Transcript of UFC Fighter Giga Chikadze on Discipline, Fighting Mindset & Never Giving Up | Coffeez for Closers

Today we are on site at a brand new facility in Newport Beach called Giga Kick, and we are sitting down with the founder of Giga Kick, Giga Chikadze, and he is known as one of the world's foremost expert strikers, a UFC legend, a multi-world champion kickboxer and karate specialist. This guy is an absolute ninja and one of the most humble people you will ever meet. Please welcome the one, the only, Giga Chikadze. Welcome to another episode of Kofis.

Thanks for having me.

Giga, it's a pleasure. It's an honor to hang out with you. You're such a special human being, a very, very humble guy. I'm very impressed with your new dojo. It's beautiful, and you're attracting some of the world's best talent. Now, I like to open up every single episode the same way I ask everybody What's your morning routine?

Oh, morning routine is waking up, jumping in the shower, obviously. Then making the coffee, preparing the little breakfast, which most of the time is very limited. And preparing my bag and heading towards the gym. So that's pretty— that's When I'm in a camp, it also depends on timing. Sometimes I'm mixing up with my kids to drop one of them at school, depends time. And yeah, always heading towards the gym.

Yeah, you don't need a crazy morning routine when your whole life is training.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I skipped the supplements. As well, because when I'm doing the supplements, like, it's not just one or two, it's pretty much like the couple of glass, full glass of different type of the vitamins. Yeah, different pills.

I mean, I'm sure your supplement stack is pretty intense.

Oh yeah, you gotta be on time and to do multiple times per day. Most of the time when I'm in a camp, I really follow that plan. If I'm not in a camp, I— because I'm all— I live in a camp, you know, like that's something that I've been doing since I was a little kid, 4 or 5 years old, and always had the tournaments and competition. I was preparing for some tournaments or fights.

Since you're 4 years old?

Since I was 4 or 5 years old, I start playing on the karate, uh, dojo, and that's how I started.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, I was just talking to your doctor here. He was like, yeah, did you see what Georgian kids look like as kids? They're all ripped, every single kid. I'm like, yeah, you know, that's what RFK is trying to do to America now, you know, trying to bring America back to how we looked in the '60s. You know, in the JFK era. So it's like you guys are already there in the Georgian era now. It's like all the kids are competitive, they're athletes, and, and we see it now in UFC. There's multiple fighters coming out of Georgia.

Yeah, Georgia is doing so good in UFC, and it, it was just a matter of time. And I'm glad I had, I had to do my part to help that little flow to come up. Here we are, we got two champions right now, at the moment one, but yeah, we're only like 3 million people and it's insane how much of the mixed martial arts is loved inside the country and how all the new generation are involved in martial arts.

It's amazing, and I think you've been a big contributor to that, you know, so put them on the map as the first official—

I think I did a little part for that.

Yeah, God bless you for that. Let's jump into it now. You've been in martial arts now for 30 years. That's crazy. I mean, over 30 years.

Yeah, true.

Now, you know, who were you before the UFC? Like, what What was life like before the spotlight, before the center stage, before, you know, the notoriety and the fame and the, you know, all the following, etc.?

Uh, so I signed in, uh, in UFC. I signed with the UFC 2019. 2018, I had the Contender Series chance to get to UFC, so I already had some relationship with them. And till then, that was like 2018, '19. And I came here first time in 2014 just to check it out. In 2015, I moved here. So I spent like 3 years working really, really hard, really tough to get to the UFC. And, uh, while I was in these years, I was fighting the kickboxing's biggest stage called— show called Glory. I was headlining the shows in Madison Square Garden, Staples Center, in multiple different areas, different states, in the biggest kickboxing show. Then I was invested all the money into my grappling, wrestling, to get smaller steps to make it to the UFC. Because all that was very necessary to get to UFC. Yeah, UFC, even you are the— I was like ranked number 1 featherweight kickboxer when I left that show called Glory. And UFC won't sign you straight if you don't have some experience of MMA. Even kickboxing and mixed MMA, so close to each other, it's like whole different sport. And you have to be ready for that.

You have to have a couple of fights on the record. And, uh, it's funny that I was fighting one day on that show, like the biggest show in kickboxing, and 3, 4 days after I would come and do some local show.

You're a nobody in MMA.

In MMA. And Yeah, in MMA they all knew me, all the fighters. But yeah, public-wise, you know, the people, they didn't know. So I had to prove it that I was ready for UFC. And it was the same time I had to do like competition in jiu-jitsu and start with white belt, the blue belt, purple belt, and travel around the tournament.

Are you a black belt jiu-jitsu too, or just—

No, I stopped when I got to purple. I never trained with gi after. Which was 7 years ago or 6. Yeah, 7, 7 years.

The requirement now in, in, uh, UFC is jiu-jitsu, right? You have to have some jiu-jitsu experience.

You gotta know jiu-jitsu and you gotta know the kickboxing as well and wrestling. It's not the one thing only. You can't do just one thing.

Yeah, I had the CEO of, uh, LFA on my show a couple weeks ago, about a week ago, and he said that, uh, Royce Gracie came in and proved that jiu-jitsu is the superior martial art. And that was— and he was one little tiny guy, your, your weight, right? 150 pounds going up against 300-pound fighters. And since he proved that, now look at UFC, they're requiring every fighter to know jiu-jitsu to compete. So it's become such a difficult sport now because everybody knows jiu-jitsu.

Yeah.

So to be a champion, like, you really got to put in an extreme amount of effort in every martial art.

Yeah, that's how the sport evolved, you know. This, this is only like, what, 35 years, 30 years old sport, and it's only going to grow more and more and more. And we just started, you know. I'm super excited to see in the future. Like, back in the days, there was like karate versus wrestling, kickboxing versus boxing, or jiu-jitsu with sambo. So there was all different type of martial arts, uh, going against each other. But nowadays you can go in one gym and you can bring your kid inside and have wrestling and grappling and kickboxing and karate and All that together, they're gonna grow someone like—

Well, those kind of gyms don't exist. And then we talked about this when we met, the concept of Giga Kick. What was the inspiration for starting Giga Kick?

When I train and when I have a camp, when I really want to train with one of the best striking gym, one of the best wrestling. So if some big fights coming up, I want to get all the experience until my fight. And it's like almost impossible. It was impossible before to get to someone who's one of the best grappler, one of the best striker, one of the best wrestler all together in the same gym. Because all that, they all have little egos. It's, oh, I'm the best wrestler, I want to be separated with everyone. I want my thing to have. Then you have grappling, that I'm the best grappler and I do traditional this way and that's the only way I'm gonna do it. In my case, so I was driving around in one gym in LA for boxing almost 2 hours, just one way and come back, doing 45 minutes to Anaheim and come back. So 45 minutes back and then to different areas in Irvine and in other areas. And then after all that, me driving and spending the 6 hours of driving per day just to get to the gym, I was like, you know what, I think it's the right time to do something for community.

Put nice dojo here. Bring my all the experience, help the fighters to become the better strikers, better fighters, and to the community to build up the traditional martial arts, karate, jiu-jitsu, and bring mixed martial arts more, more easier for community and Kinda like to build something special because you come in this place and you have everything the best. Best karate, best kickboxing, best grappling, best wrestling. Finally, you meet somebody, the young kid, who is a knowledge of the full mixed martial arts in one place. I think it's a good concept what we do.

I love the concept because You know, finding a boxing gym, you gotta go to a boxing gym, you gotta go to a jiu-jitsu gym, and you know, we discussed, I got kids, you know, and I want them to learn to strike, but then it's like, I gotta take them to a striking gym, and we belong to a jiu-jitsu gym, and you know, like having daughters, they gotta learn to strike before they gotta learn jiu-jitsu, you know, and jiu-jitsu is a long process, you know, striking, like, if they come to a couple striking classes, we know that they could defend themselves, you know, just a couple classes, they don't gotta train years, they don't gotta train arm bars, you know, Um, so for me, just finding something where, as a— even as a parent, that I could rest assured that my kids can properly defend themselves quickly is awesome. But then to learn all of the arts in an intense environment like this, where you have some of the best fighters in the world training here— we just witnessed it, and the viewers will see it on, on camera here— it's like you're already attracting the most elite talent here already.

The gym just opened, right? And the best fighters are already coming here. How in the world did you attract the best fighters on the planet that quick?

You know, the gym's name is Giga. There is a reason why they call it Giga. So when I was a young kid, started training with karate, and then I developed this skill that I could transition my direction of the kick from the different areas while I was aiming high kick to switch to the body kick or body kick to high kick. And that was really success. So then I moved to kickboxing and I moved in Netherlands, traveling around the world, fought in Thailand and multiple, multiple different countries and I use my kick. Once I got really a lot of success in kickboxing, people started to call this kick Giga's kick. So time to time, then they— some people just skipped es and it became a Giga kick. So after that, there's not only one kick I do. I do multiple different kicks, and some people think that that's a Giga kick. Some people think The other one is a gigant. So, uh, in mixed martial arts today, people know me as one of the best kickers in the game. And I have something that not many people have it, maybe only a couple of. And all that experience what I have in the kicking and striking game and transitioning karate to kickboxing, kickboxing to mixed martial arts, finding the right stances, right kicks, right techniques for the striking.

I think that's something that attracts, uh, one of the best fighters to come and train with me and take something from here, you know, because What I find for mixed martial arts, it's not came just like that. For all you just mentioned, the over 30 years of experience, I was concentrating and practicing the all different striking sports. I've been strike— I've been practicing a lot of high-level boxing trainings as well. Kickboxing, Dutch style kickboxing, in Thailand Muay Thai, karate in different style. There is Kyokushin, there is Goju-Ryu, there is Shito-Ryu, there is Shotokan, all that different type of karates. So that kind of gave me the ability to help other fighters find real, or find for them the real and right techniques plan their strategy for the fights. And not only in MMA, obviously in kickboxing and Muay Thai fights as well. I think that's a smart thing to come here and hang out with us and train. I think that's why they figured it out by themselves, you know, because we just opened. It's been only like 15 days.

15 days and there was like 5 UFC fighters here, champions here. 15 days, and they're coming. I heard them talking, and they're, they're driving like an hour, 2 hours.

Yeah, many of them.

And how many hours was the training session?

Like, it was 2 hours.

They come for 2 hours and they train, and they're going to train again because these people are training in the middle of the day. So they're all professional fighters.

Do some— yeah, a lot of— most of them, they have fights coming up. Like, yeah, one kid has in 2 weeks, they're title fight coming up in other, yeah, 15 days, 3 weeks UFC fight, 4 weeks UFC fight. It's all packed.

Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I, I just come here and I see all these shredded dudes just like fighting in the middle of the day. It's like they're all fighting coming up. It's just, I've never seen that. I've never saw professional fighters in their element training in their training camps here, and they're just, you know, And I'm like, it's 12 o'clock, you know, these guys are all pros. It's not like it's a, it's, people either work out in the morning or they're not here for a workout. They had their workout.

Oh, they're gonna go now, take a little nap, and in one more hour they're gonna do the same thing in a different place for conditioning or something like that.

It's unbelievable. It's so cool. At 15 days now you're attracting, I mean, What is it going to be like here? Because you're in a prime location. This is the first time I've ever seen like a— this is like a fight camp area, and it's in the most famous part of Newport Beach, right on Newport Boulevard. So you're getting a million views a day, probably more than a million views a day. Yeah, um, you're gonna get, you know, every probably 10 seconds there's some UFC fighter being turned on to this place. I foresee this place as being like a hub for the world elite athletes coming because there is nothing like this and we're in the most prime real estate on the planet.

It's gonna be fun that where professional high-level fighters and serious kids can get together in the same mat, get the same energy, get the experience for kids from professional stars that are around on TV and for all that professional fighters. They— it will be more like a unique place because in the backyard, we're building the ice bath, sauna, some private area for the gym as well. So, they— there is a— Someone has a special camp and we don't want nobody to see the training, that will be in that room.

So you can have like the world famous, like number one champion in the back, nobody knows he's here.

We're probably going to direct him here as well because all the kids are going to have fun to share that little energy. You know, it's always good to see someone who's role model. Um, but yeah, yeah, will be something really special there in the behind.

I love the idea that you've made it like with a focus on the children, you know, like because you got the pros coming in the afternoons, training in the middle of the day, the, the world elites, and then you got kids in the evenings.

You know, my challenge— what, what's my challenge in reality? You know how lately, last 25 years around, karate has a bad reputation around that you see the very young age kids with the black belts and most of them they don't know how to use it. And let's say some incident happens and they cannot defend themselves. You watch karate tournament and it's all about belt, or not all of them, but most of them, you know. So I'm trying to bring real traditional karate back again. So my, my challenge is to get that Japanese traditional martial arts back to popularity and teach them the real karate in general. This is what I want to bring, because you see there's so many jiu-jitsu gyms around here and so popular become, right? And imagine that we bring the karate back again in the same, same popularity with the right instructors, right senseis. Then this kid's gonna be unstoppable.

I was talking with a dad actually who's at our jiu-jitsu gym that, you know, jiu-jitsu now is the karate of like the '90s. Yeah, you know, where there was a karate gym on every corner.

Yeah, yeah. And in my country back then, it was no— it was even illegal to train karate.

Is it legal?

My parents and their brothers and, uh, cousins, they would train karate into the seperate like the closed area in garages and stuff like that.

The Giga Kick, it's an up-down kick, right?

Yeah, it could be.

Can we get a demo of what it looks like?

Sure, it's like you going into the body and then you do the high kick or high to the body.

Was there a moment in your career where you had to rebuild mentally, not just physically, to keep going? You really had to just get through that barrier mentally because this is a very taxing sport.

Yeah, multiple times, you know, like the first thing, uh, I got married when I was 18. I was a world champion in karate, and I'm like, hell, what am I gonna do, you know? I don't want to be just a— back then I wanted to be a fighter, and karate would not pay any salary back. So I had to figure out what to do. So I moved in Holland, I moved to Netherlands to join the kickboxing team and learn kickboxing. And because back then there was a league called K-1, and K-1 would pay some money. So that fight, that was always like, I mean, it was mentally tough. But because I had a new wife, she was pregnant very soon as well, and we had the baby on the way. We moved in city called Breda first, and then later in Amsterdam. All that things, like fights were like only €200 they would pay. So I had to fight Friday. Fight Saturday and Sunday to survive every other weekend, you know. So, wow, we would— I would fight in Belgium, in Germany, and in Holland, and travel around in close-by countries. So after time to time, I made my name there, and everything changed.

And, um, yeah, there was Many ups and downs with that. Besides that, um, my mom had the health issues while I was in Holland, and was really hard to be there and support my mom somehow, right? And then she passed away from cancer. That's another the big change was in my life. I was very young, I was 24. And then that was a time that kind of destroyed a lot in my life. Then was another big change. We moved from— so from Holland we moved to Georgia, and from Georgia we moved back in US. I always— my wife was like, again, we're going to do this again? We settled in Holland finally, we're good, everything is great, and now we're going in the US. But actually, she, she actually loved that idea as well because moving to the US. Yeah, first I traveled here, I came down, uh, I was invited from Philadelphia's boxing gym to start boxing career. But I checked out Philadelphia, traveled in New York and DC, and last stop was LA. And when I came in Cali, I was like, that's the right place to come. The weather is a big game changer, you know.

So what's the weather like in Georgia?

Oh, in Georgia we got a great 4 seasons. We have a very nice summer, hot, we got beautiful autumn and spring when the nature is changing, not cold or something like that. And we have winter when sometimes has some snow in a city, but nothing crazy. It's not like Russia, like freezing and stuff. No, no, like that. We have a mountain in, uh, you know, Caucasus Mountain. Yeah, that you can go and have skiing and It's beautiful snowboarding. It's amazing. Like, whoever lives close by, all the regions, they know that that's the skiing resorts are in Georgia. So while we have a Black Sea, we also have a mountain as well.

Yeah, I mean, it sits right on the ocean. Yeah, on the Black Sea.

It's very nice. Yeah.

So what was that transition, you know, moving from a beautiful place like that, then you're coming over to these random states in the US, finally landing in the most beautiful part of America in Newport Beach. But then before that, you know, the transition, like, did it feel like a downgrade? It's like, did America feel like the place that you wanted to be?

Yeah, that was really different because we loved Europe, we loved Amsterdam. When we moved first, we slowly worked— we worked on 7 years to settle well there, and we were very happy in the end. And Somehow something didn't click, you know. I was already one of the biggest names in kickboxing in my weight division category, but price-wise, that was not what I dreamed of, you know. I wanted something much bigger, and that's— I felt like some talent I was wasting into something different. Because financially, even till today, kickboxing It's not same what it used to be 20 years ago in Japan.

It doesn't draw the attention.

Yeah.

Now you're known as one of the most technical fighters in the UFC. What does elite-level striking demand that fans don't fully understand? Because what I witnessed right now from your striking was like, that was crazy. I don't think fans really understand what it takes to be an elite-level striker?

You got to know so much. You have to train a lot and get a lot of experience of, uh, you know, the boxing, the one thing, kicking is another thing. Mixing up these two things, let's say you are good kicker but you're not good boxer, or you are good boxer, you're not good kicker. You can use your hands to distract your opponent and then get benefit from kicks and then mixing up again. And it's all like all that mixing the combination, mixing hand to hand, knees and whole leg. It's very something that people don't understand how much it takes to get like a habit, you know. Yeah, people train like 10,000 kicks and they do well this, or good boxing forever, but just put the boxer into the MMA or kickboxing and you'll see how quick they're gonna fail it. Or someone who's, let's say, Taekwondo fighter you bring in kickboxing, and even a karate fighter who goes straight to kickboxing without experience, they fail it very quick. So mixing up all the techniques is something that takes time, and people don't understand, uh, today how much it takes. It's all about experience.

So yeah, I mean, people are now not valuing striking as much, you know, as they— as ground and pound type of stuff, you know. They want the— there— it's all the— I think there's a resurgence now in striking. And really, that's, you know, if fans witness the UFC, I mean, I think striking is obviously the the most entertaining?

Most exciting, definitely. Yeah, most entertaining.

And we were just having that discussion, like, for kids it's obviously the most, like, exciting for them to do it versus, like, you know, the technicalities behind jiu-jitsu. And a lot of the fans don't, don't understand how technical jiu-jitsu is and how much brain power goes into it versus, like, striking. It's like the same. We see Punching, we see kicking, it's more fun. We're not looking at the mental chess.

Yeah, yes.

Even though I know it's, as a striker, it's definitely still mental chess.

Yeah, they can still have fun even if they don't have much experience. It's much easier to start baby steps.

Now, um, walk us through a real fight camp, okay? A really high-level fight camp. We see these fighters in here right now. What's happening behind the scenes that the public never sees? Because the people are like, fight camp? Like, I don't even know what the heck a fight camp is. Like, what is a fight camp? What's a high-level fight camp? What's happening? Like, how do you guys become the ultimate fighters in these camps?

Yeah, there are so much that has not really seen on TV or publicly. Like, a lot of times people say that, "Oh, I don't watch my opponent's fight. I don't care whoever he is. I'll fight anyone and I'll do this and that." We all watch our opponent's fights. We try to learn their skills, what type of shape they are, who they are training. It's something that kind of helps you to understand that who you will be fighting, right? What's— a lot of fighters, they have habits that, oh, after they punch, they drop the hand, or after they do left hook, they do shoot, takedown, something. So it's— we really study our opponent very well. At least like we try. High-level fighters, that's what we do. We got— you know what's one of the most hardest in a camp? To stay healthy. Because you come here, you saw it here and all the MMA gyms when there are high-level fighters camp going on, a lot of times people get injured. So to stay injury-free for the whole camp, that's the most challenge.

I mean, these weight cuts are gnarly. Like, you're probably rolling around 170, you fight at 145.

Right now I'm 185, so—

185? So you dropped 40 pounds for a fight?

Yeah, last time I started camp I was 191. So 45 pounds over.

You're gonna drop 45 pounds for your next fight?

Next, yeah, so far 40 probably, yeah. Yeah, you guys gonna not recognize me when I, when I'm, when I make the weight. But next day, what, this dropping 40 pounds?

And you're, you're fit already. Like, what are you gonna do to drop 40 pounds? Because you already train every day.

Right nutrients, follow my daily routine how I told you about my limited breakfast and the right supplements, train multiple times per day. Walk, because walking is great for burning the fat. Sometimes you run, you train, nothing happens. You cannot break your weight on the scale, you know, it just doesn't come. It's interesting that just a slower, like, little higher pace walking for 45 minutes to an hour could be so much helpful to burn that little fat inside the part. All that makes much easier weight cuts. So we all do that. We try to nap between trainings. Otherwise you feel really tired and none of the training will be helpful. So that part. You know, the recoveries are multiple different facilities that we go and use, do red light therapy, we do hyperbaric chamber, CVAC therapy. Obviously, mechanically, like some injuries we have, we go see massage therapist and acupuncture and all that stuff. Oh, I forgot, in my daily routine, when I wake up, I start with ice bath as well. When I'm in a camp—

You start with an ice bath?

Yeah.

Every morning you put your whole body in ice bath?

Like 5 days a week I jump into 40, 40 Fahrenheit.

Wow.

At least 3 minutes.

You have an ice bath at the house?

Yeah.

So every morning you start, that's, you do do the cold plunge?

I do.

Every morning?

When I'm in a camp.

In a camp, okay, not, not normally.

Normally I try to kind of relax a little bit, which doesn't last for long.

Okay, so walk me through a morning routine during camp.

My bedroom, when I sleep, when I'm in a camp, it's sealed and I have an altitude chamber where I sleep every single night. So you come in my bedroom and it's like, like a big tent. And you plug it in, there is a big machine generates the altitude. So it's high altitude, over 8,000 feet.

In your room?

Yeah.

And do you do your room here? Like, are you leaving somewhere? You're doing it here at your normal house?

In the house, in my bedroom. Yeah.

Wow.

They flew, they did all that here. What does it do is like helps me to have benefit of my conditioning. It's like amazing, you say. And I do that every— sometimes I sneak out from my tent, but I try to stay there every night.

Wow.

It's not easy the first 2, 3 days, and then starts your nose kind of sometimes bleed, bleeding. Depends how you feel. It's like a higher— yeah, yeah.

I remember taking my kids just to Colorado on high altitude. They all had bloody noses.

There are the fights in Colorado, there are fights in Mexico City. When people go there and if they don't used to it, they get tired in one round. And whoever lives there, if they just come from there and fight in Vegas or somewhere else, then those guys get extra cardio boost.

It's fascinating. Okay, so you're opening up Giga Kick. Now, what kind of culture are you intentionally building inside this dojo? Because we see a culture— I love when we chatted the first time, you know, you're the first person to bring like an icon of Saint George from Georgia in martial arts theme. I've been driving by this and, you know, for a long time, and it's the first time I've seen something like this where you're really intentionally building a very unique culture.

So that this place, as you guys can see, it looks very traditional, very old-school Japanese culture influenced. Same time, I want to bring something from my country, more from my culture, which is based on respect and We have in our Christianity the Saint George, which is like a role model for a lot of people around that. It's what it translates, it's like Saint George battling with evil. It's pretty much similar as yin-yang in—

Yin and yang.

Asian culture, right? It's like your inner good and inner bad. So you pick your path, which way you're gonna go. So one of the artists, Jean Galland, he did posters for UFC. He worked for Nike, Reebok, and is very famous. He flew from New York and stayed here for 2 weeks, and when he came up with that, uh, painting mural, made my— I don't know, like one of the dream come true as well, that I wanted to do something here.

I want that painting in my house. Yeah, I want you to fabricate, you know, publicize that painting and release it.

Yeah, those 2 things also he came up with. Yeah, and, uh, this was later done. So that was a little earlier. And yeah, so that's something that I want to show the kids and teach the kids, that everything you guys decide into your head. You want to pick the good or you want to pick the bad? So, and we're going to help the kids to choose why they should pick the good ones, you know. So that's what I'm trying to build, the way this gym is gonna run. It's not gonna be just a gym, it's— we call it dojo, where when they come, they do bow, and when they leave from here, they do the same thing. It will be about respect, everything here, and respect the higher belts and elders and trying to share the knowledge. I think we're gonna do something really good.

I believe it. I think it's gonna be something really special. Now I have a couple last questions for you. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself this year? What's a family goal that you have for your family? And what's a business goal that you have for Giga Kick?

Personal goal? Your personal goal besides the business-wise and this gym to make successful is to get my sports career get going back again. I have to come back with a nice, nice W. That's something that I'm looking for. About You say the family dream?

Family goal. Business goal.

Family goal.

Personal goal. Family goal.

Family goal. I mean, family goals, it's very simple, right? You had a daughter who's studying in high school and make her see success at school at the moment. My son plays football. Trains here, so we want to see some competition. We want him to make it. Actually, I want to see him happier, you know. Happy, he's already very happy, and even happier in the future. So that's something that I'm not really pushing to him. He picked the side that he wanted to train here. So I'm happy to see his what he stands for and what he wants to do. And for my wife, together we have, you know, I think we made one of the dreams come true that we started the business here together. He is the main author of this dojo that looks like this, Japanese style, very minimalistic. And she's very involved in pretty much everything, marketing to sales to all the stuff. And, um, in general, like, I, I kind of see that family dream is like more business dream this, at this moment, for this year, to get the gym going, get multiple members in the gym, right community. And going from there, we'll see what happens.

And how about a personal goal for yourself?

Personal goal?

Uh, back to 140?

Yeah, 145. Yeah, definitely. You know, I'm a very God-believer person, so I believe every single morning when I wake up and sun shines Something good is going to happen. So I'm just trusting in God's plan and following it. I don't plan. I mean, I always like to plan it.

Just living in positivity and affirmation.

I'm going to do my 100%, whatever I can do every day. And I know that tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, something good is always going to come up.

Now, last question for you. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's gonna tell you?

I hope not too many bad things I'm gonna hear about me. And I hope I'll hear something, one thing that makes me happy that, oh, I did the right thing. We are all sinners here. And we all are working on that to make the way up there with him. So I don't know. I don't know. Probably inside me, I know what I'm doing good or bad. And hopefully when I go there, I'll be ready to face him. I don't know.

That's what we all pray for, man.

What about you?

You know, when I go, and I was just thinking about this, and I think about this every time I ask the question, it's like, is he gonna tell me, well done, good and faithful servant? Is he gonna tell me like, you could have done better? Like, I give it my best and I fall every single day, every day, fall on my face, and I just get back up and I fight again. Every single day. So when I go, for me, God knows my heart and he knows I exist for one thing and one thing only, to do his work. Yet I fall into the same temptations and the same issues, but I'm here as a servant. That's it. So he's gonna tell me, and this answer probably changes every time I think about it. He's gonna tell me you should have done better, but I'm gonna let you in. I barely, barely made it.

You got your visa.

Giga Chikatse, if people want to find you or find out more about your charity or get in touch with you, how do they find you?

Our website for the gym is called gigakick.com. Besides I run my social media, my personal and for charity. They can contact me on Knockout Cancer on Instagram, and we just opened a new account for gym in all social media, Giga Kick, as well for the gym. So yeah, that's it, very simple. Thank you, yeah, Twitter, like all On the X, it's @giga_chikadze and Facebook, Giga Chikadze.

Thank you so much. Giga Chikadze, make sure to follow him, check it out, and check out this gym. It's going to revolutionize martial arts. Let's go.

Let's go.