Sword Fighting: The Art of Combat and Philosophy

I was in Harbor City in California at Emerson Knives. Emerson Knives is a legendary company. They've done knives for NASA, the SEALs. The man behind that company, Ernest Emerson, is a student of the Enesanto Academy, a martial artist of the highest degree, amazing dude. It has been one of the weirdest things for me, my relationship to you, Maya, and me being one of your students, that I think I'm cool, but then I get people of high levels like that coming over to me and asking me about Saudi Umba, you know, like, hey dude, I know you had all this weird experience in Mexico and you know all these things and you just did this whole thing. I was a training with Saudi Umba soon, it was like, what do you, what do you tell me about that? His name and his legacy keeps coming up over and over again and it's no secret that I've been kind of sharing my, I guess my fascination and my love of swords and specifically some of them, Sony Umba's teachings. We go back a while, Maya, I think. Yeah, I was actually trying to think about that. I think it's 10 years. So 10 years ago, we fish, nine or 10, yeah, we started kind of talking about, no, no, no, no, you were teaching in San Francisco. Oh, yeah. And I got a call in the morning. I'm painting a door, right? I'm painting a front door in my phone rings and it's Mark Denny and he goes, hello, Maya, guess who this is? And I was like, hey, crafty, how's it going on? He says, guess where I am? No, I was like, no idea. I'm in San Francisco. Have you heard of a man called Ed Calderone? No, for an idea. Yeah. Well, he's into knives and blades and things and I thought you should meet us for lunch. Yeah. That's how we met. That's how we met. Mark Denny introduced us, which is a weird one. Yeah, I mean, just literally, he's, I mean, it was like at nine, 30 in the morning or something or right before you were starting the seminar. He gave me a call and he's like, come over for lunch. And of course, you can't say no when stuff like that happens. You're like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Finish painting the front door, get in the car and head over. I was, and I was at the start of my weird process. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think I gave you my book. Yes, because I sat in for the afternoon and you invited me to come to the next one of yours. Yes. And then, and then you then we had a sword fight. And then you challenged me to a sword fight at lunch and I got my aunt Hannah, which is great. I was at the start of my, like my, uh, teaching career, I think, back then. That's right. Yeah. The first class as I ever did in the US, at the US word in San Francisco through through triple autism. Yeah. I was living with a tracker Dan somewhere in California and Mark Denney reached out and I actually did some private training for him, like, which was weird because I knew who he was and some weird cross pollination, people knowing me and wanting him to see some of the weird things that I could do. And then all of a sudden, I found myself in the room in San Francisco, sword fighting, this crazy lady that was pretty, pretty crafty with her sword. Um, when you, when you showed up to that class, um, you brought with you these relics of a past, I guess. Um, these, um, these homemade, home modified, uh, tricked out, weightless. Yeah. That specific thing is one of the my, my favorite ones that was, look, it's almost, whatever you envision a sword would feel like it was made by elves, I guess, or like these ultra light, minimalistic and everything on it has a meaning and a reason for it to be made. You brought some of these homemade artifacts with you when we were about to sword fight. Um, and I think that's what initially captured my attention and my imagination about Sony. Um, every now and then we encounter people who are very proficient and they know they're shit and they're like high level people. Um, but when you get down into the details of somebody being a teacher, like having them, having Sony make his own training weapons, uh, which I kind of follow suit. Yeah. I had to make one out of a stop sign, trace off that, I think. I don't even know how I, how I, how I trace that out, but, uh, tell, tell me, I think I let you trace the one I brought, right? Yeah. I think that's how it happened. Yeah. Like I said, I need a sword and you're like, make one. Don't, don't buy one. As I said, I have to ask you, like, what, what, where can they buy a good trading sword? No, no, no, make it, make this sword. So one stolen stop sign later. Um, the, I don't know, it caught my eye, caught my attention and also just fighting you, caught my attention. Um, I have a box, I have a boxing background. I did judo. I did a bunch of weird combats in my past. Uh, I was, I were around for the baller two degrees in Mexico's, uh, and my nose is kind of proof of that. Um, but I'd never been involved in any sort of, like, uh, high level weapons work, I think, um, you know, like, oh, I think you've done some short blade stuff because I think, you know, I remember you doing a bunch of flourishes that I'm just like, oh, okay. Yeah, short, it's got some nice stuff, but it's not the same when it's this. No, no, I mean, I was totally different. I was all about ambush and counter ambush. Absolutely. You definitely had that, but then you're kind of like six feet away from me and you're like, okay, yeah, I remember seeing the sword teleport from one hand to the other on your end. And I can figure out where that was happening. And also how we'll change direction depending on where your palm was facing. Um, and your feet are hard to keep track of. Um, uh, and I remember having all these experiences, like, god damn it, I need to learn this math, I guess. Um, you know exactly how I felt when I saw Sony move, I was like, that's it. That's what I want. He's doing the thing that I want. That's what I wanted to try. So like for people that don't know about this, where, where, where, how did you find Sony? Like the Sony, but he's a legend. Um, he's name keeps showing up, but how did you like show up to him? Like, how was this relationship happened? Um, I saw a video of him. So I'm old enough, um, now that back in my day, it was VHS tapes was the mode of recording. And I saw a VHS tape of somebody's training session being played at the school. I was training martial arts at the time. And literally it was like I had been searching for whatever this was for my whole life. I was like, there it is. That's it. That's what I want. That, that's it. That, that's the, what, you know, who is this guy? What's going on? So it turned out that I knew people that were training with him. And I was, I don't know, I was so enamored with the whole thing that when he came out of his reclusive home at Hall, which is where he taught out of. And that's why not that many people got trained with him. He did a, one of his few public seminars. And I wanted to make a good impression. So I went out and I got my friend Lee, who sadly passed away now, who is a metal fabricator, to make me a pair of practice swords. So that I would have an excuse to talk to him after the seminar ended. Yeah. And so I did the seminar. And then I kind of whipped these things out, not knowing anything, honestly. But I was like, Hey, I made these, you know, what do you think? And he chatted and he was like, Oh, these are too heavy and the balance is wrong and blah, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, your, your angles were very, very sharp in the, in the class, you know, in the, in the seminar. If you want to train with me, he invited me to train with him. That's it. If you want to come and train with me, then I was just like, yes. I mean, this is, this is, this is the classic, I don't know, I've met people like that that I see that have, they have, I don't know what he call it. This, this unknown, you didn't know that you needed what you were just witnessing. I think I've had it like I'm currently training with a wrestling coach right now. And you know, he's, he's pretty, he's pretty fast for a big dude. And I think that what, what, what got me with him, what, what, what specifically got you with, with Sony, like, what, what, what's the difference between him moving with a sword and some of the other people out there? I mean, imagine there's a lot of Filipino martial arts going on around and what make, what made him different. Um, it was incredibly beautiful. And I don't know because I have not exactly got any previous experience of what good sword fighting looks like, but it looked real to me as opposed to pretty much everything else. Yeah. Now, I don't know why I knew that maybe it's a past life experience or something like that. And I was like, he knows that guy knows that's, that's, that's it. And it's incredibly beautiful. And I thought, I think I was, apart from the personal connection I felt to watching him move and wanting it, I really was, I've been still kind of, interested at this question that, say, how something that kills people can be beautiful? Like the grace with which he was moving and the, the, the subtlety of what he was doing was just amazing. And I'm like, that's beautiful. And it's been a question that I've been trying to answer for years. Yeah. Like, how those two things actually go together. I mean, like, I don't think it needs to be beautiful at all to, to, you know, but, but there's something that, I don't know what, what, what I see when I see some of the older videos of him when he's, uh, drilling with you on stage in the airport when there's this, uh, the, these, uh, room training video sessions at VHS when he's moving. Um, I see a dancer, like a, like a very scary dancer. Um, I see, uh, rhythm being controlled, like almost like a murmur, like a murmur, like when, when there's birds flying around and one of them is dictating the, the cadence of their, I see some of that, I guess. Um, but, but also like this quiet dude with a cigarette in one hand, you know, just quietly slicing people in half and like, as right in the training setting. Yeah. And, you know, the dance element, I think, is interesting because I think it does teach you a lot of stuff, but he wasn't like a dancer who had a sword in his hand. No. Every move that he did was useful. Yeah. It was just that he had superior body control. So he could kind of bend time, you know, his ability to like decelerate and accelerate very, very slightly was within his control. His understanding of all the little increments of range, like he controlled all those inches, those parts of inches. So he was always just out of range. One of his nicknames was the ghost. It was like fighting a ghost because he just wasn't there any time and he really thought you were going to touch him and it, it just didn't, you know, so that, that is why I think he was very good with his body control. It was really, really. What's, what's the first class like with him? Like what's your first lesson with him? So, fascinatingly, he made his video every class. One of the things we did when we went to class, he trained out of his living room in his house and if there's videos on YouTube, you can see tiny space, he lived in a section eight apartment and the living room had a TV in one corner, two couches, a sort of a floor fan, you know, in one corner and then the French doors in. So the area was really small. I mean, it was probably about maximum ten feet square, maybe eight, like really tiny. But when you arrived, you brought usually something for him as a gift, coffee or, you know, cigarettes or something and a VHS tape. What was his brand cigarette? Oh, damn, I can't remember. It's been so long. Winston's, anyway, I can't remember. That was expected, right? Bring a, bring a gift. I always brought, it was not expected. The man was terrible with money and he totally undercharged, and so you had to give him things. He would not ask. Yeah, I always brought him coffee because he was a mad coffee drinker and, you know, so I would buy him trash. It tracks, it tracks, it tracks. Anyway, and VHS tapes, so you'd buy them a box of blank tapes and you'd bring one of your own, it'd stick like two in and then one would be for him to keep. And then you took one home and your job was to watch it as your homework and see what was up, right? So anyway, back to the first lesson. So I had my first lesson. The first lesson was a pendulum hanging down, like, you know, like knee and foot level. So it's a long swing. And he taught me Sikaran, which is these various ways that you use your feet. It's called the five keys. So it's basically different ways of orienting your feet to yourself. So there's like a shuffle step one. There's a step behind. There's a front kick. There's these other things. And of course, I looked terrible in this video. So after I watched it, when I first started, I stuck it away on the shelf and I never watched it again. Later when he died and I was looking through my VHS tapes, I pulled it out and I was like, let's see what this first lesson looks like. And on it, I saw something that I had not noticed at all when I first put it up. I thought he was teaching me footwork. But when you watch the video, like he teaches me all these different patterns, he takes the pendulum down because it was kind of hung in the middle of the space. And when we floated, take it down, he take it and I says, okay, no problem with the timing then. So what he was teaching you was everything works if you're in the right place at the right time. Yeah. Nothing works if you're in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time. So targets come to you and then targets leave. And so, you know, you can thrash all you like, but unless there's something that you can reach or do, you can't touch it. And if your body's not balanced well enough to do that kick or do that, then you can't use it. So that's actually what you was teaching me in my first class. That's wow. A bass, basically. A bass timing and the ability to gauge where everything is in space, which is what. Yeah. I remember this is not a static target, right? The target swings. So the pendulum, right? The pendulum is going out and it's coming in and you're kind of moving with it, right? But this distance changes as you're moving, right? So depending on exactly how you're manipulating, if you're both moving at the same speed, you know, you're closing in and then you're exiting faster, right? Then you can serve. Yeah. You introduced me to the pendulum, like on the first time we trained. And it's been something that I've added to my own training. Like I live on the road. So I have to like move around a lot and a piece of rope and a piece of pant leg that I can fill with sand is pretty easy to improvise most places. And I've hung that around some places that I've been staying in with a stick or with a knife. It's a pretty interesting training tool. I think it's. I've gotten pretty I've gotten pretty fast at reacting to things in space. I think that's what it's given me. So I don't know, I have something. Whenever we, whenever I do sparring, which is every now and then, I've become pretty good at hitting people in the hands with the with the training tool. And also like if I have something long enough, I'm pretty good at biting people's feet with my blade. It's a machete because that tends to be the last thing that leaves the area. And that's right. And getting really getting really extending being able to extend myself or to make myself really small. Basically to expand and contract those those things or what that pendulum has really kind of showed me. And also just figuring out how stupid I am as far as where I position my feet sometimes. So I had to correct myself or else I wreck myself. A lot a lot of these you showed me one of his training swords that was like a sword handle. And two arrows spokes. Yeah, they were actually arrows. Yeah. And I have a glass arrows. I think if I remember the point of that the point of that training equipment was for you to pass your sword through both of those areas spokes to the gap. Yeah. So basically becoming a sniper with that thing is what he's trying to show you. Well, I think that one of the big things that you realize is there's not that many people that really know how to use a sword. Not a knife, not a stick, a sword as a very singular and individual weapon. Yeah. Because it is. It's weird. It's very, very weird. It's long. And that makes an enormous difference to what you do with something very short. And the other thing is that you can do this with it. And it does damage. You can't you can't, you know, rub something along something and do damage unless it's got an edge. And so everything about it changes how you move and how you use it. And what you're talking about is edge alignment. Yeah. You know, obviously if I slap something it's not going to cut the edge has to be in line with the cut angle. So that's actually what we were practicing. And your wrist has a lot to do with that as far as where the edge is going to be. And having the ability to track something like a ball coming towards you that you want to slice or slash your wrist is working a lot more. It's unlocked. We hear a lot in martial arts specifically for Filipino martial arts. And there's something I always when I listen to it, I'm like it gets me, you know, what you can do with a knife, you can do with a stick. And what you can do with a stick, you can do with a sword. And I'm always like, no, you can't. You can't do what you do with a stick, what you can do with a sword. Why is that wrong? And also like, why is that wrong? And also like, yes, why why why why why why is that wrong on one end? And why do so many people keep repeating the same thing? Um, I think it's easy. I think there's been a bunch of knowledge lost between the generations. Um, like I do think that at some point people were using swords in the Philippines, definitely through obviously World War II and into the 50s. And then there was a lot of sword systems that kind of switched their focus into stick. And I think the old guys that you had to do sword understood the the relationship between the two weapons, but then that never got transferred to any of the younger generations perhaps. Yeah. And I think it's easy to say because I think there's a lot of things that you can do with a stick that you can do with a sword. Like I can go with a button, right? I can poke with it. I can, you know, give it a bit of this, right? But then there's a bunch of extra stuff that happens only with the sword that the stick can't do at all. Like where's the edge on the stick? I mean, you can get those great sticks. There's there's there's there's like the Hawaiian weapons, you know, that have an edge, you know, the Maori weapons, right? So there's edge alignment stuff that you can do with an impact weapon. But even then this this whole rubbing thing where stuff happens in the line of the cut and not like a cross, right? Yeah, actually happens this way on this plane. You can't do with anything else. There's nothing else that makes sense. So has this extra dimension of the, you know, rubbing the edge along something that nothing else can fabric, you know, like, like replicate one other thing that I've noticed is metallurgy, you know, allowing yourself to get an impact blade on blade like you would a stick makes absolutely no sense because yeah, that's a huge one. Yeah. So like evasion is has to be built into your blade work if you're swinging something agricultural around like an agricultural heavy-ass blade that's being swung at you and you have your polky pointy sharp blade. You don't want it to be snapped in half. But surely that's even more complex too, you know, I think everybody thinks a sword is a sword and even then the design of the sword totally different ways of using it. You look at medieval swords, they're not actually sharp until the tip. They were for bludgeoning people over and they're getting them on the ground and like finishing them off, right? Because when they're they're down, you know, you can get into the gaps in the armor and stuff, right? So they're designed totally differently, like a katana, high level steel, very good. I mean, you still don't want to chip it. So even there, they really don't like to go edge on edge. But you have more possibilities of being able to do that. You've heard to the Philippines where these things have shitty metal with shitty tanks in like barely a handle handles. Yeah, somebody hits that hard, you know, that might be too brittle and it might break a bit off. You might be unusable. Yeah. So the system is designed around having an incredibly shittily designed weapon that you can't make contact with but can kill the other person. Yeah. Which is it takes more than just, yeah, it takes more than a few classes, I guess, to be able to figure that out. But I think that's what makes it interesting because if you look at most martial arts, we rely on speed, power, overcoming something like you don't have to really decide when you close. Do you know what you could take some a few on the way? Yeah, but this is like the complete opposite. I can kill you, which means now you've got to really think about when you close how you close everything as a target. If I cut any of these, any of this, yeah, you might drop your weapon and then what, right? So everything matters. I take power completely out of the equation. I mean, like I can literally lean something on you and walk. Yeah. Which would be a massive trouble. Which you've done to me when we're sparring where you make contact when you're bleeding, you just walk that thing across me. And it feels horrible. It feels horrible, but you can tell, I mean, that would have taken, that would have been a 40% amputation of my upper arm. Or, you know, and that is, I mean, that's not something you could eat, you know, you can't take. Well, you could, if you had to, but why train as though that's the option that you're going for. Yeah. And so basically, I think sword gives you all the other things that aren't taught when you have speed and power and maybe overwhelming force and all these other things, right? Yeah. It teaches you tactics. It teaches you evasion. It teaches you deception. It teaches you all this stuff that you don't need anywhere else as much. Yeah. Where a sword you have, you have to have it if you want to live. I've noticed with Sony students, because I've met a few that there's different, there are different types of students going from training with you to training with other people like Jason Santucci, who have a very different mindset and or, I don't know, it's like, it's like both of you trained with completely different people. Now, what is that about? Can I ask that? I mean, like, did Sony change the way you thought during the years or was it more of a? I think every one of us comes with an aptitude. Swords is my thing. Yeah. Other people had different things that they were telling you. Sony was showing people knives, sticks, what do you call them? Kane, which the old man starts really good. Yeah. And also like anything you could put in your hand, he would be happy to show you how to use. And the whole idea was, whatever you put in your hand, you should be able to feel how what it does and that's how you move. So he didn't teach any difference. So if you look at the principles, if you had Jason and me in the same room, we agree on everything. It's not different material. But context has changed, right? His context is doing it in a different place in a space with different threat, with different, like parameters, if you like. If you look at mine, the parameters are slightly different. So the threat communication is slightly different. But the principles are the same. Yeah. Yeah. The again, the amount of people that have come to me is like Sony umpah, the name is just like everywhere. Musicians, MMA fighters, you'd be surprised how many people know who he was. And if you could say he had an influence, like I've gotten to train with and meet many people behind systems, behind some of the martial arts groups out there, tactical training groups out there, a minimum, all of them. Craig Douglas has this thing that he calls fighting Yoda, you know, trying to figure out or find the like the masters out there to learn from and all of a sudden realizing that they might have, you know, not all of, they don't have everything, but they have something. Sony has been one of those weird characters that I found that had a lot of things to them. As far as lessons, as far as like a pretty interesting knowledge base and an experience base, which is something that not not many people talk about. Sony, yeah. Sony was an experienced fighter. Yes. And he was an experienced teacher. I mean, he taught also, we have to remember that he didn't teach a system. The system, there is no system. Yeah. Like there's no curriculum. Right. His whole thing is, okay, let's flow. Okay, you've got to get here. Let's fix it. Okay, that's a problem. Let's fix it. And the better you've got the more shit that he gave you, right. He wanted you, you know, he's like, I am not teaching you. I am showing you what I do. Yeah. So he's his experience base. So he's like, Hey, yeah, this is how I fucked up. This is how I figured out my thing. Here are the tools that I came up with to kind of figure some of these things out. And here you go. Like if you could keep hitting your hand, you got to fix that. All right, how do I fix it? Yeah. Try doing this, you know, but it's all happens not in a kind of chaotic random environment. So when he would go for your hand, you didn't know. Yeah. But it was always a possibility. Does that make sense? Yep. And you couldn't like just not engage at all because then you wouldn't learn anything. So you have to risk and be wrong and fail and then make it better. Like that was the learning method. Yeah. We got to, I mean, you invited me up there to, I think there was like a multiple instructor class going on. There was a bunch of people from different walks of life teaching people how to be safe in a in an environment. Everybody that I that I've met in this industry of like self-defense martial arts, they all of us have a different, I don't know, a different a different level of the tism, I guess, is what I would say. We all focus on a different light side of the spectrum. When when I went there, I mean, everybody was like doing, you know, fighting, pushing, punching, basis, rupturing, stuff like that. But even me, we're on the sideline kind of figuring some weird math out and fighting underneath a fruit tree with swords. The the the the the community as I want to call it. I mean, I go around and travel a lot and I meet different people out there different ways and different kind of backgrounds. Martial artists has changed as far as a concept over the years. I think I think I'm from the I'm from 82 and it's gone from Karate Kid to reality-based tactical to MMA to Jiu-Jitsu kills everybody to maybe not everybody to like I don't know where we are right now. I mean, I'm I'm falling a lot of Jiu-Jitsu stuff now high-level competitive Jiu-Jitsu and striking and slap fighting and a bunch of other stuff that is more of the entertainment side. So I was about to say that if you had a technical glitch like that training with Sunny, he would say the old men don't want me to talk about that and then he would switch ghosts to a different subject. Yeah, dead probably. But yes, I have an idea where martial arts is going. I don't know. I don't think what I teach will ever be massively popular because it's based on understanding yourself and people watching others. And I think most people do martial arts because it's about them. It's not about how you relate to somebody else. Yeah, self-development growth, being stronger, being a alpha-chad, being able to dump somebody on the ground, getting your cauliflower years. Winning, it's about winning. Yeah, but people want to win or they want to have a good time, people, a lot of people like him is very, very popular, historic European martial arts. And I think it's because he gets where a cool outfit and wander around with a big sword. So there's always been sort of a bit of a fantasy element to it. And I don't care if you're doing, you know, BGJ for sport, there's still kind of fantasy land. It's like, you know, it's it's a fun thing where you, you know, it's good for you. You're getting better at something, but there's still that fantasy element of you as hero, right? I think there's a lot of, you know, I'm the champion in there. I remember being a kitten having somebody walk in. We're poor Jim that we had we had a few bucks and gloves, but not a lot. So an older guy basically taught us how to do slap boxing and basically shadow each other. And I remember that I didn't like slap boxing with some people because they were really all about the flurry and they just wanted to make contact. And every now and then I want to cover somebody that would be about communication or like like having a conversation around that to slow things down to be very purposeful and to just kind of figure distance and and I don't know. You have the reality based people who want to, you know, just throw it out in the field somewhere, wearing helmets. And then and then which which again, people call that reality, but having a helmet on makes you brave as fuck, you know, and you don't see certain things. Then there are the people that are all about, I don't know, the the weird contrived situation that might not have never happened. But you know, here we are kind of playing around with some of these aspects of like, Hey, what if there's three people trying to kill me or what if this happens inside of a vehicle? And for some reason, we have these these weapons platforms with us. I think all of them for me are valid and I'm like getting into all of them myself, but there is something to say about slowing down, having a conversation with somebody where the stakes are like limb or life related with a with a long blade or or a sword. There is something about it that makes you like when I flow with a sword, it is very soothing and I guess it has something to do with my inability to stay in my own head that much of flow state is probably pretty healthy for some people. But having the ability to grab a sword and move with it purposefully and then also having somebody else on the other end of that that having a conversation with you like where like when we fight we're replafely asking and smiling and having a good time with it, but every now and then it gets serious when you're like I'm frustrated by the fact that I can't touch you with a pointed out with my pointed training sword. I don't know, I think people are missing something there. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead. I think the issue is that everything is true on some level, like the combatants are true, the BJJ is true, all the weird scenarios that people come up with, yeah sure, you know, maybe, you know, and if it's fun to train them, yeah sure absolutely do it. I think there's truth in everything, but again, you know, in one place and one time and you kind of just follow what's fun, I think everybody should do that, you know, if I'm amazed your thing, if boxing's your thing, if monetize your thing, if combators is your thing, it's like do it, but don't say that it means anything. It's like, yeah, it's a thing, you know, and it has edges of where the truth runs out, right? That my whole thing is like, this is true up until this point, it's like what you're talking about the helmets. Also my dear to just really get in there and you know, feel a little bit protected and have a go, but that's only useful until you get to the now I have to take my helmet off and what do you really at like that? Like who are you? Like who are you when you don't have any protection, you know, your hands will change if you don't have a tuck in your decision making will change everything changes like you turn from the juggernaut into now having to cover up more or if you don't if you never had to tuck your shoulder and like a lot of these things can't be found with the helmet. It's same thing with a sword. I will graze you with my training sword over the shoulder and that's not going to produce an effect, but in reality that would have made a massive bleeding wound on you. Right and so I think that I think people are very narrow-minded when they think of what something is teaching them and what they can get from it. I you know it's like even with sword right I'm going to learn how to use a sword. What does that really mean? You know it's like I so then I can stab someone with a sword it's like the stabbing part is nothing it's it's easy is that pot's easy especially if you don't mind if you die doing it. I mean you know that fate that the sun is quote that I'm always like pulling out it's like there's there's no art in killing he says all I have to do is walk towards you with this and stab you. If I don't care about dying it's not hard. All I have to do is manage to get close enough to you. Okay so maybe there's a little bit of how I sneak up on somebody you know in there but that's it that's the only skill that's required. He said there's no art in dying he said that you don't have to practice at all. So the art is in the living and so if you look at the way sunny systems is defined it that's why you do everything you do is so you don't die. Yeah and so in effect you're looking at like a meta system in a way like the sword is teaching you who is this person what's their personality are they hectic how long's their reach can I play them what are their triggers how close are they can they touch me when will they close on me can I control it you know like all those other questions that come from the fact that you can't just run at them now you know like power and speed go out the equation so what else is there. You say people are like what I mean I've had this where you know I have known for certain things and certain specialties in this weird world of combatives and and just preparedness and they see me going from like rolling with somebody you did soo to shooting and all of a sudden I'm flowing with a sword out there like wait how does this fit into the greater scope of things well for me one it makes me feel good you know the flow aspect of it makes me feel good to the I don't know the gamified way that I view combatives is also something that feeds my dopamine to pride braid um the fact that I have to figure out how to get close to somebody that has a similar blade or a similar weapon system than I do and I have to do so with one not getting cut myself or not getting cut in a way that it will compromise me moving further um but I also have to deliver something that is massively effective onto the other person without that that's the puzzle you got to solve yeah and something about that you know and also it's interesting right it's interesting because it's going to take all the levels of your your abilities get hit the psychology and the emotional and the mental and the physical yeah reading reading some of your books and just figuring some of these things out on my own um what are they expecting me to do um are they expecting the sword to always be in the right hand because I love switching hands because that's just part of my quirk uh do they are they flurry or they are they are they are they playing along with the rhythm that I'm giving them or or or they all about their rhythm and I'm going to have to adjust at both of these things are both of these things are can be used to your to your benefit um yeah and I think the sword gives you that time I think right because it becomes important I mean I you know I've thought to people that say I don't care about the other person at all and I was like well that's great you know I'm glad that you're in a position that you never have to care about who you face but because I tend to be smaller and weaker than most people I might face I have to care even empty hand about who they are and you know what they can reach because I'm like I don't want to get grabbed by that person or I don't want to get hit by that guy he's huge you know so for me I've always had to take into account the opponent but I think what martial arts is missing is like you're saying is the enemy gets a vote right it's it's that if they if we set up the worst possible scenario like they have exactly what you have they're armed to they know you're coming like they you know they see you before you're close right how do you deal with that yeah that's the puzzle that everybody has to solve without dying if I die then you know I think I think that as you say that that meta system that Sony came up with it is that's a way kind of calling it the I've I've had some of the conversations like that we're like I don't care who's attacking me how kill them anyway which is cool I guess or this whole I like I'm all about the violence and like I'm this killing machine I guess but that doesn't take into account a shit enough stuff out there in the world the fact that you know deception in line is one of the best weapons you can have and it might not be the best thing in the world to communicate intentions to somebody that's trying to kill you actively how and when do you train deception in your combatants like I'll go to do what you did to how do I train deception before a rule right and if you never have that conversation with yourself are you then playing in a game that has rules to it and it's not actually preparing yourself for actual combat where there's a lot of deception happening or it should there should be a lot of deception happening for me I like to game with my everything if I can every time I see somebody showing me a counter to an action I'm like how do you counter the counter exactly exactly like the other person the enemy gets a vote it's like I do what I do because of what you're doing that's why we're here is because you're there so let's let's look at that like what what can I control about this relationship you know you know you you I'm not going to make you a different person but I can control I can control how you see me what you think I'm going to do you know when you feel safe to close like there's a bunch of different levels I mean you do the same thing it's one of the reasons why I've always loved your work too it's you're really sneaky you know and you lose you use all these different levels you shit talk I shit talk all the time when I fight right yeah I don't just use this I use this I use this I look at where you're looking I try and distract you like all those things a fair game what I say makes a difference I can pretend to say things to make you you know I mean like there's there's so many levels of communication that you can work with I think I grew up I grew up reading a bunch of books and I'm a dork in a big way do doon has always like it always fascinated me that they had these shields that you know the only way you can penetrate that shield is being very slow slowly and purposefully and in a lot of ways swords or that yeah without the shield they create around you a force field that is very unforgiving like if you stick your hand into that force field yeah and a way it goes and I've had the experience of doing that on pay carcasses and so I know the cost of when you swipe me in my hand and I just feel out I know the cost of that would probably be three that digits for my hand so I have that in my head um but I think the way that you train with a sword and specifically when you have this um again gamified agreement with somebody else like hey you have a sword I have a sword we're not choosing to flee and we're not going to throw chairs at each other maybe but you could have that in there as a thought right yeah I mean I could take of my shoe off and throw it at your face before I swipe it your legs or something but but you know but in the end it's like it doesn't matter how big I am and I could I could rush you my and I could double like take out but I'm going to have to pay for that before I do any of this yeah is that going to be a sword through my nose is that going to be a sword through my balls like where's this pointed object going to be so I didn't you have a force field in essence yeah but I have one too so you have to you have to then figure out how to dance around your force field and you have dance around mine and our force field has a tendency to reach out and bite through the point and the edge of that sword so I think that's yeah I mean one of the like you know one of the the gods' jokes is the fact that when you're attacking you're open yes yes you know yes yes and I just think that's a very interesting I don't know like like life philosophy exactly you know I mean if you're if you're if you're putting everything into your stab you're exposed yeah I mean yeah and then you know I think I had a moment like that that a that a training assignment that I had where they were like hey if you find yourself in an ambush it wasn't a successful ambush exactly well like and I'm like you're you're inside of it like holy shit there's a chance I guess yeah I'm not dead yet you know I'm not dead yet you know if it was successful you weren't you weren't even present for the moment and also I'm avoiding with everything in my being this straight stab to my chest yeah which is also making me blind to the opportunities around said straight stab you know which again there's there's something to be said about that conversation you have with yourself around long blades versus anything else I mean a short blade two dudes fighting with knives that's a whole different thing yeah because of the range difference yeah and and nobody wins that I think no very very difficult but with a sword you can you can get you can walk out of that and again I think I think people forget too because they get kind of obsessed with finishing it you know whatever euphemism you know you want to say for it whereas really you just want them to stop doing what they're doing yeah and that gives you a bunch of different options that again people don't think about if I do make it so that your tendons go and you have to drop your blade now we're already halfway there if I drop one of your fingers off and point out to you maybe you're gonna be oh shit maybe I shouldn't continue yeah you know yeah if I make blood go into your eyes and you can't see anything maybe you can't continue right so there's a whole bunch of different ways for me to make you change your mind about attacking me the adds all these other levels of behavior into the system yeah and and and also like for people that don't get it I mean you can utilize this for yeah a lot of things yeah like for example like having a moment that I had like a weird epiphany that I had we have a small like work for a small security company on the side and we were talking about drones and drone technology and for some reason my we have a lot of hardcore fans of our brand and in the drone squadrons with the Ukrainians and speaking to some of them it has been specifically that there are a fan of kind of some of the philosophy and the mindset that we have which is I don't know how to take that but cool I guess and they were talking about the fact that you know this conversation that we that they went through where we'll send you a drone you'll come up with a way to jam the drone we'll come up with a way to get around the drone jamming and it is basically you know wireless to analog you know which is what they're they're going through from wireless to analog and from analog to wireless again because now we're freaking around new ways of uh of sending an object out that you can't defend against so and now they're going to shotguns haven't they I can't yeah yeah yeah yeah but I think we're we're on our way to see a modern blunder bus which is yeah I know exciting very exciting for me it's my favorite weapon ever invented um I'm lazy I just want to shoot something in general direction um but you see this conversation going on right now in in this modern war space where uh we're going from uh and from uh digital to analog to analog to digital and just basically they figured out that there are moments where communication goes out because of these jamming devices that come up which as you say I mean any attack is an opportunity for a counter attack so they figured out that as far as the timing device as soon as jammers come up there is no communication so like whatever they are going to do to catch somebody with their pants down that's when it happens right right there's always a gap in that that in that and again these are conversations that if you're not a warfighter you won't have these lessons uh if you're not reading uh the um me a multi musashi who was clearly autistic probably now that I kind of really read them closely um if like some of us won't get those lessons uh provided to us by a Yoda figure in the hills or the mountains so we need to figure out ways of gamifying some of these things for ourselves jiu jitsu has some of the these gamified theories depending on your instructor and who he is and and if he's allowing you not only to roll but also to talk about some of these things and how they kind of relate to combatants and to just life in general but I think the sword has something that it does very well this whole like mutual playing field leveled Yeah well I think that if you can uh stretch your imagination to believe that you really don't want to take those hand cuts and you really don't want to take those stabs you can learn a lot I mean I've been a big proponent of they should bring it back in kind of uh you know military school I think they should bring back not necessarily dueling old fashioned but this kind of sword fighting that that Sunny was doing because the thinking that you have to do and the connection to the other person and being able to read people's movement their emotional state their mind and to understand how you can work on all these different levels physical mental emotional and so you know like psychological stuff just gives you so it's a very I'm not going to say it's immediate because it takes a while to get your eye in all right but I do think that it is incredibly useful because it gets you thinking about like you were saying this problem solving this puzzle problem it's like I've created this awful situation where you know I you know I have this lethal weapon in front of me but he's guarding the door and his friends are coming and I got to get past this guy right so I have this good chance and then it's going to get worse so how do I this this guy is trying to stop me from getting through that door so how do I do it I think for me when I you know it's always like a weird aspect to pull out of training swords somewhere they're like what's going on I for me it's for me it's a way to slow down it's a way to back up you know you have to engage this more is like you have to become devious you have to think yeah I mean I could I could I could I could put myself in a filly shell filly shell take some damage to my shoulder and box somebody that's one thing there's no too there's not a lot of time to slow down there and it's an exchange I can take my time and roll with somebody and just learn from that and maybe be the UK and have myself strangled a few times and that gives me something but when you pull out a sword and it just makes you want it give it it's almost like you have like somebody else in front of you because that sword gives you more range so like you're yeah there's more time because you start separated yes yeah so yeah the the the aspect of gamifying sword work as a training tool for people who you know it's a level I think for me I grew up you know jamming or trying to be the juggernaut on people and that's a way of going about life but it's very costly if I could have slowed down in the past and like realize that hey space is a thing lying is a thing snip their hands be before far away figure out a way around them and learn how to read people I think all these things I've been learning kind of from this type of work from this type of a training well I think necessity is the mother of invention as they say so let your guys on the front lines in Ukraine it's like there's a big necessity like they have to work on the fly and problem solve and be super creative you know but I don't know you have to have a real different mindset and I think one of the really hard parts about learning this gamifying thing is you have to play with somebody that's better than you it's like I can show you stuff because you know it's a little bit like doing jiu jitsu and only playing with somebody that's just like uh and and show you know like you're not learning anything because there's no there's no problem solving time for you to learn anything so I if if if if I flow with you I can point out the issues and if you can't touch me that's one thing it's a problem right we have to solve but then if you can touch me but you keep dying you still have to solve that problem right yeah but I'm there to go try this try that that's the problem you're doing that that's repetitive I can tell when you're gonna close you you know you have a tell you know like this is the conversation yeah that we have that it's very sort of like for me I remember just flowing with you once and I'm realizing man my fucking shoes suck for this right yeah because they're they're they're they're flat-footed so they didn't allow me to have my like the be on my balls on my feet or they didn't allow me to read to kind of retract myself quicker because they're meant for grip yeah the skateboarding shoes yeah grip grip's not great sometimes so I remember like next time I'm gonna bring in my fucking barefoot shoes or something but yeah it it uh it makes you think and I think any training of any kind should make you think about the whole like does it do these pants make any sense for my day to day now that I realize that I can't do any parkour in them you know like I'm I'm very I'm a very big fan of including your baseline normal into your training whatever your baseline normal might be but even then it's like so you're wearing sticky shoes and you can't get out of the way that means you just have to change the way you fight you're like all right all that is out I can't do all that which means I can't get into deep so I won't be able to exit and I can't pivot on my feet so now I want to still be able to do it but now I understand my limitations that those things have been taken away from me so how do I deal with that right I mean you can still use that as a training opportunity I think yeah the gamifying gamifying aspect of this alien needs a lot of what is out there what by this I mean I have been I've trained under a few systems out there of various kinds that wouldn't allow that because it would go against tradition and structure now another aspect of Sony and and some of the students that he produced like yourself there are you know there are things that are like hey this is a lesson he showed us and this is how you prove it to yourself you know or if or don't do and be stupid and get stabbed in the face many times I get that aspect of it but the free flowing or gamifying aspect of problem solving doesn't lend itself well to the structured to this heavily structured systemized form of like hey this is my family system this is the way I was shown this system and this is the way we're going to move forward with this system yeah what what like like what's what's the difference there like well I don't know if you understand like my question them it is present in other systemized forms of this where they're like this is the way we do things because it's always been done and don't change it versus hey look this these are the principles don't get fucking don't die you know basically and these are all the lessons that somebody with a lot of skills and a lot of experience showed us and this is the way he showed us how to play with it and learn it and train it and drill it well um what's the separation there I think I'm going to say I don't know if it's controversial or not but I think that there's a very old school Filipino way that systems worked that you there wasn't any systems you know you'll see you'll see a lot where people will call a system with their own name it's my version it's you know this is my system they'll give it whatever their name is right and the reason for that is like Sonny said it to me he's like you know if you die in a duel it's not my fault it's your fault so don't blame it on my system right there so there's this idea that instead of teaching a system if I'm showing you what I do because I've decided I like you and you're working hard and so I'm going to continue to teach you it's a different sort of relationship this whole idea of a family system yeah it's only because you used to only teach members of your family this stuff but it changes over the generations but now it's become much more kind of calcified into a thing that is a box that you have to hand on and I think that actually loses the spirit of it everybody that trained with Sonny looks like they did the science style of screamer with Sonny like there is a flavor to it for sure there's a movement quality there's a lot of the subtleties that go on that you find in it so you can tell that it's probably a Sonny thing on the other hand it's a troubleshooting system like you know the way that I've thought about it because of course Sonny died quite young before his time he died when he was 56 and or 58 anyway so the material I have a lot of material but the way I've thought about it is there's a lot of stuff that I have to work on which is just about me and my like ability to do stuff with my body right so it's my hand eye coordination it's when this moves like how everything moves right I have to look at how my hips are open then it's my balance right if we add gravity into the situation so there's a whole bunch of how I move but I keep my balance how I move in space and keep my balance all that kind of stuff so still all about me then there's the weapon right there's this thing and understanding what this does and then how I use it so that we're all working together so there's a bunch of solo stuff where I have to learn like to touch with the tip and the base how to go around things how to touch things like you know how to draw it all kinds of stuff still all about me right and then there's now there's somebody else who's trying to kill you right so that's a whole other part of the whole that you have to have this this random flow idea in there because it's not like the other person's going to come with your system you know or anything predictable so the whole point was to add the unpredictability and the when things were going to happen we didn't know when things were going to happen you don't know what's going to happen or when it's going to happen and then you know slowly we start fairly easy with a limited frame and then we make it more and more complex and more difficult and we kind of make your adversary more and more skilled as time goes on so they're not going to fall for anything you do now what yeah right the unknown aspects of what you're going to be facing and having software already kind of built into your head where you like I haven't encountered that before but I've encountered parts of that before so I have a frame of reference that I can so let's test some stuff and you know see who you are and you know like if I do like a bunch of very basic like fakes and stuff and you don't react is that because you can't see them because you're not very skilled at all or is that because you really high level right so I have to work that stuff out by you know and that's what the game and the play is for it's not like in real life it takes that long but if I train that with enough different people and stand in front of enough different people I'm going to get like a spectrum of behavior like Sunni would say it's like train with as many people as possible because then you'll see more because it's the one that you don't see that's going to hit you so you start looking at personalities like aggressive personalities timid sneaky you know all these different emotional states of people different sizes and shapes and what they can do right so then you you're kind of your database gets bigger so that then when you do come across a complete stranger you're like oh okay you know you recognize you can connect it to something in your database yeah yeah there's always an ego thing there as well I mean at the end of any training I remember I had this one guy it's a Cuban boxer instructor was like hey he was showing me like head movement you know and I remember pulling off some of that head movement innovating like a pretty good combination once and I like yay there you go now you have to not don't know now you're not worried that much about somebody being skilled but you do have to always worry about somebody being lucky yes always you can't take that out and I'm like yeah like it you could never win which is in the end I guess you're just stopping your odds you're just stopping your odds you're never gonna you're never gonna get to 100 yeah yeah I mean your odds will lower by the lack of things you know by the you know incessant beating of time and you're becoming slower I mean I'm you know my eyes are not what they used to be and my knee is seizing up on me a bit more so but but with that I'm like hmm sword canes are in my future of course they are which which is kind of like a dream of mine people are like hey dude and it's all getting older thing is succinct man it just gets you an excuse to carry more weapon it absolutely does and you know we've we've taken power and speed out of the equation right so it's all all those leftist treachery swords are one thing knives or another I know in the past we've interacted you pulled out some of some of your designs and some of the ways that you kind of you knives which are it's you know I mean I'm known for carrying around kitchen knives so what's your philosophy with knives in relation to swords I mean for me I like swords and I train swords because I think it's feasible to pick up a machete in most of the places where I'm at and a machete doesn't pretty interesting things and I can't learn about what these things are unless I have a long blade that I train with knives on the other end or something in my mind they're different what's your philosophy with knives for me it's small they don't hopefully they never see it until they feel it and by that time it's too late and if I can get it and find it anywhere great and if I can train anything with the augmented resistance of somebody trying to keep him getting stabbed and that's kind of my baseline yeah where are you at with me I travel in a very different circle from you Ed so I don't I don't carry one you know I don't necessarily think that my life is that dangerous than that you know touch wood it's something it's it's like a probability of course there's always possibilities but what would have to happen for me to get into that kind of situation you know the odds are so fricking tiny they're very very tiny so I think it's useful to know how to face one for sure and the only way you can really do that is learn how to use one right so you know how it's dangerous to you it's like a firearm it's like totally terrifying but the more you understand about it you know the more you understand what it does and what it can't do right it's the same thing with blades I think it's important to think about the fact that other people might carry them but what kind of fights am I going to get in you know I it's just not my life right it's it just isn't so for me knife design is about wanting to carry something that's useful for other shit too I love the idea of the old school bowie knife right that it was like that was your knife you ate your food with it you did stuff and then you could fight with it right so it has aspects to it and whatever you carry you should be super familiar with I mean it's interesting that you like flowing the sword and I know you flow with a live sword I think one of the interesting things about being around something that's live whether it's a firearm or a short or a long blade is that you get used to being careful with something you know yeah and I think that is a useful thing to have to you know that you get comfortable with using something that's dangerous but that you're competent with and careful with but if I'm going to carry something it's just got to be something that feels good that I like you know the I designed too nice because I didn't like anything that was out there and you know it's like off you've touched anything made by Sunni everything feels like crap you know like sword wise right and it was the same with all the shoulders everything everything is a pry bar after you pick up a sort of yeah when you feel something that is like got a really good balance and just wants to move yeah it has yeah exactly it's it's absolutely alive and so the things that I designed you know kind of reflect that you know I'm not a knife designer it's just I wanted the thing that I carried every day to you know this is one of them yeah to to reflect that and feel good in the hand I mean the first one that I designed that turned out to be much larger that's kind of like a dude knife instead of for women which is this one um I sat next to the guy grinding it until the balance was in the right place the prototype that's this one that's your tism balance yeah it has to feel like I don't want to you know it's like off I with the prick if that's what I have but why would I choose a prick I don't know from for me it's always like I'll grab it and I'll stretch it in front of me and if it wants to do something on its own I'm like wait a minute this isn't yeah exactly I don't I don't know but if I'm just sort like why dead doesn't have a it doesn't have whatever it is it's like whoever designed this didn't know about them and I think that was the whole thing with Sonny it's like he understood what they did so when he made something it felt like it wanted to do that thing yeah I like leather sheets can I see leather be why why leather I don't know because I don't like plastic I mean honestly it's like it's not for any kind of tactical reasons I'm I'm so not tactical you know I just like it sits in my waistband and I wonder if it's comfortable it's comfortable against its skin it's quiet doesn't make any noise coming in and out which is my favorite thing about leather I'm the same way as far as like knives if I can't use that knife to make some guacamole it's why why the hell would I carry this yeah all the weird kind of ones I'm just like well what what else can I do with this does you know yeah like one thing that people don't know about the Elbia amazing avocado knife it just cores avocado is perfectly not that good at filling but pretty good pretty good pretty good tool but like if I'm out in camping or in the wilderness I don't want a little that'd be like super annoying you know not you'd need you need something a bit bigger um I don't know my mom was the one that traumatized me you know we we you say you know when am I going to get into a knife fight or or utilize a knife as a tool in an in an emergency I mean I grew up around my mom and I saw at least three people get stabbed I mean yeah like I said no life not my life yeah yeah yeah it's it's it's it was my experience through her and then going into my life and just being a retarded person and going into a bunch of like horrible experiences I love a very different knife now where I show people that are going into like harm's way um what to do what to know what to kind of train around so it's very different from me now again most times I'm using a knife now it's usually food related or to open up a stupid box or something like that so I don't go out you know it's like my life is very very boring you know yeah so it's it's unlikely I mean who knows it's like my day job is I'm a painter I you know and one of the paint tools I carry is called a five and one which is just like this painter's tool and Sunny was like learn how to use that because you carry it all the time yeah sure yeah I could use that because not going to get into trouble it's always in your pocket pull it out yeah it's got kind of a flat bit and a pokey bit and an edge bit and it has a you know but in the handles it's all right cool you you I don't know like I think you told me this story about Sony making a fake knife at a bar yes I don't know if that can you tell that story that's one of my favorite Sony bad story oh yeah I like yeah loads of interesting and fun stories but Sunny was a dancer and there used to be a circuit of various night clubs where they partner dancing so you know hustle he was a hustle dancer that was his thing and I guess they've had competitions so various nights of the week there'd be these dance clubs it was huge in the Latino and Filipino communities to go to these dance clubs and dance for prizes right money prizes and I guess he went I can't remember even where the club was but everybody wanted to dance with him all the women wanted to dance with him because he was really good and of course that then caused problems yes and everybody kind of knew who everybody else was so they knew who he was and that you know who Sunny was it's kind of reputation wise too and so I guess he pissed them off enough I don't know how he knew this but that he knew that they would be waiting for him in the parking lot when he left like to jump him because of something right so he goes to the bathroom and he's got a cigarette packet right and cigarette packets have tinfoil in them so he gets the tinfoil out and he makes like a little flashing silver you know tinfoil blade out of the you know the tinfoil in the cigarette packet and when he walks out he walks past all these guys and he flashes it and you know shows it and he's like I don't want to fight I don't want to fight and they all like back off yeah yeah yeah and then one of them runs across the parking lot because the cops were apparently always at these clubs because there was always trouble and stuff like that and they were going to like that guy's got a knife that guy's got a knife so you know he's walking to his car and the cops come and say he's got a knife he just crumpled it and chucked it on the ground and went no I don't have any knife you search me that is that is a that is a sign of somebody that is very calculated very economical with their actions and also pretty creative that's a cool insight into who he was definitely you write about deception about movement about some of these these I don't know like there you go as well as I we're always trying to figure out how to put into words or how to articulate some of the things we're working out in our minds are very complex and cluttered as mine what what are you working on now I don't know what else I have to say honestly after each book I thought I was done and I only wrote the third one because I it was annoying that I had two and I thought a trilogy would be better and that one took really long time to get out you know the title is actually inspired by you the rodeo the fact that there's a rodeo clam on there is actually okay yeah yeah yeah that's the for me like and then I don't I don't I don't I don't get too deep into these type of thoughts but I'm like I think I'm moving into the realm of like I've done I've done my time I guess I didn't I did the work that I did and now I'm moving into the aspect of becoming a teacher and I have been for for a few decades up for a decade now almost but it's becoming more central to who I am the whole rodeo clown aspect of it and I still am in a way that I like I can't I don't have the balls to tell somebody my opinion unless I go through an experience that gives me the authority to give them that opinion so for example there's a somebody wanted to do something pretty extreme with their body in the guise of preparing themselves for some operational need that they had that involved the field surgery of a kind so I had to experience body modification and tattooing and seeing if I can mitigate my own pain so whatever I was asking of them would be something I could feasibly maybe pull off myself or have the experience of pulling it off myself but now I'm getting to an age where I'm like god I can't deal with any of this circus stuff anymore I just I just did probably like a couple of I did I did like five days of instruction where I was zip tied handcuffed tied up and but as I as I walk into the whole aspect of like hey I'm teacher more like when I'm doing this stuff I'm having to have least compromise with myself physically would I'm capable of doing you know because I'm capable of doing some while shit physically but I'm going to have to pay for it in the next two weeks if I do so so recovery time is getting extended like for somebody that's trying to approach this at a later age MMA is pretty unforgiving in a lot of ways I mean I was tell people like if you're in your 40s late 40s and doing this type of shit you probably hasn't pretty good health insurance or you're fucking dumb you know like how are you like in what ways are you now adapting this this part of your life I mean you are somebody that moves with your body and with intention and purpose and you have a lineage that is fucking out of this fucking level as far as like I mean it's very enviable and and and cool do you transfer this do you put this all in a book and and put it on a shelf do you slowly move until you can't move anymore and then now you're just by me in in a thrown room somewhere like where do we go with this oh well there's a lot to talk about there I've only written books about what I think hasn't been said already I think there's too many system books I think there's too many repetitive this is how we do this in his photos you know one two three you know like that that it's not a system book is a way to think and I guess it's books that I thought needed writing because yeah it's what I have discovered from my training time with Sonny because like I said he died young and I didn't get everything like he fucking died too quickly you know and but I also was given like there's all this stuff and I'm like I don't know what it means I don't know what they have I can't relate it to anything else it's one of the reasons why I started seeking out other teachers who I thought had that same kind of spirit it's why you and I became friends like there's not many other people that think like this right you know I tried Japanese classes you know sword classes so fun but no I've tried Filipino classes I tried a whole bunch of other different things and everything's just like you know I trained with this amazing sword guy one-on-one in a super chaotic environment where your nervous system is on the fritz and I loved it and I've not ever found anything else that is like that experience that was one of the best things and then I got something that from my personal upbringing experience I should never have like why do I know all this shit it's like because of what we did in that living room in that small space it's like whatever he gave me was because of that training obviously I had some aptitude if there was a past life experience in there maybe that came in too but do you know what I mean and I want to share that with other people and so the books are part of that because I didn't think anybody was talking like why does it work with him why do I understand it with him his system has given me so many keys to understanding other systems that's why it's done like that that's why this follows that that's when you do this this is why that doesn't work that came from sunny stuff right it all transferred over into the other things that I understand and so learning from other people is part of it the physical limitations do get worse I'm 20 years older than you are do you mean like I can still do a bunch of stuff but every year it gets slightly less and it will you know and I always say that to my you know the people that train with me I'm like get it now you know my range of motion is getting less you know I'm slowing down so you'll get stuff but it's not going to be as good as it was five years ago you know yeah which is which is such a wild thing to think about dimension of time and how it we you know I've encountered some teachers who are at their prime you know and then I train it with them again and like oh god damn I I had you for a moment you know that's whatever whatever you had is not there anymore so I'm going to have to find it I guess somewhere else or try to piece it together like I myself have been I've gone to people who are like highly experienced been there done that all the skills horrible teachers by you know it's just pieces of human garbage as far as being teachers sociopathic narcissistic just evil people but they have something and I think that's how it's manifested was more a notebook just basically trying to let me see if I can get my ADHD brain to process what I just got vomited on right I remember this this one guy who cage fighter dude you know just he had all the scars on his forehead amazing dude he he uh he was teaching me a few things about timing and how to leverage somebody into a position by it was basically utilizing his legs to trap a one leg and people in showing me how people react normally to these to this situation and I was like oh this is great right and then he got on top of me so I couldn't do that drill with him and he blocked every single attempt I had at doing exactly what he just showed me and he said that only works on people that don't fucking know yeah yeah yeah so I'm like goddamn so you just gave me something that works on the fucking untrained I guess um so it made me kind of go back right down the fact I'm like hey um there are levels of things there are things that work on the unprepared and there are things that don't work on the on the unprepared and and then he came over to me and said what what are you ready like well you know I don't want to be insulting like hey do you show me this yeah there's a third option he said and what is that he slapped me in the back of the head and he said to be unexpected you know what's unexpected here what is completely outside of what is happening here well you know if you grab a shit done a dirt from the ground and you just throw it at somebody's face that son is expected if you pull out a weapon it's unexpected if you hold on to them behind their neck and you bite the tip of their nose off it's unexpected there are a lot of things that aren't expected at are you he said you're you're a cop you're trading for some unexpected shit there's not gonna be a map there it's not gonna be a ring there and there might be more than one person there so yeah train for the unprepared prepare for the very skilled and get weird yeah I mean it's a problem because I teach my treachery and my deception and and their skills to pull it off isn't easy you have to train how to pull it off I could tell you everything I know tell you how I do it but unless you train it you you're never going to be able to do it because you being able to pull it off on another person means that they have to see what you're showing them like the lie that you're showing them right and fall for it you know I'm not gonna fall for any of the things that I show you so you know it's not gonna work on me and but I can tell you to a certain extent what looks real but only on me you're gonna have to try on these guys and see if they fall for it because then you know you have it yeah so there's all these different it's interesting that sort of paradigm about being a teacher that way it's like you guys got work each other this is how it works and I can tell you when you're telegraphic I can tell you when you're really wrong but you're never actually going to be able to pull it off on me because I know it yes sell having the ability to sell yeah exactly I think that is that is what I see at a high level street performers street magicians somebody scamming you somebody trying to sell you a fake Rolex these people sell these are one of the areas where your material actually cross over is that do you want to be seen or don't you want to be seen and if you're being seen how does the other person see what you're doing it doesn't matter what you think you'll look like they're the one who's gonna tell you if you're selling them that what something that they're defying what you're selling them one of my favorite examples of this is if you want to find the friendliest person in a room walk in there with your shoes untied and somebody there will see you and say hey your shoes are untied and you're like oh I'm an idiot I'm sorry I'm stupid you know thank you for that I'm gonna follow my face then you ask questions so now the person is unarmed you're not a threat you just took control of the nerve that you relied him and if you're in the sass and you can shoot him in the face right there and then nobody's gonna do anything you know but if you're looking for information or friend but it is it is a way of playing chess that is at least with the people that I've gotten to learn from that is that is what I've seen at a high level people that are not only hard to read but also sometimes they are pretty easier to read but what you're reading is something that they want you to that's that's a problem if they're showing you what they want to show you as opposed to who they really are and you've got to source that which makes you now like wait a minute you know yeah that beginning of my last book I have a whole stuff you know a whole section on games that you can play out in the world just to make you you look at people and get them to do things you know just like on the sidewalk can you get somebody to smile back at you it's just one of the first easy things that you can do to create you know yeah I mean in the world yeah seeing where people load their feet initially uh went where they stabilize I always like seeing people jumping in on and off of uh you know you're in a tour place and they're jumping off a boat because it just went and did a spin around the marina seeing somebody jump off something and stabilizing themself in the ground will teach you a lot of things you know how somebody walks walk behind somebody learn how to mimic how they walk and see what that does to your body I mean in a very interesting things that you can uh they're strong what their strong hand is um what they're what their basic gravity is long people versus short people and also every time I do any sort of training I always have these students basically switch partners and I'm usually looking because I like I like uh I like verifying my theories on people right this guy is going to move this way because he is of this statured and he has a wrestling background right so when I when I put this problem in front of him he's probably gonna go really low and this person is gonna be more of a striking type person so like I'll switch him around and I'm like well looking I'm like hmm my theory worked on that guy but this guy's being weird hey dude what's your background he's like well yeah I'm a striker but also this and this is also in my background and I'll say oh okay so that's uh that's why you're dealing so that's your database growing right about your ability to read and what people are showing you yeah it's software and and it has to happen I guess I'm weird and different than most because I I'm this is my version of what you do with a stick you can do with a sword which might be retarded or might be stupid but that's this is how I kind of you the world um if it doesn't make sense in a gun range it shouldn't make sense in a knife range and if it doesn't make sense in a knife range it means it's a sense in a physical uh fight right so if you go to a gun range and I show you how to shoot people in the foot as a less lethal method of stopping somebody you're gonna think I am not well in the head and then I am full of shit which is what rightfully so because shooting somebody in the foot is not the easiest thing in the world specifically under stress and you might shoot them in the leg and that's still gonna kill them because if you shoot it for moral lottery uh but if you give them a knife you know and you're saying like hey don't stab somebody anywhere important you can do less lethal knife combat by just cutting their tendons I'm also dumb and this shouldn't be shown to people because this means that the other person is not flailing around or fighting for his life he doesn't have weapons of his own that's gonna be employing on you and you have a clear shot at his tendon somehow um that doesn't make any sense I'm always trying to make like for me I'm based I'm basing most of my thought process on ambush and counter ambush based in a modern context where I'm not gonna have exactly what I would want as a weapon so I have to make do with what is available for in the environment I have to use it in such a way where it allows me to get out of it without with my life so I'm not okay to do that and I also have to take into account my own safety and my own stability so I need to have medical management training so I need to figure out if I have to save wise myself and I'm always looking for upgrades you know a rock will get you a knife a knife will get you a gun and gun will get you a truck a truck will get you friends and now we're nation-building right so I'm also before that right do you think I'm always looking for an upgrade oh no something has frozen I'm seeing okay for some reason there was a glitch yeah um you froze for a minute be back I think we're yeah yeah I think we're good yeah see we're talking about it so my mind so my mind I'm always looking for an upgrade you know and then in anything that is with me I have to figure out a way to again I'm not getting into a lot of fights in my life I think the older I get in the more experience I get the more avoided I get to mention that because you know part of what you do too is awareness before things happen right I mean it's forecasting yeah forecasting it's like what happened before that moment you know it's like how far back in time can you go like can you affect what's going to happen you know how early can you see that somebody has their attention on you or whatever it is right and so how early can you divert the plan yeah disruptive thinking yes yeah so like hey this person is being very violent against me in this bar for some reason well I don't know what one I don't know why I'm in that bar but whatever you know because I don't drink anymore which is another self-defense technique that I learned you know if you don't drink you don't get into a lot of shit apparently but if you are in a bar and people do start screaming at you it's like hey you know you you put the information in the environment that you would want them to know like hey I suffer from hep C I struggle with it daily and I would not want to visit that upon you let's go outside I guess and that changes people changes the the the process of thinking throwing an avocado in the middle of a riot of a line of riot police and telling them it's a grenade they don't know it's not a grenade until the avocado burst on the ground or they see it but they think there's something there um and again a lot a lot of the the mindset aspects of what I do and what I try to show people is you know realizing that lies lies lies or diverting reality is a very powerful weapon that has been utilized by ancestors for thousands of years uh for some reason some of that went away when we started developing these social norms and rules and laws um well you think can I just talk about that bit because I think true that's a huge part of what I think too um you know there's a whole monkey dance paradigm where you're fighting for status it's like I want to win because I'm the bigger monkey you know um and the reason what is lost is actually that predatory violence like most people don't actually come across having to win you know if organ is friends are coming down the valley to get all my stores at my end of the valley because winter's coming and there's more of them and they're more aggressive and they're better armed how do I not die that winter is a very different kind of scenario to start like contemplating like we don't think like that so I have a theory that most traditional martial arts were all invented from disadvantage so like if you don't have a disadvantage like there's loads of you you're really well armed you just kind of freaking walk in and you shoot everybody you know I mean like it's not it's not that hard but to suddenly you know have tactics and strategy is all about uh they're bigger and they want to take all my stuff and I don't want them to so now I have to start thinking about you know do I make a deal do I hide do I hide my stuff do I set booby traps right so the whole you have to start thinking like a guerrilla fighter and not like the big army that's coming to take your things so that's sort of a regular warfare aspect to it I think is really really fascinating you know and the sort of the sword fighting is kind of like a one-on-one place to sort of practice some of those ideas I think or at least that's the way I learned it from Sonny I mean the so two lessons that I've learned the the hyper aware in any environment are there to to fuck you over or to keep other people from fucking you over and in a fight or in a sword setting when you see somebody really hyper aware of you know the fact that I just shifted my weight on my feet you know or where my weapons are or they're they are not only looking at me but they're looking through me and behind me which is something that I know people do every now and then if there's a fight if they're looking at my shoulders rather than my face I'm like wait a minute this motherfucker knows something so that's one aspect of it and also the and there's there's for me it's just like these moments of learning that I have where where I'm trying to get the better of somebody be it competition be it sparring be it just agreement of sort of a sword duel and stuff like that I'm trying to cheat as much as I can without getting caught you know and the whole aspect that you mentioned guerrilla fighting whoever you are in this equation unless you are a predatory narcissistic sociopath individual who doesn't give a shit about humanity and only gives a shit about himself unless you're that from the start you're gonna have to take some acting lessons you know yes you're already at disadvantage major disability yeah so you are already at the disadvantage of like having to train yourself to react now any action is always going to be quicker than a reaction so that's another disadvantage emulating that behavior is not an option because then you then you're just like then it's calling forth a bunch of shit to yourself so in essence we're all all of us are guerrilla fighters in a way well we should think of it that way but I think it's like if you look at any movie you know about oh the world ends and it zombies or something like that everybody sees themselves as the guy who survives you know and I think it's the same with martial arts is we always imagine ourselves as the winner it's like this thing happens and I do this and I win nobody ever thinks that they're the guy that gets like taken out from behind in the first minute you know they yes yes we don't imagine ourselves as the prey we ideal we idealize or we don't imagine ourselves as prey you know we we imagine ourselves as like you know you know yeah I have issues with people selling the whole concept of being a sheep dog and I know we have mutual friends that have that that I don't know how to describe it this philosophy yeah I mean I get the idea that you're not the wolf you're the protector but past that I think the the the the analogy falls down yeah which again I think it's a it doesn't serve us that well I mean if I wanted to be any animal I want to be a coyote you know exactly scavenger that's exactly the correct imagery I think they survive yeah they get adopted by other animals there's like a video of a badger and a coyote can get out so they're pretty like they're pretty open you know till they're hanging out with other they're all about opportunity I think we do ourselves a disservice with a few things do humanizing the enemy or becoming separate from the enemy or whatever perceived enemy we might have even somebody in front of us where we're like I don't care who you are I don't care about you I don't care about your nature I'm gonna go right through you cool that's a cool story you can tell yourself but that tells me everything I need to know about you if you have that attitude one you're avoidin two you're probably in fear for your life or in fear for a lot of fucking insecurities you have in your life and there's weakness there that I need to figure out and exploit somewhere somehow right but I also don't you see that it's sorry the necessity plays the part of it certain people have never felt like they always felt like the winner like maybe they're bigger and stronger than everybody else they've never kind of had the idea that there's a disparity you know yeah but anybody that is that way we'll have to face the same enemy that all of us face which is the dimension of time right you'll eventually stop being that yeah or you'll face the dimension that my my fucking horrible uh valetulo teacher told me we're like hey somebody can get lucky you know yeah because it what and and when when he said somebody can get lucky somebody might figure out the right time place and uh weapon against you and you're not ready for it right like as you said like just being in the right place of the right time with the right weapon um there's there's uh there's a lie that I think we tell ourselves um that is if I if I train enough if I just do all these things if I learn from all these people I'm going to be ungetable and and uh and you'll see that and I've experienced it with instructors and teachers who are these fucking invincible dudes anybody that's invincible it just hasn't gotten out that much you know in my mind you know it's just haven't gotten out more um there's always somebody out there with some weird thing that you've never seen before and there's luck and chance like you talk about you know yeah the the luck of a step being behind you the fact that you didn't have your shoes tied at this moment yeah uh the luck of me being behind a wheel of a car with a superior weapon then you basically having this giant impact weapon you can't control for that you can't control but I but what you can control and as far as what I've tried to figure out on my end that I can control is one I can expose myself to various opinions and types to have a frame of reference if I in case I have to deal with somebody of that nature so I've gone through offensive and defensive driving schools and I know how to run people over that's something I've trained for right that's and in my mind I hope I never have to run anybody over I hope I never have do any of this for for an unfairist purpose but if I do I have a frame of reference um I'm not Muslim but I know what it means to have somebody completely shaven smelling like jasmine in an airport next to me it means it's somebody that's ready to die and that might be something I need to worry about and that might be something that could get me you know um in any of these situations I'm always trying to figure out how to become a better asset to the people around me it's one of the the the the the games that I play when I go to the airports I play if some shit went down who would I pick to be on my team like the helper team right who is useful here you know who who would I say okay I'm here to help you or why don't you call you should do this and let's do that right there's like who who in that environment would I choose yeah yeah backpack styles and brands will tell you shoes shoes types will tell you like working shoes what are they wearing how they stand how they walk there's so many clues I think yeah I mean if you want to find an air marshal on any flight it's usually to do this on on as well yeah which in our day and age isn't a novel well that's the one fun thing right is that you get off your phone and you look at who else isn't you know yeah the hyper criminal yeah I mean this is an exercise anybody can do the hyper aware who's got yourself in turn yourself into the most hyper aware person in a room like suddenly okay you're on your phone or you're you shut off and all of a sudden you're like okay I'm gonna turn into myself into the most hyper aware person in the room you know shut your eyes you breathe you come out you come you try and figure out three exits out of the room one of those exits has to be one that isn't made so basically a way to break out of that room you figure out where all the wedding rings are you figure out where the guns might be or the weapons might be you figure out who the most capable people are there and who was expressing any sort of experience and all of a sudden you find yourself in this place where like holy shit I'm the most hyper aware and then the next part of that game is like hey find yourself in that room find yourself as far as like find the other person that is exhibiting the same behavior you are nice I like it that then you start figuring out the drug dealers in that fucking bar you're at or the the person that is there with somebody who's who who he's cheating on with his wife so he's hyper aware in another way he's being you know he's trying to conceal himself it is it is a it is an interesting mental exercise I try and show this in the your removing classes because some people have just never looked activated that part yeah yeah yeah because fear fear yeah tell me what you're avoiding and I'll tell you what owns you you know what fear is there for you so like every now and then I get those tough guys were like I don't care who you are like okay I get I get you're afraid of yourself and you've never gone to therapy what else uh um but they're uh you know what else happens when you start adapting some of these behaviors you start seeing the world you start being engaged you start being present which is a very positive thing it's not all about paranoia and figuring out I was trying to kill you you look for opportunity yes yes absolutely opportunities to meet people grow uh question like I've been in places where I'm like I'm trying to not be you know interacting with anybody and then I'd become hyper aware and I see a knife clip on somebody or I see a a brand of a thing that I like and I'll just go up and start conversations about random things um this is what I like training with you at because you have really good fun things to do yeah I'm trying I try I try and realize that one I learned how to be an instructor teaching young guys who were there because they had to be there to learn how to survive in a weird fucking complex war that we're in so I have to keep them engaged I have to I had to keep them having fun and we had to go into some fuckery um but we're training very serious things um like a couple of times when we've done stuff it's like you you had all those lottery cards sprinkled around and you're like all right you know while you're doing this see how many of these cards you can see brilliance yeah brilliant exercise yeah and then you add that into a public context um we have this exercise called carding so we'll go into a public space and we'll put cards on people's backs which sounds pretty easy yeah I'll just walk that walk up to somebody and put around their backs but the trick is you have to put three in the same environment so you might get away with one but now other people are seeing that you just put a card on somebody or they're seeing somebody with a card so now everybody's a little bit more aware and now you there's two of them so now everybody's looking for the individual pointing the cards on and you're not only have to having to worry about the individual you placing that card on you you're worried about who's watching you and who's watching them so it makes people figure out line of sight hyper aware like all these things are and that was originally shown to us as an assassination technique the card plates in the middle of the back is basically a revolver or a suppressed pistol placed into somebody's back pointing at their hearts from the back to the front which most people are not expecting getting assassinated from the back to the front or shot in the back but yeah I've done a similar game with closed pegs and it's really funny because you're in a contained environment and everybody after a while is kind of doing this and sort of seeing the card on the right yeah and then everybody knows who has it then and they're like damn it now I've got to try and get it on somebody else and everybody knows I have it you know it's a game it's good games and games and fun and having things that stimulate our brain are the ways that we used to learn things in the past yeah kids kids training hide and seek although nowadays the kids are on their phones cosplay but at least mine mine's pretty good at giving me hard attacks by doing hide and seek and it's a survival skill you know something bad happens and people run and hide maybe for the longest time we forgot what hide and seek was and then we had school shootings again and we realize that the that the monsters are real and and there's a reason why kids would duck hide and be quiet you know it's sad that that is what it is it takes to kind of real wake in some of these aspects in us but it's yeah I volunteered to play an actor one of these scenario trainings were a bunch of first responders you know which was like a school shooting kind of thing and it was interesting because they're like okay so for this one everybody go hide like it was it was in a school that had been closed down so it was all derelict and they're like and it was very interesting to see all these adults going oh oh oh oh there's that cabinet I wonder if I can squeeze in that like they suddenly got super creative about where to hide you know because it suddenly brought their childhood out in them it was sort of very interesting because the whole point was to make it hard for the first responders to find the injured people right you know yeah um uh I I did a few of those myself and I remember pull like they're like what would you do in a scenario like this and I pulled out my knife and they were like oh man he's gonna knife fight the gun guy and I flipped over a table and said well you can probably get some pretty good doorwitches out of this fucking wooden leg and I was thinking about barricading myself and they're like oh I didn't think about that or your cell phone cable yeah you can use that to jam these two two doors together or that upper arm industrial arm on that arm swing oh and also I think this wall is probably I think you could probably kick through this wall and they would just saw me like wait wait wait a minute fight this guy off they think no no I'm gonna try and barricade myself and figure out a way to move from one one to the other without being in the hallway and they were like oh okay and but also but it's but it's it also if I have to stab this motherfucker in the face I will still have that option yeah I still have that option but also but I have to figure out one like I said like who here's ever shot an AR 15 before and a few hands went came up how many rounds are they have and 30 30 rounds trick question some of the shooters that we've seen recently have 50 round magazines or some extended magazines because they're reactive shooters and they're there to shoot all the bullets in the world so that's a true question um uh what type of range does it have what did what did these bullets can these bullets go through center block or break and everybody there was like oh are you gonna tell us any of these answers it's like no fuck now I'm here to just show you how to flip over tables and make uh make door wedges but these are questions that I would want answered or I would want some sort of frame of reference um whenever I do a class I just tell them okay do before I do any of this cool physical stuff I have to put software in your head to justify what I'm gonna show you well it's almost like you're kind of expanding their imagination you know like the the word affordances is like the you know you see the affordances in something you know so it's it's like okay so you have a chair tell me all the things you can do with a chair so a lot of people I could sit on it I can stand on it you know I can fight with it and they're like okay well well what else so it's like how many things can you imagine something can be or how many options of escape are there how many options of all these other things can there be so it's like when you start looking at everything like that and then your imagination just gets a lot bigger as to the possibilities you know what you can do yeah I think I'm always looking for ways that a subject matter relates to another and if it doesn't or if what is being shown to me doesn't relate to then it means it's specialized or it's meant for a very unique situation in a very unique place that might not meet or match my necessities in reality in the future so yeah getting into a guard and getting on the ground and waiting for somebody to mount and inviting him to mount me might be something I might encounter in a bedroom somewhere in San Francisco or on a mat and did you did but that's about it you know if you do that in the on the concrete in the middle of downtown Tijuana you might get somebody behind you kicking the shit out of you or doing something horrible to you so I have to then say well that might be an option to learn and to coax people into putting myself into situation where I can learn and play but it not might not be the best cause of action tactically in a real scenario out there in the street so it's it's true but then outside there's this whole real world outside of this this little moment that is you know you're winning and that you have to take into account but instructors don't tell you no they don't or or some not not most of them so you have to hey that's a that's that's not something I should be doing I need to figure out some other options and I guess for me that's been kind of the way that I've approached everything like hey is this is this playtime to figure out or understand concepts that I can then maybe pull off somewhere else I think for me the martial art aspect of it is in the delivery that's the art like you show me you show me how to do all these techniques but me pulling them off in a scenario and that's the art aspect of it you know yeah for sure yeah absolutely double their takedowns are great but they're way better when you do them over a table full of glass you know that is the art aspect of this yeah absolutely yeah and and and when it comes to weaponry I think the the best quote I've found for myself was the target will dictate the weapon and the weapon will dictate the movement which has helped me out in a lot of ways I think context I would say context not just target because I think yeah target also implies is it hot are they wearing shoes how many layers of clothes are they wearing is it you know type space big space you know but the context yeah yeah the context and everything I can't I can't give that context to that and that is always dictated to me in the environment unless unless I'm a Machiavellian figure and I figure out how to manipulate all the situation to where I want it to be but mostly it's going to be individual really far away shooting at me with a rifle how can I solve this with what I have or what I don't have yeah and I do think the other one if we just talk about context that most people forget is and then what what happens after that there's actually a time component to this that does have an after it's like do I live in this neighborhood and I'm going to keep living in this neighborhood am I a stranger and you know what happens because of what just happened you know like how does the part afterwards like play into my decisions yeah people don't know what they don't know and I've had high-level people never panhandle before so they had to figure out how to panhandle even though they could jump out of planes and make bombs they don't know how to ask for money and what does that have to do with self-defense self-protection everything social engineering is one of the biggest tools that I think one of the most underappreciated tools and any realm when it comes to fighting and or keeping yourself alive but the but we have mental blocks where we don't have experience and we just don't we don't want to we don't want to do these things and in the same vein as people don't want to figure out how to ask for money some people don't want to engage with somebody with a similar weapon with a range and with the ability to cut arms off and stuff like that because they think it's out there in the confines of what is real and it's a very real thing when you when you're there moving around with some of these but don't you see that's also kind of literal it's like why should I learn sword fighting if I'm never going to lose a sword lose a sword right well it's because the sword is a tool to get give you the space in the time to understand tactics because nothing else is is is as important it's like you can't use all the things that you use empty hand so you put a sword in you both of your hands and now you have to be smarter so it's like yeah the sword is the sword and the sword can do these stuff but you've set up a problem like you set up the puzzle now where you're going to have to work on all those other aspects of fighting or conflict if you like that you don't normally use that's why it's useful to learn sword it's it's like yeah it's cool it's fun it's beautiful but it also has this side benefit you know like panhandling has a side benefit you're not learning how to panhandle but it gives you these other ways of connect to people and how do you approach them and how do you you know I mean like it teaches you other stuff you know it's not necessarily about getting money off somebody I don't know for me I'm trying to be open to many ways of learning and most of the issues with learning is something I learned from Elon Musk out of all people out of all people most of all they are issues with learning is our input and output capacity you know I can only read one book but if I had an act but if I had access to something would be more than one book my input is an issue I can only learn a few things from sword fighting that I can only get from that but I have to be open to having somebody in front of me with a sword with some sort of parameter or some sort of skill set some sort of proven knowledge and that's I think with what's difficult for people out there where do I go I like you have experimented with Japanese sword swords arts and they're great they're cool and pretty but they're rigid and they don't allow for being weird or figuring things out and they're too linear and they're too they're too in their own realm I mean they're fighting a very specific fight with a very specific weapon and a very specific weapon if you go to a good school all the techniques are good techniques they're great they're really bauzy they're very Japanese they're very they're good but the way they're taught and they're not giving you any context they're not giving you anything to put that information in to make it actually useful that's the problem it's like you you don't get given that you know and that you know that also gives you an artifact of culture so they didn't want their students knowing how to fight too quickly yeah no until they really trusted it did they tell you how to use it they gave you all the what to do they just didn't give you when to do it and how to do it you know so the system itself creates students that don't ask questions that don't get smart that don't you know get creative yeah so that's that's where it's now but the material's good it's just yeah disruption yeah yeah being disruptive with your skill set uh we're at two hours oh no when we talk that long this is this is gone by way too quickly I want to invite you back on um I think it'd be cool to go into specifics I guess as a conversation I don't know what that could be but we'll figure that out well conversation is not as good like you know we've been talking for a long time of maybe doing something like something sword based or something like that which I think would be really fun and I would love to play again actually with you you know in the same space under the tree or elsewhere um and to figure like I need to we need to figure out a cool space where we can hang things and slash things we'll figure that out because honestly as a teacher I have a couple of really amazing students that are like longer term students ones are boxing guy who's a professional boxer who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and the projects in San Francisco um who's amazing fighter street fighter as well as like ring fighter um and I'm totally unboxing from him and everything and but we're exchanging like he's learning sword from me and I'm learning boxing from him right can't see shit boxing right I'm just totally like no idea what's going on but he's having the same thing with sword and so there's a super interesting exchange going on where I'm like I know that if I do this for long enough I'll be able to speak see space and time in the same way that he does and he knows that if he does it he'll be able to do that but my point is that he's really fun to teach because of where he's at and so is my other student who who runs a multi school right so they're both fighters and so they're you know they're you know they're very good to teach but I like flowing with you too because of your experience you're totally different because you're much more sneaky and you have this different background but it's fun to play with you because it makes me better yeah because you pull off things on me and I'm like oh shit does you know I mean like so I only get better when I have problems to solve you know and if I'm teaching people that aren't very good all the time you know I'm just going to get super lazy so before I lose all my skills we should do that yeah let's let's figure out how to get into an epic sword fight at some point pretty soon yeah before your knees go out before mine do I'm going to have to get both of them fixed at the same time I think I'll figure it out and then and then it's and then it's on to wheelchair fighting because I'm not going to fucking start to figure out we'll do Kane we'll do augment style I can teach you that too yeah yeah still when a sword came though I'll figure that out too yeah yeah it's my dream my dream it my what's your dream and sword Kane like Satoi I want to be like without the blindness I want to be Satoi. That was Sonny's that was Sonny's hero he loves Satoi. The the best depiction of a warrior I think in cinema yeah Maya thank you for joining us this was amazing it was fun working people find out more about you and your work well you can google me you can find my books they're all available on amazon because they were self-published just look up for my name my set of home I have a patreon that's called art of deception that is on patreon where I do most of my teaching and of course I will happily come and do seminars for people if they're interested too I only teach privately now so one of the best experiences I've had with an instructor completely outside of the box of what I regularly train and it's got it's made me think about things in a completely different way and also it's just cool to know how to take somebody apart with a sword I think everybody should probably figure that out my my daughter is currently asking me to get into a sword fight in the in the in the backyard so that's where I'm that's where I'm headed cool again thank you for joining us today Maya oh it's super fun it's really nice to reconnect it's been too long