#13 Anthony Rutherford Gilroy BJJ

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Welcome back to Lucky's podcast. In this episode, I sit down with someone I've shared the mats with and I have a deep respect for Anthony Rutherford. I met Anthony back in 2019 at Gilroy BJJ, when they would host most of the Koffee Krew open mats. He was a purple belt then effortlessly flowing through roles and always rocking a Shoyoroll GI. For him, it's more than a brand, it's a vibe. But beyond the GI and the technique, Anthony is a man shaped by experience, perseverance and the love of his family. A black belt in karate, and a longtime student of jiu jitsu. His journey hasn't been easy from struggling with ADHD and finding direction to overcoming partying in his twenties and getting sober at 31. He built a life grounded in discipline and growth, inspired by the unwavering support of his wife and the infectious energy of his son, Owen, who he describes as crazy, kind, creative, smart, and full of life. O, and their family wouldn't be complete without the two American bullies. In this episode, we deep dive into his story from childhood to adulthood, the highs and lows of his jiu jitsu journey, and how he found peace, power, and a purpose on and off the mats. Anthony, let's get into it. Thank you for having me here. I appreciate your interest in wanting to interview me. Yeah, why wouldn't I, I like the way you flow on the mats, so I hear that a lot. People like my style of jiu jitsu, they think it's really creative and it looks spectacular. But, I just always think of myself as a regular Joe. All right. Okay. So let's start from the beginning, childhood, and a little bit of your background and what year were you born and where did you grow up? So I was born in 1979 in, San Jose, California. which I always think of as being a really cool year to be born, for a couple of reasons. I graduated high school in 97 and I always thought it was cool that if you were born in 79, you graduated in 97. And that just, that juxtaposition of those two numbers. And that means that I was born right at the beginning of the eighties, so I was a kid throughout the decade of the eighties, which was a really cool time to be a kid. All the movies and cartoons and TV shows and music and style. It was a fun time to be a little kid, growing up, you know, between zero and 10 years old. Then in the nineties I was a teenager and, that was a really cool decade to be, a teen. Again, the music, the fashion, the movies, the culture, the great decade to be a teen and even in my twenties, the two thousands, again, same thing, everything fashion, culture, movies, TV shows. In 79, my mother, she met my blood father and they dated for a bit. I don't know how long they dated for, but they had a romance or a fleeing or affair, whatever you want call it. I think it was short lived overall. It didn't last very long and they ended up going their separate ways. And so, for the first six years of my life, it was just me and my mom. She raised me, by herself and we lived in, um. a pretty bad neighborhood on the east side of San Jose. Mm-hmm. Crime, stuff like that. Always going on around us and, I didn't really know too much about all of it. I saw some of it here, fights, you know, just stuff like that. Deaths. Things of that nature, but I was too young to really understand our situation. But it was tough on my mom, just raising me by herself. I think I had, you know, like ADHD from a really young age. So I was a pretty, rambunctious kid. Hard to kind of, get me to follow along and listen. My mom had a hard time, raising me, but then she met my dad, the man who I call my dad. He came into our lives. They dated and then married when I was six years old. He's a great guy, really good husband to my mother and a really good father figure to me. He raised me as if I was his own, adopted me. And That's amazing. Yeah. So I wear his name on my back, Rutherford, and I'm proud of that because he's just a steadfast, laid back understanding, guy who, instilled a lot of good characteristics in me to be a good human being. He would do stuff like take me to the comic book shop every weekend to go buy comics. He would take me to, the ice rink at the Eastridge Mall. Mm-hmm. In East San Jose, to go play hockey for a few years. I don't, I can't even remember how long I did hockey for as a kid, as a young kid. But, he did that. He, helped me out with my homework and school projects, built me a tree house in the backyard. He's my dad. Without him coming into our lives, I wouldn't have had a father figure and I could have easily slipped into being, extremely like a juvenile delinquent, like growing up. He came into our lives and he was able with the marriage of him and my mom and them pulling their resources together, we were able to move out of that bad neighborhood on the east side of San Jose and move to the evergreen area. Yeah. Which is also in the east side of San Jose too. Right. But it's a lot nicer neighborhood. It is. It's had its issues, but it's a cool environment to grow up. San Jose is just so multicultural. It's like people from all walks of life and different cultures and ethnicities and it is a fun place to grow up. So, your father sounds amazing. And, I'm glad you were blessed to have somebody like him in your life. Okay, let's go on to the next. We talked about your dad, and now let's talk about your mom. Yeah. What was your mom like? So, my mom's really strict and authoritarian and, she had a rough life growing up. Um, She's half Irish and half Mexican. Her father was a Irish man, and her mother was a Mexican woman, and her father was a drunkard, constantly drinking. And when he wasn't at work, he would, either come home drunk or from work or he would come home at all and we'd go to like bars to go drink and, womanize, you know, the right philander with other women. That wasn't my mom's mother. And my mom had, a couple of sisters, three three sisters. So there's four of them. And their mother got, sick with the disease when they were really young and their mother was young, she must have been maybe in her fifties, a pretty early age afflicted with the disease and pass away. Mm-hmm. And so as she was sick, they, her and her sisters, helped take care of her until she passed. But the whole time the father would be absent, you know, at bars, right. drinking and womanizing. And so that, that really affected my mom to have to take on that burden in her early twenties and, see her mom have to take care of her and her sisters without the father being really present. I think that really affected her and, hardened her to like the world and made her really no nonsense. And, a real go-getter in terms of like doing for herself and being independent and not relying on anybody, but just made it so that she was type of woman where she didn't play around, you know? Right. Self-reliance. Yeah. And so it was almost her way or the highway. And, I think that's why her and my blood father, it didn't work out. My dad, the man who came into our life, to his credit, was willing to kind of deal with that and take that on and be accepting of the way that she was and be there for both me and her. So that's why, you know, I have even more respect for him for loving her. My mother was a beautiful woman, but, very hard to deal with. And so he, my dad, was willing to be a steadfast husband to her and a steadfast father to me. Me and my mom, me having ADHD and having trouble listening and following authority, we really bumped heads for many years. She was a good mother to me, cared for me and, provided for me and always tried to teach me well. But, just really harsh and in her approach to, you know. Raising me, I guess. Right. What She expected of you and what she wanted from you, right? Yeah. She wanted a lot. Expected a lot. And I didn't leave up to it'cause, it was, I had trouble focusing and I had trouble finding, something that I could be passionate about. And I think, because of that I wasn't, I didn't do well at anything. What kind of influence did they have on you, both your parents? I think my mother, she always espoused like good, acting right and doing the proper thing and trying to stray away from, trouble. Okay. in getting involved in nonsense that really wasn't beneficial for you and your life. And just, always trying to, emphasize education and doing well in school. But because I had ADHD, I didn't do very well in school. I was the kind of average in like mediocre at like, science, math, reading and writing and stuff like that. And I think my dad, the man who raised me, he just taught me to be calm and cool and collected and to be analytical. And analyze things from all angles. And I think those are the two big influences that they had on my life is I'm pretty laid back and calm and can deal with, in most situations that would be stressful for people. And also, I have a pretty good moral compass that has led me to stay away from getting involved in things that would otherwise land me in big trouble. Okay. If that makes sense. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then, all those characteristics that you said your dad taught you, I can see that, how that flows to the mats. Yes. What kind of stuff were you into as a kid? So as a kid growing up, I really wasn't into sports. So I didn't play any kind of organized sports growing up as a kid. I was more into entertainment and movies, TV shows, music, but my first love, my first interest was comic books. And I had a ton of comic books and I would read them all the time. And like I mentioned, my dad would take me to the comic bookstore to spend my allowance on comics and I would draw, constantly and I actually am very talented at drawing and I would just draw all the time and I would try to mimic the stuff that I saw in comic books and I developed my own style and I was really good at drawing and art in general. So, uh, my first love was art. When I was you know, a really young kid and maybe before becoming a teenager, I was convinced I was gonna be a comic book artist and that was gonna be my job, my career is drawing comic books for a living. And I would draw my own comic books and I think I even wrote to, A comic book publisher, Image Comics, and I had sent them some work I did and said, will you hire me on? And they sent me back a letter saying, you draw really well and when you're of age come back and talk to us and Yeah, sure. When you know, but in due time. Exactly. Yeah. That is cool. So you can send me a couple of your drawings. That'd be awesome to post them for you. I'll send you a couple of photos of, some artwork that I've done. I think you'll think they're cool. I, the thing is when I became a teenager, I kind of, left my art to the wayside. Yeah. The talent, it still exists there. It's always there, but if you don't use it, it gets rusty. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So it's like anything else. You have to practice to refine it. Yeah. Okay. You also mentioned you were into skateboarding and rapping. Yeah, I was into skateboarding for a little bit. I wasn't really great at it and I was too scared to like fall on my face and, you know, scrape it up or break my arm or something like that. I learned how to ollie and how to like nose slide on the curb or whatever. Skateboarding is cool. But rap music, I grew up when we moved, me and my mother and my dad when they got married and we moved outta that really bad neighborhood in the east side of San Jose and moved to the better neighborhood in Evergreen. There was a bunch of kids playing on a block, and my mom was driving around, driving me around the neighborhood looking for kids for me to play with when we'd first moved there and there was a group of kids and she kicked me out of her car and she said, I make friends with them, I'll be back. And so this was like a block away from our house. And so I made friends with those kids and there was, a couple of brothers, not brothers, but brothers, and so I became really good friends with them and, they put me on the, like hip hop and rap music and, you know, they bought rap albums and would record them for me on cassette and I'd listen to'em and I just fell in love with hip hop music. It just spoke to me like the beats, the rhymes, everything. So I would go and start spending all my allowance money on rap albums instead of comic books. This is when I was coming out of being a young kid and into my like, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Spent all my money on rap music, and I would buy albums and record the albums for them, and we'd exchange, and we'd just hang out all the time. And I just, it spoke to me so much. I don't, I just fell in love with it to the point where I started writing my own raps and I was just like. Try to get as good at rapping as I could. And so that became my thing. And so I stopped drawing comic books and drawing. And just was like writing raps all the time, like in my bedroom and like, you know, spitting my raps for my friends. And I got really good at that too. Like, I got really good at rapping. In fact, I've had so many people tell me like, you're just as good as any other rapper out there. But, I think in my late teens and like twenties. I would go to like parties and I would like rap on the mic, on, on beats while DJs were playing, like at, you know, house parties and stuff like that. Right. But, as I got into my twenties, I was like, I can't do anything with this. I'm from the suburbs. This isn't gonna be a career for me. But, yeah, When you got older, did you do any type of open mics? Did you try. No, not really. It really just at parties, I just did, it fun for fun. But yeah. Yeah. but yeah, that was my second love, like hip hop and rap music. Like anybody who knew me back then they knew. Like, I just loved to rap. Who's the your favorite artist? Oh, that's so hard to say. Okay. It's like you can't choose one. It's, there's so many, it's a setup question. I don't know. I put that to the wayside as I got into my twenties and, went to college and focused on something else. Right on. How did having ADHD affect your childhood and teenage years? Let's go into that a little bit more. Yeah, I touched on it earlier. It was just hard for me to focus and, I was never really interested in anything and I couldn't really put my all into anything, whether it was like, math or science or history or english, any kind of school subject. And I just didn't really have something that I could point to and be like, yeah, that's what I wanna make my career out of. If I would've stuck with drawing, I could've made that a career if I was serious about it. But, I just, yeah, I put that off to the wayside as I got more into, Hip hop and rap music and all of that stuff. And so it was just hard for me to do well at anything because nothing really sparked my interest enough to be passionate about it. So I think like for a long time, all the way up until my, like mid twenties, I was sort of lost for direction. Okay. On what to do with my life. Yeah. That usually happens. Let's talk about your school years now. how was junior high for you? Junior high was All right. Nothing special about it. I ended up moving, from San Jose down to Gilroy for my high school years. And so I lived here in Gilroy, during high school. And high school was really fun. Gilroy at the time in the mid nineties was, it was a smaller town. And everybody knew everybody and, I made a bunch of friends and, my cousins lived down here, and so I'd run around with them and their friends and made other friends. And it seemed like back then there was house parties like every weekend. Wow. And so, me and my friends, we started getting into drinking. Smoking weed. And so in high school not only did I have ADHD, so it was hard for me to focus and do well with my schoolwork, but I also, got heavy into, drinking, all the time drinking beers. Do you think it was calming for you? Oh yeah. The beer. So that kinda like, leveled you down and you kind of self-medicated. Yeah. And the weed smoking too for sure. You came back in, in retrospect, you know, when you first start out, you're just partying, Absolutely. Having. Fun and, hanging out with your friends, but then it it steamrolls and so into my twenties, it just was something that I couldn't stop. But in high school it was just, it was a lot of fun times and, so high school was like, just again listening to lots of rap music, drinking forties, smoking blunts and long loads. And that carried off into my twenties. And so I graduated from Gilroy High and I moved away to Austin, Texas for about a year to live with my aunt and uncle.'cause they had a place out there and they said, Hey, if you don't have anything to do. You're not sure what you wanna do. You come out here, see how you like it living out here. So I lived out there for a year and that was fun. I made friends and dated and, had some jobs and stuff, but it wasn't home. So right after about a year, I packed it up and came back. And then at the time my cousins had moved to Santa Barbara to go to school there at UCSB. So I ended up moving there and living in Isla Vista, IV is the little college town right next to Santa Barbara and I live down there with them. And that was even more partying. It's just like party land of like just, all kids living together. Oh, yeah. In a, in dorms and Yeah. Yeah, in houses. Like a square mile of just kids all living in houses. So like every week day, you know, it could be like a Tuesday or a Wednesday or a Thursday, and it'd be like somebody's having a party, or even if it wasn't a party, everybody's hanging out, smoking and drinking and stuff. But I did a little too much of that and I had to come, back up here to San Jose. I came back and my parents, were in San Jose at the time. I had to figure something out for, a career. And I had a few jobs that were selling hats at like lids, the store lids, right. Or the sunglass hut or whatever. Mm-hmm. Doing so I had a brief stint as an exterminator working for a pest control company, and I listened to the radio all the time. Okay. I listened to it like for eight hours a day while I was working and I had the bright idea. I was like, I could do that. You could, I wanna be in radio. You know what I'm gonna, I'm gonna get in radio. So I got back in school, I went to San Jose State, got a degree in broadcasting, was on the SJSU, radio station for several years. I, uh, worked for KMEL as an intern. And then after that I, I worked at, A local station in San Jose called 1590 KLIV, which is a all news radio station. So yeah, I remember listening to that radio station. Yeah, I started out there doing traffic and weather on the weekends and then parlayed that into doing the national and international news, on some of the weekdays. And then after that I worked for mix 1 0 6.5 In San Jose. KEZR. Yeah. And, I was like the overnight DJ there for a long time, years and years, and a few other little radio stations, little small stints and stuff. And so I was able to buckle down and focus and not only get the broadcasting degree, a degree in broadcasting, but also, you know, make a little something outta myself. Yeah. But. Radio at that time. This was like the mid two thousands. I was in my mid twenties going to my late twenties. So a lot of the money had exited the industry. A lot of online stuff had come about, YouTube was starting to grow. Mm-hmm. Netflix, started and there was, online streaming radio and whatnot. Advertising money, the money that makes a radio station exist and work, was starting to disappear. And so you had that, but also at the time, I think in the nineties, bill Clinton had, signed into law or something that like, de monopolization or something of entertainment companies and conglomerates, and so they could gobble up, businesses, companies could gobble up radio stations. And so instead of, used to be a lot of independent radio stations mm-hmm. So a lot of different choices and options for getting, jobs. But what happened was, one company in particular, was Clear Channel and they would come in and they would buy up all these radio stations and the technology had evolved to where they could, Broadcast, amongst a bunch of radio stations, simulcast, recordings. So they would have a DJ like in Arizona, it'd be like a guy like Supers Snake who's doing a show. And they just record that show and then disseminate it out across a bunch of radio stations. Oh, wow. And then just kind of splicing, him saying different call signs, call letters of the stations. And so they're able to like, have multiple stations. All running the same show, and you get away with not having to pay a dj. Right. Having to hire a DJ to actually run a show. You just pay a board op to run the board. And so, a lot of opportunities to work as a DJ were also disappearing at that time. Right. The money was, dwindling down to where it was like you couldn't make a career unless you were like a top guy. But a top guy was never gonna exit their spot, for the mornings. Right. Or the midday or what have you. So I kind of saw the writing on the wall as I enjoyed it. It was fun. I put a decade into it. I think I did it pretty well, but I wasn't like, Howard Stern or like some sort of superstar that was gonna make a big money making career out of it. Right? And so, in my thirties, my friend came to me, a high school friend, and he said, I'm gonna start a construction company. If you want to help me build it, we can build it up and we can make a lot of money. And so I exited the radio business About 10 years after I started. So somewhere in my mid thirties. But, that was my short-lived radio career. Oh, wow. That sounds amazing. Sounds fun. It was. Okay. And so you got into construction with your friend. How did that work out? It worked great. He's. was a really smart guy and taught me everything that I needed to know about business. Showed me how to make money, showed me how to be a go-getter when it comes to running your own business. I did that, in my mid thirties and did it for about seven years. It was really instrumental that, so when I became the co-owner of Gilroy bjj mm-hmm. I had all the tools that I needed to be a business owner. That exit out of radio and jumping into construction was a big flip, a big 180 from, you know, sort of entertainment, correct. To construction, which is building and numbers and all of that. When you step back and you look, I look at my life, it's almost like God has a plan. Yes. And that was part of the plan for me to become a savvy business owner that helped me to take Gilroy BJJ and turn it into what it is nowadays, which is, it's so much bigger in every way than it was when I came here and when I took it over we've expanded so much in terms of student base and, everything. Cool. Yeah. Awesome. So now that you talked about, Gilroy, BJJ, let's go into your martial arts journey. Before jiu jitsu, you earned a black belt in karate. How did that shape your approach to martial arts? Yeah. this is where my story gets real interesting. Okay. So I told you that for the first six years of my life, it was just me and my mom that her relationship with my blood father just fell flat on its face. They went their separate ways. So growing up, I knew that my dad. Wasn't my blood father. And I knew that there was some other person out there who, had helped conceive me, but I didn't know who he was or where he was at, or why I hadn't heard from him, why I hadn't bothered to come into my life and asked to be a part of it. Thought maybe he was just some deadbeat that wrote me off and was, maybe either dead or had some other family and didn't care. So somewhere in my late twenties, right before I turned 30, I would say maybe 28 on MySpace, when MySpace was still around, I got a message from some chick was saying, my name's Holly. And I was like, who's this? Is this some girl I met at the club? And she messaged me and she sent me a photo and it was a photo of a guy dressed in a Super Mario costume at like a Halloween party or something, right? Guy looked exactly like me. It was me, but it wasn't me. And she said, I am your blood father's wife. We've been looking for you for years, and we finally found you. And, you have brothers and sisters and we live in Las Vegas, and if you want to get to know us, we want to get to know you. We've always wanted to get to know you. Wow. So if you wanna, you want to come out here and meet us, you can. Mm-hmm. And I was like, yes. I gotta go. I gotta find out what this is all about. Absolutely. So I flew out there and I met my blood father. And it turns out that he was a karate master, like a sixth degree black belt in karate at the time. Wow. Who owned a karate school out in Las Vegas? It was really Pahrump, but Las Vegas is the nearest place. And had affiliate schools in West Virginia and San Jose and Gilroy. Affiliate schools from of his school, which was the headquarters. And so I met him and he was like, I always wanted to be a part of your life, but your mother didn't want me to be a part of your life. I wanted to reach out many times, but you know, I think he had sent letters and stuff, but she kept those from me. Maybe she thought that it would just kind of tear our little family apart, the one that we had with my dad. So whether it was right or wrong, that's what it was. It turns out that I had a brother and three sisters And that he had been involved in all of their lives. So he was somebody who, I don't know if you wanna call him like a playboy, but my siblings were all from different mothers. So he was, you know, he was around, he was a ladies man. Yeah. But he took responsibility for all his children. Yes. I came to realize that he would've been in my life too, if he had the opportunity. I think he would've. And that he was a good man. And so he introduced me to karate. And he said, this is what I do. This is what I've done since I was a teen and through my twenties. And he's a competitor, karate competitor. And he introduced me to karate. And at that time when I was 28, about to turn 30, I was sick and tired of partying. I'd basically. I drank every day and smoke weed every day. If I wasn't at work, I'd be hanging out with my friends and hanging out or going to parties, bars, clubs. Frat parties. Mm-hmm. Anywhere, you know? Right. You just hang out and smoke, drink. Those are my two biggest vices. Drinking beer and smoking weed Right. Not super bad. Mm-hmm. By some accounts. Not hard drugs, but I was. You know, partying. Partying every day. Yeah. And I didn't want to go into my thirties and especially into my forties, just being that person. So I decided that I was gonna quit and drop everything. So I got sober. But I needed something to occupy my time in my mind. So this came into my life, right at the perfect time. And I said, I'm gonna do karate with all my free time. And so at his San Jose affiliate, I started attending classes. Great. And I just did that all the time. So I was doing karate, and karate's a cool martial art. It's got its things about it that are very much applicable to, street fights. And can be used in a physical altercation. It gets used in MMA all the time. There's a cool video on YouTube. It's like karate for MMA. Okay. And it's got like. Clips of Lyoto, Machida, Steven Wonderboy Thompson, GSP, all doing karate moves in the middle of actual fights and pulling off the karate moves. Nice. And then that's inter spliced with video of like karate masters from like black and white footage and other kinds of footage of them doing those moves in the kata. Right. Uhhuh where you're doing like karate on the air and stuff. So it's a legit martial art, but it gets a bad rap as being not as effective as say, jiu jitsu which I agree with. Yeah. but anyway, so I started doing karate and I enjoyed it, but, I had so much energy and so much time on my hands. Like a couple years into doing karate, I was like, I want to study another martial art as well. Okay. But I was like, what should I do? I was like, should I do, another striking art like a Muy Thai? Should I learn Muy thai or boxing? But I was like, no, I should study some groundwork. Should, supplement my standup with a little bit of, groundwork and I'd heard about jiu jitsu, but I didn't really know what it was. I mean, you kind of hear about it from UFCs, but I was like, what is it? So I'd go on YouTube and I'd go watch clips, of jiu jitsu tournament matches and, it blew my mind. I was like, I'd watch like a clip and it'd be somebody who is like, they were in trouble. Like they had their back taken and they're about to be choked. And then they would like flip the script and escape and then take the other person's back, right? And put'em in like an arm bar. And I'd be like, what? What is that? That's like magic. That's and it looked like dudes doing like tricks on each other, like skateboarding tricks. Like if you watch skateboarding videos from the nineties And you see somebody skating and they're doing tricks like, rail slides and flipping the board all around and stuff. Right? And I was like, this looks like these guys are skateboarding on each other. And I was like, this is looks cool. And I was like, I want to do that. I wanna learn that. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do that. I found a jiu jitsu school and I started jiu jitsu and I felt deeply in love with jiu jitsu, like right off the bat. And so I stuck with karate until I got my black belt, which only took about five years or something like that. Uhhuh, it doesn't take very long to get your black belt on karate. But after I got my black belt, I was like, I'm focusing full time on jiu jitsu, and I just took a deep dive into jiu jitsu and never looked back. How old were you then? So I started jiu jitsu in February of 2011. So I would've been 31, about to turn 32. So I started late in life. I started jiu jitsu, like at, yeah, 31. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Can you walk us through your belt journey from white to black and tell us a little bit of each phase and what it taught you. Yeah. I just wanna say one other thing about my blood father is that, um, he passed away earlier this year. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. And he lived out in Las Vegas. Initially when I had first, you know met him in those years, subsequent years. I spent a lot of time going back and forth hanging out with him and my siblings. But as time went on, I kind of, got busy with everything. Right. I know. Wife, family, kid training, everything. So. I, wasn't able to make it out there as often and towards the end of his life here in the recent years, I hadn't been out to see him much. And then I got the call that he was sick and he was in the hospital and I went out to visit him and he was not, I don't even know. I think he knew that I was there, but it was hard for him to, expressed that'cause he couldn't talk. And he passed not long after that. And they had a good funeral for him. But, um, it broke me up that I don't think I got a chance to tell him how much it, it meant that when he finally did come into my life. And he introduced me to martial arts. That set me down a path where that was like my true calling, and I didn't know it through my young childhood and my teens and my twenties, right? I was lost and I didn't have anything that really sparked my passion. But when he came into my life and he introduced me to martial arts, it set me down a path that has led me to where I am today as a black belt in jiu jitsu. A jiu jitsu school owner. Mm-hmm. A competitor who's won gold many times. Someone who's looked up to in the community and an influence. And without him coming into my life and giving me that gift, who knows where I'd be. I'd probably still be maybe lost looking for a path. And I, who knows, maybe I'd still be lost in, in drink and smoke, you know? Yeah. And so I didn't get a chance to tell him that before he passed, but I'm sure he knew. I hope so. I think so. I think he did. Yeah, for sure. Wow, that's really deep. It's amazing though. Okay. So now, is there anything else that you would like to mention in regards to your dad or your siblings? No. Okay. Sounds good. All right, so now let's take a walk down your belt journey and, um, starting with white all the way through black and, in each phase what each belt taught you. Yeah. white belt was okay. You know, it was, an interesting time. When you start out jiu jitsu, everything is so new and you got all this information coming at you a mile a minute, and you're trying to absorb it. You pick up some stuff, but not everything. And, but what you do pick up it works. It helps you get to that next little notch up, where you can tell that you're building skills. I tried competing a handful of times at White Belt, mixed results. Lost a tournament, won a tournament, lost a tournament. But white belt was just sort of an interesting, fun time. I guess I'd describe it. Okay. When I got to Blue Belt, well before I got to Blue Belt, I was attending, Caio Terra's Academy in San Jose and I was up for, I wanna say I was up for a blue belt promotion, but it was really belt testing or he did back then. Okay. I think he still does. But, I was up, I was due to be tested for my blue belt. And I tested for it and I failed. And that promotion ceremony, I didn't get my blue belt and it was because I didn't know the techniques and I didn't know them well enough. And that really stuck with me. It bugged me, I thought maybe it was a foregone conclusion that I was gonna get my blue belt, but I didn't understand that I didn't. Really know the techniques right? As well as I should have, right? And so that actually lit a fire under me to focus, to buckle down and focus on technique, right? Mm-hmm. And his, His slogan is Technique conquers all and Correct. And I studied so hard that next go round and six months later when the next belt promotion ceremony was coming around and they were doing testing again. I like aced it. And even at the promotion ceremony, he said something like, this dude surprised me. Like he just knew exactly what to do and that made me feel good and it really instilled in me that like technique had to be the cornerstone of what you're doing here in jiu jitsu I think a lot of people, they come into a jiu jitsu Academy and they use that as a place to grapple and I don't wanna say fight, but you know, muscle stuff. And they have fun and you can do well muscling stuff, but they're really not learning and growing. There's just being, I think Roger Gracie has a clip where he's saying, most guys trained to be tough and you can get tough. But if you want to get good at jiu jitsu like you have to focus on learning jiu jitsu. That really just, it embedded in my mind. And so at Blue Belt. I really took that to heart and was just really, like at Blue Belt, you become a collector of as much technique as you can. Right. And so you kind of feel like you have a suitcase that you're packing full of techniques. And then later on when you get to Purple Belt, you start taking out techniques that you don't use so you can solidify your game, right? Choose your type of game that you wanna play. But at Blue Belt, it was a fun time of really diving deep into technique and, getting razor sharp at everything. But I had decided that at Blue Belt I didn't want to compete and that I just wanted to get super good at jiu jitsu and that I wanted to be one of those guys that when somebody would come into an academy from outta town and roll with, they would be like, who the hell is that guy? Why don't we know his name? You know? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And so at Blue Belt, I made it a point, I'd never competed at Blue Belt, but I made it a point to get as good as I possibly could at anything and everything that was jiu jitsu, right? Blue belt was cool, but then that purple belt I had decided, I changed my mind and I decided, you know what? I am gonna start competing. I don't want to be just a nobody, a no name who's just hiding away at a gym. I wanna go out there and I wanna prove that my jiu jitsu, I can hang with somebody. And at least somebody my age, my weight, Yeah. That my jiu jitsu is good enough to go out there and win gold in the tournaments. But at Purple Belt I was eating a little more it sounds funny'cause I'm like a tall, skinny guy, but I was eating a lot more than I do nowadays. And so I'd packed on some pounds. I'm naturally a lightweight. We walk around about 1 63, but I had packed on the pounds and I was weighing like one close to 180. I was competing at middleweight and every tournament that I entered at Purple Belt, I lost. Every single match, like every tournament. But the thing was is I had a really good guard'cause I was used to playing off my back. Okay. Because I was such a light guy like coming up that I don't think of myself as a heavyweight and being able to smash people, right? And so I'd always play off my back and I'd play guard and my guard was really good. And a lot of my matches would end like zero, zero. Mm-hmm. Come down to rest decision. Or it'd end like two zero because they got a like a take down where like I'd go to pull and they would do like maybe like a stuff, the leg or something. a fakey foot sweep. Yeah. So like the ref gives'em two points automatically. Okay. but they couldn't pass my guard so it end two zero or it might end two. Two. But Like it would come down to rest decision and they give the decision to the other person or They'd win. It'd be two, two and an advantage. So I'd win my lose by these razor thin margins. But like I was going up against guys who are natural middle weights. Like that was the weight class that I was competing at Purple Belt, and I just didn't know how to carry the weight, didn't know how to move, really well or quickly, or flow with the weight. And these guys did, that was their natural weight, right? So I just lost and lost, but I never stopped. Right. I just kept on competing and then towards the end of Purple Belt, that's when I started winning one gold and then one gold. Nice. And then I got my brown belt, and then that's when I really started winning. And I was just winning gold after gold and like destroying people. And so brown belt was a really fun time. I was like training all the time and really coming into my own and like. Starting to just go on a deluge of winning, as a competitor. And so Brown Belt was probably the funnest belt. At Purple. I was like losing my mind trying to figure out what was wrong with my jiu jitsu, why isn't it working? And like I was, most people say they have their funnest time at Purple Belt, but it was a really growing, like growing pains. Era for me. For you, Uhhuh. Yeah. But I stuck with it. And at Brown Belt it just, it all came together. And I was just like winning. And then now that I'm at a black belt, I've only been a black belt for a year and a half. It's black belt, it's fun. I got a lot more on my plate being a school owner now. And doing all the stuff like marketing and administration and Right. You know, cleaning, All the jobs. Being an instructor who teaches a majority of the classes, which I enjoy a lot. I enjoy being a, an instructor more than, I enjoy being a competitor, but I feel compelled to compete because I'm like, what am I doing all this training for if I don't go out there and use it to compete? You train so much and for so long it's like I just, I want to go out there and test myself against other people. Still constantly. What? Even if I lose, yeah, I'm on a losing streak now. I haven't won a tournament in four tournaments. but before that I was on a four tournament winning streak, and so the wins for me, they come and they go in like large swaths. Part of the other thing about the way I compete is I'm like a, I'm a finisher. I'm always looking for the submission. Okay. So I'm always looking to finish the fight right away. Mm-hmm. And it's like, how can I tap this person out like as soon as possible and end this, I don't want to do this for five minutes. Yeah. You don't wanna have to fight it the whole time. Yeah. And if you look at a lot of my wins, like all my wins is not all of'em, but a lot of'em are like. Submission. Submission. Submission. And there'll be like lots of different submissions, Barato. Oh really? You don't have a favorite submission? Oh no. If you look at all my tournaments, it's like I'll tap somebody out with a Barato Plata or a Kimora or a triangle arm bar, and I'll just take whatever I can get. And so I don't really win. If you look at my wins, I don't win by points. I don't have like, oh, I won by two points, or I won by an advantage. Usually when I lose it's'cause I lose by points or by an advantage. And so I never, when I'm doing jiu jitsu, I don't really think, how can I score points or right. I'm down on points I need to come up. I guess that's part of my problem as a competitor is that, you know, you got, I've been told by people, you've gotta get into the spirit of like, you know, this point game, right? Yeah. The point game and strategy and stuff like that. But I just, I like to finish people. That's, to me, that's jiu jitsu. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I agree with you. So anyways, black belt, it's been a mixed bag, but, black belt's, the big links, right? Everybody's sharp, everybody knows what's going on. Yeah. And so I'm having. Right now I'm in a slump, but, it's like I'm really learning to just, hold on to that idea of perseverance. Yeah. And dedication and, fortitude and stuff. And so come into another winning season soon enough. You will. I'm gonna have to readjust some things, but black belt's been cool. It's been good. Right on. Cool. Alright. Anthony, let's talk about, Gilroy, BJJ and what stood out here. I know that Carlos is, one of the owners here Yeah, he's the other co-owner. The co-owner here from the beginning. And, I've heard a lot of good things about Carlos from my coach Stan. Yeah. And also, you know Ben from Solidarity. Yeah. Kiko so can, He's an amazing man. He's like a big brother, like a father figure, a mentor, an instructor, a friend. He's everything to me. He's one of these people that came into my life and just. He's helped me out in so many ways, and I know he's helped out tons of other people, throughout the jiu jitsu community and just in general. And he's just such a good guy. Me and my wife, when we first met and moved in together, we lived up in San Jose, near South San Jose. But in 2020 we sold our house and moved down here to Gilroy in the middle of the pandemic shut down. And moving so far down south, I decided that when things opened back up that I was gonna continue my jiu jitsu journey here at Gilroy, BJJ. So I came in and I was a purple belt at that time in 2020, A four strike purple belt on the verge of getting my brown belt. I didn't get my brown belt before I left the school that I was at before, which was AKA okay. Under Ron Kessler. So I, just moved down south and I was, I've always been the type of person where it's like, I'm not a big traveler. I'm not into driving long distance to like go train, right? Mm-hmm. I don't wanna spend an hour in the car to drive up, to train and then hour back. Me and my wife's, relationship it wasn't new at that time. We had been together for some time, but I always hold like family time as sacred as I can. Right. And try to make as much time for it as possible.'cause I spend so much time, at work, but then also training. I decided that training down here in Gilroy would allow me to, drive five minutes there to train five minutes back. So I came to Gilroy and I think it was evident to Carlos and Morgan, who was the other co-owner at the time that I had razor sharp jiu jitsu When I signed up to compete, I destroyed everybody that I went against. And so they gave me my brown belt right away. Nice. They were asking me to fill in and teach a lot of classes, and I was doing that and I would teach everything, every class that they would ask me. I was sure, yeah. Give it to me, give it to me. And I was really coming into my own as an instructor. Begun instructing, back at AKA for a few years before I came down here and was able to continue that tool. Teaching is a great tool for it is improving your own jiu jitsu Absolutely. And understanding all the little intricacies of why you do what you do and what you need to do to make something effective. And so I was teaching every class they would ask me to fill in for, I was kicking ass as a competitor. And the training here was great. but there was like a old guard of guys who had been training here for a long time and they were, had a little buddy group or whatever, and I was sort of an outsider, And, Morgan, the other CO had decided that he was gonna move outta state and so he sold his half, to Carlos. And Carlos was looking for a partner to be here and run the school and teach. And when I found out that's what he was looking for, I said, I'll buy in and I'll be your partner. You stepped up. Yeah. Yeah. And he said, that's awesome. And he said, yes, 100%. So he sold me the other half and I took it and ran with it. And man, we've made a huge success out of Gilroy BJJ in all metrics. And I've just, grinded hard to, blow the school up, Yeah. In terms of like schedule and, level of jiu jitsu and membership size. It's been a great experience and Carlos has been so instrumental in like not only teaching me even more about business that I hadn't learned from my friend who I had helped build that construction company out of. Mm-hmm. Because jiu jitsu is an entirely different industry than construction. There's things that Carlos has known from running a school for decades that like he was able to impart on me that I wouldn't have necessarily known. And teaching me a lot about being a competitor. About resiliency, the mental aspect of it. Teaching me a lot about jiu jitsu in general and about, competition, strategy, and just everything. And so he's just been, um, another great figure and it's come into my life outta nowhere and like really just been steadfast and a great guy. And, I don't know if he gets as much credit as he should for all the things that he's done. There's so many people that could tell you stories about how he's helped him out in huge ways and so, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He's just a great guy. So I was really happy to be there. He got married, a little while back and I was happy that I could be there for that and that we've just become real steadfast friends and brothers. That's awesome. Yeah. That's amazing. What are the biggest lessons jiu jitsu has taught you over the years? I would say three lessons that if I was gonna impart wisdom on anybody starting their jiu jitsu journey or whatever point you're in. Number one is focus on technique. Really study the techniques, the micro movements that make them work. Really, you know, drill them and try to embed them in your mind. I tell people, don't just come into class and just watch, you know, during class and then go home and put it outta sight, outta mind. Go home and think about those techniques, while you're having dinner. Think about'em while you're in the shower. Think about'em while you lay your head down to rest and you're trying to go to sleep. Do the mental work um, it was just as important as doing the physical work and try to hit those techniques in class. Don't just get shown a technique and then when it's time to roll, you just go to your A game. Like you gotta try to use those techniques and yeah, they're gonna fall apart when you try to do'em. You don't know how to do'em yet, but you gotta do'em over and over again. I tell people, like when you're a kid and you're playing like Nintendo and you're playing Mario Brothers and trying to jump the little Mario guy over the lava pit and he falls into the lava and dies. You don't just turn the game off and go, I'm done. You just keep trying to jump'em over and over again, so you get that timing right and then you can do it no problem. And you just have to be a dog, like a dog with a bone. When it comes to techniques and you have to constantly be expanding your game. Never know where a role is gonna end up. And if you don't have the answer to something, then you're probably gonna lose because jiu jitsu's like a language where we're speaking back and forth and you start out learning letters, you start out learning words, you start out learning sentences, then you can, you know speak paragraphs or whatever, and then we're having a conversation. If I say something, ask you a question, then you have the answer. Then you ask me a question, I have the answer. Then we go back and forth and back and forth until I ask you a question that you don't have the answer to. And so that's the game of jiu jitsu and so it's good to know a little something about everything. Of course, you gotta pick maybe a game that like fits you best and that could be your A game. But while you wanna rely on that and like say competition. When you're training, you really want to just exercise, all parts of the jiu jitsu game or, Maze. I liken it to a maze where there's so many different pathways that it can take, but you have to explore all of those pathways and order to know which way they turn and go and stuff like that, having fun and experimenting, but, trying to focus on technical ways to get out of things and get into things and whatnot. So focus on technique. Don't just come in and try and muscle stuff. You can hold people down and you can bust out at things and explode outta things, but What are you gonna do when you face someone who's just as big and strong as you? Yeah. And just as explosive, You'll be flat on your back. Yeah. The second thing. I tell people is be consistent. if you really want to get good at jiu jitsu, you've gotta dedicate yourself to it. I think a lot of people just view it as an activity where they just, they come in like once a week and then, You don't see'em for another week or they come in twice a week and then that's it. But for me, I think the way that I got good at jiu jitsu was I was like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do jiu jitsu every other day. Okay. Week in and week out, no matter what. And if there's some dinner to go to or some party, I'm sorry, I'll be training. Or if it's really important, like a wedding or something, yeah, then, I'll make up for that day. Like the next day. And so being consistent and just, and doing it week in, week out, and I think. A lot of people just aren't, they let life get in the way. Yeah, they do. They get talked into other things or they're just like, I'm not gonna go today, but you just, you gotta go. Yeah. Day in and day out, every other day or something like that. So consistently. The third thing is not letting the hardships, the struggles that come with jiu jitsu infect your mind. Yep. Because that's the hardest part is that, yeah, you'll get some bumps and bruises and tweaks and stuff and you'll get some injuries, but the mental Struggles that come with it are what's really gonna trip you up and make you wanna quit, right? Mm-hmm. Especially early on as like a white belt, a lot of white belts, three months in, six months in, they're like, I can't remember anything. I'm not good at this. I'm never gonna be good. And then they just fall off and they quit before they even make it to blue belt. And I try to tell'em like, you're not supposed to remember everything. Correct. You're supposed to. There's too much information for you to get it down the first, second, third time you see it even after you, you've seen it for, quite a while. There's little bits of information that you're missing. You remember some of it. But as years go on and you see those techniques again, that's where you fill in these little pieces that you forgot about. So fast forward six, seven years, then you'll be a lot better at doing an arm bar, right? You'll be a lot better at escaping the back and stuff. And so, for the people just starting out, you can't let that mental anguish push you to want to quit. And for the people who are deep in their journey, stuff like slumps where like your jiu jitsu's not working like at purple belt. When I was dealing with a real bad like slump in my jiu jitsu and then even now at Black Belt, I'm dealing with the slump that's like really messing with my mind. Or losing tournaments and letting that affect you. Mm-hmm. Like how it looks to your students or the greater jiu jitsu community. Just not letting it mess with your mind, because that's why, how most people wash out and they quit. And especially most people do before the magic happens. Before you get real good at jiu jitsu. How do you help your students get through that mental part? I talk to'em, I tell'em that I've gone through the same thing. I tell'em how I felt and how. How it is for everybody. I think everybody goes through the same thing. I think so. Some people are more vocal about it than others. Some people are better at masking it. And there's some people who don't deal with it at all. There's special people out there who are just really good and people who can remember everything. Or there's people who train harder, more and there's that aspect of it too. We can always do more, but it is just, life in general. You know, jiu jitsu, builds that fortitude and that perseverance that will bleed into other parts of your life so that when the going gets tough that you don't wanna pull out and quit. Right. Okay. Competitive experiences. You've won and lost in competition. Can you share a story that stands out to you? I wouldn't say there's any one particular story, but, across the breadth and the width of my competition, career, I've had some high highs and I've had some low lows. I wish I was a world beater that just won all the time and, could just post, win after win. And I've gone on long runs where I've. I've won, saying at Brown Belt and even at Black Belt. So far I've had some large swaths of winning, but also large swaths of losing. I try not to get too happy and hyped about my wins'cause there's always the next competition that you gotta look forward to and that you could easily lose that one. I also don't take my losses to heart too much either because those kind of come and go. And if you compete often enough and long enough, you run into all kinds of weird situations where your opponent gets given points that they shouldn't have got. You don't get given points that you should have got. You lose by an advantage or you get destroyed just completely. I've had competitions where I prepared really well and felt like a million bucks, and then, went in and destroyed everybody like, like I should. Mm-hmm. But then I've had ones where same setup, and then I did abysmal, and it was like, wow, I wasn't expecting to do that bad'cause I felt great. And then on the flip side, I've had, camps and in, in training leading up to a competition where I felt like crap. And I was like, man, I'm gonna lose. And then I pull off some amazing stuff and tap out all my opponents with crazy submissions. And I was like, I did not think that was gonna happen. And I've had, times where I was suffering in my training and it really translated into suffering and competition and everything in between. So it's a mixed bag. I always try to keep in mind there's nobody who wins everything, right? I don't think there's a single jiu jitsu fighter on this planet, who has zero losses. Everybody's bound to lose. There's people who win more than others. And like I was saying I could always do more for training, like in preparation for a competition, but since I'm a school owner and like the marketeer and the administrator and cleaner and instructor who teaches most of the classes, and also I'm a husband and a father. When it comes to being an instructor, trying to make sure that my students get their money's worth for their training. Yeah. Above mine. Sometimes at the end of class when there's rolling and it's an even number of students, they're paying to be here and I would never be like, you sit out while I train because I gotta prepare for competition. I think sometimes that's a detriment. And so sometimes when I go against some of my competitors, I wonder does this person run an academy? Do they, are they teaching a bunch of classes? Do they have a kid? Are they marrying or they do they have as much on their plate as me? And a lot of times, no. And so sometimes that translates into them being able to focus on their preparation for competition more than me. And that, yeah, that equals a loss. But, it's all in the game. I'm just trying to test myself always and just see where I stack up. Sometimes I do really well and sometimes I don't. But again, like I was saying, it's like, what am I doing all this training for? If I'm not gonna, go out there on the competition mats and see how I do? Yeah. Also just putting outta my mind like what it's gonna look like if I do bad, if I do horribly, what's it gonna look like in front of my students? What's it gonna look like in front of the greater jiu jitsu community? And I think it's hard for me to get a match sometimes.'Cause I'll sign up for competitions and nobody else will sign up for my age division. I'm an old guy, I'm a master's four, so I'm 45, about to be 46. And there's not a lot of black belts at that age, at my weight class at least. Who sign up? To compete anymore. And I wonder, oh, maybe it's'cause they did a lot of their competing earlier on, they started jiu jitsu a lot earlier than me and did a lot of competing and now they're over it and maybe they're teaching, classes and running a school and that's what they've decided to focus on. But maybe there's a lot of black belts who they don't want to get out there and put their jiu jitsu on the line and they don't want to test themselves and they don't wanna look bad in front of their students and they don't wanna. That can happen too. They don't want that air of invincibility to be, you know, taken away. I give you a lot of credit for being out there and competing. I've only had my black belt for a year and a half, so I feel like a young black belt, even though I'm an old guy. Yeah. And so I feel like I've got put in my work, put in my time. Absolutely. And win, lose or draw, just, keep at it. And so I've had some amazing highs that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't thrown my hat into the ring. Yeah, there you go. How has competing helped shape your game and mindset? It's starting to shape it in an interesting way because my style at jiu jitsu has always been, I view jiu jitsu as an art more so than anything and also a tool for self-improvement, right? Mm-hmm. From building fortitude and perseverance and, I view it as an art. I like the wild style, like really cool looking crazy jiu jitsu and I think that's why a lot of people like watching me roll. Yeah. And enjoy my style. I've gotten a lot of compliments and, a lot of people who just dig my style. But when it comes to competition, it's a lot more intense, it's a lot more, aggressive. And you have people out there that strategize in a way where they fight not to lose and they fight to not get any points scored on them. And like I said, I'm always doing jiu jitsu, like, how can I finish this person? Where's the submission at? Not how can I score two points or how can I. You know, come up an advantage. And I've lost a lot of times because of that.'Cause I'm not in that mode. And I'm starting to understand that if you wanna win in competition, you have to have the kinda strategy of like, score your two points here and then hunker down, right? Eat away time on the clock. And there's so many people that, that operate in that fashion and is so foreign to me. Yeah. And so I'm having to reevaluate the way I go about, trying to win a competition.'Cause that black belt, everybody's savvy and everybody's knowledgeable. And like for lower belts or for people who are not as good at jiu jitsu as me, I can pull off some beautiful stuff and make it look real fun. And that counts for something. I like that. I like putting on a show for people, but. In terms of just winning, if you want to just have w after w behind your name, there's people that do that strategy of I'm just gonna score my two points and I'm gonna not get swept. I'm gonna fight not to lose position or get off balance and hunker down. Yeah. So I think your mindset in regards to how you were as a purple belt and brown belt. Was constantly attacking Correct. And trying to submit. Yeah. I think eventually in time doing the same way as black belt, you're gonna start catching a lot of more things in the future. Yeah. So just keep your game going. It's amazing to watch. It's awesome. I appreciate that. Yeah. I think jiu jitsu is a beautiful art, and I think that, like I said, just watching people, when you get somebody who's really creative and it just looks like they're doing tricks. The other way I think about jiu jitsu is you're a wizard and you're learning how to do magic and like you're in a school and like you're learning from other wizards how to do magic, and then you're doing magic tricks on people and it's like you're throwing arm bars at somebody. Do they know the counter spell to defeat the arm bar. And so I just like getting wild with it. I like all those crazy submissions like Barato Platas and to Rico Platas and, reverse triangles, shotgun arm bars from the back and stuff. So that's the way that I think I'll always view jiu jitsu, if you're not doing it for fun and you're not doing it to be creative and you're not doing it, to experiment and play. I feel like it's kind of like sad or miserable way to go about jiu-jitsu, but I don't know. You're just gonna have very narrow game, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So I was on your Instagram, just looking at some of the things that you were doing, what was it like attending the CJI and A DCC in 2024? And where was it at? It was in Las Vegas and, it was a good time. I went out there with Carlos, you know, nice. my brother and we went out to both events. The thing about attending those events or any event in general, I've always been this kind of person where it's I get that there's, certain atmosphere and a funness about attending a live event, but unless you're spending big money to be like right up there at the front a lot of sporting events you end up with like nosebleed seats or seats aren't very good. You can't see very well. Yeah, everything's expensive. The hot dogs, the beers. I don't drink beer, it's not as enjoyable as sitting on your couch and watching it on TV where you get all the angles and you get the commentary and stuff like that. And we did splurge and got some good seats, but they weren't like right up front. Even though you're pretty close to the action, I think I decided after that. Go around.'cause we had gone to A DCC the last time. Like two years before. And I had some good seats that time. But like I decided after this last go around, I was like, if we ever go back, we're getting like right up front, we're gonna splurge and get those seats right up front. Because you want to be right up there in front of all the action. But man, those are just like marathon sessions. Really bet have to be a jiu jitsu head to sit there for. 10, 12 hours. Oh. Watching jiu jitsu straight and to enjoy all the matches. Wow. I didn't know it was that long. Yeah. You get there I don't know, it's like 10 in the morning or something, and you stay there till nine or 10 at night just watching match after match or something like that. It's a marathon session to just sitting there and watching jiu jitsu and, it's a fun event for sure, but, The seats aren't super comfortable either. So some of those ones up front I think are more cushiony. Yeah. You can see the action. The thing about A DCC is initially, they have several matches going on all at once. Okay. And so you're like. Watching over here, then turning your attention over there, then turn your attention over here and if you're not paying attention, some big move will get pulled off on another match on a mat and it's kinda hard to watch. That was the cool thing about CJI is it was one match at a time. But they both had their pluses and minuses and they cool events for sure. Right on. Yeah. You always stood out with your flow and Shoyoroll Gi, what is it about that brand that resonates with you? So I got put on the Shoyoroll early on in my jiu jitsu journey. I started, like I said, in early, 2011. And sometime within that first year, like even before 2012, like I just, I took notice of them as a brand and they were, they were gaining popularity, but obviously they were nowhere near like how big they are today. But I just recognized right away, like they had the freshest style and being like a hip hop head and being into stuff that's fresh and, you know, it was easy for me to recognize like, oh, this is the brand. they got fresh style. I like it. And you know what, I'm gonna make this the brand that I rock nonstop, you know? And Right. I just made a choice that I had to decide this is gonna be my brand. And some people do that. Yeah. There's some people, they choose a brand and they stick with it, and then there's other people they'll wear whatever and it really wasn't like a fashion thing where it's I wanna look cool. But obviously they made cool gis back then. They were like making like the yank and the white Mamba and the seven Sun and the Golden State Gi and stuff. and I had all of those and I just spend all my money on everything they put out.'cause I always thought it was fresh. They'd always come out with cool colorways and they had cool t-shirts and The guys who started are from Guam and they started out real small, I think out of a garage and just like a story of a company starting really small. Mm-hmm. But like guys who had love for the sport, like right, dedicated practitioners and like building it up year after year into being bigger and better than it was before. And always just keeping that fresh sense of style. And I think there's a lot of gear brand companies that come into the space and, people that, I wouldn't call it like they're trying to get rich quick, but they'll dump a lot of money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars into getting some product Manufactured and advertising and fly by night. And some of them take hold and last for a little while, but there's a lot of'em that have come and gone. Shoyoroll always stood the test of time'cause they've always had, a fresh sense of style and always just built it up little by little, never try to get too big for their britches. And, it's just a true story of guys doing it the right way and having love for the art with everything that they do, right? And so I just always rock their stuff and. I wore it like not only a uniform on the mat, but I'd wear all their stuff. They're really almost like a street brand as well. Like they, they make cool like shirts and hoodies and hats and jackets and stuff. So I would wear their stuff all the time, even out and about. if you look at every picture of me, it's like I'm wearing. I'm wearing a Shoyoroll shirt. Like the day my baby was born, I was wearing a Shoyoroll shirt, like my wedding day, like beforehand in the, the hotel room with my groomsmen. I don't know, I just felt an affinity for that brand. And that's just all I've ever worn. So, um. I have an old training partner of mine who knows the guys who started it and when I became a black belt, he told them, Hey, you should check this guy out. He's a black belt. He owns a school in the town that I live in now.'cause he had moved down here to Gilroy. And, he's a competitor. He wins gold and he's a cool dude. They looked at my social media and then they contacted me and they were like, we heard about you. Give us a call. Nice. And so I called them and I talked to them and we were on the phone for a long time. Nice. And just talking about all things Shoyoroll, like the history of the company and um, the history of jiu jitsu gear brands in general. I'm a jiu jitsu nerd and like I'm a huge jiu jitsu head and know like. Just about the history of jiu jitsu in general, but also the history of Shoyoroll and like just the gear brand space. And so I was just like, we were just going back and forth. That's why the phone call lasted so long. And at the end they were like, you know what you're talking about. And you're the kind of person that we want to have on our team, you are the quintessential person. Nice. That, you know, we want to represent us. So they were like, we wanna put you on the team. And so they sent me out gear and I have access, if I really needed something, I could tell'em, Hey, I missed this drop, or Right. Do you have this old batch that you know is hiding in the corner over there in your warehouse? Send it out to me. But I don't, I've got so much of their gear. I don't bug'em about that. But those guys, bear and Turtle and AJ, they're cool. They're really cool heads and I'm just happy that, that has come into my life as well. Another blessing that jiu jitsu has led me to, and it's it's amazing. If you're dedicated to jiu jitsu, it will reward you with all the things that you want. Becoming a black belt, becoming a school owner, becoming a gold winning competitor, becoming, an ambassador for your favorite gear brand. That's a great story. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Sure. Let's go into your personal life and your motivations. How has your wife supported your growth, both on and off the mats? Oh man, I wouldn't be where I am today without her. She came into my life, at a time where I was down in the dumps and suffering. I had, been let go from a radio job, I think, and, I had just exited a relationship with a girl who, she was studying to be like a doctor, an oncologist or something like a cancer doctor, and was like going to Stanford or something. And at the time I was in radio, it wasn't really going anywhere because like there's not a lot of money in it. And I really wasn't. Trying to put my all into it'cause the passion wasn't there. Not like my passion for jiu jitsu That would come about later, right? I think she just saw oh, this guy's not on my level and I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk off into the sunset. So I'd been dumped, had to move outta the apartment that we shared, lost my job, and man, I was lost and my wife came outta nowhere. And we went on a date and early on she was like, just fell in love with me. And she was like, I wanna be with you. I wanna be yours, and I want you to be mine. And if you trust me and you're willing, we can ride off into the sunset together and we can make a life together. I promise you, I'll support you in every way and we'll be together forever. And I believed her. So I said, let's do it. And she never wavered from that promise, when it came to jiu jitsu anytime I wanted to go train or go compete or, I went and trained jiu jitsu on our honeymoon in Hawaii. Anytime I wanted to go to a seminar, anytime I lost a competition and came home, she was there to rub my back and gimme a hug. We've done everything together. We've been inseparable ever since. And we've bought homes together, sold homes together. We've had a kid, we've, done so much and, she's my rock. She's exactly what I needed to reach the level that I'm at. She holds it down at home when. I'm busy working and when I say working, not just teaching, but going out there and competing, I consider that to be work. Yeah. Going to koffee krew, that to me, that's work. I'm working. She's everything that I think a guy would want and need to like, reach full potential and I was lucky enough that she was like an angel that came into my life. I wouldn't say I'm religious, but I'm a believer in Christ. I don't talk about it too much. I don't think that you can lead other people to believing in what they need to believe in until they're ready. But I've prayed, for things and that's one of the things I paid for and prayer was answered. Nice. And yeah, she's my everything. That's amazing. That's beautiful. Yeah. Now, tell us about your son, Owen. Oh, man. He's, he is a crazy, creative, funny, fun kid. He's the best of me and my wife. He gets his smarts from her. He's as sharp as a tack and, he's, you can tell in his sense of humor and he gets his creativity from me. So he's always trying to build stuff out of cardboard and clay and drawing and stuff like that. He's super talented. He's into the arts too, so that's great. He's gonna be some kind of either like a comedian or he's gonna be like a movie director or some kind of artist. He is a little mini version of me. He's pushed me to become a better human being and look at life from a different perspective. Not just all about me, but you know what it's like for a little boy to grow up and he's got ADHD like I do. Yeah. And so having some grace when dealing with him. And understanding what it was like for my mother to deal with me. As a wild child growing up. Yeah. And wanting to steer me away from that wildness, veering off into like delinquency. I have him to thank for pushing me to be a better man and a good father. Yeah. And so, those two man, they're my world. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. Absolutely. Okay, here's another little fun, question. What's life like with two American bullies? Great. I love American bullies, man. I've never had one before. let's see. We got our first American bully, maybe late 2023. We had gone to the shelter in San Martin, the little town between Morgan Hill and Gilroy, where they have the animal shelter, the county, I think, animal shelter. Yeah. When we found her, They didn't know what her name was at the shelter, so they named her Beyonce. And the reason why they named her Beyonce is because whoever owned her before she had an infection in her uterus. Aw. And. Whoever owned her I guess, didn't have pet insurance or the money to pay for a surgery. And so they dumped her in front of the animal shelter. Oh, that's sad. Overnight. And when the people came, she was laying in the pool of her blood. Aw. And almost dead. That's so sad. And so they did the surgery to save her and she came back to life. They named her Beyonce'cause she was a survivor. Did you keep the name or did you No. You're like, no, no. My son is super into, it's really weird. My son's always been into villains. So whatever, from an early age, whatever it was, he was always down with whoever was the villain. So we'd show him Star Wars movies and be like, who's your favorite character? And he'd be like, Darth Vader. They're The ones that have the most fun. Yeah. They cause the most chaos. Why not show'em like Marvel movies? who's your favorite Marvel character? Thanos. And his favorite character of all time was like, captain Hook. That's one of his two favorite characters of all times. The other one is Joker, so he is this is a girl. Let's name her Harley for Harley Quinn. Oh. Yeah. Very cute. She's just a great dog. American bullies are a mix of a bunch of different, bully breeds, they're almost like pit bulls. They got some pit bullishness to'em. A lot of people, she's a scary looking dog in some respects, but like the sweetest dog ever. And they're just so loving and like I was so in love with her. They're love is so unconditional. Yeah. And then the other American bully that, just came into our lives, he belonged to somebody who, had to find a new home, for him because they were dealing with some life issues where they couldn't care for him anymore. And when I saw a post on Facebook, I just had a feeling it was time for another dog to come into our lives. And yeah, it was an American bully and it was just a really beautiful chocolate, miniature bully, like micro bully or whatever they call it. Yeah. And so I contacted the person and I was like, we gotta, we got another American bully that we love to death and we'd love another one. And we've got a great home. And so he came into our lives as a boy, and so I'll give you one guess what his name is now. Joker. Yes. So his name is Joker, and he's a rambunctious, funny little American bully. And he's a sweetheart too. And man, they're just, they're great dogs. And so I don't think we'll ever get another type of dog, even when, they're both not here anymore. I think that's, we'll get another American bullying. Just stick with that breed. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay, so let's start wrapping it up and, let's tell the audience, where we can find you, on Instagram. tell'em a little bit about your school Gilroy, if they'd like to attend. Yeah, so if, you wanna find me on Instagram, I think it's Anthony F. Rutherford. Same thing with, Facebook. Real simple. Just, nothing fancy, nothing funny. The name of the school, the school that I co-own with Carlos Mellow is Gilroy, BJJ or Gilroy Brazilian jiu jitsu in Gilroy, California, and we've got classes every day of the week. Except for Sunday. We got kids classes. We got classes, two times a day for adults. One in the midday, which is, growing, and a big class that's really coming into its own. And we got evening classes taught by Carlos that, everybody also really enjoys and we just have a really good thing going on, man. It's like a machine at Gilroy BJJ where the way that it runs and the way that, the students come in and get their training and get good work in and it's, it's a fun place to be. And the people that are here really enjoy it and it's a cool group of people. I was talking about, when I first came here, there was like the old guard of, a group of guys that, when I took over, they went their separate ways. And so we've had to build the school back up. But everybody that's here, really enjoys it. And we enjoy everybody that's here. It's a fun environment and we teach really good jiu jitsu, fun jiu jitsu and it's open for anybody who wants to come in. Whether it's just a drop in to visit or you wanna sign up, it's the place to be. Awesome. Yeah, I've been here a couple of times, and I've took instruction by you. It's a great school. I love coming here for Koffee Krew. Yeah. And I just wanted to say, one other thing, if we're wrapping up, is, I wanted to just touch on Koffee Krew. Yes, Go for it. Real quick, because, for many years, koffee krew was, headquartered here in Gilroy. BJJ. Yes. And then, Kiko and Fernando and Ben and Kirby, they opened up Solidarity in San Jose. And so naturally koffee krew, relocated over there as the headquarters. but there's always gonna be a special place in our hearts for the koffee krew here and vice versa. And I go to koffee krew pretty much every weekend, no matter where it's at, unless it's real far away, like when Kiko goes to Texas or some crazy place. But, usually when he does that and they have koffee krew here at Gilroy, they come back home, or former home. But, I think koffee krew is, such a great thing to see how far it's come and how big it's expanded to be. When it was here, you know, sometimes it would be fairly small when they're first starting out, 20, 30 people. Correct. But Now it's like every weekend you go, it's could be 70, 80. Mm-hmm. People. I'm sure there's even been an instance or two where it's reached up to 90 people maybe. Some people leave before it ends, so they don't all get in the picture. True. And it's hard to account for everybody that was there or whatever, but it's steamrolling and it's great to see what Kiko and them have built it up to be. And it's a tool that is open for everyone to utilize, to help improve their game. And just the comradery and the fun atmosphere that, exists there when koffee krew is happening is just, it's a really great site to see. And thank you to them for, facilitating that. And you wouldn't be here with me today if it wasn't for that. Absolutely. Yeah. They are the biggest drive for me to do this podcast, to share my photos. every Sunday that I can make it. So it's just trying to expose more of the, jiu jitsu, how beautiful it is, how amazingly awesome and, unique it is. So as long as I can continue to express that and help you guys push forward in your businesses and your jiu jitsu journeys. Yeah, I'm gonna continue to do this. Cool. Awesome. Anthony, I would like to thank you for being on the podcast. I am looking forward to putting this one out. Thanks. Okay, thank you. Bye Bye.