Been thinking a lot about what I should do as my first post on this blog. I had a lot of crazy ideas, but I landed on that I probably introduce myself. I mean, it would be like coming to a party, running in through the door, and dancing on the table without actually telling anyone who you are. I guess it could work for some and make an ever-lasting impression, but would that impression be good or bad? Well, that is a totally different question.
The problem with an introduction post is that it really can look like a contact ad on some dating site, which makes me feel kind of uneasy. But when it came down to it, I thought that it would be the easiest way to let all the readers know who I am. Even If I suspect some of you know me through Instagram, this blog will be more personal, and also a chance for me to dig deeper into BJJ and share some of the things I can’t on Instagram.
So here we are!
Who am I?
My name is Johan Lorentzon, I live in Sweden, in the north (behind the wall) in a city called Umeå. I train Jiu-jitsu at Gracie Barra Umeå. We really are at the brink of the world and there are only two GB-gyms this far up north. It is us, and our sister-gym even further north in Luleå. I have been doing this jiu-jitsu-stuff now for 11 years and received my brown belt last summer in the middle of the pandemic. I’ve been doing martial arts for most of my 40 years of life, but found BJJ after we had our first child. I needed to train something again to keep in shape and the chip fell on this art. I never had any goals more than just train. I had some vision about getting the blue belt, but I started to train at a pretty old age so I never trained to be a world champion. My goal was to just keep up the training to keep my mind and body in shape, but the years passed by and now I’m a brown belt. When I think about it, it is quite the journey. I’m most active on Instagram where you find me under Johlor80. I share techniques there with my training partner, Moa, who has been on this journey with me since she stumbled in our gym a few years ago. What else? I write about MMA for a Swedish website called Kimura.se and I also work in healthcare. So with work, kids, family, and training, it does fill up my life.
I’ve always loved expressing myself with words, so this blog will be perfect to mix two things I love. I will try to give insight on how we train up here in the north (everyone knows we do it old school as in Rock IV), but also the Swedish jiu-jitsu scene is bigger than one might think for such a small country. I might give some technique tips here and stuff like that too, but most of that will be found on my Instagram. We do live in different times where not every one of us can train at a gym. Our gyms are also kind of closed at the moment which means we had to find other ways to train. I will try to give some insight on how Moa and I feel about training and keeping in shape outside of the gym. We are both also instructors and have formed our own ways of teaching, which might be interesting to read about, and maybe it can also help some other instructors out there.
I think I will stop here, but if you have any questions, do not be afraid to ask me. I will try to answer most questions, save some personal ones. But training-related, I am an open book!
