Jesse Enkamp is a karateka, and a popular YouTuber.
He has more than 780K subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.
Jesse is also an author, speaker, and entrepreneur.
Introduction-
Jesse Enkamp was born on 19 July 1989 in Sweden.
He grew up in Sweden.
His parents are Finnish, and they immigrated to Sweden; Jesse has dual citizenship and a Finnish ethnicity.
His brother, Oliver Enkamp, works at the Combat Academy, a martial arts school.
Growing up in a dojo & discovering his passion-
Jesse and his brother grew up in their parents’ karate dojo in Stockholm.
While growing up, Jesse was exposed to a variety of martial arts like karate, kickboxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Kobudō, mixed martial arts (MMA), Iaido, Arnis (the national martial art of the Philippines), Kenjutsu, etc.
Initially, at 2, he practised karate because his parents made him do so but eventually, he developed a passion for it and made it his way of life and started calling himself a karate nerd.
At a young age, Jesse earned a black belt in karate, and he also taught karate in his parents’ dojo.
His mother, Silja Enkamp, is his sensei.
Education & blogging-
Jesse studied Japanese Language and Literature from the Stockholm University in Stockholm, Sweden.
Then, he moved to Okinawa, Japan to study Japanese Language and Literature from Okinawa University.
Jesse chose to study in Okinawa as it is the birthplace of karate and while here, he decided to make a career in karate.
While living in Okinawa, he started discovering interesting things about karate and started researching online to further his knowledge of karate but was saddened by the lack of good information online.
So, in 2008, Jesse started his blog, ‘Karate by Jesse,’ to share his findings and experiences and fill the gap of lack of online information about karate.
Since he always loved reading and writing and as he has been an introvert, blogging was a perfect fit for him.
At that time, Jesse didn’t have friends and was feeling lonely in Okinawa as he didn’t know good enough Japanese and blogging allowed him to ward off loneliness.
Blogging allowed him to build a personal brand and thanks to the success of his blog, he built a community of people interested in karate.
Jesse learnt from many Okinawan Kobudo grandmasters namely, Nakamoto Masahiro, Hokama Tetsuhiro, Takehiro Gaja, Kinjo Masakazu and Akamine Hiroshi.
Working on YouTube & other ventures-
His blog readers started requesting him to publish videos and so, he started publishing videos onto his YouTube channel.
Jesse started his eponymous YouTube channel on 11 September 2008, and published his first video on 22 September 2008.
Eventually, he started focusing more on his YouTube channel rather than his blog as he felt that he could better connect with his audience through videos rather than his blog posts.
Jesse also started conducting seminars in the real world and in 2014, he conducted his first Karate Nerd Experience (KNX) seminar and since then, he conducted many KNX seminars.
He conducted seminars in many countries.
Jesse was a member of the Swedish national karate team for many years and represented Sweden in international tournaments like Premier League, Nordic, European and World Championship (WKF) but later he joined the Finnish national team and also practiced with the national karate squad of Finland for Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.
As of November 2023, he has 787K subscribers on his YouTube channel, 136K followers on Instagram, and 550K followers on his Facebook page.
Jesse earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on his YouTube videos, selling merchandise and training programs and he is also an instructor at Kobudo Mastery.
He also sells merchandise like karate suits, towels, black belts, etc. through his ‘Seishin International‘ brand which was founded in January 2011.
Jesse is also a Co-Manager of Combat Academy in Sweden.
Accomplishments-
Jesse was a World Traditional Karate Association [WTKA] Kobudo Champion and a World Kobudo Federation [WKF] Champion.
He is the first westerner awarded black belt in Maeda-Ryu 前田流 by Yuukou Tomimoto in Okinawa and also the first Okinawa International Tournament Finalist.
His books & recommendations-
Jesse authored four books on karate namely, The Great Lie of Karate, The Karate Code, One Karate to Rule ‘Em All and Break the Box of Karate.
He recommends the book, Bible of Karate: The Bubishi, translated by Patrick McCarthy.
Jesse recommends an agility ladder for karate training and resistance bands for resistance training for strength and general warm-up.
Diet, travel & some interesting facts-
Jesse follows the paleo diet, also known as the caveman diet and as a part of it he consumes clean natural foods like meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds and avoids sugar and processed junk food.
Since a young age, he has been travelling to many countries and as a kid, he visited Okinawa a dozen times and later, he started travelling to many countries for karate competitions and business purposes.
Jesse loves carrot cake and Indian food and is a melomaniac.
His favourite martial art movie is Iron Monkey starring Donnie Yen.
Jesse is a fan of Bruce Lee and loves his books more than his movies.
In a few of his YouTube videos, he collaborated with Shi Heng Yi, a popular Shaolin master.
Jesse is a polyglot as he knows Finnish (his first language), Swedish, English (his third language) and Japanese.
So, how are you inspired by the success story of Jesse Enkamp?
Share with me in the comment section below.
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