People & Their Passions

Note to the reader: when speaking about jiu-jitsu together, we are talking about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or “BJJ” as it is commonly known. Another term, “rolling” is a BJJ term used for sparring. Also, Ron was my first BJJ instructor and introduced me to the art at his gym in Nagoya, Japan. I’ll be eternally grateful to him for it. (He’s also an amazing teacher!)

So the first question is just tell me a bit about yourself. Whatever you’d like to say to introduce yourself. 

My name’s Ron and I'm from a small town in Kansas. I’ve moved around a bunch in the US for reasons unknown. I was always bouncing around. I lived on the East Coast and then Arizona and then I ended up in Portland, Oregon with a friend of mine who told me to come live with him for free. I’ve been training jiu-jitsu for about ten years now and martial arts in general.

[Ron currently resides in Japan, where he teaches English, plays in a band, and runs his own jiu-jitsu gym, South Side. He also used to be an MMA fighter.]

From what I know about you, two of your biggest passions are jiu-jitsu and music. Are there any others that I’m missing?

Those are two big passions of mine for sure. Just life in general, it kinda sounds cliché but when people ask me questions about how/why I do things, I tell them to just be passionate about it. If it’s something you don't want to do but have to, then fake it till you make it. Passion is caring about what you're doing, and being attentive and focused on it is important. I’ve been passionate about reading lately the past couple of years, which is exciting because I haven't been much of a reader my whole life.

How did you discover music?

I’ve loved music since I can remember. My mom was into music and my parents listen to music and my grandparents are always listening to the oldies. I was always singing when I was a kid. I was always singing in the car. I could always sing every song that came on in the radio. In 5th grade I wanted to be a drummer but my uncle had a trumpet so I started playing trumpet and I was pretty good and got better and got an AP. I was first chair all four years in high school and then I started playing drums and I was a natural. When I was 16 I started playing guitar and i've been playing guitar ever since. I’ve always had an interest in music and the lyrics were always interesting to me, trying to listen to them and understand them. 

What’s your favorite thing about music?

There's lyrics to a reggae song that Sublime covered, “one good thing about music when it hits you you feel no pain.” It’s an escape. We create a fantasy for our audience and give them a moment to not have to worry or think about the world that we are living in. They're here enjoying the moment and music with us. Writing music was a very interesting thing to me. I'm not a prolific writer but I’ve writtens songs that I've really loved and enjoyed. I can play covers all day no problem but I couldn't play this song that was so personal to me (about an ex I was really in love with but it didn't work out) in front of people for years. It’s so personal to me. I have maybe five or six songs that I enjoy and I've written. They’re my songs. I can tell the difference from playing a cover song versus my own song. I put a lot more emotion into my own songs. It’s so personal to me and brings up old memories and stuff.

Do you have a favorite band/singer?

My favorite band is for sure the Beatles. I love the Beatles. I also really like Anthony Kiedis, the singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Beatles for me, my aunt was a huge Beatles fan and my mom was a huge Beatles fan. What I love about the Beatles is as I've gotten older, being able to re-discover in a way the music. I was walking down the road in Japan listening to a Beatles song that I've listened to a million times, but I heard it as an adult with a lifetime of experience I’d never had before, and it made me start crying. This is a song I've known and loved my entire life but it has a new meaning for me now after all this experience. The Beatles just changed the entire landscape of music and continue to this day to influence entire bands and artists.

How did you discover jiu-jitsu?

It’s pretty random. I moved to Portland and moved in with my friend and I was in a really bad place and then my buddy kicked me out. I moved in to a new place and saw a gi hanging up downstairs and asked the guy if he did karate, but he said that he did jiu-jitsu and finally convinced me to come to a class months later. He said let’s go to the gym together and I thought it was a weights gym but it was a jiu-jitsu gym, and after the first class I loved it. I was immediately hooked from the first ten minutes of the first class.

What’s your favorite thing/aspect about jiu-jitsu?

My two favorite things are the endless learning and sense of community that comes with jiu-jitsu. It’s almost impossible to learn everything and that's what makes it so intriguing and so much fun. There’s always something new to learn. There’s so much to learn and it takes so much time. The second aspect I love is the community. That’s what I love about South Side [Ron’s gym], being able to build a community with people that are able to come. It’s like the wateringhole. There’s just so many different kinds of people who come to train, different backgrounds, etc. Everybody comes together and the one common thing we have is jiu-jitsu. The mutual respect we have for each other from training and the bond comes together. We build this family that we never had. I know that if I move I can always go find a new jiu-jitsu gym and find a new family.

What’s your favorite BJJ move?

I like anything that has to do with lapel choking. That's the one thing that really attracted me to jiu-jitsu in the first place. Being able to choke someone with their own lapel or my lapel just blew my mind. Brabo choke.

What inspired you to open your own dojo?

I was teaching at another gym. I just want to teach, my personality is a teacher. I love to teach. I want to pass that on to anybody who wants to learn. My goal is to teach someone jiu-jitsu or to introduce someone to jiu-jitsu who has never done it before. It’s about doing what I love and spreading the art of jiu-jitsu, not about making money. I really just wanted a place to teach and I'm lucky to be able to do that from my own house. 

Why is jiu-jitsu not fighting?

I teach this from the very beginning. It’s just an important concept to grasp as someone who’s starting jiu-jitsu because it looks very aggressive and intimidating and it deters a lot of people who want to try it for the first time. In jiu-jitsu I’m never trying to hurt anybody like when I was a fighter. I don't like hurting people and it’s important to grasp that concept the earlier the better because it’s training, it’s rolling, it’s being kind to your partner, and your partner being kind to you. It's being able to go 100% but not get injured. You don’t want to come in with that fighting mentality because you’ll be way too aggressive and will hurt your partner. Learn the technique, it’s a martial art. 

What was fighting MMA like? Did you ever get scared before a match?

I was petrified before matches. Fighting MMA was awesome. I do miss it but I don't miss the training. I always compare fighting to being in love because you share this moment with somebody, you're locked in a cage with another human being and you both know why you're there. It’s a very intimate situation. You find yourself in this bubble where nothing else matters and nothing else exists. It’s kinda like being in love, where time isn’t the same and time slows down. That's what happens in the cage. Time slows down in the cage. It’s a feeling that you can't replicate, except for rolling jiu-jitsu. Everything disappears and you don't worry about anything else.

Yeah, so scared before going into the cage. There was one fight, maybe my second fight I ever had, and I'm watching and it’s a bloodbath, the fight before me. I was like oh my god what am I doing this is crazy, I’m stupid, I’m about to fight, and I was freaking out. I was so nervous but the moment my foot would go into the cage, all that fear was completely erased. As soon as I walked into the cage, it’s like a shark in the water and he’s hungry and his instincts just kick in. My instructor told me I was a fighter, that it’s in my blood, after my first fight. I remember looking down in my corner before the fight and there was all this dried blood on the ground and I just got excited. It was my fight. It’s hard to replicate that feeling. I loved it, even when I got knocked out. I didn't really care, it’s just a part of fighting. My first win, I was so confused and didn’t know what had happened. I was so confused and didn’t understand what was going on even though I had won the fight.

What does it feel like to be punched in the face? What about being choked unconscious?

Being choked unconscious isn't that bad because you basically just go to sleep and have some kind of weird dream and then you wake up and you're really confused. That’s not a big deal as long as the guy lets go of the choke. [Reader, I’ve almost been choked unconscious at least two times but I tapped before I passed out. It felt like I was going to sleep.]

I’ve been knocked out more in training than I have in fights. Maybe three or four times in training, but only once in an actual fight. When I got knocked out in a fight, I had no idea I got knocked out. I was very confused. All I remember is that there were ten seconds left and I was winning the round, he clipped me and I fell. The next thing I remember is standing up and they were holding the guy’s hand up but I didn't think the fight was over and didn’t know that I was knocked out. I was really confused and didn’t think I was knocked out. I had no idea. My chin was sore but I never got a headache, it didn’t really hurt to be honest.

I’m currently recovering from two sprained fingers. What’s been your worst BJJ injury?

The worst is probably a torn MCL in my knee. That's happened a couple times because that takes you out of training for awhile. I've fought maybe four rounds with broken hands, that’s not so much fun.

Who are three people, alive or dead, fictional or real, who you’d like to roll with?

One would be Joe Rogan, I would love to roll with him. It’s kinda cliché to say but I've been following him for years now and he’s kind of a pillar in the martial arts community and would be a fun guy to roll with.

Ed O'Neill, who’s the guy who played Al Bundy. He’s a black belt. He’s a funny guy, a very interesting dude and he's a black belt in jiu jitsu.

Anthony Bourdain is my third guy, he trained jiu-jitsu. He was just a blue belt but he started training jiu-jitsu before he passed.

Fictional character - Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. He would be a great jiu-jitsu practitioner, he’s laid back and long and lanky which is good for jiu-jitsu. He seems like someone who would be good at jiu-jitsu.

Images provided by Ron Schröter and Malia Ogawa