Event Updates and Kids/Adult Super Dual

Our next Super Duals event has been scheduled for May 16th at Monroe Jiu-Jitsu! This will be the 5th year of us holding the duals with our friends in Monroe and we couldn’t be more proud of how our communities have come together for these events!

Not only do these matches gain valuable experience for the athletes, it’s also a great way to see people within our community and association, and we use our events to help raise money for a chosen local charity. FJJA’s mission is to strengthen communities through the practice of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so our goal with the event is to come together, have great matches, and also help out the local community in a charitable way.

A SIGN UP SHEET WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE ACADEMY THIS WEEK!

Other upcoming events:

APRIL 4th - Grappling Industries Detroit

*Multiple FJJA coaches will be at this event, including kids and adults

APRIL 11th - Jiu-Jitsu Collective Gathering in Monroe, MI

*Open mat training for both kids (starts at 10:00am) and adults (starts at 12:00pm)

*Open to anyone in the Jiu-Jitsu Collective

APRIL 25th - Rolling with the Kiddos Seminar in Monroe, MI

*Seminar series hosted by Monroe Jiu-Jitsu (contact Coach Amy for details)

Last, but certainly not least, some new brown belts were added to the wall! I’ve always wanted a picture of Sabrio on my wall… 🥹😂

Hope everyone is having a great week and see you all on the mats soon!

-Coach Tyler

Women’s Open Mat @ Monroe Jiu-Jitsu

Monroe Jiu-Jitsu recently hosted a Ladies’ Open Mat over the weekend. The turnout was fantastic - over 30 ladies on the mats from several different academies! Coach Amy attended the open mat, along with Hallie (FJJA Blue Belt) and her daughter Penelope (FJJA Yellow Belt).

Open mats are always a great way to meet new people, learn new technique, and build relationships and collaboration in BJJ. We always encourage our students to attend our own open mats, as well as open mats at other academies. The open mat setting is great for all belt ranks!

FJJA Blog - FBB Whiteboard

I took this one from my weekly quotes I do for my other gym, Findlay Barbell. It’s the same with strength training, football, or Jiu-Jitsu. Consistency is always the key.

“Being called ‘consistent’ is the best compliments an athlete can receive.” -Rob Keys

Coach Keys is the current Special Teams Coach for the Ohio State University football team, coached my Alma mater, the University of Findlay, as head coach for 11 years, and he was also my Special Teams coach when I played football for UF. I’ve learned a lot from Coach Keys over the years; both as a player, but more so watching him as a coach and watching how much he has grown into an even better coach.

One afternoon, back in 2020/2021 during the Covid pandemic, Coach Keys stopped down into the Strength office at UF where I was working as the part-time strength coach for the soccer and softball teams. I was getting ready to squat that day, equipped with my “plague mask” face covering that he commented on (it was easier to breathe in and they made us wear masks in the weight room all the time). Coach commented both on my goofy mask but also that I still follow my routine. I told him how I have lifted 6 days a week for the better part of my life, and Covid wasn’t going to change that. That’s when he hit me with the quote!

-Professor Tyler

FJJA Blog - Standing Techniques and Birthday Rolls

This month has been fairly busy at FJJA with class sizes being great, lots of promotions, and a few events over the past few weekends!

To start, our M-W-F-S classes have focused on stand-up techniques over the past 2 weeks, so we’ve taught a wide variety of things. A few highlight moves we taught in this unit:

• Arm drags, Russian tie, duck under, and 2-on-1 wrestling options

• Throw and trip options from Russian tie and similar grips

• Guard pulls against various grips and quick pulls into fast sweep options

Over the past 2 weekends we have also had some birthday open mat rolls! We do these occasionally for events or in this case, for someone’s birthday, but they usually consist of a predetermined amount of time that we try to roll for without stopping. One weekend was for Timothy’s 25th birthday (so we trained 25 straight minutes) and the next weekend was for Ben’s 41st (so we trained 41 straight minutes)!

These rolls are not only fun and a great way to get a lot of rounds in, but I believe I have learned a lot (and continue to learn) from these rolls. Training for extended periods of time teaches us how to conserve energy, how to use efficiency, and ultimately how to survive for longer! I believe they are also great ways for us to let go of our egos while training. You won’t feel strong throughout, you will get tapped a bunch (and that’s okay), but you learn to continue and keep moving forward!

Happy Birthday Timmy and Ben! 🎉🎂

-Professor Tyler Beckley

FJJA Blog - Feb. 13th, 2026

FRIDAY THE 13TH BLOG POST!

This past month has been extremely busy at FJJA! Community open mat days, birthday rolls, tournaments, and we saw a lot more people back on the mats!

For the kids; more people on the mats for the month means more promotions! Our kids class promotions are based on the IBJJF Kids Jiu-Jitsu standards on belt rank, and our youth students are promoted monthly based on their class attendance and participation. They must attend a minimum of 6 classes and remain in great standing both on the mats and off to receive their promotion.

This month we promoted a whopping 38 kids! Congrats to all our kids and teens on their promotions and their continued hard work!

This month also saw 12 adult promotions! Adults are promoted a bit differently, as they are not promoted on just objective standards like the kids. Most adults see a stripe maybe every 6-9 months if they have been consistent with classes, so they definitely take a lot longer to obtain. I remember back in the day when we might have had a blue belt or two promoted every few months, so it’s absolutely amazing to see our academy grow and have so much knowledge within it.

A special shout out to our three brown belts who were promoted this month; Ben Miller, Eric Kistler, and Amy Beckley. Striping up brown belts hits a little bit different. 😀

Congrats to everyone and we will see you all on the mats soon! 🥋🔥

-Professor Tyler Beckley

The Jiu-Jitsu Collective Open Mat

On Saturday, January 3rd we gathered at Monroe Jiu-Jitsu for our first ever open mat as “The Jiu-Jitsu Collective.” We had a kids’ only open mat for the first hour, followed by an adult open mat. There were students and coaches from seven academies represented at the open mat: Monroe Jiu-Jitsu, Second Nature Jiu-Jitsu, Findlay Jiu-Jitsu Academy, Saline Jiu-Jitsu, Upstream Jiu-Jitsu, US Jiu-Jitsu, and Fostoria Jiu-Jitsu Academy. It was a lot of fun to see both kids and adults from different academies train together. Our goal is to continue to improve our communities through the practice of BJJ! Stay tuned for more events like this one!

Becca Charbonneau Seminar

On Monday, December 22nd, we hosted Becca Charbonneau for an X-Guard seminar! Becca is originally from the area, and currently lives and trains in Alaska. She is a seasoned competitor in both the Gi and NoGi. Becca shared some great knowledge with our students, and we appreciate her taking the time to stop in. Best of luck to Becca in all of her future competitions!

FJJA Kids’ Holiday Party

On December 17th, we hosted our first ever FJJA Kids’ Holiday Party! The party was held at Circle P Reception Hall in Findlay, and we had over 75 people attend. The kids participated in a gift exchange, played games, and got to hang out for a couple hours along with their parents, coaches, and siblings. It was so fun to see the kids enjoy themselves outside of Jiu-Jitsu class!

We are very appreciative to the parents for helping make this event possible. We look forward to carrying on the tradition for years to come!

FJJA Blog - December 19th, 2025

First blog post for the academy! I started doing this with our other gym (Findlay Barbell) and wanted it to be a way that we could keep up with the happenings of the academy, and also to act as a journal and to help others by inspiring new ideas! I hope that people both inside and outside of FJJA can be helped by seeing what we’re up to!

_____

December 19th, 2025

I first wanted to talk about the Rolling With the Oldies camp that a few of us went to; it was great! Dec. 5-7 @ Monroe Jiu-Jitsu in Monroe, MI.

We had a session first on Friday night after check-in, another session Saturday morning, a third on Saturday night, and a fourth on Sunday morning. Professor Todd Williams taught on Friday, Professor Bernardo Faria AM Saturday, and Professor Lucas Leite on PM Saturday. Sunday was a Q&A and open mat.

Professor Todd (Friday):

• Outside trip into side control

• Side control/ forklift

• Bread cutter variation

• Setting up Kimura trap

Professor Bernardo (Sat AM):

• Over/under (Bernardo Pass)

• Drills to set up the pass

• Applying pressure correctly

• Ways to find the position

• Dog bar submission

• Tons of competition insight

Professor Lucas (Sat PM):

• Half guard basics through advanced

• Elevator sweep

• Coyote guard addition

• Getting under your opponent 101

• Dog fight/ back take

• Wrestling up/ rolling against

Overall, the weekend was fantastic and we were blown away by what Todd and Lindsey set up. Can’t wait until next year!