I stumbled onto The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Globetrotter when I was a white belt, while looking for more of an instructional book. I bought it figuring it was worth a try, and once I started reading it I was surprised at how good it was. If you like jiu-jitsu or travel it’s a great read, and a perfect escape from a long winter. If you don’t know already, this book is based on Christian’s trip around the world to train Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Most of the time he stays with people he meets throughout the journey while at jiu-jitsu gyms. Christian is actually a pretty good writer and it’s hard to put down once you get into it.

If you love jiu-jitsu you will probably read just about anything about the sport, so for context, I lent the book to my mom, who wanted to read it out of curiosity and she read the whole book in a few days, so it’s a good read even if you don’t know anything about jiu-jitsu. Her only complaint was that Christian is always whining about his knee injury the whole time. Ok fair point, but if you train jiu-jitsu, grappling, or any combat sport really, then you know that the main topic of conversation is your latest injury.

While this book is a great read, entertaining and inspiring, what is most remarkable about the book is the movement and community that came out of the trip. As the story goes, once Christian got back from his trip he missed the connections and community he had been immersed in, and sought to recreate it with camps at his gym, and eventually he launched the Globetrotters Jiu-Jitsu camps which have become legendary. When he started a camp not too far away from where I live, I knew I had to go, and I am glad I did, but more on the camps in a later post.

Christian’s thesis in this book, is that he can simply show up anywhere in the world and all he has to do is find the local jiu-jitsu gym and he will instantly be part of that community. It’s beautiful really, life through jiu-jitsu. While I prefer the paperback version of the book, which I linked to above, you can get a free PDF version of the book here. If you love jiu-jitsu and the jiu-jitsu lifestyle, then I have no doubt you will enjoy the book. Do yourself a favor and pick it up!