Roy Harris is an accomplished American martial artist, known in the Brazilian jiu-jitsu world for being a black belt under Joe Moreira and is often (wrongly) mentioned as a part of the “BJJ Dirty Dozen“, the first group of 12 non-Brazilian men to have been distinguished with the rank of black belt in this grappling style. Roy Harris is also known as one of the first instructors to publicly publish a formal testing criteria for jiu-jitsu, formalizing his promotion tests from white belt to black belt.In San Diego, Harris found Dan Inosanto’s academy, a former student of Bruce Lee himself and a master in Jeet Kune Do, Eskrima, and Silat. Inosanto’s academy was known for its open mind towards martial arts, and it was there that Harris found out about Brazilian jiu-jitsu, through a training partner who also practiced BJJ.Intrigued about the Brazilian grappling style, Roy Harris decided to have his first jiu-jitsu class between December 1990 and January of 1991 at the Gracie Academy in Torrance. At the time the academy’s classes were run by Rickson, Royler, and Royce Gracie, Harris also had many one-on-one classes, with Royler who at the end of Roy’s 13th private class decided to award him his blue belt.The experience with the three brothers was short-lived. Soon Royler returned to Brazil to take the helm of the Gracie Humaita Academy in Rio de Janeiro, and Rickson went on to open his own gym. Harris continued participating in the classes now solely given by Royce Gracie while having private lessons with Rorion Gracie.While taking classes at the Gracie Academy, Roy Harris was offered a small part-time position teaching self-defense at the University of California. There he passed on to his students an amalgamation of the techniques he had learned from all the styles practiced over the years. On one of these classes, he was visited by Nikolay Baturin, a Russian Sambo and Judo expert. The two sparred and became friends. Harris often mentions of how Nikolay (or Nick) helped develop his leg locks, having learned directly from the Russian for over 1 year.Harris left the gym as he could not afford the fees and continued training with Rickson Gracie, Nelson Monteiro, and the Machado brothers, although he always found that jiu-jitsu politics stood on the way of his progression.With Rickson, it was the fact that he was training at Monteiro’s academy simultaneously that led to the discord. Monteiro was a Gracie Barra affiliate and a team rival of Rickson’s school. These were times when school rivalry was well embedded in the Brazilian way of coaching, and for this reason, he was asked to leave.As for the relationship between the Machado’s and Harris, there are two diverging stories. According to Harris, it was his aforementioned relationship with Nikolay Baturin that ultimately led to his gym eviction. Baturin had a grappling super fight with John Machado, a fight won by the Russian. The Machado’s believed that Roy had been coaching his friend Jiu-Jitsu techniques to overcome the Machado competitor, and for this reason, they asked Harris to leave, though Harris denied having taught Nikolay.After achieving the black belt status in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Roy Harris continued coaching martial arts all around the world, being also one of the first instructors to compile a curriculum for each belt, publishing a formal testing criteria, something that went against the norm of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, where the belt assessment has historically been attributed to sparring skill or competition prowess.