GEO MARTINEZ: THE B-BOY PRODIGY

The path to the black belt is a long and treacherous road of self-discovery in a jujuteiro’s martial art education. A dedicated practitioner can expect to spend ten years honing their skills and sacrificing blood, sweat and tears on a BJJ mat before earning their black belt. A decade is a long time to spend learning anything; most people who devote ten years of their lives to learning a skill-set generally get to add ‘Dr.’ before their name. To reach the rank of black belt in ten years is an accomplishment anyone should feel proud of. Earning a black belt in half that time or less is extremely rare, so much so in fact that only a handful of Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioners have accomplished this feat.

Geovanny ‘Freakazoid’ Martinez is one of those freaks of nature; a fast-learning jiu jitsu prodigy who is making a name for himself in the nogi and submission wrestling scene. Geo Martinez is part of a very elite club. He occupies rarified air along with BJJ luminaries like BJ Penn and Caio Terra. BJ and Caio are well known commodities in the jiu jitsu world, so it is fair to ask what can these martial artists have in common with Geo? The answer to this question is actually quite simple - all three men are prodigies who reached the rank of black belt in three years. Three years. To put this accomplishment in perspective, most BJJ practitioners will have earned a stripe or two, at best, on their blue belts in the same time frame Geo needed to be promoted to black belt.

Three years in for Geo looks a whole lot different than three years in for most people - after three years of training, most BJJ practitioners start wondering what their first tournament at purple belt will be like, but Geo is anything but ordinary. After three years of training, the 10th Planet wunderkind was wondering how to deal with Jeff Glover’s donkey guard while competing at his first Eddie Bravo Invitational - which he won by besting some very recognisable names in the BJJ competition scene, in some very exciting matches, where he gave grappling fans a glimpse of his wide array of eye-opening submission skills. Jiu Jitsu Style sat down with Geo to discuss his personal evolution and journey from B-Boy to grappling prodigy. This is his story.

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