OK I am new to this so please be patient. There are several options in my area and just looking for a little help making an educated decision. I don't plan on ever fighting MMA and am simply looking for a place to learn BJJ as an art and not just for sport.
#1 is closest to me and has class taught by a purple belt John Grantham under Larry Brooks/Ricardo Murgel..class 2x a week but pretty sure they only do no gi.
#2 Steve Grantham--Pedro Sauer brown belt--also has another brown and several purple/blue belts training there and has several other arts he teaches other than BJJ.
#3 Elite..Roberto Traven..gi only.New place that hasn't started BJJ class yet but $80 a month seems like a deal to train with a 5th degree BB. I have heard some stories about Traven being tough on you though and don't know the whole story about his split with Alliance.
#4 Paul Creighton..farthest away from me but does gi & no gi and obviously a legit BB and has many other brown/puple/blue at his school.
Not looking for anybody to trash one of these schools or instructors simply looking for any experiences you may have had with them that might help me out. Thanks for reading.
I am biased so I will say check them all out.
#1 John is one of my oldest friends.
#2 Have never trained with Steve but I know him for about 10 years and he is a good guy.
#3 Traven is my coach (and a great one at that) and Elite is run by one of my close friends and my gyms wrestling coach, Jeff Bedard. (This is where you should go.)
#4 Creighton is another old friend and another great coach.
Adam Singer
OK maybe you are a little biased. Is Traven geared more towards mma or is he pretty traditional? Appreciate the info Adam.
I believe that Traven's class at Elite will be a traditional Gi BJJ class.
I'm even more biased than Adam, so come to Paul's! :-)
Adam has spoken the truth, you should check them all out and see what works for you. Price is a factor, but it isn't the only factor and you do get what you pay for. You won't find a finer facility than Paul's and the instruction is 2nd to none.
If you are looking to study more than just BJJ, go to Steve Grantham's. The dude is a stud and a true student of the martial arts. Has a lot of experience in a lot of different thing.
I don't know John, so can't comment on that.
Will most places let you come in and try it for a week or two to see if you like it?
I think a week would be a long time, but maybe.
I know at Paul's you can try out all the classes to see what works best for you.
well maybe a week free is a little much but some of these places want you to sign up for a year and only able to take 1 class. Isn't it kind of hard to judge just doing it once?
Without a doubt Traven's
Steve is an awesome guy. He would be my first choice. I say try them all out.
Out of those Paul's is one of the furthest from me as well (the new place is even futher now). But well worth the drive, Paul is awesome, the new facilities are 2nd to none, and the guys that train there are great guys (except for Morgz and Scout) :-) I would say check them all out, and make a decision based on which place feels like home.
thanks for the info
Im another biased one -- I train at Paul's and think he's both the best instructor and one of the coolest people you will ever meet. His place has a great "family" feel, no egos or attitudes. So I of course would recommend Paul's place first.
You have a great problem though, because there is ton's of great BJJ in this area, and you listed some other great choices. If Grantham is closest you may not be too terribly far from Hard Core Gym either -- another great bunch of guys.
You should definately check out all of them and decide for yourself. I don't think you can really go wrong anywhere.
about 45 min to Hard Core...Grantham is about 10-15 and Paul's is prob 20 or so
A lot of folks drive a lot further than 20 minutes to train. That isn't that far at all.
I wasn't complaining about it for sure.
Heh...I guess my Geography isn't so good. I figure anything north of me has to be close to Athens...lol. Even 45 minutes would probably be worth it to train with those guys some too though.
Yeah, 20 minutes isn't bad. I travel about 30 to go to Paul's and we have a few that travel an hour or more.
North of Gwinett county is country huh?
Ha...I know it shouldn't be that way. I've lived here a lot of years and remember when pretty much most of Gwinnett was dirt roads, small farms, and pine woods. Now it's like the big city lol and yeah anything north of here seems like another state sometimes.
hell some of it still is.