A big part of what makes our Mississauga martial arts academy the place that it is lies in the fact it’s not just about numbers. Sure having the area’s fastest growing member base is nice but most importantly we’ve always had a clear vision of the direction the academy would grow towards in terms of culture and strucutre. With things taking shape nicely it’s once again time to make a few adjustments
#1 Sam Zakula is hands down one of the cities most decorated and below the radar coaches for BJJ and honestly anything to do with combat sports / MMA
A Toronto area pioneer in both sport bjj and grappling, Sam’s clean cut coaching style has been sought after and instrumental in the development of many of the areas most successful grapplers and world class mixed martial artists.
Long and short the man really knows his craft and a student of the game on a level not matched by many..
I’ve been training with him for the last 20 years on and off, so when I heard he wasn’t teaching anywhere we started talking about a more official partnership and here we are today.
Having a coach of his calibre is a great boost to any program and a fresh set of eyes doesn’t hurt either so to balance things out a bit we’ve decided to stager the class offerings to make the No GI classes take place Tuesday and Thursday @7pm followed by the competition gi class @ 8pm.
#2
Sadly right now when you talk to people and they say they train BJJ one picture comes to mind, a bunch of rough and tumble men and lady grappling each other lol .. I’ve been around for a good 20 years so have seen the ups and downs of different training approaches and come to the plain conclusion that like almost everything else in life Jiu-Jitsu isn’t 1 size fits all.
Since not every person has the same goal in training or looking for the same thing out of training it dawned on me instead of offering only what interested me at the time it would be best to have the academy offer a full spread of high level programs covering topics ranging from combative applications, technical study of the art / sport focused competitions
Lots to chose from so going forward the time for the competition based class will be Tuesday and Thursday 8pm following directly after the no gi class.
This diversification of programs is paying off in a big with with the recent addition of the “white belt class” – held Tuesday and Thursday 6:15pm , people seem to be enjoying the more focused approach and as instructors it is certainly nice to be able to delve deeply into topics with the more focused classes.
P.s
Congrats to everyone who attended the Niagara open on the weekend.. win lose or draw everyone that prepared for the event is a lot better off for all the effort.