So my girls did TKD and JITS. I would pick them up and one day got chatting with the lead instructor. We agreed I should give jits a try and before I could rethink it I was in a gi that very evening.
As I struggled with the belt I remember watching one of the guys tying his blue 2 around his waist.
That looked like a level I could only dream to reach.
My approach was to take this as a bit of a laugh. 5 yrs on jits has changed my outlook.
I have lost 25kg without trying, made a multitude of great mates, 2 camps in Thailand and this yr received my purple belt.
I can only wish for a quick return to the mats so I can enjoy more of the same

I started with karate in the early 90:s (having tried judo before, but didn't stick with it), inspired by the karate kid, turtles and Bruce Lee. Also, I didn't want to find myself seeing my ass kicked by my little brother, who had started a year prior, so when my father joined the academy, so did I.

By the mid 90:s, I was curious enough of NHB and BJJ, although mostly just reading about it in magazines. A former student of my karate sensei was even more curious and came to our academy to see if anyone wanted to accompany him on a training trip to Rio de Janeiro, the mecca of BJJ. My sensei was the only one to accompany him, altough knee problems stopped him from further training. Instead, his former student started teaching at out academy when they got home from Brazil and both my father and I was soon hooked (and eventually left karate altogether).

In late 1996, my karate sensei brought their Brazilian instructor Alexandre Paiva to our academy for the first ever BJJ seminar in the country. The following spring, we had a black belt from Academia Strike taking over the role of instructor, staying for months (see image). In the summer of the same year, my father and I visited the academy in Brazil for the first of many times and when we got home, although still white belts, we found ourselves becoming the new BJJ instructors of our academy. We are now a further 25+ years down the road, a lot older but still enjoying BJJ and passing on the same joy to others.

(I realize I'm still a couple of years younger than my father was when he started and he is still is on the mat several times every week - inspiring!)

I watched Arte Suave in 2008. Looked online and found a great academy. Been getting rolled up ever since.

Very nice topic:

it was 2010. I was coming form years of inactivity but in 2009 i started back with Muai Thai (my frist love) to get back in shape. Then in 2010 I moved back to US, and I was searching for a martial arts gym to do Muai Thai.
The local owner of the gym, Mario Roberto, talked to me when I signed up for Muai Thai and told me:" I give you a month of free training in BJJ, I am sure you will like it".
Ever since that day I never stopped and Mario became my teacher, Godbrother, best Man, best friend and family. From that day in July, BJJ has been an integral part of my life.

Hello everyone, I began training April 2022 at TRA Jiu-Jitsu here in NJ. I was in a heavily abusive relationship both physical and emotional for 5 years before completing a suicide attempt in May 2018 and surviving. This lead me down the road of therapy to overcome the trauma and lean about not only how my brain works, but also how to manage the anxiety and depression.

I decided to start my Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree in 2020 and graduated 2022.

I had wanted to train BJJ since 2008 but was too afraid to start due to my sexuality of being gay. Given the sport is close contact I never wanted to make anyone feel uncomfortable. During my last semester of school the topic came up again about training from my best friend who is a purple belt and my previous boss who is a white belt. I expressed my fears and concerns, but they helped me to give it a shot and if it’s too uncomfortable then I can always stop. Well little did I know that I was welcomed into a family and team where no one shared the same concerns that I did and the only thing they cared about was “am I a nice person” and “are you a person who is safe on the mats”.

I never could have imagined that I would become not only a member of the team, but part of a family that my professor has worked so hard to build. I am incredibly grateful for those who helped me take that leap of faith and I can officially say that despite the struggles on the mat, I am so proud to say that I have become a part of the TRA Jiu-Jitsu family.

Ooo, thread bump! :D

My first martial art was fencing, for a year in the early 90s, then some weird made up kung fu mishmash at uni at the end of the same decade. There was some silly kata type stuff, but it also involved full contact sparring (I got KOed twice in the same session once, that kinda put me off the whole striking thing ;) ).

Bouncing around martial arts forums in the early 2000s, people kept mentioning this Royce Gracie guy. I wasn't interested in that grappling nonsense, but had a look at the first few UFCs out of curiosity. Eventually, posting and chatting on Bullshido got me to organise a few throwdowns (big open mats, basically). Ben from the forums later convinced me to check out the Roger Gracie HQ in London in 2006, I've been training ever since.

The super long version of that can be found here: http://www.slideyfoot.com[...]round.html

Some friends and I rented UFC 1–3 on VHS from Blockbuster Video in 1995 (yes, I am that old). I was blown away by Royce Gracie. Here was a guy who was built like me—tall and skinny—who was nonetheless destroying bigger, stronger martial artists using Jiu-Jitsu. I really wanted to learn Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but I had two problems: (1) there was no Jiu-Jitsu in Greenville, South Carolina at the time, and (2) I didn’t have a car. So, I trained in the one martial art they had at my college: Aikido (don’t judge me). I learned some good things like ukemi, wrist locks (which I still use in BJJ), meditation techniques, shiatsu, etc. Most importantly, I met my wife in that class, and I also got to spend a summer training in Japan, so my time wasn’t totally wasted. I then met a guy named Erick Jordan who was, at the time, a brown belt in a Japanese Jujitsu school that did a lot of MMA, so it looked a lot like BJJ. He ran an informal Jujitsu club and was the first instructor who taught me realistic grappling (thanks, Erick!). I then took up Jeet Kune Do and, after moving to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1999, started studying with Burton Richardson. At the time, Burton was a Nova Uniã purple belt, having studied with Egan Inoue and John Lewis. He incorporated a lot of BJJ into his JKD/MMA classes, but didn’t officially teach Jiu-Jitsu until later. Through Burton, I started cross-training with Renato “Charuto” Verissimo at HMC. After I moved away from Hawaii to take a job in Missouri, I trained for a few years with Kiko France at American Top Team in Columbia. I have stayed affiliated with Burton the whole time and eventually earned my black belt under him in 2018. In 2019, I finally got a chance to train with Royce Gracie when he gave a seminar in Missouri, and I thanked him for inspiring me to take up martial arts back in the ‘90’s. (Just to be clear: I am NOT a black belt under Royce; I just trained with him at a seminar, so please don’t mis-read the photo.)

I was reserving as a police officer at the time. Unpaid gig, all volunteer, didn’t get the same defensive tactics training as everyone else. So I started getting beat up by a bunch of dudes in a garage. Then the owner had to move - so I started driving an hour and a 15 minutes each way a couple days a week with my coach to an academy in Mt Vernon, Mo. After some time of doing that we finally talked coach into opening his own spot in town. Roughly 7 years from the start, still training, no longer reserving as a police office though. I do firmly believe that all police officers should be at least a blue belt.

I was at the last stretch of my Masters degree, spending a lot of time at the university (easily 10h-12h a day) doing lab work. Relationship with gf was flaking since I'd leave home before breakfast and arrive by dinner time, and on the weekends it wasn't much better since I'd still be writing my dissertation, processing data, debugging code on my test setup, etc...
During the week I'd go swimming either before going to the lab or during lunch time, so I figured I could instead use those time slots to do some activity with her, she suggested a martial art since she is small and wanted to learn how to defend herself. I had practiced Karate and Aikido when was younger so I discarded those options. At that time Joe Rogan was starting to get hype, and was promoting UFC a lot. I dug a bit into UFC stuff and figured most used combat styles were boxing, wrestling, kick-boxing and bjj. Since boxing and kick-boxing involved getting kicked/punched and she doesn't have much tolerance for impacts, and wrestling has zero tradition here in Portugal the only thing left was bjj.
She found an academy at 8min walking from our place. We watched a class or two I don't quite recall, and at the time I wasn't that convinced to try but she was. I signed up the next week and she said she'd follow the week after since she had a lot of work at the time (lol). It's been 4 years, she ended up signing up for a month 15 months later but would be glued to me every class we attended together and wouldn't try to practice with other people. One class we were doing some passing drill and I touched her a bit harder in some soft spot and she slapped me in the face, not hard but it annoyed me though and I let her know, she was embarrassed and annoyed at me for reacting. She hasn't set foot on a mat since, refuses to try again and says she regrets bringing me to it.

Fascination with martial arts began with watching Kung Fu Theatre Saturdays on Channel 56 (old NE folks may remember). Earned black belts in Okinawan Shorin-ryu and Tae Kwon Do Moo Duk Kwan. Taught and studied martial arts in China in the early 90s. Dabbled in some other stuff. Watched UFC 1 "live" on an illegal box and was, truthfully, unimpressed. It wasn't until UFC 4 (Gracie v. Severn) that I was finally convinced. Shortly thereafter, I began training in Sambo/Wrestling at a small wrestling club in Northern Virginia and met Jeff Ruff, a blue belt under Lloyd Irvin at the time. Jeff showed me a few things and I was hooked. I competed at the first Grapplers Quest in 98. I lost the match for third place and got a herniated disc in my neck for my troubles. Life got in the way and I didn't return to the mats until age 49. I wish that I found and stayed with BJJ earlier.

I feel your pain. Life does indeed get in the way of training. I had to take a couple of hiatuses when I was a purple belt due to a spinal injury (2nd-degree neck sprain) and my wife’s cancer treatment (which thankfully was successful). What matters is that we keep coming back. What’s a black belt? A white belt who never quit despite a $#!+load of injuries! :)

Also, like you, I watched a ton of Kung Fu Theater as a kid. My dad is a doctor and would drop me off in the waiting room to watch TV while he made rounds.

I started jiu jitsu and Muay Thai around the same time because I was bullied so severely in highschool due to the fact that I am epileptic. I started both martial arts during the off season when I was playing football and soon fell in love with the martial arts because of its ability to challenge the body and mind in such a positive and fun environment. After sustaining a horrible injury during a football game and losing my scholarship offers my epilepsy became much more of a struggle but jiu jitsu and Muay Thai always had a special place in my heart and I never wavered from either of them. Since graduating many years ago I’ve become a Gracie certified instructor and brown belt and I’ve made teach jiu jitsu and Muay Thai my life’s profession and will continue to learn and evolve as a practitioner and person.

I started doing Jiu Jitsu because I got too old and beat up to do judo anymore

I had a strong background in "Ninten-do" before I got a chance to try close combat in the defense forces as part of the MP training. There our instructor beat the sh!t out of all of us jaegers. Even when it was multiple vs him. It was this experience and seeing Forest Griffin vs Stephan Bonnar on TV as a re-run during night watch duty. This must've been somewhere around 2008. I always liked martial arts films too.

When started school in security field in 2010 had a bunch of free time, spent way too much of it on the computer. I lifted weights, but it was super boring to me. Decided to start BJJ early 2011 with my cousin. Fell in love with it right away. I wasn't super fit or athletic, but I could hold my own against much bigger guys with the limited skills I had learned on the beginner's course. And really, this has been the only thing I felt I was decent at (or could become decent at, lol, maybe some day), which also fueled the addiction. Also knowing some martial arts really helped me with my job at the time.

Never stopped. Probably never will. It's more than just a hobby or job at this point.