Ari: [00:00:00] So we don't realize that we're living through awesome moments right now, presently here and now. We always have to wait until it's passed to.
Appreciate it. So if you can start appreciating when you're present, it's uh, it's a complete game changer.
Riley: Today I've got my, my friend Ari Knazan. And, uh, I, I pronounced the name like that because for years I've known him as Ari K. And his, uh, his last name is spelled KN, which is silent K.
And, and, uh, so I've screwed it up forever and, and didn't even realize I was [00:01:00] screwing it up. But man, um, we are both black belts under the Great Keith Owen. Uh, Ari has been a black belt for longer than I've actually been training. So he's, he's now what You're nine years, 10 years into your
Ari: Uh, it's, uh, nine years, so two th Well, I'm in my 10th year now, so Yeah. 2016.
Riley: yeah, yeah. So not necessarily longer than I've been training, but most of the time I've been training you, you've been a black belt. So this is a, this is an honor for me to have you on here, Ari. I don't know if you know this man, but me going to Keith Owens gym A huge part due to you and your videos.
You posted, was video, I think of maybe your blue or purple belt when Keith choked you unconscious at the ceremony. I thought, oh crap, dude. There's, culture in these schools. At the time, uh, again, I don't know if you know this, but I was training with a couple of buddies in a Gracie garage type situation where it was February in a.
Actually in a garage. We're freezing our [00:02:00] butts off and in, uh, Boise here. And then, you know, we moved over to this Kajukenbo gym that was in town and they let us go train on the mat there, but it was me and two or three other guys and I, I really wanted to get underneath a black belt instructor. And it was that video that led me over to Team Rhino.
So thanks for that, dude. You didn't even know you had an influence, but you did.
Ari: My pleasure, I guess.
Riley: Yeah. Um, the reason I've asked Ari on the show here is he's involved with some really cool stuff, um, namely in the law enforcement training, uh, the hands-on, kind of physical part of law enforcement where. There's good ways and bad ways to do that, and he's, he's an expert in teaching how to do it the right way.
So, uh, you know, when you're, a law enforcement officer, not escalating things beyond a point where they need to go. Right. And I think that's a, something I wanted to talk to you about and, and [00:03:00] something I think you could shed some huge insight on. So, man, welcome to the show,
Ari: I am, uh, I'm honored to be here, so this is fun. I love it.
Riley: Oh, that'd be super cool. All right. I don't know if you can see it. But right there is peeking out the bottom is your coin. submission's 1 Do you
Ari: it is. Yep,
Riley: there?
Ari: I do.
Riley: Yeah. I'm trying to figure out a place where I can put it so it displays
Ari: Do you have the collection yet?
Riley: I have a 'cause I had some
Ari: Okay.
Riley: guys from BLM giving me one of theirs. I've got a firefighter one from some fire guys that we did a, um, an uh,
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Our, our electrolyte Um.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: I don't have any other, you're referring to 1 0 1 submissions, one oh one collection,
Ari: Yeah, I mean I've, I've made time. Like I have a huge collection. 'cause I just think it's, it's very cool. And actually in the law enforcement area, a lot of cops share the challenge coins 'cause it's like, it's a thing. I used to collect patches, [00:04:00] but then it became, they're way too big and I had these massive frames with all my patches. And then so I started collecting coins and so I probably have about 300 now.
So it's pretty fun.
Riley: Oh, you've got a collection. I've got three. You got 300.
Ari: I'm a collector. Everything I, everything I do ri is like kind of niche and excessive, you know, like I have my eighties toy collection and like weird stuff. So.
Riley: What's funny 'cause that I'll ask you about some what makes you, uh, you know, what kind of quirks you have that people don't know about at the end. And so you'll have then.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: But, hey, listen, Ari, tell us, uh, who you are, where you came from, where'd you grow up, what, what life was like as a kid.
Ari: Oh, wow. I did not expect that. That's, uh, okay. Um, so I am a, I was born in the seventies. I'm an eighties child and I. Martial arts, actually, we'll just, we'll kind of start there. So in particular, I, I've always [00:05:00] been in love with the martial arts as, as long as I can remember from old Bruce Lee movies to Chuck Norris movies.
That's what kind of always got me going. I loved watching it. I probably had like six birthdays growing up that were all martial art themed. Um, when I was nine years old. I've told the story a ton, Chuck nor I met Chuck Norris when I was in Las Vegas at a casino with my parents in the lobby, and I saw him and I was a massive fan and I walked up to him and I said.
Uh, excuse me, sir. And I tugged on his arm and he looked down at me and, uh, he, he goes, what's your name, son? I said, it's, it's Ari, sir. And he goes, do you train the martial arts? I said, no, sir. And he goes, well, when you start, you can never stop. So at the age of 10, I started doing, uh, martial arts and I haven't stopped since because Chuck Norris said so.
So that is a true story. And, um, yeah, so I've, I've done a ton of different things when it comes to the martial art. Uh. I'm training because I've just, I'm in love with it. And one of the things about it is there's so much [00:06:00] disconnect within the martial art community of people are like, this sucks. This is good.
BJJ the best, everything else is bad, blah, blah, blah. And I am so sick of seeing it. I find the art form beautiful. I do not do kung fu, but there's things in Kung Fu that are amazing.
So for me, martial arts has been an, uh, just an awesome thing 'cause I, I love it all and, uh. If it makes you happy, then you should do it. And everyone has a different reason for training, like for law enforcement. For me, it's, it's several different things. Like the reason I I continue to train was for self-protection, but I love the art form as well.
Like I've done, I keto and I keto gets dumped on all the time, but I've had a lot of practical things using, uh, Aikido and I incorporate it into my BJJ game and I do Japanese juujitsu. So, um, yeah, there's just a, a lot of stuff so. Uh, I live in Victoria, which is on the west coast of Canada. It's a very beautiful place.
And, uh, I run a school here, uh, [00:07:00] a little private school. I used to run a commercial martial arts space for almost 20 years, 18 years. And then COVID hit and I shut it down. And then I built a gym on my house, and now I exclusively train cops in a kind of private setting. So me in a nutshell.
Riley: You, all your students are, are in law enforcement
Ari: 90%. There's a few of them that are civilians that, uh, have trained with me from years back that are civilians, so they're still with me, but 90% are cops. Yeah.
Riley: Oh, that's super cool, man. That is super cool. So you, um, your vocation is law enforcement also. what got you into that man? What attracted you to that, that world?
Ari: When I was in high school, we had a school liaison officer, and I was always fascinated by policing. And, uh, she said some pretty encouraging words when I was probably about 14. And I said, God, that's a really cool job. I'd love to do it. And then the years went by and actually my vision got worse. And [00:08:00] at the time you, you couldn't join the police force if you didn't have 2020 vision.
So I was like, I guess I can't be a cop. And then LASIK and laser surgery came out where you could correct that. And I was like, oh, well maybe, maybe that's a thing. Uh, and then my, my dad, when in, uh, 2012, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack, but prior to that I was having discussion with him and he said, Ari, you don't want to be 80 years old and regret not doing something.
And then when he died, it really lit a fire under my ass and I'm like. You know, I'm 39 years old. I'm old, uh, considering joining policing and I'm gonna do it and I don't care. So 12 years later, so I've been on the force for 12 years and, uh, you know, I decided to do it because, um, I don't wanna regret things, you know, uh, life is short. And as you and you and I both know, like losing Keith was a massive thing and I've lost a few very close people and it really grounds you and makes you present.
And as I get older, I am [00:09:00] really trying to lean into that. So.
Riley: That's cool, man. It's. To me sometimes when you get those, um, the people in your life when you're young, that speak life into you, you know, and, and you can take that and run with it. And I remember a teacher did that to me one time and it was this simple little. Little exercise we were doing where there was a, there was a trick in it.
It was like a little trick test she was doing, and she was trying to get everybody to, to pick out why this certain phenomena happened in a science class. And know, I'm sitting there analyzing. I'm like, well, I don't know if I can describe it to you, Ari, but it was a, it was a bubble in a, a tube. And when you would swish it back and forth, it would move like in a level. But if you put it over letters. It would invert the letters when the word, uh, you know, when the bubble goes by, right? Well, [00:10:00] she would show it with one word, then she'd show it with another word, and, and it would invert one, and it wouldn't invert the other one.
Right. the question was, why? And I just realized that the, the second word was Bob, BOB, and it was symmetrical upside down or right side up. So it was inverting it, it just didn't look like it was. And so, anyways, but the words she said to me were kind of like you said, uh, you're liaison officer said it was just encouraged.
You just like, man, you're really smart. That's all. And that's all she said. you picked up on that and none of the rest of the, you know, 60 students in the room picked up on it. And that was. I was 12 years old at the time, you know, and that, that really, man, that touched me deep. And it was like, no one's gonna tell me different from here on out.
Right.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: I, I just think that's freaking rad that, that
Ari: Yeah. I think you have to find your why and we don't all get to do it. And you're blessed if you do
Riley: Yeah. What, [00:11:00] um, how long have you been doing it now? Tell me again how you've been in law enforcement, how
Ari: 12 years now. Yeah.
Riley: 12 now. Okay. Okay. And then so introduce Invictus to us. Tell us, tell us what that is and what, what you've built there.
Ari: So Invictus started in 2019 and uh, it basically started as a hashtag, which was BJJ make it Mandatory and. Uh, I was like, well, you can't have a company called BJJ make it mandatory. It's too much of a mouthful. You can't say hashtag people don't get it. So I was like, I, I need to make a name for it.
So at the time I was looking around and Invictus non conquerable, and I'm like, that's a great name. So. Uh, I labeled it Invictus, LEO Collective, which is law enforcement Jujitsu Collective. Uh, started with, uh, a buddy. I asked a buddy to join with me to kind of push it. He was down in the States at the [00:12:00] time and, uh, and then it just started growing.
We had like a Facebook group and then turned to an Instagram, and then I'm a web designer on the side, so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start a webpage. And then I created a logo and then it got away from us. It was crazy, and I'm like, people were. Emailing. It's like, Hey, Invictus is awesome. I love the videos you're doing, and, uh, we should, you know, I you did a get together in Houston.
Uh, I'd love to come to that. Like our first one was over a hundred cops on the mat. And the problem was, is there are so many awesome people around the country that are training Jiujitsu. They're police officers that are training other cops. However, we were all in our own silos and we weren't communicating.
And so my goal of Invictus was basically to be. I want a collective where it doesn't matter where you're from, let's all come together. And I just to try to organize it a little bit better. So I don't, there are many companies out there and I don't care what your company is, as long as you're honorable [00:13:00] and you're trying to do good things, I will promote you.
Uh, and it's funny ri because I just wrote an article, I'm gonna release it, but it basically, it's an article on pay it forward and. I'm a big proponent of that. Like if you have a voice in the community and you can push a small person, you know what I mean by small, like someone who's, who's not out there, or maybe it's a small podcast and you have millions of followers.
Just those little things I think are important, and that's kind of what I want to do with Invictus. I wanna highlight people and I want to make officers safer. So we're now, uh, six and a half years in into Invictus.
Riley: Shoot. I didn't realize it had been that long, man. I was thinking it was a little less than that, but that, that's impressive. Tell me what. It's just far as background so people understand the context of what law enforcement deals with in the streets, man. 'cause know, I pay attention to that stuff just 'cause I've been in the juujitsu world and we have law enforcement training.
Uh, they can train for free at Team Rhino. Um, and [00:14:00] I want you to kind of describe to people who don't understand. Man. Sometimes you'll see these videos on, on the Innerwebs, right? Where it almost looks like keystone cops. They're tripping over each other and they can't control this, you know, little girl, and there's three big dudes, and there there's just, you know, it's just a frenzy and, and, and the, in the fray of it all, there's tripping and stumbling and don't really have the coordination or the training sometimes to deal with these, but seems like it.
They should be able to deal with what. What do you find there? What's the trouble?
Ari: Well, I think when you're looking through it from a lens, especially for you because you have a martial art background and you understand how to manipulate a human body that doesn't want to be manipulated, so you have a special insight. But now let's talk about the, uh, majority of the people out there who have no idea what it's like to do juujitsu or manipulate a body.
They still think that police officers. Need to be superheroes or they are superheroes that they intrinsically know how to control and fight and all these things. This is not true. [00:15:00] Uh, that is the problem. So it's perception of what the job is and what you expect. Now, I think the public should expect hire from, they should be able, they should be trained.
They should know law, they should be great speakers. They should know how to write. There's all of these things. That it's a whole package. You are doing a disservice to your community, in my opinion, that if you don't focus on these things now, my particular focus obviously is teaching use of force and arrest techniques to cops and all police officers need to know this.
Why I have yet in my career, if I arrest someone to lay my hands on them. I've never had anyone handcuff themselves, so we're constantly doing this as such. Juujitsu being this kind of art. Uh, requires you to manipulate the body. Does it go south all the time? Absolutely not. 99% of the arrests that all cops make are problem free, but when it does have a problem, you better know how to control another [00:16:00] person.
And I've talked about this before. If you end up laying hands on someone and it goes south, so I put my hands on you, you start fighting, and I use my tools on you, and the tools don't work. I now keep escalating to what? Grabbing my firearm and ended up in a shoot. But the problem, the, the thing about Jiujitsu, it's scalable, right?
I can use it from control all the way to lethality. So that's why it's super important to know how to control.
And, and the thing is, and I've written on it, we have studies about it, like literally there's hard data now that shows the benefits of training in Jiujitsu. So. Uh, it's, it's undeniable and officers who ignore it, you know, you don't choose the day, the day chooses you in this profession.
Riley: That's a, that's an interesting thing. You know, the guys I've trained with all seem to, I [00:17:00] mean, they're coming in for training, right? So they seem to embrace
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: go back to their department and tell me that yeah, they. The whole bunch of the guys won't come in for various reasons.
You know, it could be just ego, it could be they think they need to get in shape first. It could be, you know, they're just a little scared of getting injured. There's, you know, there's a million reasons why, why guys are resistant. What do you find is kind of the average or the most common reason for, for guys to resist that or gals to re resist?
Ari: like I said, I wrote, uh, a couple articles on this. And so the top ones you'll see is yes, ego's one of them. That's a very easy thing to say, but cops don't like to lose alpha personalities. They don't want to be shown up in front of their peers. So that's a thing. Uh, money is an excuse, uh, with many people.
Uh, time is the big one. It's like, well, I wanna spend time with my family, so I don't. I don't wanna do training. I want to, I'm tired after my 10 hour, 12 hour shift. I don't have enough in the tank. So that's one. Oh, I'm gonna [00:18:00] get injured. Oh, if I do jiujitsu, it's gonna take too long to get good. That's a big one.
Uh, another one is, why do I need to do jiu-jitsu? Because nothing ever bad has happened to me, so nothing ever will happen to me. I can use my tool belt. So there's a, there's a myriad of, uh, excuses out there, in my opinion, all invalid. And the, the thing is. There's a thousand reasons to start jujitsu, but you only need one not to.
And people just take that one and they just, they, they don't do it. And I've seen it time and time again where many officers are lucky. They get into, uh, a scuffle and they come out on top, not because of skill, but because of luck. And we all wanna re home, return home to our families. We owe it to our families and we owe it to our community.
So it, it really lands on deaf ears sometimes. But having said all that, [00:19:00] the percentage now from, say, seven years ago, it has gone up in my department. When I started training, there was less than one when I started training in my department. Now we're probably at about. 15% are training, and that's a massive increase over a 12 year period. So we are making a difference. And the way that the culture's gonna shift, it's not overnight, Riley. It's what it is, is the old guard. The old guard will retire and then the new guard will be jiujitsu people.
And that's how it changes. So change takes time.
Riley: Yeah, you, you mentioned in there it takes too long to get good at, right? It's uh. I think it's funny because, you know, we, this is the goer in your SALT podcast, right? And then the whole idea is like, get out there and earn stuff. Do the hard thing. And yeah. Anything that we want to get really good at takes a long time. You've been training Juujitsu how many years?
Ari: Uh, BJJ or [00:20:00] jujitsu in general.
Riley: Well, let's say B because
Ari: Uh, so I would say just over 20 years now,
Riley: Yeah. Right. And tell me, tell me this, 'cause this is just fun for people to hear. Do you, do you have it mastered? Is it, is it just, do you know it all now?
Ari: everyone who's done jiu-jitsu's watching this is just like, we know what he is about to say. Uh, of course not. Um. To, to quote Keith because I do it every week. It's a marathon and not a sprint. And uh, that's what it is. So, and it's fascinating. Like you have done Master Sours classes and we're sitting there and we're black belts and we're like, are you serious?
I have a great Keith story, I'm gonna tell you. It's amazing. So I had Keith out at one of my seminars. We called it the Trifecta seminar. It was Keith, it was my Japanese [00:21:00] Ju Juujitsu instructor, uh, Steve Hisco and a good friend of mine, Michael Seamar, and they're all experts in their area. And I got them all together and I pulled Keith aside and I said, Keith, there's a hundred people in the room here.
Show something flashy, show the good stuff. Don't show an upa. We all know how to do an upa. Do not show an upa. And he's like, I got you. So he gets in front of a hundred people and he goes, Hey everyone, I'm Keith Owen. I'm gonna show you how to upa. And I'm like, oh God. So he gets on the mat and I'm like, and I'm filming.
I'm like, I can't believe we're doing this. He shows the UPA and I'm like this and he shows it, uh, small little technique that I've never seen before and my mind is explodes and I'm like,
so he shows the technique and then I. I, I can't believe it. And so that was a moment in my martial art career going, you can take the most simple thing, [00:22:00] add a little detail that you think that you should know, but you don't, and it changes your game. So I now, when I watch people do jiu-jitsu, I watch videos, I go to instructional, uh, I go to classes, I pull out these little small things.
Now it's not so much the big moves. Black belt, this is gonna sound weird, but as a black belt, we've probably seen most, most moves. But it's the details in those moves that just up your game. And I literally watched a video from Keith and Professor recently that I videotaped that I'd never seen a detail before, and it, it jumped out at me.
And I'm like, how did I not see that? So I think what happens is as you mature in your martial art career, your eyes pick up different things. And that's the invisible jiujitsu, the Hickson Gracie thing. And it's a, it's honestly a real amazing thing out there. So, uh, I'm sure it's happened to you. You're just like, oh, it says that [00:23:00] changed everything.
Riley: So for those of you listening who need some context on that word are used, upa. Okay. The way I understand it means up upa and it's when someone's sitting on your stomach, we call that mount in the Jiujitsu game, and you've gotta try to get them off of you. It's kind of like the playground bully who's sitting on top of you holding your wrists out here and, and he's. in the forehead, maybe saying, you know, name 10 candy bars and you can't get that sucker off. That's a problem. And, and we teach that first class man, you come to jiujitsu first, first class, you're gonna probably get taught UPA within the first month. Right? And so we consider that fundamentals, after 15 years of juujitsu, there's still details within that thing.
You learn first class that you, you still. You, you look at it and shake your head sometimes, like, how did I miss it? How did I, I've never seen that before. yeah, it's a beautiful thing, but I think that happens in, in
Ari: [00:24:00] Mm-hmm.
Riley: uh, train with firearms, man. There's things in firearms.
You just. Train. You're 10 years in and all of a sudden you realize, oh, if I move my little thumb right here, it doesn't induce a malfunction with my gun. Right. So it's, it's, uh, yeah, I, I think a CrossFitters, you know, I know a, a friend of mine was doing, I don't know what you call it, and
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: up with her, with the bar, and then it settled down as she squatted.
She hit her at wrist on her knee and it broke her wrist. Um, the, the weight did, you know, and it was a technical error on her part. It a, a major injury. And it was a, you know, it was a big deal in her world, but she learned a thing that day. She'd been doing these for years. she
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: uh, a little angle she needed to take.
Different and a little grip she needed to change. And, yeah, we learned stuff. Lead late in the
Ari: You know? Yeah. And so, again, I'm writing this article, but it, it took me 20 years to be an overnight success, [00:25:00] and I use that. I, I use that loosely because I don't consider myself like a success, but people will look and they're like, Hey, RI, you have a podcast like you just launched it yesterday and awesome like that.
That required no work. And anyone who's done anything knows that this all requires work, and they don't see the failures. They don't see like all, all this crap. Like last year, 2025 is a bad year for me. I had a lot of failures, a lot of stuff happened. And I just, just kept going. And that's the, that's the goal.
If you're looking for the magic bullet in anything, it's that just keep going and consistency. My buddy Chad Lyman, who is one of my mentors, he's a police officer. Consistency over time equals results. Right. So that is his, his main phrase. And it's, it's true. But the thing is, do you have the stamina in the stomach for it?[00:26:00]
Riley: That's beautiful man, because you know, I was, I was telling a friend the other day, you know, I got, I don't know if you know this, but I got a a in January of 25, right at the beginning of the year. I came down with this flu that turned into pneumonia, right? And it rocked me. And, um, it pro I was probably closer to dying than I thought I, than I'd like to admit.
But it, it really put it on me. And I was supposed to test for my black belt in April, right? I. I just didn't get the lungs back. And the guys are like, man, we, we can't in good conscience let you test 'cause you can't even, you don't have the endurance to even show what you can do. And so they told me no.
Right? And, and it was gut wrenching, dude. It was just like, crap man. We've been training together forever. You guys know what I can do. But yeah, you're right. I can't, I'm not in the physical condition to do this. And so was. I'm four stripes of my brown belt, dude, ready to test for black. And the thought it only lasted about 10 seconds, but the thought of quitting really man.
I was
Ari: Mm-hmm.[00:27:00]
Riley: I might just be done with this crap, man. I, that's too much to, to take. And again, it lasted about 10 seconds and I'm like, this is stupid. I'm, I'm this far in. I can keep going. But it was, uh, yeah, like you said, you get kind of punched in the face a bit and it's a little bit hard sometimes to keep going, but it's the having the stomach to just continue.
You know, we've just gotta just keep
Ari: Yep.
Riley: said that, right? Tap 10,000 times. Keep
Ari: Yep. I think it's a hundred thousand times now that I think about it.
Riley: Yeah. Yeah, it probably is. It's funny 'cause I was doing the math now you, you got more years than I do. But I was doing the math on my average weekly training schedule, you know, and a and you know, we generally, at our school, we do six minute rounds.
I'm not sure what you did when
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: yeah, I would do six minute rounds and I was doing the math and I'm like, you know, I've probably got somewhere between 12 and 15,006 minute rounds that I fought, fought with people, you know, and I, I think when you start. Talking about, [00:28:00] just showing up over and over and over and over again.
You know, it's, there's a lot of there and it's
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: road. Yeah. Um, Ari, with year 2025, you said it was a hard year for you. Um, I know a couple of the discouraging things that happened to you, but not talk about that a little bit, man. What, what was going on?
Ari: Uh, just professionally and, uh, personally, uh, I was just trying to find myself. So here's the funny thing. So when I turned 40, my forties were amazing. I, I, I came into my own, uh, I had the like zero bucks given type of thing, excuse my French. Uh, but that's how I handled my forties. And I beca I was more confident and it really rolled well and professionally and I was just doing a lot of things.
And then I thought, well, fifties gonna be just as, just as good. Like, I realize my body's slowing down and things like that, but it's gonna be amazing. But [00:29:00] when 50 hit doubt creeped in again. And I don't know why, but it just, it it did. And I think what happens is you start to realize some things are changing.
You know, there's, there's more days behind me than there are ahead of me, and your body breaks down. So you're running into these roadblocks that you don't expect. In my mind at 52 right now, I feel I, I'm a 14-year-old probably, but like 25, right? But that's what you're running into. And so that's why it became, uh, interesting.
So I had a lot of self-reflection on doubt and how can I keep pushing? So that really has tested me. So last year, uh, just professionally, like I tried to go for promotion, didn't get it, but I, I embraced it after. And again, I've failed more time than I've succeeded, and it just makes you better. It's cliche, but it's true.[00:30:00]
And it,
it, it's really, and I know that everyone out there has had those failures, but it's what does it take to move on past that? And that's what you have to look inside. I know this sounds really philosophical, but it's it's true. And you need to find those things that are gonna help you go forward. So for me, and I've mentioned Keith's name a lot, he is a driving force in what I do.
Yesterday I posted something, uh, I was thinking about mentorship and I was thinking about people in our lives that we, we don't say thank you enough or there's a lot of people that we've impact on us and they don't know they've had an impact. And I think it's really important.
I've always been one to be like, Hey, I really appreciate you. Thanks for doing this. Like, I was thinking about a friend of mine who, uh, I grew up with when I was a teenager, he was older than me. And, uh. He really had a really big impact on like music and like, just like alternative views of the world. And I'm like, man, I'm gonna reach out to him.
So I reached out to him, um, because these people shape us, [00:31:00] right? And uh, I think it's, I think it's important to let them know how important they were in our up, uh, upbringing. So yeah, Keith was one of those people as well. So.
Riley: Yeah, dude, I, it's so funny 'cause it's been, is it four years now since Keith
Ari: Yep.
Riley: um,
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: sake, we had some technical difficulties. So Ari and I are trying to kind of patch this back together as far as where we left off. Um, but if I didn't say it before, Keith was both of our Brazilian Juujitsu instructor, uh, Ari's and I, and yeah, he just was this guy who larger than life personality, great, just. He could, he was a good coach, man. I always appreciated that about him and he would tell me the stuff I didn't, I didn't wanna hear, man sometimes, and, but it, I needed to hear it, but I, it sure stung when he said it. did I ever tell you the story about him sending me home?
Ari: No.[00:32:00]
Riley: Oh my gosh, dude. Um, actually, you know what, I think I did write, 'cause you were, you were talking at one point about writing a book. I'm not sure if you're still into sent you that
Ari: Yep.
Riley: Um,
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: if you've compiled all that stuff yet, and it's been four years um,
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: was at class one night and I had been pulling, um, I'd work all day out on the, on my oil change truck and, but I'd come in at 6:00 AM. And I'd take class, right? And I do a couple hours then and I bust out of there and I go work on my truck all day, then I come in for the evening class, right? And so, dude, I'm burning the candle at both ends, right? I come in and getting, you know, six or seven rounds in, in the morning, two hours of total training, go out on the truck and I
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: in the evening, do it all over again. And I was, I was with him that night and I was trying this move he had showed us. And I just, I couldn't make it happen at all. And it was the most frustrating thing. 'cause I'm sitting there watching everybody else can do it, and I, I just cannot pull this thing off. And he just tells me, he says, stand up, man.
He says, go get your stuff and go home. I'm like, wait, what? You know, it was one of those, it caught me so off guard, but it was the coach in him coming out where he, he's, he's just going, Hey, I see that you are so [00:33:00] fatigued right now that your brain's because what I'm
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: you to do is not that difficult.
And he said, come back tomorrow, you'll be fine. And sure enough, dude, I showed back up 6:00 AM the next morning and I could do the thing. Uh. Uh, no more practice, right? I just went home and got some sleep. But it was him recognizing that that's what I needed as a, as a student. And I appreciated that so much, man.
It was, it was one of those humbling experiences. I'm still the only guy I know of that's been sent home in the middle class. but that was the guy, you know, he was, he was that. So, um, that was my tangent on mentors, but, um, talk, talk more about that man. been that for you besides Keith?
[00:34:00]
Ari: Well, yeah, I've had several people, I think before I mention people, I think I should say, that what mentors end up doing is they're able to recognize stuff in you that you don't see. Some. Sometimes we get on our own way and we have these blinders on. We, we just can't see it. So people who call us out on our bullshit is really important, and like true people, not, not those like, Hey, you're, you know, they, they know you so.
These are important people to have in your lives, and you are very lucky if you [00:35:00] have one or have several. And I think that you need to seek out mentors sometimes, you know, that old, uh, Asian saying is like, when the student is ready, the master appears. That was a key Owen moment. So that literally was for me.
Like I was doing 10th line Jujitsu's with Eddie Bravo and doing all stuff and I, I learned a lot, but I didn't know I needed and then. Keith reached out to me. He said, Hey, why don't you come to my studio in, in Meridian? I want you to teach a 10th Planet seminar. I want you to do half guard stuff. And I went out there and then I said, Hey, can I take one of your Brazilian jujitsu classes in the gu?
And, and so we did. And I'm like, whoa, this dude is like, he's good. He's a great teacher. And I just, I knew instantaneously like I've found my guy. And then we, we struck up a really good friendship for that.
Riley: Um, do you see the, I just clicked you a little, a notification. I realize that you're. you sound okay, but you're not on the [00:36:00] microphone that I can see that really cool looking microphone You're
Ari: I am not on this one.
Riley: microphone.
Ari: Oh, sorry.
Riley: It's okay. I just figured you had it there and you probably wanted to use it, so
Ari: Does this work? Does this sound different now?
Riley: that sounds way better. Yeah. Your other one wasn't terrible, but this better. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try
Ari: Okay.
My voice cancellation off. Okay,
Riley: hear me.
Ari: because now I hear me now. Two, three. Hello, hello,
Riley: Yeah.
Ari: hello. 10. 1, 2, 3.
Riley: Yeah. You sound great
Ari: Okay. Okay.
Riley: roll with that. I like it. I like it. That's a good looking mic, by the way. I think that looks
Ari: I love red and black. That's my thing. So it's, it goes with my, my podcast, which I do, which is called The Geek Assassin Webcast, which is all about eighties culture and eighties movies and anything that's geek related. So there you go.[00:37:00]
Riley: Okay,
Ari: There's my plug.
Riley: talk as we get going. 'cause one of the
Ari: We'll,
Riley: yeah, let's talk about that as we get going, but, okay. So anyways, um, back to mentors,
Ari: yeah. Yeah.
Riley: were, I. That phrase you used, the, uh, when the student is ready, the master will appear. You know, and I, I use that all the time with students.
I love to show thing. I was doing that
Ari: Hmm.
Riley: with a guy where I showed him, you know, just a far You know, he spin around
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: top side control and take an arm, right? And they see me do it. Well, I've done this thousands of times. Right. And they, this, this brand new guy, he is been doing jujitsu about seven or eight months, you know, and he, he tries it and can't figure out why he can't quite make the movement work, know?
But it was after he struggled with it for a few times and then I showed him a couple details. He's in that head space where all of a sudden had questions that needed answered versus this blank slate where I'm just showing him something and he doesn't know why he needs all this detail. Right. [00:38:00] I. Is that, is that what that phrase means to you?
Ari: I think so. Um, did, did he have like that aha moment with you?
Riley: Yeah. No, it was exactly that. It was like. You did that and it looked really easy. 'cause that was his first that's really simple. I said, yeah, you think it is. Why don't you try it a few times? Screw it up a few times. Then we'll come back and we'll ask, we'll, we'll, we'll answer some questions that you're gonna have.
And sure enough, once he had the question, then he could receive the answer. I.
Ari: I, I think it's also, there's something that's tied to that and I find that, and I, this happens all the time, so Keith and Professor Sauer have left a ton of video for us and it is an awesome thing. They've done techniques and I literally will watch a video say that Keith has done. Or a professor have done, and I, I've watched it 15 years ago and I watch [00:39:00] it again and I'm like, oh my goodness.
There's a piece in there that I've never seen before and it was like it was right in front of it. The video hasn't changed. So what's changed? My ability to see things has changed. So I always make the joke as a Brazilian Jiujitsu black belt. You can be on the mat and you can watch another black belt teach, and then you watch a black belt.
They will screw up, but they will seamlessly do something. But you notice it because your eyes are different now and you appreciate, 'cause we all screw up and we do a move wrong and then we just kind of try to cover it up. Right. But you can see it now. When you get more experienced in whatever you do, your vision changes and your ability to see things changes. And so the analogy I was using is as a black belt. I will watch other black belts teach and watch them screw up a move in front of a class of 50 people and then recover.
However, I'm able to identify. That they screwed up. And I wouldn't have seen that as a white belt or a blue belt, or even as a purple belt. But as you get more experience, you're able to see things more. [00:40:00] So when I watched videos of Professor Sauer or Keith Owen, and he did stuff that I watched 15 years ago, I didn't see the things and all of a sudden I would get this gem.
Like it literally happened like four weeks ago. I watched something for Professor Sauer. I'm like, how did I never see that? So that's that invisible jiujitsu, because they don't always talk about it. It depends on your learning style. Are you kinetic? Are you audio, are you visual? And it's usually like a visual thing that happens that they don't talk about.
And then you just pick up that detail. So that's what I really appreciate. Uh, that's awesome. About the aging process. I love that you, there's a clarity that happens. I think we're a little bit more foggy when we're young and exuberant, but we can slow it down when we get older. And um, and I apply that to pretty much everything I do in life.
So it becomes. Life actually becomes a little bit more wondrous in my opinion as you get older.
Riley: That's, uh, that is cool to hear. 'cause I, I've noticed a bit of that myself where [00:41:00] I was just telling somebody a few weeks ago, we were, we were just, we were talking about some of the stuff I did. Um, oh, and just developing businesses. Right. And it's like. I'll read some really boring stuff. For example, a textbook, right? Read a read a textbook, man, and most of the stuff in there you're going through and you're like, I know this, I know this, I know this. But then you find that gem, you find that one little thing in there that's, uh, really changes you see something and it's, it's this beautiful thing of man. I just put a lot of effort into something to find that one little nugget that.
It really was it was
Ari: Yeah, it's, it's true. Yeah. We applied to, I think, uh, everything. So I, we have a limited time left, uh, you know, on this planet. I think I said this last time we were talking, there's uh, more days behind me than there is ahead of me. And uh, so I'm trying to make things count, but that's the importance of being present, which I've talked [00:42:00] about as well.
And someone asked me recently, and I've had a lot of people ask me this, it's like, how do you do so much? And I think it comes down to just having a passion for whatever you're doing. And so if you have a passion for it, it's usually not work. And I like doing it. My wife always asks me, it's like, why are you on the computer?
Why are you doing logos? Why are you doing computer stuff? And I was just like, I, I just find it really fun and, uh, I like doing digital arts and things. It's actually relaxing for me. And I like doing podcasts and I like training jiujitsu, but you have to also balance it with being, you need to have some downtime as well, because we can get pretty sick, uh, and wear ourselves out.
Especially if we are working towards goals. Uh, you mentioned about your black belt that you had to postpone it because you were sick, but you really want to do it. And our, our bodies break down, like our mind might be wanting to do it, but it just, sometimes it just halts you into track is like, dude, you gotta slow down.
Riley: [00:43:00] Yeah.
there is. Uh, so when you, when you're talking about slowing down, what kind of things do you do, Ari, to, to take that
Ari: Uh, my, to like truly slow down. I usually, I spend a lot of time in my man cave here, and it's like my inner sanctum. So I sit in my massage chair, I listen to music, and, um, this is gonna, this is the weird part. I, I typically would just come up with ideas, so I'm not really working. But this is where I have these epiphanies where it's like, hey.
I'm gonna do this new project, I'm gonna start this new company. It it, and then I just kind of, it's like free form thinking, you know, and just chilling out. I'm a big music guy, so I always have music going and that's, that's my downtime stuff. I think people are lying when they're like, oh, jujitsu's like my downtime.
Jujitsu's not your down. It isn't. It's an amazing thing to do, but sometimes you're fighting for your life. You feel amazing, your endorphins are going, but that is not a downtime activity. And so [00:44:00] I don't, I think you have to be careful not to confuse the two, especially when it's like I do jiujitsu five, six days a week as a great, fantastic.
But I certainly hope that you're getting some downtime as well.
Riley: Yeah, no, I think some of the best ideas I've ever with are on road
Ari: Hmm.
Riley: Man, if I'm just behind the wheel of car, no music going. It's just quiet, just. The hum of the tires and
Ari: so there, there's my question for you. How did you come up with salt? When? Where was that epiphany? How did that come about?
Riley: was walking, I was out
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: went on that walk specifically for, now salt as the name is what I'm talking about here, the name of the company Right. Was. Purposely that I was like, I am sitting in the house and I've got crap going on all around me, and I'm just too overstimulated. And I just couldn't think.
And so I was like, I'm, I'm just gonna go on a walk, man. And I, I just took off and went, and I had my phone with me [00:45:00] just talk
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: it. Right. And so I started thinking of all these different things I possibly could name it. And that's where it came from. Yeah. It's exactly in that thing you're talking about.
Ari: know, the other thing that's, I find funny, we live in an age now with social media. Everyone's on it, and we look at engagement, we look at followers as our threshold for like success. I use, we as, as general, and we get hung up on that. It's like, how many people do you have on your podcast? How many people or, or listen, how many views have you had?
And. We get hung up on that. And so, uh, do you know who Gary V is? Gary Vanerchuk. So he has a great quote about that. He's like, do you have one follower? And he's like, yep. And it's like, well, you have one follower. You're making a difference in one person's lives and they want to listen to you. So the moment you start to shed that, it becomes important.
But we are so, uh, conditioned to respond to likes and things like that. Like I do my podcast and it has a very small following. [00:46:00] And I'm okay with that because I do it for me and it's super fun and I do get feedback from a couple people. It's great. I think about, uh, Invictus, there's another one. So when I started Invictus in 2019, I have a social media presence and we have 13,500 followers on our Instagram.
So it's not blowing things outta the water. It is all organic. I've never bought followers, and I can tell you right now that so many people buy followers just to make it look good. And I happen to be, uh, pretty savvy on the internet, so I can tell which there's literally a program out there that you can type in a name of something and you can see if people have bought followers.
And yeah, I can, I can give you the info and so you can see who's doing what.
Riley: I wanna see it 'cause I got some for a
Ari: Yeah, so you can do that and it can show how many people have joined in a day, how many people you've lost in a day. Engagement's always the big one. It's like, oh, I have a hundred thousand followers, [00:47:00] but there's been like 10 likes on it that they don't match up. So there's a lot of different ways to investigate that.
So my point being is I never wanted to buy followers. I wanted to be organic. So that's an organic following and things just happen over time. Uh, sometimes it rocks, sometimes it doesn't, and things will hit viral and then you might spike. But viral things, the reason that most people don't go viral is because it's not a cute animal thing.
You're not seeing something controversial. I think that what you and I are talking about is like really real things. But I haven't said anything that is like throwing someone under the bus. And so people love that because then they share it. It's like, oh, you hear what Ari said about so and so. It's like, what an asshole.
And, and that's how get you views, you know? And I know how to get views, but I refuse to do that 'cause that's not how I wanna play the game.
Riley: It's Right,
Ari: Yeah. Yeah.
Riley: man, Ari, [00:48:00] when you're, um, you know, coming back to that. Walking through a rough 2025 and, and you know, you've mentioned Invictus, you mentioned the Geek Assassin Podcast. Um, you know, you have a full-time job outside of that. The, those things you're designing, logos, you're doing, you know, you've got, you've got this Juujitsu school, right? You, you do have your in a lot of pots right there. And what, what do you do man, when there's just obstacles to overcome? What's, what's your. Kinda mindset and philosophy behind that. 'cause you're, starting a new thing, you're kind of, you got a lot of stuff you gotta deal with, right?
Ari: So you're talking about the, the pressure of, uh, overwhelm or failure.
Riley: Yes, exactly what I'm talking about.
Ari: So everyone's looking for the magic bullet, which is, if I do this, I'll get out of that funk. Sometimes funks last weeks, [00:49:00] months, and they can even last years. So there is no magic bullet. And I guess that's the magic bullet itself. The only way that I know how to do it. There's, there's two things I do. One, it's actually leaning on mentors is a big one.
If you keep everything internal and down and pushed down, it turns into a cancer and it's harder to deal with things. So actually talking to people. Getting advice is really good. And even if it's not advice, even if you're just like, Hey, I just need you to hear me out. I wanna rant or I wanna a rave about stuff.
So that's the first one, having a good support structure. But say you don't have a good support structure or you don't have those people yet in your lives, what's the other thing you do? And I always say that my superpower was just being, um, consistent at things and just refusing to give up. And no matter how hard it got, it's like, I know I failed.
I'm gonna get, I've failed so many times. Oh my goodness. And I will continue to do it. So, uh, [00:50:00] last year I did a promotional process in, in the police, um, force that I'm in. And I didn't, I didn't make it. I thought I had a really good interview. I thought I had a great chance, but it didn't work. And then I went in, I had some amazing feedback from one of the HR sergeants there, and it was really good.
It was like a two hour conversation and I went in with an open mind and I really listened to what he had to say. And, you know, you don't end up getting. A black belt Brazilian juujitsu by quitting, you don't end up getting several black belts, uh, in martial arts by quitting. So it's, that's the same thing.
It's just kind of Okay. And it's not overnight, so you can't ru rush the process. I got some amazing advice from, he's now passed, but Octavia, uh, Haino, um, who died. He was a, he was a Brazilian juju practitioner. And he came to my school and I was a blue belt at the time and he, he had dropped in and I said, Hey, I really have a plateau.
I'm at blue belt and I am, I'm not getting stuff. How do you [00:51:00] please tell me, tell me the wisdom. You're a third degree black belt. Tell me. And he said, A plateau is in Brazilian jiujitsu is when the mind and body are outta the sync. And so what happens is the mind has to subconsciously work through some things and eventually you'll come to class and it clicks.
And I'm like, Ugh, but how long does that take? And he's like, it depends on the person, but if you keep showing up, it eventually starts to work itself out. And even though that, again, that's not a magic bullet, I was like, oh, okay. That starts to make sense. And I've had that happen so many times. I can't hit that arm bar like for a year.
It's not working. And then all of a sudden, and it clicks and it's just because your body and mind have to kind of sink. If you force it, it doesn't work. And so I, I guess that's really what I'm saying. You can't force. The change to happen. The change just sometimes happens. You have to let the universe kind of guide you a little bit.
Riley: That's, um, you got my wheels turning so, so hard right now 'cause I, I think. [00:52:00] We talked jujitsu. 'cause that's where we kind know
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: Right. But that's a business thing too, man. Your, ability to just kind of, and you've experienced it where there's a problem that needs solved and that the, the, the solution's not readily apparent.
It's not. have to stew on
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: for me, sometimes that some things come instantly. see a problem, there's a solution, and I'm just gonna fix it. But some things, man, I've had things take a year I'm just stewing on this thing for a while and it's, it's sort of hanging out in the back of my head and, and day it just, it is.
And seems so obvious. How did I not pick that up yesterday? You know? And
Ari: Yeah, and to go back on the mentor thing, and if you want a shortcut in life. This is a big one, and I honestly believe this is true and I've done it a lot. If you're having a problem and you, you bring it to your mentor and it's like, Hey, I'm having a problem about my business, [00:53:00] how to get more students on the map.
How do I do this? How do I do that? They've already gone through that process and they can give you advice and say, here's my experience. And you can ask several people and they'll give you the experience if you actually listen to their experience. Although it's not you, it will allow you to avoid certain roads to go down.
Which will make your process quicker. You certainly can go through life figuring it all out, not asking for help, and you might get there. But if you wanna have those shortcuts, ask people, listen to them, really listen to them. And you can avoid, I, I'm gonna use this in quotes, but wasting time on certain avenues.
And I've done that a ton. So the problem is, is when you're young. A lot of times you don't want advice from people. You think you've got all the answers and you can figure it out. So my suggestion would be maybe listen to those who came before you because they certainly can help you.
Riley: It was funny, [00:54:00] I just had a, a recent experience where my son wanted to build this storage box with some drawers in it for his, his, uh, four runner. He, he just bought. Right. And he wanted be able to put camping stuff in there and, and have this little storage container. Well, he, he bought some plywood. He. And he left it and it warped it was, that's what
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: And he bought some wood glue and some screws. Well, it was three quarter inch thick, you know, plywood, I don't know what that equals in your world, but
Ari: Yeah, it's, we're still three quarter inch. It's weird.
Riley: But, uh, he bought these, you know, inch and a quarter screws, so they barely long enough through the wood, let alone get into the
Ari: Uh.
Riley: piece. And then, uh, let the, the wood glue that he bought froze outside. And so it ended up. Just ruining it chemically. And anyways, he got this whole box built, put together, struggled, bust through it. Didn't really want dad's help and. Picked the thing up, went to walk across the room, slipped dropped one end of it and the whole thing collapsed into a pile. [00:55:00] And then he came to dad saying, Hey, can you show me kind of what, where I went wrong? And so when the student was ready, the master appeared. Right. And I'm not a woodworking master, but I'm definitely further along that path than him. But this kind of circles back around to what you're saying, you know, he was ready at that point and we ended up putting together a really nice little box for him.
But it was, uh, was that. That learning curve. Had he asked the first time, he could have saved himself some time. However, school of hard knocks was a very education. He
Ari: Yeah.
I've seen it a ton too. Like in my juujitsu career, I've had students who wanted to get promoted super fast or they wanted to be a black belt because, uh, so at the time it's like I wanna be a black belt sooner than later because by the time I actually get my black belt, there'll be so many black belts that the market would be saturated and I won't have that niche and I won't be able to teach seminars.
And they're all wide-eyed about the world and things like that. And, uh, rushing, they wanna [00:56:00] rush. I'm an expert now. I've done it for three years. I'm an expert and it's, unfortunately, it's not how it works. And, um, especially in juujitsu, that's the funny thing in jiujitsu, your physical prime versus your technical prime.
So I'm gonna ask you this question. When was your physical prime? How old were you?
Riley: Oh, way before I man, I didn't start till I was
Ari: Okay.
Riley: my physical prime was, Mid
Ari: Yeah, so assume, let's just say you've started when you're 20, your physical prime being in your mid twenties, but your technical prime, you're still working towards. And so, uh, because your efficiency has to be better because your endurance is not the same, your strength is not the same. So, uh, they, they're not, they're not matched in the same manner.
And again, you, you can't rush it. Or those things can be off kilter. Sometimes they're the same. Sometimes your physical priming your technical prime are the same, but. It usually is not the case, and I apply that at, at for with everything I do. Like I think about podcasting. When I started podcasting, I had [00:57:00] no idea how any of this worked, how sound worked, what was important.
But as you learn, you're like, oh, okay. This is how it works. So, you know, now I'm like a three striped blue belt when it comes to podcasting.
Riley: So you self-promoted there? Huh?
Ari: I did. I got my belt from God.
Riley: play. That's a really interesting take, man. 'cause I, I think what we're, what you're talking about there is that willingness to try things at it for a while. You're just
Ari: Yeah,
Riley: man, but that's how we learn. You know, again, circling back to those, we, we haven't even come up with questions to ask yet, but you gotta try something in order to get questions, and now you at least have
[00:58:00]
Ari: so let me pose this question to you. When you see a new person come who super athletic to the gym and they want to do Juujitsu and uh, they get their. They're butt tapped several times and they don't show up. Why didn't they show up again? What's the thing?
Riley: Dude, that's a broad question. Um. They weren't willing to suck at it, probably
Ari: Yeah. And that's kind of where I was trying to go for that. It's, they're unwilling. I'm not [00:59:00] good at it right away. I'm super athletic. I was a D one, whatever, you know? But I'm not good at jiu-jitsu. So that's the hard part of not being good off the bat when you think you should be.
Riley: When you're dealing with,
Ari: Okay.
Riley: you know, just the, those, you know, business headaches or martial arts headaches or whatever it happens to be, those kind of things, and you're learning some hard lessons. How, how do you prevent from just becoming calloused and hard and resentful rather than learning the lesson?
Man.
Ari: Wow, that's a good one. Um. Well, to use one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies, it Can't rain all the time, so. So that's from the Crow, 1994, Brandon Lee. And, um. I absolutely believe that, you know, so we'll have things in our [01:00:00] lives where people will die and you'll have these like horrible things that happen and, and you have these peaks and valleys.
That's just how it is. So I know that it won't last all the time. On the, on the both sides though, you know, when you're at your high and everything's going amazing, you have to realize that you're gonna have some lows that are gonna come your way. So it's just realizing that that's just how life works.
So I always tell myself it just, it can't rain all the time. So that's what kind of gets me through and um, we all go through it. And the other thing too is do not be fooled by social media. Do not be fooled by what you see on Instagram and Facebook, on how awesome people's lives are and things. They're only presenting what they want you to see.
And I know people talk about, oh, I'm super authentic on social media. It's like we all have filters in some way. So. Um, you just need to take that with a grain of salt. And yes, there are some people who are more authentic than others. I'm not saying that everyone's trying to use, uh, subterfuge to fool us.
That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying that you just, you [01:01:00] have to realize like who you are in person and who you are in public could be different things. So it's the, it's the difference between your nature and your demeanor. Sometimes they're aligned, most times they're not. Because we have to present differently.
Like when I think about policing, I know who I am as a person and I'm more of a type B personality than I'm a type A personality. And in policing they usually is like, well, you must be a type A personality to be a cop. So I have learned how to be a type A personality. I've learned how to embrace conflict, how to deal with conflict, how to talk with people, you know?
Um, it is something, some people have a talent, some people have a skill. So for me it was a learned skill. It wasn't a talent. So something just to keep in mind, I think.
Riley: Find those two of those words, man. Uh, I, I'm getting the drift, I think of what you're saying, but the difference between a skill and a talent, sometimes those are used interchangeably, but I [01:02:00] don't think they
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: interchangeable words.
Ari: No, I mean, you, you can be, I, I was not blessed to be talented at Jiu-Jitsu. It took a lot of hard work and skill. Like I will teach some of my students now that definitely have a talent. You show them once they've picked it up and they're like, you're like, what is going on? How are they, how do they get all the detail?
So that is, they're blessed, so, and good for them. Amazing. You know, that's why s.
Riley: guitar once and they got it, huh?
Ari: Yeah. Right. Uh, and some people, some people are savants at things, you know, you do actually see savants, well, they hear a tune and all of a sudden they're like, I can play it. I'm like, oh my goodness. Right. Like that's, that's a talent that is just way beyond most people.
So, um, yeah. Most of us have, have to grind and grinding is okay.
Riley: Yeah, that's something I've always really admired. You know, and I, I've never spent any time in Japan, I ever did, I'd wanna sit down [01:03:00] with someone who's like a, um, samurai swords man. Somebody who's been doing that for
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: years, who because you know, we talk about those little nuggets you get from experience and learning things, and they've done the same process over and over and over again.
But they continue to do it because they're getting nuggets. I think that is so cool about that culture where they just will pour into something their entire life they under, they have an understanding at the end of that, it's so much deeper than the average person who tries something for a couple years and moves on to something else, right?
Ari: Yeah, and I think they continue to do it 'cause they know they can't seek perfection. So they're always just trying to, you know, it's always like, here's the finish line and they're here. And then for some reason it either goes like this or it just goes slower and slower, but you'll never touch it.
Riley: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's martial arts, right?
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: that's how that works. We were joking about it. Um, you know, last time we were on recording that, that first part of the episode where were talking about how, you know, have you [01:04:00] mastered this juujitsu thing? You've been doing it for 20 years and we've, you know, you gotta laugh out of it.
I gotta laugh out of it because it's like, there's no mastering it. You know, we even call people master at the time, but you'll ask those guys and they're like, nah, man, that's not that, how that rolls.
Ari: know. And when you look at Professor Sauer, so I, I'm sure you've seen this before, so I'm gonna float this by you. You'll ask professor and you'll go, Hey Professor, I'm getting stuck in side control. They have this, they have this particular grip. How do you get out of it? And Professor Ser always goes, I don't know, but, and so, and then he will go to teach it, but he's making it up, like it's not all in there.
It's literally, he knows how the bodies move and so he will make it up and come up with something. I've seen him do it so many times and it is amazing to watch. So.
Riley: No, I think, and I think that's the, he does it at such a level that even like yourself, been doing it for 20 years, you watch him and are in awe
Ari: Oh yeah.
Riley: up with a solution that you didn't, you just wouldn't have thought about. [01:05:00] You know, how many times do you go through a pattern and not notice something, and then some other guy comes along, some mentor, and
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: it's right there. It puts a finger on it, and they,
Ari: And, and it, it's, it's kind of sad too, like I will see young practitioners who are in the presence of Professor Sour, master Sour, um, and I even think about this, Keith or any other type of person, you don't realize that in that moment you are experiencing something that you won't ever experience again.
And trust me when I say this, when it is gone, you will. I, I hope you'll appreciate it more, but if you can be present while listening to them and you pick up so much more, it's, it's incredible. So I just strongly encourage people to realize, and it doesn't matter, they don't have to be world renowned. It could be your own coach on anything you do.
It's like, please take each of those moments and go, oh, this is a wonderful time. So I, I don't know if I said this last time, ri, but I was saying. [01:06:00] Um, today is our, remember when days did I talk about that?
Riley: Um, I don't remember that. No.
Ari: So that's what I, I always tell people. So right now, today is your, remember when days 'cause we will typically go, Hey ra, do you remember when 10 years ago we were with Keith Owen? How awesome that was. So we don't realize that we're living through awesome moments right now, presently here and now. We always have to wait until it's passed to.
Appreciate it. So if you can start appreciating when you're present, it's uh, it's a complete game changer.
Riley: That's so much wisdom right there. You just dropped, dude. I. That's, that's gonna make it into probably the opening of this, this podcast, because you're, I think we don't realize that, and I, and I'll tell you, training directly with Keith Owen, for the many years I trained directly with Keith Owen, I didn't, I didn't realize what I had in front of me. know, I thought I did, I thought, I really thought I was appreciating
Ari: Hmm.
Riley: but I wasn't. I, I. [01:07:00] man, I can think of so many questions I'd have now, And kills me was to think back about how many days I just walked in there, just kind of like, eh, I don't really care. I've seen this move before
Ari: Yeah, I.
Riley: kind of disregarded what was really in front of me there.
Ari: I think I had the advantage because I wasn't at HQ with you guys. I was a distance learner with him. You know, I brought him out to my school 20 times and we visited, we went every, like I spent a lot of time with Keith, but I didn't have that every day grind with him. Uh, which for me, it makes me super sad 'cause I wish I had that 'cause I know.
The moments I had with him were like super special. So maybe I was just, so, here's my moment, I have 'em for four days. I'm just gonna soak it up, ask 'em all these questions. And so maybe that gives me a, a little bit different perspective. But even now, IE, even if I'm in the presence of someone on [01:08:00] a daily basis, I'm just always trying to grab it, always trying to grab it.
So it doesn't matter if you're distanced or not, just try to grab onto it.
Riley: So beautiful dude. Um, Ari, do you ever feel from a entrepreneur perspective. an instructor perspective that you're just making stuff up as you go.
Ari: All the, all the time. All the time. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Um, like literally every day I'll try stuff out and it won't work, bro. And I'm like. Yeah, that was dumb. But I mean, that's how you kind of learn. I, I do my research, but I will throw things to the wind and it will come back and hit me in the face and I'm like, okay.
Noted. So, um, none of us get it right on the first, first go, typically. So, yes, all the time. And I hope you do too. And I, I hope everyone does.
Riley: Oh, absolutely, man. I and, and it's cool because I, I ask similar type questions on this [01:09:00] podcast a lot because I find it super comforting when other people experience that same thing and it turns out anyone in the entrepreneur space. Or honestly in the life space, right? Anybody who's breathing air is feeling that and it's comforting to know that, oh crap, I'm not the only one man.
I, I don't have the solutions. I don't always know where the trail's going. I, you know, I'm just making it up as I go and
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: that is comforting.
Ari: And it, it's awesome to hear those stories. Like, they're like, Hey, how'd you come up with your business thing? And it's like, it's a funny story, but I was like at Burger King and something happened and you're like, that's how you came up with your million dollar business. Like yeah, it was one of those things.
And. That's the awesome, I love hearing that rather than, it's like I looked in a textbook and I did an economics degree and like, like they went through all the, the normal things, like the inspiration hits you at the weirdest times and those are the stories I wanna hear about. Those are the stories I wanna read about.
Um, those are the videos that I watch. Uh, it's the weirdness that I am attracted to because I'm like, in my soul, I'm super weird, [01:10:00] so I gravitate towards that kind of stuff.
Riley: Do you, so tell me the story of the, the beginning of Invictus, man. I'm, I, you said it. How'd you come up with that idea? What were you doing? Where were you at?
Ari: So I was in policing. I was pro, I was uh, about six years on and I was into jiujitsu well before that. I got on, when I got hired, I was a brown belt at the time, and I realized that there was a deficiency in how police officers trained. And I was like, well, we need to, we need to fix that. So I wanted to train cops and I would start train cops.
And I realized that there were all these amazing instructors around the world that are teaching jiujitsu to police officers. However, we were not communicating with one another. We were in our own individual spaces. So I'm like, I wanna create something, a collective. So a collective being a group of people.
It wasn't [01:11:00] specifically based for, you have this company, you have this company. It wasn't like that. It's like, let's try to encompass everyone. So we started a Facebook group and we just started sending, 'cause I knew who. The cops were on my Facebook that were doing Jiujitsu and we started this like small thing, actually it wasn't even his Facebook group, it was like a group of, it was a messenger thing and there was probably like a dozen.
And then someone, uh, there was an instructor and the hashtag that he had used was BJJ Make it Mandatory. And I'm like, oh, that's amazing. That's what, that should be our thing. And then I'm like, can't call our company BGJ, make it mandatory. It's too much of a mouthful. It doesn't make sense. And so I was thinking we need like a cool name.
And so came up with Invictus, which means Unconquerable in Latin, and Invictus, Leo Jiujitsu Collective. And that's kind of how it started. And then we created a Facebook group. [01:12:00] Uh, at the time I collaborated with, uh, a partner down in Texas. Uh, we're no longer, uh, partnered anymore, but that's kind of how it started.
And then it kind of just took off from there. So I designed a website, did the Facebook, the group, we did the Instagram thing and it just started getting more and more momentum. And then we started doing seminars around the country. And our first one was in Houston, and we had like 110 cops show up on the mat.
All did Juujitsu. I'm like, this is crazy. Like there's a lot of us. And, um. And then it just kind of started growing from there. And since that time, there's way more companies that are teaching jiujitsu to police officers and some really accomplished ones. There's, there's, there's a lot of work to be done and, uh, we talk and we collaborate with one another.
So, uh, it, it's pretty fun. It's pretty awesome.
Riley: Dude, you've been an early mover on a couple things, right? It sounds like Invictus was one of those submissions 1 0 [01:13:00] 1 definitely was one of those. What, what's your
Ari: Your thoughts on that?
Riley: sometimes, that's a business strategy, right? You just, you saw something from early on that other people weren't seeing. You started posting, you know, juujitsu moves online. When did that start?
Ari: 2006?
Riley: Yeah. Yeah. So really,
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: the US at that point for, you know, 10, 12 years, and. It really hadn't caught on, caught on yet, but that was about the time when it really started to, was a lot of interest in it prior to that, but it wasn't until the, you know, late nineties when you started seeing anything.
But as far as video content, that was the beginning man, you know, and early mover concept. I, I want you to talk about that a little bit.
Ari: I wish it was a business concept. Uh, if it was, I would've been a millionaire. Uh, it was a passion concept and I didn't think about [01:14:00] anything like I did monetize the channel early on. Uh, but it's, I, if what I know now, if I could have applied back then my friend financially way different, but that was never my game.
It was like, Hey, I have such a passion for Jiujitsu. I love this stuff. There are no videos on YouTube, which are showing instructional for jiujitsu. And so remember YouTube came out in 2003 and there wasn't a lot of stuff out there and there was like clips and things, but no instructional, and I'm like, I'm just gonna start throwing instructions on.
So that's where I started and I got a lot of backlash. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So people, there was a lot of gate, there was a lot of gatekeepers in in Brazilian jiujitsu. Oh this dude, this dude is not a black belt in BJJI was a black belt in Japanese Jiujitsu, so I was wearing a red GI at the time.
And they're like, that's a chore gi. He is trying to make himself look like A [01:15:00] BGJ black belt, and he's misrepresenting himself. He doesn't know how to do BJJ. So this was the backlash that would happen. So there's a community who absolutely hated me before coming up with this concept because of what they thought.
Uh, not what was reality, but what they thought. And there's no way that I could have convinced them. However, on the flip side, there were thousands and thousands of people going, thank you for putting up this R Bar video. Obviously when I look at the stuff that I did 20 years ago, it's cringe worthy to me now because I have changed.
And yes, I didn't know technically I wasn't nearly as, uh, good as I am now. So that's a real thing. Uh, were some of the things kind of. Um, fancy moves. Oh yeah, there's a ton. And then I put a ton of 10th, uh, 10th Planet stuff on. So Eddie didn't even have stuff online and I started putting 10th Planet Jiujitsu moves online because I was, I was under him and [01:16:00] people had nowhere to go or something would happen on the UFC and they would go, what is an Oma Plata?
And guess what came up? My Oma Plata video. So you have millions of views on that, because people didn't know Joe Rogan would be like, oh my goodness, it's a go-go Plata. Type in Gogo Plata, YouTube bang submissions 1 0 1. And so that's how I was generating things. And then Eddie would come and do seminars at my place and I would record him and like, Eddie, we need to get you out there.
There's this platform called YouTube. So I started recording him and hundreds of thousands of views started coming in because Eddie was actually teaching. And then I started thinking to myself, I, you know, I'm not an expert in this area. Let me start getting other black belt. Let me start getting Keith Owen.
Let me start getting James Foster, Pete Wilhelm, classy grappler. These are all the like early guys that I would put on and I would feature them. And there's so many amazing people out there, just like Invictus. It's like, let me take you and I wanna put you in the forefront so we can get this art out. Th [01:17:00] there was a lot of misconception.
It was like, oh, he's doing, he's making, he's making tens of thousands of dollars off people and blah, blah, blah. Never charged anyone anything. It was always free. And I think at the height of my YouTube, uh, uh, ad Cents, camta, I think it was making like a thousand dollars a month, which was great. Right. Uh, which has since.
It trickled down to maybe $70 a month now because there are literally tens of thousands of Brazilian juujitsu channels and everything gets washed away. And I like to think that my proudest thing in Juujitsu teaching those videos were, I had seen videos before, but the problem was a lot of times instructors were both wearing the same color.
Gee. So you couldn't tell whose arm was where, which was important. I noticed that. The other thing is they weren't changing their angle. They were only showing one angle. So it's like, what's his feet doing behind? I can't see it. So what I did in submissions 1 0 1 was contrasting gi [01:18:00] and I would go angle one, angle two, angle three.
So you would, 'cause you don't have the ability to come around, so I'd have to play to the camera. The other thing that I was trying to do is keep the videos between 90 seconds and three minutes long. Since that time, our attention span has gone down to about 20 seconds. So that's why you see on Instagram now, it's like, hey, here's your move of the day.
And it's literally bang and over because that's all people want. But at the time that's what it's, but instructional by the time it's like, Hey, I'm gonna show you move. And it, they would go on for 20 minutes and it would be a snor like snore fest. Right? So those are the kind of things that I tried to add for submissions 1 0 1.
Riley: That's pretty cool man. That, it's funny 'cause I, I just commented on a guy's post the other day and he was, it was two guys in the same GI and they were showing an ankle lock and the guy's pulling on his leg and then he falls back and it turns out it's his own leg he's pulling on. 'cause he got it confused in the same color.
Gi Right. I love it.
Ari: It's the truth.
Riley: Yeah. Yeah, that's, uh, I've [01:19:00] watched a ton of, of, uh, instructional where I can't tell whose body part is what man. And it, you eventually figure it out, but it takes some trial and error. It makes it a lot easier if they're wearing different colors, right?
Ari: Yeah, if you wanna be an innovator in anything you do, the, the best advice I can give is recognize the deficiency in the area that you are currently in and see if you can fix it. So this is how inventions are made. When I was 10 years old, I came up with an invention and unfortunately I didn't patent it because this literally would've made me a millionaire.
I came home from school one day and I said, mom, my bananas are all smushy and bruised. 'cause you put it in my lunch kit. And they get all bashed around and she's like, well, what are you gonna do about? It's like, well, I thought if we take a piece of plastic that's kind of telescopic, we could call it banana armor and put the banana inside so it doesn't get smashed in my lunch kit.
And I never did anything with that. And then about eight years later, I started seeing it at Walmart. Someone came up with the idea [01:20:00] eventually. But it's these necessities that we see in life that we improve upon, and then it's like, this is how inventions work. So, yeah.
Riley: Dude. Yeah, I think I've got about five of those in my life that I didn't act on
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: somebody else did it.
Ari: Yeah. Happens.
Riley: Oh, that's so cool, dude. Um, what else you got in the works? What other ventures you got? Ruin.
[01:21:00]
Ari: Oh my goodness. No more ventures. Nothing right now. So I'm trying to maintain what I have. So I have Invictus, uh, which is going, um, which is Nationwide, which is for police officers. I teach Jiujitsu, uh, several days a week at my small personal dojo. I have my Geek Assassin podcast, which is a eighties podcast, which I said.
I also have another podcast, which is called No Zoo Lions. And no zoo lines. I do with my very good friend Chad Lyman, and it's a police related podcast where we talk about use of force in jujitsu. So, um, that one's super fun. And then I have my company, which is called Chaos. And Chaos. Basically we do, I do websites and uh, I do digital artwork now and logos.
I've been doing that probably for the last five years. So, uh, I make logos for people, so that's what's going on in my world.
Riley: Oh, that's super cool. Yeah, that was one of the things, 'cause [01:22:00] again, I, we know each other from, from a distance, um, mostly, and, but I see your stuff all the time. I see a different thing here and different thing there. And I'm like, man, yeah, our's got, he's doing a ton of crap, man. It's so cool. So I know you've experienced some of the stuff I have right.
Ari: Yeah. And from,
Riley: discouragement, sometimes overwhelm,
Ari: yeah.
Riley: you know, just too many errs in the fire. You gotta take a break and Yep.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Cut from the same cloth on that.
Ari: Yeah, it's fun.
Riley: That's cool, man. Ari, this is, uh, this is called the Goer in your SALT podcast. When you hear that, that phrase, what does it mean to you?
Ari: That's a great question. Um,
I would say when you put in effort, you sweat and sweat has salt, so go earn your sweat. Go earn what you're trying to get. That's what it would, that's what it means to me. So nothing in life is not gonna be a little bit salty and, and spicy. [01:23:00] So go earn what you get. Nothing is easy, you know, if it's easy, you're not gonna learn from it.
So, um, that's what it means. Go earn it, go earn that, go into that pain because the reward is pretty sweet afterwards.
Riley: Yeah. Love it, man. Alright. Outside of Jiujitsu, which we've talked a lot about in this podcast, what's your favorite pastime?
Ari: Um, my favorite pastime is probably writing,
Riley: Hmm.
Ari: uh, absolutely obsessed with stories and storytelling. So another geek thing of me, I've been doing like roleplaying, Dungeons and Dragons type of thing for over 40 years, and I've written a couple books that haven't been published. My very first book I wrote was called, uh, the Doorman's Credo.
So I spent 18 years as a bouncer. So I wrote that I, I released it as a, a [01:24:00] ebook years ago, and I've always wanted to publish it, but I also have several books that I've been writing and they're on my computer. So some are fantasy, some are talking about self-defense. So writing, I absolutely love writing.
It's, I find it easier to write and tell my story through my fingers than I do through my voice. I really wanna work on being an orator better, and that's something I picked up from Keith, like how to present. But I really can do much better when I type. So that's, I love writing.
Riley: So fascinating, man. 'cause I, I think, yeah, the written word is an art form that I feel like I've barely explored ever and. I was at a Jordan Peterson conference one time, and he had, he's got this whole school where you can go on and learn to write, you know, and, and it fascinated me. And I remember that little spark when, when he, when he talked about it, I was like, man, that would be so cool to do, you know?
Now I haven't carved out any time for it, and I don't know if I'll pursue it, but it seems like one of those art forms that would be worth [01:25:00] pursuing, you know? Fascinating. That's cool.
Ari: Do you know how long it takes to write a book? This is a trick question,
Riley: clue.
Ari: so if you think of it this way, so Stephen King used to say, if you write one page a day, right? You have 365 pages, end of the year, you have a book. Depending on the book, like I'm not talking Lord of the Rings, obviously, but uh. But it's one of those things, so you're like, oh, I can do one page a day.
I absolutely promise you that if you haven't done writing before, you can't do one page a day because it takes discipline. It takes, sometimes you have writer's block. It is really, really hard for most people, unless you're inspired and you have these voices in your head that talk to you, which unfortunately I have all the time, and they talk to me, and so I'm just like, oh, that'd be really good.
So, yeah.
Riley: That's a, that's a cool insight, dude. 'cause you're, you're right. When you try to do anything like just consistently day after day after day, I know a, a lady I was, my wife was talking to here recently, his. Something like [01:26:00] 400 days into running more than one mile every consecutive day for 400 days in a row.
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: now, running a mile is not that difficult. Doing it 400 days in a row is really difficult because
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Right, and that's what you're talking about.
Ari: Percentage wise, when you juujitsu and people are like, I don't have enough time to do Juujitsu Riley, I, I just don't have enough. Do you know one hour of your day? Do you know how much percentage of your day is that's 4%. 4% of your day? That's what it's, so just perspective.
Riley: That's a good perspective, man. Already have a, a favorite band.
Ari: Uh, yes. You've probably never heard of it though. You ready?
Riley: I'm ready.
Ari: Okay. Um. Well, I have several, but obviously off the top of head, it's a gothic industrial band called Skinny Puppy.
Riley: Skinny
Ari: Puppy. Mm-hmm.
Riley: Okay. I'm gonna write this down 'cause I'm gonna, I'm gonna tag him in here and we're gonna see Skinny Puppy.
Ari: They're no longer together, but [01:27:00] yeah, skinny Puppy is like one of my favorites. Another band, which I absolutely love also is called Frontline Assembly as well, so.
Riley: Yep. You're right. I've never heard of both of those, but I, I'm gonna have to check 'em out, man. I, it's, it's another, yeah, it's one of those things that some of the greatest. Bands of all times are barely heard of. Right. They didn't mark it right or they didn't care to mark it. Right. They just did it 'cause they loved it.
Ari: Do you know what Keith Owens favorite band was?
Riley: No, but I know right before he died, he, he liked that, um, oh, they were, uh, like a Tibetan band that made this, uh, what were those guys called the anyways? No, I don't.
Ari: Nickel Back.
Riley: So he, he talked about them all the time, but I didn't realize, he always said it almost like he was joking that he loved Nickelback.
Ari: Nickelback and everyone gives Nickelback shit. And Nickelbacks actually a great band, but it's like one of those things that they talk about. It's like, oh, they, whatever. They suck. I love, they have like, like millions of records sold, but he loved [01:28:00] Nickelback and, uh, there's a great song Ri So you should, you should look up and, uh, it's called, if Today Was Your Day by Nickelback.
And it's super moving because it talks about, about a mentor talking to you, uh, if this was your last day. And so it's very applicable to the whole Keith, so you've gotta listen to it. Every time I hear it, I get like the emotions and stuff. It's, it's amazing.
Riley: If today was your day,
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: I'm gonna check it out. Um, Ari, what's, what's something quirky about you people don't know.
Ari: Oh, I've already talked about the geekiness and the 40 years of playing, uh, Dungeons and Dragons type of thing.
Riley: Yeah, I'm making you come up with another one.
Ari: um, another quirky thing,
Riley: Yes, sir.
Ari: I made a movie when I was nine years old called Terror of the Ninja, and I did it with my.[01:29:00]
Riley: Sweet.
Ari: I did it with my neighbors and was on an old, like, literally film like super eight. And, uh, we recorded it. We, we put music together. I think we had Corey Hart. I wear my sunglasses in the, at night was like the opening.
And then I lost it for 30 years 'cause it was on a reel. And then when my dad had died, I was cleaning out his, his, uh, locker and I found it. And I ended up taking it, getting it put onto A VHS at the time, and then we converted to digital. But the only thing is that it only had half of it. You can find Terror of the Ninja on submissions 1 0 1 because I uploaded it about seven years ago and it's like the beginning, like two minutes of it and it is crazy.
Epic eighties kids movie. So there you go.
Riley: To terror of the ninja.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Okay. 'cause we gotta tag that. We gotta, we gotta link it in here.
Ari: Okay.
Riley: That's great dude.
Ari: yeah.
Riley: That is [01:30:00] super cool. Um, what's been the scariest moment of your life?
Ari: Um, I think the two moments are the, the first one is the death of my father. Uh, when. So he died in 2012. So it was unexpected. He had a massive heart attack while he was golfing. And so the reason that was scary is because I instantly realized that I lost that person to ask, uh, opinions and, and have that mentorship with, it's like you, 'cause you go to your, if you have a relationship with your father, it's like, dad, I need some advice.
So that was, that was a massive shock to me. It's like, who am I gonna ask? And even to this day, I sit and I think, and I kind of talk to him. But he can't respond and like how would he respond based on what I remember of him. So that was a big one. The other was when Keith died, it was the same thing. When you lose someone who's very close to in your [01:31:00] mentorship, you no longer have that ability to have that two-way conversation.
So how do you make your way through the world? But my dad did say something to me before he died, probably when I was about 15. I said, Hey dad, what happens when you get old? What happens when you start losing your mind and you get dementia? What do I do? And he basically said, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna do this justice, what I'm about to say.
But he basically said, you will have enough wisdom at the time that you will figure it out for yourself. You don't always need me to guide you. It's like that's, it's a Star Wars moment when like the Jedi dies and Luke has to do his own decision. It's the same thing, like life is like that, but we really wanna hold onto those mentors as long as we can.
Because we don't have all the answers and it feels really good to, to get advice from someone that you respect. So that was, that was probably the scariest moment in my life and I'd never thought about it until you asked that question just now. I.
Riley: That's so interesting. Dude, my, my wife and I were talking about. [01:32:00] so she still has both her parents, but my, my real mom passed away when I was eight and then my father just six weeks before Keith did. And that was the thing that probably hit me the hardest in that, was that realization that I don't have that person anymore all of a sudden I'm that person for my kids. And dude that, yeah, that hit me hard. It makes me emotional thinking about it. Yeah,
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: I, I hear you for sure.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Wow. Um, Ari, along those same lines, and maybe you've already said it, but what's the best advice you've ever received?
Ari: Do it now. Yeah, do it now. Um, again, this comes back to the, I'm not obsessed with death or anything like that. But just procrastinating and realizing as you get older, time speeds up. So do it now. [01:33:00] Those crazy ideas just jump on them. Even if they fail that you can say, yeah, I, I did it. I tried. So I would say, do it now because you're gonna wake up one day.
And as as my dad had told me, Ari, you don't want to be 80 years old and wake up and realize and regret not doing something. So that's why I became a cop at 39 years old. He had passed away at 38. And at 39, I heard that in my voice. I said, I gotta do it now. If I don't do it now, I'm gonna be in my fifties and sixties and not be a cop, and I really want to do it.
So do it now.
Riley: So wild. 'cause you know, you and I, we, we already talked about the fact that we kind of patch in this podcast together 'cause we had technical difficulties. But between that first part of our recording and today, I heard that exact line from somebody and it was just a in passing conversation that somebody probably online was having, or somebody sitting next to me somewhere, I don't even remember where it came from, but. [01:34:00] That's been rattling around in my head now for, you know, what, three weeks since we talked last.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: You know, it's, uh, as that, that exact phrase, do it now. And I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting there in my chair. I'll be on a walk. I've been doing something where it's like, I'll do it now. You know, I've got a thing I need to do and do it now.
And so that is so cool. What a, what a wild thing for that to be. In the same time that you and I are talking about
Ari: It. It's tied to something. When I was 10 years old and I came up with a motto, my life motto when I was 10, I specifically remember this and my life motto. Which I follow today is this one, learn as much as possible. Two, take that knowledge and teach others. And three, make a difference. So I've applied that to kind of everything that I've, I've done.
And so in order to do that, that's the do it now comes into that, I think so.
Riley: Heck yeah. Um, [01:35:00] what's another, what's an item on your bucket list?
Ari: Uh, bucket list is to go to Scandinavia. I want to go to Sweden, Denmark, uh, and Norway. I, I really do. I've always been drawn to the Viking culture and, um. I'd like to retire there. I just would be on a mountain. I'd be that old old guy who sits in his cabin. Um, so yeah, I, I really wanna go there. I, I am being drawn to places now as I get older to experience more things other than Western culture.
And, uh, I think that's going to be important. So I want to do it now. So that's on my bucket list.
Riley: That sounds, it's funny 'cause I haven't, you talk about being drawn places. I haven't had that until these later years now. There's a few places on the planet I'd really like to go and
Ari: Hmm.
Riley: one of them. There seems, there just seems like a. Cool place to be, know, and I've talked about on the podcast before, but castles man, going back to see [01:36:00] the
Ari: Oh yeah.
Riley: would be the coolest thing.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Cool. Um,
Ari: You gotta remember, right?
Riley: book?
Ari: You gotta remember Compla complacency kills, right? So, um. Yeah. Uh, favorite book? Yes. Uh, do I literally have it? Yes, I have it right here. That's so funny you say that. This is it.
Riley: Oh, rad. It's coming.
Ari: This is my favorite book, uh, of all time. It's a science fiction book. It is a, um, so it's called Armor. It's by an author by the name of John Staley. And, uh, I got a lot out of this book, so it's amazing. So. This is my favorite book of all time. I've read it a million times. I'm probably gonna read it again 'cause I was just talking about it.
So there it is. It basically, it's about an un. It's about, it is, it's about an underdog. That's basically what it is. It's a guy who goes to a planet. There's a war going on. He's inside some armor. He doesn't want to be there, but he's absolutely so good at, he survives. Like there's all [01:37:00] these drops out and everyone dies around him.
But he keeps surviving and he's just trying to figure out why is he always the one who survives? And so he refers to it as the engine takes over and that's why he survives. And so this is a, a fantastic book. So Armor, there it is.
Riley: Sweet. That's so cool. You had it right there in front of you, man.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Alright, tell us, tell us where you can be found.
Ari: Uh, social media, you can find me at the REK, which is on Instagram, and then I have a ton of different Instagrams. You can, if you type in the geek assassin, that will come up. If you type in Invictus, LEO official that comes up, if you type in, um, chaos, uh, that comes up for my stuff. So I have websites associated to that too.
So that's where I can be found.
Riley: Awesome, man. We'll link all those below too, so you, you can go see what Ari's up to.
I appreciate you coming on here today, man. It's been super cool to talk to you. I, I. I wanted to for a long time. You know, like I said, we, we, we know each other from a distance and just from the [01:38:00] juujitsu lineage, but the stuff you put out there and the things you're doing, I said we're kind of cut from the same cloth as
Ari: Mm-hmm.
Riley: the entrepreneurial drive goes and, uh, ability to pull nuggets out of hard work.
Right. And,
Ari: Yeah,
Riley: it's been such an honor, man. I appreciate it.
Ari: thanks for having me on and I really, I really appreciate it and I, I would say to you, this is something I got from Keith is, um, take the time to reach out to people if they, if they email you or they message you, take the time to respond. Don't just give like a thumbs up the ask how they're doing.
And Keith used to do that all the time and it really goes a long way. So I always say pay it forward, right. You may be a mover and shaker in, say, in the podcast world by having salt and, and you start your gear getting up there, but you remember that you were a little guy once, right? And you wanted advice from people.
So you have to pay it forward and it, it pays in dividends when you do it. So I honestly believe that.
Riley: It's beautiful, man.
Ari: Yeah.
Riley: Ari, go earn your salt, my friend.
Ari: [01:39:00] Appreciate it, man. Thank you.