Considering Kleber Koike Erbst’s recent 19-1 run in MMA, it’s safe to say he’s gotten a hang of the whole being a competitor thing.

But that wasn’t that case a few years ago, when the former KSW featherweight champion was just finding his way on the mats.

“A funny thing is that, when I first started at jiu-jitsu, as a white and blue belt, I lost a lot,” Erbst told MMAjunkie with a laugh. “As a white belt, I never won a gold medal. There’s a story my teacher always tells: I was so bad at competing that this one time, some of out gym patches arrived, I said I wanted one and he said they were all out.

“He didn’t want me using them, because I lost and he was kind of embarrassed.”

Erbst’s struggles to get results translated to more work. He’d stay after practice doing drills and working on positions. He’d get beat, sometimes badly, and he’d just keep going. Time – and persistence – brought maturity, and soon Erbst learned how to make up for the lack of physical prowess of his slimmer frame with cleverness.

Erbst, who meets Marian Ziolkowski in a catchweight bout at this Saturday’s KSW 44, which takes place in Gdansk, Poland, is now a jiu-jitsu black belt and teacher. And, as it turns out, that was just one of a few instances in which his stubbornness paid off.

Erbst currently lives in Japan – more specifically, in Shizuoka, which is about a two-and-a-half drive away from Tokyo – but was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to a father of Japanese descent. He lived in Brazil until his teens, when financial struggles led his parents to move. Erbst first stayed behind with relatives, but followed when he was 14.

“I went like any other dekasegi (term used to describe migrants with Japanese heritage, primarily Brazilians, who move to Japan in hopes of finding employment),” Erbst said. “I went there to work, so I could make some money and pay for my education. That was my dream at the time, to help my parents and return as soon as possible.

“But I met jiu-jitsu, fell in love and stayed.”

The staying part, though, wasn’t that simple. When crisis hit in Japan, his parents decided to move back to Brazil. They wanted Erbst to join him and lead a regular, 18-year-old life of studying and training. But that’s not the life that the featherweight had envisioned for himself.

Even if things didn’t work out, he’d rather live with the regret of a chance taken than with the resentment that would come if he just let it pass him by. So Erbst stayed.

“In Brazil things are harder,” Erbst said. “There isn’t that much support. And I thought, ‘There, I’ll be just another one. Here, I can be someone.’ I thought the opportunities would end up showing up there and I insisted.”

While the opportunities didn’t show up, Erbst hustled. He and his brother first stayed with friends, then with his teachers. He made no money from fighting, and there was crisis all around, so he found himself taking a number of odd jobs to finance his competing.

“I’d work doing security, I’d do construction work, whatever was available,” Erbst said. “I cleaned beaches to make money, I picked up trash, everything they told me to do to make money to compete. If I knew there was a competition in two weeks, I’d ask for a job to make some money. And that’s what I used to pay for my sign-up fees.

“Today my family, even friends who’ve followed it form the start, they say I was vey stubborn to insist on my dream. Because many would have given up already.”

Staying was “one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.” But that validation wouldn’t arrive until 2015. That’s when, 15 wins into an MMA career that he started out more out of curiosity than anything else, he had his KSW debut in Poland.

“In my head, I thought I’d never be a champion outside of Japan,” Erbst said. “So when I was able to come to Poland for the first time, fight a major event, that’s when I said I made the right choice.”

Erbst not only made it to Poland’s massive KSW, where he got to perform in front of a reported 56,000 crowd, but he was also able to eventually take the featherweight belt. He was stripped from it after failing to make weight, but still managed to avenge his sole KSW loss, to Artur Sowinski, with a submission win in his last fight.

It’s not a bad spot to be in, but that’s not to say Erbst is totally satisfied with it. The ex-champ, who’d be fighting for the vacant 145-pound belt again on Saturday hadn’t it been for his original opponent’s short-notice withdrawal, is still missing a few things.

“Sometimes we think that we’ll get a world title, like ‘I’ll win this belt and it will change my life,’” Erbst said. “It’s what I thought. I thought when I won a belt, and I think it happens to a lot of UFC fighters, I thought ‘my purse will improve, new sponsorships will appear and my gym is going to be brimming with students.’ It’s sad, because that didn’t happen. It’s not how it happens.”

In fact, Erbst still has to teach from Monday to Saturday to make ends meet. Recognition – and sponsorship – still aren’t where he wants them to be. And there’s the fact that, having met Polish opponents in all five of his KSW outings, he isn’t exactly feeling the love.

“Every time I fight (in Poland) I say I have to kill a lion,” Erbst said. “Because, here, I don’t fight as a guy who people want to see evolve and who’s defending the jiu-jitsu flag. Unfortunately, here, they want to see me lose. It’s like it happens everywhere else. In Brazil, they want the belt to stay in Brazil. In the U.S., they want Americans to keep it. Same thing with the Polish people.”

But Erbst is hoping that time – and, of course, his results – will change that. In the meantime, he has no lack of motivation to help him stay hungry through the harder times.

There is the desire to make a more financially stable life for himself. There’s the pride he takes in waving the jiu-jitsu flag and representing true martial arts at a time when MMA can sometimes feel more like a screaming match than a sports competition.

But, most importantly, there’s the joy of seeing his once-reluctant parents proud of how far he’s come.

“To see the joy in the eyes of my parents, of my brother, of my nephews, of my children,” Erbst said. “To see people happy. That’s what motivates me. That’s where my energy comes from. When I was away from my parents, I fought to be close to them. I said, ‘I need this fight to make the distance worth it. I’m away from the things I love the most and someone has to pay for it. If I’m in Japan, it’s because it’s my dream, and I’ll take out anyone who’s in the way of it.’

“… To hear that I make them proud of what I do, that my brother’s proud of me – That’s when I feel I made the right choice. Perhaps, even with a college degree, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today.”

As for the bit that Erbst gets to claim for himself?

“I want to create my own story,” Erbst said. “Some people tell stories, some people live off of stories – I want to make mine.”

For more on KSW 44, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.