Marcus Torgerson returns to discuss how individuals develop protective skill sets out of necessity and how they are changed by trauma. Listen in as Marcus and I dive into how ADVERSITY is omnipresent, why education on violence is like insurance, and the importance of leading your family and team by example. We’ll also explore ways to access the “warrior within us.”
With over four decades working within the personal security space, Marcus Torgerson has become a renowned instructor, mentor, and hand-to-hand combat expert.
You can learn more about Marcus at: https://marcustorgerson.com/
Episode Transcript:
00:39
Now here’s your host Marcus Aurelius Anderson. In this episode of Acta Non Verba, we hear part two of my interview with Marcus Torgerson, world-renowned instructor, mentor, and hand-to-hand combat expert. In part one, Marcus shared how he empowers people to be nightmares for bad guys. We discussed the tools needed to survive and thrive during violent encounters, how situational awareness can make a life-changing difference in critical moments.
01:08
and why so many people live in fear of violence. You can hear part one on episode 48 of Okta Non-Verba. In part two, Marcus returns to share how individuals develop protective skill sets out of necessity and how they are changed by trauma. Marcus and I also dive into why education on violence is like insurance, the importance of leading your family and team by example, and how to cultivate and access the warrior within you.
01:35
And now part two of my interview with the incredible Marcus Torvarsson. Something else on, on that vein, there’s so many people like you’re talking about where they, they want to learn martial arts or they want to learn self-defense, but I think they don’t understand that the hardest part about techniques or martial arts, whatever the system is, it’s not the technique per se. It’s not even the execution. It’s understanding when you need to do it. Right. It’s like waiting too long. Because if I.
02:04
I can defend myself against the right cross, right? But if I don’t see the guy, or if I don’t think that he’s gonna be throwing it, once he’s close enough, no matter how good I am, there’s gonna be that lag, there’s gonna be hesitation, and now I won’t have the luxury to leapfrog. So I mean, once I feel like I’m one step behind in a fight, I’m not, I’m usually two or three. Yes. And going with that, remember there’s gotta be something that you guys have to remember that.
02:31
Let’s just keep it at just violence. So you’re in a scenario and there’s a violent encounter. Meaning a violent where it’s gone verbal, you’re not able to deescalate because that person just wants to punch you in the face. Well, they’ve already got an advantage because they’re probably more violent than you. Okay, so you’re already, if we do numbers, I always love doing numbers. They’re at 100% anger and you’re at a whopping 20% of just living your life. Then they smack you in the face and you’re like, oh shit.
03:00
Now, maybe you get a little angry and you get to a whopping 30% and after that punch, they went to 105, 110. Mathematically, you’re still fucked. So how you react and cope and respond when violence decides to come in your life and hit you is probably even more important than, uh, seeing awareness and, and, and stopping the fight because if you’re proactive with everything, you shouldn’t, then you should never get in a fight.
03:29
because you should be able to see it happening ahead of time and be able to deescalate and do all the things possible. Well, since that’s not reality, and most of us are fucking heads up our asses, that when the violence comes in, and by the time you’re trying to deescalate and not reading the fucking terrain, this guy wants to fight. Am I too close to him? How do I know if I’m too close to him? Because I can’t see his hands. Yep, I’m too fucking close. I can’t see his feet. I can’t see anything. I’m laser locked. I’m in the tractor beam. And boom, I’m gonna get hit. Okay, now I’ve been hit. I’m down on the ground.
03:59
Do I get up? Or can I get up? I’m now getting bootstomped. Now there’s three guys boot stomping me. Oh shit, what do I do? If you can have that dialogue in your head ahead of time and you don’t have a solution, then you should probably go and invest time and money to learn from people who will help you get out of that nightmare. Everybody has one nightmare. Everybody has one fear of some horrific monster story that they don’t have a solution for.
04:27
So go find the solution for that one. Because once you find a solution for that one nightmare, that’s the rock in the water. You drop the rock in water, all the ripples that happen after that, every benefit you learn from that scenario and finding a solution for that and dealing with that fear will help with a bunch of other things later on. Because our fear is what Tony talks about. He is definitely fear management fucking master of all that is good. And that fear is what we need to get a grasp on.
04:57
And it’s a frightening conversation to talk about what we fear. Because what we fear is probably going to sound stupid to say it out loud. I’m afraid of snakes. I’m afraid of whatever. Whatever you’re afraid of. Well, go and deal with that. And it’s amazing how when all of a sudden you’re not afraid of dogs anymore because you decided to go and be around them. And like if you bring a German Shepherd in front of me, man.
05:25
They can smell they’re like this motherfuckers gonna piss himself because when I was a kid I wasn’t always a good guy and police dogs at that point time were German Shepherds So it’s amazing how when all of a sudden I see a bite suit or something or a dog bite anything And I almost fucking piss myself So what do I do? I go around as many dogs as possible with permission from owners and I try my best to sit there and get rid of that fear Right now our police our dogs police dogs chasing me nowadays. No, but the scar is on that brain
05:54
enough that where it’s debilitating. If you go and keep going after these things that you’re afraid of, I just think that there’s so much power in how you’re no longer living 100% in fear over that one thing. And then all the other little fears don’t seem to have the same impact, do they? Right? Yeah. So I don’t know how we ended up on that, but I’m glad that we did, because that’s a good reminder to me to get off my ass and there’s more fears to deal with. There’s always fears and…
06:23
You know, people are like, oh, you don’t know what you don’t know. So there’s a lot of people that are in this false sense of security where they’re like, well, you know, we live in the secure area or the secure, secure country or whatever. Yeah. They, they don’t even want to acknowledge that there is the potential for violence. But listen, if you can hear us right now, human nature, if you look throughout history, even if you have a perfect society and the like 99% of the world is Switzerland and we all love each other and we’re all strong, there’s going to be
06:53
in some remote area is like, you know what, these motherfuckers are soft. Yeah, if I could get enough people and arm them enough, we could take over all of this and they wouldn’t even know what hit them. So just be it’s almost like that Machiavelli and idea like the prince. Yeah, we read that book, not so that we will use that against somebody else. But so that I don’t get victimized by somebody else who’s like, like you said, if I have a guy that’s coming at me in a negotiation or anything like that, and now he’s like,
07:23
already at 100 and I don’t have the capacity to fluctuate and go from here to here quickly. I have to have some sort of skill set to give me the capacity to catch that lag, that slinky effect to get where I need to go. And if I don’t have that and just living in this world where I think that violence will never happen, violence happens the most when you don’t expect it. The people that lived in violent areas and are always expecting it, of course they developed these other skill sets so that now they had this heightened awareness. I’m like, you know what?
07:51
Like you said, oh, it’s quiet outside or oh, you know, this is going on. It’s like, okay, that doesn’t make any sense. So what do you say to people that are in this place where they’re like, well, you know, I’m a pacifist, I’m nonviolent. The only people that I’ve never met, I have never met a pacifist in my life. I have met people that have never been in the face of adversity, strong enough to not act. But like you said before, you can have a female that’s like, oh, I’m a pacifist. It’s like, really? Well, this person’s trying to grab your child. Oh hell no. That’s
08:19
Again, so that that warriors within us and it’s been put there by God all of the universe Buddha whoever you believe in and it was there it’s there for a reason so why not cultivate it and then have the capacity and the ability to decide When you want to unleash it or if you need to you know, so when I do any of these workshops and what have you now?
08:42
I’ve been put into boxes that’s Marcus is the Krav Maga guy and that’s, you know, I’ve earned that for the last 15 years. I’ve earned I’ve earned that title. Of course, but I’m working really hard to try to get rid of that because when let’s say you’re doing a women’s only substance course and they’re like, okay, so what are we going to learn? And I’ll show them a few things like that’s it. The fuck you I could I already know that Mike. Good. I’m glad you already know it.
09:09
Because everything that I do is about creating an opportunity to escape. So it doesn’t matter who’s in front of you, how many people are in front of you. The violence of action that I’m going to need you to take or whatever is, is subjective to whoever is doing it. I can’t have Marcus Aurelius sit there and I’m not going to show him the exact same shit as, I don’t know, say a 15 year old girl. I might show the same technique.
09:35
because no matter what, my principle still works, no matter what, eyes, ears, balls, fucking, everybody’s got the same target points, but a lot of it has to do with what do I need to do to get her to be effective to create an opportunity for escape? With Marcus, I don’t have to do as much. I just sit there and maybe say, all right, let’s work on a small little thing because this is something he’s already comfortable with. The hardest part with people who are not
10:02
violent, especially people who have not had violence in their life. So when you have somebody who’s got trauma, a lot of times it’s not that they’re afraid to be violent, they just know they’ve been on the receiving end of it. So they’re like, I didn’t like it, so I don’t want to give it to somebody else. But they already have the buttons enough to push, they’re very effective. The people who’ve had no violence in their life, they had great mom and dad, they went to a great school, they have a great spouse, everything is fantastic.
10:31
And then they walk down the street and some person who has a mental disability decides that man or woman, let’s all make it a man, it’s easier, walks up to the guy, spits in his face and decides to stab him with a screwdriver. Well, one, they’re fucked. Now is Marcus Raylis and Marcus William fucked? Yeah, we’re fucked too. But the difference is that once we’re stabbed, there’s going to be some very quick pivoting going on to create an opportunity for escape and escape.
10:59
throw a beating on that individual. Mental wellness or not, I don’t give a shit. If you have not, if violence is not knocked on your life door, you are, you are in for a world of hurt. So if you’re listening to this, you’re like, well, Marcus, I’ve never had that. And it’s not going to happen to me because I live in a gated community and violence never happens in a gated community. As, as my friend here said, at some point in time, there’s a, there’s a timeline to life.
11:24
And if you’ve had a straight flat line your whole life, well, first of all, if you were in an operating room, you’re dead. Okay. So let’s, let’s be, let’s, let’s have more where it’s like the other ones where they’re up and down and they’re all sorts of fucking movement going on. If you’ve had that kind of life, then you’ve probably already had violence come into your life in one way, shape or form and violence. So we’re clear. This is not just physical violence. It can be verbal violence, mental violence. It doesn’t matter. Violence is fine. It doesn’t. I can’t say that somebody who’s been.
11:54
mentally abused by somebody that somehow their trauma and having to deal with that violence is somehow different than somebody who’s been curb stomped by six guys. If anything, I would say that the person who has a curb stomping, their repairing and healing is going to be a little faster than somebody who’s had mental abuse all their life. So violence being just the word, never mind putting an action to it, how you deal with that violence, the earlier you deal with it in life.
12:23
the better your coping mechanisms are gonna be with it. I’m not saying that the coping mechanisms are gonna be healthy. I’m just saying that you’re gonna be able to cope better and easier than somebody who’s had the flat line, perfect life. And it’s kinda like when you meet somebody who has no vices, right? No smoking, no drinking, no drugs. They’ve never been to jail. They’ve never cheated on their spouse. They’ve never had a spouse cheat on them. They’ve never been back. They have nothing. They’re like, everything in my life is perfect. Holy fuck, stay away from me. If you’re a woman, stay away from me.
12:53
If you’re a dude, stay away from me. I don’t want anything to do with you because there’s something behind door number two that is a big fucking monster. No, thanks. You bring me a drug addict who’s had to sit there and just spent the last 20 years in recovery and you find somebody who’s been bankrupt and they’ve had to build themselves out there. They’ve gone through three wives and four husbands and nine cats and 42 dogs. And that, okay. I can, I can, I can have some.
13:22
I can have some relatability. And that’s where if you’re listening to this and you’re like, well, I’ve had all sorts of bad shit happen right on. You’re not special. Now let’s find solutions for that. Yes or no. No, absolutely. Adversity is omnipresent. The physical manifestation of adversity is an adversary. So, I mean, it’s going to come for you as you’re listening to me, it is on its way. So what you do now in this moment in preparation is going to be how you respond in that.
13:48
environment. So if you know that it’s coming, why not do the best that you possibly can to get there? I mean, for a lot of people last year, ambush them, right? So maybe the less, maybe the get to that adversity is okay, you know, be able to pivot with your business, maybe save a little bit more money in your war chest, maybe have a contingency to be able to pivot. But for a lot of people, again, because they had no capacity for violence, even financially, now they have no ability to respond correctly. They’re just reacting. And you and I both know that the
14:16
Responses when I’m able to stop or I have an idea and I can actually go as opposed to a person who reacts, which is a person who is just sort of flailing with the full grotesque body motions, like a windmill technique. And if you’re in that place, the decision, any decision that you make based out of fear is usually the wrong one. Yeah. Yeah. Usually. Yep. You’re right. So if you have the ability now to take the blinders off and say, listen, philosophically, I don’t like violence. That’s fine. We don’t have to like it, but we have to understand that it is inevitable. I don’t like.
14:46
the rain. But guess what? It’s necessary. It’s part of it. And like you said, if I think that I’m special, and somehow I will not be the person who gets victimized by that, I’m setting myself up so that when I do get hit, like you said, you and I or Tony get hit and it’s like, okay, now I’m responding. This is what I need to do. I need to stop this, whatever it is. But for somebody else, it is just the sheer audacity. How dare this person like they get punched? What is that feeling? What is this ringing in my ear? Why are things black? Why can’t why is my body not responding?
15:16
they’d have no clue because they’re not acquainted with that. And then they don’t even get to the place where they can realize, Oh, I’ve been hit. Or we’ve heard about, uh, I haven’t been stabbed, but people they get hit with a knife. Oh yeah. And they get the sewing machine. So to them, they just feel this like puncture like in their chest and they’re like, Oh wow, I got punched. No, you’re, you’re starting to bleed out. Not all of a sudden they’re starting to cough up blood. They’re like, I don’t know what happened. It’s like, well, you have a collapsed lung now because you didn’t understand situational awareness or you weren’t able to respond quickly enough.
15:44
and you’re chasing the weapon. And in the meantime, you’re getting hit in the throat. And now again, it’s, you finally realize like maybe the last thing that you remember before you blackout is, man, I probably should have worked on my self-defense and situational awareness. I wish I had. Yeah, yeah. And you know, so to put things in, and even take all of that and put it in a term that most people can relate to is, how many people have life insurance, right? You buy life insurance. Why do you buy car insurance? Why do you buy any insurance?
16:14
You could do driving 40 years of your life, you still buy car insurance. Because what if, what if I get a car accident or what if I do whatever, whatever it is. Um, so to sit there and say, I need life insurance, but I don’t need education and empowerment on my mentality and physicality when it comes to violence. Okay. So now we’re cherry picking, right?
16:43
Okay, good for you. I’m happy that you do that. Now, I’m going to push another button. You’re an adult, you’re a parent. We don’t have violence, but I have life insurance. Awesome. So now your kids are watching your actions. And they’re swallowing the same bullshit that you believe because that’s what we do as children. Our parents tell us that blue is blue and red is red. We just say, well, fuck, I guess you’re right. Because you’ve been here longer.
17:08
And now your parents, your kids are going to sit there and be like, yeah, no, I don’t like violence. I don’t believe in it because my mama and my papa believe that violence is bad. Well, great. Now you fuck your kids because for sure your kids are going to know what violence is because unlike your growing up in the Mayberry nowadays, kids are doing things that maybe they were doing them back then. We just didn’t have the internet to show us, but your kids for sure want to violence, no way you’re not even preparing them. So.
17:38
Maybe you don’t believe in violence and you don’t want to do anything. You, you, you. That’s great. You selfish bastards. How about you now take care of your kids? The best way to take care of kids, don’t hand them off to some other person. Why don’t you go to a class with them? Now, I don’t do jujitsu. OK, I’ve rolled on the ground with some of the best in the world. I don’t do jujitsu. But if for some reason.
18:02
Magically, a five year old or six or seven year old little boy or girl is in my life magically because that is how it would have to happen. And all of a sudden I’m like, well, you know, maybe I don’t want to put them in a Krav Maga right now. They’re or whatever they’ve done a version of it. Okay, but I know they like playing chess because I played checkers with them and they hated it but they love chess. Well, I’m going to get them into some jujitsu because that’s fucking chess on the ground and I’m going to do it with them. We’re going to take the money and do a private lesson.
18:30
where the constructor has to teach me and my kid. And I’m rolling with my kid, my kid’s tapping me out and they’re laughing and having fun and all of a sudden, you see where I’m going with this, right? Oh yeah. Don’t bring your bullshit into your kid’s life just because you’re too fucking fearful and chicken shit to deal with your own insecurities and bullshit. Now that’s harsh, right? That’s harsh. A lot of people are gonna be like, Marcus, you’re attacking me. I am attacking you because you know what? I don’t give a shit about you and your bullshit.
19:00
I care about your poor kids or nieces or nephews who were not given the opportunity to sit there and make their own decisions because you poisoned the well with your bullshit. Take violence and take it away and put any other subject you want in it. The life lesson is the same regardless. You poison your kids with your bullshit, which is a shame because that’s your job as a parent is to alter their life.
19:29
their world to not be like yours. And the best way through it is not through talking, usually, it’s but through actions. Oh, yeah. That’s a fact, because they don’t listen to what you’re saying. But they do watch what you’re doing. That’s it. People even in leadership, people don’t do what I tell them to do, but they do what they watch me do. They imitate that. And so they’ll listen and they’ll want to implement it. But when they see, like you said, they see you actually doing it, they’re like, okay, he really is leading by example. Yep.
19:58
I need the bathroom cleaned. Guys, they need the bathroom cleaned. Nobody’s doing it. I go clean the bathroom. There it is. It’s done. I had a client back in Vancouver 20 years ago. He had about four hair salons. And I came in for a haircut and he was coming out of the bathroom with some toilet soap. I said, Foster, what the fuck are you doing? He goes, first of all, and he said it really loud, none of these little bastards are doing it. And then he said something that I’ll never forget. He said, if I don’t do it, how can I expect them to do it?
20:28
I was like, Oh shit. And literally from that moment, I have any situation where, and I’m not, I’m not in a leadership position, I’ve never been in leadership positions, but anything I’m doing and I think everybody else should be doing it. Well, then I better do it first. And if I’m asking you to do 452 burpees, well, I better have done it and doing it now, or as soon as you’re finished, I better fucking do it and let you see that I’m doing it because actions, not words, it’s.
20:58
It’s been around since I don’t even know who the first person carved it in some kind of fuckhead. Yeah, back in the day. Right? Nothing, I think that’s the funny part about the more technologically sound we get, we like we’re putting people on Mars and all sorts of cool shit, scrape away all the bullshit and all the stuff that we’ve done in the years leading up to now are facts. Nothing changes. Just like you said.
21:24
all these principles. This is what I use with coaches, why use with CEOs when I’m coaching people. And again, if you’re a leader of a multimillion dollar, a multi billion dollar company, and you still will not lead by example, what do you expect your people to do? I mean, or okay, I had this multi billion dollar company and I could I could delegate everything. But then I go home and I talked to my wife and say, Hey, why isn’t this done or talk to your kids and say, Hey, why isn’t why? It’s like, no, again,
21:51
we have to have these skill sets, but more importantly, we have to have the self-awareness to understand when to engage one as opposed to saying, well, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there’s so many people that get cut up in the semantics of that and they don’t know, they don’t understand again, what you and I are talking about with the body language reading. It’s so important to be able to shake somebody’s hand and look them in the eye. It’s so important to be able to read the body language. It’s so important to see, again, like you said, this person’s really engaged as opposed to the person who’s like, uh-huh.
22:20
as opposed to people that are waiting for their chance to speak. Like the people that have that soundbite, they’re like, I hope he finishes. Cause I want to say this real thing. Cause it’s going to sound neat and it’s going to sound smart. And I’m going to quote somebody and it’s going to make me sound. It’s like, dude, if you can’t be present in the conversation and flow within it, again, like, like a martial art encounter, like a dance almost, then you’re losing out on that, that skillset alone in the next 20 years will be a huge force multiplier for you.
22:46
and it will be an unfair advantage. If you’re like 19 or 20, really listening to this right now, have conversations with people. You and I have been in bars multiple times and we’ve been in that environment. So we can tell, okay, this guy’s full of shit. This guy, when he walked in, is looking around. He’s looking for girls. This person that walked in is looking for their friend who’s supposed to be here. This person that’s walked in has already been drinking and maybe their jaw’s going back and forth. They’re probably on something. So I wanna get them out of here as quick as I can. As a matter of fact, it’s in my best interest to probably go punch this guy in the throat now.
23:14
So I don’t have to do it at 3 a.m. when everybody else is here. I mean, we learn all those things from being around it. But at the same time, we still have to have, again, we have to make those decisions. Those are seconds. This person, this person, this person, this person is a target. This person is a predator. This person is all these things. And that you can only get that through repetition, through experience, through seeing it. And that’s why, again, what you do, what Tony does is so important to be able to. Why would I not read a book?
23:44
that can teach me a person’s life of experiences or why would I not go to a seminar or a class or an instructor’s course and learn the best that this person’s ever learned from hundreds of violent encounters when it’s at my fingertips, when it’s literally like a few hours out of my life, that can literally change every hour of my life thereafter. Yep, I’m gonna steal from Tony on this one and you’re gonna laugh because you’ve heard him say it. When you’re driving, right, you’re on the highway.
24:11
And you’re making all these little micro decisions about whether you turn, whether you don’t turn, you’re always aware of you. Or most of the times you are, most of the times you are a lot of times that people now maybe not so much, but if you’re making all these little micro decisions because you’ve been driving for however many years, your experience and being aware of all these things makes you hopefully not get hurt. And that’s why you have your car insurance because in case it happens. And when he came up with that analogy.
24:40
it really resonated. I was like, well, yeah. For those of you who are like, well, yeah, okay, I guess the car thing, ride a bicycle. When you’re riding a bicycle, first of all, you’re doing 360 tracks on a regular basis. You’re looking at mirrors, if you don’t have mirrors, you’re definitely looking over and you are looking three cars in advance because of doors swinging out children bus. Riding a bicycle is the best example of what situational awareness truly is. And if you’ve ridden a bike ever in the city, you know,
25:10
holy shit snacks, it’s a shit show. So sometimes if you don’t understand or there’s verbiage that immediately you’re blocking out, let’s just scape away from all the fucking verbiage and just try to find if you’re ridin’ a bike and you’ve been aware of things or you’ve not been aware and you’ve gotten hit by a car or you’ve run over somebody, I mean, probably a lot more aware after the fact. So when it deals with violence, the exact same scenario. There’s not anything at all. The only difference is you’re not ridin’ a bike.
25:39
but you’re now walking and violence is around you on a regular basis. So I think that if anybody gets one takeaway, keep your head open to what’s going on around you and get your head out of your phone. If you did those two things, chances are violence would be less likely to come your way. I absolutely agree. And you and I have been around people that have been around violence, that have studied violence, whether it be the military, whatever it is.
26:06
And I have never met a person who is at the top of their game that has not been through some sort of adversity. There’s usually a direct correlation, right? And I know that you’ve been through a tremendous amount. Can you share with our listeners an adversity that you went through that at the time, you didn’t know if you would get through it, but once you were able to get through it, you found the gift in that. And what would that be? What would you tell people? Well, this one’s gonna…
26:32
You’re not going to be expecting this one, I don’t think, or definitely your listeners aren’t going to. So at the age of 10, and then again, in my teen years, I was molested. When in my teen years, it was my martial arts instructor. For those of you that are listening that have been sexually abused, there’s a whole bunch of checks and balances that end up happening to how you’re going to cope with life later on. And everything from it’s not your fault to whatever you’re going to blame shifting and
27:01
I should have done more. I didn’t do anything like those. At the time I couldn’t understand why it had happened. Now at 52, I look back and while I’m not happy that it happened at all, I see why it did happen because all destructive behaviors that happened later on in life, all the suicidal tendencies and attempts, all the drinking and everything negative has happened as a byproduct to that rock in the water.
27:32
has given me the ability to talk with men and women and children who have had trauma in their life. Okay, because I’ll be honest with you, I don’t discriminate whether it’s physical abuse, mental abuse, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Trauma is trauma. And if I can have a chit chat with a hypothetical person B and they’re sitting down and they’ve had the courage to admit that they’ve had this something that’s happened to them.
28:02
Well, when I look at them, I’m like, yeah. And then because only one trauma victim knows what another trauma victim’s content, you haven’t gone through trauma. Well, fucking try to relate. It’s like trying to tell an alcoholic, yeah, I had a beer once. Okay. Don’t, don’t talk about shit. You don’t know. At least be honest and be like, listen, I have no experience with that, but I would love for you to tell me what that was like, because then I can understand better, but that’s a different conversation. But when I’m having a conversation with someone and I’m like, yeah, yeah, it sucks when you, uh,
28:30
feel like you didn’t fight back, huh? And all of a sudden the light goes off and they’re like, you know, and then all of a sudden some walls, a few walls will drop and, and, and then they don’t feel like they’re alone. And then they don’t feel like they’re useless. And all that stuff that goes with it. When you have those traumas and you can come past them, which is a big reason why I’m so big on don’t kill yourself today. Okay. Wait a minute. Contact me. Send me a message.
28:58
You’re not allowed to kill yourself until we’ve had a voice to voice conversation. After that, it’s on you. But until then, and I say the same thing with drinking or anything else, listen, don’t do it until we talk. Now, if you are truly alone and you’re on Antarctica and you have no access and somehow magically you’re hearing this through the waves ocean and it’s replicating, just know that whatever trauma you’ve gone through, at some point in time, as weak as you are right now, you feel weak, it will be your biggest strength.
29:27
It will be your biggest strength because not because of how you deal with it, but how you help someone else. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few years, it’s my job is to serve my fellow human being with the abilities to empower, especially empower from violent actions in the past, regardless of what end of the spectrum you’re on. I serve my fellow human being. That’s my job. I need to serve. I need to sit there and help my boy Marcus Aurelius.
29:57
let’s say all of a sudden he has a hangnail, can’t get it out, I need to serve, I got tweezers in my hand, I’m gonna rip that bad boy out and be like, on three, one, two, and rip it out. You said three. But serving, serving, Clint, Clint Emerson has a great slogan that he’s used and I steal it all the time. Deed, not the glory. Right? My job is to help my fellow human being. And if my
30:21
trauma in my past and all my failures and all my fuck ups and every shitty thing that I’ve done or has had been done to me. If those things, I can turn that around and it somehow benefits one person, then it was worth it. And it’s been worth it a hundredfold. I’ve had people who didn’t kill themselves. I’ve had people who I visited in the hospital after they’ve been beaten to a pulp and walked in.
30:49
And with tears in my eyes, I’m going to probably cry right now. Tears in my eyes, looking at this beautiful soul and being like, are you, are you okay? And then laughing because no, you’re not okay. You’ve got tubes everywhere. And having them look and through wired jaws and one closed eye say in broken words, I went out fighting. He still raped me, but they’re going to catch him because I’ve got enough DNA to, to per six court cases. And, and I’m not afraid anymore. And, and 10 years after that, having
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conversation and they’re married and they have a healthy relationship and they’re helping other women and men who have been raped and Sit there and said you know what? It’s not the best thing that happened to me But it’s not the worst thing either then then you know what I died tomorrow. I can die a happy man I don’t know. I don’t know if I fully answered it, but that’s what you got. You’re absolutely right I you can knock me over the feather. I didn’t expect that and so there’s so much
31:46
so much gold in that and you’re turning, you’re, you reframed that adversity into something where that’s literally your life purpose now, where that has put you on this trajectory. But I have to ask you as a young martial artist as well, when I was a little boy, how did that taint your opinion of martial arts? How did that influence the way you looked at it? Did it cut away a lot of the regalia and the ceremony and the bullshit? Do you feel that that was part of it or did you, what was your mentality after that?
32:14
Well, I still did martial arts for many, many, obviously many decades after that. I don’t know why I was able to sit there and know it was just him because I ended up going into, like I did wushu at the time, which for those that don’t know is basically, if you think of Jet Li, you like Jet Li, well, that’s the same shit that he did back in the day when he was a kid. And so I ended up breaking off from the, you know, what I was doing and who I was working with.
32:41
And I had to do a lot of, I jumped around the club, the club, the club, the club to find my place, which that’s my version of when you talk to young ladies who have had been raped at a young age, some of them, some of them go to a bunch of different lovers and they go to a hundred different lovers because they want to find whatever they need to find that they feel was taken from them. And that’s actually the first time I’ve ever.
33:06
put that correlation together, which is interesting. I’m thankful that you brought it up because I’d never even thought about it. And so I was doing a lot of stuff on my own and jumping around to different clubs and never really finding a place. And then by the time I got into Weichiru, which is a traditional Okinawan system, I was in my early twenties. So going into that martial arts system, I would never brought that same bullshit into that. I don’t think it tainted me. Again, for whatever reason.
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I think because it was the second time that it happened by two different men, that I kind of just thought more that it was me, right? Because I didn’t fight back. Either the two different, let’s just call them two different times, it’s not right. So two different scenarios, you know, I never fought back. So it didn’t taint me on anything other than the guilt that you carry with you about not fighting back. Which is why I’m so adamant to.
34:02
when I’m talking to women’s especially about, I don’t give a shit what the scenario is. You’re going to get raped anyways. So go out swinging. And it’s been met with a lot of times, especially earlier, it was met with you’re a man, what the fuck do you know about that? And that’s where I see now I’m like, okay, let me tell you something. I have some very strong understandings of it. And then that
34:30
one of two things. I get to see that that person is just really angry and it doesn’t make any impact at all. Or that person says, Oh, okay. So now let’s, let’s revisit this conversation in a different, with different glasses on some things you can control some things you can’t control. And what you can’t control, as long as you give your 100% into it, then you can’t have regrets. And I think that regrets are the cruelest thing that
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universe ever created. I don’t know. I’ve been to a lot of death beds and it’s always I didn’t hug, kiss, love my family, my kids enough. Which is why my friends and any person I’m around, they’re like Marcus, fucking hell man. Why are you always hugging me? Why are you always telling me you love me? What the fuck is wrong with you? And I say the same thing because I will not. I have enough regrets and those regrets can never change because I have no ability to change them.
35:28
I will not make the same regrets again. I’ve got a tattoo on my toe. It’s a camel, okay? It’s a camel on my toe, which is very funny. And the reason I have it is because there was a tattoo guy, former team guy back in the day, Mike Martin. Mike Martin was, his name was Tats, old school Vietnam era seal. I mean, this guy was a fucking legend. Now in the tattoo community, he was a legend. And during a whole bunch of weird things that happened,
35:58
Thanks to social media and he was a crusty old bastard. I mean, a real crusty old bastard. We would talk online because of some stuff that I’d asked him and what have you. And I said, he was giving away tattoos for $10 and the money would be going towards a defense fund for a guy. And I didn’t go. It’s in San Diego. I was in Texas at the time. What was it? Yeah, I was in Texas at the time. I’m in Arizona now, but I was in Texas. I should have just went and I didn’t go. And a few months later, he died peacefully in his chair. And it really pissed me off for a lot of reasons.
36:28
So flash forward, I end up going to San Diego to his shop and a lovely woman, this right-hand person, Laura, was like, well, so you want a tattoo? I’m like, yes, I want the fucking, I want a camel on my toe because he was the type of guy that would wear pink shirts. He had those mustaches that you could- Handlebarred mustache. Yeah, handlebarred mustache. Yep. Yep. And he was eclectic and just like, you think, oh fuck, he’s like a tough guy, but he’s wearing pink. And he-
36:57
He paints his toenails and just such a neglected dude. And I was like, yep, I want one. She goes, no problem. She pulls out this, if you’ve ever had tattoos, they have stuff that you almost see through paper and has designs on it and they just put it on. And it’s, you know, I don’t, we call it tracing paper back in the day, but she goes, well, this is Mike Martin’s camel that I put on his toe. She goes, would you like that? I’m like, fuck yeah, I’d like that. So I have.
37:25
Mike Martin’s camel, which it kind of looks like a fucked up peacock right now. But the purpose of it was twofold. One, that it’s the only tattoo I have that’s just funny, right? A camel on my toe. And I’ve had many people, men and women are like, you have a camel on your toe. And yes, you’re smiling right now because it’s funny. Okay. And secondly, it’s a daily reminder. Look down and never re I don’t want to ever see somebody or not see somebody.
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not hug them, not kiss them, not meet them, not do anything, because I will not lose an opportunity. I could have met one of the fucking best guys on the fucking planet, man. This guy is, when he died, the realm tattoo people, the SF community, the special operations community, the fucking, there was people he impacted that you would never put A and Z together, like how the fuck, and he was that one comet. And I fucked that up. So I’m not gonna let that again.
38:23
I’m never going to let that happen again. And if I see a, uh, there’s a child in my life or there’s a child that I love, I’m going to hug them and I’m going to let them know that I love them. Because if I die tomorrow and they’re at the funeral, I want them to be like, yeah, but that Marcus, I know he loved me. I know for a fact, there’s never an ounce of doubt. And if that’s one message that I can get through to everybody going to fucking FaceTime, everybody’s got COVID. So FaceTime your mom and dad or whoever it is FaceTime and be like, Hey, I love you. I just want you to know I love you.
38:52
What’s the purpose of this call? I had no purpose. I just love you. If you can hug them, hug them, kiss them, kiss them, fuck whatever, do whatever it takes to sit there and make sure that they don’t have a doubt of your place in their life. I can’t agree more. And I think that’s a perfect place to put a bow on this. Marcus, I love you, my friend. Where can we learn more about you? Where can we learn to come train with you? Where can we learn more about all these resources that you have available? Well, in
39:18
Social media wise, it’s you know, Instagram, it’s just Marcus Torgerson one word Facebook, there’s two pages, one’s a personal page, and then one’s a business page. And then my website is just triple w Marcus Torgerson dot com. And if you want to do me a solid, you can’t see it right now. But there’s a book called 100 deadly skills combat edition. I was blessed to be in it. I get to kick Hitler’s ass. Yeah, you guys have to see this. This is amazing. Look at get the book.
39:48
Look on social media, look on his website. Yeah. I was gonna- Yeah, go and buy the book because I want Clint to sit there and say that that edition was the highest selling of all the three editions that he’s got. It’s something I’m very professionally, I’m very proud of. It’s a huge, huge feather in the cap for me. And the fact that I get to kick Hitler’s ass, which when you see the pictures, you’ll see what I’m talking about. And there’s QR codes that directly take you to videos.
40:16
that we filmed on every technique that’s in the book. Warrior Poets Society had us on a TV series, 100 Deadly Skills TV series. It was 10 or 11, 12 episodes of 30 minutes apiece. Go to warr or whatever, WPSN network, and get a little one month’s subscription, watch the shows. I mean, you get to see a little more of each person. And it’s not just me, like don’t, it’s not, you got to be fucked. Amazing, yeah, legends. There’s James Names in here, man.
40:45
You’ve got Tony Blauer, you’ve got Stephen Hayes. Now, if you were an old school, more so than this, then just say, you know, Stephen Hayes, you’ve got a bunch of seals in here. Tom Russell, Bill Revere, Craig Thompson, Pat McNamara, like the best of the people in here. Yeah, I want you to go and see my shit. But the offset is that after you see my shit, you go see some other guys and and really get to see an understanding of some skills that you may never use.
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or you may use, who cares? Invest the time and money into yourself, you’re worth it. I absolutely agree. Thank you so much, my friend. I look forward to many, many more conversations in the future, in person, on Zoom, and whatever it is. I look forward to being in a room with you and Tony and giving you guys big bear hugs. Oh man, that would be perfect. Let’s somehow set that up because I would love that. It’s gonna happen. I can already see it, so. Right on. Thank you so much, brother.
41:44
Thank you.
