Art of Wellness #5- Coaching and Managing Injuries of Combat Athletes with Ramy Daoud

I like the way that PSC approaches, like, combat sports, and I think you know, I’m very biased, but I think we do it better than most academies. And I think our students progress at a quicker rate because of the semi private classes. Like, all our classes, the max is 10 or 12 people per class. So when there’s 2 or 3 coaches in the class and only 10 to 12 students, our students just get so much more individual feedback, and that helps them grow. We don’t have a one size fits all training, like Yep.

Cookie cutter style. And that’s what I like about, like, your work. Right? It’s very, like, personalized, and it’s tailored to the individual. Yeah.

And I feel like that’s the best way to run a small business is to lean in to being small. Right? I’m not gonna compete with, like, UFC gym. Right? With in terms of amenities and staff and size.

I can’t do that. But I could lean into being small. I could care more than them. Right? Yeah.

So yeah. And that’s our thing. Advantage I have. That’s our yeah. That’s our advantage.

Exactly. What do you think about the UFC gym in general? Like I mean, all those gyms, I’m always very honest. If you wanna get a workout, it’s great to get a workout. Mhmm.

If you wanna actually learn the combat sport itself, you shouldn’t go to any chain or corporate gym. Just like if you wanna learn about Italian food, I don’t suggest Olive Garden. Right? You can go there and eat pot. If you’re hungry, you’ll be full.

So, yeah, if you wanna break a sweat, you’ll break a sweat. But is that where I recommend people go to learn about martial arts and combat sports? Absolutely not. It’s like yeah. Absolutely not.

Nor would I recommend title boxing, nor would I But if you wanna break it to somebody else hey. You know, it is what it is. Right? It is what it is. Yeah.

That’s the reality. The my issue with those types of gyms, Jerry, is that I don’t have a problem people doing anything to work out. I’m not one of those snobs like, oh, look. They’re not even really boxed. I’m the same way.

Yeah. But when they call it boxing and when they delude the students into thinking that they are actually training in boxing Mhmm. That’s my issue. It’s like you should make it very clear to your students. Hey.

This is a boxing inspired workout. This is a boxing This is a boxing themed workout. You are not a boxer if you go to title boxing. You are not a boxer if you go to UFC gym. You are doing a boxing themed workout, and that’s awesome.

I think it’s a wonderful thing to do to break a sweat. Yeah. And to become healthy and to be strong and to have fun and to be around people, great. But you’re not boxing. You are not a boxer.

You can’t call yourself 1. Mhmm. And if you’re not sparring, you’re just you know, you’re playing pretend. And that’s cool to play pretend on the bag to imagine, you know, you’re in the Rocky movies, and you’re, like, you know, a tough person. That’s awesome.

I I love that. Have fun with it. But you’re not a boxer. You’re not participating in the activity. Mhmm.

Boxing has rules. It’s a system. Kickboxing is a system. There’s standards that have to be met for it to be called kickboxing or boxing. Right?

Or else these words don’t mean anything. So what are those what are those standards that you what separates you from those gyms, would you say, in general? That’s a great question. Because I do have a lot of people who come to PSE who train for fun. Most of my students are not competitors or fighters, but they’re also gonna spar.

They’re all gonna, you know, train as if they’re gonna step into the ring because they need to be they need to be aware of where they’re at skill wise. Mhmm. And being honest with where you’re at is an important component of martial arts. That’s why, you you know, always me you and I joke around about, like, the Steven Seagal types because it’s just like delusion. Right?

It’s like, you can’t really I think he’s the man. I know you I know you think he’s a he’s a good looking dude. I know that with you. Yeah. I think he’s a master martial artist, tall He is a master of something.

That’s for sure. But, you know, like, if you grew up, you know, watching, like, the martial arts movies that we probably we all did. Right? And we were inspired by them. And then you’re almost disappointed when you become an adult and you realize, like, these people aren’t really as tough as I thought.

They can’t really fight. They could do a nice choreographed scene. Yeah. And so I don’t ever wanna delude my students and make them feel that they’re capable of something they’re not. Mhmm.

Because I think it’s better to be aware of your shortcomings rather than to be delusional and think, oh, I train, you know, and do this, and therefore, I can defend myself, and I can defend others, and I’m, you know, a badass. Like, sparring lets you know where you’re at. So any combat sport or martial art that doesn’t involve sparring is a workout. It’s great for fitness, but you have to spar. You have to spar for it to be I was gonna ask you about that because I think you posted something on Instagram about sparring.

Mhmm. What’s your, I guess, philosophy on sparring? Like, I know a lot of fighters don’t they don’t go as hard as they used to. Right. Like, they the old school style of training was, like, just spar super hard, you know, 3, 4 times a week.

But now it’s more, I would say, they kinda back off from sparring because of the, obviously, the injury risk. So Yeah. What do you think about that? So I used to train, I won’t mention my name, but I used to train at a very high level gym, and for years. And the sparring at this gym was done not at 70%, not at 80.

It was done at 100% intensity. Yeah. It was normal for people to get knocked out. Mhmm. And I always felt like, this is something this isn’t right.

I don’t think we should be getting knocked out in sparring. And I would often avoid the sparring there because of brain trauma, not because I’m worried about being intense or going hard. Right. And now I see these fighters who stayed with it. I ended up leaving that gym for other reasons.

Mhmm. And most of their fighters were shot by age 30. And it was because they were destroying their bodies in the gym. They were destroying their brain in the gym. And you can only get knocked out so many times before your body’s like, hey.

We’re done here. Right? Like, look at Chuck Liddell in the later part of his career. You see it. Anytime he’d get hit clean, he would get knocked out.

Early in his career, he could take full force shots to the chin and wouldn’t even be phased. Right? But we’re only human. So the intensity of sparring, I like seeing that it’s dialed down. I think it started with fighters in the UFC like Max Holloway saying, like, I’m not sparring anymore.

Right? And I think that sets the trend. Because when I say it, okay. Yeah. What when Max Holloway says it, it carries a lot of weight.

Right? But what I was always inspired by is the way they spar in other, countries. For example, in Thailand, what they usually do there are exceptions. There are gyms that spar hard in Thailand. But for the most part, they drill very hard.

They hit pads at a 100%. They condition at a 100%. But when they spar, it’s technical, it’s playful, and it’s fun. Playful. Yes.

You’re supposed to have fun learning sparring. Right? You’re supposed to play. It’s supposed to be fun because that’s how you develop your timing, your rhythm, your accuracy. These are things you can continue to improve as you get older Mhmm.

Whereas you can’t improve your ability to take punches to the head. Right? Brian pulls up some YouTube Oh, perfect. Yeah. Sancai is a great example.

And this guy that when he tried to, like, show up Sancai in this, this is the 7th. This one. Oh, check this out. So this guy is like you know, he’s he’s not a big name or high level fighter. So he’s taking this opportunity to try to show, oh, look.

I could beat Sanjay, one of the greatest Muay Thai fighters of all time. Yeah. So he goes way too hard, and, of course, Sanjay clowns him. And when for folks who watch us, I encourage them to watch us and to, listen to the audio. You’ll see people around telling the dude in black, hey.

Chill out. Like, why are you trying to make a name for yourself in a seminar? Yeah. It’s kinda cringe. Right?

Very cringe. So, yeah, in Thailand, the way they spar, it’s playful. They’ll smile. They have fun. They’re competitive.

They push each other, but they’re not trying to hurt each other. Yeah. So you see longevity. Sancia is a great ex he’s in his forties Mhmm. And he’s still fighting at the highest level.

I mean, look. When when I would spar at the high level gym I was telling you about Mhmm. People would knee each other in the chin at a 100%. Like, it head kicks. Like, just a 100% sparring.

And, I saw a lot of great fighters get knocked out cold. Jesus. And there was no respect for it. They’d even get, like, mocked. Like, oh, you should’ve had your hands up.

Like, you know, it wasn’t even taken seriously. It’s like an old guy just, like, squinting at the screen. And I have my contacts in. Why am I blind still? They’re not working.

Yeah. But anyways, I should probably intro the podcast. Yeah. Let’s do it. This is Art of Wellness episode 5.

I’m here with coach Rami. What’s up, dude? Thanks for coming. What’s up, doc? I appreciate it.

Yeah. We’re gonna be talking a lot of MMA stuff, jujitsu stuff, boxing stuff, injury prevention stuff, pull up some YouTube videos that I can’t read, but, we’ll make it work. What is this one? Liam who are these guys? Do you know these guys or not?

Let’s see. It looks like Liam Liam Harrison. Yeah. And I got my glass on too. Liam Harrison, he’s a UK, based Muay Thai fighter.

Really great and storied career. Mhmm. He’s somebody that’s a great example of this. When you watch him hit pads, it’s almost terrifying, the intensity. But then you watch him spar, and you see, like, how light he’s going because the idea isn’t to prove how tough you are.

The idea is to develop your technique. This is a skill based sport. I love it. It’s not a toughness bait. Being tough is important, but it’s not everything.

Right. So, yes, sparring should be done to develop timing, rhythm, accuracy, and technique. And they’re having fun to look at too. Yep. If you spar at this pace 6, 7 times a week, you’re gonna improve far quicker than somebody sparring at a 100% twice a week just from the volume, just from the amount of work you’re putting in.

So this is the way to go. Did you ever watch the the fight between DJ and Rod Tang in Yes. I did. Championship? Oh, yeah.

Can you pull that one up, Brian, too or no? That’d be cool. Yeah. I’m sure it’s I think it is on YouTube. It was, like, one round of 1st round was Muay Thai.

That is great. That’s such a cool concept. Him and Rod Tang. Yep. Mhmm.

And it was so cool to see the the difference in Mhmm. The first round. Obviously, Rod Tang was pressing him trying to knock him out because he can’t grapple. Yep. And the second round, he was on defense mode Mhmm.

While while DJ was, like, pushing him and trying to grab him. So it’s it’s a cool way to kinda see how different martial arts kinda blend together and what works, what doesn’t work in a real fight maybe. But Absolutely. Is all stand up. So Yeah.

This first round, I mean, Mighty Mouse just had to survive here. And crazy. You could see that you could feel the tension that he had in this round. Like and he did well to his credit. He didn’t I thought he would just clinch and kinda stall.

A couple times. He did. He was throwing big overhands. He he’s brave. He’s very courageous.

And Rod Tang, to his credit in the 2nd round, he didn’t even tap. He went sleep from the the choke. Oh, yeah. He’s extremely tough, Rod Tang. Does he even train, jujitsu when he actually probably a little bit for this, but there’s no way you could play catch up that quickly.

Right? Yeah. This round, yeah, you can see him backing up, and then Look at the difference. Right? Look at him moving away, circling.

It’s I love watching this fight. It’s such a fun fight, and then he grabs him right there. It’s pretty much over. Yep. When he took his back, he knew that this was his opportunity.

And with the short rounds, you have to make it work because I believe the next run after this was such a good point. Went back to the tie. That’s right. Roshan would have picked it back up there. But, yeah, DJ was definitely just pressing him right here.

Yeah. He’s such an incredible fighter. It’s truly a shame that the UFC didn’t do a better job marketing him. Yeah. Because I think he would have been an absolute superstar if marketed correctly.

And I remember Dana always saying like, almost blaming him for low pay per view buys Absolutely. Which is such a silly thing because it’s your job to promote. It’s his job to fight. And he’s doing his job. He’s winning his fights Right.

In spectacular fashion. He was fun to watch. He was very fun. He was very exciting. The flying arm bar he hit that one time.

Exactly. But in the UFC, if people don’t you know, do we curse on this, or do we try to avoid, curse? We’re able to curse now. Yeah. Okay.

For if fighters don’t talk shit, Dana White doesn’t know how to promote that. Yeah. Fuck fuck shit. Yeah. Exactly.

So I think that’s kinda silly because he’s cool. I mean, you see he has a YouTube channel now. Very successful. He’s a gamer. People like watching him play games.

He streams. Like, he has a very good personality, and the UFC just didn’t know how to promote him. So Yeah. Right here. He chokes him out.

But And Ratan I think he just goes yeah. Yeah. I think he goes out. That’s crazy. That is, man.

That is what a fight. That’s possible for them. The best one of the best kickboxers right now or Yeah. The guys in the world right now. Yeah.

He’s so young too. I think he’s, like, 25 right there or something. Think so, and I think he has hundreds of fights already that that experience level. That’s crazy. That goes back to the sparring.

He doesn’t need to spar for he competes for experience. He trains to stay sharp. The fight is what gives him experience. So he doesn’t need to prove himself in the gym, you know, not getting paid too. That’s the other thing is you’re sparring.

You’re ruining your brain. You’re ruining your health for nothing, for free. Yeah. Right? You’re some people give their best performances in a gym with, like, 3 people watching.

Right? They give the performance of a lifetime. But then when it’s time to fight, their body is shot. They’re injured. They’re overtrained.

Overtrained tired. And that’s when injury can creep into Exactly right. Fatigue sets in. They’re yeah. And then something happens.

They tweak something Exactly. When it’s over, and they’re out for a while. But Exactly right. So how do you so you coach everything. Right?

Yes. Mhmm. MMA, boxing, graphic boxing. Kickboxing. Mhmm.

Which one’s your favorite to coach? Do you have a favorite? I I I go back and forth. I think, overall, MMA is my favorite because there’s just so much you can do. You can approach it in so many different ways.

Mhmm. And that’s kind of really cool. It’s the strategic aspect of MMA. There’s nothing like it. Mhmm.

You know, you could pull guard. You could start with a flying knee. You could there’s no way to tell what your opponent’s gonna do. The variables, it’s, like, almost infinite what can happen. Mhmm.

And so I think there’s a lot of strategy that goes into it, which I really, really like. Kickboxing is wonderful, especially when it’s done at a high level. It’s a beautiful, you know, sports boxing too. Boxing. Yeah.

Man, I mean, sometimes when you take away tools, those tools are now very sharp. So when you are limited in your weapons, you have to become a specialist. So if you like punching and head movement and defense and footwork, I mean, boxing is top tier. Right? So it’s tough.

I love all combat sports. It really is a tough, tough question. What, which one did you get into first growing up? I got into traditional martial arts. My mom put me in taekwondo when I was 4 years old.

She was worried that, you know, my parents are immigrants. My mom’s from Lebanon. My dad’s from Palestine. My name is Rami. We’re living in the suburbs.

She’s like, my son’s gonna get bullied. Let’s be real here. He’s he’s small. He has a funny name. So she wanted to put me in martial arts so that if people picked on me, I could stand up for myself.

Mhmm. And then I did taekwondo, then I went on to Shotokan karate, which you know, Lyoto Machida. Yeah. Yeah. His background.

Shotokan. Correct. So light sparring, not full contact, but, very good in and out footwork. I don’t know if you remember his fights. He was always kinda bouncing around that rhythm.

Yep. Yeah. So that, I learned that. And then, when I was 13, I watched the Kazushi Sakuraba highlight video. You know Sakuraba?

See, you’re a real MMA fan. I like talking to people like you. That changed my life. Once I saw that highlight video, I was like, I have to do this. Right.

I was living in Plainfield, Illinois at the time. There was not a lot of MMA gyms. Old Plainfield. Yes. As you can imagine, not a lot of great jujitsu and MMA gyms in, Plainfield around 2,002 or whatever.

So Yeah. I guess not. Yeah. I started kinda training, teaching myself, inviting people who had wrestling backgrounds or judo or boxing and just picking their brain. I bought a 8 foot by 8 foot mat and just would spar people.

I would pretty much have, like, a like a fight club type thing. You know, we had pads. We weren’t just, like, crate, but we were fighting. And, I was reckless enough to sign up for my 1st amateur fight at age 17. Okay.

And it was this organization in Indiana. So I emailed them when I was 17. I said, hey. I’m 17. My name is Romy.

I wanna compete. Like, oh, sorry. You gotta be 18. Oh. So I emailed them, like, 2 weeks later.

I was like, hey. My name is Romy. I’m 18. Can I compete for your organization? I was hoping they wouldn’t remember me.

They didn’t. They’re like, yeah. Sure. So I just lied and said I was 18. Okay.

They got me a fight. I drove up to Indiana with 2 of my friends. I think I told my parents I was going to a sleepover and ended up going to Indiana. It’s gonna be in a cage fight. And that is on YouTube, but, actually Is it really?

It’s Rami Dawood versus Dean Burley. Find that one. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s there. It’s, so, yeah, I ended up finding.

I won. And, the referee was Josh Rafferty, who’s on season 1 of the ultimate fighter, the OG season with, like, Forrest Griffin, Steven Bonner. So the ref was one of the fighters, from the ultimate fighter season 1. Man. So, yeah, I was self taught.

My corpsman were my friends. My only formal training was Probably gotta spell your last name out. Yeah. Yeah. R a m y.

My last name is d a o u d. It was first Dean Burley, d a d e a n b u r l e y. This is my first podcast pulling up stuff on YouTube. This is this is fun. This is kinda cool.

This one. You got a good producer, man. Oh, yeah. I know. Brian’s the man.

See, I bought those shorts from Walmart the day of. Yeah. I I forgot shorts, so I was like, oh, I need shorts. I went to Walmart. Yeah.

Yeah. This was 20 years ago, man. I was 17 years old. And there’s Josh Rafferty from season 1 Ultimate Fighter. My opponent, he had 2 fights, so he had experience with my debut.

He was 1 and 1, and he was, like, 510. Is this like an Olive Garden or what’s the pretty much. Might as well have been. Some warehouse that they rented out. And, yeah, you could see I was trying to straight blast him, like, Vitor Belfort style thinking I was gonna finish the fight quick.

And then, here you’ll see my Kazushi Sakuraba impersonation because I hit a cartwheel guard pass right here. Woah. Yeah. Yeah. Basically trying all the techniques I saw my favorite fighters do.

That’s all this fight was. So I ended up winning in the 2nd round, via TKO. Oh, wow. Elbows from Mount. They allowed elbows in a amateur fight because it was Indiana.

So they allowed elbows for It’s Indiana for you. It was Indiana. Was it a 12 to 6 elbow? No. It wasn’t.

It was like, you know, the forearm, like, it wasn’t the 12 to 6. I was gonna ask you about that. Which one do you think produces, like, more which one hurts more? I don’t or what’s produces more force, I guess, I should say. Like, these or, like, a straight down one?

That’s a good question. Sense. No. That makes perfect sense. So the 12 to 6 elbow, do you know the reason why they banned that for such a long time?

I can’t remember. But so silly. It’s because, somebody from athletic commission saw a video of a karate dude breaking bricks with a l I think I remember that. Yeah. This is way too devastating.

We can’t have guys doing this, so they banned it. But they allowed you they allowed you to come down with, like, your forearm, which is basically still your elbow. Right? Yeah. I think you generate more power with the with the, like, forearm, but I think the 12 to 6, it’s sharper.

It can cause more cuts. Right? You hit the point of the elbow. Okay. Is that the end of the first round right now?

We’re both exchanging, leg locks. Who was the other guy? Just, like, a garbage man or something? I you know what’s funny is I still keep in touch with him to this day. Really?

So yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what he was, he was young too. I think he was Hey, look young. A year older than me or something.

And, yeah, I just I had no idea what it was my first time ever being in a cage. Was fighting in 1. I’d never been in 1. What’s he up to these days? He still competes and trains and teaches.

What’s his name? Should we shout him out? Dean Burley. He’s a good guy. Shout out to Dean.

He’s a nice guy. And, yeah, those are my two friends. Seeing the green shirt? That’s funny. Matt Bajalski and Mark Lambda again.

I haven’t seen them in years. That’s hilarious. Are you wearing, like, beach shorts? I’m wearing board shorts from Walmart from Indiana Walmart because I forgot my shorts. Yeah.

I forgot shorts. I mean, I’m 17 being so excited driving, you know, to Indiana, so I forgot everything. I fought at 155, and I didn’t know about cutting weight. My opponent was 510. I’m 55.

Right? He cut, like, probably, you know, £20, and I was 150 on weight. Yeah. The day of weight, I was eating ice cream. Like, I was like, I’m 150, so I’ll fight at 155.

I didn’t even know people were cutting weight. Like, I didn’t know anything about that aspect of the sport. So, yeah, here I do a neon face. You’ve heard of neon belly. Here’s neon face.

It’s, my patented position. And soon I, transitioned into mount. And, the elbows, I’d never elbowed somebody before, but I worked at Hollister, and I used to elbow piles of clothes as I folded them. And that was my I’m not even kidding. So this was muscle memory.

I used to always elbow the piles of clothes. Pound these clothes. Literally. That’s that was my only elbow practice. And shout out to Hollister because, I won the fight.

Oh, wow. Yeah. My parents were like, you need to get a part time job. So I applied to Hollister, and the manager, once he found out I was into MMA, hired me on the spot. Oh, that’s cool.

But I never learned how to fold. I never learned how to do anything. He would just hire me so he could talk to me about the music. Elbow. That’s so how to elbow.

Thanks to Hollister. Yeah. It worked. So kids out there, you get a part time job, Hollister, you’ll be tough. Teach you how to throw elbows.

Exactly right. So you have how many fights total? I had 2 amateur fights before I went pro because in my second amateur fight, I ended up fighting somebody who had a 5 and 4 pro record who competed as a amateur against me. Isn’t that How does that work? This was the Wild West at the time.

Yeah. In Indiana, there was no legitimate athletic commission. So a lot of crazy shit was going down in MMA, especially at this level. Yeah. So I found this out after.

That’s the problem of not having a coach, a manager, someone look out for you. After this fight, I was approached. Hey. If you win your next fight in this event, you can be on a king of the cage pay per view. So I was like, oh, man.

At 17? Yeah. Sign me up. Still around king of the cage? I don’t think so.

I I doubt it. Yeah. I don’t even hear about them anymore. No. You remember them?

They used to be like a feeder org to the UFC. So, I was like, yeah. I’ll do it. I fought. My opponent turned I didn’t know this at the time.

He was 5 and 4 as a pro, and, basically, his manager was the promoter. Okay. So it was all, like, set up for me to, like, you know Yeah. Not as, like, choreograph, but it was set up for him to For sure. It was I went to a decision.

I thought I won. He was puking between rounds, which you should stop if somebody’s projectile vomiting between rounds, but they let it go because, again, it’s his boys’ organization. Pardon me. Funny. And, after I realized I fought a pro and did well with him, I decided I’m gonna go pro.

So I went pro. I end up having, 4 pro fights with a 3 in 1 Mhmm. Record. But I always competed for fun. For me, I always liked teaching more even when I was, like, 16, 17.

Mhmm. For most people, it’s the opposite. They fight, and if they can’t make it to wherever they wanna make it, they’re like, okay. I’ll be a coach. I actually always love teaching more.

When in my parents’ basement that I mentioned to you, my favorite thing to do was to bring my friends and teach them. Hey. Here’s how you do an armbar. Here’s how you do, RNC. And then we’d spar.

And when I’d see them pull off the moves, I’d get more excited and more happy than even when I won a competition. It’s something like there’s something about it that I loved. So I always want to fight for fun and teach as a career because I thought even as thank god I went this route because I was like, there’s longevity in coaching. I can be 60 and be a coach. Yeah.

I can’t be 60 and be a fighter. Yep. And I saw how the fighters that once I started training at legitimate gyms, I saw these fighters that I idolized not living a life that I wanted to live. I would see them have a lot of financial hardship. Yeah.

You know, guys with 10, 20 fights in the UFC. Sheesh. Yeah. And then being forced to coach, but they don’t want to, and they’re not enjoying it. Mhmm.

You know, working at some gym for $20 a hour. It was it’s like, man, I never want this to be me. Yeah. Because you’re just one injury away from being the next big thing to, yeah. Who’s that guy again?

I think I remember him. Yeah. And I saw this kind of revolving door of of fighters. I’m like, no. I I’m too stubborn.

I like being in charge of my own destiny, so I saw that coaching was the way I could be in charge. You know? I don’t have to listen to anybody. I hated authority. I hated being told them the same exact way.

That’s where we That’s where that’s exactly where we connected pretty much. Right. How did we meet? I think I just googled because that was when when I first started my business, I was googling, like, different coaches and people I can network with. Right.

And you came up pretty early, thankfully, which is Oh, cool. Shout out to your SEO stuff. There we go. My boy, Alex. Thank you, Alex.

Thank you, Alex. And then you we just started talking, and then I was like, same mentality of, like, we don’t like being told what to do. No. We don’t like the usual corporate for you, you know, boxing, MMA gyms for me, the usual corporate health care crappy physical therapy clinics that Mhmm. Yeah, that have irritated me for years, but, that’s how we connected.

And that was man, how long ago was that now? Was that couple years ago? 3 years ago? Couple years ago. It was after COVID, I believe.

Right after COVID. Yeah. COVID. Maybe 2021 or so. And, yeah, we were both working out of the same Naperville fitness studio.

Remember that? Real Life Fitness in Naperville. Rest in peace. Yeah. Rest in peace.

So I helped you get in there, but then you or, no, you got in there on your own, I believe. Right? Yeah. I think I just contacted the guy, and then yeah. Then you helped me get to where I’m at now in Naperville.

So, yeah, thank you again for that. Man. But, yeah, I remember us having conversations and the similarities between our approaches to our field. More personalized, more visualized. It’s you know?

And I I think people appreciate the extra step we’re willing to go as I always tell people. So, it’s always cool to see them appreciate, like I said, us going that extra mile. So and it it shows too, I think. And our reviews, Google reviews Mhmm. All that, and it’s and I love it.

It’s fun for me. I’m sure it’s fun for you. I love it, man. I do. I do.

I’m just like you. I’m truly passionate about helping people. I know people say that. It’s cliche, but some I really am. Like, I love helping people.

I love seeing especially, you know, I’ll train, like, a younger student, 15, 16. They’ll come into the gym. They can’t even look me in the eye. Their self confidence is so low. Mhmm.

And then after 6 months, they look me in the eye. They’re talking to people. That is more important than anything else. So just having that seeing that change in somebody’s life and knowing that you played a part in it, it’s so rewarding. You know, it’s infinitely rewarding.

There’s truly nothing like it. And for you, I can imagine healing people. Right? People come to you in pain. Like Yeah.

That’s huge to be able to affect people’s lives in that regard. That’s amazing. Yeah. I mean, it’s fun, man. It’s well, it’s not fun seeing people in pain when they first walk in, but, you know, over the course of a few weeks or however long it takes them to get over, you know, whatever, knee pain, back pain, neck pain, and they walk out a different person, like you said, like that 15 year old you just said.

They’re a different person after that experience of going through an injury that knocks them out of a their sport that they love, whether it is, you know, jujitsu, boxing, Muay Thai. You know, I get football players, soccer players. And it sucks when they get injured and all that’s taken away from them. Yeah. And they’re they’re with me, they’re frustrated, they’re getting angry sometimes, but, you know, patience really is a virtue.

So I try to preach that to them because, you know, the human body can’t just heal instantly. We’re not robots. Right. I wish we were, but it’s not how stuff works, unfortunately. But at the same time, we’re very adaptable.

So while it may not go as fast as you want it to go, it’ll get better. Right. Just gotta play our cards correctly, follow the protocol, follow the the progressions that we work through together, and at the other end of it, they come out stronger and more resilient mentally and physically, as I always say. So I’m sure you see it all the time too in, like, teenagers and stuff that you you coach. So Absolutely.

And it’s, you know, it’s interesting. Our fields are very much related because Very much so. Injuries are such a big part of combat sports. And we’ll get to that. Yeah.

And there’s so much misinformation. There’s so much bro science. Right? I remember being in the early stages of strength and conditioning coaches becoming a thing in MMA. And I remember in, like, 2011 having strength and conditioning coaches, and they just you know, they knew how to work you out, like, to fatigue you, but that was it.

No recovery. In fact, some of them were so insecure because they didn’t know any combat sports themselves. They wanna be like, oh, you thought Muay Thai was tough? I’m gonna show you tough and just torture us for no reason. You know, they’d have me doing the same exercise as a heavyweight that’s £250.

Like, what the hell is going on here? And I knew, again, just like with the sparring, like, no. There has to be a actual professional way to approach Mhmm. The the physical aspect, the conditioning, the recovery, the Right. Injury management.

Mhmm. I knew there was a better way because this was silly. It seemed like people’s egos were being fed. Like, that’s all it was for. Right?

Mhmm. And I’m sure you see a lot in in medicine as well. How you use the word injury management because injury prevention is a it’s you can’t really prevent injuries because stuff just happens sometimes. But especially in fighting because, you know, stuff’s gonna happen. So you have to manage you’re gonna have some pain, some tweaks Mhmm.

Stiffness here and there, but if you progress things accordingly and structure the the training accordingly in a smart manner Right. You’ll be fine. You know what I mean? And then, hopefully, they see a physical therapist like myself where they could I could, you know, better their injury and make it pain free and then send them right back to you. So Right.

Right. But, yeah, injury management is a very good word. I like that because There’s no way to I mean, you’re punching and kicking each other. You’re slamming each other. You’re throwing each other.

You’re cranking on each other’s limbs. Injuries are gonna happen. Right? Mhmm. I wish we could completely avoid them.

I try my best. Mhmm. We haven’t had I mean, knock on wood. What I we haven’t had any serious injuries since we’ve been open 2016. Never had to take anyone to the hospital.

Never had a concussion. Never had a broken arm, a broken ankle. No. No serious injuries Yeah. Ever.

But, again, that’s because we’re paying attention. We’re focused. We care about our members. It’s not just we’re not putting them through the ringer Mhmm. To prove something to ourselves or because we’re insecure because, you know, we didn’t accomplish what we you know?

Yeah. We’re not accomplished in our field, so we’re gonna take it out on them. Coaching is weird. You get a lot of weirdness with coaching. A lot of What do you mean?

Expand on that. A lot of coaches, unfortunately, in combat sports, they can’t do what they’re teaching. There are some that can. There are some that cannot. Many that cannot.

Mhmm. So you’ll see, like, a boxing coach who maybe he was, like, 14 as a amateur, which is fine. Maybe you weren’t a great competitor. Now you’re an amazing coach. But they let that insecurity and they let that ego kind of dictate their behavior.

Mhmm. And they almost resent folks who are getting better than they ever could be. Whereas as a coach, that should be your biggest accomplishment. Right. I want all of my students to be a 100 times better than I am.

That’s when I’m successful. Yep. If everyone’s under me, then I’m just creating, like, a cult. You know? Like, what’s what’s the point?

And there’s a lot of cults in martial arts. Oh my god, man. A lot. You know, where you bow to a picture of a person you’ve never met before before every practice. You have to wear certain team stuff, and you have to keep up and buy, you know, their gear, and you have to pay for promotions, and you have to it’s just they’ve really it’s become McDonald’s.

Right? It’s become, like, a fast food chain. They’ve taken the soul out of it. Like, when my students are being promoted in jiu jitsu, we buy their belt. I buy the tape for their strut.

They earned it. They don’t have to pay. Imagine, alright. Your belt promotion’s coming up. You owe me $250, and, you’ll get your blue belt.

Yeah. And that’s how significant amount of schools run. You know? It’s, John Danaher one time was asked, what does it require to become a jujitsu black belt? And he said very little.

And I thought that was a hilarious response. So what he’s saying is, yeah, just keep paying your membership every month. And after 10, 15 years, you’ll get a black belt because you’re paying the membership. So that’s how it was in karate. I saw the changes in karate going from legit training with a small group to 10 year olds with black belts.

And that’s when I knew, okay. It’s time to dip. Like, this isn’t this isn’t legit anymore. This is just a business. Mhmm.

And, which is fine. Everyone has to make money. Everyone has to pay bills. But to me, this is something sacred. Like, martial arts and combat sports, we the integrity of combat sports, like, we’re in charge of maintaining and upholding it.

Mhmm. So is it worth to make a couple extra bucks but to ruin the integrity of a art form that’s been that’s changed our lives? Like, is it worth it to make so you can make an extra couple $100 or a couple $1,000 or a couple $1,000,000 for me? I wouldn’t do it. Yeah.

But a lot of people would. Yeah. And that’s my issue with, like, these chain and corporate gyms that we talked about again. It’s the delusion. Right?

It’s like, this is boxing is supposed to be tough. Boxing is not easy. You know? So imagine if they tried to make med school easy so more people can become doctors. Like, that would actually be very detrimental to the field, to the patients.

Mhmm. It ruins everything, actually. It doesn’t help. Yeah. So that’s what we’re seeing in combat sports.

Like, oh, let’s just make it much easier. Let’s take away the sparring. Let’s say and then everyone can do it. Okay. Well, now everyone can do it.

But now what? Do it. Yeah. But now no one can do it because everyone can do it. Right?

So no one can actually box. I love what you said about, you know, your students. You want them to be better than you because I I see the same thing when I get, like, a student intern from, you know, whatever physical therapy school and they’re interning with me, and I love seeing them just getting better. Yeah. And eventually, yeah, I want them to be in every aspect better than me as a clinician, as treating whatever injury, any surgery.

It’s the best thing to see for me. I I love it, man. And they could teach you stuff as well sometimes. Absolutely. So Absolutely.

It’s important to keep an open mind because just because you’re the teacher doesn’t mean you can’t learn from the student. You’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. That beginner’s mentality is so important, and that’s another thing with, like, the ego. You see a lot of big egos in combat sports because it’s it’s fighting.

It’s there’s a lot, you know, there’s a lot of emotional attachment to fighting. Right? Mhmm. But, yeah, like, I’ve seen some amazing fighters who are amazing coaches. I went to train with Ryan Hall in 2019.

Okay. Amazing jiu jitsu competitor. Great UFC competitor. But trained, Tom Le, who became the 1 FC world champion. Had lot of UFC fight my friend Carlos Vera, who’s on, Conor McGregor’s season of Rocket Fighter.

Mhmm. You know, Ryan Hall, while being a active high level competitor, has active high level students, some like Tan, who have won world titles in MMA, which Ryan never has. So, you know, that is the mark of, like, a good coach. He is putting his all into his students. He’s not making sure, okay.

Let me make them good enough so they could be good sparring partners for me so I can excel. No. I want this person to become a world champion. Yeah. And if he’s better than me, that just means I’m a great coach.

Yeah. It’s it’s not a knock on me. It’s not you know? So I I like seeing those examples of Agreed. Good coaches who create good students who become good fighters.

I love it. That’s the way to go. Let’s go through so I have some questions here that I should probably get to that I never get to, but let’s try to do this earlier. So how do you structure, like, a typical I don’t know. Let’s start with, like, an MMA training session for your clients, your fighters.

How do you structure it? Like, what do you do first? Do you warm up first? More skill stuff after that. Break it down for me, the the structure of a a training class with you.

Great question. So because our our, our academy, it’s appointment only, and people book their spots in the class. So I know beforehand who’s coming, and I create a lesson plan based around who’s coming. Mhmm. So if I have a student who, you know, needs to really work on their takedown defense, I’m gonna make sure there are drills as for him specifically.

Right? If there’s a student who really needs to work on, you know, his footwork when it comes to striking, then we’re gonna do a lot of drills, based on that. So it’s kind of Cool. Really personalized, the training we do. So every class is different in that sense.

There are some things that are you’re gonna see regularly, like, you know, shadow boxing to warm up. We do a long warm up. Shadow boxing, then bag work. Then we start with, like, lighter drills with less contact. We’re slowly easing into the practice.

I don’t ask people to do something extremely intense or difficult very early on because I think that there’s a higher chance of injury when you’re not properly warmed up. Mhmm. And you just have to be like, your reflexes need to be warmed up, your vision, your ability to see punches and kicks coming at you. I think you have to ease into that. And I’ve always seen from competitors that the best competitors have a very long specific warm up.

It’s like the fight is a continuation of their warm up. Mhmm. So I kinda like that approach. So by the end of class, when we’re sparring, that’s when they’re at their peak. Right?

I didn’t exhaust them and then say, okay. Now you have to spar 10 rounds, and you gotta be tough. Come on. I don’t wanna hear that. You’re tough.

No. I want to work skills. Let’s sharpen some things up. And while you’re still relatively fresh, let’s test those skills in sparring. When we spar, we have specific goals.

It’s not win the round because what is winning and what is losing and when you’re training? So if we work the specific technique, setup, guard pass, whatever it is, your goal, the way you win is by executing that technique properly during sparring. That is a way you can kind of measure your progress rather than just, okay. I wanna do good this round. Like, then you can’t really measure progress, and it’s very, like, abstract.

We don’t know. And even with other sports, they don’t do that. They don’t just wing it. They have goals. They have specific things that they’re looking for.

And MMA, a lot of times, is just, okay. Beat up whoever your partner is. Tap them out. It’s like, okay. What about if I’m the best in the room?

I saw Andre Orlovsky, you know, back in the day. Oh, yeah. He was training in a jiu jitsu gym, pow, under Dino Christaus, and he was the biggest dude there. But he would get oh, he would, like, play his guard. He would start off his back.

You know, he was doing things to make the rounds competitive. Mhmm. If you want to just brutalize everybody in the gym, he could. You know, there are accountants and lawyers and, you know, soccer dads. So, yeah, he could kill him if he wanted to.

Right. But if he decides, okay. Today, I’m gonna work my half guard, and I gotta hit everybody with this half guard sweep. That is gonna make a challenging practice for him despite his training partners not being on his level. So you can always make for a challenging practice, and you don’t need this concept.

Oh, iron sharpens iron. You don’t always need to be training with, like, a world champion to be a world champion. Yeah. Conor McGregor didn’t train with any world champions in when he became world champion. Right?

He was 2 division champ, and he’s from a no name gym in Ireland that no one knew of until he became champion. Yeah. So as I study combat sports, I see it’s truly, like I said earlier, a skill based sport. So our practices really focus on building skills and then testing those skills in stressful situations, I. E.

Sparring or sparring drills. Like, okay. Yep. You know, you’re gonna start under mount. Top guy, he’s gonna throw light strikes, and your job is to escape.

And then we’ll have, like, a bunch of people. Okay. You got out. Next person, they start them out. So that way we’re working specific skills with stress involved with some because that’s how it is in the fight.

Stressful. Stressful. Sometimes I’ll even have my students, hey. I need us to mimic the atmosphere of fights. I was gonna ask about that.

How do you mimic the atmosphere? Oh, competition, I should say. Yeah. Such a good question. And I found that when you add a little bit of that chaos, it it makes a difference.

So Okay. If I have folks sparring, I’ll say, hey, You know, you’re the corner man. You’re the corner man. And everyone else who’s watching, I need you to be the crowd. Say something.

You know, mock his appearance. Make fun of him. I like it. Like, because that’s how it is when you’re competing there. When I find it People shouting stuff.

Yeah. The weirdest shit, the offensive stuff. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I’m not gonna, you know, call anybody slurs or stuff like that.

But, oh, come on. You suck. Stand it up. Boom. This is boring.

You know? The typical yeah. The typical stupidity you come across. You know? We’ll mimic that to a certain extent.

And, you know, it sounds silly, but when you’re sparring because I’ve been in those sparring drills where you have a crowd around you. It’s different. It’s more intense. You get tired quicker. Interesting.

Because you’re more you’re stressed out. That’s that’s all. You’re adding stress. That’s it. So whatever we can do to add stress so that when they compete, they’re not overwhelmed.

Because no matter what you do, training is not a fight. Even if you spar at a 100%, it’s still not a fight. A fight is a fight. There’s nothing like it. The intensity, the look in your opponent’s eyes as he’s trying to, you know, knock you unconscious.

You cannot mimic that in training no matter what. And if you do, you’re gonna be injured, and your career is gonna be very short. Yeah. So by adding little elements of stress I like that. And focus on skill based sparring with an objective, that’s how my students can train for a year and not only keep up but oftentimes beat competitors who have been training 2, 3, 4 times as long.

We’ve proven that in competitions. I take my people up slowly. I don’t rush them in the competitions. I’m notoriously, tough. I always tell people no more than yes when they wanna compete.

Mhmm. We have standards. They have to practice a certain amount because this is a dangerous sport. And Yeah. The coach is the first one to get blamed and the last one to get credit if there’s a victory, but the first one to get blamed if there’s a loss or if there’s a injury.

So if one of my students gets hurt and gets knocked down 10 seconds, their parent watching a bit, why would you put them in there? Yeah. You know, it’s it’s on me. Mhmm. And when they win, it’s because they’re awesome, not because I did it.

Right? So Yeah. There’s a lot of it’s a big responsibility to send somebody out to compete. Mhmm. And so we have very high standards, and they have to prove themselves through consistency, dedication to training, and being able to meet certain training objectives.

I like what you said about trying to mimic the stressful environment. Yeah. Right? Because that’s also sports specificity. Mhmm.

You know, when preparing for whatever sport, they have specific drills, like physical drills. Right? You know, like soccer player kicks. Right. Kicks a ball.

Mhmm. Kickboxing, they kick more. Kick the heavy bag. Whatever. Right.

Whatever specific to their sport. But that’s more of the mental aspect of sports specificity. So, like, you’re trying to impose more mental stress on the fighter. Is there other ways you do that besides just mimicking the like, an an actual fight? Is there something else you can do to maybe ramp up their nervous system to try to get them super stressed out That mimics a real fight because, like you said, it’s it’s it’s hard to recreate that, that spontaneity of getting into a fight or something.

So is there different ways you add some stress to them? Yes. So we do various drills that are gonna be more stressful than a normal sparring round. Okay. So one example is we do defense rounds where one person cannot strike back.

They can only defend. Mhmm. Okay. So that one, it shows you your defensive shortcomings because maybe your defense is really just your offense. You’re a volume striker, and you don’t give your partner a chance to counter.

But now you cannot strike back and, you know, so you have to use your footwork. You have to use your head movement. You have to use, you know, pivots and slips and pulls. And you have to clench, and you have to be and it’s very stressful when you can’t fire back. Right?

So we’re adding stress, limiting their tools so that when they can strike, when it comes to normal now they feel like they’ve been set free. Like, oh, this is easy. I can defend and I can strike. They’re gonna feel empowered almost. Right?

Mhmm. We do other drills. Interesting. This drill called the Ali drill where one person has to have their hands completely down. They cannot move their feet.

We measure. And, of course, you have to use control here. But one person’s job is to throw strikes, and the person with their hands down has to defend only by moving their head. They cannot block. Their hands have to be down.

So now we’re forcing you to get good at seeing strikes come at you, which is very stressful, slipping them, reacting correctly during moments of high stress. So we have different drills. 1 where you’re against the wall or the cage or the ropes, and you have to be against the ropes or wall or cage, and you just work your defense for a round. So you need training partners you could trust for these drills because you can have somebody tee off on somebody, and then they’re not getting anything out of it. Mhmm.

But the person against the the ropes or wall, they can’t move. They have to stay there. So that mimics a bad spot in the fight, being limited, being unable to move back, and having to stay composed. Yeah. So most of these drills are really just about composure.

They are about the specific skill. Mhmm. A lot of it is composure. The greatest fighters always have composure. They always have a poker face.

You can’t tell that they were hurt. You can’t tell that they’re frustrated. Right? Whereas, you know, some fighters who are very emotional, those are usually, like, the right under the top tier. Right?

The guys are like, ah, and, you know, like, great fighters. I’m not knocking them. They’re incredible fighters. Michael Chandler. Right?

Super, like, emotion. Gets a draw a reaction from the crowd, but then the best fighters are like the poker face. Like, okay. Yeah. I’m good.

Like, inside, they might be, oh, man. I’m dying. I can’t believe how hard this person hits, but they don’t let you know that. Right? The poker face, the composure is such an important part of combat sports.

Yeah. So we train that specifically. I’m not hoping one day they just have it. It has to be trained. That’s my job to train them to have the composure.

I can’t just man, I hope, okay. He learned a jab and a low kick. I hope he has great composure. Let’s send him in and see. No.

We train it. That’s my job is to it’s not just to teach them how to punch and kick and wrestle and do chokes. It’s to how do you be composed? What’s your body language like in between rounds? How are you sitting in between rounds?

Because your opponent’s peeking at you. Mhmm. He wants to see if you’re tired. Mhmm. Are your your back straight and your shoulders up?

You look like like, you can’t wait for the round to begin, or are you, oh, man. Coach, I don’t know. Like, you know, your body length. All of these things, we train them because you’re not just gonna figure them out on your own in the middle of a fight. Mhmm.

They have to be trained. And I think that’s an advantage we have with the semi private training with small groups is we can really hone these skills. And other gyms, there’s no time. When you have a 50, 60 people in a hour, how are you gonna work this? Right?

Yep. I mean, that’s the same thing in in health care these days. You know, those big physical therapy clinics where I’m seeing 3 or 4 patients at a time. Right. How do you I mean, we can manage it.

Of course, I was trained in it, unfortunately, but after a while, I was like, I can’t be splitting myself in 3 different ways for 3 different patients with 3 different diagnoses. 1 has back pain, knee pain, ankle pain. It’s ridiculous, man. That’s insane. I don’t even know how you can see 3 or 4 patients at the same time.

You make it work, my friends. You make it work. Well, you know, we would have aids, assistants, and they’re great. You know? They’re they’re learning, but, you know, the the patient is there to see us.

Right. Right. You know, they get frustrated when they’re just with the aide or the the tech or and it’s not a knock on the techs or the aide because I was once a tech and an aide before getting into school, but, you know, the person wants to see the person the physical therapist. And, unfortunately, these these days, it’s just money over patient care, as you know, in the combat sports realm or or gym realm. It’s the same thing.

It’s just Taco Bell, McDonald’s, like you said. It’s all the same stuff, unfortunately, and I hate to see it. But That’s a shame. It’s it’s terrible. It really is.

When you do so do you get a lot of emotional fighters that you have to kinda, like, compose? And how do you teach that? All the time, man. Okay. All the time.

I always tell people, the biggest babies are adult men. As someone who trains yep. You’re you’re right, though. I laugh at it. Mikayla laugh at it.

It’s true. Because it is the biggest babies. I’ll say it again. Send Jerry your hate mail. Alright?

And then I’ll just hit me up and argue with me. I dare you argue with me. The biggest babies I’ve been training people for a living for 15 years. The biggest babies are adult men who think they’re tough. They think they’re yep.

They are the biggest babies. They are so sensitive. They think they’re not because they’re, like, hypermasculine and tough, but they’re very sensitive and fragile and insecure. Mhmm. And they get upset at everything.

You know, somebody hits they land a clean jab. Mhmm. They get upset. They, like, take it personally as if somebody, you know, insulted your mother. It’s just so so you have to I’m almost like, man, this isn’t my job.

So how do you deal with that then? What are you what are your strategies there? People, hey. You should go to therapy. You shouldn’t be at boxing.

I really have told people that. Like, if you if you’re coming here to, like, work out your problems and you’re gonna endanger other people, go to therapy. You you don’t you shouldn’t be at boxing. I will I’ve said that many times. Yeah.

Martial arts and combat sports are therapeutic, but they are not therapy. They’re not a replacement. If you have serious mental health issues Yep. You’re not gonna fix them by punching a bag or punching somebody. In fact, it might get worse.

Right? I love that. So I have standards that people have to abide by because I’m also not there to teach people how to act and behave. I’m not their, like, life coach. My job is very specific to teach them how to fight, how to defend themselves, how to get stronger.

But with the training and with the discipline, there is some character development that happens not accidentally, but it just happens. Right? Like, if you can train 5 days a week Mhmm. That says a lot about your personality. Right?

It can show you’re consistent. You’ll be somewhere that you say you’re gonna be. You committing to something that’s difficult. You’re challenging yourself. You’re getting out of your comfort zone.

So there’s a lot of character development that happens through training. But if folks are not ready to because trust is so big when you’re training, especially when you’re putting your body on the line, you have to trust your training partner. So if I see somebody jeopardize the health of somebody else, I’ll let them know and be like, hey. You need to be you this isn’t a suggestion. You have to be calm and controlled here, or you can leave.

You could find another gym. I don’t let anybody hold like, have leverage. Oh, oh, well, okay. I’ll leave. Perfect.

Yeah. That makes both of our lives easier. Right? So by setting standards and sticking to them regardless of what it’ll mean for, like, you know, your bottom line, for your wallet, for your monthly sales revenue, I don’t care about that. We have standards, and these standards are so important.

So I’ll talk to people like, hey. You know, when somebody lands a a clean punch on you, they’re actually doing you a favor because they’re showing you your weakness. They’re showing you where you’re open. That person is your best friend. And instead of being thankful that you have somebody that can show you what you need to work on, you’re getting upset with them and taking it personally.

Like, how backwards is that? You know, if if, it’s just people can’t really take that. So when I try to make them look at sparring and, you know, the competitive nature of combat sports as if you get tapped out, that’s awesome. That person showed you what you need to work on. That’s the best thing that they can do for you.

Right? Mhmm. So I try to kind of convey these lessons and teach this way, and usually it works. And with some people that won’t get it, I’m not the gym for them. They they don’t belong because one you know, they always say, oh, he’s a bad apple.

One bad apple spoils the bunch. That’s the quote. Right? Yep. So a bad apple does ruin everything.

Yeah. So I don’t allow it. But I do have grace for people. I don’t discard people if they make one mistake. Yeah.

But if I see that it’s a pattern and You have to get rid of them. To get rid of them. I have to get rid of them or Yeah. They have to leave and come back when they’ve When they’re ready. Taken care of there.

Whatever it is. You know? So Yeah. But, yeah, it’s easy to get I mean, fighting is inherently emotional. You’re fighting.

There’s emotions involved. Mhmm. You know, people get upset playing golf, playing pool, playing, you know, darts. Right? So now we’re throwing punches and kicks and slamming each other on the ground.

So, yeah, you just try to teach people that this is a thinking person sport. When you are upset and emotional and enraged, you’re not gonna make good decisions. Fighting is chess. You have to make correct decisions. And one bad decision, the fight’s over.

So if you’re in a enraged state, you’re gonna make bad decisions, and you’re more likely to lose. So even from a selfish point of view, if you can’t handle your emotions and stay composed, you are going to fail more than you succeed for that reason. Right? You know, when you hear what’s that famous, thing you hear, like, untrained people? Oh, I don’t know about all that fighting shit.

But, you know, me, when I when I get angry, oh, man, I see red, and I just go crazy. I’m like, bro, that’s the dumbest thing you could ever say. That literally means you are, a shitty fighter who can’t make good decisions in these chaotic moments. Right? The best fighters make quick adjustments because they’re cool.

They’re calm. They know how to respond I love that. Under pressure. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s mostly, honestly, adult men with different athletic backgrounds that have never taken care of all these, like, bad emotional habits that they have.

Yeah. Deeper stuff. Yeah. And you see it you see it manifest in their in their training. Yeah.

With, adult women, I barely ever have these issues. Barely. With kids, you have these issues, but I expect to have it with a 10 year old. So when you have it with a 35 year old who’s a father of 2 and a working professional, you’re like, how’d you even get this far in life if you can’t even stay calm? But it’s shocking, man.

That’s a great point. Like, how do they even get that far with anything just sets them off. You know, whenever it’s something that’s ego busting, like, getting punched, then they think they could fight, And then they’re like, how could this happen? This is It’s insane, man. And then they throw a fit, like you said.

And it probably it happens probably in different areas of their life too. So Absolutely. Yeah. It’s tough. It’s funny to see, though.

Well, I shouldn’t say that. But It can be depending on the thing. Right? It can be, like, you know, the the stereotypical, like, dude punching a wall because he’s mad. It’s like, what what did you you just punched your wall.

Now it’s you know how much expensive it is to repair a a broken wall? Like, you know and that’s a great metaphor or compare because they’re only hurting themselves. Right? So Mhmm. When you lack this control, you’re only hurting yourself.

And in combat sports, you’re only hurting your chances of being a successful combat sports athlete. Agreed. Man, I don’t know how much time we have, but I was I wanted to get into injuries. Yeah. So what are the most common injuries you see, let’s say, in an MMA class?

Let’s start with that. I see a lot of, elbow injuries, like a lot of, you know, elbow from either, like, tapping too late to a arm lock Mhmm. Or overextending on a punch. These injuries, I see a lot. Ankle injuries because a lot of people, you know, they miss the kick rather than hit with their shin.

They’re hitting right above their foot, so they’re, you know, they’re hurting their ankle. Knee injuries from rest, especially from takedowns, you see a lot of knee injuries. Mhmm. So a lot of, like, you know basically, a lot of that knee, ankle, elbow, hand from, you know, punching incorrectly, punching the top of the head. So Okay.

You see a lot of, injuries like that from the, you know, from training. Crazy. Do you have any injuries currently? Are you you’re pretty you’re not that banged up No. I’m not what I remember.

I’m not that banged up. You know, I have things like, you know, my elbows can bother me, sometimes, but I’m very lucky for having trained as long as I have. I’m very lucky. You’re very articulate still, so that’s good. I hope so.

Yeah. I hope so. I hope so. That’s good. Yeah.

I mean, injuries are tricky, especially in in the fight game, like you said. Mhmm. But, thankfully, you know, you’re a great coach. So Thanks a lot. Say if somebody is injured, though, it, I don’t know, they got knee pain and they’re coming in.

How do you maneuver or structure a training program or training session with them if they have, like, knee pain, for example? Let’s start with that. You know what I mean? Like I do. Yeah.

So how do you work around that? So I always say the benefit of the semi private training system that we have is that we can work around injuries as long as it’s reasonable. Mhmm. You know? I like what you said on threads.

I’ve actually been sharing this with other people. You said if the injury is, like, a 5 or a 10 or less Mhmm. You can still train with it as long as you know Well, people have this misconception of, if I have pain, I can’t exercise. Right. You can, but you have to do it in a, you know, in a smart manner.

You can’t just you know, if you have back pain and it’s, you know, 6 out of 10 or 7 out of 10, you start dead lifting super heavy, it’s probably not the best idea. But you could progress back up to that. So you could because the worst thing you could do if you have pain is not move and do nothing for it. I see. There’s no circulation.

There’s no healing process in the butt. You’re just a static person. I see. Because your your body is highly adaptable, like like we said, and you need that the stress Right. A little bit of stress.

That’s our job as PTs to dose it appropriately for you or anybody who has elbow pain, knee pain. But we wanna overstress it to cause more harm. But that’s why we’re here. That’s our job, is to stress it, cause the appropriate adaptations to to better heal it Mhmm. And then in the long run, practice what initially injured you in the 1st place in a way to get you over that fear of not reinjuring it.

Does that make sense? That makes perfect. What a great approach. Yeah. Because a lot of people will avoid whatever technique or movement hurt them.

Still. Like, oh, this hurts. I can’t do anything. But, you know, and that’s why I I love physical therapy, and I, you know, it to me, it doesn’t feel like it’s mainstream. Like, we should be the mainstream, like, health care providers when it comes to pain.

I agree. And people just think we do massage, and that’s it. Right. Right. Right.

But our pill to people is exercise and movement, and we dose it appropriately. And it’s to exercise and movement, and we dose it appropriately. And it’s, to me, it’s the closest thing to a magic bullet to me. That makes sense, man. That makes perfect sense.

That’s why I love it. But, anyways yeah. So it sounds like you structure appropriately for somebody with, I don’t know, back pain, knee pain, scale it back a little bit, and then hopefully it gets better with time. But Yes. At the same time, you could have them come see me.

I could, you know, structure some things You’re absolutely right. Give them some stretches, exercises, whatever, help it get better, send them right back to you. And, you know, and I I like to preach that to anybody, to MMA coach, strength and conditioning trainer, a yoga teacher. I don’t care who it is. If they hurt themselves with some sort of sport activity, I’ll get them better and just send them right back to you.

Here you go. And I think that because you are a fan of combat sports and you’re in such close proximity to it, that is something that’s a huge advantage to combat sports athletes because we feel like a regular doctor doesn’t understand us. Right? Because they don’t watch the UFC or MMA, and they’re not you know, you’ve been there. I’ve seen you, like, be there when a fighter is competing, like people that you help.

Like mhmm. So you know the ins and outs of the sport, and that’s very rare. Yeah. And I feel like that’s a huge advantage that, folks who work with you have is you understand, 1, you understand that these athletes cannot just stop training. Right?

Mhmm. Like, if a boxer has a hurt left hand, well, then your right hand is gonna be really, really good because we’re gonna work that right hand now. Like, whereas most doctors, oh, well, you’re injured. No activity for 6 to 8 weeks. Like, a one size fits all type of solution.

Right? Primary care provider will can only do so much for you. If you have just, like, general back pain, they’re just gonna say you have general back pain, maybe give you some pills. You know, the the good primary care people or good doctors will send you to physical therapy to be like, oh, here’s, you know, here’s Jerry. He’s you know, you got back pain.

See him before I give you any, you know, pills or anything first. Because, again, we have no crazy side effects. Right. It’s just, you know, feeling better with through exercise and movement. So You’re not getting people hooked on opioids?

Maybe I should. Yeah. Hey. There’s a lot of money in it, I’ve heard. Yeah.

But, and it it still troubles me that, you know, just still some primary cares out there that don’t refer people to physical therapy with people with just general knee pain, general ankle pain, repetitive motion pain, like, you know, a runner who has, like, runner’s knee or something or a lifter who has some general back pain, and they they all go see a specialist that I know and surgeon or something. They should come see us first, but and we should we will screen out anything serious. If there is something serious, of course, I’ll send it to a specialist, a surgeon that I know, whatever. Right. But you’d be surprised, how oftentimes someone’s injury or pain is not as crazy as they think it is.

Or Have you seen people be prescribed strong prescription medication that you know that their injury could’ve, you know, healed or, you know, through Through exercise, stretching, movements, especially with back pain. Now do you think these doctors that are doing it, do you are they aware of what they’re doing? Let’s get into the cons let’s get into the real stuff. Let’s get you a trial review. Time for the that.

I’ll have you back on. We could talk about that too. I’m fascinated by that. I don’t know, man. I think it’s just like you said.

I mean, health care is very money driven these days and, you know, prescriptions and all that stuff will drive revenue, I guess. I don’t know. I see. Or surgeries. And, again, I’m not saying those things are never needed.

Right. But I think, definitely, if someone comes in with back pain to see their primary care and right away, they’re like, oh, here’s some pills for that or try this anti, you know, what is it, muscle relaxant or something. They don’t need that. What they need is movement and and dosed exercise from a doctor of physical therapy like myself, but a lot of them still don’t know that. And, again, it’s it’s it’s a shame to me that people don’t know about us as much as I think they should know about us because I think we’re we’re a very underrated health care profession.

I agree, man. I I think I wish I knew about this sort of thing 15 years ago. Like, I I really did. I’m I’m here whenever you need me. You know that.

I know. You’re you’re the man. And from the brief work we’ve done, you I could tell you really know what you’re doing. I remember I told you, like, my hip was bugging me. That’s right.

You knew you right away, and you I wish your hip. It’s it’s better now. It’s still bug but it’s better. You gave me some exercise. You want.

Yeah. I definitely will take you up on that. Right away, you gave me some time to I know where you’re at. I know where to find. But I think, running out of time, but do you have anything you wanna plug, website, all that stuff?

Just if anyone is in the Chicago suburbs and wants to train at a a good gym, come to Phoenix Sports Empire. Whether you wanna compete or just train for fun, I really recommend you, come check us out. And if you don’t come to PSC, find a gym that’s a good gym with a coach who cares, who is responsible. Just go to him. Or just go to Romain.

And if you’re injured, go to doctor Jerry. I can vouch. I’ve sent people his way. He really knows his stuff. I in fact, I learned a lot by, I really mean it.

I learned a lot by just reading the stuff you share, and you Appreciate it. I really do. I learned a ton, and it helps me I like threads. Become a better coach. I don’t know why, but I like threads too.

I think it’s kinda cool. I know it’s, you know, it’s not cool like Twitter is yet, but No. We’re gonna make it cool. We’re gonna make it cool. Hell, yeah.

We do. But, thanks for watching. If you guys have any, questions on ankle pain, back pain, whatever pain, What’s your Instagram? Rami the Giant. Okay.

I’m a big dude, if you can’t tell. Very tall and big. If you have coaching questions, DM Rami. If you have injury questions, DM me at aptdoctorg. And we’ll see you guys in the next one.

Peace.