The Gracie Garage At Metro Martial Arts
FREE Training in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
The Original Gracie Garage
Upon arriving in the United States in 1978, Rorion Gracie’s mission was to spread his family’s system of self-defense to the world. He asked the head instructors at several martial arts schools if they would allow him to teach Gracie Jiu-Jitsu at their facility, but every one of them declined. The world did not yet understand the critical importance of ground fighting, and individual instructors were unwilling to allow an unknown martial artist to teach at their school.
Never one to quit, Rorion and a few of his friends rented a small house with a two-car garage in Hermosa Beach, California. He lined the floor of the garage with grappling mats and began teaching private classes to anyone and everyone he met. He offered one free private class to each new student, and the opportunity for every established student to earn an additional free class for every referral. Solely by word of mouth, the number of students grew rapidly, and the demand necessitated additional instructors. So, in 1985, Rorion invited his brother Royce to help teach in the garage. By 1989, Rorion and Royce were instructing 130 active students in the garage and had 80 more wait-listed. It was at this point that Rorion and Royce decided to open the very first Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in the United States, based out of Torrance, California.
The Primary Objective and the Major Challenge
Our primary objective here at the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy is to share Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, in its purest form, with as many people as possible. To accomplish this, we organized our 600+ techniques into a linear curriculum, standardized our teaching methodology, and trained a team of highly qualified instructors so that we could export the Gracie Academy learning experience through a network of Certified Training Centers. While this approach significantly increased our ability to reach beyond the walls of the Gracie Academy, we still were not able to meet the demand for the art. This inspired the creation of Gracie University. But even though, Gracie University provides students all over the world with access to our system, in the comfort of their own home, we still believe that the best way to learn and enjoy the life-changing experience of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is through group study – at the Academy, a Certified Training Center, or a “Gracie Garage.”
Ryron and Rener Gracie
Head Instructors - Gracie Academy
The New Gracie Garage
We created the Gracie Garage branch of our learning network to serve communities that lack a Certified Training Center. Derived from the original garage concept, the new Gracie Garage is an unofficial training facility at which people gather to practice Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Since Gracie Garages have no certified instructors, we expect members to use the Gracie University curriculum or the instructional DVDs as their primary source of instruction. And although they are unofficial establishments, we expect and demand that safety and teamwork remain the most important priorities of a Gracie Garage, just as they are here at the Gracie Academy.
The Gracie Garage at Metro Martial Arts
While we are an unoffical training facility we do have group classes so students can train together. Training in a group setting can help a students progress especially when supplemented with partner pratice. We have the facilitiy for students to train and we have other students to partner with.
Classes Tuesday evenings at 6:15 PM. Classes are FREE!