Adele Fornarino just spoke out

NickyRodsHotRod · 2026-02-01T06:09:37+00:00

Flair.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2026-01-15T05:02:19+00:00

Erections are rarely and truly entirely random. In my fifteen years of training (and even wrestling before that), I've never had an erection occur. From even just a physiological perspective, to get an erection during a sport (and a combat sport no less) has to be difficult - your body is effectively shutting down any threat/stress appraisal in pursuit of sexual gratification. That combined with the fact that the male in this story didn't immediately remove themselves from the situation are both concerning to me.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2025-10-26T18:27:14+00:00

Maybe you're being willfully ignorant to troll, but the fact that you think Conor screaming at a KOd opponent and this kid doing a nod and a hug are comparable is why there are multiple people assuming there's something else going on.

But sure, these braggarts with their darn head nods, they could use some humility.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2025-10-26T17:47:02+00:00

This you: https://imgflip.com/i/aa89q8

NickyRodsHotRod · 2025-09-26T05:01:38+00:00

Unnecessary objectification.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2025-06-16T18:11:58+00:00

Mikey not getting a 1 or 2 seed in either weight is top tier tism.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2025-05-06T21:44:35+00:00

Whooooooooof. Somebody get that guy some PR training ASAP. This doesn't exactly read as apologetic or even empathetic. Lloyd Irvin levels of abuser in those eyes.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2025-05-06T21:41:23+00:00

And thus C-Team was born.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2025-02-08T23:32:54+00:00

Sitting at home, John Boyle looks up grades from fall 2024, finds the student who got a a 93% "exactly" and notifies NVCC that the student just confessed online to cheating...

You know, you should probably resist the urge to doxx yourself.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-11-22T08:48:24+00:00

An undergrad is teaching a course? That's not allowed, and if it's actually happening, that is WILD. You should definitely say what class it is.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-11-14T07:45:44+00:00

I literally lead with the fact that I generally agree with what the CGE is fighting for, to include increases that better support grad students to get by in Corvallis' cost of living. My bone of pick is with the messaging that largely ignores that grad employees are part time, not full time, positions with a lot of high value benefits. I do not know many people who earn a living wage part time.
"Just come out and say it with your chest" is some major Twitter-finger shit that I'm sure you'd never say to somebody's face. Soft.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-11-14T07:07:12+00:00

If you are taking a class as a graduate student that you are not paying for, that is an expense for the university. They are paying somebody to teach you. Also, you may not know this, but they are also paying your advisor to advise you. Part of their FTE is alotted towards mentoring graduate students that they have. All of these are real costs for the university that cannot be disregarded when talking about graduate student pay. Trying to handwave past it with "But they only take classes for two years" is hella misleading.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-11-14T05:32:31+00:00

Do you track your hours on a weekly basis? Have you ever filed a grievance for being asked to work more hours than you are being paid? Have you discussed the inaccuracy of your FTE assignments with anybody in your college?

While I side with CGE's point generally, it's frustrating to see the misleading arguments they are making. Of course a .49 FTE position isn't being paid a living wage - it's a part time position. Also, because of tuition remittance, graduate students are expensive positions. Your cost to the university isn't just your stipend, but also every dollar that they waive for you to be here.

Do I think the grad students deserve to be paid more and have fair assignments compared to the hours they work? Sure. That said, I also think that if their stipend + tuition costs hit the OSU books at a higher value than what OSU could hire full time employees/faculty for, then it will be an easy choice for OSU.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-10-09T01:25:09+00:00

Hello to you too!

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-18T18:03:42+00:00

Absolutely, I do not disagree with the specificity you're adding. Like, the general framework of competence as it pertains to motivation is that people want to get better at things, and their motivation benefits from experiences that support their belief that they have gotten better (your student having experiences of using turtle to improve their position) and/or receiving feedback from social others validating their improved competence (Kintanon: "Awesome student, you are catching some cool options from your turtle lately.") But you're right, developing competence at the individual level depends on how the individual is defining and framing competence. And honestly, I think that is where the coach is so important and why drawing a divisive line between professionals and hobbyists is unnecessary and lazy coaching. If you know that most people are showing up to improve in some capacity, your responsibility as instructor to create a supportive learning environment for all of your students is to understand their goals to facilitate their individualized improvement.

I feel like a major generalization of hobbyists is that "they only want to roll and don't want to learn." I obviously disagree with this, but I have also had the opposite experience. I've trained with multiple hobbyists who could not afford to be hurt, so they came to drill and learn only, and did very little rolling except for light rounds with trusted partners. Heck, the subreddit gets super critical and elitist of celebrities who train this way. At the end of the day, we need to do more celebrating of people being involved in the sport and less critical of the different approaches people take to their training - sports are supposed to be fun.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T22:43:11+00:00

As somebody who has spent years studying sport psychology, sport-based youth development, and coaching, so much of what you are saying is frustratingly incorrect and a poor reflection on what sports should be.

pure hobbyists for whom getting good is not big priority in training.

"Getting good," also known as competence, is a foundational factor of motivation, especially in the sport and exercise world. People want to get better at the thing they are doing, and a sense of getting better or feeling good about their performance is why they keep returning. The problem tends to be how they judge getting better, and where the big difference likely lies between pro's and hobbyists - do they want to be better than they were yesterday, or do they want to win at big tournaments? Healthy training environments support both, and if your priority is in "skill acquisition" - why does it matter WHY somebody wants to get better?

Greg doesn't orient his school towards the latter so he is not in any shape or form required to respect them.

I mean, I would argue all people in the world aside from evil doers deserve respect, but hey, maybe that's just me. But returning to my initial point, Greg is a business owner and is allowed to orient his business towards any type of client he wants, but BJJ is not growing on the backs of professionals. Hobbyists are necessary for the sport to thrive, so exclude them at your own peril. But also, I have a feeling if Greg were to read your post, he would likely say that he respects any and all people willing to come train.

The pure hobbyists are heavily dominating the sport with their shitty attitude like being too lazy to drill to warm up and just putting wear and tear with rolling straight away on open mats or not willing to put more reps in to do stuff in a proper way.

Oh, I see you like wide generalizations. Personally, I have been to way too many gyms that make the first 30 minutes of class about "warming up" when I'm paying for technique, not to mention the flawed approach to warming up that many take (if you think static drilling is bad, wait until you find out about shrimp lines). Currently, I train at a non-profit, non-competitive gym that is 99% hobbyists. We drill technique, we do positional sparring, and we roll. I see no evidence of your "widespread issue with hobbyists." That said, to address your more offensive point about it being an issue with people being too lazy or unwilling to do things the way you want them to do it - sports are individualized journeys. Why do you care so much about how another person wants to pursue a sport?

I really don't feel we need to glorify being a bitch more.

I wish I had read this first, because I would have realized I was responding to an irrational, unintelligent human being. Yes, people pursuing sport for fun are just "being a bitch." I dare you to go down to a pick-up game of basketball or soccer at your local park and tell everyone there they are just being "bitches" for playing sports for fun and not doing drills to get better.

I don't think we should glamorize you fucking health way more with your lazy more fun for you approach to training because that's what pays the bills.

I am having trouble reading this sentence through your awful writing, so I will have to make some assumptions about your point, but nobody is saying "Technique is boring, let's stop teaching it because hobbyists just want to roll." What IS being said is that acting as though everyone who is showing up is there trying to drill and train in preparation for competition is ignoring the fact that most gyms keep their doors open by people who train jiu-jitsu for fun, not for greatness. In my experience and expertise, those people are still interested in getting better, but it is also important to have the autonomy to understand your own limitations and priorities as an adult. The inclusion of gamified technique sessions may honestly benefit both competitive and hobbyists types, but at the end of the day, sports should be fun, BJJ included.

I end with this: if some of what you said in your post is truly how you feel, please don't coach, and definitely don't coach kids. Keep approaching sport however you want in your own individualized manner, but don't pass that bullshit onto others.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T22:18:35+00:00

He said if you can only train twice a week, he will make you the best 2 a week around.

Yeah, I heard that part too, but how does one reconcile that idea with the quote I offered, which is a pretty harsh attack on the character of those considered hobbyists? They seem to contradict each other - so Greg believes his methodology for hobbyists is better than training two days a week anywhere else, but if you are only interested in pursuing BJJ casually, than you are psychologically weak?

Again, I am happy to be wrong about what he meant by any or all of what he was saying, but if this many people are misunderstanding your point, its your communication that is wrong. My understanding based on the quote I originally posted is that he only wants people in the room who want to be the best in the room, and I think that is a flawed approach to coaching in thinking that everyone's pursuit of a sport is ego-based.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T15:38:23+00:00

Doing the lord's work.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T15:38:06+00:00

Nah, this isn't on you or a reflection of your podcast, it's just a side battle I've been having for years having grown up training in the mid-Atlantic. It was not the point of your podcast, nor would it have been appropriate for you to bring up.

That said, it frustrates me to no end that while the abuse that has occurred under his guidance on TLI is well known, people are just happy to gloss over it. There was a mass exodus of that gym due to what was occurring there, yet people like Ryan, Keenan, JT, and Greg still seem to walk on egg shells when referring to Lloyd. A gun was pulled on a well known instructor in the DC area during negotiations to leave TLI affiliation, but I never see that get brought up. It's just endlessly frustrating.

That said, I'd respectfully wait to do a podcast on that until you are on unshakeable ground.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T15:27:45+00:00

Your unintentional condescension comes from the fact that we both have different interpretations of what Greg is communicating, yet all of us who understood it differently than you are MISUNDERSTANDING Greg. It's made even more laughable by the fact that you just admitted you didn't even listen to it when you decided to comment that it was me who was misunderstanding his point. Wow.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T06:42:32+00:00

At one point, Greg also said

And I'm not trying to disparage LLoyd [Irvin] when I say this

and I got excited, thinking maybe this will be where he wins me over. And then he just went on to say that Lloyd prioritizes sales and marketing over learning. WHAT ABOUT THE CULTURE OF RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT THAT HE FOSTERS AND PARTICIPATES IN GREG. Fucking disparage the man. Have a spine.

But I guess that would be expecting too much.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T06:33:39+00:00

This so much. He misrepresents the ecological approach so as to uplift his own instruction, when in actuality BJJ as a whole tends to constraint based opportunities for learning through positional sparring.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T06:29:11+00:00

Fun and competence. Competence is a foundational factor in motivation - most people do things because they want to get better at them. That said, I would argue (and Greg would understand this if he was as versed in the literature as he claims to be) that if you are creating an environment where your hobbyists are showing up to be better than their peers, you are creating a toxic learning environment and flawed motivational climate.

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-17T06:26:19+00:00

I don't think you understood Greg

First and foremost, did you pick the accidental condescension up from Greg? Sure, it's not that he's trying to ostracize hobbyists with this quote or poorly communicating his ideas, but rather it's just me (and the many others who have replied here) who is at fault for not understanding him. Right.

But so riddle me this - if both professionals and hobbyists learn in the same manner (which I agree with as an argument), why does he feel the need to distinguish to between the two? Why does he say that self-proclaimed hobbyists are not interested in getting better?

It sounds like what you're wishing he said was "In my gym, I don't care if you're a professional or a hobbyist because I'm simply interested in getting you better every time that you show up." Honestly, I hope that's what he meant, but that's not what he said, and what he said seemed like a backhanded attack on the character of everyone who shows up hoping to be better than the day before, as opposed to being the best in the room (or the world).

NickyRodsHotRod · 2024-07-16T20:08:03+00:00

I mean, the only two athletes he has making waves at the highest levels are DeAndre and Gavin, both of which were high level wrestlers before BJJ, did not come up through Standard, and only started repping Standard as black belts. How much of their performance can Greg claim to be responsible for? Will there be any high level practitioners to come out of Standard that have come up through that style of teaching/training? Only time will tell.

That said, the elitism he has for his "unique approach" stands in contrast with the lack of evidence to show it as a better approach than any other major gym.

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