violent and dangerous.  You know, like extremists, like I'm an extremist. Also, I'm using that extremism in the way of my passion for animals and my passion for veganism, like activism, the way I wanna, like for me, like the way I speak about this, about veganism to my friends and people that I meet and I can be very intense. The psychology of a champion mindset and to overcome obstacles and pain and fear in whatever it is, yours is fighting. But it's what you learn along the way that's interesting for everyone. Again, I guess I would say it was more like diet, right? At first, but not long after that, I think I saw your videos and I saw a lot of, I researched a lot of stuff and I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. I'm already on the good side of history and I'm already on the good side of my health. What you're doing is way bigger than you thought. It's not just for, you know, for your veins and my arteries and you're actually like, you're doing it an ethical choice and a very good thing for humanity. I'm like, wow, and the animal kingdom. I'm like, this is what I need to do. We tend to put down this atrocious thing. Like I said, I've never been to a slaughterhouse yet, but we can understand the atrocities that are happening there. So for me, it's mass murder on the daily. You put yourself on the victim's perspective. Well, it's a genocide. So here we got Dave LaDuke here. Dave LaDuke, how you going, my brother? Good one. You're spending some time with Dave LaDuke. Dave LaDuke's a Burmese bare-knuckle fighting champion. I didn't really know much about the sport, but I've been looking into it and it is the most brutal sport on earth. It is, there's nothing really more violent that's legal on earth, really. Yeah, it's the last remaining sport where you can do headbutts that it's legal. It makes it illegal in most countries, but it makes it a very interesting sport. Yeah, but why would I be talking to a bare-knuckle fighter?  Absolutely.  But we're gonna get to that, but I'm gonna get to your transformation and stuff, but it's just very interesting to have someone involved with fighting sports who's also a vegan and how that transition happened. Yeah, there's not that many. There's not that many. There's not that many. Why? Why do you think? I think there's this misconception, again, there's stigma that you need to eat animal, that animal flesh to be strong. I was raised that way. I was raised with those commercial quarter pounds and you need to eat meat to be strong and barbecue, and it gives that image that you need that to be strong. And I guess we'll talk about this. There's a decline in my mind that like, first of all, the best thing I can do for my health is avoid this and remove it completely, and but also the best, the biggest strength is to take care of the innocent ones, not to oppress them and to enslave them and to kill them. I think this is the biggest sign of strength. I think a man can do is to be protective of the weaker ones. So in fighting sports, particularly, it's going to attract a certain type of person, isn't it? Like someone who's, there's usually an ego battle in the ring. So do you think they're the type of people who are less likely to take animal issues seriously? Very good question. I think, I don't speak for all the vegans, but I think it takes a certain amount of realization and compassion. And like you said, there's a lot of ego in fighting. You have to actually, I think in order to go to fighting, you have to have some kind of childhood traumas and have some traumas. Like you want to show, like for me personally, I wanted to show myself because I was told by everybody growing up that I was tall and slender and slim. I thought like I was under the impression I was tall that was weak. So I wanted to show it. I guess everybody, society and myself that like, look, it doesn't matter if my body type, I can **** you up, you know.  So where did you grow up? Grew up in a small town in Gatineau, Quebec. It's a French province in Canada. So Canada is bilingual. It is only one province that is French, you know, lumberjacks back in the days. And yeah, that's my French town. So my first language is French. So what was growing up like in this small, is it like a small village?  So what's it like growing up then? What are your parents like? Great, great childhood, I believe, you know, didn't miss of anything. My parents were great. I was, I think I was having some, I wanted more to life. I was not like, I was a kind of nomad in my mind. So I ended up being a nomad and traveling. I didn't like to be, I didn't like to be sedentary. So I wanted to move. So the big element was I got kicked out of the house at 17, 18 years old, which was the most traumatizing event in my life. Didn't have any money. I was basically left in the cold. It was minus 30 degrees Celsius at the time, middle of the winter in Quebec, it's cold. And I remember like calling my friends and picking me up. I had a bag with almonds.   For survival, for survival. Exactly. And then I put some crab dinners and some cans, goods in the snow so I can come back the next day to pick up some food because I like, what do I eat otherwise? So it was a bit, a bit hard. And also like the feeling of, obviously there was, it's a deep issue, but the feeling of not being loved. I believe like, you know, you have to leave the house. So does that mean like you don't love me? You know, does that mean? So it was a very- Why did you have to leave the house? What happened?  Big, big fight with my dad. Not physically. That's the thing. Before it became physical, he said like, you have to leave. So I'm like, okay, well I'm leaving. So I again, didn't have anything to my name and I just left. It was a very transformative time. So I, and that's the moment I started going full on into martial art. I was never, I think prone to do drugs or do, you know, trouble. I was a good kid, but I think it saved my life in a way that it made me a better man, you know? It made me the guy that I am. I went, all my energy was focused on to, you know, fighting and punching bag.  Maybe become good and then police gets involved. I don't know what I would have ended up if I didn't find martial arts at that time. So you get, you leave your house, kind of get kicked out-ish from your house. I don't have a big time. Like, you're leaving. Out, you're out in the snow, you're fending for yourself. And what do you mean you found martial arts? A friend of mine was training. He said, like, why don't you come join the class? So I joined the class and I think I had, like, $500 to my name and I paid for the year. Like, I said, okay, I'm just like, I'm committed. Like, there is no way out. So I paid and the rest is history. So I found martial art. And I found a way, I found a mentor to Sifu Pat, my coach who taught me everything I know about martial arts. What type of martial arts? It was the Kung Fu school. And the, like, the kickboxing aspect of Kung Fu is called Sanda. It's a Chinese martial art from China. And yeah, I started training this but I love the, I love also the ground, like grappling. We need to grapple. Yeah, no, not just now because I've got an injury but I will smash you later. Perfect, perfect. So you got the perfect thing that you would need as a lost youth. You have some social setting, you know, you have a leader or mentor and you have something to do and to focus on because I didn't have any of those things. And you know where I ended up on drugs and gangs and in prison. So that, and there are gangs in Canada. It is, yeah. And drugs and all that stuff. And you need a good leader, right? Not any leader. So you can find bad mentors as well, right? Exactly. And I found mentors, male figures in gangs and things like that. That you found in the martial arts setting and that must have given you good mental training as well as physical, yeah? Yeah, for sure. Like it's not only martial art. Like that's the thing. Coaches like leaders in martial art schools, they kind of, you know, they do late night talks. So it becomes more than fighting. Yeah, like give you like a second kind of family sort of thing, yeah? That time that I needed it, yeah. So you were learning martial arts, how dedicated are you at this point? So I'm training pretty hard. I don't have a goal yet until my coach talks about Black Belt Magazine and it's like a famous magazine in the world and he talks about Burmese fighting. So I see this and I'm like, wow, Burmese fighting. And again, that's, I'm very, I have goosebumps because it's a good question. I always, at that time, the reason why I got into a fight is because I was getting, I was speaking a lot at school. I was a black sheep. I was always being different. I liked, I was a bit of a troublemaker, a good, funny troublemaker. Professors liked me, but still I was talking a lot and, you know, making trouble. I was having good grades because I was just brilliant. But yeah, so then just leads up to the fact that I like Burmese fighting, Burmese-Bernacool fighting, you know, headbutts allowed. It's very, very weird and very unorthodox, you know? It's because I found out it was the black sheep of martial art. It was different. It was, it was standing out. I always wanted to stand out. The reason why I didn't want to stay to Canada as well. I wanted to move because I wanted to move out. I wanted to stand out. So I guess if we can sit, I was a little bit of a, I was lost, you know, in a way. And I like, I like different things. So I fell in love with Burmese fighting as soon as I heard about this. So it's not just different. It's not just like something not many people do. It's also incredibly violent and dangerous.  You know, like extremists, like I'm in extremists. Also, I'm using that extremism in the way I, my passion for animals and my passion for veganism, like activism, the way I want to, like for me, like the way I speak about this, about veganism to my friends and people that I meet, I can, I can be very intense, like, you know? So my, I'm a very extremist guy. Yeah. We're so very similar. Intent personalities. Yes. So, I mean, life is short. So why not live it to the fullest? Intensity, exactly. So you're at this martial art school. When do you first start training for that specific sport? Yeah. So in a way to resume all you just said, I like pain, I think. I was, I was, because I wasn't probably in pain. I shouldn't make me realize a lot of things. I was in pain inside of me, right? Like being kicked out and all these things. And also just pain of like, who am I? What do I want to be? Where do I want to go?  Maybe it was a kind of like a meditation for me. I don't know. You know what I mean? It's therapeutic. It's therapeutic. You were traumatized. Yeah. And it's still to this day, I don't mind it.   We've been doing a bit of training together and he's quite rough. That's, that's spaces. I think there's two, there's two, I think you notice like there's the guy in the ring and there's a guy in life. And I don't know it's, I guess it's weird, but yeah, I, I like to be as kind as I can and as, as good as I can outside of the ring and, and I mean business when I'm in the ring, you know? And that's why in a way for people at home, it kind of explains Burmese martial art to the best because they have a quote. It's like be as humble as a lamb outside and like as brutal as a warrior, you know, the biggest fearless warrior in the ring. And I, I felt, I fell in love with that culture when I went to Myanmar, you know? So I relate to them very much on that aspect. Like less than I relate to be honest to, to my Canadian culture, which that's more like the lack of culture in a way. We kind of lost it over the years. It's like fighting is not, it's not present in Canada as much. It's very niche in Myanmar. It's 55 million people and it's their religion, like grandmothers, kids. They all go to the stadium and they cheer. Like it's, it's intense. It's, and I like that. And, but it's outside of the ring. It's how I like their brothers, you know? We're friends and everybody's kind. So it's interesting.  It's a very interesting place. And actually you put it on the map for me because I didn't know about, I know about Thailand. I know about Vietnam. I know about the surrounding areas, but Myanmar, I didn't really know until you started posting it. It's like in the shadow of the world for like a hundred years or something because of the colonization and economic sanctions around the world. It was a military coup as well. So it was like you cannot enter. It was very hard to enter. And I kind of, my career flourished at the perfect time because Myanmar opened to the world when I was ready to, you know, I was like in my prime. So yeah, I guess we're a bit in advance. Like that was in 2016 when I first went to Myanmar. So obviously this style of fighting, there's no gloves in that. But when you're training, so I want to know how you got to the point where you were jumping in the ring for your first fight. Like what is the workup? Like how do you prepare for a fight with bare knuckles with gloves and sparring and things like this? Explain your training up to this point in your first fight. I think we spoke about this, like, you know, do you train with no gloves? Yeah, I train with gloves because I want to protect the, I call it the weapons, right? I want to protect the weapons for the fight. You don't want to injure like your blade on a rock or something before the fight. It's going to be blunt, right? So you want to, I don't want any injuries when I go into the fight.   He probably can't speak. He's French weirdo. Yes, it's true. But I'm very cautious in training. I'm all about longevity. I want to have, I just have my son. I want to be, I think it's something that's very underappreciated. I train very carefully and now I'm in a ring. That's Guala, but it's, you know, the ring is... It's very interesting. It's like a dichotomy here, a contradiction. It's like you're very careful outside the ring and you do one of the most dangerous brutal sports in the world. Inside the ring, which is a, it's good that you have that balance anyway. I mean, it would be kind of counterintuitive.  Cause a lot of guys actually, like they go sparring. We call it like full, full, like very aggressive sparring. I am against that. I want to, I don't want to get knocked out. And I don't want to knock out my training partners as well. Cause they don't want to spar with me if I just knock them out all the time. So I try to be like technical and my coach taught me something called the warrior cry. The warrior cry is like that brings, that makes me able. I spoke, I told you about this. Like to be able to bring the, the, call it the demon out or the energy out at the right time. So you don't want to, you're not getting paid in training. You're not, you're not, you're not trying to kill your opponent right now. The goal is to keep that energy and channel it for the ring. So I, I basically do a big screen before the fight and it really brings all my energy when I need it. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can people learn to apply that switch like outside of life, but not in a, you know, fighting way, you know, when they need it, when they feeling like tie it down, burnt out, you know, they need to put, they put in the extra work. They need to switch. I think Tony Robbins spoke about the trigger. He's like, I think he was saying I, I hit my chest before doing a speech. Like there's some kind of triggers. I'm sure it's doable. I'm sure it's doable for the fighting aspect.  It's not into everybody. You can teach, you know, languages. You can teach computer skills and stuff like that. But like fighting, like you can know all the, all the techniques, but then you get one shot in the face.  Well, I don't want to get my nose broken. Like, you know, this, it's, it's interesting. I think you need to have some kind of trauma inside. I really believe like, you know, you have to, you have to want to prove it either to yourself or to somebody else. You want, you need to be in a certain space in your mind to want to be, to go inside willingly against somebody that wants to hurt you. Again, trained at least again. It's still, it's still very odd. You know, it's still very interesting. So for me, fighting does not define me.  I'm a fighter inside, outside and outside the ring. But like fighting professionally is just one part of me, who I am, you know, like I, I do way more things in my life. Yeah, it's just, it's what brought me, it's brought me to the world. Like, that's what makes me, made me popular. But I, I want to use that channel and I'm a part of things. Of course. It's just a, for me, the psychology of a champion mindset and to overcome obstacles and pain and fear in whatever it is, right? Yours is fighting. But it's what you learn along the way that's interesting for everyone. Like most people watching this aren't fighters. I'm not a fighter anymore.  Exactly. Like, there's things I don't want to do. Like, I don't want to always go out and do uncomfortable activism and go up against farmers and there's people who are upset with me, da, da, da, da, da. But if I have something that I can take from your mindset that can help shield me for the fight of life, then that's something that everyone can take. I think, you're a good point. I think the main takeaway is like, if you need to do something and your brain, you say, okay, this is something I need to be doing. Don't over thinking, just do it. So basically like, I knew that at that time I need to go in that ring to make some money for me and my wife to be, to survive. So like, there was no question. Like, that's what I'm able body to. That was, that's what I was doing. I was not doing any other thing in my life. So at that time I need to go fight against this killer from Myanmar. Do it, you know, and don't look back. So for you, for example, I need to go to that farm and, you know, scary. We just have to do it. Identify the thing you need to do and don't look back. Just do it. Yeah. So tell us about your prison fight. That's pretty crazy.  You went into a prison to fight a prisoner. Yeah, crazy time. I've been to prison and prison is filled with some pretty tough people. Prisons usually have some of the toughest people from that country within the prison, you know. So they're pretty, can be pretty scary places. Tell us how this happened. Why did you go into a prison to have a fight? Well, imagine like, you know, a maximum security prison in Thailand is also like not the same as like a prison in Canada or Australia, right? It's intense. So similar to the same line as like I wanted to be different. I wanted to do something different. Everybody was doing the same, the same fights, the same, they're almost always, everybody was going to the same goals. And then I saw a prison fight. I saw the commentary on vice. I said, okay, again, this is what I want to do. This is different. This is crazy. Let's go. Let's live to the fullest. But I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to get there. So I really dig deep. And I found like it was an Estonian promoter with an Iranian guy. And I started like just tracking them down online and finally got a hold of them. After winning some fights, I was able to get a fight. They said, okay, we'll get you in the prison. It almost didn't happen because they, you know, but I basically said like, I'm coming. I don't care. You know, I even have to pay me. So I was the only guy not paid. All the prisoners were paid. I wasn't even paid. You're still up for that? Yeah. I knew that this was going to put me on the map. It's going to bring me life, like lifetime memories, you know. And I wanted to fight in the prison. So why are they having fights in prisons? Yeah, good question. It's a real reputation program with the Thai Department of Corrections. And yeah, it's crazy. It's really cool. They think that like, this is national sport. It will help rehabilitation of the fighters. So in order to be in the program, you need to be, you know, a fighter. A lot of guys are fighters, like legit killers, but they did some mistakes. You know, some guy would did some, I think, rape. A guy murdered a guy because he touched his girlfriend. He was an actual Lumpini. He was a big stadium in Thailand. He was a good fighter, but he killed somebody with a knife because he was hitting on his girlfriend. All this to say like, I fought a guy who was a drug dealer for methamphetamine and you had like 13 years. And like, again, if they win, they get sentence reduction.  Like, I'm sure you train more than me. Like, I train once a day and he trains two times a day. Like they were like, because again, if they win, they get sentence reduction. So they really want to win. They want to win way more than you do. So it's a much more dangerous fight for you. Yeah, it was, yeah. And the name of the event was Prison Fight, Fight for Freedom, literally Fight for Freedom. So you're the one who they have to beat.   Like it's also, you know, it's interesting concept. Because first of all, I have my career to build, but he wants freedom. I'm, it's like, what do you do? I'm not going to give him for free. Like, you know, fight me. And yeah, it's a very, very intriguing concept. So how did the fight go? Like, let's go to the fight. So we go there, I was, I'm with my Turkish friend. Actually, my Turkish friend that lives here now. We go inside the prison. It's like metal doors. So again, we go there, they take her phones. I'm like, okay, so I have no way of talking to anybody if something hits, something happens. We go to the metal doors. We go inside now. I'm inside a prison yard. With no phone, with my Turkish friend, and like about 500 prisoners staring at us. There's one guard with us. With a, with a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a.  And that's where the prison like director is going to sit watching the fights. It's really like a movie. And it's an outdoor, like outdoor yard, obviously. So like it's the first time I was going to fight outdoors, usually it's inside a stadium, right? So it's pretty cool to fight during the day. Usually it's a nighttime fights. And then we go and we start getting ready.  No, no spectators allowed inside the prison. So I see my, my opponent getting ready there. We're getting ready the same place. And now the, the event starts. There's a guy seeing Backstreet Boys. What? Yes. Power Rangers in a prison. He's singing, you are my fire. You're my only desire. You are my fire. So I'm like, wow, what the f*** we started getting ready?  And it's very, very, yeah. So all the other contenders are losing because they're really trying to beat him. And yeah. And they're really, they're really like, it was an Iranian, another Kenyan, Uzbekistan, who's my friend, another Iranian. So it was all foreigners fighting against inmates in Thailand. And these guys are basically, again, Lumpini is like the major league of Thailand Muay Thai. So these guys are solid fighters. They just did some mistakes in their, in their life. And I actually fight this guy. He gave me a good, a good fight. And he ended up surviving the entire fight, but I, I cut him so bad, he was, it was blood everywhere, all his blood. And yeah, I won the fight. I know you got, you got a, I really an accolade from the prison, the prison warden afterwards, even though like I dominated and I won, you got, you got respect from the, it was an elbow attack. Yeah. So exactly. I was doing up elbows to the top of his head.  And he was like, I had a bag of ice afterwards after the fight. I looked like I was Carrie in the movie. Wow. When she gets dropped about a bucket of blood on her body. It was a, Well, that's what you had to do to win. But again, it's all respect. We give each other a hug. It's interesting. Marsh Lard is something that we cannot understand. I was, I was explaining that to my wife there, that you cannot understand it until you actually do it. Like you, you share that, that moment in time with somebody.  We're both consensual. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I see in the ring, when you're doing the, the Ben Huckle, Birmingham spot, there's always this, you bow at each other. There's always this deep level of respect afterwards. And it's an interesting dynamic cause you're spending most of the time trying to hurt each other. Like really hurt each other. Like because there's this element of a Ben Huckle Burmese boxing that people don't talk much about that is that you have to knock them out to win. If you don't knock, cause I was watching your fights and I was like, why are they always draw? Why is it always a draw? You know, but you have to, a technical knockout or knockout to win. Or doctor stoppage, like a lot of blood. But again, that's very, that's very unlikely because most of the, most of the fighters are going to just fight and just they don't care about, about blood. But yeah, it's, it's usually in most fights, right? It's, there's judges at the end of the fight that decides if it's a decision or whatever. But in Lettwey, there's no, there's no judges. Traditional Lettwey, it's KO to win and not only just KO to win, but two KO's, which is very hard to, even for me to grasp. So I, one of my most famous fights, I knocked out my opponent, my nemesis in the first round. He was out for about, you know, 40 seconds cold. The reanimated him, they revived him. This coach were biting his ears, they were pulling his hair, putting cold ice on his body. After a minute, he woke up and then he had another minute to get, get back to his senses and we resumed the fight. He's the one of the only, this guy turned to a man. He's the only guy that I know of that also got knocked out in the previous fights and back in the days, but came back and won the fight. So usually in Lettwey, this rule, there's, there's arguments that it should be removed because usually if you get knocked out, it's very hard to win, you know, again. But it happened, it happens. In the same fight, he was knocked out and he came back in the same fight and won. In our fight, he got knocked out, but we basically, he finished the fight. We finished as a draw, but you know, I won. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's interesting, because you see the other person, you're like, you definitely won. We haven't really discussed that, your career. Yeah, true. So how long were you doing this fighting for, like in the room? So I trained for about 10 years, but after prison fight, that's what really, that was Muay Thai, right? Muay Thai is with gloves and no headbutts allowed. And that's from Thailand, the neighboring country of Myanmar. But at that time already, we forgot to say that I already had a goal in my mind to go to Myanmar. You know how it was just very hard to get in with visas and everything. So the most, the easiest thing to do was just to go to Thailand in the meantime. Most people think that I started Muay Thai and then found Lettwey. But Lettwey, I found that while I was in Canada a long time ago and I wanted to go fight in Lettwey, but it's very hard to do.  But when I fought in prison fight, the guys organizing the event, the Iranian and the promoter, the Burmese, actually Burmese is the guy watching the fights. And they said a couple years later, they called me, they needed a guy to fight in Lettwey. They remembered me. One of the only guys I won that day and it was a crazy fight. I had to talk with the prison warden afterwards, like he was very, very happy. I was impressed with the fight. So you had to earn your way into Lettwey. It was very hard. You didn't just get to walk in there and go, I'm going to fight. You're not native to the country, you know. So you had to earn the best. You have to be invited, yeah, yeah. That's the thing, because if you, me and you would go to Australia or UK right now, we can just sign up to a gym and go fight Muay Thai, fight King Boxing if you want to in a couple of months. But this is different. Since it's a very secluded country, Myanmar, you have to be invited. Like there's papers and everything, yeah. My record was really not up to their level. They actually had to lie to bulk it up.  Like just let's bring this tall guy, slim, tall guy from Canada, let's beat him up. And it did not happen like they wanted to. They threw you in the deep end and you swam.  What's your first fight? So first fight actually, it was for the title shot, already in a 75 kilogram. So that was my walking weight. And I just said, okay, cool. You don't have to cut weight, let's fight. And they said that I had to fight Tutu, who's the 75 kg champion. Like I would call it like as the welterweight champion, undefeated, never been knocked out. And I'm like, okay, let's go. And he's 36 and no, so 36 wins, zero losses. And I trained for this fight. And I dominated him somehow. Like I guess I had his number. I really had his number. He didn't, I didn't knock him out, but he was, that was my first time. This was the first time when you were using no gloves. Yes. And did you have fear? Yes, I did. I trained maybe a month or two before that. I was starting to really ramp up my training, but I was already training my knuckles for a long time because again, that was my goal, right? So I was already training head butts, always training my neck, always training my knuckles.  It's not the same by hitting a skull. You can't train yourself to get hit with bare knuckles though. Cause you can't do that. Like you're talking about hitting, but what about your face? Yeah, I guess you have it or you don't. Like some people get cut easy. I've trained with guys that are really like one little scrape accident and they're bloody. We have to end the training because they're bloody. I've never had that issue. Like, I guess I have a good skin. That's a tough skin, like a leather skin, but yeah. You have to find that out though. Yeah, you have to find that out. I'll get it in the ring. So you were a bit scared, but you ended up like winning that fight. Yeah. You know, but it was a draw. It was a draw, but like, this was very one sided fight. And yeah, he was disfigured, completely lacerated face, puffed out face. I had nothing. I managed to avoid all the sponges and he was hitting the body a lot and stuff like, yeah, he basically, so that was the moment. We got some bottles thrown in the ring after the fight cause they didn't know who I was yet. They didn't know I was gonna. They didn't accept you straight away. And, but I saw, I looked at the videos, some Burmese were the older gentlemen, the elders were clapping like, yeah, they were talking in chatter. Like, I like this guy. And I did my, the traditional gesture of on, like to challenge with honor and respect, you know?  So they go with, they make their symbol of Muay Thai. They do their traditional dance of Muay Thai. I did the traditional dance of Lethwei. You know, you show that you're trying to do it.  And then they said, do you want to fight, you're like, you're on fire, do you want to fight the open weight champion? So I'm like. Another champion? You had a title fight, your first fight. And then your second fight, they want you to fight the open weight champion. Cause they're like, cause I was supposed to die in that first fight against Tutu, right? The 75 KG guy. And also it's their friends. So I don't think he liked that I butchered his friend. So it's like, I want to like avenge my friend, you know? And yeah. Do you reckon it was he actually wanted to do it? After the NFA, there's buses waiting at the exit of the stadium, right? There's big buses, like, I'm going into my, the four years bus and he's going into, so the other guy, the open weight champion, I actually say, I said, Tutu Min, I knew who he was. Cause I was watching his fight from a long time ago, where he's actually a year younger than me, but I knew who he was. And he doesn't speak a word of English. He won that night. He won by knock up. And I go to him, I said, like, good fight. And he's like, he doesn't understand what you say, good fight. But I looked in his eye, I'm like, I knew I was going to fight him. And we basically made me and him and I, we made the biggest trilogy in history of the sport of 2000 years. We ended up making history together, but it was, yeah, sometimes. So after that, I fight him and yeah, the rest is history. So you fought the open weight title. Did you win that as well? It was a draw, so you can now win by draw. So you go fight, now you go on to fight the open weight champion. So here has the defenders title against you. And like, you don't technically win because you have to win by very specific set of standards. Yeah, exactly. It was a draw. Yeah, actually like, it was the hardest fight to this day. That was my hardest fight. The first two, two round and a half, he really got me, he knocked me out for a second. I dropped and I got back right away. So people don't know to this day that I was actually, I saw stars, but I did. I never lost consciousness. I just like fell down and I saw, and I got up right away. So the referee didn't even count it as a knockdown because I got up so fast. Yeah, that's the thing, but like, I remember, okay, now I jump in survival mode right away.  And like, now it's like survival. So he's blood now. Yeah, exactly, the shark with blood, yeah. So now it's about making sure you don't get another one. And, but yeah, it was intense. So he got me, he got me with this shot. He got me with some kicks, sweeps. And he basically, I had to adapt, I had to adapt otherwise it was not gonna be good for me. And I ended up winning the rest of the fight. So I think my cardio and my adaptiveness went through at the end of the fight. So it was, that was actually a real draw. Like I could say, like this was a real draw. It's the only real draw of all my fights. The other ones are a domination draw for me. This was a real draw because he won the first part. I won the last part. But then that wasn't enough. Since it was such a draw, and I ended up on, I finished on top with some drops. Now it was automatic rematch two months later. God, two months? So they made you fight the same guy again? Same guy? It's the hardest fight you've ever had. And they want you to fight again. Yeah, I was. So they're really testing you at this point? They're like, we didn't die the first fight. Let's make sure we finish him, you know, like, yeah. And it ended up being two days before my birthday. So, and I said, let's get married. Let's get, I got engaged with Irina in Myanmar. Makes the news in Myanmar all around because we got engaged on a pagoda in a bagan, a beautiful spot in Myanmar if you guys can go. And then they're like, well, do you want to get married on the traditional Burmese settings? Burmese clothing, like, yeah. So the date is set for 13th of December, 2016. For the wedding, but my fight is on the 11th. So two days prior. This fight is like sweetened with the actual golden belt, like this, you know, very ancient title, that if you win this belt, you are the best in Lithuania, in Myanmar, in the world. And you basically, yeah, it's the title. So I have to win this fight for Irina. I have to win this fight for my future, for everything. And I know that I'm still recuperating from the first fight. He basically really hurt my leg. I'm still limping. I'm still sore from the fight. It was very, it's like, I was hit by a train. That was my real initiation to the Lithuania. That's the Burmese boys, the lineage of lineage of grandfather being champion, learning headbuts from a young age. Like I was playing Lego at 13. He was headbutting dudes at 13. Like, I was not the same child. It's two different childhoods, like completely. His father was a Burmese champion. His grandfather was a Burmese champion. Wow. You know, like my grandfather was making paper cups at the factory. My dad was, you know, we're not the same life at all, but somehow we met 20, I don't know, many miles away, kilometers away in Burma, Myanmar, to fight for an ancient title. And I got the best of them. So it's very, very, it's very crazy. So I guess my trauma, my childhood traumas were good enough to make it happen. That's absolutely crazy, bro. So you got the best of them. You won by a knockout? Yeah, I basically cut him a lot by elbows. He was bleeding and he threw a kick and I cut his kick and I threw him on the floor and he really broke his knee on the way down. And then he tried, he took his two minute time out because we didn't talk about this, but there's also a two minute break, right? There's a two minute, yeah. The two minute break. It gives you the opportunity to have a cup of. Yeah, exactly. So he got this two minute and he came back and I see his limping. So I'm like, okay, I need to really finish this leg. So I'm asking my corner, which leg is it? And he's like, right leg, okay. So I'm trying to aim for the right leg. He's protecting it well. And then we're in the clinch. I do another throw and he's getting to get up afterwards, he's done. And we have actually a footage of this, like the Canadian TV was filming it and he's like leading on the camera. And he's saying, like he's crying to his corner. He's like, I can't get up, I'm done. And he's crying because he's like, he's losing the title. And it was one of the most intense moments of my life. And then they give you a flag in Myanmar. It's a flag, like the flag ceremony. You break the reign of the other champion and you basically start your reign. You start, you're just a new champion. Tell us how it feels. It's the most intense moment. There's the crowd screaming. And at that time, it's my third fight. So they're more accepting of me on my page. My Facebook page is blowing up. Burmese people, they see me dressed in traditional clothing. They love me. So I'm like, they're already like, it's like separated. Some people, they want to win, but some people are happy there's a new wave and I'm gonna be able to bring the sport to new heights, right? I'm already, even before this fight, I was already breaking new articles and I'm speaking English, so it's easier to popularize. Before that, for many years, there was no way to bring it out of the country. So I was getting a lot of fans leading up to this fight. The entire country, I think it was like over 10 million people that watched that fight. 10 million? Yeah, it was 13 million, 15 million. I don't know. What? Yeah, it's pretty intense. And then basically I break that flag and that's like the moment of... Symbolic.  Wow. Demonstrated for him at what a moment for you. Yeah, yeah. Because that's... And I got, yeah, exactly, and I got a cut from the one of the rare cut I had in my fights. I don't know, I think it was a punch.  You win this fight and then you get married? Yeah. And that's another story on itself. The wedding. Tell the people about your crazy wedding. Just quickly, come on, go on, just tell. So you're the new champion. And then you're getting married. So we barely have time to like, we have to do a rehearsal the next day of the fight. Thankfully I'm not too banged up apart from the cut and stuff, but I don't know, nobody can make it to the wedding. My parents came, her parents, my Irina's parents can make it, nobody can make it. So it's only strangers, 100 people in the wedding, all TV execs, like millionaires, gold mine owners, like there's a lot of people that, this is the change and it's a change, a pivotal moment in Burmese like sporting history because you have a foreign champion becoming, you know, the first foreigner to become a champion in the sport. So they're inviting all these people. The deal was we're gonna make it broadcast it live, but you don't have to pay anything for it. So I'm like, I'm saying, I don't know. On TV? Yeah. It was BBC, it was like TV cameras everywhere, cameras. I'm like, I would look at Irina like, what is happening? We're dressed up in like, they lend us the suits, right? And it's diamonds and basically there's nobody that we know. We get gifted microwave, furniture, money. I don't know anybody. They're just gifting all these things. She gave us wedding gifts, they're televising your wedding to how many people? Well, that's the thing is 30 million people watched it allegedly. It's insane. 30 million people watched your wedding after you became champion. It was like on MRTV, like the biggest channel in Myanmar, like in Hutts people have that in like remote locations in Myanmar, people can have that channel and we're watching it on there. So to this day, when we have people looking, we have our wedding picture on the screensaver in Myanmar. So we're like just, you know, it's interesting. So it was, I think it was a moment, the fact also that we're marrying in their culture and their traditional, really, I think we've really liked it. We were like happy to get married in there.   We're showing appreciation. So I think they were very happy and never happened before at that level, at that level of eyes. So they have us on the screensaver. What a story, bro. Like that's another level. We didn't keep anything of the gifts, except the money, because we're not, at the time, I was still transitioning from Thailand to Myanmar, right? So we gave all the gifts to the cleaning ladies. They were, they were happy. They were happy, crazy. That is a crazy story, man. Like what a underdog story. And it's like, you bring a new meaning to go in viral. From like not being known at all. Like I have, I think 5,000 followers. This all happened in a space of how long? Like from your first fire, rematch to the open. You want to laugh? It's August to December. Woo! Yeah. So in four months, you went mega viral and it becomes, yeah. And then I was able to, to basically, I don't get a new apartment and give a better life. Cause before that, bro, I'd forgot to say, but before all these things, right, I was crying with Irina, but she was crying and she made me cry because she's like, we don't have enough. We're not making enough. Like, you know, we were making $200 per fights. You know, it was like, if one kid's one day, we're going to do it. I'm like, wow, I don't know what I'm going to do cause that's all like I'm doing right now. And yeah, so I guess we made it happen. And it was very, very blood-sweetened here, literally. We have to put a lot on the line there. So it wasn't like easy, but it paid off, that's for sure. So now I want to get to like how, cause obviously your fire career evolves and you have more fights and there's a lot of things that happen along that journey. But like, how do you go from this brutal world champion fighter to a vegan? Like, tell us that story. I'm still a fighter with vegan, right? Like, exactly. So I guess it's important to say for me personally, from that moment, you know, we went fighting, like I think three fights in Tokyo was really like charged up year fight in Myanmar again. This time, the fact that I was able to live solely from my fighting, my life was just consisting of training, sleeping and eating, right? It was pretty much it. And I do believe these times was when I had the biggest, deepest conversation with my wife. At the time was my, I guess my girlfriend at the time. We were basically just talking a lot. And that's what make, we're deep in our values about their meaning of life and like all this and that, which led us a couple of years later to deep conversation about compassion and about how we want our life to be. So I think it's possible for everybody to come to this realization, but I think they need to really do some retrospective. I did a lot of analyzing. At the time, I didn't even know what was my trauma. I was like, you know, like, why do I like to argue? Why do I like to, why do I like pain? Why do I like this? And like, we just talked a lot about like, what hurt us when we were a child? And I do believe that everything in our life is played from a young age. What I'm saying is that I think it's important to realize who we are and to love who we are. I don't think I loved myself very much prior to this conversation and prior to all this. You need to love yourself before you can love somebody else, right? How can you love animals that are independent of you, that are sainted other animals if you don't even love yourself? It's very hard to love somebody if you don't love yourself. So that was the first step. I think it's a very big point here, right? To love yourself. And if you're not, I feel like it's very hard to be in a good place because I feel like caring about sainted animals, because that's a good thing. You want to make good in the world. In order to do good in the world, you have to want to do good. In order to want to do good, you need to be in a good place. And if you're not in a good place, if you don't love yourself, I'm sure there's depressed guys and girls in the world that are vegan. They don't either, but the point is, generally speaking, you need to be in a good place mentally in order to be, to do good in my book. I don't know if you agree with me. Well, I can say that I went right after when I got out of prison, become sober and started to... But that was true for me. Like, I started thinking, I don't want to hurt people anymore. What am I doing? Am I a hypocrite?  But before then, I had so much going on. I hated myself when I was in games and I was on the drugs, and I had no time to think about animals. Even if someone, maybe if someone brought it to me one day, maybe. But I really, I was too busy fending for myself and you're right. So you're right for me, but I don't know if it's true. But you have a good point. You're busy also, right? Let's say you're a lot of people that are generally good inside and I think they could be very Germany-like, good and they can become vegan, but maybe they're so busy right now with their financial issues or maybe they're hardworking and they barely surviving. When do they have time to think about moral proud? So it's very, I really am sympathizing with these people. But tell me specifically, what was the catalyst for you? Because you said that you have to be in a certain state. You have to be in this emotional state, introspection. So it happened at this point. But did something come along when you were in this state that gave you the trigger? Okay, so Irina was actually, it was a very, I guess we could call it selfish because it was only for health at first.  I want to become a vegetarian. And I didn't even know what it was. I didn't know the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian. And I'm like, no, I'm a fighter. I need to eat meat, right? I remember like it's yesterday, she was eating like vegetarian rice or something and I was making a pointy chicken.  And with my bad influence, I made her stop. And she came back to the dark side, I call it. And so on the animal abusers side, together we basically continued for a few years. What made, because I guess I was busy forging my philosophy of life. It made me even think like, why am I fighting?  Now the next big thing was the biggest elephant in the room was, so what is happening with my diet and my way of life? The big thing was shout out to James with the game changers. That started, yeah. So Jamie Wilkes, the producer of Game Changers, the movie, we watched it on New Year's Eve, I think 2019, that was my New Year's Eve. We watched it and at that moment, I was like, oh, okay, so I'm not optimal as an athlete. Again, I guess I would say it was more like diet, right? At first. But not long after that, I think I saw your videos and I saw a lot of, I researched a lot of stuff and I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. I'm already on the good side of history and I'm already on the good side of my health, but what you're doing is way bigger than you thought. It's not just for your veins and my arteries and you're actually, you're doing an ethical choice and a very good thing for humanity. I'm like, wow, and the animal kingdom. And then I became an extremist and not part of it. This is what I need to do. This is the good thing, so I guess I'm lucky. I think there's not one way to become vegan, right? Looking back, I'm like, really, Dave? You became vegan just because of, for help? I feel like it's not good, you know? But the reality is, as long as you do it, that's what I mean. Yeah, well, you know, like a lot of people don't know about me, but I say my story a lot, but I was doing the green juices for weight loss first. Okay, okay. And it was when I understood that plants were good for you, then the message of the animals sort of flourished easier. So like when you're not eating meat, you're less likely to double down on wanting to keep, you know, maybe you don't want to hear about the animal story when you're eating them because you're more likely to be defensive to defend what you're doing. So the message goes easier. If you stop or say you eat plant-based diet for health and then you see something about animals, we don't have to defend it because you're not eating it. Yeah, because the defense makes it harder to, yeah, get the message across your right. So the fact that I was not participating in it made it make me feel good because I can see how if you're getting, I would feel attacked, let's say. If I'm hearing a medical message and I'm contributing to it, I would feel attacked, I would start defending it, yeah. So I guess I was more prone to hearing that beautiful message of veganism because I was not, I was plant-based, I guess, right? Wow, yeah, I was, I'm looking back, it's, it changed my life, it changed my life. I do think it's the base from human bettering, you know, like Leo Tostoy said, there's always gonna be battlefield as long as there's gonna be slaughterhouses. And this makes more sense day by day because I feel like it's just aggression and death and wars and everything. How can we be kind to animals if we're not kind to each other? Like, you know, there's wars happening, like if we're not kind to your neighbors, how can we be kind to an innocent person, our own, you know, our own species? How can we be kind to each other if we're killing and eating animals? Exactly, you know. Oh, good point, the other way around too, exactly. So the basis is- It is the other way around, you know? Like, if you think about this as well, like speciesism, like think of discrimination, you know? Because what you're saying here is it's betterment of humanity and I agree with you as well because like we look at animals and we say this animal deserves a knife in the throat because they're from this species. This animal, they deserve love and care because they're from this species. So then we look at each other and we go, yeah, we can disregard those people because they're from this race or gender or sexuality or whatever or this country or this culture and these ones here, you know?  And they lower them down to like a species and then it makes it easier to attacks people if you dehumanize them to animals. But if we had animals raised up, you know, you could never dehumanize someone to an animal because we already lift animals up, you know? So, yeah. Well said, yeah. Yeah. So as long as we're gonna have, you know, slaughterhouses, we're gonna have battlefields and it's really a big point. It is, it is, it's true. Like how can we have a peace with each other while there's a slaughterhouse in every single town? And I've never been personally yet to a slaughterhouse you've seen and the way you describe it is one of the most demonic place you can ever see on earth is how does it make you feel to know that it's still happening to this day, these places? What hits me the most is how it makes the animals feel and it's terror. It's terror and it's horror and it's the fear. There's no way out for them and they can't defend themselves.   I feel like anybody with a little semblance of compassion would see that and be like, I'm against that, right? And that's the reason why the, whatever the industry, they, right, the oligarchs of the world are trying to remove this from our view and that's where, that's what basically became, made me from plant-based to vegan is seeing these things and hearing earthlings and watching earthlings. We cried watching this and like, why are we not showing that? I know why, because it's bad for money and you Google, there we go right now, you see there we go, it's green pasture, it's world being lied to and by the way, that's the one aspect of the world that's corruption everywhere, lies everywhere. And once you realize that we're being lied to in most spheres of our life, eating, that animals is making us sick, they can sell us Mads for that, so big farmers involved. It's just, yeah, it's very, it's not a good thing. It's interconnected and what I don't get is where people think, yeah, big farmers line to us, yeah, the war machines line to us, the governments line to us, but you know, the meat industry definitely ain't lying to us. No, of course not. They don't give us propaganda, the bacon's a health food, you know?  Well, it's almost like 100% most of the time.  The thing is like manly, manly, that we have in our mind, a lot of guys think that being compassionate is a sign of weakness.  And I think that's why a lot of, I think it's easier for girls to go on the vegan side because they're closer, they have that material and instinct and they can realize, oh my God, this is sad, so, you know, even me telling you that like, I shed a tear watching hurtlings, it's not something that we would have heard 50 years ago, you know, man's don't cry, you know, right? But I think that's actually the least manly thing you can do is to pretend that this cocoon of man, it's, basically we're breaking down like this stigma of what is a real man, a real man is not afraid to show his emotion in the opposite.  It's not, so compassion is easier, I believe, with people that have less reserve or they're less afraid to show their emotion. And I think that, again, in the fighting world and whatever, sporting world, it's look as a weakness to be emotional, therefore to be compassionate, therefore they pretend they think they're weak. It's very, it makes a lot of sense to me that fighters or any people think you're not strong if you care about animals, like, you know? So I guess I'm breaking down that little stigma. So let me throw this one at you, because isn't there a huge contradiction there because it's not the same if it's children or they're protecting other vulnerable human beings, women or dogs, then it's okay to protect them. But it's pigs, cows, chickens, fish, that it's not okay to protect and show compassion. Good point. I think there's, it's a very complex issue. It's the fact that we've been indoctrinated from a young age and I was giving cups of milk at school, right? To basically, it's grooming, you know? It's illegal to do that for cigarettes. They do that with the milk industry, the dairy industry.  Publicity from a young age. So you have that aspect, you have that aspect of grooming from the grooming customers from a young age. And I think the lack of education on what is real health, if you tell me back in the days, if you told me, they what is, you know, where do you get protein? I would have said, you know, animals are meat, right? Well, that's not what protein comes from. All protein comes from plants. That's where animals get their protein from. So we're just, we don't know. I think I saw somebody in the street saying, where do you get your calcium? People said milk. Like calcium doesn't come from milk, guys. Calcium comes from plants and leafy greens. So lack of education, grooming from industry leaders. And this creates a philosophy, creates a mindset in men and it's that we need to eat animals to be strong. And this is my biggest battle. This is my biggest battle. The reason why I started VTRIBE, I want to make sure that like fighters and men, we break that barrier, that mindset that we need to kill animals to be strong. Yeah, we need to eat meat, meat's for strength.  That's what it is, right? It's a muscle, it's a muscle of an animal. It's a euphemism, that word. I try to use these words like in a, you know, like mammal milk and you know, like it's like, you call it milk or it's like dairy from a cow or it's like, it's, I think we use, you said it very well, like it's not pork, right? It's pig, it's not beef. It's a cow, it's a cow. Yeah, exactly. It's a dead cow. Yeah, yeah. So humanizing or, you know, putting the individual back into the object. Yeah, it's an interesting issue, the male issue, because you're right, women are more yielding to the message.  And it's, so do you think there's a weakness in that? There's a lack of strength in people, not sort of going against the crowd and wanting to impress them? Very good point, I think that's one of the, I think a lot of people would like to do it. I've seen some people go on social media and say like, I like to go vegan and they get trashed by people. And I think a lot of people are, because again, that's another problem, society tells you that to be non-confrontational, be liked by everybody, you know, we need to be liked by everybody, it's so bad to have some people that disagree with you and everything, like this is something, again, that goes back to what I told you earlier. During my career, I started having lovers and haters. So that was my first time having massive haters, death threats and so that made me okay with not being liked by everybody.  A handful of people, right?    Yes, you have a problem with that, you know? Like our uncle Bob that loves to go hunt and he's like, oh, so you're eating those plants? Yeah, you have a problem, Bob? You have a problem? Why do you care what uncle Bob thinks, mate? God, uncle Bob, mate, get rid of that beard, God, then come talk to me. It's something that we're not told. They're lying to us about this because they wanna keep these industries afloat and I'm beyond insulted that they're subsidizing these industries by the millions, you know? To keep them afloat. We would already have full blown, you know, plant-based industries with almonds and soy and we would have all this if the government would help, they would help a little, even the percentage of what they're helping to the dairy and the animal industry, right? Makes sense. They subsidize factory farms and fishing industry, billions and billions, yeah. They just need to remove those subsidies and put it into plant-based alternatives. Because people ask you, how are we gonna change these industries to plant-based, like guys, just stop funding them? Like if we stop funding them with our dollars and the, oh my God, it's a very flawed system and a corrupt system. They're shooting ads to people so we keep voting with our dollars and then they're also subsidizing.  Slowly people are getting awakening and they're like, oh my God, we're being lied to. I don't know, so it's very, it's happening and I think it's exponential right now. With what's happened in the recent years, we see that there's always been corruption, always been lies and like you said, it's all tied to this. I became vegan at, what, 28, 20, 27? So I was lied to and I put dead animals in my body. I contributed to countless amount of debts without even knowing it. Like I was not a bad person inside of me. Like people watching this, they're not vegan or friends and family, they're not vegan. They're not bad people. We just don't know. We just don't know. I was not educated enough. We're tricked. Yes, that's the word. Tricked into doing something against, you know, our nature because a lot of people still are being tricked now. They're tricked by the propaganda. They don't want to believe the vegan animal rights activists because they think we're biased, not forgetting that the industry is the most financially biased machine that you're ever going to see.  So they're fighting for your dollars. They're fighting to get you to buy their brands basically. The salespeople, the meat industry, is a bit like people think that farmers aren't business owners. It's a commodity. Animals is a commodity. Most of the animals are factory farm from factory farmers. They're just trying to sell a product. So they're trying to, and you're the customer. So we're not trying to sell you anything right now. We just want people to be vegan.  So what the next question for you would be like, what are you planning on doing about it?   And I say that because we tend to put down this atrocious thing. Like I said, I've never been to a slaughterhouse yet, but we can understand the atrocities happening there. So for me, it's mass murder on the daily.  I want to thank you for inspiring me.  So there's a lot of big things on the horizon right now. I started like again, VTRAB it right now. It's where we gathered a good social media online, but phase two is to really bring it to the next level. I don't want to say anything about my career, but like understandably you can see that like my philosophy of life has brought me to a place where fighting for entertainment, I love it for me. I would do it for free. I would do it if there's nobody watching. Okay, but it's like bread and games. Give the society bread and games while there's bad things happening. So I almost feel like, like it's not, I don't almost, I know there's a bigger battle to be fought. And I'm putting these words, I'm a fighter, I want to fight, bigger fight. And the bigger fight, I want to dedicate my life and I think it got covered quickly on that plan based news a couple of years ago. Like this is my life mission. My wife and I, we make this animal rights our life mission. And phase two of E-Tribus, I don't want to go too much in detail, is to, yeah, we want to do something really, really cool for to educate the world and to make sure that people are not blinded on what's happening all around the world. In Turkey here, in my birth country of Canada, it's really our main focus. So in the next few months, year, people are going to start to see what we're going to do. And I'm excited and hopefully you can witness this. And I want to say again, thank you for being such a good mentor. Unwillingly you were meant to me in my journey as a vegan. Cheers my brother. That sounds very mysterious and interesting and inspiring, brother. And thank you for those kind words and they fill your passion. I think this is a good place to end this interview. It's been great, bro, but is there anything you want to say? If anyone's watching the male audience or any audience member who's watching that, you want to leave them some words? You don't need animal meat, you need protein and protein is not found only in what you think it is. What we've been told is it is found in plants.  I have never felt stronger and better mentally because I don't feel, I'm not contributing to this negativity. And I feel like a new man. I feel renewed because I almost like lighter knowing what I know now, you feel way better knowing that, you know, cause again in movies and superheroes, you don't see superheroes killing the innocent ones. You see superheroes protecting the innocent ones. So I want to be a superhero. You can be a superhero as simple, as simple as just avoiding these atrocious things and they make it look very inoffensive with nice packaging, nice stuff. But at the end of the day, guys, this was an individual. This was somebody that didn't want to die, probably had a family.  You can make a simple choice. I think I was in the three steps of truth, right? First one is violent opposition, then it's ridicule and then it's acceptance. Well, you can switch those first two, you know, ridicule first. I joke about, you know, this person that's vegan and the second I'm violently opposed, but eventually that means that I'm on the path to truth. And the truth is you don't need animals to be strong.   And you're gonna feel great.  And I wish, I wish, I think all the end of the day, the goal is to, it's for the animals. We have to give a voice to the voiceless. Cheers, my brother. Thank you.


both sides have the same diagnosis of the problem, which is the stupidity and wickedness of the people on the other side. They agree in their diagnosis and I think that they're both wrong. And I think that that diagnosis prevents them from ever understanding the other side and from ever seeing their own blind spots because if the correctness of your opinions is linked to your worth and value as a soul, then of course you're gonna continue to collect more and more other opinions and information that validates your own goodness. If you're insecure about your worth as a human being, then one way to build security is to surround yourself by an echo chamber of people who are constantly assuring you that yeah, we're right, we're good, they're bad, they're wrong. If that's the emotional need that's being met, how are you ever going to impartially look at what you believe and recognize, oh yeah, actually maybe I was wrong about that because I didn't understand this person's situation and this information, I was walling it out because it didn't fit the story. Like how are we ever going to come together? How is any side ever going to release their certainty? And it's not necessarily to meet in the middle, often it's to meet completely outside of the debate that's happening. The key to deprogramming ourselves, to unlearning the habits of judgment, the habits of shame, the habits of domination, for me it's a question, it's what is it like to be you?  Instead of assuming that, we can ask, okay, well, where did that actually come from? What is your circumstance?  Like what is it actually like to be you? What's your story? Sometimes people say, well, Charles, that's very white and privileged of you to ask such a question because some people don't have the luxury of trying to understand it. If you were really a victim, then you wouldn't be asking, what is it like to be you? You'd be trying to fight back or escape or something like that. This idea of compassion for the perpetrator, I mean, come on, the victims need a lot more compassion than the perpetrators. And to that I say, compassion for the victims necessitates compassion for the perpetrators because if you want it to stop, if you want this, the abuse, the racism, the exploitation, the killing, the misogyny, the transphobia, whatever it is, if you want it to actually stop, then you have to understand where it's coming from. You have to meet it at its root, you have to address the conditions that cause it. And if you don't do that, the best you can hope for is an endless war of suppression, of the expression of the conditions. Every new crop of criminals comes up, you'll lock them away and thereby destroy families and communities and generate even more trauma and the new criminals come up and you'll lock them away too. But if you ask, well, where is the crime coming from? Then maybe you have a chance. What is it like to be you? Underneath that is a knowledge that something must have happened because your original being is, as Fritzi was saying, beautiful and perfect. So really all of this is premised on a view of human nature, that we are here to add to life and beauty in the world. That is the universal human purpose.


Hey you guys, Lindsay here, and today we are talking about February sewing plans. So when I sat down to do my plans for February, I was thinking to myself, okay, February is a shorter month. It only has 28 days. You have no days off of work, other than the weekends. Like let's be practical about setting goals and what you can accomplish. For the January makes that I did, I didn't make any of those things. Well, that's a lot. I made this. So this is my toaster sweater out of the cable knit, which is great. This was the Sew My Style project for January, so I was really proud to get that done. But the Navy and White Stripe bowline sweater didn't get done. And the Art Gallery Boyle kimono, or I didn't have the project picked out yet. That didn't get sewn either. I did sew a lot. I just didn't sew those things. I have an excuse for one and no excuse for the other. So we'll get into that in a minute. So I sat down with the hopes of being practical, and then I ended up coming up with one, two, three, four, five projects. So I know that I'm not going to get all of that done. There's just no way. But I'm putting it on my to-do list anyways, because it's like a vision.  And so then I'll have all these extra days to sew, and I'll have the projects for it. Honestly, though, a couple of them, most of them actually are spring patterns. So if I don't do them this month, they'll probably roll over into March. If you saw the Instagram story that I did when I went shopping at Joann's, then some of this won't be new to you. If you follow me on Instagram, may not be new to you. But if you haven't, then catch up, catch up with everybody else who's been following me on social media. The first one is M7549. And I feel like this is going to be the pattern for them for the season. I have seen so many people are already finished this. Hello Allie J, who has a cute, adorable little blog. She lives in Durham, North Carolina. She's like my sewing soul sister. I feel like we have a similar style, both Southern girls. Anyways, she's almost done with hers. And here's where I am with mine. I started this last weekend and of course I wanted to do the quilted version. Of course I wanted to do it just like the model because I'm so unoriginal like that. But what I didn't realize is quilting all of that was a really challenging for me. I fumbled through how to find the best way to do it. Quilting takes up a ton of thread. My machine was just like burning through thread. So I had two of the smaller Guderman spools completely gone. And I still have probably four pieces to quilt. Like that's how much thread you go through trying to quilt this jacket. So that's at a standstill till I can get back to Joanne's. It's like a 30 minute drive and I just haven't I'm not going to go out there just for thread. So I've been waiting for like some kind of sale or something else that I needed to go out there. So that project will hopefully get wrapped up in February and update on the Art Gallery Boyle project. So I asked you guys what should I make? I was torn between a tunic Bible top between kind of like a classic button up with like a puffy or sleeve or a peplum top. And the comments started rolling in and people started suggesting kimono top and it was like, duh. Like obviously why didn't I think of that? This fabric has for sure like an Asian flair to it with the with the is I don't know if this is the cherry blossom or not. But it kind of reminds me of cherry blossom cherry blossom buds. So yeah, I was like, yes, 100% this is going to be a kimono top. So the problem and the reason why the kimono top didn't did not get sewn in January is because the pattern that I picked out, which is M7358, my Joanns didn't have it.  But the next sale isn't until the weekend, like this weekend, the weekend of the second through the fifth or something. So I'm going to go back out there and see if they have it. If they don't, then I'll just end up ordering it online. Hopefully the online sale will still be going on right now. It's $2.49. So I don't know. Should I just go ahead and buy it online? I don't know. But then all the other spring patterns are coming out like Butterick. Their spring summer collection just came out. So I wanted to check in that and make sure there wasn't another kimono top that absolutely loved. So this M7358 is a kind of a cross between a tailored button up type shirt with a it just has the tailored sleeve and like a almost like a shoulder yoke, which to me says like tailored button up. But instead of the button up part, it has a wrap and a bow, like a sash with a bow, which I really love. There's also M7200, which is almost like an open cardigan that comes with a belt. I don't know if I would like that because I know I'll have to wear a tank top underneath and I don't really love that feel or the way that that looks. So I'm torn between those two, but I wanted to check out the Vogue's. I wanted to check out the Butterick's. Even simplicity I think has their spring and summer stuff coming out. So I just want to make sure that for sure now that I have the time to spend to make sure that M7358 was the one that I absolutely wanted for sure. So that's where we are with the Art Gallery Boyle. And then some other projects that I'm dying to make are M7253, which is just your basic pleated skirt pattern. I have two really great fabrics for this. One of them is 100% polyester. One of the silky fabrics from Joanne's, but I got it on the clearance when the clearance was on sale, so it was like $2 a yard or something. And I don't know. It's just really pretty to me. I just thought it was pretty and I didn't care that it was cheap or manmade or any of that. I just thought it was pretty. The other fabric is like a Pauly Charmouse and it feels like silk. It feels so rich and expensive. It was not on sale. I did use a coupon, but that was it. So, yeah, I want to make a couple of pleated skirts just for spring that you can know you just tuck in a little t-shirt and, you know, can make a comfortable, but dressy outfit. Also, I am into the sleeve trend. Like I'm all about what's happening with the sleeves right now. And I am 100% into that. So this is gosh, you know, this happened to me before. So when you go to Joanne's, they have some patterns that are set out just for display. And those patterns get a different number. Yeah, I don't really understand it either. So this says MP 252, but that's definitely not what it is. OK, so I found it. It is M 7505 and it's this really cute, just like simple sheath dress, but the sleeves are trumpet sleeves. So it's like fitted through like back down to the elbow and it flares out below the elbow and it's just so, so cute. I made a talk similar to this in January. I'll do a video on that that you guys will see soon. And I'm just totally obsessed with the sleeves. I am I am I am totally on board. And also, I have been seeing the sleeves, especially like this almost flair type of sleeve everywhere. I watched Lifetime did a remake of the beaches movie and then following the movie premiere. They did like a behind the scenes sort of thing where they interviewed the actors and Sarah Haynes was the host. And she had this red peplum top.  And I was like, oh my gosh, that's such a good idea to have the peplum top with the sleeves that kind of like played off of each other. And then I swear, like on Live with Kelly or maybe some other morning show, I saw somebody else with them on. I've just been seeing them absolutely everywhere. So like, you know how the cold shoulder was last year? I feel like these trumpet sleeves are going to be it for this year. It is the the trend that everyone's going to be doing. And I will be there ahead of the game. I've already got one top made. I know my friend Brittany on Instagram. She also has a YouTube channel.  So catch on. Everybody's doing it. It's not too late to get in on this one. You're going to be seeing them everywhere, I promise. And then the last one is just really one of these loose fitting tops. I've kind of been into looser fitting tops lately. This one has a couple of variations, but I really want to do the one that uses the border print. But I haven't found any woven border prints that I have been into lately. I'm sure that Tellio has some on fabric.com. So I should go check out there and see what they have. Maybe this would be a good option for the Rayon Shally. Was it Rayon Shally that I was going to use for my cold shoulder top? And I asked you guys if I should remake the same cold shoulder dress in the other fabric. Do you remember that? I wonder if they still have that. And that would be a good option for this. It might be a little too lightweight and tricky because this one kind of, you know, flares out and it's supposed to be kind of billowing. I don't know. We'll see. So, yeah, so those are my plans for February. I am very unrealistic in the plan, but I am very realistic in knowing like the expectation. Like, I know that I'm not going to get through all of these, but that's OK because honestly, like, we just never had a winter here. Like this weekend, there's a cold front coming through and the highs are going to be in the 50s. And that's as cold as it ever got. And I don't see it getting cold any time soon. So there's not going to be any more sweater nits. I am just forging right ahead on to spring, continuing to make clothes that you can wear in like 70, 60, 70 degree weather. I'm not complaining. I love it. And you will hear me complain when the summer comes and it's like a million degrees here. But this has been glorious. I've loved every second of it and I'm just in the mood for spring constantly. So my sewing is obviously going to reflect that. And I'm going to make skirts and short sleeve tops in February because that's how we roll here. So let me know what you guys are making in February. If you have a blog or a blog, leave a link down below, promote yourself. Let me know where I can find you so that I can watch and read and see what you guys are all making. If you don't have one of those, that's fine, too. Just leave the pattern name or any information you have about the fabric in the comments. I just love finding new patterns, new ideas on how to use different fabrics. And I just love seeing what other people are doing. So share all of that with me and the other viewers in the comments section. And yeah, that's it. I got to go get sewing. I only have, well, 27 days now to get through these five projects. No, I'm just kidding. I I'm going to run. But I'll see you guys very soon. Bye.