Episode 2
How a BJJ Coach Went Viral By Doing The Opposite | Chris Burns
The real story of how an unknown Sydney BJJ coach and his content partner went viral—proving real jiu-jitsu still wins online—and what your school can learn from it.
Two years ago, Chris "Bones" Burns was teaching small BJJ classes on Sydney's Northern Beaches.
Then Sheila from Jiu Jitsu Socials picked up her camera — and everything changed.
This episode breaks down the viral rise of a coach who ignored the rules, doubled down on real jiu-jitsu, and built a global audience by being himself.
You'll learn the system behind their content, how to make your school stand out online, and why "authenticity" isn't a buzzword — it's the new algorithm.
🔥 IN THIS EPISODE
- How one viral video changed everything
- The 3 rules of authentic martial arts content
- Why group photos don't grow your gym
- Turning content into community (and students)
- The secret to posting without cringe
- The mindset behind going viral
- Mistakes most gyms make on social
- How to film content that actually converts
🕒 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 From unknown coach to viral brand
02:14 The first post that blew up
05:01 Why authenticity beats every algorithm trick
10:30 The BJJ Project and building community
14:20 Mistakes most gyms make on social
17:00 How to film content that converts
22:30 The mindset behind going viral
28:00 Turning attention into enrollments
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🤖 Enroll 365™ — https://enroll365.ai
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⚙️ Dojo Toolbox CRM™ — https://dojotoolboxcrm.com
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🌏 The Dojo Map™ — https://thedojomap.com
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👇 GUEST LINKS
Chris "Bones" Burns
2nd Degree Black Belt under Master Rickson Gracie and Professor Jason Roebig
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/chrisbonesjj
🥋 Academy: https://instagram.com/zeropointsydney
🎓 Learn from Chris: https://instagram.com/the.bjjproject
Sheila — Jiu Jitsu Socials
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/jiujitsusocials
⚔️ ABOUT THE SHOW
Most martial artists open a school. The best operators become DOJOCEOs™.
Hosted by Nick Cownie — founder of Enroll 365™, Dojo Toolbox CRM™, The Dojo Map™, and DOJOCEO™ Mastermind — each episode goes "behind the belt" to break down the business, battles, and breakthroughs behind successful martial arts schools.
👉 FOLLOW NICK
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/dojoceo
Transcript
Welcome back to the Grappling Map podcast.
Speaker A:Today I have the one and only Chris, Bones, Burns, and Sheila.
Speaker A:Actually, Sheila.
Speaker A:I don't know your last name.
Speaker A:Let's get Chris and Sheila on here.
Speaker A:Sheila is from Jiu Jitsu Socials.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:So what I'd love it if.
Speaker A:If you guys could do individually, because originally it was just going to be Chris on here.
Speaker A:And then very generously, Schiller's offered to jump on as well, which is fantastic because you guys do a lot of work with Chris's amazing social media, which I understand you are responsible for.
Speaker A:Sheila, it's fantastic.
Speaker A:So give us, like, the quick intro as if no one's ever heard of you before, which is ridiculous, right?
Speaker A:But let's pretend.
Speaker A:Who are you guys and what are we doing here?
Speaker B:I'll introduce you, and then you can.
Speaker B:Then you can introduce me.
Speaker C:I'm the idiot from the Internet.
Speaker C:Everyone knows.
Speaker C:Otherwise they wouldn't.
Speaker C:Why?
Speaker C:She's more important.
Speaker C:Talk to her.
Speaker B:And then I just.
Speaker B:I'm just the lady that holds the camera and then does some post, pushes some buttons.
Speaker C:Professional.
Speaker C:That infuriates me live on camera.
Speaker C:Ms. Sheila is Jiu Jitsu socials.
Speaker C:Is that.
Speaker C:That was.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's very official Jiu Jitsu socials.
Speaker C:She is the mastermind behind that.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:Tell them about yourself.
Speaker C:You ever done this before?
Speaker B:So I started doing social media for local Jiu Jitsu Zetland.
Speaker B:That's where my son and husband trained, and Chris was teaching there.
Speaker B:So I jumped into a class where he was taking an adults class, and I saw some teaching that just blew my mind.
Speaker B:So I filmed it.
Speaker B:I said, can I post this on social media?
Speaker B:And I knew in the moment, I knew what I had was so good.
Speaker B:And I said to him, because I looked at his social media prior.
Speaker B:Prior to him coming to teach, and I said, why haven't you gone viral yet?
Speaker B:What he was teaching was so good.
Speaker B:I said, why haven't you gone viral?
Speaker B:And he's like, oh, yeah, you know, you make me go viral.
Speaker B:And I said, yeah, I will.
Speaker B:And I did.
Speaker B:And now maybe a year and a half later, close to two years.
Speaker B:Yeah, here we are.
Speaker B:He's, you know, over 100,000 followers, and people know who he is.
Speaker B:Now he's gone viral.
Speaker C:That's not the way it happened.
Speaker C:She came in and saw what I was doing and said, first off, that would never work in the highest level of competition.
Speaker C:It's the first thing she said.
Speaker C:So it's an inside joke.
Speaker C:Nobody Will get that.
Speaker A:I got it.
Speaker A:This pretty training.
Speaker A:So do you also train Sheila or you just film Chris doing his craziness?
Speaker B:No, just.
Speaker B:I just do the social media.
Speaker A:Okay, cool.
Speaker A:It's probably better for your knees.
Speaker A:That way you don't train either.
Speaker A:Do any of this really train?
Speaker A:How did you get into Jiu Jitsu, Chris?
Speaker C:It was on my to do list of adult.
Speaker C:Like, I wanted to learn how to defend myself and I knew that Gracie Jiu Jitsu was what I wanted because I put a lot of effort into researching because I'm not big, I'm not fast, I'm not strong, and I don't want to shoot someone head if I'm threatened.
Speaker C:So I looked into finding the best self defense for everybody and I looked for Gracie Jiu Jitsu and I accidentally didn't find it, but found it sort of.
Speaker C:And now I'm on the Internet yelling about it constantly.
Speaker C:I want to learn headlock.
Speaker A:Fantastic.
Speaker A:I find it's really interesting to me that there's such a huge focus in Australia and the US on competition focused bjj.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like every class you go to, or every, pretty much every class I've ever been to, with the exception of, you know, some Gracie specific schools, everything's all about how many points you get for a guard pass, how many points you get, you know, for a mount, how many points you get for a back take, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker A:And the overarching focus on self defense is often not really mentioned all that much, at least in my experience.
Speaker A:And I think I've got a particular filter because I'm a purple belt in bjj, but I'm a third degree black belt in Japanese Jiu Jitsu, where it's all about self defense.
Speaker A:And it's typically, and I do BJJ to complement the Japanese Jiu Jitsu because it's all stand up and, and it's all self defense.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And that's why your videos stood out to me, because you've got a lot of content out there on self defense as well as, you know, he's.
Speaker A:Here's an awesome guard pass, here's an awesome back take, whatever it happens to be.
Speaker A:And I think that that's something that is.
Speaker A:I won't say it's lost in the industry.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because there's still people doing it, but it's definitely missing.
Speaker A:What do you think, what do you think of the schools that only teach the competition style?
Speaker C:I think it's great.
Speaker C:I think that if you found a lane, you should be in that lane.
Speaker C:And you shouldn't try and compare.
Speaker C:One of the first things that happened over here was the young black belts.
Speaker C:That kind of sort of works with me, but doesn't work with me.
Speaker C:We don't like each other, we hate each other, but we love each other.
Speaker C:He teaches at a straight sports school.
Speaker C:And like, I'm sure they have classes like, this is for self defense and they teach you how to do a hip throw.
Speaker C:You know, like, I'm sure every school has something like that.
Speaker C:I don't know if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
Speaker C:Not a paper tiger about it.
Speaker C:But I remember he had a discussion with another black belt and the other black belt said something along the lines of like, well, the sport of BJJ is the evolution.
Speaker C:This is what we created to defeat jiu jitsu.
Speaker C:That's not right.
Speaker C:Because I think the delineation between the two should be a little bit clearer.
Speaker C:I wanted to defend myself and I didn't want to win any medals.
Speaker C:And I was told from day one that if I win medals, that's me learning how to defend myself.
Speaker C:And I had a long journey to realize that.
Speaker C:No, that's completely different.
Speaker C:The reason the point system exists is literally because all of those things are worth something in combat.
Speaker C:Not because we just arbitrarily decided that this piece deserves this point.
Speaker C:This piece deserves this point.
Speaker C:Chess.
Speaker C:That's not how it works.
Speaker C:The reason I'm in the factory district, sorry, there's a wood chipping plant over there somewhere.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:The reason it is points for passing the guard is not because it's a struggle to pass the guard.
Speaker C:It's because the guy can die now.
Speaker C:Like he can't guard himself properly.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:There's a huge difference between the two things.
Speaker C:And I feel like I haven't had enough coffee to remember why I was shitting on this.
Speaker C:There's.
Speaker C:Why is there such a difference?
Speaker C:Was that the question?
Speaker C:Can you remember?
Speaker C:I don't actually listen.
Speaker C:I just talk.
Speaker B:He was just asking me, like, why self defense?
Speaker B:Why isn't it?
Speaker B:Why a lot of people, a lot of schools are not teaching it because.
Speaker C:The game is way more fun and it gets more students.
Speaker C:Nobody actually wants to do the self defense.
Speaker C:You have a very small market of people that just want to learn how to get out of a headlock.
Speaker C:A much larger market of people want to get trophies and feel good about themselves.
Speaker C:And that's not me shitting on it.
Speaker C:That's just the truth.
Speaker C:Like, I would rather be handed a trophy like, you did really good today.
Speaker C:Like, thanks.
Speaker C:I did really fucking good today.
Speaker C:I earned this.
Speaker C:As opposed to like, well, you got out of that headlock, but let me squeeze tighter this time.
Speaker C:There's.
Speaker C:There's no real gamification to the self defense, so it's harder to sell.
Speaker C:But there are some schools that sell it.
Speaker C:Like, they'll give you belts and I'm not shitting on that either because I can't on anything.
Speaker C:Everyone hates me.
Speaker C:The idea of gamification for self defense is hard to do.
Speaker C:The whole point of the belt system, the belt system was specifically made for the competition aspect of jiu jitsu.
Speaker C:And the competition aspect of jiu jitsu was the fun game version that everybody can play.
Speaker C:I didn't care about playing a game.
Speaker C:I still don't care about playing a.
Speaker C:But I keep learning it by accident because I live on the mats and I keep getting shown how to play the game.
Speaker C:Like, the knowledge is there, but 80% of it, like, it had to be like a phone book of shit.
Speaker C:I don't know if I'm on the camera phone book of shit.
Speaker C:There's like that many pages that I actually give a about that phone book is here whether I like it or not, because I've just lived on the mats for two decades.
Speaker B:But do you think some people would be interested in learning self defense?
Speaker B:And they've set out to do self defense and they've gone to academies and just seen competition because they didn't know it was an option available to them.
Speaker B:Would you say that that's.
Speaker C:I would say that because they, they went in to learn how to defend themselves and they saw the word jiu jitsu and went, that's the number one self defense in the world according to Joe Rogan and all the other people.
Speaker C:Jocko Willink said, so I'm gonna go and do it.
Speaker C:And then they show up and they're doing like deli hiva guard.
Speaker B:Because I think when we started doing the social media two years ago and things can change so quickly online, all you would see is competition.
Speaker B:I just feel everything that you would see online was just focus on competition.
Speaker B:And now that you've been a voice in the other lane, I've come to realize that there are a lot of people that do self defense and that practice it and that are committed to it.
Speaker B:They're just not posting.
Speaker B:And I just feel that we live in a world that unless it's posted and people are watching, it's almost like it doesn't exist.
Speaker B:But it does exist in Real life.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:That's why she's here.
Speaker A:I saw a really interesting survey.
Speaker A:It was done maybe two years ago, and it was relatively small sample size, like between 500 and 1,000 people.
Speaker A:But, you know, that's pretty significant for Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker A:And it asked two really great questions, which is, why did you start training and why did you keep training?
Speaker A:This is fascinating.
Speaker A:I've got these results somewhere.
Speaker A:The questions were essentially, you know, the options were like, started training for self defense, fun, fitness, and something else.
Speaker A:I can't remember.
Speaker A:Oh, competition, Right.
Speaker A:Self defense, fun fitness and competition.
Speaker A:And self defense was overwhelmingly the top reason that people walked through the door in the first place, followed by fitness, fun, hobby.
Speaker A:And then competition was like 4% of the reason that people actually start training.
Speaker A:And then on the flip side, it's, why do you stay?
Speaker A:Fun hobby was right at the top.
Speaker A:And then fitness, and then competition, and then self defense, which is really, really interesting.
Speaker A:I think partly it's because, you know, we live in really safe times.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think the self defense is super interesting and important, and I've spent 30 years kind of mastering that side of things, and now I'm trying to get better at De La Riva and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Just for the fun of it.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:It's just such an interesting part of Jiu Jitsu that there's some places that really go down that specialization and others that don't.
Speaker A:And in terms of your school, zero point, you're in.
Speaker A:You guys are in Balgola, just up the road from Manly, right?
Speaker A:Is that right?
Speaker C:Maybe.
Speaker C:No, no, I'm in.
Speaker C:Dy.
Speaker A:Dy.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:Northern Beaches.
Speaker A:Northern Beaches.
Speaker A:Okay, cool.
Speaker A:Yeah, I used to.
Speaker A:I used to live in that area, but didn't know about you guys back then, or I probably would have been a student.
Speaker C:Oh, we just opened.
Speaker C:I just got here.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:How long has it been open for?
Speaker C:How long have we been open?
Speaker C:April.
Speaker A:April.
Speaker A:Okay, cool.
Speaker A:And how's it all going so far?
Speaker A:How many students do you guys have?
Speaker C:I have no idea.
Speaker C:I'm not keeping track.
Speaker C:This is a clout house.
Speaker C:According to her.
Speaker C:They just put up camera film me.
Speaker C:So the students that show up, I'm just.
Speaker C:I'm not pushing to get anymore.
Speaker C:I'm not good at that stuff.
Speaker C:I just teach whoever's in the room.
Speaker C:Rent's paid, though.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:Long as the goals are being met, it's all good.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And tell me about the BJJ project, because this is something that this is kind of the reason for the podcast to begin with, right?
Speaker A:It's awesome to talk about schools, but when someone gets a little entrepreneurial and they're into jiu jitsu, the very first thing that people think is, especially if they've got a black belt, right, I'm going to open a school.
Speaker A:But there's a lot of people who struggle with that and then give up and it becomes like a side hustle or, you know, they.
Speaker A:They can't pay their rent.
Speaker A:It's awesome that you guys can.
Speaker A:They need to stick with the day job, right?
Speaker A:And it just.
Speaker A:It's just this becomes this thing that just takes up their nights.
Speaker A:Whereas I've spent 20 years as an online business coach, and I've created 18 different online courses that we sell and they're automated and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:None of this is in the martial arts industry.
Speaker A:It's in.
Speaker A:In other industries, marketing and sales and things like that.
Speaker A:And so when I look at martial arts business, opening an academy is.
Speaker A:Is like the 27th thing on my list of things that I would do after a whole range of other things.
Speaker A:And I love the idea that people like you are taking your skills and then packaging it up with awesome branding and putting it out there.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you get a side income from it, hopefully.
Speaker A:Or maybe you don't care, who knows?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So how did the idea for the BJJ project come around?
Speaker B:Unfortunately, Will and Nathan, they're not here, so we will do our best to speak as representatives from the BJJ project.
Speaker B:So the inception was.
Speaker B:Have you heard of the Journey score?
Speaker B:Yes, I have, actually, the Journey score.
Speaker B:So what it is, is I believe that Will and Nathan, they were speaking in a pub one night where all great business ideas start.
Speaker B:And the discussion went to how you need to be responsible for your own Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker B:And it was a self test that you could do just to assess where your strengths and where your weaknesses are just on yourself.
Speaker B:And so they were doing it with students, they put it out online and they realized that people do want to take ownership of their own jiu Jitsu journey, not compare it with anyone else.
Speaker B:And from there, when they met Chris, Chris had his own personalized Journey score with.
Speaker B:With how many questions did you have on there?
Speaker C:Their journey score was like, how do you feel about your De La Riva?
Speaker C:And like, that's.
Speaker C:I'm not that.
Speaker C:And that took 20 years for me to realize that there's a huge difference between Gracie Jiu Jitsu and the sport of Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:And still, to this day, nobody will believe it, and they just shit on it.
Speaker C:So sooner or later, somebody will figure it out.
Speaker C:Oh, wow.
Speaker C:It is different.
Speaker C:It's almost the same, but it's not the same with that, like, I made a Journey score for them, and they're like, the is bass.
Speaker C:I was like, all right, cool, let me show you this.
Speaker C:And they ended up being this whole snowballing effect of like, yeah, but how do you feel about your K guard?
Speaker C:I was like, I don't know.
Speaker C:How do you feel about getting punched in the face?
Speaker C:And just the meeting of.
Speaker C:We just met in a bar and drank 12 pitchers of beer, and it just kept going from there.
Speaker C:But what they're doing, the Journey score, was the.
Speaker C:The segue to meeting me, and the segue to meeting me led on to this.
Speaker C:Whatever this is.
Speaker C:At this point, I think it's like a golden goat.
Speaker C:I'm not a good salesman.
Speaker B:What I'm really excited about at the moment, I guess, obviously, Chris, he has instructionals.
Speaker B:He has his suitcase, which is really all you need for your jiu Jitsu journey.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:It's not luggage and luggage upon luggage.
Speaker B:It's just one suitcase with a decent amount that.
Speaker B:I'm sure you've heard him talk about that a lot.
Speaker B:He's also doing deep dive courses on, you know, control, you know, side control, escape.
Speaker C:He doesn't know Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:He's doing the control of Palada.
Speaker B:Anyway, so he has his courses.
Speaker B:But what we are really excited about at the moment is the community that the BJJ project have just started building.
Speaker B:So Will and Nathan are really amazing at actually listening to what the members are wanting, and they've been asking for community.
Speaker B:They want to connect with each other.
Speaker B:They want to be learning something at the same time.
Speaker B:So they've just kicked off a challenge.
Speaker B:Siri.
Speaker B:So what it is going to be is that every month, you just focus on one specific area of your game.
Speaker B:So month one challenge is.
Speaker C:Dude, you're on every podcast from now on.
Speaker C:These are the questions that I always go like, I'm up.
Speaker C:And then Will looks at me like, how do you not know?
Speaker C:It's been over a year.
Speaker C:Has he looked at the course?
Speaker C:No, I am the course.
Speaker C:Why would I look at it?
Speaker B:Will's always saying, have you watched the course?
Speaker B:And Chris is like, well, I filmed it.
Speaker B:I know the course material.
Speaker C:I know exactly what's in there.
Speaker C:The guy, I'm the one sharing it, so why would I watch me.
Speaker C:I have to deal with Me, the most golden goat of them all.
Speaker B:The goldenest of goats, the shiniest golden goat.
Speaker B:Month one, the community is going to be focusing on side control escapes.
Speaker B:So the concept is there's so much to learn in Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And if you just had one laser focus area in a month, imagine in one month you could solve.
Speaker B:In 30 days, you can solve one problem of your Jiu Jitsu, which for the first month is going to be how to escape side control.
Speaker B:All the side, all the different side controls, all the, all the escapes, you can escape side control in 30 days.
Speaker B:Imagine looking back in 12 months and saying, because of this focus, because of this community, because I knew exactly what I was doing.
Speaker B:Look at how much your game is going to change just in one year.
Speaker B:So that's something that we're really excited about for this month.
Speaker A:That sounds fantastic.
Speaker A:The idea of, you know, building communities and online communities is massive.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's actually, if done right, it's one of the easiest things to do because it's the thing.
Speaker A:I was recording videos on this yesterday.
Speaker A:It's like no matter what someone walks through the door for, and the door could be a physical door, a digital door, they come for something, but they always end up staying for the community.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the better and stronger you can make that community, the more you're going to be able to provide value long term and the better the experience is going to be for.
Speaker A:For everyone.
Speaker C:That's great.
Speaker A:I'm naked from the waist down, so it's all good.
Speaker A:Don't worry about it.
Speaker A:We're.
Speaker A:We're on the same level of professionalism here.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So question for you, Sheila.
Speaker A:Focusing on social media now, are you only doing socials for Jiu Jitsu schools or you do it for other businesses as well?
Speaker B:I'm doing for other businesses as well.
Speaker B:I do enjoy doing Jiu Jitsu because I just feel really comfortable on the mat side.
Speaker B:Just think Jiu Jitsu is such a beautiful.
Speaker B:Yeah, my son does it and I just think it's.
Speaker B:It looks so nice.
Speaker B:It's so nice.
Speaker B:It's just a really beautiful thing to, to film and to post online.
Speaker B:But I also do.
Speaker B:I've got a CrossFit.
Speaker B:I've decided working with CrossFit and I've got now a couple professional services.
Speaker B:So skills.
Speaker A:What.
Speaker A:I've got a big marketing background.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I always find this really interesting when I get to talk to other people who know and understand marketing is when you look at the kind of content people are putting out to promote themselves in Jiu Jitsu, whether they have an academy or they're trying to do some online thing, you know, side hustle, they're trying to sell custom rash guards or an instructional or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker A:What do you, what do you think they're getting wrong?
Speaker A:Like, what do you see over and over and over again?
Speaker A:It's like, oh, this person's doing this again, or they keep making this mistake.
Speaker A:Like, what are the top issues you see with how people are marketing themselves.
Speaker B:For Jiu Jitsu gyms in particular?
Speaker B:I'll just talk about that first.
Speaker B:A couple years ago when I started looking at, I was going to be doing, when my son trains, I was going to be doing their social media.
Speaker B:So before I started, I looked at, I feel, every single Jiu Jitsu academy's Instagram page in Sydney.
Speaker B:I looked at them all and I thought all of them were not great.
Speaker B:And what I kept seeing, and they've improved a lot now, but what I kept seeing over and over was all they would post is just a group photo of the whole gym in front of the logo.
Speaker B:And it just made me cringe.
Speaker B:And there's a place for that, of course.
Speaker B:But if every single post is just, you have a class and then there's a group photo in front of the logo to say, yes, we're here, we train, it's not really telling me anything about what's happening in the classes, what are the members?
Speaker B:And I just feel social media is going to be essentially your digital shop front and it's how people are going to get to know your business before they even step on the door.
Speaker B:And I just think if you have any kind of gym where you're running classes, the easiest type of content is just mic up an instructor and just film the class.
Speaker B:You are always going to have content.
Speaker B:And I feel that over the past couple years, gyms now are doing a lot better at social media.
Speaker B:And I would say if people are looking for tips on how to do it better is to focus more on the members.
Speaker B:I know that now at the moment, people are doing a lot of the techniques, what the classes are like, but people, we're all human and we all want to connect.
Speaker B:So I would say if you're, if your social media for a gym is maybe 80% of your classes and what you're teaching and 20% of the coaches, I would increase that to have 50% members.
Speaker B:What are the members enjoying?
Speaker B:Who are the members?
Speaker B:And it doesn't even have to be about Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker B:It's just what do the members do for a daytime job?
Speaker B:You know, what sports team do the members follow.
Speaker B:And that way you can just really connect the community.
Speaker B:Again, like we were talking community, just connect.
Speaker B:Community together is something that I think people can do.
Speaker B:Does that answer your question?
Speaker A:Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker A:So a follow on question for that, right, Is what if someone is watching this and they're thinking, I love Jiu Jitsu, I want to start a business related to Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker A:I don't want to start an academy.
Speaker A:I don't know exactly what to do.
Speaker A:You know, I'm going to do some research, I'm going to figure it out.
Speaker A:Maybe I'll do something online.
Speaker A:What differences do you see in promoting like a standalone instructional course or a product?
Speaker A:You know, maybe someone's gonna drop ship Rash Guards or something like that.
Speaker A:When it comes to marketing something that is purely online versus something that has a physical location with members and you can get that kind of interaction, how would you market that differently than an academy?
Speaker B:Let me, let me consider collaborations.
Speaker B:Definitely collaborations.
Speaker B:So getting, getting that.
Speaker B:It doesn't even have to be.
Speaker B:If you have a physical product, for example, Rashguard, of course you can have people wearing it.
Speaker B:That's, that's not uncommon.
Speaker B:But I would do collaborations with other people, you know, in the Jiu Jitsu space.
Speaker B:And also I would, I personally, I would stay away from like an influencer.
Speaker B:I feel that just me, this is just my own personal opinion.
Speaker B:I feel that the, the time of the influencer, even though Chris technically I would say is an influencer, but I'd say, I'd say the sun is setting on influencers and people just want, will connect more with a real person that they don't even have a big following, but people just want more authenticity.
Speaker B:But you are still, you are still very authentic.
Speaker C:What are you doing with my life?
Speaker B:I'm an influencer also.
Speaker B:Just, just if someone is wanting to promote a product online, just get into the culture means just post carousels, post commentary on, you know, you go into Canva and then you, you can have a topic.
Speaker C:What's a Canva?
Speaker B:Canva is.
Speaker B:You would know what Canva is.
Speaker A:Yes, I do know what Canva is.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Basically it's like an online graphic design system where you don't need any graphic design skills.
Speaker A:All the, all the designs already done for you and you just kind of click and change the words, you can change the images and stuff.
Speaker A:But it's, it's, it's designed for people like me who are Terrible at graphic design.
Speaker A:So that I can make something that looks half assed.
Speaker C:Cliff Notes.
Speaker C:Right, Sorry.
Speaker C:I'm so glad she's here.
Speaker C:The two of you are having a.
Speaker C:This is awesome.
Speaker C:For me.
Speaker B:Ask Chris something.
Speaker C:I was happy.
Speaker C:I was genuinely happy.
Speaker A:So, Chris, so you've been open since April, right?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker C:Maybe.
Speaker A:Maybe what?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:What have been like the biggest challenges or, or even screw ups along the way.
Speaker A:Opening an academy.
Speaker C:The mats, like, the mats got ordered and they got shipped and they sat at the docks and then it turned out to be the wrong color and then they ended up sending them back and then it took somebody else's mats to send our mess.
Speaker C:Like they've taken forever.
Speaker C:Just the mats was just the biggest pig.
Speaker C:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:I love you getting a good coffee guy.
Speaker C:The mats.
Speaker C:The mats was the worst for me.
Speaker C:It's just a pain in the ass, that's all.
Speaker C:Other than that, it's pretty simple.
Speaker C:You open the door, you show up on time and you don't be a dick to the students.
Speaker C:That's it.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:That's all it takes.
Speaker C:It's not hard to run an academy.
Speaker C:Anybody who wants to like, go on that mouthy thing, like, it's the nightmare of my life.
Speaker C:It's just.
Speaker C:No, dude, show up and be better at your job.
Speaker C:The hardest part was finding the space.
Speaker C:And I didn't find the space.
Speaker C:My partner found the space and he put it right next to another academy.
Speaker C:That was not a choice on my part.
Speaker C:Just so that's.
Speaker C:That's very vocal on the Internet.
Speaker C:Like, why would you open up one.
Speaker C:One door down from another academy?
Speaker C:Why didn't do it.
Speaker C:Somebody else found the place that's next to my house.
Speaker C:Just getting the space, finding a space, that was a hard part.
Speaker C:Took a while to find the right place.
Speaker C:And then putting mats down, that's it.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:That's all it is.
Speaker C:Because as far as I'm concerned, this is not like, there's no ice bath, there's no kombucha.
Speaker C:Like I'm.
Speaker C:There's no massage chairs.
Speaker C:There's no speaker system.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:No lighting.
Speaker C:I went to a place in the Philippines that had literal speaker system with lights while they were sparring.
Speaker C:Like, I actually just teach jiu jitsu.
Speaker C:That's it.
Speaker C:That's what I do.
Speaker C:That's my job.
Speaker C:So opening a door and being on time is the hardest part.
Speaker A:So open the door, be on time.
Speaker A:Don't be a dick.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's basically.
Speaker C:I got two of them.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:I won't ask which two.
Speaker A:That's cool.
Speaker A:When you think about, like, I love this conceptually.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I can.
Speaker A:I could rant about this all day.
Speaker A:But when you think about Jiu Jitsu and how the lessons you learn on the mats translate across into your daily life and business, what do you guys think about that?
Speaker A:Like, what are the biggest things that you take from your time on the mat out into the rest of your life?
Speaker C:Because he's never on the mat.
Speaker C:An infinite amount of patience for bullshit.
Speaker C:For me, just being willing to suffer for a cause.
Speaker C:Like, I can.
Speaker C:I can manage my emotions a lot better because of this.
Speaker C:Because before this, I was just a screaming nightmare.
Speaker C:Having something to balance me out kind of taught me patience and the value of the good that comes after struggle.
Speaker C:So I wish I could be more elegant or elegant.
Speaker C:No, Eloquent.
Speaker C:Eloquent.
Speaker C:See, that was eloquent.
Speaker C:Be more eloquent about it.
Speaker C:But I can't, because I'm not actually smart.
Speaker C:The whole idea of being able to compare Jiu Jitsu to everything.
Speaker C:You can do that with everything.
Speaker C:I can compare my life to a plant.
Speaker C:Like, it needs some.
Speaker C:Needs a little bit of sun, needs a little bit of water.
Speaker C:Like, everything can be a metaphor for everything because everything's interconnected.
Speaker C:But the fact that we can see Jiu Jitsu as this way of suffering for a greater good, I think that's.
Speaker C:That's what I can take away from it.
Speaker C:Because me having to be on social media.
Speaker C:He's suffering for greater good.
Speaker C:Sorry.
Speaker C:I hate it.
Speaker A:I guess that's why you got Sheila, right?
Speaker A:I think everybody hates it, but at least you guys have kind of cracked the code.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Went to school to learn how to do these things.
Speaker C:She's proud.
Speaker C:And I'm sitting here just shitting.
Speaker C:Like, I'm not the right product for her.
Speaker C:She deserves something way better.
Speaker B:The irony is, is that because he genuinely doesn't care.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker C:It works.
Speaker B:I mean, about.
Speaker B:He cares about Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker B:I mean, the followers.
Speaker C:I care about Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:I'm gonna keep yelling at the.
Speaker C:The roof.
Speaker C:Like, I was in the desert in a gun range teaching Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:Like, they hollowed out a part of the gun range and we put mats down.
Speaker C:I remember one of the students was like.
Speaker C:Like one of those guys up in a tree.
Speaker C:You know, you're not trying to get anyone's attention, but you whack them when they get too close.
Speaker C:You go, no, you're doing it wrong.
Speaker C:Like, yeah, I could see That I was the guy that was sleeping in a closet teaching Jiu Jitsu because I was passionate about Jiu Jitsu and now I'm the idiot on the Internet and I'm just being me.
Speaker C:And that made it worse, apparently.
Speaker C:But there's no version of me that's trying to be the guy on the Internet.
Speaker C:And I guess that's why I keep existing.
Speaker C:But I'd be doing it regardless.
Speaker C:I'd be in a closet teaching jujitsu.
Speaker C:I'd be sleeping, sleeping there, doing my glasses, sweating it out.
Speaker C:Because I think it's worth preserving, I think it's worth refining.
Speaker C:And the version that I'm so passionate about, I think it's worth sharing.
Speaker C:So if I get yelled at by a couple ding dongs on the Internet, fine.
Speaker C:Like it's worth it.
Speaker B:Now, you know how you were saying, you said you talked about the struggle that's struggling for a cause.
Speaker B:Do you feel like it's a certain type of people that.
Speaker B:That do jujitsu and that they will move towards something that's difficult?
Speaker B:And I just feel that.
Speaker B:And have you noticed a shift in the type of people doing Jiu jitsu at the moment?
Speaker B:Because, and this is like, this was a carousel that I posted just yesterday talking about parents that put their kids in Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker B:They don't do it because it's easy.
Speaker B:They do it specifically because it's hard.
Speaker B:Like they want their kids doing hard things.
Speaker B:And then you were just speaking about there's a struggle aspect of it.
Speaker C:There's a struggle aspect in everything.
Speaker C:But, yeah, like, if I put my son into chess club, like, I want him to start thinking.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, have a decisive, logical action, that kind of thing.
Speaker C:It's the same thing out here.
Speaker C:Like, if I wanted my son to do Jiu jitsu, which I don't like.
Speaker C:My son grows up with Jiu Jitsu whether he likes it or not.
Speaker C:I'm not gonna force him to do anything.
Speaker C:But I will suggest he doesn't get a neck tattoo and do cocaine.
Speaker C:Like, I think you should understand basic hand to hand self defense fence before you shoot someone 10 times in the pelvis.
Speaker C:I think it's very important that this art stays alive.
Speaker C:And if I get to pass that down to my kid, that's his choice.
Speaker C:Giving him activities that would be hard.
Speaker C:I feel like there's.
Speaker C:There's no better version than this if you do it right.
Speaker C:But if, if I put him in the wrong end of the podcast pool, he might just get injured constantly.
Speaker C:I don't know I'm the wrong guy to ask on that one because I want to come up with a version of sparring that doesn't involve like purposely hurting yourself to win this imaginary goal.
Speaker C:Like I'm gonna this.
Speaker C:It's important to me.
Speaker C:And I'll just throw this out right now.
Speaker C:I want to in.
Speaker C:There's got to be a better way to play the game with parameters to where if I shoot my leg through and it stops you, but you can put a finger in my eye.
Speaker C:Point deduction.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:I don't know how to make this into a game.
Speaker C:It doesn't seem like a game to me.
Speaker C:We can play the game, but if we don't have the parameters for it, I don't want to throw my son in the deep end and he just walks away with broken fingers like, yeah, now you learned a lesson.
Speaker C:Did he have to?
Speaker C:He could have gone to chess club.
Speaker C:Like eh, could have gone to chess club.
Speaker C:I played violin, just so you know.
Speaker C:I don't anymore.
Speaker C:This took precedent.
Speaker C:Spider Guard took precedent for a couple years.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's pretty brutal on the old knuckles, isn't it?
Speaker A:It's really interesting what you're saying there, specifically around like the getting kids into something hard.
Speaker A:They could do chess club instead.
Speaker A:Like I've got two kids.
Speaker A:My son's 12 right now, my daughter's 15.
Speaker A:They both trained and they don't train anymore because I got them into it.
Speaker A:And then I, you know, I told them from the start, if you're not in love with it, I'm not going to push you to do this right.
Speaker A:Just get the basic.
Speaker A:I wanted them to have basic fundamental self defense skills and just have that internal confidence.
Speaker A:And my daughter trained for maybe nine months.
Speaker A:My son trained for five years.
Speaker A:He's 12 now and he stopped a few years ago.
Speaker A:And it's interesting because he loved it.
Speaker A:He's highly technical.
Speaker A:He actually loves chess as well.
Speaker A:And he goes in chess competitions.
Speaker A:He's got that kind of analytical mind that tends to.
Speaker A:I find people with that mind tend to really love the problem solving aspect of Jiu Jitsu, Right.
Speaker A:So he fell out of love with Jiu Jitsu because he kept getting hurt.
Speaker A:He was small and technical and there was no one else in his class who was as technical as him and as small as him.
Speaker A:So he'd constantly get partnered up with really big kids when he was like nine, partnered up with 13 year old monsters who would just dominate him and mop the floor with him.
Speaker A:And he fell out of Love with Jiu Jitsu and hasn't trained since.
Speaker A:So I completely agree.
Speaker C:Sorry.
Speaker C:It's a fucking thing in my life now.
Speaker C:This is all I ever talk about is God.
Speaker C:It's the sales pitch joke.
Speaker C:Like, are you a blue belt in your 40s and do you have a life?
Speaker C:Jiu Jitsu is for everyone.
Speaker C:And when I say Jiu Jitsu, I mean something completely goddamn different.
Speaker C:Because I'm not saying it's your son.
Speaker C:I'm saying it's.
Speaker C:I don't know, Bennett.
Speaker C:Bennett could be over there.
Speaker C:And he's really good at lasso.
Speaker C:He's good at lasso guard.
Speaker C:Lasso guard is Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:No, it's not.
Speaker C:It's the game of Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker A:Was that.
Speaker C:That's awesome.
Speaker C:If I do air bunnies, I get that back to me.
Speaker C:Professional podcast.
Speaker C:I'm digging this.
Speaker C:If it's throwing Ben on the bus, he doesn't do what I'm about to say.
Speaker C:I just chose a name.
Speaker C:If.
Speaker C:If you do lasso guard, and the lasso guard was on a 300 pound gorilla, you're gonna snap your medial tendon.
Speaker C:The Jiu Jitsu is not for everyone.
Speaker C:No, the moves.
Speaker C:The moves are not for everyone.
Speaker C:The concept of what Jiu Jitsu actually is needs to be preserved, and it needs to be for everyone.
Speaker C:The moves that a bunch of athletes have attached to it to win a fucking medal is not Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:So the disheartening fact of people that are in their 40s or a child that wants to do Jiu Jitsu, because Jiu Jitsu is for self defense and it's for everybody, but then they end up hurting themselves constantly because someone's bigger than them.
Speaker C:Well, first off, Lasso guard is not Jiu Jitsu, so it's not.
Speaker C:No, size matters because you hear that all the time.
Speaker C:Like, if you're.
Speaker C:Jiu Jitsu is good, then size doesn't matter.
Speaker C:You shut the fuck up.
Speaker C:You're not actually doing Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:You're doing a sport of grappling.
Speaker C:And size goddamn matters.
Speaker C:Because if you're gonna be doing something that involves being flexible or strong or having somebody on top of you bending your spine, you're gonna hurt yourself if you're not stronger than them.
Speaker C:So now you're like kind of complaining about, well, you're not athletic enough.
Speaker C:Maybe you should be more athletic to do Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:That was the whole point of Jiu Jitsu, was to be able to defend yourself against someone bigger and more athletic.
Speaker C:So If I gave you the principles of Jiu Jitsu, like distance management, timing, connection, weight distribution, that is Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:And then you take moves and you put it on top of that.
Speaker C:So if you don't have that foundation, you just die.
Speaker C:You get injured constantly.
Speaker C:And then I have to sell a product to you and be like, are you a blue belt in your 40s?
Speaker C:Like, it's just the way it is.
Speaker C:Are you a kid that's 15 rolling with 20 year olds, smashing you?
Speaker C:Jiu Jitsu is completely different.
Speaker C:I don't know, I think somebody said scrimmage wrestling the other day.
Speaker C:Take it, run with it.
Speaker C:You do scrimmage wrestling.
Speaker C:I'm gonna do Gracie Jiu Jitsu, specifically Hickson Gracie Jiu Jitsu until I'm in the grave.
Speaker C:And if you want to make fun of it and call it McDojo, you go right ahead.
Speaker C:I'm fine over here by myself.
Speaker C:I'm not a salesman.
Speaker C:I'm going to keep, keep showing people how to not get injured underneath a bunch of spastic athletes.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:With that in mind, right, how to not get injured.
Speaker A:How did you put it under a bunch of spastic athletes?
Speaker A:If someone's interested in starting Jiu Jitsu or interested in being a spastic athlete, right?
Speaker A:What advice now?
Speaker A:Let's come back to that.
Speaker A:If someone's interested in starting Jiu Jitsu now, right, like, I'm 45, don't know how old you are.
Speaker A:You've got great skin.
Speaker A:You're probably younger than me.
Speaker A:Who knows, right?
Speaker A:But if someone's interested in starting Jiu Jitsu now, and they are like, you know, 45 and they're walking in the academy for the first time, what do you think they really need to know about what they're getting themselves into?
Speaker C:43 and lots of skincare product.
Speaker C:I have no good answer for this because I keep getting asked all the time, what do you.
Speaker C:What should you be looking out for?
Speaker C:I can give you some red flags that you can look for, but when it says Gracie Jiu Jitsu on the door, it's, you don't know.
Speaker C:Because I went to a Gracie Jiu Jitsu school that wasn't Gracie Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:It just had the family name attached to it.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:That's where I started.
Speaker C:And I wasn't learning the actual.
Speaker C:There's a syllabus, there's a whole book of things that you're supposed to learn in Gracie Jiu Jitsu, just because it says it on the Door and doesn't make it Gracie Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:So good luck.
Speaker C:Just because it says Jiu Jitsu on the door doesn't make it Jiu Jitsu either.
Speaker C:So there's absolutely no.
Speaker C:I recuse myself.
Speaker C:Like, there's no way I can help.
Speaker C:I can give you some red flags.
Speaker C:The red flags would be first off, if the floor is like a slip and slide leave, that's just disgusting.
Speaker C:Like, I love that people post that and they're proud.
Speaker B:They always go viral, those posts.
Speaker C:That's why they post ads.
Speaker C:You know what else goes viral?
Speaker C:Staff.
Speaker C:Staff is literally viral.
Speaker C:So coming from a background where I was on a slip and slide and I would sweat through like three to four geese in a day, I had to, I had a camping backpack, so I had to bring extra geese with me to sweat through the day.
Speaker C:And we had like those mats that like, soaked up the sweat.
Speaker C:Oh, God.
Speaker C:I had staff, I had ringworm, I had, I had everything you could possibly catch from the mats.
Speaker C:So first off, if the place isn't clean, leave, just leave.
Speaker C:If the warm ups, if, if the warm ups, ah, you're not gonna know.
Speaker C:You don't know.
Speaker C:You don't know any better.
Speaker C:You're walking in, you just see him doing some weird jumping jacks in the corner and just like bear crawls and who knows?
Speaker C:I, I again, I recuse myself.
Speaker C:There's nothing I can do to help.
Speaker C:You can go to his zero point.
Speaker C:I'm not a salesman, but go to a place that says zero point and you're going to learn how to do self defense.
Speaker C:Under Hicks.
Speaker C:And Gracie, if you go anywhere else, I'm not in charge, so I have no idea what you're going to learn.
Speaker C:You could learn a shrimp and they're going to call it a power shrimp.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:It could be a reverse De la Riva.
Speaker C:And now they call it power shrimping.
Speaker C:I don't know anymore.
Speaker C:So all I can do is tell you that I'm doing the best that I can.
Speaker C:And I'm sure everyone out there is doing the best they can.
Speaker C:And it's not their fault that they're not doing what I'm doing.
Speaker C:They're doing something cool.
Speaker C:Let them do something cool.
Speaker C:I can't be the ambassador for good versus bad in Jiu jitsu.
Speaker C:I can just give you my opinion and my, I don't know, mouthy opinion.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:It's something that I find really fascinating about how people run their academies because I've moved around a lot like Every kind of two or three years for probably the last.
Speaker A:I'm about to have my 17th wedding anniversary on Saturday.
Speaker A:So I'm going to say 17, 18 years.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Pretty exciting.
Speaker A:And my wife was a professional ballerina in France and she, she's just moved all the time, right?
Speaker A:Because a dancer's life is very itinerant, they're just on the move all the time.
Speaker A:And then I met her and my very stable life became moving around all the time.
Speaker A:One great outcome of that is I've trained at schools all over the world now.
Speaker A:And here specifically in Australia.
Speaker A:I've trained at places with a great self defense focus.
Speaker A:I've trained at places with a massive competition focused.
Speaker A:I've trained at places where you drive 45 minutes into the bush to a shed in the hillside in country Tasmania and there's only two guys training there.
Speaker A:And that was phenomenal.
Speaker A:And then I've trained at these schools where there's like 80 people on the mat every single class and you kind of get lost in the numbers.
Speaker A:But it, you know, they've got all these competition accolades and everything in between.
Speaker A:It's really interesting.
Speaker A:Something that I found fascinating is how some schools follow a curriculum and others just kind of fucking wing absolutely everything.
Speaker A:It's like it feels like they just wing every single class, right?
Speaker A:It's like they take your advice before to the absolute extreme of like open the door and show up on time.
Speaker A:But it's like maybe they are a dick, maybe they don't be a dick.
Speaker A:But it's like there's no plan.
Speaker A:They just, what do I feel like teaching today?
Speaker A:And they channel it from the jiu jitsu gods and they step on the mats, right?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:YouTube channel is great.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So they're sitting there for five minutes beforehand, right?
Speaker C:That's the genuine cool thing about this.
Speaker C:If you're in the pursuit of knowledge, in the pursuit of excellence within a field.
Speaker C:Like there used to be a show called Fight Quest.
Speaker C:That was a great show.
Speaker C:It was just two guys wandering the earth doing martial arts and deciding on what's useful, what's not.
Speaker C:That's what you're doing in Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:If you go to a school, you're doing Fight Quest.
Speaker C:You're gonna go in there and they're gonna teach you the most fancy mechanic thing and you're gonna walk out, you're going like, I'm a genius now.
Speaker C:Or you're gonna walk out going, that was stupid.
Speaker C:That was super stupid.
Speaker C:So you're learning how to build your own bullshit Filter.
Speaker C:So that's super important that, like one of the things that I want to do is hand to my students the ability to build a bullshit filter.
Speaker C:That's all I want.
Speaker C:I don't want them to go out and be a carbon copy of me.
Speaker C:Like, I'll yell at them to certain point and then I'm gonna let him go get the neck tattoo and the cocaine.
Speaker C:Like, you go get weird, but if you just stop curling your spine underneath the 300 pound guy, like I can give those parameters and then they can go have fun if they want to, or they can be boring like me if they want to.
Speaker C:The fun part about Jiu Jitsu is going out on the adventure and picking up these bits and pieces and building your own Lego castle.
Speaker C:I, I actually enjoy that.
Speaker C:I like going to other academies, or I used to, I don't have time anymore.
Speaker C:But I would have other people from other academies come to me and they would show me like the Todd.
Speaker C:The Todd is the name of a submission.
Speaker C:It's not real.
Speaker C:And I love the guy who, he's out in San Diego and he showed it to me and every time I see him, he puts it on me.
Speaker C:I'm like, it's not real.
Speaker C:Like, I'm not gonna tap.
Speaker C:It's not real.
Speaker C:I like turn my chin, grind my shoulder like, I'm gonna get out of this.
Speaker C:But it's still fun.
Speaker C:It's fun to see these new things and it's fun to experience them.
Speaker C:And having your own bullshit filter and going, I don't know, maybe the Todd works on other people.
Speaker C:But it's like the Irish Baron Bolo, that was a funny one that a friend of mine did.
Speaker C:The Irish Barambolo is like a funny name for.
Speaker C:He's just going to punch you in the throat.
Speaker C:He's got a gift wrap and he puts a fist in your neck and it's like the most violent possible.
Speaker C:Baron Bolo.
Speaker C:I thought that was hilarious.
Speaker C:I'm not going to tap.
Speaker C:So it's, it's cool to see what other people are doing.
Speaker C:It's cool to have your own opinions.
Speaker C:But one of the, I think the coolest moment for me was I was teaching something that I learned from a very high level black belt and a friend of mine that trains directly with Hickson, he said, do it to me and I did it.
Speaker C:He was like, no.
Speaker C:So he pulled his hand, pulled the hand out of the lapel.
Speaker C:I was like, no, it's not real.
Speaker C:Did you let me do it again?
Speaker C:No, just if it's not real.
Speaker C:It's not real just because the highest level guy passes it down.
Speaker C:Like, that's.
Speaker C:That's one of those cult things, you know?
Speaker C:That's why I love training with Hixson, because we test everything.
Speaker C:Like the other day, we were.
Speaker C:The other day I was in the lounge room and Scott was showing a different version of something.
Speaker C:And Hickson's like, I like that.
Speaker C:That's the point.
Speaker C:The whole point was to refine and keep passing down and find the most efficient and best way to do something.
Speaker C:Not like, this is the way.
Speaker C:This is the syllabus.
Speaker C:This is what we're doing.
Speaker C:The syllabus should be the foundational aspects that create safety.
Speaker C:And then you can start to put moves on top of that within context.
Speaker C:Like, so that long sentence on a pillow somewhere.
Speaker C:Jiu Jitsu is the foundational principles.
Speaker C:I need to be able to share that with you.
Speaker C:Then you can do Irish berimbolos if the other guy's a bitch and he taps.
Speaker A:Yeah, I completely agree with that.
Speaker A:In our Japanese Jiu Jitsu, it's exactly like you're describing.
Speaker A:We have a syllabus and then we, you know, we go down rabbit holes and things like that.
Speaker A:One of the main fundamental principles that my instructor taught me and I now teach here in.
Speaker A:I'm in Canberra, right.
Speaker A:So I teach every Thursday night.
Speaker A:One of the biggest.
Speaker A:He uses Japanese terms.
Speaker A:I'll just say it in English, right?
Speaker A:Which is.
Speaker A:His core concept is skills, not moves, right?
Speaker A:It's like if you understand the underlying concepts and the skills, you can apply those skills in a myriad of different ways.
Speaker A:But if all you're doing is memorizing a rote list of techniques and then trying to pull those off, it's like it just basically never, ever works.
Speaker A:Some of the best training that I ever had actually was.
Speaker A:And I'll give a shout out to a friend of mine and an instructor from Wagga Wagga and in New South Wales.
Speaker A:His name's Hunter Ford, who also trained with.
Speaker A:I saw on.
Speaker A:I was looking at some info on you the other day.
Speaker A:Hunter did most of his training under Jason Robig and Hickson as well.
Speaker A:And it really comes across right when there's like that quality of instruction that gets passed down from master to student right through the lineage, it really shows.
Speaker A:And I think that the more people get out and experience different schools and different instructors and different styles, you definitely start.
Speaker A:I love that you're teaching your students to have a bullshit filter, because if it's not passed on, you've Got to try and figure it out for yourself, right?
Speaker A:Which is what I had to do.
Speaker A:So I love that you're at least trying to hand that over to people, which is absolutely spectacular.
Speaker C:I wish only doing what I wish someone did for me.
Speaker C:That's it.
Speaker C:It's the same as, for lack of a better analogy.
Speaker C:Analogy, synonym.
Speaker C:Being a father, like, I get it.
Speaker C:I have an influence.
Speaker C:And I think the influence isn't for me to like, you should pay me.
Speaker C:Give me your money.
Speaker C:Like, I'm sharing my knowledge in my space.
Speaker C:Give me your money.
Speaker C:No, man, I'm actually here to help.
Speaker C:I want to help make this not such a shit show.
Speaker C:Because it was a shit show with me, you know, not saying my father was a shit show.
Speaker C:I had a great father.
Speaker C:Like, I'm just saying, like, secondary father figure.
Speaker C:There you go.
Speaker C:Joseph Campbell style.
Speaker C:The idea of my first journey in Jiu jitsu was shit.
Speaker C:It was shit for me.
Speaker C:And it was like, only the tough survive.
Speaker C:And it was great because I got tough.
Speaker C:Like, fuck you, I, I did.
Speaker C:I got a black belt in that.
Speaker C:I had no technique, but I can take a beating.
Speaker C:I swear.
Speaker C:The idea of being able to like, like have a bell curve on that and try and help people not have to be tough to learn how to defend themselves, that's all I ever wanted.
Speaker C:I wanted to learn how to defend myself.
Speaker C:And I'm lucky that I had so many emotional issues that I didn't care about getting beaten up.
Speaker C:Like, I thought that I deserved it.
Speaker C:Like, I had to go to therapy, man.
Speaker C:I had to realize, no, you don't deserve it.
Speaker C:You're not a bad person.
Speaker C:It's fine.
Speaker C:You don't have to suffer all the time.
Speaker C:Imagine somebody out there who has like actual like emotional gauges and they're not broken like me.
Speaker C:And they go in to learn self defense and they get hurt on the first day and they go, oh, well, this isn't for me.
Speaker C:It is, it is for you.
Speaker C:You just found the wrong place, man.
Speaker C:I want to make sure that I make the right place available for everybody.
Speaker C:Because the tough guy can come here and get tougher, or the weak person can come here and learn that they were tough all along, they just didn't know.
Speaker C:Also, as far as the roach thing, because I wanted to circle back to that.
Speaker C:I have hundreds of books and those, those books, there's probably like a hundred techniques.
Speaker C:Everything outside of that is like super specialization of shit.
Speaker C:If you have those very specific sets of techniques, I feel like you have a stronger foundation than if you were to do hyper specialized.
Speaker C:Like, this is the leg lock school.
Speaker C:Great.
Speaker C:You're the great leg locker.
Speaker C:But what about this, this and this?
Speaker C:So I really do think that there is a set foundation of some things that damn well should know.
Speaker C:Like, if you don't know how to get out of a rear bear hug, your takedowns are going to be, you should probably know some basic self defense.
Speaker C:So when you see the, the quote from Hickson, if you don't know self defense, you don't know Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker C:I'm gonna wear that on a shirt till the day I die.
Speaker C:Like, if you don't know those basic things, you know how to do some really contextual.
Speaker C:That only works if you're an athlete.
Speaker C:And you're an athlete for this much of your life.
Speaker C:The rest of it is you like, reliving the glory days.
Speaker C:Like, yeah, I kicked some ass back in the day.
Speaker C:My back hurts.
Speaker C:I had a friend come and visit me.
Speaker C:How's your body holding up?
Speaker C:You doing good, bud?
Speaker C:I'm doing great.
Speaker C:Life's awesome, dude.
Speaker C:We both came from the same place.
Speaker C:I'm very lucky I got out of there when I did.
Speaker C:But yeah, the, the rote thing, there's some books that I would recommend.
Speaker C:There's some curriculums I would recommend as a foundation.
Speaker C:Sorry, I had to circle back.
Speaker C:I forgot what I was talking about again.
Speaker A:No, it's great.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's super helpful, right?
Speaker A:I think it's better.
Speaker C:You can edit me.
Speaker A:Better.
Speaker C:When you can, I just talk and then she edits and it looks like I know what I'm doing.
Speaker C:I just talk.
Speaker A:Everybody needs a Shayla.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:This is, this is a stupid question, but it's fun, right?
Speaker A:So if you could roll with absolutely anybody, living or dead, right, that you've never rolled with, who would you love to do a few rounds with?
Speaker C:I'm curious as to what it would have been like rolling with Elio because there's so many stories on the wind, you know?
Speaker C:But I'm also curious about rolling with George.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:That's the, that's the brother.
Speaker C:You never hear about the fighter.
Speaker C:He was out there fighting.
Speaker C:I roll with Holes.
Speaker C:I mean, Holes had an influence on everybody.
Speaker C:And then his untimely passing kind of left a lot of curious questions.
Speaker C:Like holes would do this, and it kind of led me down this path.
Speaker C:Like, that'd be interesting.
Speaker C:But I feel like Holes, from all the stories that I've heard was very open minded to do that was a thumbs up by accident.
Speaker C:Very open minded to other arts.
Speaker C:And that's how things kind of progressed.
Speaker C:Rest for the Gracies to begin with, like being willing to experiment and things and taking the best of the best of the best and organizing it and handing it out.
Speaker C:Meanwhile, like you get some dip on the Internet.
Speaker C:Yelling like, all they did was steal the code of car.
Speaker C:Like, okay, so we're supposed to be trying to pick the best and most important techniques and we're going to refine them and hand them out to the world.
Speaker C:Like, you don't get to have six really good things and 4,000 stupid things and get mad when I take the six and refine those things.
Speaker C:So Holes was out there picking up the leg locks and, and doing the takedowns.
Speaker C:They were doing Sambo.
Speaker C:I think that would be cool.
Speaker C:And with.
Speaker C:With, man, I get to see Hickson all the time.
Speaker C:But still, Hixon, I would love to roll with like, I'd say like late 90s Hixon.
Speaker C:Just the experience of him going like 5, 4, 3 and like, damn it, tap.
Speaker C:Like, I love that version.
Speaker C:I love that version of jiu jitsu because it.
Speaker C:Unless you've actually rolled with that, you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker C:It's like I'd be a high level purple belt these days.
Speaker C:Shut the up, man.
Speaker C:He leans left, you've only got so many options and all of a sudden you're trapped in this one space and that one space is going to be okay.
Speaker C:You've got this, this and this.
Speaker C:Your timing better be on point, son.
Speaker C:Gotcha.
Speaker C:So I would love to roll with probably 30s, 46 in.
Speaker C:I wouldn't take 26 and he would just murder me.
Speaker C:There's no version of me that roll with anyone's sport ever again because I've rolled with a lot of sports.
Speaker C:Leg drag.
Speaker C:Okay, you win.
Speaker C:You passed.
Speaker C:Cool.
Speaker C:You help yourself.
Speaker A:I'd say probably the scariest role I ever had was with Dean Lister in San Diego.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Just because he's a dude.
Speaker C:I had a role with Dean.
Speaker C:It's like a fire hydrant.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Incredible.
Speaker C:His neck is his traps.
Speaker A:Yeah, I know.
Speaker A:It's unbelievable, right?
Speaker A:It's like he.
Speaker A:Yeah, he was telling me about how he likes to, you know, pin Jocko down so he can't move and then just drip sweat off his chin into Jocko's mouth.
Speaker A:And I'm like, all right, that's a cool story.
Speaker A:Don't do that to me.
Speaker A:But yeah, that was.
Speaker A:I mean, some humans are just built different.
Speaker A:He's a.
Speaker A:He's an absolute monster of a.
Speaker A:Of a man.
Speaker A:So let's have a look at if people want to, you know, get in touch with you guys after this.
Speaker A:They watch this, they go, that's awesome.
Speaker A:Talk me through how people can find you, both of you, online.
Speaker B:You can follow Chris on Instagram.
Speaker B:We're also distributing his content on TikTok and there's a YouTube channel.
Speaker B:So Chris has instructionals that have been put out.
Speaker B:Chris has instructionals that are put out by the BJJ project.
Speaker B:So you can watch a bunch of free instructionals on the YouTube channel.
Speaker B:You can join the Golden Goats community.
Speaker B:You can also just do the first month challenge in the community.
Speaker B:Chris is in the community answering questions and you can also buy merch.
Speaker C:We can just go, whatever Dean Lister is doing.
Speaker C:Go follow him, dude.
Speaker C:He's the man.
Speaker C:Dude.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Oh, go to Hixson Academy.
Speaker C:I love that they get mad at me because I push everyone other than me.
Speaker C:Go to Hixson Academy, please, man.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Join, join, join Chris's monthly challenge for this month.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:That's absolutely awesome, guys.
Speaker A:And if anyone wants to follow what we're doing here with the Grappling Map.
Speaker A:The Grappling Map itself is actually an online directory of grappling based businesses.
Speaker A:We've got over 6,000 listed right now.
Speaker A:The whole point of that is actually community.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like my goal is to connect the global grappling community and there's a whole bunch of different ways that people can actually do that.
Speaker A:So if you're interested, you can find me at Grappling Map all over the Internet.
Speaker A:And that's pretty much how that works.
Speaker A:So thanks for being here, guys.
Speaker A:That was absolutely awesome.
Speaker A:Hope you guys enjoyed that.
Speaker A:Tons of useful info there.
Speaker A:And I really appreciate your time here on the Grappling Map podcast.
Speaker A:Anything that you want to leave our viewers and listeners with.
Speaker A:One final mind blowing piece of wisdom.
Speaker C:I was waiting for you.
Speaker C:What's your final mind blowing piece of wisdom?
Speaker B:If you want to grow your business online, don't be afraid of posting.
Speaker B:Just, just post.
Speaker C:Look at that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Be willing to be cringe.
Speaker B:Ignore that we're all going to die one day.
Speaker B:Just, just be cringe.
Speaker A:It sounds like it's the same kind of advice to, to having a great academy, right?
Speaker A:Which was, you know, open the door, show up, don't be a dick.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:It's the same kind of thing.
Speaker A:Show up for yourself, don't be a dick and just put content out there.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:One of my first mentors used to say, don't get it right, get it going.
Speaker A:And that's something that I've lived by for a really, really long time.
Speaker A:Like, you can sit there and just procrastinate forever and try to get something perfect.
Speaker A:Perfection doesn't exist.
Speaker A:Except for Chris's skin, obviously.
Speaker A:You got to dial me with that skincare routine.
Speaker A:Perfection doesn't exist, right?
Speaker A:So just get out there and get it happening.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So how about you, Chris?
Speaker A:Any last words for our viewers?
Speaker C:Try not to put your nose before your toes.
Speaker C:I don't know, man.
Speaker C:I remember I had an ex student that whined and complained about that on a podcast one time.
Speaker C:He was on Joe Rogan.
Speaker C:He was like, don't put your nose for your toes.
Speaker C:Don't you know there's a time and a place for everything?
Speaker C:Context is super important for what we do.
Speaker C:Probably aim for perfection.
Speaker C:You land around excellence.
Speaker C:I got no tropes.
Speaker C:Just don't be a dick.
Speaker C:Try really hard to just don't be a dick.
Speaker C:There's a lot of them out there.
Speaker C:Just try and be a nice person.
Speaker C:It's not that hard, man.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Thanks for your time, guys.
Speaker A:Much appreciated.
Speaker A:This is the Grappling Map podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Nick county and see you next time.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:Thanks for your time.
