James Harry Tomlinson was born 11/06/1983 in Sydney, Australia.
As a young chubby, uncoordinated child JT was bullied on a regular basis. Kids would not choose him and go a player short on their team because he was such a bad player. His mother Jillian Tomlinson had him in ballet class from as young age and once he started primary school he progressed to Gymnastic classes. It was straight from 1 leotard to another. The focus family focus was not on sport but doing well in school. Having a good vocabulary didn't help JT himself out of getting beaten up. After many years of physical and verbal abuse he hit a critical point where enough was enough and JT begged his mother to let him learn self-defense. It just so happened that there was a Tae Kwon Do school that taught out of his primary school hall. This is where he discovered discipline, physical fitness and confidence to stand up for himself. There was one incident early on where he was able to defend himself against a bully using a technique, he learned only days before in class which saved him from being beaten up, so he was hooked and trained almost every day of the week. This revolutionized his life and body. At around the same time he discovered weight training through his father Sam Tomlinson. He was a dedicated runner and set up a home gym on the family back veranda. The mixture of Martial arts training and weightlifting enable JT to grow and develop rapidly so that by the age of 12 he stood 5'10 and weighed 72kgs. Puberty had kicked in and with the confidence and size JT was determined not to let anyone bully him again. He improved quickly at Tae kwon Do and achieved his black belt by the time he was 13 years old.
This caused some problems in high school where he would struggle to fit in and would get into fights with senior students when they tried to assert their authority of him and his fellow junior students.
At age 15 a mixture of teenage boredom and his rebellious nature drew him towards hip-hop culture and Graffiti. This led to many adventures, friendships but ultimately more trouble. JT continued to train and compete in TKD, play basketball and just made it through high school with a solid determination to work in a Gym as this is where he spent most of his time outside of school.
After completing his qualifications he started his working in a local gym during his Gap year. After a great start to his Personal training career he started his first year at Sydney University studying an Education degree with a mind to become a Physical Education Teacher. A year was enough for him to realize that Academic life was just not the right environment for him. JT had always wanted to be an athlete and pursue the dream of being an Olympian. Deciding to quit University and continue working as a trainer until he moved to Melbourne, Victoria in Late 2003. The Australian Tae Kwon Do Team was based in Victoria, and he took a part time Personal Training Job while he trained full time to try to achieve the goal of making the team. JT was winning various state and national Championships and fought internationally in 2007 he was unable to qualify for the Olympics. At this time he also suffered a serious knee injury which side lined him causing him to reconsider his lifelong pursuit of TKD.
So he took a break, not consciously quitting but he never did TKD again. During this break he discovered Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. His first class was extremely frustrating and humiliating. He got man handled and squashed! This planted a seed of discontent that burned for weeks until finally JT walked back in, bought a BJJ uniform and was committed to learning this crazy martial art. He was obsessed and dedicated every spare moment to training and competing. In 2009 after only 12 months of training he travelled to Rio De Janeiro to compete in the Rio Open as a white belt. Which he was able to win. This early success gave him the belief to pursue BJJ with even greater passion. After many years of training, competing and traveling to and from Brazil, U.S.A. and Canada JT started teaching BJJ and this had him considering all the challenges that face someone when they first start BJJ. It's very hard to grasp the many concepts and techniques that they then have to physically execute while their partner tries to strangle them. A challenge which takes many year to overcome and often be so challenging they quit before they can get a good understanding.
Being an avid lover of chess and card games, specifically UNO that he played endlessly as a child with his sisters, JT conceptualized a BJJ card game that would serve as a theoretical way to mind map sequences and actual BJJ techniques so that as you learned to play the game you were learning Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.
This started back in 2016 and took a couple of years to materialize. At the same time a story was coming together of a BJJ super hero. After a full year of drawing designing and testing JT released the first version of the game the Original JiuGo deck. Only 500 were produced. It was at this time he received his Black Belt in BJJ. Once the game was out in the world, he worked on drafting his characters that would form the story of his first book. After 18 months nearly all of the Original Decks were sold. JT had already started iterating the design and more advanced game play of the second edition of the Game.
This coincided with receiving an iPad as a birthday gift. Using the procreate app he was able to combine his graffiti and drawing skills to create an entirely new look for the game. The games development simultaneously evolved as JT created the world of JiuGo and drafted an Early 90's narrative very similar to his own childhood experiences.
The JiuGo Core deck was launched at the end of 2019 and very well received quickly selling 1000 copies in a matter of months.
Towards the end of 2019 JT wrote much more consistently developing in depth back stories and character profiles for everyone in the JiuGo universe. When Covid Pandemic put Melbourne in lock own JT couldn't teach BJJ or do Personal training, so he took the opportunity to write. He would get up most mornings at 4am write for 2 hours then during the day he worked at Man with A Van as a furniture removalist to maintain an income. After work he would work out in the basement of his apartment building and continue to write for an hour or 2 at night. On days off he would write all day. By late October he had written 120,000 words. After seeking editorial help JT was advised to split the JiuGo story into 2 parts. After many revisions, drafts and edits JiuGo The Power of Jiu-jitsu was ready to put out into the world.
JT explored various options around publishing and ultimately decided to self-publish. He continues to work on JiuGo Book 2 which should be released in mid-2022. His obsession with learning and personal development drove him to make the JiuGo game but it was his love of action movies and the great mythologies of modern culture; LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter, TMNT, Karate Kid and Bruce Lee that really fuelled him to create a world of his own. All these inspiring stories and heroes encouraged JT to pursue martial arts and he wanted to create a world where he could impart all the valuable lessons he had learned from the world of martial arts in a form that a 10 or 12 year old child could relate to.
As martial arts had served as such a powerful catalyst in his own life JT wanted to create a narrative that would advocate for other young people to take the martial arts path and if they are experiencing bullying to find courage to stand up for themselves.
Within the world of super heroes JT was beginning to get sick un-relatable characters and looked to create real characters that reflected his lived experience but also that of his peers when they were growing up in the 90s.
From his perspective the early 90s had not really received their due respect as a culturally important point in time. This pre-internet era holds a naive beauty and simplicity that is missed by many who grew up at this time. In an attempt to paint an honest picture of this more basic time from a child's perspective felt real. The mixture of growing up in a small town, not fitting in and being misunderstood were themes, which JT thought any child could connect with. This also gave a chance to create humour through the ridiculous situation that can occur when you try to hard to fit in.
JT is currently working on the draft for the "Empire High" series which exists in the JiuGo universe and features many characters from the first 2 books.
When he isn't writing JT can be found lifting heavy things at Jungle Brother's Strength and Movement and when conditions permit, he trains BJJ.
JT hopes that through the collective impact of his creative out puts will encourage more young kids to train martial arts and be empowered by all the personal lessons that come with it. Ultimately JT wants to give the world a BJJ super hero. In the same way Bruce Lee had led his life to turn himself into a Chinese Martial Arts super star, inspiring generations to come. His goal is to tell cultural narratives that are not commonly told or expressed in modern media and pop culture. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is the Nerd's Martial that requires intense amounts of technical study and obsessive physical practice. With this intense amount of work to improve there is also a large dose of humility, which gets force fed to you every day you are on the mats training BJJ.
JT hopes that in the future almost everyone will train BJJ, or some kind of martial art and we will see a significant reduction in random acts of violence and youth deaths. Also an increased level of tolerance, achieved through the universal language of BJJ. In order to achieve such a broad sweeping change it is his goal to get as many young impressionable kids into BJJ as possible, this will prepare the future generations by making them better decision makers and more resilient to whatever challenges are coming.