Pete Deeley sits down with Professor Ryan Brock of Impact Jiu Jitsu in Hood River, Oregon — a coach who says, plainly, that without jiu-jitsu he’d be dead or in jail. They talk about the tough-love mentor he hated and later thanked, why competition is “pick your own poison” and where the art gets a little culty, the night breaking up a fight taught him what he’d really built, and the anxious kid who went from high-school dropout to a college degree and wrote his class essay about the gym. A conversation about mentorship, community, and the quiet ways coaching echoes through a life.

Train with Ryan: Impact Jiu Jitsu — Hood River, OR

In this episode

• 00:00 Welcome — Submission Coffee wholesale and the My Jiu Jitsu Journey app
• 00:50 Meeting Ryan; the James Driskill connection
• 01:31 “Dead or in jail if it wasn’t for jiu-jitsu”
• 02:27 A gradual pivot — and the first coach who became a mentor
• 03:34 Tough love: the coach who told him the hard truth
• 05:24 “I hated him” — and the apology years later
• 07:34 Good cop / bad cop: the two coaches who kept him in
• 09:00 Getting ragdolled by a 15-year-old — “a hole I need to fill”
• 10:57 Is competition necessary? Pick your own poison
• 11:52 Where jiu-jitsu gets “a little culty”
• 13:00 Competing late, and inoculating yourself to stress
• 14:21 The most memorable moment — breaking up a fight at the port
• 16:54 “Take it outside” — and the man who just needed a hug
• 19:23 The anxious kid who got his GED, a degree, and wrote about the gym
• 21:29 Coaches as surrogate parents
• 22:29 Where to find him: Impact Jiu Jitsu, Hood River, OR

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