Training Jiu Jitsu with the Special Forces

How I ended up in Germany training Jiu Jitsu at the Agoge with active Special Forces.

The Agoge in Stuttgart Germany

The Agoge is a special place where only military have access to train martial arts. Specializing in MMA and jiu jitsu, competitions are encouraged, but training takes on a whole new meaning when the next competition may include hand to hand combat in a war zone. Can you imagine training jiu jitsu with these guys? Just imagine tattooing them...

"Put your big boy Ranger panties back on and get back on the tattoo table. We've got a back piece to finish!"

Tattooing and Training BJJ with Domestic Military

As of this year, I have been tattooing 13 years professionally domestic and overseas. Most of the clientele in my first decade was active military. Military and tattooing have a long history of being allies. My first base I delved into was Eglin Air Force in Fort Walton Beach, Florida which included Navy, Air Force and EOD. I worked with an old timer named Jim Wolfe at the original Tattoo Zoo who trained me to work alongside men in a man's world. I was the only female tattooist within a several hundred mile radius at that time and I was lucky just to be included. The second base I worked with was Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas which is where I first discovered jiu jitsu. Fort Hood is the largest Army base in North America and our shop was literally right outside the entrance to the base.

I was the only female tattooist within a several hundred mile radius at that time and I was lucky just to be included.

I discovered jiu jitsu at a gym called American Fight Company during a time when jiu jitsu had recently become a requirement for Army soldiers training. Jarrod Clontz was the head black belt. I put a chest plate on his son for his first tattoo. I met a whole crew of soldiers who overtook Saddam Hussein themselves, many of which were active participants in the gym. The Breakfast Club, or the morning group, was smaller and the best way to wake up. Most were soldiers, but many were police officers and competition enthusiasts. The evening groups were huge! Consisting of 20+ soldiers on any given night. Here I am again on the far left in my natural social awkwardness.

Tattooing and Training BJJ with Deployed Military

Some of my clients I had tattooed years ago at the Tattoo Zoo reached out to me and offered me work in Stuttgart Germany. The family chosen to host me was Sargent First Class Hernandez, a black belt in Japanese Jiu Jitsu, one of the head coaches at the Agoge Gym on base and a Ranger regularly working in high combat zones of Afghanistan. I stayed with him and his family while tattooing soldiers and training at the Agoge.

Can you spot the outcast of this group? Standing on the sidelines, only one of a few white belts and the only female. Yup, that's me. While I'm always socially awkward, this situation was a unique one. And likely will be one of my favorite memories of all my jiu jitsu experiences ever!

Many of the soldiers I tattooed during those months were very inspiring to me with their experiences, stories and lessons in life. Several were natural musicians and all had a passion for traveling the world. I had tattooed deployed military in Rota, Spain before, but this was different.

There was an intensity you could feel when the boys got off the planes from the high combat zones. Almost an intoxicatingly surreal presence that was much bigger than the men standing before me.

Accessing the Agoge was not an easy task for a civilian. It was on base and I had to be screened and approved entrance and dismissal every time I participated. I also had to have permission to be admitted by someone on base, someone who took accountability for my being present at all. One time as I was allowed in, I walked half a mile to the gym and was stopped by guards on patrol. They accused me of not being American and asked to see my paperwork. They were right that I was not military, but they were wrong in assuming I was not American. Luckily, I had good enough reason and high enough friends to warrant my presence at that time.

The instruction given at the Agoge was unlike any other gym I trained at before. A vast majority of the guys were heavy weight. There was a more wide variety of study beyond Jiu Jitsu. While coaching us through movements and jiu jitsu techniques, the instructor would pause and give us a few scenarios: the first being the present situation in how he wants to see us reenacting the move now, the second being how the move would be used for or against us in a tournament or competition and the third, how the move would be performed in a life and death situation.

There were many simple adjustments in positioning, specific applications of pressure, and the resourceful utilization of foreign objects within reach that turned the jiu jitsu I had known from a playful sport into the life and death study of the art of minimal movements to achieve the maximum amount of permanent debilitation.

Trading secrets with the Special Forces are not for the weak minded. It made me realize the seriousness of the survival itself. The origins of the art itself that isn't addressed on the mat. There is no point system in real life and death situations. There is no 2nd place or Silver medal. It's either you get to keep breathing or you die. The whole game changes. I wouldn't classify this like any other jiu jitu training I had before or since. Its secrets aren't for everyone to know.

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