Zev Martial Arts students win gold in world championship

Zev Martial Arts in Acton "swept” the competition during the AGF (American Grappling Federation) 2023 Kids Jiu Jitsu World Championships at the Fort Worth Convention Center on June 17.

Students Taylor Neal, 12, Jadon Crowder, 11, Lukah Esteban, 12, and Raylan Van Holland, 10, took home a total of three gold medals, along with two silver, and one bronze.

“We're all super excited about it, obviously,” said Zev Instructor Alex Wolf. “It's kind of a big deal for us.”

Located at 3236 Fall Creek Highway in Acton, Zev Martial Arts provides instruction and training for people of all ages in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Individuals who enroll in the school train for self-defense and physical fitness, along with building their self-esteem, and to compete in tournaments.

Although similar to wrestling, Brazilian jiu jitsu also includes joint locks, strangles, and takedowns.

"The way our tournaments are set up is you go against people that are your age, your weight, and then sometimes your rank,” Wolf explained. “We also have things called challenger matches, where you fight people your age and your weight, but they can be any rank, so you might go against someone who has been doing it twice as long as you. We like to do those a lot because it makes you better and you get a lot more experience for it.”

During world championships, students wearing white belts (first rank) are not allowed, meaning only gray belts (second rank) and higher can compete.

"It takes you about 10 years to get a black belt, so the rank structure goes a lot slower than something like karate or taekwondo,” Wolf explained. "Boxing is great, but reality is, you have six punches in boxing. My kids know systems that have 60 moves inside each of these systems and for our competition team, we've got about seven to eight systems for them to be learning.”

The world championships featured competitors from all over the U.S., and as far away as Brazil, Canada, Australia, and the UK — but Zev Martial Arts still came out on top in both Gi (competing while wearing a jiu jitsu uniform) and No-Gi (competing while wearing shorts and a T-shirt).

Crowder earned silver in Gi, Esteban won double gold in No-Gi and Gi, and Neal won gold in Gi, silver in No-Gi, and bronze in No-Gi challenger.

“(Neal) was fighting up to 10 pounds (heavier) in the boys division because they didn't have anyone as small as her in the No-Gi bracket, so we were pretty pleased with that silver,” Wolf said. “You just don't know how good your jiu jitsu is until you get to compete at that level. It feels great, and I think everyone's excited. Our school as a whole is very excited because this isn't just Lukah, Taylor, or Jadon's win — this is kind of a team project. The team put these kids together, and the team was training as a whole, so everyone's ecstatic.”

Wolf said the past few months have been spent getting his students ready for the world championship, with the team training for eight hours a week on lifting, and 23 hours a week in jiu jitsu alone during an intensive grappling camp.

"All we've been doing is getting ready for (the world championship) and now that that's done, we've got a little bit of time before our next jiu jitsu match, so we're going to be building our team back up,” he said. “We're going to see if we can add new members to our competition team, and we're going to be learning some brand new (moves). We're going to add to the things they can do in competition and we're going to switch gears a little bit and get one of our kids ready for a first striking match, as well.”

Zev Martial Art’s next jiu jitsu competition will be held at the 2023 Texas State BJJ Championships, Oct. 21-22 in Duncanville.