PEORIA, IL — Wade Kolstad, a 46-year-old commercial insurance adjuster whose last documented appearance on a jiu-jitsu mat was March 17, 2022, spent the better part of Saturday evening at his niece Sofia’s quinceañera explaining proper triangle defense to brown belt Jaxon Pilkey, 28, a stranger he had identified as a grappler roughly eight seconds after meeting him at the punch bowl.
The 17-minute tutorial, which began with the phrase “Let me show you something real quick,” was delivered entirely while Kolstad held a paper plate bearing two slices of tres leches cake, a plastic fork, and what family sources confirm was a “generous scoop” of fruit salad. At no point did Kolstad put the plate down. At no point did he eat the cake.
Kolstad, who wore a purple belt that has never been officially awarded by any recognized instructor, academy, or federation at any point in recorded human history, told Pilkey he could “probably still tap most guys in the room” if he wanted to, gesturing with his cake plate toward a cluster of teenage girls attempting a line dance and an 8-year-old boy in a vest.
Pilkey, a four-stripe brown belt at Chaos Jiu-Jitsu in Bloomington who competes at Masters 1 Medium Heavy and has held his rank since 2022, nodded at two of Kolstad’s points before physically stepping backward from the third. At the 11-minute mark he attempted to excuse himself to the restroom. Kolstad followed him.
“He kept saying ‘hand fighting is eighty percent of everything,’” Pilkey recalled the following morning, still reeling. “And then at one point he said it louder. Like he thought I hadn’t heard him. I had heard him.”
Kolstad’s training record, reconstructed by relatives who were present for what they describe as “the loud period,” consists of eight months at Peoria MMA & Fitness, which closed in June 2019 after the owner’s mother sold the strip mall, and six months at Apex Grappling Arts, which refunded Kolstad pro-rata in November 2021 after he stopped showing up to class but continued to post on the gym’s Facebook wall. He has not attended a scheduled session, drilled a movement, or experienced the sensation of another adult human’s body weight on his sternum in approximately 1,492 days.
He has not maintained flexibility. He has not maintained conditioning. He cannot sit cross-legged on the floor without using his hands to lower himself down. The last time he attempted a forward shoulder roll, which was in his garage in early 2023, he sprained his own neck.
None of this has prevented him from beginning approximately 73% of conversations with the phrase “back when I was training.”
Kolstad’s wife, Jennifer, 44, has stopped attending family functions where her husband “might bring up BJJ.” This includes, but is not limited to, birthday parties, baby showers, her own sister’s second wedding, the dentist, and a 2024 parent-teacher conference where Kolstad interrupted a discussion of their son’s reading level to inform the teacher that “jiu-jitsu is basically solving a puzzle with your body.”
“I told him not to wear the belt to the quinceañera,” Jennifer said Sunday morning, staring at a point approximately four inches to the left of the reporter’s head. “He said he wasn’t going to wear the belt. He said he was going to wear a suit. He wore the suit. He wore the belt under the suit. I don’t know how to explain this to you. He wore the belt. Under. The. Suit.”
Witnesses at the reception confirm Kolstad demonstrated at least three distinct grip-fighting sequences using the sleeve of Pilkey’s blazer, apologized for getting tres leches frosting on it, then did it again. At one point he attempted to show what he described as “the old-school way” of breaking a posture, which multiple attendees describe as “mostly just leaning” and “kind of a hug.”
Kolstad’s eight-year-old son, Declan, has asked three separate times over the past eighteen months to try a beginner kids’ class. Each request has been met with the phrase “when you’re ready, bud,” delivered in a tone that family members describe as both loving and deeply concerning. Declan does not know what “ready” means in this context. Sources indicate he has begun testing his own flexibility by attempting to touch his toes in the living room while his father watches ESPN.
At approximately 9:40 p.m., Kolstad wandered over to a different brown belt — a cousin’s boyfriend, Marcus Dellinger, 31, of Champaign — and opened with the phrase “You train? I could tell by your ears.” Dellinger, who does not have cauliflower ear because he has only trained for eight months at a gym that mandates headgear, reported the encounter to Pilkey via text message, which read, in full: “bro he’s coming for you next.”
Kolstad, reached by phone Sunday afternoon while reheating leftover fajitas, said he felt the event had gone well. He estimated he had “passed along some real knowledge to the next generation” and was considering “getting back on the mats sometime this year, definitely,” a timeline he has previously offered in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and twice already in 2026.
Asked whether he planned to attend his nephew’s graduation next month, Kolstad said he did. Asked whether any grapplers would be present, Kolstad said he “had a feeling.”
Pilkey has RSVP’d no.