The Art of Manliness - #446： How Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Will Make You a Better Man

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00:01:38.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. In the 1980s,

00:01:57.320 when people signed up for martial art, they probably joined a karate or a taekwondo school. Today,

00:02:01.940 they're probably signing up for a role on the mat in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu class. And the Gracie family

00:02:05.900 has played a central role in this martial arts precipitous rise. My guest today is a member

00:02:09.760 of the Gracie family, the head instructor of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy and the co-creator of

00:02:13.660 Gracie University, an online jiu-jitsu program. His name is Hinner Gracie, and you may have seen the

00:02:17.760 videos we've made with him on our YouTube channel a couple of years ago if you haven't got to check

00:02:20.940 him out. Today, Hinner walks through the origins of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, beginning with his

00:02:23.960 grandfather, Helio, and how a martial art born in Japan ended up being reshaped in Brazil. He then

00:02:28.760 shares how his father helped develop the UFC as a way to promote the efficacy of Brazilian

00:02:32.140 jiu-jitsu, but why there's a big difference between sport, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and self-defense

00:02:36.620 Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and why Brazilian jiu-jitsu is such an effective real-world martial art. We end

00:02:41.280 by talking about the mindset shift that occurs when you learn how to defend yourself and how the

00:02:44.940 confidence you gain from learning jiu-jitsu carries over to other aspects of life. After the

00:02:48.980 show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash Gracie. 0.83

00:03:02.140 All right. Hinner Gracie, welcome to the show. 1.00

00:03:05.700 Honored, man. Thanks for having me.

00:03:07.520 So a few years ago, we collaborated on some videos on YouTube about Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

00:03:13.600 We had Jordan Crowder go out there and film you and talk about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and some basic

00:03:18.760 moves, but I'd love to get you on the podcast to talk about this as well. I mean, let's first talk

00:03:22.780 about your role at Gracie jiu-jitsu. Your last name is Gracie, so you're obviously part of the family,

00:03:27.340 but what do you do there with the business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the Gracie family?

00:03:31.440 Yeah. So to take, I'm going to assume some of our viewers or some of the listeners, I should say,

00:03:35.760 don't know much about the Gracie family and maybe haven't even seen the awesome videos that you

00:03:40.640 guys produced, kind of taking it back to the history. But my family is kind of credited with

00:03:46.540 the development and creation of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. My grandfather being kind of the

00:03:51.100 pioneer there, him and his brother learned Japanese jiu-jitsu and then over several years made

00:03:55.340 modifications that really increased the effectiveness. And that's the birth of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

00:03:59.660 So it's kind of like an evolution of the predecessor, Japanese jiu-jitsu.

00:04:04.140 And to test the effectiveness, they started fighting everyone they could possibly get their

00:04:07.680 hands on in Brazil. So there were these challenge matches that happened in the early 1900s, starting

00:04:12.600 around 1920, 1925. And they were defeating these giants, much larger, stronger opponents, because

00:04:18.280 you know, my grandfather particularly was a much weaker, smaller guy, 145 pounds, 150 pounds.

00:04:22.960 And by defeating these giants, he really proved the effectiveness of jiu-jitsu and, you know,

00:04:28.740 started creating quite a following for himself in Brazil and became somewhat of a national kind

00:04:33.320 of sports icon there at the time. So that happened. And, you know, through all these challenge

00:04:38.140 matches really built a reputation for jiu-jitsu and for the Gracie family there. Other members of

00:04:42.440 the family were practicing as well under their, under his guidance. And then my father was born into it

00:04:46.720 1952. And then he was the one who learned in Brazil and then eventually brought the art

00:04:52.620 to America, 1978. He landed here in Hermosa Beach, California, and began teaching classes

00:04:57.880 out of his garage. Fast forward 11 years of classes in the garage and several challenge

00:05:02.460 matches, I should say, I should say during that period, a lot of challenge matches with

00:05:05.940 like karate masters, taekwondo, kung fu, because everyone here in the States was kind of in the

00:05:10.100 Bruce Lee mode. And, you know, so he would fight these guys in the garage, like time after

00:05:14.540 time, people would come in and they would get choked out in like 30 seconds, one minute,

00:05:17.820 two minutes. And they were completely, you know, kind of dumbfounded by the simple effectiveness

00:05:23.940 of jiu-jitsu that we practiced. And then after so many years of those garage teachings and challenge

00:05:29.420 matches, he opened the first Gracie official, Gracie school here called the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy

00:05:34.780 then here in Torrance, California. And that's kind of where the real kind of established school

00:05:39.720 began in America, the first official school. And then four years later, he created the UFC

00:05:44.120 in 1993, which has a big, basically a big platform to demonstrate the effectiveness of

00:05:49.840 jiu-jitsu in real fights amongst professionals on television. The thought being that, you know,

00:05:55.720 we had done these challenge matches for 80 years at the time, you know, in the garage and

00:05:59.960 in the dojos and whatnot. And to do it on TV would really expose a lot of people to, you

00:06:05.120 know, the shortcomings of other martial arts, right? So a martial art where it teaches punches

00:06:08.960 and kicking might look nice, but when it comes down to actual effectiveness, the second

00:06:13.280 they get taken to the ground, they're like fish out of water. The fight is over. So whoever

00:06:17.080 was more comfortable on the ground proved to be the most efficient fighting system. And

00:06:21.760 that's where jiu-jitsu became, you know, Gracie jiu-jitsu by our family in particular became

00:06:26.400 known worldwide. That was 1993. Soon after we got special forces, army rangers learning

00:06:32.180 jiu-jitsu and then it hasn't stopped since. Like it's the fastest growing martial art because

00:06:36.620 it works. And today my brother and I are the co-head instructors of our current, we've moved

00:06:41.440 two times since 1989, since our first school, we've expanded over the last, you know, several

00:06:47.580 years or 20 plus years. So we've moved two locations. We just expanded to a 30,000 square

00:06:53.200 foot super jiu-jitsu center here in Southern California, still in Torrance. And my father's

00:06:58.560 retired. My brother and I run the business of teaching jiu-jitsu to the world. And the organization

00:07:03.220 is now called Gracie University. And it's both has a brick and mortar presence here in Torrance.

00:07:08.520 And we oversee 150 schools around the world and growing every year in terms of licensing,

00:07:14.560 licensed certified training centers that teach our curriculum of jiu-jitsu. And we have an online

00:07:19.340 university with, you know, almost 200,000 members learning jiu-jitsu through the internet,

00:07:25.140 streaming video curriculum at home. And that's been a huge, huge part of our business to be able to

00:07:30.900 teach any people anywhere in the world. Okay. There's a lot of impact there. This is cool.

00:07:34.140 So let's start off. I mean, for those who aren't familiar with jiu-jitsu, what separates it from

00:07:38.620 other martial arts, say like karate or taekwondo? Right. So I think that was something that we

00:07:43.880 really, I mean, I'm just going to keep referencing to it because maybe you don't know this, but the

00:07:47.920 videos that you guys produced on jiu-jitsu with Jordan's help and for Art of Manliness were probably

00:07:53.960 two of the most insightful introductory to jiu-jitsu. Well, we did multiple videos, but a couple of those

00:07:59.560 there have a couple million views, I think serve as like the most effective introduction to the

00:08:05.480 principles and the techniques of jiu-jitsu. Like I've never done an intro like that with the mindset

00:08:09.160 of keeping it short, but really just demonstrating techniques that literally and entirely demonstrate

00:08:15.620 why jiu-jitsu is more reliable than other martial arts. And that's not from a, you know, cocky or

00:08:22.040 boastful perspective. It's coming from a purely technical leverage-based, a distance management

00:08:28.660 perspective. It's just a better odds to engage in a fight when you know jiu-jitsu than when you

00:08:34.360 engage in a fight and are relying on karate, taekwondo, kung fu, boxing, kickboxing, any art

00:08:40.100 that relies on knocking someone out relies really heavily on a perfectly positioned and perfectly

00:08:47.980 thrown punch or kick, meaning the distance has to be perfect, right? So I have to stand in front of

00:08:54.380 you one arm length away. I have to take my hand. I have to crack you in the jaw, has to

00:08:58.600 hit very nicely and sometimes it hits and it doesn't work. Other times it hits and it drops 0.93

00:09:02.800 the person, but more often than not, it doesn't knock them out on the first shot. And we stand

00:09:08.220 in front of each other and we trade blows until someone gets knocked out. Someone gets the better

00:09:11.660 hand. When you have a martial art like karate or taekwondo, where both practitioners agree that

00:09:18.380 they're supposed to stand in front of each other and kick and punch until someone gets the better

00:09:23.160 half of the, of the, of the equation and is effective in knocking the other person out or

00:09:27.860 winning the match. That's an agreement. They have an agreement that they're not going to grab onto

00:09:33.200 each other as boxers, right? The first thing you do when you start getting punched overwhelmingly,

00:09:37.240 what does a boxer do? He clinches the person who's hitting him. He grabs him, right? If you think

00:09:42.780 back to any, any fight we're talking, even Mayweather and, uh, and Conor McGregor, when they had that,

00:09:48.720 you know, that, that circus of a boxy match, which everyone watched, what do they do? As soon as

00:09:52.620 Mayweather starts getting racked up a little bit in the first couple of rounds, he would grab on

00:09:55.920 and clinch Conor and hold them. And what jujitsu does is it goes right to that point in the fight.

00:10:02.680 Instead of saying, we're going to trade punches until I start losing. And then I'm going to grab you.

00:10:06.280 It just says, yo, you're not going to punch me when you think you're going to punch me. I'm just

00:10:09.980 going to grab you. I'm not going to agree to stand there in front of you. And then once we grab a hold

00:10:14.360 of our subject in that situation, we find a way to grab, grab and drag that person into a ground

00:10:20.660 fight. And the reason is standing up to people. If you're six inches taller than me standing up,

00:10:26.500 that makes a big difference. But once we're on the ground, we're all the same height. Not only that,

00:10:32.440 once we go to the ground, I have four appendages. If I know jujitsu, I have four

00:10:39.760 appendages, four limbs that I can use to my advantage to essentially trap you, grab you,

00:10:46.200 control you, submit you, defend punches. And the person who does not know jujitsu,

00:10:50.700 when they fall to the ground, they only have two limbs. They only have two hands to operate with.

00:10:55.820 Whereas a jujitsu master or practitioner has four. So you literally take the equation. Let's assume

00:11:01.860 that two people who don't know how to fight really when they're standing up, it's two against two,

00:11:05.380 right? So two limbs against two limbs. The second we hit the ground, if neither one of them knows

00:11:10.960 how to fight, which you see on YouTube all the time, crazy brawls, right? It's still two limbs 0.96

00:11:15.220 against two limbs. But the second you see someone with, you know, I'm talking months, not even years, 0.94

00:11:19.960 I'm talking six months, eight months of jujitsu training, like very limited, that learns about

00:11:24.580 30 to 40 techniques, the bare minimum of jujitsu knowledge gets into a fight. When it goes to the

00:11:30.360 ground, you see an application of their lower body and their legs to entangle the opponent

00:11:35.760 that you'll never see between two untrained people. So you can show me any number of street

00:11:40.860 fights. And just by watching them, I can tell you if at all, and if so, how much experience the jujitsu

00:11:47.580 person has based purely on their ability to utilize their legs to, to essentially control and then

00:11:54.800 eventually defeat their opponent on a ground fight. So it's literally a cheating equation

00:12:00.140 because we have four limbs and they have two. Okay. And how, so it's not, it's more about

00:12:05.520 grappling submission holds. So it's, that's how it's unlike karate or taekwondo. What about judo?

00:12:10.860 How is it different from judo? Good question. So judo and our jujitsu have the same origin of the

00:12:16.980 Japanese jujitsu, right? So they both come from the same place. And, you know, in the, in the,

00:12:22.400 in the, you know, early 1900s or even pre 1900s, judo was developed as the kind of sportive branch

00:12:30.220 of Japanese jujitsu. It was developed much more as a recreational, you know, mind, body, spirit,

00:12:35.640 and you learn these techniques and it became much more of an, of an art of practice compared to what

00:12:41.040 the original Japanese jujitsu was, which is much more focused on survival, life or death, fight for

00:12:46.780 your life. So what happened was Jigoro Kano, kind of the judo grandmaster and, and kind of

00:12:52.400 you know, top figure Jigoro Kano said, okay, let's create a form of judo that can be practiced

00:12:56.740 by kids in schools throughout the country has a much more of a curriculum driven. And it became

00:13:01.540 much more of a sport where they became much more of a confined set of rules, where if you're standing

00:13:05.540 and you throw each other and the person's back hits the ground, the fight's over. So even in a sport of

00:13:11.180 judo match, once you get a one good throw, the fight is over. And so that's judo, but it has the

00:13:16.040 origin of Japanese jujitsu, which there are submissions, there are grappling techniques. It just became

00:13:20.460 kind of a branch off of the original Japanese jujitsu that really limited its street fight

00:13:24.980 applicability because it was practiced almost entirely for its sportive practice. Now, not to

00:13:29.920 say that judo techniques would not have an application in a real fight. Some of those techniques could be

00:13:34.580 devastating, right? But the core purpose for its practice was not to prepare its students for a fight,

00:13:41.100 but rather to create a recreational sport that included these, these, these grappling and submission and

00:13:47.280 throwing techniques that made it for an effective sport and something that kids can do from, from the

00:13:51.480 ground up. So it became much more sportive based. The Brazilian jujitsu is much more closely related

00:13:58.060 to the original form of Japanese jujitsu, which had no confines of sport consideration. All we said was,

00:14:04.880 yo, if we get in a fight, we're going to have to survive against someone much bigger than us. We got to do

00:14:08.600 whatever it takes. So jujitsu as practiced by my family in the early 1900s and evolved since has much

00:14:15.420 more, has been much more focused on actual street fight against a larger opponent, no rules, punches

00:14:20.680 included, which judo does not include. We include striking techniques, not only as can be used by us

00:14:27.400 against our opponent in particular situations where we're not at risk of getting struck back,

00:14:31.800 but it also factors in heavily the defense against someone who's trying to knock you out.

00:14:37.160 And that simply isn't something covered in judo or even talked about because it's not a priority for

00:14:40.740 them. So they have similar origins, but today the practice and the rule set really determines

00:14:46.440 everything. And Gracie or Brazilian jujitsu has a much more direct street fight application because

00:14:52.160 in the gym, we're not practicing to a set rule set that would limit its applicability in a real fight.

00:14:58.000 Gotcha. So that's a good point to bring up. Brazilian jujitsu, you know, people are often

00:15:02.240 familiar with it because they see it in mixed martial arts fights, but this is not, was originally not

00:15:06.700 designed to be a sport self, a sport martial art. It was originally designed for self-defense.

00:15:11.660 100% for self-defense. And today what you have happening is like happened very similarly, history

00:15:18.180 repeats itself the same way Japanese jujitsu existed in a raw form way back then. And then judo, you know,

00:15:25.180 essentially came about as the sport of branch of Japanese jujitsu. If you think back to every martial

00:15:30.040 art, Brett, it's the same thing. Taekwondo wasn't created. And I don't know much about the history

00:15:35.220 about Taekwondo, but it wasn't created way back when it was because of, of the aspiration to have

00:15:40.880 a sport where we can kick each other and earn points through throwing kicks. That wasn't why it

00:15:44.480 started. It started for survival and effectiveness on the battlefield. Let's just say, right. Where

00:15:50.840 they're surviving and, you know, in, in times of civil war, way back when, and people having to

00:15:55.500 defend themselves and protect their families in life or death, it started for a survival. Every martial

00:15:59.520 art has a survival fight for your life origin. And then what happens is as sport, as practice of

00:16:06.040 that art becomes common throughout a country or region or the world, what happens is they have

00:16:10.300 to agree upon a rule set that we're going to follow so that we can practice this. And then

00:16:14.180 eventually what happens is the practice for the agreed upon rule set essentially overtakes the

00:16:22.760 practice for its original purpose. And then the sport like Taekwondo, that was once a fighting

00:16:28.500 system for survival now is almost exclusively referred to as an Olympic sport where you kick

00:16:34.340 each other, score points. If your foot touches my body. And then if you win a gold medal, this is

00:16:37.960 awesome. But no one says, Oh yeah, if you want to learn how to fight for real, learn Taekwondo.

00:16:41.620 That's not really where the association is anymore because so much of its practice is geared entirely

00:16:47.180 towards effectiveness in a realm where we both agree to stand in front of each other and adhere to a

00:16:53.060 distance and a rule set that we didn't create, but we simply have been practicing for, for the last 15

00:16:57.640 years. So let's fight based on those circumstances. And what's happening is even in jujitsu today,

00:17:02.740 that deviation is happening where there's enough people that have started jujitsu and are practicing

00:17:08.420 so they can go win a gold medal in a, in a point-based jujitsu tournament, forget even MMA,

00:17:13.280 but I'm talking purely jujitsu where today there exists essentially two families in the jujitsu tree,

00:17:19.020 which is sport Brazilian jujitsu, where if you were to show up at a school on the first day that you show

00:17:24.460 up to class, they're going to say, okay, Brett, welcome to BJJ. Today we're going to learn a sweep

00:17:28.480 that gets you two points. We're going to learn a submission that would win you the fight. And

00:17:33.440 we're going to learn how to pass the guard, which might get you three points. So people are literally

00:17:37.300 learning from their first day, the jujitsu that will be useful in a sport of engagement,

00:17:41.900 but may have very limited applicability in a real fight. Because like these other martial arts I

00:17:47.160 reference, once you start focusing on that as your victory, you really start to disregard all of the

00:17:51.940 elements that made Brazilian jujitsu famous to begin with, which is those real fight survival

00:17:56.660 elements. So it's actually a very contentious point in jujitsu and one that, you know, my brother and

00:18:01.940 I are kind of at the helm in terms of making, you know, a claim or at least the public aware that

00:18:08.220 not all jujitsu is created equally. And that in many cases, a student wants to learn how to defend

00:18:13.020 themselves, shows up at a BJJ school and what's being taught there has no resemblance to anything that

00:18:17.840 you would ever see in a real fight. And it's confusing to them because their initial desire

00:18:22.620 to learn jujitsu came from seeing it being used effectively in real fights. If it was UFC one,

00:18:28.340 where Hoist fought those giants, where there was no rules, no time limits, no weight classes,

00:18:32.600 the original UFCs were the, some of the best demonstration of jujitsu in its kind of raw and

00:18:37.520 most effective form. So today there is that divide in jujitsu and, and we, you know, remain a hundred

00:18:43.840 percent committed as a organization, Gracie university to teaching it in its, in its self-defense form.

00:18:49.520 And, and, and, and people are becoming more and more aware of the separation.

00:18:53.220 So you, you teach for self-defense, but I imagine even that self-defense type of jujitsu

00:18:58.220 carries over to sport.

00:19:00.700 Yeah, absolutely. And that's where it all began, right? And so everything that, you know, you learn,

00:19:04.880 not everything I should say, because there's some techniques, for example, how to defend against

00:19:08.540 someone punching you in the face. It's the simplest way to explain this, right? If you and me were to

00:19:13.440 start a fight and we were to stand up and you would disagree with me, or you did something

00:19:16.540 disrespectful and we had to fight, the fight doesn't start with us shaking hands and grabbing

00:19:20.580 onto each other's jackets, which is how a jujitsu match begins. The fight would start with both of

00:19:25.360 us upright and you would swing for my face. And then once we're on the ground, you would be trying

00:19:29.260 to eye gouge and punch me in the face. And I would have to be able to manage the distance in order to

00:19:33.480 prevent those attacks from being effective against me. So things like that, those simplest concepts

00:19:38.120 don't directly apply, but there are other techniques of, you know, leverage and submissions that,

00:19:43.100 yeah, if I get you in a chokehold in a sportive match, or I get you in a chokehold in a street

00:19:46.100 fight, you're going to sleep no matter what, both of those cases you're going out. But a lot of times

00:19:50.680 what I see, like I had a student come visit us from Australia last week and he had been training

00:19:56.400 for a good three years. So he wasn't like novice, novice. He was just not an advanced practitioner,

00:20:00.480 but definitely had experience, came and trained with us. And on Wednesdays we put on gloves. So we spar

00:20:06.400 in jujitsu, we grapple, but we're wearing gloves, like MMA gloves. So we can be reaching for each

00:20:11.100 other's faces and we could be not even knocking each other out. Nothing crazy. Like I'm talking

00:20:14.920 like 10, 20% touching someone to show them where they need to block punches from during

00:20:19.460 the jujitsu grapple. And this guy from Australia who I was grappling with had never done this

00:20:26.000 before in his life, which means the school that he trained at in Australia. And I asked

00:20:30.320 him this, I says, Hey, have you ever sparred jujitsu with someone reaching for your face?

00:20:36.640 Like even going through the motion of going for a punch, just so you can see and manage

00:20:42.300 that from a different distance. And he says, Henner, we've never done this once.

00:20:47.300 And he says, doing it with you right now, I felt like I forgot all of my jujitsu

00:20:52.360 because I was so flustered by the prospect of getting punched in the nose.

00:20:57.440 So everything I've ever learned was gone because the threat in front of me was so

00:21:02.440 real and was so unmanageable based on my skillset that I was overwhelmed.

00:21:07.880 So he kind of explained this to me and I go, wow, this is crazy. So there's jujitsu

00:21:11.400 out there today where you can train for three years, five years, 10 years. And no one ever

00:21:15.100 tells you like, Hey, if you're laying down and someone's on top of you in the guard

00:21:17.980 and they try to punch you, here's how you manage the distance and control their strike

00:21:22.060 so that their strike won't be effective against you. And it's actually very easy to learn.

00:21:25.780 We teach it to beginners in six months. So it's not hard to learn this, but if you don't

00:21:30.240 focus on it because you have other priorities in your training, it's very easy for this train

00:21:34.200 to go off the rails. And suddenly you have lots of experience, but no effectiveness in

00:21:38.960 a real fight.

00:21:39.760 Gotcha. So that's another difference between sport jujitsu and self-defense is that I guess

00:21:44.460 in sport, there's no striking.

00:21:46.380 Zero.

00:21:47.080 Okay.

00:21:47.400 Not even one in, not even like a simulation. And when we train with gloves here, it's very

00:21:52.140 light because we have a thousand students or more, you know, 1200 students here at this

00:21:56.700 school. And most of them are not professional fighters. They're just want to go to

00:22:00.140 work tomorrow morning. So we have developed the best beginner programs. And even in the

00:22:04.160 advanced programs, when we're training with some strike, you know, positioning and strike

00:22:07.600 and going through the motions, no one's getting black eyes or bloody noses. We did it. We

00:22:10.920 did it. What's today? Thursday. We did it last night already, you know, so just recently.

00:22:14.420 So it was very calm, light touch. Everything's just super safe, but nonetheless, you're being

00:22:20.080 reminded that, yo, in a real fight, this hand that I'm touching you with very softly, it's

00:22:23.860 going to come at you full speed and you better be ready from this angle to manage that.

00:22:27.580 But if that angle of threat has never been contemplated or even practiced, whenever it

00:22:33.240 does happen, you're like, wait a minute, that's not supposed to be a threat. I'm only used

00:22:36.500 to, you know, these jujitsu sport moves. I'm not used to the threats that could arrive at

00:22:41.560 my face at any time. So absolutely. It's a difference. And it's a, it's a serious problem

00:22:46.180 because the Gracie family is responsible for making jujitsu famous to the world and the creation

00:22:51.660 of the UFC and much of that by my uncle's ancestors, my dad, and demonstrating the effectiveness.

00:22:56.720 And most people who start learning jujitsu, who say, I want to go learn jujitsu. I see

00:23:02.380 it in the UFC. I hear it's effective martial arts, self-defense. I want to go learn it.

00:23:06.140 90% of people who walk into a school, what are they looking for? They're looking to be 0.95

00:23:10.200 able to defend themselves against someone who wants to take something from them, take their

00:23:16.020 dignity, take their property, take their kid. If someone wants to threaten you, you should

00:23:21.200 be able to defend yourself and not get hurt. And even if they're bigger than you are, you

00:23:26.960 should be able to do that because someone will try to take something from you, even if

00:23:31.000 it's your dignity, right? And disrespecting you in a situation. And you have to be able

00:23:35.080 to stand up for yourself. And your ability to stand up for yourself is rooted at the core

00:23:39.600 in your certainty that if that person were to violently attack you, you would be safe.

00:23:45.760 You would not be injured by them. I have that certainty with every interaction that I have on

00:23:51.080 the daily basis. I never am fearful for what someone can do to me physically, right? So because

00:23:56.520 of that, I can engage with people in a confident, calm demeanor that usually, and almost entirely

00:24:02.340 prevents them from ever attacking me. So I learned how to fight. So I never have to. The problem is

00:24:08.700 when people sign up for a BJJ school and they don't know what they're going to get and they show up

00:24:12.980 and what they get there is an entirely sportive practice of the art that several years go by

00:24:18.300 before they realize, wow, I never really got here. What I originally signed up for, which was that

00:24:23.860 self-protection certainty and that safety guarantee. I don't feel like I have that because if someone

00:24:29.900 throws a punch, like this kid from Australia who came over, someone throws a punch, my jujitsu 0.99

00:24:34.460 goes out the window. So how certain I am that I'm safe during an engagement or an altercation

00:24:38.960 with someone over a parking spot. He can't be certain. And that's our biggest concern with

00:24:44.060 current, present jujitsu state today is that there is that divide, but there isn't clarity to the

00:24:49.800 public on every level that what they're getting in many cases is not going to give them the

00:24:54.880 certainty that jujitsu can give them and that they originally came looking for.

00:24:59.840 I want to, you made an interesting point there that I want to flesh out some more. This idea that by

00:25:04.400 learning to do violence, which, you know, which is what you're doing when you practice

00:25:09.500 self-defense jujitsu, like you become like kinder, which is counterintuitive when people think you 0.99

00:25:15.960 think, well, if you learn how to be really violent, you're going to be an a-hole and jerk and looking 0.99

00:25:19.700 for fights. But in your experience, and I've noticed this as well, whenever I deal with, 0.99

00:25:23.000 you know, people who practice who are like advanced level jujitsu guys, or even like, you know,

00:25:28.680 special operators, right in the military, like they're usually the kindest, nicest guys,

00:25:33.820 but I know that they could kill me if they wanted to.

00:25:37.160 Yeah. So listen, here's, I think the people who are most likely to get into a fight in society

00:25:46.280 are the people who are least prepared to get into a fight. And the people who are most prepared to get

00:25:55.320 into a fight for their life are the people who are least likely to get into a fight. And I think

00:26:00.940 this is a result of two things. Number one

00:26:04.620 is that I feel like by training the way I have my whole life, every single day,

00:26:14.200 by being put through the grinder, by having highs and lows, by learning, discovering,

00:26:19.220 by losing to my older brother for so many years, getting tapped out by him and him being, you know,

00:26:23.740 better than me and having so many amazing students and training partners. I know exactly where I stand

00:26:30.000 on the totem pole of self-defense jujitsu effectiveness. I have no doubts about it.

00:26:36.480 I know where I stand. I know what I'm capable of and I know what I'm not capable of. So I don't need

00:26:41.500 to get into a fight to prove myself to anyone or even to myself. Whereas I think a lot of people out

00:26:47.400 there, especially when you put a little bit of alcohol on them and you have a little ego and you

00:26:51.200 have some friends watching, a lot of people who think they're tougher than they are feel the really

00:26:56.300 strong desire to prove to the surrounding audience and to themselves that they are as tough as they

00:27:02.380 think they are. Now, ironically, they usually aren't. Usually, they're probably 10 or 20%

00:27:10.480 as capable people. That's a general thing. People tend to overestimate their fighting capability.

00:27:16.640 That's one thing I know for sure is that by and large, especially men, tend to overestimate

00:27:22.660 their ability to prevail in a physical fight for their life. They think they know and are capable

00:27:27.640 of more than they are. They're not. If you don't know how to fight, you have no idea how to fight.

00:27:32.840 And so I think that the likelihood of fighting being higher for untrained people is really rooted

00:27:37.760 in that. They need that certainty. They need to prove to themselves. Whereas our students are coming 0.99

00:27:41.780 to class every day and they're proving it to themselves on the mat. They know exactly what they

00:27:45.600 know. They learn quickly what they don't know. And then they start to build on that and they don't

00:27:49.480 have any questions about it. The other aspect of it is I think that the more you become familiar

00:27:54.920 with the possibilities in a real fight or an altercation, the more you accept the dangerous

00:28:01.920 circumstances of a real fight. You know what I'm saying? You realize that even with all the training

00:28:07.920 that I have, I don't want to get into a street fight ever, ever, because it's too unpredictable.

00:28:15.220 Even though I'm confident that if I had to fight for my life, I'm going to win, right? I know that,

00:28:20.660 you know, I mean, the variables that people often don't think about, right? I might win the fight,

00:28:25.600 but because I was, you know, I was, took him to the ground and I hit my elbow on the mat. Now my

00:28:30.500 elbows cut open. So even though I submitted him with a gentle arm bar or choke hold, I'm going to

00:28:34.680 the hospital to get stitches, right? And that's something I have to deal with. If I win the fight,

00:28:40.300 right? I might win the fight, but in the course of the fight, he hits his head on the ground. And now

00:28:44.260 either he's injured permanently or he was bleeding now and bleeding on me. And I don't know what he

00:28:49.020 has diseases. Who knows? I don't want to deal with that. In the context of the fight, there's a,

00:28:53.740 we live in a very litigious society. So I might win the fight and get sued, right? So self-defense

00:29:00.220 doesn't just mean protecting yourself from getting punched by the other guy. Self-defense means avoiding

00:29:06.000 the fight at all costs because of the possible variables that could come into the fight that you

00:29:11.640 could have never predicted could be the ones ultimately to defeat you, right? When you,

00:29:17.840 when you don't normally think about that, you think of losing to the opponent. No, you lose to the

00:29:21.020 circumstance. You lose to the environment. You lose to the stand, the, the, the, the, the bystander who

00:29:25.460 kicks you in the head because it's his friend that you're fighting and you didn't see them.

00:29:28.640 So there's so many variables that learning jujitsu and building confidence to be able to interact

00:29:35.000 with someone confidently. The best part about that is that my likelihood of engaging in an actual fight,

00:29:41.640 drops so low because I respect the engagement so much, right? I respect the possibility of

00:29:48.540 unpredictability in a fight so much. I don't want to get into a fight ever with anyone. And by and

00:29:55.200 large, my ability to interact with someone in a threatening situation, in a calm, confident,

00:30:00.280 you know, objective demeanor and manner, that is largely why I never have to fight anyone.

00:30:05.660 So if I didn't have the jujitsu that I have, Brett, if I didn't have the confidence that I have,

00:30:09.840 what would happen is in a, in a moment of tense disagreement or, or, you know, high combative

00:30:17.020 energy between me and another subject in that moment of intensity conversation or a buildup

00:30:22.320 before the fight, people who don't know how to defend themselves tend to overreact in those

00:30:26.880 situations because they're so scared of the interaction and of the possibility of a fight

00:30:31.800 that they overcompensate. The problem is that overcompensation is a sign of weakness and it's very

00:30:37.000 obvious to the opponent and they realize that you're just pumping, you're just faking it here

00:30:42.880 and that you're weak. And as a result, you're a, you're a better target for them. So isn't it

00:30:47.260 interesting how it kind of all cycles back, right? And, and for me, I just want to make sure that

00:30:52.440 whoever I'm dealing with knows that I'm a hundred percent prepared. I don't want to fight you,

00:30:56.700 but if we have to get down, let's do it. Say go.

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00:33:26.060 Yeah. Yeah. So it's by becoming more dangerous, you actually become less dangerous.

00:33:29.980 To yourself. Yeah. And to other people. You're absolutely right. Like I know of a guy who's

00:33:34.160 an uncle of mine, who's not a Gracie uncle on the other side of the family, right? Who was at a sporting

00:33:40.880 game and an incident happened where some guy was very sitting in front of him and was very

00:33:46.980 loud language, very inappropriate language and was just talking and cussing and cheering. One of those

00:33:52.360 fans who just out of control. Right. And then this man in the situation, he, he was, he was, he's married

00:33:59.660 to a relative of mine, but he's not a jujitsu master and has no training. Right. So he didn't really kind

00:34:04.580 of adopt that lifestyle. So he's married to a Gracie, but he's not a Gracie. And he, in response

00:34:11.480 to this inappropriate behavior of to the man in front of him, he got up and he just went freaking 0.52

00:34:17.400 ape wild in terms of yelling and just way beyond the reasonable threshold of interaction. And what

00:34:25.260 became clear. And fortunately my family member who was with him calmed him down and like kind of brought

00:34:30.240 him back to, and just kind of intervene and stopped anything from boiling over, but he went freaking

00:34:34.540 nuts. And later the family member confided to me and said, yeah, Henry, he was scared and he was,

00:34:40.360 he doesn't know how to fight. So he just went so wild with his words that he felt that that would

00:34:45.840 prevent the fight from ever happening, you know? And I can see how someone can think that right by

00:34:51.700 overreacting and being acting crazy. But the, the subject on the other side of that, if that was,

00:34:56.700 if it was uninterrupted, they would have fought and the subject on the other side would have been

00:35:00.080 offended by his overaggression and would have seen that his overaggression was a, was a front.

00:35:05.060 And you can tell, right? It's very simple because everyone knows what you said, which is

00:35:09.020 the most deadly Navy SEALs and Delta force operators never overreact to anything. And the most deadly MMA

00:35:14.900 fighters never overreact to anything. And the most deadly jujitsu black belts never overreact to 0.57

00:35:20.040 anything because they're not scared. So people who overreact are scared. And this is not private

00:35:24.860 confidential information. The public knows this. So when you flip out the guy at the

00:35:30.060 at the baseball game, he's going to know this guy's freaking hollow, he's faking it. And he's

00:35:34.880 hollow. There's nothing inside. He's putting on a front versus another situation where I had,

00:35:40.440 where I was with my, my now wife, then girlfriend Eve at house of blues Anaheim, watching our good

00:35:45.780 friends, Ozo Motley perform. And there was a guy who was next to us in the crowd, great dancing music,

00:35:52.000 very fun, Latin alternative band. And, and this guy's dancing, but it wasn't even like a punk rock

00:35:58.120 engagement. But this guy's in his own mind, his own mosh pit dancing loosely, arms swinging, just

00:36:04.300 bouncing around in the crowd where everyone else was kind of keeping to themselves. And I happened to

00:36:08.500 be next to him. So where, when he was dancing around crazy, he would occasionally bump into

00:36:13.960 myself. And obviously I put myself towards his side so that Eve was on my left and he was on my

00:36:18.340 right. So he wouldn't be touching her, but he would just shoulder bump, shoulder bump, bouncing,

00:36:21.820 shoulder bump, shoulder bump. And it just got to the point, bro, where it was affecting my

00:36:25.880 enjoyment of the night. So I, I, I suspect I could have just moved out of the way, right. And walk

00:36:31.740 somewhere else. But I knew that what he was doing was unpleasant, not just for me, but for everyone

00:36:37.100 around him. Cause he was just not following the vibe of the room. So instead what I did was I took

00:36:44.160 my right hand and I grabbed him behind his neck with my right hand. Just like, like, you know,

00:36:49.720 like sometimes you put your hand around your friend and you like put your hand over his shoulder,

00:36:52.860 like a bro, like a little half bro hug over the shoulder. But instead of over the shoulder,

00:36:57.320 I actually grabbed with my thumb and my four fingers. Like I grabbed the back of his neck with

00:37:02.120 a little bit of pressure and I stopped him right where he was standing. And I stood behind him at

00:37:06.660 a kind of a 45 degree angle so that he wouldn't have a punching angle on me. And literally imagine

00:37:10.960 someone standing behind you and to your left with their hand on your neck. And I whispered to him,

00:37:14.960 I said, Hey, my friend, I can see you having a really good time, but you're bumping into us.

00:37:19.900 So do me a favor, calm it down just a little bit and we should be good to go.

00:37:25.460 Just right to his ear. No one else even heard. And it was very objective. It was very clear and

00:37:30.180 it was not raising my voice. And with the clarity of the message, he looked, he peeked over his left

00:37:36.240 shoulder and looked at me and I was a little bit taller than him, but he looked at me and

00:37:40.640 he just kind of moved to the right. And that was the end of the mosh pit. It was done.

00:37:45.680 You see? So I don't know what would happen if someone else, you know,

00:37:50.820 overreacted in that situation. Would the guy have fought or not? I don't even know. But what I do know

00:37:55.300 is that guy felt, that guy felt based on my C clamp on his neck and the calmness of my voice

00:38:03.100 that I was ready to engage if I had to. And my willingness to engage and my calmness

00:38:11.300 meant that I didn't have to. But before I grabbed his neck, do you think I contemplated the possibility

00:38:19.800 of having to fight this guy? Yes. I contemplated it. And I said, okay, I don't think it's going to

00:38:26.060 happen, but if it does, Hey, it's, I can handle it. So because I have the ability and the willingness,

00:38:33.260 not the eagerness to engage, that's a big difference, but the preparedness to engage safely,

00:38:39.280 I didn't have to. Now I wouldn't recommend the same strategy for everyone, obviously. But what

00:38:44.600 I will say is that a calm, clear demeanor, right? Calm, assertive, confident demeanor goes a long

00:38:53.920 way. But the problem is a lot of the listeners are listening right now saying, wow, that sounds

00:38:58.300 great. And I'd love to, to be able to have that. You can't have that without the internal technique.

00:39:04.260 That's the challenge. It's like teaching a kid bully proof. We have an amazing kids program

00:39:08.320 called bully proof. And it's the best kids program to teach kids how to defend against

00:39:14.020 bullies in a school, you know, schoolyard scenario. And what we tell the parents and the kids is say,

00:39:19.600 guys, kids target kids who don't know how to stand up for themselves or who won't stand up for

00:39:24.580 themselves. You have to set boundaries and you have to stand up for yourself or you're going to get

00:39:30.340 bullied for the rest of your life. It's that simple. Here's the challenge. Setting the boundary

00:39:35.440 relies on you knowing that if you were to be attacked by the bully, you're not going to get

00:39:40.520 hurt. And that's why we learned jujitsu to avoid injury in the case of an attack and to control the

00:39:46.960 bully without violence, nonviolent control tactics for the bully or for the defendants against the

00:39:52.480 bully. So once you learn the jujitsu, then you can speak to the bully in a way where they won't

00:39:57.160 bully you anymore. But the jujitsu comes first, even though the fight may never happen.

00:40:01.040 And that breakthrough, you know, has prevented so many fights for adults, kids, women, everyone.

00:40:07.520 That's what we do.

00:40:09.000 Yeah. So this is another thing. I'm curious if you've seen in your experience teaching

00:40:14.860 BJJ to people that confidence that comes that they know how to defend themselves in a situation,

00:40:21.960 if that carries over to other aspects of their life, do you see people becoming more assertive

00:40:27.960 in their work and, you know, more, you know, take more of a leadership role in their families?

00:40:31.000 That's how people, every single person, every single person who does jujitsu,

00:40:35.920 they start for self-defense. They stay for life. And the best example is one of our recent blue belts, 0.89

00:40:44.220 Vince Vaughn, the actor, who is one of our most dedicated students, started, his daughter started,

00:40:48.920 he started his daughter in the bully proof program, right? He lives here in the South Bay. We have,

00:40:55.100 we have thousands of people who are doing bully proof at home with their parents for our listeners.

00:40:59.020 You can do it at your house. We have it on DVD. We have it on, on, on streaming video through

00:41:03.600 gracieuniversity.com. There are parents who are actually learning bully proof at home with their

00:41:08.720 kids on the living room floor. And then periodically they send in a video every eight to 12 months of

00:41:14.880 their child's performance and knowledge of the techniques. And the kid can actually earn belt

00:41:17.920 promotions from a distance, or they can come to one of our schools and test in person. But there are

00:41:22.900 families who are doing this at home. Vince lives right here, 10 minutes away from our school.

00:41:27.760 So he brings his daughter to bully proof class after seeing some of our bully proof videos on

00:41:32.460 the internet. He loved the concept. He had tried another jujitsu school before coming here. And it

00:41:39.960 was very sportive jujitsu. And he says, and he's pretty public about this. He was like, yeah, the things

00:41:45.400 they were learning, I could not see the applicability to a bullying encounter that my child,

00:41:50.900 my, his, my daughter would encounter. It didn't even make sense to me what they were doing. And I'm

00:41:54.220 an adult. So then he saw more of our videos and that's when he came to our school and every single

00:41:59.700 class, every single move we do is directly extrapolated from a realistic contemplated bullying

00:42:06.040 situation. We're talking role-playing. We're talking pure pressure. We're talking, a kid comes up to

00:42:10.920 another kid and says, Hey, if you don't throw this rock at that window, you're not my friend anymore.

00:42:15.660 How, when does a child learn to set boundaries with their own friends about inappropriate behavior,

00:42:23.980 drugs and alcohol, things like that? When do, who teaches them that? Nobody. The school will tell

00:42:28.520 them don't do drugs. The parents will tell them, you know, stand up for yourself. But that's a very,

00:42:34.220 you know, that's a very vague piece of advice. What we do is we actually role-play every single one

00:42:39.780 of those scenarios in the classes that we do. And then if things go south and they have to defend

00:42:44.820 themselves because the bully attacks them, we teach them how to defend them with that as well,

00:42:48.300 non-violently. So Vince's daughter's in class having a blast, loving the classes. He's watching

00:42:54.640 her for several months, not doing classes. And, you know, of course everyone's like, all right,

00:42:59.260 well, Vince doesn't want to do jujitsu. And then one day I told the receptionist here, I said, Hey,

00:43:03.220 next time Vince comes in, tell him, ask him if he wants to try a jujitsu class for himself.

00:43:08.340 And, you know, very glad to hear he was super stoked about the idea. He was like, yeah,

00:43:14.300 I'd love to. So I pulled him in for a private class. First class is free for everybody. So I

00:43:18.460 say, come on in Vince. And I do a class and this guy freaking loves it. One class. He's like,

00:43:26.320 Henner, schedule is very busy, but how often can I get in here? How often can you teach me? And I'm

00:43:30.680 like, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm busy too, man. So I want to find some guys. So we found a panel

00:43:34.440 of instructors. He's doing private training classes at least three days a week. Now he's

00:43:38.520 doing private personal training in jujitsu on top of everything else he does, producing and acting.

00:43:43.760 And he is the most outspoken about Henner. The jujitsu techniques, self-defense, great. But he's

00:43:49.760 like six, five, six, four, 220 pounds. He's a big guy. And he says, Henner, the jujitsu self-defense,

00:43:56.380 I love it for my daughter. Amazing. And for me, at least I know I can defend myself now against,

00:44:00.460 you know, crazy fans or people who say stupid things to celebrities, which a lot of people do. 0.98

00:44:05.140 At least I know I can defend myself without hurting another person. Meaning if someone were to, 0.99

00:44:10.100 you know, come up and threaten me or attack me or throw some bottle at me, I don't know, 0.54

00:44:13.160 I can neutralize them and not have to punch them in the face. So from a liability perspective,

00:44:17.500 as a celebrity, this is the best thing I've ever done. So he loves it, right? In that sense. But he

00:44:23.500 said, I'll tell you what, the bigger benefit is how it's changing my interaction with my family,

00:44:27.840 my wife, in terms of how it's changing my interaction professionally. I'm calmer.

00:44:33.140 I'm more, I'm more technical in my approach to life overall. And, you know, and I think

00:44:38.840 by and large, that's the number one benefit of jujitsu that people realize essentially after

00:44:44.760 they've done it for a little while is that it has nothing to do with fighting. We're learning

00:44:48.780 how to solve problems in the most technical leverage-based way every single day. If you were

00:44:55.200 to come to my class today, Brett, I would say, okay, guys, welcome to class. Here's a headlock.

00:44:59.200 How would you get out of this headlock? And then you would say, I don't know. And you would try a

00:45:04.840 little bit, fail, fail, fail. And then I'd say, watch this. And I'd show you the solution and you

00:45:09.160 would be mind blown by the simple effectiveness of the solution. And when you see that solution on

00:45:14.160 day one, and then day two, different hold, different escape. Day three, different threat,

00:45:18.780 different escape. Day four, punching situation, neutralize the punches the easiest way possible.

00:45:23.280 Every single day, you're being presented with seemingly impossible threat scenarios. And then

00:45:30.320 you're being given the key, the secret to being able to escape that threat in a very easy manner.

00:45:36.320 Think about what that does to your confidence when you encounter a challenge or a difficulty

00:45:40.680 that is not related to jujitsu. Think about that, how that affects your ability to interact

00:45:45.920 with that threat scenario or life problem in a way where you know now that impossibilities are just

00:45:54.320 techniques waiting to be discovered. And that's the greatest benefit of practicing jujitsu beyond

00:45:59.780 self-defense.

00:46:01.020 It's money. That's my Vince Vaughn swingers reference there. Money, baby.

00:46:07.980 So, okay, let's walk that through. So say someone is listening to this and like, I want to do

00:46:11.960 Brazilian jujitsu and they find there's a Gracie place just right down the street from my place.

00:46:18.280 It's just opened up here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They show up, like, what is a typical class look

00:46:24.100 like? What are they, what's the, what are they going to expect? Is it, they're just going to be

00:46:26.680 working on a move? Is there warmups? And what is that like?

00:46:29.020 Great question. Yeah. So let me walk you through that. So here's the thing. I have to start by saying

00:46:32.920 that not all Gracie schools are created equally, right? So a lot of people have the perception that

00:46:37.520 there's one Gracie organization and that's it. No, we have ours, Gracie University.

00:46:41.960 Gracie university.com. And we have about 150 certified locations where that we've personally,

00:46:47.940 my brother and I being at the helm here have personally certified those instructors to teach

00:46:52.400 the curriculum. 100% the same as if you were learning with me here in Torrance, California.

00:46:58.680 And we've been able to maintain a quality standard at these schools that no other organization has

00:47:03.220 been able to largely because of our use of the internet and technology. We have eyes on the ground

00:47:08.840 everywhere and we can see the quality on a regular basis. And, and we have a truly remarkable kind

00:47:13.580 of quality assurance system in place other, but in the Gracie family, there are over 50 members of

00:47:18.560 the family who do jujitsu professionally. And each one of those might have five schools. One guy might

00:47:23.720 have 20 schools. One guy might have 50 schools. So they're all different. You see? So even in the

00:47:28.300 Gracie family, it's like, we're all growing the same fruits, so to speak with different variations and

00:47:33.720 sport emphasis. But so it's like all these different trees in the same orchard, right? We're all pushing

00:47:38.860 jujitsu, but each one has their own tree and each tree has its own branches. So on our branch tree,

00:47:44.940 we have 150 branches all over the world that, uh, that I said, follow these exacting curriculums that

00:47:50.380 we, now most other organizations, whether they're Gracie or not, the different schools in an organization

00:47:55.840 have no, how do I say curriculum structuring the teachings at the school, meaning you might go to

00:48:02.280 school one and it's different than school two and two is different than three and four. And each of

00:48:06.740 these individually owned martial arts schools are teaching something completely different than the

00:48:11.280 next in these different organizations. And that was something that we, we figured out very early

00:48:15.460 on how to maintain that quality. And that's a reason for our growth and why we're, you know,

00:48:19.720 the leaders in the industry is because of that quality control. So if you go to a school or you drive

00:48:24.040 by and you see Gracie's X, Y, Z, don't just think that a, there's a Gracie there and B, even if they're

00:48:29.920 associated with the Gracie family member, that the teachings in that school are in any way

00:48:36.060 resemblant of what the master Gracie, you know, tree trunk would be teaching you if he were there

00:48:42.540 in person, I should say. Now, some schools do it. Some organizations do it better than others.

00:48:46.780 And by the way, this is in the Gracie family and outside the Gracie family, just jujitsu.

00:48:51.060 There's a lot of different affiliations that are called, and each one has their own way of trying

00:48:55.180 to maintain some kind of order, but it actually is a madhouse. Oh, by and large, it's crazy. So

00:49:00.200 what I say to people is this, never just trust the name. Never just trust the name on the storefront

00:49:05.300 at a martial arts school. Go to the school and don't discredit them because of a name and don't

00:49:10.760 credit them because of the name. Even if it says Gracie, go to the school, look at the school and

00:49:15.560 make sure it's the right fit for you by watching several classes, by looking around, seeing if the

00:49:19.860 vibe is right. So by and large, let the experience outweigh any name on any storefront. Now that said,

00:49:26.080 of our schools that we've personally certified, same thing, right? You know, the fact that I've

00:49:31.140 stamped it and I can tell you that exactly what they're teaching in their class today in Tulsa,

00:49:35.000 Oklahoma, right? If I just were to look at it and do some research, I can tell you exactly what's

00:49:38.880 being taught at our school in Tulsa. Still, you have to go there and make sure the vibe is right for

00:49:43.060 you. But here's how it works. You would typically call in or schedule an introductory class,

00:49:46.500 in which case you'll go to a class. It'll be a beginner class, right?

00:49:49.540 So our beginner program is called Gracie Combatives. And that's a 36 technique program

00:49:55.500 just for beginners, zero to 12 months experience. And Gracie Combatives is a distillation of over

00:50:03.020 600 techniques down to the core 36 that we have been teaching the U.S. Army for about the last 25

00:50:08.980 years. So basically the mindset of that program is you might not be able to commit 10 years to

00:50:14.480 jujitsu. But if you can commit, you know, six months, eight months, 12 months, every single

00:50:19.880 technique that you learned during that 12 month period is going to be something that you absolutely

00:50:25.620 can't live without. Like literally these are the nuts and bolts of jujitsu. And oftentimes schools

00:50:31.320 don't have a beginner program at all. So you might show up to a BJJ school and they say, okay, come on

00:50:36.180 into class. And you're in a class with brown and black belts and you're a white belt. And obviously in that

00:50:41.080 case, they're going to be teaching, tailoring it to the more advanced students. So you just become a

00:50:45.140 grappling dummy. And that's why so many people have tried jujitsu and had negative experiences

00:50:49.440 is because schools don't do a good job of creating entry-level beginner programs that have no intensity,

00:50:57.680 no sparring, no fighting. They're literally just learning the pieces of the puzzle. They're learning

00:51:02.980 the alphabet in those beginner 36 techniques, 23 classes. Once you go through that program, right?

00:51:09.280 And here's the cool part. It's a 23 lesson, 36 techniques, 23 one hour lessons. It's a cyclic

00:51:14.620 program. So if today's class number 12, tomorrow is 13 and then 14, and it goes through the entire

00:51:19.560 month like that. And the best part is this program that we created and that all of our schools teach,

00:51:24.180 I can only speak on behalf of ours, that program, you can start at any time in the cycle and you can

00:51:29.760 complete the 23 lessons in any order. So this is where the kind of the real genius of the curriculum

00:51:36.100 is, is that a beginner can show up literally on class number 12, have zero experience ever doing

00:51:41.700 jujitsu, do that class and not feel overwhelmed or confused or like they're missing pieces of the

00:51:47.580 puzzle because we teach every single lesson in the Gracie Combatives program as if every student is

00:51:52.640 there for their first time. So that you can imagine for a beginner is very important because otherwise

00:51:57.680 you're always feeling like you're missing pieces of the puzzle. And why don't I know the moves that

00:52:01.560 they're referencing? And what are they talking about? And the language being used is so confusing

00:52:04.780 that never happens in our program. You come in and you're taking care of every single class.

00:52:09.600 And then what you do is you keep swimming in this pond, this Gracie Combatives pond for,

00:52:14.820 like I said, eight to 12 months. Once you graduate, you take a test on all those 36 techniques,

00:52:19.980 demonstrating high proficiency, fluidity, muscle memory. And once you have those core concepts

00:52:25.380 understood, then you go into another program. And it's like, you know, now you're in the ocean of

00:52:30.420 jujitsu, right? But you don't go into the ocean until you can swim in a pond or a pool.

00:52:34.880 And that's the analogy. And that's the situation we've built and why our schools are,

00:52:39.180 you know, growing at a rate that few others are is because we capture and keep the beginners 0.62

00:52:44.660 so safely and so effectively kind of engaged in jujitsu in a way that they can actually learn

00:52:51.360 and be proficient from day one. It's like going, you know, to surfing school. And literally the first

00:52:57.240 day you go to surf, you're standing up and you're riding waves. And every day after that, you're riding

00:53:01.320 waves, you're riding waves, you're riding waves. We've figured that out for jujitsu. Whereas most

00:53:05.680 other schools, you show up to surf camp and they say, here's a board, there's the waves, go out

00:53:09.740 there, figure it out. And you're struggling for the first six months. You'll eventually learn how

00:53:13.800 to surf, but it sucks for the first six months to a year. And then finally you poke your head up and

00:53:18.960 you go, okay, I know how to surf. But the question is how many people even last six months swimming in

00:53:24.000 the ocean with the board and crashing waves? Most people quit. 90% of people quit before they ever

00:53:29.300 catch their first wave in most schools.

00:53:31.920 Is Brazilian jujitsu something you need to be in decent shape for? Or is it just a young man's game? 0.90

00:53:36.520 No, not. Well, here's the thing. It's the same as the surfing analogy. If the surf instructor sucks

00:53:43.540 and the ocean is crazy, yes, you're going to show up on day one and you're going to say, man, 0.87

00:53:48.180 my cardio is not good enough to get up on this board because I'm suffering, getting slammed by

00:53:52.120 these waves so much. So in the survival of the fittest framework that a lot of schools promote

00:53:57.720 and have, a lot of schools are like this. It's sad to see that they even survive as businesses,

00:54:01.460 but in that survival of the fittest environment, you absolutely have to be a great athlete.

00:54:05.200 You have to be incredibly dedicated and you have to make up your mind that there's nothing that

00:54:08.460 will make you quit because everything will try to make you quit. In our schools, our thought is the

00:54:13.040 opposite. Our thought is no, jujitsu was developed by the grandmaster, my grandfather, specifically for

00:54:19.260 the unathletic, smaller, weaker men and women of society. So if we don't create a beginner entry-level 1.00

00:54:26.140 program that caters to that audience, we're literally wasting our existence away. What the heck are we

00:54:33.660 doing here if everyone doesn't feel welcome in the programs that we create and have for beginners?

00:54:40.140 So it's a completely school-by-school approach, but in our case, in order to be a certified Gracie

00:54:46.180 Jiu-Jitsu Training Center and appear on our website, gracieuniversity.com, you absolutely have to A,

00:54:52.560 get certified to teach the program and B, uphold the program. And if we hear it for one second that a

00:54:57.700 school is deviating or not teaching the program in the safe, structured format that it should be taught

00:55:03.360 in, which has happened on rare occasions, then we call them up. And if it's not fixed immediately,

00:55:07.360 we pull the plug and they're no longer a certified training center. So that level of consistency and

00:55:12.480 quality control doesn't really exist in Jiu-Jitsu. And it's something that it's been essentially my

00:55:18.100 biggest contribution to Jiu-Jitsu has been the structuring of it for the easy onboarding of

00:55:23.620 beginners who want to learn the art. Well, this is fantastic. So people can go to

00:55:27.340 gracieuniversity.com to find all this stuff. And yes, gracieuniversity.com is where you go A,

00:55:33.480 to find a school near you. If you have a CTC within 10, 15 miles, absolutely you should go in.

00:55:39.460 And if you tell them Henner sent you, that you heard Henner on the Art of Manliness podcast,

00:55:44.400 then you will get 10 days free. They'll sign you up for a 10-day free trial, nothing, no pay,

00:55:49.720 just go in there and just train for 10 days, all you can eat. And you're going to love it. After 10

00:55:54.300 days, you're going to say, wow, why have I waited so long to do this? What was I thinking? And then

00:55:58.760 you have options to sign up after the fact. If you don't have a CTC, go to Gracie University,

00:56:03.060 create a free student profile, and you'll have access to the first, you know, three lessons,

00:56:08.220 four lessons in Gracie Combatives. And then some lessons in our Gracie Bullyproof program,

00:56:12.360 which is also available online. You'll have free access to Women Empowered, our women's program to

00:56:16.940 defend against sexual assault, which my wife Eve is the head instructor of. So we have programs for

00:56:21.900 every demographic. GST, Gracie Survival Tactics, is for law enforcement. So all of these have free

00:56:27.340 samples online. And then you can learn more about them, buy them online, or go to a school where

00:56:31.300 they teach the program. So that's definitely where you want to go for everything jujitsu

00:56:35.980 is gracieuniversity.com. So just to make things clear, you guys have a whole online program where you can

00:56:41.900 train at home, get feedback on your progress, and meet up with other training partners in your area.

00:56:46.940 So if you don't live by a training center, you're not out of luck.

00:56:50.160 Now, in addition to jujitsu, you've got another side business going on, right?

00:56:54.280 The other business that I just started right now, which is just kind of wildfire going crazy in

00:56:58.320 every direction and very exciting, is this quick flip apparel, right? So I'm at the park with my

00:57:02.800 son one day, and I'm not an apparel guy. I'm at the park with my son. I'm frustrated because it's

00:57:07.720 getting hot and I'm wearing a hoodie. It was actually one of my jujitsu hoodies. And I take off my hoodie

00:57:12.060 and I throw it over my shoulder because I don't want to tie it on my waist. I throw it over my

00:57:15.760 shoulder. And then I'm walking after my son and I go to pick him up. He's only two. And I go to scoop

00:57:20.400 him up to go home. And the hoodie slides off my shoulder and it lands on the grass. And the grass

00:57:25.860 was still wet from the night before because it was a little bit, it had rained the night before.

00:57:30.080 So the hoodie hits the wet grass and I'm like, I'm frustrated. You know, that little moment of

00:57:33.820 frustration you have at points in your life when things don't go exactly as planned. So I pick up the

00:57:37.500 hoodie with that, I start sweating a little bit because I'm so frustrated, pick up the hoodie. And I think

00:57:41.540 this is ridiculous. There has to be a better way to carry a sweatshirt or hoodie that you're not 0.67

00:57:48.180 wearing. Tying it around your waist is not only fashionably unacceptable, but tying it around your

00:57:54.920 waist. If you sit down on a bench, your hoodie is going to get wet. If you're riding a bike,

00:57:58.960 your hoodie can get stuck in the wheel of the bicycle. It stretches out the sleeves. And if you

00:58:04.520 don't want to do that, you're limited. You put it over your shoulder. It's not secure. It's not on.

00:58:07.840 If you tie it around your neck, you can get choked and it looks like you, you know, belong to a 0.99

00:58:11.580 European yacht club. So there's many options, but none of them are really that efficient. So I went

00:58:16.660 home frustrated by this problem. And what did I do? Gracie jujitsu on the hoodie. I get home and I'm

00:58:24.360 like, this is ridiculous. We got to figure this out. So with shoestrings, paper clips, duct tape, 0.82

00:58:29.680 and scissors, within 30 minutes, I create a functioning prototype of a hoodie that converts into a

00:58:37.000 functional backpack in my house, just like that. Fast forward six months, 15 iterations later of

00:58:44.400 the, of the prototype, modify, modified, modified, a lot of R and D brought in professionals to help me

00:58:49.580 construct the garment. We're going to production. We launched quick flip apparel and this, this hoodie

00:58:55.220 is called the hero hoodie. And now we're freaking selling tons of them. And this is a new business

00:59:00.860 that came out of nowhere. And I'm patenting three patents on the technology to convert a hoodie into a

00:59:05.900 backpack. And we're going through that process right now. And it's the only hoodie that converts

00:59:10.940 into a fully functional backpack. And it's actually the most comfortable and best fitting hoodie you'll

00:59:15.520 ever own. So now I'm in the hoodie business and people love it. There you go. Well, Henner,

00:59:20.680 this has been a great conversation. Thanks for coming on, man. Awesome, man. Congratulations on all

00:59:24.640 the great work and thank you for the support and all those listeners out there. It's just a matter of

00:59:29.480 time before you try your first jujitsu lesson. And when you do it, you're going to regret not doing it

00:59:33.580 when I first told you to do it. Thanks, man. Thanks, brother. My guest, it was Henner Gracie.

00:59:37.680 He is the head instructor of the Gracie Jiu Jitsu Academy and the co-creator of Gracie University.

00:59:41.320 You can find out more information about that at gracieuniversity.com. Also check out our show

00:59:45.720 notes at aom.is slash Gracie where you can find links to notes. We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:59:51.360 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

01:00:08.000 make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy

01:00:11.520 the show, I'd appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. And if

01:00:15.280 you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who

01:00:19.260 you would think get something out of it. As always, thank you for your continued support.

01:00:22.600 And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

01:00:49.260 Thank you.

01:00:50.500 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - October 03, 2018

#446： How Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Will Make You a Better Man

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