BJJ in the UK – A Brief History

Although brasilian jiu jitsu in the U.K is still in its infancy its history is still not 100% clear, with just 12 british born black belts at the time of writing(May 2008 - 11 men 1 women) you would think that the origins of  BJJ in the UK would be much clearer. It would appear that there were several people starting the BJJ path around the same time some of these have become more prominent than others in the growth of jiu jitsu. An obvious starting point is UFC 1 on November 12th 1993 after seeing Royce Gracie easily defeat his opponents many people started looking into the art of brasilian jiu jitsu.


One of those who began the path of Bjj was Marc Walder who made his first trip to the Gracie Academy in Torrance in 1995 where he began learning the art direct from the source, Marc returned to Torrance for a second time staying out there until his visa ran out and  returned to the UK a blue belt with permission to teach the art of brasilian jiu jitsu which was overseen by Royce Gracie himself. After Royce made a return to professional fighting and had less time to over see Marcs’ Jiu jitsu Marc joined up with Gracie Barra representative and Bjj legend Maricio Gomes an excellent Bjj teacher and one of only five men to recieve his black belt from the famous Rolls Gracie. Maricio had been in the UK since the early 1990’s teaching in Birmingham after a short time back in Brazil Maricio then returned to the UK and began teaching in London. The next major turning point in UK BJJ was the opening of the full time Roger Gracie Academy in February 2004, Roger Gracie son of Maricio Gomes is arguably the best grappler on the planet and had a big impact on jiu jitsu in britain. The next event was the first black belts to be graded in the UK these were Marc Walder, Jude Samuels and Rick Young in 2005, Marc now runs a Bjj School in Essex, Jude Samuals Teaches at the Roger Gracie Academy and runs The European Fight Network and Rick Young runs the Black Belt Academy in Edingburgh teaching JKD and Bjj.

The art and sport of Bjj now goes from strength to strength with dedicated websites and more competitions the UK is now firmly on the Jiu Jitsu map.

This is a rough guide to the history of uk bjj if anyone has any additional information please contact us.