Episode 876 - Mr. Austin Cook
In today's episode Jeremy chats with Austin Cook, a Judoka from North Carolina.Mr. Austin Cook - Episode 876
In this episode, we have the honor of hosting Austin Cook, a judoka, US National Champion, US Open Champion, and a distinguished World Cup medalist. Join us as Austin shares his profound insights on the mat, delving into the intricacies of judo and the profound impact it has had on his life.In a candid conversation with Jeremy, Austin opens up about the delicate dance between ego and titles in the world of martial arts. As a decorated judoka, he reflects on the journey to becoming a national champion, the sacrifices made, and the personal growth gained along the way. Austin's narrative goes beyond medals and championships, exploring the transformative power of humility and the continuous pursuit of excellence.Tune in for an enlightening discussion that transcends the confines of the dojo. Discover the mindset of a true champion as Austin Cook unravels the lessons learned on his remarkable journey through the world of judo.Show Notes
Find out more about Austin through his Instagram:
Instagram: badboymedicine
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Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:01.069)
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. It's another episode of Whistlekick martial arts radio. Today I'm joined by Austin Cook. We're going to chat for a minute. Thanks for being here. But to the audience, if you're new, a couple of things I want you to do. I want you to go to whistlekick.com. I want you to check out all the things that we're doing because we are more than just this podcast. We got products over there. You use the code podcast 15 to say 15% on something. One of the wide variety of things we've got there. And if you want to go deeper on this show, it's whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com.
every single episode, all 800 and whatever this is, episodes are available for free for you. We don't hide them, we don't do anything. And help us spread the show because it leads to us bringing on more great people like Austin. Thanks for being here, man.
Austin Cook (00:42.619)
Oh, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I'm honored.
Jeremy (00:45.997)
I gotta ask about that shirt. Like that, whoo. I mean, it is. And to folks that might be listening, it says, Wrestle Judo Jitsu. And I gotta say, it looks like something Nike would have put out.
Austin Cook (00:50.603)
It's cool, right?
Austin Cook (01:00.298)
You know what? Well, thank you. Or I'll accept the thank you from my man, Justin Flores. He's on Instagram to you at Jflow. He does a similar sort of thing to me where implements Nogi Judo, kind of directed at MMA. So I was at a clinic that he was giving in Virginia, saw the shirt and I was like, man, I have to have one of these. And so, yeah, it might be my new favorite shirt. I like yours too. Your logo reminds me of the Mizuno.
Jeremy (01:23.249)
It's thank you.
Oh yeah, it's funny that when we put together the logo, I, I spent a lot of time in marketing, but my philosophies around marketing are very simple. And there are honestly, like two things I've ever done that I look at and I'm like, I don't know how I came up with that. One of them is this logo and the other is the brand name whistle kick. If you look at her, like, like when I talk about the podcast website, whistle kick, Marshall arts.
Austin Cook (01:43.39)
It's cool.
Jeremy (01:50.629)
Radio.com. Like that's the most obvious thing. And even the show name, Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. It's about as obvious as you get.
Austin Cook (01:56.99)
I love that. And I feel like a testament to it's the name that you chose is I didn't like have any difficulty remembering it when I was like looking for the emails or whistle kick. And that was sort of my motivation actually when choosing my Instagram name, Bad Boy Medicine, I wanted something just like ridiculous and stupid. It's like supposed to be ironic. It's like dumb. It's a joke. But it's one of those things where I feel like it's kind of hard to remember, you know, like people see it like bad boy medicine. What's that?
You have to go look, you know? But... Oh.
Jeremy (02:27.769)
Yeah, yeah, it does. Sounds great. But the reason I wanted to ask about the shirt is because now I'm I have dabbled, right? I've dabbled in judo. I've dabbled in jujitsu. I've got like three months of each, right? So just enough to know I know nothing. And I've done zero wrestling other than, you know, growing up as a kid and you sit on your friends. And that's not really wrestling, even though you call it that. But from my outside vantage.
Austin Cook (02:45.177)
Haha
Jeremy (02:56.849)
Jiu-Jitsu practitioners often seem to forget their lineage out of relationship to Judo. And wrestlers seem to look at Judo and Jiu-Jitsu in this like, you know, you guys are over there, we're over here, distanced way, and you've got it all on the same shirt. And so I'm kind of digging that.
Austin Cook (03:12.244)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (03:16.182)
Yeah, thank you. You're not alone. And I feel like that, by the way, half the time too, that I don't know anything about wrestling, judo, jiu-jitsu, which is part of the cool thing I think about martial arts. It would be boring if we were able to learn even almost like 50% of it, right? It keeps it interesting. But yeah, I like this. And you're right that there is sort of this, I don't know, almost like kind of tribal, culty kind of mindset that people will...
adopt sometimes, which makes sense, right? You'd invest a lot of time into a martial art and it's sort of validating to hear that this is the best and I didn't waste my time doing X, Y or Z, right? But in reality, if any one of these martial arts, I mean, they've stood the test of time and have had countless people kind of prove their effectiveness, but I think that people sell themselves short when
They want to become the best grappler they can be. And jujitsu, I think, is sort of the most complete form of grappling right now. And judo and wrestling, it's my opinion, those are by far the best sort of tools for standup grappling and can assist in the jujitsu. And then once we get to the ground, jujitsu, I think, is the most effective. But at the same time, I use a ton of wrestling and judo. And then...
I sort of approach it as their positional martial arts. You can dictate the position with wrestling and Judo, and then Jiu-Jitsu sort of fills in the gaps to finish. So to finish with the submission, choke, arm bar, knee bar, heel hook, et cetera. So yeah, I think together they're the kind of ultimate combo. To be honest, I would do more martial arts if I have more grappling martial arts, that's what I'm interested in. If I had them available to me as a spud, sombo.
Jeremy (04:59.922)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (05:08.458)
I did a samba tournament one time, it was a lot of fun. I would totally do that if it were near me. I've done a little bit of sumo, learned a lot from that as well. So any grappling that I can sink my teeth into, I'm always down to do it. So, I'm gonna do a little bit of a
Jeremy (05:19.497)
Hmm. You know, what I find interesting is, you know, there's this crazy paradox within the martial arts. The folks who have been training awhile and tend to be really good, tend to have this attitude that you do. And admittedly, I share, and I would say the vast majority of our guests share, in that I wanna learn the other stuff, right? You said quite a few things about combining, and I wanna learn as much as I can, and I'm scratching the surface, but that's awesome, right? Like, I'm right there with you. And yet, we get a lot of folks...
who, you know, a lot of them haven't even trained, right? But they draw these very hard lines, you know, and it's no secret I come from a striking background, right? My background is kickboxing and karate and taekwondo. And even though I, like you, wanna do everything, but people will say things like, oh, you know, karate doesn't work. Okay, so, well, sure, but-
Austin Cook (06:12.714)
Yeah, they're not seeing much of one boy though.
Jeremy (06:18.225)
And my response is, okay, so the jab, the jab doesn't exist in karate, right? Or the front kick doesn't exist in karate. And those lines get really blurry. What is karate versus taekwondo versus krav maga versus whatever. And from what you're saying, from what I understand in my dabbling, you could make the same kind of argument about the blurriness between wrestling, judo, jiu jitsu.
Hop Keto, right? There's a lot of overlap.
Austin Cook (06:50.078)
Absolutely. And that's a very sort of seasoned point to make because you're completely right. I mean, let's take hip throw, fireman's carry, double leg, supla. All of these are techniques that aren't only in judo and wrestling, but also pretty much any grappling, martial art, alt folk style, freestyle, Greco, Sambo, Sumo.
sure, Krav Maga, Judo, obviously, Jiu Jitsu, they exist in all of them. So you're absolutely right. Like how do you define like what is wrestling? What is Judo? What is Jiu Jitsu? I mean, Judo has submissions too, right? So we have arm bars and chokes. But really, I think it's the rule set that determines, I guess, the distribution of these techniques that we see, right? And so in Judo...
Jeremy (07:38.139)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (07:42.134)
we also have the gi that changes things. And so it just emphasizes different things. So when you have a gi on like in judo, as opposed to wrestling and no gi jujitsu, it's like having kind of handles all over the body where otherwise you wouldn't be able to pull by just getting a purchase on like a sleeve or a lapel and that kind of augments the offensive potential of most pulling throws. So in wrestling, it's very hard to
grab somebody from far away and pull. It's easier to push with shots and slip by. And judo, it's very easy to generate a tremendous amount of power by just sometimes one or even, I mean, a couple of fingers on the gi, you can send somebody flying. And so that lends itself to throws being a lot more popular because they're easier to do. And it's also harder to shoot for the legs because gripping.
it increases the offensive potential of attacks. It also increases your ability to defend, particularly shots, because if somebody's shooting and needs to get close, in no gi, if your hand's here, you can kind of slip it, right? But in gi, you can keep that lapel grip, keep that sleeve and kind of keep them at bay. So, I mean, all that to say that you tend to focus on whatever is gonna make you the most successful in your ruleset. And so throws.
That's where my, I guess I'm most familiar with them because of Judo, but if you started with wrestling where shots are a lot easier to target a throw, you're gonna be more familiar with whatever is gonna, I guess, increase the likelihood of you being the most successful in that grappling art. So shots, duck unders, et cetera, right, wrestling. And then Jiu-Jitsu, it's weird because you have these two sort of arenas where you do stand up, which is no gi and gi.
And a lot of times people do both. So you get this sort of hodgepodge of, I guess, yeah, just different grappling philosophies coming together, Russell, Judo, Jitsu, you know? And then I think that kind of, it brings a lot of different disciplines together and having people interact where otherwise you may not see them. So like, it kind of reminds me of old school UFC where you have these clash of styles. So it's so good to see that in Jiu-Jitsu, which I like.
Jeremy (10:04.627)
you
Austin Cook (10:06.562)
Judo versus wrestling, or this guy's a guard guy versus a passer on top. So yeah, but you're right, what is one versus the other? Kind of hard to say.
Jeremy (10:17.849)
Yeah, you mentioned something that I found myself talking about often, and it's the rule set. And in the absence of the rule set, which could argue there's always a rule set, it's the philosophy that dictates the movements that you do. Right? There's nobody out there that's going, you cannot do this move as part of your judo philosophy. You can't practice it. Right? Maybe you have an instructor that says that, but there's no like, there's no...
Austin Cook (10:31.148)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (10:43.51)
Right. It's just, like.
Jeremy (10:45.489)
is and always will be and can never be changed, Judo, right? Like, all words have changed.
Austin Cook (10:49.646)
Right. And originally, so they've kind of whittled Judo down, unfortunately, since 2010, where all of the leg grabs were taken out. So previously you could attack the legs with your hands, right? So.
Jeremy (11:04.861)
So we're talking about competitive judo versus what some might call traditional or classical judo.
Austin Cook (11:09.342)
Exactly. Yeah. And I think that they do themselves a disservice martial arts when they, the more restrictions they impose, because you're always going to get people that are going to grapple with, I guess, the sort of goal that one day they would translate whatever they're learning into mixed martial arts. And so, and sometimes those guys do go to mixed martial arts, sometimes they end up falling in love.
with the grappling art and staying with it, but that initial sort of entry into martial arts, like I'm trying to put myself, if I was interested in becoming like, like I wanna go to the UFC one day, and I was looking at all of these, I might say, well, Judo, I need to be able to defend leg attacks or shots. How am I gonna do that if I'm just doing Judo? So that may push me towards wrestling, but at the same time, wrestling doesn't have submissions. So I might see that and say, well, like I wanna be working on these.
uh, kind of positions that I control somebody in a realistic setting that offers, uh, meet real feedback, which is like, Oh, I shouldn't do that. And what does that as a submission? So it's too bad that, that the, the rule sets tend to get kind of whittled down and I think distilled too much, but yeah, I'm sure there's some guy that, uh, I'm sure, I'm sure there's, I guess, data that I don't know about. Maybe it does increases sort of the.
amount of spectators in the sport, but I like to see it all.
Jeremy (12:37.961)
Well, and I'm with you, right? Like to me, a better martial artist is a diverse martial artist, right? Like I philosophically line up with grab everything. And actually we just put up a clip on my Instagram and TikTok like yesterday or something. It was Gerald Akamora, who if you don't know by name, you would recognize him. He's been the bad guy. Like he's the Asian bad guy with the beard that you've seen in like 30 movies. Yeah.
Austin Cook (13:02.907)
Oh, I like them already.
Jeremy (13:05.777)
Um, great guy. He was on the show a few weeks ago and he talked about it as a garbage disposal. Be a garbage disposal, take everything in and then just, you know, and I like that visual kind of better than, than the way Bruce Lee talked about it, right? Like just this idea. Give me everything. Don't you decide what I don't want. Let me take everything and figure out what works for me.
Austin Cook (13:13.923)
S.
Austin Cook (13:24.813)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (13:28.534)
That's exactly. And you have more, your input's greater when you expose yourself to a variety of techniques, right? And so if you have a higher input, then chances are once you go through the process of figuring out what best suits your natural abilities or kind of decreases the likelihood of having your weaknesses exposed, that's the more tools that you have to choose from, the better you're gonna be. And you also, I mean,
So I started Judo when I was 15 and I'm now 32. So I've been doing it for a long time, but I still learn things. And honestly, I learned them more often from people that, uh, aren't very experienced in Judo because I see them do things and I try to always have an open mind and if somebody did something that kind of surprised me, uh, kids, especially kids are really good at this. I remember there's this like 15, 14, 15 year old kid who I was, um,
I was getting to do a drill with one of my teammates, her name's Audrey, who trains. And he, this kid, Merrick, he was like, well, why don't you, why do you go all the way down to the mat when you're practicing this fit in? Why don't you just go halfway? Cause you can get more reps in. And I remember thinking like, damn it, Merrick, like that's, that's super smart. I wish I had thought of that 15 years ago. There's always, there's always something that you can learn and there's always somebody that you can learn from.
And yeah, like if you kind of adopt that, not only tribal, I guess, like mentality with the discipline, but also when people get to elitist about like, I've definitely seen like people suggest something I thought was a good idea. And then you can tell the person that this was suggested to you, who's very experienced, kind of, who's it, right? There's like, I'm not, come on, you're, I'm such and such, and you're just so-
Jeremy (15:25.313)
Right, and that's what they always do. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. Why is it that people get so defensive about this stuff? And here's what I think it is, and I'm curious if you land where I do on this.
Jeremy (15:42.309)
If we spend a bunch of time training, and we generally believe that our training is good. I've never seen a martial arts school where the instructor says, I'm terrible and everything I'm teaching you sucks. It's like, hey, there's some good stuff here. Keep working hard and you'll get better. That's the worst. And then you've got plenty of people who, and I feel like this is decreasing where it's like, you have...
Magically stumbled onto the most amazing fighting art on the planet. I am supreme ultra grand champion of the world and You could not have picked a better place like good for you, you know And I Well, even if they don't get there right like people tend to come up with this belief and there's some hardwired Physiology ego stuff in here about believing that we can fight
Austin Cook (16:20.897)
And I would love to show you the techniques I've mastered, but this is too dangerous for you.
Jeremy (16:34.821)
Right? What is it? Like 40% of adult men think that they could defeat, um, is it a chimpanzee? You know, just utterly ridiculous, like numbers wise. Like if you think you could take out a chimpanzee folks, please go do a little bit of research. It's not going to happen. You're going to lose your face. Uh, but they come up and, and it's like, okay, I'm good. I've put in time. I've put in a decade. I'm skilled. Like they're doing well in classes. And for somebody to say, but
Austin Cook (16:41.456)
Okay.
Austin Cook (16:50.542)
Thanks for watching!
Jeremy (17:03.909)
What about this makes them have to take a step back and say, but I could be better. There could be more. What if what I've been doing all this time wasn't actually what was best for me? And that creates some fragility and people, a lot of people can't handle.
Austin Cook (17:09.601)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (17:16.332)
So.
Austin Cook (17:20.414)
Yeah, I get it because I mean, I feel like I've been there with not necessarily martial arts, but just like other things in life we get. We don't like to think that our time could have been better spent. Like people don't like to sort of deal with that. And if you can circumvent that sort of line of reasoning by denying that...
anything else you could have been doing would not have been as worth your time and that you have been on the road track. That's sort of anxiolytic and reduces those feelings of kind of nervousness or feeling uncomfortable. I think there's another component too, which is people just have a tendency to be kind of elitist. And it's like, I don't know, like college rankings or something. Like if you can tell somebody, like my college is ranked X versus my college is ranked Y, like people, there's a pride and that.
probably also come from some fragility. They like to that whatever they're a part of to be held in the highest regard of their kind of general public. I've definitely been guilty of those things too. And I definitely less so than all in my thirties, but in my teens, oh man, my twenties, still not so great, but now I'm better. Now I'm speaking of chimpanzees and like learning from grappling. Like I'm always...
Jeremy (18:29.062)
We are.
Austin Cook (18:42.806)
doing this and it's probably super weird and I'm obsessed with dogs and animals. But like my whole family, this bunch of dogs are all very close and I'm always watching them wrestle and like how they interact and you'll see a lot of the same things that you see on the mat with just animals that are just born with that intuition and kids too, with just like a simple like dogs, like faking somebody to the left and then going to the right. Um, they do that. And.
I've definitely looked at how they fake and tried to figure out, okay, interesting. So they use more of their head movement to fake versus I use my hips. I wonder what happens if I already use my head. Doesn't work usually, but sometimes a small percentage of the time it does end up translating. And so, I mean, why not? There's free opportunities.
Jeremy (19:30.342)
Right.
Jeremy (19:37.925)
Have you seen, and I just made note, because we have to find this and put this in. Have you seen the clips of like the guy putting his pit bull in a geetop? It is the best because, you know, if folks out there, like if you've ever played with a pit bull, you know that they are, they do not deserve the reputation they have. They are the most ridiculous animals, but they are.
Austin Cook (19:49.591)
Oh, wait, that sounds super familiar.
Austin Cook (20:03.022)
I'll leave it at that.
Jeremy (20:06.205)
they're built, like they are solid dogs. Their heads are like carved out of granite. And so this guy has his dog, this big pit bull and he's got a judo gi on it. And he's pulling positions and the dog's like, ah, ah. Right, so he's doing it and he's pulling positions and the dog's trying to bite him and he's using it as a stimulus. Like I gotta stay away from this. This is a whole other thing. You know, when you roll,
Austin Cook (20:22.646)
Yeah, it's been a long day.
Jeremy (20:35.345)
you're probably not worried about people biting you. And it's actually one of the major criticisms of Jujitsu as a street self-defense is you're now pulling this person. And we actually, we had somebody on the show, I forget who it was, where the guy secured it and he got his peck bit in a street, his pectoral muscle bit. The guy, he was, this was a street confrontation. He got chomped and you know, like, oh.
Austin Cook (20:37.871)
Yeah
Austin Cook (20:54.262)
You got his wet boy? Oh my God.
Jeremy (21:04.153)
rule set would never say, you know, I'm sure somewhere in the rules that it says don't bite but people don't even can I bite right like it's just not a thing that we do but you know, the dog the dog this is what the dog does the dog doesn't have hands the dog has a mouth. So just looking at it in that way. Plus, it's a trip. It's just
Austin Cook (21:18.314)
Yeah. So funny that you said the pit bull thing. I'll send you this video. I have a video of me, there's a pit bull at the gym that I go to and I'm constantly playing with it. And there's a video of me like practicing my like guard passing on it. And I'll send it to you because it's, yeah. Yeah, the biting looks crazy. That's...
Jeremy (21:24.935)
Yeah.
Jeremy (21:40.605)
I love it. Yeah, we'll put that in.
Austin Cook (21:44.566)
That sucks for that guy. Um, yeah, that and the eye gouging, pinching, I mean, I think with a lot of those things, I mean, as long as they're not, uh, biting, I guess, like your, your neck or if you're in a control, if you're in a position where their mouth, I guess, is near either your arm or like hips or whatever. I mean, you'll probably get bit, but I think it's rare that would end up being a, uh, fight stopping injury. Um, I like if they're biting my arm and I have a choke in like,
I mean, chances are I'll be able to finish the choke. Maybe my arm will be cut open, but yeah, I don't know.
Jeremy (22:20.233)
which it just, it adds a whole other dynamic, right? Because what's the first thing you're taught in Jiu-Jitsu? Like, on your back, you're wrapped up, you're safe, right? Like that's literally how I was taught, you're safe. Well, maybe a little less safe.
Austin Cook (22:22.934)
Yes.
Austin Cook (22:28.107)
Ha ha
Austin Cook (22:33.034)
That's, that's another thing that I've told. So like in jujitsu, um, like my goal is I want to be able to be the best guys that I can, um, and so I have approached that with almost trying to break every role in jujitsu or every dogma, uh, with the rationale sort of being that, well, if I design my game around, uh, let's say taking somebody's back, there's going to be guys that have been in the sport for.
decades that have half of their experience defending somebody on their back. Or I can say, well, like, well, Judo is very sort of positionally focused, and you often try to get pins and prioritize that over taking somebody's back. And from those pins, there are various submissions. And so I sort of believe that, well, if I can take an existing skill set I have, so like...
With going to your back, but I never play off my back unless I absolutely have to because same rationale There's guys who spent over half their time doing that. So I don't want to fight them where they're strong I want to fight them where I'm strong and I want to Sort of have a game that's unorthodox that the people in my gym that I kind of built up Just to understand the things that I'm doing they're familiar with it, but then I go elsewhere and fight a guy that
I may face, I don't know, like let's say a tournament, they're not gonna be familiar with it because if you're unorthodox, you don't have to be as good. And so it's a little like cheat code I like to tap into all the time.
Jeremy (24:09.797)
Yeah. And, you know, as you bring that up, you were talking about the UFC and MMA before, and anything where we have sport involved in martial arts, not just martial arts, but there's a cycle, right? If you're a student of the UFC, you've seen the evolution. Some would call it an evolution. I call it a cycle. I mean, there's plenty of stuff that has come and gone. And you can say the same thing about pro basketball, right? Like there was a time when the three point shot wasn't as big of a deal.
Austin Cook (24:30.093)
Yeah, I like that.
Austin Cook (24:38.973)
Yeah, you're right.
Jeremy (24:39.561)
And then it became a really big deal again, right? But if you go way back, it was a big deal, right? So like things go in these cycles because if you've got really big people who are really good at defending under the hoop, well, where do you get some space out at three pointer? And so what happens over time? People, you know, the people in the NBA start getting a little bit faster, maybe a little bit smaller, a little more versatile, and that closes that down. So if you get somebody who's big monster, you know.
Austin Cook (24:55.666)
Exactly, yes.
Jeremy (25:08.157)
Then they start pushing back in and they're closing from a shorter distance. And you could kind of say the same thing. Actually, you use a lot of the same words about MMA.
Austin Cook (25:17.494)
No, you're absolutely right. It's less, I would say, of like a linear evolution and more of like a cyclical evolution. You have, and that's sort of, that's another, giving away all my little cheats, but another thing, I love watching film, but I like watching these really old matches better than I do the new ones, because I feel that there's more likely to be some gem that may have been popular, like you said, back then.
Uh, and, uh, if there was something that was popular back then and people, uh, and people were used to it and it's, and people are still hitting it. Chances are, I mean, it's not like, it's not like grappling changes all that much. Like it's probably, chances are it's still gonna, it's still gonna work. Um, so I, I love stealing those like old black and white, like footage sort of techniques and I see something I'm like, Oh, I wonder if that will work. And then sure enough, it usually does if it's been in.
kind of battle tested, so.
Jeremy (26:17.597)
Yeah, it's, you know, there are only so many ways the body can move and the rule sets will carve some of those away and people. Yeah. But you even talked about it, right? Like, if you want to be super high level, you kind of have to focus on an aspect of a game. And martial artists might, you know, push away at that. But if we're talking competitive, show me a sport.
Austin Cook (26:21.832)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's not like people have new elbows that bend a different way.
Austin Cook (26:36.802)
Yeah.
Jeremy (26:44.613)
where people are equally good at everything, right? Like it all pros tend to specialize and even in individual sports like tennis, people will talk about this person's got a great serve, this person's got a great forehand, great backhand, they have great movement. And yeah, you wanna have all those things, but inevitably just the amount of time it takes to be top tier.
Austin Cook (27:02.63)
Yeah, exactly. So maybe I'll like refine what I said. So instead of, so having a, uh, I guess the largest, uh, kind of breadth of available techniques, like, like looking at a menu, like I want a big menu, but I'm only going to order a few things. You know, if that makes sense, cause I want to focus on a very kind of few amount, uh, or less techniques. I believe are more like I, so I learn submissions.
Jeremy (27:22.153)
It does.
Austin Cook (27:30.69)
very slowly, I tend to pick one and the focus on that for a few months until I really feel like I understand it, which is more of a jiu-jitsu mindset where you don't learn like a million throws, you really focus on a couple. And in jiu-jitsu, I think the culture nowadays is the opposite where they have like a million DVDs, a million instructionals. And so you could spend your whole time like all the time you invest being reasonable at everything. But...
that's not gonna, that's not sort of productive, I don't think, to beating the very best guys because those best guys have experienced, like most of guys in Jiu-Jitsu do, defending everything. So would I rather have like a lukewarm, arm bar and triangle and heel hook and I don't know, runic and choke or would I have just a really, really good...
know, like a north-south choke or something. And so that is more, that's what's going to be the next kind of high caliber guy that's ahead of you is just getting that one technique a little bit better. So that's sort of my mindset.
Jeremy (28:42.097)
In my martial arts school, you know, again, I'm teaching karate. Stand up.
One of the things that when I opened my school, I wanted to do really differently. Most martial arts schools, when they're working on things that are under the context of self-defense, it's okay, you've done that, if it's freeform, you've done that the last five times, the last 10 times, do something different. No, I want you to have at least one thing that you can go out on the street with and feel confident in. And I'm not gonna dilute that for you to do other things. Once you've got that one down and you've got it solid, yeah.
Austin Cook (29:10.882)
Yes.
Jeremy (29:17.313)
Now we'll start adding some versatility.
Austin Cook (29:20.35)
That's such a smart way to approach it. And I bet you already do this, but sometimes as a teacher, coach, sensei, whatever you call yourself in the various martial arts, you can always identify.
kind of natural strengths that somebody has and kind of have a hypothesis going in. Like I think this would be really well suited for you. And then you can kind of refine it as you go. So like my, like I don't think I'm super physically strong. I was always taller for my weight class. I fought at 145, 66 kilos and I was five, nine, five, 10. So I was always on the taller side. So there's always like these stocky sort of more like classic at like.
gymnast or wrestler builds that were more explosive in their hips. So I had to sort of gravitate to like, well, what would I, what am I good at? Like, what is my ball? What's that?
Jeremy (30:15.633)
So I'm going to guess, if I may, that gave you a little more reach, which gave you a little more leverage.
Austin Cook (30:22.834)
Yep, there you go. And I can reach, especially with my feet. So I use a lot of foot sweeps and I use a lot of kind of momentum from that to generate kind of extra, uh, extra torque, extra sort of, uh, momentum to generate these longer guy techniques. So that's, and I do other ones too, but like that's sort of where I really kind of designed my game around. So, uh, I try to take advantage of that.
In Jiu-Jitsu, it ends up being, in Judo, the culture is a lot, kind of more based around these weight classes. Like it's rare for somebody to fight somebody that's two weight classes above them, because it can be a little dangerous. But in Jiu-Jitsu, the culture is not like that. And so I end up fighting, I'm usually shorter because I'm always like, I tend to be small, I'm like 170. And most of the guys, I don't know, probably 190 or something at my gym.
So I have to now learn these small guy techniques as well. Sometimes I am the more explosive guy and I fight it. So yeah, I use more of a wall. I think you just see.
Jeremy (31:33.661)
Now, if I heard you right, you said you started with judo when you were 15. That is, I mean, talk about uncommon. It's uncommon for someone to start training as a teenager and it's uncommon for someone to start in judo. I mean, I loved judo. I think it's a beautiful art and I enjoyed it, the bit that I did and would honestly do it more if it was more around me. But it's not common in the US. So how did that happen?
Austin Cook (31:57.696)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (32:01.182)
I, and speaking of the starting late, I used to get a lot of anxiety about that because I had these goals that I wanted to be as good as I could be in judo. And so all the time, like I used to think, well, like I'm never going to be. As good as I, as I could have been if I'd started like, you know, some of these guys are, they're three, their dad's a coach or whatever. Um, I started when I was 15, North Carolina, not a lot of judo different now, but when I was growing up, uh, yeah. So I originally started, I was, um,
I had hurt my knee and had a meniscal tear, so the cartilage in your knee, that cushions it when you do things like, let's say wrestling shots. And so I had wanted to do that, but my knee couldn't handle that sort of, those penetration steps where you're like, bah, and for the shot. And so that was why I got started. And I, in the back of my mind, figured that, well, I would...
high school, I wanted to wrestle and I could use that in wrestling, but while my knee healed, I ended up liking judo so much I stayed with it and just became...
Jeremy (33:08.649)
Hmm. It's almost the Bill Wallace origin story, right? I don't know if you know, Bill Superfoot Wallace, short version, hurt his knee in judo and just then went on to became the greatest kicker of all time.
Austin Cook (33:13.066)
Oh, who's that?
Austin Cook (33:22.538)
Really? Whoa. That's awesome. Yeah. It's a, yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of those injuries and there's standup based martial arts, like, uh, like the best way judo because like we said, there's handles all over the body. So you can generate a lot more torque than you could without a gi. And so there's a lot of power often directed at people's knees and shoulders. And so it can be a little, a little sketchy sometimes.
Jeremy (33:48.393)
So what was it you found in Judo that you loved so much that you stuck with?
Austin Cook (33:51.038)
Man, it just, it's just so fun. Um, there's nothing I don't think like, so in judo while you can generate a lot of like power and torque that sort of feels almost like, because you can use your, uh, I guess your hands so efficiently, uh, it doesn't, it feels like you're almost doing nothing sometimes when you throw somebody and then sometimes
you can get to the point where your technique gets crisp enough and it actually is like, it feels like the same amount of effort is like filling up a glass of water at the sink. Um, and if you do that and somebody goes flying like footseats, that's why I like them so much. It's no effort and they like, looks like they slipped on ice. Like it looks so dramatic. Uh, it just feels so fun. I, it's, I wish I had a better sort of, uh, more methodical, I guess, answer, but it is just.
I just, I love the feeling of throwing somebody for Ipan and from all my friends, I guess in judo are all addicted to that same feeling. I don't know. There's something about it that just feels so good.
Jeremy (35:00.505)
There's a feedback, right? There's a feedback in grappling that in striking arts we don't always get because you can throw someone at it closer to a hundred percent than you can punch them in most contexts. And as you get better, right? It's like, oh, they went higher and hit the mat faster or harder with seemingly less effort. I must be getting better. Whereas I, as a striker, I'm like, ah, I think I got you. Did I get you?
Austin Cook (35:12.606)
Right, exactly.
Austin Cook (35:24.799)
Yes.
Jeremy (35:28.969)
I don't know. Did I get you? Yeah, you got me. Okay, cool. Right? I'm getting back.
Austin Cook (35:32.962)
I've wondered about that. Is that, I don't know, have you ever been frustrated with that? Like, does that make it less fun? Or are you used to it? So now I'm gonna...
Jeremy (35:43.302)
There are other ways to track that and look at things. But there's, one of the things we used to say in my school, there's no politics in a knockout. And inherently in most striking art competitions, whether we're talking about point or continuous, even if there is a degree of contact,
Austin Cook (35:56.676)
Hmm.
Jeremy (36:10.617)
It's still not generally full contact. And this is one of the arguments people make for boxing or for UFC, MMA, right? Is that you can go harder, but it sucks to practice that way, right? Like I'm not gonna get in there, even if I'm training to be something like that, which I'm not, but I'm not gonna get in there with my friends or fellow students or my students and start drilling them because bloody noses and black eyes.
Austin Cook (36:24.027)
Oh yeah, let me just...
Austin Cook (36:36.973)
Right.
Jeremy (36:40.209)
don't work with our society. But if somebody, oh, they hit the mat a little bit hard, they might limp to work the next day. Oh, what happened? I had a tough rolling session yesterday. That's socially acceptable, and they're probably gonna come back better for it.
Austin Cook (36:41.58)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (36:54.018)
But, but even that I like, so as I've gotten older, I've really tried to hone the techniques that I choose with the ones that, uh, that I can practice that don't put unnecessarily unnecessary mileage on people's bodies. So even like what you said with taking falls on the mat, like I hate that. Like everybody hates that. It's not comfortable. It's, it's not fun. It hurts. It's like a slap. It's.
Jeremy (37:09.659)
Sure.
Austin Cook (37:19.986)
Sometimes you can kind of twist a, like an ankle or something. So I try to look at it where I, if I, I'll sort of look at it like this. Well, if I choose a technique that I can get 90% of the practice, uh, productive practice out of it by not throwing, by just fitting in here, um, I'm going to have training partners that I can, uh, that I'm not going to be just burying into the mat over and over, like, I'm not going to do that. That's messed up me. So, uh,
I try to select those techniques like my osoto gari that I like to do. I don't need to throw like maybe one out of every hundred it's helpful for me to throw. But most of the time it's just fitting in and then getting feedback. Like my main training partner, Alex, I fit in and I was like, well, how's that feel? And he said, he'll say good. And that like means that we've had these conversations now for a long time. Like I don't feel that I could counter with an osoto or.
Jeremy (37:59.784)
Mm.
Austin Cook (38:17.65)
a co-soto this way and I did not feel that I could twist it, you know what I mean? And so that feedback coupled with techniques that don't take away your time in the sport, which like taking a lot of falls, like getting punched a bunch in the face, you know what I mean? That's, I think, the real future of martial arts because you're going to have athletes that can compete in it longer and that sort of window gets, the competition window gets pushed a little bit further out.
Jeremy (38:40.613)
Mm.
Jeremy (38:44.761)
Yeah, because this is one of the differences. You know, I can practice a wider breadth of striking stuff solo than I can grappling stuff, right? It's tough to practice your in a Sotogari with nobody, right? Like, I mean, you know, we made the joke about the dog, and they're throwing dummies out there, but they're not going to give you the same feedback.
Austin Cook (38:58.132)
Yeah, that yeah.
Austin Cook (39:04.767)
Oh yeah.
Right. That's a good point.
Austin Cook (39:13.767)
Right, right.
Jeremy (39:15.581)
So if you're smashing that, you said Alex, if you're smashing Alex every time, he's probably gonna be like, ah, I don't know Austin, you know, I'm feeling a little sick today.
Austin Cook (39:22.462)
Yeah, you know, we got a new dummy over there. That hurts pretty good.
Jeremy (39:25.693)
But if you tuck in and you break his balance, right? Couple feet come off the floor, you're like, oh, okay, we're there. And he doesn't have to go home battered from it.
Austin Cook (39:31.746)
Yeah.
Exactly. And he also, uh, knows now like that feeling of, like, if you're just taking a fall, like it's hard to really know what would have happened. Like, you don't, you're not really thinking about it. Like, Oh, could I have blocked it here? But when you have that like feedback, both people are engaged where like, how, what about now? Like, like, Oh, good. I go bad. And then I'll ask like, well, why is that bad? And he said, well, I feel like I could do this. And then sometimes we'll disagree and say, all right, let's go and try it. Like, and then
Jeremy (40:02.181)
Yeah, it's a much more cerebral approach, which I certainly understand.
Austin Cook (40:05.482)
Yeah. And another thing with, uh, with that, with like not throwing, so throwing somebody over and over, that's a very common drill and it on crash pads too. It gets you extremely tired. It's so, so tiring with a lot of throws with like throwing somebody one, trying to get as many as you can, like try to get, I don't know, like 50 and a hundred seconds or something. It's really, really exhausting. And when you're tired like that, I just don't think you learn as well. It's like, if, if I were to study for a test.
Would I rather study after like a long day when I'm exhausted or would I rather study in the morning after like a cup of coffee, you know, like you just, I would do better on that test if I were to study when I'm at my most energetic, feeling good. Uh, and so I, I try to always kind of dictate the pace of my drilling to accommodate that.
Jeremy (40:58.973)
Yeah, there are certainly times where we want to put things on autopilot. And then there are other times where we have to improve the autopilot. And those are two very different approaches.
Austin Cook (41:06.602)
Yeah, uh-huh.
Yeah, definitely.
Jeremy (41:13.545)
So you started with Judo, but obviously at some point you went, there's more, I want the more, when and why the more.
Austin Cook (41:21.834)
Um, well, so I quit retired, wherever you want to call it from judo, uh, in 2014. Um, and looking back, I wish I had, and I think I, I cut it a little bit too short. And maybe that was sort of part of the motivation for wanting to get back into grappling, um, at the time, um, I had gotten, uh, into medical school. And so I.
for four years and during that time. And then residency, I didn't do any grappling, there just wasn't enough time. And so I kind of always hoped that it would be something that void that was kind of left in the wake of my decision to stop doing judo, that would get filled by, I guess, medicine and I'd find some other hobbies. But I think a lot of us in the martial arts world, you get a taste of how awesome martial arts is and-
There's nothing that can, I guess, fulfill you in that same way. And so I ended up after, I guess, six years thinking like, well, I need this in my life again. And just Judo would have been a little bit frustrating for me because A, it's a little bit more dangerous and B, I...
I would be a lot worse. I wasn't going to be as good as I was when I was training at the Olympic Training Center full time. And I didn't think I was going to compete because I'd already done that a lot. But Jiu-Jitsu was very appealing because it had a lot of what I liked about Judo, but it was also new to me. And so I could learn very quickly filling in those gaps. And but it was still different where I still had a lot of what I used to love so much about Judo, which is problem solving. Like I get a problem. I go home.
back to the lab and I think about it, you know, like, how can I fix this? Like, how can I adjust my Uchimata so I don't get countered? You know what I mean? Like that's so fun. That's what's the best part about all of this is that problem solving. And so it's like, I get to take a whole new subject and learn. I just love learning things. And then also I think it's. So.
Jeremy (43:30.665)
Nice.
Austin Cook (43:35.746)
Judo has given me so much and I've always wanted to, I guess to give back in some way, but I didn't really know what that meant. Or is that stupid, giving back to this set of principles? But that feeling never really left. I never really thought it, I never really grew out of that. And so for the first time I felt like I was able to do that.
Do you know that the guy Sensei Seth, he has a YouTube channel? YouTube? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a man. He came and did a Judo video and it went really well. And I felt like it was the first time that I really felt like I got to do that, which was give back to Judo. He ranked the martial arts and he had previously ranked it as a C and then he moved it up to A tier. So that was awesome. I loved that. And with Jiu-Jitsu...
Jeremy (44:05.873)
Yeah, yes, that's been hard. He's a good guy.
Austin Cook (44:33.262)
There aren't a lot of people, I mentioned Justin Flores, the guy who I got the shirt from, there are not a lot of people who are implementing Judo in a no-gi setting. And so I kind of like that I get to give back to both grappling as a whole and Judo by, I guess, exploring this new territory and figuring out how to, just how to advance the craft because it's still new and that's a little niche that I think I can do it in.
Jeremy (44:59.345)
Yeah. And so for the audience, what you're what you're kind of talking about, jujitsu at some point split, you know, somebody along the way probably said, yeah, but we don't wear gis on the street. Right. So how does this work on the street? And so everybody now wears these very specialized compression rash guards that they also don't wear on the street. But, you know, that's a whole other conversation. And so, you know, some folks said, OK, how does judo?
Austin Cook (45:22.51)
Thank you.
Jeremy (45:27.481)
Right? It's kind of a similar question. How does judo work when everybody's not wearing a gi with, you know, these 12 pound, heavy weave, four inch wide lapels? I have a judo gi in there, so I'm not picking.
Austin Cook (45:37.854)
Yeah. And so, no, no. Uh, and then my, my job is, is sort of getting this like large menu of techniques and then figuring out like, well, which ones should I abandon completely, which ones work already without any adjustments and then the majority of them it's like, okay, what adjustments, how can I tweak them to both work and Nogi, but then also.
Um, satisfy, I guess, uh, the rule set. So where there are any pawns and you don't get, like, Judo, if there's some hard to their back matches over Jiu-Jitsu, you can get takedowns, but there's no, if you get, if you, uh, throw them with amplitude on the back, you're nothing, no additional points for that, um, no points for throwing them to their stomach versus back. None of that matters. So, uh, the emphasis becomes like.
which of these techniques puts me at the lowest amount of risk. So like with a shot, for example, you get guillotine as a risk, right? So, but with Osodogari, let's say, where you're putting your leg outside somebody else's leg, that I think becomes more appealing. And you sort of throw in a lot of shots because you're not leading with the most vulnerable part of your body, your head and your neck where
which is the most common ways that jujitsu matches get ended. It was with a choke, right? And so with judo, I tend to emphasize a lot of these leg throws that don't place me at risk if things don't go well at getting submitted. So yeah, it's all, it's just trying to, trying to hack, I guess, judo and apply it.
Jeremy (47:25.613)
Yeah, it's cool. And this is, you know, this is one of my favorite things about martial arts, is that martial arts, because, you know, it just is right. And the body moves in different ways and we wear different clothing and the times are different. It can adjust. It can become more contemporary. And I am not someone who says, you know, because we did it this way 100 years ago or 50 years ago, that's better. It's different. It's traditional or classical is the word. I'm hearing more folks use that I like better.
But I think there's a tremendous amount of value, even if just for psychological purposes, to figure out how do I take this stuff that I learned and make it work today and now? What happens when modern tools, weapons are involved? It's different.
Austin Cook (48:11.498)
Yeah. And that is, I guess, the original sort of how all these martial arts changed. It's because they were less often doing it for fun and more often like with Judo, like Samurai's grabbing each other's armor, like the sort of rules came from. If you throw somebody on their back hard, well, like you're going to have an advantage now to fight if you have a sword or they're lying on their back with a bunch of armor and you're standing, well, like it'd be easy for your buddy to come along with a spear or whatever.
Jeremy (48:38.377)
Right.
Austin Cook (48:39.338)
and get them. I guess that's sort of how all of these kind of branched and chains, then different kind of geographic pressures and weapons. And then now probably a lot less people are able bodied, just even probably in the military than they would be when there weren't any guns, right? Because everyone was doing hand to hand combat, so it's more important.
Jeremy (49:08.129)
Not everyone is okay with those changes, though. Do you get pushback? Do you get, let's say, classical judoka responding your stuff, and they're like, ah, Austin, you're the worst. Why would you do this? That's not judo. I hate you. I'm sending glitter bombs to your house.
Austin Cook (49:15.799)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (49:22.062)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (49:25.522)
No, for sure. There's a, and I, it doesn't really bother me anymore. Just because I think I've gotten like more laid back as I've gotten older. And I, and I used to, it used to, it would have driven me crazy. And every once in a while it still gets to me, but there's one. So my, the Sensei Seth video, I show my like favorite Osotogari entry. Um, and it's not, it's not one that I made up. It's one that I copied from the like Olympic gold medalist from probably the best, I mean, definitely the best judoka of our generation, this guy, uh, Shohei Ono.
He does as a sort of gari very different, but it's just, it's most effective. And then like I saw that just in my game. I used to do it the old way, didn't, doesn't work as well. So I do it this way now, but for sure there are like a lot of people in the comments, like, like the way he'll show it Osoto is completely wrong. Like what a disgrace to, but like it's just, so I do get that. And really it's, it's most often like nobody who, I guess
is familiar with competitive judo. Like unless you like lived under a rock, you would have seen the best judoka of our generation doing their technique like this, right? But it's often people who have been fans for a long time and have been in it for a long time. And then sort of think experience in a martial art and I guess adeptness in it is only a function of how much time that you've been in it. Like you start the clock.
Like I've been doing judo for 50 years, but like, but I mean, chances are I've done judo more than they have because I judo for six hours, almost like a day for the vast majority of my life. Like it's out of, you get that sometimes, but, but.
Jeremy (51:08.689)
Yeah, yeah, and I always, I like to hit him with this paradox. Things can't get better unless they change.
Austin Cook (51:15.85)
Right, yeah, exactly. And that's a good point. Yeah, wait a minute.
Jeremy (51:20.297)
And you watch heads explode and it's...
Jeremy (51:26.153)
So, and the, I generally get two responses to that, either silence because they know they're done, or so are you saying that the founding masters, that you're better than them, right? That's, they'll kind of twist it in that way and.
Austin Cook (51:45.33)
it began it like it gets so culty so fast. I tend to not do well with like hierarchy in general. Like I think it's kind of dumb a lot of the time. And I'm not even a big fan of belts because I mean, so many people come in like to jiu jitsu, like me and my buddy Nigel. So my buddy Nigel wrestled division one, I went in like NCAA state qualifier or NCAA qualifier, like national tournament D1.
Jeremy (52:10.525)
So he's pretty good.
Austin Cook (52:12.534)
He knows his way around a wrestling mat. Yeah. And then like me with judo done it a long time. So we go in and we do jiu-jitsu at the same gym. Um, so I mean, in it at all, like there's differences, but I mean, 80% of it is the same. And so us like compared to some guy who got his, uh, he's just walking like 40 years old, starting any sport for the first time. Like you get a lot of that these days. There's so many, there's such a different amount of, uh,
kind of different experiences level coming into especially Jiu-Jitsu. It sort of takes everybody. Um, and so I tend to prefer how wrestling does it where there, there's no belts, you know, and it's just sort of your like competition results and like your technical ability in the practice room. And when you show techniques like that sort of demonstrates how good I guess you are. But, uh, I mean, this is my opinion. Everybody has.
Jeremy (53:07.977)
People want to know where they fit into a social structure. And that's really what happens with Belts. And I'm experimenting with something in my school that dramatically changes the way rank is handled. And so far my students are a game. We're going to see how that progresses. Not going to give the details quite yet. Some folks know, but I don't want to say, this is what I'm doing as if it works. But it's really, it's around...
Austin Cook (53:10.986)
Yes.
Austin Cook (53:22.578)
Oh cool.
Jeremy (53:34.318)
think competency and think merit badges. It's the easiest way to think about it.
Austin Cook (53:37.93)
Yeah, I like that. Yeah, exactly, I like that. But in Jujitsu, I think it's bad about, Judo isn't so bad, partly because the belt system has been diluted down so much. It's very easy to get your black belt tick. It can like, I mean, it can take two years or something. It's not super uncommon.
So people end up not caring about in Judo, like in my kind of competition team, like everyone's a black belt, so it doesn't really matter. But in Jiu-Jitsu, they've sort of preserved that, like what that means, which I think there is something to be said for it. Like I do kind of like that. Like I do know what I'm getting if I'm like this, if they got the brown belt, it's a black belt. Chansari is good. In Judo, not necessarily, because you can get some guy who started when he was like 40, who'd never done any sports, and then a few years he gets his black belt. So.
Yeah, Jujitsu tends to be, they care I think more about the belts than in Judo.
Jeremy (54:38.933)
But that's also starting to change, right? Like, you know, because there was so much emphasis put on it for such a long time and that, you know, you get schools that will push and they push people. And it's always a race to the bottom. It's always a race to the bottom of things like that, because people will say, you know, I want this thing because the culture of the social structure says this thing is a value. And so people will cheat, right? Like we know people have always stolen. People will always steal. People will lie.
Austin Cook (54:51.991)
Yeah.
Jeremy (55:08.613)
They will do that. They'll do that. You know, well, you know, it took me this many years to get this belt and you know what? I don't care. Show me what you can do. Show you what you can teach me.
Austin Cook (55:21.935)
That's really interesting what you said though, because I feel like I'm obsessed with evolutionary biology and martial arts, but I've never thought of that you're absolutely right, people like, and maybe even need sometimes to know where they stand in a social hierarchy. Like, I guess people...
if that makes them feel comfortable, it would be uneasy if you don't. And I guess going back to dogs, man, like dogs, that is their whole life. It's like showing where they are in the pack. Like my dog's constantly getting bones and then going to where the other ones are and chewing them in front of them to sort of display that one, the top dog here.
Jeremy (55:54.405)
Yeah, yeah. We are hardwired for this. A lot of the work that when I'm traveling and I'm teaching seminars, we're talking about these concepts around safety and you can't learn if you don't feel unsafe, but also you can't learn well if you're concerned that you will lose social standing in the group, right? So like I'm a few years older than you, but I was raised in school.
Austin Cook (55:58.985)
What?
Austin Cook (56:15.732)
Huh, yeah.
Hey.
Jeremy (56:21.521)
The greatest fear is public speaking, and it's not the greatest fear is being ostracized because it wasn't that long ago that if you were ostracized, it meant certain death. So we crave that place in the hierarchy, and as we come up, as we earn a jujitsu purple belt, we're not bottom on the totem pole here. We're not the first one to get carved off when food becomes scarce, and there's a feeling of safety in there.
Austin Cook (56:27.276)
Let's.
Austin Cook (56:31.014)
Yeah, right. There was a selective question.
Austin Cook (56:46.242)
Boom. Man, that's beautiful, beautiful reasoning. I'm all about that. You're so right. It's that, I mean, like 15th century Europe, I think would have been a perfect example where food is so scarce. Like you have all these German fairy tales, right? Like from, like there are certain themes that constantly emerge. One of them is like the old like witch hag that like eats kids, right? And...
Really it's because you have this woman who often older targeted, right? Who isn't like, doesn't mesh in with the community right now. And so when the resources are scarce, like she's not helping them. So it kind of makes sense that like, she would be the first one to have something like, Oh, no, like goat for you. Like, so the light, there would be a selective pressure to, to fit in and not get ostracized if you know where you stand in a hierarchy.
then the people who would make that decision above you, you're gonna kind of suck up to, and you don't have to worry about talking down to the other people quite as much. It reminds me too of like what you said, people they don't learn as well and they're worried about getting ostracized, like answering a question in class, like even if you know the answer, right? It's scary, and I guess fear comes from the same thing.
Jeremy (58:01.385)
It's, yeah, yeah. And so what I liked, you know, you're talking about working with your training partner, Alex, the way you're just, you're talking it through, right? There's no fear there, right? He doesn't have to be worried that you're going to smash him and you're collaborating in this educational process, which is honestly, that's how people learn. Right? If you really dig into the psychology of how people learn things, you have to be comfortable, you have to feel safe.
Austin Cook (58:15.324)
and
Austin Cook (58:31.424)
Yes.
Jeremy (58:31.581)
And this is why so many people are, you know, we could probably veer and spend a couple hours here if you're interested, because I could tell you're interested in this stuff, but this is why so many people are coming through public school and learning nothing because they are terrified for any variety or in most cases, a bunch of different reasons from the time they get there till the time they leave.
Austin Cook (58:38.975)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (58:48.619)
Yeah.
Right, exactly. And you're so right. Like you clam up and like when you're feeling like that, like you don't remember anything. So unless you're feeling comfortable, you're not gonna be at your best. And this sort of feedback, I guess, what's the word for it? Pedagogy, pedagogy. Yeah, pedagogy. That approach makes sense. And I think too, like a pet peeve of mine is when you have this sort of a social,
Jeremy (59:09.073)
Pedagogy.
Austin Cook (59:21.802)
Like when, I guess, technical prowess or whatever in something extends to a social setting. So like when you have somebody that's better at somebody else at Jiu-Jitsu, where they're treated, I guess, almost like with like reverence compared to somebody who just started. Like people just don't even listen to what he has to say. Like that always bugs me. Ass. Hess. Uh-huh.
Jeremy (59:30.994)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (59:42.201)
High school athletes are probably the best example of this. I mean, the stereotype of the captain of the football team or the captain of the basketball team being the most popular kid in school, right? It's quite common. And we see it a lot in traditional martial arts. We see, and one of my pet peeves, and this is probably gonna bother a few people, but it's my show and I don't care. When martial arts instructors ask to be
Austin Cook (59:50.786)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (01:00:04.364)
Yeah.
Jeremy (01:00:09.381)
referred to by their martial arts title in a non-martial arts context.
Austin Cook (01:00:13.134)
Oh yeah, that's weird. That's that's the, and it's just like, it bugs people when you're making them do something. And I mean, like, it kind of goes back to like, it's just, at the end of the day, people just don't like being told, like how to speak, right? And so if you're outside of a martial arts school or whatever, outside of the martial arts company and you say like, I, like, you call me this, like that's, that's going to annoy people, right?
Jeremy (01:00:55.953)
Yeah, and you, but you end up, you know, going back to the other, the social structure, right? Like if you've spent enough time in that group and you resonate with that group and you feel a sense of belonging there, you're willing to make that concession, even if you disagree with it often, to remain in that group and not have to get kicked out of the tribe and fend for yourself.
Austin Cook (01:01:08.278)
Yes, definitely.
Austin Cook (01:01:15.066)
But, and like on the others, like I call my Jiu-Jitsu coach Brandon, who's like my friend, but I call him coach just because I like doing that. Like it's like, I like, I like, but I like it being my choice, you know? Like I like the autonomy. Yes.
Jeremy (01:01:26.493)
Right. You are giving respect. You can't, this is, you cannot demand respect. I can't make you respect me. I can make you act with certain behavior that suggests respect, but you know, you could say, you know, thank you Jeremy and be thinking some very different words when you say that.
Austin Cook (01:01:44.726)
Yeah. A hundred percent. That's, uh, you're right. It's people, like they like to have respect that's earned and given freely. That's the, I guess, the ultimate sort of form of it and not just fear of being ostracized. That's, that's something different.
Austin Cook (01:02:04.775)
I love this stuff, man. I didn't expect this. This is a...
Jeremy (01:02:05.493)
Yeah, yeah, this was good stuff. This was fun. I appreciate you coming on. If people want to find you, I mean, we're going to help me help me make sure that we get that video with Sensei Seth linked up. But for the other stuff, social media, websites, anything like that you want to share with folks.
Austin Cook (01:02:17.386)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Austin Cook (01:02:22.826)
So I'm just on Instagram right now, badboymedicine, catchy dumb name. And yeah, since the sensei Seth, the man he did a judo video with us on his YouTube channel, the sensei Seth, I think it's the, I tried judo and then he has another one with his competition experience next day, definitely check it out. But yeah, that's the best sort of place to find me right now. And thank you so much for.
Jeremy (01:02:48.017)
I don't, well, oh yeah, thanks for being here.
Austin Cook (01:02:51.875)
I'm still sort of always caught off guard when people want to interview me. I'm sure that's not something that's super unique or anything, but we all feel like that. But I always think like why... It's all... I'm honored that you would want to hear what I have to say. So I really appreciate it.
Jeremy (01:03:04.393)
I'll interview anybody, anybody who seems like they have some cool stuff to talk about. Yeah, well this has been really good and fun. And I'm gonna pass it back to you in a moment here. But for the audience, if you have a guest suggestion, don't be afraid to reach out. You can email me, Jeremy at whistlekick.com. I'll kick that over to Andrew, or if you wanna email Andrew directly, Andrew at whistlekick.com, or social media is at whistlekick. And you can support us pretty much any way you could think of that makes sense. You can support the Patreon, you could buy some.
But the number one thing that I ask people, tell people about this show, help us spread this show, help us reach the other martial artists in the world so they can hear conversations like this that, you know what, maybe it doesn't change the way people think, but at least it gets them to think. And I think that that's the most important thing. Yeah. But Austin, how do you wanna close us up today? You know, your final words to the audience, what would those be?
Austin Cook (01:03:46.858)
Yeah, it's just progress in the direction.
Austin Cook (01:03:57.748)
Yes
Let's see, well, let me start again. I just appreciate you for having me on. Appreciate anyone that's listened this far for hearing directly. And man, like I just wanna really thank my, the followers that I have and like the people that are interested in my page. I am so lucky because I felt like without martial arts that...
Jeremy (01:04:06.729)
Sure, thank you. He he he.
Austin Cook (01:04:29.258)
You know, we all like to have, feel like we have a purpose and feel fulfilled from that. Um, I felt like lost for a lot of years without it. And so having a group of people that are, is interested in learning, um, what I'm passionate about and me getting to do that and help them with the graph. And like, that's the best possible gift that I could have gotten. And like, I am so deeply appreciative of all of them. Um, and so, uh,
Yeah, and everyone at my gym, Triangle Jiu Jitsu, who's helped me with it and helped me advance my game, my coach Brandon, my main training partner Alex, those two especially, they're essential and are essential in all of this. So thank you to them and thank you to you and everyone, all the listeners.
Jeremy (01:05:23.386)
That's a wrap. Thanks, man. That was, you know, we almost got a second win there at the end and I was like, if we go too much further in this, we're gonna run out of time.
Austin Cook (01:05:25.48)
Awesome.
Austin Cook (01:05:30.795)
Oh
Austin Cook (01:05:35.07)
Oh, was that okay? Okay. Oh, awesome. Good.
Jeremy (01:05:37.617)
That was awesome. That was more than okay. That was great. If I'm engaged, which I can find just about anybody interesting. So it's hard for me to not be engaged, but if I'm engaged with somebody, you know, it tends to come out pretty good because the whole format of this is two people talking and then everybody else gets to watch or listen to two people talking.
Austin Cook (01:05:57.922)
Right.
Yeah, like I felt like we could have talked about that on the bus or something. Like it could have been. Yeah.
Jeremy (01:06:04.766)
That's the goal. That's it's.
I've evolved as an interviewer. I used to be very, what did you do? Did you do it? Right? Like I don't do that anymore because I don't need to. And when I found that I accidentally ended up doing an episode that was more like that and I was like, that went better. Oh, okay. Right. So, you know, it's experimentation, like, like everything I'm constantly experimenting with how. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You're so you're North Carolina. Is that what I heard you say?
Austin Cook (01:06:23.534)
Yeah.
Austin Cook (01:06:30.786)
Love that one. I feel like cut from the same cloth, man. I feel like there's a lot in common.
Austin Cook (01:06:38.282)
Yeah. Chapel Hill. What about you? Are you missed out on? OK, cool. So same time zone then, didn't I? Yeah.
Jeremy (01:06:39.729)
Nice. I'm in Vermont.
Jeremy (01:06:46.129)
Same time zone. Yeah, probably a lot colder here. We had our first frost last night. Yeah.
Austin Cook (01:06:51.894)
Oh man, are the slopes gonna open up soon?
Jeremy (01:06:56.365)
Uh, we might have a couple of the bigger areas have some runs open by Thanksgiving. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. This is the longest we've been that I can ever remember for our first frost. Normally we have a frost five to six weeks ago. So Mother Nature's drunk.
Austin Cook (01:07:05.687)
Oh cool. Yeah.
Austin Cook (01:07:17.506)
Man, well...
Jeremy (01:07:24.217)
Awesome. Well, did you send over photos? I don't see them in my folder.
Austin Cook (01:07:29.681)
No, let me do that. I'm about to go into the gym and I'll have them there. What kind of photos did you have?
Jeremy (01:07:33.117)
Great. You know, we play around. So the more you send over, the better. The more we have to choose from. Something that's gonna show your face, right? Cause we want, this is awesome. And some action to just kind of show in, if you look at the past graphics that we do, we tend to incorporate a few different images for the episode.
Austin Cook (01:07:55.426)
Cool. Yeah, I saw, I saw there was a, I was with my wife, I was showing them, or showing her you guys as the graphic, you guys, like, I love, like a picture of somebody that then, like, sort of trickled to white dots and then went, like, it was, I was like,
Jeremy (01:08:10.465)
Yeah, yeah, we do some fun stuff. The team does some cool things. But there are a bunch of episodes that you might wanna check out that Jimmy Pedro's been on the show. And he's...
Austin Cook (01:08:18.162)
I definitely will and I'll definitely post a link to it. Oh nice, yeah, that's cool.
Jeremy (01:08:28.837)
I've talked to him about getting Kayla on a couple times. Gene Kanakogi is one of the best episodes we've ever done.
Austin Cook (01:08:39.412)
Oh wait, yeah, I think I have, yeah, pretty. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, most do.
Jeremy (01:08:40.865)
Her mom started Women's Judo, Rusty, and Jean's friends with Rhonda Rousey's mom. So we're so close to getting a couple of these great big, obviously Rhonda's a bigger name for other reasons now, but we're always trying to get the best. And actually, Jimmy's daughter, Casey, is two hours south. She runs some Judo down there, yeah.
Austin Cook (01:08:52.154)
Oh yeah, that's cool.
Austin Cook (01:09:08.534)
Oh, cool. Nice.
Jeremy (01:09:11.821)
Yeah, we've had some good judo representation the last few years, and, you know, plenty of jiu-jitsu folks as well. But yeah, so if you have recommendations on guests or anything, don't be afraid to put them forward.
Austin Cook (01:09:14.038)
Now, I'm glad to hear it. Yeah.
Austin Cook (01:09:22.69)
I'll definitely, yeah, I'll think of it. Cause I feel like, wait, you said you guys did have Seth on already? Okay, yeah, I'll try to think of some other people and send them and then, yeah, keep it in mind.
Jeremy (01:09:33.821)
Cool. Thanks. Awesome. And if there's ever anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to reach out. I always encourage guests, if there's stuff that you want us to put out over our social media to reach people, happy to do it. Just send it over.
Austin Cook (01:09:39.384)
Oh, well likewise, man. Thank you.
Austin Cook (01:09:46.67)
That's really nice of you. I appreciate it. Yeah. And likewise, I'll definitely post a link to this and everything. And.
Jeremy (01:09:49.361)
Thank you.
Yeah, when it comes out, we'll drop you an email. Andrew takes care of that side of stuff. We just recorded a batch. We did an event out in Seattle, so we recorded four episodes while we were out there. So I don't know the timing of things. Andrew manages that. But when it's out, he'll let you know. He'll be listening to this and watching this too, so we'll probably. Hi, Andrew. He'll probably send you an email with an expectation of roughly when this is coming out. He usually does that. Awesome.
Austin Cook (01:10:03.798)
Nice. Oh yeah, I'm with you. Cool.
Austin Cook (01:10:15.692)
It was a bit.
Austin Cook (01:10:19.094)
All right. Well, awesome. Thank you for, all right. Yeah. Uh, be in touch. See ya.
Jeremy (01:10:22.365)
Thanks, man. Hope to talk to you again.
Jeremy (01:10:26.737)
All right, be well.