When Grappling Grabs You & Won’t Let Go
Lessons from Jiu-Jitsu, travel, and growing up.
Today’s article was written by Tammi Willis. Tammi is a BJJ brown belt and creator of The Grapple Travel Show —a YouTube series highlighting visitor friendly grappling gyms. She's slowly converting an old school bus so she can visit more gyms in more places. Tammi currently trains at VT Jiu-Jitsu in Wiltshire, England, and when she’s not filming and editing new episodes of The Grapple Travel Show, she works as a chef and is also building an online plant-based cooking course. Find all her projects at tammiwillis.com
When I fell in love with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which I now know is just a love of grappling in general, it was a liminal but exciting time in my life.
At 36 my ten-year relationship had ended, we were closing our nightclub business and I was due to have major surgery on both hips to correct developmental hip dysplasia, which had been undiagnosed for twenty years and had been getting progressively worse the entire time.
The operations would be at least six months apart and I’d be on crutches for three months after each one.
Around the time of my diagnosis, I took a free trial class at Carlson Gracie London and was immediately hooked. I couldn’t make use of membership at the time so I opted for a private lesson most weeks for several months, shared with various martial arts friends, some of whom are still training there now.
Then I stopped training to have the first operation. As soon as I was off crutches a few months later I was back, carefully working on things I was able to do and also spending a lot of time at my local fitness gym, rehabbing and getting full mobility back.
Before the second operation, my ex and I closed the nightclub and I moved out of London to temporarily stay with my sister.
My Dad, who was living in Malaysia at the time but planning on retiring back to the UK the following year, suggested I join him while I recovered again. He was a yacht racing judge and would be working at several sailing events coming up around Southeast Asia in the following months.
Mysterious Myanmar
One of those events was the SEA (Southeast Asian) Games, held for the first time in fifty years in Myanmar. The country had just opened back up to the rest of the world after five decades of military rule and isolationism.
My visit to Myanmar for those two weeks was unexpectedly life-changing. I met so many interesting people, heard about new projects and businesses and the entrepreneur in me badly wanted in.
I could go back to London, find a new place to live, start a personal training business as planned, work my ass off to find and keep clients, just to pay bills. Or I could find work in Myanmar and see where life would take me from there.
Jiu Jitsu was the one thing pulling me back to the UK.
Unaware of the wider Jiu Jitsu world at that point, all I knew was Carlson Gracie London and I desperately wanted to rejoin the friends who were still training there.
Then I read Christian Graugart’s book The Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Globetrotter and realised I only needed other willing bodies and mats and I could train anywhere.
A quick search revealed a Facebook page for MMA Elite in Yangon, Myanmar. They listed BJJ as one of the sports they practiced so I was elated and decided I would move there.
After securing a job and apartment I arrived for my first class and discovered there was no coach, they were all white belts, training in a fitness gym’s studio only available at weekends and with no mats!
But it was fantastic, I was incredibly happy and I lived for those weekends.
There was talk of an occasional blue belt who was sometimes there but it was several months before I met this enigmatic guy, who would later become such a good friend he also became a business partner.
Mostly we muddled through teaching each other what we’d all picked up in different places and using early YouTube channels.
Sometimes we tried laying yoga mats down but they slid around so much it was worse than training on bare floor.
I had a couple of spare rooms in my apartment so I shipped British Judo mats to Myanmar in a container, shared with a couple I found online who were moving to Yangon. They would also later become business partners.
So we had mats and we had a space where we could train any time we wanted to but we still had no coach.
BJJ Globetrotter To The Rescue
I emailed Christian to ask if he would consider coming out to coach us for a bit but he’d just started a family and didn’t want to travel at the time.
He made a post on his BJJ Globetrotters Facebook group on our behalf and I was immediately inundated with emails from people all over the world offering to come and coach in return for free accommodation and hospitality.
The first guy to visit was Brian Carlsen, a black belt from the US under Amal Easton. He was ideal as our first coach, so chilled and just happy to be there, an excellent coach and great company.
Over the next couple of years we had a total of 29 people from all over the world, from blue to black belt, come and stay for anything from a few days to a few weeks.
Our Jiu Jitsu progressed and hopefully we gave our visitors some unusual and interesting memories too.
After a year in my job and the apartment, the couple I’d shared the container with, who’d become very close friends, opened a yoga studio. We moved the mats into the studio and trained there for the next year.
After a while various higher belts moved to Myanmar for work and we relied heavily on them to coach us voluntarily in their spare time. We were so grateful to have them but it was a lot to expect them to be there every session, week in week out, especially as student attendance waxed and waned, as it does in any gym.
At some point, one of the original guys who trained at the fitness gym when I first arrived, opened his own gym. This was a very welcome evolution for the BJJ Myanmar team.
My friends then opened a second bigger yoga studio downtown and I partnered with them for an adjoining cafe. We opened Nourish Cafe Yangon in late 2016.
I was increasingly frustrated with the relatively small number of guys regularly training and felt the need for more diverse training partners, including more women.
Once the cafe was able to operate without me, thanks to a friend who took over my responsibilities, I moved to Bangkok, Thailand to train in a bigger gym, Bangkok Fight Lab with a full time coach, Morgan Perkins.
Also with a handful of other women, all of whom would become great friends as well as training partners.
Morgan and his partners allowed me to build another branch of the cafe, Nourish Cafe Bangkok, inside their huge new warehouse gym.
I received my blue, purple and brown belts from Morgan and loved every minute of training, even in that humidity!
The Big P
At first things weren’t so bad.
It was horrible that the gym was closed but I assumed that wouldn’t be for long.
We already had a food delivery partnership so as soon as we were closed for eat in, deliveries increased massively over the first week of restrictions and some weeks we even sold more than before.
But with a large percentage of every sale going to the food delivery company, it became unsustainable.
Many friends and teammates went above and beyond to help me keep the business going and I’ll be eternally grateful to them all but I was slowly losing too much money and had already reached borrowing limits.
After over a year of pandemic restrictions and struggle, I decided to close.
A few months previously in Myanmar, my business partners had been valiantly keeping the cafe afloat but eventually, after the military coup, they gave the business to a local partner.
Last Six Weeks in Thailand
I couldn’t immediately return to the UK because I hadn’t yet been vaccinated and there were forced quarantines on arrival in the UK at that time with horror stories circulating about solo female travellers being assaulted and harassed by male security personnel.
Even if that wasn’t something I would experience, the thought of having to quarantine in a shitty little hotel room at Heathrow, at my own cost, was depressing.
An old friend of mine, who owns Tree Roots Retreat in Rayong on the south coast of Thailand, kindly allowed me to stay there until I could get home.
He also trains and has a big outdoor mat space at the retreat. I’d already organised a couple of camps for the BFL team there during the pandemic.
In that last six weeks I managed plenty of training with a handful of locals and the occasional guest and also organised a third camp, which was a wonderful way to say goodbye to my friends and teammates.
I had plenty of time while there to think about what I was going to do once back in the UK. I knew it would involve Jiu Jitsu but also knew I’d start to get the travel itch before long.
One thing I’d loved about my time in Southeast Asia was all my many visits to different gyms in different countries. I’d trained not only in Myanmar and numerous places in Thailand but also Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Indonesia. It was always so interesting to see how each gym was utterly unique, characterised by the coaches, the students, the mat space, the facilities and the surrounding area.
After watching too many #vanlife videos on YouTube I became obsessed with the idea of converting a vehicle to a home. So that was one dream I wanted to pursue but this would cost money, not earn it!
The Grapple Travel Show
I conceived an idea for a YouTube channel where I would travel around Europe dropping in to visitor friendly gyms and filming how they ran their classes, show their facilities, interview the owner/head coach, chat to students matside and explore the local area, giving other potential visitors an idea of what to expect and encourage more people to travel and train, expanding the legacy of the BJJ Globetrotter movement that had so impacted me.
Spent my days thinking through how I could execute this idea, what new skills I would have to learn, what equipment I would need and how the final show should look.
This was overwhelming at times and felt like an impossible dream but it wouldn’t be the first time I dived headfirst into a new project with very little knowledge or skill.
Once I have a vision of something I start by taking small steps towards it, with a kind of “can’t hurt to try” attitude. I tell myself I can always pivot to something else anytime and whatever skills I pick up trying this thing will cross pollinate to something else if it doesn’t work out.
I’ve since learned this is a “growth mindset”, for which I have my parents to thank.
New Era
When quarantine rules were relaxed in late October 2021 I flew home, having not seen my family since the summer of 2018. My Dad was so sweet to give up his spare room and eventually allow me to completely take over his kitchen too.
It’s a good deal for both of us because I get to live rent free and he gets his own personal chef and dogsbody as well as a (mostly) willing recipient of all his life stories. If only I was prepared to learn to play bridge I’d be his perfect housemate.
My sister, her husband and their toddler, born shortly after I returned, live next door. My brother and his adult kids are not too far away and my Mum and other sister visit often from a few counties over.
Before the pandemic I didn’t mind being away from them for longish periods but now I love that I see them all the time and even when the bus is ready for international travel, I’ll never be gone for so long again.
Found part time work as a chef here and though it’s not a high paid job, when your biggest bill (rent) is not an issue, it’s easier to live with less income for now and I’ll be forever indebted to my Dad for this opportunity to work on all the projects while I’m living with him.
The Projects
Bought a wreck of an old school bus and am slowly converting it into a home.
Started my YouTube channel and have already made a few episodes of The Grapple Travel Show “a travel show for grapplers” as well as some other Jiu Jitsu content.
Building an online cooking course called Restaurant Quality Plant-Based Meals at Home.
Have a website called Grappling Nolej where I sell customisable notebooks and Jiu Jitsu stickers.
Write a weekly diary of my attempts to be a solopreneur here on Substack.
Just like my Jiu Jitsu, these are all works in progress. It doesn’t make sense to me to build these things privately, for a day when some polished version is good enough for public viewing. That day would never come.
I’m fortunate that the closest gym to me happens to be a particularly good one and the owner and head coach Leigh Remedios is a fantastic coach. He allows me to train for free in return for covering classes when he’s away and his gym VT Jiu Jitsu is the one I used for my pilot episode of The Grapple Travel Show.
When I’m in London I stay with friends who live near Wave BJJ, which is episode 1 of the show and when I’m visiting my Mum I drop in at Guildford Jiu Jitsu, which is episode 2.
Next two episodes coming soon are Method in Barcelona and Gracie Barra Jersey in the Channel Islands.
Jiu Jitsu has been the most stable thing in my life over the last thirteen years and enabled me to make friends all over the world as well as given me reasons to upskill in totally unrelated areas.
You could probably say the same of knitting circles, crossfit boxes, ultimate frisbee clubs and any other niche activity with a worldwide community but I’m so happy I found this particular niche, it ticks all boxes.
Today’s article was written by Tammi Willis. Tammi is a BJJ brown belt and creator of The Grapple Travel Show —a YouTube series highlighting visitor-friendly grappling gyms. She's slowly converting an old school bus so she can visit more gyms in more places. Tammi currently trains at VT Jiu-Jitsu in Wiltshire, England, and when she’s not filming and editing new episodes of The Grapple Travel Show, she works as a chef and is also building an online plant-based cooking course. Find all her projects at tammiwillis.com
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