Professor Heidi Garwood is a clinical social worker and a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt who built her gym around women and kids. In this conversation, she and Pete dig into the mental side of the mats: your three-part brain — thinking, emotional, and survival — and how jiu-jitsu trains you to find your way back to your thinking brain when the pressure hits.

Heidi shares the breath and grounding tools she borrows from her trauma work, why competition keeps you from getting too comfortable, and the doctor's wake-up call that started it all ("it's not enough"). She also tells the story of a match she'll never forget — a quiet, controlled loss to Roxanne Modafferi at Master's Worlds — and the transformation she watched jiu-jitsu bring to her oldest daughter, now her gym's head instructor.

Heidi started jiu-jitsu in rural Montana, trained a full year in women's-only classes, earned her black belt, and now owns and runs Carlson Gracie Green Valley in Henderson, Nevada.

My Jiu Jitsu Journey app — available on iOS and Android

In this episode

• 00:00 Intro — the app, the coffee, and today's guest
• 01:43 How Heidi started: the doctor who said "it's not enough"
• 03:20 "Mom, it's not that easy" — training as a busy mom
• 05:29 The blue belt that made quitting impossible
• 06:44 Your three brains: thinking, emotional, survival
• 07:57 The spazzy white belt and a panic in Denver
• 10:16 Survival brain vs. thinking brain
• 11:06 Breath and grounding: tools from the trauma world
• 12:28 Educated instincts — social work meets the mats
• 13:55 Interoception and exteroception
• 15:50 The teacher who connected it all
• 16:22 Women's classes and "anybody can do anything for 10 seconds"
• 19:45 The role of competition
• 23:36 Boise: having to beat her own sister
• 26:15 Master's Worlds and Roxanne Modafferi
• 29:02 Elegant vs. frantic jiu-jitsu
• 31:33 Watching jiu-jitsu transform her daughter
• 36:00 Stones in the pond (and a word from Pedro Sauer)
• 37:33 Superhero names from the ladies' chat
• 39:01 Wrapping up

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