#9 Ben Solidarity South Jiu Jitsu

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Welcome to today's episode where we deep dive into the life of someone who's been through it all. Ben's story is one of survival, struggle, and transformation from growing up in a world of crime and addiction to finding faith, education, and a passion for jiu jitsu that helped him turn his life around. I met Ben through the Koffee Krew. Right, Ben. Yup sure did. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. You're welcome. Let's dive right in and Can you paint a picture of your upbringing? I think you explained it great. You made it sound like a number one bestseller of a book. Man, I was like, whose life are you talking about? Word, that's awesome. If I could paint a picture, it would be very abstract. Let's put it that way. Just tons of colors. Nothing makes sense. If I can use one simple term, and I shared this with you, it would just be very chaotic. That's the most simplistic way I can explain it. Okay. So what was your home life like? Tell me about your father. Tell me about your mom. And I want to clarify though, like whenever I talk about my parents, it's no diss to them. Absolutely. I love my dad. I love my mom with all my heart. As I got older, I understood that, they did the best that they could do. You know, and a lot of parents, they just do the best that they can do with the skills that they have. At the time that they are going through that, you know, and all of us like certain skills and until we learn certain skills, we're operating with the tools that we have. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Absolutely. I'm glad you put that out there because that is very important. Because I think sometimes parents get people give parents a hard time and they say, it's all your fault that I'm this way. And we Dismiss the parents and what they did for us in the sense. It might not have been the greatest thing and I might not have agreed with certain parenting choices. It may be a lot of them, but I will say I'm still here and I'm still alive because there was some love there and that they did care for me, but the way that they express love or show love comes out of the way that they were taught and express love. So out of that comes. This chaotic abstract lifestyle. So true. So if I could explain my mom and my dad, I think my dad was probably one of the hardest working guys that ever met. He never missed a day at work and I could tell that he just really was dissatisfied with life. He comes home and he takes his boots off and you could just tell that. He's just like, man, this is my life, and he loved us the best he could and. But there's just so much going on in his personal life his own personal life in his head and in his heart that he just didn't know how to express that and so there was a little bit of disconnect between him loving us and being there for us, his old, traditional way you know how Hispanics are, right? They provide. That's how they show they love you. Absolutely. Hey, dad. Tell me you love me. I put a root for your head and I put food in your belly. That, if that doesn't tell you love, Then I don't know what else is going to tell you. So that was his role. And my mom, she was just, the best way I could explain my mom is very chaotic and spastic and just all over the place. You know, and she loved us with all our heart. But there was just, she had a lot of things she was dealing with that really became a barricade to us fully having our mom there. Okay. So I know you come from a Native American background, which is your mom. Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about that? I know that my mom looks straight up Indian. If you look at her, I don't, I look like I'm Italian or Persian. Persians even think I'm Persian, right? They come up to me and start speaking Farsi and they get mad at me when I tell them I don't speak Farsi, right? But my mom looks dead on Native American Indian. She grew up on the reservation. My grandma was part of the tribal council for the Waluulapam. I tribe out there in Yuma, Arizona. But other than that, I don't know too much. I have paperwork from the tribal council that states that my grandma was part of it. But as far as history goes from my mom's side. I don't know because my mom left the reservation when she was 13 years old due to her being abused by her dad. So I never met my grandpa. She didn't want us to know our grandfather because he used to sexually abuse her, multiple times. So much so that she felt she had to leave and run away. And so that's all I know about her upbringing. Okay, And then your dad's upbringing, my dad's upbringing is I know a little bit more because I know my uncles and my cousins from my dad's side. But my dad, he kept everything close to his chest. He never really talked about himself growing up. And a part of the reason is, and I think now that I'm older and I understand life a little bit more, I feel like what he was trying to do is protect us. I think that he felt, it's like when you, when people feel like, if you talk about something, you're going to end up doing it, right? So let's not talk about this so that way we prevent them from doing that. But wisdom now shows that if we talk about it, it helps guide and direct us and it helps us have conversation, engage with things that we as parents don't want our kids to do. So our dad didn't really want us involved in gangs and things that he was involved in. So he just was easier to not talk about how he grew up. But what information I gathered from my uncles and some from my dad is that he grew up. In East San Jose right there. I don't know if you know where Eastridge is that but. I do. Eastridge There's an area called Meadow Fair barrio Meadow Fair. That's my dad's hood. They were one of the original first generations of barrio Meadow Fair. So my uncle Art my uncle Pete all them. They all started that area. So that's where my dad grew up, my grandpa. I very seldomly saw him because my dad wanted to keep us separated from him because the way they grew up and the lifestyle that they lived. So my dad growing up, he didn't really share a lot about his upbringing. I just knew that it was rough and that there were some things that happened that caused him to separate himself from his dad and his brothers. Okay. So what was your relationship like with your parents growing up? Yeah, my relationship with my parents is, I loved them. They love me. I love my dad. I love my mom. And when you're in a circle of chaos, you just figure that's how life is. You figure that's how all families function. That's your perspective. Cause that's all you know. You figure that's how you grow up. When I grew up, I'm like, that's how everyone lives their life, right? Everyone's mom's an addict and everyone's dad grew up like this and we all, you know, that's how we grew up. I didn't know any different. I didn't know that it was dysfunctional, shall we say, for lack of a better term. My relationship with my parents is I loved them very much. I loved them a lot, actually. Okay, How many siblings did you have? Well, let me see. I have two sisters and, three brothers. One of them is our stepbrother, and he didn't really grow up with us. My mom had a previous relationship from another guy, and my mom was really addicted to heroin at that time. Okay. She had a good friend that adopted him at that time while my mom was trying to get clean. But when my mom actually got clean and she tried to get back her son The lady took her to court and took him from her right? And so technically there's four boys and two girls, but one of our brothers never really grew up with us What number are you I'm the second eldest, but I always say second eldest, but acting oldest, because my older brother technically wasn't with us. So I was the acting eldest brother. Okay. Right on. Wait, can I ask you a question? Is that okay? Yes, absolutely. Where does Luckee come from? What is that? I have to know. I've been like, it's been, I was in a biker. group. Uh huh. And so that was my street name. Nice. Actually, it was Luckee Fucker. Yes. See, I knew it. I'm like the only, cause you know, growing up in the streets, you get nicknames for a certain reason. Right. There's a story tied to that. Absolutely. That's what I want to know. I'm like, okay, she I'll let you know the story someday. Something happened that she was like That she is Luckee and that's just I just made it cleaner and just call myself Luckee now. You can be like Luckee MF er. It's clean. They call us the fuckers, our family. That's funny. Instead of the fockers. That's funny, okay, So let's get into the crime portion of the family. What you grew up in and how you stayed out of it. Yeah, 50, 000 feet overview was from my understanding is my grandfather who was from Mexico and he was in the army there. He boxed in Mexico. So he had some connections in Mexico. I don't know all the connections, but this is the spotty story that I got from my uncles and my cousins and things like that. But he came, illegally to the United States, California. But then he wanted his American citizenship. So he went back, did all the paperwork, came back as an American citizen, moved to East San Jose. He still has a house. He's not alive anymore, but that house, is still there on Regaletto Street in East San Jose. But he, they moved there and, he was involved in the heroin trade business. So I think it was late seventies, early eighties, there was three main families in San Jose dealing. They were dealing different types. There was a family that dealt cocaine. There was a family that dealt methamphetamines and there was a family that dealt heroin. Okay. I don't know the other family, my cousin was telling me this the other day. But the one of the other families is the Farfan family. They're still there in South San Jose. I don't know them. We actually, when we moved to Seven Trees, they lived behind us. So I knew some of the younger generation of the Farfans cause they went to middle school with us. But then there was my family, the Mendoza family, and they strictly dealt with heroin and the Farfans and Mendozas. They didn't really get along too much because they were dealing you know, things. So this is just my understanding what I heard. My grandpa, he was dealing heroin and he had sons. And so the sons all dealt heroin. So my dad was a heroin dealer. My uncles were heroin dealers. So all of them dealt heroin. And so that was the family business growing up. And that's how, the family was run. And that's one of the reasons why my dad didn't want it really to associate with his dad anymore. Okay. And you said, at age 13 that your mom took you to church and what was that experience like for you and you were baptized, correct? Yeah, I, to this day, I still have the picture. My wife keeps it around because it's a great memory and sorry if I start to get a little emotional, but it's a, it's one of the most genuine and precious memories I have in my brain. And it reminds me every day of how much That there is a God that loves people like myself, like all of us. So my mom and we're doing a brief overview, but my mom was probably one of the craziest people I ever met in my whole life. She's the first person ever. The first time I saw somebody almost get shot and killed. Was my mom almost shoot and kill somebody the first time I see somebody OD was my mom right at the age of 10 I saw her OD. She said she didn't want to live anymore. She hated her life She hated us and just took a whole and just and died. She was in a coma for three months Oh, and so my mom was probably the most and I hate to say this time because it's just such cliche But the most gangster person I ever met. My dad was hardcore, but my mom, she was crazy. And, and I don't mean that disrespectfully, it's just the truth. And people Respected my mom. They feared her because she didn't care. She just go we'd be at the grocery store And if somebody didn't like the way that she was talking she'd beat the crap out of him right there I've seen her pull out people from their car like someone cut her off one time literally we're in a station My mom drove around this beat up station wagon All in east san jose right there off Tulley and King and I remember one time this lady cut her off. She, there's a stoplight that she gets out of the car and she pulls the lady out of the car and just starts beating the crap out of her. Wow. Yeah. And so my mom was this lady that she was very hard to approach. But there was this little old lady named Mary. I love this lady to death because she had a white poodle. We grew up in Seven Trees. Seven Trees was pretty hood in the nineties. It's pretty dangerous, but she would walk her little poodle around the, and everybody knew her. So everybody looked out for her, but she would go around and tell people like us as we're growing up and we're little hoodlums that Jesus loved us, that he cared for us. They loved us. And he taught, and she would talk to my mom and it tripped me out because my mom didn't listen to anybody. But for some reason, this lady. Captivated my mom and my mom would always listen to her and this lady would tell my mom about God and said that God loves her and so she convinced my mom to go to church one day. And that was the only time I've ever seen my mom sober. There was three years she went to church and she was sober for three years and she got us to go to church. And yeah, and how amazing that was that. And she got my dad to go to church. And my dad was a very hateful, spiteful person. When he got out of prison. He hated anyone that was a Mexican or anyone from his side of town, so he would get into a lot of fights. We'd be driving, he'd get into fights with people. But he went to church one day, and God really changed and transformed his life to that point on. He never went back to his old lifestyle. He gave up. Everything. Wow. And so when we went to church and I saw these people and there were, there's no reason why these white people should love us, right? Because they were in the hood and there's this little white church, this little Baptist Church. It's not there anymore, unfortunately. Right in seven trees. But these people took us in and we looked. Grubby. like holes. My mom used to cut my hair. So you can imagine what I look like, right? Like bowl haircut. It was brutal. Okay. I look back at my, somebody, I'm like, dang, hide those pictures. Cause that is brutal. But we came in looking homely and those people just loved us. And I remember the preacher was preaching a sermon and at 12 years old, 12 or 13 years old, I just remember thinking to myself, like whoever this Jesus is that they're talking about, I got to get to know him. Because he's real, because the way they talk about him is real, but not only that, why would they love me so much? These people have no reason to love me. They have no skin in the game. Matter of fact, we can be detrimental to them. We're dangerous to them. My mom's dangerous to them. We're dangerous people to them. We could destroy a lot of things in life, especially my mom. But they still loved us. Wow. And so what is that about? And that's when I was like, you know what, I don't know if you're real or not God, but I want to ask you in my heart and that you in my life, because you've changed their life. There's something here. So yeah, that was my experience at church and it always stuck with me ever since I was 13, even to this day. Wow. Beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. How did, faith play a role in your mindset? At that time, faith played a role all the time even to this present time, because after that moment, when I gave my life to Christ, like I kept going to church, but because my home environment changed, my mom stopped going to church and we weren't really required to go to church. I started getting a little bit older, 14, 15, 16. And my dad moved away from being this authoritarian type, like I'm going to beat the crap out of you if you don't listen to us type. Because I was scared of my dad. My dad, we'd have fights in the middle of the front room and it was brutal. He would beat us, but he moved because when he gave his life over to Christ, that's I was like, this God got to be real because this guy went from, Hey. You better do what I say or you're going to get hurt from I'm not going to hit you guys anymore I love you guys So when he took the pedal off the metal shall we say from? From being, you know, that type of parent, we kind of were like, Oh, we get to do whatever we want. We do whatever we want. We could be, we don't have to go to church anymore. So that's what I did. We just ran around in the streets and did whatever we want. But in the back of my mind, when I was doing things, I would always have this thought in my mind, man. God, what I was told and taught and what I understood at the time is God does love me. And what am I doing? I'm just running. And all I'm doing is, I'm doing all this bad stuff and I'm like, God, are you gonna, you gonna come after me later? So the whole time I was doing anything, I was like, man, God, I better ask for forgiveness Because I did something bad, right? So faith always played a role in my life. Even when I was out there doing the worst stuff in my life. It always was there. Stuck with me. It was a seed that just, that was never uprooted. It just sat there. And it was like, I didn't put any water on it, but it was still there. Right. It was a great influence to you. Yeah. Okay. Were there any other positive role models, in your life growing up? Yeah, in my life growing up, There's a couple role models, positive role models. There was a neighbor and that's why I always go back to faith in God because we had a neighbor. His name was Tom Tomasello, Kathy Tomasello. And they're probably the whitest people you'll ever meet. It's like they moved from Mabury to the hood. And it was like, why would they move next door to us? But let me tell you, they love God. There's a church out here called Cathedral Faith. I don't know if you've ever seen it. But it's an old school church. It's been in San Jose. It's like a staple in San Jose. Most people have aunts or uncles that used to go to Cathedral Faith. But he happened to be the piano and music director for Cathedral Faith, so he loves God, him and his wife, man, they just loved us, like, when I think of a family, when I was growing up, I'm like, that's what I want my family to be like, I didn't know family could be like that, I'm looking at, it was a stark contrast. Like he, they live next door and I would have one foot here and one foot here. And I'm like, this is what family should be like, but this is the family I'm in. And I want to be on this side of the family. And they wanted us there. The crazy thing is like these people at church love God and then these neighbors move in and they love God and they like. And we're grubby and we're crazy and they loved us to death. Like they took us in as their own kids. Like my mom would get locked up all the time. Like she was always doing something, whether she was assaulting somebody and the cops would come to the house. The cops knew her. The sheriff's knew her. Everyone knew her. I would drop my name. Oh, your mom's so and How's she doing? I'm like, Oh, she's doing good right now. They're like, yeah, hopefully she stays out. But, the neighbors loved us so much and that's what I'm saying. It's gotta be God because she would see the cops come to the house, the guy's wife, Kathy Tomasello, and she would come running over because the only option, my dad's not home, they're going to take us to the shelter. Yeah, and she didn't want that to happen. She didn't want that. So she would say, Hey, I'm going to take care of them. I take care of them when the mom's not here. And she would take all six of us and take us to the house, give us pizza. And I'm talking about we were grub. By like holes and we just like, but she loved us and she cared for us and her dad was a musician. So he wrote music. So we would stay in his garage. He had all this music equipment. He would let us go there and play. And yeah, it was cool. So that, helped me out. And that was a positive role model in our lives. As far as I think God was just planting seeds of that's what family looks like, Ben. There is healthy families out there. This is what it looks like. This is what love care looks like. This is how it should be. And I think God brought those people in our life to show us love, to how to receive love. Not that my parents didn't love us, I think that it was just showing us what a healthy family could look like. So those were some positive role models in my life. And then obviously. Kiko, my cousin, I call him my cousin Kiko, but you know, I grew up with them since i was 10. They were positive role models in my life, in the sense that they took care of us and they loved us like little brothers. Okay. Yeah. Kept you out of trouble? I don't know if they kept us out of trouble. I think they protected us and they watched over us. They treated us like family and I never had an older brother. They were my older brothers and they looked out for us. They loved us like, like their brothers. Anybody mess with us, they were there for us. And then they try to take care of us the best they knew how to. So they were positive role models in that sense. Okay. Yeah. So then, you stopped going to school in your freshman year. What led you to that decision? One of the decisions was that I was dating someone and she got pregnant. And it was a little bit after my freshman years about my sophomore year ish. That, I decided that I didn't want to do school anymore. I didn't know what to do. So I just started getting a lot of trouble and I got kicked out of like, I think six different, I went to Santa Teresa, Oak Grove, Silver Creek, Andrew Hill. I went to Andrew Hill twice. I went to CCLC. So I got kicked out of all these high schools within a year. Then I meet, My daughter's mom, when she was cutting school, and then we link up and then she gets pregnant, and so at that time I'm like, I need to work. I need to provide for my daughter So I'm like I can't go to school and provide for my daughter at the same time and her mom wanted us to have an abortion because they're like you kids are too little. To have kids and my parents didn't believe in that and I said if I'm grown up. If I'm a grown up to be doing this stuff then I need to be a grown up and take care of a child even though I didn't know what the heck I was talking about. Right. But I knew that I took an example from my dad, how he worked hard and he took care of us. And I was like, I can do that too. So I got two jobs. I quit school and I just, I dropped out. Plus another thing is I was a high risk student because I went to juvenile hall when I was at Andrew Hill. I got a charge assault with a deadly weapon. There's some stuff going on in the neighborhood and one of the guys that we had beef with was there and we jumped and we beat him up pretty good. I got arrested for that assault with a deadly weapon. So after that charge, and I went to juvenile hall, no schools would really accept me in the area because I was a high risk student. And so that just further confirmed, I don't need to be going to school. Wow. Okay. That completely took you out of school then? Yeah. Can you talk about your time in jail? What were you facing and what was your mindset? So I know you said you had a couple. Yeah. Incidences. Yeah. I think growing up, I had no aspirations but to be a gangster and I know that sounds really corny and cheesy, but that's the truth. From 11 years old, I was like, that's what I wanna be. You know, Cuz we don't know more than what our atmosphere or our surroundings are at that age. Like, when I grew up, everyone was either hooked on drugs, dealt drugs, went to prison, or work construction, or went to the military. Those are the five options that I saw around me constantly and most people. We're in the streets. So my idea of a profession was yeah I want to be in the streets too and the people that got the most respect in my neighborhood For the people that went to prison. My uncle's went to prison. My uncle's went to Pelican Bay I mean he did, 16 17 years in Pelican Bay my other uncle Art Mendoza He was in and out of prison for 17 18 years of his life, right? All right, my dad he went to prison So those people that are always in the neighborhood that people looked up to that revered as somebody who's great were the people that went to prison and got out of prison. And that was the lifestyle that was for me. That's where I was in. So I'm like, that's going to be my profession. So there are steps to that, right? I'm like, I'm going to go to the juvenile hall, maybe CYA. And then after that I graduate to jail and then from jail I go to prison. And so the first time I got locked up in juvenile hall, I was like, I accomplished step one. I'm in juvenile hall and assault with a deadly weapon. That's a pretty rough charge. So they were looking, maybe I possibly sending me to CYA, but it wasn't as severe as they thought. So I was able to, get out, after a month or two. So then I was like, Hey, what's next jail. And that's exactly what Kiko's brothers told me when I turned 18, they said, Hey, congratulations. Now you get to go to jail. And so that's what led up to that stent. And that was my mind frame growing up was. Jail is just one of the part of the processes of me accomplishing my professional goal and for lack of a better term because I saw it as a profession. That's what fascinated me. That's what I was passionate about. It was being in gangs and doing that stuff. So when I, first went to jail was for possession of what they charged me for was possession of an illegal firearm. But what they were trying to give me was with attempted murder because there was a situation that happened and I went into somebody's house with a sawed off shotgun and I was going to go shoot the guy and they never could charge me for that because they didn't have any witnesses. Okay. So yeah, that was my first stent. Okay. You mentioned about an older inmate's words really stuck with you. What did he say that made an impact once you were in jail? Yeah, I, we talked about this briefly. I feel like I said, there's always been a role of faith in my life and I feel like God's hands, providential hand, right? A provisional hand was always over my life. Even in those darkest moments, I feel like God was still providing for me and people say, oh, there's angels and yeah, I feel like I don't want to call him an angel, but I feel like there was something there with that. With that meeting because I never saw the guy again but I was up late one night and I was just looking out through the bars of my cell and just Thinking about things it was probably one o'clock at night and I was just sitting there and this guy comes up He's older what they call a veterano. Oh, and he just comes to sit down. He's old. He's probably 65 harmless And I was running the barracks at that time, and, he's a no, because he's from another side of town, but, people give him a pass because he's old, he wasn't harming anybody, he was more of an addict than anything else, so we talked, and we were just talking, it was just me and him, and he said, he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm just thinking, and he said, what were you thinking about? I said, it's going to be my third Birthday behind bars and I'm probably going to miss Christmas, so I'm going to miss another Thanksgiving with my daughter another Christmas with my daughter Probably miss new year's because I still have about nine more months here And he said well, he said mijo and I don't know but he called me mijo. He said let me tell you something He said Look at me. I'm 65 years old Said I've been a heroin addict my whole life. I said I have a son who I'm so proud of. He's a marine He did everything opposite of me and I'm so proud of him and I want to tell him I'm proud of him and show him That I love him, but he wants nothing to do with me. He said and I don't blame him. He said because During his most fundamental years of his life I was gone. I was doing my thing. I was using. I was gangbanging. I was doing all this stuff. And now he has nothing to do with me. And he said, so I want you to look at me and I want you to look at me like this is your future. And he says, if you want this when you're 65, Ben, he said, keep doing what you're doing. You'll be here. You'll be 65 years old. He's I've been to most of the state penitentiaries all up and down California. He says, this will be you. He said, but if you look at me, Ben, and you don't want anything close to my life, he said, then you need to do something about it. You need to figure out what change you want in your life and make that happen. And I think that's why like you're in, and I'm not trying to go off the rail, but that's why I think podcasts are so important, especially what you're doing, because how many, because podcasts are about conversations, right? We have a conversation, right? We are. But what do conversations do? They change our life. They have our ability to change life. Look at the conversation with that older lady and my mom, right? That had the power to change her life, right? And then it had a power to change my dad's life. It had a power to change my life. If it wasn't for that little old lady, 89 years old, to be bold enough to go there and share and have a conversation with the lady. I would not be here today. I would not be here today. So the power of a conversation, man. What conversations have led you to this point, right? Of your life. What are the conversations that got you here? Was there conversations? There were conversations, just meeting people and hearing their story, right? And it's even your listeners, like your listeners should take the time moment to reflect the power of conversations, what they have. So that conversation with that guy. Really changed my perspective. It didn't change my life, but it changed my perspective. Yeah, okay That is fair. That is awesome. And I do believe in God's hand and angels. So yeah, okay, so then we're good. I'm not sounding crazy. no. Okay, Ben, let's talk about the night you were nearly killed. What happened? Yeah, that night was an interesting night. There's a lot of things that lead up to that night. And just me personally, I was dealing with a lot of stuff at that time in my life. I really wanted a lot for my life from going back to that moment in jail and that guy helped change my perspective on maybe what I should do in my life, trying to go to school, had to go back and get my GED. That moment changed my life. That conversation changed my life in the sense that it gave me a direction when I didn't have before. But I was still dealing with all my hurts and wounds from growing up in my past and still. It was still hard to give that up, I still liked getting in into fights and trouble and so I have a When I got so I have a son and a daughter they're both from different moms. So my daughter, she was born when I was 16,17 and then my son, I met, I actually used to date his mom when we were in high school or that high school age. Then we stopped dating and then I saw her again when I was 20. Okay. And then so we got back together and then she ended up getting pregnant and so she has family. She has family all in Modesto. So I became really good family with her family in Modesto. So I would go hang out in Modesto all the time. She has a cousin or her cousin was married to this guy, Troy, and he was just like me, grew up in the streets, his mom, same kind of mom. He was in and out of prison. And so we just clicked and hit it right off. And he became one of my best friends. Like we hung out, I'll go to Modesto, hang out. And we would just do a whole bunch of stuff as far as getting into fights. We were still hood, right? Like everywhere we went, it was just me and him. He was my boy. So I was like, if we always had this saying. It doesn't matter what you do, you could be wrong, but you're still right. Because no matter where we go, you're always right. If we get into a fight, you're right. It was justified because we're gonna ride no matter what. If people have a problem with us, we're justified, because you're always right in my eyes. So no matter where we went, we got into a lot of trouble because of that. We fought a lot of people get into a lot of fights, but so we hung out a lot. And and he had nephews and cousins that were there, so we had our own little gang in Modesto that we'd always hang out with and chill with, and. One night we were just having a party and, they had drugs, but everybody ran out of drugs. So he knew someone in that area and they were like, Hey, Troy, just go hit up your boy. And he said, let's keep the party going. So I said, all So he said, Hey cousin, can you come with me? Cause he trusted nobody but me. He knew that if stuff goes down, I'm going to be right there. No matter how many people are, we're going to back all the time. And it could just be me and him. So I said, come with me because I said, yeah, sure. I'll go with you. But before we leave, he says something very distinctive. He says, Hey, should I bring my 45? So why do you what I was a little puzzled, right? I was like, why do you need to bring a gun? If these are your friends and I should have already known right there when you ask that question, right? Like that's a little sketch, right? If we're going somewhere, hey, we're going to go look a story. Should I bring my gun though? It's like, yeah. What are we doing here? So that's what happened. I said, I didn't really think of anything. I said, no, why are you going to bring a gun? We're going to your boy's house. This is, these are people. He said, yeah, you know what? You're right. I'm just tripping. That's what he told me. He said, I'm just tripping. Let's go. So we get in the car and it's about two o'clock at night and we go, we're going to the west side of Modesto. Now, if you don't know Modesto, west side is hood. Like it is east San Jose and west San Jose all put in one. So it's 2 a. m. Yeah. It's 2 a. m. and he's in an area called Empire. Empire is pretty hood. I don't know how it is now, but when I was growing up, when I lived in that area, I lived in that area very briefly at a called the Paradise Apartments, which is not paradise. I'll tell you, stay away from paradise, not paradise, but it's around that area. So I'm like, this area is pretty hood. I knew where we're going and we pull up and there's a whole, there's probably like 20 or 30 people hanging out in the front yard. And in the garage and they're chilling and the moment we pull up, it was all bad. Like I get out of the car, he gets up and they come running over to us, rushed us almost. And they separate us. I'm backing up, he's backing up and they both encircle us and they're hitting me up. Hey, where are you from? What are you doing here? Blah, blah, blah. And I told them, look, I'm from San Jo. I started telling them where I'm from, started giving them what they were giving me. I'm telling him, Hey, we're just here to see. So-and-so's cousin say we don't know him. He don't live here. Which is not true. They're just, they were just saying that. Yeah. And so the moment was pretty heated, so I said, you know what? These people aren't gonna hear me. I told'em, Hey, if you got a problem, then we can handle this. Let's do it. Let's go, let's do with this. And, but what I didn't see, because I was walking, backing up a little bit to make sure I got good footing, so that way there wasn't too many people around me. I was trying to position myself properly, because I was doing Jiu Jitsu at the time. But there was this guy standing in the, in the corner a little bit, and I noticed him, and then all of a sudden all the guys backed off, and he squared up with me. He was probably about, maybe from where I'm at to where you're at, maybe a little bit, a couple feet back. Yeah. And he pulls out a gun. And he points it at me and I just, at that moment, I didn't really care at that moment in my life. I was trying to do good, but I also didn't really care for life. You know, I didn't, I wasn't, I had this weird philosophy that, you know. If you commit suicide because you know you hear a Catholic say it all the time you're gonna go to hell. So I'm like, I'll never commit suicide, right? I'm not gonna do that But even though I didn't care about living I would just didn't want to take my own life, right? But if somebody else took my life, I didn't really care like somebody else could shoot me and I'll be fine with it. So that's the mind frame that I was in and this guy pulls a gun out I just laughed at him and told him like what are you gonna do with that? You pull it, you better use it. Because that was the mentality we grew up with, right? I carried a sawed off shotgun in my El Camino all day. And that was the rule in our neighborhood. If you pull a gun, you better shoot that person. Right. You don't pull a gun and play around like that. We don't gun play like that. You pull it, you shoot. So I told the guy like, either if you're gonna pull that gun, you better use it. And he, He wasn't expecting that. I don't think so. Then he drops the gun and he shoots the gun off and it, I felt the asphalt pick up, like it kicked up cause he shot a bullet right between my legs. And, uh, that just kind of laughed at him. I just told him like, what are you going to do? If you were going to shoot me, you would have shot me. Obviously you're not going to shoot me. So I'm just going to go. So I told my cousin, I was like, Hey, let's go. I said, I don't know who these guys are. You said these are boys. But they're obviously not your boys. They're a bunch of punks and let's get out of here. And so I walked around to my car door, the passenger seat car door. I opened it up, sat down and I'm sitting there and I'm telling my cousin like, Hey, let's go. What are you doing? Let's get out of here. All of a sudden I see him at the, on the hood and there's guys that have them and they push him on the hood and then they put a gun to the back of his head. And he later on tells me that they told him like, Hey, your cousin's got a big mouth on him. You're going to watch him die tonight. So they said, you're going to watch him. They put the gun to his head, lift up your head so you can watch this. And you're going to see what happens when people come to our neighborhood and disrespect us. And so the guy comes around, the guy with the gun that kind of gave me a warning shot. He comes around to the driver's side and he puts a gun to my head. And he says, Oh, you're real big and may start talking trash, basically. I told him, Hey, we had this discussion already, right? You're not going to do anything. You proved it a second ago. You're not going to do anything. I'm egging him on purpose. And I said, you're not going to do anything if you were going to do something. So what are you doing? You're wasting my time here. And then he distinctively takes the gun and smashes my mouth and tells me to shut up. Oh, he smashes your mouth? And I was so mad at that moment. I remember I was mad because he broke my tooth. My front tooth. Like I felt it, like something breaking. I'm like, oh, you broke my tooth. I was mad. And I looked at him like, what? Why would you do that? There's a bunch of youngsters around the car and he takes the gun from my head and he points it at the youngsters there and he says, Hey, this guy comes into our neighborhood. He disrespects every single one of us. And you guys better handle him. If you don't handle him, guess what? I'm going to shoot him and I'm shooting all of you. You know, That those are choices, right? Two choices these guys can make. They chose the right choice. So we're going to beat this guy up. So I don't blame him for that. Yeah, they opened up the door and they unloaded on me for about I would say if five or 10 minutes, they were kicking me, punching. They had two by fours. They hit me a bats. They broke some bottles over my head. They got me pretty good, right? And I, and all I could do was just cover up and after a while I was like, all right, you got, I yelled and said, hey, that's enough. I had enough. You guys proved your point. You guys are bad. You guys are crazy. You guys are all that. We're done here. And then that's all I remember Did you get into the car or? I was in the car still. They didn't let me get out of the car. So they were beating you up? Yeah, because the car, they were right around the car door. So I wanted to push the car door open and just start taking off on them. But I was buckled in. Safety first. Moments like that. You always got to be safe. Got to have my seat belts on. Can't be getting pulled over. But, but they opened the door so fast. I couldn't, and they just started hitting me. So I was like, fine, whatever. I'll just accept it. I have a big mouth. My mouth got me into this. So I'll just take it. It's fine with me, right? So you were out and then you woke up and then I woke up because I just remember them I tell them okay, that's enough That's it. And I and that's it. I just remember my eyes closed and waking up and there was just blood everywhere. Right. I look at a cup. I distinctly remember just looking at there was a cup holder, you know by the driver and I look in there and there's just filled up with blood I'm like, that's interesting. But I thought that because they beat me up, that's just me leaking. They beat me up pretty good. Right. So I'm like, and plus the guy broke my tooth, which I was still upset about. And I'm like, well, that's all that is. But then I distinctly remember as my hearing started coming back, I was still out of it. And I looked, I saw the blood and then I, Remember hearing people saying, Hey, just get out of here, get out of here now. And I just remember hearing this panic voice in my cousin. I've never heard this voice in him ever. Like the guy was on the yard, he was in prison, he's been in riots, right? Things aren't going to be, but I remember. Hearing distinctively the stress in his voice saying I can't get out of here I can't turn on the car and he's trying to turn this key and I remember getting mad at him like dude What are we still doing here? Why aren't we gone? And he's like I'm trying to go And this is a new Cadillac at that time. So there's no reason why there shouldn't be any engine failure or anything like that. It was brand new. It was someone else's car. I felt bad for the person. It was brand new. And he's trying to, he's it won't turn on. It won't turn on. And finally the car turns on. And then all of a sudden I just hear just this boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like just 12 shots. And I just hear bullets whizzing by my head. The windshield just shatters. Stuff was just, glass was flying everywhere. And my cousin just guzzed it. And we just I still hear the gunshots going off. And my cousin, he was telling me, Hey, we gotta get you to the hospital right now. And I was like, no. That's not what we're gonna do. I was like, your friends? Your friends. I was mad at him. I was like, these are your friends. Your people that we, that you took us to, they broke my tooth and someone's going to pay for that, right? You were worried about your tooth. I was mad. Yeah. And to this day, He's not alive anymore, unfortunately, my cousin Troy, but we would laugh at that because he said, man, of all that, you were mad about your tooth being broken. But I was like, we're going to call our boys up right now and we're going to, we're going to come back. We're going to hit them. Like they're going to pay for this. That guy especially is going to pay for this. I'm going to make them pay. But, he said, okay, fine. And then he took me to the hospital and I got really mad when he took me to the hospital because he ran. He literally ran because I didn't know I got shot. He only knew I got shot. And he didn't even, I don't even think he put the car in park. It was still rolling a little bit. He jumped out as fast as he could, ran to the emergency room. He grabbed a team of people and I remember, what is this guy doing in there? I got out of the car and I was going to go yell at him. You were still walking. Yeah. I was going to go yell at him. And I saw him and there's a team of people running to him like, what are you doing? We got something else to do. Like, what are you doing here? And they threw me on the bed and they strapped me down and They and that's when I found out they told me like, hey, you need to stay still and I said for what and they're like you need to stay still we're gonna make you stay still and They said we need to find out Where you got shot at that's like shot. I didn't get shot. He's no you got shot, son And so yeah, then that's when I found I got shot. Wow. Yeah and so they were telling me that I was like, I got shot. I don't remember that. And I said, where? And they found the wound. It was in the back of my, in the back of my neck, back of my head. I got shot. Yeah. Oh, wow. yeah. And do you still, have the, Oh, yeah. You said you I still have the scar. If you ever look at the back of my neck, I have a big scar from right here at the base of my neck. And it goes all the way down. About right here. You can still see part of the shrapnel from the bullet right here. It's black one time I had to pick a piece out because it came out. Yeah, but you can see the scar and the doctor said I'm pretty lucky just one centi or milli, I can't remember what's shorter, centimeter, cause centi is a thousand, milli, no, milli is a million. Anyways, we'll talk about that later. One centimeter and one millimeter closer, it would have snapped my spine. And there was a 45, so it's a pretty big slug. It is a big slug. And the bullet never exited my arm. So the doctor said, you're pretty lucky. He's you don't even, the bullet didn't even exit your arm. It's still in my arm. To this day, I still feel it. It's right here. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. how did getting shot change the way you look at your life? It didn't. That's the sad part. you would think you have an experience. So my, next to that other philosophy of not killing myself, and this sounds really weird, but it's true. This is the stuff that I thought. You know growing up you see so much violence, right? You see even with my mom and my dad There's just so much violence around you all the time people getting shot all the time. Was regular. There's people that I mean Kiko could tell you that we grew up kids got shot people got shot there's always stuff going on in our neighborhood. I mean it was seven trees. It was hood. You know, it was crime zone, right? It was one of crime zone I mean we got messed by the cops all the time just walking down the street My first time I saw somebody Also get a gun pulled on was my dad by the police pull my pull guns out on me and my dad and when We're walking just 7 eleven because he says they he fit a description. Oh wow., right, but it didn't change my life in the sense that you think it would, it actually, I just thought of it, I always thought that in those moments, you fantasize about death when you grow up in that kind of lifestyle. When you see so much violence and you see that happen and friends die, you experience that, you think, how am I going to die? Is somebody going to stab me? Am I going to get beat up? Is somebody going to run me over? Am I going to get shot? You start thinking about how are you going to die and then how are you going to handle that? And my thought at that time, my limited view perspective of life and the world was, I'll have enough time to say a prayer and ask Jesus to forgive me and I'll go to heaven. Because even though that little seed, that's what I mean, that little seed was always still planted in my brain and it always stuck with me and I said, I'll have enough time. I can live my life the way I live it and at that moment of death, I'll be able to look up, look death in the eye and ask for forgiveness and I'll go to heaven. And that's not true. Because when I got shot, it was so fast. I didn't even realize it happened. And so you would think that moment changed my life and that I would like, man, I'm going to turn a new leaf over. It didn't. I still kept spiraling, I was working in a professional environment that helped me out a little bit there's people there that kind of helped me I saw a different part of the world as far as like professional world and that where I grew up is not normal most people don't grow up like that most people have different experiences and Mine is a little bit unique in the sense of their experience And so it, it honestly didn't really change me. It made things a little bit worse. It compiled other wounds and hurts in my life is this is all life has to offer me. And that weighs on you. It does. That, that, that's, that gets you to a point of and I remember I had a conversation with God. I was gonna end my life and it was, I was, I think I was 30 years old. Yeah. I was 30 years old and I was just at my lowest point. Here I am a dad of two kids. I'm going to school, I'm trying to finish hygiene school. I wanted to go to school and I was trying, but it was such a long process. I didn't have a car. I barely had a home to live in. Kirby, who I own this gym with, me and him were on the same path. We had nowhere to go, and that's how jiu jitsu brings a lot of this together is like he was doing jiu jitsu like I was. And so he was pretty much homeless and I was pretty, and he's like, man, we can pile our money together and just scrape it and we can find a place to live. So we have at least a roof over our heads, and that's what he did. But it was brutal. And that, compiled with that, being a dad, not having a car, barely having a place to live, can't provide for my kids, it weighs on you mentally and spiritually, and you're like, what good am I here? What am I doing here? There's nothing to this life except this. I don't want it, so at 30 years old, I made a very conscious decision. It was like, if this is all life has to offer, I don't want to do another 30 years like this. This is way too much. I'd rather just kill myself, get it over with and not have to deal with any of this because this is brutal. Yeah. And that was it. I told, and that's where the seeds of faith happen because I remember having this conversation with God. And just saying, God, if I don't know if you exist, I feel like you do because I've seen people's lives changed by you and when they accept you in their life, I see the change. And I feel like I accepted you in my life when I was 13, but things didn't change. They changed in my life, but the environment didn't change. So it's smothered that out. It crushed that seed, right? But it always stuck with me. I said, so God, this is my last plea to you. If you're real God, if you're real. I'm begging you right now. I need you to intervene in my life some way, some shape, somehow. Because if you do not intervene in my life, and this is what I have to look forward to with my mom, with my dad, with my kids, I don't want any part of it. Life is, why would you put me through this? And so I said, so what I'm asking for you, God, is I just need a glimmer of hope. I need just a little hope. I just need you to give me some kind of peace in my heart and my mind. And if you do that, if you do that, God. I will give my life 100 percent to you and I will go talk about you, I'll serve you 100 percent for the rest of my life. And I'm telling you, that moment, my perspective changed. And I was like, there's hope, Ben, it's okay. There's more to life than this. And I tell my son all the time, I say, son, when we celebrate and we go have dinners, I said, This moment might not have ever happened. When I talk to my wife, I tell her, we probably would have never ever met. These moments never would happen if it wasn't for that one moment. If it wasn't for God intervening in my life and speaking to me and changing my heart, I would say, son, you wouldn't have a dad right now. You wouldn't have a dad. You would have never really known me. You would be doing this all on your own. And I am thankful to God every day of my life for that. Because our past and our trauma could really haunt us and we carry it around like it's our best friend, but it's our worst enemy and it affects every decision that we make in our life. And that's what was going on in my life at that moment. Like you said, did getting shot change your life? No, because all it did was add more chains to that luggage and more weight to that luggage of life. Is not great and that's what I feel personally. This is my personal perspective People could disagree or agree with me. That's fine. But this is what I feel. That there is a spiritual context to our life and the one that runs that one, there's an enemy to all our lives. And he wants us to get to that point because all we are numbers and the more numbers he takes with them, the better. And with God, we're a name and he knows us by name. And that's what I felt like this spiritual attack on my life. That's always been there. It's a stronghold that started with my mom, maybe with her grandmother, and it's always been there. And that person. Has had a hold on our family and there's a crossroad was like Either i'm going to be another victim of that or i'm going to be set free And I was set free and to that moment. There's a trajectory. There's a pinpoint in that moment where the Mendoza family Went from being a number to being a name and I told him I texted my wife this the other day Because I sometimes you were M's or C's and she's a Mendoza, right? She's part of the family and I said I feel like you're part of God's Previdential care over my life because you have changed this last name into something like we're not a number anymore. We're not a part of this stronghold anymore. We're not going to be victims to this anymore. Now we're a name. And when our grandkids look back, they can say, how did this happen? And they can look back to that moment and say, God's always been over their life and he's taken care of us and blessed us and made this moment happen in our life. And I told her, God allowed you to be in my life. I feel like you're God's physical, tangible love over my life. Every day I'm reminded that God loves me because you were in my life and you helped made this life. So much better that moment on my perspective changed so much life wasn't bad life wasn't harsh There's bad things that happen in life, but it wasn't how it's how I saw it here And now i'm thankful for every day everything. I got these meetings. We have the conversations we have having this all this stuff. It's like I'm so grateful. So, to bring that all back to what you said, how did it change my life being shot? It didn't. It actually made it a lot worse, but what I just said, if we can add that to that, it did change my life in the sense that it brought me to a moment where it brought me peace and freedom. Absolutely. So it did, actually. maybe I contradicted myself. I think I did. Thank God to that. Yeah. Okay. What was the toughest part about transitioning from the streets to professional life? I think your own self shame. Because the way one of my biggest prayers in life when I started changing my life was God, help me see myself the way that you see me, you know, because the way I see myself every day, it's not great. I see a loser. I see a unfit dad. I see a dad that made a lot of mistakes. I see a son that hurt his parents a lot. I see all these things that are negative and bad. So God, I need a different perspective. I need to see you. I need to see myself the way you see me. And so when. that changed from the streets of professional life. It was hard because I looked down on myself a lot. I was very ashamed of my lifestyle, I was very ashamed of how I grew up. I started working in Los Altos Hills, I don't know if you know what's that, but Los Altos Hills is a very affluent area, right? And I even worked in Menlo Park, which is even wealthier than Palo Alto, which is crazy, but, but they're all within a similar context. The first time I started working at a dental office I had tattoos, all this stuff, right? And I had tattoos on my fingers and everything. I had tattoos here. And these people have never seen that. I'm an outsider here, right? I'm assisting the doctor and they would always ask me questions. Hey, what does that tattoo mean? Why do you have Mendoza here? Why do you have this here? And I was embarrassed because these people are professionals, have a lot of money, and their kids go to college. I was not normal there. So, trying to accept how I grew up and the actions I chose in my life and understand that's just part of my biography. It doesn't set out my eternity. that was tough at first. It was very hard. I had a lot of self doubt. Had I was ashamed of a lot. I didn't talk a lot about my past. I didn't do any of that because I was so ashamed of myself. So yeah, transitioning to that was hard, but it also pushed me too, because. It lets me know that if I work hard, I can achieve certain things like that. And it might not be at the same level of these people, but it did help influence me to be like, but that's what I want. Exactly. Yeah. Cause I would ask them, I would ask them tons of questions. I'll say, what does your son do? How do you do that? I didn't know about college. I had to learn from people cause my parents never to go. So I had to learn from them. So at first it was hard and I was a little ashamed, but the second part was like, I can learn too. I'm here with them. So I can ask questions just like they're asking questions. So I asked tons of questions, and I learned. And I might not ever reach the level of success, but to me, I am successful. So getting over that shame and that embarrassment was probably the hardest part. But once I did that, I was like, Oh, that is a strength, though. Because I'm here with them, right? I'm right next to them like our paths cross So they're not better than they might have more money than me But it doesn't make them better than me because they still need me for a service. So I'm here with them. Exactly Yeah, What did you get into that? Helped you succeed. I remember and this is gonna sound corny as heck, but it's the truth I remember seeing a commercial for Carrington College. Do you remember that school? It was like a trade school. Okay, but It was for dental assisting and like medical, I'm like, man. Like, whenever you see people wear scrubs, they look important. You're right. And that's what I thought. I was like, I want to look important. I always want to look important. All of us want with men. It's all about a lot of our driving, motivating factors is significance. We want to do things that make us significance because in that gives us security and I'm not a psychologist. I'm just saying that this is my own personal perspective. So in that, when I saw that commercial, I'm like, scrubs make me make people look significant. I want scrubs because that's going to make me look significant. So I signed up for literally off a commercial. I called the school. I'm like, Hey, I want to go. I want to be a dental assistant. And I remember going to school and coming back to the neighborhood with my school and people were like, Oh dang, what are you a doctor? I'm like, yeah, see, this is working. Like it, it works. And then I like drove headfirst into that school and started doing dental assisting. And I did felt. Significant for a brief moment in time and so that's what got me into the dental field believe it or not And I did working in the dental field and I was like, huh? I can actually do something different than construction. I can actually do something different than dealing drugs I can actually do something different than going to prison like there's an option here. I didn't know that. Great. Yeah. So then, you also transitioned to being a hygienist? Yeah. Because I started to understand that there's levels to everything. Even when I started working in those offices, like these people are on different levels, right? And same thing in any field of professional work, we want to work up to different levels. So I was assisting and I was doing better than. Most of my friends at that time, I was working, I think I was like 19 and I had a brand new car like this. I worked with this one doctor. He was paying me good money just because we worked all the time. So we'd always give me like 200 bucks the other night. So I was doing good for myself. I was happy with myself. But then I started figuring out like. The money I was making compared to other money wasn't as much as I thought it was. So then I'm like, okay, how can I do more? So then I talked to one of the other people, there was a dentist and hygienist there, and I talked to both of them and said, okay, what do you have to do? So I just started figuring that out on my own, okay, what do I want to do? And then I really had to sit down and assess my, where I was at in life and can I afford certain things? And to this day, that's the one thing that I forgave myself for, but I kicked myself for it, too, because I wanted to start out going to dental school. But then I assessed my situation, I have two kids, I don't have a home, I'm living with my father in law, right? And so I had to do what was the cheapest, fastest, and shortest thing to get us to that next level of income, and that's what I did. I'm like, hygiene school is only 4 years, dental school is 8 years, and dental school is like 450, 000, hygiene school is 30, 000, and then I can still make X amount of dollars, it's a no brainer. Yeah, that's what got me into hygiene. Okay, Ben. when did you first discover jiu jitsu? Oh, it was back in 2005. Wait, can I say something? Is that okay? Sure. Yeah. you should call your podcast Luckee's Lounge. I feel like Luckee's Lounge. It's cool. It's calm. It's mellow. I feel relaxed. Good. I'm glad. You do a great job. I just wanted to add that in there. Okay. Luckee's Lounge. I like it. Just go chill. Luckee's Lounge. Hang out. Let's talk. Yeah. I'm pretty chill. You are. I think you lead very well. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Let's go. So 2005 is when I first discovered Jiu Jitsu, I remember I did a little boxing. So my first marriage with my son's mom, she had a cousin named Mo and a lot of people know Mo and Claudio's or the first Jiu Jitsu school we went to. But, um, We would always hang out. He was like my best friend because he lived in the house with us. We all lived at, my wife's, my ex father in law's house. He had a big house. Down the street from here. It's crazy. He literally, we, on Princeton Drive right here, that's where his house is. It used to be. It used to be. And that's where my son grew up and that's where we lived for many years. So we would always hang out and talk and, UFC was starting to come up and we would always talk like, oh, we should go do something like that. So he got into boxing. So he started going to PAL boxing around 2000. This is probably like 2003 and he's come with me. So we started going to PAL boxing over there in Santa Clara, right there by Santa Clara University of Benton, and I was like, Oh, this is cool. I thought I was tough because I could box, I could throw hands like, and growing up, you're like, yeah, we all want to fight and know how to fight. So I thought it was a tough guy. And around 2005 we're hanging out at a party with some friends and there was this guy named Nate and He was talking about Jiu Jitsu and how he went to Jiu Jitsu and he trained at this gym called Claudio's and so he's you should come check it out And so my cousin Mo, we were already deciding, okay, we're doing boxing, we're watching UFC, we need to know more than boxing, so let's go to, let's find a jiu jitsu gym. So there was no real jiu jitsu gyms here back in 2005. There was Claudio Francas, who had a small jiu jitsu spot not too far from here in South San Jose. And, you had A. K. A. And then I think Dave Camarillo, because Dave Camarillo has been here for a while. He had a small school going at that time. So I think those were the only three options at that time. But because I knew that guy from Nate and he recommended Claudio's, that's where I went. So we went there, me and my cousin, and the first day, I fell in love. Because I was like, I thought I was tough. I could throw hands. We're good. And I would test it all the time. We'd go out to parties, and we'd fight all the time. And I'd be like, yeah, my hands are good. But then I went to my first class in jiu jitsu, and I just got beat And I was like, I need to learn this. Forget boxing. I ain't doing boxing anymore. I'm doing Jiu Jitsu. And yeah, that's how I started Jiu Jitsu. And it was a small little school, literally small. I think it was like probably 200 square feet of mat, but. Is it the one by Campbell? the smaller, I think it was by a breakfast place, right? I remember going there. Yeah. So that's across the street. So there was a smaller, there's a bar across the street from that place and there's a little flooring store that had a little floor, showroom and that's where the first one started and then they moved across the street. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. What was training like in those early days? Brutal. Let me tell you, it was like, you remember that old, Tina Turner movie? What was it? What, which one was that? Was there like Thunderdome? That's exactly what it was like. It was like two men enter one man. Leave. It was like, you walk in, everybody's like chopping, like sharpening their knives. They're like, they're ready to eat. Cause it was like, we're going to test their metal today. We're going to see who that person is. So you walk in there, you knew that you were going to train and train hard and it was going to be the worst. Hour half of your life and at that time Carlos Melo was a purple belt, but he ran the most brutal training sessions ever His stuff was legendary like everyone knew when Carlos taught you were gonna. Yeah, you're probably you're on that line of dying You're like right there. You're on that edge. Cuz she would push you I know I hear Stan tell me stories about Carlos and way back in those days, Stan Hendricks, a legend out here. I think people like, I think it's sad a little bit because you got guys like Stan Hendrick. You guys got guys like Garth Taylor and Santa Cruz. You guys got guys like Mike Weaver, who's in Santa Cruz. You got guys like, Carlos Melo, like Tyson Camp. You got these legends that are out here. They were dope. And I feel like people don't talk about them. And I think it's sad because when I was growing up, those were the guys. They were dope. I was like, man, I want to be like them. Yeah. Guys like Paul Schreiner. There's some legit people here. You talked about, Carlos Melo, you saw him as a hero. I did. He, he kind of took me under his wing. I remember him and my cousin Moe. My cousin Moe was crazy. Everybody used to call him just Moe Dizzle. That's what we called him. Or Hands, because he would be real handsy with anyone. Not in a good way either. But Carlos Melo, we started training and he was there and I remember we just, we became really good friends at the time. And he took care of me. He taught me jiu jitsu. Most of my jiu jitsu I learned from Carlos Melo or Tyson Camp. Those are the two people that influenced me. But at the Purple Belt, Carlos Melo had so much respect. Like people knew who Carlos Melo was here. Like they knew. We would go to tournaments. I'd go to tournaments and everybody knew what his specialty was and that was arm bars. Like everyone knew we'd go to tournaments in SoCal and people would know him. They're like, watch out. He's going to do an armbar on you. And sure enough, Carlos hit an armbar. And so it was cool. Carlos Melo was probably one of my first, people that like just really influenced me in jiu jitsu and still does to this day. You moved to Riverside and trained over there. Yeah, when I went to hygiene school, I got into hygiene school, and I got mainly into schools in Southern California. I just picked this one school in Riverside, had no idea about what Riverside was. I was like, SoCal, it's gotta be nice. It's the exact opposite. It's Riverside is like, desert, for sure. I looked at the hills, it's all brown, there's no trees. I was like, man, where am I at? I'm probably gonna die out here. But when I went out there, I was going out there for school and I didn't have any money, didn't really even have a car. My ex wife, she was my wife at the time. We had my two kids and we just packed up and went down there and I had a little condo and there was a small little shopping area across the street. And I would hang out there all the time. And at that time I was a blue belt. I was probably a second degree or third degree blue belt. And I remember going to this coffee shop. There are a little local coffee shop. Mom Pop shop and there was a guy there who's a barista And he saw my ears and he's like, hey, you train. I was like yah. He's like, you need to come check out my gym. I was like, where's it at? Cause I don't have a car. He's like, it's literally one mile from here. And at that time I was training to compete a lot. So I was like, Oh, one mile. That's great. That's a warmup run for me. I'll sprint there and then I'll go train and I'll come back and I'll be like, you know, so I was always looking at ways to train for competition. So I was like, great, tell me where it's at. And so he told me, and so the next day I went, I ran there, showed up, there's this guy named Bo King, he had an MMA school at that time, that school was called King's MMA, after his last name, and, this was like in 2007, yeah 2008, because Barack Obama just became president. So 2008. And, I told him like, hey, I do Jiu Jitsu, I want to train, I said, but I don't have any money man. I'm like broke. But I love Jiu Jitsu. I'll do whatever you need me to do. He's look, great. He's this is all I need you to do. I need you to show up, teach some classes, and open up the school for me on Friday. Because I live in Temecula, which was about 30, 40 minutes away without traffic. And he's and I want to come up here on Fridays. He's can you do that for me? I was like, yeah. He's okay. You do that, you're good. And yeah, he took care of me. I love that guy. Wow. Let's see. You talked about traveling to Brazil for jujitsu Yeah. Yeah. People like Carlos Melo, Tyson Camp, like Tyson. He was a really big influential part of my life. I tell Tyson all the time, that was about the time I was going to commit suicide. Tyson was in my life and I always tell him like, I feel like God put him in my life because he helped me out a lot. I was going, like I said, I was going through some dark times in my life and I was like, And Tyson saw that he picked up Tyson's highly intelligent if you ever talk to him, man, he's cool He's I mean you need to get him on here. That guy is just a wealth of wisdom Yeah, and I looked up to him. I was like man that guy's so intelligent. He's articulate I want to be like that guy like he's smart like he knows things and so He, I don't know why he took me, just maybe because I was crazy, right? We would do crazy stuff in Jiu Jitsu, like we were always fighting, we'd be hanging out with Carlos and we'd always get into fights and so Tyson just loved that, like he was cool with us and we'd just talk about all the crazy stuff we'd get into with all the fights and everything. So we're just rowdy and Tyson hung out with him, he'd just laugh, he thought it was hilarious. And so he liked me and he knew that we would always train and we'd just show up and train, that's what we did. And so he took me on his wing and he saw I was going through a hard time and he said, Ben. I need you to come with me. I said, where are we going? He said, I want to take you to Brazil. And at that time, I was like, man, Brazil, like everyone wants to go to Brazil. You know, like at that time it wasn't, you didn't really, you know, like people don't understand the worlds, the IBJJF world was not here in California. It was in Brazil. You would have, it was called the Mundials at that time. You had to go to Brazil to try to compete in the world. Carlos Melo went to the world to go compete in the world. Garth Taylor, who was probably next to BJ Penn, was probably one of the first Americans to win the world in Brazil. Like, the guy's a legend. But, so I was like, yes, I get to go. This is awesome because that's all you ever wanted to do at that time for Jiu Jitsu. You love it so much. I need to go to Brazil because this is where it's at. Yeah. And I was going through a really hard time and all I had was Jiu Jitsu at that time and Tyson knew that. And he said, Hey Ben, I really, I want you to come with me. And I said, Tyson, I'm broke, man. I have no money. I have nothing. He said, don't worry about it. He said, I'll cover your plane ticket. I'll take care of you, man. I got everything all set up. He's I just need you to come with me. He didn't tell me why, but I know, now I know why. It's because he saw I was going through a pretty hard time. And so he paid for my ticket. And we went out there and we were out there for about three weeks and it was probably some of the most brutal training We ever did. Right now we look at Gordon Ryan. We look at those guys, but at that time There was like Buchecha who was big but before Buchecha there was Rodolfo Vieira And he was from GF team and that was like the big team at the time GF team because Rodolfo Vieira comes out of nowhere and he's this beast. But we got to train with him. Wow in santa cruz because he used to come here. Before he was somebody and you get to go private train with them. So Tyson had a good relationship with people out there. So he met a really good friend. And yeah, he's don't worry, Ben, I got it all. We're going to stay in Brazil. We were in North Rio, which is hood. Okay. So they have South Rio, which is where everyone goes. Coca Cabana, all the beaches. No, we were in the hood. Like literally where we're staying at. There's favelas up there. The first night me and Tyson show up. Man, these guys didn't have AK, they had like cannons, like we were literally, man, we go in the house and all you hear, boom, boom, boom, boom, like literally like at the end of the block and the guy that's hosting us, he said, welcome to Brazil and every night that's how it was. It was like gunfights going on every night and we're just eating. We're just eating food at the dinner table. So yeah, going to Brazil was dope. We did like three days and all we did was train. We wake up in the morning, go train. We go home, eat some acai, and then like real acai. It's different here in the States. It's not acai here. And then we go train in the afternoon and then we eat more and then we go train at night and then we come back and eat. And it was just for three weeks. That's what we did. And it was probably one of the most breathtaking moments in my life to help me out a lot. Yeah, that's amazing. That's so great. Okay, What does jujitsu mean to you today compared to when you first started? Oh, Because it's a difference between maturity levels right when I first started jiu jitsu I just wanted to be the baddest man in my area and just wanted to be able to just hurt people and that's what It really was for me It was like I need to learn this because somebody else can have this and they could hurt me So I need to learn this because I want to hurt people. But now at this time in my life, I see jiu jitsu as something, As a tool in my life that just really helps bring a lot of stability and community because I think some of the greatest relationships that I've created in this, and that since I started in 2005 are still the relationships I have to this day. And the only relationship that I've had since I was a kid is the one with Kiko. But in the Jiu Jitsu community, it's like, all the people we came up with, we're still friends to this day, and we still hang out, we go do things, we talk, and so now in this mature stage of my life, it helps bring a level of stability and community in my life. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I see that Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay. Did you want to, talk about, your wife and your kids for a little bit and then we should be able to stop at That point? Yeah. I think that, that next to God we all have things that we live and strive for. And I don't wanna be cliche or speak any kind of platitudes'cause I hate cliches and platitudes. I really do. But. as we talked a lot about this, about God's part of financial care, I feel like my wife's part of that and my kids are part of that. My wife has helped me see myself in a different perspective. I told you I have that prayer I pray that God just helped me see me the way that you see me But I feel like my wife reminds me like she's not God or any I'm not saying that I'm saying that she has Those words that I feel like he would tell me every day on a daily basis to remind me of you know The other day we were just driving. He said look at all the stuff that we you've accomplished in your life Like, look what you've done. This is amazing. You should be really happy. And in my mind frame, I'm like, man, I'm still here on low tier. I'm trying to get up here and I want to continue to grow and get here. And my mind solely, I told my wife, look, this is my goal in the next five years. We need to continue to grow and grow. And she's you just need to chill for a second and you just need to be appreciative of everything you have. I said, you know what? You're absolutely right. Because, there's that old saying that, The grass is always greener on the other side, and that's not true. The grass is greener where you water it. And that's a perspective that she's trying to remind you of, you have grass, man. You have a pretty big yard. You have a nice yard. Yeah. Continue to water it. You know, you're good. You, before, you didn't have grass. You didn't have anything. And now you have grass. And you get to take care of it. It's yours. You own it. You're an owner, you've done this, and for my wife and kids, and my son, he just loves me, and he just, he's 23 years old, and I feel, he hasn't told me this, and maybe it's just me thinking as a dad. I feel like I'm still this hero. You are. And I love that. I can see that when I was here the other day watching him converse with you. And I think that there's just something special about that. Now unfortunately me and my daughter, because of how she grew up, she got the worst of me. There's still tension there and my prayer is that we come back and it will. There's just something to that. When you have three people in your life that are part of your life, but they continue to show up in your life and encourage you and strengthen you and you can't do anything else but succeed. And so my wife and my son and my family, my daughter. I am here today because one God, but also how God influences their life and it influences my life and it continues to help me want to strive and be better, not just for myself. People are like, I want to be the best version of myself. Okay, that's good. I understand that. I don't want to be the best version of myself. Not only for myself, I want to be that for the people around me because every day they show up, they give me their best and now to return, I should do the same for them. I should give the best for them to, and to in that we will continue to grow and thrive and succeed. So for my family, for them, they have a huge influence in my life, on my perspective, because when they weren't, when I didn't have them in my perspective, I was just living haphazardly, to the point where it almost killed me. But because they're in my life, they're not the sole purpose I live. I don't live for them. I live my life because I have life, and it's precious. But the way I handle and live my life. They're a big, they're a big part of that thought process. The choices I choose because it all comes down to choices every day. We have choices, right? That's our superhuman strength is we have choices. We have the ability to choose. Every moment I get up, I have the ability to choose things and it's either going to get me closer to my goals or it's going to get me further away from my goals and I get to choose that. But it comes with a certain perspective in our life too. I have to actively be thinking about the people, myself. Right. And the people I love and my character and what I, what I want to accomplish. And so they're a huge part of my choices and how I want to see because one day I'm going to be old. I'm going to be a grandpa. And, I want to sit back at a table and just think that first thought that I had that I said is that this almost didn't happen. And how cool is it that it did happen, right? And I have a big table, everybody's hanging out. That's what, that's my vision. That's what I see. I just see a big table, bunch of kids hanging out, and it's like, they have something. I got to help be a part of creating something that I never had. And I think that's really cool. That is very cool. And they have the freedom to live life free. Without any kind of boundaries, without any kind of, concerns that maybe we had growing up. They don't even have to know about it. Like, my son doesn't know anything about that life. He has no idea about it. And I love that. Like, my father in law now, for my wife, he says, your son's kind of square. I said, yeah, I want it that way. I want him to be square. I want him to be a nerd. I want him to do that stuff. Why would I want him to be anything else? Right? That's the whole point of this. I don't want him to have to go through the things I went through. I don't want him to have those hurts. I want him to have a way better life, than I had. And that's what we call legacy. I wanna leave a legacy. So when the time goes on, our me, our, we have a legacy and this just continues to grow and we affect change in the world. And that's how we do it. One step at a time, one choice at a time. So yeah, that's how I would say my family plays a role. Good. Ben, this is great. I had a really good time with you and thank you for being here. let's give a shout out to your, home gym. Yeah. Yeah, anytime you're in the area, South San Jose, Solidarity Jiu Jitsu. I'm sure a lot of people feel this way, but I feel like we have the best, black belts here, instructors. And not just because they, not because of the technique. I think it's what, I think part of it is what they bring. How they care for people. I can actually feel safe telling people to come here because I know they're going to be taking great care of and That's what I'm proud of being a part of, that we have a gym, that we built this gym. Actually Kiko, Fernando, and Kirby, they're the ones really building it. I get to just be a beneficiary, a benefactor of the gym. But the way they build the gym, the way they carry themselves, the way that they teach people, the way they create community, I'm very proud to say, I'm part of this. And then now, we have an opportunity in Southern California, so Solidarity Jiu Jitsu here in San Jose, and then we have Solidarity South, which is in Temecula. So if you're ever in either one of those areas hit us up. You're always welcome to come train with us. Always. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And have a good day and we'll talk soon. Yeah. Thank you. Luckee. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.