The first time Jou Chun tried Brazilian jiu-jitsu, it nearly broke him. He couldn’t finish the warm-up, and then a 16-year-old girl on the mat “put me on my ass within seconds”, he says, “I wanted to cry!”

For someone who had already spent much of his life feeling like a bit of an outsider, it was a moment that threatened to double down on every self-doubt he struggled to fight.

Instead, it became the start of a transformation.

Growing up in South Auckland in the 1990s, Jou fought feeling like he didn’t quite belong. With Māori and Chinese heritage, he felt caught between cultures where he wasn’t “enough” of either to properly fit in in either community.. Sport wasn’t part of his upbringing, and school left him feeling like he was failing before he’d even begun. His one refuge was numbers, the “geeky maths stuff” that eventually led him into IT to support his mum.

But martial arts always pulled at him. Bruce Lee films and action heroes hinted at something beyond survival: strength, self-protection, the power to defend the people you love. All qualities that meant freedom and self-discovery to a mixed kid unsure of who he was.

The second time he stepped onto a jiu-jitsu mat, Jou found more than sport. He found a room full of regular people, “nerds and normal folk”,  where strategy mattered more than size. For someone who had always felt a sense of instability and “small-ness”, it was empowering. “You’d be surprised how easy it can be to protect yourself,” he says. “Jiu-jitsu shows you the smaller person can stand toe to toe with the bigger guy.”

That discovery reshaped his life. What started as a personal goal – earning his blue belt – grew into something bigger than just him when his coach left Jou in charge of the gym for a month. Representing the club pushed Jou to train harder, think deeper, and embrace discipline as a way of life. Eight years later, with a black belt around his waist, his mission has evolved a step further.

When he founded Syzygy Jiu-Jitsu, Jou wasn’t chasing titles. He was building a culture. “I don’t want to be the best martial artist — I want to be the best coach,” he says. “If I give away all my knowledge, my students improve faster, and that forces me to grow too…It’s not my club, it’s our club.”

Today, Syzygy is more than a gym. It’s a place where people of all backgrounds, experiences, skill-sets, and abilities can step onto the mat and discover belonging, confidence, and the quiet thrill of doing what might have felt impossible.