A video circulating out of Jackson Heights, Queens, is drawing attention online this week, for the moment a group of jiu-jitsu students realized who was training beside them.
The clip comes from JiujitsuNYC, the Northern Boulevard academy run by Professor Alvaro Tautiva, and shows the instructor calmly working through a takedown and knee-on-belly control on a man who had enrolled at the school. According to the onlookers reports, that calm was earned only after members of the gym pieced together who the new student actually was.
“Unfortunately, this guy came to our academy trying to learn Jiujitsu. Thank goodness we found out about his past and didn’t make this guy dangerous by teaching him a martial art. But we did have to restrain him. Thanks to a post that we saw on your page and others, we recognized who he was and kicked him out immediately.”
The academy explained that the warning signs were not obvious at first. The man’s behavior read as unusual rather than alarming, and the staff gave him the benefit of the doubt for the first few sessions.
“We noticed something was off with him after the first couple of days. We still had no idea about his history. We just thought he was an oddball, and that’s not a cri me within itself, but then he started harassing some of the women in our academy, so we dealt with him rather quickly.”
That description matched accounts already circulating on social media, where other users say they had encountered the same man harassing women and yelling at strangers around Roosevelt Avenue and the 74th St. train station in Jackson Heights. Commenters on the JiujitsuNYC post connected the dots almost immediately, several noting his clothing and mannerisms matched footage from an earlier viral video.
One commenter, said the man had shown up at another local gym before being removed once his history came to light. “I think this guy also came to my gym but thankfully he was removed after people reported him. Hope more BJJ gyms are aware of who they let train and keep the community safe.”
Several commenters pushed the academy to name him publicly so other gyms could be on alert.
For Professor Tautiva, the moment fits into a career built around teaching self-defense in the neighborhood where he grew up. A black belt under Vitor Shaolin, Tautiva has medaled at IBJJF events across the country, including a runner-up finish at the Masters Worlds and a first-place result at the no-gi Pan-Ams. He opened his Jackson Heights academy with the goal of giving people in his own community a place to build confidence and learn to protect themselves, something several commenters pointed to directly when reacting to the footage.
Multiple commenters described spotting the same individual in unrelated posts over the past few years, suggesting that recognition, not confrontation, is what ultimately protected the women training at the gym.
In the end, this bjj academy proved it’s not hard to be diligent and protect it’s students.
— calfkicker (@calfkickercom) August 19, 2026
