The doubt was always there.
Now in his 12th year practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Jake Reeves felt more often than not that he’d never be able to master the grappling-based martial art. The hardest of the martial arts to receive a black belt in, Brazilian jiu-jitsu usually demands 10 to 12 years of effort to get to that highest point.
“I’ve had weeks, months where I’m like, ‘OK, well, I’m clearly terrible at jiu-jitsu, and I need to move on and go get a job swinging a hammer or something, because this clearly is not for me,'” said Reeves, the owner of Relentless Mixed Martial Arts and Fitness in Columbus.
But Reeves, a former professional MMA fighter, stuck with it. Eventually, that work paid off.
During a testing event held at Relentless on Feb. 8, Reeves tested his jiu-jitsu skill against 23 students at the gym. In the ranking ceremony afterward, he was surprised by his coach, retired MMA fighter Alan Belcher, with news he had known he might receive but never truly expected. Belcher announced to the gym that Reeves had earned his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, then pulled out the belt he had hidden in his gi (uniform) and handed it to Reeves.
“It was surreal,” Reeves said. “It was very fulfilling to see my entire life’s work as an adult come to fruition in that moment, even though it is just a cloth belt that you wrap around your waist.”
With the honor, Reeves became the first martial artist in the Golden Triangle area to receive a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu — though he said Jae McIntosh, the owner of No Limit Jiu Jitsu in Starkville, may follow soon.
Considering the subjective nature of the art — each fighter is under a specific affiliation; Reeves’ is with Belcher — McIntosh has worked just as hard, Reeves said, though he hasn’t earned the final honor yet.
“There’s a lot of coaches that would probably already have given him his black belt,” Reeves said.
Reeves himself earned his final three belts — purple, brown and black — from three different coaches, which varied his timeline considerably.
After getting his blue belt, the first promotion from the initial white belt, in Tupelo in early 2010, it took him five years to earn his purple belt. But from purple to brown was his fastest promotion, receiving the upgrade a year and a half later.
Now he’s a member of the scarce worldwide population to have reached the art’s highest echelon. The International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation lists 4,424 certified black belts on its website — Reeves’ name is not yet on the list.
Despite the years Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts have all put in to reach the mark, Reeves noted that the difference between a newly crowned black belt like him and the art’s elite competitors is still stark.
Take 24-year-old New Jersey native Gordon Ryan, a three-time world champion in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, for example.
“He would probably fold me up like an old wallet,” Reeves said. “It wouldn’t be close. It wouldn’t be competitive. … Even just other high-level competitor black belts, they’d probably make me look like a white belt.”
Jiu-jitsu, often known as the “gentle art,” can be anything but, Reeves said. There’s no striking, as there is in karate, taekwondo or muay Thai — the latter of which Reeves also teaches at Relentless — and the art is focused on what happens once the fight is on the ground.
Though there’s always something to be said for size and strength in any martial art, Reeves said, he’s seen Brazilian jiu-jitsu level the playing field for some of his smaller students. One woman who competes in the 115-pound weight class regularly beats 170-pound and 200-pound men; a 100-pound student now in high school has won nationals twice and competes against adults in the 155-pound range.
“It’s super technical and intelligent, and it uses leverage and planning to help you you know beat a larger person,” Reeves said. “But that’s why it takes so long to get good at: because it is so technical.”
Because of that, Reeves said, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is “a martial art you really can’t fake.”
“You have to put so much time, so much effort, so much mat time,” he said. “It’s very complex, and it’s just different than pretty much any other martial art.”
He’s trained in the art since he was 17, coming to notice jiu-jitsu’s importance while he was aiming to become a professional MMA fighter.
“There’s very few if any people on the planet that fight MMA, especially at any high level, that don’t pursue jiu-jitsu or something similar,” Reeves said. “If you’re gonna be an MMA fighter, you have to learn jiu-jitsu.”
So he started learning the art, traveling around the South to practice and compete. With few people in the area trained in it, Reeves eventually began to teach it at Relentless, which opened in the spring of 2011.
“It’s sort of taken a while to catch on here,” he said. “A lot of our marketing here is based around getting people to get into it.”
That includes children, who make up roughly 100 of the gym’s 330 members. Relentless offers “Little Warrior” programs for kids as young as 4 and “Junior Warrior” programs up to age 14.
For adults — only a handful of whom are active MMA fighters — programs are geared toward people who want to lose weight or those trying to get back into the swing of things after playing competitive sports.
“You played football or baseball or did things in high school and college, and then you get older and you just work a job and a career and you have a couple kids, and you’re kind of like, ‘Man, I missed that team aspect. I missed something driving me, making me want to be in shape other than just going to the gym and pounding out weights or whatever. I want something,'” Reeves said. “To me, that’s the beautiful part of jiu-jitsu. It’s not karate with a bunch of little kids running around screaming and doing katas and breaking boards. It’s a great atmosphere for adults that want to get in shape, that want to be part of something, and it gives them that outlet that I feel like up to this point as an adult … they didn’t have.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
