Royce Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Missouri
Royce Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Missouri offers group & private classes in Palmyra, MO for kids & adults of all ages & experience levels.
Who we Are And How We Can Help You
As an official member and representative of the Royce Gracie Jiu-jitsu Network, we are proud to represent the Gracie family name and carry on the tradition of Jiu-jitsu as a martial art of self-defense. Our owner and lead instructor was personally tested & promoted by the legendary Royce Gracie himself as part of a very small list of individuals from around the world that have attained the status of a direct Royce Gracie black belt. We are proud of our lineage. Our black belt instructor in Palmyra has trained under the Royce Gracie Jiu-jitsu Network from day one of training as a white belt and received every promotion, from white belt to blue, purple, brown, and black under the same lineage and team. We are the only source for authentic Royce Gracie Jiu-jitsu (self-defense) in the Quincy, Palmyra, Hannibal area!
Our lead black belt instructor trains regularly each year with Royce Gracie, and Royce Gracie visits our school every year to get to know and train with our students! We are dedicated to providing the highest quality self-defense training as close to the source of Gracie Jiu-jitsu (self defense) as possible, focusing on developing realistic self-defense skills in a safe, clean, professional, family friendly environment.
Get To Know Our Dedicated ROYCE GRACIE JIU-JITSU (SELF-DEFENSE) Instructor
Our owner and lead instructor is a Quincy native that grew up visiting his family farm near the Lewis/Marion County border in Northeast Missouri. Mark began training in folkstyle wrestling during his high school years where he served as a team captain of the Quincy Notre Dame wrestling team under Coaches Ken Mansell and Ken Hijar for both his junior and senior years. Around that time, Mark trained briefly in Vale Tudo at the Quincy Gymnastics center with a small group of students in 2002. Like so many around the world, he had seen the impact of Royce Gracie in the martial arts community – he remembers renting the VHS tapes from Family Video in Quincy in the 90’s which sparked his lifelong interest in Gracie Jiu-jitsu.
Mark later moved to North Carolina where, unbeknownst to him at the time, one of Royce Gracie’s very first personal black belts ever awarded, Professor Steve Hall, was opening a school under Royce Gracie in Charlotte, North Carolina under the team name “Fight to Win” where Mark began training from day one as a white belt. Professor Steve Hall was one of the first 10 black belts ever personally awarded by Royce and one of the first early group of Americans to achieve the prestigious rank directly from the Gracie family.
Professor Hall is well known for his technical detail in instruction and willingness to continuously grow and modify techniques in the pursuit of constant improvement and efficiency.
Over the next decade training with Professor Hall, Mark was able to regularly train with Royce each year as Royce visited his numerous black belts in North Carolina and across the country, including specialized instructor trainings Mark attended with Royce at the Valente Brothers academy in North Miami Beach, FL and instructor trainings at other Royce Gracie black belt schools throughout the country including Houston, TX, Los Angeles, CA, Oklahoma City, OK, Pensacola, FL, Raleigh, NC, and New Orleans, LA and many times each year when he visited the team’s own schools in the Carolinas.
Mark developed a serious commitment and focus on the self-defense curriculum training with Royce Gracie black belt Professor and former law enforcement professional Jon Plyler in Denver, NC on the same Fight To Win team under Royce Gracie and Steve Hall. Professor Plyler served over 15 years as a full-time sworn law enforcement officer and instructor, including 5 years as a specialized defensive tactics and ground defense instructor for a major metropolitan police academy.
In 2022, after nearly a decade of training, Mark was part of a small group of approximately ten brown belts invited to participate in the closed door Royce Gracie black belt testing process – one of the most difficult tests in martial arts and challenging and difficult processes in the world. Only two individuals passed the testing process that Spring in Lake Charles, LA, and Mark was directly awarded the black belt as Royce’s 173rd in the world.
Royce Gracie regularly visits his black belts each year, and Mark’s students will have the opportunity to meet and train with the Gracie Jiu-jitsu pioneer and UFC Hall of Famer various times throughout the year.
Mark regularly calls upon his experience as a licensed attorney and a certified firearms instructor (formerly NC CCW instructor) to provide a truly comprehensive self-defense approach to Royce Gracie Jiu-jitsu for kids and adults. Mark is also an active competitive shooter that participates in 3 gun and USPSA trainings throughout the year. He opened his own school on the same Fight to Win team in the Royce Gracie Jiu-jitsu Network in late 2023.
