Story
In his element
words mel jaunay
PHOTOGRAPHY pete thornton
In a long, narrow shed on the fringes of Nuriootpa, Tom Gerlach’s focus is singular.
Time slows. There are no other thoughts.
On this rectangle of black mats, there is only the moment, and a playbook of how to best roll into the next.
Mentally, Tom consults his “Swiss army knife” of manoeuvres, instinctively selecting the right tool to advance his position; the finishing ‘play’.
With one expert move, he sweeps his body from below his opponent to above, and, listening for an exhalation of breath, squeezes with just the right amount of pressure.
Trapped and unable to inhale, his opponent taps, and without hesitation, Tom releases.
There’s a moment to recover, to debrief. An acknowledgement of effort.
And with that situation over, it’s onto the next; the same opponent, or a different one.
It’s cliché, Tom says, but Brazilian jiu jitsu is like a beautiful human game of chess.
“It’s just like reading you, reading what your body is doing, understanding the position, understanding exactly where you’re going to move to and then taking that away from you,” he says.
“It’s a game. It’s not a sport.”
But for Tom, it’s even more than a game. It’s enlightenment.
“This is my religion, ultimately,” he says, looking out over the gym he and wife, Kellie, have worked hard to create. Small in stature yet broad-chested and strong, Tom’s warm, deep-creased smile and ready honesty, mark an aura of wisdom beyond his 33 years.
“I believe in this more than anything. If you can just get inside someone’s head or mind and teach them this, you can show them that there’s more to life than what you see.”
“I believe in this more than anything. If you can just get inside someone’s head or mind and teach them this, you can show them that there’s more to life than what you see.”
- Tom Gerlach
In this ‘church’, where there are mats instead of pews, a bold green Element Jiu Jitsu logo displays in place of an altar. With its interconnected rings, it reminds participants they are part of something.
The importance of that cannot be understated, according to Tom, who spent a good portion of his youth searching for a place to fit in.
The grandson of Nuriootpa Football Club legend, Lyle Gerlach, it was almost a given that Tom would follow in his family’s sporting footsteps, and for a while, he did.
“I’ve always been pretty competitive, and a bit of a mouth as well. When I played football, I was an ‘in and under’ player … I’d have a tagging role, a specific job on a certain player, just to mess with them all day long,” he explains.
It was that trait, fuelled by underlying low self-esteem and the macho culture he was surrounded by, that led Tom into a life of trouble off the field, especially once he was told by doctors that unless he gave up high impact sport like football, he’d need a knee replacement by the time he was 25.
“It was one of those things, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and I never backed down from anything,” Tom says, flashing a rueful grin.
“My dad and my grandpa always said, ‘Tom, it’s never the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. You let everyone know that if they’re going to pick on you, it’s going to be a hard job’.”
With his sporting career all but over by 2012, Tom was invited by some friends to train in MMA (mixed martial arts) and Brazilian jiu jitsu at Fighting Fit in Nuriootpa. It was clear from the outset he’d found something special in jiu jitsu, a martial art which allows smaller people to overcome larger attackers using leverage techniques, but it wasn’t until 2014 his true watershed moment came.
“I got arrested in the city with a friend,” Tom explains.
“We were trying to blow off steam after Vintage. It was during football season and we went to a Port Adelaide game, had too much to drink, got in trouble, got put in the lock up for the night, and had to go to court. All those sorts of things.”
Fortunately for Tom, this more serious “brush with the law” coincided with his recent decision to start training with Element Jiu Jitsu at the YMCA in Kensington, a move driven by his flourishing passion for the art and Element’s edifying reputation.
“I’d never trained with guys who were that level before, and I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t want them to think, well, we don’t want to train people who get into that type of trouble,” he reflects.
“I just thought, this my tribe. These are the people I have to be with, because they make me feel good about myself. And I’ve had a hard time feeling good about myself a lot.
“So, I really wanted to change who I was and what I was about at the time.”
Under the mentorship of the team at Element, Tom found the grounding he needed.
Furthermore, he was encouraged to start his own community, a place where he could pay forward the guidance and positive culture he had benefitted from himself.
He started running five-dollar jiu jitsu classes out of Barossa Boxing Club, and by the end of the year, moved his fledgling operation into a makeshift gym he and Kellie created at their home on Greenock Road.
“We were just a shell of a shed. We had mats on the ground and a big swinging door… It was just a place where we could come and meet,” Tom says, emphasising that time off the mats at Element is just as important as time spent training.
“You look out over the mats and you just see all these groups just hanging out, not necessarily always sparring.
“On a Friday night it’s literally catching up for the week, without having to go to the pub or go to a café or anything. They’re sitting here with their people, safe, indoors, comfortable.”
It’s the type of nurturing environment Tom feels he didn’t have access to earlier in his life, and now, as Element’s head coach and second-degree brown belt, he is fully cognisant of the influential role he plays in the lives of others.
“You are there for everybody. Everybody comes to you with different things,” he says.
“A lot of people come to you with not just jiu jitsu problems, because you are someone who seems like they have gone over that hill before them. They come to you for advice, and it’s important that I give the right advice, the advice that I didn’t get when I needed it.”
Starting his own wing of Element Jiu Jitsu in the Barossa, which has now expanded to a point where Tom has given up other paid work in the wine industry, has also benefitted his family.
With two young sons, six-year-old Ted and Sidney, who is nearly five, having a fully equipped jiu jitsu, MMA and Muay Thai gym at home, means Tom no longer regularly travels to Adelaide to train, which for a long time, Kellie supported him to do.
“My love affair with jiu jitsu has definitely taken its toll on our relationship at times, but Kellie’s always been super encouraging, because I think now, she knows that I need this more than anything. She saw the spark it gave me, and that it gave me purpose,” he says.
It is clear the most beautiful play Tom has ever executed is the one that has led him to this place.
“I’m sure my wife is sick of me talking about jiu jitsu at times, but it always comes up as a comparison for lots of things in life,” he smiles.
“Jiu jitsu is probably the thing that’s saved it all for me.”
