Many people have some story where they pulled off some personally implausible and impressive physical feat. Whether it’s moving a great weight, running with unusual swiftness, or coming out of an unfavorable fight victorious, these feats stand out among other memories and stories as something to celebrate. For most people, these are rare, inconsistent events; this is not so for professional athletes. The difference between such an average person and a professional athlete is that for the latter, it’s more than just a story—it’s a consistent, replicable skill.
Strength, technique, and the ability to perform feats of athleticism only become true and consistent with training, practice, and dedication. Finding the discipline, not the motivation, to continually focus on training the mind and body is a critical component of being a successful athlete. This is especially true for martial artists like Canadian grappler and jiu-jitsu black belt Kieran Kichuk, where each movement and technique has the potential for harm if not executed perfectly.
Kichuk has developed his athletics, technique, and submission-oriented style for fifteen years, and that consistency has led him to numerous successes in important tournaments including the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation Pan American No-Gi Championships. He’s a rising star in the tournament scene, and that rise is powered by a disciplined routine, a dedication to learning, and his perseverance through hardship and failure. Through his own tournament performances, and through his grappling classes at the local Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) academy, Kieran Kichuk demonstrates the value of discipline and consistency in athletics.
Learning, Growth, and Adaptability
Success in any field, specialized or not, comes to those who are open to learning and seek out opportunities to grow. Kieran Kichuk is no exception. Despite being initially inspired by UFC fighters like George Saint Pierre, Kichuk’s decision to pursue grappling—and, by proxy, wrestling—as a sport of choice meant that he wouldn’t have access to the same institutional resources other sports have built over the years. BJJ and grappling were, at the time, relatively new sports, with all the challenges that come with the fact.
“Being an athlete in a new sport meant that there were no available managers with any kind of relevant experience,” Kichuk explains. “This means I had to take it on myself to learn about marketing and social media. Learning these skills was a long process and I collected little bits of mentorship over the years from successful athletes I met in the community.”
Fortunately, Kichuk was accustomed to hard working conditions with little support. After spending four years in the restaurant business as a line cook, one of the most exhausting and high-effort jobs in the industry, he’d built up a tolerance and respect for hard work. Despite the overwhelming workload and cadence of the job, Kichuk emerged on the other side with a level of grit and the mental stress management strategies that would serve him well in earning his black belt and navigating the early days of his sport.
Those early experiences taught Kichuk the skills he’d need to be a successful athlete, and also a successful teacher. By embracing the mindset of the eager and curious learner, Kichuk is able to stay at the forefront of his sport’s innovations and tactics—and also pass that knowledge on to his students and social media followers. Grappling is a relatively young sport, and much of the new developments in it are found on social media, specifically Instagram. Tracking those developments is an important part of Kieran Kichuk’s success.
“I keep up with the latest competitive trends and what my competitors are providing to their clients a couple of times per week,” he says. “I do this through video analysis, and by accessing the public pages of my competitors.”
Overcoming Challenges And Embracing Failure
If there is any fundamental truth to life, it is this: failure is inevitable. In any venture, in any career, failure can and will happen to anyone. How someone responds to that failure is the deciding factor, and Kieran Kichuk long learned the correct response: get up and try again.
For Kichuk, failure is a teacher, not something to be afraid of. He says, “I learn best by doing, so I jump in headfirst and take the initial failures on the chin. I act quickly when I do something wrong, and the immediate result of the correction helps to reinforce the skills required for the specific project.” The willingness to take risks, analyze his own performance, and learn to do better has been a huge factor in Kichuk’s success, even in the midst of failure and doubt.
One particular case stands out in Kichuk’s memory: the final of the 2024 Pan American Championship, Kieran Kichuk versus Oliver Taza, a fellow Canadian grappler of notable skill. Kichuk lost in 15 seconds, and the embarrassment he felt posed a major challenge for him. With such a decisive, public defeat on his record, he feared that nobody would be willing to learn from him, and wondered if his friends would think less of him for his performance. However, Kichuck leaned on his loved ones and used the loss as a motivator for renewed training and improvement.
“The realization that epic failures come as stepping stones to success helped me pull back through and get back to competing,” Kichuk says.
Finding Strength in Routine
Consistency and discipline are two core pillars of any martial artist’s journey, and those traits often naturally guide serious athletes toward a consistent daily routine. Kieran Kichuk’s daily routine is designed to maximize his productivity and accomplish his goals, with care taken to include time for both his own personal training and his professional development as a coach and content creator.
Kichuk’s routine splits each day neatly into two halves. From waking up around 8:30 AM until his midday rest at 3:30, he focuses on editing and posting to his social media pages, lining up meetings and task lists for the next day, and getting in a 1-2 hour weight lifting workout. By spending the morning focusing on future tasks and personal health, Kichuk is able to smoothly handle his social media development and free himself up to focus on his career in the afternoon and evening.
Kieran Kichuk’s evening routine, starting at 4:30 PM, is laser-focused on his Jiu-Jitsu grappling career. He prepares for the evening workouts and classes, then warms up with a cardio workout before going to his local BJJ academy for partnered technique drills until his class at 7:30. At 8:30, after classes, he throws himself into live grappling rounds for the most rigorous training of the day. Every workout and every activity is a consistent, daily exercise focused on improving his athleticism and furthering his career. Consistency is key, and Kieran Kichuk’s daily routine is the perfect mix of rest and discipline to drive him toward his goals.
Kieran Kichuk has a number of appearances ahead of him in 2024. He’ll be participating in the IBJJF European No-Gi Championship, the Polaris 30 on November 2nd, and the Eddie Bravo Invitational: The Welterweights.
By Chris Bates
