Today we’d like to introduce you to Collin Quarles

Hi Collin , so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?

As many young boys are, I absolutely loved to rough-house. I loved to grapple with my dad & little brother, but it went a little further than what might be considered typical for an 8 year old. I have always had some unexplainable obsession with the art of hand to hand combat; my favourite TV shows were Batman & Dragon Ball Z, my idol was Randy Couture, & I was utterly mesmerized by the UFC VHS tapes my dad would bring home from work. Looking back, I don’t even think my parents were aware that my brother & I were watching these events from such a young age; my dad worked third shift, so as soon as he got home he would go to bed, meaning that left us a solid seven or eight hours to binge whatever UFC event my dad had left in his work bag.
Not so surprisingly, I found myself in trouble often during my younger years. I frequently got into fights with kids in school when I was in disagreement with them. In my own mind I was dishing out justice, unfortunately the teachers & parents didn’t see it that way. After trying to channel all that physical energy into various stick-and-ball sports, my mother finally agreed to let me try out the sport of Folkstyle Wrestling, as per my Dad’s request. It ended up being the perfect match.
Fast forward to today, I am as big a Mixed Martial Arts fan as I ever have been & am still Wrestling multiple times a week with my teammates & students at the local Jiu-Jitsu academy that I teach & trian at. My goals have shifted now as I do not approach Wrestling in the same way as I did before; now the emphasis is on Wrestling in the context of No-GI Jiu-Jitsu & MMA, which are the two things that I enjoy the most.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

I feel bad saying things like this because I know others have had it way tougher than me, but I would be lying if I said it felt like it hadn’t been an incredibly rocky road for me. Besides the fact that Wrestling is one of the most grueling sports on the planet & that I have spent around twenty years involved in it in some capacity, it has not been the smoothest trail financially either. I didn’t finish college & the US economy isn’t exactly thriving these days, so trying to grow a following & make money teaching Grappling while everyone has very tight pockets isn’t ideal. The slow but steady growth of my Social Media following has definitely helped things move along, but even that is a bit of a struggle with how META makes you pay to get your reels picked up by the algorithm. When I first began creating content it was fairly easy to get views; many of my older reels when I had less than a thousand followers were getting thousands and thousands of likes. Now I am lucky to get two-hundred likes after boosting a post for ten dollars at a time.
Another struggle right now is that the UFC abuses their copyright system to a point where it is borderline impossible to create good content on there unless you already have a Social Media following from another platform. I don’t know how many videos I have uploaded on there that have instantly been taken down for having a ten second clip of a fight from fifteen years ago. I am working to fix this issue though & will hopefully have a solution in the near future.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I would say that while people do know about my grappling abilities & knowledge, the thing that I am most known for is Mixed Martial Arts, which is a bit funny to say out-loud considering I have never been in an MMA fight myself (small regret). I don’t think people think of me in the same light as a fighter though, it’s more-so about my analysis of the fight game itself, especially when it comes to Grappling for MMA. A year or two ago I decided that I should use my fandom for something productive, so I started posting Grappling techniques & fight breakdowns on Instagram. I think what sets me apart from a lot of other MMA analysts & media members is that not only have I been a lifelong fan of the sport, but I also have a Wrestling & Jiu-Jitsu background; I Wrestled for eight years competitively & I am a Brown Belt in Jiu-Jitsu at the time of writing this. I believe this history gives me a unique perspective on the sport that you cannot find in many other fight analysts. This has also allowed me to give private lessons to Wrestlers, Jiu-Jitsu competitors, & even MMA fighters, which is very flattering to me considering I have never fought myself.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?

As a child I was very rambunctious. As previously stated, I loved all things fighting; whether it was wrestling or sword fighting with sticks in the front yard I was always doing something combative. However, as a teen I was much more quiet & introverted. After going to a very small private school from 4th grade to 8th grade I moved to a local public school so that I could continue Wrestling competitively. This was a very tough adjustment for me & I don’t feel like I actually ever fully came out of my shell, even by my senior year.
Interests wise, everything was more or less the same as it is today with a few minor additions; I did the classic teenage boy thing of playing guitar for a period, I played Piano for a while, I was into drawing, but most of all I loved to lift weights in my parents garage. This began as a means to improve my performance on the mats, but it eventually grew into an obsession with Bodybuilding & eventually Powerlifting. I competed in Powerlifting a handful of times & was pretty good at it, but that specific style of lifting eventually got stale. Now while I do still lift weights regularly today, it is almost entirely a cathartic practice for me & a way to help with injury prevention.

Pricing:

• Private Lessons: $100 for up to 2 hours
• Workout Spreadsheets: $50-$100

Contact Info:

• Website: https://checkmatvirginia.com/private-lessons/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grappleheavy93/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/collin.quarles/