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| | | BJJ Globetrotters Newsletter // October 2026 | | Dear Globetrotters,
As I’m writing this, I’m also packing my bag for my trip towards Arizona Camp tomorrow morning. It’s been nice to have a short break from the busy camp travel schedule, but I can’t wait to get back on the mats with everyone. We’re expecting around 300 people in the desert next week, so that should make up for the 15-hour flight ahead of me 😬
Here’s the updated ticket status for all upcoming camps: We’ve decided that this coming January will be the final Winter Camp. After 11 incredible years and countless amazing memories, it feels like the right time to move on. Of course, we’ll never say never—maybe one day it’ll make a comeback—but as things stand, three months from now will be your last chance to join us in the snow ❄️
Have a great day! | | | |
What you'll find in this month's newsletter: - Featured Globetrotters: Markku Halinen
- Globetrotters Academy in Focus: Perun Forge
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| | | Together with more than 200 Jiu Jitsu enthusiasts, we’ll will spend a week together in the forest with more training and activities than you can possibly handle. We take care of absolutely everything – food, accommodation, laundry, and Jiu Jitsu. All you need to do is show up and get in your gi or shorts! |
| | | | After 11 years, Winter Camp is retiring. Join us for the last one! |
| | Our Family friendly summer camp in Austria has been incredibly popular, so we decided to do another edition in the Winter! It will be directly followed by our usual adult Winter Camp. Join one or join both!
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| | | | Featured Globetrotter: Markku Halinen |
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| | Age: 46
Belt: Purple
Profession: Site Reliability Engineer
How many years in BJJ: 8
Other martial arts: I started with Wing Chun in 2012 and also trained Escrima some time. After a few years, I suffered a knee injury which made me turn to ground fighting martial arts, so here we are.
Where do you live: Helsinki, Finland
Where are you from: A small town called Lohja, roughly 60 km from Helsinki.
Other fun or curious information you would like to share: My girlfriend once accidentally choked me unconscious while I was taking a selfie. |
| | What inspired you to travel and train? I did a few camps and out of town seminar trips during my years in Wing Chun, and those were some of my favorite experiences. When I switched to Jiu Jitsu I was really missing those, so when BJJ Globetrotters started doing camps in Tallinn, I was eager to see if I could have a similar experience.However, what finally sealed the deal was watching the BJJ Globetrotters documentary, “The Gentle Art of Travel”, at my second Globetrotters camp in 2021. I’m roughly the same age as Christian, and I also have a background in software engineering, so it was really easy for me to identify with him. Walking out of the theater, I vividly remember thinking “that’s what I want to do”. Tell us about your most recent trip and what's next – where have you been and where are you going?
For a few years, I’ve spent my summers traveling and training, and my latest training trip was this summer when I spent five weeks on the road with my partner, starting with a camp in Copenhagen. From there we traveled to Germany with a week each in Hamburg, Willmandingen, and Friedrichshafen, and ended the trip with another camp in Heidelberg. No matter where I go, I always try to include a visit to a local gym or a few, so I’ve had a chance to train all over Europe.
I also frequently travel for competitions, and my last competition trip was to the World Masters in Las Vegas. IBJJF and Grappling Industries both have categories for small, middle-aged guys, while in Finland the competition scene for masters is much more limited. So nowadays I prefer to travel abroad to compete to have the opportunity to test myself against people with roughly similar skills and physical abilities. In Finnish competitions, stepping on the mats as a referee became an option when I was promoted to purple belt, so I have been doing that for about a year.
The next trips in my calendar are to Estum Jiu-jitsu in Tallinn in a few weeks, and for competition I’m signed up for the European championships in Lisbon in January.
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| | What do you enjoy most about travelling? I enjoy new places and experiences – meeting new people and being exposed to new ways of thinking (and rolling). I also enjoy clutter-free hotel rooms. I am somewhat neurospicy, so I get bored very easily, and I’m horrible with household chores like tidying up. My home looks like an abandoned thrift store, so traveling is a great way to avoid cleaning up!
Any particularly memorable experiences that made it all worth it?
I had my 45th birthday at a camp, so I asked for ten black belts to shark tank me for ten non-stop rounds of 4.5 minutes each. You can see me after the birthday bash in one of the pictures. Coincidence or not, when I returned home and went to my first class after the camp, my coach promoted me to purple belt. And come to think of it, I was also promoted to blue immediately after a camp in 2021.
Of course I also have to mention meeting my partner at the second camp in Tallinn. I asked her out – for a week of training in another country. How’s that for a first date? Given she later moved from Germany to Finland to live with me, this was a good call. So a shout out for the people at BJJ Lab in Zürich!
What has surprised you the most while travelling? People around the world really have more in common than differences. We all have similar dreams and aspirations. Culture wars, racism, and xenophobia are not common sense; they are influencing tools for group thinking and mass manipulation.
Also, as you travel to other countries you realize that at home, there are a lot of things you take for granted that aren’t there in other countries.
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| | | Are you a budget traveller – and if so how do you plan for a cheap trip? Not really. Being in my forties with a reasonable salary and no kids, I tend to favor convenience over low cost. If direct flights cost €200 more than the cheapest option with two layovers and a whole day of traveling, I’ll take the direct flights. For accommodation, location is more important than cost. I don’t splurge, but I rarely take the cheapest option. As far as making the decision where and when to go next, I pretty much act on a whim. New Globetrotters camp announced? Cool. I’ll sign up and then tell my partner we’re going. Planning wouldn’t be the word I’d use – I usually just act on instinct.
Any advice for your fellow Globetrotters? In one of Prince’s songs there is a line, “But life is a party, and parties weren’t meant to last”. If there’s something you want to do or see, go do it as soon as possible. Book those flights. Start working on reaching that goal today, and not later “when you have time”. The party could be over before that. |
| | | | Our biggest camp of the year is back next summer! |
| | We’re heading back to Heidelberg for our biggest camp of the year and another incredible week of BJJ training, workshops, diving competitions, morning yoga sessions, midnight cocktail bar crawls, and free beer open mats.
This stunning university town has become a regular on our annual camp calendar and we are excited to see you all there!
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| | | | BJJ Globetrotters Academy in Focus: Perun Forge |
| | Where is the gym located?
The gym is located in Rogaška Slatina, Slovenia.
How many people train there?
It’s a private gym, so not so many guys, but those who train here are exceptionally good.
Is the gym growing - if so by how many new members each month or year?
In the past we hit thirty members, and at the other location we hit fifty and above. But now our focus is on quality not quantity.
What are the highest and lowest belt grades training? Black and purple.
When did the gym open?
1st of October 2015.
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| | Some facts about you:
Name: Elio Artič Age: 39 Belt: Black belt Profession: Bachelor of Strength and Conditioning Years in BJJ: 11 Other martial arts: Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, and MMA Currently living in: Rogaška Slatina, Slovenia Originally from: Same as above |
| | Please tell us the story of how your gym came into existence It started with nothing but an idea — that strength must be forged.
When I opened my first space in Rogaška Slatina, there were no investors, no sponsors, no promises — only an empty room, a few barbells, and mats that carried the smell of sweat and purpose. What was built there came from iron, discipline, and belief.
From the beginning, the mission was clear: to create a place where people could become stronger in every sense of the word — physically, mentally, and spiritually. Strength training was the foundation, but combat was always the flame.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brought strategy, patience, and control — the art of solving chaos with calm.
Wrestling brought grit, dominance, and pressure — the ability to dictate where the battle happens.
Muay Thai brought precision, rhythm, and fire — the art of balance between grace and brutality.
All three became pillars of what we do — not separate arts, but connected expressions of the same truth: that the body and mind are weapons that must be sharpened daily. The gym grew from a few square meters into a 250-square-meter facility, filled with elite equipment, strongman tools, and a mat that has seen every emotion — victory, failure, exhaustion, and rebirth. The Conjugate Method became our backbone; powerlifting, Olympic lifting, strongman, and conditioning intertwined with the combat arts to build a new breed of athlete — the hybrid grappler.
Over time, Forge Fitness and Perun Combat Club became more than a gym. It became a temple of work, a brotherhood of resilience, and a training ground for warriors — from kids learning their first stance, to fighters preparing for war. We don’t chase comfort. We don’t chase trends. We chase mastery. And in this Forge, under the thunder of Perun, strength is not given — it’s earned, tested, and reborn.
Tell us about the people that train in the gym – who are they? The people who train here aren’t chasing shortcuts or comfort. They come here to earn what others only talk about.
Inside these walls, you’ll find fighters, grapplers, wrestlers, lifters, and everyday men and women who share one thing in common — they refuse to settle for less than their full potential. Some are professional athletes preparing for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, or wrestling competitions. Others are coaches, police officers, soldiers, and workers who carry the same discipline into their daily lives. We have men and women in their forties who lift more now than they did in their twenties, and young athletes just learning that strength isn’t about appearance — it’s about what you can endure and overcome.
Why do they train? Every person who walks into this gym carries a story. Some come from struggle, some from discipline, others from the simple need to feel alive again. But all of them come here searching for the same thing: truth through effort.
They train to build what the world tries to take away — strength, confidence, purpose, and pride. They train because comfort made them restless, and mediocrity made them sick. They train because they’ve realized that in a world that celebrates shortcuts, the long road still forges the strongest steel.
Some train to compete — to stand on the mat, in the ring, or on the platform and test themselves against another human being.
Others train to fight the quiet battles: anxiety, doubt, weakness, aging, fear.
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| | What are some of the challenges of running a BJJ gym in general, and in your area specifically? Running a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym is not just about teaching technique — it’s about building people. And that’s the hardest part.
In general, the biggest challenge isn’t the mat space, equipment, or even competition — it’s commitment.
BJJ is an art that demands consistency, humility, and patience. Most people love the idea of it more than the reality of it. They see the belts, not the grind. They want the results, not the process. So the first challenge is keeping people consistent when progress feels slow, and teaching them that mastery takes years, not months.
Another challenge is culture. BJJ attracts all types — hobbyists, competitors, fighters, thinkers. As a coach, you have to balance those energies, set standards, and protect the integrity of the room. You’re not just teaching armbars and guard passes — you’re managing egos, building values, and shaping a tribe that lives by respect, not hierarchy.
Then there’s the business side — which few talk about but every coach feels. Rent, bills, equipment, cleaning, and management all stack up. You have to wear ten hats: coach, marketer, therapist, manager, and leader. It’s not just about who rolls hardest, but who keeps the doors open when the mats are empty.
And here, in Rogaška Slatina, the challenges are even more specific. It’s a small town — beautiful, but limited. The population is smaller, and combat sports are still growing. People often travel for jobs or move away, and every few years you have to rebuild a new generation from the ground up. There’s less exposure to professional-level training culture, and the modern distractions — comfort, convenience, social media — make discipline a rare quality. The new generations often want fast gratification, not the years of invisible work that real mastery demands.
But that’s also what makes this place special. Because those who stay, those who keep showing up, are the real ones. They’re the ones who carry the flame. They’re the reason the room still breathes, the reason the Forge keeps burning.
Running a BJJ gym here isn’t easy. But it’s honest work — and that’s what makes it worth it.
How do you see the future for BJJ in your area?
The future of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu here will depend on how deep we’re willing to plant the roots.
Right now, we’re in a transition. The first generation — the ones who started out when BJJ was barely known — have matured. Some have left, some continue, and a few are still fighting to keep the flame alive. What comes next depends on whether we can build a culture that outlives individuals.
The challenge is generational. Today’s world is faster, softer, and distracted. But I still believe that the next wave of young athletes can rise if they are guided right — if they are taught that discipline, respect, and hard work still matter. That’s why I’ve turned my focus toward the youth — to create a new generation of hybrid grapplers, raised on the foundations of wrestling and BJJ, and refined through structure, physical preparation, and values. Ten to fifteen years from now, I want to see local athletes standing proudly on European and world stages, not because of luck or talent, but because of a system that forged them.
For BJJ to grow here, it needs to evolve beyond being just a hobby. It must become a path of development — a way for kids and adults to build confidence, purpose, and resilience. That means better coaching standards, collaboration between clubs, and stronger ties between grappling, wrestling, and conditioning systems. We may not have the numbers of the big cities, but we have something they don’t — authenticity. When someone trains here, they do it because they love it, not because it’s fashionable. And that, if nurtured properly, is enough to build something lasting.
So how do I see the future of BJJ in this region? Still small. Still tough. Still real. But with the right people and the right purpose — unstoppable.
What’s the best thing about your gym?The best thing about this place is the people — and the standard they hold. Everyone who trains here understands that this isn’t just a gym. It’s a forge — a place where you’re expected to show up, work hard, and be honest with yourself. There are no shortcuts, no gimmicks, and no one to hide behind. Whether you’re a fighter, a lifter, or someone just trying to become stronger, you’ll be treated the same — with respect and high expectations.
What makes this place special is the culture we’ve built. A culture of discipline, humility, and growth. The kind where people push each other, not to compete against one another, but to make each other better. The kind where you’re surrounded by lifters who cheer for your last rep, and grapplers who celebrate your small technical wins.
Here, everyone speaks the same language — work. It doesn’t matter if you come from Muay Thai, wrestling, or Jiu-Jitsu, if you’re an athlete or an everyday person. What matters is that you walk through that door with intent.
The best thing about our gym is that it’s real. No trends, no hype, no ego. Just iron, mats, sweat, and people who refuse to quit.
That’s what keeps the Forge alive.
What would you recommend Globetrotters to see in your area apart from the inside of your gym? If you’re visiting for training, don’t forget to look beyond the mats — this place has history, character, and a rhythm that reflects what we stand for.
Rogaška Slatina is known for its healing mineral water — the strongest magnesium-rich spring in Europe. A walk through the spa park and a taste of the Donat Mg fountain is almost a ritual here. It’s the opposite of chaos — stillness and recovery in their purest form.
For nature lovers, head toward Mount Boč, often called the little Triglav of eastern Slovenia. It’s surrounded by dense forests, old Slavic legends, and hidden stone cairns that whisper of ancient rituals. The climb rewards you with a panoramic view stretching over the Sotla Valley and Croatia’s green hills.
If you prefer culture, the Rogaška Glassworks — once the pride of European crystal craft — is worth visiting. It’s where fire, skill, and precision meet — the same philosophy that built the Forge. For a quiet day, explore the old streets of Ptuj, Slovenia’s oldest town, just 30 minutes away. Roman ruins, medieval towers, and the Drava River set the perfect scene for reflection — or a strong coffee after training. And when you need to refuel, visit local farms and inns for real food — not supplements or fads. Simple dishes, local wine, and genuine people.
Rogaška may be small, but it has soul — the kind that matches the spirit of the gym: strength, endurance, and timelessness.
So if you’re a BJJ Globetrotter visiting our region, train hard in the Forge… but take time to breathe in the hills, the springs, and the stories that surround it. Because strength isn’t only built in the gym — it’s found in the land, too.
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Thanks for sharing! If you'd like to visit Perun Forge, you can contact them here. |
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