Code of Conduct

1. Who this covers

Every member, every visitor on the mat, every coach, and any staff member, contractor, or volunteer who helps run the club, now or in future. It applies across all combat sports training the club runs (gi and no-gi grappling). If you train here, drop in here, teach here, or work here, this document applies to you.

2. Member standards

• Control your partner's safety like your own.
• Tap early. Respect the tap instantly.
• Match intensity to your partner, not your ego.
• Every technique is taught to everyone. Live sparring is played under IBJJF rules for your belt and age by default. If two partners’ rulesets differ, both play to the more restrictive of the two. ADCC rules are also allowed when both partners are adults and both agree.
• No kani basami, jumping guard or flying submissions in rolling. Falling bodyweight onto a partner is an unnecessary risk to both of you, especially with less experienced partners. This applies whatever a competition’s rules allow.
• No jewellery on the mat.
• Personal hygiene per the student handbook: clean kit every session, short nails, cover cuts.
• Arrive sober.
• No coaching over the coach.
• Leave the venue as you found it — mats wiped down when asked, kit cleared, nothing left behind.

3. Inclusion

Everyone rolls. Skill and conduct are the only things that earn status here — not size, sex, background, or where you trained before. If someone's on the mat, they belong on the mat.

4. Bullying and harassment

Bullying is repeated behaviour meant to hurt, humiliate, or exclude someone. It counts wherever it happens — on the mat, in the changing area, or in group chats.

Harassment is unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic — age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation — that violates someone's dignity or creates a hostile environment. Sexual harassment — unwanted conduct of a sexual nature — is harassment, and it is named here explicitly. In plain terms: if it targets who someone is and they don't want it, it stops.

On the mat, bullying and harassment take specific forms: deliberate excessive force, repeatedly targeting the same partner to hurt or humiliate them, "initiation" practices of any kind, and excluding someone from drilling, rounds, or the group. None of these are banter. All of them break this code.

Where anyone involved is under 18, the matter is a safeguarding concern and is handled under the safeguarding policy, not this document.

5. Coach standards

These standards bind anyone who coaches or helps run sessions — employed, contracted, or volunteering, now or in future — not only the directors.

Coaches hold power over members — in pairing, in progression, in whose training gets attention. That power means coaches are held to a higher bar than members, not the same one.

• No romantic or sexual relationships between a coach and any member under 18, ever. A coach is in a position of trust in law; a sexual relationship with a 16- or 17-year-old in their charge is a criminal offence.
• Any romantic or sexual relationship between a coach and an adult member is disclosed to a director not involved for as long as a coaching relationship exists. From disclosure, that director takes over pairing and progression decisions for that member.
• No favouritism in pairing or progression. Decisions are made on skill and conduct, and stand up to being explained out loud.
• Demonstrations follow the safeguarding policy, section 4: coaches say what they are about to do before demonstrating on anyone, and anyone may decline.

6. Complaints

1. Raise it informally. Speak to either director, at a session or by email. Most things end here.
2. Written complaint. Email hello@rebelcombatsports.com. We acknowledge within 48 hours. A director not involved in the complaint decides it within 14 days and tells you the outcome; where neither is involved, both decide together.

If the complaint concerns a director, go to the other one directly:

• Concerns about Adrian → Ben Zarif, ben@rebelcombatsports.com.
• Concerns about Ben → Adrian Bradbury, adrian@rebelcombatsports.com.
• Concerns about both directors → the British Martial Arts & Boxing Association (BMABA), our affiliation body, in the first instance.

Interim measures. A director not involved in the complaint may suspend attendance while it is decided. Suspension pending a decision is not a finding.

Records. Complaint records and written warnings are kept by the directors, confidentially, per the data handling summary.

External escalation. If you believe the club has not dealt with your complaint properly, you can escalate to BMABA.

Safeguarding concerns are never handled as complaints. Anything involving a child or an adult at risk goes via the safeguarding policy immediately — do not wait for the complaints process.

7. Sanctions

Sanctions are proportionate. The normal ladder:

1. A conversation with a coach.
2. A written warning.
3. Suspension. A suspension is for a stated period, in writing. Billing pauses during any suspension longer than 7 days, unless the written suspension decision states otherwise and explains why.
4. Exclusion. Exclusion for cause means no refund of the current month — see the terms and conditions.

Immediate exclusion, skipping the ladder, is reserved for violence outside the rules of training, sexual harassment or serious harassment, or safeguarding breaches.

The sanctioning decision is made by both directors together, unless one is the subject — then the other decides alone.