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BJJ in Louisville, KY

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OxUSAF

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I'm moving to Louisville in September, I know there are a few BJJ gyms there but I am looking for your reviews, experiences and/or, recommendations.
 
There's a 10th Planet in Richmond, KY which is approximately an hour away but it's a great gym. I imagine way too far for you
 
Tenth Planet would be an awesome experience, I'll definitely make a few trips to visit but yeah an hour drive is bit much. I appreciate the info though.
 
Dude, just go train at CORE with Helio Soneca. The guy is an incredible teacher and we have lots of tough grapplers there. Plus there is also a judo class.

I've trained with pretty much everyone in the Louisville area over the years and Helio Soneca's bjj at CORE Combat Sports is head and shoulders above everyone else. He's a former world champion and a genius when it comes to BJJ. We have classes six days a week, mostly gi, with two no gi classes a week. Pretty much all the guys there are great training partners but are also pretty tough. We've got a few guys who consistently medal at IBJJF comps.
 
If you come right across the bridge a bit to New Albany Indiana you've got Full moon (under Craig Pumphrey) and Porto de carro (under a Fabio Santos brown belt) I'm at Porto now and love it. Some pretty killer guys there. Might be a 15-20 minute drive from Louisville, tops..... Also, I second the colonel, have only heard of good things about core, I believe it's a bit expensive though.
 
Thanks for all the info, I did a Google search for bjj in Louisville and CORE didn't pop up until I searched for it specifically. What's the pricing at CORE?

How's the competition scene in that area?
 
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OxUSAF said:
Thanks for all the info, I did a Google search for bjj in Louisville and CORE didn't pop up until I searched for it specifically. What's the pricing at CORE?

How's the competition scene in that area?
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The price is like $100 or $120 a month for unlimited BJJ. I think they give discounts to military, but don't quote me on that. If you pay for BJJ you also get to go to the judo class for free (we have two judo classes a week).

As far as competition goes, we have a few guys who are into the competition scene and go to the IBJJF tournaments in Atlanta and Chicago. It seems that there is always some closer tournament going on somewhere around here in the Louisville,KY/southern Indiana/northern Tennessee area.

We also have a tournament specific class on Saturdays where basically all we do is drill drill drill.

Soneca is a fantastic teacher but he is quite a character to say the least. Our school also has five other black belts (could be leaving someone out) and judo wise it seems that we have some very experienced black belts though admittedly attendance is sometimes low at judo.

One of the great things about Soneca is he knows EVERYONE in the jiu-jitsu community and other instructors come to Core to give seminars (Gordo, Soca) or sometimes friends of Helio from Brazil pop up and hang out for a week or two to kick all our butts. It is a great gym to train at.
 
You've got options depending on where you live in the city and how far you're willing to drive/what sort of gym you're looking for.

As mentioned already
Core with Soneca
Derby City MMA with Nick "Chewy" Albin (Renato Tavares Affliation)
Lousville Martial Arts with Allen Manganello (Pedro Sauer)
Gracie Jiu-Jitsu of Kentucky with Scott Smith (Pedro Sauer)
Griffin Submission Academy with Chris Griffin (Carlson Jr)

And a couple smaller gyms around if that's what you're interested in.

I personally can speak very highly of Chewy both as an instructor and just in general being a good guy and they are also building a quality competition team. That being said I train at one of the other gym's listed - I'm pretty sure all of the gym's around offer a free drop in or a few, go try them out and find one that works for you.
 
I live in Eastern KY, but I've went to some seminars in Louisville at LMAA with Allan Manganello and it's a pretty legit school. Allan is a nice guy from what I can tell, and he gets some good guys to come in. I met Seneca when I went there as well and he does seem like quite a character, a purple belt from the gym I go to now lived in Louisville for a while and got his blue under Seneca. He speaks very highly of him. The gym I'm at now is a Carlson Gracie affiliate, so I do get to train with Chris Griffin from time to time. Recently attended a seminar where he taught some techniques and he's a good teacher. He's also hilarious. So I think CORE, LMAA, and Griffin's are all great choices.
 
Punisher13 said:
I live in Eastern KY, but I've went to some seminars in Louisville at LMAA with Allan Manganello and it's a pretty legit school. Allan is a nice guy from what I can tell, and he gets some good guys to come in. I met Seneca when I went there as well and he does seem like quite a character, a purple belt from the gym I go to now lived in Louisville for a while and got his blue under Seneca. He speaks very highly of him. The gym I'm at now is a Carlson Gracie affiliate, so I do get to train with Chris Griffin from time to time. Recently attended a seminar where he taught some techniques and he's a good teacher. He's also hilarious. So I think CORE, LMAA, and Griffin's are all great choices.
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Do you know a little black guy named Rob?.....He showed up a couple weeks ago and said he was from Griffin.
 
There is a black guy named Rob from Griffin. The one I know is a short guy with a wrestling background and a brown belt. I've trained with Chris Griffin many times and I can attest that his instruction is good and his game is very slick.

I also know Phil Perkins at 502 MMA and they have a growing group of good guys. Might wanna check them out.

I've also heard positive things about CORE (probably the most prestigious instruction in the state), Louisville Martial Arts, and Yoshin Dojo if you care to dabble in more traditional stuff that is still legit.
 
fanboysareevil said:
There is a black guy named Rob from Griffin. The one I know is a short guy with a wrestling background and a brown belt. I've trained with Chris Griffin many times and I can attest that his instruction is good and his game is very slick.

I also know Phil Perkins at 502 MMA and they have a growing group of good guys. Might wanna check them out.

I've also heard positive things about CORE (probably the most prestigious instruction in the state), Louisville Martial Arts, and Yoshin Dojo if you care to dabble in more traditional stuff that is still legit.
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:eek:Gah! Yea! That's him! That guy always shows up to every gym I go to....seemingly just to say. "So....I heard you have gotten better.........so have I!" Then whoops my ass! haha. Dude is laser fast!
 
Lol. I hear he's pretty good. I've only rolled with him once or twice for short times so I wouldn't really know.
 
Hey punisher I also train in eastern ky with Sidney. I am a brown and I would highly recommend trying out griffins or sonecas. Griffin is a great guy and constantly has tons of really awesome people coming in for seminars. In fact Clark Gracie will be there for a seminar November 15th.
 
Cyantist said:
There's a 10th Planet in Richmond, KY which is approximately an hour away but it's a great gym. I imagine way too far for you
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Louisville is over an hour and half away from Richmond (depending on where in Louisville you are). That's a crazy long distance there and back just to train at the AFS Academy.
 
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