Michael Edward Chapman

Michael Chapman is the owner and founder of Impact Jiu Jitsu and a fifth-degree black belt in the Machado lineage. His path began in Japan, where he studied Shooto in 1991, and he returned to Oregon in 1993 with a passion for ground fighting at a time when little was known locally about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He gathered training partners and learned what he could through books, videos and seminars with Brazilian black belts such as Rickson Gracie and Rigan Machado. In 1997 Chris Haueter presented Chapman with his purple belt, his first colored belt, bringing him into the Machado family, and in 1998 he opened Impact Jiu Jitsu in Beaverton, known as Beaverton Straight Blast Gym until 2006. Haueter awarded him his black belt in 2004. Since then he has been joined by many other athletes who have expanded Impact Jiu Jitsu across the region.