Meggie Ochoa

Black Belt
Instagram: @meggie_ochoa

My jiu jitsu journey officially started quite late as a 22yr old in 2013 with Atos Jiujitsu Philippines. I did MMA as a hobby in 2012 and really wanted to fight but I did not have a weight class back then and could not find opponents that were similar size as myself. One of my coaches back then told me to try jiu jitsu instead because I could regularly compete and it was a lot safer to go against bigger opponents.

A little over a month into training, I started competing and have not stopped since then. In 2014, I had a vision to be a world champion at every belt level, and also decided to resign from my full-time job at an environmental non-profit (which I actually loved) to pursue the sport since I wasn't getting any younger. That year, I crowdfunded my way to be able to train at Atos Jiujitsu HQ in San Diego and compete at the IBJJF World Novice Championships as a white belt, and thanks to every single person that contributed, I won the gold medal. In 2015 and 2016, I went to both Atos HQ and the IBJJF world championships as a crowdfunded blue belt and won the gold again in both years, sharing the victory with all who supported my journey.

In 2016, my journey had a new path as opportunities to represent the Philippines in our JiuJitsu national team opened up and since then I've been competing for our country and have won gold medals in the JJIF World Championships, Asian Games, Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, Asian Beach Games, Southeast Asian Games. I continued to compete at the IBJJF world championships as a purple and brown belt and would podium every year that I joined, but have not been able to win the title in those belts.

It was also in 2016 that I started teaching child survivors of sexual violence from shelters to help with their trauma which eventually evolved to a program called "Fight to Protect." To this day, we continue to teach child survivors not only sharing the sport of jiujitsu but the love of the Lord with them in partnership with Pilgrim Community Church.

Overall, my purpose for doing jiujitsu and for all of life is to bring glory to the Lord. Whenever I fight, I do so with joy because I view it as privilege from the Lord that He allows me to do this sport for His glory. Right now, I do have a goal to win gold as a black belt in IBJJF Worlds but my dream is to have my own gym that exists as a safe space for anyone that wants to do jiujitsu, living out the Atos way of "Innovating Jiu-Jitsu, Transforming Lives" and to build up fellow Filipinos to achieve greater feats than myself all for the glory of God. Fun fact: I can speak backwards.