Roughly around 8-9 years ago, a friend of mine came to me all excited about how he started Jiu-Jitsu. He was telling me all about how awesome it was, what he learned and how should come try it out with him next time. At the time, I was like no thanks, this Jiu-Jitsu stuff and rolling around with sweaty people is not for me. For the next year or two, my friend was going constant and by this time had earned his blue belt. Now a legit badass, so proclaimed he started showing me moves at family and friends gatherings. I eventually started to get interested in the stuff he was showing me.
Finally after two years, I started looking around town for a Jiu-Jitsu school near me, my friend lived in Kansas City at the time and I was living in Lawrence KS. I came across a small school River's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Started poking around their site and found an option to get a weekly trial. I sent in my info and they responded and told me to show up the following class. The next class was on a Halloween night, it was fall in KS, showed up to this class nervous as heck didn't know what to expect. The two instructors met me at the door, a married couple and both were Purple belts at the time. They seemed so nice and welcoming. They brought me, found me a trial GI to wear and introduced me to some other students. Everyone was so nice, by this time I was settled down and not nervous anymore.
We did some stretching and then started the warmups. At this time I was 5'11 and 286lbs and 40 years old, it was a mixture of muscle and fat, lifted heavy weights and trained with professional body builders at the gym. Anyways, I'm thinking oh these warmups should be easy! Well, I was wrong and it was so hard. I thought to myself what the heck am I doing? Why Would anyone wanna do this? These people are crazy, this was first 15 minutes of class and I'm already to leave. They paired me up with a guy that was roughly my size. We start talking about our weight and he filled me in that he was on Keto and had lost over 100lbs since he started Jiu-Jitsu and Keto. So now I'm really intrigued and started asking him all sorts of questions about Jiu-Jitsu and Keto. We get through the class and I realized that I enjoyed it. This was a beginners class. They asked if I liked and wanted to stay for the advanced class with the Black belt. I'm like okay let's do this!
The advance class starts, less warmup this time. The Black belt instructor pairs me with a big Blue belt guy. The move the instructor was teaching that night was the flying bow and arrow choke. I'm like the flying what?? The instructor came over and asked if I have had any previous training before. This is my first time doing anything out of weightlifting. He was like, well this move is really advanced and you don't have to do it if you don't want to, or you can attempt it. I'm like sure, lets try it. So my partner stands there all nice and firm getting ready to hold all 286lbs of me. So I do it, and on the first time I actually execute the move properly. The instructor was shocked in disbelief and told the class, look Matt is here for the first time and has never tried Jiu-Jitsu in his life and is executing this move properly. Asked me to try it again in front of the class. I did and went as smoothly as before. I was excited. I ended up signing a contract with this Jiu-Jitsu school. You can see the flying bow and arrow choke in the video below.
I ended up staring Jiu-Jitsu and Keto, thanks to my training partner sending me a bunch of information on Keto. Now I'm training everyday, Mon-Sat. The weight is falling off like crazy. I got down to 243lbs and decided to do my first competition. Due to my weight, I was in the ultra heavy class. IBJJF rules are 221lbs in GI and over are in the ultra heavy weight bracket. My competition starts, and my opponent is the huge monster, over 6'2 and roughly 290lbs. I'm nervous as hell. I left sweaty foot prints walking out to the mat. The match starts and I'm trying to take this monster down and he just keeps stepping back and my short legs can't reach him. My coach yells, just pull guard. I do and end up pulling him on top of me. I ended up putting him in halfguard. I keep him there and trying to sweep him, no dice as I didn't have any clue what I'm doing. He ends up winning by a point. Oh well, it was a victory for me to even get out on the mats at my age. My body was tense after that match, coach had to massage my forearms cause I was gripping so tight.I ended up earning my Blue belt after two years of hard training. Now, I'm learning wrist locks, ankle locks and love them haha. Also, my weight was down to 220lbs, not enough to get out of Ultra heavy weight class quite yet. Over this period of time, I have some injuries from weight lifting. I tore my left rotator cuff from bench pressing 365lbs. Had the surgery to repair and was out for 12 - 16 weeks. It was a horrible recovery and some my weight came back. I come back and start training harder, I want get down and do another IBJJF. I do one in Dallas, have lots of shoulder pain. Lost that match. Build my shoulder back up. Summer 2019, a group of us Jiu-Jitsu friends decided to take a trip to Italy for some jiu-Jitsu and Judo training. One of the students was a Blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu and a Black Belt in Judo. He was from Siena Italy and his father has a Judo school their. He organized the trip. We had an amazing time and went to some schools their to train. The people were amazing and welcomed us with open arms. Met some awesome Jiu-Jitsu players there.
After the trip, started having some knee pain, my knee was locking up. Turns out, an old knee injury from when I was 19 had caught up to me. I needed a partial meniscectomy. Thankfully, it was a quick recovery and I was back on the mats after my incisions healed up. I ended up moving to FL and soon as I got here I started looking for Jiu-Jitsu schools. Finally settled for a Checkmat BJJ school. Checkmat is very widely known and have some of the best under them. I trained a lot and have learned a lot. I'm currently a one stripe Brown belt under Professor Marcio Carra. This professor has taught me a lot. I'm back to training hard and going to compete at Brown probably in 23. Jiu-Jitsu has taught me to be a better person, I'm more patient now then ever before. It keeps you active and fit. Over my years, I have met so many wonderful people, and lots are my friends now. This is why I like Jiu-Jitsu. If you are looking to try it out, do it and I guaranteed you will love it!