Home » 139: John Lawrence from Hurricane Jiu Jitsu – How To Get Black Belt

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139: John Lawrence from Hurricane Jiu Jitsu – How To Get Black Belt

Jiu Jitsu black belt, John Lawrence from Hurricane Jiu Jitsu Academy talked to Edgar OtraVez about coaching, Ryan versus Galvao, and how to get your Jiu Jitsu black belt.

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Congratulations to Darla Sedlacek on getting that shiny new black belt.
Darla Sedlacek on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darlased/

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Episode Transcript

This transcript was automated and will contain errors.

0:00 – Edgar OtraVez
Hey, what’s going on party people? This is Edgar OtraVez and welcome to another episode of the Flow Roll Podcast. Now today on the show, I have my very special guest jiu jitsu blackbelt. John Lorenz, owner and operator of hurricane jujitsu out in Cleveland, Ohio. Now if you’re new to the show, you know that this is an entertainment podcast. And we do various different subjects on this show. jujitsu being one of them. But we also do fight breakdowns. We do movie reviews, we do pop culture stuff, and any other hot topics that may be happening at the moment. So if you like what you’re listening to, and you want more of this stuff, head on over to our website, the Flow Roll podcast.com. There you’ll find a complete catalogue of all our episodes, and a store where you can buy some merchandise and support the podcast. And I want to ask for a solid if you’re diggin the show, make sure you like subscribe, and comment and share wherever you get your pockets at. So for those of you who are new to the show, John Lawrence is a returning guest and a big student of jujitsu. He is a constant learner and I can’t say enough good things about this dude. He is just so smart and analytical about everything. So I hope you liked this episode. Now on with the Show

All right, here we go. Welcome to another episode of the Flow Roll Podcast. I am Edgar OtraVez. And today on the show I have very special guests jiu jitsu blackbelt, owner and operator of the hurricane jujitsu Academy out in Cleveland. I have John Lawrence. Welcome, John. Happy to be here. All right, man. So it’s good to see you man.

1:42 – John Lawrence
into

1:44 – Edgar OtraVez
So let’s let’s get started. It was like I was like we were talking before the show. It was a big fight weekend and last couple of weeks. A lot has been going on. But mostly like this past weekend we had a a DCC, see pa EDCC and Andrei gow lost to Gordon Ryan. And one of the questions I want to ask you was what do you attribute Gordon Ryan’s Dominus? In this past ad CC? Like Well, do you think it’s his age? Because he’s only 27 years old? Do you think is his skill set? Do strength is high? You know his knowledge? Or is there something special? Something different about this cat?

2:26 – John Lawrence
Well, first thing I always say about him is he’s He really seems to be an outlier. Among outliers. You almost need it. You almost need a different word for a guy like him. He Yeah, if you look at like a normal distribution like a bell curve, he he’s not even close to the like, you take the very best guys in the world. And they’re not even within his range, which is nuts like you’ve got Yeah, you’ve got so who was who was this past? Not not Cal Val, but

3:05 – Edgar OtraVez
it was Philippe

3:07 – John Lawrence
know, especially to Pena but then before that even I think I want to say Peter Marino was his, one of his super fights fights even before that, I might be getting that wrong. But this person was a, a world weight class and absolute champion. And Gordon, just played with him. And to be able to do that to somebody who’s already like to be world class, like, like Peter, Peter Marino is, you’re already an outlier. To be able to clown an outlier. The way that Gordon does, you need a different word for him. He’s He’s like as close to a grappling God as you could possibly get.

3:51 – Edgar OtraVez
It’s easy to see you want to call him? You want to put them up that high?

3:54 – John Lawrence
Yeah, I think a guy like him. If anybody takes him out, it’s going to be him taking himself out. I mean, it’s going to be him. Getting to hide his fame and getting into you know, I don’t know what drugs, gambling.

4:09 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, yeah.

4:10 – John Lawrence
He just seems he seems to be completely unstoppable liquid. He did it go bow.

4:16 – Edgar OtraVez
Jesus Christ. Man. That was Joe. That was crazy for me to watch. I was like, This guy’s got his back. Yeah, he got his bag. And he got he got his arm trapped on top of that. And I was just like, Jesus Christ.

4:29 – John Lawrence
It wasn’t even hard. It wasn’t even a good match.

4:33 – Edgar OtraVez
That’s That’s exactly right. He just kind of like ran through him. And I was like, I can’t believe this is happening, you know? But I mean, also, we’re talking about Andre at 39. You know, and I mean, that’s why we have masters and, you know, Master two, three, etc. There is a difference between a 27 year old black belt and a 39 year old black belt. I mean, wouldn’t you agree?

4:58 – John Lawrence
I would, I would agree specifically in the law. weight divisions, there are some huge differences. I think Gordon makes the point of saying that in the heavier divisions, they rely more on isometric strength and tension, basically just gripping and squeezing than they do on footwork and cardio and speed and transitions. And I think that’s true. So I think that you can age better as a as a heavier fighter and as a heavier grappler, you see this in the UFC as well, you see, you see guys who are much heavier fighting later into their years, whereas in the rooster weight divisions of both MMA, and at grappling, you really don’t see guys doing this into their mid to late 30s, early 40s. Just not really a thing. So So I would say, and we also we could talk about this maybe more in depth, but we can’t, we can’t overlook the unbelievable pharmacological help that, that. But Andre galvao is getting I mean, anybody who would argue that he is in any way natural is just not living on this planet. No judgment. I’m just saying, No, I’m not judging it. I’m not saying we have to, we have to also acknowledge that like, that guy is a science experiment.

6:17 – Edgar OtraVez
Well, I almost want to say that they both are anti.

6:22 – John Lawrence
Yeah. Oh, no, I’m to be clear, yes. They both thought. Yeah.

6:24 – Edgar OtraVez
I mean, I can’t help but think that they’re both getting a little help. So assuming that, you know, but now, I mean, so then at least in that respect, the the playing field is even right. And yeah, they’re both they’re both, you know, they’re both doing their stuff. They’re both doing their supplements.

6:43 – John Lawrence
It doesn’t bother me, man. I don’t Yeah, I don’t begrudge either them. Because nobody’s there not even testing athletes. So nobody, nobody’s even cheating. Because there’s nothing to cheat.

6:55 – Edgar OtraVez
Well, everybody’s doing it. Everybody’s leveled. And there’s no cheating, you know, right. That’s the only time why I have a problem with it is if, you know, one person can do it and the other person isn’t.

7:05 – John Lawrence
That’s fair. So what makes Gordon so good was that I think that I think he’s so I just wanted to first acknowledge how far ahead, I think he is. Just when it comes to everybody else. Like, I like to make that very clear that you’ve got, you’ve got your normal bell curve. In this range. You have outliers who suck on this end and outliers who are credible on this end, and then he is off the screen. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, I think with him, I think it’s all of it. I think he’s obviously a young guy. He’s got a good genetic profile. He is on steroids. He’s obviously a natural in terms of his ability to to absorb jujitsu. That’s why he’s gotten good so fast. He’s got the best jujitsu coach in the world. In his corner. Yeah. Yeah. And he’s got he’s got confidence. He’s got momentum. I think he has, he’s definitely got some type of, you know, narcissistic, sociopathic disorder and thing going on. And I’m also I’m not again, no judgment, I’m saying I like that also, I think, can help with combat sports, you know, with with the type of thing that he’s doing.

8:16 – Edgar OtraVez
I’m glad you brought that up, because he does have like a combative mic. Personality. It’s hard to follow him on social media, because he says a lot of wacky stuff. And I to some point, I just kind of muted him, just in terms of like, his personality and stuff. He’s very aggressive, I guess. And he’s hard to like, yeah, he’s hard to like, and, like you’re saying, that’s a huge characteristic that you kind of need in order to be in combat sports,

8:43 – John Lawrence
and also be as successful in terms of in terms of marketing. I hate all of that. That’s, that’s another maybe another podcast entirely, but I’m just not a fan of the social media. insincere troll thing that is popular right now. Not a fan.

9:02 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, that’s actually one of the questions that kind of I’m kind of getting to. I know, you don’t want to talk about it too much. If you know, I’ll tell I don’t care. Yeah. So. So like, I think it was Dean Lister who said, I got this from me, my I’m not 100% Sure he said this. But he said that he won’t give a black belt to a jerk, right? What is your kind of take on that? Like, do you keep your students within a certain moral moral code? Do you not care about that stuff? Do you do monitor that a little bit? Do you watch their behavior? Does that even worry you? And what do you think in terms of like, is that part of within your bounds as an instructor of jujitsu?

9:51 – John Lawrence
Do I enforce a moral code? No, absolutely not. I’m not a fan of telling people what to do and how to act but I will but The other thing is, there’s another other side to this, I will be very selective about who I want to train, especially now because I don’t, it’s not like I need more students to pay my bills and support my family, I’m gonna get, like very good place as far as that goes. So I just get to work with who I want to work with. And if somebody is, basically, if it’s somebody that I just don’t really want to be around, I don’t want to associate with I don’t want to interact with socially I wouldn’t be friends with. And then more severely if you’re an abrasive asshole, if you’re insincere. I will just choose not to work with you. Just I will just just politely refuse membership. So for me, it’s like very, it’s a very black and white, what I’m never going to do is go up to one of my students, and then try to give them a life lesson or some sort of moral correction, which is, unfortunately, very common historically, with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belts, they, they fancy themselves as life coaches, for reasons that I don’t totally understand. And I’m not a life coach, I’m a guy who either wants to be around you or I don’t, yeah, and if I do, and you’re cool to other people, and you’re cool to me, and you’re not drawing attention to yourself in all the wrong ways, like you trade in my gym. And if you’re doing the opposite, and I would just prefer you not trade my gym, it doesn’t mean I that I hate you. It doesn’t mean that, you know, I wish, I wish bad things for you, I just, I would just prefer to not be around you. And then by default, I’m not going to be giving you black belts or training you. Yeah, very simple for me, but I would never tell anybody I’m not interested in, in trying to influence how people live their lives, it’s not interesting, you get

11:43 – Edgar OtraVez
to a certain level of success and position, that you get to a point where you can do that, where you can say, You know what, I don’t need to hang around this person, this person, I don’t like this person, this person makes me feel a certain way, or I don’t just don’t like the look that this guy is bringing to himself. And if you have that ability, you know, it’s it makes sense to not be around this person. You know, I

12:06 – John Lawrence
would also say this might be like, insider business tips that I shouldn’t give out to the competition. But I actually did that from the beginning. I did that from day one. Wow. Yeah, we even even when, even when it really mattered to like, from a business perspective to have that monthly payment coming in or not. I always got rid of weird, abrasive people, because it’s it just when they when they talk about gym culture, and you talk about a culture in a petri dish, you know, a germ culture, it really is the same thing. If you have to germs Do you have like, look to bad bacteria to bad germs, they multiply to four, to eight to 16 to 32. And then eventually, you’ve got a bunch of assholes training at your school, because assholes attract more hassles. And that’s just the way that it is. So get that out for the beginning.

13:03 – Edgar OtraVez
That’s, that’s fantastic, man, because that also poisons everybody else. Like even you can have a person who’s not going to be an asshole. But you put them around these assholes and he becomes an asshole. You know, it’s just,

13:16 – John Lawrence
I agree with that. Yeah, people people influence each other. I would say that you’re that you’re you’re going to be, you’re always going to be like, the people that you’re around the most, if that makes any sense.

13:25 – Edgar OtraVez
No, that makes absolute sense. Absolutely. But also, you have the power, especially as an instructor and a person in front of people who people are watching and learning from, you don’t have to necessarily tell people how to live life. They’re gonna watch you. I have no interest. Yeah. But also like, like you’re saying, there are going to be people who are looking for people like yourself, who live a certain way, who conduct themselves a certain way. And so they’re gonna gravitate to you. So as you’re getting rid of what you don’t want, you can make room for the people that you do want, you know, so I think I think that’s, that really speaks to your success at your gym too. Because I mean, I see those pictures, man, and I’ve been to your gym. That’s there’s a lot of people at that place. It’s fantastic.

14:15 – John Lawrence
And I think more importantly, there’s a lot of good people that we could talk about what a good person is, I suppose but there are just a lot of people that I enjoy being around. I wish I would say that. Yeah, let’s maybe just take the judgment of whether or not they’re good people off the table. But yeah, there are a lot of people that I enjoy training with. Feels like a very positive clubhouse. What do you you know, how did we get here?

14:37 – Edgar OtraVez
Well, we’re talking about like the influencer type behavior where you’re antagonistic and trolling and all that stuff.

14:44 – John Lawrence
You know, I maybe I don’t ever think I’ve had to talk anybody off that ledge any my students think, at least I’m not aware of. I don’t cruise the Instagram stories too much. So maybe I’m missing some things. But yeah, I mean, it is weird when you You, when you get into a situation where people are literally walking around, wearing your use of gross word here your brand, which it just is what it is your logo, your gym gear. And then they’re they’re out in the public. I mean, there is some strange. They have like, it’s Heidi you now and they are in some very low level way. They’re like they’re, they’re advertising you. So somebody wears is wearing a hurricane shirt, and then they they start a fight at a bar while they’re hammered. It’s a bad look. Yeah, you know, so.

15:34 – Edgar OtraVez
So going down that path in terms of like, the type of people that you want to keep around. I see that you recently promoted Darla, what’s the last name said lassic said look, check, settle a check. Okay. I apologize. Darla

15:50 – John Lawrence
is think of send send the check.

15:52 – Edgar OtraVez
Set. Oh, okay. So suddenly.

15:55 – John Lawrence
She said to me, the first day I met her, I was like, I got it.

15:59 – Edgar OtraVez
That’s very clever. So I mean, obviously, she seems like a force to be reckoned with, you know, at least from conversations with you. And from what I’ve seen on Instagram. I don’t know her personally, you know, but I’ve been curious. One of the reasons I wanted to go to the gym was so I can have conversations where and see what kind of person she’s like. But she seems awesome. And you gave her you awarded her black belt. Congratulations, Darla, is this part of what you’re looking for in a black belt? A certain type of person not only just in the skill set, but also like in other traits of personality? Or is it just here’s the skill set? You have it? Here’s the belt.

16:35 – John Lawrence
Yeah, she is with that. I mean, without overstating things too much. I mean, she’s really the perfect student. The one thing about her, with this whole funnel into the conversation about like, just how to get good at Jiu Jitsu, generally speaking, she comes from, you know, her sort of previous lives like she is, she’s gotten to expert level, and other things than Jiu Jitsu. Now, that’s her story that I will you should have on your podcast actually would be really cool.

17:03 – Edgar OtraVez
I would like to actually, okay,

17:05 – John Lawrence
I’ll hook that up. All right. That’d be great. She’s achieved expertise and other things in her life. And she had an understanding coming in, of how to become excellent at something. I think that’s, that’s one of the main things that sets her apart. And so she came in really, with the perfect attitude and the perfect mindset to get get her black belt in eight years to the day. And she’s proven, you know, even if you just want to set the time aside, and the hours aside that she’s got in, she’s proving competition, you know, at her, you know, her relative level in terms of weight class and age and gender and skill, like, you know, she is she’s done it. Yeah. So I think coming in with an understanding of how to how to get really good at something was a big part of it. I would also say that she did what I would advise anybody to do, which is like, Okay, what do you want to get good at? Okay, you want to get good at let’s just say boxing? What do you want to do in boxing? Do you want to, you know, you want to win a Golden Gloves? Do you want to do this, like, what you need to do is you need to find a coach that has gotten people to wherever it is that you want to go. And then you need and then you need to, like fully invest your time and your and your trust in that person. And like, you know, she did that i She never told me that she wanted to be like a world multiple times jiu jitsu champion, like she never said that. Or, at least she would I mean, if she didn’t say it, like early on. At least I don’t remember her saying that. But if that was in her mind, you know, I mean, she she found a coach that had a strong background in competition. And she just did everything that I told her to do. I mean, it’s really simple when it comes down to it. But like, that’s what you have to do. You have to find a coach that that is able to get you where you want to go. And then you need to just trust them do what they say.

19:08 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah. It’s funny that you say that. She just did everything that you told us to do. It’s just funny, because that seems so hard for people.

19:18 – John Lawrence
It’s impossible. I don’t know. I don’t know why. But like, yeah, out of the hundreds of people that I’ve had come through my gym machine. She’s done it the best. Yeah, but I’ve only had a handful of people do it at all. Yeah, you know, there’s something about heartache here. Women are easier to train. That’s the other thing to be very clear. I’m trained in a martial arts context. Like they don’t, they don’t come into the combat sports training room with this preconceived notion that like, I can handle myself like they don’t do that. The way that the way that men do and I have It seems like it seems to give a really hard time like getting men to generally getting men to sort of like, come along and just do. Like, do what you you know, it was always like, it’s like, oh, like, you know, there’s that. I know you showed this move, but like, Can we do it this way? She is never done that. She’s never done

20:21 – Edgar OtraVez
it. Dude, I get that all the fucking time. When I was teaching, there’s always some dude, I was like, Well, what if? What if he does this? I’m like, well, then I would do this. And then what if he does that? And I’m like, Well, dude, now now we’re not doing the movie anymore. Now we’re doing something else, you know, like,

20:38 – John Lawrence
something else was the problem? Yeah, and I want to be clear, I like that environment, where there’s like, a lot of questions and a lot of what ifs. In fact, I’ll even say, guys, like, give me the what ifs? What if they do this? Right? Like, like, given to me, I want to hear it like this is time to really challenge the technique. So I’ll very, very clearly state that. Like, I guess what I’m saying is like, I would have other people where it’s like, you know, I’ll show I’ll show a sequence. And they’re just sort of reliably the person who’s trying to, like, navigate their way into their own waters. Like, it’s like, I’m showing a takedown, and they’re trying to like spin under for Riversdale human like, we’re not even in the same ballpark. Which, which, which occasionally is fine, especially if those are your competition or something coming up, and they’re sharpening a specific skill set. But like, it’s, it’s a habit. I’m also not a fan of blind loyalty and allegiance to coaches. You know, I said, I was saying before, like, you know, Darla, just like, did what I told her to do. I think that I think that coaches can often abuse that, you know, so you also you also have to really kind of watch out for that as a student. But yeah, I mean, I think like, if you can take the martial arts context out of it for a moment, like strength, strength and conditioning. My entire life, I’ve been sort of the air quotes, doing my own thing in the gym. You know, I don’t know why I was doing that for so long. I don’t know a goddamn thing about strength and conditioning. But as a guy who grew up around weights a little bit it’s like, you know, I got this like, guy, you know, I know I know what to do swing a kettlebell do a Swiss that. And the past several years, I’ve dedicated a lot of time to working with a very skilled trainer. And the more that I’ve just like, given myself over to him and just listen to everything he says, and don’t try to cloud it with my own bullshit. I realize every day. Oh, I didn’t know shit. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I thought I did. Yeah, but I but I actually, the more I train, the less I feel like I know if that makes if that makes any sense.

22:47 – Edgar OtraVez
No, no, I completely understand what you’re saying. Because you have someone who’s now only educated in in that specific area, but they dedicate every day to working in that area. So I mean, just like you as an instructor of jujitsu, you spend all your work waking hours, you know, or at least working hours on jujitsu, you’re only going to be that much better than the person that doesn’t do that all the time. So that makes sense. I mean, you’re getting you’re getting help from an expert. But what what is it that you think it is with men? I’m not sure it’s just men. I think it’s just like, if in my mind, this is I have very little like evidence of this. But I’m thinking if you got a group of women, women are going to be antagonistic towards the leader, right? And if you have a group of men, the men are going to be antagonistic towards the leader. But I want to say that men are just, I guess you’re right.

23:51 – John Lawrence
I don’t find that what you just said. I don’t find that to be the case. We’ve got we’ve got a we’ve got a really big women’s program.

23:58 – Edgar OtraVez
And yeah, and they’re not antagonistic towards No, no, no, they they

24:03 – John Lawrence
respect Darla a lot. And like I said, they’re like, they also do very well a competition because they just, there’s just, there’s just a reduced ego with and again, it’s you might not find that if you go to like art school, or if you go to dance school, but when it comes to like combat sports, yeah, men just have this sort of default setting that that they I’ll put this on myself. I remember the first time that I called about a jujitsu lash lesson. A long time ago. I felt the need to let the guy know that I had done some wrestling. And I had like a little bit of boxing experience. Yeah. Now, how that is relevant to the conversation of starting your first week of jujitsu. Please tell me but I just fell I felt like I had to tell the guy And then years later, I was like, Man, what a fucking loser. Why did I do that?

25:06 – Edgar OtraVez
Do I do this? I did the same thing. I think I did it to you. I think I did it to you. I remember telling you Oh, yeah, I just, you know, just came in. That’s two weeks ago, I was at Golden Gloves and Oh, God. And I don’t remember what your attitude was. I think you just like, okay, whatever, you know, which is I think the general kind of like, no, no, you didn’t roll your eyes. Thank you. But I do remember telling you that I think everybody does that. Everybody goes through a little bit of that, because they want to prove, oh, you know, I’m athletic. You know, I’m gonna pick this up like this. Watch me. Yeah.

25:43 – John Lawrence
Yeah. And just just in case, like anybody’s listening to this, like, who trains my gym, and they’re feeling like attacked right now. So I like 99 point, I really like being around 99.99999% of the people at my gym. Like, it’s a great group. We have awesome students. I’m super appreciative to everybody who trains with us. But people, like people really do get hung up on the side of this thing of like, you know, like, Hey, how can I get better? Like, how can we fast track this? And given where they are, they’re in an environment where if if you want to become a champion, or World Champion, or whatever, like the table, set the foods on the table, like it’s all there. And I say, Look, you just show up, get a good training schedule together, show up and do what the coaches tell you to do. And this seems to be like a totally disappointing answer for people. And I will inevitably get questions about like, strength and conditioning, ice baths, and I saw you have that sign at your house like do you think I should? Sauna two, three times a week? You know, what about, what about kettlebells? What about this? What about that, and I and I? And again, going back to Darla, like she’s never asked me about anything. Except jujitsu. You know what I mean? Like she’s never asked me about strength training. She’s never asked me about sauna or recovery, or hyperbaric chambers are no sexy stuff, right? Just day one she walks in, what do I do? I don’t know, if you she asked me, What do I do? I think she just knew, I just need to show up and do what this trainer who I trust tells me to do. And eight years later, she’s my first wife’s black belt. And she’s the most accomplished competitor I have at my gym. So so like, there’s the blueprint for anybody listening, like if you want to get really good. Show up and train and listen to the coaches. Like that’s it and then we’ll talk in, you know, five to eight years.

27:47 – Edgar OtraVez
I love what you’re saying there. It’s just it’s really simple. You’re right, it just show up, put in the time. Listen, you know,

27:54 – John Lawrence
just just let it distractions. You know, out there, I think it’s more distractions out of the world now than ever, you know, with social media, like, did I just I just I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’m just now recently finding out about this guy, the liver King. Do you know this guy?

28:07 – Edgar OtraVez
I’ve heard the name I do not know much about him. I recently. I don’t remember where I heard it. I think I think they were talking about on one of the recordings for the ADCC

28:18 – John Lawrence
Yeah, so that’s kind of that’s how it was a couple of my students had mentioned him before. And so it was kind of like peripherally on my radar. And then I guess Yeah, I guess this knucklehead showed up to ADCC, like not wearing a shirt was cruising around taking pictures of Pete with people. You know, seems like a nice guy, whatever. But so I go, okay, I get to see like, why is everybody talking about this guy? So I go to his Instagram. And I start to go through some of the comments on his posts. And it’s genuinely disturbing to me because people are saying to this guy, his shtick, by the way is you know, he eats raw liver and raw meat and sleeps in the grass and fine he put some of the comments on his posts read something like liver King, you know, how do you feel about spirituality and psychedelics liver King How do you feel about like how you should manage your money what’s the best way liver King How do you feel about God? Now if you’re asking the liver King How do you and you’re looking and you’re looking for guide like you’re you know, these are like these people are lost yeah and there’s so many there’s so many distractions and so many guys out there like that where they’re just go you know like guru shit like i i have the way this is the way it nobody’s discovered this way yet. But this is this is the way it’s like really like so the way to being Wells is sleeping in the grass and then eating raw organ meats every day. And then apparently, going out in your backyard and sunning your balls. This is like a thing like, like, you know,

29:57 – Edgar OtraVez
you need the vitamin D man.

29:59 – John Lawrence
i It’s is there’s no market right now for just bland, balanced living. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? Like everybody’s looking for this, you know, but there are people looking for these like, salacious, like shortcuts like you know, you wouldn’t believe it, but I felt like that this this one thing is one weird trick you wouldn’t? And I’m gonna share with you. There’s there are no shortcuts, you know?

30:25 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah. And it’s weird because you have these people who elevate themselves to some kind of status or get, you know, some some amount of perception or whatever. And they instantly have the answers not only to the one thing they claim they have answers to, but they have the answers to all of it, right? I think it was early on, when I had you on the first time, you made it a point to say that you’re not looking to be a life coach, you’re not looking to be like a thought leader, or anything weird like that. Like that was something I kind of made sure I kept in focus. When I do the podcast, I am not any of those things. And I do not have a right to tell people how to live, or how to work their money or any of that stuff. I want to be entertaining. And when I can, I want to be informative, but a thought leader or some kind of Guru, I make sure that I don’t get lost in that because some people they get to a point and they do want to be that they think oh, well, you know, I’m a black belt in jujitsu. Now I have the answers to everything, you know, or I am, you know, a millionaire. And I’ve managed to millionaire, millions doesn’t meaning much anymore. But you know, I, I got money now I’m, you know, I know the answers to stuff. I like how you’ve always been really kind of centered and thought about. I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not. But why do you think? Why do you think that people look for that?

31:57 – John Lawrence
I don’t think I actually I was painting it as like a new thing. And I actually don’t think it’s there. I mean, people been, people have always looked for magic pills. You know, it’s not, it’s I’m sounding like a crotchety old man, St. Louis, is these days are just looking for a shortcut. People have always been looking for shortcuts. The shortcuts now are just, they’re just so compelling. The shortcuts are coming, like in terms of the social media figures that have these very, very carefully curated news feeds, of these pictures, these videos, these, these three, four or five things you have to do to live, you know, live a fulfilled life. You know, these these five easy things that you wouldn’t believe it’s just it’s packaged up in such a consumable way now. And it has the ability to go viral in a way that like, the guy, the carnival, Barker didn’t have a way to go viral, you know, back in the 1850s. You know, we’re still selling snake oil and magic pills. It’s not new. It’s just new in the way that it’s able to spread and take hold,

33:06 – Edgar OtraVez
you know, man, and why do you think that people are looking for those easy answers? It’s just laziness. Yeah,

33:12 – John Lawrence
people want to be, yeah, people that we want to be efficient, like we want like, it’s, it’s actually good. To find the shortcut. It’s a good thing, you know, if you can actually find a legitimate shortcut, but when it comes to something like jujitsu, the only real shortcut is finding a coach that you trust, and and then investing, investing your time with that person. Like, that’s the shortcut. And it’s still, it still takes a long time even give it that, you know,

33:42 – Edgar OtraVez
I have to admit, I’ve been having trouble finding a good gym. And

33:50 – John Lawrence
even man, let’s go get over here,

33:51 – Edgar OtraVez
dude. My wife has already said, we’re not leaving, we’re now moving to Cleveland. And oh, my God, you’re just like, maybe maybe I rent a place out there. And she’s like, you’re not renting the place. You know, I’ll

34:03 – John Lawrence
let you teach some for 30 Am classes.

34:07 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, that’d be great for for my relationship with my wife. But anyway, like, but ya know, it’s finding the coach that you can trust is a little bit of a problem right now. I live in the suburbs. And the one of the best places that I’ve seen so far is Pico, which is out in Aurora. Sure, but they are a good 30 minutes away. Oh, and that during the school week with my kids makes it very difficult. But I’ll figure it out. The thing is, is that I’ve bounced in and out of some gyms here and they’re looking for a place and I have to admit, man, it’s kind of hard to find a good place. There was some places I’ve been at, I don’t want to badmouth anybody. I sit And I’m like, I can’t help but question the technique. It’s for various reasons. But half the time I’m sitting there, and I’m thinking, I’ll never use this. Like, it’s not part of my game. It doesn’t it doesn’t fit doesn’t kind of make sense a little too many moves in it. You know, it’s just

35:18 – John Lawrence
so can I, it’s really, really important point, I’m making sequoias hit the brakes there for a second. Yeah, go ahead. I pictured our button just before. Yeah. So like, basically, what you’re saying there is that whatever the curriculum is, it’s not aligning with your goals, like that, which is, I think, a really important point to make, like, why go back to what I said before, like, you need to find a coach that has done the things that aligns with your goals, they need to invest in that person. Now, if your goal, just as an example is to develop like a well rounded, well rounded game, maybe with emphasis of like, being at being able to impose your will and get on top for say, like a self defense context, let’s assume, let’s just assume that your goal might not be then if the if the coach is like, extremely focused on, you know, like spider lasso, or like inversions. Then like, they’re just not, they’re just not teaching in the direction of, of the goals that you have. That might be the perfect coach, for somebody who wants to do really high level competition. And that’s the only thing they care about. Right? But for you, I mean, you just kind of set it right there. And you look at this, you go, I’ll never use this. Well, why would you ever use it? Because maybe it doesn’t align with like, the the goals that you have laid out in terms of the game that you prefer? That sort of federate?

36:46 – Edgar OtraVez
Right, that is absolutely kind of true. And like, for example, inversion, for example, is something I would never do, my back won’t allow it. Okay. And I just prefer a game that were I could possibly not get hit in the face. So self defense, I guess, is part of what I’m looking for. Ultimately, my goal is quite simple. Just get a black belt and be a good black belt. You know,

37:14 – John Lawrence
what does that mean to you? What is a good black belt? Okay, so

37:17 – Edgar OtraVez
that’s a good question. Let me put a pin in that. Okay. But one of the things I want to illustrate, and again, I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. But for example, one of the things that bothered me about one of the places and I went through several places. They were teaching takedowns or throws, okay, but they were teaching a NoGi throw in a geek, sorry, throwing you. Yeah, so they were going for something where you basically go for like a tie up, my wrist was tie up. And all I could think about is, it’s like, nobody’s gonna let me get here. Without posting out on the on the caller. First, they’re gonna grab me on the caller. I’m never gonna get here. Unless I, you know, I get really good at, you know, swimming in here and trying to get that tie up. And I had a real problem. And I asked the instructor, I was like, Oh, well, what do you do? And I’m trying to be nice, like, I don’t. And he was very nice. He wasn’t like, mean or anything. But, you know, I said to him, like, what do we do? If the person grabs me here first? And it was kind of like a non answer. He was just like, Yeah, well, you just go like this, and blah, blah. And I’m like, well, that’s not gonna, that’s not gonna work. Like, that’s, this place is not gonna work. Right? Because this wasn’t just one occurrence. I had my kids there at one point, and my kids were like, we’re not using any of this stuff. They’re teaching us. Yeah, like, like, we’re just, we’re just, we’ve been using the jujitsu that we use we’re using from before and what you teach us. And that’s, that’s been working okay, in the class. So just in general, like, I felt like the the moves were not applicable to what I felt I needed to be in terms of being well rounded. But if I were a NoGi player, just a NoGi player, or if I was someone who was looking to be in MMA, I think that place would have worked perfectly, right. Because because then those those moves that he was teaching. They make sense, right? I think in terms of MMA, that place would have worked. And that’s not what I was looking for. Going back to what you were saying, when I say I want to be a good black belt, or a well rounded black belt, I want to be me, I want to make sure that I know how to throw someone in the ghee that I know how to compete or fight in the ghee and use moves that are applicable in the ghee, even if even if they’re moves that are not for me, you know, I still want to know about them, and know that I have faith in the moves that I’m learning. Also, like when it comes to NoGi, same thing, you know, I want to make sure that I’m doing things that make sense for the attire that I’m wearing, or the situation that I’m in. And although that place would have been going back to that school, although the no gi stuff would have been very applicable to that part of my game, I was missing the other part where the GI doesn’t get addressed in the way that I, I know it work. So I might be wrong about all this, right. But then, in the end, that that thought was bothering me, this is like half of this, this stuff is never going to be something I can

40:46 – John Lawrence
use. I think in that circumstance, you definitely did the right thing, which is, you got a vibe, people are really excellent at picking up on vibes, they don’t like fives that make them uncomfortable. And then you you sort of just separated yourself from the situation. And I have no problem with that we have students who, for various reasons, leave on their own. And it’s not sometimes they leave in the I think they feel like I’m gonna be upset. And I never am like, nobody is the perfect coach for everybody. If that makes sense, not a coach out there. That’s the perfect coach for everyone. So, so people will, will leave from time to time and and go somewhere else. And that’s exactly what you did and what you should do. If you feel like for whatever reason, it’s not a fit. What you should not do is remain at a school where you don’t really have faith in the coaching staff, but then like sort of stay and do your own thing and don’t really stick to the to the protocol and the curriculum like this is this is probably the most counterproductive thing you could do. Now, it’s much it’s much better to just to just go elsewhere.

42:05 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, that place was like 1015 minutes away from me. It was very convenient. And I was having the kids, yeah, I have the kids training there too. Or I had them there. And they got to a point where it’s like, when the kids were like, we don’t use this stuff they teach us. I was like, oh, fuck, now we’re all wasting our time. You know? Because at one point, I was just sitting there, I was staying there and doing exactly that, like not exactly going along with the class, I do the moves. And I did like and it wasn’t like, I wasn’t trying, I was just like, how do I fit this into my game? How do I how do I make this work? I wanted to stop myself from being critical. Now I’m sitting here, I’m just like, I’m in a new place of being an asshole. I’m not. Maybe you were? Maybe I was Yeah, I was like, I’m not accepting the instruction. I should just stop being an idiot, and overthinking stuff and and just use what they what they’re giving me, you know.

43:03 – John Lawrence
And yeah, maybe there have definitely been, I can think of several techniques that when I first felt them when I first learned them, I was thinking this feels very awkward. And I don’t see this fitting into my game ever. And a few of those techniques are now like my A game. So like there is also this fine line of like, you have to give discomfort a chance. In. And also like you do have to like have some faith and like certain techniques. Yeah, there are a couple that really, frankly, I thought were like fake moves. That I now like I now employ in full resistance, competitive situations.

43:47 – Edgar OtraVez
What are one of those moves? You know, we

43:50 – John Lawrence
had, Peter brought this guy in one time, his friend from Brazil. His name was Pedro Duarte. You were probably around for this. But he did some did some seminar seminar style classes at night where he showed what now I would maybe consider it to be a bit of a crude version of a side smash position, or a some people call it well, let’s just call it side smash, because that’s how it’s referred to mostly. Are

44:20 – Edgar OtraVez
you familiar with this? No, I’m not.

44:22 – John Lawrence
Can you describe it a little bit. So imagine, imagine that you’re standing. You’re standing above, like sort of an open guard, and you step your right leg into the middle. Okay. Now to your left side, you’ve got your knees, slide pass, right, your knee cut. So that’s a left side, right, yeah, you fold the hips in the opposite direction. If you fold the hip, if you step your right leg in and you fold the hips to the right, you can fully fold and sprawl on the person’s legs and knees, their hips are going to be smashed to the side. This is commonly known as like a side smashed position. Now, Peter Duarte showed this He was a big dude. And he was he was definitely doing some, like, some big dude things when he was showing the technique. And at the time, I was like 140 500 150 pounds. And I couldn’t get people’s legs to move. He could and so I did. I wrote it off as kind of fake. Then I got back into the position years later, and I just realized that I just needed to make a few, a few hand in hand placement and body adjustments. And now it’s a core part of the way that I Passcard. So it went from like, this is fake to like, this is my A game by in a matter of years, so it can happen.

45:42 – Edgar OtraVez
Changing subjects a little bit here. I know you didn’t see this. We talked about this before, but I did want to ask, How do you stop an explosive wrestler and the reason I bring this up is because we saw Hamza Shemaiah of fight Kevin Hollen and UFC 279 A couple go. And he, he just exploded all over this guy. Now, to be fair, at least from what I saw, I thought it was a little dirty, because Kevin Holland came out for the hand tap, tap gloves, oh God, and, you know, to my have just faked the tap, and then shot on him.

46:22 – John Lawrence
Oh, man, that’s messed up.

46:23 – Edgar OtraVez
it was a little dirty. Like he went to he looked like he was gonna tap gloves. And then he just shot on him. And then Kevin Holland was just from, you know, working from behind at that point he was he was just trying to keep up with, you know, handouts, rustling and he, at least to from what I will from where I was sitting, it was terrifying. By the way, this guy was all over him. He was just just wrestling and it was amazing. So I have to ask, How do you stop a really good explosive wrestler or Chien wrestler in this in this respect?

47:05 – John Lawrence
I think what your what your the question you’re asking is how do you stop? A superior grappler? So So let’s we I I’d love to break that down. But people often draw this this false distinction, I think between wrestling and Jiu Jitsu. Obviously, they’re different. And they’re different in terms of their rules, specifically, and that is, that’s why I think you see some of the differences that you see. So like, the first thing is that guy’s probably been been wrestling since he was three years

47:43 – Edgar OtraVez
old. Probably. I’m wrestling with bears or something. Yeah.

47:46 – John Lawrence
I don’t know. How old is he now? I don’t know.

47:49 – Edgar OtraVez
He’s a younger guy. I think he’s like 20 something. Okay,

47:53 – John Lawrence
so let’s just say maybe he’s got 20 years wrestling experience, right? So you’ve got that you’ve got this guy with 20 years of wrestling experience. And then maybe you’ve got a guy with, you know, 13 to 15 years of jujitsu experience. I don’t know how much experience Kevin Holland has made him and Alan is a black belt. Okay, so let’s just put them in you. Let’s put them in 15 years. So maybe he’s buying a few years in terms of training time. But also, I complain about this a lot. I’ve complained about your podcast a lot. The the incentive structure behind a wrestling rule set and the incentive structure behind a Brazilian jujitsu rule set are totally different. And the incentive structure behind the wrestling rule set translates much better to MMA. Yeah, much better. So if you’re asking like, basically what you’re asking is like, given the context of of their, their match, you know, it’s an MMA fight. The Z Bella Russian, I was gonna say the Bella Russian, Russian, he’s

49:00 – Edgar OtraVez
easy. He’s Russian. Yeah, but he was, I guess he grew up in Holland or something.

49:05 – John Lawrence
Okay, okay. Yeah, the Russian is just is trained much better for that. ruleset. He’s been training around like the right incentives. As they funnel into MMA. I mean, he’s, you know, he’s, he’s incentivized to force the action to the ground, where he’s going to be in top position, and then be highly aggressive from there. Whereas like, if you’re, if you’re only if your grappling background is Brazilian jujitsu and you have a certain culture at your gym and you go to certain competitions, you’re just you’re not going to be ready to compete with somebody who’s been training, under like a wrestling incentive structure, you you’re not gonna be able to compete well with that person, that they’re just a better grappler. For MMA. There’s better I think if I think Over the next 10 years, if you saw a major overhaul in the Brazilian jujitsu rule set, I think that these diff this like wrestler versus BJJ guy problem. I think it goes away. I think it gets it really gets diminished. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that’s the problem is like in jujitsu, you can have a world champion, a world Black Belt adult champion who doesn’t know a single takedown

50:28 – Edgar OtraVez
that’s a problem. That is a problem.

50:30 – John Lawrence
You’re not going to get that in wrestling, you’re not going to get a World Wrestling Champion who doesn’t know any takedowns sets, right? Yeah. So if you just randomly pick two people from each category, the wrestlers are gonna have a better goal than MMA every time.

50:45 – Edgar OtraVez
So just in just talking about you might have and just kind of like from what we’ve seen, we hypothesize on this podcast that you might have is afraid of jujitsu to a certain extent. So he he’s a purple belt. But he also like we’re saying he’s got years and years of experience as a wrestler. And he had a lot of trouble with. He seems to be ducking certain people who are like high level jujitsu players. I believe he had a huge problem with Gilbert burns. Sure, just in general, like, it seems like he’s ducking that. And so I think, and this is just about Yemaya. So not necessarily about wrestling, but there seems to be some kind of hole in his game that he’s aware of, that you might have is aware of, and he doesn’t want it exposed. So there’s a lot of shit talking about him and ducking legit jujitsu players. And that’s one of the like, the theories was why he didn’t end up fighting ideas.

51:46 – John Lawrence
Okay, I mean, it could be and I do think like a really aggressive, aggressive bottom game, which that almost, you know, it can sound maybe like a, you know, a bit of a paradox, but like, yeah, having like a really aggressive submission and sweep oriented bottom game, you know, you can, you can definitely nullify a guy like that. Like I said, many jujitsu competitions and many jujitsu schools don’t incentivize the ability to dictate where the fight goes, dictate where the match goes. And they also don’t necessarily incentivize like, a really assertive bottom games, specifically, specifically from closed guard, making sure that the posture is always broken. The person can never touch your face and then just relentlessly chaining submissions and sweeps together. It’s a chill spot for a lot of people. I hate where the Brazilian jujitsu ruleset is right now. I think it could go the way of Taekwondo over the over the next 10 years. We’re not careful. I thought a lot of the ADCC rules were were shit over the weekend, too.

52:50 – Edgar OtraVez
Oh, really? So I had a hard time understanding what was going on there. What the first five minutes? There’s no points, correct? Yeah.

52:57 – John Lawrence
Well, depending on the that was I think that might have been the format for the

53:04 – Edgar OtraVez
the final. And I think it was for the final in the competitions that Gordon Ryan was in and in the Super Fight that he had with GM. All

53:12 – John Lawrence
right. Yeah. So it’s a 20 minute first period, and it’s like 10, no points. 10 points. I’m really not convinced what the perfect rule set is. I just know that there’s a whole lot wrong with pretty much every rule set that’s out there right now. They’ve got they’ve all got major problems. I mean, are you familiar with like the EBI rule set?

53:36 – Edgar OtraVez
Oh, yeah. So we’ve talked about this before? Yeah. I like what you’re talking about, like, Oh, I’m sorry. So are you talking about the one where they point to each other?

53:46 – John Lawrence
Like fight to win? I’m talking about No, that’s that’s that’s combat jujitsu. Okay. I actually think it out of all of all the types of jujitsu, you could train that’s going to funnel the best into MMA, for sure. Because they’re hit, they’re basically punching each other. Yeah. When I’m talking about the EBI ruleset, where this was touted for by, you know, by guys like Rogen. And Eddie Bravo is like the best, you know, the best grappling rule set, which it has turned out to be? Not at all. Basically, you have a tent, you have it, you have a first period, I think it’s like a 10 minute period, often, where it’s no points, you know, and then they just decide who was sort of the more assertive person and then they put you in these, they put you in spider web, they put you back control, they put you in mount. So basically, people have just started to game the rules where they just want to just do enough to win the first period, or get through the first period, so then they can just be better in the spiderweb position or be better at back control. And like, that’s where everybody’s trying to get they’re just trying to win and over time. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, the perfect the perfect ruleset is just not out there right now. Not yet, you know? Yeah,

55:05 – Edgar OtraVez
I don’t, I don’t like it when people just trying to game the system and just trying to win by points. I mean, I guess nobody does, but you shouldn’t be trying to win. Like you should be trying to go for the submission you should be, whether it’s MMA jujitsu, whatever you should be trying to get that other person knocked out, choked out, whatever, you know, I hate it. I don’t like it when people try to game the system. It’s just like, they’re not trying to win. They’re just trying not to lose.

55:38 – John Lawrence
Well, it’s tough. But you have to tell me though, like, if I’m in the finals of the Pan American, and I’m up two points. And there’s in there, well, it’s him up a lot. Let’s say I’m up. You know, let’s just say that I’m up. And I’m in a position where I could even with, even with accruing penalties, I could stall out and I could win the Pan American. Tell me what my incentive is to open up.

56:07 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah. No, no, I completely understand. Like, it’s because I mean, whether you are trying to win or just, you know, try not to lose. In the end, if you win, you get, you get the medal or you get the the glory, you get the win. But I mean, I don’t know, man. It’s not how I want to win. But that’s, that’s put yourself in that situation. I understand. I completely understand. Right. And I’ve

56:33 – John Lawrence
been I’ve talked about this before, I’ve been in the one of the last tournaments I was at, I had this I was up, I think I was up like an advantage, which is, you know, nothing. And, but I just, it was a couple minutes left. And after feeling the guy in my closed guard, I go, well, this person does not have the ability, he does not have the skills to open and pass my guard, like, my guard game is just ahead of his closed guard breaking game. It’s ahead. So all I have to do is conservatively, off balance and attack this person for two minutes tonight, when it’s a guarantee. Like where’s my incentive to open up it really go for it? You know, like, it has to be a self imposed incentive where I’m like, you know, like, I have a goal of hitting X amount of submissions this year. Yeah. So that, you know what I mean? Like, it’s, it’s really tough.

57:25 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, and yeah, and I don’t know how you, you make that happen? Which rules? Yeah, I mean, you can change the rules, but like, I think we’ve had this conversation before, it’s just like, people will just find a different way to game it. You know, it’s got to be a way, there’s got to be a way. So talking about going back to Gordon Ryan, undrinkable, who’s, like we said, 39 years old, talked about he, you know, in his post fight, interview that he had, like a torn meniscus and an ACL tear of some kind. And, you know, Gordon Ryan also said, Well, you know, I’m, I’m at 70%, you know, right? How often is it the athletes actually compete without being injured? And do you ever step in to stop them and be like, hey, you know, what, you shouldn’t be competing in that or with that injury?

58:24 – John Lawrence
Yeah, I think it’s, that’s a complicated one. I’d say in my competitive career, there have definitely been times where I’ve put like, a roll of tape on my ankle, and just pushed through. And I think it’s important to know that you can do that like that you have the ability to do that. It’s also something that I would never do now. So there’s like there’s a balance to it. I would also say that, if I had a pre existing injury like that, those comments would never see the light of day, like people people would never know, especially like after I lose a match like that. I think that I think, in Andres case, I think you either you either cancel the match, or you don’t make those comments post fight. But what you don’t do is have the match and then like, say all the things that he said I thought that was that it was very like it sounds sportsmen like because he’s being very polite, and he’s being very humble, but it was unsportsmanlike.

59:36 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, cuz you kind of diminish the win, right?

59:39 – John Lawrence
Yeah. Portlets that’s, that’s all that you’re trying to do is diminished. That’s, that’s the sole purpose of you making the comments that you made.

59:47 – Edgar OtraVez
Well, I mean, is it do you think it was coming from like himself like trying to like protect himself his ego or was it because he wanted or hurt Gordon Ryan when he was saying that

59:59 – John Lawrence
Oh, I mean, probably, maybe a little bit of both, but probably just, you know, signaling to his team. And his fans that, you know, he had not had been injured, he could have done, you know, maybe a lot better. I mean, it’s, it’s obvious to anybody paying attention, but that’s what it’s doing.

1:00:16 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, it’s not it’s not a good luck, right?

1:00:20 – John Lawrence
It’s not I mean, it just, like, just you just can’t do that. Like, it’s not an admirable thing to do.

1:00:29 – Edgar OtraVez
No. Yeah. And then, in training, though, you probably have to tell your partner’s a look, I got I got this injury. I’m trying to make it through this thing. Just watch this leg or watch this armor. But I mean, aside from that, you probably wouldn’t tell anybody that

1:00:43 – John Lawrence
I’ve gone into matches, bad like, like, not banged up, but injured with like, things torn. And I’ve lost. And I’m not going to tell you or anybody else, which matches those were ever. You know what I mean? I mean, obviously, like my close friends, but like, Oh, I was messed up for this one. But like, Yeah, I’m not going to make that announcement to my students and to my, my friends and family. Like, you just eat it. You shake hands? Good game. We’ll do it again. Some time. Yeah. Like you don’t you don’t make that public.

1:01:16 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah. But also, like, how many times did you go into competition injured and still win? You know, like, I mean, that happens too, right.

1:01:25 – John Lawrence
I think those are okay to talk about. Yeah. But I mean, like, because like, it’s like, what’s the assumption you won? And so then, if you were uninjured, you would have won better? I don’t know. Like, it’s, I mean, it’s not a problem. Yeah, but that’s happened a lot. Yeah. Yeah, that

1:01:41 – Edgar OtraVez
happens a lot. I mean, the first time I fought I, you know, I fought with a broken nose broken ribs. And I still want, you know, and it’s like, my favorite story to tell as you can. Yeah. But like, it’s just like, but it’s different. You’re right. It’s, you know, but in terms of like, your injuries, you said something really interesting. You said that, you taped up that ankle, and you went through it anyway. And you competed. But you would never do that. Now. Why? Why was it Okay, then? And why is it not? Okay, now,

1:02:15 – John Lawrence
I think I think it’s important like to realize that you have a deep mental reservoir that you can access if you want to. But in doing that, like you also put yourself at like some unnecessary risk. I know that I can do that, because I’ve done it. And now I don’t have to prove that to myself, or put myself at that type of risk anymore. You know, and you also have to make the distinction between Are you banged up? Or are you injured, you know, we’re at a certain, after a certain amount of years past, we’re all banged up. But if you’re injured to the point where you are structurally compromised, like something could give that that is, you know, that’s a reason to not to not compete, or if it’s something that is affecting your confidence in a really meaningful way. Like, maybe you have like a really deep, really nasty bruise. Every single time somebody like, you know, like, you ever get these, like deep Shin bruises, like a check kick or something, I got one of these right now. Just like fireworks every time somebody touches their Shin against mine. Um, so it’s like, if somebody’s like, that’s really going to like, affect your training and your confidence, then, in your mind is not there. You either need to get your mind right, or you need to, you need to just postpone

1:03:44 – Edgar OtraVez
you know, it’s funny, because there are certain things where I’m like, oh, that, that’s, that keeps me from going to the gym. But things like, like you’re saying, like a bruise, like a check kick, for example, or like a bruise on my, unless it’s split open, I’m still going. But like, there are little things where, what is it, I got this finger, this finger. It’s funny because I’ll, I’ll go to the gym with a with a giant bruise on my shin. But if this finger acts up, you know, I got a ring finger. That’s a little funny. But if that acts up, I’m like, Oh, I don’t want to I don’t want to use his hand. I don’t want to do anything. You know, like, it’s funny because I am probably sillier about certain injuries that I shouldn’t be than I am about the others, like so do you? Do you have someone to help you say, hey, you know what, you probably shouldn’t be rolling. You know, like with that, you know, giant lump on your shin, you know, or do you just do not confide anyone in that or do you just or you think you have a good, like, idea of what is okay, and what is it?

1:04:51 – John Lawrence
Yeah, I think one of the things that I’m I’m missing a lot is just having like a coach because I do still compete and I don’t really plan to stop anytime soon. I really enjoy it. But I don’t have like, the closest thing I have to a coach is like, my strength conditioning coach, you know? Like, that’s very much like a student teacher relationship. Again, I just I show up and I do exactly what he tells me to do. Everything’s Yes, sir, you know, we’re gonna get it done. But on the jujitsu side, you know, I’ve certainly got like, high level instructors and students to bounce things off of and troubleshoot things with. But ultimately, there’s, there’s like a social dynamic, I think, where people are telling me what to do, or how to train, even if I go and like, take one of their classes, that’s not really happening. I do miss having a grappling coach, you know, it’s so nice to just be able, even when I take other other instructors classes, it’s so nice to show up and just be a student, and just keep my head down and not talk to anybody and drill. It’s very refreshing. So I’m No, I don’t, I don’t have that. That’s, that’s a big challenge

1:06:09 – Edgar OtraVez
for me. So it’s interesting that you, you bring that up, because one of the things that I’ve been thinking a lot lately is eventually, you know, because this is what this all leads to, is eventually you have to become your own. Your own Sensei, your own teacher, everybody has to grow up to a point where they have to leave home, be the, you know, become their own adult. There’s all that part of it. Sure. But there is there is a simplicity, there is something nice to having someone that you can go to for advice. And in this case, like you’re saying to have a coach, what is it about that? Do you think it just takes off a little bit of the pressure of always having to be teaching? Or is there something else there? I mean, you’re you’re saying that part of it would be to have someone like we’re talking to tell you, hey, you know what, you probably shouldn’t be training with that. Is that part of that? Or is there something else that you think you need from a coach, at this point,

1:07:11 – John Lawrence
a coach will make you do the things that you need to do that you don’t want to do, and that you wouldn’t otherwise do on your own. So again, I draw the strength and conditioning analogy, because again, like that is the only coach that I have right now. We were we were in there the other day, and we’re doing like banded stance walks. And we’re doing these, like single leg like, like, like hip elevation exercises, very boring. Like I just had hip surgery, rehab type of stuff.

1:07:48 – Edgar OtraVez
Are you serious?

1:07:49 – John Lawrence
I have no say I’m not saying I had hip surgery. Like it’s what is is often recommended for people who need joint stability in their hips and their knees. Okay? For me, it’s the knee because I popped my LCL in January. So we’re just doing this, basically, rehab prehab stuff. And I’m just sort of laughing to myself going like I would, you know, if I program a lift at my house, none of this is making it. Yeah. But meanwhile, as the months pass, I get stronger and stronger and my knee feels is starting to feel pretty reliable. And my absolute numbers, like on my weight training, they are all going up. Some getting like objectively stronger as far as weights go. So like I’m just doing what he is telling me to do, and everything is getting better. Now if I was just coaching myself, you know, doing the classic college by try push, pull split, and I just be I’d be treading water now. So yeah, that’s what a coach does like a coach, a coach in the jujitsu contact says like, Hey, I know, I know, you want to work your, you know, your daily balloon sweep. But you know, like your half guard passing sucks, you know, so we’re going to work on that instead. And half, half guard passing is just not nearly as dynamic or as fun. But yeah, that’s that’s what a coach does. Coach says like, it’s not, it’s not about what you want to do. It’s about what you what you need to do to get to achieve the goals that you said you wanted to achieve. You know, that’s

1:09:40 – Edgar OtraVez
so you’re saying that part of what you kind of wish you had was a perspective that you wouldn’t have if you had a coach. So like if you have because they’re going to they’re going to see they’re going to notice like you’re saying that your your half guard passing could be better. And you will necessarily see do that because you may not be realizing it. Is that part of what you’re saying? Or it is. And

1:10:06 – John Lawrence
then also, like even more insidious, there are things that you do see. But to people just Yeah, people just are comfortable. Like, I can tell you that the weakest part of my game, in I have a pretty well rounded game, the weakest part is my back control. Like, I should probably only be training, drilling, taking the back and finishing people from the back, it’s my weakest area. But if I’m given drilling time, inevitably is not what I work on. You know, now, if I had a coach, who could see that weakness in my game, who was at my school, and could say, you know, this is what we’re working today like that, that is the function of a coach, you know.

1:10:56 – Edgar OtraVez
So, Mikey Musumeci, he says that leg locks are not a thing anymore. Basically, he says that, you know, the, the leg locking game has kind of leveled out, and everybody’s learned them. And so now we’re back to just jujitsu. Right? We’re back to not just a leg lock centric game that now that everybody everybody knows how to defend them and use them and whatnot that you know, they’re you’re back to just doing other things and trying to find a new I guess, trend or something. Gordon Ryan? You know, attacked a lot of legs this past weekend. Do you think that’s still true? Or what do you what do you what’s your opinion about the things like leg locks for example?

1:11:48 – John Lawrence
As I recall, I’ve just because we brought up cord Ryan, he finished to heel hooks over the weekend.

1:11:54 – Edgar OtraVez
I I believe so. But like he he there was a threat of the legs a lot though. You know, he I don’t think there was a match where he didn’t threaten the legs.

1:12:05 – John Lawrence
So I actually think those are two different things that the the threat of the legs because it’s like often you get into positions where you could threaten the legs and you’re also constantly threatening a sweeper back takes like that’s those things are different. The one heel hook that he finished not against. Not against Rodriguez, but against camera where the other guy’s name was like, it was straight up fake.

1:12:32 – Edgar OtraVez
Which one like the one where it’s like in 10 seconds. That was bullshit. Yeah, that’s the one you’re talking about. Yeah, that

1:12:38 – John Lawrence
one was bullshit. That guy panic tapped. He, there was no reason for him to tap in that position. Now I’m not saying that he wouldn’t have gotten chained into a stronger position later in taps. I mean, he might have. But that guy. That guy was like, legitimately. He just faded in the shadow of Gordon Ryan. And Gordon hooked his heel. He had every opportunity to roll with that, that submission and he just didn’t take it. That was a straight up panic tap. And anybody who understands the leglock game intimately would agree with that. If you watch the replay, it’s an outside he’ll hook off of a reap. Not necessarily like this, not necessarily the strongest position for a finish. The guy didn’t even attempt to roll out like didn’t even try. And he had he had every opportunity

1:13:37 – Edgar OtraVez
to do that. Okay, so when I saw it, that’s how I felt. I’m like, Did did even put this, like I didn’t even see him like actually hook the heel. He just like he seemed like he did. It just seemed like it happened so fast. I’m like, did they even get a chance to crank or I mean, of course, you don’t want to like sit there and let someone crank on your leg. But I felt the same. But also, you know, I don’t know what it just it was confusing to me because it didn’t seem like a very strong attempt. It wasn’t. And

1:14:12 – John Lawrence
I think if anything, it was an attempt to get the guy to do what Galva did so. So, Gordon, against GABAA he and I taught the sequence like last week, which is hilarious. He he pulls himself into single leg X. And he there’s always a combination of threatening threatening the Lagan and threatening the sweep. In this case, he hits the double ankle sweep against Gao. And Gao tries to run away from the double ankle sweep. Now people also try to run away from from the heel hook threat. And in both cases, it’s used to come on top. Yeah, I think Gordon Ryan was probably assuming this guy was going to turn and run from the heel hook threat. And then he was going to work his way on top. Yeah, and this guy as soon as his heel got hurt I mean, he just, he turned, he made a quarter turn to alleviate a little bit of the pressure and just tat. Now I’d be terrified if I was in Gordon rands heel hook as well. Yeah. But if I’m a heavyweight and I made it all the way to ADCC I mean, I, you know, that is a there’s a legitimate role out there. Watch the replay. It’s right there. You know, he just he didn’t do it. Why? Maybe he had an injury. Maybe he was just so impressed and overwhelmed with being in there with Gordon Ryan. Like, I don’t know what it was, you know?

1:15:31 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah. 10 seconds, though, man. Or was it? 10 seconds? It was fast. Like 11 seconds. Yeah, it was ridiculous. I think the guy’s name was Victor. Hugo. Is that who it was? I don’t think that’s point. Submission. He’ll hook. Roosevelt’s waza that was Roosevelt. Yeah. Okay. So he’s got so at this weekend, he got a submission, rear naked choke, you got the points, he got to heel hooks. And then he got the rear naked choke on the golf ball.

1:16:01 – John Lawrence
So you get as many Rear Naked Choke says he did like locks and one of the leg locks is bullshit. Yeah. And he mostly mostly takes people’s back and strangles them. That’s also what he does.

1:16:11 – Edgar OtraVez
Well, yeah, that’s exactly kind of what he did. Like you’re saying he threatened that heel hook, go wild turned. And then he jumped on his back. Right? And then it was kind of just a slow death from there. But dude, man, that was that was amazing. I just, I couldn’t I couldn’t believe that God law couldn’t get out. And then he got his arm trapped. And then it was just slowly he was working around that neck.

1:16:33 – John Lawrence
Now to go back to what Mikey said about like locks, like, you know, everybody’s sort of figured them out. I mean, that’s a tricky one. I think. Like, so historically, like leg locks, were, you know, frowned upon, which I’ve always found hilarious. But they were and because they were always frowned upon. They always had this sort of like, underground rebel vibe to them. You know, I think I think I think now, I hope this is the case that they’re not really mostly looked at, like, they’re, they’re not looked upon that way anymore. But people fetishize leg locks in a way that I don’t totally understand, like building your entire game around like locks. I mean, I, I’m super into leg locks. I’m pro leg lock, I teach white belts, how to heel hook. I’m into it. I think it’s a very important part of grappling. But I don’t I don’t fetishize and worship them the same way that I think some people do. Yeah. It’s very, like, it’s just seems to be I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s part of the game. It’s it also, like, if you build your entire game around it, like, it’s, you know, you’re just going to be totally incomplete. grappler like my thing, like, what the goals like, the direction that I want from my school is I want people who are good everywhere. You know, I want you to be good, like, good, good in the GI. Good without the game. Good on top, good on bottom good with takedowns good with guard poles. I want you to be good everywhere. Even if that means that you’re not incredible anywhere. I want you to be good everywhere. That’s that’s my goal for anybody who gets black belt.

1:18:41 – Edgar OtraVez
And that was one of the questions I wanted to ask I think, and that I asked a little bit like, what do you look for in a black belt? And in terms of technique, you want to see them? Not necessarily great at everything. But good everywhere. Good. No,

1:18:56 – John Lawrence
I yeah, that’s that really, it’s very simple. For me, I think well rounded is important. I tell this short story often, but for me, it was the great powerful. Some people will say like, you know why, like, why train in the ghee? You know, like, just as an example. We might just as easily say, why trade no dB, like, why training they eat? Because when I was a kid, I’d wrestled enough to like, feel like I can handle myself, like, rolling around with my friends. And then after hockey practice, one day, I was wearing like, you know, like, sort of like a letterman style jacket. You know, I was messing with one of my friends and he wasn’t even really my size was maybe smaller than me. He grabbed my jacket, he started shaking me around. And I don’t know if he’d like ever done judo, or if he was just doing it instinctively. But like, I just felt like now I gotta get this fucking jacket off like this is I don’t know. I feel I feel so vulnerable and so lost, right? I can’t do any of I can’t take him down. I can’t grab a hold of him. So maybe a bit of a Kyle the story but like, that was my that was the first time I realized like, as soon as you add or subtract like an article article of clothing, everything changes. But I would say the same thing to the guys who like live in the GI. You know, I have people who like, you know, maybe a few students who like have never done no Gi. I’m like, You’re I’m not giving you a black belt. You’re not getting it. Wow, I won’t, I will. If you only ever train ghee, you are not getting a black belt from me. You know?

1:20:30 – Edgar OtraVez
So then let’s kind of riff on that a little bit. Who wouldn’t you give a black belt to? So like, not who like a perfect, exactly. But what’s what is missing for a person to not be awarded? Let’s say he’s, he’s spent all the time. He or she spent all this time with you. And you know, like Darla say he’s been around 810 years, right. But he still hasn’t gotten the black belt. I guess it could be a number of things. But what would be like the one thing you’d be like, Oh, you really need this? If you want to be a jujitsu Black Belt.

1:21:05 – John Lawrence
I just think it’s the I mean, I think to a degree, it’s the well rounded thing. But also, I mean, if somebody’s floundering that bad, after so many years, they probably just don’t have a place at

Unknown Speaker 1:21:18
my school. You know, who really you think that? That’s? Yeah, yeah.

1:21:23 – John Lawrence
Yeah, I think, um, and again, not for any malicious reasons. It’s just, I just, I would just want to work with who I want to work with. I want to work with people who are like, dedicated and sincere in their intentions. And that could even be you know, that could even be somebody who, who wants to train casually, like, you can actually train. You can it sounds like, like a contradiction, but you can train casually in a serious way, if that makes sense. Like, I have guys who I know have no aspirations to like, compete or own a school, or anything like that. But these guys are like steady, too. There’s like two days a week. They come in and they are serious about jujitsu, you know? And to me, that’s like, that’s dedication, even though, you know, they might not aspire to be anything great. They might have expectations to get their black belts in like 15 to 20 years. Like, that’s cool, you know? Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I guess for me, there are so many things that could disqualify you. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. If it’s somebody who actually is showing up. Yeah, I just I think you need to be well rounded.

1:22:36 – Edgar OtraVez
So that’s about it for right now. Do you have anything else you want to add before we get going?

1:22:44 – John Lawrence
No, not really. I would just plug Darla one more time and save to have to have her on your podcast? Because she, she’s a better talker than I am. For sure. And given the right questions, you know, you guys are going to be able to try to do a couple podcasts, honestly. But no, man. I mean, I think we were throat sore. I think we covered covered a lot.

1:23:06 – Edgar OtraVez
Yeah, dude, thanks so much for coming on, dude. Like, these are always great. Yeah. And I would love to have Darla on I think, I think she’s a really interesting person, at least from where I’m sitting, you know, from conversations with you, and Instagram and stuff, like every store do

1:23:21 – John Lawrence
like three, three person podcast, because I mean, she certainly do or do her own. But I think it’ll be kind of fun to like, get ready to go to,

1:23:26 – Edgar OtraVez
it’d be good. That would be great. Like, I would love to do that. Like, you know, that would be I think probably the best too in case. In case I mean, because I’m not a psychologist or what is she a psychologist or? She is Yeah. So like, I may not know the psychology of like sports and stuff. And that is definitely like an area I want to kind of, like navigate with her. So like if you want to be on that would be great, because then we can all kind of participate in trying to get some of these answers out. Okay. Cool. So anyway, thank you so much, John, for coming on. We have John Lawrence. Black Belt in jujitsu, head instructor of hurricane jujitsu out in Cleveland. If you guys want to check it out. Make sure you go to his website, Hurricane jj.com. And he’s also on Instagram, which I believe is also hurricane JJ.

1:24:20 – John Lawrence
I think it might be hurricane.jj. I’m not sure.

1:24:22 – Edgar OtraVez
Okay, Hurricane.JJ. Don’t worry. I’ll have all that stuff in the description so you guys can find them. Anyway, thanks so much, guys, for listening. Thank you, John. And we will catch you next time. The music you’re listening to is titled I won’t be turning around by Rouzer. You can find that over at Epidemic Sound. Now Epidemic Sound provides royalty free music for a low monthly cost. It’s a great resource for any content creator. If you’re tired of using the same old music, make sure you check out the amazing catalogue over at Epidemic Sound. They have reggaeton Hip Hop on Latin music, rock music, they got it all, man. So make sure you check it out. And if you do, make sure you use my referral link in the description so that you know that I sent you, man has always I get so much out of these conversations with John. And I hope you did too. It was great to see here and talk about some of the ADCC stuff that happened over the weekend. And it was just a big fight weekend, there was just so much going on Canelo won against Triple G, there were some amazing fights on the fight night card at UFC. So there was a lot going on. And it was nice to get to talk about some of it with John. Now, if you’re interested in training with John, he has a wonderful facility in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s called hurricane jujitsu Academy. It’s amazing there, I’ve been there. It’s great. And he’s an amazing instructor as well. If you want to check them out, make sure you hit his website, Hurricane jj.com. And you can find him on instagram@hurricane.jj. He’s constantly posting stuff there. And I love seeing all that content that he throws out because I’m always learning something from him. On occasion, he has amazing shirts too. So check out his merchandise as well. Nothing but good stuff there. Now if you want to follow me, Edgar OtraVez You can follow me on Instagram under the name Edgar OtraVez. Or you can follow the show under the name The Flow Roll also on Instagram. And if you dug this show, and you want to listen to more, head on over to our website, the Flow Roll podcast.com There you’ll find a complete catalogue of all our episodes and a store where you can buy some merchandise and support the podcast. Also, I have a special section that you can find. It’s just jujitsu base stuff. So you can click on there and listen to jujitsu base content. I got a little nifty little playlist you can check out and you can listen to all the jujitsu related episodes. Also, I just want to give a shout out to Darla said let’s check congratulations on the black belt well deserved I know you train very hard I see those postings you’re always on the winners block. That’s so cool. Now if you’d like to show I just want to ask for a favor. And make sure you Like Subscribe, Comment and Share wherever you get your podcasts at us all the buttons that make the podcast Gods happy. Thank you so much for listening to this Edgar OtraVez We will catch you next time. Behave yourselves later.

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