The Knife Junkie Podcast is the place for knife newbies and knife junkies to learn about knives and knife collecting. Twice per week Bob DeMarco talks knives. Email Bob at theknifejunkie@gmail.com; visit https://theknifejunkie.com.
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Announcer [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast. Your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your host, Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:16]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with martial artist and media producer Paulo Rubio. I first started following Paolo on Instagram years ago under his company's name. At the time, Funker Tactical. I was tuning in to watch and learn from his martial artist clients from around the world, but soon took note of Paulo himself who often played the role of knowledge seeker. Many years, air miles and teachable moments later, Paolo himself has become the teacher with his videos passing along the many skills, drills and mindsets he's developed as a martial artist. I'm excited to talk with Paolo after so many years of following his work.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:59]:
But first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, download the show to your favorite podcast app, and if you'd like to help support the show, you can do so by joining right here on YouTube or becoming a patron on Patreon. Quickest way to do that is to go to the knife junkie.com Patreon or scan the QR code on your screen. Get a whole year, save 12%. Again, that's the knife junkie.com Patreon.

Announcer [00:01:26]:
If you search Google for the best knife podcast, the answer is the Knife Junkie Podcast.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:33]:
Hello, welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, sir, It's a pleasure.

Paulo Rubio [00:01:37]:
Thank you very much for having me.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:39]:
It's, it's great to actually talk to you after so many years, as I mentioned, of following you. And I believe personally this is a little quip of mine or a little pet peeve of mine. I believe the word journey is overused in our current, current era, but if anyone could use that word accurately, I would say it to you after watching you for so long. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are right now.

Paulo Rubio [00:02:09]:
Sure, yeah, it's definitely been a journey, that's for sure. I guess where most people would, you know, pick up the beginning of that story is, you know me as Funker Tactical. I. I had the distinct opportunity and privilege to travel all around the world seeking and developing subject matter experts across the full spectrum of fighting. For many years, I sort of hid behind the camera. I was a camera guy, I was a content creator guy, I edited, I filmed, I directed, I did a whole lot of things. But you know, as that journey progressed, I had so many opportunities behind the Scenes after filming drunken nights in bars behind alleyways where these people would, would show me some things that maybe they didn't want necessarily to be on camera. And just by virtue of having this distinct opportunity to learn from so many masters and grandmasters in martial arts and combatives, I was, I was drawn to see if I had the capabilities to sort of alchemize that knowledge into skill.

Paulo Rubio [00:03:24]:
And so when I began that journey, I sort of coupled it with another journey of mine, a lifelong pursuit of teaching. You know, I taught business English in Japan. I taught video production at the college level here in Toronto. I'm a father, so I'm a natural teacher in that regard. And then just bringing these things together, I found that there was inspiration and knowledge to be learned from all sorts of different sources. But the, the, the true art from, for me, and what really gripped me and what forced me into committing was really the art of teaching. Right? How do I take this great opportunity that I've been afforded? How do I pass on that knowledge in a way that isn't just, hey, I'm going to make a cool video about this? You know, how can I connect with, relate to and transfer this information in person? And so I, I was very hesitant to do that, actually. I did not want to teach.

Paulo Rubio [00:04:28]:
I didn't want the responsibility. Um, I also studied a lot of what corrupted relationships, um, whether it's, you know, student, teacher, coach, athlete, I, I sort of studied the pitfalls. What, what causes these seemingly beautiful relationships to dissolve and get corrupted. And also by virtue of my own experiences, you know, I've made a lot of mistakes along this journey. But then when I actually started teaching and it began with a kids class, Filipino martial arts kids, kids class, it really all began to like, to gel. And so, and, and up to this moment, I am, I'm so studying, I'm researching, I am, you know, I come up with so many drills. I come up with hundreds of drills and I encourage people to create their own drills. It's not that difficult.

Paulo Rubio [00:05:31]:
It's not something reserved just for grandmasters. But also, don't be afraid to discard those drills. You know, most of the drills that I come up with end up being pretty garbage. So I get rid of them and I, I start again. Yeah, but, but I have the opportunity to actually deploy these drills, these ideas with really good people. Right. And they understand the journey that I'm on. I may.

Paulo Rubio [00:05:58]:
You know, one time I presented a journey to a group of black belts, and it was an idea that I came up with. In my sleep. And then I just presented it that way. I'm like, guys, I have this drill. I think it's rooted and founded in logic, but I haven't deployed it yet. Will you run this drill for me? Ended up being crap. So I'm like, well, thanks for trying. I'm not going to do that drill anymore.

Paulo Rubio [00:06:18]:
So the, the journey really has gone from somebody who was an observer to a reluctant instructor to now a dedicated one.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:29]:
I've, I've heard you say that you've back engineered your drills from. Well, from a fighting experience you had with a, with a master kaliador in, in the Philippines who, you know, beat you up, but you, you beat them back and sort of. So for those drills, if, if you don't have that sort of experience, how do you go about making your own drills?

Paulo Rubio [00:06:55]:
Well, you can manufacture them, right? You need to have some experience in the thing that you're trying to get good at. And you really have to be ego friendly 3 to say, Hey, I suck at this part of the system, the arc, whatever the case may be, really suck at this part. So what elements do I need to improve upon to get better at it or to suck less? So maybe you'll, you'll say, you know what, I'm not strong enough. My grip strength isn't where it needs to be, or my reaction timing to these kinds of trajectories are lacking. And so just by knowing that, hey, I have real trouble, you know, I'll, I'll keep it simple. I have real trouble, you know, parrying a jab. And so the drill might be, hey, jab me a bunch of times and I'm going to try to parry it. And then what is with this motion that we can translate into something that may not be so demanding, you know? Okay, well, it's, it's an, it's an incoming force aimed towards your head.

Paulo Rubio [00:08:02]:
Can we use a tennis ball for that? Can somebody throw badminton ping pong balls at me? Right. And can I swat it with a paddle? Should I use my hand? Do I need head movement? So it's, it's really just understanding yourself and what you suck at that will give you. And also it requires somebody to tell you, hey, it's okay. You can create your own drills. You don't need grandmaster so and so to tell you or to give you permission. Yeah, you self diagnose and self correct because you know yourself better than anybody. And I, I think a lot of martial artists sort of fall into this. It's almost like daddy issues.

Paulo Rubio [00:08:39]:
You Know, like, we. We require external validation when we're perfectly capable of really validating ourselves and really keeping track of how. How good we're getting based on how much. How much less sucky we are.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:54]:
Well, I think a lot of that comes from lack of experience. You know, if you haven't gotten in street fights and you haven't been in combat, you could be wondering, like, is this stuff real? And there's a lot I want to talk to you about. Self perfection, self preservation. But before we get there, you. You have a really cool drill, one that resonated with me the first time I saw it. And just kind of boning up before this interview, I remembered, and it's your reverse blink drill. Yeah, tell us about that.

Paulo Rubio [00:09:26]:
So reverse blinking is based on some data that I came across that a knife Thrust happens in 0.14 seconds, and we blink between 0.10 to 0.40 seconds. So theoretically, we could. You could blink and miss it. And even if we saw an incoming threat, identify that it was a threat, it takes about half a second for the brain to go, hey, you should probably move something. And so the. The reverse blinking drill keeps us in complete darkness. And what that manufactures is that anticipatory cognitive load, that stress that we may feel when we're having an argument with somebody, as that violence may be escalating. And the reverse blink is based on the idea that you haven't got a lot of time to process information before you have to act.

Paulo Rubio [00:10:27]:
Right. And so there are evolutions to this drill that require us. So, you know, I'm in complete darkness. As soon as I open my eye, there's a knife here. And so what is my immediate action to that? Another thing that this drill set does is it really keeps us in touch with, you know, what are our instinctive responses and how quickly can we deliver them, and what are our trained responses? And the important question that I always ask my students is, you know, how do you know when your trained response, the thing that you've been working on, has actually crystallized as an instinctive response to you? And nobody can really answer that, but the real answer to that question is you have to come up with, you know, drills and protocols where you don't have a whole lot of time to think about what you're going to do? A good friend of mine, Mick Coop, famously, and I stole this off of him, he says, you know, don't bring your favorite number to the math test. Test, Right? And that's what a lot of people do. They Sort of manufacture these, you know, pressure tests and drills that reinforce the thing that they want to work rather than composing drills where you find out, hey, what am I actually going to do when I, when I have an extreme time constraint where I have to make a decision under fractions of a second coming off of emotional and cognitive load.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:03]:
Well, yeah, I mean that, that just makes me think of, you know, you get in a knife fight, let's just say, you know, or you get in some sort of engagement where you're using a knife to defend yourself and someone grabs you from behind. Who's to say that's not a police officer or someone's girlfriend or, you know, and you turn around, you slice that person up out of, out of reflex. Like how, how do you parse that?

Paulo Rubio [00:12:31]:
Yeah, so I have a lot of drills where there are layers of decision making and, and one addresses that specifically because. Yeah, you don't know because, you know, if you're dealing with somebody, knife fight or not, you're so hyper focused on that thing that there could be authorities, bystanders, sympathizers, or people just running away. Yeah. That you may have to engage with and have to make a split second decision. I'm, I'm good friends with a lot of correctional officers and they confirm for me that, you know, jails are full of people who meant to do well but did too much or did the wrong thing. And so I think the challenge is how do I manufacture not full reality? Because we can't do that. Right. Good, really good scenario training is inefficient.

Paulo Rubio [00:13:25]:
There's only one or two people going through the scenario. A lot of bad scenario training is linear. Like no matter what I do, no matter what I say, no matter how I de escalate, I'm going to fight. You might as well just practice fighting. Um, and so the challenge is how do we manufacture commonly occurring elements of reality in a way that's efficient, repeatable and safe? So what, what are those elements? An extreme time constraint, you know, auditory, visual distractions, ground surface condition. We can manufacture even physiological stress responses. Doing a bunch of push ups, getting our heart rate up, our body getting, you know, swollen by incorporating cold, that manufactures this, the stress response of blood going away from the extremities and into the core to protect it. So by understanding and studying, you know, what happens really in these real world encounters and just sort of hand selecting which elements can, can we manufacture safely where we are given who's here and the environment that we're in.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:41]:
So do people ever look at your drills and say, well, that's not how a real fight goes all the time.

Paulo Rubio [00:14:46]:
And. And I'm. In fact, one of the things that I do in my seminars is I say, guys, at some point, at any time, I'm going to say, are we knife fighting? The answer is no. And so I have these clips of rooms of 40 people doing what looks like knife fighting, and you just hear me yell, are we knife fighting? Everyone goes, no. And that's a thing that I think good instructors have to deal with all the time, is that good drills often look boring, you know, especially when you're, you know, building fundamentals, when you're introducing new concepts, they're not going to look like a fight. A lot of the drills I do, I have a knife, you have a knife. But I only have a knife for the sake of efficiency, because I would be doing the same motions with my forearm with or without a knife. So, yeah, that's.

Paulo Rubio [00:15:41]:
That's definitely a thing. Almost all of my drills don't look like what knife fights look like, but if you can sort of discern and you're a critical thinker, you can go, oh, I see what he's doing there. He's manufacturing some sort of mental distraction into a decision making. Or maybe he's familiarizing these people to these three common attack trajectories. Maybe what he. What Paulo is trying to get us to do is to explore different defensive options, whether that's a slap, a parry, you know, a hack, a bisecting line, a grab. So, yeah, it's. It.

Paulo Rubio [00:16:25]:
It's not going to look like a fight. One thing I talk about is, let's say you're in my seminar and we are doing a scenario where we're sitting on a bus, and now all of a sudden, you have to defend yourself against somebody who wants to stab you while you're in this bus. Sounds awesome, right? Like, it could be really intense. And then I asked the group, okay, how many of you take the bus? Maybe two people put up their hands. So there. There I am creating something that looks really cool on Instagram. It's reality based. We're going hard at it, but the reality doesn't reflect most of the people that are in the room.

Paulo Rubio [00:17:06]:
And so I have to, you know, I call it representation. Like, what is the commonality in a bus that more people experience? Well, a lot of people find themselves in close quarters, right? The fact that the bus is moving, that might not. We can maybe represent that by creating unstable ground conditions. Right. Maybe we go on a hardwood floors and everybody puts on socks and I put some baby powder on the floor, right? Yeah, it's those things. And this is all I think about, like all day is how can we manufacture elements of reality and how can we integrate them into drills that have, you know, scalability. I often say we're going to do the same drill for different reasons. Right? Two big strong MMA guys may do a drill differently than a 72 year old woman that's in my class, it's in my seminar, it's the same drill, but you know, it.

Paulo Rubio [00:18:09]:
It's up to me as the coach, as the instructor to go, hey, you two big Vikings, why don't you, why don't you really push the action here, right? Why don't you really try to stab them with that low line thrust and see where you end up? Or as a 72 year old woman might be, hey, look, I just want you to see that before that thrust comes, it's likely that you're going to see an elbow flare. And so we're going to telegraph for you and we're going to do it a little bit, little bit slower and we're going to do this progressively at your comfort level. So we're doing the same drill but for different reasons.

Bob DeMarco [00:18:43]:
The, the socks on the hardwood floor with the baby powder reminded me. I, I had a kenpo instructor years ago who was originally from Hawaii and he would, he would bring in heaters and turn up the heat as much as, as he could get it.

Paulo Rubio [00:18:56]:
Got it.

Bob DeMarco [00:18:58]:
And then he'd say, okay, now try your joint locks now, now try your kotagashi. And you're, you know, and it's very hard to, to, to grip, especially if you're trying to do this out of any sort of flow or any sort.

Paulo Rubio [00:19:09]:
Of like sparring scenario.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:11]:
And I found that very valuable because it, it was one of my first indications of, oh yeah, man, you know, I look great doing these drills.

Paulo Rubio [00:19:19]:
Yeah, feel good.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:20]:
And I'm, look, I caught my, my glance in the mirror, how cool I look. And then, you know, you change, you change up the scenario like that and you realize that it's a dynamic environment. It's like attribute training, you know, a little bit.

Paulo Rubio [00:19:35]:
Yeah, for sure. And you know, like, I could have a really strong right cross. I could be an incredible boxer. I could be world class taekwondo. But I, I live in Canada. I need good solid ground conditions to be able to generate power with tools that I'm really good at. So when, when those things are taken away, you're kind of forced to adapt to see what else you've got, or how do I change what I'm good at to be able to suit the condition that I'm in? Let me.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:03]:
Okay, we, we've. We dived right in. We dove right in. Let me, let me go back a little bit. You're.

Paulo Rubio [00:20:10]:
You're.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:11]:
You originally came from the Philippines?

Paulo Rubio [00:20:13]:
Yes, I was born in Philippines.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:15]:
Born in the Philippines. Immigrated to Canada. Growing up. When you were little, was there any emphasis on Filipino martial arts? Is this something that you learned as a kid?

Paulo Rubio [00:20:27]:
No, not at all. Actually, I got in a lot of fights when I was a kid, like in the Philippines. I fought a lot, mind you. I was only there until I was nine. But it was part of growing up and it was from a big family. I fought my cousins. I was always out in the street, you know, like my family. You was pretty.

Paulo Rubio [00:20:48]:
We weren't rich or anything, but we weren't poor. But I was out there with like the street kids, you know, I was out in the slums falling through rooftops and getting killed almost every day. And there's always scraps. And the weird thing was, when I came to Canada, I. I mean, probably within the first couple of months, I got in a fight and it was kind of traumatic because, like, I smoked this dude and then I thought, yeah, cool, no problem. And then I hear from my dad that his parents are going to come to our house to speak to him about it. And I'd gotten in trouble at school and I'm like, what culture is this? We got in a fight, it was over. I thought that was it.

Paulo Rubio [00:21:36]:
But, you know, in my, my then 10 year old mind, I guess I was like, oh, my God, are they gonna like deport us back? Like, I didn't know what was going on. Yeah. But I, I've always been interested in fighting Jackie Chan. Not so much Bruce Lee. For me, it was like Jackie Chan and old kung fu movies. When the UFC came out, I had buddies that we would just like grapple for hours in my living room. When I lived in Tokyo, I had a little fight club from all of the teachers that would come from Australia and New Zealand and the United States, and we would just kind of get drunk, find a soccer field and just fight for fun. I never really liked fighting when there was like, animosity and like real hatred.

Paulo Rubio [00:22:32]:
Yeah. But I always just liked fighting, you know, even in high school when somebody would have a problem with me and be like, look, man, yeah, we can fight, but hey, we're checking for Weapons. We're gonna meet here. You bring your friends, I bring my friends. Like, we have an agreement. If you wanna fight, we can fight. And. Yeah, but I don't like actual fighting.

Paulo Rubio [00:22:54]:
Who likes that?

Bob DeMarco [00:22:55]:
Yeah, well, yeah. Cause you don't know where that's gonna end. You know, you don't know what the stakes are.

Paulo Rubio [00:22:59]:
I want to be in control. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:03]:
So not necessarily Filipino martial arts, but it, but it seems like you have a real emphasis on it now. Is that out of a love of knives or is it, or is it exposure?

Paulo Rubio [00:23:15]:
Yeah. So when I was doing Funker Tactical, it was really more or less a gun channel. It was a tactical channel. And then I met Doug Maraida, and he is a great ambassador for Filipino martial arts art. I thought it looked cool, so I started introducing it to this gun channel. Everyone started complaining and like, the hell is this? And then they kind of fell in love with it. I didn't though. Yeah, it was just something that I knew the audience wanted, so I gave it to them.

Paulo Rubio [00:23:43]:
And it wasn't really, until I met Jared Wi Hungi, where I, I fell in love with Filipino martial arts. And it was partly because this guy was like, you know, he was half Texan, half Maori. He spoke three dialects of the. From the country that I came from. He was a master in this martial art that belonged to the Philippines. And I thought that was, like, so inspirational. And the fact that he had a global following without a social media following, and he was teaching, you know, Korean rock Marines, FBI, multiple special and Reg Forces in the Philippines, Mongolia, Germany. I was like, I'm like, bro, you really do all of this based off of your love of Filipino martial arts? Because all I saw was like, fancy twirly karambit, double stick stuff that I'm like, how did you people think this is fighting? And he's like, yeah, it's all in there.

Paulo Rubio [00:24:49]:
You just have to be able to, like, reduce it, oil it down, understand what it is about the complex that can be made simple to suit your clientele, right? Like, knife work is so far down the priority list for a Special forces soldier. Like, before they, like, things really, really need to, like, be bad for them to have to need their knife, you know, like, they, they have to practice and maintain so many different skill sets, right? At least two weapons, two ballistic weapons on them, right? All of navigation, like, all of this stuff that they need to be good to be good at and maintain, you know, and then there's knife, right? So, like, I, I, I really took a lot from that. Like, I'M not going to be put in front of a unit, a department, whether it be law enforcement or military, and say, okay guys, we're going to do double sticks in a wally because it helps with your coordination. I mean, I really need to serve. I, I really need to understand what it is that they need, need for me. And I need to be able to deliver those things to the best of my ability in the shortest time possible, but also in a way that's functionally retainable because they may never get knife training for who knows how long. Yeah, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:18]:
How did, how did it come to pass that you started training these high level guys?

Paulo Rubio [00:26:28]:
Well, by virtue of my friendship with them first in, in my role in, in Funker tactical, I just had access, I had really unparalleled access to high level people. And I think the fact that I don't really, I don't try to sell candy as medicine, you know, I think I know, you know that there are certain kind of tactical professional that are just really good at sniffing out bullshit.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:07]:
Yeah.

Paulo Rubio [00:27:08]:
You know what I mean? And so I would just. Me being keenly aware of that, they always kept me in check. And so working in those industries really influenced even in how I teach the Philip. I love the art, I love the Filipino martial arts. I love the sophistication, the complexity, the mental challenge, the coordination challenges. I love all of it. I understand also that not everybody wants or needs that. So, you know, working with all of these professionals, including Jared, and the list is long.

Paulo Rubio [00:27:41]:
You know, there's a lot of people that I can name that have influenced me. Mick, Coop, Salmascoli, Gary Drake, Don Gula. Like, you know, these names probably don't mean a whole lot to, you know, your viewers, but, you know, these are guys who have, you know, been there, done that and they really, I think they really care about me. And so I'm, I'm really grounded. Like if I do something not so awesome, I'll get like a message like, what was that? My Rubio? What was that? Why did you say that was this? And then, you know, we have a discussion and then sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong. But I value. I val. I really value the opinions of, you know, a select group of professionals from all around the world to kind of keep me in check.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:32]:
So what would you say is the through line between all the arts, the, the different fighting arts you've been exposed to? You know, if you were to boil them down, what are, what are the similarities across the spectrum?

Paulo Rubio [00:28:47]:
I, you know, I really like the, the saying that if you understand a principle, if you understand one principle, you know, a thousand techniques. And I was just having this conversation with one of my students in the garage just now. There are universal fighting principles that just manifest differently and for different reasons. So once I really understood that, I could appreciate aata, I could appreciate chi sa, I can appreciate capoeira just as I can appreciate, you know, boxing, wrestling, jiu jitsu, muay Thai, sambo sanda, judo, you know, all of these like hard hitting combative arts. That, that's what it is. That's the through, through line as, as you put it, that there are universal fighting principles and what we choose to practice is a reflection of our preferences. It doesn't mean that they're not there, it's just, hey, maybe we prefer a softer approach to exploring a principle rather than going full on with it.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:55]:
One thing to me that, that is the most valuable. I, I did a, a bit of training for a while and I haven't in a few years, but it's always footwork to me that is in my daily life the, the most valuable non combative application. But skill and I guess balance is, is mixed in there. But foot, footwork, you know, if you're not solid on your feet, you know, no place to go.

Paulo Rubio [00:30:26]:
Yeah, footwork, maybe broadly speaking, mobility and maneuvering, you know, because sometimes we get the wrong idea of what footwork might be. You know, triangle footwork and you know, shuffle patterns and quarter turns and pivots, but it's just like moving appropriately based on what's in front of you. Sometimes it requires no footwork at all. But yeah, it's those things. Footwork, power generation, distance management, proximity management, strength. Strength matters, agility matters, speed matters. But you gotta be a smart guy. You have to be intelligent to do it at that level.

Paulo Rubio [00:31:07]:
But you can, you can just be dumb and strong too.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:12]:
Yeah, it, it helped, it helped to be strong, that's for damn sure. I mean not, that was always a big myth. Going into martial arts is, oh well, you know, you could be a little guy, but know these techniques. And my, my, my philosophy is that guy gets his hands on me, I'm done, I gotta move. What are, what are some of the myths that you've encountered about knife fighting in particular or martial arts in general?

Paulo Rubio [00:31:39]:
Wow, really putting me on the spot there. Like specific myths. You know, for me, one of, one of the big ones is that in order to know how to defend against the knife, you must know how to use the knife. And I don't really don't believe that. I think, you know, crack the practical knife work. Practical especially offensive knife work. When people go, yeah, we're not a self defense, we are an offensive knife art. I'm like, and how long have you been studying that? 20 years.

Paulo Rubio [00:32:17]:
You know, there's a kid in Columbia who's at 14 years old, never trained a day in his life would absolutely murder you. Yeah. With a knife. Because to be, quote unquote deadly with a knife requires no training. It requires no training. And so when I, whenever I see, you know, offensive, you know, or non defensive knife systems, I'm like, oh, what, what are you, what are you doing? One of the things that I really love this from, I got, I first got this from Jared. Bob, let's say you and I are about to get into a knife fight. Okay, you have a knife, I have a knife.

Paulo Rubio [00:32:57]:
We've committed, we're, we're in range. Okay, we're about to knife fight. How much would you pay for a 1 second head start? I'm asking you, we're about to fight. Knife fight to the death. How much would you pay for a one second?

Bob DeMarco [00:33:20]:
Everything.

Paulo Rubio [00:33:21]:
Everything. You would give absolutely everything. And in, and in that one second, really, you're, you're, you're gonna, you're gonna do what you need to do. Right? So you have that one second. What did you need? All the, all of those fancy techniques and. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:38]:
Oh, that's a great way of putting it.

Paulo Rubio [00:33:40]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:41]:
Right.

Paulo Rubio [00:33:42]:
And also I also use that to illustrate the fact that some of the things we do, you know, in quote unquote, knife fighting, buys us a half a second. Could buy us one one second. And so sometimes when people see some of the things that I do or that I teach, they're like, oh, yeah, but I would just do this. I'm like, yeah, this is not a 10. This is not a permanent control. This is not a submission. This I'm buying. Literally one second that we agreed on earlier.

Paulo Rubio [00:34:14]:
You would give everything you own, all of your money, all of your possessions, you would give to give this one second head start. And this is what we're training right now. And you've only paid a couple of hundred bucks, so good deal. Good deal indeed.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:32]:
So the training, we were talking before we started rolling. I remember when I first started watching you years ago, you were training your then young son who is now, you.

Paulo Rubio [00:34:44]:
Know, a full grown man.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:46]:
What's that?

Paulo Rubio [00:34:47]:
He's 18 years old, he's at work right now. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:50]:
And a big guy. And he Moves impressively. Obviously you've taught him very well. But you also mentioned he's, he's a boxer. So what have you. What would you say you learned from teaching him from such a young age? About, about the essence of, of teaching.

Paulo Rubio [00:35:10]:
Fighting is you have to hide it. Like you have to hide lessons and you have to sort of Trojan horse skill development. Right. So the Trojan horse is fun. Like we're just have, we're just having fun. We're gonna play. So I never really forced my kids to train. I've always just had these cool games that I would play with them and then, you know, he f.

Paulo Rubio [00:35:38]:
He sort of fell in love with it. So that's, that's the secret, man. I never forced him to train.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:47]:
I think it's really important to get people used to, I mean, whether they're kids or not. But starting at a young age. I have, I have daughters and we've always rough housed. I've shown them some. Oh, that's important things here and there. Yeah, but yeah, that rough and tumble play. Getting used to just being touched or grabbed or being manipulated. I know I've taken time off from martial arts.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:11]:
I've gone back in and oftentimes I notice the two things that I lose in my time away. I don't really lose the skill, but I lose the, the, the wind, you know, my ability to keep up and that I have to gradually regain. But it's always a, a shock that first time back, being grabbed, thrown to the ground, being grabbed. Manipulated how? I don't want to be manipulated. And, and, and you know, I talked to my wife about this and she's, she's also done a lot of martial arts and she mentions the smell of another man or, or the breathing on you. You know, it's just like these are things you don't think of when you're just playing in the mirror.

Paulo Rubio [00:36:53]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, I think it's, it's, it's critical that, you know, for children especially these days where we live in, you know, peace and relative luxury as parents, we need to manufacture adversity for them. You know, we're lucky that, you know, we didn't grow up in a third world country with, you know, real adversity. Yeah, but those things are really important. There is no sense of accomplishment without struggle. And I think that's what rough housing and like rough play builds in, in kids. And then as adults, our brains are extraordinary machines. It doesn't really take long for us to go, oh yeah, that's Right.

Paulo Rubio [00:37:41]:
That's what that feels like. But if you hadn't trained in that, if you didn't play individual and team sports where you got to meet, really deal with victories, defeats, humiliations and disappointment, then I can really see why, when, when an adult takes up martial arts and they hadn't done any of those things very easy for, like, I know this guy's not going to stick around. It's too much for them. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:10]:
So you're known for.

Paulo Rubio [00:38:12]:
Well, I don't know if you're known for.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:14]:
I know you for some hot takes. I mean, there was a period of time I feel like where you, you were doing a lot of myth busting and, or, or you still do it. I mean, you just recently did something about tough guy knife fighting, ropes. But yeah, you've been known for your hot takes.

Paulo Rubio [00:38:34]:
What, what?

Bob DeMarco [00:38:36]:
You know, kind of breaking down some of the, some of the things people might believe or get high on, you know, if you've trained long enough. Where does that come from?

Paulo Rubio [00:38:45]:
I've just, I mean, my mom will tell you. I've always just doubted things like Santa Claus really exist. Or. Are you, Are you sure that that rice is spoiled? Let me go, Let me go. Try it. I've always. And you know what? I mean, if we, if I can get, you know, deeper into it for a second. In the Philippines, I had a big family, both sides, all sides, huge.

Paulo Rubio [00:39:14]:
And everybody was in each other's business. Right. And you honor your elders and whatever your parents and your grandparents did were absolutely correct. You were not to question those things. And then at the age of nine, my family moved to Canada and I had no relatives here. And then when I was, When I was 19, my father passed away, so. So it was like, I really need to figure out where I am and how the world works because I don't have people telling me what's right, what to do. And so whenever I came across that, I always questioned them because I was never really allowed to do that, you know, as a kid, despite the fact that I was just like, just a super curious person, you know, I think just I really leaned on my, my creativity and my curiosity.

Paulo Rubio [00:40:12]:
Even today I was thinking about. Somebody wrote iron sharpens iron. And I'm like, wait a minute, everyone. Such iron sharpens iron. When I, you know, I looked it up, it's like, actually when you rub two pieces of iron together, they generate heat and cause deforestation. So it's not actually. That has always bothered me, man. Right.

Paulo Rubio [00:40:33]:
Iron doesn't sharpen iron. That's not right. And so it's like that, that kind of stuff, okay? And then, and then the fearlessness to express those things. Right? And, you know, you know, the comments get to me some days and sometimes I'll get snarky. But I remember, you know, during particular period in my life reading this quote from Bertrand Russell, this English philosopher, mathematician guy, and in this book he talked about how the fear of public opinion is the greatest barrier to true happiness. You know, and so if I really cared too much about what other people thought I was doing or how I was doing it, I'd be maybe miserable. And this caused a lot of friction in the Filipino martial arts community because here were all of these masters and grandmasters saying this and that, and I was like, wait a minute. No, that's not actually true.

Paulo Rubio [00:41:35]:
And then there was a whole lot of, you know, like, appeals to authority. Like, what does Paulo know, right? Like, he's only been doing this for five years or six years or 10 years. This other guy's been doing it for 30, 40. And I'm just like, yeah, you could have been doing the wrong thing for 30 years, bro. Like, hear me out. You know, logic is our ultimate metric for validity and credibility, not the fact that, you know, you belong to the bloodline of TD tertia. Like, sorry, you're an idiot and you're saying the wrong things and science doesn't back that up. I've gotten in a lot of trouble, Bob, because, you know, I'd post something and I'd read a comment from like one the Jesus, and the comment would be absolutely dumb.

Paulo Rubio [00:42:25]:
And I'd be like, yeah, you're dumb. And then I'm like, I later find out that's a grandmaster of this night. Like, sorry, man, I didn't know. I was just responding to the stupid comment he left on my post. I got in a lot of trouble for like, stuff like that, actually.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:42]:
Well, I mean, you can, you can. It's like a royal family anywhere. If a royal family lasts long enough, you're going to have a bunch of people that are inbred. Okay, so you can be intellectually inbred.

Paulo Rubio [00:42:56]:
Yes.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:57]:
You see that a lot in martial arts. And, and you can also get handed down. You can inherit things that just are not, are not right. And you know, what's that it? And, and some of that could just be mindset. We were talking about self perfection versus self preservation. You might be awesome at, at self perfection drills and, and not realize that that's what they are. You may have been taught that no this is what you do when you get into a fight.

Paulo Rubio [00:43:28]:
There's a lot of that. There's a lot of. I mean, whether it's by ignorance, stupidity, or malice, there's a lot of, you know, Filipino martial arts drills and sequences that are misrepresented as this is how fights go. Clearly it's not. And so I'm very careful with that. I love flow drills. I love flowery, sophisticated, elaborate stuff. But again, I, I would never, you know, give you a piece of candy and tell you it's medicine that's going to go and backfire against me.

Paulo Rubio [00:44:05]:
And not to mention all the people that, you know, believe in me and look after me are going to think this guy's become an idiot or he's sold out so.

Bob DeMarco [00:44:15]:
Well, those, those drills are, to me, very fun. They feel good. They're great exercise. It feels like dancing. They're, they're expressive. I mean, you know, there is a lot, there a lot to them. But when you look at a real video of, of a knife altercation, which, you know, the algorithm feeds me on a regular basis, yeah, they can be hard to watch, but they're. Yeah, they are important to watch, especially if you carry a knife for self defense or you train.

Bob DeMarco [00:44:48]:
What, what have you learned from watching those kind of videos and seeing how things go down?

Paulo Rubio [00:44:56]:
That really, it, it is. There are infinite variables. Like, I have, again, because of my world travel, I have cops and, you know, prison guards in Brazil that just constantly send me stuff. I have people showing me, like, cartel executions and ambushes and, you know, gang fights. And I've actually, like, I have to be very careful not to. To watch those. I feel like I've watched enough for a long enough period of time. I don't really need to see it.

Paulo Rubio [00:45:35]:
But, yeah, what I, what I learned from them is that there really is no formula for survival. You know, there is no. The humans are at the same time extremely resilient and fragile. You know, you, you see that? I mean, I saw one, like last year. It was a knife altercation. I believe it was in a mall in New Zealand. Big dude posturing up. Bang.

Paulo Rubio [00:46:04]:
One strike severed his carotid. And I literally counted almost to the second, like, I believe it was almost 17 seconds before that big tough guy all of a sudden was completely unconscious in a pool of his own blood. One little thing, and then you see another one where it's like a constant. This guy's getting laced by this knife, and then he manages to get a hold of that knife, creates a moment in Time that, you know, allows him to escape or triggers something in the attacker that makes him go away. I've seen knife disarms where a lady just grabs the blade and pulls it away. You know, I've seen knife wielders getting disarmed and knocked out by a solid right cross. I've seen grappling and wrestling work. I've seen somebody get taped and right, so knife attacker, boom.

Paulo Rubio [00:47:04]:
The guy gets teeth. That was the end of it. Okay.

Bob DeMarco [00:47:07]:
Straight kick right into the solar plexus.

Paulo Rubio [00:47:09]:
All of a sudden it's like, yeah, this is not a great idea. So, you know, and you've seen third party interventions both defensively and, you know, offensively, where somebody's just completely fixated on defending this knife. Yeah. When somebody stabs them. What I've come to realize in what I express to my students is that people don't die from knife attacks because of technique failure. People die from knife attacks because of evaluation errors.

Bob DeMarco [00:47:44]:
What do you mean by that?

Paulo Rubio [00:47:46]:
You didn't know you were about to get stabbed. You made an evaluation error in thinking that it was one on one. You made an evaluation error as far as overestimating your skills and capabilities. You made an evaluation error as far as thinking there was an escape route. Made an evaluation error as far as really not knowing who the knife attacker was. There was a stabbing, I believe it was last year in Germany, where a law enforcement officer tackled somebody, realized he had the wrong guy, let him go. But it wasn't the wrong guy, that that was the right guy. It was an evaluation error that made him decide to disengage with the person you should have just continued to engage with.

Paulo Rubio [00:48:35]:
And the moment he disengaged from that person, then he got stabbed. He went after another guy, the wrong person. So it, it didn't. He didn't. I don't think that person died. But you know, people don't die in knife attacks because they didn't do an outside 2, 1, 1 control. Right. Good enough.

Paulo Rubio [00:48:54]:
Or that they didn't do a palisut or a hubud good enough. Or, you know, people don't die from knife attacks because of technique failure. They die because of evaluation errors. They didn't read the totality of circumstances in such a way that, you know, affords them that favorable outcome.

Bob DeMarco [00:49:12]:
From your experience and from what you've seen, who you've trained and, and know, how do you feel about the average person carrying a knife for self defense, especially if they can't carry a gun?

Paulo Rubio [00:49:29]:
I doesn't really. Here's the thing. And maybe I'm going to get some hate for this. You know, people like to say the knife is meant to be felt, not seen, Right? Yes, I've heard that knife is meant to be felt, not seen. But then we're also taught what is the best defense against a knife? Run away. And so the presence of a knife triggers the right thing, which is get out of there. So the opposite must be true. So a lot of the value of having a knife for self defense is actually deterrence.

Paulo Rubio [00:50:12]:
If somebody is really that moment in time committed to causing me harm and I flip out my blade and I know how to use it, but just like a gun, you know, like you don't, you don't pull out your gun unless you're actually prepared to use it. And the same thing ought to be with a knife. Yeah. So as, as far as carrying a knife for self defense, you know, I'll be honest with you, I have never seen one, I've never seen a knife get used for a court justifiable self defense condition. I've read about them. I studied one or two. I know it does happen. You know, a duty knife as a tool or weapon retention makes logical sense to me.

Paulo Rubio [00:51:07]:
Those are, I think I may know, you know, by virtue of Jared, one or two cases where, where that happened. Yeah, I think, I think because it's such a, a valid force multiplier, we want to believe it's a good self defense tool. And on paper it is. I just haven't really seen it.

Bob DeMarco [00:51:31]:
What is tricom? I see it on your T shirt and I've seen it on a couple of your videos. You're an instructor in IT and.

Paulo Rubio [00:51:38]:
Yeah. So Tricom is. Its origin was for law enforcement, military executive protection and professional security personnel. It's a distillation of four pillars. It's a distillation of Muay Thai and boxing for striking, it's a distillation of German and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for grappling, Pikiti Tertia for weapons and I think maybe wrestling. Yeah, that's it. So yeah, so it's a distillation of those four pillars and it was created by Jared. And yeah, I.

Paulo Rubio [00:52:33]:
To this day, again, a lot of the stuff that's done under Tricom looks boring. But hey, it's designed for law enforcement and military. It's not meant to be sophisticated, you know.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:48]:
Right, right.

Paulo Rubio [00:52:48]:
It's really the congruency and the teaching methodologies within TRICOM that really I love.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:55]:
I'm. I'm curious, what is German jiu Jitsu.

Paulo Rubio [00:52:59]:
Yeah. So German Jiu Jitsu. I have a friend named Johannes Runninghoff who's like a world champion at it, basically. I think. I mean, schnitzels and pretzels are involved somehow. Oh, yes. Like regular. No, no, no.

Paulo Rubio [00:53:16]:
They have a. It's. It's a particular rule set, and I believe in one of the rounds, it's striking based. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah. But German Jiu Jitsu is worth looking into. You'll find a lot of, like, parody videos.

Paulo Rubio [00:53:32]:
But German Jiu Jitsu is a real thing, man. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:36]:
Well, okay, so this is the Knife Junkie podcast. We're almost at the end here, and I haven't even asked you about your knives or what you like to carry or what you like to train with. Do you have any knives close at hand that you like that you can tell us about? And what do you think makes a great knife?

Paulo Rubio [00:53:55]:
Yes, fantastic. And it's probably one of the most common questions that I get asked is, hey, what knife do you recommend? And my answer, people kind of get thrown off by my answer. Actually, here's some cool ones.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:13]:
Oh, yeah, this is a piccolo macro.

Paulo Rubio [00:54:16]:
Yeah, no, this one is by Bastinelli knives. Oh, Bastinelli. This one, like, look at it. Like, what is that? What is that? But it's the handle and the balance for me. So people always ask me, hey, what knife do you recommend? Here's my answer. So can you ask me, hey, Paulo, what knife?

Bob DeMarco [00:54:35]:
Hey, Paulo, what. What knife do you recommend?

Paulo Rubio [00:54:39]:
Okay. The knife I recommend is one that you think is really cool and that you're proud to own. It has. You have to love that knife because the more you love it, the more you're going to play with it and really understand the dimensions, characteristics, and properties of that knife. The more you play with it, the more familiarized you'll get with all those things, which will lead to you really being better equipped to utilize it. Right. For me, I'm. I'm not so much a knife junkie as I am a handle junkie.

Paulo Rubio [00:55:18]:
Yeah. Like, a good knife handle is everything. I think a lot of. A lot of people like the tactical look. Whenever I see a knife handle that's over texturized, I'm like, I think you're overcompensating for poor design.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:36]:
Like, you mean too many finger grooves and swoops?

Paulo Rubio [00:55:39]:
Yeah, it's like grooves and, like, texture so that it doesn't fall out of your hand. Oh, I see it. This, like, knife handle is smooth as butter, but I feel so confident in the grip that it, it could be soaked in blood. This knife's not leaving my hand.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:58]:
You know who made that knife? That's beautiful.

Paulo Rubio [00:56:01]:
Yeah, it's actually not very many people know him. His name is Jason South. Yeah, Jason south, he's a really smart dude. He's like a high level Brazilian jiu Jitsu guy, fought an mma, lives in Utah. Just like what you imagine like a knife maker is. Drives a truck and he's got a Harley. He's got everything. And then, you know, he started like doing knife work.

Paulo Rubio [00:56:25]:
But if you understand what being a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt and MMA fighter and a Harley rider is, you know that all of those things require absolute attention and seeking perfection. So when he, when he implemented those things to his knife work, I was like, you're going to, you're going to be great. And I'm glad I have one of your first ones because I'm not going to be able to afford one of these a couple of years. Jason South.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:52]:
It's beautiful.

Paulo Rubio [00:56:53]:
Yeah, definitely check that dude out. And he's so like transparent with his journey. Like, he'll work for hours and hours on a knife and make a mistake, chuck it, but he'll post about it. I'm like, that's, that's some, that's greatness. We're witnessing his evolution. And then Bastinelli Knives, like, that dude is just. Yeah, he's an artist, man. And not a lot of people know this, but he's super well trained.

Paulo Rubio [00:57:20]:
He is super well trained in so many different systems. He's got instructor certifications in a number of systems. And it's only now even his firearms work is incredible. And it's only now he's beginning to like, show that. But when you're an end user and you have the capability to design what end users use, you can really play a lot with art and practicality. I think nobody does that better right now than, you know, Bas Chen from Bassinelli Knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:47]:
Oh, yeah. And he's, I mean, he's got a beautiful design sense. He's a really cool guy.

Paulo Rubio [00:57:53]:
Super cool guy.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:54]:
And that, you know, that, that goes a long way. But you can just tell from his Instagram videos he'll have a fire hose and they'll cut it in half with a tiny little knife that he's produced. He obviously knows what he's doing. So I want to ask you one last question before I let you go. Is the Karambit the ultimate self defense name?

Paulo Rubio [00:58:13]:
Yes. Is it two karambits I. I have a love hate relationship with. I think. Yeah, you know what? I love karambits. I hate karambit people.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:30]:
That's like the Valley song.

Paulo Rubio [00:58:32]:
Exactly. If you're a karambit guy, we're probably not going to be friends, but, yeah, that's it. And also, I want to say, like, speaking about knife designs, man, I think there are a lot of, you know, knife designs out there that try to solve too many problems. So what about if I hold it in reverse grip? What about reverse grip, edge in. Let's solve that problem. Let's put a ring on it. Yeah. You know what? It needs to be serrated at some point and then double edged.

Paulo Rubio [00:59:03]:
But not the whole thing. Thing. Can we somehow make it into a fuller blade? And then. And it's just like you're trying to solve too many problems with your knife. You're creating a Frankenstein. Just keep it simple. Right? Like, that's, that's, that's what I want to say to knife designers and also knife people. Quit buying all these wacky knives, man.

Paulo Rubio [00:59:25]:
I'm just joking because I would be hypocritical, because what's the most important thing about choosing your knife is you got to love it and think it's cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:33]:
Yep.

Paulo Rubio [00:59:34]:
That's the number one thing. And, you know, beauty's in the eye of the beholder.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:39]:
No doubt about that.

Paulo Rubio [00:59:40]:
Who am I to judge? You got some cool ones back there, too.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:44]:
Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Paulo Rubio [00:59:45]:
Yes. How many years is this collection taken? I've been oldest one.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:52]:
Oh, my. My oldest one is a pocket knife. My grandfather has given, you know, gave me years and years. So I've been collecting knives my whole, you know, forever. Like, this is probably my oldest knife. But up here, I've got a lot of old Filipino bring backs that I got in. My brother has given me some. This, this Taliban was my dad's.

Paulo Rubio [01:00:16]:
Oh, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:17]:
And then I bought a bunch at flea markets in New York City before. Well, long a long time ago. And yeah, I just.

Paulo Rubio [01:00:26]:
Oh, cool, man.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:27]:
I love him. I keep going. Paulo, thank you so much for coming on the knife Junkie podcast. It's been really nice talking to you and, and meeting you. I feel like I've known you because I've watched so many videos of yours, but it's so great to actually meet you in person.

Paulo Rubio [01:00:40]:
I appreciate it. Let's actually get to know each other better then. I want to know more about you and what, what Filipino martial arts you've studied and what is currently trying to tug at your heartstrings. To get you better back into where you need to be.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:53]:
It's a deal. I'll give you a hint.

Paulo Rubio [01:00:55]:
It's a bowie knife. Okay. I love bowies. Awesome. All right, resort is out there.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:01]:
Thanks so much, Paulo.

Paulo Rubio [01:01:03]:
Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Announcer [01:01:04]:
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Bob DeMarco [01:01:18]:
There he goes.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:18]:
Ladies and gentlemen, Paulo Rubio. If you don't follow him on Instagram, do yourself a favor, seriously and find him on there. He is awesome and his videos are great. From his hot takes to his training videos, they're awesome. All right. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DiMarcos saying until next time, don't take dull for an answer.

Announcer [01:01:40]:
Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review at. Review the podcast.com for show notes for today's episode, additional resources, and to listen to past episodes, Visit our website, thenifejunkie.com you can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at the knifejunkie.com YouTube.