Jozef Chen was born on July 30, 2004, in Taipei, Taiwan, to a Taiwanese father and a German-South African mother — a multicultural heritage that shaped both his identity and his approach to the sport. His upbringing was defined by constant movement. Chen spent his formative years living across Asia — Kuala Lumpur, Doha, Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Shanghai — absorbing new languages and cultures at each stop. That cosmopolitan foundation later translated directly into his ability to teach and connect with students across linguistic and cultural lines.

Before martial arts entered the picture, Chen competed in track and field and swimming, building an athletic base that would serve him well on the mat. At 13, he discovered a passion for martial arts and began training Muay Thai in Nanjing, China, with early ambitions pointed toward a career in Mixed Martial Arts. In August 2018, at approximately 14 years old, he stepped onto the mats for his first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class under Guillaume Leclerc — a session that marked the beginning of one of the most accelerated development arcs in modern submission grappling.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Jozef Chen's development is the learning methodology he built almost entirely on his own. Training in a smaller gym environment in Asia — far from the established academies of Brazil, the United States, or Europe — Chen was given both the freedom and the necessity to craft his own curriculum. Rather than relying on constant high-level coaching, he turned to instructional content as a primary resource, applying a discipline that set him apart from peers consuming the same material.

Chen's approach was deliberate and surgical. Instead of binge-watching instructional DVDs, he would screen-record brief clips — often just two or three one-minute segments — isolating specific technical details before taking them directly into sparring. He tested each concept against live resistance, identified what worked, refined his execution, and returned to the footage. "I'd have like three one-minute video clips I'd refer to before training," Chen explained of his routine. This iterative, homework-style process accelerated his understanding of complex grappling systems: leg entanglements, wrestling scramble sequences, and modern guard frameworks all became part of his game at a pace that consistently surprised observers. The intellectual discipline behind that method — essentially building a self-directed curriculum in grappling — has been central to his rise.

By 2022, after roughly four years of training, Jozef Chen announced himself on the international no-gi circuit by medaling at the ADCC Asia & Oceania Trials. The following year confirmed his potential emphatically. At the 2023 ADCC European Trials, Chen tore through a stacked bracket in a single day, defeating competitors with far greater experience to earn a berth at the ADCC World Championships. The performance stood out not only for the result but for the manner — composed, technical, and relentless throughout.

In the lead-up to the European Trials, Chen had traveled to Austin, Texas, to train with B-Team Jiu-Jitsu, where he quickly made an impression on Craig Jones and Nicky Ryan. That period of immersion proved pivotal, sharpening his game at precisely the right moment. The Trials victory earned him the Flo Awards Breakthrough Athlete of the Year honor for 2023 — a recognition that formalized what the grappling community had already begun to notice: a prodigy had emerged from a part of the world rarely associated with elite no-gi competition.

Despite earning an invitation to the 2024 ADCC World Championships, Chen withdrew from the event, choosing instead to compete at the Craig Jones Invitational. The decision reflected a deliberate prioritization of long-term development over the prestige of a single event — consistent with the analytical approach that has characterized his career from the beginning.

Jozef Chen's belt progression tells the story of a grappler who built his foundation through consistent study and competition before connecting with the resources that elevated his ceiling. He trained under Guillaume Leclerc from his first class through purple belt, and it was Leclerc's open-minded coaching environment — one that gave Chen the latitude to study, experiment, and develop his own game — that Chen consistently credits as foundational. During that period, he also worked with coach Dima Murovanni in Berlin, Germany, reflecting the cross-continental training network he cultivated before joining a major team.

The relationship with B-Team Jiu-Jitsu began in earnest ahead of the 2023 ADCC European Trials and deepened significantly following that victory. Craig Jones awarded Chen his brown belt in 2023 in recognition of his Trials campaign and the technical quality he had demonstrated. Roughly two years of B-Team mentorship followed, during which Chen continued competing internationally and developing his game alongside some of the best no-gi practitioners in the world. On March 6, 2025, Jones promoted Chen to BJJ black belt at B-Team Jiu-Jitsu — at just 20 years old, a milestone reflecting both the accelerated arc of his career and the depth of trust Jones placed in his development.

Chen's competitive style carries the unmistakable imprint of the B-Team system: a heavy emphasis on leg entanglements, dynamic wrestling scrambles, and confident guard play built for no-gi submission grappling. At the same time, he has never distanced himself from the coaches and environments that shaped his earliest years, consistently crediting the open-minded training culture that allowed his self-directed approach to flourish.

In 2024, following his ADCC European Trials victory, Jozef Chen signed with ONE Championship to compete in their submission grappling events, becoming one of the youngest professional grapplers on a major global promotion. His debut on the ONE stage was not a gradual introduction — Chen was matched against Tye Ruotolo, the reigning ADCC World Champion, in a high-profile contest that drew wide attention from the grappling community.

Chen lost the match via decision. The result, however, was widely framed not as a setback but as a demonstration. Competing at 20 years old against the sport's most decorated young champion, Chen delivered a gutsy, technically sound performance that showcased the composure and problem-solving under pressure that had defined his rise. In the aftermath, he returned immediately to training, identifying specific areas for improvement — particularly the wrestling-centric dimensions of rulesets that differ from ADCC's submission-only emphasis.

The ONE Championship platform served a dual purpose: it provided elite competitive experience under bright lights, and it expanded Chen's visibility across Asia, where his bilingual ability and international background position him as a compelling figure for audiences in a region where the sport continues to grow rapidly.

In January 2026, Jozef Chen opened his own academy in Shanghai under the name Nomadic Grappling (@nomadicgrappling), translating his years of itinerant training and self-directed study into a structured coaching environment for the next generation. The name reflects the trajectory that brought him to the mat: a grappler shaped by constant movement, multiple cultures, and the discipline of learning wherever he happened to land.

Structure and Curriculum

At launch, the academy offered limited-time annual memberships priced at USD $1,500 (as of January 24, 2026). Chen taught daytime open training sessions and classes, as well as half of the evening classes, delivering instruction in both English and Mandarin. Morning sessions were structured around two-hour open training blocks followed by post-rolling Q&A and feedback — a format that mirrors the iterative, analytical process Chen has practiced since his earliest days studying instructional clips in Nanjing.

Safety and Training Philosophy

The academy's safety policies reflect a thoughtful approach to sustainable training. Explicitly banned techniques include the flying scissor takedown (Kani Basami), jumping closed guard, sitting into the side of a partner's knee (including Tani Otoshi-style finishes), and flying submissions from standing — while sliding entries that first make contact with the mat are permitted. Broader protocols emphasize controlled lifts and mat returns, preserving a training partner's ability to post during throws, and applying submissions slowly to protect those on the receiving end. These policies encode a coaching philosophy centered on longevity and development over reckless aggression.

The academy represents the practical realization of a goal Chen has articulated throughout his career: to become the coach he never fully had, and to build infrastructure for grapplers in regions where the sport is still finding its footing.

Beyond the results and the trajectory, those who know Jozef Chen describe a competitor whose internal approach is as impressive as his technical output. He is consistently characterized as humble, analytical, and mature well beyond his age. At tournaments, Chen is often seen with a notebook in hand, watching adult black belt matches with the focused attention of a coach — cataloguing patterns, identifying tendencies, and filing observations away for future use.

That same disposition extends to how he shares knowledge publicly. Chen regularly posts detailed breakdowns of his competition footage on social media, offering genuine technical insight rather than highlights optimized for engagement. The practice reflects a belief that transparency about process — including losses and errors — carries more value than curated success.

Chen has spoken about wanting to become the coach he never had — a goal that carries specific meaning for a grappler who developed largely through self-direction without ready access to elite instruction. The opening of Nomadic Grappling in Shanghai in January 2026 represents an early, concrete step toward that vision, creating a home for methodical training in a city and region he knows intimately.

His story — a Taiwanese-German kid shaped by years across Asia, trained through internet instructionals and self-imposed discipline, refined at one of the world's top no-gi academies, and building a coaching legacy of his own — is a precise portrait of what globalization has made possible in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Chen embodies the internet-era grappler: one who leveraged every available resource, crossed every available border, and compressed a development arc that once took decades into roughly five years of relentless study.