One of the top European grapplers of his generation, the Dane Alexander Trans started his career at the Checkmat academy in Copenhagen (Arte Suave), making a name for himself in the lower ranks of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by conquering every important title in the international calendar before receiving his black belt from Leo Vieira on November 2011, he has since cemented his status of top-level BJJ competitor by medalling in most of the top IBJJF tournaments. Alexander Trans was born in 1989 in Denmark, he started training martial arts through traditional Jiu-Jitsu (the Japanese form of Jiu-Jitsu) when he was 13 years old. He trained for two years before finding the Brazilian style of Jiu-Jitsu which he picked up from then on. Alexander was not too serious about his training for the first few years, but as he joined the Arte Suave gym in Copenhagen (Checkmat Team's headquarters in the region) in 2009 he really started focussing more on competition. The Arte Suave gym is run by Shimon Mochizuki, a black belt who has helped raise the game of grapplers such as Ida Hansson & Shanti Abelha (two of the gym's top competitors), under Mochizuki' guidance, Alexander began training 3 times per day, often making trips to Brazil to train with the likes of Leo Vieira (Sao Paulo), "Bob Esponja" Medeiros (Joao Pessoa) and Rico Vieira (Rio de Janeiro). All this hard training paid off and Trans really started to make his mark at an international level, winning 9 fights at the 2011 World Championships in both his weight class and the absolute division without giving out one single point to his competitors. He won everything he set his mind to in the brown belt division that year with the exception of the ADCC which he lost due to points against the veteran Fabricio Werdum, earning his black belt shortly after from the hands of the legendary Leo Vieira. After many years of training and competing for the Checkmat team, during the second semester of 2015 Alexander Trans announced his move to GF Team. He has since opened his own academy in the United States. I saw him land a top side half-guard kneebar in the Black Belt Absolute division at the European Open this year. This guy moved like a light weight, but you could tell was an ultra heavy when you got close to him. Amazing! i used to see him in the locker room in the UAEJJ Arena.....awesome guy.....what a Viking!! but didnt he move to GFTeam?? I saw he recently opened his own academy in Plano TX called Progresso Jiu Jitsu Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );