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Stuart thrives on his new-found grappling skills
Stuart Tyrie has previously enjoyed sporting careers in rugby (as a hard working prop with Tenby) and in the hurly-burly of cage fighting – and has now found a third string to his sporting bow since he has recently been to California to compete in the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Championships.
Stuart had already won his first three cage fights but told us,
“In my fourth cage fight I got knocked out cold by a fighter called Bobby Rich, who is an Olympic-level judo fighter and a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), both of which are highly skilled grappling martial arts.”
“Anyway, to cut a long story short I was rather anxious about his obvious skills and experience and got completely distracted away from attacking with my own skills that is, trying to knock him out, and as a result got caught with a very hard shot and got knocked out myself, so I decided I was going to forget about what others can do in grappling and concentrate on developing my own grappling skills!”
Training in Swansea pays dividends
Since then Stuart has been travelling to Swansea to train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with Gracie Barra Instructor, Chris Rees. Stuart says,
“Chris is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet but an absolute animal in the
grappling environment (he currently a Brown belt, which is a very high level.) I travel to Swansea up to four times per week to train. Whilst training with Chris I have been introduced to the BJJ and have become addicted to it and have also been fortunate to experience some success at competition level.”
“I have only been training for ten months now (give or take some time off due to injuries) and competing for the last five months properly. I entered a small competition before Christmas and managed to win double gold (seven fights, seven wins) and also to feed my addiction for BJJ, so since then I have entered as many big competitions as I can and have experienced a reasonable level of success.”
Stuart has been engaged in a number of Competitions and these are the results:
Hereford BJJ Ground Fighting Championships (December)- Gold (1st in his weight), Gold (1st in open weight), 7 fights, 7 wins.
Bristol Open Championships (February) - Bronze (3rd in his weight), 4 fights, 3 wins and 1 loss.
Welsh Open Championships (March) - Gold (1st in his weight), 3 fights, 3 wins.
Mundials/World Novice Championships (June) - Bronze (3rd in his weight) 3 fights, 2 wins, 1 loss.
British Open Championships (June) - Gold (1st in his weight), 5 fights, 5 wins.
Future aspirations
With the recent level of success he has experienced, Stuart has discussed various avenues with his coach Chris and he is targetting a number of competitions in the near future. He aims to defend his various gold medals above and he also hopes to compete in the Scandinavian Open in October, the European Championships in February next year, and he would also like to attempt to compete at the World Championships again next year but this time bring home a Gold Medal and finally another World-renowned tournament is the Pan Ams which I would like to attend, too.
Help needed
As far as his future aspirations, they will depend on his finding ways to fund his training and competitions, as funding travelling to Swansea to train puts enough strain on his finances without trying to get to various tournaments. In terms of long term aspirations, he'd like to introduce Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fully to Pembrokeshire by gaining his higher grades which will in time enable him to teach BJJ in Pembrokeshire.
It’s a long hard road for Stuart but those who know him will realise that he is nothing short of determined. He is looking for a sponsor to help along the way and would provide could value if determination and commitment are anything to go by – and anyone interested need only contact pembrokeshiresport.co.uk and we would be delighted to pass any good news to a young man who is highly combative in sport but a real gentleman in his general approach to life.
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