Shaye KK Unite 2

Transcript

0:01

Hi, welcome to The Luckee's Podcast, and I'm sitting down here. please introduce yourself. Hey everybody, my name is Shay. What's going on? Nothing but open mat this morning what'd you think? it was a good turnout. we're happy with all the folks that supported us, and, especially Santa Clara University that took the time to allow us to program this thing here. It's important for, jiu jitsu to, to go out to the world, yes, absolutely. I'm from the Bay Area, originally from the Central Valley. where'd you grow up? I grew up in Fresno. Yeah. And then I heard you did some traveling at a younger age, in, Brazil, right? I lived in Brazil, started jiu jitsu down there, in about 2001. Okay. So been playing the sport for 20-plus years now. How's your journey been so far? Good. Good. jiu jitsu is a big part of my life. I enjoy spreading the sport to other people, getting them involved. I get excited when people want to come and train or to try out a class. I'm involved with Santa Clara University, and it's been super fulfilling for me to see these kids evolve from freshman year all the way to senior year and fall in love with the sport, so I'm fortunate. Right on. And this school was your primary college? Yeah, I went to school, Santa Clara University, back in the 1900s, uh, That's all good the young kids like to say. Right? Born in the 1900s. yeah, went to school here. And, Kate Rice, which you've had on the podcast before, she implemented the program four years ago, and I came up on board a couple years ago when I found out that they had a club. I reached out to them and said, "Hey, you know what? I tried to do this back in the 1900s, and, it didn't happen." That was when UFC was on their, their fourth, and people didn't really know what jiu jitsu was, Brazilian jiu jitsu. So no one was really interested at the time. and then fast-forward, how many years, and she puts this together by just hip tossing her friends in front of everybody. Club started out with five or six people, and she has the passion for it. Yeah. So it just kept growing and growing, so now the club is about 40-plus people. Yeah. It's fun. They come over to train all the time and work out with us, and they're tough. Right. They are tough. implementing, some standards, has allowed them as a team to really increase the level of training that they've had. Mm-hmm. Right? before it was a little bit loose, and it was fun. and after coming on board and really saying, "Hey, we should do things a little bit differently. Let's look at this," and letting them guide themselves. I come in as a mentor- not the coach. I don't come to class and give class. I come to class, and I observe class, and I tighten up their technique for them. They're the ones who lead because if I leave- They would be out a coach. Correct. And we notice that seems to be what's going on with a lot of the collegiate teams out there, we participated at the Stanford, no-gi tournament last weekend, and no coaches were there except for me, right? Oh. And so I think that having a coach there, having that support system is great, but also not being the one who leads a class, they learn a lot more. They teach each other. And then they come to me and ask questions, is this position right? Am I doing the right thing here?" So it's fantastic that it's the best of both worlds. I did a interview with Kate, and just getting to talk to her and getting to know her personality, she's such a go-getter. how she started it with, just asking friends just to help her enough signatures just to start the club. Right. her passion for this is amazing- I support her passion. I support the kids that are here. Everyone who joins, whether they come once or 100 times, in the year, it's I want them to love the sport. Being able to have taken part of the team to Brazil last year to really see how they train in Brazil- Mm-hmm soak in the culture of Brazilian jiu jitsu- Right the essence, or like they say in Brazil, the suco, is, the juice of it. Right on. that was super important for them. And so we're gonna be going again this year- Oh with a bigger group- Oh, wow of people. So it's a mixed group of Santa Clara people- Yeah and some people from outside, the university. But it's gonna be a lot of fun again, just training for 12 days- and enjoying the beach, enjoying what Brazil has to offer- Uh-huh and just showing them like- hey, there's other styles of jiu jitsu. Let's go check 'em out. Yeah. So tell me how you got started in jiu jitsu, Shaye. Oh, yeah. Years ago, I was living in Brazil and tried to do capoeira. Wasn't cut out for that. So a friend of mine said, "Let's go train jiu jitsu." And it was- So what's the difference between- Capoeira, you're on your hands, you're doing handstands- Oh, and dancing and doing a lot of stuff, and being a bigger guy, it's tough. Okay. So I mean, there's guys who do it, I just wasn't that guy. Right. And so having gone in to try a jiu jitsu class, I really liked it. Mm-hmm. And I just stuck with it. So I lived in Brazil for a couple years and kept with it, got my blue belt over there, competed over there, white and blue belt. And then when I moved back to the United States, that's when obviously work and life takes over. Mm-hmm. And that became a little bit more to train all the time, but I would train when I had time in between work and all the other responsibilities I had here. Right. Yeah. And who did you start off with? What school? I started off with, Sergio Souza. Okay. Bolaon is his name, out of Rio de Janeiro. And so he is a coral belt under Carlson Gracie. Awesome. So I had the fortune to meet him, and know and meet a lot of the Carlson Gracie guys. Friends with him, friends with Ricardo Liborio, and a few other... the old school guys who- who were part of that Carlson Gracie, timeline of fight team, right? When they were all doing the fights and the Pride Tournaments and everything like that. that's that lineage, and I'm happy to be... have started there. That is so cool. That sounds amazing. so what does jiu jitsu mean to you as a white belt in compared to your black belt now? Wow. that's a great question. white belt you're- You're bound to be spazzy. You go in, you just don't know anything about the sport. You're unsure about yourself. And if you let your brain, like I heard Liborio say this the other day, there's that inner bitch. And if you let that inner bitch just tell you, like, "You can't do it. You're not good enough. you're just not getting it," you're gonna frustrate yourself. Yeah. And you don't come back. Exactly. And what I tell everybody when they come in is, like, "Look, it's gonna be frustrating. You're not gonna move the way the other kids are moving. You're just gonna feel weird, different. It's gonna hurt. But stick with it, and I guarantee you in six months, I'll record you now training, and in six months you'll look back and go, 'Oh my gosh- Yeah I'm completely different.'" Moving through the belts, it's the same thing, right? The way the kids are, have such a high level of intensity here at Santa Clara University. Mm-hmm. Like, those kids have instilled this okay, now I have to make myself better to help them get better. And I think that progressing through the belts to when you get to your black belt, they always say that you start over, and I get that. Mm-hmm. But for me, it's refining. Absolutely. it's not necessarily starting over. It's refining what I've learned. 'Cause black belts don't know everything. They assume you do. Mm-hmm. People come... I remember when I first started, they're, "Well, what about this? What about this choke and that choke?" I'm like, "I don't- What if I don't do those, some of those things." Uh-huh. "I never learned them." This is my game. And everybody's game is specific. But now it's helping them refine their game. So I've studied more- Mm-hmm jiu jitsu and learned more as a black belt to help them learn more, because I wanna be able to answer those questions for them. Oh, that's great. So is there anything else you'd like to say before we, Stop recording Thank you to everybody who showed up. Thank you to you, Luckee, for always being the photographer for us, for having this podcast, for blasting us out there. Absolutely. Uh, thanks to Kiko and the Koffee Krew. Yeah. He's been on your podcast. You know, we were doing this back at Claudio Franca's at I, I don't even know when. So long ago, when I was a blue belt, when I came back home- and, and Kiko was a blue belt. Uh-huh. Right? That's how long we've been at this Sunday thing. And, to see it grow to this size and have this open mat, thanks to everybody who showed up, the people who helped sponsor it, the people who take the time to roll out the mats for this 5,000 square feet of mat space. Yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Yeah, they came in early. Yeah, We were here at quarter to 6:00 and 6:00 and unrolling mats and cleaning up and doing everything that we need to do. Now after we're done, we gotta break it all down. it's a love of the sport, and for two hours of rolling, it's worth it. Right on. It's really worth it. what is your career? my career. I own a company called NVO. We're one of the sponsors of the event, and we do logistics, so fulfillment logistics. That's all we do. we ship goods around the world. So it allows me to travel, through work, but through that travel I get to train jiu jitsu in different countries and different states and cities and stuff. Okay. So I'm fortunate in that aspect as well. That's great. the freedom to do what you want and love. Right. And every day is a fun day. It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun. Good. Awesome. Thank you and- Thanks, Luckee hopefully I get to interview your life story. Sure. Yeah. whenever you wanna do it. Yeah, let's do it. we'll put it down. Sounds good. All right. Shaye. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Bye.