Breathe: A Life in Flow

by Rickson Gracie

figured I would go. I stood up and walked over. I wouldn’t make the mistake of my previous teammate, who rushed in. I would take my time, be smarter, more measured in my approach. The master chief did not seem concerned. After some grappling, I tried to grab his leg, and as soon as I did, he wrapped me up, twisted me around, isolated my arm, and straightened it out to the breaking point, at which time I tapped immediately. This went on for almost an hour. Victim after victim, the master chief forced us to submit over and over again. Finally, when we were sweating, breathing hard, and too tired to keep trying, he looked at us and said, “Welcome to Gracie Jiu Jitsu.” The master chief, a SEAL by the name of Steve Bailey, had been training with the Gracie family in their garage in Torrance, California, for a little over a year. “And I’m just a white belt,” he had said. I didn’t know much about martial arts, but I knew that a white belt was just a beginner—and he had mopped the floor with us. I couldn’t fathom what a black belt would be able to do. I also knew something else: I needed to learn this thing called Jiu Jitsu.