Meet Your Coaches

Background

Tyrone Garcia is a Long Island based Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, academy owner, and coach with 13 years of training and 8 years of teaching experience.

After moving to Long Island from Queens at 6 years old, Tyrone always stayed active through PAL soccer, skateboarding, and BMX. While he enjoyed the physicality and freedom of those activities, it wasn't until he enrolled in a Tae Kwon Do school that he recognized his deeper affinity for martial arts.

At age 22, Tyrone began training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at Gracie Barra Long Island, an experience that marked a decisive turning point. The technical complexity, live sparring format, and long-term skill development inherent in Jiu Jitsu immediately resonated with him. From that point forward, he immersed himself in training while balancing part-time work and pursuing his college degree.

Since then he has trained at multiple prominent academies, and is currently actively training at Essential Jiu-Jitsu in White Plains, New York.

Coaching & Academy Experience

Competitive Achievements

• Multiple-time IBJJF Open and Pan medalist (Adult & Masters divisions)
• Gold Medalist — AJP Bogota, Colombia (2025), Black Belt Division
• Undefeated record in Finishers, Rise Invitational, and SoGi
• Active competitor representing Essential Jiu Jitsu since 2017

Martial Arts Journey

Professor Everett began his martial arts journey at the age of 10, training in Judo and Karate at his local neighborhood community center. Inspired by the martial arts cinema of his youth, his early foundation in Japanese systems cultivated discipline, structure, and respect for traditional budo.

As a teenager, he transitioned his focus from Japanese Karate to Chinese martial arts. He briefly studied Tang Fong Hung Ga at the Chinatown clinic of Chiu Wai under Sifu Frank Yee Chi Wai. He later continued his training at the Harlem YMCA and Tong Dojo with Sifu Carl Albright, immersing himself for many years in Hung Gar, Choy Lee Fut, and Lama Pai — systems known for their depth, structural power, and combative realism.

Professor Everett further expanded his classical training in Kodokan Judo at Kyodai Dojo under the late Altha Williamson, and in Nihon Shorinji Kempo at the Ken Zen Institute with Sensei Yukihiro Miyata.

Philosophy & Cross-Disciplinary Study

A lifelong martial arts enthusiast, Professor Everett is deeply committed to the study and preservation of traditional systems. He takes particular interest in exploring the shared principles that connect diverse disciplines — timing, structure, leverage, and intent — and enjoys engaging in thoughtful discussion on the technical and philosophical commonalities across the collective arts.

Competitive Achievements

• First American black belt under Professor Alexander "Soca" Freitas
• Currently ranked 4th Degree Black Belt
• Champion, 2007 Renzo Gracie Invitational
• Champion, 2002 & 2003 NAGA (Gi & No Gi Divisions)
• Champion, 2002 & 2003 Grapplers Quest (Gi & No Gi Divisions)
• Bronze Medalist, 2015 IBJJF World Championship (Masters Division)

Training Lineage

Background

Greg Viteno has spent more than fifteen years in combat sports, building a foundation that reaches across four distinct disciplines: Muay Thai, Judo, Wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

That range is unusual, and it shows in the way he teaches. Muay Thai sharpened his sense of distance, timing, and pressure at range. Judo gave him grip fighting, off-balancing, and the mechanics of throwing an opponent who does not want to be thrown. Wrestling built the takedown chains, scrambling, and top-position control that decide so many matches. Jiu Jitsu tied it all together on the ground, where position, leverage, and patience take over from raw athleticism.

Rather than treating those arts as separate boxes, Greg teaches the seams between them — the clinch, the takedown, the scramble, the moment a match stops being a standing exchange and becomes a ground exchange. Students come away understanding not just individual techniques, but how the phases of a fight actually connect.

He has trained and competed at the highest level of the sport, and he is still an active competitor today. That matters for the people he coaches: what he teaches on the mat is what he is currently testing under real pressure, not a system he stopped pressure-testing years ago.

Coaching Approach

Across five-plus years of coaching, Greg has worked with the full spectrum of students — day-one beginners through advanced competitors, youth classes through adult programs.

That breadth is the point. He is used to meeting a nervous first-timer exactly where they are: stripping a movement down to its simplest form, explaining the why behind it, and building confidence one repetition at a time. He is equally comfortable at the other end of the room, giving an experienced grappler the detail that finally makes a stubborn position work.

With kids, the emphasis shifts toward focus, respect, and steady confidence — the same technical standard, delivered at a pace and in a language that keeps young students engaged. With adults, it is about building a game that holds up in live rounds, whatever their starting point or athletic background.

Competition

• Trained and competed at the highest level of the sport
• Active competitor — still testing his game in live competition
• 15+ years of combat sports across striking and grappling

Disciplines