Professor Daniel "Coyote" Souza is a sixth-degree black belt with 43 years in the martial arts, starting judo at age five through a social program at his kindergarten in Brazil before moving to jiu-jitsu in 1985. He believes martial arts kept him on the right path when it would have been easy to go the other way. At 12 he saved his coins to buy a black belt, tied it on in the mirror and promised himself he would earn it. He tells Pete about the schoolyard bully he finally threw, being jumped by five men at a bus station at 18, and a bottle attack in a San Diego bar.

Daniel came up in the rough vale tudo era and explains why he thinks soccer is more violent than MMA: in the cage you expect the punch, and "the violence becomes bigger when you're not expecting it." He shares his coaching line "slow down your body and speed up your mind," why he tells a dominant brown belt to spend whole rounds in survival mode, and why he doesn't run a daycare for the more than 300 students he knows by name. He also describes how jiu-jitsu helped his wife and stepdaughter rebuild their confidence, and his goal of earning a red belt 21 years from now.

In this episode

• 0:00 Welcome
• 1:06 Meet Professor Daniel "Coyote" Souza
• 2:10 Martial arts as an escape
• 4:16 The black belt he bought at 12
• 6:25 Street fights as a teenager
• 12:42 Attacked in a San Diego bar
• 17:03 Vale tudo, MMA and soccer
• 23:23 Training across martial arts
• 26:38 Why a black belt took ten years
• 32:48 Training in survival mode
• 36:02 Slow your body, speed your mind
• 38:10 How jiu-jitsu changed his family
• 45:28 I don't run a daycare
• 51:39 A red belt goal 21 years out

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