John Dudley and Joe Rogan explore the Cat Lady drink, born from a 2021 Lanai trip, blending Red Bull, tequila, and wine—though Rogan dismisses it without wine. They pivot to Sitka Gear’s Subalpine camo, praised for invisibility even against axis deer, and compare bows: Rogan’s quiet Hoyt RX-3 vs. Dudley’s torque-adjusting Helix. Archery parallels pool cues, where grip and relaxation dictate precision. Comedy resets every two years for Rogan, testing topics like vegan cats causing blindness in felines post-audience backlash. Mastery in jiu-jitsu (via John Donaher’s structured drills) and grilling (Traeger’s reverse sear, app-controlled briskets) hinges on fundamentals over random practice. Survival skills clash—primitive fire-starting vs. Bic lighters—while Dudley jokes about teaching Jocko Willink archery in Utah. Elite performers, whether hunters or comedians, thrive by embracing difficulty and mutual respect, proving "game recognizes game." [Automatically generated summary]
I don't know about this wee stuff, you came with a full bear hug of just, I could hear clanging happening, and you just dropped it in the middle of the table.
By the end, I just was kind of grabbing, I think I was consuming more than most, so I was just reaching around, trying to take whatever was left, and then you're like, what the hell are you pouring?
I remember last year when I elk hunted with Andy, I told Andy when we were in Montana that this time I'm going to be limited on how much I can hunt with you.
Like, we'll both go opposite directions.
And then after, I think, two days, Andy said, okay, I realize now how much of my success before was...
Hinging on you navigating me in these like small moments that I didn't really realize how important they were.
And I think if you can come here and if you can do you, like if your guide can get you close, but then you just say, I'm going to test only myself from here in, like from the 250 yard mark in, if you can get it done on an axis here, you can get anything done.
They won't come out and publicly say that subalpine is effective for, like, whitetail or turkeys, because the gore...
The gore methology...
I don't know if I said that right, but...
They have a protocol of having their tests to prove things or be able to make a statement are very vigorous for gore.
So because they've never truly tested subalpine to a turkey's vision, they won't come out publicly say that it's effective for turkeys, even though I can tell you it definitely is.
Early season whitetails.
Midway through the season for whitetails, 100% effective.
But what it was truly tested for was sub-alpine.
It was like tested for hunting big game.
And so they'll say that.
But I can tell you if there's any type of foliage that has a hint of green in it, it is effective.
Fish is tested for sure, birds for sure, because migratory birds have had tons of like, I think, I shouldn't say federal, but like granted tests to track migratory birds and how they see.
And it's proven that birds do see in electronic fields.
So for birds, they say that it's incredibly effective because that's why they've got all that footage, being able to crawl out on geese and people shooting turkeys from just sitting next to nothing, just being able to do it.
For those, it's really important that your hands and your face mask and everything are fully covered with the hex.
Honestly, I'm going with the major muscle groups for my stuff.
I wear the top and the bottom for small game and big game.
When we got up to your deer, and we're kind of his final resting place where we took pictures and stuff, Did you ever look back to the tree that we were, for those of you who want to know, we're actually on our flight back.
This is a flight podcast.
Everyone around us is like, what's going on?
No, we're just podcasting folks.
Did you look back at that tree and see how small that tree really was?
And I kind of grab the base of the tree, and I'm trying to shimmy up the tree just enough.
And I figured there was going to be a few axis there, and that's the thing with axis.
When they're bedded, you might see one or two that's standing up at the time.
But once I got there, I look back at you, and I'm giving the signal like, dude, don't crawl, but on your belly, scoot.
Just use your fingertips and your nails and pull yourself to me.
Because our cover was probably only two feet tall, and with you with the backpack on, that was about all you could spare, was just laying flat to your stomach and crawl up to me.
And then you got behind me and used me as a blocker to come up.
Because that was, honestly, that was the highlight of the whole trip for me, was just hearing that sound.
We had the sun hard at our back.
I couldn't really see.
I was trying to film, so I couldn't really see where your arrow went.
I just could see...
I could see that broadhead right past my shoulder, and I was looking at the tip of your broadhead and seeing how still it was.
I was referencing it on something that was behind it, and you were just stable, and I could see your broadhead coming back, back, back, back on the rest.
So I knew you were just pulling on that silverback just slow and sweet.
And as soon as I heard it go, I just looked right at the axis, and I heard that sound that just...
People don't realize that there's this window when you have one thing that you really like and you feel comfortable with and you feel like you have control over, which let's just say it's the knock to it, or an index finger wrist strap release.
And then, yeah, you learn with the silverback and you realize, okay, this is a good training aid.
And you're kind of afraid to lose that last little bit of control that you have.
But there's that window that if you can push through that, you forget about that feeling.
And you just realize, you almost realize there is no other option.
I don't think Axis try to locate a sound and then decide whether or not that sound is dangerous or not.
With most animals, what I found is the first reaction is to pinpoint where a foreign sound came from.
And once they're locked onto that, if there's anything following that, then now they kind of react like a fight or flight thing.
So I've had, and I can see this a lot in video footage, like with elk where they'll hear the bow and they'll turn and look to where a bow went off, but if they don't hear something coming, they just stand there and the arrow comes in.
And I really feel like that with the four-fledged setups we have, I feel like the arrows are quieter than what we've shot in the past, personally.
I think these are as fast as a highly pressured South Texas whitetail that's coming to a feeder that's kind of like twitching the whole time it's there.
And you kind of have to aim.
I got to the point where when I was out with Cam, Cam asked me where I aimed.
I said, dude, my pin was sitting...
In the corner pocket of the leg and the body.
Like, I literally...
Every time I drew back, I put the pin I wanted on the back of its front leg.
I followed that back leg up until it touched the bottom of the body, and I was pulling right there.
I was pulling on my trigger in a place where my pin...
If the arrow hit exactly behind the pin, it would have just shaved hair off its armpit, but that's not where any of the arrows hit.
They were all ducking and turning, and I feel like they're moving at least four inches down, possibly more.
Yeah.
Turning away.
It seems like they duck and spin out, like that's their move.
They wanted you to be able to have the ability to shift the new grip left or right, depending on how your natural grip is turning the bow so that you can adjust it to have perfect alignment of the arrow down the center shot of the riser.
For you, because obviously we've been shooting together for years, you don't have natural torque in your front hand, so I didn't have to shift it anyway.
Your arrow and everything is lined up right down the pipe, like right down the stabilizer.
Your pin sits right on the outside edge of your shaft.
You don't have any torque in the riser at all.
You don't even need to move it.
But I think some people have a natural ability to kind of grab the handle.
So they wanted you to be able to remove that screw, lift the grip off, and you can move this aluminum plate left or right underneath the plastic grip to kind of compensate for your natural torque.
When I'm playing at my very best, I'm barely gripping the cue, and I'm letting the natural texture of the wrap sit in my hand.
And that's one of the reasons why a lot of times I like to use a rapless cue, which is just wood with, you know, an enamel or, I mean, some lacquer cover on it.
And then I put beeswax on the lacquer.
And that's my favorite, because it just sits in the hand, it's tacky, and I don't have to grip it at all.
And I just let the cue do all the work.
And it's like the more you can relax, and the more I play, like I play for a few hours, then I get real relaxed.
And then I can really just sort of like gently move my arm and let the cue stick move the cue ball and do all the work.
One thing you said the other day that I really, really liked, and I don't know how we got on the subject.
It might have been yesterday, but we were talking about how sometimes in sport, for me, it always seems easy to forget the basics.
All of a sudden, I'll be coaching someone new or something, and I realize they're asking this question, and it's like, Oh man, yeah, I'm taking for granted this basic.
But for you, you said with comedy you never do that, which I think has to make you better at it.
And actually with my school of knock, what I do to myself every year in December...
Every year in December, I'm like, okay, whatever I've done this past year doesn't matter.
I'm going to wipe the slate clean.
I'm going to start with shooting enough arrows to where I can build some stamina practicing.
And then I'm just going to focus on my fundamentals one week at a time to try to back up.
It's not going back as far in the basics as I think what you were talking about.
Yeah, but what's most important is when that special comes out, like my last one came out in October of last year, of 2018, and that special's out, that material's dead.
So then I move to the new material, and then I have to write.
So I have all these people coming to see me, so there's no way you're ever relaxed or too comfortable Or you can't take it for granted.
You have to always be nervous and always be on the ball and always be working hard and always be concentrating on the fundamentals of comedy, like making sure that you're using the economy of words, making sure that You're saying things in a way that makes sense to people, the best way to get it to people, and sneak in the punchlines where they don't see them coming, and have premises that are good, and address those premises in a way that's the most smooth way to do it.
Sometimes they sink, and you've got to acknowledge it.
You've got to let the people know.
All right, that was a new joke, and that sucked.
We're going to keep going.
And the people get a kick out of it because they know that you're trying things out.
Like, all the people that really know comedy, and that's actually one of the beautiful things about the Comedy Store is how many comedy fans, like, real aficionados go there, people who, you know, they know that they can go there, and any night of the week they can see some of the best headliners on the planet.
Yeah, I'm like, you know, I just said, I know you're doing the same, but, like, that's from, I think, as soon as elk season ends.
You go, you start your rewrite, and you wipe the slate clean, and you start polishing.
And when you're in that, when you're doing your comedy, do you have to stay in there to really, really do good at it?
That was what was always hard with me when people asked me to do articles.
Is there's certain times a year where I feel like I can write an article and it's really me.
And a lot of times it's when I'm coaching.
When I'm coaching and I'm seeing new people and I'm thinking about these things or I'm working on people's gear, I feel like I'm a good writer at that point.
But when someone hits me in the middle of a time where I'm like, In the middle of family vacations or if I'm in the middle of a mountain elk hunt, I just feel like I'm kind of forcing it.
Is it the same for you?
Do you get those windows where you're like, this is my window where I hang out with comics.
I just think about this stuff.
This is what I'm thinking about when I'm working out.
It's like everybody knows there's some subjects that you can't really bring up around a lot of people.
And those are the ones I like the most.
You know, those are the ones that, like, if I can sell those to thousands of people, if I'm in a room and there's 7,000, 10,000 people in the audience, and I can sell this super fucking dangerous idea.
Like, sometimes I say, I'm like, hear me out!
They're like, Jesus Christ, what are you saying?
But if you...
Have a point.
It's well thought out.
It's like they really appreciate that you took that crazy ass chance.
And then they're laughing with you like, I can't believe it.
I did a show last week.
We were in Chicago.
And I did this giant arena.
And Daniel Cormier, who's never seen me do stand-up before, came.
And afterwards, we were working together doing commentary the next day.
He grabbed me.
He's like, I can't believe It's like you gotta know that you have a point.
You gotta really have that, but you can't just say it for shock value.
Like for me, especially at this stage of my career, I'm in this very unusual stratosphere.
There's not that many people that are in this place.
I don't know if you did a show at the Riviera, but I was shooting in Vegas, and I know it was late 90s or early 2000s, and you were doing a show there.
And I think, I remember some of my friends going and they were shocked.
Because they said, they're like, he is not filtered in his comedy compared to how he announces the UFC. Because you, like, there's no subjects off limits, is there?
I don't ever try to be funny when I'm doing the UFC. My obligation when I'm doing the UFC is to give justice or to honor the hard work that these men and women have put into their training camp and to appreciate their effort and to appreciate their art, the martial arts.
If something like that, yeah, that's just genuinely funny.
I'll laugh at that.
But for the most part, my job is to make it exciting for people that are listening and to sort of explain what's happening in terms of particularly the ground.
Like, people kind of understand when someone's throwing a kick or a punch.
And it's my job to point things out that I see patterns.
Sometimes I'll see someone moving.
I'm like, this guy is moving at a much higher level.
Sometimes that happens right before a guy gets knocked out.
I'll say, I see a big...
This past weekend, Ricardo Lamas was fighting Calvin Cater, and I said, I see a big difference between...
The striking level of Calvin Cater and Ricardo Lamas.
For people at home, one of the reasons why some people like me as a commentator is because they know that I genuinely enjoy this.
This is not a job to me.
I don't think, oh, here I am working, I'm getting paid, I'm getting some money.
I don't think of that.
But I think it's like, first of all, I love the sport, and I genuinely appreciate what these guys are doing, what these girls are doing, and I just want to give...
I think anything you have interest in, you 100% come across as authentic.
And that's what people say they like about me is because they say, I feel like you are 100% authentic.
about your passion for archery.
- Sure, yeah. - And honestly, I feel like social media helps accelerate that.
- Yeah. - Because people start to not have only this filter that the TV network allows people to see, or that sometimes you or I don't have control on what that filter is.
We might say like, "Hey man, that's not me, can you like..." I would really like if you did it like this.
Or like, no.
We've done some polls and this is really what we want.
Which is why I left my network.
Because I realized if I go on to a live feed, people 100% get exactly how I feel.
And I think the more that they experience that...
Their radars of...
People's natural radars of who's legit and who's not, they're sensitive.
And I think it's the best thing in the world for people like me or you or Cam or any of these people that we know within their fields where they're real.
They're like real people within those fields.
Andy's a great example too.
He's like...
He's almost breaking the mold of what a lot of Navy SEALs are doing.
Is it fair to say that?
Because so many ride their past to try to build something, whereas Andy's almost...
You almost have to drag it out of them.
You know, you almost have to say like, no, dude, you've done some really cool shit.
I mean, if you think back of, like, a really good band that sold out a stadium, what that number would be, and they're like, this is a legitimate, successful band.
What I think is so cool is, and me and Cam talked about this, about the number of people that we get exposed to that we would have never got to hear their voice.
People that write just a super cool book, that have dedicated their lives to an awesome...
And you would have never, like, unless JRE was out there for you to go down some wormhole at 3 o'clock in the morning and be like, you know what, this dude, like, I got to get this guy on.
It makes it harder for them to survive because they seem so corny.
You have a mainstream show that covers these subjects.
There's stupid music and dramatic reads.
It's obviously written and they don't get to just talk.
To discuss subjects, you need time.
To find out how someone really feels about a subject, you need time.
What these shows are trying to do is they're trying to create these gotcha moments where they're trying to catch people and misrepresent their position on things.
They're trying to create controversy because that's how they sold things in the past.
But people are getting tired of being bullshitted.
They're getting tired of it.
They want to know.
Like when I had Graham Hancock on the other day, It was a massively successful podcast.
Millions and millions of people downloaded it.
And it's about the origins of civilization on Earth, which is such a crazy subject.
To think that so many people would be fascinated by it, but they are.
But they were never represented before because it was never given to them in a way where you could just listen to the author, who is this incredibly well-researched guy, Incredibly articulate, has been passionate about the subject for decades, and who was also often maligned by mainstream archaeologists and scholars,
and now those mainstream archaeologists and scholars, through new evidence and new discoveries, have been forced to recognize that human beings Have existed in these more advanced civilizations than anyone ever thought before for many, many, many years, thousands of years prior to when we had dated organized civilizations and cultures.
And it wasn't that these subjects weren't interesting before.
It's just that you didn't Get a chance to listen to someone talk about it non-stop without an interruption or without a producer saying you know what that part wasn't interesting right now there's gaps to where you leave someone the ability to intervene and say well no that's not accurate because he never mentioned this well actually he had but they edited it out.
You know, that'd be the person that'd be on like a PBS special and you're at the mercy of when they air it, how they break it up into their 22 minutes, and it doesn't give it the justice that, you know, obviously someone that's dedicated that much time where it deserved it.
Because with Poole, there's all this talk about low deflection shafts or 13mm tips versus 12mm, 12.5mm carbon fiber shafts, maple butts versus ebony, which is a stiffer, heavier weight, 19 inch balance points.
Sometimes I only play three balls ahead if it's a fairly easy rack, but sometimes I like to play four balls ahead.
If there's a cluster, then I know I have to break it out.
I can't fuck around.
I have to make sure that I'm on the high side of this ball because when I collide, when I make the shot, I have to hit that second ball or I won't be able to get out.
I'm trying to get out.
I'm not trying to just...
When I watch someone play...
Because everybody likes to say they know how to play pool, which is hilarious.
People come to my podcast studio, they're like, oh, you play pool?
Like Joey Diaz, when you see Joey on stage, he's so wild and crazy and his comedy is so out there.
You think maybe there's no technique to it, but he's one of the best technicians He knows exactly what he's doing.
But he's such an amazing technician because he has the best economy of words.
Like here's a Joey Diaz joke that I love.
He goes, I like transvestites.
They cook, they clean.
You can beat on them every once in a while.
The cops come, who they're going to believe?
Me or some dude with a wig and a black eye.
Those jokes, that's a great bit.
And the jokes come at you before you know where he's going.
The cops come, who are they going to believe, me or some dude with a wig and a black eye?
That's a brilliant joke.
But it's that economy of words.
And that's like a skill.
When you see a comic and they have too many words before they get to the punchline, either that's a new joke and they're trying to figure out how to say it, which I do, when I have new jokes.
I'll oftentimes go back and listen to old recordings of a joke that I'm doing like three months later where I've got it down.
I'll go back and listen to how I started doing it three months ago and it's embarrassing.
It's terrible because there's so many extra words in it.
It's so meandering.
So there's technique to everything, man.
Everything.
But in martial arts...
The consequences of having poor technique are the most devastating.
Because you're going to get hit.
Or you're going to get strangled.
Or you're going to get your arms snapped.
The technique in martial arts is super, super critical.
Do you think there's people that could just focus on five basic principles of like jujitsu and just merc and that's all they do but they do it so well they can just wait on it perfectly?
There's a guy named John Donaher who has done an amazing job in training these killers just incredible athletes who've been able to beat people with far more experience than them Because John, who was a philosophy major in college, and he's a brilliant man, a true genius, has figured out a way to cut to the chase and figure out what is most important.
What am I trying to achieve?
And what are the barriers to trying to achieve this?
He's figured out a way to apply that to his students.
And it teaches students in this way that cuts the learning curve down radically.
And because of that, he's developed these guys like Gary Tonin or Gordon Ryan or Nicky Ryan.
These guys who have not been doing Jiu Jitsu, relatively haven't been doing Jiu Jitsu near as long as their competitors, but are far more effective.
See, that's what, for me, that's what I feel like.
Some of the places where I've gone and done jujitsu, they're not explaining, so it's hard for me to absorb.
Because I think just based on my background...
I'm wanting to know the basics and the whys and the drills, and I'm totally comfortable just being in the drills.
just being in the drills to where it's hard for me to want to learn something new because i know that i'm not doing what you told me before good enough for me to say okay i feel like i'm doing that without having to consciously really try hard at it yeah and i i love that about sport where you you're able to just drill and drill and drill until the subconscious absorbs it and it's like at that moment i feel like i've made a step yeah
and now now drop something else in and and i call it selective cycling i cycle things in when i feel like i've absorbed something that i've already worked on It's like that with students.
You know, Andy said it before.
He goes, a year in you tell me something where you just now tell me it and I look at you and I'm like, a year ago I was doing this, right?
Well, one of the things that we do at Tenth Planet...
Eddie breaks things down into paths and paths where people escape and then paths where people counter.
Sometimes you'll have a path where you will pass someone's guard, move in the mount, go for the arm bar, they defend the arm bar, then they wind up on top, then they pass, and then they go into an arm triangle or some other submission.
So the person who is initially attacking winds up being the person who gets submitted.
And you'll do this path and drill this path and you basically, it's almost like a choreographed sequence of events that will take place in sparring.
Like where you'll catch yourself in an arm bar, you defend that arm bar and then all of a sudden you find yourself inside control and then you find yourself submitting someone with this very same sequence of events.
And that just builds your understanding of the positions and understanding of like what can take place from those positions.
Like there's certain arm bars that you can catch while someone's going for a twister or while someone's in the truck or someone's in these various positions and until you're there you don't really know it so that to do it in like a very clear path.
So all the warm-ups that we do We'll be these pathways.
I've gone to places, I think sometimes, but I've gone to places where, for whatever reason, I'm hearing the same thing, but it's easier to take it in.
Even though it seems like it's the same information, it seems like there's some teachers that are really good at teaching, and there's some teachers that have been taught how to teach, and it comes across that way, and it's hard to soak it in.
Well, I was doing things very hot, and I had a yoder that has a direct heat element, and the direct heat aspect of it was you'd have these grill grates that you'd put down, and you would turn up the flames very, very, very high, and I would cook on these grill grates, and you'd put these grill marks on the meat.
But I don't think he realized that the school wasn't cooking food because he was in his apartment one night and he sent a text to Sharon that said, campus is closed, we can't get food there, so we've got to do our own.
And he goes, do you think Dad could cook for us some nights?
And so she's like, you need to cook for him.
So I told him, I said, you want me to do, I forgot what I said, we did a brisket.
I said, I'll cook a brisket for your guys.
So I started it at night.
I literally woke up at three in the morning.
Grabbed my phone next to my bed, opened it up, told me that the brisket was at like 159. I got up, went outside, put the brisket in a big foil pan, wrapped it all in there, put in a little bit of juice, sealed it all up, bumped the temp up to 275, put it back in the grill, closed it, and just set the alarm for when the brisket hit 204. Like, set the alarm on my app.
So the next morning at 9am, bing, it goes off.
The briskets at 204, I took it out, set it in a Yeti, and just left it in there until the guys came home after their 10 mile run for that day and just sliced it and it was ready to go.
I'm so thankful that that day that you couldn't go, that I asked Cam to go with me, because that was the first time that we've hunted together, and I would say, I mean, we were both at UA for 12 years together, never had hunted together.
And it was pretty cool.
Once you get in a situation, especially a hunting situation, where it's life or death for what you're pursuing.
The movements that you make and the choices you make, they really define, they do define you.
And whether people out there like me or don't like me or like Cam or don't like Cam, all I can say is when we were in the moments that we were in, that's the ultimate litmus test for me.
Like a hunting situation for me is a litmus test for a person.
For you, I think it's someone that actually goes into a real fight, right?