COVER STORY GARMO
COVER STORY GARMO continued from page 21 David Garmo on top of Renaldo Junior in the World Finals. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Jet Li. When he was only 5 years old, Garmo’s parents tried to start him in swimming classes. He quickly realized that he hated it, so they moved him to a martial arts studio. There, he learned American Karate and some rudimentary BJJ. All of this immersed him in martial arts culture, and he eventually fell in love with it. Garmo grew up in West Bloomfield, specifically a neighborhood called Timbers Edge. Plenty of Chaldean kids right around his age grew up in the same place. A lot of the community from his area, Garmo said, wanted to be the tough guy and be able to take a fight if they needed to. This foundation helped him understand from the outset that fighting as a sport was a worthy and interesting pursuit, separate from fighting to hurt or bully someone. “It was about honor and separating yourself from someone,” he said. Garmo identified a specific trait Chaldeans possess that he thinks affords them success in virtually any aspect. In his mind, Chaldeans have an extreme focus on being the best at whatever they do, whether it’s business, school, family life, or athletics. This attitude only needed to awaken in Garmo after he finished high school. Garmo’s immediate family holds a special place for him. He’s the oldest of three siblings, about two and four years apart from his brother and sister, respectively. His brother Devone felt the brunt of Garmo’s wrath when they were kids. “I was absolutely a bully and not in a fun way for him,” he said, remembering all the times he beat up on Devone. “I had too much energy that I wasn’t getting out in martial arts.” Devone also took an abnormal path, entering the Marines and spending time overseas in places like Afghanistan. Eventually, he returned home and has a great relationship with his brother David. As one might expect, Devone has his own BJJ career as a blue belt, training at David’s gym. His little sister, David Garmo said, was a bit too young for them to influence one another as kids, but they’re very close now. She’s successful and married and has a beautiful son. “Each of them has their own things they are very good at, and I have tried to emulate those aspects in my own pursuits and business.” Perhaps the biggest Chaldean influence that Garmo applied was the entrepreneurial journey of starting his own gym. The idea came while he was living part-time in Japan around 2017. He would live and train there, come home and work to earn some money, and go back to Japan to continue his training. He realized that he always wanted to live there permanently, but it was too difficult as a foreigner to start his own gym and earn a reasonable income. The realization and subsequent decision came all at once. He was popular in his hometown, and that’s where his success was most known and widespread. Why not start a gym there? At the time, metro Detroit was far from a hub for BJJ or martial arts in general, but that was no matter for Garmo. He would make it so. “In April 2018, I started writing a business plan,” he said. “I used a friend to bounce ideas off of, and he gave suggestions to help me. Eventually, when it came to a head, he decided to invest, and we started working on it together.” Garmo returned from Japan later that year, began looking for a space for his gym, and prepared to open. In March 2019, he opened Assembly Jiu Jitsu in Bloomfield Hills and started teaching his first class. “The first year was really tough,” Garmo said. “It went really slow, and it wasn’t as successful as I envisioned it to be. But we kept grinding and doing the thing and never took our foot off the gas.” David met his wife, Lana Antwan (now Garmo), in 2021, and they married the following year. She is an architect, designer, and artist, and her entry into and influence on his life changed his perspective and focus dramatically. As a result of these changes and the gift of perseverance, Garmo found a way to succeed in his business venture. Now, Assembly has over 300 members, and is the most competitive team in the Midwest, according to Garmo. “We crush it wherever we go. Financially, it’s been successful,” he said, “and we’re looking to expand on that. But we focus on putting the best Jiu Jitsu product out there. We teach our students with the utmost care. We make them the best they can possibly be, and the rest works itself out.” Garmo is proud of his accomplishments with Assembly over the last five years. Many gyms have been around for much longer and have seen only a fraction of Assembly’s success. This fact is a testament to his extraordinary Chaldean focus and a tribute to his cultural upbringing. Over the last few years, Garmo has started to get some Chaldean students at his gym, but he’d like even more. “We have so many different ethnicities and backgrounds that makes for a really nice melting pot. I always love to add more of the people I grew up with into the mix because, in my opinion, the Chaldean community has that single-minded focus like nobody else … If I can harness that in this sport, Chaldeans can be some of the most successful fighters ever.” The 2023 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Championship Outside the Las Vegas Convention Center, it was a cool December day. The temperature hovered around a mostly sunny 60 degrees, a mild-mannered forecast compared to the deluge of aggression about to take place indoors. Inside the Las Vegas Convention Center, the atmosphere was electric, the crowds buzzing with excitement and anticipation. In just three days’ time, only one fighter from each weight class will remain undefeated and be crowned champion of the world. Hundreds of competitors also mulled around the competition area. Their aura gave off a somewhat different vibration as they prepared their minds and bodies for all-out, one-onone, single elimination combat. This event comes around once a year and serves as the ultimate showdown, an opportunity for world champions to once again prove their dominance and for rising stars to unseat their foes. At any other tournament, Garmo’s razor-sharp focus, zealous training, and unwavering commitment to winning would carry him through. But this time was different. Garmo was set to confront the most dangerous people in the world, most of whom were as determined as he was. His first competition was a division called the open class, which has no weight limit. In this, Garmo expected to do well, but he could be competing against people much larger and stronger than him. He won his first open class fight, but lost his second, and was eliminated from that portion of the tournament. While he would like to win every fight, he had yet to start the competition that consumed his attention: The medium heavyweight division. “I had to compete again in three hours for my weight class,” Garmo commented about his mental state after the loss. “I had my teammates and students with me, so we went to lunch to get my spirits back up.” When Garmo and his team returned to the convention center, he weighed more than a pound over the limit for his division. This meant that over the next hour, he would need to GARMO continued on page 24 22 CHALDEAN NEWS MARCH 2024
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