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code SHIELD at 511tactical .com. Welcome guys
to episode 287 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this
week I am extremely excited to welcome on the
show MMA legendary coach Greg Jackson. Now Greg
is obviously known for training so many of the
elite in the UFC, Bellator and other MMA arenas.
But lesser known is behind the scenes, he coaches
both the military and law enforcement and is
also deeply involved in Deliver Fund, which is
the anti -human trafficking organization led
by Nick McKinley, who I had on the show about
a year ago now. So as I've said in many of these
intros, you, the audience, power the scope of
this podcast. This is a free library with incredible
minds from all around planet Earth. And my goal
is to get these episodes to every single person
who needs to hear it because it will literally
change their lives. So there's a couple of ways
you can help. Firstly, go to the app that you
listen to this on, whether it's Stitcher, iTunes,
SoundCloud. Subscribe to the show. Leave feedback,
and most importantly, leave a rating. The more
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take your email, social media, word of mouth,
and just share. Tell people about the podcast.
Tell about an episode that really resonated with
you. The more we share, the more this grows,
the more people literally around planet Earth
can improve their lives, their health, and their
mental wellness. So with that being said, I introduce
to you Greg Jackson. Enjoy. Greg, I want to start
by saying thank you so much for taking the time
and being patient with the technical side for
coming on the Behind the Shield podcast. Oh,
no worries. Thanks for having me on. It's my
pleasure. Now, where are we finding your planet
Earth today? My planet Earth? Well, it's probably
maybe not one centralized planet, but it's probably
about 12 little satellite planets moving around
some bizarre center of gravity that's able to
hold it. I think that would be a more accurate
assessment of my situation at the moment. I keep
planet jumping. Right. But you're in Albuquerque
today? Oh, as far as my actual physical location,
I am in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I thought we
were talking metaphorically. No. Literally, I
am sitting in my house in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
one of my favorite places on the earth. Brilliant.
Well, I would love to start chronologically at
the beginning. So where were you born? And then
just tell me a little about your family dynamic.
I was born in Washington, D .C. I was raised
by two amazing people, Jim and Chris Jackson
from the Midwest. They were products of the 60s
in that they actually believed in helping people
and kind of had that hippie ethos, but not as
like a. a trendy thing to do, but like as a lifestyle
choice. So, uh, they, my uncle had moved out,
gone to the Peace Corps, my uncle Pete, and I
had moved to Southern New Mexico because he was
doing the Peace Corps in Mexico. And they came
out here and kind of fell in love with it. And,
uh, both of them dedicated their lives to, uh,
my, my mother was a cardiac nurse forever. And
my father, uh, for 30, I don't know how many
years. Basically, as long as I can remember,
I worked for an organization called Disability
Rights New Mexico, which advocates for handicapped
people, both legally and kind of, what's the
word? If there's like some of the mental institutions
here were a little basically torture chamber.
So we shut those down and stuff like that. Oh,
that's incredible. I want to stay on that for
a moment then. So firstly, with your mom, what
was her observation? Being a cardiac nurse of
the growing ill health through terrible nutrition
that we have here, knowing obviously through
the fitness and nutrition work that you do through
your athletes, what does she observe from a cardiac
nurse perspective of the health of Americans
in general? Well, I think she was kind of the
last line. She was the emergency, like when you
were in a lot of trouble with your heart. So
a lot of people were very elderly. There were
a lot of obese people. But I actually have never
sat down with her. It's a really good question.
I'll do that immediately. I've never sat down
with her and saw what her take on it was. We
were raised ultra healthy. We weren't allowed
any sugar, me and my little brother as children.
We were eating grape nuts and Nutri -Grain cereals,
that kind of stuff. Um, we germ with every meal,
Brussels sprouts, you know, the, the, uh, uh,
the kind of the, the seventies diet that when
people were really beginning to understand about
eating healthy, I think. Um, so as far as that
end of it, so, um, I think that it played an
impact on her, but she saw a lot of people that
were very elderly as well that actually had,
you know, labored their whole life and, and,
uh, uh you know eating relatively natural and
healthy because new mexico is a very rural place
we had a lot of access to that stuff um and so
uh yeah she was uh i'll have to sit down and
ask her about that question but certainly it's
an epidemic there's no doubt about that yeah
well it's been coming from a healthy eating perspective
i mean she's probably witnessed this this with
the uh The way that many people believe that
these diseases are irreversible and they need
their statins and their blood pressure meds and
their cholesterol meds versus the actual healing
properties that just a good diet and good exercise
regime can give you. That's the foundation, right?
Genetically, you might need some of that stuff,
but if you have a great foundation of good exercise
and good food, that's a heck of a place to start.
You can't really build a building on an empty
basement. Absolutely. And it's funny with your
father. I mean, it's the two very pertinent careers
that your parents did. I recently encountered
an issue where my little boy was subject to what
we call Baker Act here, which is when they send
them for a... three -day hold in a psychiatric
ward right and that's being abused terribly in
the schools at the moment they're using you know
any any child that's even remotely challenging
um they just shoot off to there so i wonder what
his observations have been of the you know the
the progress or regression of psych ward use
in the last 10 20 years yeah i mean certainly
i think he's uh my dad is one of the most brilliant
people i've ever met and uh I'm certainly as
well. My dad never talks unless he has a well
thought out argument or he'll just stay quiet.
So I'm sure whatever whatever his opinion is,
has been well thought out and researched because
that's just the kind of guy he is. But yeah,
he in in the 80s, especially a lot of the mental
institutions were were pretty nightmarish. And
so he did a lot in tandem with his team and other
people, obviously. But he did a lot of work to
kind of get that straightened out. So I'm super
proud. be a son you know he's he's an amazing
guy yeah they sound like amazing people all right
well then so obviously you are coaching the world's
elite when it comes to mma when you were young
what were the sports you kind of connected with
you know i didn't i wanted to do martial arts
ever since i can remember and that's pretty much
all i cared about like i did soccer and stuff
as a kid. Um, and you know, you play kind of
street football and that kind of stuff, but I
was never captured by sports really. And it was
just, um, it paled in conspiracy in comparison
to my love of martial arts. So everything about
my young life, I cannot remember a time where
I was not doing some kind of martial arts since,
um, it was, it was very, very early on, um, that,
that I had that relationship with it. So, uh,
it's, uh, it's been kind of, that's been my focus.
I get, I have, I don't know if it's hyper -focus
or, yeah, it's the only thing that can keep my
attention. I'm not sure which end of the spectrum
that's on, but that certainly is the case. Now,
I personally, I mean, I got enamored with martial
arts very young. I'm a very, very small, skinny
child when I was younger. And, you know, I think
that intrinsic urge to protect yourself when
you feel kind of vulnerable. But I kind of, Excuse
my language. I basically fumble fuck my way through
a bunch of martial arts. Started with, I think
it was WTF Taekwondo, then Shotokan for a while,
then ITF, and then boxing, Muay Thai, then jujitsu,
each of which, A, humbling me, and B, showing
me the strengths and weaknesses of the one before,
usually by getting my ass kicked by whichever
the next style was. So lead me through the styles
that you kind of, the path that you took within
the martial arts. Well, I mean, that's a tricky
path. So growing up, my motivation was because
where I was raised was a very it's a very economically
challenged place in the United States. We're
one of the worst, unfortunately. So and I grew
up kind of in the poorest part of. Albuquerque
-ish. It's kind of outside of Albuquerque. It's
called the South Valley. And very Hispanic. I
was one of the few white kids there. So they
had this very Hispanic machismo in that time,
in that culture. And so basically they didn't
really care about if you were good at any sports
or if you could do well in school. All they cared
about is if you could fight. So I had to figure
out how to do that pretty quickly. Um, and so,
uh, that was my, my motivation. So I never saw
a Bruce Lee movie or never really, you know what
I mean? Like it was, uh, my motivation was very,
uh, practical needs. So that being said, the
styles that I bounced around in it, pretty much
any and everything you could do, any, anything
that somebody could teach me, I would go and
learn. Um, and so from every weapon you can imagine,
I've taken some kind of course in it. Um, uh,
but never, it would always have to go to an immediate
need for me. So, um, I never progressed very
far in anything just because, uh, I eventually
would end up wrestling around. I come from a
family of wrestlers and, uh, basically doing
a very early version of mixed martial arts, um,
with like boxing and kickboxing mixed in just,
and again, just need based. Um, so that for me,
it was all of, uh, I only wanted to be kind of
a reality martial artist. Like I didn't care
about competition to me. It was just about, protecting
yourself. It was usually involving more than
one person, all of these things. So then when
the Ultimate Fighting Championship came out and
I could see the Gracie family who were like PhDs,
right? Like I'm in kindergarten and these guys
are like amazing. They still are. you got to
see, oh, wow, that's really cool. So then I had
opened a school up by this time because my friends
were training with me and we were fighting and
they kind of wanted to know how I was doing the
things I was doing when I was getting in fights.
So I opened my school up very early. Um, that
came around and then they wanted to do the, the
bare knuckle competitions. And I didn't really
think, you know, I was just a stupid kid. I was
so young. Um, but I was like, ah, it's not realistic.
You know, it's not one -on -one. I didn't really
have any interest in that competitive, uh, market,
but they talked me into it cause I can't say
no to my friends. And so, uh, I still can't say
no to my friends. And so, uh, uh, they, we went
and we did some competitions and they started,
uh, I thought we'd do okay, whatever. I wasn't,
you know, it was, it was what it was. But we
actually won everything. And so then they were
addicted. And then 25, seven years later, whatever
it's been, here I am talking to you. So my path
into MMA was completely like I didn't want it.
I didn't want to be a martial arts coach. I just
wanted to be a teacher and I would have been
as happy as a clam. But I got talked into it.
So you touched on the fact that you had a gym.
You were 17, is that right, when you had your
gym? Yeah, I opened at 17. So tell me about that
because that's a unique thing in yourself, especially
in America where you're not graduating until
18 normally. What was the road to you having
your own gym? I graduated right around – it might
have been right before I graduated. It actually
was because I was teaching out of another school.
So there was a guy named – Frank Trujillo and
he had like a kickboxing school and he let me
teach my students. There's a sweetheart of a
guy. Uh, and he let me teach my, uh, in the South
Valley there, start teaching students there.
So that's where I really opened up. My first
school was shared space in a school with somebody
else. Um, and yeah, it was just a ballsy move.
Um, I don't know what I was thinking. I had no
idea what I was doing business wise. I had no
idea. I mean, my parents were. basically civil
servants you know i mean they wouldn't they didn't
know anything about business or or uh you know
the the pitfalls of all of that stuff um they
had dedicated their lives to helping people and
i i kind of took a little bit more of a self
-centered well i'm just gonna start a business
and you know do martial arts uh and so i had
no idea what i was doing made terrible mistakes
obviously if you're a 17 18 year old kid you're
gonna make terrible mistakes anyway but um so
uh that that process was I would work other jobs
so I was like a you know back when we had the
video stores where you could go and rent VHS
tapes I managed a video store I was a security
guard I did construction whatever job I could
get to kind of pay the bills while I was trying
to build up my my my business clientele so to
speak and and luckily people started coming and
so I was able to build it up kind of a little
bit more year after year. It was probably a year
or two there. And then we went to a, uh, basically
somebody rented me their garage. So then, but
it was a nice big garage. So then we went there
and then finally in probably 90, another year
there. So probably 94. Maybe beginning in 95,
I forget, right around there. I had my first,
my own gym. It was 1 ,200 square feet, 1 ,000
square feet, something like that. And I lived
in about half of it, maybe 300 or 400 square
feet I lived in. I forget exactly. And yeah,
that's where it really started kicking off. Brilliant.
Now, the other thing is you talked about training
your friends and winning. What was it about the
way you were coaching them and obviously the
way you're coaching yourself as well that was
defeating these opponents in these early bare
-knuckle fights? I think what we did, we did
a kind of a combination of the the grappling
competitions at those times. And then the like,
it was different rules no matter where you went.
So sometimes it was open palm. Sometimes it was
closed fist. It just depended on where you were.
I'd be hard pressed to remember where was what.
But the I think that we had we were New Mexico's
a fighting town. We have a long boxing tradition
here. We have a long kickboxing tradition here.
It is a fighting town. So we came in there with
some toughness, especially in those early days.
If you had a couple of good techniques and you
were pretty tough, you didn't get tired, you
had a good chance of winning. And that, of course,
got more and more complicated as people got more
and more educated. I was able to figure out some
good techniques early on and we used them well.
And then the competition would actually teach
us. So we'd go to these competitions and other
people would try these techniques against us.
And I'd be like, oh, I better come up with a
counter for that. And then that tree would lead
to other branches where I'd say, well, we can
attack here and do this. And so that was kind
of the process. Because when it comes to MMA
stuff, I'm all self -taught. I never had a jiu
-jitsu instructor per se. Brazilian jiu -jitsu
is the one art that I never really took lessons
in other than the coaches. stuff helping me out
and showing me moves that we have uh you know
in around and you would go and watch the moves
in competition but i never i don't have any jiu
-jitsu belt at all oh really yeah and there's
probably pros and cons to that isn't there because
i mean if you see it every so often in the ufc
for example you you'll have karate guy or a judo
woman come in and just start smashing people
around. It's because everyone's been so focused
on that one path that someone comes from the
outside and they bring something new to it. Well,
I think you're right, but a little more of a
microcosm there. We would go to the grappling
tournaments and actually win the grappling tournaments
against the Brazilian jiu -jitsu practitioners,
which used to drive – I mean some of them were
really cool, but it used to drive a bunch of
them crazy, crazy. And that's actually where
we made almost more of a name for ourselves.
Like where I met the tap -out people that did
a clothing company that was called Tap Out that
was very influential in my early career. We met
all those guys because we would show up to these
tournaments. I think we still might. I don't
know if somebody's probably somebody's passed
it now. I don't pay attention, but we still might
have like the grapplers quest. We might still
be the we might have had the most wins in that
as a team. I got inducted into their Hall of
Fame stuff. So the tournaments that we used to
do grappling, we would come in with a little
bit different, a little bit different ways of
doing the same maneuvers. And since everybody
else was kind of drinking from the same water,
I think that gave us an edge for a while. Right.
So then was there like a, not a moment or a person,
but like a year or some sort of peak where you
kind of transitioned from the learning the coach,
the doing the smaller tournaments to suddenly
realizing, oh my goodness, now I'm coaching people
that are actually winning in the UFC or Pride
or whatever the pinnacle was at the time. No,
I don't think because we did that. We did the
bare knuckle stuff. We won a lot of that. And
then we won like the smaller organizations like
the King of the Cage. We took all their world
titles. And then Diego Sanchez won the reality
TV show, the Ultimate Fighter one. He was the
first winner of that. And then we've had – I
don't know how many we've had wins since then,
but it's a lot. And it was right around then
that everything changed. So it wasn't so much
me going, okay, now I've got – These high -level
fighters. I was just a cocky kid. I think that
MMA changed. The ultimate fighter, that television
show, for me, it's like BC and AD, like before
and after. That's how different MMA became. It
was immediately mainstream. Immediately when
I said, oh, we do mixed martial arts, some people
would know what I was talking about because before
that show, no one knew anything. Or they saw
it vaguely. You know, that's cage fighting. Yeah,
that's pretty crazy. But it started actually
getting traction after I think that was 2005,
2004, somewhere around there. But that's when
I noticed that all of a sudden, like I was making
more money. But really, I would have been happy
in my little place making the money I was making
just because I could, you know, you get to do
your art, you get to do what you love all day.
It's so fun. You get to hang out with your friends.
But that's when things really started to change
in the MMA world for me anyway. Yeah. Well, I
heard you in one of the interviews talking about.
um you know the audience craving entertainment
craving that rocky you know robot style and it's
interesting because the griffin bonner fight
in that same um series was was basically the
pinnacle and i think if that had been a technical
jujitsu finish it wouldn't have had the impact
but basically because they almost beat themselves
to death sadly that was what it took to make
them yeah we'll always owe those guys for sure
that it hooked them hard yes Right. Well, then
again, speaking of an interview I heard, for
me personally, as a smaller, frail kid, even
though ironically I grew up on a farm, so I probably
wasn't as weak and feeble as I actually thought
I was. Probably not. The martial arts were absolutely
an integral part of the path that I began and
definitely took me to become a fireman and some
other areas. And I heard you talking about martial
arts versus fighting. Now, much later on in this
world that I'm in now with first responders and
PTSD and the mental health that I delve into,
I totally understand what you're talking about
because fighting alone to me seems like there's
an element of almost fighting demons. That's
a symptom or a side effect of some trauma inside
the head. Whereas I found and I see the martial
arts specifically. being the antidote for that,
the cure because of the discipline and the respect
and the humility, that is a great way to overcome
that. What do you witness with your fighters,
the martial artists versus the brawler, as it
were? Uh, usually the martial artists are much
happier overall people. Um, fighters are a lot
more peaks and valleys, right? Everything's great.
Everything's terrible. Everything's great. Everything's
terrible. And the martial artists seem to be,
uh, a lot more even keel, um, and a lot happier,
especially later on in life. Um, so I'm a big
advocate of, and, but again, I'm not any, I'm
everybody that comes to my school are basically
grownups. I mean, you know, who's a grownup really?
Right. But, uh, the, So I don't force it on them
any more than I would force anything else on
them. If they just want to do the sport and they
can handle their own stuff and that's how they
want to live it, then that's fine. But I always
encourage that martial arts side of it if I can
just because of the – I think the benefits of
following a martial path rather than a sporting
path is much more fun for me. But that's just
me. That doesn't necessarily mean that other
people agree with that. So I think that the martial
arts is a very healthy – way to move through
life again because of those qualities that it
gives you um especially if you've got uh snakes
in your brain like a lot of us do and and it
gives us the ability to help try to control that
um so uh whereas fighting i feel like you you
can control it only because you're hyper focused
for a period of time and then you kind of like
you just kind of float around a little bit until
you can hyper focus again so um i i think it'd
be And I don't know how apt this analogy is,
but it's almost like having a good diet all the
time versus yo -yo eating, right, where you get
huge and fat and then you lose all the weight
and then you get huge and fat and you lose all
– it's just not that healthy for you. But again,
I'm a big believer in kind of your – you are
a grown -up human being and you'll have to make
your own choices there. Here's what I think,
but I'm not going to – I don't own anybody. I'm
not anybody's master. I don't like that. The
connotations of that, I don't want to fight for
mastery over anybody. So other than it's an actual
physical confrontation, which is very different
to me than, you know, hanging out with people.
So those two things are very separate for me.
And so if they want to choose the martial arts
path, then we've got a lot of fighters that do
that. And some of them are just, hey, it's the
sports, my job. I love it, but I don't need the
rest of it. Right. Now, do you, are there any,
it doesn't have to even name the names, but are
there any stories you have of a broken man or
woman first entering, whether it's addiction,
you know, just mental trauma that through the
martial route, through your gym, that they ended
up overcoming adversity in that way? Yeah, I
think there's a lot of stories like that. I'm
trying to think of one specifically. But certainly
you get that a lot wherein – so I have a saying
that the martial arts attracts the crazies. It's
kind of like psychologists. You very rarely meet
normal psychologists. Sorry, psychologists. It's
true. Because they're – what was their impetus
to get into psychology is usually – Wanting to
understand either something about themselves
or the mind. So you have a kind of an interesting
perspective to start into that line of work to
begin with. And I think fighters are very similar
to that. I think that some of them just want
to get mastery over what they fear or their emotions
being crazy. They want some sort of semblance
of control over. Uh, and again, it can be led
by fear. It can be led by the feeling of helplessness.
It can be led by many things, but, um, yeah,
I think that the martial arts has the power and
I over and over, you see that again on the martial
arts side, which is why I love it so much. The
power of the martial arts to heal. Um, it, you
won't, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're
going to be a great fighter, but then the martial
arts. If you're a martial artist, the fighting
should be the least important part. That doesn't
mean it's not important. You can't just throw
punches in the air and call yourself a martial
artist. It is a martial path. But the rest of
it, you're only going to be fighting unless you've
really made some terrible life choices. If you're
not competing, you're going to be fighting for
probably less than five minutes unless you've
really gotten into a situation. So the rest of
all of that time should be... on the practice
and the practice itself should be giving you
all of these tools and disciplines, ideas, if
you will, that will hopefully improve your personality
a little bit. Not like a self -help book where
you're looking outward, but. inside where it's,
you're kind of having to push it yourself. Um,
so I think that there's many, many stories of
people that come into the martial arts world
and it doesn't have to be MMA. It can be any
martial art. Um, but because of the discipline,
because of the, the other things that are required
in to be a great martial artist. It can give
back to you in that way where you can kind of
master fear or trauma or especially the big one
I see is fear. That's the one that usually I
see push most people into it. Yeah. Now, you
touched on a point that's something I've talked
about a little bit is the kind of the journey
versus the destination philosophy. For example,
let's take podcasting. So say I want to hit X
amount of downloads. I've got to benchmarks where
I've wanted to get. And obviously, for me, it's
not an ego thing. It's every single person that
hits play. Here's someone who has value, who's
actually going to enrich their life. So it's
a really positive metric to follow. But each
time I get there, it's like, oh, OK, well, then
we'll go to the next one now. And it's the same
with belts. When I had belt systems in arts that
I've done. How do you kind of steer your fighters
to kind of get the eyes off the prize and focus
more on becoming a little better every day? Well,
that actually helps out in that that is on the
martial side. So I always tell them just let
go of the winning. Obviously, you want to win
and you have to have the pride of winning. And
the desire, the will to win is a huge important
aspect of both the martial arts and the fighting
element of it. Every fighter that we have has
a concurrent personal growth plan where I kind
of put together a little map for them. It says
here's what you need to – okay, you're wrestling
in a macro level. Your wrestling is terrible.
You need to work on this or you need to do a
jab or whatever it may be where you have a hole
in your technique and you have a game plan specific.
Okay, now we're in a fight camp and for this
next six weeks, you have to do these things to
get them into trouble and do these things to
stay out of trouble yourself, whatever it may
be. So in that end of it, it's on their personal
growth plan where technically and mentally they
are pushed. So in other words, if you get really
tired in the second round, then we're going to
do stuff to push you so that you get used to
that feeling of fatigue. You kind of embrace
it and you look forward to it. So that's one
of the things that you do on your personal growth
plan. You wouldn't necessarily do that on a game
plan specific thing because it's going to be
something that's almost exclusively done out
of camp. you can kind of acquire this mental
toughness or a higher level of mental toughness.
And the same thing with technique. So to answer
your question, we have kind of a personal growth
plan that everybody goes through. They're not
personality based, right? Because who am I to
judge somebody and say, well, you need to be
better at, you know, hugging your mom every day
or whatever. It's like that's being that human
being side that when you're a grown up, that's
on you. Our side is to try to get you on the
fighting side to try to get you to be the best
you can be as a competitor in the sport. Right.
Now, obviously, there's so many disciplines now
within MMA, and there's only so many hours in
a day, especially if that's not someone's full
-time path, as it were. How do you allocate time
wrestling, time doing jiu -jitsu, time doing
Muay Thai to try and get that perfect balance
without overtraining? Right. Well, that's why
we have a lot of great coaches that are much
better coaches than I am. And they're all specialists
kind of in those fields. But yeah, a lot of that's
really tricky and you have to do it's very individualized.
You have to see where they need the work. So
then you can allocate what time you need to do,
how much you need to do in these areas, because
those are the work. That's the work that you
need. But. it's a tricky, that's a tricky tight
rope, right? And that's half of, especially on
the personal growth side, that's half of it.
It's just, okay, you're going to go to these
many group classes and you're going to have these
many private lessons with these coaches. That's,
it's, it's a constant tightrope act. You have
to constantly adjust your balance. Yeah. Now,
on the other side of the scale, something I talk
about a lot with the first responders is rest
and recovery. Because you get a lot, you know,
the hard charges of our profession, they're doing
these crazy shifts, 56 hours a week, not sleeping.
go into their CrossFit gym and then go into jiu
-jitsu. But the sleep deprivation side and understanding
how detrimental that is is something I'm trying
to bring education to them so they realize, again,
you're not overtraining and you're working uphill.
It's not like you get to go to bed every night.
You're up two, three nights a week. So with your
athletes as a coach over the last 20 years, what
have you witnessed as far as the importance of
sleep and rest days or active recovery days and
performance? It's a real deal. And again, it's
the same thing. The hard charges will come in.
They'll try to work out four or five hours a
day. They won't take days off. That's a big one.
I have to force all of my guys out of the gym.
I like 48 hours off, but most of them can't.
They'll go nuts. So at least one day to a day
and a half off. uh is a big deal in this in fighting
camp and then after the fight i don't want to
see you for a month or so like just it's such
an intense process on the fighting side building
it up going through camp your body is going to
break down your mind's going to break down if
you keep doing that over and over and over and
over again so yeah it's not a sprint it's a marathon
right so just so much of my is my job is personality
management in that i say no you got to get out
of here i don't want to see you go relax have
fun watch a movie don't think about fighting
don't think about anything Go play video games.
Go, I don't know, for a walk by a stream somewhere,
whatever it is. Get out of here. I don't want
to see you. Because that, you know, and again,
it's that. if you're always on the front lines
of battle eventually it starts to take its toll
on you and you can't keep that pace up forever
you'll hit a breaking point where either mentally
or physically you will break and then you're
forced out like either you you're injured or
you're just mentally so cooked that you uh you're
not you're not doing anybody any services yeah
which is exactly exactly what my community suffers
from um so with um again with 20 years evolution
watching the strength and conditioning will change.
What kind of training principles have you found
works well with your MMA as far as strength and
conditioning? Well, again, that's individualized
and it's personal growth. Some people need to
be stronger. Some people need to work longer.
It needs to be periodized for camps. That's for
sure. train the way you get ready to train for
a fight so for six to eight weeks out um is very
different your your uh volume is less but your
intensity gets higher um and then it's very athlete
dependent that's what i've really learned is
that there's no one magic formula that works
for everybody just because people's personalities
are so different and their bodies are so different
what they can what some people can withstand
other people can't so um you really have to do
a personal it's it's old Sun Tzu, right? You
have to know yourself and know your enemy. You
really have to understand it's a super individualized
thing. And that's why there's no one formula
that like is on the internet that everybody does.
And it works the same for everybody, right? Like
your diet's going to be a little bit different.
There's the same parameters, obviously, right?
Like nobody's eating. Well, I shouldn't say nobody.
Most people are not eating cheeseburgers three
days or three meals a day and then getting ready
to fight camp. But listen, I'm sure it's been
done. We'll probably get like 18 dudes. That's
what I do. If it works for you, that's great.
But in the aggregate, most people, you eat clean.
But if you're losing weight, some people lose
it. quickly some people floated off sleeping
some people don't it's such an individualized
thing that a coach really is a decoder in that
they have to be able to understand what the athlete
needs and then set them up and for success in
you know we're having a nutrition specialist
that's very malleable or i'm sorry um what's
the word uh flexible uh and says you know uh
this person needs this this person needs that
calories in calories out here's your all your
stuff that's over my pay grade but that you having
that ability to evaluate everybody individually
is a big big deal yeah i think that's where you
know we failed a lot with um She's just teaching
strength and conditioning and nutrition. Everyone
has their 12 DVD set on QVC that's going to be
the magic pill. It's like, no, I'm not the same
as an Inuit or an Australian Aboriginal. We're
all very different in our DNA and makeup. A 300
-pound linebacker is probably going to eat a
little differently than a 90 -pound ballerina.
100%. That last phrase is really it. You never
know what your genes are going to give you. giant
guys that come from i don't know scottish background
and then they're small do you know what i mean
like it's just such a it's such a random dice
roll that you you just have to take what you're
given and and uh work with it absolutely well
i want to talk about one more thing you know
within the mma gym and then transition to to
the tactical space um about let me see when was
it 2000 I moved to LA for about three years.
And when I was there, Shootbox opened up a school.
And I've never been to the real Fight Club from
the movie, but I think it was pretty damn close
with my experience. It was basically two hours
of having the shit kicked out of me. I had my
jaw broken, nose broken. You know, eardrum perforated.
Got to spar with some cool people like Anthony
Johnson, who used to kick the shit out of me
too. I've been a great punch bag for some big
names, but never fought, you know, specifically.
But the point being, the detriment of such hard
sparring all the time, I felt, you know, everything
did hurt. I was foggy. I had headaches. I was,
you know, all kinds of stuff. And then I hear
people like Joe Rogan and some other people talking
anecdotally about gyms starting to... to pull
back from hard sparring all the time in preparation
for fights. What's your philosophy as a coach
on the level of contact during training versus
an actual fight? Yeah, well, obviously fights
are full on, but yeah, we've also pulled way,
way back. We have one day a week where we go.
pretty hard, but not like we used to. And again,
that's just as you learn more about CTE and its
effects. We were all ignorant in the 80s and
early 90s as to what that even was. And I'll
tell you, I was ignorant until the 2000s. Um,
so yeah, we all did kind of that same methodology
of just like, well, you're fighting to get ready
to fight. That's what you do. Uh, obviously you
wouldn't try to hurt each other because that
would just make everybody injured and no one
could fight, but we, you know, you're going at
it pretty good. So yeah, we, we are at one of
those that, uh, has pulled way back on heavy,
heavy hitting. Um, It doesn't seem to make a
large difference to us, but all the concussions
that you get do make a large difference. So on
the positive side, we seem to be faring pretty
much the same. And on the negative side, hopefully
we'll be able to have conversations when we're
70. Yeah, well, exactly. Absolutely. All right.
Well, then transitioning to the tactical space,
I want to go to the military first. Obviously,
you trained some soldiers like Tim Kennedy, who
I had on the show a couple of times, actually
got to roll with a couple of months ago. And
when I say roll with, like he was the cat and
I was the mouse that was kind of half dead. He
was just toying with. He's amazing. Yeah. So
how did you get into to working with the military?
So I have friends, obviously, in the military
and they. kind of pulled me into a lot of that.
Um, so some of them, I have great programs like,
uh, Greg Thompson has a SOC P program. And, uh,
so I've gone to help him out and train some of
the units that he's done, uh, worked with, um,
here in Albuquerque. I'm the honorary commander
for the pararescue, uh, schoolhouse out here.
So I've helped those guys with combatives. Um,
and then Uh, it's a, it's a, it's a big community
and a small community as you probably already
know. So, um, other people express an interest
in, Hey, you help those guys out. Would you like
to come help me out? Uh, and so of course I can't
say no. Um, and so that's kind of my job doesn't
have a lot of social value to it. Right. Like
I don't. I'm not like my parents. My parents
are like real heroes. I just basically hold a
bucket and yell at people. So it's a nice chance
for me to get – I don't charge anything to do
it. So it's a nice chance for me to actually
give something, contribute something back. For
you, like a fireman, you spent your life in service
to your community. Well, I don't have anything
like that. So my way to give back is the only
skill I have, which is – the combative side as
well as the MMA side. And it's a lot of fun for
me because you have so many different parameters
to its mission -specific stuff. Very rarely are
the same techniques used. It's a very, very different
space. So it's a lot of fun to try to figure
out the best ways to do that in the new spaces.
And vetting it and fighting around with it and
stuff is a lot of fun. Well, pararescue is an
interesting special operations. I think that's
the one that closely mirrors firefighters versus
SEALs, Green Berets is more like the law enforcement
side. But if I was ever going to be, and this
is obviously if I ever even was able to pass
the test that they have, I think, you know, a
lot of us, the rescuer side, the thought of going
in just to pull someone out and get them out
is so, there's so many parallels to that. And
I've had a couple of those guys on the show,
but that's probably a... They're not known as
much as they should, but I think it's an incredible
member of the special operations community. You
have to be so good at so many things, right?
You have to be able to do all your firefighting
pieces, but then you have to dive, jump, whatever
it takes, and then all the medic side too. And
yeah, we've very in the pararescue community
should be very proud of all of the amazing people
they've had come through there. And I'm super
honored just to hang out with them. I'm very
lucky that all these like super awesome people
want to hang out with me for 10 minutes. consider
myself very grateful well so are there any areas
where um you know what you brought to those communities
um there was kind of like aha moments because
i know with with the introduction of combatives
they went from almost like the old school karate
to you know more jiu -jitsu muay thai you know
the weapons uh training that they do what what
were areas that you kind of had Had that perspective
and like, OK, this this this is kind of dated
now. This doesn't work in today's battleground.
You know, let's try something different. Well,
it's just about being practical about what you
have. And again, I've had some very good people
help me out. Luckily, I've been able to go to
a lot of schools. And so I get to see their perspective.
And I have a lot of great trainers that that
have a lot of battle time experience dealing
with that on the on the military side. And so
they can say, you know, here's what we do. Here's
why we do it. And as long as you can articulate
reasons that make sense to do things, then you
should do it. And, you know, these guys have
had. I've been doing this for 20 years. Well,
they've been doing that for 20 years. So I'm
very grateful to have a lot of great people to
help me and have taught me over the years. And
I continue to learn, man, I couldn't imagine
a worse death than not learning something new.
So I love to go and get updated on what the different
programs around the country are doing and seeing
that current stuff. So on the military side,
that's... My piece is – so I don't – I've been
trained how to clear rooms. I've been trained
how to do all of this stuff. But I don't teach
any of that because I'm not a been -there -done
-that guy, right? Like I wasn't downrange for
15 years, and a lot of these guys were. So –
but when you put a hand on a weapon and you understand
here's our force array, right? Like you need
to secure this, but these parameters lead to
this being secured. So that you can transition
to this, that kind of stuff is very important.
And so my piece usually in the combative side
is these a little bit of the defensive tactics,
like how to get yourself out of bad situations
and then a lot of subject control. How do you
deal with no shoot? So when you're clearing rooms
in the military and you are not going to shoot
this person, what do you do with them? Where
do they go? Why do they go there? Uh, where do
you put them? How do you, you know, and, and
so you have to learn which each individual unit,
some people just run through them. Some people
want to handcuff them. It depends on what their
mission is. And that's where it gets really fun.
It's because you have mission specific things
to do, uh, with the, with the military, what
I always call. Basically, assaulter combatives,
you know, things that you do through there. And
so as long as you are you studied what other
people have done, you can't. The problem with
some of that stuff, especially with the weapons,
is you can't just like make it up and give to
people like it has to be vetted. You have to
figure it out. You can't just be like a 1980s
ninja guy that's like, oh, well, you know, somebody
grabbed my rifle. Here's what I would do. You
have to vet that. You have to. I mean, at the
bare minimum, you should be getting role players
and fighting with your guns and seeing how that
goes and that. kind of stuff so on the combative
side life it's life and death so you can't just
give it to somebody and be like you know if you
if you try a new technique in mma and it doesn't
work yeah you'll lose maybe a lot of money you
lose your pride but you're still alive you'll
fight again the next day that's not the case
especially uh with first responders and military
is like you your stuff needs to be on lock you
need to be able to articulate why you're doing
the things you're doing and uh and there's still
and the other thing is to be open enough that
there's more than one way there's nothing worse
than saying Well, this is the way I do a two
-handed deployment with a pistol, and this is
the only way it is, and here's why. And then
somebody else comes along and says, well, what
if I pin you against the wall here? So, well,
no, now this is the only way. You know what I
mean? Like there's more than one way to skin
a cat, just like there's more than one way to
shoot. If you're running with team guys, it's
all high porting. If you're running with group
guys, it's all low ready. Craig Jackson, I'm
having a day. Yeah, low ready, whatever you want
to call it. So high port, low ready. But that
shooting style works for them. They can put the
rounds on the target and the time allocated.
Then who cares? And you have an argument saying
this is why you do this. So for me, it's about
being flexible for the mission parameters and
then putting the correct techniques to set them
up for success, whatever that might be. And then
figuring it out is a lot of fun too. Yeah. Well,
and you mentioned as well about realism in training,
and that's something that I think a lot of our
departments battle is there's a push against
realism from risk management and the unions or
whatever it is, whoever in that space feels threatened
in some way by making it realistic. That's how
you learn if something works. You can draw all
day on a whiteboard and arrows and you go here
and he goes there. But the reality is until you
try it and you realize half the people fell over
or got stuck in a hole or whatever it was, you're
not going to really figure out if these tactics
work. And then if they don't, how the hell are
you going to get yourself out of that situation?
Exactly. And especially on the combative side,
you have to... Because the room clearing is all
above my pay grade. Again, I do it. It's fun.
I enjoy it. I'm never going to take eight of
my friends and break into somebody's house and
clear the house. That's never going to be a thing
for me. So for me, it's just something fun to
learn and to make myself a more effective instructor
to go through these schools to understand, okay,
this is what these people have to deal with.
This is the points of domination they're looking
at. Now, how can I best assist them with the
information that I've been giving and perhaps
try some new ideas? No, that's not going to work.
That's a little dangerous. What about this one?
Let's do it for six months, eight months and
see how that goes with simulation. And then we'll
talk to operators about it. You know what I mean?
So it should be a very long process in doing
that for the military side. The police side,
if you're going to transition into that later,
I guess we can get into, but that's a little
bit different. Yeah, no, let's do that now. That's
a perfect segue. I like that. Right. Anyway,
I will say about the military side that I myself
and some other very high level combatives instructors,
I kind of have a group chat at this point because
there are so many. What I call the 1980s guys.
So like in the 80s, as you remember, as a martial
artist and in the early 90s, there were those
guys that wanted to blow you through the wall
with their key power or, you know, like the mist
and the ninja death touches and all that stuff.
Well, those MMA took care of a lot of that because
you could dojo storm them. You could say, OK,
you do your stuff. I'll do my stuff. Oh, I don't
want to kill you. Well, you try to kill me and
we'll fight and, you know, we'll be friends afterwards.
Let's just see what works. you get a lot of those
guys transitioning into the combatives world
now because it's that same thing again well i
can't really teach it to you because i you know
i have to shoot to shoot you to show you it works
so you get a lot of that those guys and you have
to be very careful with those guys and the other
thing you have to be careful of on the military
side is mma like mma is not combatives like you're
not going to kickbox somebody you're going to
use knees you'll push kick them into the middle
of a room something like that but you're not
if you like drop all your gear and start fist
fighting somebody in a room um i i would be hard
pressed to see that your decision matrix there
i'm not saying it can't happen you know stuff
happens whatever but that shouldn't be your first
line for sure so there's a lot of mma is a one
-on -one fight in a cage against a person that
doesn't have anything it's a very different thing
than a guy that has tools on him dealing with
a dynamic environment and in the team setting
both pro for against you and with you so there's
a lot to you have to be very careful if you're
a department or if you're a military organization
looking for combatives there's a lot of really
great programs by a lot of battlefield tested
techniques out there that are really really good
but i will say if you are a military unit make
sure that you vet your guy just because they
know jiu -jitsu It doesn't mean – it's great
sustainment training. Like that's great to train
like every day to keep your skills up, jiu -jitsu
being the best one by far because it's so much
controlling. But that doesn't mean that you want
to bring those guys in and have them start teaching
your guys how to do what – I don't know, tornado
kicks with their pistol in the hand, whatever
they'll come up with. So I would say be careful
for that. So then that's the same thing. The
same caveat goes in law enforcement. So law enforcement,
again, what I found working with them, I started
working with APD in their mid -90s. And so I've
been working with them forever and a day. And
what I found in law enforcement, again, it's
mission specific. You have some law enforcement
entities that are very team tactic oriented.
In other words, you're almost always going to
have somebody within a minute or two. to back
you up. Then you have some state police officers
that you're five to 10 minutes, even longer sometimes.
So what does your unit need? to set you up for
success. Um, and, and so working the police is
a lot easier for me because I, you can go so
much more hands -on with it. Um, and I, the,
um, because I've been with them for so long,
it's a lot easier to see, okay, you know, you
can have an articulable force array, starting
with verbal, moving all the way through your
force array to getting them in handcuffs. Or
if you have to turn it into offensive tactic
situation, transitioning to lethal, whatever
it may be. But you need to be able to articulate
why you're doing each and every maneuver. When
you decide to go hands -on, when you decide to
step back and go to less than lethal, whatever
your decision matrix is, it can't just be like,
well, grab them. You know what I mean? You have
to try to verbally de -escalate. You then verbally
de -escalate while you're holding them in these
control positions. And so on the police side
and a little bit on the military side as well,
but I came up with kind of these fighting for
these positions where you get them in control
that you can kind of move into handcuffs and
really utilizing teamwork and stuff like that.
So the police stuff has been a super lot of fun
for me. Right. Well, Albuquerque is obviously
very lucky to have you on the doorstep. What
have you witnessed kind of nationally in your
20 years as far as the ability physically and?
uh jiu -jitsu wise of the average u .s police
officer well i mean here's the thing is you have
to cut police officers a huge break and here's
why in a perfect world you would do your shift
maybe work out at lunch go after your shift you
go to do a jiu -jitsu class for your sustainment
training so that you're rolling around and controlling
people and then you would go home You got kids.
Someone's got to pick them up from school. Someone's
got to drop them off. You're exhausted. And as
you know, if you've had a good run, let's say
you've had a good two -day run where as your
fireman, you have not slept. You haven't sat
down. You know what I mean? Like the last thing
you're going to do after a 48 -hour marathon
is go train. Well, that can happen to you several
weeks in a row. So it's super hard to do sustainment
training unless you've got some kind of an amazing
schedule. If your significant other picks up
the slack, you know what I mean? So there's a
lot of cavities. And a lot of people are just
exhausted. I mean, by the end of that day, you're
so mentally exhausted, especially if you have
any kind of PTSD issues that you're working with
as well. I mean, the whole thing is so exhausting.
It's hard for people to get sustainment training.
And in my opinion, sustainment training keeps
you from being exhausted, but not everybody has
that same experience. So you have to cut them
slack there. Now, obviously, there's good and
bad in everything. There's good and bad police
officers. I know great police officers. I know
police officers that aren't so great. There's
good and bad in everything. But I will say that
the knowledge base is getting better now as far
as being able to control people without injuring
them. That is a very good trend that is happening.
But still, there's a lot of police officers that...
do what i call the the day after and that's you
they'll get into a knockdown drag out where they
almost get in some real trouble. And then the
day after, they're like, I'm never going to let
that happen again. And then they'll start doing
the sustainment training wherever it may be.
But I will say that nationally, I think the combatives
programs are coming along better. So the police
officers are definitely more educated now in
total than they ever have been before. I think
they're getting more professional, at least in
Albuquerque, especially there. We're learning.
We're growing. People are seeking out training.
I see that a lot. I work with a lot of police
departments nationally as well. And people are
seeking out training. I'm really seeing people
looking for a simple way to get effective training.
I'm seeing a lot of that. So I think that we're
nationally we're moving in the right direction
as police officers. Now, obviously, I'd like
to see everybody a lot more healthy, a lot more.
proactive but there's just so many variables
to deal with it's it's very hard for police officers
yeah yeah and i mean i personally think it should
be inbuilt into their day i mean i think i agree
should be paid to train um but and then this
project is i i say this a lot it's a double -pronged
project where i hold the firefighter police officer
soldier accountable and then i hold the and administration
in which they work accountable as well. Oh, that's
a great, that's absolutely right. That's an absolutely
right way to look at it. And as a perfect example,
we had Sheepdog Response come to Ocala a couple
of years ago. Ah, my boy, yeah. And I went through
it and then it was right. Literally, I mean,
I think it was a week after the Parkland shooting
that we had here. So some anonymous donors came
in and donated a bunch of money and opened up
all these free spots for first responders, police,
fire, medics. That's great. And the issue we
had was... They didn't even fill the law enforcement
the first day. And the second day, they had even
less guys show back up the second time. So even
when it was put on a platter, that goes on really
the ownership of the individual then. But then
also it's on the administration to be like, we
need you guys to go or promote it or whatever.
But it was so hard. And myself and a few other
guys really pushed it and promoted it. But again,
I think there's a lot of fear. Because a lot
of police officers know that they're not where
they need to be. But that's where you start.
It's day one. I mean, I got my ass handed to
me. I hardly ever shot before. I mean, I was
pulling mags out of my pocket because I didn't
have a belt even. But, you know, that's what
you do. You swallow your pride and you start
today. Well, that's very hard, especially when
you're looking to police officers to be in control.
situation, right? That's their job to kind of
come in and deescalate and take control of situations.
Yeah, for a police officer to be able to do that
is very scary. I will say that one of the most
dangerous trends that we have right now in policing
is because we need so many of them, we are lowering
our standards. And I do worry about that. The
vetting process of letting somebody be a police
officer or a fireman, I think, is super important.
And I see that we I'm not talking about any department
in particular, but as a trend, we just to get
bodies on the streets. But when you lower, really
lower, I don't mean lower a little bit. I mean,
really lower, like letting people pass that shouldn't
be there. You're just setting them up, everybody
up for failure in five, 10 years. So I kind of
left that. I think nationally as a police force,
we are getting better. better educated. We are
becoming more effective. We're addressing issues
like race and misogyny and a lot of stuff. And
I think we're making strides there. I really
do. But the vetting process is going to set us
up for failure. I will say that's one hole that
I've seen. Absolutely. Well, an area that I've
spoken about a lot is just that. I've witnessed
great fire departments that the bar was set incredibly
high. They had no problem cutting you if you
didn't make it. That ended up having great people
all the way through the ranks. And I've worked
for a department where the bar was buried underground.
It was so low and it was, you know, it was a
ripple effect and that same standard then promotes
through. And what I've seen is whether it's the
SEAL teams or whether it's, I mean, you, for
example, when you have a department. where there's
a high level of professionalism and you're respected
by around, people will seek you out to join your
department. But when you bring that bar down,
it has the reverse effect, in my opinion. Yep,
I couldn't agree more. And it'll be interesting
because we need so many. I mean, police and firemen
are so overworked. It'll be interesting to see.
how we solve that problem. It'll, it'll be an
interesting, uh, it's going to be an interesting
time, I think in the next five or 10 years to
see, because they're actually going to be well
-trained, but they're not, like you said, they're
going to be the individuals that aren't going
to want to go to the sheep dog training right
there. Their bar was never set that high, so
they never really want to do it. So it'll be
interesting. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, one more
just real tangent question, but I had Bas Rutten
on a while ago. That's my man. Yeah, he was awesome.
This poor guy just had that neck issue. But he
was talking about striking. And obviously, in
MMA, you've got the four -ounce gloves. You're
able to strike with a closed fist. What's your
take of striking in the street? Are you a proponent
of the open -hand strike? Yeah, for sure. Well,
I use whatever tools it takes. The situation
will be dependent. Um, if I'm fighting more than
one person, I will both close and open hand.
Like I don't, I don't ever say you always fight
with a closed fist. You always fight with an
open palm. I think there's time for both. If
you're just defending yourself, um, police officers
should never be hitting with closed fists. I
mean, if they have to transition to lethal, they're
not going to be able to hold anything if they
shatter their hands. Uh, so if you get into a
situation, especially if you're a state police
officer on the side of the road, you've got to
fight two or three people. Um, you should be
transitioning to tools and, and using palm strikes
and elbows more than any, more than palm strikes.
Elbows are where it's at. Um, so palm strikes
are great. Like it, listen, if boss hits you
with a palm strike, you're going out like, but
that's boss route that everybody can't generate.
I mean, everybody can hit hard, but there's only
one boss route and he's amazing. Um, so I, I
like elbows. I find elbows are a little more
effective than anything else. Um, but I'll, uh,
Great finger jabbing to the eyes, that kind of
stuff. A street fight is a street fight. So I
try not to make it as Marcus's Queen Barry's
as possible these days. But as far as when I'm
teaching people, but to me, it's about problem
solving. It's really if you want to learn martial
arts, then basically you're learning how to solve
a problem. And that problem can be an individual.
That problem can be a group of individuals. It
can be an individual. It's an environment. It
can be an individual out in a park. So it's just
about using your environment, using whatever
techniques, be it a closed fist. Sometimes closed
fists are appropriate. Sometimes open palms are
appropriate. But I never want to say to somebody,
this is the only way you do this. I would say
do it. And if it's not working, it's not working.
Obviously, if you break your hand, you're going
to have a longer day. So that's one mark against
closed fisting. And experienced fights where
I've had my hands closed and seen other people
with their hands closed and had zero problems
with breaking their hands. So, you know, it is
what it is. Yeah. Actually, the worst thing I've
had in my hand was a bone bruise sparring one
time. I would think I would have either broken
my hand and it was like six months. Yeah, probably
so. That's probably accurate. All right. Well,
then I want to transition to Deliver Fund. So
I had Nick McKinley on the show doing amazing
things with, you know, human trafficking. So
how did you find your way into that organization?
Well, actually, Nick, I found my way to Nick
through the combative side because of where he
used to work. And so I found him through that
originally. And then we became friends. I actually
met. Did you tell you how we met on the side
of a mountain? No, he didn't. Uh, I actually
met him when he was in pararescue. So before
he went to the agency, he was a pararescue man,
but this one, I was young and I was up on the
side of a mountain training with a bunch of fighters.
Your, your friend, Greg can be a little ridiculous
about mountain runs and as, as many fighters
will tell you and still do. We push it pretty
hard. So I was up in the Sandia Mountains in
New Mexico in the middle of kind of a snowy day.
And I'd taken some Australian fighters that had
never really been in snow before. And we were
romping around and we're not really training,
having fun. Anyway, long story short, the guy
was this guy was up there. We heard him calling
for help. We went I find Nick. I went back. It
started blizzarding pretty hard. I find Nick
McKinley, who I didn't know was Nick McKinley
at the time. And I kind of guided him around
where we had heard the guy, but the guy had already
moved. And so then Nick was worried about me
becoming like a a liability because we're romping
around in full on blizzard conditions at this
point. And I'm in like jeans and a puffy jacket,
which is what I'm always in. And so Nick's like,
I think you're going to get hypothermia. We better
get you off the mountain. And, you know, I I'm
helping out people. I'm running around in a blizzard.
You couldn't find a happier Greg Jackson. So
I was like, really? Now I'm all right. And again,
I grew up in the in the mountains of New Mexico.
Like I do winter camping all the time. And the
cold never really bothered me. But Nick Nick
was like, yeah, you're probably going to get
hypothermia. So anyway, that's how I met him.
The years later, I met him again through the
when. He was working in the agency and then he
got out and started to deliver fun for reasons
I'm sure I already told you. Then he said, hey,
do you want to help out? I'm like, yeah, but
I didn't even know it was a thing. Like I'm so
ignorant that I didn't even know that human trafficking
was still I mean, I grew up in the hood, but
you don't really see like, oh, that's human trafficking.
You know what I mean? Like I wouldn't even know
what indicators to look for. uh so i i was very
surprised that uh that slavery still exists and
i was raised by hippies that uh yeah slavery
is about the worst thing so uh i immediately
jumped in to see whatever i could do to help
out yeah well and it was interesting the conversation
because as a firefighter paramedic you know i
look back at my 14 years and and and was kind
of asking myself like how many of the people
i had that were you know clearly of the less
fortunate end um how many of them were were enslaved
in some way shape or form whether it's in prostitution
or whether it's internationally and we don't
think to to look for that and it totally changed
the way i looked at the patients for the last
bit of my career wow that's awesome yeah i mean
right like you just you don't know what you don't
know right and and i think that you and i were
both in that same box yeah so were there any
kind of stories that stuck with you of people
you came across that were were victims or success
stories of some of the agencies you work with
Yeah, the success stories are the ones that I
really like. I mean, how hard Nick works. He's
an animal. You can see why he did as well as
he did when he was downrange. He's an animal.
That guy just goes and goes and goes. It's very
rare that you find somebody that's just stubbornly
good, just like a honey badger of good. He just
tries to do the best thing that he can all the
time. There's no ego with him. He always tries
to set everybody else up for success. You never
see him being like, well, I'm the guy. You never
hear that from him. He's always pushing credit
off to others. He's just a very impressive person
to me. Watching him really push hard and see
he's super happy when he helps even just one
person. He'll tell you the story or I'm involved
now. So you'll see the kind of the fruits of
his labor. And it's very impressive. It's also
very addicting. Once you help people out, that's
a hard thing to stop, man. You're a fireman.
You've been doing it your whole life, right?
So the ability to like, oh, I helped. I went
home and I actually helped somebody out. And
listen, the next day it might go all bad for
them. Today, I helped him out. That's a that's
a powerful emotion. And and I think so when you
see, you know, I mean, there's we had in Albuquerque,
we had a one of these traffickers keeping the
women in literal dog cages like. You see that
and then you get them out of the dog cages. You
know, we work in tandem with police. We're not
door kicking down anybody. We're private citizens.
But we work in tandem with, as he's sure he's
explained. But when you know that that's not
going to happen to those people anymore, that's
pretty addicting. Yeah. And I talk about that
with the kindness component. What is so crazy
is it feels that there's an intrinsic reward
system in the human body that when you do something
kind, it feels good. And when you're an asshole,
it feels bad. And yet it seems like such a hard
sell to get people to be nice to each other.
Well, I think that, again, that gets hidden and
layered. And, you know, it just takes one bad
person to ruin everybody's day. And I think that
that... It gets hidden. I think that I like –
now listen. I grew up where I grew up. So there's
fish eyes. There's dudes that don't matter what
you do. Either they are genetically made that
way or they've been institutionalized so much
that you will never fix them. There's just no
fixing them. Like I get your lefty recidivism
programs. Like I understand completely that you're
trying and God bless you. Keep trying. But you're
not – there are dudes that I know that you just
– you're not going to fix. Either they're mentally
ill and they need meds or they're just – they've
just become this, this thing and there's no,
there's no coming back. Um, and then there's
people that I think that, uh, that are layered,
right? Like there's, there's spectrum. There's
like, there might be a little bit of good under
them. Um, but I think most people are, are, I
like, I have to believe that most people, I mean,
I'm like, I don't know if I'm as far as Noam
Chomsky where like everybody's like, you know,
everybody needs their best self and it's these
institutions that kind of beat them down. I don't
know. I think that. I'm on the personal responsibility
side, too, and I'm sure he is if you put him
against the wall with it. But I think that it.
You see people giving homeless people money,
and there's no reason they have to do that, right?
So I think that everybody's kind of good. It's
just that you get guarded. You try to hide that
part of you. It's kind of considered a weakness
sometimes unless it's not in a situation like
you where you're a professional and you do it
for a living. I think there's a lot of reasons
that people aren't just immediately good to each
other all the time. Yeah. And what I see is that
middle group where they just need to be led.
And I don't mean that ever in a patronizing way.
Just the first person to say, hey, let's all
pick this car up and get this person that just
got run over or whatever. And you see videos
of that all the time. So it's just a shame that
some of the shitbags of the world seem to get
so much airtime. Well, that's human nature too,
right? Because that's entertainment. And that's
what I learned with MMA, right? Like it doesn't
have to do with anything. People like to listen
to them for whatever reason. Again, there's a
lot of very psychological stuff that's over my
head, but I think that that's entertainment.
That's all that is. Yeah. Now, what do you think
of the WWE -esque theatrics that have kind of...
become part of the landscape of of some of the
mma press conferences well i think it's super
important like you have to remember what is the
purpose of this and i i don't remember the interview
that i talked about this but one of the books
that changed my real perspective on it was that
trickster makes this world um it's a venting
It is. It is. I mean, if you want to go deeper,
if I'm sure it's all mortality denial. Right.
Like we're all know we're going to die. So we're
trying to fill up the space in between that time
to do other stuff. I get that you could baseline
that. But I think that it's it. You have so many
complex emotions when you're dealing with entertainment.
And one of them that that offers. you is the
old you remember the old days in a movie when
the bad guy came on like you really hated the
bad guy like you were allowed in that space to
feel actual hatred like you saw what this guy
was doing and you did not like the bad guy and
now obviously that with the the moral kind of
complexity the bad guy now is sometimes bad and
parts of them good i mean it's like hyper realistic
and not realistic at all at the same time which
is always funny to me but uh I think that you
need to just have a space where you let that
out, where you vent it out. And so I see a lot
of that at MMA, which is why I don't bother like
reading comments or anything, because it's it's
that person's angry and they need to express
that anger somewhere. And this is where they
choose to do it. They pay money to watch people
fight to be inspired. But then also just like
I do you hear the booze and the hatred and the.
And that that venting has to happen like and
you can do it in healthy ways, like through the
martial arts, but we're just not there as a society.
Right. Like it's this is the way that we have
decided before Lent. You have Mardi Gras, right?
Like you have to blow off all of this steam so
that you can be a decent human being. And I think
that that is that's what wrestling figured out.
Professional wrestling figured that out because
there used to be a lot of. actual like catch
matches catches catch can matches and but those
don't go to script like the bad guy would win
and leave everybody grumpy you know what i mean
like so it's much better to have it be a uh have
a theatrical uh component to it because people
watch fights some people like you have been lifelong
martial artists and you watch fights so you appreciate
what's happening Right. Like you watch it like
a football fan watches a football game. They're
like, wow, did you see the way he did this play
to that play? That's how you watch it. But most
people watch MMA to be inspired. They want to
watch fighting to be like, wow, that guy, he
was so beaten down and he didn't give up and
he came back. And you see, because when people
say good fights, they don't talk about technically
shutting somebody down, although they can. But
it's very, very obvious, right? Like they just
run through you. They get in the mouth. They
beat you down. Oh, that was a good fight because
they saw. You know, this total dominance thing.
So that's that's the inspiration to dominate.
Right. But they also have the inspiration to
be brave. It's it's inspirational much more than
it's technical. And then there are a lot of fans
that really like both. Right. Like that they
like both. But I would say that by and large,
my experience with the most vocal fans are the
ones that feel like they have to vent something.
So I don't see it's a bad way at all. I used
to be like annoyed by it. Like, what do you mean
this isn't a beautiful fight? Like, do you see
what it but now I like, oh, I understand. OK,
I get it now. Yeah, I just love to line up all
the ones that call these MMA stars pussies for
cowards because they didn't fight someone and
just line them up in the cage. Well, right. Because
that's not the point. They don't actually think
that they are that. Or if they do, they're just
projecting, right? They just want – there's this
anger inside of them and they have to – because
what kind of a fan you are is what kind of a
person you are. Like a fan is like a view – like
how a fighter is a view into the soul. Like you
know how brave the guy is if he's all cut up
and he fights back. that person there that bravery
exists well you have that exact same mirror back
on the fan if you're a fan that's angry and yelling
all the time then i see into who you are you
have this anger in you and man i hope that you
figure out a way to get around it um if you're
like a There's so many fans that are super positive,
cool people, man. They come up and like, I love
your fighters and what you did. And, or the,
to the fire, I watch them to the fighters and
say, man, really appreciate you. That was so
cool. You know what I mean? And those are the
kinds of guys that are grateful about life. And,
you know, they want to express that, that gratitude
as well. They're venting that gratitude. So it's,
uh, I think it's such an important element to
have a theatrical kind of something to talk about
with your friends. It's a social, it's a cohesive
social thing, right? Like you can talk about.
You go to the proverbial water cooler. So it
brings everybody together witnessing the sport.
It's not something that you do by yourself because
you're talking to other people with it. So I
think there's a lot of positivities, even in
the negative fan stuff. Yeah, brilliant. Well,
and so we talk about theatrics from I just wanted
to. To touch one other topic before we go to
some closing questions, the other side of the
spectrum for me, unless it was a complete act
that has been, you know, withheld for a decade,
Georges St -Pierre was always, to me, the epitome
of a martial artist and the epitome of a gentleman
as well. What was your experience training him
and especially when he started seemingly learning?
A style that he wasn't even that well versed
in and then ending up beating an expert in that
in the cage Yeah, yeah George is that he's a
martial artist like George fights But he's and
he loves the lifestyle of a martial artist But,
uh, he is, he is one of the most pure martial
artists I've ever met. He loves, if he ever got
caught with something in practice or he's training
in jujitsu or whatever, he would always be so
excited and want to know how you, you know, how
did this person catch George? How did he, how
did you get me in that submission hold? And you'd
have to learn it right after his fights. He'd
be like, what did, what did I do wrong? Why couldn't
I finish this? Like immediately after his fights,
he just loved the martial arts so much. Um, so
to, to, it was such a, an honor and a pleasure.
Uh, to, to be around him for, for a lot of those
fights. Um, he, he really exemplified, he, he
did not, he was not putting on an act. He was
not Muhammad Ali. Um, he was just George. He,
he was very honest and he, uh, he always said
what he felt and yeah, he was, uh, I was always
super impressed and still am super impressed
by him. Yeah. Yeah. I was asked for inspiration
to watch us for sure. Um, all right, well then
I want to transition to some closing questions
so I can let you go. You mentioned, uh, Is it
Trickster Makes the World? Yeah, Trickster Makes
the World. Makes the World. Okay. Are there any
other books that you love to recommend? You've
already given me one. On which subject? On any
subject. So the most influential book that I've
ever read is Gertl Escher Bach by Hofstädler.
That is the that book had the most influence
on the way I come at the martial arts by trying
to look at these kind of ubiquitous underlying
strategical principles that govern everything.
Also, the limits of reductionism through Goodell's
kind of unreachable truths. Yeah, there's a lot
there. Systems on medicine. Anyway, there's a
lot there. beyond brilliant. And that book for
me is kind of his magnum opus. It's a brilliant,
brilliant book. Also, I was raised by my mentor,
Jim Dudley, who I didn't mention, but he was
a guy that taught me. He would take me out in
the deserts walking for days at a time, teaching
me about math and science and philosophy and
stuff. And he's a huge Bach fan. My father and
mother are Beethoven and my... My mentor, Jim
Dudley, is a Bach guy, so I was always very conflicted
as to who was better. Anyway, I'm nerding out
on you. But and of course, anybody that doesn't
know who Gurdell is, go study him right now.
Talk about one of the smartest human beings to
ever walk on planet Earth. And Escher obviously
became my favorite artist after reading that
book and how they all kind of do the same thing
in their own way. It's a brilliant book. Excellent.
Actually, funny enough, speaking of classical
musicians, my now ex -wife, my son's mother.
I got to choose his first name, which is Ty,
and she got to choose his middle name, which
is Amadeus. She's a huge Mozart fan. I don't
know how it's going to serve him later in life.
That's good. No, that's great. I'm a huge Mozart
fan. Again, me and my dad and my brother feel
that Mozart is a little too airy and flowery
from them. I'm like, you guys are crazy. Mozart's
the man. Anyway, we'll do another hour on that,
so we probably shouldn't. All right. Well, then
the same question, but a movie. Are there any
movies that you love? Oh yeah. I have two, two
equally favorite, uh, the sevens and they both
have seven and weirdly, uh, the seven samurai,
uh, is a, uh, great. There's so much happening
in that movie as far as the martial spirit, like
how to give back selflessly. Um, there's so many
things I admire in that movie. And then The Seventh
Seal, Bergman, with Max von Sydow in it. Holy
cow. Another movie that has so much philosophy
in it that you have to watch it like 12 times.
And somebody like me, I have to watch it 24 times
because I have to work twice as hard as somebody
with normal intelligence. But it's just such
an amazing movie that has so many little things
that you missed, things that like, oh. And of
course, it's well known for. playing chess with
death that's the big thing but the ability to
distract death while his friends get through
like this so that that selflessness of uh sacrifice
that uh that i find very uh very noble brilliant
yeah i think i've had seven samurai recommended
before but not the uh seven seals so thank you
for that yeah um next question is there a person
you would recommend to come on this podcast as
a guest to speak to the first responders military
and associated professions of the world Holy
cow. A lot of them. Yeah. Let me, boy, that's
a, that's a deep pool. Yeah. Let me – you know
who you should talk to is a guy that's probably
one of the most brilliant police officers I've
ever met, Rob DeBuck. And he was actually the
guy responsible for pulling me when I was a kid
into working with the Albuquerque Police Department.
He's a legend. And he was in the blood and guts
era and he's now in this very like super de -escalating
era as well. And he has – he's one – he is the
most brilliant. police leaders i've ever seen
in my life like the things that he would do were
so anti -intuitive and then made total sense
and would like uh just change communities he's
done so much good rob de buck would be a great
guy for that excellent brilliant thank you all
right then the last question before we talk about
where we can find you what do you do to decompress
when you're not coaching Well, in the immediate,
I'll either play video games that pull me out
into a different world. I will read books. And
then if I have time, I go ghost towning, which
is where I go find old towns in New Mexico that
have been long abandoned and do research on them
and find out what they were and then go find
them and just kind of poke around. I don't take
anything or, you know, it should all stay where
it's at. But I find the towns and it's fun because
you can backpack into them or you can drive into
them and just you get to see a part of history
that was very important. important to people
at one time. And as now just, uh, you're watching
nature reclaim it. So it's been a lot of fun.
I've been doing that since I was a kid. So it's
been, uh, It's been a real joy and a pleasure
to have that hobby. That's very unique. Yeah,
I know some of the images of the abandoned shopping
malls where nature's taking it back and all these
trees growing inside. Yeah, isn't it crazy? So
yeah, having these old towns out here. In New
Mexico, we have old Hispanic towns from like
the 1600s. Then we have when the Anglos started
coming in the 1800s and then modern stuff. Yeah,
it's just crazy. The mining towns from like the
1950s that have been abandoned. It's a lot of
fun. out here right now are you seeing any of
the the inter um oh my god what am i talking
about the uh i'm blanking on the name now the
border so that the inter -border violence from
from the drug trade where you are No, because
we're kind of a pass through. Right. There's
not a lot of because we're such a poor state.
There's not a lot of I mean, there is some, but
mostly if they're going to move drugs and stuff,
they're going to they do it through us because
of the big I interchange, which is where I -25
and I -40 meet. So, you know, you want to go
up to Denver, over to Phoenix or Dallas. But
New Mexico itself, I mean, there is obviously
some, but mostly it's that we're a transitory.
They're trying to move the drugs through us into
bigger markets. Okay, well, good. Yeah, that's
something I've talked about a lot on the podcast.
There's countries like Switzerland and Portugal.
I actually interviewed the guy that did it in
Portugal that have decriminalized. Drug use and
it basically cut the head off the snake of the
legal drug trade. Absolutely. I couldn't agree
more. And definitely we're moving that direction.
It's just mostly because we have so many violent
people here. We need to get the people with marijuana
problems, in my opinion, kind of out of jail
and get these violent criminals off the street.
Absolutely. And the human traffickers, like we
said. Yeah, those guys. Yeah. Brilliant. All
right. Well, Greg, I just want to say thank you
so much. It's been a fascinating conversation.
I know you're extremely busy, so I really do
appreciate you being so generous with your time
today. Oh, no worries. Thanks for having me on,
boss. It was a lot of fun.