On this week's episode, we interview Risser!, Roll Model's "Actual Head Roll Model In Charge." For some, she might have just appeared on the podcast suddenly. For others, you might have known her for a while! Either way, we're sitting down and doing a Q&A style get-to-know-you.

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The Beauty and the Gi podcast is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical, mental health, or coaching advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult your healthcare provider for any condition.

Welcome to Beauty and the gi, a podcast about Jiu Jitsu and so much more.

I'm AJ Klingerman, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt obsessed with Jiu Jitsu.

And I'm Jennifer Risser, also a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, full of nonsense and tomfoolery.

And today's podcast.

We're meeting Risser.

We've already met Riser.

Here's the thing.

So some of our listeners just had you on the podcast just without really knowing you.

I just showed up one day.

You showed up one day, and you're teaching at camp in a week, so.

Oh, God.

Better figure it out.

Just figured, you know, like, people might like to get to know you a little bit.

Yeah, I taught a couple years ago, and you interviewed me then, too.

Well, great.

I hope my answers are consistent.

Well, we'll see.

I don't know what all I asked you.

Maybe I should have listened to that one to prep.

I wouldn't think so.

All right, so let's do the quick, like, you know, how'd you get started in Jiu Jitsu?

I got started in Jiu Jitsu because AJ made me.

That's true.

She's making a scandalized face, but it's a fact.

How could you think any like, why are you scandalized?

I don't know.

I didn't make you.

Are you sure?

So the.

The gym we had then had, like, a women's bootcamp class, and it had the lifting area.

After law school, I needed to start exercising.

Like, in law school, I exercised zero percent.

I just worked a lot instead.

So I started doing the boot camp class with you guys, and I started lifting with Amy Chandler, who was one of the Jiu Jitsu girls.

And I feel like the two of you just peer pressured me.

I am a pusher.

Yeah.

It took a couple years because, like, I went to, like, you know, random stuff occasionally.

But what was it?

2015, I finally started Jiu Jitsu for real.

I got an actual GI for real.

And actually, the class that made me decide I was doing Jiu Jitsu was, like, mountain escapes, I think.

Yeah.

Because it was like, sometimes AJ tells a story about this, but it was like she was trying too hard to, like, baby me.

And I think I was just kind of, like, bored with it.

But, you know, for her, she didn't want to scare me away.

She want, like, smash me.

But we did a mount escapes class where, to be clear, I recognized she was letting me out.

Like, she was letting me work.

AJ's mount is made of murder if you've never been underneath her mount.

But it was a really fun class.

It was.

It was a really real challenge.

But I still got to have those, like, little wins of escaping.

But it was hard.

Yeah.

And I think you hooked me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was when you knew that was like, okay, I do want to do Jiu Jitsu.

And kind of went into, you know, the co ed classes and everything, so.

Yeah, I'm happy to have you.

Thank God you trapped me.

I'm so glad at this point.

I'm glad, too.

But then I don't know how glad I was.

Sorry.

And you said that it was basically like, the first six months, you didn't really care for it.

It was about six months in when we did that mountain class, and you were like, oh, I do like this.

Yeah.

So that's.

If you are bored when you first are starting Jiu Jitsu, maybe they're babying you and I guess don't baby people so much.

I mean, take care of them.

But I guess I underestimated you, really.

You know, like, I just wanted to protect you because I wanted you to keep coming around.

I mean, I understand you've been trying for two years to get me to try Jiu Jitsu, so.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I think as black belts, how we approach it now is slightly different.

You know, now we sort of let the person lead a little bit, you know, like, if they come in and they want to scrap, you can scrap.

Absolutely.

They come in, they're a little more scared.

You know, we're gonna baby them a little bit.

And I think the common thread for everyone is we try to give them a hard version of whatever is hard to them while still giving them little wins.

Yes.

And I think for me, that's what got me, is it was hard.

It was.

It was my version of hard.

But I also got to have little wins, and it made me recognize how powerful Jiu Jitsu can be.

Yeah, I love that.

So you kind of mentioned it based on you said law school, but what is your quote unquote real job outside of Jiu Jitsu?

That's not a real job.

Let's be honest.

It's just the thing that lets me do Jiu Jitsu.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I'm a lawyer by day, Jiu Jitsu, her by night.

Yes.

All right.

How did you get this job as the podcast co host?

Jen fired herself.

You know, so I actually.

I don't exactly know how that progressed.

So if you go back and listen to, like, every episode that existed.

You're going to take a wild ride for real.

But you'll also hear me sporadically, right?

So back in the day, I used to hop on for, like, interviews of, you know, guest instructors for camp or just, like, hop on for random things.

Jen needed some breaks throughout the last couple years maybe, and so I've been on sporadically.

And recently Jen decided that, you know what, she just was tired and burnt out and she just wanted out.

So I got promoted.

She says promoted, but she also now has to do all of the editing.

I got unpaid.

Promoted.

Yes.

Sorry.

But I'm very thankful for you because I am not as technical and I don't read as fast, and you do such a great job, like, reading through it and editing it very quickly.

So I appreciate you very much.

Very sweet.

She acts like she can't do it so that she doesn't have to do it, but she can do it.

I can.

It's just going to take me at least twice as long.

Well, we just did a business podcast where we talked about how good and you have to be bad at something before you can be good at something.

That's true.

That's very true.

Okay, well, here we are.

If you.

If you don't know, we're also married to each other, so it's just her wife bullying her a little bit.

Okay, so speaking of roles in your life, what's your favorite role in Jiu Jitsu?

Is it coach, competitor, instructor, Student?

Ooh, that's hard.

It's definitely not competitor.

That's easy.

Easy.

Easy to knock it off.

I hate competing.

I do it.

It's interesting because, like, when I'm at a tournament, I have fomo.

I wish I were out there competing, blah, blah, blah.

But, like, I actually do not like competing.

When I'm.

If you see me at a competition, I'm fully having a meltdown, at least internally, and I'm just panicking.

I paid so much money to do this.

Why do I do this to myself?

Blah, blah, blah.

So I don't love competing.

I do think it's good for you.

I do still tell people they should compete if they're comfortable doing it.

However, it is not a role I enjoy otherwise.

I mean, I do really love learning and being a student at the same time.

We're difficult people.

We are.

This is true.

This is real.

So, you know, as a student, you know, even at Purple, sometimes I was like, I don't know if I agree with that or, you know, so student might not be my best role.

I'm approaching this as a process of elimination type situation.

Yes.

Okay.

I'm good with that.

Instructor versus coach is hard because it's.

I mean, those are pretty similar for us because we do both.

Yeah, I guess.

Then the question is, like, if you had the choice, would you remain being a coach, which is what you really are, or would you, like, just clock in, teach a class, clock out kind of vibe?

Oh, I see what you mean.

I definitely have moments where I wish I could clock out.

Right.

Like, we went to a tournament yesterday, and as we were getting out of the car, I said, I hate your job.

Because the thing about being a coach is it's a lot of hours.

It's a lot of time, you know, when things are happening at the gym that we need to address, it takes a lot out of us.

Right.

You know, like, emotionally, spiritually, you know, dealing with a lot.

Or, like, you know, students, they want to tell us about things that are going on in their lives.

They want support, which is totally valid.

Absolutely.

We love doing that for them.

But there are times where it's like, you know, like, personally, I'm kind of going through a lot right now, so there are moments where it's just.

It's hard to be in that role.

But I do love being a coach, so I do love that position.

I love being able to, like, help people.

And, you know, even as hard as the tournament was yesterday, just personally, you know, you know, we've got these, like, really great teenagers right now that were just, you know, after their matches.

Hey, coach, can we work on this?

Hey, can I get a private lesson on that?

How can we work on this, coach?

What should I do about that?

You know?

And, like, those are just the moments where it just reminds us why we do what we do.

Right.

It's like, they're so excited.

They're so good at Jiu Jitsu already.

And it's, you know, being able to see what we've helped build, I think is really nice.

And so I really enjoy that.

Yeah, me too.

And I know this podcast is about you, but I have to also tell a quick story about, you know, the value of being a coach.

I guess so.

I had a nice moment yesterday.

She's right.

It was a very hard day for us.

Like, tournaments can be hard.

We kind of defected from one of the biggest teams around, so sometimes team, like, competitions like that can be hard.

I had a mom come up to me and just say that she appreciated the way I coach.

This is a stranger.

I didn't know her, but she Just was like, I really appreciate how you coach and how you talk to your students.

And her coach was right behind, and he was like, oh, this is A.J.

Klingerman.

I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for her.

When I started training, it was at my old gym.

And, you know, this is him saying, like, those guys bullied me really bad.

They were very mean to me.

They would send me home crying.

And AJ was the only person that was nice to me and that would stand up for me against them.

And if it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't be here.

And, like, this man owns a gym now.

And so that ripple effect was just really cool.

And so I know I wasn't really a coach at that point, but I owned the gym, so I was kind of in that leadership role a little bit.

And it's just one of those cool moments where you don't realize how that.

How much you affect other people.

Even if you weren't a coach, you were the reason the doors were open.

Yeah.

You're the reason that gym exists today.

Yeah.

Dang it.

Sorry.

True.

No, I'm glad we don't have any of those people in our gym.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, it can be really meaningful being a coach.

You know, it can be.

It's probably the hardest job I have.

Yeah.

But it is a very meaningful one.

Yeah, absolutely.

What does being a black belt mean to you?

Like, not like you having your black belt, but, like, just, like, what does it mean to be a black belt?

Oh, that's a tough one.

Okay.

Well, I mean, our theory of being a black belt is that you should not be a garbage person.

So, like, ideally, you've been through the ranks, you've experienced humility.

You know, hopefully your ego's been.

I don't want to say beaten out of you, but that's a piece of it.

Right?

You know, like, in jiu jitsu, we see a lot of ego issues, and our goal as role models is that those do not make it beyond, like, blue belt, probably.

So for me, it's that there's not ego.

You know, that even, you know, even if you have ego, things pop up, you recognize them and you address them.

Right.

Like, for yourself, you know, like, nobody has no ego.

Right?

So, but being able to say, you know what?

That was all ego.

Like, my reaction to that was ego, or me not wanting to roll with this person is ego.

So having a good, a well developed sense of humility and what ego is, how it impacts you, the jiu Jitsu piece.

You know, you're decently good at Jiu Jitsu.

You've put in X amount of years.

You know, different people think different amounts of time for black belt.

We're a hobbyist gym, so most people are going to be about 10 years.

If you're training all the time, you know, really becoming like Beatrice Chen.

Yeah.

You know, you might be black belt in six years, but, you know, you've put in the time.

You've worked your way through the ranks.

I was going to say, you know, you know your game.

I think there are different types of black belts, though.

There are types of black belts that they just know their game, and that's great.

I say just.

But you know your game.

You're really good at it.

You can go implement it.

But there are black belts where they know a lot of Jiu Jitsu.

Right.

You can't really know all of Jiu Jitsu, but they know a lot.

Right.

Like, you can teach every day at your gym, or you can, you know, answer a question about whatever thing you know.

Like, you don't know everything, but you have a really good foundation of all the positions of escape, taping of submissions, of control, that kind of thing.

Yeah, really, a black belt means you didn't quit.

You know, to me, they just keep promoting you if you just keep showing up.

And I love the concept of, you know, my students that are white belts or blue belts or whatever.

It's like, one day we'll be black belts together.

Yeah.

Like, that's just cool.

It is really cool.

All right.

Do you have something that you hate teaching?

Yeah, so many things.

I am the kind of black belt that does know a lot of Jiu Jitsu.

I'm not saying I'm, like, good at a lot of Jiu Jitsu, but I do know a lot of Jiu Jitsu.

So, you know, for the most part, I can answer questions about a lot of things in terms of actually teaching.

Like, the fine details.

We always joke that, like, we're kind of two sides, like, the yin and Yang type vibes.

AJ is phenomenal at, like, all foundational Jiu Jitsu.

Her escapes, her passing, her guard.

Like, everything is really there.

I'm kind of the silly instructor.

So, like, for example, last week, we're kind of toward the end of the month, and we do themed months.

So we're at the end of Turtle month.

Guess what, guys?

We're gonna do crucifix and Truck.

So I can be good at sort of, like, the fancier things or the Sillier things.

I don't really.

Well, I don't enjoy teaching chokes at all.

Amy Dylan, don't listen to this part, but I have really dainty fingers, and I just hate doing gi chokes.

I just hate doing gi chokes.

So I hate teaching that.

I'm not that good at teaching passing.

I say that as I just taught a camp on passing.

Yeah.

I was like, I think you're great at teaching passing.

Say that again.

I think you're great at teaching passing.

Like, you might not like to pass the guard.

You know, you don't play as much top as I do.

Like, when you and I roll, I'm usually trying to do the passing and you're playing guard.

But I think you're a phenomenal instructor at teaching passing.

Age is just better.

AJ's much better with, like, the fine details.

Thank you.

That's very nice.

Just true.

What are you looking forward to the most about camp?

I mean, it's the best weekend of the year, so that's a hard.

It's hard to identify which piece.

You know, I really look forward to just seeing all of our friends, all the people that we haven't seen, you know, like Katie Hogan.

We haven't seen her in a year, and it feels like a travesty.

Like, I'm legitimately so mad about it.

We intended to meet up somewhere in the middle, and we just never got it done.

And I'm mad about it.

Yeah.

So we need to do better in the next year.

Katie, if you're listening.

But, you know, just getting to see all of our friends, like Amy Dylan, we get to see her a couple times a year, but she'll be there.

And a Colby Francisco.

She'll be there.

Megan Timmler.

You know, like, it's.

It's kind of like everybody from our.

All the corners, we all get together.

Monica Power will be there.

I don't.

I, like, I feel bad.

Forget people's names.

Exactly.

Deanna Ford's bringing her sister who's never done jiu jitsu.

Oh, that's very.

Yeah, they're very excited.

So very exciting.

Yeah, I.

It's always seeing the people for me, too.

Yeah.

So it's just like a big reunion, basically.

You know, we get to see so many people.

And it's funny because, like, some people come up and be like, I don't know if you remember me, and it's like, yes, of course.

But also, we're chaotic.

So if you want to say your name, that's okay.

Okay, too.

Because sometimes they're like, I 100 remember you.

What's your name?

It's like, I know your Instagram name.

I'm so bad at that too.

I don't look at Instagram names or TikTok names at all.

So, like, I'll be telling you.

I'm like, do you follow that one person that like, blah, blah, blah?

I don't know.

I don't look.

Why?

I don't know.

But I should.

I should do better because sometimes it's their names that'd be really helpful.

All right.

What can people expect from your session?

Probably chaos and tomfooler.

If I'm being honest, I'm a little nervous to teach next to Beatrice and Adele.

Like, that feels very nerve wracking.

You know, I've had to teach next to Rachel a bunch of times, so that's.

Whatever.

So you're used to that nerve wracking.

And she knows that I'm chaos and, you know, she gave me a black belt, idiot.

So she's not an idiot.

You deserve a black belt.

Rachel and I are both gonna fight you.

You know what's funny is, like, I was so panicky while getting my black belt, I actually don't know who g to me.

Was it Rachel?

Yeah.

Okay.

I thought so.

It was you, Ray or Rachel?

Like, I don't know.

It could have been anyone.

I don't know.

I just, I. I remember the cake.

The cake was fire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, Danielle has seen me teach, so she knows what she's getting into.

I think I'm probably going to teach octopus guard.

I was thinking about doing butterfly, but I've just been working on octopus guard so much lately.

Like, we did a bunch of it in, I don't know, some month we did recently.

And so even on Friday night, we were working on some new stuff in octopus card, so I think we might do a 2.0 version.

Yeah, I'm excited about that.

So May was half guard and we did a lot of octopus.

Then that's how we did it.

Most of my octopus guard is half guard octopus or like escapes.

Like side control octopus.

Yeah.

Which is not guard.

To be clear.

I recognize it is not guard.

I'm telling you, it's not guard.

It's just octopus control is what I call it.

Yeah, that's good.

Okay.

Do you feel like you have a personal mission in jiu jitsu?

Ooh, that's really broad.

Yes, I feel like we have a couple.

But is it it?

Is it my mission or is it your mission that I stole from you?

Or adopted, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, it can be our mission.

I feel like I have a couple missions in Jiu Jitsu, you know, with respect to camp, you know, it's really important to us that we bring Jiu Jitsu to women, that we bring women together and we foster the sense of community.

Not to scare anyone, but we think about not doing the next year of camp every single year, basically.

And I say we, but it might just be me, because it's really.

It is a lot.

You know, AJ puts so much time and effort into doing camp, putting camp on, and it's not a money maker.

Like, we don't make money, sometimes lose a little money.

You know, most of the time we break even depending on how much we're paying instructors and that kind of thing.

But it is truly a labor of love, you know, and so it's a big thing.

AJ puts a lot of time and effort into it, but the thing that always brings us back is the mission.

It's the impact.

It's the community.

You know, like, being in that room, there's nothing like it.

There's nothing like that feeling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No matter how, like, scared or exhausted or emotional it is getting, like, into it, once we're there, we're like, yeah, we.

We have to do this again.

Yeah.

This means too much to too many people.

And you're like, this year has been hard.

Like, you know, putting it all together has been really hard.

But it's just.

We get there, and it's always so worth it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think a piece of why it's hard sometimes, too, is like, you can never please everyone.

Right.

So we've gotten some feedback about some various stances that we hold.

For example, you know, we're not comfortable with men in the children's room at camp.

That's not something that we allow, and that's something that we've gotten some negative feedback about.

I'm not going to change my mind on that.

You know, I don't mean that hateful or anything like that, but sometimes it's hard when, you know, obviously we get a lot of good feedback, but we get negative feedback, too, sometimes.

And so that can just be a difficult thing to navigate.

But you're right.

Once we get there, once it happens, it's like, well, we're already planning for next year.

You've already practically picked the theme for next year.

True.

And we don't get a lot of negative feedback.

We get like.

Like one or two a year.

But it feels like.

It feels gutting.

Every time.

Because, like, we do, we put an entire year of work into each camp.

More than that, like, I'm already talking about things.

Or we, you know, we are about 27, so it's over a year's worth of work.

So when anybody says anything negative, we're like, oh, God, it does feel gutting.

But the reality is, you know, there are far, far more people saying amazing things.

It's true.

You know, people are just sometimes more likely to give negative than positive feedback.

So I'm certain that in terms of people's opinions, more people think we're good than bad.

Right.

Like, I'm certain of that.

But you don't always hear the good as much, you know?

Yeah, that's very true.

And, you know, there you hear people say, Well, I got 100 comments and one was negative.

And that's the only one I thought about.

Right.

You know, that's kind of human nature.

So, anyway, my mission in jiu jitsu, to bring it back to the actual question, the lawyer that I am.

I also think our mission in jiu jitsu, just like locally, we have a very queer gym, and we are in a red state, and our gym is in a red county.

So, you know, having a safe space for queer people, specifically for trans people, people of color, is really important to us.

You know, the days that we want to quit, we remember who we're fighting for and who we're providing a safe space for.

Or whom.

I suppose you want to be pedantic about it.

I don't necessarily.

I know someone did, though.

The word whom should be eradicated from the English language.

I know when you should use it, but you just sound ridiculous using it.

Yes.

Yeah, Agreed.

Petition for that.

But, yeah.

You know, there are times where it's like, do we want to keep pushing forward?

But we do for our people and for the people that will come in after this that, you know.

Yeah.

That need us, that don't have another place to go.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's really important.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, one last question.

What's your favorite part about being married to me?

All of it.

Okay.

Favorite thing about being married to you.

You should have given me the list of questions.

It was on the board.

You just didn't like.

I didn't read it.

It's hard to pick a favorite because I love everything about being married to you.

That's sweet.

Even though I rope you into doing all kinds of crazy things.

Yeah, probably.

There's only one negative thing about being married to you, and it's Everything's a table.

Everything's a table.

That is true.

Can't wait for somebody to ask about that.

I'm glad tell you about that.

Anyway, my favorite thing about being married to you is honestly just how safe you are as a person.

You know, you are just the sweetest, kindest, most earnest person I've ever met.

And so I can.

You're just my safe space.

Right.

Like, I can tell you anything.

You're always gonna have arms wide open.

Like, I got up and I was grouchy.

Was grouchy from yesterday's tournament.

I was grouchy because we had a bunch of work to do and you, like, fed me snacks and gave me kisses, you know, like, gave me caffeine.

And now we're all better.

Well, I've improved.

I love you so much.

I love you, too.

But I might have to cut this out of the podcast because I don't want to convince anybody else.

It doesn't matter if they can.

You convince other people.

I'm married to you for now.

I'm not going anywhere.

Who knows who might try to come in and with their fancy, whatever, move you away from me?

Impossible.

All right, so if you have any questions for Risser that I should be asking, you should message me, because she will not answer her messages.

So I actually spent some time over the weekend getting back to some of my Instagram dms.

Yeah, I got through a fair amount of them, but I still.

Still got some.

Yeah, been working this weekend.

I've got like 40 texts left.

And.

No, I got about three months ago on my DMs, but I still haven't quite caught up.

So when you say you got about three months ago, are you going backwards or did you start at the latest one?

I started at the top.

Okay.

At the top.

So the most recent.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, that makes sense.

Yeah.

So that's fine.

It's fine.

We all struggle with something.

So I'm just saying, if you have questions for Risser, message me and I will be happy to relay the message.

Yeah, sorry.

It's fine.

I'm AJ Klearman everywhere you go.

Or you can message us at Beauty and the Geek podcast on Instagram.

We actually do still have some spots for camp available.

Do we still have scholarships left?

I've kind of lost track.

There's a lot of give and take because people will message us that they can't make it anymore.

I had someone DM me in the last, like, week that they couldn't make it.

So there might be a scholarship or two.

If you need a scholarship, contact us.

There's so much like back and forth.

I will say, though, if you intend to register, please do it in the near future because of swag bags.

So we will probably have a cut off.

We've actually already made the swag bags.

Yes.

So once.

Once we hit a point where those swag bags are taken up, we'll just mark the people who do not get swag bags.

So if you care about that sort of thing, do, please get registered right now.

Well, I guess when this comes out, we'll be like a week from camp.

Could that possibly be true?

It is.

What a nightmare.

Yeah.

So, I mean, when this comes out, the swag bags might already be gone, but if you hear this, please get registered if you are coming, because I have heard of a few people that intend to come that are not registered.

Yes, yes.

So please get on it.

Yeah, I feel like that's it.

All right, well, look forward to seeing you guys at camp.

Yeah, we'll see you on the mat.

Beauty and the Gi is a production of the Perfect Pibble podcasting company and.

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