Hey gang,

If you’ve not seen it, we released a new promo called Marbles. It’s probably the strangest thing we’ve made and definitely not your regular Jiu Jitsu promo. Which, in our eyes is a good thing. I’ll get into why we made it.

The Idea

A bit of background. Before I had the idea for this I was working on a very dull project for about ten days solid. Necessary, but really dull. Chipping away at it day by day.

When I’d hid the deadline and this portion of the project was over, that night I couldn't sleep. My brain was flooding with ideas, I came up with the new theme for our next range of clothing and rash guards, some promo ideas and the story for Marbles popped into my head.

I basically wrote the script in my head at around 2am staring into space. I grabbed my phone and wrote the outline.

The next morning I typed out the script into a proper film format and sent it to the boys, who basically said ‘wtf’.

We set a day to film it and I got cracking with prep.

I’m fortunate

That I’m surrounded by people who’ll test out my ideas and that are being up for being creative. We could’ve just filmed some rolls and put some Jiu Jitsu content out, but where’s the fun in that?

I knew it would turn some heads, I knew some people wouldn't get it, and that’s okay. We’re here to push boundaries, put something fresh into the air and stretch our creative muscles and hope that other brands follow too and make something that makes us go WTF?

Anyway, go have fun and make something.

See you on the mats,

Rick

A short story before we get into the meat of the article.

Back in my whitebelt days (some time ago) I started a now defunct blog, called redcornerbluecorner, all about MMA, Jiu Jitsu and whatever else took my fancy. It had a few readers and did well enough that when I was introduced to Callum Medcraft, Black Belt under Roger Gracie and then owner of JiuJitsu Style Magazine (RIP) I approached him about writing a column aimed at white belts in BJJ.

He accepted and I got my first official writing gig. After a few published articles I began reading “Hard-Core, Life of my Own” by Harley Flanagan. I didn’t even realise until I read the book that Harley was a black belt under Renzo Gracie. If you’ve not read the book, Harley was one of the founding members of Cro-Mags, a legendary NYHC band and has lived one of the most chaotic lives ever put into print. Pick up a copy if you can.

A lightbulb went off and I thought about wielding my new Jiu Jitsu journalism powers to interview Harley.

So I emailed him.

A few days later I got a response, we set the call up. The only time he could do was first thing in the morning NY time. Which was around midday UK time. I took the number down, and got ready for the day.

At the time, I was managing a tattoo shop, which, by nature is an absolutely bonkers job, busy studio, lots of customers, plenty to go wrong.

I remember thinking I needed a quiet space to make the call and the only spot I could find that would be quiet and no one would disturb me was basically in a cupboard next to the boiler. I locked my self in at around 5 minutes to 12, rang the number, and Harley answered.

The rest, they say, is history.

Check out the full interview below.

Written on the 15th of March, 2017.

“For this edition of White Belt fever, I had the pleasure of interviewing Harley Flanagan. For those of you that don’t know, Harley started a band in the mid 80’s called the Cro-Mags, whose impact on hard-core music was nothing short of stupendous. I read a copy of his recently released book: Hard-Core, a life of my own and upon reading it found out he was a Renzo Gracie Blackbelt. At which point I knew I had to interview him! Harleys nothing short of a colourful soul and has seemed to have lived a thousand lives. I was itching to discuss his time as a white belt, to see how a man with so much going on still managed to train and progress in BJJ.

What inspired you to start Jiu-Jitsu?

I remember seeing UFC 1 & 2 on VHS, renting them from a Blockbuster, and I had no idea what the f**k it was. I remember looking at the box and thinking what the f**k is this? The photos on the box looked like real fights, people were all covered in blood and I’m thinking to myself what is this, is this some fake wrestling s**t or something? It looks like it might be real, so I rented it, took it home and I was blown away. Royce was submitting all these big dudes, and I was blown away. I’ve had hundreds of fights in my life, I mean, I couldn’t even put an estimate on how many, but I had never seen anything like an Armbar or a Kimura or any of this s**t! So I made up my mind right then, if I ever get the chance to train with one of these guys I’m going to pursue it. I’ve punched a million people, kicked, head-butted and all of the other things you do in a fight but I had never seen anything like that. I was actually in LA at the time, and I came back to New York in winter ’95 and I met with Renzo in early ’96, started training with him and never turned back.

How did you meet Renzo Gracie?

When I came back to New York I was looking for a place to learn Jiu-Jitsu. I looked at a couple of traditional Jiu-Jitsu academies and even some Judo academies because I was just looking to get myself started down that path. Every day I’d go up to the magazine stores and browse through all the different magazines, black belt magazine and all the others and go through all the ads at the back, because I knew sooner or later one of these mother**kers had to come to New York. I mean, BJJ already owned the west coast and I knew that it was only a matter of time because you know, New York City is one of the centres of the civilised world so I knew that it would arrive eventually.

One day I opened up the back of one these magazines and I see and advert for Gracie Kucuk. I had no idea what Kucuk was (it turns out Kucuk was Renzos partner at the time). So there were two black belts teaching, Renzo, Kucuk, a Brown Belt and a purple belt from Brazil, and they were our instructors. That was the beginning of it, Renzo only had a dozen students or so when I first started training with him, and he was such a warm person, so welcoming and friendly. The guy is one of the coolest people you’ll ever meet, you really get that vibe right off the bat and I became close friends with him and there’s been no turning back. I’ve been friends with him now for twenty-one years, I teach at his academy here in New York City and I consider him a very close friend.

A lot of white belts claim they don’t have time to train, or can’t get into the gym as much as they say they’d like to. How did you balance getting mat time in while always being on the road with a band?

I was gigging a lot, but it’s just like anything else, you’ve got to be consistent no matter what you’re doing. I was going on tour for a few months and I’d come back and jump right back on the mats and start again. The only thing was that my cardio would suck for a bit because I’d have been out on the road and then I’d come back and get my ass kicked for a few weeks.

I’d still remember the mechanics of the techniques it was just a matter of my body catching up. It did take me a little bit longer than a lot of my friends to get my Black belt because I had such a busy life, but consistency is the key to anything, find the time man, if you are really dedicated to something you will find the time.

Even when I was on the road I would stop in academies in different states and different places and different countries. I trained every time I was in Japan when I was just a blue belt. I don’t know if you know much about our fan base but we have a lot of knuckleheads and a lot of gangbangers and wannabe tough guys who were into our music and a lot of gang members would come to the shows and at sound check would want to beat me and stuff. Everybody knew I was into training so everybody wanted to fuck around, so sometimes I’d line all these guys up and just subit ‘em. I’d be like okay let’s see if you can pass my guard, let’s see if you can take me down or whatever and I’d find little ways to entertain myself like that. At the same time I was spreading the word of Jiu-Jitsu because in the mid 90’s it was still pretty underground. There was a lot of non-believers out there who didn’t really think this shit worked. I made sure everywhere I went that I proved that it does and everywhere I played I always rocked my Renzo Gracie shirts and really spread the word, I’m a believer, ya know.

That’s one of the coolest things about BJJ now, you can just jump on Facebook, ask if there’s anywhere to train wherever you’re going.

Yeah it’s a different world now and also it’s a lot more open to the outsiders. I mean, in the early days it had a lot harder vibe. If you went into an academy and you were from somewhere else it was a little bit more clique like. I don’t want to say it had a gang mentality but yeah it was way tougher in the old days because, it wasn’t as family friendly. The people that trained were either MMA fighters or bouncers or just people that liked to fight and often got into fights, you didn’t have a lot of kids or women training. Now you come into the academy and of course you have a lot of MMA fighters but you also have a lot of just regular people, everyone from doctors to lawyers to construction workers and everything else, it’s all kinds of people who are interested in this sport, back then it was really just people who were into fighting.

What were your biggest challenges as a white belt? A lot of people starting out seem to struggle with the ego, physical fitness or just making time for training. What did you find was a big obstacle?

Ego always gets in the way you know because when you get to a certain point you start thinking that you know techniques but you’re still being forceful and you’re still using muscle because you haven’t really got it down that well yet. I remember right when I first started, I thought I was doing good because I was smashing people on the mats, Renzo shouts to me, (he probably wouldn’t say this to me now because we’re all much more civilised) but I remember him saying; ‘Hey Harley, what’s the difference between a blue belt, and a bucket of s**t?’ and I’m like, ‘ummm, I dunno’ (You see, I was a blue belt at the time) and he goes; ‘The Bucket’. I laughed, but didn’t quite understand as much as I do now. You get to a place where you start thinking you’re showing people up and you start thinking you’re a hard-ass and your pride starts to swell up because you’re getting the submission, you’re passing the guard, you’re dominating. Unfortunately, The fact is that the guys who you’re dominating and passing their guard don’t know s**t so it’s one of the really formative stages of Jiu-Jitsu, but man that was funny as hell.

If you could change one thing about your training in the old days, and your journey, would you?

Nah, you know something I was really lucky I started off with some of the best y’know. Early on at the academy we had Rodrigo Gracie, Matt Serra, his brother Nick, John Danaher, all these guys that were real beasts man I wouldn’t change a thing. I mean sure I look back at some old photos and old footage and I’m like ‘Man posture man, where’s your f**kin’ posture’ You know little stuff. I’d have probably cut my hair sooner, when I first started training I had long ass hair and probably should have cut that off but really no changes, no regrets. I’m really blessed and fortunate that I’m part of this world of Jiu-Jitsu. It started off all about fighting for me, and I can honestly say that for me at this point in my life it has nothing to do with fighting, it’s about the relationships that I’ve developed, it’s about the love of the art itself and I really love teaching. I love sharing the knowledge that Renzo has given me and it’s like being part of a bigger family, so what started off really about fighting, has all been replaced by love.

How cool is it having your kids at the academy?

Oh man that was a game changer for me, my youngest has been training since he was six, and he’s fourteen now. I’m watching him in the gym submitting grown men and adults who outweigh him, it’s awesome. I’m very proud of them both, they’re doing great. They’ve been competing since they were little kids. I always try to tell the parents of the kids at the academy, don’t just put your kids in training, you should train too. Give them some inspiration, bond with them over it. Go with them to tournaments, coach them and develop a relationship with them that’s deeper than just telling them what to do. When you start training your kids and you really know what they’re doing and they’re competing and you can yell out and coach them it’s amazing. Putting them in training is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, the other being me starting training.

How good did it feel when you got your blue belt?

Well, it was at our old academy, a pretty legendary place in a really rough area, there was a lot of crack and a lot of prostitutes. There were only two floors in the building that we were in, one was the academy and the other one was a methadone clinic. So on one floor you had a lot of messed up drug addicts and on the other you had a load of fighters. I remember I was training with one of the guys from Madball and was working him over, Renzo calls me over and says Harley I want you to go train with that guy over there. So, we start rolling and Renzo comes up behind me and cracks me over my back as hard as he possibly can with a belt. I didn’t know what was going on, I look over my shoulder and I see a big grin on his face and he’s holding a blue belt. I’m like Oh s**t, I was pumped you know! I was probably way overdue that belt, just because I used to train and then I’d be on the road a lot. I was a blue-belt for almost five years too man. The thing is, back in the old days it really took a lot longer to get promoted, you know, they didn’t hand them out like they do nowadays.

Harley has a book out now, about his life and times on the road with Cro-Mags, I strongly suggest you give it a read. It’s called Hard-Core, a life of my own and is available from his site, Harleyflanagan.com

I posted a rant on Instagram the other day about how it would have been much easier to make some creatives for some new items we’ve released (exclusively for you on here, a day early!) because we were struggling with organising a photoshoot to do the items justice before release. The long and short of it was, I get it, it could have been so much easier for us just to take some photos on my phone, upload them to some machine learning platform and get it to spit out some mediocre (in my opinion) AI generated models wearing our stuff.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Just because somethings more ‘efficient’ (for you, not for the planet) also doesn’t mean you necessarily should.

I read an article that summed it up quite nicely where a famous writer needed an envelope to post a letter. His wife told him to just but a pack of 100 on Amazon, something which he didn’t want to do. Instead he walked to his local post office, on the way he saw a neighbour and their friendly dog and stopped for a chat, bumped into some other people, had a nice interaction in the post office (not always the case trust me, but nice when it happens) bought his envelope, posted his letter, bumped into another old friend on the way home, stopped by a bakery for some food, put some money into his local economy and had a much nicer couple of hours for it. Instead of hiding at home and pressing ‘buy’ and that being that. Less efficient? Yes. Better quality of life? Also yes.

The photoshoot

Creative direction is something I’ve done in several forms, but in a fashion sense the Creative Director is someone who forms the photoshoot and content for a product release. They choose models, photographers, studio settings, mood boards and are on set to curate the magic happening.

In that sense I’d not done it before, to this extent. Fortunately I had a few things going for me, I knew the model very well, I knew Tom, our photographer could pull off what was needed (despite it being his first fashion studio shoot, he’s done plenty of other forms of photography with us and for many other clients) and the girls who run the studio were amazing on the day too (thanks for steaming our creased tops you pack of legends).

I knew I wanted to create a vibe and knowing the model already (thanks Jambo) I knew beers & music would create a relaxed enough candid vibe to add a bit of Reap in to what can otherwise come across as a very formal setting.

Also, probably most importantly I got to spend some time on set with an old friend, get creatively stuck in with Tom, chat and learn from the studio owners, who also own a model agency and do plenty of other bits that will come in handy for Reap. Yeah it cost a few quid more than a chatGPT subscription, but, human interaction, some business development and exercising some creative muscles under pressure? 100% worth it.

Not to mention the output itself, of which I’m incredibly proud of, you can see for yourself below.

If you like the tops, I’ve put them on sale a day early, so you can grab yours now before they go out to the masses tomorrow.

See you on the mats / in the studio

Rick

We’ve had a busy 48hrs.

A few years back we created an England Badge Tee for the Euros. We thought it was cool, but knew we could do better.

This year we wanted to do some actual football shirts, however, with so much going on for the invitational we were behind the curve on this one. Once the event was over and England smashed Croatia 4-2 in the opening game we knew we had to take the gamble.

It took some time to secure the right supplier, that could do our requested colours (Black and Pink, on brand) and we paid through the nose to fast track them to get them as soon a we could.

I was relieved when England got through the group stages (of which they had a 99% chance of doing so) and then the tops arrived, on Tuesday afternoon.

Which was great, as it meant we could do a pop up shop at our favourite local venue, Play Middlesbrough.

So then it was game time. We had a load of people come down just to buy a top then watch the match at home and sold plenty to new friends of the brand and old friends that watched the game with us. Pretty solid time right?

Wrong. 7 Minutes into the game, the 15-1 underdog, D R Congo highlighted our awful defence and scored a cracking goal and for the next 70 minutes I was staring at boxes of unsold England tops that I was ready to set on fire should England lose.

It was absolutely torturous. I love international football. I don’t have the attention span to follow teams for a full premier league season but World Cup and European Football reminds me of watching the matches with my family from being old enough to remember and before my wayward teens of music & skateboarding I was actually pretty into football.

Tom, our resident photographer had never seen me so stressed. Not just because of England heartache, but because of the money on the line. We run Reap on a tight budget and you have to speculate to accumulate, but I couldn't believe what was unfolding.

Enter Gordon & Super Harry Kane. Two magnificent England goals right when they were needed.

Putting England up to 2-1, bringing my cortisol levels down (slightly) and meaning that my Thursday also became very busy, in a good way, packing & shipping orders.

Almost all of the tee’s have gone, but if you want one in time for the England game on Sunday, I’d order one now and I can get it out to you in the morning.

See you on the mats,

Rick

The week before the event, we were at 866 BJJ. It was our third time attending this fantastic weekender at The Hawkhills in York and in our opinion, the best edition yet.

We shot a super wide Reap on The Road Episode detailing the ins and outs of the event, which you can see below.

See you on the mats,

Rick

Reap Invitational

Really, there were so many events happening that we just couldn’t figure out a time or a place to do it where we wouldn’t be clashing with another three grappling events. That seems to have calmed down a little bit, but is still definitely something that’s going on. I mean, our event currently clashes with Polaris, which is in Dublin, so it’s not really affecting us, and there’s another event in Leicester, I do believe, on the same date. We picked our date, we staked our claim, and we are nearly there. I have 90% of the matches made. I’d like to find another couple of opponents for some really exciting guys, but I can’t believe I’m almost past the post with a full card, which is super exciting. I’ve been to the venue today to size up where we’re putting the mats. They’ve come on leaps and bounds since we last did an event there, and all credit to the new owners that have kind of taken that on.

We’ve gone from having the production beamed in the room on a big screen to that also happening on four other screens within the space. There’s a ton more space where they used to brew, and now it’s full of arcade games and just a general big house space. We’ve effectively doubled the capacity of what we can normally do, which is great, but also means there’s just a ton more breathing space for everybody to come down and have a look, which is awesome. I’m bizarrely relaxed for how close I am to the event. It’s in two and a half weeks, and I’m no doubt that the stress will come, but we’re almost at the finishing point. I do like to have a month of purely just promoting the event, and that never happens. I’m probably going to have two weeks of just focusing on marketing, getting some digital ads out there, and making some cool stuff, but it’s all coming together quite nicely.

We’ve got black belts on the card, we’ve got purple belts on the card, and we’ve got blue belts on the card. We are sticking to that sort of 10 to 11 quality over quantity matches. If you are in the local area and you can make it, then that would be fantastic. If you aren’t in the local area, it is going to be streamed on our YouTube channel and it’ll be up there forever as well, which is super nice. Obviously nothing beats being in that room and being a part of the event and feeling that excitement, but we’re going to try our best to get that across in the live stream as well. Since the last Reap Invitational event, we’ve live streamed Grapple Max broadcast and the Grapple Max Fight Club broadcast, and each time I like to think we’ve leveled up our game in terms of the digital product and what’s going out there. Obviously all of that is going into the Reap Invitational 3, so I’m a little excited about things like:

• the round timer will be on there

• the fighters names will be on the screen for the entirety of their match

• the commentator camera, which I think is going to be really cool

• post-match interviews

• announcements

I just think it’s going to be a vibe, and for us to be able to do this in Middlesbrough, in arguably one of the coolest event spaces in the country, is just testament to how cool the northeast of England is and can be. I’ve not been its biggest champion in the past, but stuff like this coming together does make me happy, and I’m glad that I can share it with you guys. If you are interested and tickets are on sale now.

I’d be a bad businessman if I didn’t mention that we’ve got a new nogi rash guard and short set out now as well, which you can check out on our website. If you aren’t in the area and you can’t make it, it will be live streamed for free on our YouTube channel. I’ll set up the link soon, so you can click a bell to be notified when it goes live so you don’t miss it. It’s on Saturday the 6th of June, and the broadcast doors are at 3 p.m., so the broadcast will start at 3:30 p.m., and away we go. I’m super excited, and I hope you’ll all be on board and join in however which way you can. That is kind of what’s just been going on with Reap.

We’ve obviously been busy making clothing and putting stuff out there, but the invitational has been a big sole focus for us for the last sort of six weeks and will continue to be for the next two and a half weeks. After that, I’m looking forward to taking a break and just making cool stuff instead of DMing athletes on Instagram every day of my life.

See you on the mats, Rick.

www.reapjiujitsu.com

The Third Space

Traditionally the third space is referred to as the other place you go, as humans, us lucky ones tend to have Home, Work & The Third Space. This can be anything from an AA meeting, the pub with your friends, or where you partake in a hobby. It’s usually somewhere where you meet people, not somewhere you’re Silo’d.

Jiu Jitsu is a classic example of the third space. It’s often been cited that it’s one of the few places where people from all walks of life end up in the same room grappling. They shut out the outside world (mostly) and focus on the task at hand and you are only judged on your grappling ability. Whilst there are always other factors at play this tends to hold true.

Not only that, it’s easy to become friends with people after you’ve spent five minutes trying to kill each other. You have endorphins from exercise and you also share something unspoken on the mats that brings you closer as compadres. Whether you like it or not.

This is why we obsess over Jiu Jitsu, it has all the ingredients of a strong third space. In the right gyms you get community, a sense of self, exercise, good habits (mostly) and there’s also a path to improvement, something which we can lack direction in at home or at work. Every time you show up you learn something, can practice something and if you keep showing up it’s very hard not to get better at it.

Digital Communities

This term has been rattling around my head recently mostly due to work. I’m a consultant for brands so whether I like it or not my social feeds and research are revolved around a lot of business talk.

I see the term digital community everywhere and it’s something I fostered by accident when starting Reap. I wanted us to feel like a gang. An anti- jiu jitsu - establishment gang. I dislike uniform policies, bowing and having to face the wall when I tie my belt (none of which I’ve ever had to do at my home gym thank fuck) and wanted that to feed into what we did. Hence the inverted triangle. Luckily, lots of people resonated with it and I’d kind of formed a digital community. Here’s the thing about digital communities, if they’re only digital it’s incredibly difficult to foster some kind of connection. The speed at which people consume social media (which is where people mistakenly start to attempt to grow them) is, as you know, insane. Holding attention, every day, so that people feel like they know, like and trust you and want to dive in to your ‘online community’ is a lot of work. Constant posting, stories, etc.

The Alternative

It sounds obvious, but, gather some people up outside of their houses. Build something, create something that isn’t just a digital artefact or course. You’ll get reasonably far with those things, but you need other people. The best thing we did in our early days was start our Reap Open Mats. Getting people together who had seen the brand online for rolls and hang outs built far more connection than any social media post or SEO optimised blog ever did. We also sold a shit tonne of clothing. Which I didn’t expect, yes I set up our stall as I’d be daft not to, but the volume of stuff we sold really caught me off guard.

Whether you’re into cars, tennis, or even video games. Getting people together and being the person that pulled everyone together goes a LONG way.

Here’s the sweet part

When you get people together and meet people, all of your digital metrics go up, because you meet people and they get a reason to follow or engage with you. You also get a shit load of content, instead of thinking, wtf am I going to post today, you have a bank of photos and videos from whatever you did to post. Double Whammy.

Of course, if you don’t care about any of those things, then that’s also fine. You can go outside and smell the roses too.

In short, in a world full of AI, terrifying social media posts and constant online comparison, get away from your screen and go meet some people. You’ll feel better for it.

Figure out your third space and enjoy the fuck out of it.

Happy Easter,

See you on the mats,

Rick

Reap Invitational

We’re back, baby. 12 matches. 10 minutes each, handpicked scraps, no selling tickets to get on the show, just a fast paced event in arguably one of the coolest venues in the UK. Play Middlesbrough. Formerly Play Brew Middlesbrough, the then manager and friend (Aaron) has since taken ownership of the entire business, stripped out all of those massive brewing tanks and replaced the space with couches, pool tables, arcade machines and even a punch machine. It’s fucking awesome. It also now has beverages that you’d expect, not just their own brewed beer but everything you could expect to get from a bar. Good times! This means, more warm up space, more crowd space and an all round better event.

I got rather sick of seeing AI generated posters with grapplers with 8 fingers on each hand in a cartoony fashion promoting the next biggest and best invitational. So I went the opposite direction. As you can see below

See, for me, it’s not just about the quality of the art and design, it says to me, if you’re making a crappy AI poster for your event, you’re probably skipping out on other facets of the business too. Jigsaw mats in a community centre. No ta.

Match announcements coming soon.

Grapplemax

As you know, since it’s inception we’ve been involved in Grapplemax, most recently funning the full livestream and in-house camera production for their event. The full team are solid and it’s a great product, different from our event, but in all the right ways.

If you’re interested in the event or fancy some rounds, there’s an open mat going down this weekend at Strom Sports HQ, on Sunday to be precise. We’ll be there, stall and all. So please do check it out.

If you’re not aware of Grapplemax and want to know more, we’ve just put the full livestream of last years event on our Youtube channel, how lucky are you! So you can check it out and get the feel of the magnificence of the show.

We’ve also got some new leisurewear on sale. Hoodies & long sleeves on site now. Go have a look and pagger all your friends on the streets in your new gear.

See you on the mats,

Rick

What do you think? Check out some of the photos from the look-book below.

Anyway.

Thanks Tom. The tops featured are on site now, we haven’t told anyone else yet, so grab one while you can. Reapjiujitsu

See you on the mats,

Rick

We’ve talked at length about Dark Arts Jiu Jitsu online, in short, our good friend Carl has opened his new gym and we’re sponsors / partners. Expect dedicated Reap lessons, coaching from the Reaper gang, we’ve opened up a shop upstairs and loads more to come.

If you want to learn more about Carl and hear from the man himself, please check out the video below:

See you on the mats,

Rick

At the time of writing the ADCC Euro Trials have just finished yesterday (Sunday) and whilst there’s many thoughts and opinions on the overall matches, we thought we’d focus on what we know.

I hadn’t been following every entrant at every match yesterday, I got involved around the quarter finals stage and was very happy to see Aidan Woodley in the mix. Aidan is a local (to us) fella, who trains out of North East Jiu Jitsu. He’s been known on the comp scene for a little while now, but unbeknownst to us he recently has been giving it a good go at being a full time grappler. No easy feat, especially when you live in the cold North of England.

We put Aidan up against Steve Ellis at our very first invitational event in 2024. It was a great scrap in which Aidan ultimately walked away with the submission, I had pitched the two together, Aidan as a brown belt and Steve as a purple because we struggled to find matches for Steve. He’s a big guy and a handful on the mats and at the time had pretty much wiped out every competitor on the scene at his size so we took it up a notch. This time it didn’t work out for Steve. I knew it was a tough test for him.

Anyway, since then we’ve always kept an eye on Aidan and had friendly chats with him. A great dude and one of the reasons I wanted to put a video together about North East Jiu Jitsu, which, we eventually did. The gym we visited has since moved premises but the coaching that Ellis Younger provides and the team he has together just proves why somebody like Aidan can dive into the trials and come away with a silver medal. No easy feat. Obviously we were all gunning for him to get the gold and secure his ticket to the finals in September, but Haisam Rida had other plans.

If you want to know more about NEJJ, check out our video below:

Thanks for reading, hope you’re all well.

Oh, also, check out our website too, if you want some sweet Jiu Jitsu gear.

See you on the mats,

Rick

After some effort & thought we’re pulling the plug on our kickstarter campaign to fund a pilot for Reap on The Road.

Why?

Firstly, we just want to thank everyone who pledged. It’s not cheap, money ain’t free and we’re super grateful for your support. However, a few things have become clear.

Firstly our initial target was £5,000. After doing a deep dive on kickstarter and setting up the program, they recommended going for £6,500 as after kickstarter take their cut & we pay taxes to the US (where kickstarter is based) we’d get our 5k. That’s a huge percentage but we rolled with it.

Secondly, kickstarters take ALOT of work. And we understand why, we made plenty of content (nowhere near as much as we’d like, more on that later) and basically need a pledge manager working on them full time. Which would have been me and simply, I’d rather focus my energy in to making cool stuff, whether it’s merch for reap or continuing building Reap on the road in its new form.

Thirdly, 5K isn’t THAT much to warrant all the work that was going into it. I could (and will) spend the time and effort I was putting into the kickstarter into generating more money for the business (Reap) perfecting the reap on the road format and structure with some unedited episodes we have in the can and generating the income needed to self fund the pilot. We pay less taxes, it’s much less work (in terms of not having to manage a kickstarter too) and ultimately build a better product.

We can do it ourselves

And this isn’t me boasting, but I’m confident in the team we have. This isn’t us canning the idea, networks are still interested, this is us refining what we have and where the money is coming from.

The Schedule

The future of Reap on the road looks like this:

Build up our NEW Youtube channel so it has its own space on the internet.

Build up the Instagram account to compliment it and generate a new audience.

While we’re doing this, we’re releasing a previously unseen episode filmed on location at NEJJ, full gym episode at Dark Arts Jiu Jitsu which has nearly finished production and a snowboarding film all about the slopes in Scotland (who needs the alps eh!)

We’re also in pre-production for the London Episode. Aiming to film in March, edit by April and shop around for sale by the end of the year.

The Personal Bit

Since the 1st of January, I’ve had a LOT land my way in terms of family stuff. Some of which I should have seen coming, some as always came from left field. This meant that I couldn’t quite put a stamp on the kickstarter as much as I’d like. Hell, I’ve barely been on the mats, let alone juggle the brand and shooting schedule, so maybe it wasn’t meant to be done this way, and that’s okay.

Thanks for reading, thanks for all the pledges, it really means the world.

If you want to continue to follow our adventures, then check out our Youtube & Instagram specifically built for Reap On The Road.

See you on the mats,

Rick x

For now, let’s look at the insane amount of places we can now train BJJ.

Back in my day

When I first started training Jiu Jitsu (10+ years ago?!) there was one decent option for training BJJ. It was Middlesbrough Fight Academy. Mainly an MMA fighters gym, with 2 No-Gi sessions a week and one Gi session on a Sunday. For most of which we were all hungover. I started training because I was doing Muay Thai sessions (ooooh you’re hard) and the Nogi session on a Thursday was beforehand. I fancied myself an MMA fighter and it looked like fun, so I jumped in, knowing I’d need some sort of ground game and being too lazy for the wrestling sessions.

Jamie Taylor, our head coach then and still my head coach now (then a purple belt) and a few others had parted ways with Redcar BJJ for grading and seminars, leaving us unpromotable for a short while. Until we partnered up with Steve Campbell of Stealth BJJ Manchester. So, at that point there was 2 decent BJJ gyms in Teesside and I only wanted to train at one.

Fast forward to now

And as the sport has grown, people have been promoted to higher belts and a huge influx of kids & teens into the sport / martial art, I can train in no less than five different spots without pissing my coach off. All of them a direct link to training under Jamie.

If I really wanted to go Jiu Jitsu nomad (and wind my coach up) I could train in maybe 13 different spots across Teesside alone. Teesside. This small area up North. Did I mentioned we’ve also moved our gym from being a few classes at MFA to its own super gym, Stealth Teesside? With classes on every day of the week and a full strength and conditioning suite? It’s mind-blowing when you sit and reflect at how far it’s come.

So why add another one to the mix?

Well, when Carl asked us, it was hard to say no. See, Carl James, avid competitor, sponsored athlete of Reap, friend, training partner for the majority of those aforementioned 10 years has mentioned to us many a time in the past that his dream was to own some sort of martial arts gym. He has years of teaching experience, more competition experience than almost anyone will ever get in Jiu Jitsu and he’s a great dude.

So when his dreams started to finally turn into reality, he asked if we’d come on board as head sponsors of the gym. The answer was, of course. As soon as he said the name, ‘Dark Arts Jiu Jitsu’ we were sold. On brand for us in so many ways.

When we started Reap, 4 years ago, anything like this was purely a pipe dream, and seeing our logos all over the mats really hit me in a way I didn’t expect. There’s a photo or a video of me somewhere right up close inspecting one of the logos, but I wasn’t inspecting it, I was looking at the red line I put in photoshop underneath ‘Reap’ and above ‘Jiu Jitsu’ on the logo. I remember painstakingly editing a Red line, to shave the front and back ends of it diagonally so it looked sharper and here we are, four or so years later and it’s blown up fucking massive on some mats.

I’m glad I spent a bit of time on that line, because I didn’t think anyone would notice or care, but now it’s plastered everywhere the full size of my torso.

So, to answer the question ‘why’. Well, the growth of Jiu Jitsu was inevitable. Too many people love it for the right reasons for it not to grow. So when asked if we would be a part of it, for the right reasons, with the right people. It’d have been silly to say no, even if it is a little intimidating.

So, if you’re ever in teesside, you’re never short of places to train. But, Bias as I am, you definitely need to check out Stealth Teesside & Dark Arts Jiu Jitsu.

See you on the mats,

Rick

Hope all is well and you’ve managed to avoid whatever virus is going round. It sure got me, and my entire family so it’s been a rough week. BUT we’ve got some things to talk about.

Before I get to our new No Gi set, thanks for putting up with all of the Gi promos. Those of you that ordered will know that they are in production and should be with you soon.

NEW GYM

You may have seen across our socials we’re in the midst of supporting a new gym up here in Teesside. Here’s the story, Carl James (Brown belt, who we sponsor) has always wanted to have his own BJJ Gym. Something I’ve never ever wanted to do. Carl lives & breathes BJJ and has plenty of experience teaching and has taken the leap to open his new pad. It’s 99% finished and we have a grand opening this weekend. Carl asked if we could support and would we like to be involved.

The answer was of course, the thought of having our own gaff was something we couldn’t have comprehended back when we first launched reap many years ago. So it was a no-brainer.

It’s called Dark Arts Jiu Jitsu and if you can make it the event details are below. It’s completely free!

Jamie has been my coach since I started Jiu Jitsu and I’ve been very lucky to land on the best coach in the area first try. Dark arts will be a subsidiary of Stealth Teesside and all gradings etc will run underneath Jamie. For those who like to know Lineage, it goes Jamie Taylor > Steve Campbell > Carlos Gracie Jr > Helio Gracie

Bonkers eh.

To Celebrate

We’ve got a new No Gi set to shout about. We like wolves, so we put some wolves on the shorts & rashguards. Also Carl has a Husky, named Missy, who is arguably the boss of the gym. So we thought we go with something Lupine to match.

That’s all for now.

See you on the mats!

Rick

We thought we’d break up the Black Friday overwhelmingness of your inbox with some creativity.

We’ve been pushing our Gi’s over the past week and as always we wanted to change things up with our photoshoots and content. It’d be so easy to just take some stylish photos of people rolling in the gym wearing our gi, but it’s tired and a bit worn out. So I got my skateboard, Tom picked up his camera and after a fresh bit of rainfall (it hasn’t stopped raining for about a week now) we went to the skatepark.

Results Below:

Anyway. If you like what you see you can’t order one today (Friday) as our store is closed in our annual Black Friday Protest.

If you want to know more about what it is & why we do it then we made a video all about it

Aaaaand if you really want a Gi, check out our website tomorrow. We’ll be back online and the Gi’s will be available to pre-order until midnight on Monday.

Go skate!

Cheers,

Rick

REAP

I hope you are all well. We had Ryan Hall stop by in our gym last night for a seminar. He ended up being in the gym for four hours. It was bonkers and deserves a write up in itself, which you’ll get in the coming weeks, but for now we’ve got something very special to show you!

It’s our next Gi release. We’ve taken a long time to get this right, from the design to the cut & feel of the gi. We’ve worked with several manufacturers over the last 12(!) months to get this one right and we’re absolutely in love with this one.

Gi’s last a long time and we want each release to be special. So we run pre-orders. Each Gi is hand made and numbered and created for you. This means that you’ll get a one of a kind, never to be put on general sale gi that lasts long, is durable enough that you won’t need another one for a while and cool as f*ck.

The pre order is going to run for a couple of weeks and once it’s closed it’s closed. We then go on to manufacturing the gi and we’ll get them out to you by Christmas. So you can hit the mats over the holidays or in the new year with your awesome new gi.

About the design.

We’ve never put our Reaper on the back of one of our Gi’s because we wanted to make sure it was on the best Gi we could create, so we saved it for this one.

It’s a high GSM Gi top, with thicker than usual Rip Stop pants. This gives you the best of both worlds. Rip stop for enhanced durability against your training partners pesky grips, but with a thicker lining inside to stop that annoying pinch that can sometimes happen behind the knees with the usual ripstop pants you’ll get from other retailers. Plus a nylon drawstring to stop them coming undone, which can often happen with the usual rope drawstring.

You guys are the first to know about the Gi before it goes on general release and can order now.

It also comes with a free Gi bag, because we absolutely hate it when you order a Gi and don’t get a nice bag to put it in and keep it squared away in your drawers at home or your gym bag. Compact & stylish.

So yeah, we’re super proud of how this has turned out, and look forward to seeing you rock yours on the mats.

Click any of the images to get to our site and order yours now.

See you on the mats,

Rick

P.S. If you have ay specific sizing requests drop me a line and we’ll make it happen.

We posted a pretty in-depth video on our channel all about how companies give the illusion of a sale, whilst making money in the long-term.

It’s broken down into 3 main strategies:

1 - Hiking the price of products up in the prior months, then ‘discounting’ them for Black Friday so you think you’re getting a deal.

This one is pretty transparent and fairly obvious to a lot of customers, therefore maybe done a bit less now than in the past.

2 - Averaging out Lifetime customer value. Companies assess how much a customer is worth to them over time and work out how much discount/ad spend they can apply to get new customers in the bucket as they know they’ll make the money back long-term.

This one is probably the most commonly used at the minute, as lifestyle/business ‘guru’s’ are particularly hot on promoting this one to their paying customers.

3 - Discounting old lines. Random sizes of odd T shirts & patterned gear that didn’t sell well. Heavily discounted to clear stock for new lines coming in.

Honestly, this one can work well for the consumer. If you like an item and it’s dirt cheap and in your size, then fuck it why not. Just be wary of the follow up emails you’ll be bombarded with.

As mentioned I go much more in depth in the video, if you’re interested!

See you on the mats,

Rick

Currently sat in a garage where a £40 MOT has turned into a £500 job but I won’t chat about that.

It gave me the time to dive through some archives and look at some stuff from 866 BJJ where we found some details from our good friend Lloyd Cooper on controlling the leg properly in order to maximise the potential finish with the heel hook. I thought about keeping it all to myself in order to wreck everyone’s legs, but that’s not what Jiu Jitsu is about is it.

So we’ve uploaded it to Youtube.

Feel free to check it out yourselves:

Plus, thanks for all the love on the hoodies. They sold much better than we anticipated so we’re sold out of all sizes except medium (for now, restock is imminent!)

We’re just glad you love them as much as we do.

Rolling on through our Autumn / Winter collection we’ve got some new beanies on the way. New colours for a new season plus some old favourites returning. More on that when we have them in hand. As you’re a substack subscriber, you’ll be the first to know.

See you on the mats,

Rick

I’ve had this ruminating in my brain for a while and now we’re back in hoody season I thought I’d commit it to paper.

A hoody and shorts, is quite simply my favourite outfit, for me, for you, for everyone.

Why?

A hoody and shorts means you’ve either just done something fun, or are about to. Hear me out.

Been surfing? Hoody & shorts. Hoody to take the edge off the chill, shorts to dry out. Jeans just seem too cumbersome after a good surf in a wetsuit.

Had a day on the beers with the boys / girls? Home with a hoody on & shorts to chill out in.

Backyard BBQ? Hoody & shorts. Skateboarding? Hoody & shorts (maybe….the concrete is harsh af on bare skin) Fire by the beach? Hoody & shorts. Nipping to the shop for snacks before chilling out after a crazy day? Hoody & shorts. Pre-Post Gym? Hoody & shorts.

Drive home after a long muddy hike? Hoody & shorts. Yoooooouuuu betcha. Heading to Jiu Jitsu? Hoody & shorts (never do hoody & gi pants. ever.) Heading home from Jiu Jitsu? Watching clips of terrible instagram techniques on the mats after rolling? Hoody & Goddamn shorts.

It’s the uniform of the active. The wild ones, the ones who lift, roll, surf, the van lifers, the wild campers.

Anyway. We’ve got some new hoodies on sale. There’s some shorts too, but be patient as we’re restocking some sizes. As always, you guys get first dibs on the site. Link below.

See you on the mats

Rick

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Instead we’re going to dive into Harry Hardwick’s big gamble at UFC Paris & Georges Cage Warriors Return

The Cage Warriors / UFC Conundrum

Not so long ago, if you became a champion in Cage Warriors and hid a bit of style about you (Connor, Paddy) you fairly quickly got a call up to the UFC. It almost felt guaranteed. Making Cage Warriors the place to stake your claim for a coveted spot in the organisation.

However, as we’ve seen over the last few years that guarantee has no longer proved to be there.

Unfortunately for the Hardwick’s, this shift has come during their dominant reign as champs in the organisation. George got recognised for his lightweight prowess and was given a chance to fight in Dana Whites Contender Series to prove his metal. Unfortunately his opponent stifled his exciting style and back to Cage Warriors he went, losing a title fight against a killer Brazilian who arguably should have already been in the UFC (who has now vacated his title after getting the call to the UFC since beating George).

A couple of weeks back Harry sent the UK MMA scene into a frenzy taking an incredibly short notice fight against a dangerous lightweight striker. A whole weight class above him, no fight camp, just balls of steel from Harry.

As you probably already know, the fight didn’t go his way. He was on the receiving end of some absolutely vicious leg calf kicks that rendered him unable to fight in the first round. Harry, until the fight was called off, was literally crawling to his opponent to keep fighting. What a guy.

The good news is, for taking the fight on such short notice and being a great addition to the UFC, he is going to get another call up.

Enter George Hardwick

Like that wasn’t bonkers enough, George was scheduled to fight a week later. His original opponent pulled out, so a Brazilian on one weeks notice rose to the challenge at a catch weight of 165lbs. After taking some time to refine his skills after losing the belt George came back in emphatic fashion, earning an incredible TKO victory at Cage Warriors Newcastle this past weekend. The whole card was fantastic and we were lucky enough to be there and soak in the entire venue singing along to High School Musical, Georges chosen walkout song. I held my breath for most of the fight. George looked fantastic on the feet but it didn’t come without wading through some fire from the Brazilian who put up a great scrap.

I’ve known Harry & George for so long now that it’s very intense when they fight. My heart rate is through the roof and when it’s over I feel nothing but relief. It makes me proud to say they’re my friends, more so because they’re such decent people. They really do fly the flag for UK MMA and the Northeast. I really struggle with being from here and rarely feel proud of it (there’s a lot wrong with the NE England) but these two are shining examples of what you can be, despite the forces at play that seem to constantly try and tip you over the edge.

What’s next for George? Who knows. It wouldn't surprise me if he got another crack at the lightweight title in Cage Warriors, but I’d rather him get another shot in DWCS, win and prove once and for all that he is definitely worthy of the bright lights of the UFC, alongside his brother Harry. Just please don’t ever have them on the same fight card again. I think I’d have an aneurysm.

NEW Rashguard

It’s definitely September in England. The shift in weather has hit me like whiplash. That also means that spooky season is just around the bend and boy have we got the rashguard for you:

See you on the mats,

Rick x