About Us

I say I’ve been in the martial arts my entire life because determining the actual start of my fighting career is debatable. I was raised in a rural town in northwest Montana in a low-income family, with two older brothers and three sisters. As the third son in the family, fighting was an everyday way of life that began from the moment my feet hit the floor in the morning to the time I moved out of the house. However, my formal training started at the age of 15, when I found a martial arts instructor who trained underprivileged and needy families on a donation based honor system. After 4 years of training, I received my first-degree black belt under Stephen Snipstead and the American karate association. I continued training and instructing for 3 more years under the same school until 2004 when I moved to Fairbanks Alaska. During my final year in Montana I found a local school that was teaching a revolutionary martial art system that was guaranteed to round out my martial arts abilities. I had seen articles on the sport and had watched as the UFC evolved into a mainstream sport, but had never actually known anyone who trained in this “new” art. So I “bit the bullet” and paid the entrance fees to start learning this new savage and brutal art known as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  Little did I know at that time that this was the most life changing decision that I had ever made. At the end of my first class I knew that I had bitten off more the I could chew, and was in for a really rough road ahead. Having suffered a severe neck injury during the first 6 months of training I was forced to take a year off for recovery, but It was during this time that I moved to Fairbanks.

In 2005 I started a karate school, where I taught for 5 years under the same school model in which I had earned my black belt. During the summer of 2006 my neck had finally healed well enough to “get back on the horse” and started learning BJJ again. Most people called me crazy, and said I had a death wish, but the truth that they didn’t know, was that I had an obsession to overcome an art form that was legitimate enough to nearly take my life…even in training.

I began training with a small group of grapplers who eventually turned into the largest group of BJJ/MMA practitioners in the interior of Alaska. This experience has taken me all over the world for training and competition. My training experiences have put me in contact with some of the sports most notable and influential members in the world, and has given me the privilege of gleaning from their knowledge. During the past 19 years of training in the state of Alaska, my accomplishments in the martial arts have included owning and instructing a karate school for 5 years, BJJ/MMA instructor, 9 MMA fights, earning my purple belt in BJJ under Master Marcelo Alonso, and my brown and black belt under 3rd degree black belt Mason “Ryder” Spadafore, certified Krav Maga Instructor, and formally trained in boxing, American kick boxing, Muay Thai, and Judo.  

From 2014-2016 I taught for the U.S. Army on Fort Wainwright as a Combatives instructor, BJJ coach, as well as the USARAK Combatives competition team head coach.

My school worked primarily with the Army Combatives program and the Army Combatives competition Team. As Head Coach of the Army Combatives team, my duties include overseeing and managing all aspects of hand-to-hand combat training, as well as the health and fitness of the individual competitors.

Overall, I have 23 years of competitive martial arts training in various art forms and traditions. However, my passion remains with BJJ.