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| | | BJJ Globetrotters Newsletter // October 2026 | | Dear Globetrotters,
It was wonderful to once again see so many old and new friends in Copenhagen, where the camps all started! I'm back in the office to prepare for Zen Camp next week and after that it's time for me to work on the schedule for next year.
Here is the updated ticket status for our upcoming camps: | | | |
What you'll find in this month's newsletter: - Photos from Copenhagen Camp
- Featured Globetrotter: Teghan Hume
- Globetrotters Academy in Focus: Bulwark BJJ
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| | | Join our family friendly Jiu Jitsu and skiing camp in January |
| | We’re introducing a special, separate Winter Camp with a family-friendly focus. In a hotel exclusively for us, there will be skiing, snowboarding, Jiu-Jitsu, schnitzel, sleigh rides, waterparks, and plenty of activities for children of all ages. If you’ve ever wanted to come to one of our camps, but weren’t sure how to balance it with keeping the kids entertained, this is the one for you!
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| | | | Photos from Copenhagen Camp |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Next year's Summer Camp already 45% booked |
| | We’re back in Germany’s most beautiful city! Train in the same facilities as Olympic athletes, then unwind with a castle raid or enjoy a proper Weißbier in one of the historic squares while watching the world go by.
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| | | | Featured Globetrotter: Teghan Hume |
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| | Age: 36
Belt: Purple Beltch
Profession: Environmental Advisor
How many years in BJJ: 8…ish. Give or take a few existential crises.
Other martial arts: Muay Thai — 3 years, until I realized I don’t particularly enjoy getting punched in the face.
Where do you live: Currently Aberdeen, Scotland; soon to be Norwich, England.
Where are you from: Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada.
Any fun facts you'd like to share: Instead of Jiu-Jitsu competitions this year, I decided to do something completely reasonable and completed an Xtreme Scottish Triathlon (over half Iron Man distance) called the Solo .5 Celtman on the west coast of Scotland. It involved an open-water swim in the North Sea — featuring a frankly unnecessary number of jellyfish — cycling over the third-highest mountain pass in Scotland, and running around the base of a mountain. It was absolutely wild, ridiculously beautiful, and a fantastic way to voluntarily suffer in the Scottish Highlands. |
| | What inspired you to travel and train? My first big Jiu-Jitsu trip was to Hawaii to train and celebrate my birthday. Beaches, rolling (read: fighting strangers), and sunshine seemed like the perfect combination. And honestly, it worked. Somewhere between getting folded in half on the mats and eating my body weight in good food, I realized travelling for Jiu-Jitsu was definitely going to become a problem. A fun problem, but definitely a problem.
Tell us about your most recent trip and what's next – where have you been and where are you going?
My most recent big trip was to the Globetrotters camp in Copenhagen, and it was absolutely brilliant. I went with “Team Bus,” a group of amazing badass women (and Giles) from around the UK and EU. We originally met at a Queen’s Jiu Jitsu camp and somehow went from “people I met at a Jiu-Jitsu camp” to “people I will willingly travel across Europe with.” When the opportunity came up to reunite in Copenhagen for full days of Jiu-Jitsu classes, pastries, coffee, and general tomfoolery, it was a no-brainer.
I’ve been really fortunate to train in lots of different gyms across North America and Europe, and enjoy camps like including Globetrotters Pärnu, Queen’s JJ in Amsterdam and Stark’s Best Practice in Stockholm. Getting to train with different coaches and communities has been such a valuable part of my jiu-jitsu adventure. You get exposed to different styles, different approaches, and, perhaps most importantly, different people to complain about your sore back with.
My next adventure is already booked: I’m heading back to Estonia for the Tallinn Globetrotters camp with Cristiana from Ronin in Glasgow — go check them out if you’re ever in Scotland! |
| | What do you enjoy most about travelling? Food. Hands down. I love trying different foods, flavours and local places. Jiu-Jitsu definitely attracts a certain type of wonderfully weird human (neurodivergents unite! Woot woot!) but I think food is one of the things that connects people even more universally.
Wherever you go in the world, people celebrate over food, catch up over food, fall in love over food, grieve over food, and recover from getting choked unconscious or armbarred over food.
Some of my favourite travel memories are basically: drink coffee, eat , roll, eat again, talk nonsense, repeat.
Any particularly memorable experiences that made it all worth it?
I don’t think I can pick just one. It might be overly corny, but I think the connections you make along the way are the most memorable part. When you travel and train, there is this built-in community wherever you go. You get insider knowledge on where to go, what tourist traps to avoid, where to find the best food, and where the locals hang. And sometimes you make genuinely lifelong friends, people who will give you a couch to crash on the next time you’re in their country.
That’s one of my favourite things about Jiu-Jitsu. You can walk into a gym knowing absolutely nobody and leave with dinner plans.
What has surprised you the most while travelling? How the world is so big, but the Jiu-Jitsu community is ridiculously small. You will almost always meet someone who knows someone you know. You can travel halfway across Europe, walk into a random gym, and somehow discover that your training partner’s coach once trained with your coach’s friend’s training partner. It’s all connected. Insert Charlie conspiracy board here.
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| | | Are you a budget traveller – and if so how do you plan for a cheap trip? Budget applies to daily life. It does not necessarily apply to my travel budget. All logic and financial sense tends to go out the window. My general philosophy these days is “do it for the plot,” which is rarely the cheapest option.
You only live once, you don’t know how long you’ve got, and I think it’s worth spending money on experiences that leave you exhausted and smiling. So book the trip! (Unless booking the trip requires you to sell a kidney on the black market. In which case… maybe save up a little longer.)
Any advice for your fellow Globetrotters? Have fun with your rolls. |
| | | | Our second camp in Finland is 70% booked |
| | Welcome to the ultimate, all-inclusive Nordic summer camp experience! Step into a world of lakes, forests, and world-class sports facilities, and come join us for a few unforgettable days of Jiu Jitsu, nature, and Finnish magic under the midnight sun!
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| | | | BJJ Globetrotters Academy in Focus: Bulwark BJJ |
| | Where is the gym located?
Las Tunas, Manabí, Ecuador.
How many people train there?
Right now we have around 60 kids in the youth program and about 10 adults training.
Is the gym growing - if so by how many new members each month or year?
Yes, especially with the kids. We usually get one or two new kids joining every month, so it's been growing little by little.
What are the highest and lowest belt grades training? We have everything from brand-new white belts up. In the kids' program, orange belt is currently the highest rank. A lot of the kids are getting close to testing for blue belt, though, so that will be changing soon.
When did the gym open?
We started our current social project initiatives in 2021.
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| | Some facts about you:
Name: Ulises Baca Age: 35 Belt: Purple Profession: Mechanic, chef, assistant coach, founder of The BJJTripping Experience, and U.S. Army Veteran. Years in BJJ: 10+ Other martial arts: MMA Currently living in: Las Tunas Originally from: I was born in Peru and moved to the USA when I was a teenager. |
| | Please tell us the story of how your gym came into existence The kids program started with a few black belts from Guayaquil, mainly Professor Guillermo Lozano and Professor Julio Toulma, who decided to bring Jiu-Jitsu to Las Tunas and see what they could do with it here. I actually found the program a couple of years ago when I was visiting Las Tunas. I liked what they were doing right away and really connected with the idea behind it.
I moved to Las Tunas permanently, and I started helping with the classes and the project. With my background in the U.S. Army, I've always believed that things like discipline, respect, and being able to keep going when things get difficult are important. Jiu-Jitsu teaches a lot of those things naturally.
So for me, the goal is really to help continue what Professor Guillermo, Professor Julio, and the others started and give these kids a place where they can learn, train, and hopefully take some of those lessons with them into the rest of their lives.
Tell us about the people that train in the gym – who are they? We have about 10 adults who train regularly, but the kids are definitely the biggest part of the gym. We have around 60 of them in the youth program. They come from different backgrounds, and some of them are dealing with pretty difficult situations at home or in their community. Las Tunas is a beautiful place, but there are also real problems here, especially for kids growing up with limited opportunities.
Once they get on the mats, though, all of that kind of disappears. They're just kids training together. You can see the difference in them over time. They get more comfortable, they start pushing themselves, and they learn how to deal with losing and getting tired without giving up. They also become more confident. For a lot of these kids, Jiu-Jitsu is more than just going to practice. It's a place where they can spend time doing something positive, make friends, and work toward something.
We also couldn't do this without our sponsors. Their support is a huge part of keeping the youth program running, and we're very grateful for that.
Why do they train? For the adults, it's pretty straightforward. They train for fitness, to learn Jiu-Jitsu, and because they enjoy being part of the group.
For the kids, there are more reasons. Obviously, some of them want to compete, but they also get a lot out of simply being there. They learn discipline, respect, patience, and how to keep working when something isn't easy.
I think having a place like this where they can focus their energy and be around good people is really important.
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| | What are some of the challenges of running a BJJ gym in general, and in your area specifically? The biggest challenge is keeping the youth program running. That's really the main focus of what we're doing here. We depend a lot on our sponsors to make it possible. Things like equipment, travel to competitions, and the general costs of running the program add up. Without that support, it would be very difficult to keep everything going.
So that's something we're always thinking about—making sure we have enough support to keep the kids on the mats.
How do you see the future for BJJ in your area?
I'm really happy with how things are going right now. We've put together a competition team, and the kids have been doing really well at tournaments. We've taken them to different competitions and they've been coming back with medals pretty regularly, which is great to see.
But honestly, the medals aren't even the best part. I like seeing them set a goal, work toward it, and then realize they actually can do it. That means a lot.
I think BJJ has a lot of room to grow here in Manabí. The kids are getting more interested, and hopefully some of them will stay with the sport for many years. I'd love to see them eventually become the next generation of coaches and competitors from this area.
What’s the best thing about your gym?The location is definitely one of the best things. We're training outside, basically right by the ocean. We get the breeze, the ocean view, and it's just a really nice place to train.
But the kids are what make the gym special. After a hard round, you'll see them completely exhausted, sitting around laughing or talking to each other. Sometimes they're barely able to catch their breath, but they're still smiling. Those moments are probably my favorite part of being here.
What would you recommend Globetrotters to see in your area apart from the inside of your gym? There's a lot to do around here. We're right on the beach, and Las Tunas is a really nice surf town, so obviously surfing is a big one.
There are also some great places for whale watching, bird watching, and trekking. If you're more into adventure sports, you can go mountain biking or enduro riding. There are plenty of outdoor activities depending on what you're into.
For me, one of the best things about the area is just being outside. You can get away from everything, spend time in nature, and enjoy the coast. So if you're coming to Las Tunas, definitely come say hi and train with us.
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Thanks for sharing! If you'd like to visit Bulwark BJJ, you can contact them here. |
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