And I should have, oh, here we go, Frank, how are you? Not bad. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Another huge day in the market today. Yeah, was it? Yes, it was. The last time we had you on the show, UPI was around 26, 27 cents. And it's been an amazing week for UPI. You guys hit 45 cents. 50 at one point. Pretty much everybody that's in the pick now is up. So congratulations to members all over the world. And you guys just had some huge news. Universal PropTech Inc. announces agreement with Lumen Ultra Technologies to provide SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 surface testing. Can you tell me a little bit about this news, Frank? Absolutely. So one, you're absolutely right. People have been making money when we're very happy. Two, you know, so I think I said it last time, our approach to dealing with COVID, look, guys, it is the Wild West out there, OK? Everyone, and there's a lot of great stocks right now who've gone hard after solving the COVID problem. It's the Wild West. There's no order. There's no model as to how people are procuring for air quality. And honestly, we're the new sheriff in town. So we're trying to bring a little bit of order to it. And so our approach has constantly been, we're going to bring the best technology to market. We're going to bring the best approach to make sure the right technology gets to work and it can be validated. And so what we just did yesterday, which I think is quite critical, is, so let me walk you through what it does, right? Then you'll understand how it fits in.  And so what do we know that every school does? The entire class, maybe even their cohorts, are sent home. Whether anyone else has any symptoms or not, you send them home. They're in quarantine. Until such time, they either get tested or it plays out. But what happens internally in that school? That school would, obviously they have their disinfection protocol. How do we continue to make sure it's clean? But now you as a parent for every other grade, every other class, how do you know that that class is not positive and people aren't spreading it? So you need something that validates it's not there. And so Lumen Ultra being our partner in this and us having a service to deliver this, we can go to that classroom within 24 hours from that positive test coming out. And we could say, great, we could with our swab test on site after a little bit of training on our part, our individuals go to that site, they use their swab test, they swab the surfaces within that room, the likely surfaces that this individual may have touched in that space. They run a test that takes no longer than two hours from end to end to complete and confirm in writing whether COVID is present in that space. That's what that does, right? So the effect is now that if you're a parent, you're saying my school cleans that room, my school can validate for me that COVID is not present in that room. So you start to think in a, where this is getting to as you're opening the economy, people want that kind of validation. They don't just wanna know when there's a problem, they wanna know that it's been solved. Absolutely. Having an ability of saying, here's the air quality equipment, we're gonna sell you, right? Whether cyanization, germicidal UV, that we can now validate that actually in that classroom, if a kid does come in who has COVID, that we can validate 24 hours later that COVID is now present in that class, that's what we're able to do. So that's the context I give it to you in. I'll give you an example of why I think this is so big. Right now, here in Vancouver, my son goes to high school and another school had the variant of COVID, the really dangerous one, the one that's like in the UK. Apparently someone got here. Yeah, it's here in Vancouver in one of the schools close to where my son goes to school. So they're talking about shutting down the whole school and then apparently there's one kid in my son's school out of 1,600 students that has COVID and my son comes home yesterday and he's like, we might shut down our whole school because of one kid. Now imagine if Universal Prop Tech had their technology in that school and they'd be able to clean it up, send a message to all the parents and say, okay, guys, maybe go home for a day. And now everything is clean. We're back to, you know, back to normal. It stays home, that's sick and everybody goes back to school and everything's back to normal. That would give the parents, that would give me a lot more comfort to send my kid back to school as opposed to, I have no idea if my kid's gonna go to school and get cold. So that's the wild west aspect of this is that, and it's not just that if the kid got sent home, I'll give you the other questions. If say the kid was sent home and the school was sent home, how do we know that what's even happening in the HVAC system in that building to begin with today isn't actually further spreading it, right? So we don't know any of those things, right? But what I do know is that if we're going to walk into a facility and we can install your air quality equipment, which is now top of the list of schools and organizations installing items that are gonna help squash and stop the spread of COVID-19, you're focusing on those pieces of equipment. But how do you really know at the end of the day? Other than you, as an administrator, you can say, check off that box. We did our best to mitigate any risk of us looking like we're passing along COVID-19. What can you really do to validate that is that the right design? Is that the right system to have installed? Is it that many units? Do we get the right air coverage? So we're worrying about that. But again, it's a wild west and there's no model to how to procure this. So if we're saying, here's what we think are the right products for that building that we're going to install. And we're so confident that it's the right design and the right products that we're actually able to bring in a solution that validates it. And we can go further as to what we're designing to make sure if COVID's present, fine. We'll rectify it and put in additional equipment and do things to make it whole. But the point being, how do you really know what you've installed is actually effective at this point? Or your cleaning protocols, if they're actually working, you don't. You're doing them because somewhere someone said, if you put this much salt on your parking lot road after a snowfall within X hours, you've done your best to mitigate risk that if someone falls, it wasn't your fault, right? This is a little different. This is killing people. So we have to take a little bit more attention to if there's a better way to do it, and you know about the better way. You now know you can validate this. I mean, never mind 24 hours, we can be there pretty fast to validate whether it's present or not. And if you know that this technology exists or you're not using this to validate why your school or your building or your restaurant or your health club is open, then I have to wonder what you're really doing. A lot of people are asking me about control energy. I'm sure you're familiar with them, correct? I am. And I don't know how to ask this question, but it's coming in the chat. Feel for it. Yeah, so are they a competitor? Are you guys slightly different? I know you're different, but can you explain kind of how you're gonna work hand in hand or differently from control energy? I think Paul Gezzi has done a great job, okay? I think he's done a wonderful job, knew him before in the solar industry. And so, God bless control energy and what they've been able to accomplish, that's great. But what I said earlier is this is the Wild West and everyone and their mother's uncle are coming out with air purifiers you can buy off Amazon. They're all coming out with solutions that they say is the solution to solving the problem, okay? And it's just, we did our homework and our CEO, Chris Hazelton, figured this out pretty early on too and we added to it, which is there is no one silver bullet. There can't be. And so, yes, it would be great. So in our ideal, it would be great. You keep people out of a building who are COVID positive. Of course, Chuck, let's do that, right? And we keep looking for ways to make that happen. Two, people are in a building. How do you make sure that the air they're breathing and what they're touching in that building aren't going to be contaminated? Okay, so there are many ways you solve that. And then three, how are you validating whether or not? And this probably is in the case of control. How do you validating that if there is COVID presence in the air or on a surface that you're capturing it? And I think there are a number of ways you do that. Control has an interesting way to do it. And if it works for them, I think that's great. The idea of having an automated unit on a wall, some wall in a room that's validating whether COVID passes by that one particular spot, I think it's brilliant what they've created, but I think it's one of those solutions where it's a nice to have. Can I put a $15,000 unit or $20,000 unit in every classroom in order to make my kids safer? Do I start picking which kids get them and which kids don't? I don't know. All I do know is that I can give them the solutions that would stop that bad air from being circulating in the first place. And then if I'm going to validate and do what control is trying to do and validate that my space is clean, I can send our team on a truck roll and validate every time a kid is determined or on pre-determined auditing schedule, let's pick spots in a school every month, every day, every week, how often do we validate? What we don't know yet in this Wild West, again, where the new sheriff is, should it be every five minutes you're validating it? I think that might be a little too much. Should it be every day? I mean, possibly, so there's just no rule of thumb yet. And I think if you really want to do this right, you think in terms of, well, how are people buying? If the buyer is willing to say, I want it done every day, or I only want it done when we have a positive kid, a test of a positive kid or a teacher who's been in this school, then I would say there's a very different approach to how you, or a solution to how you approach that to say, we've got you covered. We'll be there within X amount of hours, we're going to swab it and get it done within two hours and we can swab multiple rooms within those two hours and here's your clean bill of health. I think that's a pretty cool solution. And one that validates what we're trying to sell, in addition to that, the thing that cleans the room, cleans the space, I think that's a great one, two, three punch, keep people out, effectively clean the air, clean the surface and then validate it. And so, I think we're just different from control. I think we being a more meat and bones, we're in every building to begin with, we're already doing your HVAC, we're already doing your controls. We generally get a good sense of what the customer's interest and their appetite is. If you had an Apple watch that said to you, every minute, stand up now. You didn't stand up in the minute, stand up. Is that too much? If you watch and they clearly landed on every hour, someone, Fitbit, I think it is actually, is going to tell you every hour you should stand up. So everyone, eventually the dust settles and people figure out what's reasonable of a request that satisfies what you're trying to achieve. And so, we think the solution we've come up with, is Zoom and Ultra, which is just an amazing Canadian technology, by the way, that we have a great package of how we can go to market and be realistic because in six months or eight months or a year, do I think people will want every hour, every day, every week, assessments of every room, I don't believe so. And I think we have to roll with the punches and make sure we're delivering what the actual customer is looking for. So that was my polite way of answering that question.  And I'm like, that's not the way it works. There's like five vaccine companies and there's probably gonna be 10 by the time it's done because there's not enough vaccines from one company to vaccinate the whole world. So- Yeah, and I think with all the variants which are also finding with vaccines is that there is no silver bullet. It's likely, like the flu, we could end up turning into, well, maybe not an annual, maybe it's a semi, maybe it's a semi-annual, a biannual, like there's other things that will play out. But all I know is that our objective is to help make sure every facility, every business owner, every building owner gets to open their economy, open their business as fast as possible and as healthy as possible. You know, we're trying to keep these buildings healthy. So we have a bit of a different twist on it. I like that. And it's very important. Now, the last time you were on the show, the stock was under 30 cents. And we were talking about the fact that it was having selling pressure. We weren't able to get blue skies. And you mentioned that there was a couple of people that were selling. And we talked about that once they get out of the way and they finished selling, maybe the stock explodes. It's at 47 cents. Yeah, where's my rocket ship? Yeah, it's 47 cents. I think people expected that. That's obviously, like I said on the show last time, there are people who get the advantage of buying in as a few others were selling who again made significant multiples on their money. So it's not like they were, you know, as long as there are new buyers coming in, they were content in taking their 10X and getting out. And to those people who came in, and I think what you saw even earlier today is there are people who came in at under 30 who probably replaced those guys who are already saying, I've got a pretty good multiple already on what I've done. So, you know, it's gonna happen. I get it, the ups and downs. We are in blue skies. I think we've got, like, we're gonna keep putting out better stories, more equipment. I think it's internally everyone's getting a good sense of how defined our story and our plan is right now and how it's rolling out. You know, with Lumen Ultra, with Fresh Air, UV, Atmos Air, with Air Sniper, we've got really cool pieces to start going aggressively after the market. I mean aggressive. And we've done some testing. We've put in some bids to understand how this plays. My God, does it play well? I mean, I'm pretty bullish on this. It plays quite well. And so as we start gearing up and bringing in the right staff and confirming that model going forward, you know, we'll take more than our fair share of the market and take advantage of this. I viewed as a bit of an early mover advantage, and it's also a bit of a, again, if we could make sure that the new model that rolls out for customers to procure is the one that we're proposing, then you control the day. Now, there's a question here from one of our members. And we don't know if COVID will ever be gone. But the question is, what is the play if COVID is handled? If COVID is gone one day, if everyone's vaccinated and we've got the herd mentality and everybody's good now, we're not worried about COVID anymore, then what becomes of universal prop tech then? Yeah, well, that is a great question because there's a lot of what is in there. COVID, or I mean, you know, the fact that there are variants sort of indicates where I think it's going, COVID's not disappearing anytime soon, right? We're now going into the following year before everyone can be vaccinated. So there are going to be issues, which means what are issues, which means people could be stuck at home, hospitalized, there could be unfortunately more deaths. This is, it's a more serious flu-like issue going forward at minimum. And, you know, and it could be worse than that. So I think that's probably more of a new reality. And I think the test of that is for many years, right? Having worked in this industry for a long time, for many years, you know, you didn't worry about your age, you didn't worry about your ventilation system. You didn't worry about the air quality per se, right? It was really, how old is my boiler? How old are my chillers? You know, are my systems here end of life certainly in a governmental atmosphere? Are they near end of life? Do I have to now make a new investment? What's that new investment? And all of a sudden really out of nowhere, out of nowhere out of COVID comes this really big focus on the quality of the air that you're putting through, right? So if we're talking about, you know, 30% fresh air requirements before COVID, the question becomes, well, wait a second, what's the new line that everyone does this at? Are we at 100% fresh air forever? I don't think so. I think the cost of energy bills and just to run buildings is going through the roof. Who's paying for all that? If we're trying to, as a building operator and building owner, take that back down to some reasonable level, to the determinant of what that reasonable level is, well, how good is your air quality to make it lower? So air quality becomes the investment that allows people to actually say, we can go back to only 30% fresh air again because we're cleaning our air very well. We have sensors in place that monitor the particulates, the VOCs and the other pathogens in the air. There will be a more dynamic ventilation system that will be able to determine what's in the air in real time. How do we adjust? We turn on the UVs again. Do we turn on the ionization? I think there's a new standard that will occur going forward. Again, Wild West, it hasn't been figured out, but that new standard will be increased cost and air quality, more refined customized solutions per building. Hey, that's our space. That's what we're gonna be doing. And so a great question, but the other part I'd say quickly is air quality, COVID-19 is absolutely a critical piece of what we've done in the last few months, but it's only one piece. And so building our building performance group, which we're well underway, having a lot of great discussions and trying to build in pieces for that. And we have a great solid mechanical, a great solid controls, and then the energy resources side. We're already looking at the future. We're already looking at all those other areas where we're gonna backfill and create the next layer of sort of opportunities out there. So we're certainly not just putting all of our bets down on COVID. I mean, that's actually kind of morbid, but no, it's something we're dealing with.  As a question here from Green Bull says, has there been a mention of sales or installations for Ontario and Quebec? So we just locked up these products in the last two weeks. So I appreciate the question. I think give us some time to understand, were we just gonna go to market with one product as we got it truthfully? Not really, because our approach has always been, and we put out our approach even prior to locking down these products, it's a more integrated approach. And so it is, and I said, we've already tested it. We've already tested it on a school board to understand how the value prop works. We're trying to refine what's the right method of transactions, not just as simple as sell product. We wanna be the installers. We wanna be people designing which product goes in and where and how. I've seen a mess already of people who wanna put in a certain product and are designing it the wrong way and are getting the worst bids to do it. So we wanna solve a lot of that. So as we're testing that out, and we're getting a good sign right now as to how that's gonna work, we're probably weeks to month away of starting to roll out a more aggressive campaign, sales campaign that will get those sales in, get the installation. And as soon as we can start determining or at least advising on what this is gonna do to projections, we absolutely believe it's gonna be a bullish year and improve our projections 100% to what number yet we'll have a better sense in the coming weeks. But great question, Lumen Ultra was the kingpin of that. Lumen Ultra allows us now to really put a backstop behind everything we say to say, you know what, we can actually guarantee that we're going to clean it and clean that air and ultimately the surface. So this is how we're gonna recommend that. That changes it a lot. When we did our interview last week, you mentioned a lot of big things were coming.  Stock was under 30 cents. Today we're at 47, you were 100% correct. Now we have a question, is there anything we can expect for February? Obviously we're almost halfway through February here. You guys are still got some big news coming, I'm assuming over the next few weeks, the news isn't gonna stop, right? We're not stopping here at 47 cents. There's a plan here, obviously to build your market cap. I said that this was a $1 stock since day one and you're almost halfway there. I believe- I don't know why you ain't so low, but- I was gonna say that, when I say a $1 stock, that is my first target for UPI. So I wanna make that very clear. I'm not saying you're a $1 stock and you stay there because once you get to $1, then we set new targets. But the first target that I set for our club when we started talking about UPI, tight flow company, changing the world, making building safer, I thought $1 stock, I think if everyone gets in at 30 cents or under and it goes to a dollar, everyone makes 200%, everyone should be happy, right? So- You asked a lot of questions in there packaged up. So I would say number one, oh, unbelievably bullish. And we are not stopping, nothing is slowing down. If anything, it's going to be increasing the speed. And honestly, people will, I hope they'll have a tough time hanging on, but hang on. It is a rocket ship you are strapped into. So unbelievably bullish. And I think the reason is it's not just we're gonna sit back and rely on, gee, everything we've done today will cause everything to happen. We don't rest that easily, okay? We are making sure that from a pull factor to a push factor to every determinant that will make that school board or that senior's home or that municipality or that campus select us to get in the door and do A, B, and C for them, that we're making it as difficult as possible for them to not let us get that work, right? So we're doing everything we have to do. So it's, we're building up speed. We're building up steam here and we're well on our way, I think. And I would love to be, I mean, I started a few months ago, I'd love to be in a position where I could start talking about all the sales from it. You know what? Right now we're buying all the ingredients. We're bringing all the ingredients into our kitchen, we're determining what's the best way to sort of put them into that dish and then be able to sell that dish out like crazy. And it's not that easy. The good news is that we're not sitting back and taking one step at a time. We are absolutely multitasking. We're absolutely, you know, we're multitasking. Ask me that next interview if we can multitask well and we'll see what happens. We're in a good place. I think, you know, it's really interesting. Talk about stock price and everything. I think the interesting part is you've had this solid $10 billion a year without even trying. Here we are going aggressive after the market. We're picking up really cool technologies and approaches that are more gonna get us our share and then we have active growth strategies to really drive sales.   I think people need to be reasonable. And I think we're doing, I think we've got a great plan, a great strategy. And in this industry, one thing I know about, you don't compare me to the almighty, you compare me to the alternative. And if I look at what's out there and they compare their revenue base to ours and you compare their profitability to ours and they compare what we have in plans and strategies, we'll take that bet any day and, you know, just hang on and I think that's the profit. We wanna make people money, right? We wanna make people money to invest in us and we wanna make people money to buy our services. So I think it's a pretty simple bet on that. You're doing a great job. People are definitely making money. Great question here from Genie3. Are you aware of anyone developing smart surface sensors that could detect pathogen loads on hard surfaces like elevator controls or door handles and send out an alert?  You don't, and I've learned this in all my life, you don't design solutions for what would be cool and ideal, right? Like I've met my fair share of engineers who came up with brilliant solutions that nobody wanted to buy, okay? I'm making me brilliant and we can do a lot of, you know, have a lot of fun conversations over beer over them, but are they pertinent and relevant to that person buying them? Are they going to buy them? And if you don't ever, ever, you know, if you forget who you're doing this for, then you're in trouble. And I think we already understand what money schools and campuses and government put out to function, you know, for their buildings to function and to operate. We're living within the means of what they spend and are doing our best to take our larger share of that spend. COVID meant more money was being outlaid to solve backlog of issues from, you know, horrible HVAC systems, horrible ventilation systems within that, they're just structurally deficient. So that additional money coming out, we want to get a bigger slice of that. We're not trying to sell them something they're never going to buy or sell them something that, gee, if I buy this, I have to change the entire processes I've been running my facilities on in order to accommodate it. Why ever would we do that? So, you know, we're on the street, we're already working with these guys, which is why we're the best vehicle to bring PropTech solutions through because we'll work within the environments we already live in. Why would we do it any other way? I love what you guys are doing. Tight float stock, priced right, making money, running it lean and mean and focused on building shareholder equity and creating shareholder value. If there's one more message you want to leave to the investors and the people that are watching all over the world, what would it be? You know, I said it last time, I'm pretty sure last time I said, pay attention, you need to watch and absolutely watch, but I would say put on your belt. Put on your belt and watch at the same time would be the one difference from last time. And we got so many investors wanting that US listing and that German listing. Any updates on anything there? Anytime soon, we're gonna get some more listings because our viewers want to buy the stuff. You know, I'd love to answer all these questions. I think, you know what? There's a plan, there's a method to the madness and as things play out, your viewers will find out about it. We're not a seeper this way. It's we get what needs to happen and things are going to happen in a due time they will. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time again, Frank. The chief growth officer of Universal PropTech. Thank you for joining us today. No, thank you. Thanks, Rich. We'll talk to you. You've all the great work. For those of you guys that are watching, if you're not winning, you're not watching, we bring you the winners and we bring them to you first. If you liked the video, smash the like button, comment down below, share the video everywhere and subscribe for future updates. And remember, Rich TV Live is strictly for education and entertainment purposes. Always do your due diligence, always do your research and consult a financial advisor before you invest in anything that we talk about here in Rich TV Live, always invest in the best. The best is blessed and you deserve the best. Thank you, guys. Have a great day. I told you guys, UPI was gonna be a winner. Congratulations to all the winners all over the world. And it's just getting started. Have a nice day, everybody. Lots of videos today. Super busy, lots of winners. Exciting day, guys. We'll talk to you guys soon. Have a nice day. And if you guys haven't joined the club yet, join the club. See you soon.


and I mentioned it too, that it's the largest medical week conference in all of Europe, and it's where we find the greatest technology, often German and Russian technologies, that are so much more for advance than often we can find here in the States. And at a price point, that's often pennies on the dollar compared to what we find in the States. And, you know, I've been around frequency generators and bio resonance machines and light therapies for 20 years, and there's a lot of Wolfson sheep's clothing out there. And there's a lot of people spend a lot of money on what I wouldn't spend $200 on that they spent tens of thousands of dollars on. And that's what I really want to create.


Hearings are the International Court of Justice on the question of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The ICJ or the World Court as it is known is hearing the matter on a request from the UN General Assembly and the hearings are on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation since 1967. Now a number of countries have already presented their viewpoints and many more are said to do so with the hearings set to go on till February 26th. We go to Abdul to find out what are some of the submissions that have been made in the court. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. There have been a lot of reports over the past four days. Today is the fifth day of the hearings. More countries expected to give their submissions. So maybe first take us through what has been the general sense of the kind of submissions countries have made, what have been the larger arguments they have been presenting. And in fact, if you could also actually start with what is the question the court is hearing in the first place. Well Prashant, as far as the question in front of the court is concerned, it is related to the UN General Assembly resolution which was adopted in December, 2022, in which basically General Assembly asked for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice about what is the legal status when it comes to the occupation, Israeli occupation of Palestine. Apart from that, this is a general question under which there are specific questions related to what is the status of the settlements which are built by Israel in violation of international law in the occupied territory. How do we see the Israeli policies when it comes to kind of treating occupied people, Palestinians and the illegal settlers within the same occupied territories, whether it qualifies to be called apartheid or not. Then there are other questions related to the overall violations of the Palestinian human right within the occupied territories, the violence they are subjected to. So it is basically a set of questions which basically are related to Israeli policies, visa with occupied Palestinians and the overall status, legal status of Israeli occupation. So basically on that subject, of course, there are around 50 odd countries which are basically set to submit their positions in front of the court. There are three main organizations including the Arab League which basically will present its case in front of the court. And so far, if you see, there are two different set of opinions or the positions which have been submitted in front of the court, which basically, of course, there are set of countries like United States which have been basically supportive of Israel which has been known to be supportive of Israel's policies inside Palestine and because there has been a general opinion that US has been the reason behind the prolongation of the occupation in Palestine, as well as there are countries which basically have historically opposed to occupation and demanded a two-stage solution as soon as possible. So these have been the general set of positions which we have seen in the last five days so far. So US has defended, Chinese have opposed and there are of course Palestinians who have demanded a separate state as soon as possible. Abdullah, what has been Israel's response to these proceedings? Well, Israel's position has basically, Israel is one of those countries who have chosen not to present its case orally in front of the court and in fact have submitted a written, what do you call, position. Despite the fact that it says that this entire set of questions are illegitimate and court should not opine on it, it basically also has said that it will not consider the legal opinion given by the ICJ legitimate. Hence it means that whatever will be the opinion of the court, it will not implement it, it will not consider it legitimate. If you see, as I was referring to earlier about two contrasting positions which have been taken, the US in fact came out openly saying that ICJ should not give an opinion to kind of asking Israel to withdraw from its, withdraw its occupation and hence in a way justifying the occupation and kind of demanding for its prolongation. And Chinese on the other hand for example have said that the occupation is illegal and since this is an occupation, it's a colonialism, Palestinians have right to self-defense, Palestinians have right to resist and therefore their resistance should not be compared with terrorism as we have seen US has often called Hamas for example, the actions taken by Hamas as terrorism or Israel has claimed that all Palestinian resistance is basically a form of terrorism. Chinese agreeing with most of the African countries for example South Africa also has already submitted saying that all these claims that Palestinians fighting for their independence is terrorism is basically a logic which basically justified colonialism and occupation and that should not be considered. So Israel's position that even these kind of arguments should not be entertained by the court is basically a position which falls into the larger understanding about Israel, which most of the anti-colonial movements have, that this is a colonial outpost in West Asia and basically it wants to be there, of course serving certain imperialist forces at the global level and that's what has come out in what US has submitted despite the fact that in the international for right it has also talked about two state solution and so on and so forth. So real intentions it seems have come out during the hearing in the ICJ. Thank you so much for the update but do stay back we'll come to you for the next story. As the Ukraine war completed two years the European Union countries have agreed on a 13th round of sanctions against Russia, the sanctions will be formally approved on Saturday. Russia has been heavily sanctioned by the EU countries, the US and its other allies since February 2022, although these measures have really failed to significantly affect Russia's economy. What are these new sanctions and how have earlier rounds affected Russia? We go back to Abdul. Right Abdul, welcome back. Round 13 of EU sanctions against Russia. The war has crossed two years and of course there are also sanctions by the US, Canada, Japan, all these countries. So let's first go to these specific sanctions. What do they comprise of a dispute? What is left to sanction right now? Well, in the last two years there is hardly anything left when it comes to Russia to sanction by the Europeans and by the US. So now they are basically listing individual entities, mostly some individuals and some of the what they claim to be armed producing groups, not only in Russia but also in other countries, for example, China, Hong Kong and so forth. Claiming that these entities have some links with Russians, they help them produce weapons and hence there should be sanctions against them. So US 13th round of sanctions are primarily related to the sanctioning around 200 odd individuals and entities which basically easily deal with the weapon manufacturing in Russia. Right, so how have these sanctions fared over the past two years, not just the EU sanctions but also US sanctions? I guess the original intent when it was imposed was there was an expectation that there would be a drastic collapse, followed by mass discontent in Russia which would probably overthrow the Putin regime, probably that was the calculation. But what has been the result of all these sanctions? Well, it is quite obvious if you see that the way Russian economy is performing, the way we do not find any large scale opposition to Russia's war what it is called in Ukraine inside the country, we do not see isolation of Russia at the global level as well. In fact, Russia has expanded the number of countries with which it has, you can say better diplomatic relations than ever since 1990s. For example, its participation in BRICS basically has led to an expansion of that grouping. Then the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, another grouping where it is has been expanded in the last two years. And if you see, as I said before, the Russian economy is in fact as per the IMF estimates is in fact instead of contracting, it has basically expanded in the last two years. Given the amount of oil it is able to sell across the world, the gas it is able to sell across the world, its exports also have diversified and its local manufacturing in fact has grown ever since the sanctions have been imposed. So, unlike the intentions, it seems that the sanctions have helped Russia kind of consolidates its economy and emerge as much more positive player in the global politics than ever before. On the other hand, if you see because of the sanctions, European economies have suffered one of their worst economic crisis since 1990s at least. There are protests going on inside European countries by the farmers, by other working class sections, which have claimed that because of the sanction policies, one of the reasons of course, apart from the other things, their income has suffered and in fact they have opposed sanctions against Russians. And their country's position to kind of fund the Ukrainian war, taxing the working classes and the farmers in their own countries. So it seems whatever was the intention it has basically played as a kind of boon for the Russians at least the sanctions imposed by both the US and the European Union. So, Abdul, so two years into the war, what does the strategy of the Western countries at this point seem because both from a military and a financial perspective because we don't see any major breakthroughs happening on the battlefront. In fact, Ukraine lost Avdivka recently as well. So what seems to be the plan for these countries in the coming months? Well, it's difficult to find out or point out a concrete strategy with which the Europeans or the US are working in the Israel, sorry, in the Russia, Ukraine conflict or the war. If you see they have continued since the first day of the war to kind of pursue a kind of policy, which basically to demonize Russia completely delegitimates its claims about its security, about the expansion of NATO, about the problems with the Russian speaking population was facing inside Ukraine. So they have completely rejected all these Russian claims and try to portray it as a demon, which basically is expansionist wants to expand and so and so forth, which of course seems unrealistic. And now that after two years, this particular propaganda, it seems have run its course and that is the amount of popular support it had in the initial days, at least in Europe and US has also gone down tremendously because the emptiness behind this slogan has been exposed. Despite that, Europeans and the US continue to pitch the same line and continue to kind of demand more money from their taxpayers to kind of to send to Ukraine. If you see there is already a bill pending in the US for billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine. European Union has recently approved $54 billion aid for Ukrainians for Ukraine. All of this money of course is coming from the taxpayers in both European Union and US and despite the fact that they are having economic issues. So they continue to pitch a kind of anti Russia slogans and continue to fund the war in Ukraine without kind of hoping. At least they have also admitted that there is no movement on the battleground at least after the failure of the counter offensive at least. Ukrainian counter offensive so called counter offensive that there is no gain on the on at the battleground and the vice course would have been to kind of look for a political solution but that is not happening. There is no attempt to explore that option and they continue to pitch the same line which they have been doing for last two years. Abdul, thank you so much for that analysis on both these topics we'll come back to you in future episodes as well. That's all we have in today's daily debrief we'll be back back with a fresh episode tomorrow. In the meantime do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org follow us on all the social media platforms and if you are watching this on YouTube please hit the subscribe button.


Hello everybody, welcome to my channel. It's Eva from Bohemian Crafting and today I'm coming to share with you another art journal one-page art journal creation and This time I do have on my table these three beautiful images from my old books The scan of these images you can find again on that Buy me a coffee website, but it's again for free So don't be afraid to click on the link in the description below and Download that image if you like to work with art journaling and if you like those images There is already a few of these sheets with plenty of these beautiful gorgeous Vintage images. I do love them so much. So today I choose these three beautiful people beautiful drawings and Actually the color scheme for my drawings will be with the red color I have no idea where from I took this red shade here and on my envelope I do have prepared already both of these If you want to know how I made this one the link will be down below for previous videos Where you can see the process how I made this this like base And I'm gonna start. Oh, I think Oh I'm gonna take first some stencil and do some stenciling and Today I do have here this beautiful stencil. It's again from studio light. I do love this stencil very much The number will be in the description box below if you are interested in this stencil And I'm gonna do some stenciling So I do have here my white acrylic just so and we will start to do some stenciling I really like those bubbles now and I do have as a background paper again that printed pre-printed paper and that design you can find also on the Buy me a coffee website I'm gonna do some stenciling on my paper and also on my envelope. I think The kind of match it together. Yeah, and here we moved So I do have dry my gesso and I do have here my mixtures The colors I mixed and I do have here also this red one, but it's kind of like very red I will see I will start with those softer colors And I will spray here and then and we'll see How much colorful it will get I'm kind of happy and make my mixes because it's getting to you know getting me to use Those sprays I had and I haven't used before Oh, come on lay down Poof, so I'm gonna Dry it again. I guess lay down That's nice colors. I have to say I'm really glad I did my mixtures. So my painting is dry I had to take that acetate piece off from here to make sure I can use my heating tool and now I'm wiping off the paint that spray from my Gesso from that stenciling and Because I'm using that wet wipe I will have to dry it again So I do have here my dry page, and I'm gonna take a book page.  I'm gonna try different Different pen. I've got here also these gel pens Signo Uniball Signo And they are sometimes much much better to use. So I'm gonna give it a try which one will be better. I Think here it's similar So I do have this I've got here white acrylic paint and it's mixed with water already So it should Work, I'm gonna give it a try if it's not still true. No, it will be okay. It's just a very light coat and I'm gonna cover with this the area Like inside of those waves here and here. Well, I totally forgot We got to paint it right so we are going from this point up Okay Somehow forget those folds behind so from that fold here. We are going up and with slight Painting We are easily paint all the rest.  Why? But the dimension So don't be afraid to with your light white Mix to paint from the fold Okay That way we will create nice beautiful 3d effect and I will have to go one more time with my pen all over Make sure I can see those folds. Just bear with me Here I need to add a little bit more so don't forget to go you know, these are like Behind those faults. These are upfront faults. These are behind faults So don't forget to go up with your brush up with your brush like this, I'm gonna wipe my color a little bit and I Do have really very light I'm gonna show you Here is my color. Good So really very light and go up that will give you those back shades Put a little bit more And this one It's somehow struggling. I Think those colors underneath they just don't want to be covered with the white painting They want it to be seen and again here go Up with your brush up like this and kind of Disappear those smushes and then I think a little bit more of that white I hope it will go well with this brush and Here go up with a little bit the dark room. I mean a little bit more Rich white so from those folds With the richer white go up Maybe Okay, I'm gonna let it dry and use my gel pen on Those edges so I let it dry and I went again With like a circle motion One small thing circle next to another one all the way in those like a base lines of my Curtain or I'm sorry, I have no idea how to say it right curtains. I think it's cool. I've got here This is acrylic. It's like iridescent iridescent like silver tone Acrylic medium and I do have here my black acrylic Pain and I will try to do some soft shading Like really soft one I'm gonna spray my water here and This should be very very soft shading, so I'm gonna put a little bit of water on my brush I'm gonna prepare napkin If I will need to clean my brush little bit of black paint a Little bit of that iridescent that's silver one and it have to be very soft really very soft and I hope with this iridescent color it will be also You know the way I need it Very soft and kind of like a little bit sparkle But not too much and I will try to do my best Maybe First before I will do my shading. I'm gonna protect my coloring right now. I'm gonna take my Bindex and protect my page dried again and after that I will do that shading because this Bindex will give me that protection that top coat and I will be not happy of my Shading with this black and iridescent color. I can always wipe it off. So first I'm gonna do coat With this and the protect what I do have already here dried off Okay, I think it's dry enough. So I'm gonna go back to my Painting palette. I'm gonna take a little bit of the water Kind of try it again if we are still on yes, we are and now Okay, I'm gonna give it a little bit of shade here But really just a small amount and if there will be too much I Can always wipe it off and I think I need to take wet wipe Just in case I'm gonna mess up like this Okay, come again. Water Little bit of my painting This should be so soft just like this Very soft. I hope you can see and Many times and Very soft and we are creating beautiful Cortons, so take your time. Do not rush if you want to create beautiful Soft shade very softly like this. All right. I think here is done now the other side I'm gonna Flip my brush, you know before I went this way So now I'm gonna go this way and very softly You know this wet wipe is also helping me to keep my brush a little bit wet, but not too much Just relax and where there will be too much Well wipe it off Can use your napkin or just with finger and I think I just wiped off My painting here, so then I will take my job and again and one more time. I will create the edges So I think I do have my background page ready and I'm gonna move to my people And I'm gonna gonna color the faces and the hands and Then for the clothes, I'm thinking to use these sharpies and this one not sure yet Kind of kind decide what kind of color of those dresses I want to use So I do have my cute images and I'm gonna start to somehow place them on my on my Paper, but before I will do so. I don't want to have them just, you know Stand in the air. So I'm thinking Place here Washing tape and do kind of steps. Okay I'm gonna take a brush and Glue my beautiful people I'm kind of happy how they did to note So first I'm gonna glue this lady and she's gonna be Somewhere here Now this guy And he's gonna be somewhere Here okay And his friend Just like this and maybe here I can put a little bit more No nice day. See look I'm gonna put one more coat and Here is how my little pink and Peachy Small mini-general looks like I have finished that those last few steps that Shading and put the quote of the camera because that was just few steps So this is how it looks like here. We do have a quote and I really like that quote So this is how it looks like easy spread and I love that Curtain Blinder I'm not sure how you call these soft ones in Behind and all those beautiful vintage images. So this is my sharing for today. I hope You had a good time. I hope you found some inspiration. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me today I have a wonderful day. Take care about yourself and I will see you soon. Bye


I'll take the crocodile in real life. I actually, I got on top of an alligator and held its jaws shut. It's about a 10-foot alligator. Yes, I posted the picture on Instagram. It's crazy.  I would rather do that than fight a gorilla. You have no chance with a gorilla. You didn't do that for the movie, that was just in your real life. I went down to this particular place to do a little research on alligators since I live in the country and I live in Everglades swamps, near the Everglades swamps down in Florida. A lot of it took six of us to pull the alligator out of the water and then I got on top of it and held its jaws shut and pulled it back to calm it. Massive gorilla. How come? Maybe because you can reason with them. I'm going to go with crocodile. Don't know why. You just stay on land and then the crocodile's kind of a disadvantage-ish. I mean I think I'd rather fight the massive gorilla. How comes? Because the crocodile is scarier for some reason. I mean I think a gorilla could just rip my limbs apart but I think a crocodile would do worse things.   What's that?  They get you in the mouth and they do a death roll.  At least you'll be dead when it happens. Yeah hopefully hopefully in this they muck that up. Would you rather fight 50 duck sized Dwayne Johnson's or one Dwayne Johnson sized duck? 50 duck sized Dwayne Johnson's. I think just take him out one by one. You know one big one. I don't know if I can handle that. Fly swatter maybe? Yeah maybe fly swatter. I mean duck is a little bit bigger so maybe that's terrible. I don't want to swat them out for Dwayne but yeah I guess it would be easier to kind of try to stomp on them. A tiny Dwayne Johnson would still be quite strong though I think. He would be. Yeah not strong enough. I mean you can't see my muscles in this dress but it's pretty scary. I'm gonna go with the smaller size. I think I'd have more of a chance but I don't think I'd have a chance at all because Dwayne Johnson works out for like literally two to three hours a day and I mean every day. I really don't so.  Like they're like they're like the watch ducks. They will chase animals around that are ten times bigger than them so I think I would be scared of the Dwayne Johnson duck. What are the duck's names? Norman and Russell Wilson. Would you all be best mates with a massive gorilla or a massive crocodile? Best mates I'm gonna go with the gorilla because he can give you nice hugs. You can't really hug a crocodile can you? Massive gorilla. Yeah definitely. I think I just think their you know crocodiles are as we've kind of come to know have no emotion whatsoever. A gorilla might be easier to communicate with. Well I'm gonna go with again the gorilla. For one you can kind of have some communication with it. This gorilla is very smart and you know it knows my favorite hand signals in the film.  That's what I do with my best friend anyway. Would you have rather have your own personal tiny Dwayne Johnson or a gigantic one? I think a gigantic one I would have more use for. That would be a great bodyguard. Yeah.  The real one is pretty gigantic. Yeah you don't really need to supersize him. Gigantic one yeah you want the life-sized version of him no?  I suppose you can pack him in your suitcase but then you could you can still travel with a life-sized one and he when you get tired he could carry you from place to place. Definitely life-sized.  Seeing that I don't have a pet I would say my pet because I don't want to get supersized. Neither! Why does anybody need to be mutant sized? Oh my gosh that's hideous. No. I want to take myself because I'm going to leave my pet alone even though I don't have a pet but if I did I wouldn't want that to happen to them.


The only easy day was yesterday. Hey!  Stop trying to hide from the pain. Heads up, eyes open. Welcome to The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday, the official Navy SEAL podcast. In training, when you push yourself to the limits, there's always a risk of injury. In the special operations field, this is even further magnified. Today we speak about the fundamentals of fitness and injury prevention with expert Don Kessler, a man from the highest levels of competition. He's on the ground every day, helping special warfare trainees perform their best and has some solid advice. Let's get started. Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us and speak about what you do for NSW. First, let's talk a little bit about you for a minute. 40 plus years of physical fitness background with athletes varying from high school students to Olympians. What do you think uniquely qualifies you for your specialized position that you have at NSW? Well, I started out as a hospital corpsman after getting my master's degree in physical education. And this was during a Vietnam time. And I eventually got stationed at the U.S. Naval Academy and working as a hospital corpsman there, I moved into athletic training as my profession. But I had years of experience in the military going into that. And I loved it so much that I decided I was getting out of the military to continue on in athletic training. So I went through, again, working in high schools, colleges. I worked at the Olympics or worked with U.S. soccer. So there were many different variations I went to. And when the time came to retire from college athletics, I didn't feel like I should stop. And so I contacted some people in the NSW community that I knew and said, I think I could be some help or benefit to them. And they said, we agree. They thought that my experiences would be able to help teach some of these people some of the things that we do in athletics, but also that we should treat the NSW people as division one or professional athletes. How does the training that you do now specialize from the typical sports medicine that you've seen earlier in your career? My job in the medical side of Bud's training is that I'm to do the functional rehabilitation. So we have three physical therapists that work with us that will work with the initial part of an injury and I'm to functionally get them back into full action. And they call it the BRIDGE program, taking you from the very simple things of coming out of an injury or a post-op and getting you back to able to do the obstacle course. So that's what my job is. It's unique among any of the programs that we have in that I have to know what are the things that they ask of the students, both CLN SWIC, to make it through the training. And so my functional rehabilitation is built towards what do you need to do to pass or what do you need to do to pass through Hell Week or the tour? So it is very similar to a lot of other athletic training, just a different kind of end game, so to speak, in terms of what their capabilities need to be. It's like with any sport, and I used to tell the students that I would have as athletic training students that you have to look at the team you're working with and know what is required of them in each thing and even watch people coach them and decide if I'm going to rehab them, what am I doing specifically for that sport? If it's a thrower, if it's a swimmer, if it's a runner, I need to know specific things I need to do to get them back to full rehabilitation. And so what I did was spent about two months just watching what they did in training and say, all right, when I go to do my rehab, these are the things that I'm going to need to incorporate in the functional training to get them back to full 100%. Is there differences because of the loading that these guys are under a lot of times with heavy packs? It seems like to me that's one of the differences between training for a marathon or another body weight endurance sport versus the types of things that these operators do. They carry a lot of gear. Would you say that that's accurate? In the early phases of training, the heavy gear is just moved from one place to another. It's not something that they're really training with. They will eventually step that up and move that up until then they get later phases. But most of the problems we run into are things that involve endurance, whether it's a run, whether it's a swim, whether it's an obstacle course, and we have to get them ready to be able to handle those and repeat those over and over and over again.  I would say there is certainly an increase in volume. Some people come in trained too much for it already and any addition that is made to their training puts them over the edge. The people who are peaking slowly have less problems and that's what Bud's prep does and that's what Beau does is to try to peek you and bring you along slowly. Most of that works fairly well. Many people come in way over trained and become stale, as they say in athletics, and therefore start on the down slope even though they're going to slowly start increasing what they have been doing. I think it would be helpful if maybe you kind of unpack that a little bit talking about the progression of the scale or intensity. You're talking kind of about like peaking in terms. Do you mean condition or wear on the body? Can you maybe unpack that a little bit? I would say more than anything else from injury-wise, it's the wear on the body. On the physical therapy side, 60% of the injuries that we see on a daily basis are stress fractures. 60% are stress fractures. And so we have to slowly build them up and if they do get a stress fracture we have to again start at ground zero and build that up slowly. So that's what I mean by that with prep students, they start them doing a little bit of running and try to increase that as time goes along and try to make it go faster. When they get to here, again in basic orientation, again it starts a little bit slow trying to show you what you're doing and doing it once in a while and increasing it as you get into first phase you will then have everything thrown at you every day and then when you get to hell week it runs on 24 hours a day. So it peaks, the progression does that gives them the ability if you're doing this right to be able to handle that peak but some people come in too high already or they try to do extra beyond what is needed to be at that phase and then it's too much for them when they add more. So is there a difference between what the SWIC recruits are seeing versus the SEAL recruits in this process? The SWIC and SEAL will start prep together and do everything the same in prep.  The BCT that the SWIC people will do will be a little bit modified. They won't be doing quite as much quantity but they will still be doing the same things that the SEAL people are doing. So again it's the same exact training they keep right on up until they break out and then there's just a slight variation as to the quantity that is done. You've mentioned the term bow a couple of times can you tell us about that, what that is, what that means? Bow is basic orientation. So when the students come from prep in Great Lakes they are all started out in basic orientation and it's a slow process of trying to learn what is required of them on a daily basis for their swims, for their runs, for the obstacle course, for their barracks inspection, personal inspection. It's a watered down advanced part of what's going to happen in the Hell Week or the tour or any other phase and so they slowly as the weeks go by will increase the intensity of what they're doing and the quantity of what they're doing. Okay, let's roll back maybe a few weeks or months in this kind of process. I'd imagine part of the reason why your voice will be so helpful here is being able to have these recruits hear you before they arrive and go through this orientation process. This is I think the kind of the jewel of being able to talk to you. What do you think these recruits should not do when they're preparing for their PSTs before they even arrive? I would have to say it's almost like getting ready for a track beat. You don't want to be training for a marathon to be able to do a one mile race and the same thing goes with preparing to go to basic training and then to go to prep and then to go to bow. If you're trying to do the amount quantity wise and the intensity that you're going to need further down the road you're going to break down beforehand. So it's important to remember there are requirements to pass the PST shoot for what you need to do to be prepared for those requirements and not worry about what you need to do to get through Hell Week in that the amount of mileage you need to put in or the amount of lift you need to put in or the amount of swimming you need to be in is nowhere near the amount that you're going to need later what you need to be able to do well at what you're going to do at a lower level but by being prepared to doing something at an upper level won't necessarily make you better and may break you down when you get to that upper level. I think that's a really important distinction to make because we've talked with a number of people through this process and there's a sense of continued reflection on the documents and the guides that have been well vetted and written for recruits through this process I think that there's a tendency especially coming from a very high performing collegiate background all these people are athletes to want to push, want to push, want to be the best want to be the top and I'm hearing that continuously don't push to the point where you're hitting your limits follow the measured approach the crawl, walk, run approach that's kind of been echoed by a few different people so it's good to hear that from you too it seems like the guides that are available for people and the training programs that are available for people are designed for your success they're not necessarily for the lowest people on the wrong to be able to get through there was a measured approach for a reason and it's not only just to get people in the right condition but to prevent long term injury. Absolutely right the people that I end up seeing for medical treatment are usually those people who have pushed too hard and that's why I was brought in because they felt that in the past if you were dropped because of medical reason many times you were left by the wayside and never really could get back into what was going on and they found that many of these people were some of the best athletes that they had and they just overtrained and they had a freak accident and got injured and what we wanted to do is take that out and say hey we want people like that we want people who will push themselves but let's give them a framework to work in and rather instead of just going crazy and doing a lot to say here's the measured amount you need to do to get better and that's what we have honed over the years to say I know exactly what it takes for you to have a fracture to get back to running full and I know how many weeks it takes and how much intensity I have to do at each one and if you add more to that you're probably going to get injured again and I've seen it time and time again as it is with the people who have followed the pattern and I'll just say with stress fractures we've dealt with stress fractures I've had 148 guys I've used the Alter G which is a gravity assisted running and of those people all of them have passed only 6 people were re-injured which is about 4% and the history with stress fractures is that if you've had one it's the best predictor of getting another one and you have a 40% chance of being re-injured if you've had a stress fracture so we've been able to hone that down to about 4% which is amazing I'm going off on lectures at colleges and universities to talk about that to try to help them with what we're doing but that's what we're saying we have done this, we have seen this we have a measured approach as to how much you do and the word we try to get at you beforehand is don't wait to get hurt to do this measured amount do the measured amount beforehand so we can bring you along gradually through the training throughout the cycle so for the people that don't have a world-class rehab facility whenever they're in the earlier stages of training is there anything you can say to them about comparing the type of pain that's causing injury versus the pain of your muscles burning can you speak to that a little bit? well, again looking at most of when to stop I guess most of the people we've had are athletes of some sort whether they're swimmers or water polo players ice hockey players they have an idea from high school training or college training about what I need to do to get in shape and there is that soreness when you start getting in shape but after that it never should be a real soreness, you should say hey I got a good workout but you never should be getting sore that the next day I don't think I can do it if you're doing that and you're getting more sore each day then you already started over training and that's one of the best things that we're trying to say is that yes there should be a breakdown but there also has to be recovery you just can't keep pushing every day although you can do running one day swimming a day, biking a day almost like a triathlete and say hey that will get me there I'm part of my body a chance to take off but I'm still working towards the end and that's the approach we push with the patients who are already injured but certainly is necessary for the people who are just starting out so let's say you're earlier on in this process maybe you're six months into training for your PST and maybe you sustain an ankle injury or you determine that you maybe might have stress fractures I'd imagine it's very important and even more so later on in the process to be able to maintain your engine your cardiovascular capability through an injury is there anything you can recommend to people that might be quote nursing an injury early in this process to be able to keep their fitness level up instead of just drowning out? Absolutely we always keep the conditioning when we have somebody who is injured and again we'll use stress fractures as an example because it's one of the most prevalent injuries that we see those people even if they are injured in our crutches they are working out and their workout for aerobically will be sitting in the seat and doing an upper body arm bike or they'll be swimming and eventually if they're off crutches we may have them biking and changing the speeds and resistance and things like that so they're constantly doing aerobic conditioning and then we will eventually take them along to what the phases of running is concerned but if they had an upper body injury with swimming say or the obstacle course again they're on the bike and they're pedaling way or if they can run they will run so they will constantly keep their aerobic base going all the time but we have to work to the specifics of what their injuries are and rehab that injury and then incorporate that into their fitness once they're capable of doing it yeah so it seems like a little bit of that can be done with common sense on your own if you're in the early stages of this training process do something that you can do and try to keep the intensity level going absolutely except for the one machine that we have is gravity specific everything else is something that you would have in the basement of your house a bicycle a medicine ball some dumbbells there is nothing that I use in the rehab that involves anything complicated at all and have stations set up that people will be doing squats or they'll be doing lunges or they'll be doing hamstring curls they will be doing planks they will be doing sit ups dips, pull ups there's constantly things that they can do that involve no special equipment at all and that's what we try to teach them is that you don't need to have big heavy weights of 400 pounds to be able to get through this you need to move your body weight and be able to push that through what is required of you if you could be the voice in a young recruits ear who sees these really quote macho characters who are almost beyond superhuman doing things that people would love to be able to do with their bodies they're strong people obviously there's a focus on strength that I think maybe is a little misplayed I think a lot of the most successful candidates are endurance athletes like I've heard from other people maybe you could maybe summarize a little bit about that kind of philosophy that people have need to be the strongest people on the block to be able to make it through this program is that true or maybe you can give some information there I would say in the eight years that I've been here there are certainly many seal operators who are pretty big, strong, intense but not to the numbers we see on movies or TV shows now that our average guy to be able to do what he has to do is an endurance athlete and I had an operator one time tell me he needs to be able to carry our heaviest weapon 10 miles he doesn't have to carry 10 weapons one mile so they don't need to be that big and that strong to do it they have to be big enough and strong enough to move things and move themselves with heavy backpacks and stuff but the heavier they are themselves the more chance they have of injury and the more difficulty they will have trying to get over the obstacle course or trying to make four mile runs so they have to get strength but again, more than anything else they need endurance the activities they call for and are posed the most strain on are going to be the tour and hell week and it's difficult to make it through if you're too big so I guess maybe if you could be the word of wisdom for these young people to kind of instill some discipline into them on maybe self reflection of what really is needed to get through what kind of advice would you give for people in terms of taking a look at themselves and seeing what should be their goals and such in terms of their physical fitness I think their goals should be what their PST is first what do they need to do to pass the PST and do well do you need to be really strong, have a heavy bench press or a squat to do it I don't think so and that is the first objective they have a need to pass that and do well with it which is going to include speed and endurance and some strength but it's not going to be an over amount of any one of those as they move further down the line in their training they're going to ask more of them and the more of it will be more endurance than it will be strength so be very careful of not trying to do too much of one thinking it will carry over into one of the other fields of swimming or endurance running knowing that that is one of the many measures and so what happens with push-ups after a while of Hell Week especially I tell them the only time you really need neck exercise is when you get to Hell Week the strength you're going to need is on the obstacle course climbing over that doing, climb up the tower things like that and that's what I put in my training is what what are some parts of the obstacle course because that's something I know you're going to have to do outside let's make sure that you have the strength and endurance to do it in here and then I'll let you go to the opposite course and do one obstacle how'd you do that and we move them along like that so none of it has involved that hey I need to get your bench press up or your hand clean up or anything like that I don't do any of that at all we work on muscles that are not even shown in most strength things they're shown mostly in rehab because that's what's injured most of your shoulder, glutes, hamstrings things that people it's not glorified they don't see it but when a seal breaks down a seal instructor breaks down those are the things that happen and we say to them wow if you'd have done this way back when you probably wouldn't need this shoulder operation as a 30 year old operator Pitt was involved in some big studies there and I looked at all the injuries that the seals had and I saw well a lot of these are the same as what these guys are getting in our training if I show them this now hopefully it'll carry through their career that they'll do that twice a week and be able to keep from being an operator because we take care of the seal and swick instructors too and the injuries that they have which are much worse now because they're in an operable condition are the same exact things that the kids get other than stress fractures most of the guys have gotten smart enough they're not running much anymore or they know exactly how much they need to run but that's where you look at and see Are there any we mentioned stress fractures are there any other major issues that you see with people coming quote off the street when they enter into buds that you would like to maybe kind of nip in the bud or along the lines in the guide that you would like to address I would say shoulder and back are two big things and the shoulder is the rotator cuff very few people do much of it they really only think of it with the throwing injury but the rotator cuff is very important in all the things that you do because it stabilizes your shoulder before you do any exercise and it's not shown in a weight room as an exercise it's going to make you look big and strong because it's three tiny little muscles that are underneath the deltoids that nobody sees but if they go and they always go first because they're very small and very weak then you can't do anything else or you dislocate your shoulder you tear your labrum and it can all be prevented by doing some rotator cuff exercises and they are simple exercises we call them the T where you take dumbbells light dumbbells and lift them in the front and the side and the back external rotation exercise we're relying on your side and bring your arm up and one exercise for the super spinatus which is called the empty can and those exercises are done as a preventative thing but they are the base if you don't have a good rotator cuff you have difficulty in the obstacle course boats overhead, logs overhead all those things but also in bench pressing every year in football when springtime come around and everybody's trying to do their maximum weights I would have football players with shoulder injuries and most of it was rotator cuff from trying to bench press and build up those muscles but do nothing for the rotator cuff and I would just back off on how much they were lifting work on the rotator cuff and they'd get better and then we could increase the weight so it's important to keep that as a basis all the time that I have a strong rotator cuff and it's not more than 15 pounds it's needed I mean it's a very light weight that anybody can have in their basement to do four simple exercises for strengthening for that the other is the back one of the most common injuries not only in our environment but in society in general and people will want to do all kinds of exercises and involve bending over and twisting and lifting which are the worst things that you can do for your back people who have disc injuries people who have stress fractures of their back are usually from bending over and lifting something without getting your feet underneath you almost like a squat to pick it up and so if you do those as exercise as prevention you're actually doing the worst thing you can do because that's what injures you so it's more important to do the tiny little muscles that are around the spine that you can strengthen just by doing planks and you can do a front plank and a side plank and a back plank and all variations you can do it for time there are all kinds of ways you can do it but those strengthen the core muscles around your spine and then you can start doing sit ups and extensions only if your core is strong and those simple things which involve 15 pounds at the most and or your body weight will prevent most of the other injuries that we say so focus a little bit more on some of the less glamorous exercises it seems in support of the bigger body parts and muscle groups that's a very good point I think a lot of people totally miss on how many times we've seen people in the gym doing curls and doing bench press and these are the quote strong guys in the gym and then next you know right there on crutches or the shoulder so basically we've started kind of from the top and we're working our way down by talking what I just did about shoulder and then the core the next would be your legs which would be most of the people will spend it doing squats or lunges or something that's going to be working on their quads and do very little for their glutes and their hamstrings and again it should be a balance there should be a balance of the percentage of strength from your quads to your hamstrings and we see this with problems with hip injuries later on and again just like the shoulder we may see it as a strain of the muscles in the hip or we may see it as a labral tear which again is cartilage in the hip just like in the shoulder or we may see it that you may have sciatica nerve problems things like that because of poor position now because your quads are so much more dominant than your hamstrings and so again I've seen this with all sports throughout high school and college was the emphasis is on I need to have this strong quads and yes you do but if the ratio becomes such that you have a 5 to 1 ratio in many cases let's say you could squat 500 pounds I'm sure we could hardly find anybody that could curl 100 pounds with their hamstrings so again that's why I say it's a 5 to 1 ratio and when you work out I mean when I'm running and doing something explosive that ratio has to be 1 to 1 if my quad strength is 5 times what my hamstring strength is where do you think the injury is going to happen and where do we see this in the NFL and baseball what is the major injury you see that they say oh we have a hamstring and no one understands why we have it well I can tell you if your leg is extending with a 500 pound force and you only have a 100 pound force to slow it down to keep it from hyper extending after a while it's either going to fatigue or it's going to be overcome by that strength and so that's what we need to think about is yes you need to do the quad work but remember there's a balance a front the back and everything we do when the shoulder is what I talked about yes you can do bench press but you also have to do the posterior part of your shoulder here yes you can do squats and lunges but you have to remember I have to do some hip extension work I have to do some hamstring curls to try to balance it out and get the ratio better this can even prevent some things like the runner's knee because again you're so quad dominated that in a true running form you should be more glute dominated and if we get those stronger and get that explosion it's supposed to be the biggest strongest muscle in your body well there's a reason for that because it's supposed to be one that explodes to drive you forward and so you want to strengthen those glutes and strengthen the hamstrings to balance it out if you don't you'll have knee problems so we see that also so in terms of maybe the lower extremities ankle, knees and such a lot of that seems to be just volume of training wear and tear or is there any preventative maintenance that can be done there there is preventative maintenance and again if you look at many athletes from their knees down they haven't done anything they may do some calf raises that's usually common they're straight leg calf raises and they've got a barbell on their shoulders or they have leg press and they put their feet out there and that's all they do and that's good in most cases but in reality it only really helps the gastroc right and there are two muscles that are in the lower leg that are combined and that's the gastroc and soleus and the soleus attaches below the knee and so you actually have to do the exercise bent leg also so we teach that yes you want to do the straight leg but you also need to be seated with the weight on your thighs and do calf raises that way so you involve the soleus and the soleus is really the muscle that you use more for running because your knee should be slightly bent as you're running you really don't get to full extension of your leg until the very last push-off okay so you need that soleus in there most people don't do that at all and also with their stretching they don't do a stretch they may do the straight-legged stretch but they won't do with a bent knee and you need to stretch one straight-legged and one bent because again their attachments are above and below the knee but not only just those because again now we've emphasized the back of the leg we have nothing to the front or the side and that's again where we see a lot of problems with the stress-related problems is that the anterior portion where your anterior tib is lifts your foot up and toes when we're running in soft sand there's a lot of that going on and they have difficulty with boots even lifting that up high enough and so they start using that a lot so you need to do some anterior tib raises and again it's not a lot of weight it's a thousand foot strikes per mile so you need something you can do a lot of repetitions with now I can't tell somebody go out and do a thousand reps of that but you need something with resistance whether it's your hand whether it's a towel whether it's a band and get sets of 20 sets of 50 that you're doing that motion and so we get to the ankle instability when we are running in soft sand or on the beach and you're stepping something you have to have the ability to be able to handle all the different directions because your ankle is going to do it so that means you have to do an inversion and eversion and again if you use your towel your hand or again a resistance band and go through those motions and use your pronious longest use your posterior tib muscle those are muscles that again we don't require any extra equipment we don't require any more time any more resistance it's just a matter of getting those repetitions and the last thing I'd say is that one of the exercises I have to do with our stress fracture guys is to just throw a towel out on the floor and curl it up with your feet just like you'd be curling up with your hands and your toes because the muscles that flex your toes are running up the inside of your leg and they also support your arch and so if I strengthen those and get those used to repetitions that will make it that I might not have as much difficulty running in soft sand and boots and also prevent plantar fasciitis too so I mean there you know we've basically gone from the shoulders down a lot of simple little exercises that balance out things that you're already doing those are the preventive things that we see are neglected and they end up being the things that get injured I think that's a really good summary one thing I think that would be helpful if you covered yes is the reason why a lot of these bigger muscle group movements are predominately focused on in a lot like you said football strength whatever because they're impressive numbers and they're measurable where it's like a lot more difficult to maybe do some of that type of measurement with like the exercise you mentioned about curling a towel with your feet what ways can people measure these types of movements really simply maybe you can talk to that a little bit and it leaves in using objective measurements in the lifting that we do and I want to know exactly how much somebody is lifting and what they need to be as I feel over 46 years of doing this knowing it takes this amount of strength to be able to prevent that as a rotator cuff if an athlete you can't do 15 pounds you're probably going to have problems so I know that if I'm starting with five I know where I need to get to and can make those do that and that's why we ask for repetitions instead but you can't even push that a little bit and again trying to get as objective as possible say with the towel curl exercises you again start out and they get easy and you're doing 50 of them then put a book on it build it up and if that gets easy put your boots on it and pull it in or put a cement block or something on there that makes it more difficult but again you're going to do 1,000 foot strikes per mile during some of this training you're going to be running 6 to 10 miles a day so you need to prepare yourself for that now again I'm not asking that you do 1,000 to 6,000 but you need to be doing sets of 20 sets of 30 so that your body at least knows what to do and you can start strengthening those muscles great a lot like we talked we've mentioned that there's not a tremendous amount of equipment that's required for you to be able to hit your PST number and come into Bud's right and we talk about endurance being very important can you talk a little bit about footwear I think there's some trends out there for barefoot style running shoes and or running barefoot and sand all this kind of stuff but they won't have that option when they get there they will just be boots there's no and the boots they get were the ones that everybody's issued we can't even change the style after they're into second phase so the footwear that they're going to wear I would tell them not to train in that and it'll it'll throw off their mechanics and it's more important to have good mechanics and run properly and I would say more towards the barefoot and that you'll have a better style and then as you add shoes as you add boots your body you don't have to adapt to that but I certainly don't recommend people going barefoot who haven't run barefoot before again with anything you now add a new exercise it's a shock to your body and again I want to add steps of how many repetitions or how many days a week I do that and it's a matter of adjusting for your body to the stresses and new stresses that you're adding to it and I think in that I've been doing it for about six years watching these guys run and we've got all these stress fractures and again it probably best again to get them early or to get them up a prep and I'm not moving to Chicago I can tell you that right now I moved from New Jersey here 13 years ago and there was a reason but you know when I was trying to get them ready they had to be able to pass their four mile run out of the line as you said didn't matter about push ups pull ups sit ups they had to pass their four mile run if they didn't pass it no matter what we did rehab they were out so I'm going like how do I make them most efficient I know the stress fracture guys I know that they've got to wear the boots I know it doesn't matter if I put an orthotic in it or not it's going to be in the ocean wet and sandy that's not going to happen those pants and I know it's always a four mile run and I know what the time is 32 minutes then 31 then 30 so how do I know that when I'm teaching them to get back to running I'm making them the most efficient that I can they're broken for whatever reason how do I know that if I do this and make them better they can so at that time a tour group came through Alberto Salazar I don't know if anybody's familiar with him at all he's been working for Nike and has taken the US and the world's best distance runners and worked with them and Alberto was coming through and it just was timely that I'm about that same time scratching my head going you know I can get the limp out of somebody I can make them stronger but is this the best they can be with what they have and so I posed that to him and I said you know I don't really know that and again having worked athletics for over 40 years you know this is the most efficient way and he goes well I coached that we'd never beat the Kenyans if we didn't take care of everything including technique and diet and sleep I said wow I'd love to learn and he goes come on up and see so I went up to Nike at his invitation and the first thing he did he sat me in front of a computer and said watch these high speed films and then talk me through what they were doing and then he showed me foot plate films of how the foot was landing and then we went to Galen is the 10 time 10,000 meter champ of the U.S. and Silver medalist and 10,000 meters in London and only the second time he ever ran the marathon got the bronze medal in the last Olympics so he go not a bad runner I guess he's done something right with him and he's coached him since he was in high school and so he had Galen on the treadmill and went absolutely you know here's what he's doing here's what I'm watching here's what I'm coaching here's what I'm trying and it was like some of the things that happened and so that night I stayed up there for three nights I'm a runner myself I've been running for over 50 years and tried one of the things on myself and it's like wow that feels a lot better and it's like wow that's right next day tried something different and I kept feeling better with it and so I got back and I started doing research on the medical side to say alright if I'm more efficient to make me faster so started looking at each thing on research-wise I went through about 200 research articles and said when you break them down individually yes they do and so started putting that together and so I started teaching my guys who had stress fractures and the first thing I remember was an ice hockey player from Brown University had bilateral stress fractures and you watch him run on the treadmill and he went oh my god he looks like he's still ice skating you know it's like one of these all over the place had trouble doing what I call the faster program and he got better he even said to me like my legs would always get tight as soon as I started running my shins would and I don't feel that at all it's like oh that was a good sign and eventually he got and got out and running he ended up passing going through Howick and everyone else he said he knocked three minutes off his four mile time and now is on the teams on the east coast he's been there for a couple years because he's been doing this for about two and a half years and that's the background that I come from I have never really looked at that and started looking at it and as you would think with stress fractures it was swimmers water polo players ice hockey players and we always used to say hey it was bone density and yet we do bone density tests and calcium tests and vitamin D and everybody be within normal limits but you look at these guys and watch them run to evaluate the first time and he went oh my gosh no one's ever shown you how to run because you didn't need it to be a good ice hockey player but you're not a good runner so I found out keeping track again over all this time over 75% of the guys who got stress fractures are from sports that are non-running sports and you know already name it if you're a soccer player football player lacrosse player you could still get it most of the time it's from over training I actually filmed the guys for 15 seconds from the side and 15 from the back and watched the mechanics and then we sit down from the app and go over each of the six things and we've had great success with it and the whole point is again not over training when I start training back again I don't ever let them even do a four mile run they do intervals where they're doing 30 second intervals short recovery and do that for three miles maybe or they're doing minute intervals that we're trying to build up their strength and their aerobic capacity but not trying to just do mindless miles and that's what I see kids do is to get ready for the PST or to get ready for the four mile run I'm going to run eight to ten miles a day and that'll be easier yes it'll be easier but you won't necessarily be faster because you never worked on the mechanics and you never worked on the speed and power that you need to do to be faster if you didn't use more muscle fibers to go faster you can't go faster I don't care if you ran 20 miles you're not going to be a fast miler if you didn't do speed work to be that fast so that's what we try to teach so I'll just as a wrap up that's much too long yeah no no I think you touched on a very important part it's where I got a rebirth at 68 years old to say wow you know this is something that's untouched why just because you learned how to run when your kid didn't mean you learned the best way to run actually the command sold that 100% of the guys would run they said well it's better than the rest and we had guys who weren't injured and weren't passing the four mile run they asked me to work with those guys for a while and all of them passed again just doing simple mechanics and doing shorter distance but faster and a short recovery in between intervals as such and you know everybody made it so again something that should be pushed earlier to say do some intensity get some short recovery so that you're still pushing the heart and do that intensity again and you'll do a lot better than just doing multiple miles of you know the slow easy job yeah so in summary if you had the ear of somebody who's going to be entering in this process in 15 seconds what would be the quick elevator pitch to this kid that's going to enter the process so I'd say balance front to back quads to hands shoulder and endurance think of yes I need strength but I need to be able to do it multiple times for a long period of time and so it's more important to have that endurance factor to get through the early part of our training later on as it become a seal they become specific but right now they need to be able to make it through the training and the training involves endurance are there any resources available to these potential candidates to prevent this type of training guide and there are also some rehabilitation exercises that are shown on videos that they should be able to understand and be able to apply all these techniques well we're out of time thank you so much for joining us it's been really really helpful good


This paper presents a novel approach to creating a high-density genetic map of Bali using complete and accurate genetic marker datasets. This map was created using 2,943 genetic markers distributed over 975 marker bins, with a total genetic distance of 1099 cm. Additionally, the authors examined the recombinational behavior of the genome, finding evidence of low recombination rates in pericentric regions. Finally, the authors also demonstrated the utility of their genetic map by comparing it to a genetic map of rice, showing that the map provides excellent marker density and sensitivity for detecting minor alleles in narrow libred germ plasms. This article was authored by Soto Kazuhiro, SZCS Peter, Fushne Rajivkay and others.