Gracie Barra Glasgow!

The Gracie Barra Glasgow gym is located in the city centre about 5 minutes from the Central station for visitors and students it's and easy access.

Gracie Barra is one of the most well known Jiu-Jitsu academies in the worlds and with the expansion into the UK it was not long before we seen GB gyms pop up in Scotland and I believe we now have 2 or 3 with this one being the biggest.

Run by Ricky Gillon a lifelong martial artist who has both black belts in both traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Lucio Lagarto Rodrigues.

Lucio visits the gym every few months to cash in on a seminar, therefore, all of the gym duties and classes are run at this time by Ricky. Currently, Ricky has one brown belt under him in the academy who occasionally coaches.

Classes follow a regular GB training schedule and are based on weeks of set techniques which are continued until completed and then run back over with improvements as the techniques are understood more and more. This is a great way of learning and developing a solid base and it is imprinted on most GB members.

Also, the classes follow a self-defence and sport style of teaching where you will learn one or two self-defence situations before moving on the sport side of things. Personally, I really like this as I'm becoming more and more interested in the self-defence side of things being more traditional Jiu Jitsu.

The gym has 2 training rooms for Jiu-Jitsu (one huge hall pictured and the other normal sized room nicknamed the sauna) with a separate weights area with a squat rack, kettlebells, bench and numerous other lifting tools and cardio machines.

Complete with separate men/womens changing area and showers which are cleaned every day it has the amenities for every Jiu Jitsu practitioner to feel at home.



Thinking back on the early days of GB Glasgow when it was a small group of twenty or so that would be dedicated to learning the techniques while fighting over the sheets of paper with them listed to make sure you knew them haha  

Then we reached blue belt level and the Nogi started with our first class 2013 again with most of the 20 present killing each other with new Nogi moves!

After the second year of being Gracie Barra and with big names such as Lagarto, Roger Gracie and both the Estima brothers coming up to Scotland for the first time the gym became more and more popular with a good team of individuals dedicated to making it work on the mats with being friendly and open to new students and of course the competition guys who were performing on the open scene.

 

Around this time a few guys left, even more, guys joined and we kept on with the big fight which was turning up every day and showing dedication to the sport.

The gym caters to over 100 students easily.

I received my purple belt from Ricky in 2015 (4+ years) after 4 years of hard training. I was always in class regardless of the struggles in my life and I was lucky to have studied numerous other martial arts in my life so I was in the right frame of mind to start the long journey to black belt.

Jiu Jitsu really did give me a new healthier lifestyle as I left my old job, studied Fitness, Health and Exercise, became a NASM certified PT and I even country to study under new martial arts teacher. Now I am one of the main coaches for my team in Barcelona.

A huge shout out to Hollywood, Matty, Jack, Mike, Hobbs, Stuart, Colin, Kronk, Davie, Sami, Majid, BIG Gary, Thomas, Kilday, Tommy, Mark, Iain, Shelley, Andrew, Callum, Chris, Corbett and George.

Anyone else I forgot it's because the team is so huge now but I miss you all on the mats!

  

40 Broomielaw, Glasgow, G1 4QN, UK

http://www.graciebarrascotland.com/

Tel : 0141 229 0959