Emilie Maxine M. H. Thylin

Emilie Maxine M. H. Thylin — known competitively as Maxine Thylin and by the nickname "Machine" — was born on June 5, 1991, in Sweden. From an early age, she demonstrated a broad athletic curiosity, pursuing disciplines as varied as horseback riding and swimming before finding her true calling in the martial arts.

At age 10, Emilie began training and competing in Japanese Jujutsu (JJJ), a combat discipline demanding both technical precision and competitive resilience. She progressed rapidly through the Swedish JJJ competitive ranks, and by age 15 had earned a place on Sweden's Junior National Squad Team — a distinction signaling elite potential well before she ever stepped onto a BJJ mat. The grappling instincts, technical discipline, and competitive mindset forged during these formative years proved foundational to everything that followed.

Emilie Thylin's introduction to Brazilian jiu-jitsu grew directly out of her pursuit of excellence in Japanese Jujutsu. Seeking to sharpen her ground skills for JJJ competition, she began exploring BJJ at approximately sixteen years of age — stepping onto the mats around 2007, with her first competitive appearances in the discipline following shortly thereafter. Her early development was guided by her first BJJ coaches: Ricard Carneborn, Ralf Carneborn, and Marcelo Yogui.

What began as a tactical supplement quickly became something far more absorbing. Thylin found herself drawn to the Brazilian grappling format in a way she had not anticipated, developing a genuine passion that steadily eclipsed her connection to the Japanese discipline she had spent years competing in. In 2010, she made the decisive choice to step away from Japanese Jujutsu entirely and commit fully to BJJ — a philosophical as much as an athletic turning point. The recognition that her training tool had become her primary competitive identity accelerated her progress, as the national-level experience she had accumulated in JJJ translated directly into her new discipline.

Blue and Purple Belt Dominance

Emilie Thylin's trajectory through the BJJ belt system was defined by consistent excellence across multiple organizations and tournament formats. At blue belt, just her second year of serious BJJ competition, she earned a bronze medal at the IBJJF World Championship in 2009 — a result that announced her as a competitor of genuine international caliber from the outset.

Her purple belt years brought further confirmation of that potential. Thylin captured back-to-back gold medals at the IBJJF Pan Championship in 2011 and 2012, establishing herself as the dominant figure in her division at one of the sport's most prestigious annual events. She also reached the IBJJF World Championship final as a purple belt in 2010, underscoring the consistency of her performances at the highest level. Throughout this period, Emilie balanced her competitive schedule with a university career in psychology — a demanding dual commitment that reflected the same discipline and focus that made her formidable on the competition floor.

Brown Belt Breakthrough

The brown belt years represented the most dominant stretch of her colored belt career. Thylin won the IBJJF European Open in 2014, claimed gold at the IBJJF World Championship No-Gi in 2014, and then — in what proved to be her final season before black belt promotion — won the IBJJF World Championship in the gi in 2015. Taken together, her colored belt résumé, spanning from a bronze at the World Championship as a blue belt to gold at the same event as a brown belt, established Emilie Thylin as one of the most decorated Swedish BJJ competitors of her generation and laid the groundwork for the next chapter of her career.

In the years leading up to major IBJJF World Championship campaigns, Emilie Thylin developed a practice of traveling from Sweden to California to train at Letícia Ribeiro's Gracie Humaitá South Bay Academy for extended periods of three to four months at a time. These fight camps under Ribeiro — a former world champion whose technical acumen and competitive experience rank among the most respected in the sport — played a central role in refining Thylin's game and preparing her for the pressures of elite international competition.

The 2013 fight camp carried personal significance beyond the mats. It was during that visit to California that Emilie met her future husband, a connection that eventually guided her toward a permanent move to the United States in 2015. In a meaningful sense, the personal and the professional had converged through the world of jiu-jitsu.

After Thylin delivered a gold medal performance at the IBJJF World Championships in June 2015 as a brown belt, Letícia Ribeiro awarded her the black belt — a promotion recognizing both the depth of their coach-athlete relationship and the completeness of Thylin's development as a competitor. Her alignment with Gracie Humaitá under Ribeiro reflects a lineage-conscious approach to her growth as a practitioner, connecting her competitive identity to one of the sport's most storied affiliations.

Immediate Impact at Black Belt

Emilie Thylin entered the black belt division without any period of adjustment, competing immediately at the front of the field across multiple organizations and rulesets. In 2015, she won the SJJIF World Championship, and in 2015 and 2016 she claimed back-to-back UAEJJF Grand Slam LA titles — results demonstrating her ability to perform at the elite level across different competitive formats from the moment of her promotion.

World Championship Gold

Her defining black belt achievement came at the IBJJF World Championship in 2017, where she claimed the gold medal in the Pena division (58.5 kg / 129.0 lbs). The victory completed a journey stretching from a blue belt bronze at the same event in 2009 to the sport's highest title — a nearly decade-long arc of sustained development and competitive excellence. That same year, Thylin added runner-up finishes at both the IBJJF Pan Championship and the IBJJF European Open, confirming that her World Championship gold was the culmination of a consistently elite season rather than an isolated result.

Competing internationally under the United States flag following her 2015 relocation, Emilie Thylin's career spans two national identities: shaped and forged in Sweden, brought to its fullest expression while based in the US. The breadth of her résumé — across belt levels, organizations, rulesets, and decades — reflects a competitor whose longevity and consistency set her apart within the history of Swedish BJJ and among women's competitors on the global circuit.