What we're building in Eastbourne
We open to the public on 3 August. Before we do, I want to put down plainly what we’re actually building — not the marketing version, the real one — because if it’s the room for you, I’d rather you knew exactly what you were walking into.
The short version: a serious grappling club in Eastbourne, run as a sport, with the ceremony stripped out and nothing dishonest bolted on. That’s it. Everything below is just detail on what those words mean.
Why here, why now
I’ve trained and coached in combat sports my whole life, and for a long time I’ve wanted a room in this town built the way I actually think a grappling gym should be built — coached from sport science, honest about progress, no politics deciding who gets to be good. So we built it rather than kept wishing for it.
I’m not going to run down anyone else in Eastbourne to make that point. There are places to train here and some people are happy in them, which is as it should be. This isn’t a club defined by being against the others. It’s defined by a specific way of doing things, and the honest test is whether that way is the one you want — not whether everywhere else is wrong.
We’re not built to be against the other clubs in town. We’re built around one specific way of training, and the only question is whether it’s yours.
The two sports under one roof
We train both sports grappling has, and we treat them as two sports rather than one with an optional jacket. No-gi — shorts and a rashguard, faster and more scramble-heavy — is the room I lead. Gi BJJ runs here too, Adrian on the gi classes, coached on its own terms rather than as a costume change over the no-gi.
They share one rank, earned against a written syllabus — performance, not time served — so if you end up loving both, nothing you build in one is wasted in the other. Pick whichever door appeals. Neither is the “real” one.
Who it’s for
Working adults, mostly — people with jobs and lives who want to get genuinely good at grappling without signing up to a belief system. Complete beginners are the norm here, not the exception, and people who bounced off traditional martial-arts culture tend to find this is the opposite of what put them off. It’s built to be for everybody, and I mean that in the specific, boring way — the room is set up so that being new, or older, or smaller costs you nothing.
What it isn’t is a place to collect a belt for the wall or defer to someone with a title. If that’s what you’re after, I’d genuinely point you elsewhere.
What “built properly” means in practice
The club trains out of Rebel Rebel, Adrian’s gym — a good space with the weights in the same building as the mats, which matters more than it sounds. Sessions are coached the whole way through using a modern coaching approach, not a warm-up and an hour of free-for-all. Progress is measured against clear criteria so you always know where you stand. Promotions happen with no ceremony attached. And the policies that govern the place — safeguarding, first aid, how we handle an injury — were written to bind whoever coaches here in future, not just us on a good day.
I’d rather build something narrow and honest than something broad and vague. This is a grappling club run as a sport. That’s the whole promise, and we intend to keep it.
From 3 August
That’s the day the doors open properly, and the first two weeks are free — no card, no commitment — because the only way to know if a room is for you is to stand in it. If you’d like to feel it out before then, the Sunday open mat is free and running, and you’re welcome to come and watch or roll.
This is what we actually teach, and this is what we’re building here. Come and see whether it’s the room you’ve been after.