The American Dream is still alive and well. My wife and I served our nation in combat, found our passion, came back home to raise our family, started a small business in our garage, and now have a thriving business that we once dreamed about, on a battlefield. My name is Alex Larmey and I grew up in Tri-Cities, WA. I wanted nothing more than to leave the Tri-Cities as a kid. As soon as I could. I enlisted in the Army. I quickly applied myself, I soon realized my two greatest talents: work ethic and a relentless mentality were extremely useful in the military. I rose through the ranks, eventually went to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and earned my commission as an Engineering Officer.
I had always loved martial arts as a kid, but I fell back in love during Combatives training in the military. The hand-to-hand combat system had begun to implement Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it was truly a formless art form with infinite ways to utilize leverage, momentum, technique, and strategy to beat your opponent no matter their strengths. I was obsessed. I worked my tail off to go to every fighting school the military would send me too. I created and ran programs, training thousands of Soldiers on not just how to fight, but how fighting could empower both themselves and their minds to handle any situation that life or the battlefield would throw at them. I knew from the very start, that I wanted to spend my life training, and sharing my passion for Jiu-Jitsu and Fitness.
Fast forward to 2013. I was deployed as a Sapper Platoon Leader, our mission was to find bombs and kill bad guys, ensuring safe passage for Afghan and NATO allies in Eastern Afghanistan. I still trained Jiu-Jitsu and other martial arts while deployed, I would end 18-hour missions, have 4 hours to sleep, but I would rather spend 1 hour of it training in the dirt with someone who often didn’t even speak the same language as me. During this deployment, my now wife Sabrina was also deployed with me. She was in the higher headquarters, monitoring our missions, calling in air support to save our butts if we needed it. There were times where we were able to end a mission on the small outpost where she was stationed. Whenever we could, we trained martial arts together or did ridiculous workouts I thought up. We would both decompress, from the horrors and stress of war by beating up our bodies and talking about the future. We talked about our future together, how I could not see a path where she was not in it. We talked about having a place, a gym, a martial arts academy, where people could escape the horrors, drama, and negativity of their lives. A place where people could challenge themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally to completely unlock their potential. A place of lifelong learners.
2017, Sabrina and I are both married, living in South Carolina with Hannah my stepdaughter. I am still in the Army but Sabrina is not. Sabrina is pregnant! We go to our fist ultrasound, and it is the weirdest looking baby ever. Soon we realize, its TWINS! We decide that we want to live near my parents in Tri-Cities, WA. Of all the places in the world we have lived or visited, there is no doubt the Tri-Cities is the best place to raise a family. I get out of the military. We packed everything up and drove 3,000 miles to Eastern, WA. I spent the next four years seeking out all the experts in business, marketing, fitness, and Jiu-Jitsu that I could. I learned everything I could from them, making notes, and refining my plan. I used my GI bill to take entrepreneur classes at CBC. I helped start up the Orangetheory Fitness Gym in Richland. I trained and received my black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Gustavo Pires in Kennewick.
I always went back to the battlefield, thinking of the Martial Arts and Fitness Academy I wanted to have in the future. I began to backwards plan like the Army taught me. I used a nick name given to me for how I used to strangle opponents in training, “Evil Octopus.” The name was a tad too “Evil” but with one small letter change the complexity of the name was born, Evol Octopus. I started in my garage, personally training people at 3 A.M. before my kids woke up. It grew into a full-time job at home. I then moved into the back of Siri BJJ and was able to train people in fitness and Jiu-Jitsu full time. Then COVID-19 hit, and where everyone saw negativity, I saw OPPORTUNITY! This was the opportunity we had been waiting for. So many people told us we could not do it, we even lost friends over it. We went all in, just like Cortez burning his ships, we poured all our money into Evol Octopus Jiu-Jitsu Academy located in Pasco, WA. I had the gameplan, I knew it would work, and it did. We opened our doors July 1st 2021, exceeding our one-year projection on our first day of business. We already have a massive member base of which over 130 kids and adults from 4 years old to 64 years old, are BRAND NEW to Jiu-Jitsu. I have already seen the hollow eyes of battered souls walk through our doors and find life again. I finally can build the place where people can escape the horrors, drama, and negativity of their lives. A place where people can challenge themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally to completely unlock their potential. A place of lifelong learners. A place where we can be the change that is needed in America. The American Dream is still alive and well. MY wife and I served our nation in combat, found our passion, came back home to raise our family, started a small business in our garage, and now have a thriving business that we once dreamed about, on a battlefield.