STARTING IS THE SCARY PART. WE'LL TAKE CARE OF THE REST.

KOREY KERBER

Ares BJJ Black Belt • Head Instructor

I almost quit jiu-jitsu in my first month — and it had nothing to do with getting tapped.

I'm shy. I'm introverted. Walking into a gym full of strangers and asking someone I'd never met to drill with me felt impossible. So I did what a lot of new people do: I stood against the wall, hoping someone would come to me, quietly deciding I probably wasn't cut out for this.

Then a brown belt named Omar pulled me off the wall.

He told me nobody was going to be annoyed if I asked them to train. He told me everyone in the room had been exactly where I was. And he told me the only real difference between a white belt and a black belt is that the white belt kept showing up.

I kept showing up. Fourteen years later, I'm a black belt under Osvaldo "Queixinho" Moizinho, co-founder of Ares BJJ. I've competed at American Nationals, Pans, Worlds, Fight to Win, and the Phoenix Open.

But here's the thing nobody tells you about most BJJ gyms: they'd rather have one national champion than fifty lifelong beginners. The ego-heavy rooms. The coaches who only pay attention to the competition team. The culture where new people stand against the wall until they quietly stop coming back. That's why most people who try jiu-jitsu never make it past 90 days.

I opened Dark Matter because I wanted to build the gym I wished I'd walked into on day one. A place where the quiet guy who's never done this before gets pulled off the wall. A place where "everyone taps" isn't a warning — it's a welcome.

If you're nervous about starting, if you don't know anyone who trains, if you're worried you'll be the only one who feels out of place — you're exactly who this gym was built for. Come take a class. I promise you won't be standing against the wall.