Ryan Hall: Value of Competition | Take It Uneasy Podcast

You have been both a supporter and a critic of competition. What do you think is the value of competition for martial artists?

I believe that the value of competition is in that it teaches you the true purpose of martial arts. And again, the true purpose of martial arts is being able to defend yourself and whatnot and all of these other things in real life. Yes, because let's say you win the ADCC gold medal, but you get slapped around by someone bigger and stronger than you at a bar, people will talk about how sweet that gold medal is, but for the rest of your life, it'll feel pretty hollow. That's not what we're looking for. Talking about, I guess, is what I believe competition develops if approached properly, is proper focus, proper dedication. Because anytime you have a very defined goal and strong opposition, it will force you to be better, period. The better your opposition is if you focus and you take what you're doing seriously, the better you become, period. People are better wrestlers today than they once were. People are better basketball players today than they once were. Military is better now than it was in the past because of all of the competition that you know that has existed over the course of time. And you know, if you go out competition, if you go out and just kind of bullshit it, if you're like, oh, I'm going to go out and see how it happens, like, that's a cowardly way to approach competition and that, that gets you nothing. That doesn't teach you to really do the right things and the same thing. Not, not properly preparing even if you win. That was a cowardly way to approach it because you intentionally left yourself an out, which was, if I win, oh man, I'm talented and blah, blah, blah. And if I lose, it's, well, you know, I mean, I, I could have, I didn't really train that hard. Well, if that's the case, then you shouldn't have been out there. Win, lose or draw, I don't care if I've got a student that I think is going to win gold at the world championships if he or she does not train properly ahead of time, I will not allow them to go and I will send them off the team. And hey, they can do what they want. They're a grown adult. I'm not the boss of them, but I am the boss of my team. I'm the boss of my gym. And that's not how we conduct ourselves. And it has way less to do about the physical, the result than it does about the proper preparation. Because proper preparation and proper focus and dedication over the long haul yields positive results. But most importantly, it's about, are we conducting ourselves in an honorable and respectable manner. So I believe that competition really teaches us that because in the room there's always like, oh, it was practice. Oh, I was kind of this, that happened today. The other thing, when you go to competition, everyone is, that's on. Everyone is on that day because everyone is trained for that specific moment. And we'll see what happens. So you get the most honesty out of a time like that. And the higher the level, the better it gets, provided that there's not a lot of cheating. But regardless, from an athletic performance perspective, it is the most honest thing and it's the toughest as well, because it takes courage and it takes some heart to really properly prepare and put it on the line because you're risking horrible disappointment. I've prepared so hard before and tried so hard, so hard. And I've won and I've prepared other times and I've tried so hard and I've failed. And that hurts. It really hurts. It doesn't hurt nearly as much if you kind of half ass it because you didn't put that much into it. But again, that's how a coward approaches things. If you have, if you're going to conduct yourself the right way, you prepare properly, you train hard and then win, lose or draw, you deal with the results. And that's what I believe is the real benefit of competition, if approached properly.

Do you admire somebody who sacrifices, you know, like 10, 20 years of their life in that singular pursuit of competition towards a gold medal at the Olympics, say, as most of the Olympians do?

Goodness, absolutely. I mean, I admire anyone that's willing to sacrifice and willing to work hard in any area of life. Actually, a book that I'm reading again that I really, really like is Dune. It's, I don't know, I'm kind of like sci fi nerding out on everybody. But basically, you know, one of the things that, you know, one of the, one of the, you know, things that the, the author was a guy named Frank Herbert, and it's widely regarded as one of the, you know, greatest science fiction novels ever, if not the preeminent. But anyway, one of the things he said, you know, is if you, if you search for freedom, you actually end up becoming a slave to your own desires, ironically. And if you search for discipline, you find liberty because you're able to make yourself do what you want in the long run. Whereas if I'm like, oh, I'm going to do whatever I want all the time, and screw you, dad, I'm going to do what I want. And that's kind of like a teenager type attitude. You end getting into a bunch of nonsense. But anyone that's able. And again, this doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that it's athletic. It could be in any area of human endeavor, any area of life. It could be parenting, it could be military, it could be athletics, it could be business, it could be school, it could be anything. But as long as you're making an incredibly large commitment, I have an immense amount of respect for the level of dedication and the level of commitment and the level of risk that you're taking emotionally, psychologically. Because, hey, like you said, you work 20 years, you get that gold medal. But there's other people that worked 20 years and got the silver.

Most people.

Now, most people, most people that think they work hard don't. I'll be frank, you know, like, seriously, I said that in class the other day. Like, again, it's like, I don't want to be too negative, but most of the people that, most people that think they work hard do not.

How do you know that if you're working hard or not?

I think, you know, but most people are not very honest with themselves. Most people would press a button in my experience, you know, they would prefer to be. Look like the thing than be the thing. You know, that's fine. But it really, I think Sun Tzu said it. It's like victory is reserved for those willing to pay its price. And there is a price. And now it doesn't guarantee that if you pay the price that you will have victory, but you guarantee, but I mean from a physical perspective, but you will have the moral victory regardless, because you will have learned discipline. You will have shown not only to others, forget others. You do it not for others, but for yourself. You show that you are the master of your own mind and of your own body and of your own circumstance. And you can discipline yourself and focus and you deny yourself certain things in the pursuit of something, something that is valuable to you and that is incredibly useful in any area of life. And that's, I mean, not shocking to me. Why? The same reason that you'll see guys that were, you know, like high level military, like kind of big dogs in the SF world, get hired by, let's say, for instance, a Fortune 500 company, because what would they know about business? Nothing. But also everything. Because that level of focus and dedicate, like, you don't get to that level of ability in something by accident. And that's what I think, you know, like again, the value of competition and what they do, competition only, it's as serious as it gets, you know, because if you don't get the gold medal, you may not, you may not walk out of it. But basically, I have an immense amount of respect for anyone that is willing and able to, over the long haul, put that time in. But I have to. Trying hard doesn't mean just getting on an Airdyne bike and walking off the mat or having to be carried off the mat. It means thinking, approaching, reassessing, reevaluating, saying, how could I be better? And it takes honest self analysis. And also it takes a lot of times because let's say I think I'm doing well, but I have to say, hey, Lex, no matter how well I believe I look at myself, I'm still biased, I'm still looking at myself, what should I be doing better? I'm gonna find other people that I respect and people that I think can tell me and I'm gonna ask them and then I'm gonna have the courage to listen to them and not just dismiss what they're saying out of hand. And if you're doing those things, then I believe that a lot of times you're working hard. But I know plenty of people that come in it' there's plenty of people that have been training for 15 years that frankly suck. And there's plenty of people that have been training for four that are pretty dang good, you know, and again, are they the best person that's been training for four years is still, compared to like Kobrena, not that good, but they could be really, really, really good because they understand how to be directed and how to focus. And I believe, and this is something I've discussed, you know, before with some other, you know, friends of mine, you know, some of whom are at a very high level of mma, others that are at a high level of jujitsu wrestling or whatever. Look at guys like Randy Couture, guys like Rick Hawn, they're on their second career. They started MMA when they were like 32, and yet they got to the top. Maybe they weren't always champion, but they were fricking good. Why? Because their 26 year old self would be scary. But you know, like, hey, they know what it is to be dedicated and work hard because again, they're Olympians, like you said, on a level that a regular person has no concept of. So I think that that is ultimately the skill. It's not the, oh, man, this person's dangerous because he's got good judo or good wrestling. No, this person is dangerous because he or she knows how to work their ass off and be focused on a level that most people can't comprehend. And that's what produces success in any area of life, in my opinion.

Yeah. And be brutally honest with yourself at all times.

And it stings sometimes, you know, I think it's like the price of looking inward, you know, objectively, is that you're not gonna like what you see a lot, you know, and because even if you're like, oh, man, I'm 90% the way I want to be, it's like, if you are going to take that next step, in my opinion, it's. You're gonna focus on the 10% because it's like, oh, man, we're doing a lot of things good. Yeah, who gives a shit? Let's talk about what we need to improve on, you know, and that's a little bit less fun, but in the long run, I think it's what's. It's what's gonna drive you to a higher level. But at the same time, I think it's what makes a lot of people that are like that a little bit neurotic and nutty by comparing by a normal standard.

Right.

But again, you show me someone that's super well adjusted and I'll show you someone that's probably not a high achiever.