Kody Steele is a BJJ athlete originally from Port Angeles, Washington, he moved to Texas when he was 17 years old. Originally having a strong background in wrestling, one year after his move to Texas he began training BJJ, as he mentions “When I moved to Texas in my senior year of High school they didn’t have any wrestling. So I started looking into Jiu jitsu gyms that they had around me here in Austin”.
Since then he has trained at Fight Factory in Texas and is taught under Rodrigo Cabral. He lists this as one of his greatest achievements in Jiu Jitsu adding “One of my greatest achievements is receiving my black belt under the teaching of Rodrigo Cabral from white to black.”. He also speaks highly of Cabral, adding “I would say my (biggest influence is) professor Rodrigo, our styles are very similar. I also watching people like Dj Jackson, Garry Tonon and JT Torres have inspired my game a lot.”. Further, he goes on to say “Rodrigo is a really good teacher. I would say it’s everything from the ‘no ego and no drama’ atmosphere he puts out into the gym, his unique BJJ teaching style, and the way he treats everyone in the gym as equal no matter your belt color.”. It is clear that after reading this, he has a lot of respect for his teacher.
Having achieved his black belt at age 24 – he has since made a name for himself by combining both BJJ with his wrestling skills. Competing at 175lb, he often takes part in superfight matches such as F2W, Combat Jiu Jitsu other tournament formats. When asked about his hardest opponents in competition he claims “I would have to say Vagner Rocha & Jonnatas Gracie. Both of those guys are extremely tough in different ways. And I learned so much just by fighting with these two warriors.”
Similar to Vagner Rocha, Steele is no stranger to Combat Jiu Jitsu and won the Combat Jiu Jitsu Worlds title in 2019. Perhaps this ties into the aggressive nature of wrestling, regardless he states “I do like fighting No gi. But I really enjoyed combat Jiu Jitsu, getting to slap people was really fun. I hope to get more super fights in CJJ in the future. Vagner Rocha is someone I look up to and MMA is something I hope I can do in the future. My plan is to do MMA and win titles and be able to represent Jiu Jitsu and Austin, Texas. Also a fan of ADCC, he continues “I feel like the ADCC rule set fits my style perfectly. I love the style of the scoring system and it keeps all the matches really entertaining to watch. There’s a lot of scrambles and wrestling in ADCC which I feel fits perfectly in my game.”
However, he is not just a wrestler with a good top game, for instance when playing guard he usually favours half and X-Guard to create sweeps – and then uses smash passing when on top. In terms of submissions, Steele often uses the Rear Naked Choke from the back position.
Steele does not only have plans to compete – he also has future ambitions of owning his own gym and bringing through the next generation of talent, saying “I would like to have the opportunity to travel more & win some more big titles. Also, I want to open my own gym in the future & have the opportunity to teach and build really good competitors“.
Finally, Steele ends by saying “I’ve recently started working on a new website called BJJBRAIN. It’s going to be teaching and training based around techniques and styles of the BJJ game”. His website can be found here: https://www.bjjbrain.com/ and he also has a wrestling for BJJ instructional here.
