Emily Wetzel: BJJ black belt, artist, survivor

I mean, not even hesitation. Over the top. And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the handful in attendance and the millions listening on the web on skidroad.la, this is Madtime Radio. All right, everybody. Welcome back to Madtime Radio. And I'm Rich. We got Crail here sitting in. Yes, sir. Coming at you from Skid Road Studios in downtown Los Angeles. We are live. A wet downtown Los Angeles. Yeah, to all those out there, you can get us on Facebook or you can Twitter us at Madtime Radio. Crail, who do we got in studio tonight? And we got Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Emily Wetzel in studios. Say hi. Emily. Hey, how you doing? Let me see if this thing will clap for you. Our always late in-studio audience. They might have got rained out. They might have got rained out this time. Killing me over there. I know they're always a little bit late, but yeah. Oh, okay. Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Wait for it. Maybe, maybe. Okay, maybe not. No cheers and whistles. Oh, man. Oh, there they are. Thank you. There they are. They made it. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want the people yelling too? We have those. Yeah. Oh, please. No pictures. No pictures. All right, all right, all right. We'll do them all. We're going to do the fire truck for you. I need a police escort. That's reminiscent of the old Skid Row Studios days. We, our old studio was actually in a loft, and yeah, it was like right there, a couple streets over, and the fire department was always just crashing the party. Yeah, well, hey, you know, welcome to the studio. I know you're actually our first female Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And I know, yo, you train over in San Diego somewhere. At BJJ Revolution with Rodrigo Medeiros. So we appreciate you making that drive out here. My pleasure. Yeah, so I thought maybe, Rich, I thought maybe we should just start out. You can just tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you do a lot more than just Jiu-Jitsu. I know you're an artist. Yeah, right now I'm in grad school at San Diego State. I'm doing my MFA in painting. I'm in my last semester, and so I've been working really hard getting my thesis show together. And also, I'm training really hard Jiu-Jitsu. So I'm sort of juggling all these different aspects of my life right now. Get the Pan Ams coming up? Mm-hmm. Next weekend. Ready to rock and roll? Absolutely. And then you got a thesis presentation coming up too, right? Yeah, so I have, my show is April 14th, and then I have the defense of my orals on the 18th. Sounds crazy for art. Yeah. Well, I know this sounds like a real generic question, and I'm sure you get it a lot, but, since everybody in this board has such a, you know, a background and a story, how did you get your start in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? So, you know, when I got my black belts, I told a story that I hadn't mentioned to anybody ever since it first happened, and I talked to the police about it, and that was, I guess, maybe 13 years ago. And I just kept my mouth shut, and I kept mum about it ever since. And when I was getting my black belt, I was thinking about what brought me to Jiu-Jitsu. And it was just very emotional for me, because when I was first in New York, I was working in this place. I wasn't even supposed to be there that evening, but I was called in, and it was around seven o'clock at night. And I was working in this place, and in a nutshell this guy broke in. I was there with this other woman, and he just started destroying the place, and he was psychotic, and he said he was a police officer, and he got on the phone, and said he was looking for drugs. And then from there, it has just become weirder and weirder, and they say that in these sort of situations, either fight or flight, but in my case, the whole thing was so strange, surreal that I sort of froze. And in the time that I froze, he assaulted me. He broke my nose, my collarbone, some ribs. And when I lay there on the floor, he then assaulted and he raped this woman that was there. And it was really brutal. He's still at large. There was a film of him going up the elevator. So they knew who he was, but he wasn't apprehended. And I held a grudge against myself for a long time because of that, like not defending myself or not doing anything. Just being so, just shocked at this incident before me, like not. not believing it. Like my family were academics and my parents are professors and I wasn't raised around much violence. You know, my mom is from a family that's like very much about proper roles and behaving. And so violence was never anything that I was, that I had any experience with, even though I'd been an athletic person and, you know, basketball, pretty physical, but I'd never had someone in my face punching me. So it was, it was very out of body experience. Did you, did you not talk about it because you just didn't want to relive that memory? I think there are some things that happen. Sometimes they just feel so bad that you just want to pretend like it didn't happen. And so for me, I just put that memory in, it's like I put it in a room and I imagined a steel door going down. And I imagined that it didn't happen. But of course, like you never really, of course you carry it there with you. And I had so much rage about this. I was just filled with rage that a man did this to me. It was filled with rage that I did this to myself by not doing anything. I mean, it was a crazy situation, but I just felt like I'd let myself down and I'd let this happen to this woman. And so for a while too, I like got involved with drugs and really beat myself up until I realized that I had to turn my life around. And so then I started Jiu Jitsu with Henzo Gracie in New York City. You know, I, I actually, I actually heard this story because I was there when you got your black belt. And so obviously when I heard this story, it was, I mean, I must say, I was like, I told this like so many people's story because it was very, I can't find the right word, but it's, it's, it's a very, I don't want to say a sad story, but it's, it's a very good story of how you overcame something, especially when you turn into a positive. Yeah. And what, I guess what people don't realize if, if people have never seen you, I mean, you don't strike me as a person that would have to go through this type of event, right? I mean, you're six, four and a half. I know. You know, that's why I had this like rage too. Like how I'm so big, why would someone think they could pick on me and why were they successful? Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I always, when I, when I, you know, when I first, when we first asked you to come here, I thought it was a great story because there's a lot of women out there who probably go through similar events who, you know, don't have the courage enough to try to work to overcome it and do something better for themselves. But I said, look, here's, here's, here's a woman who's six, four and a half, who you would never think would go through this because just her height, alone is something different from what's out there. But it's such a great story. I mean, and I mean, you look at your, your accomplishments now in jujitsu, I think you got like three pages of stuff that you could throw at somebody. Right. But has that been your driving force though? Most of the time? What? To, to get the medals and stuff? Yeah. No, like the jujitsu competitions. I go to a school that's very competition oriented. So I very begrudgingly got involved with the competitions because Rodrigo was like, Emily, you know, you got to compete to get your black belt. So I was always like being dragged there, like, oh, I don't want to do it. And I ended up doing pretty well just based on like sheer determination. But it's not, it's not why I got into jujitsu. I wanted to get into jujitsu to compete against men and like see if I could hold my own. Yeah. I'm still shocked you tell the story. And it's, I mean, I know it's very hard for you, but it's still so shocking to me. But I mean, I think it's a great story for other women out there. I think it's really important for women to know martial art. I do. And I'm shocked that there aren't more women in martial arts because it just seems that, you know, men can be predators and you have to be prepared. And I think it also, it proves about our sport that it's how effective it is and how practical it is to, to, you know, to fight off an attacker. And, you know, Brazilian jujitsu and just the way, you know, just the structure and it being a real martial art and a real self-defense system. And, you know, besides the, besides the tournaments, the competitions, and it's not point fighting, it's not kicking a bag. It's very, very real. And, you know, like, like you've proven, you know, it's very effective. Yeah. When I first started jujitsu, it was very intimidating to me. I didn't really, it seemed like being, down on the floor with guys, it seemed like that's weird. Yeah. I don't know if I could do that. I just felt like, oh, this is. A lot of contact. A lot of contact. And sometimes, you know, that you're smashed up against a person that you wouldn't normally be. And it's just, you know, you have to get over that feeling a little uncomfortable about that. But once you do, it's fantastic. And the guys at jujitsu are like my brothers and I'll smash them as hard as I can. You know, the crazy thing too about all martial arts is, especially with jujitsu, it makes you stay calm and focused, right? Because when you're in a bad spot, I mean, you can be getting choked out. And if you, if you just overreact, I mean, you're going to lose that little bit of oxygen. Yeah, that's true. It's one of the things about like just jujitsu or any sport in general forces you to just think a little more about what's going on and be like, okay, I'm not in that bad of a situation. I just got to hold off and I got to work for this as opposed to just panicking and then you end up getting choked out. No, exactly. And I think maybe I haven't learned all the moves I could have so far, but I have learned how to relax and just look for those little openings when I can escape. Yeah. Well, I'll let you, I'll let you punch Richard in the nose just so we can get it over with. That would be great. Thanks. I'm like cowering in my chair. Are the cameras on? No. Dude, that's like, it's like 11 minutes in and we just got like this crazy story from you. Wait. But I have a good story. Okay. That, so, so I started Henzo's and I was first like really uncomfortable, but I, and also because it wasn't a methadone, like it was in this sketchy building where you had to ride the elevator up and that there was a methadone clinic below. So it's like, you know, jailhouse tats and, you know, people with long, gross fingernails. And so that was my introduction. And one day I was coming out of the academy. And I was on like seventh Avenue and 30th street and there was a Duane Reade store there. And I was walking along, talking my cell phone. I had my gi in the other hand. And all of a sudden before me, I, I see this girl on the ground and she's yelling, get off of me, get off of me. And there's this black guy above her and they're pulling back and forth on this bag and there's this crowd around them. And I was thinking, my God, he's robbing her and nobody's doing anything. So I didn't even think about it. I just went up behind her. I was like, boom, rear naked choke and pulled him off of her. And then, um, and then she got up and just like split leaving this bag behind and all these products started falling out. And, uh, I was like, that's weird. Doesn't she want to like thank me for my brave, heroic act there? And so I let go of the guy and he turned around and he had like a security guard tag. So with great power comes great responsibilities, a little bit of profiling there, hon, don't get him, don't racially profile, was a perfect example of like, when you assume things, she was stealing stuff, she was a thief, a lot of thief, go far into your training, did, did that happen? With that, were you still a white belt when that happened? Or, um, I think like, uh, maybe a blue belt, I found my mojo back again when I started doing, yeah, yeah. So I felt pretty confident. But it was the first time and the only time that I've ever put my hands on somebody outside of the academy. How long did you train with Henzo? I got my white through purple with him. Oh, you did? Okay. He was great. And then this was all in New York? Mm-hmm. And then how'd you end up out here in California? I wanted to come here for grad school. Okay. So then I trained with Nelson Montero in Encinitas. Okay. And then it was just too far of a commute to school and back and forth. So I changed to Rodrigo's. Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. Shout out to Rodrigo. Oh, yeah. He's in Japan right now, isn't he? No, Hong Kong. He's in Hong Kong. Oh, yeah. He just opened a huge academy, like 15,000 square foot academy in Hong Kong. It's amazing. It's got like showcasing Muay Thai and boxing and jiu-jitsu. It's a totally sweet operation. Who's running it up there? Rodrigo. Oh, he is? Yeah. Yeah. He's going to be out there for about a year or so. Mm-hmm. Oh, wow. I see he puts those pictures up on Facebook. Yeah, you should check it out. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah. The balcony and stuff. You're just like, wow, it's crazy. All right. Another place to go train if we're ever traveling. Yeah. Good old Hong Kong. Yeah. I still do miss the weekend trips to San Diego, though. We've got to go down there and check out the new mats. Yeah, it's nice and tidy and clean now. Cleaner. Cleaner. Yeah. Emily knows all the good places to train out in San Diego. Yeah. There's so many. I think there's 63 schools in San Diego. Wow. That's crazy. It is crazy. Yeah. And, you know, we've had guests in here we're talking about where there was like one or two. Like, you know, they're out in the South Bay, like Torrance, you know, obviously in Torrance and that area. But now they're just, you know, they're all over the place, which shows you the growth of the sport. I think San Diego is the hot spot in the States. Yeah, a lot of good schools out there. Well, maybe because of the surf, probably too. I know a lot of the Brazilians like to surf, so they're out there surfing. Or the weather. I mean, it's the only place where the climate's the same pretty much all year, right? Yeah, it's beautiful. So you like it out there? Better than New York? Well, it was when I first moved to San Diego from New York City, I was just like, oh, I hate it here. There's no anybody. It's like. Metro sucks. Yeah. Well, it's just, I just felt like I'm missing everything in New York and what's going on in New York. And this is so slow. But now, like it took a year, but now I just love California. So do you find it hard being a female? Being a female? You know, female training in jujitsu? I mean, you find that, is that difficult? Well, sometimes I feel like the guys ignore me. So like I'm six foot five, right? And so everywhere outside of jujitsu, people notice me. But then in the academy, like when it's time to pair up as partners, there have been so many times when guys go glassy eyed and somehow like I become invisible. Well, they don't want to be invisible. I don't think, yeah. I don't think they're ignoring you, dude. I see all the pictures when you're in them and you're like the tallest girl there. Yeah. You're like a tall, so I don't think, I don't think they're. No, they're ignoring me. No, they're scared. They don't want to go with me. They're scared. You know, I think that's actually, it's not too, too uncommon because shout out to our friend Valerie Worthington. You know, when she was at our academy, kind of the same thing happened. And I always, you know, I joke, I miss her voice when, you know, when we time for pick partners and she would always say, anyone need a partner? You'd hear her voice, you know, anyone need a partner? Yeah. Because, you know, she's, she's so good and so technical and, you know, I just don't want to get beat up. I want to get smashed. You know, I want to at least a fair shot. But I remember that would always be a thing too. You know, when. So what do you do? You just walk up to people and be like, that's it. You know what I mean? Well, I've called people out when I felt like they're ignoring me and I'd see like Brett, I know you can see me. And I'd be like, what's the deal? Yeah. So. How about other women? You just beat them up. Yeah. Yeah. You just beat them up. You know, there aren't that many women at my academy. So that's. Don't you travel? I mean, 63 other schools out there. She'd be. You find a lot of. Yeah. I mostly just stick to rods. Yeah. You don't, you don't do a lot of. What about when it comes time to tournament? Do you go out and cross train or find other women to roll with? You know, I don't. I just train against guys. And sometimes I think that's, it's hard to gauge how your skills are when you're always going with men. So I think it would be good to train with men. I think it's good to train against more women because it's always a surprise at tournaments because I never roll with women. So, and they feel so different too. Like those little girls are so squirrely and they get out of little spots and I don't have the, I don't have any experience wrestling women practically. Well, we'll send Rich up there for you. No, we can send my wife over there. She can use the practice. That's crazy. She needs to practice. She needs to train more. Yeah. Yeah. If you're listening to her, sorry. I didn't mean to put her on blast. Hey, but you know what? You were saying that that was the last time going back to this store where you beat up the security guard. Yes. Did you also tell us another story how you beat somebody up like a week before you got here? Well, okay. Second time. See? We're going to get to the third and fourth before the hour's up. Yeah. It's like some people are just really bold around me and behave in ways that they don't and they shouldn't. And the last time I was in New York, I was just coming out of the train station and this large guy, I saw him in the doorway and I saw him looking at me, but I just sort of just went straight to the curb. And then I felt him like tailing me behind me, but I was like, oh, I'll just get to the cab. And then he like came up behind me and grabbed my butt. And it was again, something like. What? I know. Wow. And I just turned around and like, boom, I punched him. But I wish I'd gotten like a really good knockout or something. It's so outrageous when men behave badly. That's crazy. That's crazy though. Yeah. Like what? Like, you always think about like, what does a dude get out of that? Right? I don't know. Just a muscle. Right? That's all he's doing. Really. What does he think? You're going to turn around and fall in love with him? You know? Wow. No one's ever squeezed my butt like that. Yeah. That's crazy. Like, you should know that's not going to get a good reaction from anybody. Well, maybe that's like why they do it to get a reaction. I don't know. But Latin people be whistling and stuff at chicks and they think it's cool. Yeah, I know. You ever see that? In New York, it's like, mommy, I'm not your mother for the last time. Oh, so it's the same in New York. Look here. You just got to go buy a Home Depot around here. What's a Home Depot? A Home Depot? All those guys do that? Oh, no. Who's racial profiling now? Not me. Uh-huh. How's that racial profiling? Well, you know, there's only one kind of reaction you can get from those guys. There's all the same dudes out there. Yeah. So, hey. So, I asked some people because we're glad you came on, but I had to ask some people some questions they wanted me to ask you. So, let me pull those up because, okay. Okay. Somebody wanted me to ask you, what do you think is the biggest challenge for female practitioners? What do you think is the biggest challenge for females of BJJ and how do you recommend to overcome them? I think the biggest challenge is sticking with it because sometimes in jiu-jitsu, sometimes it feels like you're being assaulted by guys and you just have to suck it up and keep coming back. Yeah. Is that hard because of your previous experience or do you think that's most people? Yeah. For sure. For sure. Like, I had... Sometimes... Sometimes it just felt like being assaulted again because some guys will be like super hard with you because they don't want to get beaten by a girl and, you know, whatever other aggression that they have, they don't like you. Maybe they don't like me because I'm tall or they don't think women should be doing it and so they'll be super rough. And so I think for women, we're not as strong. Even though I'm big, I'm not as strong as a guy and so when guys are super rough with us, then I think it can dissuade them from coming back and the thing is like you just have to keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's the hardest thing is to just get over that and you'll know you'll be okay and just keep persevering and keep showing up and like you have to learn how to measure your success in increments. Like, it's hard to tap out a guy. So how can you measure how you're doing? Well, maybe I stopped him from getting what he wanted. Maybe he didn't choke me as fast. Maybe I made him go for something else. So it's just... You have to be positive and be your own best friend and just think of the things that you do well instead of being overly critical when you don't do well because guys will smash us all the time. Do you think your height is a big contributing factor to some of the rolling issues you have with people because you're so tall? Do you think if you were like 5'7", you'd have the same kind of issues? Like with people not wanting to go with me? Yeah. I just wonder if... Yeah, I mean... You're a guy. How do you feel about me? Like most guys can get weirded out by giant Amazon women. Well, you know, the weird thing is if you're doing stand-up, jujitsu, okay, so it's 70%, 80% guard, right, on your back. Yeah. I mean, I would just... Once you get down on the ground, I mean, like a knee on the belly you can't control or something like that. It's not... I don't know. I don't really think that's weird. I don't think your body is anything. It's got nothing to do with it, really, because whatever body type you have, it's going to be an advantage or a disadvantage. When I go tall, guys, I just say, hey, another limb for me to take. I think that's good advice that you're giving for anybody that trains, you know, not just the women. And in my view on that, I think it's kind of a belt-level type issue as well. We're just, you know, some of the lower belts, they don't have that maturity yet, and some people come at you hard, you know, all the time. You know, they haven't... When they don't have skills, they're going to try to make up for it with physicality and... And that's how it seems like, you know, like some people, some black belts I've met, they won't even roll a white belt. We get hurt. Do you know the only thing more dangerous than the black belt? It's a white belt. Because they're crazy. Well, they're trying to prove themselves too, right? You get to that whole thing. Especially you get a lot of people that come, they're already, you know, from other sports, they're already in shape, and they think they got it. You know, they watch a couple of YouTube clips or, you know, the ultimate fighter, and, you know, next thing you know, they're training now. And they've got tap-out gear on. Yeah. Let's not forget the tap-out gear. Hey, that makes you 20% better, and that's what all our guests tell us. Oh, yeah, I think I heard that too. But, yeah, I think maybe it could also be like a, you know, a maturity issue. Right. Wouldn't you agree? But as women, like, you're coming in and dealing with meatheads like that sometimes. Yeah. So, and that's another thing is for women, you need to choose your partners carefully and find the guys that are good guys. Find, like, brotherly types, people that will help you, that won't ignore you, that will... Point out when you can do things better. I mean, we're all good at jiu-jitsu because people along the way have helped us. And so look for people who are on your side. I think that's just general for both sexes, though. It's good to, you know, like I always tell people, yeah, I can smash you for five, seven minutes for a round, but nobody's going to benefit from that, right? So it's almost like if you roll with people, like when I roll with guys that are lighter than me, I always say, hey, let's just, let's flow roll through this thing. Let's try not to stall in a position, especially for me because it's easier to, like, be heavier. I can't sit in a person and sit on them and stall. Wrestler. Hater. They have such an advantage coming in. See? I know. I always say that because I have no background. I only train jibs, though. But I think it's just good rule for both genders to do, you know, like if you get good partners, because obviously you're always going to run into those guys or gals that just beat you up and you're just like, what's going on, dude? You know, like we're supposed to be training. Well, Rodrigo's such a great coach, too. I bet he doesn't. Not you, but people that, you know, are going to go too crazy with you as well, right? Well, also, if there is someone that's being too crazy, I've said to them, hey, can you tone it down a notch? So you have to be willing to ask someone to chill out. And I had a question actually here. My wife was asking, she wonders what your opinion is and why you think there's really not that many women involved in jiu-jitsu as opposed to men. Well, it's an intimidating sport, isn't it? You're on the ground there with guys. Guys on top of you. Maybe your husbands or boyfriends don't want these guys crawling all over you or they're suspicious of everyone's intentions. So it's a more intimate sport than like Muay Thai or boxing, right? Right. So you're down there on the floor. And so I think that has a lot to do with it. Yeah, I agree. I mean, my wife and I have been training a couple of years and it took a while for me to say, okay, no. If you want to start training, go ahead. Go ahead and do it. And how do you stop? I'm always curious to, you know, I ask a lot of people because there's always a balance in wanting to train a lot and family and work and everything. How do you balance time with family and relationships and training? And art too. And art and the things you do. Well, it's a juggling act, right? But jiu-jitsu has to, jiu-jitsu is like my Prozac and I have to have it. And so where it fits into my schedule is I do it first thing in the morning. Then I go to school. Then family comes third. But seriously, I find a time when it works best for me and that's the morning. And then I just do everything else with the rest of the day. But it can be hard. Have you tried training at night? Do you not like, I mean, like me myself, I like training at night, right? But obviously my schedule doesn't permit me to do the mornings. But have you ever tried training at night? I have. I get really tired around 3 o'clock. You do? And if I go in the morning, then I haven't put my makeup on yet. And if you go in the evening, you've got your makeup done and then your makeup smears. Not good. No. It's just start in the morning. It's like a fresh start. You go, you shower, get on with your day. There's got to be a lot of things like, I guess, probably women like that. Like how do you keep your hair up in jiu-jitsu? Like is there something special you do? I mean, because you can't have it everywhere. It's called the elastic band. It works good? Good enough. I mean, I don't know. I don't have to worry about it. My hair's falling out. And tournament-wise, I know you've done a lot of tournaments. At what point did you start doing the competitions? Did you start off right away with a white belt or did you wait a little while to get settled in? No, I hadn't competed until I came out to California. And it's very competition-oriented out here. And my coaches had said that if I want to get promoted, I have to compete. So it wasn't really something I felt very enthusiastic about. Compete and win or just compete? Just competing. I find like I don't... My actual jiu-jitsu is way better than my competition jiu-jitsu. I find like competitions are very out of body and my arms feel like they're 20 feet long. And it's like my nerves really get in the way. And I just like forget stuff or I'm too cautious about going for stuff. And it just feels very slow motion or underwater. Is it still like that as a black belt though now? Yeah, I still get really amped up for competitions. So what do you do to overcome that though? I mean, because I go through the same thing. Like I just get so nervous. Like I'm sitting there getting like a week before a tournament. I'm just like, oh man, hurry up. Yeah, they're pretty horrible. I don't really enjoy them yet. If I could relax, then I'm sure I'd really do well. That's true. You get called, you get waited, and you have all the waiting games. All the waiting. You're never on time. Five hours, yeah. Never on time. You get tired. You want to eat. You just wait in. You want to hydrate. I know that's true. We love the sport so much. And yet all those things we have to do to compete. To people that don't train, they go, why? It sounds miserable. I know. And then it's like, but I still want to do it. Then you're on the podium. Why do you do it? Then you're on the podium with your medal. And then you go, okay, it's all worth it now. Yeah. Well, it's fun to win. And even when you lose, you learn so much from your losses. And in competition, is there any matches that stand out to you? Or is there people in your division that you still want to have matches with or you've gone against? Well, of course, my arch nemesis would be Gabby Garcia. She's right outside. Awesome. I'm going to settle this in here. I actually think she's nice outside of the mat. She just gets into competition mode? Oh, yeah. I mean, but that's everybody's like that. Where does she train out of? She's from Brazil. Oh, she is? Allianz. Oh, okay. So that would be my nemesis. And I couldn't ask for a better nemesis because she's huge and strong and like a perfect villain, right? Yeah. So I have nothing to lose, really. It's like a win-win situation because I have nothing. I have nothing to lose by trying my hardest. And if I lose, it's well, well, it's against Gabby. Yeah. You know, top level. Yeah. So that's all right. So how many times a week are you training for her? Well, I don't train for her. Come on. You've got to train for her. I should. I should. But, you know, I sort of, I feel like. We'll get you some tape. We'll do it like all the athletes do. I should do it better. I should train with competitions in mind. But so far, I've just sort of trained at the academy. And I haven't trained like. I don't know. I should train for competitions. If I wanted to really train like I should. I've been a professional athlete before I played basketball professionally. I know what it takes to get to the next level. And that would be doing lots of judo and doing specific training for people. But so far, I mean, jiu-jitsu is a way of life for me and a hobby. And I've got all this other stuff going on. So should I be doing stuff better like judo? Yes, of course I should. Do you do anything else? Do you do like any kind of CrossFit? Or do you do like, like you go run at the gym or. I lift weights three times a week. You do? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, because I'm, I know, you know, most of us, we do a little something extra and stuff, especially, you know, tournament time, you know, like strength and conditioning and stuff. Yeah, or I might do privates or something. Oh, okay. Privates. Where do you go? No running? Nothing. What about for cardio? Nothing. Nothing? Rolling. Rolling? Just rolling. No. Watch. You know, I thought maybe since you got some Olympic blood in your family, I just thought maybe get a rolling machine at the house or something. I mean, there are so many unending things that we all should be doing more of, right? We should be doing yoga. We should be running. We should be lifting weights. But there's only so much time in the day, right? Well, like getting back to what we were saying, how do we balance? It's a juggling act. You know, most of us, we have to work. Exactly. And we have families. And ideally, we would all love to train, you know, all day, every day. But. I wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You train more if you could. I did that in high school and college. All day. But there was a time when, you know. Like boot camp. But that's true. And you're just, you know, hearing your story, that's another story like someone, you know, jiu-jitsu saved your life. I guess you can say, right? Yeah. It really turned things around for me and it got me definitely out of drugs and helped me feel, get me back in my body. Because I had been a very accomplished athlete before. And so it got me clean, got me feeling self-confident again. Had all these new friends and something to look forward to every morning. Yeah. How was it? How was the different jiu-jitsu from East Coast to here? I mean, I know you said it's competition, more competition here. More competition here. And at Henzo's, it was mostly no-gi. So when I came out here and I had to start from the gi again, it was like, took me a step back for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think your no-gi game is better now that you've trained with a gi? Or do you think? Because I, me, I personally, I think if you train gi, your no-gi games are a lot better. And the reason I say that is because with a gi, you're so used to either grabbing a lapel or a sleeve. And when you don't have that option, you grab a wrist or a neck. Yeah. I like no-gi. You do? It's fast and dirty. Yeah. Fast and dirty. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. But there's not much of it out here. So there's more no-gi tournaments on the East Coast? I don't know about tournaments. But we train. We train. No-gi. Interesting. You would think with the weather, were there more people who want to be in a gi? How did they give you like stripes and stuff out there? Well, when I was there, we, when we got promoted, Henzo would just come up and you'd be rolling and he'd hit you on the back with your new belt. And it would be a total surprise. Oh, really? He'd be like, oh, what's this? Oh, purple. Yeah. That's awesome. We've heard of so many different traditions or people getting like belts on their, on the podium and stuff after winning, things like that too. The gauntlet, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. What's the gauntlet? That's when they have people lined up and they whip you with a belt. Ooh. That sounds good too. I don't know. You should see the people afterwards. You're like, oh. Just whip you across the back and the stomach. Nice. And now, since you got your black belt, are there a lot of companies coming after you, you know, to like support their products and promote and things like that? Is there a lot more attention? Um, well, Freestyle Gis just offered me their, their gis for this next tournament. And that was very nice of them. So. Hopefully they'll make you a custom one. Yeah. Well, we'll see how it fits. I think it's pretty good from, if you mix and match my sizes. I know we were talking about that earlier, but do you find it hard to find gis to fit you? Or just women in general? Um, I don't know about women in general. Any tall person would have a difficult time, especially if you're slim. They don't have a, they don't have a big and tall gi place, huh? Yeah. Uh-uh. Cause then when you get long ones, then they're like this wide. Crazy. Yeah. Or, or, uh, have you, have you had any experience with a custom, have you had any custom gis made for you? Uh-uh. And time for you gotta, you gotta talk to Awano. Yeah. Yeah. We already accosted her out in the front talking about custom. Oh, really? Once you get a custom gi, you're going to be like, wow, so good. Most of my gis shrink and they end up being like capris, you know? Well, they measure you out. And they, um, you know, account for the shrinkage of the gi. That sounds great. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I like it. Yeah. And, um, looking, um, the Pan Ams is coming, um, uh, what other tournaments are you, are you planning to do this year? Are you going to do a lot more this year or are you going to do worlds also? Yeah. I really have to evaluate where I'm going with jujitsu cause for so long, um, I just had the black belt in mind and I couldn't see beyond that. Just the black belt. It's like one day. Wouldn't it be awesome to be a black belt? So finally I've attained that and I'm not sure. Oh, you earned it. I mean, you put in the work and the effort. Yeah. So I don't know, but I was always like, if you compete, then you might get your black belt. So I've competed, I've got my black belt and, um, I'm happy to have beaten a lot of people that I did. Is this going to be your first competition as a black belt though? No, I did the Abu Dhabis. Oh, you did. That's right. Okay. Oh, excellent. Yep. So there it is. Yeah. Did you know you were getting promoted in December? Uh, Rodrigo hinted at it. Oh, he did. Okay. Yeah. So she came in kind of prepared. Yeah. But it was still. Watched your gi and ironed it. Ironed it. I seen you there. You had eyeliner on and stuff. I was like, what's going on with Emily? What's all this makeup on? Gotta look good. But what is his black belt promotion like? Do they, do they like throw you too? Do they? No, Rodrigo, everybody comes and he tells a story and, uh, maybe his relationship with his wife. Maybe his relationship to you, like with everybody who talks about you. And so that was nice. I heard, well, I went, I was there, but I heard previous ones. You have to stand up the whole time, but he actually let everybody sit down. Yeah. Thank goodness. Everybody that trained her. I'm tall. My back hurts when I stand for an hour. Oh, don't blame it. Cause you're tall. Does your back hurt? Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. It's the floor. That's why we need those anti-fatigue mats, right? People at Costco have them. Anti-fatigue mats? Yeah. Yeah. You haven't seen people? No. What's that? Trust me. When we do like trade shows for work and stuff, if, if you don't have like padded carpet, they put these anti-fatigue mats under them so you can stand so your back doesn't hurt. Weird. Next time you go to, you go to, you go to Costco? No. No? You? Not in a long time. Where do you go? Uh, Walmart. Walmart? People watching. People. The people of Walmart. You gotta go people watching. I go there and I go like, what's going on in this store? Like you can buy everything in that store. That's weird. Well, I don't, I don't go much. They do have good deals though. My wife tends to sneak out to Walmart in the middle of the night because the one by our house is 24 hours. Is it? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I just wake up and there's like Walmart bags in the morning, like Christmas time. Yeah, part of it. Crazy stuff. Hey, so I know, I know we talk about jujitsu because that's, you know, obviously we've got some correlation to lineage where we train, but I know you, uh, you do a lot of art too, right? I do. I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you give that out for people? www.sheseemedlikesuchanicegirl.com. Wow. But what kind of art do you do? Obviously, I mean, you look at this place, it's all a bunch of art everywhere. You got Zach DeLaRocha right there looking at you behind you. Yeah, I don't do figurative art. I do art that I draw from what Jung would say your unconscious. So imagery that comes to me through looking at the paint. Are you off drugs when you do this? Yeah. Yeah, so non-representational work. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, you guys have pretty big canvases too, right? I think you had a canvas that was... 76 by 76. Yeah. Yeah, it's my height. Yeah, that's big. How do you ship that? You take it off the store. Oh, you do? I don't know. Were you planning to ship a big piece of artwork or something? No, she had it up there. I was like, well, how do you, you know, I mean, it's got to cost a lot of money to ship it. It would. Yeah. I mean, because it's still tall. I mean, so. And you say you're working on your degree. And is that what you wanted to do full time after school? You wanted artwork or? Yeah, it would be a dream to be able to support myself with my artwork. Usually artists have to have another gig going. So, but that's something I'd like to do is keep on with the painting. Yeah. And now that you're back, well, have you ever thought of teaching or do you teach? Any of the classes? Rodrigo asked me if I wanted to come to Hong Kong. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that would be, that would be an interesting opportunity. Thinking about it? Yeah. Why not? I want my life to be like a movie. I want to be the star of my own movie and like live different places and do different things. And definitely Hong Kong could be in the works. You can sell some art over there too. Maybe China is the hotspot for art right now. Is it really? Mm-hmm. Why is that? It's just, it happens from time to time, different places. It was the it place in Berlin for a while. Now it's China. Oh. Yeah. I don't know. I guess I should read up on my art culture. Yeah. I just thought they'd have a little five-year-old painting over there or something in a factory. And throughout your training, have you tried anything else like striking or have you thought, had any thoughts of MMA or anything like that? I used to box at Henzo's and I loved that. I got really huge shoulders from doing that and I really liked the punching. But then they took out the boxing ring. And out here, I realized that when I'm training two things like boxing and jiu-jitsu, then I don't really improve. And so if I wanted to improve, I'd have to stick to one. Yeah. Even though, why is that though? I mean. I just felt like they're both sports were so technical that to get good, I'd have to practice like at least four to five times a week. And if you're splitting that up, it's just not enough. So do you, what do you, in jiu-jitsu, do you drill a lot? Yeah. And then like sort of moves that you like or? Mostly just go to class. Yeah. Just whatever. Yeah. So you don't try to find stuff that works. Like obviously, cause I always try to find moves that work within my body style. Cause some stuff I'm not pulling off a flying triangle or arm bar or anything like that. I would like to learn that. I would like to drill that one. You would? Yeah. That's going to be hard to find a partner though. That's my next goal. I know. We can practice on you after. I need to find someone really large who also won't let me fall on my head when I do that. It's not me. It's me. Where's big Q when you need him? Yeah. We got a buddy at our academy. How big is Q? I think you've met him before. He's like 6'5", 260. So he'd be perfect. He'd be perfect. Well, let's give him a shout out for me. I'm going to call him right now. I know. He, I think, I think he, he was on there at Rodrigo's. He was there a few times. The last time we were down there, he was, Noguera and Junior DeSantis were visiting and he got to roll with both of them for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's one of our regular training partners. That guy's like, he takes every class at the academy, doesn't he? Every single, even from the white belt classes, he takes every class. You can learn a lot from the white belt classes. You can never stop learning. The white belt classes are sometimes the best because it's like back to basics. Yeah. Back to basics. And they, you know, they do a lot of, a lot of drilling on certain moves that you forget. I don't know. I'd take it, but I don't have the time. Too busy running. Not too busy running. Too busy running. Making energy drinks. There's one right there. Monster. Oh wow. Sorry. Water. Water. So how, how did it go in Abu Dhabi? How was that? Was that the first time you were out there? Oh no, that's actually, it was just the trials. Oh, okay. Oh, that was the one in San Diego? Yeah. You mean? Oh, okay. Yeah. And are you going to the, the big tournament? It's the same time as my thesis exhibition. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. Total dream. In Central America, I'm huge. I'm not huge anyway. It's okay. I embrace it. That's why I train jiu-jitsu, because I'm small. Because you're small? Yeah. All right. All right, Helio here. Well, I wasn't always small. What happened? Well, I mean, everyone knows the story. I got into, I started training when I was 30, and I walked in the door 260 pounds. Really? And got triangled my first day, and I said, I better learn. Yeah, a girl triangled me my first day. I go, what's she doing? Wait, she's wrapping her legs around my head. What's going on here? And I got introduced to the triangle choke my first day. That's awesome. And I just realized, you know, I have to learn this, and I dropped weight by just going and training. So you were really fat? Yeah. I was always fat. That's good. So how did you lose the weight? Just through training, training, training? Yeah. We just fell in love with the sport and just wanted to train all the time. Wow. Kudos to you. And just having fun and just training like a crazy person. Yeah, pretty much. What does it feel like to have this new body? It makes me want to train actually more. I just, now that I'm able, you know, to move better and more flexible, and I actually, it still seems like I'm still excited about the sport as I was on my first day. I'm still, you know, excited to keep training and keep moving up and one day earn my black belt and keep going and going and going. That's great. Hopefully, as long as I'm physically able, I'm going to keep doing this. Nice. Or as long as my wife lets me. There's always stuff to learn in the sport, though. That's the great thing. Even though when you think you know something great, like, it's always something, right? Yeah. Or at least a defense to that thing that you thought was so great. Yeah. And now everyone knows the move you do, so you got to do something different. Yeah. So that's what I mean. I'm always, like, having fun. I'm always having jiu-jitsu fantasies, too, about, like, move. That's the next show. All right. Tell us one of your jiu-jitsu fantasies. Oh, just, like, being able to. Flying triangle? Yeah, flying triangle. That's my fantasy. That's my current fantasy. I'm sure. What's your jiu-jitsu fantasy? Man, I don't know if I got one. Yes, you do. Everybody does. Well, I don't know. Is there a move that you're really known for that you pull off a lot in tournaments? Is there something that you do a lot? I really favor the triangle. You do? Yes. You get a lot of people in that? I do. Hey, listen, somebody sent me a question. They want me to ask you. Yeah. How come Dylan Dearborn is so good at jiu-jitsu? Oh, he's lying now because he said just playing. Dylan is good at jiu-jitsu. Dylan's a friend of mine. I like him very much. I just rolled with him the other day. He's very technical. He's very strong. Was that Dylan that asked? Probably. He is. Do you get to do a lot of rolling with Ox? Oh, Ox. Yeah, I love Ox. Infinity. Ox is great. Ox is strong. I was rolling with Ox the other day, and he was so strong it was a little scary. Yeah, I've seen him and Johnny roll. It seemed like two hours nonstop. They just were both of them. We still got to get back to this jiu-jitsu fantasy. Ox and I fantasize about what our... What's going on? What would the jiu-jitsu powers would be? What would they be? Well, just like being able to... That's like jiu-jitsu superpowers, like where you just like touch people and they would not be able to defend like whatever you do. Just very silly things. No, come on. There's got to be another one. Like an unbreakable grip or something? Well, we haven't really gotten specific about it, but we just sort of have crazy talk together. Okay. Now that he is speaking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did a little movie about Ox when I first went to the academy for one of my film classes at school. Maybe I'll put that online. Okay. Yeah. Oh, wow. And yeah, you were there when he had that vow of silence, huh? I came there just after he broke his vow of silence. Oh, okay. Yeah. He had a lot of dogs with him. And so I did a story about him in prison and stuff. Hey. What are you guys giggling about? Rich's wife said my fantasy is to get my brown belt. What a hater. Are you purple? No. What are you? I'm a eight stripe blue belt. Oh. Sexy. Super sexy. Looking like one of the... No, it's a blue belt, dude. It's got eight stripes on it. No, I'm a purple belt. That's the best belt. It is, right? Yeah. I've been hearing that a lot. Yeah. I've been hearing that a lot that you get a lot from that belt. Yeah. Purple belt is great. Yeah. Yeah. I hear all these stories say... It can be your longest belt or your shortest belt depending on... Because some people say if you have your belt for a super short time, then you'll be a brown belt forever. Right? Or if you have your purple belt a super long time, then you usually have your brown belt for a shorter period of time. What's super long? Like four years? I don't know. At our place, who knows? Yeah, exactly. We're kind of... We're on the same... Well, I'm sure you know we're on the same program. So we got to compete and we got to do a lot of things. But I guess I was a little... You know, nervous after getting my purple. And now, you know, I'm getting more and more excited. People are telling me, you know, how exciting that belt is and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still in a little bit of shock over mine. See, at least I got some backup from my buddy Brandon on San Diego. Shout out to Brandon. He said his fantasy is a brown belt too. Yeah. Now I just put him on blast. He's going to send me something else back. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's all right. We don't have to have goals, right? No. No? Yours was a black belt. Yeah. I'm very goal-oriented. So for me, I wanted to get my graduate degree. I wanted to get my black belt. So I'm coming up to the end of those things. So it's time to set new goals. You're going to get a master's master? That's a joke. They don't have that. I know. Yeah. So what are you going to do then when you're done with school? Okay. Obviously, you can have a lot more free time. Yeah. Thought about what you can do with all that free time? I have to reevaluate things. Yeah. Maybe move. Maybe move to Hong Kong. Maybe move to Hong Kong. Maybe move somewhere. I don't know. They're going to love you out there. Yeah. You're going to be like the Bob Sapp of Hong Kong. You know? Bob Sapp. Bob Sapp went to Japan and he was just like this tall, big guy. And so like, you know, they marketed him. So everywhere you go, you'd go and you'd get like Bob Sapp wall clocks. Bob Sapp. He was so tall. He's like a cartoon character. Yeah. Because he was so different from everybody. Like he's so tall, you know? Oh, yeah. How tall? Bob Sapp? Yeah. I don't know. Let me look it up. Just look up his fight with Noguera. And it's just, it's an amazing fight. Yeah. Him and Noguera in Pride. Who won? Who did? Actually, Noguera won, didn't he? For what? Probably. I think Bob Sapp lost every fight. Yeah. No, I think Noguera beat him. But I mean, Noguera took a beating in that fight. It was a crazy fight. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, listen. I think we got like... Eight minutes. I don't know where our clock's at. Six minutes. Oh, six minutes. So I don't know if... Because last time we got cut off. So I don't know if we can just go through the spills and throw out all your websites and stuff like that. Yeah. Is there anyone you want to thank that helps you with your training or any things you have coming up, like an art show or something you want to promote? Well, I'd just like to thank all my brothers and sisters at BDJ Revolution. They've really helped me a lot. And of course... Rodrigo and then at Alfredo's Academy. That's been really great. I work with Ariel there a lot and he helps me with privates. And my friend Harlan lets me abuse him and try out all my stuff and I end up hurting him a lot. So he definitely deserves a shout out. If you want to check out my artwork, it's www.sheseemedlikesuchanicegirl.com. And my art show, I'll put that on Facebook, is April 14th. I'm having a big... It's my... It's my art show slash black belt party. Oh, coming up. Oh, where in San Diego? San Diego State University. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. Maybe we should take a trip down there. By the way, Bob Sapp is 6'4". Okay, so not that big. Take a trip and then we can go party down in Gaslamp after. Yeah, why don't you? Yeah, why not? Oh, I love San Diego. Everyone knows I love San Diego. So how are you going to do an art show and a black belt party? Just have a big party. Yeah. It's a big party. Going to have food there? Going to have food. Going to have music. Going to have, like... Art? Art. Yeah. Naturally. I'm going to have my mannequin of myself there. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. It was an art... Did you make that? No, this artist did it. Oh, okay. It's a cast of my body going like this. It's making muscle. Yeah. And so it's a total two-proportion life-size mannequin of me flexing. Just a bit narcissistic. That's kind of crazy. I guess you can just stick it in your window or something in case. So I'll have her there. You should use that for carpool. That's what you do. It's a good idea. Right? My doppelganger. And then when you get pulled up, you'll be like, it's my twin. What are you going to say? She's quiet. She's quiet. The quiet one. She's sleeping with her eyes open. So they made that for you. That's pretty... It looks real. Yeah. Except for the tone. The tone's a little off. The tone? The color. Like the skin color, right? She's whiter. Yeah. Yeah. She's stuck back in the old country or something. So how'd they do that? Did you have to go out there and pose for it and sketch it out? Yeah. I was plaster cast. That's really hard, actually. I think you have a picture of when they did your face, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I was afraid that they were going to like put like things up my nose and suffocate me. You just have to hold your breath for that? You have. You can breathe through your nose. Oh, you could. They put little holes for a vent or something? Yeah. Oh, okay. It does look kind of scary, though. Yeah. It's a little bit scary. And it's so intense, too. And then when you stand and you have your legs plastered, you can't move at all. So actually not moving is really painful. Huh. If you can't move a muscle for like 30, 40 minutes. Wow. That long? Yeah. It makes you want to faint. You figured they'd get an epoxy that cures faster for that. It's really slow. Yeah. It's like when they do your mouth guard and they stick that stuff in your mouth and you can't breathe for a second. Yeah. I think it tastes ugly, too. I don't know. I wear a mouth guard because I don't want to ruin my teeth. You have nice teeth. Thank you. All natural. A mouth guard is cheaper than dental work. It is. I just, I don't know. Do you wear a mouth guard or no? Yeah. You do? Yeah. Did you get yours molded, too? I just use those cheap ones. Put them in water and it's like black. Bite and boil, right? Bite and boil, yeah. It looks terrible. We'll give you a number two good mouth guard guy after. Yeah. There's nothing like a custom mouth guard. After you get your face plastered, when they do your teeth, it's nothing. But it's weird because they, you know, they fill the mold and they stick it in your mouth and you got to hold your breath for like 30 seconds. And then. Does he get like a gold tooth on it? Actually, yeah, mine does have a gold tooth on it. I know. Remember you were rocking the Arlovsky fangs on yours? I had fangs, too. But the one I have now. The one I have now has got a gold tooth. Classy. Super classy. Stay classy, San Diego. Well, everybody, we're just about to close the show. I want to thank everybody for tuning in. And this show will be available on iTunes within the next couple of days for download. And we will see you next time. Bye. We'll post the links on our Facebook page. And stay tuned next week. We do have another guest. Actually, we're going to have Ron Yakman Yakavetti coming in studio. So you guys don't want to miss that. And stay tuned to our Facebook page. Krell, you got anything else? Yeah, and I just want to say thanks, Emily, for sharing some of your life stories. Thanks for having me. Driving all the way out here. And we'll set Richard up so you can punch him in the hallway. Maybe we can get the camera. Or if we can put that on YouTube. Hey, get the camera. I'll let her do a flying triangle on me. Put a hole in the wall. You don't have to let me. I'll do it myself. I don't know. I'm a wrestler. Be careful. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for coming. And if, you know, anything else you want to promote close to the show, we'll make sure we'll put up your links on our Facebook page. Anyone out there you want to get in touch with Emily or take a look at her artwork, check out the links that we're going to post up there. And thanks for tuning in, everybody. Yeah. We'll see you later. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. We'll be right back.