#12 Toasty

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Today's guest is someone I met through the open mat community, known as the Koffee Krew. I remember the first time I saw this guy, not because of what he said, but because of what he wore. This bright yellow gi, that immediately made me think of Bruce Lee's iconic yellow jumpsuit worn in the game of death back in 1978. And just like the legend himself, Toasty stood out not just with style, but with presence and skill. Toasty is a coach competitor, martial artist, and someone whose story is filled with grit, growth and heart from a tough upbringing and early battles with weight and anger to stepping up as a provider for his family. And now leading the next generation as a high school wrestling coach. Toasty's journey is as real as it gets. We're gonna get into all of it. His roots, his evolution through wrestling, MMA and Jiu jitsu. And how he's found strength through community and the love and support of the people around him. Hi, Toasty. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Hey, how's it going? Good. Good. Let's get started. Why don't you tell me about, your childhood, how you grew up, and we can go from there. Okay. Yeah. So I was born, April 19th, 1993. born here in Gilroy. Mom and dad weren't married yet. My mom's last sort of drive to get him to get on that knee, was, giving me her last name. And, from there, they got married, moved over to, Texas for a bit. We stayed with my father's family for a while. My sister was finally born, I was probably around three, four years old. From there we moved back to California and been where our roots have been lied since then. My grandparents have lived here since they moved over from, the East coast, before moving from Portugal. This has been like our roots. My grandparents live about five minutes from the gym that I'm at now, and it's the same house that I grew up in. Right on. Okay. Can you paint a picture of what growing up in Gilroy was like for you? Well, before the introduction of cell phones, it was very much a small town, you knew every single person on every part of the block. I grew up, hanging out with all the kids, on my street. The same way that, you got all your news from the library and, the newspapers. I spent a lot of time at the local library, a lot of time walking around town, knowing every sort of shop owner, knowing every single person around town, whether or not I knew their name, I knew the person with the funky dog or the funky house and things like that. I know. What kind of kid were you growing up? it's hard to say, looking back whether or not I was like a good or bad kid, but, I definitely got into a lot of trouble when I was a kid. Not to the extent of getting in trouble with the cops, not really living up to the expectations of your family. Breaking the rules, staying out, smoking pot when you're young, when you're not supposed to, breaking sort of the expectations that your parents have for you. I did a lot of that, grew up with a lot of angst and anger from my perception of how my family growing up sort of reflected on me. I resemble a lot of who my father was physically, and I think a lot of, my reflection on my family is that they didn't appreciate how he treated their brother, their sister, their niece, my mom. And so the anger that they had for him pushed out towards me. And I let that anger, at least my perception of that anger, reflect out on the world. Okay. How was your relationship with your mom growing up? My mom has always been like my main rock and emotional, island. there's not really much that my mom can do wrong in my eyes. She's been the one person that can show strength and compassion just about in every situation that she's in. Growing up, she basically raised me and my sister on her own. While she did have my grandparents, giving you the opportunity to have a roof over her head, she worked three or four jobs. She's constantly taking us wherever she could, feeding us every single thing she could. We never went with, wanting. With my mom to look back and be like that woman did that as a single parent, is inspiring. She never let anything get her down. When I turned 18 she got her first diagnosis of having cancer, going through that battle, eventually beating cancer, trying to get her life back from what cancer took from her, and then eventually getting back on track, and doing what she has wanted to do, get out of her parents' house and move on with her life. She's finally gotten the opportunity to be the best person that she could be. it's unfortunate it happened later in life because of everything she had to go through, but it is what it is. She's pretty much the person that I aspire to be when I get older. Beautiful Any lessons that your mom passed down to you that sticks with you today? There's the practical lessons. She taught me how to be a human being, cook for myself and, keep myself as a basic person. She instilled, passion in me. The things I may not be passionate about the things she's passionate about, but to see her care and love for things that, other people don't really care but like she puts her all into it. It's sort of the reason that I have so much drive and care to, put into coaching and wrestling. And you know, jumping back off the couch and jumping into fighting things that I wanted to do when I was younger that I thought I was too late on the opportunity to do. She showed me from a young age that it doesn't really matter what time you're trying to do something, just go out there, put your passion in, you can get it done. The practical stuff, like I have a passion for cooking. It's something that I went to school for. Mm-hmm. And if she hadn't taught me how to cook when I was younger, that's not something that I would have, had the ability to do. So I can't thank her enough Okay. Let's see. As a kid did you play in any sports? I played in a few organized sports, t-ball, soccer, things like that when I was like real young. But in terms of, my mom was a single parent, so I didn't have the funds and the opportunity to do a lot of the organized stuff, but that never really stopped me. If you can think of a sport, I've probably either watched or done some sort of it, Football, soccer, basketball, swimming, golf, tennis, wrestling, TaeKwonDo, jiu jitsu. I've played rugby I watch darts on tv. If there's some sort of athletic attribute to it, I at least know something about it. I know the basic rules of cricket. I've officiated jiu jitsu matches and MMA fights, and, I coach wrestling. I used to have a football squad that we would play local football, get together, pick up games every Saturday. I used to play basketball every Saturday. The list goes on and on in terms of like sports that I enjoy watching. You're well rounded in sports. Yeah. I was going through your Instagram and just looking at things and I noticed, uh, a collection of Pokemon. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how that started, did it start as a kid? Yeah. When the games came out, I think they came out the year before I was born. And so when I finally got, old enough to start playing video games. I picked up the first generation red and blue, and I think I've played every single authorized, version of Pokemon that. Nintendo has claimed as a video game, everything that they have a license to. I've played, I have a leg full of tattoos that are all Pokemon related. My gi the yellow GI that you were talking about is actually a Pokemon Gi. Oh, okay. Yeah. It says it has Pikachu thunderbolts all through the inside. It has chokemon on it. It's something that, like when I picked up as a kid, I looked at it and I was like, oh, I'll make this my entire personality. There you go. So I thought it was a replica for Bruce Lee, right? Yeah, the Bruce Gi. You. You'd be surprised how many times I've gotten that, I think like maybe six or seven times. Somebody's oh, I like the Bruce Gi, and I'm like. Yeah. Thumbs up, right? Oh yeah, but it's actually a Pokemon Gi. Yeah. You're gonna show me the inside of it the next time I see you at open mat. Okay, cool. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about in regards to your childhood? How about academically? How'd you do as a kid growing up? did you struggle? Did you have any hurdles that you had to overcome? In terms of schooling? It was never really, um, it was more of being passionate. Like I didn't ever have a passion for learning specific subjects. I don't really have a passion for learning, you know, English and world history and things like that. But then when it came to the subjects that, you know. Culinary. I took maybe nine, 10 semesters of culinary school in high school, which is like a college level course. I took that nine, 10 semesters and you're only allowed to take that five times. Okay. Five semesters worth. Right. I was really intelligent in terms of taking tests, but you couldn't pay me to do homework. Like I, there were teachers in high school, I shout out Miss Andrade. She asked me, Hey, you failed last year. What happened? I was like, I didn't do any homework. She's like, you passed your test, right? And I was like, yeah, of course. And she was like, okay, well you can. You just be my TA. So I had a free English year. She gave me every test and as long as I passed it, she essentially just gave me an A. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So you were talented at taking tests? Yeah. Like most kids, if you can get them passionate and interested about something, it's not usually that they have a problem learning, it's usually that they have a problem caring about whatever subject it is that person is teaching. As I've gotten into coaching, same sort of thing. If you can get somebody passionate or caring about the thing that you're showing them. Get them to understand the importance of it or why it's important to that person, they're gonna pick it up a lot quicker or at least with a lot more desire than just trying to force it down their throat. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So let's go into family and early struggles. You've spoken openly about your father and the challenges surrounding that relationship. How did the absence shape you as a young man? When you're growing up, you don't really see it. But looking back, when you run into things, as you get to be more of an an adult man, you realize oh, this is a result of not having a father in the home. Like I had to learn how to shave from YouTube videos. I had to learn how to change a tire from, calling my friend on the phone while I'm like stuck on the side of the road because I didn't have a father to teach me these practical things. Right. But then, at the same time, I fall back to, how much of a rock and an inspiration my mother was, I never went without wanting anything and I never went without learning anything that was needed. She showed me how to be a good person, which is something that a father's supposed to show you how to do. He is supposed to show you how to stand up for those that can't stand up for themselves mm-hmm. and she showed me how to do that. Like I have said before, I don't care a lot about, speaking good upon my father, nor do I, want to speak bad about him. In terms of giving me something he gave me very little other than an example of what I don't want to be when I get up to be, a man. Awesome. You mentioned feeling like the male figure in your household. What kind of pressure did that bring and how did you carry it? It kinda really reared its head, when my mom, got her first diagnosis with cancer, I was just getting out to be, 17, 18. I was decided at where I was gonna go into college. I was gonna go into culinary school and I was finally finishing out my, athletic career with wrestling. And my mom gets hit with this, cancer diagnosis. And I take a step back and do the big adult realization that oh, I'm about to move away two, three hours away from my home, and the only persons that's gonna be there is gonna be my little sister who's just becoming a freshman, sophomore. My mom and my elderly grandparents who don't have the wherewithal to really take care of somebody emotionally or monetarily or physically who's going through this sort of battle. Right? So that was where I had to make, at least in my interpretation, it's not like somebody told me this outright. I made the interpretation that it was in my family's best interest for me to take a step back and go to supporting those within the household. And being the big male figure that you know, I didn't have when I was growing up and end the cycle, so to say and be like, okay, if somebody wasn't gonna be there for me, I'm not gonna put that on somebody else. I'm just gonna be the next person that is there for the person who doesn't have it. And at that moment it was my mom and my sister and, Thank God, eventually she ended up beating that battle and we were able to move on with all of our adult lives. My sister had her full, senior year. She went to every ball, every prom, every trip. She got, you know, every sort of thing she could want for in her senior year. And that was the big goal that me and my mom had. Oh, that's great. The two of you Yeah. Put together helped your sister out. That's awesome. Let's go into your sports journey and discovering wrestling. Let's talk about your accidental entry into wrestling. Yeah. It's, a funny story. you talk about the few things that my father gave me. Was a love for the, WWF, as somebody who literally resembled the exact identity of Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was my first favorite wrestler. I was really into to WWF back in the day. I heard over the intercom in my middle school. I think it was like seventh grade, had to be 12, 13, 14 years old. They did this thing over the intercom, Hey, we're doing tryouts for wrestling. I'm like, okay. Hell yeah. I'm gonna go in there. I'm gonna put somebody through a table. I'm gonna hit him with a chair. I'm gonna throw Stone Cold stunner on him. And I walk through the door, ready, gung-ho, ready to go. And. It was very quick within the first couple minutes that I don't think that this is quite what it is, but we'll see what it, we'll see what we get there. I got to the end of the week. Mm-hmm. And I was like, this is actually pretty interesting. It's not, it's obviously not, you know, hitting people with chairs, but, it was very cool, very interesting, very different. I love being part of a team and like the individuality of being both a team and an individual in a sport. And then by the end of the year, even though I lost every single match, like the worst, immediate pins, 30 seconds, barely into a minute, into the round, and just losing every match. But by the end of the year, it's something I fell in love with. Every time I talk about it, I just get a smile on my face. I love the sport of wrestling so much. Yeah, It is pretty amazing. it looks really grueling. Just the workouts in itself. So what made you stay even after losing every match the first year? The big thing is Marty, my first wrestling coach in middle school, Marty Serrano, still coaches to this day, with DC. He's the JV coach for Gilroy. He's one of the main coaches for Solorsano Middle School. He's been a pillar of the wrestling community. He's. just, that father figure that I never had growing up. The one that made you work, being proud, being prideful of your effort. And even though I was losing every match, I would look over at Marty and I would see okay, he's proud of me. He's happy with what I'm doing. He's hard guy to get, you know, inside of like he's rough around the edges. He's one of those, if you earn the, I'm proud of you. It's one of those big things that sort of drives you forward. Awesome. What did wrestling teach you that carried into other areas of your life? I mean, everything like the inability to give up on something is something that was absolutely beaten into me in wrestling. I can't tell you how many things I've held onto far past the point of which I probably should have let go of it. And even my MMA journey is a reflection of that, where I am 200 plus pounds, within five, six years of not doing MMA. And you know, I'm just like, one day, no, I think I want to do this and I'm just gonna do it because I'm not giving up on myself. And it's something that Marty, it's something that other coaches, Miguel, Maldonado, Greg Verella, Armando would be like, no, Toasty. We're getting back on the mat and we're gonna keep grinding. My MMA life of just not giving up my wrestling life, my sort of mentality of not thinking I was gonna be able to coach wrestling and then low and behold, a couple years later, that's what I get to do. Wrestling has taught me do not give up on anything no matter what. Nice. You played everything from hockey to horseshoes. What made wrestling stick more than the rest It's the ability to be both a team and an individual sport is like other sports, try to replicate it with like team scores and overarching, tournament victories. But like I've seen, like jiu jitsu does it and other sports do it the same. But wrestling is so ingrained and so like you're, I can't describe how much of an individual you feel like how much, um. Man, I cannot think of the word agency. How much agency you get as to be in control of your own destiny within wrestling, as well as also constantly thinking about how this is gonna affect the team. Everything has a team score behind it, whether or not you're shaking hands and being respectful to your opponent or the other coaches, whether or not you're throwing head gearing, being overly emotional in your matches. Everything has a reflection on both the team and you. Okay. Let's move into another area. That you're very passionate about, which is culinary. Yeah. I love the twist in your story, you actually went to culinary school How did that happen? It's one of those things that my mom taught me when I was younger. Being a single parent, you wanna get every minute of a sleep you can. And so she taught me how to scramble some eggs, uhhuh just to keep herself in bed a little bit longer when I was growing up. And, I was one of those things, I was like, oh. I can just add anything to this. I can do anything I want. There's no rules, there's nothing stopping me, mama's sleeping. I can do what I want. And so from there, it's morphed into what can I grab from the cabinet and add to it. And I started watching Food Network and Chef's Network and all this other stuff. Then going into high school, I found out that they had a college level culinary course. So I signed up for it as a freshman. Went into the class and got my feet wet and really got a passion for it and really burning inside. I think in middle school I even was telling people I wanted to be a chef when I grew up. And then in high school when I took that class I was like, oh, it's set. This is what I'm telling my academic director, this is what I'm doing. They ended up having to kick me out of the culinary class, they have a set rule. You're only allowed to take it a certain amount of semesters. So they only allow juniors and seniors. So I ended up taking it for a semester, freshman year, calling them again the next year to take it another semester. Took it junior year, and then as a senior, I took it twice being her TA. My culinary teacher just seeing me so much there pushed me along to jump into the culinary, world of college. Going to culinary school, signed me up for a, culinary competition at the college. I ended up going to shout out. Chef Betty. Thank you so much for that. I signed up for a culinary competition, went out there into Sunnyville, and I ended up taking first and got a scholarship to go to college. Oh, that's great. What was your dish That you presented? It was one of those like uniform things. They didn't want anyone to like, be beating just because they chose a better, like, tasting dish. So it was just like, grilled chicken and with a sauce, a basic like barbecue sauce and Broccoli and potatoes, but it's just showing like, Hey, make sure that you can follow the instructions, cut everything the right way. Can you do a Julianne, can you do a dice? What's a medium dice? What's a large dice? Can you cook an egg? Can you scramble an egg, fry an egg? Things like that. And then when you finally got to the thing you presented was, just a basic, chicken with sauce and broccoli. Okay? Pretty cool. Yeah, it actually reflects on my last fight. So my last fight, they announced the wrong winner. As I'm standing in the middle of the cage, they announced the wrong winner and I go to the back. I'm all disappointed. And they come back there and they announce, Hey, actually you won. And I go back there and they announce me. It sort of bittersweet. It drove me back to culinary, that same competition that I went to do. They announced the guy who won second as the winner. And so I'm like walking outta the room and they're like, oh, actually no, you won. They brought me back. And I'm like, oh no, I. Guess I'm gonna college. Wow. Confusion, right? Yeah. All right. Do you find any overlap between cooking and martial arts in terms of focus or creativity? I think a little bit of both, for sure. On the creativity side, like I said, the ability to know the basic rules, how to cook an egg, and then like you can add and do whatever you want to and make it anything you want. Essentially a scrambled egg can be, a souffle, frittata, omelet, you can do just about anything with it. The same way you can know, you do a sidekick, you can throw a spinning back kick, you can throw this kick round, kick, head, kick, you can, mix up faints and do things like that. It's once you have like the small ingredients, it's just like whatever flare and however you can put'em and piece'em together and make the flavors or the moves sing together, to the point of everything has a technical base and needs to be a certain way. And in culinary you would call it mise en place. Everything has its place. The same thing with like martial arts. If I don't come in here with my gloves, it doesn't really matter how much striking you wanna do. If your stuff's not in the right place, if your mind's not in the right place, your gear's not in the right place, your body's not in the right place. Correct, yeah. All right. Toasty, you said there was an advantage in regards to your culinary background, can you tell me about that? Yeah, A lot of MMA is like the fuel you put in the gas tank, right? And, um. Correct. Culinary from, being able to just physically cook stuff, to knowing what is in everything, how much of everything your body needs is a big thing. It's definitely been to a huge advantage in me being able to satisfy my sweet tooth without going overboard on sugar or, being really wanting something salty without going overboard on sodium. Being able to, know how much water I'm drinking, how many calories I'm consuming. These are all things that, you know, through culinary that I think I have a huge advantage over. If you look through my Instagram, that you'd be surprised at how many things that like I just cook from scratch with like protein powder or, blending oats and making my own sort of mug cups. And you know, I almost had a, half thought of making my own sort of Instagram of just food, based off of just how much, value you get from knowing what's in and around your food as a fighter. I think that would be a good idea, even teach other fighters how to prepare their food. Yeah. Let's talk about MMA and martial arts You were on track to fight in MMA before pausing for family. How hard was it? To make that call? It's probably one of the harder decisions I've made in my life. It was one of those things that like, it was like the big turning point when you realize that oh, you don't get to just do what you want to do, all your life. Sometimes you have to do things that life requires from you. There are other people that you are going to end up being responsible for and like your choice of who you're gonna make you're self responsible for your family, would be a big one of'em. And, seeing my sister, wanting to give her as many of those years as I possibly could, as well as being able to give my mom some sort of support system that she probably didn't have, a lot throughout her life, was, it was a very challenging decision, as you said, but it was one of those things that like if I had to make that decision again, I'd make it a hundred times over. That's awesome. So when you came back in 2018, what changed in your mindset and your approach? So when I went away and took my hiatus to support my family, um, I obviously, I'm caring more about like supporting the family than I am about like my body physically. Eventually I got up to, I think you're not weighing yourself when you don't feel good, so I would expect or estimate, I probably was like at 2 60, 2 70 something around there. Oh wow. I was very big and something just snapped in my head and I was like, I'm over feeling the way I feel. You know, with the seatbelt kind of coming across and sticking in that crease between my belly and my boob, I didn't really like that too much, so I was like, you know what? I'm over this and it was when Covid was going around, it was very hard to get back in the gym. And so I used that to my advantage and was like, no one likes being in the gym and being at the bottom when everyone else is being at their peak. And so you gotta self-conscious, things like that. So I found a gym in San Jose, eventually started going back and there was like maybe two, three people in the gym at any one time. So it's like you never really feel too down on yourself because you're comparing yourself to what. One other guy, two other guys. So eventually I got back into it and I think when I had my first scheduled bout after getting back into it, I had at 2 0 5. So, Between jumping back in and getting my first fight, I had already lost like 65 pounds. That's great. That's pretty tough to do, but a lot of hard work pays off. Yeah. Okay. Consistent work. So you fought in 14 sanctioned MMA bouts. What were some of the biggest lessons inside and outside the cage? Each individual one has a lot of lessons, but if you look over the whole thing, I think a big one is your mentality. Like you don't realize how much stress, how much not sleeping, how much bickering with your family or your girlfriend or, your friends or, your coworkers or anything like that is draining you and keeping you from being at your best at any given time. And if you're not at your best when you're in the gym, putting in the work, you can't really expect to be at your best when you're in the cage and things of that nature. You gotta be able to stop bickering with your coaches. Stop bickering with your manager. Stop bickering with your girlfriend. Like things that don't need to be on your priority list. You need to be able to push those things out. You need to have support groups around you, your family and friends that allow you to It sucks to say it like this, but put them on the back burner. I can't tell you how many times I've had to cancel on, date nights or going out with friends to parties and things like that. And, the people around me are the ones that are like, yeah, absolutely. I understand. there's nothing more important than protecting your brain from getting hit in the head by somebody who's trying to take it off. I bet. Yeah. Do you have a favorite fight or moment that lives rent free in your head? For sure. The two big ones would probably be like the, like coolest move and like highlights that I have on my Instagram would be my bulldog choke in Santa Cruz, Daniel Compton threw one of his CCFC cards on the boardwalk, which is cool enough in itself. Fighting on the boardwalk is so cool. Oh, I didn't get to make that. I heard about that. He was so sick. We do the card over there. I have a fight booked and then that fight falls out. So I end up getting a gentleman by the name of Joey Bartholomew a great individual's, so much respect for him. He takes the fight on short notice. We go out there. We, it was a great grimy fight. It was so awesome to watch one of those entertaining the whole way through. But there's a moment, I think in the second round where I have him in like a bulldog choke sort of Ben Askren uh, versus, Robbie Lawler. And we're on the floor and I'm just trying to rip it and he's pushing me up against the cage and I'm like, I don't wanna stop and I don't wanna push into him. I just literally walk my feet straight up the cage where there's a point where I'm like almost vertical in the air, just standing on his shoulders with a bulldog choke and then we flip over. It's a really cool video. Really cool sequence that, like you said, rinse rent free in my head. The other one would be, my first title fight, that I had as an amateur was against somebody that I don't think I had any business beating a black belt that owns his own gym out in Santa Cruz. Fighting on a card where the promoter is one of his students. And I go out there as somebody who just barely got his Gi on and end up, I think in the second round, put a rear naked choke on him that made a black belt, tap out. So it's like one of those things, like anyone can beat anybody on any given moment. It's just a matter of give yourself that opportunity. That sounds great. Awesome. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about in your MMA journey? I think a big part of my MMA journey has gotta be, my friend Andrew Gomez, I mentioned him earlier. He's one of those guys that if he hadn't been in my life, I would've just been some wrestler kid. It wouldn't have been anything. I would've never gotten into jiu jitsu or TaeKwonDo or anything like that. I did have an interest in the UFC, so maybe I would've went that route. But in terms of getting me, to learn jiu jitsu to learn TaeKwonDo, to learn Muay Thai, kickboxing to get me back into fighting in 2018. It all comes back to Andrew Gomez. One of my great friends growing up, he's only two years older than me, but in terms of things that somebody has taught me, I can't really list somebody other than Andrew who's taught me more things in my life. All right. Let's start navigating to jiu jitsu and your growth there. How did your jiu jitsu journey begin? I had been wrestling in middle school. I jumped back into wrestling in high school. And after getting into wrestling in high school again, I was fooling around with, one of my buddies out in the field and, at the school. And like I said, Andrew was like, Hey, you want me to show you how to do some like jiu jitsu stuff for that?'cause he had saw me do as a delinquent sort of the little backyard fights that we used to do in high school where we'd get together on Wednesdays in our buddies Michael's house and just have fights in the backyard like. The Ultimate Fighter. He saw Heard me do a couple of them. He was like, Hey, you want me to help you out? Like finish'em, you know, instead of just sitting on top of him wrestling him the whole time. Being one of those kids that's just open to everything, allowed him to show me, which was my first submission, which was the Americana, go out to the next one the next week, and I submit every single person in the backyard. And you know, it's one of those things I'm like. we're learning this now. How old were you then? Sophomore in high school. Okay. From there, he brought me into the TaeKwonDo gym that we had here in town Champions, martial arts, Pellidos Pro Fitness. and from there we learn jiu jitsu from the moves that his uncle would teach him, or the online videos we would find on the Gracie Garage. His, uncle was a, jiu jitsu fighter for our Gracie fight team down in the Lodi area. And so he would teach Andrew some things. Andrew would teach me some stuff, and then from there we sort of took off. We ended up taking over the coaching job at Gilroy Health and Fitness when they had an MMA program after Ant Dawg's left and coached in Morgan Hill From there, and then I just barely got back into doing actual gi jiu jitsu within like the past three years. Okay. Give me some background on your gym. AntDawg's has been around in Gilroy since I was doing martial arts in high school. They had a gym on the other side of town, that ended up getting moved over to Gilroy Health and Fitness. They were the first MMA program over there. They ended up leaving and then I ended up going into Gilroy Health after that. Just one of those things, small world just barely missing each other. AntDawg's ended up moving into, this building that you see here and they've been thriving ever since, growing more and more over and over. I ended up coming in here, because my last gym that I was at in San Jose, as I got back into, got shut down. I had been training for a fight, so I'm like in my front yard just training. One of my now teammates, Alan driving by, calls me over and invites me to come to AntDawg's. And I've been at AntDawg's ever since. They've housed multiple UFC Bellator, PFL fighters. Brianna has been an Invicta champion, ant do himself, has fought all over the place. From Nevada to, LA. We had Jesse Delgado in here training. Adin Duenes has fought Josh Emmett. Countless. Great talents have come to this gym. Awesome Any lessons you've learned as a white belt? the big lesson is, as any white belt would need to know coming in is that like anybody can be a beginner, especially somebody who's, has so much, time spent in doing MMA or grappling or jiu jitsu still doesn't matter. As a white belt, anybody can be a beginner. Anybody can learn anything from anybody. And that would probably be the biggest lesson I would learn as a white belt. Even though my time has been so short, getting my white belt and then I think within six months getting my blue, it's still that, that time of just every single class, every single person looking at you to critique your small little movements to make sure that those foundations are correct, is a big eyeopener that like, oh, even though I thought that those foundations are correct, it's still good to relearn and be a beginner again. Nice. What did getting your blue belt mean to you? I think when I got it initially I thought it was like. An acknowledgement that, okay. What I learned before was like, not wrong. A lot of self-consciousness from learning, just from my buddy who learned from his uncle or learning from like these videos online. You never want to be, that guy who just watches YouTube videos and just tries stuff in the gym. So it was like an acknowledgement to me, okay, you, you did know. What you were talking about, you weren't wrong. So now it's just a matter of having that confidence to go forward and use the skills to better those that are trying to move up to the same rank you are or trying to, get up to the same, level of grappling that yours is. And since I've had it, it's been a big eye-opener in terms of patience. Just keeping it for longer than I expected is one of those things that's like just because getting it made you confident doesn't mean that you can't get too confident and you should make sure to keep that in check as well. Humility. Yes, exactly. You mentioned learning patience as a blue belt. How has that changed your game? Or your perspective? A big one would be like my perspective on like, you can't, and you would think that I would've learned this already, but you still just gotta relearn lessons, it doesn't matter what a belt or an accommodation and accolade someone has is like everybody that accolade that rank that regard doesn't make that person who they are and doesn't make me who I am. So I can't look at a belt and look at a ranking and expect something to give me, some sort of permission to be myself. I have to just be who I am and not let you know, a rank or a belt define me. In jiu jitsu, Do you teach? Yeah. Not in that like I take over or do a class. But almost all the time in every class that I'm in, because there's so many people in this gym, every class is like seven to 17 different groups, pairs of people on the mat, right? There's only one coach for every class. I can't tell you how many times I have to, you know, stop what I'm doing to help out. It's not that like I have the title of being a coach, but in terms of what people look at you as in the gym, a lot of'em look to me to give them guidance. So I take it upon myself to, to do that. And in doing that you have to make sure. That what you're saying is, to the tee, you can't be skipping steps when you're showing somebody how to shrimp or how to, frame off or things like that. I can't be instilling my bad habits on those that are looking at me for guidance. Coaching and guiding in that regard has definitely changed a lot of my game in terms of making sure that my foundations are actually solid. Okay. Have you competed in jiu jitsu? Yeah. I've got, I've been able to, now that I've gotten my gi, jump in and do some competitions. I think I've had four so far. I had one here in town, the Garlic City Invitational. I was able to do a Grappling Industries tournament. I was able to do a submissions on the shore tournament, and then at one of the Evo Expos, last year, I believe, I had the opportunity to fill in, a gap on the MMA program and did a jiu jitsu competition. The Garlic City Invitational was my first foyer into advanced belts. I think the same weekend of me getting my blue belt. So that was a big jump in terms of getting into the. Sort of away from the kitty pool, so to say, of competitions and getting away from just, people who are learning to compete and getting to people who are, into the depths of competing. The grappling industries was one where I was able to, or I chose to go in, at a different weight class'cause. I just commented off a fight and I didn't wanna cut weight. Think I grappled at 180, 185 mm-hmm. While I weighed 160. Then the other two were just one of those things where I was just sort of filling in. I didn't really have, any plan to do it, but it was, one of those things you get an opportunity to take it. Yeah. Is there anything else in Jiu-Jitsu you'd like to talk about? It's just funny how small of a, you know, a world, just the entire combat sports is. The very last guy I did that competition with the Evo Expo, somebody that I've ended up working with at a bar in San Jose doing security. One of my teammates here, Elijah, has competed against, a gentleman by the name of Gavin multiple times through multiple jiu jitsu competitions. Low and behold, within the last two months, he ends up coming to the gym and signing up here. I've competed against a couple of guys from Koffee Krew at the jiu jitsu Industry competition. It's just so funny how small of a world these combat sports, can be where, you're competing against one guy one day and then like they're your buddy at the gym the next day. So true. Yeah. Friendship through pain. Yeah, exactly. And suffering. Trauma bonding. There you go. Let's go into coaching and mentorship. Okay. Yes. Let's talk about coaching high school, wrestling. How did that opportunity come about? Matt Corona was the coach for Christopher High School. His son, Logan Corona, had just graduated senior year. So he was moving on to help out his daughter with volleyball. So that left Christopher High with an opening as a head coach. Coach Ant here at the gym found out. His son was a former state, wrestler for Christopher High School. Found out that they were looking for a head coach and immediately thought of me. I had been helping out with the middle school, wrestling program with Chad Haygood the year before. And being someone that I believe Coach Ant has a lot of trust in, he immediately brought that opportunity to me. I sort of was like, yeah, that'd be something I'd really like to do. And you know, one of those things you say oh, I wanna do, but just never put some effort into doing'cause you didn't think it was something you could do or something that they would want you for. It's something you weren't qualified for. And I think for like two weeks Ant every single morning would be like, Hey, so you signed up. Uh, You applied right? You applied right? Yeah. You applied right? You applied right. And eventually, with his pressure and a few of the wrestling moms here at the gym, Kristen and Jules, just cracked my shell and I was like, screw it, I'll put it in the application. Went to the district, put in my application, and, after a few interviews, low and behold you're talking to a new coach at Christopher High School. You know, bucket list job. Something I never thought I would have the opportunity to do, but always wanted to have. I could not be any more grateful to Coach Ant for pushing me in that direction. That's awesome. What did it feel like leading your team to state and walking away with wins? Being a brand new coach for a program that's in the same city as DC and Gilroy High School, you don't really give yourself too much of a chance, but it's one of those things, wrestling doesn't tell you to give up just because you don't think you have a chance. Doesn't matter what rank someone is or what belt they have, you just gotta put forward the effort and wrestle, wrestle your match. As I've told my wrestlers all year, like anybody can be beaten in and you can beat anybody in the world. It doesn't really matter who it is in front of you. To go out and not have expectations, but to set goals for the team and have them reach every single one of them. Go undefeated in every dual meet that we have. Go out there and almost pin every single opponent on one of our duals. Go out to CCS and take third as a team where people didn't even give us a regard to take top 15 at all. And then. To be somewhere that I never thought I would be at the end of a wrestling year and be at the state tournament with a wrestler in the bracket and being three to 10 seconds away from being on that podium. Two wins at the state tournament is something that it will be a core memory till the day I die. That's something that nobody can take away from me and nobody can take away from any of these kids. Wow. They worked hard. Absolutely grinded. Unreal. What have your athletes on your wrestling team taught you? They've taught me a lot, about, myself emotionally, I think. I always thought that like I always had like myself in check and I always thought that like I would be able to, be that stern rock that like never broke down or cry, but I can't tell you how many times these kids have made me so proud that I just start crying in the middle of the corner and giving them hugs after wins and, I thought that I was that big mountain, but it turns out I'm just a big softie like everybody else. They've taught me that you can be both, hard nose and grinding and put your nose to it, but I can't tell you how many times I've looked back and seen these kids goofing around and joking around with their buddies and still being kids and, not taking it so seriously that like it's a job and still finding love and passion. And every single time they're in the room and they're on the trip to the dual meets and they're not competing this weekend, but they're still at the JV dual, or they're still at the girls dual, they're still at the tournament for the other kids. And, they're all lined up at the edge of the mat and screaming and cheering for their teammates. It's something that, I hope that I continue to have and that I can continue to build. Yeah, it's nice. Seeing kids develop Yeah. And then become champions. It's amazing. Did you want to talk about, the student that you took to state? Yeah. In fact, she's actually one of the girls that, I knew before becoming a coach there. Her brother Anthony Deek is somebody who fought for Ant Dawgs. He's somebody who's, I trained jiu jitsu with here at the gym up until the point where he was a brown belt. I watched him propose to his now wife on this very mat at an open mat, in this gym. He and his sister are like two peas in a pod. They're both always smiles and always happy and always bubbly and but at the same time, again, it's one of those things where as soon as they flip the switch, put the nose to the grindstone. They never stop working. Jules gets her wisdom teeth pulled and her tonsils pulled and she's into the next day, or, she has a major headache or she's dehydrated or whatever it is. You never hear her complain. You never hear her cry. She's always there on time. She's always working hard, but yet at the same time, she's always got a smile on her face. She's always happy. She never lets losses beat her down too hard. She doesn't live in sorrow and she likes to live in, in, in the moment and live in the happiness, and that's. That's all you can ever want from a kid. Yeah, absolutely. What did she teach you? She taught me that like, it doesn't matter if you make the most noise or if anybody expected anything from you. It's all about putting in, that next match, that next step. Just wrestling the thing in front of you, not focusing on what's gonna happen at the end of the year, or have these expectations just wrestle the next match in front of you, fight the next fight, take the next step, get through the next minute of your weight cut, and then the next minute of your weight cut, and by the end of the year you're at 30 minutes and your weight cuts over. She's the kind of person that like never stops and never gives up. I may have already had that thought in my mind of like, you know, you, grow up already knowing that. But it's one of those things, it's a another lesson of passion doesn't come at the expense of hard work or, joy. How Important has your community, your gym, and your girlfriend, Sabrina, been on this journey? The support system, I can't stress enough how, important that is. The people around you are the ones that are gonna be helping you the most, besides just yourself, obviously giving you the space to, to say no or say yes to things, to be who you need to be so that you can get what you need to get out of your training. I've had plenty of girlfriends through this journey where, they'll say, Hey, you can take days off, from hanging out with me to go to the gym. It's not a big deal. And then three months later down the road, it's very hard to, it is a big deal. It is a very big deal. Yeah, exactly. Somebody like Sabrina, who, has been in the combat world, she's trained at Kung Lee's gym. She's trained at AKA, she's intricate with wrestling and jiu jitsu and she's very versed in this world. Has been an absolute Godsend in terms of being a support system for me. My mom and my sister, obviously two of the biggest pillars in my life. I don't think that they've missed a single fight that I've had, my mom even getting a recent diagnosis again, from the doctor with I think like two three, weeks before my last fight was a very big deal and still was in the front row screaming her mind off at the results. My sister and my girlfriend, you could hear in the videos over everybody else. You could hear them over the coaches. And they are the absolute three pillars in terms of support. My friends at the gym who every single day they're at my house. Just absolutely living there, essentially. Helping me, vent and venting their regards, I'm helping them with stuff. They're helping me with stuff. Ant has been an absolute wonder in terms of just welcome me in with open arms, offering me his gym to do a podcast. Offering the gym to Koffee Krew whenever we have opportunities, allowing me to bring extra people into spar with, being somebody willing to, oh, hey Alan, you have somebody who just wants to use the gym for his fight. Sure, whatever. Come on in. Cool. Have a good day. There aren't people much like Anthony Figueroa in this world, and I cannot be any more blessed to have him as somebody in my support system. That's cool. He sounds like a great guy. Yeah, he was a good guy. Okay. I got a Pokemon tattooed for him on my leg. Do you? Yeah. all the Pokemon that I have tattooed on my leg all represent somebody, The Shinx is for my cap. The Sunflora is for my mom. I have a Psyduck and a Throh and a Swak for the buddies that are at my house all the time. And then I have the Machop line, Machop, Machamp, and Machoke on my leg. And um, Machamp is for Anthony Figueroa. The two Machokes are for Anthony Figueroa, Jr. Joseph Figueroa, and then the Machop is for Alexa Figueroa. The entire family is on my leg. Very cool. How about you? What's your main, Pokemon. Yeah. Yeah. My mine would be Charmander for sure. Cool. Yeah. One day I'll get him tattooed on me somewhere. I have a plot that I have been scheming against my future wife. I'm gonna name my first daughter. Her first name's gonna be Charm, and her middle name will be Ander. Charmander. Very cool. The moment where you found an old tournament photo and Sabrina was right next to you. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, when me and Sabrina first started talking, we were chatting about our familiarity with Kung Lee and, the gyms in the area. AKA, the fact that she trains the fact that I trained. Excuse me. I was telling her that, yeah, I did a tournament up at Kung Lee's gym up in San Jose back in the day. She was like, yeah, I think I was there too. So I went and searched for some pictures on Facebook as you do. Found all the pictures from that tournament and go to show she's not only in two of the pictures that I'm in for this tournament, one at the rules meeting and one at the awards ceremony. We're literally sitting next to each other in the picture and I go to send her all those pictures, I'm like, oh wow. Look it! We're in the weigh in picture, the instructional picture. And she's no, not only that, we're in the award ceremony picture too. I looked two pictures over and there she is. It's such a small world, the combat, uh, sports world, the wrestling world. It's funny how like even AntDawg's was at that same tournament, and it's one of the first times that Anthony Figueroa was like, Hmm, I like that kid looks interesting. So you guys were right next to each other and you didn't even know it. Didn't even know it. If our paths had crossed at that time, would we be where we are today? Probably not. Exactly. You can't ever think that something that, you would think would be a negative is something that is not gonna end up in the right way. Fate, God, whatever it is you want to call it, has a way of getting you where you need to be. Absolutely. I agree. What does it mean to you to have someone who understands the world you're standing in? In terms of Sabrina? It's so hard, like saying the same repetitive thing to somebody and being like, they think you're coming up with excuses like, no, I have to be at the gym. There's nothing more important than protecting my brain, from brain damage. Somebody doesn't like hearing the same thing over and over. But you know, having somebody who's openly been like, oh no, absolutely, go do this thing. I want you to be at the gym. I want you to get up at five 30. Hey, are you setting your alarm? You gotta be up at the gym at five 30. Come on, you gotta wake up. Not, oh, you're getting up. Come on, please pull me back into bed. And things of that nature. To sort of know and be able to, give me the space to chase what I wanted to chase is something very hard for most people to do. So to, to be able to do that for me, has gotta be a strong person. Yeah, absolutely. So that scar on your head, how did your, your family and Sabrina do with, seeing you, get hit hard? Sabrina's a wild one. She actually patched me up as we're driving home from San Francisco. I'm driving she's not as comfortable with a stick shift. I've always driven a stick shift. Yeah. I have an eye patch just going straight across my face looking like it's straight from Escape LA and it's falling off. It's getting bad like it's in my eyeball, I'm leaking everywhere and I'm like, oh no, we gotta get back. I want to get Denny's at two in the morning. I'm so over this. And she's just like, okay, no worries. Just pulls it off my face. Blood's coming down. She's just patting blood off my face, no qualms, no worries, and just throws another patch over my face. Pulls out of her medical bag that she brought with her because she wanted to be prepared, knows exactly what to bring for nosebleeds because of how many wrestlers and people in her life, she's had to patch up through her thing. It is really, really cool. I don't think the guy at Denny's was too excited to see the guy with a gaping hole on his face sitting at his dinner table. That's funny, man. That's awesome that she does that for you. Yeah. If you could give a message back to your younger self, what would that be? That's a good, really good question. Take your time. What would you tell your younger self like about your future or anything in general? I guess it's something that I've learned, like probably more towards my end of my twenties is like, is a phrase that I learned. At least the meaning of is like, this too shall pass. Don't get too into the weeds of anything. Don't get too low on yourself. Don't get so high on yourself that you don't, look for anybody for guidance or help. If you win the lottery tomorrow, this too shall pass. If somebody in your family dies the next week, this too shall pass. If you gain 200, 300 pounds, this too shall pass. As long as you put in the effort, as long as you keep your nose grinding. Everything negative can have a positive. Anything that has a positive can have a negative, and we just gotta stay in the middle and make sure that we're not overly on one side either way. Now bringing up the question in regards to weight. What would you tell somebody, or what type of guidance would you give somebody that is overweight and wants to get back in shape? Somebody who, constantly sort of in that flow of being overweight and in shape. When I was young, when I first got into wrestling, I was like a rolly polio. I was like barely five two, I think I weighed 180 near the 200 mark near the heavy weights of wrestling. When you're in middle school. I was not a skinny kid. And then got into wrestling and it's just as long as you don't focus on the finish line and just focus on what's in front of you. The next step, the next workout, the next weight cut. Don't worry about, I need to be at a certain weight. I'm just gonna keep working. I'm gonna keep focusing on my calorie count. Whatever it is that you're gonna keep driving for, just keep plugging away and don't let yourself get over on one side or the other. Getting back into to fighting was a big thing that sort of helped me. It doesn't have to be a big intense workout. It could be as small as, getting off the couch for two hours of the day, whereas usually you're there, you on the couch for 10, you never stand up. if you're already at that point, then just take the next step forward, take the next step forward. Don't focus on, I'm 200 pounds, I need to be at 150. Just don't focus on the finish line. Just next workout, next thing, and eventually when you look back you'll be like, wow! I lost an entire person behind me. When I got back into fighting, I was 2 60, 2 80 and when I finally got my pro license here last year I had three fights at 1 35, so. Wow. It can be a big difference as long as you don't focus on what do I have to be at a certain point, just keep plugging away. And eventually by the time you look back, you'll be a completely different person. Yeah. One step at a time. Exactly. If you were to go back and talk to your younger self when you were wrestling, what would you say to Toasty? I'd probably inform him that there's like a lot more, opportunities than he expects. A lot of kids think that oh, it's just the wrestling team and school. You go to your practice, you go home and that's the end. Of your rest. Like, as you get older you realize is there extra practices we can do? Is there extra stuff we can do? I always was one of those kids that wanted to wrestle all the time, but I never knew that you had, the Gilroy Hawks in town. I didn't know that you had local wrestling tournaments in the off season. I didn't know that you could go to, other schools and get these like individual dual meets and stuff like that going. Just to not be so narrow minded and only take your practices like all the wrestling you get. If you want more wrestling, ask for more wrestling, and you'll get more wrestling. What's next for you? More coaching? More fighting? More tattoos? Por que no los todos Everything. I want to do it all. I'm trying to get my foot into working for Camo. I'm trying to get my foot into the door for coaching wrestling for, reffing wrestling if I can, get more fights if I can get Muay Thai fights, if I can get boxing fights. I did the event that we had here, the Semicontact MMA for the kids. I was able to get my foot in the door and ref for them. Nice. Getting some opportunities to ref for IKF and to officiate for them. I was able to book my friend a fight, so I was a little bit of a manager for a fighter, like any opportunity that I can take, especially in this combat world, that's exactly what I wanna do. Cool. First things first. I gotta book a fight though. What would be your dream fight? If I, it's very unrealistic, but Urijah Faber is one of those guys that, was probably the very first fighter just in general MMA I was watching when he was still in the WEC when he was still fighting Dominic Cruz before he started putting his hair up with gel. Like when everybody like was a wild west of MMA. Somehow I know he's fighting or supposed to fight in the GFL, if somehow I could fight or do some sort of combat thing with Urijah Faber, I think I could die a happy man in that moment. I'd love to see that fight. All right. Is there anything else you wanna add to the podcast? Anything you'd like to talk about? One of the big things would just be shouting out the gym. Like I've said, and a few answers ago, is they've given me so many opportunities and welcome me in with open arms, working with me in terms of, what my game plan is. You can go into a lot of gyms and they're like, okay, if you want to fight for us, you have to do this then. And it's What can I do to help you on this journey you want to go through? Is a lot more of what it is here. As you look around the mat space on this gym is impeccable. there's no sort of gym anywhere in this area that has the mat space or the personnel inside of a place like this. Anthony Figueroa is one of the nicest human beings on the face of the planet. His entire family have been absolutely nothing but generous. They've taken me to CSA and all these other opportunities that I wouldn't have any option to do on my own. They've given me a key to start teaching classes and bring people like yourself in here, to give other fighters opportunities to broaden their horizons. We've been able to bring in, I'm the Bay and do pictures in here for, photography moments. We've opened up the gym for IKF and ISKA and things like that. Just any opportunity I can to shout this place out is something I'm gonna do. I love this place to my core. This is one of those places that I can't believe that I didn't start going to when I was younger. Right on. If somebody needed advice in regards to prepping food. Can they reach out to you? Yeah, for sure. Like I said, I like to get my foot into a lot of doors, so if that's something that, somebody needs help with. I've helped a lot of the guys at the gym just in general, Isaiah, Elijah, Justin, the guys that come over to the house and they've allowed me to take them under my wing. I know a lot of them get a lot of the stuff that they do and consume, from me and I can't thank them enough for just taking my advice. And if somebody were to want to, add me in to help them out, I'm always willing to help somebody out if I can. Awesome. Where can people follow your journey? The big one would be Instagram. That's where I get a lot of my content out. I do a lot of my stuff there. A lot of my videos and stuff, are on YouTube, but most of my fights are on YouTube. If you wanted to check me out, most of my interviews are on YouTube. I think a couple of'em are on UFC bypass, but other than that, everything else is on YouTube. But if you wanna get ahold of me, the easiest way to get ahold of me is gonna be on my Instagram. My handle is Toasty MMA. T-O-A-S-T-Y-M-M-A. Pretty straightforward. You could probably search Toasty and I'll probably be like the first one that pops up. I think you are. Alright. It's a name to forget. Awesome. It's been a pleasure, interviewing you and, getting to know you, your personality is awesome. You're very positive and outgoing. I just wish you nothing but the best in your journey, and I am very happy that I met you through the Koffee Krew. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Luckee. This opportunity has been a blessing. The fact that you go out of your way to, to help all the people in this community. Just the fact that you're doing jiu jitsu, you gotta be a little bit like weird and crazy and out there. You do. Everyone's got a, everyone's got an interesting story. So like the ability that you give other people to bring their story out is awesome. So thank you for that. You're welcome. And in the future I'd love to have you on again, maybe you can go into more detail in regards to one of your fights. That'd be awesome. Yeah, for sure. In the future, I was thinking of, the people that have been on my podcast, maybe getting them and a couple others and just talking about different topics or jiu jitsu or MMA fighting whatever, round tables are always fun like that. Yeah, that was where I got that, this too shall pass. there was a lot of, gentlemen going around giving their guidance and like what it is to be a man and sort of like what it is in life lessons. And one of those things came out was like a round table. Everyone just, shooting out different things. All right. Right on. Yeah. Okay. Toasty. thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Okay. Bye. Bye.