This video is of Andrew Huberman taking his first Jiu-Jitsu class with me at 10th Planet in Austin, Texas. Gabe Tuttle, who you see explaining the techniques, is a head instructor there. Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art and a fascinating game of human chess. Sometimes it is practiced with a gi, sometimes without the gi, like in this case.

It involves using detailed techniques to attain dominant positions that allow you to control your opponent's body and then to apply submissions like breaking their arm or choking them unconscious, but stopping right before that as your opponent taps twice to designate that they give up. This double tap, performed thousands of times in a Jiu-Jitsu journey, is the dismantling of the ego that I think is a very powerful tool for the development of the human mind, scientific and otherwise.

Here Andrew learns how to take his opponents back with an arm drag and submit them with a choke. I wanted to capture this moment because hopefully it's inspiring to see a world-class scientist like Andrew take on something new and difficult with a beginner's mind. Maybe this will inspire you to try Jiu-Jitsu as well.

I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, Lex. Zero. Fortune favors the bold, so good luck. So we're going to start off in the butterfly position. First one we're going to be working is our dominant arm here. We're going to be working on the arm. We're going to hit our arm drag here.

Try to get across, attach your chest to that shoulder. Now you can move. I can either come to him or pull him down into me. Watch this, he doesn't move real quick. I can hit my arm drag here. Look at his lap control. Here I want to actually mirror my hand.

I just scoot out here and I'm keeping good tension with my elbow here as I pull Lex down. I'm not going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this.

I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this.

I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. I'm going to be able to do a lot of this. That's perfect right there. And swim that through. Squeeze and expand your chest. That was perfect. You're building this junk.

So rather than try and flip him on his back. Yeah I'm going under the armpit now and reach for the far side of the neck. Now from here, once I control the neck I can let the arm drag out. That arm comes all the way around. I'm just pinching the back of his head with my elbows.

Just go straight, turn your elbow up. Now you can kind of ratchet your grip in deeper. You feel that? So just turn that elbow back up. This guy comes up and around this way. So there's a logic there. Basically you're trying to get into a place where you can use your own musculature.

Rather than just battle. This arm and choke, or that blood choke also. So my forearm is cropped on the far side and I'm pushing your shoulder into the neck joint. I like it. I can see how this would become addicting. Just because there's so many... Especially if you're a very cerebral guy like you are.

This one's got a chute underneath it. You got it. There we go. And then curl your left arm. You just boa constrictor them. Yeah boa constrictor. I mean, when you get... Maybe you know about this. Actually I don't know what the visual... Why is there butterflies? When you start to choke out?

Yeah. Because your eyes are part of your brain and they demand so much blood and glucose all the time you're cutting off blood supply to the eye. Why the visual artifacts? Oh, why do you get the little... Just spontaneous transmission of neurons in the eye. Just... It's cool. When you see stars, like if you get hit hard and you see stars, it's because of your spontaneous firing of cells.

Yeah, I get that with the choke. I just got that now. Oh really? There's the stars. So it's this shoulder going in there. That's the one blood. My hand on the other side. Yeah you can feel the blood. You start to tunnel up. Is that too fast? Did I cinch you in two places?

No, that was perfect. That was just really tight. Okay, sorry. Sorry. This is what I was saying, like, squaring with somebody who knows how to do it because they can do it right. The butterflies are back. Shit. Yeah. He's being kind. Lex Friedman is strong. I was worried I'd be going down the wrong road.

I'm sorry. You're strong. That Russian grip is insane. So yeah, if you stand up, that's exactly the game, the other side of the game that we looked at today. So we looked at arm drags, but those only work when you're coming in. If you're going away, I'm going to threaten you by coming up and then you're going to want to push me down, back down, and you'll be a little bit more nervous about me coming up so you're going to pressure yourself into me.

I see. And that leads to the arm drag. Got it. So like that's the yin and yang, the push and pull. This is where the choke position is? Here and we're pressuring this way, yep. That's called head and arm choke. That's Rogan's favorite choke. So it's this, this. Yeah, that feels very helpless.

Yeah, and I could just like sit here, relax for a while and just make it very unpleasant for you. When you talk about relinquishing the ego, it's like yeah, you have to be willing to let somebody get real close to you, like mount you, flip you. It's not something I'm used to on any basis.

It's really a beautiful sport. How do you feel? First class in jiu jitsu. Love it. It's amazing. I think I'm hooked. Yeah. I'm hooked. I'm hooked. I'm hooked. I'm hooked. I'm hooked. I'm hooked. I'm hooked. I'm hooked. I'm hooked.