The Jiu-Jitsu Mindset

The Jiu-Jitsu Mindset

When you improve your Jiujitsu, you improve your life. Lessons on the mat are life lessons. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Welcome to The Jiu-Jitsu Mindset.

Episodes

June 23, 2026 42 mins

Host Pete Deeley welcomes listeners back to The Jiu-Jitsu Mindset, promotes subscription coffee and announces the new app "My Jiu-Jitsu Journey," then interviews Sensei George Rego about his lifelong martial arts path. Rego describes walking into an old, gritty dojo as a child and feeling instantly "at home," drawn to the combination of real physical capability and character, honor, and discipline—echoing Miyamo...

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Host Pete Deeley welcomes Professor Darien to discuss how lessons from jiu-jitsu transfer to life and how first principles, efficiency, and environment shape learning. Professor Darien emphasizes concepts over flashy techniques, urging beginners to build fundamentals like posture, base, weight distribution, and inside position so submissions become reliable and safer. They compare learning to surfing and chess, highli...

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Professor Michael Casey on Playful Learning, Trust, Breath, and Real-World Jiu-Jitsu

Host Pete Deeley interviews Professor Michael Casey on why jiu-jitsu learning should start relaxed and playful, noting that fun and visible improvement keep both kids and adult...

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Veterans Breakthrough: How Jiu-Jitsu Helps Veterans Rebuild Purpose, Health, and Community

On The Jiu-Jitsu Mindset, Pete Deeley speaks with the founding board of Veterans Breakthrough—Chris (Navy), Kyle Zipf (Marine Corps infantry), and Phillip Marcum (Army 10th Mountain)—about how Brazilian jiu-jitsu supports veterans' personal growth, accountability, and community. Chris explains the organ...

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Host Pete Deeley interviews Ryan Hurst of GMB Fitness about how martial arts shaped his life and teaching. Hurst began martial arts in high school, visited Japan at 18, and an influential kendo instructor encouraged him to stay; a planned short exchange became 28 years in Japan, including training connected to police/self-defense groups and working eight years at a martial arts complex in a shrine. He emphasizes postu...

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Host Pete Deeley welcomes instructor Vini Fonseca to The Jiu Jitsu Mindset to discuss how Gracie Jiu-Jitsu shaped Vini's confidence, boundaries, and identity through a gentle, game-based childhood introduction around the Gracie family, including Rickson, Royler, and Helio. Vini explains he began teaching about 10 years ago after studying engineering and running a surf business, then committed fully to preserving Ricks...

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Host Pete Deeley welcomes Professor Rodrigo Freitas to the Jiu-Jitsu Mindset and discusses how Freitas's life might have differed without jiu-jitsu, noting his background in soccer, swimming, and love of music and travel. Freitas recounts starting jiu-jitsu at 13 in Brazil amid harsh training, hazing, and limited instruction, learning partly from VHS tapes, and says he wasn't naturally skillful but had strong cardio a...

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Host Pete Deeley welcomes Professor Eddie Kone to the Jiu-Jitsu Mindset where they explore Cohn's 30-year Jiu Jitsu journey beginning March 12, 1996. Kone describes a troubled youth spent in children's homes and periods of homelessness, developing an ego-driven, scrappy mentality that led him through karate, judo, and Thai boxing before the UFC revealed what he felt was missing. After seeing Royce Gracie on VHS, Kone ...

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Jason Cruz Rickson Gracie Jiujitsu "Pure Bred"
Rooted in tradition, Jason's journey began at age seven training on wooden floors and makiwara boards. He earned a Traditional Karate Black Belt and is a Guro in both Pangamot and Lameco Filipino Martial Arts, which along with his experience in Jeet Kune Do served as the foundations for his striking style. A "purebred" Rickson Gracie Jiu-Ji...

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Host Pete Deeley welcomes Coral Belt Professor Dave Meyer to The Jiu Jitsu Mindset, noting Meyer's Ageless Warrior Lab podcast and his animal welfare work. Meyer explains he began ujitsu jat age six, making it inseparable from his identity, and says martial arts discipline and strategy improved his effectiveness in animal welfare, where he raised $160 million. He connects martial arts ethos—being "the help," def...

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Professor Dr. Jason Shields on Jiu Jitsu, Meditation, Trauma, and Competition

Host Pete Deeley welcomes Professor Dr. Jason Shields to The Jiu Jitsu Mindset. Dr. Shields describes how Jiu Jitsu uniquely taught him resilience through losing, regaining control, and finding a "home" community, plus the tap as maximal threat with maximal safety. He explains his hyperfocus was cultivated through long-term in...

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Rafael Lovato Jr. on Timeless Jiu-Jitsu, Competition, and Overcoming Adversity

Host Pete Deeley welcomes Professor Rafael Lovato Jr. to discuss passion, discipline, and growth through jiu-jitsu. Lovato reflects that, had he not pursued martial arts, he might have followed music or fitness, influenced by his father, a professional organist and martial artist. They explore links between music, engineering,...

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Professor Steve Maxwell on Wrestling, Early Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Challenge Matches, and Training for Longevity

Host Pete Deeley interviews Professor Steve Maxwell on Jiujitsu Mindset about how wrestling and strength training shaped his life, his early lifting roots near York Barbell, and how wrestling built conditioning, toughness, and skills that carried into jiu-jitsu. Maxwell describes training in the e...

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Professor Jack Taufer on Jiu-Jitsu Learning, Longevity, and "Invisible" Mechanics

Host Pete Deeley welcomes Professor Jack Taufer to The Jiu Jitsu Mindset and asks how Jiu Jitsu has shaped his life since starting at 15 in 1995, compared with paths like skateboarding, basketball, woodworking influences from his late father, or a possible finance career. They discuss jiu-jitsu as technical and physics-base...

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CHRIS HAUETER

6th Degree Black Belt

6th degree Black Belt and member of the dirty dozen (the first 12 non-Brazilian black belts). Chris was the first American to submit a Brazilian in competition, the first American to compete as a black belt at the Mundials in Brazil and he continues to travel the world spreading his Jiu Jitsu philosophy of think street, train sport and practice art.

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Tait Fletcher on Jiu-Jitsu, Truth, Persistence, and Healing

Pete Deeley interviews Professor Tait Fletcher about how combat sports shaped his life and character. Fletcher traces his path from Dog Brothers stick fighting to early Jiu Jitsu training in the 1990s, learning from figures including Arlan Sanford, Amal Easton, later also receiving a black belt from Eddie Bravo. He describes competing widely, fi...

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Host Pete Deeley interviews Professor Scott Burr on how jiu-jitsu shaped his life by enforcing radical accountability, honesty, and responsibility for results. Burr describes coming from a traditional Korean striking art through MMA into Jiu-Jitsu, valuing its endless depth and continuous intellectual challenge, similar to writing. He explains his learning style as principle-driven, needing clear parameters and an ove...

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Jiu-Jitsu as a Force Multiplier

Ownership, Awareness, and Leadership with Clay Cox, a Black Belt under the legendary Rickson Gracie.

Host Pete Deeley opens by recounting being submitted at a well-run Phoenix tournament and promotes JiujitsuMindset.com, Submission Coffee, and the Jiujitsu Mindset Online Academy kids class before interviewing Clay, a long-time jiu-jitsu practitioner and busin...

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Coach Donavin Britt on Building Las Vegas Combat Academy, Mental Toughness, and Protecting Gym Culture

Host Pete Deeley interviews Coach Donavin Britt on The Jiu Jitsu Mindset, discussing Britt's path from apprenticing under instructor Roger Donofrio into becoming a Krav Maga and self-defense-first gym owner who later added jiu-jitsu and MMA. He describes earning high-level training under figures includ...

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Host Pete Deeley welcomes listeners back to The Jujitsu Mindset, promotes Submission Coffee, the JiujitsuMindset.com store, and a Jiujitsu Mindset Online Academy kids class for ages 7–12, then interviews professor Eddie Fyvie. Fyvie describes growing up in a rough upstate New York neighborhood with a single father in AA, being bullied, and finding direction through sports. He recounts starting peewee wrestling a...

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