Professor Eli Knight came to jiu-jitsu from taekwondo and Japanese jiu-jitsu in a small town, watching bootleg Gracie tapes before the first UFC and traveling to seminars and camps to learn. He received his blue belt from Grandmaster Helio Gracie at one of those camps and every rank after that from Royce Gracie, up to the third-degree black belt he had recently earned. With Pete and Professor Lucas Rubbo, he looks at how the art has changed since the 1990s, why he teaches with gi, no-gi, MMA and self-defense in mind, and why "a good technique should be a delivery system" for a deeper principle.

Eli takes on social media's armchair experts, the need to separate an athlete's grappling from his opinions, and a talented former student who showed him that jiu-jitsu alone does not make anyone a better person; the answer is to manage ego, not pretend to leave it at the door. He warns against letting a safety net become a hammock, weighs how events and streaming are changing who competes, and explains why rolling teaches women more real self-defense than a weekend course. He closes with a veteran friend who said jiu-jitsu gave him his humanity back, and with the case for the mats as a place to stay present.

In this episode

• 0:00 Welcome
• 2:06 How jiu-jitsu has changed since the 90s
• 4:13 Three reactions to the first UFC
• 6:16 Gi, no-gi, MMA and self-defense
• 11:33 Technique as a delivery system
• 13:37 Social media and armchair experts
• 17:56 Jiu-jitsu doesn't make you a good person
• 23:03 Innovation for innovation's sake
• 29:17 When a safety net becomes a hammock
• 31:22 Where competitive grappling is headed
• 42:48 Women on the mats
• 52:06 The veteran who got his humanity back
• 56:20 Learning to stay present

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