I’ve had the fortune of training at many different “gyms” over the years. And I put the word gyms in inverted commas because a jiu-jitsu gym can be either just a big mat on the floor or a schmick facility with different rooms for weights, spin bikes etc …
In fact, the gym where I got my purple, brown and black belts in Rio, was nothing more than a large room on the 2nd storey of an old decrepit building.
The modern fad in jiu-jitsu facilities to copy what the Mendes Brothers have done with their “Art of Jiu-Jitsu” academy in San Diego. Not too long ago, they came up with the idea to create an academy where everything is white. All white walls, mats and everyone has to wear a white gi. The idea is to look as clean and prestigious as possible.
My favourite gym that I trained at over the years was Boxing Works in the late 1990s to mid 2000s. This gym was located on Castlereagh street in Sydney and was where I trained and taught during this time. When you walked in to this gym, it immediately hit you with the smell of sweat. You knew that fighters were bred in this place. It was clean, and had different rooms, but it was like the gyms shown in the old Rocky movies. You weren’t there for an instram selfie (in fact, this was when we all had Nokia brick phones, so the selfie wasn’t really a thing). We were there to train.
That’s why when you walk into Southern Cross you don’t see the walls sparkle. Don’t get me wrong, we mop the mats and do other cleaning daily. But … we want the focus to be on training, not just looking the part.
Our gyms colours - blue, white and black, come from the local colours of Cronulla. The surf club and the Rugby League team both use a combination of these three colours.
Plus, our location is one that we strived to get. Being in the commercial district of Caringbah, it means that after 4pm we have ample street parking. We don’t need air-conditioning, as in the warm summer months we open our roller door and let the nice breeze come in off Woolooware Bay.
For those who need to travel somewhere after training, we do have shower facilities available, but it’s not our priority as 99% of the time our members are back home within 20 minutes of a class finishing. Our focus is on teaching you jiu-jitsu with a safe, but still “fighting mentality”.
I look forward to welcoming you onto our big blue mat!
