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‘Jiu-Jitsu Stevie’ Linton on Competing as a Black Belt, His Native American Heritage & His Popular Blog

‘Jiu-Jitsu Stevie’ Linton on Competing as a Black Belt, His Native American Heritage & His Popular Blog

 

 

 

Stevie Linton is an active black belt adult competitor, instructor and BJJ blogger. You have probably heard of him through his excellent blog Jiu-Jitsu Stevie where he constantly shares great techniques and article such as the infamous YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE A WORLD CHAMPION, I DON’T CARE HOW HARD YOU TRAIN

Hi Stevie , can you please introduce yourself to the BJJ Community of Eastern Europe?

 Whaddup!  My name is Fletcher “Stevie” Linton, Jr., born and raised in San Diego, CA, U.S., currently living and training out of Philadelphia, PA, U.S.  Im 32 years young, I have been a BJJ Black Belt for three years now, I currently train at Maxercise Academy Under 1st degree Black Belt John Disimone, a black belt under the legend Saulo Ribeiro, here in Philadelphia.  I am a multiple time NY Open Bronze Medalist, I recently took Silver in the last NY Summer Open, in the adult middleweight division, losing to the beast Vitor Oliveira in the finals, and it was one of my biggest honors to fight against someone of Vitor’s caliber.  I have placed in numerous other IBJJF tournaments like the American Nationals, and NY Pro.  I am a multiple times Pan Ams Competitor, Mundials competitor, and World Masters competitor as well. Too many local and regional tournaments to name, I have had over 500 bjj matches in my career.

Another cool fact, I am one of the few Native American black belts on the scene.  I am Kumeeyay; my ancestors were the originals inhabitants of the southwest region of the U.S., northern Mexico, and Baja California before European contact hundreds of years ago.  My parents, and about half my family live on the Kumeeyay Indian reservation in northeast San Diego County in California U.S. known as the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, which is a sovereign nation. I know the owner of CTRL Industries is Navajo and a brown belt, and his brother I saw just got his black belt from Felipe Costa of Brasa. So that is badass for the Native Scene. I hope to one day grow the Native American jiu jitsu scene even more when my competitive drive slows and my time opens up.

Stevie after receiving his first degree on his black belt from Saulo ribeiro

Stevie after receiving his first degree on his black belt from Saulo ribeiro

How did you discover BJJ and how did you start training? Tell us about your BJJ journey

Jiu jitsu was something I was always looking for, I was 10 or 11 when the first UFC came out, and I saw it a short time after, and was like holy sh#% that is what I want to do.  I wrestled in high school, and always worked my choking skills at practice.  My brothers and I used to rent UFC VHS tapes, and watch them at home back in the 90’s.  In the Marines I did the same thing with my friends. And one day my friends and I heard of a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu School about 10 minutes off Marine Corp Air Station Cherry Point, in North Carolina, U.S. where we were stationed at the time. We got an invite from a fellow marine who was training there, so we went immediately after work that day.  It was in a small clubhouse room, furniture pushed to the walls, old torn puzzle mats on the floor, we barely squeezed in the 6 to 8 people in the room training, but it worked for us.  That is where I met my first instructor, Jerry Moreno or “El Gato”, a second-degree black belt under Master Luiz Palhares, of the Rickson Gracie Lineage.  Jerry also gave me my black belt in 2011, about a year after I opened my own school in North Carolina.

I was with Jerry from white to black from 2002 to 2011.  I got my blue belt training under Jerry after only 2 and a half months from the late Luis “Sucuri” Togno, he was a black belt from Alliance.  After a year and a half, I got my purple belt training under Jerry from Master Luiz Palhares.  Those were great times; we were training a lot, competing all the time in jiu jitsu and MMA. I fought MMA professionally for a short time too.  And in that part of North Carolina we were like gods, no one else new jiu jitsu, and people would challenge us all the time!  I have had several in house challenge matches, which were full on MMA fights. Tt was scary at the time, but I am glad I did it, haha, those were the good old days, I put a lot of people to sleep, and or sent them home crying with sore elbows.  But I was young back then, I would handle things differently now, academies do not operate like that too much anymore.  But those were the good old days, the Wild West.

 

You sold your academy in North Carolina and moved to Philadelphia. What were your reasons for moving there?

I sold my academy in North Carolina because I wanted to compete more, I wanted to focus all my time on becoming the best, competing with the best, and beating the best.  And it just was not fair to my students to still have that drive in me to compete, and not have all my attention, focus, and passion focused on making them the best they could be. I did my best, I had a tough first crop of students, a blue belt army, and some upper belts, and I even coached one of my first students, Stafford, to his first MMA victory as a blue belt.  I promoted him to purple belt when I left the academy, and I just saw he got his brown belt.  Most of my original students I taught still train, and are purple or brown belts now, and are killers.  So I feel I left them in a good spot. I sold my school to my top student, he has since grown the academy into a 24-hour facility, and I ventured on my path to compete against the best, and become the best here in Philadelphia at Maxercise Academy.

Please tell us about your academy.

Maxercise is great; it has a wealth of knowledge and a rich history.  It is the first Brazilian jiu jitsu School here on the east coast of the U.S. Opening it’s doors back in 1992 under the Relson Graice lineage. It is now a Ribeiro jiu jitsu affiliate under the great Saulo and Xande Ribeiro brothers.  My instructor John is a 1st degree black belt under Saulo, and also a 6th degree black belt in Judo.  Maxercise was also the first kettle bell school here in the U.S., brought by Steve Maxwell.

Our training at Maxercise is heavily influenced by these factors, all the competition team members’ work with kettle bells three times a week, so we are very well conditioned from this and hard training, you will never see us get tired in competition.  And we are all ranked in judo as well.  We have a strong judo base that we train every week, and I just recently received my judo brown belt from my instructor.  I was super pumped about that, one day I want to have two black belts, one in judo and one in jiu jitsu, and spread the knowledge I have learned in both arts.

Stevie3

Please tell us about your blog Jiu-Jitsu Stevie and your other projects?

My blog is an outlet for my thoughts on jiu jitsu, a way for me to share trending topics in the BJJ, MMA, and judo scene. It also helps me promote myself as a jiu jitsu athlete, and helps me create traffic for any products or information I might see fit to sell to the jiu jitsu community.  The main focus is for me to share my voice about training and jiu jitsu philosophy.  One of the first blogs I wrote, that was about being a world champion went viral, and I still have people come up to me about it.  If you have not read it, check out it here.  Heads up if you have not read it, it has stuff people might not want to hear, it is meant to be real, and a reality check for any poseurs’, so read at your own risk 😉
http://jiujitsustevie.com/youre-not-going-to-be-a-world-champion-i-dont-care-how-hard-you-train/

My coach John and I are also working on a Judo for BJJ course, and we are showing his system on how he can get any practitioner of any level throwing the drop Seoi Nage like a black belt in about a half an hour. So be on the look out for that course as well.

What motivates you so much to compete at the highest level in Jiu-Jitsu, at black belt adult? How is it to compete among BJJ’s elite?

 Like I said, I sold my school to be the best, compete against the best, and beat the best.  So if I do not do this, and fight against the best at the adult level, then I would just be full of shit, and I would of sold my school for nothing. I should have just stayed and focused on growing my school and building the best jiu jitsu fighters I possibly could.  Do not get me wrong, that is still something I want to do one day very soon, but not yet.  I must to do this, competing is what makes me the happiest out of anything right now.  I feel like if I’m not competing in everything I possibly can compete in, I’m full of shit.  My window is short too, I am 32, and the evolution of jiu jitsu is increasing at an exponential rate. The top guys are so good; guys like Buchecha, Rodolfo, Xande, Vitor Oliveria and others are supreme athletes that could compete in any other major professional sport if they chose to.  But they chose jiu jitsu, so it just raises the bar that much higher when you have physical specimens like that.  If you do not devote every waking minute, ounce of energy, and every spare dollar you have to being the best, you are going to get your ass kicked out there.  And even if you do all that, some days you still might get run over by the competition.  So for me, competition is life right now, I am not ready to stop, I want to grow my name, I want the respect of my peers, and I want the biggest titles jiu jitsu has to offer.

What is next for you in 2014/15?

Here at Maxercise right now, we are recouping, strategizing, and mapping out our competition calendar for next year. We will not compete until next year; but you can see us at Pan ams, Boston Open, NY Open and other regional tournaments in the beginning of the year.  Right now we are setting up for some big end of the year promotions coming up soon, this Monday Nov. 17th, with the Legend Saulo Ribeiro himself.  Besides that I plan to grow my blog, perfect my technique for next year, evolve my game, and help the Maxercise competition team put fighters on the top of the podium at all belt levels next year at the world championships in Long Beach, CA U.S.  All the while sipping coffee and reading all the great stuff on BJJ Eastern Europe, oss!  #vvvfightco #venividivici #conquer

P.s. Ill leave you with one of my last matches of the year, this was from the World Masters IBJJF Championships back on the first of November, oss!