Chris Haueter is a legend in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. A member of the Dirty Dozen, the first 12 non-American jiu-jitsu black belts. A strong competitor and instructor who has conducted seminars all around the world for decades. Also known as a deep and sometimes contrarian thinker on a broad swathe of subjects: philosophy, politics, art (he is an artist), science, religion, martial arts, jiu-jitsu and just about everything else.
his co-author is Scott Burr, a jiu-jitsu third degree black belt under Rickson Gracie, who has collaborated on other books with other long time jiu-jitsu practitioners:
- Richard Bresler – “Worth Defending”
- Robert Drysdale – “Opening the Closed Guard”
- Benjamin Chen – “Lessons from the Mat – The 12 Martial Arts Principles That Will Help You Succeed in Business and in Life”
- etc.
Those books are relatively conventional in their structure.
The vast spread of information and opinions, anecdotes, and, arguably, confessions, eventually wrangled in the Chris Haueter Book, would easily overwhelm any attempt to include them in any conventional structure. Instead, Scott Burr cleverly manages to include them all in a loose narrative about the process of collecting Chris’s speech, writings, videos and art, that narrative including tension and suspense, tools used by any good writer to keep the reader turning the page. Chris appears in that narrative, but not as the protagonist and closer to a secondary than primary character.
There is plenty about jiu-jitsu in here, but much more about Chris’ other careers as a Marine, police officer, nursing student. But it is also very much about other undercurrents in life which came close to overwhelming him. I’m avoiding huge spoilers here, suffice to say that I am continually amazed at how many top level jiu-jitsu people got there coming from very circuitous, difficult and even dangerous earlier lives. Whether they achieved what they have in jiu-jitsu because of, or in spite of, these backgrounds is difficult to judge.
Like any really worthwhile goal, Scott’s attempt to have the material coalesce into some sort of whole continues to be a huge challenge, as he and Chris go deeper the goal seems to morph and expand and the goalposts move through time and space.
It’s a fascinating book. Read it!
I have only met Chris Haueter once in real life, at a seminar he conducted at the grand opening of Chris Burns’ Zero Point Gracie Jiu-jitsu academy in Sydney, AUS, April 2025. I have watched tons of his podcasts, and videos, instructional and otherwise. Including the famous Barn Speech mentioned in the book. I’ve been following him probably for twenty years, since he appeared on Matt Thornton’s Functional JKD videos from decades ago.
I first saw Scott Burr on some bodyweight strength videos where he was demonstrating for Steve Maxwell. I hope he would be pleased to find out I was “one of the twelve people who read” Bummed Out City, one of his early novels.
