The Grappling Monthly Podcast

In this episode of The Grappling Monthly Podcast, we sit down in San Diego with Captain Harlan Berk to talk about 25 years in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the evolution of the San Diego grappling scene, open mat culture, competition, teaching, longevity, and what it means to keep learning after decades on the mat.

Harlan started training in 2001, when the jiu-jitsu community in San Diego was much smaller and black belts were far less common. Since then, he has trained through injuries, chronic pain, competition, teaching, business loss, and the changing culture of the sport.

This conversation covers the practical side of staying in jiu-jitsu for the long term: learning from anyone, visiting other academies, testing your technique outside your own room, simplifying instruction, managing recovery after hard training, and adjusting your goals as the body changes.

We also talk about the overlap between fishing and jiu-jitsu, the growth of San Diego as a grappling hub, Masters competition, leg locks, gi vs no gi, the importance of open mats, and why longevity requires both competitiveness and honesty.

Topics covered include:

• Starting jiu-jitsu in 2001

Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport.

The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community.

Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms.

Subscribe and turn on notifications. IG and TikTok: @grapplingmonthly

For sponsorships and collaborations: [email protected]

Professora Monika joins The Grappling Monthly Podcast to discuss building a jiu-jitsu practice around learning, movement, and longevity.

Monika began training after first trying Muay Thai in Hollywood, where watching the jiu-jitsu class from the sidelines eventually turned into stepping onto the mat herself. More than ten years later, she is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor, TACFIT coach, and fascia stretch practitioner based in Burbank.

In this episode, Monika discusses why she never felt the need to compete in jiu-jitsu, why she never chased belts, and how her approach to training has changed over time. She explains the importance of choosing training partners carefully, managing ego, staying consistent, and supporting jiu-jitsu with mobility, strength and conditioning, breathing, and recovery work.

We also discuss teaching women’s jiu-jitsu at Legacy Burbank, why drilling still matters, the limitations and usefulness of ecological training approaches, and how teaching exposed gaps in her own knowledge while making her a better practitioner.

For anyone interested in starting jiu-jitsu later in life, returning after time away, or finding a way to train without sacrificing their body, this conversation offers a practical perspective on making the sport sustainable.

In this episode:

Train with Professora Monika:

Women’s Jiu-Jitsu at Legacy Burbank

TACFIT Classes

Fascia stretching sessions available through Revive Stretch Performance in Burbank.

Follow Grappling Monthly for conversations about the people, business and culture of grappling.

YouTube: @grapplingmonthly

#BrazilianJiuJitsu #BJJ #WomensBJJ #JiuJitsuTraining #GrapplingMonthly

Professor Shoya Ishiguro is Japan's top black belt competitors and a fixture at the highest levels of IBJJF competition. He joins the podcast in Los Angeles, where he has been training for three weeks ahead of the IBJJF World Championship, preparing for rematches with rivals Diego "Pato" Oliveira and Rerisson alongside coach Isaac Doederlein.

The conversation covers ground that goes well beyond competition. Shoya started jiu-jitsu at 12 in Shizuoka, at a time when most people in Japan had never heard of the sport. His father brought him to the gym hoping he would become an MMA fighter, a generation raised on Pride and Sakuraba. Shoya chose jiu-jitsu instead, and stayed with it for seventeen years through a period when there was no real market for full-time athletes in Japan. He trained, taught, and waited for the sport to grow into something that could sustain a career. It did.

The episode gets into what high-level preparation looks like without a dedicated personal coach, how Shoya studies his own mistakes during and after sparring, why he added strength and conditioning only recently and what changed when he did, and what his mindset is in the seconds before a match begins. He talks about the cultural thread that runs between Japanese martial arts and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, a connection he says Brazilian practitioners often feel more clearly than Japanese ones do today.

There is also a conversation about fatherhood, about the difference between how classes run in Tokyo versus Shizuoka versus Los Angeles, about why he tells every student to compete, and about what he actually wants to show Pato the next time they meet on the mat.

Shoya teaches at Arta BJJ in Minato-ku, Tokyo, near Tokyo Tower. If you are visiting Japan and want to train, visit: https://arta-hiroo.com/ or reach out on Instagram at: www.instagram.com/shoya_artabjj  

About Grappling Monthly

Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport. The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community.

The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community.

Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms.

Subscribe and turn on notifications. IG and TikTok: @grapplingmonthly

For sponsorships and collaborations: [email protected]

Tayane Porfírio joins The Grappling Monthly Podcast at Alliance Jiu Jitsu in Huntington Beach for a conversation about her start in Brazil, the Alliance competition team, winning early, returning to high-level competition after years away, motherhood, mental health, teaching, women’s jiu-jitsu, and the pressure of competing at the highest level.

Tayane is a multiple-time world champion and one of the most accomplished competitors in women’s jiu-jitsu. In this episode, she talks about starting jiu-jitsu as a teenager, earning her first major opportunity through competition, moving into the Alliance athlete house, training mostly with men, and eventually building a professional life through the sport.

The conversation also covers her return to competition after a difficult chapter in her career, how becoming a mother changed the way she thinks about competing, why mental preparation now matters more to her than changing her jiu-jitsu, and why she approaches every match as 50/50, no matter how many times she has faced the opponent before.

We also discuss women’s jiu-jitsu, athlete identity, social media, teaching kids, abuse of power in martial arts, and what healthy academy structures should consider as the sport continues to grow.

Guest: Tayane Porfírio

Topics covered:

Follow Grappling Monthly:

#jiujitsu #bjj #brazilianjiujitsu #grappling #alliancejiujitsu #tayanePorfirio #womensjiujitsu #bjjpodcast #grapplingmonthly

Professor Lila Smadja-Cruz is a second degree black belt from 10th Planet under Eddie Bravo. She started at the Bomb Squad in West Hollywood doing Muay Thai at fourteen, watched Eddie Bravo and a group of no-gi practitioners take over the mat after her class, and thought she would never do that. She eventually did. She never left.

In this conversation, Smadja-Cruz traces the full arc: from Muay Thai at Legends MMA to her first jiu-jitsu competition at NAGA, from EBI 5 against Talita Alencar to EBI 12, the first all-female EBI card, where she submitted her first opponent in nineteen seconds and made it to the semis against a then-unknown eighteen-year-old named Erin Blanchfield.

She talks about the Japan Quintet — cherry blossom season, a handmade medal from Sakuraba, an all-10th Planet women's team and what it meant to compete on that stage before any of it was considered history.

Prof. Lila also shares tales from the competition arena, and talks about the anxiety that made her body physically shut down before Muay Thai fights, twice, before she ever set foot in a ring. How jiu-jitsu gave her a different relationship with those same nerves, not by eliminating them, but by giving her a context where she could push through rather than freeze.

The second half of the conversation shifts to 10th Planet Pasadena. the school she and Professor Erik "Compella" Cruz opened in 2017, the same week they returned from their honeymoon. What it means to build a gym around community rather than performance. The LA fires and what happened when half the membership lost their homes. How a school's culture is set entirely from the top, and what happens when it isn't. The kids program, the toxic parent dynamic, and why she thinks losing in front of other people is one of the most important things a child can learn to do.

Prof. Lila also runs Femvasion, an all-female camp taught by 10th Planet black belt women. Their fourth camp is June 5–7, 2026 This episode was recorded at 10th Planet Pasadena.

Sponsors:

Interested in sponsoring The Grappling Monthly Podcast?

Email: [email protected]

Follow Grappling Monthly

#bjj #jiujitsu #grappling #brazilianjiujitsu #nogi #ibjjf #grapplingmonthly #martialarts #bjjpodcast #losangeles

About Grappling Monthly

Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport.

The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community.

Mike Dytri is the founder of Vanguard Kimono. He is also a third-degree black belt under Chris Haueter, a former MMA fighter, a longtime designer in streetwear and skateboarding, and the design consultant behind Gracie Barra's GB Wear program. We sat down at the Vanguard studio to talk about how a kimono actually gets made, and what that process reveals about the people wearing it.

The conversation starts with Carlos Gracie Jr.'s recent red belt and moves into what Mike sees as the real legacy of Gracie Barra: the infrastructure that made it possible for the rest of us to make any kind of livelihood from jiu-jitsu. From there we get into the question that sits underneath every gi design decision, which is whether jiu-jitsu is a team sport that calls for uniformity or an individual art that calls for expression. Mike has lived on both sides of that question. He consults for one of the largest team organizations in the world and runs an independent boutique brand whose first release was a selvege denim gi.

We get into the technical history, the shrinking of the silhouette in the early 2010s. The IBJJF rule changes that responded to what Storm was doing with double-layered ripstop and reinforced collars. Why a black gi fits tighter than a white one in the same size. Why your pants wear out faster than your jacket. What separates a jacket cut for judo from a jacket cut for jiu-jitsu, and why the difference shows up in the kinds of grips you can actually get. Mike also talks about his own path through martial arts, which started in judo as a kid in Michigan, moved through wrestling and MMA in the early 2000s, and eventually landed in jiu-jitsu.

The episode closes on the upcoming Adidas x Vanguard Jiu-Jitsu launch. Mike has been working with Adidas for over a decade across MMA and combat sports, and he describes the long road to bringing the new line to the U.S. market through a vertically integrated factory in China, beginning with a Vanguard x Adidas collaboration on the Evolution uniform.

Recorded at Vanguard Kimonos.

Sponsors: Interested in sponsoring The Grappling Monthly Podcast?

Email: [email protected]

Follow Grappling Monthly Instagram: www.instagram.com/@grapplingmonthly

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@grapplingmonthly

Website: http://grapplingmonthly.com 

#bjj #jiujitsu #grappling #brazilianjiujitsu #nogi #ibjjf #grapplingmonthly #martialarts #bjjpodcast #losangeles

About Grappling Monthly Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport.

The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community.

A lot of beginners do not struggle in jiu-jitsu because they are untalented. They struggle because they go too hard, too soon, and never learn how to pace themselves.

In this episode of The Grappling Monthly Podcast, Rodrigo Freitas talks about growing up in Brazil, discovering jiu-jitsu through the early UFC, competing for years at a high level, moving to the United States without speaking English, and building InSpirit Jiu-Jitsu in the greater Los Angeles area.

We also get into longevity, discipline, opening an academy, balancing competition with business, how to introduce beginners to training safely, and why consistency matters more than intensity for most people.

About Rodrigo Freitas

Sponsors:

Follow Grappling Monthly:

#bjj #jiujitsu #grappling #brazilianjiujitsu #nogi #ibjjf #grapplingmonthly #martialarts #bjjpodcast #losangeles

About Grappling Monthly

The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community.

Professor Fabio Holanda has spent decades teaching jiu-jitsu and MMA through a clear lens: top position matters, fundamentals matter, and technique should still work when the pace rises and the consequences change. In this episode of The Grappling Monthly Podcast, Fabio reflects on his start in Natal, Brazil, his connection to Carlson Gracie and Brazilian Top Team, his move to Montreal, and the training philosophy that shaped generations of fighters.

Prof. Fabio also breaks down why he still values closed guard and half guard, what people misunderstand about coaching, why finishing matters in both jiu-jitsu and MMA, and how fighters should actually think about style, development, and preparation.

Professor Fabio Holanda is a 6th degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is the founder of Brazilian Top Team Canada and one of the foundational figures in the growth of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and MMA in Canada. He trained through the Carlson Gracie and BTT lineage, fought professionally in MMA, and has coached athletes across jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and the UFC level for more than two decades.

Follow Grappling Monthly here:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/@grapplingmonthly

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@grapplingmonthly

Website: https://www.grapplingmonthly.com

Substack:  https://substack.com/@grapplingmonthly

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@grapplingmonthly

For sponsorships and collaborations: [email protected]

About Grappling Monthly:

Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport.

The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community.

Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms. Subscribe and turn on notifications.

#grapplingmonthly #bjj #jiujitsu #mma #brazilianjiujitsu #nogi #ufc #btt #carlsongracie #grappling

From Rio de Janeiro to Montreal’s West Island, Professor Marcelo Bonança talks about starting in martial arts, leaving a finance career, reconnecting with jiu-jitsu in Canada, and what it means to teach in a way students can actually absorb.

We also get into Gracie Barra’s structure, the realities of opening a school in Quebec, why principles matter more than information overload, and what a good first jiu-jitsu experience should feel like.

About Marcelo Bonança

Professor Marcelo Bonança is the owner and head instructor at Gracie Barra Sainte-Anne in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. 

Marcelo grew up surrounded by martial arts, first in judo, then jiu-jitsu. He pursued a fast-paced career in finance: long hours, endless meetings, constant travel, which meant he took time away from Jiu-Jitsu.

Years later, while living in Toronto, he stepped back on the mats, training alongside world-class names like Bruno Fernandes and Jorge Britto. From that moment, he never looked back. Returning to Brazil, Marcelo began training under Master Leão Teixeira, one of the legendary cofounders of Gracie Barra. He immersed himself in teaching children, community programs, and competitions, discovering that his true purpose wasn’t in boardrooms, but on the mats.

Website: https://gbsainteanne.ca/en/ 

Location: Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, West Island, Montreal

SPONSORS

Interested in sponsoring The Grappling Monthly Podcast?

Email: [email protected]

Follow Grappling Monthly

Instagram: @grapplingmonthly

YouTube: @grapplingmonthly

Threads: @grapplingmonthly

Website: https://www.grapplingmonthly.com 

#bjj #jiujitsu #grappling #graciebbarra #montreal #bjjpodcast #martialarts #brazilianjiujitsu #canadianbjj #grapplingmonthly

About Grappling Monthly

Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport. The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property — a weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt with roots in the Southern California grappling community. Past guests include Robert Drysdale, Ricardo "Franjinha" Miller, Alberto Crane, Chris Haueter, Bruno Fernandes, Tinguinha Mariano, and Keith Krikorian.

If you train jiu-jitsu long enough, pain is not the surprise. The real question is whether you know how to recover intelligently and stay on the mats. In this episode of The Grappling Monthly Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Diana and Dr. Kris Martin of Open Mat Physio to talk about injury recovery, overtraining, sleep, inflammation, strength work, nervous system regulation, and why so many grapplers stay stuck in the same cycle of flare-up, rest, and repeat. This is a practical conversation about longevity, not quick fixes.

Guests

Diana and Kris are the team behind Open Mat Physio, a physical therapy practice focused on helping jiu-jitsu athletes recover from injury, return to training, and build more durable bodies for the long term. Their work bridges rehab, strength, recovery, and sport-specific understanding for grapplers who want more than generic advice.

Follow Open Mat Physio:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/openmatphysio

Website: https://www.openmatphysio.com

Timestamps / Chapters

Social Links

Follow Grappling Monthly:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grapplingmonthly

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@grapplingmonthly

Substack: https://substack.com/@grapplingmonthly 

Or visit our website at https://grapplingmonthly.com 

Subscribe for more interviews, features, and conversations from across the grappling world.

#JiuJitsu #BJJ #NoGi #PhysicalTherapy #SportsRehab #InjuryRecovery #Grappling #OpenMatPhysio #BJJPodcast #JiuJitsuPodcast #Recovery #StrengthTraining #Longevity #GrapplingMonthly