Written by Christopher Kelly
Dec. 6, 2023
Chris:
Hello, and welcome to the Nourish Balance Thrive podcast. My name is Christopher Kelly. Today, I'm delighted to present to you Rob Wolf. He is a former research biochemist and 2 times New York Times best selling author of The Paleo Solution and Why to Eat and coauthor of Sacred Cow, which explains why well raised meat is good for us and the planet. Rob, one of the best known names in the Paleo movement, has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide via his top ranked Itunes podcast, books, and seminars.
He cofounded the 1st and 4th CrossFit affiliate gyms in the world and then went on to cofound LMNT Electrolytes. Rob also holds a brown belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu, is a former California state powerlifting champion and is a 6 nothing amateur kickboxer. It's been almost 10 years since my first appearance on Rob's Paleo Solution podcast, with the interview that ultimately launched NBT as a business. Today, Rob and I discussed the Paleo movement and why it declined in popularity, his latest business and personal ventures, his current love of Brazilian jiu jitsu, and why you might like to try the sport too. We also discussed red flags when choosing a gym, preventing injuries during Brazilian jiu jitsu, and staying sharp as you age.
Well, Rob, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing?
Robb:
Really well. Really well. Great to see you. I would like I said in the email, I was thinking about you Week or 2 before you reached out to me, so there must have been some some psychic connection there.
Chris:
I think that must be what it was. And I was thinking I think a lot about, you know, what launched NBT. It's been 10 years since I was on your Paleo Solution podcast at the time, and that was the interview that launched NBT as a business. So much to be grateful for there, but perhaps more so, I'm grateful for the health transformation that I Went through after reading much of your work, and that has persisted for 10 years now. And not just that, but I have a family of 5 of us now.
Right? 3 kids, and we're all in similarly good health. And I was not like that as a kid, and, you know, Julie's Health has persisted too. She had a transformation that was not quite as big as mine, but she ditched her migraines, and she ditched £20, and so not to be sniffed at. And, Well, I I think about all the time and your work and how grateful I am that for all of that.
I mean, what could be more important? I'm sure you must think the same.
Robb:
I was kinda reflecting on that the other day. I don't go on social media hardly at all these days. Like, I honestly Try to avoid it, but it's interesting that I will get roped into, like, peeking into Facebook ever so often. And when I do, what I discover is that 2 or 3 of my high school classmates have died when the intervening 6 months that I've been gone. And I kinda think about that.
You know, I'm 51. So unless I'm gonna really do well with this lifespan, I'm well past middle age. And we're just in that cross section where if you have any preexisting health issues, If you're not affecting good diet and lifestyle changes to try to shore up that problem, it it's just An ever accelerating process. It's kind of like getting exposed to the gravity of the surface of Jupiter. Like, it's just going to mash you flat.
And I think a little bit about the legacy of I think there's probably a couple of 100000 people out there that, you know, would would probably say, yeah, man. I I read this guy's book or at least listened to a Podcast or something, and it affected this beneficial change for myself and my family. And I I don't know that one could really I hope to have a better legacy than that. It's pretty awesome. Mhmm.
Chris:
Can you give us the 5 minute potted version of your history?
Robb:
I've always been interested in health and human performance. I I did not grow up in a healthy home. I was not particularly healthy as a kid, a little bit Like what you just alluded to. Like, I look at my girls, and they're fortunately so much healthier than I was as a kid. You know, just Serial antibiotics and acne and looking back, like gut issues and kind of a tick that I believe was an outgrowth of early celiac issues.
And all of that said, I had a sneaky suspicion that if 1 ate and exercised way Other than what my parents did, which was hard drinking, hard smoking, no exercise, you could probably have some better health outcomes. So I was pretty Experimental with my nutrition. I was a California state powerlifting champion back in my youth, and then I got into some martial arts and did some Thai boxing and Did okay at that. Mainly the people that I thought just sucked a little bit worse than I did. And so I won those bouts and continued to just Fiddle with my nutrition was looking at either regular medical school or naturopathy school, was living in Seattle, and my health just Absolutely collapsed.
I developed ulcerative colitis. I'm 5 foot 9, about a 165 pounds, reasonably fit and muscular. At the low ebb of my ulcerative colitis, I weighed about a 125, 130 pounds from malabsorption issues. And, I mean, I was in horrible condition, just crushing depression, early symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, really terrible Ulcerative colitis, bunch of other interrelated autoimmune and gut issues. And the only things on the table for resolution were Surgery and immunosuppressant drugs, which I knew enough at that time that wasn't a really great option over the long haul, And it was kind of a weird conversation with my mom.
She called me, and my mom had, lifetime health issues. Like, as long as I could remember, she had these interrelated Problems. And she called me one day, and she said, hey. My doctor diagnosed me with this thing called celiac. And then in addition to the celiac, which is this autoimmune gluten issue which I had never heard of prior to this.
She was reactive to grains, legumes, and dairy. And as a vegan at the time, the dairy part kinda made sense, But the grains and legumes, I was just kinda like, woah. What on God's green earth would one eat if you didn't eat grains and legumes? And it was literally just Sitting on a uncharacteristically sunny Seattle day looking out at the Puget Sound thinking about this stuff. And I was Okay.
Grains and legumes, that's like agriculture. What do we do before agriculture? And this was 1998, And I don't know where I had heard the term, but I had always been interested in evolutionary biology. And somewhere in my head, there was this term paleo diet. And so I went into the house, and this new search engine called Google, I spun up the computer and waited for the hamsters to do what they do and then got this new Search engine up and into that search engine, I put paleolithic diet.
And at that time, there wasn't much, but what I found was mainly from 2 folks, Art Tevani and professor Lauren Cordain. And a ton of what they talked about were gut and autoimmune related issues. And I just thought, well, I really have nothing to lose because I was in pretty dire straits. And so I went to Whole Foods, Got a a rack of, like, beef spare ribs and slow cooked them, had, like, some melon and a salad. And I had not slept properly for 3 years prior to this, just terrible sleep disturbances.
Just everything that starts happening when the wheels fall off the wagon. And I ate this meal, and I actually fell asleep in the chair that I was sitting in, which I never do. This never happens. And I woke up the next day, and it was the most restful sleep that I had had again in, like, 3 to 5 years, and I was kinda like, okay. There's something to this.
And it was so impactful to me, this idea of this ancestral eating that I couldn't imagine doing Regular medical school because I understood enough about that process that it was gonna be another 4, 6, 8 years of just learning about pathology and disease before I could actually get in and start helping people, but I really wasn't sure what I was going to do. And it was right around this time that I was still poking around the interwebs, And I found this weird workout online called CrossFit, and I started getting involved with that and went on to cofound the 1st and 4th CrossFit affiliate gyms in the world, Worked in and around CrossFit HQ for a number of years and had the great opportunity to work either directly or indirectly with just tens of thousands of people. And that is where the 1st book, the Paleo solution came from. And to the degree that book didn't completely suck, It was because it was really a conversation with so many people. I got to where I could if I was talking about a given topic, I could just, You know, almost psychically predict where the conversation was gonna go.
And so that was a pretty well received book, and it was the 1st book in the paleo diet genre. Like, that Genre didn't exist prior to that. I went on to do seminars all around the world talking about this kind of ancestral eating, kind of weaving it into Community exercise, circadian biology. I'm really proud of that work. I feel like it was very comprehensive, particularly For the time, and I motored along with that for a good number of years.
My wife and I running a brick and mortar gym, doing a podcast, doing a blog, Eventually went on to write my 2nd book, Wired to Eat, where I really had struggled for a number of years. Like, the first book was Successful enough that the publishers and the the world in some ways was expecting another book, but I didn't wanna do the Barry Sears, like, zone deal words like the green bean zone, the soybean zone, the string bean zone. I wanted something qualitatively important to add, and Wired2eat really Dug into both the neuroregulation of appetite on the front end is kind of a theory about how to make Diet really stick and to understand the difficulty that we face in the modern world. I was fortunate on the timing that some work that came out of the Weizmann Institute of Israel made this case that the glycemic response of folks to various foods is dramatically different, like person to person, Meal to meal. And so it made this case for this highly individualized approach to nutrition.
Like, yeah, start perhaps with this kind of paleo template, but Not everybody needs to be keto. Not everybody needs to be low carb. Not everybody does poorly with rice. Some people do, but it opened up this opportunity to really get in and do some Remarkable customization with that. And that book did quite well, but it it did particularly well within the circles of, coaches And trainers.
The people who actually work with other people really embrace that book because it provided a template for how to help customize things in instead of just having this kinda one size fits all approach. And then amidst all of that stuff, my good friend Diana Rogers Had been hounding me since about 2010 to do a book on this sustainability topic, like regenerative agriculture. And I've been early enough In this scene on a number of topics that like, we had a frozen meals delivered business with John Welborn back in 2007, and it was an awesome business. It just happened to be about a decade too early. Yeah.
Chris:
I was gonna say there's so many of those now.
Robb:
Yeah. Yeah. And so I I managed to get Diana to wait A number of years and around 2017, I was like, okay. We can start working on this. And then we what ultimately ended up being the poke in the film sacred cow, which makes the case that the nutritional, environmental, and Ethical considerations of a meat inclusive food system.
Like, what is all of that, and how do those seemingly really unrelated topics Come Together, and we ended up releasing that. Unfortunately, in some ways, literally right as the the COVID pandemic was Benning up June of 2020. And so the book did pretty well, but Amazon was sold out the 1st day of release on the book and didn't get books back in and for 3 months, it really took that one kinda down at the kneecaps, and it was a bunch of different things. But Prior to COVID, my website was kind of hoofered up as part of this Google Health Curation process where my site and a number of other sites in kind of the paleo low carb space, it didn't disappear from the Internet, but it became almost impossible to find, Like, the the curation process within Google. And I wasn't sure what to do about this.
I wasn't sure if this was just the time to exit from this health scene because the same thing was kinda happening on Instagram and Facebook. Like, the things that I was talking about were Controversial enough that the powers that be were really effective at at kinda suppressing these things. But I had an idea around Spinning up a a stand alone community, which ended up being the healthy rebellion and was kind of inspired by an Albert Camus Quote. And we launched that right 6 months, 5 months before the COVID pandemic again, and it was really valuable for a a good number of people to be able To have just a good place that they could have some community and ask some legitimate questions about what was going on in the world around us. And one final thing, I did launch LMNT back in 2018, and that was an outgrowth of learning about the Dramatically increased electrolyte needs that folks face when they're eating a low carb diet.
And not just low carb, but when we're eating minimally processed foods, The standard American diet provides 80% of the sodium that that folks consume because it's in the form of processed foods. And when we eat minimally processed foods, People find that they may actually under consume sodium, particularly if they're active, particularly if they eat on the lower carb side of things. And so we launched LMNT initially. It it wasn't even LMNT. It was just a free downloadable PDF called how to make your own Keto Aid, and Wolf.
And it was this much sodium, this much potassium, this much magnesium. And within 6 months of launching that thing, we had a half 1000000 downloads of it, and people were us if we could do some sort of a convenient stick pack deal because they hated TSA hated when they traveled with 3 bags of white powder. And, you know, could we Try doing something. And so I had a suspicion when I looked at the issues that seemed to plague the folks that I was trying to serve, like these sleep disturbances and Midday lethargy, difficulty finding, like, that low gear during exercise. I had a feeling that LMNT would do really well and, knock on wood, but I I think it's, Like, either the 1st or 2nd fastest growing health and wellness company in the world right now.
So I I think that brings us up to date, and I think I managed to get everything, But I went vastly over the 5 minutes that you gave me.
Chris:
That's okay. I enjoyed every moment of it, and you definitely hit all the highlights. I was following along here in the document. So Something's going well with your brain. You can remember all these things, if not all these years.
Yeah. Yeah. I do remember I had a conversation with Stephen Phinney, who I'm Sure you know of Virta Off-site, and I talked about my experience on Quito. I'd hosted the Quito summit in 2016, and, of course, you were one of the guests at that summit. And It was my good friends, Jeremy and Louise Hendon, who came up with the idea, and they've been keto and low carb for many years since Atkins.
And they were like you. They were just waiting for the right moment to do that summit, and I'd never been keto. I thought, I can't do this. I can't interview 30 people in 2 weeks without have ever having tried the diet. So I went keto, and I it totally ruins my mountain bike performance.
It my power went It dropped a lot, and, I mean, my body weight dropped a lot, but my power drops more. And my heart rate would be normally, I'd be struggling to get it up above a 130 beats, and it was a 146 out the gate. What's going on here? And I didn't really know until I talked to Steve Finnie years later that all I needed to do was increase my sodium and maybe some other minerals Too, and it would've Right. Solved the problem.
But, yeah, I don't think element existed back then. Right? That wasn't a thing you could buy, and you could argue you could just put more salt in your food. But I don't really like adding salt beyond what tastes good.
Robb:
Yeah. It's devilishly hard to get adequate sodium if you're on a low carb diet from food alone. If you are Good about getting, say, a handful of olives at every meal if some of your protein comes from salami or like a a rather meat, but just simply adding salt. I I was doing the same thing. I liberally salted my food, but Luis Fila Senor, who's the one of the cofounders of Keto Gains, I had been bemoaning my issues for the better part of a year, and the first thing that he said was you need more sodium and electrolytes.
Of course, I didn't listen to him. And then he finally did something slick. He's like, hey. Why don't you put everything you're consuming in chronometer? And if you're not getting 5 grams of sodium specifically, not just Sodium chloride, but sodium specifically per day, that might be your problem.
And I was getting less than 2 grams of sodium per day. And, arguably, my daily need, particularly on the jujitsu day or something like that, might be 5 x what I was consuming. And so that's why I had sleep disturbances, muscle cramps, and super elevated heart rate, absolutely horrible Recovery capacity. It's just so sad that this wasn't better on my radar back around, like, 2001, 2002, I I could have been somebody as an athlete instead of just dragging ass through everything that I did.
Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the reason I like the product now I'm not keto anymore. Definitely eat some carbs, but the reason I like the product now is we live in a desert environment, And you go for a long bike ride, and I I don't do the gels and, you know, all the sugar and stuff. I, like, got super stung with that.
I'm not going back there. So I'm I'm just a plain water kinda guy on bike. And you get really thirsty, and then afterwards, water just doesn't seem to quench your thirst in the way that I would like. And I get to the point where my belly's, like, Got water sloshing around in in it, and I'm peeing like crazy. And, of course, I could just drink Gatorade, I think, would satisfy my thirst faster.
But, again, I don't wanna go to the sugar. So I feel like elements sort of hits the spot in a way that plain water doesn't.
Robb:
A couple of things with that. Gatorade, when it was first released, was a gram of sodium per serving. And over Time, the sodium has dramatically decreased and the sugar has increased. And and for some reason, they use sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, which The fructose is really hard on the gut. If you're working really hard, it super easy to make you vomit.
So they should at least use dextrose, A baseline, you know, but it's woefully underpowered on sodium. And then the other piece of that is that part of what's happening when we Sweat. We lose primarily sodium. It's like 99% sodium. We lose very little potassium and magnesium.
But what the body is doing is Attempting to cool us, but it's also really working to maintain that homeostasis between the ratio of sodium and potassium in the cells. Because If you wanna kill somebody quickly, well, a a lethal injection is a large bolus of potassium. It causes the heart to cramp, and that's that's it. Like, it's done. And so when we just ingest water, it is driving the boat in absolutely the opposite direction from Recovery and a nontrivial number of people die each year from hyperhydration.
They so dilute the sodium potassium status in their body that Normal electrical impulses can't occur. They end up with cardiac arrhythmias, breathing problems, and they can die from it. There's a scientific article that posits that this is how Bruce Lee died because when they look at the symptoms he was talking about, he had a chronic headache, and he just kept drinking more water like the people around He was just pounding water, and he was very fastidious about his diet. And he tried to avoid sodium, and, gosh, there was somebody else rather Famous, not Christie Brinkley, the yet another kinda, like, eighties nineties supermodel. She was hospitalized because she was Doing a photoshoot, doing some sort of a shoot, drinking lots and lots of water, no electrolytes, and she ended up hospitalized.
And it was, brain swelling and, Again, cardiac arrhythmias and whatnot. And so I would clearly, it's self serving in a lot of ways to say that, you know, one needs more electrolytes. But I think it's very safe to say even when we consider things like hypertension and different factors like that, it's far more dangerous in an acute setting To be deficient in sodium than it is to have excess sodium unless the person is on some sort of end stage Dialysis or something like that. But the funny thing even in dialysis, it's potassium that's the the main bugger. Like, that's the thing that will kill you.
You have to be very careful with fruits and Wulf. High in potassium because that's the thing that will ultimately kill you. So yeah. Mhmm.
Chris:
I promise you we're gonna get to Brazilian jiu jitsu. But just before we do, what do you think happened to Paleo? I've I've been thinking about that a lot recently. It seemed to me like it was the right rubric. Like, there might have been some studies that were cited in maybe yours or Lauren's books that some people with PhDs found questionable.
But it it was obviously the correct rubric. And then I feel like it was this wave, and the wave just dissipated. And then it seemed to me Keto came after it, and then maybe carnivore or time restricted feeding, but certainly those waves were much smaller in amplitude betrothed in the ones that went before it, and now I just don't know. So what do you think happened to Paleo?
Robb:
Hamilton Staple, who's a historian, and he was super involved In the early Paleocene, he did a number of research papers and talks around the findings of the papers. And so His 1st piece looked at the parallels between the Paleo Diet movement and the early physical culture movement of the 1900, And it was super interesting. And then he looked at, the 2nd piece that he did looked at kind of like the rate of adoption, and the 3rd piece that he looked at was, Will paleo make that transition from kind of fringe early adopters get to a a critical point of 15% of the general population for it to you know, there's that whole early adopter, late adopter, you know, And and the penetrance that you need within, society past 15% for it to become kind of, like, broadly adopted. He made the case that it would never go mainstream. And I agreed with him at the time just because it was kind of a bridge too far In many regards, when we look at the nature of our hyperpalatable food environment and the fact that we are and this is kind of, you know, The whole point of my 2nd book, The Neural Regulation of Appetite, were fundamentally wired to eat more and move less.
Exactly the opposite of, like, the prescription to to fix everything that we we have occurring. And so unless you live in a culture where The food system isn't broken, and the the cultural system is sufficient that we get some amount of just, like, General physical activity and community and all these types of things, it's never really going to go. I will say that, you know, it's funny. I've met many people who will ask you know about my background. I'll talk about writing these Paleo Diet books.
I'll say, oh, I could have never done Paleo. I'm like, okay. Well, what have you tinkered with? And like, oh, I did Whole 30 for 5 years. So I think Whole 30, they had the wherewithal to brand effectively a a paleo reset.
Like, I I popularized the 30 day Paleo reset within the CrossFit gyms. I didn't have the wherewithal to put a brandable name on it that I could Draw a mote around it and then kinda grow and cultivate that, and that's kinda fine. Like, I'm not super fired up about those types of resets. Anyway, it's just not where I I find the greatest, you know, joy doing things, but they were quite successful and really brought a lot of these concepts to the Larger masses. And then it is interesting when you look at keto, when you look at carnivore even.
And this is an interesting compare and contrast my 1st book and my 2nd book. The 2nd book did well, but it didn't do nearly as well as the 1st book. And the 1st book was rather dogmatic, and the 2nd book was, Hey. Let's find out exactly what works for you, and people were way less jazzed about it. Coaches really liked it because they're like, man, I have this great way that I can Work individually with people and kinda help customize their nutrition and their lifestyle and everything.
But the more kind of angular and dogmatic a topic is, I think, the better it has legs at lasting. And I do think that maybe if it had just been Lauren was Quite dogmatic in his approach to paleo. And so if he had been a little more charismatic, maybe a little less prickly, maybe keto would have had more Staying power, but I really think there were folks like me that I I really tried to emphasize a point that this is a place to start. It's like playing a game of darts, And you're throwing darts at a dartboard. And paleo will get you 80, 85% there for the vast majority of people, and then a little bit of tweaking.
Like, Are there some immunogenic foods that you struggle with? I I found out that I really can't do nightshades. Glycemic load is probably the other thing that you have Think about it. Some people do really well on a high amount of, quote, paleocarps, like sweet potatoes and yams and fruit and everything, And I'm not one of those people, but it ended up being a scenario in which the reasonable nature of how it was Couch, I don't think lent itself to the religious polarization that you can get out of, like, Keto and carnivore and vegan and and things like that. These really just black and white entrenched methodologies really lend themselves well to this kind of cult adoption.
I don't know if it lends itself to long term adherence or or whatnot, but I think that there's that thing. And then, you know, it it's funny. I've been reflecting on it. And In the background, there have continued to be fantastic clinical intervention trials around the Paleo Diet, and Every goddamn one is just jaw droppingly effective. There was a really rather large Participation, fairly long duration study looking at was there something beneficial about the paleo diet above and beyond weight loss?
Because people will say, oh, anytime you lose weight, there's always metabolic and health benefits. And so what they did was an attempted overfeeding study, and there's a lot to take out of this thing. But They had to beg the participants who were overweight, dyslipidemic, insulin resistant, all these things they started with this group, And they had to beg them to maintain body weight. And people still lost a little bit of body weight, but the The metabolic improvements were above and beyond just the weight loss. And what I find fascinating about that is that they had to beg and bribe The people in this study to eat enough, to not lose the weight that otherwise would have been a piece of cake for them.
So I think that that's A fascinating insight on that, but we have so many examples of the paleo diet being really efficacious and really beneficial for people. But if you just pop over to Google and you just put in Paleo Diet in Google and then you go to PubMed, you put Paleo Diet in there, It is hit pieces galore. It never cites any of the studies that have been done. I hadn't looked in that space in probably 5 years. I just wasn't paying attention to the way that media and search engines and whatnot were portraying the payload diet, but I was legitimately anchoring.
I'm like, how the Fuck do you portray it this way? If you have some misgivings, that's fine. But, hey, how about looking in PubMed? How about the review papers in PubMed reviewing the research that's been done on the paleo diet, but you have to go through a full page, a good 10 or 12 Citations of a paleo diet sucks. It's dangerous.
There's all you know, before you get to anything that paints it in a a favorable light. So, definitely, the powers that be don't like it. Like, the kind of meat centricity to it, it flies in the face of everything that we're being told around, like, Climate change and animal husbandry and different things like that. So it's a really controversial, thorny topic for people. So I know I bounce around a lot with that, but I I think that there were Cultural factors that limited it.
I think the fact that the paleo diet because I was arguably one of the prime proponents of it. Whole 30 drew some super strong and arguably completely arbitrary lines around it, and that it ended up making it more Successful, I would say, in the long run. Like, it's kinda wacky, but I I think that's true. So there were some features around paleo just Trying to be this middle ground to get people to start and then meet them wherever they were that wasn't this really polarizing kind of feature. And then I think academia, media, government really doesn't like what the ancestral health message stands for.
Chris:
Yeah. It's a shame. It's a shame. We could go on for that forever, and that would be really fun for me. But we've got to talk about Brazilian jiu jitsu.
I've been talk hearing you speak about this on the podcast forever. Right? Like, this is another one of those things like the so like, I hear people talking about this, but I've never really experienced it, you know. And finally, actually, it was kind of a a strange coincidence. We have a neurologist friend.
His name is Josh Turkinet, who you may even know. He's the current president of Physicians For Ancestral Health, I believe. Oh, okay. Yeah. So he he started talking about this stuff a long time ago, and then eventually, he did published a paper that's titled demand coupling drives neurodegeneration.
And, essentially, what he argues in that paper Is that the brain is a lot like a muscle in the it's sort of use it or lose it, you know? And if the goal is to prevent neurodegeneration, like his Patients would ask him, well, what do I need to do to prevent Alzheimer's, for example? You know, is it Sudoku, or is it Lumosity? And he's like, well, How about yeah. You can do that.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do those things, but how about you do something that's a bit like a deadlift for the brain? Like, how can you recruit the most cortical real estate here? And Josh would argue for learning to play a musical instrument and song and dance and stuff and, you know, I tried all that and it it it's Kinda not my jam, I'll be honest. I just I really tried to get past that hump, and I just can't do it. And then I thought, what's what I mean, really, what's he trying to get at here?
And I think, you You know, I recognize this dilemma from computer science. It's sort of the exploration versus exploitation. And the trade off, I think, everybody knows is a bit childhood is like a period of exploration. And then after that, becomes the exploitation. Right?
And you end up as the 35 year old working stiff that hasn't read a book since you left university and all of that. And, you know, I've been mountain biking or cycling my entire life, and I thought maybe it's time for me to try and find another way to move my body that's not just spinning tiny circles in a in a seated position. So that was what drew me towards Brazilian jiu jitsu, and it's been a blast. I've got to the point now where I'm I'm starting to find it rewarding. But talk about your why did you choose it?
How did you get into it? What was your motivation?
Robb:
Oh, man. So I was down in Long Beach, California around 1993, and I was really active in Muay Thai boxing. And then I was also Doing the Bruce Lee, Jeet Kune Do, JKD stuff, and I I just found all of it fascinating. I've never been, like, a tough guy, And this is why I I had to pull the plug on my Thai boxing career. I enjoyed the movement.
I enjoyed learning how to do all this stuff, But I really don't have that other gear that, like, division 1 wrestlers and good boxers and kickboxers have where they're like, I'm going to kill you. You know? I just didn't have that gear, but it was literally right as the 1st UFC had popped Popped up, and I had heard about this Brazilian jiu jitsu, and everybody in the the standard martial arts scene was really incredulous about it. I was like, Oh, can't be that good and everything. And I had a little bit of a wrestling background.
And at this time, I was just a big strong kid. I I was 59, £180. I could flat foot dunk a tennis ball. I was super explosive. You know, I was back squatting in the low to mid 500 pounds.
Could do a standing back flip with absolute, you know, no effort. And this guy that was probably 30 pounds lighter than me, Who was a purple belt at the time in Brazilian jiu jitsu, we started doing some rolling, and, like, he tapped me and ta like, it was like a man fighting a child. And everything that I did, the harder I worked, the worse it got for me. Whereas, like, at at least in standard wrestling, I could kinda hold my own. Like, I I was never particularly good at it, but the fact that we're just strong and and explosive was really beneficial.
And I swear to god, it was Sam Harris Used this analogy that rolling with a good jujitsu practitioner feels like drowning because everything that you do that you think is gonna help you makes it worse. And so I got this exposure to it, but I was really close to getting my Thai boxing certification, and I just Kinda went with that, and this was so early in this whole story that there wasn't really much jiu jitsu around. There was some around Los Angeles, but I moved back up to Chico, California not long after that to actually finish my get going on my degree properly and quit farting around with martial arts quite as much as I was doing. And I didn't really reconnect with jiu jitsu again until 2004 when my good friend John Frankel, who's a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt and the guy who brought Brazilian jiu jitsu to Korea. He's a Harvard PhD in Korean literature, and he's married to a Korean woman and Professor at a a university there, but he and I opened what was then NorCal strength and conditioning, CrossFit NorCal, NorCal martial arts.
I was running the CrossFit side, and John was running the jiu jitsu and kickboxing side. And I was also running a group within that, the kind of Brazilian dance martial art. And so I did a little bit with John, but it was like a class here, a class there because I was earlobe deep in running a gym and and this capoeira group. And so I really knew I liked this stuff. And arguably, if you count the 1st time I did it as my 1st exposure, like, I've been doing jiu jitsu longer than almost anybody Around, but, you know, there were 20 year gaps between a class.
And it wasn't until 2012 when we had our first Daughter Zoe, I had been bemoaning my life that, you know, I really wanna do jiu jitsu, and we moved to Reno. And there was finally Enough schools around that there was, like, a noon class, and I could fit it into my schedule. And I've been pretty consistent since then. I've had, like, two 1 year hiatus out of jujitsu for moves and different things like that, but otherwise, pretty consistent. And there's a little scuttlebutt that I'll probably be getting my black belt here For 2.
Chris:
Interesting. Yeah. I'm like you in the I did kickboxing, a little bit of kung fu as a teenager, and That was around the time the UFC was becoming famous, and I'd heard I'd never seen it, but I heard that in real life, all fights end up in the ground, and your kickbox would be useless. But So I was like, kinda that was kind of my first interest in it, but I think the thing that peaked it was hearing Hannah Gracey on Sam Harris's podcast. It was like the final, you know, Draw that made me go down and find a a Gracie gym, and he's just amazing.
We love him. My wife has got such a crush on him, and maybe I've got a tiny bit of a crush too. They're so good on video. And him and his brother is Hidon, isn't it? I think you pronounce it.
Yeah. They're so good. I mean, he speaks so well, and they're so good on camera. And the Gracie University, Like, the videos, that's what I do. I do the videos before the lesson.
Like, they tell you what you're gonna do in the class, and I'm doing the Gracie combatives. And you can watch the video, and then you go and do it in real life. And then I watch the videos again the next day, and that and it starts to stick a little bit. That's funny. Does you know?
Yeah. It's great. Does it matter, though? You know, I I sort of bought into the Gracie brand, which I I guess is kind of a bit like CrossFit, isn't it, really? But Does it matter what advice would you give to someone on choosing a gym?
Robb:
It is similar in that if you go into the gym and you look at their schedule And it's only, like, 8 or 9 PM, and they're in the back of another person's gym. And the people there Our former d one wrestlers with no neck and and super fucked up ears.
Chris:
Yeah. Cauliflower ears.
Robb:
Yeah. And and you're going in there as like, both you and I are not Big dudes, and we're not spring chickens. And so that's gonna be a rough go. Like, that that's gonna be it. In my twenties, I might have been able to survive in that.
I'm not gonna survive that now. So I really think you wanna go in, and one thing is you wanna check out the place. And you should feel like if you drop the sandwich anywhere in the facility, including the bathroom, that you're like, Five second rule. I'm cool. Like, it should be so immaculately clean and organized that there's not a moment hesitation there, And there should be morning, noon, and night classes.
Ideally, there are, like, some women's only classes, maybe some old fart classes. Doesn't have to be that, But you should see a wide variety of people in there. And if you don't, then the pacing and the sensibilities of the gym like, it may be Very similar to a CrossFit gym that they're just completely enamored with the CrossFit games and getting people going to regionals and all that type of stuff. And that's all fine, But it's it's a meat grinder. Like, they want new bodies just so that they can hone their skills, not to keep the gym in business And keep the doors open and the lights on and the bills paid and to build community.
And I do think, like, the Gracy combatives type Schools like I have a a good friend, Jake, who's in Southern Utah who uses that methodology, and I think it's just phenomenal. And and what it does Is it provides a foundation where you learn some really basic movement mechanics. You start ratcheting up intensity. You get exposed to these movements in a really controlled fashion. The way that this used to go is you would go in and Check out a class for free, and you'd be shown a a class where they might show 3 or 4 techniques.
You get a couple of reps on it, and then it's like, okay. We're gonna roll. And you have no idea what you're doing. You get absolutely murdered. You just go into fight or flight mode.
And the the organization that I'm a part of, Straight Blast Gym, they have a foundations program that is between 18 To 36 classes. And if you need more, you'll end up doing more. But you basically get shown all the basic movements, all the basic positions. You do positional drilling to build some work capacity, to build some work hardening and whatnot, and to keep things mellow, You don't because the reptilian brain reaches forward and just, like, takes everything over, and so you really wanna stack the deck in the favor of people Having some skills, having some work capacity, and then having the sensibilities that, like, if you break your partner or you break yourself, We can't come back and train the next day. And so any school that has a legit foundations program, Beginners program, like they'll call it different things.
Gracie Combatives. Schools have that Gracie Combatives curriculum that moves people through really specific Movement and and technical characteristics, it's so much better. And for the people who are running gyms, They'll bemoan the fact that they're still working a 2nd job, and they just can't keep people in the gym, but they've never systematized it in a way that it's Amenable to an an old guy like me. I'm 51, and I don't wanna get killed, but I actually have the resources To pay for a lifetime membership, and I'll I'll go in and do personal training and different things like that. And you want your off hours Full of people like me.
Like, you wanna backfill your day with all the folks like me. And then, yeah, you've got your Competition team, and you got your meat eating monsters that you kinda keep away from the rest of your inmates and whatnot. But I think programs like that, not Only do does anyone involved get better faster. You want the gym to succeed because if it doesn't succeed, it's going to go away, and then you have to To train. And, you know, you want the gym owner to be financially successful so that their head is on coaching and not worrying about are they gonna make their mortgage and they're Stressed out and all that type of stuff.
And well run gyms that have these beginner programs, it's good for the financial stability of the gym. It's good because the coaches are able to Paid and, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff like that. And then at the end of the day, just the qualitative nature of your instruction is so much better, And the quality of your partners are so much better because if you're surrounded by people that are just trying to kill you, It's gonna be a tough go to see that thing through. Some people will do it, but most people won't. And then this, again, circles back around to, Well, the gym's gonna have a hard time making it financially.
Chris:
I do recognize the, the dirty gym scenario that you described, but Luckily, only from YouTube. We watched this a couple of episodes of this thing called Daisy Fresh. You're probably familiar with it. You know the guy Yeah. Yeah.
Robb:
Yeah. The
Chris:
the the gym inside of an old launderette, and there was this bunch of guys that were living like monks sleeping on the mats and stuff. And, yeah, Andrew Wilts he's definitely worth knowing about. I I really enjoy his rants on YouTube. I just fantastic. He was one of the guys, probably the most successful guy maybe that came out of that Whole situation.
That was not at all what I experienced in at the Gracie in Santa Cruz. Steve is the he's actually a former architect, I believe, that set up that gym, and you walk into this indoor outdoor space that's just really nicely done with a lot of wood and glass and stainless steel. It's really beautiful inside and out. And the mat, they, like, squirt it down and, like, sweep it with a mop after every class, even the It's class, and you're not allowed on the mat with your shoes. Like, the level of hygiene is almost like a hospital.
And it is. It's a really beautiful mix of people, like young and old and men and women, and I think the motivation is mostly like mine. It's play, which is kind of consistent with what you just said. You know, my motivation is to keep game going, and I really don't wanna get injured. That's my worst outcome.
And so I think I just, like, got lucky. You know, I heard Hannah Gracey on Sam Harris and just cited, oh, yeah, Gracie. I should do that. And it ticked all the boxes that you described. But it's really great to hear you say that so that I know that if I go somewhere else where because I know Gracie is very popular in the US.
But outside of the US, you don't see that many gyms. Right?
Robb:
I'm not sure about their kind of global reach, but the Gracie name is Huge. And so you have, like, half Gracie and all these different kinda subfractions of it. But looking for that Gracie University is a really good Spot to find a quality gym. I will also say there aren't a ton. There's maybe 60 or 70 locations Globally, but if you look around for a straight blast gym nearby, that's an organization that I'm a part of.
Like, very, very good.
Chris:
Yeah. And And what do you think about people's motivation? I realized that you know, I know my motivation. Like I said, it's just play, and I'm interested in exploring different ways of moving my body and, You know, self defense and, like, just the competitive, you know, like a zero sum type thinking doesn't really interest me at all. I've got no desire to Submit people or do well in street fights or any crap like that, nor am I under any illusion that Gracie jiu jitsu would really.
I mean, I know they kind of they want people to believe that it will be helpful for self defense, and I'm very skeptical of that. But how much do you think it matters, you know, if you're gonna, like, Get into I mean, obviously, this is a takes 2 people to tango here. How important do you think it is that the other person's motivation is similar to yours?
Robb:
It's pretty important, and this is you you do a lot of butt sniffing at at Clash. Kinda like, oh, wait. You know, it it reminds me of, like, dog park can you figure out who you enjoy working with, who you don't. People really like working with me because I'm close to being a black belt. I'm technical.
I'm big enough and strong enough that, like, I can, you know, bring a little bit of game if I want to or need to, but my main thing is just being Everybody wants to roll with me because they always have a safe, fun role, and it's they get something out of it, and I give them a lot of feedback. And so I get a lot from that because I always it's like the 1 guy that shows up at, like, the you know, there's, like, a tango class, and Only 1 guy shows up, and there's 50 women there, and all the women wanna dance with the guy. It's kinda like that with me. And then there are folks that are they're kinda lug nuts. They're kinda there for They haven't figured out that, like, if you've got somebody that's 50 pounds lighter than you, play your bottom game.
Don't mash them in sight control. If they Wanna work their site control escapes and their mount escapes? Okay. Cool. But don't just, like, get on top and just leave them there for 5 minutes.
Like, fucking work your bottom game. Let them have your back. If they tap you out, okay. Like, motivation is important, but there's also ways that you can Structure that. Like, if you're just looking across, you know, the lineup and you're like, you're facing the 210 pound blue belt kid that had a wrestling Ground, and you're like, oh, shit.
You can be like, hey. I really wanna work my guard passing. Can I do that? And he'll be like, yeah. Totally.
And so if you and so in the live role requesting that folks work with you on specific drilling, and I think, like, Your open guard bottom, your guard passing, if you're willing to do it, like, have them work with you on your escapes from the gnarlier Positions, particularly side control and mount bottom, like, have them say, hey. Feed me legit pressure, but Let me get some success. Like, let me start with some success, and then you can start tightening it up. So I start struggling. But ideally, when you're doing drilling Stuff like that.
Like, you, you know, you get about 80% success. Otherwise, you're just kind of ingraining bad habits. But you find people who Our good training partners who you can just one of the interesting things about jiu jitsu is you so immediately figure out What type of person is across from you? Like, you can tell if the grip on you is like there's kinda ill intent behind it You know, it starts feeling like a fight versus, you know, a fun time and all that. You could be going in a a very Competitive match that's moving quickly.
There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of technicality, but it doesn't feel like a fight. But, you know, and you can feel People who start, like, you know, just the the intensity. It it's like, oh, this thing's feeling like a fight. But even if you have somebody that is Maybe not your favorite training partner.
You can shift the parameters instead of just doing open roles like request. Hey. I would like to do this. And then if you wanna work on something, I'll be the person to feed you that stuff. And I find that really deescalates things, and I do that a lot with the We have a a couple of 4 stripe white belts, some blue belts that are, like, £275.
You know? The big, fucking strong kids. And I can handle him, but, dude, it's a lot. And, like, the difficulty or the likelihood of injury is high. And so instead of just, like, Doing the full open map thing most of the time with him.
I'm like, hey. I wanna work my open guard bottom. So if you get to side control, if you get to mount, We'll reset. If I get you to half guard, we'll play from that. Or if I sweep or submit you, then we'll reset.
And they love it Because it also, like, kinda takes the anxiety away for them in a lot of ways and lets them just kinda work on something, which nobody ever gets enough time doing, which is like guard passing and stuff.
Chris:
Yeah. You reminded me a lot of what, you know, Peter Gray said about play on the podcast. And if you watch the kids carefully, this is exactly what they're doing. Like, their goal is to keep the game going, and they become master negotiators of the rules of the game. And they realize that if you've got a bigger, stronger kid, then you better play your best game.
And If it's someone who's a few years younger and maybe a bit lighter than you, then you gotta take it easy. If the goal is to keep everyone happy, you know, it seems very similar to that.
Robb:
Right. Just really quickly on that. Like, another thing you can do, like, if I have somebody much smaller than me, much less technical, I may end up grabbing a couple of tennis balls, and I do the whole roll with tennis balls in my hand, so I'm incapable of getting grips. Everything's over hooks and under hooks and stuff like that. And it's not showing off.
What it's doing is it's leveling the playing field so that like, I'll I'll do this. Nikki has a purple belt now, and she's Quite good, but I'm still bigger than her. I'm still stronger than her. I'm still more technical than her. But if I do something like I I grabbed 2 tennis balls, and I like doing that more than, like, putting a hand in my gear or my belt or something.
I just feel like squirrely stuff can happen with that. But if I had no ability to grip and it's all overhooks and underhooks and just frames, and I can't really attach to her in the way that I normally would, Man, what it ends up happening is I'll catch her in something, and then she will legitimately catch me in something. We'll go back and forth, back and forth, And it's making me far better. You know? Or or I'll start her just on my back with her rear naked choke almost sunk, And then I use a no grip way of just using posture and pressure to try to get out of it.
And maybe I succeed or maybe I fail. And if I fail, then I Have her dial it back just a little bit, but I've gotten to where even when I have good technical people on my back and they've got a rear naked choke almost sunk, I can get out of it 80% of the time because I've been willing to just like I love jujitsu more than I do winning At every single moment. And so if you throw yourself into the deep end of the pool, you've got somebody smaller, less technical. Give them The just absolutely dominant position and then go. And if they're just like mopping the floor with you, then it's like, okay.
We gotta back this up a little bit and give me a little bit more buffer on this. But this is a beautiful way of making it so you get legit good training, but you're not just defaulting to something where you're, like, murdering the person all the time.
Chris:
I'm glad you mentioned that. What do you do to prevent injuries? You know, I had a quick look on PubMed yesterday, and it it did seem like injuries in Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioners were common at least by subjective, you know, surveying of of people that that that do the sport. And then I wondered, or or how do I compare the relative risk to say mountain biking. I don't I'm not really sure how you do that, you know.
I'm sure you've seen some injuries and, like, maybe you know what are the most common ones. And are there anything that you can do to try and prevent them?
Robb:
When the role gets to a a decent warm up, and I will also say, particularly if you're a little bit older, Doing something like FRC or Kin Stretch or something as part of your cooldown is nonnegotiable. So I will wrap up my roles 5 minutes early, 10 minutes early, and then I've got a really dedicated stretch routine because I'm never going to be as warm as what I am then. And you just have to put in that preventative maintenance. And I think like that FRC can stretch type stuff or even just like some basic yoga Sequences are gonna be phenomenal, and hips and low back, shoulders, knees are the biggies. And then from there, it's Tap early.
Like, chokes, I will actually I'll pressure test, like, a collar choke way more than I will, like, if somebody's Bending my arm backwards. Like, if somebody's got a good armbar and I've got no wiggle, no movement, I'm done. Tap, done, reset, you know, out of there. Any type of heel hook or foot stuff, I tap quite early. Like, I'll play with, you know, do they really have this?
I'll I'll try to pressure test it and everything, but if I feel like they've got it pretty locked up, it's like, I'm good. And, again, I need a partner that if I'm go so tap early, tap off, and all that type of stuff. But the pace that I roll, I try to go like a 40 or a 60 out of a100, and that's just it. And if the person is going a100, One, I'll I'll try to encourage them to maybe slow down a little bit, and we also have kinda made some points, particularly more recently in the gym. If you are breathing harder than your opponent, you lost.
You tell people to relax, and they don't really even know what that means, but breathing his external manifestation of how much energy output. And so if you're otherwise pretty evenly matched, but you're breathing twice as hard as what the person is, you lost. Like, you you went too hard. And if you both agree to go 40 out of a 100 or 60 out of a 100, it's still real jujitsu. It's nothing watered down.
It's not like you're doing fake martial arts. And if the person starts getting an armbar on me or position on me, I can't just arbitrarily go to 80 to shut that down. I have to maintain the same pace that I'm doing or I'm cheating. And it because what inevitably happens, If I step it up, then the other person steps it up. And yeah.
And so this is, I I think, a critical piece of this is And this is some of the culture that you really hope that the the coaches bring to bear. Like, you shouldn't be breathing hard. You really shouldn't be breathing hard particularly if, you know, it it's Somebody, you know, otherwise pretty evenly matched. Now there's time to have a competitive match. There's competition classes and stuff like that.
I'm just saying, like, maybe 85 or 90% of your general training when, again, for, like, trying to avoid injury. Injuries happen when you start really stepping it up and you're moving fast. Like, that's when Elbows bonking, the noses, and all kinds of stuff. I ended up with a a case of turf toe where I stubbed my toe, And I should have just taken a little bit of time off, but what I did is I had some old wrestling shoes on, and I put on the wrestling shoes. I never grapple in wrestling shoes, And it had been 12 years since I had done any wrestling.
And so then my feet were way more sticky than what they ever are, And my foot ended up sticking when I was trying to do, like, a hip slide out, and I seriously tweaked my knee. So not only did I have, you know, like, turf toe, but then I I had a tweaked knee. And so it you know, if you've got a little bit of a tweak, there are, You know, cases to be made for just doing really mellow positional drilling to to, you know, maintain some motor skills and stuff like that. Or if you're injured enough, Just take the time off. You know?
Go to class, watch, take notes, and and stuff. But I've had some pretty good tweaks that I've still been able you know, if my lower body is tweaked, then I'll do something on the upper and I just find a good partner to work with and whatnot, but try to avoid the escalation. Try to maintain a consistent pace. Try to breathe less hard than your opponent because if the person is still just climbing you like a tree and you're being mellow And they don't really pick up on that. Then also maybe they just become not in your training rotation.
You can always say, hey. I'm not really game for for rolling with you. And there there were Few people that I've encountered in the last maybe, like, 3 to 5 years where it's like, I I don't really feel comfortable training with you. Like, if you mellow out, I will do it, and and I'll kinda put them in in time out for a month, 2 months, and I'll give them a chance again. And if they're mellow, then we'll keep going from there.
But those are great ways to avoid injury, and I doubt that the injury is anything above, like, a recreation soccer or basketball or something like that. I'd be shocked If it was.
Chris:
Yeah. That seems reasonable to me. What about repetitive use injuries? It's it's actually one of the things I've noticed that compared to cycling, Like, everything's kind of more likely to give you a a repetitive use injury. You know, there's no impact with cycling, and I don't know.
Mhmm. The chances of, like, some sort I don't know. It just seems really mellow to me compared to everything else. And I think a lot of what I've experienced so far is just Delayed onset muscle soreness from doing something that I'm
Robb:
not Particularly in, like, your ribs and
Chris:
stardom and all that stuff. Yeah. Just not used to pulling down I mean, I've been learning to surf at the same time. And it's like that same, like, the shoulder, like, pulling down from the shoulder is like it causes a lot of soreness. And I think it's just because it's new.
But do have you struggled without any kind of repetitive use injury?
Robb:
A little bit of bicipital tendinitis because of the way that I will frame to get out of, like, cross side bottom And stuff like that. And I had to ditch using the assault bike actually because that would fire up both shoulders Really badly with regards to, like, the bicipital tendinitis, and virtually no amount of preventive maintenance would undo it. I just had To drop using the assault bike for anything other than just, like, very brief intervals and whatnot. That is an interesting question because you'll find that, like, Because of the way you play guard and the way that people wanna pass guard, they will have a tendency to to end up on one side versus the other, like, 95
Chris:
It's very asymmetric, isn't it? You get, like, I get, like, bruising on one side of my shoulder blade because you're just, like, drilling the same thing, ending up in the same place every time.
Robb:
Yeah. And so, like, that is a thing, and I'm not entirely sure how to address it. It's kind of like if you throw shot put, They will have people throw a shot put on the other side to create a little bit of balance on the asymmetry and whatnot. I think Over time, you kind of figure out like, if you start noticing you have some hip issues or some shoulder issues, you may end up modifying your game so that you, You know, like, I my OpenGuard bottom tends to funnel people to my right hand side, and I'm really comfortable with that. But I was noticing, like, some asymmetries, and so I tend to do a 2 on 1.
I try to get a 2 on 1 grip from cross side bottom and and work some stuff from there. And so what I've been doing is really working to try to grab the opposite hand and funnel them to the opposite side. And I'm not as good at it, so it's an opportunity to learn. And I'm drilling things in a way that I'm working the exact opposite of what I historically have done. But I haven't seen personally a a Ton of repetitive use injury problems, but those are, I I think, some strategies for helping to mitigate it.
Mhmm.
Chris:
That makes sense. And I've seen some of that in surfing as well. Like, I've recently realized that I can control the amount that my ribs flare with my the the the tilt of my pelvis and also breathing so that I'm not constantly paddling on, like, the bottom of my rib cage, which gets really sore if you keep doing it over and over again. You know?
Robb:
Yeah. So here's the thing, and it and it's really hard to convey in just an audio format. But one of my coaches, John Frankel, he says that good posture Sure. We'll address somewhere between 51 and 99% of your problems. And and it it's arbitrarily, you know, vague.
But So, like, if you just imagine being in cross side bottom, you could be flat, like you're just laying there like a plank, Or you could pull your belly button down, tighten your glutes, and actually create a little bit of a convex Structure so that just like your tailbone and your upper shoulder blades are what's in contact with the floor. If you have a person on top of you in that cross side position, just you getting that postural position, which costs you virtually no energy, The person on top will be like, shit. Like, this just got way harder. And then whatever leg is nearer that person, if you Get cantered onto your hip and, like, the knee making contact with the ground, and you're really posting with the far leg, and you've got that convex Structure to your torso. The ribs are all tied together.
It's really hard to hold that person down then, and it's much, much easier for you to breathe. And And then if you do bridge or you do roll the person or anything like that, you're totally tied together so that the movement of your lower body is seamlessly transmitted through your upper body. So much of the soreness that people experience, particularly in the intercostals and and, sternum and all that type of stuff, It's because they're kinda moving the lower body and the upper body independent of one another. And so those intercostal muscles get really Tweaked, but there's all these positions where your posture could dramatically improve your safety and stability. People early on Tend to kinda pop a rib or separate a rib, and it's because they are twisting when they should be bridging And twisting all at the same time, and it should all be tied together.
Yeah.
Chris:
Oh, that's great. What do you think about the kids? So my kids have really gotten into it. I've got a daughter who's 10. It's more than just play for her.
She's really interested in because the the kids' classes, they're a mixture of just play, you know, like, Basically, drills jumping on, hopping on 1 leg, running from one side of the room to the other, and playing dodgeball and stuff. And the kids obviously love and you don't really need to do jitsu to enjoy that, but my daughter has gotten very into the technical side of things, and she's 10. And my son who's 5. Not so much. It kinda kills the play for him a little bit when an adult is telling him what to do.
He's the the the they're all all working to homeschool. They don't really have that of being told what to do in this didactic style that's typical in a classroom. And so it's been a bit of a learning experience for both of them, but especially my son. But Otherwise, they're having a really great time. They just got their 1st stripe on their white belts, which is 10 hours in Gracie.
We're past that hump. I feel like we're gonna keep doing it. And my wife seems to really enjoy me taking the kids off to jujitsu for the evening. They do their class first, and then they just hang out and watch whilst I do my class. And we're gone for quite a long time.
But How about you? What's your experience being with the kids? Is it something they've gotten into?
Robb:
They did, and it kinda goes in cycles. Zoe is 11 years old and 5 foot 7. Oh, wow. And so she's, yeah, she's a giant. And so what kinda sucked for her is Because of her size, she got pushed into the, like, teen class early, and there there were, like, some boys in there.
They, like, wrestled in high school and stuff like that. And when she shifted into this other class, there was a coach in there that's good, but not quite as dialed in on keeping the kids Safe and comfortable. Like, it's an uncomfortable thing under the best circumstances. So Zoey, when she when the kids belt Within a straight blast gym, when you get to another belt, they do what's called an Ironman where you roll with everybody in the class and and whatnot Kinda back to back. And so we got taken down a couple times, kinda bumped her head, and she was like, I'm done.
And I didn't blame her. Like, it was kind of a shitty class, and it wasn't Good. She does a little bit of jujitsu with just Nikki and I at home, and the kind of awesome thing is she's big enough to actually do it with her. You you know? Taegan who's 9 and also big for her age, but she actually ended up getting to her yellow and white belt and really enjoyed it, but she more enjoyed the coach that we had, this was when we were in Kalispell.
Cody, who runs the Big Fork Gym up there, is just amazing and really a phenomenal group of kids. But Sagan was also getting really into gymnastics. And when we moved to Bozeman, she asked if she could focus exclusively on gymnastics, and I was like, yeah. Totally. And so she developed a a fair bit of competency in jiu jitsu.
Like, she had a a legit game and knew the flow of jiu jitsu quite well, but, You know, we've reached a point where she just is obsessed with gymnastics. And so maybe they'll pick it up again at at some point. I was a little more hardline On that stuff, I was like, I want my girls to know self defense, and there is part of me that really wants that. But it as you know, like, forcing the kids through it, it's a losing proposition. Addition.
Like, they'll just potentially grow the hate it. Yeah. Exactly. So my hope is that Zoe will Kinda get plugged in with us and maybe start going to some of the foundations classes and stuff like that. We just very carefully curate Who she does rolling with and mainly just do some drilling and some rolling with Nikki and I and maybe a few of the other smaller women at the gym and kind of explained that she's had a shitty experience in the past, and don't fuck her up if you want her to to remain here and all that type of stuff.
And then say again, you know, kinda the same deal. I'm hopeful that maybe at Some point down the road, she'll she will plug back into it, but I think that for, you know, the kids generally because of the games that they do, they're learning a physical language in jujitsu. They learn all the names of the different movements and positions and everything, and then they have to Execute them. And I I think for neurological development and just kind of like body awareness and everything, it's really phenomenal. I think it's up there on par with gymnastics in that regard.
And, a lot of the better run kids programs will have a little bit of cartwheels and back rolls and front rolls, and they learn break falls and all that type of stuff, which both girls have taken diggers on their bikes. And both girls said that had they not known how to do, like, a front roll and, you know, Breakfall and stuff that they would have probably gotten more injured, you know?
Chris:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. On a bike, you do that Superman dive, and then your your collarbone pops. It's like, I think Yeah. Cyclists will know that one.
What do you think about the self defense thing? I'm not totally comfortable with that with the kids. They have The program that my kids are doing are called Gracie Bullyproof, I think it's called. And Mhmm. They they do talk a lot about, you know, they sit the kids down in circle, and they they try and mentor them a bit.
And I think my kids sort of roll in their eyes, and I'm rolling my eyes too, which is probably why they're rolling their eyes. And I feel like The problem is not a deficiency of jiu jitsu. The problem is the school system. You know? You, like, age match a bunch of kids, throw them in together.
It's the emotional blind leading the emotional blind. There's not really anyone no no pupil is gonna step in and interrupt when some kid gets picked on. And so, you know, being homeschooled, my kids don't really need that. But what do you what do you think about it? Do you think it does have value?
I mean, obviously, Gracie are selling jujitsu using this way of looking at it.
Robb:
I do think there's huge value because at some point, they won't be at home with you. Like, hopefully. Right? You know? And at some point, they will be at a water park or a birthday party Or something like that.
And they're gonna face some kid that is not comfortable in their own skin and uses violence and intimidation to To kinda get their way, and their parents suck for whatever reason. And, I I think that just the confidence of, you know, understanding. Oh, this is what violence looks like. This is what ill intent feels like. And then so much of what The Gracie combatives and and what we use within our foundation program, like somebody goes to take a punch at you and you put on that helmet with your upper arms and you crash in and Clinch with him and everything, and then maybe you take him down, maybe you don't.
The shit works, man. It works. And what's interesting is that Really quickly. Really, really quickly. When you're in a jiu jitsu setting, we get used to testing our jiu jitsu against other people that are doing jiu jitsu 2 to 5 days a week just like we are.
And you kinda feel like, oh, I suck. I'm never gonna get any better. But it's because your peer group is getting better along with you all the time, so there's this Constant arms race. There are some big, mean, dangerous people out in the world. They know how to fight and whatnot, but It doesn't take that long, 6 months, maybe a year of doing some consistent jiu jitsu.
And, again, it it's so nice that you're doing the Gracie Combatives because They will do sport jiu jitsu, but there's a way different sense the the way that both Gracie Combatives and SBG looks at jiu jitsu is that there's stuff that works In sport jujitsu, there's stuff that works in mixed martial arts, and there's stuff that works for self defense. And what Gracie combatives and what SPG tends to do is they're like, okay. In this Venn diagram, here's this chunk of stuff from every position that works In all 3 areas, works in self defense, works in MMA, works in sport jiu jitsu. We're gonna spend the bulk of our time there. And if you wanna do some special, like, Worm guard, De la Hiva stuff, you know, because you like, that's cool, but you're gonna have a really solid steeping in what works In actual fighting, self defense, and also sport jiu jitsu.
It's crazy. I haven't done this a ton, but, like, I'll run across over it. Like, I went to a high school reunion, and there was a friend of mine that was, like, a good wrestler, and wrestlers are Always a handful to deal with, but we started getting a little bit froggy, and he's a great wrestler. He's a far better wrestler than I am, But he, in the process of pinning my back to the floor, he set up a scenario where I was able to basically choke him unconscious, You know, if I wanted to. He was like, how the hell did that happen?
I'm like, well, you know, let let me show it. You know? And you show them again and again and Again and I do think it's really valuable, and violent occurrences are way less rare than what we assume From, like, social media and media and all that type of stuff. But the thing is, they're one of these black swan events that can have just Irreparable change to one's life. And I think that if we can prepare for that and do it in a way where we're not the paranoid Doomsday prepper with a boot knife and every pair of shoe, that gets crazy.
This is just like being generally physically fit. Do you stay in good physical fitness so that you're ready for the end of the world? Well, not really. It'd be handy if you weren't completely out of shape if An EMP pulse happens, and and the grid goes down and everything. You know, I would I would like to be in better shape versus worse shape, but you build some community.
You build some skills. You get a good workout. Oh, and by the way, if somebody tries to put hands on you or your family, you can do something about it. I think that's, both legit, and I I think that people undervalue how powerful it is. I'm gonna sound like a big Tough guy here, but if you're within 40 or 50 pounds of me and you've never done training before, I'm gonna fuck you up.
In that, I can break any limb on your body that I want to. And if I want to, I'll kill you. I will occlude the blood flow to your brain long enough to kill you, And I'll do it quickly and without much effort. The person could be big. They could be strong.
They could be younger than me. But if they're untrained, I'm gonna fuck them up. And that's not me bragging. That's just the cold, hard reality that's been born out. You see this stuff in, like, the Gracie combatives videos and stuff like that.
And, man, do I go looking for that stuff? Hell no. I'm in bed at 8:30. I don't go to the bar. I avoid that.
The likelihood of me ever needing something like this is Exceptionally low, but circling back around to the kids and stuff like that, they will face some amount of violence in their life. They just will. I did. Somebody tried to mug me at an ATM once. And unfortunately for that guy, it was, like, 2 weeks out from a Thai boxing match.
It went horribly for him. So
Chris:
yeah. You don't think the the skills are more likely to incite violence, especially in the kids? That kinda worries me a bit. You know?
Robb:
I don't think so. They really emphasized the defensive part. Like, you don't go after the person first. And I I do think that people have a tendency of escalating when they're scared. I know I would, not I have.
And if you just got that little bit of confidence, it was like, I can handle this, Then you don't really need to escalate it. Like, you you understand this person can't hurt me. Like, they can bluster, and maybe they even push me a little bit, but I keep my hands up. And I I've got my Frames in a a position so that they can't get into my center line. They can't throw a punch at me, and I'm deescalating things by talking to them with my hands out in front of me and everything.
No. I really don't think that's going to be the the thing that insight stuff. It's weakness that both causes people to be violent and weakness that causes people to want to exact violence if they sense Weakness, and they feel like they've got an easy prey. If you have somebody who's pathological and violent, if they sense weakness, I forget where I saw this, but I I don't know if it was Douglas Murray or somebody else. But somebody said, if you're appealing to somebody's better nature, you need to be careful Because they may not have one.
You know? And, again, I think most people are good. Most people Have everybody's best interest in heart and whatnot, but sometimes not.
Chris:
Say the name of the gym that you've been going to. So Gracie is the one I've been attending and doing online. And what's the name of your gym again?
Robb:
Straight Blast Gym.
Chris:
Okay.
Robb:
SPG.
Chris:
And I'll be sure to link that in the show notes. Is there anything else that you'd want people to know about. Where can they find you online? Tell us about the Healthy Rebellion Radio.
Robb:
Oh, man. Still just rob wolf.com. Nikki and I do the Healthy Rebellion Radio most Weeks. We've been a little bit lax on that because of our move to Bozeman. And, honestly, I haven't been doing a a ton Online, I work at m four element kinda generating content on the the back end, and I've been really investing in what's going on here locally in the real world in Bozeman.
We have been really plugged into the local regenerative vaccine, and we've got a little Ten acre patch of dirt here that we're getting ready to get animals for the next year. I'm toward Chris in in some ways, and that I still feel like I've got some things To share with people and I I like, there are people that I listen to, like the Dark Horse podcast and stuff that I I feel like are kinda beacons of hope, and people have said that I I provide some of that them. I'm very honored for that, but I've really just been kinda hunkered in doing my own thing. And I'm not Sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, like, we'll kinda see, but I've been enjoying it. So I've been doing very little, and that's why I was tickled that you reached out to me
Chris:
to have
Robb:
me on your podcast.
Chris:
Oh, good. Yeah. And tell people where they can find the electrolyte drink element.
Robb:
Oh, just drinklmnt.com.
Chris:
Excellent. Well, Rob, thank you so much. I'm really So grateful for all of the work that you've done and your help in my help personal health journey and that my family, and I hope you do continue to do at least some of this educational public service announcement stuff because the world still needs you.
Robb:
Thanks, man. Thank you.
Chris:
Okay. Cheers then, Rob. Take care. Awesome. Brilliant.
Thank
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