We recently welcomed new instructor Bruno Yamamoto to Foundation as our grappling coach. His role will see him work with our Junior and Adult students every Tuesday.

Bruno is a Brazilian Jiujutsu practitioner (BJJ for short). BJJ has it’s roots in Traditional Japanese Martial Arts (stemming primarily from Judo) but has evolved beyond this into one of the most effective forms of ground fighting and self defence there is.

Martial arts coach teaching a small group of children.

There are a lot of similarities with positions and the newaza (groundwork) that we cover in class and this certainly helps with familiarity and will speed up the learning process but our art of Ninjutsu is a traditional, feudal one. Our teaching has a much broader scope with a syllabus covering striking, weapons work, throws and much more but we’ve always respected the need to have a strong grappling base to work from.

We’re still finding the balance with these sessions and seeing what works and what doesn’t but our primary focus is to give all our students a stronger understanding when it comes to groundwork and to increase the intensity level as they progress.

Children lined up watching martial arts coach.

This isn’t Foundation starting a BJJ class though, rather us adding to our holistic training approach. All our classes should complement each other to help create well rounded students and ultimately better martial artists.

We have lots of plans for the future, including entering competitions for those that are interested but for the time being this is simply a fantastic new learning opportunity for everyone.