The Pursuit
Different teams. Same pursuit.
Four athletes. Four banners. One room they keep coming back to.
They come for the work. They make the work better, and the work makes them better. A rising tide, four boats, no one rowing alone.
Gialysson "Hiago" Freitas
Black belt. IBJJF No-Gi World bronze medalist. Owner, Arte Suave Jiu-Jitsu Academy.
Black belt under Júlio César Pereira, founder of GF Team. Lineage back through Monir Salomão to Oswaldo Fadda. Master 1 Medium Heavy. IBJJF referee. Competes as GFTeam Charlotte.
A No-Gi Worlds bronze and three Pan podiums in two years. The nickname StormHiago is the easy read. The harder one is his heart. The man does not stop. He brings the same pace and heart at minute one and minute ten, and that is the part you don't know until you do.
Suellen "Susu" Lima De Souza
Black belt. IBJJF Pan bronze medalist. Adult division.
GF Team Adult Black, Light. Top 1.5 percent globally by ELO. Pan bronze at Adult Black. Pan No-Gi gold at brown. Runs the ladies program at Arte Suave.
Adult Black Belt at Pans is arguably the deepest bracket the sport offers: open division, no age brackets, every prime-aged black belt woman in the world in the same room. Susu shows up there on purpose, against the world's best, and comes home with podiums. The smile in the photos is real. So is everything that built it.
Mike "Mikey" Powell
Black belt. Wrestler. Pro MMA fighter. Owner, Honest Grappling Company.
Wrestling base out of A.L. Brown High in Kannapolis. Amateur MMA titles by 2010, then 2-1 as a pro. Black belt under Rubão Carioca in 2020. Built Honest Grappling Company from the floor up. All gas no brakes.
Mikey gets called the kid for a reason. He came up the long way, one match at a time, in front of whoever was watching. He says yes when the call comes and shows up ready. You'd better pack a lunch if you're in the other corner.
Tom Ziegler
Black belt. MMA coach. Owner, Carolina Combat Sports.
Started training in 2007 under the late Sensei Paul Booe. Black belt under Gokor Chivichyan, founder of the Hayastan Submission Fighting System, in 2021. Has developed amateur and pro MMA champions for nearly two decades.
Eight years on this mat, Tuesday and Thursday. When a CJJA student wants to fight, the answer is easy. Talk to Tom. He came back from a year off after a serious accident, walked in the door, and rolled. There is a print on our wall from that day. The smile tells the story.
Different teams. Different paths. Same room. Same work.
If you are chasing something, the door is open.