Joe Rogan Experience #2292 - Josh Waitzkin

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Whenever someone is a, like, an interesting person, and then I find out they do jujitsu too, "Oh, I could talk to that guy, for sure."

   4. JWJosh Waitzkin0:21

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      You know? (laughs)

   6. JWJosh Waitzkin0:23

      (laughs) Jiu-jitsu-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      You know, like, I get excited when interesting people do jujitsu, because I think, uh, for the outsider, to a lot of people that are, you know, they, they haven't been exposed to what it's like to train and what it's like to be around high level jujitsu people, they don't, uh, they don't know that vibe. They don't know what it's like. Like, they don't know the, um, the beauty of jujitsu. I feel like b- bea- jujitsu is beautiful for people who practice it, you know? Like, you see, like, Marcelo's a great example, your, your coach. You know, Marcelo is probably one of the most beautiful guys to watch, because he just takes advantage of these scrambles in this, like, really beautiful way, like fast and, and slippery. And when the opponents react, he reacts in the other way. It's all just technique and flow. It's like, "Ah!" Like, the first time I ever saw him, I saw him live in 2003 in Abu Dhabi, and, uh, it was when he fought Shaolin. That was the first time I'd ever seen him, uh, in the flesh. I didn't even-

   8. JWJosh Waitzkin1:25

      And then choked him out in, like, eight seconds, 10 seconds.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:27

      Oh, my God.

   10. JWJosh Waitzkin1:27

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       It was the most crazy scramble.

   12. JWJosh Waitzkin1:28

       Incredible.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:28

       But no one even knew him. No one knew of him, other than... You know, he was o- obviously a r- I think he was a brown belt at the time. I don't even think he was a black belt. I think Marcelo might've been a brown belt.

   14. JWJosh Waitzkin1:39

       I- i- it's interesting. I didn't... In 2003. Maybe.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:41

       So find that out. Was Marcelo a brown belt when he won Abu Dhabi in 2003? He may have... Eddie Bravo was a brown belt when he tapped out Royler.

   16. JWJosh Waitzkin1:48

       He told me recently that right before that fight, his, um, like, his grips had locked up. So he ca- Went into that fight... It looks incredible, just that arm drag, take the back, choked him out in seconds.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       His, like, hands?

   18. JWJosh Waitzkin1:58

       Yeah, his, like, grips from the fight before were like...

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:00

       Oh, wow.

   20. JWJosh Waitzkin2:01

       Yeah. W- wh- When, when Eddie beat Royler, he was a brown belt?

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:05

       Yep.

   22. JWJosh Waitzkin2:06

       Wow.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:06

       Yeah, m- uh, Jean Jacques took his black belt-

   24. JWJosh Waitzkin2:09

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:09

       ... off of his own waist-

   26. JWJosh Waitzkin2:10

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:11

       ... and put it on Eddie.

   28. JWJosh Waitzkin2:12

       Amazing, amazing.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:14

       Dude.

   30. JWJosh Waitzkin2:14

       That's epic. So yeah, it's funny. Uh, my background... Uh, we have a lot of overlap in our early jujitsu education, 'cause my first teacher was John Machado.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      brilliant in wearing the gi because-

   2. JWJosh Waitzkin15:02

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:02

      ... it made people grab it.

   4. JWJosh Waitzkin15:03

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      They thought they had an advantage-

   6. JWJosh Waitzkin15:05

      And he would ... And-

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:05

      ... that he had something to grab. And next thing you know, he's like clenched around you (laughs) and dragged you to the ground.

   8. JWJosh Waitzkin15:10

      It's an amazing idea, right? Like, they had no idea that they were entering his game, they thought they were controlling him.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:14

      Right.

   10. JWJosh Waitzkin15:14

       And-

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:14

       And they didn't understand that all that friction from the gi was-

   12. JWJosh Waitzkin15:17

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:17

       ... gonna make it very difficult for you to get outta anything. You know? Just flipping out.

   14. JWJosh Waitzkin15:20

       And he was so used to people grabbing him, he spent his life, people grabbing his gi.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:22

       Yeah.

   16. JWJosh Waitzkin15:23

       Like, they entered his, his repertoire.

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:24

       That changed the whole world, didn't it?

   18. JWJosh Waitzkin15:26

       Oh, my God.

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:26

       Changed the whole world.

   20. JWJosh Waitzkin15:27

       It's awesome.

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:27

       Changed what l- street fights look like, changed everything.

   22. JWJosh Waitzkin15:31

       Those first, um ... Those first UFCs were just wild.

   23. JRJoe Rogan15:35

       Nuts.

   24. JWJosh Waitzkin15:36

       Wild. Just the bizarre ...

   25. JRJoe Rogan15:38

       The first UFC I worked was UFC 12.

   26. JWJosh Waitzkin15:40

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan15:41

       In Dothan, Alabama. Yeah. (laughs) I had to take a propeller plane, I had to fly into ... I think we flew into Birmingham or somewhere, and then we had to take a propeller plane to Dothan. I was like, "What am I doing?"

   28. JWJosh Waitzkin15:54

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan15:55

       This is so ridiculous. But I wanted to just see it live, 'cause I'd only seen it on television. I'd only seen it ... I'd never seen a, like, a live cage fight before. I'm like, "This has gotta be crazy."

   30. JWJosh Waitzkin16:05

       So, UFC 12, how long after the first was that?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Hmm. …

   1. JWJosh Waitzkin30:00

      I just, I, it... And it can be a blind spot. Like, today, in life, like, a criticism of me that some loved ones would have is that I, I'm just, I'm always j- I love training. I love pushing my limits as a way of life in whatever I'm doing. If it was chess, if it was fighting. Now, it's, it's foiling. Surfing and then foiling in, in the biggest waves I can find. And, like, just, if I'm playing at my edge, I, I feel... It feels beautiful. It feels like where I want to be.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:23

      Hmm.

   3. JWJosh Waitzkin30:24

      But the comfort zone doesn't feel beautiful. And it, to me, that works really well. But it's a big part of, like, my foundation in that...... was when being eight years old and being targeted, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, my whole life. And I- I- it wasn't until recently that I realized that it was actually outside of my conceptual scheme not to take on the weakness, because it was just connected to pain from such a young age as-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:46

      Well-

   5. JWJosh Waitzkin30:46

      ... a competitor.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:47

      ... that is the formula.

   7. JWJosh Waitzkin30:47

      And there's no luck in chess.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:48

      Right.

   9. JWJosh Waitzkin30:48

      There's no fucking luck in chess.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:50

       Right. Right.

   11. JWJosh Waitzkin30:50

       If you have... Like, if you, if you're playing chess, if you have an opening repertoire that's massive and you go into a game and there's one little place that there's a weakness and you don't want your opponent to go, he always fucking finds it. (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:01

       (laughs)

   13. JWJosh Waitzkin31:01

       I don't know why. You can... You never, like-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:03

       (laughs)

   15. JWJosh Waitzkin31:03

       ... make a move and hope he doesn't see it. Or I'll play... I'll set this trap and it's not the best move, but maybe he'll fall into it. No, that never works at a high level. So you just... You, you have to take your shit on.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       So you associate not taking it on with pain?

   17. JWJosh Waitzkin31:19

       Yeah, I don't anymore. I did young. Now, I don't associate it with anything. I just don't do it.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:23

       Right. Yeah.

   19. JWJosh Waitzkin31:24

       Unless I try.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:25

       That's a better way to handle it, to recognize there's, there's, there's a real process. There's-

   21. JWJosh Waitzkin31:30

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:30

       ... there's the right way to do this. It's the only way to do this, so don't even think about the other way.

   23. JWJosh Waitzkin31:35

       Right. But if it's, if it's kind of driving you... I, for me, I think it's healthier for me to recognize that pattern in myself and then roll with it, as opposed to just not even see, like, that it's-

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       That it's there.

   25. JWJosh Waitzkin31:45

       That it's there.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       Right. Yeah. Well, yeah. Acknowledge. Well, you have to have acknowledgement of it because you have memories.

   27. JWJosh Waitzkin31:50

       Like, if I'm cooking a turkey, I have to cook a world-class turkey. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:54

       (laughs)

   29. JWJosh Waitzkin31:54

       I have a friend, Jim Detmer, who says to me, "Josh, what you have to do is cook a terrible turkey. Just cook a, cook an average turkey, you know. Don't crush it." In other words, like, don't... It's an interesting thing when you become present to the fact that you have this, like, youthful story running through everything you do, and you can choose to live that way. But it's good for it to be a choice as opposed to just driving you.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:16

       It's definitely good for it to be a choice. It's always good for it to be a choice because sometimes life will... You know, there's a curve that you have to take and you have to put something aside for a bit, or maybe forever, and you have to be able to transition to something else. And if you can't do that, then you'll be stuck.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. He's a brilliant…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      i- in this complex web of transitions and techniques that if you're just a regular MMA fighter who trains jiu-jitsu three times a week, you're not gonna know what he's doing.

   2. JWJosh Waitzkin45:08

      Yeah. He's a brilliant guy. He- he trained at our school from, in New York, I think, from 2010, 2012, that range. And it was so interesting watching him and Marcelo. Um, 'cause Ryan had a huge amount of humility relative to Marcelo, um, and he wanted to- to train with him, and Marcelo was so curious about Ryan's game. But Marcelo never studied anyone's game. His a- his, uh, core principle of Marcelo is if you- if you- if you study my game, you enter my game, and no one will be better at my game than me. And so when he, in competition, he would- that guy should be studying tape of everybody. He would never study everyone's tape, never study everyone's fights, but he'd watch them, the fight before they went against him, and he'd pick up on some kind of elemental read. He has this incred- he has what I call, uh, a low-rep learner. His ability to learn from a single repetition is just unbelievable.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:53

      Mm.

   4. JWJosh Waitzkin45:54

      Um, and it was really interesting watching him and Ryan, 'cause Ryan, uh, Ryan just came and visited me, um, in my home, uh, uh, a g- g- month ago. And we were talking about how formative those training experiences with Marcelo were. And, and it was, like, the way, one way that Ryan described it is that he had this, like, layers of traps seven steps in. But Marcelo had this deep understanding upstream of that. And it was like watching Marcelo put himself, like, right next to the fire, like, right next to Ryan's game. He wanted to learn Ryan, the edges of Li- of Ryan's game, but never enter it. And his ability to play right at the threshold of all of Ryan's traps, which he could pull almost everyone else into, and just pure grappling, right?

   5. JRJoe Rogan46:34

      Mm.

   6. JWJosh Waitzkin46:34

      And, but not- not just- His ability to learn, it was like, uh, it felt like a cat putting its paw right up against the edge of a fire, and just, like, learning about what heat was, and deconstructing it, but then-

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:47

      Oh, wow.

   8. JWJosh Waitzkin46:47

      ... not ever getting into the heat. You know? And I w- And you'd watch Ryan roll, roll with anyone else, he could just pull them into the fire, into the spider web.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:55

      That's fascinating.

   10. JWJosh Waitzkin46:55

       Yeah, M- Marcelo has a, uh, a really incredibly deep, almost simian physical intelligence. And his ability to learn from a single rep is unique in my observation.

   11. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       That's amazing. Ryan has had a ton of surgeries, hasn't he?

   12. JWJosh Waitzkin47:11

       Oh, yeah. Man, that dude has had such bad luck. Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:13

       What is, uh, wrong with him? What's going on?

   14. JWJosh Waitzkin47:15

       He, it's some shit with, I mean, tons of stuff with his knee, with his hip, with... I think he's, he's starting to come b- And I think his shoulder or something now.

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:21

       Oh, sure.

   16. JWJosh Waitzkin47:21

       He-y- he's still, you know, he's-

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:22

       He's had, like, nine surgeries?

   18. JWJosh Waitzkin47:23

       I think 23 sur- I think it was 23.

   19. JRJoe Rogan47:25

       23?

   20. JWJosh Waitzkin47:25

       I think he's had 23 surgeries. Dude has got... And the, the bad one happened when someone just falling on him in training. Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:32

       What was that?

   22. JWJosh Waitzkin47:32

       I don't know. I don't... Oh, it was, that was the hip.

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:34

       Oh, God.

   24. JWJosh Waitzkin47:35

       Yeah. I don't know exactly. I haven't seen the video.

   25. JRJoe Rogan47:36

       What did he get done to his hip?

   26. JWJosh Waitzkin47:39

       Ask him. I don't... I'm not sure.

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:41

       Uh.

   28. JWJosh Waitzkin47:41

       Yeah, he's had a lot of surgeries, a lot of surgeries.

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:43

       Someone just fell on him. So was he training with someone else and someone else fell on him?

   30. JWJosh Waitzkin47:47

       No, he was r- He was training with somebody and he was taking it easy on them in a transition, trying to not hurt them, and then they just collapsed on him-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:09:36

   Yeah, a language that…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      become very well-recognized, then all of a sudden this movie, and now you have to kind of, like, grapple with things. And as you said, these challenges make you a more complex person, and then your ability to sort of push chess aside and try other things, do you think that's because of the, uh, it has to be a factor in your, this desire to explore other things, because you're kind of thrust into this thing where your, your thing is now changed. Your thing is now not just flowing, and learning, and getting better, and, and, and doing battle with chess. Now it's image, and groupies, and this bizarre thing that you're living up to, and you don't like it, and you wanna escape it, and so you have to reevaluate. And so this forced reevaluation from a young age, at 15 years old, th- this key developmental period as a young man, it sort of opens you up to the possibilities of all sorts of different ways of living life, and all sorts of different things to do with life.

   2. JWJosh Waitzkin1:00:59

      Yeah, a language that I use for this is the, the passage from the pre-conscious to the post-conscious competitor-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

      Mm.

   4. JWJosh Waitzkin1:01:04

      ... or artist. And, like, when I ... Up until 15, I, I would relate to myself as the pre-conscious competitor. I loved chess. It was free-flowing. I loved the battle. I loved the competition. I loved the ass-kicking and the kicking ass. I, I just loved the fucking battle of the thing.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JWJosh Waitzkin1:01:18

      And then-... and then ar- then I had m- I, I fell in love for the first time when I was 15. The movie came out, um, after that, and, um, I started studying existentialist literature. I started reflecting on the absurdity of it all. I started to become present to the fact that these were just 64 squares and 32 pieces. Like, I was spending my life studying this fucking box, wood- wooden box, like the construct, the absurdity of being stuck in that construct became clear to me. And then I was becoming more and more self-conscious about how what I was doing was perceived by others, and I got lost in all of that. Um, and in many ways, like, the journey, like most pe- most pe- like some people don't run into that for a long time. Like, there are some chess players that just become insanely strong without ever reflecting on the absurdity of the fact that they're just playing chess.

   7. NANarrator1:02:04

      (sighs)

   8. JWJosh Waitzkin1:02:05

      And that's a great liberation, like that-

   9. NANarrator1:02:06

      Right.

   10. JWJosh Waitzkin1:02:06

       ... the moment you become aware of the fact that you're mortal, that you can get your ass kicked, that your arm can break, that you can die, that what you're doing is absurd, like you get locked up by that knowledge.

   11. NANarrator1:02:14

       Right.

   12. JWJosh Waitzkin1:02:15

       Like, and there's so many different forms that can take.

   13. NANarrator1:02:16

       Yeah.

   14. JWJosh Waitzkin1:02:16

       Or the moment you... Like, for example, Boston Celtics, like they, like you're hungering to win a world championship and then you win the NBA Finals. Suddenly everything changes, your relationship, your motivation changes. All the reasons you're doing it are no longer valid in some ways because now you've accomplished the thing you always dreamed of and you have to discover. It's true in any form of competition or art, in my experience, is that there comes a moment where someone's consciousness becomes more complicated and they can't just return to the innocence they had before, 'cause now, uh, you can't do that. You can't put it back in the box.

   15. NANarrator1:02:45

       Right.

   16. JWJosh Waitzkin1:02:45

       It's out. So then you have to work through that journey, which is a lot of what I did from like my late teenage years, leaving and studying philosophy and then moving into other fields and started r- relating to art in a way that was integrating that self-awareness, integrating that sense of mortality. Um, it's like when I, I, I, uh, a very powerful example of this was I, I, I di- I drowned in a pool, um, I guess like nine, 10 years ago. I was, um, doing hypoxic breath work, Wim Hof training (laughs) in a pool.

   17. NANarrator1:03:20

       Jesus Christ.

   18. JWJosh Waitzkin1:03:21

       And, uh, never do Wim Hof training, everybody please, in a pool, um, because you're, you're flushing the CO2 from your body but CO2 is what gives you the urge to breathe. And so without carbon dioxide in your being, in your- you don't feel the urge to breathe. And so I- and I'd been a lifetime free diver, spearfishing f- f- from when I was five, six years old, but I was never doing hypoxic breath work before free diving. So if you're diving 80, 90, 100 feet, you're, you're not flushing the CO2 from your body before you do so, so you have, you still have that, that sense for when you need to breathe. But I was in a NYU pool, I was at just swimming 50 meters, 50 meters back and forth underwater and then doing this, this hypoxic wor- breath work in between. And then I- my last recollection is being stretched out in bliss that those tingles through your body you get from... Have you done Wim Hof training?

   19. NANarrator1:04:06

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JWJosh Waitzkin1:04:07

       Yeah, those, you know those tingles?

   21. NANarrator1:04:08

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JWJosh Waitzkin1:04:08

       Had those fucking tingles and then I woke up 30 minutes later. What happened was that I blacked out. I was in the bottom of the pool for over four minutes after blacking out from shallow water blackout.

   23. NANarrator1:04:18

       Oh my God.

   24. JWJosh Waitzkin1:04:19

       Which should, it should be 45 seconds to a minute and you should be brain dead or dead 'cause you're post-shallow water blackout. I know what time it was because there was an old man at the pool who saw me in the bottom of the pool and swam one lap and his mi- his laps were a little bit over a minute, swam a second lap. After his third lap he said, "Let me, I'll check on him if he's still down." He thought I was holding my breath, but I was only holding my breath while swimming. So if I was still, I was fucking out. His fourth lap, after his fourth lap, he ta- pulled me up. I was blue.

   25. NANarrator1:04:45

       Oh my God.

   26. JWJosh Waitzkin1:04:46

       My whole body was blue. Um, my head was red. My body saved me. My training saved me and almost, and killed me. Sent all the blood to my brain. My eyes were blown out, red, like bloodshot for three weeks that followed. And I, um, I remember waking up and having this, everyone, looking at everyone around me and like, "What the fuck is everyone... What's going on guys? Like what's the drama?" (laughs) And I realized that I was the fucking drama.

   27. NANarrator1:05:08

       Whoa.

   28. JWJosh Waitzkin1:05:09

       Um, and I spent that night in the hospital going through old chess variations trying to, like, s- test my brain. Is my bain- brain ruined? Like, do I remember things? Somehow my brain, maybe it's fucked up, but it's, seems to be working pretty well. (laughs)

   29. NANarrator1:05:22

       (laughs)

   30. JWJosh Waitzkin1:05:22

       And, um...

Episode duration: 2:31:46