The Original Jiu-Jitsu World Traveller

Traveling the world to train jiu-jitsu in as many gyms as possible is the dream of most practitioners. In fact, it's become a bit of a trend lately - a positive trend - people saving up, dropping their jobs and just experiencing the world through food, training, photography, adventure activities and anything else that tickles their fancy.

Our own writer, Masafumi Matsumoto has been at it for quite a while - traveling the world on a tight budget and going to places you couldn't even imagine. Another example, William Burkhardt, one of our contributing photographers, travels the world with his company, BJJ Pix, to photographically document jiu-jitsu events and gyms across the globe. The list is endless, and more recently, celebrity chef, TV host and writer, Anthony Bourdain has included jiu-jitsu training as an essential part of his work travels.

But, there was really only one guy that sparked travel training around the world, and that was Christian Graugart of Denmark. Also known as the "BJJ Globetrotter", he was the first to make noise about his travels and even wrote a book about it.

I'm not saying he was the first to do this type of crusade, but, he was definitely the first to let people know about it and people admired him for having the balls to go out and do something so courageous.

As most of you know, once people are invested in work, family and other obligations, it's hard to tear away and galavant around the world. In my opinion, Christian was able to motivate people to let go of those things and understand that your life will still be there when you come back. If you have an opening to break away and travel, for even a short time, take it - no one ever regrets it. So without further delay, here are two video interviews we did with Christian during his travels - we were able to catch him in Rio de Janeiro while he was training at Gordo Jiu-Jitsu.

Part 1

Part 2

Journal

The Original Jiu-Jitsu World Traveller

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