Justin McQuown, head instructor and owner of Gustavo Machado Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on Main Street in Sarasota, opened his academy in April 2021, timing he now laughs about since it meant launching a close-contact combat sport in the middle of a pandemic. Instead of hurting the business, the moment helped it: people were looking for a way to feel capable of defending themselves and their families, and two of his first students, Bob and Ralph, are still training with him today. Bob, at 76, remains the academy's daily inspiration, a living answer, McQuown says, to the kids who complain about a hard day.
McQuown's path into jiu-jitsu began in the military, where he first encountered the sport in the mid-1990s while serving as an infantry Marine and later in the Army, and deepened it while moonlighting as an armed bail bondsman handling arrests in the Tacoma and Seattle area. After 9/11 he spent roughly 17 years in government contracting and counterterrorism training work across Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and other countries, including three years building out Jordan's SWAT team, where he trained an all-female tactical unit created specifically to search women in a culture where men could not. He trained under his instructor Gustavo for what is now nearly 19 years, and holds that jiu-jitsu, unlike more choreographed martial arts, is uniquely suited to real self-defense because a fight is never scripted.
From counterterrorism to touring with pop stars
A chance conversation during a 2016-2017 counterterrorism training assignment in Lebanon led McQuown into an entirely different career: security for major touring artists. His first tour was U2's 30th anniversary Joshua Tree run, and since 2017 he has worked tours for Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and others, most recently heading out for a Justin Bieber engagement at Coachella. He describes touring logistics that make some regions, particularly Asia-Pacific, cost-prohibitive unless an artist can fill a stadium for multiple nights, since flying full production rigs across the world only pencils out at that scale.
Building the academy and the belt system
McQuown built his Sarasota space deliberately unlike the typical industrial-warehouse jiu-jitsu gym, investing heavily to make it feel more like, in his words, a temple to the art, complete with uniforms provided for new students and a mandatory two-month positional-learning period before anyone is allowed to roll. He explains the sport's belt progression runs through time-in-grade requirements policed loosely by the Brazil-based International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation, with black belts, earning the title professor, taking on the ranks of coach and teacher rather than marking an end point. His current student base, he says, skews heavily toward adults in their 40s and 50s, including a one-legged student who trains one-legged with what McQuown calls unmatched toughness.
A skeptical yes on roundabouts
Asked about Sarasota's roundabouts, McQuown calls them a good idea in theory that breaks down in a city adding more of them at every major intersection while absorbing a large influx of new, unfamiliar drivers. He relays a secondhand story about a customer at a local coffee shop who was similarly unimpressed with the design, before turning to what drew him to Sarasota in the first place: pandemic-era business restrictions in Virginia, where his instructor Gustavo nearly lost a 20-year-old academy, pushed him to relocate south, ultimately settling in Sarasota as a compromise over Nashville.
What you'll take away
- Justin McQuown opened Gustavo Machado Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on Sarasota's Main Street in April 2021, in the middle of the pandemic
- He spent roughly 17 years in government contracting and counterterrorism training across Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon before shifting into tour security for major pop stars including Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Justin Bieber
- New students spend at least two months learning positions before they are allowed to roll (spar), and most current students are between 40 and 55 years old
- Belt progression follows time-in-grade standards loosely governed by the Brazil-based International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation
- McQuown calls Sarasota's roundabouts a good idea undermined by a wave of unfamiliar drivers, and says pandemic-era business restrictions in Virginia were what pushed him to relocate to Sarasota
“Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face.”
“If Bob can do it, you can do it.”
Places mentioned: Main Street, Venice