Gracie Barra Harrogate January 2025 Newsletter
Hi Everyone
Happy New Year!
After a quick break, we’re back on the mats and ready for 2025! We’re kicking this off this weekend with the Empire Grappling Yorkshire Winter Open! We have an amazing 14 members competing across various brackets, and we can’t wait to hear how you get on. Good luck and enjoy the experience! We’ve also got the IBJJF European Championships taking place this month - a BIG good luck to Aza and Jack who are making the trip to Portugal to compete. If you’re looking to compete in 2025, there’s plenty of opportunities coming up! Empire Grappling events are generally a member favourite, with the next taking place on Manchester on the 9th of March. Please feel free to speak to the coaches if you need any help or advice on getting started with competing - the team will be more than happy to help.
As mentioned in December, we’ve made some changes to our schedule, and we can now offer more classes and more chances to train! We’ve brought GB2 No Gi in on a Friday night, as well as a Saturday Open Mat! Book on via GymDesk so we know you’re coming. For our GBK programme, due to popular demand, we’ve added a new Tiny Champs class on a Thursday evening! If you know of any potential GBKs who were waiting for a spot, now is the time to jump on board! Have them get in touch (with you as the referrer for a reward for both of you!)
See you on the mats
Team GB Harrogate
Empire Grappling Yorkshire Winter Open - 11th January
A huge well done to Oscar, Francis, Daniel, Eddie, Harry, Aza, Jack, Luke, Cristina, James, Arthur, Charlie, Penelope and Archie! We loved to see so many of our amazing members getting after their Jiu Jitsu so early into the new year and getting into the swing of competition. You all smashed it, showing excellent Jiu Jitsu and incredible determination - well done team!
IBJJF European Championships - 17th January
Jack and Aza are back on the road (or plane) as they head over to Portugal to the IBJJF European Championships this month! To test yourselves at such a major event is exemplifies your dedication to your Jiu Jitsu and competing, and we’re really proud of you representing the academy.
Our 2025 Timetable
As we’ve mentioned, we’ve made some exciting updates to our timetable for 2025. As we say goodbye to The Grapple Studio, we’re increasing classes to give everyone more opportunities to get on the mat! We’ll be bringing Tuesday’s GB1 class downstairs at 6:30pm to give us heaps of space for bigger classes, and we’ll be adding a fresh No Gi class on a Friday night at 6pm, followed by an open mat!
We’ve now got 2 Gi Review sessions in the schedule. These offer the perfect opportunity to catch up if you’ve missed sessions through the week. The GB2 review session will take place on a Thursday evening, followed by live training. The GB1 Gi Review session will take place on a Saturday morning at 8am!
After many requests, we’ve added an open mat session on a Saturday at 1.15pm - we’ll be trialling this over January and February, so please make sure you book on through GymDesk, so we can assess whether these sessions are being utilised by our member base.
We’ve also added a new Tiny Champs class on a Thursday evening at 4pm to support the fantastic growth of our GBK programme! We’re really excited to be welcoming new faces to the academy for what promises to be a really fun filled session! We’ve also introduced an advanced kids class for ages 8 and above for those looking to progress their Jiu Jitsu further.
