B (4:54)

So. Hey, Stew, I got a question on that. So we a little bit different backgrounds coming through the army between us both somehow end up at the same place. Awesome. From a culture standpoint, being third group and you growing up and kind of getting into Jiu jitsu the way you did, how. How did that culture impact you? And how was it, you know, coming into the lines and the MACP coming from that angle? And how have you seen that progressed from just a martial art warrior ethos, culture, background? Because, I mean, you came at the beginning when like Matt Larson and Troy.

C (5:23)

That's right.

B (5:24)

Created that. Well, that's a whole different time I came in.

C (5:26)

So, yeah, I don't. I remember Matt. He wouldn't. Matt Larson wouldn't know me from Adam. I was just another Q course. I mean, not Q course, a Captain's career course. Student time.

B (5:33)

Matt Larson legend, by the way.

C (5:34)

That's when he was getting started. It was literally the colonel, the brigade commander at Fort Benning at the time was. It was in 06. I think he ended up becoming a. His name was Mike Ferriter. He was also in the range regiment. He was a 375 commander. He ended up. I think he's one of the DCGs for the 82nd. Anyways, he was big into Gracie Jiu Jitsu, and he was the guy who, I think, who really drove it home at the Captain's Career course at the time. Then Matt Larson, I want to say, might have been an E7 or something like that. Those guys wouldn't remember me from Adam again. I was just another face in the crowd. But that's where I got my first exposure. So then I came to fast forward at PCs. I going through the Q course, and it was part of the Q course, the SF Q course curriculum at the time. But it was. It was the lines training, which was taught by Ron. Don Vito. Right. Don Vito and his son Mike actually had a curriculum. And for what it's worth, I thought it was pretty good. It was based on. I'm going to butcher it all here. But it was a pretty simple system. And I think the thing that was good about it was it was simple, it was efficient, and was one of those things like once you taught. Once you learned the fundamental techniques and movements, it was something that you could. The idea was within about five minutes, you could just make it a habit and a routine. And if you got these Movements down, you practice about five minutes a day. You could stay sharp in your toolkit, right? But I also thought it was important. Like it's in the song, right? If you listen to the ballad of the Green Berets, trained to live off nature's land, okay, Search school, trained in combat, hand to hand. I personally believe that hand to hand combatives, whatever form it is, that's an important part of a warriors and. Or you know, let's say, you know, a commando's toolkit has got to be hand to hand. It's in the song. So we should be doing something like that. And over time, what I've seen is it's dependent on personalities in various leadership positions. The emphasis on that kind of ebbs and flows for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's important to certain commanders, they want to put that in the pipeline or whatever. Other times it comes in for a variety of reasons. It gets filtered out Me, for what it's worth, I think it's important again. When I was in third group at the time though, there wasn't that much of a. Of a cultural emphasis on it. So oftentimes it depended on like let's say the team sergeant of that team. If combatives was important to that team sergeant, that then that team tended to do combatives. But there was certainly not, at least in my time there, a either the battalion or the group level much of an emphasis. I do think that's changed, at least from what I've seen, because third group does now have a, as we know, has a pretty well established combatives program in their advanced skills company. And we're friends with a lot of those guys and there's a great crew that turns out there to train just about every day. So that's definitely a net positive. I think that I've seen change, but this has kind of been my observation over time.

B (8:16)

That's a great rundown. I just want to ask you about the culture that you're coming from, third group and stuff like that, because you said they have amazing program over there now. And I think you look back to like Tim and Andy that started it. Now you got Jason.

C (8:27)

That's Tim Welcher. Yeah. And Andy Spann. Those are some, some guys who've been in third group for will know those names. But yeah, Tim I think was one of the guys, right, who probably really stood the. Put an emphasis on combatives in their, in their asc. And that's carried on now through, through Andy and who's over this? Paul.

B (8:43)

Jason, Paul and Brad. Or Brad Johnson are there. So Jason, remember, the names aren't.

A (8:48)

But so throughout swcc, we have people just starting their careers, going through the pipelines. We also have people who are very advanced who may be in the twilight years of their careers. What do you guys think is important of training at those different stages in your career? How have you seen training be important in your careers as you guys have developed and gone through?

B (9:12)

As far as training overall, my gravitate towards the twilight of my career in my late 40s and whatnot. But I think guys nowadays are just so much smarter. There's so. They've got so many tools to their advantage now. Comparative to like when we, when I came in and students, you know, older, the gray beards around here, I mean, you know, still back in the old, like 90s lifting modalities, you know, you just, you just beat the muscle until it gets stronger, right? And you know, that at work for a while, same thing, same line, along with combatives, you know, just beat on each other and just get better. Now we're all sitting on nursing injuries later in life, right? But when you start looking at these guys now, just the modalities and methodologies they train with nowadays, they grew up in that, in that type of fitness culture. And I think a lot of that goes towards like Thor. I think Thor is one of the greatest programs ever devised for like that just at 10 level, maintaining the weapon system. To me, the weapon system, I'll probably drive this home quite a bit. When it comes like combatives, the weapon system is the person, if that person's broke, they can't fire a weapon. They're not even able to get to the point to fire a weapon if they need them to, right? So I think just from like the training aspects and everybody's getting smarter, rest is getting smarter, rehab's getting more, you know, invasive. So I mean, just stuff like that, I think just training's a lot more cerebral nowadays. The recuperation's considered a lot more. And we're putting our. I think we're putting our equities in the right places as far as taking care of the soldier system, the weapon system that we look at.

C (10:50)

So this is why I value training in jiu jitsu, specifically because I mentioned earlier that if there's, you know, one thing, if I wish I would have started and gotten bit by the bug, so to speak, earlier, because it, I wasn't, you know, I want to say I was like maybe 38 years old, right? I'm 49 now. I'll be 50 in October. But 2012, when I really started in earnest, I was already again, 38 years old. You know, but here's, here's. So here's what I'd say. I mean, I already had some good life experience at this point. Six combat deployments, this, that. And the thing once you start doing Jiu jitsu specifically, I think it becomes a metaphor for so many lessons that you learn in life. You know, how to stay calm under pressure, how not to panic, how to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable, how to be in tough spots and how to problem solve and how to think your way out of it. Right? And a lot of these things, you know, guys learn coming up through whatever they do in life, right? But especially as a soldier, you know, and if you've been to combat, let's say, like, everybody knows the worst thing you can ever do is panic, you know, but it's easily done. You know, when people are under stress, physical, mental, whatever it is, typically, right. People. People tend to panic. And when people panic, they make bad decisions. Right.

B (12:24)

And.

C (12:24)

And it kind of goes from there. And Jiu Jitsu just teaches you, especially when you first start out, because I remember this. So just to tell my story, 2012, when I started kind of rolling in earnest with my good friend Jeff Teagues, and then Jeff left, he went to Israel on an assignment. So he was gone. So I had nobody. And right at that time, a guy named Colonel at the time, Scott Brower, who Jason knows where, who had just been the fifth group commander. And now he just come on board to be the chief of staff at usasoc. He shows up as the new chief of staff at usasoc. And I forgot how he and I got connected, but he was like, hey, I heard you roll. I'm looking for some guys to roll with. Because he was a big combatives guy over in fifth group. And what I found out quickly is fifth group had a pretty intense, at least under his tenure, grappling and combatives culture throughout the group. So he's like, hey, I'm looking for somebody to train with. And I said, okay, sure. But here's the thing. I'm basically a brand new white belt. He was a brown belt already and a pretty seasoned one, you know, and so he and I, you know, and so he was looking for someone to train with initially. So we would, we would go meet over at bank hall, right where we train right now, you know, down in the basement there. And then he brought in another guy who was from fifth group who was a warrant Officer at the time, and the warrant officer named Eric Schwal. So Eric was also a brown belt. Now, you gotta imagine Colonel Brower at the time, you know, probably my height, 5 9, but probably went a good 215, 220, you know what I mean? He's built like a Rottweiler. And Eric not nearly as big, you know, maybe 160 pounds, my height as well, five nine, but again, brown belt. So these two seasoned guys, and here, you know, Colonel Brower, God, you know, he would get on top of you and just put all his weight and pressure, and then he would just try to rip your arm off, you know? And I can remember driving to work in the mornings, like, knowing what was to train with him, knowing full well what was going to happen. And I would be thinking in my mind, I'm like, why am I doing this? Like, this is. This sucks. Why am I putting myself? Because there's nothing worse. As you know, when you get a person who's heavy and they put their weight on your chest and it's hard to breathe and all these things, and they're trying to rip your arm off, it is extremely uncomfortable and it's unpleasant. And you have two choices to make, right? You can either panic and spaz out, and that usually ends well, or you can learn how to relax, to kind of take a breath, if you can, to start to make these little movements, to make adjustments, and then to find your way out of the problem. And so the one thing I'll say that that taught me early on was how to survive being in bad positions and being uncomfortable. But again, that's a metaphor for life, right? We're all going to find ourselves in bad positions at times when we feel a lot of pressure from various external forces. Influen, whatever it could be. It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be spiritual, social, whatever it is, Jiu jitsu, just through the practice of it, over time, it really teaches you how to deal with those pressures, whatever they are, and how to do it with calmness and with efficiency and with patience and all these other things that we learn through the practice of Jiu Jitsu that transfer directly to what we do in life.

B (15:30)

Now, you mentioned two people there very dear to my heart from fifth Group, Swami and General Brower. Speaking of culture, I mean, that guy, General Brower, he's one. One of the best leaders I've had in the army. Excuse me. And two, he was a demon on the mats. Just. He ripped your arm off. His go to move was A Camaro.

C (15:51)

Well, can I say this real quick? So here's what it was like when I first started out down there, especially. There was. And we'll get to this part later, how things have evolved over time, because I've had the luxury, at least of seeing kind of like what happens down in bank hall over the past 11 years, more or less. And it's just. It's been this steady upward incline, which is great. And Jason's had the biggest impact on that. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. I think we'll get to it. But early on, at least when I started down there, I'll say this, there was really no instruction, so to speak. So, I mean, the environment was this. I would show up. Oh, I gotta mention another name. Who is Mike Bowman?

B (16:26)

Oh, wow.

C (16:26)

Okay. So Mike Bowman was another fifth group guy who, imagine, Mike must have been 6, 4, maybe 6, 5, 260 pounds, just a monster of a man, blue belt. But again, just, they were beasts, you know? And so we would show up in there and it was basically this, okay, let's put six minutes on the clock. Touch hands, go. And it was just. It was a death match, basically.

B (16:50)

Full tilt.

C (16:50)

Yeah, full on. You know what I mean? It was almost like a UFC match without being able to hit each other. So we. I say this for a new guy coming in, there wasn't much instruction that was going on. It was just me in survival mode. But if I got nothing else out of it, what that taught me was, for that, about year and a half or so that I trained with them was just learning how to survive in bad situations.

B (17:15)

That's what it's like. Roman Braugher. Yeah, but the culture he started at fifth group, obviously came. Fifth group focused on that. But I think every group has its own flavor of this. Every Thursday was Fight Day for a while when I was team leader there. And, I mean, we had Andy Marshall and those guys, the horse soldiers, they were still around, and they. They would come out and fight in the quad, the grass area over there. But when it came to the mat room, Brower expected his officers or the senior NCOs to be down there. Not. Not just to fight each other, but just to lead from the front. If the guys see you out there, it creates a culture. And every time Brower was there, you'd see staff guys, you see they're all in there. You'd have 70 people on the mats. It was like control, chaos. Because it wasn't wild time. I mean, it was Proctored very well the training there, because we had a pretty robust combatives program. But you just noticed through the culture and group, everybody could talk to each other, everybody was open, Everybody was just engaged because you can't hide. You can't hide on the mat. You cannot hide on the mat. It's gonna. You have to engage that person. Like you said, good, bad, or ugly, you know, that's. You know, how intimate it gets on that mat, you know, about that person, you know, his name, what he's good at, what he's bad at. But it was just such a great culture. And I think that carried on at fifth Group, because at some point, I remember when I was leaving there, because I was over at 4th Battalion as ROC commander, and we had a pretty big combatives thing going on there, just between the transients, individuals, 101st, 160th, everybody came to that gym as the kind of the central point for combatives on Fort Campbell. On any given moment. We had somewhere between maybe 7 to 11 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belts every morning there. And I can't really honestly think of another place in the army, let alone in the civilian sector, where that happens that consistently that often. And, you know, just. It worked its way into Safavik, into the ASC and stuff like that. It was a warrior culture. And honestly, I just. Because you mentioned his name, Brower, I think he kind of ignited that. I mean, that warrior culture's always been there, but takes the right leader at the right time, the right place to make that happen. I think Scott Brower was that.

A (19:26)

Yeah.

B (19:26)

Then you got guy like Swami, man. He's like a mad scientist. He's just. You can tell, he's always thinking. But we had a good group then, and I was very fortunate to be a part of that time period. Coming through that. My formative years in SF as a captain, I wasn't that young of a captain.

C (19:41)

And I think that culture is stuck there. Right. Because my understanding is there still is a pretty robust, you know, kind of combatives program. Right. That's at the group level, at least at Fort Campbell and fifth Group, I

B (19:50)

think at most of soft. And I've been around a lot of different soft elements, obviously, you know, kind of partial to fifth Group. They got Ray Casillas there. They got a lot of people there that are just phenomenal. And they've got legacy there, so they've got repetitions. They understand the. They understand the organization, the training it takes to be there because they've been there for so long. And Then I look at that program, I look at what third group's built with Jason, Paul and Brad over there. What they built. Yeah. I mean, some of these programs starting to get some legs under them and they're starting to get longevity in the guys. And Jiu Jitsu is one of the hardest martial arts to make rank in. I mean it takes arguably 10 years. Get your black belt. Fact that's, that's outside of NCOPD and officer development and PCs cycles, it's really hard to get somebody that long to get to that level of training, that much ligature and capability in one organization to stick around and actually create that type of impact. Right. But it's starting to happen and you're starting to see these guys that are, you know, sticking around long enough to actually give back to, you know, give back to the groups, the regiment and the people, the new generation coming in. I think it's awesome period of time. Like just now, the dividends pay off, the turn on investment from some guys like Brower and those guys who start that off.

C (21:09)

Yep.

A (21:10)

So we touched a little bit on the personal resiliency and also the community that gets built through Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

C (21:16)

So on that note, real quick, just again, that's what Jason like relationships. Right. Because all these guys we talk about like everyone keeps in touch with each other now, you know what I mean? Via various means. Even they're in different places now in locations we guys check in with each other, you know what I mean? Hey, how are you doing? I think Swami's opened up his own academy now or gym outside of Fort Campbell. But yeah, it really. You form kind of a community. Right. That you keep in touch with and you're a part of even after you get out of the military. You know what I mean? It's always there. Sorry.

A (21:50)

So what's available for students going through SWCC right now? One of the three pipelines. What training opportunities are they having at this time?

C (21:58)

Can I say something?

B (21:59)

Send it.

C (22:00)

Yeah. So let me talk, if I can just a little. A brief hit. And this is just my own personal experience again of training over in Bangkok. Okay. Across the street from where we're at right now. Because I started training there in 2012 and before that, even though there was a time when SWIC really had a very, very well established kind of combatives program. And I want to say, and someone can probably fact check me on Google after this or whatever, but back when the army was big on the All Army Combatives tournaments and whatnot, like Swick would In the. In the early two, I want to say circa 2006, 7, 8, time frame, Swick would go down there and win that thing.

B (22:37)

Yo.

C (22:37)

Were you guys like Tim Kennedy were part of the team? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they had some other guys, too. John Long, look him up, you know, another fifth group guys, you know, some monsters, and they would go down there and clear. And clear House. But, And. But they. They trained. They. I mean, they had a very. It was well supported, well resourced, and that's why you go. If you go down there now, you'll see pictures of, like, guys like Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, right? And I think there were some. I don't know who they were, unfortunately. Some of the. The senior NCOs that ran the NCOA at the time were very passionate about it, and they would bring some of these high level, you know, the best of the best in the UFC to do little seminars and things like that. And so there was a. There was a really good, prominent kind of program that was going on, and for whatever reason, that fizzled out over time. When I came in 2012, when I started rolling, it was. There was again, Jeff Teagues got me into it, and then we were actually looking for a place. We would go roll over at Ritzep's Gym, believe it or not. We'd pull some wrestling mats out, and we'd jump all over each other. And again, Jeff was a bluebell at the time. I really had no idea what I was doing. And then we're like, you know what? We can find a place to have some actual jiu jitsu mats. And so we found Bank Hall. So we started going down there, and there was another small group of. There's a guy named Derek Davis that would train down there who worked over in the ncoa. So we kind of got into that group. So there was a core of, like, three or four of us that would get together to train. And then Brower showed up, you know what I mean? And it kind of went from there. So there was always this nucleus of guys that just trained just because we enjoyed it. But there wasn't a lot of structure either, right? And then you would see, like, students in the qualification course or whatever. Even Cadre would kind of poke their head and be like, oh, you guys roll. Like, can I join you guys? Sure, no problem. So what I. What I kind of saw happen over the years was things down there, like, ebbed and flowed at some points. You know, one time we'd have students that would come through that were really. We had a black belt, I'll tell you. There was a guy, I'll say, you know, his name was Clint Carroll. Clint was a Carlos Machado black belt who was going through the Q course at the time as an 18 Delta. And this was around 2015 to about 2017 timeframe. And he was a regular down there. And at the time, he was able to give some really, really high level instruction. And we were all very grateful for that. But then of course, he graduated the Q course and was gone. And so then it went back down to just the rest of us. But what I've seen happen over time is just by having a group of people down there that train regularly and routinely in the mornings. And then when they started moving some of the Thor gym equipment in there, what I saw happen was the mat space got less smaller and smaller. It gets smaller and smaller, Right. And so there was some downside to that, that we lost some mat space. But I'll say this. And they moved in some of the store gym equipment. But here was the upside to that. Now you had more cadre and qualification course students that were coming in to see that to use that equipment. And then they saw us rolling, which they wouldn't have otherwise, which then piqued their interest. And then, as we see now, they would come and ask like, hey, and then this is the question they always want to know is like, well, how much does it cost? You know, all this stuff? No, it doesn't cost anything. It's free. Free. Just come train, right? And then, you know what I saw happen. This is where Jason comes in. So it's always ebbed and flowed over time in terms of. There was times when it was only three or four of us down there, just enough people to keep the flame lit, so to speak. And then there'd be surge periods where you'd be having 20 to 30 people on the mats. And that's where I'd say where we kind of are now, believe it or not. Right. And I'll say this, what I've seen, who made the difference down there is Jason. When Jason came on board, I got introduced to Jason by. I was the training group commander at the time and Bill Bradley, that was, who's now a lieutenant colonel, but he was a. He was the XO down in 4th Battalion at the time because again, we. I had just gotten back from the war college, I wanted to get things back up and rolling down there. So we had this core group of guys that were interested and we enjoyed doing JIU Jitsu, but we didn't really have any adult supervision, so to speak, and which is. Which can be dangerous. And Bill was like, hey. He's like, I know a guy, his name's Jason Abbott. He goes, I think he'd be great if you could. And he's a black belt, you know, under Brian Marvin and Henzo Gracie. And I said, say no more. Get him down here. And I want to say, like, the next week, Jason showed up. And that was in 2019. And ever since then, that's four years going now. But that's what's really him showing up down there. Has what has professionalized the training that takes place down in Bangkok now. Every, you know, every. And we train five days a week down there now. Monday to Friday, 6:30 to about 8:00', clock, you know, and it's in Drew, as you know, you know, you've showed up and see what it's all about. But it's, it's. I think we've got a great environment down there, you know, I know diversity is a big thing these days, right? And you talk about a diverse crowd, though, right? We've got people from all three regiments. We've got males, we've got female females. Some guys bring their kids in, spouses come in, right? It's everybody, you know, and the thing that bonds us all, I think, is just like, you know, we, we enjoy training and everything that comes with that. Just, you know, the social aspects, the physical aspects, getting to know each other. And that transcends in beyond just the mats, Right? But we're. There's friendships that develop in relationships, you know, in very positive ways, beyond the mats. But I've really seen, I've had the luxury, I guess, of seeing how things have evolved down there, literally over the past 11 years. But if there's one person that's made a huge difference in the training that goes on down there, it's this guy sitting here to my left, Jason Abbott, absolutely speechless.

B (28:17)

Think I really don't know what to say after that. Appreciate that. Yeah. You know, sometimes it's like kind of wondering. I never try to be the best guy. I just try to be the right guy, you know, it's sometimes by the virtue of that where you end up. I think one of the things you talk about. Wow, really? Thank you. It's like the community and the relationships. I think I'm going to come up on 22 years if I do math right, in the military. And, man, I have just way, way more awesome career than I could imagine when I started this journey looking back the times, the people and stuff like that, great relationships. But when I really look back at it, I still keep in touch with the first people I trained with in martial arts. And it creates such a community, it creates such a camaraderie. Right. Aaron Stevens, Rob King, William Schneider, those guys. When I first started moving along and more into. I think you're probably touching on this here in a little bit, Drew, as far as what it does for you as a person and coping and helping. Stress under fire, for lack of a term that you had touched on too. I can sit here and, you know, both, you know this. I can sit here and tell stories all day long. But, you know, one of the. My favorite. And I don't think about it often. It just kind of jogged my memories listening to you talk. When I went hunter first, it was the first five or second the Blackhearts. On that year long trip over there, it was the Blackheart trip, actually a book written about it. It's not their greatest of books, but, you know, at that time I'd probably been training. When was that? 2005. I'd probably been training probably about off and on martial arts. 10 years, whatever. Jiu jitsu only for, you know, maybe six, seven. And you know, we get over there and we're just getting. It's just. It's wild, wild west at that point. You know, every day something's happening. You know, our battalion lost 24 guys that year. And just every day was chaos, right? And we didn't have t walls up back then. Old Iraq, you had the goat fence up, you're in tents, you're wearing your battle rattle, your IBAs back then to go to the restroom even. What is your stress relief other than waiting on the next patrol order to come out and go out and do it again? It's not the best stress relief. So we had a gym. Okay, cool. We go there and lift weights. That's not for everybody too. Anyway, so just. I remember I would sit at my little computer and you'll burned out, bombed out chicken factory. I was watching like old UFC films, stuff like that. So some of my squad leaders come in there, we watching. So we. I pushed the computer back in our little makeshift, like, table and we sit there and watch like old UFC fights. Talk and talk and talk. And it's like, oh, wow, you do martial arts there? I was like, yeah, I do it, man. We do that. So we actually found a little place over in like this old warehouse that was on our fob. It Was just dirt floor. And we started rolling. Man, that was brutal. There's like five of us, me and my squad leaders, a couple guys from over at HHC for a second, and it's like, man, this is pretty brutal. These rough floors here. So we went and got two by fours and then got a bunch of blankets and a staple gun, and we just put five blankets and just, you know, staple them down and put those together, and we create our mats out of that, you know? And I can't even again, tell you just like. Like how awesome that was. Not just for me. I mean, for that little group there, that. Our time off, like, stuff sitting in the tents, you know, playing video games, whatever, or just whatever, you know, go out there and actually start working. You know, we just started workshopping. I wasn't really teaching, just started workshopping. We really were beating the crap out of each other because way back when, right, but it was just so fun. We had a goal every day. Obviously our mission first, whatever, but we had a goal every day. We come back, we go eat, knock the sweat off, go in there, hang out, and just kind of like the world outside didn't matter for a second. And honestly, man, that. That was a mental place that I know I could rely on every day to go to. And I just remember back then, you know, down in Lutefia and a couple places, if, you know, the FIA is down south of Baghdad, you know, it kind of got out a little bit. And there's a great guy, Michael Amkins. He was the platoon sergeant from the mortars at hhc. He's like, hey, I heard you do some bass. Like a little challenge happening. I'd come up there and fought a little bit and train a little bit. Next thing you know, guys would come up from different outstations and mss and they get some rolls on. And I just know for me and a few other people, that was. That was. That was like one of those things where you just thank God that was there, man, because, like, the stress was pretty palpable.

C (32:52)

Yeah, you just reminded me of something I could, too. Real quick, Jason, is another lesson, right? Is there's a lot of talk these days from health and wellness standpoints of the importance of mindfulness, you know what I mean? And staying in the present moment and not worrying about the future, right? These things that cause anxieties that we don't even know what's going to happen or not, right? But we do it to ourselves. And I learned this early on in jiu jitsu was it forces you to stay present and in the moment when you're training, especially when you're kind of grappling or rolling with someone else. Because I found out this. When I'd be training with someone and we're sparring. Let's say if I was in the moment, if I lost my. If I was no longer present, if I was allowing. I would start to. Oh, man, I got this big presentation or a briefing I got to give later on today. If my mind would switch to that in the moment and I would start thinking outside of the present, inevitably I would make a mistake. I would find myself getting submitted or swept or something. You know what I mean? Because I lost. I lost focus on the present. Right. Because I was allowing my mind to think about the future and worry about something. It was this great vehicle, Right. For, like, it's. That's just another one of those lessons that it teaches you. You know what I mean? For your mind. How to stay in the present moment.

B (34:06)

Absolutely. Just to dogpile that comment. Since we're here. Right. That's where we hold each other accountable, too.

A (34:13)

Yep.

B (34:14)

Like, so I know it's hard, you know, when you hit those mats, you got two suitcases. Ego sit on one side. On the other side, like, just whatever else is out there, just set that down, too. Your ego and the rest of the clutter. Your mind gets set at the end of the mats. Knock your shoes off, hop on, let's. Let's. Let's train. You'll have checked me. I'm pretty sure I've checked you all. And it's just what we do. And, you know, that's where the. The buddy system really comes in there, man. Mindfulness. And then, you know what? You can't lie to each other.

C (34:44)

Yep.

B (34:44)

You know what's going on. Yep. I know when somebody's drifting. Yeah, I know. You guys probably know when I'm drifting. It's just part of it, man. It has no rank to it. It's just a bro. It's. It's. It's the brotherhood of. And sisterhood of being down there. Right, man? And that's. That's where you come to, man, that mindfulness, man. I know when you're my. I know wrong with either one of you two. The mindfulness of you two. Right. It's my kind of. My job as a black. They'll know that. But at the same time, like, you just know that, man. Because, like, hey, man, something's not right, or, hey, man, this guy's on. Or I'm watching you Guys teach or something like that. He's teaching stuff I forgot about. Sometimes I have to think like that, you know, it's like, I know the mindfulness and where it's at, but it's also an accountability system we have with each other to know, like, when that dude's out there. This guy needs this role right now. Yeah. This guy needs, like. This guy needs to be crushed, maybe. I don't know. Or this guy needs, like. This guy needs some wins. This guy needs some short wins.

C (35:33)

Yeah, well, some guys. Some guys need their ego checked every now and then. You know what I mean? Like you said, that's another thing. That's a great spectrum, the great thing. But it's also. It will keep. It's a. It's another vehicle to keep you humble.

A (35:44)

Right.

C (35:44)

Like, to keep you humble. It learns to keep your ego in check and all these things. Right. And that's the thing. If your ego starts to get too big, guess what? There's going to be somebody out there that's going to help help deal with that for you then, if that's what you need.

B (35:57)

You know, Browerism and humility is within arm's reach.

C (36:00)

Yeah.

B (36:00)

Anytime you need it, it's going to reach out and grab you, bro.

C (36:04)

Yeah, that's exactly right. So potential becomes a great reminder, right, of this, of humility and constant learning. But one other story I'll tell on that real quick. Jason, about again. These are like Bank Hall, Matt stories, stuff that really happened. This is probably seven years ago. It was one of the OGs. I won't mention his name just out of privacy. He won't. Might not appreciate it, but it was just he and I down there one morning, just he and I. And so we're training together and we're rolling. And I could tell something was off with him. I could tell. I was like, hey. I was like. We kind of stopped at one point. I'm like, are you okay? And as soon as I said that, and he is, as a senior nco, Green Beret, he breaks down crying. He just broke down crying on the spot. I'm like, dude, what is wrong? You all right? I guess he and his wife had been going through some marital problems, and it had finally hit that point, you know what I mean, where she was leaving, you know, And I think she was kind of, for what it's worth having a midlife crisis, one of those type of things. But. And. And he was having a really hard time dealing with that. And he had. You know, and he was moving out or whatever. And they had been married for, I think, you know, I had two or three kids, probably 15 years. He was just starting to process all that. And, I mean, what do you do in that moment? You know what I mean? You stop, you give a guy a hug, and then you talk it out and everything. Long story short, I think he's remarried these days. He's doing great. He's doing great. But in that moment, you know what I mean, that's provided an opportunity, right, For a guy to get, you know, and to talk and to share and to be vulnerable. Right. And to let all that out and that. But those kind of things, like, actually happen on the mats. And especially when you train with people routinely because you. You do become so closely. Just by the nature of what it is. Right. You know what I mean? When you're. When you're. When you're entangled with people and stuff, like, you develop these very close friendships and bonds, and people are more. Much more willing to open up and be vulnerable. And that. That's a. That's a very. That can become a very, very, very powerful thing to help others with.

B (38:08)

Absolutely. Go ahead, Drew.

A (38:10)

I just think this conversation is so important because people sometimes look at training from the outside, and they just like, oh, it's just, you know, people trying to be macho or this or that. And there's so many other benefits, especially, like, for me as a chaplain, they're making those interpersonal connections with people and having those opportunities to be there for them. And a lot of times that doesn't happen just through talk. There's a lot of great things that can happen in a counseling or therapist's office. But a lot of times people need to have a connection first before they feel that. That ability to be vulnerable and open up.

C (38:41)

And there's a level of trust. Right? Because there's a level of trust that's been built now with this person.

A (38:46)

Absolutely.

B (38:47)

You gotta think every time you're on the mats with somebody again, doing a lot of different martial arts. I just really focus on the jiu jitsu aspect of this. Not to overstate it or to understate it, you're putting your life in that person's hand. Sometimes you gotta think when you tap what you're actually confessing to or admitting to. You just broke my arm. Or you just about did. You were that close. That's how. That's how good your technique was today. You just about broke my arm or you just about choked me or broke my neck. If you really think about what A tap actually is. It is a contract between two people there. That's where the ego just kind of melts away. A lot of people, you have to

C (39:32)

let it, have to acknowledge it, right? That's like the way of congratulating the other person. Like, that's one of the hardest things to learn, in my opinion, when you've. And I'll say this, like, if I could go back and do it over again, I should have checked my ego at the door about eight years ago, you know, because my shoulders would thank me a lot more because I was one of those stubborn people, right? Like when. When then Colonel Brower had me in a Kimura or something like that when I should have tapped. I didn't because of my ego. And was I able to fight my way out of it? Sometimes I was. But I tell you what, the wear and tear that. That put on me over time, I. I wish I could go back and do that again. Over again, I should say so. I think a lot of times what happens is people confuse training on the mats with winning. You know what I mean? And they want to win when they roll. And that's not what it's about at all when you're training on there. It's about learning and having fun. Save the winning mindset, in my opinion, for the competition. When you go to a competition, okay, now you're there to win. That's the, that's. That's the goal, right? But when we're training amongst each other, learn, have fun, you know, and the best way to learn, put yourself in really bad positions.

A (40:44)

Absolutely.

C (40:44)

And guess what? When you put yourself in really bad positions, every now and then, you're going to get tapped out because it gets too far. Now you're. And that's. But that's how you learn, you know? But it's all about learning how to subordinate your ego. It's easier said than done. But that's why I also think a lot of people are reluctant to even want to start because they're too worried about the ego element that's involved and they could just learn. And that's why I want to. I'd like to make an open invitation to anyone who listens to this that's in SWCC or on Fort Bragg, you know, the door is wide open to anyone. People always ask, like, well, who can come train there? It's like. And again, we have. We have soldiers from the 82nd that come and train too, right? Like 6:30 in the morning, Bank Hall, Monday to Friday, show up and look all Guarantees like the rules are, you know, number one, nobody gets hurt, you know, and everybody's gonna have fun and learn something. That's. Those are the main goals. That's it, you know, and it's just a good community.

A (41:36)

So I think that's a good segue into maybe the elephant in the room. When we start talking about Brazilian Jiu jitsu or combatives in the army, the thing that always comes up is risk injuries. People are worried about getting hurt. You have guys that are older who have pre existing injuries or just they're aging, they think they're too old to start this journey. Commands are always worried about those sort of things. So what do you guys say to safety and that risk that people are always concerned with?

B (42:05)

Hear that a lot. And the, you know, I think the concern's real. We don't want to hurt, especially at sweat. We got a lot of initial entry special operations soldiers coming in, so the risk is warranted. But having said that, there's a lot of factors involved in that. So you know, we are, it is a, it is, you are in the art of fighting. So having said that, you know, if you look at like the most injury inducing things across the army, I'm not a statistics guy, but you know, statistically speaking. No, I'm just kidding. You know, you look at things across the army, we've all seen this most. A lot of people get hurt by running. Let's just be honest. I don't want to get running, trail running, right? Ultimate Frisbee or football, basketball. There's a lot of things out there that create a lot of injuries. Right. I've honestly been knock on wood, just real quick, I've seen so far fewer injuries in combatives. That is proctored the right way. My caveat with that statement, now if you put a bunch of meatheads out there, they're just going to continue to beat on each other like we used to back in the old days. And I think a lot of the mentality goes back to how it used to be. People think about their experience and their experience back then was like, I just walked in the room, got the crap beat out of me and then that's all I remember. I just remember my neck was hurting for like two, two weeks afterwards. Right. The game's changed a lot since then. The training's changed a lot since then. Back to our original statement, you know, what's different training now than it was back then? We are so much smarter about how we do things. Right. And so when I look at it if it's proctored, right. You have the right people there. Like, you're not going to see that as much, if at all, the way I break it down. And you all heard me say this ad nauseam in class. You know, we get an hour and a half to train. All right, first, first things first, we're going to work on stand up. There's a reason you got on the ground, or there's a reason you want to not want to get on the ground. Who knows? But so a stand up and then you go into the ground game, well, it'd be different. I'd be a horrible instructor if I threw you out there. Just, everybody just beat on each other. Figure it out. Right? I'm not going to do that. So let's back the throttle off to about 20% and let's kind of like, you know, surgically take apart this technique and let's figure out what works and then we'll start repacking that to make it work for everybody. And then when you think about what you just did, you did a lot of training just in that alone. All right, cool. Now that you all have worked through it all the intricacies of this technique, let's drill it. Let's drill it. Let's drill in a semi live environment. Alright, While you're all drilling it, me and Stu has black belts. You do too, Drew. Walk around now. Let's go around. Make the lower belts and the other people that aren't as experienced as us, let's make sure they're doing it right. Let's walk around. Not move your hand over here. Not put your foot. Whatever. Cool. Now let's go to open rolls. All right, stop. We're not beating each other up yet. Why don't we work on the things we worked on in class to make sure we can do it at the speed of water. Now if you add that up, that's over an hour's worth of instruction there. All right, so from a responsible and accountable person here, because I am, as a black belt, I'm responsible for things on the mat and I'm accountable for things. If I teach you a crappy technique and you go out there and it doesn't work in Iraq, Syria or even the streets of Raleigh, Whatever. If I taught you a bad technique and you use that, I'm accountable. That's the way I kind of look at that. Right? So I'm not going. I'll make sure. I'm going to teach you the right things. At least I think are the right Things, Right? But from a safety standpoint, you know, on those mats, we just mitigate a lot just by having control of the group, teaching the right way, and everybody walks away with a great experience, and they come back. And so now when you have the guys Stu was talking about off the mats, the foot traffic, that's our recruiting program right now, and it works great. They're looking over there and they're like, I heard. I. I hear it. I don't know if you hear it, but like, hey, can we join over?

C (45:55)

Yeah, that's it.

B (45:55)

That's that. That's like a full blown class. You're not like, what you're actually teaching that. You're watching black belts and brown belts walking around. You just don't see that in a combative facility. And you guys are actually like, teaching stuff. Like, this is legit. You know, we hear that. And that's not on me. That's on everybody here. That's on you guys. I mean, takes all of us to do that, right? So now we got people wanting to come in because I'm in the Q course, right? I remember I. Q course, man. I had a. Just got back from the point with the Q course. My shoulder was shot. I was scared. I thought I was blade running the whole time. I was scared to death I was gonna get hurt. But now we got guys wanting to come over there. They're willing to join in there and train us while they're in the Q course because they know it's a safe environment to come learn, train a technical skill, and you show up to your team with a warrior skill as a new guy, and that is money, if you ask me. And I just went on a rant here. Thanks, Drew, for setting that up. But, Stu, if you want to add that, please.

A (46:47)

No, it's great.

C (46:48)

And from the safety standpoint, I'll say this put some things in perspective. Maybe I may get in some trouble, but I'm going to cite Mark Asanovich, who I believe was a head. You know, he was a strength and conditioning coach in the NFL for about 14 years, I think, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for the Minnesota Vikings, you know, quoting and citing him. What are the two most injury producing athletic sports activities statistically? I believe number one is Olympic lifting, number two is powerlifting. Look at the Thor programs that we're using right now. A lot of that is Olympic lifting and powerlifting based. Right? So now, I'll say this like anything, though. If you train it smartly and controlled manner under the proper protocols, it's Safe. Like almost everything we do is oftentimes safe, right? What gets you hurt in those endeavors oftentimes is what your ego.

B (47:43)

Ego.

C (47:43)

You're trying to do too much weight, you use bad form, boom. Next thing you know, you just hurt your back, you just hurt your shoulder, you just tore a pec or whatever. You know, it's no different in jiu jitsu, right? It's extremely safe. You know, the great thing about Jiu jitsu is you can train it almost every single day. No one's. There's no. It's not like boxing, where you're getting hit in the head and you got to worry about now things like, we know, like, you know, TBI and CTEs and these things. You can train it every single day in a very safe, very controlled manner, right? But. And the key is this, right, number one, it's like having. Having the right culture and environment of where you train, or that mindset that everyone's going to be safe and controlled, you know, and then enforcing that. Because what's, what's every. Higher level belts biggest fear of rolling with someone on the mats. Who's who, you know, who are they afraid of? It's the new white belt that's coming in, right? And especially it's the white belt that comes in, you know, who weighs about 220 and is, you know, is doing all that Thor 3 powerlifting stuff, right? Because that guy's gonna come in and just be like a Tasmanian devil and try to use all this muscle and might and brute force, and they're usually out of control. And next thing you know, you're catching an elbow in the teeth or smoking because they don't know what they're doing. And you got to be like, hey, man, just chill for a second. Let me show you a few things, right? So I would say this. It's training martial arts. Jiu jitsu, specifically, I would say, is extremely safe. If you have the right people, you have the right culture, the right protocols. And again. And then going back to that mindset of, hey, when you get caught, tap you always have, and it's fine again. And if you look at the highest level competitors, they even say guys like Gordon Ryan, for people who are familiar with him, you know, he taps in training pretty frequently because he puts himself in really, really bad positions when he's training. He lets things get too far, and when they do, guess what? He taps. Now, does he get tapped in competitions? Absolutely not, right? Because those are two different environments. But we got to remember we're Here to train and to learn. If you're on the streets, if you get an encounter or maybe downrange somewhere to get an encounter, well, that context change changes and you're going to escalate things accordingly, you know. But I think the safety. It shouldn't be that much of a concern in my opinion, if you got the right people in the right culture and the right mindset.

B (50:00)

You know, I think the evolution. We've hit that on this for just over time. It went from the old crazy days to now. You got really technical people.

C (50:07)

Yes.

B (50:08)

That they're. We've got some legs under us and there's. There's longevity to people now.

C (50:12)

Yeah.

B (50:12)

In the institutions we have now. Soft or. Well, you got to. God. So stuck around for 10 years. He's a black belt now. We need to use this guy.

C (50:18)

And I'll say this. I think also think done correctly is a activity, an art, an endeavor that you can do for the rest of your life. Right Till the oldest, however long you live, more or less. If you practice it properly now, is your physicality going to decline? Of course it is. Are you going to be able to maintain your strength, your athleticism? Absolutely not. I'm living and I feel had to accept that. Right. But the thing is this. As those things decline with age, which they inevitably will, the one thing that won't go away, that you can actually improve is technique.

B (50:56)

Right.

C (50:57)

And so by focusing on technique over time, you can help make up for the loss of athleticism, strength, power, all these things that decline with age. And when you get to our age, you know what I mean, we start to look back wistfully and like, oh, man, it is what it is, but you adapt. Right? But it's one of those again, Jiu jitsu is one of those lifetime practices. You can make it if you practice it accordingly.

B (51:20)

I just think how blessed we are on that too. We have my Thor trainer, Adam Davis. Awesome, by the way, people out there listening. Thor Swick, he's one of our purple belts. Soon probably let the cat out of the bag. Soon be promoted maybe. I don't know. So, I mean, I have a trainer who not only knows the sport, but. But who's been doing it for quite a while, but who knows? Look at me and go, hey, we need to work on something with you. There's injuries and stuff like that too. And then my physical therapist at Thor too, Christine. I forgot her last name. I'm so sorry. But she trains up, or used to train up in Phu Que Apex area. And like, so as I walk in there, I mean, she's almost telling me how I probably pulled my groin or something like that because she knows how I did it, because she understands the science and the kinesiology and the physicality of jiu jitsu. And that's, you know, it's kind of evolution of the species here and soft. You know, we're just getting to the point now where people are starting to understand this more and more. So

A (52:21)

suppose someone can't train at swcc. They're in a group somewhere, disconnected from Fort Bragg. What things should people be looking for in a training environment? What are like the. Some of the key things that they want to hone in on?

B (52:33)

I think we've hit a lot of those. But as you're going out, if you're talking about going out in the civilian world around a base, that's always the culture. The culture is going and it'll pop up immediately when you go in there. I don't want to talk bad about any other organizations for any other schools, but if you go in there and the first thing you realize is as soon as I step on the mat, regardless of your experience, regardless, I don't care what belt rank you are, you walk on those mats and you soon, soon realize that you're cannon fodder or you're a training dummy for lack of their term for their competition. Guys just go ahead and just walk out. That's my opinion. Now if that's the type of person you are, you want to go in there and bang, by all means, go ahead. But if you're going in there to learn and safely learn and kind of polish your skills or learn new skills, that's one thing I'd look at just the culture of the place. Another thing too, and not to be divisive in demographics, but how do they treat their females? If you can go in there and they have diversified portfolio of students, if they have kids, they have females, if they have a bunch of different demographics and talent levels and whatever, how are they teaching across that bandwidth will tell you what kind of culture that gym has. As Stu had mentioned, down there, we have phenomenal females, we have phenomenal non military persons, non soft persons, stuff like that. So from our culture, I think we had a good one going. But when you go out in the civilian world, think of that too. Then also I always say this and maybe we'll get on it eventually in discussion here is like, how does that fit your lifestyle? All right, am I learning just a. If I'm A Green Beret or if I'm a ranger or whatever, wherever you work, you know, if you're combat based person, is it, is it feeding a very sport? There's nothing wrong with it. It's feeding a very sport based modality or mentality. That's fine. But also I also want to have the ability to walk in there from a self defense nature. You know, hit some of my three tenets I always look at when I teach, you know, survivability, lethality and resiliency. I look at those three factors. Anytime I'm teaching or looking at programmatics or something, you know, does it feed two of those for me? If I'm a, if I'm an operator or if I'm a whatever I am going in there. Does that feed that animal that I'm trying to evolve or harness whatever lethality, survivability and resilience. Would I bring my kid into this place? That's a great question to ask yourself.

C (55:14)

Yep.

B (55:14)

You know, if I'm gonna walk in this gym, would I let this person train my wife, my kids, my daughter? If you can answer yes in that, you're probably in the right spot. So if you got another, I think you hit it.

C (55:27)

Jason, really, I mean only the filters I would use maybe one. I am my personal biases. I'm a big believer in jiu jitsu. It's a primarily first and foremost is a self defense art. So I think like having and a self defense curriculum as part of it, you know, is a priority. That's important to me. And then the second piece you already hit on too, the equal, arguably the most important pillar is the culture, you know what I mean? Does the culture of that gym, that dojo, that academy align with your values and how do they treat other people, how do they represent themselves, all that type of stuff, you know what I mean? If it's not aligned with your own personal values, that's always a great filter, right? Would I want my kids to train here? It's always a good one for leaders, right? Would I want my kid to be led by this person or to work in this organization or whatever it is? You know, if you use that as a kind of a rule of thumb, that's usually going to tell you a yes or no.

A (56:17)

I think one of the prevalent attitudes I've come across as I talk to people about jiu jitsu and different things, especially across the military, is this mindset that they've been trained in. Certain individuals feel they've been trained in weapons, maybe they have a CCW or something. So the idea is I don't really need jiu jitsu because I have some other tool that I can use to get out of a bad situation. So why would I ever want to train in a martial art per se? How do you guys feel about that? Especially in a soft community, especially as you go into a soft mos.

B (56:46)

So you want to start that one off or do you want.

C (56:48)

Sure, if that's their opinion, that's fine. They're entitled to it for sure. You know what I mean? I just think it's short sighted because I can say this through my own personal experience that, you know, hey, I hope I never have to use my martial arts, my jiu jitsu in a real life situation. And you know what, to be honest, I personally have never had to and I hope it stays that way. But absent of all that, it's given me so many more tools that have impacted my life in a positive way that therein lies the benefit, you know. Now it also gives me the added benefit if I was to need those to employ this in a, in a, somewhere on the streets, let's say, or downrange somewhere. And again, it's always in a defensive. Right. Context usually. Right. It's a, it's a self defense, you know, application. It's not, you know, now downrange, maybe it's in an offensive application. But that's because if you're using your hands at that point, yes, something is really gone wrong. Right. But the enemy always gets a vote. But at least I know I'm prepared how to deal with that. You can't always guarantee that you're going to have access to your long gun, to your pistol, to a blade or those things. Right. There's plenty of anecdotes of people who've had to put hands on in combat situations. So to make the assumption that you're never going to have to use your hands necessarily because I've got all these other weapons, so to speak, is a bad assumption. But just that aside, there's so much upside just to how it will benefit your life and ultimately make you a better human being. Not just to mention the sense of self confidence it gives you in a lot of other aspects. Right. Over time, for all those reasons, I think there's, it's, that's why I would highly encourage, you know, anyone to train and at least give it a shot.

B (58:38)

Yeah, you're kind of getting at the selfless defense aspect and people like being maybe just disregarding because they got A pistol or something like that. Man, there's so many what ifs I can imagine people throwing at this discussion. Try to unpack it and repack best I can. So I agree with guys like Jocko Willink for people know who he is and you know, it's, it's kind of a common statement in martial arts. The number one best self defense technique there is is run. Run away.

C (59:07)

Right?

B (59:08)

Run. That might not sound very heroic, courageous and valorous and the ears of some people, but if you think about the, the, the meaning behind that one, I, I want to make home to my family. Okay. I'm not saying I want to be a coward to do that, but I'm just saying I want to make it home to my family. So I have to, at some point my, my mind, I have to quickly think, is this really worth what is about to happen? If I engage, there's two types of engagement and disengagement. And the good thing about jiu jitsu and the structures it teaches both physically, mentally and morally is if I control the environment, I can start to control the systems within that environment. I can learn to disengage or engage on my terms. Not all the time, but at least I have the training to do that. Right. But man, I just run second to that. I think like been around and you know, not the best of times overseas and stuff like that. If your number one go to is to kill another human being, I question that. Not holistically. There's reasons maybe to do that in a self defense aspect. But if you're basing your number one go to is to kill a human being, that's a hard thing to think about in my opinion. I'm not gonna go down the experience and past and anybody add any details to that. I just don't think that's the best answer that the first thing for self defense someone to shoot somebody. Because there's a lot of fringe things that go along with that that just are uncomfortable to talk about. It's not worth killing any human being over certain things that would cause that. That's just another thing I like to think about too. My first thing is not to kill somebody. It's not the business I want to be in. It's not the message I want to teach my kids. It's not the message I want to teach my students is like, you know, somebody Fs with me, I'm going to shoot them. All right, yeah, there's maybe some escalation of stuff we'll talk about on that one. But that's just. I hear that a lot, you know. Thirdly. Give me a soapbox, Drew. Thanks. Thirdly to that, right? How much have you trained in your self defense modalities that you feel so comfortable and that's the way you're going to react. But to tell you right now the way you're going to react is going to be so primal that it's just, you're not going to, I mean, it's just you all seen me do the test on that, you know, walk up, hit somebody and they flinch. There's your stance, man. That's your stance right there. You're not going to respond cognitively, you're going to respond primally. So if you think you're going to think through all these things and do this and that moment's notice, good luck, man. You're a better person than me and I've been training for 30 years, you know, so unless you are just a gunman at heart and you can do that 11 meter drill, pull somebody closing distance on you, which, you know, that's a canned scenario as it is. Might want to start thinking about what it takes to get that pistol and I guarantee get that pistol or get whatever in action, there's a couple of things you have to think about. You're probably thinking about body mechanics and like having to engage with somebody at some point. Just being honest. Right? So the whole self defense thing, I don't know, man. We can talk about this ad nauseum. I just think, you know, just being able to protect yourself, your family and disengage on your terms is an absolute just must in any of those situations. And I think, you know, we teach you, we are the weapon system. Pistols, rifles, bazookas, whatever, they're tools of that weapon system. And if you treat it as such, you're postured for a lot more than you can give yourself credit for.

A (62:57)

Yeah.

C (62:57)

Here's what, you know, we in the military in particular, we talk a lot about what the R word readiness. So the question is always, okay, ready for what? But I would argue, you know, having, having at least being somewhat competent, you know what I mean? In some hand to hand self defense is only going to enhance your overall readiness.

B (63:19)

That makes me want to fight less people. Of course, I was knucklehead.

C (63:23)

I don't know anyone. That's exactly the, the, the irony. But no surprise, right? Like in a lot of these things is like the, the more advanced you get in these, in the martial arts and you know, the less, how should we say, Prone to violence or whatever you become almost.

B (63:44)

It's like hanging out with Ryan Hall. Yeah, Ryan hall, he helps, He's UFC fighter, helps us out quite a bit. And a couple of things we do great, great special operations support. Ryan Hall's one that just overall great human being. His wife, they're awesome team. But if you saw Ryan, no offense out there, Ryan, if you ever hear this, other than his ears that are mangled, he's just a skinny, Just a good nature, just beboping long. Dude, that's one of the scariest human beings on the planet. And he looks like he. He's a gamer all night long. Sometimes, you know, I'm like, I'm like 6 foot 3, 235 pounds. If I saw him out and didn't know that, other than his ears being the key giveaway there, I'm like, man, I got this guy little, little knowing that he's gonna tie me into a pretzel in less than 10 seconds, you know. So I mean, from that standpoint alone, I said the more I learned about this, the more I just don't want to fight anybody.

C (64:39)

Yeah, but even chances are, if you were to have some type of physical or try to initiate one with him, not even knowing who he was, let's say, say chances are 99% he would avoid the confrontation, he would walk, you know what I mean? He would not try to engage you, you know what I mean? Unless he had absolutely no other alternative, that would be the last case resort. Okay, then that would follow. But that's how it is with most people.

B (65:04)

I mean, from that standpoint, I just hopefully it answers a lot of some of the self. It's hard to answer all the scenarios on that. And if I can just kind of segue into something else here, I kind of look like we're talking about like training SWIC and soldiers and readiness. And that's what you kind of sparked the comment on me, readiness. And we talk about the weapon system is the soldier, and everything that he is given is a tool. He should calibrate himself to shoot any tool. That's like, you know, basic rifle marksmanship. Right. You know, so calibrating a tool, calibrating a system. So if you like, I'm not throwing out numbers here, but if you look at like the Global Force management, like how many combat zones are there in the world right now for the U.S. and then, you know, we look at other programs like tscaps, jsats, cmts, you know, whatever, and you look at proportionality of that how many soldiers globally are put forward on missions that are non combat related. That's a pretty metric percentage. Is that fair? Fair statement? I mean it's up there. You know, I don't want to talk about numbers here, but. So they're in places where they can't have guns, they don't have reciprocity and concealed carry. There may or may not be a SOFA agreement status, force. So what are they supposed to use as their tools for their weapon system when stuff goes wrong? All right, now Africa, Malaysia, Philippines, wherever they're at, they're not walking around full battle rattle like we did in Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan, all that stuff. So that's why I go back to Brower. If you don't have your radio and your weapons and your M4, what do you use for those two capabilities? Well, you got your language and you got your hands. So at that point I just look at like that big of a percentage. And we're sending people forward in these, these types of missions, like are we preparing them now? I'm not the, I'm not the right ranking person to answer that, but I'm just saying I do have an impact on this here and other places as we, both of us do too. At 10 level we can start preparing. Guys know how to handle themselves when they're elsewhere in the world. In Raleigh, at home, in Texas, wherever they're at. But they don't have a weapon. They, in their hands, they are the weapon. They can rely on themselves a little bit more now to defend themselves. That's just, that's my soapbox rant on preparing people for going forward on deployments.

A (67:38)

And that preparation, preparation, excuse me, goes so much deeper than just the physical skills, as we're saying. Like that mentality of disengagement, that mentality of ego, all those things feed into the culture of training.

B (67:53)

Yeah, Mindset. Yeah. Look at weapons, think like pre deployment, deployment, post deployment. Now from your red cycle stuff, what do you do for post deployment? Chaplain? You probably know the answer better than I do. It's been since I had here to that you come back, you family, integration, you know, you. All the stuff. You know the. You probably say it better than I can. There's a lot of reintegration stuff. There's some post traumatic stuff in there too. You know, there's, there's some things, some checks and balances they do when they pull these guys back from overseas. You know, we're going to talk to these guys and whatever, you know how it goes. Right. So if you think about weapons and stuff like that. If I gave you an M4, M9, whatever, Glock and couldn't care because I'm a chaplain, but well, you know, you can the three notionally, notionally, pre deployment, deployment, post deployment, that pistol, whatever that is going to serve you well in preparation and training. When you're in combat, it's going to serve you well when needed. Can that, can that, that tool, that weapon serve you when you get back? Not in a good way most times. Okay, not going down the dark lane here, but when I look at like Jiu Jitsu, that's an, that's a, that's a weapon system that prepares you before, during, if you need to. It's still there for you. It's the only weapon I can think of that we give somebody that serves them well. After post ap, I Stu hit it on best too. Just understanding how to deal and work with life, situations with life. So instead of like suck starting that pistol and drinking and all this stuff, that's why I say a lot of guys lose that throttle control. They're on these big deployments and up, up, up, up, going for it, just moving, moving, moving, moving. They've got that throttle wide open. Whatever dopamine discussion we want to have on that, they're just operationally minded on the ex, right? They come back, that throttle is not there anymore. Okay. They're still wide open, coming back Sometimes I'm saying it's everybody, they just, they come back and some people resort to drinking addictions. Look at that dopamine rush. Some guys go down that dark hole and they start hurting themselves or think about hurting themselves, hurting others. Right. Well, then you also. Will you have your wife or your girlfriend, your family come back to. They've dealt with, they've dealt with a lot of stuff while you're gone too. So you're not even coming back. You're not in the same book. You're on the same chapter. So there's some trauma there. Right? But what that does, man, it gives you that throttle. Why? Because it worked for me. It's worked for a lot of buddies I've had. And some people, Stu, and we're working with stuff like that too. It gives them another throttle to hold on to, that they can get control again and get on that mat and we can get them back in control of their throttle where they're kind of feeling that rush again. They're feeling that physicality, they're feeling that emotional stress and how to deal with it being stuck under us. It Gives them that ability to get a hold of things again and get them somewhat in the right pathway back to a balance.

C (70:57)

So there's a lot of talk in, has been for a while now, right. And special operations used to sock, you know, about what human performance and wellness, you know, hpw. And when we look at wellness, you know, I'd say, you know, a lot of people, or the health and wellness, a lot of people want to think, hey, my PT score or whatever, yeah, I'm, I'm healthy, I'm well, I can max out the acft, right? No, you know, wellness, health and wellness is holistic, right? There are, there, yes, there's a physical component, but there is a mental component, there is a spiritual component, there is a social component, there are environmental components, right. It's to all of that, to being healthy and well. And so as a, and again, I'm very biased here, obviously this is what we're talking about. But as a one stop shop that really checks the block on almost all of these different dimensions of wellness. You have Jiu Jitsu because it literally touches on almost all of those. Right. There's certainly a physical component to it. There is a mental component to it that you have to deal with. There is a social component, right. It's a group, there's an environment, there's even a spiritual component, believe it or not, you know, it's all of those things. And that's why I really recommend it and commend it to anybody who's looking, you know, if that's a priority in their life or maybe they're struggling with certain things. I always offer them, hey, maybe get into Jiu Jitsu, maybe come train with us or whatever. You know, I mean, you may find that this is going to fill a lot of the holes or the things that you're kind of maybe struggling with, or some of the gaps in your life that you need to help fill or whatever. Like this is a great vehicle for it.

A (72:30)

I think that's one of the dangers sometimes. FM722 holistic health and fitness. We compartmentalize so many different aspects of our wellness. And the Hebrew word shalom, it means nothing missing, nothing broken. That everything is together in one piece.

C (72:45)

I thought I meant peace, you know what I mean?

A (72:48)

But that's, that's what peace is.

B (72:49)

It's when everything, language training stuff, it's

A (72:53)

when everything is together and nothing is missing, nothing is broken. So I would love to hear a little bit, you know, now that you're retired, I know you're working with an organization. And how is Jiu Jitsu helping folks as they come out of Special Operations? Because a lot of our cadre are in the twilights. They're coming out. And so how might this help some of our folks across Special Operations?

C (73:14)

Sure, I'll speak to that very briefly. Yes. So I retired back here officially in January 1st of January. I work for a small nonprofit organization called the Donovan and Bank Foundation. It's named after Bill Donovan, right. The founder of the Office of Strategic Services, which was the pre, forerunner, forefather to the Central District Intelligence Agency, the CIA and modern day Special Forces. So you got Bill Donovan and then you got Aaron bank, right? The first commander of the 10th Special Forces Group, you know, established in 1952. So you got Donovan and Bank Foundation. Now this was stood up by my good friend who you guys know as well, Paul Tulin, right. Recently retired about a year before I did. Lieutenant Colonel, did time in 3rd Group, Yusasak and Swic as well. And then Drew Stamp is the third. So there's three of us. And our main mission is to rerun these transition workshops for. And the purpose really is to enable and to assist special operators who are getting out of the military. Right. To bring closure to their warrior story and then to transition to a life of peace, contentment and balance. Right. So that's the goal. Now, a lot of guys, we find when they're getting out, what are they worried about? They're worried about getting a job. A lot of times, oh my gosh, I got to get a job. And what we've learned and what we know is this. You don't need to worry about the job. You're going to get a job. I don't think we found anyone or came across anyone yet who didn't get a job or even have a problem getting a job. Right? Like, trust me, with your background, with your skill set, with your knowledge, with your expertise, experience, all that stuff, almost none of our people have a hard time getting a job at all. Here's what they struggle with. Three things generally, purpose, identity and community. That's what they miss when they're no longer in the army, in the special operations community anymore. Right. That's oftentimes those are the holes that need to be filled. So we try to help them find that on the outside. One of the vehicles that we're using that we use is actually Jiu Jitsu, because we're passionate about it and we know firsthand all of the benefits about it. And we can't be all things to all people and espouse these things. But we want to, like, offer services and things that we can stand by and vouch for because we've personally benefited for them and we know the goodness over time. So one thing we do offer the people that go through our transition workshop is we've partnered with the We Defy foundation that, you know, Jason is black belt, Brian Marvin is on their board, a member of, and they're an organization that originally was founded, I believe, you know, to get. To get after the veteran suicide problem. And so they have, they have an assessment, an arrangement with highly credible Jiu Jitsu academies throughout the country. And so for service members who are getting out, they can apply like for a scholarship through the Wida5 foundation, and then they'll link them up with the closest affiliated academy to them. And I think they get like two free geese and a free years worth of training right through the Wida5 Foundation. So what we're doing is through the Donovan and Bank foundation. Because our idea is this is like, if someone else out there already does it, we're not going to try to replicate, you know, what someone else already does probably better than us. But we do want to preach the gospel of Jiu Jitsu and try to use Jiu Jitsu again as a vehicle for our transitioning service members and soft people to help make their lives better. And so we partnered with the We Defy Foundation. So here's a good example. Just two weeks ago, we had a guy who went through our program and now he's starting his master's program up at Columbia University, New York City. And I just happened to ask him, anyway, hey, by the way, would you be interested in getting involved in Jiu Jitsu or starting Jiu Jitsu? He's like, you know what, that sounds really good. I'm like, great, because we got a great offer for you. I can get you linked up with the We Defy Foundation. Oh, guess what? There's this guy named Henzo Gracie, you may have heard of him. His academy, it's like one of the Mecca academies of all. It's right there in New York City, right? So I reach out to Brian Marvin and literally within three hours they had this guy connected with Henzo's academy with a POC there, and he's able to go start training there, like almost the next day. Now, I'll add one additional layer that we've thrown in. We've also established a relationship with another really amazing black belt named Henry Akins. And so, Henry Akins, if you look him up again, a third degree black belt under Hickson Gracie. So you can just google those names if you're not familiar. You know, some, you know, some people consider Hickson many, you know, the greatest of all time. So Henry again, amazing human and amazing Jiu jitsu black belt. And he has some really, really good online curriculums that are awesome supplements to obviously to live training. But what he's offered us at no cost is he has a. It's probably close to 60 or 70 videos, but it is what he calls his white to blue belt curriculum. And it's, it's essentially, I think it's literally it's what Hicks and Gracie's white to blue belt curriculum was. And it's all videoed. He shows lots of exceptional details that you won't see in a lot of other places. And honestly I think he sells that thing online and he sells lots of. It's like a thousand dollar online curriculum. Well, he's given that to us for free. So anyone who kind of comes to us and we refer to through the We Defy foundation to train at a, for transitioning soft service members at a Jiu Jitsu academy, they also as a package deal, they'll get Henry Akin's white to blue curriculum as an online video supplement that they can use to train as well. So that's how we're kind of trying to, you know, again, within Donovan and Bank foundation, one of our vehicles we've put out there as a program to try to encourage people to get involved in Jiu Jitsu. And it's really from that holistic health and wellness standpoint. Right. And if it's another vehicle for finding some purpose, some identity, some community and also filling some of those wellness gaps that may exist in guys as they. In gals as they transition as well.

B (78:59)

Man, the great stuff about everything you just said is like, this is all like grassroots.

C (79:02)

Grassroots. Yeah.

B (79:03)

It's soft guys taking care of soft guys. Bottom line. Brian, I've known, he's like my brother. I've been under him for a long time. We've switched organizations together. Like I just. He's part of my family. I know I've had issues in the past. He was right there helping out. He's like my uncle and my kids, lack of better term. Right. So like I said, soft guys taking care of soft guys. And that's what we do and we defy thing. Back in Fort Campbell, Donnie Bowen guy I haven't mentioned yet. Jim, I trained at Great human being. Former a15 guy. We were Putting on a. We had to fight Jim as well, too. We were putting on a seminar there and it was large. This one kid, we just kind of know something was wrong. Soldier Fort Campbell. And he just started kind of broke down and, you know, Diane pulled him aside, stuff like that. And we start talking this and that, and he's like, what's going on, man? You should be happy. This is my great seminar. He's like, just, just. I just decided to come today. He told the whole story, like, dying. I were like tearing up, man. He's like, I was going to kill myself this weekend. And buddy of mine trains here and he said, just come with me, just come with me. He goes, his buddy didn't know it was going to happen. But he's like, man, this is the weekend. I just sighed and he told us all this problem. We're like, God bless, man. This kid, man.

C (80:31)

Yep.

B (80:32)

And Donnie's like, I got you, brother. And like, we took control of him immediately. Called Brian. We defy foundation type stuff. Kid got pulled in. And I remember, like, I mean, I PCs not too long after that. Unfortunately, that guy was going strong, you know, training at Donnie's gym. Don't know what happened to kid. Don't even know his name. Off top of my head, I wouldn't mention it anyways, but man, it just the swooping effect of people coming in and snatching that kid up and throwing right place, right time. What would have happened if that had not happened that morning? I don't know. Can't predict the future. But the fact that, like, it takes a phone call, I know for a fact I can call this guy. It's going to happen just like that. I know I can call Paul Toolin and they will leverage everything they have against that. I know I can call Brian Marvin. We defy. It's just soft guys taking care of soft guys. And when it comes down to it, it's this community we have built over decades in the martial art, Brazilian jiu jitsu community that enables that. Never thought I'd be where I'm at after this long, you know, hanging out with the Gracies and black belt and all this stuff. But again, you know, monumental to that and overshadowing that. I don't even think about that. I just never thought I'd be in the place where I'm at now. And both the military, I can leverage that. And everybody's just so willing to help us, you know, like, everybody's willing to help us out. And this community does that.

C (81:51)

Yep.

A (81:53)

So where do you see the future of training Jiu Jitsu across SWIC and SOF headed.

B (81:59)

It's a big question. I think trend lines, I think between myself and Stu kind of named and identified some of the trend lines as we see them grow. I think since like the beginning, UFC and MMA and all this stuff, like both Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and this stuff has really ignited and it's like a common, like, everybody knows that UFC is right, Jiu Jitsu's even get is getting that way now. You know, looking more at Olympics, stuff like that. You know, it's a whole different discussion, but I think it's more recognizable and people are starting to see the value of it. I mean, my gosh, we were just talking today about Elon Musk and what's his name. The super fight between Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg. Super fight between the millionaires.

C (82:40)

Can't make it up.

B (82:41)

There's no better way. There's no better indicator that the industry's healthy when you have the two richest people in the world say, yeah, we're doing that.

C (82:48)

Well, that's egos too though, right? One guy calls one guy out on social media, the next guy saying, I'll fight you in a cage fight.

B (82:53)

But if you talk about measures of success or performance and effectiveness, I think that's up there saying it's out there, right?

C (82:58)

Yeah. I'll fight both those guys at the same time for $100 million fraction of what they make.

B (83:03)

Yeah. So, I mean, from a social standpoint, it's out there. The cat's out of the bag. This is great stuff. Stuff from maybe from a soft and military perspective, you know, MACP program, everything. Larson, those guys created geniuses back then. Definitely had legs. Is running SOC P program. It's integrated in 351. Guys are just doing this on their own, you know, 10 level training. It's almost like it's. I'm a warrior. It's a responsibility. Seeing a lot of people do it on their own. So that's a great trend line to follow. Ever since I've been here, I'm always worried about that because I came from fifth group. Great culture. You had the Browers, General Brennan, General Locke, Powers. I mean, that was just a. It was crazy. Recruit commander, beat you up. It was awesome.

C (83:47)

Just break you.

B (83:49)

Yeah. So it was a great culture from that standpoint. And it was a very healthy culture. Not beating people up, but, you know, moving that way. I come to brag, I'm like, oh my gosh, man. Just like fifth Group. So many black belts in the command or stuff like that. What's it going to be like? Well, then I have. This guy was a train. Group commander, chief staff. You talk about. I enabled a lot. You enabled a lot bringing me in here. He came at the right time in my life where I came in here and started teaching. And I was like, holy cow, man, this is a great culture to be in here too. SW's a good place to be. And then lo and behold, back when General Roberson was here, man, that guy's a beast on the mats. That guy can throw down. And he was very supportive of it. And so I was like, wow, wow, It's. It's more than just Fort Campbell. And they start seeing other groups come in, you start seeing this culture. Tenth group, Mike Grant and those guys out there, seventh guy. It's just. It's there, right? So now we got, you know, General Beau Pere and Mike Sullivan, you know, as Chief, Colonel Sullivan, excuse me, Chief of staff, supportive again. You know, it's like there's this. The support is there. It's just building the infrastructure in there to keep this going and keep it from name tape defilating, going into institutional and building and all the other things that go along with that. So I think from moving along and soft, I think we're on a good trend line. I think the skill set's there. People are more willing to share it safely and integrate it in the training where needed. I think the people that need to be where they need to be are there. And influencing, I think the influence is the key term there. I mean, right now, Drew, just you, the grappling chaplain, we talk about health and emotional health and stuff like that. To have a chaplain not only on the mats, to affect us from just your. You have hands on people in ways that I can't have hands on people. And it's a spiritual, emotional, and healthy way in that aspect. So, I mean, our chaplains are now grappling. So I mean, to me, like, you know, measures of effectiveness of success. We're getting to the point now where the trend line's there. I just think it's like, keep on that glide path and keep building it. I think it's gonna keep moving that way, sir.

C (85:56)

Yeah. So real quick one, I would. I would love. I think a lot of people would actually. It would be great to get combatives training, I think, back into the pipelines, you know, the pipelines, I like to call them. It's a system of compromises. In other words, you know, they've been rearranged. If you've been in SWCC for more than a day, they've been been rearranged in all kinds of shapes and sizes. And this course is first and it gets moved around for all very logical reasons. Right. Just depends on what's the priority at the time. Right. So there is no perfect place to conduct a lot of training. And then you talk about trying to put one more thing into the pipeline. Add the length. I get it. I think the logical place, for what it's worth, if they were to consider it would be during language school. Guys and gals have more time for that. If you're worried about an injury, let's say, which I think the risks of that are low. But they're already badged, so to speak. Right. They've been through their pipeline, they're qualified now, they're going through language school. So should they, you know, low risk but get hurt or something like they have time to recover. But I also think that that'd be the, the right time to kind of bake it in maybe once or, you know, two to three times a week or something like that. Right. In the mornings they, you could probably find time to do it. That'd be a great, a great place to have it back into the qualification courses. In the meantime though, you know, I'll just put it out there to anybody that's listening. That's on Fort Bragg. If you, if you are looking for a place, if, whether you train or you don't and you're, or you're interested, whatever it is, you are welcome to join us. You know, basically we're there every Monday to Friday starting around 0630 ish until about 08 ish. You can find us in the basement of Bank Hall. And again we've got, you know, regardless of your experience, what color black belt to white belts, male, female, kids, Everybody's, everybody's welcome. And we've got it. You know, it's an incredible demographic of really great people and anyone who's out there wants to come train is more than welcome.

B (87:49)

Yeah, if I'll add to that, I. Monday through Friday, 6:30, we're there until this gets codified better, we're gonna keep doing it. That's, that's the underground type way of doing stuff. Right.

C (88:00)

It's very SF like though Jiu Jitsu gorillas.

B (88:02)

Right.

C (88:03)

The best part is it's a very much an organic underground movement, right. That kind of, that kind of feeds itself and whatnot. There's a certain beauty in that, that we really.

B (88:12)

I don't care fortunate what guide ons they fly. I don't care what schools they go to, just come on in. I'm not here to compete again. We're not a school. We're an organization that supports the greatest military special operations in the world. If you train at some of the other schools around here in this area, fine, come in, help us, help us build. If we got something that you can take away, take back to your school, make it better, take it, I don't care. There's no proprietorship here. I'm giving back, we're giving back. The group here is solidifying. We're all trying to make everybody better. If you come from another school, come on down. You're visiting Fort Bragg, Come on down if you're listening. If you want to meet some cool people, hang out, if you want to talk about going to selection, come on down, we'll talk about that. We're not just jiu jitsu either. We've got a lot of other people with a diverse martial arts background. Pistol guys, knife guys, we got kickboxing guys. And they will all pull you aside and show you, not just rack up, you know, kill points on you, beating you up if you got a problem. If you're thinking bad stuff, man, it's a chaplain. Got a chap, we got a grappling chaplain right here.

C (89:22)

Yep.

B (89:24)

We got institutions, both military and non military veterans that we will leverage against you.

C (89:29)

Yeah, 100%.

B (89:30)

We will bring you on those mats. You can beat me up for free if that makes you feel better. I don't care. I don't care what your excuse is. Like I have the most respected person in jiu jitsu or martial arts in the world. To me is that person that walks in on that mat, stares one of us in the face and goes, you know what? You beat the crap out of me. I'll be back tomorrow. So I'm gonna figure it out, how to do it, and I'm gonna do it back to you eventually. I don't care how long it takes. I have no. That, that. That's the most respected person I can imagine on the mat. That person just keeps coming back, keep coming back, keep coming back. And you know what? It may take a year, it may take five years to get better. Eventually that person didn't quit. Eventually does come back. Probably has a black belt by then and has a whole different life because something changed about him somewhere in there. And that's the magic of all this. You know, you get to where else can you go train a culture of warriors and green berets and psyopers and civil affairs people? You get to do this. I just think, I think it's, I think it's awesome time to be, to be involved in this. So that's my statement. Come on in. Everybody's welcome.

A (90:38)

Absolutely. Well, it's truly an honor and privilege to sit down today and get to have this discussion. And so yeah, I hope everyone listening heard the call go out to come start your journey and experience all the benefits, the holistic benefits, the direct benefits, self defense. All these things are all wrapped up into one and into an awesome community. So I hope, hope everyone listening can, can begin that journey.

B (91:03)

Thank you so much. This has been a great experience. I think a couple of friends talk about Jiu jitsu and work, man, it's getting better than that.

C (91:09)

And I'll see you guys tomorrow. Tomorrow, 6:30.

B (91:13)

Thank y'. All.