Purebred

Jason Cruz started at age seven on wooden floors and makiwara boards. He earned a traditional Karate black belt and became a Guro in Pangamot and Lameco Filipino martial arts, and trained Jeet Kune Do with original students of Bruce Lee — the foundations of his striking. Then came jiu-jitsu, and a “purebred” Rickson Gracie black belt whose lineage runs unbroken from his first trial lesson with Rickson to receiving his belt from the Master’s own hands.

In this conversation with host Pete Deeley, Cruz compares the older era — when students “courted” instructors and etiquette was everything — to today’s more transactional gym culture. He describes building Bushido Mountain Dojo in Montana around respect, safety, and community: white gis, interviews and waiting lists, students treated as family rather than customers. He recounts driving 80 miles each way for years to train in a true Rickson lineage, and how “invisible jiu-jitsu” makes him a better teacher, husband, and dad — through soft vision, “no technique,” and a recent epiphany he calls “invisible timing.”