Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. My
name is James Gearing and this is episode 184
and I was absolutely honored to have on the show
Bas Rutten. Now Bas, as many of you know, is
a legend in the world of MMA, but also is yet
another extremely humble, nice person that I
see over and over again with these incredibly
successful guests that I have on the show. And
in his life story, you're going to hear so many
incredible chapters from his childhood, how he
got into martial arts, how he and his friends
dealt with the bullies that they had, his MMA
career, his injuries. But we also talk about
the O2 trainer. I wanted to revisit this in the
intro for a moment. Bas was extremely generous
and sent both myself and my son. an O2 trainer.
And it's early days yet. We just started using
it. And I will post some more updates on my social
media. But I can absolutely see why this works.
As he mentions, creating the correct posture
and the correct muscles to breathe when you're
doing the exercises absolutely carries through.
And my son who has bronchospasms, I'm hoping
that's going to just... uh reinforce the improvement
he's already made so for all you guys listening
uh this isn't a paid commercial but i just always
testify when someone sends me something great
make sure you do check out his o2 trainer after
you listen to this uh this interview highly worth
it very inexpensive and it's not something that's
got to be strapped to your face during exercise
or you suddenly revert to in the middle of a
crisis this is something just like our you know
foundation training our movement practice our
good nutrition that is going to contribute to
better overall health So with that all being
said, as I always say, please go to your podcast
apps, rate the show, share the show. It's you,
the listener, that helps grow this project. And
my ultimate goal, as you hear me say many times,
is to get this to every earhole that can understand,
at least, on the planet. Because every single
one of these episodes has gold nuggets of information
that will change people's lives. So with that
being said, I introduce to you Bas Rutten. Enjoy.
Bas, I want to say firstly, thank you so much
for agreeing to come on the podcast. You're very
welcome. So where are we finding you today on
planet Earth? Right now I'm in California, in
Ventura County, and it's colder in the morning,
but the sun is shining again. I'm very happy
because there was a lot of mudslides, a lot of
rain, a lot of everything, but I think it's over
now, and now it's only a straight sun. Excellent.
Glad to hear. You were not born in California,
were you? So where were you born? In the Netherlands.
Okay. Yeah. And then if you wouldn't mind, because
I always like to explore people's early lives
because a lot of times it shows, you know, why
they became who they became. What did your parents
do and how many siblings did you have? I have
an older brother. He's only two years older.
He's a lawyer. And then my mom and dad both,
my mom just turned 82, my dad 85. Both still
alive, thankfully. So that's good. My mother
was just a housewife, taking care of the kids
and taking care of me because I was a very sick
kid when I was young. And my dad was a bookkeeper
for a company close to where we used to live.
Okay. So neither of them were professional cage
fighters or anything like that? No, my father
was a really good track athlete. And from his
side of the family, everybody did track. I used
to do track and field as well. Gotcha. All right.
Well, you mentioned about being sick. I think
that's a very important part of your story. So
if you wouldn't mind telling the people listening
what kind of sickness you had and how it affected
your life. Uh, first when I was four years old,
I, uh, I contracted rheumatic fever and I spent
like four months in the hospital for that. Then
we moved when I was six years from a big city
when I was six years old to a, to a smaller village.
And somehow I, uh, contracted, uh, asthma and,
and, and eczema. And, uh, for a lot of people
who have asthma or eczema, it goes hand in hand
together. So I would, um, if my eczema would
be very prominent on my arms and in my hands
and in my face, my neck, you know, then my asthma
will be better. And if I would have had asthma,
then my skin disease will be better. So it goes
back and forth. I used to take an insane amount.
I thought it was 15 pills three times a day.
So I took 45 pills a day. That was just for my
eczema. And there was a lot of cortisones later
on that probably. made my career short because
I developed tendonitis, and we found out now
that that's from the cortisones, of course. But
I had also asthma attacks. So I had asthma all
the time, needed to inhale all the time, and
then every six weeks or so I would be a week
or eight days in bed not able to eat because
I simply couldn't breathe. That, of course, especially
the skin disease. Well, you get bullied a lot
because kids don't understand it. They call you
a leper, you know, all these kind of names, and
you get pushed out, so to say, and bullied a
lot. So when I was 12 years old, we were on a
holiday in France, and we sneaked into a movie,
Enter the Dragon, from Bruce Lee, which was 17
years and older, but my brother and I found a
way to sneak in, and there we saw Bruce Lee,
and I realized that if I would become like Bruce
Lee, then I could handle my bullies and it probably
would stop. So I asked my parents, took a long
time, two years to convince them to do martial
arts. Finally, I started doing martial arts.
I was taken under the wing of an adult. He brought
me to taekwondo class. So I was training as a
14 -year -old kid with the adults. And from there,
just things went really fast. Like within months,
I was dropping the adults with back kicks to
the body, high kicks, you know, everything. And
I overheard them talking about me in the dressing
room. My confidence started coming back because,
you know, if you've always been told that you're
nobody, nothing, then, you know, you have no
confidence. But slowly but surely, my confidence
started rising. And then I got into a fight with
the biggest bully in my school, pretty much also
in town, and I knocked him out. You know, it
was just a challenge me to a punch, to punch
him, which I obliged. And I realized it was...
You know, bullies weren't strong at all. I mean,
it was one shot. His nose was broke and he was
knocked out on the ground. All his friends who
were around him because they were surrounding
me with like six guys. Nobody had the cojones
to step in. So I guess they were all afraid of
him as well. You know, if you can't beat him,
join them. But that was it. You know, 95 % of
the bullying stopped. The downside was that the
police was alarmed since he had to go to the
hospital for his broken nose. And that meant,
of course, they came to my mom and dad. And they
immediately took me off for martial arts. But
now I had the taste. Now I went to libraries.
I started reading books about Bruce Lee, videotapes.
We would watch everything that we could find.
And we just started training ourselves. Me and
two other friends of mine also got bullied. One
had a big head and the other guy was overweight.
But what happened was once we started training,
the guy with the big head got a gross birth.
And so suddenly, proportion -wise, everything
was normal because he became this big guy. And
the guy who was overweight, he started losing
a lot of weight. He started boxing, competing
in boxing. And then I would just train with him
illegally in his class. And my parents wouldn't
know in the boxing classes. And then we went
after all the bullies. We made a list with all
the guys who had bullied us in the past. And
we had a checklist. And we just went after everybody.
And we got them all, you know. That one we didn't
have, but that was okay. He was afraid anyway,
so we didn't do anything there. But I'm pretty
sure that's where my love for fighting comes
from, you know. I realized that I was actually
good at it. So when I was 20, I left the house,
my mom and dad's house, and that was immediately
when I started doing taekwondo again. Also shintai
karate was some form of karate with some little
throws here and there, but nothing like mixed
martial arts nowadays. I immediately started
Thai boxing also because I wanted to compete.
I wanted to compete full contact. Won a whole
bunch of fights all by knockout. I just pretty
much destroyed everybody. Then it took, it was
hard for me to get fights at that moment. So,
you know, I took a break from it, you know, because
I would train for six weeks and then my opponent
would see it was me because there was not internet
at the time. There was no internet. So they would
realize it was me when I would arrive at the
show and they didn't want to fight. So then I
would train for nothing. So that happened like
two or three times. I said, you know what, I'm
going to stop. I became a bouncer. Not the smartest
thing to do because, you know, in Holland that's,
well, the nightclubs, they close at 5 a .m. And
then it's time for the bouncer to go out and
party, you know. So it's not the healthiest and
cleanest lifestyle, of course. And then on one
of these shows on New Year's Eve when we were
out. Apparently, I said yes to a fight to a Thai
boxing match against the guy who was training
in prison. Frank Lottman was a really good striker,
undefeated, a lot of like 95 % knockout rate.
And they called me in, I believe, in February.
They asked me where to send the posters to and
asked what posters from the fight. I said, who's
fighting? He says, you. I said, I'm fighting.
Who am I fighting? He says, Frank Lottman. I
said, the animal? That was his name. And they
go, yeah. I said, when did I say that? He said,
well, on New Year's Eve. And I started thinking
back and I realized, yeah, I did talk to the
promoter. So I said it. So now I'm going to have
to own up to it. And I said, when is the fight?
He said, two and a half weeks. So I had two and
a half weeks to train after two years of being
a bouncer and not having trained one single minute
since that time. So I remember I couldn't do
the 20 -minute rope skipping. That's how out
of shape I was. Needless to say, lost the fight.
And then the audience spit me out. It was really
weird because I knocked everybody out before,
but then I lost the fight and suddenly I was
the worst fighter there was. So I didn't want
to fight for the Dutch people anymore because
if they were that ungrateful, why would I want
to fight for an audience like that? And I started
doing these martial arts shows with my taekwondo
teacher. We had these high choreographed fight
scenes that we would do. We would go to, for
instance, to a nightclub and at midnight, you
know, the music goes down and suddenly this high
paced music came up. And then we would come up
in our spandex and pump muscles, long sticks,
noon chucks. We did everything. We had these
complete fight scenes, choreographed fight scenes
and break tests. There were these cool stuff.
I would kick him in the gut and he would grab
me, throw me backwards and make a somersault
backwards like Bruce Lee did in Enter the Dragon.
That's where we got it from. And that show became
suddenly a hit, you know. We started doing it
for TV, for Dutch TV, and then it became European
TV. We started traveling through Europe, and
we started doing shows at big events. And on
one of these shows, Chris Dolman, who's the owner
from Rings, the organization Rings in Japan,
but he's located in Amsterdam. He stopped me
after the show was done and he said, hey, boss,
I remember you from Thai boxing, man. And you
were such an incredible explosive fighter. And
now I see you doing all these backflips and somersaults
and all that crazy stuff. I mean, I think you
have it will be good for you to go to try free
fighting. That's what they called it at the time.
So he explained to me what free fighting was.
And told me that there would be a pay, you know,
would it be a paycheck attached to it? So I say,
oh, sign me up. You know, I would love to do
that. So I went to his class, trained, got destroyed.
I remember because I thought I was a good kickboxer.
But, you know, I didn't have any ground experience.
So these guys just ripped me apart. And it was
actually so bad that I had to park my car next
to the road coming back from Amsterdam to where
I live. It's like a two -hour drive. And I called
my wife. I said, listen, I'm sleeping in the
car. I'm completely destroyed. She was laughing
because she said, oh, so that's it for you? I
said, no, that's not it. I said, within six months,
I'll be back there, and I will tap everybody.
You watch what's going to happen now. And that
was where my love for it started. But, you know,
I got an injury here, injury there. One day,
he called me, and I never picked up my phone.
That was so weird that my answering machine was
broke, but somehow something forced me to pick
up the phone. And he told me, hey, boss, there's
two Japanese guys here, Minoru Suzuki and Funaki
Mazakatsu. Those were two guys who started a
new organization called Pancras in Japan, and
they're looking for talent. So I went over to
his gym. He says, come to the gym right now.
Jumped in the car, took a two -hour drive, got
in a scuffle with one of the rings champions
because they wanted to videotape us sparring.
And the rings champion started to put it really
hard on me. So I told him, I said, hey, listen,
we don't have to go hard. You know, they just
want to show technique, see technique. And I
think that he thought I was afraid, so he turned
it up, and then I told him again to stop. I said,
listen, it's okay. You know, I'm not saying this
for me. I'm actually saying this for you. If
you want to go hard, you know, I'll go hard back.
So whatever you want to do. And, of course, now
it was on. But it was short. You know, I high
-kicked him in the face, knocked out, had a big
needle, a whole bunch of stitches next to his
eye, and that's where I saw Funaki and Suzuki.
pointing at me that was it and and i think two
months later in september 93 was my first fight
the 21st over to japan won that fight by knockout
43 seconds next day people start bowing to me
on the street there was the it was it was very
weird you know you come in a foreign country
and suddenly people recognize you and that what
i realized is that I was on the cover of a newspaper
in a picture. So after my fight, I was so excited.
It was only 43 seconds that I jumped in the splits,
something that I always used to do for fun with
my buddies. I jumped in the splits to every corner
to the audience. And one of those pictures was
in the newspaper. You saw me hanging in the air
and my opponent knocked out below me. And that's
how the people recognize me on the street. That's
why. you know, one in 10 people suddenly started
bowing. So fight two came, fight three came,
lost that fight by submission. Then I won a few
more fights by knockout. Then I lost another
one by submission. And then when I finally lost
my third fight by submission, I became very angry
with myself because I told, I said, listen, if
you want to be a champion in this sport, you're
going to have to learn the ground game. So I...
Started to become very vocal, went to every gym,
asked if somebody wanted to train with me, but
apparently nobody wanted until I found this one
guy, 20 -year -old or 19, I think he was at the
time, Leon Van Dyke, super strong guy, super
strong kickboxer, very in tune with his body,
picked up things fast. And we just started rolling
two, three times a day, watching videotapes,
watching fights, you know, see if we can make
submissions better, create different setups for
submission. And we got obsessed with it. But
like anything else in life, if you force yourself,
if you work hard for it, everything starts working.
I won my next eight fights by submission suddenly.
And then I never lost a fight anymore. So at
the end of my career, I went on beating for 22
fights. But it's all because I just put the dedication,
the work in. to become better on the ground.
So every, I always tell my students, you know,
if I can do it, you can do it. Sure. You know,
I got talent, but I don't have crazy talent.
You know, there's guys out there that have way
more talent. So if I can do it, you can do it.
And if you have to work harder for it, that's
even better for you because you're going to be
stronger because now we have to work really hard
for it. It's going to be, you don't want to give
it away. You know, guys with less talent, they're
the hardest guys to beat because they had to
work much harder than you in order to get to
the spot where they are. So guys like that don't
want to give it up. And those are the real tough
guys. And that was pretty much it. Fought in
Japan, became the world champion there, defended
the title two more times. The UFC matchmaker
came to Japan since I beat already a few UFC
champions in Japan. And John Peretti was the
matchmaker at the time. And he told me after
I knocked another guy out, hey, we want to have
you in the UFC. How many fights you have left?
I said, I'll get three more fights on this contract.
And that was it. In 97, I moved to America. fought
my three more fights in Japan from here, and
then I went to the UFC, became the UFC heavyweight
champion, and unfortunately had to retire because
of injuries, which I already had in Japan, and
I kind of wanted to stop, but once the UFC came,
I always wanted to come up with the UFC theme
song. That was my wish. And really, that was
my biggest motivator to go to the UFC. The really
cool UFC song that they had at the beginning.
It's like a video game. You know that thing?
Yeah. And man, I thought it was so cool. I wanted
to come up with that song. So I went to the UFC.
And thankfully, everything worked out. But then
once I became the champion, I sustained another
injury. And then it was time for me. To stop
fighting. And that's the end of the fighting
career. And then I started jumping into TV, movies
and commentating. Now, I want to go back to something
you said. And, you know, that was an awesome
lead into where you are, you know, currently.
But the bullying. So when you first had that
bully and you struck him in the face, physically,
were you much bigger by that point? Or was it
just the training that had helped you in that
one moment? Yeah, that was just a training. I
was just still weak because I still had the asthma
and that will stop prevent you from growing,
so to say. I believe around 18, when my asthma
starts slowly fading away a little bit, it became
less. I had like two attacks a year instead of
every six weeks. You know, then my body started
to pack on more muscle. That's when I started
doing power training as well. And track and field.
I was very good at track and field. I wanted
to become the next Bruce Jenner, believe it or
not. He was the gold. I was the decathlon. That
was my thing. And, of course, the running was
always the worst for me. The 1 ,500 meters was
hard because of my asthma, of course. But for
the rest, that was hard on my way. I had a really
high jump, good long jump, javelin, shot put,
discus. Everything was good. You know, it was
just the running that was less. right because
it's interesting you say that when when you hit
that one that the other bully or most of the
other bullying stopped i had a similar thing
when i was young and wasn't even as dramatic
as yours i just literally participated in a competition
taekwondo as well in my town so i made the paper
one gold you know and nothing no self -defense
element to it at all just the sport itf taekwondo
but just by being in the paper A bunch of guys
that were bullying me at the time or, you know,
having issues because I was dating one of their
ex -girlfriends immediately stopped. And they
went from, you know, ganging up on me in a club
to like, hey, brother, how are you doing? Nothing
had changed. Just the illusion of being, you
know, a badass. And I wasn't even that, you know,
it's so funny how once you learn how to fight,
that in itself is such a great deterrent for
a lot of bullies. Yeah, you know, you find out
that they're really not tough guys. And, you
know, when you look back on it, you know why.
And they gang up with a group of guys against
a weak kid. Think about that. It's pretty pathetic
what they're doing. They're not going after the
biggest jock in town, in school, you know, or
the wrestler or whatever it is. No, they pick
the weak kid out and then have to gang up with
a group. So, you know, if you would have thought
smart when you were a kid. You would have known
that these guys are sissies because that's why
they do it with a group and pick out the weak
kid. But, you know, as a kid, you don't realize
that you think just that the whole world hates
you and they want to come after you. So, yeah,
once you knock somebody out or they hear that
you can fight, like with me also, before even
I started doing Taekwondo, everybody thought
I was a black belt. The whole story went around
my town. Because I was imitating Bruce Lee. I
could literally, if somebody wanted to fight
with me, I would put my foot like Bruce Lee would
do in a sidekick, right, in front of his face,
and I would hold it still. And I didn't have
to hold my leg like a lot of guys do. I just
put it up and I put it in his face. They say,
you sure you want to fight, dude? And then they
were, no, no, no, no, no, no. Immediately they
were intimidated just by me lifting his foot
to his face. I mean, stupidity, but it worked
really well. I embraced it. I embraced it. No
more fighting. Yeah. It's amazing how many lives
Bruce Lee must have touched because I was a skinny
little English farm boy. So I didn't even have
any schools around me really to go to when I
was younger. But I had Tao Jukundo and all of
his books and had a Wing Chun dummy in one of
the stables and a punch bag in another stable.
But, I mean, again, seeing that small stature
man being able to do what he did, I think, inspired
so many. Just smaller men and women that weren't
born with those gifts where they physically can
intimidate most people that are around them.
You talked about it, the Tao of Jeet Kune Do.
If you look in that book, you will find every
single submission pretty much that we do in MMA.
People go like, I mean, toe holes, heel hooks,
inverted heel hooks, knee bars. Everything is
in that freaking book. I mean, he was way ahead
of his time because he knew if it was going to
be taken down, he needed to adjust one of...
One of my biggest highlights in my career was
I had this show on TV, Inside MMA. We had for
nine years a weekly live TV show about mixed
martial arts. And I was very fortunate to interview
his daughter, Shannon Lee. And she allowed me
to sit behind his desk. She showed me where the
hidden compartments were in his desk. And I had
to go through his notebooks. It was so cool to
read the things, what he would do. Like one day
he would say a thousand one finger punches, a
thousand kicks, a thousand sit ups. Everything
was a thousand with him. You know, he was a firm
believer. You know what he always says? I'm not
afraid of the guy who knows. 10 ,000 kicks. I'm
afraid of the guy who knows one kick, but who
trained it 10 ,000 times, you know, because that's
the dangerous guy. You know, another example
I always use is with Masayama, you know, the
Kyokushin guy. I started doing Kyokushin later
as well, the full contact karate. And Masayama,
the founder of Kyokushin, was known to knock
out bulls with his punch. That's how hard that
guy hit. And I remember in an interview, they
asked him one day that if there was anything
that he could make stronger. In his fighting,
in the skills that he had, he said, what would
it be? And he said, my punch. And that was the
first thing he said. And he was already knocking
out bulls, but he still thought it was not strong
enough. You see, I like mindsets like that. It's
never good. And that's what I always thought
with fighting. I always thought my opponent was
training harder than me. So that will push me
to train even harder. And it was never enough.
You're never there. There's always room for improvement.
And once you have a mindset like that, you can
live mountains and you go through everything.
Yeah. And I agree 100%. And we talk about this
a lot on the show when it comes to our professions,
whether it's police, fire, military. That same
mindset. And obviously it pertains more to the
police and the military because they literally
have people that are out there trying to kill
them. And for us in the fire service, it's more
the inability to get to the top of the building,
to make it through the fire, you know, to whatever
it is. But every single day, as you said, I mean,
especially for us, we have such a diverse group
of skills that we have to try and master. If
we don't take it seriously every single day.
God forbid there might be a time where we go
on a rescue and we're not able to save the person.
And we know in our hearts it's because we didn't
train hard enough. It really is. You know, that
is it. You know, you guys are running toward
the dangers instead of away from it, you know.
And that's also another thing you have to train.
That's nice and dandy when you're… training right
for to becoming a fireman but once the first
fire happens i'm pretty sure there's a bunch
of nerves because now it's real now there's no
room for mistakes you know now it's not in a
controlled environment anything can happen backdraft
whatever it is anything can happen and it can
kill you so i'm pretty sure that your first big
fire job was pretty nerve -wracking Yeah, and
clumsy too. You think it's going to be this beautiful
orchestrated, you know, scene where you just
go through the door and you, you know, extend
the hose and it's not. It's a whole bunch of
people tripping over each other, falling over,
pulling ceiling on their head. It's quite comical
when you see a real fire. Yep, exactly. All right.
Well, another thing that you mentioned about
going from Taekwondo to Muay Thai. Did you have
a... Was it a rough transition initially? Because
I remember doing exactly that and going from
Muay Thai to boxing and just getting my ass handed
to me and realizing how poor my hand skills were
compared to my kicking. Yeah, oh yeah, no, 100%.
I got dropped with a liver shot at first training.
That's where my love for the liver shot comes
from because my hands were low, you know, same
as with you. You come from taekwondo and, you
know, there's no punches to the face. Also in
karate, you know, there is, but nobody does it.
There's a lot of kicking. So my hands were lower.
They were next to my body pretty much or, you
know, my hips. So I was training against an A
-class fighter, which is a professional guy in
Holland. And he very fast realized that. So what
he did, you know, he just hit me in the face.
And what happens if you have your hands next
to your hips and they hit you in the face, you
overcommit. You bring your hands up really fast
in order to block that punch. But by doing so,
you overdo it. You expose the body. Needless
to say, he gave me a simple one -two and a liver
shot, and boss went down. I never had an experience
like that, not with a kick, not with anything.
I've been kicked to the body. I was a tough guy.
I beat everybody up in my gym because nobody
could handle me. But, man, that first Thai boxing
class, I was exactly like you. I got dropped
immediately, and I go, okay. But you know what?
This is another thing. I had a girlfriend at
the time, and I remember we lived across the
gym there. I came home because my hands were
not high at my jaw, and I spent four hours in
front of the mirror punching with my hands to
my jaw. And I'm saying four hours. People don't
– you don't realize. I challenge you to do it
30 minutes. See if you can make 30 minutes. I
did four hours. I'm very obsessive -compulsive.
If something is wrong with me, it needs to be
fixed right now. But the next day when I went
back to the gym – I cleaned out 80 % of that
gym. And they actually thought I played a trick
on them. They thought that I already knew how
to box and I was just acting like I couldn't
box. And I came back the next day and then just
put the hurt on everybody. I said, no, I spent
four hours in front of a mirror because my hands
were not going to drop anymore. And they go,
you spent four hours in front of a mirror. I
said, yeah, that's the only way to get good.
You got to do it until you don't do it anymore.
That's it. Yeah. Now, how much did you – How
brave were you in the gym to be able to make
mistakes and then learn from them? You know,
in the beginning, a workout for me will be ruined
because I was always really fast and had good
hand movement. So it will be ruined if somebody
hit me once. I will go home, I'm devastated.
Somebody could hit me once, you know, and it
took a while for me to overcome that because
then suddenly I realized, wait a minute, wait
a minute. everybody's getting hit. Everybody,
you know, this is part of the game. It's how
hard you get hit and you deal with it and you
come back and, you know, but somehow to me that
was a loss if somebody could touch me. And once
I steered away from that, you know, that I said,
you know, I actually started letting myself get
hit in the beginning. Not hard, of course, and
I would go with the punches so there was not
a full impact, but just to get over that anxiety
and then I would start sparring and that's when
I really... started putting things together that
made me much better all right now i've seen obviously
lots of your fights i watched you on inside mma
as well um but one thing that i get and i know
you mentioned you know mike tyson you mentioned
ramon decas as well is just the the ferocity
that you strike with you know and and it's it
sticks out even though i've been exposed to to
fighters my whole life so compared to great fires
you Tyson Decker's, there's a whole different
level of just explosive violence with your techniques.
Where did that come from? Well, just that Bruce
Lee, you know, controlled anger, bursts, do everything
powerful. I never believed in, in jabs and setting
things up. I'm a big believer now don't get me
wrong. But I at the time when I was fighting,
I got like, why if I jabbed Okay, if somebody
would give me a double jab in my face, I'll take
it and I trade you for an overhand for a right
straight. So why would I do that? If I square
up my stance like Tyson did and like Roman Deckers,
a more square stance, now suddenly you don't
have a jab anymore because now you can rotate
your upper body. And then still if you push off
on the back foot, now you have a straight punch.
instead of a jab. Now a straight punch, you have
to block. You can't eat those because it will
knock you out. So I was, my concept has always
been very simple. If I hit you really freaking
hard in the head, your body will open up and
that's my next target. If I hit you really hard
in the body, well, your head is going to open
up and that's my next target. So that's pretty
much how I always fought. And I like to be a
counter fighter. I know a lot of fighters make
mistakes. You know, when they kick, they bring
a hand down. You know, all those kind of things.
When they give you a left hook, your right hand
is maybe on their hips. I detect that right away
from the beginning. It's the first thing I look
at. And once I see the patterns coming, you know,
I start capitalizing on it. I start throwing
the fake one. I let them block it, and boom,
there's my knockout. So I like the game of breaking
it down and figuring out your opponent and then
capitalizing on it. When you were training back
then, I've seen a kind of evolution in… the way
people view at sparring with the, the shoot box.
Remember Evanderlei Silva's gym? They, they opened
up a gym in LA for, I mean, I don't even know
if it was a year, but I was a part of that. And
it literally ended up being like fight club.
It was just full contact. You were fighting people
way, way bigger than you. And then you're talking
about learning to get hit. That was definitely
my trial by fire, but I also had, you know, I
was deaf in my ear and had headaches and all
kinds of other stuff too. What, what, what have
you seen as far as, um, levels of sparring through
your career and which is your favorite kind of
uh amount of impact for preparing people for
a fight well we go hard i mean we we have man
we have uh Training sessions at our gym would
have. People who come and watch, they would never
want to train with us because we'll go pretty
hard. I'll kick hard to the legs, kick hard to
the body, hit your heart and the body, the face,
of course. I'm not going to knock you out. So
if I see that I'm going to connect, I redirect
or I hold back. And then it's all about having
great sparring partners. If you have a great
sparring partner who has that control as well,
well, you almost never get injured. But for the
people who are watching, it looks like really
hard. Now, we didn't do it like. um, like, uh,
what is a shoot box did, but because they will
pack themselves up, right. They put a body gear
on, they put all these, that gear on, and they
would just go full contact. I think it's stupid
to go to the head really hard. I think that's,
uh, what you see with boxers, you know, they
spar so many rounds before a fight. And that's
why they have the CTE. It doesn't come from the
fights. It's always from the training. They got
hit in training, you know? So yeah, I, I like
it, but that needs to be a part of control. You
know, if I'm dazed. I don't like somebody to
knock me out, you know. Now, it never happened.
But still, if I know I date somebody in training,
I'm not going to go for the knockout blow. Now,
for the body, yeah, if I can drop you with the
body. Because people go with liver shots. I said
it yesterday here. We had Conor McGregor's training
here at my gym now also. And, you know, we were
talking. One of his students was there. And he
said, how many people do you think you dropped?
I said, in training? Oh, man, we're talking hundreds.
But a lot of them are the same guys, of course.
But I say every workout, three, four guys would
go. And we spar twice a day. So not like people
now spar once a week. No, we have a whole training
session. At the end, we always spar. We do that
twice a day because sparring is what you're going
to do in a fight. And that's why we focus a lot
on that. I think it's very important to test
your skills like that. So over the years, I've
been training hundreds, but thousands of times.
Yeah, I've been dropping a lot of people. In
totality, if you put everything together, you
know, so for the body, yes, I will hunt. But
yeah, for the legs or something, for instance,
I wouldn't give you really hard low kicks because
that you're going to carry on to the fight. And
that's, of course, not good. And the head, of
course, we always take care of the head. Yeah,
brilliant. Now, speaking of sparring and training,
have you trained law enforcement or military?
Oh, a lot. I do a lot. Homeland security, elite
special forces, military. Yeah, I train a bunch
of these people. Okay. So what does that look
like? Because I know that we had, obviously in
martial arts, it was very striking base, unless
you were a judoka pretty much. And then we got
into the jiu -jitsu, which definitely seemed
to be very popular these days. But I've seen
a lot of stuff going on now where people are
so sport jiu -jitsu focused, they forget. the
street application or the multiple attacker application,
which the core jujitsu addresses. But, you know,
if you're just constantly pulling guard and spinning
around, you know, you're going to get punched
in the face if it's outside the competition.
So what's the kind of philosophy that you use
for those kind of tactical athletes that you
train? Well, you always want to be prepared for
any scenario, of course. You know, I mean, people
say you can be the best wrestler on the planet.
It doesn't matter if you're fighting on the street,
you're backing up and you trip on a curb. You're
going to be on the ground. You're going to be
on your back. And if you don't know how to defend
yourself on the back, you're going to have a
problem. So always be prepared for something
that might happen. And most of the time, that's
your weakness. That's like with me. My weakness
was submission. So I made it my strength. If
you look at my record, I actually won more fights
by submission than I did by knockout. So I went
in as a striker, but I came out as a submission
guy. So it's just making sure that... They say,
oh, yeah, I will never go to the ground anyway.
I say, you don't – there's nothing that you can
– there's no control for that. You can trip,
like I said. You can simply fall on the ground.
Now you're on the ground. And if you don't know
how to defend yourself – so we work on everything.
But, of course, if they like the striking, we
do that. But the smart guys like the elite special
forces, they already do that. And their trainers,
their coaches normally – Unfortunately a lot
of them I don't think have any business being
there because the stuff they teach is just like
a very simple basic self -defense stuff that
doesn't work because those guys are not the world
champions jiu -jitsu those guys who would just
see a thing and then they think they understand
it and that's how they teach it to their students
you know so that's stupidity but if you train
with a really good jiu -jitsu guy and then you're
going to find out what really real jiu -jitsu
is. And it's the same with strikers. And those
elite special forces, they knew that. So, yes,
they have to do those classes with those guys
that the military gives them. But then on the
side, they go to people like me, you know, who
actually fought for a living and who know that
everything what you do is to stop somebody. But
that's on their own time. They do that fighting
and that jiu -jitsu. They do that on their own
time. There are no jiu -jitsu classes in the
military. There are. but they they schedule those
it's not the military doing it right now do you
what's your philosophy on on people in law enforcement
obviously some come to you so they're being progressive
as a whole do you see that there's a lack of
uh of that kind of training in in the law enforcement
community oh yeah for sure there needs to be
way more training i think what What governments
around the world should do, because the cops,
you know, they always got spit out. But these
people, they do 95 % good, but people only focus
on the 5 % that goes wrong, you know. But if
you have a cop who wants to kill somebody with
a rear naked choke by accident, you know, it's
because he doesn't know, he doesn't understand
the technique. He doesn't know. He did it maybe
a few times, but he does it the wrong way. If
you have a blood choke, like when I was a bouncer,
if there would be a guy who was drunk and he
wanted to fight, I'm not going to beat his face
in. I'm going to choke him out. And if you do
it with a nice blood choke, it's the most humane
way to get rid of somebody. You put him on his
side so he doesn't swallow his tongue. You make
sure nothing happens and you tie him up and you
call the cops and then the cops are going to
come. But if you do it wrong, yeah, you can break
somebody's neck or maybe his throat. You damage
his throat and then you can actually kill the
person. So what the governments around the world
should do is pay the cops to train. That's what
I always said. You know, pay them for the time
that they go to a gym and force them to go to
the gym. So now it's part of their job to go
to the gym and to understand those techniques.
Because trust me, a lot of them are gaining weight
because they're sitting all day long in the car
and they don't really focus anymore on anything
else. Because let me face it, you get the tasers,
you get the guns, but that's a very dangerous
thing, you know, because sometimes there is a
hand in hand. Yeah, sure. Like military, I talk
to elite special forces and they say, well, If
it comes to hand -to -hand, that means that everything
they did was wrong before because it should never
come to that point. But guess what? It's good
to be prepared for it because it might happen.
You know, it's always good to be prepared and
know it than not to be prepared and then don't
know it when it happens. You see what I mean?
No, absolutely. Now, speaking of striking, something
I meant to ask you before. So, pancreas was palm
strikes only. Is that right? Yes, to the head,
but to the body closest. Okay, so when people
are striking on the street, when it is a self
-defense situation, are you an advocate of open
hand strikes or punches? You know, open hands.
I used to do that as a bouncer before I went
to Pancras because I saw my partners, my bouncer
friends. You know, if you fight three, four guys,
you know, there's big melee going on and you're
fighting multiple guys, you know, sometimes your
aim is a little off because you're too busy.
And I saw them hitting a skull and break their
hands. And I go, you know, that's not going to
happen to me. So I start palm striking everybody
and hitting them with the bone of my wrist on
the back of the head. You know, like you loop
around and then you hit behind the ear. And I
found out really fast that that is the sweet
spot to knock somebody out. If you look at Mike
Tyson, I don't know how he was able to do that.
He was such an incredible athlete and a credible
boxer, so accurate. But, you know, he was always
the smallest guy. But somehow watch him throw
a left or a right hook on his opponent. He almost
hits the back of the head behind the ear. He
stands that close because nobody's ready for
impact for that. Everybody's ready for impact
from the front and from the side because that's
where everybody attacks you. But if you attack.
to the back of the head, like just behind the
ear, your body, you know, the equilibrium is
simply not ready for that. And that's where the
knockouts come. That's why in Japan, when I start
knocking people out, they go, how is he doing
that? Well, they hit with the open hand. I never
hit with the hand. I hit with my bone, with the
wrist bone, and I hit behind the ear. Gotcha.
Brilliant. That makes perfect sense to me. All
right. So one more thing of the martial arts
before we talk about the O2 trainer, which I
really want to pick your brains on. But I saw
that you... trained in Krav Maga. And that's
always a very interesting martial art to me because
in the States specifically, I've only been exposed
to it since I've been here, you see the core
Krav Maga, which seems to be very, very effective
within the Israeli Special Forces. But then you
see almost like a franchise Krav Maga. where,
you know, it's being trained by people that clearly
do not seem to have much of a grasp of the art.
So it seems to be a spectrum from very, very
effective all the way through to very diluted.
So what's your impression of the art? And how
would you suggest people find a school that actually
is teaching that core art? Well, I would suggest
to take here in America, Krav Maga Worldwide.
And then still, it's all about the coaches who
are there. Now, I'm very fortunate. I got introduced.
to a fan of mine in the beginning, Amir Perez.
And Amir Perez is really, he could be the best
guy there is. And he's that good. I mean, he
was 21 years old when he was a Navy SEAL instructor
in Israel. So that by itself says something.
And when he found out I was in America, I saw
him at a nightclub and he goes, oh my, with his
brother. He goes, oh my, your boss, what are
you doing here? I said, I live here now. I said,
you live here, are you teaching? I said, yeah,
I'm teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Beverly
Hills Jiu -Jitsu Club. He said, oh, can I come
and check a class? I said, of course. So he came
over and he watched the class. And after class,
he told me, can I show you what I do? And I said,
sure. And he pulled out a plastic knife from
his bag. And I look at him and I say, you know
what? Don't worry about it. He says, what do
you mean? I said, I don't need to see it. He
says, what do you mean? I said, well, been there,
done that, man. There's so much bad stuff out
there, you know. And there's such a stupid defense.
It's like hitting the knife out of the hand.
And now it's a fight for the knife. It's like,
you know, there's no control. And he looks at
me. And my whole class is there, and he says,
okay, let me do something else, he said. And
he walked to his bag, and he pulled out a pellet
gun, and he loaded the pellet gun, and he gave
me the pellet gun, and he says, why don't you
shoot me if you see me move? And I said, excuse
me. He goes, well, only when you see me move.
He said, just put the gun on me, and if you see
me move, you're allowed to shoot me. So now the
whole class, everybody was intrigued, and I think
I did it six times. And I was not able to do
it. I got hit and he has my gun. And we're talking
about less than a second, you know, and I mean,
less than a second. I put this guy up for fight
science. Like I did a lot of stuff for fight
science, like kicking crash test dummies, hitting
bags, and they measured the impact. And they
wanted me to do street fighting and weapons.
And once they started with the weapons, I said,
listen, I'm good. But you've got to see my buddy.
You've got to take him for this episode because
he's a freak. You've got to freak out. He took
the gun away in two hundredths of a second. They
measured it. It was faster than the brain can
react. You'll be hit. If there is a point that
he grabs the gun, he hits you in the face. Well,
he stops just before. And when he's disarming
the gun, at the moment he's disarming, you see
the bullet come out. That's when they react.
That's how fast it goes. And then he has your
gun. You know, and I go like, how is this even
possible? And then I started doing the knife
defenses and everything with him. Yeah, that's
a whole different level. That's all about control.
And that's, you know, this is a guy who was a
Navy SEAL instructor in Israel, which is, well,
they have the best army. That country is under
attack 24 -7 pretty much, right? So it's all
about where you find the best coaches. But Krav
Maga Worldwide is a very good organization here
in America. Still, I tell the people, Google
about it. Google about what other people say.
There need to be coaches who are open to talk
to you, discuss things, and change the little
thing here and there. Because let's face it,
every technique, yeah, it will work. But some
techniques don't work for me. Like, for instance,
when I started doing submissions, there was a
lot of mistakes that I saw people make. You're
like a figure four armbar, you know, a chicken
wing, as they call it. Well, everybody escapes
a chicken wing because they hold the arm in a
45, what is it, in a 90 degree angle. And yeah,
there will be a lot of pressure on your shoulder.
But guess what? Now they can stretch their arms.
So I figured out, wait a minute, if I put the
hand on his back, so I make sure that the back
of his hand touches the back of his back, he
cannot stretch his arm. So I stopped modifying
those submissions. But the reason I could do
that is because I never had a coach. You know,
if you go to a class where your coach told you
to do it that way and that coach, his coach told
him to do it that way. I mean, it's a lineage
going on, but they've been doing it wrong. You
know, nowadays, everything needs to be more tight,
more effective. And there was a whole bunch of
stuff of things that I thought, wait, I can make
this better. And if it's, you know, at least
make it better fit for me, for my body type.
And then we start going into it like crazy. Wait
a minute. If I escape this, then I can right
away into a counterattack. And that's when we
started getting creative. Okay. Now I go for,
I'm sitting mount. I go for a straight armor.
Everybody knows that attack. Okay. So what can
I do in order to disguise that? Find a different
way to go. to that straight arm bar. And then
I would do that. Then I would submit my training
partner again, like one or two or three times.
Most of the time, never more than three times
because he was a very smart guy as well. And
I could not finish him anymore. So I was forced
to create another way for a straight arm bar
from mount. And then I was forced to find another
way. And then I stopped flipping those around.
Now I have four ways. And I go, I try number
one, number four, number three, number four,
number one, boom, number two suddenly hits. You
see what I mean? So I started going back and
forth. And I started doing that. With every single
submission, or we started doing that with every
single submission. Now you suddenly have three,
four different setups to every submission. You
make your opponent crazy. You see, it's just
the amount of work and just be different. And
since I never had a coach as well, my style was
just completely different. I rolled with really
good guys and they go, my God, who taught you?
I said, I taught myself. How is that even possible?
But I have ways of exploding into submissions
different because I was never taught a certain
way, but because it's different. It's highly
effective. You see what I mean? Now, if I would
roll with, let's say, a third degree black belt,
there are some submissions that I came up with
that I probably will catch him with. And now
people go like, oh, no, but he's right. No, I
probably will catch him with those submissions
because he'll never see them before. Now, don't
get me wrong. It will never happen again. So
again, the good guy, I'll do it once and that's
it. It will never happen again. Now we actually
can backfire to me because that's how good they
are. You see what I mean? But just being different
and being different in the approach and being
different in movement, jiu -jitsu is a very slow
game. Not anymore, but in the early days it was,
especially with the gi. Everything is slow, holding
the rappels, holding the sleeves. You know, everything
is methodical. That's not a fight. That's not
a fight without a gi. I never understand those
trainers in the beginning. The jiu -jitsu coaches
said that if you did mixed martial arts, which
is fighting without a gi, you still had to train
with a gi. I said, that's such a waste of time
because that's not what you're going to do in
the cage. In the cage, you train without a gi.
That four hours that you wasted now, spend it
on four hours training a week without a gi because
that's what you're going to do. You see? So it's
always about the coaches. If they're open. to
evolution and to becoming better like Bruce Lee
was because he always said it's never ending
and there's always adaptation. And that's with
Krav Maga Worldwide as well. I remember gun defenses,
for instance, with Krav Maga Worldwide, they
did it a certain way and suddenly it was changed.
I go, why did you guys change it? I said, well,
a guy in law enforcement, he did that particular
defense. because he did it such a way he broke
the finger of the guy which wrapped around the
gun he couldn't pull the gun out so now they
found a different way to do it you see so they
see it there's a mistake they learn from it they
make sure that it will never happen again and
once you have coaches like that yeah then you
have a really good coach unfortunately though
they're hard to find Yeah, and you hit on a huge
point as well, which was we're all different.
And I think that's the thing that's lost in a
system that's too rigid. If you teach it to Bas
Rutten and you teach the same move to a 90 -pound
person, male or female, the application may not
be the same. You may be able to muscle that technique
to make it work, whereas the technique alone
just may not work for someone because their body
weight is so low. That's exactly, that's exactly.
And then you have the fast twitch fibers. You
have the slow twitch fibers. You have the guys
who are slower, but they can fight longer because
they're like diesels. And then the other guys
like me were very explosive, but we need a lot
of stamina to fill those, to feed those muscles
with oxygen. You see, so you have to fight different
again. You know, you have to unload, relax, unload,
relax. There needs to be a relaxation in between
because otherwise you're simply going to run
out of gas. yeah well speaking of that speaking
of training um you have your o2 trainer but before
we get to that i know you've had uh you know
fighting systems and and other tools that you've
put out there how how has your training um evolved
from early in your fight days to where you are
now as far as the physical training right now
i don't do i had four neck surgeries i uh and
the neck surgery actually happened in the fight
scene for a tv show so that never had to do anything
with fighting crunched my nerves i lost like
90 % of power of my right arm at a time it's
now back to like I would say 45 % you know still
less than half but at least I can squeeze again
I can grab things again I couldn't snap my fingers
like snapping my fingers I couldn't do for four
years couldn't brush my teeth because I couldn't
put pressure on my teeth that's how weak my arm
was So I have everything that I'm doing right
now, it's all watching out for the next. So there's
no more sparring. I didn't spar since 2006. That
was my last fight. So I've been 13 years pretty
much without sparring. Rolling I can because
I have no cartilage on my kneecaps, which is
the worst problem a knee can have because that's
the only thing they can't fix. you know everything
else they can fix but the kneecap is in constant
motion it's not like they they take the kneecap
out they tape something on it they can put it
back doesn't work like that you know and it's
bold now if i had little patches here and there
of cartilage then yes you can do stem cells and
then you can you can culture stem cells and then
it will grow into the existing cartilage that
is on your kneecap but they're bold so they have
no way to attach cartilage to the kneecap so
if i start rolling I mean, if I roll 20 minutes,
30 minutes, I'm going to pay for that for five
days. I'm going to be in pain, sitting, standing,
which I'm already in pain, but then it's extreme
pain. My knees will blow up. So everything I'm
doing right now, so it's just like a minute ago
when I told you before, can we do it a little
later? I went on this hike. Now, it's not a normal
hike, of course, because I have this crazy hill
next to my house, which is a crazy hill. I went
with the dog, but it's very steep. It's a high
energy. And sometimes what I do, I bring simple
a 10 pound weight. And while I'm walking, this
is like a 45 minutes, an hour walk. I'm just
working out my weak arm, constantly trying to
spark the nerves. to keep firing and then hopefully
it does something and i'm going to get my muscle
back because if you look at my biceps for instance
my lower biceps on the right hand is completely
gone now my whole arm was like that but slowly
but surely from the top it's going to come down
now but it's it's taking years i mean we're talking
about eight years ago you know and i i went from
training starting with like three pounds which
I do now 20 pounds, but I can do this only one
set, like eight repetitions or 10 repetitions
with 20 pounds. You know, my other arm, I do
45 pounds, 30 repetitions. It's a big difference.
You know, plus if I did eight repetitions or
10 repetitions, then the next time I can only
do five. That's how weak the arm is. You know,
I just constantly have to spark it. I got a Dyna
ball in my car where I, you know, the thing that
you wind up in your hand and you have to. You
have to keep it rolling. It goes like 6 ,000
or 9 ,000 RPMs in the middle of that ball. There's
a little ball inside the ball. It's a really
great thing that they invented for people with
problems like this. And I'm using that in the
car the whole time, just constantly sparking
with light weights the nerves, making fire. And
then hopefully they come loose and they start
firing like they did before. They didn't stop.
They're not dead. So that's a good sign. And
how did you deal with that mentally, going from
being such an athletic phenom to having that
challenge that literally robbed you of your power
and your use on that side? What was the mental
self -talk like? It was very restrictive. That
was very hard to deal with for me because now
suddenly I think, what if a fight happens on
the street? What if somebody comes in my house?
I couldn't pull the trigger from a gun because
I didn't have the power to pull the trigger.
That's how bad it was. So that's a mental crusher.
You have to understand, I used to do nine one
-arm pull -ups. I would hang on one arm. I could
pull myself up nine times with one arm. And going
from that, suddenly not able to brush your teeth
or putting on your seatbelt or grabbing the milk
out of the fridge, that's devastating for a guy.
Any fighter would have the same thing. And what
really got me out of it was, first of all, that
I said, listen, I still have a hand. And then
I saw Nick Newell. I don't know if you know Nick
Newell. He's a fighter. He fights for the UFC
also. He's congenital amputee, so he's born with
half an arm. And this guy fights in the UFC now.
He already has two belts from smaller organizations.
This guy, let's say he has 14 fights, 12 finishes.
I mean, he's not winning fights. He's stopping
fighters. And once I met him with half an arm
and I saw what he was able to do with half an
arm. I had a good talk with myself. I go, dude,
you're such a sissy. Look at this. He doesn't
even have a hand. And he's not complaining. He's
fighting through it. He signed up for wrestling
in school when everybody was against him and
he couldn't win. But guess what? He made it his
strength. And now he's fighting. He won two titles
for a smaller organization. I get goosebumps
right now when I'm talking. You see, those are
guys I look up to very much. So once I realized
that, and Nick also, I met him on the set of
Here Comes the Boom when we were shooting the
movie with Kevin James and Henry Winkler, Salma
Hayek. And he was one of the extras. And he was
there. And I remember he came to me and he told
me to remember my name, he said, because I'm
going to be a big name in fighting. And I look
at him and I look at his arm and I said. And
you mean this? Yeah. I said, you have half an
arm. And he says, yeah, but watch me. I go, dude,
I love that, what you're saying right now. So
I got his address. I sent him my workouts, my
DVDs, everything that was fight related. I sent
over to him. And freaking three years later,
we have him on our show inside MMA because he
just won a title. And I go, dude, I remember
you. You were there. You were telling me that
you were going to do it. And you actually did
it. You see guys like that, very inspiring. That's
amazing. I had a couple people on. One was Carl
Maynard, who was a quadruple congenital amputee.
And he was the one that was a high school wrestler.
And then he did MMA, I think, for a couple of
fights. But yeah, no arms or legs and still made
it work. And then it was funny because he was
saying initially he was losing, obviously, getting
tapped and rolled. But as he started winning,
then and only then, people were like, oh, wait
a second, but it's not fair because of the weight
difference of his frame. You didn't have any
problem when he was losing. You know, I had the
same thing. I had this one commentator when Nick
Newell got somebody in a guillotine choke and
he has a really tight guillotine choke because
he does it with a half arm that he can trap into
the other arm. And then the commentator has the
cojones to say, well, you know, actually he has
an advantage there. Are you stupid? Dude, if
it's his right arm and I give somebody a left
kick, he's going to have to decide what kick
it's going to be. It's going to be a head kick
or a middle kick. He can block only one time,
one side. So he has to read your body movement.
I mean, it's way harder. He can't push you away.
He can't hold you, grab you, pull you in. He
doesn't have an arm, a hand. I mean, are you
saying it's an advantage? Yeah, unfair. Yeah,
they don't get that. There's another guy, Mark
Almrod, who's a Royal Marine who got blown up
with IED and lost, let me see, one arm and two
legs in an explosion. And now he... He's not
only been in the Evictus games and, you know,
rode... uh rode in that and then just on all
these different events running and rowing but
also now he does jiu -jitsu as well and he just
has that one single arm and it wasn't like he
was born with that as well that's a big difference
between these these injured and the congenital
is that the congenital have had that since birth
so they're used to trying to do it whatever these
soldiers or people that lose these limbs they
have to learn from scratch how to overcome this
so to watch him rolling with just a single arm
that's so new to him is incredible as well Yeah,
you know, what was it, the drummer? Was it Def
Leppard? What drummer was it who lost his arm
in an accident? It was Def Leppard, yes, in a
coach accident. And now he's drumming. You can't
hear the difference. He's drumming with one arm.
There's no way that you can detect that he has
only one arm. You know, that's people for you,
man. I always talk about this. They're such crazy
people. For instance, I... I can't say what group
it is, but it's elite special force, the baddest
guys there are, right? And we were one day, I
overheard two of them talking about the next
mountain that they were going to climb because
that was one of their hobbies to go to take the
Himalaya mountain or to take Mount Everest, you
know, all these mountains. And they were talking
about a mountain that was pretty gnarly. And
I said, how long does it take for you guys to
get a mountain like that, to conquer that? He
says. For us, he says nine days. I said, what's
normal? He says, ah, 13, 13 days. I go, wow,
that's really fast. Now you do four days faster.
And he goes, yeah, it's pretty good. But, you
know, then again, there is this one guy who just
blows everybody away. And I go, so what, he does
it in eight days? No reaction. Seven days? Six
days? Five days? Four days? Three days? One day?
He does it in less than one day? I said, what's
going on? And he goes, eight hours. And I go,
what? Eight hours. I go, how is that possible?
He says he does it in a spandex. And so what
do you mean? And he was telling me that this
guy lives next to a hill that's half a mile high.
And somehow when he was young, he got it in his
head to put a big log like Rocky did, you know,
when he was fighting Ivan Drago, big trunk, tree
trunk in the neck. And he would start jumping
squat the hill up. And of course, in the beginning,
you're off at 20 jumps. But that became 30, that
became 40, and it became the whole hill. And
this guy runs up the hill in eight hours that
these elite special forces do in nine days. You
see, you can only imagine. I mean, it's unbelievable.
Think about this. Think about that you're on
day seven. You're camping, you know, after a
hard day of climbing. You're making your porridge,
and this guy in a spandex comes running by. He
runs up the hill. You go like, what the heck
is going on here? But you see, that's people
for you, man. I'm going to meet today a guy that
I wanted to meet for a long time. And finally
he's here. And actually one of those guys from
the elite special forces set me up with him.
Stig Severinsen. Stig Severinsen, I believe he's
from Sweden or from Denmark. This guy is the
world record holding breath. 22 minutes. But
you know, the things that he does. else as well.
Like he goes on the ice. Let's say he's in Alaska.
He's sitting on the ice, two feet thick ice.
He's in his speedos. He's meditating to get himself
warm and prepare for something that he's going
to do. And what is he going to do? They cut a
hole in the ice while he's meditating. And then
a hundred yards, a hundred meters away, they
cut another hole in the ice. He jumps in this
hole, swims under the ice, and he comes out of
the other hole. he's going to have to find that
hole. Imagine this, you know, he's going to have
to find a hundred meters underwater. If he can't
find the hole, he dies, you know, because he
takes it on one single breath. Then he comes
out of there and now you would think he's freezing,
but then he sits on the ice in his Speedos and
he's meditating himself warm again. I mean, it's.
And I'm going to meet that guy today. I'm going
to give him the O2 trainer, actually, because
I think he really is going to enjoy it. Wow.
It sounds like Wim Hof. Wim Hof did a similar
thing. But I mean, obviously, I'm sure they're
very different. But I've seen Wim's, but Wim
almost didn't make it to the hole. He said his
retina froze up and he was basically blind under
the water and almost died doing it. But again,
he can sit there and, you know, control his immune
system, which is fascinating to me. And I hope
I can get him on one day. Wim Hof, man, he's
a crazy Dutch guy. I hear it all the time, you
know, and I love that guy. I mean, this is a
guy who put, they put him in ice and then he
can meditate his core temperature going up. It's
not even possible when you're packed in ice.
Yeah, the Iceman, unbelievable. It is. Well,
before we talk about the O2 trainer, very quickly,
being a fellow European, I'm from England originally.
Are there any things that you love about the
way life is in Holland, whether it's the way
the government does, healthcare, drugs, anything
like that, that you wish that we would do here
in the US? Healthcare is really good, yes, in
Holland. I think that would be a good thing to
do here. And for the rest, you know, for the
rest, I wouldn't say anything because the taxes
are so insanely high. The cars are so expensive.
The gas is so expensive. Everything is so expensive.
If you make over 100 ,000 euros in Holland, you're
going to have to pay 60 % taxes. That's a big
cut on the payday, you know. So for the rest,
I love the people interacting. I love the fact
that everybody goes hand in hand pretty much
together there. You know, when I came to America,
it was a culture shock to me, the black and white
thing. Because we don't have that in Holland.
Literally, we make black jokes and they make
white jokes and we do it where they are. That's
generally accepted. Everybody's laughing. They
are laughing with black jokes. We are laughing
when they crack white jokes. So when I came here
and I realized that's the complete opposite here,
I was like, whoa, that's pretty gnarly. So yeah,
I wish that people would get along a little easier
here in America and especially between... I think
that's a big problem. Yeah, I agree. I remember
observing the same thing, and I think the best
example to me is the South Park mentality. They
make fun of everyone on that show. You know what
I mean? So as long as everyone's laughing at
each other, then no one should get butt hurt
about it. But it's when people laugh until you
make fun of their group, and then they take exception
to it, then that changes everything. That's it.
Exactly it. We had really big laughs. when they
would crack a white joke and the other way around
like and we're all sitting together everybody's
having a really great time and there's no animosity
whatsoever not a hidden animosity like oh maybe
he's inside he's no it's simply not there so
yeah That was weird. Brilliant. Well, thank you.
I'm always intrigued about different perspectives,
being from out of the country myself, because
I think that we are a great country, as are many
others around the world. But I think one of the
most intelligent things any country can do is
look around the planet, see where other nations
are doing something better and going, oh, maybe
we should try that and bring it into ours. Yeah.
You know, we should. But unfortunately, people
are knuckleheads. They always go. With racism,
I think you're a dumb person if you're a racist.
That's what I always say. Something is missing
in the head. I don't see it. We're all skin and
blood. Let's just keep it like that. We're all
related, actually, also. So let it go, guys.
Amen to that. All right. Well, let's talk about
the O2 training then, because as we said before,
I had Dr. Bliss on the show. You know, the breathing
is very important to first responders in general
with our overall health and certainly with the
stress mitigation, you know, be able to stay
calm and stay in that zone. But for firefighters
specifically, we have that the air pack on our
back, you know, so we only have a finite amount
of air. So the more efficient we are with our
emotions and with our breathing, the higher chance
there is of us making a rescue or us actually
getting back out of the fire safely. So how did
you get into the study of breath? And then ultimately,
how did you develop the O2 trainer? Well, it
came from my weakness, from my asthma. When I
would restart my track and field after laying
in bed for eight days having an asthma attack,
then suddenly I would always break my running
times, also on the 1500 meters. And it blew –
I had no clue how that was possible. I blamed
it in the beginning to the medication. I thought
maybe it would open my lungs more, the heavy
medication I was taking in between. And then
I spent a lot of time at the doctor's. They teach
you how to breathe every month, go to breathing
classes and doing all that stuff. And I never
paid attention, but this time I paid attention
to a pair of lungs that was a drawing on the
wall in a poster. And it showed what a lung infection
was. And as a child, you think that a lung infection
is in your lungs, but it's not. It's in the bronchial
pipes, the airways that go toward the lungs.
And they showed on the poster, they showed an
infected air pipe and they showed an unhealthy
one next to each other. And that was it. I was
14 years old. I remember seeing that and I go,
oh, no, I got it. I've been working out my lungs
for eight days straight. I've been pulling air
in through an affected area. Very hard for me
to pull air in. So I made my breathing in part,
which I didn't know the word in spirit or training,
but I didn't know that at the time, my breathing
in. But it's now much stronger. And then when
the affection is gone, since it's stronger, I
can pull more air in. And that's why I can run
faster and better. So why don't I come up with
something that controls the air intake? That
was my thought. And I started experimenting.
Like, for instance, we would go on a holiday
to France. And in France, they had coins at the
time. This was before the euro. The French coins
had like holes in them. So I would put a coin
in front of my teeth and I would raise my lip
a little bit. And I tried to force to breathe
in through the little tiny hole. And then breathe
out, you know, through the rest, which is a very
hard thing because you're going to open your
mouth. And, you know, if that goes wrong and
you breathe the coin in and it goes in your lungs,
well, you're dead. There's nothing they can do.
So I go, man, I got to come up with something
that controls the air intake. That was always
in my head. And at every party where I went,
there's always somebody who talks about his invention.
Right. And then I said, well, I actually have
a good idea. So I would say we would call it
the routinizer. That was the first name for the
O2 trainer. And then. There was this time that
Wendell A. Silva, he was teaching the ultimate
fighter. And he was training those guys with
snorkels. Apparently, swimmers do that as well.
They breathe carbon dioxide also. They re -breathe
it, you know. So they're breathing through their
snorkel in and out, and they do it for certain
sessions. And that night, my phone went nuts.
My text went nuts. And we're all friends. We
said, hey, dude, that routinizer, you're going
to make that thing. You have to make that thing
because, look, it's not what you're doing. but
somebody's going to come up with it and somebody's
going to do it. So you better start doing it.
And I go, okay. So I started doing a pattern
search and I realized there was no pattern for
it. Everybody had a device that controlled the
air out with resistance and the air in with resistance.
But I knew that air out with resistance is wrong
because if you do that, you cannot really empty
your lungs. There's always, you know, especially
if you're struggling, you need air before you
can completely exhale. So there's always air
left in the lungs. That's what I thought. But
if you can completely empty your lungs, you can
use your entire inspiratory system to breathe
in again. So I start making it. I made a prototype.
I start training with a prototype. Three weeks
later, and this is crazy. I used my, I carried
my inhaler everywhere in my life where I went.
Every fight in the dressing room, I had to open
my lungs because it's exercise induced and every
asthma patient has this. If they take a sprint,
a 50 hour sprint, they will be good for about
two minutes and boom, the lungs are closing.
If you sneeze really violently, you have to sneeze
three times in a row, your lungs will close.
You have to open them up. So if you don't have
an inhaler with you when you travel, you know,
well, your lungs are closed now. It's going to
take a while, like an hour and a half to open
it up again. It's a nightmare. So I always get
needed to carry an inhaler with me. And that
was completely gone after three weeks. So I sent
it to my friend in Holland who also has asthma.
And he called me back in eight days. And he says,
dude, my asthma is gone. I want to sell them
in Europe. So he starts selling them in Europe.
Then we start training with it. And more people.
And now we got all these reviews from other people
saying, hey, my asthma is 90 % gone or it's completely
gone. I mean, everybody had the same thing. So
I thought, OK, if this is doing. If it works
like this for sick people, for sick lungs, what
is it going to do for healthy lungs? Now, you
just talked about Beliza Vranic, a world -renowned
breathing expert. And I met her the first time.
A friend of ours set us up in her office on Fifth
Avenue in New York. I was shooting a TV show
there. So I came by. And the first thing that
she did was taking a meter out. She was going
to measure. my chest. And then I had to breathe
in, and she was going to measure the difference
between it. And right away, I realized, okay,
because the more you can expand your chest, the
more air you can pull in your lungs, because
that's how your lungs work. A lot of people think
that your lungs breathe by itself. It's not.
It's your body doing it for you. There's a vacuum
between the lungs and the body. And if I expand
my chest, that's how you actually open your lungs.
So the more you can expand your chest, the more
air you can pull in your lungs. And she freaked
out. She's looking at me and she goes, nah, she
does it again. Do it again. And then she does
it again. She runs out the office and she comes
back with a doctor. And I go, what's going on?
I said, it's either really bad or really good,
right? And she goes, if I wouldn't bring this
doctor, he would never believe me. I said, what
do you mean? What's going on? And she said, well,
normally when a person walks in and we measure
and he breaks the record that they have there
on file. They break it with like a quarter inch
or less than a quarter inch. You just broke the
record with more than two inch. How is that possible?
And then we start talking about it and we realize
it's from the O2 trainer because you're breathing
in with resistance. You're doing breathing exercises
with it. And what happens is you're using the
outside muscles of your body to do that, muscles
that you never use. Because you never breathe
like that. But you feel it. If you do four minutes
with my O2 trainer, it takes only four minutes
a day. Well, actually, I do it in three minutes
and 20 seconds now. You do 30 repetitions in
the morning, and that's it. That's the only thing
you need to do. And it cures you from your asthma.
It gives you bigger lungs. And it makes your
chest expand more so you can pull more air in
there. So once we realized that, I go, oh, now
we got some gold going here. So then there was
this really bad review over in the competition.
There's a competition. I won't mention his name,
but there's a competition of mine that somebody
wrote a really bad review about. And my manager
called me and he says, hey, did you read the
review? I said, about what? Yeah, about that
product. I said, no, I didn't read it, but I
can tell you it's bad, right, the review. And
he said, how do you know? I said, because it's
stupid to breathe, to control the air in and
out with resistance. It's just not right. I said,
do me a favor. Find that guy who wrote it, because
obviously he's a scientist, and tell him I want
to send him an O2 trainer. Manager goes, are
you sure you want to do that? I mean, what if
it's a bad result? I go, dude, we're curing asthma
right now. What do you think? It's going to be
fine. Trust me. So he calls the guy. The guy
picks up. And he says, hey, I'm representing
Bas Rutten. And the guy said, oh, the OT trainer.
We're already using that. First thing he said.
Now, this guy trades Usain Bolt, three other
gold medalists from the last Olympics in Brazil,
and a silver medalist. And he came to me. I used
to train with my O2 trainer. He says, no, you
don't need to do that. What Usain Bolt is doing,
he's just doing breathing exercises in the morning.
You do 30 repetitions. That's it. He says, no,
if you have a competition going, if you're six
weeks out, you have to do it twice a day. If
you do it twice a day, after doing that for six
weeks, you can maintain this by doing it once
a day. You take care of all the lactic acid in
your core. And I go, what does that do? He says,
well, that's the reason people get tired, boss.
You know, especially in martial arts, you know,
when you get hit in the gut a few times or when
you do sprawl a few times, you're working your
core muscles. Well, your core muscles start pumping
up with lactic acid. Right. And they get tight
and they get thicker. Well, they don't only go
thicker to the front. They also go thicker to
the back inside the body. So now it means that
inside your body, your lungs, they have a smaller
compartment to breathe because the muscles are
closing in, so to say. He says, if you do this
to six weeks, two times a day. You'll take care
of that problem. They don't blow up anymore.
He says, boss, that is the biggest thing in any,
how you say it, endurance sport that people,
because if you start breathing really heavy and
really fast, you also start contracting your
core muscles, of course, because you're breathing
with your core. They start filling up with lactic
acid. Once that lactic acid is gone, well, you
can use EPO. That won't have an effect as much
as you're doing this with the auto trainer. So
now suddenly I had this crazy guy with a hundred
and I think it's 158 IQ. I mean, he's got a higher
IQ than Einstein had, I believe. And who's training
all these elite athletes who was doing inspiratory
training. I go, but this is a match made in heaven.
He had 12 medical published medical journals
to back every data up. So now I got all these
medical journals suddenly that are backing up
everything that I've been saying for the last
six years. So that was a match made in heaven.
And now people start realizing it. They start
doing it. Like on my websites, I have 100 % success
with asthma, for instance. Can I medically claim
it? No, I cannot do that yet because I'm talking
now to a guy from the FDA. I want to make it
into a medical device since it helps everybody.
And he builds these pulmonology machines where
they can breathe how much people. can pull in,
pull out, you know, they measure the lungs, they
measure everything. And what he's going to do
now, when he delivers a big machine like that
to like a hospital, he's going to give them a
few boxes of O2 trainers, which they're going
to give them to their patients. They first going
to test them before they use the O2 trainer.
And then four weeks later, they're going to retest
them again. And I'm knowing 100%, I'm not hoping,
I know 100%, those results are going to be freaky.
So once I have that, Then I'm going to have medical
science backing up my asthma claim. And if that
happens, yeah, then I hope it becomes a medical
device. And then we can cure people without any
medication. That is incredible. Firstly, my little
boy has had asthma and eczema since he was an
infant. And nothing seemed to be working. And
then recently, I actually started taking CBD.
and gave him CBD every day, that has had a big
effect. But even so, I mean, like you said, there's
years of that weak respiratory system because
of the asthma that he's always had and always
afraid to laugh, you know, to run too fast. So
I'm intrigued to try it for my son and myself
because, I mean, for me, I've never had an issue,
but, you know, it's the performance. Like, how
much more efficient can I be as an athlete as
well? But everything that you're saying... makes
perfect sense i know that you know i'm sure you're
more than aware of this there's devices out there
that have been labeled as altitude training i
saw someone just the other day post they were
doing that i'm like unless you're standing in
colorado on the top of the ski slope it's probably
not altitude training but but the exploration
versus inspiration resistance to me Makes perfect
sense. We're trying to use all those breathing
muscles to create that strong vacuum so we can
draw that air in. And then after that, it doesn't
make sense to have a huge resistance to push
the air out. Wow. So first of all, how old is
your son? He's 11. So is the eczema bad as well?
I had to get into... bandages every single night.
My hands were really bad everywhere. If I would
make a fist, it would burst and crap would come
out. It was really disgusting. I hope he doesn't
have it like that. It's not that severe, no.
And even his bronchospasms, his wheezing, it
was... it wouldn't be too much to calm it back
down again so he never didn't have to have the
the daily steroid treatment thank god but the
steroid cream definitely would work on his eczema
but it would be easily triggered so if you lay
on one of those styrofoam like body boards surfboards
he'd come back and his whole chest would be covered
you know so so a small uh insult to the body
would cause either wheezing or eczema and i hear
a dog at your uh at your place does he have a
problem with the dog petting the dog and then
it fires his eczema up or his asthma Um, it doesn't
make it worse. No, it's a German shepherd. Um,
but he's, he's, I know dairy was a big trigger
for him. So I think it's more of a food -based
allergy. Yeah. Dairy and, and, and, uh, pork
meat also watch out for that as well. Any eggs,
my whole house or our whole house was all plastic
curtains. There was no, you know, the floors
were wood or stone. There's no carpets, no nothing,
you know, and, and dogs. I had like, I would
be in a room with a dog for 15 minutes. And then
I would, the next day, ask my tech for eight
days. Immediately would find it. If I would pet
a dog and then I would, like, scratch me, that's
it. The whole eczema would start flaring up.
So with me, with animals, it was a big thing.
That's why I asked. Yeah. Now, were you raised
with animals since you were a baby? Or were there
no animals in the house, so then they triggered
you when you saw them? Yeah, no animals in the
house whatsoever. But, you know, that's how you
can see I loved animals because my favorite uncle
and – Aunt, they had these two little dachshunds,
like long hair. They were Afke and Bauke. They
were the names, and I loved those dogs. And I
always wanted to sleep there, but I knew that
I could only sleep one night there, you know,
and play with the dogs. And then the next day,
it was eight days in bed with an asthma attack.
But I still wanted to do it because I really
liked those dogs. But at home, no, we didn't
ever have it. I had birds, like crows and stuff
like that, but they were sitting outside, of
course. Right. Yeah. And it's heartbreaking.
Like you said, seeing a child that's not able
to be around an animal or, you know, can't play
for too long because they'll start wheezing.
You know, it's really horrible to see. So the
fact that this is one of the tools to help that
is incredible. So I'm going to get one for myself.
It sounds absolutely amazing. Yeah, you're just,
you live in California now, right? In Florida.
Florida. I'll send you one. So just send me an
address. And I'll get you one. Oh, that's incredible.
Thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Well,
let's talk about how other people can. So people
listening right now, I'm sure they are intrigued
as well. How can they get hold of one of these?
O2trainer .com, you know, and otherwise just
Google O2 Trainer. And just go there and then
you will see on the front page, there are some
tests out there also, some published medical
journals I put there on as well. You will see
the breathing exercise. It's a weird way to breathe.
Like you have to breathe out while you lean over
and you sit on a chair and you breathe completely
out. You press the motor trainer against your
mouth and then you inhale with explosive power.
And you try to time it at the end of your breathing
in part, so to say. It's exactly when you're
sitting up straight. So it takes a little bit
of work in the beginning so you can time it.
But once you time it perfectly and really focus,
at the moment you go upwards, you have to press
your belly out. You have to really breathe through
your core. And once you start focusing on that,
you realize also that you're helping a lot of
people. I don't know if you know, but it's like
I would say. At least 70 % of the people have
no clue how to breathe. If you tell them to take
a deep breath, they raise their shoulders, right?
That's completely wrong. That's the worst thing
you can do. So if you have problems with running
and with that, well, that's the reason you breathe
the wrong way. Now, the O2 trainer, when you
do breathing exercises with it, well, guess what?
You cannot pull the air in by raising your shoulders.
You're going to be forced to use your core. So
I had this review from a guy from SWAT. And he
wrote a review and he said, I was training with
the O2 trainer the day before. The next day,
I'm running without the O2 trainer and I just
blasted my own record away. And he says, I know
this doesn't make any sense because I just trained
one time with the O2 trainer. He said, but then
I realized I was breathing wrong. The O2 trainer
actually sparked me to breathe through my core.
And that's when he ran the next day. He just
destroyed his old time by just breathing the
correct way. That's another great thing that
comes with the yoga trainer. It will teach you
how to breathe the correct way unknowingly. You
just pull the air in and you will automatically
be taught how to breathe. Yeah. And I tell you,
I've found this with the few things that I found
work really well is that they're always so simple
and they always work very, very quickly. And
you mentioned about the scientific proof of asthma
is we're so set on science. And I get that from
a safety point of view from certain areas. But
it's also frustrating when you see like, you
know, some things that they work and you see
they're working with pretty much everyone, but
they still have to go down this route of, well,
you need to prove it in a lab and double blind
studies and this and that. It's like, okay, well,
you can go down that route. But in the meantime,
I'm going to use this because I know it works.
That's it. You know, it's 50 bucks. You can't
go wrong with it. And it will help. Just read
the reviews. We had like 120 reviews we started
with, and people were freaking out. The sax player
from the Eagles even commented, longer, stronger
notes. I mean, we had things, SAS, the Special
Air Force Service, that's the only team I never
trained. Not the only, I didn't train the Mossad
either. But I mean, I was always very intrigued
with the SAS because these guys are such badasses.
And I had a freaking... review from an SAS guy.
And I was so happy to have their review that
it helped for them as well. Fantastic. Yeah,
you reminded me of something else as well. We,
I don't know if this is law enforcement as well,
but certainly fire, we do a spirometry test every
year as part of our medical where you're doing
that fast exhale, and they're measuring your
lung capacity. So being able to do well on that
is also preserving, you know, the ability to
do your job, because I'm sure if you constantly
aren't able to do that anymore that's going to
affect your ability to to stay as a frontline
firefighter oh man i can't wait till you do the
test again after trading a month with this thing
yeah well i did it not just a few months ago
and i'm due to redo it so i will absolutely let
you know you know what it looks like hopefully
the i'll use the same company so they'll have
last year's records as well and we'll compare
them side by side So this is what happened with
me. I was in Hawaii in May last year, and I said
to my wife, you know what? I'm going to make
a special Facebook. It's like an O2 bootcamp.
It's a private Facebook. You can apply. You can
send a request, and then I'll check you out,
and I'll okay you. And all these people who bought
O2 trainers are on there, like 2 ,500 people
now on there. Oh, gee, what did I want to say?
Oh, yeah. So I started with screen 11. All these
screens, they start with number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, and it decreases the size hole. So the higher
the number, the harder it is to pull air, the
more resistance you have. And I went screen 11,
and I did that for eight months. Now, I remember
I did my 30 repetitions. I timed it. And I did
my 30 repetitions in 3 minutes and 55 seconds.
That was in May. Three weeks ago or two weeks
ago, I decided, you know what, I should time
it again to see where I am because if I go into
three minutes, I should go to number 12. I did
it in two minutes and 45 seconds, like a minute
and 10 seconds faster than I did before. I go,
whoa, that is a huge difference. So then you
can see how much stronger your inspiratory system
became. Now I went to screen 12. which I already
do in three minutes and 20 seconds. Also way
faster with a higher number screen than I started
with the 11. So that's a great way for you to
do your 30 repetitions, time it, see how long
it takes to do the 30 repetitions. And then a
month later, you time it again. And then you
will find out that you decreased your time tremendously.
And that means your inspiratory system is much
stronger now. Yeah, well, I'm so excited. I can't
wait to try it. So thank you so much for that.
So I'm going to transition to some closing questions
so we can let you go. You've been so generous
with your time already. The first question I
always like to ask people, is there a book that
you love to recommend to people? It could be
about what we've discussed or something completely
different. Two books really hit me. One book
is The Alchemist from Paulo Coelho. That's a
book that people should really look into it.
I just told my buddy Chris Weidman to because
he's going to go to Prague today, I believe,
for the UFC. I told him, get that book, dude.
You read it in four hours. It's a book about
a sheep's herder that goes to find his personal
legend. You go, what is this? Is this the book
boss was talking about? This is just a story.
But once you start reading the story, this guy
found these amazing ways to retrain your mind
and to start paying attention to things. It's
a book that is translated. Next to the Bible,
the most translated book in the world. Over 70
million copies they sold. So there's a reason
for that. And I highly suggest everybody to read
that book. And then Matthew McConaughey, he was
talking on The Actor's Studio, the show here,
right, where they interview him. And I'm always
been a big fan of him, of his. And he was talking
about The Greatest Salesman in the World, The
World's Greatest Salesman, actually, by Oak Mundino,
I believe it is. And that book – but it takes
you 10 months to read. And it's not a thick book.
It's a thin book actually. But what happens is
this is a guy who's the greatest salesman in
the world and he needs an apprentice because
he's getting older and he's looking for this
young kid that he thinks could be the next greatest
salesman in the world. And he finds this one
kid and he gives him these scrolls and he gives
him 10 scrolls. And those 10 scrolls, he has
to start with scroll number one. He has to read
it in the morning. It takes about five minutes
to read. And then in the middle of the day, you
find another spot where you maybe before or after
lunch, whatever you do, but a quiet spot, you
read it again. And then just before you go to
sleep, the last thing you do, you read it again.
So three times a day, you read it for about four
or five minutes. That's what it takes. But you
do that for 30 days straight. And what I realized
real soon, that was that within 15, 20 days,
you memorize the whole thing. You know, you don't
even have to look anymore. You pretty much, it's
locked into your mind. So it retrains your brain.
It's like, for instance, episode, I don't know,
scroll one and more, but it goes about habits.
Habits is a big thing with me. Habits, training
habits, bad habits, good habits, everything in
fighting, everything in life is about habits.
And all the things that he says, you know, well,
a bunch of them, but you don't, you don't, you
preach them, but you don't do them. You realize,
wait a minute. Yeah, I know this, but I never
do this. Once you start retraining your mind
for 30 days, then you go to the next scroll.
You read the next few pages of the book, and
then you wrap the book up after 10 months when
you're done. But now you've got a world of knowledge
in your mind because you just rewired your mind
three times a day for a month straight on every
subject. It's a really cool book, and it worked
really well for me. Excellent. I don't think
I've had either of those two recommended. So
I will definitely put them on my list. And I'm
interested to see how they play out in my mind
too. Because that monkey brain, I think we're
all, like you're saying, with the 90 -day detox,
I think there's so much white noise out there.
And I think it takes an act of, what's the right
word? I'm blanking on the word now. But anyway,
it takes effort to... create that discipline.
That's the word I'm looking for. It takes discipline
to actually create those good habits again because
there's so many distractions out there. Listen,
we were talking about Exodus 90. That's what
they call it. I'm a very devout Catholic. I spend
a lot of time on that stuff. Exodus 90 is when
they went to the desert. Exodus is when they
left the Pharaoh, Egypt, and when the Israelis
got free. When you read, you read a part of that
story, so it follows you on that story. But then
the things you cannot do, because a lot of these
things, what you already mentioned, we are addicted
to a lot of stuff that we don't know of. You
know, like TV, movies, sports, anything you have.
So what this is, it will detach you from everything.
So I give you a list here. I just looked it up.
I got it on my phone. Okay, it starts like this.
You take short, cold showers. So you can't shower
warm for 90 days. You practice regular intense
exercise. I checked that. That's an easy full
night's sleep. That's an easy one too. Abstain
from alcohol. Abstain from desserts and sweets.
Abstain from eating between meals. Abstain from
soda or sweet drinks. Only white milk or unsweetened
tea are permissible. Abstain from television,
movies, or televised sports. Abstain from video
games. Abstain from non -essential material purchases.
Only listen to music that lives the soul. Only
use the computer for work, school or essential
tasks like paying bills, stuff like that. Only
use mobile devices for essential communications.
So non -essential texting, app and internet use
is prohibited. And then you have two fasting
days as well on Wednesday and Fridays. But that's
where you eat no meat and where you have. One
big meal and then the other two meals they have,
they cannot be larger than that one meal together.
But doing all these things, and we're in day
20 right now. We're doing this with a group of
guys, with 10 other guys. You create so much
space. It is so crazy because now all the time
that I would sit in front of the TV or like I
just did this. I would say, oh, let's watch a
movie. I go back to my computer. I stop preparing
for a show. And then I do that for two and a
half hours. I watch a 30 -minute TV show, whatever.
I go back to the computer. But every time, you
know, the TV is in between. Now suddenly that's
cut out. So what do I do now? Oh, now I'm going
to have to read. Okay, so what do I want to read?
Oh, I always want to know a thing about this
or about that. Well, those are the books I'm
reading right now. You see, so you're freeing
up so much time. You're detaching from all the
stupid likes and all the watching the videos
and surfing the internet and looking at stupid
stuff. Suddenly you have a lot of free time.
And you go, man, I should have done this. Way
before. We all are saying this already. And trust
me, we're already only 20 days in. So we got
still 70 days to go. It's a lot. But everybody
is already seeing the fruits of it. And it's
so much more openness. Like memorizing. I memorize
every day to train my mind. I take this certain
piece that I do. I memorize every day. I remember
a large part of text. Normally it would take
20 minutes. Now it's like literally. six seven
minutes boom i got it locked in i go wow how
is that even possible but it's because you're
creating so much freestyle time in your in your
head right now that you you know you're unloading
all the unnecessary stuff your your mind works
much better so we're all loving it right now
i can only wait what is going to do in 90 days
and i truly believe that a lot of us will just
keep on going i don't think a lot of things I
will put back anymore. Yeah, sure. You'll see
me post a picture or a photo about work like
McGregor was in our gym. That's a job thing for
me because I'm still working in mixed martial
arts. I still work. So I'm allowed to do that
or putting up a training video. I can do that
as well. But all the other posts for the last
three weeks, you haven't seen me do anymore because
I have way more free time right now. Yeah, that
sounds like a brilliant idea. It really does.
And I'm interested to hear what happens at day
90 if you do carry on pushing through. Because
I know that, as we talked before, alcohol is
one I've struggled to take in and out. And every
time I have the first drink after whatever time,
there's that little voice in my head saying,
well, why did we even do that? It's just that
habit and being weak and allowing that poor habit
to drop back in. Yeah, the worst part is when
people, they come to me and these are the heavy
drinkers. And they go, yeah, but how do you have
fun, boss? I say, oh, man, how do I have fun
without alcohol? Yeah, I feel so sad for you.
And they go, what do you mean? I said, your whole,
when you grew up as a kid, you had a horrible
life, right? And he goes, no, I didn't have a
horrible life. Oh, so you started drinking when
you were four years old? And he goes, no. I said,
oh, well, wait a minute. But you just said that
how can I have pleasure without alcohol? Your
whole childhood, you had a great childhood, right?
Well, you didn't drink. So you just make yourself,
you're telling yourself that you only can have
fun with drinking. It's just your mind doing
that. You have way more fun without the drinking.
And trust me, the next day. Even way more because
now you're walking – now I wake up early every
day anyway. Like 5 .15 I wake up because I like
to do a lot of stuff. But if I have to travel
now, when I walk to an airport at 6 a .m. in
the morning, I go, dude, that's quite a difference
from 10 years ago when I was a heavy drinker.
Now I don't have anything. I'm feeling great.
It is so much. But that's the problem with people.
They literally think that alcohol is the reason
they have fun. And they go, dude, it's a very
sad thing what you just said. because it's not
like that they blame it on the alcohol or blame
it on the drugs that they're having fun it's
uh it's pretty pathetic yeah yeah no it is and
i think we just find ourselves slipping in that
way and it takes a fast or you know or some god
-awful tragedy to make you go wait a second you
know i used to be like you said you know drink
once once a week even but now here i am you know
habitually drinking and you know how did i get
to this point so yeah great great stuff to take
away from that as well uh well you mentioned
you know not watching tv at the moment but when
when you do or when you did what was your favorite
movie and or documentary that you loved um you
know one of the i think one of the funniest comedies
on the That's a movie that still gets me if I
say that. Super hilarious. And then on TV, you
know, I have a SEAL team. That's a thing that
I do with my wife, which I'm allowed on Sunday
if I want, but they just canceled the show. Not
canceled the show. They're on break. So because
otherwise I told her, I said, listen, yeah, I
cannot watch TV with you anymore, but we can
do it on Sunday. We record it, and then we watch
a show on Sunday. On Sunday, I can have one thing.
From that whole list that I say, okay, if I want
to have a glass of wine or something, then I
can do that on Sunday. Or if I say, okay, I want
to watch one show on TV, I can do that on Sunday.
So SEAL Team, I like that show. I like America's
Got Talent, believe it or not. I think it's one
of the coolest shows to see people do things
that just blows your mind. I always start – it's
really weird. I'm not crying, but my right eye
always starts leaking. My wife looks at me. I
say, I'm not crying. Trust me. It's when I see
talent like that, it gets me. It really gets
to me. The things that I could never do. And
there's a lot of people who can do so many crazy
stuff. And then, yeah, my wife doesn't like this
show, but I like The Walking Dead. I fear The
Walking Dead. I started binge watching that in
the beginning when I was shooting the movie Mall
Cop because I had a lot of free time. And that's
when I watched the first episode of Walking Dead
and that pulled me in. And now the whole season
now, of course, I'm everywhere. And everybody
goes, yeah, but it's about zombies. It's not
about zombies. It's about what people are going
to do when the world goes down the drain. And
that's some pretty gnarly stuff, you know, and
it's pretty interesting to see how people can
change, become murderers, become whatever they
become. And who steps up and who becomes a hero.
And that's what that show is about. And once
you're in it, it's very hard to let go. And especially
also Fear the Walking Dead. Shows like that I
like a lot. Brilliant. And then what about a
documentary? Are there any documentaries you've
seen that you've loved? You know, the last documentary
I watched, what was it? It was about DMT, the
spirit molecule. I don't know if you ever did
a DMT. It's the most. psychoactive drug there
is. Teachers, Harvard professors, they truly
believe it's not, you're literally connected
to a parallel universe. It's like, I mean, as
soon as you inhale it, it's a smoke thing that
you do. There's no side effects, no nothing.
You know, you can do your homework. I mean, scientists,
I mean, this has been so much well documented.
As soon as you close your eyes, it's like you
opened your eyes on the other side. And it's
boom. And it's an experience that you cannot,
like I came home and I told my wife four days
in a row, she said, you got to stop talking now
about it. Because you can give yourself an assignment.
For instance, I wanted to talk to God. I wanted
to see how he's able to control everything here
on the planet and do it. It took me to the side.
Okay, the first time. I said, okay, I want to
talk to God. So I'm shooting away from Earth.
As soon as I close my eyes, I see the Earth going
slow, smaller, smaller, smaller. Now I'm in space.
And I'm in space and I'm flying. I go, okay,
let's see if I can go warp speed. And I go forth.
And by the way, this is five minutes. It looks
like it's 30 minutes, but it's literally four
or five minutes. So it's not a thing. If you
don't like it, you open your eyes, you're out
of it. So it's nothing crazy. Joe Rogan actually
talked a lot about it, and that's how he got
me inspired. So I tried it, and then I shot up
into heaven. I'm flying warp speed, and suddenly
I stop, and there's this giant black hole, right?
And I see things going in there, buses and trees.
It's really weird to go in there, but something
tells me that I have to go in there. Somehow
I have to go in there. So at the moment I wanted
to fly over to go in that wormhole, suddenly
somebody in the room touched my leg, and I snapped
out of it. So immediately, if you're distracted,
boom, you're out of it. And I couldn't go back
anymore. And I go, oh, man, I really want to
because I had to go in there. There was a reason
why I had to go in there. And I wanted to know.
Anyway, I come home and I figured, you know,
I'm going to Google about DMT. And I'm seeing
this link that pops up at the top. And it says
that this professor at Harvard or whatever it
was, he wrote a thing about it that you connect
to a parallel universe. So I click on it. And
boom, my mind was blown. You saw the earth. And
then you saw a parallel universe. And guess what
was in between? It was a wormhole. And I go,
no way. I freaking saw that wormhole. Now, if
I would have known this before I did it, I can
understand I thought it. But I literally saw
what he was talking about. So everybody apparently
sees the same things. And there's a reason that
we see the same thing. So I watched the documentary.
Joe Rogan is in the documentary, The Spirit Molecule.
And it's pretty freaking interesting. Brilliant.
I have to watch that. I haven't done DMT specifically,
but I had a gentleman on the show who uses a
part of what's in ecstasy and psilocybin for
psychotherapy. So you go into the office, you
have the same experience you were talking about,
but they're also leading you through psychotherapy.
So people that do have PTSD and some of these
other issues, they're able to get them to actually...
You know, I think everything is there. You know,
if you believe that this is just it, this life,
and then after we're all dead and nothing happens,
I think you're the dumb person. Like every scientist
says, oh, we came from one cell and then everything
came from the one cell. I say, well, you got
to admit that's a very intelligent cell then,
right? And if we talk intelligence, well, then
we're back to God again. So there is way more
going on. I truly believe this life is just our
test. And if we do this test right, we're going
up there. There's a spirit world out there. We
all know this. I had a spirit in my house. I
had a ghost attacking me. I saw a curtain flying
up against the ceiling that hang in front of
a window or in front of a door instead of a door
in the doorpost. And I thought somebody was in
the house. I was I was trying to trick that person
because I was a third person I thought was in
the house. So I acted like I was walking one
way and suddenly I made a U -turn. I start sprinting.
And what do you know? When I went to this one
room where the curtain hang, the curtain flew
up against the ceiling. So somebody just ran
through it. Right. So it was acknowledged somebody
was in the house. Yet there was nobody in the
house. And yes, all doors were closed. There
was no freaking storm, a storm going on outside
that could blow the curtain up. It was the wildest
thing. I've also been attacked by a ghost also
five, at least six times, I think. very scary
thing in my bed while I was asleep and every
time I you know when I came out I challenged
it I said do it again now you know every time
you're doing it but I don't expect it but I would
like you to try this one more time you know and
then of course it would never happen again until
I got sick of it and I just challenged it at
the spot where the curtain flew up that was always
cold there And we realized there was a woman
in the house that passed away, the previous owner.
And my kids, they could describe exactly what
she looked like. Everybody saw her. She wasn't
affecting anybody, but she was attacking me.
Now, looking back on this, I was a heavy drinker
at the time. And I'm a happy drunk, man. With
us, if I'm drunk, the music is on, there's a
party in the house, we're dancing. But, you know,
being a stupid dancer and going through the house
is still not being a good father or husband,
you know. So I had to stop that. And I think
that she didn't like me to drink at the time.
I think that's why she was attacking me. But
it was a very scary experience. And that all
led up to me jumping back into the faith and
realizing where we all came from. Wow. Yeah.
I mean, like you said, it is very hard to fathom
that we just came out of absolutely nothing at
all. And I'm of a spiritual side as well. I think
that evolution and some of those things most
likely did happen. But then again, you know.
something was created initially so yeah and i
think it's kind of arrogant for us to think that
we're the only life form in this whole universe
and there's nothing after this so but i mean
it's everyone's personal journey but i'm looking
forward i think i'm going to try dmt one day
there's no doubt in my mind and try and have
that experience and try to learn more about my
my uh inner space as they say Get ready for it,
man. I'll have the O2 trainer in my mouth so
I don't hyperventilate. All right. So then one
of the last ones, is there a person that you
would recommend to come on this podcast to talk
to the first responders and military of the world?
No, I don't. Like a Nick Newell, you know, like
that kind of guy I was just talking about with
a congenital amputee and then doing things like
he did. That's always a perfect story. And for
the rest, yeah, who would I – it doesn't pop
up on top of my head. But if something pops up
in a little bit, I will definitely let you know.
Brilliant. All right. So then the very last thing
we'll talk about before we talk about where we
can find you, if you want to reach out, we'll
see you on social media. What do you do to decompress?
What's your outlet these days? Well, that's,
you know, that's my praying. That's my meditation.
That's my relaxation. That's how I start in the
morning. Like, I mean, listen, when I get you
like 10 o 'clock, let's say our interview started.
I did all my prayers. I already did the mass.
I already did half an hour meditation. I already
went hiking on a hill, and now it's only 10 o
'clock in the morning. I did everything I wanted
to do. Another time, when I don't hike, I work
out. So then at 10 o 'clock, that's when I turn
on my social media. That's when I turn on my
phone. I'm completely cut off before that because
there's nothing that can happen. If somebody
died, well, he's dead. He's not going to be alive.
In an hour, he's still dead, so don't worry about
that. Completely. And I used to do that already
before the 90 days. Trust me, I always did that,
especially the last two or three years, because
it gives me an enormous peace of mind. And I
really got into meditation. I also before I never
did, which was weird because you would think.
But now with the Exodus 90, you have to do it.
And it starts with 20 minutes, but I'm already
up to half an hour. I think this morning, actually,
I did 40 minutes because I'm really enjoying
it. It's like things that. you don't like about
yourself, you start working on that in your mind
and how you can solve it. And once you shoot
into that, the answers come, man, left and right,
and it's so cool. And then you know how to deal.
Oh, you get aggravated if somebody cuts you off.
Well, you can actually meditate on that and prepare
yourself for that and running scenarios through
your head and once slowly but surely. And then
suddenly when you're on the freeway and somebody
dies, you go like, wow, that was weird. And then
you get angry, you know, and it's because you
were meditating. So I'm just in the early stages,
just 20 days been doing it. But I think that's
going to be easy an hour for me a day now and
maybe even longer at night because it's a better
I'm reading or doing something. I might as well
meditate another half an hour because you can
fix a lot of stuff in meditation. So, yeah, that's
an unloading for me right now. Brilliant. All
right. So the very last thing then, where can
people reach out to you and find not only the
O2 trainer, but anything else that you've got
out there at the moment? Oh, well, Facebook,
Bas Rutten. So it's facebook .com forward slash
Bas Rutten. And then on Instagram and Twitter,
it's Bas Rutten MMA. But like I said, next 70
days, you won't see a lot from me because I'm
not on it. And for the last three weeks also.
But sometimes, you know, I will post a thing
that is job related. And if I see a question
there from somebody that really urges, you know,
that he wants me to give an answer, I will, of
course, do that. And that's about it. So I'm
not big on the social media right now, but it's
coming back. Perfect. All right. Well, I just
want to say thank you. I mean, the path you've
led us through from your early childhood to the
O2 trainer and all the other kind of tangents
that we've been on has been an incredible interview.
And I just really thank you for being so generous
with your time and talking to the audience. You're
very welcome. I had a great time myself as well.