Gracie Barra North Mixed martial arts

The spread of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is still on the rise throughout the UK, with more and more academies springing into life many of the country’s towns and cities. Roger Brooking now has classes in London and in the North East and Roberto Atalla is enjoying success down in the Big Smoke, as are the Carlson Gracie students. Gracie Barra UK are still expanding and spreading out further afield and over the next few months I will be reporting on the new GBUK academies. The overall success of the SENI 04 BJJ extravaganza has resulted in more clubs opening up and in this report I’ll be concentrating on the cities of Sheffield and Manchester.

GB Sheffield

Andy Roberts

As with most people back at the start of BJJ in the UK, you had to travel far and wide in search of a Gracie seminar and so it was with Andy Roberts; attending a seminar with Carley Gracie back in 1998 was enough to get him hooked and after a few more seminars a trip to Torrance followed, where he trained five hours a day for ten days. On his return, he attended a Royce Gracie seminar and began to start showing a few of the guys back at his TJJ, some of the techniques he’d acquired on his travels. A year later both Roberts and Ross Pettiffer received their blue belts from Royce and were forced to enter the International Gracie Tournament hosted by Rorion Gracie; another two weeks of training five hours a day soon followed in the US and in this time a seminar with Royce was arranged back in Sheffield and from then on Royce has continued to return for two seminars a year. At that time both Ross and Andy started to trained at GB Birmingham and London and also competed in the GBUK Opens, with Ross winning the gi division and second in the no gi both times. Roberts missed the first Open with a dislocated elbow, but entered the second event and won the gi event and missed the no gi due to a cut.

Since then, Roberts continued to expand the club, teaching out of the TJJ academy full time and hosting seminars with the likes of Braulio Estima, Roger Gracie, Marcio Feitosa, Marc Walder, Shaolin, Rolker Gracie and of course Royce; with student numbers increasing and a blue belt tally of seventeen, Roberts joined the Royce Gracie JJ Network and a year later left his old academy to expand his club. It was at this point that Roberts made the difficult decision of leaving the RGJJN and merged with GBUK, as at the time Roberts was training a lot with Braulio and GBUK and due to his busy schedule, Royce was only available for seminars twice a year, so in a bid to develop both the students and himself, Roberts joined the GBUK network. His relationship with Royce was unaffected and will still be teaching seminars at Andy’s club after talking to Andy at SENI 04, he only has the highest regard for all the help and insights Royce has given him to the great art.

With a stellar competition track record that boasts first place finishes at the NEBJJ league and at the 1^st European BJJ event in Portugal as well as mixing it up in the MMA world with a win over Hywel Teague at YFN2 (as well as grabbing fighter of the night award to boot), the only crime is that Roberts still remains a blue belt.

GB Manchester - a long time coming!

Back in 1999, after returning from LA training with the Machados, the Fighting Photographer reigned supreme at his local club for about a month, catching out his team mates with the new moves from Stateside; then after about a month, most of the techniques were lost due to there being no BJJ clubs in the region, as well as a sieve like brain. In an effort to keep in touch with BJJ, weekly drives to Bradford, Pontefract and Birmingham were the order of the day; this made for a patchy start into the BJJ world, as time and other reporting commitments meant that travelling had to be put on hold and so the local clubs in Bolton, Atherton and Leigh became home for a number of years. Over the years, FP travelled all over Europe on reporting duties and began a long standing relationship with the Scandinavian BJJ scene, training with the best in Oslo, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Helsinki and Turku. Still a white belt, FP entered all the gi and no gi events out there and amassed a sterling 11-0 record, going toe to toe with some of the best grapplers in Europe. In 2003, whilst reporting in Jersey at Rob Staples’ club, Mauricao awarded FP his blue belt and the week after, FP left to train in Scandinavia for three months. Returning back in the summer, the hunt for a new club began in earnest and after months of searching a new place was found for GB Manchester. Based at the Bolton Olympic Wrestling Club, the club has a huge matted area and access to weights, showers and saunas; in only three months the student data base stands at over forty five students and is still expanding. Braulio Estima has already paid a visit and hosted the first seminar, which attracted Rick Young from Edinburgh and plans are afoot to bring Estima back before his departure to Brazil in July. In April, the legendary Gumby visited the academy in his first (and hopefully not the last) European tour. Felipe Souza is pencilled in for a week long visit and the end of June and Roger is on stand by for a trip over the summer and the club will be officially opened by The Bear on his next visit to the UK later this year.

Chris Brown expands The Martial Arts Academy in Oldham

Chris Brown, in addition with Steve Jones have been training JKD for over 10 years, training with many of the leading authorities on the art, with Chris becoming Honorary representative of the Jun Fan JKD Grappling association, led by Larry Hartsell. Over the years the duo opened The Martial Arts Academy in Chadderton, Oldham and have been busy developing the club. In a bid to keep ahead of the game, Chris began training BJJ in Doncaster with good friends Ben Poppleton and Mike Shore and in 2004, his hard work and dedication was recognised by the main man, Carlos Gracie Jr and his blue belt was awarded. Shortly after this, Brown entered the SENI 04 in his first match as a blue belt and ended up a respectable third place, in a tough weight division. In addition to competing, Chris has hosted two seminars for the half guard master Gordinho and aims to have Felipe Souza at the club in the near future. The club is open seven days a week and also offers Sambo, JKD striking, weights and self defence. Daytime training is also on offer.

All three clubs have been in operation a few months, and are making positive progression and enjoying high turnouts on the mats and are making a positive contribution to the spread of BJJ in the UK. Keep your eyes peeled for future developments and seminars at these academies.

Training times

Sheffield - Address - 393 Langsett Road, Hillsborough, Sheffield, S6

Times - Monday 6.00pm-7.30pm, Wednesday 6.00pm-8.00pm.

Cost £5; private lessons available plus extra sessions for competition training. For more details contact arjiujitsu@aol.com

Manchester — Bolton Olympic Wrestling Club, Wigan Rd Bolton. Times — Monday 6-7.30, Weds 7-9pm & Sunday 11-1pm. Cost £4. Privates available upon request. For more details contact barramanchester@hotmail.com

Oldham — The Martial Arts Academy, Falmouth Works, off Copsterhill Rd, Chadderton, Oldham. Times — Tuesday 7-8pm, Weds 7-8pm, Sunday 11-1pm. The club operates a membership policy, for more details contact jeetkunedo@ntlworld.com.