Kim Custodio turns from jiu-jitsu late bloomer to 4-time world champion

• Kimberly Anne Custodio is a dedicated jiu-jitsu athlete who trains multiple times a day and has won the gold medal in her division at the World Championships for three consecutive years.
• After a health scare at 27, Custodio transformed her life by pursuing combat sports, eventually focusing on jiu-jitsu, which led her to become a national athlete at 30.
• At 39, she balances intense training with personal enjoyment and aims to help her students succeed, reflecting on how her life goals have shifted from wanting a family to dedicating herself to jiu-jitsu.

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Obsession may be the word Kimberly Anne Custodio would pick.

When it comes to jiu-jitsu, she lives and breathes the sport. She trains at least three times a day, and even on her supposed “rest days,” she trains twice. On top of that, she runs her own gym. 

Her dedication is evident in the results.

In the 2026 Ju-Jitsu International Federation World Championships held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, this August, Custodio captured the gold medal in the adult female 45kg division for the third straight year and the fourth time overall.

All that despite being on the cusp of 40.

“My whole life revolves around jiu-jitsu. I do it every single day. When I don’t train, it feels like I’m losing my mind,” Custodio told Rappler in a mix of Filipino and English. “I genuinely enjoy it. I don’t think of it as tiring. After years of enjoying and training consistently, the results speak for themselves.” 

Late bloomer

But the 39-year-old Custodio was not always the jiu-jitsu junkie.

Over a decade ago, Custodio worked in the marketing department of a prominent casino resort in Metro Manila and led what she described as an “unhealthy” lifestyle. Eventually, clothes could no longer fit, and even relatives couldn’t recognize her from afar. 

But when a then 27-year-old Custodio got lightheaded from doing a simple task, she knew something has to change.

“When I tied my shoes and I started getting short of breath and my vision began to black out, that’s when it really clicked for me that I couldn’t keep living like this. I had to do something about it. I didn’t want to die young,” she said.

“I want to stay young forever.” 

So Custodio set out to transforming her life and reshape her fitness as she pursued boxing and muay thai. She liked combat sports so much that she wanted to compete in mixed martial arts, but one of her coaches told her she needed to learn jiu-jitsu first.

Custodio and jiu-jitsu turned out to be a perfect match. 

“I felt really unhealthy. Work was exhausting and toxic, and then you go home completely drained, only to wake up and do the same thing all over again the next day. You start to feel like a robot,” said Custodio. 

“When I tried martial arts, especially jiu-jitsu, I felt like I had a goal every day. Especially when I became a national athlete, I felt that I wasn’t just competing for myself anymore — I was carrying the country. I was representing the entire nation.” 

Jiu-jitsu is life

Custodio made the national team at 30 years old in 2018, then won her first world title at 35 years old in 2022 in UAE. She became so enamored with the sport that she left her day job to focus on being a national athlete. 

“It feels really different when you’re representing the Philippines — you’re carrying the whole country with you. And that makes you want to keep getting better and better,” she said. 

But as with any elite athlete, losses are inevitable as Custodio failed to defend her throne in the 2023 edition in Mongolia.

And yet, that particular defeat, or any loss for that matter, hardly discouraged her. If anything, Custodio embraces setbacks as opportunities to gauge where she stands and identify areas for improvement.

She never lost in the world championships since, ruling in 2024 in Greece, in 2025 in Thailand, and in 2026 in UAE as she racked up 10 consecutive victories. 

“When I lose a competition, I don’t actually get sad. I get more excited instead and I think about how I lost and how to make my technique better,” said Custodio. “It’s like solving a puzzle. It’s not ideal when you keep winning because you start to wonder, ‘Am I really that good?’ When you lose, that’s when you grow. Whenever I lose, I’m sure that in my next competition, I’m unbeatable.”

At 39, Custodio knows she needs to work doubly hard to keep in step with young opponents who also boast of richer resources. 

She starts training at 5:30 am at the Carpe Diem BJJ gym in Makati City, holds a class from 7 am to 8:30 am, trains again from 11 am to 1 pm and from 3 pm to 4 pm, and then teaches kids after all that. 

But as committed as she is to jiu-jitsu, Custodio makes time to enjoy life, with wine and cheese among her guilty pleasures. 

“After training, I’ll have a drink or some wine, but only at home. I don’t go out. And I make sure I’m asleep by 7 pm. It’s all about balance. It’s not just all about training — that’s one of the simple joys in my life. But I also make sure I pay for it. If I eat a lot of cheese and drink a lot of wine tonight, I make sure I make up for it with training the next day. I’ll make up for it with a really good training session every day,” said Custodio. 

The work continues for Custodio as she eyes her first gold medal in the Asian Games, which will be staged in Nagoya, Japan, from September 19 to October 4. 

After that, Custodio will consider whether to continue competing as she shifts her focus toward helping her students find success of their own.

“Whatever I’ve achieved, I want them to achieve it too. Because for some reason, when I win, I feel alright. But when my students win, the fulfillment is different. It makes me think I did something right,” she said.

Once dreaming of starting a family and having children, Custodio is convinced that jiu-jitsu is her purpose.

“I honestly never imagined that this would happen, that I would become a four-time world champion. This is my life now. Before, my goals in life were completely different: I wanted to get married, have children, and be a housewife. But when I got into jiu-jitsu, everything changed,” she said.

“My life really revolves around jiu-jitsu now because it feels like the only things I think about are how I can improve myself, improve my techniques, and improve the skills of our students.” – Rappler.com