Ryan Hall is a jiu jitsu black belt, UFC fighter, and a philosopher of the martial arts. Please check out our sponsors to get a discount and to support this podcast:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Ryan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanhall5050
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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
7:22 - Greatest warrior in history
11:48 - Genghis Khan
17:32 - Nature is metal
21:49 - Cancel culture
36:11 - Sci-fi books and movies
44:50 - Essence of jiu jitsu
51:17 - Jiu jitsu is a language
1:01:12 - How to get started in jiu jitsu
1:14:01 - The value of a good coach
1:25:42 - Lex training with Ryan
1:31:06 - Toxicity on the internet
1:34:41 - Joe Rogan
1:42:25 - Alex Jones
2:07:02 - Donald Trump
2:09:45 - The American ideal
2:17:33 - What does it take to be a jiu jitsu black belt
2:49:06 - Elon Musk
2:57:39 - Fighting BJ Penn
3:04:13 - Conor McGregor
3:12:08 - How to beat Khabib Nurmagomedov
3:16:00 - Top MMA fighters of all time
3:24:41 - Mike Tyson
3:41:13 - Fear of death

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The following is a conversation with Ryan Hall, 1 of the most insightful minds and systems thinkers in the martial arts world.

He's a black belt in jiu-jitsu, accomplished competitor, an MMA fighter undefeated in the UFC, and truly a philosopher who seeks to understand the underlying principles of the martial arts.

Jiu-jitsu is such an important part of who I am, and I was hoping to share that with folks who might know me only as a researcher.

I think there is no better person to do that with than Ryan, who somehow, remarkably, I can say is a friend, and also a modern-day warrior philosopher of the Miyamoto Musashi line of especially dangerous and brilliant humans.

Also his amazing wife, Jen Hall was there as well.

So if you hear a kind of voice of wisdom coming from above, you know who it is.

Please check out the sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast.

As a side note, let me say that renaming this podcast to just my name gave me intellectual freedom that I really didn't anticipate was so empowering, especially for someone who's trying to find their voice.

I hope you allow me the chance to really try and do that, to step outside of AI and even science, engineering, history, and so on, and on occasion, talk to athletes, musicians, writers, and maybe even comedians who inspire me, especially up-and-coming comedians and musicians like Eric Weinstein, who yes, we'll do a third conversation with soon.

I think if I allow myself to expand the range of these conversations on occasion, when I do return to science and engineering, I'll bring a new perspective and also a little bit more fun and a few extra listeners that may not otherwise realize how fascinating artificial intelligence, robotics, mathematics and engineering truly is.

All that said, please skip the episodes that don't interest you.

Trust me, as someone who is a bit or a lot OCD, that idea is quite unpleasant.

But life, friends, is full of unpleasant things.

Thompson suggested, and I suggest as well, you should still buy the ticket and take the ride.

If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with 5 stars and up a podcast, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.

As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle.

I try to make these interesting, but I give you the timestamp, so please skip if you don't wanna listen to the ads, but it does mean a lot to me when you do.

And still please do check out the sponsors by clicking on the links in the description.

It really is the best way to support this podcast.

Get it at powerdot.com slash Lex and use code Lex at checkout to get 20% off.

I use it for muscle recovery for legs and shoulders, but you can also use it to build muscle, endurance, or even just warm up.

In fact, I first heard about this kind of electrical muscle stimulation device in reading that Bruce Lee used it.

He was an inspiration to me as someone who practices first principles thinking, especially in a discipline where conventional thinking is everywhere.

He created a martial art called Jeet Kune Do that is in many ways, at least philosophically in his hybrid approach, a precursor to modern day mixed martial arts.

There's a special kind of deep philosophical thinking that combat athletes or jiu-jitsu practitioners do that is unlike any other.

I think it's grounded in the humbling process of getting your ass kicked a lot.

That removes any illusion of intellectual superiority.

I think the journey towards wisdom starts when you humbly admit to yourself that you know very little or almost nothing.

Anyway, go to power.com slash Lex and use code LEX at checkout to get 20% off on top of the 30-day free trial.

This show is also sponsored by Babbel, an app and website that gets you speaking in a new language within weeks.

Go to www.babbel.com and use code LEX to get 3 months free.

They offer 14 languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, German, and yes, Russian.

Let me read a few lines from a Russian song by Vladimir Vysotsky called Она была в Париже.

You'll start to understand if you sign up to Babbel.

Наверное я погиб, глаза закрой и вижу.

Наверное я погиб, оробею, а потом.

Куда мне до нее, она была в Париже.

И я вчера узнал, не только в нем одном.

This song always made me smile because it resonates with my own life.

It translates loosely to, she's been to Paris.

Paris for a Russian I suppose symbolizing a fancy life, and that the guy can never quite fit into that kind of life.

Expensive things, nice restaurants, cars, all of that.

I was thinking about what song is equivalent in English, maybe Uptown Girl by Billy Joel.

It's similar in spirit, but very different in style.

I just watched a video on YouTube for Uptown Girl, and it's basically Billy Joel dressed up as a mechanic, but dancing in a way that I'm pretty sure no mechanic has ever danced, turning the old cringe factor up to 11.

Anyway, I always felt like I didn't really fit in with the fancy people, and that's what this song represents.

Get started by visiting Babbel.com and use code LEX to get 3 months free.

This show is presented by the great, the powerful, the OG sponsor named unofficially after 1 of my favorite musicians, the man in black, Johnny Cash.

That's Cash App, the number 1 finance app in the App Store.

The Cash App folks are truly amazing people and are teaming with ideas for cool contests, giveaways, and all that kind of stuff.

I've been thinking of doing some kind of little contest and giving away 42 bucks to a bunch of people who win It's not so much about the money, but the glory and a delicious taste of victory If you have ideas for a contest, let me know I was thinking of something like asking people to submit funny inspiring photos or videos or audio of using Cash App or any of the sponsors of this podcast really or maybe even just funny things related to the podcast like different weird places you might be watching or listening to me right now.

I'm pretty sure there's somebody out there right now sitting in a hot tub with some wine, watching me say this.

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There'll be no naked people in the hot tub as part of this podcast.

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And now, here's my conversation with Ryan Hall.

Who in your view is the greatest warrior in history, ancient or modern?

That's a tough question, and again, I'm no historian by any measure, so I'll probably do the worst.

It's like, what are your best bands ever?

I'm like, Metallica, and you know, so I'll

Metallica just came out with a new album, by the way,

Metallica will always be 1 of the greatest.

bad example of they were a well-known yet awesome band.

Let me say it's like Nickelback or something like that.

But I feel that feels cheap because everyone makes fun of Nickelback.

I don't know, I guess it depends on how you want to define warrior.

Something that I think about when it comes to trying to evaluate various people or situations or things that I've read about or heard about are the circumstances that they were involved in because I think a lot of times it's easy to look at the outcomes and obviously outcome we live in an outcome driven world and you know outcomes do matter but at the same time like you know you look at let's say what Cuba has been able to pull off from a combat sports perspective, it's staggering.

The amount of successful Olympic level competitors they have in wrestling, boxing, judo.

I mean, they're a tiny little island with no money and no people.

You know, when you think about the Olympics and the United States doing well, of course we should do well.

I mean, Russia should do well, China should do well.

India should do better than they do, honestly.

Obviously it means like they're not into it as much, or at least certain sports, because they have the resources people-wise.

So there's something to like where the starting point is.

Like that's the argument with like why people say Maradona, I don't know if you're into soccer.

They say Maradona is better than Messi because he basically carried the team and won the World Cup with a team that wouldn't otherwise win the World Cup.

And then Messi was only successful in Barcelona because he has like superstars, he's playing with other superstars.

you know, there's a lot of factors that go into, let's say, winning a soccer game.

And obviously Barcelona, particularly for various points in time, had a ridiculous all-star squad of world-class players.

But let's say, for instance, maybe they didn't have the creative players in Argentina.

They needed to get the ball up to Messi, you know, they didn't have like the NES, the, and you know, the, you know, the, again, the backing there in the midfield, but because obviously Argentina has always had ridiculous attacking players, like even alongside Messi, but they're like the 3 killers up front and then

So it's interesting you say that, depends how you define warrior, because you could probably take like some of the civil rights leaders, you can go into that direction, like leaders in general.

But if we just look at like the greatest martial artists in history in that direction, do you have somebody in mind?

I would say at least 3 that pop into my head and would be Hannibal, Alexander the Great, and then maybe Miyamoto Musashi, the 2 commanders and then 1 guy.

And then again, you mentioned warriors being able to make a lot out of a little.

Musashi's famous for winning duels that were oftentimes 1 on 1.

The Alexander and Hannibal were military commanders and 1 of them faced Rome.

Oftentimes, you know, coming up with novel tactics, different strategies, sometimes under-resourced, having to do novel and crazy things.

I think a lot of times, you know, it's if you're playing a video game, I don't think you can be a warrior because there's there's no skin in the game.

Maybe it makes you feel slightly disappointed.

So that's almost like you could use, even from a combat sports perspective, Muhammad Ali.

I mean, you consider also their quality of opposition.

Musashi was fighting high quality opposition.

Obviously, Hannibal and Alexander, particularly Hannibal, were fighting unbelievable opposition.

Muhammad Ali fought phenomenal opposition, but he had skin in the game both in the ring and out.

And that actually meshes with, as you mentioned, like a civil rights type of situation where you are under-resourced, you're pushing the stone uphill.

And that was a neat thing I think about Muhammad Ali was how much, you know, personal conviction the man had to have in order to pull off what he was able to pull off both in and outside of the ring.

And that reminds me of, again, some of the other great leaders or great fighters throughout history.

So what do you make of the kind of very difficult idea that some of these conquerors like Alexander the Great and somebody that, if you listen to hardcore history, Oden Carlin, who apparently Elon Musk is also a big fan of, is the Genghis Khan episode.

You know, a large percent of the world is, can call Genghis Khan an ancestor.

So the difficult truth is about some of these conquerors is that there's a lot of murder and rape and pillage and stealing of resources and all that kind of stuff.

And yet, they're often remembered as quite honorable.

I mean, in the case of Genghis Khan, there's a lot of people who argue, if you look at the historically, the way it's described in full context, is he was ultimately, given the time, he was a liberator.

You know, like in terms of the violence and the atrocities he committed, he, at least in the stories, has always provided the option of not to do that.

It's only if you resist to, so you basically have the option, do you wanna join us or do you want to die?

That's the progressive sort of, that's the Bernie Sanders of the era.

That there's so much of these great conquerors, there's so much murder that to us now would just seem insane.

I think that maybe it's a human nature thing that we want to, or maybe a misunderstanding thing that we want to cast all of our characters and ourselves maybe as entirely good or as entirely negative when, I guess the phrase or the saying, you know, 1 man's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist is accurate.

And a lot of times I think you can understand as long as you're able to look from various people's perspective.

Like if you look at the TV show, The Wire, which was obviously, you know, widely, everybody loves The Wire.

I thought that there were everyone, I'm not saying anything that's not been said before, compelling characters from all angles, whether you like the character, dislike the character, you were able to understand the motivations of people doing various things, even if they did wrongly, they did rightly.

We want to cast all of the demons throughout history as completely inhuman when I think that makes it difficult for us to understand them.

And we want to look back at the people that we think of as great and entirely great.

And I think that we're experiencing the problems with this, even right now, socially and politically, is we're trying to look back and decide the people we thought were good or not good, or people we thought were bad are now good, rather than going, hey, there's good and bad to all things.

And there are, as you mentioned, the Genghis Khan thing, you don't have to fight back.

You do, I respect you for it, but then we're going to have a conflict, and then we'll see what happens.

And if you lose, you're going to be sorry that you did, because I have to make it that way if I want to continue utilizing this kind of MO, because I need to discourage the next guy from doing what you're doing right now.

And ultimately though, I guess that's an interesting thing.

Imagine you put every single person on planet earth in a cage, crime drops, you know?

Also, there are certain positives to that.

It's difficult, but that is ultimately more the law of the jungle.

And I think that we're able to supersede some of that now in modern times, and I think we're fortunate.

But as you mentioned, we look back and say, oh, this is horrible.

And you know, again, if you're a lion and I'm a gazelle, I don't really like it very much, but we don't call the lion the bad guy.

We don't sanctify the gazelle or the other way around.

So it's just it's interesting when you pull back some of the controls that we put on our behavior and you know in modern life which I think are generally speaking positive you know we get down to how things often are and at the same time we could modern life was built by people like Genghis Khan.

So then you get down to the ends justifying the means.

These aren't things with easy answers, or at least if they are, I certainly don't have the smarts to figure out the answers to them.

I would just say people in the world are complicated and layered, and depending upon which side of the line you're standing on at various times, you may like or dislike someone.

But I can't remember whose idea it was, this is killing me, but it's the veil of ignorance, I guess, the philosophical idea of the veil of ignorance where I go is sticking everyone in the cage the right thing to do?

And I say, or everyone but me, and I say, well, no, why?

Well, it would make my life easier if I just went over and took all of your stuff as long as you couldn't stop me." I mean, of course, that's a great idea.

That's what everyone does in every video game.

But in Skyrim, you steal stuff when people aren't around.

But ultimately you go, well, this isn't the right thing to do because if I were on the other side of it, I would not appreciate it.

I'm only doing it because I think I'm going to win." And that's a fine way to be, but you don't have the white hat on, I guess I would say.

So I think without those philosophical underpinnings to rein us in, I guess morally speaking, it's very difficult to say what's right or wrong.

And you'd say certain actions have a reaction, almost like a physics sense.

If you kill everyone in your way for as long as you're able to, your life will be easier.

I mean, you're setting the table for someone doing the same to you when you're no longer the tough guy, but it is what it is.

Yeah, if you look at like the Instagram channel, Nature is Metal, it hurts my heart to watch, to remind me, a comfortable descendant of ape, how vicious nature is, just unapologetically, just, I mean, there's a process to it where the bad guy always wins.

The violence is the solution to most problems, or the flip side of that, running away from violence is the solution, depending on your skillset.

And it's funny to think of us humans with our extra little piece of brain that we're somehow trying to figure out, like you said, in a philosophical way, how to supersede that, how to move past the viciousness, the cruelty, just the cold exchange of nature.

Maybe that is nature, maybe that's the way of life.

Maybe we're trying too hard to, we're being too egotistical and thinking we're somehow separate from nature, we're somehow distant from that very thing.

In fact, I think actually Orson Scott Card, you know, he's the writer of a great book called Ender's Game, this was a statement that the main character, you know, Ender, made in the book.

His brother was like kind of sociopathic brilliant kid that was ended up kicked out of the school that they were all into for battle commander Dealing with his brother taught him that ultimately strength courage the ability to do violence as for all the good and the bad of that is 1 of the fundamental most important things to be able to do in life, because if you can't cause destruction, if you can't cause pain, you will be forever subject to those who can.

I think that that's a disease that could obviously strike any of us, but it's something that we're looking at now.

You know, I think we should be unbelievably thankful as people that live in the world that we do, that we can walk down the street without having to worry that I'm like, well, don't worry, that 6 foot 6, 270 pound person over there is just going to leave me alone.

And I have a Rolex on, but whatever, I'll be fine.

Because that person is deciding to leave me alone because we've all agreed to live in this relatively, you know, sane and or, you know, constrained society because it benefits all of us.

And we're doing it because of a philosophical underpinning, not because nature dictates it be that way, because nature dictates it go in a very, very different direction.

And the only person, the only thing stopping that person from doing something to me is either me, that person, or someone else that will stand in between us.

And if I can't do it and there's no 1 there to stand in between us, then the only thing stopping that person is that person.

And I have to hope that they're either disinterested or disinclined to do that sort of thing.

And I think that, you know, it's keeping in mind that that is the fundamental nature of the world, whether we like it or not, is important.

And I think the quest to fundamentally alter human nature is going to be ultimately fruitless.

And then also it's, it is a little bit egotistical.

We can try to box it in and we can try to guide this direction, that direction, but you know, nature is as it is and as it always will be unless we want to start to constrain it significantly.

But now I'm starting to get into individual rights.

Who says that I should be the 1 to make the choices constraining because many of the most awful things that have happened throughout history, 1 group or 1 person has decided to constrain others.

And we don't like Genghis Khan doing that.

Are there gonna be benefits and beneficiaries?

Absolutely, but there'll be losers in that too.

We remember when Frodo offered the 1 ring to Gandalf and Gandalf said, no, no, I would take it away.

I would put it on, I would use it out of the desire to do good, but through me, it would wield a power so terrible you can't imagine.

I think that's the big question for anyone that decides that's able to have reach and able to have power.

I mean, obviously I can't speak to that, but imagine you did have national level, global level power, how would you use it?

Would you be glad that you did down the line?

Yeah, there's, I mean, that's the thing we're struggling now as a society.

Maybe it'd be nice to get your quick comment on that, which is the people who have traditionally been powerless are now, you know, seeking a fairer society, a more equal society.

And in attaining more power justly, there's also a realization, at least from my perspective, that power corrupts everyone.

Even if the flag you wave is that of justice, right?

And so, you know, not to overuse the term, but it'd be nice if you have thoughts about the whole idea of cancel culture and the internet, and Twitter and so on, where there's nuanced, difficult discussions of race, of gender, of fairness, equality, justice, all of these kinds of things, there's a shouting down, oftentimes, of nuanced discussion, of kind of trying to reason through these very difficult issues, through our history, through what our future looks like.

Do you have thoughts about the internet discourse that's going on now?

It's an interesting thing to see, I guess, as you mentioned, anytime you're wielding power, whomever you are, doing so carefully is important.

And it's very, very easy to look at the people that have power and that are using it poorly or have used it poorly and go, hey, you're the bad guy.

And then go, well, of course, if I had power, I'll use it properly.

And I may intend to use it properly, and maybe I will.

But at the same time, we see a lot of times, people are people are people.

I think that a lot of the, I think if you, if you believe that that human beings are all 1, which I do, you know, no matter whether you're here, you're there, you're, you're, you got 2 arms, 2 legs, a heart, a brain, we all live a similar experience, you know, and obviously with variations on a theme, but you know, you're no less a human being if you're a person I've never met from China than some person in Virginia.

And I guess ultimately if I believe that human beings are corruptible and that power corrupts and that we're all fallible and we say and do things that either intentionally or unintentionally that we wish we'd not.

I think that I have to allow for a space, I guess the word, it's almost a religious term, but I guess I would just say grace.

And that's something that I see disappearing from discourse in the public, or maybe it wasn't there, I'm not sure, but it's interesting watching this occur on the internet because also now no longer are you and I just having a talk sitting on a bus stop, it's now in writing.

The old saying, like, don't put that in writing.

You're like, don't put anything in writing.

And basically, you know, with the degree to which everything is recorded, but recorded in tiny little bites, it's very, very easy for me to waive every last little foolish, ignorant, incorrect, or correct thing that someone has ever said or done in their face to support whatever argument that I'm trying to make about them or a situation.

And I think that you mentioned cancel culture, or as it seems to exist, obviously this is poisonous, on its face this is poisonous.

It's the sort of thing that doesn't incentivize proper behavior.

I mean, you look at, let's say, 1 of the great monsters of history, Adolf Hitler, obviously who's done awful, awful things, but also for anyone that's even a minor student of history, did some positive things as well.

I don't have to embroider this person's crimes.

I don't have to act as if there was nothing good a monster has ever done and nothing bad that a great person throughout history has ever done.

But imagine the ghost of Adolf Hitler were to pop up and go, oh my gosh, guys, I'm so sorry.

I know what I've done, but I'd like to apologize and start to make it right.

Well, I mean, you'd hope that if he popped up over here, you'd go, well, I don't really like what you've done and I don't like you, but at the same time I'm glad to hear that you're attempting to make this right and push in a positive direction even if you can't make it right.

I'm disincentivizing change for the better.

I'm looking to wield whatever power I have in a punitive fashion, which does not encourage people to do anything other than double down on the wrongs that they've made, knowing that at least they're going to have some support from the people that support that.

And I guess I want to, you would hopefully look at the use of the internet as a tool that can educate, and I guess I don't like the word empower, but empower people to do various things, extend their reach, but educate and learn rather than to further solidify little tribal things that exist, which I think everyone in humanity and human history is vulnerable to.

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Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace | Lex Fridman Podcast #125