Mavericks Jiu Jitsu

About Mavericks Jiu Jitsu
Welcome to Mavericks Jiu Jitsu! established in early 2024 by world renowned competitors and instructors Espen Mathiesen and Jonathan Thomas. The two have been closely training with each other since early 2021 and found a lot of commonalities in how they viewed jiu jitsu. Their mutual training culminated in creating Mavericks Jiu Jitsu, in an effort to look at teaching and learning jiu jitsu outside the box, and not blindly follow the conventional ways BJJ-culture has to offer. This has enabled the two instructors to make different discoveries and view things with a different lens. Their belief is that one must approach the sport in such a way to have any chance of standing out, because doing things like everyone else, will only create parity in most cases. Jonathan Thomas: "My Jiu-Jitsu journey began in a small Midwestern gym. Early on, I learned that success requires taking individual responsibility for learning. I started studying competition footage and engaged in private training with friends in garages and basements. This self-driven approach led me to go further than what I thought possible in a small town. While I always sought expert advice, ultimately, I trusted my own opinions and decisions, which propelled me far in my career, though it sometimes led to limited evolution and road blocks in progress. In 2021, I started training with Espen Mathiesen, I found his journey and perspectives very similar to mine. We began training consistently together, and both greatly benefited from sharing and challenging each other’s ideas on technique, training methods, and coaching." Espen Mathiesen: "I met Jon back in 2020 and I quickly realized we had a lot in common in the way we view the sport. We are constantly working on increasing our technical understanding, but we have also put a lot of effort into understanding how to optimally learn and have the best possible development. I’m extremely excited about this new project as it will enable us to help and share our insights to teams all over the world. I’m very pleased that we already have teams in Canada, Croatia and UK with us."