Thanks David, have followed your advice!

My pleasure Sir

Hi everyone,

I’m a 42 year old grappler who started training officially in 2011 in Tokyo, Japan at Carpe Diem BJJ (formerly TriForce BJJ) under Yuki Ishikawa. After 5 years in Japan I moved back to NYC where I’ve trained under Josh Griffiths at Clockwork BJJ ever since. I’ve also taught no gi grappling classes as a purple belt for several years. I’ve had the good fortune to train with many great grapplers over the years in many states and several countries.

I look forward to getting to know other grapplers on belt checker, especially in the New York area.

Hello, Professors, coaches, students, and all!

I began my journey in jiu jitsu around spring 2007. The gym that has been my home for training for near fifteen years has been Southeast Martial Arts Center located in Waycross, GA, ran by owner Jamey Perkins, a brown belt in jiu jitsu under Ururahy Rodrigues Jr as well as a 6th degree black belt in TKD. I was promoted from white to brown by Scott Devine, who operates from Brunswick, GA, and then I was eventually promoted to black on my fifth year as a brown by Ururahy Rodrigues Jr, who operates out of Villa Rica, GA. As for competition, while I have competed, I don’t consider myself a competitor. I competed in two tournaments, once as a white belt in 2009 and once as a blue belt in 2013, placing second at each one at the BJJ Jax invitational. Outside of jiu jitsu, I have also competed in one sport karate tournament and placed second in it as well. Not a vast competition pedigree, but I have done it, and I’m really not seeking to do anymore as I simply don’t have the same love for it that some others do. Despite that, I love to train. I love to learn. I love growing, and helping others on my team grow. One of the greatest feelings in the world is having to kick it up a few more notches with either a white or blue belt, because you know something has been done right and the jiu jitsu they’ve learned is sticking. I love this martial art and the culture and history attached to it. I look forward to talking with all of you distinguished jiu jiteiros, and contributing to this community however I can. Osu!

Sup Damian! Hope to get to train with you and your bro soon!

Good morning everyone. I have been training BJJ on and off for a number of years. Currently a blue belt. I also have a brief background in amateur mma.

Hey guys !

I'm Rommel Aleman, I am a purple belt currently training at St. Croix BJJ in the St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. I started BJJ with Darren McCall at MMMA back in 2009.

I have had several stints of inactivity due to work assignments but I have also had the unique oppotunity o travel the world and train and learn from some pretty amazing people around world. I call Houston, Texas home but I am currenlty living and workin in Christiansted, USVI in the island of ST. Croix.

Since I travel for extended periods and I try to train where ever they are nice enough to take me in, I love the idea of that belt checker community. Its a pretty good way of just sharing my page instead of having to have a lengthy discussion on why and when and where, as well as keep track of all the wonderful people I have met along the way.

I am new to the site, therefore, I would appreciate you check out my page and consider giving me a verification vote.
https://www.beltchecker.c[...]p?id=10331

Thank you and lets keep training.

Oss!

oss !

Hi guys, Steve here. Based in the Midlands of England, UK.

Been involved in grappling to some extent since around 2006. Have a small (losing!) MMA record haha. I’m a purple belt (Summer 2019).

I’m hoping that post lockdown I get some structure to my training and get back on the beautiful path.

Hello all! I’m a Jack of all trades, and honestly an odd duck to combative arts.

Started in western boxing, wrestled through high school and got into MMA when the Ultimate Fighter reality show took off (I was a meat head). I’ve tried every martial art I could. Whether for a week or years. I’ve just enjoyed seeing what each art does well, and not so well. You can find wisdom if you look hard enough. Martial arts was an escape from a broken home. I’ve always believed in sharing the art, and spreading strength through it. I lived out of a car for awhile, and have dealt with my share of hardships. But rather then play the victim I’ve always believed in aiding others, to break those cycles of misfortune. Moving forward, together.

I became a law enforcement officer for the Department of Homeland security. Which offered me ample opportunities to train, it’s here I became truly exposed to BJJ (though I don’t count my time officially starting till I formally began).

Through the agency I became the head instructor of my station in combative tactics, and joined a team. The team is a supplemental support element called Mobile Response. This gives me a unique blessing in advanced firearms training which is also another skill I’m constantly developing. We blend these tactics into grappling scenarios where you may have been conceal carrying.

I’m an EMT hoping to gain my paramedic license. Medical knowledge is paramount to combative arts.

I’m an ordained pastor, and as such am a Chaplain... I love this job, but it comes with incredible hardships. Just this week I officiated the funeral of a friend of mine. Jiu jitsu is my balance to those difficult times. With counselor experience I feel it offers me a powerful tool as a instructor. It’s not just building peoples physical strength, but mental/spiritual as well.

My formal school (Kaizen Bjj) closed unfortunately due to the COVID outbreak. I ran online virtual classes (with a few others) to try and aid my coach (great friend) in staying afloat. Alas we didn’t finish that race the way we had hoped. We also tried to do team check ins to aid with mental health of our students. I was fortunate because my training never stopped. I am “essential” personnel and my co-workers always trained with me. Since we had to keep working, we kept training. Making lemonade out of lemons. After my school closed I moved to a new house and converted my garage into a gym (dangerous because I’m always training!). I offer free classes as to continue to bless my teammates and others. This also allows me to be home with my family. Naturally I’m a busy guy, being able to train from my house has allowed me to have my kids be a part of this beautiful art. My boy coaches me now!

My last promotion was virtual, and though not ideal I’m beyond thankful I’ll finish my journey with my coach. He moved to Florida after the business closed and I’m thankful he’s able to find peace after such a heavy season. He is the pinnacle of service, and constantly inspires me.

If you ever find yourself out in Michigan, find me on FB (Kal El), and come out and train. I was able to be vaccinated for my job and the safety of my peers.

I’m thankful for the Globetrotters and all their incredible content. I’m hoping to see them soon. Was supposed to go to Arizona camp but I just came off of extended leave since I had a new baby. How do I do it all? I just don’t sleep. Plus I think I’m part robot.

To anyone who reads this long post keep up the good work. It’s worth it! Everyday improve just a little bit, and over the course of time you’ll accomplish great things. I hope we cross paths in our journey of life, till then be safe, and be blessed.

Hello from Denver! I have been training pretty regularly for just over four years. Due to my career I often have the opportunity to surf a variety of mats and meet some real monsters. I was introduced to Jiu Jiusu while in the Army, and loved it, but was unable to find a reliable place to train while attending University. I really like the idea of Beltchecker, and I hope it takes off.

Hi everyone,

I live in Philadelphia, PA (US) with my wife (Angela Vogel, also on beltchecker) and two weird cats. We both train and teach full time at Balance studios with a really great crew of people.

I appreciate everyone on here building such a cool community (everyone has been awesome so far) and I look forward to talking shop with you all!

Hello Folks! I’ve been training BJJ for just about 9 years now (6 of which full time instructing and training) and have the honor of being Balance Studios (Philadelphia) first female black belt.
I also have the pleasure of training and teaching along side my husband (coach) Josh Vogel (see above) so life is very good!
I chose to include a photo of the women’s team here at Balance :)

We got a female black belt in the house!* It's about frickin' time!

I remember seeing your "new black belt" post on r/bjj (and I think I asked you a question on it, too).

Welcome to BeltChecker! <3

(*I know we have some others registered, but I think Angela is the first one I've seen post on the forums.)

Hi! I'm Rob Keller. Currently a brown belt. I coach a small AM class in Fond du Lac, WI. Currently training under a Marcello Monteiro/BJJ Coach bb, Ben Shaeffer.

Very part time competitor, family man first. Unfortunately, my kids have not fallen in love with BJJ, as much as they enjoy wrestling with dad, at least I have that!

Thanks so much!! That Reddit post was my 15 minutes of fame

Hello everyone going to ramble here,

New to the site and happy to be here. I've been pretty fascinated with BJJ since I was a freshman in high school and found a book at the library authored by Renzo Gracie on Jiu-jitsu. Basic instructional book that taught the basics of self defense. This was 01 or '02 so UFC was already fairly popular but BJJ was not mainstream at all. I wrestled in middle school and a bit in high school but always wanted to get into BJJ however there were no schools in my area.

Several years later while in College I was able to take a modern combative course at K-State with Joe Wilks and started training at a gym locally for a while. However the drive was to far and I was a broke college kid so I didn't really make it out much.

Fast forward may years later around 2016 I was living in Missouri and started training at KCBJJ on and off for a year. Finally I was able to find a school close enough to me that I could regularly attend and bring my young son to attend as well. The crowd was great and the training fund and I've been training ever since.

I competed in a tournament around 2018 I believe which resulted in a loss but it was a competitive match, hoping once my work life dies down I can try to compete some more.

Was able to meet Royce Gracie at a seminar in 2018 which was pretty cool. Very nice guy.

Earned by Blue belt March of 2019 which felt amazing. Soon after I went to Afghanistan with the military where I was lucky enough to train with several practitioners in the service. Most notably was a Black Belt out of Cali named Adam Morrison who was stationed at my camp with the Marines. Pretty stellar guy.

I was lucky enough to be able to train during Covid and still continue my journey today.

I train to stay fit and look good. But I've always wanted to do two things when it came to BJJ.

1. Earn my Black Belt
2. Teach my sons (2) BJJ and be the one to promote them to Black Belt in the future.


Pretty bland intro but BJJ is more of a side story to my life where as my main focus is family happiness and making enough money to retire early. BJJ is great for discipline and an awesome talking point with people in the real world. I will say I landed 2 jobs in my life because people on the interview board were BJJ practitioners. And my wife got her first job out of college because my Instructor asked me at practice one day what my wife does. I explained that she just graduated pharmacy school and was looking for a job. My instructors neighbor happened to own a pharmacy in town. He put in the good word and my wife had her first job within 5 days of that conversation.

pretty amazing.

I'll say by far my top accomplishment is actually being Debt Free (Minus the House). Working on Baby Step 3 for those of you who are into Dave Ramsey :)

Ok back to work, Later!

Enjoy!

Hello all. I started my grappling journey back in 2000 starting in BJJ, where I was promoted to blue belt. I then transitioned to catch-as-catch-can submission wrestling under the legendary Roy Wood at the Snakepit in Wigan.

https://www.snakepitwigan[...]m/history/

I trained there consistently and was awarded my Snakepit Level 1. I have since ventured back to the gi on the odd occasion but my main training is no-gi.

Hey, friends. New to beltchecker... black belt in BJJ at my school War Horse in Wenona Illinois. Been to 5 BJJ globetrotter camps in the USA. Looking forward to the sixth one this summer. Have met a lot of awesome people, some who made the trip to Illinois to hang out and train with us! Check out my profile for photos.

Greetings from Montana!
I began training in 2014 at the age of 40 at my friend’s CrossFit gym. He was a 4 stripe blue belt that was looking for people to roll with so he got a small group of us together and taught us the gentle art.
Shortly there after, him and his wife closed the gym and I started training at the Grindhouse in Billings, MT. I was there less than a year then I moved to Charlotte, NC.
I was still heavy into powerlifting and Olympic lifting, but I made a choice to focus my training on BJJ. I found Great Grappling and took a few classes... I was hooked. Professor Jeremy Arel is a fantastic instructor and built quite a community! If you haven’t watched his YouTube training videos, you definitely should!
Four years later, I moved back to Billings. I decided to check out Billings BJJ under Professor Jim Collins out of Helena. Professor Bryan Kern and his wife Gwen have created a great program that is growing fast! And for good reason... great instruction, awesome community, great new space to train! Here I earned my Brown Belt. I look forward to continuing my journey and watching the program grow!

Hi everybody.

I am Arto from Finland. I run Martial art School with my friend Sami in Nurmijärvi (Nurmijärven Kamppailijat). I started jiujitsu at 2012. Right now i am a brown belt under Riku Kallioniemi. Also i make bjj videos to you tube. On filming and editin i am a white belt. If you are travelin in Finland my gym doors are open for visitors.

Hey everyone, My name is Meghan. I've been training a little over five years now. I was in search of a new martial art after training in taekwondo for 13 years when my best friend suggested I try jiujitsu. I went to my first class, got my ass handed to me and fell in love. I train at Neutral Ground in Milwaukee Wisconsin and am happy to call my teammates my family.

Hey folks. Checking in from Auckland New Zealand.
Started my journey into BJJ in 2001 after a decade of Aikido training. Started with my coach John Will in 2004, promoted to black belt in 2015 and received my first stripe from John and Rigan in 2019.
I run a school called GroundControl. Quite like the idea of belt checker but was on my to do list until my students started hassling me to get a profile up and verified so I can verify them etc. So here I am.

Hi everyone! My name is Miguel and I'm from the Canary Islands, Spain. I started training judo and Japanese jiu-jitsu when I was a teenager and I remember seeing BJJ on martial arts magazine covers (no Internet at the time). It looked kind of cool, but no one really knew anything about it around here yet. Years later I found a small academy nearby and decided to give it a try. I was given my blue belt by a black belt from Tozi Academy in Brazil who used to come once in a while, since we didn't have any black belts around yet. After meeting him, I traveled to Brazil and spent a month sleeping in his garage and training at Tozi Academy. I fell in love with the place, so a year after that I decided to leave everything at home and move to Brazil to live the dream (I was young, single and I had no job but I had some savings). I rented an apartment next to the academy and spent there about nine months, which was an amazing experience. At first I was the "gringo" who couldn't barely communicate, but soon I started to get fluent in Portuguese so I ended up integrating fairly well. During my time there I received my purple belt from Roberto Tozi himself (picture in my profile). From there, I moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. When I arrived I found an academy nearby and I decided to drop by, but I had a very bad experience with the head instructor, who was really rude and disrespectful. Initially I thought he just didn't like me or foreigners or something, but years later I found out there were a lot of bad reviews from people with similar experiences. I'm not going to name him, but if you're curious I can tell you in private. To be honest, I was lucky this happened, because I kept looking and I found Rick Young's Black Belt Academy, where I had a great time. If you're ever in Edinburgh, I highly recommend this place. During that time, I traveled to Stockholm, Sweden to meet Anselmo Baldin, a former instructor from Tozi Academy with whom I used to train back in Brazil. The head instructor there, Max Philipsson, and some of his students/friends were great with us, letting us stay at their homes and taking us around beautiful Stockholm. I got tapped by Alexander Gustafsson several times not knowing who he was, but then I saw his pictures with Dana White on the walls and felt much better. Before we left Sweden, I received my brown belt. Currently, I'm back home, I don't travel as often, life has changed... In short, I got older, but I still train.

Anyway, I don't know anyone yet here, but I hope more people will join (especially from my area) and I'm happy to be part of the community. If anyone is ever nearby, don't hesitate to let me know and I'll show you around.

P.S. I tried to upload pictures with every colored belt, which was a challenge by itself, so sorry for the quality. I'll try to start taking more pictures from now on...

Hi everyone, greetings from Chile!

I am an 47 year old Australian born in Colombia who started BJJ at Deftac Ribeiro in Manila while on a work post and never went back.

These days I have a post in Santiago Chile and train at Cohab BJJ. led by Professor Pierpaolo Chiappe a competitor at black belt on the ADCC and IBJJF circuits.

Thank you for having me here! would love to contribute to the community and hopefuly join camps!

What’s up everyone! I started training in 2009 at a Cesar Gracie affiliate in Vallejo. Approximately a year later I began training at Cesar’s gym in Pleasant Hill and earned my blue belt in 2013. The 45 minute commute got too much for me so I started training closer to home at Fabio Prado’s gym where he promoted me from purple to black belt. I just received my black belt last Tuesday and it’s a strange feeling when I look at my waist and see that on my gi. When I first started Jiu jitsu I thought blue belts were gods and I never thought I’d even reach that level. Well if you guys are ever in the Sacramento Ca area stop by for some rolls!

What a great picture! Really captures the moment.

Thanks Bridget!!!

Hey all,

I have been training this time pretty solidly since Sept 2017 (at 38 years old), even with COVID in my COVID pod.

I have been blessed to train at Ground Zero in Morgantown, WV .

I joined Belt Checker after hearing Christian Graugart on BJJ Mental Models. It sounds like a great project and I hope that it is sucessful

Hi folks!
I'm Josh.
Started BJJ in 2005. Got my black belt in 2016.
Have really only trained and taught at my home gym. Decent competition record. Not really competitive. I usually always placed, but never was a gold medal hoarder. Lol
I've always loved the puzzle aspect and the creative solution and development aspect of bjj.
3-0 ammie MMA. Started fighting at 39. Got to old to get sanctioned after that. Also my health took a dive at 41. So that was disappointing. Lol
Also done a heavy amount of Filipino martial arts and blade training along side the bjj/vale tudo.
I also make and sell knives and the like.

Thanks for reading!

Hi Josh & welcome to BC