Coach Justin is a small-town community MMA instructor and fight coach, who has spent many years developing his innovative Judo-inspired No-Gi Submission Grappling and Clinch-Striking Muay Thai styles. 

Justin has been a professional Jiu Jitsu and MMA instructor as his main occupation since 2012. He earned his Judo and Traditional Japanese Ju Jitsu Black Belt Ranks in 2010, and his BJJ Brown Belt in Dec. 2014. Justin won gold in the Judo State Games of Oregon, achieved amateur MMA championship in 2015, and did his first Pro MMA fight in 2016.

He trained striking from a young age and as a teen competed in “underground” garage smokers for his first competition experience, later entering Judo competitions, BJJ competitions, and eventually MMA fights. Through his competition experience he found that conventional MMA wasn’t enough – his traditional Judo and Japanese Jiu Jitsu techniques ended up playing a pivotal roll in winning his MMA fights. Gradually, he shifted to developing a program that focuses on what himself and his students have been most successful with, using empirical methods to develop the program that is now known as IPFS (Integral Progression Fight System).

As Justin became involved with combat sports at a more serious level, he saw that talented, high-potential athletes often dropped out or retired very early due to the high injury rates that comes with traditional MMA training methods. Due to his own injury history and his unique view from being a coach and competing athlete simultaneously, he realized that he needed to develop a whole new, comprehensive training methodology. His system now puts emphasis on a variety of recovery methods and sport-specific strength and conditioning methods, in order to optimize each students’ training longevity and overall success, and to prevent the high injury rate associated with combat sports. Additionally, his system has been successful in lowering the amount of head impacts taken in hard sparring by obsessively focusing on defense.

Coach Emily got involved initially in 2012 through BioStructure, working on recovering from a horrible lower back injury, learning just movement patterns, healing methods, and physical fitness training. Eventually marrying Coach Justin & starting a family, over time she gained the ability to train Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai, as her lower back healed. Now having earned her blue belt level technical certification and even competed, she serves as assistant instructor in youth Jiu Jitsu classes and as a recovery coach. Her story, like coach Justin’s, is a powerful testament to recovery science over time being able to overcome physical hurdles and allow individuals to reach their potential in training and life.

ORIGINS: Nate started training with The Fight System gym in 2021 after he relocated to the west coast from where he grew up on the east coast in Maine. Knowing the combat sports scene was much more developed on the west coast, he journeyed to this area in pursuit of a martial arts career and eventually found IPFS. Nate fell in love with the training philosophy & methodology around defense and injury prevention at IPFS and committed to the team, seeing great results in his own development. Now Nate has entered into a formal professional apprenticeship with Coach Justin and has become the first employee of the school. Nate is an experienced kickboxer who has fought in two amateur matches with Coach Justin as trainer & cornerman where he showcased our system in dominant technical displays over more experienced opponents.
Now Nate has become an avid student of grappling, building his skillsets in JiuJitsu, Judo, and Wrestling to round out and balance his skill sets. He has grown into an aspiring JiuJitsu competitor and dreams of one day becoming a professional fighter. Nate is following in the footsteps of his coaches and teammates toward championship and elite skill levels, and receiving one-on-one mentorship from our team’s top competitors. Constantly studying our program curriculum and working with Coach Justin to film content for our instructional website as he progresses towards a full IPFS Instructor’s Certification, you’ll see Nate in many of the videos in our online study resources.
Nate has been an Assistant Coach in our younger kids (age 5-8,) & kids/teens (age 9-16,) JiuJitsu classes since mid-2023 and spent roughly a year teaching an introductory beginners’ striking class at the IPFS gym, while also working with numerous private lesson clients of all ages and backgrounds to develop a wide experience base.

OVERCOMING OBESITY AND ADD:
You can see Nate has made big moves to commit to his goals. But to understand how far he’s come, you need to know where he’s come from – Nate was formerly obese and managed to lose 50+ lbs of body fat to become the lean competitive athlete that you see now. Originally he got into striking because of his journey of weight loss simply to pursuit better health, then fell in love with the training and skills and eventually came to develop his aspirations to fight and pursuit a career in martial arts – driven by a passion to help others and share what’s helped him come so far in his life.
Additionally, Nate has struggle his whole life with severe Attention Defecit Disorder which often makes things more difficult that would be considered easy for a normal person without focus issues. Part of Nate’s journey is using his training in the martial arts to overcome ADD and hopes his story of acheivement and pursuit of his dreams can be an inspiration to young people who are struggling with this all-too-common problem to believe in themselves and pursuit their own dreams to live the life they really want.

Emily & Nate are receiving ongoing professional instruction and guidance on their strength and conditioning regimen in the BioStructure S&C/Functional Movement System, and has become well acquinted with the ins and outs of weight lifting, sprints and running, bodyweight calisthenics, and the various myofascial and mobility/stretching components of recovery as a peak performance combat sports athlete. This allows them to offer helpful advice about training routines and recovery to ordinary students just trying to get in shape without getting hurt doing it.