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I looked up at the rest of the congregated experts and realized I should get up. I hadn’t meant to make the man look bad, but my frustrations with the panel had overtaken me. I’d made a mistake, and Sgt. Dossey wasn’t happy. But Rorion Gracie, who usually yawned out loud at the demonstrations, seemed rather pleased.

Afterward, Rorion invited me to his academy to experience his art, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, firsthand.

At the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Torrance, California, Rorion introduced me to his skinny younger brother, Royce, who would demonstrate. Rorion’s family preferred to call the art Gracie Jiu-Jitsu because they’d perfected their own variation that utilized positioning and leverage to overcome strength once a fight hit the ground. I was impressed immediately with Rorion’s confidence. If you wanted to fight, the Gracies were ready to fight, and that said everything to me.

Usually, when I’d tried out other martial arts, I was told I couldn’t do this or that because I could get hurt. Rorion placed only one restriction on me during Royce’s demonstration: no biting. Otherwise, I could do anything I wanted: punch, kick, or tackle. At any point, we could stop if I tapped out by slapping any part of Royce’s body or the mat. We decided this time we’d grapple without punches or kicks.

I grabbed Royce’s legs and lifted him off the mat fairly easily—he must have been 100 pounds lighter than me—then took him down onto the mat. I didn’t realize I’d landed in his half guard, with one of my legs laced between both of his and my other leg on the outside of his. While I tried to crush him on the mat with my body weight, he started breathing in short, focused spurts. I actually thought I was doing well.

Royce began to talk to me. “You watch this movie Rocky?” he said in his Portuguese accent. He kept wiggling while I tried to squash him.

I didn’t know how to answer.

“You watch Rocky,” he continued. “Everybody think he lose too.” I thought that was funny.

With that, Royce draped his legs over my shoulders and straightened out my arm by pushing his hips up underneath it. My elbow joint extended at an uncomfortable angle, and I tapped out immediately.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

Royce flashed his all-knowing smile.

I’d have to return to find out.

Rorion, Royce, and I started training together almost immediately after that. I became a student in the subtleties of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu at Rorion’s academy, and he tried out his suggestions for the police panel on me.

I had no idea what it was like to be a jiu-jitsu expert, and Rorion didn’t know what it was like to be a police officer. Whenever he said, “This is the way I’d do it,” I’d give him the gun belt and let him try the technique on me.

In any situation as a police officer, a gun is involved. If you’re rolling on the ground with a suspect, you have to be conscious of your weapon because the suspect could always reach for it.

The difference between Rorion and all the other panel experts was that he was willing to learn. Over time, Rorion would meet me at the police academy, where I taught him how to use a gun better, how to shoot on the move, take angles on suspects, and perform other police-related exercises. This was the beginning of our friendship.

And like so many others, I fell in love with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It was a simple but highly effective art, and it was real. I appreciated the fact that there was no mystic element to it. You trained hard with your partner, and the longer you practiced, the better you got.

The Gracies didn’t just dole out ranking belts, a problem I saw with other martial arts academies. You had to earn them, and the only way to get to the next level was to work hard and dedicate yourself.

That wasn’t a problem for me. I became a disciple. These guys had the knowledge of life. To me, this was it. They fought. They competed. They were honest. I was convinced, hook, line, and sinker.

I even tried the Gracie diet, which