John Will
John Will
John Will in Detail
John Will’s Lineage: Mitsuyo Maeda > Carlos Gracie Sr. > Carlos Gracie Junior > Jean Jacques Machado > John Will
John Will BJJ Competitive Record: Not available
John Will’s Association/Team: Will-Machado BJJ
John Will Biography
John Will was born on the 16th of April, 1957 in Geelong, Victoria – Australia. Though John’s father was a law enforcer, Will was bullied at school, and it was this that propelled his wish to start doing contact sports. He started wrestling at his local church club before he was introduced to the world of traditional martial arts by Tae Kwon Do, the Korean kicking based art, when he was 15. He grew more and more interested in fighting sports and 3 years later he left Australia to study Pentjak Silat – more commonly known as plain “Silat”, an Indonesian Martial art. He would later (1982) become the first non Indonesian to win the World Silat Championship in Jakarta.
In the late 1980’s John Will became the founder and editor of “Blitz” a magazine fully dedicated to martial arts. This allowed John to travel the world doing research on different styles of fighting. It was around this time that he began seriously training in Grappling and Jiu Jitsu. Having the chance (through the magazine) to meet legends like Gene LeBell, Rickson Gracie and the Machado Brothers made his entrance to grappling begin through the big door. John also travelled to Brazil in search for the best instructors there, all this hard work paid off in 1998 when Wills finally reached black belt honours from the hands of Rigan and Jean Jeacques Machado.
He moved back to Australian where he opened several academies, for more information check his website at: http://www.bjj.com.au/
