Your game, engineered.
With the right approach, you can progress multiple times faster than the average practitioner.
Systematic one-on-one coaching from a BJJ black belt athlete with 20 years on the mat, a PhD from UNC Chapel Hill, and a Wall Street day job. Most coaching shows you moves. This builds YOU with a holistic, systematic approach.
Book a free 15-minute assessmentMajor competition accomplishments
Main achievements (black belt, middleweight):
- ● 3rd Place IBJJF Brazilian Nationals No-Gi, Brasileiro (2025 Masters 1)
- ● 2nd Place IBJJF Fort Lauderdale International Open (2026 Adult)
- ● 2nd Place IBJJF Virginia International Open (2025 Masters 1)
- ● 2nd Place IBJJF New Jersey Spring International Open (2025 Masters 1)
- ● 2nd Place IBJJF New York Summer International Open (2024 Masters 1)
Adult is the open-age professional division; Masters 1 is 30 and over. Brasileiro is one of the four IBJJF Grand Slam events, alongside Worlds, Europeans and Pans.
What if…
… you knew exactly what to work on, in what order, and why, and could see new positions landing on your training partners within weeks?
… your game was built around your body, your schedule and your ruleset, instead of borrowed from whoever posted the last instructional?
… you stepped onto the competition mat with a plan you trusted, and competed freely instead of carefully?
… your three or four sessions a week produced more progress than other people's six, because every hour had a job?
All of that is possible without quitting your job, buying another instructional, or grinding yourself into injury. It takes the right approach.
Here's the problem
Jiu jitsu is hard, even as a hobby. It is a full-contact skill with no ceiling, practised against people who are actively trying to beat you, several times a week, for years. It asks a lot of your body, your time and your ego, and progress is anything but linear. Everyone in the room is training hard.
If you want to be an athlete, the puzzle gets bigger. It is no longer just technique. It is optimizing the total package of you as an athlete: technique, strategy, strength, conditioning, nutrition, recovery and mindset, all at once, around a real life. This is how most people try to get ahead:
- ● Train three or four times a week and roll "pretty hard"
- ● Watch instructionals and YouTube, try the move for a week, move on
- ● Take the occasional private, ask a question after class, get a technique instead of an answer
- ● Lose to the same pass, sweep or submission every month and never quite work out why
- ● Compete cautiously, because there's no plan to be confident in
Despite all of that effort, progress slows. Breakthroughs happen, then fade. Motivation dips, because it gets harder and harder to tell what is actually working.
Here's why. People are different, so there is no one-size-fits-all. There is no single best teaching style, no best game, no best way to eat or train that works for everyone. Performance is technique, strategy, where you invest your training time, athleticism, nutrition, recovery, and the mind that runs all of it, and the right mix is different for every person. Work on one piece in isolation and the others quietly cap your progress.
The piece most people never touch is the mental one. Everyone is training hard. What separates people is whether the psychological blockers, the hesitation, the doubt, the fear of losing, have been dealt with. Clearing those does more for most practitioners than another hundred hours of drilling.
And the goal doesn't have to be competition. Competition is a great teacher, because pressure crystallizes the lessons. But this is ultimately about human development: developing the potential that is already there, overcoming barriers, limitations and fears, and letting the fire burn away what needs to go. Done right, jiu jitsu makes you better at jiu jitsu, and better at life and at achieving anything you set out to do.
It doesn't have to be this way. Every person is a puzzle worth solving properly, and the answer is an individual, holistic approach built around your goals.
Why I built this
I've been on the mat for 20 years. Those years have taught me far more than technique. They taught me how progress actually happens: how to improve a process, a technique, a body, a mindset, and how to learn faster this year than I did the last. The biggest lesson is that being intentional about your practice, about your training and about everything you do between sessions, lets you progress multiple times faster than the average practitioner.
Jiu jitsu gave me something first. On the mat I developed a work ethic, perseverance, and the ability to think under pressure. Those qualities were instrumental in earning my PhD at UNC Chapel Hill, and I received my black belt around the same time.
That is when it came full circle. As a newly promoted black belt, I started learning jiu jitsu on a more serious, deeper level, and I took everything the PhD had taught me about analysis and applied it back to the mat. I have kept sharpening those skills since, as an Ivy League visiting professor at Dartmouth and in a day job on Wall Street. Different rooms, same skill: systematic analysis. Identifying the important drivers of results and separating them from the noise. Applied to my own jiu jitsu, the results followed: medals as a black belt in both the Adult and Masters 1 divisions, around a full-time job, and a podium at the 2025 Brasileiro No-Gi.
Jiu Jitsu Engineering is that method, applied to your game and to you. Not more techniques. An approach you understand, that fits your life, that you can run yourself.
Six focus areas. You pick.
Every session is built around one of these six areas, or spread across all of them. When you book, you choose the overall focus; we can touch on everything in one hour or dedicate the entire session to a single area. Bring your questions on each area you want covered. The more specific they are, the more we get done.
Systematic Game Review
We map your game the way an analyst maps a company: your A-game chain, your two or three leak positions, and the highest-return fixes. You leave knowing exactly where the points are won and lost.
Technique Refinement
The details that separate a move that works on blue belts from one that works on everyone. Grips, angles, timing, and the small mechanical corrections that make a technique yours.
Match Strategy
Game plans built for the ruleset, the bracket and the opponent in front of you. How to open, when to take risk, how to manage a lead, and what to do when the plan breaks.
Mental Performance
Compete freely instead of carefully. Composure under pressure, intentional presence on the mat, and the mindset work that lets your training show up when it means the most. This is coaching, not therapy.
Athleticism, Strength & Conditioning
What a jiu jitsu body over 30 actually needs in the gym, and what it should leave out. Strength that protects joints, conditioning that survives round three, mobility that keeps you on the mat, and recovery that lets you train again tomorrow.
Nutrition & Supplements
Eating that fuels hard training, makes weight without wrecking it, and holds up around a desk job. What to eat, when, and which supplements earn their place versus the ones that are just marketing.
Perform freely, without the fear of losing or making mistakes.
Jiu jitsu is mostly mental and almost nobody trains it. Mindset coaching builds the mental skills to perform at your best when it means the most, on the mat, at work and everywhere else.
Most of the athletes I work with on mindset are dealing with at least one of these red flags:
- ● Doesn't pull the trigger, too cautious and hesitant
- ● Self-doubt and shaky confidence on competition day
- ● Gives good opponents too much respect
- ● Training-room grappler: dominant in the gym, tight in the bracket
- ● Afraid to lose, so never fully commits
- ● Freezes or over-thinks in the big matches
Built for fighters, works for any sport
These mental skills apply to every sport. But combat sports are unique: the challenge in front of you is another person trying to beat you. Built by a black belt who still competes, not generic sport psychology with a gi on.
Systematic, not therapy
This is not counselling or a pep talk. Mindset training is a set of mental exercises you practise and track, the way strength training is a set of physical ones.
Carries off the mat
Composure under pressure, decisiveness and intentional presence are the same skills whether the pressure is a final or a deal. You keep them.
Here's exactly what you get
Pick your focus area when you book. Every session ends with something in writing; the thinking is the product.
Game Architecture Session
- Pre-session questionnaire, your questions on each focus area, and up to two rounds of your footage reviewed before we speak
- Your choice of focus: one of the six areas in depth, or a full-spectrum review across all six
- A written one-page game plan within 48 hours: your A-game chain, your leak positions, and the three things to drill for the next 30 days
- One follow-up email for questions
90-Day Game Build
- Three full sessions, each with its own focus area, building on the last
- Written plan updated after each session
- Competition strategy and mental preparation built around a specific event
- Priority scheduling and email access between sessions
Athlete Mindset Program
- Assessment call identifies exactly which mental skills are holding you back
- A personal mindset plan: pre-match routine, pressure protocol, and between-round reset
- Mental exercises and worksheets you practise between sessions and track
- Built around a specific competition date if you have one
Focused Follow-up
- One focus area, one problem: a single position, technique, game plan or pre-competition check-in
- Available after a Game Architecture Session
- Updated notes added to your existing plan
Is this right for you?
The professional who loves jiu jitsu
You train around a demanding career and maybe a family. You may or may not compete. You know your potential is bigger than your results, and you don't want to spend the next five years figuring it out alone. You want access to someone who has done it in your exact situation.
The masters competitor with more in the tank
You've had some success, you're competing in your age division a few times a year, and you want to medal at the big ones. You need a plan for the ruleset, the bracket and your body, not another instructional.
The person who wants the investment to pay off
You put serious hours, money and energy into this. You want that investment to pay off: every session moving you forward instead of just wearing you out. Efficiency matters to you, on the mat and everywhere else, and you'd rather have a plan than hope.
I don't work with
- – Beginners in their first year. Get on the mat as often as you can and come back when you have a game worth engineering.
- – People looking for a secret move. There isn't one. There is a system, and it takes work.
- – Anyone who won't take ownership of the plan between sessions. I build it with you; you have to run it.
Why this is different
- ✓ Still competing. Twenty years in jiu jitsu, training out of and representing Marcelo Garcia Jiu-Jitsu in New York City, active in both the Adult and Masters 1 black belt divisions. The advice is tested every weekend on people trying to beat me.
- ✓ Trained to find what matters. A PhD from UNC Chapel Hill, time as an Ivy League visiting professor at Dartmouth, and a Wall Street career taught me to identify the important drivers of results and separate them from the noise. That is the whole method, brought back to the mat.
- ✓ Lives your schedule. I train around a full-time Wall Street job. I know what three sessions a week can and can't do, and how to make each one count.
- ✓ A written plan, every time. You leave each session with a document, not a memory.
- ✓ Teaches you to coach yourself. The goal is not dependence on me. It is a system you understand well enough to run on your own.
- ✓ Selective by design. Four sessions a week, every applicant reviewed personally. This is not a sign-up-as-many-as-possible operation and never will be.
Questions
Is this a good fit if I work full-time?
It is built for exactly that. I do this around a full-time job myself. The plan is designed for limited mat time, not unlimited.
Is it only for competitors?
No. Most clients train for themselves and want to get better faster with less wasted effort. If you compete, we build the plan around your events. If you don't, we build it around your training room.
What should I prepare?
Your questions. Pick the focus areas you want covered and write down what you actually want answered in each: the position you keep losing, the game plan you're unsure of, the diet or lifting question you've never had a straight answer to. Specific questions get specific answers.
Do I need to send footage?
One or two rounds of rolling or competition footage before the session is strongly recommended. It lets me study your game before we meet, so the hour is spent on answers rather than questions. If you have none, we work from your questionnaire.
How are sessions held?
Live on video. In-person sessions in New York City are available by arrangement.
What does it cost?
Pricing is premium and depends on the format. I go through it on the assessment call so you know exactly what you are getting before you decide.
What happens after the assessment?
If it's a fit, you get a booking link and a short pre-session questionnaire. I reply to every request within two business days.
Ready to engineer your game?
Start with a free 15-minute assessment. Tell me about your game, where it leaks, and what you want it to do. Four clients a week, by application.
Book a free assessment