Professor Rob Biernacki, who runs Island Top Team on an island off the coast of Vancouver and earned his black belt at American Top Team, came to martial arts through books rather than sport. A teenage reader of philosophy and psychology, he wanted to be free of every kind of control, including the threat of violence. Calling himself a poor athlete by any real measure, he explains why jiu-jitsu suits a cerebral person, and why most schools teach it backwards: beginners drill moves to do to someone else when their attention belongs on their own alignment, which he breaks into base, posture and structure.

Rob argues that competition is the closest you can get to the stress of a real encounter, and that anyone who trains for self-defense or duty but never competes "is a liar or a fool." He makes the case against hard rolling in the gym and is frank about where size beats technique. He tells of an overtime final at the ADCC Canada Open where he smiled and waved at a cameraman while calmly defending a D'Arce, and a razor-close win at No-Gi Worlds that told him he belonged. He closes with the students who mean most to him, the ones who are not physically gifted and nearly quit.

In this episode

• 0:00 Welcome
• 1:01 The road not taken
• 3:07 Martial arts from a philosophy book
• 7:23 Why grappling suits a non-athlete
• 13:39 Your body and your partner's body
• 16:47 Why most schools teach backwards
• 19:50 Base, posture and structure
• 27:08 Where size beats technique
• 29:22 Why competition matters
• 37:45 The case against hard rolling
• 40:52 His calmest match ever
• 45:03 An upset at No-Gi Worlds
• 53:12 The students who make his day
• 59:33 BJJ Concepts and the visiting program

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