A lot of people ask me if zero shoes are appropriate for professional athletes. You know, why don't we have professional runners or various other people who are wearing our shoes while runners, of course, because they get paid to wear other shoes and we know that kind of cash. But we have a lot of athletes who are using our shoes, even if they're not competing in them for training. And we're going to talk about that in something that, even if you're not into this particular sport, you will find it fascinating in just a few moments on this episode of the movement movement, the podcast where people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first, as you know, those things are your foundation.
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All right. Let us jump in. Rafi and Stas is a pleasure to have you here. Do me a favor.
Tell people who you are and what you're doing here. Yeah. So Rafi and Stas, I'm a Bellator world champion. I'm a two-time national champion and wrestling.
I'm also a father, I'm a husband. And yeah, I'm here because we have announced that I am partnering with Zero Shoes. I've been using Zero Shoes for about like six months now. I used my whole camp.
I had a championship fight in Hawaii. I used my whole camp to prepare for my fight. And I'm here to talk about how much I love Zero Shoes, what benefits I feel like for me have been, you know, because I do, I get the questions too all the time. Like, hey man, are you wearing the shoes?
Or are you just like, you just getting paid from Zero Shoes? And I've also gotten shoes for my training partners, my coaches and things like that because they see the benefits. They see, you know, like the strength and the things that I'm building and the things I'm able to do, or they see the benefits. So, so they want in on it, you know what I mean?
So, yeah, I'm just here to talk about that. Okay, well, I guess we're done. Thank you so much for being part of the podcast. I'm gonna back up and pick apart some of the things you said one by one because they're really fun.
So, for people who don't know, wrestling is one thing, Bellator's MMA, what sort of looking for, not branch group. Come on, give me the word today. Sport, a niche. No, the MMA is a niche thing, but Bellator is its own little.
Oh, yeah, Bellator is an organization. Bellator is an org. So, the sport is MMA, right? So, wrestling is a sport.
MMA is a sport. Basketball is a sport, right? So, the organization I compete in is Bellator. So, so, basketball is to MMA, what the NBA is to Bellator.
So, that's what it's called. MMA is a sport, just like UFC. UFC is a different organization. MMA is the sport.
Mixed martial arts is a sport. Yeah. And so, and now, again, like I said, if you're not into mixed martial arts, if you're not hip to this, if you think, you know, first of all, many of you might have the immediate reaction when you just see Rafael and just hear him talking, he's not what you would think of when you think of an MMA guy. He does not seem like, you know, someone who's just ready to punch you in the face and then he'll give him a like that.
He's not with that face. He's, you know, now when you see, you know, pictures of him fighting or working out, this guy is clearly in shape for doing that. You know, one of the nicest guys you're going to be. And I think that's an important thing to highlight because people do have ideas about MMA that they don't understand or that aren't accurate.
And this is, you know, it's funny. What's the, there's a word for boxing. There's something art, the... Pugh, do this.
No, but there's another word like about the, just, I can't think of the phrase, but it's basically about the art of boxing, which sounds like a crazy thing. But when you start to understand boxing a little bit, you really get the art component of it. MMA, same thing. It can look like just two guys going at it, but it is much more than that.
So, I want to back up before we get back to the zero shoes part. I'm just really curious. How did you get to MMA at all? Like, entry into MMA was a lot like my entry into wrestling.
It was like the curiosity, like curiosity and like learning new things. That's what really got me hooked. And when I got to MMA, so I did wrestling, I started wrestling when I was a junior in high school, which is like really late for wrestling to begin. And then I won nationals, I all Americaned.
I did like really good great things, especially for starters, I like, because I like, dived into the art of wrestling, you know, the, like, you know, why I'm putting my foot here, how I'm manipulating somebody. And then that kind of carried over to make martial arts. Mixed martial arts is wrestling, it's boxing, it's kicks boxing, it's Mui Tai. It's any, any martial art that you can think of, mix it into one.
Pretty much taking the best techniques you get to compare them versus all of the techniques in martial art, another person can bring, you know. So that was what like, cooked me to, to mix martial arts. Like, I had no idea about how to box, I had no idea about how to do jujitsu. And me learning these techniques was like, like, really fun, you know, it's like kind of a rabbit hole of like techniques and things that I can learn, you know, to manipulate somebody else.
It was just like super fun to me in the beginning. And, you know, when I watch an MMA fight and to back up, you know, think about UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship, the way that started was literally some Brazilian jujitsu guys wanted to prove that they were the best fighters. And so they were, you know, staging these fights between different martial artists, I keto guys against wrestlers, you know, boxers against Mui Tai guys. It's like, you know, it's like one of another, of course, the Brazilian jujitsu guys just wiped everybody off the floor.
It was great marketing is what it was. But it's evolved. I mean, I don't follow it really, really closely, but I've been tracking it. She's, I just realized it's been over 30 years.
Holy smokes. Because I was doing I keto and Tai Chi, but not the way most people do those, which is Tai Chi, they look at it. It's relaxing. We did it fighting art and a sport.
Same thing with that keto. We were going to just, you know, dance around and throw ourselves on the ground. I worked with a bunch of guys and women who we just wanted to see is this thing for real or not, which by the way, got me in a lot of trouble when I found dojo's that we're not interested in it. Like a planet in real life, like again, or in a self-defense situation.
Well, I'll tell you something funny about that. But I mean, more, it was like, you know, if you watch, you know, it looks very dancey. And a lot of times people are just kind of, you know, the person who is being attacked will do some move and the person who was attacking kind of goes at the flow instead of what would happen in real flight where they come back after you. So we just, you know, we attacked people for real and we wouldn't throw ourselves on the ground if they didn't get us to fall on the ground and we wouldn't just go for the ride.
We'd come back and it was incredible. Like you said, it was just fascinating. It was really, really interesting. But I, annoyingly, that's going to be funny saying it.
I never got into a fight. And I say annoyingly because I was curious. Like my Tai Chi teacher was a 27 year old guy who'd been doing Tai Chi since he was five. He was 20.
He said to his teacher, what about the fighting part? And his teacher said it's all just built into doing the form. And so he would go into these biker bars and just pick fights with people to see what would happen. And he never lost.
Yeah, I was not that crazy. But there were a couple times living in New York City where someone, you know, wanted a cab driver cut me off on my bicycle. I yelled at him and he jumps out of the cab and yells, I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill you.
And I'm thinking, I've never been in a fight. I'm going to do these martial arts for five years. And I went, all right, give me a shot. He's like, let's try it.
Yeah. Like, I'm going to kill you. I said, yeah, I know. Come on.
Because I just wanted to see what happened. You know, and then he said, I've never seen you again. And he gets in charliques. So, you know, which is actually a great fight.
You know, you know, the crazy thing about like when I started like learning martial arts, and I think this is because I go to schools and I talk to children about like getting involved in a martial art. And the martial arts that I have trained in, you do like a bunch of not fight simulation, but you're like, you're applying a lot of the things that you do. So like in boxing, like we're punching at each other where, you know, you go live rounds or and you just are wrestling like you're trying to beat one another with a grappling in that, like learning all that. And then also probably because I get in fights for a living, it builds a sort of like confidence where when I'm in like situations like that where I'm not like, I feel like most fights happen because of the, the unknowing, like I want to prove to this guy that I can beat his butt because he doesn't believe that I can beat his butt.
I feel like most like bar fights and things of that nature happen like that. But with like from me like doing martial arts and things like that, I know that I'm gonna like win those situations. Like I know it's not like I don't feel a need in those situations to like prove that to this guy because this guy doesn't know it. Like I know it's I'm like, if something comes at me, you know, I'm definitely gonna handle myself, but I'm not seeking out those things because it's not as it's not as exciting to me, you know, to beat up somebody who doesn't really know what they're doing.
You know what I mean? Do you ever hear Mike Tyson talking about this? No. Oh, he says, you know, I'll go to a beat of clever bars.
I think it's a one step in a fight with me. And all I can think is you don't understand if I punched you once, you would die. Yeah. Knowing that he's like, you know, he's kind of like chuckles and walks away.
Yeah. Like, yeah. It's been counting the situation and in those situations, I find myself like laughing. Right.
It didn't help in all of my situations. Like the most time I end up laughing like they are more agitated or, you know, or they feel more a need to like prove themselves to me. And I'm like, please don't like I'm joking right now. But like if you touch me, it's not gonna be good for you.
You know, but, you know, and hold on. I'll tell you, I'm only five seven. And how many way away? I'll probably 160.
Yeah. So that's the kind of thing, you know, bigger guys might think, Oh, here's something. Here's something. Here's kind of chuckling at them.
That's gonna be very upsetting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I definitely got into fights because of that, but I'm like, seek out, you know, I had a thing once where some guy was on the bike path and I went around someone and I didn't yell on your left because I went around him by like 20 feet and he started speeding in me. You're supposed to yell on your left and I stopped my bike. I said, do you really want to argue about this? I mean, is this really something you want to get into?
And I was really tempted to say, just for fun, do you know Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? Can you go to the first go? No, I went, oh, then you should come to my school. I mean, I, now I don't, you know, I don't even know.
That would give him like a second thought. Exactly. And this is like, he was like in a six to. I really want to engage.
Yeah. Just to do that pattern interrupting people go, wait a minute, wait a minute. So, yeah, if this guy who's five, one, forty five is willing to challenge me, something is wrong. Yeah.
If it looks too good to be true, it might not be true. Yeah. I think that sums it up. So, and what was it like for you when you went from wrestling and added these other martial arts?
I mean, most people in MMA, they do have a specialty that they rely on, but sometimes, you know, that specialty doesn't really the best thing for a fight. What was it like adding these other things to the mix? Yeah. So when I started, I was actually like in between, I was thinking about going to like the Olympic level and wrestling, like on a senior level for wrestling.
At that time, a fighter by the name of Jens Pover, who's the first UFC champion was starting a gym in the same town that I was wrestling out of. He asked pretty much for me to come to his gym to just show the MMA guys some wrestling. So I went there pretty much just like for a job, you know, I was just going to show everybody how to wrestle, you know what I mean? MMA guys, how to wrestle.
Then eventually he got me to do some kickboxing classes and then he got me to do some jujitsu classes. And then that's where they like kind of piqued my interest, you know, like I would come to these classes and I'd be like, man, I didn't know that or man, that's cool to do, you know. And it had gotten to a point in wrestling where I like I was at the top level, but it wasn't like a lot of learning. I mean, there was still like fine tuning and stuff like that, but there was like an abundance of learning thing, new things.
When I came to the MMA, there was an abundance of learning just like my eyes were like wide open with all the new techniques and ways to think about, you know, manipulating somebody in a fight. So yeah, so he got me hooked with that. And then it took a while, took like six months or so for me to like get a fight. He was like, because he got me to the class and being like, Hey, you might as well try to fight now, you know, you know, all the things now, you might as well try to fight.
And I did an MMA fight and no lie to you. So I finished this guy in like a standing, this guy was like six one on Brandon on five seven. I had him in like a front headlock and it's called an anti-con of choke. His legs were like dangling in the air and then like I let him go like he tapped out of the air.
I let him go and he was like unconscious. And I thought I was like the biggest deal or the baddest guy on planet earth and that feeling was like I was addicted to the learning new things, but then that feeling of like, like winning a fight, I was hooked. I was hooked. I thought I was a bad.
I felt so strong. I was like, I got on earth, you know, granted I'm still an amateur and I don't really know everything. Yeah. Like me to this day would like trash the guy, you know, that I, the guy that I was.
But yeah, but that feeling I was like, man, like this is, this is super fun. I want to do this more. So I got into it. Well, in some worlds, you know, having the first thing that you do go that well is bad news because it's not always like that.
So this comedy for living, if you'll say the worst thing you can have is a good first set because your second set is going to suck. And then, you know, stock traders, the worst thing you can have is a good first trade because then you think you're smart. And so, so where did you have any of those sort of, you know, roller country things or just given your wrestling background, I imagine it might have eaten out the curves. Yeah, given my wrestling background, I had Russell, I had a high level and I had taken Ales and I'm taking Ales like kind of all the time or throughout wrestling because also I started wrestling late.
So a lot of guys like knew a lot more than me were better than me. I hadn't, you know, practiced enough techniques. So I didn't necessarily like, like fall into that. Like I am, I am the best.
I knew I wanted to get better. I knew I wasn't where I needed to be. And I was addicted to the learning part. So I was more of like a gym rat, you know, so like trying to be there early be there late for the technique and the mindset of fighting, you know.
And I think that paid dividends for me because that's what ultimately like I can rely on now. It's like the knowledge that I gained while I was coming up, you know, or the willingness and wanting to like learn. I think that that that helps me out. Oh my God.
No, that's a huge thing. You know, I just thought of a weird thing. Like when during COVID, actually, I watched a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu videos. I don't know why I found it really fascinating.
And it did look like it was really fun. I think of BJJ and MMA to a certain extent, it's like a three dimensional chess match with two. Yeah. Yeah, that's how it worked.
I looked at wrestling at that way before I found Jiu-Jitsu, you know. But yeah, that and just like in a chessboard where there's just so many different ways you can go to get to the same goal. That's yeah, I'm exactly a 3D chessboard. That's exactly.
I see it. It's so fun. Like it's so fun and like figured out like, okay, maybe this guy's strong with me, but I have technique I can do for that. He goes left.
I can go, you know what I mean? Right? I can I can I can use his momentum or push against his momentum. It's yeah, it's just super fun.
Did you did you by chance see I keep things on HBO Netflix, I came from which it was a show that was on during COVID. They're waiting for the rest of the first season, hopefully a second season called the Old Mandy. So Jeff Bridges plays a way retired CIA guy who gets dragged back into something and in the first two episodes in particular, there are fight scenes where there's a lot of stuff that's very MMAish and from all the stuff that I watched and listening to the commentary, you know, I learned just enough about how to watch MMA or watch BJJ and I knew you had certain things about what you want to do in that chess game. And what was amazing about that show is like there's a time where I'm like, oh, you got to go right there and suddenly locks his leg.
You got to get a guard on there and suddenly does it. It was for real. So that's a prelude to asking it to this weird question. For someone who doesn't know anything about MMA, if they're going to watch, what would you ask them or invite them to kind of look for so that they could get a little bit of an understanding that might make them want to find out more about either just watching it or maybe even trying any of those different martial arts.
When it comes to like the grappling, I feel like the grappling is like the hardest point to like kind of know when someone's in control or when, you know, someone's waiting. So, um, let's pause there because I want to highlight that because and feel free to add in or correct a lot of times the guy on the bottom is in control. Yeah. That's just not the way we think about a fight.
Exactly. Exactly. And, um, yeah. So for the personal naked eye, you know, that has no experience in MMA, I would just say like control, whether it be from top or bottom, I would look at who has control of the situation, you know, who has the ability, who has the ability to disengage if they want to.
Oh, that's interesting. That's a big one too. Like if someone has the ability to, uh, yeah disengage, then they have the control of the situation or where the situation is. So, um, I would look at it and that's even there, that's hard to do.
Like, it's hard to do it. But that's, but, but like just getting someone an idea of something to look for is going to be in some kind of guidance in how they perceive things. And they might, and you're going to find them saying to everyone else, you're going to find sometimes you think that someone's in that situation and they're wrong or something, or in that situation for the moment that you thought it and then it changed. And eventually you start to, eventually you start to notice patterns and these patterns are really, really fascinating.
So, uh, so here's, I got to ask coming from wrestling into MMA, what was it like the first time you got seriously hit in the face? Oh, it was like there's like a ringing and a surprise that you're not accustomed to, you know, um, obviously pain, you know, uh, the pain and just the like, the shaking and the like the pain of it or like buzzing, they call it sometimes. I think like getting used to that is not normal, you know. Um, yeah.
I think, uh, yeah. And I realize that like fighting a lot of the things that we're naturally, you know, a human nature tells us to do is like, kind of on the opposite of what you have to do and fighting to be successful, you know what I mean? Give me an example. So, uh, for example, like if someone is, uh, someone is punching you or like in the range to punch you.
So if you want to reattach or if you want to, uh, commit offense, it's better for you to block and not absorb, but kind of attack the attack, you know, to attack the attack while loading your attack. That's the fastest way to commit offense. Uh, when someone's like offending on your commit offense on you, you know what I mean? The human nature is to run away, right?
Right. Where there's like benefits to run away, but it takes more time to develop your offense. Like if I've moved away from you, then I also can't hit you, you know, I can't hit you back. You know what I'm saying.
So, uh, like that's one of the things like human nature, like someone throws a strike at you, you run away or you move away, you know, um, and in an inmate, like how you move, uh, might open up something else like you might move your head back, uh, but your legs are still there. So they'll kick your legs. Um, and you're not in a position to defend. Whereas if you, if you stay postured forward and absorb the shot, then you're ready to check legs.
You're ready to hit back. You're ready to wrestle, but that's opposite of what like human nature, uh, tells us to do. I hate to ask this question, but I'm going to. Yeah.
Did you find when you started feeling things like that, and it's a little, it's obviously a little different wrestling, but when you start really getting familiar with, I don't want to say comfortable familiar with doing things like stepping in to an attack. So you're going to attack back. Did you notice that that had any impact on the way you do anything else in your life? Yeah.
I think so. I think it definitely has had an impact on how I attack different parts of my life, just like a myth. Cause the, like great deal of it is mentality, you know, and I don't know if it's like, I'm more aggressive in the rest of my life. I don't, I don't feel like that's the case, but I definitely, I feel like I go about things and tell it more intelligently and or deliberately, I should say deliberately, um, I do things more deliberately.
Once I start figuring out like the way I'm fighting should be deliberate, like every little, every step I take, every thing I do should be a little. So like how I handle my finances, how I handle my children, everything is like deliberate. I'm deliberate. One way that occurred to me is you're saying that it seems like you have a different kind of willingness to engage.
Yeah. And fighting that is, that is true. I don't know. Maybe I'll do it.
I do. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I realize for me one day, and again, look, I'm way older than you are. And I didn't realize this till not very long ago. I mean, I've been an individual sport athlete my whole life and I don't know if what I'm about to say is true, but it's a pattern that I sort of identified that in business, I tend to think of what I'm doing in the same way that I think about how I compete, which is best man or best thing wins. Yeah.
I'm wrong because that's not the way it works in business. I've often gotten, I've often had people win a fight, if you will, because I had the best thing, I was the best man. And rather than just going, hey, we lost. They do something when they're back into a corner to get out of that position, to disengage and the thing that they did screwed up my business.
I mean, just the zero shoes, we had a multi-billion dollar company get a big order with a retailer canceled, the order that we had canceled because they didn't want us in that store because we were already beating them in another store. And it would have whatever occurred to me in a million years to call for and say, we don't want that brand that zero shoes, we don't want them in there. And then of course, the store went okay because that was a multi-billion dollar company. Right.
And they will gain more from that. Yeah. So, it's taken me a while to learn my natural inclination. Again, I don't know which came first.
This idea or just being an individual sport athlete, but the idea of best thing wins, I'm constantly having to check that because that could get me, I could lose that fight. Yeah. Well, for me, the way I look at martial arts is like, I mean, it's always been about self-progression. So most times that aligns with being the best, but ultimately I have to focus on myself progression before any of that matters.
So, if I look at a camp, I'm starting to fight a camp, I have an opponent. So, I'm practicing self-progression, like progressing in everything I do within the martial arts realm. All year long, I'm focused on getting better, tying things up, learning new things, getting better, one side, have a opponent. I'm then also fighting on focusing on getting better, but there's smaller window of things I have to be better at because of the opponent.
So, a lot of this stuff, like my finance, everything is like, for me, I mess up a lot. I mess up a lot. So, as long as I'm better than I was yesterday, I'm gonna be all right in the long run. And that's kind of how I look at mixed martial arts.
I can mess up and still win, but as long as I can make better, the more things I can do with make a little tighter, I'm gonna be good in the long run. But yeah, it starts with me. I don't necessarily compare myself with a lot of other fighters, which I've been told I need to do more of watching film, all the greats and things like that. I don't do that, which that can help with my self-progression, but I'm so focused on like, hey, I'm doing this right now.
How can I do it better? Or why can't I do this right now? You know what I mean? Well, looking at the greats, I'm gonna come back to business.
People have called me every now and then and said, hey, we have this opportunity to go to Richard Branson's island and hang out with Richard Branson. Do you want to go? And I say, why would I want to do that? They go, what do you mean?
It's Richard Branson. Imagine what you could learn. I said, I can tell you what I learned. I'm not Richard Branson.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly it.
That's exactly it. Like the great. I feel like the great and mixed martial arts is Demetrius Johnson. You know, but I have not watched a lot of Demetrius Johnson's fights.
When they come on, I watch it, but I'm not like studying how he's doing things because I'm not doing those things. If I wanted to do those things, you know, then I would have to like start from first and then start being him. I got to be a little shorter. I got to be quick.
Well, and here's another proof that just watching other people to try to figure out what they're doing doesn't necessarily work is, and this is getting in the weeds a little bit for people. There's a boxer in Russian boxer named Lomachenko. It's his last name. And people have a lot of people have watched him.
A lot of people have watched him because what he does is amazing. And again, you don't even know anything about boxing. If you watch him, it just looks like magic. And I don't care how many people have watched him, they will never be able to do that.
Nope. Yeah. Nobody will be able to do it like him. No.
Yeah. It's fascinating. I mean, even the wrestling community, and I asked this because I went to the Atlantic Olympics. Let me rephrase that.
I went to watch the Atlantic Olympics. It's not that I was in them. And I was like going to see things that I know nothing about because I found it interesting. And I knew nothing about wrestling.
This was Greco-Roman wrestling. And people don't know that they think it was Greco-Roman wrestling. Basically, it's everything above the waist. So, you know, it's just not there's no leg-latch.
You're not going into super people's legs. It's a very, I mean, it's about as old tools against. So what was really fun is I think I was the only person in that room who wasn't either a wrestler or family of a wrestler. And what was really fun is they all knew each other.
And what was really fun is that on that one day, one of the Polish wrestlers was just having a really great competition. And everybody in the stands, no matter where they were from, no matter who's kid, you know, they had, it was about to fight. They were all suddenly Polish. They're all just screaming, Paul, Scott, Paul, I mean, they just come up because they know on any given day, you know, it could really work for someone, enough for someone else.
They were just so happy that for this guy, it was really working. And it was, I mean, I was crying. Everyone was so generous because they've all been on every side of that equation. It was- Exactly.
That's exactly exactly. Everybody there, especially at the highest level, have more often times than not. They were with everybody that was there, was there when they were kids, was there, you know, all the way growing up. Or they had a family member.
If they're at an Olympic event, they've been at this family member's freaking high school matches, middle school matches, out of season matches, you know. And so they understand, they understand like what goes into it, like what heartaches are, you know, some days you don't have it. And you know what that means. So, like, I almost say the leaders group, but that's definitely not the right term.
But every- Is that the right term? It's similar. I mean, basically, when you're at an elite level, yeah. Yeah.
I feel like a small family, like close to their family, like even if they're like rivals, you know, they see each other like they understand you. They understand each other, yeah. I met a guy two weeks ago who's a three-time Olympic gymnast. And I was an all-American gymnast, but I never got that level.
And we were just talking like on the first day that we met, I was sharing stories. And on the second day I came up and I said, I want to apologize if my stories from, you know, way down here, I'm not trying to compare my stories to your way up here stories. And he said, are you kidding? Just in fact that I can talk to someone who understands this is so much fun.
Yeah. And that was really- That was really very sweet. And I imagine there have been times where you or your family comes up to- I mean, I don't know what's your record by the way. So on that one, I imagine that there were people who- well, I'll say this way, during the 18 that you won, I imagine that you had or people who know you were family members, came up to the loser and came up to that person.
That time that you lost, I bet they did the same thing to the guy who beat you. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
His coaches, his- actually his family members came up and was like, hey man, you'll be all right, you know, um, it is just an episode. Of course, at that time, you don't, you're like, whatever. Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, it happens.
I'll never forget when I was a gymnast in high school. My coach said to us, like, we were competing against this on team. We were in a gym, we were hoping to beat, and then he threw something up. Something doesn't go good.
And we kind of went, oh yeah. And he said, don't ever do that. Don't ever do that. Yeah.
If you want to win because you beat someone, not because you didn't do best. And all you want to do is do your best. And if you don't do it, then you don't want them doing the same thing to you. Yeah.
And that was a big life lesson for us. For now, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, all right.
So let's move into the part that you started with with your awesome promo. Thank you. So how did you find zero shoes to begin with? I don't even remember.
Hey, how did I? I mean, it was Everest, I believe. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everest, he just had me trying him out.
So Everest is your manager. Yeah, Everest is my manager. And so we're going to go back up. So clearly when you're fighting, you're not wearing footwear.
And so, but there's a whole lot of training where being barefoot is not going to be the thing to do. Exactly. So I run on a treadmill, often I run outside, often a lot of the strength and conditioning. I do the circuits, you know, I'm doing a turf, you know, I'm doing stuff I'm saying, doing stuff I'm concrete in my feet or not.
Because I feel like I sweat a lot and I'm like barefoot a lot. My feet are the roughest thing in the world. You know what I mean? So I can't do those things.
I can't, I just can't do those things barefoot if I want to. No, no, it's fine. And so, let's pretend that it was Everest you found us somehow and thought this might be a good idea. Did it take convincing or did you just buy something for you?
How'd that happen? Yeah, no, he bought something for me and had me try. I think you guys might have sent out something for me to try. Oh, yeah.
Like I was just going to try running in them for a while and just see how they felt. And then I went from running to like doing my training in them because before I was just, I just tried to running. And then, you know, that really when I started the running, I started noticing the difference like that week, that week I started noticing the difference. I noticed what I noticed was I noticed I had an imbalance in strength in my got all the legs, my legs were, and I also probably talking to Jesse Graf.
I probably went too hard when I first got the shoe. He was just a normal, you know, it's just a different shoe, you know. And so I was running, what was it? Like 18 minutes for three miles, so like seven minute miles, I was running like three of them after training and I was doing that like three times a week.
And I was doing that in the shoe. And after that first week, the back of my feet were like super way sore than I've ever had them be sore. And the like right underneath my calf was like super sore. And at the end of that week, it like hurt to walk, you know.
And so I was like, but I understand like, you know, like, like injuries and like soreness, you know, soreness from muscle fatigue, pretty much. And so I was like, obviously these muscles have never, either never been worked or they just like are getting cheated some type of way. And that's why I know when that happened, I was like, yeah, man, I like the shoes. I need to shoot.
Because at the very least of what happened, I want to be, I want to be stronger or harder to kill in that way. Like, you know, if I needed to run somewhere barefoot, like I obviously can't do it for a long time. So I was like, man, I'm, you got me. Now, this is of course, this is a brilliant insight into the way your mind works because many people in that situation, which is just called doing too much too soon, will go, oh, see, this doesn't work because look, you know, I got sore and it's just gonna be bad.
But you know, and the problem with the too much too soon, I is of course you don't know you did too much until you did too much. And I will add calf pain is optional there because it's it's as much about learning to relax in the right way as it is about longer because you, in fact, the more important part is the relaxing part that getting stronger happens over time. But the relaxing part is something you can do almost immediately if you pay attention. Yeah.
And I was like running on my tip toes. I feel like when I first I don't feel like the shoe was so light. I'm like, oh, man, I just just, you know, yeah, run on my heel and never touch the mat or never touch the treadmill. And I'll just like one, you know, and that's an interesting and common misconception.
People hear that, oh, you're supposed to land on your forefoot of ball your foot. And they think because some people actually teach this that you're supposed to just be on your toes and you're here on the touch of the ground, which is not the case. And that can cause some serious calf strain. And the first time I ran with someone who was over striding reaching their foot, went in front of their body and then pointing their toes to land on the ball of their foot.
It's like, what are you doing? What are you supposed to do? It's like, no, no, no, no. You're supposed to land with your feet underneath your body.
And when you do that, you can't help but land on the ball of your foot or your forefoot. And then you let your heel relax. You just don't want to be spending more energy than you need to. And she's like, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. See, I never knew that. You know, the other, yeah, I've never, there's a lot of things I just, you know, just did, you know, and that's that's going back to, like, I always want to be like a little better than it was last time or, you know, so like that type of stuff and stuff that I like needed.
I talked when we had the partner thing with Jesse Grapham, she talked about like foot training or muscular training in your foot and things like that. I was like, man, that's something I need to learn because nobody's teaching it, you know, nobody's teaching me how to run. I just, you know, running for 30 years and. Well, the good news is that if you pay attention, you're, you tend to figure it out because your brain is not stupid.
And if something's painful or something feels awkward and you kind of, you know, paying attention, you're going to make adjustments to not do that thing that's painful or stupid. Like my story is that a big, my second first barefoot run ended with a big blister on the ball of my left foot. And if I'm talking about my right foot is fine. And my second barefoot run, I paid attention to my right leg thinking that if I stop doing whatever caused the blister, then that or basically that's not doing what hurts because I got a gaping hole in my foot that I'm probably not doing what caused the blister.
And after nine minutes and 30 seconds of agony, my brain figured it out and my form changed and everything was easier, smoother, more fun, faster. And it's like, oh, I didn't even know I had feedback. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
So you kind of got to mess up. There's no choice. You can't do it perfectly. You can't learn something new perfectly on day one.
And what people also forget is that the frustration that it feels in trying to learn something new is not a sign that it's difficult. You can't do it. It's a sign that you're laying down new neural pathways to be able to do it. I can only imagine you've had that same thing, especially in the game.
I'm picking up boxing, picking up my tie. It's like, you don't even know what you're doing wrong at first because you can't feel it. And then eventually you get a little smarter and it's like, oh, and then you get smarter, mostly because someone hits you and you have that. Yeah.
Yeah. But I figure it out. Yeah. I'm curious about something.
I just remember this. Years ago, in fact, when I was in high school, my gymnastics, this would be funny to say this way. My gymnastics coach is X, white husband. He became really good friends with because I was a professional athlete.
He was a boxer. And he came into the gym one day and said, all right, I'm going to show you how we do what we do. My coach, Jack, just don't hit people. He's like, I can hit anybody.
He's going to show you that people don't understand this sport. And so we put a quarter on our head on the top of our head. And he goes, I'm going to try and take that quarter off your head. You just try to block me and you can try and do it however you want.
I'm going to start with my hands at my sides and I'm just going to grab the quarter. You try to stop me and none of us could. It's like, wailing. And it was only a year later that I realized it's literally impossible.
The amount of time that takes for him to move his hand to grab the quarter and then move his hand back, it's not possible to process that information into your brain and then send that information to your hands to block him. So clearly what's happening to be able to block him is we'd have to see that he's telegraphing the move and then kind of anticipate what he's doing. And he just does anything. Yeah.
And so I imagine at first with some of these new things you're picking up coming back to that that at first it was kind of like, how the hell did they just do that? And then eventually you learn to see these subtle things. Yeah. You learn like where the movement is or where stuff is coming from.
Yeah, especially like in punches, you know, punches you like a lot of times the hand is the like, you don't want to focus on the hand. You want to focus like what's going on around because their tails before the hand kind of comes up to hit you in the face, you know, so yeah. And especially if you're doing it right, there's like a lot less, there's a lot less or a lot, yeah, a lot, not as many, you know, tails, you know. There's fewer things you're paying attention.
You're basically learning what not to pay attention to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's interesting. So backing up to feet because what the hell. So you got some zero shoes, you started having this experience like, oh, this is going to make this be stronger. Now that this has been six months or so, what else have you noticed and how is this if at all I'm not trying to, you know, leave the witness.
How have you noticed the translation of what's happened from spending more time using your feet naturally into what you're doing in the ring? Yes. I've noticed, especially in my like, my strength and conditioning, well, not actually, no, I noticed it. I noticed it too in my sparring.
So sparring is where I like test out my techniques and my, the things I've been working on against somebody else is like trying to play fighting or, yeah, yeah, sparring. So in sparring, I'm noticing like more balance in like, like kicks, you know, that's another like misconception. Like a lot of martial arts are like based on balance, you know, being able to manipulate your body in a fashion where you still have a base underneath you is like super important in martial arts because if I'm balanced, then I can do all things. What's on off balance?
There's limited, the things that I can do are limited, you know, and I never want to be in a situation where I'm limited against somebody else who's not. So balance is like huge for me. And I noticed that I've, so I've been practicing different kicks, you know, in specific or specific kick is like a front kick, you know, and I'm noticing my balance on the leg that's like not kicking is like super important and it's better. Like I can, I can throw.
So I used to be able to like throw a flip kick. But now I feel like I can, I can throw it without like having to worry about my balance. I can throw it a couple of times now, you know, so things like that. Obviously the running, you know, I'm able to go longer.
I'm able to run, you know, without there being like pain in my legs now. Um, what else, you know, I was, I was saying, also from where he's your mortgage rate has improved. Your kids are acting. Yeah, you know, I got better.
My kids love me more. It's all. No, but that's the things I noticed. And that's the things that like are like kind of invaluable to me, you know, before what I do.
I need those things. This presents a bit of a challenge for us professionally because, A, you know, we're happy to be supporting you and B, we want you to do really well and C, you know, we want to get zero shoes on everybody, but we don't want them to have the same competitive advantage. Yeah, exactly. I know I was thinking about that the day for because I was like doing interviews and I was like talking about zero.
So I was thinking about like what is my opponent start figuring out that he needs zero. So you don't want to go figure it out, you know, but you know, it's, it's gonna be too late. I'm gonna be passed. I'm here.
There you go. I'm six months ahead now. So now he's behind. Having this conversation with an NBA team.
I was going to say though, but that's like part of like the deliberateness and like the rest of my life, like, like it's always I feel like when I find out that like the right way to do things, I'm like, why did I waste so much time doing it the wrong way? Like if I would have known this before, you know, I feel about my shoes now, I'm like, like my shoes should be doing what I'm doing for, you know, my shoes should be helping me. Like if I have more than they're not like helping me. Look, this is this is the thing Dr.
Irene Davis. She was at Harvard. She often says, we just need to get kids wearing shoes like zero shoes because then by the time they're adults, we won't be treating them for the problems that adults currently have. So there's always that, you know, if I only knew, but in some situations that would be horrible.
We always love to say if I only knew now what I didn't know, if I only knew in high school, what I know now is like, oh, no, you would have been dangerous. That would have been the rest of my share. But there are things where, you know, there's no way to know before, you know, and there's what we're trying to do to make it so that this is not a question anymore because it just because it becomes the new normal that this is using your feet naturally. So I've only got a couple minutes.
I want to jump into the more important thing. You've got a big fight coming up. We are happily part of that. We're going to be announcing a really fun promotion that we're doing for people who want to be able to come out and train with you for a day, check out the fight, get some zero shoes as well.
But the big thing is to hang out with you for a day. So talk about what's coming up and what you're doing to get ready for that. Yeah. So I'm training.
I have a fight December 9 in Connecticut. Yeah. Well, he gets done in Connecticut over here. He gets like a Cino and it's for and I'm in a tournament.
So this is the semi-foundals of a million dollar tournament. Of course, I'm the champion of a battle charm, a bandwidth champion, because the champ, which was one of my teammates. That's another story from the other side is hurt right now. So I'm the champion.
I'm defending the champion in the semi-finals of this million dollar tournament. And yeah, it's the biggest fight of my life. There's a lot of crap talking between both of us. And it's going to be a fun time.
And yeah, we got lots of fun stuff, you know, playing for some people who want to come out and train, come to the fights. Yeah, I don't know if we can announce it yet, but it's. Yeah, coming soon. Okay.
All right. Yeah. For people who want to hear about this have a chance to go to the fight, hang out the roughing on, et cetera. Make sure you are following us on social media, go to zerushus.com slash subscribe, because it'll be in our newsletter coming up.
It's a very exciting promotion with a number of other people. And now when you say million dollar event, if you win, you don't get a million dollars. Yeah, no, if I win, I get a million dollars. What?
I get a million dollars on top of what I make to fight. So this is a life changer for my family. Say it again? No, I knew that you actually did, but it was fun saying you can't be getting a million dollars.
Like, hold on. I know. Even me thinking about it now is like, what? I mean, for people who don't know, I mean, I started fighting for like, I would go through the same process of a camp.
My first fight, I got $250 to show and then $250 to win. So I got $500, which was pretty much, I had to put back into my training night. So I was making no money for fighting, you know what I mean? And this is like every three, four months, you know, that was like my, what I would make, you know?
So I was struggling for a long time. So even like think that this is a possibility is like huge, you know? It's awesome. It's amazing.
So back up to trash talking. What do you do if anything to get into someone else's head? You know, I try to keep it like, because at the end of the day, this isn't, this is a business. And it's like, there's no real beat.
But for me, there's no like, real beat, you know? But I'm going to say things that are true. I'm going to probably make light of situations that you think are serious. And I feel like that gets under people's hand, you know?
What I'm basically trying to do is distract you from how good I'm for how much I'm preparing and how serious I'm taking this. So that's literally my trash talk. I'm not like talking about families or religion or anything like that. I'm pretty much distracting you getting under your skin, talking about things that shouldn't matter, but you find important.
So I can think of two versions of this. One is, did you ever watch the movie, Pumping Iron? No. Oh my God, you got to watch it.
This is about Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's, and Lou Ferrigno really, I mean, it was their rivalry in the 70s and 80s. And the way Arnold got under Lou's skin, it was like, they'd be having lunch. And he'd say something really off-handed to Lou, like, oh, Lou, I thought you were working on your traps.
And Lou, just totally get to him. Or you could do the exact opposite where you could really get someone, like, you know, you could watch someone and go, oh man, I should have been working on my kicks. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much what I'm doing. So the opponent that I have, he's a wrestler and he likes to grapple with.
Most people call grappling Boris. So I just like make fun of the fact that he's spiced a borin. And then I'm sure that we'll like, insight him to maybe not built his best, his best rock to win the fight. No, this is a good question.
All right, so here's me pretending to be you. So here's this, like, no, if you're prepared for this fight, I watch a lot of your fights because they help me get to sleep. Yeah, exactly. I said that.
It's like, man, it's like perfect night wheel for me, you know? I think the other thing I said was like, I have kids that throw tantrums all the time. And I'm used to somebody, you know, coming up thinking they're, you know, bad thing we are. So I let them kind of do what they want to do because they're like a child, you know?
Oh, man. But that kind of stuff, like this people are. My favorite thing, I think one of my favorite things I've ever seen in like, you know, a pre-fight sort of standoff and ever staring at each other. And I've seen this with both men and women as one of the fighters, like as they're really glaring at each other, one just kisses the other one.
Yeah. So now it's just terrible. I mean, I feel like that would affect me too. I'm like, what the?
That's like hard. That's a hard thing to like get your mind around. Like, I'm ready to hurt this guy really bad. And then he kisses me.
Like, that's a bunch of mixed feelings that I'm not ready for. So you got to get ready for that one. So if someone ever does it, you're ready to, I mean, you don't have to do it for real, but you're ready to like go back in. Right.
But it's also like, how far do I want to take it to the back? You know what I mean? Like, we're all well trying to go with this, you know? There's a lot of ways to play that.
They could be hysterical. So all right. So if people are going to want to watch this fight, how are they going to do that on December 9th? Yeah.
So they can either come to Connecticut, Moig and Son Connecticut, or they can go to Stolti. It'll be on a show time. I'm the main event. It's all yeah.
It's Stolti app, Bellator. They'll be streamed live also. Awesome. Well, Raphael, as always, a total pleasure.
I don't know if I can actually make it out to Connecticut. I got to double check. We got a bunch of things going on right around there. That's it.
I think we're in a trade show, which is annoying as crap. But either way, I'm so excited for you. I can't wait to see what happens. And of course, I hope you win.
And they're only looking forward to, you know, this fight and everything beyond that. If people want to be able to follow you and track you down, tell them how they can do that. Yeah. You can follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Raphael and start to one word on Instagram and Twitter.
That's called a UF. Yeah, sorry. You read my mind. Spell it for everyone.
RAUF-E-O-N-S-T-O-T-S. Yeah. And we'll put that in the show notes, obviously. So definitely follow up.
I mean, he's got some amazing content. Again, even if you know nothing about MMA, even if you think that fighting is the dumbest thing in the world, you will find this fascinating and inspiring. And I hope that from this conversation, you've gotten what I was saying is, you know, this is not what you think it is. And he is not.
These are not the droids you're looking for. So and that alone should make you curious enough to go check it out. And hopefully you'll discover something new that you might not know about and have some fun. And if you do know about it, it's going to give you something to pay attention to.