Look, looks like the gloves are off.

Mr. E has had it with me.

When you've had it with someone, it means that's enough, I'm not going to take this

anymore, it's fight time!

So, today's lesson is going to be MMA the English way, or English the MMA way, and you're

probably asking, "What is the MMA?"

MMA is mixed martial arts.

It's very popular in North America.

One of the biggest proponents or guys who talks about it is Joe Rogan, he's got the

Joe Rogan Experience.

That podcast is similar to - it's actually on YouTube like we are, and they talk about

different things, and he's a commentator for the MMA, and when I was watching his podcast

one day, I noticed a lot of the words he was using, people are using on a regular basis

in regular conversation, so mixed martial arts, the martial arts of fighting have now

come down to the street and people are using it to communicate.

Now, when people usually use MMA language, it's to communicate the difficulty in a situation

or how hard it is to do something, okay?

So, I'm going to go to the board and start giving you a lesson on how you can use English

the MMA way to improve your cultural understanding of what we're saying and how to express yourself,

alright?

So, first of all, this lesson is for Ray Scott and Josh Stewart, two great teachers I used

to work with.

I used to love Ray because one of his favorite songs was "Nobody speak, nobody get choked"

- into jujitsu - choke them out.

Okay, so quote of the day is "Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth."

- Mike Tyson.

Now, you won't use that in your language.

If you walk into your boss and go "Yeah boss, you got a plan but it ain't gonna work when

you get punched in the mouth!", you're probably getting fired, don't do that.

But I will teach you how to move through a conversation and how certain phrases are used

about combat or mixed martial arts that tell you when you're at the beginning of the situation,

you're in the middle of a situation, and when it's the end of a situation.

What it means when someone says it to you, or what it means when you say it to other

people.

Round one, ding ding!

Okay, so let's talk about throwing one's hat in the ring.

The ring - when you're boxing or wrestling, it's a square place - so this makes no sense,

but it's considered or called a ring - and when you throw your hat in the ring, it means

to accept a challenge or become a part of a challenge.

A lot of times now, politicians use this when they say, you know, Obama's throwing his hat

in the ring, or Joe Biden is throwing his hat in the ring.

George Bush is throwing his hat in the ring.

That means they want to be part of the political race to be president or some position, so

they throw their hat in the ring, saying "I'm part of this contest, too."

So, when someone says, you know, "I challenge a guy, I challenge Ezekiel man, I'm going

to go at him!", it's like he's throwing his hat in the ring to fight Ezekiel.

So, when you throw it in, the fight has not started but you're saying hey, I want to be

part of this, whatever the situation.

Running for a political office or a challenge of some sort, you say you want to be part

of it.

Spoiling for a fight.

Well, spoil is a very funny word.

When something spoils, it goes bad.

So, you can think of spoiling for a fight is somebody really wants to fight and their

attitude is getting bad, like they're going from "Yeah" to "YEAH, let's go for it!".

They're spoiling, so they're spoiling, ing, moving, they want something to happen.

It doesn't have to be physical fight, it can be an argument, but it means they are in the

mindset that they want to get engaged in a fight or an argument.

So, if you say they're spoiling for a takeover - no, they're spoiling for a fight, they want

to have a competition for you if this is in business.

So maybe Adidas and Nike are spoiling - Nike's spoiling for a fight, they want to complete

with Adidas.

This is two businesses going together.

So please don't think everything I say is about fighting, but understand that these

ideas come from fighting and we use them in regular conversation to tell you something

is happening, usually some kind of combat, argument, competition, alright?

And by combat, I mean fight.

Come to blows.

When you come to blows, it means it's gone from the situation of talking from moving

into hitting.

Now, military talk about that.

Countries can come to blows.

So, they've tried a negotiation and it didn't work and it goes "Now, it's fight time!".

Remember what I said, this is Round 1, this is before the fight starts, or you're actually

getting into the fight.

Right, so when countries come to blows, it was like "Okay, okay, let's go, now we're

coming to blows".

The gloves are off.

Okay.

The first three - okay - we're talking about getting ready for the competition, looking

for a fight, starting a fight, when the gloves are off, like Mr. E?

Okay, we're fighting with gloves, you hit me in the "ding ding", the place I don't like,

I take off the glove and go "No more Mr. Nice Guy.

No fair fight, we're going - I'm doing everything."

So, when the gloves come off, it means the rules don't count.

So, when the gloves are off, it means the fight has started and the rules don't count,

we're just going straight into combat.

So even if two people are fighting and then somebody does something really bad and they

kick their "ugh" area, you might see the other person go "Nah!" and then they go crazy and

you say, "What happened?"

Gloves are off.

If you're Mike Tyson, it means biting an ear.

"Ah, I got your ear, Evander Holyfield", anyway, just joking Mike, because you know I respect

you.

I'm afraid of you too.

I respect you, okay.

So, we talked about round one, before the fight and initiating the fight.

Let's go to fight time!

Now, you're in the middle of the fight.

Fighting is not a sport for the weak or people who don't want - don't like blood and don't

want to get hurt.

So, we're using fighting terminology, you know nothing is ever - it's a fun time for

everyone!

No sir.

So, when we start using a lot of these idioms, we're talking about difficulty or being beaten,

which means not winning, okay?

Very few terms, funny enough, are about you doing well in the fight.

It's usually - someone's getting beaten and that's why you're doing well in the fight.

No holds barred.

When there's no holds barred, it means no rules.

Everything is allowed.

So, when, for instance, Microsoft and Apple computers had a no holds barred fight, no,

you didn't see Steve Jobs and - the guy - Bill Gates, two of those guys wearing their polo

shirts fighting.

No, what it meant was they got their lawyers out, they dropped prices, all the rules - traditional

business rules were gone and we're going to have a fight or a battle, okay?

And yeah, I'm trying to have you imagine those two fighting like "Okay let's go.

Are you ready, Bill?

I knocked your glasses off, I knocked your glasses off!"

I'm not tough either, I wear glasses too.

Anyway, so, no holds barred.

Fighting tooth and nail.

That tells you when a fight - because in boxing, okay, in boxing, jujitsu, karate, taekwondo,

there are forms where you are fighting, there are rules, there are techniques to fighting.

When it's tooth and nail, I'm talking this and this.

[roaring] I mean, we're talking animal fighting, you're fighting tooth and nail, it also means

you're fighting with everything you have.

Forget elbows and stuff like that.

You're now scratching, biting, Mike Tyson again!

You're doing whatever you have to do to win.

We usually say its savage.

So, when you're fighting tooth and nail, it's everything you have plus the basic things

you came with as a human animal, okay?

So, you know if they're fighting tooth and nail to survive, right?

People fall out of an airplane and they're on a mountainside and there's ice everywhere

and they're fighting tooth and nail to survive means everything they have.

They're not taking out their little cutlery and being all civilized - like, whatever you

have to do, okay?

Now sometimes, they say tooth and claw because we think of animals.

These are no longer nails, they're claws, and it means even more savage or barbaric,

which means more like primitive man, like oh, Cro-Magnon, alright?

Sometimes, people talk about claw when they refer to women, because women have longer

nails, so like claws.

Uphill battle.

Hm, now I'm not into jujitsu, it's not that I'm not into it, I don't study it or understand

a lot of it, but an uphill battle is when you're in a bad position and you have to fight

to get up.

So, you're not in a good position, so you're - say, because I think in jujutsu on your

back fighting is not such a bad thing, but for the average person, of you're on your

back and there's a really big person on top of you and you have to get them off to win,

that's an uphill battle.

It's going to be really tough for you to do.

So, the uphill means the hill is going this way and you're trying to push your car uphill.

Very difficult to do.

It's easier to go downhill, alright?

We'll do that on another day, because that's another meaning, but an uphill battle means

it's very difficult for you to win.

Remember I talked about the ring and how the ring is square, okay?

And the fighters are here and there's another here and this is it and the two fighters are

in here?

Okay, when you're on the ropes, and some of you may not remember this, but there was a

guy called Mohammed Ali.

He floated like a butterfly and he stung like a bee.

He had a rope a dope defense, and what that would mean is these ropes here, he'd lie against

the ropes and let someone punch until they ran out of energy and they got tired, and

then he'd get off the ropes and hit them back and they would be too tired to fight.

But when somebody's on the ropes usually, and they're not Mohammed Ali, being on the

ropes is like you're tired and you can't fight anymore and someone's just beating you up

and you're like "Oh God, please somebody stop this.

I can't take anymore."

And you're on the ropes; it doesn't mean it's finished.

Maybe you're there like Mohammed Ali and you're holding on going "Okay, two more seconds,

this person gets tired, I will fight back!", or at you're last - last place of energy,

you're about to lose and you're trying to hold on, just to survive.

So, if you're on the ropes, or a company is on the ropes, everybody is saying they're

going to lose, it's just a matter of time before they're gone, but you're not out yet.

Which leads me to one of my favorite ones: go for broke.

A lot of times when you're on the ropes and there's nothing much you can do, you will

take a serious risk and go "If I do nothing, I lose, so I'm going to do everything I can

right now.

I will go for broke, so maybe I'll take this one chance and I will win."

Maybe.

So, when you go for broke, you put everything you have in a situation to take an opportunity

to win because you're losing anyway, so you go for broke and say if I get it though, I

will win.

I'm going to lose if I don't, so I might as well try.

What does "broke" mean?

You guys usually think "broke" means "doesn't work", yes?

Well, in English, broke means "no money".

When you're broke, you've got nothing.

You've got nothing left to give, nothing left to lose.

So, when you go for broke, you give everything.

If you don't win, you lose everything.

But when you're going for broke, you're usually on the ropes, on an uphill battle, so might

as well go for broke, because otherwise you lose anyway.

Cool?

No, it's not cool, it's not cool at all!

It's a terrible situation, but hey, you have to go for broke.

I already explained your situation, you might as well.

Anyway, now, we started at the beginning of the fight.

We talked about how someone throws their hat in for the challenge, we talked about someone

spoiling, looking for the fight, and how the blows come and when the gloves come off and