You know getting to know people here
in Baja and in Rosarito, particularly right now.
We got to meet someone who has a compound,
or he is making a very interesting life here
growing produce, and not just for, you know,
selfish reasons, but actually with philanthropic reasons.
You know, helping underprivileged people,
children in the region.
But on top of that, this guy's living the life.
You're gonna see it.
He's keeping healthy, having wellness,
sharing it with others, exercising,
working out, training.
And it's a very interesting individual. His name is Canon.
So even the name is unique and interesting.
And he's standing right next to me right now.
How you doing Canon?
- Good brother.
(laughing) - My friend.
- Pleasure.
- I know I totally under-did what you're doing...
- No. - In my intro.
- You over-did. (laughing)
Especially living the life, man.
I'm just covered in dirt all day.
What kinda life is that?
- Hey but you're an earthy guy, man.
- Yeah, true.
- So, talk to me.
I mean, where you from first of all,
and how'd you end up in Baja?
- I'm from the Bay Area. California Bay Area.
And I moved down here in 2016.
- Wow.
- I was living in LA before that,
I worked for Apple for 10 years, 2006, 2016.
- For Mr. Steve Jobs himself, huh?
- Yeah. I sorta semi-retired. - Yeah.
- And I came down here,
just to slow the pace down a little bit.
- I think a lot of bit.
- A lot of bit. - Right?
- Yeah. Yeah, man.
I felt that the treadmill,
the pitch was just getting,
just everything up there.
So it was great relocating here.
It's just easier to create a simple life.
- Do you feel you've extended, you know,
your lifespan by moving down here?
- Bro, I would never say that publicly, but yes.
(laughing)
Considering that stress is
the biggest killer... - Isn't it?
- Of people in the United States.
Yeah. It's hard to be stressed out when you're...
I mean, I guess anybody can find a way to get stressed.
- For sure. - If they're looking for it.
- But I mean just the life on every city,
is geared towards that. Right?
Everyone's like...
- Yeah. It's definitely a different pace.
- It's a hustle.
- Yeah. Everybody comes down to visit.
I have friends that come from all over the world.
As soon as they cross the border,
they say they just feel a weight lifted off them.
- It's crazy. Right?
- Yeah, time slows down.
I think it's important, to do a cost benefit analysis
on your lifestyle, at some point.
- For sure. - You know?
And what are you spending and what are you getting.
- Mind Blown.
So talk to me about what you're doing here.
I mean, we see this beautiful garden.
Walk me through what we're doing.
- I have about five different chilies in there.
- Okay. Bell pepper, California. Some Serranos. Wow.
- Jalapenos.
- Some Gueros.
- And then to your left, it's a trellis of tomatoes.
- Tomatoes.
- Yeah. These San Marzanos are...
I'm growing for Manny.
- Oh really? For Italian restaurants.
- I'm trying to get good at them.
They're really hard to grow, but they're
preferred tomato for a pizza sauce and for pasta sauce.
- Oh really?
- Yeah. They just have a different flavor.
Here's another one that I'm doing,
kind of letting it go wild. So same tomato.
Just treating it a little bit differently.
- So what does it mean? Letting it grow wild.
You're just letting it burst out?
- Yeah. Well, you see these are highly manicured.
In a bed, super manicured.
All the suckers taken off and I'm going for height.
See this little dude needs to be...
- Tied up.
- Yeah. But, here eat that.
- Oh nice. Let me see.
Very earthy. Right?
Mm, wow. So good.
- Compared to a cherry tomato.
Here pick that cherry tomato,
- It tastes very different.
- It's totally different.
- Wow.
- I'm growing those for Manny.
- It's so tasty.
- And this is like candy, this one you're about to eat.
- It doesn't taste like tomato.
- Taste like pizza. Pasta.
- It tastes like pizza. (laughing)
- Cause that's... - It tastes like...
- For people that make pasta sauce or pizza sauce,
this is what they want.
- Pass me some dough, so I can mix it in there.
- And some cheese. (laughing)
- And some look, albahaca.
(sniffing) - Fresh.
- And this one is me just being like,
"Well, do whatever you want, bro."
- I'm trying to learn how to get
really good at San Marazanos.
This is onions, onions, onions, onions,
with garlic in the middle.
This is regular potatoes, white potatoes.
- [Jorge] There's a demand for organic produce at Rosarito.
- There's some stores that are providing it.
Are you planning on doing that?
Or is this for personal consumption?
- No, this is for donation.
I really wanted to get good at growing food.
And I have so much,
I didn't know exactly what I was gonna do with it.
So I found a place that needed it,
and orphanages love it.
I go up there. The kids, they go crazy man.
- You're killing two birds with one stone.
- Exactly.
- You're learning how to become a self-sufficient...
- Yes. - Farmer.
- How to feed a village.
- And you're helping people.
I bet they appreciate it though, right?
- Oh. Yeah. The chefs man.
There's like these little ladies in the back
and as soon as they see me... - They're ready to cook.
- And I got crates of food, they're like,
"What did you bring?" (laughing)
I'm like this time I got, you know?
- This is what my garden gave this week, right?
- Yeah. Here's, this is regular potatoes.
This is some celery that I'm letting go to seed.
Cause I'm gonna plant a bunch of celery this season.
So this is what it looks like.
Here's a younger one. Here.
These are pretty salty. But that'll look more...
But this is what it looks like when it's more mature.
- Okay.
- And this is how the flower,
you know, how the plant procreates.
- This is your celery.
And here's a bunch of carrots over here.
These, I call them my zombie apocalypse,
break in case of emergency beets.
- Why?
- So they're just, they're huge by now bro.
Cause I just left them. You want...
I'll pull one up.
- [Jorge] Wow.
- [Canon] I like to juice them. Here's all the jalapenos.
- Lay down some sweet beets. Right?
(laughing) (upbeat music)
Canon is actually a DJ
and a semi-retired record producer.
That's why you see some music paraphernalia.
So Canon is literally producing both vegetable,
and musical beats.
In fact, all the music you're hearing right now
is actually his. Some sweet beets right there.
So good. - [Canon] Help yourself guys.
- [Jorge] Very nice.
- [Canon] This is cucumbers.
And then in here there's a bunch of squash.
So I sort of invented this concept,
of these little like teepees.
'Cause last year I didn't,
and the tomato plants look like that
crazy one over there. - Right.
- So I knew I needed to train it.
- Some sort of structure.
- Especially since I was using box beds.
- Exactly.
- So the ambition is that essentially, these trellis up
to the top and then I'll connect 'em this way.
And the cucumber plant and the tomato plant will connect.
And then we can just walk through here and grab food.
- Oh my goodness.
- [Canon] But you know, that was the goal.
- This is how it started, this is where it's at.
- [Jorge] Well, there's nothing to say that
it's not gonna get accomplished.
This is a really nice garden Canon.
I mean, I love this and this is self-sufficient.
It's how it should be.
It's how humanity was meant to enjoy the earth.
Is there anything else you wanna show us from here?
From your operation here?
- Food autonomy is a big focus,
but there's so much I wanna show you. Let's go.
- Okay. Let's do that.
(upbeat music)
Okay. So these goats,
I'm sure you're not using 'em as pets.
(laughing)
- That's not true. Chena's my pet.
- Chena's your pet?
- Where'd she go? She's hanging out.
Chenalita, what are you doing?
Come here, mama. Come here.
- Are you breeding them too?
- [Canon] Yeah. (grunts)
Come here baby.
- She's being shy. She's strong, Chena. Chena is strong.
- You wanna hold her? - Yeah.
- She's super sweet.
- Oh man. Look at this. Look at this.
- [Canon] Yeah they were, all these babies were born here.
There's four that were born here.
The rest I bought about three months ago, for the farm.
So they're all milk goats. - All milk goats?
- [Canon] Uh-huh. We got them for milk.
- [Jorge] So you're not selling these for slaughter?
- [Canon] No.
- [Jorge] Goats milk is supposed to be very good, right?
- Goats milk and goats meat,
are the two most eaten milk and meats,
by humans on the planet.
- Goat? - Yes.
- [Jorge] More than cow milk?
- [Canon] Yes. Chena's the only one that's friendly.
She was the runt and she didn't latch on.
- So how'd you keep her alive?
- Bottle fed her, which is why she's like this.
- [Jorge] Aww. Nice.
- [Canon] Yeah No she's great.
The rest of 'em they cry for food,
but she's the only one that cries for attention.
- Really? - Yeah.
(laughing)
- Chena. Are they always looking to climb stuff, like...
- [Canon] Always.
- [Jorge] To keep their balance.
- [Canon] Watch, right away, they're like,
oh I'm climbing that. (laughing)
- [Canon] And we take them out to pasture here on the ranch.
So they get exercise.
- [Jorge] King of the hill. Time to play.
So have you started producing goats milk to sell or...
- [Canon] Not to sell yet.
So far everything that we make,
we give away to the orphanage.
- Okay.
- [Canon] We have about 70 quail in here.
I eat their eggs. I prefer quail eggs.
- [Jorge] Why?
- [Canon] They're more nutritious
and I've come to just like the flavor better.
- [Jorge] Really?
Do you make omelets with it?
- [Canon] I do.
I make an omelet with chicken, duck, and quail egg.
These are my big priorities.
About half of these were born
out of the incubator I have here.
- [Jorge] Okay.
- [Canon] So we just collect the eggs,
put 'em in the incu-.
And the turnaround time is really short.
It's like 21 days in the incubator.
And then at five weeks they're fully grown.
- [Jorge] Wow. - [Canon] Ready to harvest.
Or they start laying at five weeks.
You know, as long as I can feed them with what's around,
Then we keep 'em going.
- [Jorge] Yeah, 'cause some animals
are really expensive to feed.
You know, if you're not killing the animal,
it's almost like, basically just an expense.
But at least you're getting some milk and eggs from these.
- [Canon] So the primary function of the goats
is actually the manure. - Okay.
- So alfalfa in, manure out.
But because we have a farm, we need a lot of...
- Manure. - Compost.
- Yeah. (laughing)
- Yeah so we're making it ourselves here.
- Very nice. So you know, it'll be sought after, right?
- Yeah. - Cause people Will buy it.
- Oh it's like 300 pesos for a sac of manure, like this big.
- Very nice, very nice.
- [Canon] All those little round things are on the ground.
I call 'em black gold.
- [Jorge] Black, gold.
- [Canon] Yeah. It's like a slot machine.
When they start coming out, they're like...
(slot machine noises)
I'm like more black gold.
A lot of people don't like cow or horse manure
for fertilizer, because their
stomachs don't get hot enough to kill the seeds inside.
- [Jorge] Really?
- [Canon] So then you put it in a compost
and then eventually the garden is full of whatever...
- [Jorge] Whatever they ate.
- [Canon] Came from the ranch they were on.
- [Jorge] Yeah, you got milk and you got manure.
That's a good deal.
- Yeah. Yeah. And from the milk we do cheese.
I'm working on a two kind of legacy products...
- Okay. - Around the goat milk.
A lavender, honey ice cream.
- [Jorge] Okay. - [Canon] From goat milk.
And other is a lavender honey soap from goat milk
- [Jorge] Sounds delicious, the first one.
Seems like the goats are pulling their weight.
- [Canon] Yeah. - [Jorge] Right.
- [Canon] Yeah. Totally. (laughing)
So here's the rest of the birds.
These dudes are from the incubator.
(chicken noises)
- [Jorge] I grew up on a farm. My dad...
We'd go every weekend to the ranch.
My dad would make me get up like crack of dawn,
still nighttime, to feed the chickens and the ducks.
(upbeat music)
- [Canon] Oh, duck eggs.
- [Jorge] Duck egg?
- [Canon] I use those in my pancakes. Chicken eggs.
And then here's the quail eggs here.
- [Jorge] Are these literally eggs from your quails?
- [Canon] Those are from today.
- You got your chicken, you got your duck,
you got your quail. Catch of the day.
(laughing)
- We get some blue ones sometimes.
- Oh. Really?
This is the break in case of zombie apocalypse.
- [Canon] Yep. There he is.
In all his glory, the American chinchilla rabbit.
- [Jorge] Chinchilla rabbit, he's being fed.
He's wined and dined, until the day comes.
If the day comes.
- Well, he's the stud, so.
(laughing)
- [Jorge] So what's the setup here?
Did you partner here with a Mexican or
what's the whole deal in this whole compound.
- [Canon] This is a ranch.
The ranch is named Via Boja.
It's been in this family for a really long time
and I rent this space from them.
- [Jorge] Okay.
- [Canon] We're heading over to our little gym.
- [Jorge] Okay.
- [Canon] Where we train. We do mostly Krav Maga.
But I trained some UFC fighters, different MMA fighters.
- [Jorge] Okay. (laughs)
- [Canon] Locals mostly. But then I've...
- [Jorge] Well, were you at any point in your life,
like a fighter or what?
- [Canon] No, but I've been a martial artist my entire life.
I started in Kung Fu when I was really young.
- [Jorge] Okay.
- [Canon] And then I went into Aikido, Japanese Aikido.
- [Jorge] Okay. Jorge Seagal.
- [Canon] Yes.
And then from there, I just dabbled in a lot of things.
And I took on Krav Maga.
It's the curriculum that's taught
by the Israeli defense force.
We train a lot of law enforcement.
- Okay.
- So a lot of the stuff that we do
is too aggressive for law enforcement.
So we have to actually tailor the training.
I teach several disciplines.
It depends on who comes to me to learn.
- [Jorge] Right. - But my specialty,
or what most people come for is for Krav Maga.
- Okay.
- And more specifically,
anything surrounding weapons.
Edge weapons, improvisational edge weapons.
- Gotcha. - Short gun. Long gun.
- Okay. - So this is...
- Well I have zero interest in offensive. I'm not...
I have no interest, but it's something to like,
just get out of a situation.
Yeah. I'd like to learn something like that.
- So a real simple concept. This is a training blade.
Obviously it's not a blade. - Okay.
- So the idea is that when the weapon's on you,
you want to get it away from you as quick as possible.
- Okay.
- So you want to go the two directions,
you don't want it to go.
So for example, if you take it
and you put it on my neck here,
Which way do you want to go to cut me.
- Like that. - And which other way?
- Like that. - Down. Right?
- Like that.
- That would be your move. That's your trajectory.
- Okay. - If you wanted to cut me.
So I want it to go the opposite.
- Okay.
- So I want it to go left and up.
So for example, like this. - Okay.
- And from there you can just turn.
If you slide here,
then you're using the weapon against the person.
- Oh, wow. - So same idea here.
- A lot of joints.
- Yeah.
Same idea. If I'm here, you wanna move?
Which way do I want to go to cut?
Just think about it first.
Which way does the cut want to go?
Don't touch it. Just think.
- Like this way? - And which other way?
- Here? - Exactly.
So which way do you want it to go?
- That way. - Just think about it.
And which way.
- Like that. - Exactly.
- Okay. Okay.
- You just want it to go the other way.
So if I change and I go this way,
which way does it... - Like that.
- That's it. - Is that okay?
- That's the concept.
- So the concepts there.
I mean, of course the execution is one other thing,
but the concepts are...
- No, you just did it bro.
- Really? - Yeah.
- Okay. - You just did it.
Like right now for the rest of your life.
If somebody does this, you know,
- That's it really? - That's it.
- Okay. - That's the beginning of it.
- Okay. - Yeah.
We deal with everybody from professional fighters,
to local expats that are down here.
- Okay.
- To local people that work in security.
- Okay.
- So people that do private security.
Most of my clientele comes from the states,
or from Europe. - Oh, okay.
- That work in law enforcement.
- Oh wow. Okay. You're training law enforcement.
- Yeah.
- So you're catering your training
and your discipline to fit that. You're catering it.
- Yes. (upbeat music)
(mumbles)
Two, two, two, double jab.
(mumbles)
- [Jorge] Man. So, is it like good cardio?
- [Canon] Yeah.
If people come for martial arts, as it relates to fitness.
Then I work them on the bag a lot.
We have what we call the mud and lotus shuffle.
So we run up here to the top of Port New Heuvo.
(laughing) We come back down.
- Oh my goodness. (laughing)
- We do jump rope. Three rounds of jump rope.
- Yeah. - Seven rounds on the bags.
And then we do this circuit.
So all this gear here is made for us exercising.
The two places you're gonna use your body
to defend yourself,
when it really matters are prison and military.
- Wow.
- So I focus on, the exercises that you'll find in there.
So dips, pull ups, burpees.
- Gotcha.
- All this stuff is the rest of the weights.
So we do Fireman's carry with those water jugs.
Basically anything we can pick up, cinder blocks.
I have them flip the tires.
See, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe.
(upbeat music)
Que bueno. Returno.
Good. Good. Explode. Power. Explosion.
Boom, boom. Big breaths.
Excellent. Go. Keep moving.
Good. Good. Deep squat.
Excellent. Good job Eddie. Que Beuno.
Say. Give it up bro. Que bueno. Good work. Good work.
- [Jorge] Very nice.
- So that's the circuit at the end.
That's basically the mud and lotus shuffle,
after we finish this, we go down to the beach
for some cold water therapy.
- Nice. - Yeah.
And these guys are back in it.
Like when we do retreats,
we're four days back to back.
So I have to manage recovery times
as much as I have to get them to workout.
- Do they just like, just douse themselves.
Just jump down or no?
- Oh yeah. Depending on what time of year.
Sometimes retreats are in January.
- Yeah - And that's.
- Yeah. Yeah. That's too cold.
- No, one's getting in that water. Yeah.
- So what kind of people do you
accept in your school, your training?
- [Canon] We're open to everybody,
but I like to make sure it's a good fit.
So each email that comes in, I respond and say,
let's get on the phone and talk to see if it's a good match.
- [Jorge] You're selective.
- Yeah. And I like to ask them what are you coming for?
Some people are coming for really on the yoga.
That's what they're interested in.
Some people are into self defense.
Some people want self defense for fitness.
Some people want it for...
'Cause their job, 'cause they work in law enforcement
or the private security.
So I just like to check people out
and make sure it's the right fit.
It's not for everybody. You know.
Some people are like, "I want to do it."
I spend most of my time talking to people out of it.
So then I get the people that are really hungry
and it's a good fit, and...
- But now they know, so now they're gonna insist.
- Yeah. (laughing)
Yeah. Yeah. We got to make sure it's a good fit.
- [Jorge] Cannon is very keen on wellbeing
and he chose a lovely setting for it. Didn't he?
And the lesson here, listen to the wise,
if someone teaches you anything,
especially if it's something of life and death,
you better make sure that you paid attention.
cause you never know when you're gonna get pop quizzed.
- Pop quiz. - [Jorge] Oh my God.
- Oh, you're on it bro. (laughing)
You're on it. - Pop quiz.
(laughing)
Scared the bejesus out of me. (laughing)
- But you had muscle memory, bro.
(laughing)
- [Jorge] That was hilarious, man.
- I hope you never have to use it.
- No, no please.
The whole day we spent with him,
he popped that quiz on me many times.
(upbeat music)
- [Canon] Get a 180 turn mouth dropping,
180 turn at the end.
Veer to your left when you come outta here please.
- [Jorge] Oh my. Oh my, this is like a resort.
(laughing) Wow.
Now I know why you're here.
- [Canon] You see what I'm saying, bro?
All this other stuff was...
- [Jorge] Wow. - [Canon] After the fact.
I moved to this beach.
Cantamar, the singing ocean. - [Jorge] Wow.
- [Canon] It's the name of this beach.
And the reason I found this place,
was a client hired me to produce for them.
And they're like, "Hey, we're going on new year's.
We're gonna go down to my mom's beach house.
Do you wanna come down there and work on the album?"
I'm like, sure. But this is how it started for me.
And that's how it's going.
- Well, it's a good start, and it's a good going.
- Right on. (laughing)