Cuervo
brown belt
I grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which is right over the bridge. It was close, but very far. The river’s wider than you think.
Not many people I grew up with came to New York. It was very much a “stay in Jersey” vibe. So I didn’t really like the city until I got an internship here. That came through some family at UBS when I was 20 years old. I didn’t know anything about finance at the time. Before that, I was managing pools. I was working almost 20 hours a week while in college full-time. Pool maintenance, lifeguarding, lifeguard training, swim instruction, opening and closing, and ensuring that safety was on point. I did that for like three pools while going to school full-time. I was just working, making money, living life. I actually thought I was going to drop out of college so I could work more and make more money. Then I got an internship in New York. It was for a summer, and I fell in love with the city.
Q: You fell in love with what exactly?
I was 20 years old, so it was probably the energy and fast-moving hustle and bustle of New York... and the girls, that was a draw. Once I started going out after work, hanging out with other 20-somethings with a little money—we’d blow all our cash and go party. So I did that. And eventually that turned into a full-time job. I made a deal with my managers. A handshake agreement. I could work full-time during my senior year, but I had to promise to finish school. They also got me a deal where UBS would pay for my final year. I was so grateful. I got really lucky.
Q: How old are you now?
I’m 31. So this was about 10 years ago.
Then I moved to a mid-size RIA, trading bonds as a junior. Mostly muni bonds. Pretty boring stuff. Traded a lot of Puerto Rico paper during the crisis. It was a weird time.
I was partying a lot. Drinking like crazy every night. Spending too much money.
The girl I was dating at the time knew I wrestled. She wanted to get me a gift, but couldn’t find a wrestling program, so she got me a two-week trial at a small jiu-jitsu gym on the East Side.
I wrestled, so I thought I’d walk in and just mess everybody up. Double-leg everyone, walk out. I walked in and got absolutely killed by everyone.
And I was trying. I tried so hard, I got the shit beat out of me for like 45 minutes.
I went home and threw up.
Then I went back the next day.
I went back every day for two weeks. Fourteen days straight. And every night I went home and threw up. Shock, exhaustion, just completely destroyed.
Q: There’s an expression: “It’s a painful day when you realize you don’t make the weather.” Was it a moment like that?
Yeah. What shocked me was this: in wrestling, the goal is to pin someone’s shoulders to the mat. But in jiu-jitsu, people start with both shoulders on the mat. So what do you do when your opponent is already in what should be a losing position? They messed me up. Smaller guys, women who were maybe 120 pounds. Everyone destroyed me.
I had been partying every day for two years. Then for fourteen straight days, I didn’t drink or go out. I just trained. And after that, I never stopped.
Q: How long were you at that gym?
Maybe six months. Then I moved to another Modern Martial Arts location on the West Side. That’s where I met Big Will. At the time, I went vegetarian for some reason and dropped down to like 140 pounds. Everyone in that gym was like 200+. My coach told me, “I never want to see you on bottom, it’s too dangerous.” And he told everyone else, “When you roll with him, let him be on top.” So for another six months, I never played bottom. No positional advantages for almost a full year. Still getting destroyed.
At the same time, I decided to compete. I had wrestled, I thought I was decent, so I figured I’d do well. I invited the girl who got me into jiu-jitsu, my cousins, friends—like 15 people—to come watch me at a tournament: Big Apple BJJ. I thought I was going to win. Instead, I step out, slap-bump, the guy collar-drags me, takes my back, and rear-naked chokes me in under a minute.
I was devastated. I shook his hand, walked off the mat, went to the stairwell, and cried. After that, I made a decision: I’m going to train in a way that ensures I win.
That’s been the goal ever since.
Q: How many times have you competed?
Between 20 and 25 times. I competed at least three times a year for the last seven years.
Q: How did you end up at our gym?
I was at Modern Martial Arts, but there was a lot of instructor turnover. At one point, they had a really good instructor technically, but I disliked some things he would say about women. Misogynistic, chauvinistic. He left. Then they had karate guys teaching jiu-jitsu. It was suboptimal.
I walked down the street and saw our gym opening. I didn’t even really know who Renzo Gracie was. They weren’t officially open yet, but the door was unlocked. I walked in and Luca was at the front desk in his gi.
I said, “I want to start.”
He said, “We’re not officially open yet, but you can train.”
I said I had experience—which was kind of bullshit—but I had competed once.
On my first day there, a brown belt from the main academy was present.
We drilled, then rolled.
He pulled my lapel out, wrapped it around my neck, and yanked it.
Crushed my throat.
And all the guys sitting on the side just started laughing.
Q: [laughs]
So again, I’m starting from zero.
That’s when I met Tom Higgins. He was a huge influence on my jiu-jitsu.
Q: How so?
He was ahead of me, a blue belt or late white. He’d play guard and just dismantle me effortlessly. And I didn’t even understand what was happening. But I had this feeling: if I can close the gap with him, I’m improving. That’s how I measure success: closing gaps with people. The other measure is competition.
As much as people say it’s “you versus yourself,” competition is objective. You go out, face someone from another academy, under rules, trying to win. That’s the real test. Sure you can do the spiritual stuff, but go win a tournament. That’s real. Some people compete once and hate it. But others get hooked. Because once you win, there’s no better feeling.
Honestly, I just like winning. It’s basic, but it’s true. People ask if I’m nervous. I’m extremely nervous. I hate it. But it’s tied to my sense of self-worth.
I’m married, and my wife is everything, we have no kids yet, I compartmentalize work well. I don’t bring work home. If I work late or weekends, fine—but I can turn it off.
Q: Does jiu-jitsu help you do that?
That’s such a good question.
I think there are harder things out there. When you deal with people—especially in finance, but really in life—who are hyper-fixated and hyper-stressed about work, you can tell when they haven’t dealt with something that’s actually hard. They’ve never had someone choke them. They’ve never had someone smothering them, putting their hand over their mouth.
I think more people need that perspective.
I don’t love the cliché of “everyone should get punched in the face once.” I agree with it, but I try not to say it because it sounds so overused. But it’s true. Some of the guys I deal with at work take themselves so seriously. And I don’t think there’s anything less interesting or less appealing than someone who thinks sending an email or a PowerPoint is the most important thing in the world.
Q: So that pulls me into something else that I think is interesting: You could still be maintaining pools in New Jersey, and there’s no way Big Will or anyone at the gym would treat you any differently than they do now, working in finance. And that’s something kind of special, right?
On the Upper West Side, we’ve made a very deliberate effort to keep it flat with minimal hierarchy.
We all go out together. We go to bars, events, everything. There might be small cliques, but there’s no “in-group” that excludes people. You want to come out? You come out. Poker? Come. Sean’s fights? Everyone’s going. There’s no barrier. Some people might hang out privately, but there’s no closed circle that you’re not invited into. That was very intentional on the part of the people who were there early on.
Q: So let’s dig into that. Tell me about the first time you met Luca.
He always struck me as extremely serious. Very focused. I’d see him there from early classes to late classes, 6 am to 9 pm, for years. I remember thinking, This guy is really into jiu-jitsu. I didn’t fully understand his position within Renzo’s or the broader scene at the time. But he also immediately came across as extremely well-read. We’d talk about books a lot. And I didn’t realize at the time how unusual that is in combat sports. It’s not a bad thing, just different. He was really into reading. “I have a hard time watching movies or listening to podcasts, but I can read 300 pages no problem.” So I thought, this guy is really thoughtful.
And I think I took the way he teaches for granted. It’s very conceptual. Philosophical. Less “do this, then this,” and more “why this works.” Things like: move your hips away, change your angle, rather than step-by-step instructions.
Q: The idea that something you learn in half guard applies everywhere.
Exactly. We even joke about it. There was a year when everything he taught came back to the technical stand-up. We’d be like, “Okay, but where’s the technical stand-up in this armbar?” But the truth is that you use it everywhere. I wrestle up a lot, and I use it constantly.
The technical stand-up seems like a self-defense move: keeping your hand up so you don’t get kicked in the face. But it’s incredibly applicable in jiu-jitsu. Half guard, wrestle-ups, De La Riva—everywhere. Most of what he teaches works across positions, top and bottom. It’s the best instruction I’ve ever had.
And back then, when Luca was more involved in the gym—before focusing more on Wall Street—he would call people out. If you were doing something wrong, he’d say it. In front of everyone. Luca will bring it up in a very direct way, but still kind of loving.
There was one competition we did—me, Big Will, and this guy Ben—we were all white belts. And this competition allowed straight ankle locks for white belts. We didn’t even know what they were. So at the tournament, on the side of the mat, Luca is literally teaching us straight ankle locks and defenses on the spot.
So we’re not a comp-focused gym, but Luca cares if we win or lose. He congratulates us, talks about it, and watches matches. I’ve sent him most of mine; he always gives feedback.
Q: Outside of competition, what is most interesting to you about jiu-jitsu?
It evolves. New techniques, new systems, new guards.
I was talking about this to Vinny, the Muay Thai coach. Purple belt, really good. And I said, one of the things I love about jiu-jitsu is that there’s always something new. In striking, you have the same core tools: jab, cross, hook, uppercut. There are new combinations, but not really new techniques. In jiu-jitsu, there’s constant innovation. Especially in the gi, because of the grips, the possibilities are almost infinite.
I got my blue belt during the berimbolo era. That was a huge shift in jiu-jitsu. You could play De La Riva, sweep someone onto their butt, then berimbolo into a back take. Mikey Musumeci was huge on this. The Miyao brothers were big in it.
Q: Because you compete so much, you have to stay on top of the meta.
There’s always a meta. You need to know what’s happening. Octopus guard, squid guard, berimbolos. Leg locks had their big wave. There’s always something. Right now, no-gi is more popular in competition, which means more talent and more innovation. The best guys go where the competition is strongest.
I do both because I like to win. If you win in both, nobody can say anything. You’re not just a gi guy or a no-gi guy. You’re complete.
I also like leg locks a lot. I think they’re undervalued in the gi and overvalued in no-gi at the same time. I train sometimes at Bodega Jiu-Jitsu in New Jersey. My friend Kyvonn Gonzalez runs it. They focus heavily on leg locks. Not exclusively, but compared to most gyms, a lot. And if you don’t understand positions—inside ashi, outside ashi, K-guard, 50/50—they’ll destroy you. They’ll snatch your ankles, your knees, everything. Leg locks are a gift and a curse. A young guy grabs your ankle fast enough and you have to tap. You don’t want to play around with your knees. Once something goes, it’s bad.
I think part of the hesitation around leg locks stems from safety concerns. If someone blows out their knee, they’re done—they’re out, maybe cancel their membership. That’s a real concern from a business standpoint. But at the same time, you need to know how to defend this stuff. Especially in competition. Nobody in a tournament cares about your job, your family, or your schedule. They’re trying to break you.
And that’s where guys like Shorty are great. He’s very aware of the meta, all the developments, and pushes to incorporate that into training. My wife Vanessa and I did an ADCC Open recently. For three months leading up to it, all we did was train leg locks. Nothing frustrates me more than catching someone with something, and they say: “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
This might sound harsh, but I don’t mind being harsh in jiu-jitsu: If you don’t want to take it a certain level of seriously, don’t do it.
If I catch you with the same thing on two different days, and you say you don’t know the defense, that’s a lack of intellectual curiosity. It takes two minutes to look it up. YouTube exists. TikTok exists. I’ve never been submitted with something and not immediately gone to figure it out.
Q: Is that why competition matters to you? Because if something happens there, it sticks?
Oh, it gets seared into your soul.
And it’s even worse when someone loses the same way in multiple competitions. At that point, why are you even doing this? Do you actually want to get better? Because the guy you’re competing against? He’s studying. He’s watching footage. He’s constantly improving. And you’re waiting for someone to teach you?
Q: My brother had a kind of competition rivalry with a guy my son used to call “the bald psycho.” They ended up competing against each other a lot. At first, it was a rivalry, but over time, they actually became friends. Still, there was always that edge. They’d go back and forth, training at different gyms, improving at different rates, showing up differently in competition. Have you ever had something like that?
Oh yeah. I had a rivalry that basically pushed me out of the adult division. The guy beat me every time. He’s like five years younger than me, his dad owns the gym, and he’s just better. At some point, it’s not even a rivalry; it’s just a guy who beats you every time.
I mean, I’m not like my wife. She wins most of the time.
She’s probably done 20–25 competitions, and most of them end in gold. She wins most of her superfights. She’s not someone who loses much and she has a very specific way she approaches jiu-jitsu. A smaller toolbox with very sharp tools. She knows exactly what works. She can turn on the competition switch and execute.
I’m different. I have more nerves. I have a wider toolbox, but I’m not as good at accessing it when I need it. When I do get it going, I’m good—but if my Plan A gets blocked, I can shut down. And if you’re not attacking, you’re defending. You can’t do both at the same time. So sometimes I stall, then I get beaten.
So yeah—that guy pushed me into Masters. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be competing in Adult.
Q: Let’s shift a bit. You picked up jiu-jitsu and stopped drinking yourself into a puddle, right? So it brought discipline into your life. In my own case, I still like everything. The booze, all of it. But I had to take the edge off. If I’m training jiu-jitsu, I drink less, I sleep better, and I don’t want to train hungover. It helped with family relationships. Both my kids trained for years and my daughter recently came back, which is amazing. It creates these positive feedback loops. Health, family, discipline. Even small things—household chores, daily habits—you just do them better. And it sounds trivial, but those things matter. Do you see that in your life? Does jiu-jitsu carry over elsewhere?
For sure. I used to be extremely disagreeable. Family, friends—very combative, very argumentative. I was in a fraternity in college for four years, and I don’t have any friends left from that time. That’s how disagreeable I was. And professionally, too. If you asked people I worked with early in my career, they wouldn’t have much good to say.
Jiu-jitsu taught me about the long game. That’s probably the biggest thing. There’s no shortcut. It doesn’t matter what belt you are. Even at black belt, you can still be learning, still improving, still teaching. Danaher never competed, but he’s produced incredible athletes. So it changed how I think about progress. Less ego, less need to argue.
I used to think putting people in uncomfortable situations—socially, intellectually—made me smart. It’s the dumbest logic in the world. Now I’m way more agreeable.
Q: So does jiu-jitsu narrow what’s important? Does it help you let things go?
Yes, but I don’t fully know why.
Maybe it’s because I’ve eaten way worse shit on the mat. So losing an argument doesn’t matter. Someone disagreeing with me doesn’t matter. At work, if someone proposes a different idea, I’ll immediately concede. I’ll say, “Let’s do your idea. You lead it. I’ll support you.” And sometimes that’s strategic. I give it up in front of everyone. And more often than not, they walk it back and say, “Actually, let’s hear your idea.”
Q: You’ve been married about a year and you train together.
Vanessa is my main training partner. We workshop at home. I actually do more research than she does. I study, build game plans, and analyze opponents. In her last competition, she had to face the same opponent twice. The first match was close; she won on points. Before the second match, I told her, “She’s going to pull guard. So keep distance and force her flat on her back. Control the knees. Pass outside. Long step. Go north-south. She’ll give you her back—finish.”
She did exactly that. I take minimal credit, but I will take some for that one.
Q: Like Sherlock Holmes seeing the sequence before it happens.
I’m very visual and conceptual. Vanessa isn’t. She can’t just watch a move and replicate it. She needs to feel it, drill it 100 times. But once she has it, it’s locked in. It’s like fast-twitch vs. slow-twitch learning. Different processing styles. Neither is better, just different. For me, I can watch someone do something once, then two weeks later reproduce it almost exactly in a gym setting.
Q: Would you tie that back to how Luca teaches? Concepts over moves? Or is it just your background, wrestling, and time spent?
I just have a strong ability to replicate. I think my mindset and conceptualization skills are things I learned from Luca.
I can replicate most things I see in training, and a decent amount in competition. My issue is the obstacles. Vanessa handles obstacles incredibly well. If something gets shut down, she either recreates the opportunity or immediately transitions to another strong option.
I struggle with that. My loop choke is one of my best submissions. Same with my Ezekiel. High success rate. But if I can’t get those, I tend to freeze. Then the other guy starts working and I get beat.
Vanessa is different. She’ll go for a collar drag. If it fails, she immediately transitions to a double. If that fails, she moves to something else. And it doesn’t affect her mentally. She’s just like, “Next option.” But she’s not experimenting randomly. It’s a tight, refined system. So even though we live together, we have very different approaches and different training styles.
But we both love competing. That’s the overlap. There was a stretch where she hurt her knee and couldn’t train for six months. But she was still engaged—watching film, studying, running, lifting. I honestly couldn’t be luckier to have someone with the same addiction.
Q: I started during Covid, training underground. It was so fun.
That’s actually where my wife and I got close. Every day felt like it might be the last day we could train. So after training, we’d go out. That’s when we started to take an interest in each other. But we had to ask—should we do this? Would it mess up the gym’s culture? Because the gym and the people always came first. At one point, we actually stopped seeing each other completely.
Later, everything in my life kind of collapsed at once. I lost my job. Lost my apartment. And in New York, that’s brutal. You can’t get an apartment without a job.
At that moment, Vanessa chose me. That was the turning point.
She backed me when everything was falling apart.
And that forced me to reflect.
I had lost a lot of friends.
I had been difficult, hard-headed.
I had made mistakes—said things I shouldn’t have, treated people poorly.
A lot of people turned their backs on me and they had good reasons.
But a few people didn’t. Big Will. Bradley. Vanessa. Tyson.
They told me I fucked up—but they stayed.
That was huge.
Jiu-jitsu didn’t magically fix everything. It’s not a silver bullet. But it forced me to face myself. And Vanessa pushed me to change. She encouraged me to leave what I was doing and move into sales—to start building something, take risks, go after equity, and do something bigger. She’s the reason I made that shift. And she’s the reason I’m where I am now.
Now, when I see someone acting like an asshole—drunk, aggressive, whatever—I have more empathy. Because I’ve been that guy. I know what it feels like to be the most disliked person in the room—and for people to have a good reason for it. That’s a terrible place to be.
But it’s also a powerful place to come back from. Because not everyone does. Some people stay that guy forever. But how does someone improve if nobody gives them space to do so? It’s not about excusing behavior, but there has to be a path back.
Q: There’s something else about jiu-jitsu. It creates this weird physical honesty. Howard calls it the most honest language. There’s something special about that.
Jiu-jitsu is an honest language. Not perfectly honest. You see scandals, bad behavior, all of it. So you can’t idolize it completely. It’s not perfect. But it reveals people. And at Upper West Side, we’ve tried to build something intentional. A flat structure with an open culture. Welcoming, especially for women. And Vanessa plays a huge role in that. She sets the tone.
A woman can train with men, and they should know how to train with women, with appropriate pressure, control, and respect. You should feel welcome. It shouldn’t be a boys’ club. It should be everyone’s club. And if you’re a guy who needs to go full force, then you suck, and you should fix your jiu-jitsu.
Vanessa had an experience when she first joined. She rolled with a black belt I won’t name, and she was defending everything well, countering well. At some point, he just lost it. He got into a dominant position, put his fist under her nose, and yanked up. She said later that was the only time in her career she left the mat and cried.
And then we all went after him. I wasn’t letting that go. Everyone went hard on him after that. And I don’t think he ever came back. That’s what I mean when I say the culture here is unique; we look out for each other.
This interview is part of the Murder Yoga Cantina series, which explores the people who make up jiu-jitsu culture.
