For Ronald Mann life was quite traumatic. He is an army veteran who lost a part of his left leg in a motorcycle accident in 1995.
He told fox 5 :“Thirty days after the accident, I had a gun my head,” he said. “And just before I pulled the trigger, I decided I was not going to quit. If I was going to die, I was going to die fighting.”
Mann has kept on fighting since then with a relentless spirit.
“I just kind of had to find my own way and I went back into martial arts as way of recovery,” he explained.
Mann said he found his path through Jiu-Jitsu. But getting a chance to take part in the sport with a missing limb wasn’t easy.
Mann recently traveled to Abu Dhabi to be a part of the World Para Jiu-Jitsu Festival. For this occasion he took off his prosthetic leg but came out on top with a gold medal.
You adapt the art to your body,” he said. “There are advantages. You can’t ankle lock me. I don’t have an ankle on that side. There are disadvantages. I can’t block the guard attacks from that side. I’m not able to sweep from that side.”
After his devastating accident over two decades ago, Mann is grateful and thriving.
“Without this, I don’t know where I would have ended up,” he said. “With Jiu-Jitsu, I’m a world champion.”