Episode 4 - Jose Martinez Amoedo
This week’s interview is with Jose Martinez Amoedo, from season 2 of the Alone show. Jose’s bio reads more like an action/adventure novel.
Jose started life in Germany, moved back to Spain, joined the Spanish military and eventually sailed the world, landing in the Yukon after being shipwrecked in the Amazon.
Jose has a close relationship with the land and shares his feelings on our stewardship over the earth, his relationships with First Nations elders and their innate relationship to the land, and much more.
Transcript:
Sam 0:13
Hello, and welcome to episode four of the alone podcast. Once again, very excited to be here today and to share this conversation with you all. Before we get started, I do want to just take a minute and share something. So we've received a few reviews actually on Apple podcasts, I want to thank everyone who's taken the time out of their day to go and leave a review on the show. If you haven't done you're interested, please go ahead and do so. But I want to especially thank Jenny Lang Ling. So Jenny Lang Ling took the time to leave a written review of the show as well. And Jenny says, Sam is a great interviewer listens well, and asked some great questions. So Jenny, thank you for taking the time to go and not only leave a review, but to leave your commentary on the show as well means a heck of a lot to me, this is something that kind of started as a crazy harebrained idea a few months ago, and, you know, there's been moments, certainly where it felt like this was just going to stop and there was going to be two episodes and nothing else. But thankfully, for people listening, and especially thankful to all of those from the show who have taken time out of their lives to share. This is happening. So again, thank you, Jenny, for your review. And thank you, everyone else who's left reviews and who is listening. So today, very excited for our guests. We will be speaking with Jose Martinez. Um, well, for our show today. And Jose, just thank you for coming on the show today and taking time to be here.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:43
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. It just sounds pretty exciting and interesting.
Sam 1:48
Yeah, you know, so far, it's been very interesting. And you know, think Larry said it best. It's a very diverse group of characters that end up on the alone show and and it's been a pleasure so far to meet you all, and to share so excited and looking forward to what we hear today. You know, Jose, as I was looking at your website, you've got a great About Me section there. And it read more reads more like some sort of action adventure novel. As you're chronicling your own life there. it conjures up, you know, I can't remember the beer company. But you've got the the most interesting man in the world monitor. And I think you might be in contention. What do you what do you think about that?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 2:32
You know what, I can't even tell you how many times people have asked me about my past or, you know, my previous experiences, and they saw I was bullshitting them. It happens so many times. It's kind of funny. Like, they people really think I'm making up stuff. But no, I just I've just had an interesting life so far. What can I say?
Sam 2:56
Well, good on you. I'm excited to get into it.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 3:00
Yeah, I guess I've been I've been out of a comfort zones more than other folks, generally speaking, basically.
Sam 3:10
And that's, you know, that's a right off the bat with something awesome. I think that's a great a great thing. If you've stayed in your comfort zone. Find something even something small. Don't wear your coat when you go outside and snowing or something, do something small to get outside of your comfort zone, and start to experience that and you'll, you'll find that there's a lot more to life than just perfect comfort and everything else. So
Jose Martinez Amoedo 3:34
yeah, there you go. There is a strategy for you. Maybe
Sam 3:37
not in the Yukon. I mean, you know, Jose, you should probably wear your coat and
Jose Martinez Amoedo 3:42
have a plan B.
Sam 3:44
All right. Well, so just briefly, and I don't want to tell your whole story for you. Because certainly that's why we're here today. But if I were to give a quick you know, 32nd rundown so I mean, you started life in Germany and then to Spain, then to Spanish military then to Spanish Special Forces then to you know, Royal security detail, then you left all that and went the journeys as a bowyer and we're talking sailing the world and shipwrecked. And then now in the Amazon. So we've certainly got a lot to cover and, and a lot to discuss, but I guess an easy one is how many countries of the world Have you have you visited and how many have you lived in?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 4:25
Oh, boy, I guess I lost count. I'd have to take five minutes to write them down, I guess and then and then count them as far as living like long longer term living. Well, I don't know Brazil counts. I was there for five months old me. Well, I grew up in Germany and then we moved to Spain. So I've been all over Europe, but as far as living will Germany and Spain mainly. And then I've been everywhere in the western United States. for for quite a long while as to and Canada I've seen most of Canada from the Great Lakes to the West Sea in some of the eastern part of the states. But I'm not a huge fan of populated areas a lawyer really like the forest there. I like the ecosystems but just maybe too many crowds have been in Florida too. I don't know. It's a bit of a list where I've been but yeah, as far as living, mostly Western Europe and and Canada, Alaska, United States, Mexico, Brazil. That'd be like the shortlist place. I've been spending more time in it.
Sam 5:46
While your shortlist is, is longer than most people's long list. So it's certainly fascinating. And you know, so you mentioned the span in Germany and your parents, they left Spain to go to Germany. Before you were born. Can you you know, what drove that move for them?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 6:03
Yeah, my parents were immigrants. Um, after Second World War, a Germany was a wreck basically was was a bombings and all that and, or I was born, I was born in a, in a, in a city called noise across the Rhine River from Dusseldorf This is the have had literally three buildings standing at the end of the Second World War, which I mean, it's remarkable to say that these people build themselves into a world economic power in basically in two generations a remarkable drive they have, that's Germans are quite incredible people. So Joe has been rebuilt in the 50s. And my father was a police officer in Spain. Actually, he was a police officer. And the simple reason for that I served in later on. And I remember them telling me, they didn't make enough money to pay for the rent with his income. So what they would do is they would rent a house with three bedrooms and then rent out two of the bedrooms to help pay for the rent and then have an income to eat. So the economy in Spain, after we in Spain, we had had the Civil War, just before a second World War, and the Spanish economy was rebounding, but very slowly, and the German economy was rebounding very fast. So So in those days, Franco, our dictator we had in Spain, he was a very smart chap, and he would just let you they would argue the government would organize for people to have contracts. So you would emigrate to another country with a contract already signed in and start work, you would hit the ground running. So people even my parents did not speak a word of German and they did not speak English. There was no bridge language or lingua franca to fall back on. They spoke Castilian Spanish in Galician. That's it. And yet they went there. Why? Because well, because it because they there is a my father went first. And then he lived there for, I believe, four years before he brought my mother over when, you know, they figured the situation was good enough to because he wasn't seen as gifts. My, my sister saw him for the first time when she can already speak. And she recognized him from a photo. He did a surprise visit in Spain. And she she said, Oh, there's my dad. So they figured it'd be better to you know, go to Germany with the whole family. But that took some organizing some years because they didn't speak the language. They literally had to go to the store and buy food was like hand signals. But you know, they made him work. And yes, I was already born there. And I grew up speaking German and going to school was for me, it was normal stuff, you know? Yeah. But, but my sister is were brought from Spain to Germany. And they were put in high school before they spoke of word of German. Not a word that they would put in high school. So my oldest is in high school and the other one in like middle school and go figure this figure it out. My mother dropped them off tennis. Okay, figure it out.
Sam 9:31
Did they figured out German?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 9:35
Perfect. Perfect. My older sister actually. At entered middle school or high school without a word of German under her belt and within three months she was on top of her class and when she graduated high school she they offered her a scholarship for German linguistics in university so they They caught up. I was, I was too much of an adventure soul, I was never very good at school. Well, I was good enough to pass my grades and all that. But I was way more interested in my own books. So nobody offered me a scholarship.
Sam 10:17
Which is probably better. I mean, that led your life in an interesting direction. But I want to kind of touch on this. So obviously, I'm I am from the United States. And and I mentioned a little bit before that I lived in Arizona. But you know, for me, I lived right on the southern border. And anyone who knows the United States and southern border, we won't get into the politic, right. But there's, there's a lot of immigration. And so I feel like I have a decent understanding and grasp on on what that looks like in America. But for you and your family, you know, and for you growing up and for your family and the stage of life they were in what was it like being an immigrant in Germany, but also in post war Germany was in were you well received? And what was that like?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 11:01
Yeah, well, by the time I was growing up, I was born in 1970. So that the war was sort of a distant, kind of shameful memory for Germans that, um, immigrants were very common than in Germany, and I guess they're, they're common again, but it's completely different immigration now. Um, so what's part of the landscape, so nobody thought much about it. And I think, especially at first people had a sense that it was good to have foreign labor to help rebuild the country, because it's hard to imagine how many men died. In Second World War, like, I know, families where they had five brothers, and they all died. In the war, every man in the family of that generation, Connie. So casualties were very high, and they needed people to rebuild the country. But by the time I came along, the country was already pretty much a superpower in or getting there and immigrants were just, they're taken advantage of the good economy, or a better economy than than we had in our own country, although Spain was doing already pretty good, but you were just getting better wages in Germany. So the smart thing to do is what my parents did work in a high wage country, and then save money and then invested in Spain, and go back with some, some savings and build your life and back in your own country, which is how I feel the ideal. Immigration should look like myself as a son of immigrants, you know, just go to where there's good opportunities, and then bring some cash back to your country, make your own country better. And live were among the people that speak your language and be a happy camper.
Sam 12:53
Yeah. Right.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 12:54
So that that was their idea.
Sam 12:56
Yeah. Do you? Do you think that that that same welcoming attitude, is that kind of a, or at least it's different today? But at the time, do you think that was a European thing? Or was that kind of unique to Germany and the circumstance they found themselves in?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 13:14
I think it is a European thing. Broadly speaking, and it but you know, the situation now is, is very different. Because my like, I have a sister still lives in Germany. And when the this last wave of immigrants started, that, you know, that the idea was able to refugees and this net, she was very supportive of this. And like everybody else, we were all very supportive of this. But then the reality of it is that was in the year. There were whole neighborhoods where she didn't dare go anymore. At night, and now there's neighborhoods where you don't dare go during the day. This never happened with us, like Spanish immigrants, there was lots of Italian immigrants, there was lots of immigrants from Turkey when I was a child over there, none of us ever made any neighborhood unsafe for the Germans. Never happened. Never heard about it. Now, though, that that is a different story. And I'm wandering, some people will take issue that this is what I lived in what I've seen. Now, it's a reality. You might not like it. But I've seen it. So So I, I don't think that a lot of people in Germany are as supportive to immigration as they were, or at least they would maybe think twice about what kind of immigration they would want to support and we're in the exact same situation in Spain, and Spain we have kind of the same problem. So
it it's this double edged sword we Want to help people that are in?
In a situation does not as advantageous as yours? Of course we want to, but then you don't want to have the crime rate skyrocket in your country either. Right? So then it has to be done in some sort of smart way, as like, we're all still working on that one.
Sam 15:20
Yeah, no, I think that's the, for me the the biggest thing I learned and, and you know, not to get too far down this rabbit hole, but the biggest thing I learned is that it's just not black and white. And, you know, we want it to be black and white and easy, regardless of what you think. It's just not black and white. And it's not easy. We're talking about people and humans and brothers and sisters. And and, yeah, so it's not it's not simple. And it won't ever be simple, unfortunately.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 15:46
Yeah, it's human beings, and they'll do human things.
Sam 15:52
for better for worse.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 15:53
Yeah, but that's my, that's my background.
Sam 15:56
You know, I'm
Jose Martinez Amoedo 15:57
an immigrant in Canada, I suppose. So,
Sam 15:59
yeah. You know, you mentioned going back and we'll, we'll get to the going back later. But, you know, in further on in your bio, it talks about how you had planned a, in your mind, you'd planned out a long military career, and, and you certainly started that direction. But I guess when did you realize that? The typical, I don't even know if it's typical, but the typical lifestyle wasn't for you. When did you realize that the military career and kind of that career mindset in general, wasn't Jose?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 16:31
Well, Spain is a little bit funny, as far as the military goes, because the the system is rigged in a way where you're, you really get punished for climbing the ladder. So if you're, if you get off of being a private, or what they call private here, you immediately are open to be relocated, and it ruins your whole family's plan. So they want you to stay below rungs of the ladder in a way, and so I had to choose, either climb the ladder, and then end up working in places I did not want to work or doing really, really boring things. Or to just stay in an interesting job at the time, and then not being able to prosper, so to speak. So the thing that did me in was that the interesting job meant living in Madrid, I really, I really enjoyed being a bodyguard, actually, or what people call a bodyguard, working as a security service of the Spanish royal house, I found that very interesting job very enjoyable. Um, I just hated the idea of being you know, being out there just giving people traffic kinds, or just controlling how people live their lives. I at first actually applied for mountain rescue, and I did go to mountain rescue school, but I got in a fight with a lieutenant. And that was the end of that. I probably know I should have punched it, but it didn't get physical. But anyway, like I got into an argument with um, so that that would have worked out for me. But then I got called for the Royal House later on because they were I just I was just good for their profile that they're trying for the security service they were trying to find people that were good with languages and that were tall if possible, because the royal family that they're all tall so you know, what do you do was those Mercer bodyguards around you right and and so I was really checking a lot of the boxes for them and once they got window me day invited me into the, you know, to take the court. But yeah, what did mean was living in Madrid, I just I couldn't stand the rush hour saying like needing something and having to say, Oh, but I can't go until two hours are passed because I will never make it into downtown Madrid, where this one shop is that I need to go to and finding a parking spot. It's just a never ending. It was a stressed out situation for me. Yeah. And the thing is, I was in a high stress job already. So when we were when we were when I was active, we had we had to act as terrorist groups in Spain. Well, one was fading out but you know, Edo was very active still, I've I've heard explosions go off in Madrid. My son nearly got killed by a by a bomb that went off.
Sam 19:53
Like is your son went back to Spain? Is he still in Spain or is he elsewhere?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 19:57
Oh, right here upstairs. He lives here. He lives here right now with me. But yeah, when he was, uh, when he was a kid, he was with his mother in a town and coastal Spanish Santa Paula and it was a bomb attack there. And they they said the bomb right in front of the headquarters of the police station there. And in a on a bus station, load bus station, but like a bus stop in a big piece of luggage or something that would look somewhat inconspicuous in a in a bus stop, right. And I remember well, it went off around six. And at the same time, my my ex she was driving was my son who was 44 years old, something like that. It was it was they were driving with a friend Maria to catch the bus at six o'clock. They were trying to make it in time to catch the bus. And they were late at that bus stop on their own. So so if they were on time, they would have probably blown up my son. So we, it was real for us. That was not a you know, the same that happens far away. Like, like Americans, and especially Canadians think that wars are things that happen very far away and all that and yeah, for now that it is but for us, it was, you know, right around the corner assemblies. And yeah, it you know, it's not like the whole country. This is something to happen. Every six months, there was some terrible news like that. But, but it was there, you know, and when we went out in our job we had to, we thought about it. And we said, well, this might be the day, we run into some trouble somewhere. Right?
Sam 21:54
So you you mentioned that you really enjoyed being part of the Spanish Royal Guard was, I mean, what what about that was enjoyable? I mean, what were you doing? Because to me that, you know, I think of standing at attention with your hand behind your back all day long, making sure no one enters the royal property or whatever. But what what were you doing in there? And what was so exciting about it?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 22:17
Yeah, um, couple of definitions here at Royal Guard is the guys with a fancy uniform that just stand there? I was not a robot, I was a member of the Security Service. Gotcha. So were you guys wearing suits and ties and, or, or jeans and in a jacket, depending on you know, what your job is to go more notice or more notice that's different levels. What made it enjoyable? Well, for one thing there was there was traveling. We traveled all over Spain, and sometimes we traveled abroad. So that's nice. And I found that much more to my liking to be in a job protecting people then to be in a job as a police officer. We were part of law enforcement, we were also part of the military. Then then being out there giving people fines or tickets or, you know, policing people telling them what to do what they were not allowed to do in this and that that, to me, it was much more to my liking to be protecting somebody's life. It just seemed to go better with my idea of the warrior mentality. Maybe. Right?
Sam 23:36
Yeah. Which you know, well, that's a I mean, that's a good a good point to kind of weave into this and obviously from there you know, you've done a lot more traveling and journeys from Spain and everywhere today but you mentioned that warrior mentality and one of the things I've quickly learned about you from reading and following your stuff is that you're very in touch with your ancestry and with you know, your forefathers and and the history of of your people I'll say where did that connection come from? And why is that so interesting to you and can you share maybe what you know what that ancestry looks like and what you've learned about your family?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 24:18
Yeah, it it's not just about my family per se, although that's of course very important to me, but it just generally about my people and you know, when when when students come to do workshops with me this playlist, okay, lesson number one, day one, lesson one, the first thing the first thing to get, let's let's get the definition straight. There is no such thing as non native. Okay, if you want to get me pissed off, you can see native and non native. No such thing as non native, okay? The closest thing to non native is if Pleiadians were to land here on my lawn Tomorrow, that's non native, non native to planet earth. So I understand how the cultural narrative has made it so that native Europeans in the United States or in Canada view themselves as non native, but that's your choice. You want to view yourself as non native. That's the complete delusion, but you, you know, you do you I'm native 110%, my ancestors were in Northwest Spain 40,000 years ago. I call that native. Okay, that's that's basically about almost double as long as as Native Americans have been here. So that's native. I'm Native. There's no arguing there's no discussion about it. So do we speak our native language? Well, the language we speak right now is about 1000, and some years old. in its present form, it started 2000 years ago with a Roman conquest. It's a Latin language we lost our original language was a form of Gaelic because we're Catholic people. But that's the language that it evolved into same as many Native American tribes speak a language that was not their original language, like the tiger stripe here in the Yukon. They speak think it, or they think it's not attached. But they're, they evolved into speaking Klingon when the Klingon moved inland. Nothing so strange about that. So this idea that white people, or Europeans or non native is very strange to me, once you look at the roots that we have in Europe, we've been there forever, for a long, long time. And, you know, when I was little, the idea was that we were the evil people that displace that Neanderthals and kill them off, because we overlapped with Neanderthals for 5000 years. And then the Neanderthals kind of disappear out of the archaeological record. Then later, the narrative was, well, we have some Neanderthal blood, and that the latest one I've been reading is that we might have a lot of Neanderthal blood. Well, if we can safely now count Neanderthals as our ancestors. I know that there was pre Neanderthal people hunting in the Iberian Peninsula 600,000 years ago. So those are my ancestors two, I'd say that's native. Native and us to me, that's, that's a long, long, long, long, long family line.
Sam 27:43
I'd say 1000 counts. Yeah. Yeah, I'd
Jose Martinez Amoedo 27:46
say it comes but you know, even if we good just the straight from Magnum, people, that people that literally look like like us right now. 40,000 years, I call that native, alright. Okay. We've been there fighting off invaders, Spain is this fertile country that everybody always wanted to own. And we've been fighting off invaders. The Well, the Phoenicians were mostly traitors, the Romans, the Carthaginians, we fought daily fought the French we fight Napoleon. You know, we've been there shedding blood for that land for a long, long, long, long time. So don't don't call me non native. Okay. That's not the right thing to say. So being Native, what are our native traditions? Well, we are farther removed from some of our native ways. Then, other people, the Indians here in the Yukon, I say Indian, I know they're not from India, though. You know, some of your viewers or your listeners are going to tell me about Indian all that. Look, buddies. I'm good at geography. I did history and geography in university, the NSA Indians, I live with them. I live I live in a native village here. They say Indian, they say they I don't care what they say. I'm going to do it Indian way to our own little singsong, you know? Um, I lost my train of thought there for a second. Yeah, that the native people here. They've been contacted basically, well, the big gold rush it was 1898. A number of people here saw their first black man during the building of the Alaska Highway in Second World War and they were really scared. So contact here is one of the last places on Earth where it happened. So we have a lot of the cultural loss that we have as native Europeans has happened here very recently. That one of the reasons why I'm here because you can still dig for the roots and dig for the what in less adulterated cultural expression would look like? For a native people, this is a good place to explore that. Although the the people here, of course, have suffered tremendous cultural loss, like the people here, it's a rarity for anybody to speak the language anymore. It's just a few elders. To give you an example, right,
Sam 30:18
are there so are efforts to preserve that culture and the language? And and are there are efforts that are actually, I guess, working to do that?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 30:28
Yeah, for sure. There are. And, thankfully, there is because it, you know, it's worth preserving. But, you know, it's difficult the language is, the language is something that lends itself more to be learned in a natural setting than in a classroom, like, like most languages, really, it's easier to live the language than to study the language. And they're, they're trying to revive the language with a Western mentality, like in a classroom setting, and it's failing miserably, where what they should do is just let kids spend time with elders and abortion and Bush camps, like in fishing camps, and in hunting camps and, and trap lines and all that and just speak the language exclusively little kids would catch on to it really, really fast. And in some families, that's still happening. But it it is a bit of a rarity, sadly, so. So I'm witnessing witnessing cultural last year, like, as we speak, really, and I do my part to prevent it. Like right now, I just came from one month of teaching primitive skills at a man's Healing Camp at work for Native men up top of the mountain, thereby white horse. So that's part of my job as well. As somebody wants to know how, how did you make? How did they make our heads out of still why I can I can show you, then you maybe have to investigate exactly what type of Arrowhead here tried to use, but I can show you that techniques and how to make them and then you do the rest of the investigating. That's that's where I fit in. To help a little bit with the cultural loss aspect. As far as the technology goes, I can't tell you the language, I can tell you the stories that your elders are there for that you're supposed to go to your elders.
Sam 32:25
I mean, how long have you been in the Yukon and where you're at now?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 32:31
Well, let's see here. I came through in 2004. Well, give me a second here. 2004. Yeah, 2004. And then I went sailing in 2004. Five. So I came back in 2006, and met Sean in 2007. On and off since 2006, basically, okay. And if you've done a lot of traveling in the in the 2000, and tense, a lot of traveling, so I was I was on and off, like maybe half a year here and half a year, somewhere else.
Sam 33:12
How much has it changed in your 12 to 15 years that you've been there?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 33:18
Oh, that's a good question. Um, the main saying for me personally, is that elders die. That's the tragedy for me that elders die. And the guys that were my instructors, my teachers here, my mentors here, I had a good friend called Tommy Moses. And he passed away a few years back and to me, it was a big tragedy because this was the guy that would take me out and let's snare some links. And well, we go snare links or let's set a net under the eyes. He taught me how to set net somebody's eyes, how to set traps for different animals. Even just just having conversations with him, does a whole lifetime of experience. He couldn't read or write very well at all. He was taken out of school when he was a little boy because his father died of a I think the Spanish Flu back then. And his older brother told them well, that is gone, we have to provide and he just grabbed him gave him a 3030 lever action rifle and a sack of traps and cut them loose out here in the winter on a mountain near my cabin, by the way to set Martin traps to catch Martin channel. That was the end of his schooling. So he was you know, he grew up pretty wild. And then I miss him. So when when the elders pass away, that's a big dip in in the cultural knowledge for the tribe and as a friend Have them. That's what hurts me. You know, I tell you, my life is a lot more boring every time one of those guys is gone. So that's, you know, that's what I've seen. And it's hard to find a substitute for them, because the people that are, maybe in my age group, some are maybe able to live up to, to that. But you know that the people that are now in their 80s and were in their 70s, when I arrived here, they, some of them had really so grew up, literally out on trap lines, not seeing town for years, sometimes, and he just can't compare the level of of how much in touch they were with nature without even knowing it. Like Tommy. I would show him a map. And he couldn't see a thing on the map. To him, it was just lines, lines drawn there. Says he told me he says, I've never been able to read a map to me, it just lines. I don't see anything. I say okay, I can read map. So I'll do the I'll do the math part. I was hoping for him to tell me on the map. here's this, here's that he couldn't see it. It was just his brain wasn't wired that way. But let me tell you one thing. We went cruising around my cabin and whatnot. And he was showing me different lakes that I didn't even know we're back there. And then we were hungry, says, let's go back to the cabin. And I started walking back towards the trail. There was a trail that I knew about, and I'm going back to Joe, he says why going back to trail this just go straight to the cabin. And I'm like, Okay, this to this boreal forest, you can see a saying beyond 10 meters. So I say okay, I'm pretty sure where the cabin is. But that, you know, I have a range of degrees where I think the cabin is about this direction, but I can miss it by 20 degrees or 30 on each site. So I might come up left of it and then rectify, or write of it and then rectify, and, you know, he just took the lead and walked straight to the cabin. Like straight to the frickin cabin, not even off by a meter. And the cabin was maybe two miles away. He just walked through the cabin. Because in his mind, he like a like a, like a husky like sled dogs do that. He knew where the cabin was. That's it. We've been cruising around all day doing curves and looking at Lakes, and there's no features in nature, there are straight. Everything is roundabout and whatnot. And we were in the middle of nowhere. He knew exactly where the cabin was, without a shadow of a doubt. And he thought it was weird that I didn't. So that's what that's what I'm talking about. You know that those old time Indians that just new sinks, they new sinks. It's hard to explain, they knew. They also knew when things happen
Sam 38:08
to other people,
Jose Martinez Amoedo 38:12
somebody passed away. People that were in remote places would show up for the burial. They would you know, this,
Sam 38:21
this was a common thing of sensing sensing that something had happened. And they Yeah, shut up. And yeah,
Jose Martinez Amoedo 38:27
they they knew they knew and this kind of being in touch, not just with nature, but with a tribe. How can you teach that That's not? That's most, that is as far removed from, from knowledge in a classroom as I can think of
Sam 38:47
comes to makes me think of instinct versus education. Right?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 38:53
Yeah, I would, I suppose you could call it a form of intuition. It's maybe what name you give, it depends on your belief system, right? Because you could, you could look at it as a spiritual expression. You could look at it as a subconscious mind type of thing. You could look at it as a, I don't know, reading subtle clues in nature. You know. It depends how your mind is wired, like how much of the pure Newtonian science is the only reality type of spectrum you're in versus, you know, God is everywhere. And you can tap into that maybe on the other end of the spectrum, or however you want to define it. It's up to you. But these, these things are real and I've been very fortunate to have witnessed some of that. And that's what I miss the most, because it's very rare to find out anymore and How can you bring that back? Well, there's just no way to teach it. That's why. And for other aspects as well, like, if you look at my webpage or generally my classes, whatever. I never advertise myself as a tracker, you notice that?
Sam 40:18
Yeah, I didn't I didn't notice that. But I, I can now Yeah.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 40:23
You know how so many schools that they make a big fuss about? You got to learn tracking here and the tracking is the deal, whatnot? I absolutely don't. So can I read so and what do you think? Yeah, I can read sign. But tracking is one of those tracking is one of those for me personally. Um, if I like right now we're in this house, we're speaking, we're in Tomball. Tom is an Indian village out in the middle of nowhere. But I go to my cabin, I have a cabin 30 kilometers from here that is out there. It's literally in the middle of nowhere. And when I go there, and I start walking around, and we're always looking for side, right, doorways, because you need to know what's around here, this is not a curiosity thing. It's a life and death thing. You want to have that information like what's been around. Um, so I'm, I'm reading sign. The moment I set foot across the river towards my cabin, I'm always reading science. So as far as tracking goes, for example, or just generally perceiving sign or reading sign, when I go across to the cabin, when I come from being in town, and I'm exposed to this kind of technology, like right now we're here looking at a screen and using ear muffs and things. I can feel that I'm dull, dull, when I get to the cabin, or anywhere out in the bush, anywhere remote, I startled animals. Instead of being able to sneak up to them, I miss things that I later than perceive. And to three, four days need to go by without modern technology, contaminating me until I'm able to truly catch up on sign. And then things happen. Like, I'm walking somewhere and I stopped. And I'm not sure why I'm stopping but I know something's going to happen. And I just stop and listen. And 1520 seconds later or a minute late, whatever, some animal will go by that I see the animal and the animal didn't see me. These things will then start happening. And then when I get to that level, then I can then I can track because I can I can I look at the tracks. If I really get into the zone, I look at a track and I can I just see the animal doing it. I can like see a movie, in my mind of the animal doing things and I can the tracks become a movie in my mind of what this animal was doing. Before I get to that point, all I can do is look at the path brands or paw prints whatever anti Oh, this is a bear, it looks like it was going this way. That way it looks like it was in a hurry or not. It looks like it was big or small. I can give you the classroom aspect of it. But I cannot really track until I've been decontaminated out in the bush for like a week.
Sam 43:36
I'd call that the easy stuff. Right? It should be pretty easy to determine what an animal is and what manner it was moving in. Right? I think if you've if you stopped and looked for just a minute, you can tell. But yeah, deeper understanding the thoughts and and you know, it minds like an ammonium.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 43:55
If you get into that zone, you can like feel what the animal's mood was even. Like what? Like, if I see a moose track and the host the tips of the hosts are splayed out like that. I say, Well, this guy was in a hurry, for some reason he was either scared or excited. But he was going somewhere like was a full traction on four wheel drive. Anybody can do that, that has a book on tracking. But, you know, after I've been there for a while, if if, if I get in the zone, I cannot even guarantee it. I can tell what's up here. We can do that. If I really connect with a LAN I can feel that this animal is scared rather than excited. No, I mean, but I can sell that. I can market it. I can tell you well, once you're with me for a week, you will certainly be able to I don't have a clue if you will be able to do it or not. So that's why I do not advertise myself as a tracker. Because to me this is next level stuff. You might be like me in able to get into the zone. Or maybe you might not, and you will just be. Or maybe you you're a really excellent guy putting together the information of just the sign that you see. But you don't let your intuition you don't have your intuition be part of it, you're just very good at all the visual clues and everything else. And a year might be an excellent tracker that way, I don't know how you're going to perceive it, but I don't feel it's a sellable skill. So I don't advertise it. You know, I'm curious if students come and hang out with me in the bush for a long enough period of time if they'll get in the zone or not? Because they'll probably they'll tell me
Sam 45:43
just say, Do you Do you experience that with with people that come to your place or when you go to people, that some people because I kind of understand you're talking about I used to bow hunt quite a bit and, and you know, day one of a bow hunt? The things that you see and notice and hear and smell and are very different than the things you see and notice and hear and smell on? Yeah, five, right. But do you notice that when you're with other people, whether they're coming to you for for education and training are you're going to them? That there are some people that that start to get there, and just others that don't and you have any sense of, of where that breakdown occurs? Or what are the differences?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 46:25
Yeah, I've seen I've seen some people really not getting it. But, um, I guess it's like, what baggage do you bring? Right? Like, what? What's in your luggage? When you come out here? What are you bringing with you, and and you know how they say in? In Far Eastern philosophy, they have this thing where they say, well, like, your glass is full, so I can't fill it. So if you're a full glass, it's just there's nothing I can do about it. So you have your preconceived notions. And then people come with all sorts of different priorities, right? They say, if you saying Your priority is just this classroom teaching. And then you just, you're analyzing everything with your logical mind. You're not going to tap into the whole other aspect of it, that nature is, nature is not just, Well, if I know the leaves of all the trees, I will be able to identify them. Yeah, that's part of it. But that's just the start. There is there's a, this concept of Indian called medicine, or used to call medicine, medicine, medicine doesn't mean pharmaceuticals. It means it means power, it means there's a spirit inherent to every living and nonliving thing out here. And you can tap into that if you develop a native mindset, an Aboriginal mindset, that that's what I try to teach. But it's it's it's difficult in the sense that the Western mentality is that you can conquer anything by your active effort. Were the native mentality, including our native ancestor, look, our ancestors in Europe, they had medicine man, do you think they just studied things in a classroom setting. So the difference is that you have to shed this idea that you can conquer everything, just with your mind, because some of the knowledge and the skills will come to you out here to the real deep stuff by surrendering to it, not by actively conquering it. So it's basically by surrendering to a feminine receptive spirit of approaching things rather than approaching everything with this masculine, conquering spirit. And there's nothing wrong with each of them. It's just a matter of time. There is a time to do it, the strong, assertive, masculine way and there's a time to do it, the gentle, perceptive, subtle, feminine way and this has nothing to do with your gender is nothing whatsoever to do with your gender. That is there's plenty of women nowadays there are 115% Male cognitive and will not get it. And there is you know, the other way around, so we're not talking a gender thing. This is an attitude thing.
Sam 49:50
And I think you know, we typically on the show, I don't I don't stray too far into to actual experiences on the alone show and certainly you I'm gonna do that right here, but you can definitely see, you know, for those that are thinking about what Jose is, is discussing, you can certainly see when you watch the alone show those two different approaches of, you know, try and ram it through versus try and exist and get into the spirit of where you are. And so for you, Jose, I'm interested in, I think in and maybe I'm wrong, it seems though that kind of that hard charge, ram it through, you know, beat through it mentality is, is very common. How did you cultivate? Or did you have any experiences that led you to understanding that more spiritual I want to call it softer side but the more spiritual softer side of of that existence?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 50:50
Yeah, I wonder, I wonder myself stuff. This is the definition. You mean, during, during the, during the show? And
Sam 51:01
just in general in your life? Yeah. In your life in general? How have you, how have you gotten into the other aspect?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 51:08
nature, nature has set me straight so many times. So many times, I failed so many times. By being trying to be a bully with nature and say, No, I can wrap my head around this. And then nature has gently and sometimes not so gently show me know, you can't believe me. You can't squeeze the knowledge out of me. You can be open to the knowledge I'll give you though. Time and again time and again. And again. It's hit me in the face, like Oh, shit, once I stopped trying, it came to me and completely unexpected ways. And I'll give you an example. Just a general example. And this is this is something that I teach in my classes as well. You've heard like when when they talk about, for example, plant medicine, like pharmaceuticals are talking this time. They say, well, our ancestors are commended for their efforts to discard plant medicines through trial and error. You've heard that before, right? Okay, I believe, and the long history of stupid things to say this has been the Crown Royal of all of them. I don't think there's much that can be more stupid to say, then that our ancestor figured out that medicine through trial and error. And a 32nd analysis will show you what I mean. If you take the parts of a plant that you can use, let's say that the the leaves, the flowers, the stems, the roots, whatnot, let's say that four or five variables, you multiply that by the ways in which you can prepare them like you can dry them you can make teas out of and you can make infusions like you can make concoction decoctions, you can make tinctures, you can sniffing the powder, you can inhale the smoke. You started with five, six variables, you're multiplying that times already about 12 variables, then you multiply that by the number of ailments that human beings can have from a sprained ankle, to pneumonia, to the frickin leprosy. Okay, and now you've tried to combine that the number is already in the millions of combinations. And now, you have to have computer level record keeping to know which ones you've tried already. Well, let's not try a poultice of the mash roots of I don't know Molan for a sprained ankle because it was tried already 325 years ago by Grant in a cave over there in France. And we know it doesn't work. Saying that plant medicine was discovered by trial and error is basically the the Crown Royal of stupid things to say. What do native people say native people say they relate to the plants, they have dreams. I've had it, people can have it, you have experiences where these form. Plants are a form of consciousness, you are a form of consciousness. You can communicate. And then you get the information. Is that so? So of course that is contrary to Newtonian science. So somehow, we have to pretend that we believe that trial and error is what did it. These guys didn't have labs. And they did not have computers to keep records. How is trial and error even remotely possible? It's completely impossible. We know it. The numbers don't add up. So then why don't you believe native people when they tell you this is how we do it we we have dreams we have intuitions we have we know or we have like say spirit animals that guide us and tell us about these plant medicines that they know well Oh my god, we can't do that, because that is not Newtonian science, therefore, it cannot be the truth. Yeah, but trial and error. That's the truth, right? So I you, at some point, you have to decide if you want to believe in stupid or not. Because some some things about Newtonian science are stupid. And some things are brilliant. Well, let's keep the brilliant ones, let's not believe in the stupid and explore other options. And the other options always lead invariably, to the fact that there is more to consciousness. And we've been told, as all native people that are still connected, no, and you can easily as a descendant of native ancestors, you can easily find out about it.
So, so that is maybe the part that I enjoy most and is more relevant to me in my classes, like how exactly to make it bold, real fires learn within a day, then you can practice it or not. And it may save your life, it's good to know, it's good to know. But I think that the rabbit hole goes way, way deeper than that. And, and I wonder how many people are interested in that whole aspect is like, literally, the skills and techniques are just the tip of the iceberg to my mind.
Sam 56:18
Yeah, when I mean, you, you've obviously taken taking this whole, I even know how to describe it, you've taken this very deep, and you take it very seriously. Did you always did you start out I guess learning these skills in that spiritual mindset? Or did that type of mindset come later for you, as you learned more and more and got more in touch with what you were doing?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 56:45
Actually, that's a good, that's a good question. You're making me think about it, I'm sure. I guess I don't think about the budget all that much. I just do it with things. Um, I remember as a small child, small, not that small. I made seven, eight years old. My parents were Catholic, and they were they took us to church. Every Sunday, I stopped going to church when I was 13. Because I kind of rebelled against it. And, and I, I just felt that organized religion was not my saying my way of doing it. But before that, I had realized that for some reason, unknown to me, I was very interested in spirituality, even as a kid. Like it, I felt there had to be something behind sayings, like a driving force or an underlying presence of some sort. dismayed, it didn't make sense to me that there wasn't because I felt something. Right. And so so that, and this was a surprise to me, because I, I thought, why the hell am I interested in this? I had, I had a very rational mind, I'm kind of borderline on the autistic spectrum, I think. So I hyper focus on things. And then I learned them. So I always had a very rational mind, it was a surprise to me that I had any interest in these things that were, at least by definition, by definition, not really rational. But there was this is how I felt I felt drawn to it. So So at since I was a child, I was interested in that aspect of it as well as just the sheer naked technique of it. Like okay, well, what's, what's there to it? What is a? Is it a coincidence that that one tree like the cottonwood has all the ingredients for fire making, and the tribes used to call it five firemaking tree? Like, why does one plant have everything like it? Let's say the inner bark is excellent for tenderness. Okay, that's normal. The roots are the absolute best for for bow drill, and it would talk in northern hemisphere. Pro, the drill and a socket? Well, that's a coincidence. You can make this the sockets or the hand part. You could make it out of the outer bark. Crap. How many more things related to this one skill in one plant? Why is that? Is that like, why are there these coincidences in nature? What does it mean? What's behind it? And then of course, once you start going into the rabbit hole, the rabbit hole proves to be much deeper than 10 even suspected and nobody even knows how deep the rabbit hole is really. And the thing is, to me, this is interesting. It's interesting, I don't need any other excuse. Like, oh, the Lord told me to walk this path. Look, maybe. But the thing is, it's interesting. It's so much more interesting than just the naked raw data. I've give you a raw data, okay, this is a tree, you go to for A, B, and C, you put it together in this way. And the result, the predictable result is empirical evidence. If you do it my way, the way I teach you, you will get fire. Cool. That's very good to know. But there's more to it. This is can be a lot more interesting than that. There can be campfire stories around it, you know what I mean?
Sam 1:00:41
Yeah, that's, that's so fascinating. And so I guess, in that regard, and if you can't speak to this, that's fine. I know that will I'm going to use your your favorite term here. But I know that you've spent a lot of time studying native spirituality. And obviously, we've, you know, whether whether it knows it or not, I think we've been talking about that for the last like 20 minutes. What are their explanations in native spirituality? For these things like the cottonwood or fire making tree and, and those types of things that we're talking about?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:01:15
Yeah, well, again, we want to be careful to not narrow it down. When we say native spirituality, we're not just saying Indian or Native American. Okay, this is this is in everybody's ancestry. All my people, your people, what are your ancestors? Where, which part of where? Which part of the world do your ancestors come from?
Sam 1:01:39
Alright, we've got some, some German, and mainly from Wales and England as well.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:01:47
Okay, so Germanic people in some Celts thrown in there. These were Native people, until they, they were basically civilized, whatever civilized means until, until the mainstream culture in these geographical areas became wealth fell under the influences of a different kind of knowledge that that brought about a different kind of worldview. So then it's, you know, safe to say the majority of Germans and people in Wales, for example, or in Spain, have a worldview that is a non Aboriginal worldview. But the DNA, the history is 110% native, that Germans are the native inhabitants of what is now Germany, they've been there forever and ever. So they are the tribal people from there. And to my mind, I think that regaining a level of Aboriginal thinking is, is really what we need to stop mismanaging the planet. I think it's a survival skill. In the sense that, that an Aboriginal mindset is always based on sustainability, right? You don't Altana your hunting territory to have a feast today and then let you could starve next year. You just you don't do that.
Sam 1:03:17
Yeah, I'm reading a book right now actually about, about a shipwrecked crew off the, off the south, basically between New Zealand and Antarctica. And it was an interesting point that they I'm just at this point in the book, which is I bring this up that, you know, this group of I think it was five men had been shipwrecked, and they'd been on ashore for I think about four months. And one of the struggles they started running into is that all of the basic Welsh all the shellfish all the the limpets and whatever else that that was within three miles of where they were, had been used up. And yeah, and it was so cold, and the weather was so harsh. The sea lions were gone, that they started starving, because they couldn't travel far enough to get food, because they had decimated everything in their region, without thinking to leave some to keep going forward. So it just an interesting that I'm reading a book and I literally just read that last night and you talk about it so
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:04:20
well, we're doing that on a planetary level. Right? And generally the response the non Aboriginal mind responses to find ways to travel further to explode more resources from your neighbors. Right? Um, we have to rethink that we only have one planet. Now. We don't want to trash it. Like I say many times if we if we had 10 planets, we could be assholes about it so we can trash one.
Sam 1:04:48
Don't get me started on us leaving here to go to Mars. But that's not the point of this whole show. But I could I could talk for a while about how I'm all for space exploration. But if we don't have our crap together here, what on earth are we doing? Yeah, making our disaster somewhere else, but we won't.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:05:08
And here, here's the deal. Here's the deal. I think we're being watched on how good of a job we're doing here. I'm not sure if we got to be permitted to go trash other worlds. I think humanity is right now in a stage where we're, we're adolescents. were teenagers and we're behaving very irresponsibly, with the powers of an adult, like let's say you have your driver's license already. But with a mentality is so child's like, and then we're, you know, we're living our lives with very shallow on very shallow principles and very shallow desires, the things that we want, you know, when you're a teenager, the most important thing in the world is to get the last generation frickin iPhone. Yeah, that's the thing to live for. So then as an adult, you look at it as you're an idiot. But you're an idiot that's growing, hopefully to not be an idiot, right? Well, that's where humanity is at. And I'm not I'm not one of those doom and gloom, saying, Oh, we're destroying the planet. I did some ridiculous things like, well, with all that within 12 years from look, the capacity of nature to heal itself is pretty much unlimited. We, the thing that is at risk as humanity itself, nature, you can destroy nature, there's a worksheet goodness,
Sam 1:06:35
the jokes probably on all of us, right? Because we're being allowed. We're being allowed to be here and the minute that we're not supposed to be here anymore, that we've overstayed our welcome I'm sure that's gonna Yeah, come right
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:06:46
Oh, nature look, that the planet can find another species to be a steward. And which is what I think is our secret role on the planet is to be to do the stewardship, right. This planet has shed species left, right and center since the beginning where the hell out of dinosaurs where the mountains, species come and go. This whole thing was climate change isn't a can of worms, but the planet changes species disappear, we can disappear to. That's not even nature, we'll find a way to renew itself, we might destroy a number of species and the nature creates others to take to fill in the roles that she needs to fill. That's not the point. The point is, will we grow to be adults. And to me being adults, meaning assuming an actual valid role as stewards for this place? And what would stewardship look like? I think that the main thing is to value and protect biodiversity. So I'll give you an example. Australian aborigines are famous for that but the Damien's here and in Canada and the states and many places, they did a lot of burning. They renewed the ecosystems was burning right here where I live. This is a very poor forest. Very poor we have we have a lot of animals per capita because the population in the Yukon is so ridiculously low as far as humans go, but we don't have a lot of animals per square mile. Okay, so if you if you look at an Eastern deciduous forest and say upstate New York or Pennsylvania one of these places there is a lot of life there and well if you go to the jungles ridiculous. Um, but here the boreal forest, you know, there's animals but boy, you You better know where to find them because you can cruise a lot of bush and not see this thing. And right now winter is coming. Everything that has wings, except for six or seven species has flown away. It's a silent forest literally. So it's, it's a it's a poor place. However, if you burn the valleys that say right now is for us now is late fall. Winter is basically we had the first snowfalls here already. If you let the bottom of the valleys burn, and you had grasslands in the valleys, and then you had forests on the slopes. Then you'd have you'd have all the grass eating animals in the valleys, let's say the buffalo which we have here farther. In the central Yukon, you would have elk, you'd have deer. And then you'd have to moose in the wetlands and we'd have the caribou up the mountains and whatnot. You'd have more biodiversity of course, the idea of burning part of the forest for biodiversity would drives a lot of ignorant people absolutely bonkers. Because they, you know, this, this idea that nature is just life. Okay? Nature is 50% Life 50% deaths. Precisely. And if you if you want to manage it as stewards, if you're an idiot of a steward, then you want to manage it in a way where it's only live. We've done that, but failed miserably. The first national parks were established by hunters. And they were established to the exclusion of predators, because the idea was that, you know, was a place to preserve elk and deer and Buffalo and things, right? Well, what happened? Massive die offs happened because animals in the absence of predation get sick, which means that nature is teaching you a harsh lesson that she will have her way and her way is 50%, live 50% deaths. So you you either participate in both of them, or you're not a good steward, for you simply not understanding what the hell is going on here. If you don't understand the depths aspect of her. That's why I don't I don't support the just a nature viewing paradigm just this national practicing, where take only pictures or leave only what they say, yeah, some silly thing like that. I think that the way to truly understand nature is to integrate yourself in nature. And that means being a hunter and a gatherer.
Kill things, it's okay. That's what we are, we are apex predators. We're not something else. We're not, I don't know, krill eating blue whales, which is an apex predator right away. But we're not sunflowers were apex predators. That's what we are. As a species. It's nothing wrong with it. You know, if people want to demonize that, well, I could send them to go and make gentle love to themselves. This is our birthright to be apex predators. And as apex predator is we, and with our intelligence, we have the tools to make an excellent job of managing or helping manage ecosystems and keep them in balance. We have the tools, other critters don't have those tools. And maybe beyond that, the most important aspect because I also don't have a lot of patience for that rhetoric, like all humans are just another animal. And the planet will be fine without us. Not really. In the sense that if you think about it, if we use technology, with an Aboriginal mindset, I have no problem with technology whatsoever. Okay, what I do have a problem as with mismanaging technology, and I there might be a problem is how much technology where, you know, so there has to be wisdom behind it.
Sam 1:13:13
Okay, imagine you had a chainsaw, right?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:13:15
Oh, yeah, of course. Naturally, I have a chair. So we have to cut certain cords of wood to keep this house warm.
Sam 1:13:21
Yeah. So you got to change how you use the technology. But what and when and how you select to cut is a different mindset, right?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:13:30
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the thing is, I'm in a place where looked at the Yukon Territory is the size of California, where under I think 40,000 people, which is in Europe, that's a village or anywhere in the state. That's basically a small town village, right? Yep. Well, this is in a territory the size of California. Something like near 30,000 live in one spot in Whitehorse. This place is empty. You can have 10 chainsaws, if you wish. It'd be fine. We're not threatening. We're not threatening the boreal forest. Somebody gets their panties in a wad. I have a chainsaw and I have have an outboard motor for my boat and, and I have a what they call a high powered rifle. And I have a gill net, you know, made out of nylon strands. Why? Because they work. They were great. Now, would I set my net and forget to attend it? No, I wouldn't. Or what I set my net. It's just it's a matter of wisdom has to guide it else. It won't work. It doesn't matter. intentions don't matter. Technology doesn't matter. What matters is you know as to be guided by wisdom. So what I was saying about oh, we're all just another animal. No, we're not. If we use technology. Conceivably, we could protect the planet from Planet killers which are asteroids. RUSADA that asteroids are real and present danger to life on this planet. If we want to be stewards of this planet. This is one area where our technology should be focusing on AI to be able to literally protect the planet from asteroid impacts can a grizzly bear do that? Can appellee can do that? Kind of cottonwood tree do that, or a birch tree? No, we can do that. Conceivably? I'm not sure if we're there yet. I doubt it. That's not an easy feat. But yeah, see what I mean. So we could be stewards of this planet at that level, literally protecting the planet protecting the biodiversity that we have to not have to let the whole system goes through another long Ice Age and the massive die off of species and whatnot, we could protect the planet at that level. Instead, what are we doing? We're listening to stupid music and and, you know, yearning for the next model iPhone to come on. So there's just too many people on this planet right now that are living their life in complete and utter lack of consciousness, this kind of that. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's what makes us barely sustainable for the planet right now, the lack of conscious and nothing wrong with us. We're not bad people. There are bad people, of course. But generally speaking, when you travel and you meet people, you realize quickly that most most people are good, folks. Yeah. And just about everybody has the best of intentions, and they want the best for their families and for their kids and whatnot. It's not like they go out in the morning and say, well, let's destroy as much of planet Earth as we can. So I can get rich right now and screw everybody else. They don't think that way. They're just unaware of it. What their decisions that truces mean, right.
Sam 1:17:06
I think that's a very, very important and nuanced understanding of the human condition. Right? I think we, we typically like like going to Mars, right? I don't I don't think the intent of the desire to colonize Mars is to is to trash Mars, right? I think it's to the ideas to be beneficial and help life here and whatever else. But sometimes we don't always think through the consequences of our actions before we take them. And unfortunately, the time to think through the consequences before you make the action, but yeah, something that something I want to talk about, I know we're kind of running long here, we need to get you back to your day, but something I think I would be would be missing heavily is your involvement in medieval full contact fighting? You sent me he sent me a picture. He sent me a picture the other day. And I'd seen a couple of pictures online on your on your Facebook page that look like the consequences of a medieval full contact fighting. And I didn't realize this was a thing. Can you talk about that for a minute? I mean, what is it and what level of organization does does this sport have? And and what do you do?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:18:23
Well, I'm, I'm just, I like interesting hobbies. To basically just, I just don't like to be bored, basically. And I'm not easily bored because I have so many cool hobbies, right? Been a lifelong practitioner of martial arts. I started at age 13. In Spain, when we move back to Spain and I was doing Eastern martial arts a very traditional style called Go Shindo. And it was fun, it was great. And oh my god, I was so lucky to bump into that because I could have been a teenager and a lot of trouble a lot of trouble because I I was not like I was a bad boy or anything. I come from a good family I had great parents. And but the thing is, I was completely unafraid of anything and I would have tried anything I would have tried to try done anything. If I didn't have that balancing philosophy to guide me, which was martial arts for me. It probably probably saved my life because I could have been a real I'm head so I've been a lifelong practitioner of it, but at some point in my life, like later on in my 30s made 30 that some point it dawned on me isn't okay, if Wait a second. I'm a Spaniard. Why, why am I always practicing the martial arts of somebody else's ancestors? Like I come from probably some of the most warlike people the planet has ever seen. If we can take credit for something, my ancestor must have had martial arts, they didn't just grab a sword and go into battle, they must have trained, they must have been fencing, it must have been a skill set, right? Or were they idiots? Well, it turns out, they weren't idiots. And turns out, there's whole systems of martial arts for every single weapon that you can think about. In medieval Europe, it just that with the advent of gunpowder, a lot of it was displaced. Very early on, right and in, let's say, in Japan, people were carrying swords into the 1860s. So I guess today, which is why a lot of it's just the same as we're talking about cultural loss with a with a native population here, it's just more recent, the whole the whole steel blade thing is more recent to them than it is to us. So it takes more digging to find our martial tradition as native Europeans, but it's there, it is most definitely there. Oh, my God, once you tap into it, it's so much fun. There's so much knowledge, there's codexis treatises written in the day. And so a little bit of a job to decipher them because they're written in medieval language, the drawings, especially the earlier ones is like, done by a six year old. And sometimes hard to understand exactly what they mean. But there is martial arts codexes, with techniques and whatnot. And there, there are people right now, cracking those codes and learning making mistakes, and rectifying and whatnot, but it's out there it can be found. And I dove right into it. I dove right into it. And then I found out that some crazy Russians and Ukrainians were having high level championships doing this like fighting in armor. And the you know, with the internet, the first video started coming out of that as like, Oh my god. This is it. This is most definitely, most definitely what I want to do. And started fishing around in time, Spain created a medieval fighting team, that states as a medieval fighting team and Canada whatnot. And I just started going deeper into that rabbit hole. And eventually, I have participated in several world championships. In in medieval fighting, there's right now there's two major associations, the AI MCF and HMB. Which specific like Eastern Western thing, so So which is good, because you can have two world championships a year instead of one. And normally, the COVID Singh, of course, put everything on hold. But
we used to go every year to Europe, to fight to World Championships by some picturesque castle in a different country every year over there and have a tremendous amount of fun. Hey, I get injured too, and whatnot. Whatever. I never had had a broken bone before I started practicing the sport. This is how I've had several. So yeah, it's just a quest for, you know, once again to to find out how my ancestors did things, what, what motivated them? How did they train? How did they find out what what did they feel? And and it's been very exciting.
Sam 1:23:34
And just to be very clear, when when Jose gets me says get a little injured here and there. I mean, it's, I mean, if you haven't seen a picture of of someone who was on the wrong end of a medieval fight, it's it's pretty spectacular. I mean, I've, you know, I've watched obviously modern combat sport and seen the aftermath of modern combat sport, which is oftentimes not pretty. And I mean, this, you know, the thing is coming out of this medieval stuff are pretty fierce. I mean, what kind of, you know, what kind of combat are we talking? Is this hand to hand? What kind of weapons are you using? I mean, what are the what are the rules mean? Is it full, full contact? I mean, what's your how, how do you win? What does that look like?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:24:22
Yeah, man, the picture I showed you. That's just anecdotal. That's just a shiner. That's nothing. That is nothing. I've had I nearly got killed in Prague a few years ago. I lost my helmet while a battle axe was coming down on my skull. And the kid probably saved my life a German fighter, he would like it. He couldn't stop the blow but it didn't follow through full force LC would have killed me. I got 22 stitches out of that one. So I've had much worse than the picture I showed you, for sure. Broke a couple of ribs in Moscow. broken my right hand and my shoulder blade in a castle in Spain anyway, it's been a few. Um, so what does it look like? Okay, so there's basically two categories, two main categories. One is group fights, and one is tools. And tools, we have tools with different weapons depending on the the organization that bronze, it's basically long sword, sword and shield. One of them has sword and buckler and pull arms. And basically, because it's one on one that can be marshaled, around counting points, so you score points on your opponent, there is strike zones that that give you points and all that. And if you hit them on the shield, of course, no points. But then if you defeat his guard and hit him, say on the leg, or in the helmet, and because he points in at the end, they count points and give you the result. In group fights, basically, the rule is very simple. Last Man Standing, his team wins. So you have to take them down, you have to take them out. How does it look? Well, a lot of times, it looks like grappling and armor and throwing guys. Other times it looks like you know, coming from behind a guy and you know, smacking him in the helmet with with a battle axe hard enough where you make him pass out up and fall on the ground. So whatever, whichever way you can do it, that is legal. You know, there's, there's strike zones are not allowed. You can't, you can't hit the back of the neck, you cannot thrust under any circumstances. So it's just impact, like strikes, you cannot thrust in the sense that that would then give a possibility. Early, early on in the sport, there was a couple accidents when stressed, he was allowed because weapons can go through the slit and the helmet and going into the eyes and potentially in the brain. So no stressing, it's just it's just blunt impact. And so the back of the neck, the groin area, the back of the knees, and the feet are all illegal areas. You can get a red card for striking those
Sam 1:27:10
battle axes to the back of the head are fine. Yeah.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:27:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got I got switched off in Prague. Like that's like the lights went out. And then the lights went back on and I was on the ground. And I didn't see it coming at all. Well, it should have turned around it. This this part teaches you, it really teaches you about your intuition. You just have a feeling something bad is happening behind your back. You better turn around real quick.
Sam 1:27:37
My friend so 2022 Are you? Are you back at it?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:27:41
For now? I can't wait. I can't wait for traveling to be to be open again. I hope so. I hope so. And they keep I mean, the events are announced. But then they get cancelled, because the restrictions are still in place. Yeah. So we just lost well, for four events, basically two world championships in two years. And I hope it's, it opens up and we go back to that. And you know, I'm not getting any younger. One of these days, I'll probably stop participating but I train people to go in the before the the whole COVID baloney and all that happened. Um, I was the trainer that finished the majority of fighters for Canada in the in the world championships. So and they're the northernmost team actually with the northernmost team in the world, the company of the White Wolf. And, yeah, we're looking forward to it, reopening that that would be nice. I've been missing a lot of fun and teaching at the big gatherings down in the south and whatnot. We had rabbits sick again this year. But I couldn't I couldn't make it. I was teaching up here in the UK. I actually
Sam 1:28:55
it's funny, I've got a friend who he's he's in the knife world, right. And he you know, he saw that I was starting this project. He asked if I was going to rabbit stick. It's like what what's rabbit stick? So I had to look that up. And it's a there's a whole a whole world of those listening rabbits tick is a is an annual skills gathering that takes place in the Western United States, where people come from all over in and learn and practice and share and interact with, you know, these primitive Aboriginal skills is as you call them so well Jose, this has been this has been phenomenal want to give you a second to just share where and how people can find you and find what you're up to. And, and I know you teach and you want to talk about what you're doing there and how people can get in touch.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:29:46
Yeah, you know that the teaching has been close to zero for quite a while now. We're getting getting back on our feet now. With a border close and whatnot. But You can, you can find me on my webpage, sacred circle school.com, there is my G mail, contact there for me, in your moidart gmail.com, you'll find it there on the page. And I'm being approached by people to run workshops again the border that they keep saying it's going to open, I don't know. Because a lot of the people that are interested are from the states and want to come up here in the Yukon and do skills up here. So we'll just we'll play it by ear little by little. And other than that, I'm also right now, like to bring up knife making, I'm going pretty much full time into knife making this winter, I built a forge here, big workshop 20 by 30. And I'm right now putting all the equipment and whatnot. And that's, that's one of the main things I will be doing for the fun of it. So, yeah, that's, that's the way to contact me, I guess.
Sam 1:31:04
Okay, well, I will, I will get those linked in the show so people can find you and and see what you're up to as far as the teaching goes. And in the future. If you're Are you going to, you know, I guess make a business out of the knife making it sounds like it when you talk about the size of the operation you're putting together.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:31:22
Yeah, I mean, I guess it will speak for itself, right? If, if people are interested, I probably I'm probably gonna open up like a separate web page for it for that and see if that works. But for now, I've been I've been making this for quite a while. But let's say nine out of 10 knives go into gifts. Very rarely sold them. But I would like to make some more as a business and see if that works. Because it's something that I can do right here. Yeah, from home. And I'm just getting old and crusty to work for somebody else.
Sam 1:31:56
So I'm excited to follow along and see where that goes. And again, thank you so much for your time today. Do you do you have any last things you want to share or anything else you want to mention before we wrap up?
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:32:10
Know about I guess it was fun? Yeah, I wonder what people are going to think about this one because like I said, I told you at first like i i I think I will do a YouTube channel. But I don't think I'd last five minutes because I have opinions that are a little bit controversial, I suppose. Just take me with a grain of salt and and think about what I say if it's if it sounds truthful to you, then that's why I'm saying it's good enough to me.
Sam 1:32:42
Certainly. Well,
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:32:43
thank you before you get mad when people get mad, let them think about that.
Sam 1:32:49
Oh, thank you for for keeping me afloat today and not getting me removed from anywhere. But Jose, I really appreciate your time and I appreciate your insights and your your perspective. I think the you know, if I were to stop and think the a lot of it is just take your time and slow down and reflect on on what you're doing and where you are and who you are and what your impact is and and I just I really appreciate you you sharing everything you did today. And I'm excited to see what you're doing in the future. So thanks again for your time. And we will we'll talk later.
Jose Martinez Amoedo 1:33:25
Yeah, you make sure you stay in touch.
Sam 1:33:27
Yes for sure. Take care. Okay, yeah, have a good one. You as well.
