This episode is sponsored by 5 .11, a company
that I've used for well over a decade and continue
to use to this day. And 5 .11 is offering you
guys, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast,
a discount on every purchase you make with them.
Before we get to that code, I want to highlight
a couple of products that again I personally
use today. One of the most impressive products
they just released is their Rush Backpack 2 .0.
Now, for many of you, whether you're going to
the fire station, the police station, whether
you're traveling with your family, whether you're
taking training courses, we have to fly, we have
to drive, we have to take trains. And I have
to say, I own multiple backpacks, many of 5 .11's
different ones, but as far as a day pack, this
one was the most impressive. There are so many
different compartments. The way it sits on your
back is incredibly comfortable. If you are a
concealed carry person, there's also a spot for
a weapon. So they've thought of multiple, multiple
things that a man or woman would have to do on
a daily basis. That is in addition to all of
the products that I talk about a lot. Their uniforms
fit for men or fit for women in the first responder
professions. The footwear that they offer, whether
it's the Norris sneaker or the Atlas system that
is designed for foot health and therefore knees
and back and hips and shoulders and neck. As
a civilian, I live in a lot of their clothes
as well. Their jeans stretch. You can actually
squat down in them. We live in Florida here,
so I wear a lot of their shorts, which again,
very, very lightweight material. You can get
it wet and it will dry almost immediately. And
then moving to the fitness and tactical space,
I used to have just a regular weight vest. Recently,
I switched to a 5 .11 vest and actually bought
ballistic plates as well. My thinking was simply,
if I'm going to have a vest, why not have one
that protects me as well? And that Tac vest is
trusted by law enforcement all around the country.
So I mentioned they were going to offer you a
discount code. So if you go to 5 .11tactical
.com and enter the code SHIELD15, S -H -I -E
-L -D -1 -5, you'll get 15 % off, not just that
one purchase, but every time you visit their
store. And if you want to learn more about 5
.11, their mission, their products, then listen
to episode 338 of the Behind the Shield podcast
with the CEO and founder, Francisco Morales.
Welcome to episode 562 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing, and this
week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the
show grappling legend Eric Paulson. So we discuss
a host of topics from his own journey into the
martial arts, Jeet Kune Do, training under guru
Dan Inosanto, working in the stunt profession,
teaching the tactical community, combat submission
wrestling, and so much more. Before we get to
this incredible conversation, as I say every
week, please just take a moment, go to whichever
app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every five
-star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library for you, Planet Earth.
So all I ask in return is that you help share
these incredible men and women's stories so I
can get them to every single person who needs
to hear them. So with that being said, I introduce
to you Eric Paulson. Enjoy. Well, Eric, I want
to start by saying thank you so much for taking
the time to come on the Behind the Shield podcast
today. It's my pleasure to be with you. Thank
you for having me on. Now, where on planet Earth
are we finding you today? I am in Brea, California,
which is Orange County, and I'm by Fullerton
and by Disneyland. I know it well. I was an Anaheim
firefighter for a few years, so I was right on
the borders there. Oh, man. I didn't know you
were a firefighter. That's great. Firefighters,
that's a great job, but you guys do a great service
too. I mean, just with all the calls for the
EMT work and not just fires, but what else do
you guys do as a firefighter? I always describe
it as if it doesn't involve arresting you or
stopping you for speeding, that's pretty much
what the fire does, the rescue, the EMS, the
rope rescue. It's a jack -of -all -trades, master
-of -none kind of profession. I trained the Brea
Fire Department. They used to come to my gym
a long time ago, and then I've had firefighters
that I've trained to help them get through their
course and stuff. They've trained for six months,
and then they go run their – what's your training
called? Um, so we have the, the minimum standards
usually is that the fire Academy, but then there's
normally a test. I think it was a biddle was,
was called when I tested for Anaheim, but there's
one called the CPAT as well. Yeah. These guys
always, they're getting prepared or, and I get
guys also that are, that are training to go into
the police Academy. Uh, we had a fighter at a
place I train at and, um, he's. You know, he's
an amateur fighter. He's had some fights, but
he's been training a lot. And he said that he
just, it wasn't really doing it for him. So he
said, I want to do something that's going to
give back to the world. And I said, what are
you thinking? He goes, I'm really thinking about
going in the military. And I'm like, wow, you
know, I've never had anyone. I've only had, for
students, I've only had like probably 12 total.
of guys that have gone, Hey, you know what? I
think I'm going to go in the military. And that's
over the period of a long time. Usually it's
guys when they, right when they get out of high
school, they're not sure what they want to do
if they want to, and they want to get maybe funding
for college or, or an education. So a lot of
times guys will go in that. We had one of our
students, he was a wrestler. He was really great.
And he went in for four years. He's already out.
And now he's back on our team again. I can't
believe four years flew by that fast. It's amazing.
I have another guy that tried to go in the Marines,
but he ended up going in the Army, but he had
back issues and he got an honorable discharge.
And then I got guys like brothers and things,
his brothers that are actually in the Guard,
in the National Guard. I have other people that
I train that are in the Coast Guard, National
Guard, Coast Guard. I have guys that I train
that are actually Navy SEALs. And then I have
tons of military and police, different military,
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. Not the new one,
though. What's the new one? Space Force? Yeah,
I've done that. Cyber grappling. I'm not quite
sure who those guys are yet. I don't understand
it either, but I'm sure we'll find out eventually.
It's good. This kid, he asked me, he said, you
know, I want to do something better. to help
the world. And so he said, I'm thinking about
going in the army. And I said, well, what do
you want to do? And I said, if you're going to
go in the army, cause you're, you're a top athlete,
you should look to the higher ups of it. And
he said, what do you think? And I said, well,
my friend's a green beret. I'll put you in touch
with him. And this guy's highly decorated and
he was an ATF agent. Let me hook you. So you
hooked him up. And next thing you know, the guy
walks in and fatigues. He was in the gym yesterday
and fatigues. And I said, he goes, yeah, I'm
starting my basic training. I had to go get and
they gave me my fatigues and he was already wearing
them. He was so happy. He's we thought he could
go to Camp Pendleton because that's right down
the road. But he's got a I believe he's got to
go somewhere else for special forces. He's joined
the SF segment. OK, is he in army, though? Yes,
Army SF. So I think that's Fort Bragg, North
Carolina, if I'm not mistaken. Okay. I've got
two guys that were combat vets, and they were
both deployed multiple, multiple times, and they're
both SF guys. And then I had a contract for 10
years with the Canadian SF, and I trained those
guys for 10 straight years. And it was funny
because at first I started teaching grappling.
And I thought, okay, they want to learn. He goes,
can you teach me takedowns with one arm? I was
like, takedowns with one arm? And he goes, yeah,
because the other arm's either holding a shield
or my helmet. And we're going in a building,
and I might have to take someone down, but I
have a gun in one hand, and I need to takedown
with the other. So I showed him how to take the
single legs and double legs with only using one
arm. It was interesting. That was one thing.
I started training them and I started rolling
with them and sparring with them. And it just,
you know, you could see, I looked at their face
and they're like, I could tell they wanted more.
And I go, you look a little disappointed. Is
everything all right? And he goes, well, you
have a pro fight team, right? And I go, I sure
do. And he goes, do you think we could train
with them? And I said, do you guys want to train
with them? And yeah, sure enough. They started
coming in, and that was a big deal. We would
do five days a week. First thing early in the
morning from 9 a .m. to 9 to 11, we would do
technique. We'd drill and do technique, and then
right after, fight practice started at noon,
and those guys would go in and spar with Hector
Lombard, Babalu, Josh Barnett, Cub Swanson. All
these guys were part of our fight. training,
James Wilkes. James is from England. He won the
Ultimate Fighter Show. Danny Suarez, he fought
in the IFL. Cub Swanson, Jay Martinez, Freddie
George, Ben Jones, Eric Kiyahi, all these guys
were all part of the fight team. And they were
sparring five days a week with these combative
guys, which were the SF guys. And that contract
was reoccurring for 10 years. until they lost
their funding. And then they kind of just like
split. How did that translate? I mean, I recognize
a lot of those names, some incredible fighters.
And actually James was on the show, James Wilkes.
But, you know, obviously when you think about
the sport element of MMA versus, you know, an
environment that you literally may have to kill,
you know, there's a slight crossover there. How
did the gym setting translate into the lethal
application when they were out doing what they
were paid to do? When it's lethal, there's a
gun and then there's a knife. And then they have
the smoke, the flashbangs, the hand grenades,
whatever they use, the smoke. And then the multitudes
of different, sometimes you're like a group of
five, a group of six, a group of three, a group
of two. Sometimes you're alone when you're clearing
rooms and stuff. So all the empty ham for MMA
is perfect for military. It's completely perfect.
MMA is probably one of the best things you could
train the military and you could train the police
and the firefighters. Because what's a real fight?
A real fight is punching, kicking, clinching,
takedown, ground and pound, and submission, if
you could get it. So that's MMA. It's not jump
on your back, pull guard. Try to do this. Your
buddies are kicking your head in, you know, and
you don't force the ground. I mean, if you could
stay on your feet and finish people, that's just
as important. When guys attack you, they're not
going to just run up to you, grab you, body lock
you, or shoot a double and try to take you down.
Although that happens, they're probably going
to be striking at you, throwing things at you.
And then if they can't hurt you with their hands
or their feet or their elbows and their head
buds, they're going to be trying to clinch and
get you to the floor. Of course. So that's why
the clinch is so important. We train a ton of
wrestling, weapon retention and wrestling. Wrestling
is the biggest factor that I think it should
be compulsory for all teachers to learn how to
wrestle. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the number
of fights that break out in the classroom. I
was in Australia, in Brisbane, and on the news
for TV, they said they're making it compulsory
for all teachers to learn how to wrestle. You
know why? Because of the disobedient kids today.
You know, like, it's so weird. The defiance of
authority is, you know, I watch people getting
arrested by the police. They sit and question
everything about the police. They pull out their
cameras. They don't listen to one command. And
then they, you know, they act, you know, there
are bad police, but there are good police, a
lot of them. And, you know, that's a tough job.
I wouldn't want to be a police officer today.
That's a tough job. I mean, all my friends, I
have a lot of friends in Seattle because I trained
the Washington State Police. And I put a tackle
defense program together for them. And they were
the number one police force in America that were
getting taken down and shot by their own weapons.
Really? We attributed it to two things. The inmates
were allowed to watch the UFC. They also were
allowed to lift weights regularly. So they removed
the weights and they removed the UFC. We put
a tackle defense program together for the Washington
State Police and they implement and use it regularly
to Prevent the takedown. And the biggest question
is like, how often are you guys in a situation
when there's a lethal weapon involved? And these
guys are like, oh. No, the answer is every time
because it's yours. Yeah, it's around your waist.
How'd you get taken down and shot with their
own gun? You know, so that was a strategy a lot
of guys were using. They would kind of get the
cop to chase them. And then the officer would
go after them and boom, and they'd drop and shoot
and hit a double. And these guys didn't even
know how to sprawl. They had no defense against
a double -legged tackle. Yeah, well, you see
a lot of the video footage. I mean, there's some
incredible police officers out there that are
physically fit, strong, have great grappling
skills, and they walk the walk. But sadly, there
are also a lot of examples where you have someone
either not trained and or deconditioned where...
Either, sadly, they're victimized or even murdered,
and or they go to the only option they know,
which is lethal force, because they don't have
all those other options available to them. I
believe what we teach is specifically perfect
for – I've got a SWAT instructor. He's a DT.
I've had DTs in Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma.
all over the place, Florida, all over in Quantico.
I went to Quantico. I was really amazed at Quantico
because the federal agents were all physically
fit. They were all doing physical activities
aside from the classroom. And it was funny because
I walked in the FBI academy on their side and
I looked against the wall and they had my bag.
It's called a motion master. It's the ground
bag. It's for transitions, right? And it's a
ground and pound bag. It's called the Motion
Master. Revgear sells it. So I created this bag
after I got done fighting because someone said,
what's your hardest part of your workout? And
I said, the ground bag. You're tired. You just
got done sparring a bunch of rounds. And now
you're on that ground bag for 10 minutes and
it kicks your butt because it's all based on
transitions and hitting. And I watched, I did
it. I created a bunch of drills and I put them
on a seminar. And I had house moms, I had monsters
coming out of house moms. They're like hitting
the bag as hard as they can. And they're like,
and they're enraged. And I think they're imagining
their husband's face. But I watched, I watched
all this rage come out of these people. I go,
the ground and pound bag is the best bag for
just a normal person. If you learn how to use
it. And that's why I created the bag. And it
was funny because it was based on transitions.
So I put a bag, one of my bags at Higginmachado
school and I walked in and the bag was in the
corner and this guy pulled it out and I go, Hey,
that's a cool bag. And this guy goes, yeah, the
problem with that bag is there's no arms on it.
So you can't really work your submissions and
your arm bars. They go, but that's not what that
bag is for. And he goes, what do you mean? And
I said, that bag is used for positioning, transitions,
and movement. And if you're going to fight, it's
going to teach you how to hit the bag ground
and pound. And the guy goes, what do you mean
transitions and movement and holds? And I said,
well, there's basically on the average about
10 different positions that you address. You
either go around the bag, you go knee on belly,
spinning. pop -ups, or you go low and you go
side control, Kazuri Keiza, north and south,
Kazuri Keiza, backspin, pass the guard. You can
use north and south, guard pass. So the whole
thing, it's got two heads, and then it's got
two little nubs on both sides. So it's based
on the infinity. The infinity emblem was the
whole creation of the bag. It was constant motion,
nonstop movement. You beat one head in, and then
you go to the other head, and you beat it, and
it's all based on movement. And Chad, thanks
to Chad Stahelski, Chad's the one that put me
on that bag. We had a heavy bag at the gym, and
we used to tape the end up so we wouldn't punch
the metal from the hangers. And he would tape
them up, and then I'd do my transition on that
bag. And I said, you know, this bag would be
so much better if it was flatter and contoured
like a human body. And he goes, what are you
saying? And I go, well, he goes, it's good for
moving. I go, but it's not realistic because
it's round and you fall off it and it's too high.
And all of a sudden, when I got done fighting,
the first thing I did is I went to, I called
Jeff Amata. You know, Jeff? He actually just
worked with the stunt team that I work with.
So I know of him. Yes, definitely. I called Jeff
and I said, hey, do you have a company that makes
any Kevlar products? And he said, Kevlar. He
goes, yeah. He goes, what are you making? And
I go, I want to make a bag, but I want to make
it out of Cordura or Kevlar. So it doesn't rip.
And he goes, well, let me introduce you to this
lady. So I went to this lady and she made me,
I drew out a bag, what I wanted. And there wasn't
even a name for it yet. And then all of a sudden
I laid on the bag. She actually created the bag,
but it was flat, and there wasn't space to get
under the nubs. That's where your legs and your
arms go. And so we had to revise it. But the
first bag was 100 pounds. It was super heavy.
And I said, you know, this is going to be a hard
one to move and to travel with. So the prototype
I gave to Sifu Larry Hartzell, and he kept it
in his garage, and he used to beat that thing
up. And then we had one at the Inosano Academy.
And I think the prototype is still at the Academy.
It's a gray, flat Cordura bag that Jeff hooked
me up with his lady. She was a lady that made
those, you know, those blades that you go like
this and they go. Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Anyway,
she was manufacturing those, but she made a ton
of stuff for the stunt guys. All the stunt guys
used to go to her to get their stuff made. But
she made the bag. I created the bag. And all
of a sudden, this bag that I created was the
hardest work. It's a 10 minute workout. So this
guy, he used to watch my videos and he calls
me and goes, hey, I want to meet with you. I
like your stuff. And he goes, I want to get one
of those bags from you. So I gave him a bag or
he bought a bag and he started using it. He goes,
this thing's great. He goes, I want to get one
of these for all my friends when we travel. And
I was like, OK, so I made the bag. 60, I think
60 pounds. And so he would buy a bag for all
of his friends when he traveled because he was
doing security. And I was like, what do you do?
And he goes, well, I do security for my sister.
And he goes, hey, let's meet. So I met him for
dinner and we went out in Hollywood and I met
him and we're just hanging out. And he said,
yeah, I bought your bag for all my friends and
we carry it with when we're on tour. And I go,
what do you mean on tour? He goes, well, I do
security for my sister. And I go, who's your
sister? And he goes, well, you know what my last
name is. And I go, um, Carrie. And he goes, yeah.
And he goes, my sister's Mariah. And I had no
idea. It was Mariah Carey's brother. His name's
Morgan Carey. And anyways, he bought the, he
uses that bag all the time for his friends. Love
the bag. So next thing you know, I go to the
FBI Academy and here, They have 30 of my bags
stacked up against the wall. And I was like,
they got 30 of my bags? So the head DT at the
FBI at Quantico comes out and he goes, hello,
Mr. Paulson. And I go, oh, you guys have my bag?
He goes, yeah. He goes, he goes, that's how I
know your name because I watch all your stuff,
all your videos you put out. And I saw that bag
and that bag is perfect for police and military
because it teaches you how to transition and
move. And it's great for cuffing. And that was
where I was really taken off like a surprise.
But I was happy to know that the military and
the police, I love to train them the most because.
They're out in the street. I mean, they need
what we do to defend themselves every day. I
think MMA, catch wrestling, jujitsu, and wrestling
is extremely important for those guys. You know,
the wrestling is a big factor. Absolutely. And
then the jujitsu for defense, for positional
defense, how to get out of stuff. And then I
like the cat wrestling aspect because it's super
aggressive for attacking. But, you know, a lot
of jujitsu guys attack too, but that's not particularly
the style of jujitsu. The mentality, let's talk
about the mentality. The mentality is let them
make a mistake and then capitalize on their mistake
and take your time. Well, you don't have time.
A guy, you know, you've got to defend your life
or fight. The first thing you do, you're not
going to defend. You're going to attack. When
you train a guy with a gun to go to battle, you
don't teach him how to dodge bullets. You teach
him how to shoot. So the same idea that I think
for the police and military is not just the defensive
transitions, but also teach them how to attack.
Teach them all the chokes. Teach them the face
locks, the wrist locks, teach them the ankle
locks, the toe holds, the knee bars, all the
bent arm locks, arm bars, stuff like that. Teach
them all this stuff, even all the dirty stuff,
all the finger locking, all the biting, because
you're going to use it. Absolutely. Well, you
want compliance too. I think that's the thing
that a lot of people don't understand. And I
want to get to your martial arts journey in a
moment because it's incredible. But, you know,
I had my version of it from, karate to taekwondo
to boxing to muay thai to jiu -jitsu and each
time being humbled and you know back to square
one um but when you understand that a law enforcement
officer isn't you know trying to get someone
to tap trying to knock someone out but they've
got to get them in a position where they then
got to apply handcuffs I mean, that blows my
mind how that's even possible. So the compliance
element, I think, is incredible. If you can hurt
someone to the point where they allow you to
put those on, the rule book has to go out the
window a little bit because you're asking them
to do something that's so, so hard to do. Well,
that's why I think some of the Aikido and Aiki
Jiu -Jitsu works really well because you have
to teach them how to use a wrist lock or a finger
lock. to put them down. But a lot of times they
use their commands, right? Face down, face down,
or yeah, face down, hands behind your back, cross
your feet, stuff like that. Sit on your butt,
sit on your butt, put your hands behind your
back, cross your feet. So that's the compliant
part. And then you're dealing with someone that
says, no, I don't want to. I trained in the Washington,
no, the Wyoming police, yeah, the police department.
I went out there for a weekend seminar and eight
guys show up and they all have their fatigues
and their combat boots and they have a red belt
on with their gun and their taser. And I said,
you guys, can we lose the belt? you guys have
belts on. Can you lose your belt? Because the
belt buckle is going to kind of rip you. And
can you guys take your shoes off your boots off?
And they go, well, this is, this is what we're
in every day. And I said, if you really want
to train what we, what we need to train, you
should take your boots off. And they said, no,
no, we're going to train in what we normally
train in. And I go, okay. So by the end of the
day, they all had scuffs, Knicks. They had abrasions
all over their face, all over their body, all
their elbows. So I get a call from their commanding
officer, and he says, hey, Eric, whatever you
did today, that's not going to work. It's not
going to cut it. I've got seven shifts to be
covered, and I have eight guys. He goes, I got
one guy out. These guys got to sometimes, there's
no one to relieve them, so these guys are going
to be pulling doubles. And I said, well, I asked
that they would please take off their belts and
their gun, their red belts, their guns. I asked
that they remove their belt buckles. I asked
that they remove their boots and any knives or
anything on their hips. Just just take them off
for training. Just so we would. It's called understood.
You understand that someone's got a gun. You
understand they've got a knife. But in order
to train it realistically. Without getting hurt,
you got to, I mean, I would never grapple with
a knife on my hip. But realistically, of course,
of course, you're going to be in that situation.
But what happens a lot of times is these guys
are rolling hard and there's a knife and all
of a sudden it gouges or cuts you or these guys
are getting just completely beat up from the
boots. We're going across each other's face.
They're stepping on each other's fingers. It
was kind of crazy. So I think it's kind of strange
like that. When people, they need to learn that.
But the whole thing was just trying to cuff.
So what I was leading up to was in Wyoming, the
whole thing, they said, we want to show you our
cuffing. And I said, okay, let's see it because
I want to see what you guys do. And they said,
here's one, here's two, here's three, here's
four. So number one. As the guy comes up, he
wrist locks him, controls the elbow, puts a hand
behind the back, puts the hands together, commands
the hands together, controlling the back of the
belt, crosses the arms, and then he cuffs him.
Number two is we had one guy come into the hand
and then to the elbow, and the other guy hit
a double leg, double leg tackle from the side.
And then we turned him face up, and then you
cross their feet and spin them, and then you
hog tie their feet, and then you cuff them. Three.
I said, what do you guys do for three? And they
go, oh, for three, you got two guys entering
from the front and the third guy goes behind
you and gets on his hands and knees. And then
they just push you over the, just like in elementary
school. I said, you guys actually use that? And
they go, yeah, it works well. It's like, wow.
I mean, that's funny. And then the last one is
the swarm technique. Have you seen that one?
It sounds like everyone just runs at them at
the same time. Yeah, they all surround you and
they go, ready, go. And then they just all pounce
on you. And that's number four. And I said, you
know, the swarm technique is good. I go, but
if the guy knows how to box a little bit, you
guys are going to have a hard time with what
you're doing. So they said, well, what do you
mean? So I wasn't the villain. I put boxing gloves
on one of the officers. And I go, here's all
you're going to do. They're going to come and
swarm you and arrest you. All I want you to do
is back up and throw uppercuts. Ready, go. And
then they came in and he was like this and he
puts his hands up. They go, go. And they all
try to grab him. He was uppercutting everybody.
Everyone comes out and they got bloody noses.
And I said, see, that's just the problem. If
someone knows how to fight a little bit, that's
not a good thing. You got four on one. You guys,
three guys have bloody noses. So they had to
change their cuffing. So I changed the cuffing
a little bit for that. So that was one thing.
You're right. The cuffing or the compliancy is
the big factor there. Well, so speaking of, you
know, all the different elements of martial arts
you already discussed, walk me through your journey
from your first ever class and whichever discipline
that was. all the way through to the Jeet Kune
Do, Danny Nosanto, that kind of era that brought
a lot of those arts together. When I was young,
I played baseball, football, and hockey. I'm
from Minnesota. It's just three things you normally
do. So, you know, we used to go out and ride
our bikes, go fishing. We'd go to the dam and
go fishing. I mean, we used to get up early,
take off all day, and then come back late at
night. And it was no big deal. Your parents never
– no phones, no pagers, no nothing. Parents never
even knew where you were. We were doing death
-defying feats sometimes at the dam on the river,
jumping in the water in the rapids and all that.
I mean – Being a daredevil, we always dared each
other when we were little kids. So playing sports
was natural and normal and competitively. So
baseball, hockey, and football. And I was playing
hockey one year, and this one year I was on this
team, and I didn't really get to – sometimes
I didn't get to start. And I'm going to blame
it on my skates. A lot of kids had newer skates
and I got a pair of used skates when I was little
and they weren't very the ankles weren't very
supportive. And I guess I must have had weak
ankles also. But next thing you know, I was kind
of like trying to skate on these crummy skates
and all these guys are going flying by me. And
next thing you know, so I didn't get to play.
So next thing. What I did, we would play a game
and then we would lose. And I go, well, they
go, oh, you guys suck today. You guys all lost.
You guys are a bunch of losers because you guys,
you guys, we need to change our practice and
we need to change that. So the guy kept saying,
hey, you're a loser. And I was like, well, how
am I a loser? I didn't even get to play. And
this kid's like, you're a loser because you're
a loser. And I was just like. You know, I'm on
a team where I get to play a little bit, but
my dad was more into it than I was. So I ended
up, I remember I was halfway through the season,
and I said, you know, I'm not really liking it.
Maybe I didn't get along with my coach so well,
or maybe I didn't get to play that much. I don't
know. But next thing you know, I'm in fourth
grade. And my mom said, I said, hey, hey, dad,
guess what? He goes, well, I go, I think I'm
going to quit hockey. I don't think I want to
play hockey anymore. And he's like, but you're
from Minnesota. I mean, we grow up playing hockey.
We go to all the hockey games. Yeah, of course
you're going to play hockey. And I go, you know
what? And I ended up fighting more than I played
hockey. I always went after the guy and not the
puck. And I didn't even know that this is cross
-checking with the stick. I used to check people
over the boards all the time, and I would end
up in the penalty box regularly. And they go,
you know what? You're a goon. And I didn't even
know what a goon was. A guy that beats everyone
up. But anyways, I just said, I don't want to
do it. My mom said, hey, at your elementary school,
there's a class you could take if you're interested.
It's a winter sport. It's for winter sports.
And it's judo. Why are you interested? I go,
mom, I'm already, you know, I play all these
other sports. I don't think I need another sport.
And she goes, I'll just go try it out. So I went
in and the teacher, I met the teacher and he's
like, and I noticed some of my friends were in
the class and I was like, okay, cool. And he
goes, hey, the first thing we're going to learn
is how to break fall. Does anyone know why we
need to learn how to break fall? And I go, me,
choose me. And next thing you know, he goes,
okay, you, come up here. He goes, what's your
name? I go, my name's Eric. And he goes, all
right, we're going to show you, all you kids,
why you need to learn how to break fall. And
he grabbed me and he hit me with a taiyatoshi
and slammed me on the ground so hard. And I didn't
know how to break fall, so I landed flat back.
I did a full -blown flat back on the floor without
a break fall. And I laid there, and it sounded
like a box of... Cosmopolitan glass. Martini
glass is shattering when I hit the ground. It's
like... And I laid there and all of a sudden
all my friends go... They're all clapping and
laughing. And he goes, okay. And I'm laying there
going, oh, I can't breathe. So next thing you
know, he goes, hey, did you guys see that? And
they're going, no, again, again. And he slammed
me again like three times. And I was laying on
the ground. I couldn't even get up. And that's
when I realized that I was a slapstick comic.
Because I can make all my friends laugh by jumping
or getting slammed or doing something stupid.
So when I was a little kid, I used to always
make my friends laugh by doing stupid, crazy
things. Eating things you shouldn't eat, riding
your... We used to jump out of trees into the
river that were... And there was rocks under
the water. You could see the rocks under the
water. And my friend's like, I'm going to do
a swan dive. And I go, I'll bet you. And he's
like, how much? And I go, I'll bet you $2 you
wouldn't do a swan dive. He did a Popeye dive
out of the tree. And then he didn't come up for
a while. We had to go get him. That was normal.
That was just normal stuff. We used to go to
McDonald's when we were little. No, it was McDonald's.
And we didn't have much money for the bus. We
had enough for the bus, but not for food. So
my friend would go, man, I'm hungry. Let's go
get a burger. So you go get a burger. And then
he would eat half the burger. And then halfway
through the burger, he would take the bun off
and he grabbed a bunch of hair, rip it off. And
he put his hair in the burger. And then he'd
go up to the front with a big wad of blonde hair
and his burger. Look at this burger. It's full
of hair. He goes, I can't eat this. I need a
new one. And sometimes he would eat it, so there's
one bite left. But that was like normal when
we were kids, just stuff like that. So I wanted
to compete. And so every time you do the class
at the end, you had a competition. Everyone had
to go against each other. And that's how I got
into the judo. I loved it. I did it. two years
in a row and i loved it and then uh i got a street
fight in sixth grade no yeah sixth grade i got
a street fight and uh all of a sudden uh i got
my i went to do a hip toss on somebody this guy
harold goulet and we went out he was kind of
a bully so i said oh you want to bully people
bully me so i went to grab him and hip toss him
but we were out in the and the snow and ice and
he grabbed my hair and he just pulled me straight
back and slammed my head into the ground and
uh my head's in the snow bank and i was like
well judo sucks it doesn't even work man i learned
all this judo i can't even use it in the street
and then we grabbed each other's hair and then
we just started punching each other in the face
and then finally we both gave up at the same
time and i go that's it screw judo i'm gonna
i gotta learn how to punch and kick So, so in
seventh grade, I went, no, it was sixth grade,
sixth grade. I went to the movie theater with
my friend, Jim Bolio. And I went to the movie
theater to see Bruce Lee game of death was in
the movie theater. That's how old I am. Game
of death. And we went to game of death. And I
watched Bruce Lee do all this striking stuff.
And I said, man, I got to learn that stuff. So
I bought all of Bruce Lee's books. I found them
at the B Dalton bookstore. They had all of the,
they had Bruce Lee's fighting methods. They had
the best martial arts books ever. It's such a
shame that there's no more stores like that,
that are just bookstores that have stuff like
that. And all those books today are worth. All
the antiques, they're considered antiques, and
they're like $100, $150, $200 each. It's crazy.
Yeah. I had all those books, too. Dao Jikundo
and all of them. There's a lot of the old books.
A lot of the old karate books are worth a lot
of money today. It's crazy. And, you know, one
thing I have to say, my grandma was a teacher,
and she introduced the book. She introduced a
program called The Red. And it was about reading
books, get a book in everyone's hand. She had
book drives all the time. My grandfather was
a farmer and she was a school teacher. So she
said, Eric, there's one thing that will make
you smarter every day. And if you do it and I
go, what's that? She goes, read, open a book
and read. And so here's the problem. Kids just
sit on their phones, you know, and do they read
books? Not really. They don't read stuff. They
read texts, you know, and they play games, lots
of games. You know, that's why every kid is computer
savvy, but a lot of kids do not read books. So
history, you know, a lot of history kind of disappears.
You know, it's a 10 -year rule. Every new generation
that comes out, I can teach all the shudo stuff.
to people today and they'll go, wow, that's amazing.
Well, man, I was teaching that in the 90s. And
you wait, you skip a generation and start teaching
all the old stuff again. And everyone, nobody
learned it. Nobody. It's all new stuff. Yeah,
we did. Dan Severin, who's on the show, came
and did a seminar recently. Having done jiu -jitsu
for a little while now, on and off, it was just
crazy. The old, just regular wrestling was new
to everyone. Just the bullying. Like you said,
not dirty tactics, but the non -sporting move.
Just because it's not allowed on a mat doesn't
mean it's not applicable, especially in real
-world application. Boxing and wrestling are
Americas and Englands. Real martial arts. England's
martial arts was catch wrestling and boxing.
Fugilism. Same with America, boxing and wrestling.
Those are the two. You know, I remember I was
training at Tim Tackett's garage. And he was
teaching JKD in his garage in Redlands, California.
And he had snipers coming in. He had ex -military
guys coming. The Wednesday night JKD group was
amazing because it was all experimental. Here's
all these new martial arts. Let's see if they're
good. Tim Tackett's theory, he said, I don't
care what you know. The bottom line is when you
get in trouble, can you knock someone's dick
in the dirt? That's what he said. I was like,
wow, I'll remember that. Wise words. And then
the other thing he had, he taught a lot of great
stuff. The mentality. He said, you know, every
time you're going to do something, if you're
going to punch, you're going to elbow, you're
going to knee, you're going to headbutt. He said,
especially in the street, you need to have the
fuck you mentality. And I was like, what do you
mean? He goes, go ahead. He goes, swear at the
pad when you're hitting it. I was like, oh, okay.
Yeah, that does work. You know, because it kind
of pulls the anger. A lot of people are super
nice until they get super mad or angry. And I
think that part, sometimes it's hard to switch
on that adrenal burger. You know, it was what
Bruce Lee called it, the adrenal burger, the
adrenaline. How do you kick your adrenaline in?
And it's really the FU mentality. That's what
it is. It's the mentality of just being Mr. Nice
Guy. And then all of a sudden, holy crap, that
guy's a caged animal. I struggled with that when
I competed. I remember the first time I did a
taekwondo tournament, a friend of mine and I
were in the same bout, and he whooped my ass,
totally kicked my ass. And it was after that
that I realized, okay, there's another side that,
yeah, we tip -tap in class, but when it comes
to actually being on the mat, you have to channel
that. I think for some people it's harder than
others, and I would like to think I'm that nice
guy that has to really... work at getting pissed
off and has to visualize things that make him
angry that's that's the hard part especially
for fighting too you know you uh you you have
to be neat you don't have to be mean by nature
but you have to know what meanness is you you
have to know what it's like to just like go deep
and and learn how to hurt people like manipulation
and control and whether it's through striking
or punching. You know, a lot of people say, oh,
I'm just a peaceful person, and I like to just
put people to sleep. Well, great. That's wonderful.
But not everyone's an expert at the joke, or
not everyone can get to the joke. So that's why
I think submissions, like they call jujitsu the
gentle art, and they call catrassing the violent.
the violent art or the sport of cringe because
some of the stuff the twists of the cranks and
the rips that's why um csw combat submission
wrestling is a compilation and mixture of all
of that and uh our theory is uh crank rip and
tear by any means because guess what we're not
just guys competing in a grappling tournament
we got fighters we've got Someone said, hey,
what does CSW stand for? I go, well, we're catch
wrestlers that fight. So all our guys know submission.
They all know how to wrestle. They all learn
how to strike. And we spar and we grapple all
the time. And then we also fight. We fight in
different tournaments, kickboxing, boxing, MMA.
grappling tournaments, no -gi tournaments, catch
wrestling tournaments. Some of our guys wrestle,
some of them do judo, a little bit of sambo.
That's important. That whole aspect is the overall
aspect of fighting. It's kind of MMA. It's not
just secluded to jiu -jitsu. When I look at the
Bruce Lee philosophy, the teachings, the actual
you know textbooks that he left us um it's funny
now when you look at mma i think of you know
his philosophy as you can know when i look think
of crossfit for example i look at the way he
was conditioning remember there was one like
kind of 10 exercise cycle that he would go one
after the other after the other and it looked
the same as you know some of the wads that you
would see today so what was you know what was
your evolution of finding that kind of mixed
martial arts and and the training side of that
for you personally So, like I said, I got that
street fight, which switched my mind on immediately.
I have to study. So I started reading Bruce Lee's
books. So I was like really reading and reading.
There was a Taekwondo school. It was called Taekwondo,
but it was all sport karate. It was all sparring.
I said, do you guys do forms? They go, only when
we have to. I was like, what do you mean? They
go. The only time you'll learn a form is if you
have to test for a belt. He said, but don't worry
about your belt. Worry about your ability to
perform. And he said, that's why we spar all
the time. So we used to spar. And then my teacher.
We sparred so much, he said, you know what you
should do? You should try to develop your hands.
So I got into boxing. In eighth grade, I got
into boxing. So fourth grade judo, sixth grade
taekwondo, sport karate. Eighth grade boxing.
Ninth grade Aiki Jiu -Jitsu. And then 10th grade.
I continued. I was a gymnast. I started gymnastics
in eighth grade because I wanted a strong, flexible
body. And it was a personal sport. Judo is a
personal sport. Karate is a personal sport. Nothing
was based on a team effort. So if you lost, it's
because you lost, not because the team lost.
And I like that aspect because you develop yourself.
That was it. The development of yourself. And
so that's why I thought it was really good to
get into individual sports like gymnastics or
wrestling. And so when I got into, so I started
fighting full contact karate right when it came
out. And it was like six kicks or eight kicks
above the waist. And then it was pretty much
a little bit of kicking, but mostly boxing. So
that's why Golden Gloves boxing was so important.
My dad threw me into boxing. He goes, you want
to learn a real martial art? You need to box.
So I got into boxing. I remember coming home
with black eyes and concussions. Never, ever
to this day have I been knocked out. Never. Never
knocked out. Never choked out either. Never choked
out. Never knocked out. And I've had tons and
tons of rolling and tons and tons of sparring
and fights. Never been knocked out from fighting.
Never been. Might have one time been knocked
out. Buy some Jägermeister, but that's neither
here nor there. I have too, and I was 18 in a
ski resort, so I can remember it clearly. Did
you puke? Oh, God, I covered the whole hotel
room. It was all black. It was disgusting. Jägermeister.
That's an amazing. I thought Jäger was the best,
and then it just erases your mind. Yeah, actually,
I was 16. Yeah, because, I mean, we're in England
now. The legal age is 18. But I was with my friend's
parents, and we won this little Skittles competition.
And so we've been drinking beer, and then they
gave us a Jaeger as the winning thing. And I
was, God, I was probably 130 pounds soaking wet.
Yeah, so it just put me on my ass. Wow. Only
one or two shots? It was probably only one. It
was probably local. local Jägermeister. God knows
how strong it was, but it was enough to ruin
my day, that's for sure. Well, Chad ruined one
of our friends. I was a bartender and one of
our friends came in from Seattle. He was under
Dan Inosano and he comes in and he goes, let's
get our friend Chris, let's get him some Jäger.
So he gave Chris a bunch of Jaeger. And I remember
later on, I go, Hey, how are you guys doing?
He goes, Oh boy, Chris is not good. I go, Chad,
you were throwing Jaeger down his throat the
whole night and he doesn't even drink Jaeger.
It's crazy. It's a good and a bad one. Anyways,
moderation. Next, boxing, Aikido, full contact
karate. I met Rick Fay. When I was getting ready
for my black belt in Taekwondo, I had another
instructor. It was a fight school. And I was
thinking about some other arts. But I would read
all the different books of all the different
arts. And I'd try. I was a technician, so I would
try all this stuff on my friends. I had a gym
in my garage. I always had a gym in my garage.
I had a heavy bag and mats and makawara and kick.
I had a kick. a bag on the pole that we used
to just kick to develop my shins. And I created
a rope pulley to do the split. So I was super
flexible and I put my foot in the air and I hold
the, and it was just a wheel. So the rope went
around it and then I would hold that and I would
just rotate from split to split. That thing was
so good. I have one at my school now, but nobody
knows how to use it. It's the most underused,
but the best flexibility piece of equipment that's
out there right now. You hang a rope on a pulley,
you put a handle on one side, and then you put
a loop, which I use like a seatbelt. And I put
my leg in that, and I do the splits and stuff
on that. Anyways, I used to have all that stuff
in my house. And then next thing you know, I...
I met Rick Fay. He came into my Taekwondo school.
And Rick Fay is under Dan Inosano. He's a senior
full instructor. And Rick Fay was teaching at
my karate school. And these guys, they had to
go buy dowel rods. And I walked in and he was
teaching them all these weapon, like figure eights,
X's, all the X series. And then the six count
with the sticks. and uh it's called heaven six
heaven standard earth and i go oh that's cool
i just don't i'm not really into weapons so and
then i saw him do some empty hand stuff and he
started with the footwork and i go oh that guy's
definitely a boxer because there's no way that
he does all that footwork without you know being
a boxer he looked just like a boxer and then
he had five different footwork drills that he
did i still remember this day and then uh He
ended up hitting the pads and then all of a sudden
he started doing some trapping. And then he started
doing destructions like guntings on the guy's
arms and then entries into throws. And then on
the ground he taught a bunch of cool stuff. But
he was so fluid and he had such good energy about
him. And I immediately... got his card and I
said, where, where do you teach? What exactly
are you teaching? He goes, Oh, it's Bruce Lee's
Jeet Kune Do. And I said, did you train, you
learned who, where did you learn that? And he
goes, well, Dan and Asano is my teacher. I go,
Dan and Asano is your teacher. I go, man, he's
in Bruce Lee's books. And he goes, yeah. And
I go, well. I would like to learn more. So I
went to a school, started going to a school.
When I graduated high school, I ended up going
there from 1982 to 1985, almost to 86. And then
I went from spring break in high school. When
I graduated high school, I went to Florida and
I came back and I go, I'm moving to California.
I love it out there. So I moved to Palm Desert.
And someone said, why don't you go to Palm Desert?
Why don't you just go to L .A.? And I go, I got
to go to Palm Desert because I got to get my
culture shock over. Because I was a Midwestern
boy from Minnesota, and I was super naive. And
I thought the word gullible was written on the
ceiling. I didn't know. It wasn't. Someone told
me it was, and I believed them. Anyways, next
thing you know. I ended up in Palm Desert. I
was in Palm Desert for five years. And I was
doing Taekwondo and boxing out there. And I had
mats in my garage and I was grappling. We had
our garage gym. And then next thing you know,
I started going and driving to L .A. to the Jet
Center for private lessons. I would train with
Betty the Jet. And then I came, went by, drove
by the Inosano Academy to see what was going
on. And there was a shoot wrestling seminar in
1988. But from 86, I was also driving and training
in Tim Tackett's garage. And Tim Tackett said
in 1986, he said, hey, there's a new art coming
out. And these guys, they're really tough and
they have an open challenge. They'll fight anybody
in the world to prove how great their art is.
And I go, what's it called? And he goes, Brazilian
Jiu -Jitsu. You should learn it. He goes, why
don't you go down there and learn a couple things
and then just come back and show us a couple
things and tell us why it's different than all
the other arts. And my first private lesson was
with Master Horian Gracie. And it was a self
-defense private. And then we did a little bit
of stuff on the ground. I could not believe how
nice and just how kind and gentle just his demeanor
was. And then he showed me all this cool stuff
and self -defense, asked me what I would do if
he grabbed me, grabbed my shirt. It was all self
-defense scenarios. And then we did a couple
of techniques on the ground. How to about positioning
and escaping and controlling people. And then
next thing you know, we shook hands. He gave
me a hug. He goes, I can't wait to see you next
time. He gave me a hug and I left. I go, that
was amazing. And it was just, you know, his warmth,
his demeanor. He introduced me to his family,
his kids, Halleck and Henner and Huron. We're
all in the living room. There are little kids
watching TV. So I met all of them. He brought
me in his house and introduced me and showed
me all about Gracie jiu -jitsu heritage and about
his dad, how he fought. And he had an open challenge
and tried to fight Joe Lewis and all this stuff.
Amazing. And he showed me before the UFC what
his ideals were for the UFC. His ideals for the
UFC were to bring a cage in on a crane and drop
it down and bolt it in and then have the fighters
walk in. And I was like, why don't you just bolt
it down and keep it bolted down and walk in and
then shut the door? You lose the crane part.
Yeah, lose the crane. But it was kind of cool,
the idea with the crane, though, how they just
dropped it down, they locked it in, and then
boom, you're in. The idea was cool. But anyways,
he changed it. And then he hooked up with Art
Davies and Kathy Kidd. And he got involved and
got that. And they grabbed a bunch of opponents
from all different martial arts. And then they
had that open challenge. But that's how I got
involved in Gracie Jiu -Jitsu. It was 1986. In
1988, I did my first Shudo seminar. I was also
training, doing privates, not privates. I was
driving in and doing seminars at the Inosano
Academy. I did a Nike Jiu -Jitsu seminar with
Bernie Lau. He was a Nike Jiu -Jitsu police officer
in Seattle. And then I did another seminar with
Burt Richardson. It was on Kali and dancing and
the disguise. of all the dancing movements in
the Kambangan and all this stuff, how the ancient
cultures used to disguise their fighting through
dance. It's like the Irish. You know the Irish
dance. You know why they did learn that, right?
No, I don't. Because the British, the English
soldiers would walk by and look in the windows.
and they wouldn't move their upper body. They
would only be moving their feet. Because if they
saw their upper body moving, they'd go, hey,
these guys are dancing. So it was forbidden.
So they would just move their feet, and they
wouldn't move their upper body. And that's where
the Irish dance came from. The river dancing?
I didn't realize that. Yeah. I always ask, I
go, how come they don't move their upper body?
And they go, oh, they weren't allowed. It was
hidden and forbidden. So interesting, but the
dance is a Kambangan or it's a lot of the movements
are hidden through jurors, which are kind of
forms, uh, lankas, jurors, and all these, they're
like karate katas or forms. They're, uh, some
of the stuff is hidden. It was amazing. I'm sorry
to interrupt. It was amazing listening to Guru
Inosanto when I went to the seminar here in Jacksonville.
That was about three years ago now. But the passion
and just the knowledge, the heritage and the
history, especially, obviously, the Filipino
culture and upbringing and origin of the martial
arts was fascinating. I could listen to him for
hours, hours and hours and hours. He was absolutely
engaging. A lot of people. A lot of people actually
ask, is it possible that Guru Dan just demos
and talks for a seminar? I said, so you guys
don't do anything? And they go, no, we just want
to watch him and listen to him. Absolutely. He's
so humble. He goes, oh, people don't want. I
said, you have no idea. You are the martial arts
historian. You know everything about martial
arts, about all these different arts. that nobody
knows about nobody's going to ever have that
much knowledge he's always training with new
people he gets to a high level and then he's
off to another art as he continues with each
teacher amazing even jujitsu he's had he got
he got cauliflower ears guru dan and asano got
cauliflower ears at 65 years old and every time
on the airplane i go what's that he goes oh it's
my privates and i go well How many are you up
to right now? He goes, I'm up to 965 private
lessons. And he had it all documented, written
down. And he had a chart with colors. So one
color was his teaching. Another green color.
Yellow was teaching. Green was training. And
then it was green, yellow, green. And then blue
was like relaxing or massage or whatever. And
he had this document every day. He continued.
His whole life was documented for a long time
that way. And he would look at his charts. He
goes, boy, look, I'm teaching way more than I'm
training. That's not good. And so he would change.
He had to change stuff. He would just look at
the colors and he could tell, hey, well, I'm
not getting enough massage or relaxation or downtime.
And stuff like that. So it was good. He had just
documents of all of that, which to me was completely
amazing. And I was fortunate that I got to start
training there. I started training at the Innoson
Academy officially. I started in 1988. And I
started Trudeau. And I did the Silat, Pentrax
Silat with Pendecker Paul Dutois. I took, Burt
Richardson was our phase one teacher. I was happy
when I got invited to the, to Guru Dan's class.
And he had phase one, phase two, phase three.
Guru taught a phase class, which it was a mixture,
a compilation of Thai boxing. It was more like
boxing, savate, trapping. And then there was
a Kali class that was separate. And then there
was a Thai boxing class. He separated that, and
that was a separate class. So he had the Jun
Fun kickboxing, trapping, and grappling. which
is JKD. And then it was just really cool because
there were so many different arts you could learn
there. It was almost like a college. I heard
you talking as well about competing. And what
was interesting is that you were talking about
fighting in Japan, but also it sounded like you
touched on the fact that there were elements
of pride that may have been... predetermined
who was going to win. And I'd never kind of got
that from Pride as an audience member. So if
you wouldn't mind, talk to me about your competitive
element because I lived in Japan for a while
myself too. And then what you saw kind of behind
the scenes of early MMA. Okay. Well, so when
I started training Shudo in 1988, I was also
training under Hickson. And what I did is I did
a seminar. I was training with Hoisin Horian.
And then I started training with Hickson. Because
Hickson was teaching just straight ground stuff.
I didn't have to learn all the self -defense.
But I'm glad everything worked out the way it
was supposed to. I'm glad I learned the self
-defense stuff. Because a lot of guys today never
learned it. A lot of guys never got the self
-defense stuff with the Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu.
They got all the ground stuff. They got all the
sports stuff. But they didn't get the... the
traditional self -defense stuff. So after I met
with Hickson, I did a private and we hit the
ground. And then unfortunately at the time, Hoyce
actually said, Hey Eric, I heard you took a private
with my brother the other day. I go, yeah, it
was great. He goes, did you like it? I go, yeah.
He goes, and what do you think? And I go, I thought
it was great. Maybe I could go over there. Maybe
I could come here on Tuesdays and go there on
Thursdays. And he goes, well, you're going to
kind of have to make a choice. And I go, what
do you mean? That's your brother. I can't train
with both you guys. And he goes, well, you can't
play on two football teams at once. And I go,
what do you mean? It's Gracie Jiu -Jitsu. And
so they're segregating and separating. They were
just being separate. So I just said, hey, well,
I saw, I did my first Shudo seminar in 1988.
Then in 19, sorry, then I started training with
Hickson. And I said, I want to get the ground
down and mix it with the Shudo stuff so I could
go fight in Japan. I want to fight. Because I
was always an athlete in a sport. I was always
into sports. And I always wanted, the only way
to get better is to put it on the line. And this
was before anyone wanted to fight. Nobody wanted
to fight. It was 1988, 99, 89. And I said, I
want to fight. So I started training with Hickson
in the ground, just mostly the ground. And then
he changed from, I went from his garage. I started
training him in his garage. And then I started
training with him at Pico Boulevard in Santa
Monica at that school. And at that time I was
training that and shoot out back and forth. I
was doing both together and I was doing Thai
boxing and boxing. I had all these different,
I had a boxing coach. I had a rest. I didn't
have a wrestling coach yet. Thai boxing coach,
Savat coach. And then I team of guys from the
shootout that were all preparing for, for competition.
And then I was going to jujitsu to get. to get
my ground better secretly. And then I also was
still doing gymnastics. There's a couple of gymnastics
schools around. I go train a little bit. So I
made sure I could still tumble. And then next
thing you know, Yuri Nakamura in 91 said, would
you be interested to fight? And I said, yes.
So I put a demo tape together and I sent it to
Japan. to Satoru Sayama, and I said, I'm one
of Yuri Nakamura's fighters or students, and
I would like to fight in Japan if you would have
me. So they set it up with Chad. Chad and I.
Yuri goes, I found a guy. He's going to be your
assistant, and you two are going to go to fight
in Japan. I go, who? And he goes, Chad. Chad
doesn't work the ground. He just loves kickboxing.
But Chad was a Japanese jiu -jitsu. So he was
really good at throwing. I just helped him with
his ground and his striking got better than everyone.
So I asked Chad to help me with my striking on
the side. And then all my grappling, I was doing
it. I said, I'll help you get your grappling
better if you help me get my striking better.
And then what happened is Chad. He fought in
Japan. Him and I fought in Japan together in
the beginning in 1993. And then the first UFC
was, I think, in August of 1983. So we fought
before the first UFC together in Japan. And then
Chad got hurt. I think he fought. He only fought
in France. He fought a couple of fights. Then
he fought in Japan. And he got hurt. And then
he's like, you know, and one time we were grappling
and he put a hook in, he put a leg in and he
only one hook and he spun to my back. He went
for an ankle lock with one hook in and he could,
cause I wouldn't let his other hook in to take
my back to choke me. So I took, so he went for
an ankle lock and I sprawled and his knee broke
sideways, ripped. I ripped his knee. It was by
accident. I didn't do it on purpose. It wasn't
malicious. He goes, my knee just ripped. And
he goes, call 911 to Damon. And then he bit my
leg. Oh, really? So much pain. He bit my leg.
And I put my finger in his mouth like this. And
I was going like this on his. I was eye gouging
him and ripping his mouth because he was biting
my leg so hard. He ripped his leg. I ripped his
leg, not on purpose. That was actually after
I ripped his elbow. Because one time I got him
in a head and arm and it's called a pillow via
arm lock where you go around the head and then
you put the arm under. So I had the head and
arm and I started to pull his head up. And as
I'm pulling his head up, he goes, oh. I go, Chad,
it's on. I've got it. The lock is on. Just tap.
And he goes, I'm not tapping. That's not on.
I slid my hip back and I started lifting his
head a little. He goes, that's not on. I'm not
tapping. I go, Chad, the lock is on. Just tap.
He goes, it's not on. So I slid my hip back a
little more and started lifting his head up.
Then I go, Chad, it's on. Tap. He goes, I'm not
tapping. I go, all right. And it ripped his elbow
like a sheet of paper. But we were running back
and forth to the hospital regularly because he
was always getting hurt. And I understand why
he's like, you know what? My body's getting ripped
and broken apart. There's no money. We're poor.
We're going to be ugly. We're going to be poor.
There's no money. We're beat up. Our bodies are
beat up. He goes, get out of fighting. Quit fighting
and follow me. Follow me and we'll start doing
stunts. And we'll keep our young. good looks
and then we won't have any injuries and then
we'll make money and we'll be rich and good looking.
That's what he said. I've been doing stunts for
a while now. I'm not rich or good looking. How
did that work out for you? Don't be humble. Let's
talk about that. Talk to me about the entry into
the stunt world. I think some of the guys that
were in the team that you were a part of are
my bosses now at Action Horizons. yeah but you
were doing the films that i was watching as a
young man including blood sport which um is an
interesting perspective because there you were
actually a competitive martial artist um doing
a film about you know a kumite that may or not
have actually happened in real life martial arts
yeah um so so i was a bartender the whole time
i was training i was a bartender and I started
fighting in 93, but the stunts and bartending
is what segued me into fighting. It was like
it just set it up. So I was a school professor
at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California.
And I was teaching. I was a PE teacher there.
They said, you're going to continue your education
or are you going to? And I said, I don't know.
I really love martial arts and I'm doing it full
time. And I think I might have an opportunity
to actually fight, compete professionally in
martial arts. So I left. That's when I left Palm
Desert and I moved to L .A. to train. I started
training full time with Yuri Nakamura. And the
Gracies at that time, Hickson. And then later
on in 94, I got kicked out of Hickson's because
they fought in a bare knuckle fight. So Chad
and I originally went up for this role. It was
for a commercial. And they saw this is after
Chad and I did Baywatch. I originally was a bartender.
In 1990, I got asked if I wanted to go to. Venezuela
to work on American Ninja 5, a blockbuster. That
was a huge blockbuster. I was with David Bradley.
David Bradley was the lead and I was his assistant
and Spike Silver and Hubie Kearns, God rest his
soul. And some of these stunt guys are all there.
And I was just basically helping David out. And
then I started doing stuff. stunt, a little bit
of stunt, and then some fight scenes. I was one
of the, I was a green blue, the only blue green
ninja on the set. But Dave threw me and I went
flying. I took the fall and I landed and dislocated
my shoulder. But I was working with Tadashi Yamashita,
James Liu, Spike, you know Spike Silver? I do
not know. Mike was at the time he was Mel Gibson's
stunt double and Hubie Kearns. He's man. He was
great. Anyways, there was a lot of guys, but
that was my beginning. And then I got back to
the Academy. This is, this is in the beginning
and Chad and Damon said, Hey, we kind of want
to do the same thing. So Chad and Damon started
doing stunts on Sundays or Saturdays or Sundays.
They'd get together and we'd all, jump off buildings
and we would film because Chad was going to USC
for film school and Damon, Chad and I were best
friends so we would do fight scenes and film
a little bit of it. We would jump off the roof
of the academy because Chad bought a three inch
crash mat and I remember I drove up and it was
like 9 a .m. The crash mat sitting in front of
the door, pushed up against the flat brick wall
and the ceiling was like 15 feet up. And he goes,
do you have coffee this morning? I go, no. He
goes, you don't need coffee. Come up here. So
I got up there and he goes, watch this. We're
going to do a flat back. So I go, oh, like this.
And I just stood on the edge and I just went,
I hit a flat back. Isn't that called a suicide
also? Yes, I think so. And then so. I said, what
else? And he goes, okay, well, you have a header.
You go, and then you tuck at the last second.
Just tuck. You land on your back. Header. And
then, okay, no problem. He goes, wow. I go, it's
timing. I go, I told you I was a gymnast and
I was really good on the trampoline. So my timing
on falling was obviously really good because
of that. The trampoline was a secret. And then
the last was a face -off. You fall and then you
twist, half -twist, right? Yep. It's called face
-off. So you have a header, a face -off, and
then suicide. What else? Those are the only ones
that I've done a header a few times and then
a face -off. I did a pirate stunt show and that
was the one I normally did for that. It was like
a... 18 foot four like this you jump and you
kick kick kick and you do a flat yeah it was
like a sit fall is that what they call that one
okay i think so but i'm not i'm not i'm not known
for my aerial work so i was very kind of uh you
know white belt one tag when it came to falls
i think because of gymnastics it made me super
ballsy so like chad bought a mini tramp And I
ran and I hit a Barani right off the bat. And
I hit a front tuck and then I did a half twist
and then a back tuck. And he was like, where
did you learn how to do that? And I go, I was
a gymnast. So he goes, oh, went to the gymnastics
studio. And then all of a sudden I jumped up
on the high bar and I did a high bar routine.
And front hip circle, back hip circle pitch.
I didn't do a giant, but I pitched out and I
did a fly away. And then Chad's like, he was
so mad. He's like, damn, what did you learn how
to do that? I was a gymnast. And so, hey, Chad,
you want to go to gymnastics next week? He goes,
no, I'm busy. Yeah, you're busy getting private
lessons from your gymnastics coach. That's trying
to get better than you. For one month. I didn't
see Chad for a month. And I was like, Chad, what
have you been doing? I don't see you because
we always secretly did stuff. Like I would sneak
off after shootout and guys would go eat and
I'd sneak off and go train at Hickson's. I never
told anybody. I would sneak off, go learn jujitsu.
And then when I'd go to jujitsu, they'd always
go, a couple of guys would keep asking me about
the Inosano Academy. And I said, I don't want
to talk because I want to be respectful. And
they get really mad if you talk about any other
martial arts here. If you don't just talk about
jujitsu, they'll kick you out of here. Can you
believe that? I remember Limon, this guy goes,
hey, Eric, do you still do Savat and Kali and
Silat and the Shudo stuff at the Unisano Academy?
And I remember Limon Luis Herrera, he goes, it's
only jujitsu here. If you don't speak, if you
don't only just talk about jujitsu, you could
leave. And I was like, I told you, dummy, we're
going to get in trouble. Ask me later. Don't
ask me while we're on the mat rolling around.
And so, but I always send them students, always
send students from the Inosano Academy because
guys are like, hey, I heard you're training with
the Graces. I go, yeah, I am. They go, oh, we're
interested. I go, well, I'm training at Hickson's
right now if you're interested to come over.
And then I fought in a bare knuckle fight. And
I got kicked out of Hickson's because all the
students were talking. And next thing you know,
I didn't have jujitsu for about a year and a
half. And I was a bartender and Higa Machado
came to my bar and he said, hey, how's your jujitsu
coming along? And I go, it's non -existent. He
goes, what do you mean? I go, I lost all my training
partners. He goes, why? And I go, well. I got
asked to leave Hickson's school. He goes, why?
I go, because I fought in a stupid bare knuckle
fight after I got approval, after I got permission.
I got permission to do it. And then I will come
back and they say, oh, you can't train with us
anymore. I was like, but you said I could do
it. And I even said I would take a bye if I had
to fight Enzo. I only went up for the commercial.
I wasn't even planning on fighting in that fight.
I fought two fights back to back. I got my hair
pulled for 18 minutes on national TV. Didn't
even fight Henzo. Henzo and I talked after the
fight. Everything was cool. I come back and I
get kicked out of the school. I was so hurt because
my friends were there. But more than that, I
admired, well, I enjoyed training with the Gracies.
It was a big deal to me. You know, at that time,
especially. And then I idolized Hickson so much
that I got him stunt work. I always asked, try
to get a movie work. I tried to get him in the
movies, get him stunts, get him commercials,
always sending stuff. That and then also helped
with Guru Dan signing and writing a nice letter
so he could stay in the country for his green
card. which was great. And I'm glad that he got
to stay. And then the other was getting him fights
in Japan. But I was trying to help him get it
because I had a foot in with the stunts in Hollywood.
And every time we get auditions and stuff or
we hear movies, I would send stuff his way. And
then the fighting, I was always asking him, Hickson,
at that time, hey, would you like to fight in
Japan? And they gave him two offers each year.
First was a low offer. Second was a low offer.
So it went 15 -15, no. 30 -30, no. Not enough.
Because it was a tournament. And they go 50 -50.
And he goes, I'll do it. And that's when he went
into Japan. He beat everybody. Was that in Pride
that he fought in that one? It was Shuto. It
was Shuto, okay. He fought in that, and then
he beat everybody. So then his price doubled
because he beat everybody. So his price doubled,
and he went into the next one. And then he beat
everyone again. And then he said, okay, let's
fight again. Once he beat two tournaments in
a row, he beat everybody. Then his price, boom,
exploded. I don't know the numbers 100 % for
sure, but it went from like 100 and 100 to a
mil and a mil and then two mil and two mil or
something like that. I don't know. But it was
a considerable jump. And because of the money
difference, Chuteau no longer could sustain having
him in a tournament because his price went up,
as it should. You won two tournaments. You beat
everyone in both your tournaments. Now you should
have a prize fight. And it was perfect. That's
the way it should work out. And you should make
a million dollars doing a prize fight. And so
it was a million and a million or whatever it
was, something like that. Anyways, and sure enough,
he beat him. So it was Takata. He beat Takata
twice. He just said, hey, you guys can pay me.
But all I'm doing is schooling this guy. I'm
teaching him. He's getting better, but he's never
going to beat me. You guys keep paying me and
you think he's going to have another shot. That's
why they gave him two chances. So they go give
it. And then they're like, OK, who's your best
here? So they brought out a guy, Funaki. You
know who Funaki was? I did watch a lot of the
other. the different Japanese martial arts back
in the day. So probably by face, but the name
doesn't ring a bell specifically. So Funaki,
Funaki and Suzuki were gotch lineage catch wrestlers.
And they started, those guys were the ones that
started Pancrase. Okay. So there was a pro element.
The pro element was still involved in, in the
early stages of, of Pancrase. It's a Libra guy
is like a shoot, like a shootout guy or shoot
shooter because of striking the wrestling and
then the ground and then the, the attention to
leg locks. So you have shootout, you have rings,
you have UWF, pancreas, and then pride. So shootout
at that time was, was pretty much the only one
that had all real fights. So what's the difference
between a work? So you could have a match. Sometimes
they have a work. A work is where it's kind of
predetermined. Like this guy's going to win.
You put somebody over. It's called putting somebody
over. And so that whole thing came from the pro
wrestling background. He's going to put him over.
So that's what they would say. And what would
happen is some of these fights. They had rope
escape. Carl Gotch told Satoru Sayama, the founder
of Shudo, Carl Gotch told him, he said, Sayama
said, I want to have a real fight. I want to
make it professional. I want to have a real fight.
I want to have striking. I want to have throwing.
I want to have submission. And Carl Gotch said,
that will never go. It will never become popular.
Pro wrestling, show wrestling is the way to go.
That's where people, they want to see you develop
fans. It's exciting and all that stuff. And so
that's why Syama said, well, it was kind of almost
a dare. And then he started shootout 1985. It
was started in 82, 83. And then 85 was the first
amateur. 84, 85 was the first amateur. 86, maybe
85, 86 was the first amateur fights. Shudo had
the most fights of all leagues in the world.
They had the most because they had them all the
time. And a lot of the fighters from Shudo were
all super technical. They were strikers. They
were wrestlers, judokas, zombies, and they were
grapplers. They had no jiu -jitsu. They had no
Brazilian jiu -jitsu back then. I actually got
accused of teaching the Japanese jiu -jitsu.
And I laughed. I said, why would I teach them
what I'm using? I'm using Shudo because I needed
to understand the attacks and the submissions
from Shudo, which was predominant leg attacks
and neck cranks. But there was no jujitsu over
there. So for me, the transition and positioning
of jujitsu helped me beat the Japanese. So you
got five leagues. You got Shudo. You got rings.
You got UWF. You got Pancrase. Then you have
Pride. And they all had matches that were predetermined.
They had rope escapes, some predetermined. They'd
have a bunch of real fights, and then they would
have one that was fake or that wasn't real or
that was a shoot or it was a work. And the whole
thing with these guys is they have fanfare. So
all these guys got fans. And you got to keep
going back to Japan. They love you. Win or lose,
they love you. Shudo's mentality was different.
It was small -minded. Here's a fighter. Shudo
wanted to beat everybody to prove how powerful
and strong Shudo was. They would invite the Dutch
and Muay Thai, the Thai boxers in to fight. Wrestlers,
they brought in these wrestlers to fight. They
brought in a judo guy. They brought in another
submission wrestling league. They brought in
another organization, Pancration, which was Matt
Hume's guys. So they're constantly bringing guys
in to challenge, to beat, to pay them, and then
never invite them back. And if you did that,
like my friend Omar Bouish, he's from Sweden.
He said, hey, I want to fight in Japan. I said,
make me a demo tape. He made me a demo tape.
He said, where should I go? And I go, he goes,
should I go to Shudo or Pancrase? And I said,
well, if you fight in Shudo and you do well,
you'll be asked back. But if you fight in Japan
and Shudo and you lose one time, you may never
be asked back. So if you want to have a fight
career and go to Japan regularly, I'd choose
Pancrase. Because if you fight in Pancrase and
you lose, they'll have you back a month later.
And in Shudo, you're only fighting two times,
three times a year at the most. So I steered
a lot of guys to Pancrase because Shudo was,
again, it was very tough. You fight, you lose.
You fight, you lose. They don't want you back.
They've already proved you suck. That's what
their objective is. You don't suck. You just
lost. You know what I'm saying? In their mind,
yeah. So another thing that I wanted to ask you,
I think it's a really interesting perspective
that you have because you've been in this for
so long and seen the kind of evolution and or
devolution depending on the perspective. But
in strength and conditioning, in the levels of
combat, I've seen a kind of less is more. elements
start to come out so rather than for example
you know i trained in shoot box years ago and
it was fight club i mean you know i'd leave there
with concussions and broken noses and perforated
eardrums and then couldn't train for x amount
of time because you know i mean because of the
the ripple effect what i see also i'm sorry say
again That was the norm. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
And especially out of that camp. So what I've
seen, you know, moving forward is more and more
discussion of lighter technical sparring, pad
work, bag work, and saving that all out kind
of, you know, fight for the cage, for the ring.
So through your perspective, what have you seen
as far as that level of contact versus what is
there now? And maybe, you know, are you seeing
even more effectiveness from this less is more
philosophy? So timing sparring is invaluable.
Usually the guys that are new or that aren't
very good are the ones that go really hard. The
guys that are really good, you'd never know how
good they were because they don't go that hard.
And especially during training or practice. But
timing sparring, just so you have your timing
down, you can timing spar every day. You can
timing spar for a half hour straight without
getting tired. The second you start pushing yourself
really hard and you bang hard, then everything
changes. Your critical thinking, your thought
process, your reaction time, your emotions become
involved. Your ego steps in. So it is good to
bang. Some people like to just bang once a week.
And then some people, they timing spar. So what
we do is we break our stuff down. So we wrestle.
We roll for submission. We do ground and pound.
We do get -ups. We do cage work, wall walking,
getting up, preventing the takedown, not allowing
someone, and getting back up. And then we do
boxing sparring, kickboxing sparring, clinch
sparring. We pull it apart to get better at each
aspect, and then we put it back together. When
you put it back together, the MMA sparring is
for all -around timing, reaction. development
of your game strategy and tactics, your skill
sets, what you're strong at, what you're weak
at. But that's how you're technically going to
get better. And it's very difficult to do that
when you're banging hard every day. And also
banging hard every day. We used to spar so hard
that we had guys that wouldn't, like, let's say,
well, so we had a few guys that would come in
and, they would complain that they're not sleeping
very well or they don't sleep at all or they're
only sleeping an hour or two. And that's overtraining.
You're overtraining and you're also getting hit
in the head too much. So you might have a concussion
that's just like a reoccurring concussion that's
preventing you from sleeping. And then they tell
me they have vertigo. I said, you have a concussion.
And then the CTE, I don't even know. you know
like like what constitutes the the name or uh
or how you can even identify that you've got
a traumatic brain injury you know uh and and
the thing is is here look at it like this uh
i had some friends that were in the stunt industry
and they were getting ready for a film and in
order for them to get ready for the film they
had to do judo and aikido every day and they
had to get slammed they're stunt guys so you
got to get slammed over and over and over and
over when you get slammed on the mat like that
you get a concussion it might be mild but your
body's not used to that impact where you're you're
landing on your back you're landing on your side
but you're hitting the ground hard and you do
it you know 30 to 50 times a day that's a lot
it's the same thing so the constant slamming
the constant head trauma Like I said, you can
timing spar, but there's also something we call
pressure testing. And that's a big secret. Our
pressure testing. So if you got a fight two weeks
out of your fight, you get pressure tested. It's
extremely important because what we do is we
put you in, let's say you got a three, five minute
round fight. So sometimes we'll put you in for
four or five minute rounds or five six minute
rounds. We might change it to a, so you just
have an extra minute or just five minutes, but
you get a fresh person. You get a fresh person
every two minutes, a minute and a half to two
minutes. You got a fresh person and you get three
persons per round. So in one round, your five
minute fight, you got three guys back to back
switch, switch, switch, and they each have your
opponent's style. So, okay, we're fighting a
striker. The guy's notorious for his head kicks.
So, you know, you get a couple guys come out
and they grapple, but then you got a guy that
all he's doing is just throwing the head kicks.
So you get used to that. But the pressure test
is kind of the secret to what's the secret to
our success. What's the secret to my success
when I fought in Japan was the pressure test.
I always had a pressure test a week. a week before
not a week but a week or two weeks before you
have a hard pressure test and it's and that is
something that i think that you could supplement
the super hard banging for is with the hard pressure
test that doesn't mean you're getting your your
butt beat it just means you've got a fresh guy
so when you spar around with one person five
minutes you can gain momentum on that person
because you might hit them in the liver you might
get a good shot off on them And his energy levels
are going to slowly decrease. But when you get
a fresh guy, when that guy gets tired, here comes
a fresh guy and another fresh one. That's tough.
And I think that would be a good supplement to
the hard banging aspect. Absolutely. Now, with
you, as you said, you train people in the law
enforcement community and the special operations
community, but obviously a lot of actual professional
firefighters. Have you seen a common denominator
in the kind of person that ends up being a very,
very successful fighter? When I pose this to
the SEAL community, for example, there's no physical
shape or size, but there's definitely a kind
of mindset that allows them not to ring the bell
when so many people do through attrition. Everyone's
different. You pick guys that are completely
athletically in great shape, and they... trained
super weak their their uh work ethic is horrible
because they're so naturally gifted then you
get some guys that are kind of out of shape and
uh all the they come in and you're like i don't
know how far this guy and all of a sudden you
go holy crap this guy's he doesn't give up he
shows up every day he's got a great attitude
and he trains really hard because he wants to
get better and he wants to change his body he
wants to become more athletic So sometimes you
get athletes that just take it easy and they
don't push themselves as much as they possibly
can. So one of the secrets, I think, to find
out how great you could be is by competing. And
so when you're going to fight and you have off
time, maybe go do a jujitsu tournament or a nogi
tournament or a wrestling tournament or a judo
tournament or a kickboxing match or maybe a boxing
match. So you're constantly in the competition
mindset. So you're pushing yourself, not just
in class, but I'm talking where you're actually
going against people that are not your peers
and that are going to come after you. Now, I
had Greg Jackson on the show. One of the comments
that he made, and I've seen this as a spectator
watching it, you have two types of people in,
for example, the UFC. You have... and then you
have martial artists. And he had a lot of respect
for people like Georges St -Pierre, who obviously
ended up being a great, great fighter, but through
the kind of martial journey, he had all the other
elements of that too. What's your perspective
on that, of all the fighters that you've had
around yourself? You're right. So a lot of guys
are not martial artists. They've never learned
martial arts. They don't know the respect factor.
They just come in and they want to learn. They
want to fight. And they just get really good
at fighting. And I said, it's great that you
guys get really good at fighting and you can
go in and learn and get better. I said, but in
your off time, you actually need to learn a little
bit more than just, you know, put the gloves
on and banging because you're going to deal with
people that are going to have tricks and skill
sets that you do not have or know about or own,
which are like tricks. You want to become as
great of an athlete as you possibly can by getting
in shape, your strength, your conditioning, and
then your technical prowess through learning
martial arts. And then when it's time for you
to be in camp, you're the fighter. But then when
you're not the fighter, you should be learning
martial arts again. You should go back and become
the student, take classes, sit in class. silently
and don't say, I'm a fighter. No, I'm a student.
Now I want to be a sponge and learn as much as
possible. I think both aspects are important.
And then you get some guys that are martial artists
and they just can't turn it on and they don't
want to compete. And then they can't deal with
loss so they don't compete just in case they
might lose because they don't think they can
handle it. Maybe their ego can't handle it. And
some people have high opinions of themselves
and they couldn't handle losing. And I have had
that one too. So, those are a few factors. Right.
Now, what about the older athletes? So, we talked
about competition. Right now, I'm rehabbing basically
my niece. And I found a new program by a guy
called Ben Pratt. Patrick is working really,
really well. But I'm having the kind of… undo
the injuries of being a firefighter increase
my mobility so I'm in the jiu -jitsu gym now
and there's a lot of talk of competition it's
a competitive gym and you know at the moment
I'm like no because I know my body and I know
that I need to be a certain level especially
as I just got a blue belt so I'm in a brand new
bracket now at the very very bottom of the bucket
thank you so what is your perspective on older
athletes like how how do they gate it down but
still have that competitive element, you know,
because I think one of the fear for me, I've
had no problem losing. That's all my ego is good
with that. I just don't want to, you know, break
my arm in the process or rip a shoulder with
some, you know, uber enthusiastic UFC wannabe
18 year old that I'm pitted against. What I do
is when you get older, you have to be more selective
with the people that you decide to roll with.
because you're in it for the longer haul, especially
being older. So you don't want to end your career
right away by just getting an injury from, again,
a young athlete that's going to come after you.
So you could either talk to people and say, I
want to roll, but I have to be careful. I have
a couple injuries. But a lot of people do that.
And then they go completely berserk and go crazy.
Hey, let's roll light. Then you roll light and
then they go crazy. And then they trick you and
you're like, oh, hold on a second. That's not
light. So I think being selective, I think being
selective with your training partners, more selective
than just grabbing someone randomly and rolling
with them. And that's a big factor. You just
have to be smarter with your training partners.
And what about the competition element? Do you
recommend that older athletes compete the same
way as you would a younger, you know, not yet
broken athlete? Yeah, what we do is we do, so
we have a competition class. And for the normal
person, let's say blue, purple, blue and purple
belts, they have to roll for 30 straight minutes.
You have a new person every five minutes. And
again, you could be selective with who you're
putting in there or who you're going up against.
And then for Brown and Black Belt, it's 40 minutes.
It's 40 straight minutes of roll time. That's
your competition level that you should be rolling
with. So you're rolling for 40 straight minutes.
Every five minutes, you got a new person and
you got to try to go for 40 straight minutes.
That's tough. That's a tough one. Or get a minute
break, you know, take a minute break between
each round, but, you know, get eight rounds in.
At five minutes. So you've got eight fives or
even five fives. I tell people, if you want to
go in a competition class, just go in there and
see if you can do 20 minutes. 20 minutes is four
five -minute rounds of rolling. Just start with
that. See if you can do that. And if you can't
do that, then you need to start running or swimming
or biking. You need to get your cardio up. And
it's funny, I just saw this. I posted this thing.
I sent it to my friends and it was about this
girl. She goes, if you're having any mental problems,
go running. Because that way you'll figure out
that you're completely physically out of shape
and you'll forget about your mind. You'll forget
about all your problems. Which is kind of true
because to me, running is moving meditation.
I used to put a headset on and I would hit the
road. And I lived in a neighborhood of hills.
So I'd run up and down these hills all the time
with a headset on. It was the nicest thing ever.
And the thing is, is you can't cheat when you
run. I mean, you could stop and you could walk,
you know, you could stride slower, but you can't
cheat. You really can't cheat. Like when you're
hitting tie pads, you could coast a little bit.
When you're sparring, you can go really hard.
Then you can just move around and defend. So
you can take your time. When you're running,
well, Thai pads, you can't really cheat, but
you could coast a little bit and go a little
lighter. As far as running, you can't cheat running.
But it's moving meditation. And I think you can
work through a lot of stuff with just your mindset
as you're running. I think it helps 100%. I used
to swim. I used to rollerblade. I used to bike.
And I used to run. because i had a torn meniscus
that i never fixed i used to do all those and
one of my training partners used to laugh at
me because my knee would freeze at the two mile
mark and he goes you just can't run any farther
than two miles i don't know my legs actually
freezing because my meniscus is is torn and never
fixed it and it freezes up at about it start
my leg starts locking up at about two miles So
I said, there's other things that I could do
that are just as valuable. And he said, like
what? I go, rollerblade. And he got mad at me.
He goes, rollerblade. And that's easy. There's
no effort that goes into that. And I have speed
skates. And I would get down really low and I
would sprint on my skates. It's a hard workout.
And it busts your legs and your butt. So rollerblade,
he does it. And I realized the reason he said
that was because he couldn't rollerblade. So
he said, yeah, if you can't run, you're a puss.
And I said, no. I'm going to rollerblade. I'm
going to go to the pool. I'm going to do laps
in the pool. Even to my last fight, I swam right
before my fight. I was doing wall -to -wall underground
breath holds. So I would go from one wall to
the other and make it back to the other wall.
Underwater breath holds. And I'll tell you something.
I was dieting. Because I had to lose 15 pounds
in four days. And I don't like to do it with
the sauna. I run. I get on the road the first
thing in the morning and I run. No matter what,
I go out and run. I had a broken ankle. I taped
my ankle. I ran three miles. And then I was at
the pool doing laps in the pool. You swim. You
do crawl strokes. Then you do leg kicks with
the board. And then you put a buoy between your
legs. You do all your crawl strokes, kickboard
with the legs. And then after that, I would do
breast strokes and crawl strokes from wall to
wall. And then I do underwater wall to wall holds.
And then I run in the pool. So I run for resistance
wall to wall. I go forward, back, side, left,
side, right. The pool is amazing. For your body,
especially when you're older, it helps your knees
stay strong. So I really love that. And then
also the Aerodyne. You can't ever beat an Aerodyne.
Aerodyne bike is the best bike for fartleks and
sprints. And you do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds
off for five straight minutes. That's a good
workout. It's a horrible workout. Before it licks
with that, do you have an aerodyne? We do, yeah.
So I coached at a CrossFit gym, and they got
several. They call it Satan's Chariot. Oh, exactly.
That thing's great. And, you know, the design
really hasn't changed for countless years. I
mean, they've made it a little bit better now,
but. Yeah, I mean, you can literally 60 seconds,
and you can be falling off the damn thing. So
the all -over body effect is mind -blowing, really.
And the rowing machine too. The VersaClimber
is the hardest. That's why it's the least used
piece of equipment in your gym. If you have a
VersaClimber, it'll have dust on it. Guys, they
don't want to use that thing. That's a tough
one. But the rowing machine is just as hard too.
If you know how to use it. Yeah, absolutely.
Basically, if you're doing it right, it's almost
a clean every single time you're pulling. Guys
were laughing at me because I would mix my cardio
up. I would go on. I do the 10. So I would jog
on the treadmill. Then I'd run on the treadmill.
And then I hit the bike. And there was two different
types of bikes. One where you sat over and one
where you sat back. So one was more for your
legs and the other was for your whole body. And
then I'd get on the recumbent hand bike. Those
things are great for boxing. Have you seen those?
Yeah, yeah. They use them a lot in rehab and
when people are hurt. It's a way of keeping them
moving. But you don't need it. Fighters should
use those because it's great for boxing. It's
like a speed bag, but you have resistance. So
you have the recumbent, and then you have whatever,
the VersaClimber, the rowing machine. So I would
mix my cardio up, and everyone would laugh at
me. They'd go, how come you don't just do 40
minutes of this? I'd go. I kind of get bored.
For 40 minutes, my biggest thing is fighting
my brain as I'm on the treadmill running for
40 straight minutes, which is a hamster track.
And if you do two miles on the treadmill, it's
equivalent to one mile on the road. And people
would argue with me, and I said, go run a mile
and see how you feel, and then go on the treadmill
for two miles and see if it matches, and it's
almost the same. Yeah. No, I mean, it makes sense
because, I mean, if you pick your legs up, the
road's moving regardless. So you're really just
trying to stay, you know, at pace with the belt
rather than propelling yourself forward. That's
right. And one of my favorite exercises is called
the 10 -10 -10 or 10 to the fourth power. So
you put the treadmill at inclination of 10, speed
of 10. And then you jump on it and you sprint
as fast as you can for 10 seconds. And then you
jump off it. You take a 30 second break and then
you jump on it. You do 10 of those. So 10 to
the fourth power, inclination of 10, speed of
10, run for 10 seconds and you do 10 sets. Have
you ever tried that one? No, that sounds old.
I mean, the different... kind of algorithms they
have in CrossFit. You know, some of them are
very, very short amount of time, but it's all
intensity too, isn't it? I mean, if you're doing
high, high intensity, you literally only need
10 seconds. I mean, think about sprinters. But
the biggest thing is that you stand on the side
of the treadmill and you put your hands on the
handles, you know, on the, whatever the poles
or the, what are they called? Yeah, like the
handrail. Yeah, the handrail. So you hold the
handrail. And then when you jump on, you jump
on with your hands on the handrail. You don't
jump on it because you'll go flying off. So you
start running with your hands on that, and then
you let it go and you run, and then you jump
off. So you're not going to wipe out. Because
as soon as I brought my friend to do the 10 -10,
10 to the fourth power, he jumped on that thing.
And I said, hey, listen, you got to hold the
handrails, and then you drop yourself onto the
speeding track. And then you... grab the handrails,
lift yourself off. I go, don't jump off. He went
flying like three times. And I go, you know,
if you, if you don't grab the handrails, you're
going to go fly. You're going to get hurt. He
did it. And he wiped out three times. And he
said, I don't understand how you're not wiping
out. You grab the handrail, you drop yourself
on. When you're about to be done, you put your
hands on the handrail, you take your feet off.
But yeah, 10 to the fourth power. That's one
of my favorites. I can still do that to this
day. Really? That's tough, but I love that. I
use that at the end of my workout. So when I
go lift weights, then I do the 10 to the 4th
power. Brilliant. Well, you talked about running
being meditation, and that kind of is a good
segue for something that we wanted to talk about.
Transition out of the military, police, fire.
well known to be a very challenging time you
know we've identified as the cop the firefighter
the soldier and if we haven't got a lot of things
in place and another tribe to transition to it
can be a struggle mentally you know it can really
be be tough talk to me about fires whether they
are uber successful maybe not so successful they
pour everything into that lifestyle what do you
see as far as the end of a fighter's kind of
life cycle within the actual sport? You have
to formulate your exit plan before you're exiting.
Don't just go cold turkey and go, now what? You
should have an idea as you're... I'm going to
use an analogy like a relationship. I remember
a long time ago when I would date a girl. And
when you'd break up, she would never just break
up with you. She would already have another guy
in place. So she'd already had another guy that
she already had planned on hooking up with before
she ever got out of the relationship, which I
found kind of weird, but it's an exit strategy.
And it's kind of a, what do you call it? It makes
you feel good or makes you feel comfortable.
The cold turkey is the hardest, but. if you have
a formulation or a game plan um like i told michael
bisbee i said you know when he was fighting towards
the end of his fight career i said you should
really really focus and look at the commentary
stuff because uh you've you've entertained people
for a long time and and now you're no longer
the spotlight of entertainment so something like
For you, something like movie stuff, acting.
I think acting would be good for you. Maybe some
commercials. And it would be a good idea that
you work on your speaking skills so you could
actually be a commentator in the sport that you
love so much and made a statement at. And sure
enough, he listened. Or, yeah, he listened to
what I said. No, he's a great commentator. He's
working all the time on... and all the different
ESPN and all the different ones that the UFC's
on. That's great, right? Yeah, well, he's a good
example, too, because he literally gave one of
his eyes to the sport. Sure did, and that was
the end. When the last time that I trained him,
his eye was on the verge of being blind. And
he could barely see shadows. And I was like...
This is going to be like one of your last fights
here with your eye that bad if it's consistently
getting worse. So, again, I said you should really,
really focus. If you listen to me, it will help
you tremendously. But really focus on your speaking
skills, your presentation. uh and and really
work on your commentary stuff because you'd be
a great commentator for for fights i would listen
to you i would listen to your insight and one
of the biggest things is you can't be braggadocious
and talk about yourself all the time oh when
i did this but that does help because you were
already a fighter that or it was in the mix and
people do like to hear that also but you know
he's a good commentator and uh he makes the sport
exciting Yeah, no, there's been some great, great
ones that came out. Dan Hardy was another one,
another English fighter that I think is very
good. And yeah, I mean, pretty much everyone
they have narrating as it were these days outside
of Joe Rogan and some of the old faces, it really
kind of underlines. And this is the same with
us. Like we come out the fire service. It's like,
well, what am I going to do now? All I knew how
to do was be a firefighter. It's like, well,
you have such an incredible skill set. You just
got to reinvent how to apply that to a new career.
You've got to reinvent yourself. Another great
commentator, Kenny Florian. Wow, he's like a
full -blown professional commentator. Yeah, and
if there's ever a guy that someone would pick
on in a bar and realize that they fucked up royally,
it's someone like Kenny Florian. I'm sure earlier
in his career, before he got a little bit more
cauliflowered, he looked like the dude that worked
at the library and one of the most dangerous
men on the planet. Unassuming. And when you listen
to him talk, you would never know that he was
a fighter. No, that humility. Yeah, yeah. So
I like that aspect. You know, Cormier is doing
the same thing, but that's kind of a thing. You
know, I started commentating. I was going to
do more commentating. I did. I actually commentated
a fight in Brazil. I started doing more and more
of that. I was actually supposed to commentate
the, the PFL professional flight. Oh, sorry.
PSL professional submission league. It was Rico
Ciparelli's event. And then I got, as I was walking
down to the mic, the mic got hijacked and I didn't
want to go in and say, Hey, I was promised that
I could commentate this. So it was at the time
it was Eddie. So it was Frank, Frank Tran kind
of came in. and started commentating. And then
Eddie Bravo walked in and he started commentating.
Him and Frank were talking the whole time. And
I was like, you know what, I'm not going to try
to butt in. And Enrico goes, hey, you told me
that you were going to commentate. And I said,
but you got Frank and Eddie on the microphone
and they're happy and they're talking and I'm
not going to butt in. So I could just, you know,
try to over commentate somebody. And that's when
I kind of went, you know, and then. So I had
a deal. I talked to HDNet Fights with Mark Cuban.
And after I was done fighting for HDNets, I said
I was going to commentate. I said, I'll commentate
the fight. And all of a sudden, same thing. Guess
what happens? I thought, okay, I fought. I'm
going to fight again maybe. They may or may not
have any more fights. I don't know if they want
to again. Anyways, hey, maybe you should commentate.
And sure enough, they go, oh, we got a commentator.
I go, oh, you did? Who? And they go, Frank Trigg.
And I go, oh. So then I was in Japan and they're
like, hey, would you be interested to commentate
with like Matt Hume? I know Boss Rutten and Stephen
Quadros were the commentators for Pride, and
they had talked to me about commentating. Same
thing. I was like, they go, hey, would you be
interested in commentating? Sure enough, they
go, oh, don't worry, we got Frank Trick. And
I was like, oh, okay. Like, what's going on here?
And I just said, you know what? I'm not supposed
to commentate, because if I was, I'd be in the
commentator spot. So I just said, you know what?
No, I'm not going to commentate. And then it
was a while ago, just a while ago, but they said,
hey, Joe Rogan's contemplating leaving the UFC.
Would you be interested to commentate and take
his spot? And I was like, that's a huge spot.
I don't even know if I could ever do something
like that. You know, his commentary spot is like,
he's great. That would be the hardest shoes to
fill. And then, what's, From Bodak, is it? Not
Bodak, but... From Bellator, is it Jimmy? Jimmy...
What's Jimmy's last name? I'm trying to remember
now. I haven't watched Bellator for quite a while.
I forget his last name. Sorry. Anyways, he sounds
a lot like Joe Rogan. He kind of looks like Joe
Rogan. He shaved his head. Jimmy was Dean Lister's
fighter. He fought James Wilkes. in the King
of the Cage. And he became a commentator. Sounds
a lot like Joe Rogan. Sometimes, like, I'm not
watching the TV, but I'm listening. I'll listen
to the fights. And when he's talking, I'm like,
is that Joe Rogan? He's on Bellator. But it's
not. But anyways, that would be a tough shoe
to fill, Joe Rogan's event on the UFC, because
he knows so much about each fighter and each
camp. You know, that takes a lot of work. Yeah.
Well, Joe's done such an amazing job. I mean,
his podcast is one of the ones that I listen
to that really kind of sent me down this road
as well. But where he is now and the voice and
the platform that he has is kind of a voice of
reason, you know, amongst a lot of things, but
especially this last year or so. It's mind -blowing
that a stand -up comedian from Boston is now...
this voice that so many people in the US, not
only listening to him specifically, but he's
getting all these great minds, he's having great
conversations, and therefore getting people to
really question a lot of things. So, I mean,
that man's genesis is mind -blowing to watch.
Well, he had that TV show. Did you see his TV
show? was it the the the fear factor one or the
man show was another one he was on question question
everything or joe rogan questions everything
or something like that oh no i didn't see that
one uh so he he ended up going in and so he would
go check out places like harp and uh a lot of
places where there's conspiracies and he would
go in and try to debunk it you know area 51 and
I don't know if you ever did that, but you know,
I saw the harp one and I thought it was really
great. And I was like, that would be, that's
good. But I think what happens when you get involved
with, with exposing conspiracies, I think you
get phone calls and they're like, Hey, I saw
your show. Yeah. You can't talk about stuff like
that. You know, is your address. So -and -so,
don't you reside there with your wife and your
two kids, Jason and Emily? And you're like, okay.
So I'm wondering if something like that could
have happened, you know? Yeah, well, I think
even Spotify, if I'm not mistaken, after he signed
exclusively with them, I think several of his
episodes went away. They decided that they weren't,
you know, appropriate, quote unquote. So that's
the problem when, you know, the bigger you get
and the more corporate elements you allow into
your life, sadly, the less of a platform you
really have because you're relying now on, you
know, you've kind of sold your source, your nucleus
to another entity. So now in a way, they're kind
of controlling you to a point. That's jealousy
and sometimes they want to shut you down because
you're in direct opposition. Yeah, exactly. Or
some of the topics you've discussed are some
of the very companies that are funding the platform
that you're on, which is a very difficult place
to be then. It was Jimmy Smith. How could I forget
Jimmy Smith? That's his last name. Jimmy Smith's
the commentator for Bellator. Mike Goldberg,
Mauro Ranallo, Jimmy Smith, and Dominic Cruz.
Yeah, Dominic's actually someone who's supposed
to be coming on. I had a couple of his fellow
teammates from a thing called Deep End Fitness,
and I'm hoping to get him on soon. He was an
exciting fighter to watch with his footwork.
I'm glad that he kind of patented his style,
and then he's selling. like downloads on how
to do his footwork, which I think is great because
that's, to me, like the epitome of boxing is
great footwork. When I was in Golden Gloves,
we had this guy, his name was Pat Smith, and
he was a little Mexican guy in Minnesota that
came in and was just kicking the shit out of
everybody. And then we had this other guy from
Minneapolis come in, And he was Navajo Indian.
He came in and he looked a lot like Pat. And
they went toe to toe in the ring. And he belittled
Pat Smith. Pat was our local hero in Golden Gloves.
And this guy came in and just was all over him.
And I was like, wow. And then this guy said,
that's how you see a difference in pedigree.
And I remember exclusively. And watching them
spar, and I said, what makes this guy so much
better than Pat? I'm watching him move. And then
someone goes, look at his feet. And I just looked
down, and I just stared at his feet. And I was
like, that's it. It's his footwork. His footwork
is so much better than Pat's. Pat was step, slide,
step, step, slide, step, slide, push, step, push,
step. And this guy was cross -step, pivoting.
uh he just had all his movements down he was
circling angling stepping off to the left and
the right circle stepping out uh using the female
triangle and the lateral triangle and then he
turned sideways and just his movement was so
uh far advanced and uh after he was done sparring
i said wow it was amazing um can i ask you something
because yeah i go your footwork is so amazing
i mean Pat could barely touch you. And he goes,
I said, well, how do you get your footwork that
good? He goes, I jump rope for 30 minutes every
day and I shadow box. And I go, so, he goes,
so jump rope every day and shadow box. And so
I started jumping rope for 30 minutes every day
and shadow boxing. And it was funny because when
I was training at the Inosano Academy, I would
take night classes. And while I'm taking night
classes, people would come in and watch the night
classes. And I had three people come up to me
and they said, you could tell that when you're
training with people that you're the fighter
and they're not, the person you're training with
isn't a fighter. And I go, well, how's that?
They go, you're on your toes and you're floating
around on the ground and you're moving and you're
in and out and circling. And these people are
flat footed, dragging their cement blocks around
on the floor. And I said, oh yeah, I used to
jump a lot of rope. and shadowbots a lot but
it came i forgot it came from this i was in eighth
or ninth grade and this kid that came in this
little indian kid from from uh downtown minneapolis
comes in and just belittled our champion it was
just uh eye -opening you know it's funny because
i still remember my my boxing practices from
eighth grade isn't that crazy I remember all
the exercise of the calisthenics. And if you
if you weren't very good or if you weren't like
a hopeful, you had to do calisthenics the whole
time. But they would walk in, they go, you come
on in here, put these gloves on, jump in the
ring and they throw you in the ring and you get
the box and spar. And that happened to me and
my friend used to my best friend and I were training
at the time. And he'd get so mad that they would
call me out of practice to spar. Just a box.
And they go, you have a good future. You should
consider competing. So I did. And then I realized
that my brow bones were sharper than everybody
else's. So I was easily cut. So I get cut. Almost
every sparring session, I get cut. And then so
it taught me how to move my head. And then the
wall survival drill, that helped tremendously.
But I didn't really learn the wall survival drill
until I trained with Tim Tackett in his garage.
And was that to stop you backing up the whole
time? Yeah, the wall survival, it just prevents
guys from putting their hands on my face. And
this guy said, hey, if you value the way your
face looks, learn how to move your head. And
then my coach goes, you have a long face, so
you need to really learn to get your head off
center line. He said, so every time you punch,
your pinky's high like this, and then your head's
in one quadrant and your hand's on the other.
So I put a cross on my mirror, and I would put
my head on one side, and then I'd put my punch
on the other. So I used to practice moving my
head and overhanding and uppercutting. So my
head was never on center line the whole time.
And then the other is I put an X on the cross,
so I have an asterisk. And those are all your
punching angles that you hit. So if you put an
asterisk on your wall, that is, or on your mirror
or your wall, those are all your head movements
and your punching, where your head's here and
you're punching. So it gets your head and all
the different angles. Then what you do is you
take an asterisk and you put it on the floor,
and that's your footwork. We used to call it
Leo's six pattern, Leo Gahi, famous stick fighter.
had the female triangle the lateral and then
the male triangle and then you do the start it's
called a star pattern on the floor but then i
added uh the forward and back in there so it's
eight movements so it's really good for your
footwork and then you do the same asterisks on
the wall and that's your punching patterns that
was the easiest way for us to train brock lesnar
to put the asterisks on the floor and the asterisks
on the wall Now was that, again, because of the
wrestling background, he had a very kind of linear
element to his footwork prior to that? Yeah,
you have to get off the center line and get out
of going forward and back and start to add the
angles and the circles and the pivots. And I
think that was one aspect that really helped
him out a lot with that. Beautiful. Well, I'm
sure people listening are fascinated by your
journey through the martial arts. Obviously,
the stunt world is another interesting thing,
especially for me being in it too. But you have
an entire library, obviously, of your work. Tell
me about Combat Submission Wrestling and then
where can people access all of that online? So
when I was training, I had won the belts of Japan.
I had two belts and I wasn't really able to certify
or qualify anyone. I wasn't able to give any
ranking in Shudo whatsoever until I retired from
fighting. He said, oh, now you can promote Shudo.
And I go, it's kind of late. And at the same
time, I was a blue belt in Jiu -Jitsu. and i
never i had my blue belt for nearly 17 years
uh 16 years 16 plus and i wasn't able to promote
anyone in jujitsu and so i said all i said is
all i want to do is have good training partners
and uh people that i can train with so i can
get ready for my fights i go i don't care about
any rank and anything that doesn't matter to
me what matters is if i get my ass kicked to
my fight that matters to me so I want to train
as hard as I can. I want the best coaches in
the world, and I just want to train super hard.
I don't care about a rank. Well, when you're
starting to get older, what's your exit plan
out of fighting? Often teaching. You got to get
your rank. Someone goes, hey, so you have to
have a rank in something. So that never concerned
me until I was getting towards the end of my
fighting. I was like, oh. I went, you know what,
I should probably go start getting my rank and
stuff and making it a better, bigger deal. Because
I was never a paper chaser or a belt chaser.
All I wanted was a skill and good training partners.
I didn't care about anything else. I don't need
an award. My award was not losing my fight. That
was my award. And if you lose a fight, you lose
a fight. If your fight stays a loss, if you're
not learning from your fight, you're either fighting
and winning or fighting and learning, not fighting
and losing. There's a big difference. You have
to learn from every situation. I got armbarred
by Carlos Newton. I'd never been armbarred. Even
when we're rolling, I'd never been armbarred
from the guard. I've always stacked and pass
and rip my arm out. And he spun under me and
he had a helicopter and spun under me and I landed
on my head. After that fight, I had five guys
teach me armbar escapes. I said, what's your
favorite armbar escape from the guard? I had
a couple wrestlers. I had judo guys. I had jiu
-jitsu guys. And everyone taught me something
different. So I learned like probably five or
six different ways to prevent the armbar when
you're stacking somebody, how to get out of it.
Everyone had a different method. So that was
interesting. And then what was the other one?
Just getting taken down all the counters to double
legs. What are the, how do you counter a double
leg? And this guy said, Hey, are you going to
do the sea lot seminar this weekend? I go, no,
I've got a fight coming up and my opponent's
a tough wrestler and I have to learn how to stop
his double leg or a shot. So my whole weekend
is going to be spent countering double legs.
The guy goes, are you saying that Silat doesn't
work? And I go, never said that Silat doesn't
work, but it doesn't work for me in two weeks
when I'm in a cage. And he goes, so you're saying
Silat doesn't work? And I go, it's not for me
right now. That's all he said. And then he turned
around and he told Guru Dan and Asano that I
said that Silat, Eric Paulson said that Silat
doesn't work. No, you took it out of context.
I said, I got to fight. I'm fighting a wrestler.
I don't need to worry about a Puder Kapal and
a Kensington Sequel right now. I need to learn
and worry about a double leg tackle. Once a guy
throws a bomb at my head or I go to hit him back,
he's going to shoot on me. I have to have a good
counter. So every time I got ready for a fight,
I had to learn each person's skill set, what
they were good at, and try to get good at what
they were good at to learn how to defend against
that, such as triangles or arm bars. or ankle
locks. That was the big thing. Someone said,
hey, Eric Paulson's really good at leg locks.
Actually, I'm better at leg defense than I am
at leg locks because I only learned the leg locks
so I learned how to defend all of them because
all the guys in Japan were hunting the legs.
So I never got leg lock from any of those leg
lock specialists because I was so good at defending
the legs. That's one thing. So it's all a learning
process. Everything's all about learning. Every
time you fight, you're learning something about
yourself. You're learning something about your
opponent. New skills, new counters, new ways
to train or new ways not to train. So you were
seeking the rank. Prior to that, you were preparing
for fights and you were going to the greatest
minds to figure out that particular opponent.
But now you're on your own exit path. When did
you... pull all that together to create your
own system and start teaching. Like 95, so I
was teaching a seminar for fighting. Someone
said, hey, can you come and teach judo? And I
said, yeah, but I'm not allowed to rank, but
I can do it. So Mrs. Inosanto, I was trained
at the Inosanto Academy, and I was... transitioning
from Hickson School to the Machados, because
Higgin came in and asked me, how's your jiu -jitsu?
I said, nonexistent. Let me ask my brothers if
it's okay that we train you. So then I competed
for them in 96 in the Pan Ams, and I won a gold
medal. And then I still never got promoted after
that. And I just said, you know what? I'm not
after a belt. I'm after training partners. And
I guess they believed me. Because nobody ever
ranked me after that. And I didn't care. Like
I said, because all I wanted was good training
guys. I wanted to be good on the ground. I wanted
good training partners. And I needed people that
I could pressure test with to get ready for all
my upcoming matches. So I was traveling, fighting,
assisting Guru Dan and Asana doing seminars.
And then I had... seminars. I had seminars that
I was teaching on shootout, but guys were saying,
Hey, do you, is there any way, do you have any
form or you have an association or anything that
we could get hooked up with to get more video
footage and to learn more of the stuff that you're
teaching? And I said, well, not yet, but I'm
working on something. So, They originally called
it combat grappling, combat grappling. And so
somebody said, well, what are you after? And
I said, well, it's no -gi grappling. And the
no -gi grappling is a compilation of stuff, but
it's kind of like right now it's more like catch
wrestling and striking. So that's what Shudo
is. It's catch wrestling and striking. I was
also training in jiu -jitsu since 1986. So I
wasn't allowed to rank anyone in jiu -jitsu.
So I was like, okay, well, what I'll do is I'll
just create a hybrid system. And all the guys
that I train, which this will make us different,
is all the guys I train will all be getting ready
for competitions. Everyone that I'm going to
train at that time, they all wanted to compete.
They were like, hey, we want to be like you.
We want to compete. And I said, okay, well, there's
grappling tournaments left and right now. You
guys can compete in those. And there's kickboxing
or Muay Thai tournaments all the time. And then
there's MMA fights that you guys could do. So
we'll train you guys. We'll get you guys good.
We'll train you as an athlete, teach you a bunch
of stuff, get you good at wrestling. Get you
good at takedowns and get you good on the ground.
And then we'll add the striking and the takedowns.
And so you guys will have a system. So it's a
catch wrestler. You guys will all be catch wrestlers
that fight. That will make everything different.
So that's what we did. So that's how it started.
It was kind of a hybrid. So I told all my guys,
I said, hey. If you haven't found a good jujitsu
school, you should all find a good jujitsu school
around your area and join so you guys can all
learn jujitsu. And I didn't care. I didn't say
so you could get your belt. I said so you could
learn jujitsu. So your jujitsu will help you
with your defense, with your transitions, and
then the catch wrestling will help you with your
wrestling and your attacks. You put them together,
that's a pretty good system because you have
aggressive, Attacks, controls, riding, takedowns,
scrambles. And then on the ground, you have the
positioning, the controls, the transitioning,
and the defense that escapes. So there we go.
And that's kind of how combat submission wrestling
came about. So when I was in Japan, they have
combat wrestling. Combat wrestling. was Kiguchi
started this league. It was called Combat Wrestling.
And most of the catch wrestlers or the fighters
in Japan, when they didn't fight, they did Submission
Wrestling. They did Combat Wrestling tournaments
because it was basically Shudo without the striking.
So it was just take down to submission. But all
the submissions from Shudo. So combat wrestling.
So I came back and I said, hey, I like the combat
wrestling. I'm not going to do something similar,
but make it different. And they said, what is
it? I go, combat submission wrestling. And they
said, well, what's different about that? I said,
what's different is the fact that you guys will
all learn to be wrestlers and judo, sambo, and
wrestling for your takedowns. On the ground,
you have all your attacks from catch wrestling.
And then you'll learn jiu -jitsu also as part
of the defense. And then you guys will also compete
in jiu -jitsu tournaments, if you can. And you
will compete in grappling tournaments. And then
you guys will also fight. All you guys will fight.
You have to have the combative aspect of the
grappling, which is fighting. which is ground
and pound or punching, kicking, takedown, and
grappling. If you guys have that aspect, then
you guys are like more complete fighters. So
let's change it and let's add some weapons. Let's
put some weapons in it too. So now you guys got
Kali. So you guys could stick fight. You're going
to takedown. So we'll add the takedowns with
the stick fighting and the ground grappling with
the ground and pound. So that's that aspect.
So now you can fight with a weapon or you could
go just straight MMA style, punching, kicking,
throwing, submission, judo, or submission wrestling.
Or if you want to put a gi on, you can do judo,
sambo, or jujitsu. And they're like, hey, good
idea. So that's, and I said, that's very JKD
of the grappling or the fighting, which is just
a continuation, which is more. athletically inclined
it's not so much of a technical aspect as it
is uh athletic and sport like because all we
did is we sparred and we rolled every day that
was that was par for the course we would do takedowns
we would do boxing we would do kickboxing we
would do shoot boxing we would do mma we would
do ground and pound clinching ground and pound
and then we would just do clinching to take down
the submission wrestling. That was it. That's
how it came about. Beautiful. So talk to me about
what's there today. So people listening, if they
want to access some of your training, are there
places where they can actually physically learn?
Is there online content? So we created the CSW
Association, Combat Submission Wrestling Association.
We have approximately 150 members. that are flying
our flag and running our programs through their
schools. And we have a core three program, which
is submission wrestling. The CSW submission wrestling
levels one through 10. There's one through five,
which is the five basic positions, cross body,
closed guard, kneeling, back position, and mount.
And then we have the secondary, which is six
through 10, which is half guard, side half guard,
butterfly guard, X guard, half guard, side half
guard. I already said that. Stretch guard. Then
we go into Keizugatame, Kazuri, Keizugatame,
north and south. And we address all the secondary
positions. That's six through 10. And then a
combination of all of it is levels one through
10. So that's the ground grappling. There's throws
in there also. It's part of a curriculum. Then
we created the STX program, which was the Inosanto
blend of kickboxing, which had to do with boxing,
Thai boxing, Shudo, Junfan kickboxing. And then
I added Taekwondo or Kyokushin karate. It's all
part of the kickboxing curriculum. So we have
levels five through 10. I'm sorry. one through
five and five, five through 10 is going to, we're,
we just talked about it. We're deciding that
we're going to come up with five to 10. It'll
be shoot boxing. So that will be punching, kicking
and throwing. So shoot boxing is a kickboxing
with throws. And you can also hit standing chokes
and neck cranks. That's shoot boxing. And that's
fun. The hardest workout I ever did was shoot
boxing. Because you go punch, and you take your
partner down, and you've got to get up. And you've
just got to keep kickboxing, and then you keep
taking each other down. So we used to shoot box
in the park. And it was funny because Mario Van
Peeples used to watch us. We were down in the
Marina del Rey, or Playa del Rey. And James Evans,
Nicole from London, and Matt Chapman, and some
of the guys like David Lee. David Lee came out,
Rick Young. And some of these guys came out to
train. And we were just sitting in the park and
spar. And it was just regular. And we punch.
We would punch. We'd kick. We'd do kickboxing.
And then we'd do shootboxing. And then we'd do
MMA. And then ground and pound and just grappling.
And you end up just grappling in the end. But
the ground and pound was fun, too. You know,
because it's real. And I just thought, you know,
if you're going to add reality to your grappling,
you have to add striking. So once every two weeks
we put MMA gloves on in our jiu -jitsu class
and we make them strike. Because you get so used
to sport jiu -jitsu that you do positions and
sweeps and your face is wide open to get punched.
So that's not great for the street. Once you
start addressing the striking aspect on the ground,
then it's better for self -defense. Absolutely.
Well, for people listening, where can they find
CSW? Just ericpaulson .com. And we also have
an MMA program that we're finishing up. So we
have the Nogi CSW 1 through 10. And again, we're
adding more to that too. It's constantly... growing
and changing. Then we have the STX kickboxing
and we added the shootboxing. So that's going
to be a part of that. And then we have the MMA
program, which is punching, kicking, throwing,
and submission. That's a very diverse program.
Then I just added a jujitsu program because a
lot of the guys were training jujitsu and they
quit training with their trainer. Like they were
out of school for a while and they quit or they
moved and they don't have guys. So that was another
thing. My whole jiu -jitsu program wasn't to
create my own jiu -jitsu program. It was to let
my guys continue in their jiu -jitsu training,
some of the guys that lost their teachers, so
they could continue their education and get ranked,
get their ranking in jiu -jitsu because they're
having a school. And right now, amazingly, my
school used to be all no -gi and kickboxing and
MMA, and those were the most popular programs
in my school. And it's done a 180, and it's all
my jiu -jitsu programs, my biggest program in
my school now. And everyone wants to put a gi
on. I think everyone just wants to get a belt
or something. I don't know. But, hey, to each
his own. And for a school, it helps with the
retention. Because when you start the jiu -jitsu
program, it's a 10 -year program to get your
black belt. I mean, for some reason, for a lot
of guys, it might be a lot faster than that,
you know, four years or five years. But on the
average, in a no -gi grappling program, people
would only last for two years or three years
at the most in the no -gi. But with the gi, they
last for five to ten years. It's elongated the
history of my students. And then you have the
lifers, the guys that will always be around,
you know, until they die. But those are the hard
ones to find, the lifers. But I do have guys
that have been with me for 30 -some years. You
know, they still are around and they're teaching.
And the thing is, is when you belt people, it
empowers them also. But what I don't like is...
I used to train at the Machados, and I would
see a guy get his black belt and then suddenly
just leave the school and go open his own school
right down the road. And the black belt was a
reason for someone to just go open their own
school. Hey, here's a license for you to go open
a school right down the road from your teacher.
And I thought that was kind of odd. I didn't
really care for that. So, like, for me, I never
wanted to have a school, but I had a lot of guys
I was training for fights. So I had a club. A
club's different than a school. I just had a
group of guys, and we all competed, and we trained
all the time. And I was training other pro fighters
that were getting ready for fights, and all my
guys wanted to spar and train with those guys.
And then suddenly I started branching out, and
I go, hey, would you guys be interested to do
a gi grappling class? And they go, I don't know.
Let's try it. And then all of a sudden it just
blew up. Hey, do you guys want to do a no -gi
grappling, like a cat trust in our submission
wrestling class? Oh, yeah. Let's try it. Blew
up. You guys, we're going to do a kickboxing
class. One of the classes is going to be all
pads to heavy bags and drilling, and then the
other is going to be all sparring. Let's do it.
Boom. That took off. MMA, I only train MMA. for
fighters. I don't teach normal people MMA. I
used to, but on seminars I do because I've actually
formatted MMA to the point where you're a normal
mom and pop. You're a normal nine to five person
and you can learn how to fight and utilize all
the MMA stuff without having to spar with everybody
and get your face punched in every day. So there's
a lot of drills that that we put together for
that type of training. Great training, too, because
it's kickboxing and throwing and takedowns and
ground and pound and submission. It's fun to
learn. For some people, it's not fun to fight,
though. And for others, they want to fight. And
I said, okay, well, if you want to fight, you
have to give us five days a week. Oh, I can't
do that. Well, then you're not going to fight.
You're not going to fight for us. There's a UFC
down the road, UFC gym down the road that you
could go to. And they'll train you. And if you
think you want to be a fighter and you want to
train twice a week, you're not going to really
go anywhere. You know, you'll fight in a bunch
of little shows around the area, but you're never
going to make it to a big league training two
or three days a week. You have to do five days
a week. I let my guys off the hook by training
three days a week. But nobody really... really
aspired to go to the big leagues, and if they
did, they started training five or six days a
week. I trained five or six days a week for my
fights. I always trained at least five days a
week and twice a day, sometimes three times a
day because I would do my morning workout. I
would lift weights in the day and run. I always
either ran or lifted weights in the day or swam,
and then I had my night workout. My morning workout
was more kickboxing and shootboxing and pads.
My day workout was lifting weights or running.
And then my night workout was wrestling and submission.
But I trained five days a week, so I couldn't
understand as a coach how I got guys coming in
two or three days a week and not doing five days
a week. You know, even four days a week to me
wasn't enough. So what are you doing in three
extra? Where are you those three extra days?
How come you're not doing anything? Oh, I'm running.
Oh, okay. Do you have a videotape of that? Can
you send me your video? Show me your video of
you running. Oh, I don't videotape it. Well,
then I don't believe you. So that's the thing.
So I made everyone run before practice. I said,
bring your shoes. You're running. You guys are
hitting two miles or three miles before practice.
It's required. That way everyone was, I was assured
that everyone was running. Just crazy. You know,
things change. And the funny thing is I tried
to demand as much out of people as I could as
a coach. And then now the guys are even demanded
more than what I was demanding. So things change.
Everyone's different. And I really enjoy teaching
normal people and now training more coaches and
instructors than fighters. I'll leave the training
fighters to the younger guys. Now that I'm older,
I'd rather teach and train instructors so you
could pass on the knowledge and be a good coach
or teacher. That's what's important. And then
I'm also working on a self -defense program,
and I'm also implementing this year SHUDO. I'm
going to start testing people for SHUDO because
I was given permission when I retired to do so,
and I kind of... tucked it away and said, I don't
want to do it. But now that Shudo's kind of ended
in Japan, there was some problems with the association,
the organization and some of the members. And
I said, well, it was such a good MMA program
that I would like to continue to test people
in the rankings of Shudo so they can continue
to keep the art alive because otherwise it's
going to die. So. I like that aspect. It's cool.
It just gives you ties to Japan. Absolutely.
Well, Eric, I just want to say thank you. It's
been an amazing conversation. I mean, from the
early, early days, the introduction to the Jeet
Kune Do world, the stunt stuff, your perspective
as a coach, as a fighter, it's been an amazing
conversation. So thank you so much for being
so generous with your time today. My pleasure.
And I was very fortunate. All my training partners,
If they didn't go into martial arts or fighting,
most of them are all doing movies. And they're
all super successful in movies right now. I think
the training that we got was such high level.
And then also the amount of time and effort you
put into your training, it just bled over into
the movie world. So all my training partners
from 8711, Damon Carl. Chad Stahelski, Jeff Amata,
Rich Citrone, J .J. Perry, Jonathan Eusebio,
Justin Williams. All these guys are doing full
time stunts. They're working on tons of movies
right now and on all different aspects. You've
got the Marvel group and then you got the DC
comic group. And my friends are doing both. And
then The Matrix and John Wick. and Wonder Woman
and Batman and Superman and the Avengers and
all those shows. And then Deadpool. These guys
are all getting a lot of great movie parts, and
I'm really happy to see my friends be successful
in the movie industry. And it's kind of cool
to say that I knew all these guys and used to
train with all of them. I just chose the martial
arts avenue. And those guys went into the entertainment
industry. Someone asked me if I regretted it.
And I said, no, because I think everyone's path
is different. I love changing people's lives
with martial arts. And not everything's all about
money. Because I think in the end, when you have
all the money that you can get, it's still not
going to make you content in your heart. And
content. And fulfillment has to come with you
being joyous and happy and, I guess, content
with the path that you chose and what you're
doing. The one thing I did like about the stunts
was hanging out with all my friends all the time.
You know, it was like you're on a movie set and
I'm just sitting there telling jokes and goofing
off the whole time. I'm like, man, I can't believe
we get paid for this. You know, you get a little
bit of work. And then you're at the craft service
table the whole time, just filling your pockets
full of granola bars and M &Ms. I'm kidding.
I don't. But my friends say, whatever you don't
make in the movie, when you're working on the
movie, whatever you don't make, eat in craft
service. So eat the difference. So anyways, yeah,
I really miss that aspect. I love the martial
arts. I miss my friends, but I'm happy that everyone's
successful and doing well.