The sport of mixed martial arts was born in November 1993 when Royce Gracie dominated the first round of the Ultimate Fighting Championship with his Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

The object of the first UFC was to determine which was the most effective martial art once and for all and the answer was unequivocal, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu allowed a smaller and weaker man to dominate much stronger opponents who were experts in Karate, Judo, Kickboxing, Wrestling, Sumo and so on.

Once it became clear that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was the most effective Martial art for a 1 on 1 fight there was a sea change in Martial arts, experts in other martial arts realised that in order to be competitive they HAD to learn the system of groundfighting that had been developed in Brazil over the previous 80 years. This process became known as cross-training, not a particularly modern concept at all but very rare in the martial arts world up until this point. This process of training in several different martial arts gives us the modern sport of MMA, the fact is that to be competitive at the highest level now one needs to be expert in all ranges of combat.

Stand up (exchanging strikes with an opponent in a standing position)
Takedowns (taking your opponent to the floor and avoiding being taken down)
Groundwork (controlling your opponent on the ground and forcing him to submit)

At Carlson Gracie Revolution Team in London we believe that it is best to learn to fight in each range with an expert in that field so we run classes in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) (groundwork)  Judo (takedowns)  and Thai Boxing/Muay Thai (striking)  with experts in each field taking the classes so that our students can concentrate their efforts in the area that interests them most (or that requires the most work)

We also run classes in MMA so that students can put together all the elements from the other classes but as you will see from the timetable this is only once a week, we feel that training in the individual arts should form the basis of a Mixed martial arts fighters programme.

Training at Carlson Gracie Revolution Team is conducted in a relaxed and friendly environment, our students range from complete beginners to championship winning BJJ and MMA fighters so feel free to contact us for more details on how you can start training and which martial art suits your needs best.