Professor Eli Knight returns to The Jiu Jitsu Mindset, and this time we build the conversation around the hero's journey — the call, the crisis, the near-quit, the mentor, and the message he'd leave behind.

Eli is a Royce Gracie black belt and one of the clearest thinkers working in self-defense jiu-jitsu. He talks here about the loss that pushed him into a taekwondo class as a teenager, the cousin who went to jail while he went to martial arts, the year his daughter was born and he nearly walked away from all of it, and why he still isn't sure who he would be without jiu-jitsu.

He also gives one of the best answers we have had on what the art is actually for: "Jiu-jitsu to me is the serenity prayer. It teaches you how to accept things you can't change, how to change things you can, and how to know the difference." And then, at the very end, he takes the whole thing apart again with a bar of soap.

CONNECT WITH PROFESSOR ELI KNIGHT

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KnightJiuJitsu

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knight_jiu_jitsu_

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@knightjiujitsu

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/KnightJiuJitsu

Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/eli-knight

THE JIU JITSU MINDSET

Website: https://thejiujitsumindset.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJiuJitsuMindset

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Find a school near you: https://thejiujitsumindset.com/pages/jiu-jitsu-schools-near-you

SUPPORTING THE SHOW

Submission Coffee — https://submissioncoffee.com (still not a performance-enhancing drug)

My Jiu Jitsu Journey — free to try on the App Store and Google Play

CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome back — year five of the podcast

00:29 Submission Coffee and the My Jiu Jitsu Journey app

01:25 Professor Eli Knight returns: the hero's journey

03:35 Crisis, loss, and the class that caught him

05:28 The soft kid who learned to face chaos

08:45 Zen, Daoism, and what religion didn't give him

10:03 "He went to jail, I went to martial arts"

11:17 It doesn't make you a good person — it reveals you

12:21 Pete's story: six years old outside Macy's

14:48 The year he almost walked away

18:42 The leap of faith into a martial arts career

20:10 "I'm not 100% sure who I am without jiu-jitsu"

22:19 The mentor: "you're off in the woods looking for Yoda"

25:35 Coaching with real care — Fit to Fight and Ryan Hoover

27:05 Instructor vs. coach: knowing what you are

30:36 When the fighter is already redlining

33:21 Technique vs. principle is a false choice

34:57 What he'd want people to take away

36:56 Jiu-jitsu is the serenity prayer

38:57 The bar of soap

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