I started because I was a reserve volunteer police officer at the time and aside from carrying a gun and mace, I didn't receive any formal training. So I started training as I wanted to be able to handle problems without resorting to the tools I had at my disposal.

For me, I was going through a hard time after my girlfriend had a miscarriage. I was moping around and numb and just needed to throw myself into something I could watch grow. It just so happened I came across a podcast that talked about the benefits of BJJ and told myself I would just do a trial and see what happens and here we are getting ready to come up on 2 years and no plans on slowing down.

In 2010 I had a car breakdown on my way to a Judo training lesson. A guy picked me up and asked some questions about my Gi I had with me. Later on he told me some stuff about „BJJ“ and invited me for a training. I did so and BJJ came in my live. 12 years later and exactly 30 years after earning my first black belt I earned the second one in BJJ.💁🏻‍♂️

I started because of internet message boards, essentially. I'd been doing kung fu type stuff for a while, then got into posting on message boards around 2001. People on places like SFUK, Cyberkwoon, Tung Fu and Bullshido kept mentioning this Royce Gracie guy I'd never heard of in something called the UFC. Bought a bunch of DVDs, looked intriguing. It took a few years, but I eventually got curious enough to try grappling in person (with some guys at a meet up of the Tung Fu forum). With encouragement from people on Bullshido, I finally got down to a BJJ class. About two decades later, I'm a black belt, teaching BJJ for a living. So thanks, internet. ;)

It was 1999 and I figured with about six months of training jiu jitsu. I could beat jiu jitsu. I had the opposite reaction of what most people did when they saw Royce do his thing. I wanted to learn just enough jujitsu to beat Royce Gracie. Even though I never wrestled, I always liked wrestlers and fought like a wrestler. I wanted to learn just enough 'BJJ tricks' to beat jiu jitsu. I fell in love with sport soon after getting my purple. Up to that point, I was collecting Intel- now I am hooked. I'm still waiting to learn the magic tricks. I thought I'd learn the special handshake at black, but maybe I have to wait for coral belt.

I was stationed in the military in Alaska in the 90s. I already had a couple of blackbelts in other arts. I was invited to do a 'cross martial arts training session' with someone who was a Ralph Gracie Purple belt, that was stationed in Alaska, he just got back from seeing Ralph. He wanted to cross train and spar with other people. he was a friend of mine. I went to train and he told me i could use whatever i want on him in sparing...... i got my ass kicked for about 30 minutes non-stop. After that i threw my other belts away 'i was young, and immature' it made sense. then i never looked back. i continued with BJJ until today.

I was becoming quite a fat and usless human being while lazing around I was watching podcasts about Atheism. One such video was an interview of Sam Harris by Joe Rogan. Joe said that he had started TKD and was a black belt, he was invited by a friend to a Kick Boxing gym and thought 'I should be able to hold my own, yeah lets do it.' or thoughts to that effect. He got his ass handed to him, so he thought 'I need to train Kick Boxing'. After getting decent at Kick Boxing another friend much younger than him, 17 I think invited him to a BJJ session. 'I am brillaint at TKD, good at Kick boxing I should be fine.' His ass again got handed to him but this time by a 'kid'. He stated that he wished he had start BJJ first. So I did that.

My friend called me and said, dude, I got this book, you need to check it out. It was Jiu Jitsu Unleashed by Eddie Bravo. We read it and started working on the stuff in it. The rest is history.

My friend called me and said, dude, I got this book, you need to check it out. It was Jiu Jitsu Unleashed by Eddie Bravo. We read it and started working on the stuff in it. The rest is history.

I was “broken” all over from about 10 years of CrossFit and wanted something that was lower impact and a challenge (both physically and from a learning perspective) Couple that with my son (now 11) had been training Muay Thai for 4 years and had just started BJJ at a local gym. It didn’t take many classes of me watching from the sideline, seeing how fantastic his coaches were and the familiar (like CrossFit) family feel this gym had to know I had found my new people and signed up. That, and I figured I’d better get a couple years of training under my belt before my son came for the car keys. 😂

Dude I've got that book! Plus his three 10th Planet books!

My daughter was being harassed at school and ultimately hurt badly at age 6. We enrolled her in BJJ. About a year into it, she looked at me one day and asked, “mom, I’m learning this to protect myself… what are you doing to protect yourself and me?” Signing up, evidently. That day was six years ago. My daughter, Marley, is still training. She doesn’t remember not-training. Her little sister, Presley, just got her grey belt a month before her 8th birthday. And I’m eyeing that third stripe on my blue belt.

I am terriblt sorry to hear about the harassment....but the fact that it all led to the journey shows the beautiful side of life to it all!

I've always been complete shite at ball sports except for football (soccer). Martial arts has always been in my family. I started because I watched the very first UFC on PPV Live and I wanted to do that! So, i got into Jiu-Jitsu, Shooto, and Wrestling in High School.