JRE MMA Show #111 with John Danaher

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum music plays) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drum music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) So one of the best things about, um, this, uh, Who's Number One thing is that I get to see you once a month. (laughs)

   3. JDJohn Danaher0:20

      Thank you.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      It's been a... (laughs)

   5. JDJohn Danaher0:22

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      I've been enjoying it, man. We've had some wonderful conversations and I figured, why not get you in here and let's put one of these down on recording.

   7. JDJohn Danaher0:28

      Thank you.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:29

      My pleasure. Um, this new... this idea, this concept is so fantastic to me, to take elite gr- el- elite grapplers and pay them for matches and then f- stream it online. And Flow Grappling is doing this and they're very successful.

   9. JDJohn Danaher0:45

      Yes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       A lot- a lot of jujitsu people are tuning into these things and- and, you know, it's- it's really become a hit.

   11. JDJohn Danaher0:50

       Um, a- a true key in the development of any sport is some kind of, uh, organization which showcases it. Uh, for mixed martial arts, it was the UFC. And grappling always struggled with, uh, the idea of showcasing the skills of the athletes. Um, there were local shows, uh, when- when you and I started jujitsu, there was crazy local shows where people would just informally come in and compete against each other. Um, but there was nothing that had any kind of overall vision or a sustained program over time. And that, I believe, is what Flow Grappling is trying to do here, they're trying to give something, uh, a grappling version of what the UFC has done for mixed martial arts. And, uh, uh, the athlete pay is improved dramatically over, uh, earlier years and athlete exposure is massively improved. So it- it's a very encouraging thing. Uh-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:44

       And the production's excellent.

   13. JDJohn Danaher1:45

       Yes. Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:46

       It's really good. It's, uh, great commentary and great-

   15. JDJohn Danaher1:49

       It- it- it's something where you could take someone who didn't know much about grappling, a friend of yours, invite them over, watch it together and- and they'll be like, "Hey, that's an impressive sport." And like, they- as you say, the production looks like it's- it's a legitimate sport, as opposed to, like, going to the local high school on a Saturday and watching you compete, and, um-

   16. JRJoe Rogan2:07

       Yeah.

   17. JDJohn Danaher2:07

       ... in- in that fashion.

   18. JRJoe Rogan2:08

       Well, one of the things that's made the sport more palatable is the approach that your athletes take and many other athletes are following suit, is that it's a very submission-based approach instead of just trying to score points. Because I think there's been a problem with these rule sets, where, I mean, even though Abu Dhabi's done an amazing job of showcasing elite grapplers, there's something weird about their score ses- system. So the first f- was it first five minutes, there's no sc- points scored?

   19. JDJohn Danaher2:36

       That- that's correct, yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan2:37

       And then the next five minutes, you score points. So you see, you get guys stalling out for five minutes, so you almost guarantee a boring five minutes unless you have some sort of Marcelo Garcia attacker who just ju- just dives on submissions and goes after it right away.

   21. JDJohn Danaher2:51

       Yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:51

       Which is not the norm. The norm is points-based guys who are just trying to win.

   23. JDJohn Danaher2:57

       That's correct. Um, as a general rule, you know, athletes are smart and they want to win. So, um, they will, as a general rule, always try to find the least risky way of attaining victory and doing the minimum amount of work in order to get to a- a win. Um, and yet the- the spectators are demanding something else. They're demanding entertainment. And in the sport of jujitsu, the most entertaining thing you can do is to push the action towards submission holds. And submissions function in grappling the same way a knockout punch does in boxing. And it's the most desired result. It's also the most impressive result. If you think, Joe, back to when you first started jujitsu, what was its primary appeal? Well, I think for the overwhelming majority of practitioners of jujitsu is the idea of submission. Because-

   24. JRJoe Rogan3:50

       I think that's the only appeal.

   25. JDJohn Danaher3:51

       Yeah. It's-

   26. JRJoe Rogan3:52

       I don't- I don't think you could ever say to anybody, "I find it appealing to win on points."

   27. JDJohn Danaher3:55

       Yeah, or- or-

   28. JRJoe Rogan3:56

       It's ridiculous.

   29. JDJohn Danaher3:56

       ... or even worse, on advantage.

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:57

       Yeah. Like, just wrestle, if you wanna do that. Yeah.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah, he tore it…

   1. JDJohn Danaher15:00

      uh, athlete. I believe the Turk was actually the favorite and he was the world champ from the previous year, I believe. And, uh, yeah, he legitimately broke his arm with Kimura.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:08

      Yeah, he tore it apart.

   3. JDJohn Danaher15:10

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:10

      I mean it was a w- see if you can find that 'cause it's pretty wild. I mean, it, first of all, he's just a ball of muscle.

   5. JDJohn Danaher15:18

      Yes.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      I mean, Mark Schultz in his prime was a fucking savage.

   7. JDJohn Danaher15:22

      I understand he was actually a gymnast before he was a wrestler.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:25

      I believe it.

   9. JDJohn Danaher15:26

      And he started wrestling relatively late and his brother Dave-

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:28

       Really?

   11. JDJohn Danaher15:29

       ... started much earlier than him.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:30

       Wow.

   13. JDJohn Danaher15:30

       And, uh, and convinced him to try it. (crowd cheering)

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:33

       Um, his, uh, his athleticism was fucking ridiculous and really unfortunate that, um, Brigham Young University would not let him compete-

   15. JDJohn Danaher15:44

       That's, that's right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       ... in the UFC. Yeah, that one fight.

   17. JDJohn Danaher15:46

       Yes.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       Which is one of the things that infuriates me to no end about the movie about his life story. 'Cause in the movie about his life story, he faces a Russian guy in this one cage fight that he has. But it's a, it's a part of mixed martial arts history that he fought Big Daddy Goodridge.

   19. JDJohn Danaher16:05

       He did.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:05

       Big Daddy comes out with the, the karate gi on. Big Daddy was a big giant striker. He wasn't a Russian, he was an Ame- he was a Canadian actually. And-

   21. JDJohn Danaher16:13

       Do you... What was the motivation for them changing history like that?

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       Assholes! Assholes in Hollywood-

   23. JDJohn Danaher16:18

       That's a good motivation.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       ... who just decide that they want to put their own spin on things, you know, "Let's make it a Russian guy." Like, for no fucking reason they change this man's life story.

   25. JDJohn Danaher16:27

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:27

       For no reason.

   27. JDJohn Danaher16:28

       Makes no sense.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:29

       Makes no sense. It d-

   29. JDJohn Danaher16:30

       The world was over at that point, didn't it?

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:32

       But, well not only that, there's no pro or con to doing it, there's no-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      you fucking watch baseball.

   2. JDJohn Danaher30:02

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:03

      You watch baseball, you think that's boring? At any moment, someone could do a spinning elbow and knock someone unconscious.

   4. JDJohn Danaher30:09

      Yeah, 100%.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:10

      Yeah, you, why, how could that possibly be boring? And if it is boring, then next time that guy fights, uh, you should hope that he gets paired up with someone who's crazy, some, some wild guy looks like Prochazka or something like that, who, who just charges out of the gate, guns blazing and tries to take him out. Let's see what happens then.

   6. JDJohn Danaher30:26

      Yes. Um, no, you're, you're, you're absolutely right. Even in the, uh, situations like, d- defense is usually, uh, described as the most boring part of mixed martial arts.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:36

      Yeah.

   8. JDJohn Danaher30:36

      You try someone in defense, nothing happens, but we've, you've seen on multiple occasions both the person being pinned on the fence and the person pinning the other person have achieved knockouts with, with as-... you, you describe as spinning elbows or short-

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:49

      Yeah.

   10. JDJohn Danaher30:49

       ... elbows. You've seen it so many times. Anything can happen at any time. So just let them go.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:54

       Let them go. Yeah. And if it turns out to be boring, we already know that athletes that are, are not exciting and don't do well, they're not as marketable, they don't do as well financially. That's just how it goes.

   12. JDJohn Danaher31:06

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:06

       And their incentive to be more exciting, either they ignore it completely and just concentrate on winning like so many of them do, or they just decide to make their style a little bit more open, a little bit more wild, take some more chances.

   14. JDJohn Danaher31:21

       The way to think about it is don't let the boos of the crowd incentivize the athletes to, to attack. Let the eyes of the crowd incentivize the athletes to attack because if you're boring, the next time, they're not gonna watch you.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:37

       Yes. Yeah.

   16. JDJohn Danaher31:39

       Let them select on their, on their own. Don't listen to boos. Watch where their eyes are going. If you're an exciting fighter, you're gonna have eyes on, on the screen looking at you. That should be your incentive to action, not the boos of the crowd.

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:51

       When you're training athletes for jujitsu ... And one of the interesting things about the Gordon Gr- Ryan conversation that I had recently, I didn't know that you are Garry Tonon's striking coach as well. Which is-

   18. JDJohn Danaher32:02

       Oh, yeah. Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan32:03

       ... pretty amazing-

   20. JDJohn Danaher32:05

       Oh.

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:05

       ... that you can do both, that you can train them in both jujitsu and also train them in striking. And I know you have a background in striking, but still. When you're training an athlete like Garry, um, if you're training someone like Gordon for jujitsu, I'm sure there's some emphasis on takedowns, but it's not a primary concern. The primary concern is submissions, right? Like, the- oftentimes, you'll see, um, Garry will sit-

   22. JDJohn Danaher32:32

       Yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:32

       ... he'll pull guard. The, all these things that are not possible in MMA or very rare.

   24. JDJohn Danaher32:37

       That's correct, yes.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:38

       What ... How much of a shift is it to train them for mixed martial arts? Because you're clearly training him to strike and training him to strike, but ultimately, the s- the skill set, the best part of their skill set involves in submission.

   26. JDJohn Danaher32:53

       That's correct. Um, the big challenge for most jujitsu players when they try to apply their, their craft in mixed martial arts is one, can they get it to the ground? That's a challenge in itself. And an even greater challenge is, can you keep it on the ground? Okay, it means nothing if you take someone down if they just spring back up within three to five seconds. It's, it's energy s- spent that had no reward. Um, a sad thing about jujitsu is that when it's practiced there's almost always a kind of gentleman's agreement that there's gonna be a top player and a bottom player. And if you start in the bottom, you stay in the bottom. The moment you get into a mixed martial arts context, that goes right out the window, and now you have two responsibilities. You don't just have to pass your opponent's guard from top position, you have to hold them down while you're doing it. And that's, that's not easy. Um, when you look at the notion of escape in jujitsu, the overwhelming majority of escapes in the sport of jujitsu are escapes to guard position. If you're mounted, you elbow escape, you put him back in guard. If the guy's got the side pin on you, you elbow escape, put him back in guard. If the guy's behind you, you do a forward roll, spin back into him, put him back in guard. 90% of the escapes in jujitsu are escapes back to guard position. And so when you start in bottom position you tend to stay in bottom position. Now contrast that with the sport of wrestling where the overwhelming majority of escapes are escapes to standing back up to a neutral position on your feet. That means that when jujitsu players face other forms of grappling, they're not trying to put us back in guard, they're trying to stand up. And jujitsu players never practice against that when they're doing their daily training.

   27. JRJoe Rogan34:49

       Mm.

   28. JDJohn Danaher34:50

       And so suddenly you've got a guy who just assumes for his entire career that if he's on top, the other guy's gonna play guard. And this guy's not playing guard at all, he's just pushing you ahead, standing up and hip-ricing up to his feet. The jujitsu guy's like, "Well, what h- ... I had top position. Why aren't you playing guard?" And so they're now put into an area where nothing in their training has really prepared them for this. And jujitsu's going to have to mature. I've always said jujitsu's one of the greatest products I ever saw in my life. I wouldn't have invested 30 years of my life in jujitsu if I didn't believe that with all my heart and all my soul. But like any great product, it has its deficiencies. Jujitsu always had three major deficiencies: leg locks, takedowns, and thirdly, the one that no one talks about, the ability to impose top position once it's gained. A huge part of my career has been the recognition and the attempt to change these three great faults in jujitsu. As much as I love jujitsu, we've got to take a step back and take an honest look at it. It's got these three deeply en- entwined faults within it. Leg locks was the most obvious one. In a game which was supposedly all about control leading to submission, there was an arbitrary rule that 50% of the body couldn't be attacked. That was lunacy. And over the last 10 years, I believe it's fair to say we've reached a point where that is no longer the case, that that is a great weakness within jujitsu. The younger generation of jujitsu, I would match them against any grappling art in the world on leg locks with no fear whatsoever. They, uh, I couldn't have said that 15 years ago. But things have changed. Now we need to address the other two great weaknesses. Jujitsu has to do something about the crisis which is starting to emerge around takedowns and the ability to impose top position. What you're seeing among jujitsu athletes now who go into mixed martial arts is they just have to turn to other arts. They have to learn wrestling, they have to learn these, and there's nothing wrong with that, but-... the truth is that jujitsu has become a relative, a smaller and smaller component of mixed martial arts rather than what it was when it first started, which was a dominant force in mixed martial arts. Now, for most of the athletes, jujitsu is something you learn to stay out of some pesky submission holds. It's not the be all and focus for most of the athletes in mixed martial arts. Most of them are centered around kickboxing skills and, and wrestling. Um, I think that we've done a great job of overcoming one out of three great problems in jujitsu. But there's still two more to go. I don't believe it's a satisfactory answer. I believe it's a cop-out to say, "Well, just learn some wrestling." Just as many people told me 20 years ago, "Oh, you wanna learn leg locks? Just do some sambo." I was never happy with that answer, so I didn't do it. Okay, first of all, sambo as a sport doesn't even allow heel hooks. It only allows straight leg locks, knee bars and Achilles locks. There's no heel hooks in, in competition sambo. And so if I'd just taken that approach of learn another martial art, learn leg locks from that, the whole heel hook revolution never would have taken off.

   29. JRJoe Rogan38:19

       Where did the heel hook originate from?

   30. JDJohn Danaher38:22

       Originate? I- I can't give an accurate answer. Um, when I began jujitsu in the 1990s, most of the early people I saw implying, uh, employing heel hooks were from Japan, people like Rominha Satto.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   I'm so glad you…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      athletics. If you look at any other sport, there is incremental increases in the abilities of the athletes, but nothing comparable to martial arts.

   2. JDJohn Danaher45:08

      I'm so glad you said this, because, um, we're- we're very privileged to live as martial artists in this age. This is, in my opinion, is the most exciting time for martial artists to be alive that I'm aware of.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:22

      Yes.

   4. JDJohn Danaher45:22

      Maybe in ancient Greece, maybe they had something with pankration that was more exciting then, but you'd have to show me some pretty damn good evidence.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:28

      If you could take Gordon Ryan and bring him back to ancient Greece, he would fuck those dudes up. Do you know how easy it would be? You know how amazing it would be? All those guys would line up, bring their champions, and they'd be like, "What is he doing?"

   6. JDJohn Danaher45:40

      I- in general, I- I would agree with you. I, um... As a general rule, I believe that later generations almost always beat earlier generations. Like Jesse Owens was a great sprinter, but Usain Bolt would destroy him in a foot race. It's... there's just no getting around that.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:54

      The only place where I make exceptions is boxing, 'cause I think there are boxers from the old era that just would be spectacular no matter what. I think Muhammad Ali would be... especially when he was Cassius Clay, before he was-

   8. JDJohn Danaher46:08

      Hmm. Yes. Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:09

      ... stripped of his title. You take the guy who beat Cleveland Big Cat Williams and I think he boxes with almost anybody of every- any era. I think he's just amazing. Marvin Hagler. I think if you take Marvin Hagler, stick him in with any middle weight champion of all time, in any time, in any- any era of boxing, and you're- you're just dealing with a champion. I mean, just- just... Because there's not much difference in boxing. Like, there's... You see some unique approaches like Floyd Mayweather and his shoulder roll and his- his incredible defense, and you see it... We were talking before this podcast, when we were talking about Canelo Alvarez, how he learned from the Floyd Mayweather fight.

   10. JDJohn Danaher46:46

       Yes.

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:47

       His head movement and... So you're seeing these steps where they're learning, but go back to Willie Pep. Go back to Pernell Whitaker. I mean-

   12. JDJohn Danaher46:54

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:54

       ... Pern- Pernell Whitaker had spectacular defense.

   14. JDJohn Danaher46:57

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:57

       Agreed, yeah.

   16. JDJohn Danaher46:58

       Um-

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:58

       I mean-

   18. JDJohn Danaher46:58

       ... I- I- I hear you, Joe, and- and I think there's some, some good arguments to suggest that you're- you may be onto something here. Let's look, for example, at, um, Sugar Ray Leonard versus Floyd- Floyd Mayweather's father.

   19. JRJoe Rogan47:12

       Hmm.

   20. JDJohn Danaher47:12

       Which was a classic fight, by the way.

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:14

       Yes.

   22. JDJohn Danaher47:14

       Wonderful match.

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:15

       Amazing fight.

   24. JDJohn Danaher47:16

       Um, now, um, you get to see just how good Sugar Ray Leonard was in the 19, uh, 1980s with that match. Now you could make the argument, as Sugar Ray Leonard does to this day, that Floyd Mayweather isn't that much better than his father was, that they're of comparable skill level. And- and you could argue on that basis, exactly as you said, that maybe some of those guys from the 1980s would have gone against the best guys of this generation and done just fine. Um, the difficulty, of course, is it's difficult to measure combat sports.

   25. JRJoe Rogan47:51

       Yeah.

   26. JDJohn Danaher47:51

       Uh, in the case of, uh, Olympic sprinting, there's an obvious measurement here, time. And, uh, and so you see the progress more clearly. Nonetheless, as a general rule, I do think, even in combat sports, earlier generations tend to lose to later generations in most cases. There could be some exceptions, but I think, for example, if Kimura, who was the greatest judo player of his generation, went up against Yamashita, even if you took away the size difference, I just think Yamashita wins. Just- he just knows more. He's just had the benefits of- of, um... The insights of one generation pile upon the next, and the next, and the next. They create a compounding effect in learning, where the athletes from a later generation start from a higher point than their predecessors did. And so as a general rule, I'll always favor the- the- the more recent generations over previous generations. But, um, to your credit, I do think there are some exceptions in- in combat sports more than other sports.

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:50

       I- I agree with you as a general rule. Uh, the exception I make is boxing. The reason why I make that exception in boxing is 'cause I don't think the progress has been as spectacular as it's been in martial arts, and I don't think the approach is as comprehensive as it is in grappling or, clearly, in mixed martial arts.

   28. JDJohn Danaher49:06

       Interesting.

   29. JRJoe Rogan49:07

       Mixed- in mixed martial arts, I don't think there's any argument whatsoever-

   30. JDJohn Danaher49:09

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Everything. …

   1. JDJohn Danaher1:00:00

      impart ferocious and intimidating kinetic energy onto a target is everything.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:04

      Everything.

   3. JDJohn Danaher1:00:04

      That's their version of submissions. Like you... Just as submissions can snap an arm, they can, you know, put your lights out in a, in a heartbeat with a good blow. That's, that's their primary appeal. And I'm impressed by the fact that, that's... he... this guy identified what is the appeal. And, and it showed on you as a, as a 15-year-old boy. You looked at this and you're like, "My God, I've gotta, I've gotta learn this power."

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:24

      He not only imparted that on you, it was part of the, like, the way they marketed the class.

   5. JDJohn Danaher1:00:30

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

      So, like, the heavy bag was right near the lobby. So, like, there's a line of heavy bags. So as you walk in, there's this big training hall, but the heavy bags were right there. So if someone was coming in to go check out classes, he would tell me to go kick the bag.

   7. JDJohn Danaher1:00:46

      Interesting.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:47

      Yeah. He would say, s- "Go smash that bag." And-

   9. JDJohn Danaher1:00:49

      That was the best advertising they ever did.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       Oh, yeah.

   11. JDJohn Danaher1:00:51

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       Because if you could watch someone do that, it's undeniable. You see the amount of force-

   13. JDJohn Danaher1:00:55

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:55

       ... that a guy like John could generate. I mean, it'll... it could change your... Hey, watching him changed my life.

   15. JDJohn Danaher1:00:59

       Like, you're looking at that bag and you're saying like, "If that was me..."

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       Dead. Dead. Bre- all this broken-

   17. JDJohn Danaher1:01:05

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

       ... bleeding internally. I just couldn't... And he was big. He was a light heavyweight at the time, which I think the, you know, the, the weight classes are all a little bit different, but I think it was still somewhere in the range of 175 pounds. And, uh, just watching him do that literally, like, here's my life, I'm going in this direction. Went like this. Bam.... hard right turn, and then changed everything-

   19. JDJohn Danaher1:01:26

       Wow.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:27

       ... became a different person.

   21. JDJohn Danaher1:01:28

       And that's the second thing, that so much of what determines the direction of our lives is completely accidental-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:36

       Yeah.

   23. JDJohn Danaher1:01:36

       ... and arbitrary. Like, that was a life-changing moment for you. And as you said, if you'd come 15 minutes earlier, you and I probably wouldn't even be having this conversation. You probably never would have gotten into martial arts. You'd be playing baseball.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

       Psh.

   25. JDJohn Danaher1:01:48

       It's crazy.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:49

       Isn't that nuts?

   27. JDJohn Danaher1:01:49

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:50

       It's really crazy. That one day changed my whole life.

   29. JDJohn Danaher1:01:55

       But not just the day, 15 minutes, 5 minutes-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:57

       Yeah.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:20:21

   Yeah, I think that…

   1. JDJohn Danaher1:15:00

      all of us that comes out of our ancestral history. But at the same time, unrestricted violence is a terrible, terrible thing. And no society can function with unrestricted violence. Human progress is impossible without it. And so what we find is humans have to acknowledge that in a competitive world, violence is part of our world, but the unrestricted violence is just as damaging as, uh, uh, as being a complete pacifist in a, in a, in a world of, uh, uh, murderers. And so martial arts is the ideal of structured violence where you learn the techniques that can make you safe in a competitive world. But they're put into a socially acceptable framework, where you're not harming the people around you. You're ing- you're involved in competition, but in a way which is not going to terribly injure you, either yourself or the person you're competing against. The violence, as it were, is reduced and made socially acceptable, part of a, uh... It's taken to a level where it could be part of a functioning society. And if practiced, I sincerely believe, makes for a better society because it makes people acknowledge we are in a competitive world, that not all people in this world are good-hearted, and that at some point, you gotta be able to stand up for yourself. And if you can't, you don't wanna be a saint in a world of murderers. You're not gonna do well, okay? But on the other hand, you don't wanna be a murderer in a world of saints. You know what I mean? Y- you can't have that. And so martial arts, as it were, is the compromise between cooperation and competition. It gives you the ability to compete all the way down to physical violence, but at the same time, it, it takes the, the, uh, the violent aspect of martial arts and puts it into socially acceptable competition, socially acceptable structures that results in a population of people if you had an entire society who practice martial arts. So for example, in Japan, everyone does judo in high school. You have a, a group of people who can stand up for themselves and, uh, uh, and compete physically in a, in a potentially dangerous world. But at the same time, they're socially cohesive, and they're not using violence in a negative, destructive, antisocial fashion where they're harming people and stealing property or what have you. And I believe that's the greatest virtue of martial arts for society is that it finds that balance between humanity's basic fact that we live in a competitive world with its limited resources and growing populations, where physical violence is always gonna be the, the ultimate method of determining who wins in competition for those limited resources. And at the same time, doesn't mean we degenerate into a violent culture where no human or civil progress is possible 'cause we're at each other's throats 24/7. And that I see as being the great social benefit of, of martial arts. So even someone like me who came from an academic background can look at martial arts and see that's an important thing that could be a, a, a great benefit both to individuals and to the society in which they live.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:18:20

      Yeah, I think that the, the danger of martial arts and the danger of whether it's training or competition itself is one of the most intriguing aspects of it because it makes figuring out the problem so much harder. 'Cause I always, I always describe martial arts as high-level problem-solving with dire physical consequences.

   3. JDJohn Danaher1:18:44

      That's a very good definition.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:18:45

      Because it is this thing where you're, what you're really trying to do is overcome your fear, your anxiety, your emotions, and also apply technique, strategy, explosive force, conditioning, and discipline because you have had to put the time in and training in order to get your vehicle to be functional in this extreme environment. You're, you're responsible for adding the horsepower to the engine. You're responsible for tuning the suspension. All these things are done through discipline and hard work. If you don't do those things, your body doesn't function well enough for you to even apply your own knowledge. So there's so many different levels to it. There's the actual technique, there's the knowledge of these techniques and how to apply them, and then there's the physical capabilities of your own body.

   5. JDJohn Danaher1:19:38

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:19:38

      And all of them together, they're, they're so-... the, it's so comprehensive. There's so much going on that when you meet the really truly elite players, whether it's Gordon, or Gary, or Hicks and Gracie, or Hodger, or Braulio Estima, or any of these elite athletes, they're exceptional human beings. Like, very, very unusual people with intense mindsets. And they are the people that figure their way through this insane maze. And by doing so, they have, they have provided an example of what's possible. They've, they've reached a very high level of human potential. And I think ultimately, that's what martial arts are about.

Episode duration: 3:24:22