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March 16, 2015 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:06:46
Joe Rogan Experience #625 - Steve Maxwell
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joe rogan
59:06
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steve maxwell
01:06:02
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The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
joe rogan
Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Maxwell, fresh from Australia.
International man of mystery, world traveler, trainer of the stars.
You're out there, buddy.
steve maxwell
G'day, mate.
They call it Straya.
S-T-R-Y-A. That's how they say it?
I was checking out my Australian memes, you know, all the Australian slang.
Pretty funny, man.
You can go online and Google this stuff.
Some of the sayings they have are absolutely hilarious.
joe rogan
So you were telling me before the show that you just started getting into THC, aka marijuana.
steve maxwell
You know, it's funny.
I'm a child of the 60s and the 70s.
And, you know, that was the huge hippie era.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
And I was a wrestler.
I was like, you know, hardcore athlete, wrestled NCAA, Division I. And for me at that time, I believed all the anti-propaganda.
You know, I was a pretty straight-laced guy.
And so, you know, oh, it's a gateway drug, and oh my god, you're going to go to hell in a handbasket, and this stuff will destroy your brain, and blah, blah, blah.
You've heard it all, of course.
And what was that really funny anti-marijuana movie that they had back in the day?
joe rogan
Reefer Madness?
steve maxwell
Reefer Madness.
Yeah, that was an awesome one.
We had to watch that in health class when I was in high school.
joe rogan
Really?
steve maxwell
Yeah, that was part of the school curriculum back in the 60s.
joe rogan
So they showed it to you like as if it was real?
steve maxwell
Yeah, like it was real.
We all believed that stuff.
Remember, I was from little Carlisle, Pennsylvania, you know?
joe rogan
That's amazing.
steve maxwell
That's like a hick town.
So, yeah, I just recently started...
joe rogan
How recent?
steve maxwell
Just about maybe six months ago.
joe rogan
What happened?
What started it off?
steve maxwell
You know, I just had so many friends that were into it.
And it's interesting because I made observations.
I've been in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu now for, oh my god, since 89?
How many years is that?
A lot.
joe rogan
20-something?
steve maxwell
Yeah, okay.
joe rogan
26?
What is that?
26?
steve maxwell
Well, almost every BJJ champ that I know was totally into marijuana.
They used it to relax because it's such an intense sport, you know?
I mean, if you think about it, it's such an extremist thing.
What do you do?
You go out and try to hurt someone as much as possible with joint locks and so forth, or you choke them to sleep, right?
Of course, that being said, I had way more injuries with college wrestling than I ever did with jiu-jitsu because you can always tap.
But I just noticed that these guys, you know, it's an intense sport, maybe not as intense as MMA, but certainly up there, and they all would light up at night and so forth.
You know, they'd have their bongs or, you know, roll up a joint.
And I could just never figure this out.
It just would blow my mind.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
And over time, I just got more and more curious.
So I had a lot of friends in Australia that were really totally into this also.
And I just decided, you know what?
Maybe I'm missing something here.
You know?
Now that I'm in my 60s, you know?
I missed the 60s, so I'm in my 60s, so I'm going to check this out.
So I started playing around.
Got one of those.
What I didn't like was the smoke.
I find it really irritating.
But I tried one of those.
They call it the vape.
It's like a little square box with a little straw.
It looks like a little kid's juice box.
Right, right.
Adult juice box.
joe rogan
They have a bunch of those now.
They have pens that, like, they look like...
It's like some sort of a metal cylinder with a lip on the end of it and you pack it with either oil that you can buy pre-filled little tubes of hemp oil or THC oil and you stick it in there and it has some sort of an element in there and it heats it up and you're just breathing in vapor.
It's just a vaporizer, a portable vaporizer.
steve maxwell
So, yeah, I was just very curious, and well, I mean, you've been into this for a long time, very open about it, and I thought, well, you are really into your health and your body, and you take great care of yourself, and I figured, you know, if it's really all that harmful, Joe wouldn't be doing this.
There's no way that you would do something like that.
joe rogan
I was with you.
I mean, before I started smoking pot, I was in the same boat.
I really thought it was for idiots.
I thought it was for people that just wanted to escape reality.
They were weak.
They couldn't handle it.
They just wanted to get drugged out.
I thought about it the same way I think about pain pills today.
Like, I took...
I've had three knee surgeries.
My first major one, my first ACL, was a patella tendon graft, which is particularly painful because they slice your patella tendon, they cut a chunk out of your kneecap and a chunk out of your shin bone, and then they drill it all in place and screw it in place.
It's good because it's a native piece of tendon, so it adheres to the body very quickly, and there's very little chance of rejection, and it's very strong.
But it's very painful.
And they gave me a prescription for Vicodins or some shit.
I took one of them.
One.
And I remember sitting on the couch feeling so stupid and foggy.
And I said, I am done with this.
My other two surgeries, my other ACL and my other meniscus surgery, I didn't take anything.
My knee, my nose, when I had my nose fixed, I had my deviated septum fixed and my turbinates cut out, my nose stretched out and they put tubes in it and everything.
Nothing.
I didn't take anything just pot and I Don't like I don't like anything that leaves me like cloudy and that seems like that's what I thought pot was I thought pot was something that left you Stupid or cloudy and it's really just it's the opposite.
steve maxwell
It tunes you in I was shocked I was utterly shocked and The first thing I noticed was my vision improved.
I've been nearsighted most of my life, and I basically found my eyes were getting worse each year, getting stronger prescriptions.
I finally read this book, Take Off Your Glasses and See, and I just basically threw my glasses in the trash and started doing eye strengthening exercises.
unidentified
What kind of them?
joe rogan
I'm going through that right now myself.
steve maxwell
They improved a lot.
There's a lot of different exercises you can do, but The name of the book is Take Off Your Glasses and See.
And this guy was a disciple of the Bates method of eye strengthening.
But when I was at the summit of the Breathmasters in Moscow, they had a bunch of guys there that were using breathing and eye exercise and all sorts of stuff for the improvement of vision.
One was a former Spetsonist sniper, so I guess he knows a thing or two about vision training.
And he was showing some of the eye exercises he does, you know, real simple stuff.
And it was like, wow, this works, but only to a point.
It got really good to the point where I can drive during the day.
I'm still a little reluctant to drive at night.
I mean, I could, but I can't read street signs at night.
During the day, I can actually see signs.
But I'm a little reluctant.
And what I noticed when I would take the THC, I was using one of those vaporizer things, it was like my eyes would start to really clear, which leads me to believe that it has something to do with muscular tension.
I noticed that my digestion would improve.
And instead of getting foggy, Like I would be on my iPad maybe doing an email or something.
It's like somehow my fingers would just glide over the keys and just magically find the letters way faster, or at least my perception of how much faster.
I don't know.
It was just a very interesting experience.
joe rogan
Well, one of the things that people use it for with jujitsu is not just to relax after training, but before training because it focuses you in a very tunnel vision sort of a way.
When I roll, when I smoke pot and roll, I feel like I'm better at jujitsu.
I really do.
I feel like...
steve maxwell
More relaxed.
joe rogan
Not just more relaxed, I feel like I'm more sensitive.
I'm more in tune with what's going on.
I'm also, I love stretching on it.
That's one of my favorite things to do.
I love eating one of those things, those jambos I just gave you.
steve maxwell
Dan, it's interesting.
I haven't tried eating it yet.
joe rogan
That's an all-organic, edible THC, you know, marijuana, little cake thing.
And it's all with natural honey and all natural ingredients.
It's, like, probably the healthiest of all these edible ones.
Because a lot of these edible ones are using processed sugars and You know, high fructose corn syrup and stuff, it's not good for you.
So this guy who created these, he decided, you know, there's got to be a market for an organic version of these marijuana edibles.
So that's much healthier for your body, but it's really strong.
Be careful.
steve maxwell
Yeah, no, I'm going to be very careful.
I have not, in truth, taken it before I've trained, but I read about the guy in Colorado, the triathlete.
He's a world-class athlete, very elite, and he's been really advocating taking it before endurance training.
Somehow it improves pain threshold, your tolerance to physical exercise pain, not pain pain, but like exercise-induced discomfort.
joe rogan
It changes the way your body reacts It changes the way your body reacts.
When I work out with it, if I lift weights with it, I can feel the fibers, or at least I feel like I'm feeling it, I feel the fibers of my muscles.
I'm very sensitive to it, which is one of the reasons why I really enjoy doing it before I stretch.
Terence McKenna, who is a late great psychedelic philosopher, it was his contention that yoga itself was really a how-to-use cannabis manual.
And that the way to optimize your experience with cannabis was through yoga.
Because all of those sadhus, all those guys are just hash smoking freaks.
That's like the dark secret of the sadhus, he would say.
What they really concentrate on is how many chillums can you smoke before you pass out?
You're not a man unless you can go deep, deep, deep into the rabbit hole.
And these guys would smoke massive amounts of hash and do yoga.
And I used to think, wow, that's kind of crazy.
I guess they're just having fun and doing it.
Until the one time I did yoga when I was high.
And I was like, wow, this is amazing.
It's like I can relax more.
I can get deeper into poses.
And also I feel like, I feel the resistance.
Like a lot of, Pavel talks about this as well.
I don't know how to say his last name.
How do you say his last name?
steve maxwell
Sat Solain.
joe rogan
Sat Solain, who's one of the most famous advocates of the kettlebell industry.
He talked about stretching being a big part of what holds you back is tension, psychological tension, not necessarily even flexibility, but that you're worried about...
steve maxwell
Yeah, your brain sets up that stretch reflex when you're in an unfamiliar position.
So it's, you know, it's saying danger, you're in a different position than you're used to being in.
And for most of us, that's sitting in chairs, or most people.
joe rogan
Right.
Yeah, that's the most common position, right?
When your head's in between your legs and you're stretching your hamstrings out.
Your body's a little threatened by that.
Yeah, your body's like, what are you doing there, buddy?
Tense it up!
Tense it up!
What he was saying was that it's all about breathing, resist, and then relax.
Resist, and then relax.
But that resist and relax is enhanced, I don't know how many fold when you're on marijuana.
I mean, it's amazing how deep you go into stretches and how good it feels afterwards.
It's this weird state you reach when you do yoga or any type of deep stretching on marijuana.
I'm a huge, huge fan of that.
steve maxwell
Listen, I'm a neophyte, man.
Teach me, master.
I think it's amazing.
Listen, man, never let it be said that Steve Maxwell doesn't experiment, you know?
I really think that one of the secrets to aging well is to be open-minded and just to experiment and learn new things, try new things, and don't be such a stick in the mud with your belief systems, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, it's hard.
steve maxwell
Don't get so holier than thou with all your beliefs because, hey, man.
You know, if you think about it, a lot of really high spiritual adepts, they all use some type of either, you know, hallucinogen or—we talked last time on the show about ayahuasca and so forth and, you know, the shamans using their mushrooms and— Well, I think as you get older, I think especially when you have been around a lot of fools, you reach a certain point in your life where you don't want to tolerate any nonsense.
joe rogan
And you're just like, ah, enough of this nonsense.
Like what you need is, you know, a good diet.
You don't need any supplements.
You don't need any hooey in your life.
You don't need any BS. Just get out of bed and go out and do it.
unidentified
Just do it.
joe rogan
That sort of mentality serves you well, but in having that mentality and meeting all these fools, sometimes you can kind of develop prejudices.
You develop these ideas that aren't necessarily based on data.
It's more based on like sort of just your perceptions of the people that are around you.
Like if you see enough losers that do something, you say, well, that's for losers.
You see enough losers that are Smoking pot, you think, well, pot is for losers.
It's obvious.
Like, look at all these losers smoking pot.
And then you meet, like, BJ Penn.
You're like, wait a minute, hold on, BJ Penn gets high and does jiu-jitsu?
Like, what?
What's going on there?
And then, you know, you find out that 90% of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu champions are smoking pot and rolling.
steve maxwell
Yeah, they all relax with this stuff, yeah.
joe rogan
It's a performance enhancer.
There was actually an article recently about ultramarathoners.
Jamie, see if you can pull that up, because I forget what publication it was in, but it was a big article where people were really being really shocked at the results and these guys that were ultramarathoners that were advocating smoking marijuana, and they were talking about, should this be banned from ultramarathons?
steve maxwell
Well, outside magazine, also.
joe rogan
Could have been outside.
Oh, there it is.
Fox News, right here.
steve maxwell
Yeah, there we go.
joe rogan
A bunch of different things.
Marijuana has benefits, but is it ethical?
Yeah, see, this is the thing.
Goddammit, people, of course it's ethical.
Are vitamins ethical?
Is fruit ethical?
steve maxwell
Is caffeine ethical?
joe rogan
It's a goddamn plant.
I mean, these people are all on caffeine, by the way.
Here's the dirty secret about marathon runners.
I have a buddy.
My friend Cameron Haynes is a fanatical runner.
He runs 10 miles a day, sometimes 15. He does marathons.
He's done an ultramarathon.
I think he's gearing up for another ultramarathon.
He's a maniac.
And he's always hopped up on the caffeine.
Always.
But he has a job, like a regular job, and he can't touch the pot.
And I've been telling him about all this, and he's like, maybe there's another good reason why I should quit my job.
unidentified
Yeah!
steve maxwell
You know, there's another very interesting thing I've been experimenting with for years, and that's the theta brainwave meditation, where you actually – your brain produces different levels of brainwaves.
Your brain oscillates at certain speeds, and different parts of the brain produce different – like alpha, beta, gamma, delta, theta – But Theta is like the one that's most closely associated with that sort of between sleep and wakefulness when the subconscious mind can be programmed.
And there's a lot of really good programs out there.
It produces a beat.
And then your brain starts to adapt and copy the beat.
And you can slow the brain wave down.
That's what I did in the plane.
Like I said, I flew in from Sydney.
Like a 14-hour flight, man.
And didn't really get that much sleep.
But I did one of those binaural beats theta brainwave meditation.
joe rogan
Now, when you do this, you're wearing headphones?
steve maxwell
Yeah, yeah.
I actually was using Bose earbud noise cancellations and just sitting there with my iPhone and just, wow, zoning.
And when you come out of it, you feel like you just had a refreshing sleep.
unidentified
Really?
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's very, very relaxing, speaking of relaxation.
And so for those folks that are still a little leery about maybe trying something like THC, you can do this with the theta brainwave meditation.
All the brainwaves, like, have their benefits.
The alpha is like what we're in right now, the alpha and the beta, like while we're awake.
Gamma is like when you're in a real deep sleep, like a real deep dreamlike state.
The theta is like that twilight.
When people meditate, they go into a theta brainwave state.
But by listening, you could meditate like a monk your first time out, man.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
It doesn't require any special breathing or postures or anything.
You can just literally sit or lie down comfortably, and you just go into the zone.
And if you do practice visualization or if you practice any kind of affirmations or Subconscious mind programming, it's a great time to do it, man.
joe rogan
So you're listening to a program.
What is the name of the program and how do you get it?
steve maxwell
Well, there's a whole bunch of different ones, you know.
You can go to Amazon or iTunes and just look for Theta Brainwave Meditation.
I'd recommend maybe people just go on, you know, just Google it and look at the different...
I mean, there's so many different companies out there now.
You can get CDs, you can get...
MP3s.
You can download it on iTunes.
I have it on my iPhone.
joe rogan
That's great.
steve maxwell
About a dozen programs.
And it's really handy for guys like us, because you do your fair share of travel, when you have to adapt to a new time zone.
And it's pretty hard to sleep in some of these planes sometimes.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's hard for me to sleep on planes.
It's also hard for me.
Well, you know, if I'm tired, I can conk out pretty much anywhere.
I can lie down on the floor.
But it's hard for me when I have to do something in like three hours.
And I know, well, I could take a nap right now for two hours.
Good luck.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
I'm almost never able to.
steve maxwell
Makes you feel worse than if you didn't take it at all.
unidentified
I lie there and I go, come on, go to sleep, come on.
joe rogan
I usually can't get there.
steve maxwell
Well, you slap the earphones on with your binaural beats.
That's just like one of the programs.
joe rogan
What does it sound like?
steve maxwell
Well, sometimes they use music.
You can hear like an underlying beat.
It's just underneath the conscious hearing.
But you can kind of hear like this little rhythm going on.
And sometimes they'll have beautiful kind of angelic music.
Sometimes they just have like sounds of the ocean, you know, like ocean waves.
Incredibly relaxing.
And you just find yourself zoning.
And when you finish the program, you really do feel like you had just a very nice, refreshing sleep.
Wow.
And you feel quite excellent.
joe rogan
So they vary in the sounds, but the beat stimulates the same part of the brain.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
There's a couple of different techniques.
One of the techniques, they have a different rhythm going on in each ear.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
So the right and left hemispheres have to synchronize with each other.
joe rogan
What if you're bipolar?
steve maxwell
I don't know, man.
joe rogan
Probably not a good idea.
Maybe it'll sort you out.
steve maxwell
I'm not a brain scientist, but I have been doing this for a bunch of years with good results, but I don't know.
Maybe if you have a mental illness or a bipolar syndrome.
But they do claim that it regulates your hormonal levels.
unidentified
Really?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
And even to the point of producing growth hormone and so forth, Have you ever messed around with any of those?
joe rogan
Do you know what a turbosonic is?
It uses sound waves through the base of a platform.
You stand on this and it takes you through a bunch of different cycles.
steve maxwell
I have.
joe rogan
And it's sound, but you don't hear it.
It's like you're standing on a speaker and it's like shaking.
steve maxwell
You're just getting vibed.
joe rogan
I love that thing.
I have one of those things in my house, and it's supposed to do all sorts of things as far as stimulate the production of various hormones and aid healing and circulation, but it makes you feel great.
steve maxwell
There's even ways you can just exercise and do vibrations and so forth.
joe rogan
Trampolines are really good for that, right?
steve maxwell
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the Taoist yogis and the Qigong Practitioners have been doing similar things with their own bodies.
I mean, obviously, the platform makes it much more convenient.
joe rogan
Oh, it's 10 minutes.
You get on that sucker for 10 minutes, and you're like...
unidentified
It goes through all these different...
joe rogan
You'll do like 10 seconds at one, and then 10 seconds at another, and then very fast, high frequency, and then low and slow, and shaking...
And when it's over, you're like, God, I feel so good.
steve maxwell
It feels fantastic.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's wild.
steve maxwell
But, yeah, like Feldenkrais, he was, you know, they have like a bouncing, shaking, vibrational kind of thing, and there's, like I said, the Taoist yogis have a thing where they do this kind of stuff.
When I was in Russia, they had, like, as part of their Slavic Russian health system, their mobility stuff, they would have shaking and vibrations and And all the stuff that you just kind of do to yourself.
I read this guy, Alexander Lowen.
He was like a psychiatrist that treated people with chronic mental problems with exercise and so forth.
Really?
He was really big into shaking and moving the body and all these interesting patterns.
It's very relaxing.
It just gets a lot of the tension out.
And I agree with you.
I do believe it does help facilitate recovery.
joe rogan
I think mental problems and relaxation are so often not connected with each other.
Mental problems and exercise and exertion and the fact that a lot of people, a lot of their tension comes from not releasing energy and their body stores up this energy like a battery and then it's leaking all over the place.
It's just like they're short-circuiting.
When you see people screaming in traffic and, you know, and cutting people off and all this madness that, I mean, it really is like a form of madness when you see someone screaming at someone that's not even anywhere near them in traffic.
steve maxwell
The stress levels just get so much.
And a lot of that goes also back, and we talked about this last time too, about your breathing patterns.
Most people, and I do seminars all over the world, and we test ourselves to see what type of breather we are.
That's like one of the things we do first.
And almost everybody in the seminar is like a calvicular breather.
They're using the emergency apparatus of the upper neck and chest, shallow breathing.
joe rogan
Panic breathing.
steve maxwell
And it's panic breathing.
And all those emergency receptors are in the upper lobes of the lungs, and they're not bringing the O2 down into the lower lobes.
So they're in a chronic panic.
They're in a heightened state of vigilance all the time.
That's exhausting, man.
And it does all sorts of weird things to your hormones.
And it's definitely, it's hard to be in a good mood and relaxed when you're in this panicked state.
Your subconscious mind doesn't know that there's not like a threat looming over the horizon.
So everything that happens is perceived as a threat.
Every little comment, you know, someone cuts you off in traffic, people take it so personally because it's a threat because they're all caught up in the chest.
And man, I'm telling you, when you learn to do proper diaphragmatic breathing and bring the breath down in the lower lobes of the lungs, it's incredibly calming.
You know?
You do that with...
joe rogan
So what do you recommend if someone is looking into doing something like that?
Is there a book that you recommend or a program?
Do you have a video or anything?
steve maxwell
Well, get to one of my seminars.
joe rogan
Yeah, one of your seminars would be great.
steve maxwell
And I do a lot of breath work.
You know, well, Master Hicks and Grace, you know, I mean, for years he never showed us his breathing system.
He'd be kicking our ass and doing this kind of weird breathing.
I used to think, is he making fun of me?
You know, that's kind of this weird kind of thing he was doing.
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Exactly.
steve maxwell
You know, Hoyce, Hoyler, you know, they all knew how to do this, and they weren't teaching us blue and purple bouts at the time, but now he's spending a lot of time teaching it.
I heard that Kron also is spending a lot of time, because I think it's really, really important for combat athletes to, you know, learn to relax, and the way you relax in combat is through breath manipulation.
But as far as actually being taught, I haven't seen it.
The Systema guys do a pretty good job with it, you know.
But it's funny because, you know, I started really getting into this and reading a lot.
But I wasn't reading stuff related to combat as much as mostly yoga stuff, you know, or Qigong.
So, yeah, it's kind of hard to find the information.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's hard to find information.
It's hard to know what's the best program for you.
I guess you have to try a few different ones to find out what you enjoy or what seems to benefit you.
But I think, especially when you're dealing with martial arts and you're dealing with...
Training and especially competing.
You're dealing with extremely stressful situations where your body is pushed at a very high pace, where you reach the point of exhaustion, and then you have to continue for three, four minutes while you're exhausted.
Everyone who's ever rolled has experienced that.
You're doing maybe a seven or nine minute roll, which means grappling, sparring.
For the uninitiated.
And a lot of times you're two, three minutes in, especially if you're rolling with someone good, and you are exhausted.
steve maxwell
Totally exhausted.
joe rogan
And you've got to figure out a way to get to a clinch and just Try to bring your heart rate down and try to do just enough to defend and keep moving But not enough to totally tax out your muscles and also don't let your mind get into that panic state like the breath is what Controls that yeah,
because if you can't breathe you're gonna freak out Yeah, I remember training with a guy who was like a real athletic guy, a very strong guy, but he hadn't done jujitsu before.
And so he was really excited to learn it and just try to get into jujitsu.
And, you know, he's in there sparring and he asked me to spar.
And I'm like, okay, alright, you know, how long are you doing it now?
He's like, oh, a couple months and this and that.
I'm just getting into it.
I'm just starting to spar.
I'm like, alright, let's go.
And so we start, I remember I got to a position, I like mounted him, and I could feel him just full panic.
His body locked up.
And I remember I'd never felt, because I'm not usually rolling with someone who's that inexperienced.
So to do like a raw white belt, it's only been doing it for a short period of time, he really didn't know what to do.
And he was just locked up.
And I'm like, just calm down.
steve maxwell
Just breathe.
unidentified
Just breathe.
joe rogan
Like, you know, it's not going to help you.
Like, this is definitely going to hurt you.
You're going to get tapped out either way, but if you breathe in, you're going to be able to keep going and you're going to be able to learn.
And I'll walk you through shit.
I'll tell you what to not do, where to put yourself.
But this...
You can't ever let that happen, ever.
Even if you're gonna lose, even if you're gonna get tapped out, don't ever let yourself freak.
You can't freak.
steve maxwell
And in a real emergency, let's say some type of street altercation where, I mean, maybe there's a lot more on the line than a trophy or a medal or...
You know, like your life.
joe rogan
Or your ego in class.
steve maxwell
Like your life.
Yeah, knowing how to breathe and keep calm is really, really, really important.
unidentified
Very important.
steve maxwell
Keep your mind clear.
But it takes a lot of practice, and you have to do it.
And there's a lot of really cool breathing exercises that you can do, even just walking, jogging, you know, even with your exercises and so forth.
joe rogan
Everyone can lose.
Anyone, especially that's learning and developing, you can lose, and you're probably going to lose, whether it's in sparring or whether it's in competition, when you come up against someone who's better than you.
But there's a big difference between losing and losing composure and breaking, you know, that term breaking.
When you feel a guy give up.
We've all seen it.
We've seen it in fights.
And some guys just don't break.
Here's a perfect example.
Jon Jones doesn't break.
He just doesn't break.
He might take breathers, but in his mind, he's the greatest of all time.
He's going to figure out how to beat you.
It's a foregone conclusion.
He's not going to tap.
When he fought Vitor Belfort, Vitor Belfort caught him in a beautiful arm bar from the guard.
And had his arm completely hyperextended.
Ruined his arm.
I mean his arm, John's arm was fucked up for like months afterwards.
He had to take a gig on the Ultimate Fighter and coach for a long time because he wasn't able to train and he wasn't, he was not gonna be able to fight for at least like six months to let that arm heal.
But it didn't matter.
He was, he was not going to tap.
Like he was gonna get his arm broken and he was gonna still win.
He was gonna find a way to win.
He is not breaking.
And then there's other guys The first moment where things go wrong, you see this look in their eye, they're like, oh shit, it's going wrong.
They lose composure.
And these doors that you go into with your mind, you get real comfortable entering these doors.
You get real comfortable entering these areas of the mind.
And this can apply to all aspects of your life, I think.
steve maxwell
Well, like Jacare, when he fought Roger, that perfect example.
joe rogan
Perfect example.
steve maxwell
He wanted the win, he took the damage to the elbow, fought one arm, just to eke out the victory.
joe rogan
For folks who don't know what we're talking about, Haja Gracie, one of the very best black belts in the world, and Jacare, one of the very best black belts in the world.
Was it in the Mundiales?
steve maxwell
Yeah, I think it was the Open Finals.
joe rogan
Yeah, it was a huge Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, and Hodger broke Jacare's arm, and Jacare just tucked that sucker in his belt and kept going.
steve maxwell
Kept going.
He only had, I don't know, 30 or 40 seconds, so he just basically played the outside edge of the mat because he had points.
joe rogan
Yeah, he let him break his arm instead of tapping.
steve maxwell
It was crazy.
Now, for your listeners out there, though...
joe rogan
Don't do that.
steve maxwell
Don't do that.
We're talking about hardcore professional athletes that make their living fighting world championships on the line, you know, thousands of dollars on the line, but in class, I'm one of those guys that like, hey, if you catch me, you trick me, you know, fighting out of an arm lock or a triangle.
Look, the mistake's already been made.
You got me in the trap.
I made a mistake.
I acknowledge it.
You know, I mean, I'll fight a little bit, but, you know, as soon as I feel like, uh, nah, this is just tap and just forget about it.
joe rogan
So important to tap.
The biggest mistakes I've ever made in training is not tapping.
steve maxwell
Especially when you're over 45 and these guys that want to.
And that brings up another subject.
I've been really doing a lot of work with jiu-jitsu for a lifetime, you know.
I like what the grandsons of Elia Gracie have been saying.
joe rogan
Yeah, let's get that video, because you have a beautiful video that you sent me.
And let's show what happened to Jacare's elbow, too, by the way.
Jacare had surgery on his elbow, and they pulled these chunks of bone that were broken off and cartilage inside his elbow.
steve maxwell
I never heard about the aftermath.
I knew it was pretty messed up, but I never heard exactly what he had to do to repair that.
joe rogan
Well, he did it recently.
steve maxwell
I heard it was bad, though.
joe rogan
Yeah, he had it recently repaired.
I mean, he had it repaired back then, but...
The damage, all the cartilage, and all the stuff that's broken off inside of his elbow was just swimming around in his elbow, messing with his...
steve maxwell
That's some serious...
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Oh, it's so painful.
You know, you can't extend your arm all the way.
steve maxwell
Well, your body builds up, you know, bone and calcification around that injury, and you get those osteophytes, and before you know it, you pretty much lose range of motion in your joints.
joe rogan
Yeah, the surgery images he put online, and it was just like so disgusting.
steve maxwell
Bad news, man.
I do love to avoid surgery.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a five-hour surgery just to clean out his elbow.
Look at this.
steve maxwell
And it's a good chance...
Oh, man, that is really nasty.
But, you know, even after the surgery, there's a good chance it's never going to be the same again.
joe rogan
Very good chance.
Very good chance.
I mean, they're finding out ways now with stem cells to regenerate cartilage, like, for the first time ever.
Football players are doing it.
They're using it on older folk that have had bone-to-bone arthritis for years.
steve maxwell
It's pretty amazing, isn't it?
joe rogan
We're in a great time.
We're in a great time.
steve maxwell
If we could just live long enough, Joe, you know?
Just get replacement parts for everything grown from our own bodies, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, it's very possible that that is gonna happen, but also very possible that they're just gonna be able to regenerate tissue, that all your injured tissue, all your damaged areas are just gonna be able to regenerate them.
steve maxwell
It's gonna be like Star Trek, right, where they used to take that little thing and, you know, just go over your body and, you know, you're healed now.
joe rogan
Well, there's a guy in Germany, Dr. Peter Weller, who is the same guy who created that Regenikine process that all the pro athletes, they were flying over to Germany to do it, and now they go to, there's a company called Lifespan Medicine that does it in Santa Monica, and they do it in Dallas, and I believe they're opening up other offices as well.
They take your blood out, they spin it in a centrifuge, and they heat it up, and the reaction to the heat makes your blood produce this really intense anti-inflammatory and I've had it done.
A lot of people have had really chronic injuries have had it done.
And it works miracles.
Well, he's developed this full-body MRI machine, which literally just gets a map of everything going on in your body.
And once he went and did it, he developed this and found out he had colon cancer.
Well, yeah, he had no idea.
Particularly aggressive type of colon cancer and caught it right away.
Early on.
Went into surgery, now it's fine.
But I mean, it's like, this is how amazing it is.
It's so amazing that it actually worked and benefited the guy who created it.
It's amazing, amazing stuff.
steve maxwell
Nice to be the beneficiary of your own inventions and discoveries, man.
joe rogan
Well, it's also a reward for being on the cutting edge of healing and science for this guy, medical science.
But let's play this video that you have that you sent us because it's really cool.
I really liked what you're doing.
It's really exciting to see and I want to talk to you about it.
So we'll play that real quick.
steve maxwell
I've spent almost a lifetime in the grappling arts.
unidentified
Started out as a young wrestler when I was 10 years old.
steve maxwell
Always was in love with the whole concept of wrestling and grappling on the ground.
unidentified
It was just one of the few things I was good at right from the beginning.
joe rogan
Jiu Jitsu and surfing in tropical El Salvador.
I love it.
So for folks who are just listening and not watching, it's just Steve demonstrating a bunch of different jiu-jitsu techniques.
And now mobility training, which is a big part of what you do to keep healthy and keep your joints healthy and protect yourself from injuries, right?
unidentified
right?
steve maxwell
Absolutely.
I mean, if you think about it, it's probably the most fun two guys can have without a woman, man.
I mean, it's like wrestling on the living room floor in your pajamas with your brother, right?
It's like incredibly fun, great mental stimulation.
joe rogan
It's a fun game.
steve maxwell
Very fun game.
joe rogan
As long as you can get over the tapping part, what we were talking about earlier.
It's like no one gets angry when someone shoots a ball in on them when you play basketball.
And there's the dates there.
Let's pull those dates back so we can see what the dates are.
steve maxwell
Tell everybody where they are.
22nd and March.
28th of November.
Go ahead.
joe rogan
It says 28th of November to the 5th of December, and then the 5th of December to the 12th of December in 2015. So this is a start a new tradition, it says.
This is a new thing that you're starting to do, and what a great vacation.
You know, have some fun, go to El Salvador, do some surfing.
You guys have surf lessons.
You're going to teach jujitsu, teach...
Different ways of increasing your joint flexibility and preventing injuries.
steve maxwell
Just how to stay with it for a lifetime, man.
For guys that want to just stick with what they love doing.
joe rogan
You wrote an article about it recently.
steve maxwell
Most guys, by the time they hit 40, they're not going to be doing it anymore.
They're going to have to quit because they're going about it wrong.
I was on that path myself.
When I was in my mid-40s, I'd be getting up in the morning and it was like, Oh my God, I could barely turn around to back my car out of the garage.
And I'm thinking, geez, what is it going to be like in 10 years from now if I'm just in my mid-40s already suffering this pain and stiffness and inflammation?
So I started really investigating the different exercise systems, mobility systems.
Of course, I've always been interested in diet and experimenting and so forth.
And, you know, I've been doing this for a long time.
And I discovered a lot of really good things I like to share with people so that you can continue to do what you love so we can all be like Master Elio Gracie and, you know, 95 years old, I mean, getting on the mat and still having fun with it.
joe rogan
He was fanatical about his diet, right?
steve maxwell
He was fanatical about his diet.
But, you know, as you get older, you have to be.
You've got to be more and more fanatical as the old aging process starts to set in.
joe rogan
When I was young, I think I was just less aware of what was going on when I ate bad food.
I think I was just less aware.
I was like, oh, this tastes good.
What a great cheeseburger.
It tastes awesome.
But I wasn't as conscious about the actual effects, whereas now I'm pretty aware of what kind of state my body's in.
It's very frustrating for me if my mind is in a dull place, especially if I have to do interviews early in the morning.
I just haven't quite woken up yet and I'm having conversations and the words just aren't coming out that good.
They're just clumsy and just frustrating.
So I'm pretty aware of when I'm at my optimum state.
I really notice now if I eat crappy food.
I really notice.
If I have something that's got a lot of bread in it or something that's just unhealthy, deep-fried nonsense.
steve maxwell
Well, it's two guys that do a lot of traveling.
You're doing shows all over the place besides UFCs.
Sometimes it is pretty hard, you know, to find good stuff.
But I always pack my own stuff.
I always have, like, I call it my hobo bag.
It's a bag full of stuff I go from, you know, various health food stores or whatever.
You know, I load up on, you know...
Really good quality stuff.
joe rogan
Like what do you pack in the hobo bag?
Raw almonds?
steve maxwell
Yeah, I mean, there's so many paleo places around now.
I'm not like a total fanatic about paleo, but they do have some pretty damn good healthy stuff.
Different bars and different concoctions that are already sealed in pouches or...
You know, different things like that.
I'll get a whole bunch of things like that.
I love carob pods.
Carob is just, like, fantastic.
It's like raw carob, right off the tree.
And fresh fruit.
joe rogan
What does a raw carob bar look like?
steve maxwell
It's not a bar.
It looks like...
What do they call them?
The Asatia pods or whatever that you see on the ground sometimes.
joe rogan
It looks like that?
steve maxwell
Yeah, yeah, but it's sweet.
You just chew it and spit the seeds and it's absolutely delicious.
Good fiber.
It's known as a blood sugar stabilizer.
So that you eat this thing, man, you're not hungry for hours.
So when you're on the road, it's just a good way to, you know, keep yourself from getting too hungry.
joe rogan
I don't think I've ever seen it before.
steve maxwell
They're very popular in Australia.
I used to get them in, yeah, that's it.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
Very popular in Australia.
They're delicious, yeah.
But when I was living in Redonda Beach area, my girlfriend used to go to this place called Rawsome.
It was like a raw foods place.
And they would sell them.
But my god, they were like a fucking arm and a leg, man.
These things were like so crazy expensive.
And one day, I was in Marin County.
I can't remember the little town, but anyway, this was back in my camper van days.
I go to get out and go to this little coffee shop to get a paper or whatever, and I'm seeing these things in the ground.
And I look up, and there's a tree.
And it was like hundreds of them just laying there, man.
I got some plastic baggies, you know?
joe rogan
You were sure that it was that?
steve maxwell
Well, I tasted it.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
steve maxwell
It was like, holy shit, this is carob.
It's a carob tree growing right here.
joe rogan
Pull that video up again, image rather.
steve maxwell
In Marin County.
joe rogan
What does a carob tree look like?
I really don't think I've ever seen that.
Like, if I looked at that, like that one that looks like a bundle of snakes, that third picture from the top.
steve maxwell
Yeah, right there on the right.
I was just utterly shocked.
Because, you know, I had been paying a lot of money for these damn things.
And there they were, just laying there.
I had no idea that they even grew in California.
joe rogan
How long does it last once you get it from the tree?
Does it go bad and rot?
steve maxwell
No, no, no.
They're like dried.
I mean, they're like a dried pod that you could just keep.
joe rogan
For a long time?
steve maxwell
Probably years, maybe.
I don't know.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
I mean, they're really tasty.
unidentified
No kidding.
steve maxwell
Really nice little sweet.
You know what?
It's like, you know, white sugar, white granulated sugar is probably one of the worst things you can eat.
joe rogan
Toxic.
steve maxwell
Yeah, toxic.
Right?
But sugar cane actually, you know, right from the cane field, actually has a lot of health benefit.
joe rogan
Does it really?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
It's sweet.
It is fibrous.
It has a lot of nutrients, minerals and so forth.
I mean, obviously, you don't eat a lot of it because it's powerful stuff.
It's like one of those very powerful foods.
But the carob pods are kind of like the same thing.
If you do have a bit of a sweet tooth or whatever, it's a fantastic way to sate your sweet tooth.
And wow, the fiber is amazing.
joe rogan
Really?
I really was not aware at all.
I always thought of carob as like something that you...
steve maxwell
Yeah, like the processed stuff, like chocolate.
It's just about as bad as chocolate the way they process.
joe rogan
Is it really?
steve maxwell
Yeah.
I mean, maybe a little less harsh on your system because a lot of people have chocolate sensitivities.
You always hear about gluten or dairy, but man, a lot of people have a lot of sensitivity to chocolate.
There's a lot of different things out there that have been overeaten for years and years and years that...
It can give you food sensitivities.
joe rogan
Well, some chocolate's really good, right?
Like raw chocolate is very high in antioxidants.
steve maxwell
It can be, but some people are very sensitive to the acids and so forth in chocolate.
joe rogan
And so there's carob and there's, how do you say it, cacao?
steve maxwell
Cacao.
joe rogan
Cacao.
steve maxwell
That's the raw chocolate.
joe rogan
That's the raw chocolate.
And that stuff is really good for you, right?
steve maxwell
It can be.
joe rogan
But for some people it's not.
steve maxwell
It's like it's powerful stuff.
And if you overeat anything, you're going to develop a potential sensitivity.
It's like the gluten, right?
I mean, gluten in itself is not all that bad, right?
But Americans have been just eating it like crazy, you know?
Toast in the morning.
With cereal.
Yeah, with cereal.
Sandwich for lunch.
joe rogan
Pasta for dinner.
steve maxwell
And dinner rolls, and it's just like they're getting inundated.
Well, my God, you could probably develop a food sensitivity to anything.
Probably you could get eggs or chicken sensitivity or something if you just ate it, you know, Three square meals a day.
joe rogan
Yeah, I'm pretty certain of that.
I went for a while, more than six months, where I just didn't touch any gluten.
I said, let me see what happens.
One thing, I lost weight.
I was pretty shocked at how easy it was.
My body thinned out, lost body fat, my face got thinner.
I carry fat in my face.
I'm like one of those dudes.
I carry fat.
If I get fat, I get love handles, and I get it in my face.
steve maxwell
Me too, man.
joe rogan
I don't get it in my arms.
I don't get it in my legs, but I get it around my belly and my sides, and I get it in my face.
And all that went, what?
My face shrunk down, and my side...
I was like, wow, this is interesting.
steve maxwell
It is interesting how the fat patterns just shrink up.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
There's three major fat distributions, right?
You got your depot fat.
That's like the love handles or with women, sometimes it's the saddlebags in the side of the thigh.
Sometimes you see women in the upper back or the tricep area.
With guys, it's usually the belly or the love handles for most guys.
Then you have internal fat.
That's the dangerous stuff.
The intra-abdominal fat, that gut fat, that's what can kill you.
Then you have subcutaneous fat.
It's like the smooth fat underneath the skin, like an insulation layer.
And then, of course, they've identified the brown fat also.
It's like an active fat.
It produces heat in the body.
It's like part of the survival mechanism.
Back when our ancestors had to tolerate a lot of extremes in temperatures, like cold, you have this brown fat that's like a metabolic active fat.
Kids have it, but by the time you're like 12, it almost disappears because we have this regulated temperatures all the time.
People don't expose themselves to cold.
They're always bundling up and their homes are overheated.
But what a lot of people are saying now, you can actually get that metabolically active fat, the brown fat cells going, which helps keep you lean and helps burn the other yellow fat.
So cold showers, cold water treatments, exposing yourself to cold, a really good thing for developing that brown fat.
And it builds your immune system, and you have a much better tolerance to cold, and much less likely to get innervated in cold weather, so you don't have a tendency to come down with colds or flu and stuff like that.
joe rogan
Really?
Brown fat?
steve maxwell
Yeah, brown fat.
joe rogan
I'd never heard of that before.
And what is it created by?
steve maxwell
Like, what...
Some of it's in the peritoneal cavity.
Some of it's up in the neck area.
And it's just something that nature provided to help temperature regulation, help you tolerate cold.
joe rogan
So is that like more common with Inuits and folks who live in...
steve maxwell
Oh yeah, for sure.
They have well-developed brown fat.
But you and I could do it too if we just exposed ourselves a little bit more to the cold.
joe rogan
Have you done any cryotherapy?
Have you done any of that?
steve maxwell
Not like the way it's been used.
joe rogan
How long are you in town for?
steve maxwell
Let's see.
I'm going down to San Diego.
I'm the keynote speaker for that Strength Matter Summit.
That's 20th through the 22nd, March in San Diego.
joe rogan
So what's the 17th, 16th?
I've got to take you to this place in LA. Okay.
It's called Cryo Healthcare.
I've got to bring you down there.
steve maxwell
I love cold...
joe rogan
This is insane.
250 degrees below zero.
You go into a meat locker.
I mean, it is crazy.
You put on a surgical mask, you put on earmuffs, you wear socks that go up to your knee-high socks, and those rubber Crocs, because you don't want to stand on the floor.
And you also wear gloves.
And you wear underwear, very important, ladies and gentlemen.
And you don't want to have any moisture in your body.
steve maxwell
You don't want to go there sweaty.
joe rogan
Yeah, you go there for three minutes.
Three minutes at 250 degrees below zero.
And it is cold as fuck.
And all I do is I just concentrate on staying calm.
steve maxwell
And breathing.
joe rogan
And I breathe and I count.
And that's what I do.
I go one, two, three.
And I try to count slower than a minute.
So they give you a timer.
You have one minute remaining.
So when I count that minute down, I always want to make sure that I'm not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I'm counting slower than the actual seconds.
steve maxwell
Do you build up?
Do you maybe start 30 seconds and build up each time?
joe rogan
You can.
I did.
steve maxwell
I was just curious.
joe rogan
The first time they did it, they put me in for two minutes, and they go, well, the first time, you want to try it.
You know, don't go in too long, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I go, okay.
What's the longest I could do it?
And they said, three minutes.
So I said, all right, well, I'll try your two minutes.
I tried two minutes.
I think it'll last another minute.
I go, let's try another minute.
So then I went in again, and I did three minutes.
Now what I do is I do three minutes.
I take maybe five, six minutes off, and I get on an elliptical machine and warm up, and then I go back in for another three minutes.
It's amazing.
unidentified
It's amazing.
steve maxwell
Well, for years, I did the dowsing.
It's a Russian bucket treatment.
joe rogan
Oh, ice bucket challenge.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Well, it's funny because I had been doing this years and years before.
When I lived in Philly, I had a backyard that was pretty much secluded with a big wall.
So I could basically, you know, strip down naked in my backyard and my neighbors couldn't see me.
And in the back corner, I had this big spigot and I had a five-gallon bucket.
And all year long, I would go and very slowly...
I pour a five-gallon bucket, starting with the abdomen, up over the head and down the back.
And the Russians that had taught me this said that it creates like this artificial flash fever.
It's not quite the same thing with the shower, which is more prolonged.
Because you're dowsing yourself with a sudden immersion, it's kind of like plunging into like a cold lake.
It supposedly burns up any bacteria or germs or whatever in your body.
All I know is that for the years I did it in Philadelphia, 15 years, when I was a householder, I didn't get a cold.
unidentified
Really?
steve maxwell
I did not get a cold.
People around me would have flu, they'd be sick, and my immune system was, like, amazing.
joe rogan
Well, the benefits of this cryotherapy, as it's been explained to me, and if you go to cryohealthcare.com, I think it is.
I forget the website, but the name of the place in LA is Cryo Health Care.
There's a bunch of different styles of these cryo machines.
One of them is from the neck down.
You stand in, and your head is outside, and you don't have to put anything on your face.
I don't find that one to be as effective.
It's good.
It's certainly better than nothing.
But the one we step into the meat locker...
God, that's a motherfucker.
They're going to have one of those down the street in Woodland Hills, down the road a bit.
They're going to be putting out one of those within the next month or so.
steve maxwell
Well, that would certainly stimulate brown fat growth, I would think.
joe rogan
See, the meat locker one is the one on the left.
See, they have that one.
That one's fairly common, kind of nationwide.
That one, the one that you see on the left, the meat locker, that's the motherfucker.
I like that one, man.
steve maxwell
It's actually claustrophobic in that one, right?
joe rogan
No, it's not claustrophobic.
You can open the door easy.
steve maxwell
Yeah, the little one just looks like, I don't know, man.
joe rogan
No, the little one's easy.
The little one's so easy.
The little one's hard if you've never done it before.
You go, oh, Jesus.
But if you've done it, the big one is, like the little one, that's that one right there.
You just kind of...
You climb out of it, you're fine.
But the big one has this amazing effect.
You get out of there, you feel like you could jump over buildings.
You're like, whoa!
Once your body realizes that you're not going to die, no one has dropped you in the top of the moon, and it's on really 250 degrees below zero.
That's literally the surface of the moon, is 250 degrees below zero.
steve maxwell
No kidding.
joe rogan
Yeah, in the dark.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
The moon varies from like 250 degrees to 250 degrees below zero, depending on whether or not the sun is hitting you or whether or not you're in the shade.
steve maxwell
Well, that's like how all these things work, even training, right?
You know, your body, if training's done properly, your body perceives it as a threat to its survival.
You know, you basically are tapping into your survival mechanism with these things.
And your body in its wisdom will say, hey, I'm not quite up to snuff here.
I better adapt and get stronger so I don't die.
And that's training too, weight training or anything.
You know, you have to make it stimulating enough and difficult enough to tap into that survival mechanism.
So that if you're not, you're not getting the benefit of the training, or in this case, the cryotherapy.
So your body, you know, like an adaptation response.
joe rogan
Well, there's this new system that they've developed in Japan.
It's called Katsu.
And I don't know the gentleman's name who created it, but I had a chance to try it out this weekend in Austin.
And what it essentially is, is like these, they take these straps and they constrict your bicep, like right below the delts.
And then you go through like a 15 minute routine.
Like 15 minutes of, you do curls, you start off, you do push-ups, you do curls with a kettlebell to failure, and all this is while your blood flow is restricted.
And then you do like ropes.
And you do sets of three for 15 minutes.
By the end of the 15 minutes, your fucking arms are dead.
Dead.
I mean dead because you're restricting the blood flow and then they release it and take it off and Apparently the response that your body has to the fact that your blood flow is restricted it triggers all sorts of responses as far as your growth hormone your testosterone all these different your body starts trying to compensate for the fact that it doesn't have enough blood flow so it just over ramps everything up and it's apparently fantastic for healing It's fantastic for people that have injuries.
Recovery time from injuries reduces drastically.
Like Bodie Miller, the Olympic skier, he used it to get back in shape from surgery much quicker than he would have without it.
It's just one of these new methods, much like this cryo thing, much like many of these other protocols, where they're trying to figure out ways to kind of trick your body into ramping up the healing process or ramping up the...
steve maxwell
So it's used for healing, not for strength training, per se.
joe rogan
For both.
steve maxwell
For both.
I'd just be curious.
It'd be interesting to see how it compares to this traditional strength training as far as, you know, actual general strength.
joe rogan
Yeah, and the idea also is that it puts a strong load on your muscles, but not on your joints.
Because everything you're doing, like say if you're doing like kettlebell curls to failure, I was doing it with like a 35-pound kettlebell with two hands.
That's not a lot of weight, you know?
It's not a lot of weight, and you're just cranking out reps.
But because your biceps are tied off at the top...
steve maxwell
So you're just getting that blood all pumped and trapped up into the muscles.
Because the flow is restricted, I get it.
joe rogan
Yeah, they look giant.
Sounds painful, man.
Yeah, it's painful.
It's painful.
But I just fucked around with it yesterday for the first time, and apparently the results are amazing.
And at Onnit, we're starting to look into this and trying to see what we can do to bring this To the mainstream, but to try to get more athletes involved in doing things like this, you kind of get these results where you start going, oh, okay, well, if you do that and this, what if you do cryotherapy and this Katsu method and also the breathing?
Also, what's the difference in the response to your body?
What's the difference in how quickly you can heal, how quickly you can get in shape?
That's a big issue for MMA fighters is the downtime from injury and then ramping your body back up to competition shape afterwards.
Anybody who's ever gotten to a very good fitness level and then got injured, it's so frustrating getting back to the gym and then trying to get back in shape.
steve maxwell
And a lot of guys never do get back because it's just such a hard road to come back on.
joe rogan
It's hard for people to accept the state that they're in.
You know, like especially, that's one of the issues with younger athletes.
You know, you're young, you're 20, your body heals quick, you're just a wild motherfucker, and you're doing anything you want.
You're reckless.
And as you get older, it's one of the things that I liked about your article that you wrote, you have to be smarter.
You have to be smarter.
You have to recognize that your body is going to take longer to heal.
You can't be reckless with it.
And also, you really probably shouldn't have been reckless with it when you were 20, but you could get away with it to a certain extent.
Now that you're older, you have to be wiser.
steve maxwell
Well, you know, everyone thinks they're bulletproof and they're going to last forever.
You know, you just can't even imagine.
I can remember going to a wrestling tournament.
It was in York, Pennsylvania.
It was like I used to do the summer freestyle wrestling circuit.
They used to have tournaments all over Pennsylvania.
And I remember meeting a guy that was like 33 years old.
And I was just blown away.
My God, you're still wrestling.
You're 33. Oh man, you're my new hero.
I can't believe it.
I want to be just like you when I'm 30. I just couldn't believe.
I thought this guy was like ancient.
You know, I was probably like 19 at the time, you know.
I could not believe that this guy was in there wrestling as well as he did at 33. Isn't that funny now?
joe rogan
You'd do anything to have a 33-year-old body.
steve maxwell
Dude, man.
42-year-old.
I was still fantastic.
Still feeling great.
As my grandfather said, no one gets out of here alive.
Father time will...
Take its toll over time, no matter what you do, no matter how many therapies and so forth, you know.
But you try to do your best with what you got, and you do try to preserve your youth and your vitality.
But one of the major problems I see, especially in extremist sports, like jujitsu or MMA or whatever, is the overtraining.
Everyone thinks more is better.
And it's not.
Better is better, but more is not better.
joe rogan
That's a huge issue with wrestling.
steve maxwell
Oh, terrible.
Wrestlers are notoriously the most overtrained group of athletes there are, I think.
joe rogan
But isn't that training with the overtraining, doesn't that develop this insane mental toughness that wrestlers are known for?
steve maxwell
Well, that's part of it.
The mental toughness is a huge part of it, because that is a hard-ass sport.
Did you happen to see the Foxcatcher, the movie?
joe rogan
Yes, I did.
steve maxwell
That wasn't exactly accurate, by the way.
joe rogan
At all.
steve maxwell
No.
joe rogan
Mark Schultz put up actually a thing on his Facebook page, all the inaccuracies that are in that movie, and they're pretty substantial.
steve maxwell
Pretty substantial.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's actually frustrating and annoying.
The guy's alive, he's an Olympic gold medalist, world champion, one of the best wrestlers really pretty much ever.
steve maxwell
Ever.
joe rogan
And they betrayed him in a very inaccurate light.
steve maxwell
Pretty much so.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, they made him look like a dumb jock.
The guy's brilliant.
steve maxwell
The guy was brilliant.
And very articulate, very smart guy.
And my college wrestling coach...
Was the junior coach there, Fox Kedger.
unidentified
Ooh.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
Dale Bonsal.
He's in the college...
joe rogan
So he was there when all that was going on?
steve maxwell
He's the NCAA Coaches Hall of Fame.
joe rogan
So this was after you were in college?
steve maxwell
This is after I had graduated from college.
I was still living in Philly.
And, you know, Dale used to invite me to come on down and train now and again.
And I took him up on it a couple of times.
Unfortunately, it was just a little bit too far away to be driving.
You know, I had a day job.
Wrestling is one of those sports that you pretty much have to have your mid-afternoons open because that's when all the universities train and that's when most guys train.
So I was really, you know, jones for some grappling experience, but it was really hard working a job.
And at that time I was married and a householder with a family and all that.
But I did go down a few times, and I got a chance to tour the facility, and it was really impressive.
And I had a clinic with, well, the guy they didn't even mention was that guy, Valentin Jordan, the Bulgarian guy.
That's the guy that DuPont gave his whole fortune to.
When he died, his fortune went to this Bulgarian coach.
Really?
Yeah.
The family's still fighting it.
They're still contesting it to this day.
unidentified
Wow.
Yeah, yeah.
steve maxwell
He really liked this guy.
And so I had a couple clinics with that guy.
One at Drexel.
Because, you know, he was making his way around the different colleges.
And learned a lot of awesome exercises and conditioning and wrestling.
And, of course, I met the great Dave Schultz.
I had a clinic with him.
I was like, wow.
He was definitely one of America's finest wrestlers ever.
But even more than his physical skills was his mental skills.
He just had an amazing mind.
And I was really fortunate to have, you know, been able to travel in those type of circles and get a chance to see it.
But this is after my college wrestling days, so I was looking for that thing to fill the gap, you know?
And that's when I discovered those Gracie brothers, you know, around 1989, man.
It was like, oh, shit, this is what I've been looking for, man.
joe rogan
What is it about the Bulgarians and a lot of the Russians and, you know, there's a lot of those people from that part of the world that are such good athletes.
There's so many tough people from that part of the world.
Like, what is that?
steve maxwell
Well, you know, a lot of our best fighters come from, you know, the poorer sections of America, you know.
Kids come up in the projects and, you know, some of these inner city kids, you know.
You know, look at, like in Philly or Detroit, or, man, you get some tough kids that grew up scrapping.
And it builds a mental toughness sometimes, you know?
Like Mike Tyson, growing up where he did, in Hell's Kitchen up there in New York.
joe rogan
Or Brownsville, actually.
steve maxwell
Or Brownsville, yeah.
So, I mean, those guys are just, you know, they grow up in a really tough neighborhood, kind of like dog-eat-dog, and it produces like a really tough, kind of-minded I think a lot of these Eastern European countries, they don't have much.
They have a lot of time on their hands.
There's not a lot to do for the kids.
They end up, like most boys, getting into trouble and fighting and doing all this kind of crazy stuff.
I think that's one of the reasons why this new urban playground gymnastics kind of stuff that the guys are doing has become so popular.
You know, that's pretty available.
It's just equipment just sitting there.
It costs very little to put it in.
joe rogan
Did we play that video of you there last time we were here?
steve maxwell
Yeah, with the bar stars.
joe rogan
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
steve maxwell
Yeah, that was pretty cool, man.
But in Eastern Europe, that stuff's really popular, you know?
And...
So, yeah, they don't have a lot to do.
They don't have the same kind of basketball courts that we do, and they don't have the facilities a lot of times.
But wrestling is pretty cheap, man.
You know, it doesn't take a lot of equipment.
joe rogan
Right.
It's not just wrestling, really.
There's a lot of boxers right now that are coming out of that part of the world as well.
steve maxwell
Sure.
joe rogan
I mean, Sergei Kovalev, have you seen him fight before?
steve maxwell
I have not.
I've heard the name, but I haven't had the opportunity to actually see him.
joe rogan
He's a motherfucker, man.
He beat Bernard Hopkins, and then he just beat Jean Pascal the other night.
Man, it's amazing.
Such a good fighter.
The way he moves, I mean, he really makes boxing exciting again.
He's a killer.
Just goes for the kill.
Like, constantly, but super technical.
Like, everything about his movement is very technical.
His footwork, his distancing, the economy of his movements, the way he throws punches, just beautiful, beautiful to watch.
But there's so many tough guys.
Gennady Golovkin, all these tough, tough guys coming out of Russia, of that area, you know, that part of the world, the former Soviet Union.
steve maxwell
Well, I've traveled, like, into Siberia.
I've traveled to, like, you know, down around the Black Sea area.
I've been to a lot of the Slavic countries, too, you know, Serbia and Slovenia.
Man, the guys are huge, big, strapping guys.
And you just don't see the obesity, either, man.
They don't have the food to just, you know, they can't afford just to overeat like we do in America or, you know, in the rest of Europe or the UK or whatever.
You see some, you know, some real fatties.
But man, when you're there, wow, people are pretty lean and wiry and stringy.
And a lot of the younger guys are just like specimens.
I don't know whether it's genetics or...
joe rogan
It has to be.
I mean, you think about the people that have lived and gotten through those harsh climates and tough jobs and just had to work their whole life.
steve maxwell
Survival wasn't fitted.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And those are the people that bred and those are the people that kept going.
What you notice also about a lot of those people from that part of the world, which is interesting enough, is not just that they're tough, but that they're very technical.
There's a lot of really technical wrestling that comes out of Russia and out of the former Soviet Union, that area.
Those guys, those Russian nationals that went up to Montreal, that's a lot of where George St. Pierre learned how to wrestle.
Never wrestled in high school, never wrestled in college, but became one of the best wrestlers in MMA, and that's part of the reason why.
steve maxwell
I remember I wrestled, this was in the 70s, I wrestled in the Montreal Open Wrestling Tournament.
And this was just at that time when the Russians were making a big influx and they were starting to try to defect and flee to the Western world.
The Soviet Union still existed.
And I remember I wrestled Viktor Silberman.
In the finals and got my ass handed to me, man.
And so I was trying to talk to him later because I was really impressed with this guy's technique and his skill and everything.
And I was utterly shocked when he told me that he only lifted weights once a week.
He lifted weights four times a month.
And I thought, how is that even possible?
I thought these Russian guys, like, lifted weights every day, twice a day.
And he says, no, no, no, no.
We practice technical wrestling as the base of our training.
And then I was utterly shocked.
I had a guy that was training with me in Philly for a while.
He was a five-time Ukrainian national wrestling champion.
He used to be on the national team.
This was back when the Ukraine and Russia was all part of the Soviet Union.
And he was telling me that they would only spar really hardly twice a week because they found that the live wrestling was what was producing all the injuries.
But when they would train, they would train like real slow motion and they would gradually build their speed to the point where they were just going all out hard.
And they would just do this for long periods of time.
And wow, it is amazing.
It's an unbelievably hard workout when you're shooting high crotch singles, doubles, and so forth at match speed over and over and over and over.
It's like, holy shit.
And that was their main cardio.
joe rogan
It takes real discipline to do that though.
steve maxwell
It takes discipline, man.
joe rogan
Most people, in jujitsu as well, it's very similar.
A lot of guys just want to roll.
steve maxwell
Just want to roll.
joe rogan
They don't want to go over drills.
steve maxwell
But they never get technical.
That's the problem.
joe rogan
That is the problem.
Yeah, drills are where you really learn how to have those movements become a part of your nervous system.
steve maxwell
And keeping the sparring limited, your muscles and joints are stressed, and you don't get the injuries.
But I was very surprised to hear that.
You know, because I had a complete different perception.
Because in American wrestling, you just basically pound each other every time you go into the wrestling room.
You know, it's just...
joe rogan
Yeah, that is the problem.
steve maxwell
Americans produce amazingly tough wrestlers.
But the reason I think why we're not seeing Americans dominating the international scene anymore is like there's no damn money in it, man.
You graduate from college and maybe you have a degree or whatever, but what are you going to do with your wrestling skills?
MMA! The UFC opened up a whole new door for former NCAA wrestlers.
Why the hell would you go to the Olympics and make peanuts when you can make fairly decent money?
Possibly, if you're good, you know, if you're a tough guy in the UFC. Yeah, that's what I wanted to know.
joe rogan
Do the Russians have that same issue with overtraining?
steve maxwell
No, no, because they don't spar as much as the Americans do.
They're very careful not to overtrain.
They have, like, blocks where they kind of, you know...
They kind of ramp up the training as they get near and near, like, World Championships or the Olympics or whatever.
Some people call it periodization or whatever, but they're very careful not to, you know, overtrain and overdo it.
joe rogan
Well, they're known for their mental toughness as well.
Like, why don't the American wrestlers incorporate that into their workouts, or have they started to do that?
steve maxwell
Well, I think they probably are.
You know, I've lost a little bit of touch with the wrestling community, but, you know, our wrestling coaches are fantastic.
You know, they're smart guys, so I'm sure they're taking a hard look, because the Russians have been really successful, as have the Iranians, as the Turks, the Bulgarians, you know, all these countries that perennially put out, like, world champions.
Azerbaijan, you know.
The Mongolians are really starting to dominate Judo, and, you know, they've always been tough as shit in wrestling.
So, I think that for sure you can learn a lot from their basic programs.
They're pretty simple programs, really.
They don't have a lot of sophisticated equipment and so forth, but they make up for a lack of sophistication with equipment and facilities and all that with technique.
They're real technicians.
joe rogan
That is the most important part of any martial art.
The most important part is having that technique down to just a razor sharpness.
steve maxwell
A razor sharpness, man.
You've got to hone those skills because, you know, MMA, jiu-jitsu, judo, wrestling, it's all technique.
joe rogan
I really wish you'd watched this past weekend, this UFC, because...
steve maxwell
I'm going to have to catch it on the replay now.
joe rogan
You've got to watch Anthony Pettis vs.
Rafael Dos Anjos.
steve maxwell
That must have been a hell of a match.
unidentified
Ooh!
joe rogan
Dos Anjos beat the brakes off of Pettis.
steve maxwell
Is it up on the internet yet?
joe rogan
I don't believe so.
steve maxwell
How long do they wait before they're loaded up?
joe rogan
I mean, what site do you go to?
UFC Fight Pass?
I don't know.
I don't believe it's up yet.
I'll check.
I don't think it is.
I mean, I know it's on pay-per-view.
It might be available on Fight Pass.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I was just curious how long, but I'll definitely give it a check.
joe rogan
Fight Pass has pretty much everything.
But I don't know how...
I think they do show some pay-per-views.
They have live events.
steve maxwell
Hey, why don't you bring their clip up?
I'm going to run the men's record real quick.
I'll be right back in just one second.
joe rogan
Go ahead.
I'll try to find it.
We'll see if we can find some highlights of it, but what I'm going to ask Steve about it after he gets done using the little girl's room.
What was incredibly impressive was not just the skill level that Dos Anjos showed, but the pace and the fitness.
He doesn't want to toot his own horn, so I'll toot it while he's out of the room.
He's so knowledgeable, and he got Diego Sanchez into probably the best shape of his life when Diego challenged BJ Penn for the belt, and Diego wound up getting beaten pretty badly by BJ when BJ was in his prime.
BJ's like an all-time great.
And just one of my all-time favorite fighters.
But he was in incredible shape for this fight as well, which was always like kind of his Achilles heel.
He was so talented, but he just never really...
He was able to continue that sort of strength and conditioning program that got him into the shape that he was when he fought Diego Sanchez.
And what we were talking about with Steve being that the technique is so important.
It is so incredibly important, but MMA is so unbelievably grueling.
I had a conversation with Chael Sonnen about it, who's a former UFC fighter and fought for the title several times, a great fighter and also a very open guy, very open as far as his own limitations and his strengths and weaknesses.
And he was just talking about how the time that you spend inside the Octagon, competing for 25 minutes, is almost impossible to really do.
It's almost too much time.
What I was saying was that...
Steve's back.
What I was saying that the amount of time that you spend in the octagon fighting in a championship fight is so insane.
It's almost like you're sprinting for 25 minutes.
steve maxwell
It's brutal.
joe rogan
And very few people figure out how to get in the right shape as well as work their skills.
steve maxwell
It's so hard, man, because endurance is a skill.
But then there's also the skill of making the other guy use up his energy more than yourself.
And, I mean, controlling and managing your energy system in the ring and on the mat is such a skill unto itself.
I mean, let's just take out the striking skills and the grappling skills and all that stuff.
Just that energy management, that's huge, man.
And a lot of guys don't pay enough attention to that.
joe rogan
Well, dealing with pressure is a big one.
I remember from my days of competing that when guys were really aggressive and I was backing up a lot, trying to move away, I'd get so much more tired because you're always thinking.
You're dealing with this guy attacking you and you're backing up, which is kind of an unnatural movement.
I mean, a lot of people run, but very few people run backwards.
And you've got to realize that when you're going backwards, you're kind of using your muscles in a different way.
steve maxwell
Way different.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Exhausting, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, and very few people do that.
Muhammad Ali used to run miles backwards because he was always backing up and then moving forward, backing up and moving forward.
And one of the most beautiful things about him when you watch him, like in his prime, like the Cleveland Big Cat Williams days, before they took his title away because he didn't want to fight in the Vietnam War, His footwork and movement was just magical.
And his ability to back up.
I mean, you really couldn't catch him.
He was just backing up and moving forward, backing up and moving forward.
And that's something he had to work at really hard.
But three minutes in a boxing match is so much different than five minutes with wrestling and leg kicks and elbows and the clench.
God, it's...
I'm curious to see what you think after you watch this fight, because one of the most impressive things about the fight, as far as Dos Anjos' performance, was his cardio was insane!
steve maxwell
Yeah, some of these guys are just like something else, man.
joe rogan
I mean, he just attacked from the moment the fight started.
He just went after Pettis and just never let up.
Like, literally never let up.
It was amazing.
It really was amazing.
steve maxwell
Here's maybe a sore point, but what do you think about the use of the performance-enhancing stimulants to mask fatigue and so forth?
joe rogan
Like which kinds?
steve maxwell
Oh, I don't know.
There's so many different ones these days.
I'm just curious.
Are they testing for this stuff now?
Are these guys using various stimulants to keep them pretty much hopped up?
joe rogan
Well, they're testing for everything.
So guys are getting popped for a lot of different stuff.
Hector Lombard...
steve maxwell
This is strict testing now?
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
Especially California.
I mean, I've given this guy credit, but I want to give him credit again.
Andy Foster's been the director of the California State Athletic Commission for a few, I think a couple of years now.
But he's a former fighter, a longtime martial artist, and he's very smart, very diligent about this.
And I've had some...
I had a conversation with him when the UFC was in Los Angeles, and one of the things that he said, he goes, first of all, we're going to test everybody tonight.
We're not just testing the guys at the main event.
We're not just testing the people that are involved in the pay-per-view.
We're testing everyone that competes tonight, blood and urine.
steve maxwell
Wow.
joe rogan
Urine before the fight, blood after the fight.
steve maxwell
Fantastic.
That's a beautiful thing.
joe rogan
It's so huge.
steve maxwell
I wish they'd do that for regular jiu-jitsu, although it's probably cost prohibitive.
joe rogan
It's very cost prohibitive.
It's like $40,000.
I mean, depending on what lab you go to, I'm sure the results vary or the price varies.
steve maxwell
Well, at least the place winners, you know, the first.
joe rogan
Yeah, sure.
steve maxwell
Anyone on the podium needs to be tested, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, for jiu-jitsu, I agree.
Well, jiu-jitsu does have a real epidemic in it.
It's a real issue.
And unfortunately, a lot of jiu-jitsu guys that have come over to MMA have pissed hot, too.
Yeah.
But it's because strength is such a critical factor in forcing positions.
I mean, technique is everything, for sure.
steve maxwell
Strength endurance man.
joe rogan
It's goddamn huge and there's some guys we all know some guys you try to hit Singles on them you try to like try to do an arm drag and it's like trying to pull a wall You know some dudes like look at who some are Paul Harris is a perfect example that damn dude is so strong He's so ridiculously strong.
Do you see guys like John Fitch tangle up with them?
I mean John Fitch is an elite wrestler elite Took him down and cranked on his leg in the first round.
I mean, John never got out of the round.
He just couldn't get out of the round.
All of a sudden, he's leg locked and just didn't know what to do and got his leg hyperextended.
But these performance-enhancing drugs they're catching guys for, some of them I've never even heard of.
steve maxwell
Oh, they're getting so sophisticated and stuff now.
There's so many new cocktails that fall kind of just within the...
You know, borders of legality, you know, because people are always discovering some new way to hop up or, you know.
I was just curious what your take, you know, because you're around these guys all the time.
joe rogan
Well, I think there's a lot of guys that are taking things when they don't think they're going to get tested, you know, when they need to recover.
steve maxwell
Just for the training and all, just to get through the training.
joe rogan
And also to recover from injuries.
That's a big one.
And not just injuries that you know about, like surgeries, but almost everybody's tweaked.
You got a bum knee, or your elbow's bothering you, or something's going on with your neck.
Everybody.
There's almost no way of avoiding it.
steve maxwell
Yeah, exactly.
You cannot engage in an extreme sport like MMA. And maybe to a lesser extent, jiu-jitsu and judo and wrestling at that competitive level without the tweaks.
joe rogan
Yeah, I don't think there's a way.
steve maxwell
It's virtually impossible.
You cannot do a combat sport without paying the price to the body.
joe rogan
But I wonder if a protocol will eventually be established, the most intelligent protocol, similar to what you're getting with these Russians that have developed this program for wrestling, where they're just doing a lot of technical training, not nearly as much sparring, but a lot of technique, a lot of repetition and drills.
I wonder if that will slowly work its way into MMA and be established as this is the way to do it, the way they're doing it, say, in Russia.
steve maxwell
Yeah, well, I think it's going to have to at some point because, you know, the career window for a lot of these guys right now is like, what would you say, like two years maybe?
joe rogan
Well, nine years seems to be the magic number for everybody.
steve maxwell
That's the limit, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
But don't you see a lot of these guys pretty much burning out within about two and a half, three years?
It seems like there's a lot of guys that, you know, flare to the top and then they're gone.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's also the issue where they're kind of forced to keep competing on a regular basis once they become successful, especially you break into the top ten and you want to keep competing and winning, and so you win a big fight and say, okay, the UFC calls you up on Monday, hey, we've got blah, blah, blah in four months.
You're like, fuck.
Okay.
And you think, you know, man, I would really love to rest this knee.
I'd really love to, you know, get some therapy on, you know, this elbow or whatever issues you have.
And oftentimes that's not an option.
They have to go right back into training camp and these injuries become chronic.
steve maxwell
It's a brutal way to make a living, man.
joe rogan
It's a very brutal way to make a living.
And some guys, I don't know how Randy Couture did it.
steve maxwell
I don't know either.
joe rogan
He got through in his late 40s with no surgeries.
steve maxwell
Of course, he was an anomaly.
I mean, he was like...
I mean, one out of thousands and thousands, you know?
You just don't find guys like him.
joe rogan
Yeah, I don't know how the hell he did it.
I mean, I really have no idea.
It's incredible.
steve maxwell
I wonder if he's suffering now at all.
Do you know him personally?
joe rogan
I do know him personally, but he seems fine.
steve maxwell
Is he?
joe rogan
Yeah, he seems fine.
steve maxwell
No dementia or anything?
joe rogan
No, he was just interviewed recently.
He was...
Walking down the street with a girl who looked like she was about 20 years old.
steve maxwell
Wow.
joe rogan
And he's got to be about 50. Okay.
And she looked like she just hopped off a porn set, put on a t-shirt, and strutting down the road with Captain America.
steve maxwell
Wow, man.
As my Australian friends would say, good on you, mate.
joe rogan
Good on you, mate.
steve maxwell
So, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I mean, he seems fine.
The point being that they asked him questions about Leila Ali.
You know, Leila Ali's saying that she wants to fight Ronda Rousey.
steve maxwell
Oh, right.
I heard that little flappadoodle about that stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think that's just...
steve maxwell
Because, you know, one of my heroes was, of course, the great Dan Gable.
Probably one of the greatest wrestlers...
Not just in America, but the world has ever produced, man.
joe rogan
He was amazing.
steve maxwell
I mean, he went through the Munich Olympics.
What year was it?
That was like 72, was it?
Munich Olympics, or was that Montreal?
joe rogan
76. 76 was America.
Was that Los Angeles in 76, or was that 88?
I don't remember.
steve maxwell
It was the Munich Olympics.
It was that year where they had that tragic with the terrorists.
But anyway, he walked through that tournament unscored on.
How is that even possible at the elite level not to be scored on?
joe rogan
Incredible.
steve maxwell
Jesus!
It's like, wow.
I don't think anyone's ever done it before or since.
joe rogan
No, he was an uber-dedicated monster.
steve maxwell
Just a different guy, man.
But, wow, double hip replacement.
I don't know whether he's had knee replacement, but I saw a video of the poor guy, man.
I mean, I suppose if you'd ask him, was it worth it, he'd probably say, hell yeah, you know, the glory, but...
joe rogan
His mind is fine at least.
steve maxwell
He just looks like he's in such utter pain the way he shuffles and moves around.
He just beat himself to death basically with those crazy marathon training.
And that's one of the problems with a lot of the young guys.
He was the role model for a lot of us young guys coming up.
And, you know, that approach, that kamikaze approach to training, it really ages the body.
Yeah, it really does.
And when you're in your 20s, you're not seeing the big picture, man.
You know, you've got to live with that body for a good number of years after you hang up your wrestling shoes.
joe rogan
Yeah, and I think what you said, like if you asked him, he probably would say it was worth it because you can't take away history.
I mean, that guy has amazing memories of being one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
But his mind is okay, at least.
steve maxwell
Yeah, he's a very intelligent guy.
unidentified
Yeah, and he doesn't have dementia or anything that you've seen with these older fighters.
steve maxwell
Well, at least in wrestling, you're not taking the brain trauma.
joe rogan
Yeah, Mark Coleman, first ever UFC heavyweight champion, his body is starting to fail him.
He had one hip replacement, and apparently they have to replace it again.
He had a massive infection when they went in to look at it, and he's in the hospital now.
And there's a GoFundMe.
I'll retweet the link later today after this podcast is over for folks who want to help out Mark.
But he, you know, his body is just all banged up from the years of wrestling, high-level wrestler, and then from there, all the years of competing in MMA, he's getting his hip replaced too.
I believe both of them need to be replaced.
steve maxwell
So that brings us back in full circle to where we started with the jujitsu for a lifetime.
I really do believe there is a way that you can train and have a lot of fun with this stuff.
But you've got to keep it really light, you know, like the grandsons of Elliot Gracie.
Keep it playful.
Keep it fun.
Don't be so concerned about points.
I mean, some guys will bleed from the eyes.
Not to have the guard passed.
It's like, dude, it's not even a tournament.
You're getting cranked up on your neck and you're taking all this abuse.
For what?
joe rogan
Right.
Let your guard be passed and then work on reclaiming guard.
steve maxwell
Yeah, and just get good at defense like Master Elio.
He was a master at defense, man.
You couldn't do anything to the old man.
joe rogan
And that's one of the things that Hickson always preaches, like defense is the most important thing.
The most important thing is defense.
Be safe.
unidentified
Be safe.
joe rogan
Always safe.
steve maxwell
And I think you can extend your grappling career well into a band stage.
I think of all the martial arts, you can pretty much do jujitsu and submission wrestling, if you're smart, well into a band stage, unlike a lot of other things.
joe rogan
Well, it's ironic that you say that because Hickson himself is very banged up, like really badly banged up.
He has eight herniated discs.
He's got a lot of muscle atrophy.
If you look at his body, he's got a lot of pain and suffering.
And he talked about it pretty openly when he was on the podcast.
And then afterwards, we discussed it.
I mean, he doesn't look physically anything like he looked like back when he fought Takata.
steve maxwell
Quite a specimen.
joe rogan
Oh yeah, man.
He was 200 plus pounds, very thick muscled and just flexible and his movement was amazing.
But all those years of getting cranked and also constantly training, constantly in there, constantly rolling.
steve maxwell
And being slammed a lot, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's a big one.
steve maxwell
I mean, you can see in some of the old videos where he's getting smashed down to the ground pretty hard.
That Zillow fight, you know, he's basically throwing himself backwards on top of him.
I mean, that's a big, heavy guy.
I mean, that wasn't just that.
Like you said, it's the training for that stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's ironic when you think about him being one of the masters and one of the real originators of that whole breathing system.
You know, he brought that yogic breathing, that fire breathing, to the practice of jiu-jitsu, and here he's all just really banged up.
He really can't train anymore.
I mean, he kind of goes over technique, and I think maybe he does some really, really light rolling with people he knows, perhaps, but...
steve maxwell
Well, it happens to everyone eventually.
I'm very picky myself now.
I'm in my 60s.
joe rogan
But Hickson's 10 years younger than you.
steve maxwell
Yeah.
joe rogan
And probably the consensus, all-time great.
steve maxwell
All-time great.
joe rogan
Yeah, if you ask people, like, who's the best jiu-jitsu?
And, you know, he's a guy that tapped Mark Schultz.
I asked him about that on the podcast.
Him and Mark Schultz, like Mark Schultz had never really rolled with a jiu-jitsu black belt before.
And he said the guy was an incredible grappler, incredible grappler.
But Hickson caught him in like 30 seconds with a triangle.
Like he just had no idea what it was.
You know, he really didn't know what he was doing.
steve maxwell
As most wrestlers.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And especially at the time.
Most wrestlers now, I would imagine.
steve maxwell
Give him like six months, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, I mean, one of the things that Mark was...
Disqualified for him.
One of his key matches was he got a guy in a Kimura and used it in a way that's illegal in wrestling.
You would use it all the time like that in MMA, but he locked it up and rolled the guy with it and just ripped his shoulder apart.
steve maxwell
Ouch.
joe rogan
I think the guy was from Turkey.
Pull up the video, see Mark Schultz disqualified wrestling, but it's a classic double wrist lock, you know, catch wrestling, double wrist lock.
And he uses it to flip the guy over and just destroys his arm in the process.
And he went on to learn a lot of submission techniques.
steve maxwell
Oh, the guy was an absolute frightening animal towards the end, wasn't he, after he learned those submissions?
joe rogan
Oh, he's so physically strong, too.
steve maxwell
In a lot of the early catch-as-catch-can wrestling, submissions were all part of it.
I'm reading this fascinating book.
Let me get the exact title here.
Right now.
It's the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and this guy did an amazing job on putting this thing together.
I don't know.
I don't have it here.
I think it's called...
joe rogan
See, here's the thing.
The guy's trying to get a single, so he's got his legs in between...
He's got Schultz's leg in between his legs.
Schultz locks up the double wrist lock and drops and rolls and just destroys his arm.
Just destroys it.
steve maxwell
It's really interesting, but I saw Kimura on one of those old black and white pre-World War II judo videos do the same exact takedown with the gi.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
steve maxwell
He locked up the Kimura the same exact way and threw the guy.
joe rogan
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, let me see that one more time.
I love watching that.
steve maxwell
That's absolutely brutal, isn't it?
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
He was disqualified for that?
joe rogan
Yeah, I believe so.
I'm pretty sure.
Watch how he does this.
steve maxwell
My shoulder's gone, dude.
You can just see the guy.
joe rogan
He just collapsed in agony.
That's very similar to when Frank Mir broke Minotaro's arm.
steve maxwell
Yes.
I remember that match.
joe rogan
Didn't want to tap.
steve maxwell
And Henzo got his arm broken by Sakuraba.
joe rogan
Yeah, Sakuraba.
steve maxwell
It was almost the same type of situation where it was a standing Kimura and he was trying to throw him.
And I think Henzo resisted by straightening the arm, but there was enough torque that it popped.
joe rogan
I believe Henzo had his back and just got a little relaxed because I think Henzo was winning the fight.
Henzo had Sakuraba's back.
And you know, Sakuraba, when you had his back, that's when he would lock that up.
And he said, Henzo talked about it recently.
He said, you're just really surprised at how strong Sakuraba was.
steve maxwell
Oh, he's a strong little dude, man.
joe rogan
Because he had been rolling, or fighting rather, with much larger guys.
Like he fought Conan Silveira in the first UFC when he fought in Japan.
And was a 98 maybe.
And he was, you know, 190 something.
And Conan is like 250. And he tapped him with an arm bar, if you remember that.
And it was like one of the first times we ever saw A Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt get tapped.
We were like, whoa!
steve maxwell
This is crazy!
joe rogan
That was the introduction of the world to Sakuraba.
steve maxwell
Well, you know, it's funny.
When I was a kid, York Barbell was like the mecca for strength training in those days.
And Bob Hoffman, the father of American weightlifting and weight training, he had this system called the heavy light system.
Where you would use heavy weights during one session and then lighter weights the next.
But the lighter weights weren't that light.
They just felt light because you had used heavy weights before.
And sometimes even the same session you would hold a really heavy weight and then when you go to your normal weight it felt ridiculously light.
Right?
I used to do that in wrestling.
I called it my heavy light system.
And I would spar with all the heavyweights on our team, all the big boys.
And then when I went with guys in my own weight, they felt like toys.
joe rogan
Yeah, makes sense.
steve maxwell
Yeah, the heavy light system.
And I've talked to a lot of guys that had experience wrestling with big guys, you know, in jiu-jitsu and so forth.
It does truly make guys' own weight feel like nothing.
joe rogan
I would imagine so, but it's also like Really bad on your joints.
steve maxwell
Well, you gotta be careful, man.
You gotta really, really, really be careful.
That's a young man's technique.
I would not use the heavy light system anymore myself, man.
joe rogan
Have you ever seen that video of the really old judo master rolling with all of his students?
It's a black and white video?
steve maxwell
Yes, I have.
joe rogan
It's amazing.
steve maxwell
What was that guy's name at?
joe rogan
I don't remember.
Jamie, see if you can find it.
Old judo master, tools, young students.
I mean, it was black and white.
steve maxwell
He had that floating throw.
What is it called?
The floating drop or valley drop throw.
Man, he was just like tossing these guys.
joe rogan
Yeah, and you could tell.
I mean, this was not like some sort of a kung fu demonstration.
unidentified
No, no, no.
steve maxwell
That was like real.
joe rogan
Yeah, this is it.
steve maxwell
Yeah, this is the guy.
joe rogan
Look at this old dude.
steve maxwell
Wow, this guy's good here, isn't he?
joe rogan
No, Jamie's on the ball.
unidentified
Mifumi.
Wow.
joe rogan
Mifumi, I mean, how old was he?
I mean, I believe he was in his 60s at the time.
Does it say it in the description of it, Jamie?
Let's see if it says it in there.
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
No?
steve maxwell
Well, he's no spring chicken.
joe rogan
Yeah, I believe he was in his 60s.
I mean, he's got all gray hair, but look how relaxed he is.
steve maxwell
Yeah, he's so relaxed.
joe rogan
And he's so frail.
steve maxwell
Wasn't judo beautiful?
joe rogan
Yeah, look how he moves.
But look how beautiful he moves.
steve maxwell
You see how he checks in with the hip?
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
steve maxwell
And he's a little guy.
This guy's huge.
joe rogan
Yeah, big difference in size, like maybe like 30 or 40 percent at least.
But look at that.
steve maxwell
Yeah, he's just kind of going with it.
He checks in with the hip.
He just does enough to have to get thrown.
joe rogan
I mean, it looks like they're dancing.
It's amazing.
steve maxwell
It's a beautiful thing, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, every time this guy tries to manipulate them.
steve maxwell
They're all wearing white belts, so that's kind of cool.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
There were no belts.
That was even before there were belts.
joe rogan
Is that the case?
Look at that.
unidentified
Boom!
steve maxwell
Yeah, it was like, what, during the 60s or whatever, they started coming up with the whole belt system?
joe rogan
Really?
During the 60s, huh?
steve maxwell
Yeah, it was pretty late.
It was late in the development, yeah.
joe rogan
So judo all throughout?
steve maxwell
Elio Gracie told me that in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu there was one belt.
When you became, after you trained for five years, you put on a blue belt.
And that signified a senior student.
joe rogan
Really?
steve maxwell
One belt, blue belt.
joe rogan
One belt, that's it.
steve maxwell
And then when the judo started with their belts, the jujitsu also did around the same time.
joe rogan
So when did the black belt get introduced?
steve maxwell
That was when the colored belts were introduced.
I believe it was during the 60s.
No kidding.
I know pre-World War II there were no belts.
joe rogan
Look how beautiful and effortless that throw was.
steve maxwell
That was just gorgeous.
joe rogan
Effortless.
This old, frail guy just using perfect technique, just so much knowledge.
steve maxwell
So much knowledge.
joe rogan
Look at that.
Look how beautiful that is.
The guy tries to do to him what he did to him.
steve maxwell
And this kid is going for it, too.
I mean, he's showing respect, but he's trying to throw the old man.
There's no doubt that he just knows.
joe rogan
Well, yeah, he's not trying to bully him.
He's trying to use technique.
But look at that.
Oh, my goodness.
It's amazing.
I just love watching that.
I love watching that.
And there's really a difference in this in comparison to striking arts because, you know, if these guys were kickboxing after a few leg kicks, Well, as long as you know how to do your breakfalls, you can...
steve maxwell
Oh, God, that's so beautiful.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
But, yeah, there's no...
Yeah, I mean, I find that with the grappling arts, you can pretty much keep going for much older.
joe rogan
You're certainly much older than sparring with striking.
steve maxwell
But, you know, I was telling you about this book I'm reading about the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
And they're talking about, like, the Japanese when they first came to America.
It was the first clash of cultures.
The Judo men were finding that they couldn't stand up to the American catch-the-s-catch-can wrestlers.
The Americans were bigger, stronger, faster, heavy.
They couldn't take them down with a lot of those throws.
A lot of the wrestlers won't wear the jackets.
That's where the guard really became developed.
They found that if they could pull them into the guard, they could dispatch them with arm locks, triangles.
Sometimes they insisted that the wrestlers wear the jackets in these fights like Maeda.
And then, of course, they could set the choke pretty easy on these guys.
Very fascinating book.
It's really fun.
I bought it off Amazon.
I have it on my Kindle.
I'm halfway through it right now.
I'm just to the point now where Maeda starts teaching Carlos Gracie.
But the history of the sport is absolutely fascinating.
joe rogan
That's incredible.
Have you been paying attention at all to Metamorris?
steve maxwell
Oh, yeah.
Well, my son.
joe rogan
Yeah, your son, of course.
Zach.
steve maxwell
That was a tough match for him.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Like, he doesn't do no gig.
That's not his game at all.
joe rogan
He's only doing gig.
steve maxwell
Yeah, and I said, holy shit, for your first professional black belt match, Gary Tony, jeez.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Could he have picked, like, a harder guy?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, Gary Tonin's coming on this week.
We're going to have him on the podcast this week.
steve maxwell
I really questioned, you know, like, wow.
He said, you know what?
I just wanted a challenge.
I just really want to fight the top guy.
And Gary Tonin, anytime you talk about no-gi submission wrestling, that name's up there with the best, man.
joe rogan
Did you see his match with Krohn?
steve maxwell
Oh, my God.
joe rogan
Amazing.
steve maxwell
I don't even know how Krohn pulled that out, man.
joe rogan
He's a beast.
steve maxwell
I mean, it just says how tough Krohn is, right?
But, yeah, it's like, so, yeah.
joe rogan
So, Metamorris had Dean Lister versus Josh Barnett.
Josh Barnett, of course, representing catch wrestling.
Josh Barnett even came out like an old catch wrestler.
steve maxwell
Like an old catch wrestler.
joe rogan
Like a bikini bump.
steve maxwell
The old jumps and the shoes.
joe rogan
Yeah, and the wrestling shoes and tapped Dean Lister.
steve maxwell
With a headlock.
joe rogan
Yeah, with that judo headlock from side control.
steve maxwell
Oh, you guys out there, you blue belts and purple belts, don't forget to practice your headlock escape, man.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
Because, you know, in jiu-jitsu training, no one uses the headlock because it's usually pretty easy to escape from.
joe rogan
Also, you give up your back, kind of.
steve maxwell
Exactly.
When you get out of a headlock, you're in a pretty crappy position, right?
But if you don't practice it, man, you can see what happens.
I mean, you get a high-level athlete like Josh Barnett, who is...
Ridiculously strong.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
And he slaps it on you by surprise.
Even a professional like Dean, and I mean, Dean probably knows a hundred escapes from a headlock, but man, you get caught by surprise and get locked up in that thing, man.
You know, that same position?
I was actually giving a seminar for the United States Secret Service.
I used to go down.
They were just a 90-minute drive from my gym, Philadelphia.
And I got to know some of these guys through Pavel.
And I used to go down and give self-defense seminars as well as conditioning and kettlebell seminars.
So one of the guys was an ex-wrestler who got me in that position that Josh got Dean.
I made a big mistake, man.
The guy says, well, how do you get out of this position, you know?
And so I lay down and leave him do it to me.
But the sound of a gun cranked me with it.
And pop both of my ribs.
And I was crippled for eight weeks.
joe rogan
Wow.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it was a pretty jerk thing to do.
Of course, you know, typical herky-jerky type of wrestler.
I was one of those guys myself at one time.
But I just realized how dangerous that position is.
joe rogan
That's how Mark Coleman beat Dan Severin to win the first ever UFC heavyweight title.
That same exact position.
steve maxwell
And I'll tell you, man, it is a power move, but man, if a guy knows how to do it right, it freezes your diaphragm.
It can dislocate your ribs.
It could even cause some spinal damage.
It's just horrible to be caught in it, and you go into an immediate panic.
But yeah, you can really get hurt with that.
Not just neck, but ribs.
joe rogan
It's a power move, but isn't it guillotine as well?
I mean, there's a technique to it, but you certainly have to have some strength to pull it off.
steve maxwell
Yeah, well, if you're wrestling anybody your own size or a little bit smaller, and in Josh's case, he was bigger than Dean.
Hell, why not, man?
joe rogan
Not much bigger than Dean.
Dean's huge now.
steve maxwell
Yeah, Dean's a pretty big boy.
joe rogan
He's really big now.
I mean, he's way thicker than when he was fighting at 205 in the UFC. I don't know what he's walking around on, but he looked to me to be like in the 240s or 230s at the very least.
steve maxwell
I wouldn't doubt it.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's very thick.
But Josh got him in that position.
He couldn't escape, which is amazing when you consider how much experience Dean has.
And I don't think he'd been tapped in competition over a decade.
steve maxwell
He's a hard guy to tap, man.
joe rogan
Oh, so hard to tap.
steve maxwell
His skill level, his skill set.
But hey, both guys are fantastic.
And, you know, that's grappling, right, on any given day?
joe rogan
I love also the different approaches that Josh has a different approach and you see that that different approach that cast wrestling approach can be just as effective if he gets you in one of those positions You know it's it and it might be something you're not accustomed to so you haven't trained to get out of it I remember one of the first pro Grappling matches.
steve maxwell
Maybe you remember this.
It was like in one of the Carolinas, North Carolina or South Carolina.
I think it was called the Pro-Am or something.
joe rogan
How long ago was this?
steve maxwell
Oh man, back in the 90s maybe.
No.
It was real early.
Like late 90s.
joe rogan
Was this the one where Frank Shamrock wrestled Dan Henderson and they did like a pay-per-view thing and John Peretti was the...
steve maxwell
Nah, it wasn't a pay-per-view, but they were paying cash prizes to the guys.
It was like one of the early attempts to do submission wrestling as a pro sport.
Okay.
I remember Salo was at the house.
He was training with me.
joe rogan
Salo Hibero?
steve maxwell
Salo Hibero.
And he was wrestling supposedly like the number one catch wrestler.
He was living down in North Carolina somewhere.
And I had seen this guy in other tournaments.
And I warned him.
I said, hey, this guy will give up his back.
To go for that twisting toehold.
You know, like when you go, they loop over the toehold and kind of flip upside down and go for your foot.
And I said, the guy's good with it.
He's really good.
And wouldn't you know, Sala takes it back and the guy does it and pops his ankle.
But Salo won't tap.
He said he would have died before he tapped as a catcher wrestler.
And then, because he didn't tap, you know, he choked the guy over the face, you know, because the guy was trying to hide the chin.
He basically just put the guy out, man.
joe rogan
But mangled his ankle?
steve maxwell
But mangled the ankle.
So he won.
But, oh my God, that thing turned as black as his microphone, man.
It was like, he was in such pain.
joe rogan
God, did he need surgery?
steve maxwell
No, he didn't.
Man, I'll tell you, Sola is another one of those guys that's just like one of the toughest dudes I've ever met.
Him and his brother Shanzi are just so tough.
But, man, he limped around and was hurt.
I don't know whether the ankle was ever the same.
But that's one of those deals, right, with the catch wrestlers?
You've got to watch.
Those guys are tricky as all hell.
joe rogan
They're doing different things.
steve maxwell
Especially with the knees, the feet.
Oh, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's guys doing different things and getting really good at those things.
That's a big part of it.
It's like, if a guy has a footlock or something like that, he just has down.
He just knows how to do it, and that becomes his thing.
I mean, some guys just have certain positions that you're not really well versed in, and they go to it over and over and over again.
Like, Eddie Bravo, before he got famous for doing the twister, one of the things I remember in Jean Jacques, Eddie Bravo would do a toehold.
He was a toehold guy.
And he would get toeholds on guys all the time because a lot of people weren't good at toeholds.
So he would dive on toeholds.
He was always catching people with that.
steve maxwell
And people don't know how to defend them, man.
joe rogan
Yeah.
steve maxwell
It's a smart move.
And sometimes moves are so old they're new, you know what I mean?
Like you see things go in trends and then people get good at stopping them and they kind of go away.
unidentified
Right.
steve maxwell
And then some older move will come back and you see these waves.
It's funny.
I was sort of anti-Baron Bolo and some of these inversion techniques.
Maybe I'm just jealous because my spine is a little bit too old and stiff to do it.
But the guys look like they're having a good time when they do it.
But I was talking to my son.
He says, well, Dad, you've still got to learn that stuff.
He says, even if you don't want to use it, you've got to learn it so you know how to stop it.
He says, because for sure, if you don't know it, you're going to get tapped.
The guy's going to catch you.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
So you've got to at least practice it a little bit to be familiar with him.
And that being said, I was in New York City and I was wrestling with Gianni Grippo and Mr. Baron Bolo.
The guy's so much fun.
He's one of Marcelo's black belts.
This kid is so good with that.
And it was really fun playing with him with that thing, man.
He could just flip upside down and roll and invert.
And next thing you know, the little sucker's on your back.
He's like, how did he do that, man?
joe rogan
Yeah, it's really interesting when guys get super sharp at one particular technique.
And if you're not aware of that particular technique, it could become really dangerous.
You know, Braulio Estima is famous for having that very bizarre guard as well, where he'll, you know, do those reverse triangles or inverted triangles.
And he gets himself into a position where, to the outside observer, it looks like, wow, this guy is like on his neck here in this weird position.
And then all of a sudden he's got a triangle on the guy and he's tapping people.
Just so good at that position.
He's good at all positions.
But that one position he's been particularly successful at because it's such an unusual thing to defend.
Very few people are that scary with it.
And it's like, some people criticize certain techniques.
They go, ah, you know, I played around with that, but that doesn't work.
Well, okay, really?
What about, like, head kicks?
Did you play around with head kicks and you say they don't work?
Because you know how many times you have to drill a head kick to get it effective?
But then you get it up to, like, a point where, like, an Anthony Pettis has it, or an Anderson Silva has it, and it becomes a real dangerous weapon in your arsenal.
Crow Cop, perfect example.
Crow Cop drilled that damn head kick to the point where he could throw it out like another guy could throw out a straight punch, a standard straight punch.
That's how good and fast his head kick was, and still is.
And when you discount a technique simply because you don't have the proficiency in it, you can really get caught, because you really can sort of define the world in an inaccurate light, and then you see a guy, like maybe this Barambolo guy, or Eddie Bravo with his twister...
Or, you know, there's a million different techniques that you're starting to see emerge in MMA that guys have discarded.
Like the front kick to the face.
Nobody was worried about the front kick to the face.
steve maxwell
Nobody.
joe rogan
And then all of a sudden, Anderson knocks out Vitor.
steve maxwell
What the heck is going on here?
No one would ever expect it.
But, see, that's just the thing.
I mean, you can't learn everything, for sure.
You know, you've got to have your certain arsenal.
But it certainly pays to be familiar with these positions.
And at least learn the rudimentary basics so you understand it, what it is.
You can recognize it.
Because recognition is the first step to protecting yourself against this stuff.
So even if you never want to use it, it pays to at least learn it and be familiar with it.
joe rogan
And actually learn it offensively.
There's a mistake that people do, especially wrestlers that are learning jujitsu.
They decide, well, I'm just going to learn defense.
I'm just going to learn jujitsu defense.
You will never learn correct jujitsu defense unless you learn jujitsu offense.
steve maxwell
That's right.
joe rogan
If you don't know how to cinch up a choke, if you don't know how to cinch up an arm bar, you're never going to know exactly what you can get away with when you're defending.
And once you get adapt at offense, then you'll truly understand defense because you'll understand what would I be trying to do to me if I was in this position and how do I stop this guy from doing that.
steve maxwell
All those little details, it's like so, so important.
joe rogan
One of the most beautiful things about jiu-jitsu is there's so many techniques.
It's almost like...
steve maxwell
It's never-ending.
joe rogan
Yeah, and you see certain guys who have a very small wheelhouse of techniques that they utilize, especially attacks.
Like Marcelo Garcia is, of course, one of the best of all time.
But he has a very, if you look at his, if you took all of his jiu-jitsu matches that he's won and look at how he won them, it's a very small number of chokes that he's used.
I mean, it's almost all, I mean, Rico Rodriguez, I think he got him with a leg lock.
Most guys, he got Jake Shields with a wrist lock, I believe.
I remember Rico Schiaparelli had a professional jiu-jitsu tournament thing that he was doing in Los Angeles.
Jacare competed against Randy Couture, and Marcelo competed against Jake Shields.
And I believe he got Jake in a wrist lock, which is, you know, he's got some crafty shit in there.
steve maxwell
Really crafty.
joe rogan
But most of it, guillotines, north-south choke, rear-naked choke.
It's almost all necks.
Almost all attacking the necks.
steve maxwell
Jiu-Jitsu is such a complex sport.
I liken wrestling, being a former wrestler, more like checkers.
And jujitsu to chess, but not just chess, three-dimensional chess.
It really is.
Maybe submission wrestling would be more like regular chess.
And then jujitsu with the gi, with all the different ways you can manipulate the cloth, almost like three-dimensional chess.
It's just such a huge variety of stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, the only problem I have with the gi is that I think a lot of people get brainwashed into thinking that you need to learn the gi to be good at jiu-jitsu and MMA. And Eddie Bravo in particular is very adamant that that is a ridiculous idea.
He's like, that's like saying you have to be really good at racquetball to be good at tennis.
steve maxwell
Yeah, it's two different sports altogether.
joe rogan
Well, there's just so much to grip, and you see so many guys that are world champions or that compete at a very high level with the Gi, and then they fight in MMA, and everyone's sweaty, and they have gloves on, and they can't grab things, and they seem lost.
steve maxwell
It's very sport-specific, man.
You have to develop the specific skills towards your fighting conditions.
But, you know, one of the most elegant definitions of jiu-jitsu I've ever heard, and it came from Hellson Gracie.
It was at a seminar in Atlantic City.
This was like one of the early Gracie seminars.
And this is back in the day when you never knew what kind of wacko was going to walk in through there.
Sometimes you'd even get people that wanted to challenge in the seminars.
And there was this guy that came in, swear to God, with flowing robes, like this kung fu guy with this big red sash.
And in the middle of the seminar he interrupts, well, Mr. Gracie, sir, could you give me the definition of your philosophy of jiu-jitsu?
And we're like, oh boy.
Because, you know, Halston, his English wasn't the most, it was hard to understand sometimes, you know, plus he mixed it with the Hawaiian slang.
But he says, win the fight.
When I know I can win the fight, I can pretty much, you know, be that nice guy and kind and, you know, loving and all that towards other people.
Because, you know, I had that confidence with myself that I know I can protect myself.
I don't have to be insecure.
So the guy says, well, could you expound on that?
Of course, first we have to explain what expound means and all that.
And we're thinking, man, what's he going to say here?
And he says, jujitsu, if you do this, I do that.
And if you do that, I do this forever.
And we said, whoa, that is some deep shit.
Let's get a 3x5 card.
And I actually had that in my school.
I actually wrote that and put it on the wall.
If you do dis, I do dat.
And if you do dat, I do dis forever.
And it's like, wow, it does.
It goes into infinity, man.
joe rogan
Especially when you're constantly moving one step ahead of the guy.
Like, if you...
I liken it to having a conversation.
Like, if you have a conversation with someone who speaks very broken English, you could really kind of talk circles around them.
If you're an articulate person, especially, you could make them look really silly.
You'd be like, what?
What are you trying to say?
You're trying to say nothing.
You don't even know how to talk my language, stupid.
You know, and you could just literally just rattle and attack them.
steve maxwell
I think they call it sophistry.
Like a lawyer.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, some guys, you know, be aggressive and rude about it, but some guys can do that with jujitsu, where you kind of have to think yourself through every step, and you're not kind of aware.
I mean, that's how I always feel when I would roll with guys who are like at a really, really high level.
It's like, I'm not prepared for all the steps that you could take to counter my step.
You know, I will do a move, and you will do your move, but you also have all these other...
You're already anticipating to counter this, I've got to do that, so I'm going to stop this by putting my hand on your knee here, and putting my foot on your hip here, and now you're going to have to try to get out of it, but I'm not going to let you get out of it, because I'm already anticipating that.
steve maxwell
Because I'm already so far ahead.
joe rogan
Yeah, like Hicks and Gracie always used to say about guys, he's not going to be able to keep up the rhythm.
Not going to be able to keep up the rhythm.
I do this and you do that.
I do this and you do that.
How long can you keep that up?
How long can you keep that rhythm up?
steve maxwell
How long?
Well, Halston had another go in too.
It was amazing because the guy was pretty profound in his own very simple way.
The way he'd explain things was pretty amazing.
But somebody was complaining how easily he was catching them.
And Halston says, look, I know everything you know and everything else.
unidentified
laughter I was like, yeah, absolutely.
steve maxwell
He says, maybe, maybe if I got sick or injured and was in the hospital for like three years and didn't train, maybe if I came back, you might have a chance.
joe rogan
But it's true.
unidentified
But it's true.
joe rogan
Why wouldn't it be true?
I mean, the guy's done it his own.
I mean, Ronda Rousey's essentially.
steve maxwell
It's born on their mats.
joe rogan
Yeah, Ronda's been saying that about female opponents.
She was like, listen, what's going on now is I've been doing this my whole life, and these girls are just not going to catch up to me.
And that's what you're seeing when you saw that beautiful armbar that she landed on Zingano.
I mean, Zingano attacks.
steve maxwell
Unbelievable.
joe rogan
Tries to throw her.
Ronda adjusts, winds up on top, recognizes the position where the arm is.
I mean, I was talking to George Gurjell about it at the last UFC. He's like, that's when I bow down to Ronda.
And that's how he said it.
I mean, George has a black belt as well.
And he's like, you know, I saw her arm bars.
I was like, yeah, she's got good arm bars, but sometimes she does things that I don't agree with.
Maybe her knees are a little too wide apart.
Even though she's catching these girls, maybe she's catching these girls because they're just not that technical.
He goes, but when she hit that armbar on Zingano, 14 seconds in, it's like, look, I've got to bow down.
That's some high-level, high-level technique.
steve maxwell
High-level technique, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, just the ability to adjust.
And again, that language that she has in her head.
She's so articulate with the language of submissions.
In her case, armbars.
You know, just so good at armbars.
steve maxwell
What a talent, huh?
Looks like she has quite a budding movie career as well.
unidentified
She's...
steve maxwell
She's not a bad-looking gal.
joe rogan
Beautiful.
steve maxwell
She's a monster.
I saw the swimsuit issue or whatever.
Man, she's a good figure, pretty girl, tough as shit.
I saw a very funny interview where this guy was talking a little trash, and she judo-threw him, and landed on him.
joe rogan
On Harwood 4, yeah.
steve maxwell
It was like, oh, man, did she...
She broke the guy's ribs.
joe rogan
Yeah, she judoed through him and launched herself on top of him.
steve maxwell
On top of him, man.
joe rogan
She knew exactly what she was doing, too, by the way.
steve maxwell
Are you all right?
Are you all right?
You don't trash talk to...
You just don't trash talk like that, man.
joe rogan
I think it was kind of planned out in advance.
steve maxwell
What did he think?
joe rogan
He wanted to get attention and make a video.
steve maxwell
You put on a gi and then you trash talk the girl?
Like you're not going to...
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, people got upset when I said that I think she could beat a lot of men in that weight class.
steve maxwell
I don't know why they would.
joe rogan
Well, because they don't know.
They've never rolled with a girl who's really good.
steve maxwell
I mean, like, in the natural world, right, a lioness can sometimes beat a male lion.
joe rogan
If they're the same size.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You never know.
steve maxwell
And if she has cubs, she'll risk her life.
And maybe he could beat her, but her incentive is...
Way higher than his incentive, so he figures it's not worth it.
joe rogan
Well, technique is, as we said before, is paramount.
And her technique is so laser sharp.
If she got in there with a guy who doesn't have that good a technique, just because he's a man, the physical strength and the benefits of being a male, whatever advantages that he may have, Aren't necessarily going to counter the technique that she has when they're the same weight.
Now, if you're dealing with a guy like, you know, she competes at 135. Okay, if you deal with her versus a guy at 170 like Johnny Hendricks.
Like, Jesus, of course that's a mismatch.
Johnny Hendricks is a powerful, big, strong man, and he most likely would beat her up.
But you're talking about a guy who's her weight, and then even if he's physically stronger, maybe he can hit harder, but how much of a technical advantage does she have on the ground?
She could easily catch you in something in a scramble.
Easily.
steve maxwell
Easily.
joe rogan
One, two, three, four steps ahead of you.
steve maxwell
Well, for older guys like myself, actually the women are some of your best sparring partners, like the more advanced women.
They're fun to train with.
joe rogan
Because they're not going to try to muscle.
steve maxwell
Usually, it's rare occasionally, but usually women won't use power.
They do think differently than men.
They have a different logic, and they surprise the heck out of you with some of their attacks and the way they put their game together.
It's really fun.
And usually women are pretty flexible, so their guards are a nightmare to get, you know, some of these girls with their De La Havis and spider guards are like, wow, controlling those feet is a nightmare.
joe rogan
Yeah, and you think about someone's guard, someone's legs have to carry their body around, you know, say if they weigh 140 pounds like Rhonda or 135. And, you know, you're carrying 135 pounds around all...
By the way, she doesn't really weigh 135. She weighs 135 on weigh-in day.
And then I would imagine she rehydrates up to around 150, close to it.
steve maxwell
She carries a lot of muscle in that frame.
joe rogan
She's thick.
steve maxwell
Yeah, she's not a skinny girl by any stretch.
joe rogan
Yeah, she's not weak by any stretch of the imagination.
steve maxwell
Oh my gosh, she's very strong.
joe rogan
So you're dealing with someone who knows how to manipulate their body and they have these legs that are carrying around All of this weight all day long.
Your legs are amazingly strong.
It's amazing endurance.
And when you factor that in, if you've gotten, like, I remember doing drills with my friend Felicia.
Felicia O is one of Jean-Jacques Machado's black belts.
steve maxwell
Yeah, I know Felicia from the old RKC kettlebell.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah.
She's a kettlebell wizard.
She loves that.
But I remember doing drills with her and, you know, armbar drills.
And she locks an armbar up on you, man, and you're dealing with legs.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Legs are strong, man.
Even a small woman has very strong legs.
steve maxwell
Well, the difference between male and female legs is a very small percentage, you know, in studies that they've done.
Upper body, there is a significant difference, but with a trained woman, she can close that gap.
And I'll tell you, for you older guys listening out there, you know, you guys over 40, or if you're a guy that's been injured, start seeking the girls out for sparring partners, and you will have a wonderful technical spar session.
joe rogan
You also look like a little bit of a creep.
steve maxwell
Yeah, well, man.
joe rogan
Heads up.
steve maxwell
Just don't be afraid to tap.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's a big one with guys tapping to girls.
steve maxwell
Oh, my God.
Some guys want to bleed from their eyes before they'll tap to a girl.
joe rogan
Have you ever tapped to a girl?
steve maxwell
Oh, hell yeah.
joe rogan
I haven't.
steve maxwell
I didn't say what contact.
joe rogan
I would, though.
I mean, I'm sure Rhonda could probably tell you.
steve maxwell
If I get in a bad position, I don't care who it is.
If it's a child, I'll tap.
Now I'm to the point where my days were fighting out of stuff.
If I make the mistake and I get in the submission, I have to assume that if it was a person of equal skill to myself, I'm submitted.
He got me in this position.
Fighting out of it isn't really technique as much as just strength or whatever, you know, pain tolerance.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
I agree with you.
I mean, there are technical escapes.
joe rogan
Sure, yeah.
steve maxwell
But, you know, like, you know, the joint's straight.
joe rogan
Right.
steve maxwell
Okay.
joe rogan
Especially when it's fully locked in.
steve maxwell
Exactly.
Perfect.
Okay, he got me straight, or the choke's set.
It's just pain tolerance and or whatever.
joe rogan
It's also the price you pay just to keep your ego healthy.
Like physically, I remember my friend Brent got me in a Kimura and I didn't want to tap and I fought out of it.
But I couldn't do chin-ups for months.
My elbow was so jacked.
I couldn't do chin-ups for the long...
And I just remember every day I would be at the gym when I was lifting weights going, why the fuck didn't I just tap?
Because I would be fine right now.
It was the same thing happened.
I've tapped him before.
He's tapped me before.
But I just would not tap.
And I'm like, ah!
steve maxwell
Yeah, you're just in that mindset.
joe rogan
But you've got to treat it like it's basketball.
If someone scores on you in basketball, it's not the end of the world.
You get the ball and you go right back in.
steve maxwell
Or you're playing softball and you pop fly out in the outfield or you get thrown out at third base.
So what?
You'll get another chance at bat.
But a lot of times, like you said, even though you do fight out of it, you are successful, the injuries already occurred.
joe rogan
Especially with the neck.
steve maxwell
And you might not even feel it at the time, but then it's like, oh shit, this really hurts, man.
I didn't realize it was as damaged as I was.
Maybe you're a little bit adrenalized or...
joe rogan
That's why I love the saying that Henner and Huron, keep it playful.
steve maxwell
Keep it playful.
joe rogan
That's a great way.
It's a great philosophy.
And it's a great way to teach.
You know, those guys have really done an amazing job with that.
steve maxwell
I met those guys when they were just like little, tiny boys.
joe rogan
They're so enthusiastic, too.
It's very contagious.
steve maxwell
They are.
They are very enthusiastic.
joe rogan
Like those Gracie breakdowns that they do that go over the techniques that guys use in fights to win fights.
It's like, it's very, it really makes you want to train.
They're great assets to jiu-jitsu.
They're great ambassadors.
steve maxwell
I think so too.
I love the whole street fight thing that they do and they show like the right things that people do and the wrong things.
I mean, they get some pretty intense street fights on there sometimes.
joe rogan
So you're in town for how long and you're doing some seminars around here?
steve maxwell
Yeah, actually I came here just to see you and then I'm going to be in...
I don't know whether I should even mention it on your show, but Love Wine with Dr. Joe?
joe rogan
Why shouldn't you mention it?
steve maxwell
Oh, I mean, you know, it's kind of a...
Isn't it like a competition podcast or something?
joe rogan
Oh, no.
I don't think about it like that at all, ever.
No, no, no, no.
I have a lot of friends doing that.
That's an old-school radio mentality.
steve maxwell
Yeah, well, you know...
joe rogan
I support everything.
steve maxwell
No.
So yeah, that was a weird one, man.
They just called it out of the blue.
Apparently the guy's been following some of the anti-aging stuff.
Not Dr. Drew, but the...
joe rogan
Mike?
steve maxwell
Yeah, the comedian guy that's on there.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's interesting.
Oh, that's cool.
steve maxwell
Yeah, no, I've never done anything like that before.
That's like, whoa.
That should be interesting.
joe rogan
Yeah, it'll be fun.
Tell him I said hi.
steve maxwell
I had no idea, you know, like what to expect.
joe rogan
Tell him that you're getting in the pot.
steve maxwell
Yeah!
joe rogan
He's actually come around about pot.
Him and that Sanjay Gupta guy from CNN, they're all coming around.
steve maxwell
Man, if I came around, you know, it's like now that you're seeing it get legalized.
But yeah, I was a little concerned because I wasn't sure, is it going to be like a Howard Stern thing where they try to make you look like an idiot?
joe rogan
Right, no, no, no.
steve maxwell
No, I understand it's actually a pretty cool show.
So I'll be doing that Strength Matters Summit in San Diego.
That's 20th through 22nd March, San Diego.
I'm teaching a bodyweight workshop.
joe rogan
Where can people find all of this stuff?
steve maxwell
On my website, maxwellsc.com.
www.maxwellsc.com.
joe rogan
Okay.
steve maxwell
And all the upcoming things.
And then, of course, the El Salvador lifestyle jujitsu training camp.
Show you all my anti-aging secrets.
joe rogan
Nice.
steve maxwell
Hopefully, you know, mobility and conditioning and jujitsu.
Big emphasis on the self-defense aspects of it, but also we'll have some other young guys there for competition stuff.
And then I just came out with the five-pillar workout system for kettlebells.
I have a movement-based exercise.
I had one with the body weight.
Now I came out with the kettlebell five-pillar movement system.
Just release that.
And I'm going to be making one with a barbell five-pillar.
joe rogan
Nice.
And here we go.
This is the website here, maxwellsc.com.
And you also custom tailor workouts for your clients through the internet, right?
steve maxwell
I do.
I discovered a long time ago, about 15 years ago, that a lot of people, they don't need someone to handhold them through workouts.
They had the incentive to train, they just didn't know what to do.
So I do diet programs, fat loss programs for people, help them wade through all that huge information.
I've had my own personal diet wars with myself, and I pretty much figured out a way that you can keep lean year-round.
So I help people with diet, fat loss, and you know, what to do.
There's so much information and misinformation.
How do you put all this together, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, it is difficult.
It's difficult to come up with a time to do all the research yourself.
steve maxwell
And it's all based on goals, by the way.
There's so many different ways to crack the nut, so many different systems, and they all work, more or less.
It just all depends on what it is that the guy wants.
So people really need a lot of help just sorting that stuff out.
So that's what I do.
And extensive questionnaire.
I analyze photographs for structure, you know.
Postural stuff and then you get a custom workout program and you send me training logs and I review them and send the information back and do progressions with people and so forth.
joe rogan
Well, I can't recommend you highly enough.
steve maxwell
Well, thanks.
joe rogan
I appreciate it.
All the years that we've been friends, I've just gained a tremendous amount of information from you and all the times we worked out together.
We're working out tomorrow, too.
Yeah, man.
steve maxwell
Damn, Joe, those guns are...
joe rogan
Very excited about that.
So anybody who's interested in any sort of strength and conditioning workout, if you want to mix it up or just want to just tap into the database of knowledge, that is Steve Maxwell, maxwellsc.com.
And all of these upcoming seminar dates are all available there.
And you can all check out on Twitter.
It's maxwellsc on Twitter as well, right?
steve maxwell
Yes, it is.
joe rogan
Steve Maxwell sc on Twitter, right?
steve maxwell
Yeah, Steve Maxwell.
unidentified
All right.
joe rogan
Thank you, brother.
Appreciate it, man.
Always a good time.
We're going to do this more often.
steve maxwell
Fantastic.
joe rogan
You're a traveling nomad, though, man.
You're all over the world.
steve maxwell
Thanks.
joe rogan
We got him here for a little bit.
All right, folks.
We'll be back tomorrow.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
steve maxwell
Awesome, Joe.
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