JiuJitsu School Highlights after hitting 75 Schools

Tomorrow I'll visit my 75th JiuJitsu school! That's 35 schools over the past year, for a rate of 3 new schools a month! It all started three years ago from a JiuJitsu road trip to New York with my good friend Tony Clemente, and just kinda slowly grew into me becoming a regular road dog, with a West coast to East coast, then up and down the East coast road trip. It has been just a grand time, and I've been welcomed into so many places, learned so much, and met so many great people along the way. I thought it would be fun to reflect back on those times and highlight some of the schools I've visited and what I enjoyed the most about them. I'll call these... The Academy Awards! 😆

I forgot to take a picture at this place,
so here is me holding a surfboard 😂

The Fanciest Academy!
Studio 540 wins this one! You walk into this academy and you feel like you just stepped into a 5-star resort. Everything is immaculate and beautiful. Like this is the one and only time I walked into a JiuJitsu academy's bathroom and went holyyy crap 😮 this place is nice! Polished wood everywhere and some type of fancy stone countertops on everything. Just everything in this place is impressive.

The school is a well-known travel spot and throws its doors open to visitors. Throw in a staff of experienced and established instructors, a frequent rotation of world-class seminars, and you have a must visit spot if you find yourself in southern California! I learned an armbar technique here that I use on a weekly basis. 

The Coolest Academy
Derby City MMA takes this one! Home to Chewy and I will admit that I'm a bit of a Chewy Fanboy. I have spent hours listening to his youtube channel and podcast. The content he puts out is just gold, and he's someone that I want to grow up to be like in JiuJitsu. As popular as he is in the community, Chewy is an everyday type of guy, and when you meet him, you feel like you've always known him. I've visited Derby City three times over the past two years. The second time I came back Chewy saw me and went "STEEEVE! What's up brother!" That was incredibly cool.

The crew at Derby City is also incredible. Everyone is friendly and go out of their way to introduce themselves and welcome newcomers in. While they are all friendly, they are no slouches when it comes time to roll. They will match your pace, but there are no easy rolls at Derby City. Classes are filled with laughter, friendly verbal sparring, tough rolls, and long conversations afterward. I also consider this to be a must visit spot in JiuJitsu, but ya'll probably already had this one on your lists. 😉


My Favorite Academy!
If you have been following along on here, you know how CSG 360 grew to mean to me over the three months that I was there.

If I had an ideal school, it would be one that had:

• A great community of people that had fun hanging out both within and outside of the school. I spend the majority of my free time training JiuJitsu, and it's really important to me to be at a spot that I enjoy the people that I share the mats with. 
• A spot that trains gi and no gi. I really enjoy the different dynamics of both. Although I started off as a "gi guy" I've really fallen in love with the no gi game and would want a spot to offer both.
• A competition oriented school. I'm a sports JiuJitsu guy and love competing and do it every chance that I get. I don't need a crazy competition school were every class is a fight to the death, but I do enjoy competition flavored classes. 

CSG 360 has all of those, and my fondest memories from my time in California our from my time with the team and I still regularly wear team patches as an expression of my gratitude from that time. The school has continued to rapidly grow because it has such a special combination of all of these.

The Best Furnished Academy!

Revolution BJJ wins this one! This place is MASSIVE! I think it has a total of three different mats, all the same size as what most schools have. Six doored private changing rooms, two private showers, a couple washers and dryers, and two separate vanity sinks to freshen up before/after classes. Oh, and like a million places to store gear near the mats. This place has everything you could want at a school!

The mats space allows a packed schedule, and you have a wide variety of classes to chose from. I jumped into a rolling class, yeah you heard that right! A full class of nothing but rolling. I'll do that every day of the week 😜 I followed that class up with a strictly drilling class, where students drilled whatever techniques they wanted to for the whole duration of the class. 

A fully furnished academy, a packed schedule, training partners with skills to match any big name school in the country, and expert instruction, this spot has it all!

The Best Affiliation!

The Gallegos Association wins this one! A massive association that has a small community feel to it. This association is STACKED with black belts and it's commonplace to see 16 plus black belts at team training, along with a whole crowd of other belts. These team events are like a giant family get together, I bought a plane ticket to be at the last one if that says anything, with packed mats, EDM music blaring, and nothing but 🔥 rolls, these get-togethers are a one of a kind experience. 

The association is filled with authentic, straight shooting people, and individuality is welcomed and celebrated within it. In a world run by polished social media profiles, the Gallegos Association is a breath of fresh air with its authenticity and realism. I've had some real heart to heart conversations within those walls, and it's truly an incredible thing to be just a small part of.

The Hidden Gem!

Tucked away on Whidbey Island is a small, but growing school called Wakizashi BJJ that has massive momentum that I believe will one day be a well-recognized place. I'm kinda currently a ronin, drifting from school to school, but this is the place that I call home and the name I compete under.

I got to spend a year at Wakizashi BJJ, and my game exploded during that time. There's a wall covered with medals that represents that growth. 

Under the watchful instruction of Professor Eli, I finally developed a no gi game, that features pressure passing and leg attacks/defenses combined with my gi game of kimuras and darces. I am staggered from the growth that I saw from my time here, and it was a result of the quality of instruction and teammates that went to great lengths to help me improve. I've written a lot about my time here, all the fun we had hanging out, training, and traveling to competitions/seminars. These guys are all very special to me, and I firmly believe that you'll be seeing big things being produced from these mats.

The Baddest Academy! 

I've been to quite a few schools now, and I can normally very quickly pick up on the vibe of a place, and tell what to expect for the class. When I walked down into the basement to attend classes at Unity Jiu Jitsu School, my immediate thought was I'm going to die here, and no ones ever gonna find the body. I went to an open comp class, that happened to be the tail end of their IBJJF World's preparation.

I'm a fairly experienced purple belt, with a decent amount of competition time under my belt. Let me tell ya'll that I felt like I jumped off into the deep end walking into this class. There are levels to this game, and the difference between being competitive and world-class was quickly apparent. I got my ass kicked on those mats from one side of the room to the other. I don't know if I even got a dominant position once there. I loved every second of it! Encountering competition levels like that are one of the reasons I enjoy traveling so much. It was a humbling and educational experience and I walked away hungrier than ever to get better at this JiuJitsu thing. 

If you are looking for a place to test your mettle at, this is the spot.

The Wildcard Academy!

I'm not quite sure what to name this one, so if you have a better suggestion, please let me know! 

There aren't any team or affiliation flags here. There aren't any membership fees or even set instructors. These are places mostly unknown to the rest of the community because of their nature. These are the fight houses that exist on the bases of the United States Army. I have been to three of them on Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, and Fort Benning, and all of them offer something similar. A neutral place for submission grapplers to come in and test themselves and hone their schools. 

Like you'd expect on an Army base, there are some physical monsters that frequent the mats. What might be surprising though is the technical level they hold. Fort Benning has 3-4 black belts regularly at class for lunchtime training. My favorite one though, possibly because it was my most frequented, is the Fort Bragg fight house. From 11:30-1300 the mats are open to anyone that wants to train, regardless of team patch. Music blares and the round counter buzzes and soldiers and civilians tirelessly work round after round to improve. These guys could be relaxing and eating, maybe catching a much-needed nap, but instead, they spend their lunch breaks sharpening their games. I have had epic, sometimes hour-long battles on these mats. 

The fight houses of the Army are mostly an unknown part of the JiuJitsu community, as they exist as a subculture within a subculture. Every class I've spent at one though has been a memorable experience. Perhaps I love them so much because it's the heart of submission grappling, just a bunch of people that love training coming together to sweat, struggle, and improve together, free of any JiuJitsu politics. 

About the Author:

Steven McMahon earned his Kyuki-Do Black Belt in 2011 from Grand Master Kim at Kim's Black Belt Academy and his  BJJ Purple Belt in January 2017 under Professor Charles Nunley. He currently trains out of Wakizashi BJJ in Oak Harbor under Professor Eli Trevino. He is an active competitor at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Army Combative tournaments