About · Art of Entanglement · Monterey, CA
The name is the whole sport in three words.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the art of entanglement — two people tied together until the better-prepared one finds the way out. AOE is the No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu academy in Monterey built around that idea, opened in January 2024 and shaped by coaches who train, teach, and compete. Flow With Instincts is how we teach it: drill a move enough times and you stop choosing it — your body finds it before your head catches up. That’s the goal here, for the 4-year-old on day one and the black belt on day three thousand.
The idea is simple and hard to fake: a room can hold a competitor’s standard and still feel like somewhere you’d bring your kid. Most gyms quietly pick one. This page is where you check whether AOE actually does both — the coaching team, the record, the family, the awards, the room itself. Look it all up.
The coaching standard
A room built on verifiable credentials, not vague claims.
AOE’s coaching standard comes from real Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu lineage and current No-Gi training, not a generic “all levels” promise. The academy’s lead credentials include a 1st-degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under Gracie Barra, training under Paulo Castro, Erick Darnot, and Carlos Gracie Jr., and continued work around the Caio Terra Association headquarters in San Jose — one of the most respected No-Gi rooms in the sport.
The competition record behind the room, in specifics, not adjectives:
- ADCC Las Vegas National Champion — gold
- IBJJF No-Gi Pan-American Champion — gold
- IBJJF No-Gi World Championship — bronze medalist
- IBJJF U.S. National Champion — gold
- Multiple-time IBJJF gold medalist
- Ranked #3 in the world — IBJJF Master 3 Super-Heavyweight
But a wall of medals isn’t why people stay. People stay because the standard is teachable: beginners are walked through the room, kids are coached with patience, and competitors still get the pace and details they came for.
Who you’ll meet
The academy is run by a team, and you’ll feel that the first day.
AOE is family-run in the literal sense. Maria owns and runs the academy day to day — she’s the one who’ll know your name, your kid’s schedule, and your billing, and she speaks Spanish, so Spanish-speaking families are home here from the first hello. Gabriel coaches the kids — bilingual, patient, and the reason a four-year-old will walk off the mat asking when she can come back.
That’s why members keep using the same word without being prompted: family. It isn’t a tagline we hung on the wall — when you train here, the people running the desk, coaching the kids, and answering parent questions are the people actually shaping the room. That’s also what Flow With Instincts means once you’re off the mat: nobody here is performing. You stop wondering whether you belong and just start.
Recognition
What the county, the federation, and the police department have on record.
Two-plus years in, the recognition isn’t ours to claim — other people put it on paper:
- Best Martial Arts Academy in Monterey County — back-to-back. Voted it in AOE’s first year, and again the next.
- 3rd Overall Team at the IBJJF Sacramento Open. In only its second year, AOE’s team placed third out of 100+ academies from across Northern California — one of the strongest results a Monterey-area academy has earned at a major federation event.
- 2025 Monterey Police Department recognition. The department recognized AOE’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instruction and community work.
None of that happens in a room that only talks a good game. It happens in a room that competes, teaches, and shows up — which is the whole point of putting it here for you to check.
The room itself
Two mats, a sauna, a cold plunge — and a lobby built so you can stay and watch.
The space backs up the standard. You train on two mat areas, and there’s a CJI pit — an inclined wall mat that’s the only one we know of in the area, for the angles you can’t drill on flat ground. After class you can recover like a competitor: a sauna, a cold plunge, and a conditioning room are all here, not at some other gym you’d have to drive to.
And because half of AOE is kids, there’s a parent lobby built for one job — so you can sit, watch every minute of your child’s class, and not have to wonder how it went. Members keep noting it without prompting: “clean and spacious with ample parking.” Come see the room before you decide anything; that’s exactly what the free week is for.
Rooted in Monterey
We train the people who run toward trouble — for free.
Every Saturday at 6:30 AM, AOE runs a free class for first responders — no membership, no catch, just a standing open door for the people who show up for the rest of us. It’s part of why the Monterey Police Department recognized AOE in 2025, and why we work alongside the Monterey Fire Department and the Monterey Firefighters Foundation.
It runs deeper than one class. Sponsor support pays for uniforms so a kid who wants to train never gets turned away over money. The standing rule is that financial hardship doesn’t get to decide who learns this sport. For families raising kids who need a little extra patience and structure, that open-door spirit matters.
Monterey Firefighters Foundation · Moderate Foundation
Seminars
World names on the Monterey mats — and they’re free for members.
AOE brings respected grapplers to Monterey for seminars and camps that students usually have to drive to a major metro to get — names like Vinny Magalhães, Mason Fowler, Benji Silva, João Nicolini, Jaine Fragoso, Alan Sanchez, and Marvin Castelle. Seminars are free and for current students only — there’s no public ticket to buy. When one’s coming up, the flyer goes up on the wall and here on the site. The simplest way to be in the room for the next one is to already be training when it lands.
Come see for yourself
You’ve read the record. Now stand on the mat.
None of this means anything until you’re in the room. So don’t take our word for it — take the free week. A full week of classes, any session you’re eligible for, with no commitment to start, and no uniform or gear to buy for the free week. If it’s not for you, you walk away owing nothing. As one member put it: “Sign up. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.”
Or call now — 831-228-5225