Professor/Ajarn Joshua
Professor/Ajarn Joshua; receiving his Full Professor Black Belt (Blue Bar) from Master Royce Gracie in 2023.
I am a lifelong martial arts enthusiast. Like many people from my generation, I got my start by watching Saturday morning Kung Fu films and practicing what I saw on TV. As a child I was interested in learning formally, however, my family never signed me up for formal classes. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I quit literally every other activity that I had tried (football, soccer, breakdancing, boy scouts, wrestling, weightlifting). Through them all I had demonstrated an inconsistent, undisciplined character and my family had learned the lesson.
It wasn't until I turned 18 that I started formally training martial arts. I discovered quickly that there was something about this ancient practice that gave me the necessary missing ingredient, the key that unlocked my long term interest. Once I started I was immediately dedicated to a lifelong discipline. Martial arts are physical, they're mental, they're spiritual, and they're social. They facilitate growth and development in all four elements, plus they directly facilitate emotional growth, discipline, character, fortitude, and grit, all of the things that every adolescent needs to become a reasonable human being.
I started my martial arts career in 1991 with Aikido, and added Wing Chun Kung Fu in 1994. At this point in history every martial arts instructor claimed that their art was superior to all the others, that they were in fact the best martial art that had ever existed, and that each would be the answer to all your problems in life. There was, however, no way to substantiate these claims until 1993.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship ("UFC") shocked the world! We were all sure that our favorite style was going to crush the competition, and were quickly disillusioned when they did not. Instead what we witnessed was little 170 lb Royce Gracie defeated some of the largest, strongest, toughest fighters in the world at the time using Gracie Jiu Jitsu. He did it again in UFCs 2, 3, and 4, proving Gracie Jiu Jitsu to be the indomitable martial art in the world. It was entirely appalling how many systems did not even make it into the venue; so much for their efficacy. Gracie Jiu Jitsu proved itself to be THE dominant art, and at this time and in this same venue Muay Thai proved itself to be one of the most indomitable striking arts. So in 1995 I dedicated my life to mastering Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai.
In the beginning, when I was young and tough and liked to work harder than smarter, I loved the game of smash, the aggressiveness, the expression of one powerful warrior establishing dominance over another. It is the ultimate ego trip. I started my competition career in the year 2000, as a two stripe white belt under Carlson Gracie Jr in Chicago. I was also training Muay Thai at the Degerburg Academy, however, they did not have a competition team until right before I left in 2001.
In 2003 I found my way to the Royce Gracie MMA Network of New England, headquartered in West Hartford Connecticut. There I met up with the Greater Hartford Bando guys and started training Burmese Lethwai, just to help prepare their fighters for kickboxing competition. That propelled me to my first kickboxing tournament in 2006. From 2008 to 2012 I added MMA competition to my resume. My strategic plan from the beginning was to get really technical in each system independently, before combining them into MMA in order to develop into a crisp fighter and avoid being a sloppy brawler.
Through the process of training under Master Royce, I learned a style of Jiu Jitsu which was a dreamscape of technical proficiency and timing mastery, demanding less athleticism and aggression. Through my elite ranks (Purple and Brown Belts) this hyper technical focus was of a tremendous benefit. As the smallest guy in almost every room this was the only path to any real success anyway. As you learn to relax and keep it playful, learn the love of learning, you come to enjoy the meditative process that is inherent in these dynamic disciplines.
Like many good things in life, my competition career came to an end with the wisdom of age and the re-occurrence of an old injury. In this particular case it was a preexisting injury from a motorcycle crash when I was 16 that would tweak every couple of years and need to be rehabbed. Additionally, throughout my competition career, I injured at least one of every joint in my body. I consulted an orthopedic surgeon about that original injury and, instead of recommending reconstruction, he recommended yoga. So in 2012 I began my yoga practice to rehab all these little injuries, locked joints, and bad posture I had gotten over time. To my surprise it actually worked!
The practice of Power Yoga gave me back my functionality, my mobility, my posture, and without knowing it improved my mental states. It was like the internal piece that had been missing from my decades-long pursuit in external martial arts. In parallel, I was invited by Master Royce to test for my black belt for the first time in 2013. I was introduced to the 7-5-3 Code of the Warrior, which is Gracie Jiu-Jitsu's version of the internal focus that I was exposed to through yoga. It is a comprehensive mental, spiritual, moral, lifestyle practice that encourages being a high quality community leader.
At a certain point, usually around the age 30, we have to realize enough is enough. Being young and tough and living off battle lust is not a sustainable way to go through life. Through my martial arts career and black belt test preparation, I studied the history and philosophies of Grandmaster Helio Gracie. His belief that Jiu Jitsu should be for the common man and not the star athlete guided my development as a teacher and subsequent Academy owner. In his book The Master Text he points out that most Brazilian Jiu Jitsu schools are a proving ground where the toughest and most skilled fighters arrive at their black belts simply by surviving the attrition process and an uncountable number of team mates are sacrificed to the glory of captain warrior. Tired, injured, discouraged, demoralized, these less gung-ho but equally brilliant and promising students must quit training. The elite athlete would attain the glory of winning the sports competition, meanwhile the everyday person who wants to do something social and fun, wants to get back into shape, wants to be able to protect one's family, is forgotten.
So I opened my Academy for the 30 to 60 year old who wants to have fun doing something interesting with good people while we all get stronger and healthier, better cardio, rehab and protect old injuries, improve our ability to work tomorrow.
