23 year-old Tom Coda is one of our most consistent and dedicated BJJ students, and his hard work paid off exponentially last Sunday at the 2019 IBJJF NY Spring Open tournament in New York, NY. He straight-up won his blue belt no-gi division, and he took silver in his gi division, coming up short in […]

. . . is because you can train on your own, without any special equipment! With just a minimal amount of striking knowledge, you can sharpen and grow that knowledge on your own via shadowboxing. Now some people may feel self-conscious about punching and kicking the air, without equipment or a partner. But really, if […]

This morning, I watched this rather interesting video from Youtube celebrity Chewjitsu. In recent history, he’s become something of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu counselor and e-therapist. He’s definitely good at what he does, and I think that’s partially because he answers questions while at the same time pointing his listeners in the direction of more important […]

In my last blog entry, I discussed the art of teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to young children, although I really only dealt with the tip of the iceberg. Yes, there’s a balance between discipline and play, and achieving it is critical to keep children coming back for more than one class. Discipline for the sake of […]

I have great respect for parents who regularly bring their young children in to our academy to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As a teacher of children’s martial arts, I’ve learned to be constantly aware of what type of instruction is right for what child at what point in time. In my early years of teaching, I […]

One day, while hanging out with some training partners, I found myself in a debate about what the most fun Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu belt-rank is. Even the no-gi men and women got in on this. Some purple belts said that they imagined the black belt to be the most fun. That’s ideally when you become the […]

The above question was put forth to me years ago by a young man who had just taken his first classes in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He was being partially sarcastic – although new to things, he knew enough to perceive that learning the nuances of a martial art cannot be 100% accomplished through […]

Before Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu were my main fitness habits, I used to hit the traditional gym like most other people do. And today, I’ll still go to the gym, but only if I have a specific fitness goal or plan to compete. There are many reasons why I made this switch, but here […]

I’ve had the pleasure of training with lots of police officers at NJ United MMA. One common theme that many of them have repeated is their dissatisfaction with the lack of or quality of self-defense training in police training academies. In recent history, this has led many officers to seek formal self-defense training at specialized […]

Slight caveat – I don’t consider age 39 to be “late in life.” But hey, by the standards of some hip, young, early-20s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitors, I guess that even age 29 could be regarded thus! In any case, today I was happy to discover this short article about 39 year-old Rubens Charles Cobrinha, one […]