293: Rickson Gracie. "You Do a Good Job Staying Calm in Bad Positions. That Is an Important Thing." Jiu Jitsu is Life.

0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:01 - Rickson Gracie. 3:04:29 - Final thoughts 3:11:49 - How to stay on THE PATH. 3:38:55 - Closing Gratitude. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 293 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening.

• 0:10Jocko Willink?

  Hickson Gracie approached me and asked me if I wanted to train with him.

• 0:16Jocko Willink?

  Yes, sir. At that time, I was a blue belt in jujitsu, a lean 225 pounds. I worked out every day and had been training jujitsu hard for about two years. I had competed at the blue belt level and won many competitions. I trained daily in San Diego with Dean Lister, a future world champion, and with many other highly skilled jujitsu practitioners. I was focused and motivated and determined.

• 0:46Jocko Willink?

  But none of those things mattered. Hickson, who was 40 pounds lighter than me, made me feel like a child. He effortlessly controlled my movement, isolated my limbs, and submitted me over and over and over again. I fought hard, applied technique after technique, made adjustments, tried to surprise him, used all the strength and trickery and skill and effort I could muster.

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  My resistance was futile. There was nothing I could do.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  Nothing.

• 1:25Jocko Willink?

  When he was bored with my pitiful attempts at survival, we stopped sparring and talked for a bit. He asked me about SEAL training. He related to the warrior culture of my occupation.

• 1:39Jocko Willink?

  He also gave me an assessment of my jujitsu. Quote, "You do a good job staying calm in bad positions. That is an important thing," end quote. Soon, the class was over. We shook hands and I thanked Hickson for his time and for his knowledge. And over the next few days, I thought about what he had told me.

• 2:03Jocko Willink?

  "You do a good job staying calm in bad positions. That is an important thing."

• 2:11Jocko Willink?

  I realized that this did not only apply to Jiu-Jitsu. It applied to my job in the SEAL teams as well. You are going to get put in bad positions. The enemy might get the upper hand. You might be outnumbered or outgunned. Panic will destroy you. You have to stay calm.

• 2:33Jocko Willink?

  And that was only the beginning of the correlation I began to see. From Jiu-Jitsu to combat, to leadership, to business, and to life itself.

• 2:44Jocko Willink?

  As I continued to learn Jiu-Jitsu and progress in my SEAL career, Jiu-Jitsu taught me much, but it was Hickson's words that initiated my journey.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  The principles of Jiu-Jitsu can be applied to every endeavor in life. You have to stay calm when you are in bad situations. You need to cover and conceal your intent with other maneuvers. You need to utilize the simplest and most efficient methods. You need to prioritize your focus of effort. You need to train until you trust yourself to move intuitively without having to think. You need to move at the right time. You need to do to defend critical areas. You should not attack your enemy's strong points. You must utilize leverage. You cannot let your emotions drive your decisions. You have to establish a good base foundation to build upon. You cannot be overly aggressive, but you can't just allow things to happen.

• 3:40Jocko Willink?

  When you make a move, you have to believe in what you are doing. You have to be mentally strong. You have to keep an open mind. You have to continuously learn new techniques while always reinforcing the fundamentals. You have to adapt your plan if circumstances change. The list goes on and on.

• 4:03Jocko Willink?

  When I deployed to Iraq as a SEAL Combat Leader, I continuously operated with these fundamental principles in my head, ones that I understood because of Jiu-Jitsu.

• 4:17Jocko Willink?

  I continue to utilize these principles now in the civilian world as well. As a businessman, a teacher, a father, and a coach, Jiu-Jitsu gives me confidence, but also humility. Strength, but also compassion. A disciplined code, but also a free and open mind.

• 4:37Jocko Willink?

  As Hickson says, "Jiu-Jitsu is not just a sport. Jiu-Jitsu is a philosophy, and it is at the root of everything we do."

• 4:52Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a foreword written by me for a new book that is called "Breathe: A Life in Flow", and is written by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu legend Hickson Gracie. And it is an honor to have Hickson here with us tonight to share some of his stories, his philosophies of Jiu-Jitsu, and his lessons learned. Hickson, thank you so much for joining us. It is an honor to have you here.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  My pleasure, Joko, and it's a great pleasure to see you guys. And first of all, I'd like to really thank you, and it's an honor for me to have you do the introduction in the book. It was a special compliment for me because you're such a highly skilled, motivated warrior.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  And with all your sayings, that's kind of established a very high end for my journey. So I appreciate your support, my brother.

• 5:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've I've often talked about the fact of what jiu jitsu gave to me and what jiu jitsu gave to me was connecting all these things. I started to see jiu jitsu everywhere and everything became related to jiu jitsu. And and really, I I it was in, I think it was 1996 or 1997, when I went up and I I stayed in a in a crappy hotel up in Los Angeles for like like 10 days or something. And I went to Pico, your your academy at Pico every day and and just was absorbing.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  I'm still sore from those sessions, but I have good memories.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  People people would ask me what it's like, what it was like to train with you. And um, I said, I've told people, if you've ever like felt the pressure of a of a high powered hose, like a like a high powered hose, just just water just bearing down on you. And when you move a little bit, it doesn't matter. It just flows around you. That's what that's what it felt like when you when I was rolling with you. I everything that I tried, you were already there waiting for me. And and the pressure and the tightness, but at the same time, the fluidity, it's hard to describe.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yes, jiu jitsu is a very is a very, very special technique because give you the sense of utilizing your body, but not exactly trying to stress yourself. It's a it's a it's a continuous motions with leverage and angles and and the ability for you to to bring based on weight distribution and and and different grips and maneuvers, the chance for you to flow into a harmonious con control, because it's not about holding and and fighting for, but it's about to

• 7:52Speaker 01

  understand the the motions and be be ahead of the game. So when you escape from the neck, you already giving me the arm and.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  The idea for the one who's suffering the attack, the pressure is no relief until you tap. But for me, it was just a continuous understanding of what's next. And it's not, and the ability to move and to make, be there in the right precision time. So it was a very interesting technique and, and, and give me this chance for really use not only my techniques, not only my physicality, but also my mindset and my emotional control. And also what I believe is a very important tools for the spiritual order is using the spiritual energy from forgiveness and acceptance and not fear death.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  And accepting the circumstances in a way to be, like you said, comfortable in hell, you know? So it's many things which Jiu-Jitsu favor you to, to accept life as it is and transform the battle in a, in a ground, in a growing situation for your mind and your spirit. So Jiu-Jitsu is a great component for anyone.

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I try and explain to people sometimes that when you do Jiu-Jitsu, the more Jiu-Jitsu you do, you get to a point where you can kind of see the future. Because you know what this other person's gonna do. And when you know what they're gonna do, you can be there waiting for them. Because you know what they're gonna do. And it's the same thing with anything that you practice and you train and you pay attention to. You can get to a point where you can kind of predict the future. And I, I think some people say, you know, you, you're a couple moves ahead in Jiu-Jitsu. And the better you get, the more moves ahead you're gonna be.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yes, similar to chess, chess game, you know? If you play a guy who's a champion, he's already know what you're gonna, when you move a piece, he, he knows five or 10 movements ahead and he's already to strategize your defeat. So I felt like the same in Jiu-Jitsu. You can anticipate the motions based on, on the mechanics and the, and the tension. And so you can capitalize basically always in some kind of mistake or some kind of lack of timing or something like that.

• 10:21Jocko Willink?

  So you wrote this book. I was lucky enough, like honored to be able to write the foreword, but that also meant I got to read the book early and I have a copy of it here. And just want to kind of jump into some of the book and talk about how you grew up, which is, I mean, it's just an incredible, your journey's been incredible. Your whole family's had such a huge impact on the world. And it's very interesting to kind of hear what it was like for you and growing up inside this, this, such an influential family. So, let's jump into the book a little bit. Here we go. By the time I was born, my father was

• 11:03Jocko Willink?

  already one of Brazil's biggest sports icons. In addition to being incredibly tough fighter, he was also a showman of the highest order, who publicly challenged boxing icons Primo Carnera, Joe Louis, and Ezzard Charles. Although the boxers all declined, in 1932 wrestler Fred Ebert, accepted 17-year-old Aleos' challenge. Aleos, your father. Ebert outweighed him by about 50 pounds, but they fought for an hour and 40 minutes before police stopped the fight.

• 11:39Jocko Willink?

  Two years later, my dad fought 225-pound world champion wrestler Wadzic Zbysko to a draw.

• 11:49Jocko Willink?

  When Japan's greatest judoka, Masahiko Kamura, traveled to Brazil in 1951, Aleos also challenged him. Kamura agreed to fight my dad if he could first defeat Yukio Kado, one of the black belts traveling with him. My dad's first fight with Kado was declared a jaw, but Aleos choked him unconscious in the rematch, clearing the way for a match with the judo champion.

• 12:16Jocko Willink?

  Alio and Kamura squared off in front of 20,000 spectators a week later. And even the president of Brazil attended the match. The judoka outweighed my dad by 80 pounds and threw him around the ring like a rag doll, but could not finish him. At one point, my dad went unconscious. But because he didn't tap, Kamura thought the choke wasn't working and released it. And Alio regained consciousness. 13 minutes into the fight, the judo champion secured a bent armlock. And again, my dad refused to tap. Kamura kept twisting and ripping at his shoulder. Still, Alio refused to tap, but Kamura kept cranking. And my Uncle Carlos threw in the towel.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  My dad later said he got his samurai spirit from Kamura and named the bent armlock, "The Kamura."

• 13:06Jocko Willink?

  So there's your dad. How much did your dad weigh? 140 pounds?

• 13:10Speaker 01

  135, yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Was a light guy.

• 13:14Jocko Willink?

  And going up against Kamura, who's a beast. And by the way, you can see at least parts of this match online. You can go and Google it and see this match.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Kimura was the champion in Japan, which is very unusual for a champion in Japan to become five years consecutive champion. Normally, every six months, they trade places. But Kimura was established and a true champion in the Japanese community. And when he went to Brazil, my father challenged him and then he fought Kato first.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  And in the fight with Kimura, Kimura put in the newspaper, if he passed three minutes, he was already winning the fight. Like, if Alio survives three minutes, he wins. And the fight went to 13 minutes. So in one point, the whole crowd saying, "Oh, he's done, he's done. Stop the fight, he's already won." But the fight continues and my father gets submitted by Kimura.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  And even though, after that fight, Kimura went to my father's house with a translator, inviting him to teach in the Imperial School in Japan. Because he said, the jiu-jitsu he knows, Japan has forgotten.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  And I don't believe it's like that exactly, because a big part of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu was created by my father, exactly because my uncle Carlos learned from Maeda, from Conde Coma. And Maeda was a champion. He's been fighting for all over and went to Brazil to settle. And he started teaching uncle Carlos, based on the friendship he has with my grandfather.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  And in that process, uncle, tio Carlos learned a lot from Maeda, but Elio was 12 years younger than my uncle and was a very young kid at this time. And then they went to Rio in 1925, settle in Rio. And my uncle Carlos opened his first school in 1925. At this point, my father was, could not do any sports. He was, doctors said for him to not do anything, not playing soccer, not ride a bike, not skate, nothing. Because he's very skinny and he has vertigo all the time. So he's pass out, any effort he's passing out. So he had to rest.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  So my uncle opened this school. My father sitting on the corner all the time, watching my uncle teach. And for three years, from 13 years old to 16, he was just watching. Amazed watching all the details, all the says, all the moves. But he never practices. And one day, a student arrived at the school and my uncle was not there yet. So my father said, "Mister, if you wanna do, let's play a little bit until my brother arrive." So with that, they start to practice. Half hour later, my uncle arrive. And the student said, Carlos, if you don't mind, I like to keep training with the kid because he's so good. I love to practice with him.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  So and that's the way my father get into jiu-jitsu practice. But different than a normal person, my father could not do one pull-up, one pull-up, or one push-up. He don't have the strength and the muscles to do that. So he basically, a choke, for example, which is a, he learned as an arm movement where you grab the collar and squeeze the guy to choke. He could not even think about choke somebody with the strength on his arms. So he has to bring together and use the chest, which transforms the whole pressure on the choke, giving less effort muscularly and much more efficiency technically.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  So that's just a very simple example of how my dad, in every movement he could do, he adapt for him, for his own weakness. And it's another very important element is, he was so light and so small, he could not ever fight on top, mount positions, passing guards, and kick ass from the top. So he was able to just stay on the bottom regardless. And he was able to create from the guard position a such a new arsenal of tricks because he has nothing to do but guard. So he develop a guard in a very heli-grace style, in a Brazilian style, which doesn't belong to Japan at all.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  All the ground techniques from the bottom are developed by my father, which is weak enough to not do other things. So he's improving. We normally say in the family, heli-grace is for jiu-jitsu as Einstein is to physics. He's a creator, he's a genius. It's impossible to compare. And follow this idea of...

• 18:36Speaker 01

  of total connection with the techniques and the development. The jiu-jitsu, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu becomes more like effective. And the valleto and the no holds barred and effectiveness overall with gi without gi. Because gives to the weaker one elements to to submit the bigger one. So I felt like jiu-jitsu really becomes a art for a weaker one after pass through through Brazil. Before, Konji Koma, Konji Maeda Koma was a very effective, he has many, many victories. But he was a stock guy, he was solid, strong Japanese.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Not too tall, but he was very solid, maybe eighty kilos or eighty-five kilos or something. So he was dealing jiu-jitsu in his own form of athleticism. Which is different than what my dad implies. So we are very grateful to have Eddie Grace in the family to to bring another possibilities for our style.

• 19:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's um. It seems like in jiu-jitsu, when when you have jiu-jitsu like that. It's the situation where, like you said, somebody that's smaller and weaker. Can defeat someone that's bigger and stronger and everybody that starts jiu-jitsu for the first time. When I started jiu-jitsu for the first time, you know, I was, like I said, I was two hundred and twenty pounds. Uh, my first teacher was Fabio Santos. I think he weighs, I don't know, a hundred and fifty, a hundred and sixty pounds. He would just do whatever he wanted to me and and he was an old man at the time. He was probably younger than I am right now, but he seemed like he was an old man. I said, how's this old man with gray hair gonna do anything to me? And jiu-jitsu allows you to do that.

• 20:25Jocko Willink?

  Jiu-jitsu is, you know, what what your dad, because he had, like you said, because he was smaller, because he was weaker. He had to develop that style and it's so effective.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Yes. Leverage. replaces strength, you know. Techniques replaces speed. So when you have the perfect combination, you can anticipate the movement, you can use timing at your favor and other deflections. So it's a very interesting concept of winning without really banging heads to head. You have to make, like, set him up, or fake, or set up in a way to, to almost surprise the guy with, and defeat, not exactly. Smash him, you know. It's too brutal sometimes. It's too much, too bulls fighting.

• 21:16Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  You know, I love to see the, the articulation of a technician suppresses the strength. So for me, I was amazed about the effectiveness of, and the possibilities of Jiu Jitsu.

• 21:32Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast forward a little bit, and just so everybody knows, I already skipped a bunch of the book. You know, you talk about the originations, the family. It's very interesting. You know, you came from, I think you had, you had a, what was it, great, great, great grandfather that, that was in the Civil War on the Confederate side?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  The Gracie family is, is in the warfare for a long time.

• 21:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you mentioned, what was it, Archibald. This guy, Archibald Gracie. And, um, Archibald Gracie, or Archibald the Third was a warrior. At West Point, he earned Superintendent Robert E. Lee's respect after he got beaten up in a fight on the parade grounds. When Gracie was called into Lee's office, he refused to give up the name of the man he was fighting. After his opponent turned himself in, Lee did not punish either of them. When America's Civil War broke out, Archibald Gracie the Third sided with the Confederacy. He started the war as a major, but after fighting heroically in some of the conflict's fiercest battles, Gracie was a brigadier general at the age of 29. Robert E. Lee survived the Civil War, but Archibald Gracie the Third did not.

• 22:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so that's the side that went to America.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Yes, I didn't know much about it until Peter, which wrote the book with me. He's a historian and war military professor, so he enlightened me with that kind of interesting story.

• 22:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I actually looked up on the internet and saw a picture of Archibald Gracie III dressed up in his Confederate uniform.

• 23:06Jocko Willink?

  It's so crazy. Uh, yeah, you go into some more of those details which you kind of discussed about the history of, you know, how it came from Japan to Brazil, how your uncle got involved, how your brother got involved. Those details are so rich in the book. It's so fascinating to read from a jujitsu perspective, but also just from a historical perspective in the world. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit, um, to what it was like for you growing up. You say, "Initially, we kids went to the academy just to play tug of war or have a game of soccer. We were introduced to jujitsu slowly, nothing like what I see these days. Today, too many parents push their kids to compete before they are ready. For young kids, jujitsu should be nothing more than a fun form of recreation

• 23:49Jocko Willink?

  that introduces them to the movements through games and structured play. As they get older, you can introduce more jujitsu, but it should be playful. If you push kids too hard, too young, they will quit forever. Parents should never burden their kids with their unfulfilled ambitions, frustrations, anxiety, or any other form of emotional baggage. Parents' support, the parents' support must be consistent. The most important thing is that the child gets the experience, win, lose, or draw, without judgment." So, this is something a lot of parents need to hear. This is something I wish I would have heard earlier. I, I, I was telling you before we started, "I definitely pushed my kids too hard into jujitsu.

• 24:33Jocko Willink?

  Maybe that was my unfulfilled ambitions that I tried to impose on my own children." And, you know, I, I, I read a book later in life, um, and it, it talked about how, you know, you want to make things fun for your kids. And it sounds like for you guys, at the beginning, jujitsu was just fun.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Yes, because you know it's a must for us. We, no matter what, we representing, I mean, we are graces. We all dress gees from, I mean, I get my, my gi before my diapers. So, we all become little graces and our identity is recognized by, oh, you're gonna be a champion too, you're gonna fight like your dad, so you, you, it's a natural for you, using gi, training, sparring. It's all fun. And I never felt like it was a serious business, even competing, because my dad didn't put me pressure. He, he always like, my first competition, he said to me, he asked me if I wanna compete, I said yes. And then he said, if you win,

• 25:37Speaker 01

  I give you a gift. If you lose, I give you two gifts. So that's kinda, in the, in the, between lines say, my dad's not gonna be upset with me if I lose. So I didn't know what's really represent that kinda statement, but I felt like, my dad's not gonna be upset. So that's a plus. And I lose that fight, and I don't even remember if I get two gifts or not, but what I felt from that, that situation is my dad was not upset, is okay. And after that, I keep, continue competing and I, I was successful in my other fighters, fights, but was a good support of my dad and no pressure, make me feel like jiu-jitsu

• 26:20Speaker 01

  is something for me to practice, regardless of somebody else's judgment.

• 26:25Jocko Willink?

  You go on to say this, you say, even as a small boy, I silently observed from close proximity, fear, courage, aggression, and cowardice. I noticed small things about people because they provided clues about their true nature. Things as simple as the way someone shook my hand, the way people acted when they won, and the way they acted when they lost, told me a lot. I often wondered why a guy who beat me so mercilessly, made excuses not to train with my older brothers. I didn't judge them, I just knew that I didn't wanna be like them.

• 27:03Jocko Willink?

  There's a lot of human nature that gets revealed on the jiu-jitsu mats.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Oh, no doubt about it, man. I was young and I would start teaching, helping my brother Orion to teach private lessons. I was thirteen, fourteen years old and I was there like a dummy, you know, so Hickson, lay down, John, mount, and just to practice movements. So I was helping him to teach.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  And I get a little tip after the class, you know, he give me some ice cream or some, so I was there to just watch him and teaching and helping. And then I asked my dad, said, "Dad, what I should do to be the best teacher?" And then he said to me, "If you wanna be a good teacher, you learn a good arm lock, a good escape from the bottom, whatever, and teach your student and he will be efficient on do the technique. But if you wanna be an excellent student, you have to see, you have to try to understand what the students needs to learn." So it's not about what I wanna teach, it's about what he needs to learn. So based on that,

• 28:09Speaker 01

  another route was created because I cannot just be a jiu-jitsu teacher. I have to be a psychologist and understand what I need to teach to make it happen, to make the guy seeking happiness more efficiently. So a student who is tense and claustrophobic, I will teach him like to be calm and relaxed and do the movements almost in slow motion. For the guy who is tense and try to be tough and aggressive and so calm down and relax. So the other guys are lazy. Come up, man, come up. So I bring the energy needs to be naturally on him. So it becomes a half psychology, half jiu-jitsu class.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  And that was a big transformation for me because I start to understand my service as a...

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Something to enhance people's lives, qualities of life. You know, it's not about being just a martial arts or a teach you to fight. I have to teach you to breathe, I have to teach you to strategize, I have to teach you to have emotional control. I have to teach you to visual, make visualizations, I have to teach you to not only using the technical elements, but also the spiritual elements. I have to teach you to have hope, faith, and, and, and things like that. So, in order for you to become an expert in jiu-jitsu, is you, you basically becomes an expert in life too, because you, you know how to put yourself

• 29:40Speaker 01

  in situations and be able to, to recognize the, the situation and see if you need a, a better calmness in your brain, a better control in your body, or if you have to really surrender to a, a higher god. And, and put, because in one point, we cannot have, be afraid of death, you know. And if you're able to understand your mission, your, your, your commitment, your, your honor are above that kind of death line, you become a fearless opponent, because you're not afraid to die at all. How a Navy SEAL can go to battle not visualizing the possibility to die?

• 30:25Speaker 01

  How a fireman can save a kid from a, from a structure without the slight chance of him to die and fall with? So, once you become comfortable and the acceptance of the, a, a result you're not in control, you become a much more complete, not a warrior, because you just find your mission as a priority, not exactly. So, in representing jiu-jitsu was a big thing for me, which transcends my life, my, my, my physicality, was something I put my honor and my faith on top of everything. So, I was able to accept in challenges and be ready for challenges, which different than...

• 31:09Speaker 01

  A soldier representing an army, which you have commands, you have

• 31:16Speaker 01

  weaponry, you have strategies, you have situations which are not exactly up to you. For me, by representing my sport, I was preparing myself for no, no time limits, no rules, no cups, no mount pieces, no, no weight division. So, how unpredictable this can be? How much I have to be on my toes? How much I have to accept my, my final moment? How much I should have to be calm in the day before in order to achieve my success? So, it's a lot of complex, a lot of aspects of my life, not only the technical, not only the

• 32:00Speaker 01

  spiritual, not only the mental. I have to be checking every day and being calm enough. So, that's why in my career, I was putting a lot of tension in my breathing. I'm putting a lot of tension and take ice baths before anyone tell me about it. So, I start to creating situations which kind of put me, myself on the edge. And, and, and being fearless, being connected with my spiritual guidance and, and accepting anything, even death, if was the case. So, I was preparing myself to be a warrior, but, but without the, the command, without the, the, the force behind me was just like a...

• 32:44Speaker 01

  I have to create a lot of things to deal with the pressure, you know? And I felt like today, I'm not a jiu-jitsu fighter anymore, I have many injuries. But I still in my mind, sharp as always, using all my invisible tools in jiu-jitsu to keep me on my best game in terms of using timing, using visualization, using breathing, using the, the capacity for me to emotional control and, and the capacity to surrender, forgiveness. And another important thing too is, all my warfares, all my situations, I don't, I, I don't resolve with hate.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  I love to fight, I love to, to, to use jiu-jitsu, I love to represent, I love to put myself on the edge. So, love was a big important part of my, my, my history. Because I never been ordered to do something, I never been obeying people to do something. I always, a free will. And I put myself in the situations I, I, I not regret, but it was tough situations to be in. Based on my own passion, based on my own love. So, I being a warrior, which being guided by the heart, not by the rationality. And this is kinda a little different.

• 34:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting, it's different. Um, one of, one of the things you said, and again, there's so many connections that I, I make with jiu-jitsu. With battle, with life, with relationships, with, with everything. And just one little example you said, there's sometimes in jiu-jitsu, you gotta calm down, you gotta remain calm. You get put in a bad spot, you gotta calm, you gotta relax, you gotta not panic, you gotta think your way through it, you gotta wait for your moment. There's other times in jiu-jitsu where if you don't explode and make a move right now, it's gonna be too late.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:41Jocko Willink?

  And you have to, and it's the same thing in, you know, if you're, if you're in a business. You might have a situation where you gotta calm down, you gotta make a decision, you gotta think through it. But there's other times where you gotta make a move right now. On the battlefield, same thing, sometimes something's starting to happen, you're starting to see the enemy do something. And you need to wait and be calm and relax and detach and not get emotional. There's other times, something happens, you gotta go right now. And jiu-jitsu, you start to identify that, look, there's times where you've gotta take a step back, relax, you gotta be calm. And there's other times where you gotta be aggressive, you gotta make things happen right now. And those type of lessons that, again, I learned them, I, I, I learned them a little bit from my SEAL training.

• 35:23Jocko Willink?

  I learned them a little bit interacting with my, from a leadership perspective. But when I really started to see it, was when I, when I started training jiu-jitsu all the time and started recognizing, oh, sometimes you gotta be calm. Sometimes you gotta be aggressive, sometimes you gotta be flexible, sometimes you gotta be strong in that position. And you gotta be, know when to make these adjustments in your life.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  I feel like with the practice of jiu-jitsu, like you said, give you more awareness of the situation to be in. And the sense of applying the right action for the situation is based on reflexes, is based on practice, is based on preparation, which sometimes that preparation comes from a understanding, a strategical understanding. Sometimes that preparation coming from a heavy training, a heavy muscular and explosive training.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Or sometimes the preparation coming from a completely emotional control. I was kid, about twelve, thirteen years old, practice with men's at the academy. After the class, everybody training a little bit together. And they all take care of me. I was a kid still and training with adults. And in one particular practice, this strong guy, blue belt, grabbed me in a headlock. And I was caught in a headlock. I was not able to escape. I was not able to be comfortable. And normally, we don't tap in headlocks because you can keep breathing.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  But I was panicking and tap. And was like a disappointment for me. I cry a little bit. The guy said, "Hey, kid, you OK?" I said, "Yeah, I'm OK, thank you." But I am very pissed. So I was pissed. And I went back home. And when I arrive, I decide to lay down on the floor, on top of a carpet, and ask my brother, Halls, to, I kind of stay like straight like this, and ask my brother to roll me on the carpet like a burrito.

• 37:45Jocko Willink?

  A Hixson burrito.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yes, and it was like a summertime in Brazil, about hundred ten, humid, you know, very hot. And I said, just take me from here in ten minutes. So first minute was struggling, claustrophobic, and I started thinking about seagulls and breeze on the ocean and ocean breeze and the nice wind. And I eventually passed through the experience, my brother relieved me. And then in the same year, I did three more times. Just to make sure I could handle that kind of suffocating agony and claustrophobic feeling.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  So that's just to show how competitive I was and how much on top of my problems, I was fixing my problems as I, as the problems happened. And I was just comfortable and become, you know, agonizing and breathing suffocating, and then I start to be calm and, and find myself in peace. And then I felt like this not gonna happen with me anymore. I never gonna tap in headlocks anymore because was just the way I felt like I was fixing my emotional.

• 38:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, um, you're, you're confronting your weaknesses is what you're doing. I remember when I started jujitsu, I hated being on the bottom because I was bigger and if I could get on top of someone, I could smash him and be okay. And I hated being on the bottom. And for that reason, I remember one time for, it must have been a year. Every, every time I rolled with anybody, I started on the bottom and oftentimes with them across side or, or maybe even mount just to get used to that and get over the fact that I didn't like it. You have to, in jujitsu, just like life, you gotta face your weaknesses and you gotta correct them.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yes, definitely.

• 39:37Jocko Willink?

  Now you mentioned your brother Holes. I want to give just a little bit of background of your family. Which is hard to give a quick background of your family.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so many champions.

• 39:48Jocko Willink?

  It's crazy. It's huge. You have this section here.

• 39:54Jocko Willink?

  Carlos Gracie, this is your uncle, decided to, this is, so he lost two loves of his life. He lost his fiance and, what was his fiance and his first wife? Is that right?

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:04Jocko Willink?

  They both died. So after they died, Carlos Gracie decided to father as many children, preferably boys as possible, and he encouraged my father to do the same. Their goal is to create a clan of fighters. Between 1932 and 1967, Carlos and Aleo fathered 30 children with eight different women. 21 of them were boys. When Margarita, my father's first wife, the woman I considered my mother, was unable to get pregnant, my uncle came up with a plan. My father, with my mother's knowledge and consent, would impregnate our African Brazilian babysitter, Belina, am I saying that?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Belina, yes.

• 40:42Jocko Willink?

  Belina, who gave birth to me and my older brothers, Horian and Helson. The whole thing was an elaborate ruse. Margarita wore a fake belly during Belinda's pregnancies, and when the time came for her to give birth, she went to the hospital and came home with a baby. Not even her best friends knew. When I was young, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw freckles. I thought they were from my Scottish blood. Little did I know, I was half African Brazilian.

• 41:11Jocko Willink?

  Man, that's a crazy story.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yes, man, that's part of the Gracie fanatic idea of growing jujitsu and creating a clan, you know, was just epic.

• 41:24Jocko Willink?

  Epic. So with that, let me go a little bit further. So now you got all these brothers. I'll go back to the book. This is fast forward a little bit. I studied all my brothers with great interest when we trained because they had different strengths and weaknesses. I want to know who was brave, who was scared, who would fight to the death, who was crazy, who is indecisive. Nobody impressed me more than my brother Holes. A decade older than me, he was our leader and my idol because he was an incredibly charismatic person and a natural warrior. Holes was Uncle Carlos's son from Claudia, an 18-year-old woman who worked for my family. Because my mother Margarita could not have children, Uncle Carlos gave Holes to my dad to raise as his own son when he was a baby.

• 42:06Jocko Willink?

  Holes grew up with us and shared a room with me for much of my childhood. And this is what's interesting when you talk about Holes, fast forward a little bit. My brother's open mind helped him in jiu-jitsu because he was willing to look outside of it for ideas when other family members were not. Holes trained and competed in judo, wrestling, and sambo, which he used to improve jiu-jitsu. Like Aleo, he always wanted to win by submission and had an aggressive attacking style. If I disappointed Holes, there was nothing that I was not willing to do to redeem myself.

• 42:44Jocko Willink?

  So, that's, that, Holes, with that attitude, that open mind, where he was doing sambo and wrestling, I mean, that's a game changer.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Completely. He was just such a brave fighter and warrior and competitive. And with a good, open mind to understand, jiu-jitsu is great, but doesn't have the, the ability to, to throw as a judo. Doesn't have the ability to, to get some other situations like wrestling, some maneuvers from bottom to the top, some reverses. So adding this, we're not gonna hurt nobody, it's just gonna add for us the capabilities of not only controlling better from the top, throwing better from this, from the standing aspect. And also be, be doing what we do good in terms of jiu-jitsu. So it was just a complete

• 43:39Speaker 01

  uh, improvement in our capacity to handle the athletes all over. So it was just a great addition. And for me, Holes has always been the number one guy. He pushed me the most, you know, different than Hori, which is very technical. But Horian was less competitive. So, and I was very competitive, so I was seeking to, to do what Hollis does.

• 44:02Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm. You mentioned Horian here a little bit. Nine years older than me, my brother Horian could not have been more different than Holes. Aleo's first son with our birth mother, Belinda, Horian was 10 months younger than Holes. Horian had an easygoing nature, and while he was never the fighter that Holes was, he was a born teacher. Training with Horian included the theory behind such concepts as positioning technique, leverage, and base. He explained jiu-jitsu much better than Holes, who was impatient and saw things as either black or white. He had a big influence on my teaching style and got me to focus as much on the person as the techniques. Our father taught us that a good teacher taught the techniques well, but that a great teacher taught what each individual student needed to learn.

• 44:43Jocko Willink?

  In strife or in life, Horian was a great teacher. Eight years older than me, this is another brother, Helson, might have been the best fighter in the family if he wasn't such a wild man. Helson would show up at a tournament, having had no sleep, still hungover from a night on the town. But when he put his, on his gi and tied his belt, he turned into a Tasmanian devil.

• 45:04Jocko Willink?

  Helson would fight all day, almost die, but win.

• 45:11Jocko Willink?

  This, this is a, fast forward a little bit, just a, a little glimpse into what it's like being in the family. Aleo encouraged competition among us and always wanted to see who stood where in the Gracie food chain. There were confrontations and tests. My dad would step on the canvas, tarp, clap his hands and say, "Okay, Horian, Holes, go." And without hesitation, they would step forward and spar. Holes and Horian had totally different attitudes toward life, which were reflected in their jiu-jitsu. There was never any question that Holes was the best of our generation.

• 45:47Jocko Willink?

  Now, you get this sort of side of the martial arts family, growing up, training all the time, but you're also in Rio, which is a crazy place and the lifestyle that you had going on there, which you talk about here going to the book, Rio is like New York City and Bangkok combined. It is a turbulent, whatever you want, whenever you want it, mix of sex, crime, drugs, nature, and beach culture. Although we lived in a nice apartment in Copacabana, Rio is not like LA. There's not a rich town like Beverly Hills and then a poor one like Compton. They are combined. One minute you're in Beverly Hills and the

• 46:29Jocko Willink?

  next you turn down a side street and you are in Compton. As a kid, I developed street smarts. From gang bangers to fighters to the high society matrons, to the surfers, to the most beautiful girls in Ipanema, I wanted to understand all of it. I would often ditch school and just walk around Rio. I had normal rounds that I made through the city. So you're kind of living this kind of crazy, turbulent lifestyle. And you're just drawn to that.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Very much, because you know, in my house, I was the youngster and the halls, Horry and Hells was eight, nine, and 10 years older than me. So when I was about 11, 12, I liked to hear what they say to keep up with, you know. So for me, when I go home, I was listening and learning with those smart guys, you know. And when I go to the street, I don't want to stay with the 10, 11 year olds which are just thinking about silly things. I was just walk with the older guys talking about things I hear my brothers talk. And the guy say, hey, this kid is not, he's not, he's not what he's saying. So I was trying to be very,

• 47:39Speaker 01

  you know, compatible with the higher level, street guys I see on the street. So that's kind of pulled me in a, in a, in a, in a very soft.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Place because I have to be smart, I have to be uh very much solid with them. Show no fear, show so to be able to walk with them, to be able to get in the car and go some surf somewhere. So I was there to just show them I can handle, you know, so I was just give me a mission, I will do, you know. Sometimes the guys, they they wanna smoke pot, for example, and nobody wants to go in the dealer's spot because they all wanna afraid of the cops. I was twelve, eleven, I said, no, I can go with my trunks, I can go up and down, hide the thing and nobody gonna see it, so.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  I was just being like the kid which helps the older guys to get what they, so I was just doing things. Regardless of right or wrong, I just try to keep myself in a position to be respected from the. The boys on the hood, you know, and and being like a street guy, not exactly a a a spoiled kid which. Forbidding to play on the street or something, so I was just taking care of my life as a, I was a grow, I was eighteen, nineteen and I was just twelve, you know.

• 49:14Jocko Willink?

  And you ended up kind of running with a gang of kids?

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I mean, for me, it was a demonstration of courage, demonstration of being tough, you know, it was not about. Doing right or wrong, it's about be keep keep be able to keep with the boys and be respected in the hood as a. As a as a guy who can not gonna flick, you know, not gonna, so that's kind of give me a good sense of be. Be part of a team which is a tough team, the guys, they're all fighters, they're all tough kids, they're all, you know, very, very much. Born to just do trouble and things. And I was start to growing up a little bit, I start to see all those values I learn on the street

• 50:02Speaker 01

  are not values I should take in my life as a if I wanna grow up and represent what I want. So my mission, my passion for the family was take me away from that dark side of being just doing problems and start to become more an athlete and becoming completely focused on my life as a representative of jiu-jitsu. But with a sense of base and sense of, you know, I I'm not gonna let my friends down. I'm I'm always good to be a a solid, you know, no matter if it's going, you know, if it's a good thing, if it's a wrong thing, I wanna be part of and be trusted by my friends. So that's what I accomplish.

• 50:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it seems like you you you ventured into that world of sort of that gang mentality. And then you say here in the book, I began to drift away from the gang when members started stealing stereos and using guns. I knew they were on a path that would take them nowhere fast, and I was much more interested in jiu-jitsu, surfing and girls than life of crime. Although I was rebellious and did things that my dad didn't agree with, I never stopped competing and never stopped winning. In his eyes, that made me special. It was about this time that I began to train with my brother Holes. Up to this point, Aleo was my teacher. Whether he was surfing, training, fighting, riding horses, hang gliding, or chasing girls, Holes was constantly in motion.

• 51:25Jocko Willink?

  He was fast, technical, and always pushed me to train harder and achieve more.

• 51:32Jocko Willink?

  Training with Holes was essentially fighting. He reinforced what Aleo had taught me. Fuck points, fuck judges, win by submission or not at all. I began to improve quickly under Holes and Aleo was not surprised. I wasn't stubborn and never choked under pressure. Now the expectations for me were both from Holes and my dad, and they were extremely high.

• 51:59Jocko Willink?

  How many hours a day were you training with Holes at this time?

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Oh, at least four hours, at least two hours in the morning or in the early afternoon for classes and then at the training at night. So I was always at the school, you know. I was never being too much a good student, you know, so I get any excuse to stay away from school and stay at the academy or at the beach, but you know, it was a good training, very fun.

• 52:30Jocko Willink?

  How much time would you spend sparring? How much time would you spend drilling? How much time would you spend creating new stuff?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Normally, the class follows up with a sequence of drilling, learning some techniques, some drills, and after the free sparring. So I follow the protocols of the class and I always gonna learn something, training something or grab some, improving some kind of technique, and also the practice afterwards. So I just follow the program of every class.

• 53:03Jocko Willink?

  Did you find yourself and Holes, especially as Holes is bringing in sambo and wrestling, would you have to break stuff down and kind of adapt it into jiu-jitsu? Do you remember doing that kind of thing?

• 53:16Speaker 01

  I remember Holes showing the techniques and we immediately, because he also have the eye for what's good for us or not. I was not learning from a wrestling teacher. I was teaching, I was learning from a guy who learns wrestling, but he's a jiu-jitsu teacher and tried to favor us with the best of it. So things he may learn and he didn't like it, he not even show us. He just showed the things we are related to. If the guy grab you here, so you do that. So I was just follow up his lead on what I should use from wrestling, what I should use from sambo, what I should use from judo. Some techniques in judo are suicidal techniques and after the throw,

• 53:58Speaker 01

  you get caught in a bad position. So you don't want to do those techniques. So basically, I was not there to learn judo. I was there to learn an efficient way to take people down with judo, but for jiu-jitsu. So was that all the preparation, the techniques are kind of slightly different than being a just a judo practitioner?

• 54:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was I was lucky. My my son, when he wrestled, he had a wrestling coach that started working with his wrestling team. That was a jiu-jitsu guy too. And so he could tell him, hey, do this, like, hey, this is like a sweep. Hey, this is like a scissor sweep. He would be able to coach him to wrestle using jiu-jitsu with wrestling.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Can relate much better.

• 54:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's nice.

• 54:40Jocko Willink?

  And you're surfing all the time at this point, too?

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 54:45Jocko Willink?

  You you go into some pretty good details there about some of the um some of the experiences you had surfing, pushing yourself a little hard sometimes, taking some risks that maybe you shouldn't have taken in the water?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Yes, because for me surfing was not exactly just the practice of the the ability to go down on the wave and carve and do the snaps or whatever. Surf for me has to do with nature, with the power of the ocean. So sometimes when the the waves are too big, first thing to do is get afraid because you don't know what's gonna happen if you get punched. So dealing with this fear, knowing and strategizing the best way to go in and out of the surf, when to get the wave, the timing of the wave. So it's a lot of things which has to keep you in control of the situation, not only the ability to surf,

• 55:37Speaker 01

  but to to stay calm, to to paddle in the right direction, to understand nature, the wind, the the the rip currents. So it's a it's a lot of things to learn and to be comfortable in sometimes in a very uncomfortable situation. So the ocean plays a very important teacher for me because you cannot fight nature. You have to understand nature and and deal with in the best way possible. So that's surfing was very important for me in terms of. Reading the ocean and stay connected with the ocean in the most deepest way I could possibly do. And surf was just a bonus.

• 56:22Jocko Willink?

  I guess it's the same thing with opponents, right? Because if opponent has some really good move that they're really strong at, what's the point in fighting that move that they're really good at? Go at it from some different direction.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Of course. The perfect strategy is work your strengths on his weakness. So when you feel like you're losing the perfect aim about where his weakness is, you have to shift, not just try to force the wrong entrance, but finding another way to get the hole, you know? So that's the idea of jiu-jitsu, is just capitalizing on your opponent's mistakes and be aware of, if he changes, you have to flow and change again and again. So, no expectations. You may be expect a choke, but arm lock's gonna happen or foot lock. So, everything can be unpredictable if you do right.

• 57:20Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna fast forward a little bit to this section here. By the time I was a brown belt, my matches with my brother Holes were getting closer. I was beginning to understand the limitations of his game. Holes had an excellent neon belly move that he used to set up arm locks, and he was lethal if he got your back. But he was also predictably aggressive. In our final ten training sessions, not only did Holes not submit me, but I was getting reversals and our fights were now even. One afternoon, we were training together by ourselves at my dad's ranch. The only thing I remember is engaging with Rolls, then going through the eye of the hurricane with all the violence you would expect. When the storm passed, I had Holes in a choke. And before I even realized what was happening, he was tapping.

• 58:06Jocko Willink?

  It was a completely reactive fight. I'm not even sure if I was mounted her on his back. All I remember is that I finished him with a choke. Nobody else saw me beat Holes. And when we finished training, he hugged and kissed me on the cheek and said, "You did good, kid. I'm proud of you." What I remember most about that fight was the sadness I felt afterward, as though I had made a mistake by beating him. A huge but invisible weight of responsibility had shifted from Holes' shoulders to mine. In my heart, I knew that I was now a better fighter, but worse, so did he. It wasn't luck or a fluke. Holes just couldn't surprise me anymore. I also realized that I would never have to beat him again to prove it.

• 58:57Jocko Willink?

  Were you bigger than him? Or you smaller than him? Are you guys about the same size?

• 59:00Speaker 01

  I was a little bigger this time, maybe five to 10 pounds heavier. He was maybe 168 pounds, and I was 74.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  No, he was 68 kilos, and I was 74 kilos.

• 59:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:23Jocko Willink?

  You get your black belt.

• 59:26Jocko Willink?

  And this is always an interesting thing when you get that edge on someone that's been beating you for your whole life.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Yes, it was a very special feeling because I have him as my idol, as my coach, as my training partner. And, but at the same time, my goal was beating him because no other way. I have to change this pattern. I have to be the best one. So my goal as a student is to be better than my teacher. And when I achieved that, I felt like somehow was not exactly only positive the way I felt because I put him in a bad side, in a bad mood or feeling. He was not exactly...

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  The best anymore, he's number two. So it was a sad thing for me and was a happy thing for me, but my, my, my demonstration of love and respect was after that, even though we going in every tournament and I go in his, I go in my way division, he go in his way division and we go both for open. And before that, we closed the bracket because we could not fight before the finals. Because we're representing the same brand. So in the finals, I always gave it to him, the victory, not fighting him. And even after I, I could be able to beat him, I still doing this for life, you know, until he pass out.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  I pass away because, you know, I felt like he was my, I honor his representativity on me and so he was gonna be number one and I'm number two. For the world, I can be throw the, through, through the lions before him. But in the official tournaments where he goes with me, I never gonna be capable in my honor and my integrity to, to take his medal, you know, or to fight him or to tell him, I'm better than him. So he was the champion of the family until he pass away and after he pass, I take, I take the, the responsibility for myself.

• 1:01:47Jocko Willink?

  It's a, when, when I train with people and I'll be training with them for a long time and, you know, sometimes they'll say, "One day I'm gonna get you." You know, they, they have that goal, "One day I'm gonna get you." And I always say, "Yeah, of course." And I, and I say, "Listen, jiu-jitsu works." And if you put a jiu-jitsu move on me that I didn't expect or I didn't see coming,

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Will happen.

• 1:02:09Jocko Willink?

  What's gonna happen? I'm gonna tap. That's the way it works. Jiu-jitsu works. It's a beautiful thing.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  That's what we train for.

• 1:02:21Jocko Willink?

  You have a situation here where you had a little lesson learned. You said, "I was growing so dominant in jiu-jitsu competition that when I stepped on the mat and the referee said, 'Go,' the crowd would begin to chant, '10, 9, 8, 7, 6.' If I didn't submit my opponent in 10 seconds, they would start counting again. Even as a black belt, my only jiu-jitsu fight that went more than five minutes came after the judges robbed my brother Hoiler of a win against one of my cousin Carlson's students. My final match was in the open class was against Carlson's 240-pound heavyweight. I was so upset that I decided that I wanted to make him suffer. After I got him down, I mounted and just put unbearable pressure on him. I was not fighting my actual opponent.

• 1:03:03Jocko Willink?

  Instead, I was trying to punish Carlson for robbing Hoiler." I'm glad I wasn't that guy. "Everything I was doing was fueled by ego and anger, and I was working against myself because my emotions were negating all my precision and martial artistry. I was spinning my wheels as if I were on ice going nowhere. I was just blindly punishing him until holes yelled, '8 minutes are up.' I was shocked to see... I was shocked because that was too long. I snapped to my senses, got mad at myself, and easily submitted him. Afterward, I realized that I never wanted to fight like this again because I was putting emotion before reason. Although nobody else realized it at the time, I learned an important lesson that day,

• 1:03:46Jocko Willink?

  that it was a mistake to fight emotionally because emotions blinded me."

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Yes. I think the biggest experience I have in that matter was on my first fight with Zulu, which I was 19, he was 30-something years old. He had 120 fights and only four draws and 120 victories. So he was a professional, valleto guy, no-holds-bar fighter. And I was just, you know, watching my dad talking on the phone with his manager, trying to set up somebody to fight him. And my dad said, "No, man, I'm sorry, Valdemar. I don't have nobody to fight this guy because, you know, we are..." And then I, I catch the, the conversation. I said, "Dad, please pull me in,

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  pull me in, pull me in." And he, he look at me and said, "Yes, Valdemar, I have here my son, who is nineteen years old. He may wanna try." And Valdemar said, "No, master, no, no, he's not, he's not something to try out for a kid. The guy is tough, he's mean." And as my, as the guy tried to talk my dad out of the deal, my dad got emotionally involved. "But I think I'm gonna put him because I thought I like to try the kid, see how goes." So, and then set up a fight for me with this Zulu guy. And I went to, to the, his state, the, the capital. And in the day of the fight,

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  we engage. He has this kinda typical move he does, which goes and put one hand between your legs and, and connect you and then lift everything and throw you back on the floor. Some kinda kataguruma in a, in his style.

• 1:05:26Jocko Willink?

  How much, how much Zulu weigh?

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  About two hundred thirty.

• 1:05:30Jocko Willink?

  And he's just a beast of a human. You said he had a hundred and something fights?

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Yes. He was just unorthodox. He has no sharp techniques, but he was just a, a very intuitive animal, very flexible, very strong, very mean, you know? A very complete fighter for the time.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  And I was, start to dealing with him and as he go for his straight move...

• 1:05:55Jocko Willink?

  And this is, well, sorry for interrupting you, but this is your first actual fight that you're ever gonna fight?

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  My first valleto do mat, yes, officially on the ring.

• 1:06:03Jocko Willink?

  And, and how many people are at this fight?

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  About ten thousand, five to ten thousand people.

• 1:06:10Jocko Willink?

  And you have the Gracie name...

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:12Jocko Willink?

  ...at stake.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:14Jocko Willink?

  You're nineteen years old.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:16Jocko Willink?

  How much do you weigh?

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  About one, I mean seventy-four kilos.

• 1:06:20Jocko Willink?

  So...

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  About one...

• 1:06:22Jocko Willink?

  One seventy something like that?

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, seventy-five.

• 1:06:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Okay. So, the stage is set.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  He coming, he coming for the trade move. I kind of understood why he coming. I hold his, his shoulders. And his head was down, so I hit him with my knee. The strongest hit, the solid hit I could imagine possibly give to somebody. And after the hit, boom, he just lift his, he lift his head, shook his face like spit a tooth.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  And come like nothing happened and I get scared, you know, I get wow, man. I thought I gonna kill the guy and he just shook his hand, his head. So we start to back to the engagement and he throw me out of the ring. I went back again and get him in the back many times, hit him with the elbow. He throw himself out of the ring and we start again and again. After the first round, ten minutes, we stop and I was dead tired. So I was crawling to my corner and when I get the corner, I said, Dad, I quit, I cannot go anymore, I'm exhausted. Dad not even hear me, he said, oh, he's worse than you, you're gonna, now you're gonna kick his ass, you're gonna do it.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  I said, Dad, I'm serious, I start to argue with my dad, trying to plead my case, you know, I said, hey, man, I'm exhausted. Cut the, and he not even listen to me, he start to, okay, and then my brother halt throw me a bucket with water and ice on my head. I go, and then the bell rings and I back to the action. And like my dad said, three minutes after he was sleeping, I could get his back, he was tired, I choke him out.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  And then I realized my worst enemy was my mind. Was the worst enemy I could ever have is somebody inside your brain telling you, it's time to quit, you're not gonna handle, the guy is strong. So I realized if I was trusting myself, I was done.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  So I could not have this enemy, this powerful enemy, hanging on my head all the time. So I decide now I will fight to die, but I'm not gonna quit anymore. Quitting is not my word anymore, either I'm gonna die or I gonna win, but no quitting.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  So was maybe the biggest lesson in action I have ever have because I understand how your a poor mindset can can really kill you from within. And I understood that and from that on, I was just putting all my mental, spiritual, physical in one direction and the other direction is just only death. No quitting, no, I think I'm done, nothing like this. So my brothers has the the idea of if something happened, throw the towel because I'm not gonna quit. So and that's kind of make me happy because I become a warrior in a in a good direction.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  And thanks my dad for don't let me quit. Sometimes a bad show can kill you, a bad coach can kill you if he he accept your your moments, you know, so you have to transcend that kind of panicking and and just back to normal and regain confidence. And after I learned that, I was completely different guy, a much more superior entity in terms of putting everything together, all my package was together always and I felt like was a blessed by that.

• 1:09:59Jocko Willink?

  Now, I was gonna ask you how you changed or what did you learn from that fight from a training perspective? What did you do different? But I know that this is around this time, is this when you got way into into doing yoga with Orlando Connie?

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Yes, I was a little before that.

• 1:10:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Because since my 12 year old, where I rolled myself on the carpet, feeling the the the panicking, the claustrophobic feeling was always. Close to me a little bit. I always been an athlete, I always run forever, training forever, and young guy. It was always been natural for me, being competitive and fight and do whatever. But at one point, if you don't have, if you don't master breathing, when you get too tired, you get confused, you get your mind fading away. It's not enough oxygen in your brain and your muscles for you to feel clear mind and still getting tired and still sharp.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  So I felt like was always a lack of this, you know, this profound understanding. And one day, because my mother, he pulled me to do yoga at one point, and I didn't, I stopped because I didn't like it. Transcendental meditation, which make you sit and repeat a mantra for a while and start to open your mind. I also end up by sleeping almost all the time and not... Didn't adapt much by that, so it was not for me. And then, a friend recommended me to go to Orlando Canny, which was a Army Pentathlon Champion. He was also a yoga teacher.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  And it was start to develop some kind of exercising with movement and breathing, which can be very helpful. So I went there to this guy, and he knows my dad, he's a very friendly guy. He said, "Okay, so goes to the class and practices with us." So I start to go into his class with other people and start to practice. And right on the second time, he said, "Hixon, you're very flexible, you're very strong, you're in the top high athlete. I'd like to teach you personally because I can improve your speed, I can improve you personally more than the class." I said, "Great." So I start to doing with him a couple of times a week. Only privately with him and his place which is mirrors.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  And one side has the wall and has the wood attached on the wall for you to hang. So from here to the roof, always woods kinda. So you play different games and you, sometimes you imitate a monkey, sometimes you imitate a eagle, a crocodile or whatever. So you play animals and moves and breeds. And he start to teach me to work the diaphragmatic breathing. And that's going for a month, for two months, almost three months on that. One day, we about to initiate the practice. He said, "Hixon." I mean, the phone, the bell rings, the phone rings. And he said, "You keep doing because I'm gonna take the phone and come back."

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  So for the first time, I was doing the exercising without a leader. I was following, I was improvising myself to doing my things and breathing. And doing my things and breathing, breathing. And things going and then eventually, I opened my eyes, like wake up. And I was hanging on the top, on the top wall, on the top wood in the wall side, hanging like a monkey, dripping sweat. And I opened my eyes and I kinda start to understand where I was. I kinda wake up and I saw Orlando City, I mean, standing up on the corner.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  And, uh, and he said to me, kinda crying a little bit. He said, "Hixon, uh, I don't think you need me anymore."

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Because you achieved the highest level. I said, "Why you say that, master? Why you say that?" He said, "Because you're here for an hour and fifteen minutes. And I call you a few times, I try to get your attention and you cannot even hear me. You're completely in a meditative state of mind, empty mind, doing your things, breathing, moving. And, uh, and now you just wake up. Now you just put your self-conscious again. Before was just reflexes and subconscious mind. And I realized I could achieve meditative state of mind, empty mind, through that practice." So through that practice which I start to do in my academy, on the beach,

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  I start to understand breathing in a much more profound way. Not only to help me mechanically, not only to help me to to uh

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  charge myself and rebuild my energy from the oxygen standpoint, but also to give me some kind of meditative state of mind, empty mind, be tranquil, be able to control my emotions. So this practice become a central part of my life because by breathing, I could be able to not only have a better uh functional strength and ability to recover faster from tiredness, but also what is very interesting is the lungs. Because the heart and the brain are the only organs who are able to give and receive information.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  So sometimes you can get affected by reading a bad email. You can get stressed, immediately you get affected. Sometimes you see something which is relevant, somebody you love or somebody touch you, you feel immediately emotionally by the heart. It's not, they can get information and they can send information for you and said, "I'm not happy." "Take care of me, I'm not happy. Take care of me, I'm very exhausted." So you're tired, your heart can tell you. Or your brain, "Oh, I'm confused, I'm stressed, I'm afraid, I'm out of my game." So the brain and the heart are there to be controlled by the lungs. The lungs are the most fast, the most effective way for you to deal directly with your brain and with your heart.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  For example, if you hear, you just read a bad email and you stress.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  If I keep that routine for 3 minutes, no stress can keep on, because I have to control.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  I have to integrate motion and movement, breathing and movement together. And as I start to play on this,

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  nothing can be like, I cannot thinking about all the time to travel, I have to go to San Diego tomorrow, I have to give my daughter whatever it is. You have to refresh, because the way you breathe, you can really clean your mind.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  The way you breathe, you can lower your heart rates. For fighting, for example, I was doing, like I get an event, 3 hours before the event, my fight. So I go to the locker room, sleep for hour and a half, hour forty minutes. By will, I just breathing, my relaxed breathing, I can sleep deeply. Wake up 1 hour before the fight, warm myself up for forty-five minutes, putting my heart rates to 160, 140, to really break the sweat and make sure I'm cool. And then sit for 5 minutes and bring my heart rate to 65 heartbeats a minute. So I was deeply hot, ready to go,

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  with my heartbeat, tum tum, tum tum. So I see my other opponent and the other side of the ring jumping around, he's already 85, 90. So when I engage, I engage not to, to, to make some kind of nice uh rhythm. I try to, to improve, press the gas and let's go for power. So we do everything we can do. So if I'm struggle, you cannot rest. You have to keep up with me. So when I'm eighty, you a hundred ten. When I'm a hundred ten, you a hundred fifty. When we a hundred, when I'm a hundred fifty, you already trying to.

• 1:19:17Jocko Willink?

  I had a heart attack.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you start to regroup and start to seeking for air. And that's time normally where mistakes happen and I really make the, the, close the deal. So breathing, becoming my best friend, not only to control my emotions, to keep my, my, my heart rate and the best performance to recoup. So to be controlling panic, controlling emotions, become calm to strategize, everything coming from this capacity. Within to control yourself by breathing. So I felt like was a great addition to my, my practices and makes a huge change in my life.

• 1:19:59Jocko Willink?

  This is something that I, I connected the dots on a few years ago. Because people would ask me, I would say, listen, when things are going bad, you have to stay calm, you have to, you have to learn how to, you know, control your emotions and, and don't get all excited about something when things are going wrong. And people would say, well, you know, how do you do it? And one of the things that I realized that I would do is, so in the military, you know, you have a radio with you. And when you, when you talk on the radio, everybody can hear you. And in the military, it's very frowned upon if you get on the radio and you are emotional, if you scream, ah, help over here. If you panic like this.

• 1:20:41Jocko Willink?

  So every time I ever talked on the radio, my goal was to never sound panicked, never sound emotional, no matter what was going on, sound very calm and cool. So that means whenever things were going crazy and I was about to have to get on the radio, what would I have to do?

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Breathe.

• 1:21:00Jocko Willink?

  I had to breathe. I had to take a breath. And, and so it's the same thing. It's just that something that I was doing so that I could, you know, I'd be, oh, there's got stuff going on. Okay, I'm about to talk on the radio.

• 1:21:12Jocko Willink?

  Hey, this is Jaco. We need about ten more guys down to this building right now. And that, me taking control of my, of my breath, also would help me get into a controlled emotional state where I'm not losing my mind.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  Yes. That's very powerful.

• 1:21:31Jocko Willink?

  From jujitsu?

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  Yes, because you know, the, the, the breathing system, or because you stay seven days without food, you stay three days without water, five minutes without oxygen, you're already dead.

• 1:21:44Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  So the efficiency of the breathing system is very needed and people take this for granted. They don't, "Oh, I, I, I born, I get slapped on the butt."

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  And you alive and well and you can live, like, if you don't train in breathing, it's like your biceps, it's like your, your, your strategies, your techniques, your jujitsu, if you don't train in the breathing system, you're gonna work with forty percent less the capa- the capabilities to really refresh yourself, hyperventilate, bringing yourself to a next level of understanding. Because if you get tired and you don't know how to hyperventilate, you get tired and your mind start to phase, to fade a little bit. You start to making poor decisions, you start to get completely off your game because it's not oxygen enough for the brain and the, and the body.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  But if you know how to hyperventilate, you can have cramps, acid lactic all over, you cannot even move well, very tired, but your brain is still sharp, you can see details, you can see the girl smile at you, you can see the super boy, you can see everything you wanna see and talk because your brain is still fresh. And that's the capacity you have to learning how to hyperventilate and use the diaphragmatic breathing, which impro- improves your life like a ton.

• 1:23:07Jocko Willink?

  That's awesome stuff. Going through the book, I mean, at this time, you also, you had met your, you had met Kim?

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:23:17Jocko Willink?

  You, she got pregnant with your first son?

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:23:20Jocko Willink?

  At this time?

• 1:23:24Jocko Willink?

  And she was what, some kind of a model, some kind of a surfer girl?

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  She was the first sponsored surfer girl in Brazil. She was doing hang gliding. She was a top model for, for fashion. She do some, some modeling for, for soap operas and stuff. So she was pretty, pretty hot girl at the time.

• 1:23:49Jocko Willink?

  Um, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here. So you, you have your first son. It says the year 1982 was a bittersweet one. I was now the father of the son I had always dreamed of, but I also suffered a devastating loss. In June, Holes and his family went for a family weekend in the mountains. Holes noticed his old hang glider was strapped to the roof of a car in front of his hotel. It turned out that the owner was a friend of a friend. Even though my brother had promised his wife, Angela, that he would quit hang gliding after he'd had several close calls and friends had died in accidents. He made arrangements to go the next day. The following day, the conditions were very bad because there was no wind.

• 1:24:32Jocko Willink?

  If Holes got his mind set on something, however, there was no saying no to him. Although the owner of his old hang glider did not want to go because he thought it was too dangerous, Holes talked him into letting him use it for just one flight. My brother ran down the ramp, launched, initially got some lift, but then began to spiral and he hit the ground 90 yards from the ramp. His friend ran over, ran into the overgrown forest and found my brother hanging upside down with his eyes wide open. Although he looked perfectly fine, his neck was broken and Holes was dead. I received the news over the phone and it took only seconds to know that my life would never be the same.

• 1:25:15Jocko Willink?

  Not only had I lost an idol, a teacher and my favorite brother, but I was now officially the family champion. Now I would have to answer all the challenges and lead the next generation of Gracie fighters. I was now my family's last line of defense.

• 1:25:32Jocko Willink?

  His death affected our family dynamics dramatically. Holes had brought the two sides together because he was Carlos's son, but raised by Alio. He acted as a bridge between the two sides of the family, but now that bridge was gone forever.

• 1:25:52Jocko Willink?

  Tragic.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:25:55Jocko Willink?

  I know, uh, my, my, my original teacher Fabio Santos. Yeah, he, he was originally a holes student as well.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Yes, he was.

• 1:26:04Jocko Willink?

  And, and, uh, I was, he, the way he talked about holes was always, uh, just elevated beyond belief.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  Yes. Fabio has a passion for holes, not only for the teachings and being Jiu-Jitsu guy and inspire him to, to, to do the best. But they also have a lot in common, you know, they, they go out together, they, so they're good friends, so it was devastating for Fabio.

• 1:26:30Jocko Willink?

  At this time, on top of all this, you start to have this, uh, this kind of famous or infamous rivalry with, uh, luta livre fighters.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:40Jocko Willink?

  And had some, um, had some, uh, interesting, interesting things going on there. Again, this, this book is so filled with so many of these details that people will be interested in. Meanwhile, you, you, you have a, a daughter, right?

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:56Jocko Willink?

  Your first daughter. And then a second daughter.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:27:00Jocko Willink?

  So now you're, now you're up to three kids and again, these are all things that are detailed in the book and all kinds of interesting stories around that. You also say the Gracie clan continued to, to divide along bloodlines. While Horian was trying to establish our martial arts in the United States, Carlos Gracie Jr. was going in a different direction in Brazil and primarily focusing on a competitive form of Jiu-Jitsu that would become known as sport Jiu-Jitsu.

• 1:27:27Jocko Willink?

  And this is what a thing I appreciated. You said, "I had little interest in the politics of Jiu-Jitsu. I had three children to support. I wanted to fight Valet Tudo professionally and the only place to do that outside of Brazil was in Japan."

• 1:27:42Jocko Willink?

  So at this point, Orion had moved to America.

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:27:45Jocko Willink?

  And, and you're looking at, um, possibly fighting in Japan?

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  Yes, going with my friend to Japan to see if I can find some, I was having a letter of introduction to Antonio Nocke, which was ambassador in Japan, very famous wrestler. And I tried to find a, pick a fight through him in Japan. So I was there, but I was, you know, wasn't, I could not achieve my goal and back to Brazil.

• 1:28:17Jocko Willink?

  And, and then you have, Crone is born?

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:28:20Jocko Willink?

  And now things are really, seem to be heating up with the Luta Livre Academy. And there's, uh, at one point, um, you guys drove over to the Luta Livre Academy.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Academy, yes.

• 1:28:36Jocko Willink?

  You say here, "We walked in and 20 or 30 fighters stopped training and stared at us. Marco Huas walked over and greeted us. Everyone was very respectful at first. I told Huas that I heard he wanted to fight me and I was there to fight him. He said that he wanted to fight, but that would, that he would need four months to prepare. This made me feel that he was more interested in capitalizing on the fight than proving himself, which pissed me off. I was the one who walked into that lion's den, ready and willing to fight for nothing but honor. It started to get heated and my dad stepped between us to calm things down." And then you have Hugo Duarte, he's kind of stepped in and, and, you know, saying, "Hey, I'll fight you too."

• 1:29:17Jocko Willink?

  And then you said, "I had a friend tell Hugo to meet me at Pepe Beach on Saturday. I got sick the week of the fight and was thinking about postponing it until my messenger called and said, 'It's all set. Hugo will be there on Saturday.' Now I knew there was no backing out, so I started to eat well and get ready."

• 1:29:37Jocko Willink?

  You get to the beach.

• 1:29:40Jocko Willink?

  You get to the beach, I walk up to Hugo and slapped him in the face. He took off his shirt and sandals and we began to wrestle on our feet until I was able to drag him to the ground. Hugo used my ponytail to control my head and stood back up. He fell on top of me, then I swept him, but my knee got buried in the sand and Hugo escaped. We stood back up and smashed into a vendor's stand and we went down on the ground again with the crowd surging all around us. I mounted again, gif wrapped him and began to punch him in the face at will. There was nothing he could do to stop the punches. When I asked Hugo if he wanted to give up, he said, "You'll have to kill me." So I kept blasting him with punches and elbows. After a few more blows to the face, he changed his mind and said, "Okay, stop." I let him go.

• 1:30:26Jocko Willink?

  That's another one you can find on YouTube, that whole fight. Probably has a billion views.

• 1:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit, a week later, I was sleeping when my friend pulled up in front of the apartment on his motorcycle and screamed, "Hixon, those motherfuckers invaded your dad's academy."

• 1:30:48Jocko Willink?

  Boy, that seems like a bad move. It seems like a real bad move.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  Yes, but it was crazy. They kinda... Because they coming for revenge. Hugo was prepared for a next fight. He was not happy with what happened on the beach. So as they walking, maybe about three or four miles walk from a different area of the city. And some of the guys who are with him are coming from the ghettos, you know? Like gang banger. So they coming with like the face masks on the face, guns, knives, bottles, I mean, all crazy type of, not only fighters, but also gang bangers.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  So when I getting to the school, when I about, I was getting in my friend's motorcycle. And he coming to us, so I was going back to the school on his motorcycle. And I saw about 200 people in front of the school, like half of the street already was full of guys, so the traffic was jammed. So I get into with my bike, with my friend's bike inside the crowd.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  And immediately go up to the stairs on the, to going to the school. And I meet Hugo coming down with my father and other guys, like about twenty Luta Livre guys, the students, so we all meet in the middle of the stairs. So I said, "Hugo, let's go down and talk and fight." So we went down to the parking lot. And I, and I call him with his coach, and another guy who fought Hojler afterwards, Eugenio Tadeu. They went to a corner and my father and we talk. And I said to Hugo, "Hey, man, I respect you. I see you come here for a revenge and I accept that.

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  But you brought a lot of bad guys, a lot of guys who has no integrity, no fighters. If somebody touch the fight before it's over, you're gonna end up on the ditch sometime. I promise you, you're gonna be on the ditch very soon." "No, no, it's fight for man, man to man, me and you, nobody gonna touch the fight, it's just me." "Okay, so let's go back to the crowd and let's fight." So, and then we kinda create a circle on the concrete, and crowds around, me and him. And I felt like from the first, from the previous fight, he felt like he was missing the stand-up game, he was missing punch me in the face. Somebody told him, maybe, "Oh, you should start fighting him, punch him, don't grapple him, just..."

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  So I felt in his stand, he was looking for to hit me hard, you know? And I play dummy, I play a kinda little unaware, and expect his attack. When he coming with a direct, I deflected, grab his body, lift, throw him on the ground, and bang him on the concrete mount, and start to punch him on the head, he protect his face. I put my hands on the, on top of his head and push his head against the floor a couple of times, and he soft up a little bit. And, uh, and then he said, "Quid, stop, stop, stop, stop." So I stop it, stand up. He stood up and said, "Okay, man, I respect you, it's all cool for us now." Said, "Okay, man, I respect you too, you have a potential, you know, you can become a great fighter."

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  So we shook hands, and as we start to... To finish that, to terminate our problem, Hojler start to fight the Eugenio Tadeo, right there, you know? And the confusion steals, and then the police coming. And one guy, a police guy, very short guy with a cigarette and moustache, I cannot forget this guy. He got a gun machine and he shoot on the roof.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  So the bullets touch the roof and coming down, hit somebody on the leg and stuff. And I, now I wanna see who wanna fight, and the guy was very funny, man. So and then Hojler's fight was postponed for next week. They fought again with the same guy. But my deal with Hugo was resolved.

• 1:35:00Jocko Willink?

  How the fight with Hojler go?

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  Was a draw, because we put ten guys from Luta Livre, ten guys from Jiu-Jitsu, and an auditorium, closed doors.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  And Hojler will fight the guy to the end, right? So and then they start to fight. Hojler get punched in the face and lost a tooth.

• 1:35:25Speaker 01

  And then the fight continues, Hojler control the guy. He put the guy in a bad position, but not submitting. And the guy said, "Okay, I wanna quit."

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  "If I was no better, if I was smarter," I said, "Okay, stop, Hojler win." But I was pissed and was, wanna see Hojler revenge the punch. Said, "Okay, Hojler, you just stop the fight if you wanna, if you don't wanna, you keep fighting. Keep beating this guy." And the guy from Luta Livre stood up and said, "Pô, but that's not it." I push him, I push him down, like, "Sit down here and shut up." The guy was acquitted, you know, he was not a tough, brave guy, so he don't wanna fight. Said, "Pô, Rick, so why you did that?" Said, "No, they gonna fight until the end." So they keep fighting. And eventually, Hojler get tired, and both get tired, so they agreed to stop. "We wanna stop, okay, stop." So they stop, and was a draw.

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  Was, I should stop the fight sooner and make Hojler victory, but it was not exactly, for me, it was not the politics, or the, was just, you know, the guy just reserve some punches in the face, and Hojler missed to get it. So for me, was a missing point, what I wanna see happen, and didn't happen.

• 1:36:37Jocko Willink?

  Man, Hoiler, I trained with Hoiler and he helped us out at our academy here a lot, man. What a great freaking jiu-jitsu player he is.

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  He's a warrior.

• 1:36:47Jocko Willink?

  For sure, 100%.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:36:50Jocko Willink?

  It's kind of cool, you know, you talked a little bit about forgiveness already today, but you say this in the book, "Looking back today on the fights between jiu-jitsu and luta libre, I see them very differently. At the time, we were all young men full of aggression and testosterone. The rivalry between our two martial arts made all of us better fighters, steel sharpened steel. We should all be grateful for the fact that we always had the ability to fight one another respectfully. Although there were black eyes, bloody noses, and broken teeth, our fights were always one-on-one and were governed by honor and mutual respect. It was part of the natural competitive process. It was no accident that Marco Huas, Hugo Duarte, Denison Maia, Eugenio Tadu, my brothers and some of my cousins, and I would all go on to fight mixed martial arts professionally

• 1:37:35Jocko Willink?

  in America and Japan." Definitely a good attitude to have.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:41Jocko Willink?

  Competitive, but respectful against these other guys.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  Yes. It's an honor between fighters, you know, it's not something we've... You have to have integrity, you have to have respect. That's part of the code, you know? It's something I highly appreciate it.

• 1:37:58Jocko Willink?

  The next chapter in this book is "Coming to America." "You say, 'There was little left for me to prove in Brazil at that point. America was a bigger stage and more opportunity, and I thought my kids would have a brighter future there. When I decided to move to the US, Kim and I had been separated for over a year and a half. I went to see her and told her I would like her to come with me and the kids and give our relationship another chance. She agreed to my offer. I wanted to make a fresh start.'"

• 1:38:24Jocko Willink?

  "While I might have been the best fighter in the Gracie family, Horion was by far the best promoter of Gracie jiu-jitsu. He was a born salesman with a great product to sell, and nothing helped spread jiu-jitsu more than the portable video camera. After Horion came to America, he began challenging fighters from other styles and videotaping the bouts. Footage from these and other fights transformed what would have been urban myths into documented truth. In 1988, Horion put together a video called 'Gracie in Action', which he advertised in the back of martial arts magazines and sold by mail order." There you go. That's

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the beginning.

• 1:39:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's the beginning right there. That's when the word started to get out.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:07Jocko Willink?

  Because you hear it, but to see it is something totally different.

• 1:39:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:11Jocko Willink?

  I mean, that's a brilliant marketing move. Hey, come and fight. Anybody wants to come and fight, come and fight. We're gonna video it and then we're gonna show it to the world.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39:20Jocko Willink?

  That's a brilliant move.

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  I think so too. He was a genius on that.

• 1:39:24Jocko Willink?

  I know, uh, we, Fabio, when I trained at Fabio's, he had, uh, he had some of those videos that weren't even in the videos. And he would show them to us like on a special Friday night. We'd get to watch some, some real Gracie in action videos. People's arms getting broken because they didn't want to tap.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:39:45Jocko Willink?

  You go on here. Our students regularly fought and won challenge matches against other fighters and then converted them into students. Chuck Norris, for one. The actor and American martial arts icon was not only a great supporter, but was also a dedicated student who eventually earned his black belt. In the 1980s, Norris took a vacation in Rio. Everywhere he went, he heard about Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and the exploits of my family. Norris contacted my dad and arranged to have a private lesson. After I grappled with him, my dad told Norris to mount him. And when he, he did, said, okay, Chuck, punch me. The American hesitated, but my dad was, was in his seventies by then, but Elio kept insisting. Finally, Norris drew back his arm to punch, but before he could throw one, the old man had choked him out.

• 1:40:29Jocko Willink?

  Chuck left Brazil impressed by the Gracie family and invited us to come to America and hold a seminar for his students.

• 1:40:37Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Horion and the actor had a disagreement over money. This is after one of those seminars. Chuck Norris hired our cousins, the Machado brothers, Carlos Higgin, Hajar, Jean Jacques and Jean to teach him. The Machados came from a more stable, upper middle-class background than we did. Their father was a judge and they did not grow up in Rio. Not only were they much more reasonable than Horion, they were great Jiu-Jitsu fighters and teachers in their own right. My cousin Jean Jacques Machado is an inspiring person who went on to become one of the greatest Jiu-Jitsu teachers in America. Born with only a thumb and part of a pinky on one of his hands, Jean Jacques learned how to adapt and improvise better than anyone I had ever seen. His Jiu-Jitsu is both intensely personal and creative.

• 1:41:26Jocko Willink?

  So you had the Machado brothers now teaching Chuck Norris?

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:41:29Jocko Willink?

  But you, did you, there's a, there's a video of you going against Chuck Norris, isn't there?

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  It's a little mistake on that video. That video in the seminar, he's a very strong, tall, blonde guy, who was Chuck Norris, good student, tough fighter. It was not Chuck at that time.

• 1:41:45Jocko Willink?

  Got it.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  I sparred with Chuck, I teach him a few times and I sparred with him a few times, so he knows our power, but the training was not with him at the time.

• 1:41:59Jocko Willink?

  You, when you showed up in, in America, you didn't even speak, you didn't speak any English, did you?

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:42:05Jocko Willink?

  Where did Horion learn to speak English?

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  He come, prior to that, he come a few times to America in the 70s and stuff, so he, he love here, the culture and he start to learning and, and working different jobs and try to make Hollywood, work as an actor, as a stuntman, so he was, and he likes to speak the language, so he, he learned very quickly and very effectively.

• 1:42:32Jocko Willink?

  Fast forward a little bit. Even though Aleo wanted Horion to lead the Gracies in America, it was easier said than done. There were just too many of us moving in different directions and Horion's efforts to control the Klan backfired. After he threatened to sue members of the Gracie family, whom he had grown up with on the mats for using their own Gracie last name, many family members surrendered. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu got renamed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I believe that if my brother had allowed everyone to use our family name, our martial art would still be called Gracie Jiu-Jitsu today, and perhaps it'd be even bigger than it is. So I, I wanted to mention that part in the book because I think Echo Charles and I get asked at least 10 times a week,

• 1:43:15Jocko Willink?

  you know, should I train Gracie Jiu-Jitsu or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? What's the difference between the two? Is there a difference between the two? And I think you summed it up right there pretty well.

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  I think we start doing jiu-jitsu in the protocol where you have to learn self-defense. You don't have, you're not required to use collar belts, no collar belts at that time. So a student can be 10 years a student and still white belt. And the instructor will be forever a dark blue belt. So that was the reference. And then in 65, my father start to create the federation. Because the demand is grand, big, and a lot of people try to training. So he start to creating a rules for a federation for the sport jiu-jitsu. And that's start the difference between the collar belts.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  Because if you 10 years white belt, you're gonna be better than a six months white belt. And if it's not fair for them to compete. So let's make a blue belt, purple belt to create the reference. Not only for practice, but for competition. Because a new warrior is not gonna be a old warrior. So let's make different rankings. And that was the process for colors belts. Was the evaluation of levels and stuff. So with this, jiu-jitsu becomes also a sport jiu-jitsu. Has points, mount, position, throw. And has the self-defense aspect which lead you to a more open mind situation.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  If somebody coming with a knife, if two against one. If the guy coming to punch me, there's no punches in jiu-jitsu. So you start to open your mind to possibilities for unpredictable situations. Against a knife, against a punch, with fight with glove, fight without. So we start to become a more open mind.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  So with the coming to America, especially after Hoist kick ass on the UFC, people start to say, "Wow, what this kid did with the gi is impressive." So people wanna learn Jiu-Jitsu, but they also wanna compete in Jiu-Jitsu. And competition becomes bigger than the actual platform for learning Jiu-Jitsu with self-defense. The protocols, the technical protocols for spending technically the Jiu-Jitsu are not there. It's just Brazilian comedians with experience of fighters to experience how to fight, and they come here and display and fight. So in many Gracie Jiu-Jitsu academies, or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academies,

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  people teach how to pass a guard, people teach how to choke or to go a foot lock, but they don't teach gun retention, harassment control, knife attacks, and fighting without gloves, fight, striking. So because that lack of information, competition Jiu-Jitsu becomes much bigger than the self-defense Jiu-Jitsu. And now anyone can do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, can fight, can pass guard, can do sweeps. But not anyone knows the total Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, which is self-defense and more elaborate techniques for self-defense,

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  like the law enforcement programs or situations where it requires more techniques. So that's basically, today is a big difference. When people refers Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, they go more towards the traditional aspect of the art. And when they're talking about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, they really recognize as a competition. But they're the same with lack of information, you know, in both sides. Because sometimes now, you see self-defense academies who have no fighting skills. They more like self-defense. And the other academies, they have fighting skills, but they have zero self-defense. So it's important a movement to bring those together

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  for the perfect academy become a center of knowledge and practice for competition, not only competition or not only self-defense.

• 1:47:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I don't know if this is positive or negative, but I just, I just refer to all of this as jiu-jitsu now.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:43Jocko Willink?

  I don't even, I don't even say Brazilian, I don't say Gracie, but it's just to me, jiu-jitsu is all of it.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:47:50Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's not just me, I should say. That's when I talk to everybody in the jiu-jitsu community, they just say jiu-jitsu. So you used to have to say, well, it's different. This is Gracie jiu-jitsu or this is Brazilian jiu-jitsu because you had Japanese jiu-jitsu and all these other things. Now jiu-jitsu is what your dad made.

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  My, my federation is Jiu-Jitsu Global Federation. It's no BJJ or no self, the all Gracie is a BJJ, is a Jiu-Jitsu.

• 1:48:14Jocko Willink?

  Jiu-Jitsu, yeah.

• 1:48:16Speaker 02

  Do you think that some of the confusion also comes from, because you have like Gracie Academy, you have Gracie Baja, you have Gracie Humaita, and there's so many like officially named academies and, and places that have Gracie in it?

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Yes. And your question is, if I feel?

• 1:48:33Speaker 02

  What? Do, do you think that that adds to the confusion, you know, for people? So to, so we end up, how, how Jaco said, we end up eventually just calling it jiu-jitsu? Do you think that that added to the, like, the confusion of the, the separation?

• 1:48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Right now, the situation becomes very, very, uh, complex because the Brazilian jiu-jitsu states for tournaments and competition. The Gracie jiu-jitsu is more traditional and jiu-jitsu embraces everything. I believe talking about jiu-jitsu is the perfect way now to deal with the situation because it's, it's just jiu-jitsu. And, and how you practice will determine, make the determination if you're gonna be an MMA fighter, if you're gonna be a police officer, if you're gonna be just a, a practitioner, or if you wanna compete.

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  So all this gets into the jiu-jitsu category, which I believe now is from here to the future becomes jiu-jitsu.

• 1:49:36Speaker 02

  Jiu-jitsu. Do you, do you find, or do you know anything about like, Gracie, Gracie Baja comes off as like one that they focus heav- heavy on competition?

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  Is, is that, do you think that that's the case?

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Yes, because Carlos Gracie Jr., which is the president of the IBJJF, felt like more he feeds the tournaments with his students.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  Better for him as a prophet, better for him as a grow in the politics of jiu-jitsu. So, he's emphasizing the competition element. And creates a team around that, which is very strong, Gracie Barra. And other teams like Alliance, or Checkmate, or other teams, they're all coming in that same pattern. So it's very big, it's very good for the sport.

• 1:50:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so is there options, because that's a lot of time the question, right? Where it's like, oh, I don't know what to choose and why and all this, they just kind of want to start. But then they hear like, oh, some academies focused on sport jiu-jitsu, which might not be aligned with my interest.

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  Yes, I feel like for every jiu-jitsu practitioner today, who is blue belt, maybe a hundred give up before get the blue belt, at least.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  If you put in a perspective with jiu-jitsu, put you confronting yourself. Every time you go to the academy, you have to somehow prove yourself. Show yourself is like a tough enough, resilient enough, capable to create strategies. So it's a challenge there.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  The average jiu-jitsu academy, for every ten students who come in to try the jiu-jitsu road, eight will leave in less than six months. Because somehow, it's not only show you the techniques. I show you the techniques, you love it. And then you repeat, you love the class. At the end of the class, say, okay, Echo, sit, lay down. John, mount. John, you try to keep your position. Echo, try to escape. At this point, we unleash the wild.

• 1:52:00Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 1:52:01Speaker 01

  The wild white melts. Yes, and then that confrontation can lead to a little brute movement, a little violence, or you know, sometimes the guy is too young, too aggressive. So you're gonna deal with a beast, which you recognize as your worst nightmare. And you have to basically be comfortable, or say, "Okay, the guy kicked my ass today, I'm gonna go back there tomorrow, gonna fight again." So you have to have within your capacity to be resilient, to be tough, to be competitive. So when you have this, no matter the road, the bumpy road ahead of you, you're gonna get from jiu-jitsu everything he can give you, because you have the balls,

• 1:52:45Speaker 01

  you have the courage to go there and put yourself there to learn. Some days you're gonna get hurt, some days you're gonna hurt somebody, but that's part of the practice. For ninety percent of the people, they don't have, they get short on that capacity. So they experience jiu-jitsu and they say, "Hey, man, I love jiu-jitsu, but it's not for me. I work in computers, I'm an artist." You know, "You guys are tough, you can do..." But for me, I'm very gentle, I'm a doctor, I'm so... So they cannot involve in that practice, because in one point, it's not the practice, it's what they have in their hearts, you know, it's their courage, it's their resilience, it's their capacity to handle pain, it's competitive.

• 1:53:26Speaker 01

  So the elements are lacking, if you lack of those elements, you basically don't find yourself fitting in any academy of jiu-jitsu, because you have to roll. My idea of the future for jiu-jitsu is to create a level in jiu-jitsu where you experiment the essential sensitivities, it's a sensorial jiu-jitsu. You start to breathing, you start to feeling the leverage, you start to feeling the angles, you start to feel your invisible power, you start to feel your connection, your reflexes, your defenses.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  For the sake of knowledge, for the sake of being proved, you have a chance. But at least for the first year of practice, you should not have an opponent. You should have only training partners. This way, you're gonna have a guy who gonna experiment jiu-jitsu, who gonna love the techniques, gonna understand the strategy, and he gonna try, he gonna lost weight, he gonna get fit, he gonna get, you know, confident on his knowledge. But not to prove all the time, not to be able to go and be a fighter or competitor. This way, with the jiu-jitsu, we can help executives, you can help anyone in the full circle.

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  But if the jiu-jitsu is traditional competition, is drive you to be an athlete, sometimes you fall short, because you don't wanna be an athlete. So, the idea of give you jiu-jitsu is something, I never ever find somebody who don't like jiu-jitsu. Depends how you be introduced, depends how your practice is. So, you can appeal for the good kid, for the tough kid, for the bully, for the shy one. They all love jiu-jitsu if I don't put for the shy one the pressure for him to quit. So he gonna love to roll, he gonna love to move, he gonna love to do. For the bully, I gonna give him not only the knowledge of jiu-jitsu,

• 1:55:33Speaker 01

  but I gonna put him to compete, for him to start to respect others, and be more mellow in the attitude. So I can help the bully, I can help the shy one, I can have the soft one, the tough. They all can learn, but in a different patterns. So, what I try to accomplish, and still in my time, in my lifetime, is be able to create a program who involves anyone in the family, without the idea of prove yourself, prove you capable. Because when you put that kinda challenge, a lot of people not gonna enjoy the capacity, and the development of their selves.

• 1:56:19Jocko Willink?

  I was thinking about it from a surfing perspective because I know Echo's Echo's planning to start surfing. If I said, okay, welcome to surfing Echo, and we took him up to Mavericks in Half Moon Bay with 20-foot day.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Or Pipeline.

• 1:56:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, or Pipeline. But Mavericks even better though because it's a, whatever, 52-degree water, it's freezing cold, it's foggy, it's dark, and there's sharks. You aren't even gonna go out. You aren't even gonna paddle out.

• 1:56:46Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:56:47Jocko Willink?

  You're not even gonna paddle out. So, so that's like going to first day of jiu-jitsu and there's, you know, a 220-pound, 21-year-old blue belt that's getting ready to crush the person that just showed up that wants to learn.

• 1:57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, in some academies, you're gonna have a bad experience in the first day. And the other academies, you're being protected the first month or the second month. So you say, okay, now it's time for you one-hour class, 45 minutes, okay, now you guys stop, let's keep rolling, guys, you guys can roll. So you protect somebody from rolling for one or two months, but at one point, you have to allow him to roll.

• 1:57:23Jocko Willink?

  Right.

• 1:57:24Speaker 01

  And that, that, that drop-off will start from that point when you start to understand yourself as having to roll all the time. And that sometimes can be completely depressive for many. So, taking that challenge, taking that compromise to compete, and allow yourself to go there to enjoy yourself is, is the, is the key for bringing more people to the benefits of jiu-jitsu, because I see like jiu-jitsu can help you in a, in a, in a huge spectrum, not only help you on the mat, but outside of the mat. So sometimes, you, you, you practice jiu-jitsu, you become calmer, you become a better father, better police officer.

• 1:58:07Speaker 01

  It's just for the practice, you know, so it's a very important element of self-confidence, build self-esteem and, and, and so on. So, it's something we all can do, regardless your, your desire to compete or to really fight.

• 1:58:26Jocko Willink?

  Well, I'm glad it's going where it's going because it seems to keep growing for sure. Yes.

• 1:58:33Jocko Willink?

  You also, you know, you hear you mentioned that it not only is horny and trying to control all this stuff, but he's also got guys like Henzo coming in who's, you know, a great teacher. You said, uh, you said Henzo became a father figure to his younger brothers, Halfen High and into many others. By the time he arrived in America, he was already leading many of the younger Gracies and other friends who lacked direction. Henzo was a born fighter who, rather than getting scared in dangerous situations, got focused. Henzo would go on to be one of the most successful jujitsu teachers in America. Meanwhile, you had, uh, you say, "The West LA Karate School rented me their school on Pico Boulevard in an industrial section of Los Angeles. It was a traditional Japanese

• 1:59:15Jocko Willink?

  karate school, complete with raised wooden platform and oil painting of an old Japanese karate master. Hot in the summer and cold in the winter, my school had no sign, no parking, no windows, no showers, and it was almost impossible to find." I can vouch for that. But since I was the family champion in California was buzzing about the, about Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, it did not take long for dangerous men from all over the world to, to find this rundown karate dojo tucked away in an alley next to an auto body shop. "Most of my first generation of students were aspiring professional fighters, lifelong martial artists from other styles, surfers, or professional men of action who use physical force in their daily occupations, soldiers, cops, prison guards, and bouncers. That's

• 1:59:59Jocko Willink?

  what I mean by dangerous. Some wanted to learn while others just wanted to test their skills against us, but in the end, almost all became dedicated Gracie Jiu-Jitsu students. My Pico Academy was a neutral environment where you, you had to leave your preconceptions and prejudices in the locker room. I didn't allow it onto the mats." You certainly did not.

• 2:00:25Jocko Willink?

  This, I thought this was interesting because you, you say this about coming to America. When we first came to the US, Kim and I were working our asses off just to get by. While life on the mat was always the same, life off the mat was more difficult because America was so different from Brazil. Like the United States, Brazil had been a colony, but it was the, it was one where the Europeans at first went primarily to fill their boats with gold and emeralds and go home. In contrast, America had been a much more idealistic, had a much more idealistic constitution and grew into a more orderly society, literally. People here did things I'd never seen before. They stood in line, stopped for traffic lights and mostly obeyed the laws. These may seem like obvious requirements for a workable society, but for me, for me, it

• 2:01:10Jocko Willink?

  was a strange new world. My transition to living in American society was not always so smooth. You've got some good stories about some of the things you went through there. And it's the same for, for your kids. And you say this, moving, moving was probably hardest for Hoxton. That's your oldest son. In a few short months, he'd gone from being the prince of Rio to being just another skinny Hispanic looking kid in California public school who didn't speak English. And his being physically small compared to most of the American kids made him insecure. All the ESL classes in the world can't help that. One morning, he came out of his room to go to school with football shoulder pads under his shirt and insisted on wearing them to school. I said, no, of course, but I saw right into the source of his pain.

• 2:01:53Jocko Willink?

  In an effort to become a leader, Hoxton tried to overcompensate with aggression and become extreme, and became extremely reckless in order to prove himself. He would accept any challenge and fight anyone. When I sent him to elementary school in Torrance, he wanted to fight every kid there. At least once a month, the principal would call me screaming, "Hoxton fought six kids today. He doesn't understand the rules of basketball and won't let the other kids have the ball." Another time, Hoxton came home with a backpack full of candy. He told me some bullshit story about how he found it, but I knew he'd stolen it. Even my punishing him did little to correct his behavior. I've been a fighter in my entire life, so I understand putting myself at risk, but Hoxton was always putting himself at risk. In situations that were not rational or intelligent. This trait had always been with him.

• 2:02:38Jocko Willink?

  He was very young. When he was very young, Hoxton once said to his sister, "I'm either going to be rich, in prison, or dead." Can you imagine a kid saying that? He was drawn like a magnet to trouble that he could easily could have avoided. This imbalance concerned me because it took Hoxton out of a zone of comfort and put him constantly on the edge. I was not just watching another aggressive Gracie growing up. I was watching someone with an unbalanced mental approach to life. When Kim tried to rein him in, he became rebellious and defiant toward her. This caused strife between Kim and me because she did not want her kids to be Gracie brawlers. She'd hoped that the move to America would put them on a different track, but it was too late. Hoxton was already on a self-guided mission to be the greatest Gracie of his generation.

• 2:03:23Jocko Willink?

  Reckless, yes, but forever a fighter.

• 2:03:35Jocko Willink?

  Then we get to early 1993. Horian's dream of bringing valet tuto fighting to America to showcase jiu-jitsu was about to come true. He asked me to meet with him and his student, Hollywood director John Meilius, and told me that they had backers for the Ultimate Fighting Championships, America's first valet tuto event. Finally, an opportunity for me to make a name for myself in America. This was the opportunity that I had moved to the United States for, and now it was a reality. When Horian told me that he wanted our younger brother Hoist to fight in the first tournament and keep me as a backup in case he lost, I was disappointed.

• 2:04:15Jocko Willink?

  So there you go, the first UFC.

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:04:18Jocko Willink?

  You must have thought that you were going to be the guy.

• 2:04:22Speaker 01

  I was sure about that, you know? I was sure I was the one who represents the family. And then Horion come with the news, Hoist will do, because if he lost, you come up and back it up and stuff. I felt a little tricky. Was a good situation for Horion, keep things under control. But I took as it is and helped Hoist to fight.

• 2:04:45Jocko Willink?

  I gotta backtrack a little bit. You were going, at this time you were teaching up at the, before you had your studio, you were teaching in the Torrance Garage, right?

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  I start, I come here, rent a house, start teaching in my garage, under Horde's students. He sent me a list of students, so I already full, full schedule for teachings, private in the garage. And then we left the garage and opened the first academy, Torrance Academy. And I was keeping teaching private lessons, group lessons, helping the whole system of the academy.

• 2:05:24Jocko Willink?

  There were some SEALs that came up and trained with you during that time?

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:05:28Jocko Willink?

  And there was, well, one of them was an old Vietnam SEAL, a little guy. And he, I remember him telling me, he goes, "You gotta try these Gracie guys." And then another one was a wrestler, a college wrestler, a champion wrestler in America, a big guy, who's a good friend of mine. And apparently you two used to just go at it.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  Yes, definitely.

• 2:05:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a very, a deep respect about the SEALs, you know, because,

• 2:06:05Speaker 01

  and I also met Steve Watkins, which was also a sergeant at the Colorado Bay, I guess. Because he was selecting people, he was training, trainer for the SEAL teams, to make the selection, like the Hell Week and stuff. So I know a little bit about the situations they go through to get graduated as SEAL. And I also experienced the practices with them, which emphasizes a lot because...

• 2:06:38Speaker 01

  When you get tired, you start to get confused, you start to get doubts, you start to make poor decisions. SEALs, they get exhausted and they obey exactly what they hear, so they don't have, they don't blink, or they don't ask, or they don't have doubts, they just dare to, to go, to move forward on the mission. So if the missions keep holding the knee, they will hold the knee until they pass out. So, our training with them, sometimes are done at the academy, sometimes are in different places, sometimes are on the carpet, and they're training on the carpet, and half hour into the training, they're all bleeding, blisters, and and they don't even notice, and two, three hours,

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  rest for an hour, another two, three hours, and they go forever. And if you stop the training, they engage, they're fighting, and you say, "Okay, stop", "You, jump on the window", they will stop and jump in the window, they dare to obey what they... So I'm very impressed with their focus, their capacity to, to completely fearless, completely no doubts, they believe, they show what they have to, so it's a very, very special people, you know? And I also hear from my students who are trainers there, in some tests, for example, you have to go diving in a 200-yard pool, and they say, "Okay, you go to the other corner, if you don't make it,

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  don't show, don't put your head up", so whatever you do, get to the other end, or stand in the water. And 90% of the guys, they try to go for air when they lose the air, because there's no chance for you to make the other side. So what they want is make you pass out under the water, consciously, say, "Okay, I'm gonna die here, but I'm not gonna put my head out of the water", and when they pass out, they take you off, they survive you, and that's all cool, but your mindset is there to accept death, to go through death, and now, no problem, don't put your head out... So this kind of makes one guy out of 1,000, a guy who's able to accomplish, so Navy SEALs are guys

• 2:08:50Speaker 01

  completely prepared to do what they're supposed to do, they have no mind problems, they focus, they... It's admirable how they can control their own emotions and how they can stay under pressure and be comfortable and do whatever they have to do, you know? No matter if I'm going in that direction with a gun machine, my partner looking backwards, another gun machine looking my back. So if I start shooting here, he cannot even turn the head. He have to accept I'm taking care of my side. So the loyalty, the surrendering, the trust, the courage is to the high ceiling, you know, it's just off the roof. So much personal qualities, you know, and

• 2:09:35Speaker 01

  it's impossible to not make a guy like, a guy like that can be a champion, can be anything because he control his mind in a very special way.

• 2:09:44Jocko Willink?

  The first guy that I trained jujitsu with was a guy named Steve Bailey and he, he was probably a mid-level white belt when I met him and he was an old, I thought he was another guy. I thought he was a hundred years old. He was probably about forty or something like that, but he had trained with you guys and

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  Yes, and I was in his house also.

• 2:10:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, down, down here in San Diego.

• 2:10:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:10:08Jocko Willink?

  And he, we showed up on deployment over in Guam and he came and said, who here wants to learn how to fight? Now I was a brand new guy. I was like, hey, I want to learn how to fight. And I also thought to myself, maybe I can teach the old man a little something, you know, because I'm, I'm pretty badass myself. I just graduated from SEAL training. I'm pretty tough. And there's probably five of us that, that showed up. Jeff Higgs is another one. And Jeff Higgs is a, is a trained with Fabio Santos, Fabio Santos, black belt. And so we showed up and again, I'm thinking, what, what's this old man got for me? And he just, like I said, he was probably a white belt at the time, but you know, he lined us up and just tapped us all out and then tapped us all out again, and then tapped us all out again. And that was my introduction to jujitsu.

• 2:10:53Speaker 01

  Yes, and then you got hooked.

• 2:10:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, totally, totally hooked, man, totally hooked.

• 2:11:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I didn't want to skip over those early days because those are pretty legendary days inside the SEAL teams and it's so interesting because nobody knew anything. I mean, even from that, from what Steve Bailey taught me. I probably got in, I don't know how many skirmishes, like fights, but platoon fights, you know, where you're fighting your friend, where you're not gonna beat the shit out of them, but you're gonna definitely figure out what's up, right?

• 2:11:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:11:23Jocko Willink?

  I, I got into all kinds of those things with my friends. And just from what Steve Bailey taught me, like, hey, this is the, this is the elbow escape, this is the mount, this is the rear naked choke. I think I actually just knew the Americana, the rear naked choke, and like the arm lock, maybe what guard was a little bit, little bit of mount. That was like enough back in those days, man.

• 2:11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:45Jocko Willink?

  You were like king of the world. King of the world.

• 2:11:47Speaker 01

  Yes, in a blind's land, who has one eye is the king, right?

• 2:11:52Jocko Willink?

  And that's kinda, going back to the book, that's kinda how it was for, for the first UFC.

• 2:11:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 2:11:59Jocko Willink?

  It was Hoist fighting against people that had no comprehension of jiu-jitsu, really.

• 2:12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, they coming from different styles, was a, was a, was a war of styles, you know, kickboxers, sumo wrestlers, and, and wrestlers. But the wrestlers, they have no submission, they have no striking, they are not good completely. Today, you see wrestlers with great striking skills, great guard defenses and things. You see judo guys with striking skills, you see striker guys with jiu-jitsu skills and rest. So it's a mix. But before, people represented their own styles, you know, and then it becomes a huge difference.

• 2:12:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:41Speaker 01

  If you don't know jiu-jitsu, you're dead on the woods.

• 2:12:43Jocko Willink?

  You're dead. I was, you say here, uh, so this is the first UFC, after Hoist beat the boxer without getting hit, then made Ken Shamrock the fighter who posed the biggest threat to him tapping less than a minute, his confidence surfaced. In the final, Hoist faced a tall, dead-eyed Dutch kick boxer named Gerard Gardo, and stuck the same winning formula when Hoist took him down. To the ground and was just about to choke him. Gordo bit Hoise's ear after the referee, after he freed his ear, Hoise choked him. And when he tapped, Hoise kept choking him and not stopped until the referee pried him off Gordo. I'll tell you what was interesting. I was watching this fight the other day between, between Hoise and Ken Shamrock. And Ken Shamrock went to do a footlock or a heel hook.

• 2:13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:26Jocko Willink?

  No hesitation whatsoever. Hoise totally saw it.

• 2:13:30Speaker 01

  Disarm.

• 2:13:31Jocko Willink?

  Did, like, did the perfect defense to it, got up on top, got the, got, got the position. And so people will be like, oh, you know, footlocks are new, right?

• 2:13:42Speaker 01

  No, it's been, been around, yeah.

• 2:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they've been around because Hoise defended that like it was nothing.

• 2:13:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:13:48Jocko Willink?

  Which is pretty impressive, I think, for 1993.

• 2:13:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:13:53Jocko Willink?

  Um.

• 2:13:56Jocko Willink?

  After Hoise won the tournament in less than five minutes of total fighting time, Americans were stunned and amazed by the power and efficiency of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Overnight, Hoise Gracie became the biggest name in martial arts and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu exploded in popularity. Horian thought it was hard to control the Gracies, but soon America would be flooded with non-family members who represented the good, the bad, and the ugly of my family's martial art. During the 1990s, an unusual thing happened to Brazilians when they flew to the US. Some of their belts magically turned from blue to brown, or even worse, from purple to black. And as you just said, in the line of the blind, a one-eyed man is king.

• 2:14:34Jocko Willink?

  That was a... That, I mean, the first UFC's were like miraculous for martial arts.

• 2:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was like an open eye. Everybody start to feel something they never felt before was like this mix, this integration of fights and fight, people fight differently and engage and they, who win. So they start to make up different conclusions about what they see on the movies, you know? Like Bruce Lee's and stuff, so they can kick fight 40 people and nothing happen. And they start to feel like a little different, their reality is a little different for the striker than supposed to be.

• 2:15:15Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:15:16Speaker 01

  And they start to feel like how impossible is to not engage and not have this kind of tight. And once it's tight, it's not easy to separate and risk a mess if the referee is not there to create the space.

• 2:15:29Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:15:30Speaker 01

  So and then the value of the grappling becomes...

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  You know, people start to get aware of how dangerous a grappler is when he's just around your neck, you know? And they start to create better techniques and it's a different open mind for everybody.

• 2:15:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's weird because if you look at a striker and a grappler, and you don't know anything, the striker kind of appears to be more dangerous.

• 2:15:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:15:53Jocko Willink?

  Because they're hitting, and especially in the movies, you hit them and they fall down and it doesn't, whereas a grappler is like grabbing hold of me, I mean, my wife grabs me. That can't be a problem, right?

• 2:16:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:16:02Jocko Willink?

  But the difference is major.

• 2:16:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:16:04Jocko Willink?

  So now you start looking to, uh, you start looking to fight, and you're gonna end up in Japan. And you say, unlike the UFC, the Japan Open had gloves and 20-minute rounds. Because it was an eight-man tournament, the winner would have to fight three bouts in one night. I would have to keep an open mind, I couldn't go in with a strategy or plan because I didn't know who I'd be, who'd be fighting me. My solutions to problems had to be reflexive and responsive. To me, my fights were solemn celebrations and I wanted my family, friends, and students to, there to witness the culmination of all the training, all the sacrifice, and all the hard work. On the morning of the Japan Valet Tudo Open, I got to the stadium early and took a long nap in the locker room.

• 2:16:46Jocko Willink?

  When I woke up, I thanked God for life and then acknowledged that it was a perfect day to die because of my life's mission was complete. I was representing my art and my family in the ring. My opponent would have to knock me out or kill me to win, for I was never going to tap. This was not a sport to me. It was my sacred honor.

• 2:17:08Jocko Willink?

  And again, I, I mean, people have to buy the book to read through the details that you give, what it was like before the fight, what you were going through. And, and you detail some of the fights themselves and it's fascinating to hear about them from your perspective. That's why people have to buy the book. But fast forward a little bit, in three short bouts, I had won the Japan Open. I bowed to the crowd on the four sides of the ring but did not smile. The Samurai did not celebrate victories and neither would I. Why celebrate a victory? Your next fight might be your last. Battles are not parties. Win or lose, fights are sacred to me.

• 2:17:44Jocko Willink?

  So this is an interesting thing that unfolds here.

• 2:17:49Jocko Willink?

  You say, "When I got back to LA, I learned of that one of Japan's most famous pro wrestlers, No Buji Ko Takada, had challenged me. A few weeks after we returned, my representative in Japan called me to tell me that Takada was telling the press that I had not responded to him because I was afraid to fight.

• 2:18:10Jocko Willink?

  And then a week later, Takada's protege, Yoji Anjo, one of the villains of Japanese pro wrestling, had a press conference to announce that he was traveling to Los Angeles to fight me to the death.

• 2:18:26Jocko Willink?

  When I heard that Anjo had said this, I called, I told him to call me when he got into town. I wasn't going to stress out about it. If Anjo came to fight, then we'd fight. The Japanese promoters and reporters were always creating dramas and fanning the flames. These kind of threats, these kind of theatrics were the story of my life by then. I never lost sleep over the barking dogs."

• 2:18:47Jocko Willink?

  And then December 7th comes, 1994. What happens?

• 2:18:53Speaker 01

  Yes, I was, I mean, tranquil as always, at my house. And then my instructor called me from the academy, said, "Hixon, has a couple, has a couple here, Japanese couple, who wants to talk to you. Immediately, I imagine, could be the fighter." Said, "Okay, I'll be right there." As I'm going in the car, I was taping my hand a little bit to give me a little support for the bones. And setting up the camera, my son will film. So he was with me in the car.

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  So when I arrived in my school, which was in the alley, deep alley, first thing I saw was a van, full of Japanese photographers, cameras and stuff. So I was getting in, I saw the van, open doors, with Japanese inside. So I get through, get into my academy, and has this tall guy, who is the president of the UFO, the UFC, the Wrestling Association in Japan.

• 2:19:54Speaker 01

  Oh, Mr. Gracie, nice to meet you. I like, I'm come here to talk to you. I said, yes.

• 2:20:01Speaker 01

  You said you... I'd like to invite you for a fight in Japan. I said, man, I told you already. I'm not going to fight in the UFO because you guys are not legit. You know, no matter if I win or lose in your arena, can be always fixed. So I have no intention to fight in your arena. Yeah, but you also said, Mr. Gracie, you're willing to fight for your honor, for free. Said, yes, that's what I'm here for. I thought you're gonna fi- fight me, but I saw you not here for fight. Yeah, but the fighter is here, is in the backyard, is in the, in the, outside. He can come. Said, okay, so call him. And as I saw the guy go out to pick up the, the fighter, I said for a student who was in there, I said, hey, man, you stay in the door.

• 2:20:46Speaker 01

  Let the guy come back, let the fighter come in, but don't let the press come in.

• 2:20:51Speaker 01

  So, keep the press outside. Okay, so the guy, the guy, the president come in, the, the angel come in. The door was locked. And I said, Luis, get on a waiver, please, and give for Mr. Angel sign. Because a waiver is always a good secure if you get hurt or something. It's a waiver, right? Everybody signs waiver here. And then the angel looked the waiver with ugly face and talk with Japanese with the guy. Blah, blah, blah. And the guy said to me, Mr. Gracie, you mean if you don't sign the waiver, you're not gonna fight? Immediately, I felt like was a tricky question because if I say no, he has to sign. He said, okay, let's leave then. So he will leave and he will talk whatever he says. Oh, he quit, I was here.

• 2:21:37Speaker 01

  Said, no, no, forget the paper. Throw this paper out. You, you wanna fight without the paper, just, you're welcome. Let's fight without the pa- forget the paper.

• 2:21:46Speaker 01

  And then he jumped in the ring. We start to base each other. How big is, how big is Angel? It's about two hundred pounds, my, my height, a little stacky, solid.

• 2:22:01Speaker 01

  And uh

• 2:22:02Jocko Willink?

  What did you think when you looked at his eyes? Did he look like he was surprised that you accepted this?

• 2:22:06Speaker 01

  No, I felt like he was, he was playing a villain in wrestling. So he has the ugly face, the attitude, he don't, he don't flake, he don't blink, he don't show emotions. He's just like ready to go, you know? I don't know if he was pretending or if he's for sure, but he was ready to go.

• 2:22:23Jocko Willink?

  And, and the, all these reporters, none of them came in?

• 2:22:27Speaker 01

  No one come in. I didn't let nobody come in because I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't like somebody which is not my en- not my friend to, to record everything.

• 2:22:37Jocko Willink?

  But, but your son recorded it?

• 2:22:39Speaker 01

  Yes, so was life, was, the camera was on.

• 2:22:44Speaker 01

  So and then the fight starts, I felt like he wants to punch me. I can feel the difference in the stance and the way, when you're looking for a position for a punch, when you're grappler, when you strike, when you wanna kick. So depending your approach, I can see if you're more like as a kicker, if you're more a puncher, if you wanna grappling. And I felt like he wants to have his hands on my face, you know? He wants to just solid punch. And I did the same thing, I play a little dummy. When he came with the right, I, I deflected, grabbed him under the waist, throw him on the floor, we fall off the mat on the, on this hardwood. And he got caught like in a little fancy, so he got caught in a bad position.

• 2:23:26Speaker 01

  And I start to punch him, punch, and he was uh turn back, he turned back to me. And I was thinking, if I put him to sleep, he can wake up and tell whatever he wanna say.

• 2:23:42Speaker 01

  So, has to be bigger than that, has to be a punishment. His face has to show. So I was hitting him backwards on his back until he turned, faced me again. So I didn't choke him. I wait for him to turn, face me again, and then I keep punching, and I broke his nose, a lot of blood. And then, he turned back again and I put him to sleep. Finally, I could make the thing and make it happen. So I put him to sleep, and he was passing out, facing down on the mat. So when he was out, I tell the guys, okay, now the press can come. So when the press coming to the place, start to picture everything,

• 2:24:23Speaker 01

  he was already standing up and the guy tried to cover his face with his, hugging him like protecting his face from the photographers. And then Kim said, "So, show his face." So the guy move out and the guy taking pictures of the guy all bloody. And, uh, and they left. Two days later, Angel come back to my school with a gift, with a samurai helmet. And said, was dishonorable what he did, was a lack of respect, but he's apologizing. He wanna say he has no problems. He was, uh, very, very, you know, straightforward.

• 2:25:05Speaker 01

  Give me the gift and said he respect me and left. And then one week after, he stays in Japan. He was jumped into the, in the fight. They jumped me, they, so it's like a villain. He talk one face with me, other face in Japan. And at this point, I have a tape fortunately. So my guy coming to here, to US, I give the tape to him. He was able to show the tape to the press in Japan, no make no copies. And bring back to me, I said, "No make no, no, no copies." So he showed it for the press and so my name in Japan was even bigger because everything Angel said was a lie and was proved wrong and, uh, so that's happening.

• 2:25:50Speaker 01

  And then eventually, I fought one more time in Japan. And then after I fought, uh, Noburiko Takada, which was the, the boss of that association. In a big event in Tokyo Dome, seventy thousand people sold out arena. It was a huge event.

• 2:26:09Jocko Willink?

  That was against Takada, who was, he, he was like, uh, Yoji's, uh, master, right?

• 2:26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was the number one of the, the wrestling. I think O- O'Angelo was better than Takada as a fighter. He coming with a better fighting background. But he was the villain, he always never gonna be the number one, you know? Takada has a better pretty look, has more like, his appeals more for the audience. So he was the good guy who always win in the end. In the fixed fight, you can arrange that with no problems.

• 2:26:42Jocko Willink?

  Man. That video is still not released.

• 2:26:47Speaker 01

  No, only for friends. So you're gonna be one for sure gonna see a copy.

• 2:26:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I've been waiting to see that for a long time.

• 2:26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:59Jocko Willink?

  Meanwhile, there's still life going on outside of fighting. So you got all this stuff going on. And I pulled this one out. It says, "One day, a policeman who knew me called and said, 'I have Hoxton here. We caught him trying to steal from a store. You need to come down. When I arrived, my son was sitting on the curb. Hickson, I'm not gonna take him in, the cop said, but talk to him. He could have gotten in some serious trouble. When I lectured Hoxton on the drive home about how it was wrong to steal and that he didn't need to do it in order to prove his worth, he remained silent and stared at his feet. When we got home, I said, 'Go to the garage. I'm not finished talking to you.' He looked me dead in the eyes and groaned, 'Dad, can't you just hit me? I'd rather you do that than more talking. We don't need to talk anymore. Just give me my punishment.'

• 2:27:42Jocko Willink?

  I thought, fuck, what am I gonna do to make him fear the consequences of his actions? That was when I realized I was losing control of my son. Hoxton reminded me of my brother Holes in that they both possessed psychologies that made me uncomfortable. But while this worried me, I figured that it was a phase he would pass through as I had.

• 2:28:03Jocko Willink?

  When I returned to Japan in 1995, a few weeks before the tournament, I went to Yuri Nakamura's mountain cabin. My pre-fight routine was the same. And again, this is all stuff that you detail. You talk about, you know, what you're thinking about psychologically. It's so interesting to read the book and get that side of the the fight. That's why people gotta get the book.

• 2:28:25Jocko Willink?

  You have these fights that you talk about. You hurt your neck a little bit. Then you submit a couple guys. You end up in that classic fight against Yuki Nakai.

• 2:28:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:28:37Jocko Willink?

  Who had had his eye gouged in his first fight against Gordo.

• 2:28:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:28:42Jocko Willink?

  And he ended up becoming blind in that eye because of that eye gouging.

• 2:28:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:28:47Jocko Willink?

  And he was, he's also, Yuki Nakai is a small little guy.

• 2:28:51Speaker 01

  Yes, he's a brave warrior.

• 2:28:53Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 2:28:54Speaker 01

  Have a lot of respect for the guy.

• 2:28:56Jocko Willink?

  But you went out and it's clear when you watch that fight. I remember watching it actually that you went out and basically. Didn't do any further damage to the guy.

• 2:29:05Speaker 01

  Yes, my, my friends, my, my guys and, and the prattics and the, and the locker room, they said, "You have to kill him, punch him, start to damage him, whatever you have a chance." I said, "No, man, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm better technician than him, I'm bigger than him, I don't have to be hurt him. He's already hurt. I mean, why I gonna be just mean? I gonna win him with techniques." So, I went to the, the ring, commit to do my thing and prove myself, I can win without the brutality, without the fear, the aggressiveness, which are no need for that. So, I was calmly putting him in uncomfortable situations until get the choke.

• 2:29:46Speaker 01

  And this plays a very important role, because I always admire Japan. I always felt like I live my personal bushido, which is my moral code, my, my code of warrior. And, uh, and I never knew details about Japan, very details, but I know, I, after that, the fact I use white, it represents a lot for them, because the samurai dresses white before the armor. You know, in terms of surrendering, it's a, it's a, it's a beautiful war color, the white.

• 2:30:27Speaker 01

  I didn't know that. The fact I'm not celebrating fights is the same thing than samurai. Samurai not gonna be partying because he kills somebody, next way, next day can be him. So, the fighting is just a, a way to go, a way of life, which cannot be celebrated at, like a party or a, so, so the Japanese also noticed this, because in, in Japan, different than US or different places, when the fight starts, you don't see nothing, you don't hear anything. The crowd is all quiet, and when you do a move, they all, "Oh!" They follow the fight with precision, with details. They admire not only the fight, but also the personality, how they can relate to you, your attitude, your character.

• 2:31:13Speaker 01

  So, when I'm not celebrating Yuki Nakai's defeat, show some respect, show some attitude. And the fact I was not mean to him, also they noticed. They say, "Hixon didn't punch the guy they supposed to." So they noticed the fact I was nice. I was serious for a battle, but not overpowering, not trying to be a coward and hit him or hurt him in a bad way. So all those little details add to my profile in Japan, because they noticed all those details and they feel like I was the expression of a new samurai, you know? Because I was not bringing back to Japan, like I thank you them for...

• 2:31:58Speaker 01

  Because at the first tournament, I said, "I'd like to thank you Japan to bring Jiu-Jitsu to Brazil." Now I'm bringing back, because I feel like it's my way to give back to Japan. So all this translates in me become some kind of expression of what samurai is supposed to be today. You know, Japan has a big problem with security state of mind, because once they lost the war, the kindness becomes some kind of fear. So they smile at you, they bow to you, but sometimes they don't like you at all. And they show that kind of cold image of respect, of "heh, heh, heh." But eventually, they becomes your enemies.

• 2:32:42Speaker 01

  So Japanese lost their soul when they lost the war. Their attitude of samurai is proud. So they lost their source, they lost their attitude. So they become more like servers and complying with the energy of the rest of the universe. So my image brought somehow some kind of example of how the modern samurai is supposed to act. No swords, but attitude, the way I speak, the way, you know, sometimes they... Prior to fights, they have like a press day. And then we have thirty different magazines for twenty minutes interviews, always coming in the room

• 2:33:26Speaker 01

  and doing quick interviews, some pictures, and they leave. So some guys coming from very important magazines. One of them coming to me and said, "Mr. Grace, I just have one question. How you do to fight a polar bear?"

• 2:33:41Speaker 01

  I did not laugh on that question, I did not say anything, I just thought, what the question is that? And I answered to him without losing my pace, I said, "Man, I never intend to fight a polar bear, it's not my goal. But if I have to fight one, I'm gonna have a nice jacket for the winter, I'm gonna have a lot of meat, a bear meat on my frieze, and I'm gonna have a nice necklace of bear tooth. So with that answer, I show him, I'm not afraid of the outcome. I don't blink in front of my... So he said, "Oh master, I did not expect anything like that." So they left.

• 2:34:22Speaker 01

  So just to see how his mind works, Japanese is very special in terms of, they have a samurai helmet, almost like a scent on the altar, you know? They have the katana's, like an example, God for them comes from like a bushido life. Have to have honor and dignity, integrity. So when they see me, they see me like as a new samurai, they bring their kids, say, "Can you touch his face, please? Can you touch his head?" Things like you don't believe happens, and you say, "Okay, sure."

• 2:35:00Speaker 01

  So Japanese becomes a very much enlightened with my knowledge of martial arts, my ideas of how to deal with my opponents, how to deal with my peace of mind, emotional control and so on, so was something very interesting, my experiences in Japan.

• 2:35:18Jocko Willink?

  Now, that's a little bit, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the movie Choke, right? When you're dealing with this, you know you have Yuki Nakai coming up, and you're basically telling Hoiler, "Hey, listen, I'm not gonna hit him, you know, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be as, do as little damage as I can." And Hoiler's like, "Fuck that, you need to kill that motherfucker, he's gonna be trying to kill you." It's a really good contrast, but you were able to overcome that and maintain that samurai spirit.

• 2:35:48Speaker 01

  Yes, I mean, Hoiler is a great guy, he's very tough. And because he was not too big, all his life he was a smaller guy, so people... They disrespect Heuler in a different way than disrespect me. Forget Jiu-Jitsu, forget Gracie family, but they look at me, they don't want problems with me. They look at Heuler and say, "Hey, man, get out of the..." So they have no respect. So Heuler is always on his toes. Letting nothing pass because he's a warrior and he don't wanna be disrespected. So any glimpse of lack of respect, he becomes agitated. So one day, we left the academy to surf. Surfboards on top, traffic in Brazil, traffic jam.

• 2:36:31Speaker 01

  And somehow, I cut off a taxi driver. I make a mistake and he horned. And then he got on my side and he called me names.

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  And I immediately said, "Hey, man, I'm sorry, brother. Sorry, bro."

• 2:36:51Speaker 01

  And then Heuler looked at me and said, "Hixon, the guy called you this, this and that. How you can apologize for the guy? Why you don't kick his ass?" I said, "Heuler, can you imagine the hell this guy living? Just being on traffic, crazy like that? Can you imagine we going to surf now? Can you imagine just coming from the school, training, sparring, kicking ass, training hard? You think I'm gonna fight this guy? He's old, he's fat, he's out of shape. Just because he called me a name, I have to beat him up? Come on, Heuler, forgive this guy. Let him go. Let life beat him. He's already a poor guy." And Heuler told me up today, said, "Hixon," that message for me was hitting me on the heart.

• 2:37:37Speaker 01

  Because nothing can be more, you know, "I never expect this from you." And once you tell me that, I start to redo my life and see how much people I can forgive and how much calm I can be if I don't have to prove. I know I can beat the guy, but I don't have to just prove every time, just because you asked me for. And that's kind of message Heuler never forgot anymore.

• 2:38:02Jocko Willink?

  So you end up fighting Takata once and then you fight him again.

• 2:38:10Jocko Willink?

  You beat him. I think you beat him by armlock both times.

• 2:38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, both times.

• 2:38:14Jocko Willink?

  That's why, as they say, "Hixon by armlock."

• 2:38:29Jocko Willink?

  Going back to the book here.

• 2:38:34Jocko Willink?

  This is 2000. Earlier that year, Hoxton injured his knee while training. It was slow to heal, and I think he felt his dream of becoming a champion fighter slipping away. While I was in Rio, there were rumors going around that Hoxton was a prospective member of an LA street gang. By the time I returned to Los Angeles, Hoxton was getting ready to leave for New York with his Brazilian girlfriend. After Hoxton left for the East Coast, I received a message from him that he had made it to New York and that everything was going well. When we didn't hear from him for over a month, I wasn't worried because he was still using his ATM card in New York City.

• 2:39:13Jocko Willink?

  A month later, December turned into January, and we still had not heard from him.

• 2:39:21Jocko Willink?

  Now I was truly worried. My cousin Henzo's academy was in New York City, and some of his students were policemen, so I asked Henzo if he could try to find my son.

• 2:39:32Jocko Willink?

  A few days later, a shake and Henzo called and told me that an officer had found a photograph of an unidentified corpse at the coroner's office with a tattoo that read, "Hickson Gracie,

• 2:39:48Jocko Willink?

  Number One Dad."

• 2:39:53Jocko Willink?

  Up to this point, Hoxton had been a missing person.

• 2:39:57Jocko Willink?

  This was the confirmation that he was gone. After I hung up the phone, the whole family melted into tears. Kim, seated beside me, looked hopeless.

• 2:40:09Jocko Willink?

  I told the kids that Hoxton had moved on to another life and was now with Holes.

• 2:40:15Jocko Willink?

  Now, representing the Gracie family, I had to go to New York City for the physical confirmation.

• 2:40:24Jocko Willink?

  I knew in my heart that my son was dead.

• 2:40:44Jocko Willink?

  You talk in this, you know, in this section here, I mean, obviously, I don't, I don't think there's anybody that, that thinks there's anything worse than losing a child.

• 2:40:55Jocko Willink?

  And you talk about what you did, what you thought, and how you had to

• 2:41:02Jocko Willink?

  get through this.

• 2:41:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:41:10Jocko Willink?

  Some, some of the, some of the lessons that you had to learn, and some of the things that you, you had to do, you know, you ended up,

• 2:41:19Jocko Willink?

  you ended up building like a, like a, like a tree, a treehouse.

• 2:41:23Speaker 01

  Yes, kind of platform on the tree.

• 2:41:27Jocko Willink?

  And that was sort of your, your escape, but it was an escape, but it ended up sort of being a reconnection.

• 2:41:33Speaker 01

  Definitely. I felt like, up to that point, my life was being just a, a, a very beautiful ride, you know, even with the pressures, even with the doubts. I have always been in charge of my own desires. I was thinking, I was controlling time. I have a perfect family, kids, loving friends, and, and, and trainee. I mean, my life was perfect. And I was thinking I was in charge. When Hoxton Departure, I felt like the, the floor just get out of my feet. I was just lost track of, I lose the, the desire to surf, I lose the, the desire to train, to teach.

• 2:42:17Speaker 01

  You know, I was a little unsocial, a little bit. You know, I, I was not saving tears, I was crying a lot, I was, I let myself get down to the hole. In a way to embrace a rock and go to the lake and go deep on the, on the bottom of the lake.

• 2:42:37Speaker 01

  And I allowed myself to get deeper enough to know, to feel important. And also, from that lower point, decide if I wanna kill myself, if I wanna drink, drugs, give up from life. I don't know, I was just allowed myself to get weak enough and fragile enough to, from that point, see what's happened. And, once I get to that bottom,

• 2:43:06Speaker 01

  I, I decided to make, I was in the, in the hillside on my house, I was there just, and I was climbing some trees and then I saw a beautiful tree with a beautiful ocean view. Said, I wanna buy, I wanna create a platform here to, to talk with Roxton. So for about three weeks, from first light on this, first light to dawn, to dawn, I was working on this project. From designing, to buying the wood, to buying the, the screws and then, bringing the electrical to make the holes and stuff and just focus on this. My hands are kinda bleeding for so much work and so I'm making focus on creating that kinda platform.

• 2:43:50Speaker 01

  And after that platform done, took me almost three weeks, I will make amazing job, put the wood and put varnish, so it was beautiful. I felt like was a mission accomplished there. I said, now I make my tribute to you. So I wanna be in peace. And was a better feeling for me to make this because I, anytime I miss Roxton, I was going up there, light up an incense, meditate a little bit, thinking about good things, have a picture there. And I spent maybe a year more in a much better vibration, but not exactly out of the hole.

• 2:44:35Speaker 01

  And one day, I was thinking up there and I remember what my dad said about, nothing can be a hundred percent wrong or bad. Nothing can be a hundred percent right or good. There's always a dual aspect in everything. And I started thinking, what's gonna be the advantage of Roxton's departure? How, I mean, how this can be good in any way? I started looking for a reason.

• 2:45:03Speaker 01

  And then I find something very important, which was, up to Hoxton's departure, I was in charge. If him or anyone else, something, "Hixon, can you teach me today? Dad, can you take me to the beach?" Whatever it is, I can say, "No, not today. Let's go tomorrow." "Let's leave this. Not today. I don't feel good. I wanna..." So I was thinking about being in charge of the time in a much more powerful way than I was,

• 2:45:34Speaker 01

  than I have.

• 2:45:36Speaker 01

  So after his departure, I'm sure tomorrow may never happen.

• 2:45:43Speaker 01

  So based on that difference, I start to use my day much more efficiently. To give you an example, I could be down on the freeway to fight in Japan or to make a big program in Japan. I'm in the freeway. If my daughter call me, "Dad, I have to talk to you. She's crying." I will stop the car in the freeway and talk to her. "What's the problem?" "Ah, this and that. So we resolved this." So I will talk to her until I be able to give my best opinion, my best information, give my time as long as it takes. After this finish, I turn off the phone. I will see if I still have time to go to Japan,

• 2:46:26Speaker 01

  if I still have time to get the flight, whatever. If not, I will reschedule. I will do because today, I cannot do this for tomorrow.

• 2:46:36Speaker 01

  So I learned effectively how to use my time with precision, with not wasting time, with things are not matter, or not give you the value of time, which time is very valuable. And I start to become more effective on how to use my time, how the purpose of my life, my service, what is really matters for me, and I start to use my day much more worth it. From a conversation like that today, from a teaching a student, from talking with my family, I will be much more precise. I want to be much more on time, much more.

• 2:47:19Speaker 01

  You know, with no loose ends or no gaps, it's just tight. So by doing that, I reborn. I reinvent myself in a different me with much more compassion, much more interested for things, much more ways to bring jiu-jitsu to others. I'm still at service. So being happy with that make me feel like I have to thank you, Hoxton, for his departure in order for me to achieve that kind of enlightenment, that kind of depth on my being alive and being at service. If I was not for that, I could be a lot of loose gaps up today and having my mind in a different matter.

• 2:48:01Speaker 01

  So I saw the positiveness of his departure give me the chance to become a better man. So I'm thankful in a way he's taught me that with his departure. So I compensate a little bit and from there on, I become fully restore my energy levels, my happiness, my desire to live my life and let Hoxton be in peace and in heaven and with, you know, with halls and waiting for us, dancing and being happy.

• 2:48:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, um, I've had that conversation with myself quite a few times. You know, I've lost some very close people to me and I've actually had that discussion with many other people as they lose their loved ones. And, you know, they will, people have literally asked me, you know, what possibly, what possible good can there be from this? There's nothing good. This is horrible. And like you did, you have to kind of pull back and look at things from a different perspective. And there always is something positive. There always is a lesson to be learned. There always is the memories that you get to keep.

• 2:49:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:49:24Jocko Willink?

  And obviously, this had an impact on the rest of your family. You say here, "Losing Hoxton put Kron on the path to martial arts greatness." "On some level, I think Hoxton knew that Kron had the natural talent and tools to be even better than he." "Like all my kids, he had trained jiu-jitsu all of his life, but was never as interested as Hoxton." "Now it was his turn to shine." "Even though they were brothers, Hoxton and Kron were completely different." "Hoxton was emotional, intense, and intent on proving himself a Gracie warrior." "Kron was more observant, analytical, and calm." "He wanted to do the right things and always be at his best." "In one of their last conversations, Hoxton told Kron that he was a Gracie,

• 2:50:06Jocko Willink?

  "and to give 110% and never quit in whatever it was that he chose to do." "After Hoxton died, Kron took that to heart, "and was now on a mission to become the next apex predator in the Gracie food chain."

• 2:50:25Jocko Willink?

  You say here, "The more Kron won, the less attached he became to winning." "After he realized that the outcome of a fight does not define you as a person, "he improved by leaps and bounds." "He trained as hard as humanly possible, "and when he competed, he let the chips fall where they may." "Win, lose, or draw, he would be back in the academy on Monday, "and train as if the fight had never happened."

• 2:50:48Jocko Willink?

  "When my father died in his sleep in 2009 at the age of 95, "I was in Europe with Kron for the European Jiu-Jitsu Championship." "We received the news the day of the tournament, "and knew that we could not get back to Brazil for the funeral." "Instead, we went back to our hotel room and held our own memorial." "We cried and shared memories." "The day Aleo died, Kron represented his grandfather on the mat as Aleo would have liked." "He won both of his matches by submission, "and after he won the European title, "he kissed the picture of Hoxton that always, "as always, and bowed to the giant mural of Aleo "the tournament organizers put up to commemorate his life." "It was a beautiful moment for both of us."

• 2:51:32Jocko Willink?

  "Aleo and Carlos Gracie's legacies were now being carried and upheld by a third generation."

• 2:51:45Jocko Willink?

  That's the family tradition, huh? Yes.

• 2:51:51Jocko Willink?

  Again, you know, in the book, you, you carry on and, and, and talk about, um, you know, some of, some of the other things that proceeded after that. And I wanna, I wanna get a little bit, go towards the end of the book here.

• 2:52:08Jocko Willink?

  And you know, you've talked about this a little bit today, but I think it's important to reiterate, you say, "My goal today is to create a form of jujitsu that will empower the entire person, both on and off the mat. If I can ever make a nervous person feel more relaxed than they've ever felt before, I'm changing them from within in a way that a psychiatrist or a pill never can."

• 2:52:32Jocko Willink?

  "Today, conflict comes in many forms, and physicality is only one aspect of it. Conflict follows humans wherever they go, and people adopt different strategies to cope with it. Modern enemies can strike in a text, an email, or in a social media post. As the world of instant communication has evolved, many negative unintended consequences have evolved with it. Fifty years ago, a 10-year-old boy went in his room only to sleep because he spent all day outside playing. Today, if parents aren't careful, their children will spend the entire day alone in their rooms. We cannot dismiss technology, but why let us turn us into brains with vegetable bodies?"

• 2:53:15Jocko Willink?

  "One of the worst side effects of technology is the way it has reduced human direct interaction. Because people can get almost everything they desire, food, entertainment, friendship, sex, via the screen, they have gotten to the point of being scared of face-to-face interaction. There are so many wonderful things that are impossible to experience on a screen, jumping into a cold river, making the drop on a big wave, and walking in the rain are just a few. Even worse, social media provides an arena, arena for cowards to lurk in the cyber shadows and say things that they would never dare say in person. Mike Tyson put it best when he said that social media has made people, quote, 'way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.'"

• 2:53:58Jocko Willink?

  Today, I try to use Jiu-Jitsu as a tool to teach patience, hope, strategy, emotional control, breathing, and many other things, all without conflict and competition. This allows those who need it most to learn the visible and invisible aspects of the art in ways that could help them in their everyday lives. I have developed a training routine wherein students learn the practice, learn and practice all the movements and techniques of Jiu-Jitsu in a cooperative instead of competitive environment. I can teach the most critical invisible aspects of Jiu-Jitsu, like base, timing, weight distribution, and connection with little stress. In this type of class, I can have two beginners blocking punches and doing hip throws.

• 2:54:44Jocko Willink?

  Your training partner is there to help, not to fight you.

• 2:54:49Jocko Willink?

  So that's what you were talking about earlier today.

• 2:54:51Speaker 01

  Yes. I felt like

• 2:54:56Speaker 01

  we're all in warfare. It's not about being a soldier, it's not about being a fighter.

• 2:55:04Speaker 01

  We are under stress, we are, you know, our lives today are driving in different modes and different aspects. So, what you really need to conquer is happiness. Your biggest achievement is to focus on how to be happy, how to bring your family to the best scenario, how to bring your job, how to bring your assets, how to bring your

• 2:55:34Speaker 01

  the way you practice, your physical... So, you wanna conquer a lot of things. There's a lot of things to be conquered in order for you to be happy. And in order for you to be happy,

• 2:55:46Speaker 01

  it's not luck. I don't believe in luck. I don't believe you're gonna be happy just by closing your eyes. You know, and if you're happy today...

• 2:55:56Speaker 01

  Ten years from now, what make you happy today? Either evolve, or doesn't make no sense, it's not gonna make you happy. You have a different goals. Every, every time you just have a different, first buy a car, then buy a house, then get married, whatever it is, is next step to make you happier, to make you in a good position. And I see those kinda challenges, those kinda obstacles, as little battles, which, when you focus, when you have the capacity, strategical capacity, when you have emotional control, when you have believe in yourself, when you have hope.

• 2:56:36Speaker 01

  So, a lot of elements on the warrior toolbox has to be used for daily practices, for average jobs. It's not about being special warrior and be able to have emotional control. It's for the weak ones, it's for the guy who has an email and gonna lose his rent or whatever. So, this guy needs emotional control, it's the same I need, it's the same you need, you know? So, the idea of empower people cannot coming with, "I will empower you, but you have to prove you can handle." Sometimes the guy don't have, "I don't have what it needs, I don't have what it needs to be a fighter."

• 2:57:17Speaker 01

  But he loves to learn details for self-defense, he loves to learn details for self-emotional control through breathing. He loves understand what's the solution for that, for that problem, what's the solution for that. So, based on information, based on practices, he may never fight nobody, but that's will incorporate on his behavior. A completely different mindset, a completely different way to breathe and, and, and rebounce the, the stress. A complete different way for you to feel good about a possible engagement.

• 2:57:52Speaker 01

  So, sometimes I train my students to keep the distance, not in, not in, not clinch, but keep, just stay away from my punch. So, I will try to, so based on your space, you can survive, you see people in UFC surviving an attack, basically moving away. So if you just move away, you don't have to be a fighter to survive. So I put you a expert in not getting punched, that's already a big asset in your life. If you're average Joe, you make sure nobody gonna punch you in the face, so it's a big win already. So my purpose with that knowledge is to prepare people to win without a fight.

• 2:58:35Speaker 01

  Based on different components, mental components, spiritual components and physical components. Okay, man, you don't have to prove me, you just have to believe you have a chance. So by giving that chance for an average Joe, I wanna empower the world in a different and a very special way, because I will offer them what they need to become more humanized, to become more sharp, to become better in control, to become more strategically correct, what makes life different. If you tell me what the successful people has in common, all the successful people have a few things in common. They all love what they do.

• 2:59:18Speaker 01

  They all capable to, to, to, to pass obstacles and not give up easy. They all capable also to, to, to become, to making decisions under pressure. They all able to...

• 2:59:43Speaker 01

  Keep learning and keep progressing and keep taking adv- So they have open mind about how to strategize, how's the new game coming. So they not, they not unfamiliar with, with behaviors and situations which everybody's successful has in common. So give you those tools, give you the glimpse of what you need to become successful. If you have to believe in what you do, you have to, to practice, you have to make sure the strategy is correct and so on. So based on those elements, I cannot transform people from a coward guy to make him a courageous.

• 3:00:23Speaker 01

  But I can make a coward guy becomes talent enough to believe he has a chance. And that's can transform his decisions and a courageous decisions. So because we live in a life of pretending, because we live in a life of images and look good and so I like to take you from,

• 3:00:47Speaker 01

  you looking from the mirror for you start to feeling. So when you start to feel yourself in that, you start to understand your breathing, understand your leverage, understand your base. Completely change the dynamic you handle the world, the way you shake your hand, the way you approach somebody, looking in the eye and things like that. So that kind of jiu-jitsu can favors anyone in the globe. Different than I specialize jiu-jitsu for competition, which favors just the warriors who want to favors true jiu-jitsu.

• 3:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's, you know, you were talking about what does successful people have in common? They got, they can, they have an open mind, they overcome obstacles, they use the right strategies at the right times. They're comfortable in these uncomfortable positions and situations and these are all things that you can learn if you learn jiu-jitsu.

• 3:01:39Speaker 01

  Yes, of course. Because a metaphor for life, you know, this is the same situation, you have to be calm enough and breathe and put your hand and start working leverage instead brutality. Same thing in life, you get any, any, any problems, you have to have the same articulated mindset to just survive or escape or, or control, whatever it is, it's all about making quick changes and start to become focused on the purpose.

• 3:02:11Jocko Willink?

  You know, I'm gonna read one last little section from the book. We're almost at, well, we are at three hours right now. So I'm gonna read one little last section from the book.

• 3:02:20Speaker 01

  Goes fast when we enjoy.

• 3:02:22Jocko Willink?

  It does. I could sit here all day. You say this, "On my best day now, I'm only 5% of what I once was as a fighter. However, my invisible power transcends my physicality and will be part of me until the day I die. That is why for me, jiu-jitsu is about much more than fighting. It is a tool to teach people about themselves. It is great to see it become so popular and provide lucrative businesses for so many, but this has nothing to do with what I teach. Of my students, 98% train two or three days a week, trying to perfect basic techniques, and then testing them on a level playing field. Helping my students try to become better people,

• 3:03:05Jocko Willink?

  not just smashing machines, is what motivates me. Jiu-jitsu is my philosophy, my sacred honor, and my family tradition. It has made me strong enough to forgive and confident enough to fight for my beliefs."

• 3:03:31Jocko Willink?

  Just, uh, just outstanding. Jiu-jitsu is life.

• 3:03:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:03:40Jocko Willink?

  So, before you, before you go, um, once again, this book is called Breathe a Life in Flow. It's by Hicks and Gracie with Peter Maguire, who's actually become a friend of mine. And I know he's a friend of yours, and a great guy, a surfer, a jiu-jitsu practitioner.

• 3:03:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:03:56Jocko Willink?

  A scholar.

• 3:03:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:04:00Jocko Willink?

  So I look forward to working with him some more.

• 3:04:05Jocko Willink?

  So the way that you're spreading the word now, you have hixon dot academy.

• 3:04:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:04:10Jocko Willink?

  That's where you do online training. I watched some of the videos. You're gonna get, people are gonna get such good details out of what you're saying.

• 3:04:23Jocko Willink?

  Sometimes I think it'd be impossible for someone to explain how you put pressure and how you, how you stabilize hips and how you move hips and, but when you watch those videos, you start to understand, you do have the ability to explain what you're doing.

• 3:04:40Speaker 01

  Yes, because jiu-jitsu is about feeling. It's not about seeing or understanding. You have to feel. And I like to approach jiu-jitsu in a way, I have to make you feel

• 3:04:53Speaker 01

  when you relax, when you, just about angles, just about details, invisible details who translates, and a deep effectiveness. So I don't start to seeking to, you show me what you have. I try to make you, I try to take you off your elements, okay, relax, and put you in a way for you to understand and feel the weak's vision, the vision of the weak one into the approach. Because if you feel like you can fight as a weak person, imagine if you put the muscles you have on.

• 3:05:29Speaker 01

  If I change around and start to use and explore the muscles you have on, you may never gonna perceive the depth of what I wanna show you. So my father always say, when he's training somebody, said, "Hey man, stop, stop. You're too tense. Be relaxed. Loosen up. If I'm not, I cannot fight." Because he was just seeking to give you the information which goes into your gut feeling. You say, "Wow, I never felt like that difference can change so much in effectiveness." And by feeling that, you start to feel like it's a different element to be had to whatever you have, if you're strong, if you're fast, if you, if you compare, all this are qualities, personal qualities.

• 3:06:13Speaker 01

  But the, the, the depth of the knowledge we try to pass to you transcends all this. So you're able to not only explain for a weak person, but to also to encase somebody with 300 pounds, solid muscle, can, you have the chance to deal with them in a different, natural, comfortable situation. So it's amazing how much that kind of sensorial feeling can add to your capacity, to, to, to mental capacity, to your spiritual capacity, and to also to your physicality.

• 3:06:46Jocko Willink?

  So that's, that's Hickson Academy. Hickson dot academy is how you get there. Um, great stuff on there. You have, you have Hicksongracie.com is sort of where you can, uh, buy, you can read some history stuff, but you got a store on there. Uh, and then on Facebook, you're Hickson, at Hickson Gracie. And on Instagram, which you have a bunch of cool little clips on Instagram too. And that's, uh, Hickson Gracie JJ.

• 3:07:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:07:16Jocko Willink?

  Echo, you got anything?

• 3:07:18Speaker 02

  I have many things, but in the sake, uh, in the spirit of saving some time, I have one question. So you know, uh, the first UFC one, they took, when Horian chose Hoist?

• 3:07:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:07:29Speaker 02

  Did he get, did he tell you why he chose Hoist rather than you?

• 3:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, his answer was, I want to put Hoist because in case something happened with him, we always have a, a bag, a big, a bigger bullet to put it on.

• 3:07:41Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 3:07:42Speaker 01

  But in reality was he has control over Hoist, did, he did have control over me. I was already working on Pico Boulevard. I was already my own, you know, have my own school. So in order for him to have control of, of, of. Not only the fighter in there, but still with the best brand was better for him to have Hoist.

• 3:08:05Speaker 02

  Gotcha. They said that, I think it might have been like in the documentary or whatever, they were like, he wanted to kind of display jujitsu with someone who was like less physical, less, you know, big or whatever, that way it would display jujitsu a little bit better. Cause like if you went in and you're like this more athletic guy, they were like, oh, well, he's more of an athlete. So it doesn't really highlight the jujitsu part of it.

• 3:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I disagree with that because for me and between me and him are only 10 pounds difference. So I felt like he was able to, even the first payment for the UFC, he hold, Hoist supposed to get a 50,000 check and I supposed to get 5,000 from Hoist's. I still waiting because he didn't pay Hoist, he didn't pay, Hoist didn't pay me. So was just pure love for us and he was a businessman. So he knows better what he's doing. So I kinda disagree with that statement of he, Hoist was smaller and looked fragile. Hoist was tough too.

• 3:09:08Jocko Willink?

  I've trained with Hoist. He's not small and he's not fragile. That's for damn sure.

• 3:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. Good to see you again.

• 3:09:18Jocko Willink?

  Hickson, any closing thoughts?

• 3:09:21Speaker 01

  Man, first, thank you. You are such an aspiring warrior and having, you know, you helping me on the book and, and get me in your podcast is already a blast. Second, man, I feel like we are in the same business of empowerment. You know, you, you bringing your knowledge, your expertise to help people in terms of understand pressure, understand discomfort, understand victory, understand, you know, bravery. And I'm in the same business which empowers people and give them better chances to handle life, which is not easy those days. So it's a pleasure to talk to you. It's a pleasure to see the energy which is similar.

• 3:10:05Speaker 01

  And we are in the same mode of supporting the future generations, you know, with your expertise, with my expertise. So it's just a great day on the office and. Happy to say, you know, this book maybe helped a lot of people. And this book is just the idea, my, is my personal life, is not something which has the intention to make you copy or be what is in the book. But creates a, creates a venue for different discussions. Creates a venue for different seminars, different speeches and, and everything coming from that because in essence, we all need to use more love in our hearts. We all need to use more

• 3:10:52Speaker 01

  techniques to victory, you know, nothing comes for in luck, nothing is just uh, act of God. I feel like you have to represent yourself in terms of have God be inside you and bringing the best service to make people get benefits, benefits from it. So, thank you too.

• 3:11:14Jocko Willink?

  Well, uh, thank you. Thanks to your whole family. Uh, I guess especially your uncle and, and to your father.

• 3:11:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:11:22Jocko Willink?

  Uh, who created this incredible martial art, brought it to the world. And, and like you've been saying, it's not just, it's not just to help people fight better, but actually to live better. And it's had such a huge impact on my life and I, I, I can say without hesitation that my life would not be even close to where it is if it wasn't for you, for your family and for Jiu Jitsu. So, it's an honor to know you. It's an honor to talk to you and I will continue to do my best to spread the art that your family and you taught to me.

• 3:11:56Speaker 01

  Thank you, my brother. Thank you, Akul.

• 3:11:57Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 3:11:58Speaker 01

  Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

• 3:12:01Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Hicks and Gracie has left the building. Only after he did spend a few minutes talking about invisible Jiu Jitsu.

• 3:12:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:12:09Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, showing me some stuff. Were you, you, you were hitting, did you hit recorder? Were you? You videoed a little of that?

• 3:12:17Speaker 02

  Little bit, yeah.

• 3:12:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's weird. So he talks about this thing called invisible jujitsu, which we didn't really talk about today. But it's a thing, and I know it's a thing because you know, when you're showing a move, like, let's say I'm showing a move with you. And I'm talking to, so I'm using you as a dummy and I'm talking to the group of students, right? And I say, well, you can't really see what I'm doing here to the students, but I'm like, Echo, do you feel this? And I, it feels one way and then I go now feel this and no one can tell anything different, but you go, yeah, it feels a lot heavier. It feels a lot like I'm off balance and it feels a lot more stable. So there's things in jujitsu that are invisible. And obviously they're the hardest thing to teach. Well, Hickson, that's sort of Hickson's thing.

• 3:13:02Jocko Willink?

  Is he's got the, these things that you cannot see, but they're real. They're invisible, but they're real. And, and like I was trying to explain, he talks about some of those on, on Hickson dot academy. He took, he starts to go into details of those things and he can explain it. So, and just when he was explaining it to me and I will say, you know, he's doing it to me and I'm like, well, that is freaking awesome.

• 3:13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13:25Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 3:13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. And jujitsu is so dynamic, even if you don't see it, where doing it versus not doing it. Is night and day when you're in there, you know, so like even like the, the thing was where you're essentially controlling your base, right? You controlling your base versus not controlling your base in that way. When you go up against somebody and they have to contend with you controlling your base in that way versus not is, but it's going to be a completely different scenario for them. Different experience.

• 3:13:55Jocko Willink?

  When I grabbed the single on him.

• 3:13:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13:57Jocko Willink?

  And he was like, you know, go ahead. And I started like trying to get a little, little uppity with that thing and I couldn't move him. And I was, you know, I'm starting to think I'm, I'm, I was actually, I mean, we did it for 20 seconds, right? And I, in my mind, I was like, I'm working right now. That's what I was thinking. I was like, I'm working. I'm trying to pull this thing and he's not working. He's just, he's just using invisible jujitsu versus me and it's, it's going to wear me out.

• 3:14:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:14:24Jocko Willink?

  And you can't even see it. But you, before you came in, when he started, he, you could see he kind of wanted to show me some stuff. And he goes, he goes, stand here and.

• 3:14:35Jocko Willink?

  You know, start with it and um he's just like stand here and he started doing like some basic self-defense with me and I was like, okay, you know, cool, you know, I'm thinking, of course, what am I thinking? I'm arrogant. I have a big ego, right? I gotta know this. And he goes, okay, now do this. And I was like, okay. And he's basically, he pushes me and I like immediately get my base, right? You know, my put my foot back into a fight stance. And he goes, okay, well, that's okay, right? And he says, now do this. And he teaches me a little invisible jujitsu. And he now he pushes me again and I don't go anywhere.

• 3:15:09Jocko Willink?

  Right? That's the jujitsu. So awesome to have Hickson on. Uh, speaking of jujitsu, we're training jujitsu. If you're not training jujitsu, obviously start training jujitsu. And when you do that, guess what you're gonna need?

• 3:15:26Speaker 02

  Supplementation.

• 3:15:27Jocko Willink?

  Look at you. Ready to rock and roll. Look at the connection.

• 3:15:31Speaker 02

  It does help. He did talk about two, uh,

• 3:15:36Speaker 02

  actually, I'm not even sure if he talked about it on air. Where, you know, when you a lot of people start jujitsu and then they they stop jujitsu, then they stop. Because in one of the elements, one of them is that they jump into the competitive part of it.

• 3:15:52Jocko Willink?

  Go to war.

• 3:15:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, the war and not even necessarily voluntarily, like they'll get they'll get just thrown, oh, yeah, we're sparring right now. Go just go spar and then they'll come across someone who's, you know, intense or whatever. And a lot of times you just become intense just because of the unfamiliar nature with what you're doing.

• 3:16:08Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're a human being that's being escalated on and you're gonna escalate back and ego and all nine yards. Next thing you know, it's a level seven war.

• 3:16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then just but just even before he gets to war, just that stress. It's like some people, they don't want that beef right away. Even if some people, they don't want that beef. They just they want to learn. They want to learn and, you know, have kind of a stress-free learning kind of experience. But that's part that's part I never really thought about, you know, because I think we kind of go in. Down for that beef.

• 3:16:37Jocko Willink?

  You know, I, I mentioned surfing as a comparison. I'm like, hey, if you're gonna start surfing and I take you to Mavericks.

• 3:16:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:16:44Jocko Willink?

  Which is scary rocks, cold water, sharks, giant waves. You're not even gonna get in the water, bro.

• 3:16:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:16:53Jocko Willink?

  You're literally not gonna get in the water. And I think that's the way a lot of people unfortunately view jujitsu. And they're kinda right, cuz if you go to a lot of schools, guess what's happening? Day one, you're in the big water, in the deep water, in the cold water with sharks.

• 3:17:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:17:05Jocko Willink?

  And you're getting bit.

• 3:17:07Speaker 02

  Just kinda left.

• 3:17:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:08Speaker 02

  You know, it's a, so that, man, I, I, I, I wish I would think about that a little bit more.

• 3:17:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's definitely something to think about.

• 3:17:18Speaker 02

  But it is good form of exercise, which is important. Exercise in all capacities, very important. And yes, we do need supplementation from time to time. I think if it's part of your routine, you're gonna be, you're gonna reap way more benefits over time. Short and long, long term, by the way. So Jaco's supplements are Jaco Fuel. Let's start with the energy drinks. And that's what it is.

• 3:17:39Jocko Willink?

  A good one.

• 3:17:40Speaker 02

  Discipline, go.

• 3:17:41Jocko Willink?

  Real energy.

• 3:17:42Speaker 02

  Yep, had one today, by the way. Actually, I've been kinda, have one every single day.

• 3:17:48Speaker 02

  Pretty much every day.

• 3:17:49Jocko Willink?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:17:50Speaker 02

  Uh, you don't have to drink one every day, but that's just happenstance.

• 3:17:53Jocko Willink?

  You certainly can.

• 3:17:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Some new flavors out, watermelon and mango passion fruit. Mango passion fruit's the best flavor.

• 3:18:02Jocko Willink?

  According to some people.

• 3:18:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, factually, I think I'm pretty sure factually is the best flavor. So yeah, if you're not, if you didn't, uh, know that.

• 3:18:10Jocko Willink?

  Travis Mills might have something to say about that.

• 3:18:12Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, uh, yeah, I would expect that to be the case.

• 3:18:15Jocko Willink?

  He might, he might have to open a can of whoop ass.

• 3:18:16Speaker 02

  But facts are facts. I anticipate that being the case, yes. Nonetheless, yes, new flavors, so yes, check, check those out. Let me know what you think, the mango one. Good reviews so far. Anyway, yes, healthy energy drinks.

• 3:18:30Jocko Willink?

  That's Echo's thing, that's Echo's flavor, by the way, just so everybody knows.

• 3:18:33Speaker 02

  All good.

• 3:18:33Jocko Willink?

  It's not a, it's, it's not an unbiased judgment. It's his flavor, his signature flavor.

• 3:18:40Speaker 02

  Like I said, factual. Nonetheless, all healthy, all good, no bad. Drink a bunch of them and you'll be better, literally better off.

• 3:18:48Jocko Willink?

  Be a better, be a better person. We also got joint warfare. Look, you're doing jiu jitsu, you're lifting, you're running, your joints are gonna take a little bit of abuse. Joint warfare, krill oil. You can just go on to those. Just get on them. Just get on them. And don't look back. And if you have to look back, you'll be looking back at sore joints. So don't. And by the way, so if you want to get on them and stay on them, subscribe. So go to jockofuel.com, order them, subscribe to them, and then shipping's free. You'll get it for, you get the stuff shipped to you for free. You won't have the mental lapse like some people

• 3:19:20Speaker 02

  Used to.

• 3:19:21Jocko Willink?

  In the podcast, used to have where they would forget to order. Don't let that happen to you. Uh, discipline powder. We got vitamin D3 and cold water. Those are also just, just sort of staples of life.

• 3:19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:19:34Jocko Willink?

  Right? Staples of life. You're not getting enough D, vitamin D. It's not happening. Get it the proper way.

• 3:19:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's one of those things too where you get in the routine, you got the subscription all day. It's just part of the routine. You don't have to worry about those effects anymore. That's the big one. You don't notice it, but it's better to not notice it than to notice when you eat it.

• 3:19:52Jocko Willink?

  You don't notice it in a good way. You're not like, damn, my knee hurts. Damn, my elbow hurts. You're just going, damn, I'm looking forward to training today.

• 3:19:59Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 3:20:00Jocko Willink?

  That's what you're getting.

• 3:20:01Speaker 02

  Yep, it's true.

• 3:20:02Jocko Willink?

  If you need a little extra protein, get yourself some Molk.

• 3:20:06Speaker 02

  I ate two ribeye steaks last night for dinner.

• 3:20:09Jocko Willink?

  That's good.

• 3:20:10Speaker 02

  And a Molk.

• 3:20:11Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, and?

• 3:20:12Speaker 02

  And it was a triple Molk. So here, this is, this is not a normal thing for me, but I went, I could, you know, start to, I was on fast. And what do, what do we call it? When you, you don't mean to fast? Incidental fast. That's what it was. Yeah. And it was like, man.

• 3:20:27Jocko Willink?

  IF, incidental fasting.

• 3:20:29Speaker 02

  And it was getting kinda late. I was like, man, I didn't eat anything today. So I'm just gonna eat one time, essentially.

• 3:20:35Jocko Willink?

  And it's gonna be big. I'm going big.

• 3:20:37Speaker 02

  Gotta go bigs. So yeah, two ribeyes. Brown rice.

• 3:20:40Jocko Willink?

  How big are the ribeyes?

• 3:20:41Speaker 02

  Oh, the regular sized one.

• 3:20:42Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so those are big.

• 3:20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're big. They're not those thick, thick monsters, but not the thin ones.

• 3:20:47Jocko Willink?

  If you say regular, I have an image.

• 3:20:48Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 3:20:49Jocko Willink?

  We're talking probably fourteen to sixteen ounces, you know, probably about a pound.

• 3:20:55Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:20:55Jocko Willink?

  That's like a regular ribeye.

• 3:20:56Speaker 02

  It is very normal.

• 3:20:57Jocko Willink?

  For a normal person.

• 3:20:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:20:58Jocko Willink?

  Cause my ribeyes are those thick ones.

• 3:21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, the thick ones are good too, but you think I'm gonna eat two of those, I don't know. You know, I'd have to be pretty hungry, put it that way.

• 3:21:07Jocko Willink?

  But then a triple, what's a triple malt? You said it was a triple malt?

• 3:21:10Speaker 02

  Three scoops.

• 3:21:10Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 3:21:11Speaker 02

  Too big. In fact, it was so big, the malt was so big, like my stomach was getting like way too big, but it was tasting good, so I pounded it, but I didn't.

• 3:21:19Jocko Willink?

  Did you mix it with regular malt, milk?

• 3:21:21Speaker 02

  Half milk, half almond milk.

• 3:21:23Jocko Willink?

  See, that's the thing. This is a new thing. And I gotta say, you know, people like think I'm closed minded about, you know, nutrition, or I'm closed minded about my habits, cause I am a very habitual person. But these things that have recently been introduced to me, coconut milk, almond milk, oat milk, like I've been trying these other milks, and what's nice about them is if you get that little lactose, I'm not lactose intolerant, like strictly, but if I drink a whole bunch of milk, let's face it, we're not feeling great.

• 3:21:55Speaker 02

  Might have some effects.

• 3:21:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so you mix up the malt with the almond milk, or the coconut milk, or whatever kind of other milk that's out there, you're, you don't know, you don't really know the difference. It still just tastes like a freaking dream.

• 3:22:08Speaker 02

  Yes, so the almond, obviously there's a plethora of different types of almond milk, sweet and unsweetened.

• 3:22:15Jocko Willink?

  Bark milk.

• 3:22:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. The particular one I did was the unsweetened. It's super like, milk to me doesn't taste sweet at all. Milk is not sweet, but apparently it is, cause unsweetened almond milk is like, whoa, like you can taste the unsweeten-ness of it. So I did a half and half, and but with the malt and the banana, boom.

• 3:22:37Jocko Willink?

  You're good.

• 3:22:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:22:38Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent.

• 3:22:39Speaker 02

  It was essentially a dessert. And additional, there was like a thousand grams of protein in that thing.

• 3:22:46Jocko Willink?

  You must feel so good today.

• 3:22:47Speaker 02

  Had the brown rice, though.

• 3:22:48Jocko Willink?

  Why can't you train today?

• 3:22:50Speaker 02

  Uh, I have some prior engagements.

• 3:22:52Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but why can't you train today?

• 3:22:54Speaker 02

  Well, maybe if it was later, like maybe like. Five.

• 3:22:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay, why can't you train today? Just bumped out of the stuff. Alright, so.

• 3:23:01Speaker 02

  You realize we trained hard. I mean, I don't know if you thought it was hard, but you know, okay, you know, when you get into like a routine working out training, you don't feel doms as much. You don't feel like every once in a while, like I'll have one with Greg. And yesterday was was actually kind of intense one with you. Where the next day, like today, when I woke up, I was like.

• 3:23:21Jocko Willink?

  You had full body doms?

• 3:23:22Speaker 02

  Full body, like I, like I got hit by a truck, like.

• 3:23:26Jocko Willink?

  You did.

• 3:23:26Speaker 02

  And rolled over.

• 3:23:27Jocko Willink?

  You did.

• 3:23:28Speaker 02

  You know what it was? It was that choke that I was trying to defend that you didn't have sunk in, but you had it tight, you know, that kind of stuff. So you feel like, oh, I can defend, but I'm gonna take some heavies on this. And I'm like defending, trying to build other. And then at the end, it's like, alright, it did. You know what's bad about your choke? I'm just gonna say it. So your choke sinks in and it's tight. But you know how most people, when they sink in a submission that's not all the way sunk in and you feel them like pushing hard, you feel after a few seconds, you feel them let up a little bit for some kind of adjustment, you know? Or maybe because, you know, you can't keep that intensity on the the the application for that long, you know? So you feel them loosen up a little bit and maybe adjust and then go for it again or whatever. But yours just gets like harder and harder.

• 3:24:13Speaker 02

  Like your choke doesn't even get tired. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm resisting it, resisting. And then, yeah, for whatever, finally I get choked. So I tap. And then like I'm paying this price for it even after I tap. And then I think you choked me like again too, anyway. So I'm like, alright, cool. And after you train, you're all loose and, you know, warm and stuff. So but next day, which is today, by the way, hurting.

• 3:24:34Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, we got to train. Alright, well, I'm gonna go train. Alright, so any of this stuff, you can get it, you can get it at the vitamin shop. You can get it, you can get the drinks at Wawa. Wawa is fully in full support. Go hit your Wawa. Get yourself a hoagie.

• 3:24:49Jocko Willink?

  A shorty. From Wawa.

• 3:24:51Speaker 02

  And a discipline go.

• 3:24:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and a discipline go. And um, and also jockofuel.com. Like I said, subscribe. We know shipping can be a pain. But if you subscribe, you don't even have to worry about it. It's just coming for free. So that's that. Also, we were talking about jiu jitsu today. And also at originusa.com, get yourself a jiu jitsu gi. Just go get one. You know, Hickson was talking about like, oh, we were had gees before we had diapers. Go look at pictures of like the the Gracie family when they're all just wearing gees.

• 3:25:19Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 3:25:20Jocko Willink?

  It's funny because I joke about like, hey, you can't just wear a gi around. Apparently, if it's nineteen whatever nineteen sixty five and you're in the Gracie family, you are wearing a gi. You are wearing a gi. We're wearing it to the beach. We're wearing it to the market. We're wearing it wherever.

• 3:25:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's that's that's funny. Like all those.

• 3:25:38Jocko Willink?

  I got kind of fired up for that. Like, I'm thinking about wearing a gi more often in more regular situations, just representing jujitsu.

• 3:25:45Speaker 02

  It's crazy, the whole comprehensive psychological approach that they had. Because they every once in a while you'll hear about like Hoiler would tell us about it where he'd be like, yeah, if you know, if you lose your first tournament, you get twenty bucks. If you win, you only get ten, kind of a thing. I was like, huh, that's some weird psychology. Not weird, but that's some like intense psychology. Like, they're thinking, it's not like they're just throwing people in in jujitsu because you have to. Your name's Gracie. It's like there's this whole kind of thing. So every once in a while, those details or whatever, that's it's real interesting. That's that's interesting. They were so used to it. Where it's like, yeah, you just wear the gi. That's just how.

• 3:26:20Jocko Willink?

  The gi. I'm kind of pissed off at myself that my kids just weren't wearing a gi to school when they were seven years old. What are you doing? Jitsu. Back away. So if you want any of this jujitsu stuff, or if you want to get jeans, if you decide, maybe you're not ready to wear a gi all the time like I'm deciding right now. If you're not ready for that, cool. It's cool. Get yourself some jeans. Get yourself some boots. Get yourself some t-shirts. OriginUSA.com. And the USA part isn't just like, oh, it's Origin USA. We're calling it USA. No, it's because it's made in America. Which, by the way, is not no is is no small feat. We are making everything in America.

• 3:26:57Speaker 02

  Even the clay. Was that you with the clay analogy? Someone was just talking. Yeah, yeah, that's.

• 3:27:02Jocko Willink?

  The clay is made. Yeah, everything. The materials are made. The copper rivets on your jeans are made in America.

• 3:27:08Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:27:09Jocko Willink?

  The copper's from America. The cotton is from America. Some people call it cotton.

• 3:27:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

• 3:27:15Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm talking about. So OriginUSA.com. Go check it out. Go support America and support jujitsu.

• 3:27:20Speaker 02

  Yourself.

• 3:27:21Jocko Willink?

  What else?

• 3:27:22Speaker 02

  The righteous way. Also, Jaco's store, it's called Jaco's store, is where you can get your t-shirts, hoodies, hats with discipline equals freedom, good, the attitude, Hixson was talking about the attitude of good. You saw it in there, right?

• 3:27:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 3:27:35Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:27:36Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah. In the toughest of situations.

• 3:27:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. One of them, man. Yeah. Yeah, to the nth degree, in my opinion. The, um, but yeah, you can get, uh, again apparel, all this stuff, got some shorts on there, good stuff on there. We also have a, a subscription scenario called the Shirt Locker, different designs, more artistic sometimes, more clever sometimes. I don't know, it's hard to explain, they're cool. Go in there, check it out, jacostore.com if you like something, you can get something.

• 3:28:02Jocko Willink?

  You can subscribe to this podcast. If you haven't yet, if you haven't yet, I don't even know if you should. Maybe you should just back away from iTunes and, and, and Spotify.

• 3:28:14Speaker 02

  Do you know that there's a name for people who, uh, who watch videos or listen to podcasts, but don't subscribe?

• 3:28:20Jocko Willink?

  What's the name?

• 3:28:21Speaker 02

  Ninja, ninja watchers or ninjas.

• 3:28:25Jocko Willink?

  They just stealthfully.

• 3:28:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, like they'll come, they'll come, you know, whatever. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I just.

• 3:28:30Jocko Willink?

  I mean, it's good if you're not looking to support.

• 3:28:33Jocko Willink?

  We also could call them what? We could call them freeloaders.

• 3:28:37Speaker 02

  Freeloaders, yeah, but it's all free. So I don't know that, that might not be as accurate.

• 3:28:42Jocko Willink?

  It's not asking, it's not asking much, just to click that subscribe, right? It's not like you're like, hey, you know, give me your firstborn child.

• 3:28:50Speaker 02

  I'm gonna be honest with you though, straight up, I don't even know what subscribing like does for like, uh, for the podcast. Like I know what it does for the person subscribing, you subscribe to it, it's on your feed, you get the thing, that's all, it's a benefits for sure. If you're down for, if that's a podcast you want to listen to, but like, why do you care if someone subscribes?

• 3:29:10Jocko Willink?

  I'll tell you exactly why I care. You want to know why I care? Listen, we make this podcast to help people out. If someone subscribes to the podcast, if you, whoever's listening right now subscribes to the podcast, that makes the podcast, when it gets downloaded, when you download it, when you listen to it, it makes the podcast more popular. The more popular the podcast is, the higher it goes in the ranking of podcasts. The higher it goes in the ranking of podcasts, the more it gets promoted inside the various podcast platforms. The more it gets promoted inside the various podcast platforms, someone that doesn't know about the podcast goes, I wonder what that's about. Seems popular, lot of people listen to it, they click on it, they listen to it.

• 3:29:53Jocko Willink?

  Next thing you know, they're learning about leadership, they're learning about how to overcome loss, they're learning about what to do in a breakup, they're learning about jujitsu. So, you're not just helping yourself, you're not, I mean, look, like you said, does it benefit us directly, oh yeah. Echo doesn't send me a text going, uh, hey, you know, our podcast is ranked number three. You're not doing that. But, if it broadens the people that get to hear this information, that's why it's important, important.

• 3:30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess I never really thought of the whole chain, and that's assuming that it does in fact, get you higher in the rankings.

• 3:30:33Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it definitely does.

• 3:30:35Speaker 02

  I assume it does.

• 3:30:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz I mean, the rankings are based on downloads, so if you subscribe to it, it gets downloaded, if you and two of your friends doing it, that's three.

• 3:30:43Speaker 02

  That's true, but can't you download it without subscribing though?

• 3:30:46Jocko Willink?

  And you know what else is weird, I forgot to ask Hicks in this, let's face it, the Gracies could have just held on to all their knowledge, right?

• 3:30:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:30:54Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 3:30:54Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 3:30:54Jocko Willink?

  And just be dominating the jujitsu, the MMA world right now, not, not open any schools. Just keep it hidden, keep it secret.

• 3:31:03Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 3:31:04Jocko Willink?

  And other people would try and figure it out, but

• 3:31:06Speaker 02

  It's different.

• 3:31:06Jocko Willink?

  Different, right?

• 3:31:07Speaker 02

  Way different, yeah.

• 3:31:08Jocko Willink?

  It's, but, the right thing to do, and their art has progressed more because they opened it up and gave it to the world. That's all we're trying to do too.

• 3:31:18Speaker 02

  So you're just asking to subscribe is to receive essentially.

• 3:31:21Jocko Willink?

  No, no, to subscribe is to help. It's to help other people learn. It's to help this mentality. So that way, when you go get a job at some new office, there's people that are like, hey, nice to meet you. Their ego's in check. They're looking to cover and move and you're able to function better and the world gets, becomes a better place.

• 3:31:38Speaker 02

  So you guys, um, in the teams, what is, what's the expression? Pass the word? Spread the word?

• 3:31:44Jocko Willink?

  Pass the word.

• 3:31:44Speaker 02

  Pass the word. It's kind of that, right?

• 3:31:46Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:31:47Speaker 02

  Pass the word. So we're all on the same page. We're all doing it. You're making the whole place a better place.

• 3:31:51Jocko Willink?

  So, so like I was saying, subscribe. Don't forget about we have Jaco unraveling podcasts. That I do with my brother, Daryl Cooper, DC, who also has a podcast called Mardi Gras. Uh, grounded podcast, which is about jujitsu. I guess we just kind of did a jujitsu podcast in a way. Uh, warrior kid podcast as well for the kids out there. We also have Jaco underground.com where we have a little alternative podcast. We do some, some expanded topics. We go into some detail. We do a lot of Q and A that people can ask questions directly. If you're a member of Jaco underground.com, you gotta pay to be a member. Well, actually technically you don't have to pay. Look, we request you pay $8.18 a month to be a part of that subscription.

• 3:32:36Jocko Willink?

  But if you can't afford it, it's cool. We still want you to be in the game. We still want you to have this knowledge. You email assistance at Jaco underground.com. And the reason we have that is because

• 3:32:47Jocko Willink?

  look, these tech platforms are very large and very powerful. And they actually have the power to insert advertisements into our podcast.

• 3:32:58Jocko Willink?

  They have the ability to edit or remove or whatever, ban us.

• 3:33:04Speaker 02

  I'm not going to mention the podcast name, but it's one that's kind of in our network. I know. Here's the thing. Uh, in fact, I maybe shouldn't even say this, but I don't know. The thing is it was randomly removed. It's just removed.

• 3:33:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:33:17Speaker 02

  From only one specific platform too, by the way. And I noticed the title of it. I was like, ooh, that could be a controversial title.

• 3:33:26Jocko Willink?

  Yep. So we don't want to have any of these platforms to have.

• 3:33:32Jocko Willink?

  Final say on what we're doing. So we made the Jaco, Jaco Underground.com. And if you want to help us out with that alternative platform, if we ever have to leave these platforms, we have a place to land and we appreciate the support there. We have a YouTube channel where I am the assistant director to many of the superior amazing videos.

• 3:33:53Speaker 02

  That's real fun. That's been catching on that you're the assistant director.

• 3:33:57Jocko Willink?

  What's funny about it?

• 3:33:59Speaker 02

  It's just, you know.

• 3:34:00Jocko Willink?

  What's funny about it is, what's really funny about it is that we joke about it. But what's really funny is you know, it ain't funny.

• 3:34:06Speaker 02

  It's kinda true.

• 3:34:07Jocko Willink?

  Cause you know, occasionally.

• 3:34:09Speaker 02

  You got some good input. You do.

• 3:34:11Jocko Willink?

  I do the shot. So go to, go to YouTube and subscribe to Jocko Podcast. Also, Origin. Origin USA has a podcast channel. If you want to know what's going on up in Maine.

• 3:34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good one to stay, to stay like kinda in the game as far as like, hey, this is what like legitimate. Almost in a way redefined American manufacturing.

• 3:34:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's what we're doing.

• 3:34:34Speaker 02

  It is a unique one because of like the culture of all them and Pete and like all them.

• 3:34:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's cool to know what's going on too, right? Like you order those boots, you can see who made it.

• 3:34:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:34:43Jocko Willink?

  You can see the, think about that. You go to a regular store and buy a pair of jeans. You have no idea what, you know, starving person in a sweatshop in China. You don't, you don't know, right? You know that they got paid 13 cents for their week's worth of work, like slave labor. Or you can actually go to Origin USA and see the people that are making your stuff and see what they're doing and getting the game. It's freaking legit. Maine ties up there doing it.

• 3:35:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, doing great work up there. Also, psychological warfare. If you're having moments of weakness like I used to, not anymore. All right, maybe I do sometimes, but if you have those, you, you want to skip the workout. You have a workout planned. And then all of a sudden you're like, hey man, maybe today would be best to rest. But you know that deep down that that's just you being lazy or not in the mood and being weak or whatever. Psychological warfare, you got Jaco helping you through those moments successfully. It's a little album with tracks. You can get that wherever you purchase MP3s. It's a good one.

• 3:35:43Jocko Willink?

  And if you want some cool stuff to hang on your wall to keep you on the path, go to flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Meyer. He has that company and they're making cool graphical things. Images to put on your wall, which is cool. Books, got a bunch of books. Hey, this book right here, Breathe, A Life in Flow by Hicks and Gracie. You just heard from him. There's so much more information that I didn't cover. I wrote the foreword. What an honor. I read a little bit of the foreword. There's quite a bit more to the fore to explain some of these things about jujitsu, what impact it had on me. So get the book Breathe by Hicks and Gracie and Peter Maguire, another awesome guy that helped them write that book. Final Spin.

• 3:36:24Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, we don't know what's going to happen with Final Spin. People are unsure what Final Spin even is. Is it a book? Is it a novel? Is it a poem? Is it a story? Is it a manuscript? We don't know what it is.

• 3:36:38Speaker 02

  Literature.

• 3:36:39Jocko Willink?

  Literature. There's no one that's going to try and pin it down. I think it will create its own form of literature.

• 3:36:49Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna want that first to dish. So preorder that right now. You know that the publishers are like, well, you know.

• 3:36:58Jocko Willink?

  My publisher hears this and they talk to me about it. So I need to do it more. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual, The Code, The Evaluation, The Protocol, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, Way of the Warrior Kid, One, Two, Three and Four, Miking the Dragons, About Face by Hackworth, Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership. These are all the books I've written thus far. Check them out. I have a leadership consultant, consulting company where we solve problems through leadership. Go to Eshlomfront.com if you want to get some of that. We have Extreme Ownership Academy. It's an online leadership training academy. I'm there two, three times a week answering your questions. So if you want to talk to me, you want to give me a scenario that you're in that you

• 3:37:39Jocko Willink?

  need help in, go to extremeownership.com, join the academy. We also have some live events. The next one is the muster in Phoenix, August 17th and 18th coming up. Then it's going to be Las Vegas, October 28th and 29th. Check out extremeownership.com. No, actually go to Eshlomfront.com and go to events for that. All these things have sold out in the past. These are going to sell out too.

• 3:38:04Jocko Willink?

  So check them out. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate, or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. And if you want to get engaged with Hickson Gracie, once again, Hickson dot academy is where you can learn his invisible jujitsu. Hickson Gracie.com. He's got a bunch of information on there as well. And he's on Facebook at Hickson Gracie. And he is on Instagram at Hickson Gracie JJ. And by the way, Hickson is spelled with an R. In case you're wondering, that's the Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation. And if you happen to want more of my prolonged

• 3:38:48Jocko Willink?

  pontification, or you need more of Echo's obtuse orating.

• 3:38:54Speaker 02

  It's not obtuse.

• 3:38:55Jocko Willink?

  If you want more of Echo's obtuse orating, you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, which Echo only calls the gram, and on that Facebook.

• 3:39:08Jocko Willink?

  Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink. And thanks once again to Hickson Gracie and the Gracie family for giving us all the gift of jujitsu. And also, thanks to the Gracie family. I didn't mention this, but they've spent a lot of time teaching our military, the art of jujitsu. Many of the Gracie have worked with the military over the years to improve our operational capability. It is much appreciated. And to those military folks that have taken those skills and used them to protect us overseas, we thank you for that. And the Gracie family has also helped much of law enforcement. And we hope that

• 3:39:48Jocko Willink?

  law enforcement further embraces jujitsu as a highly beneficial thing that will help them in every aspect of what they do. So thanks to the Gracie family for that. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all first responders who put those skills to work to protect us here on the home front. And now to everyone else out there, please.

• 3:40:21Jocko Willink?

  No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter what you think, no matter where you're from, or where you are, do me and yourself a favor.

• 3:40:33Jocko Willink?

  And go train jiu-jitsu. It will make you healthier, smarter, stronger, more confident, more aware.

• 3:40:43Jocko Willink?

  I mean, I could go on, but suffice to say, it will make you a better person, so go out there. And get after it.

• 3:40:54Jocko Willink?

  And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco. Out.