in the jujitsu world and where we are right now, I think that people should really stop and just think about it for three seconds, dude. Like, people is pulling out like court records, police footage. It goes both ways. I think that it can only get worse.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

Yeah, and I mean it's one thing if you're still arguing with each other with the focus of like trying to keep gyms safe, that's or something like that. I think that that's it. But it's just become this like gotcha game between like train angry and Craig and then Gordon. Yeah, and then like I can feel it feels like the the rage addiction with it feels exactly like the news, like on like a I don't know, it could be Epstein list or whatever. I agree. Where every day I'm like, all right, what's the new drama between Train Angry and Gordon? And like Gordon will engage with everything, and this guy's been coming after him pretty hard, so I'm sure that it's just like two dudes on their phones all day.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, but now on Reddit yesterday, something showed up also. The the the what did they call it? They call it the Gordon text files or something like that. And it's a video of actual DMs coming up, Gordon and someone else. And I don't know if it's Ren Angry or something, but it got to a point where I'm like, dude, like people is very dedicated to these on both sides. Like it it's just going to get worse and worse.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Yeah, I think that's the problem, is that it's like the dedication to the rage part and not really the dedication to any actual stance on anything or anything for the sporting. It's just making everything worse. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's like those guys always say, like, oh, this is uh this is for the growth of the sport. We're doing marketing, and it's like, I don't really think this is helping grow the sport.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

I did see talking about growth of the sport, I think it was last night or something like that. I saw a post um saying that ADCC was raising um competition prizes. Okay, that's good. Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Yeah, they've moved like I think absolute from like 40k to 50k. They had like two bonuses, one was the best 3k for the best sub, 3k for the best uh takedown. What was it before, like one or something? Or I don't even know if there was a there was no bonuses. Yeah, I don't think there was bonuses for like moves like that. Um and I don't know, I can't remember who posted that. Was it like ADCC?

SPEAKER_01 6:50

If that's the case, that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Yeah, I feel like it's such a small improvement for the winner though. From 40k to 50k. I mean at least a step in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Oh yeah, I mean, the the thing we were talking about on that other episode with ADCC still has Isaac Mitchell on the card for this year, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Yeah, I don't think that's gonna like stand. Do you think it'll stand?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Nah, there's no way that's when when you have a police request to just, hey, just go to the police station. I think that that's one of those things like that that's it. Like if you show up in America, you're you're good.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

Trying to find uh new pay structure. Nice. So I think it's like a marginal increase. But yeah, I agree with you that like to me we only have like the few guys. People call it Craig Jones number two, Gordon number one, and the level of pettiness that they'll engage with online. Like, I don't know if there's I mean, maybe like 50 cents does that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

It's a 50 cent puff daddy situation, I feel. Yeah. But again, I I think that how bad that is going to take, it's very similar to what's hop what's going on here. Like every single week, you got new files, new DMs, new things, new, new, new I'm gonna one-up you, I'm gonna one up you. I really don't think that that helps anybody. I really don't. Do we see this in other sports?

SPEAKER_03 8:44

That's where I was trying to think of, like the 50 cent thing, because I when I said that, I was trying to think of like other major sports, and I don't think that you have athletes like engaging with this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I I think that the difference with jiu-jitsu, and for me personally, jujitsu is not a sport. Jiu Jitsu is a lifestyle with a component of athletic situation, right? There is no governing body because the IBJJ F or I the IBJJ, whatever, it only governs on the competitions, but there is no cult code of conduct. Like once you do soccer and you're professional, you know that you got that organization. Basketball is the same, every biggest sport. Jiu Jitsu is not a sport. If you really think about it, there is no governing body, and I think that it's for the better. But at the same time, it got so big, in my opinion, that somebody should put at least some guardrails to be like, if you're competing here, things that you cannot do. If you want to be part of this, there needs to be some sort of like a moral type of like check-in or some sort of stuff like that. So it keeps it a little bit safe. But I really don't think that jujitsu is a sport per se.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

That's my opinion. So, like, um, what governing bodies or whatever would you say run like basketball or something?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Uh well, you got the the basketball association of every country. In every country, there is a big organization that pretty much takes takes care of all the professionals that are part of that. So, in order for you to play in a professional uh league, you need to be associated with that. It's the same thing with the NBA. You got the NBA here in the US, but the NBA also has the women NBA, right? So if you're a professional player, you're part of that organization. And as we have seen in the NFL and other uh people, you got a code of conduct, you got the code of dressing, how do you have to dress, things that you can do and you cannot do because it affects the organization, right? And the way and the ability to make money. So I don't know, I think that jujitsu is very fragmented. I I want to think that it grew a lot in the last, let's say, five to ten years, and I think that's why we are seeing all this bullshit going on because people want to be the best from a personality trait.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

I joined in the last five years. Sorry, guys. Sorry, I apologize.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Ever since you joined, it's just gonna be everything's just been the middle.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

No, but I think that it's a matter of just like before it was so small, and and now it looks like oh, I need to be the most petty, I need to be the most vocal, and it's a one-up game, and uh I just I mean that's not for everybody though, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Like no, it's just like for the names that we talked about, like Craig Jones, Gordon Ryan, blah blah blah. But there's still a ton of like athletes that compete in the sport that don't really engage in in all the bullshit, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah, yeah. And some of the best ones do not engage. Marcelo Garcia, I don't think that you have seen that guy part of anything negative, right? Then you have some that others that did, but I think that the OGs from back in the day, there are a lot that have never engaged in any of this stuff. Others have, but in general, the OGs from back then, when it was so small that you had to, oh, I need to do a seminar or I will not eat, those people, I don't think that they're gonna engage in this bullshit. It's all these new guys.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Yeah, and I also feel like when you're trying to like capture a larger audience and trying to grow fans, like it doesn't do you any favors to put yourself in some kind of like political side. Whereas now I think the attitude's like, oh, I'm so big, I have my fans no matter what, they won't leave me just because I talk about my politics or something. But I do wish that like what you were saying with like the NBA, where like they have some freedom on like post uh post-game conferences and press conferences and stuff, but they also have stuff in their contract that's like it can't make that organization look bad, it can't make the whole NBA look bad. So they have a lot more like general code of conduct, it seems, for like pretty much every other professional sport. Yeah, you know, like the PGA, they definitely have some like standards of professionalism that you can't break. But I feel like is that golf? Yeah, I got it. I feel like part of it though is like in the combat sports world, you have like people like Dana White, who repeats himself all the time of like, I don't care what these guys say, I'm not putting anybody on a leash. So from like the biggest organization within combat sports, the attitude is very much of like these guys are kind of independent contractors. So if they want to go out there and say their political thing or whatever, like I'm not here to control them. So I feel like for all the smaller like jujitsu organizations, it's gonna be like the same attitude. Like, oh well, who am I to tell these guys what they can and cannot say?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Is this going to continue? Like, let's let's be honest. Like, once the UFC signs a three billion dollar deal with Paramount Plus, is that going to be the case? Yeah, yeah, they can say whatever they want and Paramount people, hey, we paid you three billion dollars. We want more people watching this. We cannot have your guy say well ABC. Yeah, somebody can say that he needs to poop after the fight, that's funny. But from that to just say certain other things, is Paramount Plus going to allow it? I think that once you do certain deals, you need to really understand that you're not in the same little league that you were before, being the UFC or being anybody else. Um so yeah, I I I think that it's going to change. I'm not saying that I'm all for it, but I really think that if people want more professional approach to this, more money. I think that a little bit of rules, if you want to be part of that, if you don't, that's fine. You gotta you gotta you gotta be in a mindset where you need to just chill a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Do you think um prof like a increase in professionalism is proportional to the cap of of uh financial gain that an athlete could get?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

I think I think that yeah. So my my background is in skateboarding, right? Like I started skateboarding and I have seen skateboarding when it was just in the street, everybody was in the streets, they were trying to do their own thing, little brands started coming up, and then if you take that approach from late 80s and you take that approach to um late 90s or early 2000s with the X games, it's the same activity. But in the 2000s, people were making a lot of money because it was on TV, people were getting PlayStation games, they were getting the sponsorships from Lexus, from all these companies, Toyota. Things change, a lot more people was part of it, but at the same time, that same professional approach, in my opinion, is what really killed the skateboarding these days. These days, the skateboarding is not the same, it's not as popular, there is not that much money. So I think that it's like this. Once it got so a corporate, I think that it lost a little bit of its soul. People made a lot of money, but the soul was gone. And if you look at it like 20 years ago, 20 years later, people is just like a scrambling to make$500 a month. And I know that because I was part of that industry and I saw that trend, and I saw all the ins and outs, and I'm like, fuck man, I think that we were better off a little bit more, maybe a little bit more poor, but also a little bit more free. So I think that people need to look at both sides of the spectrum. I cannot be a professional, poor and free. I think that that's my route too. It just like from a corporate point of view, just work itself. I've been working on corporations and I decided to be a little bit poorer, but free. And I think that my mindset is that right now, and I see that in jujitsu. I just think that getting too corporate is never going to be good for the sport in general. People will make more money, they're gonna be professional. So I think that people really need to choose what do you want to do, and if they want to be professional and rich, they need to just be a little bit more normal. And hey, you can still have a point of view, you just need to keep some things just out of you know, out of your mouth. Just tell your wife, tell your friends, but just chill a little bit and just be more normal. Yeah, that's at least what I'm seeing. That's why I think that everything is a spiraling. Everybody's just looking for attention.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah, so it's just like a bit of a uh a balance.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

There should be a balance, I think so. I mean, it's not that hard, like we're all adults. I know what I can say in public, even though I'm poor and free, but I know what I can say in public, and what I should just maybe hey, I'm just gonna keep it for home. I I think that that's normal. It's a matter of when you mix those two ideas, it gets a little like, fuck, dude, did you really need to say that?

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Yeah, like this Saturday, Sean Strickland got a TKO, and he was saying a bunch of crazy shit on the mic. Yeah, and some of it is like what we were just talking about two episodes ago with all like the grooming going on in jujitsu. He's kind of calling out his opponent's coach for having this questionable relationship with a young fighter before well before she was of age, and then getting with her as a grown woman. He's like calling out a groomer, which I'm like, I actually kind of support Sean Strickland on this side of it, right? But in the same speech, he'll say stuff of like making fun of gays is any chance he can get, you know. And it's like you didn't need to add that part. That's exactly to your point. It's like, all right, yeah, let's call out these guys that are being groomers. That's awful, but don't add to it being a homophobic asshole, you know. And yeah, I think to your original question, I'm like, I was thinking about like sponsorships in anything, right? Like you can look at YouTube monetized channels where like the silly lower quality content that's like pranks and stuff, it gets a lot of views, but like you can't get as good of deals for ads, whereas like finance is like the highest in to get like a thousand views in finance, versus a thousand views and pranks, like you're gonna make more in finance, you know. And they I'm sure a part of that goes into like it's more polished, there's not gonna be you know a bunch of negativity with it. So, like, same here. If we were just talking about like aliens and crazy conspiracy theories all the time, like I don't think that there I think there'd be a lot of companies that would be like, Yeah, I'm not messing with those guys that just talk about aliens and lizard people all the time, you know. Whereas like if it was kind of like what we've been putting out, I think it opens up the door for for more opportunity. And I think like the more extreme you get on anything, the harder it is gonna be to get good sponsors and have companies that look at it as like some because every time you get a sponsor, you're like taking somebody who you want to have like this brand ambassador and you want them to represent the brand. So if it's like a good brand, they're gonna make sure that they have people that are representing their stuff that align with whatever their kind of brand values are, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

That that's what I did. I I build teams, um, and I I had to choose people that could represent certain brands. And you need to you need to make sure that who you're picking is is is not a fucking bad crazy person that is gonna say something or do something that at the end of the day it reflects on you too. So yeah, I think that it's a matter of just finding someone, understanding the goal. First of all, as an athlete or as a person or someone who wants to do anything, I think that people need to like pick the lane. Do you want to be the rebel or do you want to be the somehow of a rebel? People someone that can just talk about someone, talk about products, just promote things, make everything feel good around you, create this micro universe, or do you just want to say something uh when you get the microphone that make people go like fuck, dude? Really? So I think that people need to pick one lane and then just start building that universe. Okay, maybe I can go to that brand. Hey, I'm doing this, and I think that it's it's it's the moment that we are at jujitsu. People need to pick what do they want. Do they want to be the crazy person with a lot of sponsorship and money? I think that that's why we're seeing all this drama. Or you want to be someone who just trains hard, has a good time. I want to think that there is a lot of these kids these days, like the taggeds are a great example. Just like good kids have fun, they're always smiling, they are doing their thing, buying crazy fucked up trucks on the road and fixing them. And dude, it's a this macro universe that it's entertaining, it's fun. And and I think that if we if we all as a community are honest with each other, we will see that those guys are gonna get far. And we are seeing that those guys that wanted to be the rebel, I do I say whatever you want, what I want, I say and do whatever I want. These guys are not doing that well anymore. And we see the situation. With Gordon, who I don't know, but it's factual what's going on. So I think that people is starting to realize, dude, if I go crazy, if I want to be this odd character in the wall, maybe my days are numbered, and these are all the guys are having fun, they are doing that thing. They might not have that much money, but fuck man, they're gonna get far. I think the more and more people is gonna get into that. I want to have fun, I want to be positive, and I want to be maybe a role model. I think that that's my hope is that jujitsu is gonna get into more into that direction.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

My concern with that is like people the way people are addicted to their phones and social media and stuff, is that it's just not engaging. You're not gonna get any engagement out of that wholesome guy versus like when people take shots at each other, that's more interesting.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yes, yes. But I think that people need to understand the longevity of it. And I think that it's better to be sustained growth, even if it's one, two, three, four, five percent, even a year on growth, but you're still there instead of getting to a million people following you and just having all that drama behind you. Yeah, I think that you need to pick that lane. For me, I would go into that growth, which is more sustained, even from a personal point of view, or even from a jujitsu point of view, right? Like, oh, I'm not gonna be in one year just like competing and winning. No, I prefer to just keep training and just doing my thing little by little, getting more tricks, getting more move, but slowly and surely. And I know that I'm gonna keep doing this for 30, 40, 50 years. I just don't want to win three, five times things in one year and then retiring and just be um arguing with people that I don't know online.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Yeah, well, it's like I'm I'm you're making me think back to the Train Angry MMA thing because he's kind of started this brand and he started doing just like updates when events were happening. Oh, here's the winner. Like it started more simple, and then over time it's gone down this rabbit hole of like nobody knows who I am, I have this mask over me, and then I'm gonna engage in the most volatile stuff I can possibly find, and then like push hard into that. But then, like, that's a perfect example of the longevity because now he's been exposed to who he was, he clearly wasn't trying to do that for some time, and I really don't know what he'll do from there. Because I mean, once you're that's it, if you have this like faceless brand, and then your face is out there now connected to it, like you can't really keep pushing into the faceless thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

So that's what I mean. Like all these growth, all these followers, all these engagement, and now we just burn to the ground.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Yeah, and I'll be interested what he does to try to you know cover cover up that has now been exposed. I don't think you can take that back. I'm sure there's plenty of people that already screenshotted that's not me. Yeah, I do feel like with Jordan, he does put out so much stuff as well that you could be like, man, what what's this guy's evidence here? You know, yeah, but he already kind of owned up to it that it is him, so now it's like, are people still gonna follow him the same way? I'm not sure. And I agree with your point that I I've been.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

I think people will because people like fucking drama, you know. Everyone likes drama. Yeah, I think that's part of the problem.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Maybe I I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

But that's why I like putting everything that we put out. This is my face, this is who I am. You can if I say anything you don't like, you can come to me directly and then we could like talk about it. I do wish that we could have trained angry MMA and Gordon Ryan on. I will debate, I will be the mediator for them to debate. If anybody wants to set that up, I will happily let's do it. I don't I don't think that they would really like I would love to get two podiums, you know. Yeah, like the presidential debate. Yeah, presidential debate with train angry MMA and Gordon Ryan. Yeah. Let's set it up. Let's see what they have to say.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

We'll set them up here. You'll be here mediating, and I'll be I don't know if you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

We're gonna need like offense. Yeah, I was gonna say we're gonna need some serious like safety here because I just can't imagine that conversation being a debate. I'm sure that Gordon would probably want to take the guy's head off. And the funniest thing is this guy saying in the past of like, oh, I might get a match against Gordon.

unknown 26:06

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 26:06

And then I'm like, looking at the picture, I think that is highly unlikely. And maybe again goes into just the marketing side of things. Like if you say something like that, it makes people like, oh, who is this guy? The mystery. But I really was digging his whole no-face, you don't know who this guy is. And then after he started attacking more people personally, I'm like, all right, now this is kind of weird because like if I say some shit about you, I'm putting it out there as me as the person. And we saw that doing it anonymously. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

It I think that it was during the weekend when the auto situation, then he started going for more people, and I was like, man, that's that's weird. It just felt just felt different. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

And I feel like it's anybody there's like there's gotta be some amount of time on Instagram that starts becoming extremely dangerous for your mental health. That's what I think that these guys are. Probably after like a couple hours a day, you start going down into like this is not good for you, and Gordon too, right? Like he's always responding to people's DMs and comments, and he posts pretty much every day, it seems, and it's like, dude, that's I don't know how I don't know how healthy that is for you, bro.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

And where are they getting all that information? Both sides, like how these train angry MMA guy gets all this info. Think about it. Who is he talking to to just go so much down the rabbit hole?

SPEAKER_02 27:30

I mean, it seems like there's last DMing like everybody.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Like who, yeah, but if you think about it, like the the this this crazy universe that is getting created around this thing, and when I say this thing is all this Austin Jiu Jitsu drama, it just feels that there is so much more people part of it, sending tips, sending info, sending the imps. I think that it's just like this weird toxic situation that we are in. Some good things are getting exposed, some bad people is getting exposed, so some things that happen, great. But I think that we're in a very toxic time in jiu-jitsu.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Yeah, I agree with that. That's my take. Yeah. And even like within the promoters, there seems to be like not a healthy amount of competition between whose events are better. It seems to be very like everyone else's event is shit but mine, you know, and here's what's wrong with everybody else's rules or or how they pay or whatever. I do wish that we had something like you were saying for like a true professional league, and then the people in that league kind of have to just focus on being athletes.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

I think that it would be good, yeah. And whoever wants to sign up, you know the rules, be part of it, but you know what you need to do, and if you don't want to be part of it, fantastic. Do your own thing, keep your own thing independent, great. But having that option, if people want to really be jujitsu athletes, okay, great. You get a venue. It's that it's that that's the way that you can achieve that if that's your goal. That's why I think that it's very important. Like, what's your goal? Like, what do you want to do? Do you want to be A or B, or do you just want to do your thing and just train in the afternoon? Everything is valid, but you go!

SPEAKER_02 29:26

How do you think a like governing body like that would come to fruition? Because I feel like a lot of the major major um groups right now, like IBJ JF, ADCC, would have you know something to say about that and they would want to be a part of like the bigger picture if this would be something that's overseeing all of them, right? Something like a national jujitsu association. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 29:53

I don't think it's realistically possible. I don't think it'll ever be a sport anywhere close to basketball and baseball and hockey, those kind of things. It's not even gonna be on that level because, like I already mentioned the UFC side of it, it would be like if the UFC BJJ got 50 times larger, but then didn't have someone like Dana who would be like, Oh, I don't care what they say. UFC BJJ athletes can say whatever they want, it'd have to be something like that, but much bigger. And I just don't think that there's any profit.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

I don't think no, it should be a non-profit, it should be a non-profit, it should be a non-profit, and in my opinion, it should have a mix between people coming from jujitsu and people not from jujitsu taking care of it. Because let's be honest, like, as as many of these niche sports where people get obsessed with training or with doing the ABC and skateboarding is another great example, like that is you need help from a professional level when it comes to handling finances, handling marketing, or anything that has to do with like running a business, whether a profit or non-profit. But I think that um if I think about um Spain, Spain does not have a jiu-jitsu association, uh, or at least until recently, I'm from Spain. So just for these, uh for the three million people on the audience, I'm from Spain.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Obviously, I'm not an English teacher, but uh shout out to our dozens of subscribers.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

We love you tens of people watching this video, you know. Uh but everything that had to do with jiu-jitsu championships, it had to go through the uh wrestling federation in Spain, because the wrestling federation was part of it because it was part of the Olympics. So there is a governing body that the jiu-jitsu people and some of the guys that I started training with associated themselves to get that structure behind it, right? So you have to be registered, you have to have your ID. I was doing karate, I had my karate association ID, you got your booklet with the rules, and and I think that that's great, that's what I wanted to be part of. But I think that there are venues in America, and you know, I'm also American, but I think that there is a problem of ego. So I want to control everything, I want to be the boss of ABC. That's why I think that a non-profit with people from jujitsu and from other sports trying to create a structure behind it, it would be a great way. And obviously, again, money is what creates a lot of problems. So I would make it a non-profit. So at least there is a portion that goes for salaries, whoever is working, but that's it. Like, let's keep it clean, let's keep it lean, and let's try to organize this in a way that makes sense for the people that want to be part of it.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Do you know if that's how like the like the MBA works? There's an MBA like an MBA is for profit.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

It is for profit, it is for profit. You got investors, you got uh, you got a lot of money coming in, you got TB deals, but it's the same thing. Once you have a structure, you can start doing things that are bigger. It's a matter of here in the US with the A C C C UFC BJJ and these and that. I think that it's it would be more complicated, but yeah, I think I think that it could it it could be possible. I don't know when, but I think that it could be a great venue, especially for young kids to be part of that, and seeing that there is a path, a healthy path.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Yeah, if anybody wants to sign a petition and nominate me for executive director of National Jiu Jitsu Association, why not? I'm I'm I'm open.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Why not? Why not?

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Just I'm I'm I was looking at uh like athletes that have lost their biggest sponsorships, and I think this is a good good one because it's like kind of in the combat sports space. But in 2016, Manny Pacquiao was referring to gay people in the Philippines as worse than animals, and he lost his deal with Nike, which like I've said this forever when you know jujitsu athletes started getting sponsorships and people would get excited. I was like, Man, like Nike making ghys and sponsoring an athlete would be a sign that the sport has like really grown, and like Nike's just that's gotta be the best sponsorship. I'm sure they've probably paid more people more than any other brand, especially for athletes. Um, but yeah, he lost that contract, so I'm sure like that was probably tens of millions of dollars. Yeah, and it was because he's saying something that Nike doesn't, you know, want their ambassador to be speaking on, which I mean, they still not have a Nike sponsorship.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

I don't think so. I don't know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

But I think it's just like one of those things on jujitsu. I don't think that Nike will ever look at the jujitsu market as big enough for them to even go into, you know. So I do think that we'll be constrained on the point in which a governing body can tell athletes what to do because we're never gonna hit the viewpoint that it's profitable for these big companies.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Yes and no. So here's the thing 2005, I got the MMA kit from Kaol Uno from Nike because I used to work at Nike. I got the kit that was only made for the Japanese market for these fighters, Kaol Uno, who just got his black belt. Um, he was doing MMA for a long time. He was sponsored by Nike for the Japanese market, and they were doing clothes for him. I still I still wear it to this day. It's the white, uh the black uh longest sleeve that I have. Great, great stuff, but it was only in a very small market because that's one that's when um the whole pride thing was going on. So they were sponsoring people, and for a little moment, they sponsored Anderson Silva, if I'm not mistaken, a few years ago when he was still fighting, he was a sponsor by Nike, and maybe no, John Jones. John Jones was on Nike and he got dropped fairly quickly, right? For the three million viewers, if you guys can fact check this. Um, I know one of them was a sponsored by Nike and he got dropped fairly fairly yeah in 2014.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Okay, with uh with a brawl with Cormier at a media event.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

That those are still like like UFC like big athletes, not like a like a jujitsu competitor.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Right, but now I'm questioning if there's any jujitsu athletes that even have good enough behavior that they could stick with Nike, right? Like the Tackets are the example. I think so. But then on the other side for Nike is do they bring in enough views to make it worth it for the other thing?

SPEAKER_01 36:25

And there are there are levels of sponsorship. Um I have sponsored people in the past where you could be the top athlete and you can get paid, or you can go into okay, I'm not paying you money, but I'm gonna support you for travel, let's say, or you get free product. So there are these levels, right? Um, so I think that there is I think that there is an opportunity, but again, I don't think that all this drama going on these days for big corporations, if they look from outside and they go like, what in the actual fuck is going on in jujitsu? I don't want to be part of all this. Yeah, they're not gonna get part of it.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

That's what I think about with Craig all the time. I don't know if there's other jujitsu creators that get the views that Craig gets. I imagine he's probably one of the top ones. But then if I'm a big company and I look at Craig Jones, I'm like, cool, he's getting the views, but what's he posting? And it's like him with a thong on, and it's like but probably that's not what he wants.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

If you think about it, it's like I'm gonna do this, but I don't want the sponsorship of ABC.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

For sure. For sure. That's that's his own.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

I want to keep having fun, yeah, working with my friends, the Street X guys. I know Daniel, very smart guy, but he's just working with his friends and making it work and doing CJI, whatever. Great. I wonder in the future, is someone going to show up and be so attractive to big companies so real money starts coming into jujitsu? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 37:49

Yeah, it'd have to be like another Gordon skill-wise, you know, someone that could actually be probably undisputed, you know, reigning champ across all sorts of different organizations and no one even stands a chance. But then yeah, put me in. Maybe not with all the rest of it. All right, so I want to get to know you a little bit better because you've dropped a few things with the skateboarding in the Spain. Did you start skateboarding in Spain?

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah, yeah. I was um I started skateboarding in 1989 after watching Gleam in the Cube. Gleam in the Cube is a great movie with um with that guy. I don't know his name. Anyways, for the three million people in the audience, please Gleam in the Cube is a great movie from the 80s. Uh yeah, I'm from Spain, from Barcelona, and um I decided skateboarding in 1989 and I kept doing it until 2006, 2007, maybe when did you get to the US? Um 15 years ago. And when I was 30, 30 something, yeah. 30 something? Yeah, 30, 33, yeah. Just moved to New York and I never went back.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

What was the skate scene like in where were you at in Spain at the time?

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Oh man. Um Barcelona was the center of skateboarding worldwide. So I think that uh for the from the early 2000s till 2010, 2015, you had people from all over the world just flocking to Barcelona just to skate the city. And it's not just skateboarding, it's also the lifestyle. So you get Americans that are used to just driving for hours just to get to one skate spot, and then they were going to Barcelona and they were just skating through the city for the whole day, just enjoying life and having lunch for five bucks and getting a beer and then meeting the girls afterwards at the bar. So it was more than just a skateboarding, but it was the mecca for a skateboarding. So you had everybody from all over the world just going to Barcelona to skate.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Man, that's so interesting that Barcelona was like a a hub for it. Was it just because of like the old city and the the layout of it? What makes Barcelona good for skateboarding?

SPEAKER_01 40:10

So we had the we had the Olympics in 1992, and what that did is that the government created new neighborhoods that were very modern. And by modern, I mean that you could have like skatable plazas all over the city and all these like perfect, perfect ground to just skateboarding around. So it was a mix of like okay, old city, Olympics, investment, and then um a little bit of what I was talking about before in regards to how popular skateboarding got when the Tony Hawk video game came out, because it was all Destinagers playing, and then it got to a point a few years later, well, I can buy a skateboard, and oh, I'm gonna just skate down the street, and I'm just gonna meet the crew and uh make friends and enjoy and learn something new, and it it it's a lifestyle, like you're pretty much in the street. That's I was in the street the whole day.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Um, but then it just kept growing, and then everybody kept coming up and the the new um developments that they made after the Olympics, for the Olympics. Oh, for the Olympics for the Olympics, yeah. But it was for the Olympics, but they didn't make them with skaters in mind, did they?

SPEAKER_01 41:18

No, okay, okay. We there is a theory that we like. I remember just when the Olympics happened, people were actually looking at these plazas and being like, these are too perfect, there are ramps. What architect did this? Because this looks made for skateboarding, and a lot of people that was coming to the city they were like, bro, this is a skate park. Do you guys see that thing connected to that? So there is a theory that maybe someone in the in the architect comedia or whatever is was a skateboarder. I don't know. But yeah, it was it was during the Olympics for the Olympics, entire neighborhoods created from zero. It was wild.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

And then from there, did you get into like the business side of skateboarding?

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah, I always wanted to know how things worked. So when I was 13, I had one magazine from America, and I tried to translate the whole magazine with a little dictionary. So I was going word by word, trying to understand because getting a magazine back then was fucking crazy. So I studied that magazine religiously, and all the photos. I remember looking at the photos and I'm like, how do they do this? This is so good, and it's the fee-shi and the land and the lighting and everything. So I started trying to first understand what those skateboarders from far away in the world were saying and talking about, but also trying to understand how those photos were made. That's what actually made me fall into this rabbit hole of I want to I want to learn to shoot photos to just make it as good as this. And I also want to be part of this industry or lifestyle or sport and um trying to get better. So um I started shooting photos. Uh next thing you know, I'm shooting photos for a bunch of magazines. I started writing and uh shooting photos, interviews uh for a Spanish magazine, one of the first Spanish magazines. And then next thing you know, 2004, somebody approached me and they were like, yo, so there is these Nike people and they want to do skateboarding? Do you do you want to be part of this? Long story short, but that's pretty much what happened. And I was like, Nike? Yeah, I would love to just talk with them. And I met with this one guy at the office, at the Nike office, and he was like, So, yeah, we're looking for someone like you. We're gonna give you some shoes. Here are all these shoes, make sure that these shoes get used for skateboarding and just try to get footage and just try to get people to show up with these shoes skating. So for the next three months, and they were like, and we're gonna pay you a salary just to do that. And I was like, fuck, I'm down. So for three months. I was pretty much traveling the country, Spain, because I was already shooting photos. And I was giving away these shoes to people that I wanted to take photos. So it's like, all right, hold on. Shoot, let's shoot this photo with these shoes. You can keep them. But let's shoot this. People were the kids were stuck because it was it was an era that it was not corporate. And dude, I got so many good photos. And they got published in the magazine that myself was working at. So I go back to Nike three months later and I'm like, oh yeah, I got some stuff. And I gave them a cover of a magazine. I started flipping the page. Oh yeah, also here, also here, also here. And I remember the guy, like what the fuck? He was a tennis player. He was working at Nike. And that got me a job at Nike for seven years. As the marketing guy for skateboarding and action sports. So all of a sudden, I'm like, I'm in the street just doing my thing, and now all of a sudden I'm at the corporate office, like, oh hi. It was interesting.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

Would you consider skateboarding like a counterculture?

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Oh, yeah, 100%. 100%. Skateboarding is the OG punk attitude of my time. That's the way that I see it. Because a skateboarding had so many you're skating in the city, you're being noisy, you are breaking things, but you're doing it as a way of self-expression. You know what I mean? So to me it was it was very rebellious. And I think that it helped me also be very resourceful. Like, oh, something is not working out. I'm gonna figure it out. And that mindset is what got me into jujitsu. That's what got me into I think a lot of things in life. But yeah, to me, it's the number one counterculture. And then you got the music and the the art around it, and that's why you have so many artists related to skateboarding.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Yeah, I uh grew up with my older brothers being into like skateboarding and inline skating. When you talk about like the creativity, yeah, they were already pretty handy with like making ramps and stuff, but the effort that they put in, like we basically had a whole skate park on our driveway, and they had probably a box and two small ramps and a bigger ramp, and we'd get it all set up on the driveway. And the amount of effort and critical thinking they would put in just to create like a skate spot or to go to an existing spot and kind of oh, we put this piece of plywood here with the cinder block underneath. Now we got a ramp, and now we can hit this rail, and yeah, it's very cool to see. Um, especially in that time. I mean, like I said, they were on the front driveway with the neighbors just trying to figure it out, and they like learned how to build things just because they were trying to skate better, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

So now imagine in a big city, you don't have money and you need to go to that small town because there is a skate championship that you want to go with your friends. Everybody got so resourceful. Okay, I'm gonna buy this cheap and then sell it expensive to those other guys, and I'm gonna have enough money. It was a whole ecosystem for us in the city. So, yes, what you're saying 100%. Um, what I saw is that so many entrepreneurs came out of skateboarding and they were teenagers, that it's this being resourceful mindset that to me it's it's great. I think the people that were part of that moment in time, um, they are very resourceful these days, which is exciting.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

When you um found yourself one day at in like a nice fancy corporate office in Nike, did you feel a way about no longer being free and no longer being poor?

SPEAKER_01 47:39

No, I I felt I felt I felt like uh very lonely. Yeah, I felt very, very lonely. Um I was getting treated like like the outsider for many, many years. And it's something that I had to struggle, I had a little bit of a struggle with, but at the same time I was like, well, maybe I don't want to be accepted, maybe I want to stay this way, but it made things a little bit harder. And back then I was a little bit of a shithead, so it just you know, I was like, oh fuck this, like you know, oh you oh, you guys think that I'm this? Okay, fuck this. So it was not the healthiest mindset, but I always felt I always felt like a little bit like a rebel.

SPEAKER_03 48:25

Um do you think that's because at Nike they have like I imagine this is just the skateboarding division, but then you got like football or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 48:33

That's the thing. All the skateboarding people, we spoke the same language, right? Right, even with the US guys or with the European guys. We were four people in Europe, so we was such a small team, and they wanted the skateboarding to be absolutely different from soccer running, but at the same time, you're working at an office that has all these people. Next thing you know, you see an NBA player, like you get you're part of that corporate environment, you want it or not. And that also applies to rules and things. So I was always a little bit of the rebel there. Um, but I think that I think that that's that that was the plan. That's why they hired me. They didn't hire a guy with an NBA, they hired this guy. Yeah, the first year I sold a million dollars by myself. They were like, oh my god. I was like, Yeah, okay, I just work with my friends.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

So you I imagine like you had a ton of friends in that community. Exactly. Did they ever like feel a way about you? Yeah, kind of like kind of like a sellout, you know? Yeah, some people did.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Yeah, and you could feel it.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Um, but at the same time, you could also position it as like, like, yo, I'm I'm an ambassador for the community helping build it up. That's what I tried to do. You know, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

That's exactly it. I I really wanted to use the budget that I had to help other people and to make things happen for other people, or maybe magazines, like being able to call a magazine like that's run by some guy in his basement and be like, bro, I got you. I'm gonna put an ad for six months. So six issues, you got this much money, like I want to support you. Let's just work together. I was that's something that really made me um very whole, not for myself, just to be able to, okay, yeah, I'm going to give back because it's important. Um, so yeah, I tried to use those resources for it, and I did, and I did for a long time. Long time. I I want to think that I tried to do something positive, even though I was just like on this like rebel fighting corporate wall, but I was still making shit happen. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Um, when you were working at Nike being a part of like a whole corporate system, were there situations in which like your creativity and artistic expression got kind of diluted because of you know you had to answer to whatever they wanted, or because they wanted you as a little shithead in Spain, yeah, selling you know, selling shoes and selling shit, yeah. Did they give you kind of that artistic freedom?

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Um so there are there's a couple of stories here. Uh and I'll be very brief. So the thing is that the whole skateboarding team was supported by the number two at Nike, Well White. Number two guy. We we were close, like we were able to talk, and he believed that the rebel spirit of skateboarding could really impact Nike's ability to connect with a brother consumer and bring something cool. Obviously, make a ton of money with it, but there is something cool to be made here. That guy was called Sandy, Sandy Bodeker, for the three million people watching. Google that guy, genius. But I was with him uh in Barcelona, just walking around, and the guy's like, Ivan, dude, like, why don't you make some shoes, like some crazy Spanish shoes, just whatever you want, just something that is Spanish. And I built a flinch, I was like, Yeah, okay, I'll work on it. Yeah, I'll just why don't I could make the Don Quixote uh book, which is one of the oldest novels in Spain, and uh there was this anniversary going on, and and he's like, Yeah, fuck yeah, just do whatever you want, just get it done. Next week, one of the designers contacts me, hey Ivan, let's work on this. So I started working on the concept, I designed the whole thing. I didn't tell anybody the office. The guys in Spain didn't even know. Next thing you know, I get a sample of a shoe that I came up with with this concept of Spain, da-da-da. And I'm talking with the US guys, and I was like, okay, yeah, we need to change this, da-da-da. And I remember showing up at the office to the people that I work with, like, oh yeah, just I just did this. And they didn't compute. Like a Spanish guy does not make shoes for Nike. So they were a little bit like, eh, you what? So on that end, creativity was was um was push, but it was creativity and that push that was coming from the US. I think that it was a little bit, especially in Spain, they would they didn't understand anything. I was like, what's going on? Why is this guy talking with the fucking number two at Nike and getting shit done? It felt very alien to them, and I don't blame them. It's it's corporate people uh trying to run a business and taking care of this, that, and there is this crazy person in a corner just making shoes like what the fuck is going on? Um, so on that end, I would say that that creativity was really push. But when it comes into the country itself, when you had to deal with certain things, like I had the the marketing director for the country coming to me in an open space yelling, why did you guys go to Japan and spend money on travel when we told everybody that you cannot spend money? And I told him, I was like, I had to make it happen because we had this article for Skate magazine and we had to do it. The guy was like, Why am I fighting this guy? Years later, the guy told me, I remember when you confronted me and I felt that that was really good. I respect you. So I think that it was a little bit of that yin and yang. I think that back then for me I didn't really understand that or value it enough. So to me, it was very normal, like, oh, I have to I have to fight the marketing director of Spain because that's what I have to do. But yeah, it was um it was creativity on one side and a little bit like yo, chill out for a second, you know. Try to be a little bit more like the running guy or the soccer guy, and I didn't want to do that. I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

That's why I was a little bit like yeah, trying to be like the pickleball guy over here.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Well, yeah, I dude, yeah. That's how it was. Yeah, so yeah, 2011. Um I left. I was burnt out, and that's when I ended up in New York.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

When um sorry, did you when uh when you jumped in, when you first jumped into Nike, your uh background in Wheelhouse was photography. Is that correct? Um over those seven years, did you have any like desires or opportunities to skill up in other areas, like maybe photography to video? Okay, okay, so all like marketing. So like I did marketing, writing copy advertisements.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Yeah, I also did photography for uh for a Nike ad. I shot it myself. Um I also got into more video. I hired one of my friends with a salary to be like, okay, bro, like stop the hustle, like just work for me and we're gonna just build content for Nike. That's before internet, but for videos. Let's put out a video every six months so we can get the the community engaged, people get into see that you get promoted in the sense of like you can do whatever you want, like, which is video, you don't have to be working at a supermarket, but at the same time, we can build a community and build build what these products are for, which is a skateboarding, and it's just creating a little bit of that micro universe. So I went into documentaries. We did the documentary to go into uh Qatar. We pretty much decided that we were gonna go on a skate tour. A skate tour is you get your skate team and you go somewhere in the world, capture it, skateboarding around, and that whether do photography or do video. And we did the video in the craziest place, which is Qatar 10 years ago, 10 to 15 years ago, 15 years ago, the place we were like, Yeah, we're going to Qatar to skate. People was like, What the fuck? I was like, we're gonna make a documentary, it's gonna be great. So we came out with a documentary of skating in the fucking middle of nowhere with fucking camels, uh, people like praying in the street, but the documentary is fucking dope. So I want I I was trying to expand not only my creativity, I was using corporate resources to create something bigger and more exciting in the industry, which was a skateboarding that at the time was a little stale. So yeah, I I tried to do more photography, more video, bring people in, help people in, and just to tell more stories. And primarily for um the majority of it you're operating as like kind of creative direction, uh marketing direction, okay, which encompasses also that, but yeah, it was more just like leading the whole marketing, and that includes um creative PR, retail. How do you create a store inside of a store to promote this one collection? So I did all that stuff. It was a really good time.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

Why Qatar?

SPEAKER_01 57:31

I don't know. I think why not Qatar? I think that I told the guy, let's go to the craziest place that we can find that we don't get killed. Let's go somewhere that we're not gonna get shot, but that we can just create something that it's fucking crazy. And we met with a guy there and we interviewed the guy, and the guy from Qatar was like, Yeah, when you guys sent me a text saying you were looking for a guy in Qatar, I wondered why. And that was the whole story. Like, how do you make something work when all the odds are against you? Because it's not the best spot to skate, but the story itself, it lent to that. Let's make it work, and that's the that's a documentary. You can find it. It's called This is Qatar. I think that it's on Vmail or maybe YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

So yeah, how long?

SPEAKER_01 58:25

Do you remember how long? Like uh uh it's around 15 minutes, but the the cinematography is really good. Um gonna check it out. And it was all us just in a five-star dollar hotel, five-star hotel. Um how many people? Just sub we were like six or seven guys. Fucking dope. In the middle of nowhere, it was fucking wild. It was a great trip, but yeah, that's the stuff that I tried to do.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

So jujitsu tour.

SPEAKER_03 58:48

I know, dude. Every time someone describes that, whether it could be skateboarding, food tours, jujitsu tours, that is like the coolest kind of content to me. Yeah, and I hope that there's maybe there's a day that we can we can do a jujitsu tour. Because I think doing that same thing. I mean, the cool thing with jujitsu now is I think a cool approach would be like getting maybe people to put in their own answers, but like what is the most obscure jujitsu gym location in the world? Yeah. And do like a series of like the smallest gyms that are in like some mountain town somewhere, and just go to obscure jujitsu gyms, island jujitsu. Obscure jujitsu gyms, drop them. Yeah, let us know. I'd love to go check out like small town America, you know. I mean, I think jujitsu's pretty uh global at this point, so you could probably find a gym on at least most continents, probably not Antarctica. Why not? Um yeah, there's probably somebody that's like been a jiu-jitsu guy that's found themselves down there and it's like, come on, bro, come into the break room with me, let's go over some snap downs.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

Yeah, there's like some like a researchers down there that have like used to train or something. So like watching Danaher videos. I'll pull out some mats.

SPEAKER_03 59:54

You mentioned the like rebel spirit of skateboarding when you started in Barcelona and then eventually you kind of got into like the global skateboarding community. Were was skateboarding culture similar all across like the US and in Europe?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

Yeah, I think I think that um skateboarding is pretty universal, especially back then. Now I think that it's a little bit more polished because of social media. But yeah, it was skateboarding is one of those things where if you were traveling around and you didn't have a place to stay, you could always like meet up a skater, or it's like, oh, you're wearing this one t-shirt, you're part of my crew, and that is something that um has always been the case, at least for me. And it's always been very aware, very welcoming community across the world. So yeah, I want to I wanna I want to think that yeah, it's been it's been very uh pretty much the same across the globe.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

Do you have like a golden era for skateboarding for yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

For yeah, for me, I think that it was the um between 1995 and the year 2000, those for me were the best times. We Barcelona, we there were two factions in Barcelona. There was the ones in downtown that were a little bit more the civilized guys, and then you had the more hip-hop-driven crew, which was my crew in in Sans. It was like this plaza, and um we were just always in trouble, dude. Like there was people coming to the plaza to fight us, there was always fights, there was people still, it was it was it was uh it was some wild times, also very creative times where people really realize a lot of shit, like um passions like photography, video. That was something that was brewing in skateboarding because everybody wanted to capture their own thing, and um trying to come up with ways of getting like really good cameras when kids don't really have a job to buy a$2,000 camera. But people was really making it work, selling things, uh doing this, doing that, little job here, even myself, like to buy my first camera to shoot photos. I just work during nights unloading trucks, so we were always coming up with things. So I think that those five years defined the city in a really creative way, and for my crew, I really saw now I see that how much people were able to create something from nothing, and I think that that's fucking beautiful because that's harder these days. People want to get everything delivered to the plate, like being able to build it yourself, and I feel that those five years were were that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:42

And then when do you think was like the peak in popularity as far as like the Tony Hawk video games coming out? When do you think there was like the most kids skating worldwide? At that time, really, even that that far back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

Wow, yeah, because think about that. It was it in my opinion, it was four things that really helped to push that. It was the video game. So you're breaking the the entry barrier is gone. You're playing in your what what's the step from playing in your bedroom to being at the skate park? It's very small now. If the game would not be there, kids would not want to go to the park. So that's the first thing. Second one is the van's warp tour. So you had all these bands touring the US and Europe creating that atmosphere of skate is cool and BMX and all these action sports. So you had that, you had all these TV channels promoting that as the cool thing, MTV. Um, uh, I don't know if BH1 of all these, but MTV was just interviewing the bands, being at work tour and just showcasing skateboarding in a different way. And then you had the whole thing with Bamargero and Jackass. Skaters equal rebels equal fun. Oh my god, that's like the perfect universe. You got the video game for the young kids, you got the music concept, which actually gets people excited, right? Oh, I love this song. Yeah, it's from so-and-so. Then you got the TV, and then you got MTV with these shows just bringing this idea that skateboarding and people associated with the skateboarding, they are crazy and edgy. I want to be part of it. So I think that that was the time where most people um not only got exposed to it, but wanted to be part of it. It's different skateboarding than wanting to be part of it. And I think that that's the key, and that's why so many people wanted to be part through the music or maybe through the video game, but they wanted to be part of that ecosystem. And then the core skaters were there. They might not be growing a lot, but everything around it grew so much, and that was um, yeah, I think that it was um early, early 2000s, late, late nine uh the 90s, late 90s, early 2000s.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

Yeah, I'm trying to draw the connections, like bringing up the music is such a good point because I I was like a pretty young kid through all this time, and I remember being around skaters and listening to what they would play while skating, and I'm just trying to understand like what is that common connection? What about skateboarding makes it like a rebellious kind of activity? And then what's the connection to that counterculture music as well?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

I think that it's the the punk, the punk idea of fuck everything, fuck everyone, right? If you think about punk, it started in the UK, but when it gets help taken more into the US, it was a little bit more of a rebellious spirit. Um, and then you have all these other factions. My background is also in hardcore music, but um it was not in punk, it was more on the hardcore scene because it was more connected to my idea of okay, I want to be against the grain. The whole thing with minor thread, the whole thing, it's that same concept that was so linked with the skateboarding and the idea of just like it just me, my board against the wall. That's what I think that was connected to the music because all these. Bands, it's it's a little bit of that attitude, right? Us against the wall. So I think that that's what I would say that it could create that connection.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:07

Yeah, and that's where I feel like this connection is gone away from jujitsu. But that was kind of how I felt jujitsu was at the start.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:15

It was, yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:17

So why why was jiu-jitsu associated with this kind of counterculture, rebel culture? And then what at what point did we start getting away from that? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

I want to think that there is still a lot of people that don't give a fuck about trends, they just want to keep their thing going. I want to think that I'm the one of those guys. I I don't want to get associated with the latest trend, and I want to keep that mindset going. Like the sticker that I got in my car is No one cries on the mat. Keep juju too weird. Keep juju too weird. And yeah, that's another sticker. But that's a little bit of that. I think I think that America is very interesting when it comes to martial arts. And I think about it from the lens of karate. Because I started karate. Karate in Japan and in Europe is very traditional. And you have one head that started the thing, the lineage, and that lineage is not just about the face, it's about the system, which is the different part. And that thing um stays true to this day in Europe and Japan. But when it got to the US, especially in the 70s, Americans started taking one thing, changing a few things, and creating their own thing, their own style. Kenpo Karate, Kenpo Karate is the Okinawan karate, but all of a sudden it has a different name and it has a different hat. So they started creating, I think, their own little things, diffusing a little bit from the traditional point of view. What I'm trying to say with this is that I think that trying to reshape something that exists and be like, no, maybe this not, maybe this not, is what can dilute a little bit of the mindset. But I think that at the end of the day is what everybody and anybody that is part of the industry, what do you want it to get from it and what do you want to do with life? For me, I need to stay a rebel and just keep doing my thing. That's that's my main thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:29

Yeah, and I see a big parallel between like a 1990s Barcelona skateboarder lifestyle and a jiu-jitsu lifestyle. I mean, maybe like you mentioned the beer, maybe a little less of that with the modern jujitsu people, but especially when I was starting jujitsu, I was still skating at the time. I didn't really skateboard, I did longboarding. But I was in like the longboarding kind of subculture and doing jujitsu. And it was like, you know, we're here in Texas, so there's no waves to surf. But it's like you go ride the longboard and then you go to jujitsu class, and I feel like there is definitely a similarity between those two. And like I guess the same kind of thing on just being a rebel. When I was in high school, I just wanted to do jujitsu. I didn't want to go to college, I don't want to do like any kind of traditional path, and so I definitely felt like in jujitsu was the the place for me having that kind of an attitude. Um, and what I'm specifically thinking about is like when I was coming up in jiu-jitsu, this would have been like early 2010s, and the jiu-jitsu fashion kind of hit, right? We had like this golden era in Brazil from like the 90s, and then kind of a quick 10 years where it hit the US and the J American Jiu-Jitsu culture hadn't really settled in yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

And then we started to have like what I think of as like the era of cool ghis coming out. So I imagine like you know something about the the jujitsu fashion, yeah, and then how it kind of exploded there for a little while, and then now I feel like maybe because of people's shift out of the ghee is part of that, but I'm not sure what other factors would play into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

My first my first class of jiu-jitsu and my first gi are from 2004. So there were only two brands coming from Brazil, one was Krugens, and the other one was vitamins and minerals, vitamins and minerals, minerals, and my gi is vitamins and minerals, and um we had one gi. I only had one gi that I you could not get jiu-jitsu gi. So that's the golden era. Some people were just like shipping stuff from Brazil, and then 2010 you got all that. I think that it's what I think that everything was a little bit smaller. People were not so focused on on making big money, they just wanted to make good products and really enjoy those products, and like like that gi that I have. There is a reason why I can still wear it to this day because it's it's made really well.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:57

That same that same gi you're first g. Yeah, I got my jacket.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

I it's like it has all these patches, like there is that guy in the bag that it's like this, uh, all embroidered, then the fabric is insane. It's 21 years of a gi. Like, try to roll with a gi from 20 years from now. It might not be, it might not last that long. Um, from geese to these days. So yeah, I don't know. I I really think that money is what has um created a lot of problems in Juju2 because it's exploded really fast. People started seeing, oh my god, like maybe we can get a quick buck here, there with gear or with this or with that. And I think that that's what has um tainted a little bit of the rebellious spirit. But I can I I I personally still see it. There are some brands that I can see that they are still doing exactly what they want and the way that they want it, which is great. Um, but I also see some other people and I don't want to bring names, but I'm like, damn, that's they're chasing trends or they are really doing what they want. And I think that you can see that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:04

Yeah, go ahead. Before you had said that um uh skater culture was um small and tight in a way that you could go to like any country, any city, you see somebody wearing, you know, a brand of shirt and be like, oh, you're you're you're a part of our crew, you know, you can stay on my couch, stay and you know, stay in my place, whatever. Do you think that's the case or ever was the case with jujitsu?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:29

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:29

Yeah, is it still? I think that there was a peak of that time too.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Yeah, I don't know now, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:34

I think 10 years ago, if I'm at an airport and I see a guy in a show-year-old t-shirt, yeah, I'm gonna be like, bro, we're instant best friends. Yeah, nowadays, if I just see a jiu-jitsu t-shirt, maybe we're a little bit on the same team, but not like it used to be. Yeah, like even when I was starting school in 2015, there would be times I'd wear a jiu-jitsu thing on campus and someone would catch me and we would we would talk and it'd be like, oh my gosh, I found another jujitsu guy at the university. This is so exciting. But now I'm sure if I went back to the University of Houston, I'd probably see a ton of jujitsu shirts. And I think the thing that we both remember is just that peak time of a lot of collabs happening between like you know, albino Preto or uh Show Your Roll, Hyperfly, these kinds of things, where they would like do different types of products and like um attach themselves to an existing brand, right? Like you're into like a Pokemon type ghee, right? Damn, bro. I feel like shit. That's the kind of thing where if you would fuck with us, you'd be like, fucking, if it seems like that's dope to me. And so the same kind of thing, different animes and just different subculture. But that was where I love that that kind of stuff, that era of jujitsu gis being a lot, maybe flashy is kind of like not my personal style, but like you said, like gis that might look more like a punk rock jacket, that kind of that kind of thing. But that wasn't the only style. Yeah, you have to.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:08

I have a bunch of these gis, and uh, you know, I've been a breed though, I know what to be. I've been I've been with him for 10 years now. And when he started and we connected and we became friends, we were we trained together. Uh and I uh you know, I don't want to make this a commercial, but I know that everything that he puts out is because he really loves it. And I think that that's why I like that concept of building a brand. Anything that you want that you are putting out associated with your name, there are other brands that don't do that or that cannot do that. What if I do a so-and-so collabor? Like people that know you, they might call you out. Like, bro, what the fuck is this? You're not into that, you're doing it because of there is a trend, and I think that people is starting to catch that, and that's why that same mindset of being rebel is small, you can still in some, you're gonna still see it in some pockets, and you always call out uh level black. I don't know the level black guy, but I think that what he puts out, I'm sure that the guy is exactly like the what he's putting it out there because it looks legit, it looks real, it looks authentic.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:22

Yeah, and he's he's been very good on like consistency with the brand, right? Like his whole thing on branding seems to just be like the athletes he chooses, but they're always like the craziest, dynamic athletes that go for submissions, yeah, and not a lot of stallers or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:37

And you you see that there is a path. So I'm I'm just saying that the brands that keep that path is what I see that they have the longevity that we were talking about before. Those that are straight that stay true and not go don't go too crazy on certain things. Um but yeah, anyways, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:55

Um yeah, and I feel like you mentioned Street X earlier, and I don't know anything about like Australian fashion and the culture behind what they their designs and that kind of stuff, because to me it looks like like some kind of version of NASCAR type themes.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:11

It's out there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:12

Um, but like what are they doing right?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:15

I so so Danny, so I had the headware. I'm gonna go back into the story. I I had the headware brand when I moved to New York and I was studying. I joined a school, that was my excuse to live in Spain. I'm gonna join a school, I'm gonna study. But at the same time, I had this side business that I make hats, and it got very popular. It was very, very small. But that there was this guy from Australia for some reason that wanted to stock the hats in his store. The store was called Street X. So I started talking with this kid. Uh, he was doing MMA, this and that. I was like, yeah, okay, yeah, we can do it. And we stayed in touch for a long time, and I was seeing that he was growing his own brand based in Australia, and I was like, that's wild. In fucking Australia, I didn't even know that Australia fears that they had that much money because a lot of people was ordering from me from America. I was like, okay. Uh, but all other than that, the whole industry and streetwear fans in Australia, it looked like it was huge. So he was catering to that and he started creating that. I really like what he's doing because he's honest to himself, that's my opinion. I like I've seen him grow that brand. He always stayed like that. That was his lane: loud, um, fun, borderline, chaotic, but smart at the same time from a business perspective. And I think that what he's doing is right, is that if you look back 10 years from now, you will see that it's the same guy with the same mindset, with the same attitude. So I think that these days people appreciate that and consumers see that because you got so many options to spend your money on something. You want to go with something that feels authentic. That's at least what I tried to do. So I think that what he's doing right is the fact that he's authentic and that he partners with people that is connected to his universe. It's all about creating our universe and your brand. He's he created his universe so well defined that you get all these people that are on field apart that gravitate towards it. And same thing as a consumer. I want to be part of this crazy crew, and it's fun, and they have like all these crazy jobs, and oh, they do a little bit of jujitsu and they do um streetwear. Fuck. It's like supreme if it would be fun. I think that that's what he did really well. Instead of like, I'm supreme in the US, I'm very serious, I'm I'm too cool for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:48

Yeah, later, these guys took the approach and he made it fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:54

Yeah, and he's fucking killing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:57

When he he has he is able to get this energy of like what I remember from like the 2000s, where when he does like his truck doing drops, and he'll have like these random, oh, we're gonna be at this location, and people will show up. Yeah, I feel like in 2026, it's so hard to get people to show up, yeah. And this dude can get people out of their houses, take a drive their car, get an Uber, whatever, and you see mobs of people showing up to some kind of like, I guess I don't even know if they're charging or if they are charging, just throwing it out there, and cops show up and he has these people then and it's in the news.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:29

But I really think that if any brand, if if if tomorrow we get together and we're like, we're gonna start a jiu-jitsu brand and we're gonna make it fun. So tomorrow we're gonna give giving away a thousand t-shirts and we're gonna be posting in South Lamar and we're gonna give it away, nobody will show up. But if we have been doing a smaller thing for 10 years, five years, and people follow us because we are this funny crew of friends that always stayed in the same lane. Fuck, dude. We say that we're gonna be in South Lamar giving away lollipops, we're gonna get thousands people showing up because they want to be part of that energy. That's why the power of not only marketing but branding is so important. Like you need to be honest because if not, it all implodes, and then we see what we were talking about before. People just wanting to attack you and talk shit and destroy everything that you have built through the years. If you say authentic, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:27

And that's the thing, right? The authenticity is key. It's not necessarily it's like, oh, we're we're crazy, slightly chaotic, loud, you know, crazy things like that. It doesn't it doesn't matter what the specific like thing or angle is, as long as whatever it is is true to you over time.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:44

Yeah, I think that that's that's something that brands are starting to realize that I think that that's why this personal brand situation is happening now that Instagram is so popular, like people have realized that they get attracted to authenticity, and and it's easy to be authentic, you just need to know that you're gonna get some pushback from people that don't like you, but if you stay true, you can build that longevity that you that we were talking also about before. Like, longevity doesn't happen overnight, you need to keep doing it, you keep you need to keep showing up. And I think that you not only need to be authentic to others, but you need to be authentic to yourself first, right? Like, what do you want to do? Are you willing to commit? Are you willing to put in the hours? And are you put are you going to risk whatever it is just to achieve that longevity, that dream that you have? And the answer is yes. I think that you just keep moving and building.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:48

What are you um we're we're talking a lot about authenticity over time over a large period of time, right? How do you feel about um individuals like growing and evolving? You know, like that's a part of what happens, people's taste changes over time and evolves and stuff, and something like artists, like music, yeah, right? Like you look at any art or not any, but several artists, right? The album that they dropped yesterday can be much, much, much different than the album they dropped 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

Yeah, 10 years ago. You're you're saying the same thing that I said. I think that they were authentic to themselves 10 years ago, and evolution is not the same as not being honest to yourself. Like I look at um postmalone style. If you look at postmalone right now on photos, you'll be like, oh, he's a guy from Texas. You're like, really? Let's go back five years. Yeah. I'm like, all right, but I really think that that's that's just an evolution. Like it didn't go overnight, right? You saw him, he lost weight, he started changing the way he was uh dressing up. He I I think that authenticity doesn't mean how do you look, it's more okay. Well, there is a there is a there is a you know like a passage, there is a road that he took or she took, and it got him there. But it's the same person, and we see this with Kenny West. Yeah, it's the biggest example that uh, in my opinion, we have in in this day and age. Like we got someone who's been honest to himself and with a little bit of ups and downs, right? On the psychosis, but he's always been very honest to himself and said exactly everything that he felt. He didn't ask for permission, he faced all the consequences in the world for certain things that he said or done. But if you look at authenticity, I look at him and I'm like, fuck, dude. Like, I'm not gonna be like you, but you really are authentic.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:58

But good on you, whether I like it or not. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:00

But fuck, and that's rare. I was gonna say calling it. That's very rare. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:05

I feel like the biggest challenge that I'm thinking about with all of this is like, how do you even know what you want to stand up for? Yeah, you know, that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:14

I don't know. Some people get the calling, right? Some people get the calling and be like, well, I need to be a supporter of these, or I really want to, I don't know, inspire kids to be better, or something happens in life, and you go, like, well, I like for me, I there is a portion of what I try to do, which is help people that are in a school, just to um giving them a little bit more of an overview on their creative and marketing ideas. Like, I'm talking with this girl and helping them on how can she go from a nutritionist to someone creative. And she felt so lost, so someone contacted me. Hey, can you help the this friend? Maybe just talk with her on what can she do just to achieve that? And I think that uh talking with someone really helps. So if you go, I really want to be a YouTube superstar, how could I do that? And just trying to get like some sort of mentorship point of view, or or people that you know that did what you achieve, what you want to achieve, and then you talk with them for advice. I think that that's important. That's also rare, in my opinion. Uh, you cannot find certain people, or people is not available to talk with you about certain things. But I think that it's all about just let's figure it out, and I'm gonna find a way to figure it out and talk with people and try to see um if I can achieve that, right? But the authenticity needs to still like you need to sit tell to yourself, I'm gonna do this, but I'm doing it being doing it in my own terms, not what people tell me that I should be. That's a little bit of the key in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:50

Like, say if for like a brand, right? You want to have like some brand and be consistent behind it to some sense of a theme. And you know, we've technically, I guess, started some sense of a brand over the last few months by dropping these episodes. And I've said this many times since then, is that like I'm glad I'm doing this now in my early 30s. Yeah. Whereas like if I would have been trying to do this in my early 20s, I would have like no frame of reference for what I thought is right and wrong and like what I stood for. So I don't mean to say that a young person couldn't have some kind of vision like that, but I definitely couldn't when I was younger, and now I'm just now starting to be willing to commit to something that's like, hey, maybe in five or ten years there's gonna be some common theme from this that that's still there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:36

Yeah, I I straight up have commitment issues. Like I get stickers and I'm like, I'm not gonna put this on anything. I'm just gonna put the sticker in a drawer.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:48

Yeah. And so I mean, I I'm just so curious on like the what when you come up with like this this branding to market for somebody, it's it it seems like it doesn't even have anything to do with the product, more than it is just like what is the drive behind all this? What is the purpose of why you're making this thing, whether it's giving nutrition advice or selling shoes.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:12

So I was having I was having a a talk last week. Um this is a crazy story, um, with two founders, a drinks company that sells at the Sprout and some other stores, and someone connected me with them, and pretty much I just analyzed the whole brand and I told them what I would do differently, which is something that I do. But the crazy part at the end was when I told them, like, I don't come from your industry, I come from a lifestyle industry. But I can tell you that your brand is not just the drink, it shouldn't be the drink, it's everything around it. It's how do you show up, it's what's the photography look like, what's the message, what's the buy. When people see the product that they get, that's the brand. It's not the drink. Anybody can do a drink. Anybody can do a gi. You go to Alibaba and you do Rajgar. That's the easy part. The hard part is the universe. And for me, I think that what I have learned in my age is that the emotional connection that you can get from a brand is the currency. That to me is the key to any single brand product in this world. There is a reason why portaches don't go out of a style. There is certain whiskies that are gonna be forever because they did a really good job on just like, and I don't drink, but they did a really good job on just creating a brand that goes way beyond the drink itself. We see the same thing with certain foodwear companies. Um but if you really think about it around you, you will see that there are things that bring you a connection, they make you feel something. That to me is when a brand did a good job. And those brands ultimately are the ones that last the longer. So when I do that branding exercise or when I work with people, I always tell them like the idea is what's beyond the product. Because if you're doing today computers, but you want to do USB D, maybe in the future there is a USB D, and we also do little robots, you need to be able to include those products into your brand and make sense. Because if not, you are doing something that it's not authentic. It needs to feel authentic, and you can only do that if your brand shares an emotion, an idea way beyond than just one single thing. I hope that that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:03

Yeah, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:04

It's the emotion that you get from a drink, from a from a shoe, from a clothing piece. It it's how do you feel?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:13

It's yeah, it's what you feel whenever you like wear, use, interact with whatever it happens to be, whether it be like a drink, a shoe, a fucking shirt, right? Like um what you were saying for skaters. If you saw somebody wearing a brand of shirt, you'd be like, oh, Stussy did a really good job.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:35

Yeah, Stussy has been doing that for the last 13 to 40 years. It was one guy, he wanted to create something different in an industry that was very corporate and kind of like copy paste. He started going with his own handwriting and doing something colorful, crazy, the ads were different. But fuck, you saw someone with a stucy t-shirt, you know that he's one of the rebels, he's one of the misfits, but he also serves or skates. So we're gonna be homies with that guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:07

Yeah, well, and we've we've talked so much about like the skateboarding niche, and like I agree that you could go see somebody with like a brand, you're like, Oh, this guy's at least within the skateboarding niche, but then there's also those like more minute differences of like oh this guy he wears DC shoes, like I'm not I'm not a DC guy, so even within the niche, you have like the subcultures within that, and I see the same thing in jujitsu. Like, in the time I was like a white and blue belt, we kind of made fun of people with shoulder rolls, right? Because like I was just mostly probably from a place of jealousy, you know. In Texas, yeah, yeah, it was much harder to get your hands on him. They did like the limited drop kind of thing, but it was very much of like, oh, this guy's like he's fancy, he thinks he's like cooler, you know. But in reality, we all wanted them, you know. It was just so much harder to get your hands on him, and so there'll be show you roll, there'll be AMP, there'll be game plan.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:02

And if you wait, if you wait when we come out with merch, if you wait game plan, you'd be like, oh, these guys are cool as fuck.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:08

Yeah, the actual best, also authentic, yeah. No, I think, yeah, I you know, yeah, I I can see, I can see your point.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:20

Because you also mentioned earlier wannabe, and that was like a thing that I remember saying to other people, like, oh, is he a skater or is he a wannabe? Yeah, and there would be like the guys where maybe they don't get the exact right brand, and maybe they don't get the jeans that are just right, and they have their hair a little longer, but too manicured, and it's like, uh oh, there's like the real skaters, and I don't know what a good example for a brand maybe stessy or something like that, right? But then you have like the more probably 2010s, like skate culture with like some of the hip punk, yeah, or whatever pop punk, I guess would be a better example. So then you have like the pop punk era with a bunch of like skater themes with people that never actually skateboarded.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:02

Yeah. Do you think that's worse, or do you think it's um is that worse than wearing, I don't know, whatever like legitimate brands or whatever there are, and still not actually skating, not actually being a part of it?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:17

I think it shows how cool the culture or the community is when you have outside people that want to just like buy the thing to be in on it. Um, but yeah, it's like the the same thing I say all the time with like white belts, and I don't know if there's a skate equivalent to this, where it's like, hey man, you don't need to show your ogie yet. Like you're a brand new white belt. Yeah, it definitely you gotta earn your stripes a little bit. So yeah, I do think it's worse to like buy someone's used jeans that are torn up because they fell a whole bunch on the concrete. Yeah, and I instead of like wearing out your own jeans because you fell down and you scraped your knee. What a great use of earn your own stripes. Is that what that shit where did that shit come from?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:53

It's probably is it probably military?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:54

It seems military, it seems military. It applies perfectly for jujitsu though.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:57

Yeah, it's perfect for jujitsu.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:59

But in skateboarding, I saw that. I remember I remember hearing and seeing uh kids buying brand new skate shoes, and they were not skating, but they would go and just like like scrap the shoes so it looked like they were skating with them. Dang, but if you skate it, you look at the shoes and you're like, that's not that's not normal. That yo, it's like that didn't that didn't use them for skating.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:23

I think I know where you're going with it. It's like people like smashing their ear.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:28

Oh, yeah, I heard that too against the wall, god against doors, crazy. I remember in Barcelona 2010, we had a black belt in judo, uh, French guy, really funny. And I remember him telling me, like, yes, there is this guy, and he's smashing his ears against the wall. And I remember thinking, why? And he was like, Yeah, because he wants to look like the part. And I'm like, Wow, people really do that, so I guess that they do, they just want to feel part of it, look the part.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:03

That's crazy. Yeah, so I think like you know, you gotta earn your stripes a little bit, like you gotta earn your ears, niches, but then you also have like the stolen valor, yeah. Stolen valor. I would also say that like the stolen valor is like a good side effect of someone who created a cool culture, though, right? Like if you're at the point where people are like, damn, these Brazilian guys, they're jacked and they can fight and they surf, they're so cool. I want to have big ears like those guys, you know. Same thing as all these skaters, they're tearing their shoes up from the grip tape. Like, I want to have torn-up shoes too. So I think it's cool if you've got people that are trying to impersonate your style.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:36

I think that when they go to bed, they know the truth. So they need to face the truth, their own truth. That's why I really feel that it's important to be authentic.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:47

There is definitely a guy out there who took sandpaper to his shoes and tried to hit his own ear to try to fit into both of those. There's at least one guy that did both of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:56

Hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:59

I remember so in Spain when I started Jiu Jitsu 2004, it was 2004, 2004 to 2010, Jiu-Jitsu was a study. So uh Jiu-Jitsu, an MMA, was seen as something very violent. So a lot of so I my one of my first classes was with actual hooligans from the soccer clubs because everybody was flocking there because it was wait, I don't have to punch someone and I can just learn how to do all these things. And I remember just taking down one of the most important hooligan guys to the floor when we were drilling. I was like, oh my god, like and I remember one of those guys was saying, like, oh yeah, yeah, no, I want I want to get the ears. And in my head, I was like, bro, you're a white belt, you just studied, but you want to look the part as the Brazilian guys that have been doing it for years. So yeah, I think that they're yeah, the stolen valor is something that um I don't know if it's cool, it's cool as a reflection of how amazing something is, but at the same time, I'm like, bro.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:08

Yeah, that's what I always think about uh with people like that, and in whatever form of stolen valor you want to come up with, is like, how do you sleep at night?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:17

I don't do that shit, and I can't barely sleep at night. How do you go to bed knowing that you are just like it's the same thing in the corporate world?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:24

In the corporate world, there is a lot of a stolen valor.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:28

Um, we were talking about big brands sponsoring jujitsu, right? Yeah, earlier. We were talking about earn your stripes. I was looking at your jacket. Adidas needs to run like a jiu-jitsu uh like merch campaign. Bro, like earn your stripes, that'd be fucking sick.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:46

They they they they have a license. So one of my homies in New York was running the marketing for them uh for uh two years, but it was not Adidas. Adidas sold the license to some business guy, um, and they were making the geese. So they had one of the Graces sponsored. I was at Adidas at that time, funny enough. And I I got I got the um Adidas Geese, and they were really good. Yeah, they were really good, um but they were part of it, they didn't want to have anything to do with it. It comes also to expertise, like how how big of a business is it? How much resources are you gonna put behind it? It's better for a big company like that to be like, you know what, guys, just pay me a little bit of money, do whatever the fuck you want with this. They're gonna be Adidas. Here is a little bit of Hello Kitty money for a sponsorship, all of a sudden you can get a Gracie for it. Great, but I don't think that it went anywhere because it was pricey and Adidas is not that much of um of a jiu-jitsu brand, it's more uh Mizuno on I think the Mizuno is good on the geese for uh jujudo and stuff like that. Yeah, so I I just don't see the opportunity to be financially rewarding for them.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:06

Okay, well, if um I need to shoot like a spec ad, I'm gonna make it for Adidas and I'm gonna run like an Adidas Earn Your Stripes campaign. Just do it for them, yeah. Well shit for me, but for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:22

I'll I'll get you, I'll get you, I'll get you the contact of who runs the license because again, it's just someone random. I I got the name when I was working there, and I was like, who's this guy? I don't know. He's the one owning the license for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:35

That'd be sick. So, like going back to the the what I thought were a really creative time in like jujitsu, kind of the start of jujitsu streetwear, I guess, and the really sick Gee collabs, I feel like that's gone away a lot since the pandemic. And you can mention Alibaba and that makes sense. I see a lot of people just getting like the Amazon rash guard or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:59

Do you think that that do you think we'll have like a return to any of that creativity in the jiu-jitsu brand space, or do you think it's just gonna be the big ones get even bigger and then everybody else is just buying the cheap Chinese rash guards and gis?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:12

I think that there is always going to be expensive gis. And when I say expensive ghis, I don't think that it's a negative. Uh ghis that have more uh embellishments, um, better materials, that's always going to happen. When it comes to the partnerships, I did I I think that I I agree with you. I think that uh we hit a little bit of a plateau, like how many collabos are enough? I think that that's something like when every couple months you get a collaboration or a license deal with comic character or a movie or a TV show, I think that people might have gotten a little bit like fuck, this is a lot, right? So a little bit of fatigue there. Um, but I think that that will never go away. It just needs to make sense. Yeah, it just needs to make sense. So if someone wants to come out with an obscure movie that was part of their childhood and influence the jiu-jitsu history, and they also happen to have a jujitsu brand, just go ahead and just go for it. Be authentic with it. Maybe you won't sell much, but be authentic with it. I think that these days, the way that I see jujitsu going, we're gonna be seeing less of those. We're gonna still see a lot of people investing in the$300 gi, especially in America. Um, not in Europe. In Europe, nobody spends that much money on a gi. It's maximum 80 bucks, 90 bucks. Um, but I think that we're still gonna see that from a partnership point of view. I feel that it's gonna, it's gonna it's gonna be relevant to those brands that first of all can pull it off financially. Getting a license has been expensive. And second of all, just that feels authentic. I think that the time of just putting things out just for the sake of it is done.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:58

So yeah, something that has been a sensitive point for Wico, and I'm actually sure for yourself, is like the rules in gyms to all have the same uniform, right? Like, take Gracie Baja as the most classic example. It seems like both of you guys do not like that model. Whereas, like, I I don't know what the numbers would look like, but I assume most gyms are more on the side of here's the team gi, everyone wears the same colored gi. Um, do you think that that is like a negative effect to the culture of jujitsu?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:29

I will say this I will never be in a gym where they force me to wear something because I went to a public school, I didn't go to a private school where I was supposed to wear a uniform for a reason. And censorship is an American, and I find it funny when mostly legal immigrants like myself are trying to force something on people that is actually paying. I'm very passionate about this topic. If you are paying to go to a gym, if I go to a gym to do yoga, they're not gonna force me to wear the same shape as everybody else. Why does it happen in jujitsu? Because it's part of a business model that somebody came up with, someone who probably was an immigrant and hey, let's make the most money possible. Well, maybe that's an outdated point of view. For myself, I will never be part of a gym where I'm forced to wear anything. In fact, I remember, and this is just not a negative, it's just something that happened. In New York, I was at a very famous gym, and I show up on a Saturday to train, and I was wearing a thing that it was a white gi because I only had a couple geese. And the guy, very famous guy, came to me, Ivan. Just so you know, on Saturdays we only wear blue ghee. I never went back. I was like, fuck this. I'm paying you 200 bucks, and you're telling me what I have to wear. I have to now buy another gi. I'm done. So I left. Um, but I I feel that it's an insane concept of forcing adults to buy your own stuff, and especially myself. Like I wear the craziest ghis, and I I want to feel my ghe as part of my flow, my personality. I just don't want to feel like I'm in a private school. If a gym pays me to show up there, I'll wear whatever they want.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:25

But that's not the case.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:27

So I come here to learn jujitsu, brace lock white belts, I'm gonna wear whatever I want. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:34

Honestly, now that you've put it in those terms, I can start to think of the the people with don't even take business into it, but just their own individual brand of who they are as a person. And there's the guys that they want to wear their funny colored ghis, you know, and they will still sh continue to show up with them. And I think these guys I'm thinking of that fit that kind of persona, uh, they're like the last bit of that rebel culture in jujitsu, you know. The guy wearing the the mint colored gi when everybody else is wearing a white or a black ghee, you know. It's like that guy's still trying to make some kind of statement. And I do think that that's actually a pretty cool part. Now, I'm also on the other end, I don't think that it needs to turn into a a fashion contest, you know, but I do like the individual expression. Okay. And kind of to the same point we were making earlier about athletes not spouting off like too much crazy political stuff, is like patches on a gi. Let them be snorlacks, let them be funny, let them say no crying on the jujitsu mats. But then, like, I could see at a certain point of individual expression you start putting on like your political thing on your, you know, a political patch on your gi, and I wouldn't want to see it go that direction, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:47

I agree to that. I think that it's two different concepts though. I think that if you and I read this on on Reddit, someone go into a gym and somebody was wearing Hells Angels patches on a jujitsu gi, and the guy was like, What the fuck? Like, I think that that's a little bit more. I don't think that that's self-expression. I think that that's more of a statement, and a statement is different than self-expression. That's my opinion. Self-expression for me would be the 10 planet guys, they wear that crazy color rash guard. You're like, okay, they're having fun because the way that they do jujitsu is different, fun, good, but I don't see that the same as I saw someone in a gym here in Austin, anti-vegan or something crazy, and I'm like, bro, why do you have to be so negative about it? Because there is no need to be so angry about the wall. And I was a vegan one, and I'm like, fuck, are we gonna roll it?

SPEAKER_03 1:46:43

That's such an Austin jujitsu exactly. Yeah, like it's like super neat personality, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:49

But see, but I think that that is different from wearing something very colorful. Yeah, it's two different concepts. There is a fringed line in the middle where you're gonna be like, is it the same? Ah, but I yeah, I I just don't see I just don't see forcing someone who's paying for a service. I just don't get the sense of it from a consumer point of view.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:13

It's just like a like a money grab slash power play.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:15

Well, there is a there is a system, yeah, like this is the amount. And for those gyms that if they work for them, great, everybody has bills. I'm I don't have anything against it. As a consumer, I will never be part of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:27

You just don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:28

If I ever open a gym, I will never enforce that. I don't think that that's good long term. Yeah, that's my point of view. And I get an orange camel gi that I haven't worn yet, that I will.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:39

That I will, but not yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:41

I'm waiting.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:44

Yeah, I I feel like there's been like a a death in that whole part of jujitsu is is like the creative express yourself side, and maybe this goes into what we were saying earlier about like the social media attacks and stuff, but uh even with the new brands, especially with I feel like no ghi's more popular now. So now instead of a gi where you can add patches and a lot more colors, it's just like rash guards. Yeah, and I've seen quite a few of I'd say post-pandemic kind of come and go, and it's because like I there's no clear emotion you get from these companies, and I'm I'm wondering what's gonna happen next, if there's gonna be some people that come up with some really cool stuff that does make you feel the type of way, or if it's just gonna keep being like Alibaba, Amazon, cheapest cheap stuff, and then you know, gyms, like you said, that they tell you that you gotta buy the team rash guard and then the few brands that make it to the top, just like owning the market.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:37

I think that there are two things that I'm seeing on that, based on what you just said. Two things. The first one is the economics of a family, right? If you have, if you're training with your kid and you're spending$500 a month, like the last thing you want is to have expensive key, right? So, from an economical point of view, I understand that those people might go into let's get something cheaper that we can sell train, maybe it's a Nike t-shirt, whatever. Great. I think that then when it goes into um, you say brands that come and go, it's also the fact that it's hard to start a brand these days. You you need a lot of money. So I think that people that try it, they don't sell in the beginning and then they they get discouraged and they stop. And then it's like, all right, we tried it one season, two seasons, but it didn't work out. Okay, great. But I really think that um people that want like a really nice gig, they will still get it now. I think that that number gets smaller by the minute, especially with the economy these days. But I I have the feeling that there is gonna be a new wave of brands coming up. I this is what I feel that might not go super crazy in the beginning and they will try to grow exponentially. I want to think that that's what's gonna happen because we really need, in my opinion, from a fashion point of view, we need more points of view when it comes to express. I think that it's needed.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:02

Yeah, I brought this back up to you the other day. I think you were you posted something on your story, and I want to say that it was like something about Will Smith's son and his fashion.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:12

Which one?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:13

I think you were I think you posted something on your story, and it was about like Will Smith's son showcasing like his art or whatever it was. And I don't remember your exact point, but the feeling I got from it was like, oh, it's gone too far.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:27

It's gone too far. I think, yeah. So for those uh for the three of them people watching this, uh Will Smith's son is the creative director for a very famous European fashionist uh brand. So creative director is pretty much the person that comes up with the concepts and that just creates those universes that we were talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:48

So getting someone so young with so little experience, not just in life only, but also from a fashion point of view, because you see that the way that he talks, the way that he connects the dots, you see that he doesn't have references, that he cannot say that the issue comes from so-and-so. No, he just like pretty much in my opinion, what he's doing is taking what Forrell was doing 20 years ago and just trying to he get this costume, red face, and then he creates this story that if you really hear about it, and that was the point on the video. If you really hear what he's saying, it makes zero sense. No sense. You're like, bro, what are you what are you saying? And I say that from uh with the corporate uh hat on or for the creative director hat on. That to me is a stolen valor. Because you need the reference, you need uh like like and I I do this game with my wife. My wife is tired of me already because every time that we see something, uh some shoes that come out, or something, I'm like, oh, they they are inspired by so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:53

I love that game, but I love like it's like um uh finding samples in music. Oh, this came from this came from Sam Cook.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:03

So a good musician will be able to do that, yeah, right? But if Willismith son shows up and it's like, oh, I made this song because it reminds me to the time when I was uh swimming in money and then I was uh, you know, I was I just want to feel happy. I think that that's what he said on that video. It's about joy, and I'm like, bro, like a musician, a real musician, will understand the samples, he will know what it comes from. Same thing from fashion. You will see that the person is connecting the dots with the shoe and that influence and the colorway and how it all came together. And unfortunately, Willismithson is not able to do that. Maybe he will, but I just think that just brands these days are just hiring people just for the sake of getting a PR moment or social media exposure without the substance that's needed to run a business empire, fashion empire, business empire, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:04

Yeah, I mean it's like I I think it was at some some kind of show. He came in wearing like a house on his head. Oh, the house. There's like a black mansion, it's like a hat. It's gigantic. And it's like that's avant-garde at best, and really like that's not even in the realm of fashion anymore. Like, you can't wear those clothes in real life. So I don't know what I don't know what his message he's trying to say is, but it's like gone too far for I don't think needing to wear clothes in real life dictates anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:34

Not that I like am a fan of house hats. But just saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:40

My point is I'm not taking fashion advice from the guy who's wearing a house hat. Sure. That's too much for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:46

I've seen some wild shit and I'm like, I fuck with that. Yeah, I've seen a uh uh stupid. I seen a jacket, all right? Like big coat, big, big kind of puffy coat, but it was like in a pattern and had all of like the texture of like a straight up Belgian waffle. What? So it had like all the all the holes and like divots, you know. I was like, I'll fuck with that. You're the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:16

There is some manufacturing idea behind it. But when so you guys need to check um how he presented the new Christian Lavoutine shoes that was his collection and how he presented it and the way that he talks about it. Unfortunately, for me, it's stolen value. Stolen Valerie from very valid, very valid. There's a stolen valor from very valid people that could be could be just telling a story that actually makes sense. But again, I think that it all goes into longevity. We will not see this kid just doing this for for much more, and but it's it's factual. I mean, it's it's obviously people is going to be like, all right, but I mean that's just a good run.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:59

That companies play at this time, right? I want to take it so that's a big name that they can use, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:55:06

Stay relevant, do this, and get done. And there is some people that came from Music Forel is doing, I think, a really good job at Louis Vuitton. Uh Virgil Ablo did a really good job at Louis Vuitton. Uh he refreshed it. And I think that now brands, especially these big old brands managed by old people living in castles, uh, they are like, okay, who look who can we get to start a little bit more of a fresh point of view or just to refresh our consumer base? And they just went to Willie Smith's son and let's paint his face red and let's try to sell some shoes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:39

Have you started or uh ever wanted to start a jujitsu brand? Um whether it be in any aspect, whether it be like merch, apparel, anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:50

No, I want to I want to set a gym. Yeah, yeah, but not a brand. A brand, I see how long it I I had brands before, I had the streetwear brands, apparel brands, headware brands. It's really tough. And to be honest, there is so many people doing really cool shit. I look at the time behind it, I look at the effort and the money and the fuck man, everything, and I'm like, fuck, bro, I'm I'm too old for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:16

They're doing it too well. Airfest bomb, Davis.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:20

They are doing it too well. I mean, um and I also see the limitations, let's be honest. I also see the limitations. Um if I start a business, I I started a business, I'm trying to do a bit my business is for everybody. I don't want to just be like, oh, I'm just for this little portion of the population. Um and I think that starting just a jiu-jitsu brand is very, very small. And the competition is just crazy. And here in America, every little state has one or two brands where people are very uh supportive of, so it feels even harder. Yeah, it's not like making a food company, right? Like you can sell to everybody and everybody's gonna accept it more or less the same. Jiu-jitsu is very interesting. You got uh Soyroll and Albino Preto, uh, people that I consider my friends, but they they do really well in California, and okay, that's their home turf. But if you go to Ohio, I don't know how many people are gonna be wearing that, but then maybe little black guys are doing really well there. Uh, maybe uh origin is doing really well on the East Coast, which I think that is the case. So it's a very interesting um how everything geographically works with the jiu-jitsu brands, and I I don't know if that's something that I want to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:41

Yeah. Do you have a name um or ideas for your gym?

SPEAKER_01 1:57:46

Well, the idea would be that I'm not gonna force anybody to wear a song ghee from my brand. Uh well, yeah, I think that the I actually went to check a space where I live, uh, but it didn't work out. The main concept for myself when it comes to jujitsu is to to have everything that I didn't have when I started, which is uh a really healthy space, a place that feels like home, and a place that feels like I can learn without being murdered. My history with jujitsu is that it was so violent from when I started that when I moved to America and I showed up at uh Corina, I was a fucking violent kid just trying to go for hill hooks the first day, and I nearly make someone heel explode the first fucking day. I was like, oh, maybe these people train differently. So just creating a space where you can be a little bit more relaxed, or you can go hard, but there are moments for it, or you talk about it where there is more of a spoken um or more more times or more moments where you can actually talk with people. There are gyms that I showed up there, and you don't talk with anybody, you just do the class and you barely ask questions. So just having a space that feels very welcoming, challenging, but at the same time a little bit more of a third space. I think that that would be that would be my ideal. And fucking music and just a place that feels good in California. I used to teach and I was uh managing some of the open mats on Sundays, dude. We playing the Smiths on Sundays, 8 a.m. And it felt really, really cool. Like more and more people started showing up, but I just wanted to create a space that felt welcoming, challenging, and and just exciting that you go home and you're like, fuck yeah, I did this. That's my whole concept around it. And I don't know when it will happen or if it will happen, but my wife always tells me, like, Ivan, you should do it. And I'm like, okay, just give me the money.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:01

Just give me the money.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:02

I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:03

That sounds great. And and uh the part specifically about like you it can go hard, you know, but you kind of talk about it. I feel like the most um the time the most injuries happen is when there's a inconsistency of effort or you know, intensity. Yeah. So I feel like talking about and like I I every basically every round I go into, I'm like, do you have any issues or injuries? Like how are how are your parts? Yeah. And then secondly, sometimes I ask, like, what kind of round are you looking for?

SPEAKER_01 2:00:38

You know Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:40

So and and that's not to say like like, oh, I'm gonna beat you up, or oh, I want you to beat me up, but like when I'm rolling with certain people, I'm like, okay, do you wanna do you wanna like push pace? Do you want cardio? Like less campy, less chill holding and taking positions. Do you want to move? Do you want to move, you know, get cardio heart rate up and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:00

I should do that. Yeah, I was gonna say, me and Ivan just lie to each other and say, like, oh, my back hurts. And then we'll just proceed to roll as hard as we can right after that, you know. So that's more of our strategies. That's an approach. Try to distract them at the beginning. Like, oh no, I'm just so beat up, I can't do anything. And then the second you get something, you hold it as fast as you can.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:22

But I think that we connect on a spiritual level. I I know what to expect, and I think that you know what to expect. So you know that it's shit, that is beauty on it, yeah. And let's be honest, like, and and and I think that there is something magical when you roll with someone and that someone goes so hard that like I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna be like a little pretzel and just move, and then I'm gonna catch you and I'm gonna make you tap so you relax. Yeah, that to me is the most magical moments, and I've been lucky enough to experience that in Austin. When I started training here, dude, it's like people in Austin go fucking hard, and I trained in a different places, and um, that was one of the most rewarding moments, just seeing how people go like fucking bat crazy without talking, so maybe talking that's what's so important. And I'm like, oh okay, that's the game. All right, yeah, I'm gonna smile and oh my god, you're so strong. And they're like, Oh, here is the reslot. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:25

I do I do love like the the patiently waiting through someone gassing themselves out, and then just you can feel it. We were talking about that recently on like the invisible side of jujitsu. It's like I can feel that you've got a lot, but not enough. And if I'm patient and I have a long enough timer, I'm gonna get you by the end of this. That's my game. Such a good feeling.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:45

These my this last year that I had my back really, really messed up. Um, that's been my game. I just adjusted just to play the weighting. Um, I've been also playing a lot into that mindset on getting giving people a lot of really positive positions and destroying that position and playing on the psychology of it. And you guys saw me. Well, I don't know if you saw, but I I like to play the psychological game of Jujitsu. I let people get on mount, and I don't remember a time when I got tapped uh that fucking armbar the other day, but um, I like to play with that and let people try. And obviously, I've been training unfortunately enough just to be able to defend a little bit, but just getting them so frustrated that I can sweep them or open the position and then just look them in the eyes and smile a little bit. I think that the I I feel for me, that's my game right now because I'm not as athletic as I used to be. Again, I I just my back is not the same, but that's a part of Jujutsu that I have been exploring so much here in Austin. Everybody thinks that they are so strong, and I think that just for someone to destroy that testosterone energy with a smile or just like defending, it's it's fun. That's great, it is fun, and I personally love it.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:21

Well, dude, thanks so much for taking the time to come hang out with us today. Really appreciate your uh your time, especially. I have a ton more questions for you off off recording. Um but do you have anywhere that you want people to check you out?

SPEAKER_01 2:04:38

Maybe your your Instagram Yeah, um uh hybrid creative systems on Instagram. That's um that's my business where I I solve people's problems, and then for all my best friends, I run a skulls, and um, yeah, we can just be friends there too. S-K-U-L-L-S. Um, thank you for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:01

Yeah, thanks for coming on. Oh, I got one more question for you as we close out. We're gonna put you in a super fight this weekend. What's your walkout song?

SPEAKER_01 2:05:10

Um uh Shinja Aoki walkout song. That's uh for those in the game long enough, they will exactly know the song. Um, that's from the 2000s. Pride Times. Pride was the UFC of Japan, and uh Sinjo Ayoki always used these songs, so that would be that would be the song.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:39

Let's see if we can get a little sample of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:41

All the three million people watching this, they will be able to Google it too. Yeah, um but yeah, that's a song.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:51

Yeah, yeah, that's sick. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for watching. Uh please like, comment, subscribe, turn on notifications if you can. Juice, you got anything? Um Game Plan merge. Eventually.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:07

Game plan merge.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:10

Awesome. Well, thanks again for watching, and we'll be back again soon with a new episode. Adios Game plan.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:16

That was good, thank you guys.