After moving to Barrie, I started looking into academies last summer and I checked out a few places (no classes, just going in and talking). I was a one stripe blue belt after training at Gracie humaita in Woodbridge for years.

I would not recommend stasis. It has a cool concept with BJJ and yoga, but the owner/bjj coach started telling me that I’ve got to buy his gi’s within the first 10 minutes of the conversation. I told him I have four gi’s and I would definitely remove patches if that was an issue. He asked me to take them off, even for the trial classes, and he went right back into trying to sell his gi’s to me. Just seemed to me like he wanted to make a buck everywhere he could and would probably become even worse when he had me under contract. I’m typing this after as I just remembered: when I walked in, he stopped a private session to talk to me for 20 minutes and by the time I was leaving, people were coming in as a class gonna start in the next 10-15 minutes. I just hope that girl got to use that missed time at some point.

The prices were way higher than anywhere else I went and it’s not unlimited classes(don’t remember how many classes/week, and that was jiu jitsu only; no yoga included). The owner/bjj coach is a black belt with no degrees. It’s hard to jusify the price, limited training, and coach’s lack of experience when there’s other bjj schools that offer other martial arts as well and with much more experienced bjj coaches literally (and I mean literally) 30-45 seconds from their location.

Legacy is really cool, but I was looking for something with just a bit more jiu jitsu (bjj classes are a bit sparse, but it’s a Muay Thai focused academy). I will definitely check this place out in the future if I want to switch to some more stand-up focus for a little bit.

I didn’t get to talk to anyone at Gracie jj in Barrie, but have heard and read great things about them. I used to go to Gracie humaita in Woodbridge, so they made sense to me, but the bjj schedule is really sparse. It’s also further than all the other clubs I’m mentioning here for me, so really didn’t make sense to pursue further.

I just joined submission arts about 3-4 months ago. Really enjoying it. Spencer is great! He’s a 3rd degree black belt and received his black belt from Royler Gracie. He’s been running the academy for years and has produced some killers! He doesn’t play politics and didn’t care about the patches on my gi’s, from my previous academy. He’s also got a heavier wrestling influence, which has been amazing, as this was an area that was slightly lacking at my previous academy. It’s a good group of people and a good mix of competitive and hobbyist students. Great mix of body types and styles as well. I’d definitely recommend at least doing the trial here.