Judo, BJJ & MMA

Growing up in a military family, Brad often moved to different cities. Starting at the age of 8, each move meant a new dojo to train at for Judo, a martial art that is built around controlling and throwing your opponents onto their back. With the start of Judo, he found a love for grappling and would continue to do so for the rest of his life.

The moving stopped and his family settled in Illinois, which for grapplers is extremely fortune as the state is known for being an exceptional wrestling state. Brad was introduced to wrestling and immediately found his second sport of choice. Brad trained under Illinois state champion and Illinois wrestling legend, Michael Powell. Coach Powell lead a high school wrestling team, who was not able to make it out of regionals, to coming 2nd place team in 4 years and then state champions the following year.

Brad began training at one out of the two premier judo clubs in America which was located in Illinois, Cohen’s. Cohen’s produced endless Junior National Judo Champions and continue to do so this day. Brad would quickly add his name to the list of champions they had trained.

Brad began focusing on how he could become a better competitor. He ramped up his training outside of martial arts also. He learned structured running programs for endurance, form for heavy lifting exercises to build strength and most importantly, what hard work really means.

Since the age of 13, Brad was competing almost weekly between wrestling and judo competitions racking up numerous accolades in both sports. Brad went on to qualifying for Illinois State Wrestling Championship twice and 11 gold and an assortment of silver and bronze in the National Junior Championships Medals.

At the end of his long stretch of training and competing, Brad met Judo Legend, Jason Morris at a tournament and this would change everything. Upon turning 18 years old, he moved to Jason's training facility in Schenectady New York, where he spent the next 11 years with the singular goal of making an Olympic Judo Team.

Jason Morris was known for being one of the best technically skilled Judo Athletes in the world. In the 1992 Olympics, he won a silver medal losing only to Japan, the country in which Judo is the national sport. He was also defeated by one of Japan's greatest judokas of that era.

While training at Jason’s, Brad would train Judo twice a day along with lifting, running Jiu-Jitsu cross training, and endlessly competing across the world. Traveling to a total of 34 countries at some the largest events for the sport of Judo. World Championships, Pan American Championships, Grand Slams and World Cups.

Unfortunately, he would fall short of the Olympic spot in 2012 by failing to reach the top 24 in the world and reaching exactly the 25th spot just outside of qualifying. He proceeded to make an attempt at the 2016 Olympics, but he could no longer make the weight for the division his points were allocated in. At the end of 2020 he has won 6 National Gold Medals, two silver and two bronze. He held the #1 ranked position in the USA for over 8 years. His biggest victory being a PanAm Gold medal in 2010, which he also won two additional bronze medals at.

» Medal Statistics located at Judo Insane
During the twilight of his competitive judo career, Brad began teaching more classes, seminars and clinics and found himself enjoying teaching and coaching far more than preparing for tournaments. He would eventually begin looking for opportunities to become an instructor.

In 2019, Brad was offered an opportunity to be the Head Instructor of a project that would build a large event and training facility in the Charleston, South Carolina area. Unfortunately, Covid hitting delayed and ultimately waylaid these plans entirely. This caused Grand Plans to become humble beginnings.

Due to having a change in the plan of why he moved to Charleston, Brad still had the opportunity to continue teaching Judo and BJJ. On January 16th, 2024, Brad Bolen became a father to his daughter Cassandra Elizabeth Bolen with his wife Anna Bolen and realized he wanted more and that is when he opened POD MMA on November 1st, 2024.