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Eliot Marshall:

What's up everyone, welcome to the Black Belt Business Podcast. I'm your host, Elliot Marshall, and it is my goal with each episode of this podcast to share the stories, strategies, tactics, tools and resources that will help you establish or grow your martial arts school. The Black Belt Business Podcast is brought to you by Easton Online. You can find all of our digital courses, martial arts curriculums and resources designed to help you enhance your business at Easton.online. So without further ado, let's jump into the episode.

Eliot Marshall:

All right, guys, here we are, back another episode, Easton Online podcast. First, we're going to try to pre-congratulate Phipps, Jordan, for two things. By the time this airs, he'll probably have fought and won.

Jordan Shipman:

Hell yeah. Yes.

Eliot Marshall:

And he's really hoping his Detroit Lions are Super Bowl champs.

Jordan Shipman:

Let's go.

Eliot Marshall:

They're in the Anderson Championship game right now.

Phipps:

Yeah, they won't be champ... Actually by the time this airs. Yeah, hopefully.

Eliot Marshall:

Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully.

Jordan Shipman:

All right.

Eliot Marshall:

I don't think it's going to happen. I think Lamar's balling out too much right now, Phipps.

Phipps:

The league likes KC.

Eliot Marshall:

What's that?

Phipps:

The league loves KC.

Eliot Marshall:

Look, let's be super clear here on this KC. Let's talk about some important things first.

Phipps:

Yes, I understand.

Eliot Marshall:

Okay. Let's be super clear on this KC thing. I feel really, really bad because I'm a Patrick Mahomes fan. I really liked Travis Kelsey. I love Andy Reed. I appreciate what Taylor Swift has done with her life and she's done a great job, but this Travis Kelsey fucking Taylor Swift thing, it's gotta stop. I don't want to see it when I watch football.

Jordan Shipman:

I don't really follow it and it permeates my universe, which tells me a lot about how ridiculous it is.

Eliot Marshall:

I am rooting against Kansas City, because of that relationship. I want anyone to win. I really just need the Ravens to win. Because if they make it to the Super Bowl, it's just going to be a Taylor Swift Super Bowl.

Phipps:

They're going to change the halftime show.

Eliot Marshall:

Of course they are.

Jordan Shipman:

Poor Usher. He's going to be performing and they're just going to cut to Taylor Swift.

Eliot Marshall:

He performs, look at Taylor Swift up there. He performs, look at Taylor Swift up there.

Jordan Shipman:

He ought to just get her incorporated into the show to just solve the problem.

Eliot Marshall:

No, no. The problem will be fucking solved if the Ravens and Lamar take care of business on Sunday.

Jordan Shipman:

Got it.

Eliot Marshall:

That's really all I care about.

Jordan Shipman:

Got it.

Eliot Marshall:

More than anything.

Jordan Shipman:

I'm going to tune in just because I like this drama.

Eliot Marshall:

Oh, it's so annoying. And I like them all. I don't dislike Taylor Swift. I don't listen to her music. Let's be clear. Her music is fucking God-awful to me. It's God-awful, but I can appreciate what she's done.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, no, I mean she's a boss. Billionaire.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, billionaire. Amazing. Amazing. So incredible.

Jordan Shipman:

I listened to some of her songs on my playlist.

Eliot Marshall:

You like them?

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, some of them. Not all of them.

Phipps:

She's got some bangers.

Eliot Marshall:

I do like that with age. As you age, I love some Christina Aguilera, 'Beautiful', I love that song.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, I appreciate that song.

Eliot Marshall:

I love it.

Jordan Shipman:

But yeah, no, some old school like Christina.

Eliot Marshall:

But I like hip hop.

Jordan Shipman:

Back in her Xtina phase, what I used to dance to in college.

Eliot Marshall:

Hip hop is my genre.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, me too.

Eliot Marshall:

But I can appreciate some shit from a genre that I don't like and really... But when you were younger, when you were 20 at that age, no way, man, you couldn't.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah. It was part of your identity. You only listened to your genre and to listen to anything else was a betrayal of your tribe.

Eliot Marshall:

All right, let's talk non-important stuff.

Jordan Shipman:

Right.

Eliot Marshall:

The school stuff.

Jordan Shipman:

Okay. Got it. The important stuff is out of the way.

Eliot Marshall:

The important stuff is out of the way.

Jordan Shipman:

Now let's get to the ridiculous.

Eliot Marshall:

Phipps is cutting weight and might not smile the whole podcast. So we are talking about these things that really, really help you run your school. Just as a remember, recap, we've talked about core values and these bigger picture ideas like DHS and program directors and passing information down. And as we think about it again, that stuff for us is very, very important because we have eight now. And by the way, God damn, Lowry is beautiful. I went last week.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, Lowry looks great.

Eliot Marshall:

Oh my God.

Phipps:

All the new branding is up.

Eliot Marshall:

Oh my God.

Phipps:

It already looked good and when I was down there on the opening day and they didn't have the wall mats or anything, so it was still...

Jordan Shipman:

I'm going there next week and I haven't seen the new walnut mats or anything

Eliot Marshall:

It's AOJ worthy.

Phipps:

Yeah, it's amazing.

Jordan Shipman:

Oh, beautiful. Awesome.

Phipps:

It's definitely the new standard. I'd love to see us circle back on the other academies and update them to look more like-

Eliot Marshall:

Nah man, Denver stays the way it is. Don't even think about it. Don't even think about it. No way. I mean I appreciate Lowry. Without a doubt. I one hundred percent appreciate Lowry, but nah dog.

Jordan Shipman:

When I was watching kids in Denver a couple weeks ago and the kids classes take place in that octagon, I'm like, "Man, if we're going to have the kids classes in the cage, they ought to be able to just wrestle off the cage." If they're going to run into the cage, then let's start standing up against the cage. Let's start trying to do take downs off the cage. Why not? It's there. They're going to run into it anyway.

Eliot Marshall:

I haven't told Mike this, but I think I sold the cage yesterday.

Jordan Shipman:

Oh, cool. Well that's glorious.

Eliot Marshall:

That'll be good.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, that'll be really good.

Phipps:

We should get a ring.

Eliot Marshall:

Huh?

Phipps:

We should get a ring.

Eliot Marshall:

No.

Jordan Shipman:

Dude, our insurance skyrockets with a boxing ring. I found that out. Mike shared that with us and I was like, "Whoa." It's ridiculous.

Eliot Marshall:

Because they think you're going to do full contact.

Jordan Shipman:

Something. Well, there's been a lot of boxing incidents and so the insurance premiums on a boxing ring-

Eliot Marshall:

Because they think you're going to do full contact.

Jordan Shipman:

Okay, yeah.

Eliot Marshall:

Full contact sparring. No martial arts school says that they're full contact sparring unless they have a boxing ring, and if they have a boxing ring -- so that's the thing.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, but I agree it would be great for our Muay Thai program if we could have that ring. But holy crap.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah. I'm going to veto that. Sorry, I love you. I'm joking.

Jordan Shipman:

Sorry, I'm not familiar.

Eliot Marshall:

Nobody laughed. It was just, "Fuck you."

Jordan Shipman:

He's just like, "I don't like this veto power."

Phipps:

No, it's cool. It's like every time I get in the ring it's like, "Oh, this is interesting. I'm not really used to the ropes or the corners, but we'll figure it out as we go."

Jordan Shipman:

You're like, "Do I bounce off these? Do I close-line somebody?"

Eliot Marshall:

It's how fighting was though, we never knew what you were going to fight in.

Phipps:

Exactly, it could be the alleyway, it could be a dumpster right there.

Eliot Marshall:

No, I'm talking fighting. When I came up and fighting, sometimes a ring, sometimes a cage, sometimes this squared thing. It was fucking weird.

Phipps:

Yeah, they still do that.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, so sometimes, right?

Phipps:

Mm-hmm.

Eliot Marshall:

All right, so the things we need to run a school and I want to talk curriculum to start. Because I think this is somewhere where people lack in these really, really massive ways. We're going to start off with this statement and it's going to be a little controversial. No one's going to like hearing this, your ability to do jiu-jitsu and your ability to teach jiu-jitsu well to your students in an organized fashion that they actually pick up and learn, and you attract more people to, and people will stay with it. The two are not connected even a little bit. If you can do it versus the teaching of it and structuring a curriculum in the class, they're not even a touch connected. You could be really, really, really good at jiu-jitsu and I'm going to say most likely you teach it like shit.

Jordan Shipman:

And conversely, you can be an excellent teacher, but you don't have a single accolade to your name.

Eliot Marshall:

You can not have a single accolade, but you still have to be able to do it. Same with Muay Thai, you can't suck. You can't suck. You might not have ever fought or competed or anything like that, like Danaher, but he doesn't suck at jiu-jitsu.

Jordan Shipman:

No, he doesn't.

Eliot Marshall:

The stat skillset must transfer. It has to transfer the other way. You can't be a great teacher and be shitty at doing it.

Jordan Shipman:

Right.

Phipps:

I think we should, with the curriculum discussion.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, there's two things. But go ahead.

Phipps:

What is your goal as a school owner? If it's just to teach people martial arts and you're not trying to grow your business. Do you need a curriculum? No, because eventually if a student stays with you for 10 years, whether you did this in a systematic way or you just teach a random technique every day.

They'll get solid at jiu-jitsu, because they stayed. But most students won't stay because they don't feel themselves getting better. Even after five years, it's, if you have a curriculum in place, those students are going to get much better, much faster, and then the students are going to stay because they can feel that. That's one of your retention, ability to retain students is them noticing their own progress. So is your goal just to teach jiu-jitsu or is your goal to have a business?

Eliot Marshall:

I think that's one of the biggest things with it. I think that's the biggest retention tool. They have to notice their progress. And all the other stuff is secondary, community, retention, calling them, all that other stuff is secondary. But if they're not getting better and if they can't feel that they're getting better, they're leaving. And I think what you're getting here, Phipps, and tell me if this is wrong, Gordon Ryan was going to get good regardless.

Regardless. Because he's going to go train three times a day, every day and he's going to get good. I was going to get good and I'm nowhere near Gordon Ryan. I did the same thing. I trained two to three times a day, every day. I got good. I got very good. We're talking about the two to three day a week hobbyist, What you're saying is running a business and growing it. So rather than are you just going to build world champions, it's two different things. You've got to realize that.

Phipps:

Yeah. And it's even, because in martial arts there's still a very old mentality with a lot of people where it's like, "Well, if you're not going to stick with it, then I'm not worried about how good you can get."

Eliot Marshall:

You have to be loyal to me.

Phipps:

Yeah, exactly. So it's easy to say, "I don't need a curriculum in place, because if this student stays with me for 10 years, they're going to get good." And that's true. But most students aren't going to stay with you for 10 years, especially if they don't feel like they're getting better. So it's that, I don't need to worry about these students who aren't going to be here for 10 years mentality. Which again, if you feel that way, that's a way you can approach running your school. But you probably are struggling to stay over a hundred students.

Eliot Marshall:

And get off the podcast because we're not that funny. This isn't an entertainment podcast. We're not like Joe Rogan Experience where it's like, oh, I'm going to try to entertain people and maybe educate. But yeah, so we're not that podcast. So just turn it off now. Thanks for the download.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah. So Phipps, to clarify what you're saying, you're saying that if your goal as a martial arts school owner, because some school owners, they're content with 100, 150 students and they're making money. And they don't want to deal with the headaches or problems that come along with growth or scale. We are friends with school owners who are content with where they are and they're not really looking to increase the revenue.

Eliot Marshall:

But they have curriculum.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, sure they have curriculum. But I guess my point is, you're saying that if your goal is to maintain the status quo, hover around that way. You can probably do it without a curriculum because you can teach your students and then you can groom new instructors over a decade and then they can take over for you. But if your goal is to grow and scale, maybe you want more than one school. And I think we probably even work with some people who have more than one school, but they still don't have a curriculum, which is an interesting discussion.

Eliot Marshall:

None of our clients don't have curriculum. 

Jordan Shipman:

Got it. But to do that, I think that's where a curriculum becomes absolutely necessary. Like Alex, a couple of things I want to touch on. One, did Mike message you all about what he read in that Adam Grant book, 'Hidden Potential'? I haven't read the book yet. I have it on my shelf, but I just haven't gotten to it yet. So what he messaged all the program directors once, because this really jazzed him up about our model, was there's all this research and all these case studies where the research shows that beginners are not most skillfully taught by experts, because the gap between the beginner and the expert is so vast that the expert has lost touch with where the beginner is.

And I remember teaching fundamentals as a blue belt and one, I think a lot of new instructors or blue belt instructors may struggle a little bit with imposter syndrome or they're overinflated in their own abilities. One of those two things. I definitely oscillated between the two, that's for sure.

But I remember having these epiphanies where it was like I would revisit the fundamentals curriculum as a blue belt, and I'm like, "Oh my God, I didn't realize that I could get this kimora every time they tried to pummel escape me from the bottom of side control." And having those epiphanies made me a more skillful teacher at that level, because I was more connected to where those beginners were. Not so much, I would like to believe not so much now, because what I'm more interested in this stage of my martial arts journey is more about strategy and tactics. How am I chaining the moves together and where is the overall meta at? It is just a different phase of my journey. And so it's a little bit harder for me to relate to beginners, because sometimes those beginners are so excited about getting a tap. They've got notches on their bedpost, where I'm not...

I don't want to incriminate myself here, but man, sometimes how I get to the submission is more interesting to me than the submission itself at this point. I like that creativity. So I think that's really interesting. But thinking about that though, what enables a blue belt to teach beginners is a curriculum. And this comes to my other point. Alex and I were talking about this, because we've been going through, for months now we've been working on curriculum projects that we're getting ready to shoot with Phipps and execute and all this stuff. So we've talked a lot about this, but we talked about the fact that when we opened our Longmont school or what coach Daniel is going through in Lowry right now. Purple belts opening a school, what enables that to happen? And what enables that to happen is that we have these developed curriculums, because we don't have to rely-

Eliot Marshall:

Let's be clear, there is a black belt at the school.

Jordan Shipman:

There is a black belt at the school. Yeah. I'm not saying that there wasn't.

Phipps:

Not always though, right?

Jordan Shipman:

Not always.

Eliot Marshall:

Not always. But we won't do it.

Jordan Shipman:

Not always.

Phipps:

We're alone in Longmont.

Eliot Marshall:

We won't do it.

Jordan Shipman:

After seeing how Jordan fucked that up, we are never having a school without a black belt again.

Eliot Marshall:

I wouldn't say how you fucked it up, but I was super clear with Mike that I think we have enough black belts and we're good enough. It just doesn't look good. And the problem was the pandemic. There were black belts scheduled that we're supposed to be teaching there. We're not saying not run a school, that's fine, but the head instructor has to be a black belt.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, no, I think, exactly.

Eliot Marshall:

And no offense to you whatsoever.

Jordan Shipman:

No, it's fine. But what enabled me to do that without a black belt there and maintain the quality of the martial art was the curriculum that was developed by black belts. Because then it's not relying on me as the repository and encyclopedia of knowledge. I'm simply executing what I have learned from those who've come before me.

Phipps:

Absolutely. And that goes back to what do you want out of your school? Because some instructors are going to be happy teaching 20, 30 classes and they make 50, $60,000 a year, they don't need a bigger student base. But other instructors and other school owners, what looking for is to eventually have freedom where you could teach 20 classes a week or you could teach two, and that doesn't change your income any. If you're going to do that, then you have to have a curriculum in place so you can trust a blue belt to teach fundamentals. Or you can hand off an intermediate class to a purple belt and still ensure that there's a quality of instruction going on. And obviously you're going to train these people up, but you know that they're teaching the techniques correctly, because they're looking at the same thing you are and they're using the same terminology that you are as well.

And also Jordan was one of the best blue belt fundamental instructors, and I would probably still be at Easton, but I would not have signed up on day one if I didn't walk into a fundamentals class as a blue belt and Jordan was teaching. I was like, "How does this blue belt know jiu-jitsu like this?" It was amazing. So that speaks to the curriculum as well and how amazing Coach Jordan is. But just to see that as a blue belt coming from a different school, I was like, "I can't talk about jiu-jitsu the way this guy's talking about jiu-jitsu, I have to train here."

Eliot Marshall:

A great point. And that comes to curriculum. That comes to curriculum, because all of our teachers spread that down well. Because when we film, we don't just show a move. We're not just like, "Okay, this is an arm bar." I think they're like 15, 20 minutes each.

Jordan Shipman:

Some of them.

Eliot Marshall:

Where it's... Because you really in your curriculum, the person needs to understand the why. Why am I doing it like this? No human, adult human, really works that well in the, "Just do this." Just do this. And even when a coach is training you to fight and they put you through hell and it doesn't make sense sometimes. I can remember when Greg Jackson used to make fucking us walk the fucking ledge of a mountain with somebody on our back, where if you slip, you're falling to your death. Literally. But afterwards I was like, "Greg, why the fuck would you make us do that?" He's like, "I need to get you good with your death. That's what it takes to step into a cage. And if you can't get good with death, you're always going to be held back." That was part of his philosophy.

You don't have to agree with why, it has nothing to do, but knowing the why is really good. Same thing with the curriculum, and that's why Jordan was able to teach so well. Is because he had all this base, this data, sorry, this database to look at and be like, "Okay, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." So we are massive believers of a curriculum. I disagree with a little bit of what you guys said. I think you should have a curriculum regardless whether you're happy at 150 or not, you should have a curriculum.

Jordan Shipman:

Oh, well, I agree with that. I guess I meant that I think that-

Eliot Marshall:

It can be done.

Jordan Shipman:

You can find a level of success without one, and maybe that's what you want. I'm not saying that I think it's the most skillful expression of anything.

Eliot Marshall:

Okay. That's what I was saying. Then it was my misinterpretation of it. This happens a lot.

Jordan Shipman:

No. No.

Phipps:

Wow, crazy.

Jordan Shipman:

I had no idea.

Eliot Marshall:

I let Phipps just say you were a good blue belt teacher, bro. Why did you have to come at me like that?

Jordan Shipman:

There were times where you thought I was a good blue belt instructor too.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, I know. I agree, you were.

Jordan Shipman:

Cool, thanks.

Eliot Marshall:

We're all just talking shit right now.

Jordan Shipman:

All right, good. Good, good, good.

Eliot Marshall:

We have to entertain the people that-

Jordan Shipman:

That's true.

Eliot Marshall:

Don't want to grow their business. They have to still download the podcast.

Jordan Shipman:

I have a question for you. Why do you think, because I do, this is again, this is something that Professor Alex and I talked a lot about, how there are some schools though, some black belts world champions who are vehemently opposed to a curriculum? They see it as a stifling thing. They see it as, they think that jiu-jitsu is so creative and evolves so quickly that they're opposed to it.

Eliot Marshall:

I was going to use the earth-is-flat example, but that left and came back. Some people think the earth is 4,000 years old. I have no fucking clue.

Phipps:

I will say that this happens in any industry or any avenue -- "This is the way I was taught and it worked for me. I did it without a curriculum and it worked for me and I'm a world champion, or I'm just a black belt." And that is a level of achievement. So if it worked for me, it can work for everybody else.

Eliot Marshall:

That's what I was going with, the earth is 4,000 years old. My great, great, great, great grandfather thought that the earth was 4,000 years old, because the information they had at the time, and then therefore you just move it. You just keep moving that theory down the line. So I think that and when he made it and he's successful and he was whatever. And it's just that.

Jordan Shipman:

Well, I was curious what you guys thought. And then part of why I think it is too, is because it's hard. I think actually.

Eliot Marshall:

Oh, it's way more work.

Jordan Shipman:

I think it's a lot of work. It's really, really hard. Just the process of writing and revising the kids' intermediate curriculum that we're going to do, which is it's going to be a separate gi and no gi curriculum, and it's 33 units, which means it's 66 weeks long. So it's take about 16 months to get through, which is good for the kids. But it was hard, I think between me sitting down and putting my ass in the chair and squeezing my brain, and doing research, and looking at the curriculums we had before as a jumping off point, and then revising it with Alex. I think we spent like 50 hours writing it.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, it's incredible.

Jordan Shipman:

And we haven't even shot the damn thing yet. And then I'm estimating how many days of shooting it's going to take us to complete both curriculums. And I think it might take 44 days of two hour sessions to get it done.

Eliot Marshall:

We did it during COVID. We did almost all the curriculums that we have right now, we did during COVID. Because what the fuck else did we have to do?

Jordan Shipman:

And then there's the added headache of once you build all this, actually getting the instructors to do it, distributing it. It has taken us years to get to our curriculum delivery system that we have now. I think it's very smooth right now, but it took some iterations to get there. But even then with the smoothest delivery, you still have people that put their own spin on it somehow or don't pay attention and a whole other discussion almost.

Eliot Marshall:

I want to back up though.

Jordan Shipman:

Sure.

Eliot Marshall:

And I want talk about what the, let's get into the specifics for a school. This is what we think your curriculum should look like. Because we talked about the overview here of whys and the blah blah, blah. But okay, what's the cadence of your curriculums? What's the structure of the actual class in the curriculum? So that somebody listening right now could go and go, "Okay, just do start doing this." So the cadence. Let's start at the easiest cadence, advanced.

Jordan Shipman:

Okay.

Eliot Marshall:

You get to choose, right?

Jordan Shipman:

It's more organic.

Eliot Marshall:

We don't have a written curriculum for advanced, but we focus on the same thing for minimum a month. Passing the open guard in this style, toreando style passing of the open guard. Leg locks, leg locks, when I do leg locks, it's going to be, it's two to three months, like guaranteed two to three months. It's not the same leg lock. But it's two to three months of leg locks. That's my cadence. And I, as the advanced instructor, get to choose and we allow that at all of the schools. The advanced instructor has a little freedom, instructor's choice, that you look at the students, you watch them train, what do they need, and then you go from there. But it does not rotate quickly.

Jordan Shipman:

Correct.

Eliot Marshall:

Okay. Now let's go to the other end of the spectrum, fundamentals. We do a one-week rotating curriculum. We do not separate A class B class. We did this. Were you guys rounding for this?

Jordan Shipman:

No.

Eliot Marshall:

No. Okay. So we used to do Monday, Tuesday, this. Wednesday, Thursday, B. Monday, Tuesday A technique or A class, class A. Tuesday, Thursday, class B. Friday A, Saturday B.

Jordan Shipman:

How related were the techniques?

Eliot Marshall:

Not at all.

Jordan Shipman:

So they were completely different.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, they could just be random.

Jordan Shipman:

And what was the thinking behind that, why?

Eliot Marshall:

To try to encourage the person to come twice a week minimum.

Jordan Shipman:

Because they would see different things.

Eliot Marshall:

So that they could get each... No, so that they could, if you're not going to see it again on Thursday, what was taught on Tuesday, well, you better come Tuesday and Thursday.

Phipps:

Yeah. So almost gatekeeping techniques to encourage attendance?

Eliot Marshall:

Yes. It was all wrapped around this idea of two to three times, come twice a week. Because you have to see class A and you have to see class B. We disagree with this. We have left this. It's not enough practice. It's not enough practice of the same thing. Now, so ours is a one-week rotating curriculum in fundamentals, and we do that because we want you to see the same thing for a week. That's the cadence of fundamentals.

And then the cadence of intermediate is, excuse me, two weeks with a little more in-depth study of each technique. For example, in fundamentals, you're going to learn how to do an arm bar for a week, and then the next class, let's say you'll learn how to do a triangle. In intermediate, we're going to start to learn how to put the arm bar and the triangle together. Move the arm differently to set it up, not just grab grab, so that you get some real practice.

Fundamentals, we don't show half guard, but if we were to show a half guard sweep, it would be pummel to the back and that's it. Intermediate, it would be pummel to the back, grab the toe, sweep them over the other way, when they start to drive into you. And also when the wizard comes in, pummel to the back, you can't get the back because the wizard's in and you wrestle them down.

Jordan Shipman:

So there's a modicum of if this, then that.

Eliot Marshall:

What the fuck is a modicum?

Jordan Shipman:

It just came out of my mouth, like I a sample, a bit.

Phipps:

We might've added an R into a word that didn't... Modicum.

Jordan Shipman:

Modicum. Yeah, whatever I just said.

Phipps:

Yeah, just a tiny little bit.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah.

Eliot Marshall:

Got it. Okay, cool. I'm dumb. No, it's okay, I'm dumb.

Jordan Shipman:

No, it's not that you're dumb. It's sometimes though, it's like if this happens to me, when I read, I read words and I don't even know how they're said sometimes, but they enter my brain and I remember the context with which I read it, and so then I just say it. I don't even know why I said that word.

Phipps:

I love that. Sometimes I'll just say a word, I'm like, "I don't know if I've ever used that word."

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, exactly. And I don't even know that I've said it right.

Phipps:

I'm only partially sure that I'm using the word correctly. Here it is, slapped on.

Jordan Shipman:

Exactly. Sometimes I'll have to Google words that I said and I'm like, "Did I say that right? Do I even understand what I'm saying?"

Eliot Marshall:

For me, it's why I curse so much, because I don't have a big vocabulary. And you can always put fuck, shit, bitch, motherfucker, all those words.

Jordan Shipman:

Exactly. They're very dynamic words.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah. They can go here and there. And so I'm not going to claim to be intelligent.

Jordan Shipman:

What the is modicum. Yeah. Gossip. Anyway, thank you. That was hilarious.

Eliot Marshall:

I just didn't know. So I was like, "Wait, I need to make sure we are..." So that's the cadence.

Jordan Shipman:

There's some if this, then that in the intermediate level.

Eliot Marshall:

To get them to try to start to think about not just moves, getting to spots. Almost like game theory, getting to a little hub and then like you said, if this, then that. And we're just talking jiu-jitsu here. I do think most of our people that listen to us and pay attention to us are jiu-jitsu people. And they might have a Muay Thai program, but I think they come to us for jiu-jitsu. So I'm going to stick on jiu-jitsu. Sorry, Phipps, you're all right with that?

Phipps:

No, it's fine.

Eliot Marshall:

It's the clientele.

Phipps:

Pretend like there's only one martial arts out there and it'll be...

Eliot Marshall:

So the big thing that we really do with our curriculums is we defeat the floor every class, starting in fundamentals and it flows. It flows. And we never, this is a massive mistake that people do. This is a massive mistake. This is one of the biggest mistakes with curriculum that people do. You show the offense and the defense in the same fucking class.

Jordan Shipman:

The lock and key at the same time.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah. You can't do that. Look, hold on. Defense is always ahead of offense.

Jordan Shipman:

I was just having this discussion yesterday.

Phipps:

Well, especially if it's like my partner's going for an arm bar. I know that, there is no other thing, that's what we're drilling. And I know the arm bar defense, because we just learned that too. So it's, you're really not setting up one person for a whole lot of success.

Eliot Marshall:

And this comes back to retention. You want to feel successful at the thing you learned today. So if you show the offense and the defense, it just doesn't fucking work. And we're not even talking arm, but let's just say mount, we don't show mount offense and mount defense. It's mount offense one week, mount defense maybe the next. That's fine, but not in, never in the same week.

I won't even answer the question if someone asks me how to get out, I say no. If you don't know yet, we're talking fundamentals, we're not talking advanced. I still don't believe it in advance, teaching it, but I'll show whatever if somebody asks me a question. If you don't know how to escape the mount yet, and you come and be like, "Man, how do I get out of the mount?" I'll be like, "It's going to be next week. I want the person on top to be successful this week. So I want you to be successful this week on top. Focus on that." Go ahead.

Phipps:

I'm always happy to show it after class too. I'm like, "Hey, just come talk to me after class."

Eliot Marshall:

After class. Yeah, for sure. But not in class. I'll show anything after class, but not in class.

Phipps:

Yeah. I just wanted to make clear we're not gatekeeping the techniques again to force you to be here next week. I will show you this technique, but that's not the focus of class today.

Jordan Shipman:

Is there ever any exception to that?

Eliot Marshall:

Yes, 50/50.

Jordan Shipman:

Well, what about guard passing in guard work? Would you teach how to pass de la Riva before teaching the students how to utilize de la Riva?

Eliot Marshall:

Go ahead Phipps.

Phipps:

That's the unfortunate part. It's like, last week we learned de la Riva and you didn't come last week, so now you're here. It's, I'm going to try to get you up to speed as much as possible, but I'm not going to worry about making sure you have the right grip.

Eliot Marshall:

That's the retention piece. Yeah, that's the come to class every week. In my opinion, that's why we switched one of the reasons, because it is going to back to back. That's the retention piece. I do believe that the one place that you have to teach both is 50/50, especially in No-Gi because the leg locks feed each other. So much of 50/50, for example, is defending my feet while attacking theirs. So if you can't defend, you can't attack because it's, what I have, you have. So from my classes, that is the one place that I will show both the offense and the defense, but only there.

Jordan Shipman:

And that's very apt, in 50/50 where it's so equal.

Eliot Marshall:

It's so equal. One person is not winning. Where every other position for, let's say, 50/50 is a finishing position. In every other finishing style position, there's just so obvious of a person who's winning and the things are so opposite. Even passing the guard, what I have to do on the bottom is opposite of what you have to do on top. Where in 50/50 we literally have to do the same shit at the same time.

So I really want to talk about this flow thing and this idea of feet to floor and getting up, getting yourself up off the ground. I think it's so important in fundamentals, because it stops you as the teacher from needing to feel like they have to train light. Because when you flow and I have something to do and you have something to do, I'm going to take you down. You are going to retain your guard. I'm going to pass your guard, you're going to escape the side control. You're going to push me away and get up, and now I'm going to take you down and it's going to reverse. That's enough. That is such chaos for this under two month student. They don't fucking need to go to war. That's enough chaos.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, it's never good. Well, I won't say it's never good, but in my experience, anytime I've seen fundamental students positional train, it can go wrong very quickly. People get hurt.

Eliot Marshall:

Well, I don't even care about the hurt. Okay, hold on. That's not true. I care about the hurt thing. For me, it's that they do it wrong and it works. Because everyone sucks. Everyone sucks in fundamentals. Everyone sucks in intermediate too.

Jordan Shipman:

We've all had that experience where a white belt does an Americana wrong, and then you tell them that they're doing it wrong and they're like, "But I just got that on three different guys." And it's, "They were also beginners. They didn't know what was happening."

Eliot Marshall:

For me it's more the defense. You start to believe that this is how pushing somebody off of you from the mount works, or giving your back and getting up works. Because you can get out on people that suck, they fall off the top. They don't know how to move all this stuff. And it works for a year. It works for two years sometimes. And then you get to the big boys, then you get to the purple belts and you're like, and then your house of cards collapses. And I think that's why I think so many people quit at blue belt.

Jordan Shipman:

What do you mean?

Eliot Marshall:

Their house of card collapses. None of their shit works anymore, because-

Jordan Shipman:

Because their white belt journey was just-

Eliot Marshall:

Was shitty. Their white belt journey was just so much live training, not learning the idea of flowing in jiu-jitsu and how to move from one thing to the other thing. I'm going to get to you in a sec, because you keep smiling at me here, Phipps. And then when they get to blue belt, none of their shit works. It's so fucking hard. Everyone's a little older, let's say, we're not talking about the young studs. And all they do is sit on the top of half guard and smash somebody chest to chest, because they can't do anything else to not lose. What are you going to say?

Phipps:

I have a couple of thoughts. One of them, we can circle back when we finish talking about what the curriculum should look like and how we teach it. But another thought I had is, I was talking to my strength coach, he's a purple belt as well, and we were talking about some of the young kids in the academy, because he trains in Longmont. And some of the young three, four strap white belts, very young blue belts, they're in love with some of the flashy techniques. And I remember back to when I was a young white belt, young blue belt, and I just ignored fundamentals for the longest period of time. And it's like you said, the further down the chain you get, the more I'm like, "Why didn't I just drill a triangle from the close guard for a year and a half? Instead, I'm doing flips and rolls and sneaky kimora."

The fundamentals are not fun a lot of the time, so you want to skip over them. And I think that that's something that it can be very difficult when you're talking about teaching a curriculum is like, "Man, these students are bored by this." And it's, "Yeah, the fundamentals are boring," but like you said, without them, your house of cards crumbles. Without them, the further down you get, and the higher level your partners become, the more you realize, I actually don't know jiu-jitsu. And it can be demoralizing. Not that these young blue belts and young white belts, they're training a lot. They're drilling a lot.

Eliot Marshall:

Inverted heel hooks from reverse de la Riva to the backside 50/50.

Jordan Shipman:

I also think that's what allows beginners to find success with their peers. Because when everybody's learning the fundamentals, it's hard to get those fundamentals to work. Because I remember I went through this a blue belt too. It is impossible.

Eliot Marshall:

It's possible you escape the mount.

Jordan Shipman:

I was grinding on my oma plata game when I first got my blue belt. I did nothing else for nine months. But oma plata is competition training, I was just working on them all the time. Then I started teaching fundamentals and those epiphanies I was talking about earlier, I started having those epiphanies again because I was coming back to them. But I was a lot better at jiu-jitsu. So I was able to find more success with those fundamentals because just my domain of experience had broadened. But when that was all that I had accessible to me, it was very difficult.

Right now in my training, it is comical to me how many times I'm using Americana right now. It is almost my A game, how much I'm submitting people with Americanas from the top amount. It's comical. I'm like, "Why is this so there and prevalent?" But I think about the techniques that I'm using to set it up, where I'm smashing them out. I'm using the ratchet system to isolate their arm. I'm threatening a back take. I'm threatening a head and arm choke and then all of a sudden to defend all of those other things, the Americana is there.

Eliot Marshall:

Do you know my Americana story?

Jordan Shipman:

No, but it sounds like a good one.

Eliot Marshall:

I don't know if I'm black belt or not, maybe I'm a brown belt. I'm in my second MMA fight. I get the guy down and I'm top half guard. And let's pretend this table's the ring, even though it's rectangle. I'm over in that corner doing it with my butt and back towards the Amal, and the Amal's over here in this corner, so he can't see, he can just see that I'm in the top of half guard. And I finished the guy. I just push his arm down, so he'll react and I can pass him out, from Americana position. And then he doesn't stop me. And then I start to put some pressure on the Americana. He doesn't stop me. And I just put more pressure on the Americana, he doesn't stop me anytimes. And I get up and I was happy, but I was a little embarrassed.

I was super happy, but I got my nose broken earlier, so my nose is bleeding. And a Amal is like, "I got you. I got you. We're going to fix this." And he's starting to try to fuck through me. I was like, "Amal, stop." And he's like, "No, no, no. The fight." I was like, "The fight's over." He's like, "No, man, you're good. You're good. You can keep fighting." And I'm like, "No, no, the fight's over." He's like, "Well, they stopped it." I was like, "No, he tapped," and I, he's like, "To what?" And I was like, "Americana." He goes, "You fucking kidding?"

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah. That's funny. But I guess, and this isn't in an effort to be like, "Oh my God, I'm so good at this," or whatever. It's that realization of how you progress in jiu-jitsu, it's circular.

Eliot Marshall:

It's very circular.

Jordan Shipman:

It comes back to it. It's very interesting to me.

Eliot Marshall:

The fundamentals are, look, Danaher says it, and I agree with him. Pin escapes and guard retention, pin escapes and guard retention. There's got to be a lot of pin escaping, every class they have to be pin escaping. And that's one of the points of our flows in the fundamentals class. When we teach the tape down, because we do, I just said we do feet the floor. We do three take downs basically, we do a double leg, a single leg, one week each because not a lot.

Because fundamentals people can't shoot, they're terrible at shooting. But mostly what we do is ways to get to that side clinch position. The side clinch is the place to be in a self-defense fundamentals oriented program. Too close, too far, no shooting in, closing the distance on your feet, if that's what it takes. Defending the rear bear hook, defending the headlock, defending the front bear hook. Everything comes back to this. So they get reps, on reps, on reps of finishing this side clinch position, entered different ways. Punch the fence, like I said, over under headlock, behind, in front. Then you end that inside control, every single day they escape out of control. If you come three times a week, you probably bridged hip out and retained your guard, got your guard back at least a hundred times.

Jordan Shipman:

And I mean, even the frame escape drill is part of our fundamentals, warmup. They're doing it thousands of times by the time they're done with fundamentals.

Eliot Marshall:

Every time you get done escaping, after a little bit, you escape the side control. Sometimes we get up in base right away, the class starts, they get up in base, and then it switches roles. So you do hundreds of reps of getting up in base, super important, getting up off the fucking floor. And then what we add in between, before you get up, you do a little guard retention, one on past the guard, the throw the leg drill, hundreds of reps of retaining your guard. Pin escaping, guard retention. The most important skills a beginner student can have.

Jordan Shipman:

Yes.

Eliot Marshall:

Because this is where they're going to find themselves most often. They're not going to be on top, their sweeps suck their take downs suck, their submissions suck. So even if they get on top, they're going to go for this really shitty arm bar, miss it, and end up where? On the fucking bottom, right on the bottom. Pin escapes, guard retention. This is what your fundamentals curriculum and intermediate, in my opinion, must be based on. And then the other stuff. And then mount holding, guard passing. And then you filter this in, you filter all of the techniques that you feel they need to know in a fundamentals curriculum. But if you're not doing those things, I think you have a bad or unskillful fundamentals curriculum and intermediate curriculum. Must haves.

Jordan Shipman:

How much of a fundamentals curriculum do you think it should be self-defense focused?

Eliot Marshall:

Everything.

Jordan Shipman:

And how much of it is preparation for intermediate?

Eliot Marshall:

The self-defense prepares them for intermediate.

Jordan Shipman:

How much of the fundamentals is developing a rough sketch and then when we get to the intermediate level, we're polishing those sketches?

Eliot Marshall:

It's all a rough sketch. It's all a rough sketch for the sport of jiu-jitsu. It's all a rough sketch. Phipp?

Phipps:

Sorry. It's like you mentioned before. When you get to intermediate, now we're connecting some dots. So we're just showing you dots in fundamentals and the flow helps put it together a little bit. But even when you're flowing as a new white belt, it doesn't click quite the way that as you get further down, it starts to make sense why you're always going to this frame, escape in the side clinch.

Eliot Marshall:

Nothing clicks.

Phipps:

Exactly.

Eliot Marshall:

Nothing clicks.

Phipps:

We're just literally saying, "Here's a smattering of techniques, here's a general outline of how they come together." And then in intermediate, it's, "Here's A and B, here is a reaction to a reaction."

Eliot Marshall:

Why do I need to know two plus two?

Phipps:

Yeah.

Eliot Marshall:

It doesn't click when you learn it. First you just learn it. This is two plus two. You have no clue why I need to know this.

Jordan Shipman:

Because in a lot of ways, just more and more, I see our intermediate curricula at Easton as the true base of our jiu-jitsu.

Eliot Marshall:

That's why it's the longest one.

Jordan Shipman:

Right, exactly. It's the true base, it's the big picture approach. And then a lot of what comes before that is preparation for that level.

Eliot Marshall:

And don't die. Don't die.

Jordan Shipman:

And don't die. And then you develop your base and then you're ready for the advanced evolution.

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, don't die. Can you close a distance and hold a side clinch? Can you get up off the ground? Can you get out of a pin when someone's holding you down in a real life scenario? Look, it works against skilled jiu-jitsu practitioners. You have to have a good bridge and hip out and retain your guard. But dude, if all you have is that frame escape, you're not getting out of my side control, not getting out of yours, and they're not getting out of yours. We then take that and get, move on, "Okay, now this and now that, and now this little move, and now this little move. How do you get your elbow back down? And how do you then go from being in a defensive position, bottom of side control to immediately putting them in an offensive position for you, rather than just going back to neutral?"

Man, that shit don't fucking matter if you're looking at you not getting your ass kicked. You need three escapes from side control if you're in a fight. You need the frame escape, you need the pummel escape. You need the headlock escape. You don't need the pummel, go out in the single leg, put it in your fucking hip pocket. Either sit back under the ashi or put them down. You don't fucking need that. If you need that on the street, you shouldn't have been fighting that dude. You should be friends. There's no way. So all of it is this rough, rudimentary focus on don't die. Or I'm sorry, a good focus on don't die and a rough rudimentary focus on the sport of jiu-jitsu that's coming for you, so that you can now have fun.

Phipps:

So I think if we're going to talk about mainstream jiu-jitsu meta, the counterargument-

Eliot Marshall:

Why do you guys got to use these big fucking words? If you use meta-

Jordan Shipman:

Meta was a four letter word, that was not even a big word.

Eliot Marshall:

I told you I'm fucking stupid, just give us the common... What are you saying?

Phipps:

What's hot in jiu-jitsu now?

Eliot Marshall:

Is that the mainstream, that's what you call the meta?

Phipps:

Yeah, the meta. It's where the direction that the mainstream is discussing more, the counterargument to a curriculum is this idea of the ecological approach.

Eliot Marshall:

Explain that.

Jordan Shipman:

Oh yeah, that's very popular right now.

Phipps:

It's very popular. When we talked about it yesterday at the HQ meeting. It's more about, this is the way I understand it -- tt's more about gamifying learning jiu-jitsu. So instead of teaching techniques, we're going to put you in a position with a goal, and we're not going to show you how to get to that point. We're just going to say-

Eliot Marshall:

Craig Jones is all about this.

Phipps:

Yes.

Jordan Shipman:

Craig Souders?

Phipps:

Yes, that's the -

Jordan Shipman:

The guy, he's standard jiu-jitsu. He's really popular with this right now.

Phipps:

It's, we're going to bring you in and we're not going to even teach you jiu-jitsu. You're going to learn it by creatively working through these situations toward a goal, and you're going to figure out jiu-jitsu in that way. And so maybe you don't actually learn the most technical way to put your frames in, bridge and hip out, but you learn some new ways that still work to get your guard retained or to get to a mount.

Eliot Marshall:

Maybe I'm the old guy here, where I don't want to fucking...

Phipps:

I just think it's an...

Eliot Marshall:

I don't know if that works for a fundamentals class.

Phipps:

Yeah. I mean, I think that the people who are really pushing it right now would say maybe it does. And I don't know personally, I just think it's interesting. I always think, I love jiu-jitsu a lot because it seems to change so much so quickly compared to a lot of other of the martial arts. And it's always like, and I'm starting to feel like the old guy when I come in and train, I'm like, "I don't know what you kids are doing anymore. Can we just smash each other or pass each other's guard?"

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, it moves fast.

Phipps:

But I think that some people might hear us talking about curriculums and because this is becoming such a mainstream idea, that would be the pushback against it -- what about learning jiu-jitsu in a more freeform way with goal-oriented positional training?

Jordan Shipman:

I think there's something to it.

Eliot Marshall:

I think there's something to it, once you understand the basics, you have to know not to give your back.

Phipps:

But I think the idea in this is, you give your back so many times that you're like, "Oh shit, can't get my back." That you fall down that rabbit hole so often that instead of someone saying, "Hey, don't give your back, this is how," you figure it out, because at the end of that round, it's always this bad result that you no longer want to go to.

Eliot Marshall:

What if you're just not smart?

Jordan Shipman:

Well, I want to say that I think the ecological approach, I don't think it's anything new either. I think this has been going on since jiu-jitsu and its infancy in Brazil. Because when I think about how kids learn and how our kids' classes are structured, where we try to make sure that they are given training time every single class. Because I think the younger you are, the more intuitive your brain is. I think it's wired that way, through a long history of evolution. We are wired to see and learn, absorb and learn, because that's how we grow and survive. And when I watch kids, it's like you want to give them just enough, just enough to understand what their goal is. I mean, every class, every time we do positional training, we're saying, "Okay, you're going to start in the open guard position and you're going to try and pass the guard." But we've probably just gone over a very specific guard passing technique.

And then I think this ecological approach on steroids is, you don't show them the technique and you say, "Okay, here's this person's open guard, and your goal is to block their knees from getting to their chest and get past their legs. Now figure out how to do that." And within that framework, you may uncover some ways to a tripod pass, because that's essentially what I've just described, is tripod passing is basically learning how to block that person's knees from coming to their chest and open that inside space, and then you dominate that space. But with kids, it's, you show them the tripod pass, maybe explain that concept, and then you just let them go train, and then they figure out all sorts of things.

Eliot Marshall:

I'm a fan. I'm a fan. My kids are hoopers. Canaan wasn't going to figure out how to do a fucking layup. He wasn't going to figure out how to take one step, two step opposite, hand, opposite foot, go up for a layup. There's not another way to do a layup. If you do it another way, it gets all fucked up. And then when you add dribbling to said layup, you have to realize that if I'm going to make a right-handed layup, my dribble has to be on my right hand with my left foot stepping left, step, step, go. Because it's the rules of the game, that has to be taught to you.

Jordan Shipman:

And I also think that-

Eliot Marshall:

And now, hold on, sorry. Now we have Euro steps. Now we have all, it's crazy because people have taken an ecological approach to movement.

Jordan Shipman:

And I think that... I forgot where I was going with this, but oh, the struggle primes the brain to learn. When we have to struggle, trying to generate an answer through struggle helps us learn something. And that is why randori live sparring in jiu-jitsu is so effective and why it's the core of the martial art. It's what we all fell in love with. When we fall in love with jiu-jitsu, we fall in love with the training. And there's so much discovery and problem solving that is figured out in the training. But I just read Drysdale's latest book, 'The Rise in Evolution of Jiu-Jitsu', and he made this point, he's like, "The evolution of jiu-jitsu does not happen by someone sitting alone in their room and imagining all these things. It happens through trial and error, through experience, through combat."

And I think what the ecological approach does is it gives people a framework to make those discoveries. But it's also like if those discoveries, if we didn't know how to pass the guard, I don't know how you give someone a framework to then discover how to pass the guard on their own. And so it's exactly like you're saying. There's this evolution that happens, but then we're benefiting from that evolution when we're teaching the next generation. We have figured out how to gamify this a little bit more. And I think there's something to it, but it seems to me that there needs to be a balance.

Furthermore, I don't know any world champion currently that isn't doing a balance between some ecological style training of positional training or live sparring, and then also drilling the piss out of these moves, man. And a lot of the people that I see having success with this ecological approach, the standard jiu-jitsu students who are winning some tournaments after only a couple of years of training, those seem to be really young, talented athletes. This isn't your 40-year-old middle-aged man who's coming in and then figuring this out.

Eliot Marshall:

This is my original point here. If you're going to be, yeah, great, go ahead. You're going to commit your whole life to this, great, amazing, probably solid way to go, because you learn this critical thinking skill. You learn this critical thinking skill. Sorry, great, amazing. Good for you. But we're talking about fucking hobbies two to three times a week. They ain't coming with the ecological approach to learn jiu-jitsu, because they got a wife, they got kids, they got a husband, they got soccer practice. Man, motherfucker show me how I can get the best at this. Because I'm coming two to three times a week. These are my days. Help me the fuck out. That was a great theory, and I enjoyed the discussion.

Jordan Shipman:

But that's where a curriculum might be superior to-

Eliot Marshall:

That's where a curriculum comes in. I'm trying to talk less with my athletes now, because I want them to be critically thinking a little better. When I was down in Texas, John doesn't say a fucking word when they train, he teaches and then he lets them train. Ecological.

Jordan Shipman:

Has he talked about that?

Eliot Marshall:

Yeah, I asked him about it.

Jordan Shipman:

About the ecological stuff.

Eliot Marshall:

No, I just asked him why doesn't he fucking talk -

Jordan Shipman:

Well, he doesn't want to stifle their creativity.

Eliot Marshall:

He doesn't want to stifle their creativity, which is the ecological approach. So I've tried to model that a little and it's good. It's solid. I think he's right there. And I do too much of them relying on me. And because I'm very good at it, I can see exactly what to do. This is a superpower of mine. Okay. Boom, boom, boom. And the intensity doesn't fuck with me. But he's dealing with world champions that all they do is they train three times a day. Man. Who's a dad in Longmont? Ben.

Jordan Shipman:

Who?

Eliot Marshall:

Ben.

Jordan Shipman:

Ben, yes okay.

Eliot Marshall:

He has no time to go home afterwards and critically think about how to pass the guard to separate someone's knees from their chest. He's got to get his kids to bed. He's got to pay the bills. He's got to have sex with his wife, which is way more important to him. So it's a great theory. It's a great theory and I'm sure it can work. I want to see someone become a world champion off of it. Like a real world. I'll say brown belt and up, win a brown belt world title and up.

Jordan Shipman:

I want to learn more about it. I mean, there's like-

Eliot Marshall:

I'm sorry, before I say yes of, okay, that's really good. I mean, you've got some young students winning a blue belt. You train every day, you're going to fucking win a blue belt. I don't know what to say. If you come in and train every day, twice a day.

Jordan Shipman:

And you're a young stud.

Eliot Marshall:

And you're young, you're going to fucking win a blue belt. It does not take that much. No offense to all of the blue belt champions out there, you're going to win. I don't know if you win a world title. Have any of his guys won world titles?

Jordan Shipman:

Not that I know of. I mean, I know they've won advanced divisions at some well-known locals and stuff like that. But I'm not seeing an ADCC World Champion come out of an exclusively ecological-

Eliot Marshall:

No, I'm saying IBJJF Blue Belt World Champion.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah. I don't know that I've seen that yet either.

Eliot Marshall:

Well, multiples, right? Multiples, time over time.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah. I mean, it reminds me of the Kit Dale approach that he's been marketing.

Eliot Marshall:

He's not creating anymore.

Jordan Shipman:

Yeah, exactly. And there's some products out there that have been released with, here's a set of games that you can play to take the ecological approach and stuff like that.

Eliot Marshall:

We live in the day of, if you can speak loud enough and have some really low level results, it actually matters. People will pay attention to you. And I love Kit Dale, I'm a Kit Dale fan. But if we're talking about the best ways to teach jiu-jitsu, I need to see it repeated. I need to see the success of it. And then it gets repeated time over time, over time.

You can say whatever you want about us, I was a champion. Then Mike and Ian became champions in that genre. Nick Klein was a champion kind of in between and with me. Nick started and then faded off. Anna became a champion. We've repeated, we've taken a generation after a generation. Combs. Sorry, Combs was in the middle. We're not Danaher, I'm not saying that by any means, but we repeated our methodology of curriculum and teaching and we've gotten better at it. So I mean, I want to see you do it for 15, 20 years before we start saying yes to something. And I'm not saying we're the best. I'm not saying that at all. AOJ, look what they do. They have curriculum.

Jordan Shipman:

Oh yeah, a very well-developed one.

Eliot Marshall:

A very well-developed curriculum.

Jordan Shipman:

Very well-developed program.

Eliot Marshall:

They're the best right now. They're the best at this, creating amazing students. No one is even close.

Jordan Shipman:

I agree.

Eliot Marshall:

And it's a mix.

Jordan Shipman:

It is a mix.

Eliot Marshall:

It's a mix. But you have to have curriculum. You have to have curriculum. We're going to wrap here.

Jordan Shipman:

Very good.

Eliot Marshall:

Guys, as always, thanks to everybody for listening. Go to our website, easton.online, become one of our affiliate members, if that is what you are looking for. We are right now running a couple of things. One, a new affiliate program. Hopefully by the time this podcast releases, we're really, really, really, really, really, really, really fucking hoping. So if you have checked our affiliate out before, this one is, I'm just going to say it. Much cheaper. Much cheaper, a little bit different, all the same material. Even probably more material, better material. Hundreds and hundreds of hours. Not hundreds and hundreds. Let's go hundreds of hours.

Phipps:

A six-month curriculum on how you can build an amazing jiu-jitsu or martial arts school.

Eliot Marshall:

We also have, if you have under a hundred members or haven't opened your school yet, and you're thinking of it, a three-month launch program that will get you to a hundred members inside three months. So we have these two things going on. Go to the website, easton.online, hit me up, hit Phipps up. Jordan ain't on that shit, he's fucking smart. So hit one of us up if you have a question. And I think that's it, guys. Jordan, fuck yeah.

Jordan Shipman:

Awesome.

Eliot Marshall:

Phipps.

Phipps:

Nice work everybody.

Eliot Marshall:

Good luck. Good luck, Phipps. Do your fucking thing.

Jordan Shipman:

Best of skill.

Eliot Marshall:

Nah, just say good luck, bro.

Jordan Shipman:

He doesn't like good luck.

Eliot Marshall:

You don't like good luck?

Phipps:

Don't need much luck.

Eliot Marshall:

Would you rather have skill or luck?

Jordan Shipman:

He prefers best of skill.

Phipps:

I'd rather be more skilled than my opponent.

Eliot Marshall:

I would too. But you don't want bad luck.

Phipps:

No, not bad luck. Don't wish me bad luck, please.

Eliot Marshall:

But I want to wish you the opposite. I want to wish you good luck.

Phipps:

I appreciate that.

Eliot Marshall:

I know you are skilled. I know you're skilled. If your opponent's more skilled than you, I want you to have fucking luck.

Jordan Shipman:

I agree with that as well.

Phipps:

Appreciate it.

Eliot Marshall:

So best of skill and luck. We'll compromise in the middle. This is what we do at Easton. What was I going to say?

Jordan Shipman:

I think that was it.

Eliot Marshall:

Oh, go Lions. Go lions and whoever plays KC right now. That's it everyone.