The day I sit down to chat with the youngest ADCC Trials medalist in history, she’s in the midst of celebrating her fourteenth birthday. “I feel like right now, currently, I’m definitely living more of the teenager life,” Joslyn Molina — previously known as the 13-year-old phenom of the submission grappling world, now newly aged 14 — tells me with a self-deprecating grin. “Like, I’m not working out — I’m eating like a teenager!” Joslyn laughs. “But I definitely want to start getting on to a workout regimen and a balanced diet, and getting a lot of good protein and carbs in there.”
By most standards, when it comes to leaning into everyday teen life, Molina’s killing it. Having recently conquered a grueling day of schoolwork, she’s enjoying a well-deserved day of rest and relaxation. “I just finished a tub of ice cream in like, a day,” says Molina. “Being a teenager — I’m trying to live it to the fullest.”
Joslyn Molina is young, affable, and brimming with enthusiasm for life. She just also happens to regularly compete — and win — against some of the most highly accomplished adult black belt competitors on the planet. In addition to an eye-opening submission victory against Amy Grande at WNO, Molina’s already taken home four ADCC Open victories in the adult absolute division. At 13, she received special dispensation from ADCC organizer Mo Jassim to compete at East Coast Trials despite being below the age limit.
Joslyn proved Jassim’s decision correct when she fought her way to a record-breaking bronze medal finish, losing only to eventual Trials champion Maia Matalon, whom Joslyn previously defeated at an ADCC Open.
“For me, personally, ever since I first started, whenever I would lose, I would always set my eye on that person — and try to at least get as many fights with them as I can,” Molina tells me. “There are three people now who have beaten me that I want to get back, and [Maia] is one of them. She’s super good, and we had a great match! We’re one and one [on the ADCC circuit] and I would love to be able to get that third match, and see how it’ll go down, and just have another fun match.”
Molina, a self-described “crybaby” when she first started the sport, has come a long way since her early years on the mat. “Honestly, I was always a really competitive kid — I would go out there, and surprisingly, I used to cry every single time I lost,” she confides, shaking her head with a slightly embarrassed smile. “It was so bad, I was such a crybaby!”
“Every time I would lose, I would just have my own little breakdown — not because I was so mad that I lost; it was always because I knew that I could have done better.”
Molina credits a strong support system in her family and her coaching team with getting her through those rough, early developmental years as an athlete. “I feel like my parents and my coaches definitely did a good job of making sure I could always get my moment [after a loss]. Because if you don’t let a kid cry, it’s just going to keep building up and building up, until eventually, they might quit, or be like, ‘I’m done with this, I don’t like it, I don’t feel good doing it.’ If you force a kid to always be like, ‘You’re fine, go, go, go,’ then realistically, they might not stick with it, or feel as compatible with the sport. So my coaches and parents always did a good job of being like, ‘Go to your corner, cry, and come back in five minutes.’”
Positive reinforcement also goes a long way. “Every single time I’ve accomplished something — something big, something small — my parents always love to voice just how proud they are of me,” Joslyn shares. “Even the littlest things — like how calm I’ve gotten if I’m in a bad position, they’re like, ‘You’ve gotten so good at that, I’m so proud of you!’”
Family has always been one of the major sources of support in Joslyn’s jiu-jitsu career. In fact, she would go on to earn her first cash prize in the sport from her own father — who shamelessly bribed her into entering her first adult division.
“If I’m being honest, the only reason I did it was because somebody gave me fifty bucks,” she remembers with a wide grin. “I was ten years old, I was at a Newbreed, actually [...] I wasn’t super tired because I’d sort of run through all the kids who were in my division there, and there was this blue belt division with a bunch of adults in there.
“My dad kind of looked at me and said, ‘Joslyn, you’re fighting an adult.’”
Joslyn, already a negotiator at ten, asked him what was in it for her.
Her father considered the question, before promptly answering, “Fifty dollars.”
Those fifty dollars sealed her fate. Joslyn would continue fighting — and winning — against adult competitors for the rest of her career. “Ice cream and money, those are the two things that got me,” she tells me with a broad smile.
When it comes to competing in youth divisions versus the adult level, Molina actually finds adult divisions less intimidating. “Surprisingly, personally, this might just be a mental barrier for me, but I find fighting teens to be a lot harder than fighting adults — teens, number one, I feel like they have a much higher stamina, and they’re so strong, kids are strong, it’s crazy!” she exclaims. “And they can go at a much higher, intense pace for much longer too.
“Also, there’s that mental barrier of ‘If I lose, it’s going to be the first time someone near my age has beaten me in a while. Because there’s always an ‘if.’ There’s no such thing as ‘I’m one hundred percent going to win this’ because that’s not reality. There’s always a possibility that you might lose, if you don’t do all the right things.”
In adult divisions however, despite her success, Molina believes she’s still frequently perceived as an underdog due to her comparative youth, which lightens the mental pressure on her. “Fighting adults, since I am 14 now, no one would be mad at me if I lost,” she elaborates. “Nobody would be like, ‘Oh my god, Joslyn lost!’ No, people almost expect the 14-year-old to lose. If she beats the adult, it’s like, ‘Oh my god, she won!’”
Despite her adult-level accolades, Joslyn’s not in any hurry to grow up too fast. “I’m not looking to immediately skip to being an adult,” she explains. “I feel like being an adult kind of sucks sometimes, so I just want to live [teen life] to the fullest for as long as I can, and just grow up with it.”
As such, she makes a point of compartmentalizing her jiu-jitsu career from day-to-day teen life. “I don’t talk about my career a lot [with my friends],” she admits. “I would rather get to know somebody as somebody fresh.”
As for what’s next in her grappling career, Molina’s got her eye on West Coast Trials, where she hopes to punch her ticket to ADCC Worlds. “I’m hoping that if I get second [at West Coast Trials] or if I medal again, then ADCC Worlds is definitely something I have my eye on,” says Joslyn. “I mean, that would be amazing. That would be more than amazing. That would be out of this world.”
If Molina makes a second Trials podium and earns an invite to Worlds, she’ll make history yet again as the youngest competitor ever to enter the field: an objectively daunting prospect, but one that clearly invigorates her.
Despite being arguably more famous for her no-gi achievements, Joslyn’s also eyeing up opportunities in the kimono. Although at 14, she’s technically still too young for a blue belt (“It sucks!” groans Joslyn good-naturedly) — the first of the adult ranks under the IBJJF system — she nonetheless hopes to become more active in gi competition in forthcoming seasons.
“Right now, I’m — I think I’m an orange-and-black belt, but I haven’t touched my belt in a while,” admits Joslyn sheepishly. Roughly nine months, to be exact.
“But I think I do want to start getting into gi more because I’m super good at gi! I fought for UWW — United World Wrestling — representing the USA in Greece, got gold in gi and no-gi, and I submitted all the people in gi in like, three minutes. So I think I do want to start getting more into gi, I really like it.”
Competitive ambitions aside, on an emotional level, Molina invests perhaps most heavily of all in the community aspects of the jiu-jitsu world. The easiest way to earn Molina’s respect as a fellow athlete is through genuine kindness and a mutually strong sense of good sportsmanship.
“That’s what it’s all about,” says Joslyn. “Going out there, fighting for your life, and then being good friends after, and being good people to each other after.”
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