Episode Description
Vic Verdier joins Angela to discuss the role of violence in mature masculinity. Vic describes the difference between a Warrior and a fighter, the cultural shift and current attitudes toward violence, and the importance of training and being prepared to protect. Vic was an officer in the French Navy where he had the opportunity to train numerous soldiers in Close Quarter Combat, skydiving, long-range weapon shooting, first aid and explosives. One of the world’s top experts in deep mixed-gas technical scuba diving, he is also an expert in Martial Arts and fighting techniques. Vic is a Krav Maga Instructor, a firearm instructor with an extensive practice with athletes in South-East Asia. Since his certification as a Life Transformation Coach, a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Specialist and a Trauma Release Specialist by the Bennet-Stellar University, Vic has been able to specialize in helping men deal with the challenges associated with the aging process. Vic established Vic Verdier Coaching with the goal of providing men in their 40s and 50s the physical, mental, temporal and spiritual tools to transform their life.
Transcript
Angela (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the mission manhood podcast. Today my guest is Vic Ver… I knew I was going to do that! Vic Verdier. Is that right? (Yes, perfect). Vic Verdier. Okay. All right. So Vic, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Vic (00:20):
Okay. So with a French name comes a French accent and with a French accent, a French man who was born in, uh, in Paris 57 years ago. And I’ve been living in different countries and I’ve been in the U S now for almost 12 years, I have a lot of different jobs and there are jobs and also passions. One of them is to teach a fitness, to coach men who are in their forties and fifties. And another passion of mine is to, uh, to teach combatives, to teach self defense, not only to men, but pretty much to anyone because I think anyone needs that.
Angela (01:04):
So you came to the United States about 12 years ago?
Vic (01:08):
Yes. Yes. Uh, before that, I was in Thailand. I was teaching, uh, Thai boxing, Muay Thai, in Thailand for many years before that, I was, uh, traveling a lot, uh, teaching cave diving. So a lot of, uh, scuba diving in, uh, in nice and sometimes not so nice places…
Angela (01:31):
Cave diving combines two of my worst greatest fears. It’s closed spaces and the water. I can’t believe you can actually do that.
Vic (01:40):
Yeah. For living every single day. That was a very interesting part of my life because of course, cave diving is dangerous, is actually the most dangerous, uh, aspect of scuba diving, but it also, uh, helps you to be calm under pressure, uh, to deal with, uh, stress your stress, but also your students stress. It helps you to be in control at any point because, uh, it’s easy to, uh, to panic and do something stupid and something that can cost your life eventually. So I think it’s a, it’s a great, great training, great school. It helps you to be really, uh, stay calm and
Angela (02:38):
Just looking at your Instagram page. I can tell that you are a very calm person and I’m assuming calm under pressure, and you teach people how to, how to defend themselves in dangerous situations. And I’m just getting into the warrior archetype. You had a post that was all about being violent by choice and being a good protector. And you need that in order to protect your family and protect the lives of other innocent people. And I think that’s an aspect of the warrior that might be misunderstood sometimes. And what I see a lot of is people working on sculpting their bodies or learning how to be really good with, with firearms, which I think both of those are great things too, but just the really practical things you were talking about. It just struck me that I never really hear people talking about that very much.
Vic (03:33):
boys, take it off the school property. So you are allowed to fight, but just, just take it off the property. And now you’re shamed for fighting, regardless of where you fight, it’s just such a different way of viewing it. It used to be accepted that boys were just going to have to knock each other around a little bit to get to the bottom of it. We’ve just changed so much, culturally, I guess is the point.
Vic (30:35):
Yeah, I think so. I, at least in the Western world, yes. I think it’s less like that in, uh, in Asia or in Africa, or at least the little countries that I spent time where kids are more, more free to, uh, to settle their disputes the hard way. We try to protect our kids so much that somehow it’s a disservice that we, uh, we do to them. Sometimes kids need to settle their problem the way they are supposed to. I think there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s part of our training for real life. When we, when we grew up, at least we have a bit of experience as a kid, uh, before entering the real world.
Angela (31:33):
Yeah. I think that in this space too, there are men at all different parts of the journey at different places on the, on the path, so to speak. And, you know, somebody who’s just, just starting off all the way to somebody who’s been in practicing for a really long time. And I wonder what you would say maybe to those different guys, maybe a man, a father who has children or to a young man, that’s just deciding that he wants to move on in the direction of mature masculinity. How do you in this modern day where we’re sort of sanitized, what’s a good way to start to practice, to start to, to implement this.
Vic (32:17):
You mean when it comes to, uh,
Angela (32:20):
The defense defending yourself and violence and I mean, is it through like martial arts or getting like a mentor like yourself to learn,
Vic (32:30):
As I was mentioning at the beginning, there’s a skill component, meaning yeah. A punch is, uh, something you, you need to learn to, uh, to do, to be as efficient as possible. A kick is something you can improvise, but there’s a better way probably to do it. Okay. So there’s a, the skill component, uh, and that can be learned through martial arts that can be learned, through sport fighting, MMA, so on, grappling. Um, and there’s a mental component. And the mental component is usually not something that is learned in a, you know, do Jo, uh, because everything is codified. Uh, you have to follow some rules because no ones wants to be badly injured when they practice. Uh, you have rules, you have referees, you have a weight class, you have bells. So there’s a, there’s a real code that, has it been, uh, put in place to make sure that, uh, everything, uh, happens according to the code, uh, it’s nice, but it’s not. Uh, but it’s not realistic. It’s not what happens in real life. So this mental component, most of the time, except for a few, a few places, most of the time, the mental component cannot be learned, uh, in a school. Okay. Cannot be learned in a dojo, cannot be learned doing martial arts. It will be learned in a very, uh, reality-based course. Okay. Self defense course, It might be learned through experience. So real-life life experience being able when your kid to have a fight, if you need to have a fight. Okay. Because I think that, uh, it creates an experience that you cannot, you cannot find anywhere else. It doesn’t mean that you have to fight that everybody for any reason. And that’s a fighter we were talking about at the beginning, okay. You don’t want to be a jerk, but you want to be able to defend your opinion, defend your life, defend whatever you need to defend. And, uh, and that only happens when your mind is ready to do it. There’s many examples of experienced martial artists getting badly hurt and beaten to a pulp, uh, in the street, simply because even if they have the skills, they didn’t have the willingness to, uh, to defend themselves because they were not prepared for that.
Angela (35:41):
I appreciate you coming and sharing all this with me today.
Vic (35:46):
Oh, sure. You’re more than welcome. I appreciate you inviting me.
Angela (35:51):
One thing I wanted to ask you about before you get away is you told me you were on a motorcycle trip. Yes. How fun is that?
Vic (36:00):
Uh, it was fun til yesterday. Since yesterday, it’s raining really bad.
Angela (36:07):
And when it rains, do you, do you just keep going?
Vic (36:10):
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I have some set dates for courses that I teach. So I cannot spend two or three days somewhere else. There has been a lot of rain in Louisiana yesterday, some towns that are completely flooded. So yes, uh, I was in Louisiana yesterday. I’m in Mississippi today, I should be in Alabama tomorrow.
Angela (36:37):
It was, it was a lot of fun until the rain started, right? Yes. Yes. Well, before we sign off, can you let people know if they want to contact you, what’s the best way to do that?
Vic (36:49):
My website is vicverdiercoaching.com. Uh, I also have a I’m also on Instagram and Facebook, same thing, Vic Verdier coaching, and I have a YouTube channel, Vic Verdier coaching.com. That’s easy. That’s easy.
Angela (37:06):
All right. Well, thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate your time.
Vic (37:09):
Thank you very much Angela