Speaker 1: Forensic Psychology is a podcast that provides an illuminating window
Speaker 1: into the workings of the criminal mind. Now here's your host,
Speaker 1: doctor Carlos.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everybody. Today we have a special guest, Ryan Blackwell.
Speaker 2: You can find more information about Ryan at Well trained
Speaker 2: elite dot com. He's a veteran of the US Navy.
Speaker 2: He's also a Purple Heart recipient. He's a USA Wrestling
Speaker 2: Bronze certified coach. He also has a bachelor's and Science
Speaker 2: and exercise Physiology, Strength and Conditioning, Nutrition, wrestling the NCAA Wrestlers.
Speaker 2: So today we're going to be talking about a lot
Speaker 2: of different topics. One of the topics we're going to
Speaker 2: cover is this incredible experience that he had, unfortunately and
Speaker 2: fortunately that he made it through where he was actually
Speaker 2: in the Pensacle and Navy base shooting. We're going to
Speaker 2: be listening to that story. A little bit later on,
Speaker 2: he's going to be talking about that when he confronted
Speaker 2: the gunman who approached the door. We're going to be
Speaker 2: listening to that story. We're also going to be talking
Speaker 2: about fitness and health. We'll be talking about wrestling, but
Speaker 2: most of all also about keeping cool and calm under
Speaker 2: high stress situations. So this is going to be one
Speaker 2: of those great podcasts. We're gonna be covering a lot
Speaker 2: of topics before we get started. Make sure to share, subscribe,
Speaker 2: hit that I like button, you know, we like it.
Speaker 2: It's not waste any more time. Welcome to the show,
Speaker 2: Ryan Blackwell, Welcome sir.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much for being here.
Speaker 2: And I forgot to mention this before we started the show,
Speaker 2: but thank you very much for your service as well.
Speaker 2: So Ryan, before we get to that incredible time that
Speaker 2: you had two years ago, the herrowing experience, before we
Speaker 2: get to.
Speaker 4: That, when I learn a little bit more about you, what.
Speaker 5: Got you into right.
Speaker 3: Came background. I mean my father he wrestled and it
Speaker 3: never pushed it on me. Really. It was a actually
Speaker 3: I was like in pe class I remember, like elementary school,
Speaker 3: and they had like a wrestling week or whatever, and
Speaker 3: that's where I first learned. I came home until my
Speaker 3: dad said, hey, on a wrestle and he's like, I
Speaker 3: got you. Then from there it was just like wide open,
Speaker 3: you know. And I was when that happened, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's kind of took me, took me for a ride
Speaker 3: and really built me as a young man.
Speaker 2: You know, I really love wrestling a lot. People who've
Speaker 2: heard my podcasts are Urban Combatives. We've had a couple
Speaker 2: of wrestlers on here, and I always found such a
Speaker 2: great sport because it helps you in.
Speaker 4: So many different ways.
Speaker 2: The discipline factor, the conditioning factor, the mindset factor we'll
Speaker 2: be talking about later. Also the I think the self
Speaker 2: defense factor is pretty big.
Speaker 4: I mean we saw that. I don't know if you're
Speaker 4: a follower of UFC or not, Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 2: You remember years back. I mean and even now, anybody
Speaker 2: who sees a wrestler knows knows where that fight's going
Speaker 2: to end up. It's very unlikely it doesn't go to
Speaker 2: the ground. Did you find that wrestling helped you at all?
Speaker 2: I mean, it helped you a lot in the sense
Speaker 2: of feeling confident, feeling more secure about yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, you know, especially developing like a competitive mindset
Speaker 3: at an early age. It really kind of did that
Speaker 3: for me. And then you know, you just just you
Speaker 3: build on that, and then it just you set goals,
Speaker 3: you accomplished them, So goals accomplished them, and it just
Speaker 3: paralleled with life a lot and I feel like my
Speaker 3: dad kept me kind of on the straight and arrow
Speaker 3: as far as coaching me, and I had other great
Speaker 3: coaches and mentors along the road as well. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it really really I think played factor just molding me right,
Speaker 3: because it was it was a mentality that I was
Speaker 3: developing kind of subconsciously without really knowing, right, working hard,
Speaker 3: knowing hard work pays off, or trying to be the
Speaker 3: hardest worker in the room, or whatnot, developing all those
Speaker 3: principles and characteristics.
Speaker 2: Not just in the sense of feeling I don't want
Speaker 2: to say secure, but I guess I guess you could
Speaker 2: say secure in yourself, feeling that if somebody was to
Speaker 2: bully you, somebody was to pick on you, and you
Speaker 2: can take care of yourself.
Speaker 4: Did you ever have that?
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely. I mean it's you always kind of like
Speaker 3: every wrestling season, anything about it, Like if it's a
Speaker 3: lot of kids tested, you know, you wrestle for two
Speaker 3: years and you wrestle for three years. Now the new
Speaker 3: kid comes in room. What's easy to wrestle somebody that
Speaker 3: doesn't know what they're doing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like, yeah, you get a sense
Speaker 3: of like a little bit of like, Okay, I have
Speaker 3: self confidence for sure, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 3: know how to use my body, you know, a little
Speaker 3: bit of spatial awareness, you know, because of boundaries on
Speaker 3: the wrestling mat, right, you have to keep it in
Speaker 3: bounds and body positioning and just leverage and yeah, all
Speaker 3: that stuff really really just like I said, runs that
Speaker 3: parallel with just life and applying it.
Speaker 4: I did it.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Did it help it all.
Speaker 5: During your Davy days?
Speaker 3: Navy days? Yeah, definitely with the mindset coming in being structured,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Wrestling's eighty percent mental uh,
Speaker 3: twenty percent physical. That's just the skills and techniques you learn.
Speaker 3: Then from there it's just muscle uh conditioning and reps,
Speaker 3: you know, muscle memory and your mindset. That's what you
Speaker 3: get out. There's a lot of goal setting and self talk,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, arousal control. You got to be
Speaker 3: able to you know, like control your breathing, be able
Speaker 3: to kind of like see yourself in the arena or
Speaker 3: on the mat, wrestling some visionary opponent, right and getting yourself.
Speaker 3: That's a sports psychology aspect behind it. So like that
Speaker 3: that's the biggest thing, Like a lot of competitors and
Speaker 3: all sports across the boards where we're really with something
Speaker 3: as a individual as wrestling, where it's a one versus
Speaker 3: one type of thing. That's that's where I think the
Speaker 3: differences are one and lost the master. They're one of loss.
Speaker 3: Like it's in your mind, like how how well you
Speaker 3: like really tapped in and that's likes and wrestling's one
Speaker 3: of those deals where like you got a choice put
Speaker 3: to really, if you want to be successful, you got
Speaker 3: to kind of adapt and adjust, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: You got to develop that mindset.
Speaker 4: That's great, that's extremely true.
Speaker 2: And wife, a lot of people don't tend to adapt,
Speaker 2: get stuck where they're at. And that's the interesting part
Speaker 2: is when we talked. Now we'll talk about a little
Speaker 2: bit about your story about what happened in Pensacola, because
Speaker 2: you attribute a lot of why you were able to
Speaker 2: get out of there and why you're able to do
Speaker 2: what you did to your wrestling background, to your mindset.
Speaker 4: But before we get to that, tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit about what happened.
Speaker 5: What it was.
Speaker 2: The first thing you heard was it was a gunshots,
Speaker 2: people yelling. What was the first thing to give you indication?
Speaker 5: There was trouble.
Speaker 3: Definitely, there's a gunshot that had sounded. It just echoed
Speaker 3: through the building and then you kind of hear the
Speaker 3: commotion unfold after that.
Speaker 4: What did you do when you heard the gun shots?
Speaker 3: So we there was like two other people in my
Speaker 3: office and then like what we said, secured the office,
Speaker 3: so you know, closed the door, and it took cover
Speaker 3: on some furniture office twelve by sixteen roughly furniture as
Speaker 3: you know, probably about ten feet away in the doors,
Speaker 3: press press furniture, you know, basic office material. And there's
Speaker 3: two windows located in the back of the office, and
Speaker 3: one of the sailors that was in there took cover
Speaker 3: behind one desk, and the other one took cover behind me,
Speaker 3: behind the other desk and the other side of the office.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of like as you know, and we
Speaker 3: got we got to call off, called on on one
Speaker 3: and then I had called the supervisor, told them not
Speaker 3: to enter the building. And that's pretty much how how
Speaker 3: the initial reaction went. Once the uh, the initial chaos unfolded.
Speaker 4: Did you have any.
Speaker 2: You know, people who are obviously who know about guns
Speaker 2: that bullets can go through those desks? You still put
Speaker 2: it in front of you because you never know why
Speaker 2: you could hit inside of there. Did you think about
Speaker 2: that at all, realizing Okay, this is kind of somewhat comfortable.
Speaker 5: I can't relate too much on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it was kind of like quick and it
Speaker 3: wasn't really like you had like time. It was just
Speaker 3: like that happened, and then we are our target was
Speaker 3: engaged or our office was engaged, and we were the
Speaker 3: next two.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it was just kind of happened, and then uh,
Speaker 3: we were able to take cover and get a call
Speaker 3: off and say, you know, kind of report the shooting
Speaker 3: and then till the you know, the the other supers
Speaker 3: for office, not the end of the building, and you know,
Speaker 3: as he said that, that's whenever the gumy he had
Speaker 3: shot out. The door was like half window pane half wood,
Speaker 3: so he shut the window pane and stayed on the
Speaker 3: other side of the door. So he just kind of
Speaker 3: had the barrier of the door between us and just
Speaker 3: shot us. Like I said, ten and twelve feet away.
Speaker 3: I got hit six times, and then he had put
Speaker 3: for he had hit a fourteen round magazine, so they
Speaker 3: had put fourteen rounds in our office between the between
Speaker 3: all of the wounds received between everyone rounds. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: he had he had a pistol, a nine millimeter pistol
Speaker 3: and fourteen rounds.
Speaker 4: Man, what was going through your head at the time.
Speaker 3: Initial reaction was like, oh, man, I've just been shot,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? But even prior to that,
Speaker 3: I would say, you kind of it's like fight or
Speaker 3: flight or freeze, right do And my initial reaction was like,
Speaker 3: I'm not dying today, you know. That was that was
Speaker 3: just kind of my mindset was like I just went
Speaker 3: straight to that. And then it was like automatically like
Speaker 3: solved the problem, you know, like that's like what this
Speaker 3: is what we're it, what we got like solved the problem.
Speaker 3: So that's like how it unfolded. Like once we were
Speaker 3: there and we got engaged. I took around in my
Speaker 3: arm and I was still on the call, and I
Speaker 3: had dropped my phone, and I rotated and I covered
Speaker 3: the female behind me, so I was still like a
Speaker 3: I wasn't on top of her, but I was, you know,
Speaker 3: roughly like a foot away from her, and I was
Speaker 3: in a crouching position. And I had gotten hit five
Speaker 3: more times and one off the side of my rib cage.
Speaker 3: Under my right arm, and I took two in my
Speaker 3: back since I was crouching. One on the right side
Speaker 3: of my lower back hit came outside inside of my thigh,
Speaker 3: and then the one and the left side of my
Speaker 3: back hit my public and kill my left hip. And
Speaker 3: then I took another round into the back of my
Speaker 3: right calf then went into my left foot, and from
Speaker 3: that moment, I just I I fell over right, and
Speaker 3: then I just was like, was really stunned, you know.
Speaker 3: And then I just like remember covering my head and
Speaker 3: just saying like, all right, I don't get hit in
Speaker 3: the head. Don't get hit in the head. You know.
Speaker 3: It was my initial reaction. And then from there I
Speaker 3: was like I kind of started like you don't want
Speaker 3: to die, and then like you start getting a little
Speaker 3: I got a little bit comfortable in a sense. I
Speaker 3: found a little bit of peace, kind of accepted my
Speaker 3: fate just because it was just ongoing and you're like,
Speaker 3: all right, play dead from me in my dead you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't know if you're dead yet. Then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, my phone just started going off
Speaker 3: against this so on the call, and it was just
Speaker 3: saying like black while he's still there, so it made
Speaker 3: me snap back into uh into things. I kind of
Speaker 3: had a daze to me, and I was able to
Speaker 3: come back through and I crawled over and got my
Speaker 3: phone and I told him that we have all I
Speaker 3: made a visual of the room and it was this
Speaker 3: is fractions and I saw the female I had been
Speaker 3: hitting her leg and I saw that the other sailing
Speaker 3: office said that he's been She had a flesh wing
Speaker 3: her leg and he had been hitting his leg. And
Speaker 3: I looked at the door. I didn't see a shooter,
Speaker 3: and I just said, hey, we've all been hit. I'm
Speaker 3: gon get us out here. I'll call you back. And
Speaker 3: then I just kind of just something like I only
Speaker 3: thought I got hit twice, like I felt it my arm.
Speaker 3: I felt the back of my leg, but I didn't
Speaker 3: feel the rest right. And I had a lot of
Speaker 3: adrenaline rolling, so I was I just hopped up and
Speaker 3: I just ran to the window and worked on getting
Speaker 3: the window open. But my there was an AC unit
Speaker 3: in the window and I had removed the window AC unit,
Speaker 3: but the window had slid down. In my right arm,
Speaker 3: I got hit my median nerves, so that gave me
Speaker 3: partial paralysis of my right limb and it I kind
Speaker 3: of I didn't have function at the time of being
Speaker 3: able to lift the window up, so I had another
Speaker 3: two in office were able to get up and help
Speaker 3: with the window. And then we had jumped out the
Speaker 3: window and proceeded to you know, carry on to find
Speaker 3: them and provide first aid.
Speaker 4: Tense and tense man, So when.
Speaker 5: You were.
Speaker 2: You think you were you were helping. Did you go
Speaker 2: out the window yet? Did you use your bloody arm?
Speaker 5: I think it was a winded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I had. I had went out the window.
Speaker 3: It was probably like seven foot droppers, so nothing too
Speaker 3: too bad. I was an elevated first level building, multiple
Speaker 3: story building. When we're on the first level, I was
Speaker 3: elevated and jumped out land in the butshes. The other
Speaker 3: two proceeded to come behind me, and I just remember
Speaker 3: elevating my arm on my head and I saw three
Speaker 3: guys standing at a building across is about one hundred
Speaker 3: yards away, and I the other person I was in office.
Speaker 3: When they got out, they kind of heard somebody they
Speaker 3: felt like coming back in, so they had went one
Speaker 3: way and I had already took another sailor with me
Speaker 3: and we started running towards the gentleman that I saw,
Speaker 3: telling him active shooter and you know, trying to get
Speaker 3: some help. And once we had gotten into the building,
Speaker 3: that's whenever we were able to kind of like stop
Speaker 3: for a second, you know, like really kind of like
Speaker 3: take a look at what just happened, because that at
Speaker 3: first it was initial just get get out of there,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And then like now it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: let's see what we have. Let's like make the call again.
Speaker 3: So I like, but but prior to all that, I
Speaker 3: had to like really get myself back into the right
Speaker 3: state of mind. So I was like trying to catch
Speaker 3: my breath and process everything. So I just called my
Speaker 3: wife real quick and told her I loved her, and
Speaker 3: I told her to call the family and told my
Speaker 3: love them. So I wanted to make sure she knew,
Speaker 3: you know, and everything that just happened. And I went
Speaker 3: right back to telling them like trying to get towels
Speaker 3: and provide first aid. And then on my arm, I
Speaker 3: was I was starting to black out a little bit
Speaker 3: because I was a lot of losing a lot of
Speaker 3: blood and I had just ran and I sat down
Speaker 3: and I kicked my feet up, and then I ended
Speaker 3: up kind of coming through again, and I just remember
Speaker 3: on my belt. I reached for my belt and I
Speaker 3: was able to get some assistance and take my belt
Speaker 3: off and apply a tournique to my right arm with
Speaker 3: my belt. And so that's where I thought the most
Speaker 3: like quick fixed option was my arm because my leg.
Speaker 3: I knew I had a bad spot on my leg.
Speaker 3: I just you know, I was just trying to move
Speaker 3: and get out of the building. So I had gotten
Speaker 3: them back on the phone. So I made the tourniquit
Speaker 3: and the guy that I had previously called that my
Speaker 3: supervisor that was on during the the he heard the
Speaker 3: whole shooting. He was en route to come get me
Speaker 3: because he was already on base, so I gave him
Speaker 3: some directions. He came to the building, he picked me
Speaker 3: and the other guy up, and then we were able
Speaker 3: to get to the front gate. And once we got
Speaker 3: to the front gate, it was kind of there was
Speaker 3: a lot of traffics all pushed back and everything was
Speaker 3: locked down, and there was trying to get the ambulance
Speaker 3: up front wasn't working. So we ended up getting transported, well,
Speaker 3: I got transported by the Sheriff's department here locally because
Speaker 3: we just have time to wait, right, And so they
Speaker 3: had put me in the back of the cruiser, and
Speaker 3: I guess I was. I was like I got out
Speaker 3: of the truck and I was walking around like when
Speaker 3: I pulled up in the pickup truck from my supervisor.
Speaker 3: I was walking around like saying, hey, you know, like
Speaker 3: we got to get to the hospital now, and they're
Speaker 3: like an once is coming and it wasn't coming yet
Speaker 3: because it was so you know, traffic was backed up
Speaker 3: and everything. So just tough situations since morning rush hour, right,
Speaker 3: and that was on base and whatnot. And so the
Speaker 3: one of the sheriffs you said, you're not dying on
Speaker 3: my watch game my cruiser. So then I had opened
Speaker 3: up the door and I saw another police officer back
Speaker 3: that had been shot in the leg and it was
Speaker 3: just bleeding out pretty good in the backseat of the car.
Speaker 3: So as I crawled in the back of the car,
Speaker 3: I stuck my left elbow into his wound on his
Speaker 3: leg to stop the loss of blood. And then he
Speaker 3: had ended up pulling on my turniquit because I was
Speaker 3: holding on the tournique with my left arm to apply
Speaker 3: the pressure. So we had to help me out by
Speaker 3: pulling on the belt to help like keep my arm tight,
Speaker 3: and that's what we did to the hospital, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I ended up going into the hospital and once we
Speaker 3: had pulled up the hossbody and I walked right in
Speaker 3: and then kind of went from there as far as
Speaker 3: what what actually happened happened, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: get the to what the damage is.
Speaker 2: Incredible amount of mindfulness that you had being in that
Speaker 2: presence stays that phenomenon. Now you attribute a lot of
Speaker 2: that to you mentioned earlier, to wrestling helping you to
Speaker 2: be able to stay calm and focused.
Speaker 4: Is that true?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: I would say, just with you're presenting a lot of
Speaker 3: stressful situations in life in general, but especially with the
Speaker 3: sport of wrestling. You know, you're a competitor. You're having
Speaker 3: to make weight, You're going to practices, you got to
Speaker 3: do school. There's a lot of different things. And I
Speaker 3: haven't competed, you know, since two thousand and fifteen seasons,
Speaker 3: so I've been I've been out of college for a
Speaker 3: while now, but still sticks with you because it becomes
Speaker 3: so muscle memory and second nature that the mindset is
Speaker 3: just kind of instilled and you just it just builds
Speaker 3: throughout life, right, you get a little bit of a
Speaker 3: callus and a little bit more of a callous and
Speaker 3: definitely staying composed. And I want to say like through
Speaker 3: some of the military training as well, just being in
Speaker 3: a stressful environment, staying composed and just like kind of
Speaker 3: figure it out, yeah what I mean, not don't like
Speaker 3: freak out, figure it out. So that was kind of
Speaker 3: like the motto, but it was also like it's one
Speaker 3: one shot. That's it, you know, like there's it's not
Speaker 3: really like you can run it back or this don't work.
Speaker 3: We got something. I was like, we're on a limited timeline.
Speaker 3: Like throughout that duration of events, like I just described you,
Speaker 3: it took twenty seven minutes from the moment I got
Speaker 3: shot because of that phone call that I had made
Speaker 3: to the point of acting the office, through all the
Speaker 3: little checkpoints along the way to the to when I
Speaker 3: had ride to the hospital. I had made one last
Speaker 3: phone call to my father right when I was pulling
Speaker 3: up tell him at where I was at, and he
Speaker 3: was on his way there. My parents live out of states,
Speaker 3: They're on their way already, and the kind of everything
Speaker 3: logged the timeline, so it just kind of shows you
Speaker 3: there in twenty seven minutes. It was it was a rush.
Speaker 3: It was it seems like hours, you know, as it
Speaker 3: unfolded in minutes in between, but it was seconds in fractions.
Speaker 3: It was it moved fast.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the weird things when I've spoken to police
Speaker 2: officers and special forces guys as well, who in combat,
Speaker 2: especially that the officers. There's one officer, Brian Murphy, a
Speaker 2: buddy of mine. He was he encountered a mass shooter
Speaker 2: and at a sick temple in Wisconsin. But we were
Speaker 2: talking about time dilation. In twenty seven minutes, that's like
Speaker 2: a week. Yeah, when you're that kind.
Speaker 5: Of everything just slows down.
Speaker 2: It's kind of interesting how our brain starts slowing everything
Speaker 2: down and.
Speaker 5: Then we have auditory exclusion.
Speaker 2: You don't hear very much of what's going around you,
Speaker 2: and it's it's really an amazing thing. So I can't
Speaker 2: even imagine. Twenty seven minutes must have felt like forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was especially with like the amount of
Speaker 3: blood that I was losing too, you know what I
Speaker 3: mean trying to like, so it was like I was
Speaker 3: in a race against time. But it was like an
Speaker 3: hour glass, like it was my body was essentially an hourglass, right,
Speaker 3: it was running out of blood because I was bleeding out,
Speaker 3: and it was I needed to get somewhere fast. And
Speaker 3: it happened and it worked out. But it took a
Speaker 3: lot of like willpower and just not giving up, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Like staying focused, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, staying composed, Like Okay, you get a wrench
Speaker 3: stone in here, what do we do now? All right,
Speaker 3: figure it out, and you just kind of just keep
Speaker 3: just keep even keeled. I guess, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: I would say like that would be like the best thing.
Speaker 3: And then I and then at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I'd already accepted my fate, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I accepted my fate when I initially got shot because
Speaker 3: I thought I was going out then and then my
Speaker 3: phone on the with it still be on the call
Speaker 3: brought me back in because it was saying, like Blackboy's
Speaker 3: still there, you know what I mean. So I had
Speaker 3: already went through that whole traumatic experience. And I don't
Speaker 3: even know if you want to say traumatic, it's definitely
Speaker 3: like undescribable as far as like what I what I encountered,
Speaker 3: as far as like as soon as all that initial
Speaker 3: gunshot had happened, and my body it took that, you know,
Speaker 3: took all that force and the blows to it. I
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, You're kind of drifting off.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: So it was it was kind of just crazy, Like
Speaker 3: I said, the experience as far as like what the
Speaker 3: human he is capable of doing. And then with me
Speaker 3: having my degree in exercise physiology and being able to
Speaker 3: provide like a wrestling background behind it and getting you know,
Speaker 3: some education training through the US State Wrestling and whatnot,
Speaker 3: it allows me to kind of really apply my knowledge
Speaker 3: that I've learned throughout all that with training and just
Speaker 3: like how I had to cost me back for four months,
Speaker 3: so I had to do a lot of physical therapy
Speaker 3: and uh I had I had it reverse, which was
Speaker 3: which I was very lucky to have. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 3: had my body and I had to do some very
Speaker 3: extensive physical and occupational therapy. And it kind of made
Speaker 3: me tap back into, you know, the grassroots of what
Speaker 3: my education was and what my foundation was and to
Speaker 3: be abld even with my diet with the claus to me,
Speaker 3: I had to change my diet up a lot, but
Speaker 3: I was used to doing that as a competitor and
Speaker 3: a wrestler, it was something else second nature to me.
Speaker 3: So it was just being a diet during the season
Speaker 3: for eight months was nothing new, you know. So this
Speaker 3: was only four months really and then you know, after
Speaker 3: the math, you got to kind of get to be
Speaker 3: careful with certain items. But for the most part, I
Speaker 3: was really able to rely on my training, right, And
Speaker 3: that's just like through that whole evolution of events, I
Speaker 3: was able to rely on my training and even to
Speaker 3: the point of first staid. On my gap between the
Speaker 3: Navy and college, I was in ocean lifeguard in Myrtle Beach,
Speaker 3: so I was able to learn a lot of first
Speaker 3: aid training as well, you know, during that time. And
Speaker 3: so it was really, like I said, just relying on training,
Speaker 3: like kind of tapping back into what Ryan Blackwell is
Speaker 3: like made of in a sense.
Speaker 5: Yes, he touched on so many time, so many topics.
Speaker 2: Again, we're talking to Ryan Blackman from well Trained Elite
Speaker 2: dot com. You can find out more about him in
Speaker 2: an amazing story and what his company does over there
Speaker 2: as well. And what his company does is actually one
Speaker 2: of the things I think he even agrees with is
Speaker 2: saved him, which is being physically fit, having that mindset,
Speaker 2: and it's amazing. A couple of points, I guess one,
Speaker 2: just listen to you talk about that. How powerful a
Speaker 2: simple word or a couple of words blackwell, are you still there?
Speaker 5: Kept you focused and motivated you.
Speaker 4: In a sense.
Speaker 5: That's amazing. Just to hear those words, how powerful they are,
Speaker 5: because we hear.
Speaker 2: Them all the time in the movies, right right, You
Speaker 2: don't think about it, but now hearing you just gave
Speaker 2: me a whole different perspective on that just changed the
Speaker 2: way your mind worked.
Speaker 5: It just flipped everything on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, like I said, very unique experience to
Speaker 3: say the least.
Speaker 4: Now on your physical fitness.
Speaker 2: But actually before we get to the physical fitness component,
Speaker 2: one more thing before we get to that, the tourniquit.
Speaker 2: In today's world, I see a lot of survivalists and
Speaker 2: a lot of people training individuals out there. We live
Speaker 2: in a very different world. In the last three years,
Speaker 2: crime is going up, but this is actually a really
Speaker 2: important part of it. I see some of these individuals
Speaker 2: now either gun classes or self defense classes, but they're
Speaker 2: also incorporating tourniquet training. How do you think that was
Speaker 2: obviously for you was quite important but how about you
Speaker 2: think for the average person.
Speaker 3: No, I think it's definitely poring for the average person.
Speaker 3: I would say just to be CPR in First Aid
Speaker 3: certif CPR in First Aid certified in general, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, and then like you can do your
Speaker 3: advanced training as far as the tourniquit training, but even
Speaker 3: just having basic just like CPR training for especially for parents,
Speaker 3: you know, being able to choking or this or that.
Speaker 3: But uh, that that first and foremost. You know, like
Speaker 3: there's a lot of you know, resources in the community.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you could like get those or especially online
Speaker 3: or whatnot. And uh but outside that, yeah, with the turnerquit,
Speaker 3: that was just something like you see it in the movies,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, you see it on this
Speaker 3: It wasn't like you're just like living this movie script.
Speaker 3: But it it really like it's kind of like the
Speaker 3: perfectay to paint the picture, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like you're sitting there, You're like, I'm bleeding out, what
Speaker 3: do I do? You know what I mean? And I'm
Speaker 3: fading out, like I'm going I'm getting lightheaded, and then
Speaker 3: it's just a go tournique. My brain just went straight
Speaker 3: tournique and then it just said belt, you know. And
Speaker 3: then from there, as soon as I had sensed it
Speaker 3: tight on my arm, an elevated mom up, I had
Speaker 3: like a sense of adrenaline come back over me again.
Speaker 3: So you know what I mean. It kind of maybe
Speaker 3: that initial like squeeze because I developed a crush injury.
Speaker 3: So I also had my median nerve had was partially severed,
Speaker 3: so my middle finger or my ring finger, my middle finger,
Speaker 3: my index finger, and my thumb were affected. My pinky
Speaker 3: and half of my ring finger or operational. But now
Speaker 3: I'm getting function back in my hand, but it's still
Speaker 3: like none be the touch and whatnot, but it's coming back.
Speaker 3: So that's from the nerve injury, nerves, you know, regenerate
Speaker 3: one over time. And then with the crush injury from
Speaker 3: the tournique from squeezing it so tight. With that crush,
Speaker 3: it also sent that pain signal to my brain. I
Speaker 3: think the receptors took it as another source of adrenaline,
Speaker 3: you know, and it was able to help me kind
Speaker 3: of stay focused again. And I was like, all right,
Speaker 3: check that box in a sense, right, because it was
Speaker 3: checkpoints out of the office, into this building, out of
Speaker 3: this building, into the truck and in the truck in
Speaker 3: the cruiser. Right, So that's like the best way for
Speaker 3: me to process it and break it down is like essentially,
Speaker 3: you know, there's like checkboxes along the way, you know,
Speaker 3: it was just one of them. Then Okay, then what
Speaker 3: happened next after that? Right, got back on the phone,
Speaker 3: made the call. So yeah, definitely important. Even that'd be familiar,
Speaker 3: I would say, just in case, like you got to
Speaker 3: use a shirt or a rag or something to know, like, hey,
Speaker 3: apply pressure to when things happened, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like that was not expected or planned. I had to react.
Speaker 3: You know, I got to work at five point thirty
Speaker 3: that morning, and that happened at six forty six, you know,
Speaker 3: so I wasn't there that long, so it was really
Speaker 3: I also had my morning coffee was still in my muck,
Speaker 3: you know. So it was an early morning.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how old you are, but I
Speaker 2: just got flashbacks Rambos. I remember he did the turnikut?
Speaker 4: Remember that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it like that. So it's it's really bizarre
Speaker 3: for me to like see the way that it unfolded
Speaker 3: because there was a ninety nine point nine chance. I mean,
Speaker 3: we were they're shooting fish in a barrel, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. It was just how fast were swimming circles,
Speaker 3: is really what it was. And to get out of that,
Speaker 3: and everybody in the office made it out of that.
Speaker 3: Everybody lived, that was in our office, We were able
Speaker 3: all to make it out of that. That that to
Speaker 3: me is us that's that's just you know, insane in
Speaker 3: a sense like this.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, there was eight of you, I think right they
Speaker 4: got out.
Speaker 3: There was three meet including me. There's three in my office.
Speaker 3: There was there was another, there was another lady that
Speaker 3: was upstairs, another one that was downstairs. Three for five,
Speaker 3: and there was three yes that that ended up being
Speaker 3: passing away. So total eight and there was a few
Speaker 3: two eight and the three police officers that were winded
Speaker 3: as well. So love in total.
Speaker 4: Do you think the police officers took them out, didn't they?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the swat team they came and they definitely
Speaker 3: they came in and eliminated him. So it was, uh,
Speaker 3: it went on for a good duration of time because
Speaker 3: he was able to get the advantage on him, you know,
Speaker 3: because there's a double story building, so it was kind
Speaker 3: of get the high spots in some areas in the
Speaker 3: initial till uh, you know, until they were able to
Speaker 3: get get the vantage point.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to neutralize that threat for sure, and thankfully
Speaker 2: everybody got out of there. Amazing story. Incredible story. And
Speaker 2: for those out there in the situational awareness who are
Speaker 2: listening to this, to that podcast situation, it's tactics and
Speaker 2: there's a.
Speaker 4: Lot here to learn.
Speaker 2: Keeping your head on I guess focused, keeping focused throughout
Speaker 2: the entire time, because it's not the time to worry
Speaker 2: about anything at that moment. It's the time about getting
Speaker 2: her plan and getting out. You know, plenty of time
Speaker 2: to worry afterwards.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It's like not being like hyper vigilant or like anything
Speaker 3: like that, But it's more just about being self confident
Speaker 3: and ready in a sense. You don't have to gloat,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, boast and brag about I
Speaker 3: got this, I got that, I know this, I know that.
Speaker 3: You can be like a silent assass and you can
Speaker 3: be the gray man, right, and you can kind of
Speaker 3: just know what you know and then just go about
Speaker 3: your life and then if one day, if you have
Speaker 3: to act on it, you're still have enough self confidence
Speaker 3: that you should give your best effort you know what
Speaker 3: I mean that That's all I was trying to do
Speaker 3: that day was give my best effort. And I knew,
Speaker 3: like I was, I was gonna go out without it.
Speaker 3: I wasn't gonna go out without a fight, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. I was going to go as far
Speaker 3: and as long as I could. That was like a
Speaker 3: you know kind of like.
Speaker 2: Where we went incredible stuff. How did it change you afterwards?
Speaker 2: Did you become you mentioned hyper vigilin? Are you more hypervisual? A?
Speaker 2: You're hypervigilin now.
Speaker 3: In Since I think, like you know, there's a few
Speaker 3: positive things you should know, like you know, like even
Speaker 3: going to a right, don't put your back through the door.
Speaker 3: That's just not my style. Know your exits right, know
Speaker 3: where your exits right. Things happen all the time. Know
Speaker 3: where your exits right. Kitchen fire happens. You know your
Speaker 3: exits right, and then knowing what your potential threats may
Speaker 3: be right. And you can really kind of spot this
Speaker 3: on and it's not like you stereotyping or classifying somebody,
Speaker 3: but you can see if somebody's belligerent, or if somebody
Speaker 3: is coming in and they just look like they're they're
Speaker 3: doing something out of the norm in a sense of
Speaker 3: causing it a distraction or being very loud or you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, It kind of gives it stuff away.
Speaker 3: It's the elephant in the room essentially, notice the elephant
Speaker 3: in the room, right that that's kind of like the
Speaker 3: biggest things that I feel like you're really focus on
Speaker 3: more kind of seeing things before that before they happen,
Speaker 3: which would probably be thinking three, four or five steps ahead. Right,
Speaker 3: You're trying to play everything out and not just act
Speaker 3: on a quick impulse decision. You're kind of but you're
Speaker 3: you're working it out like you can work out a
Speaker 3: little bit faster, right, you can work out to step
Speaker 3: three a little bit quicker. And it's kind of like
Speaker 3: relies back on muscle memory and like with like wrestling,
Speaker 3: right as the example, like when you wrestle somebody or
Speaker 3: three moves ahay, because you know, if you take them down,
Speaker 3: you got to work to score points to do a
Speaker 3: turn and after that you're trying to pin them and
Speaker 3: then you're trying to set them up for this and
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So it's that's, like I said,
Speaker 3: the parallels with life in the sport.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great example I know.
Speaker 2: I was watching some some wrestling tapes the other day,
Speaker 2: and there's so much going.
Speaker 5: On in wrestling. People don't realize it.
Speaker 2: It's like a chess game, like you mentioned, because you
Speaker 2: have a lot of fake outs. You know, you try
Speaker 2: to grab one foot, You act like you're going to
Speaker 2: grab one foot, so they step forward or back, and
Speaker 2: then you grab that foot they put forward. That's what
Speaker 2: you wanted. You baited them into a certain direction. So
Speaker 2: it's interesting because there's a lot of chess playing there.
Speaker 2: And I also want to make sure people are realized
Speaker 2: because sometimes you'll get this, oh, they're paranoid, but paranoia
Speaker 2: is not that. Paranoia is thinking you're feeling or feeling
Speaker 2: that you're threatening some capacity and there's nothing going on,
Speaker 2: but you don't feel threatened.
Speaker 5: You're actually looking to see.
Speaker 2: Your environment and you're trying to plan ahead, which is
Speaker 2: a very different game than paranoia.
Speaker 4: Paranoia is a mental.
Speaker 2: Health condition a lot of times if you are and
Speaker 2: those individuals can't function on life a lot of times
Speaker 2: when they get hampered. But a huge difference between that
Speaker 2: and what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's more just about being prepared in a sense,
Speaker 3: you know, like if like we live from here in Florida,
Speaker 3: so you're prepared during hurricane season for like when hurricanes
Speaker 3: are coming, right, it's just more so being prepared rather
Speaker 3: than being scared or this or that, Like, yeah, there's
Speaker 3: gonna be fear involved, believe that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be how you face the fear. It's not
Speaker 3: going to not be present. If that ever situation occurred,
Speaker 3: I know it was very present, but it was like
Speaker 3: how do you face it and stay focused and being
Speaker 3: able to like apply it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, absolutely absolutely. That's a great example. And heroes are
Speaker 2: not fearless. They go there, they're having fear. They're just
Speaker 2: very brave and they go through that fear right, right,
Speaker 2: we're all afraid.
Speaker 5: That in those moments.
Speaker 2: Later on you realize holy completely, well, I think what's
Speaker 2: going on? Yeah, I've talked to a couple of guys
Speaker 2: on Delta Force, which was interesting because their mindset's a
Speaker 2: little different.
Speaker 4: Those guys are different as it is.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think if you tap into that
Speaker 3: more and more times, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 3: you become comfortable because at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: it's about being uncomfortable, right, And what's the only way
Speaker 3: to get comfortable uncomfortable by getting being uncomfortable, right, And
Speaker 3: if you make yourself uncomfortable a lot, it's going to
Speaker 3: become the norm to where you're not going to probably
Speaker 3: have that fear. It's normal to you. That becomes normal,
Speaker 3: you know. And then that's where you have the transition
Speaker 3: back when these guys go to try to adapt back
Speaker 3: into civilian life, that they became a new norm. And
Speaker 3: that's like kind of beyond what we do for wrestling
Speaker 3: and fitness at the gym, we do a lot for
Speaker 3: veterans too, so like because like we kind all know
Speaker 3: like what it is, you know, like purple heart reciping
Speaker 3: or not, you know, disabled one hundred percent or not. Like,
Speaker 3: we do a lot of stuff for veteran share at
Speaker 3: the gym, trying to provide them outlets or the resources
Speaker 3: that they need. So yeah, it's been, it's been. It's
Speaker 3: been a very very crazy life experience for sure.
Speaker 2: I want to transition a little to the fitness in
Speaker 2: our last minutes here. I know that's what you focused
Speaker 2: a lot on over there. Will you physically fit when
Speaker 2: that incident occurred?
Speaker 3: I was, Yes, I was. It's kind of that mindset
Speaker 3: it's always kind of staying shape. I had just I
Speaker 3: had wrist surgery, so I had my right hand reconstructed,
Speaker 3: my wrist bone in there. So that's why I was
Speaker 3: in limbo while I was out here kind of recovering
Speaker 3: from that surgery. I had about a year prior to
Speaker 3: the shooting. It was in twenty eighteens when I had
Speaker 3: that wrist surgery and they fused my wrist, so like
Speaker 3: they took some bones out and fused four bones together,
Speaker 3: and it created kind of like a frozen joint in
Speaker 3: a sense in my right arm. So it was just
Speaker 3: more my right arm. Yeah. So but I had started
Speaker 3: I was kind of like running a lot, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. And I was like going to the
Speaker 3: gym and I was doing you know, different things and
Speaker 3: swimming right, and it's just kind of like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: just kept that foundation. I wasn't like at my peak
Speaker 3: performance by any means. I'd definitely been in better shape,
Speaker 3: but I was definitely had a foundation. I wasn't with
Speaker 3: a very like sediment or anything like that. Like I
Speaker 3: was active.
Speaker 2: The reason I asked because I know a lot of
Speaker 2: people who've been injured. I haven't asked people to have
Speaker 2: been shocked, but I know from speaking to doctors, recovery
Speaker 2: is usually a lot better if you're in good physical condition, right.
Speaker 3: I feel like I kind of like I wear my
Speaker 3: wounds well in a sense, I was able to bounce back,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So, like I opened the
Speaker 3: gym within the first year of the shooting, so I
Speaker 3: had a lot of bag for the first four months
Speaker 3: of it. So at SAMs they got the reversal. I
Speaker 3: kind of like on that second half of the year,
Speaker 3: I focused all my intention on creating this well trained
Speaker 3: you know, the training facility, and we made it happen
Speaker 3: a year to the date of the shooting. And that
Speaker 3: was still with my arm all messed up and my
Speaker 3: legs and everything. But I was able to like focus,
Speaker 3: and I put myself in a lot of uncomfortable situations
Speaker 3: to be able to like get my dream a reality
Speaker 3: as far as what we had going on here. And
Speaker 3: it was a lot of help in the community, a
Speaker 3: lot of uh you know, just like kind of tapping
Speaker 3: in their own personal resources to just put the put
Speaker 3: the bill and everything, and it really, uh it really
Speaker 3: all came together. But it also helped me heal because
Speaker 3: I was forced to be active. I was forced to
Speaker 3: use my right hand, which I was I had, I was,
Speaker 3: I was like briefly I was right hand dominant. Then
Speaker 3: throughout the recovery, especially with the closs me bag, I
Speaker 3: was left hand dominant. That I had to learn how
Speaker 3: to do left hand because I kid had no use
Speaker 3: of my right arm at the time. Then as my
Speaker 3: function started coming back in my right arm, I started
Speaker 3: learning how to do everything right handed again. So now
Speaker 3: I've like, you know, I had to reteach myself how
Speaker 3: to do everything back to writing right handed. Wow, there's thanks.
Speaker 3: Yeah that you know that I have some issues with
Speaker 3: as far as just like pinching and grabbing just because
Speaker 3: of the uh tissue, Like this finger is feeling numb.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's been. It's been a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of stuff through the recovery that
Speaker 3: definitely attributes back to this well trained the facility, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, and being able to kind of
Speaker 3: stay focused through the whole duration of the events.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about functional fitness. I think
Speaker 2: we were talking a little bit before the interview. Tell
Speaker 2: us them about what that's all about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we we we provide a functional fitness class,
Speaker 3: and it's more circuit training and durrance base where we're
Speaker 3: kind of moving weight. It's not super heavyweight, and there
Speaker 3: are different stations set up so you know, essential circuit training, resistance,
Speaker 3: you know training, or maybe some type of pliometric or
Speaker 3: some something of that nature, like mix it all up, right,
Speaker 3: so you kind of get a full body workout and
Speaker 3: it's on on clock, and it's like you know, certain
Speaker 3: periods of you're active and there's rest periods in between.
Speaker 3: And it's been really a good hit, especially with the
Speaker 3: younger generation. So our our gym is primarily youth. Actually,
Speaker 3: like I would say, like ninety percent of our members
Speaker 3: our youth Thistle or youth. We have over one hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty members currently and coming on our second year
Speaker 3: coming up this you know, anniversary of the shooting Summer
Speaker 3: six and so we have the other ten percents made
Speaker 3: up of like the active duty or retired personnel, military personnel,
Speaker 3: or just people just in the community that want to
Speaker 3: stay active. And we have some adult programs, but primarily
Speaker 3: we do a lot for the youth with wrestling, and
Speaker 3: we have a PE class, so we do a lot
Speaker 3: of we have a well trained PE so that's elementary
Speaker 3: age based kids where they come in and we do
Speaker 3: kind of sometimes we do the old school pe games
Speaker 3: like double dutch and you know, kickball and dodgeball, and
Speaker 3: then other times we're doing relay races, are different exercises
Speaker 3: with like tennis balls or whatever, so we really mix
Speaker 3: it up and try to make it fun. Really, our
Speaker 3: biggest goal is to teach them how to just do
Speaker 3: fitness for life in a sense. So if we're doing
Speaker 3: some then with stations and it's minimal equipment and a
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff they can purchase now from Amazon
Speaker 3: or Walmart or whatever. Now they're they're learning something they
Speaker 3: can apply the rest of their life because now they
Speaker 3: know how to structure a workout, they're literally just taught themselves. Okay,
Speaker 3: I can put five exercises together. I can do thirty
Speaker 3: seconds on the clock. I can do a twenty second
Speaker 3: rest in between, and I do that five times to
Speaker 3: each station, and that's do that a couple of times,
Speaker 3: you know, two times through and change up a couple
Speaker 3: of times, and that's almost a thirty minute workout, you know,
Speaker 3: and then we add you know, your of course, we
Speaker 3: like to warm them up properly so we can try
Speaker 3: to do injury prevention and then we then you know,
Speaker 3: cool them down and stretch and do a lot of
Speaker 3: mobility work as well, and which helps also with the kids,
Speaker 3: you know, with growth aiding in their development right because
Speaker 3: they're really they're in their developmental years, especially as they're
Speaker 3: entering puberty and that middle school age range and that's
Speaker 3: where we have the bulk of our functional fitness class
Speaker 3: is primarily that middle school high school age range, which
Speaker 3: is perfect, you know, because we're able to really get
Speaker 3: them active and kind of get them really familiar and
Speaker 3: having fun. It's not it's not your typical gym, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not like the barbells and squats there wrestle that
Speaker 3: we have a lot of equipment, you know, as far
Speaker 3: as like sandbags or dumbbells or slam balls or you know,
Speaker 3: dummies or punching bags. We have all that so kind
Speaker 3: of helps you get creative and then it taps in
Speaker 3: that creativity side of things too, and it's just really
Speaker 3: makes fitness fun. And that's the day. We want to
Speaker 3: make it fun. We want them to learn something and
Speaker 3: do it right proper form, you know, especially with our
Speaker 3: wrestlers that we're able to interact with. We can really
Speaker 3: touch based on a lot of nutritional aspects as far
Speaker 3: as key hydration and what foods to stay away from
Speaker 3: that might be too rich in this or too much
Speaker 3: in that, you know, and like kind of keeping a
Speaker 3: clean diet as far as like vegetables and fruits. We
Speaker 3: don't do anything crazy. We just really tell them keep
Speaker 3: a colorful plate, you know, and drink water, you know,
Speaker 3: stay hydrated. Uh. You know, if if you had the
Speaker 3: option between cookies and an apple, you're gonna take the
Speaker 3: cookie with apples the better option in the sense it
Speaker 3: feel on your next work out, right, or a lot
Speaker 3: of these guys they love Russell, they love competing, and
Speaker 3: we have kids competing from fourteen years old through eighteen
Speaker 3: years old, so we have a wide age base, right,
Speaker 3: so there's a different way to appeal to each and
Speaker 3: every one of them. And of course as they get
Speaker 3: into high school, they're doing a little bit more weight management.
Speaker 3: So we really help those guys the best we can.
Speaker 3: But as a kid, just with them developing, we just
Speaker 3: really just try to tell their parents just hey, you know,
Speaker 3: if they want to PB ANDJ before bed, they're probably
Speaker 3: tired and they're probably hunger because they burn a lot
Speaker 3: of calories from Wressel projects today, you know, so give
Speaker 3: it to them, you know that you want them to grow, right,
Speaker 3: you don't want especially this before like wrestling, people feel,
Speaker 3: you know, the lighter you are, the more advantage you have.
Speaker 3: But that's not really the case. We're just trying to,
Speaker 3: you know, just build, build something that's like lasts long,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, enough for them to be
Speaker 3: able to give back to the next generation. That's kind
Speaker 3: of what you want to do, right, and it just
Speaker 3: kind of keeps that circle rolling. And it's just such
Speaker 3: like tenfold, you know, from every direction, from the functional
Speaker 3: fitness to just the advice we can provide on certain topics,
Speaker 3: from the better inside of the house of the fitness
Speaker 3: to the nutrition and it's very We're very fortunate, need
Speaker 3: let's just say, I'm very fortunate myself to being able
Speaker 3: to respond the way I did, to be racked through
Speaker 3: this situation and be able to kind of do the
Speaker 3: right steps all along the way and be able to
Speaker 3: continue to apply that mindset now to you know, the
Speaker 3: business aspect of life and provide my family and you know,
Speaker 3: we just wropprom my new baby grown to the world.
Speaker 3: She's five months old. Oh congratulations, it's been it's been
Speaker 3: a roller coaster of events, right, very very active past
Speaker 3: two years. So that's been very thankful and gratefully.
Speaker 2: That's a great program. People don't realize how important it
Speaker 2: is for kids to be healthy and physically fit. It
Speaker 2: really changes the dynamic of their development is to get older.
Speaker 2: It makes it a lot easier for them to stay
Speaker 2: fit as they get older, and makes some body develop
Speaker 2: a much stronger. There's so much going on there, and
Speaker 2: that's a great, great program. I'm really glad to hear that.
Speaker 2: And again I'm a big opponent of wrestling. So if
Speaker 2: the kids are training, they learned discipline, they learn self defense.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things we've learned to respect other people.
Speaker 2: You know, in today's society, Ryan, I think you and
Speaker 2: I both know. You know, I think people have gotten
Speaker 2: a lot of softer in today's society.
Speaker 4: We get a lot of what we want. If you
Speaker 4: want something, to just go grab it or order it.
Speaker 4: It's done.
Speaker 2: And you made a comment earlier, did you have to
Speaker 2: get comfortable being uncomfortable? And that's so true, because I
Speaker 2: think we've gotten so used to being comfortable, even the
Speaker 2: supply chain stuff that we see now.
Speaker 5: You know, people have to shake stuff off.
Speaker 2: Last year we had that incredible weirdness with the toilet
Speaker 2: paper thing. I think that was a classic example of
Speaker 2: people not being comfortable being uncomfortable.
Speaker 5: Crazy times.
Speaker 2: Again, Ryan Blackwell, you can find more about him at
Speaker 2: well Trained Elite dot com. I can only say it's
Speaker 2: really you're an amazing person, an amazing story, and I thank.
Speaker 4: God you're on our side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, thank you, and.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much for your service.
Speaker 2: Again, any other places you want to send up besides
Speaker 2: Well Trained to Lead dot com, I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: you have an Instagram accounter.
Speaker 3: That's uh yeah, everything is that well Trained to Lead.
Speaker 3: So if you have an in and Facebook, they can
Speaker 3: just put that in and then if you go to
Speaker 3: the website just for for the contact format, doing information
Speaker 3: or if you know you want to you know, have
Speaker 3: we travel a lot of tournaments, you know, so we
Speaker 3: do also like travel teams. You know, if you're interested
Speaker 3: in are well trained for a weekend, we could kind
Speaker 3: of do something like that for coming to your neighborhood
Speaker 3: where we're wrestling a tournament. And yeah, other than that,
Speaker 3: any just advice needed or you know, we're always doing
Speaker 3: stuff for the kids. We always you know, are very
Speaker 3: accepting of anything, you know, wrestling shoes, the headgear to anything.
Speaker 3: A lot of the kids we try to get back
Speaker 3: to them the best we can. So like donation wise,
Speaker 3: we have you know, we have the U Shoes where
Speaker 3: we kind of go like get shoes back and giving
Speaker 3: back to a kid in the program. You know, so
Speaker 3: it just kind of cycles its way through to the
Speaker 3: to know good no more and you just doumb away, right,
Speaker 3: and it's kind of kids grow fast enough, so any
Speaker 3: anything like that, you know, it's really just all about
Speaker 3: the kids, the community and the veterans is our biggest
Speaker 3: approach at the moment. And yeah, no appreciate you guys support.
Speaker 3: And like I said, you can any of any well
Speaker 3: trained to lead on any of those Twitter or not, Twitter,
Speaker 3: Instagram and Facebook and then of course you can fill
Speaker 3: out to contact us for him.
Speaker 5: We'll get back with you. Awesome stuff.
Speaker 2: Thanks again Ryan for doing this, Thank you everyone for listening.
Speaker 2: They should have shared subscribe hit that I like button.
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, everybody,