KELLOGG - It's not a racist slur or a rare medical condition. The term "black heart" in martial arts means you're weak. You give up. Jordan Cook does not have a black heart. He even has the words "no black heart" tattooed across his chest to remind him that he can't quit.

"I think when he got that tattoo, it was real personal to him," said Trevor Prangley, Cook's jiu-jitsu instructor and owner of the American Kickboxing Academy in Coeur d'Alene. "It's just a little saying we have around the gym for people who don't quit and who are genuinely good people."

It's a term that isn't handed out to fighters, and you can't claim it for yourself. It has to be earned.

"I earned not having a black heart," said the 22-year-old Cook, who grew up in Coeur d'Alene. "One, just my upbringing in the sport and two, by what happened Feb. 22."

On Feb. 22, 2013, Cook was the sixth fight on the card for King of the Cage - Free Fall II at the Coeur d'Alene Casino. He was matched up with Ryan Mulvihill. In the second round, Mulvihill got Cook's back, locking in a rear-naked choke.

"We didn't know the severity of the injury," said Prangley, who was at the fight. "When the fight was finished (Cook) was coughing up blood and spitting blood, which isn't super unusual in that sport. He was having a hard time breathing and getting his breath back. We just thought it was exhaustion."

It wasn't until later that they realized what had happened. The pressure from the choke collapsed Cook's throat, crushing his larynx.

He should have died in that cage.

In an instant, everything Cook had been working toward was taken from him.

He first got into martial arts as a 4-year-old, starting in taekwondo. Progressing quickly, Cook earned his black belt in the sport and moved on to jiu-jitsu, walking into Prangley's gym when he was 13. It was jiu-jitsu that Cook fell in love with.

"When I first started jiu-jitsu as a kid, I was a kid," Cook said. "At the time I was training with some of the top fighters in the northwest. I didn't have kids to work with. I had to train with the adults."

"He was really young and innocent when I met him," Prangley said.

But there wasn't a need for young, innocent fighters and training partners at AKA.

"They didn't want kids. They didn't want me," Cook said. "These are fighters that are putting food on the table for their families by beating people up. The last thing they want to do is cater to a kid."

And they didn't.

Day after day, Cook received beating after beating, but he never stopped going to the gym. He dedicated every waking minute to jiu-jitsu, trading high school parties and nights out with friends for a strict diet, bruises and blood. He decided to be homeschooled so he could spend more time at the gym. While training three times a day, he'd arrive at the gym at 6 a.m. and stay until 10:30 p.m.

He gave up everything.

On prom night, Cook planned on donning a custom smoking jacket, picking up his date, and going to dinner and the dance.

"That day I get a call from my coach saying, 'The 155-pound Washington State Title is on the line tonight. Can you make weight? Do you want to take it?' I said, 'Hell yeah. I'll be there.' I called up my date, 'Hey, I got a title fight.' She still doesn't talk to me, and I still have the jacket," Cook said.

And he won the title.

It was the start to earning eight different title belts in 23 fights through two different weight divisions, all coming within four years, at the ages of 17 to 21. Along with his success in the cage for MMA, Cook was one of the top jiu-jitsu competitors in the Northwest, competing in approximately 125 tournaments including a first-place finish at the 2012 Revolution tournament in the adult Gi purple-belt division.

And then it was gone.

Doctors had never seen an injury like it. They didn't know how to go about treating it.

Cook was sent to the University of Washington Medical Center and went into surgery. The injury was so unheard-of that doctors who were not a part of the surgical team came to his hospital room to see him. The doctors rebuilt his throat, stitching his trachea to the base of his Adam's apple. Now his throat is crooked. You can see it slant to his left when he lifts his chin. The right side of his throat is still paralyzed and the back of his throat is still collapsed.

"Basically, what the doctor says is that it's a ticking time bomb. It shifts every now and then but they don't know exactly when it's going to go," Cook said.

Because of the injury and the risk of re-injury, Cook's career was over.

"I saw him going where he wanted to go," Prangley said of Cook's potential. "He obviously had a natural ability. He definitely had the ability to make a career out of it and not just being a good fighter, but a top-level fighter."

But Cook couldn't fight anymore. He couldn't compete in jiu-jitsu. He couldn't even coach because he had no voice for five months.

He had lost everything.

"The day I found out I was officially done, the day the doctor told me, that was kind of my breaking point. I was frustrated with the world," Cook said. "I'd go to the gym and I would just sit there because I couldn't do anything. I couldn't work out. I couldn't even do pushups. Needless to say, I hated everything. 'I can't fight anymore. I can't roll. I'm a competitor, not an instructor.' That's how I felt. 'I don't teach people. I win. I go out there and I do my sport. And now I can't do that so there's no need for my sport.' I became very bitter."

Cook said his low point came around the Fourth of July. He was sitting on his front porch with family and friends. The sun was out. Everything was relaxed. A couple of men walking down the street lit a firecracker and tossed it onto the hood of Cook's car. The crack caught Cook by surprise. When he realized what was going on Cook said he came unhinged. He took off down the street, running after the men and picking up a chunk of wood the size of a baseball bat on the way. He tried to yell but his voice was still gone.

"I'm getting more frustrated because I can't yell or talk and these people think I'm joking when I'm about to kill them," Cook said. "Finally after I calmed down I was like, 'What am I doing?'"

That's when he reached back out to Prangley.

It was Prangley who told Cook to get back into the gym, to come work out and be active. To accept what had happened and move forward.

"He is a brother, a father, a best friend to me," Cook said of Prangley. "He's definitely someone who held me together and basically kept me in this sport."

"I didn't see it as really trying to help him as much as I was just trying to be a friend and being there for him, and give him some advice," Prangley said. "I don't know that I made a conscious effort to pull him back, I just told him the facts and what the reality is. What he has to deal with and how he could deal with it. He had a couple choices to make. Do you lay down and die, or do you deal with it?"

Cook started working out again. He competed in the Coeur d'Alene triathlon, then a fitness competition. He has to stay active. It's the only way he can cope and remain sane.

"One thing that I find really helps and one thing that I love is, I love teaching. I love teaching jits. The sport that I love the most, and it's something that I can give back," Cook said.

Cook now teaches a beginner-level jiu-jitsu class at Kellogg's Bridge Community Center two nights a week. His students range from kindergartners to parents. It's a small class but it allows Cook to be closer to his students. When the class meets for an hour and a half on Tuesday and Thursday nights Cook demonstrates proper technique, pairs the students off and moves from one group to the next, stopping at each pair long enough to make subtle tweaks to their positions.

Because of his injury Cook can't roll with his students. He has to rely on explanations rather than feel.

"My biggest thing is I want to roll with my students and show them, but I can't roll with anyone unless I really trust them," Cook said. "I don't know if they're really doing it right. I don't know how it feels. That's the thing that gets me the most. The fact that I can't say, 'All right let's do it. Let's roll.' One slip, they crush my throat and I'm dead."

The class at the Bridge is just one of Cook's moves into instructing. Before his throat was crushed, Cook was instructing between training sessions. He has taught countless self-defense classes for women, held a class for kids 3-5 years old as well as with law enforcement and military personnel.

To go with his class at the Bridge, Cook wants to expand and offer additional programs in the Silver Valley. He wants to get involved with the high schools and start a jiu-jitsu program along with classes for adults.

"I have to be active, and jiu-jitsu is where it's at," Cook said.