Episode 788 - Coach Jepha Mooi
Coach Jepha Mooi is a martial arts practitioner and instructor who founded Chick Jitsu.
Learning self-defense, learning how to protect themselves without even knowing it. Essentially, it is repetition, the more you do it, the more it’s going to naturally come out of you…
Coach Jepha Mooi - Episode 788
Most of the guests we have in the show starts their journey at a young age, usually brought by their parents to the dojo. Coach Jepha Mooi’s journey is nowhere near that. Coach Mooi started training as a new single-mom, thinking that she might need self-defense sooner than later. Eventually, Coach Mooi will teach others and empower women as well. She founded Chick Jitsu, an all-female Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training camp, that produces tournament events for women.
In this high-energy episode, Coach Jepha Mooi talks about her Martial Arts journey and she shares what her future events look like. Listen to learn more!
Show notes
You may check out Coach Jepha’s work on Instagram or check out Mooi Thai Fitness
Learn more about Chick Jitsu
Show Transcript
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, episode 788 with today's guest coach Jepha Mooi. I'm Jeremy Lesniak. I'm your host here for the show and I've been doing martial arts my whole life, just about my whole life. Only a few years actually as I record this coming up on a pretty significant anniversary for my training. But the point is I love martial arts and I love martial artists, and that's why I have put my entire life into this company. I'm glad you're here. Thank you for coming by, and thank you for being part of our mission to connect, educate, and entertain traditional martial artists of the world. We give away our absolute best stuff. Like this podcast. So if you like what we do, maybe you wanna help us out. Maybe you wanna grab something at whistlekick.com with the code podcast15. Maybe you want to leave a review or a rating somewhere. Maybe you want to join our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick, two bucks a month, it gets you behind the scenes. Who's coming up on the show? It's the only place we tell you. $5 a month, it gets you bonus episodes. $10 gets you bonus video training methodologies and it goes up from there. We work very hard to make sure that our Patreon contributors and I thank all of you, we do not name them, remain that you continue to find such overwhelming value that you wouldn't dream of leaving, and we do a pretty good job of that. Now, if you wanna go deeper on the show, if you say, you know Jeremy, I'm new to this stuff, welcome. Maybe you wanna start at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, where we put all kinds of stuff up for this podcast. Did you know you can download, just copy-paste transcripts? Did you know you could search those transcripts right from the website? You can get the links and the photos, all the things we talk about during the episodes. There's a lot over there, go check it out. And if you are our biggest fan, if you are family, if you are aligned in our mission to connect, educate, and entertain, and you resonate with our goal to get everyone in the world to train for even six months, then you should probably be at our family page, whistlekick.com/family. We intentionally don't link it. We want you to jump through that little hoop because we give you some good stuff in exchange for you coming and checking out all the things you can do to help us in our mission. We're not gonna cram it down your throat. You've gotta open the door yourself. Now, today's episode with Coach Jepha Mooi is a lot of fun. We are talking about some interesting stuff and some female-centric stuff, which let's face it, I am not female. So when we have guests on who are fighting hard for female martial artists and some inclusion, I really did those conversations. I had fun today. I think Jepha did too and yeah, here we go. Check it out.
Jepha Mooi:
Hi.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, welcome.
Jepha Mooi:
Great. How are you?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm wonderful, thank you. All right, so we're gonna talk a lot about a lot of different things today. We're gonna talk about a lot of different things today. We'll, and you are gonna drive, you're gonna decide where we go and how we get there but we need a place to start. So let's start with this, why did you start training?
Jepha Mooi:
I love that question. That's the easiest one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm glad I gave you an easy one to start.
Jepha Mooi:
All right. So, I started training because at the time I was a single mom, I had moved into an apartment complex that seemingly was normal, but once I moved in, it was a little bit rough. And, you know, again, like I'm a newly single mom, I have a baby, it's always gotta be in my arms. She's not walking or following me anywhere. And I just had to take into consideration that at some point in between doing my groceries or whatever, there's gonna be my car door's open, my house door's open, and I'm gonna be, you know, mindful of a child probably in my arm. I'm gonna have like another whole rack of groceries on my arm so, you know, I'm pretty stuck and I'm pretty vulnerable. Also, I'm a small person, so I look like an easy target even though I end up being a firecracker, you know, it is what it is. So, I was, you know, conscious of that. And also too, like, I'm thinking what within my groceries is available and it's my legs, and also as a female, we're dominate with our hip strength. Our lower half is just, you know, you guys, men get to be strong on top, women get to be strong on the bottom so taking those into consideration, I ended up doing self-defense classes at Krav Maga. I dated a dude that did kickboxing. He is like, you look like you would be really great for that. And I kind of like fell in love with the kickboxing aspect of it. And it just went from like, you know, I'm doing all this stuff and I get into the Krav Maga classes. They're just like, oh, you're such a natural and, you know, that did come from me doing cheerleading growing up. And, you know, then everyone, oh, are you ever gonna be in the UFC talking about this Gracie Gym? And I ended up visiting Gracie starting jiu-jitsu and from there I had no idea that it would take over my life the way that it did, just from me wanting to be able to defend myself as a mom.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Love it.
Jepha Mooi:
So.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now there's something you brought up in your easy answer that I don't, maybe it's easy for you, but it's not common and that's the awareness piece. Most people pre-training don't have a lot of awareness of their own vulnerability. Where did that come from for you? How were you aware of your vulnerability when so many people aren't?
Jepha Mooi:
I think that just came from my father raised me well, he raised me smart. I grew up with an older brother who was kicking my ass all the time so, I mean, just like common sense. But at the same time, you know, I started getting into, you know, Bruce Lee always kind of stood out to me just as like an artist, you know, because he had his whole like mentality side of the martial arts that I was actually brought me into him first. And he just says, you know, like, you essentially, people walk around especially these days with the fact that we have our phones. We're always on our phones. People are crossing the road, walking to Walmart or whatever store they're going to, still looking at their phones, and that's such an easy target, you know. And Bruce Lee talks about like always knowing your awareness, like always being aware of everything that's around you, whether you're looking this way, you still know what's going on to the sides of you, behind you. You go into a public place, you go into a restaurant, you have to know where the exits are. You have to know, you know, where's the broom so I could use that as a weapon if something happens or you know what I'm saying? Like, so like at this point you start kinda like sizing people up. Even though you're not, you don't feel threatened or anything. It's just like I enter a room and I already know, kind of I size up people. I know my exits.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're preaching to the choir on this show.
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Me and everybody, you know, everybody in the audience now is similar in that respect for sure.
Jepha Mooi:
But I mean, that should be, that to me, you know, learning about it and reading about it should be so much of a common sense that it even boils down to like, yo, what up cops? Why are you not training kinda thing. Like everybody should be a secret little ninja if you wanna survive in this world.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Jepha Mooi:
It's crazy out there. It's always been, it's always going be no matter how hard we try, but the best thing that we can do is be our own weapon.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love that. That's a perfect, I'm even gonna write that down. We pull quotes from the episode. That one's going on. Now, you said something and this isn't me attacking you. You said something, it's a little bit contradictory and I suspect that that's because there's more there, so that's why I'm gonna pick at it a little bit. You talked about if you're getting the groceries, your feet are available. And so Kraft Maga, kickboxing makes sense. Gracie jiu-jitsu, not so much of a kicking art. So how do we go from lower body strength and hips and kicks while my arms are carrying a baby in grocery bags to, yeah, you know? I'll get on my back and choke you out.
Jepha Mooi:
So, like I said, that was definitely not my first choice and it was absolutely uncomfortable. I don't know how I fell in love with it and I can see, and I think that's why I worked so hard to express what, how it's so important is because, yeah, I show up to a jiu-jitsu class and you want me to get on top of the stranger and act like I don't have personal boundaries? Like, eh!
Jeremy Lesniak:
What made you go in the first place?
Jepha Mooi:
My brother was kinda like pushing toward it and a lot of people, you know, I worked at a nutritional place and I had a lot of the Gracie guys coming in shopping and, oh, you should try it. And like, again, like, so with your question, let's be real here. If somebody is charging me or coming to harm me, we're not squaring up. We're eventually gonna get down. Like a guy doesn't wanna come up and like box me. He wants to come up and approach me and get on top of me, you know, most of the times that's what it is, you know, like...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Jepha Mooi:
You wanna be real. They're not pick pocketing me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Jepha Mooi:
So, being able to understand close contact combat is like almost more important than the physical, like, yeah, I can try to kick you all day and, you know, that's a whole different side and a whole different topic about how that's beneficial. But again, let's be real. I'm gonna be in a close range issue of problem if somebody is attacking me, and so that's where learning how to choke people or hand fight or, you know, strategically exit within that two to five-second timeframe of being able to get your way and get the hell outta there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you were aware of the hole in your game, so to speak?
Jepha Mooi:
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Maybe reluctantly or skeptically or cautiously, you step in at what, how quickly did it take over your life?
Jepha Mooi:
Like immediately. It was one of those things...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Day one?
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah. I was that girl that got in there and there was no females in that gym. They all like eyes like it was a mad full of sweaty men and I walked through the door and they're all like fresh knees kinda thing. And I'm like ah! But I knew in my head how important it was, how dedicated, like I was like I wanna do this. It's important. If I wanna, you know, learn the full game, this is gonna be good for me. So, you know, it was definitely scary, but it's just one of those things that like I was the girl that was on the mat with a knee brace. I was knee brace girl. At the time I guess it was not cool to come in with your injuries, but it was just like, I remember the first move that I learned was the triangle and I just couldn't get it. But the part of like learning how to, like the technique of a triangle kind of got me, I guess. And I'm like I can do this. I dunno, I can do this.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You liked the puzzle?
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah and I'm not even like a, I guess I am sort of like a puzzle chick. We got puzzles to catch us all over this room, but I just, I dunno, I was not expecting that kicking and punching is so kinda like pow pow. Jiu-jitsu is kinda like hmm, which is the different, you know, aspect.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Jepha Mooi:
Mentally.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It certainly attracts, often attracts a different personality type, you know. We've had plenty of people from all sorts of martial arts on this show, but one of the things that I hear quite often, from the folks who, especially if they start in something else and they end up pivoting or adding some manner of grappling, they appreciate the intellectual piece, you know, especially when you get to a point and I've done very little grappling, but I like being able to do it at a really chill level, like really slow, really light and figuring it out. I appreciate that puzzle. It's like, all right, so my arm's about to break here. What can I do? Oh, I could do this, right? And that's fun and actually I take some of that into standup as well. When you say it took over your life, and when you say it was immediately, what did that look like? What is your life being a jiu-jitsu life look like?
Jepha Mooi:
So it was one of those things that I like I said, I'm a very outgoing person. I'm a firecracker. I'm at this time working for a nutritional place. I'm also going to school to learn about nutrition. So essentially like my journey began with wanting to connect the mind with what we put in our body and how those things go. So, you know, of course, all of this starts branching out and so I can't help but to talk about it and I'm like, oh, this is so cool, blah, blah, blah. I'm posting it. I'm a social girl, so I'm a social media like, oh pow pow today. And it's intriguing to other people that you know, one, that this little tiny girl can do all of these really cool things and get so interested. And then two, I'm good at it. But that attracted people to come into the gym. And finally, the owner of that gym at the time, Rob bust through these intro doors and was like, who's Jepha? And I'm like, ah! Not me, like I don't know. Should I be scared? What did I do wrong? And he pulled me to the side and he is like, you have been getting so many people to sign up to my gym. I want you to work for me. So I was like, that was such a crazy awesome opportunity. And it was cool to be recognized as someone that's like bringing people in like I love this so much. I'm so passionate about it that it's easy to be like, you must join me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What were you telling them? What are you telling these people that got them to come in?
Jepha Mooi:
Just again with like how mental game, like, you know, often people wanna sign up for gym type things cause they wanna lose weight. And I'm like, bro, this is the best workout ever and you don't even know that you're working out. There's no effort. You don't even know that you're there for an hour burning this amount of calories. And like there's so many cool people that you're gonna meet there and I don't know, just like, it just was one of those things that I'm like, the workout, the mindset, everything was so cool. The energy to go there, it's like you're gonna lead there feeling better about yourself and like, isn't that what we all want?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Now I'm curious and I'll tell you why after. You said that when you started, you were the only woman in the class, right? Were you bringing in women as well, or was it, you know, more as you said, sweaty dudes?
Jepha Mooi:
Well, that's the origin of Chick Jitsu. So, there were like two other chicks that were going there at the time that I didn't really have the same schedule as them, so I definitely never got to be like on their page. But I started bringing in more chicks and then at the time I was also a personal trainer, so they allowed me once I started working there to bring you know, my people there. I would teach 'em a little bit of, you know, the kickboxing and if they wanted some jiu-jitsu, but then they'd start seeing the classes and so, yeah. Yeah, that's that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. So what is Chick Jitsu?
Jepha Mooi:
So, Chick Jitsu is essentially, like I said, how it happened there. It was just one of those things that I brought up like, oh, could I possibly do women's class? And so we essentially added a women's class onto that schedule and it was bringing, we had like two-hour sessions every Sunday. It was a banger. It was so awesome. So like, I still have the girls telling me now, like, oh, I miss those days and like, I miss hanging out because it was so much fun. And at the same time, they're getting a good workout. They're getting like, a good friendship with other females and they're learning self-defense. They're learning how to protect themselves without even note. Cause essentially all it is is repetition. The more that you do it, the more that it's just commonly gonna come outta you if something happens. Somebody grabs your arm and you're like, bam, they're gonna be a little bit shocked, statistically proven. If you put up a little bit of a fight, they're gonna think twice, and that's exactly what you want in a bad situation. That's what Chick Jitsu is.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it. But if they, you know, I don't know the answer. You know, I'm giving you commercial time here in a sense. You're wearing the shirts still. If I remember correctly, your Instagram handle is Chick Jitsu. Did Chick Jisu continue in some way other than a Sunday class?
Jepha Mooi:
So, yeah, I went to other gyms. I did seminars for, you know, different workplaces for their women and so on and so forth. Once I started working over at Gracie Brandon in Riverview, Florida, I met Lou who was my partner in Chick Jitsu. And he saw me teach in his classes. He has a daughter of his own, so, and my daughter and her became like best friends and it was just so great. But he brought the idea of making Chick Jitsu a tournament. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I've seen people like have this idea and it's never really successful because it is hard getting chicks to sign up for events. So it would definitely be a task. It would be a task for the very, very perfect person. And I was like, I'm so game to try to make that happen, you know. It was just one of those things that he is really good at seeing a good opportunity and I'm like, bro, I am so down to try to make, I'm for it because that would be the best thing that we could do for girls in tournaments. Like to have a girl on a card is like, oh wow. It's a girl on a card. To have a full card of women, we have 15 super fights coming up and two [17:06.2] with plenty of chicks in there. So like, that's almost unheard of. It is unheard of and I did it. Well, we did it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Anytime somebody does something difficult, and as you're talking about, anybody pull any MMA fight card? Pro, Am, I don't care. I don't care where it is. I don't care what it is. I don't care what the rules are. You're gonna see at the most I've ever seen out of like 10 is three women. So for you to do this and to find success with this, whether or not you were the perfect person, I can't imagine it was simple. Can't imagine that you just like, oh, all right, I got this, you know? And it just happened. You worked at it. But anytime somebody works at something that's really hard, they have a compelling why. What was your why? Why was this so important to you?
Jepha Mooi:
Pretty much the opener of what we've been talking about. Like, I came here with a purpose to share self-defense with specifically women. Like I had to do it for myself and I wanna give that to my daughter. I wanna give that to somebody else's daughter. I wanna give that to everybody in the world. And, you know, people get on oh, so you don't teach men? I do, but my purpose is that I'm talking to little baby Jepha, I'm talking to little me in, you know, in awkward situations or in bad situations growing up, who would I have needed? And I wanna be that person for me. I wanna be that person for my kid. I wanna be that person for the whole wide world. And Chick Jitsu is just one of those things that I have a bigger opportunity to reach out to so many different people. Bring them together, and I'm not the only one doing big things. And the women that are gonna be in the room of Chick Jitsu are going to be more people that are as energetic and inspired and passionate about this same stuff. And to bring all of that together starts a really, really big fire and I think that it's gonna do, I don't think that I know that we are doing big things. I know that every single time a Chick Jitsu happens, something else bigger happens for the world of females in combative sports and for their safety. That's, it's huge.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Love it. Now the other flip side, I guess, of people doing big things is inevitably you get people who don't wanna see people do big things. And sadly, it is not common. Maybe even a little less common than uncommon, but it's not a zero. There are some people who don't like seeing women move forward in martial arts, and so the look on your face tells me that you might have had some hurdles. Now, I'm not asking you to name names but you mind telling us about some of those hurdles that might have popped up?
Jepha Mooi:
I mean, I can definitely say that the hurdles that happen are, they can happen from people that you thought you knew a little bit better, people that you have competed against that you're like, I've competed against you, hop in this tournament, and they're like, no. And it's like, dang, okay. I don't understand why, but all right. And you have men out there that are going to try to sabotage you in any possible way that they can. And a lot of times it's more so just like saying bad things about, not even me, but just like, you know, oh, what a dumb idea or I would've done this, or, you know. Not supporting me the way that you would support someone else, and you're just sitting there like, man, I thought that I don't understand why you wouldn't wanna help me out, or I don't know. It happens without, I mean, I'm not trying to sit here and like name out people, but it's just naturally...
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, no. Not asking you to.
Jepha Mooi:
It just naturally comes to people to be like that's really tough, I'm not gonna support that. Or I think more so I'm not gonna support that yet. I'm gonna see, I don't necessarily, I'm not saying you're gonna fail, but if you happen to be making some big moves in a couple years, I'll be on one of them shows and I'm like, that's fine. I'm never gonna not welcome anyone. Everyone's welcome. If you hate it on Chick Jitsu, if you hate it on me like, come on over, come check out these shows and come get inspired. Come, you know, hang out cause it is what it is you know. It just makes me, I'm not a person that lets words hurt me. I'm like I said more bad things to myself than anybody ever could and I'm good. I'm tough. I'm grateful for my partner, Lou, who, you know, I always turn to, and I tell him immediately about, you know, maybe a situation that happened or, you know, people trying to kind of reign on my parade. And he just, you know, he helps me stay focused and he really does believe in this and that, that's like a key factor too on like, you know. I couldn't have done any of this obviously without his idea, but also without his support and belief in this and myself.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice. But I like talking about some of the rougher edges. Because when people start doing something, if they expect that it's gonna go well, then it doesn't go well, they get really disillusioned. They're sad, they pull back, they quit. But if we can let people know up front, yeah, there are things you can do and you know, sadly, people that you trusted, people that you competed against, they're going to you know, maybe they're not gonna directly sabotage you, but not everyone that you expect to be supportive may be supportive. It's important that we acknowledge that. How have things changed from, let's say, the first event till now? I would imagine things have improved in some way. Maybe more efficient, maybe bigger. Maybe you've made some changes. What's happened there?
Jepha Mooi:
So our first event happened literally right before Covid. So everyone, like we had big names, we had big like girls from UFC, Bellator, top jiu-jitsu practitioners, saw black belts out there. In our absolute for $2500 and everyone, like, I couldn't believe the last-minute signups for that. That was one of those things that Lou's like, it's gonna happen. Just wait. Just wait. And I'm like, ok. Ok. Cause you know, I also was headhunting all of the competitors for every division and so it was a last-minute thing. It came together so well, even though we were setting up TVs and computers, like right before we started the show, ah! That was so hectic, but with each show, we've learned so much more. And now, we've separated a full tournament. Came my idea of having like an exclusive tournament where we essentially make the matches. So it's supposed to be 10, but I had so many girls asked to sign up and I'm like, I can't even say, no, this is so good. So we have 15, but they're super fight, so they're perfectly matched, you know, belt, age, rank as close as possible. Everybody agrees to it and they're battling for the crown and that's kind of like an exclusive piece to that. So that, it kind of gives people a break cause you can't be competing every month. I mean, you can, I'd love to. We'd all love to, and some of us do and that's great but realistically, and especially with the fact that we're pushing the females, unless we're moving all over the country, it's hard for us to just stay in Florida and expect these girls to come out every, you know, 22nd of the month. So it's kind of an opportunity to give them a little bit of a break and kinda put on a show for the people that wanna put on a show, those people that wanna win a crown. And again, we split the absolute for our exclusive events so that there's not gonna be a 105 or mixed in with a 205 for a large amount of money. Yeah, it happens.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Does it?
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh.
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah. The girls were the ones that were like, please, you have to separate the absolute and I'm like, yes ma'am. Here we go. Let's try it now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow. A hundred pounds. Brutal. Brutal. That's rough. Okay. What have you learned? Cause most of our audiences never gonna do anything close to what you're working on, right? We've got some school owners, we've got plenty of martial artists, right? Everybody's a martial artist and pays attention to this show. Some of them grapple, most of them probably do not. So what are you learning out of this that you can share with the audience that they can take and run with? What lessons, what learnings?
Jepha Mooi:
Through everything, like I had said with the whole, you know, when people are getting you down or trying to rain onto your parade, that essentially as long as you remain focused. I have like my own personal focus board. I have 'em on my phone, I have 'em in my room. Just little things to help remind me like why I'm here. Cause everything isn't gonna be easy. It's gonna be tough. There's gonna be people that don't want you to succeed, but as long as I have something to always remind me to kind of like have that light at the end of the tunnel to be like, no matter what, no matter how little effort that you're putting in, as long as you're putting effort in, like you're gonna move mountains with your goals. You're gonna get there. So that's something that I think that you can learn through, you know, running the tournament style through my martial art, through jiu-jitsu and kickboxing. I like, I would like people to understand that branching out and trying new things helps what you love the most. So I started out with kickboxing. That's something that like Muay Thai, I absolutely love that, but like I had stated in my head, it was bang, bang, pow, pow, pow jiu-jitsu. I didn't necessarily, oh, jiu-jitsu is so awesome. I wanna learn it. I knew I had to learn it. I got there and I'm thinking so much more of bang, bang, pow, pow. I'm like, well, I gotta grab my foot and their hand is there and what do I have to, like, what moves do I have to do and then it translated into my Muay Thai, where it isn't bang, bang, pow, pow. It's very similar to jiu-jitsu where I can set you up to make you get into a kick that I had, to get into a combo that I want, and that chilled out my Muay Thai. So, I think that no matter what martial art or whatever that you're doing, branching out to similar things or other things can help you learn so much more about something that you originally loved the most or that you would like to develop the most. Branching out is like one of those, the most amazing things that you can do. You don't necessarily wanna do it, but knowing that that's gonna be so beneficial, just do it anyway.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Big fan of cross-training. I advocate for it strongly in most cases. What might you branch out to next?
Jepha Mooi:
I don't know, maybe knitting. I'm just kidding.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I do not see that for you.
Jepha Mooi:
No.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Unless you're sharpening those needles and you're doing something.
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah, right? No, I really do. I think I would like to get more into my weaponry this year.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, okay.
Jepha Mooi:
Upcoming like, I do a little bit of [27:50.3] training. I do a lot of like knife throwing, ax throwing. Again, like I wanna be my weapon, but at the same time, like if even my man, he is a big, you know, 6', 200-pound dude, if he wanted to hurt me, it doesn't matter what kinda martial hurt that I know, if he's determined to, at some point, weapons are gonna be something that are gonna be beneficial for me to have you know. I don't personally like guns and stuff like that, but I don't wanna be stupid about them. And I keep saying that, but I never learned them, you know. And same with knife, you know, I can throw it all day long. I can learn them. I can feel comfortable around them, so that if I ever do come in contact in a serious situation where there's a knife pulled on me, my adrenaline won't fly through the roof because I'm so scared of it. I can be like, okay, I can assess this weapon right now. So probably my next and I had no idea how that's gonna help any of my kickboxing or martial art or jiu-jitsu but I know that something's gonna click and everything's gonna kinda make a connection. It's gonna be a good thing. So that would be possibly my next thing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, you brought up nutrition, going to school for nutrition, working in nutrition, the nutritional needs of a two-hour jiu-jitsu class. Pretty steep and so I would imagine as you immerse yourself deeper and deeper into this world, you were doing some at least self-experimentation, if not coaching other people on nutrition. You're smiling, so maybe I'm getting somewhere with this. So talk about that.
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah, so essentially, you know, I learn the way that your nutrition affects your mind, right? And the mind, body, all that stuff goes together and it's just stuff that we don't really consider. Like it kinda started for me there when I turned a box over and I'm like, man, somebody out there knows exactly what all of these ingredients are. And I'm sitting there mind blown that I can't do this. But then I'm like shove down my body and I'm like, none of this stuff that I can pronounce nor can I identify. I'm just thrown in my body and when I have an attitude later because somebody didn't refill the toilet paper and maybe that has to do with the fact that like, my body isn't nutritionally sound, so it's not coming outta me nutritionally sound. So, you know, I've really got into breaking it all down, reading a lot of books about like what's the difference between me eating something that has a whole bunch of ingredients that I can't pronounce base or versus me eating some spinach that I can tell you exactly what ingredients are in there and how my body can break it down, right? So with that, I learned to clean up the diet. I learned about a lot of, like veganism, and I haven't eaten meat since I, for 17 years now, little over 17 years. I hate saying that kinda because that means I started when I was one. No, I'm just kidding. 17 years is so grand.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How long have you been training?
Jepha Mooi:
10 years. Well, 11 years, but my jiu-jitsu is 10 years this year. I'm pretty stoked about that. Yay. But yeah, so I had originally stopped eating meat-based off of the cleanliness of it, right? And then you pick up the training that you're doing and learning how many calories, even like I had said earlier in jiu-jitsu like you don't realize that sitting there and a triangle or you know, a sweep is really burning a lot of calories and moving a lot of muscles, joints, and parts of your body that you had no idea that you could ever move or feel sore in those spaces, right? And so you have to learn how to replenish that. If I have all of these little basic ingredients, right? I have to kind of supplement all of this big deficit that I've given myself through that. And so eventually, you know, with my style diet and trying to understand the meat people's diets just to help with other clients, it's actually kinda cool that I can eat lots more food than I think than most people think based off of my training. I can eat lots more bad food too if I wanted to. I am a fan of the top of a cupcake. I can't do just icing, it has to be the top of the cupcake. I dunno what it is in my brain there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But not the bottom of the cupcakes? Gotta have icing?
Jepha Mooi:
I tried to, I've tried so many times to eat the bottom and I'm just like why am I eating this sponge?
Jeremy Lesniak:
You need better cupcakes.
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, we don't have [32:29.9] up here.
Jepha Mooi:
Oh yeah. Oh, sorry. Well, they're really good. That would be the almost moment for me. But anyway, so I learned that you know, like if I eat certain foods like the icing that when it breaks down in my body, I get acne, right? But if I properly train next to the foods that I'm eating that are bad, it will process that a little bit quicker and I won't have as bad acne and I can be well prepared you know, with an excess amount of water to hydroponically flush that out my system. And oh, water isn't the only thing that flushes your system? What else can I learn? And it's like throw that in the food that you're eating. It's very cool to learn all of the healthy vegetable lifestyle and be able to like match that up with my training. I obviously, I've, you know, been an advocate to anybody that I've trained or trained with on the lifestyle that I have, I'm not sitting there being like, hey, I'm Jepha. I'm also, I don't eat meat. I don't say that, but I add little tidbits about like, oh, what kind of water? Like how much water are you drinking? You always, if you meet someone, I feel like that should be appropriate. Hey. Instead of saying, hey, how you doing? It should be, hey, how much water do you drink? Cause that's gonna tell me a lot more about your name and how are you? Good. How much water are you drinking? None. I only drink soda.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. We put out a book that I coordinated a couple years ago now, it's a health book, and the first chapter is all about like, look, you gotta get more water. Here are 30 reasons that you need more water, right?
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're what? 75% water? [00:34:00] 80% water? Somewhere in that mix?
Jepha Mooi:
Right, we're a little hydroponic system that anything that we do, if you stop putting water in your system or any system that's hydroponically run, it's not gonna run. So why are we thinking that...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Falls apart.
Jepha Mooi:
Yeah, yeah. So when I started falling apart, I should not question what kinda sickness or illness I have. I should question how much water intake that I'm doing versus all of the stuff that I'm putting in my body next to the water I'm putting in. Cause again, like if I drink coffee, I'm gonna drink a little bit more water next to my coffee so that I'm not, you know, immediately dehydrate myself and thinking, oh, I had a cup of water earlier. Nah, it doesn't work that way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What do you do when people say I don't like the taste of water?
Jepha Mooi:
I don't care.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes! It doesn't matter. Air doesn't taste good either, you still need it.
Jepha Mooi:
Farts don't smell good, but they come outta my butt and I have to do it like, you know it is what it is. I don't wanna have to wipe my butt after I poo but I have to because that's appropriate. That's what how life works.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Jepha Mooi:
You want you to work, you have to drink water. That's why when people, oh, I don't like vegetables. Okay, well then obviously you don't like being healthy. You don't like the goal, you don't want whatever goal you have that much then. Cause if you can't add a raw vegetable into your diet, then I don't think that you really wanna lose five pounds.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Jepha Mooi:
Simple as that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The why, right? There it is again, the why has to be compelling enough for you to take the action.
Jepha Mooi:
That's what I used to have with all of my clients is, you know, you ask them what their goals are and you know, they explain it to you and then you say, but why is that so important to you? Like say your purpose. Because if you don't come into like a realization as to why do I wanna learn five or at least lose five pounds? Or why do I wanna learn self-defense? Why am I so scared if it's never happened to me? Or, you know, stuff like that. Like you have to have them emotionally connect to their purpose, what they want, so that it actually is easier to happen. Kinda like, you know, I plan out all of my goals and stuff like that out so I can see them in a way that if I'm having a bad day, it's easy to be like, but all I have to do is just a little bit of this to get to, you know, where I wanna be, as opposed to not. It's so much easier to be like if I did a little bit, I'm gonna get what I want. I'm gonna achieve my goal. And it's like, all right, I can convince myself to easily do that, as opposed to just kinda floating around and being like, but I wanna get there one day and then you're like, bye. Make sure you add the waves in there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You gotta do the wave? Ok. Good to know.
Jepha Mooi:
But yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What is, you know, I get the sense that you're pretty busy, you know, you mentioned you have a child, and of course, that always takes a lot of time. What is your training look like now? You know, you're doing a bunch of different things, so where do you fit it in and what and how much?
Jepha Mooi:
At this point, for the new year, I have started a new regimen for myself because I did kind of let my own personal life get in the way. It's very easy to, my coach is so adamant about telling us that like, if you don't discipline your time, you're going to fill it up with a whole bunch of other junk and by the time you wanna get back to where you know you want in training, it's gonna be difficult to kind of push that stuff aside. And it can be something real like, you know, I had something come up on Sunday that's gonna take me outta training this entire week and I'm like, that sucks so bad. Instead of me staying at home and being like, oh, this is so terrible. I'm like, I'm gonna force myself to still dedicate the time that I already had dedicated to my training, and I'm gonna be the photographer for that class. I'm still gonna learn and maybe hop on the mat and try something, I'm still gonna be there so that I can dedicate my time and discipline to being there regardless of, you know, not being able to physically train and I think that stops a lot of people. You know, I've heard it before where if somebody can't do a full 30-minute to an hour workout, then they don't do it at all. I'm like, no, go do five pushups, go do a couple squats in the timeframe of I couldn't make it to the gym. Do something within that to honor what you want in so that the discipline is there, the motivation is there. It takes a simple one time of convincing yourself to wake up and do it, to just do it anyway, you know. So, I personally, Trey and I do the 12 o'clock Muay Thai, and then I go three times a week to jiu-jitsu at night. I'm trying to, especially with Chick Jitsu branch out to other gyms and kinda visit the girls that are competing for us and get to know them. Cause I don't wanna just be another promoter. I wanna be, I'm trying to make a real like camaraderie a family of girls and like really combine them and it's working, but I wanna be more into it. So I'm going to other gyms too in between this time to kinda hop in and roll with the girls, meet the girls, train with other people. Super cool.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice. What are other women saying to you about this?
Jepha Mooi:
About what? Chick Jitsu or?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yeah. About what you're doing and you know, the fact that you're trying to make them a priority. I shouldn't say or making them a priority. Not trying, you're doing it.
Jepha Mooi:
I'm doing it. I get so many compliments all the time and it really does help me to, you know, move forward in times that are tough. Because, you know, it does happen and I think one of the cool things about social media and kind of like exposing reality instead of just taking smiling pictures all the time, just being like, hey man, like I'm on social media today to toot my own horn because I'm so proud of myself for showing up because I didn't want to. And I have a lot of these chicks that will see that and they'll write to me and they'll be like you know, you motivated me to get up off the couch and go out there today and like, I appreciate that or, you know, like, thank you so much for exposing yourself to be like a sucker or, you know, the not so good parts of the training life or just life in general. It's so cool. And then also too, I offer free training to any, you know, assault survivors or whatever you wanna call them. People that have, you know, been through domestic violence or similar stuff. I offer free training to them and I post that often just as a reminder, you know, just to say that there's someone out there that understands what you have gone through and that's so important for you to learn this skill. And I have had people write to me and they're like, oh, I didn't know that you did this, and I just wanna, you know, thank you for being a person out there, you know. Not necessarily that they're signing up for that session, they're just saying like, that's really incredible what you're doing. And I've seen other people start doing it too. I'm like, as girls, it doesn't, you don't need to be a blue belt jiu-jitsu you don't need to, or, you know, you don't have to be a high rank if you've learn something that's changed your life, it just takes one simple move to change someone's life. If I can teach a girl to unlock her arm from somebody's grasp, and that's really intense. That can change a whole situation. Like I said statistically proven, if you put up a little bit of a fight, they're gonna second guess and that's a big freaking deal.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is, really is. All right, so let's pretend we get together you know, another 10 years from now, you've been training jiu-jitsu 20 years. Chick Jitsu is 10 plus however many years old, and I say, hey Jepha, what's happened since we last talked? What would you hope you were telling me?
Jepha Mooi:
I would hope to have branched out to many different gyms to help them open a women-only program. I would like to see us helping out, like scholarships for women to get into these programs. I would like to see girls out there on different top-name cards being accredited to being a Chick Jitsu fight winner, belt holder, super or absolute winner multiple times. I wanna be that brand that's like, you want her in your gym or you want her seminar because she's a Chick Jitsu absolute four times what, you know, that kind of stuff. I wanna be not just any, you know, side event that happens. I wanna be something that's, you know, an accredited type of event.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think you'll do it. Hope you do it.
Jepha Mooi:
I know. I'll do it. There ain't no thinking.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you.
Jepha Mooi:
It's been thought of.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes. Yes. One more question before I kind of turn it to you as we start to wind down completely outta the realm of martial arts, I wanna bring it back to nutrition for a moment. Three foods that you think people need to eat more of.
Jepha Mooi:
Ooh. I think that people need to eat more spinach, more quevos eggs, and I would say, ah, that'd be a tough one on the last one. Those are my top two. Can I do two? And then water's a food now?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure, sure. Water can identify as a food. Why not?
Jepha Mooi:
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. How do people find out more website, social media, email, anything like that we can share.
Jepha Mooi:
So, @chickjitsu is where we are on everything, on YouTube, on Instagram. We don't have Twitter, not our thing. We're not talkers like that. Oh, am I still on here?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Jepha Mooi:
I low battery mode. Sorry.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's all good.
Jepha Mooi:
But yeah, so we have chickjitsu.com, that's all that, and then Jepha Mooi, you can look me up. I'm always shouting Chick Jitsu out. That's what I do for, you know, my whole life is find ways to make Chick Jitsu like a big thing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Great, great. And I hope people will reach out. I hope people will follow. We'll have all that in the show notes of course. And how do you wanna leave this today? What are your final words to the audience?
Jepha Mooi:
My final words to the audience.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not your last words, not like...
Jepha Mooi:
I know not to be specific.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a little morbid. Your last words in this context, at least for today.
Jepha Mooi:
I would say to anybody listening right now is that if you have something in your life that you can be passionate, do it. Like find any way to wake up and make yourself make that happen. A lot of times, especially as we grow older, we kind of fall into this rhythm of, I gotta work, I gotta pay my bills, I gotta take care of the kids. The kids have, you know, all of these things, and we kind of forget about ourselves and we start pouring from a very empty cup. And it turns into, you know, we even have something like seasonal depression where you start kinda getting down. It's a fact, you know, to see, to think that someone's gonna be happy always, it's developing how to be a tough person. How to follow, you know, what makes you set on fire all the time? What makes making life happy, easy, you know? Something that comes naturally to you. Don't forget about stuff that makes you smile. If it's something silly, you know, let it be a part of your life. Don't let it go. And don't ever let anybody talk down to you or say that something's not gonna happen or that you're doing it wrong just cause you're changing the game, do it anyway. Make sure that you always have something out there, something to look at, something to remind yourself why you're doing whatever you're doing so that you can have a smile on your face.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When I think back on today's episode, the word that keeps coming to mind, she actually used it several times herself, firecracker. Man, this is a high-energy person. I had to step up to meet where her energy was at, and that took some work for me, and I appreciated the challenge. Jepha, thanks for coming on. Thanks for being so honest and so real at everything you talked about. And thanks for doing the work that you're doing. I value it greatly and I'm sure I'm not alone. Audience, check out Chick Jitsu. Give 'em a follow. Check out all the stuff that Jepha had talked about, and if you're in the Florida area, maybe you can make it to one of these events. Or heck, maybe you're not, but you're headed there. Or maybe you just want to go support all, I think would be greatly valued and appreciated. If you wanna go deeper on this show, this episode, any of the others, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. If you wanna show your love for the things that we are doing for the martial arts world, go to whistlekick.com. Don't remember, don't remember. Don't forget. I want you to remember. No, we're gonna keep it. I like keeping these intros and outros real. Don't forget that we offer consulting for martial arts schools. I enjoy working with businesses and I work with businesses of all kinds, but I specifically like working with martial arts businesses. And I bring the martial arts philosophy and the whistlekick philosophy is connect, educate and entertain these decisions made out of integrity and joy to help grow these businesses. I have an incredible success rate. It can't get any better. It's literally a hundred percent. So if you want your school to have more, more students, more revenue, more profit, better culture, whatever it is, or all of those things, you can reach out to me or you can also check out more behind the scenes at whistlekick.com. I only won't work with one school in a particular area so if you're in a populated area and you say, you know what, maybe I'll grab Jeremy's help and whistlekick's help before one of my competitors does. Keep that in mind. We are also booking seminars. It's a rolling booking, so if you'd like to have me or me and one of the other folks on the whistlekick team come teach your students or just folks in your area, reach out. We can make it happen. It's not something we try to make a lot of money on. We make money in other ways. It's more the connection part, right? Connect, educate, entertain. Actually, we check all three boxes when we do seminars. My email is jeremy@whistlekick.com, our social media's @whistlekick everywhere you might think of. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.