Kylie Baker - Growing Up In Jiu Jitsu

Those of us who are apart of the jiu jitsu community are aware of how diverse it is. Practitioners of our sport come from all areas of society. It is common for accountants to fight contractors and stay at home moms to train daily with college students. The diversity is part of what makes this past time many of our favorites. Differences in personalities and lifestyles often add to the anxiety when someone joins a gym for the first time. If both of your parents are well respected black belts, that tends to make things easier, or so some would think. You can find out for yourself by reading our short interview with Kylie Baker below. Kylie's father Matt Baker and mother, Jill Baker, are both black belts, from Bakersfield Jiu Jitsu and helped mold her into the athlete that she is today. 

We're both your parents doing jiu jitsu when you were born?

No, my dad started training in his early 20s and he opened his academy in 2001 or 2002. I believe it was when I was 2 or 3 and from then on we were there more often than home. My mom started training when I was 8 years old I believe, which is about the same time I started training.

When you were about 8 and started training, did you realize that you liked it or did you just do it without thought?

I absolutely hated it. Every aspect. I had two boys that I trained with and they were both a little bigger and older than me. So it seemed as if I just kept getting beat up or hurt. And when I competed it was the same thing. At that time having a girl around my age that did jiu jitsu was more rare than it is today. So I always had to train/compete with boys. At that point I trained like 2 to 3 times a week for only an hour each time. It was like pulling teeth getting me there, tears and all.

Haha, and was there a tipping point where you saw the better side of jiu jitsu?

Yeesss

When I was like 12, my parents let me start competing with women. It wasn't until this point that I realized that I didn't totally suck hahah.

My dad let me compete at Pan Ams in 2012 when I was 13 (adults, white belt), and I won 3 matches and lost by 2 points in the final for second place.

I think that was definitely the turning point. I started to train with a passion, I wanted to compete and I became a happier person. It "lit the fire" I guess you could say, and gave me like an ahh I could actually be good at this stuff feeling and since then I've loved jiu jitsu. (:

Nice! And what did the other girls at school think of you doing jiu jitsu when you were in high school? Did they know?

Yes. A lot of people knew. My freshman year everyone just thought I did karate. Then I started wrestling my sophomore year and the head varsity coach thought I worked harder than all the boys. He really supported the growth of women's martial arts so he always bragged about me to the wrestlers and his students.  I did pretty well at state and at nationals in Fargo and every opportunity he got to say that he had coached me and how well I was doing he would hahahah. So after that everyone kinda became interested in my career as an athlete.

A lot of the girls would say like oh you are gonna be like Ronda or, oh I'll get Kylie to fight this girl for me or something like that haha

I never really liked that because I didn't want to be known as a fighter, I always wanted to be nice, loving and just really good at jiu jitsu. That's one of the things I find so cool about jiu jitsu is that it doesn't have to come with all the evils. The disrespect towards our oppenents or the "im going to kick your ass" mentality. I like to be friends with the girls I fight.

*Kylie Baker is currently sponsored by Adidas Combat and has a bright future ahead.