1. How did you begin your career in the martial arts?



I never did any of the traditional martial arts growing up. I was too busy playing Nintendo. My start really came when one of my friends talked me into joining the wrestling team in high school. I was a junior in a small town in NJ, North Plainfield High School, and we had an even smaller wrestling program. They were always recruiting, so it could fill up the weight classes. To my luck we had an amazing coach– Jim Miller, and he was the best coach I ever had. His love for the sport was just contagious. To this day he is one of the biggest influences on me both as an athlete and as a coach. I fell in love with wrestling and it became my main focus for the last two years of high school. After I graduated I got a few offers from small division 3 schools, which I declined as I decided not to wrestle in college. After a semester of only academics I needed something. I tried Rugby for about a year and got really into lifting weights but nothing filled the hole wrestling left. Until that same friend that talked me into wrestling years earlier, talked me into jiujitsu. We actually signed up for a tournament before we ever took one bjj class. After that first tournament it was over, and I have been a matrat or matpanda ever since.



2. What does BJJ lifestyle mean to you?



I think I am definitely an extreme case, I have an addictive personality, so it didn’t take long for BJJ to take over my life. Every decision I have made over the last 8 years has gone through the “How does this affect my BJJ?” filter. When I was in college my class schedule revolved around training. I would pack all my classes in the middle of the day so I could train in the morning and at night. I turned down jobs, ended many relationships, and had a restricted budget. The budget had three items at the top of the list: gas money, bjj tuition, and at least one BJJ or judo tournament a month. Looking back it was a little extreme, but if I could go back I would not change it. All the sacrifices I made brought me to where I am today. BJJ has brought so many wonderful things to my life, I met my wife at a tournament, I created a company from scratch, and it’s now both my wife’s and my own source of income. We get to train everyday, travel for tournaments and camps, meet awesome people and share this beautiful art.