KC Manthan: Inside India's First BJJ Retreat (Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand)
In October 2025, a group of Jiu-Jitsu practitioners drove into the mountains of Uttarakhand for something that had never happened in India before.
Not a seminar. Not a competition. Not a workshop in a city studio. A retreat — a dedicated, immersive gathering of the Knots & Collar community in the mountains, away from Delhi, away from the ordinary rhythms of training, with nothing to do except train, talk, breathe mountain air, and be present with the art and with each other.
What happened there changed something for everyone who was part of it. This is that story.
What is KC Manthan?
KC Manthan is the official retreat of Knots & Collar. The name combines our initials with the Sanskrit word manthan — which means churning, as in the churning of the ocean in the Hindu philosophical tradition. The Samudra Manthan, the churning of the cosmic ocean, is one of the most significant metaphors in Indian thought: through sustained effort and disturbance, something precious rises to the surface.
That is what we wanted KC Manthan to be. A churning. A chance to go deeper — into the art, into our practice, into ourselves — through sustained, uninterrupted immersion away from the distractions of daily life.
We also named it as a podcast: KC Manthan, the official podcast of Knots & Collar, where conversations about Jiu-Jitsu, training philosophy, and life on and off the mat continue beyond the studio. The retreat and the podcast share the same spirit — going beneath the surface of technique to find what the art is really about.
Why Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand?
Finding the right location for India's first BJJ retreat was not a casual decision.
We needed somewhere that felt genuinely removed from the city — not just geographically but in atmosphere. Somewhere the mountains could do their work on the mind before the training even began. Somewhere that felt worthy of the occasion.
Mukteshwar, in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand, at an altitude of approximately 2,286 metres above sea level, was the answer. The town sits in the Kumaon Himalaya, surrounded by oak, pine, and rhododendron forests, with views of the Himalayan peaks on clear days. The name itself means "Lord of Salvation" — Mukteshwar is home to a centuries-old Shiva temple and has been a place of retreat, reflection, and renewal long before we arrived.
There is something about training in the mountains that is difficult to fully describe until you have done it. The air is different. The quiet is different. The absence of city noise — traffic, notifications, the constant low hum of urban life — creates a particular quality of attention. People who are usually distracted become present. People who are usually guarded open up. The mountains do something that a studio, however good, cannot replicate.
What Happened at KC Manthan 2025
The first KC Manthan retreat took place over multiple days in October 2025.
The training structure was built around long, unhurried sessions — the kind of training that is difficult to sustain in the compressed schedule of regular studio classes. Without the pressure of the clock, techniques could be explored fully, questions could be answered at depth, and the rolling that followed drilling had a quality of exploration rather than urgency.
We trained in the morning when the air was coldest and the mind was clearest. Between sessions, there was time for conversation — the kind that doesn't happen in the fifteen minutes after a regular class. Questions that students had held back for months came out. Discussions about technique, about philosophy, about what BJJ means and gives, went on longer than any single mat session.
The evenings belonged to the mountains. There is a specific kind of tiredness that comes from training hard in cold air at altitude — a clean exhaustion that settles into the body without the anxiety that sometimes accompanies fatigue at sea level. Sleep at KC Manthan was deeper than normal. The recovery felt complete.
The Knots & Collar community — students who knew each other from class, who had rolled together hundreds of times but perhaps had never had a real conversation — became something more than training partners over those days. Something more like family.
The Black Belt Promotion — October 25, 2025
KC Manthan 2025 carried one moment that none of us will forget.
On October 25, 2025, on the mat we had set up in Mukteshwar, Professor Waqar Ahmad — a black belt under Grandmaster Ricardo de la Riva, with over two decades in the art — tied a black belt around my waist.
Receiving a black belt is never just a moment in time. It is the physical acknowledgement of years — of mat time accumulated across thousands of sessions, of techniques drilled until they became instinct, of submission losses that taught more than wins ever did, of showing up on the days when everything in you wanted to stay home. It is not the end of learning. Every practitioner who has ever received a black belt will tell you that it is, in some ways, the beginning of the deepest learning.
But the context mattered. The belt came not in a city studio, in the ordinary run of a regular class, but in the mountains. In the presence of the community that had been built through years of shared training. At an event that was itself a statement about what Knots & Collar believes Jiu-Jitsu is for.
It was awarded under the De La Riva lineage — a lineage that runs from Grandmaster Ricardo de la Riva, one of the most significant figures in the history of BJJ, through Professor Waqar Ahmad, to Knots & Collar and the mat in Defence Colony where our students train every day.
Receiving that belt in Mukteshwar, surrounded by the community, with the Himalayas in the distance, was not what I expected a black belt promotion to feel like. It was quieter than I expected. More complete. The mountains had something to do with that.
What KC Manthan Means for the K&C Community
For the students who attended, KC Manthan 2025 was not just a training trip. It was a reminder of why they train.
The daily rhythm of studio training — class schedule, techniques, rolling, cool down, home — is essential and irreplaceable. But immersive retreats offer something different: time to integrate. Time to understand not just how a technique works but why it matters. Time to talk to your training partners as people, not just as bodies to roll with. Time to sit with the art in a way that regular training does not allow.
Several students described KC Manthan as the point at which their relationship with BJJ shifted from "something I do" to "something I am." That is not a small thing. It is, in many ways, the deepest gift the art can give.
For the Knots & Collar community as a whole, KC Manthan established something important: that we are not just a studio. We are a community with a shared culture, shared values, and now a shared memory of something that cannot be replicated in a city studio.
The Philosophy Behind Taking BJJ Into the Mountains
The decision to hold India's first BJJ retreat in the mountains rather than in an urban venue was deliberate.
Jiu-Jitsu is often talked about as a martial art. It is also, at its best, a practice — something with roots in philosophy and discipline as much as in technique. The Japanese concept of do — the way, the path — applies to Jiu-Jitsu as much as it does to Judo or Aikido. BJJ is not just what you do on the mat. It is a way of moving through the world, of solving problems, of relating to challenge and difficulty and other people.
The mountains strip away the layers that accumulate in city life. Status, distraction, the performance of busyness — none of these survive above two thousand metres. What remains is the training, the community, and the question of who you actually are when those other layers are gone.
That is what we went to Mukteshwar to find. And found it.
The name manthan — churning — is not incidentally chosen. Real growth requires disturbance. The comfort of the familiar studio, the regular training partners, the predictable schedule — these are valuable. But they can also become a container that stops the deeper kind of churning. KC Manthan is designed to disturb that comfort productively, in the mountains, with the community, under the art.
What We Learned at KC Manthan
Every person who attended KC Manthan 2025 took something different from it. Some of what we learned:
Unhurried training reveals things that timed training cannot. When sessions are not constrained by the clock, details emerge. Practitioners who had drilled a technique dozens of times in class found nuances in the mountains that had not appeared before.
The community is the practice. Technical skill is what brings people to BJJ. Community is what keeps them. KC Manthan made the community visible to itself in a way that regular training does not.
Altitude and cold air change how you train. The physical demands of training at altitude — less oxygen, colder air, more demanding recovery — require adjustments and produce adaptations. Several students noted that they returned to Delhi and found their regular sessions felt physically different in ways they had not anticipated.
The art goes deeper when given time. Conversations about technique that normally last five minutes in the post-class window went on for an hour in the evenings. The depth that emerged from that time was different from anything that happens in the studio.
Jiu-Jitsu in nature is different from Jiu-Jitsu in a city. We cannot fully explain this. You have to experience it.
KC Manthan 2026 — What's Next
KC Manthan is not a one-time event. It is the beginning of an annual tradition.
KC Manthan 2026 is being planned. The location will be confirmed in due course — it may return to Mukteshwar, or it may take the community somewhere new. The format will develop based on what we learned in 2025. The community will grow.
If you are a current student at Knots & Collar, you will hear about KC Manthan 2026 through our regular communications. If you are not yet part of the Knots & Collar community, there has never been a better time to start.
The mat is waiting. So, eventually, are the mountains.
Join the Knots & Collar community — book your free trial → Meet Professor Binish Sukhija → KC Manthan Podcast on YouTube →
Frequently Asked Questions
KC Manthan is the official retreat and podcast of Knots & Collar, Delhi's most complete Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and martial arts studio. The name combines Knots & Collar's initials with the Sanskrit wordmanthan, meaning churning — representing the process of going deeper into the art through immersive, sustained practice.
The inaugural KC Manthan retreat was held in Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand, in the Kumaon Himalaya, at approximately 2,286 metres above sea level. It was India's first dedicated BJJ retreat.
KC Manthan 2026 is in planning. Join the Knots & Collar community or follow our YouTube channel and social media for announcements.
KC Manthan is open to members of the Knots & Collar community. Future retreats may be open to practitioners from other academies as the event grows. The best way to ensure your place is to be part of the K&C community before registration opens.
KC Manthan was founded by Professor Binish Sukhija as the official retreat of Knots & Collar. The inaugural 2025 retreat was also the occasion of Professor Binish's black belt promotion under Professor Waqar Ahmad of the De La Riva lineage — making KC Manthan 2025 a historically significant moment for Indian BJJ.
Written by Professor Binish Sukhija, BJJ black belt under the De La Riva lineage and founder of Knots & Collar, Defence Colony, New Delhi. Book your free trial class →
Knots & Collar is located at A-269, Second Floor, Defence Colony, New Delhi. Classes 7 days a week from 6:30 AM. Call +91-9717956687.