📍 North Dakota

Two years after Fargo BJJ opened, Josh Stevens walked into Bismarck and opened the city's first BJJ school in 2010. When that program folded, Stevens didn't stop training — he moved to a local judo club and eventually connected with a traveling black belt who was working with law enforcement in the area. That connection kept him on the mat and led him to build Ice Dragon Academy, now known as Bismarck Ice Dragon BJJ and Kickboxing, which holds the distinction of being the state's only dedicated no-gi BJJ school. Stevens has since won the city's Best Martial Arts Academy award in back-to-back years. Out west in Dickinson — oil country, two hours from Bismarck — Carlos Machado Jiu Jitsu operates under the banner of Carlos Machado himself, one of the five Machado brothers who helped spread Gracie-lineage jiu jitsu across the United States in the 1990s. That affiliation gives the Dickinson school a direct line to some of the oldest BJJ roots in America.

Geographically, the state breaks into three distinct pockets. Fargo is the largest and most competitive, with multiple academies including the Academy of Combat Arts — where coach Dylan Spicer and black belt Dillon Boen have built one of the most consistent MMA and grappling programs in the region. The Grand Forks corridor, anchored by Progressive Martial Arts and the Grand Forks BJJ Academy, has been active since the mid-1990s and draws cross-border traffic from the University of North Dakota student population. Bismarck and the western corridor, including Dickinson, serve a more geographically spread-out population but offer consistent training options for competitors who would otherwise have to drive across state lines.

The culture here is shaped hard by wrestling. North Dakota is one of the strongest wrestling states in the country at the high school and collegiate levels, and that base feeds directly into grappling. Athletes who grew up competing in Fargo-Moorhead's youth wrestling infrastructure often transition into BJJ with a physical literacy that compresses the early learning curve. Training rooms tend to be direct and competitive — less oriented toward ceremony, more toward live rolling and takedowns. Instructors across the state consistently note that out-of-state visitors are surprised by the level of physical conditioning and wrestling-specific pressure they encounter in North Dakota academies.

For anyone new to the state or new to BJJ, MatMade currently lists 12 gyms across North Dakota, covering Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck, Dickinson, Minot, and several smaller cities. The Fargo metro is the natural entry point if you want the widest range of training partners and competition prep. If you're in the western part of the state, the Carlos Machado affiliate in Dickinson and Ice Dragon in Bismarck are legitimate operations with experienced instructors — not satellite schools running a name, but gyms built by people who have been on the mat for a long time.