#184 Ryan Moutinho: Scaling Practice, New Gym Owner Lessons, CLA and More

In this episode, Ryan Moutinho (@ryanmoutinho), Owner of Connecticut Submission Grappling (@connecticutsubmissiongrappling) returns to the podcast to dive into what it was like opening a CLA gym, learning the business side of a gym, lessons and examples of scaling practice and more. Hope you enjoy!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Hello. Hey Ryan, it's Josh from 1-800-BJJ help. Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for being here. Hey, thanks for having me, man. Awesome. Yeah, I'm uh super excited to have you back. We had you on, I want to say a month or two ago with a panel of other CLA coaches. And uh today I get to have you back on the podcast to dive a little bit deeper into your story and uh some of the various CLA topics we'll be talking about today. Um, but first maybe we can talk a little bit about how you got into jujitsu and then how you got into coaching as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Yeah, sure. Um I got into jujitsu in the beginning of 2017. I was still living in LA, and I just had kind of tapered off of being a touring musician. So I was um I've been playing drums since I was like nine years old, eight or nine years old. And for the majority of my life, that was my main focus on music, drums specifically. And around like 16 or 17 years old, I went heavy into it. I started touring with bands. Um, I graduated high school early to tour and play music and pursue music. I think around like 20 years old, I moved out to LA um with a then girlfriend in um pursuit of music and becoming a professional musician, which I eventually did, and got to tour a lot, got to play in a ton of different bands, um, went to a bunch of different countries and got really burnt out on it. So it's funny. I know recently Rod was on the podcast talking about how he was a musician and got burnt out. I got really burnt out, and I realized traveling for a month at a time to like five, six weeks at a time, probably wasn't the thing I wanted to do. I wanted to play music, but I really didn't enjoy the traveling, and I wasn't really um it wasn't really fulfilling as I thought I would be. And I think I was a little bit too immature to get to the level of um success for lack of a better word, that I got to. So um around 28 years old in 2017, I was done playing live for the time being, and I really needed something to get that physical um that rush that I was getting every night playing music for like two hours live every night. And I looked up jujitsu because I had heard on like a Joe Rogan podcast or something that it was a martial art you could train in intense. You could go and you can go train hard every day and not get brain damage. When I was already 30 at that point, I think. Yeah, I started when I was 30. Um I was like, oh, I don't want to get brain damage, so maybe I'll try this jujitsu thing. And I looked it up, and within a couple miles from me was 10th Planet headquarters in LA. So that was the first time I ever stepped on jujitsu mats was February 2017. And um, that's where I started, and I stayed there for about four years. Once I like that first class, I just signed up immediately. And I was there as often as I could be until I built up the um capacity to just be there twice a day, every day.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah. Wow. I um I've only visited a couple tenth planets, but I heard that some of them do very specific drills like these sequences. Um was that the case at the time? And what'd you think of those when you first started?

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Yeah. So I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea that a thing, the gi was uh even a thing. I didn't know there was like no gi and gi, I just had no idea what I was doing. I didn't look into jujitsu very much, to be honest with you. The only context I had was watching like a handful of UFCs. I just wanted I needed something to do. Um, this huge chunk of my life was gone. And I had like could only practice music so much every day. So I was like, I need something, and I need to meet people that aren't musicians. Um I just needed to get out of that scene. Not like in it exit, but I needed a different avenue in my life. I just needed something else. So I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea that people did anything any differently. I just went, all right, this is what they do here. I'm gonna just do what they do here. And I would go in and do drilling. And they uh it was a like fundamental class, right? So it'd be a move, um, a couple live drills and rolling. I got lucky because I had a training partner who was, I believe, a blue or purple button at the time, and he was the coach's like um private instruction, like demonstration partner. So this dude was like training a lot and he was very good. Um, I always I remember I was like, oh, this kid's so good. And he just wanted to go live all the time. So once I got in there and the coach saw that it was Scott Ross, he runs 10 Planet Adventure right now. He's an awesome guy. Um the coach was like, oh, this they're like the same size, and my guy wants to go live. I'll just get it, let him go live with this other guy that's like the same size who seems to be here all the time and enjoying this. So I was going live all the time with this kid, and he was just whooping me. He was just doing all these cool things. And after a little bit, I started getting like pretty resilient, but I was still drilling and all that. But they're yeah, I mean, I kind of got on a rant there, but they do very specific um drill sequences, like the 10th plan, the 10th planet warm-up flows that are so long, man.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

And I eventually memorized all of them and was in Eddie's class demonstrating all those as like a white and purple, a white and blue belt.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Did you like those at the time? Because I remember when I first got into jujitsu, you know, I wanted to make all these flow charts and like how moves link to other moves and stuff, and mentally it was kind of interesting. Um, I don't really think about much stuff like that anymore, but did you like it at the time? And oh, I was all in.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

I was like, this is awesome. I'm really good at memorizing stuff. I'm a musician, like I was working in studios where I had to like learn a song in like 30 minutes and go record it for people. So I was like, oh, I can use my memorizational skills to memorize this jujitsu stuff. And I was like the drilling guy. Like, that's I mean, like I said, as like a blue belt, I was demonstrating in Eddie's class, I was in the advanced class. Like he would call me up to demonstrate the flows, which were like, I don't know, eight to ten sequences long. Like they're very long, man. And I knew how to do all of it, and I had it all memorized, and then I would go live and just get destroyed. So it wasn't translating very well, but I was really good at memorizing these like really long flows. I was totally into it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Gotcha. And then how'd you get into the coaching side? Was I mean, I guess was that it you were voluntold, kind of, to start demonstrating and then no, I was just a um a guy training in the room when I was in LA.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

I was there for like three and a half, four years, and then I moved back to Connecticut. I had grown I grew up in Connecticut and I moved back. It was at the end of COVID era, like 2021. I moved back to Connecticut. Um, LA was a mess. Everything was like shutting down. I lost a lot of work as like a musician. Um I had no idea what I was gonna do. I knew I couldn't afford to live in LA. Um my now wife and I moved back to Connecticut because I was like, I know I want to like have kids and I I'm not gonna be able to do this in LA. And if I can, if I ever would be able to, I would I'll just move back if I really wanted to. So I got into coaching once I moved back to Connecticut. And how how'd you get into the coaching side? Um I moved once I moved back here, um, I had this kind of like kind of depressed little couple months because I realized pretty quickly that the community and the culture of the room I was in, it didn't it's not very common. Like I didn't know what what I had there. You know what I mean? Eddie is for all the things Eddie is a character, he's a good dude, man. Like, I have nothing bad to say about Eddie. He was he became a really good friend as as well as a coach. We spent COVID together training every day, me and like a group of brown and black belts, and Eddie just kept the gym open, secret sessions. I would spend like eight hours a day there, man. Wow. We would train and then just hang out, train and hang out, and then get together and watch jujitsu, watch UFC. Um so I got really close with Eddie, and it was really sad when I had when I like eventually left, and then I came here and I realized like, oh that was special. It's like you don't know what you have till it's gone, kind of thing. And I came here and I looked for gyms, and I was like, oh, there's a couple gyms. And I realized immediately, like, oh no. I'm I'm gonna have to sign up for like multiple gyms to get in the work I want because everybody here has ghee days, and I don't do ghee. I've never put on a ghee in my life. Oh, not even once. Never, never put on the jacket, dude. I've wore the ghee pants because they're super comfy. And I used to, you know, I was Eddie Bravo suit and I wore his gi pants and I was like all in, you know what I mean? But I never put on a gi. I never I don't know what a gi grip is. Um and then they have Muay Thai and kickboxing, every, you know, the gyms do all the things here. And I realized pretty quickly that um I don't, I'm not gonna be able to just find the culture that I was used to. So yeah, I'm ranting a lot today. Sorry, man. But yeah, how I got into coaching. I was the obsessed guy in the room, and I found a tenth planet here, and they were like, oh, you know those warmups? Like, do you want to do a class? I don't remember if I asked to do a class or if they offered. I think it was a little bit like we met halfway and realized that I could do a class. I just started coaching, and then my wife was doing like kickboxing or something at an MMA gym, and they're like, Oh, you're like the only guy in the room that really just wants to do jujitsu. Everybody else is MMA guy, so it's like, Do you want a jujitsu class? Like a beginner class. I was like, Yeah, sure. So I just, you know, by just being like the most obsessed jujitsu guy in the room. I know.

unknown 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

I got a I got classes.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Right. And then uh then you start listening to the podcast, CLA starts to come into the picture pretty shortly after that, after you started teaching? Yeah, pretty like pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

I don't remember exactly how quickly, but um I think within a year or so, I you know, my my wife and I were found out we were having our first child, and a um teammate of mine at one of the gyms had stumbled upon, you know, CLA. And I guess he was trying to implement it in the classes he was teaching. And my wife was one of um one of the first classes, I believe, that he tried to implement it on, and she came home and she was like, he was like making us play games. And I was and I was I remember being like, that sounds really dumb. Like, I don't know how you're gonna ever learn doing that, right? I was the drilling guy, so I was like, I remember on the last episode I was on, I was like, Yeah, I I did it to try and disprove it. But then um I had talked to that that guy, and he was like, Yeah, you should look into this stuff, man. It's pretty cool. You should listen to some podcasts, and then I saw the correlation or the um how it was like very related to kids learning. I was like, oh, I'm about to have be a dad. I have no idea how to be a dad. And this seems like a way to raise kids without being like a helicopter parent. I didn't want to be that kind of dad. I knew right away I didn't want to be that dad. I was like, oh, I should look into this. And then it snowballed, man. Like it. And going back to how I was the drilling guy, but I would get smashed. I was like, oh yeah, like all these things I know how to do don't really work. And I was like I said, I was training in the MMA gym. I was like, I'm good at the moves, but I have these like big like rough, tough MMA guys just smashing through everything I'm doing to them. Like maybe I should really just like try and do this. And and now I have a gym that literally opened just to do this. Yeah, so it really got out of hand. Um but that's kind of like how I do everything, right? Like it happened with drums, I got obsessed. It literally, literally like spiraled into a career, and then jujitsu was a thing that I was doing as a hobby, and now I'm a gym owner. CLA was something I looked up, and now it like consumed my life. You know what I mean? So it's like I'm kind of an obsessive person. I kind of things kind of get out of hand, and uh, but it's cool, man.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Uh that's just who I am. I think the that type of person makes for a really good coach, though. So yeah, and in the sport specifically, uh in the sport of jujitsu, I think. Um yeah, that's where I'm at now. Yeah. How did um your when you first started learning about CLA in jiu-jitsu, how did you connect it to kids? Like where where did that come in?

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Well, it like a couple people had um I remember Greg talking about it, how he started, uh he did a lot with the kids to and then um a lot of people that or not a lot of people, a couple people that I had um talked to about implementing like games with Ed said, like, hey, well, I teach like the kids' class, and I saw this thing about like um games for kids, gamifying things, and then it like listening and seeing the stuff about kids and listening to Greg. And then my wife was sending me stuff about parenting. I was like, this is all kind of like converging into this like one thing of um, you know, letting the environment kind of dictate what's going on and constraining um to afford, you know what I mean? Um it all kind of blended together, you know. It was just too coincidental. I was like, wow, this is all kind of like the same thing. Like this stuff for kids would be great for adults. Like, I don't see a difference here. You know, your average adult is at work or school, and by the time they get to practice, they're kind of at like a kid's level of attention span, anyways. Like they're adults, yeah, but they're not gonna pay attention for 20-minute lecture. They're they want to move, and kids don't pay attention that long. So let's just implement this kid stuff for adults, and then I could also get good at the kids' stuff for when I have a kid.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

So it was like it was just a coincidence it just all kind of started snowballing and kind of being like, hey, I don't think this is a way to teach kids. I think this is a way to teach. Period.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah. And then I know uh you started teaching, and then I heard well, uh well, on the last episode you said some of the beginners would go to other classes and say, like, hey, are we gonna do like the live stuff? Like, can we do more live stuff? What was that like being a CLA coach in a in a school that wasn't CLA? Andres, you know, had the same experience at Legion. We had tons of coaches there and ended up very similar to you, opening up his own gym, just CLA focused. So, yeah, what was it like for you and how did that transition happen?

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Well, I didn't ever want to step on toes or like I don't want to be like any sort of disrespectful for the to the people who were giving me a place to um get better at coaching. You know, I was trying to help them out and they were helping me out. Uh I don't know if they knew they were helping me out because you know they just needed somebody to coach the class. But they also gave me an opportunity to, you know, represent their gym and coach. So I really didn't like start trying to like evangelize people into the CLA when I was in other gyms. I was just like, oh yeah, that you should listen to your coaches. You know, that's like these are business owners with their own families, their coaches, they've been running these gyms for a while. Agree or disagree, I didn't want to um start a rift in the gym. Uh pretty shortly after I got into wanted to start coaching in a CLA way, I left one of the gyms because it wasn't the culture I wanted for myself to train. And also I realized like if I want to do this, this isn't probably gonna be like accepted here. There's just too much funkiness, and I was like, I'm I think I would lim I'm like, you know, I've I've spent time here and I've enjoyed it, but I'm kind of like, let me just go to the other gym now. And then I was doing CLA there, and it was, you know, it wasn't really a favorite way of coaching for the other coaches. They weren't really into it. It's not nearly as accepted as it is now, back then, in uh whenever that was, two over two years ago, two and a half years ago. But I was always very hesitant to tell other people that their coaches were wrong. I was like, oh, you just gotta go ask your other coach, man. I don't know, whatever they do in their class, like, you know, what they ask you to do, just go do it. But my class is this way. And then an event eventually I was like, I can't, you know, I can't um I can't stay here. I gotta go. And it just like happened to be that, you know, I'm getting older, I'm 38. And when I first got back to Connecticut, I was still really trying to compete and do the thing. And I was getting frustrated because I was like, you know, there's no gym, that's just no gi. There's no emphasis on this, nobody's training that the way I want to train, blah, blah, blah. I was like, maybe it's time for me to really just like dive in on being a coach and take this to the next level and provide a space for people who A, want to do no-gi grappling only. That's all I offer at my gym. That's that's it. No, nothing else. There's no kids program, there's no gi, there's no Muay Thai kickboxing, nothing. There's just no gi. And um for people who want to train live. So maybe I just gotta go and do this myself. Yeah. And so did you go for my gym. You just took the leap and just got a space and dived in right in. Yeah. I was fortunate enough to find a space or be provided with a space, uh like a run down, like abandoned space in this industrial area in the city of Bridgeport. Um, and it was like how. hadn't been used in over 25 years or something.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

No way.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

So I was like, yeah, man, like get this place back going and utilize it, hey, to do all the stuff to make it into a gym. And I and I did it. And I waited months for permits and all that stuff. And I had let the guys know at the gym I was coaching at, like, hey, I'm going to open a gym. It's probably going to take like six to eight months. I'm just letting you know. And then uh like once we got the permits, I was like, hey man, I got my permits. I'm going to go do my thing.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

And that was that. And then when you first opened, did you have like a core group of like people who just like the style CLA style and then grow up from there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

I had like a couple guys. We're still like a really small gym numbers wise. But I had like a couple guys that were like the people that were they were believe they believed in what I was doing. And um I had an other coach in the gym at that point too. He's now he's no longer working here. But they just believed in the CLA and they just liked it. I don't even know if they like some of them didn't even care that it was like CLA. They were just like oh this is fun to train this way. I like going live. I like sweating. I like actually working out and they were like oh cool I liked your coaching style I liked your classes. I'm going to go with you.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

But it was very few people maybe like four people five people maybe yeah um and what's been you've been open now for how long? Is it two?

SPEAKER_03 24:54

It'll be two years in September. Okay. Yeah yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

So a year and a half ish. What were the any was there anything surprising about being a gym owner? Because there's like the coach side then there's like the business owner side as well like and then like and the gym itself like you said the permitting and like the construction and like what the plumbing like whatever else about having like a brick and mortar business. Was there any like lessons there or surprises along the way?

SPEAKER_03 25:25

The permit process was like daunting like months of waiting for I might like my I couldn't do anything because the permits weren't coming in.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

It was taking forever. So that was like something I never dealt with before but I realized really quickly that being obsessive as like wanting to be a really good coach has nothing to do with running a business. And I am like because I guess Greg's kind of similar like where he's like I'm not really a business I dude I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to business. I'm probably not the best business guy. I didn't have a business plan. I was just like oh I'm obsessed with jujitsu other people must be obsessed with jujitsu too people are just going to show up and it's like no that's not how it works. Uh and people are rightfully so you know like in some cases like tied to their gyms regardless of how happy or unhappy they are with the training they stay at their gyms which is cool. Like people are loyal that's I understand that um I thought like everybody was going to be like yo this the new Nogi place let's go there like without me even like putting out a call you know I was like oh I'm just going to open a gym not advertise anything I'll have an Instagram page that's cool that'd be enough right it's like no I have no idea so that was the biggest thing it's like I have no idea what I'm doing as a businessman. I'm learning as I go and luckily enough I have like a core group of guys that are just super loyal and dedicated to the gym. That's um so this way of training is not for everybody but the people who do like it they don't leave unless they're literally like moving out of state like I've had people leave to like move back because they're done with college and they're like oh I'm moving back to Pennsylvania or something. And like all right well that's understandable so yeah like but the guys who come in here they they stay they stay.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah I feel like uh same at Corvus like everyone's super bought into the CLA and they'll all talk about it differently like some are really into reading and understanding and all and other people like you said they just love the style the competitiveness a lot of people are like this feels like comp class like I like comp class. There's a lot of competitors at our gym. If you can go back in time to Ryan you know two years ago when you first opened the gym on the business side like for people listening who are gonna open a gym or thinking about opening a gym opening up a gym what are some of the early lessons or like advice you would have given yourself at the beginning?

SPEAKER_03 28:15

So I would have in like uh I would have found a business partner to not to like investment or anything like maybe maybe to like throw some money into it like whatever that's that is that's like here and there. But somebody to run the business so I could coach I don't really care about like I'm not passionate about business. It's not something I really care about. I should be spending my time learning about business but I'm like reading about CLA. Yeah you know what I mean so it's like it just goes back to like if I'm into something I'm really into it. It's very hard to get I can't like force myself to be interested in things that I'm just not interested in.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

So like here I am like I should be really really trying to get this business going but I just I'm like uh I'm just like interested in the guys who show up and train.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

You know like if you come to my gym you're gonna get a hundred percent like of my attention and I'll sit with you for like an hour or two after class just talking to you about jujitsu. But if you come and talk to me about business I'm like alright dude I like I'm gonna go talk about like open garb with this person.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Yeah it's just not what I'm about so I should have really found a business partner who wants to uh do that stuff because I don't for people who don't know what what that stuff entails like you know people might similar to you like I love coaching oh I'll just go open a gym what is that stuff like could you give us a picture a little bit of like that I had no idea what a lead was I had no idea that you could run meta ads like I didn't know that this stuff existed I didn't know like like so it's like you know like lead capture and have a like email list and try and convince these people that they should do jujitsu it's like I'm just not that guy like just like how I'm not like out there being like you have to do CLA it's like you also don't have to come to my gym like yeah you can but you don't have to so this is just terrible business you know what I mean like I should be trying to convince people to step foot in my door because I have the special sauce but it's like man you know all that kind of stuff like um generating leads reaching out to people running ads doing all that um there's probably more that I'm just forgetting because it just doesn't occupy space in my brain it's it's bad man like I was like I'm like dang I should have really had like a business guy in here but now I have some people like helping me out now and it's uh it just is what it is.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

I'm learning on the fly and this is like CLA uh business.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm constrained by what I don't know about business. Yeah um so I heard uh I heard you on a couple of the meetings with Greg um like the March one and about scaling and and whatnot and I am curious what your where your mind's at these days on your own CLA development.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Kind of like yeah almost like people learning jiu-jitsu from like white to black belt like from learning CLA or using CLA from white to black belt like where are you what's the next thing that you're you're working on uh like so I have this like weird um weird group not like they're not weird people but it's like weird that like the group I'm working with it's there's a like there's beginners and then there's guys who have been with me since I opened the gym. So they're like a year and a half in and the skill gap between some of my people in particular like one guy compared to everybody else is just vast like okay this guy is like competing multiple times a month he's a purple belt already like he was my first guy to ever call the gym and he's got his purple belt in like like a year and like he's doing well man he's competing against black belts he and he's doing well always you know what I mean so I have this weird thing where I have my guys who are just here to do jujitsu um sweat a little bit have fun and then I have this guy who's trying to compete and be the best he can and he has all these goals coming up like he's competing more than ever. He was just in Texas at a main character and he's doing all these like bigger things he's trying to get on. So that's where I'm trying to deal with that where it's like I need a room where this higher level competitor can come and actually get good training in I have other really good guys like they're good. They're not like um they're not like grapplers at all but they're not doing what he's doing and they're not as invested as him so he can get good work here but it's like that trying to scale for a room of like hey here's the 15 year old kid who's been training two months and here's this year and a half purple belt who's trying to travel the country and he wants to do like he's like I want to do um trials next time it comes around and I'm gonna do like pans and I want to do this and that. And then the next most competitive person in the room is me. And I'm 38 and I don't really want to compete very much anymore.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

And I'm like 50 pounds lighter than him.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

So it's like it's like how can I make this place worth it for him? So I'm like scaling for that.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

It reminds me of uh what Rod was saying when DeAndre first came to the gym like how do we get DeAndre how do we get all these blue belts trying to entangle him all the time like good enough for DeAndre so are you taking a similar approach of that's your philosophy here is like getting these guys good enough to help him this top guy.

SPEAKER_03 34:45

Yeah yeah um I'm building up the rest of the room um for the sake of building them up and I'm scaling all his training specifically for him it like when he comes to like when he comes to like to all levels it's like the practice is designed around him.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

That's cool. Do you have any examples of like if there's something he's working on like how you scale games and how you design practice for him yeah so um with him it's he does very well in the room like so everything that I'm bringing back uh for him to practice is stuff I see in his matches.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

You know um so I'll see things in his matches even if they go well like I'll see things that we could work on and then I'm scaling them for him in the all levels where it'll be very difficult for him to win. I'll like weigh the scale um towards when he's in the alignment that he struggled with in the match I will make it almost impossible for him to win in a way where I'll make it continuous. You know like you can't win you just have to do this. You have to stay seated like you can't win you have to stay seated with your feet on your partner every time your back goes to mat you have to sit back up. Like I won't let him like destabilize like you know I'll make it very difficult where just like keep your butt on the mat and stay seated and this person can win if they just like you know pass your legs and hold you down. Or I'll start him in like very uneven connections or and then you know sometimes I'll I'll make it so that it's scaled where he can win but it's like things that I see him struggling with. And I'm just like you know I'm still pretty new at this coaching thing for CLA like I've been doing a couple years but it's still it's still tough. And I'm and because I'm tailoring it for a certain person it's like okay well I actually have to throw stuff out there and let it play through and then I I I film every single class and I watch it back and I'm like okay this now I can do this next time or that next time um and then he'll bring in people too or we'll have like guests from other gyms drop in or like higher level guys and I'm like okay I can run like a normal practice and throw in a game that I know he needs to work on and just like let it let it fly. But sometimes it is really like really just you know trial and error or I'll if it's a small class I'll have him stay in an alignment for half of the round and just throw different people at him like guy after guy after guy after guy. So it's not so much like the skill difference. Like now I'm just taxing him to do it on like three different people or four different people and see how he does then because he'll like start fatiguing and see if like the behavior will like um hold up to fatigue and um as well as the constraints of the game. And variability that's cool. That's a really cool idea I've never heard that before yeah it's like here's here's this guy now this guy's gonna go and they just jump in boom boom boom it's almost like a shark tank kind of thing but but we're still like doing a a game. Yeah yeah because you some some of the other guys need a little bit more of a break than he does. Right. So around with him and then they take a break like I just need him to keep going. So I'm just like messing around with a bunch of different stuff because I have a small room you know what I mean like I don't I don't have many guys in here as it is and then I have this one outlier.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

Like how can I make it worth his while to come in here day after day and um still get him to get better and he's still getting better. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 38:55

So it's like that Shark Tank thing is super creative. And I feel like your environment with this one outlier and this uh different group is is probably presenting a lot of opportunities for you to learn like how to personalize and just scale in a very nuanced way for that one guy. Because I can imagine like if he shows up to class versus he doesn't show up to class it's like a completely different class and you have to think about that on the fly. Oh yeah every single class.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Yeah yeah yeah so I I have a schedule worked out with him though. Yeah like uh we communicate a lot like we're talking all the time so I know his schedule um so unless he like gets sick or something happens that he can't show up I know when he's gonna be in the gym yeah so I kind of know how to like work around it and then I know when he has matches coming up so I know what we're gonna do like if we're gonna keep it like really open. Yeah when he comes in. So it's kind of um the communication and like relationship with athlete and coach with me and him is pretty pretty solid.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

So uh I'm I'm pretty aware when he's gonna be in but hey he still does like the foundations class too I just get put him with the next best guy usually um or if we have like a drop-in like higher level a higher belt or something I'll they'll go with that him or whatever. But he's still getting like he still gets a lot from like the foundations class. Yeah and then in all levels it I just kind of like just make it super hard for him.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

That's awesome. This problem this like unique situation with one outlier like a mixed room I think is something a lot of CLA coaches uh deal with yours is maybe a little bit more extreme. So I think it's a really uh good illustration of like how to how you can probably customize stuff. So maybe we could dig in a little bit more into some more examples. Like do you remember a recent match that he had and then you identified something that you wanted to work on and then exactly how you started working on it in the room just to give some people some ideas.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Yeah so um actually a couple months back he did um a tournament out in Long Island and he had a pretty pretty good bracket.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

There were some like black belt like world champs in there um like just like notable like competition savvy black belts and um he did really well his first match and then in his second match in the semifinals it was like CJI rules he made it to the second round with this with his black belt I forget his name but he's like IBJF world champ like great great rappler and I had noticed a hesitancy to make connections um from bottom when he's like seated and um make and specifically with his feet right um and I had seen this in the room I had addressed it and I realized after the fact that it was a a room wide issue but after the match I still sent in his match to Greg and Rod to uh review and it was like the only thing that they that Rod had mentioned is like hey he like if he's gonna make connections connect to what's in front of you and make like four-point connections like feet and hands and they uh he's like in this specific example his feet aren't connected and allowed top player to get around his legs um so I realized it was a room wide thing so I just started doing it more games with within the room where like um you can't go to your back without connections connect to what's in front of you and he gave he gave us a specific game to work on it what was the game and uh it was a seated open guard versus standing passer uh standing player can't win they're just gonna try to hold bottom player on their back for as long as they can pass the legs in front of the legs anywhere around the body bottom player you're gonna connect to what's in front of you it would you can't go to your back without making connections with your feet and hands and you can win by um bringing top hand uh top players hands to the mat or butt to the mat and entangling or by wrestling up with a close hand connection right so it's a lot of connecting to what's in front of you it could be hands arms elbows head legs but we're using our connections to manage distance destabilize and either entangle or get up to our feet with a close hand connection via wrestle up so we started playing a lot of stuff like that got it and it made a pretty big impact yeah and then um for your top guy uh what was his name again uh Ahmed Ahmed yeah for Ahmed how did you start to scale it for him to make it more and more difficult because the the rest of the guys are are not as high as high skilled is that when you started introducing the Shark Tank stuff or is are there more ways that you started to scale it for him?

SPEAKER_03 44:12

Yeah I started doing like uh the Shark Tank stuff specifically for him and um I would make it so that so for him and like with that game I was just playing that like as just a regular round. So it was I wasn't scaling it too much or or too differently unless I saw him doing something over and over and then I would kind of like eliminate that or I would make it tougher it was like you know now not only can you not only um if you bring them to your hands to their hands you can entangle but you have to get their hips down to win as well. So I would just take it a step further like okay if you entangle on what when they're on their hands you have to also down their hips or use your connections to down their hips and then entangle stuff like that. And then I would just you know make it okay if you entangle now you have to get your feet to the inside and collect both legs um it and then in like in other situations like I would scale it differently For him, compared to the rest of the class, say we were playing like a leg entanglement game, just off the top of my head, where somebody would have to get their feet in the inside, collect both legs. Um inside entanglement rather, and collect both legs, he would have to do it and then do it on the other side as well. He couldn't win unless he did it on both legs. Yeah. So everything everybody else was doing, he would have to do it on both sides of the body.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Right.

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Um, I would just make it harder. You know, if there were two ways to win, he would have to do both. But it was just up it for him. Because I I want the class to flow to keep work, like everybody keep working, where I don't have to like sit and for another couple minutes explain it to him and be like, oh, Ahmed, when you go, you have to do it on both sides of the body. Uh yeah, you have to get to the arm lock breaking position on both sides of the body and keep something under the elbow.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

So it would be like pretty foundational stuff, but he would just have to do it everywhere, both sides.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

And then uh when you're actually giving the instruction, like if we were to watch you have a video of it or something, do you give the instruction to or the game to everyone in the room? And then at the end you say, Hey, I'm ed for you. Blah blah blah. Is that how it works?

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Or yeah, I just give the the instruction for everybody and then um I'll go up to him. I'll be like, all right, guys, one, two, clap, whatever. And then I'll go up to him and be like, you gotta do it on both sides of body. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or now he doesn't he'll ask, he doesn't I don't have to tell him anymore. He's like, I'm gonna do it on both sides. I'm like, all right, cool. Like he takes his training it in in his own hands. Like sometimes I don't have to tell him. He he's already, I got it. He knows or he'll say, Can I scale it for myself? I'm like, Yeah, go for it, man. Cool. Like he's pretty uh pretty good with the CLA. Like he's he's an athlete, so I want him to stay an athlete. But if I need somebody to cover class, like he's one of the guys who's gonna cover class. Oh, cool. So he has a good understanding of all this. Yeah, yeah. He's uh he's like an obsessed nice guy with this too. Um, and he's been to DeAndre's seminar and like Greg's seminars, and he he he knows what he's doing, man. Um he's pretty savvy. And then another thing that I do, I have open mats. I have like two free open mats a week. And that's when we get a lot of visitors, so he gets a lot of good looks. And then I'm not really like possessive with my guys, like I don't own these people, like I don't know, some gyms are crazy. He goes to other open mats, like he supplements on the weekends and he goes to other places to get training in, but there's like a focus of like, hey, when you go to open mat, like this is what you're gonna work on with other people.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Whoa, that's cool. And is that something you guys talked about together, or does he kind of do it on his own or both?

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Yeah, like whether it's gonna tell me this is what I'm gonna focus on, or I'll be like, hey man, when you're at open mat this weekend, see if you could do like this.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

That's cool. Yeah, so uh what was the last one? The last open mat he went out, and what what was his focus?

SPEAKER_03 48:23

Oh, it was it was pretty open, man, because he had two matches this weekend, so it was just like go out with it. Yeah, like um just get on him, man. Um just submit them, you know. Like we're when a week or two out, like we're staying consistent, but we're like dropping the um intensity a little bit like and we're just doing as much open stuff as possible.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

And it's just like a week or two out, man, just we're rolling. Like you're rolling. We're not trying to develop new skills here, we're trying to exploit what you're already good at and get to it, like get to the good stuff. Yeah. Your task is to go submit this guy. And then did he just compete? Yeah. So on last Thursday he had a match at Thursday night jujitsu at in Austin, at 10th plane at Austin. He did very well, he submitted his partner. Um, and then Saturday at main character jujitsu in Austin, he had a match and he won, uh, submitted his his opponent as well. So two matches, two subs in two in two days. Yeah, three days.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yeah, that's that's awesome. And then he comes back, when's his next competition? I'm just curious how you plan out this camp or like these phases uh going forward.

SPEAKER_03 49:53

I think he has something coming up in the next couple weeks. So I'm just gonna with him, it's just about keeping the ball rolling. Like keeping him like I right now, it's just like recover a little bit, like get a couple days, and then we're gonna get right back in it. And he'll probably like just start ramping it back up slowly. And um, there's nothing too much I want to introduce to him because he has competitions coming out so like in a couple weeks, so it's like we can't really affect your behavior in a couple weeks. Um, there's things in the back of my mind that when he has a longer break that I want to start implementing, but it's pretty much the same stuff that we've been working on. A lot of like that seated, open, connecting, bring hands and hips to the mat, get connected to what's in front of you. That's like a big one. And there might be some like stand-up stuff with like clearing hands a little bit more, like keep their hands off you. Um can you say more about those games? The keeping hands off you? Really, really simple hand fighting stuff, man. Um, just like more of yourself on them and don't let them touch you. Like, really simple. Keep their hands off you. Uh keep your hands on them, keep their hands off of you, and make their connections your connections. If they touch you, make it yours. Don't just break away. Like make them pay for putting their hands on you. Like um and just keep it uneven. Inside the elbows, outside the elbows. You know, really, really like basic stuff, but these are like foundational things that need to happen. But it's cause I'm not trying to really fix much with him right now. I just want him primed and ready to train or ready to compete, rather. So I don't know if I'm gonna really address that much with him. I'm just gonna keep him in the environment, keep him consistent. And um, he's having fun. He's having a blast. So I want to make sure he's happy and having fun and engaging and like has this um not only like discipline, but this drive to continue to do what he's doing. So I'm not really trying to mess with it too much. Like the variables are all kind of in place and working, and if it's not broke, I'm not fixing it. Um Greg says it a lot. If we haven't we're not trying to solve problems that we haven't faced. So I don't see very many problems. So I'm not really gonna like poke and prod at it. Yeah, especially two weeks out from an from another another competition. Yeah, I think he has like competitions every couple weeks for the next couple months. Oh wow, okay. So I don't think I'll be able to address anything really with him until like maybe the end of June. Yeah. I'm gonna kind of like just support him and keep him training.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

And the competition itself is practice for competition, right? That that's a whole skill he gets to practice a lot in the next few months, it sounds like well that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_03 52:53

We're exposing him to that. Um you do well in the room, man. Let's let's get you exposed to the competition environment and get you so used to doing that that it's it's like nothing. Like you see a lot of these guys, man, like Max Hanson's like competing every him specifically, I see all the time. He's like, this guy competes every like other weekend or every weekend. Wow. Um that's you know, we gotta get really, really comfortable with that environment because it's so different than the training environment. As much as we try and make it similar, we we can't we can't replicate that.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

So he's just trying to stay out there as much as he can. Right. As long as he's healthy and has the time.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Do you generally think about um his programming in like a performance cycle where it's very active competing and then maybe like some non-competitive time where it's like more of like a learning or skill developing cycle or phase?

SPEAKER_03 53:52

Yeah, I um the thing with him, man, he's like such a he's so ready to go that he just signs up for so much stuff. He's just he's like throwing dates at me left and right. I'm like, alright, dude, like yeah, cool. But he's so uh he's so uh what's the right word? He's he's he's ready, he's so ready to do it. He's so anxious, not anxious, but eager. Eager, that's it. Yeah, sorry. He's so eager to get out there and compete that I'm just like, okay, we'll I do I really want to be like, hey man, like let's not compete. Why not? You you've been training a year and a half, you're a purple belt. Now do it, do as much as you can. And when you are burnt out on competing, we'll re we'll like revisit yeah like the training room in a big way. Wow, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

That's a really um I like how supportive, you know? Yeah, yeah. I like how um adaptive, open-minded you are with uh him as like an athlete as a whole. Like it's not just one lens of pure skill optimizing, whatever, but the enjoyment aspect, the fulfillment aspect of it, the longevity of the athlete. There's so much uh complexity in in what goes to like making an athlete, like coaching an athlete, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

It's what's brought the best out in him. And everybody like you could we could all be like CLA experts in the next 20 years, 15 years, 10 years, whatever it is. But until you learn how to work with a person one-on-one, it's coaching is just it's not it, it it's not optimized for like CLA is not really great for like large rooms, like especially if you have competitors, you need to understand who you're working with. Like, I try to have a relationship with all my guys because stuff that works for him, it it's not working for the other person. Like he we have a sweet spot with him right now, and I'm going to try and just let him ride it out. Like I said, he's happy, he's motivated, he's eager, and then some other people have other um things that they need to work on, and maybe they're hesitant, maybe they're training a lot, but they they have no confidence to get out there and do the thing. So it is very individualized. Like that's also a huge thing that is I've realized with this with coaching in general, not CLA, not anything, any type of um method that we use. It's if you really want to affect somebody, you have to have like a one-on-one relationship with them. Yeah, because I have to understand what's going on outside of the gym with him as well. Like, you know, how's your job? Like, how's your marriage? Like, is the wife happy? Like, is everything good? Is this working? Yeah, because all those variables will find their way into training and competition too. Happens with me too. It's I know that because I've competed on you know, less than optimal in um preparation. And I'm like, okay, well, I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't so I wasn't doing that.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:16

Which it's really just about understanding the person and what's working for him, that's great. Let's but I'm not gonna try and replicate that with another person.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

Right. This um this I I didn't I didn't plan to like dive so deep on Ahmed and like how you're personalizing like scaling stuff for him, but it it makes me think I'm just like wondering if the next level of coaching CLA is like you have a room where it can be pretty personalized for everyone. Like maybe there's like a general beginner's pairings, like advanced pairings. You give the base game and then you say, hey, this group we're gonna scale for you here. This group we're gonna scale for you here. Maybe the mismatch people we're gonna scale it for you guys here. Go. And then everyone's having like a very really optimized game or whatever for them.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

I think so, man. Like I've had to do scaling up, scaling down, scaling down, yeah. Um, because sometimes I just have new guys that have never trained before. Yeah, and we're working on something that's like, hey man, like how about you guys just you guys just do this though? You know what I mean? Like scale it way back, like keep your connection, like see how long you can hold your partner's wrist and elbow while you're standing. Right. Um and that you know, get an underhook. First person to get an underhook wins. And then the other guys are working for to like, you know, closed hands and uh destabilizing, getting their butt or hands on the mat. So we gotta scale up, we gotta scale down. But I think in general, uh for CLA, in my experience, is like like I said, I have such a gap of skill in the room, and I have a small room. So I'm almost lucky, like for that I'm bad at business, that I haven't like got too many people in my room. Like I can really go around and like, hey, for you, I want you to try and like do this the next time. See if this helps you. Um I I I find myself doing that a lot, actually. And I do think that the future of coaching is going to be more individualized coaching. Um, you know, like working one-on-one with athletes, having like a a pair of people come in at want, me to design a practice on the fly for them. Or like Greg does it a lot, you know. He you see him working with a lot of people who aren't standard people. They're just flying in to work with Greg for a little while.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Yeah, and then he'll design the room for them. It's that's pretty cool. Um Wow. Oh dang, I forgot where I was gonna go with my next question. Oh, yes, I remember now. Um, I find for myself I have to scale down a lot in a lot of the standing games because I'm what terrible at wrestling, it's it's my weakest part of my game. And so a lot of the closed-hand connection games I have to tell myself, like, just go for touches behind the knees as like my um scaling for myself. Yeah, I I feel like that that's another thing. Do you do that um day where like people bring their own games? Like, I I've been thinking that would be really helpful for just everyone to understand how to scale for themselves individually within the games. Because like one approach is the coach can do it, but if the athletes can do it themselves, that's that's even that's pretty awesome too.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:25

I've messed around with it. Yeah, I've done it. Um sometimes I'll do it. So towards the end of the week, in the all levels, I'll like really start messing with things. Come Thursday, I know everybody's tired. It's like, all right, guys, go design a game. Like you guys pair up, design a game, or I'll just like shake it up and be like, all right, we're gonna do matches. Like, I'm thinking of a number, one through ten. Two people call it numbers. All right, you guys are up first go. We're doing a match simulation. Like, yeah, I just like shake it up a lot. You know, I'm not the the found uh uh the foundations class I kind of keep like very consistent. Like I really put them through the standing, the guarded, the pinning. It's a very like you know what you're getting when you come to that class. The all levels, I really like I like to shake it up a little bit. And that if I'm gonna do like create your own games, it'll be in that um in that class.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:22

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

Or I'll ask them like what do you want to work on? And if you can't make your own game, like I'll make one on the fly for you, and then we'll just run it and see how it goes.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

Yeah.

unknown 1:01:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

That's cool. Uh, what are your goals now? What are your goals next um for for the club?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

Just to keep growing the gym, man. Like, I want more people in here for my guys. Um, the guys who have been here, the guys who are here all the time, they're always working. I just want more training partners for them. And goal, I don't know if I have any like specific goals other than just getting better as a coach, man. Like I just have to get better at this. And I it it takes a lot of work and um it's it's fun. For sure, it's fun, but you know, it it always comes back around to where I get very into what I'm doing. So I want to be good at this. Yeah, yeah. I want to be better at it. Uh I'm pretty critical on myself. Like I film all the classes for the guys, but they're also for me to watch myself and how I um deliver the games and my coach, my ability to like make things clear to people. So I really just want to like be somebody who's providing what they are saying they're providing. You know, these guys pay to come in this gym. It's like I gotta teach them how to grapple. And then the guys that are challenging themselves, like like an Ahmed, it's like I gotta I gotta support this guy and be his like number one fan. I am like I'm pretty sure I am his number one fan. Like I I just gotta like make sure that he's getting what he needs because I'm very um invested in his uh his goals. Like I'm more invested in his goals than mine.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

Wow. Dang, there's a it's it's cool to see how how I don't know what the right word is, how serious you take it, how like how dedicated you are to the craft of coaching. And uh also how you made the transition because you were so dedicated as an athlete. But not everyone makes that transition to being a coach and being okay with caring about their athletes' goals more than their own. That's like that's a big shift. So it's cool to hear.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:05

Yeah. I uh that was like the that was like the catalyst hope in the gym. I was like, like I said, I was like kind of I'm getting older, I'm not, you know, not young to uh really go out there and put forth a competitive run. Um I could always do master's division stuff, that's cool, but I realized pretty quickly, like I want to provide the space that wasn't really provided when I moved back to Connecticut. Like, it's no shade on anybody else, it's just that there's no gyms that's doing what I'm doing. That's just nogie grappling and you know, CLA. But primarily like a nogi grappling gym. And I know how bummed out I was when I was like, oh man, I'm not gonna really be able to get the work I need to get as good as I can in these like last couple years of my like mid-30s. Um, so now I'm just trying to provide that for people who want to take it a little bit seriously, and people who don't want to take it very seriously, who just want to sweat and like wrestle with their buddies. But I don't like I know how it felt for me to not have a place and feel really out of place. Like, oh, that's the guy who just like takes this way too seriously. There's like a room full of MMA guys who like don't even like jujitsu, they just have to do jujitsu because it's a part of the game, and then the like other end of the spectrum of like people who are just like kind of like, oh I'm just here to like fill up time out of my day and like get up get out of the house. It's like okay, well, there's other there's the other guy who like actually takes it seriously. Like, I want to provide the space for that guy. The other people are cool too. You're welcome here. You're gonna sweat, you're gonna get all the same stuff, but the people who are like kind of serious, like I got a space for you too.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Wow, it's very inspiring. You're like, um, I feel like you have that perfect mindset for being a being an amazing coach. So yeah, I'm excited to continue following your journey and uh wish nothing but the best for for you guys. Thanks, man. I appreciate the compliments. It's very kind of you. We'll see you, we'll see how I do, you know. Yeah, yeah, keep it up. Thanks for coming on the show. And uh yeah, thank you everyone for listening. We'll catch you on the next one.