Author: k.szybisty

 

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 2 of people of the blue basement with Max Hsu. Special thanks to Max for his time.

 

TRACK: The Renzo Gracie academy. The world-famous jiu jitsu school in New York City. It’s filled to the brim with enthusiastic students who work on their craft daily. Each person setting goals, having aspirations, getting closer to where they want to be day by day.

 

AMBI: Neiman teaching a technique

 

TRACK: It’s a typical Wednesday afternoon class at Renzo’s, typical in that it’s as educational as it is arduous. After cooling down for a little, Max and I take to one of the empty training rooms. We’re surrounded by the blue mats, to our left is the weight lifting area. He says today’s class went well.

 

ACT: “I’ve been cutting down on the aggression a little bit, focusing more on technique, so,

you know, I feel like a lot of the times in life and in BJJ people try to force things, and they don’t really think about the complex problems that arise within our dynamic environment, but today you know I was able to keep up, I was able to put the puzzle pieces together, it was fun.”

 

TRACK: Most people don’t find rolling in sweat looking for chokes and arm locks fun, but jiu jitsu practitioners aren’t most people. People start their BJJ journey at different points in their lives, some old, some young. Max started his journey after feeling unfulfilled with what he was studying in college.

 

ACT: “I studied cyber security, homeland security and criminal justice as my double major. I graduated in May 2018, and I know that’s obviously different from what I’m doing now but you know I had some big time job offers from big 3 letter agencies down in DC, and with defense contractors down in the Arlington and Roseland virginia area, and you know what I realized something towards my senior year, this is not what I really want to do. I really don’t enjoy it, I don’t enjoy cyber security. It’s cool to learn how to password crack, people think its cool, once you really do it its like if you’re not about that life, you’re not about THAT life”

TRACK: Jiu-Jitsu had always been in the background. It hasn’t been a constant forward progression for him to get where he is. It started very rocky. He first tried it out when he was 17, six months before he went to college.

 

ACT: “I hated it. So I quit it. I basically took over 2 years of not doing anything, not having anything to do with it, just doing what college students do. Went to class, slept in, partied, got internships, I don’t really care about that stuff.

 

TRACK: But in the summer between his sophomore and junior years, he did an internship in London and spotted a familiar name.

 

ACT: I passed a Gracie school out there, and I was like “lets go back in” just you know a white belt who doesn’t know anything anymore. And I got choked out by a 21 year old Brazilian nurse. Who was 2 years older than me at the time, and it was like “what the hell” she’s 5 feet tall, 115 pounds, what is this magicianry that I didn’t see the first time around? So I was like you know what im STARTING BJJ now!

 

TRACK: When he got back to Albany, he kept it up.

 

ACT: I went from fucking absolutely hating to BJJ, to disliking it, to being neutral with it, to liking it, and then I realized it was the ONLY thing that I really loved. Like, something I was truly passionate about”

 

TRACK: Max always had a fighting spirit. As a kid he found himself channeling what would fuel his passion for BJJ in a much less healthy way. Its safe to say Jiu-Jitsu’s helped mellow and develop his character.

 

ACT: “But, in hindsight, looking back at myself as a kid, yeah I could see myself doing something in fighting. I’ve been fighting since I was like 5 years old. I’ve been fighting in school, I was fighting in middle school, I was fighting in high school, I was fighting outside of school, I was fighting with my family. I got into a fist fight with my father when I was 17 years old. And you know, I think at the time you know when I tried BJJ I was like “oh I knew how to fight” right? I had this ego, I had this young bravado. And I think I was insecure, and im still insecure, but im working on it. 7:38

 

TRACK: Max’s perspective on life has evolved a lot just through this former hobby turned full-time. Most people throw the term “live in the now” as a way to excuse them hurting themselves. Max uses it to improve himself, and at some point he would like to make a living doing it.

 

ACT: “But what im more worried about, is being 35, 45, 55, 65, or any age, and looking back and going the fuck did I do with my life? I got a job in cyber security. I went for a 401k, I got benefits and pension, and what did I do? I spent 9-10 hours a day doing something I truly didn’t want to do because people who have what I don’t fucking care about told me to do it. And at the end of the day its like, there are obvious insecurities and worries I have but what trumps all of those is looking back in 15 years and going what did I do?”

 

TRACK: BJJ is also a great foundation for establishing a person’s confidence. For Max, it completely changed his view of himself in his day-to-day life. It’s not about hurting others or putting other people down, its all about self-improvement.

 

ACT: “it might seem like, we wanna hurt people, but I don’t wanna hurt anybody. When I was younger, and especially in college, id get drunk and wanna go out and fight. And its like I look back and im like “yo dude you’d get crushed man.” Like that’s such a bad physical and emotional mentality to have. It makes no sense. So now when I train, unless someones being extra aggressive and you know jamming their elbow in my eye or raking my face, I don’t try to hurt people. I don’t wanna hurt anybody, I wanna get better”

 

TRACK: BJJ is a real community. People practice with each other, point out each other’s mistakes in technique and execution. Some go a step further, and go out of their way to devote their time to teaching others. Max is one of those people.

 

ACT: “I teach BJJ and regular martial arts. In the regular class it’s a mix of basic boxing and karate punches, crosses and jabs, then its you know games also theyre kids they gotta play they gotta have fun, some wrestling some BJJ, no submissions though. But then on our BJJ team we let these kids go all out. They’re doing real stuff, like they’re doing legit world class techniques. They get hurt, they cry, we make them brush it off and throw em back in. Kids need adversity, PEOPLE need adversity”

 

TRACK: I tried capping off the interview with some sort of profound question, something eye opening. I asked Max who he looked up to, what kind of person inspires him. I found myself realizing his answer was a lot like how I would answer.

 

ACT: “One of my friends here, Deshawn, that dude works 56 hours a week, trains almost as much as I do, and he’s a beast. Think about that. This guy is training at least 20 hours a week, working 56, that’s like an 80 hour work week. And nobody understands it, how much it takes, how much energy you need to do this thing. This is a lot, theres different types of energies but this is a lot. That’s extremely admirable, and if I feel like I have to make an excuse, its like nah dude shut up, get to work get to training, people are always working.”

 

TRACK: His next tournament’s coming up next month. Needless to say, he’s aiming for first place. This has been another episode of people of the blue basement. I’m your host Konrad Szybisty, thanks for listening.

HOST INTRO: The Renzo Gracie academy, also known as the blue basement, is home to a wide array of different martial artists with different goals. Some people are just getting started, trying to see what Jiu-Jitsu is all about, other people are trying to unwind after a hard day of work, and a small select few group of athletes are trying to see if they can take their skill in the sport to a competitive level.

AMBI: Sound of people training

TRACK: Renzo’s isn’t full of the same cookie cutter martial artist characters. Point to a random person and they might be a doctor, point at another and they might be an MMA fighter, point at someone else and they could be Kevin Salgado.

AMBI: More training sounds

TRACK: Kevin’s a graphic designer, he’s good at what he does. He’s worked for the likes of Viacom and is now currently working for Disney. To Kevin, becoming a graphic designer was a very practical decision.

ACT: “I chose graphic design from a sustainability standpoint. There’s not a business or company in the world that doesn’t have a use for a graphic designer in some way, shape, or form and so rather than try and be Picasso or somebody who’s trying to make money off of paintings and you know the odds of that are very slim, again the sustainability of graphic design, where you’re able to basically turn in any direction and there’s a demand for what you provide. It’s like a good balance of a career that lets you kinda live, if you do things right, lets you live comfortably. As opposed to gambling on just aspirations”

TRACK: Kevin’s decision to choose his career has a little rebellious flare to it. He’s not a fan of the way modern art is treated today with its broad subjectivity.

ACT: I’ve always had like a little bit for the word art, and that’s cause you can go to an art museum, and you can see something that a 2 year old drew it and its “a masterpiece”, which I don’t respect. And so basically art is entirely subjective where its totally up to interpretation and the value of it is only true if you believe it to be that way, but graphic design is totally objective.”

TRACK: These subjectivities aren’t the case in graphic design. Aspects of a design or emblem are objectively better than others, the use of colors is not squandered by emotion but rather by calculated thought.

ACT: “In graphic design, we would never pick a color just because we feel like it works. We would pick a color based on things like, say we were working at a business and we were going to give them a color, say like twitter, twitter has their blue. If we were helping twitter brand themselves, before we choose that blue, we would look at the market and say “what other companies will be competing with the company that we’re designing for, and how can we make this company stand out compared to its competition

TRACK: Color is no joke to Kevin. We stood and discussed the importance of color quite extensively. After the conversation I started to realize color could be hiding very calculated motivations for businesses.

ACT: “think of mcdonald’s, you know how mcdonald’s has that yellow and red? And those are both primary colors, and just like from a scientific standpoint mcdonald’s target audience is children. Their audience is like children, hence why they have happy meals and why they have toys and the reason they target the children is because the kids say “hey mom I wanna go to mcdonalds” once they go to mcdonalds the parent isn’t gonna not eat so you kill 2 birds with one stone”

TRACK: In fact, Kevin then goes into detail how children don’t see bright colors until they grow up a little. A fact businesses like toys r us know well and good. Once kids grow old enough to see the full spectrum colors fall into, they become attracted to the bright yellow and reds of the world.

ACT: “So its like drugs for your eyes. Yeah its crazy because they’ve never been exposed to it their eyes for the first time ever are able to process that data and are like “gimme more gimme more” and so naturally they’re just attracted to a place like toys r us which has a very similar color palette to a place like mcdonalds”

TRACK: So what’s a color expert doing in the basement filled with blue mats and sweaty martial artists? Kevin started to grapple fairly young, he wrestled in high school, and had friends that did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. There’s a key trait within the sport that drew Kevin in, it’s a hallmark of the sport that draws people in from all over the world.

ACT: “in BJJ you can be on your back and that might be and depending on how you like to play that might be exactly where you wanna be, that might be the best place to be in some situations. That aspect fascinated me enough that once I got introduced to it and fucked around a little bit with my friends who did it I definitely knew it was something I wanted to do”

TRACK: Kevin’s been training at Renzo’s for a little over 3 years. He remains consistent with his attendance and tries his best to improve every day. Just wanting to be in a sport where a person on the floor is winning isn’t enough to keep somebody going for years to come, there’s perks that come with the monthly paid stress relief.

ACT: “It covers a lot of bases. It helps keep me mellow, if im not doing BJJ, or I don’t do BJJ its very easy for me to have a strong desire to rip people’s heads off. And then im like huge into staying in shape, and its obviously very physically demanding so its good exercise. I like the community aspect of it, there’s like a ton of friends”

TRACK: Some people eventually want to compete after training extensively enough. Some people are genuinely drawn to competition, and some people want to get their money’s worth. Kevin on the other hand doesn’t feel the need to compete too much. It might mess with his daily flow.

ACT: “I won’t compete unless I feel like im in the right shape to compete, and I don’t mean physically like im always in good shape, but just in my head. I need to be ready to go

TRACK: He’s not trying to mess his job up just because he loves his hobby, he needs to keep the 2 separate.

ACT: I know that I have to occupy space in my head for things like projects I have going on, recently my fucking uncle was sleeping on my couch for like 3 months, hes gone now fucking thank god, but you know when I have all this baggage in my mind its hard for me to focus on getting myself ready to try and kill someone basically

TRACK: Ever had those days where you just wanted to lie down and scream into a pillow? Your train was late, the cart was packed to the brim with people, you spilled your coffee. BJJ helps some people remedy those problems

ACT: “And the thing about doing BJJ casually is that when my head is occupied with all these extra curricular things the time I spend doing BJJ helps me like separate myself from it for the time being, and so Im hesitant to run the risk of taking the time that is supposed to be or at least helps with my relief and turning it into something like where if you’re not performing at least this good every night how do you expect to win this competition blah blah blah”

 

HOST INTRO: With New York City hosting a wide range of shelters and havens for victims of domestic abuse, Omega Phi Beta Sorority Inc. hosted its 8^th annual Ray of Hope walk protesting violence against women at Riverside Park in NYC. Alongside the sisters in NYC, sisters in Atlanta, Chicago, and LA all protested domestic violence in their respective cities. Here’s Konrad Szybisty with the story.

AMBI: *Crowd responding say her name to women killed in recent year* “Dana martin” “Say her name”, “Daranisha Duncan boyd” “Say her name”, “Jazeline ware” “Say her name”, “Ashanti Carmen” “Say her name”

TRACK: With the cold air breezing from the Hudson, men and women from all over New York huddled together and marched to combat violence with non-violence. Music, cheers, stories of past abuse, and even some warmup yoga were all a part of the Ray of Hope walk in NYC. A new member of the sorority and first-time protestor Tiara McNeil held high hopes for her first walk.

ACT: “My expectations was having a large crowd and mobilizing the community to come together to stand for what’s right, basically raising awareness”

TRACK: The Ray of Hope walkers all shared a common goal; to get together. Hugs, smiles, and laughter were abundant before, during, and after the walk; something Tiara was very satisfied to see.

ACT: “That’s actually something that brought my attention immediately, before I even became a sister. I’ve seen the sisterly bonding and how you don’t even have to be a sister to build a relationship with those and I have sisters that want to push me forward to be a better version of myself before I even became a sister”

AMBI: “There are movies waiting to be seen. There are people waiting to hear each and every one of our voices, so today we are walking again for those who have came before us, for each and every one of us today and for those who have yet to tell their stories”

TRACK: Protesting an issue is all well and good, but people aren’t satisfied just saying they dislike an issue, they want the problems to stop. In the 2018 annual report done by the New York City Domestic violence fatality review committee, from 2010-2017 women accounted for 76% of victims in intimate partner homicides. Tiara’s belief on preventing domestic violence is teaching children at a young age the taboo of assaulting your partner.

ACT: “So having someone speak in schools and starting out from young and how this is something we should fight for, this is you know something that is inappropriate you know? Stand up for yourself, I think it really hits home to start with the youth because quite frankly youth, that’s whats gonna change our generation.”

TRACK: For Baruch college, this is Konrad Szybisty signing off.

Helwani’s MMA show is a professionally done podcast by a media member of ESPN Ariel Helwani. His podcast consists mainly of interviews with Martial arts athletes, coaches, and sometimes even celebrity fans of the sport. The podcast is mainly for fans of the sport. The podcast is available on iTunes and Youtube. The 2 most recent episodes on youtube each have over 100k views; additionally specific clips from each podcast can get well over 250k views. When first getting into the podcast its better to just watch the most recently uploaded episode. The episodes are extremely lengthy and can range up to 3 hours in length, making going back and watching every episode quite an unrealistic task. With regards to the kind of impact the podcast has on the sport it varies. Some interviews wind up being extremely emotional with athletes letting off a lot of whats on their mind, and sometimes they have things to say about their opponents which can lead to lots of controversy, but as well as a lot of hype for upcoming fights. A really well done interview on the show can sometimes help propel athletes into stardom; but some athletes can sometimes appear to be trying too hard and actually hurt their reputation instead.