Professor Jason Hawkins has spent 42 years in martial arts, starting with karate at 12, and teaches at Three Rivers Academy in western Kentucky. A longtime yoga practitioner who rereads the Yoga Sutras every year, he sees the physical side of jiu-jitsu as a doorway to inner change that can keep growing after the body starts to decline. His key word is equanimity, "evenness of mind under stress," and he explains why every roll goes in the win column once you stop judging it by taps. He also describes training with yoga friends and SWAT officers in the same years and learning from both.

Jason tells white belts to make purple belt their goal, compares the belts to university degrees, and warns against the "currency of rank." He shares a teacher's definition of kung fu as a skill that transcends surface beauty, the student in his 70s who said he would keep coming even if he never improved, and why people overestimate one year of practice and underestimate ten. He explains soft and hard practice, the life stages of student, householder, forest dweller and renunciate, and why "the lesson is surrender." He closes with his book, Light on the Gentle Art, which applies 108 sutras to jiu-jitsu.

In this episode

• 0:00 Welcome
• 1:08 What students really learn
• 3:18 Equanimity on the mat
• 7:36 Reading the Yoga Sutras every year
• 11:41 The warrior beyond the fight
• 15:59 The currency of rank
• 18:03 Make purple belt your goal
• 25:24 One year versus ten years
• 28:41 A skill beyond surface beauty
• 34:00 Soft practice and hard practice
• 36:03 Student, householder, forest dweller
• 42:24 Becoming a full-time teacher
• 54:11 Jiu-jitsu as the subtle art
• 58:34 His book, Light on the Gentle Art

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