Ezekiel Zayas
Ezekiel Zayas turned years of training and night work in Japan into a teaching career at ASES Valencia, later building the Ganbaru network.
Biography
Sources for this profile
BJJ Eastern Europe, Ezekiel Zayas interview, March 1, 2016(opens in a new tab)
Zayas trained judo from childhood until nineteen, then briefly tried aikido. After seeing magazine coverage of ADCC, he began grappling and MMA in Valencia around 2001–2002; gi classes with Tito Beltran convinced him that BJJ was what he wanted.
Where in the source: Answer 1: early martial arts.
Accessed:
In Japan he trained with Hiroshi Umemura and Mario Sergio Yokoyama. He credited that period with laying his technical foundations and making a full-time life in BJJ seem possible; Umemura later awarded him his brown belt.
Where in the source: Answer 1: Japan and brown belt.
Accessed:
Zayas said ASES began with fifteen students. By March 2016 he described an approximately eighty-square-metre mat with about sixty-five adults and twenty children, after years of gradual growth.
Where in the source: Answer 2: academy scale.
Accessed:
Living entirely from BJJ took time: he said that teaching at ASES, giving seminars and refereeing had supported him fully only for roughly the previous three years by 2016.
Where in the source: Answer 2: gradual professional transition.
Accessed:
Zayas rejected the idea that his development belonged to one teacher alone. He continued seeking seminars across teams and invited instructors including Tereré, Finfou, Costa, Comprido, Yan Cabral, Isaac Doederlein and Michael Liera Jr. to ASES.
Where in the source: Answers 1 and 2: varied teachers and visitors.
Accessed:
He described ASES as a place where travellers and practitioners from different teams could train together, valuing differences in background and culture rather than requiring everyone to be alike.
Where in the source: Answer 2: visitors and academy ethos.
Accessed:
His own game emphasised movement, open guard and repeated submission attacks. He explained aggression in technical terms as continuing to look for finishes.
Where in the source: Answer 5: personal game.
Accessed:
As a teacher, he wanted students to receive the guidance on competition nerves and mindset that he had learned through his own defeats.
Where in the source: Answer 5: what he tries to give students.
Accessed:
He encouraged students to select techniques that suited their bodies and personalities, rather than reproduce his own style. He judged clear teaching by whether less naturally gifted students could learn.
Where in the source: Answer 5: individual game and accessible instruction.
Accessed:
Fightsol, Ramon Piza interview with Ezekiel Zayas, October 2005(opens in a new tab)
In his 2005 interview he credited his friend Ángel Chaparro with introducing him to Valencia’s SAD academy, where he met Beltran and began training in the gi.
Where in the source: First answer: SAD and Beltran.
Accessed:
He chose Japan partly because an earlier scholarship stay had given him contacts there, and he believed he could earn a living while training. He also wanted to experience its martial-arts culture.
Where in the source: Answer on choosing Japan.
Accessed:
By October 2005 he was training at Alive Komaki, teaching BJJ and submission grappling three times a week, working nightclub security and occasionally teaching Spanish. His own preparation combined BJJ, wrestling, striking and conditioning.
Where in the source: Answers on everyday work and academy training.
Accessed:
He recalled Jacaré inviting him to warm up together before a Koral Cup in Tokyo, an encounter he regarded as a memorable opportunity to train with an established competitor.
Where in the source: Answer requesting an anecdote.
Accessed:
BJJ Asturias, Chiquito interview with Ezekiel Zayas about Japan(opens in a new tab)
Zayas recalled saving money and selling his car to try living in Japan, without knowing whether he would stay for months or a year. The experiment became a three-year stay.
Where in the source: Zayas interview, first answer on Japan.
Accessed:
He found an early training group after meeting BJJ practitioners at a sports bar showing Pride. Their invitation developed into regular training, and he eventually taught at one of the clubs where he had begun.
Where in the source: Answer on finding a dojo in Japan.
Accessed:
Establishing a stable income was difficult. He remembered waiting for the first morning trains after nightclub security shifts; a cheap car bought from a Brazilian student later made work and travel easier.
Where in the source: Same answer: work, transport and support.
Accessed:
Mario Sergio Yokoyama helped him find nightclub work and offered a Saturday teaching slot in Anjo. Zayas described travelling there after a Friday-night shift, sleeping in his car and teaching the next morning before returning to work.
Where in the source: Same answer: Anjo teaching routine.
Accessed:
When Umemura proposed that he run another academy in Toyota, Zayas faced a choice between staying in Japan to work for someone else and returning home to build a school his own way. He chose to return to Spain in August 2006.
Where in the source: Answer on deciding to return to Spain.
Accessed:
Soon after returning, he found a fitted-out academy available to take over. ASES began teaching in October 2006, which he described as fulfilling his ambition to run his own school.
Where in the source: Same answer: finding premises and opening.
Accessed:
IBJJF, Pan Championship 2006 official results(opens in a new tab)
IBJJF’s 2006 Pan results list Zayas third in adult male purple-belt featherweight, representing Team Mugen.
Where in the source: Adult / Purple / Male / Feather: full four-place table.
Accessed:
Graciemag, Ezekiel Zayas promotion report, March 12, 2010(opens in a new tab)
Zayas reported receiving his black belt from Ricardo De La Riva on March 10, 2010, at an Old School Jiu-Jitsu seminar in the Canary Islands. He described the promotion as a surprise and De La Riva as an important long-term influence.
Where in the source: Dated report and subject’s embedded message.
Accessed:
Comunidad BJJ, ASES grading report, May 13, 2012(opens in a new tab)
A May 2012 ASES report describes Zayas joining Brasa and promoting Alfredo Merelo and Michal Adamzack to black belt with Felipe Costa’s permission, alongside other adult and children’s graduations.
Where in the source: Report of May 8 academy grading.
Accessed:
Pasando Guardia, Zayas on individual jiu-jitsu styles, July 24, 2017(opens in a new tab)
Commenting in 2017, Zayas argued that apparently different styles reflected each practitioner’s physique and understanding. For him, effective movement and the search for submissions mattered more than dividing BJJ into old and new schools.
Where in the source: Named Zayas comment after Drysdale’s statement.
Accessed:
Comunidad BJJ, Pasando Guardia interview with Zayas and Calderón, October 23, 2013(opens in a new tab)
In a 2013 joint interview with Sergio Calderón, Zayas described masters competition as an opportunity to test himself against experienced practitioners from many countries. He encouraged older beginners to try BJJ according to their own aims.
Where in the source: His answers on the Masters Worlds and starting later.
Accessed:
IBJJF, European Championship 2016 official results(opens in a new tab)
At the 2016 Europeans, Zayas won male Master 3 black-belt featherweight for Brasa CTA, ahead of Daniel Alvarez Jr., with Cleyton Bastos and Kham Kone Ngondara sharing third.
Where in the source: Male / Master 3 / Black / Feather: complete table.
Accessed:
Team Ganbaru, team launch and camp announcements, April–May 2016(opens in a new tab)
An April 24, 2016 announcement introduced Team Ganbaru as Zayas’s new project: an open network where academies would support one another and where recreational practitioners and competitors were equally valued.
Where in the source: New Team announcement.
Accessed:
The team’s May 2016 announcement advertised its first Ganbaru camp near Hamburg for June 6–12, creating a shared training opportunity across the network.
Where in the source: First Ganbaru Camp announcement.
Accessed:
ASES, Ezekiel Zayas instructor biography(opens in a new tab)
The ASES biography dates the formation of Team Ganbaru to April 2016, bringing together the academies Zayas supervised in Spain, Italy and Germany.
Where in the source: Paragraph beginning with April 2016 team formation.
Accessed:
ASES, academy news archive, 2017–2018(opens in a new tab)
ASES’s news archive records the academy’s move to larger premises in the same Valencia neighbourhood at the start of 2018, with classes resuming in January.
Where in the source: December 22, 2017 move announcement and January 6, 2018 classes post.
Accessed:
The archive records Carlos Cortes, known as Bichopa, receiving his black belt in December 2017 after years of training, and describes repeated invitations to leading competitors as a way for the academy to keep learning.
Where in the source: December 28 grading report; May 15 Isaque seminar announcement.
Accessed:
Pasando Guardia, interview with Zayas on professional refereeing, February 23, 2018(opens in a new tab)
Zayas said Arbi Muradov invited him to referee for ACB after he had visited to teach a seminar. He treated refereeing as another way experienced instructors could contribute to the sport.
Where in the source: Named quotes on entering ACB refereeing.
Accessed:
He described professional refereeing as sustained concentration and immediate interpretation of rapidly changing positions, without the chance to rely on replays.
Where in the source: Written explanation of referee’s work.
Accessed:
He also helped find a venue for a planned March 2018 Barcelona event through a friend connected with the Spanish federation. He distinguished making a living by teaching from the harder task of living from competition alone.
Where in the source: Barcelona venue and closing professional-athlete discussion.
Accessed:
ASES Jiu-Jitsu Valencia, current professor profile(opens in a new tab)
The current ASES website identifies Zayas as its founder and director and as technical director of Team Ganbaru, with affiliates in Spain, Germany and Italy.
Where in the source: Named instructor profile.
Accessed:
The same current profile identifies him as an international referee and an AJP refereeing coordinator.
Where in the source: Instructor profile: officiating roles.
Accessed:
ASES Jiu-Jitsu Valencia, academy programme(opens in a new tab)
ASES currently offers children’s classes from age six, adult training for different levels and no-gi classes, with morning and evening options.
Where in the source: About-us programme on current homepage.
Accessed:
BrazilianBlackBelt, Ezekiel Zayas contributor and technique credits(opens in a new tab)
BrazilianBlackBelt’s contributor page credits Zayas with teaching material on De La Riva and spider-guard entries into sweeps and an omoplata.
Where in the source: Techniques by Ezekiel Zayas table.
Accessed:
Lineage
No teaching connections are shown on this page.
Open lineage