Ryan Hall was born on the 22nd of February 1985 in Arlington, Virginia – USA. He grew up being a fan of Baseball, Basketball and (American) Football, all sports in which he competed as a youngster. In 2004 he started practicing Jiu Jitsu at an MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) academy in New York called Ronin Athletics, his coach was Christian Montes.
He did not care much for grappling at the time and only trained BJJ sporadically, spending most of his time doing Muay Thai. But after a few months of constant beatings at the BJJ class he decided to dedicate more of his spare time to Jiu Jitsu, and by July 2004, after he competed in his first BJJ tournament, he became totally addicted and quit school to focus solely on his Jiu Jitsu.
Ryan cinched that he needed to move to a bigger team to improve his BJJ. He decided to go to Lloyd Irvin’s gym. Lloyd a BJJ black belt famous for his “over the top” advertising campaigns, introduced Ryan to a very competitive team with fighters like Brandon Vera and Mike Fowler. At Irvin’s academy Hall’s Jiu Jitsu blossomed; his amazing limberness, his long limbs and his willingness to learn made the right recipe for a fantastic guard. His name became a constant presence at tournaments all over the country and even abroad. Ryan also became the object of Lloy Irvin’s numerous marketing campaigns, and it came as a shock to the BJJ community when Ryan decided to split from the team on January 2009, a subject discussed to exhaustion in grappling forums throughout the world.
With the split from Irvin, Ryan went on to join Brasa, a Jiu Jitsu team led by several historic BJJ figures. Ryan Hall also decided to open his own academy in Washington – DC, the 50/50 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (website: http://5050bjj.com). In the beginning of April 2010, Ryan finally received his (long overdue) black belt from one of his mentors, 2x Black Belt World Champion, Felipe Costa.
