Sample Gym
2021-12-27T16:13:01.140Z
This is a good BJJ school and has a solid group of training partners, but in my opinion there is room for improvement. I came here as a purple belt and trained for a solid 2.5+ years consistently going 3 to 4 times a week, with the exception of time off due to the pandemic closure and an injury.
The coaches and people are high level, usually with several black belts on the mat. The group is friendly, training is safe, injuries for me were uncommon and were never due to someone cranking a sub or going too hard, which is a big positive.
With that being said, I didn't make much improvement during my time here.
The classes are unstructured. One class you will learn say a choke from side control, then the next class something totally different. The lack of continuity and the fact that you only see techniques many months apart (sometimes I only saw them once in over 2 years) made it difficult for me to incorporate new things into my game. I'd have to do lots of self study to learn new concepts, which defeated the purpose of going to class with the exception of rolling. For someone who has a lot of time and natural ability, this format works, but for me it did not.
Also the coaches rarely would point out what I was doing wrong. As an example if they are watching me roll and a black belt passes my guard the same way 3x in a row, I was not given pointers on what I was doing wrong. It was like I had to figure out all my mistakes on my own. Again, if you wrestled your entire life, train everyday, or are a natural, you can figure it out. I have limited training time it and it just led to frustration. We rarely trained takedowns, but that is common to all BJJ schools.
The final thing I found strange was that I believe people are grouped into different categories by the coaches and then given more or less attention to their training. Being an older adult, clearly I'm not going to be winning any championships, but that doesn't mean I don't care or don't want to be the best I can be. I felt that aspect of the instruction odd, when certain people would be pulled aside after class and specifically told how to counter a certain person's setup, but I was never given any pointers in that way. This led to a feeling of favoritism and an us vs. them dynamic.
This is a good BJJ school and has a solid group of training partners, but in my opinion there is room for improvement. I came here as a purple belt an... More