Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast. Your weekly dose of knife
news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your
host, Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On this
edition of the show, I'm speaking with martial artist and media producer
Paulo Rubio. I first started following Paolo on
Instagram years ago under his company's name. At the time, Funker
Tactical. I was tuning in to watch and learn from his
martial artist clients from around the world, but soon took
note of Paulo himself who often played the role of knowledge
seeker. Many years, air miles and teachable moments
later, Paolo himself has become the teacher with his videos
passing along the many skills, drills and mindsets he's
developed as a martial artist. I'm excited to talk
with Paolo after so many years of following his work. But first, be sure to
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Hello, welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, sir, It's a pleasure. Thank you
very much for having me. It's, it's great to actually talk
to you after so many years, as I mentioned, of following you.
And I believe personally this is a little
quip of mine or a little pet peeve of mine. I believe the word
journey is overused in our current, current era,
but if anyone could use that word accurately,
I would say it to you after watching you for so long.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are
right now. Sure, yeah, it's definitely been a journey, that's for
sure. I guess where most people would,
you know, pick up the beginning of that story
is, you know me as Funker Tactical. I. I had
the distinct opportunity and privilege to travel all around
the world seeking and developing subject matter experts across
the full spectrum of fighting. For many years,
I sort of hid behind the camera. I was a camera guy, I was a
content creator guy, I edited, I filmed, I directed, I did a
whole lot of things. But you know, as that journey
progressed, I had so many opportunities behind the
Scenes after filming drunken nights in bars
behind alleyways where these people would,
would show me some things that maybe they didn't want
necessarily to be on camera.
And just by virtue of having this distinct opportunity
to learn from so many masters and grandmasters in martial arts
and combatives, I was, I was
drawn to see if I had the capabilities to sort of
alchemize that knowledge into skill. And so
when I began that journey, I sort of coupled it with
another journey of mine, a lifelong pursuit of
teaching. You know, I taught business English in Japan.
I taught video production at the college level here in
Toronto. I'm a father, so I'm a natural teacher in that regard. And
then just bringing these things together, I found
that there was inspiration and knowledge to be learned from
all sorts of different sources. But
the, the, the true art from, for me, and what
really gripped me and what forced me into
committing was really the art of teaching.
Right? How do I take this great opportunity that I've been
afforded? How do I pass on that knowledge
in a way that isn't just, hey, I'm going to make a cool video about
this? You know, how can I connect with, relate to and
transfer this information in person? And so I, I
was very hesitant to do that, actually. I did not want to teach.
I didn't want the responsibility. Um, I also
studied a lot of what
corrupted relationships, um, whether
it's, you know, student,
teacher, coach, athlete, I, I sort of
studied the pitfalls. What, what causes these
seemingly beautiful relationships to dissolve and get
corrupted. And also by virtue of my own experiences, you know, I've made a lot
of mistakes along this journey. But then when I
actually started teaching and it began with a kids class,
Filipino martial arts kids, kids class, it really
all began to like, to gel.
And so, and, and up to
this moment, I am, I'm so studying, I'm researching,
I am, you know, I come up with so many drills. I come up
with hundreds of drills and I encourage people to
create their own drills. It's not that difficult. It's not something reserved just
for grandmasters. But also, don't be
afraid to discard those drills. You know, most of the drills
that I come up with end up being pretty garbage. So
I get rid of them and I, I start again. Yeah, but,
but I have the opportunity to actually deploy these drills, these
ideas with really good people. Right.
And they understand the journey that I'm on. I may. You
know, one time I presented a journey to a group of black belts, and it
was an idea that I came up with. In my sleep. And then I just
presented it that way. I'm like, guys, I have this drill. I think it's
rooted and founded in logic, but I haven't deployed it yet. Will you run this
drill for me? Ended up being crap. So I'm like, well, thanks for trying. I'm
not going to do that drill anymore. So the, the journey really has gone
from somebody who was an observer to
a reluctant instructor to now
a dedicated one. I've, I've heard you say that
you've back engineered your drills from.
Well, from a fighting experience you had with a, with a master
kaliador in, in the Philippines who, you
know, beat you up, but you, you beat them back and
sort of. So for those drills, if, if you don't
have that sort of experience, how do you go about making your own
drills? Well, you can manufacture them, right? You need to have
some experience in the thing that
you're trying to get good at. And you really have to be ego friendly 3
to say, Hey, I suck at this part
of the system, the arc, whatever the case may
be, really suck at this part. So what
elements do I need to improve upon to
get better at it or to suck less? So maybe you'll, you'll say, you know
what, I'm not strong enough. My grip strength isn't where it needs to be, or
my reaction timing to these kinds of trajectories
are lacking. And so just by knowing that, hey, I
have real trouble, you know, I'll, I'll keep it simple. I have
real trouble, you know, parrying a jab.
And so the drill might be, hey, jab me a bunch of
times and I'm going to try to parry it. And then what is
with this motion that we can translate into
something that may not be so demanding, you know? Okay, well,
it's, it's an, it's an incoming force aimed towards your head.
Can we use a tennis ball for that? Can somebody throw badminton
ping pong balls at me? Right. And can I swat it with a
paddle? Should I use my hand? Do I need head movement? So it's, it's
really just understanding yourself and what you suck at that will
give you. And also it requires somebody to tell you, hey,
it's okay. You can create your own drills. You don't need grandmaster so
and so to tell you or to give you permission. Yeah, you self
diagnose and self correct because you know yourself better than
anybody. And I, I think a lot of martial artists sort of fall into
this. It's almost like daddy issues. You Know, like,
we. We require external validation when we're
perfectly capable of really validating ourselves and
really keeping track of how. How good we're getting based on
how much. How much less sucky we are. Well, I think
a lot of that comes from lack of experience. You know, if you haven't
gotten in street fights and you haven't been in combat, you could be
wondering, like, is this stuff real? And there's a lot I want to talk to
you about. Self perfection, self preservation. But before we get
there, you. You have a really cool drill, one that
resonated with me the first time I saw it. And just kind
of boning up before this interview, I remembered, and it's
your reverse blink drill. Yeah, tell us
about that. So reverse blinking is
based on some data that I came across that a knife Thrust
happens in 0.14 seconds, and we blink
between 0.10 to 0.40 seconds. So
theoretically, we could. You could blink and miss it.
And even if we saw an incoming threat, identify that it was a threat,
it takes about half a second for the brain to go, hey, you should probably
move something. And so the.
The reverse blinking drill keeps us in
complete darkness. And what that manufactures
is that anticipatory cognitive load,
that stress that we may feel when we're having an
argument with somebody, as that violence may be escalating.
And the reverse blink is based on the idea that
you haven't got a lot of time to process
information before you have to act. Right. And
so there are evolutions to this drill that require us. So, you
know, I'm in complete darkness. As soon as I open my eye, there's a knife
here. And so what is my immediate action to that?
Another thing that this drill set does is it really keeps us in
touch with, you know, what are our instinctive
responses and how quickly can we deliver them, and what are
our trained responses? And the important question that I
always ask my students is, you know, how do you know when your trained
response, the thing that you've been working on, has actually
crystallized as an instinctive response to you? And nobody can
really answer that, but the real answer to that question is you have to
come up with, you know, drills and protocols where
you don't have a whole lot of time to think
about what you're going to do? A
good friend of mine, Mick Coop, famously, and I stole this off of him, he
says, you know, don't bring your favorite number
to the math test. Test, Right?
And that's what a lot of people do. They Sort of manufacture these, you know,
pressure tests and drills that
reinforce the thing that they want to work
rather than composing drills where you find out, hey, what am I actually going
to do when I, when I have an extreme time constraint
where I have to make a decision under
fractions of a second coming off of emotional
and cognitive load.
Well, yeah, I mean that, that just makes me think of, you know,
you get in a knife fight, let's just say, you know, or
you get in some sort of engagement where you're using a knife
to defend yourself
and someone grabs you from behind. Who's to say that's not a police officer
or someone's girlfriend or, you know, and you turn around, you slice
that person up out of, out of reflex. Like how,
how do you parse that? Yeah, so I have a lot of
drills where there are layers of decision making
and, and one addresses that specifically because. Yeah, you don't know because,
you know, if you're dealing with somebody, knife fight or not, you're
so hyper focused on that thing that there could be
authorities, bystanders, sympathizers, or people just running
away. Yeah. That you may have to engage with and
have to make a split second decision. I'm, I'm good friends with a lot of
correctional officers and they confirm for me that, you know, jails are
full of people who meant to do well but did too much
or did the wrong thing. And so
I think the challenge is how do I
manufacture not full reality?
Because we can't do that. Right.
Good, really good scenario training is inefficient.
There's only one or two people going through the
scenario. A lot of bad scenario
training is linear. Like no matter what I do, no matter
what I say, no matter how I de escalate, I'm going to fight. You might
as well just practice fighting. Um, and so the challenge is
how do we manufacture commonly occurring elements
of reality in a way that's efficient, repeatable and safe?
So what, what are those elements? An extreme time constraint,
you know, auditory, visual distractions,
ground surface condition. We can manufacture even
physiological stress responses. Doing a bunch of push ups, getting our
heart rate up, our body getting, you know, swollen
by incorporating cold, that
manufactures this, the stress response of blood
going away from the extremities and into the core to protect it.
So by understanding and studying, you
know, what happens really in these real world
encounters and just sort of hand selecting which elements can, can
we manufacture safely where we are given
who's here and the environment that we're in. So do
people ever look at your drills and say, well, that's not how a real
fight goes all the time. And. And I'm. In fact, one of
the things that I do in my seminars is I say, guys, at some
point, at any time, I'm going to say, are we knife fighting?
The answer is no. And so I have these clips of rooms of
40 people doing what looks like knife fighting, and you just hear me yell,
are we knife fighting? Everyone goes, no. And
that's a thing that I think
good instructors have to deal
with all the time, is that good drills often look
boring, you know, especially when you're, you know, building
fundamentals, when you're introducing new concepts, they're not going to look
like a fight. A lot of the drills I do, I have a knife, you
have a knife. But I only have a knife
for the sake of efficiency, because I would be doing the same motions with my
forearm with or without a knife. So, yeah, that's. That's
definitely a thing. Almost all of my drills
don't look like what knife fights look like, but if you
can sort of discern and you're
a critical thinker, you can go, oh, I see what he's doing there. He's
manufacturing some sort of
mental distraction into a decision making. Or
maybe he's familiarizing these people to these three common attack
trajectories. Maybe what he. What Paulo is trying to get us
to do is to explore
different defensive options, whether that's a slap, a parry,
you know, a hack, a bisecting line, a grab. So, yeah,
it's. It. It's not going to look like a fight. One
thing I talk about is, let's say you're in my
seminar and we are doing a scenario
where we're sitting on a bus, and now all of a sudden, you have to
defend yourself against somebody who wants to stab you while
you're in this bus. Sounds awesome, right?
Like, it could be really intense. And then I asked the group, okay, how many
of you take the bus? Maybe two people put up their hands.
So there. There I am creating something that looks really cool on
Instagram. It's reality based. We're going hard at it, but the
reality doesn't reflect most of the people that are in
the room. And so I have to,
you know, I call it representation. Like, what is the
commonality in a bus that more
people experience? Well, a lot of people find themselves
in close quarters, right? The fact that
the bus is moving, that might not. We can maybe represent
that by creating unstable ground conditions.
Right. Maybe we go on a hardwood floors and everybody puts on
socks and I put some baby powder on the floor,
right? Yeah, it's those things. And
this is all I think about, like all day is how can we
manufacture elements of reality and how can we integrate them
into drills that have, you know,
scalability. I often say we're going to do the same drill for
different reasons. Right? Two big strong MMA guys may
do a drill differently than a 72 year old woman that's
in my class, it's in my seminar, it's the same drill,
but you know, it. It's up to me as the coach, as the instructor
to go, hey, you two big Vikings, why don't you,
why don't you really push the action here, right?
Why don't you really try to stab them with that low line thrust and see
where you end up? Or as a 72 year old woman might be, hey, look,
I just want you to see that before that thrust comes, it's likely that you're
going to see an elbow flare. And so we're going to telegraph for you and
we're going to do it a little bit, little bit slower and we're going to
do this progressively at your comfort level.
So we're doing the same drill but for different reasons.
The, the socks on the hardwood floor with the baby powder
reminded me. I, I had a kenpo instructor years ago who was
originally from Hawaii and he would, he would bring in heaters and
turn up the heat as much as, as he could get it. Got it.
And then he'd say, okay, now try your joint locks now, now try your kotagashi.
And you're, you know, and it's very hard to, to, to grip, especially if
you're trying to do this out of any sort of flow or any sort. Of
like sparring scenario. And I found that very valuable because
it, it was one of my first indications of, oh yeah, man,
you know, I look great doing these drills. Yeah, feel good. And I'm, look,
I caught my, my glance in the mirror, how cool I look. And then,
you know, you change, you change up the scenario like that and you
realize that it's a dynamic environment.
It's like attribute training, you know, a little bit. Yeah, for sure.
And you know, like, I could have a really strong right cross. I could
be an incredible boxer. I could be world class taekwondo. But I,
I live in Canada. I need good solid
ground conditions to be able to generate power with tools that I'm really good
at. So when, when those things are taken away, you're kind of
forced to adapt to see what else you've got, or how do I change what
I'm good at to be able to suit the condition that I'm in?
Let me. Okay, we, we've. We dived right in.
We dove right in. Let me, let me go back a little bit. You're.
You're. You originally came from the Philippines? Yes, I was
born in Philippines. Born in the Philippines. Immigrated to
Canada. Growing up. When you were little, was
there any emphasis on Filipino martial arts? Is
this something that you learned as a kid? No, not at all.
Actually, I got in a lot of fights when I was a kid, like in
the Philippines. I fought a lot, mind you. I was only there until I was
nine. But it was part of growing up and
it was from a big family. I fought my cousins.
I was always out in the street, you know, like my family. You
was pretty. We weren't rich or anything, but we weren't
poor. But I was out there with like the street kids, you know, I was
out in the slums falling through rooftops and getting killed
almost every day. And there's always scraps. And the weird thing was,
when I came to Canada,
I. I mean, probably within the first couple of months,
I got in a fight and it was kind of
traumatic because, like, I smoked this dude
and then I thought, yeah, cool, no problem. And
then I hear from my dad that his
parents are going to come to our house to speak to him about
it. And I'd gotten in trouble at school and I'm like, what culture
is this? We got in a fight, it was over. I thought
that was it. But, you know, in my, my then 10 year old
mind, I guess I was like, oh, my God, are they gonna like
deport us back? Like, I didn't know what was going on. Yeah.
But I, I've always been interested in fighting
Jackie Chan. Not so much Bruce Lee. For me, it
was like Jackie Chan and old kung fu
movies. When the UFC came out,
I had buddies that we would just like grapple for
hours in my living room. When I lived in Tokyo, I had a little
fight club from
all of the teachers that would come from Australia and New Zealand and
the United States, and we would just kind of get drunk, find
a soccer field and just fight for fun. I
never really liked fighting
when there was like, animosity and like real hatred. Yeah.
But I always just liked fighting, you know, even in
high school when somebody would have a problem with me and be like,
look, man, yeah, we can fight, but hey,
we're checking for Weapons. We're gonna meet here. You bring your friends, I bring my
friends. Like, we have an agreement. If you wanna fight, we can fight.
And. Yeah, but I don't like actual fighting. Who likes that?
Yeah, well, yeah. Cause you don't know where that's gonna end. You know, you don't
know what the stakes are. I want to be in control. Yeah.
So not necessarily Filipino martial arts, but it,
but it seems like you have a real emphasis on it now. Is that
out of a love of knives or is it, or is it
exposure? Yeah. So when I was doing Funker Tactical, it was really
more or less a gun channel. It was a tactical channel. And then I met
Doug Maraida, and he is a great ambassador for Filipino martial arts
art. I thought it looked cool, so I started introducing it to this
gun channel. Everyone started complaining and like,
the hell is this? And then they kind of fell in love with it.
I didn't though. Yeah, it was just something that I knew
the audience wanted, so I gave it to them. And it wasn't really, until I
met Jared Wi Hungi, where I, I
fell in love with Filipino martial arts. And it was
partly because this guy was like, you know, he was half
Texan, half Maori. He spoke three
dialects of the. From the country that I came from. He was
a master in this martial art that belonged
to the Philippines. And I thought that was, like,
so inspirational. And the fact that he had a global
following without a social media following, and he was
teaching, you know, Korean rock Marines, FBI,
multiple special and
Reg Forces in the Philippines, Mongolia,
Germany. I was like, I'm like, bro,
you really do all of this based off of your love
of Filipino martial arts? Because all I saw was like,
fancy twirly karambit, double stick stuff that
I'm like, how did you people think this is fighting? And he's like, yeah, it's
all in there. You just have to be able to, like,
reduce it, oil it down, understand
what it is about the complex that can be made simple
to suit your clientele, right? Like,
knife work is so far down the priority list
for a Special forces soldier. Like, before
they, like, things really, really need to, like,
be bad for them to have to need their knife, you
know, like, they, they have to practice and maintain so many different
skill sets, right? At least two weapons,
two ballistic weapons on them, right? All of
navigation, like, all of this stuff that they need to be good to
be good at and maintain, you know, and then there's
knife, right? So, like, I, I, I
really took a lot from that. Like, I'M not going to be put in front
of a unit, a department, whether it be law enforcement
or military, and say, okay guys, we're going
to do double sticks in a wally because it helps with your coordination.
I mean, I really need to serve. I, I really need
to understand what it is that they need, need for me. And I need to
be able to deliver those things to the best of my ability in
the shortest time possible, but also in a way that's functionally retainable
because they may never get knife training for who knows how long.
Yeah, yeah. How did, how did it come to pass that you
started training these high level
guys?
Well, by virtue of my friendship with them first in,
in my role in, in Funker tactical,
I just had access, I had really
unparalleled access to high level people.
And I think the fact that I don't really,
I don't try to sell candy as medicine, you
know, I think I know, you know that
there are certain kind of tactical
professional that are just really good at
sniffing out bullshit. Yeah. You know what I mean?
And so I would just. Me being keenly aware
of that, they always kept me in check. And
so working in those industries really
influenced even in how I teach the Philip. I love the art,
I love the Filipino martial arts. I love the sophistication, the complexity, the
mental challenge, the coordination challenges. I love all of it.
I understand also that not everybody wants or needs
that. So, you know, working with all of these professionals,
including Jared, and the list is long. You know, there's a lot of people that
I can name that have influenced me. Mick, Coop, Salmascoli,
Gary Drake, Don Gula. Like, you know, these names probably don't mean a whole lot
to, you know, your viewers, but, you know, these are guys who have, you
know, been there, done that and they really,
I think they really care about me. And so I'm, I'm
really grounded. Like if I do something
not so awesome, I'll get like a
message like, what was that? My Rubio? What was
that? Why did you say that was this? And then, you know, we have a
discussion and then sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong.
But I value. I val. I really value the
opinions of, you know, a select group of
professionals from all around the world to kind of keep me in check. So what
would you say is the through line between all the
arts, the, the different fighting arts you've been exposed
to? You know, if you were to boil them down, what are, what are the
similarities across the spectrum?
I, you know, I really like the, the saying that if you
understand a principle, if you understand one
principle, you know, a thousand techniques. And I was just having this
conversation with one of my students in the garage just now.
There are universal fighting principles that
just manifest differently and for different reasons.
So once I really understood that, I could appreciate
aata, I could appreciate chi sa, I can
appreciate capoeira just as I can appreciate, you know, boxing,
wrestling, jiu jitsu, muay Thai, sambo sanda, judo, you know,
all of these like hard hitting combative arts.
That, that's what it is. That's the through, through line
as, as you put it, that there are universal fighting
principles and what we choose to
practice is a reflection of our preferences.
It doesn't mean that they're not there, it's just, hey, maybe we prefer a
softer approach to exploring a principle rather
than going full on with it. One thing to me that,
that is the most valuable. I, I did
a, a bit of training for a while and I
haven't in a few years, but it's always footwork to
me that is in my daily life
the, the most valuable non combative
application. But skill and I guess balance is,
is mixed in there. But foot, footwork, you know, if you're not
solid on your feet, you know, no place to go.
Yeah, footwork, maybe broadly speaking,
mobility and maneuvering, you know, because sometimes
we get the wrong idea of what footwork might be. You know, triangle
footwork and you know, shuffle patterns and quarter turns
and pivots, but it's just like moving appropriately
based on what's in front of you. Sometimes it requires no footwork at all.
But yeah, it's those things. Footwork, power generation,
distance management, proximity management,
strength. Strength matters, agility matters, speed matters. But
you gotta be a smart guy. You have to be intelligent to do it
at that level. But you can, you can just
be dumb and strong too. Yeah, it, it
helped, it helped to be strong, that's for damn sure. I mean not, that
was always a big myth. Going into martial arts is,
oh well, you know, you could be a little guy, but know these techniques.
And my, my, my philosophy is that guy gets
his hands on me, I'm done, I gotta move. What are,
what are some of the myths that you've encountered about knife
fighting in particular or martial arts in general?
Wow, really putting me on the spot there. Like specific
myths. You know, for me,
one of, one of the big ones is that
in order to know how to defend against the knife, you
must know how to use the knife.
And I don't really don't believe that. I think, you know, crack the
practical knife work. Practical especially offensive
knife work. When people go, yeah, we're not a self defense, we are an
offensive knife art. I'm like, and how long have you been
studying that? 20 years. You know, there's a
kid in Columbia who's at 14 years old, never trained
a day in his life would absolutely murder you. Yeah. With a
knife. Because to be, quote unquote deadly with a knife
requires no training. It requires no training.
And so when I, whenever I see, you know, offensive, you know,
or non defensive knife systems, I'm like,
oh, what, what are you, what are you doing?
One of the things that I really love this
from, I got, I first got this from Jared. Bob, let's say you
and I are about to get into a knife fight. Okay, you have a knife,
I have a knife. We've committed, we're, we're in
range. Okay, we're about to knife fight.
How much would you pay for a 1 second head
start?
I'm asking you, we're about to fight. Knife fight to the death.
How much would you pay for a one second? Everything.
Everything. You would give absolutely everything. And
in, and in that one second, really, you're, you're, you're gonna,
you're gonna do what you need to do. Right? So you have that one
second. What did you need? All the, all of those
fancy techniques and. Yeah. Oh, that's a great way
of putting it. Yeah. Right. And also I also
use that to illustrate the fact that some of the things we do,
you know, in quote unquote, knife fighting,
buys us a half a second. Could buy us
one one second. And so sometimes when people see some of the things
that I do or that I teach, they're like, oh, yeah, but I would just
do this. I'm like, yeah, this is not a 10.
This is not a permanent control. This is not a
submission. This I'm buying. Literally one second
that we agreed on earlier. You would give everything
you own, all of your money, all of your possessions, you would
give to give this one second head start. And this is what
we're training right now. And you've only paid a couple of hundred
bucks, so good deal. Good
deal indeed. So the training, we were
talking before we started rolling. I remember when I first started watching you
years ago, you were training your then young
son who is now, you. Know, a full grown man. What's
that? He's 18 years old, he's at work right now. Yeah.
And a big guy. And he Moves impressively.
Obviously you've taught him very well. But you also mentioned he's,
he's a boxer. So what have
you. What would you say you learned from teaching him from
such a young age? About, about the essence
of, of teaching. Fighting is
you have to hide it. Like you have to hide
lessons and you have to sort of Trojan horse
skill development. Right. So the
Trojan horse is fun. Like we're just have, we're just having fun.
We're gonna play. So I never really forced
my kids to train. I've always just had these cool games that I would
play with them and then, you know, he f. He sort of
fell in love with it. So that's, that's the secret,
man. I never forced him to train.
I think it's really important to get people used to,
I mean, whether they're kids or not. But starting at a young age. I
have, I have daughters and we've always rough housed. I've shown
them some. Oh, that's important things here and there. Yeah, but
yeah, that rough and tumble play. Getting used to just being touched
or grabbed or being manipulated. I
know I've taken time off from martial arts. I've gone back in
and oftentimes I notice the two things that I
lose in my time away. I don't really lose the skill,
but I lose the, the, the wind,
you know, my ability to keep up and that I have to gradually
regain. But it's always a, a shock that first time back,
being grabbed, thrown to the ground, being grabbed. Manipulated how? I don't
want to be manipulated. And, and, and you know, I talked to my
wife about this and she's, she's also done a lot of martial arts and she
mentions the smell of another man or,
or the breathing on you. You know, it's just like these
are things you don't think of when you're just playing in the mirror. Yeah, no,
absolutely. And I think, I think it's, it's,
it's critical that, you know, for children
especially these days where we live in, you know, peace and
relative luxury as parents, we
need to manufacture adversity for them. You know,
we're lucky that, you know, we didn't grow up in a third world country with,
you know, real adversity. Yeah, but those things are
really important. There is no sense of accomplishment without struggle.
And I think that's what rough housing and like rough play
builds in, in kids.
And then as adults, our brains are extraordinary
machines. It doesn't really take long for us to go, oh yeah, that's Right.
That's what that feels like. But if you hadn't
trained in that, if you didn't play individual
and team sports where you got to meet, really deal with
victories, defeats, humiliations and
disappointment, then I can really see why, when, when an
adult takes up martial arts and they hadn't done any of those things
very easy for, like, I know this guy's not going to stick around. It's too
much for them. Yeah. So
you're known for. Well, I don't know if you're known for. I know you for
some hot takes. I mean, there was a period of time I feel like where
you, you were doing a lot of
myth busting and, or, or you still do it. I mean, you just recently
did something about tough guy knife fighting,
ropes. But yeah, you've been known for your hot takes. What,
what? You know, kind of breaking down some of the, some of
the things people might believe or get high on, you know, if you've trained long
enough. Where does that come from? I've just,
I mean, my mom will tell you. I've always just
doubted things like Santa Claus really
exist. Or. Are you, Are
you sure that that rice is spoiled?
Let me go, Let me go. Try it. I've always. And you know
what? I mean, if we, if I can get, you know, deeper into it for
a second. In the Philippines,
I had a big family, both sides, all sides, huge.
And everybody was in each other's business. Right. And you
honor your elders and whatever your parents and your grandparents did
were absolutely correct. You were not to question those things.
And then at the age of nine, my family moved to
Canada and I had no relatives here. And then when I
was, When I was 19, my father passed away, so. So it was
like, I really need to figure out where I
am and how the world works because I
don't have people telling me what's right,
what to do. And so whenever I
came across that, I always questioned them because I was never really
allowed to do that, you know, as a kid, despite
the fact that I was just like, just a super curious
person, you know, I think just I
really leaned on my, my creativity and my
curiosity. Even today I was thinking about. Somebody
wrote iron sharpens iron. And I'm like, wait a minute, everyone.
Such iron sharpens iron. When I, you know, I looked it up, it's like, actually
when you rub two pieces of iron together, they generate
heat and cause deforestation. So it's not actually.
That has always bothered me, man. Right. Iron doesn't sharpen
iron. That's not right. And so it's like that, that
kind of stuff, okay? And then, and then the
fearlessness to express those things.
Right? And, you know, you know, the comments get
to me some days and sometimes I'll get snarky. But I remember,
you know, during particular period in my life
reading this quote from Bertrand Russell, this
English philosopher, mathematician guy,
and in this book he talked about how the fear of public
opinion is the greatest barrier to true happiness.
You know, and so if I really cared too much about what other people thought
I was doing or how I was doing it,
I'd be maybe miserable. And this caused a lot of
friction in the Filipino martial arts community
because here were all of these masters and grandmasters
saying this and that, and I was like, wait a minute. No, that's not actually
true. And then there was a whole lot of, you know,
like, appeals to authority. Like, what does Paulo know, right?
Like, he's only been doing this for five years or six years or 10
years. This other guy's been doing it for 30, 40.
And I'm just like, yeah, you could have been doing the wrong thing for 30
years, bro. Like, hear me out. You know,
logic is our ultimate metric for validity and credibility,
not the fact that, you know, you belong to the bloodline of TD
tertia. Like, sorry, you're an idiot
and you're saying the wrong things and science doesn't back that
up. I've gotten in a lot of trouble, Bob, because,
you know, I'd post something and I'd read a comment from like one the
Jesus, and the comment would be
absolutely dumb. And I'd be like, yeah, you're dumb.
And then I'm like, I later find out that's a grandmaster of
this night. Like, sorry, man, I didn't know. I was just
responding to the stupid comment he left on my post.
I got in a lot of trouble for like, stuff like that, actually. Well, I
mean, you can, you can. It's like a royal family
anywhere. If a royal family lasts long enough,
you're going to have a bunch of people that are inbred.
Okay, so you can be intellectually inbred. Yes. You see that a
lot in martial arts. And, and you can also get
handed down. You can inherit things that just are not, are
not right. And you know, what's that
it? And, and some of that could just be mindset. We were talking about self
perfection versus self preservation. You might be
awesome at, at self perfection drills
and, and not realize that that's what they are. You may have been taught
that no this is what you do when you get into a fight.
There's a lot of that. There's a lot of. I mean, whether it's
by ignorance,
stupidity, or malice, there's a lot of, you know,
Filipino martial arts drills and sequences that
are misrepresented as this is how fights go.
Clearly it's not. And so I'm very
careful with that. I love flow drills. I love flowery,
sophisticated, elaborate stuff. But again, I, I would
never, you know, give you a piece of candy and tell you it's medicine
that's going to go and backfire against me. And not to
mention all the people that, you know, believe in me and look after me are
going to think this guy's become an idiot or he's
sold out so. Well, those, those drills are,
to me, very fun. They feel good. They're great
exercise. It feels like dancing. They're, they're expressive. I
mean, you know, there is a lot, there a lot to them. But when
you look at a real video of, of a knife
altercation, which, you know, the algorithm feeds me on a
regular basis, yeah, they can be hard to watch,
but they're. Yeah, they are important to watch, especially
if you carry a knife for self defense or you train.
What, what have you learned from watching those kind of
videos and seeing how things go down?
That really, it, it is. There are
infinite variables. Like, I have,
again, because of my world travel, I have
cops and, you know, prison guards in
Brazil that just constantly send me stuff. I have people
showing me, like, cartel executions
and ambushes and, you know,
gang fights. And I've actually, like,
I have to be very careful not to. To
watch those. I feel like I've watched enough for a long enough period of time.
I don't really need to see it. But,
yeah, what I, what I learned from them is that there really
is no formula for survival. You know,
there is no. The humans are at the same time
extremely resilient and fragile. You know, you,
you see that? I mean, I saw one, like last year. It
was a knife altercation. I believe it was in a mall
in New Zealand. Big dude posturing up.
Bang. One strike severed his carotid.
And I literally counted almost to the second,
like, I believe it was almost 17
seconds before that big tough guy all of a sudden was
completely unconscious in a pool of his own blood. One
little thing, and then you see another one where it's like a
constant. This guy's getting laced by this knife,
and then he manages to get a hold of that knife, creates a
moment in Time that, you know, allows him to
escape or triggers something in the attacker that makes
him go away. I've seen knife disarms where a lady just
grabs the blade and pulls it away. You know,
I've seen knife wielders getting
disarmed and knocked out by a solid right cross. I've seen
grappling and wrestling work. I've seen somebody
get taped and right, so knife
attacker, boom. The guy gets teeth. That was the end of it. Okay.
Straight kick right into the solar plexus. All of a sudden it's like,
yeah, this is not a great idea. So, you
know, and you've seen third party interventions
both defensively and, you know, offensively, where somebody's
just completely fixated on defending this knife. Yeah. When
somebody stabs them. What I've come to realize in what
I express to my students is that people don't
die from knife attacks because of technique failure.
People die from knife attacks because of evaluation errors.
What do you mean by that? You didn't know you were about to
get stabbed. You made an evaluation error in thinking that it was one
on one. You made an evaluation error as far as
overestimating your skills and capabilities. You made an evaluation
error as far as thinking there was an escape route. Made an
evaluation error as far as really not knowing who the knife
attacker was. There was a stabbing, I believe it was last year
in Germany, where a law enforcement officer
tackled somebody, realized he had the wrong guy,
let him go. But it wasn't the wrong guy,
that that was the right guy. It was an evaluation error that
made him decide to disengage with the person you should have
just continued to engage with. And the moment he disengaged from that person, then
he got stabbed. He went after another guy, the wrong
person. So it, it didn't. He didn't.
I don't think that person died. But you know, people
don't die in knife attacks because they didn't do an outside 2, 1, 1
control. Right. Good enough. Or that they didn't do a
palisut or a hubud good enough. Or, you
know, people don't die from knife attacks because of technique failure. They die because
of evaluation errors. They didn't read the totality of circumstances
in such a way that, you know, affords them that favorable
outcome. From your experience and from what you've seen, who
you've trained and, and know, how do you feel about
the average person carrying a knife for self defense, especially if they can't carry a
gun?
I doesn't really.
Here's the thing. And maybe I'm going to get some hate for this. You know,
people like to say the knife is meant to be felt, not
seen, Right? Yes, I've heard that knife
is meant to be felt, not seen. But then we're also taught
what is the best defense against a knife? Run away.
And so the presence of a knife triggers the right thing, which is get
out of there. So the opposite must be true. So a
lot of the value
of having a knife for self defense is
actually deterrence.
If somebody is really that moment in time
committed to causing me harm and I flip out my blade and I
know how to use it, but just like a gun, you know, like you don't,
you don't pull out your gun unless you're actually prepared to use it.
And the same thing ought to be with a knife.
Yeah. So as, as far as carrying a
knife for self defense, you know, I'll be
honest with you, I have never seen
one, I've never seen a knife
get used for a court
justifiable self defense condition. I've
read about them. I studied one or two.
I know it does happen. You know,
a duty knife as a tool or weapon
retention makes logical sense to me. Those are,
I think I may know, you know, by virtue of Jared,
one or two cases where, where that happened.
Yeah, I think, I think because it's such a, a valid
force multiplier, we want to believe it's a good self defense tool.
And on paper it is. I just haven't really seen
it. What is tricom? I see it on your T shirt and
I've seen it on a couple of your videos. You're an instructor in IT and.
Yeah. So Tricom is. Its
origin was for law
enforcement, military executive protection and
professional security personnel. It's a distillation
of four pillars.
It's a distillation of Muay Thai and boxing for
striking, it's a distillation of German and
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for grappling,
Pikiti Tertia for
weapons and I think maybe
wrestling. Yeah, that's it. So yeah, so it's a
distillation of those four
pillars and it was created by Jared.
And yeah, I. To this day,
again, a lot of the stuff that's done under Tricom
looks boring. But hey, it's designed for law
enforcement and military. It's not meant to be
sophisticated, you know. Right, right. It's really the
congruency and the teaching methodologies within TRICOM that
really I love. I'm. I'm curious, what
is German jiu Jitsu. Yeah. So
German Jiu Jitsu. I have a friend
named Johannes Runninghoff who's like a world champion at it,
basically. I think. I mean, schnitzels and pretzels
are involved somehow. Oh, yes. Like regular. No, no, no.
They have a. It's. It's a particular rule set, and I believe in
one of the rounds, it's striking based.
Oh, yeah, yeah. That's cool.
Yeah. But German Jiu Jitsu is worth looking into. You'll find a lot of, like,
parody videos. But German Jiu Jitsu is a real thing, man.
Yeah. Well, okay, so this is the Knife Junkie podcast. We're almost
at the end here, and I haven't even asked you about your knives
or what you like to carry or what you like to train with. Do you
have any knives close at hand that you like that you can tell
us about? And what do you think makes a great knife?
Yes, fantastic. And it's probably one of the most
common questions that I get asked is,
hey, what knife do you recommend? And
my answer, people kind of get thrown off
by my answer. Actually, here's some cool ones.
Oh, yeah, this is a piccolo macro. Yeah, no, this
one is by Bastinelli knives. Oh, Bastinelli. This
one, like, look at it. Like, what is that? What is that? But
it's the handle and the balance for me.
So people always ask me, hey, what knife do you recommend? Here's my
answer. So can you ask me, hey, Paulo, what knife? Hey, Paulo, what. What
knife do you recommend? Okay.
The knife I recommend is one that you think is really cool and that you're
proud to own. It has. You have to
love that knife because the more you love it, the more you're
going to play with it and really understand
the dimensions, characteristics, and properties of that knife. The more
you play with it, the more familiarized you'll get with all those
things, which will lead to you really being better
equipped to utilize it.
Right. For me, I'm. I'm not so
much a knife junkie as I am a handle junkie.
Yeah. Like, a good knife handle
is everything. I think a lot of. A
lot of people like the tactical look. Whenever I see a knife handle
that's over texturized, I'm like, I
think you're overcompensating for poor design. Like, you mean
too many finger grooves and swoops? Yeah, it's like
grooves and, like, texture so that it doesn't fall out of your hand.
Oh, I see it. This, like, knife handle
is smooth as butter, but I feel so
confident in the grip that it, it could be soaked
in blood. This knife's not leaving my hand. You know who
made that knife? That's beautiful. Yeah, it's actually not very many
people know him. His name is Jason South.
Yeah, Jason south, he's a really smart dude.
He's like a high level Brazilian jiu Jitsu guy, fought an mma,
lives in Utah. Just like what you imagine like a knife
maker is. Drives a truck and he's got a Harley. He's got everything. And
then, you know, he started like doing knife work. But
if you understand what being a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt
and MMA fighter and a Harley rider is, you
know that all of those things require absolute
attention and seeking perfection. So when he, when he
implemented those things to his knife work, I was like, you're going to, you're going
to be great. And I'm glad I have one of your first ones because
I'm not going to be able to afford one of these a couple of years.
Jason South. It's beautiful. Yeah, definitely
check that dude out. And he's so like transparent with his journey. Like,
he'll work for hours and hours on a knife and make a
mistake, chuck it, but he'll post about it. I'm like, that's,
that's some, that's greatness. We're witnessing his
evolution. And then Bastinelli Knives, like, that dude is
just. Yeah, he's an artist, man. And not a lot of people know this,
but he's super well trained. He is super well trained
in so many different systems. He's got instructor certifications in a number of
systems. And it's only now even his firearms work is
incredible. And it's only now he's beginning to like, show that.
But when you're an end user and you have the capability to design what end
users use, you can really play a
lot with art and practicality. I think nobody does
that better right now than, you know, Bas Chen from Bassinelli Knives.
Oh, yeah. And he's, I mean, he's got a beautiful design sense.
He's a really cool guy. Super cool guy. And that, you
know, that, that goes a long way. But you can just tell from his
Instagram videos he'll have a fire hose and they'll cut it in half with a
tiny little knife that he's produced. He obviously knows what he's
doing. So I want to ask you one last question before I let you go.
Is the Karambit the ultimate self defense name? Yes.
Is it two karambits
I. I have a love hate relationship with.
I think. Yeah, you know what? I love karambits.
I hate karambit people. That's like the
Valley song. Exactly. If you're a karambit guy,
we're probably not going to be friends, but,
yeah, that's it. And also, I want to say, like, speaking about
knife designs, man, I think there are a lot of,
you know, knife designs out there that try to solve too
many problems. So what about if I hold it in
reverse grip? What about reverse grip, edge in. Let's solve that problem.
Let's put a ring on it. Yeah. You know what? It needs
to be serrated at some point and then double edged. But not the
whole thing. Thing. Can we somehow make it into a fuller blade?
And then. And it's just like you're trying to solve too many problems
with your knife. You're creating a Frankenstein. Just keep it simple.
Right? Like, that's, that's, that's what I want to say to
knife designers and also knife people. Quit buying all these
wacky knives, man. I'm just joking
because I would be hypocritical, because what's the most important thing about
choosing your knife is you got to love it and think it's cool. Yep. That's
the number one thing. And, you know, beauty's in the eye of the
beholder. No doubt about that. Who am I to judge?
You got some cool ones back there, too. Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Yes. How many years is this collection taken?
I've been oldest one. Oh, my. My oldest one is
a pocket knife. My grandfather has given, you know, gave me years and years.
So I've been collecting knives my whole, you know, forever. Like,
this is probably my oldest knife. But up here,
I've got a lot of old Filipino bring backs
that I got in. My brother has given me some.
This, this Taliban was my dad's. Oh, yeah.
And then I bought a bunch at flea markets in New
York City before. Well, long a long time ago.
And yeah, I just. Oh, cool, man. I love him. I keep
going. Paulo, thank you so much for coming on the knife Junkie podcast. It's been
really nice talking to you and, and meeting you. I feel like I've known
you because I've watched so many videos of yours, but it's so great to actually
meet you in person. I appreciate it. Let's actually get to know each other better
then. I want to know more about you and what, what Filipino martial
arts you've studied and what is currently trying to tug at
your heartstrings. To get you better back into where you need to be. It's a
deal. I'll give you a hint. It's a bowie knife. Okay. I love
bowies. Awesome. All right, resort is out there.
Thanks so much, Paulo. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Adventure
delivered your monthly subscription for handpicked outdoor
survival EDC and other cool gear from our expert team
of outdoor professionals. Thenif junkie.com
battlebox There he goes. Ladies and gentlemen, Paulo Rubio.
If you don't follow him on Instagram, do yourself a favor,
seriously and find him on there. He is awesome
and his videos are great. From his hot takes to his
training videos, they're awesome. All right. For Jim
working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DiMarcos saying until next time,
don't take dull for an answer. Thanks for listening to the Knife
Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review at. Review
the podcast.com for show notes for today's episode, additional
resources, and to listen to past episodes, Visit our website,
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