About Us
519 Jiu Jitsu was founded on the principals of integrity, quality, freedom, community and family. Our first focus is our students. With nearly a decade combined experience, our coaches are prepared and passionate. We welcome all people with different goals and lifestyles, from beginner to advanced. We strive to create an encouraging environment to expedite learning and build community.
Brandon Lyons
Head Instructor & Coach
Brandon Lyons took an early interest in martial arts. Initially, as a kid, he made a few early attempts at different martial arts disciplines. Ultimately, nothing stuck until he was introduced to Jiu Jitsu by an influential high school teacher. Brandon immediately fell in love with Jiu Jitsu and grappling.
Brandon continued to train as much as he could over the years, though the challenges of various life circumstances made it difficult to train consistently. After her survived an assault and got encouragement from a friend, Brandon was motivated dedicate himself fully to Jiu Jitsu. From here he trained under many coaches. A big standout being Tom (Junaid) Beach. Under his mentorship and following some coaching opportunities, Brandon got his first chances coaching and developed his skills. Over this time a competitive team developed and quality of training vastly increased. He's very excited about the opportunities that await in this new venture!
Matt Curtis
Instructor & Coach
Matt has been studying various martial arts for most of his life. He's studied Kempo, Karate, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Boxing and Muay Thai. Matt has competed in multiple of these disciplines and, eventually, dabbled in MMA as well as it emerged throughout the early 2000s. He taught Kempo and Tae Kwon Do to both adults and kids, eventually branching out into Self Defense & kickboxing seminars at some of the local schools in the area around the town he grew up in.
After a long time of training, Matt took a break to go to school, and figure out his career. After about 6 or 7 years, once he felt stable in his career and life, he found himself wanting to get back in shape and decided he'd give Jiu Jitsu a try.
When he did, he got seriously hooked on Jiu Jitsu/Grappling. To Matt, it was instantly appealing to get to play the daily game of Jiu Jitsu versus Jiu Jitsu. The endless nature and the insane degree of creativity in the sport/game of Jiu Jitsu was something he quickly fell in love with.
Coach Brandon Lyons made Matt his assistant/uke for the Jiu Jitsu classes he was teaching at the time. This developed into Brandon and Matt being a team that taught No-Gi Jiu Jitsu to a wide variety of people for 4 years. Recently, Brandon located a facility to begin building their own independent Jiu Jitsu program. Matt joined in to help out with the coaching at 519 Jiu Jitsu. He's excited to share his years of martial arts knowledge and experience with everyone!