Something to grapple with

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Early in the regular season, Eagles offensive lineman Tra Thomas texted Rick Migliarese in the middle of the night and asked if he had caught a particular move of his during a game. Having not seen it — by his own admission, "when most people are home watching the game, I’m in the gym" — Migliarese told the athlete he missed it. As it turned out, Thomas executed a Brazilian jiu-jitsu move on an opposing player that Migliarese had shown him.

"He was excited that he actually did that," the jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts instructor and world-champion fighter said of his pupil. "He’s actually a really good student. He’s dedicated."

Migliarese, after struggling to find his path, is more than familiar with dedication. The three-time Gracie Jiu-Jitsu world championship medal-winner and two-time Pan American World champ has been honing his craft and teaching it to others for more than a decade.

"My love for jiu-jitsu I want to pass on to everybody else," the co-founder, with older brother Phil, of Balance Studios, 109 Bonsall St., said. "Jiu-jitsu is a lifestyle. You can take aspects and relate to real life like the positive thinking it takes to beat an opponent. It’s a lot like chess. There’s always a counter to a counter to a countermove."

A popular Zen proverb reads, "when the pupil is ready the teacher will appear." For Migliarese, that teacher was Phil, now 33, who introduced him to jiu-jitsu when the two were teens.

Born and raised in Queen Village at Second and Monroe streets, the siblings were separated when their parents split when Migliarese was about 9. He stayed with mother Joyce, attending nearby Meredith Elementary School, 725 S. Fifth St., while Phil moved to the Lawrenceville, N.J., home of his maternal grandmother. Sister Yvonne, 40, is married to former Eagles player Louie Giammona, nephew of legendary Birds coach Dick Vermeil. The two moved to Northern Liberties around the time the brothers did in August; prior to that, Rick had been living at Second and Manton streets in a home in which his mother still resides — Joyce and he relocating there when he was a teen.

While attending Meredith, Migliarese became a bit of a problem through default, forced to defend himself when kids started picking on him, he recalled. By age 7 or 8, Migliarese had all he was going to take.

"I was fighting back. I didn’t want to be an easy target anymore," he said.

At 13, around the same time he and his cronies were boxing for kicks at the gym at 10th and Carpenter streets, he got into a fight outside the ring, punching the boy in the face, knocking him into a car and eventually sending him to the ground.

"I hurt him real bad. Knocked him out. I thought I had killed him. That scared the crap out of me. At the same time, my brother was nagging me to come over and check out jiu-jitsu," Migliarese said.

With several years of karate under his belt and having discovered yoga by age 13, Phil began studying Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, a style developed by the Gracie family that emphasizes self-defense and ground fighting over competition, at Maxercise Training Academy & Fitness Club in Center City, which was owned by a family friend. Relson Gracie, a third-generation Gracie schooled in the original Japanese style of jiu-jitsu, would come to Maxercise from his native Hawaii to teach seminars a few times a year with Phil, who currently holds a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and Rick honing their methods directly from the source.

Impressed with the doctors, lawyers and caliber of "positive people in the gym," Migliarese began his instruction in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, which is also known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with a focus on grappling and ground fighting, and a few months in won his first bout in class.

"I think that day was my turning point. Every day and night I was in the gym learning jiu-jitsu. I realized this is what I wanted to do. At that young age, at that crossroads of my life, you can either go this way or this way," he said gesturing in different directions.

In ’99, Migliarese won the first of three world championship medals in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu — classes, training and competitions paying off. In 2005, he earned black belt certification.

Four years earlier, the brothers decided to pass along all they had gotten out of jiu-jitsu. Now, in addition to Thomas, who studies privately, 340 men and women of all ages train at Balance Studios where Thai boxing, submission grappling and various types of yoga are offered, including ViraMukti Yoga (yoga for fighters) that was founded and is taught by Phil, and Ashtanga Yoga, taught by Migliarese. Aside from the Center City location, the brothers have more than 20 Balance Studio affiliates in the tri-state area, as well as one in Aruba and Dublin.

The dream of giving others what they got out of the martial arts form seemed not likely to pass as, a mere week after being certified in ’05, Migliarese tore his posterior cruciate and lateral collateral ligaments in his left knee. The fighter credits his brother’s yoga mastery and physical therapy after surgeries to getting him back in shape.

Still in recovery mode last February, it was almost like "Rocky IV" when East met West and Migliarese went to Brooklyn’s Little Russia to fight Russian Sambo world champ Givi Shubitidze. The style of fighting was developed in the Soviet Union and is a combination of combat sport and self-defense. As an instructor, Migliarese accompanied about six students who took part in a Sambo tournament. Not scheduled to fight the champ, the Americans and Russians were tied so Migliarese’s pupils coaxed him into getting in the ring. Their bout lasted mere minutes, with Shubitidze taking Migliarese to the ground before the latter showed him a thing or two by getting up and taking him down.

"He didn’t tap. He started yelling. That’s when I won. The crowd went nuts," Migliarese said, adding tapping is a signal for an opponent to release pressure. "It was like, ‘Italian kid from South Philly fights Russian.’ It was like a real live Rocky Balboa."