(bright music) - Will you consider this?

They're from the Forgottonia area.

If you know where that is in this state, it's a place where there's not any really accessible roads.

There's roads, but nothing fast and speedy.

But these two are something special in Illinois.

They are from the Royce Gracie Academy.

And this is Michelle and Andy Cassady.

And so tell me a little bit about the academy first and what it is, and then we will hear about both of you.

Go on, Michelle.

You can go first.

Ladies first.

- Okay.

- Absolutely.

- So Royce Gracie Academy is self-defense.

We teach jiu-jitsu.

We teach it to all ages, starting at age three.

Our oldest student, I believe, at one point was 65.

It's for everyone.

We teach self-defense, we teach anti-bullying to the kids, and we teach children and adults how to defend themself in situations that they might encounter.

- And Andy, this was kind of your dream to begin with because years ago, you were attacked in a parking lot.

Tell me about that.

- Simple.

Wrong place, wrong time, you know?

- In central Illinois or?

- Yeah.

- Okay, gosh.

- Yeah, small town.

- All right, so they just, you didn't know what to do.

There you were.

- I was like everybody else.

It's maybe tough for some people to hear.

You always think, "Well, I just, you know, I can fight.

I know how to fight."

You hear a lot of people say there's fight or flight.

- [Christine] Right.

- There's a more common reaction, which is freeze.

- Uh-huh, and- - Most people freeze.

- Yeah, what do I do now?

- I froze.

It was like the brain just didn't know what to do.

And next thing I knew, it was over and I had a smashed up nose and on the pavement and- - And nobody was around in the parking lot to help you or?

- No.

- And nobody witnessed it?

- No, no, there was just three people involved.

- Gosh.

- Those two and me.

- Oh, gosh.

So at that point, you decided, were you married at the time?

- No, we hadn't even met.

This is almost 30 years ago.

- All right, so you decided, "I need to know how to take care of myself."

- Two options, be afraid the rest of my life and hope it never happens again, or do something about it.

So I started training within, well, as soon as my nose would allow me to, about two weeks, (Christine laughs) two or three weeks.

- [Christine] Sorry, I laughed, but- - [Andy] No, it is kind of funny.

It's funny now.

- And a couple of black eyes?

- [Andy] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Stitched up nose.

There's still a scar, so.

- Oh, gosh.

So then Michelle, you met him, and how did you meet him?

Is it because of self-defense training?

- Yes.

That's because of self-defense.

I was also in a situation where I was attacked.

It actually happened in my home.

I had someone enter into the house, pull me out of my house by my wrist, grab me, pull me out onto the pavement outside of my house, and just beat me, punched me, kicked me, beat me, left me there, and- - Was it an attempted robbery?

It was just- - No, it was not.

It was somebody I knew.

- Oh, gosh.

- So crawl back into my house, closed my door, just laid there and isolated myself and decided, like, there's something I need to do.

I need to learn how to defend myself.

When I talk to women, some of the women feel like it won't happen to them.

They don't go out much.

They don't do much.

And I said, "It happened in my house."

- Yeah, so- - You're not safe anywhere.

- Anywhere, no, exactly.

- You're not safe anywhere.

- So you're in Macomb and you have this academy, and this is not like "The Karate Kid."

You're not looking for trophies.

- [Michelle] No.

- You're looking to teach people how to be confident in themselves, in their surroundings, right?

- Correct.

Correct.

- All right, who wants to address that?

Either one of you.

- [Michelle] Go ahead.

- So, well, I'll just kind of distinguish us.

A lot of places, you know, anytime you add a sport element to it, where there's tournaments, there's, you know, medals, trophies, nothing wrong with that, not putting that down, but anytime you start adding a sport element with all these rules, like jiu-jitsu, for example, sport jiu-jitsu, no punches, no strikes, you start to water down, you know, the effectiveness.

- The purpose.

- Yes.

- Right, okay.

- We don't do that.

You know, we do address punches, kicks, you know, grabs, things like that, normal everyday attacks.

And that's the difference in what we do.

- See, I hate normal everyday attacks.

It shouldn't be normal.

- It's awful to say, right?

- It really shouldn't be normal.

But it is, because we're of a different mindset that we don't do that, you know?

- [Michelle] Correct.

- We don't pick a fight like that.

- [Andy] Rational people don't do that.

- Right, exactly.

And then you have special training specifically for women that you just started within the past couple of years.

- Correct.

It's the same thing that we teach in the adult class at night, but I got to the point where I had women reach out to me from different states that wanted to train, but they couldn't drive there.

It was too many hours.

So I eventually started a women's class on Saturdays.

I do it once a month.

And we have people from different states come in that drive up for the class.

And it focuses on a lot of situations that women can be in.

I feel like we're, as adults, male, female, we're in different situations.

Men are going for certain attacks, not getting detailed about it, but I do focus on women being pinned down on the ground.

I focus on hair grabs, things that we do teach in the adult class, but they get to train with each other.

And there are women that do feel uncomfortable training with men, which is fine, but I want them to be in a situation, we are simulating an actual attack by the end of class.

- Okay, so you do have a male come in and work with them at that point or?

- No, they work with each other.

- All right.

- They work with each other.

- So hair grabs are, long hair especially is an easy target, a ponytail or something.

So we have to think of that.

We have to consider that.

So tell me about, it's spelled Royce, but it's Royce Gracie.

So tell me about, now, his father began this whole program.

Who wants to address that?

- Go ahead.

- No, go ahead.

- Yes, he created this art.

He was a smaller man.

He was about 140 pounds, 5'6, and he was frail.

He would pass out a lot, even walking up the stairs.

They weren't sure why.

So the history is he was watching Carlos, he was watching classes, and Carlos didn't show up one day for class.

So Helio went ahead and taught the class.

The students loved it.

After that, he started teaching and he found that some of the techniques were harder for him.

He obviously didn't have the strength.

He didn't have the size.

So he created certain moves to where it would be based off of leverage.

- [Christine] All right.

- To where he was able to do the moves based off of only leverage.

And that's what we focus on.

We focus on, you don't need strength for these moves.

- So like a fulcrum?

- Mm-hm.

- All right.

- You need leverage, and that's what it's based off of.

And in my opinion, the people that use the leverage quicker learn faster rather than using the strength.

It takes time to understand that.

- But when people come in, Andy, so especially men come in and, "I can do this.

I'm gonna flip you," or something, but what have you found in your teaching with changing their mindset?

- A lot of them learn very quickly that they're not as capable as they thought they were.

And we're very nice when people come in.

We don't come in and, you know, throw you to the wolves and hey, you know, hope you survive and come back.

We don't- - Right, exactly.

- We're very nice.

You know, we talk about what we're doing, why we're doing it, and really focus on the technique.

We don't let anybody spar right away, nothing like that.

And so the hardest part of that is getting, we're both not big people.

You've seen us stand up.

5'6'.

She's 5'4.

So the hardest part is to teach them not to use that strength because it will ultimately be a detriment for them because they'll, and once they do start sparring, all of a sudden the big guy is gassed out within two minutes and I'm like, "You ready?

- (chuckles) Yeah.

- "Let's go, keep going," you know?

And that they start to see, "Oh, wow, this is not gonna go the way I thought it would," and they see, you know, someone who's, and they say, "Oh, I gotta get in better shape."

It's not about being in better shape.

It's about keeping it together up here, keeping your breathing controlled, and being relaxed in very uncomfortable situations.

- Again- - It's not about brute strength.

- The confidence and awareness of knowing what to do.

- Mm-hm.

- Yes.

- And you work with school districts.

And before we started recording, you were saying that you pull from about 45 miles away- - [Andy] Yes.

- For your classes.

- Correct.

- And you are working with school districts because of anti-bullying, correct?

- Correct.

- What do you do there to teach the kids to be confident in themselves and recognize what a bully is?

- Correct.

We do, you know, hands are up.

Make sure you're aware, you're alert.

If a kid bothers you, we try to do verbal deescalation techniques, "Stop, leave me alone."

If it doesn't happen, they start putting their hands on you, they are taught how to defend themself and how to protect themself if they need to.

- [Christine] How would they do that?

- So it would depend on what the situation was.

We have where if a kid's just pushing you, like a chest push or pushing you, hands are up, tell 'em to stop.

If they don't, there's a move to defend against that.

If they take you to the ground, there's ways to keep yourself safe and to get in different positions.

We do teach them there is a difference between bullies and there's a difference between strangers.

Strangers, you want to completely finish the move.

When it comes to bullies, you can finish the move to a certain point where you're not actually hurting them.

You know, arm bars, you don't wanna be breaking bones, things like that.

You know, bullies is a little bit of a different situation where you want to control the situation, isolate it, ask 'em, "Are you gonna stop?

Are you gonna leave me alone?"

And go from there.

So we do talk about different scenarios and different situations and, you know, what is a bully?

You know, a lot of times, they don't understand why they're being- - Picked on.

- Verbally attacked, right?

They don't understand that.

- Right, and what ages do you work with in schools then?

- We start at age three.

So in our academy, we do private lessons for age three and four.

The group classes start at age five.

So we have two kids classes.

- I love it.

- Age five and eight and nine to 12.

- All right, but the three and four year olds, those are individuals or?

- Yes, they are one-on-one.

So we do private lessons all day and then we teach classes at night.

- All right, so Andy, do you also teach the little ones?

- Not the little little ones.

- You let her do the (indistinct).

- Not the little little ones.

Seven, eight on up is more my, that's more my speed.

- That's your... (chuckles) - Yes.

- Okay.

That's understandable.

Now, also, so you both have, on your logo, there is a blue bar.

So explain, that blue bar is specific to the Royce Gracie Academy.

- You go ahead.

- It signifies that we focus on self-defense.

When people think jiu-jitsu, they think what is the most common thing you see out there, which is the sport with the competitions, the medals, and things like that.

And again, (indistinct) there's no strikes, things like that.

So Royce's father Helio saw that and he said, "Well, if the sport is now what jiu-jitsu is, I'm not a-" - [Christine] Not part of that.

- No, "I'm a blue belt now."

So he puts on this navy blue belt.

- Okay.

- And so Royce doesn't wear a black belt.

Royce wears a navy blue belt to honor his father.

And then our belts have a navy blue bar on them, as opposed to, like, most jiu-jitsu's black belt have a red bar, the other belts have a black bar.

- [Christine] All right.

- Ours have a navy blue instead to signify with Royce.

- Oh, that's a nice tribute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- And we're self defense.

- And then you are both experts.

You both have gone to the academy, or I guess to work with Royce himself and- - Multiple times a year, yeah.

- Multiple times.

Okay, to keep up your skills and stay up to date?

- We'll see him next weekend.

- [Christine] You'll see him this weekend?

- Next weekend, yeah.

- Okay.

All right.

But so, now, you went through that training and that update, that maintenance I guess first, but then Michelle, you have a distinction.

- Yes, I tested two years, I believe, after you.

- Mm-hm.

- For black belt, mm-hm.

- [Christine] Or blue belt.

Do you still call it a black belt?

- It's a black belt, mm-hm.

- Okay.

- Yes.

- Royce is the only one that wears the navy blue.

The rest of us, we get a black belt with a blue bar.

- Okay, sorry.

My mistake.

- No, it's fine.

- All right.

- Yes.

- Okay.

And so you went and there's not very many women who have gone through this training or have accomplished their goal of passing the test.

- [Michelle] Yes.

- So tell me about that.

- So, yeah, I just went in and I tested and you find out a couple days later during the ceremony if you passed or not, if your name is called.

And I was awarded my black belt in October of last year and I'm the ninth woman in the world to receive a black belt under Royce Gracie.

- And let's make sure you get a shot of Andy's face because he's so proud.

- Every time I hear it.

- I know.

Exactly.

- Yes, yes.

- What an accomplishment.

- Yes.

- But it was two years of intensive training?

- So it's been almost 12 years of me training.

So it's been up until that point.

You cannot test for a black belt under Royce until you have at least 10 years in.

There's a whole process.

And I tested 11 years in and, yep, the rest is history.

- There you go.

Okay.

So you have over a hundred students coming from everywhere.

What is the most challenging part of getting their mindset to change?

You were talking about, you know, some of the guys come in and go, "Yeah, yeah, brute force."

So how do you even start to change that mindset?

- [Michelle] A lot of times, he'll have me- - You wanna start with this?

- A lot of times, he'll have me go with the bigger guys.

(Michelle chuckles) - Oh, okay.

- Yeah, and then they're like, "Well, I don't understand how she can do this and she can do that and I don't understand how-" - [Christine] So what do you do then?

- Sometimes- - Do you flip 'em when they come up behind you, grab you, your hair?

- I have before.

Maybe you can elaborate more on it, but I have.

I mean.

Go ahead.

- Well, like, some of the moves, I'll say, you know, "Grab her wrist, hang on, don't let her go," and she's out.

- Yeah.

- And they're like, "Whoa," you know?

- And then- - A couple little grabs- - So you do those things?

I don't know.

Look at me.

- Yeah, or a flip, like a choke defense, things like that, where I can lift them and flip them.

You know, I've had guys over 300 pounds before, over six foot and, which is very empowering because when I was attacked, the guy was about 6'5.

So it's very empowering to me to be able to do that.

But, yeah, we will change our, they see us, like, we're not big people.

They see like, "How can you do it and how can I not?"

- We've had bigger guys, obviously, "Okay, okay, I'm on top, get out."

- Right.

- Okay.

- Get out, beat me.

- Okay.

- I won't do anything.

No submissions.

I'll just maintain the control.

And within less than a minute, they're outta gas and they're just like, they got nothing.

- Right.

Wow.

Yeah, so what does happen in a woman if they grab your wrist, and what do you do to defend yourself?

I mean, they always say, "If somebody comes up, you know, just throw your purse the opposite direction.

That's what they want.

They don't want you" I mean- - Hopefully.

- You've heard that scenario before.

- Oh, yes.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So it just depends.

There's so many different wrist grabs.

There's one hand, there's two hand.

It depends on how they grab you.

But we talk a lot about base, and base is very important for stability.

So it's just like grounding yourself and pulling your hand out, pulling your hand out of the opening between, we go out this way.

So it depends, well, how the wrist grab is, so.

- [Christine] Right, yeah, you don't just pull it.

- Right, you can't just pull it out.

But there's a certain technique that goes with it to do it.

So it's a matter of don't let them pull you.

- [Christine] Right.

- As soon as you ground yourself and don't let them pull you, then you get out right away.

So it's a reaction.

- So you have that control and composure that you know what to do and how to respond.

- Correct.

- And it's not, is it reacting or is it responding?

- I believe it's responding.

- I believe responding and just awareness in general.

We talk about that a lot.

A lot of times you can avoid a situation just by the way you carry yourself.

You know, when we do like a seminar, we talk about there's a selection process and if you don't fit the criteria- - [Christine] You're not a target.

- You're not.

They want an easy target.

So being aware if something doesn't look right, you know, it's probably not.

So just avoid that and don't be there in the first place.

But if you get caught off guard, you know- - [Christine] There you go.

Now you can handle it.

- At least you know what to do.

- Right, exactly.

So you have classes, mostly evening classes, right?

Because people come from different areas.

And so you're busy.

You're busy until late at night.

So we're recording this early in the morning.

Thank you for making time.

- Yes (chuckles).

- And you had to come all the way from Macomb.

- Yes.

- Do you hope to grow this program any bigger or you're satisfied, happy where you are?

- I mean, we're always looking to grow.

We're always looking to reach out to help other people.

My whole thing is I want people to be proactive.

I was not proactive.

Neither was Andy.

- Nope.

- You just never think it's gonna happen to you.

- [Christine] Right, exactly.

- And so if we can educate more people and they can be proactive, then they have less of a situation to be in.

And you don't know the nature of the attack.

You don't know, you know, what they want when you're attacked.

Do they want your purse, they want something different?

So it's more of educating, being proactive.

- [Andy] We've always said we don't want anyone to ever feel the way we felt.

- [Michelle] Right.

- Or be in that situation- - [Christine] When you were in that situation.

- Correct.

- It's awful.

It's awful.

And even afterward, it's awful.

- It is for years.

- And we don't ever want, if we can keep one person from having to go through that, we've done our job.

- Then you've accomplished something, yes, exactly.

- Yes.

- Yeah, and especially with the kids, if they can build the self-confidence, you know, to stick up for themself, that's huge.

- Mm-hm.

Do you also teach them, well, you said about strangers.

So if somebody comes up to them and tries to grab them if they're in the store in a parking lot, or walking down the street, so you teach them how to respond in that situation as well?

- [Michelle] Mm-hm.

Correct.

- And what is their feedback?

It'd be interesting to hear what their feedback is and, like, oh, you know, do they say, "Oh, it's never gonna happen to me," or are you making 'em paranoid?

- No, actually, we don't really have any kids that say it's never gonna happen to them.

And they're not paranoid at all.

I mean, they're actually very happy and they're more confident, I believe, when they do the moves.

And we have situations where kids will come to us that are in our program that have been bullied while they've been in our program and they've done exactly what we have taught them to do.

- [Christine] To get the bully to back down.

- Or they have been in situations where they've had to use the skills that we've taught them.

And they're just so excited to tell us like, "This worked.

This happened and this worked," and so- - And that just makes you as proud as ever.

- It does.

It really does.

- The parents are quite excited too.

- Yes, it does.

- I bet.

- Mm-hm.

- So.

- I bet.

Well, these are skills that some, well, in the first place, the normal attacks shouldn't be normal, but they're aware of them and we're aware of 'em now and parents are, but, you know, so what do the parents say when they're bringing the kids to the class?

Is it because they've been bullied or this is just the ground floor, just in case?

- So when they register, we have a whole process of why are you bringing your child to us?

And I did a whole study last year and amazingly it was because of discipline, focus, and self-confidence, not self-defense.

Self-defense is a huge part of it, but when I did the study, it showed more of the discipline and the self-confidence that they wanted them to gain, and the structure.

- [Christine] Okay.

- I mean, the self-defense was on there, but there was more people that had put down that that's what they went outta the classes.

- And you have an early childhood degree, I believe.

- Correct, I have a master's degree in early childhood education and child development.

- All right.

So that all just kind of fit into place.

- [Michelle] Correct.

- And you get to continue your studies this way.

- Correct.

- All right, awesome.

Okay, so really quickly, tell me about the mat chats.

You have some mat chats afterwards.

- Those are my favorite.

So I- - This is her.

- Yeah.

(Michelle and Andy chuckle) So I design those.

So we teach them the 7-5-3 code, the bushido code, the way of the warrior.

And so it talks about the seven virtues of a warrior, there's respect, courage, there's seven of 'em, five keys to health, talks about nutrition, physical exercise, and then there's the three states of mind, you know, awareness, alert.

And we talk about all of this to the kids.

We want them to understand that, you know, when you're in situations, you have to have the emotional balance.

You have to be aware.

You have to be alert.

So we will talk to them about those situations and we will have them answer questions.

And the questions are designed around the code.

They have to understand it, but they also have to understand, why should I be respectful?

What are some situations I should be respectful in?

And we talk about school, home, parents.

We want them to have these skills outside of the academy.

We're not here just to teach self-defense.

We're here to make them- - For an hour a week or whatever.

- Right.

We're there to make them better people, kind.

- That's awesome.

- Confidence, respect, courage.

- Same with the adults.

- [Christine] Exactly.

But you don't have mat chats with the adults.

- No (chuckles).

- We don't call 'em that, but we do talk a little bit.

- We do talk about, yeah, we don't call 'em that.

But yeah, we do talk about healthy eating.

We offer free apples and bananas after class for the kids.

We want to show them that nutrition's very important to keep the energy.

Keep the energy- - Just to keep your balance.

- Yes.

- Mm-hm.

Well, thank you very much for coming from Forgottonia.

- Yes, thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- We haven't forgotten about it.

And congratulations on everything that you're doing.

- Thank you so much.

- And this was delightful having you here.

Really appreciate it.

- It's great to be here.

- Thank you.

- All right, thank you.

I hope you enjoyed it.

And, you know, don't take everything to the mat, only when you have to.

- Yes (chuckles).

- Do it confidently.

Thanks for joining us.

Until next time, be well.

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