Why this club exists.
A two-time former world champion spent 20 years coaching athletes — the last decade-plus of it building the grappling methodology he wished existed when he started. This club is the result — based at Rebel Rebel, Eastbourne's premium boutique gym.
The coaching he wanted didn't exist.
Ben spent 20 years coaching athletes across striking and combat sport. For over a decade, he'd also been looking for grappling coaching that treated the sport seriously — sport-science rigour, measurable progress, methodology built on what actually works rather than what's traditional. It wasn't available. So he built it.
Most grappling instruction in the UK runs on inherited tradition: do what your instructor did, trust the lineage, earn your belt. That's not how high-performance sport works. The best grappling coaches in the world treat it as a sport — with periodised training, testable technique, and objective performance measures. That approach wasn't reaching recreational athletes here.
Ben had the competitive background, the coaching experience across striking and combat sport, and the decade-plus of sport-science work applied to grappling. And Adrian had the venue: Rebel Rebel, his premium boutique gym in Eastbourne. The club launched from the combination of those two things — the methodology and the room.
People who want to get genuinely good at grappling, coached by people who've won at the highest level and whose students have won too. The next generation of grapplers in Eastbourne shouldn't have to figure this out on their own.
Ben Zarif
- Former TKD world champion
- 20+ years coaching athletes
- Sport-science approach
Ben is a two-time former world champion in Taekwondo — and more usefully here, he's spent over 20 years coaching athletes, with the last decade-plus applying that methodology to grappling from the ground up.
His background in striking gave him something most grappling coaches don't have: first-hand experience of what high-level sport coaching actually looks like. The periodisation, the technical precision, the feedback systems that produce athletes rather than just practitioners. He applied that lens to no-gi grappling across the last decade-plus.
He also coached striking students who went on to become world champions themselves — which means his methods have been tested not just on his own performance, but on the performance of people he's developed from scratch. That track record informs how he runs every session here.
The focus now is the next generation: people in Eastbourne who want to compete seriously, or who simply want to get genuinely good at grappling, coached by someone who knows what that actually requires. He's had local tournament success with the club already. More is expected.
Ben is 33. He's not coasting on a title. He's actively coaching, actively developing the curriculum, and on the mats at every session.
Adrian
- Owner, Rebel Rebel
- Certified boxing coach
- BJJ purple belt & coach
- Former powerlifting champion
- Accredited British Weightlifting coach
Adrian owns Rebel Rebel — and he's a full coaching contributor, not just the landlord. His role here is co-founder and the club's strength and conditioning lead.
He's a certified boxing coach, a BJJ purple belt who coaches in his own right, and a former powerlifting champion. He's also an accredited British Weightlifting coach. That combination of disciplines is unusual, and it's exactly what building S&C programming for combat athletes actually requires: someone who understands what the sport demands from the inside, not just from the weight room.
His specialism is physical preparation for combat athletes — the strength, conditioning and mobility work that supports grappling performance rather than just sitting alongside it. Members who want structured S&C alongside their grappling training have access to that here.
Rebel Rebel is his gym: premium, independently run, built to a standard you don't usually find at this price point in Eastbourne. The club trains out of that space. It matters — where you train shapes how you train.
Rebel Rebel, Eastbourne.
We train at Rebel Rebel: a premium, inclusive boutique gym in Eastbourne. It's not a traditional martial arts setup and it's not a budget warehouse. The space is well-equipped, well-run, and belongs to someone who actually cares about the standard.
That matters for the kind of club we're trying to build. The room shapes who shows up and who feels comfortable staying.
For everybody. We mean it.
Whoever you are, wherever you're starting from. We scale people from where they are to where they want to be — that's the whole point. Women, older athletes, complete beginners, people who've never set foot on a mat and don't read as "fighters": all explicitly welcome, and it's made true by how the room is run.
We've seen what happens when the culture defaults to bro-sport: beginners leave, women leave, older athletes leave, and the room gets worse as a result. We run against that deliberately. Experienced members are expected to train carefully with people newer than them. The intensity and the technical demands are real — but they're calibrated to what you can do now, and scaled toward where you want to go.
Welcoming without being soft. Technically serious without being intimidating. Anti-bro without being precious about it. That's the room we're building.
Come and see it for yourself.
Two weeks free. No card required. Show up, train, and decide from there.
Book a free trial →