Back from a five-week break, Pete and Professor Lucas Rubbo talk about Lucas's first trip home to Brazil in five years. He admits he spent the first few days criticizing narrow streets and motorcycles weaving through traffic, then found himself looking up at the trees and houses he once took for granted. He also rolled again with his first professor, a brown belt when Lucas started and now a fifth-degree black belt who, Lucas says, still has his number. Seeing Brazil now through a coach's eye rather than a competitor's, he tries to describe a culture he says is "not for amateurs."

The two talk about Brazil as a melting pot, the Sunday street markets where farmers sell what they picked that morning, fresh fruit juices, and a visit to an award-winning coffee farm run by a father and his three sons, where Lucas drank coffee grown twenty feet away. They then ask why jiu-jitsu took root in Brazil and not somewhere else. Lucas points to a national talent for improvising when plan A fails, and to a harder reality for athletes: without American-style college scholarships, many talented Brazilians must choose between school and sport, which makes them all-in. Pete compares it to the grit he has seen in athletes elsewhere.

In this episode

• 0:00 Welcome back after a break
• 3:21 Returning to Brazil after five years
• 5:23 Rolling with his first professor
• 7:28 What he missed most
• 10:38 Seeing it with a coach's eye
• 12:46 Describing Brazilian culture
• 14:49 A talent for improvising
• 16:56 A melting pot of cultures
• 20:07 Fresh fruit and street markets
• 25:18 Visiting a coffee farm
• 30:27 Why jiu-jitsu took root in Brazil
• 33:41 Choosing between school and sport
• 37:50 Soccer pay and athlete economics
• 42:00 Glad to be home in Arizona

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