Episode 696 - Scott Burr
Scott Burr is a Martial Arts practitioner and second-degree black belt professor of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu at Enclave Jiu-Jitsu in Ohio.
There’s a fine line in Martial Arts around the idea of respect. Which is that if I demand that you never challege me, you respect me. I create an environment where teaching my technique never gets tested and eventually I drift away from legitimacy…
Scott Burr - Episode 696
Scott Burr is a second-degree black belt professor of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. He is the first person to earn the rank of black belt from American BJJ pioneer and sixth-degree black belt professor Steve Maxwell. To date, he is one of only a handful of people to have earned the rank of black belt under Steve.
Scott also holds black belt rank in Kodokan Judo (Nidan/second degree: Shodan awarded by representatives of the Konan Yudanshakai and certified by the Kodokan Judo Institute; Nidan certified by the USJA) and the Korean art of Kuk Sul Do (jo kyo/first degree, awarded and certified by Federation President and Grandmaster Choon Shik Yang). He has trained extensively in Muay Thai, Western Boxing, and Submission Grappling.
Scott was the head BJJ instructor and Strength & Conditioning coach at The Fight Gym - originally an all-in-one MMA gym, and later a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school and Strength & Conditioning facility - for over a decade.
Scott is the author of many books and is the co-author of Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life, Richard Bresler's memoir of his time with the Gracie family and his over 40 years’ involvement with Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
In recent years Scott has had the opportunity to train with and learn directly from Master Rickson Gracie. He now takes every opportunity to travel to Southern California to do so.
Show Notes
Visit Scott Burr’s website at EnclaveJiuJitsu.com
Order Scott Burr’s book at www.WorthDefendingBook.com
Follow and subscribe to his socials: instagram.com/enclavejiujitsu
facebook.com/enclavejiujitsu
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's happening, everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, Episode 696. With my guest today, Scott Burr. I'm Jeremy Lesniak, host for the show founder here at whistlekick, where everything we do is in support of the traditional martial arts. What's that mean? Well go whistlekick.com, you'll find what it means. It's where you're going to find all the things that we do to support traditional martial arts and traditional martial artists. Like our store where we sell some stuff, we hook you up with some good stuff, some quality equipment, some fun apparel. And in exchange, we get to make things like this show, which actually takes a lot of work and people. There's a code that'll get you 15% off, it's PODCAST15% helps us connect some dots on the back end. But if you want to go deeper on the show, check out whistlekick martialartsradio.com. We've brought you today's episode, 696 episodes, and they're all available for free. You can go back years, we've been doing this thing for a long time. Pretty much every topic you could think of a lot of the big names in the martial arts world. Yeah, we've talked to him. And you can find every single episode in your podcast app or on YouTube or at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com.
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I had fun talking to Scott, a super nice guy who started martial arts for in kind of his words, maybe not the most noble of reasons. But it didn't take too long before it had the impact that so many of us know martial arts can have. And I'm going to say changed his life. And what we talk about today is that transition, how martial arts has shifted in the landscape. How he sees it moving his time, working with some incredible martial artists, including himself, the books he's worked on. It's a varied conversation that goes all over the place in the best possible way. So I hope you stick around. Listen, let me know what you think. On the other side, and I'll see you at the outro. Hey, Scott, how are you?
Scott Burr:
I'm good. Can you hear me?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can hear you just fine.
Scott Burr:
Okay, all right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Good. Awesome. How are you?
Scott Burr:
Thanks, doing good. How are you?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm well, it's been a good day. We recorded for Thursday episodes. Thursday episodes are not interview driven. So, we did that this morning. I got you and then one other guest and then I got to relax. Oh, long day. Yeah. Well, if you're good with it, let's just jump in. Great. Yeah, let's get started. I like when we can just get to jump in like that stays a little more organic. I like to start with why. The why or when so let's start with why did you start training?
Scott Burr:
Why did I start training? That's a good question, man. You know, I think the easy answer is that like, a lot of people, you know, I sort of felt I was like, I mean, I was a little bit older than when I was 17 when I started training. Can you hear that? Is that gonna mess you up?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't hear a fan. No. Okay. All right.
Scott Burr:
So yeah, I was older. I was like 17 when I was in high school. I mean, I was like a lot of kids sort of like had some issues getting a little bit bullied had some issues with self esteem and things like that and so you know, I thought I wanted to fight I thought I wanted to can you know, feel tough and feel capable feel like I could stand up myself. And so I had a friend who was training at a school in town, in the town where I live. And he invited me to come to class and I started and I just fell in love with it, and I never quit. But, you know, it's something where it's like, I think about it a lot, because, you know, I mean, there's so many positive things that people get from the martial arts.
And realistically, it would be a mistake to just look at it and say, you know, that, to look at it from a perspective of saying that it came from a negative motivation, and that realistically, the solution to that negative motivation was to confront the negative motivation, rather than view it as a positive step in my life. But I do have moments now where I look at it I go, man, like, what? What does it say about somebody that they feel so threatened, that they devote their whole life to preparing for this fight, that is probably never going to happen? So the question of like, why did I start martial arts? Or why did I stay in it, and it's like something where I like, I think about how when I started, and a lot of the time when I was coming up in training, it grew out of a very adversarial perception of the relationship between myself and the world, that I viewed the world as a very antagonistic place.
And that, in light of this antagonistic relationship I had with the world, I had to be tough, and I had to be strong and capable, and I had to be ready to fight. And the reality was, those were energies that I was tapping into, in my environment, but they weren't really the whole story of my environment. And if, if I hadn't been able to sort of self medicate that anxiety, I might have had to try to connect to a different energy. And that might have been, there might have been a better use for my life than, you know, getting my face punched for 20 years.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But you are willing for that reason, right? This is, to me, one of the beauties of martial arts, is you went in for a reason that you're kind of holding up now in hindsight and saying, maybe that wasn't the best motivation. But it's been through that time through that training, that not only have you had that insight, but it still gave you what you needed. Even if you wish you had gone there with a different impetus.
Scott Burr:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's very, right. It's easy to say this now, knowing it's like, I wish I was, you know, I wish I knew now what I didn't know when I was 20. Right? It's like, Yeah, but that level of understanding goes with being 20. And really, don't get to have a 40 year old wisdom in a 20 year old body. Right. What, like, wisdom comes from experience comes from a lack of wisdom kind of thing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Something like that. You know, I mean, show me a 17 year old who's got it figured out. Like, it's not, I remember being 17. I thought I knew everything. Right. And I think most of us think we've got a pretty good handle on life, and we don't and the older we get, the more we realize, we don't. I want to go back to that. You describe it as an antagonistic view of the world. Was that solely from bullying? As most of us, you know, obviously, bullying has Shades of Gray, right? Like there's name calling, and then there's literally getting pounded, you know, multiple times per week, most of us are somewhere in the middle, leading to folks who have a solid experience with bullying. There are other things in life that can help them kind of diffuse the impact that has on their lives. So being that as you're describing now, your worldview was around bullying and defending yourself being protected. I'm using these words now. Wanting a methodology to stand up against that and feel safe. Was there other stuff going on?
Scott Burr:
I mean, yeah, but it's all, like, unremarkable. Okay. You know, not getting along with my dad kind of stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Was not thrown out of the house.
Scott Burr:
oh, none of that stuff wasn't abused, wasn't any of that stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so what's the earliest you remember your reason for training? Being something else? You may land for that one reason to feel safe. I'm guessing that's not the reason you train now? So that changed at some point, do you know when that changed?
Scott Burr:
So, I remember, let's see, probably 10 years ago. So this is 13 years into martial arts. Now, it's probably a little bit earlier than that, let's call it 10 years then. And I was teaching jiu jitsu. And I was in the process of trying to, I was a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu. And I was in the process of that final stage of what's it going to take to my black belt, what are the refinements I need to work on myself to get to that place. And it was in that process that I started to really see that the things that were keeping me from advancing, were all you know, sort of like the sand in the gears of my personality, or my mentality, process, my ego, my these things. So I started to approach training as a methodology for becoming aware of, you know, what my own brain was doing, the moments when I should be adapting.
And instead, I'm insisting the moments when I insist, it should be insisting and instead, I'm adapting the moments when I'm so locked into one view of how the thing works, that I can't see, I can't hear the feedback that the situation is actually giving me these things were all they started to become more and more apparent, as I was looking for the sort of like, you know, what's the drag on my progress. And it's always, you know, it's always me, like, the knowledge is there, and the information is there, and the feedback is all there, right, you're training, the thing works, or it doesn't work. And the reason it didn't work, it'll tell you what didn't work, it'll tell you, you were late. And you were late, because your head was late, or you were distracted, or you were afraid, or any of these things that your brain does. Sure, it's all there, if you can look at it. But if you can't look at it, you can't pick up that information. So when I started to realize that this is just this process is just a mirror. And whether you can look in the mirror or not, that's on you.
And it's going to determine whether or not you are, it's going to determine the rate of your progress and the effectiveness of your progress. And in seeing that in training, it's very quickly becomes apparent that this is,you know, the hang ups you have in training, or the hang ups you have in life, if you get over people who said these things before, but if you get, you know, easily frustrated, and that frustration makes you use too much force. And maybe in a situation where you're getting frustrated, maybe the answer is to become creative and think about a new solution instead of doubling down out of anger. So maybe if you do that in training, you realize, man, that's how I deal with interpersonal problems. That's how I deal with my relationships. That's how I deal with situations with my family. That's how I feel right? So how effective you are in your life is, you know, just like how effective you are on the mat. It's helpful skillfully. Do you engage with the situation that you're in? How skillfully do you apply your energy to the situation that you're in?
And usually, the determining factor in that question is, you know, how clearly do you see what's going on and how easily can you be whatever the situation needs to be or do the thing the situation needs for you to do and not let your emotions determine, oh my gosh, I'm so angry, I just want to I want to yell at this guy even though it's not productive deal. So, you know, let's call this 12 years ago, 13 years ago we started to recognize that this was a very powerful tool. And to become more intentional about using it as a tool for trying to engage more effectively in my own life and, and avoid, you know, negative situations, avoid unproductive situations, and just try to be more present, more engaged, more skillful in living.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not everything with a hammer.
Scott Burr:
Yeah. I think it's probably like, starting to become about that. Rather than just saying like, I mean, especially to because like you're bound on in Jiu Jitsu, like any street fight you get into, you know, like, you've beat up enough white belts at this point where you kind of go, okay, most people, you know, like, if I ever get into a fight, like for one thing, why am I going to get into a fight, but for another thing, I get to get into a fight. Man, I roll with a lot of white belts, white belts are like an untrained guy in a fight. You know, it's like, okay, I know how to control this guy. I know how to deal with these situations, I know how to deal with this aggression. So I've got that in the bag. What else is this getting? Because if it's just about am I can I protect myself in a fight? It's like, blue, purple belt, you probably have that box checked, you know, it's got to be about something more. So yeah. Probably at that point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And is this something you realized in the moment as it was happening early in hindsight? No. Sounds like you've thought about it a lot since.
Scott Burr:
I thought about the lessons, but I thought a lot about it at the time. It was very, and I was like, um, I was like, I was turning 30. And so I was sort of like, right, just turned 30. And it was kind of like, you know, if the time is now it seems like kind of whatever. But at the time, it was like, oh, fuck there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He felt like a big deal. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Burr:
So, it was like, I don't want to, you know, it's like, what am I doing with my life? Am I doing the right thing with my life? How valuable is what I've done? Is this what I should keep doing? And so thinking about like, Yeah, is that you know, other people? You know, I spent the last 10 years doing what they did, I spent the last 10 years doing what I did, at the end of it, I have, I have, do I value the things that I got? What did I get from it? And do I value the things that I got from it? So yeah, I was very much thinking about that. At the time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You mentioned teaching, I know you teach now, I find that most people either have very early ambitions for teaching, or it's something they are thrown into. And they were oftentimes resistant to it, which were you.
Scott Burr:
I had no ambitions to become a teacher. But if you're not going to be a professional fighter, and you want to make this what you do with your life, if this is the thing that inspires you, you know, that that you that you're nourished by this practice, and you want to devote the majority of your energy to it, obviously teaching is is one of the ways to do that. That being said, I mean, I did really, there are parts of teaching that I grew to really find very confining, and very frustrating. And there are parts of teaching that I found very inspiring. And very, five classes, like something like this, where I'm talking to you, and we can start to, you know, pull a thread and unravel a sweater and go down a rabbit hole, and we're sort of exploring different ideas. And it's like being a little kid chord.
It's sort of like wandering out into the woods and not sure what you're going to find. I find that very energizing, and very rewarding, and a lot of times I mean, I was like, it's training this morning with my one training partner. And I was telling him I was like, you know, that thing I said to you like, last Thursday, I was like, that was really good. Like, I got a lot out of here. Like I don't Sometimes I hear things the same time that I say them. And it's like, there's a really good idea. It's an interesting idea. There's a lot there. And so it's like, sometimes when I'm, you know, just teaching, like, I don't know where we're going either. And I discover things, I'm sure, as I'm, as I'm saying, and so that process I find incredibly rewarding. But the process of teaching, you know, teaching white belts eventually became pretty frustrating.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's sad, because many of us have had this experience teaching the same thing over and over again to the same people. And feeling like, these are my own words. Tell me if you agree, feeling like I'm stuck on the surface, not getting to go deeper, not getting to explore the depth that I know is there. I've been there. I've seen it. I've trained in it. I've even taught it to some people. And so now having to come back up and spend the time here feels it can feel hollow. At times, is that what you're talking about?
Scott Burr:
Partially, I mean, that's certainly part of it. I think there was a broader issue that had to do with I feel like well, this is a much bigger subject, but it's sort of the anti anti intellectual trend in American culture.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Where he is that is a bigger subject. Oh, yeah. Boom, let me sit up straight.
Scott Burr:
You know, I got very tired of looking, I think of one of the things and I think I said this at some point to somebody else, but like, one of the things that makes Jiu Jitsu very strong, any martial art that is tested on under fairly limited rules becomes very strong. But they also tend to look like each other, right? So, within the parameters. With a broad enough set of parameters and martial art can be very effective. So things like Muay Thai, boxing, wrestling, judo, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The more limited the ruleset, the more limited the parameters of the training, the more the martial art is equipped to handle, because it's what it's exposed to. Okay, so this constant stress testing, and the constant need to back up what you're saying, and what you're teaching, has made the martial art very strong. And when Gracie showed up in the US, they said, anybody can challenge us. And we'll prove to you that our martial art works. When I encounter people now, who would so there's a fine line in martial arts around the idea of respect, right? Which is that if I demand that you never challenge me, and that you respect me, I create an environment in which my teaching my technique never gets stress tested. And eventually I drift away from legitimacy.
If I put myself in a situation where any idiot with $20 can walk in the door, and I'm second degree black belt, been teaching for this number of years, I've been training for this number of years, I've traveled, I've competed, I've done all these things. And you feel like you get to come and challenge me just because you got 20 bucks in a pulse. I'm a little bit not respecting myself, if I engage with you. So the feeling that I was perpetually having to the onus was on me to prove to these people that what I was doing was or what I was teaching them was legitimate, became really work some eventually in that look I'm not telling you to do anything for my own benefit. They, if I'm teaching you something, it's for your benefit. So if you challenge me, how much investment do you think I have in you getting better? So it's the project of feeling like I had to spend a lot of time chipping through people's defenses to give them something that made them better and got me nothing was like what am I even doing? So the inversion, where the teacher now has to prove to the student that they have something worth teaching? Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should have blind obedience. I'm not saying we should have blind loyalty. But if we come to an environment where, as a student, respect the teacher, the teacher respects you, that's a perfect relationship, right? If I come to you as a teacher with the benefit of the doubt that you know what you're talking about? And you're gonna have to prove to me that you don't? I think you do. I think that's a little bit more the right place to start. And it feels like people nowadays start from the attitude of like, well, you got to prove to me that you know what you're talking about. And the problem is the majority of people, they don't know anything about anything. Right?
Coming to me, you don't know anything about. Look, I don't care. Like, I'm not saying you have to know anything about fighting. It's, it's absolutely, like, you know a lot about computer programming, you know, a lot about racecar driving is awesome. I'm not saying you have to know about what I know about. But if you walk into a room where I'm teaching, of course, you know less about the subject that I study than I do, it's not a knock on you, you studied one thing, I studied this, and now I know this. So why do you think your opinion about what you know nothing about is so valuable? The calling radio is a fallacy, right? We get an expert on the show, and then we let whoever calls in and tell their opinion about.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Monday morning, quarterbacks, you know, whatever, whatever you want to call it. There are some folks who look at it BJJ, specifically, and they carve out a separate corner in martial arts, I don't I don't do that, to me, it is a traditional martial art, I've trained a little bit of BJJ, I have utmost respect that plenty of BJJ practitioners on. There is a cultural subset in the way it is often trained, discussed, treated. And you're getting to some of the heart of it. And to my mind, a large chunk of that comes from the public exposure to those who do not train. Right, very few people see Karate or Taekwondo before they step foot in a place where they train. Hmm. But if you want to watch BJJ, you have plenty of examples.
And some of those examples are in the media at a pretty broad exposure, and are whether or not they are reported to be very highly skilled, very good people. And the commentary around it is presented at an expert level. So you get people who observe things and hear feedback on those things that are being done. And they armchair quarterback it and they're like, well, you know, I watched this fight and this thing happened, and they should have done this much work. And they do that long enough, they start to think that they actually know. Yeah. Is that what you think it is? Or is it elsewhere?
Scott Burr:
No, that's I mean, that's a very good point is that you know, in a lot of ways, it comes with the territory. And it's a product of the success of the art and the ascension of the art. Yeah, no, that's a good point. That's a good point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If it is all but guaranteed given that exposure, would you change it? Hmm. This is something that you love, something that you're identifying elements that you dislike. What I would assume is because you love this art that you train, you are proud of its exposure and its rise. Is it a necessary evil? Could we adjust it? After like six questions at you? You can answer any of them.
Scott Burr:
I don't know. [00:29:37-00:29:40] he's a high level Jiu Jitsu competitor and teacher and MMA fighter. retired now but he wrote a book about how he wanted to create a documentary about The Untold Story of Jiu Jitsu in Brazil because at the time that Jiu Jitsu or Judo arrived in Brazil, there were many, many Judo practitioners who arrived in Brazil in that influx of Japanese immigrants. And many of them started schools and taught. And so you have, in the early part of the 20th century, what you really had was this melting pot of Jiu Jitsu and Judo, school styles, competitors, who it was in the context of that the Gracie family can develop their take on the art. Anyway, the point is, I edited and I worked with him on putting this. He wrote a book about the process of creating this documentary and I edited this book.
And there was a lot of conversation in that book and in our sort of editing process about the, the, the space that opened up between Kodokan judo, which was where all these people were, they were not jiu jitsu practitioner, they would do yoga, they studied under the instructors of Kodokan. And I don't know if you have studied Judo. Judo is a very traditional running in a very traditional martial art. And Judo was developed specifically, I don't know how much you know about the history of judo.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Some of our listeners may not know anything. So
Scott Burr:
Kanō Jigorō is a really, really brilliant person. And he was living at a time when Japan was opening up to the west, and Japan was starting to modernize. And there was a real debate going on and on unresolved debate about you know, what do we take from the west? What do we keep that is traditional? Is it the future Western? Is there a place for traditional Japan in the future, if the future is basically a globalized Western culture? And he said, look, the martial arts embody some of what is best in Japanese culture. And there is a place for them in the Western culture, because Western culture already has this idea of physical education and physical culture, the idea of gymnastics for physical development and athletic endeavor as a way of developing the person, the individual, and expressing what's best in us. Our human potential. And he said, our martial arts can be that.
And so he basically codified a system that was incredibly innovative at the time. So he developed the idea of martial arts, not as a killing arts, but as a way to develop individuals. In very much the way the West was talking about physical culture and athletic endeavor. So it was almost like the Gracie Olympic ideal, but with Japanese martial arts. But within that, there's this idea that the point was there, if you look at the traditional breakdown of judo, there were three goals. One of them was self defense. One of them was physical development. And then one of them was creating good citizens, developing virtue, the characteristics of a good citizen, honesty, dedication, discipline, loyalty, all these things that we think of as the higher virtues and that a lot of times we now still think of as things that martial arts developed. And so Judo always had, as part of it, this idea that we are trying to develop people, we're trying to bring out the best in people. And it wasn't just about fighting, right? Self defense and physical combat were one of the three priorities. But equal to that was this idea that we developed individually.
And one of the things that Drysdale talks about in the book and that we talked about a lot in the process of editing the book is that there that this is one of the things that seems to have been a bit lost when Judo made the trip across the ocean to Brazil, and in Brazil, with the the way integrated with Brazilian culture and some of the aspects there. It became very much about fighting and it lost some of those other aspects. And one of the things we talked about and he talks about in the book is sort of modern, a lot of what is coming to dominate modern Jiu Jitsu is self promotion, trash, talking self, very aspects that you would easily categorize under the sort of toxic masculinity. So, this is man, I don't know if this is really, for the best is this is this really adding something positive to the world in the way that this or has the potential to add to the world.
And you know, and so, the interesting thing is that I was working on that book concurrently with working on another book, A Memoir by the first student of Gracie in the US. And one of the things we talked about a lot in that book is how the Korean and Helio Gracie were very focused on you know, Jiu Jitsu is for people who feel weak, intimidated, they feel like they can't, they're afraid. And this is something to empower them and develop them and make them feel capable and confident. And that it's really the art for those people. And then what it just becomes for people who are already aggressive and competitive and have those strengths and feel like they can just go out and kick ass whether they know anything or not. It loses the gift that it can give to the world. And so we talked a lot about, like, where's Jiu Jitsu going? And who is it for? And how does it serve those people? So that's a very long answer to the question, what would I change? Or, you know, where do I think? Do I think this just goes one way or the other? Um, I mean, I think in the modern landscape of the way we consume media, and the way we engage with drama, and feuds, and all the things that make reality TV and professional wrestling successful. You're not going to change the fact that, you know, gets Pay Per View buys. I mean, one of the things we're dealing with, so I'm in Cleveland, the Paimio church, greatest heavyweight champion, the UFC, can't get a fight. Why? Because he's nice. He doesn't talk trash, he respects all these promotions, or opponents, and it doesn't get people to want to buy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But it doesn't sell. It doesn't make dollars.
Scott Burr:
So, if you're a jiu jitsu fighter, am I going to tell you, Hey, man, it's better to be a good person, don't talk trash about your opponents. No, because how you gonna have a career, the nature of the way the thing is now, but I think we have to understand that for what it is, and have a culture within. within schools and school owners, where we realize like, this is about what we can give and who we can give it to and what it can do for people, you know, whether they're going to be a successful competitor or not, of course, you know, it's sort of like 100 people who are timid, you know, versus one aggressive fighter who, you know, it's like, wins a lot of fights and brings money to your academy that way, or, like you can be as successful, you serve more people who are like not going to be high profile.
And maybe that's, that's the mentality that like, you know, like there's the there's another lineage in Brazil, the Fatah lineage where whereas the Gracies were always this this kind of accused of only serving the upper tier and like almost like a country club, the father's went in to the to the to the lower socio economic areas and they open schools and they taught all the children for basically for free and they just spread Jiu Jitsu to people because they felt like people could benefit from so if you have an understanding of the sort of these these cultural trends and making a decision about which part of it you want to be a part of, it's a man it's really cool that that Gordon Ryan's winning all this stuff, and he's 24 years old, made a million dollars from selling instructional that's amazing.
Good for him. But you know, I don't trash talk and you know, all this stuff is maybe not what we're what we're about in our school, but like, you know, yes, like Jiu Jitsu is big enough for everybody for that. stuff and for the other stuff. And so it's like, I don't know that it needs to change. But I do think people need to know that, you don't have to be that, you know that's not all it is, you know,
Jeremy Lesniak:
What you're reminding me of this, this broad societal pressure towards easy success however you define success, right? And if you look at social media, that's a perfect corollary, because what are the easiest ways to get likes and comments and follow us on any social media platform, it's either through violence, or sexual lust, sexualization, right, the the elements of humanity and society that I think most of us would agree are maybe not the best things, at least not the things that are most aspirational. When we think about what we want our family, our children or friends to aspire to, it's generally not those things, right, if you enjoy doing them, if that's part of your life, you know, whatever, that's fine. But I think quite often, you brought up the example money, if someone wants to make a living as a BJJ.
Something, if it is the thing that has perhaps saved their life as they see it as the thing they want to invest, all of who they are into, and maybe they don't want to teach. And so they go, and they start taking fights. And they recognize, okay, so I can remain here in this pool of fighters who get the worst options, or I can caricature myself, and maybe lean into that. I don't agree with it. I don't believe in it. But it makes me more money. And how many repetitions of that until you start to believe your own hype, and you become the character. And we see that anybody who, you know, I don't watch UFC pay per views, often I used to, but I'm still aware of what's going on, I still pay attention to some of the names just because of what I do.
And we've seen that we've seen that with a number of people as they've come up, and I'm not going to name names, but as they've come up, what we used to point and say, I think they're just doing this to, you know, for promotional reasons. And then you look at it, you're like, no, I think that's actually who you are now. And it's sad. So, I'm sorry, I'm talking about a little bit of technical difficulty over here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, no worries, do what you have to do and edit if need be. So let's switch gears. You mentioned books, and that you've gotten involved with books. And it's really clear, from the way you're talking about books again, that you you are thoughtful about your art that you appreciate the history that you know, I'm guessing you've, as you said, pulled a lot of threats over the years and you you've gone down rabbit holes, probably for the most people. How did you get into books? Why books? Why? Why take something that is so physical, and maybe thoughtful, but really implements physically and invest time into something that is as non physical as you can get writing, reading, researching books, right seems kind of the opposite.
Scott Burr:
Yeah, it's, so I mean, I would say how did I get this book? How did I get into books? I was a big, big reader as a kid, you know, comic books into fantasy novels into the classics of Western literature. And I went, and I actually studied English and writing in college. So I have a degree in my college that is actually one of the few that offers a major in creative writing as a subset of the English major. And so I've a degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing. And my real aspiration coming up was as a young younger person to be a writer was to be a novelist. And so that was really my focus. And so these two endeavors, martial arts and writing sort of were concurrent undertakings through me. And in ya know, it's it, you're making you make an interesting point, that they are somewhat contradictory, I guess.
But, you know, I sort of viewed them as You know, martial arts is about skillfully creating effect, right skillfully expressing an idea physically. And so there was it's largely about efficiency. It's about building progress in a confrontation, it's about negotiating different parts of the situation you're in recognizing opportunities and knowing how to articulate an idea or handle an argument, how to build an argument, when you need to acknowledge the other side, how you work to achieve this. They are very related to… I mean, I think they're very related to Jiu Jitsu. You know, when it's just done in written form.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And to me, there's a lot of synergy there.
Scott Burr:
A little bit pretentious?
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, it’s not, though there's a lot of synergy there.
Scott Burr:
You know, you're going to find few people, if any, who spend more time thinking about martial arts than I do, right. And like, it's kind of my job, I think about martial arts. I've written books myself, we do two episodes of this show each week, right? Like, I'm constantly thinking, discussing martial arts, and I see a tremendous amount of value in that. Because when you do get on the mat, right, you have a deeper understanding of why you're doing it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you look at military history, the thing generals had to do was convince their soldiers of why they were doing when you have a solid, why you invest more into it. Right?
Scott Burr:
However that manifests, in particular for you, for listeners, right? And when you reach a certain level of training, I think there is a lot to think about, you can take a particular role session with somebody and unpack okay, you know, that movement didn't go the way I expected, what was you know, I went for this, and it didn't happen, I can say the same thing about you know, I don't do nearly as much grappling as you do. I'm more of a stand up guy. So, I can think about that. I taught over the weekend, I taught a seminar, there were elements to the seminar that I taught, and I'm like, okay, so I could have done this piece a little bit differently. I could have done this year differently. There's a lot to think about. I don't see them as the opposite. I kind of set you up in that light, because I wanted to see how you responded. There's a martial arts principal, right, like, give you something a little bit off, see how you take it. But yeah, it's all good.
Scott Burr:
Well, like and I guess the other side of it too, which you just brought up, which is that as a teacher, how I engage with what I understand, your understanding to be, and how I speak to you in a way that speaks particularly to you and maybe the way you're thinking about something or the way I can maybe tell you're sort of, you've got a concept in your head, that's almost right, but it's not quite right, and how I would build, build a lesson for you, where I meet you, where you are, maybe take you a step further, so you're comfortable, and then build those steps toward a final conclusion. You know, this is all the structuring of thought, the structuring of knowledge and how you how you communicate that I mean, you can communicate poorly, you can communicate effectively, you can communicate inefficiently, you can communicate efficiently and so is another skill of, of my energy going to you and what it accomplishes when it gets there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm curious how you respond to this. So we've had people on the show over the years who have related martial arts to language, then a particular technique might be a word. And, you know, in the context of a lot of arts that have structured forms, you know, a Kata, that maybe that's like a poem or a short story.
Scott Burr:
Oh, interesting.
Jeremy Lesniak:
As someone with a creative writing background, and clearly some interest in writing, do you see what you do when you're on the mat when you're rolling or teaching? Do you see overlap there with creative writing?
Scott Burr:
Well, one of the things that I have said to people and I think it pertains to, I mean, I've a black belt in a style called [00:50:08-00:50:10] which is similar to one that you may have heard of. And that's very traditional in the sense that it's, you learn Kata, you learn techniques. You know, basically 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Then, you know, it's mostly Kata techniques and sparring is, you know, mostly point style sparring. And so I thought about it in terms of not necessarily native writing, but in terms of learning of foreign language. Right? Okay. So, in Jiu Jitsu, the sort of the bedrock text for Gracie Jiu Jitsu is what we call The Master Text, which is Helio Gracie and Gracie put together a beautiful book, where they outline the whole core curriculum of Gracie Jiu Jitsu, which is the what basically the white to blue belt curriculum. So all the standing self defense, all the ground self defense is the basic, you know, if you're gonna fight an untrained opponent, what's he most likely to do so he's going to try to punch you in a headlock, he's going to try to strangle you, he's going to try to kick you if you get on the ground, he's going to put you all those basic attacks, and the self defense for those basic attacks. And this includes some things like what if he hits you with a club? What if he's got a gun? What if he's got a knife, but it's not a it's not a huge book, and it but it lays out these these core techniques, maybe 150 techniques, and people sometimes criticize, you know, because there's a contingent that likes to criticize the graces, and this this stuff is totally unrealistic.
You say, well, I think maybe you're thinking about it wrong. Say, if you were going to learn French, I don't speak French, right. But if I was going to learn French, the first thing I'd probably do is buy a phrase book. And I would learn those phrases, so that I knew how to say some basic things. And I would learn those phrases just by rote I would know how to repeat them. And I could go over to France and I could more or less negotiate. You know, I'd get a lot of help from the people who were responding to me. They recognized I didn't know anything, but I could ask where the restaurant was, I would order a meal I can pay for at a hotel, so you could function and function. So I've learned those phrases, but anybody who, who, you know, if somebody came up to you and said, Are you want to learn French, you got a phrase book, oh, those phrase books are totally unrealistic. Not unrealistic. It's just the first step to gaining fluency. So after you get comfortable with the phrases, you can start to recognize, oh, man, I could take this word from this phrase and put it with this setup. And now I have a new idea. And as you gain fluency, you start being able to express what you're trying to say easily where your thoughts become words, and you don't have to translate them to the limits of I know this technique, or I know this phrase.
And so people are oh man, his techniques are unrealistic. They're not unrealistic. They're just not fluent. They're the phrase books that start you toward fluency. Nobody says this is all you'll ever need. Nobody hands you a phrase book. And since this isn't, you know, French now, of course, you don't know French now. Okay. But it's where you start much like, you know, I've said this. I had an idea at one point. So the guy who I started learning school with, you know, he was my main trading partner in Jiu Jitsu. And, you know, we're still close friends and trading partners. But at one time, he was thinking about transforming because he's still running a [00:54:25-00:54:26] program that is very successful and popular in our town. And one time we were thinking about what if we evolved it? Because now we recognize the importance of grappling, we recognize the importance of throwing and you want to teach all these things, and those aren't really part of the tool. So we said, Okay, what do we do? If we're gonna design a curriculum for this new martial art that is integrating these aspects, what would that curriculum look like? He said, well, you have to think about it in terms of who's your student, right the student is I've never done anything before. I don't know how to throw a kicker up. So the beginning is you stand in front of a mirror in one stance, and you throw your different hand strikes. And you stand in one stance and you throw your kicks.
Okay, so now you have single word vocabulary. Okay, now I will teach you some combinations. And now you have a sentence made. And now I teach you Kata. And you have an idea of how to chain multiple combinations together. And again, we're learning a new language. And we're developing toward fluency. After I have it in my body, what are my techniques? What are my combinations? What are my multiple combinations that evolve and change over the course of a prolonged confrontation? And I graduate to know, I just freeform now I know that things I'm fluid, right? So you know, I think there's an idea there. Even if we're not talking about learning a foreign language, we're talking about gaining fluency to a progressive curriculum. And on top of skills.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm right there with you. If you look at the way children, young children learn anything, they need examples. We don't sit them down with a textbook, we don't explain to them grammatical rules, you know, we'll correct them. No, you don't say this phrase, you say this phrase. So they walk around with phrases. It's an internalized phrase book, and they start to put anybody who has kids knows they start to put phrases, break out those words and put them together, and sometimes it doesn't work. And we correct them with that. And over time, you start to understand, just from a lot of examples, how this stuff works. And it's not just for language, it's for anything else.
And this is where I think when a lot of people get down on structured forms, anything that's not free for movement, within martial arts, I think they're missing the point that there is a lot of value in giving you some combinations that make sense, I'm not going to, I'm probably never going to step out, throw a low block and a reverse punch exactly as it is done in. To my knowledge. Every style has a form that has that in there somewhere. I'm probably never going to do it quite like that. But there is some value in my understanding of how those techniques connect how my hips move, moving from one to the next. Right? Like there's just because the value isn't complete, it's not 100% accurate to reality, as you're talking about with this book that the grace is put together, just because not 100% accurate doesn't mean it's 0%. Relevant.
Scott Burr:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's part of developing a physical fluency that will serve you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, the [00:57:51-00:57:52]. Why did you step into that? Because if I'm getting the timeline right, you've been training in Jiu-jitsu and judo for a bit.
Scott Burr:
That was my first martial art. That was what I started with. So when I was 17, I started with [00:58:07-00:58:09].
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, Backwards, so I missed that.
Scott Burr:
Okay. Yeah, that was the school that was so 1999. And obviously, even though UFC happened, it's happening. It wasn't. I feel like what I mean, what I remember of the culture around the UFC at the time, was we very much had an attitude in the traditional martial arts, that was Brawley. That wasn't what we did, you know,
Jeremy Lesniak:
On the first few and definitely was brawling. It was.
Scott Burr:
So, we were and like I said, I was, you know, I was looking for something. My friend was doing this martial art and he invited me to come to a class and I loved it. And I was basically there every day from now on. And then when I went away to college, I would come back in the summers and train and then I would, and then after college, I came back and it was right around the time that the Ultimate Fighter happened. And you started when he was part of the rebranding of Mixed Martial Arts as these guys are athletes. These guys are martial artists. This is a legitimate thing. This is not a ballroom ball. And we as people who had always you know, we were doing a traditional martial art but we felt like we wanted to believe we were capable fighters. And so when you have this thing that comes out and says no, this is what you got to do to fight this man. We better be doing that. And so I trained my instructor there at this time or a Gracie affiliate had opened in Cleveland.
And so he started training with them. He started bringing it back. I started going up there with them and that was how our Jiu Jitsu journeys and then I eventually fell in love with Jiu Jitsu stopped doing [01:00:17-01:00:18] altogether and and then it was after actually after I got my black belt in Jiu Jitsu that I started training in judo specifically. So good. So Jiu Jitsu and then Jiu Jitsu and judo. There was an MMA there. Yeah. My judo. My judo. So I reached a point with Jiu Jitsu, where I felt like I had plenty to learn, right. But as a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, I had spent so much time on the ground that I didn't really when I wasn't seeing stuff that I didn't know how to, I didn't know what was going on. Right. Everything that was happening. I knew what was going on. Even though it was bad. I knew what was going on. I had a certain sense of familiarity with every nuance of every position that I was encountering. So plenty to work on, plenty to learn, but I was all familiar territory, more or less. On the feet, I felt like I could get throws, but most of it was like, I didn't know what was happening a lot of the time. It was like if I got somewhere where I could throw, it was great. But the rest of it was kind of a blur. And I didn't have that feeling of like, Oh, now he put that pressure there then it put the step then I did this then I did that and it was just like I knew.
Okay, and I said man, I really want that same feeling of like this is all familiar territory with with the stand up and actually wrote a blog post about this at one point was I had this blog I was writing at the time, and it was like basically, you know, there's a you know, there's this debate where it's like, okay, is Jiu Jitsu enough to win a fight? It's just to complete a martial art or does it need to be supplemented like because we started with saying. Okay, you need jiu jitsu on the ground, and you need Muay Thai on the feet. And then you start learning Gracie Jiu Jitsu and you realize, man, this is really designed for dealing with punches dealing with clinches dealing with it's not just ground fighting, right? So this whole thing of like, it's just a ground marshaller is not. So if you understand the complete martial art, you recognize that many? If you look at Judo, right? Judo has three components: Atemi waza, Naga waza, and Katame waza. Right? So you have striking, throwing and grappling. So all three phases have any I mean, these are the phases that Bruce Lee talked about us in phases never touched. Because these are the three phases,you start separate, you have a striking phase, a clenching phase, and then only grow unless somebody gets knocked down on the feet, so you need to have a complete mercial to talk about these things and traditional Judo does in traditional Gracie Jiu Jitsu does. But I felt like, but any martial art, your comfort and skill is going to develop the most around the things you spend the most time doing?
Absolutely. And in Gracie Jiu Jitsu, I was spending most of my time on the ground, or in realistically, that's just a question of volume like, right? So if I'm gonna have training. Okay, we're gonna do a five minute round. So we're grappling for 30 seconds, we get a takedown and we're on the ground performing. Right, right. Well, so the volume of time spent on the feet versus on the ground, it's just going to be disproportionate. So I said, Okay, what I need is a venue in which I just focus on these 30 seconds. So when we hit the ground, we get back up. And that's cute. All right, that means that's modern modern Judo is you don't you don't grab you know, you. I mean, they do a little bit on the ground, but you're very limited time and otherwise they stand back up. She said, okay, I want to, I want to basically have a training environment where it's just focused on this, we put parameters around it, we say we're just going to focus on from the point that we clench to the point that we're on the ground. And so it was a way for me to realistically think of it as developing an aspect of what the complete martial art is, right? Whether you want to call it Jiu Jitsu or whatever you want to call it, right?
Because I just wanted to have that same feeling of familiar exposure. Um, and then I really fell in love with a lot of the aspects of judo. I mean, Judo is really, like I said, Kanō Jigorō. It was an incredible, incredible person, a really brilliant person, really forward thinking. I mean, it's an incredible thing that she did to have that awareness and insight and vision at that time. It's a remarkable thing in Judo.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We owe so much to him. Nearly everyone training today can trace something that happens in their school back to things that happened in the origins of judo. Whether it's rank or uniforms, it's specific techniques, the codification, there's so much there.
Scott Burr:
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, that people don't realize that this entire apparatus of modern martial arts, where you would go to take a class as a form of exercise to develop yourself. And if you were ranked Belle, like all he invented all these things, like this entire concept that didn't exist before. And it's like, meant, you know, to create a new concept is to create something that's never existed before you don't unless you've done it, you don't realize that's just created a world .
Jeremy Lesniak:
And a concept to be good, right? Yeah. And people try things and they're just not good. And so they fall away. When you started stepping into judo, where any of your Jiu jitsu to friends, training partners, they push back and they're like, why are you gonna waste your time on that? Why do that? You know, what's the point?
Scott Burr:
No, I mean, my students were, if I said it was important, they were like, alright, it's important. However, they did not enjoy the early part when I sucked at it. And I was like, kicking everybody's shins. It was like there was a painful learning curve for a lot of people.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so you were off training, and you'd come back to your students. You guys are doing your thing. And you're working on what you're learning and a little rough around the edges. Yeah, exactly. People walked around with some bruise shins.
Scott Burr:
Thank you, you know, I've got good because you get, like, so?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. So let's, you know, let's open up the timeline, what's coming? You know, it sounds like you wouldn't use the word settled. Because that suggests a stasis, I don't mean that you've found a space, that it sounds like it works well for you, that you are happy and feeling satisfied. Because of all the various pieces that are in there. Do you see that opening up changing shifts in the future? Are there goals that you're looking at? You're like, I want to do this? I want to know what's down the line for you?
Scott Burr:
Yeah, good question. so I've had the opportunity in the past couple of years to train with Master Rickson Gracie and I'm there is there's so much depth to his, his knowledge of Jiu Jitsu, and I feel like I'm in the shallowest of the shallow waters with with that and so, from my own personal you know, martial arts journey as a student that I want to spend as much time you know, with him and with the material that he's taught me and just, I have no sense that I'm anywhere you know, near the top of the mountain, you know, there's a lot of dark road ahead of me dark meaning like, not illuminated, right,
Jeremy Lesniak:
I knew what you meant.
Scott Burr:
So there's so much to see and explore. And that's really where my priority is. I mean, I feel incredibly privileged to have had the time that I had with him and I have the sort of the situation that I have with them now and I'm here to soak up as much of that as I can. Beyond that, I'm you know, I like teaching seminars, I have relationships with a few different people around where I get to travel and get to teach and meet new people and train in different places and my situation now. With my training here is very flexible so I can travel and you know sort of engage with and have different conversations with different people like yourself to see what see where these conversations go is always interesting and exciting for me. And then I'm still in the midst of, you know, promoting Richard's book, the one memoir that I helped that I co-authored so that the audio book came out. I recorded the audiobook for that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, you read the book?
Scott Burr:
I read the book Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, nice.
Scott Burr:
So yeah, that's gonna start plugins.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, plug away.
Scott Burr:
This was an incredible book to write. Richard Bresler was Gracie’s first student.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Most people are gonna listen to this versus any demonstration.
Scott Burr:
The books are called Worth Defending: How Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Saved My Life. It's available; paperback, ebook, audiobook. It's got like 4.9 out of five stars on Amazon with 970 Plus Reviews. People are really digging it. And it's the story of Gracie Jiu Jitsu, his beginnings in the US. And the first UFC. That's an incredible, incredible story, Richard, people don't necessarily know. But Richard is arguably the reason that Gracie Jiu Jitsu got its footing in the US. Without Richard, although he might have the academy. I mean, Richard was a go-to guy, it was his right hand, man. And so we're working on that. And then I'm also editing. Robert Drysdale is going to read another book he's working on right now. He just sent me a draft I'm going to read this afternoon. Another book about Jiu Jitsu and how, basically, it's a really interesting idea that, basically, things become more meaningful, the more effort it takes to achieve them, right? Literally, the size of the value of the thing is proportionate to the effort it takes.
So, if you want a meaningful life, you need a challenging life. Right? And so, approaching that, as we, as our culture seems to drift ever closer for what you're talking about instant gratification, easy success, easy attention, our culture actually gets less and less meaningful. And so the more we put ourselves up against big challenges, the more rewarding our lives get. And he sees this as obviously he's a high level Jiu Jitsu competitor and teacher and so his experience as a coach as a fighter, all influences in the same talks about sort of the Greeks take on this and Nietzsche stake on this. It's a really interesting book. It's gonna be really cool. So we've been working on that. And then yeah, man, I got some other writing projects I'm working on. But mostly just doing Jiu Jitsu in writing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right on, right on. If people want to find your website, social email and stuff like that you're up to share.
Scott Burr:
Yeah, so you can find me at EnclaveJiuJitsu.com or scottburrauthor.com. And there's a bunch of information on either of those about my background, my you know, Jiu Jitsu, Judo degree, my you know, how to get in touch with past and future events. You know, what I teach, what I have to offer my certifications. I love to hear from people. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram @enclavejiujitsu, and then Facebook also at [01:14:15-01:14:16]. There we go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yeah, I think you sent all those over. So those will be in the show notes for folks. And, you know, last thoughts here, you know, how do you want to go out? What final words do you have for the listeners today?
Scott Burr:
I don't know. I mean, I appreciate the chance to be on the show. You know, I love to be able to talk about these things and go down these rabbit holes with people and I'm always a little you know, I had so much to learn. There's so much that I'm working on studying, discovering, like, every, every week I turn around and like, How did I not know that? How have I been doing that? Like, how about like, this is this like? I don't know. I hope everybody has as rewarding of martial arts experience as I as I've had, and it just keeps, keeps giving the way it's given to me. I'm a lucky guy, you know, I've gotten a lot. So I just appreciate the time and the conversation.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I had a great time with this one and felt like I was talking to someone that could easily have been me, that I would love as a training partner. And that's one of my favorite things about this show. You know, if I ever strike it rich in the lottery, or, you know, we get all the things right and, and whistlekick makes a lot of money, and I get a boss and I start driving around the country and training with people, I would definitely stop and train with Scott, what a good guy and the thoughtfulness that came through. I'm sure you all picked up on it. I was talking to somebody who, I think, thinks as intently about the world as I do. And that's not something I find too often. So, Scott, thanks for coming on. Thanks for talking to me, man had a blast. I hope to talk to you again soon.
Listeners, head over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Check out the photos that he sent in, see all the things that we got the links for things that we talked about in the show. And I know you get show notes in your podcast app, but it doesn't have the photos and doesn't have the full experience. So if you don't check out whistlekickmartialartsradio.com Once in a while, I think you're missing out. If you like this show, if you like what we do, hopefully you're willing to support us in some way, even when or how small. Here's some examples. You can consider buying one of our books on Amazon. You could tell others about the show, you could support the patreon patreon.com/whistlekick. Okay, if you're interested in having me come out to your school for a seminar, we could do that too. Just hit me up. Let me know. Don't forget the code PODCAST15 to get 15% off. Anything that you will find whistlekick.com. Get feedback, Get a suggestion. Let's try that again. Jeremy guest suggestions there. Maybe a topic suggestion. I want to hear it. Email me, Jeremy@whistlekick.com our social media for everything we do is @whistlekick. And that takes us out to the end. So until next time, train hard, smile. And have a great day.