Derek Halloway walked into Iron Circle Jiu-Jitsu on a Thursday evening carrying a new mouthguard, a laundered gi, and more confidence than the situation called for.
He had been gone, by his own count, “maybe eight or nine months.”
It had been 26.
“I genuinely thought it was less,” said Halloway, 34, a project coordinator from Columbus, Ohio, who enrolled at Iron Circle alongside several classmates in March 2023. “I remember it being, like, a short thing.”
It was not a short thing. It was 26 months and four days, a period during which Halloway’s stored gi developed a smell one witness described as “geological,” and — more relevantly — during which his former equal-rank training partner Marcus Vella had continued to train, earned two promotions, completed an assistant instructor program, and accepted a full-time position at the gym. Vella’s name now appears on the Iron Circle website under the heading “Instructors.”
Halloway learned this upon entering the building.
“I was about to shout his name from the doorway the way I always used to,” Halloway said. “And then I saw his belt and kind of stopped.”
Halloway and Vella had enrolled in the same week, both as white belts, both entirely lost. For six months they were identical presences on the mat — getting tapped by the same people, confused by the same techniques, sharing the specific expression of someone who has just been told what a hip escape is for the fourth time and still isn’t sure. Halloway described the period as “pure suffering but like, the good kind.”
In September 2023, Halloway announced he was taking “a few months off.” The reasons, which he laid out over several conversations, were: a job change, an upcoming move, a dietary overhaul he had been meaning to start, and a desire to “be more present” for his girlfriend at the time. He handed his spare mouthguard to a newer white belt and told the gym he’d be back in the spring.
He did not come back in the spring.
He did not come back in the following spring either.
He came back Thursday.
“Twenty-six months isn’t that long in the context of a whole life,” Halloway said. When it was pointed out that he had specifically said “a few months,” he nodded slowly. “The spirit was right,” he said. “The number was off.”
The job change, the first reason, resolved in eleven days.
“It was actually a smooth transition,” Halloway confirmed. “I started, it was fine. I just didn’t go back after that.”
The dietary overhaul, the third reason, ended the same week it began following what Halloway describes as “a thing at work.” The girlfriend, the fourth reason, ended the relationship in November 2023 for reasons unrelated to jiu-jitsu, which Halloway acknowledged “did technically open my schedule back up.”
“December was rough,” he said. “And then January is always weird. And then I don’t know what happened to February.”
Halloway arrived at the 6 p.m. fundamentals class and told the front-desk white belt he was returning “after a break” and that he was a blue belt under head professor Gerald “Coach G” Ferreira, 52.
He then walked onto the mat and saw Marcus Vella leading warm-ups in a professor’s uniform.
The pause lasted about four seconds. Several people saw it.
“His face went very still,” said Dominique Travers, 28, a three-stripe blue belt at Iron Circle for three years. “Like someone had just given him news they assumed he already had.”
Vella handled it without ceremony. He greeted Halloway, directed him to line up, and later partnered with him for drilling.
“It was genuinely great to see him,” Vella said after class. “I think about that original group sometimes. There were a lot of us. It’s nice when people come back.”
When asked if the dynamic was strange at all, Vella paused.
“A little,” he said. “But honestly it’s just the sport. You leave, things change.”
Of the eleven white belts who enrolled at Iron Circle during the same three-week window in March 2023:
Marcus Vella is now Professor Marcus Vella, two-stripe purple belt, listed under “Instructors” on the gym website.
Rachel Dunmore, 29, is a one-stripe purple belt who helps run the Tuesday women’s fundamentals class.
Chris Bautista, 31, trains four days a week without telling anyone about it, holds a three-stripe blue belt, and is described by Coach G as “the one who just quietly got good.”
Tomás Reyes, 27, quit after four months, came back after eight months, and is a two-stripe blue belt who trains on weekends when his kids allow.
The remaining seven have not been seen since before the spring of 2024.
Derek Halloway is the only member of the original cohort to return and find a former training peer in formal authority over him.
When asked how he felt about calling Vella “Professor Marcus,” Halloway said he had no problem with it.
“It’s a title. It’s earned,” he said.
He paused.
“It’s just a little weird because I remember when he couldn’t finish an armbar.”
Vella, informed of this, said he remembers that period clearly.
“Derek had a good guard even back then,” Vella said. “He just needed to show up more.”
Coach G, who promoted Vella to blue belt in early 2024 and to purple eight months after that, said both promotions came down to the same thing.
“Marcus showed up,” Ferreira said. “Every week, for three years. A belt doesn’t come from anywhere else.”
Asked whether Halloway’s return changes the gym’s dynamics, Ferreira considered it.
“Derek’s a good guy,” he said. “Good instincts. He just has to accept that the mat doesn’t pause when you leave.”
He stopped, then added: “Also he’s going to need a new gi. I could smell that thing from the office.”
Halloway finished the fundamentals class, was tapped twice during drilling by Professor Vella, and rolled for twenty minutes with three-stripe blue belts who were not at Iron Circle when he left.
He did not submit any of them.
Afterward, he said he plans to train three times a week and “really make it stick this time.” He said his job is stable, the apartment situation sorted itself out over a year ago, and he is finally in a headspace where he can commit.
On the way out, he asked if his old locker was still available.
It had been reassigned in March 2024.
He was given locker 47.
At press time, Halloway had told three coworkers he is “getting consistent this month.”