Hey folks, today's episode of the Stronger is Better podcast is going to be a little bit different. I sat down with Harry Fafutis from Tabro Strength in Mexico. He is a longtime starting strength coach and a good friend of mine. He's also the translator of starting strength into the Spanish edition, which is available on the starting strength store and on Amazon. Harry has been training and coaching for a while. He has gotten into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the self-defense. world, gotten impressively strong, gotten really big, lost weight, and has a really beautiful and successful gym down in Mexico. So anyway, about maybe seven or eight months ago... He visited Wichita Falls for a seminar, and we did a little bit of training, a little bit of BJJ training, and sat down for a podcast episode, which he is running on his YouTube channel. You can find him under Harry Fafutis. And we thought that we would run it on Stronger Is Better because primarily he did a good job of pretty much asking questions that only someone who is involved in both the strength training coaching or in all three coaching, strength training, and fight training could talk about really, really well. So anyway, I think it turned out really well. I was able to discuss my thoughts internally. I think it turned out really well in terms of how hard physical effort makes people better and my thoughts on how learning to fight and thinking about self-defense is important for everybody. So I hope you enjoy. It is a little bit of an audio hiccup about halfway through, so you'll hear about, I think, five to ten minutes of the audio being weird, but that's, again, that was a problem during the shoot. The audio does come back towards the end. Well, I hope you enjoy it, and as usual, if you have any questions, comments, or if you have any topic ideas, please send them to podcast at startingstrengthgyms.com or podcast at ssgyms.com. Thank you, and I'll see you soon. How are you, man? I'm doing great, man. Thanks for having me here. Absolutely. Thank you for coming. It's a pleasure to always visit. I want to talk with you about your professional development. Okay. You've been a role model to me. I appreciate that, man. Yeah, since we started meeting each other and I was coming here for increasing my knowledge. in strength and conditioning, barbell training, I always saw you as a very interesting guy, very curious man looking for ways to develop himself. And I remember listening to one podcast. Somebody was asking you questions about your professional development. And maybe you talk with me about that first so that you give us some background about your life, your professional life. And maybe also the way this mixes up with self-defense and your view on all of these topics about strength, conditioning, self-defense, even like masculinity, manhood, and how all of that plays a role into your professional life and the way you have been able to make it a lifestyle pretty much, something that you actually enjoy. You're passionate about teaching it, all of those things. Maybe give us some background on that first. Yeah, I think over the years I've realized that coaching is my thing. So I think that was... The thing that I was put here to do is to coach and teach. I've always enjoyed that. Even when I was in school and in high school and stuff, I was always coaching people and helping them out with learning things. I've always enjoyed that aspect of it. The physical part of it, I don't know where that came from. I think a lot of it is a thing in my mind that I need to find ways to feel confident, even as a little kid. Whenever I would do something, if I started a sport, for example, I don't know how I figured this out. It makes so much sense, but I think a lot of people don't consider it and don't implement it. I think at some point in my life, I figured out that the time I put in doing something is going to give me dividends. For example, I remember in middle school, and this is kind of silly, but this is the first thing I can remember. Right. was really big into rollerblading, really big into roller hockey. So I played roller hockey almost every day. I was on a league and stuff like that. And the first time I got into roller skating and I had cheap skates with hard wheels. And I was okay skating and stuff. I was okay at hockey and everything. And then the first time I got on a sport court, you know what that is? It's like a plastic flooring that sometimes they have for basketball and stuff like that. My wheels were. just sliding all over the place and I couldn't even stand up. And so anyway, I figured that out and got some new wheels. But that summer, I was just like, man, if I can't skate, I'm not good. I'm just going to be sitting there watching everybody play. And I got obsessive. I mean, I was like, and again, this is silly. And I was a big kid, but so I was like biggest kid rolling. I was like, I'm not good. I'm not good. Rolling around on roller skates, but like hours and hours and hours every day. Right. And then and then, man, like I didn't realize it because it's kind of like a fun thing. I was having a good time. And then the very next time the season came up, I had proper wheels for one. But also like like nobody could recognize me in terms of like how I was playing. They're like, where did you come from? You know, because I was just like and it clicked in my head. I was like, well, shit, you know, that was like fun. It was awesome. It was a skill that I that I wanted to learn anyway. And and I got really good, like like really good. And and then and then like different things in my life have come in, like playing guitar, for example. Like I kind of get obsessive about things and I just do it all the time. So I spent most of my like middle school, high school with a we didn't have the Internet. Right. So or at least not what it's like today. So spent lots of hours just sitting in front of the TV playing guitar. And I got I get really good. Right. And then that kind of that kind of transferred into my physical activities, too. I got into football and then got into barbell training and then I liked it. And then I got like, again, obsessive about it and lifting. And I ended up kind of be. the, the, at least for my grade level, you know, and even for some of the older kids, I was kind of like whenever they would, uh, they would start or like the basketball team would come and I would. help them like learn how to do the lifts and stuff. So, um, so yeah, anyway, man, I mean, to kind of keep the story short, um, throughout my life, I've, I've had various jobs and careers, you know, to make money and, uh, and to support my family and stuff when I was single. Um, and, and, um, coming out of college and then coming out of my first jobs, I got into martial arts. So I got into Muay Thai and submission grappling, and that became like my obsession at that point. Right. So, uh, I mean, I was training 25, sometimes 30 hours a week. Um, but what made you start? Like, what was the thing that clicked to be like, I need to do this? Uh, I, I mean, I think like most men, like, I think fighting is at least in the back of your head, like something that you feel like you should be good at. Yeah. I feel like a lot of, I think a lot of men think they know how to fight and stuff, but I've always, I've always kind of had this like dose of reality that's like, man, I like, I don't, I don't know what's, I don't know what to do. And I got, that's really cool. I want to, I want to do it. Right. And just, just, uh, uh, it was kind of like, uh, just a luck thing or whatever. My brother's boss was involved in Muay Thai and I had no idea what Muay Thai was. And I, you know, I had always like driven by the martial arts schools, the Taekwondo schools and stuff. I was like, I want to go in there. I want to check it out. Never did. Right. Um, so this opportunity came up and we went down, it was downtown St. Louis and I walked in there and it's like, I mean, you know, you know how Muay Thai is, right? You walk in and there's, there's women in there, there's skinny guys, there's big guys. and they're holding the pads and it's like, wham, you know, you just hear that sound. And I was like, damn, like this is really cool. This is what I want to do. Um, but no, I always kind of wanted to learn how to fight. You know, I would read books and stuff. Um, I wasn't really into martial arts movies or anything. It's just like, uh, I think it was just kind of like playing football. Playing. rugby, um, doing physical sports. There's no, like, I think I just needed a physical of kind of physical sort of violent outlet for things, you know? So I think it was just natural, man. I didn't, there was no like instance where I like got beat up or something, you know, I got, I got picked on and bullied. We moved a lot. So I got picked on and bullied just probably like any other kid does. Um, so, so maybe that there's an aspect of that in there too, but there was no like single thing that was like, I'm just, I was just looking for a physical challenge maybe as the way to think about it. And that, and that fit in really nice. Right. Cause it's like, there's a, there's a, that's a deep, the martial arts, like actual universe. Well, actual, yeah. Actual fighting, you know, and really all martial arts. But if you're, if you want to talk about actual, like either combat sports or self-defense, it's, there's a, there's a lot of depth there and a lot of opportunity to just kind of get fully into it. Right. So, so that was kind of the natural progression I threw through the, through the Muay Thai stuff. The folks that I was in, I was involved with, they had, Um, the, my instructor had like a security service. So I started getting into security and then the teaching thing kind of came in there too. So, you know, we would go in and teach, bouncers and bars and clubs how to do security properly. Cause none of them know how, right. They all just want to fight all the time. So, um, so, you know, I got into teaching like the. self-defense stuff through, through being a bouncer. And then I spent lots of years as a bouncer. Um, and then, and then I, I really liked the grappling side. We only, we didn't do it very often. It was just like once a week, but I really liked it, you know, and then years down the road, I kind of, I got into Krav Maga, started teaching Krav Maga shortly after I started doing that. And then, uh, and then through Krav Maga, I did, I started doing Brazilian jujitsu, cause we had a Brazilian jujitsu program at our school. Um, and, uh, I started doing Brazilian jujitsu and then, and then I realized that that was a whole other like thing that was so foreign, you know, uh, my, my first coach, JW Wright, um, he was, I don't remember, if he was a brown belt at the time, or maybe a black belt already, but he's half my size. He's a little guy. No offense, JW, but I mean, relatively speaking, right? But dude, the first time he came and taught a class, I had my gi on and stuff. And yeah, probably a butterfly sweep, but he flipped me right over his head. And I was over 300 pounds and he's whatever, 140, 150 or something. And at that. moment, I was like, if he can do that to me, and this is after years of Thai boxing and submission grappling and bouncing and stuff like that. If he can do that to me with no effort, this is exactly what I need to be doing, right? So that was kind of the next thing. And then over the years, just, moving around, going to different Brazilian jiu-jitsu schools and stuff. I think in terms of what I've focused on in terms of depth in the martial arts world, it's been Brazilian jiu-jitsu, obviously, right? I have a school now and the self-defense stuff that I- teach now is heavily focused on not necessarily Brazilian jiu-jitsu but in terms of like a grappling and clinch environment right so yeah I don't know man I don't know like that I guess to answer your question it's just been like I've just kind of followed my interests and I have gotten deep interest and then along the way you know becoming the starting strength thing was a part of the the self-defense thing because I was into like I was teaching conditioning classes and. then you know having done barbells in high school you know I found CrossFit and then I found RIP through CrossFit and then and then the the starting strength I mean it just kind of comes naturally if you're interested in if you're interested in analyzing and coaching and in a in a good method for doing things right so kind of layered that on top and then starting strength became became my full-time thing and and now you know we're at the point where it's it's starting strength and then starting, strength gyms. Starting showing podcasts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and then just helping the gyms grow, right? Well, something that I admire a lot from you that I've seen you develop throughout the years is all of these skills. If I could describe you professionally, you're just like a jack of all trades, right? Because you started coaching martial arts, and then I think at some point you started working with Rip because he needed someone to manage the media stuff. And then you had to learn photography and editing and podcasting. And now here you are with all of these highly valued skills that any business requires to thrive. No, that's absolutely right. And again, it wasn't intentional. It's just stuff that I enjoyed. The other big aspect of my life, right? Because I've been married now for 16 years, 17 years coming up. Maybe 18, long time, right? But, um, I mean, that's a big chunk of your professional life, uh, in terms of, in terms of, um, uh, your most productive time and all that. Right. So, uh, late twenties all the way to now I'm 40, 42 or 43, 43. Um, but you know, I've been really lucky that like, um, my, my wife is into jujitsu, like we own this school together so that there's that, and my kids are into it. And then also like, you know, all this, all this just things that in most men's lives are like, can be seen as like silly hobbies. Um, I've been really lucky that she's like totally supportive and, uh, um, yeah, I mean, we've, uh, kind of anything that like, imagine this man, we're. sitting in Reno. I have a, I have a good job and, uh, a stable situation. And then I tell her, Hey, uh, rip, rip it. Oh, just called him. He offered me a job. Should we go? And then, I mean, to Matt, like, imagine how that would go with a significant other. Um, you know, it was, she was just like, yeah, let's go. So. So I can't discount how valuable that is. So I've been lucky to be supported and be able to just do, God, whatever I want. So it's like photography is expensive, video is expensive, taking classes is expensive, upping my skills, the time away in terms of getting shooting certifications, spending time going and learning from different people, from ShivWorks and the Combatives Association and stuff like that. All that takes a lot of time. Somehow I've managed to make my life in such a way that I make money from all those things, so it works out well. But still, yeah, it's been, I mean, it's a lot of work. Yeah, so for sure, man. The photography thing is something that I was just, again, interested in. I started in school. I went to college for architecture. I've done some design school and stuff like that. Yeah. leaving college, but that kind of, I guess, artistic thing has always been a part of my. life too. So photography was just kind of an outlet for that, right? And then I've always been interested in it. And then through working with the Asgard company, it was just an opportunity again to make it a part of my job and my career. And then as a result of that, your skills just have to get better and better, right? Yeah. And that's why I say you've been a role model to me in many ways, but specifically because of what you just said, which is you make money while. having fun and doing the things that you like. That is a very privileged position to have. I would say that's less than 5% of the world population. Sorry to interrupt you, but I remember deciding a long time ago that I would not spend my life doing things that made me miserable. Right. And I did spend a lot of time doing that because you got to pay the bills, right? Right. So, yeah, I don't know if like that kind of just having that in your brain and maybe having that as a motivator is kind of what got us to where we are today. But, yeah, I mean, you know how it is with friends, family, people. They're just like basically working to get to the weekend or get to the vacation once a year or whatever. So, yeah, that almost – and I would do that if I had to, obviously, right? I mean, we always joke that like all this is made up, right? It's like if all of a sudden people don't want to do jiu-jitsu anymore, if all of a sudden nobody wants to lift weights or the economy crashes or something, we'll have to get it done, however. But, yeah, like you said, it's a privilege to be able to do all this stuff like this. It is. But, yeah, I don't have any problem like getting things done when we need to. But, yeah, that's been a big motivator, I think, for my future. And something I want to kind of pass on to my kids is like you can – you should be able to kind of drive your own. You should. You should, and I think the internet's been a big leverage for people like us who really want to make a living out of the stuff that we genuinely like, and that's where you come. into my story, which is I saw you doing all these things, came to the first seminar, I think that was back in 2016. I was just finding out about all of this, and let me share a little bit of that with you because it's important. I did have a fight at a bar when I was a 19-year-old kid, very skinny, and I didn't lose the fight, but it was just a very short fight. I was trying to grapple with the guy, the normal high school thing you do, the headlock, and my shoulder got tweaked somehow, and I couldn't fight anymore because I felt it almost dislocating. And then he beat me like two or three times, and I was... And that was like the wake-up moment for me where I was like, man, I'm very vulnerable and I don't like this. I was into swimming because I had a back injury and the doctor told me that I should swim to get the back stronger. And I did that for like two years because I'm very disciplined. But I never felt the back stronger or healthier. And I was very skinny. And then that bottom line event happened where it was a wake-up moment for me. And then I started looking for options like, okay, I'm skinny and weak. I need to fix that first. So I found the starting strength world and the importance of being strong, especially as a man, I would think. And I did the whole program. I got stronger. I enjoyed the process. And I thought, well, this is very important. I need to, like nobody knows about this in Mexico, Latin America. I'm very cold. even the word still this is a small word and and people still think of of physical culture in terms of just the superficial cosmetic for sure aspect of it and there's just so much more to to uh going to the gym than just like growing your biceps you know so i got strong and then as i was getting. stronger my idea and my my ultimate goal was eventually to become a functional man and and be capable of defending myself when it comes to such an event that like the one i had at the bar yeah and then i don't know if you remember but like five years ago coming up to the to the seminars for for auditing and keeping my certification i asked you once like hey nick i want to get into self-defense this is important to me i did the the foundational work which is get strong first. in my opinion what you did right you were real strong i was real strong i uh gained quite a bit i was uh, at my heaviest too, 50 pounds, I got to pressing 310, I pulled 635. Jesus, man, you did it right. Yeah, I was very strong. And then I asked you, like, hey, man, I did this already, what's next? How do I get into self-defense? And I think you told me you recommended Krav Maga first, and I told you that we didn't have that where I live in Guadalajara. And then you recommended, well, maybe you should try jiu-jitsu. It's a more complete martial art for the purpose of self-defense. And I think you're right. Like, the way I look at self-defense is you need, like, four core skills, which is grappling and takedowns, learning how to fight on the floor, and then it's striking, punching, kicking, fighting on the floor, and grappling when you're standing so that you can take somebody down. So that's four. Four skills. And jiu-jitsu has. two out of the four. Yep. Yeah. And the, and the other two are easy to plug in if you understand, if you understand fighting. Yeah. There's a, there's another important aspect that, uh, you know, and, and we always tend to talk about it in terms of the hard skills, right? It's like the, the, the, the grappling, the striking, the, the actual, like within a fight thing, but there's also in terms of self-defense, there's all the soft skills too, right? It's avoiding the fight, like, right. De, um, uh, de-conflicting a situation, like making it less, lowering the. stakes, right. Getting ego out of the way. All those things are like, you know, and, and when you, when you start talking, like in the U S right, we carry, we carry guns and knives and stuff around. So, um, it's not going to be just the fist fight sometimes, right. It's going to be, it could be potentially way worse. And one of the huge benefits of training, and you know this, I think, right. But one of the huge benefits of training is that you, you release all that, like ego energy that, that dudes have just inherently where you like, I don't have any interest in fighting anybody ever. No. Like at all. Like. Like if there's a situation in my day-to-day life, road rage or whatever, it doesn't bother me at all, you know, like zero. I have no interest, right? And I don't ever intend to do jiu-jitsu with somebody who's like trying to attack me or beat me up. Like that's not going to happen, right, because it's a terrible idea. But in terms of self-defense, yeah, what I probably told you was if you find the right Krav Maga school, that's the way to go. And I know of some affiliates in Mexico, but I don't think they were near you, right? I think they were somewhere else, but who are really good and understand fighting. But generally, yeah, my advice is going to be to do jiu-jitsu because you're learning from day one under pressure the most fundamental thing, which is you wanting to do something to somebody else that they don't want you to do, right? Because at the end of the day, you know, the longer you do this, the kind of more you understand. All fighting is ultimately just you trying to control another person physically, right? And so… And striking is one thing. But striking has so much associated with it in terms of being proficient that it's easy to kind of like not actually get into the fighting aspect of it in terms of the self-defense. And what I mean by that is like if you're athletic, if you're fast, if you have good reflexes, if you're not scared to get hit, those are all things that are going to like make you a better striker automatically, right? And on top of that, if you are learning how to be a striker, like if you're learning boxing, you're learning Muay Thai, there's a long learning curve before you get real pressure, meaning like 100% you and I are going to fight. Now, you can do that, but it's unsafe and you're just going to get your ass kicked. And then on top of that, it's like blunt force trauma to the head and there's all those downsides, right? So with jiu-jitsu, I mean nothing is safe, right? But in terms of… Being able to apply pressure and being able to do that thing, which is like I want to hold you down and make you quit fighting, whether it's through like an arm lock or… a choke or just pressure or whatever, right? And you don't want me to do that. And we can do that from the very first day, day one, right? So you're learning fundamental fighting skills. You're. learning fundamental things about range and pressure and control and how to hold somebody down and how to make space and how to take space. That's what fighting is all about. And jujitsu gives you that from day one, right? So it's not like jujitsu in and of itself teaches you self defense, but it gives you the foundation. And for self defense purposes, it's just like you already have everything there. Sometimes it's just the application. It's just a little bit of a shift in terms of an approach. You can attend a weekend course specifically on self defense, like through. ShivWorks or something like that. And that sets you up for a whole year of being good to go in terms of self defense. You know what I'm saying? Right. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah, yeah. It makes sense. It makes total sense. And the reason I ask is because, You probably know this from experience as well. You get into something and then you like to share it with your acquaintances and friends, especially me. I have a gym. I have lots of clients. I have lots of men. And I try to, like, talk them into this. Of course, it's not – so it's like you can do whatever you want. But the reason you're here at my gym, the way I see it, is because you need to get strong first like I did. Right. So that you can then use that strength for a more useful physical activity. And especially because I have lots of parents, like dads of two, three kids. They're starting to grow older and then they start to realize the importance of the physicality in general. Right. And I always tell them, guys, this is the first part. Like you're in phase zero, which is strength foundation. Yes. After that, you got to learn martial arts. And then I tell them, I'm going to take you to a gym. And then they're like, but, like, that looks. That looks so gay, like, you know, and they have all this, like, all this nose that it's hard to convince them, and maybe, like, I'm asking you just to make the case so that people can see from your experience why this is so important. It's like, I think with strength training, you have this, like, two tiers of clients, which is client tier A is I want to get strong, I enjoy the process. Client tier B is I am very smart, I hate lifting weights, and this is just my medicine that I need to swallow, and then I'm done with the day. That's like, us, we love to grapple, it's fun, but many guys will not like it. They need to look at it as medicine for their lives. You know, it's like self-defense. I got you, yeah. Yeah, in terms of lifting, I'm definitely a category B person at this point in my life. Me too. For sure. It's necessary. Like you said, it's medicine. I have to do it. In terms of learning self-defense or learning to fight, let me just make this point real quick. No matter what you're doing. in terms of self-defense and fighting, the most fundamental piece of that equation is fitness. If you don't have a base, your point about getting strong first is really good, especially if that's going to be the entry point for somebody getting into self-defense or just being more capable in general. The foundation of athleticism is really important. I've started to think about this in terms of athleticism because I think it makes more sense. If you say athleticism, then you can consider all of the things that athleticism requires. Like you and I know, the most fundamental piece of that is going to be the force production or the strength aspect of it. You can't fight. if you don't have, you can't fight effectively if you don't have some strength and some condition, right? The benefit of actually training is that that conditioning kind of comes with it, and then the lifting gives you a high level of strength, right? Because people are going to get stronger if they're total, total, if they haven't been training anything at all, and they start doing something like jiu-jitsu, they are going to get stronger. I mean, you know, we don't, we don't, we don't argue that at all, right? But that's going to have a cap. You're only going to get as strong as, like, your day-to-day training requires you to be. So the idea is to bring your level up as high as you can, as quickly as you can, so then you have a really broad base of strength, and then your performance from day one is much better, right? So in terms of actually learning self-defense, the reasons to learn self-defense, yeah, I don't usually, start with, like, the you have to know how to fight somebody who's attacking you, right? I think that's, at least at this point in my life, um, And in my way of thinking, that's a side benefit. And to me personally, that's very important. Right. Like in my head, there's always a dude who's going to try to attack me or my family who knows how to fight better than me, knows how to shoot better, better than me and is way trickier than me. Right. So like that's one of the things like it sounds insane. But that's one of the things that has driven me as I started training. Right. Because I think objectively, somebody who's like a blue belt in jujitsu and can shoot, you know, can shoot well to a certain standard and is relatively strong and relatively fit has all the pieces they need to deal with almost any self-defense situation, like any dangerous situation. But here I am after, you know, almost 20 years of fighting and I'm still in the back of my head. Like, like, man, I don't know. I don't know if like somebody, if somebody, if somebody like, I don't know, somebody broke into my house, you know, it's like I like objectively I have the skills to be able to deal with that. But it's like. you know there's a thing in my in my head it's like i gotta get better i gotta get better that's how i still feel yeah i thought i thought like i do jiu-jitsu two three years i get the purple the blue belt and i'm gonna feel perfect no no it never goes that way you just feel worse yeah. yeah you just feel worse man so be a white belt for as long as you can right because it's like the greatest time there's no there's no uh there's no expectations of you right it's just like all you have to do is get better um so uh so yeah that's a thing and i don't know if that's healthy or not but i think uh i think that's probably actually i do think it's probably healthy i think that's maybe what is uh well got us as a civilization to where we are where it's like you're you're kind of worried about about threats um you know but but again we're channeling that into some some productive endeavors like lifting and shooting well and having. this awesome community of people we like grapple with and we have a good time right um, the so again just to give you my perspective, the main benefit of something like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is it is it allows us to just express this this innate like I hate to use the word primal because it's kind of like goofy but like seriously man I mean it's like the first thing we did is fight each other you know yeah in our revolution for a long time so I think I mean you watch little kids play you watch animals play and the. first thing they do is just kind of kind of mess around and grapple and sort of like play fight right so and when I watch kids like teaching teaching the kids has been has been eye-opening because it's just so natural for them to just want to wrestle you know they want to wrestle around so in terms of being relatively low risk in terms of in terms of giving you like all these conditioning benefits the community right because it's like anything something like jiu-jitsu or any hard martial art combat martial art will will weed out people with big egos right you know. that right because like it's ego crushing, yeah so so it's good people generally for the most part it's good people um it's it's uh and the other really important thing is the is the very clear hierarchy that's built on performance, right so when you walk into your school you know who the who the best guy is and you know what it's like to fight that guy and you know who the worst guy is and you know what it's like to fight that guy and you know very clearly where you stand right and it's it's there's no there's no bullshit. it's very clearly objective because that day you can you can test yourself against each other right um so i think that's something that's lost in almost every aspect of modern society the hierarchies are just based on whatever people value you know whether like in school it's like silly things like what clothes you wear or what places you go to or what shows you watch or whatever thing kids dream up right in business it's like um it's it's a forced hierarchy right, it's social but then, It's also like, this person is the boss because they're the boss, right? But in jiu-jitsu, it doesn't work that way. In physical, in hard physical things like weightlifting and jiu-jitsu, for example, there's a very clear hierarchy because it's objective, right? And you also get all those other benefits of just like having a hard physical effort multiple times a week. I think in the book, in Starting Strength, Rip says it's substitute caveman activity, right? And that fits beautifully with martial arts, especially with something like wrestling or jiu-jitsu. It's a caveman activity. And we need that, man. We need that. We need that to be whole. So I start there when I'm talking to people because I don't necessarily think it's valuable to make it like a scary thing, just like with lifting. Some people take this approach like if you don't do this, you're going to be frail and sick and weak and you're going to get hurt and you're going to get injured, right? That's all. True, potentially, right? But. But it's far more satisfying and easier for me to be like, these are all the cool benefits of this. And by the way, you can kick someone's ass if you need to, and hopefully you don't ever. need to. Because the truth is, man, the people who can afford to train here, and the people who can afford to train at our barbell gyms, they're not living dangerous lives. You know what I'm saying? There are people we will work with who are putting themselves in situations, like if you work with law enforcement or military folks, and that's kind of a different situation. It's a little bit more focused. But yeah, I think most of the people I interact with in a professional sense, for the most part, are living comfortable, safe lives in safe places where they're not likely to deal. with a self-defense situation. Now, that's not to say that it can't happen. It can happen, and the statistics are that at some point in your life, something like that will happen. And it might be from somebody you know, especially from the women and kids out there. So, for sure. Sure, I'm not discounting that things happen, but do you understand what I'm saying? When I'm talking to somebody, I don't start there. I start with all the cool stuff, because I think that appeals to people better. But again, personally, for myself, and when I talk to some individual folks, a lot of us have this self-defense mentality, this capability mentality, right? It's like you need to be more capable, even just to be more whole, so to speak, as a man. And I don't get into the manliness shit, like that's not my thing, but it is the truth, in terms of the manliness shit sounds very corny. Yeah, let's go back to that manhood thing, because I used a bad word, it's too cliche right now, and I don't like to talk in using that word, but the point is, and you said something here, it makes you more whole as a man, something like that you said, and I agree. I think that the modern world, I don't know if it's like talking about a third person or just like an accident of history, but violence has been taken away from men. For sure. And there is a void that some of us wake up to and many others don't even realize. But as you were talking about, even when you're like a kid, the natural thing to do for play is wrestling around with other kids. Right. And then at some point, it gets removed from our lives. Yep. And there is a void. Now, you were talking half-jokingly about the silly sports and hobbies that your wife supports. I disagree, but I know you were joking. These are not silly hobbies because if you look at it from a logical standpoint and you just have, let's say, five hours to devote to physical activity a week. week, what are you going to do with that time? And the average male is going to play soccer, basketball, he's going to run, or right now in Mexico, what's hot is the racquet sports. Pickleball, yeah. Pickleball, yeah, dude. It's huge here too. Let me clarify real quick, because what I meant by that was, like in most relationships, husband, wife, kids, kids, the things like your shooting hobby and your Brazilian jiu-jitsu hobby to the wife, it's like, that's a silly thing, right? Yeah, for sure. And it kind of is, I mean, when people have other stresses going on, right? So that's kind of what I meant there, because I think a lot of, like I have to be realistic in understanding that most people are busy, and this isn't their job, this isn't their life, and they're only going to be. able to devote X amount of hours per week to this kind of thing. Right? So one of the things that I try to do is, when people talk to me, it's like, dude, you got to, Because everybody gets excited and they want to do it all the time, right? But it's like if you want to make this sustainable long-term, if this is something you enjoy, you've got to balance it with your life. And probably the hardest part of that is going to be at home, right? Because how many hours are you gone? And at some point, your spouse is going to say to you, hey, dude, you can't be at jiu-jitsu five days a week. You know what I'm saying? So when I was talking about that, I was talking about how I feel fortunate that I haven't had to deal with that necessarily. You know what I'm saying? Yes, but the way I wanted to direct this conversation is to all men who are in this position where they do physical activity just for fun, I think they're missing out on other stuff. And the way I look at it, unfortunately, I'm like semi-autistic, extremely logical. The way I see it is if I'm going to do something, I want to maximize the economy, right? Of course. So that means in like more plain terms, I want to… shoot four birds with one shot, and those four birds, if we're talking about sports or physical activity, you want it to be fun, yes, if possible, but you also want it to be functional. And efficient. You want it to be metabolic, to actually work up your conditioning and get you to burn more fat, and you want it to help you build a skill that translates into life forever, forever. Absolutely. And that's the definition of martial arts, as opposed to the actual silly sports that. are happening today. Yes, correct. And this is just like a ... I see it and I'm like, dude, guys, wake up to this. Go learn how to fight, man. You're dizzy by these curtains of sports for the masses, and you want to do what these guys do, and you even get to the point where you see sports stars as your role models. Yeah. It's weird, right? It's so weird. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. And how do you make people understand this? Because this is important. The violence has been removed from us. I agree 100%. And you're trying to replace it with something that's like not even 10% of what this at the dojo can give us as men. Because all sports are really like simulated war, right? Yes. Simulated battle. I mean, that's ultimately what it is. It's like you have some physical element and your objective is to beat the opponent, right? Right? This, yeah, martial arts, especially like the more combat-based, you know, I don't really, whatever the term is, right? The ones that are actually like real fighting get you closer, right? Much closer. The stakes are lower, right? I mean, the worst thing that's going to happen is you may like, you know, you may injure a joint. You know, you're not going to die, essentially, unless you're training in a particularly weird way. But it gets you as close as you can get. Right? And I totally agree, man. Right. Uh, we don't have in our, in our current comfortable modern society, and it's not a bad thing, right? It's not a bad thing at all, but we don't have a relationship with violence at all. Like nobody, no, very few people do. Um, and there's a lot of downside obviously that comes with having a relationship with violence, but I think we have to understand that it's an important part of, of our, um, of our existence. And, um, and if you have an opportunity to be able to expose yourself to controlled violence, um, in a safe environment, um, for most people, most of the time, you should definitely do that. Right. So like, um, even if it, even if it just means like owning a, owning a firearm and learning how to use it, right. At least you have some thing in your mind that says, this is a firearm and it kills people. And I have the power to do that. Right. Um, again, not as good as like actually looking at it. Learning how to fight, but you have to have some, some level of, of, of a relationship with violence. You have to have a familiarization with it so that you can actually be a better person to society in general. And then if more men understand how to control and will violence and actually in a responsible way take control of it, I bet 100% that society overall would benefit a lot because you'd be making men stronger. So, yeah, I mean, that's where it's at. Agreed, man. Agreed. Yeah, so with the things that you can do, right, the problem that we're always dealing with is – and this applies to barbell training and to something like jiu-jitsu. It's hard, man. And people don't want to do – like all this stuff we're talking about, about no longer having the physical outlets, no longer having the relationship with violence, no longer having like all of our thinking and our emotions. states are all tied to hard physical effort. I think that's our default level of existence, is hard physical effort. And the further you get away from that, the sillier things get, right? And you can see it, man. I mean, the people who are the silliest out in the world, just saying and doing ridiculous things, look at what they look like, right? It's obvious that they don't have any relationship with their actual body. You know what I mean? In terms of how it works and what it can do and how it can perform. And they don't push, right? It's almost like. you hear somebody say something ridiculous on the internet or in person, and without even seeing them, you can picture what they look like. So yeah, the further away you get from that, the more dangerous, I think, things come for us in terms. You know, bigger picture stuff, like just being convinced of silly things or, being controlled by a government or being controlled by just the products and things. that you consume. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, it's a way bigger issue than people think. Of course. 100%. Yeah, because if you're not involved in hard physical effort, your brain is weak and soft. Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably the best way to say it. And if you have lots of weak and soft brains, then it follows that maybe society is not where it could be in terms of potential and the progress we could be making. We should be in Mars already right now. Yeah. No, I agree, man. Yeah. And for men specifically, you've got to set an example, I think, for your children too. There's going to be a time where, and I remember when this happened for me, but there comes a time when you realize you're... Your dad is not the strongest dude in the world. And he's, uh, and he's not the, not the superhero that you, that you think when he's, and not, you know, I mean, that, that sounds bad, but I know my kids are going to be there soon. You know, they're going to be at that, at that age soon if they're not already, you. know, I think my son choked, armbarred me the other day and I was like, oh man, like, like legit for real armbarred me. Wow. Um, and, and, uh, I think that's like the first, like he's caught me before in things, but this is like the first one that he's like, beautiful setup, you know, he's, he's 16, just got his blue belt. Um, and I was like a hundred percent, you know, that was, that was all you. So, um, you know, that's great for me as a, as a dad, as a coach, but at the same time I was like, shit, now he thinks he can beat me. You know what I'm saying? Uh, so you know what I'm saying? So there's, there's that you've got to, um, you want to push that in my opinion, you want to push that off as far as you can. You know, it's like, don't let them, don't let them start thinking you're, um, you're, you're not who they think you are at the age of 11. Right. You know what I'm saying? As like at 15, 16, 17. 17, 18, that's natural, right? You have to start separating yourself from your parents, and becoming your own person. But don't accelerate that process by being a piece of shit, right? You know, by being just a slob and not having any physical capability at all. You know, because then all of your other faults, are just kind of like, well, yeah, you know, my dad is a slob. My mom is a slob. Of course, you know, I don't like them or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. This may be my own shit, but I think that's really important. You know, you've got to be setting an example for your children. Of course. Well, Nick, thank you for this opportunity to have this conversation. Again, I thank you for being a part of this in my life. And I'm not planning on stopping any soon. Awesome. I want to advance into other martial arts and eventually also maybe learn how to use guns and things. I think it's like a ladder of things that you need to start to acquire as you advance and especially. As you grow older. Older as a male. Yep. So thank you for all the knowledge that you share. Thank you for having this academy and I hope that you continue doing what you like, sharing with us and we just continue seeing each other and choking each other, man. Thank you very much, man. I appreciate it.