Colin Yun

Colin Yun, a Chadwick School sophomore and lifelong Manhattan Beach resident, recently competed in the juvenile division (ages 16-17) at the Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championships in Orlando over Labor Day weekend. He took bronze in his weight category and silver in the light absolute category (medalists from the 4 lightest weight categories can sign up to compete in an “open” division).

As a kid (ages 4-15) competitor, Colin is a 4x Pan Kids champion (most prestigious kids’ tournament in the world), 4x Brazilian Nationals Kids champion (most prestigious kids’ tournament in Brazil) and 1x European Kids champion. Colin has been training jiujitsu since he was 5 at Rodrigo Freitas Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Hawthorne. He has been competing since he was 6 and his competition calendar has taken him all over the world as a visitor and competitor including all over the United States, Dublin, Lisbon, Melbourne, and Sao Paulo as well as an upcoming trip to Rio de Janeiro at the end of the month.

Colin recently added strength and conditioning programming at The Yard this past summer to augment his jiu-jitsu training. During the summer, he trained jiu-jitsu 6 days a week and did strength and conditioning 3 days a week. Colin felt the strength and conditioning greatly improved his balance and explosiveness as well as giving him an ability to connect with other local athletes. Not only has jiu-jitsu provided Colin with skills in self-defense and sport jiu-jitsu, but it has also helped him develop self-confidence at an early age and a strong mental mindset for optimal performance in competition.  Colin has learned to distinguish between variables you control (training, diet, rest, planning, effort, focus) and variables you don’t (results) as he strives for peak performance heading into jiu-jitsu competitions as well as other competitive situations in life.

Now that he is back in school, Colin is trying to balance Chadwick academics and the necessary training for his remaining competition schedule. He has 3 important tournaments upcoming for the rest of the year:  1) Brazilian National Champions in Rio de Janeiro during the first weekend of October 2) World No-Gi Championships in Dallas during the second weekend of October and 3) World Championships (the most prestigious amateur event in jiu-jitsu) in Anaheim during the second weekend of December. Wish him luck!