00:00:00.01 Owen over the years like ah not as many recently 00:00:04.51 nextlevelguypodcast um Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. I've been a major fan of yours for ages because I'm a pressure passer myself and you the you're the pinnacle man for pressure passing, controlling, dominating, destroying people. 00:00:13.29 Owen right thanks for me mate 00:00:20.07 nextlevelguypodcast but But for people who maybe don't recognize you and they should be ashamed, how would you want people to describe you as a man, as a martial artist, as just as a person in general? 00:00:35.41 Owen Mate, just a normal, hard-working bloke who genuinely everything that I've done over the space of 25, 26 years training has come from just genuinely working hard for a very, very long time. 00:00:54.28 Owen um I've had a lot of luck on my side in terms of coaches that I've been put to work with, like, I've genuinely never had a bad coach, like, and that's just through nothing but lot luck. Like, from the gym that started at, to the gyms that I left home to train full-time at, to the first time I did Jiu-Jitsu, like, genuinely I've just never had a bad coach, so... 00:01:23.58 Owen For me, like I've never been anything special whatsoever. I've just like worked really hard for a really long time and I didn't get fast success either. So it's, I'd say like over the last five to eight years, I've started seeing some good results and probably over the last four or five years, people have just started noticing. but We've been working like for the last 26 years where people have knew nothing about it. So, yeah, just someone who's worked really hard for what they've got the way they live now, really. 00:01:59.40 nextlevelguypodcast So it was the same into it. They all say, oh, you're an overnight sensation. And you're like, I've put about 30 odd years into this. Nobody ever sees the grind. 00:02:06.24 Owen Yeah, exactly. 00:02:08.96 nextlevelguypodcast I mean, you started rugby, it was at four. 00:02:08.91 Owen Yeah. 00:02:11.36 nextlevelguypodcast And then you meant to judo at eight. we ah Do you think you're always destined to be this athlete? Were you ever wanting to be anything else apart from getting into sports? 00:02:22.00 Owen Mate, like, honestly, because I started so young, I didn't really have much chance to even put any thought into that. Like, where I'm from is a little town called St. Helens, just outside of Liverpool. 00:02:36.25 Owen And St. Helens is literally like, anyone that knows St. Helens probably only knows it for rugby league. 00:02:43.91 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:02:43.84 Owen ah So kind of like as ah as a lad in St. Helens, everybody starts with playing rugby, which is why I started at five years old, started playing rugby. um When I started to play rugby, it was like, oh, everybody wants to play for Saints. 00:02:59.28 Owen ah Then I got into judo when I was eight years old, just through my first coach, Peter Bud, came into my primary school and he was just doing like a judo after school course for six weeks. 00:03:13.53 Owen um And it was just fun. He was teaching us a couple of throws, playing loads of games. And the six-week course come to an end and he basically said like he had a full-time judo club that we could go along and carry on training judo if we if we were enjoying it. 00:03:32.67 Owen And one of the things he said, and my dad was there at the time, that's why I went, because my dad loved rugby league, he still does. And I remember Pete said, judo helps with rugby. 00:03:44.64 Owen It's pretty clever from his side, working in St Helens at the time. And as soon as he said that, my dad was like, right, we'll go, we'll keep going and see how it goes. And then it just took off from that. 00:03:57.29 nextlevelguypodcast So when you were doing it, was there a moment that you kind of thought, hey, I'm bloody good at this? you know Can you remember that spark where you thought this wasn't just a hobby, this was a potential career, this was something that you excelled at? 00:04:12.91 Owen Yeah, I never ever thought career because light there isn't really a career in judo, to be honest. like There is much more of a career now in jiu-jitsu than what there still is in judo. 00:04:26.17 Owen But I did realise I could do pretty well at it at about 15. Like say, I started judo eight. From when I started, I was training judo on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 00:04:39.06 Owen um So just doing it three times a week and then ah train rugby on a Tuesday, Thursday and I play rugby on the weekend. ah and from about eight till about 15, it slowly started to take over. I started to enjoy judo a lot more. 00:04:56.45 Owen I kind of loved the feel of it being an individual sport. ah Obviously playing rugby, you can have the best game in your life and your team still gets beat. 00:05:06.70 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:05:06.66 Owen Or you can have the best game your life and light it doesn't make a difference. So for me, ah kind of liked the idea always of you get out what you put in. Because I have genuinely always been a pretty hard working kid. 00:05:21.62 Owen so That's kind of what appealed to me with judo. But then as we started to compete, I was getting no success, mate. Like all the kids that I was training with, there used to a kid called Neil Leavesley. 00:05:36.50 Owen He's not not a relative, relative but he's spelt slightly different. And every time I'd do a tournament, I'd go against him and he'd just bat him up. And um I didn't medal. 00:05:48.26 Owen in any decent tournaments, like domestic tournaments, for probably like the first three or four years of competition. But I think for me, like ah wasn't taking the losses to heart because I was still playing rugby. 00:06:03.07 Owen So if i lost a competition, I'd just be like, ah, just play some rugby. And then I'd just keep training, I just kept going and kept going. Started getting a lot better, just seeing how I was furring against other people in the gym. 00:06:15.82 Owen And then when I was 15, did like, it would have been like my third national championships were the two tournaments before. Like there's basically one national championship every year. 00:06:27.89 Owen And the two years that I'd done it before, I'd literally just lost in the first round and been out the tournament. And I went to my third one and then they gave me first British medal, which was the silver. 00:06:40.81 Owen So I won about three or four matches on the day and lost in the final. And that got me on the British team for like under 17 year olds. And then when you're on the British team, you start to get a lot more than you start to get paid to go abroad and do training camps for people from different countries. 00:06:59.92 Owen So you pick up all these different styles, you pick up new things from different coaches, you get to compete all over the world. Still wasn't getting much success, but I was developing my skill a lot through just being exposed to so many different styles, so many different coaches. 00:07:16.85 Owen And... the losses that I was picking up in these tournaments just wasn't disheartening at all. It just made me want it to train more, which kind of ties into why I ended up putting rugby on the back burner and going full time with judo from a really young age. 00:07:32.74 nextlevelguypodcast And do you think that experience of like, you know, sort world cultures, new people training, competing, it kept it exciting because you're like me, you're coming, you're from a working class background, you know, you're from the UK, you know, we, we kind of are harder mentally probably than a lot of other cultures. 00:07:53.31 nextlevelguypodcast How do you think that kind of set up? Was it just that we don't expect to win is yeah as Brits, so we just kind of go, well, we'll go to compete, enjoy, and know have fun with our mates more? did it Did it help you in a way, do you think? 00:08:09.05 Owen ah For me, like when I lost, I was really upset about losing. like I've never had that mentality for whatever reason. I think it's something to do with my dad. If you met my dad, probably know straight away. 00:08:28.43 Owen If I lost, my dad would be gutted about it as well, like truly gutted about it. It's all I'd hear about on the way home. ah 00:08:34.54 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:08:36.61 Owen So like, mate, honestly, as a kid, i was genuinely, ah just ended up being absolutely obsessed with training. And if I lost, I was just genuinely straight, I know it's all cliche nowadays, but I was genuinely just straight back in the gym and doing more. 00:08:53.38 Owen So like, but when I got that first British medal at 15, my training had already completely changed. I started to like know because I'd lost two times on the bounce now, ah knew I just had to do more. 00:09:08.11 Owen So i ended up not even training rugby on a Tuesday, Thursday anymore. And I was doing freestyle wrestling. So then from like 14, I was doing judo Monday, Wednesday, Friday, freestyle wrestling Tuesday, Thursday and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on a Sunday. 00:09:24.12 Owen And then i was just very lucky that the team i was playing rugby for at the time I was quite good at rugby and I had been for a long time. Like I'd been on the Saint Ellyn's Scholarship Scheme and stuff like that. 00:09:33.05 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 00:09:35.78 Owen We did the Australia tour with them. It's like the team that I was playing for, they were letting me play even though I wasn't training. So I'd still just play the games. 00:09:47.16 Owen But then even that started to get dry. I just genuinely became obsessed with judo. I don't really know what kicked it off. and I was obsessed with trying to get to an Olympic Games. That's all I wanted to do. like I had it in my head from about 14, 15, which isn't even true. 00:10:05.90 Owen But I thought, all I'm going to do in my life is get an Olympic medal and live off that for the rest of my life, which isn't even how it works. But I was absolutely certain that like if you got an Olympic medal, you'd live off that for rest life. 00:10:21.42 Owen Mate, I just like to think like I've genuinely always worked for absolutely everything that I've ever had. 00:10:26.32 nextlevelguypodcast no 00:10:27.03 Owen like I always had massive support from my mum and dad. like They always like paid to take me around the country for different training and tournaments. So definitely I couldn't have done it without that. 00:10:39.40 Owen But I've never had anything given, genuinely. And I'd say every time I lost, it was never trained into me or anything as a kid, but... I was just very, very good at when I lost, not taking it too hard and just getting in the gym and getting better. 00:10:58.78 nextlevelguypodcast Because that's something that destroys a lot of young people, you know, is the losses. We're not used to learning from it. We take it as a sort of personal attack rather than a kind of a learning experience. I mean, I'm really bad for it myself. But, I mean, to be doing pretty much like a sport every night, that's a hell of a shift on a young person. 00:11:18.70 nextlevelguypodcast mean, you said in another interview that your dad and uncle were bodybuilders. Do you think that as well, that kind of, you they're... building their physique, they're building their health, they're showing you the healthy side of things. 00:11:34.05 nextlevelguypodcast that It kind of made you a better athlete. 00:11:35.23 Owen yeah 00:11:37.92 Owen For sure mate, like ah when I look back I was genuinely very lucky that who was around me from a really young age. like Like I said, you just have to meet me dad once to realise like he's even now he's 60 years old, he's actually in Thailand right now, he's come over for a couple of weeks. 00:11:55.32 Owen And he he's 60 years old and he still lives regimented. Too strict, if you ask me, but like he's super, super strict with his food. He only eats certain things Monday to Friday. 00:12:08.30 Owen He gives himself a Saturday where he might enjoy himself. Barely drinks alcohol. He's been a bus driver for 25 years. 00:12:14.14 nextlevelguypodcast This. 00:12:16.80 Owen Absolutely hates his job. There's never been a day where he's enjoyed his job, but... He just knew that that's what he always had to do to provide for us. ah So I've always been surrounded by people like me dad. 00:12:30.05 Owen And then like my first coach, Pete, was like hugely influential as well. As in like, not just because he was a good coach, but looking back, he almost played little games with your mind that really worked. 00:12:44.01 Owen So like, like I'll never forget back to this day and I'm like 34 now. 00:12:45.19 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. Hmm. 00:12:48.92 Owen And I left Pete when I was like 17. And Pete used to always say to me, you're doing really well, but you'll quit. He was like, as soon as you're allowed to go out on a night, you'll go out, you'll find your girlfriend and you'll be done. 00:13:05.57 Owen And that happened to some of the lads in the gym. But because like he used to say that to me, i was like adamant that that would never happen to me. so it was just like little things where then when I got asked by my mates, do you want to go out tonight? 00:13:22.16 Owen That had come back in my head and I'd just be like, there's not a chance, mate, I'm going training. and There's no way I'm letting someone say I told you so. You're going out instead of coming here. So, like, yeah I've ah genuinely always been unbelievably strict with my training and I still am now. 00:13:37.59 Owen Like, I just do not miss training s sessions at all. 00:13:41.78 nextlevelguypodcast Because that's really impressive, especially at an age where we're we are hunting, not wins, but we're hunting other things, shall we say, you know for for you to be able to sort of adapt to that. 00:13:52.43 nextlevelguypodcast You said that you know you had like that your mom and dad gave you this kind of great grounding, and you know they've obviously done a fantastic job. 00:13:55.71 Owen Thank you. 00:13:59.58 nextlevelguypodcast your coach was the somebody that inspired you and gave you all these kind of cultures did they give you something and can you think of a way that they've taught you about losing and and taking it as a growing experience a learning experience rather than um something that we judge ourselves on did they incorporate a way of enjoying the sport more than the results 00:14:24.89 Owen Yeah, well, for me, mate, honestly, it was always about results. Like, they've they've done it, but in ways that people would probably say isn't perfect. 00:14:37.36 Owen Like, I'd say, like, the way my dad definitely installed it in me, because I remember losing, whether it was rugby matches judo contests, on a weekend, and my dad would be driving me home. 00:14:52.20 Owen And he was just a nightmare. Like he'd be driving and be in the passenger seat and he'd just be like, mate, you're better than that today. I can't believe that. Like, I've seen how you train and you're not competing how you train. 00:15:03.23 Owen And honestly, I'd get this for like 30 minutes on the way home and I'd be sat in the car were thinking, fucking hell, like, I don't need, it's the last thing I need when I've just lost. 00:15:11.62 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. yeah 00:15:13.39 Owen But at the same time, for whatever reason, that never ever made me not want to do the sport. It made me just want to, shut him up in a nice way. It made me just want to be like, right, I'm not fucking losing again because I'm not dealing with this again. It was never just, I can't put a pin on why. was just never, ever in my head to go the other way and just be like, right, I don't want to do it anymore. 00:15:35.30 Owen ah Whereas Pete, Pete was just, honestly, like Pete's results speak for themselves. There's a club in Earlstown, it's a tiny, tiny place on the border of St. Helens. 00:15:48.34 Owen And as a junior judo club, so that means like under the age of 20, the results that that club has produced in such rough, small area is ridiculous. like They've had about three or four junior European champions. 00:16:07.06 Owen They've had youth Olympic medalists. They've had Commonwealth Games adult Open Age champions. They've had two Olympians. Like... An outrageous club for where they are. 00:16:19.77 Owen And like what Pete was really good at was like, I've never met a bloke that lives it so much. So like an example of what Pete was like was Boxing Day every year. Instead of enjoying Christmas with his family, he'd be putting us on a minibus. 00:16:37.48 Owen We'd do this on the 26th of December every year. He'd drive us from Earlstown to Rotterdam. And we'd do a training camp for one week in Rotterdam because all the Dutch had this... The Dutch are really good at judo. 00:16:52.01 nextlevelguypodcast no 00:16:51.89 Owen And they arrange this huge training camp every year. And Pete take us there every year. Instead of spending a kiss his family, throw 10 of us on the bus, drive us to Rotterdam. We'd be there all week. 00:17:03.65 Owen um So, like, with Pete, it was just... If I lost, there was never a conversation of... i you're not good enough or this. He'd just be like, right, you need to do this, this and this. 00:17:17.38 Owen And I'd come in the gym on Monday and he'd have like video examples of high level judo players doing what he's telling me to do. so I was almost doing like video analysis already at 14, 15 years old. 00:17:31.54 nextlevelguypodcast That's a good coach. 00:17:31.55 Owen And for me, it was like, yeah, it's late to have someone who's just that invested 00:17:34.13 nextlevelguypodcast and 00:17:36.91 Owen It was just like, right, there was never a conversation of you might not be good enough. It was just like, right, now I need to do this. So in that week then, i was already focused on doing them things. So I'd have something to get straight back into. 00:17:50.61 Owen then before I knew it, was competing again. And it was just a cycle, mate, before I knew it, I was 17 and leaving home to train full time. 00:17:58.53 nextlevelguypodcast I mean, that's awesome that you had that kind of ecosystem where people were kind of, you know, maybe they were giving you a wee bit of badgering, but I mean, it was that kind of, they just wanted you the best for you. 00:18:09.00 nextlevelguypodcast And i think that comes across in a lot of it. It's, you know, they're showing you how you can improve, how you can be a better person and how you can do that. But ah you mentioned in another and thing that I've seen where you did have a year, I think it was 18, where you were kind of, you lost you lost love judo. 00:18:27.75 nextlevelguypodcast you think ah Can you at that point, was there a point where you just, you know, was it a moment that you just thought, no, this isn't for me? 00:18:27.76 Owen Yeah. 00:18:35.29 nextlevelguypodcast Where was that disconnect from? 00:18:38.15 Owen Mate, it was like, it just completely changed. so like, I was training exactly how to just explain until was about the end. End of 16, maybe 17. 00:18:50.78 Owen And then I got an offer. They opened a full-time judo centre in Dartford. And they were calling it the British Judo Performance Institute. So because I was number one in the country at that point for my age and weight, they invited me to go there and train full-time. 00:19:08.69 Owen So like the deal was, like for me as a kid, I thought this was fantastic. But the deal was you were on £7,000 a year. You go over, um they put you in a flat in Dartford, which is basically over the road from the Performance Institute, and you train full time. 00:19:27.74 Owen So, like, me as a kid, it was like, right, I cannot see myself ever doing anything else other than judo. I've literally got one single goal and that's to go to an Olympic Games, win a medal, I'm going to live off that for the rest of my life. I just brainwashed for whatever reason that that's the well that's exactly what i was going to do So when I got this letter, I was like, right, I absolutely need to do that. 00:19:50.76 Owen My mum said she'd support me money-wise because I was only getting £7,000 a year. She said she'd support me with small things that I need while I'm over there. 00:19:59.64 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:20:00.95 Owen So I was gone. ah But then when I got there, it changed a lot, mate. Like, when I was at home, but well, I was living with mum and dad, for one. 00:20:12.65 Owen That makes everything ten times easier. Top of that, I was ultra-disciplined with training. But I still had friends that i was talking to. and it I wouldn't go out much, but on a weekend through the day, I'd be out playing football with my mates all day. 00:20:30.07 Owen um I was just living a normal life, but there would be at least one training session being done every single day. Whereas the day I arrived in Dartford, it was like I was put in a flat with a lad that I only knew off the British squad training. 00:20:45.86 Owen And we did end up being really good friends, but you kind of put in a flat with a stranger who you're living with. You're both trying to do the same things. And mate, it was just super, super strict. So like every morning was strength and conditioning, followed by about an hour and a half of judo technique. 00:21:04.71 Owen Then you'd be watching videos of judo. So just be doing video analysis stuff every day. Then you'd go back to your flat, you'd have a little sleep, and then you'd come back and there'd be like two, two and a half hours of sparring in the evening. 00:21:17.92 Owen And was just doing that every single day. And at the beginning it was just like absolutely perfect and I was loving it. 00:21:24.15 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. 00:21:25.24 Owen And then we started traveling loads to the point where because obviously Dartford is very far down south the south of England, you can get to France really easily. And France, I don't know if you know, but they're literally one of the best countries in the world for judo. Like, considering it's so close to Great Britain, like, they are so good at judo. 00:21:47.04 Owen So we'd go over there. It getting to the point probably every two weeks because our head coach of the GB team was a guy called Patrick Rue, who was a French guy. we had loads of connections in France. He just kept pushing us over there. 00:22:03.17 Owen So being in France, just training like fuck for like, a week two weeks at a time i'd come back get straight into our full-time schedule and i started doing i was doing really well mate like i was winning the majority of the things i was competing in and then because i was doing so well at the time it's when london 2012 announced And team gp Team GB didn't have like any standouts at my weight category at all. So basically, quickly, like when the Olympics is in your home country, you don't have to qualify anymore. 00:22:42.20 Owen So if the Olympics in a different country, I have to be like top 18 in the world to be able to qualify and go to an Olympic Games. 00:22:42.65 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:22:50.15 Owen But when it's in your home country, you have a weight category qualified automatically. So all you've got to do is essentially is be the best in your country. 00:23:01.24 Owen So it's a bit crazy when I look back, but Team GB were looking at my weight category and saying we don't really have any standout adult performers. 00:23:12.70 Owen Like they're not picking up any big results. So we might send Owen to the Olympics, even though he's like 17, 18, 00:23:21.89 Owen just for experience, because we see him having potential to go to another one, and it would be great if he goes to another Olympics that he's already experienced once, so he's not like, wow, I'm at the Olympic Games. 00:23:34.42 Owen So I got told about all this, so I had it in my head that I was just like, fucking hell, I'm going to do it already, I'm going to go to the Olympic Games already. 00:23:43.83 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:23:43.65 Owen I can't believe it. So they put loads of money into us there, and we were travelling all over the world, like getting loads of training camps. 00:23:53.40 Owen And you've got to think, mate, a year ago, I'm not even full-time. So I've gone from, like, training once a day to training full-time, and now there's talk about me being on the Olympic squad. It was just absolutely insane. And now I'm going all over the world training, sparring with the best people in the world, because that potentially might be the people that um I might have to compete against. 00:24:15.95 Owen And then... About two months or a month, maybe even less, before they picked the Olympic team, my future training partner Danny Williams ended up getting a World Cup medal, which is a decent sized medal in terms of standard. 00:24:34.81 Owen So he he got picked for the Olympic Games, rightly so. ah So he went. And then when that finished when he went to the Olympic Games, I was like, fuck, I was just so down about it because I'd been filled up with, you're going to go the Olympic Games. And it was just like, boom, you're not. 00:24:51.85 Owen So i was like, right, And there's a few it's a good bit of politics at Dartford as well, which is the reason it isn't there anymore. ah It wasn't ran the best. The funding was terrible. The lifestyle wasn't great. 00:25:05.00 Owen so I just went home and had about a year, which, yeah, it was probably the worst year of my life to date, before I decided to go back full time. 00:25:16.97 nextlevelguypodcast No, I mean, it's it would certainly fuck anybody's head, you know, to be so to be shown the promised land, so to speak, and then for it to be sort of whipped away from you. But, I mean, you seem to be that sort person that enjoys these kind of try a bit of this, do a bit this, play football. You know, it's like you like doing it and exploring and kind of mixing it up where that kind level of strictness, 00:25:42.48 nextlevelguypodcast and Do you think that's where a lot of students struggle when they initially start classes is that they're not used to suddenly it being full time? you know These kind of the the greats, a lot of them struggle when it suddenly becomes more full time rather than letting them explore it and discover it on their own. 00:26:00.92 nextlevelguypodcast They take the fun out of it. 00:26:03.85 Owen 100% mate, like it's a weird mix. It's like you have to do it if you want to genuinely be one of the best. Like you he definitely have to do it I don't think there's a way around it. ah But it it will take time to adapt. Like later on in my career, I 100% adapted and I became like, 00:26:24.12 Owen and ultra professional and really, really enjoyed that lifestyle. ah But I had nobody helping me adapt to it. I had nobody like telling me what to expect. And it was just like, fucking hell, this is a lot now. 00:26:39.97 Owen And I was 17 at the time. 00:26:40.39 nextlevelguypodcast no 00:26:41.33 Owen It was like all my mates were still going out and stuff. And I was just like, fucking hell, this is heaven. ah But like I say, it definitely is. 00:26:52.53 Owen something that you have to do if you want to be good. Like I would genuinely put the time that I spent as a full-time athlete at Camberley, which was later on when I went back to training, I would genuinely put that down as 90% responsible for what I've managed to do since leaving judo. 00:27:16.10 nextlevelguypodcast So what was it about that? take you know What was that moment of made you want to go back? But what was it about the the atmosphere, the support or the just the enjoyment of it again that made at that point helped you become this kind of this machine, this man who's dominating the sports compared to actually doing that as almost a full time athlete at Dartford? 00:27:43.61 Owen Well, I had a rough 12 months mate, like a very very bad 12 months. 00:27:49.13 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. 00:27:48.99 Owen I moved back to St. Helens and because mate I left school very early, ah didn't really even do anything after school at all. 00:28:00.50 Owen um I didn't have any qualifications to be named whatsoever. So I got back to St. Helens and kind of got hit by reality at like 18, 19 that, fuck, I've not got anything. 00:28:13.92 Owen ah All I can actually do judo, at the time especially. So I basically just started personal training people, unqualified, just like I'm from a small town, people knew me as a decent athlete. 00:28:29.70 Owen So I just started advertising on my Facebook and it actually started doing really well. Like I probably had about 30, 40 people that I was seeing on a weekly basis. 00:28:37.58 nextlevelguypodcast That's impressive. 00:28:37.88 Owen But there was no... Yeah, mate, it was good money-wise, but there was no structure to it whatsoever. I was just making up stuff. Like I hadn't trained as a coach at all by this point. 00:28:50.19 Owen weren't great at communicating with people. had no idea how to manage money. So everyone was just coming in, paying cash. I was going out Friday, Saturday, Sunday doing everything that I hadn't done because I'd been training. ah I was genuinely like pissed Friday, Saturday, Sunday every week. 00:29:09.39 Owen ah Turning up on a Monday to personal train people, still pissed, like it got in five o'clock that morning. I was basically making money ah through the week and spending every penny of it on the weekend. 00:29:23.41 Owen was just a terrible spiral, mate, just getting in little bits of trouble, just being a fucking idiot in town, got arrested a couple of times just for being a dick on the piss, just like really, really bad time. 00:29:36.38 Owen And then one day, mate, woke up and I was just rough as rough as hell again. i'm a ah I was only like 19. I was like, I can't can't keep living like this. 00:29:48.90 Owen And then they announced that Glasgow were going to host the Commonwealth Games in 2014. And obviously, like, when I'd stopped judo for that year, before I'd just stopped, I was, like, up there as one of the best in the country. 00:30:08.76 Owen Like, top two in the country, really. So I knew if I go back, I could get that back. Like, I'm, like, 19, 20 years old. So I just thought, I really, really want to go back because i just can't live like this. It's genuinely getting worse and worse. 00:30:25.59 Owen Erm... but I can't go back to Dartford. So I had a couple of mates that went to Camberley and I heard that the atmosphere is completely different because what is massively different about the two is Dartford was a performance institute hosted by GB Judo. 00:30:46.95 Owen Whereas Cambly just had an absolutely unbelievable coach, but it wasn't actually a GB judo set up. It was a charity that had just been set up in Surrey. 00:30:58.14 Owen And the training partners there were unbelievable and they were getting massive results. So thought, right, I'm going to try it again, but I'm going to try Cambly. 00:31:08.30 Owen And that is genuinely one of the best decisions I've ever made. Like Cambly is just completely different. It's... It's a cabin on bricks, so you literally live in a cabin on bricks. Big cabin. 00:31:19.16 Owen There's like 10 bedrooms in in one corridor. Each bedroom had bunk bed in it, like an army military style bunk bed. There was one front room between 20 athletes, all men. 00:31:31.12 Owen ah One kitchen. 00:31:33.41 nextlevelguypodcast Thank 00:31:33.35 Owen Each athlete had their own cupboard. We all shared one fridge. There was two toilets, one shower. And literally like two metres from our bedroom was where we trained. So, to this day, I've never been any anywhere of a better atmosphere. 00:31:50.50 Owen So, like, you made all the lads in that building ended up like your best mates by an absolute mile. And all we would do, not one of us had a pot to piss in. were all absolutely broke. 00:32:03.31 Owen But we didn't need anything. We just got up in the morning. We all let together. We'd go across the walkway, which is a 30 second walk. We'd all lift weights or we'd do conditioning. Then we'd all jump on the mat at 12, we'd do technique. 00:32:17.03 Owen We'd all come back next door, we'd all eat together. go for a nap, and we'd all go back next door and we'd batter each other every night. But the atmosphere was just completely different. We had a club bus, so the coach would just come in one morning, he'd just be like, right, lads, on the bus. 00:32:34.31 Owen He'd just drive us up the hills and he'd just get doing sprints up there. On a weekend, he'd throw us on the bus, he'd drive to Wales. We'd all jump off the bus, compete, like... 00:32:46.04 Owen near enough everyone on the bus would win and then we'd just get straight back on the bus we'd come back to the gym if we weren't competing we'd all go out together and have a few beers with each other was just an absolute different atmosphere mate and I can see why people stay there probably 5-10 years longer than 00:33:04.24 nextlevelguypodcast I bet that was a riot. Ten guys and in one place, one shower. i i mean, it sounds like... Fuck. 00:33:13.05 Owen ah 10 bedrooms, 20 guys, boom buds. 00:33:16.61 nextlevelguypodcast I think that's insanity. I think that's the, to be able to do that at 17, 18, you know, to go away and have that year of burnout and misbehave. And I think it sounds like you needed that break away from the strictness of the first place. 00:33:32.73 nextlevelguypodcast And then, but to have the, the, the foresight at 19 to go, actually, I need to change. I can't do this. And then you found a place that let you excel, right? 00:33:44.02 nextlevelguypodcast but didn't put that level of stress or maybe that rigidity of it. You know, it seemed to just let you be you and find it. It gave the fun back to it. 00:33:57.78 Owen Mate, Cambly's just got it down to a T how it should be. It's like, it's all about atmosphere, which just breeds hard work. Everybody gets super close to each other. You're all bouncing off each other like they are your real mates. 00:34:12.29 Owen You're travelling all over the world of each other, just fighting, having a drink after it once the work's been done. Honestly, mate, like ah in them days, I wasn't even nervous when it comes to competing. 00:34:23.42 Owen It was just like you're with your mates, staying over, getting up in the morning, you're all having a scrap, going out for a few beers. You do it again next weekend. it was just absolutely perfect. 00:34:36.03 nextlevelguypodcast So when you were back on the mats, well how did you change your mindset at that point? Was it just you weren't even thinking about judo? It was more just a kind of I'm with friends doing a sport I love. 00:34:51.17 nextlevelguypodcast Did you kind of think I'm doing I'm not taking this as seriously? Were you focused on certain goals outside of the results at that point? Or did anything really change? you Just a better environment? 00:35:01.34 Owen No problem. like Just the environment. like it may I've never trained just for fun, ever. but When I went back to Camberley, my first meeting with Luke, the coach, was like, I'm only coming back so I want go to the Commonwealth Games and then I want to qualify for the Olympics. 00:35:22.66 Owen um So we literally just sat down and spoke about how it was possible to qualify for the Commonwealth Games because you had to do a certain and amount of tournaments and win a certain amount medals and points to even have a chance of qualifying. And that included like traveling all over the world again. 00:35:40.09 Owen Because it wasn't a GB judo set up, we wasn't getting paid. So the gym, the club, actually try and help us to find sponsors as well. 00:35:48.25 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 00:35:52.09 Owen Because obviously like I can't try travel all over the world for training and competition with no money. So we had to speak about how that was possible and things I might have to do to try and get sponsorship. 00:36:06.12 Owen and But Cambly, they've got it all set up, mate. They know exactly what they're doing. So they managed to get me everything that I actually needed in place. So all I had to do was concentrate on the work that I had to do on the mat. 00:36:21.67 Owen But yeah, never I've never trained just for fun. Like I've always had absolute gold that I'm going to be shocked if I fail again. and 00:36:34.60 nextlevelguypodcast Because everybody talks about your amazing judo, but do you do you find that it's that kind of thing of the modern game is designed now that everybody's, you know, the bat scooting, as everybody likes to call it, whereas people use stand-up now as a way to get to the floor and do like jujitsu, whereas you're actually making it part of a system where you're actually incorporating your judo into, by the point you realize I've thrown you, 00:37:01.82 nextlevelguypodcast you know most people just throw in hope. You're actually throwing people into the next position. You're actually... 00:37:07.94 Owen Yeah. 00:37:08.19 nextlevelguypodcast t 00:37:10.65 Owen Like, mate, I've brought judo principles over, but I don't see myself... ah I'm not doing judo in grappling. 00:37:22.27 Owen like I don't care if someone pulls guard in front of me. like For me, it's not like, oh, you need to stand up so I can do my stuff. like my My game is about... 00:37:35.41 Owen pressure. I just like, like, Langakka for me was the absolute perfect way to win. Like, I have no flashy submissions. I don't love flashy submissions. Like for me, it's much, much more satisfying and if I can fatigue someone that much and put them into such bad positions so that they just give up. 00:37:55.98 Owen And what I tapped Tommy with wasn't even a submission. was just like, had a one-handed cross face, my other hand was posting on the floor. and I put my shoulder over his mouth and he tapped. It was just pure fatigue. 00:38:09.29 Owen And that for me is just my game. Like, i don't have anything special. So like, every time I coach seminars or whatever, like, especially here at Bangtown now because we get so many visitors, the amount of people that come up and they're like, mate, love your sessions because it's so simple. 00:38:28.23 Owen And I'm like, it should be simple though in my head because... when you're absolutely blowing out your ass, 10-step moves don't work for me. 00:38:41.01 Owen Like for me, it's like when I see like, this is an advanced grappler and this is a beginner's grappler and someone saying, you can't come on this class, mate, it's advanced. That to me is like, I just find that a lot of bollocks because I think the only difference in a beginner and an advanced grappler for me is the advanced grappler can perform all the fundamentals that the beginner can but they can link them all together under massive amounts of fatigue i don't really think the the moves get fancier like i don't know if i have any moves that i couldn't teach a beginner to be able to do in two weeks 00:39:20.19 Owen But I feel like what I'm really good at, which I'm trying to make everyone that I train with really good at, is to be able to link them together without thinking. so you can do it when you're absolutely exhausted. 00:39:34.32 Owen If that makes sense. 00:39:36.24 nextlevelguypodcast I mean, you've made a career out being that guy that can kind of grind people down, control them, crush their soul. And then, you know, you've like you built this kind of combat chassis that allows you to do that. So that even when you're absolutely exhausted, you just seem to remain in the pocket. 00:39:54.31 nextlevelguypodcast Like, you seem to be comfortable just doing it. i mean, when I first started jiu-jitsu, I was trying to keep up all these skinny six-pack fucking young guys and going... i ah that wasn't me. 00:40:06.35 nextlevelguypodcast I was this fat guy who used to power lift going, shit, I could barely get my legs over my head. And when I discovered pressure passing, I was like, fuck, this is for me. I liked what that noise you know when you get on top of somebody and you grind in and you can hear them go that as their soul leaves their body. And I'd be like, yep. 00:40:27.00 nextlevelguypodcast And I suddenly saw that I could win. I developed situations from there. Is that what you do? Do you find positions where you can get a connection and doesn't matter where it's from, you're working to just start applying pressure to get them uncomfortable, to fatigue them, to pull them into working just to survive more than their game? 00:40:53.38 Owen Yeah, like, mate, I've spent i'll genuinely spent a lot of time doing this over the last, say, I reckon about six years now. ah I've improved so much over the last six years as a grappler and a coach just through, like... feel like I've done it differently to a lot of people, so feel like people, like super high-level judo athletes might come across to jiu-jitsu... 00:41:22.65 Owen And they just do jujitsu. And like, honestly, I don't know why. This is just my opinion. Like, it just doesn't make sense to me that because if you've done judo for 20 years and now you come across and you do jujitsu and you just do jujitsu, like, to me, if someone else has done jujitsu for 10 years, you're now 10 years behind them. 00:41:47.73 Owen Well, like for me, I've just come across and thought, I'm going to look at what's needed to understand in Jiu-Jitsu. So I'm going to look at specifics that I need to be super comfortable with in Jiu-Jitsu if I end up there. 00:42:01.61 Owen But I ain't playing Jiu-Jitsu because ah don't want to play catch-all. So like, I've just built a game around my strengths. So I've just looked at what I'm good at. 00:42:13.59 Owen and built a game around that. So, like for example, my positions that I feel unbelievably strong at and good and stable and can build massive pressure from when I'm on top would be mount, behind the turtle, wrist ride, top half guard. 00:42:34.02 Owen So I'd have them four positions. All I've done ah took a lot of time to first feel very, very good in them positions. So I genuinely feel with most people, if I get them to them positions, not that they can't move, but sometimes I'll encourage movement even to make them tired. 00:42:53.21 Owen Like them working, but not getting anywhere is better than that them not being able to move for me. But I feel very, very confident if I get in them positions that I can create a lot of fatigue and pressure and work towards a finish. 00:43:09.17 Owen So I've built a game from absolutely everywhere around getting to them four positions. So if I'm wrestling, um I'm going to look for a front headlock, a front or rear or side body lock, 00:43:24.42 Owen or a single leg and link that to the body lock because i know if i get to a front headlock body lock side body lock or rear body lock that i can get to one of them four positions 100 percent now if i'm passing guard haven't put time into la jiva passing reverse de la jiva passing lasso passing butterfly guard passing i want to get to half guard So I don't give a fuck if you play De La Jive. I'm not going to step into your headquarters so you can get your De La Jive a hook. 00:43:58.64 Owen I'm going initiate it first from judo. I'm going to win the grips. Massive in judo. If you don't win the grips, you can't throw anybody. So I've brought that right across. So I'll make sure I win that first initial contact. 00:44:12.76 Owen I'll make sure as many times I can that I am controlling inside. I'm putting them where I want them, which normally ends up knee shield or half butterfly. I'm still controlling the hands so they're not connecting to me and off balancing me. 00:44:28.14 Owen And then off the top of that, if I'm controlling their hands, it's going to make the knee shield or half butterfly weaker. so now I can start looking to force half guard. It's an unbelievably simple game. And then if I'm put on my back, I've got things I can show as a coach for other people. 00:44:45.96 Owen But in terms of my game, I'm not doing anything but wrestle-up. And by wrestle-up, I mean half-guard wrestle-ups, shoulder clamp sweeps, combining that with the legs where I can use single-leg X wrestle-ups, arm drags, getting to a front headlock from a seated position, combining that with a double leg from a seated position. 00:45:05.78 Owen So this has all took years. But to me, it's all just wrestling. And I feel like as long as long as I can keep someone in this cycle where we're what kind of wrestling wherever we're playing the game, I feel like I have a massive chance of breaking people down, which is why the new Polaris rules for me, where it's three, five minute rounds, is just absolutely perfect. 00:45:31.79 Owen Because the amount of times I've had good black belts come to Bangtao and roll with us, And we do multiple five-minute rounds. And genuinely by round three, with one minute in between, they always want to rest that round so they can go again. Because I do feel like I am very getting getting very, very good now at building pressure over time. 00:45:54.12 Owen the ideal rule set for me is rounds of five minutes or no time limit. 00:46:00.63 nextlevelguypodcast I think that's terrible. The thought of but your pressure in no time limit would be fucking terrifying. Because I think that's the beauty. That's why I became such a fan. You had this way of tactical simplicity, but brutal execution. 00:46:16.20 nextlevelguypodcast You just got control, and you made the... It was almost like your motto was that kind of you can't you can't win if you can't breathe. yeah You take these old-school judo chaining moves, 00:46:30.09 nextlevelguypodcast with modern wrestling flow into this type of... You brought people into hell, basically, and then you let them make the mistake, they let you win. 00:46:41.78 nextlevelguypodcast Do you think that's something that you're good at is that you will, because I think you've said you turn up in the best shape you possibly can, that you train yourself to be fatigued, to be in these situations where you can then train from to make sure that when shit goes south, you can actually recover and be great regardless of how much you're breathing out your arse? 00:47:06.15 Owen Yeah, like, honestly, mate, I really, really still live this. Like, a lot of people say they live it. And a lot of people that I've spoke to have told me they live it. 00:47:17.23 Owen And when you actually look at the they probably don't. But I truly have always lived this. So, like, even now, like, I'm not a full-time athlete anymore. Like... 00:47:29.51 Owen I'm more of a coach, but I'm just able to win a Polaris world title because of how I live. like 00:47:35.97 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:47:36.65 Owen And I'll always live like that. I train 10 times a week now, and that's not because I've got anything coming up. That's just like, if I don't do that, I don't feel good. 00:47:49.64 Owen I need that routine in my life. So like ah daily a normal week for me schedule would be I'm rolling every day, I'm going to lift weights Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 00:48:02.11 Owen I'm going to do a rowing session on a Tuesday. I'm going to do a salt bike sprint on a Thursday. And that's regardless if I've got a tournament coming up or I'm not competing anytime soon. So when I get a match announced, people ask me, oh, how are you going to prepare? It's like, ah I don't change anything. 00:48:23.51 Owen Like, I don't need to, I was training exactly the same. And then Thailand's even better, mate, because I used to have to go and look for cross training in England. 00:48:35.84 Owen Whereas I'm not exaggerating 1% when I say every single day of the week, at least five of my rounds are with different people. 00:48:45.93 nextlevelguypodcast no 00:48:46.09 Owen So I couldn't be giving something any better at this stage of my career. Because now I just feel like I can, this game that we've just spoke about that took time to develop, i have a chance to use that game on different people every single day of the week. 00:49:02.79 Owen And one, it reminds me how effective it is because we get all different styles coming in. We'll get wrestlers in, we'll get people that come over and they're really, really good at leg locks. And I get a chance to apply this game on these different people every single day. 00:49:17.12 Owen and if there is any little holes in that little game, I'll find them through rolling with these different people and then I'm able to build on that again. So it's just like, since living in Thailand, the feel like I've leveled up leaps and bounds and we've only just started really. 00:49:33.02 nextlevelguypodcast yeah And at manya I was going to go into is, do you think that the the analytical side of coaching, of having to figure out where somebody's going wrong, makes you that better athlete? 00:49:44.15 nextlevelguypodcast And training with these variety of people, mean, you've trained with some of the the world's best, that you can actually start to see... where they're going, you can see the breakdown in a student's game to help them improve. 00:49:56.07 nextlevelguypodcast But it's almost like it makes you like in the Terminator, where he has analytical files on the human anatomy because it makes him a better killer. You can actually start saying, okay, my students did this, which led to them failing here. 00:50:09.48 nextlevelguypodcast So it actually helps your game because you can see the good and the bad. You know what to help them strengthen, but you also know what to exploit in your own matches. 00:50:19.38 Owen For sure, mate. I've coached a long time now as well. 00:50:24.83 nextlevelguypodcast No. 00:50:24.96 Owen like Because as a full-time athlete, we had to coach to get a little bit of money because obviously we weren't getting funded. um 00:50:35.68 Owen I do class myself as a pretty good coach now because I do really, really, really understand deeply everything that I coach and everything that watch. 00:50:48.46 Owen Like... Honestly, mate, I'm so lucky. Like, i genuinely love what i do. I absolutely love it. Like, I'm obsessed with coaching, training, grappling, MMA grappling. 00:51:04.89 Owen I absolutely love it. Like, in my spare time, if I've not got my son and my son's out with his mum or whatever, I'm 100% be downstairs just watching a UFC fight or a grappling match. 00:51:16.70 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. but 00:51:17.38 Owen And that's not even me doing that because it's like, oh, I have to study. It's because I literally love it. Like, if I won the lottery tomorrow, swear to God I wouldn't change anything. 00:51:32.28 Owen I'd stay in Thailand, I'd open a gym, and I'd do exactly what I'm doing now. but I just have more money to play with when we want to do stuff on a weekend. like And I do believe, because I've put so much time in over genuinely like the last 25 years, that I have a really good understanding of um a huge portion of what's involved in grappling. 00:51:58.64 Owen So when I do watch my, i don't like calling them students, but like people that I train, 00:52:06.41 Owen ah do fully it may I have do thoroughly understand what I'm trying to apply to my students. So 100% if I see little breakdowns, I can help them with that. 00:52:18.92 Owen But also I can take that away and look at why that's happening and how that can be addressed as well. 00:52:27.18 nextlevelguypodcast So how would how have you found moving to Thailand? i mean because you're sickeningly happy, you know, yeah for a single guy like myself who's stuck in ah ah con a country that's grey and pissing down every five minutes. 00:52:40.78 nextlevelguypodcast You know, you've got your son, you're out in the the lovely sunshine, you've always got a smile on your face, you're training these multiple disciplines, you're training with people who want to be there and want to engage, etc. 00:52:51.51 Owen Thank you. 00:52:52.65 nextlevelguypodcast but How is that kind of the culture now? and being more of a kind of doing your own thing and bringing people into your world and teaching them how has that evolution helped you be you know like when you look back now compared to that 18 year old who was struggling what what comes to mind does it help now to kind of see that and think back to that point and have you made peace with the struggles you had at that time 00:53:22.52 Owen I think I live like this because of them. feel like everything I've got now is truly off the back of everything that's happened in the past. Because don't get me wrong, there's still stresses, mate. Like, it looks absolutely fantastic what I'm doing and we're in Thailand and we're going on all these trips with my family and it is fantastic. 00:53:45.03 Owen But life's still not easy. Do you know what I mean? i still have a lot of stresses that I'm dealing with and... But all the things that have happened in the past have 100% built me to be what I am now. As in, like, sometimes it's not even... 00:54:04.69 Owen the best. Like sometimes I'd say I'm probably a bit too harsh. Like, because when I've had struggles in the past, I've honestly, I've never asked for help. 00:54:15.64 Owen Like, and that's not me saying to anybody, don't ask for help because if you need help, you 100% should ask for help. But for whatever reason, I just didn't. So sometimes I can definitely be too harsh. 00:54:30.50 Owen Like, for example, someone comes up to me in the gym and they're like, mate, I've lost three times now. I'm getting a bit down. What should i do? ah can't lie. My answer would probably be, mate, you maybe he just fucking get on with it. 00:54:43.44 Owen Like, we all lose. Like, what are going to do instead? Like, quit. And never win anyway. It's like, you might as well just try. 00:54:55.05 Owen And that's genuinely just always been my attitude as in, like, 00:54:59.77 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 00:55:00.03 Owen Again, I can't really say why or how that's been developed, but like, I just feel like there's not much that you can't do. So like, some of the decisions I've made over the last 10 years, people have been like, are you fucking mental? Like I said before, i had zero qualifications at all. 00:55:19.04 Owen So when I actually fully retired from judo at 26, It hit me again and it was like, fucking hell, I don't know what I'm going to do at all. To the point where I went training MMA, even though I had no interest in pursuing a career in that, just because I thought, I don't want to go back to judo again, but maybe I can make something out of fighting. 00:55:41.41 Owen And then ah got offered a job at Hull KR, which is a Super League team, um full-time job as the wrestling coach. So I was like, right, that's fantastic. 00:55:51.78 nextlevelguypodcast you 00:55:52.82 Owen can just teach what I enjoy doing to a professional rugby team. I can make loads of money. I thought, this is going to be fantastic. Went there and I just wasn't happy, mate. Like, for whatever reason, I just don't like working for other people. 00:56:06.98 Owen Like, I just like doing what I want to do. People can make whatever they want of that, but I enjoy doing things on my terms. So after about a year to 18 months, I started opening Carl St Gracie Hull on the side, not even as a business. like I just wanted to roll. 00:56:29.26 Owen I tried to jump in a few gyms in Hull and there was nobody in them. that made me want to keep going. So i was like, right, i'm just going to put two sparring sessions on a week, which are free. ah Just more for my own mind. 00:56:42.38 Owen ah And then it started building from there. Now, mate, I had 30 people training with us they were paying like three or four quid each, each session that they turned up and they wasn't even guaranteed to be turning up. 00:56:54.09 Owen And I walked into the office at Ulk Aar and quit my job. And like, i didn't have a kid then, that probably would have influenced me not doing that, but it was me my missus. 00:57:05.64 Owen And just walked in the office and i was like, I reckon I can do something with this gym. And I hadn't even competed in grappling at this point, and it was a grappling gym. So I was just like, I quit the job. And they were like, are you sure? 00:57:21.17 Owen Like, this is a full-time job in the Super League. Like, people go to university to try and get in these positions. 00:57:27.70 nextlevelguypodcast ah 00:57:29.15 Owen And I was like, yeah, it's not for me. And I remember driving back home thinking, don't know how the fuck I'm going to tell you this, that I've just quit a full-time job for this hobby in the gym down the road, um which was literally just in a community centre. 00:57:47.17 Owen But I did it anyway, and then made the gym full-time, and then that gym just went fucking mental. Then we ended up rolling into Grapplefest and Polaris and... 00:57:58.12 Owen Then with Thailand, came on holiday and loved it. had a chat with a couple of people. They said I might be able to get a job here. I was like, I can't move from Hul to fucking Phuket. 00:58:09.66 Owen But then I give it thought for a month and i was just like, you know what? Like, why not? Like, ah this is another thing that I think Cambly's helped me with. Like, when I was at Cambly, I had zero. 00:58:20.76 Owen Like, when you see all these guys now in Jiu-Jitsu and it's just flashy bollocks, it's just like... nice clothes, sponsored gear, talking up to a camera, just acting like a fucking ballbag, like winning by submission and pouring beer in each other's mouths and that. 00:58:32.78 nextlevelguypodcast Uh, 00:58:39.19 Owen Like, I just can't stand all that shit. Like, it just doesn't go with, for me personally, what the sport's about. And I just feel like I've always, like, Cambly, I had nothing. So, like, for me, it was, my mentality's always been, look, 00:58:57.12 Owen I had fuck all at Cambly and I did alright. So the worst that could possibly happen now by attacking this gamble is that I end up with fuck all again. But I still reckon I'd be alright. Like I would get out of it somehow. 00:59:10.79 Owen So i've always just jumped to opportunities and like I say, we still have our stresses mate, but I can't really complain about how we're living at the moment. 00:59:20.39 nextlevelguypodcast I think that kind of jumps out is the fact that when you are doing things, you kind of just go, okay, well, that's happened. Okay, right. What am I going to do next? 00:59:31.60 nextlevelguypodcast You know, you're immediately thinking, how do I improve myself from here? How do i what can I do to then fix this situation? 00:59:38.82 Owen Situation. 00:59:39.10 nextlevelguypodcast A lot of people, you a lot of people are overthinking. Do you think that's a big thing for you? It's that moment of, we Too many people overthink where you just say, well, just get on with it. 00:59:49.66 nextlevelguypodcast You lose. Okay, go back, fix what you what the you caught in so it doesn't happen again. You lose again, fix the next thing. Is that what you're trying to instill in your students, that moment of to just look at the opportunities that these things and just take advantage of what you can to try to get involved? 01:00:10.42 Owen For sure. It's just like, mate, don't me wrong, I'm probably, I would class myself as an overthinker. But when I say overthinker, I'm overthinking how to succeed with something. 01:00:24.03 Owen So like, 01:00:27.39 Owen I would advise anybody to take a gamble because for me, it's just like, if you take a gamble, the worst that can happen is it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, you're left with where you already are before you take the gamble. 01:00:41.94 Owen Whereas if it does work, you could potentially change your life. Like, mate, I've took loads of gambles and they haven't worked. Don't get me wrong. Like I've took about two or three that have worked. 01:00:54.68 Owen I've took about fucking 15 that I've not. um But for me, I would say I'm an overthinker as in I'll take the gamble but It's almost not a gamble because in my head I'm just like, right, once I say I'm going to do it, like it will happen because I'll do that much that it will happen, like it can't not happen. 01:01:17.23 Owen um I genuinely think that's why all what's happened now has worked out the way it is because... 01:01:28.36 Owen none of it's bollocks mate, like I do really really genuinely work hard as an athlete and a coach, um genuinely other than taking out my kid and spending time with my kid, I don't do anything else but this sport, whether that's training or studying it or teaching it, so I think when you put all your eggs in like that, I don't think it can really fail, 01:01:57.92 nextlevelguypodcast So what advice would you give to somebody who's like, I mean, I'm going back to jiu-jitsu. I mean, I took some time out after I had a shoulder injury and I kept going, I'm going to go back next week, next week. And I got to a blue belt and I didn't want to become that meme of ah another fucking blue belt who's disappeared soon you know. 01:02:16.06 nextlevelguypodcast But I'm going back to a gym now where I don't know anybody. I don't know any, like I've not trained in ages. I put on a bit a chunk. For these, i mean, yeah I know you've got a product on fat facts, you know, like for for the pressure passing and stuff like that. 01:02:30.93 nextlevelguypodcast But what advice would you give to people maybe who are starting it who have said, oh, Henry Cavill, Tom Hardy, they all train. I'm going to go do it. You know, people who are going back to jiu-jitsu, like are the January... 01:02:44.55 nextlevelguypodcast guys who are going to start what advice would you give to make them avoid the pitfalls we've kind of been discussing and actually just enjoy the sport and not get sucked into the you know oh this team's better than this team oh this guy's better because he talks about a big game on social media and just actually enjoy the sport for the sport 01:03:05.91 Owen Mate, I would say to them, expect the pitfalls and be ready for them because it's impossible to do anything without pitfalls. 01:03:16.59 Owen So, like, know that they're absolutely going to happen. But what I would say is is just make sure you're there in a year's time because it's really, really easy to just stop going. 01:03:23.99 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 01:03:30.55 Owen But what I can literally say happens 100% of the time is everyone I speak to that stopped going all say they wish they were still going and how good I could have been now. 01:03:41.59 Owen So, like, for me, like, when someone first starts... Because it happens all the time, mate. They come in the gym and they're super keen. They're back at it. They want to train every night. And I'm like, don't train every night. 01:03:53.40 Owen Like, what do you mean? And I'm because I've fucking seen it a million times. like you're going to train in every night. You're going to get really fatigued. You're 100% going to pick up little niggles. in a month's time you're probably going wake up one morning and go I'm absolutely fucked going to rest and that rest turns into you doing once a week twice a week quitting where I'm just like right just be here in six months ah just train three times a week or two times a week and when that's a piece of piss and it's comfortable and your body's fine and you're still enjoying it add one session 01:04:29.86 Owen And when that's a piece of piss, add one session. 01:04:30.43 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 01:04:32.86 Owen You might not even have to have a adder session if depending on your goal. But for me, doing something's better than doing nothing. So even if I was an absolute hobbyist, you can still get really good as an hobbyist. 01:04:46.51 Owen You've got to identify your strengths, the areas that you're good at, go in the gym and just be open to learning. When you spar, try and build around the areas that you're good at. 01:04:59.52 Owen and when you get problems, do some out do some studying out of the gym. like If you go in the gym and you're struggling with a certain position, yeah this there's YouTube if you don't want to pay, there's online academies if you do want to pay. 01:05:14.18 Owen like You can literally, nowadays, it's easier than ever. You can just get feedback within minutes of leaving the gym. So I think even if you train twice a week, which is unbelievably sustainable, and you do a bit of lifting at the side of that, 01:05:28.90 Owen and you dedicate an hour or two hours a week to studying the problems that you've come up with that week, you'd be a decent grappler in six months' time. 01:05:38.19 nextlevelguypodcast and And how do you avoid the comparison? Because I see a lot of people who will have but an amazing round, but if they don't get maybe as many taps as Billy, John, whoever it is, they'll bitch and moan. They'll judge themselves against other people. 01:05:53.58 nextlevelguypodcast Whereas you seem to just get on and be your own man. what How do you eliminate that ego, that comparison in your students the to make them, like you're saying, just focus on themselves, have their goals for their own progression in six months, not compare yourself to some twat on social media? 01:06:14.70 Owen Mate, it's an individual sport for me. And it's like... I'm telling you now, the amount of people that I've seen on social media and then met them in person, and it's absolute bollocks. 01:06:27.15 Owen Like, it's that bad that I wouldn't be on social media if I didn't have businesses that I needed to advertise on social media. Like, it's just absolute bollocks. Like, so I would be saying to people, like... 01:06:40.44 Owen This is an individual sport, it's just all about you. 01:06:43.88 nextlevelguypodcast no 01:06:43.88 Owen Now, you need a good team to help you, but like if someone's got some super flashy submissions and that's not you, you don't ever have to go down that lane. like One thing that's really helped me is like watching grapplers that you would see as a similar style to you. 01:07:04.46 Owen So like, I don't watch flashy submission artists, like at all, because it's just fucking pointless for me. Like I'm never ever going to bring that across. Like if I'm watching like grapplers, like I'd watch someone like Wagner-Roscher. 01:07:21.40 Owen The reason being he's like 42 years old or something and still smashing people half his age on the biggest stages in the world because his style is so efficient. He's not a quick submission artist. 01:07:34.25 Owen It just breaks people down over time. absolutely love watching all the Dagestani MMA lads grapple, Khabib, Makashev, just because they have the style of, I'm going to put you down and keep you down until you make a mistake and then I'm going to take advantage of it. 01:07:50.21 Owen um I think people have got identify, goes back to us talking about that game before, if I'm working with someone, one of the first things I'm going say to them is you need to identify what your game is. 01:08:03.11 Owen Because there's loads of stuff in Jiu Jitsu, there's loads of shit in Jiu Jitsu. And if you try and get good at everything, you're going to be pretty shit at everything. but You need to identify which positions you have success in, build a game around getting and getting to them positions from everywhere. 01:08:21.65 Owen And that's you improving overnight, massively. 01:08:25.48 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 01:08:25.36 Owen And then you've just got to build branches off that, which will come naturally when you get to certain positions and you get certain problems, and then you can go and study and fix them problems. You've just got to focus on hum mi you, mate. If you try and learn every part Jiu-Jitsu, it's going to take you 100 years. You need to take some shortcuts and... 01:08:45.07 Owen build a game around your strengths, and your strengths are probably going to be very different to someone else's, so doesn't matter what they're doing. 01:08:53.34 nextlevelguypodcast And what's your opinion on competing? Do you think everybody needs to compete to discover who they are or try to test themselves? 01:09:01.70 Owen I don't think they have to compete, mate. It's like everyone's at different stages, aren't they? Like, if someone starts the sport, they're like 40 years old plus, and they don't want to compete, they doesn't have to at all. 01:09:12.97 Owen Like... I think if a lad come in the gym... So this is it, right? If a lad comes in my gym and he's like, I want to do this, this and this... Then that's like signing a contract to me. Like, if you're coming in saying, this is my goal, this is my goal and this is my goal... And they're pretty big fucking goals... 01:09:31.49 Owen for me, if I don't see you every day, you're talking k shit and you have to compete because what I would say about competing 100% is it's the fastest way to progress. 01:09:32.22 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 01:09:43.41 Owen Like, absolutely no doubt. It's like, the best example of that for me as a coach is we've got a lad in Hull called Aaron Gurnill. 01:09:55.74 Owen He came to our gym about, i want to say three years ago as a blue belt. and he got a bit of a beating in the gym. He was just visiting. But because he got a bit of a beating, his attitude was great, and he was like, this is where I need to be. 01:10:11.36 Owen So he moved over, and he was like, I want to do this, this, and this. So what can I do? he's like He's a prison officer, so he was like, I can only get here a few nights a week. 01:10:21.87 Owen So was like, that's fine. i was like, train with us as much as you can. If there's any gym local to you or where you live, because he doesn't actually live in Hull, Train the, if possible, and just put yourself in as many fucking competitions as you can. 01:10:36.88 Owen Because all it's going to do is give you real answers. Like, you're going to get the nerves, going the anxiety, you're going to get the stress. Obviously, everyone's 100% resisting. You're going to find the actual holes that you have, rather than rolling with people you roll with every day. 01:10:54.55 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 01:10:54.51 Owen Like, it gets to a point where you know each other that well, that it's not a true reflection. So like, fair play to him, mate, he must have competed every two weeks for the whole year. he ended up being ranked number one in the UK at ah ah Empire Grappling. 01:11:11.30 Owen So he was like, just ended it up cleaning it out, really. We give him his purple belt, and now he's 2-0 on Polaris as well. And like, really, if I look at how many times a week his training was over the last three years... 01:11:26.49 Owen It's probably only been two or three times a week. But because he's put himself out there so much, he's got comfortable in a competitive environment. He's learned the skill of how to win a match. 01:11:39.19 Owen Because sometimes, that's what I'd say I'm very good at, is because I've competed all my life, literally, since I was about nine years old. if a match If I have a match and it's super close and i can't submit someone, 01:11:53.56 Owen I feel like I have a really, really good skill of being able to edge that match and win it though. 01:11:58.48 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 01:11:58.95 Owen And I feel like you can learn you can genuinely only learn that, I think, through competing yourself and video analysis when you know what you're looking for. You'll find that there's actually absolute professionals that are just winning matches. And that's something massive that we carried over from judo because we literally studied that. If you couldn't throw someone, you had to win a different way. 01:12:23.32 Owen um and he's learned that now as well like he's kind of got that mentality now as well where he knows he's going to end up in bad positions but that's part the game he's going to keep fighting until he gets out of them and what a lot of the time you'll find the grappling I find it all the time you're in that bad position you get out of that bad position and that was your opponent's hail Murray and you feel them just fucking evaporate and then you can do what you want with them 01:12:47.74 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 01:12:51.58 Owen So I would say like if someone come in with a big goal, competing is a must. But someone wants to come in and train to be a good grappler, potentially get graded in future, 100% you can be a super high level grappler without doing any compar competitions in your life. 01:13:12.92 nextlevelguypodcast So how could somebody listening who's going, you know, it doesn't matter what age they are, come be the best student? You know, even if it's with you, if it's with a different gym, is that the mindset you want them to come in with? It's just focus on themselves, train as much as they can, but still be there in six months, focus on their own journey. Like what what would be, what would make them the best student possible if you had to design your ultimate student? 01:13:42.34 Owen open to learning always and that should never change Like, I've had some students in the past where they get to purple belt, they start doing their own thing. Like, they think they've worked everything out. They've trained for four years and they think the latest style of training is better than the one that we're doing. 01:14:00.93 Owen They start to do their own things on the side and you just see the decline. 01:14:04.26 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 01:14:04.19 Owen like just blu If you have a good coach and your your coach is proven, just fucking listen. ah And that good coach is probably going to tell you to cross-train. 01:14:16.44 Owen So do a bit cross-training. Pick up some new things from different training partners, from different coaches. Bring it back to the gym. be a good teammate so when i say focus on yourself of course focus on your own progression but still help others because you need them as well like you need training partners to develop yourself um so i would say be open to learning cross train do your own studying like that's a massive one 01:14:50.03 Owen Again, like we've already said, identify your own game. ah Some people come in a gym, pay 60 quid a month and think, that's it now, I don't have to do anything else, I've paid the coach 60 quid. 01:15:03.89 Owen He does everything for me and if I'm not a world champion in three years, it's his fault. 01:15:08.25 nextlevelguypodcast no 01:15:08.47 Owen It's like, nah, the coach is providing you a good base. Your gym's your base. You come in and you get good skills passed on from your coach and hopefully showing you a good way of how to implement them. 01:15:25.19 Owen And then it's up to you to go and test them against other people in cross-training, in competition, to ask questions, to do your own studying. And then the idea is that you should over overtake your coach in a number of years if if we're doing our job right. 01:15:42.25 nextlevelguypodcast So if you if you look now, mean, you've started transitioning into a way as much, you know, you're doing more coaching, you're building the business with probably the same level of intensities you have as an athlete. 01:15:43.44 Owen you 01:15:56.15 nextlevelguypodcast You know, you're start finding your own ways you go. When you look back now, you said your goal was to you know go to the Olympics, win a medal, and kind of ride the success of that. 01:16:07.06 nextlevelguypodcast mean, you won gold in the Commonwealth Games. You've trained some amazing people. You've won against some of the world's best. how What is next for you? i mean, how do you... 01:16:20.08 nextlevelguypodcast change that focus you know when you look at this now is it to help the next generation are you still wanting to compete are you still wanting to win things how does you you know if we took away competing martial arts what would be left what what do you want to do what's still to be ticked off 01:16:23.98 Owen Thank 01:16:40.93 Owen If you took martial arts away, mate, I'd be fucked because, like, i don't know what else I'd do. Genuinely. um Competition, mate, honestly, sounds absolutely crazy because obviously my last match, I just won the Polaris world title. 01:16:56.74 Owen But, like, ah don't even see myself as a competitor anymore. Like, ah simply just live a lifestyle that allows me to compete when people ask me to compete. And it still allows me to compete... 01:17:10.62 Owen at the highest levels. Um, I think that's a number of things. I think that's the condition that I'm in just due to me lifestyle. Like I barely even fucking drink alcohol, mate. just not even interested in that. 01:17:23.35 Owen Um, it's me willingness to learn like, I sat downstairs this morning and watched half of an instructional. just like But that's just because I enjoy it. 01:17:34.40 Owen So I think I'm always keeping up with the modern game. ah I do genuinely would like to think that I do really, really do outwork most people. 01:17:45.82 Owen um But in terms of actually being a competitor... um I wouldn't class myself as competitor now. I'm definitely more of a coach. And my goals now, I have two goals, mate, and they're both opposite ends of the spectrum. They're both to do with the gym. 01:18:03.97 Owen So one is that I now want to develop someone into winning. big titles so like obviously in hull a struggle that we had so the gym's fantastic carlson gracie hall's absolutely fantastic but not a lot of people go to hull it's kind of in the middle of nowhere yeah so you like you just don't really meet anybody that doesn't live in hull the difference we have now in Phuket, obviously we're opening the gym in hopefully the next few weeks, is the sheer amount of different people you get in Phuket and the sheer amount of different people that want to relocate and live in Phuket. 01:18:49.40 Owen And it's very doable now, like there's different visas in Thailand that you can get, especially if you have some sort of online income. It's very, very doable to get a visa to live in Thailand within two weeks. 01:19:01.62 Owen So it is very realistic now that people can genuinely relocate to Thailand and I can work with them every morning and every evening, every single day of the week, which I'd like to think I can genuinely guarantee that that person will be a very good grappler. 01:19:18.09 Owen So whether they have... um aims in doing something big in grappling or whether they're an MMA fighter and they just want me to help them with the grappling side of it obviously in Thailand you can get everything else you need elsewhere I'd like to think now I've put myself in a position where I can absolutely achieve that goal working with the right people um obviously I'd tell them what I'd expect of them 01:19:50.03 Owen And I'd fully listen to what they'd expect of me. So we can definitely work towards big things. Like, I do genuinely, like, want to do really well with some people. 01:20:03.01 Owen But then the other side of it is to, like... give people an opportunity as well because like what i've seen in grappling which is only getting bigger now is that you can live very very fucking well so like i think as a coach i don't think a coach is just about producing ah champion i'd like to think i could be a part of that now for someone but i don't think that's the only thing as a coach i think 01:20:24.27 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. 01:20:34.78 Owen There's a lot of opportunities now, like for me, it would be a massive success if someone spends five or six years training full time with me 01:20:46.74 Owen and then went on and opened their own gym. 01:20:50.85 Owen and could live really fucking well with her family teaching Jiu Jitsu. Do you know I mean? Like I know people have walked in my gym in the UK that have got really bad lives. Like, Carlson Gracie Hull is on one of the biggest council estates in Europe called the Brandsoma State. 01:21:09.16 Owen No one's got a pot to piss in whatsoever. um which is why that gym is so cheap. Like we have some people paying £40 a week in that gym because It would be an absolute nightmare for me if someone said they can't train with me even though they want to because they can't afford it. 01:21:28.30 Owen um like I think that's completely wrong. like I make enough money to live really well anyway. So if somebody needs a fucking free membership, genuinely needs a free membership, or they need a really low-costing membership... 01:21:46.33 Owen there's absolutely no fucking way on earth that I'm going to refuse someone on that opportunity for money. um That just goes back again when I said before, 01:21:54.00 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 01:21:58.28 Owen I had a lot of years where I had fuck all. So like, I know the position when people truly don't have much. I know how that is. And um never I'd never want that to be a hindrance into why they can't do what I've done. 01:22:13.69 Owen So for me, it's to like, one, and this isn't in number order at all, but one, ah want to produce some very, very high level... 01:22:24.57 Owen grapplers, whether that being grappling or MMA. And then two, provide a gym where the hobbyist can be really, really good because the high level competitors are going to need them as training partners anyway. 01:22:38.12 Owen So I'd want the general standard on my mat to be really good. But then at the same time, I'd love our gym in future to be recognised as, oh, you're a black belt under Owen Libzer. 01:22:49.53 Owen You've opened your own gym, so everyone wants to go and train with them. So they can live how I can live because it's so it's there for you now if you want it. There is a massive opportunity in grappling now. 01:23:01.37 Owen If you truly do the real work, that you can live very, very well from it. 01:23:07.35 nextlevelguypodcast I think that's a big thing about it because like when I initially wanted to have you on, I was wanting to talk about like how do we learn the nuances of throwing in judo, how do we build into our game and stuff. But I knew there was so much deeper to you that hadn't really kind of, you know, 01:23:23.27 nextlevelguypodcast oh And when I listen to other interviews, i was like, hi but there's so much to to you to pick up. And a love how they're deep, analytical and emotional. You get about it. 01:23:31.10 Owen Thank you. 01:23:32.39 nextlevelguypodcast you know you You're honest and you're you talk your mistakes as much as when you look at Gordon Ryan, oh, he's the best of the best and he's this and he's that. you know He talks up of a game, but I would love to know about his darkest moments and stuff like that. 01:23:49.32 nextlevelguypodcast And I think this is why I was so keen to have you on, is that there's so much about you kind of having a bad time, but you found your way back. You you know you inspire people. 01:24:00.54 nextlevelguypodcast You tell people they don't need to worry about all the flashy shit. They can just find their game. but you just want people to be the best they can be and help them find their own journey and you should be an immensely proud of the stuff you're doing there and i'd love to have you on again where we can go into like the tactics and the training and stuff like that but it's we've kind of gone down We've gone down a of rabbit holes where I was like, want interrupt them, but there's so many questions. 01:24:21.55 Owen Appreciate it Matt. 01:24:27.62 nextlevelguypodcast Because I find you so fascinating and I'm such a big fan of what you're doing. How do you think, because you you follow MMA, jiu-jitsu, grappling, judo, you know how do you think it's going to change? 01:24:40.41 nextlevelguypodcast mean, you've got Demi Lovato, Aston Kutcher, Tom Hardy, Henry Cavill, just to name a few just now, who are kind of building jiu-jitsu, grappling as these amazing sports. 01:24:53.52 nextlevelguypodcast There's all this money getting pumped into competitions. You know, you're winning titles, you're building gyms. It's now become a global empire of a sport. How do you think it's going to evolve going forward? 01:25:07.95 Owen I hope it just keeps going with it. Because like I say, you can't beat it when a sport gets to a point where a normal man or woman can change the family's life from hobby. This was hobby, nothing else. 01:25:26.66 Owen like nothing else like You go back somewhat as small as five years ago and people would never dream that they could live the way a lot of people live now from doing jujitsu. 01:25:41.24 Owen Um, so I think it's absolutely unbelievable that these people are getting involved and pushing it even further. Um, ah just can't see it slowing down anytime soon either because think with things like the ufc it's only growing more and more ah um it's only becoming more evident how popular grappling is a whole as a whole not just jujitsu i think judo is getting more acknowledgement wrestling is jujitsu is ah think grappling now is becoming massive because people are realizing if you only do judo or wrestling 01:25:59.39 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 01:26:20.94 Owen your whole game supports someone on the floor, but then if you're missing that last bit, it kind of stunts your game. So I see it just getting bigger, bigger and bigger, mate. 01:26:34.74 Owen And I'm all for it. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the major tournaments. Obviously ADCC and CGI had all that shit, and CGI got a bit of shit itself this year. 01:26:46.83 nextlevelguypodcast no 01:26:50.37 Owen um so it'll be interesting how that goes but the sport as a whole mate obviously the UFC have just bought into it now as well so I can only see it going bigger and bigger 01:27:03.47 nextlevelguypodcast And for guys listening who are maybe feeling a bit lost, you know, they're dealing with anger, they're trying to avoid drinking drugs, you know, they're trying to avoid the rabbit hole of casual sex. And, you know, they're maybe that age or they're maybe lost their passion in life and, you they're really struggling. 01:27:23.86 nextlevelguypodcast Do you think that's the thing if we combat sports? It's that kind of, you know, because we're told not to invade people's personal spaces. You're told not to kind of talk back to people. 01:27:34.75 nextlevelguypodcast But suddenly the it lets us get the like sort of caveman energy out. It lets people channel their their anger, their disappointment, upset, et cetera, into healthy roots. 01:27:46.24 nextlevelguypodcast And it helps young people find themselves. 01:27:49.93 Owen for sure mate like I would genuinely recommend any style of combat sport to anyone um the simple reason being, like, you've heard it you would have heard it been said before, but it's completely true, it's like, it's the only thing, the only time of day, that I don't think of anything else, like, the last three months, mate, I've had loads of stresses, like, we're opening a gym over here and that's not easy in Thailand, loads of different things popping up out and and everywhere with that, then there's like, the whole thing of having the conversation with the people I'm currently working with, 01:28:26.03 Owen because i know they're not going to be very happy that I'm leaving, and it makes that a bit awkward. And the same time as that, I got a little bit of an infection. I've been pretty ill for the last three months, but no one to even fucking know that. Like, when I went to Polaris, was pretty ill. um The only time ah don't think of anything is when I go and train, which is like literally, like, probably half the reason I still roll every single day now. 01:28:53.73 Owen I think... I don't know what it is about the sport, but it's something that people can easily get obsessed with. So I would genuinely recommend anyone that's struggling to just go along and train. And I'd be very, very shocked if then people go along and train and don't become fascinated with the fact that all the stresses are gone in that moment of the training. 01:29:19.26 Owen how much they learn about themselves when they're training, and then how much that makes them want to keep learning about the sport itself so that doesn't happen to them again. then before they know it, three or four years will be passed and they're down this rabbit hole where they're just fucking obsessed with it. And then as we've said already, funny things can happen when you become obsessed with stuff. 01:29:39.53 Owen so Four or five years later, you could be in a position you never could have fucking dreamed of. 01:29:46.82 nextlevelguypodcast Do you ever stop and just think, you know, you're from a little town, the stuff you're doing now, you know, on the other side of the world, you're building gyms, you're winning these world titles. 01:29:59.14 nextlevelguypodcast ah what When you look back now, what what do you think of your journey? Because you've you've kicked ass all over the world. You've won title after title. yeah you know You're inspiring so many people. 01:30:12.16 nextlevelguypodcast You've got a mega fan base. ah how that How do you correlate that now to the old one that you were when you were leaving school, training, it when it was just a bit fun, when you look back now? 01:30:26.15 Owen Mate, I can't. Like, honestly, don't know what's happened. Like... 01:30:31.69 Owen It's very, very, very, very strange. Like, me and my missus speak about it quite a lot when we're in Thailand, because obviously we have the weekends off here. So we'll try and do a lot as a family on the weekends, just like... Like this weekend just passed because my dad's over, we literally paid 100 quid. Some guy picked us up on a long tail boat, drove us all over to a private island. 01:30:55.69 Owen sat on this private deserted island for five hours just with a family only, swimming and there's like one restaurant on the whole island. Drives us back and we're all sat on the boat having drinks and that. It's just like... How the fuck have I ended up here? I have no idea. Like, it's just, like you said, I'm from St. Helens. 01:31:18.32 Owen Like, I didn't do very well. 01:31:19.66 nextlevelguypodcast You're not going to get out there. 01:31:21.78 Owen No, I didn't do very well in school. Like I've just done sports because I enjoyed it. And there's never been plan to live how I'm living now. 01:31:35.97 Owen Like it's always been Olympic games, Commonwealth games, open a gym and be a coach, then somehow fell into actually competing in grappling. 01:31:40.55 nextlevelguypodcast Hmm. 01:31:51.88 Owen Mate, like literally all I can put it down to, and it's again it sounds cliche, is just that i've just I have just been a man of me word and grafted me bollocks off every day. To the point where it's fucking boring. 01:32:02.86 Owen like it's ah I can't even say I really enjoy training that much anymore, but I'll never not do it because ah truly... is the only thing I can put down to life that I live now because no one's fucking... Like like i say, i'll never take it off from mum and dad. 01:32:23.95 Owen They've supported ridiculous amounts as a kid. But no one's given me anything. Like... of genuinely hand on heart works for absolutely everything which makes it even better as well when we have them conversations and we're like how mad is it that we're sat in thailand now on a deserted island three weeks away from opening our own gym when five years ago we were sat in cambly in a cabin on bricks and 01:32:54.13 nextlevelguypodcast no 01:32:54.40 Owen teaching one school class, one judo lesson in a school per day for £25 a session. So I was getting like £125 a week, which I'd just get food with. 01:33:09.12 Owen Like, that's how we were living. was sharing a bunk bed. I was on the bottom bunk. My mate Reeves was on the top bunk. My mum had to pay me car insurance. This is five years ago, mate. 01:33:22.82 Owen And now we've got a one gym in Hull, we're open another one in Phuket, I've got a massive online academy, just won the world title on Polaris. It's like, it's not even long, mate. Five years ago, I was just a fucking idiot. would see like Literally, I remember four years ago when we were living in Hull, so it's even a year after i quit Judo, I was working me bollocks off at Ulk.ir, being paid absolutely nothing. 01:33:51.62 Owen um Minus 1,000 in my bank account every month, about three days before the end of the month. and I applied for a £250 overdraft Halifax Bank because id literally couldn't make it through the month, and they refused it because of my income. 01:34:11.74 Owen They wouldn't even give me an extra £250. So in four years, we've gone from that to, like... We're not fucking, man, we're not, we're far from perfect. Like we have stresses, but I'd like to think now most things we do, I'm not even thinking about how much it costs, which is just fucking bizarre for me. 01:34:33.34 Owen I've never been in a position like I'm alive. 01:34:35.95 nextlevelguypodcast I think this is the the thing that will inspire a lot of people. it's to see you going from that level of almost falling out of living the sport, struggling to kind of transforming your life, building a life for your family that most people don only dream of. 01:34:51.29 nextlevelguypodcast You should be immensely proud of where you've come and you're not even stopping. You're off to the next thing. You don't rest on your laurels. I think the biggest issue, if you had one that and Olympic gold, 01:34:59.66 Owen yeah and yeah 01:35:04.34 nextlevelguypodcast you probably wouldn't have had this journey, this development, this life-changing experience you're having now. So in a way, it's almost probably good that you didn't get that because if you're now, yeah the the stuff that you're doing, the life you're building, aren't inspiring so many other people. 01:35:11.28 Owen yeah 01:35:19.84 nextlevelguypodcast it's You're destined, think, to be this coach, this inspiration for other people. What do you want people to take from this interview? mean, I know I've used up so much your time, but what do you want people to remember from this? 01:35:34.32 Owen Just that, it sounds cheesy, minute but like genuinely, if your why is important enough, I honestly believe you can do more or less anything you want. 01:35:46.91 Owen like The reason I don't stop now, genuinely, is because of my son. like I've got a son now, who's like four, and seeing how he lives now, It's just like, mate, like I said before, I can live anywhere. can live in a fucking shoebox. Like, I wear shit clothes every day. 01:36:05.48 Owen Like, most of the clothes I wear are just fucking freebies. Like, ah don't buy anything for myself. Like, genuinely the only reason... 01:36:17.51 Owen that I'm still going, probably say as hard as I've ever gone right now, it's just for me son. 01:36:24.63 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 01:36:24.45 Owen Like, because to see him living how he lives now and doing the stuff he does, like, fucking hell mate, he's four years old and he's done, he's done more than fucking a lot of adults. 01:36:35.80 Owen Like, the experiences that he's had already at four, it just makes it absolutely all worthwhile. So, I would just say it to anyone, like, put a finger on what your why like what you truly want. 01:36:51.09 nextlevelguypodcast yeah 01:36:51.49 Owen So you're doing it for the right reason. Because I think that's the thing. Like if people just like, oh, want money. It's like, for me, that isn't the right reason. Like the money follows for me. I think the money comes. 01:37:03.84 Owen When you find your real why and it's important enough, it's just not hard to get out of bed anymore. Like I can safely say now, because I truly know why I'm doing everything that I do. 01:37:17.78 Owen I don't have 1% struggle getting out bed and just absolutely grafting my bollocks off I don't care if it's 12 hours a day and I get to bed and I'm absolutely exhausted. When I have a weekend off and see the stuff that he's doing, it's like, yeah, fucking absolutely validated. 01:37:34.05 Owen So that's what I'd say. I'd just be saying, make your why important enough, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons and... As cheesy as it might sound, I genuinely believe you can more or less achieve whatever the fuck you want. 01:37:48.87 nextlevelguypodcast I love that. I love that you found another why to keep expanding, to keep evolving, to keep changing. and I mean, I'd love to do another one where we go into like training and mentality and all that, but I knew there was so much that I wanted to talk about because you're such an inspiring guy, but I knew you were a deep guy and there was so much about it. 01:38:10.26 nextlevelguypodcast So I'd love have you back on, but, um, what, 01:38:13.11 Owen yeah all man 01:38:14.68 nextlevelguypodcast how How could we keep in touch? How can we come out and train with you? How can we get in touch, you know, see your competitions, but also come out and train with you? How can we follow you on social media? 01:38:26.33 nextlevelguypodcast Have you got anything coming up that you want people to know about? 01:38:30.38 Owen So mate, I'm opening my gym. Everything's done now. We're just waiting for a few things to arrive here in Phuket. So We're opening Carlson Gracie Talang Phuket. 01:38:45.03 Owen That should be open in December. So we're open ideally within the first two weeks of December. um So we've got an Instagram page for that. So that's at Carlson Gracie Talang Phuket. 01:38:56.86 Owen people can follow that. They can drop their emails on the website, which is on the link in the bio. ah and then they'll basically get updates directly sent to them on like what we're doing with the gym. 01:39:11.65 Owen we're go We're doing like big vlogs of how we're actually building the gym this time. It's pretty cool, it's like everything we did in Hull, but we know the script now, so we're filming everything that we're doing, the process of building a gym in Thailand, 01:39:28.16 Owen tech in the gym from just being an empty industrial style unit to what it's going to be, which is going to be like a fully kitted out mat area with a pit wall in there, an MMA wall in there, a full progress shop in there. 01:39:44.78 Owen So it's a pretty, it's bit of a different operation to what we started in Hull. 01:39:49.15 nextlevelguypodcast Thank 01:39:49.55 Owen ah So people can follow that. And obviously there's my Instagram to keep up with everything else. If people are looking to train with me, I would say directly message me on Instagram or the gym page on Instagram ah because we are going to be doing packages. 01:40:08.90 Owen sorting people out with discounts on local hotels and stuff like that so rather than them having to sort everything the themselves we can tell them exactly what to do and get a bit of money knocked off for them so it's more realistic for them to do i have a online academy if there's people that can't get out to thailand but want to train with me as such on that online academy we have like there's over a thousand technical videos now 01:40:20.61 nextlevelguypodcast okay 01:40:38.94 Owen and basically every session i teach through the week's video then uploaded on the same day you basically keep up with the full program that i'm running out here in thailand at the same time as that the provider of strength and conditioning programs on there so 16 weeks of strength for conditioning going through eccentrics isometrics concentrics gpp phases so they can basically run that all year if they wish and then there's a whatsapp group on there as well so if like we've spoken about before if you go to training you have a specific problem and you can't find it on youtube or my online academy you can literally just drop me a message on whatsapp within the group and i'll get that videoed for you and uploaded specifically for you um there's not much coming up mate other than that obviously i've got some sponsors that i'd need to shout out so 01:41:10.29 nextlevelguypodcast Thank you. 01:41:33.99 Owen They're my sponsors, but they've actually also sponsored the gym. So we've got our main sponsors, Progress. We've got Combat Sports Hygiene, which we'll also be stocking in the gym shop as well. So that's like a spray that helps with staff prevention and skin infections. 01:41:52.79 nextlevelguypodcast Very important. 01:41:53.45 Owen We've got, yeah, especially in Thailand, mate, with the heat and that. um Obviously, we'll be keeping the gym as clean as we can, we'll have we'll hire a couple of actual cleaners to work us full time. But on top of that, like we spoke about in grappling, you need to do your own shit as well. 01:42:09.83 Owen um We've got Pineapple Dex, which is a crypto company. They've helped me a lot actually over CGI and ADCC and now with the gym. 01:42:20.72 Owen And then lastly, trained by JP Nutrition. So if you don't know, trained by JP is like a outrageously good bodybuilding coach in the UK. 01:42:32.11 Owen So I think his own page is just called Trained by JP. But then he has a nutrition company as well, which is like a very, very good nutrition company and they're sponsoring us as well. 01:42:45.00 nextlevelguypodcast Well,