Six programmes, one mat pattern
Every service below runs on the same taped mat with the same belt rail and the same drill lanes. What changes is depth, pace and who the session is for. Current Jiu Jitsu Ltd. publishes the whole set so that a family, a shift worker and a competitor can all plan around the hall.
Fundamentals Classes
Fundamentals is the entry programme and the backbone of the hall. Adults who have never trained start here, and so do members returning after a long break. The curriculum covers twelve positions in a fixed order: standing base, the fall, the closed guard, the first three escapes, the knee slice, side control retention, the mount escape, the back escape and the first two submissions from top. Each class teaches two of those positions, then runs a partner drill in the cone lanes, then closes with a short live round under supervision.
Classes run on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and on Saturday morning. A coach names every movement before it is shown, explains the failure it prevents, and walks the lanes to correct grips. Beginners are never thrown into open rounds on the first night. Instead they work positional sparring with a single goal, such as escaping side control without using the hands on the mat, until the coach is satisfied the movement is safe at speed.
Members who complete fundamentals move on with a shared vocabulary. That is deliberate: when a student joins a mixed session later, both they and the coach already know what the words mean, which cuts the amount of time a class spends explaining and increases the amount it spends drilling.
Open Mat Sessions
Open mat runs on Saturday from late morning until early afternoon and is the only session with no fixed curriculum. Members arrive, pair up by rank and body size using the rails along the short wall, and roll in six minute rounds with a minute to rest. A coach is present for the whole session but does not teach unless asked. The job of the coach here is to watch the lanes for collisions near the edge, to keep the pace reasonable for newer members, and to step in when a pair is stalling against the wall.
Open mat is the place where the positions taught in fundamentals meet resistance. A student who learned a knee slice on Tuesday will try it on Saturday against a partner who knows it is coming. That is the point. Coaches will often reset a pair and ask one side to repeat the same attack three times, which turns a loose round into a short private drill without breaking the flow of the session.
Visitors from other halls are welcome on open mat. We ask that visiting members introduce themselves at the desk, sign the attendance sheet, and follow the same edge rules as everyone else. Gis are not required for every round, but the mat is cleaned for both and the towel rail is stocked either way.
Belt Review Weeks
Four times a year the hall runs a review week. The lane nearest the belt rail becomes a review lane, and each member who is eligible books a partner and a slot. A coach marks the current curriculum station by station, notes which junctions break down under a resisting partner, and records the result on the belt shelf board. Promotion is decided from that record plus the live rounds the member has shown across the preceding months, never from attendance alone.
Review weeks are also a teaching tool. A member who is not ready still leaves with a list of the two or three positions that need work before the next review, and the following block of fundamentals sessions adjusts to cover them. Families appreciate the published rhythm because they can plan holidays around the weeks that matter, and athletes use the review dates to set training blocks that finish in time to test.
The board on the shelf is visible to everyone in the hall. That is intentional. Rank in this hall is public work, and a member who is working on a specific escape should not be the only person who knows what it is.
Kids Grappling Camps
School break camps run for ages seven to thirteen over five days. The daily structure is short rounds of thirty seconds to two minutes, heavy emphasis on grip, posture and safe falling, and a game that uses the cone lanes as a course. Children are grouped by age and size, and every group has a coach and a second adult watching the edge of the mat. A viewing bench along the short wall lets parents stay close without being on the training surface.
The camp teaches real grappling, not a play programme. Children learn how to break a fall in four directions, how to hold a partner down without using the elbows, and how to ask for a reset when something feels wrong. Live rounds are optional and are always paired with an older or more experienced child rather than a mismatched one. The aim is confidence and control, and the coach will stop a round the moment a child looks overwhelmed.
Camps are limited to twenty-four places so that no group grows past the point where a coach can see every pair. Parents receive a short note at the end of each day listing what was covered and what to practise at home, which is usually nothing more than standing up without using the hands.
Competition Prep Blocks
Prep blocks are eight weeks long and are built backwards from a tournament date. The first three weeks narrow the game to the two or three attacks that already work for the athlete, the middle two add the points that judges reward under the ruleset being contested, and the final week is lighter than the middle two so that the athlete arrives rested. Conditioning runs alongside technique on the same night rather than in a separate slot, which keeps the weekly load predictable.
Entry requires a working game and a date. Athletes who cannot name a tournament are better served by private lessons or the mixed sessions until a date is on the calendar. During a block the coach reviews footage from open mat rounds, marks the moments where the athlete loses position, and builds the following week around those moments. Sparring is limited to two hard rounds per session to protect the athlete from accumulating fatigue that would show up on the day.
Members of a block still attend one fundamentals session a week. It is easy to drift into a narrow competition game and lose the base that makes it work, and the hall has seen enough athletes do exactly that to make the rule explicit.
Private Lessons
A private lesson is one athlete, one coach and the whole floor for an hour. It is the fastest route through a specific problem: a grip you cannot break, a takedown you cannot finish, a back escape that keeps failing against the same partner. The coach watches the problem live, takes it apart, and rebuilds it with you on the mat until it holds at speed. Most private sessions end with a written note of the three drills to run before the next class.
Private time is also used before a first visit. Adults who are nervous about joining a group class can book an hour, walk the hall, meet a coach and learn the first fall without an audience. Parents sometimes book a private session before a kids camp so that a shy child knows one adult in the room on day one.
Private lessons are booked directly through the hall and are subject to coach availability. Sessions cancelled with less than twenty-four hours of notice are treated as taken, because the floor and the coach are held for that hour. Full booking terms are published in the Terms of Service.
Current Jiu Jitsu Ltd. opens its spring camp roster to new members this month, and the whole hall moves to the summer drill schedule on the first Monday of the season.
From first visit to first review
The process below is the same for adults and youth members. The pace differs, the order does not.
1. Walk in and watch
Visit the hall, meet a coach and watch fifteen minutes of a session from the viewing bench. No gear needed and no commitment.
2. Take the first class
Fundamentals on a Tuesday or Thursday. You will fall, stand up and drill two positions with a partner at your level.
3. Build the base
Twelve positions across the first block, with open mat on Saturday as soon as the coach signs you off for live rounds.
4. Book a review
The next review week is on the belt shelf board. Book a slot, bring a partner and see what holds under pressure.
Start with fundamentals or a private hour
Tell us your schedule and we will point you at the right lane.