Episode 984- Icy Mike
In this episode, Jeremy chats with the creator of the Youtube channel Hard2hurt, Icy Mike.
Icy Mike - Episode 984
SUMMARY
In this conversation, Icy Mike discusses the importance of training standards, the role of belts in martial arts, and the concept of Zanshin, or presence, in training. The discussion also touches on the dynamics of adrenaline in combat sports, the evolution of training methods, and reflections on traditional martial arts practices. Icy Mike shares insights on creating objective standards for training and the significance of social dynamics in martial arts culture. He delves into the complexities of martial arts, particularly focusing on Aikido and its perceived effectiveness. He discusses the motivations behind training, the evolution of martial arts practices, and the transition from traditional styles to MMA. Icy Mike shares his personal journey, highlighting the challenges he faced and the insights he gained through various training experiences. The discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding the purpose behind martial arts training and the need for clear standards in teaching and practice.
TAKEAWAYS
Belts in martial arts can serve as a way to measure progress but should not be the sole focus.
Objective standards in training help improve performance and clarity in expectations.
Zanshin, or presence, is crucial for effective training and performance in martial arts.
Adrenaline can enhance focus and performance if managed correctly during training.
Social dynamics play a significant role in martial arts training environments.
The evolution of training standards reflects a shift towards more intentional and goal-oriented practices.
Traditional martial arts often lack practical fighting applications, leading to the need for new standards.
The importance of mentorship and coaching in martial arts training is highlighted.
Training motivations vary, influencing how martial arts are approached.
The importance of community and fitness in martial arts training.
Personal experiences shape perceptions of martial arts effectiveness.
Wrestling training emphasizes live practice and hard training.
MMA training can provide a more realistic approach to fighting.
The evolution of training standards is crucial for martial arts education.
Understanding the purpose behind training can enhance the learning experience.
Explaining martial arts concepts clearly can help students improve.
Everything in martial arts has its pros and cons, and critical thinking is essential.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to the Conversation
05:01 The Role of Belts in Martial Arts Training
7:46 Creating Objective Standards for Training
10:55 The Importance of Zanshin in Martial Arts
14:00 Adrenaline and Performance in Combat Sports
16:55 Social Dynamics and Training Habits
19:54 The Evolution of Training Standards
23:04 Reflections on Traditional Martial Arts
25:55 Conclusion and Future Directions
33:07 The Aikido Debate: Effectiveness vs. Enjoyment
40:56 Exploring Aikido: Perspectives and Misconceptions
46:30 The Shift to MMA: Personal Experiences and Insights
58:28 The Evolution of Training: Standards and Styles
01:03:49 The Birth of Hard to Hurt: A Mission to Educate
To connect with Icy Mike:
Youtube: Hard2Hurt
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.
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Show Transcript
Jeremy:
What's going on everybody? Welcome back to Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio on today's episode. I'm joined by Icy Mike. We just went through.
Icy Mike (04:24.006)
yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you. Yeah, Cool.
Jeremy (04:39.736)
We went on a journey together before we even got here.
Icy Mike (04:42.992)
Don't tell them, it's embarrassing. That normally doesn't happen to me. I know that it happens to lots of guys, but that's never, I promise, I promise I do this all the time. That never happens to me. I know that it happens to lots of guys.
Jeremy (04:45.324)
Now I'm not going to tell them what happened. I'm not even going to tell them what happened. We're just going to let them wonder.
Jeremy (04:56.014)
I really hope we don't tell them. I want to leave them in complete suspense.
Icy Mike (05:01.621)
gosh, that's embarrassing.
Jeremy (05:03.852)
Hey, you know, if that's the worst thing that happens to you today, you're doing great. I truly mean that. See audience, right? We're like four seconds in and you're getting it. This is gonna be a fun one, I can tell. can read the tealy here. So if you're new to Whistlekick, go to whistlekick.com, see all the things that we do, the events, the books, the products, the apparel, the digital products, all that good stuff. But whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com is where you wanna go for everything related to.
this show, if you want the transcript, you want the show notes, if you want Mike socials, like all that stuff's going to be there. So check it out and thanks. But yeah, here we are. We're here. I'm glad I didn't wear my camo, my black camo today. I actually was like two days ago. Like I could go get it and we could match. Yeah. I mean, we've got, we've got the hairstyle going. Right. Right.
Icy Mike (05:54.566)
They've been Twinkies. They've been Twinkies. Yep, the hairstyle of wisdom. When you possess a lot of wisdom, it pushes the hair out.
Jeremy (06:02.422)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I tell people that-
Well, it cooks, right? The brain runs hot and the hair follicles just can't, they just can't do it. Yeah. it cooks them off. Yeah, for sure.
Icy Mike (06:10.448)
is that what it is? It's a temperature issue. I'd always attribute it to pressure, like physical pressure, but maybe temperature is it.
Jeremy (06:19.328)
Mmm. It's probably both. It very well could be both.
Jeremy (06:27.832)
I don't think it is going to accept our advice on anything related to medicine or health or how hair follicles operate.
Icy Mike (06:37.69)
They shouldn't, they shouldn't. That's the interesting thing. And that's pretty common in martial arts where people listen to a dude about stuff that they got no business listening to him about. know, when guys get their black belt in martial arts or whatever and then suddenly they're giving people advice on college and dating and people are listening and they're like, here's what you need to do for that injury or for that rash. And you're like, listening to this guy? Like, why do people do that?
Jeremy (07:04.206)
I think a lot of it is that we end up in these groupings where we're used to listening to the person in the front of the room on so many things. And then we say, well, what do you, now, I admittedly some, know, my students will ask me certain things about certain injuries and I'm talking about, this is what happened to me. This is how I busted up my arm, my elbow. Here's what worked for me, but
Icy Mike (07:28.408)
Right. If you went through that yourself.
Jeremy (07:33.804)
you know, I will usually preface it with, I'm not a doctor, so don't listen to anything I say, but here's what I did.
Icy Mike (07:40.518)
That's 101, you would think. But it's funny, said, when I was at the academy, when I was at the police academy, I had trouble, I kept thinking of the guy who was our class president, right? Like he was in the academy, he was a student, just like me. And he was the class, they made him class president for the time he was in the academy. In my brain, I was like, he's like a supervisor when he gets out of the academy. He's been a cop for three minutes. This is the same as everybody else, he just was in charge in school.
Jeremy (07:43.542)
You- you would-
Jeremy (07:54.158)
Okay.
Icy Mike (08:07.674)
And I was like, yeah, so he's like gonna be like a sergeant or whatever. Like I wasn't in my brain. I just thought when we finished, I would still be like, need to take orders from that guy. Just madness.
Jeremy (08:14.958)
Mm-hmm.
Human beings like hierarchy. We like to know how we slot in to any kind of social structure. You know, I think that for a lot of people, I think that's part of what they like about rank and belts in a martial arts school. It's, I know that I'm supposed to line up between this person and this person, and I'm in this row.
Icy Mike (08:20.122)
Yeah, comfortable.
Icy Mike (08:36.454)
Yeah, actually we introduced a belt system into RKM kickboxing. We just don't have the physical belts, but there's belts. They're just like mental belts. And I just have like a list of criteria and like the standards for each belt. And then I just tell you, yeah, you're a red belt. That's basically like a red belt.
Jeremy (08:44.347)
did you? Okay.
Jeremy (08:55.17)
mental belts. Okay. And do they do they accept that?
Icy Mike (09:01.216)
Yeah, for the most part, yeah. And there are guys that didn't come up. So I train mostly combat athletes with no traditional martial arts background. And I came from a traditional martial arts background into the combat world, combat sport world. So I thought in belts and I thought that by this time at this belt, you needed to be able to do this thing. And that's how I thought. no one in the combat sport world doesn't really think that way. They're like, well, performance.
Jeremy (09:23.342)
Hmm.
Icy Mike (09:29.828)
Like how do you perform? Like we don't need belt tests because we have test tests. We have real tests. Right. Yeah. There's no questions. It's not theoretical. And I was like, yeah, but there are techniques and there are things that you can know or not know that you may or may not have success with. Like there are guys who have success in combat sports doing things that are wrong. Sometimes they need to do those things wrong to have success. Sometimes they could fix that and it not mess up what they're doing.
Jeremy (09:34.19)
It's all results driven.
Icy Mike (09:58.726)
But I created the belt system mostly for me. That was mostly for me. And every once in while someone would ask me, hey coach, am I a blue belt yet? And I'd be like, and I would look at my list and I'd be like, yeah, yeah, cool. And he's like, great. And then we'd go on about our business and never, never mentioned it again.
Jeremy (10:15.768)
So for that list, so what I'm hearing probably models more like an academic environment.
Icy Mike (10:23.382)
It's more, I can, I can pull some of it. Yeah, I've got, yeah.
Jeremy (10:26.459)
I'm curious, yeah. And here's why while you're looking that up into the audience. Yeah.
Icy Mike (10:30.756)
I've never, by the way, Jeremy, I've never talked about it on the channel. I've never posted it on social media. This would be considered a scoop.
Jeremy (10:38.858)
Here we are, here we are, 10 minutes in and we're busting walls here. I think, what's that? you gotta put the glass.
Icy Mike (10:44.794)
But you know what I have to do now? I have to look nerdy and old.
Jeremy (10:51.647)
I think in a lot of martial arts contexts.
Icy Mike (10:52.112)
To get your f-
Jeremy (10:57.56)
process of it changing. think enough people see this might not be the best way for me to run my program. You brought it in, in a bit of an unconventional sense. You saw some value, but not the value in doing it the way everybody else does it. So you're putting your own spin on it. And I see a lot of schools doing that right now, and I find that really interesting.
Icy Mike (11:16.154)
Yeah, the term throw the baby out with the bathwater. know, like we say, Hey, I don't need, we don't need belts. We don't need bowing. We don't need geese. We don't need none of that stuff. And I'm like, no, you don't. you need objective standards. That would be useful. You would need ways to measure whether or not you're doing certain things. Well, like that would be useful. You need a little bit of decorum and organization in your school. That would be useful. Like I was far more strict about, class start times.
when we call it into the drill and I say, it in, they have to turn it immediately. Cause when I took traditional martial arts, that's what we did. Like they said, stop, you stopped. They say, go, you went. And in the combat sport gyms that I've trained at, it's sort of just more laissez faire. I liked the idea that I could know what a person needed to do to get to the next step and have a list of things. So I have like, it's white, yellow, blue, red, brown, black. And
A blue belt would be a good place to start. blue belt is the first belt. Red belt would be ready for competition. Red belt, I'd like, you should fight. The blue belt would be considered intermediate. And in the kickboxing, that was only six to 12 months. And I think that's part of the reason why I didn't give physical belts, because a lot of these belts are measured in months, is, harkens back to my Cooksul wand days, where you could go from white to yellow in three months.
Jeremy (12:36.472)
Mm.
Icy Mike (12:42.648)
yellow to blue in six months. And it's like, that's crazy. And I was like, well, look what I'm measuring. And these are things that you could get in 12 months because black belt, what does black belt mean? Black belt just means, yeah, you basically got it. Black belt doesn't mean expert. It means you basically got it in most martial arts. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu aside, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, that black belt denotes a higher level of expertise than a lot of the traditional martial arts where people...
have the conception that black belt means master. And it's like, no, I'm a pretty basic, I have a first degree black belt that means I'm level one if this were a video game. I could like start fighting the first bad guy today. So a blue belt was only, you only needed to be six to 12 months. And what I was looking for, I had technical, strategic.
Jeremy (13:24.686)
Hmm.
Icy Mike (13:30.406)
There were technical requirements, strategic requirements, training habit requirements, and then social requirements. There was always a social component to each belt because it was a hierarchy. So like for instance, BLUE, which would be considered intermediate, the title would be, since we didn't have Japanese honorifics, we use American honorifics, this would be athlete. This would be when I start referring to you as an athlete. So technical, you should possess a handful of specials.
So to get a yellow belt, have to know jab, cross, hook, uppercut, overhand, probably we get started on one of those. Round kicks, straight kicks, knees, head movement, blocking, footwork, you would need all that. You'd need to be able to demonstrate how to do that in a vacuum to get a yellow belt. Blue, you should have all those things and then also be able to execute some special stuff, like two or three, maybe four.
turning back kick, a flying knee, anything spinning, anything turning, anything with deception, a question mark kick would be the beginning of that thing. You'd need to be into those techniques to get a blue belt. Gizelle punch, you know, a leaping hook, and you'd have to be able to control a lesser skilled partner's movement through footwork and feints for most of a round. So that's the...
That's the key, since we're talking about a combat sports system. The real requirement of the belt, the technical requirement of the belt is like, dude, you could probably teach somebody that stuff in a couple of weeks. The strategic requirement is the real requirement that tells me you're a blue belt, which means you're one step away from being able to fight somebody. If we have a round of sparring where I give you no instructions and your opponent is less skilled than you are, you should be able to control their movement through just your footwork and feints.
for the majority of that round, for 51 % of that round or more. So if we have a two minute round and we measured up control time, if you're better than me, you should be able to move me around for a minute of that without hitting me and be able to decide, do I circle left, do I circle right? Once they can choose which way their partner circles, whether their partner goes forward or backwards, for the majority of a round, I would consider them a blue belt.
Jeremy (15:48.814)
Okay, that makes sense.
Icy Mike (15:51.056)
And that's specifically against a lower skilled opponent. Cause that's an easy, that's an easy objective measure. Like if they're not as good, like if it's a newer guy, you should be able to do that. And when we get into evenly skilled, you know, got two blue belts sparring each other and it's like, well, what's supposed to happen? I was like, it's not supposed to be good. It's not gonna be good. It'll either be really good or really bad, but they'll both be both, you know, is how it should be. I also had training habits and they had to,
Jeremy (15:57.25)
Yeah.
Jeremy (16:14.894)
Mmm.
Icy Mike (16:21.74)
maintain certain habits during training, know, as far as dropping hands, as far as excessive breaks, far as, you know, interruptions and the training habit to be considered a blue belt, which Jeremy, what's your martial art background?
Jeremy (16:36.887)
I'm all over the place. Call me a karate guy. It's the simplest.
Icy Mike (16:37.72)
All over the place? gosh, maybe you can help me then. Because I picked up a term called zanshin. A Japanese term called zanshin. And I don't know whether I'm using it correctly. One of your viewers might. Z-A-N-S-H-I-N.
Jeremy (16:50.377)
How do you spell it?
Icy Mike (16:56.164)
Zanshin and basically it's the Focus is how I use it I use that term to describe a presence and focus as in you don't mentally or physically reset you have an exchange pop pop pop pop pop and you go and Then get back to get back into it Zanshin was the idea that you go pop pop pop stay locked in pop stay locked in block parry kick stay locked in and you stay locked in through most of your rounds while training
Jeremy (17:11.97)
I'm gonna double check something before I...
Icy Mike (17:26.054)
without having to be reminded. And we came up, I started using that term zanshin. I found it in a, I don't know, maybe a karate book or maybe a samurai, something about samurai or something, something like that in my nerdy endeavors. Yeah.
Jeremy (17:40.896)
into terminology. But for me, that term is
Active meditation is the best way that I was brought up to understand that concept.
Icy Mike (17:52.26)
Yeah.
Icy Mike (17:56.23)
Right, I forget what the literal translation of it, but I... Yeah, I want you to be really here, really doing this thing, really present, and not needing to come out of it. So when I read about what Zanshin meant, like figuratively, I started using it as a term in fighting because I said, if you're trying to actively be present with what you're focused on,
Jeremy (18:00.172)
I'm getting words here like awareness, relaxed alertness.
Yeah.
Icy Mike (18:24.13)
I don't know that there's a rule that that can't be like a physical thing. Like if you're running, people that run achieve a, like that really run, I mean long distances, they are meditating. You have to be. There's no way you can get that far. I don't believe that there's a rule that you can't consciously choose that state of mind during a physical or even a stressful, violent pastime. Focus, it's, we're all looking to achieve flow state anyway. That's what we're eventually looking for when you're fighting or when you're, even when you're,
Jeremy (18:32.302)
Absolutely.
Icy Mike (18:53.382)
even you're just doing forums, even you're just hitting the bag, you're looking for flow state. You can't force that, but I don't think that there's a rule that you can't push your mind to it. And I think that gets you closer to finding it.
Jeremy (19:03.054)
I would agree. I think anybody who's been in an intense setting, whether that's combative training or otherwise, once adrenaline kicks in and we become hyper-focused, right? If you've got enough practice in that hyper-focus, that adrenaline-fueled state, you can start to modify it. And I've been there enough.
Jeremy (19:38.304)
Adrenaline when I'm in an adrenaline, adrenaline, state it. Anyway, when adrenaline is up, adrenalinize, there we go. Thank you. Thank you for the word. When I'm there, I've been there enough because of training that I'm actually really comfortable in that place. Things fall away. I'm able to kind of hijack that, that physiological process and dial in. And I think that's what you're talking about.
Icy Mike (19:43.951)
Adrenalized.
Icy Mike (19:57.284)
Yeah, that's
Icy Mike (20:02.904)
You, well, it's from the exposure. you were an animal, so one thing that modern civilized humans don't understand is how very rarely we are consciously aware that we are in danger, whereas animals and creatures in the wild, that's their, they're like, I'm always in danger. I don't know where my food's coming from and something's trying to kill me at all times.
The adrenaline was given to us as a tool to use in these situations. Our problem is it's like a drug and we're it's like a And if you're not exposed to it, you're not used to it You can't handle your liquor and you get it you you lose yourself in it But you're absolutely right that practice that you've had means now that's a useful tool and not something that's giving me the shakes and making my fine motor skills dissipate you can practice
being in that state. that Zanshan idea came from my like, like, do it anyway, stare into it. It's a bit of like maybe exposure therapy would be another way to describe it. Like you must remain present. You may not check out. I didn't want people to check out, breathe, whatever, during training because I didn't want them to do that during a fight when we want them applying pressure to the person the entire time or dealing with what that person is trying to do to them, which could be
dangerous, the consequences could be that they get hurt. And then there are social requirements for each belt. So to get a blue belt and the blue belt, I also called it the glue belt, because like my main blue belt, I called them the glue. There was a social aspect to this and blue was important because a blue belt can encourage or provide very basic cornering.
He can say hands up and he can move and he can say them at appropriate times with the appropriate intention. And then he has begun to ask strategic questions of his coaches and instructors. He's begun to ask them questions like, how do I get a guy to come to me? Right? That's a strategic question or a technical question. And he no longer asks a ton of technical questions and he can answer
Icy Mike (22:23.738)
technical questions of others. Like he knows when he jabs, where the shoulder's supposed to be and all that stuff. He doesn't have too many of those types of questions anymore on old techniques. there was technical considerations which are very, very unimportant to me. Because none of our guys fight the same. Strategic considerations which are the most important. Like what can he do to a person? And then training habits. Training habits and then
strategic ability were the two big qualifiers. I could forgive some points on the social, but not a lot. That was important. That was important for culture because the...
Jeremy (23:04.878)
Hmm.
Icy Mike (23:08.294)
Because the culture of the gym was so important to me, didn't, we were exclusive. Like we weren't just, like anyone couldn't just come in and train. Like that's not the way it works. And now it's even more so. Like I basically only work one-on-one with select people. And I rarely run open classes other than in seminar format.
Jeremy (23:32.239)
What, why? Why the one-on-one format? Yeah, that's interesting.
Icy Mike (23:33.67)
Why? Well, I prefer the seminar format. Like, I enjoy doing the seminar format, but as far as the fighters, I'm only working with them one-on-one.
because I no longer, I don't want to sell memberships anymore. I'm no longer interested in selling gym memberships. I gave up the gym and just do the one-on-one training now.
Jeremy (23:54.968)
Hmm, okay.
Jeremy (24:15.886)
All right, now we're gonna go back. We're gonna talk about the history that led to creating these standards. I guess your history that led you to a point where you, I can hear in what you're doing. This is something that's really took a lot of thought. There's a lot of intention there.
What was it you saw in your environments where you said, want these standards laid out this way, because the way you're laying it out is closer to what I would consider academic standards or athletic standards and not at all the way most martial arts progression standards are. Even if what is there in most martial arts schools really is designed to reflect what you've got. Your method seems, I'm not gonna call it better.
but it does seem more intentional towards a specific goal.
Icy Mike (25:11.352)
Yes, well, think if that's your goal, if your goal is to be good at these things that I'm teaching, I think that this method is better. If your goals don't align with, you're not preparing, this is what I'll say, this is when I know my system is better, when my system is best. I'll go ahead and brag. I have the best system if.
Jeremy (25:38.318)
Okay, peace.
Icy Mike (25:40.422)
I have the absolute best system if you are a kickboxer and I am your coach and we are going to go fight in a kickboxing fight. I have the best system. If you're my fighter and I'm your coach and we're going in there, this is the best system. It's not a one size fits all thing though. There are plenty of people that this system is not correct for. But why did I do this?
I saw in my traditional martial arts background, I grew up in a strip mall, McDojo learning Cooksauwan. And it had a belt, a very strict belt system with lists of techniques that you had to know. Everybody in the room was a certain belt. Everybody's in the room, their belt made sense to me. Every single person. It's like, he is a yellow belt. He is a red belt.
Those guys are definitely black belts. Now, the stuff that we were learning wouldn't help us fight our way out of a paper bag. We were learning interpretive dance. know, technically I achieved a good bit of technical ability and maybe some athleticism and just physical training, but how to fight a person strategically and tactically, we learned none of, zero of, not one second was spent.
on the actual way to make a person do what you want.
But everything that they did teach, we learned it and we learned it well. And everybody knew what the standards were. Everyone could repeat them. Everyone could help other people meet them. It was just very clear. And then when I went into the combat sport world, was just everybody did whatever they felt like doing. people with their own coach, they picked their own training partners. They picked their own training times. They didn't listen.
Icy Mike (27:38.64)
to any advice during camp. They didn't listen to any advice during the fight. Everybody just did whatever they want and then everyone just sort of shrugged and threw their hands up like, hey, you know, it's a fight game, who knows? I was like, that's not true. That's not true. You can know. And at the highest levels of sport, they know, they know who's winning and it's the same guys winning over and over again. It's not like, hey, I'm really lucky and I just guess all the time. They know if I do this, my opponent will do that. And if they're doing this and we do this,
that won't work or it will, they know these things within a reasonable level of certainty. But you can't, you can't determine what those things are without objective standards. So we created objective standards and, and we win. We win the fights. That's we win the fights. Now I don't think I could take a, it's specifically a internal system and standards. That's why I don't give the physical belts. That's why I told them when I give them to them, Hey, these, means nothing. This is just.
so you know what we need to know. Because I thought it was important for them to know what I need from them. And it was important for me to know what they were capable of. And that's the only part about the belt system that I cared about. That's why the belts are months long. I just need to know where you're at and let you know where you're at and let you know what you need to improve on. So you have to measure it. What gets measured gets improved, so to speak.
Jeremy (28:59.988)
Yes. So what I'm hearing is you took a traditional methodology and just reverse engineered the goal from the goal, a different goal and backfilled, okay, what needs to happen to get to here? Which I mean, that's.
Icy Mike (29:14.246)
Exactly that Jeremy Jeremy Jeremy it's exactly that because I started with the goal. What do you want? You want we need to win this fight. Okay, how do we do that? And then what parts of that can we control and measure? Which is quite a lot Quite a lot can be controlled and measured
Jeremy (29:38.594)
with what you have now for these standards, is this what you came up with initially or has it changed over time?
Icy Mike (29:45.958)
I have rethought some things, but it's always been in here. I've always known that about these guys. Like I know, yeah, he's ready. Yeah, he's ready to fight. And they know it. If you look at the way belts are given in a lot of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu programs, they're given sort of like informally and subjectively. Some places have testing and standards and you have to be able to do certain things, but that art is so...
Jeremy (29:55.374)
Hmm.
Icy Mike (30:15.59)
So varied, two athletes can look completely different. you know, maybe I don't know how to do a certain move, but if, you know, a guy's tapping everybody out, who cares if he knows how to do this particular move, you know? So that's not how they're usually given. They're usually just given out when the coach just thinks you are a blue belt. He just gives you one. Like, yeah, no, you're pretty much a blue belt. I think what I found is the halfway point between those two things.
Jeremy (30:42.35)
Hmm.
Icy Mike (30:43.398)
So the ideas were always up here and I have made some changes. actually the biggest change I made was trying to come up with the technical requirements. Like when the jab, the cross the hook, and the actual how to know how to do a move. It was difficult for me to break that down because I used to not pay much attention to that.
because it didn't matter because by the end of your first year, we're trying to figure out whether you're going to fight or not and you'll definitely have gotten those techniques by then. But I was doing a little bit of a disservice to the technique. I spent a long time focusing only on technique, found out that I was going to get my ass kicked. So I overcorrected to be like, screw it, results only, results only, who cares, who cares, who cares? Like I cared so little about technique because I was looking at guys winning, winning, winning, winning and getting paid to win with
horrible technique and I was like that's never the issue. That's never the issue. So I didn't focus on it at all. Like and I would have guys who were like I have guys like winning belts that I realized don't know embarrassingly basic things about punches. Like very, very basic like up to and including how to make a fist and I realized that they're getting belts wrapped around their waist and I've never said hey, show me your fist.
And so I've sort of tried to bring it back to the middle of the road, but the ideas were always up in here and they were always for me. The biggest challenge has been like getting those rather subjective ideas in my head about, yeah, you're pretty aggressive, but sometimes you get a little lazy, you know, if things aren't going your way. That's so subjective. needed to, it took me time to get it into a way that I could communicate it to others. That's been the largest change. Cause it was always like,
Nah, that guy sucks. He can't fight. that guy's good. Yeah, let's get him a fight. So I just sort of found objective standards for it.
Jeremy (32:49.41)
Yeah. And has this guided the way you teach?
Icy Mike (32:56.742)
Yes, yes. Maybe even for the, I don't know whether it's better or worse. I care about very little in each session. Like very little.
Almost, I'll care about one thing, like are your hands up? And we'll train for an hour, and I don't care what you do. I don't care how your punches look. I don't really care what's going on. We're training some very specific, we're training one thing specifically, but it'll be a broad idea. So I won't care much about details, and I've become a lot less detail-oriented in the way I teach, which is that I enjoy seminars.
very much because of that, because I'm teaching a big room full of people. I don't have time to teach them little minutia and make sure everybody's thumb is turned the exact right way when they kick. But I can get them all to understand a little range game, a more basic idea. So when I teach now, I don't care about minutia. that also, as I'm saying it out loud, and thank you for the therapy right now, Jeremy. I just worked this out in my head. I just realized, no, that was also because
I, by that point, had enough assistant coaches and assistant instructors and higher level people that I very rarely had to make those corrections because part of the requirements is that you have to also be a coach. So when you're learning, when you are at 12 months, I should be able to give you a guy who has three months and you should bring him up to six months and you learn how to do that while you're learning. as I'm, I'm like, why did I start? I didn't talk a jab in
Six years, I haven't taught anyone how to throw a jab. I haven't had a person and I'm like, here's how you do this move. And I was like, don't do that anymore, that's terrible. And I realized, no, I have other people doing it for me now.
Jeremy (34:43.373)
because you haven't needed to.
Jeremy (34:53.635)
Hmm.
Icy Mike (34:54.874)
So thank you for the interview. I need to write that down. That's why it's OK.
Jeremy (34:56.024)
Hey.
Jeremy (35:05.312)
Efficiency, right? Efficiency is a good thing. All right, so I wanna go back and this is not, I wanna make sure, because you don't know me, this is not me disagreeing, but I wanna explore the subject. You referred to your original school as a McDojo.
Icy Mike (35:06.671)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy (35:26.026)
And what was it about that school that you're looking at? Is it just in hindsight that you're drawing that label or was it something you were aware of in the midst of?
Icy Mike (35:38.832)
So when I say McDojo, let's first define that, because my friend Rob uses a very different definition of the term McDojo. McDojo life. McDojo life, when he says, say what? Yeah, when he says McDojo, he means something very, very awful and evil that, you know, he's usually talking about bad stuff. When I say McDojo, I mean
Jeremy (35:45.838)
You're talking about Rob Ingram?
Jeremy (35:51.246)
Rob was on the show forever ago. Rob was on the show forever ago.
Icy Mike (36:07.302)
a chain of places that don't teach people how to fight but do charge money for martial arts lessons. And that's pretty much all I mean by it when I say McDojo. It means that they charged you and they didn't teach you how to fight. And there's a bunch of them. That's it. I don't even use that term for like a mom and pop thing. If you're part of a large organization or affiliation,
and it's like a chain or like a franchise or, you know, that sort of thing. And you don't teach people how to fight. I use the term McDojo. So that would be why that place. think, I mean, obviously so. I think I gleaned tremendous value from my time there, you know, so I don't begrudge anyone that trains in martial arts that don't teach you how to fight. think it's fine. Lately, I've noticed a push amongst Aikido practitioners. There's a...
a sect of Aikido practitioners that pretends to admit that they know that it's not teaching them how to fight. You know, like in the split, like, Aikido doesn't work. And people are like, Aikido definitely works. There's now this new challenger that's like, no, Aikido doesn't work. We know that, but we still like doing it. You know, there's that group.
Jeremy (37:23.734)
And there's another group of Aikidoka who would agree and they've said, but did we miss something? Is there something if we go back that makes it more practical? We've had a couple of those folks.
Icy Mike (37:35.204)
Yeah, I skipped that group. Yeah, there was that group. There's the, let's modernize it. Combat Aikido, modern Aikido. Those sort of types of things. That's an excellent point. But yeah, there's also people that's just like, like doing it. Which I think is fine. But I think some of them are lying.
Jeremy (37:56.502)
It depends on why people train, right? Just as you talked about with your standards, your why should, and I've said this for a long time, your why should dictate everything you do leading up to it. If you're training to learn how to fight, your program better teach you how to fight. If you're training because you want community and fitness and everything, well then how you train should be different.
Icy Mike (38:10.747)
Right.
Icy Mike (38:17.176)
Right? But Jeremy, I don't know, man. I don't know if I buy that one from the Makedo guys, Every time I read it in the comment section, every time I read it, I'm like, I don't believe you. I don't believe you.
Jeremy (38:29.304)
That might be your problem. If you're working from comments on anything.
Icy Mike (38:36.054)
I'm a resident of the internet. live on the internet. That's when I go to town. When I say, hey, I'm going to town. know how some people go to town to resupply or they go to work? Like they go to the bank or wherever they work at. When I go into the world, it's the internet. I'm like, I'm going into the internet. That's my world. So yeah, maybe that is the problem. But it's the same, you know what I equate it to? When women...
Jeremy (38:38.52)
Yeah. It's, you know.
Jeremy (38:48.258)
Yeah. Yeah.
Icy Mike (39:04.518)
see a guy and he's like jacked, know, like eight pack, flat pecs, just, you know, looks great. And invariably you'll hear a woman say, I don't know, I don't really like, those muscles don't do anything for me, I don't like that. I don't like that. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. You might love your husband and he might be sexy to you.
I think you kinda like that a little bit. You know what mean? Like it's just objectively like it looks good. I think with Aikido, I think the guys are just pretending. I think they still kinda think it would work. Any guy that says, no I don't practice, I know that it will not. I know that it will help me zero. I don't think you'll get them to say it. Be like, it'll help you zero. It'll have zero help and they'll tell you, well no, I mean you learn a little bit about it. And it's like, huh, see I got you.
Jeremy (39:59.982)
Well, here, when people say it will work or it would work, right, that doesn't always necessarily refer to the same thing.
Icy Mike (40:09.222)
Here he goes. Move those goal posts for me, Jeremy. Move them. It'll help me. Aikido will help me fall, right? Cause you got knocked the fuck out. So you're good at falling down automatically. I kid. Break falling is important. Body awareness is important. I think having a good time and training with people is important. I like to give Aikido a ton of shit though. And I think them boys really do think they know how to fight.
Jeremy (40:32.642)
can tell.
Jeremy (40:36.174)
So here's the question. How many Aikido schools have you hung out in?
Icy Mike (40:42.8)
How many Aikido schools have I hung out in? Zero. Zero Aikido schools. I have tried. I tried, Jeremy. I tried to hang out in Aikido school.
Jeremy (40:44.898)
Yeah, I would encourage you to do so.
Jeremy (40:56.13)
You tried once, you tried one time and it didn't work. Try again, try again. What would your students say? What would you tell your students if they tried to do something one time and it didn't work?
Icy Mike (40:57.422)
I did try once. I did try once.
Icy Mike (41:08.07)
I was like, what was wrong with it? And they'd be like, it sucked. And I was like, okay. That's what I tell them. No, I tried to actually answer this. This guy ran an ad. This was weird. This guy ran an ad on Facebook. Like a paid ad. He paid to run an advertisement inviting Joe Rogan to his Aikido school to prove that Aikido worked.
Jeremy (41:29.326)
Alright, that's not the school you gotta go to though. Come on. No!
Icy Mike (41:31.398)
That is definitely, Jeremy, that is the school I need to go to. I need to go to that school. He ran a paid ad and I was like, saying I challenged Joe Rogan to come to my school and to prove Aikido is real. And I answered, I replied to the ad, I yo, I ain't no Joe Rogan, but I'll be a huckaberry. And I was like, I have some ideas of things we could do. And he lost his mind.
and he said people were sending him death threats and stuff. I think the internet, I think he did not live on the internet before he did that. Okay, so your reaction when I told you a guy ran a paid ad challenging Joe Rogan to come check out his Aikido school, and instantly you go to what? So this guy didn't know that. He thought that it was a perfectly reasonable.
Jeremy (41:59.15)
Sure.
Sure.
Jeremy (42:18.072)
That's just silly. It's silly.
Icy Mike (42:27.014)
I'm I know, I've got a great idea. He's like, I got a great idea. Dude, this will be huge. I've had ideas like that one. I've made videos before that I thought were great ideas and then found out like, what did I think would happen? This guy lost his mind. He said, if you come here, there's gonna be no cameras and I can't guarantee your safety. And I was like, no, no, no, I don't wanna do that. I was like, I thought we were gonna like make a video about it. Like.
Jeremy (42:49.746)
So there's selection bias there, right? Like you're already saying this person might not be stable, but there are, like I've got,
Icy Mike (42:55.304)
yeah, he was an idiot, for sure.
Icy Mike (43:02.244)
you broke up. You froze up there. You froze up.
Jeremy (43:06.03)
if you found, you know, just as in any, in any anything, right, whether we're talking about martial arts or music or, you know, car mechanics, you've got bell care of distribution. If you're looking at the extremes, you can, you can justify whatever, whatever point you want, but you got to, you got to look more in the middle. And, you know, I'm sure, you know, and where do you live?
Icy Mike (43:27.222)
Icy Mike (43:31.216)
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Do I gotta, do I gotta Jeremy? Do I gotta look in the middle?
Jeremy (43:32.59)
Okay, so... You don't have to, you don't have to, but... I think you should. I think you should. And here's what I'm hoping.
Icy Mike (43:39.782)
but do you know how good it feels? Do you know how good it feels to get one example that confirms what you already think? Do know how good that feels?
Jeremy (43:47.626)
Absolutely. I mean, if you're a resident of the internet, that's pretty much how everything works. But if you want to know the truth about anything, then you can't just take one example that was selected out of confirmation bias.
Icy Mike (43:59.481)
I can't.
Icy Mike (44:03.43)
Alright, so what do gotta do?
Jeremy (44:05.6)
I think you should find an open-minded Aikido school and collaborate and say, want to better understand what you do.
Icy Mike (44:16.374)
you think I don't understand what Aikido does?
Icy Mike (44:20.982)
I know what Aikido does.
Aw man, Jeremy, it keeps freezing up.
Jeremy (44:28.982)
Yeah, yeah, I think Riverside's having an issue. I'm watching the numbers on the side and everything suggests that it's gonna look fine in the recording later, but it is hanging us up here. if, you know, we'll just, there's nothing I can change. I'm watching all my settings. There's nothing going on that I can track down on my end. And it doesn't look like it's anything on your end either. So we're gonna blame Riverside and just keep plowing ahead.
Icy Mike (44:29.157)
lucky.
Icy Mike (44:56.986)
Sounds good to me. Yeah, man, I could check. I would, I've never been opposed to practicing or training Aikido. It's been difficult for me now. The way that collaborations occur now at this stage in my career is much more like friendly and amicable. It's not always like a, a dojo storm situation like that one was. That was very early. That was when I was still utilizing Facebook on social media, which is no longer the case.
But that was very early. I think the biggest issue why I haven't done much Aikido content now is to my knowledge, there's not a lot about it that I think, I don't think there's too many questions about it. I really don't. I think that Aikido puzzle has been solved. Do you think that there's something in Aikido that is still yet to be understood by the greater martial arts community? Like, do you still think there's some gems in Aikido that we could mine from it?
Jeremy (45:57.122)
I don't know, because I don't know Aikido super well, but I know, here, no, but here, but here's why I think it's worth exploring, because there are Aikido practitioners out there who went through a similar perspective that you and admittedly many others have. And instead of saying, I'm not going to do Aikido, they said, how could I do Aikido?
Icy Mike (46:00.127)
my god, Jeremy, you've been talking like Aikido's your brother, man. You've been acting like Aikido. Dude, you really are style agnostic, man.
Icy Mike (46:25.667)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know those dudes.
Jeremy (46:26.572)
And I find that to be fascinating. And so I think if you hooked up with one of those people and did some training.
Icy Mike (46:31.152)
I've done, what you're describing is martial arts journey's content formula for the longest time. Like, and I've collaborated with Rokas. Rokas is a friend of mine. Yeah, Rokas is a friend of mine and we've done many videos and many talks and many discussions about Aikido. I noticed, and again, it's anecdotal and subjective. I don't hear much talk about Aikido anymore. And I think it's because we finally,
Jeremy (46:37.752)
Okay.
Rokus is awesome.
Icy Mike (47:00.486)
put that one to bed. think it really is. don't, Jeremy, I don't think there's anything left in there. There are hills for you, I think it's, I think it's sorted out. I think that there's a few neck beards out there that swear that it's still gonna, they're still gonna flip somebody or break their wrist. And if it is real Aikido is really, if we were really in the, wherever Aikido came from, is it the desert? Really in the deserts of Aikido land?
Where's Aikido? Japan? What do you have? It's Japanese.
Jeremy (47:31.256)
He's mainly in Japan.
The desert? Is that why you think they wear Hakama? Is to keep the sand out of their shorts? Okay. All right. Hey, you know, you heard it here last.
Icy Mike (47:35.748)
The deserts of Aikido, I-
Icy Mike (47:43.556)
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes total sense to me. In the desert you want voluminous clothing. I don't know, I've never been to Japan. I'd assume there's at least a desert there, right? There's like a desert everywhere, right?
Jeremy (47:57.666)
I don't know why I'm looking at my map as if from here I'm going to be able to spot the desert.
Icy Mike (47:59.674)
I don't think that's true. I think that's such an American, like America, what's in America? we got, yeah, mountains, deserts, valleys, rivers, lakes, tundras, oceans, know, like, plains, rivers, we got everything. I just think of other countries like, where's your beach at? It's like, we don't have a beach.
Jeremy (48:11.502)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy (48:16.526)
They got a lot of beaches in Japan. There's a lot of coastline there.
Icy Mike (48:19.632)
But I can drive two hours to a beach, two hours to a mountain, two hours to a desert. You know, I like...
In America, I just assume that every other country has everything. Anyway, I don't know whether Aikido comes from the deserts or the mountains. Seems mountainy. Aikido seems like a mountain thing. I don't think it's a jungle thing. I definitely know Aikido doesn't come from a jungle. No one's want to, you're not doing break falls in a jungle. Like no one wants to do break falls in a jungle.
Jeremy (48:38.55)
Let's.
Jeremy (48:48.734)
What if the difference between Aikido as it's practiced now in schools that you don't like and the difference to making it effective was the use of vines? What if it was jungle, right?
Icy Mike (49:03.332)
What if it's the jungle? What if it's geographic? that's what they say, that's what them dudes, well who are them dudes? Who are these dudes?
Jeremy (49:10.446)
I need more.
Jeremy (49:16.524)
Was that Capoeira? I'm not sure what that was. Was that Capoeira?
Icy Mike (49:20.902)
Who are those dudes that fight like that? No, no, no, no, can't, no, no, no, That's this, I'm talking about the guys that like, the guys that
Jeremy (49:26.999)
Yeah.
Icy Mike (49:31.322)
fight like low they fight and they were fighting in water they're fighting like the rice the rice fields is that sea lot
I think it's C-Lot.
Jeremy (49:44.014)
Okay, yeah. Yeah, pen, lot, pinch, ax, see a lot. How do you pronounce that?
Icy Mike (49:45.506)
I think it's C Lot.
Icy Mike (49:50.266)
They, a lot of times with martial arts, they'll say, it was meant for, they'll move the goalpost, know, it was meant for horseback.
Like it was meant for mountainous terrain. It was meant for, you know, they'll tell you about what it was meant for. And I'm like, nah, the good stuff works everywhere, homie. Head position. Head position is good no matter where you are. Head position is good.
Jeremy (50:14.702)
Sure, sure. All right, so here's the question. If we go back to your early foray into martial arts, at some point you got exposed to something that was not kuk-sul-wan, so what was that? How did your mind start to shift?
Icy Mike (50:30.222)
It started with, I want to say I was a teenager or something and we did some stick fighting. But we just did full contact stick fighting with no coach or trainer or anything. We were larping essentially in the woods, but it was full contact, just no headshots. And you lost if you quit. And I did that a couple of times and it was really tough. It was really hard.
Jeremy (50:35.886)
Mmm.
Jeremy (50:55.49)
Yeah.
Icy Mike (50:58.308)
And then we did some boxing. We did some backyard boxing, put gloves on with friends. We did some of that. And, I was getting my ass kicked a good bit more than I felt like I should. I was very, very small, very, very little, much smaller than all, than all my friends. But I thought with my, you know, martial arts training that I should be at least doing better than what I was doing. I was a little confused about why I wasn't working so well. Cause technically speaking, I, I threw good strikes, but strategically I just couldn't.
Jeremy (51:10.414)
Mm.
Jeremy (51:20.942)
Mmm.
Icy Mike (51:28.464)
I was like, why isn't any of this working? And the guy, you know who the guys who would always whoop everyone's ass? The dudes who were just good athletes, who were just good at other stuff. Guys who were good at baseball or good at football or good at tennis. Just guys who were good at stuff, were good at fighting. So a little bit of boxing with friends. And then what really kicked it over for me is the first time I ever like couldn't subdue someone.
through wrestling on duty as a police officer. Like I was a cop, I was trying to arrest this guy.
Jeremy (52:00.814)
Hmm
How old were you at that point?
Icy Mike (52:08.166)
28.
I years old. I'd done Kukusawan, I'd boxed, I'd done Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, I'd done a lot of other things. I dabbled in a bunch of other stuff. And I had been working dudes over. I'd worked security at clubs, I'd worked as a police officer for a long time. I did plenty of related stuff and had had some success, but I'd had success with dudes that had no training, didn't know how to fight.
And also dudes that maybe weren't dead set on hurting me. It was more like a tussle rather than real fights for the most part. Most of the times, especially like as a police officer, when you're fighting with someone, they're usually trying to get away from you, not hurt you back. So techniques that would work, like things you could get away with. If a guy's just trying to get away from you, wrestling him's pretty easy. Because he's only trying to do one thing. If he were wrestling you back, you have to think about a lot more.
Anyway, I tried to wrestle this guy and it didn't go well and he was smaller than me and he wasn't trying very hard. And then at one point we got him into handcuffs and then he was still really difficult to manage. And I knew enough about what he was doing from the way he moved his hips, because he kind of hip tossed me a little bit at one point. I said, yo, did you wrestle? And he was like, yeah. I was like, in college? And he was like, no, just high school, just two years in high school. And I was like, dang, because he was
pretty good and I knew enough about grappling. I'd done Japanese Jiu Jitsu. We did ground fighting in every martial arts school that I'd been a part of. So I knew what he was doing, but he was just so much better at it. And I was like, dude, you wrestled in high school for two years? And then I like started watching video of wrestling. And then I started, and I'd watched UFC and I knew about wrestling and I knew it was part of MMA. But then I started really like deep diving into the wrestling side of it. And I was like, God. And
Icy Mike (54:11.258)
From a physical standpoint, the way that wrestling is trained is the way to make high performance athletes. Just the methods, the physical training methods.
Jeremy (54:23.438)
Can you be more specific for people who don't know what those are?
Icy Mike (54:28.006)
so like the way that wrestling is trained, you wrestle. It's hard. It's hard the whole time. They'll show you techniques, they'll show you moves, they'll show you how to put it there, but then you wrestle. The coaches are just walking around the room screaming, wrestle, wrestle, wrestle. It's hard training. They do slow it down like in a traditional martial arts school. In a traditional martial arts school, we'd start with, you start with crawl, walk, run, know, stand this way, do this way.
Jeremy (54:37.964)
Mm-hmm.
Icy Mike (54:55.59)
in grappling a lot of the times the way they teach you is they'll tell you a little bit like, try to stay on top. Wrestle, you know? And then they see what happens and then they make some corrections. There's also technical training, but the majority of the training time, they show you a move and then they'll make corrections, but it's while you're trying to do it to a person. They'll do cooperative drills. They'll be a little bit flowy, but they'll be hard.
And then very quickly within a wrestling program, you will get into live, you'll go live and they do that a lot. A lot, a lot. And they're wrestling so much that they just become really tough, really durable, mentally strong, physically strong. This guy only did it for two years and gave me a ton of problems and he wasn't trying very hard. And that was concerning for me. Cause I was like, what if he did? If that guy tried really hard, he would hold me down. That kid could have held me down.
done anything you wanted to me. So I immediately was like, I need to learn how to wrestle. So I kind of threw myself into that for quite a while. I never got good at it, but I wanted to understand it.
Jeremy (56:08.334)
All right. And so that's the epiphany moment. then what did you, other than...
observing and spending some time practicing wrestling. What else did that lead to? It sounds like that was the, okay, if this then also this, this and this.
Icy Mike (56:25.828)
Yeah, yeah, that definitely kicked off a lot more because that's what led me to go to MMA because for an adult who didn't wrestle, there's no real avenue to just go wrestle people. there is, some of them you can make some pretty good money, but there's not a real place for an adult to just go wrestle people for fun, except for an MMA school. And so that eventually got me into an MMA school. And I had done all the, I'd done partial arts. I'd done all the.
The martial arts, I'd boxing. All the striking arts I'd done for a long time. But the grappling was new to me. I thought it was not. That's the big thing. I thought that grappling was not new to me because of the grappling done in every other martial arts school that I was in, including the Japanese Jiu-Jitsu school. I thought, I was like, okay, yeah. Hip tosses, body locks, arm bars, sweeps, trips, throws.
This is grappling. But no one screamed at you, go, go, go, go, go, and you just go. So it was like all theoretical. There was very little live training in most of the places like that that I trained at. So I thought I knew how to grapple. I found out I could not. So I go into the MMA gym thinking I'm hot shit because I've been doing martial arts since I was 11. And a guy that's been there like six months dribbles me like a basketball up and down the mat.
showing off for his girlfriend, tying me into a pretzel over and over and over again, tapping me as many times as he wants. And so I was like, wow, I didn't know how to grapple, but I thought I did. That led me to, from that point forward, I had this like really strong filter for pretty much the next 10 years that anything that I was looking at or anything I thought about martial arts or fighting, it was wrong. I looked through that lens.
for probably the next 10 years.
Icy Mike (58:26.57)
I just assumed that everything that I ever thought was wrong and that really sharpened and that's kind of how And hard to hurt was happening during all that time. So like I began hard to hurt sort of after my my epiphany and my became a born-again mma Advocate, know, like I was like I got firmly in the camp of MMA training is currently the best training for learning how to fight a person I settled on that
started hard to hurt and be like, this is the best way to train how to fight people, this way that they're doing it. And I was like, except we should make some changes. There's some little things that should be different. I think I can explain it better than maybe some of these, you know, ex-pro fighters who sometimes have difficulty explaining things. I thought I could explain it a little better. And then I learned that between the traditional martial arts world and the modern mixed martial arts world, there was not a lot of overlap in the way that classes were done.
And that was strange to me because I would watch in the MMA gym, they would teach punches and kicks, arm bars, takedowns, what have you. And they would give technical details. And they'd say, you gotta do like this, you gotta do like this, you gotta do like this. Now go. And they'd be like, no, that's not right. Do it this way, go. Perfect. No, that's not right. Do it this way, go. Perfect. And they'd say, great. And they do all that same stuff in the traditional martial arts school. They teach you the technique, they show it to you.
They ask you to try it, then they make corrections. Nope, that's not it, try it like this, go. Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. They both do that. And then the next step is where it all changes. Because in the MMA school, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school, boxing gym, Muay Thai school, the next point is say, okay, now go try to do it on that person.
and they're not gonna let you. And this school never did that. These schools never did that. Or if they did, it was very, very constrained. It was like point sparring or it was restricted sparring or was positional sparring. It was a lot of that.
Jeremy (01:00:31.011)
Mm-hmm.
Icy Mike (01:00:35.076)
The problem was these guys are not getting better at what they're doing at the same rate that these guys are doing. These guys are getting better at martial arts faster. It's just their martial art isn't good at fighting people. These guys' martial art is good at fighting people, but they're not getting good at it fast. So that's what sort of led to the, over the past few years, me sort of adjusting my...
standards or more codifying them and figuring out that there is a halfway point between those two things where you can have objective standards, a clear curriculum, and be able to measure whether or not a student is doing it. And then it can also be, you can also be teaching them things that allow them to win fights if that's what they want to do is win fights. It's very similar with the self-defense curriculum that I use.
Jeremy (01:01:00.387)
Hmm.
Icy Mike (01:01:28.868)
The difficulty with the self-defense curriculum, it's a little harder to prove that track record. It's a little harder to explain that to people in a shorthand. It's a little harder for people to get on board with knowing. If I tell you, don't do that, because he's going to do this. People don't necessarily believe that that's going to be the case, because it'd be more difficult just to find footage of it. Whereas with combat sport training, I don't even need to find footage of, if you drop your hands, you're going to get hit, because the guy knows if he drops his hands, he's going to get hit. He has plenty of.
firsthand knowledge of that. So that's sort of the life story. It was a big overcorrection. I became MMA gym bro, and that's all I cared about. And now I've hopefully back to the middle. Maybe I'm starting to overcompensate this way a little bit, because I've even started wondering how important is stylistic choices in your martial arts? Because I used to not care. I went through a stage where I was like, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
And then I realized that that's not even true. And it's never been true. We talk about the standards and this efficiency. also now, I'm like, I think you should try to like look good while you do it. And I think it'd be cool if you had your own little flavor while you did it. Even if it's in the ring on TV for money, I still think that you should have some flair. maybe it's the age, my later years are becoming either.
Jeremy (01:02:46.798)
Mm-hmm.
Icy Mike (01:02:58.886)
overly analytical or maybe just I'm going soft, but, I still, I still kind of think I used to say.
Jeremy (01:03:04.902)
It gives people another reason to train. It gives them another thing to think about, another lens through which to analyze, which keeps the brain moving. And if someone's been training a long time, that can be really exciting to add that level of refinement and it keeps them progressing. That makes complete sense to me.
Icy Mike (01:03:22.018)
And maybe too, maybe I'm thinking more this way because physically, because I can't do all the things that I used to do. So from a technical standpoint, can't do certain moves that I could do before. And from an effectiveness standpoint, I can't really. I stopped fighting a long time ago, but I enjoy sparring and training with the boys, but I don't really compete with them anymore. They are very kind to me. So stylistically, making it look cool, maybe that's another reason.
why I might be looking more towards that. But I don't mind a little style. When my fighters want to throw some of that in there, when they want to do something just because it looks cool, I'm like, if it doesn't interfere with anything and it makes you feel good, yeah, if you feel good, you'll fight good.
Jeremy (01:04:06.358)
I can get behind that. That makes sense. What prompted the channel? Why start the channel? Why start...
Icy Mike (01:04:10.427)
The-
Icy Mike (01:04:15.102)
I was in the MMA gym, hearing everything the guys were saying, and I was like, yep, okay, cool, sounds cool, sounds good, yeah, no, checks out. You I was looking through this lens of all this is wrong. I looked through the lens at my instructors, like everything they were, like, I was overly critical compared to the average new student. I kept all of it to myself. I never said anything, never said a word, because I wasn't sure.
Because not only was I not sure that what they were doing was right, that lens also applied to me. I was like, I don't know. This guy, mean, he's been a pro fighter. He's fought over the world. This is probably how they do it. Yeah, that's how they do it. And I look and I look, check out another gym and I'd be like, that's how they do it. that's how they do it everywhere. Boxing gyms, boxing gyms are crazy. They like fight each other. Like sparring is fighting and boxing gym, they spar really hard. And then I looked at schools where they barely touch each other in sparring. And then I looked at schools in the middle and then I was like, okay, it's kind of different. It's all over the place. I don't know what's right. I don't know what's wrong.
And all that I decided with the YouTube channel was like, I think that I could explain some of these ideas a little bit better. I think I could explain these ideas a little bit better because I was so critical and I struggled with a lot of the things that they were trying to say to me and I really tried to do them. Like ideas and concepts from as simple as keeping your hands up to as complicated as range management, like is that broad.
Specifically keeping your hands up, broad range management. These ideas, I saw that I struggled to do them and most people struggled to do them. I noticed that no one in traditional martial arts struggled to perform techniques that their bodies were physically capable of. If you can throw your kick, I can teach you the kick, you can't, I just can't throw this, I just can't throw this kick.
So why can we make sure that anyone can learn to kick, but not anyone can learn to keep their hands up? It didn't make any sense, so I thought maybe I can explain things better. Maybe I have the gift of gab and I can explain it better. And that's all I originally set out to do was to explain it better than your coach. And what's funny is I never got any feedback about that. That's always been my theme, like what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to explain it better than your coach.
Icy Mike (01:06:33.104)
to you specifically, not even always a knock on the coach. In the beginning I kind of knocked coaches a little bit and I still do quite often just for fun. I just think it's funny. Even without knocking the coach, like hey maybe he's, dude if he's a 24 year old surfer.
Jeremy (01:06:41.486)
You
Icy Mike (01:06:51.334)
that smokes weed every day, but is really good at fighting and can show you a sick arm bar, cool. But if you're like, I don't understand why, why every time I throw my left hook, this happens, I just don't understand why. And he's like, bro, you just gotta keep trying. He doesn't have anything useful. So I started Hard to Hurt to try to find useful ways to explain to people who maybe had a little bit more time and energy and maybe were a little more interested in finding out why things were difficult or how to do things better.
That's strictly how I started. then it's kind of, it still is that. Every once in I do a video where I say we're gonna return to form. But I think I've uncovered each of the topics as far as I can, as far as that. Like, why does your hook suck? I did that video. How to do your head movement, I did that video. And that was it. It was basically I just shared the thing. Hey, I had trouble with this thing, and then I thought about it this way, and now it's better.
And that was the original intent of the channel. And was solely, and I wanted to do gear reviews. I always wanted to review stuff. I was like, play with stuff. And that too. But from the martial arts standpoint, it was strictly just to explain things better than that person's teacher may have explained it.
Jeremy (01:08:09.027)
And that makes sense. sounds like there's a lot of value there. it was because of that channel, of course, that ultimately you ended up here. We had some good recommendations.
Icy Mike (01:08:16.472)
I know, look how far I've come. I'm on whistle kick, mom. My mom watches everything I do. I don't think she does anymore. I don't think she does. That's not it. I don't think she does anymore.
Jeremy (01:08:20.984)
Hey man, does she? That's awesome. there's too much. There's too much content. Mom's checked out. Mom's like.
Jeremy (01:08:32.27)
Well, if she does, hi mom. If, let's make sure we mention this here. Hard to hurt YouTube. Are there, there socials or other things that you said no Facebook, but is there anything else that people should be aware of?
Icy Mike (01:08:45.958)
I'm on every social media platform as at IC Mike P. But there's no content of value in those platforms. Like my Instagram is my personal Instagram. I don't mind if people follow it. But it's, don't, and I post my, I post seminars. So if you wanna train with me, that's where, cause I post the seminars and stuff, cause that's me personally and the YouTube channel, the production schedule on it is, that sounded sort of...
The way I do the YouTube channel, it wouldn't be fast enough for me to promote the seminars and stuff on it. You get it, same thing that you do. So there's never any point in me talking about it in the YouTube channel. And I want it to be evergreen. I don't want to bog my viewers down in two years with some, hey, I'm going to be in such and such. So on Instagram is where I post all my seminars and things where you can train with me. But YouTube, Forrest Slash Hard to Hurt is my main gig.
Jeremy (01:09:20.952)
Yep. Yep, I get it. I get it.
Jeremy (01:09:45.358)
All right, well, I hope everybody checks that out. I think we're gonna have to have you on again at some point to talk, because you brought up a lot of topics, a lot of things that we could go down the rabbit holes on. And I wanna have these conversations because you're not simply dismissive in the way that I think a lot of the martial arts criticisms on the internet are simply dismissive. I heard from this other person that this thing, this style, this whatever sucks and is stupid.
So I'm gonna repeat that. That's not you. You have awareness and that can lead to some really good conversation, but there's only so much time that we have available.
Icy Mike (01:10:14.205)
yeah.
Icy Mike (01:10:24.26)
It's not so much, it's not so, I didn't land on these ideas because I think, it's not because I don't think, it's not because I think everything's good. Like everything, you know how some guys are in there, everything's bad, can do, it's because I think everything sucks. I think on a long enough timeline, everything sucks. I think that helps.
Jeremy (01:10:46.51)
I like that. I like that. There's one of my favorite lines from the Simpsons of all time, Homer's being interviewed for jury duty. And he says, I'm prejudiced against everyone. Right? And that's what I'm hearing. you're like, everybody's everything sucks.
Icy Mike (01:11:02.618)
Yeah, yeah.
Icy Mike (01:11:08.083)
yeah, I talk as much trash on box- actually I probably talk more trash about boxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu people than anything now.
Jeremy (01:11:21.544)
that there's trash to talk about everyone about everything. That's right. I'm gonna throw back to you to close us up in a moment, but audience, make sure you check out.
Icy Mike (01:11:24.866)
Anybody can get it.
Jeremy (01:11:43.822)
and links and whistlekick.com for the things that we're doing around our stuff.
Icy Mike (01:11:45.788)
there we go. Now I'm back. I was froze up. I'll close it out here. He'll close it out like this, Jeremy. It was the, my microphone wasn't working. That's what it was. My microphone wasn't working. That's embarrassing. It always, my shit always works. It always works. I do this all the time. And Jeremy's looking at me like, bro. He's like, hey, you tried rebooting your computer?
Jeremy (01:11:57.102)
You were supposed to tell him,
Jeremy (01:12:09.518)
0 for 1 here, man. 0 for 1.