Caffeinated Jiu Jitsu
Dive deep into the exhilarating world of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with "Caffeinated Jiu Jitsu," where passion meets perspective, and the gi meets the daily grind. Hosted by a spirited novice, this podcast uncovers the intricacies, challenges, and rewards of embarking on the BJJ journey. From perfecting that elusive guard pass to sharing light-hearted tales of gi faux pas, we explore it all with a fresh and caffeinated lens. Whether you're a white belt finding your footing, or a seasoned practitioner reminiscing about your early days, this podcast offers insights, laughs, and camaraderie. Brew your favorite coffee, tie up your belt, and join us on the mats. Let's roll!
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Caffeinated Jiu Jitsu
Top Tactics for Larger Practitioners with The Leg Locking Giant - Dylan Smith
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Join us in this thrilling episode of Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu as Dylan Smith, a dedicated BJJ enthusiast, shares his incredible journey from facing obesity and a tough personal challenge to achieving his upcoming promotion to purple belt at Iron Wolf Academy.
Dylan's story is nothing short of transformative. Despite having a Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt brother, it took a dark period in his life for Dylan to embrace the sport fully. Shedding over 120 pounds, he found solace and purpose through Jiu-Jitsu, which not only transformed his body but also played a crucial role in improving his mental health. In this episode, he discusses the specific challenges faced by larger practitioners, emphasizing the development of a strong top game and effective half guard strategies that can make all the difference in both training and competition.
We also dive into the fascinating world of leg locks, exploring their history, evolution, and the ethical considerations around their training. Dylan, a specialist in leg locks, shares his techniques and advice on safe training practices. From the importance of flexibility to the proper entries for leg locks, this episode is packed with expert tips and personal anecdotes that offer a well-rounded perspective for anyone interested in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or just starting out, Dylan's journey and insights promise to inspire and educate.
Also, check out "Dylan's Jiu-Jitsu Thoughts" car chats, where he reflects on training sessions and shares valuable insights with his growing Instagram audience, connect using the IG below.
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Welcome to Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu the blend of white belt enthusiasm, black belt wisdom and a dash of caffeine for that extra kick. Dive deep into the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as we explore the journey, techniques, challenges and the sheer joy of the sport from a white belt's perspective, from intriguing interviews with renowned coaches and professors to playful fun episodes that'll have you chuckling mid-roll. We've got it all brewed and ready.
Speaker 2:Now, stepping over the mess and into your ears, here's your host, joe Motes and welcome back everyone to another episode of caffeinated jiu-jitsu, the podcast where we blend our love for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and high energy caffeine. I am your host, joe Motes, and today I am super excited about our guests. We have a fantastic guest joining us. We have with us Dylan Smith, who is a dedicated Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner who has made remarkable strides in his journey.
Speaker 2:Dylan and I used to train together at Iron Wolf Academy, as many of you know. That's where I started my journey out, and we got an excited episode. Today we're going to be diving deep into what it's like to train as a larger practitioner and we have an added bonus where we're going to talk about the fascinating world of leg locks, because that's kind of Dylan's thing and he's going to share with us. So, dylan, welcome to the show. Thank you, joe, for having me. I'm really excited. Sidewalks, because that's kind of dylan's thing and he's going to share with us. So, um, dylan, welcome to the show thank you, joe, for having me.
Speaker 3:I'm really excited. I like what you're doing with this podcast and, uh, I'm I'm excited to uh rant about some jujitsu, so this should be a good time yeah, man, I'm super excited to have you here.
Speaker 2:Um, for for just starting out, for those of you who don't know and don't follow uh dylan on ig, he does, he's pretty cool, I don't know. What do you call them car car chats? What do you call?
Speaker 3:them. I've been using the hashtag dylan's jujitsu thoughts but, I maybe need to change it to dylan's car thoughts. I don't know something. I need to think of something catchy, but um, just little little, uh car talks. That I'll do after my. Anything interesting happens during a training session. Someone says something to me, kind of gets a thought process going. I'll just record a video on my way home and uh, kind of share my thoughts yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I've been seeing a lot of uh, the kind of different influencers doing, doing kind of these car chats, um, jance, uh, with five rings. I know, you know, jance, uh, he'll post sometimes from his, from his car. You know notice, the other day he posted something and I'm like, oh, he stopped over there by Chateau Alon, so it was really cool. No, I love them, man. I mean they're you know, they're concise, to the point, they're always from your perspective and I think that's what helps all of us grow right, is all of us sharing and kind of caring and, just, you know, sharing our experiences. So, yeah, I really like them, man, Keep it up.
Speaker 2:So let's see, let's start with your journey, right, if you want to, uh, dylan, start maybe kind of from the beginning. What got you into jujitsu and a lot of our listeners are are people who are within. You know, the first few years of jujitsu many blue belts, many white belts. Um, obviously I'm sure we have some higher belts that listen, but can you share some of your key challenges and milestones that you've kind of faced on your journey? For those of you I've failed to mention, dylan is actually a purple belt, so he's well on his way.
Speaker 3:So I actually a little bit of a correction there. I am getting my purple belt within the next month.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 3:But our coach is doing, we're doing like a big celebration. It's actually going to end up being our 10-year anniversary this year, Wow.
Speaker 2:Wow, 10 years, yeah, gosh, yeah, I know Caleb is excited about that.
Speaker 3:So he's actually held back a couple of us that were supposed to probably already be purple belts by now. Um, but, I'm not complaining because I'm actually squeezing in one last blue belt competition before I get promoted.
Speaker 3:So nice, nice um, you know, not the worst thing, uh, but I'm very excited that will be within the next month. Um, yeah, so just to talk about my journey, I, um, I think, like a lot of people, um, once I finally got into jujitsu, I was completely hooked, but it took me a really, really long time to find it. So my brother he's 10 years older than me and he's actually a Gracie jujitsu black belt he just got his black belt Wow, I want to say two years ago, um, and he's probably been training 17, 18 years, something like that um but he had long periods where he took off.
Speaker 3:But I, uh, I still kick myself for this. But he took me to a couple classes when I was like 12 and uh, I still think about that to this day that if I would have stuck with that I'd be a black belt right now. I'd probably be like a five year black belt. But I think every person I know that does.
Speaker 2:Jujitsu has a. I wish I would have started earlier story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that's definitely mine. But you know, better late than never. I actually went through a really, really dark period in my personal life around the age of 26. I went through a divorce. Things were very, very tough. It was very this is a very, very hard time for me, and I was morbidly obese throughout most of my 20s. I was over 400 pounds at one point, with basically no muscle and basically growing up.
Speaker 3:A lot of people when they have hard times, they kind of fall into different vices. For me, food was one of my biggest vices growing up and that's how I got to the point of being so big. And I just got to the point where and a lot of people experience this when they go through something traumatic like a divorce where they really need to kind of take control of their life and they need to feel some sense of control because everything feels so out of control. So, with that being said, I kind of got a little bit into fitness and things like that. I tried going to the gym. It was a little boring to me just lifting weights, but something I don't honestly remember exactly what it was that reminded me about jujitsu, but maybe it was just being around my brother because you know, he was still training at that time and I just needed to. I needed to do something. So I was like, you know, I'm going to give this jujitsu thing a try and I actually went and trained at our sister gym, twin Tigers over in Winder Shout out to them they're an awesome school for about two weeks and I just didn't end up staying because they their schedule didn't quite work with what I was doing. And then through them, I found out that they had a sister school and that was actually how I linked up with Caleb. And this was right around the time when all the craziness of 2020 was happening. Caleb had just tried to do zoom classes for a couple of weeks and it was kind of funny. One of the first conversations I had with him he was like man, I've tried really, really hard with these zoom classes, but this is Brazilian jujitsu, you just can't do it over a computer.
Speaker 3:So it was through that that I kind of got got, just got hooked and then immediately, just being a bigger guy, being strong, I did well at least you know around with the other white belts, just the little bit that I had seen from my brother. I did a little tiny bit of wrestling in middle school so I did well starting off and most bigger guys do. At White Belt they do better because they can kind of muscle, muscle people around and things like that. But it, yeah, I just I took off and it was one of the greatest things that I've ever stepped into in my life and I wish I back then I could have realized how big of a deal that this sport was going to be to my life throughout the next four or five years.
Speaker 3:Now that it's been. But I went from over 400 pounds to, I think, at my lowest because of jujitsu, I got down to around like 280 pounds, so you're talking about 120 pounds of this. Sport helped me drop off, um, just from the sheer amount of calories I was burning because I was training so much. Yeah, no, it was awesome. I really, really loved being a white belt. I actually had a lot of fun at white belt.
Speaker 3:I found blue belt to be a lot more uh, challenging than white belt um, yeah and I think a lot of bigger guys do well at white belt and until they start getting into the upper belts and we can talk about that a little more later A lot of the challenges, the bigger guys. But that's my introduction.
Speaker 3:Basically, I was in a very dark place and I found jujitsu at a very dark time in my life and it really gave me something to kind of put my energy and focus towards, something that had some real tangible meaning, that was helping me to be healthier. And, yeah, I would say that's definitely how I got started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love every bit of that man. There's just so much in your journey already, right, and from the beginning to now I have conversations outside of the podcast, obviously, and then you know, with training partners and we're getting a lot of new people into the Alliance Roswell location and I can't I can't tell you just how many times I've had conversations about, because I'll ask that question. Hey, tell me, tell me your journey. What brought you here conversations about? Because I'll ask that question. Hey, tell me, tell me your journey. What brought you here? What?
Speaker 2:And the therapeutic value of jiu-jitsu that they've heard about, wanted to try. I mean, I had. There was one guy I was talking to at uh, it was recently and it was a counselor that recommended jiu-jitsu. You, like myself, they were a veteran and you know most all of us deal with PTSD in some form or fashion and you know they recommended jujitsu. There's a great book out there Gosh, now I can't think of it but it's about healing through jujitsu, healing trauma, things like that, and I remember reading most's. I remember reading most of it as a pretty long read, but it was just amazing points. And you know I I won't say that I came to jujitsu in a, in a dark time, but man has it helped with things like anxiety and stress management. You know I'm a, I'm a father. I work, uh, you know, like most of us, like like a dog, you know, all the time, and it was, uh, it became something that was mine. Uh, like you, uh, I experienced the, the health benefits of, of training a lot. I lost not nearly as much as you, but, uh, I lost, I think, 40, 40 pounds.
Speaker 2:I, you were training at Iron Wolf when I started. Uh, remember I remember training with you some God, I was terrified, uh, I was like what am I going to do this? But I remember you being an amazing training partner and you know, you, you were one of those training partners that let the white belts and the newbies work. You didn't just come in there and say, you know I'm, I'm done, I'm going to smash you, you know I'm. I remember you telling me to kind of where to move my legs, you know how to handle half guard and just some of those things, and you know that set the tone for me as I, you know, training an iron wolf and having, you know, some of the senior belts at least higher than I was. You know, train like that really. It really made an impact on how I now, as a blue belt, training.
Speaker 2:I'll agree with you too, I find blue belt super difficult. I mean it really is. I uh, white belt was fun, it was exciting, you're learning all the fundamentals, but blue belt Now there's always that little bit of pressure like, oh, I'm a blue belt, you know, and all this white belt's killing me, cause you're right, if they're heavier in strength and size matters in jiu-jitsu, they say you know that technique rules all. And yeah, technique's a big thing. But, bro, I mean, if they're strong and they know a little bit about what they're doing, you said you had a wrestling background. You're gonna have a really hard time with that person, so but yeah, that's awesome. So we're talking about large practitioners in jiu-jitsu and you touched on it a little bit in your intro. But what are some examples of how your size has influenced your training and progression in jiu-jitsu? Maybe the size that you are now, right, now that you have a lot of your muscle back and you're an in-shape big guy, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say it has influenced me both very negatively and very positively. With that being said, what I mean by that is, as a bigger guy, especially at white belt, you're going to create a lot of bad habits because there are going to be things that, just based on your strength, you're going to be able to get away with. You're going to be able to get away with having a bad guard because you can just bench, press people off of you and they get the side control. You're going to be, you're going to be able to kind of get away with a lot of bad habits just for the simple fact that you're able to kind of move people around in a way. But it's going to, if you're not conscious of it, it's going to hinder your technique development.
Speaker 3:And a lot of people say, you know, strength versus technique. There's this whole debate and it's like they're not counter to each other, and I think that's where a lot of people get it kind of mixed up. And I think a little bit bit of that is the mythology of jujitsu, with you know, just a little guy using the technique to beat up the big guy. But my thought a white belt was like okay, what happens when the big guy learns the technique that the little guy used to beat up the big guy? What I have found is that strength is an ample. It's like an amplifier. So like you still have to have the techniques, Like if you're playing guitar, you still have to know the notes, you still have to know the chords and everything. But if it's an electric guitar, you're not going to hear anything if you don't plug it into an amp. Now, how powerful your amp is is is how good and powerful your sound is going to be. It's the same thing with your technique and strength. How strong you are is going to more enable you to enact your technique and use your technique. It's just going to amplify it, your ability to be able to kind of make that happen in a role.
Speaker 3:So as a bigger guy with white belts especially at white belt it's very easy to develop bad defensive techniques because you can get away with bench pressing people off of you, things like that and and kind of just having a bad guard. Most big guys are known for having bad guards Like they'll, Like they'll play half guard and that's it. Like they'll get really good at half guard. Big guys are usually very good at half guard, but they won't really play much else In a positive way early on. I think a lot of white belts struggle because they don't get a lot of victories and they have to kind of hold on to whatever little victories they get.
Speaker 3:And as a bigger guy, one of the I guess good things coming from your strength is that you will be able to punch above your weight class and I say that with with quotations in the air. I mean that in terms of technique or skill, that you'll be able to punch above your weight class and be able to tap people that are better than you skill wise, based on your strength. I remember at white belt I actually I tapped a brown belt and it was just him being I think he was being a little lazy that day Not lazy, this is a bad way to put it, but he just was. He was rolling with the white belt and he probably wasn't thinking much about it and I got a head arm grip and I end up tapping him. I just remember he sat up and looked at me like he had just saw a ghost. He's like what just happened. He's like all right, I'm talking to Caleb. Today. You need your blue belt soon.
Speaker 3:But so there's a lot of pros and cons to that. That size and strength advantage that you have and strength advantage that you have on one end you're going to have more victories at a lower ranks. But there are bad habits that are still haunting me in my jiu-jitsu to this day that I developed as a white belt because I was big and strong, was able to just bench, press people off of me. So and and the other thing that people, that big guys have to think about is and this was a struggle for me too is I didn't have a lot of other big guys to to think about is and this was a struggle for me too is I didn't have a lot of other big guys to train with. I had like one or two at school and you can make techniques work on someone when they're five weight classes below you, Like you can kind of force some stuff to happen, Whereas and we might get into this more later in some of my competitions I ran up against guys.
Speaker 3:You know the whole, the whole moniker pick on someone your own size yeah, I did and it didn't go super well for me in some of my competitions, um, and it's very, it's very important as a big guy to make sure that you're consistently rolling with other big guys, because if you're only rolling with people smaller than you, you're going to have an inflated sense of your technique, um, and how well it works.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I, I think that's a, that's a great point. So our professor at at Alliance, uh, professor Macio, he's, he's an ultra heavy weight, right, he's, he's massive in in all sense, height, weight, muscle, I mean it's, he's. He's an animal, he's a beast, right, and you know he's a, he's a black belt. Uh, he just got a second stripe, so it was second class. Um, black belt, he, he. It's really hard to kind of know what his game is as a big guy. Obviously, for someone like myself, and I was really lucky in that when I first started at Alliance, after I moved up from Iron Wolf, I moved over from Iron Wolf, I, it was just him and I, because the school was so new, I mean it was, this, was. I mean the school now is only maybe getting close to two years old and no one was coming to morning class.
Speaker 2:So I remember and he and I, you know, I consider him a really good friend now because all the time we spent together over the months and now a year, but I remember, you know, you know, going in I had two stripes when I left Iron Wolf and I remember going in the first day, you know, he was kind of trying me out and let me roll and the guy just lays down and like the prone position on his side, right there, he doesn't put any guard up or anything, but man, it was like because I was used to rolling with, I think you were probably one of the the biggest guys that I rolled with at, uh, iron wolf, but we didn't train a lot together just because of we went to different classes. But, like you know, caleb, but he's, he's not a heavyweight by any. You know, professor holland, he's not a heavyweight by any means. So it wasn't the pain that I felt, you know, rolling with him and when he would get him out and I was like, oh my gosh, this is it's. It was a totally different game for someone like myself rolling with, um, uh, ultra heavyweight. And I I'll say, as someone smaller who trains a good bit now with with heavier guys, uh, it my jiu-jitsu man, there's guys at our academy, the big guys we got this guy Will. I haven't rolled with him yet. I'm not looking forward to it. He's a personal trainer. He squats 500 pounds. He's not tall but he's just a big guy and I'm training with people way above my weight class and even skillset, and it's just made it better.
Speaker 2:So for, uh, for those of us who train with kind of the heavyweights, it helps improve, I think, our jujitsu overall, you're going to get tapped, you're going to get beat. I mean, that's that's not what it's about. It's about improving, uh, your, your survivor. Survivability really is what it's about. Um, you mentioned, uh, you know some of the obstacles and challenges that you had, or it sounded like you still kind of deal with. Is, you know, making sure you're not continuing to develop bad habits around, like things like guard and things like that. But and you also mentioned this as well but I wanted to ask you kind of again to elaborate what strategies like and techniques outside of you know, watching your guard and things like that do you think works really well for yourself? And in larger, you know larger practitioners, I mean, and you can even just talk maybe the guards and stuff. I know we're going to talk leg locks later, but yeah, what do you think are some good strategies and techniques for those big guys listening yeah, that's an awesome question.
Speaker 3:So I definitely say, for big guys, the temptation, especially early on in your jiu-jitsu career, is going to be to play a lot of your top game, I would say from white to blue belt, like still develop your top game. And this was kind of the way I did. It was I looked at who I was rolling with. So like, if I'm rolling with someone like Caleb, my coach he's, you know, he's a black belt, he's been training for 20 years still taps me a ton every time we roll, I'm going to use my best thing I have against him, which is my top pressure. But there's also going to be people I'm rolling against where you know. We have a girl there that's like four foot seven and like probably not even 100 pounds. I'm not gonna try to, you know, pass the side control and just and just smash there. So I would say, base it somewhat on who you're rolling with, but work on your guard as much as you can early on. For big guys I find they gravitate a lot towards any kind of guards that slow people down, and what I mean by that is like guards where I find any kind of guard where I have my legs triangled. So what I mean by that is like half guard. That was actually the first guard that I really got into with half guard and that is a guard that big guys excel in. I'm not exactly sure why the mechanics of that are the way they are, but big guys always do very well in half guard.
Speaker 3:And more specifically for me personally, because I have long legs I really got into lockdown and funny competition story in my first competition.
Speaker 3:I had the whole range of experiences. I gold medaled a division and I got dead last in another division. But in one of the divisions it was a nogi match and I ended up on under bottom half guard for the whole round and Caleb is on the sidelines literally trying to teach me a sweep that I don't even know. Mid-competition dude buddy's like having to have actual class mid-competition, like I'm in a competition role and he's trying to teach me a sweep and I just was like I don't know what to do here. We ended up, he ended up winning, but it was not nobody scored, either of us, because I just kept him in half guard for five minutes. But it was that competition loss and how embarrassing that was for my coach having to literally try to teach me a technique made competition match where I developed my entire half guard game. So before I ever even got into leg locks I actually developed a really good half guard to lock down.
Speaker 3:I really got into like the electric chair, electric chair sweep stuff like that yeah, it's a very I think it's a very good guard for big guys early on. To start with is half guard and if you got longer legs, I think lockdown is awesome. And then from there, definitely still don't. Don't neglect your top game, but understand that it's going to come to you much more naturally than your guard game is and you're going to have to be intentional about your guard game. But I think half guard lockdown is a very, very good place for big guys to start and it works well in gi and no-gi.
Speaker 3:So that would be my number one recommendation. It would be some kind of half guard lockdown variation and wherever you want to go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, half guard is something I've been working a lot on as well. Even as a guy at my size, I just think half guard is just a super effective guard. I mean, there's just so much that you can do with it. From you know the passes or you know, getting out of half guard is relatively easy if your opponent has you in it. Well, I won't say relatively easy, it depends on who you have. But there's so many passes and things like that that you can do. And then you know, just, the submission chains are endless. You know, and I'm an older guy, right, I'll be 45 this year.
Speaker 2:So half guard, closed guard, I mean that's I'm a guard puller, I'll admit it. You know I pull guard almost a hundred percent of the time. The guard area closed in half or kind of where where I stay. So if I were a hundred pounds heavier, you you can bet your, bet your butt, that's where I would stay. Um. So you've talked, uh, you've, you've thrown some would stay. Um. So you've talked, uh, you've, you've thrown some, some kind of uh tidbits in there around your competition, uh, career.
Speaker 2:So let's talk a little bit and spend some time on that before we shift over to leg locks. Well, first, let's, let's so. So how many competitions have you done? If you, if you can recall them all? And then, what, uh, do you have? Or if you have any memorable stories or experiences and you just shared one but any, any memorable experiences, or any of those competitions or medals that really stand out, that you're super proud of okay, yeah, no, that's awesome, I uh, so I've actually only competed three times um and I I wanted to compete more but, like I told you, when I got into jiu-jitsu, I got into jiu-jitsu at a very dark time in my life and mental health has been something I've really struggled with.
Speaker 3:And I really really struggle with competition because it brings a lot of anxiety, and anxiety is already something I struggle with just just from existing and then and then throwing the idea of competition on top of that was it was truly one of the most terrifying things I think I've ever done in my life. But I found that doing terrifying things is good for people. I think, like I heard someone say recently, it was like you never, ever remember the days that you were comfortable, like like great memories only come from, like, uh, high levels of stress and meaning in the things that you're pursuing. So I did one competition at White Belt and two at Blue Belt. Um, the one at White Belt I did basically every division I could.
Speaker 3:It was the first time grappling industries came to Atlanta and the whole experience was kind of wild.
Speaker 3:So my first match was a White Belt Absolute Gi Division and what that is is it's all White Belts in the Gi but it's open weight class and I felt so bad for the guy that I went against, because it was me three-stripe white belt getting close to blue belt against a brand new one-stripe white belt who probably weighed 160 pounds soaking wet, and I think I won like 24 to nothing.
Speaker 3:Like I didn't end up tapping the guy, but like I don't know how it happened that we rolled so many times and I just kept ending up in mount but I ended up with like I felt so bad for this guy, I ended up with like 24 points, um, and I got a gold medal there. And then the, the competition performance I'm most proud of was in my gi weight class. I subbed a guy the same way in a best two out of three. So in each match within about two to three minutes, I had subbed him with an arm triangle, which I've, like I said earlier, I have long limbs, so, uh, arm triangles is a good submission for me. And then in no gi was where I had the match that I spoke about earlier, where I, um, I had, uh, I had spent the whole match match under bottom half guard and the guy ended up winning.
Speaker 3:And then I had my very last match. I went with a guy who no nice way to put it the guy probably should not have been a blue belt, but he was one of those blue belts where it's like a blue belt with an asterisk next to it, because I think he had been wrestling his whole life and he double-legged me. I have never been picked up like that in my life, being a big man like I am. He double-legged and sent me to the ground and every bit of wind in my body was knocked out and I was done. I think he camorried me or something after that.
Speaker 3:So, like I said, that first competition was really special to me because I had the full range of experience where I, you know, dominated, got double gold, but then, like, I also had, like you know, heart wrenching defeats and you know very embarrassing moments and I kind of really had the full gamut of experience. My first competition, which most people can't say that, so I'm very blessed that it went the way it did. First competition, which most people can't say that, so I'm very blessed that went the way it did. Um, but there was so much anxiety leading up to that that it took me a really long time to compete again, to get myself in the in the mindset for that. And then the next time I competed I ended up against a guy from our sister school twin tigers, josh thom shout out to him, one of the best men I know. I love that guy, he's an absolute monster and basically he just ended up on top and got, I think, an Americana from side control or something the classic big guy, finish Americana from side control. And then I lost to. I have one other match with a guy named Kyle Stevens Shout out to him he's one of my best friends, but I didn't know him before this competition and he beat me in less than like 30 seconds. It was, it was beautiful. He hit me with a lat drop and some kind of Kimura Americana or something, but me and him actually spoke after that and we have literally become best friends and it's one of my favorite jujitsu stories that I tell people all the time. This dude totally kicked my butt and then we became best friends, after which that's just jiu-jitsu for you. That's just kind of how it goes, and we actually cross train together now a lot, our two gyms kind of we go to each other's open mats and train together. So just one of those cool ways that jiu-jitsu kind of we go to each other's open mats and train together. So just one of those cool ways that jiu-jitsu kind of connects people.
Speaker 3:And then I had one last competition. I was a new breed and I end up against a guy that he just was better than me that day. I will say, with both of those competitions I was not eating well, I was not working out, I not lifting, and around about a month up to each of those competitions I had gotten really anxious, which caused me to get really depressed, which, like I said earlier, struggle with emotional eating. It's all kind of a vicious cycle. So I went into these competitions just like. Not in any good kind of physical shape at all. Not in any good kind of physical shape at all. And it frustrates me because I know I didn't give it my best. I didn't give my opponents my best. I know I haven't seen what I can do at competition 100% yet and that frustrates because I know I can do better. So I'm actually competing this weekend. I am going down to Emerson with one of the guys from our gym, colin Conway. Shout out to him, he's an absolute beast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big Colin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, big Colin has he gotten bigger.
Speaker 2:Is that possible?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he got real big and then he started getting shredded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a monster. I remember that guy.
Speaker 3:But I love him and he's been a real inspiration to me and helping me get a better mindset about competition. Um. So we're going down. Um, I would not say I'm. I've gotten a lot better with my lifting and my eating, but I am not still not where I want to be. Um, but I do the improvement.
Speaker 3:I have more consistently lifted the last probably six months than my entire jiu-jitsu career and I will say I've seen a huge benefit in that and I encourage every jiu-jitsu practitioner to get on some kind of lifting program. Um, talk to someone that knows what they're doing. Develop a program, because it's not for anything else. It does make you less prone to injury and and you'll you'll appreciate how much it'll help you apply your technique. Um. But yeah, we're going down to emerson. This saturday I'm going to compete in nogi I. I am known as the guy, that kind of um. I'm not a big guy at my gym, I'll just I'll put it that way I'm more of a no-gi specialist, but I still try to train at least one gi day a week because I don't want to be rusty in it.
Speaker 3:I don't want to not know what I'm doing, but all of my goals and my passion are in the gi and, honestly, I like my fingers and the gi destroys fingers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. I uh, when I left iron wolf and I trained there for six, almost seven months, I only had two hours of nogi. That's how, that's how much I avoided nogi. But uh, you know, when I moved up to alliance I started that's when I started training every day of the week. So I do still still prefer gi. I have to be able to slow people down Again. I'm old, I'm not a big guy, I'm not overly strong or muscular, so I have to have something to grab.
Speaker 2:I have never competed in no gi, but I just got my blue belt in December. So most competitions well, I compete a lot in IBJJF. I'll say a lot. I've competed my last two competitions in IBJJF. However, professor Maciel was talking to me this morning and he wants me to actually go down and fight in the one in Emerson. So I may see you down there this Saturday. I don't know, I haven't decided yet. I may be a last-minute add down there. I've never fought a new breeds, so it won't be Nogi. I have. Even though I've been training Nogi, I have very little game there. So you know, have you thought about you shared? You're competing next week or not next week, but this weekend.
Speaker 3:Do you have visions of maybe like pans or master worlds or something like that one day? Yeah, so I am again to talk, talk more about colin. He's been a huge inspiration to me. Um, our, our, the gym. I was telling you about megalodon. They've actually done some in-house tournaments and things like that and I've seen the benefit that that has for people. Me and Colin basically both kind of agree that we want to kind of take charge and really start to put Iron Wolf on the map. Iron Wolf is an amazing school and Caleb is an amazing teacher. I think he's maybe one of the most underrated jujitsu teachers I've ever known, because the amount of knowledge that man has for as young as he is, it's just something special. But me and colin really, really want to put our school on the map. So this is going to be the first of many competitions and we want to I mean, colin wants to go as far as to go do the adcc open?
Speaker 3:um, oh wow, yeah I'm down to try things like that. We've had one of our guys, uh, jance, uh he actually went and did, um, he did, I think he did the adcc open yeah, watched his matches.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he did well so we we have some high level guys. I think our our biggest problem right now is I think we're I think we're in the infancy of what we are as a school. We're very bottom heavy. What I mean by that is a lot of white and blue belts, but we have some people that are starting to rise up. Like I said, we're about to have a new crop of purple belts.
Speaker 3:So me and Colin both feel a strong urge to really go out there, start dominating local competitions and really making it a regular thing. I find the only way with competition to really get used to it is just to do it more often. I think my biggest problem was I was taking six months off between competitions and then by the time another one rolled around, I would make myself anxious again. But if you do it enough, it becomes normal.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I would love to do all the big competitions, but for me specifically, my goals are in Nogi. So it's going to be as much Nogi as I can do, but for now I'm trying to just get my feet wet and do a new breed. The goal would be, every two to three months at least doing one. I want to start actually doing some Nagas and I know we're going to get into this in a minute, but Naga is much more friendly, I guess that's the way I would put it with their leg lock rules. The new breed is I. You know, I want to do more leg lock stuff in competition.
Speaker 3:But, a lot of that. You have to roll against brown and black belts to be able to do the things that I want, right, yeah, um, so I'm, I'm definitely going to try. There's a Naga in October that I want to hit. We have one of our white belts is going to do his first competition there, so I think I'm going to go to that one, cause they're they're very friendly with the leg lock rules there. Um, but, yeah, no, definitely, uh, me and Colin are, we're, we're kind of, uh, we're training to be on a warpath, because we really want to make Iron Wolf a recognized school amongst the, you know, at least the local Georgia area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, you know, I guess this is kind of putting everybody on on warning. When they see the two, two big Iron Wolf guys walking in, they'll know what you're there, what you're there to do. So that's awesome, I mean, you know, man, we would love, uh, it'd be awesome, to have you and, uh, Colin, come up and train train at Alliance someday. I think you'd really enjoy. You know, rolling with Professor Maciel and some of our guys as well, I still get down to Iron Wolf when David has the morning classes. I try to get to at least once every couple of months or a few months. So Iron Wolf is where I started out. So I like to, you know, go back there from time to time. Man, well, dude, we are doing exactly what we thought we would do. Man, we're talking it up.
Speaker 2:Let's shift gears now. And you know, I know you've been chomping at the bit, probably to talk about this. But let's shift gears and talk about some leg locks, about this. But let's, let's shift gears and talk about some leg locks Now. Um, I think I shared this with you when I, when we connected to talk about, you know, doing a podcast episode. I know very little when it comes to a wide variety of of of leg locks and most of our listeners. Again, the podcast focuses on those who only have a few years of jiu-jitsu, or maybe just starting. So if you could take maybe a couple, a few moments here and introduce our listeners to to kind of what, what we mean when we talk about leg locks and kind of where you see them fitting in in jiu-jitsu.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Leg locks have a very, very interesting history with jiu-jitsu. Basically, for the longest time leg locks especially in the older days of jiu-jitsu they were kind of looked at as almost a last resort technique. It was like you couldn't get any of your other real submissions to work, so why not screw it, fall back for a leg lock. But it wasn't necessarily looked at as like an honorable thing. It wasn't really looked at like you had a lot of technique and I would say even to a certain degree maybe they were kind of almost looked down on. And I think part of that maybe is how the gracies viewed leg locks. Um, because it just wasn't a big part of what they did, um, and then you see guys like dean lister, who is, you know, a big guy who did leg locks, but you know he had the famous quote, uh, why ignore 50 of the human body? And then you have guys like danaher who hear that and basically run with it. And then for it was probably like a decade where they were just leg locking everybody, because a lot of the the old school guys were like, hey, this isn't a real technique, this is kind of a last resort thing that we're not going to tap to this. Um, and then you have a lot of these new guys coming in that are like this is awesome, this is so much fun and you know they're learning these new things and dana hair's teaching these guys and they basically go on a tear and they just leg lock everybody for 10 years. And then it becomes a thing where if you don't have some kind of leg lock defense, you're just you're in for it. And that's why guys like gordon ryan, gary tonin, craig j guys they they dominated for so many years. Was people never really believed how effective leg locks could be because of how they were viewed in the in the older years of jujitsu. Fast forward to now, um, I actually recently heard a Dan or her talking about leg locks where he actually thinks people have almost gone too far. The other way that people have become leg lock obsessed to the point that, um, they're kind of foregoing a lot of the other techniques and kind of learning a lot of the basics of jujitsu.
Speaker 3:And I look at it in the way that love them or hate them. I look at it in the way that Gordon Ryan kind of thinks about it and I've seen him talk about this before, where he looks at it as a very valuable tool within a toolbox. And what I mean by that is you don't want to be a one trick pony. A lot of people will kind of have their one technique or their one thing that they're really, really good at and they'll just get that thing to where it's amazing.
Speaker 3:But maybe they've kind of neglected a lot of other areas, whereas you look like look at someone like Gordon Ryan where he's kind of perfected all the different areas and he can kind of pull whatever tool he needs for whatever specific match. That's where I think Leglocks come into play. For me personally, getting into Leglocks, my biggest introduction to them and I'm sure you remember but was rolling with Steve Steve's a black belt at our gym. He looks like I tell people he looks like Agent 47 from the Hitman video games. I don't even know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:No, I know exactly, I remember Steve.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's the nicest guy in the world but looks like a Stone Cold killer and he's one of the better leg lockers I know and Caleb's a very good leg locker too, but Steve, that's like his specialty, that's what he really gravitated towards. And just being around that I never at White Belt, I never even considered that as a possibility for me, just as a big guy. I was like there's no way I can do that. Steve, his feet are above his head. What is happening? Like I don't know, just stay away from my legs, I don't care, I don this happening like I don't know, just stay away from my legs, I don't care, I don't want to know about it. Like I'm just going to go smash people in side control and then I, you know, like I this all kind of ties together. But I talked about earlier like I had some tough competition matches with some big guys and it was that whole idea of picking on somebody your own size. Well, I realized there's going to be some guys that are going to be stronger than me that I'm not going to be able to muscle around or wrestle or whatever, whatever it may be. So I need to develop my toolbox in order to have things that are going to help me be able to equalize.
Speaker 3:And the cool thing about half guard is it actually leads into leg locks very well, because there's a lot of underhoking the leg and half guard to elevate things like that and that actually plays very, very well into into getting into leg lock entanglements. And I just found it as a natural progression. And then one day I just kind of started to mess with it a little bit and it is one of those things the only way I can describe it leg locks took to me the same way that I took to jujitsu, just like jujitsu as a whole. Like when I got into leg locks I got completely addicted to it and I did nothing else for like probably six months. I told caleb I was like, hey, man, I want to get my leg lock game really good. I'm pulling guard every round. I'm going for your legs, like if I try to stand and wrestle, call me out. Like I want to get good at these leg locks. So I basically did nothing but play guard for like six months trying to develop my leg lock game. Working with Caleb and Steve has been very, very helpful in that and I see it's been really.
Speaker 3:Uh, how do I describe this? I think the best way to say it is it's been very nice for my game to not be so one dimensional as a big guy it used to be. It was like hey, don't let that guy on top of you and you're probably fine. If you can get him on his back, you can pass his guard, you can wear them out, you know you'll be fine, but if he gets on top of you you're done. Whereas now, when people roll with me, they're like, oh no, if I let him on, if I play guard, he's gonna smash them out. Or if, uh, if I try to play standing, he's gonna pull guard and get on my legs either way.
Speaker 3:Like right, yeah, it's dinged if you do, dinged if you don't right um, and, and I have found that getting into leg locks and kind of developing that half guard leg lock, all that stuff as my bottom game has made me a much more well-rounded grappler to where I don't ever really have a place now top or bottom, where I don't feel like I I don't have something to offer, something to do.
Speaker 3:And I think for a lot of big guys, if they're honest with themselves, if they really take a look at themselves, they get so good at not having to play guard but they don't really have a good guard and I think as a big guy, it's a very important thing that you have to force yourself to play bottom and I literally had to force myself for about six months of just like I'm pulling guard every round and for the first couple of months my guard got smoked and every time I tried to leg lock Caleb or Steve, I got counter leg. That's the. That's the one thing you need to remember when getting into leg locks is every time you have access to their legs.
Speaker 3:They usually have access to yours, but it's, it's been wonderful, I love it, and I think a lot of the stigma around leg locks is unfounded, because this is jiu-jitsu Every submission is dangerous, like kimuras are incredibly dangerous. I've seen horrific injuries off kimuras but yet people want to kind of single out you know leg locks as this dangerous thing and I get it it. You know it is with the legs you want to be able to walk um. I have found that the environment at my gym around leg locks is one of the healthiest I've ever seen.
Speaker 3:We'll teach a white belt how to heel hook, but we're also not necessarily um going in and rolling with them day one heel-hooking them either. There's a balance to everything. But I have found that our white belts training leg locks early on has actually really helped them a lot. They're all getting really good leg lock defense. It's getting a lot harder to leg lock people, which is frustrating for me, but I think it's. I think it's a valuable thing and I think a lot of the stigma around leg locks is largely unfounded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I think all of those are the great points and insights. I, um, uh, you know, if I think, well, let's, let's take that. That thought about the white belts and, uh, I trained somewhere where we don't, uh, you know, do leg locks and heel hooks and things like that for, uh, the lower belts right, the white belts, you know, maybe, maybe share a few of the techniques and training tips for those who are listening. In mastering leg locks, like you know, when you started, you said you pulled guard more. You told your professor hey, look, if you see me trying to stand up and smash, call me out on it. But what are some other things right? Is mobility important? Is, you know there's something that they need to focus on and think about as they, as they go into to improving their leg lock game?
Speaker 3:yeah, that's a that's a really great question. Um, so the mobility is very important. So I look at somebody like steve. He's very naturally flexible. Um, I, flexibility is absolutely important. I will say I'm weirdly flexible and what I mean by that is is I'm very undisciplined when it comes to stretching. I'm going to be honest with you, I don't like stretching. I just don't like doing it. But I understand that it's a necessity, especially if you want to play guard. The more flexible you are, the more that's going to help you. I will say, when I, when I'm warm and I'm rolling, I get my flexibility from cold to being very warm. It's a big spectrum. So I'm able to do stuff that like surprises people. I. I inverted on Caleb a couple of weeks ago and he looked like he saw a ghost. It was really funny. He was like you're not supposed to be able to do that. But I would say, definitely, mobility is important. Definitely a lot of stretching out your hips, hip flexors, things like that, Hamstrings it's going to help you a lot In terms of developing actual leg lock skill.
Speaker 3:I say this to people all the time and this is like maybe the most important thing I could tell someone just from a practical, technical side with leg locks. I feel like and this is just me personally I feel like 90 to 95% of the whole leg lock game is your entries. When I'm on someone's leg, most of the time I'm able to finish. I'm usually able to get the heel hook. Whatever it is I'm looking for and I'm fine.
Speaker 3:I find that the entire battle for me is actually getting to someone's leg. When someone knows that you're trying to leg lock them, it is so, so difficult to get to a really good deep leg lock position. A lot of people can get on someone's legs but there is a lot of nuance in how tight it is and what kind of leg lock position you're in. Do they have a counterattack, Things like that.
Speaker 3:But I would tell people is examine what your game is and your guard game and figure out what kind of entries work from there. So for me, playing a lot of half guard, underhooking the leg and elevating is a big part of my leg lock entries and also just a lot of I like pulling to 50-50. That's one that I found that works for me. A lot of underhooks, underhooking legs works well for me because I have long arms. I would say examine your game, examine your bottom game and then look at what kind of leg lock entries you can do from where you're at in your bottom game, Because a lot of people like closed guard and K guard is a very good entry from closed guard. I'm sorry, were you going to say something?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I just something came. So I remember at Iron Wolf we trained a lot of X guard, double leg, single leg. I mean, are those guards good and effective for you know, de La Riva, to getting access to the leg.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. I think X and single X are two very important ones. There are some very good guard pulls that you can actually do from standing into single X. That will actually off balance your partner and you'll be on their leg. We actually just did some of those recently, a couple of weeks ago, in our in our curriculum where we're at right now. So, yeah, definitely those two.
Speaker 3:Any kind of guard Delaheva or reverse Delaheva, there's always some kind of way to get to the legs. Some of them they're a little more. It's a little more intricate how you get to the legs more. It's a little more intricate how you get to the legs, um. So I would say half guard is calf. Guard was my original guard game, so that's why I referenced that earlier Cause for me that was the most natural pathway for me to get to legs.
Speaker 3:But single X is amazing and you're already on their leg, um, and if that's a guard that you feel like you can pull to and get to, I recommend that all day. I also love just X guard because I have long legs. So when I stretch someone out an X guard, they really, really feel stretched out. Yeah, any of those guards would be great. I would say just try to figure out what is the best path for you, what is the guard you feel most comfortable in and how to get to the legs from there and what entry you can do from there. The single x is great. That would actually probably be a really good one to start with, because there are some great standing guard pulls that you can do two single x and you're already just immediately on a leg so well.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to something, and thanks for sharing that. I don't play nearly as much X guard as I used to For some reason, whatever reason. I've kind of gotten away from it. But I think leg locks and things like that is definitely something I'm hoping to learn more about, and just as I think of the mechanics and the fact that you know what gives you the most access to the legs the quickest you know. That's kind of what brought that thought to my mind and made me ask I really appreciate those insights. You know, earlier you talked about I think you it referenced some of the ethical aspects of leg locks and how some academies and schools are like yeah, yeah, this is jujitsu man, you know it's, it's a mission, we're going to teach it. You know, um, and then things like competition, like IBJJF. I mean you can't even do that at what? Is it Brown belt or black belt? Maybe? I think it may be some a lot of the leg locks you can't even do until your black belt.
Speaker 2:And then you've got others that you do it as soon as you walk in the door, right, if you know it. I mean, what are your thoughts? I mean, do you think like IBJJF and like all academies should be training leg locks. I mean, do you see any dangers? Dangers to it, I mean just kind of. What are your thoughts on it as someone who does a lot of this?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, that's a really great question. I I I would say I don't think there should ever be a school that's not training new people on how to do leg locks. My main reason for that is if you're ever going to have anyone go to compete, they're going to run into leg locks, straight ankles. They're legal from white all the way to black belt. So at the very least you need to have all your white belts to know how to at the very least defend a straight ankle.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah.
Speaker 3:If not, try to counterattack from a straight ankle. So I would say a very, very bare minimum your school should be teaching white belts everything they need to know about straight ankles. If not, I just feel like you're not doing what you need to do to properly prepare them. With that being said, I I understand the hesitation, um, because I think having a leg injury is probably more crippling to someone's daily life than maybe any other kind of injury you can get in jujitsu because, like, if my elbows tweaked or something I can just, you know, use my left arm more a little bit at work or something like it's, it's not the end of the world, but if I can't walk, that's a big deal. So I do understand the hesitation and the fear. I think a lot of it was, um, maybe kind of built up to be more than what it should be over the years. Um, and a lot of that was from people who just didn't want to tap, to tap the leg locks, a lot of the you know, the old guard. Um, I would say, yeah, definitely every school should be teaching white belts about straight ankles. I would go as far to say, like, if I was running my own school, I I would teach them everything. I would maybe say, maybe stay away from some of the crazier ones while you're rolling at white belt. Yeah, um, but people need to be able to see this stuff, they need to know how to defend it, because they're going to run into it in competition. And yeah, that's the ethical side of it.
Speaker 3:I think the argument against them and there's no nice way to put it, I think it's silly. They're just, they're a part of jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu is breaking apart the human body in very meticulous ways and and the legs are a part of that body. Um, with that being said, I, you know you, you want balance and everything. So, yeah, um, I think that's why I think a good suggestion is maybe just teacher, teacher, what I mean? Teach them about heel hooks, let them drill it and stuff, but maybe hold off on doing that role question for any. You know, maybe school owners listening out there trying to trying to think about this. But you know, my coach told me one of the first moves he learned was was a heel hook, and they were learning it way back in the day when they were like wearing tennis shoes. So, like the heel hook was way worse, because I could see.
Speaker 2:I could see him getting heel hooked in some Adidas or some some Jordans. Um, no, and, and, and we do our for our white belts, we do the straight ankle locks and things like that and the heel hooks, they do teach it. We have more of kind of the restricting, rolling type process. But you know, there's this it's almost like the gi no gi debate, right, when it comes to leg locks, and I agree with, with dana hers, uh, you know, it's all it's on it. You don't want to. I don't think you ever want to ignore any part of the body when I mean when you're on the street if somebody's trying to harm you, and I mean having knowledge and access to uh, to, to their legs and knowing what to do with them. I mean, at the end of the day, jujitsu is it's, it's a self-defense martial art, you know, and that's that's what it was started as and that's that's ultimately what it is. So well, look, dylan, we we have been talking and we have covered a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:Man, and I want to give you some time here as we close out to and I like to do this with most of my guests is think about that white belt who may be in their first week, right. And then think about maybe that blue belt who's going into kind of their second year, if you will, right. And then think about maybe that blue belt who's going into kind of their second year, if you will right. You know those practitioners who are between one and, I'd say, three years. Two-part question One what advice would you give them to encourage them and inspire them? And you know this could be for your big practitioners and then for your, your average size guys. And then the second part is those who may be listening, who are thinking about getting off the couch and going to a trial class, right?
Speaker 3:So yeah, the couch and go into a trial class, Right? So, yeah, All right, I love this, Um, I. So for my big guys out there, I want to throw this out there Don't be afraid to work your guard. Take a couple months, do nothing but pull guard. Figure out where you like. Start with half guards, that doesn't work for you. Figure out something that works for you.
Speaker 3:Don't be the big guy that just spams Americanas from side control. It's my biggest pet peeve with the big guys. It's why a lot of people think our division is kind of boring to watch. It's been my goal to be a big guy that is exciting to watch when he rolls, and for the most part, everybody I've been told I usually fit that bill pretty good and that's my biggest encouragement for big guys is don't be a one-trick pony.
Speaker 3:Develop your full game, because you'll be glad that you did, because then when you're on bottom, you're never going to be worried about you know, am I going to be stuck here? Are they going to out-cardio me Like what's going to happen? Because if you get back on top, you're fine. Smash like you know, hulk, smash like always. Um, but definitely develop your bottom game and don't be scared to do it either. Uh, you'll regret not doing it later on if you don't. Um, for just the average person I say don't be afraid to work your weaknesses. And it's kind of the same the the same advice. But like, if you're a only a guard player, start looking at some wrestling, you know. Start looking at some some judo, some standup, different things like. Work on your weak areas, because it's really fulfilling as a jujitsu guy to know that there's not really a spot where I don't have something I can do. If I'm on bottom, I'll get on your leg. If I'm on bottom, I'll get on your leg. If I'm on top, I'll, you know, smash past the mountain, smother, you know. And yeah, as for the people who are thinking about trying jiu-jitsu, I can promise you one thing Like I said earlier, your biggest regret after starting jiu-jitsu would be that you didn't start sooner.
Speaker 3:I try to tell people this because I use jujitsu as a mental health tool. It has brought me to, it has given me a second family, it has given me better health, it has given me wonderful group of friends, challenges and experiences I never thought I would get to have in my life. I'd never even thought I was capable of Losing the weight that I've lost and getting to where I've gotten in jujitsu has gotten rid of the lie in my mind that there's anything that I can't do. I no longer can tell myself I can't do this, I can't do that because I've already done something pretty dang hard and pretty dang incredible. And now every time I go to any other venture in my life I don't have that lie anymore that tells me I can't do this.
Speaker 3:I don't have that excuse because I've proven to myself that I can do these things and I will tell people jujitsu is not going to fix all your problems, Like you still need to work on yourself. You know spiritually, mentally, physically, all of it. But what I have found for me personally is jujitsu has given me such a clear mind from all the anxiety and noise of life that it's made me much more capable and able to kind of tackle on the rest of the things that I'm dealing with in life. It just helps me to be more clear, more focused, more calm, because when you're going up against monsters and getting your head ripped off every other night, your arms, you know all the different things that happen in jujitsu makes everything else kind of pale in comparison.
Speaker 3:And it makes you stronger mentally. It's not going to fix all your problems but, man, it'll get you to a place where you can really tackle your problems with a clear mind and just a good spirit. Yeah, my biggest advice is get off the couch and go to a trial class. You're going to love it. It's going to be a good time. If you see the big guy, don't be afraid to roll with them. Most almost all big guys I have- found, and this is true for me personally is they're gentle giants.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh, one thing I pride myself in is that caleb compared me with anybody at our school. So we have like a girl that I think I said this earlier. She's like four foot seven, probably 90 pounds pounds, and I literally just rolled with her two nights ago. We had a great roll and she didn't get hurt. She loved it. You know, I had a great time. I learned a lot. Like he can trust me with these little people because I've really taken the time to be to prove to him and prove to myself that I can be a good training partner. And do understand that people that I can be a good training partner and do understand that people are going to be a little hesitant to roll with the bigger guys. But be that welcoming presence, be that gentle giant and, yeah, get out there and train.
Speaker 2:Man, I can't think of a better way to end the conversation. This has been amazing and one of the biggest things I love about jiu-jitsu is the community and the closeness you have and the willingness of all of us to share with each other. I miss all you guys at Iron Wolf and I really appreciate and value the fact that you took some time out of your evening to to jump on and, and you know, have a conversation and support the podcast, and I know the listeners are going to love you know all the content and the insights. Look, there's a lot of big guys out there doing jujitsu and leg locks are are are the talk of the town. So this is this has been a great conversation. I really, really appreciate you, really appreciate you coming on and spending some time.
Speaker 3:Joe, anytime, my friend, I love what you're doing here. I miss you and, yeah, this has been an honor. I love it and I'm very grateful and humbled that you asked me to be on. Thank you for this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one question before I close this out when are we going to see the launch of the Leg-Locking Giant podcast?
Speaker 3:I don't know about that. I did tell some people I'm going to start posting more on Instagram. You can find me on Instagram. It's e underscore, leglocking underscore giant, all under case. I post a lot about jiu-jitsu, share a lot of jiu-jitsu memes, but I don't know if a full-on podcast is in order. I think there's a lot of good jiu-jitsu memes, um, but I don't know if a full-on podcast is in order. I think there's. You know there's. There's a lot of good jiu-jitsu podcasts out there, including yours, so but uh, I'll post some good stuff on instagram from time to time yeah, yeah, we'll keep posting the car chats, man, I love them.
Speaker 2:And to our listeners, uh, like dylan said, you can find them on ig. His link will be in the episode description and you know everyone. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, join. Go on to the caffeinated jiu jitsu IG page. Join the community. I'm like Dylan. I post good memes every now and then. Just join us next episode and remember stay grounded, stay caffeinated and let's roll through this journey together.
Speaker 1:And that's the final tab on today's episode of caffeinated jujitsu. A big thanks to all of our listeners, especially today's insightful guest, for sharing their BJJ knowledge and tales. If you felt that adrenaline rush and are hungry for more, hit, subscribe, drop a review and spread the jujitsu buzz. For show notes and to contact the host, reach out to the email provided in the podcast description and to join our grappling community, head over to Instagram. Get those geese. Crisp your coffee strong and always be prepared for the next roll Oss.
