Israel, Hamas, And National Security In The Middle East | Ron Grobman | One American Podcast #8
Chase Geiser is joined by Ron Grobman. Ron is a former IDF soldier and owner of Tactical Fitness (TacticalFitnessAustin.com).
For Ron Grobman, Krav Maga is not a job — it is a way of life. At the age of 16, Ron became the youngest certified Krav Maga instructor in the United States through Krav Maga Worldwide. He has since attained the rank of 1st sergeant in the Israeli military, served in the IDF Special Forces reconnaissance battalion as a sniper, been certified through International Krav Maga under Gabi Noah, and gained Krav Maga Trainer certification from the Wingate Institute in Israel.
Ron was able to accomplish his goals though working with civilians, law enforcement agencies, and military personnel as a Krav Maga instructor. Ron’s passion for teaching is evident in every session, and he has the unique ability to tailor his lessons to the individual needs and goals of his students. In this way, he connects with every student on a personal level and ensures their continued success. Come train with Ron and let him put his experience, enthusiasm, and passion to work for you.
EPISODE LINKS:
Ron's Website: https://www.tacticalfitnessaustin.com/
Chase's Twitter: https://twitter.com/realchasegeiser
PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://www.patreon.com/IAmOneAmerican
They'll they'll use shepherds to kind of uh walk a certain area and give them intel on what the IDF is doing.
And Shepherds is just like the the nickname used to be a sort of thing.
No, like actual shepherd, but this is but they're they're employed by Hamas.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other thing.
Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
Mr. Gorbachev tears down this war.
A date which will live in infamy.
I still have a dream.
Good night and good luck.
Good night and good luck.
Tell me a little bit about what it was like for you, what it's like just for anybody to serve in in the Israeli defense for so for me it was a little bit more of a unique situation.
Um I was what's called a lone soldier.
So if you don't have family in Israel or you are for whatever reason not in contact with your biological family, and we're talking about parents, not grandparents, so it has to be parents.
Uh you're in a status called being a lone soldier.
So you get extra financial support, uh, you get support with housing, you get um a little bit more time off to take care of errands, because in Israel you get paid a v like a minuscule salary as a soldier.
So it's expected that your parents are kind of gonna take care of you, do your laundry, help you with errands, help you with But if you're on your own, then they But if you're on your own, you don't have that.
So they they kind of give you support for that uh for the process and they kind of on an HR side, they kind of help you out a little bit more than than a regular soldier would.
Um but serving in the IDF I would say is probably very different from what I've heard from my friends that serve in the US military, you know, we don't get deployed for like nine months into a different country.
Everything is inside of Israel unless there's a war on the border, and then we're in Gaza, we're in Lebanon, we're whatever, which doesn't happen very often.
So most of your service as a soldier, particularly as a combat soldier, is spent doing security operations.
So you're on the border, you're doing surveillance, you're doing security ops.
If you are in the West Bank, um what we call Judean Samaria, the occupied territory, quote unquote.
Um you do uh basically the police work.
So the the military is the the authority in those areas, so you do basically arrest warrants, you do stakeouts, you do surveillance, um things of that nature do checkpoints.
So you had to go make arrests and shit?
Yeah, yeah.
Here and there.
Uh I mean it's it's just I mean during my service was kind of calm, so they're they're pretty like straightforward like knock on the door, hey, come out, we're taking you right, right.
Um the main things you dealt with was people like throwing bricks at your head from from the the third story of a house or just because you're you know you're Israeli soldier and they hate you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh on occasionally maybe people shooting at you or something like that.
The Gaza border was a little more interesting.
Um most of the work there is actually done by snipers uh because everything is is very long distances, so you're 200-300 meters or people are 200-300 meters from the fence.
Uh and basically you're you're preventing terrorism, you're preventing IDs being laying, uh, and you're doing surveillance.
So you be scoping out for people like that, look like they were planting bombs on a road.
Basically, yeah.
So what they do, they'll they'll use shepherds to kind of uh walk a certain area and give them intel on what the IDF is doing.
And shepherds is just like the the nickname used to be.
No, like actual shepherd, but this is a but they're they're employed by Hamas.
So uh, you know, they tell them, hey, give us info and from when the patrols are coming through and whatever.
Okay.
Um So my understanding is Palestine isn't technically a country.
No, it's not.
And there's a difference between like Palestine as a whole and Hamas specifically, right?
They're not they're not exactly the same and so there's a very complicated history here.
Um basically um in the 1900s There's in the late 1800s and 1900s, there's a Zionist movement.
Okay, and Jews started moving to what's called Palestine, which was what the British called that area of the world.
I see.
Um Palestine was basically parts of And this is just like a this is like a biblically based movement, right?
Like we're gonna move this is the land promised to Abraham.
Exactly.
So we're gonna just occupy it.
Yeah, yeah.
It was not occupied.
So they were actually buying lands off of off of people there.
Um but basically w the Arabs that already lived there were either Arabs that were part of Lebanon, part of Syria, part of Jordan, part of Egypt, and so on.
Were they cool with it at the time?
They're like, hey, look, these Jews are going to be a good thing.
Yeah, they were selling it too.
They're just moving, they're just moving.
They were selling lands to Jews.
Right, right.
Okay.
So the land of Palestine was what the British, when it was under the British mandate, called that area.
Okay.
And I believe that that uh stems from the Philistines.
So what country is technically sovereign over the over Palestine then today?
So if it's not really a country, like is there a nation that claims Palestine as their territory?
It's Israel.
Israel.
So Israel is basically like look, everybody in Palestine's actually in Israel.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Now, within Israel, you have Arabs, they're they're Israelis, they're Israeli citizens.
Right.
They're Muslims, there's Christian Arabs.
There's also a subgroup called Druze.
It's like 18% of the population or something.
Something like that.
Yeah, yeah.
And they have representation in the Knessan Israel in our parliament.
Um full full rights.
In fact, they probably live better than most Israelis, because a lot of them don't pay taxes.
But in Palestine, those Palest the Palestinians aren't recognized as citizens of Israel, are they?
No.
So they are in believe it was one during the Six Day War.
Uh so all the lands uh around Jerusalem, and we'll call Judea Samaria, the west bank of the Jordan River.
Um that's been held by Israel for many strategic reasons.
If you look on the topography of it, uh basically it's all hilltops that look down on all coasts of Israel.
So this is the high ground.
Same thing with the Golan Heights.
Well, why Israel's never going to get that up?
Because when it was under Syrian control, they would shell Israeli settlements all over northern Israel regularly, like just complete civilians.
Um that's basically what Palestine.
Now, here's where things become even more complicated.
So Israel, uh, up until I believe 2005 was occupying the Gaza Strip.
We said, enough, we don't want to be part of this.
We pulled out.
By the way, up until the second intifada, which was around early 2000s, Israelis were going in and out of Gaza, Arabs were going in and of Gaza, there's a lot of commerce.
It was it was good for everybody.
Let's put it this way.
When it was that was when it was occupied by Israel, right?
Yes.
I see.
Yeah, but it it was a very like cordial and good business relationship.
Right.
Uh and there was Israeli settlements in there too.
2005, whatever politics, Israel pulls out.
Now, when we use the word settlement, is does a settlement have a different legal status than just like owning a house in Jerusalem?
I d I don't know.
Okay.
I don't know on the technical side of it.
Um as an American, when I hear the word settlement, I just think like pilgrims and like they just came over here and were like, hey, we're gonna hang out, and it's like five acres.
Yeah, something like that.
I mean um look, people want to want to talk shit about the settlements that are are in occupied lands, but uh first of all, they they employ a lot of the local population, a lot.
And they pay them Israeli minimum wage or higher, which is a lot, which is usually double what they would get paid in their little villages or wherever dude doing with with benefits and so on and so forth.
So that's first and foremost.
Um But anyways, Israel pulls out uh a year or two later, uh was it just like a concession they pulled out, like or was it because they didn't want to maintain security in the area?
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, yeah.
So Israel pulls out of the Gaza Strip.
Uh at that time it was under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
That was the local governance there.
Um they pull out a year or two later, uh they set up an ambush on um an Israeli tank crew and kidnap a soldier for five years.
Jesus.
Keep them, keep them uh as a POW.
Um during that.
Just because they're pissed off that Israel exists.
It's always the same same type of deal.
During that time, um, I I don't know if it was before or after, we gotta kinda have uh someone look up the facts of that.
Uh during that time, Hamas, which is the current group that that rules the the strip basically has a violent coup.
Actually, there was a let an election.
They get voted in by the locals.
I mean, so the locals became kind of radicalized for whatever reason and decided to vote for Hamas.
I mean, they're both terrorist organizations for some concern.
Like the the Palestinian authority pays families of terrorists that have been killed uh by Israel or people that are held in jail in Israel because they're terrorists.
And by the way, that's funded by tack US taxpayers.
So US taxpayers give aid to Palestine and then that aid is then used to subscribe.
Yeah.
Or killed.
Right.
Um anyhow, uh basically there's a violent takeover of so they get elected, but there's also a violent takeover, they just kill like a bunch of Palestinian authority members.
Yeah, Hamas does.
And then that leads you to Operation Castle in 2008.
They start lobbying rockets all over southern Israel.
They didn't have the best capabilities back then.
Um Israel goes into Gaza, clears house a little bit, goes back out.
Forward to 2012, this was during my service.
We were supposed to go in.
Um same thing happens, they start shooting rockets.
No real provocation for it.
I don't know, maybe actually no, there was a s a slight provocation, which Israel just took out uh some like terrorist leader inside the Gaza Strip.
Anyways, they started lobbying rockets again.
There was no ground offensive, but there was a large uh air offensive they did.
Forward two more years, 2014, uh I don't remember what the operation is called anymore.
A lot of the guys that were officers from from my time were were there.
We had actually one officer that was killed, uh, got hit with an RPG.
Sorry to hear that.
Yeah.
Were you serving in 2014?
No, I was already out.
I was at that point I was in New York City or Michigan.
I was like r ready to buy my plane ticket to go back, but they they don't they don't typically call you back to reserve after about um a year, year and a half of being out.
Um that operation, same thing, lots of uh uh Air Force doing work and then infantry offensive.
Um that was somewhat of a debacle on the IDF side.
Uh they were using uh M M one thirteen uh personnel carriers which are not designed to take impact from they're barely designed to take impact from like rifle rounds.
Uh very old.
You've probably seen them like in Vietnam era movies, like armored personnel carriers.
Um lots of soldiers get killed because of that.
Uh like a whole like probably 15 or 20 soldiers that got killed in one or two of those.
Uh lots of soldiers got injured.
But once again, you know, the it's like this like we're like, oh, we fire, we fight, and then there's a ceasefire and then we stop, and we go out, and then they just rebuild their forces again.
Right.
And repeat.
Now one of the issues during that time is they st they also started a lot of the foreign that they get, they instead of building schools and and hospitals, what do they do?
They build tunnels that lead into Israel to commit terrorist attacks.
Uh so that was a big issue during that last operation.
Um Israel kind of figured out how to deal with that.
They basically created this wall that goes four meters into the ground and has sensors so they know where all the tunnels are.
Also due to lots of intel work, um and apparently they use some weird algorithm to help figure out where the tunnels are.
Uh for this past operation, they're they're able to destroy uh a huge amount of those tunnels.
And basically they're just designed to like send terrorists into Israel.
Right.
Right.
Uh and they were leading in like into some of the the towns there right outside the Gaza border.
Uh fast forward to the last operation, which was um a couple weeks ago.
Same thing.
This was just completely unprovoked.
Uh basically on the Temple Mount a big uh golden uh thing in Jerusalem.
Uh it's the El Akta Mosque.
Um during Ramadan, they tend to get a little bit r radicalized and start causing problems.
Okay.
So those They're not eating.
Yeah, I mean, you know, starving yourself all day was not gonna make you a happy person.
Um But there's always during Ramadan, we're always in high alert because there's always extra terrorist attacks, extra people starting to do stuff.
Um but basically what happened, uh I I believe they were they were just starting to to cause a lot of trouble in that area.
So the the our border police came in and started clearing house.
And by clearing house you mean just like arresting people or resting people, clearing the Moscow.
Not really regularly.
I mean, I'm sure so the you know, if if they throw them all tough cocktails of the police, they'll get shot.
Right, of course.
You know, they pick up a big brick and like they'll get shot.
It's just how it is.
I mean that's that's anywhere in the world, like um.
So Hamas takes it upon itself to defend the honor of Muhammad, whatever.
And there's an election about ready to happen in in Palestine, right?
So uh isn't aren't there isn't there a political incentive internally for Hamas to take like a radical position against Israel?
I think it's a good idea.
Probably, yeah.
There's there's always they're supposed to have an election there since like 2004 or something that's pushback.
There's always a political incentive to all those things.
Right.
Um so anyhow, Hamas, which is in the Gaza, other side, not even connected.
The Gaza Strip is not connected to the West Bank.
Right to Jerusalem.
It's it's a good strip of land between them.
Um so they decided to start lobbying rockets into Israel.
Indiscriminately.
I saw the Iron Dome.
Yeah.
I saw the videos.
Um so those rockets, you know, they're not guided.
They just choose uh degree and shoot.
And they're trying to hit basically civilians.
Uh they actually killed a lot of Israeli Arabs with those rockets, probably five or a lot of their own.
They killed a lot of their own because they had misfires and landed in Gaza.
They don't care.
Like, you know, during my service, I saw it time and time again, Hamas terrorists using children as human shields on the border, like regularly.
So like they'll they'll have a rifle and they'll just be holding the kid.
Uh not not so much as to uh they would they would have like if they do some type of protest or something, they would have all the kids stand in front of them and they'll be in the back with rifles and they might shoot at you, but you know, it's hard for you to shoot back.
Right.
Um and that's what the world doesn't understand.
They want those casualties.
Right, for political reasons.
For political reasons, because the world like like bless Europe, but they're in in Lala Land.
Um, you know, it makes it look like Israel is killing all these civilians.
It's not that Israel is killing the civilians, they're killing their own civilians by using them as human shields.
Like what are we supposed to do?
Well, they even threaten to kill people if they leave their homes.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's it's to make it look like oh Israel is killing all these civilians.
We're we're yeah.
But really, it's it's uh them wanting that to happen for the world to have pity on them or whatever, whatever is they're trying to achieve.
Um so that was the last conflict.
Uh I was um I was very unhappy with the government's choice not to just go in and and just clear the place out completely.
Gaza or all Palestine.
Gaza.
Yeah.
The West the West Bank does there's not really that much problems.
Right, unless they're um but if they're if they're funding Hamas, you know what I mean?
If there's if if there's other pal if the if if the West Bank is funding Hamas.
So I don't think they're funding Hamas.
Hamas is most of the funding that Hamas gets is from Iran and Qatar.
Right.
And Iran's been notorious for funding terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They're meddling with everyone.
They're meddling with happen.
Ask uh Grandpa Joe.
Grandpa.
Um that's that's where most of their funding comes from.
It's Qatar, it's uh Iran, and it's through all kinds of shell companies and things like that.
That's that's how most terrorism is funded in the world.
Um but that's that's kind of where we're at now.
Now what I believe now look, I'm no like geopolitical expert and so on, but it there's like this even meme that came out that was like BB, uh Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yeah, um, you know, after every one of these operations, like basically saying the same exact thing.
Oh, we we diminish their ability to launch rockets, and every time it's worse rockets, they reach further into Israel and so on and so forth.
Really what needs to be done is a full-scale operation to just clear that place.
The problem is these politicians are a little too afraid of body bags and you know dead Israeli soldiers coming home.
So like, look, is that or we're in the same cycle every year and the country is paralyzed and people can't go to school and people get to war and in any other country if they're getting shelled, they're just gonna occupy.
Like if if Texas was getting shelled by Mexico, we would annex Mexico in a heartbeat.
Yeah.
Maybe not this administration, but any other administration would.
Yeah.
And it's and it's always been this this double standard against Israel.
And I think and then it just goes back to anti-Semitism.
Uh you know, people will say, Oh, it's anti-Israel, it's not anti-Semitism.
You know how much anti-Semitism there's been since that operation in New York, people getting attacked, uh in Los Angeles.
Well, and and if you're if if you're an American citizen and you're anti-Israel, you may you might not necessarily be anti-Semitic.
But if you're in Hama Hamas is by definition, by even explicit self-definition, Hamas is anti-Semitic.
I mean, their leaders have said they want to round up all the Jews and exterminate them.
Like there's no doubt about about the fact that the hatred happening from the Gaza Strip on Israel is not only political, it's also like cultural, racial hatred.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, more to that, um what was crazy in this in this last um operation that not only was you know the stuff going on in Gaza, there was actually a lot of internal stuff going on in Israel.
Right, with Israeli Arabs.
There was Israeli Arabs attacking Jews on the street.
So we have a few, quite a few cities that are mixed.
Right.
You know, uh I think is one, right?
Not Tel Eva, Yafo.
Yeah, which is kind of the southern part of Tel Aviv.
There's another city called Lod, there's Haifa.
Uh but they're mixed cities, and there was like synagogues getting firebombed, there was people getting lynched, and of course there's stuff on the other side, Israelis or Jews attacking Arabs as well, but it was much, much less.
I mean, they had to bring in the whole border guard to like uh basically have martial law there.
Right.
Um which was pretty crazy because to me, if you're an Israeli Arab, you're the freest Arab you can be.
Right.
Because you go to any other countries, you you don't really have democracy.
You mean it's like gay, they're gonna throw you off a roof.
Right.
Are you illegally be gay in Israel?
I don't know anything about Israel.
Huh?
Can you legally be gay in Israel?
Yeah, you can get married.
Yeah, no shit, I don't know that.
It's completely like So all the gay Arabs love Israel.
I'm sure they do.
But uh I'm telling you, you know, like women have like full like they have all the same rights that the Jews have.
You know, it's to me it's crazy when people say Israel is an apartheid say like you're out of your fucking mind.
Like it is like well, it's the only Middle Eastern country that has multiracial um communities, I think.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a very difficult time.
Not only that, not only that, Arabs get actually extra help.
Because of a perceived disadvantage?
Because they're a minority.
Yeah, right.
So for university study, for jobs, things like that, they get extra help in terms of um like integrating into society, so to speak.
And a lot of them don't pay taxes, and you know, you go to the a lot of these Arab villages, they're driving much nicer cars than your average Jewish Israeli.
Uh they have much bigger homes than your average Jewish Israeli.
So what are your thoughts on um Bibi as a as a leader in uh I heard today that uh his opponent his political opponents were able to form a government?
I'm very happy with that.
Because Isra i Bibi would be a great foreign minister.
Uh-huh.
He's a terrible prime minister.
Why do you think so?
Um He's a very eloquent speaker.
He's an absolute pro-politian.
Like, I don't think there's any better politicians I've ever seen than Bibi, like anywhere.
Um but a lot of his policies are not good for Israel internally.
Uh and it's causing a lot of issues uh internally in society, like he was trying to pass some law.
Um it was, but basically it would make non-Jews like it it would make it seem like non-Jews are second class citizens.
I see.
Uh So it's very popular with you know the ultra-right folks, but well, do you think every time Hamas bombs Israel that the Israeli people get a little bit more radal radicalized against Arabs?
No, no, because if you talk to most Israelis, they're very like just live and let live.
You know, like that they they don't care.
They they just want to have a nice home, good education, good food, safety, that's it.
Like like most people.
Um then the other issue politically is that he always aligns with the ultra-orthodox parties.
And they are probably the biggest scourge on Israeli society.
Why is that?
They don't work, they don't serve in the army.
Um they're just conscientious objectors, like it's a they're morally opposed to serving in the military.
Not even that, it's because the military is mixed, they don't want to be serving with women.
I see.
Um, but the main thing is they don't work, they don't pay taxes, and they get subsidized by the government.
And you know, their population grows exponentially because they have 10, 12 kids, right, you know.
Um and they have quite a bit of control in Israeli society too.
Like, for example, to get a kosher certificate, you need to go through some orthodox organization that's basically extorting you for money to get a stab that you serve kosher food.
Wow, I see you know, um marriage.
If if you're not uh if your spouse is not Jewish, you can't get married initially legally in Israel.
You you would have to go get married outside of Israel, bring your marriage certificate, then it would get recognized.
I see.
Um burial as well, like you have to go through these guys if you want to marry your relatives.
Um so a lot of different things that they have control on in Israeli society, but they don't really contribute to Israeli society.
They most of them don't work, they don't serve, they don't pay taxes.
So there's you know, basically the middle class of Israel, the people that do work, people that work in tech, people that own businesses, basically pay for everybody else.
I see.
Which is which is a big issue.
Um so what I like that now that the new government is forming, um Bennett, who's gonna serve as the I guess the first prime minister, Neftali Bennett, first of all, he was uh very experienced commander uh and the top tier one special force, actually the same one as Bibi, uh, but at a much later date.
Um and I see him as I think the better leader from what I've seen from him over over the last decade almost that has been in office.
Um and then two, he's what we call um religious Zionist.
So they're a lot more chilled out on the religion side of it.
They all serve in the army.
In fact, most of uh it's starting to be more and more that the the top-tier units, the top tier commanders are all from that kind of part of Jewish society in Israel.
They're they're what we call the religious nationalists or whatever.
Um so they're much more pro-Israel, but at the same time, he's partnering with kind of what what they would call the left, but it's not like the left when you think about it here in the US.
Uh, which is I think is gonna be a much better balance than BB's far right and crazy orthodox folks.
I see.
Um so I think I think it's gonna be much better for unity in the country.
Um, you know, like you have an election as we have like 30 parties you're voting for it's insane.
Right.
So why do you think it is that the United States takes such an interest in Israel and should we give a shit?
Uh so a couple things.
Uh one, um Israel is very much aligned with America and many philosophical and just Judeo-Christian kind of background.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And it's the Only country like that in the entire region.
So if you think you got like big countries like Turkey, that's all Muslim.
You got Egypt, that's all Muslim, basically all of northern Africa.
So you have Europe.
So if we ever need to do a major operation in the Middle East, it's it's nice to have a foothold in it's also I think for intelligence sharing, that's a big probably a big reason to it.
Um, on the tech development side, on the business side, there's a lot of stuff that's going in between the two countries.
Um and you know, of course, the the Israeli Jewish lobby in the US is is very strong, making sure it's supporting Israel, uh, which which I think is is good for the most part.
Like, you know, you have one country.
I I probably I would say Israel is probably the one country that's like the true ally of the US, you know, through thick and thin.
Like I don't I don't think like any other country in the world that's gonna be like yeah, we're there.
Well, and I think that I think that people are so pissed off about what happened with Bush and Iraq with you know the intelligence that was either a lie or just bad intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, right?
Yeah.
I think that the US is so pissed off about the fact that we got involved for bad reasons that we've forgotten our people have forgotten how these terrorists actually want to fly more planes into buildings.
Yeah, you know, and people forget that we get we get frustrated, we're like, why are we involved with Israel?
It's Amer you know, it's America first.
Why do we give a shit about what's going on in the Middle East?
We're in all these stupid wars.
It's like, yeah, I understand what you're saying, but at the same token, it's like everybody else other than Israel in the region is like there's there's active in cell groups that just like that that are uh uh uh active groups that just want to fuck up Americans.
Yeah, you know, and I I I I it's unfortunate that Iraq played out the way it did, and that there was so much distrust that was created in America with our own government about foreign operations like that, because there actually is a real threat over there.
Yeah, it's a real threat, and also i if you think about like on a geopolitical side, like if the US is not there, then it's gonna be China and Iran.
Yeah.
You know, and and those are people that you don't want to be there, and you definitely don't want them close to Europe.
Right.
And starting to take over.
Because if you think about the next probably big conflict that's gonna happen, and I I'm gonna say it's probably gonna be more on the cyber side, and it's already happening on that.
But if there is a war, it's probably gonna be either a direct war or some type of proxy war between China.
I mean, we've already been fighting proxy wars with Iran for the last 20 years.
Right.
You know, Iran has been operating uh in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning.
I have a friend who was uh US Army guy was blinded by uh uh Iranians fucking around there with with lasers trying to blind snipers and things like that.
Um both of his eyes.
Uh just one of his eyes.
Thankfully his non-shooting eye.
So they got the wrong eye.
Yeah, they got the wrong eye.
He was actually looking through a scope and it sapped his eye.
Um I didn't realize that would that they could even do that.
Makes sense.
Yeah, because it's high power the lens probably magnetized.
Um you you have that you also have um uh a lot of defense and tech development that goes on either in c cooperation or in some type of exchange between the US and Israel, both on the military side, but also on the civilian side.
Um so that explains a little bit why the um uh radical Islamists are so antagonistic toward Israel because they see it as like sort of a hub of the great enemy.
Well, you know, they call the US the big Satan and Israel the little Satan.
I didn't realize that's that's like a thing.
Um but we're we're basically uh uh at you know it's it's a it's a very complicated geo geopolitical thing because you have you know, on the one side, you know, China, Iran and Russia kinda as that's the axis now, right?
That's that's trying to take over the world.
Uh but you also have that whole Middle Eastern society outside Of Israel, that's really incompatible with the Western world.
In every way you can think of it.
And the way they approach life and the way they approach death and the way they approach women's rights and the way they approach everything, basically.
Right.
Well, I mean, fundamentally, the mentality is that the secular government has to be religious, right?
It's Sharia law.
And that's just totally antithetical to Western government.
Exactly.
I mean, we we believe in a very separate government.
Yeah.
So and that's what a lot of people don't understand.
Like they think, oh, they're just other people in other parts of the world.
No, they're other people.
They're completely non-compatible with the way you live and want to live and the things you believe in.
Right.
Which is okay.
They, you know, they're entitled to their opinions.
We just don't want that coming to us.
Right.
You know.
So where does Iran get its money?
Is Iran funded by China?
Uh oil.
They sell they have a lot of oil, oil money.
Uh we're still gonna be a little bit screwed when that runs out.
I'm sure China is supported them in some way or shape or form or do some type of uh business exchange.
Um but I would say probably oil is is probably their biggest fund or they don't really have any other natural resources in that part of the world.
Interesting.
It's interesting how fucked up Iran got um just in the second half of the 20th century.
I mean there was this um graphic novel that I had to read in college called Persepolis, and it's about this girl that was growing up in Iran during the Iranian revolution.
Yeah, it's like they were they were very Western in their culture in the early 70s.
I think that was the revolution in 79 or something like that.
Yeah, and after that it just totally changed.
I can't believe that we installed the Shah over there and let that happen.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, uh also Lebanon, same thing.
Lebanon was called the Paris of the Middle East up until they changed their mind on who they wanted to lead them.
Yeah.
My dad was actually there when that was going on.
He was in college.
He uh was in a jazz band.
Yeah, his college jazz band did a Middle East tour.
Wow, okay.
It was a college program.
Okay.
And uh he played Trombone and he was in Lebanon, like right when the fighting broke out.
Yeah.
Just playing the Trombone.
He said he couldn't believe it.
He said a Coca-Cola cost ten times more than a beer when he was there.
Really?
Yeah, I don't know why, but for some reason the beer was cheap.
So it's it's um very, very mixed pot of things that that involve this.
But you know, and you can say, you know, Israel is occupied, this, that, but look, in the end, it is the only free country.
Right.
In that entire part of the world.
The only free country.
Like you can say whatever you want.
And there's things I don't agree with in Israel, you know, like how they were handling COVID.
You can say they were the first out of COVID, whatever, at what cost.
Right.
You know, they're like tapping people's phones and sending them text messages that they need to go into quarantine.
That's not good.
Right.
You know, and unfortunately, uh, Israelis have the mentality of I need daddy government telling me what to do and running.
Which is sort of bizarre given what happened last time big government got out of goal for the Jews.
Yeah.
Jesus Christ, you'd think that they'd be like fucking liberty.
The difference is that the government is is Jewish, right?
It's it's not it's not a completely different group ruling over you, but um, yeah, that's one of the reasons why I left Israel too, because uh I don't like big government, I don't like having to have a license for everything.
I don't like Can you carry a weapon in in Israel?
You can.
Um so it used to be a little bit harder.
They actually changed a lot when we had a I think 2016, we had a big string of of terrorist attacks of stabbings and shootings.
Uh and basically before you you had to have basically a valid reason to acquire a gun, like you live in the West Bank, you live by the Gaza Strip, you're a lawyer.
Jewelry business, you know.
Exactly.
Yeah, they're valuable.
Um so you have to you have to add a justifiable reason.
Um when that started happening, the the uh internal minister or whatever the whoever handles it changed it to where if you served um in the infantry as a combat soldier or the special forces soldier, you could also get that license.
Uh and they made it a little bit easier to get that license.
You see that constitutional carry passed.
Oh, it passed?
Yeah, the government hasn't signed it yet, but he said he was going to on Twitter.
Yeah.
So that's will that fuck with your business since you teach um classes?
Uh license to carry is not really a big part of my business, like very like one percent or something like that.
Yeah.
Uh so it's it's not really gonna affect me.
Yeah.
Um I train more people that actually want to learn how to shoot because as you know, the license to carry is kind of bullshit uh as is.
Right.
So I don't I don't like care either way.
I think it's probably good that people are need to know the laws in one shape or form, but I think it's also kind of bullshit course to begin with.
So it's like you know, you're making me go through this bullshit, having me pay money, waste my time to get this license.
That's really my my right in this country.
Uh so it's good, it's bad, whatever.
It's still gonna be available to get your license to carry because there's certain states that you do need a license for, and if you don't have a license, you won't be able to carry there.
So people that travel, people that want to be able to carry in like 43 different states, uh, will probably want to get their license either way.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So I'm excited about it.
It'll be interesting to see what happens, but there's a lot of things.
I don't think anything's gonna happen.
Yeah, that you know, when when uh everyone was freaking out when open carry passed.
Yeah, it was right when I opened my business.
And I was like, why are you guys like what's the difference?
Um nobody really opened carries anyway.
You see like the occasional old white dude at Cabela's open carry.
That's it.
Like it's such a stupid flex.
Yeah, it's just it's just dumb.
I would never open carry at once.
It's just it's just I don't want to be that guy.
It's just a dumb thing to do, right?
I don't even like going to the movie theater by myself because people look at me like I'm a mass shooter, like white dude in his 30s at the movies.
Yeah.
There you go.
Um, I mean it's silly.
It's silly.
People are freaking out about it, people are gonna freak about this.
You know, when campus carry passed, that was part of the whole open carry thing, people were like, oh, there's gonna be mass shootings.
I didn't realize in Texas there was campus carry.
So basically, if you're a student, you can carry on any campus state campus, state university.
You can carry on any campus regardless if you're so if you have a license, yeah.
Right, right.
Makes sense.
Now private universities, they can stipulate, because it's basically a private business, right?
That you're not, but if it's a state university, they can't prevent look.
I know for a fact that a lot of people carry it regardless because what are the penalties?
If you get busted carrying a gun and you don't have a license, what what happens?
So if you don't have a license, I believe it's a class A misdemeanor.
So like a serious misdemeanor.
Do you lose the right to purchase a gun ever again?
I don't know.
I don't know about that.
But um, depending on the penalty, it's almost worth it.
I think well uh I well I can tell you for sure if you're carrying with a license in a place you're not supposed to carry, like a place that like a business tells you it's a class C Mr. Like a traffic t.
So it's not serious.
Right.
Um But if you're carrying and you don't have a license, you get caught.
I don't know what it is.
But you probably think you're already you're already committing another crime, though, right?
Like I would imagine that most people who get caught illegally carrying a firearm get caught because they're in the middle of doing another crime.
Yeah, yeah.
So at that point, it doesn't like look that's one of the things that kind of drives me crazy in the US with some of the laws.
There's very serious penalties, but at the same time, the law is completely unenforceable.
Right.
In the sense that like has anyone ever just like has a cop ever come up to you and been like, hey, I need to see your license to carry?
No, they can't do that.
They have to have probable cause to even stop you.
Right.
Even if they see you with a gun, they can't ask for it, right?
No, I mean they can ask for it if if they see that there is a probable cause to ask for it, but uh they they don't have to ask for it.
Um but the thing is like the only place where it is illegal to carry and it's really enforced is like a federal building where they have metal detectors.
Right, or airports, but everywhere else, like we have a sign.
Like how what what is that gonna stop?
Right.
You know, when they have signs at schools.
No no firearms allowed.
Like, has that stopped any like don't they have to have like the right signage too?
I've heard I don't know if I just a white guy rumor.
It doesn't, yeah, they have to have the right signage and all this, but it it doesn't matter.
Like, once again, the guy that wants to commit a crime is not gonna care.
Right.
Just like you know.
Yeah, shootings have already been illegal are have already been made illegal.
Yeah, murder is illegal.
Silly people kill people, right?
Right.
Uh you know, in Israel, we have very stringent gun laws.
All the criminals have guns.
Of course.
Somehow they acquire their guns.
I bet it wasn't.
Well, like in Mexico, I and I don't know if this is true.
I've heard that you can only get a gun at like in one place to go.
Yeah, yeah, but everybody just goes there and gets their fucking gun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or they bring it over the border.
So how many firearms do you own?
Um I don't know.
No, I'm just kidding.
I do know I'm not I'm not gonna say that.
Okay, I didn't uh ask a personal.
A bit.
A bit.
I mean, that's what I do for a living, you know.
Right.
Anyway, uh there's not really any firearms that I own.
They're just like, oh, I just wanted this guy.
Like everything I use for work or some type of partnership I have with the company or something like that.
Like, I have a fire.
Yeah, exactly.
Synagogue.
Um don't tell that that asshole that they're signing to the ATF though.
What's the name?
Chipman or whatever.
Oh, that fucking dude.
That was talking about how he he was supportive of a ban on AR-15s.
Yeah, he didn't even know what I didn't know how to define an assault rifle.
It's pretty funny.
Well, and like responsible for like one percent of homicides in the fucking United States.
You know, you know when he's lying, you know when someone is lying and you're just like, you're fucking lying to me.
Yes.
And he they're like, no, I'm not lying.
You're like, I know you're fucking lying to me.
What are you trying to do here?
And that's like that guy talking.
It's just like the table like goes up to his chin and he's sitting there.
Yeah.
Yeah, basically, basically.
Um, you know even with all our silly laws that we have here, and even in the most restricted states, it's still a lot less restricted than most countries.
Right.
Which is California and California's got the strictest gun laws that I've ever seen.
I mean, I lived in Illinois, Tennessee, California, and Texas now.
And um Illinois, you had to have a void car, but there were a lot of people that had guns in Illinois because the vast majority of Illinois is very rural, and there's a lot of hunting in Illinois.
Yeah.
But in California, if you live on anywhere near the coast, it's like nobody has a fucking gun.
I remember I was at my office.
I owned an office or I rented an office in uh Orange County, and I would work late, sometimes all night uh on my business, because you know, starting a small business.
And I had my handgun with me, and I was cleaning it, like at my desk, and the cleaning crew came through because they would come through at like 10 30 p.m. or 11 p.m. between all the offices in the building.
And the cleaning guy was so scared that I was like, I had a gun.
He was like, Oh, I was like, dude, it's my office, and I've pleaded my fucking gun.
It's a dirty.
It's like you're cleaning, I'm cleaning, we're all cleaning.
Yeah, yeah.
No, you know, it's it it's funny to me, but I think a lot of people that are anti-gun, their perception of what guns are and what you know, everything that's around for movies.
And the kind of person who would own them.
Yeah, it's from the movies.
Yeah.
You know, like I was training actually a family this morning, and you know, I was like explaining things, and like uh the the wife was um you know, I was talking talking about silencers, just explaining different things or she's like, Well, you know, I thought silencers just make it like you know, like in the movies, you know, it's like you you can't hear it.
Yeah, and I'm like breaking the sound barrier.
Yeah, I'm like, it doesn't work though.
You have to have subsonic ammo, and like even with subsonic, you're still gonna hear it and all stuff.
You know, and we're talking about what was it?
I mean, just like basic function of the gun, like people just don't have any c or like we're talking about how to rack the slide and like some of like you know, how in the movies, you know, they always like go, you know, they go back and forth.
Yeah, and you're like, you don't do that, you're gonna cause yourself a malfunction.
Is there any gun that requires you to go back and forth?
No.
Like, has there ever been?
Uh I mean a bolt action.
Right, a bolt action.
That makes sense.
A semi, no, there's a spring.
That's right.
It's gonna bring it forward.
I wonder why is it because the I wonder if it's because the the fake guns they used in the movies didn't have a spring, and so the actors had to no, they had springs because they use blank guns.
Something has to cycle the action.
Right.
Uh so they have springs, but it's it's just but anyways, but it's like that's that's where like people's conceptions of guns are in this country.
So if they're anti-gun, you know, anything, like they see it in the movies, it must be true.
Right.
Right?
They don't have any other like conception of it.
So that's that's also a big problem in this country.
Like a lot of people we we have a saying in Israel is like you live in the movie.
Right.
Like when you have your conception of everything is like in the movies, Basically.
So um have you gotten to the point where if if you don't have your gun, you feel naked?
Oh yeah.
Like I was just in Brazil.
Yeah.
And like yeah, m I was with the police the entire time.
So like I was as safe as you can be able to do that.
And your whole body's a weapon.
Yeah, you know, but you got three dudes with an AK coming at you to rob you.
There's not much you can do.
But I I was with the police entire time, you know.
And like we drive somewhere for lunch or whatever, and I would get out of the car and I'd be like, fuck, where's my guy?
Like, oh I'm in Brazil.
Never mind, I don't have my gun with me.
So can you are there any countries that recognize ARK that allow allow Americans to carry a firearm?
No.
It's impossible.
That's crazy.
Essentially, if you're going to another country and you can carry, you have some type of dip diplomatic visa, or you are you have a license that was issued to you as a diplomat for that country.
So for example, I have a friend who runs a security company in Israel and occasion he's guarded like Greg Abbott and uh other governors and so they'll have a police officer that comes to them as their bodyguard.
And they get basically a special license from the Israeli State Department to be able to carry their gun in Israel.
Right.
And the person goes somewhere.
Yeah, or like vice versa as as like um like an air marshal, like an Israeli air marshal has a diplomatic passport.
So he can carry whatever the fuck he wants.
Yeah.
Uh but he can't like some places, and the same thing for like US air marshals.
Like some countries they can take their guns with them, some countries they have to leave their gun at the airport.
It's it's different every place.
You know, it's funny, you never really see any um political leaders carrying a firearm.
Like if I was president of the United States, even with with um Secret Service, I would want to carry.
You know, from from the professional side, you don't want your head your the person you're protecting carrying because it's more of a liability than not even that, they're not gonna know the protocols and they're just gonna get in the way when you're trying to defend them.
Right.
Like their job is not to defend themselves.
That's why they have all that security.
Well, presidents get shot, man.
Hasn't happened in a minute, but if only JFK was carrying, he would have been able to counter snipe.
Yeah, no.
Do you think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on uh JFK itself?
I don't know.
That like it's it's such conspiracy theory land.
Like I know, but as a professional, I don't know.
I mean you were a sniper.
Um I mean I haven't like looked at the details of it in a while, but how far was it that he shot him?
Like I don't even know.
I don't even know.
It's probably like 300 yards or something.
I don't know.
Yeah, and he shot a couple times and think he missed the first time.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
Uh I gotta look into it, but look, I've shot with iron size to 500 yards.
Yeah.
It's doable.
Yeah.
If you have the right training.
It's funny.
Um I went uh shooting on my I have some uh family friends that have some a lot of a lot of acreage north of Boston.
Okay.
I took my AR and my clock and went up there and they just set up like a steel target.
Must have been a hundred yards.
Um maybe a little bit more than a hundred yards.
Uh just kind of a standard steel plate that had like a spray painted red dot on it.
And um uh it was funny because I was shooting it with my AR, no problem, and having had having taken lessons from you, I was hitting it more often with my clock.
Oh really?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, is your rifle zeroed?
Yeah, it is, it is.
I've just I just haven't sh I've only shot my rifle like once or twice in my life, and and I've shot the glock a million times and I've done the dry firing, you know, and work on my breathing and everything like that.
And it was just funny that since I even though obviously a rifle is a much more uh efficient weapon for long range, I'd put so much more practice into my handgun that I was better at shooting it, even though the rifle was easy.
There you go.
Yeah, but it was awesome.
They couldn't believe it.
The guys that I was with are like, man, that's amazing.
I know that you're a big Krav Maga guy, and um I'm a big Joe Rogan fan.
Sure.
And he's always talking about Brazilian jujitsu.
Sure.
Have you what's the difference between Brazilian jiu-jitsu and krav magat?
Advantages, disadvantages.
Do you know anything about Brazilian jujitsu?
Yeah.
What what what's the case?
So I probably first of all, I probably train Brazilian jujutsu now more than I train Krav Maga.
Okay.
One, I don't have anyone to do it.
When you train personally or when you teach.
When I when I train personally.
Okay.
Uh I don't really have anyone to to train with in Krav Maga right now.
Uh-huh.
Uh, and then two um.
It's just I I really enjoy it.
Uh so Brazilian Jutsu is great.
Uh The thing with with, and I always try to explain this people that like people try to make Krav Maga into like this mystical uh fairy tale unicorn martial art.
It's not really all it is it's stand up that's basically Muay Thai boxing kickboxing and ground stuff that's basically Brazilian jiu-jitsu maybe some judo um mixed in together and then apply to self-defense situations.
That's it.
It's basically I have a headlock.
It's basically MMA for self-defense.
Got it.
That's what it is.
You know and people try to make like Krav Maga is this like mystical art that's that's super unique and you're gonna be Superman if you learn it.
Right.
Oh it is just MMA.
In fact the founder of Krav Maga was you can say one of the OG MMA fighters.
He so his dad was a police officer in Bratislava.
He trained in boxing in Japanese jiu jitsu and judo and wrestling.
Just to be a better cop.
Yeah but he also trained his son the founder of Krav Maga in those now this was in the 30s and 40s when the Nazis started taking over he started using his martial arts skill to defend his community.
So Nazis would come in and he just beat the shit out of them.
Basically yeah him and his gym buddies man Quentin Tarantino needs to make a movie out of that.
Yeah yeah that'd be good.
So he came to uh what at the time was under British mandate Palestine he started training the the Agana there I believe which was the the precursor to the IDF.
And then he became the IDF's chief fitness and Krav Maga instructor.
At that time, there might have been a different name for everybody.
It was Kapap, which was fighting face-to-face if you translate it.
And then it became Krav Maga, which just means contact combat.
Is Krav Maga Hebrew?
Yeah, it's a Hebrew word.
It just means contact combat.
It doesn't mean self-defense.
Right.
Is that what the IDF teaches?
Yeah.
Okay.
And then in the 60s, it became available to civilians.
And it was adapted to civilians.
Like people, I get very little people, oh, teach me military Krav Maga.
I'm like, it is completely irrelevant to your day-to-day existence.
How to fight somebody off grabbing your purse.
Like they don't teach that.
Yeah.
But it's like, you know, what soldiers learn is, first of all, very little on hand-to-hand.
I've heard that about the U.S. military, too.
Yeah.
But you don't, like as a soldier, lot of hand to hand unless your unit works like undercover or something like you don't need to know a lot of hand to hand.
There's always a firearm involved yeah there's always a firearm there's always three or four other guys you don't work alone you're not John Rambo.
Right.
You know so like IDF Krav Maga is your rifle to hit him in the face or block a knife with your rifle create distance and then hopefully you shoot him or one of your buddies at that point will shoot him.
That's it.
So it's mostly about creating distance yeah creating distance and getting to your rifle.
That's all is like Krav Maga and the IDF.
Now there's certain specialized units that they work undercover and they do a lot more in-depth fighting and and things like that but Israeli military krav magai is very very very basic fighting skills.
Because you don't need and a lot of it is also teaching soldiers discipline teaching them aggression you know like when we do Krav Maga in the IDF you get woken up in the middle of the night while you're sleeping and they tell you you have three minutes to be ready in the Krav Maga room and then they force you to do lots of push-ups lots of sprints and then maybe do some sparring and then maybe you maybe you learn some technique.
I see that's it.
There's there's not really like what you would see at a local Krav Maga gym here.
It's very very different.
Now what what I don't like today in the Krav Maga world that has become very commercialized become fitness magah and then that to that, like a lot of people that teach Krav Maga don't take the time to learn other things.
So they think what they're teaching is the hot shit.
Right.
I've noticed the martial arts generally, it gets very siloed and almost culty.
Like I'm a karate guy, I'm a Taekwondo guy.
I'm a Brazilian Juicy guy.
Yeah.
So one thing I was I've been lucky with is that I've I've been doing martial arts all my life, so I I've I've seen different things.
Uh and I've also worked with various Krav Maga organizations and various teachers.
And basically that taught me a lot of the things that I don't want to be doing.
And then kind of doing what I do now with tactical fitness, which is mixing in firearms and krav maga, there's a lot of stuff that just does not work using classical krav maga if you are involving a firearm.
And there's a there's some holes in what would be called classical kravmaga that are very well filled in with wrestling and jujitsu.
Which one do you think is more practical in a bar fight situation?
I would say this.
If you had a very limited time to learn, yeah, you're better off learning striking and what I would say classical Krav Maga.
Okay.
Because jujitsu, although it is extremely effective, it takes a very, very long time for it to be effective.
You suck at it for a long time.
Yeah, I mean, like you're you go to a gym, and you're a white belt in jiu-jitsu, you just started, you are going to get your ass kicked.
Right.
For three to six months before you have any chance against b until the next white belt comes in.
So is that what you experienced where you just get in the house?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
No, thankfully I had a little bit of my fighting experience, so I knew a few things.
So I was I was still getting tapped out left and right, but it's probably not as bad as some of the folks coming in.
Now the other hole in jujitsu is there's no striking.
So if you get hit in the face, you you have no idea how to deal with that.
So Krav Maga might have an advantage in terms of learning how to take a punch.
Yeah.
You spar, you you fight, you punch.
It's a striking base.
I didn't realize that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was there wasn't striking.
It was zero strikes, it's all grappling.
I see.
It's all gra.
So it's and frankly, most fights probably kind of are.
I mean, you see if you see like funny YouTube videos of people getting like drunk people getting in fights, like there might be one or two punches thrown, but usually it's like a r it turns into wrestling pretty quick.
Somebody's pulling somebody's shirt over their head or something.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Now look, the beauty of grappling sports is they're absolute.
So there's no luck that's involved there.
Right.
So like if if I am fighting a certain person and he has no grappling experience, he's gonna have zero clue as to what I'm doing to him.
Right.
And more than likely he's gonna do the wrong things that will make it easier for me to control him or take him down or submit him.
Right.
And that's what people that come into jujitsu for the first time experience.
Like you know, my my instructor here in Austin, uh, Gabe Martins at IGJ uh ATX, shout out to Gabe.
Um he's a he's like five foot five, and I've seen him just absolutely manhandle dudes like they're six foot four football players.
They just could not do anything to him.
Okay.
Now with striking, you could be a really good striker, but there's always the puncher's chance.
Right.
Where someone sideswipes you, they hits you with a punch, you get knocked out.
So in in that regard, grappling arts, jujitsu wrestling, uh is is very absolute, but it also takes quite a bit of time to get proficient, where I would say you would be able to defend yourself.
And I would say it's a year to three years where I would say after training jujitsu like three times a week, if you don't have any other experience, you would probably become pretty proficient at it.
What about against a layman, right?
Like how long do you think it it takes to become proficient enough in jujitsu that you could that you could defend yourself against somebody who doesn't know what the hell they're doing because the vast majority of people who get in fist fights don't worry about it?
Maybe six months, yeah.
But once again, if if you are not at a high level and you're not used to people trying to punch at you, right?
Right.
It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be very hard for you to deal with that.
So what what is the art to to taking a punch in the face?
Because like me as somebody who has no hand to hand combat experience, like I see movies, right?
And I think, man, if you get punched in the face, you get punched in the fucking face.
But like what is why is it that Tyson can get hit in the face eight million times and it's not a big deal, and then one another person get hit in the face one time by a weak person and just be leveled.
Um so there's there's certain aspects to it.
Um one, it depends how much you're ready for that punch.
Right.
So if you're just caught like completely loose, uh there's a good chance uh you you you're gonna get your brain rocked.
Right.
Um two, it's also experienced learning to fight through that.
So like I said, if the first time you're getting punched in the face in the street, it's gonna be hard for you to deal with that.
Versus you've done it a thousand times in the gym, it's no big deal.
Now, is it good to be punched in the face?
No, you're gonna get brain damage either way.
Right.
But uh yeah, it I think it's partially genetic.
It's has to do with your bone structure, has to do with your facial structure, it has to do with your neck muscles.
You got strong neck muscles, it's hard for your head to get twisted around, to get twisted back.
Do you think that's is that a big part of what happens when people get punched in the face that they sprain their neck is kind of one of the things that's uh not really sprain their neck, but what happens when you get that that whiplash effect, your brain kinda bounces back and forth.
So that's that's the concussion effect of it.
Um but once again, I think it it it really depends how much time you have to dedicate to this.
If this is something you're gonna make your Delhi Hoppy, yeah, great, go learn jujitsu is great.
Now also you also need to be learning it from a self-defense standpoint, not from a competitive standpoint.
Right.
Because there's a lot of things in jiu-jitsu that you if you do in the street could potentially get you hurt or even worse, killed because it puts you in a really, really bad position.
Jitsu's all on the ground.
Take your typical ground on sixth street, what kind of shit you got on there.
Right.
Broken glass, broken.
Exactly.
Other people that kick you in the head.
Right.
So the jujutsu like if you like you wanna learn jujitsu, great.
Just make sure you learn it with self-defense in mind.
Same thing with wrestling, same thing with judo, same thing with boxing, whatever whatever you want to call it for that matter.
It doesn't matter what it is.
If you're learning it for self-defense, have that self-defense mindset and tactic for it.
If you're learning it for sport, that's something else.
But don't expect it to be per se effective for self-defense.
Because once you take it out of the one on one dynamic in the gym and you take it outdoors, it's it's completely different.
Completely different.
Makes sense.
Um like the guys that I'm training right now, they're they're they're visiting.
Uh they both have muay and jujitsu background.
You know.
And for some of the scenarios, I throw a knife in.
Just a training knife.
Changes everything.
And before the training, so I did I had them do it a little bit before I taught him a few things.
Uh they just did not know how to handle it at all.
And they're people that have been training for a year or two in jujitsu and and muitai.
So they had the striking background, but they didn't have the self-defense training with that.
You might get a kick out of this.
Um, this is my grandfather's World War II helmet.
Nice.
This is uh KWAR from the uh badass.
That's 1944 Navy issue.
Badass.
Take it out, take a look.
But it's in if you know a guy that takes care of blades, let me know, because I need somebody to go do some work.
Yeah, polish this up.
Yeah.
I I can ask, actually, probably my friend John knows someone, but I'll I'll ask.
Isn't that neat though?
That's badass.
That's that should be in the museum somewhere.
I know I know, man.
I'm just gonna have to keep it in the family.
Yeah.
You know, it's funny, people always ask me about like blade training and stuff.
I'm like, listen, the only thing I use my knife for is to opening my Amazon packages.
Yeah, you spray you spray, yeah, me too.
I use this for open boxes still sharp.
But yeah, that that that hunk of metal man from World War II, and it's got his name spray painted on the front of it.
I got an old black.
And I think they had better helmets than we did in the IDF.
Dang.
I don't know.
I mean, what's it really gonna do?
Uh shrapnel.
Okay, for shrapnel rebel or rubble, uh, maybe like tree lens and shit if you're getting artillery and best.
But yeah, I got I got these, my dad gave these to me a couple years ago.
That's badass.
Good luck.
I like the K bar a lot, though.
Yeah, that's you gotta get a bayonet to to fix that bayonet lug on your rifle.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
You guys use bayonets in the IDF?
Yeah.
I know a guy that um I have a buddy that served in Afghanistan, he got gutted with a somebody, uh a terrorist with uh with a bayonet.
I was like, I didn't even know they even did that, use bayonets anymore.
Some forces do.
Yeah, yeah.
The more thrown together forces.
So it doesn't seem like it.
I mean, it seems like if you're if you can stab somebody, you can always shoot them.
I guess it makes sense though.
If you're if you got an M one grand and it's got eight rounds, is that then it makes sense that you might want to conserve ammo.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Um it made sense with those World War II weapons that are really bulky and and had a very low ammo, but I tell you nowadays.
You've almost certainly fired an M1 grand, right?
Oh, I fucking love the M1 grand.
That's so fun.
I'll beat the hell out of your arm though.
They're not as bad as the Mauser.
What was the um English one?
Was it an Enfield?
The English bolt action rifles.
I don't remember.
Super heavy.
Man, that thing, I because I got a bleeding disorder.
And that thing, my whole like torso and arm bruised from I mean, it's just a hunk of wood.
I mean no, the the Mauser, like he shot the mouse and were like, now I get why the Nazis lost really rifle?
Or you mean the handgun?
The mouse uh the maus, yeah.
Is a rifle?
Yeah, no, yeah, I don't know enough about the luger is the handgun.
Yeah, the luger.
Yeah.
I've always wanted one of those.
They're expensive though.
Yeah.
But the mausers it's like it's got a metal butt stock, kicks like crazy.
Like that mongrand is not that bad to shoot.
Is the mauser um semi-automatic?
No, I believe it's oh, maybe.
I don't remember.
Could be a bolt action.
But it shoots uh eight millimeter maus.
That's the eight millimeter mauser.
That's the round, yeah.
So I can't imagine being in World War II.
Yeah.
Great time.
My my uh grandfather served on the Soviet side in World War II.
He was uh in the Air Force and he was a part of the engineering corps, so when they uh took over an enemy uh airfield, he would come in, repair it and get it ready for that's a pretty cool job.
The the Russian Air Force to come in.
So was he uh fighting in Russia during the Nazi invasion?
Yes, I believe so.
That must have been a yeah, he was he was in Leningrad, actually.
No shit.
Yeah, the battle of Leningrad.
No, was he in no, he was in Moscow.
Never mind.
It's okay.
I gotta I gotta talk to my dad and ask him all the details.
I don't remember.
Is that how your family w wound up in Ukraine?
No, because before when the Soviet Union started forming, was it 1917?
Um they basically allowed Jews to come back into the cities before that they didn't allow them to live in the cities.
They're all in like little towns um in the Ukraine.
Um so crazy story, actually, my grandfather was almost killed as a baby.
Just for being Jewish?
Yeah, so his mom was holding him, and some like uh anti-Semites went through their town and shot his mom.
So he was like here, and she got like shot in the shoulder.
Anyways, they got the fuck out of there and moved to Moscow.
And uh that's where him and and his brother were born.
No, sorry, he was born in Ukraine and then they moved to Moscow.
I see.
I see.
Wow, so he fought.
So what was it like?
Because I I mean, I don't know a whole lot about Russian history or World War II history, just uh sort of superficial way.
But what I I've heard that a lot of the soldiers that after World War II, a lot of the Russian sol soldiers were very mistreated by um the Russian government in terms of like gulags, and there was like a lot of paranoia about um Western culture influencing them during the war.
Was it was did he get any of the closest experience after the that do you know?
So after the war.
In general, uh I don't know about that, but I know he experienced a lot of anti-Semitism.
Uh-huh.
So like he was an officer, and it took it they always took double the time to promote him.
I see.
So he should have like he's I think he served like 20 years in the Soviet military.
Like he should have been a general and he only finished like as a major or something.
Um and they also like right after the war, they sent him off, or not like a little bit after that.
Uh they sent him off to Sachalin Island, which is the easternmost island in Russia, the one that's right in front of Japan.
Really cold, really snowy remote place to like maintain airfields there.
So get the fuck out of here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then what the fuck with the I don't understand the whole anti-Semitism thing.
I don't get it at all.
Like, I get it in Germany that they believed a conspiracy that the Jews were responsible for the failure of World War I. Like, I get it.
Okay, like it's a lie, but at least it made sense.
But like, why the fuck do just random people seem to always hate Jewish people?
Like, I don't get it all you don't look any different.
Like you don't act any like what the fuck is going on?
I don't know.
Especially the Soviet Union where no one was like religious.
They're just like part of like my parents are as Russian as it gets.
Yeah.
Like you speak Russian?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um like my parents are as Russian as it gets.
My grandmother.
You speak Russian Hebrew English.
Spanish and Portuguese.
No shit.
How'd you learn Spanish and Portuguese?
Uh duolingo.
No shit.
It was.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You gotta, but you gotta be consistent.
Like, people will do like five minutes of it like once a week and be like, man, that shit don't work.
I'm like, bro, you gotta do it consistently.
You gotta do it consistently.
Um, but also like immersion, that's that's huge.
So like you gotta learn the base, but then you gotta go immerse yourself.
Like, you can't learn a language in a bubble, like you gotta go.
Three years of Spanish in in high high school, yeah.
And um I learned my dog.
I learned um I I managed a painting crew of Mexicans right after high school, the summer before college, and I learned more Spanish in the eight weeks that I managed a Mexican crew than I learned in the three years that I was in Spanish.
I learned how to talk some shit, yeah.
Yeah, and I can't do it anymore because it's been ten years and I haven't spoken Spanish since, but I just remember it, I got to the point where I couldn't I never really was fluent at speaking it only present tense, but I could understand it all, and I just I remember um we had some painters that were squatting, one was named Eden Eden and one was Pablo, and they were squatting in these apartments.
So the Mexicans, what they do is they cross the border illegally and they work on painting crews and contractor crews, so they can send money back home.
Yeah, and they don't have places to live most of the time, right?
Yeah, and especially if they're traveling, and so they'll they'll paint and they'll squat.
So we would do we were in Champaign, Illinois, which is where um uh the University of Illinois is, yeah, and we paint like every apartment before all the students came for the semester.
Okay, and so they would paint and sleep in the apartment and then paint the next one and sleep in it.
And there was this fucking guy that owned these properties, and he smoked like a chimney, he was old, and he had pictures of himself running marathons all over his office.
I forget his name, a wompler maybe.
I think it was his name.
Sounds like a wompler anyway.
He did not want Mexicans squatting on any of his properties, right?
Like, don't let those fucking Mexicans sleep in my apartment, you know.
And so he caught him with like a shower curtain and inflatable mattresses and microwaves.
He caught him.
Uh that damn dog.
He caught him uh uh sleeping uh in the apartment and he called me and he was all pissed off.
He was like, get your Mexicans out.
I've already called the cops.
I remember I called Pablo who didn't speak any any English.
Um and I was like, Pablo.
I was like, no dormir on Los Apartmentos say siento si says it's like La Policia dies minutos, and he just goes, uh oh.
Yeah, now my my Spanish would get pretty good.
I mean, my wife is Mexican, so we go, you know, we we go uh to Chihuahua quite a bit, and uh I mean I'm only speaking Spanish when I'm there, yeah.
And you can go to non-tourists, you can do all the tenses, no problem.
Uh-ish.
The the the verb conjugate has been difficult for me, but I'm getting better at it.
Um the nouns are easy, it's funny that the nouns come first, it's almost like you're a baby, you know, like you learn what an object is, yeah.
Easy.
But it's the it's the like future progressive shit.
Like, wow, how the fuck is that?
Yeah, it gets it gets it gets a little funky, but uh you know, if if you go outside of like the tourist areas in Mexico, nobody speaks English, right?
Like unless they're like super well educated, right?
So you have to know the language, Brazil too.
Like Brazil, no one speaks English, right?
I I think like Portuguese is just a non-compatible language with learning English.
Because I I was like thinking about it the other day, and like why is that?
And I think the reason is because Portuguese is a very uh like you don't pronounce the words like you do in Spanish, like where there's a definite ending.
Uh like Bonzo, go lay down.
Everything has this soft ending, yeah.
Go under the bed, Bonzo.
So weird.
He's crazy dog.
Um so I think they really struggle when they have to like they can't fucking say my name.
No shit.
Like hone.
Hone.
They can't fucking say they don't pronounce ours in general.
Okay, uh, But like my name was like fucking impossible for them.
Um so like when I saw uh it was this weird coincidence of events.
Anyway, I started working a lot with Brazilians, and I realized I'm like, these assholes are never gonna learn English.
Like there's no chance more and Portugal.
I'm gonna have to learn Portugal.
And it's completely different from Spanish, right?
No, it's very similar.
It's I always equate it to basically deaf people speaking Spanish.
Okay.
That's that's what it sounds like to me.
Not a lot of consonants.
Yeah, it's just like not nothing is pronounced like all the way.
Like, for example, like uh immigration in Spanish is migracion.
Yeah.
In Portuguese, migração.
Okay.
So it's the same word, just different ending.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's no there's no end to the word.
You know what I'm saying?
Um so because of that, like I was like, these guys are never gonna learn English.
Um and they pronounce everything really funny too.
Like they don't like glock, they say glocky.
Uh Instagram, they say that shit on.
Yeah, Instagram, Facebooky.
Um it's always fun.
But Brazil is great.
I I love I love the people.
I love that like everyone's super warm, everyone's super nice, food is really good.
Yeah.
Um, but I think in Mexico the best part is is the service.
They take care of you.
Like the most sincere, high quality service you'll have is in Mexico by far.
Brazil is pretty good.
They're just really nice, but like Mexico is like the best service.
People are like really sincere about it.
Like they want to be grateful and yeah, yeah, like real grateful, but they just want to make sure you have the best possible time.
So I've had that experience.
Like we had that experience at our wedding.
It was just phenomenal because of it.
Yeah.
So uh before we wrap up, sure.
Tell me a little bit about um, share a little bit about tactical fitness, how people can get in touch with you in Austin, and and what kind of classes and services you offer.
Yeah, uh and I will say just before you get started that as a customer of yours, it is an awesome experience.
So I highly recommend from personal experience working with you.
Cool, cool, cool.
Yeah, so uh tactical fitness is my company.
Um you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, or Facebooky.
Uh we got a great YouTube channel too.
YouTube, uh Tactical Fitness.com.
Tactical Fitness Austin.
Someone already had Tactical Fitness.
I got it.
Tactical Fitness Austin uh.com.
Uh you can find us, you can find all our courses there coming up.
We do private training.
You hear that Joe Rogan?
You hear that?
Uh we do private training, we do private courses.
We do like a lot of actually bachelor parties, contact us, just do like a fun range day, yeah, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, whatever, whatever thing you want to do.
Uh and we do tactical courses as well, military law enforcement and civilians.
Uh we do the concealed carry course as well, if that's like what you want to do.
Uh and we do private in-home personal training.
So there's a lot of people in and around town that go to their home and and train them in their in fitness or in Krav Maga.
Okay.
Well, and one thing that I really appreciated having worked with you is when you when you purchase a handgun, you know, you can you can YouTube the basics of how it works, but there's actually like eight million things you have to do in order to use it properly.
I don't know about a million million, but like there's several different steps, right?
Yeah, like like um um uh uh everything from drawing from a holster to gun safety to reloading, tactical reloads, your whole philosophy about the workspace and how that works, all that stuff is so important, people don't realize that it's more than just pointing and shooting that you're just like what you have to do.
People are usually for a rude awakening when they shoot a handgun for the first time.
It's like it's it's difficult.
Right, it's difficult.
So well, anyway, dude, it was great to have you.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming on.
And uh good luck with tactical fitness.
Thank you.
We choose to go to the moon and discade and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
