Tell us about Arma?
It’s a new-to-market luxury Brazilian jiu jitsu academy, with a strength and wellness eco-system created alongside it. The site is scheduled to open in early summer 2026 in Clapham, south London. It will provide a premium space for both jiu jitsu enthusiasts and newcomers to the sport to develop their skill set in the martial art, while also working on their strength and conditioning, optimising their recovery and hanging out with like-minded people over a coffee, or lunch or the co-working space.
What’s the back story?
It’s the brainchild of two businessmen, Jake Willis and Louis Steyn, who bonded over a shared love for the sport. Their vision is to redefine the standards of Brazilian jiu jitsu, by creating the best academy in the world, harnessed by a combination of exceptional facilities and the best coaches. It’s jiu jitsu as we know it, but better. To reinforce this point, world champion, Ffion Davies, has already been signed as the head coach – which is the equivalent of having Cristiano Ronaldo teaching you at a football training academy! She is an elite athlete and a great ambassador for this fast-growing sport.
Arma will blend jiu jitsu with the conventional world of health and fitness, adding gym, recovery facilities and food and beverage to the mix, at a premium quality level. Eventually, the goal is to make Arma a global brand and be the market leaders in this space.
What does the offering include?
The site is 6,500sq ft split over four floors. Members will walk into the reception area on the ground, where there'll be seating, F&B, retail, as well as the changing rooms and a wellness area, with a cold plunge and sauna.
On the first floor there are two separate dojo mats for the jiu jitsu classes. Two matted spaces means we can run multiple classes at a time, create digital content, run seminars and potential corporate events, all aimed at getting more people into the sport.
On the second floor will be a gym, with PTs and coaches specific to the sport who will help people work on their strength and conditioning and overall fitness, with one on one and small group training. People will also be able to work out on their own.
The top floor will be a co-working space. This fantastic addition to the already extensive Arma service will be offered as a bolt-on membership. The F&B element will be simple and healthy: smoothies, protein shakes, protein bars, light meals. The main aim is to give members the chance to hang out and talk about the sport – we all know that when you get into jiu jitsu you become obsessed!
What is the price point?
The membership options are still being fine-tuned, but it will be a premium experience: upwards of £230 per month to have access to the jiu jitsu classes, the gym and recovery area. Membership will be capped at approximately 1,000 across all service offerings, to allow us to maintain the highest operational standards and experience on site. Membership of the co-working space will be limited to 50 people.
What’s your target market?
Inevitably we'll get a lot of people who already do jiu jitsu and some who will migrate from other academies to take their training to the next level. But a big longer term goal is to get more of the general population into jiu jitsu. Every single person can benefit from this amazing martial art.
There will be an extensive kids programme, starting with five-year-olds, up to teenagers, and we’ll be focused on building some future world champions without a doubt. We’ll also be offering female-only classes to support our quest to bring more women into the sport, as this is something we’re incredibly passionate about.
How popular is jiu jitsu?
It’s grown hugely in popularity over the past 10-15 years and this growth shows no signs of slowing down.
You can begin to apply the fundamental techniques of jiu jitsu quickly in a sparring capacity, giving you a true sense of the sport right away, which is more difficult to do in other martial arts, such as Muay Thai or kickboxing, where the risk of injury would be greatly increased in a sparring context.
The most amazing thing with jiu jitsu however, is that you can also do the sport for 30 years and still be learning new techniques and systems. On average the journey to black belt is around 10 years – two years between each belt. As well as being a great workout that’s fun and gets the endorphins going, it has a problem-solving element: it feels like human chess, is always changing and you have to find ways to respond.
Being on the mat develops a sense of humility, and builds an incredible sense of community, camaraderie and team spirit. When you join the right jiu jitsu academy, you feel a sense of unity like no other.
Jiu jitsu can be a form of physical therapy and an amazing outlet. You can't be thinking about anything else when you're doing it – if someone has their arm around your neck, it’s not going to be a pleasant experience if you’re not trying to solve the problem with full concentration!
A final important point is that the sport is rooted in self defence, so it gives the individual self-confidence to know that they could defend themselves, should the need ever arise.
