The dedication and hard work of Winkler’s Darrius Joof paid off in Missouri last month.
A meeting place for talent
The athlete travelled to Kansas City for the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation’s (IBJJF’s) International Open — a prestigious event that attracts the best from the southern USA and beyond.
“A lot of those southern states are developing a really big jiu-jitsu following lately. Some of the biggest athletes have trained down there,” says Joof, whose team out of Rise Combat Sports is affiliated with a group headquartered in Kansas City. “[It’s] very close to Texas, and to a lot of other states where you can go and compete.”
Joof’s triumphant visit to Kansas City comes after a 2-month training stint there. On this particular visit, though, fierce competition was on the agenda.
“Anyone can go to the IBJJF International Open, but you're running into the higher end of athletes at this point because it’s a competition to get your name out there to try to attract sponsors,” he says. “You're facing the best guys from every gym within the south or other states nearby. They all kind of funnel in for it.”
For Joof’s gold medal, he competed twice in his weight division — once in the semifinals and once in the finals. He says got a bye for the first round.
Due to the structure of the competition, every fight is exciting and unexpected.
“It's elimination-based. I could be losing 5 minutes of a 6-minute fight if I submit the [opponent],” says Joof. “I could be losing 5 minutes of the fight and in that last minute, last 10 seconds, last two seconds, even, if I submit him, I move on, and he's done.”
Joof says while there is also a deeper scoring system of points, submission is one sure-fire route to victory. He says it also makes for more entertainment for spectators.
What is jiu-jitsu?
For those who are new to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, while it takes an immense amount of training to compete, the objective is clear.
“It is definitely a combat sport,” says Joof. “The way I always describe it to someone that's never seen it before is . . . it's submission wrestling . . . . In [wrestling], they just often take each other down and hold for three seconds, get the points, and that's it. In jiu-jitsu, you're looking to take the person down, but then the objective is to submit them — so putting them into positions where they're in so much discomfort that they have to quit.”
Joof reassures that it’s not as scary as it seems.
“It is fun. It doesn’t sound fun when you word it that way, but it is entertaining,” he says. “I enjoy it.”
A drastic lifestyle change
Joof’s martial arts journey began when he was 15. He knew that he wanted to be involved in sports, but he says he knew he needed to make some changes in order for that to happen.
“My dream had always been to be an athlete, so I already knew that I wanted to do it, [but] at the time when I was around 15, I was 220 pounds. I used to be very out of shape. I spent most of my days just playing games sitting inside doing nothing,” he says. “I was going up a flight of stairs one day and I [was] out of breath, and I [thought,] ‘I have to change this.’”
Joof says he engaged in a rigorous routine the following summer, which consisted of workouts, chicken, broccoli, and rice.
“Then we moved out to Winkler, and . . . my grandpa told me about the gym opening up right away — Level MMA, so as soon as I heard that, . . . I went in there and just didn't stop,” he says.
Joof is now a Jiu-Jitsu coach at Rise Combat Sports (formerly Level MMA) in Winkler. He also works with Marcos Gaubert, who began studying martial arts at 4 years old.
“You can just feel the knowledge every time he talks. You meet people on the way that [are] very smart, but the experience he has [is] on a whole different level,” he says of Gaubert. “It's really amazing to train with him. We're all super grateful because he is such a great teacher and such a great speaker.”
Related stories:
- Emotions run high as Mark Wiebe takes on 100km for a cause
- Air mail, bags, and boards all winter long: Winkler’s new cornhole league
Joof says that in the time he has been at Rise Combat Sports, he has watched it flourish into a welcoming community of passionate people.
“It's been so much fun,” he says. “I feel it's really open, it's very friendly, and even from when I started, it's evolved so much.”
“Just the beginning”
In Missouri, Joof was the only Canadian on the team. He hopes to change that next year.
“[The IBJJF] holds it every year, so we're looking to try to bring a bigger team from Canada down so that we can win first place in the overall team awards,” he says. “We were third. We were two points off second and five points from first. [If] 2 or 3 more people come down, it’s a whole different story.”
As for this year’s competition at which Joof won gold individually in his weight division, he considers it a team achievement as much as his own.
“I really just want to show off the effort that we put in at Rise as a team,” he says. “Without everyone I trained with at the gym, without everyone pushing me every single round, every single day, I wouldn't have been able to go down there at all . . . . A big thank you to everyone from my team. A big thank you to my family for helping me get ready, too.”
Joof has his sights set on big things for the future. While he’s pleased with the gold medal win, he says there are still more competitions to conquer.
“It means a lot to get my first international win, but it’s just the start,” he says. “There are world championships to be won, there's European championships to be won, Pan American championships. I'm just at a blue belt level, so I want to do purple, brown, [and] black belt.”
After working his way through competitions around the world and his belts, Joof also has UFC aspirations. For him, the win in Missouri is foreshadowing. He's willing to do the work to keep reaching his goals.
“That's what I really want to get across,” he says. “I am just beginning, and I'm going to get so much better from here.”
Find more information about the IBJJF on its website.
With files from Jayme Giesbrecht and Ty Hildebrand