You Never Stop Learning- With Eren Anlar

Hey what it wouldn't be a podcast if I didn't instantly start freaking out. I just like it's just like on brand with how I am on my own podcast. Yeah you'll hear it. I start off fucking awkward. That's fun. I'm trying to get better at it. And one of the ways I do that is by just starting. So, welcome back to Embracing a Life of Dance, a podcast all about a dance is journey, the challenge is your face, not growth along the way. All the while hopefully sharing some unique experiences and inspiring you to listen off. Hey guys, next step and as I like to say, brace everything that dance has to offer. They're on the podcast. I have the pleasure of having Aaron with me who is currently a project manager and engineering and he's been living in Australia for the last three years. And if I've got to say he's got an extensive background in martial arts and especially Brazilian G2, I will be exploring a lot of that today and his life in Bichata because it seems to be that he's obsessed with Bichata and he won't take my side on salsa. I guess it's not for everyone but Bichata seems to be away. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to have you. I've been building up for this one because I'm very curious about body movement and other martial arts. I've got no experience. I'm always interested in seeing how they tie in and similarities and differences. So we'll dive into all of that very soon. But just to kind of kick us off and get started, would you actually tell us a little bit about your current life and what that looks like for you? Yeah, I work as a project manager and engineering. I have extensive engineering backgrounds, double degree and university. And currently I change my career. It is a project manager in IT field. And so most of my time is my business and my professional life. And for the past seven months, this Bichata along with Jiu Jitsu as well, which has been my lifelong partner over the years. And what made you go into so was there always an engineering or like a project and an environment that you were interested in from the start or did you grow into that later? Actually, I grew up it's a later. I mean, I have an industrial engineering and mechanical engineering background. But over the years, I just worked on many projects both in private sector and public sector. And after moving to Australia, I took advantage of the touring government sponsored program and changed my career to IT project management. I'm really happy what I'm doing right now. I'm also working on my side business trying to develop that as well. And I think I guess just life led me to it. Also, I think it's my natural tendency to, you know, what my natural tendency is that way too, incline to that. Yeah, that's all that area. Awesome. Speaking of exploring new areas in seven months of dance. I remember I can actually, I think I can remember when I first, I think you grabbed me to help you with something after class. And I was like, oh, is that interesting? The thing that throws me off is like, it's the people who will grab you and ask the questions and actually go through the motions of figuring something out and consolidating new skills and information. So I was really impressed. I think I told you that as well. But I was like, just the fact that you were practicing and figuring out what you were stuck with and trying to solve those issues was such a not refreshing. I get to see it a little bit now, but it was such a nice change of pace to how I am sometimes where you just kind of move on to the next thing and the next thing and you forget to consolidate your basics. And I remember you doing that. I was impressed. What kind of got you into dancing in the first place? Well, I wanted to stimulate my creative side. And it was a side that I was feeling that was unnerdured. So I was talking to one of my friends. She said, do you just do something that you're extremely uncomfortable? She's got of your comfort zone and she knew that it was dancing. You got to do something like I'm not going to do dancing. It's not for me. I'm not going to do dancing. She's like, you got to do it. You just always believe that. Wasn't it you? Yeah, there was 100%. I said, I will never ever eat cottage cheese, which I'm still sticking to it. But number two was I was never going to dance. Well, that's go by long as it has been scratched off. And the reason I wanted to get in dancing was really to stimulate my creative side. And she got me into it. She was one of the supporters of me in that sense. And coming to dance class for the first time was a big, big moment for me. Now you might say, why Bacciata? I obviously did my research on Western YouTube and Bacciata was just mesmerizing to me. It's phenomenal. Was you once watched a lot of Bacciata Central? Or did you know what you were watching at the time where you just saw Bacciata and was like, sure, I'll do that. Yeah, obviously I just read Bacciata. I had no idea what it was. I had heard that it was a lot of people were very speaking highly of it. I never tried it, but I watched it. Like, man, that looks really, really fun. I want to give that a chance. And I did some search, you know, go search and just start with that. Yeah. How do you feel when you started? How did you feel about moving your body in that way? Was it a completely different thing to move your body that way and think about it or were you already pretty inclined? Well, the first class, whatever you're going to try, it's going to suck. That's how real these, the first jujitsu class is going to suck. The first French lesson is going to suck. I knew that to understand whether you can do something or not, it takes about two to three months and you give it your 100% try effort. Before that, you're never going to know if you can do it or not. It was not fun, in a sense that, oh man, I couldn't do some of the things, but then I realized, wait a minute, let me just come back and do it again, do it again, do it again. And I realized, okay, it's not, I can figure it out. It's just, it's not impossible. It's not impossible now. Did you ever explore other, you mentioned you've been wanting to explore that creative side of yourself. Did you have other avenues you tried previously in the past and weren't quite right for you? Yeah, I do interesting things, well, interesting, well, maybe, for example, I write with my left hand, just to do the purpose, I take different routes. I write 10 ideas, business ideas every day, you know, just do, like, bring different way. I place things in different locations than usual. Like in your house, sometimes. So just like drop things on different places and see if you remember. See you remember? Yeah, and I come up with words, I think I'm crazy, but I've explored with different ideas, yes. I think just writing down thoughts, creative ideas, seeing one object, okay, how can I make this into like another object? How can I make a business out of this? And dancing has supported those, well, and vice versa. As it always been a challenge for you to keep your brain stimulated that way or you just find that comes naturally to you to do it. You do become stagnant, right? Because I mean, if you do something for certain times, you might come stagnant because it's a type of stimulus you receive tends to be the same. So you have to, if you feel that once you notice that, you have to take action. On the flip side, you might just, you know, stick to it and just, you know, right away for some time. But you have to do things that are unusual for you to grow whatever creative side or whatever you want to explore. And that tends to be something that as humans, we have a lot of, you know, we can't have resistant towards. With me, I have a platform to just to provide that, trying new things out, but it's only in jujitsu context, right? Like, when it's going to be in that category. Yeah. So to do that, other categories, you have to be in that field. Oh, yeah. And how does dancing play into your life now? Like, let's compare it maybe to when you started and where your thought is going to be to where you're at now. How do you fit that into your life? What does it mean for you? It's a form of expression, right? I think the way I dance is still a lot of discovery. And I'm very curious about how I'm going to become a dancer. Like what kind of dancer I'm going to be? To me, that's like a very fascinating thought. Because you're just the way you roll, the way you spar, the things that you do tends to be a reflection of your character as well. And I'm thinking, dancing is probably going to be like that as well. But I just don't know how that's going to be in visual sense. So to me, that really motivates me. Have you ever connected with something you've seen online or do you just not see much about it? I do watch it, but I don't want to fall in the mistake of watching too many things and getting confused. Okay. Because when I first started martial arts, there's infinite number of techniques or things you can do. I'm sure that's the case in dancing. But I try to be really careful of what I watch. Mostly what I try to watch is things that have already been shown to me. Maybe like variations. If, oh, I learned this in class, they're doing it this way. Maybe just do that. Instead of, you know, there's so much to learn. Instead of comparing myself, I try to keep it more simple and things that I can relate to. Pretty healthy trap to stay away from. Yeah. Nice habit. Yeah. I think a lot of us regularly volunteer that trap ourselves because we want to get inspired or want to find something different and stimulating. And that's where the problem arises for me personally is you'll see a lot of stuff online and you'll maybe be demotivated or just feel helpless or like, fuck. There's so much to do and there's so much to explore and you're at such a lower level compared to all these super stars you see online. You got to remember, the superstars in the amount of time they're in effort, they've spent, cannot compare to how much time and effort you spend so far. So you can't compare where they're at to where you're at right now. Yeah. Good lesson to keep in mind, I guess. And what are the goals? So you mentioned one of the things you're currently doing is you're exploring who you are as a dancer and what your style is going to evolve into. Is there anything else you're working towards dance wise or even outside of dance in your life right now? Well, I mean, I do have a utopic, maybe goal of becoming a professional dancer. It sounds a topic. The things I want to go, my goal is like doing things less imperfect. Not the perfect technique, but doing a less imperfect. Hence, when you mentioned, you know me approaching you end of the class, show me that, show me this. It's my nerdy brain trying to figure out how can I make this correct, better, more precise. I love that, actually. I don't really particularly care about learning constantly new things. I'd rather do one thing 2,000 times. And the most boring stuff. Right. Which maybe I guess is actually very important. You see this everywhere. Like Harder Fighter, professional tennis players, professional fighters. They do one simple thing, infinite number of times, infinite number of scenarios. And they get just get it perfect. I'd rather-- I'm willing to do that. I know. I think that's pretty undervalued. So you're kind of looking for a dance partner as someone to sort that out with. How's that going for you? Yes, I am. After approaching follows and trying techniques on them and getting their puzzle look on their face, well, they're trying to have fun. Yeah, I'm looking for a dance partner to want to someone who's going to excel to the next level and to really drill down, nerd down on technique, and timing and precision. Yes, we should have fun, yeah. But sometimes you just got to do the dirty job. That's what it is. I agree. Yeah. I think almost so much in the same boat. I get so distracted. And my friends get so distracted wanting to try new things. I'm just like, can we just drill that ever, ever again? Because I'm never going to have that down to the point where-- and I think for me, one of the ultimate goals is the stuff that I learn in class, the stuff that I pick up. I want that to be drilled to the level where I can go and do that with other people. So the test I always keep to myself is, here's a new move I learned. And I have learned to the level where I can take it out of social dancing and actually fight across multiple people and do it effectively and do it correctly with proper technique and stuff. I guess that's where I really appreciate the fact that you're coming at it with that mentality. Because it takes time. It's dirty work, as you said. It is. And that's the-- like, when I do just, I do like 10 things. I've been doing it for years. It's the same thing. But the basics, the foundation, those are the most critical things. Those are the ones that prolong your fighting or career or whatever it is. If you don't master those, well, you're going to have shaky basics. You're going to have a lot of fancy moves, but you're not going to be able to pull them off in social setting or in dance floor. So yeah, it's just that mentality is very important in my life and whatever I take. When did you find that mentality kicking in with Chana, for example? When you started, I guess, it wouldn't have been as serious as like a yeah, I'm going to dedicate a lot to it. When did that change for you that it became serious? It's fortunate and unfortunate at the same time. It's my kind of like obsessive personality. And my best friend always gives me what she says. Every time you see a need for you, you have to do something. Yeah, well, I take it as a task. I just cannot do something half-aust. If I know there's perfection in there, I have to chase it. Yeah, I'd rather have amazing immaculate basics than doing a spin move. Yeah. Five out of 10. I'd rather do something 10 out of 10. Close to 10 out of 10. It's not going to be perfect. I'm not saying that. And that tends to be boring sometimes. I don't get bored, but hey. That's what's important to find someone who won't get bored with you. I think you can make up. Even in worst cases, no, you can probably compromise. You could do something to entertain someone for a little bit while giving them a taste of freedom and then dragging back. And dragging back. Let's do this 2,000 times. All right, yeah. OK, I'll give you five breaks. And then we'll do this 1,000 times. Exactly. Do you? What's been really memorable for you? In the meanwhile, in seven months, you've gone social dancing. I imagine you've seen live performances. You've competed at the Jack and Jill with TSM. I have. What's really stuck out? What's been like I've changing or memorable? I think the fact that I showed up for my first class does a memorable thing because it was something I said, I will never ever do. Oh, that's like it on me. It just shows you never, ever say, never. Never say never. Never say never. Right? That's probably memorable like my first class. Who was that? I'm not saying that song. Was that just a typical like song? I don't know. I can't remember. Is that a Justin Beams? Oh, my god. You're going to-- I'm going to get roasted for this. Anyway, my brain just ran to you. That's a song. [LAUGHS] And remember, in front desk, I was saying, I hope I don't step on someone's foot. I've been due dancing. OK, that's a relief. Yo, what? Who's his person? No, no, no. So he was a huge relief. But the fact that I showed up from our first class, Jack and Jill was fun. I won division. To me, it was about just about fun. And doing something. I didn't feel any pressure to do anything in a sense that I didn't get anxiety, whatever. But to me, the fact that I showed up, that was my memorable moment for me. Yeah, man. Yeah, take that first step. That's how our host starts. Awesome. And what's life like for you outside of dance right now? Realizing that I'm a person with 24 hours per day. How to juggle at it. How to fit everything in? How to fit everything in saying no to a lot of things, trying to juggle judges to be JJ of working business, my private life. It's a challenge. But I do realize I'm at a point where I have to say no to more and more things than I would like to. Unfortunately, that's how it is. Maybe fortunately, depending on how you take on it. But at the moment, my goal is to keep it consistent, do two classes and two socials per week and train more different times to cut weight for my physique, for my health. And yeah, just lose sleep time. Bless sleep less, maybe. Yeah, that's how it's going to be. Are you sleeping too much? I don't think I'm sleeping too much, but maybe cut down a little more to optimize my schedule better. That's the process. It's exhausting. It's not actually. I think as humans, we just tend to get used to the new habits. We just have to start on it and just keep the consistent right, just like dancing. So if you become that person, it's not something that you do. You just become right. And so if you say, you know what, I'm a professional dancer. Let's just say what does a professional dancer say? Well, he or she watches her diets, sleep, practice, whatever it is. Once you identify that in your head, you just act accordingly. I think it's an identity shift. So it becomes, you just have to have this habits in you. And take a time. I think also a big part of it is identifying what are those practical steps you can take. A lot of people with dance will develop the mentality or the desire to want to improve, but are often a bit clueless on how to take those steps and either aren't aware enough to know what they're lacking or haven't quite formulated a plan to work on those weaknesses and stuff. So do you have a bit of a plan for how you, what you want to work on? You've obviously mentioned working on your basics and stuff is a big priority for you. And appreciate and understand the importance of that. Do you have a plan in mind for how you would approach that or would you just spend time by yourself and just keep moving? I think a week ago when I saw you and it was a friend and I should say in question, right, how would I improve? And we talked about, you know, finding a dance partner. But also you mentioned, you know, improve your body mechanics in your, you know, basics by yourself. So there's things in dancing you can do by yourself. Obviously you need high quality mentors, high quality dancers and partners, dance partner. You do need that as well. So it's a two fold thing. So you have to do your bit and find the right people around you. The way I approach it is just keep consistent attend classes. On the days I'm not dancing, work on my basics, single step, chart, chart step, triple step, do that 10 minutes consistently every day when I'm out dancing, do the social dance. And once I find a dance partner, I'm going to form a schedule based on that and maybe take out social dancing or practice on my own and put that in place. The idea is not to do, like consistency beats perfection. That's, if you eat 10 cheeseburger, if you eat one cheeseburger for, you know, five years straight, it's not going to lead to a good outcome, right? Because it's not going to lead to good outcome. And vice versa, if you eat, you know, 10 cheeseburgers on one day, it eats out all the other days. It's going to be different outcome. So just that's how it is. It's, you have to be consistent in what you do in your health and your dance approach to get the results that you want. It doesn't have to be perfect. - Yeah, that's a good thing to mention. It's like it doesn't have to be perfect. You'd even said something about imperfections in the perfection. Like, it's kind of a beautiful way of raising it because that's what it is. You, it's like how you learn the rules before you break them. You know, you want to understand how things work. You want to understand how to control yourself better and how to make it all work the best way you can. And then you find your way on your expression and your creativity and letting your personal style blow out from that. So, I think that's a great way of putting it. And really you think, "Jiu-Jitsu is interesting." And that right now, what do you think Jiu-Jitsu is kind of fulfilling for you compared to dance? - Well, Jiu-Jitsu is like a huge part of me, right? I mean, I miss it a lot. Every day I don't try and miss it. And I miss dancing as well. So, Jiu-Jitsu fits into my life. I think with me, it's more of a mental thing now, which is just, it's not like I'm learning a new technique per se every single day. - So you don't take, I guess, with how long? You don't take classes. You don't train it the same way you take classes at TSMF, yeah? - No, no, no. I tend to class. I do the techniques that I thought there. But let me just say learning curve is just different now at the stage I'm in Brazil and Jiu-Jitsu. For me, Jiu-Jitsu is really more about mental now. It's more about mental. I'm not a competitor. I train with a lot of amazing fighters, amazing competitors, world champions. And to hang with them is the small details, the timings, those things matter. So I polished those details, I fight better, I roll better. But do I learn something magical every single day? Not as much as dancing nowadays, because I reach a threshold where my game is pretty much set. It's just like, polishing those things. With dancing, I'm literally learning new something every day in class. It's something I've never seen. And to juggle the basics and learning something new, that's the white belt in me. I'm a white belt in dancing. And to me, that's a fantastic feeling. Jiu-Jitsu is always going to be me, because it makes me a better person, it makes me calm, it makes me more focused, it makes me more driven. Yeah, it's just a very humbling experience in different way. Yeah, I think I heard it from. I think Jay said this recently after a class, what he was talking about, how we have fun. And he kind of said, there's two ways you can do it. It's like when you're being stimulated with something new, and exciting, and different. And it's fun and challenging, and in that regard. But it's like the other one that's removed is like, you also just have fun doing something you're confident that you're good at, something you skill that, you're having fun because you know you're good at it, and you're enjoying that. I guess you're getting birth to those right now. That's kind of interesting to me, that experience of like being good and experienced at Jiu-Jitsu and enjoying the living crap out of it, and getting the same feeling from a different way. From dance, it's pretty special. Yeah. Also. That is true. That is true. Jay was spot on with that comment, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. And when did you start Jiu-Jitsu specifically? Has that always been the first thing you did, or how did you get into that under God? Well, I got into martial arts when I was nine years old. So my uncle was a huge role model. He was into martial arts. We used to sports, teach. He bought me books. We did, we did. Then, you know, as I grew older, I was doing Ikeeto. It was a brown belt. I was a huge Ikeeto fan. I wanted to be next movie star in Hollywood. I thought it was going to be everyone up. Then I went to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym. And back in that time, you just didn't know what it was. I just saw a flyer of two entangled people. I'll just go and check it out. I'm a badass. Anyways. And oh my God, that day was extremely humbling, because I literally got my ass kicked by a woman. She's just submitting me. She just choked me. And all my masculinity was demolished that day. I remember, I was like, man, how did that happen? Like, this is-- Yeah, it was a bad day in terms of getting really in that sense. But it was a change in my life. Till that day on, I just did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah. And I can't imagine-- I can't even express in words of what has brought to me in my life. My existence is because of Jiu-Jitsu actually in so many ways. Yeah. And I guess to give us some context with people who haven't heard you talk about Jiu-Jitsu, would you want to explain? You might have experienced the level you are if you've competed or if you've done anything. Give us a reference point to understand where you're at, rigidly to what you've done. Yeah, I've been doing Jiu-Jitsu for the past 25 years. And-- [COUGH] Yeah, I'll take some water in a second. Yeah, would you want to give us a reference for where you're at? I competed in Sweden on one cell and lost some. I made second degree of black belts under the levy era. And-- Yeah, I formed the first club in Turkey. I had students. I was the pioneers of my country back in those times. Right. As in so was Jiu-Jitsu not as well? No, no. Was it no school for it all? It was both. It was no school for it. It was unknown. I started by teaching some Kung Fu guys how to spar. They thought I was a magician. I thought I was-- I thought I was, oh my god. I'm not that good. But anyways, if you guys like me, you know why? But it shows you how there's no end to dancing or martial arts. Yeah. It just-- and by providing value, I attract more students. I formed the first club. We found gyms. Now we have a lot of people who are doing more Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Turkey. And actually, I'll be teaching a seminar where I go back in July. He's eating. So it changed my life in that sense. It's Jiu-Jitsu. Do I want to compete? Yes, I do want to compete. But competing in Jiu-Jitsu, I just have to live that life. And I have to say no to many, many things. And I just can't afford to do that right now. Yeah. So you said you want to compete. What are you working towards currently, whether it's a health goal or with martial arts? From number one, my number one goal is my health goal. I want to really drop down the weights for my weight class, really two weight classes before I do it. What is that? What are the weight classes for the agency? It's like 71. I'm not particularly sure, actually. Yeah, it's-- I used to be like 94 plus with G. Now I want to go back down to-- for my personal thing, personal benefits, somewhere about 85 kilos. OK. So I'm working on a project that's more like a body transformation, slimming down, and my strength up. That's my number one goal. My number two goal would be my focusing on my career, my business as well inside. Number three is dancing. You're just ideally both. So I know one's going to suffer. We'll see about that. Yeah. It's been an interesting challenge to see you like half of you down the line of you in the line. Because you'll hit a point where you've gotten a lot more confidence and a lot more experience in your dancing. Yeah. And then it's like how do you start splitting up that time now? Exactly. Because I feel like the more you get into it, the more your growth, the more time dancing is going to require a few. I think I feel that right now. I do enjoy social dances, but it's come to a time like, OK, I think I need a partner. Yeah, I can do social dance. I can lead a follow. At my level, I'm not by no means expert, by no means. But I, you know what, I'm still-- I want to work on those basics. I wonder if she'll do this 2,000 times with me. So I get those thoughts on my head. So I'm at that time. I think these are times when a follow, if you're out there, please do reach out. It's making him talking. He's going to be a beautiful voice. He's very fat. Yeah. You probably hit me when my nerdy side comes out. But anyways. So I'm at that point, actually, yeah. So to go to that next, someone who wants to get good, who's going to drill down, I'm at that stage. And well, thank you once again, by the way. Every time-- every time I ask you something yours, that makes sense. Sorry. You just light another light bulb in my head. So many ways. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I think it just-- Hey, well, go as well and comes around. I think you've got a lot to share that is making my mind go. You should really consider that, huh? Yeah. And all I've got is going from other people as well. So I'm just passing on the knowledge other people have been very kind to share to me as well. I think that's a lovely thing with the community and dancers as well. You've got people across so many different. For example, I didn't think I'd meet someone who's at such a higher level of martial arts. In my head, I'm like, what are you doing dancing with? Oh, this. [LAUGHS] You've got a full-time job. I'm just like-- I just graduated a couple years ago. I'm just healing. I've got a day job. I do some other work in the side of my dance. I'm like, I don't know how you do it. You've got so much going on. But yeah, now that you are dancing and you're managing your life and your jiu-jitsu on top of it, how did you find the transition into it? Whether it's how do you manage your time and how that's taken up and how do you manage-- I guess, how does it feel to be doing dancing compared to the body movement you have in Jiu-Jitsu as well? The feeling wise, it's just different, I guess. I mean, because we have to be in tune with musicality, you have to lead someone. That sense is different. Yeah, that sense is just a little bit different. Jiu-Jitsu, you're really fighting against someone who's trying to prevent what you do. Likewise, it's more like a chess. It's a lot of mental game, but high levels especially. In dancing, you're trying to make someone move the way you want them, and they're not resisting. You're supposed to make them move. It's a little more cooperative than what you used to. It's just like a corporation. Right, right. And then you've got to be in tune with the music. So it's different types of, I guess, and goals different, maybe. Yeah, time-wise, it's a challenge though. I'm sleeping less and doing more things more. No, I don't know if it's a good thing to do, but I'm enjoying it right now. So how was that-- I guess that movement in-- when you started dancing, what did you find was really easier to pick up and continue on when you started? I guess I have a more-- I just know where my body is, where my weight distribution is, and I know how human body works because in JuryJury, we just literally know how to manipulate the body, how the joints work. So I can pick that up easy relatively to maybe like a guy who hasn't trained it. It doesn't have a background that. That's probably the biggest skill set I would say, quote and quote. But I think the biggest skill set is just I just know how to learn a skill. Interesting. I just know how to learn. That's probably the-- because I use things that I do at JuryJury's in dancing in my own personal practice. I do like specific training week-old. And there's some JuryJury's like a position. You start from one position. One person has one goal. The other person has goals to prevent that. So what I do is, for example, let's just say, left prep, start on left prep, put the music on, do one thing. Now do another thing. What combination can you come up with that? So as these type of specific trainings, I tried it in social dancing. So I incorporate the things I did and you just went into dancing and sweeping benefits. - One position, I guess, now I'm thinking about it, it'd be that whole idea of that mental chess. You've got a skills, like I'm planning your head of how you're gonna move through different turns and you kind of back and forth that other person's going, yeah. - Yeah, and when the other person counters, what do you do then, what do you do then? In this case, for example, the follow is one thing. That's one thing to follow is another thing, or the music is different. - Yeah. - When the music switches, so there's multiple factors. - So you learn to kind of adapt on the fly as well, that'd be a huge thing you'd have from G2. - Exactly, exactly. - Amazing, yeah. - So that's like these type of things that I did in my martial arts career, let's just say, I use it in dancing a lot. And yeah, I just know how to learn a skill. - Yeah, how do you think that kind of thing is developed? Or do you think there has to be a part of your personality or something? How would you recommend someone else to become better as a, to become a better student or to become better at learning new things? - Do you have to be humble? And you have to know that you wanna be the dumbest guy in the room. If you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room. You have to be in a room that everyone is better than you. And I love that. I have no issues with being humble. I have, I love getting a feedback from a follow from anyone. When I was a purple belt, my instructor told me, your jujitsu is good as your weakest point position. If you think about that, I just, that has been one of the, one of the most amazing things phrase I've ever learned in my life because if you incorporate that into your life, that's, if you have to extend it to your life. So we have three pillars, right? So we have health, we have our business, professional life, and we have a personal private life, family, your boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever you wanna call it. So it's just three pillars that we have in life. Yes, life is about balance. Yeah, but sometimes you have to disrupt the balance to get good. If you don't disrupt the balance, you're never gonna get good. The Olympic level athletes or the professional dancers, they dance every single day. Can you expect them to get perfect sleep and stop dancing when they have an injury? No, you know what, I'm gonna do it because I wanna be a salsa champion, I'm gonna be a bichada, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be necessarily medals, but they have a goal. So you have to disrupt the balance to get good. And as a student, you have to endure that. You have to suck to get good. And you have to endure that. You can't be the best the first day. It's not possible. If you feel that you're best, you're either your instructor's lying to you or in a wrong room, or you're just lying to yourself, which is even worse. So confidence comes from competence, the better. I do like the sound of that. You just can't bullshit confidence into, well, that's not true. Yeah, I'm not, if you do things over and over again, okay, man, I feel better about this. That's how it is. So my recommendation to is to just go out there and feel dumb and be dumb and make mistakes. Yeah, it's great to think about yourself as like being in that newer space, being in the inexperienced side of the room and being in the new place. I guess we had this idea and I had, we were talking about it earlier. It was this thing about managing your own expectations and your growth. Do you want to get into more of that of like how that changes as we are? Yeah. Well, as humans, we have a tendency to overestimate what we can do in short term and underestimate what we can do in long term, right? So expectations we set to ourselves in whatever context in short term tend to be not really achievable. Well, you want to set expectations that if it's too hard, you're not going to do it. And if it's too small, you're not going to do either because why it was too easy. If I'm going to, I don't want to go to a basics class now, well, because why I passed that level. But if it's going to be an extreme advanced class, that's going to probably, you know, not maybe feel good, I might stop dancing. So my goals and expectations should be in a certain amount that is achievable. And how do you do that? You have to, I would ask my mentors about that. What should I work on? What are my mistakes? Because he or she will give you, you know what? The right amount of information for you to figure it out and that you could do. They know a lot of things that you can work on. But if they bombard you with that, you're not going to do it. So managing expectations is just be honest with yourself. And unfortunately, as humans, we are on worst enemy. We're not honest with ourselves. I mean, you could look at your body and say, you know, I look amazing. Well, you can, you know, it depends how you look at your body, whatever your life. You can see the good light or the bad light. But the honesty comes from the people around you. So you have to be with people who are better than you, who are more experienced than you, who are going to give you the objective opinion for your own benefit. And that's extremely, extremely important. Extremely, extremely important. Yeah, it's a nice little tie in because it just makes the world a difference. You've got to come in with the right mentality. You've got to come in without an ego and be humble and be open to criticism, which is hard. It's a bit of a, some people and like myself included. Sometimes it's a very like a personal thing that we're dealing with. It's not that I think I'm better than everyone else. I'm just like, you know, you caught up in your own little world of like gradual at a time. So you're not ready to accept that. But I think the biggest differences that I've made of a time have been those moments, like those humbling experiences of like, hey, you know, you could just go back to doing this. And I had this moment where I took a class like I had a small private someone expecting it to give me this short term big change. And the focus of it being on basics and we we drilled out a lot more basic stuff. We pointed out some pretty basic concepts or where I'm stepping, where are my weights are going, where those moments are going that I had stopped thinking about at some point on my journey. Like I started off learning to think about these kind of things and then it disappeared under the mass amount of knowledge you get. How do you think that ties into comparing to, to Gigi, for example? Well, it's one of those things because the things you talk about, you know, when you took that private, you know, that small detail, oh man, I should have mastered that. It was, if you teach that, you know, your business might not run perfectly because no one wants to do that stuff. They want a new spin move. They want to learn, what am I going to learn? What am I going to do? But guess what? Those people, yeah, it's great and all, but I repract, put them into practice. If you're not, it doesn't mean anything. It's the same thing when you're just, the weight shift, the way you control the hips, the closure of the elbow, those details are the ones the high level guy says, you know, do that, do this. Yeah. If you get stuck in a position, do that. Those details are the things that make your game excel to a high level. It's not, it's basics are simple, but then uneasy. They're simple. No, it's not easy. They're not easy. When you do a basic, well, man, I do the same way. Well, yeah, not necessarily. You know, there's a small minute weight differences, timing differences that my eye can't pick up, only body can't pick up. I'm not there yet. From the outside, it looks simple. It doesn't do anything. It's just moving your feet. I can do that. Yeah, I can. So exactly coming back to a point, but that doesn't sell, right? Yeah. And in an age where we always want the next fix, next dopamine hits, next cool move, next YouTube pit. Oh my God. I mean, that I met that. Well, yeah, looks good. I had the same thing in jujitsu. I had guys when I was teaching who watched YouTube for two years, showed up to my class, and I teach my technique. They literally said, this was easy on YouTube. I just didn't know how to reply to that. Like, when they said, you know, this was easier when I watched on YouTube. As it looked easy to do, man, what do you expect me to do? And obviously those guys never come came back again. I mean, because you just played that scenario in your head so many times, you just fool yourself. Yeah. And professional dancers like 2,000 times on YouTube, like, you know, what I do the same thing, I'm good as them. Well, when I'm on the dance floor, I look completely off. It's not true. So it's that, you know, dilemma of the virtual reality and what you want to believe in and the objective reality. So you have to put yourself on the mats and you just, you have to put yourself on the dance floor. Yeah. That's for doesn't lie. The mat doesn't lie. That's what doesn't lie. It's true. The dance floor doesn't lie. We'll find out tonight. You know, like, I think it's always nice. I look forward to the TSO Socials. Yeah. I shit ton. It's everyone's on the same page. I take a little bit of pressure off my, I think I don't know if you'll let me on this. But the nice thing about is that I take a little bit of that pressure off myself to bring out something fashion, something like showy, something like that, to try and impress people or try and come across better than I really am. And at TSO Social, I can just focus on my basics, focus on the quality of dance. Rather than focus on like the visual trying to be more visually appealing. And I think I think that's a nice thing to bring back. It's like, you don't need to bring out. And it's the same with, I guess, your Gitsu and stuff. It's like, it's not about bringing out some super complicated, I guess, position and some kind of movement. It would be how good can you relate to those basics that you have drilled into and that will play out and transfer a lot better to your follow. I agree. I mean, being a instructor is hard. I know that's, it was looking up to you. They try and learn about some of them are like, oh man, he made a mistake, I caught that. Well, yeah, it's he's human. He can make a mistake. Number one, but on the flip side, I can relate to it because I was there. And it's like, as an instructor, it's just different. You're on the other side of the table. You're trying to deliver information, deliver knowledge. But then you're also like this authority to figure what you are and people are looking up to you. But on the flip side, sometimes you want to let go. Like sometimes you want to dance. And sometimes you want to be yourself without students watching. What do you do? What can I learn? Or being judgmental. But that's how it is. That's how it is. And I think balancing those two off, which I think that's what you're referring to being a TSM more being yourself without you're not going to instructing. You're just going to be dancing, whoever you want. That's an amazing feeling. I felt that when I was in prison, just being that student again. And I think now with the dancing, I'm being a white belt. That's an amazing, I got no pressure to do anything I want. - Yeah, that was the connection with all this expectation. - You're making it to be amazing. - If I make this, I'm perfectly fine. I wish I made more mistakes, so I can more fix them better. But I can totally relate to that. Being instructor is just the other side of the coin. - Yeah, a little bit, yeah. How do you find between Gijitsu and Dancing Right? Now, how do you find they hit different needs or one? So there's things that you require in your life. Like, what do you think are different things that they both hit separately? You've talked about a little bit about the creative side of things. Is there anything else you find is different about them? Like-- - I mean, obviously, Gijitsu gives a confidence to defend yourself, right? I mean, does it guarantee anything? No, it doesn't. Nothing guarantees anything. But it just gave me the knowledge of a distance. Like, a distance when a person is-- what a person is doing. I can just-- you become a better judge of character where you are. And as a person of hostility, I guess, me. Is that person anxious? Is it dangerous? How would I get out? Things like that, it just becomes into you. Your balance improves. Your coordination improves as you just-- you know how to move your body. So protecting yourself self-defense wise, yes, it just becomes ingrained in you. You become more calm, you're more humble. I became more humble and more calm. You tend to stay away from anything. I was never a guy who wanted to pick a fight. I was never that-- not a person who attracts people in terms of fighting. Don't want us to come and hate you. I want to fight you. Not because if-- you know who looks for trouble. I'm not a guy who looks for trouble. But now because-- As you know, the guy who actually looks for trouble, just the guy who doesn't get into trouble. I don't-- yeah, I just still like to look for trouble. Because the fight-- does it find it's where do you? So it's like one of those things-- people who do fighting arts, UFC, whatever, professional fighters, there tend to be nicest guys around. They're like the nicest guys people. Nice as people. They're so cool. They're just like some introverted, they're nerdy. I love those people. Because every day they're on the mats, grinding it out. And the people who tend to look for trouble or trying to prove their masculinity are the ones you see looking up for idiotic fights. And the more you train, the more you realize what you can do to a person, you can really kill someone with the things I know. I'm not trying to-- that's how reality is. And likewise, something bad can happen to you. So you just tend to stay away and avoid-- avoidance is a bad thing. They can't appreciate it. Yeah, but how much damage can be done? It can be done. It's not fun. So that's what you do support to me. What made my career like negotiation and communication-- I think I became a better communicator with you, too. I have more fortitude, more resilience. And dashing, I think, is just a-- I'm very new. So I can't probably say this-- it bought me this. I think at the moment, I'm going to say my creativity, creativity. My body moves differently. I connect with different kind of people, which from various backgrounds. That's it. It's such a cool feeling. It's such a cool thing. And connect with people like you who experience dancers and learning from them. I just love that. Different backgrounds. We talk about business. We talk about other things. How we're kind of dancing. I love that about that. And it's just to me, like, with Jay, I think is a phenomenal instructor in a sense that the mental models he uses is just very aligned with what I believe in, consistency, instruction. So anyways, I think I'm very, very-- and maybe we'll talk about this five years down the line when I'm better. But it's probably this, I would say. Awesome. Just one other thing I thought of, I wanted to address is like, as you became an instructor and became a role model. And did your appreciation for basics and stuff change there as well? Or did you have that built in? The reason I bring it up is, yes, I-- Yes, logically, I realized the importance of needing to have your basics down. It wasn't until I jumped on stage. But I was like, oh, shit, I have so many basics that I need to work on. Was that a similar experience for you? It was humbling, as you said. It's humbling to come on stage or to be in a position of people looking at you. And yes, you're allowed to make mistakes. But it's like it made me realize, hey, these are the kind of mistakes that are avoidable. They should have been avoidable if I put the right effort and time into the right place. 100%. Yeah. Was that experience for you when you started-- you were up in the school. Was that an intentional goal that you had when you started? Did you want to teach or anything? No, I thought because there was no one else. I had to teach other people so I can get good. Because there's no one who was doing your jutsu. And I wasn't passionate about it. So I thought some kung fu guys. And the way to do that was by teaching, you get better. Because you're not used to the questions I ask you. Yeah. So someone says, can you show me the basic? And when you explain that to them, oh, wait a minute. Am I doing that right? Oh, what? That question just opened up another window in my head. So similarly, I had to teach other people to get good. And when they got good, I became good. I had no idea that I wanted to become a whatever school owner, become a instructor. And it is humbling. Basics, you have to do them every single regularly, consistently to polish them and make sure they're on point. That's going to make you, as you get older, you're not explosive, you're not as fast. It's a timing. It's the details. The basics that save you. That's a reality is. I'm aiming just for now. I'm not jumping up and down. I was never that kind of like I'm not going to be older. So speed changes, my force changes. So I'm going to focus on my timing right now. So I'm developing positions that are going to be more-- that keep me safe. So and similarly, in dancing, it's going to be the basics. If you can have basic movements down perfectly, well, you know what? Guess what? They're going to carry over. Yeah. And the basic movements aren't always just basic movements. They're not. They're not into other things. They're either prevalent or available to see in other movements. All they just became variations that you can develop on yourself. So I think it's highly underrated to work on those more and more. Basically, fancy moves always look good. You can sell, but guess what? If you can't stand on your two feet, you're not going to pull it off. Yeah. And I'm just trying to remind people, like, people like who are in my state of mind with dance in the "Tron of Fixed," which is it's fine to want to look fancy and showy. But think about a personal goal of mine with dance, just to share, I guess, a little bit of that is, I want to be a better dancer. I don't want to look like a better dancer. I don't want-- I mean, obviously, I want to look like a better dancer. I want to be more aesthetic and be more showy and have more like showmanship and stuff and have more confidence and exude that. But my primary goal right now is to be a better dance for the partner I'm with. So I'm just going to leave that with you to think about it. That's what I love about actually. I think about it myself. I've had a few people raise that with me, like-- be a better dancer. I love that. That's actually provided better experience dance. Yeah, because it's a shared experience at the end of the day. That is true. I like that a lot. Yeah. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I'll leave that with everyone here. It's not original. Someone else shared this with me. But it'd be nice to kind of bring that up. Because one of the ways I do that currently is basics. It doesn't mean bore them by doing a basic step. It just means those foundations that you built upon the different context with Bachata, the six months that you've just about finished now, it's not about having a really fancy version of a Madrid step or having a really cool outside turn variation. It's about if you can lead a really nice outside turn of the basic, that would make you a good dance. And I think that's a current goal that I want to work towards. Yeah. Amazing. Thanks for jumping on it. No, I appreciate it. I've got so much fun stuff to talk about. Yeah. Look at that. See, time just flies, doesn't it? Time flies. Crazy. One other thing I had to know was there's always interesting things they can read more about. And Aaron Eurigai, who reads a fair bit, I think, from what I've heard. More to better, yeah. Just talking about me, the book that I had recommends Darren Hardy, the compound effect. Just talks about-- Not a fact, yeah. How-- Oh, we didn't even talk about compound. If I do want to get into that real quick, we've got a little bit of time. Yeah. Maybe just touch about it. It's basically kind of like tying into the conversation where we're having earlier, based doing things constantly-- small increments, small steps read to-- you know, lead to amazing outcomes, sort of like your interest account. If you put like a dollar every single day, it just can at least spend at least $1 and 20 years better than putting, like, you know, certain amount of money. Yeah. It's the same thing with health. Come back to cheeseburger and analogy. You know, eating one cheeseburger is not going to make you unhealthy down the line. But if you meet-- eat one half a cheeseburger every single day over the time, it's going to be detrimental. Yeah. So a-- in dashing context, the same thing. Just, you know, focusing on those basics, focusing on the consistent training, consistent dancing, it's going to lead to you becoming a really good dancer, same in your duty to-- Same with the people around you. You're at the level of the five people you spend your time with. So if you hang out with professional dancers, and if you-- that's one of your goals, well, guess what? It's going to cut your learning curve. You're going to excel. Because you're out around those people, same with-- if you want to hang out with fighters, hang out with business, whatever you want to do. So the compound effect by the hard is a highly recommend that book. There's a few other books that kind of touched my life as well. We can dive it later on. But I highly recommend that book for anyone who's-- Amazing. I'll be a good one to start with. Who's got that nerdy and brain like us? Like research brain and inquisitive brain, so. Yeah. And I think it's just great to read up about stuff that's going on anyway, so how do you recommend that as well? I mean, I'll have a read of it, because I'm interested. But yeah, thank you so much for jumping on. I know you're not much of a social media person. So we're not asking you to plug anything if you don't want to. But like, do you share any of your businesses, anything you want to tell us, like anything you want people to know about? - Yeah, so I mean, I'm not a huge social, I might set it up for my business, like my e-commerce business down the line, but at the moment, my first name, and I'm not now, you can reach my Facebook. I'm very reachable. Send me a message, add me as a friend. If we like each other, we continue. If we don't, we just go a separate way. Okay, if you like his thoughts on. - Yeah, please do. - I'm dancing. - He's looking for a dance partner. - I have one of the podcasts that I was talking about more about you, just so you can find out on my Facebook pages. Well, it's more about my "Juja's to Journey." - Who was that with? - It was with two other black belts. Actually, one of them was a purple belt. The other one was black belt. Kim was a black belt. And Tom was a purple belt. They had a roller diet podcast about my. - Roller diet, I did saw this, yeah. - Yeah, so it's about my "Juja's to Journey." How I got started. It's more about "Juja's to Journey." What it was? - Yeah, I'm not a huge social media person. We have a discussion earlier on when we're or the podcasts. I really value human interaction. And I think primarily we're conditioned to interact human, human to human. Social media is amazing. It's got its purposes. But guess what? At the end of the day, you have to touch someone to dance. You have to meet with that person. You have to have that connection to dance. You're not gonna be dancing on. Well, I guess you can with this new day's virtual reality. But guess what? - I'm having spending time on that dance for getting all those people and having that connection. It's an amazing feeling. So for anyone who has similar backgrounds or who wants to try it, thank you guys or girls, go for it. I was like I told you, I was a guy who hated the cut. Who said, you know, I'm never ever gonna eat cut a cheese, that was not my number one goal. Number two goal was. - But it's cheese, I've all failed. - I like cut a cheese man. - I guess, have you even tried it? - I have tried it once. - Okay, good, I'll give you that. - I will never ever eat again. Number two was, I'm never gonna ever dance well, you see how that all goes. - Oh, that's changed. - So that's changed. So bottom line, give it a shot. - Never say never. - Never say never guys, never say never. Give yourself the credit. Do two or three months. Same thing with you just so, the first class is gonna suck. The first week is gonna suck. You're gonna feel like a dumb ass. - And be afraid of it. - Don't be afraid of it. - It's a good reality. I mean, I'm really grateful to be to have met you. You helped me a lot. - Oh man. - And you continue to do so. - Thank you. - And that's seriously, I take that to heart. Having the right mentors, having the right instructors, people who are experienced, who are willing to share that knowledge to you. Obviously realize that you're taking up their time. So when, you know, it's important that what you do with that knowledge, you should not be, you know, asking to respond. You should be asking to understand what they mean and implement in your life. They're not gonna give you the answer that you want, but they're gonna give you the answer that you precisely need at the specific time if you feel you're difficult. So thank you once again for having me. I really appreciate it. - Oh, it's amazing. This is humbling in a turn. - No. - Thank you. - Thank you so much. Amazing. Oh man. That was awesome.