#39 Lachlan Giles: Australia’s Own “Giant Slayer” On What It Takes To Improve At BJJ

O todays show JT goes in depth with Lachlan Giles! In this monster episode they talk about many things you may never have known about one of Australia’s greatest BJJ Competitors:

Lachie’s athletic history before BJJ
His BJJ journey and how patience pays off
Skill acquisition & Improving your game
His S&C program or lack there of
Behind the scenes of ADCC triumph
What is coming next for Lachie and Absolute MMA

There are so many details and insights in this episode that you are going to want to listen twice. Lachlan effortlessly gives some of the best advice you will get anywhere in Jiu-jitsu.

Speaker 1: 0:04

Better listen. Very careful. A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready, essentially at this point, the fight is over. So you pretty much flow with the goal who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limit this power. I’m ready,

Speaker 2: 0:29

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Bulletproof of BJ J podcast. I am JT I’m with me today. I have a very special guest Locklin Giles. Welcome Locklin .

Speaker 3: 0:40

How you JT mate,

Speaker 2: 0:42

All the better for seeing your smiling face, that ever cosmetic smile of yours. And , uh , it’s been a long time dude time . I haven’t seen you for well over a year, I think.

Speaker 3: 0:53

Yeah . You , um , you made the very wise decision of getting outta Melbourne. Well ,

Speaker 2: 0:57

You know, it was a mixed decision. It was with a , a heavy heart because obvious my jujitsu home, it all started for me in Melbourne. And that’s where I consider my jujitsu home to be is right there with you guys on the mats, mate. Thank you for joining us on the Bulletproof podcast. And look, I wanted to just start by going back a little bit more to the origin, because obviously you’ve been interviewed a lot of times relevant to ju Jisu and your thoughts on jujitsu. But before you entered the world of jujitsu, what were you doing?

Speaker 3: 1:31

Um, well , I was at school, but , um, I , I kind of like in terms of like athletics and so on , um , sports. Yeah, sports . I played all sorts of sports. Uh , I think I started with, I played basketball, cricket, tennis, football, dunno if there was anything else major, those were kind of the four. And I think there might have been a point where I was actually playing all four of them at once. I don’t know how wow. But <laugh> so I was always into sport, but like obviously basketball was never gonna be for me. When you

Speaker 2: 2:00

Think about , come on man, Muzzy , bogs, five foot

Speaker 3: 2:03

Mug bugs could , could , you know, obviously didn’t have the skills of that guy cricket wasn’t I wasn’t very good. I had one good innings once, but every otherwise I was , I was pretty average. In fact, I’ve got , I’ve got a funny story for you. About my first game of cricket . I played in my brother’s team. He , my brother’s two years older than me. And um, my dad said just go out and block, you know ? Cause he is like, everyone just tries to like swing , smash the ball out of the park. He says , just go out and block it. <laugh> so, and then I came in fourth drop . So for anyone who doesn’t play cricket, it’s like, you’ve got 10. Yeah . 10 people have to go out, you know? Yes . Like , and then your team loses and there’s you. And there’s one other player playing at the same time. And um, I came in fourth drop and I blocked every single ball made zero runs and everyone else in the team went out <laugh> I didn’t, I didn’t once try to actually hit the ball <laugh> so , um, I followed that advice a bit to <laugh> strongly.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Wow . Imagine if he had given you more instruction yeah . Could have been the greatest cricket player of all time <laugh> maybe. Yeah. Very coachable this guy. Exactly. Were you you doing any other martial arts before jujitsu?

Speaker 3: 3:12

Yeah, I actually started with like , I’ll say it didn’t have ju I went cause I watched a Kung Fu movie and I , I wanted to do Kung Fu and I ended up going to a local place that had, it was like Kung Fu kickboxing and jujitsu. I think it was listed as, and this is before I didn’t know anything about MMA or didn’t know anything about UFC or anything like that . What year

Speaker 2: 3:31

Was this?

Speaker 3: 3:32

Uh , probably 2000. So 21 years ago, reckon it would’ve been like 13 or 14 , like two of started high school. Yep . But the guy that was running that like he’d seen UFC and he’d done a little bit of tiny bit of grappling. He obviously saw like there’s some value in it. Um , and eventually he actually showed me a UFC video and then I was like, oh right . I suppose I should do that. <laugh> Then I eventually like, you know , it took me a while , but I eventually like , um, found a jujitsu gym, which was hanger four. There was only like three or four gyms in all of Melbourne or in all of Victoria I think back then. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Yeah. I actually, one of my first ever jujitsu comps was at the hanger. And uh , that was back in the day when Cal Potter was what belt ? Yes . And he flying Armard someone that com it was like around Robin and I’d competed at a , at NNO had had a tournament at a T and I went to that on the Saturday and my ear blew up. And then the next day I was at the hanger, the hang of four comp and man, I was getting guillotine and I was ripping my head and my ear turned into this fetus on the side of my head it , and I remember everyone giving me real good props for having the worst cauliflower ear <laugh> . But I remember going out to the hanger out there, like , uh , Preston way’s a bit of mission. What was your first class of jujitsu? Like?

Speaker 3: 4:55

Yeah . I don’t even know if it was a class . I’m pretty sure it was like a Friday and I went to like an open mat . So I had no , no idea. So at , at the time this was , this was when hanga four was actually at an airport hanger. Right . I think the week before I joined all the guys from dominance had left to form dominance. Right . So like they were training at hanga four . Apparently there was like people living at the airport hangar. Wow. This is like, aren’t Daisy fresh , but

Speaker 2: 5:25

Cost . I can’t seen that show , but you spell . Yeah .

Speaker 3: 5:27

<laugh> but back in the day, like, you know, and , um, there were people like, yeah, I think like Dave Hart, Dave Christie , George Soos , Tyrone, like all the guys were like living there and training at hanga four . And , um , and they just left . And I think by the time I, when I went to the hangar, they just left . I had no idea that any of this had occurred, but, and there was like, when I went there, there was like three people on the map . Like everyone had kind of dissipated. They weren’t even sure if they were gonna keep the gym going or not. Wow . At least from what I hear. Um, so it was like, I went into an open mat and there was like a big Iranian wrestler, big Jeff, his name was Jeff is

Speaker 2: 6:05

An Iranian name. Yeah .

Speaker 3: 6:07

<laugh> um , but I think I just rolled like an open mat and maybe they showed me some stuff, but I knew things, I knew a little bit small amount of gray grappling . I’d done it at this other place. Um , so we still did train a little bit of grappling at the other place. Actually, I should say before that I went to a Japanese jujitsu place. Ah , I didn’t really know

Speaker 2: 6:27

It that much revealed. Yeah . <laugh>

Speaker 3: 6:30

Like just for one lesson, like I was like, oh, I’ll try it jujitsu out. And I didn’t realize there was a big difference. And um, and I think when I went to the Japanese jujitsu place, they barely did, like, they did like five minutes of rolling at the end of class. Right. And I actually did pretty well. Like I went, like I’d only done my grappling and I was like, but then I got an armbar or two. And I was like, oh, I’m actually like, you know, maybe I don’t need to train jujitsu . You know? And then when I went to do the presum jujitsu class, I was like, oh , I’m actually like losing <laugh> badly. I need to learn this. Um , yeah . So that was kind of, that was enough for me. I was like, oh , okay. Like there’s clearly, I’m not very good at this thing, which obviously in hindsight was very, very true. <laugh> <laugh> . Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:15

And so with that, because like my first class was a traumatic experience that made me really cross and it made me kind of hate, hate jujitsu in a way. Cause I , I felt like I could fight,

Speaker 3: 7:27

Like I don’t know what I would’ve, how I would’ve taken it then as an adult going to it. Cause I think I would’ve been treated differently, but I was quite, you know , I was like 15 years old and I was probably 50 kilo . Like I was quite small. Like I think I was the like second smallest kid in my year level until like year 11 or 12. I kind of grew a little bit, you know, and I was still small, but I’m not the smaller I’d be in like the bottom 20% or 30%. Not, not like 2%. <laugh> like I was so, so

Speaker 2: 7:53

I was quite this plays into your legend block on . Yeah .

Speaker 3: 7:58

Um , so I think , because I was kind of quite small, people were like, oh , like , look after the little kid, you know, like we’ve got a little kid training with us, he’s giving him a break. He’s trying really hard. Like don’t injure him, you know? Yeah . So I think, I think it might have been a different experience as an adult if I came in and I was like, all right , I’m now fighting these guys. And they wanna , you know, prove that they can beat me up sort of thing. So , cause it was very different the way people saw, like, you know , it was like a , everyone was really rough and the technique wasn’t there. So they, you know , and everyone’s come from like watching UFC and they’re wanting to know how to fight with GSU, you know? So it was a very different mindset to now I think a lot of people come in and like, oh , just, you know, wanna learn a steal and you know , have some fun and you know yeah ,

Speaker 2: 8:43

Yeah , yeah . That’s not everyone, but no , no , no. I agree with you. I think jujitsu has evolved a massively and the awareness of it has changed dramatically. I mean, I think definitely the UFC is the, you know, the juggernaut that it is, has driven it worldwide. But I guess for people like yourself and myself , um , UFC one and UFC two were those so many people, I guess, of our generation of jujitsu’s like, yeah, man , I remember seeing hoist crazy . Yeah . You know , get cop and just copying it and still winning <laugh> you like just winning, winning in a terrible way. Like just taking a hiding and still prevailing. Like it’s pretty amazing. And then it was like his team, you know, <laugh> carrying him out of the <laugh> of

Speaker 3: 9:27

The oh yeah . Chemo <laugh> yeah ,

Speaker 2: 9:31

Dude. I can imagine he Hicks and asked the fight being like, he , you almost that up. Yeah . <laugh> just don’t don’t embarrass the family mate. What I’ve heard more recently is a number of guys coming , going, man, Rogan always talks about jujitsu. I’ve gotta try jujitsu, you know , and he’s become this pervasive voice within the culture promoting Brazilian jujitsu, but there’s more and more people promoting that now. So you’re getting people who maybe don’t have a martial arts orientation, but they’re coming to Jui because it’s becoming more popular. Have you found anything like that with absolute and people going to talking in that way about how they’ve come to train with you?

Speaker 3: 10:10

A few? Not , not too many people. Like I get people coming to train at absolute, like a lot of people, people who’ve moved interstate or they’ve asked someone who they know that trains, like where should I train? You know? And that that’s like a lot of people will kind of recommend me there. I think most people though, just kind of, I don’t really always do the first person they meet at the door sort of thing. Like that’s usually yeah . Like , you know , like how did they get into it? And, and that sort of stuff. Like, Rogan’s pretty common, a pretty reason , but I think there could be all sorts of things. I actually probably should look into that in a little bit more. Why ? Um , cause we changed it recent . Like we’ve got an intro class now, so okay , cool. It’s good and bad, but it’s kind of like, cause I don’t run the intro class. I , I run like fundamentals, which kind of so intros like their first ever eight lessons or eight first eight lessons they’re supposed to just learn like these are the positions and just like a very broad strokes, get the big picture sort of thing. So I don’t teach that. But then at the same time, that’s kind of bad because by the time they come into my class or the fundamentals, it’s kind of weird. They’ve been , I’ve seen them at the gym, but I haven’t like said, you know, sure . Been able to speak to them properly or the , you know, like , so it’s , it’s

Speaker 2: 11:18

Okay . You’re too famous lock one . It’s fine. People accept this about you, you know, with your entourage and obviously, you know your status. You’re not that accessible anymore, but that’s fine. No,

Speaker 3: 11:30

I need it well and I should be more so

Speaker 2: 11:32

No , it’s a joke. Uh , mate, you’re very accessible. You’re you’re a very personable guy. Uh , I guess on the evolution of jujitsu and the jujitsu you learn , I would say like I spent the first two years of my jujitsu not learning, I just got tough. Like I , I learned three techniques. I’ll be honest. Peter Dubin was closed guard , flower sweep, AMBA , you know, HOD, Grae kind of Crossrope from Mount , you know, you very even really learned a half guard mm-hmm <affirmative> like butterfly guard was like, oh my God. Yep . And I actually had said to one of the guys at the gym, oh , I’ve heard about this ex guard thing. He’s like, whoa , don’t bring that up with Pete. I was like, what are you talking about? I was like, this guy, Marc Garcia. He’s a , he’s a legend. He beats everyone. He does this ex card thing. He’s like, whoa , if you ever wanna get your blue belt, you better not bring up bloody ex card and repeat he’ll <laugh> he’ll demote you . I’m like, I can’t get any your Laura I’m a white belt. Like what do you mean? And it was really interesting what a culture rule block there was around different knowledge outside of the gym. Whereas now if anything, you being the king of anthologies <laugh> and a plethora of information, there’s so much information breakdown, everything. How was it for you when you started to do ? Cause a lot of people listening to this, a lot of our business , uh , are early in the jujitsu journey and they may not know exactly how to approach their learning in terms of, you know, their training, you know, how to acquire techniques. How did it start for you and how has that changed to now?

Speaker 3: 13:09

Oh yeah. That’s I mean, it’s so different and that’s something I’m trying to do a lot of study on at the moment to kind of get right up to date with some skill acquisition research. But we’ll , I’ll get onto that in a moment. To be honest, it’s kind of hard for me to remember it because like so long ago , so

Speaker 2: 13:22

Long ago, <laugh>

Speaker 3: 13:23

I think a lot of the coaches there, I think they had a decent attitude, but I don’t honestly don’t think the resources were available to learn beyond like maybe even, I don’t even know if they existed, then you could buy like a graces in action tape . Yep . Like John Will’s been to Brazil. Yep . He’s learnt from S or Carlos or whoever he was training with at the time he comes back, he teaches Tyrone Tyrone teaches the class and that’s, that’s the scope of jujitsu that right . You know , you know , and so somehow I can came out of that with the mindset of like, you know, if you do a technique, well you’ll beat someone. Who’s just trying to use strength. So , so something got across, which was a really important message to me. Like, you know, do a technique. Well, you know, technique, beats strength. And I think so I tried to focus on being a technical grappler, but probably a big shift. Would’ve been , been late purple belt when I started to,

Speaker 2: 14:19

When was that? If we think about that as a timeframe.

Speaker 3: 14:21

So I’ve been a black belt, like 10 years. So yes, sir . I think I spent five years at purple belt , so oh . But it might have been if I Kaloi two , three at brown , like yeah. It was 13 or 14 years ago, right ? Yeah . Geez . I seems so long anyway ,

Speaker 2: 14:37

Late dating ourselves here . Aren’t we ,

Speaker 3: 14:40

When I started, like I started actually coming across world championship level matches the submissions 1 0 1 DVD was just a highlight of people, submitting people like , um , which I bought on a physical copy of the DVD. Nice . I watch it. I’m like, wow. Didn’t know that submission, you know , I dunno . Well that’s obviously just watching, starting to watch matches and then, you know, seeing things like Jiva and going like, oh , definitely never used that before. And I think just for me, which was, I think an important lesson, but at the time, no one in Australia was doing these things that I was seeing and it made it actually really easy to do them because no one knew how to defend. Right . Yeah . I feel bad for the person now who’s trying to , yeah . I mean now, and you’re trying to learn Jiva but everyone’s good at beating it. So like you’ve gotta a really hard ask ahead of you. Whereas back then you could be like, oh, I’m doing the Baram Bowlo and like people literally don’t even know the,

Speaker 2: 15:31

I remember, I remember seeing you as a brown belt <laugh> I think it was at a dominance comp or it was a small, it might have been a , it was a smaller comp and you’re a brown belt and you ain the absolute and you bowled everyone. <laugh> balled everyone. You took their back and you choked them. And I was like, what is this crazy that he’s doing? Cause like I kind of, I didn’t know, you, you personally, I’d kind of seen you. And I was a blue belt and I was frosting hard. Like just trying to go very calm . And I remember seeing you and I’m like, who’s this guy, what is this thing? Because I was fascinated by jujitsu. Cause I traveled to overseas very early. I traveled my first year of jujitsu. I was only 12 months in and I went to Brazil. Nice. I got like 2009 was my first trip to Rio and I got bashed, got bashed so bad. And uh, I already thought I was tough. And I was like, wow, there’s another level to this game. And just the intensity was what really blew me away. And that really made me very much more passionate. What I did know about you perennially, like just from far away was that you were traveling and training and you were going overseas and competing. When you say you were getting exposed to like world championship level jujitsu. When was your first foray into international competition? And how did that inform your learning?

Speaker 3: 16:51

I think it was at brown belt . I think brown , I did my first world. Um, maybe I did a training trip before then.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Was that the training trip where COIA made you and mini do two hours ? Couple , couple hour . <laugh> that’s a great video man . <laugh> yeah , you look so

Speaker 3: 17:12

It was pretty exhausting.

Speaker 2: 17:14

Yeah. I remember seeing that video because I have experienced similar things at cab brings where the warm ups go forever. And then we expect you to train.

Speaker 3: 17:21

It’s so bad. To be honest, I can’t remember if I had done worlds then, or that was before worlds. So I think that was actually a pivotal moment for me seeing how people are training, you know ? Right. Like I was, I’d only been exp to the standard. What I’d say is like casual way of training, which is show up to the gym at night. You do your hour and a half session, which involves like a warmup technique and, and rolling. Maybe you do that three times a week. Let’s say you train maybe a bit more. When I went tore years , I saw all these guys training every day at 11:00 AM. I think till three or 11:00 AM till two. Sure . Yeah. Actually I think the class started at this . This is where it was weird to me. Like the class started at 12 and I showed up. I’m like, all right , can’t wait to train. And I’m like, you were all these people already on the mat, like training. And they were there like an hour early to drill. And I was like, oh , that’s like a different approach to <laugh> , you know ? So they would just like go through and wrap it out. And I , I was a brown , I was a brown belt then, but um, I remember a guy like Isaac go line was there. And man , I think he might have been a blue. He might have been a blue or purple belt at the time, but I was like, man, this I’m a brown belt. I’m not supposed to be having a hard time with these, these like blue and purple belts. And, and they were like really good. So that just made me go, oh , like if I do what they’re doing back home, I , you know, that’s gonna help me. So , um , you’d think you see some of these things , things just seem really obvious when you say them, but until you’ve seen it and experienced it, you’re like, oh , like, okay, that makes a lot of sense. And I think it’s the same with a lot of jujitsu techniques. You like once, you know, it you’re like, oh , this makes perfect sense. Like why did we not do this the whole time, the whole

Speaker 2: 19:05

Time? That’s right. And it’s the evolution of jujitsu. Right? So the cool thing I think is you, you have got a very wide experience of jujitsu from, you know, the early two thousands to, through to now and the evolution of jujitsu. And I mean, if you think about what you’ve learned from obviously your early days in jujitsu , your own conclusions, your own obsession with learning and everything else, what top level pros do and who they are. And then also becoming one yourself and being a very recognized , uh , person within jujitsu. When you think about how to learn jujitsu and we , we we’ll go to strength conditioning shortly because I remember, and I , when we were doing pro sessions , you’re like, right, we’re gonna have these folders at the front of the, the class. And we’re testing technique effectiveness. I think you’re like, right , everyone, you’ve gotta have a pass or a guard. And you’ve gotta , when you , when you do the , we’re doing specific training and when you come outta the role like successful or not, you have to write down if you are successful or not. And you were trying to get statistics on the effectiveness of people trying to train, right. You were trying to get kind of data on people’s success relevant to their approach to training.

Speaker 3: 20:21

Yeah. But I can remember correctly. I think that was, I was trying to see if the same amount of training, I think it was like nine, nine sessions in total. Yep . And I wanted to see cuz there’s like this , this is something that’s kind of been found in skill acquisition that actually wanna redo this study, but with better data, which I I’ve thought about a bit better now, but at the time I didn’t know what it would come out like, so there’s data in skill acquisition showing for example, if I , if I can make it sound simple, if you , if you are shooting a basketball sure . That if you shoot from the same spot over and over again, you don’t get as good as if you like moving around and shooting from different spots. Whereas like, like logically you might think, well, but if I make an error from the one, then I can learn to correct it and like get better at that specific. Yeah . Just like doing the same thing over and over. But the research says the opposite that you actually should move around. And I think the reason for that would be the skill in shooting a basketball is you look at the ring, you make a Cal to some like , you know , you , I’m not saying this is , um , necessarily conscious, but like you, look, you go, okay. That’s where the ring is. I need to put this much force in to shoot the ball. If you get the ball past you, again, you go, okay, last time I put this much in this time, I’m gonna put, you know, less because it went too . I pushed it too hard. But when you’re doing the second version of that, I think you are no longer doing the measurement thing. And you’re just getting good at, at adjusting to your previous shop . But that’s not how it works in force . That’s

Speaker 2: 21:59

Not how it works in force application as opposed to so you’re going like facial

Speaker 3: 22:02

Awareness or yeah, exactly. So by moving around, you’re having to calculation whether that is like whatever it is

Speaker 2: 22:08

Estimation every single time.

Speaker 3: 22:10

Yeah. Whereas when you’re on the one spot, you’re just going, okay, well put less force than last time, but that’s not a useful thing in, in a dynamic situation where you don’t get to rely on last time’s feedback. You’ve got a new position where you need to make that calculation so different . Anyway, that’s, that’s what I think for that. But anyway, so relating

Speaker 2: 22:29

This, relating this back to jujitsu <laugh> you are just saying we shouldn’t drill. We should just roll.

Speaker 3: 22:34

Is that what you’re saying? LA no . Well , <laugh> , that’s a , that’s an interesting question. But um , I was like, well, how well does that apply to jujitsu ? I wanna , I wanna test this out. Like, and I was like, let’s train from a position. And is it better to train? Like would , you’d be better off training a little bit on the one position every time you train. So nine sessions, you’re kind of always doing a little bit of X card or would you better off doing like three intensive X card sessions and then three of something else? And I kind of wanted to measure but more successful. Yeah. Um, the problem was the amount of variance in there’s too many variables in , right? Yeah . I think I’ve got a better way to measure it now. I think so what , what I was doing was like everyone against the wall and the problem was your , your partners were random. So <laugh> , they

Speaker 2: 23:21

So different, very different ex guard against Daniel sch versus say Daniel ha .

Speaker 3: 23:27

So theoretically with three , if you had enough, like if you had 10,000 people doing my study, you would find the, like the difference would show up, even though there’s all the variables would like be equal in each group where you could actually like draw out the differences. But with the, I think I had like 50 or 60 people in the , the sample. It wasn’t enough to do that. Um, so I think, and

Speaker 2: 23:51

So at what point do you feel , uh , absolute MMA and killt will have 10,000 people <laugh> do the study on

Speaker 3: 23:59

Now , what I wanna do now is actually something where you have, where you go against the person. Yeah . Uh , like, you know, like I choose 10 people in one group, 10 in the other and they each go against each other and, and actually instead of like, did you win or not? I could add like a , a timeframe thing. Like you’re going with, I’m going with JT for five minutes. I’m starting in deep half guard . Like how many times in five minutes did I get swept? And how many times did he pass? And like, I probably have more , I have to see what this data comes out like, but I think that will be more, you know, if I do that again in, in three weeks time, you and I go again, it’s probably more reliable data to go on. Like, you know , if it’s gone from, I swept once and then I train deep half guard for three weeks and then I swept three times. That’s, you know , and we’re doing that across a bunch of people. We can a aggregate the data a bit better. Um , if it’s the same per so that’s that’s how

Speaker 2: 24:55

Are you writing this algorithm? Locklin <laugh> , it’s deep into the scientific mind of Lockman Gil , for those of you who do not know Locklin’s background, he has a PA G D . This is a scientific man we are talking to. And the , the reason why I would wanted to talk about this is because when I started jujitsu, I felt like I got held back because my coach wasn’t technical enough. Not that he wasn’t technical, but he wasn’t technical enough as a coach. His jujitsu was actually pretty, very well developed, but he wasn’t good at communicating. And I think what people have loved about you and what you have brought to jujitsu is this ability to analyze and break it down into its component parts. And that’s what I always try and do myself that I always try and consider it from someone else’s perspective who just doesn’t understand it at all, like kinesthetically or even theoretical , and then try and , and try and give it chunk by chunk. So they can start to get a foothold in the knowledge, because the thing is I also having gone overseas and trained, I realized that there was a lot of unscientific practices, you know, in Brazil mm-hmm <affirmative> and people just going poor , harder . Right. And you’ve seen that too, right. You’ve yeah . You’ve trained at a variety of gins . Right. You’ve trained at unity. You , you , you know, you’ve trained at cabs . Did you train at , um , Attos at one stage? Uh ,

Speaker 3: 26:16

I did before EBI. Yeah. I did a a week at Attos .

Speaker 2: 26:19

Yeah . Right. And you’ve, you know, you , you and I trained together , um , in south Paul at Alliance, you know, you’ve trained with the best people. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I , and you formed your own conclusions because obviously they do something good and they do something terribly, right. Based off that, based off having so much experience and being in the game a long time. When you think about people hearing this, they want to know how you would approach it. If you’re speaking to someone who’s new to JSU and you are trying to give them not a formula, but maybe an approach, obviously there’s no rock solid answers. If someone’s like, right. I can only change jujitsu three days a week. How do I get better? Quicker? Do you have any fairly direct advice about how they should approach their training separate to obviously whatever they’re learning at their school, but what they should do as an individual to get better at jujitsu?

Speaker 3: 27:13

Yeah. There’d be a lot <laugh>

Speaker 2: 27:16

Simplify, simplify, lock one , no

Speaker 3: 27:18

Data . Like I think when you first start, the issue is the complexity of it all a well structured program that has a very, like, imagine, could you teach jujitsu in its entirety? If , if you look , if we take a step back and like, you need escapes, you need to be able escape out of the major positions. So that’s, if you can do that, if you can get, you know, how to get outta Mount, so control and the back, you probably, you know, how then funnel usually into guard , right ? You need one thing given one thing to do from guard . Okay . So I’m on my back. My legs are in front. What do I do? I need to use this general idea technique or whatever to, to get on top, maybe a takedown as well. Like, you know, the takedowns would be another part of it. Guard passing. You need , again , you only need one for them to at least like have a plan. Cause where they get lost is when they’re like, I’m on top. What do I do? You know ? And you see them what to do . That’s when they start like, you know, doing crazy things and yeah . Freaking out if you’re like, okay, well you’re on top. You need to do the need through pass, you know , and just, just give them some direction

Speaker 2: 28:24

Amongst the

Speaker 3: 28:25

Chaos. Yeah . Uh , and then same for , you know, I think leading through to a finish, you know , I mean, I do think you should generally teach it from like first escapes then guard, then passing then control then submission, you know, because that makes a logical flow. But I don’t think you should labor the points too long, you know, don’t think you should spend six months being good at getting out of side control, but have zero skills sure . From guard , I kind of now think you wanna have like a layered approach, like a very, not much depth at all, but just a very small layer for each of those. And then you might build the escapes layer more and then you build your guard layer , more passing layer more and you kinda like , yeah. And , and you get more depth. And then at a certain point you start going, okay, I’ve got the foundations there. I want my own game. You know, like what’s what moves work for me. And you start kind of, you know, getting your style of guard and your style of passing. And when I say all style , like you’re not making it up. You you’re probably going to what , what you

Speaker 2: 29:30

Gravitate towards more natural. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 29:32

Yes . Yeah . Um , but if you’re a really

Speaker 2: 29:34

Long leg human, you might have a certain name or if you’re a shorter leg , human might be a bit

Speaker 3: 29:38

Different attributes, injury, all

Speaker 2: 29:41

Sorts

Speaker 3: 29:41

Of flexibility. Like anything could mean that certain style suits you better. And , and then you go with that

Speaker 2: 29:47

One, speaking of attributes, because what I had noticed with your, with , with the lead into the ADCC , like how many times you competed at ADCC now

Speaker 3: 29:57

Three

Speaker 2: 29:58

<laugh> . Right. I do remember the first time you had been there and also Craig had been there. It was hard yards. Yeah . It was pretty unceremonious kicking . Yeah . Correct. Would that be right to say, right? Yeah . And I correct me if I’m wrong because I do remember this. So the second time you were there, that’s when Craig was able to have his breakthrough. Yeah . Was it before that or after that, that you got silver at Nogi worlds. Isn’t that right?

Speaker 3: 30:25

Yeah. That was after the 2017 ABC , right?

Speaker 2: 30:31

Yeah . And , uh , bronze , sorry. Bronze, bronze . Sorry. I shouldn’t uh , no, no, no, correct me if I’m wrong. Cause I like , I , you know, I try to keep as much knowledge in my mind about everybody and I I’ve obviously tracked the progress of everyone and you know, being the, the somewhat stalker that I am , um , just study everyone’s history to know what’s going on, you have taken on a, a status which maybe , which was not always assigned to you and not , you know, not unrightfully, right? Like you have achieved something which almost no on will achieve for those who don’t know you, you , you’re just a super nice guy. <laugh> and you know, I , I can’t say that about everyone else that I’ve always trained with. You have suffered your own injuries. Right. Like I , I think I remember at one point we were doing a fair bit of wrestling. Yeah . Uh , because you , you know, we had target and we also had Connor at the gym at , um, Absolut and Mason KDA . And you had identified that wrestling and leg locks was key. Yeah . Like when we are talking about preparing for the ADCC yeah . You had gone, right. These are points that are really gonna help. Yeah . Turn the tide in a match. Yeah . In terms of the ADCC rule set and you started to change our training with the pro session , like we , it went from being like the pro session to being the ADCC session. Yep . And, and , and running the structure around that, at one point you, you had hurt your back, is that right?

Speaker 3: 31:57

Yeah. Not too uncommon in wrestling.

Speaker 2: 31:59

<laugh> no pretty common. Pretty common. Yeah. And when was that? Was that the after was that 2017 ADCC or after that, I mean,

Speaker 3: 32:07

It’s , it’s been, so I’ve never , never had more than a week off , um , right from it.

Speaker 2: 32:11

But , but you are a guy who trains smart and this is something I admire about you. And this is something I wanted to talk about because a lot of people don’t know how to do this, especially with the pervasive culture of poor harder. Right. Just strap it, just tape it, just train. Who cares. Yeah . Where can you explain your approach in terms of smart training and right . Where that comes from? Just, you know ,

Speaker 3: 32:36

Um , in terms of like you , you mean like from injury, injury , uh , prevention perspective. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:41

Longevity perspective. Cause you’ve had a , you know, you’ve had a long, competitive career, competitive

Speaker 3: 32:45

People. Yeah . I think probably, you know , like just generally when you look at like the, the force that goes through your muscles and joints, when you do something explosively, it’s considerably higher. Um <affirmative> and I’m gonna be not exact here, but I believe like comparing sprinting to jogging. I think it’s something like a 12 times increase in force, even though you’re not running 12 times faster. Yes. Moving 12 times faster. The it’s kind of like it compounds as you, the force productions. Yeah. As you in increase your speed and power. So just logically to me, like if, if the main purpose of jujitsu is skill development, if that’s the main thing that’s gonna determine who wins, then if I’m doing a lot of powerful movements, I can’t train as much. Right. Okay . That means like , or else you get injured. Right. So you can definitely do, you can train with a lot of powerful movements. There’s no issues with doing that. If you then drop your training load off, cuz you need to, like, there’s a certain load your body will handle before injuries occur. Yes . Um , so I’ve always taken approach of like back off the explosiveness STR I think like if you’re using slower contract , you know , you can like, I feel like I, when I’m training, if I need to I’ll squeeze like very hard to <laugh>

Speaker 2: 34:09

Do the body log . I’ve seen those faces now I’ve seen, I’ve seen that, that , that , that , that charming smile of yours turn off , <laugh>

Speaker 3: 34:17

Like a gro . Oh yeah. Like I , I don’t think like a slow, heavy, just like you don’t usually get injured doing weights, right. Like just like a slow, unless you’re doing like really bad form or like, you know , especially like an upper body, you know, it’s um, so

Speaker 2: 34:35

Reducing, reducing your, your maximum intensity so that you can have a , a greater, a sustained effort of, of training. Yeah . Showing up every day. Not, not quite as intense, but like great exposure to skill, you know , uh , basically reducing overall intensity for greater training volume.

Speaker 3: 34:56

Yeah , yeah . Something . And then in the lead up to a tournament, I’ll then probably try to speed things up a bit, but drop my volume down a bit just to get the, that kind of faster intensity, but I’m not a very explosive guy. And I think that’s probably why I haven’t found wrestling as easy to pick up as jujitsu. You know, I think wrestling, you gotta be quick and jujitsu so you can , yeah. You can take time a bit. So that’s, that’s probably like an area I should actually you’ll you’ll grill me about, but I probably should do some like conditioning for , to , to build up. Like I look at a more explosive power for , for a sport like that. Now this

Speaker 2: 35:32

Is my theory on you lock on jail . So I’ve never, I’ve never announced it to you , but I will , I will , I will confess it now. Um, you are , and, and it’s funny because you are in the same conversation to your credit as Marcella GU Garcia. So, you know, you have, you got Ron at the 2019 ADCC, which put you in the rarefied air of Marcella, GU Garcia. And also was it Hagan Maha or Sean Jacque Maha , John Jack , maybe John Jack won the absolute as a 77 kilo guy or something like that. Right. That , and, and each kind of 10 years apart, which is, it’s just some, you know, some amazing stuff. But the other thing that you have common with Marc Garcia is that you do not openly practice any kind of strength and conditioning, but let me just weigh in on this because I have talked to, you know, Demetrius Soza and Juan Zama and all these guys at Alliance who had to train under Marcello, like train with him. Yeah . And he, he brutalized them . He was so tough. Like his training intensity is a million percent. Now everyone sees Marcelo now in his current incarnation as this kind of like chill, Buddha, like character, you know, that’s not how Marcelo always was slash is . And we are talking about force production, right ? Yeah . When Marcello squeezes your neck, he wants to break your neck. Like his force production is through the roof. Yeah . And he’s a pretty thick guy. Yeah . Like, you know, as a guy. And I think about you Locklin about how you came up and the different people you had to train with. And so if we think about all the giant units at dominance, right. Cause I went to a couple of the pro sessions at dominance as a purple belt. And I think about polar bear cyborg, like you Tingy and mini were like the lightweight guys. And there were all these huge units and they strong as hell. You had to train with them all the time. So even though I know you’re not a huge proponent of lifting weights, I would say you were lifting weights a while . You’re , <laugh> in a very Judi specific way for a long time. Yeah . Yeah . And you , I wouldn’t know , neither with that. Yeah . Right . So you are a strong guy, like yeah , you obviously have a very relaxed, demeanor. You are a nice I in position and just in general are very strong. Your power weight ratio is very good, but lock on trials , coming from the world of science, physiotherapy, et cetera . And I have asked you about this, obviously coming from Bulletproof of BJJ , we are very pro getting people to do their flexibility training. Mm-hmm <affirmative> lift their eats , you know, eat their vegetables, get their sleep mm-hmm <affirmative> . But this is not really something that you’re a proponent of speak on this Locklin . Right. So flexibility. I’m a big proponent of, oh , now , now, now , no . Now I know . I do know, but that, wasn’t always the case though. I

Speaker 3: 38:35

Agree. Yeah . Actually I was speaking to Tom Creek recently, but he he’s like a , he does the athletic development for QAR . I was talking about skill acquisition, but yes , he’s a jujitsu brown belt, but cause I I’ve had discussions with him about similar things and it made a good point, which is like for jujitsu, can you execute the, you want , and so being more flexible actually gives you a wider range of available techniques in a given scenario. Yes. So like in a certain point I can now pumble my leg when I couldn’t before in a similar way being stronger can do that too . As in like, I can’t finish this single leg now I , I , if I had more strength in this scenario or whatever, so position. Yeah. I feel like for me, like I’ve just kind of tried to work around a style that has less of that, but I’m aware , like for example, I think semi wrestling I’d probably do a lot better if I was good at lifting. If I could just let , instead of trying to like run the pie up and do all that stuff, just like the leg pick ’em up and then their feet are off the ground and you know, I’m agree definitely on that. But I also think, like you said, I’m a reasonably strong guy. I don’t feel like I lose much, which is from like, you know, when I lose a match, I’m usually not like, ah , I wasn’t strong enough to win that. It’s usually like, I didn’t frame that particular point. So I tend to try to like look for a tech technical error , but I also think I’ve got a decent frame for my size. I think a lot of people like I’m definitely above average in terms of that. I think , um, I think for like someone who’s skinnier, it’s probably essential even just for injury prevention and they’re wanting to take it seriously. I feel like I’ve got enough bulk that I can protect my own joints. Even if I’m not lifting them . I I’m still protected from injury and <laugh> and the likes , um ,

Speaker 2: 40:21

What, what prompted you to start? Cuz I know, I remember when you started stretching after class, like that was a change that I noticed in the time that we trained together, that you started to bring a greater priority to that. And it was also when you were talking about guard retention.

Speaker 3: 40:35

Yeah. That was it. Yeah . But him with re and I was like, oh , when I actually looked at what he was doing and I was like, well , why can’t I do that? And I was like, oh , I literally cannot move the way you can’t put my

Speaker 2: 40:45

Foot. Yeah .

Speaker 3: 40:47

You know what, like I think a lot of it comes down to as well, just like my mindset as well to the strengthening thing for , for me is strengthen training will take, require a load one. I don’t enjoy that as much as training jujitsu. So I’m like, I’d rather if I could, I’d rather jujitsu than you ,

Speaker 2: 41:03

You and everyone else, man. Like that’s , that’s

Speaker 3: 41:05

Everybody. Right. I I’ve got , I can either try to work a skill I’m working or I can try to do something that might help a broad, like in a strength training might help a broad set of skills in a certain area. But I always just a lot of it’s just preference and personal

Speaker 2: 41:19

Pre enjoy doing . But obviously jujitsu is a massive beast of skills to master. Yeah, sure . And when you’ve

Speaker 3: 41:24

Under , there’s a never ending . Um, I do see some, I’ll say like it’s not permanent. If I solve the problem I’m having now with the leg drag , maybe I’ll solve that forever. Whereas I get stronger. I get stronger until I stop doing my

Speaker 2: 41:38

Strength and condition. That’s right. <laugh> you not so you’re not anti anti you’re just not, I just don’t do it. All right , man. Well, I , I don’t wish anything bad for you, but uh , when you get that injury , uh , let me know. We’ll talk more, but I guess my argument or the thing I always say to people is like, not everybody has your approach to training, which is the smart approach. Right. And you’ve cultivated that over time. Yeah . And not everyone has your longevity in martial arts. Like so how long were training jujitsu before you won the ADCC? My first

Speaker 3: 42:15

Competition I think was 2002 . I think I’ve got a 17 photo or medal, so yeah, 17 years or,

Speaker 2: 42:23

Or so . Right. Most people don’t even make 17 years in the game, let alone win a major international competition or like podium in a major international competition at that stage. Right. <affirmative> so the reason why I’m trying to draw this back to, you know, the average Jisu human. Yeah . A lot of people struggle with the fact that their bodies don’t do what they want when they’re doing Jisu. Yeah . So, you know, not everybody necessarily , um , has your orientation. So I guess if we are putting this in the lay men’s terms, being more flexible helps you with guard retention and leg puling and stuff in the same way, like strengths is an advantage. Like if you were stronger, would that not be an advantage? Yeah, for sure. Like if we could just magically click our fingers and make you stronger, like it would , it would be helpful. Right. I have seen you from those kind to purple belt , brown belt days and see you work really hard. Right. And also I want to acknowledge you lock on jar because I feel when Craig had a degree of success, he didn’t properly credit you. Now he did . Yeah . I don’t think he did <laugh> I don’t think you did. But the thing is you you’re too much of a nice guy to say I’m not, it’s fine. Like, I don’t actually know what your relationship with Craig is and that it doesn’t matter. It’s not my business. Right. But being on the mat with Craig and you and seeing both of you get after it, train with you, train with him, all of that. Right. The great thing which I have seen is you consistently chip away way at your learning, your processing, your everything. And then ultimately, when you had your success at connected, I was like, oh , lock on Giles . You dark horse. Yes. <laugh> inside hill hook from 50 50. The theory is coming to reality. Right? Because you had done the study, you’d broken it down, realized that the inside hill hook from that position was the most successful submission in , in the ADCC history. Right . You’d done that analysis. Yep . Right when we were there in the stadium, we had a bunch of Atos guys sitting around us. Right. So it was like me, Simon, Carson, Ben, I think Craig was even up in the stands with us cuz he wasn’t doing the absolute. And so we were all sitting there and these ATO guys were like, no dude Kaan did like, it’s over like all these like SoCal kind of American Filipino guys from a are like, no man, like Keenan’s unstoppable dude. And I’m like, you watch, Rockland , Charles he’ll hook inside he’ll hook from 50 50. And like, I didn’t, I , I wasn’t actually sure at that time Locklan I’ll be completely honest. Yeah. Yeah. I certainly wasn’t sure. So <laugh> I appreciate , I just , I just saw what Kaan had done to Yu some Mo I was like, he just ONED tear and he just left his leg in there dude. And when you, he or hooked him, I was like, yes, it’s connected again. It’s big guys. Not knowing how to deal with this thing. And you having the technical knowledge and the focus to make it happen. Now the second match and I watched the war that Patrick Galio had the absolute war he had with Mike Paris and he died. They were dying. Yeah . And you were just like, you were just like chilling. You were kinda like, oh , what’s going, I’m chilling. Like your energy was real good. And I just saw him lying on the ground and they’re like, Patrick, you’ve got like 10 minutes to get up. Go go far . I was like, oh , cause it , I saw that too . Actually I was pretty happy with that . <laugh> yeah. It was like, it was good. But the interesting thing was I’ve re-watched that match a couple of times you actually had to do a lot of guard retention. Like he almost passed. Yeah . Like that was actually more of a fight. That match. Yeah . But yet again, guard retention, flexible legs. Insidehook from 50. It was there. Right? Amazing. Second. Time’s a charm now contentious, but maybe not Gordon Ryan. Right. Gordon left. And we he’s the thing, Seth , that was kicking everybody out. Right? Yeah . And I was pointing like when you, when you tap Patrick Godi I was pointing out . I was like, I told you, I told you I was like screaming, like in your face. I was so ungracious. I was like such a terrible representative of Australia. But anyway, it’s just in the moment. But Seth Daniels was kicking everybody out. Um , he’s the court for those who dunno , who said this he’s a fight to win promoter. And he was organizing the stuff and he was kicking everyone out. He would only let coaches and fighters in the backstage, but for whatever reason, everybody was watching your match with. So it was like, everybody had just leaned in and like, no one was paying attention <laugh> so we we’d run down to congratulate you. And we were just, we were like still standing there. And even Tom de bla was like, what’s good in doing like, why is he leaving his leg in there that guy’s playing with fire, like this lock on Giles guys on a tear, like you’re gonna give him your leg. And there was a moment Locklin

Speaker 3: 47:28

Where you reach that’s a moment. There was a moment. Um , <laugh>

Speaker 2: 47:32

And dark matter under Anaheim stadium was opening up into a black hole. And when you reach for that heel , it kind of missed, right?

Speaker 3: 47:44

Yeah. It slipped, it slipped.

Speaker 2: 47:46

And then the black hole went away . My biggest regret

Speaker 3: 47:49

<laugh>

Speaker 2: 47:51

I don’t think so, man. I think, you know, what I think is really powerful, even though whatever you gave actually Gordon, his hardest match. I think that was like Gordon had to work harder fighting you than almost anyone else.

Speaker 3: 48:05

Anyway, that’s my , maybe , maybe that moment was the only one where he had to, for the rest of ADCC , it was kind of on the offense. But I , I gave him a moment of, of, of defense, which is nice. So

Speaker 2: 48:15

Yeah, it was great. It was great. And then this sets up the, you know, one of those poetic matches, cuz I remember being in the stands and seeing you sit to butterfly guard against Muhammad Ali and you were shorter than his ECAPs dude . <laugh> like, he’s a big guy. Right? You , you see he very big , it’s a butterfly. God it’s like my God. But it was a moment in time. And I just remember the intensity of the moment cuz it was so amazing. And you just did it again. You crazy mother. And the greatest thing about it was I witnessed the energy in the stadium change. Every time you won, like there were plenty of matches that were boring. Yeah . Like the ADCC is great, but there was plenty of matches. Not that good. When you started to win, the vibe went up huge in a huge way. The excitement went,

Speaker 3: 49:06

Oh it’s the story that like, you know, people wanna see, they wanna see a little guy. I beat the big guys . They out some big names. Yeah, for sure. Yeah .

Speaker 2: 49:14

It’s incredible. It’s incredible. And even if you’d only beaten Kaan I think that would’ve been enough to really, but to do what you did is , and to keep, I don’t even know how you’re able to keep focused <laugh> cause I ,

Speaker 3: 49:27

Everyone like asked me about my mindset and so on and I’m like, I don’t know if I have that good of a , of mine . Like I think I beat Canan and I was just like, oh , I gotta do this again. <laugh> at first I was like, oh I didn’t, you know , I didn’t die in the heavyweight division. And then I’m like , then you realize that you , you now gotta , you know, go against the next guy and each one’s gonna be, you know, bigger

Speaker 2: 49:51

Gordon aside . I , you know, I have strong opinions about that guy, but I remember when you got up on the podium, right. And it’s that, you know, that meme of the guys throwing the beer and they give him the third place medal like, yeah , this is crazy. When bus Sheha got up on the podium, Gordon Ryan gave him that under handshake, like cuz Gordon had the belt on his right shoulder and he gave Cheshire the left hand under handshake. But when you got up on the podium, he changed the belt to the other side and properly shook your hand. Now I don’t know what he said to you because I just watched it. I went, holy. That’s about as much acknowledgement as you get from a guy like that. Right. Because,

Speaker 3: 50:40

And then , and then a little bit of stir up later, but um , <laugh>

Speaker 2: 50:45

But man , it is a , is a fantastic achievement. And I think it is a real Testament to your dedication, to jujitsu and how much you thought and effort you have put into your own learning and your own process. And I think that people really don’t understand. I mean obviously people buy your DVDs and instructional, which where they start to get an insight into how you think about jujitsu. But I feel like when people actually come to appreciate how long you’ve done jujitsu and how long you haven’t really been getting your shine for your, your hard work. It’s uh , it’s a really impressive thing, man. So I just want to wanna acknowledge you for that.

Speaker 3: 51:25

Thank you, JT .

Speaker 2: 51:27

Is there anything that you would like to mention to anyone listening to this interview relevant to jujitsu beginner or not. If there was something that you could impart to them that you think would be helpful, that maybe you wish you’d heard before you’re at the stage you’re at. Is there any particular piece of advice that you think is helpful in and staying on the path ? Yeah,

Speaker 3: 51:49

It’s just, I think probably the , like one thing would be just the minds , like think long term , you know, have longer term goals and do the things that you need to do to get towards those goals, whatever, whatever it is. I mean , like not, everyone’s trying to get to ADCC. So trying to get to ADC , you see someone trying to win ADCC , whatever it is could be just, you just wanna train and improve, but like just have longer term goals and aim for them. Because I think when you have short term , you know, if it’s beating the guy next to you tomorrow, then you’re not really doing the thing that’s gonna get you better necessarily. Whereas if it’s beating the guy next to you, but in a year, okay, now you can start thinking about like what areas you need to improve to do that. And you know, how you should be approaching your training. So that’s probably like the one, if you have that, then the rest can start to fall into place.

Speaker 2: 52:42

Amazing. Thank you so much for your time, man. That’s a great answer. And definitely I’m sure we could, we could do a round two where we get a bit more into skill acquisition and, and all the amazing information you’ve had access to, to help. Um , our people become better ju to learners. Thanks for today, man. And , um , really appreciate all the good things that you’re doing .

Speaker 3: 53:03

Awesome . JT , thank you very much . Appreciate

Speaker 2: 53:14

I .