It was freaking awesome, that’s all you need to know, now quit wasting your time reading this review and go book your spot on the next camp with any availability. Go.

BJJ GLobetrotters is an organization of worldwide Jiu-Jitsu nerds, born out of Christian Graugart’s time spent traveling and training Jiu-Jitsu. I have already reviewed his book, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu GLobetrotter, and no secret, I think it’s dope. Now the Globetrotters organization runs Jiu-Jitsu camps all over the world, and I was lucky enough to go to the USA Maine Camp a few times, and I’ll tell you what I thought of it.

I’ll sum it up by saying it’s exactly as it sounds, all the Jiu-Jitsu you can handle at a summer camp on a lake in rural Maine. The best part? The food. The food was worth the cost of admission alone. When we were at camp, and I was raving about the food, my friend asked me, “do they not feed you at home?” All I can say is it’s just really nice to have someone prepare yummy healthy food for you all week and then do the dishes too. And to top it all off, we had lobster one night and blueberry pie. I don’t think it gets much better than that.

OK enough about the food, let’s talk about the Jiu-Jitsu. I would go so far as to say there is too much good Jiu-Jitsu instruction. Sounds like that shouldn’t really be a problem right? Well it is. Every teacher was teaching their best stuff, and they were all damn talented Jiu-Jitsu teachers from all over the world, so every class is special. Now imagine there are all these classes all day for a week. After about four days straight of packed Jiu-Jitsu instruction, I felt like I needed a break and I would miss just one class so I could sit in a lawn chair by the lake and recharge, but then of course all my friends wouldn’t shut up about how incredible the class I missed was. So yeah, too much amazing Jiu-Jitsu. And you might say, well that wouldn’t be a problem for me. Oh really? How often do you train at home, once a day? If you aren’t used to training all day every day, then the jump is not insignificant, and will stress your mind and body. I know, I am complaining about too much of a good thing, like Christmas every day.

The rest of it? Did some swimming and paddle boarding and played some disc golf, you know, standard summer camp stuff. They also did a few cool classes where it was just an instructor talking about something, like Chris Haueter ranting about Jiu-Jitsu philosophy and slapping anyone who asked a question, and Christian talking about the business side of running a Jiu-Jitsu gym.

If I had to say something negative about it? For me, I think it would be more interesting to visit a different camp other than the Maine camp. I grew up in the area, so it wasn’t much of a cultural experience. If you came to the USA- Maine camp from somewhere else in the world it might be very interesting to see rural New England summer camp life. I would rather check out the camp in Estonia or Germany for example. But that’s a me problem, nothing against the Maine camp. During the last open mat of the camp, Christian was cranking the 80’s pop summer soundtrack music, making it seem as if for him as a European, this was kind of like living out an 80’s movie.

If you haven’t been to BJJ GLobetrotters camp, I can’t say enough good about them. I met tons of really cool people, and was lucky enough to train with some of them later on in life. It’s a community worth tapping into. If you haven’t been, go.