Season 3 Premiere · Oct 6
Two Companies. One Mat.
"You train, and you try to kill each other. You become friends." (placeholder attribution: Smoothcomp co-founder; the quote is confirmed against the final cut before it ships)
Start small. A few short clips will tell you if this is your kind of thing.
Then pick a full episode when one grabs you.
Latest episodes
Ten Years In, the Smoothcomp Founders Feel Like They're Starting Again
Before Smoothcomp existed, a crashed tournament system sent co-founder Ricard Carneborn out of the venue. Alex Cuevas sits down with Smoothcomp's three co-founders in Stenungsund, Sweden, to hear how two rival tournament organizers and a web developer built the software they needed.
Subforce JiuJitsu & Muay Thai: He Bought the School He Trained At
Abe Awad trained at a New Jersey jiu-jitsu school as a teenager, then bought it when the founder retired. His own coach had already passed on the offer. Alex Cuevas visits to hear how you change owners without the members feeling it.
He Made the Judo Harder and the Paperwork Disappear
Alex Cuevas goes back to ITC New York for the other brother, the other art, and a judo program run on two evenings a week by a man with a Fortune 500 day job and a 15-month-old at home.
A Luxury: What a Free Jiu-Jitsu Mat Is Worth in a Town Where a Family Makes $20 a Day
Alex leaves the mat in Máncora to see where Guardian's kids actually live—a house built one layer at a time, a key stand that feeds a family on $20 a day—and asks what a free jiu-jitsu program is really worth.
Both Sides: Inside a Peru Jiu-Jitsu Program That Fixes the Bully and the Bullied
Alex visits a jiu-jitsu program in two Peru towns and asks the kids one question. The answer keeps coming back the same: bullying, and both the bullied and the former bullies now train side by side.
From Five Schools to Seven: Michael Costa Takes Over OCTA's Newest Location
Alex last visited OCTA when Luiz Costa had five schools. He has seven now. The newest opened two weeks before filming, and his son Michael runs it—in his father's own brown belt.
The Man Who Runs a Thousand-Person Tournament—and Tells You Not to Run One in Your Gym
Jorge Britto founded a tournament that fills fourteen mats with more than a thousand people. Ask him whether gym owners should run their own in-house events and he pushes back—the room where your students feel safe is worth more than the couple hundred dollars a bracket makes you.
She Was Told an All-Women Gym Would Never Work. That Was 21 Years Ago.
Most gyms with a women's program run it as one class on a co-ed schedule. Sarah Oriza runs a gym where women-only is the entire business, seven days a week, and has for twenty-one years. She was told repeatedly it wouldn't work.
How One of Oregon's First Female Black Belts Built Unicorn Jiu Jitsu
Hillary VanOrnum spent her first years in jiu-jitsu as the only woman in the room. She opened Unicorn Jiu Jitsu in Portland so the next woman wouldn't have to—and built a gym where the norm is women at the front of the class.
Sometimes people think there's like no submission there, but there's always an opening. You know, just like chess. There's always something there, and sometimes it's like right in front of you.
Alex Cuevas
Your host
Someone who’s actually on the mat.
Alex started teaching Taekwondo as a teenager. He’s a black belt in it now, and still trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
“We’re stepping out from behind the website to hear your stories and learn what makes a gym thrive.”
Find a gym near you.
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episodes across
40
cities and 7 countries. Hover a pin for the gyms there, or open an episode straight from the map.
Your gym could be the next one.
Every episode is a real gym and the person who built it, filmed where they teach. If that’s you, tell us how you got here. Alex reads these himself.