Come One, Come All If You Know How to Fall

In the leadup to the January 1997 semester, I realized that I had enough elective credits to graduate. A few years prior to that, while I was still living in South Carolina, I had switched majors from engineering to art.

Even still, with perhaps five more semesters total left, I had some room left for classes that I simply wanted to take, but didn’t need. One of these classes was an additional art history class, and another was a literature class I thought I’d enjoy.

Judo was one of these extraneous electives. I was all too eager to try judo, having wrestled in high school a few years prior. I really enjoyed wrestling, and very much wanted to continue after high school. Unfortunately, USC didn’t offer a wrestling team or club back then, so I drank beer and moshed instead for a few years.

Finally, in January of ‘97, I took my first judo class. It was part of the university curriculum, so it catered to the lowest common denominator—very slow and cautious at first, but I didn’t mind this! I was stoked to have a grappling-based art to participate in once again.

It wasn’t long before I found the judo club, a place for more serious folks that met twice a week. I was hooked.

The Judo Club at VCU some time in the late 90s

It was around this time that I also began watching the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). Back then, very few people had heard of the concept of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), now such a tremendously popular sport worldwide. Today, the UFC is a $10 billion company, but back then it was the domain of multi-generational VHS tapes and satellite-only pay-per-views, hanging onto existence by a financial thread.

The late 90s was a really different time for martial arts. It was a truly unique time for anything grappling-based, as everyone scrambled to account for the data coming in: every UFC was won by someone with a grappling pedigree.

The UFC showcased a concept that was unfamiliar to most folks watching at the time. The idea was that you could classify unarmed martial arts into two main categories: striking and grappling. Striking represents all the stuff kids during the 80s and 90s thought of as martial arts, with kicks and punches (or chops)—strikes. Boxing, karate, and Muay Thai fall into this category of art.

Grappling, by contrast, involved very close contact, and limited or even no strikes. By grabbing onto someone in a particular way and by using leverage, you can throw them onto the ground (judo’s main objective), or force them to give up (“tap out”) by getting them into a joint lock or choke.

I was there for it all. MMA and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu were very closely intertwined back then, especially since those early UFCs saw Royce Gracie winning 3 of the first 4 competitions. BJJ schools were very rough, by and large, places where every visit meant a fight for your life on the mats.

The judo club was a more peaceful version of this environment, always prioritizing the martial art elements highly. We had lots of BJJ practitioners coming through the club, and a few even took the class like me.

During this insanely exciting time for judo and BJJ, I started competing. Judo tournaments were more widely available at the time than jiu jitsu competitions, so I started with local judo events.

Judo competitions are decided in a few ways, but the main idea is to either throw the person onto their back, or to go to the ground with them and pin, choke, or armbar them. The groundwork of judo is remarkably similar to that of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and that’s no coincidence—judo gave birth to BJJ during the early 20th century, in a manner of speaking.

Over the years, I competed an awful lot in both judo and in BJJ, probably participating in somewhere around 500 matches. There are folks who have competed more than me since then, but there weren’t many humans around doing what I was doing back then.

It was the wild west, meaning rule sets weren’t consistent, scoring was often ad-hoc (for BJJ in particular), and there just weren’t many opportunities to compete. That meant lots and lots of travel.

Traveling meant needing to pay to travel, and that often meant learning to referee to pay for the competition, or teaching somewhere to pay for gas money. Slowly but surely, my passion turned into a business.

I created a BJJ tournament called US Grappling with some friends. We thought we could do better than the existing tournaments out there, and I think we were right, at least about some of the aspects of tournaments. Since we began USG back in 2007, the sport has continued to improve and evolve in terms of hygiene and safety, two of the things we prized most highly. Rules are more consistent now, too.

I also saw that tournaments were getting better. From 1997 through about 2008, it was clear that BJJ in particular was going through an adolescence.

Me at a BJJ competition in 2008. Photo: Alicia Anthony

By the 2010s, judo competitions were hard to find, but jiu jitsu events were everywhere. The rise in MMA and the early coupling with BJJ caused an explosion in the sport. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that there are at least 100 times as many people doing jiu jitsu today as during the late 90s.

Looking back on how I became me, it’s clear that walking into the judo club in 1997 was an important moment. I had no way of knowing this would send me down a path of dedicating decades to martial arts, with the phenomenal cardiovascular health and the osteoarthritis that go hand-in-hand.

I didn’t know that I’d be making connections with new friends like

Rudy Fischmann

—we connected by way of jiu jitsu tournaments, and Rudy helped with both the US Grappling events and, eventually, with Revolution BJJ when he moved out to Richmond for a while with his family.

I didn’t know I’d be making a career out of being a business owner, although the signs were certainly there. The businesses were centered around judo and jiu jitsu to boot, something else I never could have imagined when walking through those doors at the judo club all these years ago.

Looking back almost 27 years ago, I can see that my life has been profoundly shaped by my decision to jump into judo. The judo club sent me down a ride on a dramatic roller-coaster of a path that I’m still on today.

I grew up with martial arts, in a manner of speaking. I was 22 when I started judo, and 13 when I started wrestling. I’ve learned a great many life lessons through the lens of jiu jitsu or judo: persistence and patience; compassion and community; discipline and diligence.

Martial arts lives in every aspect of my life today, including here in my writing. It’s clear to see that my life would be completely different, had I never walked through those doors. I’m glad I did.

Have there been any surprisingly consequential decisions in your life that you’re willing to share today?