Staying Grounded in Midair with Danny Etkin Team Paul Mitchell, Hyper Martial Arts Pro Athlete

I forgot exactly what year it was, but there was a time where I got like really nervous to compete. You know, if you're a top competitor, that you're the guy with the target on your back, and that is a lot harder because as far as results go and as far as other people's perceptions, there's a lot to lose because it's the opposite of an underdog. People expect you to win, and if you lose, it's like, "Ooh, he lost this time." Again, going back to like look at the big picture of things, I just know now that I could totally screw up a tournament and it won't change anything. Doesn't matter. Like, I'm still me.

From Mind Body Space, it's RxChillPill, a show about science-backed resilience skills and powerful stress management tools to make you the boss of your own brain. I'm your host, Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a physician specializing in mind-body medicine and a mom of two amazing kids. There are three different kinds of episodes: one where I interview fascinating people and experts experts who share resilience tips for the mind, body, and space. Another where you'll find short meditations you can do anywhere, anytime, to get your daily dose of the relaxation response, the complete opposite of the stress response. In the third type, you'll get science-backed resilience boosters and antidotes to stress that really work, so you can tap into your own brain superpowers and apply liberally in your daily life. Today's amazing guest is Danny Etienne, a martial arts world champion and an elite team Paul Mitchell Karate member. Danny has over 60 world titles, 150 first place wins, and more than 40 grand championship awards in martial arts. Danny's a passionate entrepreneur who's had an online store for years and has active worldwide teaching engagements. He even has signature nunchucks named after him. Danny is an amazing athlete, but even more than that, he's one of the nicest and down-to-earth kids I've ever met, not to mention that he's wise beyond his years. Danny takes us back to how he started as a 5-year-old kid and how he gets ready mentally and physically for competitions. Stick around to the end to hear about his latest entrepreneurial ventures, and you'll even get to find out about how he filmed his viral TikTok video that has over 9.2 million views. Go to this episode on mindbodyspace.com to see all of his links, videos, and products. Here's my interview with Danny.

Hey, Danny Etkin!

Hey, how's it going?

Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me.

How's your break so far? You're on break from school, right?

Yep, so far so good. I've been on break for about a few weeks now.

Tell us where you go to school and—

I go to school at USC, which is the University of Southern California out in LA.

Beautiful.

So it's nice to be back home over the break.

What year are you in?

I'm currently a sophomore.

Okay, so you've been there a little bit to absorb the place. It's not so new anymore.

No, I'm getting used to it. I'm definitely catching that LA vibe for sure, and I can feel it rubbing off on me a little bit.

Oh yeah.

I think some people realize that too when I come back home. So yeah, but I love it out there.

So tell me a little bit about LA vibe.

Oh, well, honestly, the LA vibe mostly I would say goes along with my hairstyle changed a little bit. I mean, I've always been pretty chill and laid-back, so I think, you know, I probably had that LA vibe a little bit before I came out, but You know, I like going out there for mainly two reasons: the chill vibe and the hustle, the energy. So, you know, those are two things I really love about LA.

Yeah, you have a nice little flip going there with your hair. Is that what you're talking about?

I think that's—

and a little highlight.

Well, people notice that. People notice that, you know, and they say, "Man, you got— you came LA now." So—

And what about the culture? Do you find something different there? Are most of the kids at USC from LA or?

Uh, well, USC is a private school, so a lot of the people come from all over.

So what's like distinctly LA that you love and you've picked up on?

I just like the culture out there is great. I think it's awesome, um, you know, how like health-conscious everything is out there. Um, you know, everyone like— I feel like LA is really on the forefront of the new wave of health. And I think that's really cool with so much, like, or at least what I've noticed, like, with like so many different forms of physical activity out there. Everyone's like really into things like yoga and healthy eating, you know, being active.

And so it's not just the moms like into yoga?

It's not just the moms. It's, yeah, surprisingly it's not just the moms. It's a lot of the students on campus too, which is cool to be around.

That's awesome.

It is pretty normal actually. And I think a lot of the people that like that stuff are probably attracted to go to LA, possibly for that reason. I don't know if it's consciously or subconsciously, but it kind of seems like that is the culture around there, you know?

What about women to men in the yoga classes ratio?

Well, I took a yoga class as one of my actual, like, school classes last semester. Ooh. And, um, women to men ratio, it was pretty even in my class actually. Maybe a little bit more women.

Wow. Yeah. You know, you go to a yoga class here and it's 90% women. Yeah. Most of the time.

Yeah.

What else is health conscious out there that you wouldn't see normally here when you're back home?

Well, this one's kind of cliché, but a lot of like plant-based eating out there, which I think is, you know, kind of cool because that's at least in, you know, where I'm around in New York, that isn't like super big, at least with my friends. Maybe it is. For, you know, moms out there. I don't know too much about that. In LA, that's like a super big thing there. So even just getting exposed to a lot of my friends, like, you know, some, a lot of them are just like full-blown vegans.

Wow.

And guys and girls. And that actually inspired me to, you know, try some things out too. So for a month I went like totally plant-based and just as an experiment and just having those different influences and just allowing me to experiment and see different things are really cool, I think.

That's so cool. Okay, so are people plant-based out there for health or for the environment or for both? What do you think?

Both. I think a big one is, uh, the environment though too, because I think people are kind of, you know, really conscious about that stuff out there.

Well, you guys had a lot of fires there, right?

We have had a lot of fires.

Were you close to that?

Um, I was pretty close actually. As a lot of people during the fires said that they like couldn't breathe as well. I didn't really have any differences, but you know, some people that maybe have a little bit more difficulty or have like asthma or something, they, they said that they really actually did notice. And what I actually did notice, my face getting like super dry, actually, like my lips and like my whole face got like really red.

And wow.

Yeah.

So from like the, the dryness from all the fires.

Yeah.

So when you were on campus, you could actually see the flames or what was going on?

No, she couldn't. I couldn't see the flames. If you looked off in the distance, it was a little bit smoggy.

Okay. But was there like a— was there like a feeling of— were people anxious or scared or you guys are just like going about your—

honestly, no.

Okay.

Nobody was— nobody was running for the hills where I was at.

But I spoke to some Stanford students and they were kind of the same as you, like, yeah, we saw smoke in the distance, but I guess you guys are young and carefree and you don't really get too worried. Yeah. Okay. So you tried vegan eating. Was that good for your performance? German. So I just want to say, like, Danny is a world karate champ. You're 19, 19 years old, and you've been doing karate since—

I've been doing karate since I was about 5 years old, a little bit before 5. Been competing since I was 8 and competing on the world tour, the world circuit, since I was 9. Wow.

Okay. And you have so many trophies that I don't even think I could count them, and they pretty much filled your room. So tell us about some of the titles you have.

Yeah, so the sport that I do, first of all, is called sport martial arts or extreme martial arts, which is not usually what people think of when they think of martial arts, like the, you know, combat and like taking people down and stuff. It's more on the performance side of things. So I do a lot of flips and acrobatics, and, uh, I do a lot of routines. You can kind of think of it almost like as, um, like a little bit of a showcase, and there's judges, and you go up and you do your routine, and your competition does it, and at the end you're all scored, almost like a gymnastics routine in a sense, but with martial arts.

Oh, interesting.

And, um, so yeah, over the course of the past decade or so since I started competing on the world circuit, I've had many world titles. On the North American Sport Karate Association, the International Sport Karate Association. I have about 9 titles on that. Some, yeah, a lot of other, other little organizations too. I've competed all around the world. I'm currently ranked as first in my age category.

Wow.

So sport martial arts, is that what you've been studying the whole time since you were 5?

No, when I was 5, I actually started in a much more traditional style of karate. It's called Kyokushin karate, which kind of goes back to Japan. It's like super hard style karate, breaking bats with your shins and all that crazy stuff.

As a 5-year-old?

As a 5-year-old, that was the— I wasn't quite breaking bats yet as a 5-year-old, but that was what my, my master learned. So everything that we learned was kind of based around those techniques and how to kick in that way, how to punch in that way. And it was all about Really, it was about inflicting pain, honestly. That's kind of what the techniques that we learned were for. And obviously, you know, karate isn't about that, but that is, you know, how the techniques were based around, you know, what would be able to help you out in a fight.

I see. So when you say karate obviously isn't about that, so do they tell you about restraining yourself? Basically, you're not supposed to get in a fight, right?

Yeah, so even though I started off in this like kind of crazy, super hard style of karate, we had this huge banner on the wall of our karate school that said "Mind, Body, and Spirit." That's what I was told, and that's what I've been taught from my master, that karate is all about, you know. It's not about beating people up necessarily, but if you had to, if you have to protect yourself or people that you care about, you can. But it's about a lot of other things, you know, self-control and even the ability to back away from something like that if you had to.

Yeah, and always back away, right, before you inflict harm?

Yeah, usually the general rule is 3 times.

What's that?

Well, you know, first few times, you know, if somebody tries to start something, you, you know, stay away, maybe keep your hands up, not necessarily in a fighting position, but you say, you know, just kind of bring your hands up and When you do that, you know, it kind of is a submissive type of pose, but also, you know, you're ready to go if you need to do anything. And then, you know, if somebody keeps, you know, pushing you or whatever level it gets to, you kind of have to gauge it for yourself. But, you know, sometimes there is a time where you have to fight back. Luckily, that hasn't happened to me yet, but knock on wood.

Yeah, so 3 times they say, that's the rule, about 3 times or so.

But obviously, you know, you got to gauge the situation. If somebody has a knife to your throat, you're not You're not gonna wait 3 times for them to like threaten you, you know?

Well, let's hope nobody has any knives around you.

Yeah, yeah.

How long did you stay at the traditional dojo?

About 4 years. So from— I started a little bit before I turned 5, and then I really stopped doing all that stuff at about 9 years old when I started getting serious with the extreme martial arts stuff.

So how did you get to that first dojo, that first traditional Japanese class? Who took you and why?

Before I found the school that I ended up sticking with for a few years, I tried out a bunch of different places.

Mm-hmm.

It all started with me seeing a commercial on TV.

Mm-hmm.

I was like 4 years old.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, there's a bunch of kids like jumping over pads and like doing cool stuff, and I thought it looked pretty cool, so I decided to try out a class. And, uh, that place didn't end up being the place that I felt was, you know, good for me, but I knew that I liked martial arts from it and I was super lucky to have parents that were willing to help me find a really good karate school that I liked. So we tried a bunch of different places and classes and different styles, and then I found this one, um, and I really liked it, so I stuck to that one. And that's eventually the school that I went throughout their whole belt system and got my black belt at, and they were the first ones to like introduce me into competing.

So that was the traditional Japanese.

That was super traditional. Yeah, so they didn't do any of the extreme stuff actually, and I just went to a tournament. I was doing traditional forms, which is a lot more slow, like no acrobatics. It's kind of like, you know, if you've ever heard of kata, that's what you— that's like the traditional stuff.

What does that mean, kata?

It basically means forms, or like a form, a performance.

Uh-huh. It's like you're harnessing your energy, right?

Yeah, it's kind of like a— it's a simulation of a fight technically, even though you wouldn't actually do the moves in a fight. But it's supposed to help you with different stances and different techniques. And every move is supposed to be applicable to an actual fight, even though it's more on the arts side of the martial arts.

Interesting.

But yeah, so I went to a tournament. I just did traditional, but then I actually saw some people on a ring just doing like all these crazy flips. Oh, I was probably like, probably like just turned 8 years old or so at this point.

Wow. And, and you were a black belt already? Yeah, that's not normal, right? It's not normal.

You know, every school has their own philosophy about that. Honestly, if I were to have a karate school, I probably wouldn't give them out that young.

Really?

You know, I couldn't, uh, you know, that's, that's what it was. But yeah, I was a black belt at that time.

That's amazing because you started at like 4 or 5 years old and you're already a black belt at 8.

Yeah.

Reeling back to when you first showed up to that karate school, you said that you really liked it a lot. So when you saw that commercial on TV and you told your parents, you say, hey, Mom, this is so cool. I want to do this. They start taking you to classes, but you're ultimately the judge of which class you liked. Yeah, because you're pretty young.

Yeah.

So how did that— do you remember that even?

I think I can remember. I don't know how much of it is, uh, you know, false memories by telling the story before or not, but, uh, did you take psych?

Psychology?

I did actually. Okay.

So you know about false memories?

I was a psych minor.

Awesome.

But yeah, so I saw the commercial on TV and kept bugging my parents to call up. Eventually they did. Yeah. Like I said before, I loved martial arts. That school wasn't the right one for me cuz they wanted me to do a bunch of stuff that I wasn't quite ready for, I think.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I tried out some other schools and, uh, eventually I found one that I really loved. That's where I got my black belt. That's where I started competing. And, um, I competed on their team for a little bit and I found out because of the tournaments, not because of that school, but just because of the tournaments that they brought me to about extreme martial arts.

I see.

And as soon as I saw that, I think that kind of relates back to when I saw those kids jumping over the pads on that commercial.

Yeah.

You know, very similar. A lot of cool acrobatic stuff. That's what I wanted to do. And that's when I knew, like, I had to do that.

Your mom must have been a really good listener, or your dad.

Oh yeah, totally. They were great. I'm so lucky that I have, like, the parents that I do, honestly. Because, yeah, they, like, did everything. I think they— like, looking back on it, they really pretty much did everything perfectly.

Really?

Yeah.

Tell me.

Because—

Or tell them. They'll listen. Yeah.

So, exactly what you said, you know, I was definitely the one that was, I don't know if I could say the driving force as a 4-year-old, but I definitely had the ideas of what I wanted to do. I knew I liked martial arts, I knew I liked the flip stuff, I thought that was cool. And they were always extremely supportive. If I wanted to do it, you know, they were gonna make sure that I learned how to do it. You know, this is where my parents really get a little bit different because when I was 8—

I do know that your mom actually took classes with you.

Yeah, she did take classes for a little bit.

That's actually very funny because, you know, my son is a cellist and I took classes with him. It's called the Suzuki Method and they involve the parent. And so that's interesting that you guys did that same thing.

Yeah, I don't think that was necessarily a— They didn't ask you to come. —strategy or anything. I think my mom just actually wanted to learn. She was just excited about it. Yeah, she just thought it was cool. But what I'm saying is that's so great.

That like you guys did it together. Mm-hmm. It's almost like they have a whole method for music where they actually make that happen on purpose. Mm-hmm.

That's cool. I didn't even know that. That's cool. Yeah, she did. She did it probably until actually I started competing. That's probably by the time she stopped, but she got a few belts, which is cool.

She was actually doing some combat. Yeah, she's—

yeah, she did. Yeah, we— well, that's kind of goes back to the school that it was like a super old-school hard kind of karate school, so at the end of every class we always sparred.

We always fought each other. And you got hurt?

Uh, you try not to. Sometimes you have, you know, we're all learning, so some people like kick harder than they should or whatever, and it's pretty easy to get hurt, but we try not to hurt each other. Yeah, it's just from the practice.

Okay, so you're at competitions and you see these acrobatics and you tell your parents what?

I tell them that's what I gotta do. This is a cool story actually. So I started off by looking on YouTube and this was like really early back in the YouTube days, like 2008. So YouTube started like 2006. Mm-hmm. So this was like way back and there was this old, um, so, okay, let me take this back a step. So in extreme martial arts, there is a subsection of extreme martial arts called tricking, which is another sport, and that is purely the acrobatic flips. And extreme martial arts includes some of the hand techniques, some of the more martial artsy punches, chops, blocks, all that stuff is included in extreme martial arts. But the little subsection of that, of tricking, is included in extreme martial arts too, but tricking itself is just the flips. Okay, so I looked up tricking on YouTube. I found out that was what it's called. I don't know how, but I saw a tutorial on how to do one of the moves on one of the only channels that had videos and tricking tutorials, which actually started as another website before they uploaded all their videos to YouTube at that time. I remember just looking at this tutorial in my dad's basement, and I would just practice because he had like mirrors in the basement, and I would just practice this one move. It was, you know, really hard for me at the time.

Which move was that? It's called a 540.

Oh. You know, now it sounds so hard for me. How does that go? What is it? Let me just try to think about the best way to explain it without showing it. Well, there's a pretty popular move called a tornado kick, which is basically a spin and a hop round kick off of one leg. Mm-hmm. And essentially in a 540, you're landing on your kicking leg. So you hop off of one leg and you kick with the leg that you hopped off of, and then you land on that leg too. So that might be a little bit tricky to think inside your head if you haven't seen it, but it's kind of like one of the first more advanced moves that you couldn't really just show somebody how to do, like, here are the steps and then they get it. Uh, you really actually do have to work for that move. And but I just kept trying it over and over again. I looked at some other tutorials too. But on that first tutorial, the person who taught that tutorial on YouTube when I was 8 years old, his name was Matt Emig. So I looked at more of his videos. Eventually, about a year later, I started, I started competing. I looked up to Matt Emig so much just starting from this one video. And my grandpa came in from England and he knew that I was like obsessed with his videos. Uh-huh. After he competed one night on stage. He like just won the overalls and he was like still out of breath. And my grandpa was like, all right, let's go take a picture. You know, I was like super embarrassed to go take a picture. I like really didn't want to, but my grandpa insisted I take a picture with this guy. I was like, all right, fine, I'll do it. I still have that picture today. And then from there we got in contact. That ended up being my coach and he like ended up pretty much teaching me everything that I know. Wow.

And he's, he's still young though, right?

He's still pretty young. He's like—

How old was he when he started teaching you? Probably 20 or so. You were an early adapter of YouTube then. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. You have Matt on the computer. Yep. And you say you want to switch schools. How did you find your new school?

So, okay, this is what I was actually going back to when I was saying that my parents are a little bit different when it comes to this stuff. The closest karate school that taught extreme martial arts was about 2 hours away in Connecticut, and I'm from New York. And yeah, it's about probably about 2 hours away, and every Saturday they had practice for 8 hours. And my parents drove me up. We'd wake up like 6 in the morning. They drove me all the way up to practice by like 9 o'clock in the morning. It was like a full day of work. It was like 9 to 5 or something like that. Wow. And you trained for 8 hours? Yeah, right. We had a like a lunch break.

And but then don't you have to train the rest of the week? Because you can't just go one day a week and train 8 hours without getting hurt.

Yeah, so I just trained by myself and like I just was doing what I was doing back at home. I kept doing that, but then on top of that I started training with this team every Saturday and they were the closest team that really did this stuff back then. Mm-hmm. It's more popular now, not super popular still, but um, yeah, like nobody did that really. So yeah, like thinking back on it, like, you know, not many parents would do that for the—

drive you 2 hours each way.

I'm like this like little kid and 8 years old at a tournament saying, oh, that looks cool. And they like go out of their way to find this team and like call them up and ask if I can train with them. And then they actually go through with it every single Saturday, giving up their day so that I could train with them. So, you know, I'll always be like forever grateful for that because that like started me off on my path of extreme martial arts. Uh-huh.

They knew that you had something though, right? You were a black belt by 8 years of age. So yeah. There was something there that they saw, or they— well, I think they—

I think the main thing was, and maybe you get a better answer from them, maybe because I still forget a little bit. Yeah, but I think there was really just because I loved it so much. They saw you, they just saw that I loved it. Yeah, I was super passionate about it.

Was there anything else that you were into at school? I mean, at that point you're in second grade or something.

Uh, I think I played like T-ball or something for a year, but nah, I was like always super into martial arts, like And I was always like practicing my splits and like, I was like always into like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and all that stuff. And, uh, you know, I like loved everything about martial arts. And I was, even as a kid, I was like pretty, uh, you know, what about the Karate Kid? You know? Yeah. Karate Kid. I love Karate Kid. I love all that stuff. It's cool.

Okay. So yeah, they really just saw that passion in you and they went for it and they just supported you. All the way through. That's amazing. Okay, so after that, you start to get on the scene. What age? You start winning everything in sight, right? Pretty much.

It didn't always start like that. I started on the local, uh, circuit, and, you know, when I started off, I, I was not winning first place. I had to work my way up, you know, at the beginning.

Oh, how long was that, you think?

Uh, well, on the local circuit, maybe a year or so. We had pretty big competitions or, you know, a number of people in every division. Like maybe there'd be like 20 kids or something. And at first I would be like super happy to get top 8. That would be my goal. You know, like, let's— me and my mom, I remember we'd say, okay, like, let's— this tournament, you know, let's have a goal for getting top 8. And then I would do that. And then next one, top 7, top 6. And then eventually, you know, you're fighting for the first place. And how old were you at that point? 7 or 8, you know, I was beginning. That was on the local circuit. And then I repeated that when I started dominating on my age division for the local circuit. And then I started doing more of the world tour stuff. And then same thing happened again. What age was that? 8 and a half. I started.

You started on the world tour when you were like 8 and a half?

Yeah. Wow. And you know, there's different age groups, so that's, I was like in the 9 and under.

So were there a lot of kids in 9 and under?

There's a pretty good amount of kids. Yeah. Okay. Um, okay.

How many would there be?

Maybe like 20 or so. Okay. But, you know, there are 20 good competitors.

So did you just love competing or you just love the arts itself? I think both. You love the competition part.

I love the competition part, but I also loved martial arts too. Mm-hmm. It was like the second year I competed on the world circuit is when I got my first title. So you're like 10? I was like 9.

Not— what? So that's pretty fast. Yeah. Okay, so I don't know if it took you that long to get there.

Didn't take me that long, but I'm saying that I didn't go in and like, I didn't start off as some like phenom getting first place like the second I entered my first tournament. Does that ever happen to anybody?

Yeah, it does actually.

Yeah. Oh wow, okay. There's a few people, not many, but there's like a few that they go to their first tournament and they're winning like overalls. And, and one other thing to mention too is there's different levels. So in a tournament there's 3 levels. You have your divisions, you have this thing called the Grand. So if you If you win your division, you go to the next step, which is Grands, and you go against the older kids. And then the next step after that is the overall Grand Championships, and that's when you go against every division within your age category. So when I'm saying I got first place, that was like for the first round first place. So, you know, some people are crazy, only one or two in probably the history of sport martial arts, but they go right into winning everything. Wow. For me, you know, from the beginning of competing, maybe 2 and a half years. From the beginning of competing on the world tour, maybe a year and a half to start winning my divisions. Mm-hmm. But, you know, before I started winning the grand championships and then the overall grand championships, which are like the next rounds against some of the older kids. Yeah. Probably took me another year and a half after that. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, consistently winning maybe 3, 4 years after that is when I started consistently winning the overall Korean championships. Wow.

So would you say it went up and down, up and down, or were you like consistently moving forward and up and up and up the ladder? No, not every divi—

like, I do so many divisions that it's impossible to, uh, you know, win everything. And that was actually a really great piece of advice that somebody a little bit older who was doing really good on the circuit His dad told my mom that you can't look at it like every tournament, every division, or else you're gonna go crazy. Because if you do that, you're gonna get so upset, you know? And if you, if you like mess up one tournament— and I do nunchucks too, that's one of the things I compete with— if you drop your nunchuck, if you drop your weapon, you're automatically DQ'd. Or if you stumble, which is so easy when you're doing your flips, like, you know, you're obviously not gonna win. You know, one of the best pieces of advice that this parent told my mom and me was, you know, you can't just treat it one tournament at a time. You have to look at the big picture. And in the big picture, I definitely was improving, even if maybe not every tournament I showed improvement or every division. If you looked at, you know, the overall trend throughout the years, it was certainly going up though.

Like, did you have a winning formula? Like, before you go on, on stage, stage? Do you have any tips on that?

Yeah, so I think it kind of happened pretty naturally for me, and just kind of testing, you know. That's one thing that I'm like really big into with everything. I just like test stuff out and see if it works. Okay. So when it comes to like karate, you know, one thing I realized pretty quickly on is I don't want to be training the week of the tournament, uh-huh, because I don't want to be sore, you know. That, that right there, that gave me an advantage because I see like these parents like drilling their kids the day before the tournament for like hours. Like I'll wake up, get breakfast, or like mom's like telling them to like practice. Like come back for lunch, they're still going. So cramming. Yeah. Like it's like you're not gonna get better. You think that that little session is gonna make you win? Are you kidding me? You know? So what do you do on the day? Like, do you train ahead of time? I just train ahead of time. I get everything I need to. How far ahead? I'm like never not training, really. I'm always training. Yeah, I'm always training. It's a really long season, so you kind of have to. But after the last tournament of the year, that's when I really take a break. I probably chill out for 2-3 weeks or so just to give myself some rest. That's it? Yeah, maybe a couple weeks, few weeks, maybe a month, depends what I feel.

It's so interesting that you said that you shouldn't be cramming before the tournament because In music also, in classical music, they always tell you like, don't go through the full piece full on. Yeah, the day of.

Yeah, like the way I think of it is like not much good can really come out of that because you're not gonna get any better, right? You're not gonna get better from one session. It's like something that has to accumulate a little bit. And, uh, and then if you like, let's say you have like a bad session, now you're all nervous. So like that kind of sucks too. True. Uh, and the main thing for me is like, you don't want to tire yourself out before the tournament, especially with something so intense, you know. So the tournaments that I do are on Friday and Saturday. It's a 2-day tournament, and I probably have my last session Monday, go super late on Tuesday, and then the rest of it I just maybe do some like of the poses in like the mirror that I have, kind of do what I need to sometimes.

So you're doing like mental training then? Yeah, totally. Did anybody teach you about that, or is that something that just came natural? To you, or someone told you to do that?

Because I kind of forgot, but I've always, I've always done that though. I've always— I think a lot of it was my coach Matt. He would always tell me about like before the tournament, he would like look in the mirror, look at his poses, get in the zone. And also I find if I, if I take a little break, few-day break, I'm like pumped up to train. If I'm like grinding super hard before the tournament up till like the last second, I You know, I'm not going into it like really excited and refreshed. It's like, feels like the end of the race and I'm like ready for it to be over rather than like just getting fired up to compete. So that's why I rest up. Do you get plenty of sleep and stuff? Yeah, I do all— I just, I try to do everything right. I carb up before the tournament. I always eat pasta the night before. I sleep like a ton. I drink like so much water.

And we're talking about like high intensity for A few minutes? How long? Or less?

Like a minute. Wow. Yeah, a minute. But I do that maybe 4 to 5 times in the day, so it'll be like 4 or 5 super intense minutes where I just go crazy, basically.

You're just like exhausted after that minute?

Yeah, like sometimes like after the, uh, division I'll have to like go behind the judges and like lay down for a second. Wow. But yeah, you just You just gotta give it everything you've got for that one minute.

You feel like you're gonna die in the middle of it?

You try to train so you don't feel that bad, but, uh, some, you know—

Do you ever hit a wall in the middle of it?

Yeah, well, you get better at that, you know, it's all about pacing yourself out and you learn little techniques so that you don't die out but you still look intense.

Is there anything special that you eat beforehand?

I always eat like a ton of pasta the night before. I try to get in— I eat a lot of food actually the day of the tournament. A lot of people don't. Oh, you do? But I always have.

And you'll eat anything? No, pretty much.

Well, I don't eat any like red meat or anything like that that day or even a couple days before.

Oh, interesting. And why is that? Is that just something you came up with? Oh, you noticed it yourself?

Yeah, like I, like, especially like on— I mean, I don't even like fast food to begin with, but I'll never have like a burger or anything like that. It just— or any like fried food, or I just keep it super clean.

And when you went vegan, did you notice anything between—

yeah, I actually plan on my next tournament coming up. I'm not fully vegan right now, even though I have been like more plant-based in general, but I think the few days before my tournament I'm just gonna try it out, just go totally vegan, see how I feel. Oh, I want an update on this. Yeah, I'm excited to see it.

Let me know. Yeah. All right, cool. So you've had winning streaks for how, how long now? Yeah, so It's hard to say that it's like a streak, but there was a point when you were winning so much. Yeah, that people were kind of just assuming you would win. Is that correct?

Um, I think it's kind of like that now for some things, you know. You obviously— I— it's not like I don't have any competition. I have, at this point, I have maybe 4 really good competitors that I go against every tournament, and We always battle it out, but—

But was it annoying when people kind of assumed that you would win? Because it's hard work even if you win.

I mean, yeah, like, it's, it's actually a lot less stress to be the underdog, honestly, because you have nothing to lose. Oh, if you're the underdog, it's like you can only, you can only gain. You like— people don't expect you to win, so if you win, you know, everybody goes crazy. Everybody wants the underdog to win.

And you were not an underdog anymore.

So I mean, there was a period of time where I was And whenever you move up to an older division, you always have that little underdog kind of thing going on. But, uh-huh, you know, if you're a top competitor, that you're, you're the guy with the target on your back. And that is a lot harder because as far as results go and as far as other people's perceptions, uh-huh, there's a lot to lose because people expect you to win. It's the opposite of an underdog. You— people expect you to win, and if you lose, it's like, ooh, he lost this time.

And when did you start feeling that? Like, how old were you when you felt that sort of heaviness of being the champion all the time?

Maybe like 14, 15 or something like that.

And that's like the time of life when you're going through a lot of changes anyway, like physically, mentally, right? That's the time of life when our brains are always worried about like what other people think about us. How did you handle that? Yeah, did you feel like that came up for you?

Yeah, sure, there was— I remember there was I forgot exactly what year it was, but there was a time where I got like really nervous to compete. Okay. Like every tournament I would be like— around that age, 14, 15, I think it was probably like maybe, maybe it started a little bit younger too, maybe like 12, 13, 14, 15, around that age. I don't know.

That is exactly the same thing that happens to classical musicians. Really? They become aware of themselves on stage. Yeah, it's interesting because You know, because that's when your frontal lobe starts to develop and you have that meta cognition of seeing yourself.

That's exactly what I've realized a little bit later on, because when you're a kid, you're just, uh, you don't care as much about— you're just doing it, you're doing it, you know. And a lot of that is exactly what you're saying, like your brain literally changes, right? Like you're, you're more aware of what's happening and you start to have, you know, your ego, right? Your ego comes up.

And I mean, they've looked at teenage brains, and you guys are the most sensitive to, uh, perception of other people, how they perceive you. Totally. So how did you deal with that difficult time?

I was super nervous. I don't know if I could say that. What did you do? I was just go up there, and, uh, you know, I'd always be nervous before for a little while, but, you know, as soon as I started, I wasn't nervous during the routine. A lot of my routines have like these things called kias, which are kind of like yells, and that definitely helps you out, you know.

I'm definitely gonna put some links on here of your performances so people can see what you do. It's pretty intense.

Yeah, so they're— so I think that helps out, and then the music comes on, and, you know, I'm, I'm lucky that with what I do, a lot of it is just like releasing energy.

But so once your motor neurons get in place and you start the routine, like, what, like 10 seconds into it or 1 second into it?

For me, it's, it's like the second I hit that first strike, you know, it's, uh, I'm in the zone. Yeah, before I'd be nervous.

Nowadays I'm not really nervous too much because you're like a pro now.

You start speaking, so used to it, you know. If you do something, because I've been competing now for like 10 years, so if you do anything consistently for 10 years probably not gonna be super nervous about it.

So do you ever have to get your energy up now? Yeah, so used to it.

I just have fun with it now. Like, I think that's the best thing for getting your energy up, is like not being too stuck in your head. And again, going back to like, look at the big picture of things, I just know now that I could totally screw up a tournament and it won't change anything. It doesn't matter. Like, I'm still me at the end of the day. I still have every single title, people still look at me the same way. Nobody's gonna remember if I forget, and I mean, even if they didn't, it wouldn't really matter if I messed up one tournament. You're seeing the overall picture now, more like an arc. It's the whole big picture, and I've seen people that I've looked up to screw up before too, and I don't look at them any different, you know. It's still somebody that I look up to, and, you know, so I just know now, I think part of that confidence is because I have had some of the credentials, you know, so I still have all these things that I know I can rationally think about that in my head. Okay, like I have this, I have all that, so this tournament doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

So it matters until it doesn't matter, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like it matters all the way up till when you get to it, but if you screw up or something, then you can— Exactly. Start to look back at all your accomplishments.

Mm-hmm. You can look back on it like that, but then also, even if I didn't have those accomplishments, I would like to think— I don't know, it's hard to say— but I would like to think if you're on the way up too, right? Like, I've certainly had tournaments when I didn't have those credentials that I like totally messed up at, or maybe you get like sick, or so many things can happen at a tournament. And, you know, looking back at it, I was super upset in the moment, but now I realize it really doesn't matter that much, and it didn't really affect me that much, you know.

So you're pretty young to be that wise about all of this. So do you have any people that influenced you in this way? I know you said you looked up to Bruce Lee.

Yeah, I've— it's kind of weird because I think a lot of people, they kind of get into the whole like philosophy stuff as they get a little bit older, maybe. You mean the philosophy of martial arts? About life, you know, like about what matters and what doesn't matter. But for me, I don't know why, but I was like always really interested in that stuff, like ever since I was a little kid actually. And, um, like what, what does it all mean kind of thing?

Like existential questions?

Exactly, like super big questions like that. Like I remember Actually, I was probably like 9 years old one day, and I was coming back from a karate practice, and this is totally takes a turn, but it just like, I totally had like this like existential crisis actually. Uh-huh. And like, you know, I don't mean to like totally take this in a direction, but it just hit me one day that like, man, I'm gonna die one day, you know? And I was like 9 years old in the car, and I was like really— I was like crying in the car. Wow. I was like really upset about that. And, uh, did you lose a pet or something?

No, nothing. It just happened.

Okay, hit me one day randomly, and like that moment like just made me start thinking about the bigger questions of life, like since I was— since that moment. And I always kind of had like a little bit of a philosophical side to me since I was a little kid, actually, before that. But that was like a really big moment for me because I just started seeking, you know, the truth, like what matters. And obviously, you know, you have phases where you are focusing on that more, not in like, you know, maybe you get a little bit—

you totally forget sometimes.

Yeah, sometimes like maybe for a year or two I forget, but I've always had that little underlying, you know, like itch to kind of seek the truth and like what matters and the whole meaning to everything. And that's something that I really enjoy spending a lot of my time doing now, is like just like reading up on that type of stuff.

And well, isn't it interesting? It's so interesting. Nobody you know is gonna basically get out of here alive, right? But our brains protect us from knowing that we're gonna die, and we have to kind of remind ourselves what matters.

Exactly. And like, you know, I don't know if it's a quote, but it's like a saying that you always hear a all the time. Like, if you were told you were gonna die in a week, what would you do?

Oh right, or Steve Jobs, like, if tomorrow's your last day.

Yeah, but the thing is though, like, all right, what if you're gonna die in a week? What if you're gonna die in a month? What if you're gonna die in a year? What if you're gonna die in 70 years? Well, yeah, it's like, you know, it's like all the same stuff, you know? It doesn't— it's no different, you know? It's all gonna happen at some point.

So, and also it's cultural because some cultures talk about death a lot more than we do here, right? Yeah, right. Maybe. I don't know.

I don't know. Maybe.

Uh, well, actually, I'm sure. Yeah, cuz some cultures celebrate death a little more than we do here. We don't really like to— like you said, we feel kind of— we have to kind of segue it if we're going to talk about death. Like, I'm sorry, we don't want to bring you down, but we're going to talk about death.

Exactly. Yeah. And, um, you know, there's so many places in the world and so many different, like, philosophies and even religions that have a much different perception on death than I think a lot of people do in the Western world. So I really enjoy, like, hearing and learning about the different perspectives. And, you know, I think that helps me personally, like, realize what's important to do right now and what's— and most importantly, what's not important moment, I think.

Um, and who was there with you in the car when you were crying and talking about death?

Yeah, I mean, it was great about it, but I, I think that moment like really set me up to think about some of the, the bigger pictures like that, which have definitely helped me in life. But also bringing it back to competition. Yeah, if I, if I can, if I lose a tournament or whatever, like, who cares? It doesn't matter in the moment. It's obviously Uh, but that doesn't mean you don't go in to win. It's like having the intention but having freedom from outcome. So I go into it with full intention, I give it all my got, all that I've got. Like, why not, right? Might as well see what I can do, bring it all on the table. But you know, at the end of the day, whatever happens, win or lose, who cares, you know?

I mean, but you don't turn that on until you're off the stage. Yeah, yeah, that is so cool and interesting. I love that whole point of going in with all intention and then switching. You can be two things at the same time.

Yeah, that's a really good point. I've realized that so much. It's all about, you know, it's not like you either care, you don't care. It's like both. And it's really hard to describe that, but it's, uh, it's like both at the same exact time. And it's really confusing to like tell somebody try.

But because this, this, like, this point I always try to drive home, that no, it doesn't mean that you, you're not going to go in there, like you said, give it your best and like do 100%. But if it doesn't happen, yeah, then what, right? Then you can let it go. Exactly. At the same time, you want it so bad, but you can also let it go.

Yep. And then just like thinking about, like, like, let's say you messed up, like, what would happen if you did win? Right? You'd get a trophy and like maybe you'd get some people like give you high fives and stuff, and, uh, maybe you get a world title, and then like, is that gonna make you like really happy? Money? Yeah, maybe get a little money. And like obviously it's, it's great to show that your hard work has like paid off. Um, it reminds me of like the quote like, wherever you go, there you are. If your baseline of like happiness is low and you win, you know, you'll feel like really elated for a little bit, but you'll always go back to wherever your baseline is no matter what happens.

Wow. So you've noticed that? How long does that little bit of happiness last, that winning? Well, I think a lot of like—

I'm not gonna lie and say that like I don't care that I won all these titles and I've, you know, gotten on my dream team and all that. Like, that all of that makes me really happy and fulfilled.

But you have also experienced that kind of letdown after you get that trophy and the high fives and all the accolades.

Yeah. And also like whether I was really like me being upset about like not getting that won't change anything too, right? It's like if you, if you get upset to the point where it's stopping you from, or it's discouraging you, then it's actually not helping you. You know, it'll— you'll actually— the weird thing is you actually get better results when you stop caring so much about the results. So you just do it because this is what you do. Like, I think of it like, I'm a martial artist, this is my thing, and I'm just gonna do it, and I'm gonna be the best that I can. And obviously I'm gonna look at my competition, I'm gonna try to beat them, I'm gonna try to win. And if I don't, yeah, sure, it's okay to get a little upset, but you don't have to get like attached to that feeling. It's good to make— to have your competition, your setbacks motivate you, but you know that you shouldn't, uh, get super depressed about anything because you shouldn't beat yourself up. Yeah, it's just like a tool to help you propel even further. A tool. I love that.

Okay, so failure is a tool, pretty much.

Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah.

Where— have you been reading some Zen?

Yeah, yeah, I love that stuff.

Uh, was that Jon Kabat-Zinn or is that a Zen saying?

I don't know. Yeah, like wherever you go, there you are. It's like, I always think about it like people going on vacations, right? Like looking forward to their vacation and they think, you know, they're all like, it's like really funny, like they think, and they could be in like California or like Miami or some like beautiful place or even New York, right? Or wherever. And they think that, oh man, I can't wait for this vacation. I can't wait. I'm so looking forward to this. And then they get to their vacation and you know, their flight's delayed and they're like all upset. Like, it's like, it's like laughable. Or like their, uh, their car, their rental car is like, they didn't get the best one, or they're, they have late, you know, check-in or whatever, and they're all upset. It's like, and then they have to leave and they're so upset. Yeah, and then they leave, they're like, man. And then they're upset until the next time that they go there, realizing that they're actually really kind of upset the whole time while they were there too. I don't know.

I used to have that all the time. Yeah. Well, Danny, you are wise beyond your years, and I can't wait to have you on again. Yeah. And hopefully, um, many times. Many times. That was really fun. So I just want to ask you some, uh, lightning questions. All right, so what are— what's a new thing you want to learn this year?

So many, right? Yeah. Um, Okay, sorry, this is not a lightning answer. That's okay. Uh, two things I'm focusing on. One, even more with like going to the gym, working out, getting into like really good shape. Like not just having the cardio and all that for my competition, but just personally getting in like the best shape of my life and learning about that and what I have to do. And then also just learning more about like philosophy and all that stuff. Those are two big focuses of mine this year.

Mm-hmm. And what about a favorite movie? Godfather. Oh, East Coast, West Coast? West Coast. What? Yeah. Hey, okay, favorite thing to do when you have free time?

Go on YouTube, probably. YouTube, chill.

And what are you watching on YouTube?

Uh, I enjoy looking at videos from like entrepreneurs Oh, entrepreneurs.

We didn't even get to talk about that yet. So you won some major entrepreneurship prize at USC.

Uh, yeah, me and a few people. It's, uh, Stephanie Ngo, Grace O'Rourke, and Lily Denton. We all teamed up to create an app. It's to help students on campus find tutors. Peer-to-peer tutoring. If you need a tutor, it'll hook you up to another student. That already got an A in the class to tutor you.

Nice. Do they have to pay them?

Yeah, they do have to pay them, but are they— did they pay through our app?

So you won a competition with that though? We did.

Yeah, it was a pitch. It was a pitch competition. Uh-huh.

So you won money prize?

Yeah, we won a little bit of money. Uh-huh. And you're gonna get some like, like mentoring for that? Uh, we have a couple— yeah, a couple people that are willing to mentor us for that.

That's fantastic. You're gonna take it to the next stage?

Yeah, so next semester we're planning on entering more competitions, more pitch competitions, making, you know, more money for, uh, you know, to get some funding going.

And you are an entrepreneur because you've had socks that I've bought, you have t-shirts that I bought. I know, Juna's my biggest supporter. I'm a fan. So you're gonna be— you have a website, right? We're gonna put a link to it. Yeah. And I know I would just want to mention that you just had recently had some major TikTok fame.

Yeah, what was that about? I just made a video on TikTok. It went viral, right? It went viral, yeah. I got like 9-point-something million views. What? Yeah, so that was cool.

And, and you were just teaching something on there?

Yeah, like, it's funny, I've done so many videos with like all this crazy production and like spent days filming, and this one video, I'm like too tired to keep training, so I just like give my friend my phone. I say, hey, film this video real quick. Took me 30 30 seconds, no prep time, no editing, on my iPhone. 9 million views later. Oh my gosh. I'm on like famous people for being a TikTok star.

It's super funny. That is hysterical. So I never believe people when they're like, you know, it just went viral and I didn't expect it, but you're right here in front of me telling me that that's what happened to you.

Yeah, woke up the next day with over a million views.

What? Yeah. And you have no idea why this one? As opposed to all the other ones? I have a couple speculations, but—

Like what? I think I, a couple things. I think I had good music. I think there's a little bit of controversy because on TikTok there's a lot of cheerleaders and gymnasts. And I said, it was a tutorial on how to do a move called an aerial, which is a no-handed cartwheel. And I called it a no-handed cartwheel. So all the cheerleaders and gymnasts were yelling at me for calling it a no-handed cartwheel instead of an aerial. So I think that little bit of controversy actually did help me out a little bit. Uh-huh. And why is it different? This is— no, it's the same thing, but they wanted me to use the technical term for some reason, uh, when I was just trying to, you know, appeal to the masses who didn't know what an aerial was. Uh, but yeah, I think the fact that I did call it no-handed cartwheel helped me out because everybody was getting all mad and stuff. And, uh, I think it was fun for people to try out a move that looks really difficult and to spend 30 seconds to see if they could do it. So yeah, a few little things I think helped out.

And but you weren't planning on trying to get it to go viral.

I mean, you always in the back of your head hope that it goes viral. But out of all my videos, I certainly wasn't expecting that one. Like, that's probably the least amount of effort I've ever put in. I like, really, I said, here's my phone. Film this. And I just made up the tutorial on the spot. I didn't speak or anything, I just showed the movements, and it was probably a 30-second video. Put a song to it, uploaded, done.

Wow. Yeah, 30-second video, but a lifetime of training probably led to that moment. Yeah, yeah.

What do you think? Well, honestly, I— that was one of actually the first moves that I got, so— but at this point you've done so many training videos.

All of that experience, I think, helped make that viral. Good. I don't know, I don't think it was all chance.

I probably could have done that, uh, 10 years ago. Oh really? Probably, yeah. Honestly, it's— for me, it's, uh, it was one of the first moves that I got, but I didn't because TikTok didn't exist back then. Oh, okay. Um, but yeah, I mean, sometimes it just works out like that too, you know.

All right, yeah, to all the little kids out there who like see something that they love, whether it's sports or karate, what's your advice to them?

All the little kids, I would say just follow your passion, do what you love to do. That's always the best thing because they're just little kids, right? Yeah. And, and like, one other thing that's important, especially maybe not for like super little kids but a little bit older, it's not necessarily about doing like the cool thing. And like, that's one thing that was a little bit hard for me sometimes is like You know, people don't really know about karate that much. I thought maybe it would be cooler if I did some high school sport or something. But, you know, if I did a high school sport, I would have missed out on so much. I mean, I've gotten to travel the world, make products, meet awesome people, see my full potential.

And you're even teaching now.

And teach and make money. So I can't complain about that. And obviously I love doing it. Yeah, do what you love to do no matter what other people think. And, uh, you know, bug your parents to help you out, to bring you to places and stuff to make it happen.

Yeah, because it took you out of your normal school and town a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like sacrifice, you know, I miss school and stuff, and— but sometimes that's okay, you know. I learned more from this than I ever could have learned from school.

So what would you tell the parents?

Yeah, well, I think going back to what I was saying about my parents I would have not been able to be where I am without my parents. I would just be—

did they push you at some points?

Oh, I actually want to talk about this before. Okay, that's like such a big reason why I think they did things perfectly, and that's what I was actually thinking about when I said that before. I see so many parents, they push their kids so hard and they want their kids to win and they like make them train and the kids get burnt out they actually learn to resent what they started off, you know, what started off as a passion for them. Because when you're forced to do it, you know, you don't like it no matter what it is, even if you really liked it. So I see it so much in karate, and my parents never did. Like, I think, you know, I really think if I told my parents I wanted to stop, they would say, "All right." Like, my parents definitely hate wasted talent for sure, but all my training came from me. And there comes a point with practicing where, you know, if you— if your parents don't push you and you're not practicing for a little while, then eventually the kid has to say, man, I'm gonna either lose, I'm gonna either just never do this again, or I gotta start practicing for myself. And then that's kind of what happened with me, and I learned how to motivate myself, and then my parents were always there to help support me through that, bringing me to the gym, helping me get coaching. But at the end of the day, you know, if I wasn't doing it, then it wasn't happening.

So that's awesome advice. Your parents did push you in the sense that they wanted you to stay organized or like help you, push you in that kind of way, right?

Oh, for sure, for sure.

Like, come on, Danny, let's, you know, let's make sure we get here 'You're on time.' Okay, Danny, you need a clean, uh, uniform. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, and obviously I'm not gonna go because those things are naggy too, pushing too.

No, that is, it's a little bit different than getting upset if you lose. My parents, if I lost a tournament, my parents never got upset. Yeah, ever. I'm not gonna say like they, they didn't care if I was on time. Like, we have to, you know, do things the right way. If I'm gonna— yes, meet up with my coach, I have to make sure that I practice what he taught me, and I'm not gonna go there the week later and not, you know, right, with the same, you know, problems I had last week. You know, I'm not gonna say my parents have never gotten mad at me ever.

Um, they get mad at you if you didn't— you forgot about something or an appointment, stuff like that.

If I forgot about something, yeah, or coaching, or yeah, whatever.

But definitely your parents were supportive, but they also kept you on schedule.

Exactly. All those things going. That's what it was.

And you always felt like, if you didn't want to do this, it's fine. Which I completely 100% agree with.

Yeah, it was— that's like a good way to put it. They never forced me to do it, but they encouraged it and they supported me. Yes. 100%. Yes, absolutely.

So that's amazing. And this was so cool.

Yeah, that was really fun.

Oh my gosh. Thank you so much, Danny. Yeah, thank you. We'll talk to you soon. And you wanted to break up with your phone, so you're going to take my course, you said. Of course. And we're going to find out what happens with that.

Let's see what happens.

And we're going to find out about how your vegan competing goes. Yeah, right. Yep. All right, cool. Thanks, Danny. I'll put all the links on our show notes. Awesome.

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