We’re looking for an assistant head coach for our super-friendly, progressive and growing BJJ club in Brighton.

The chance to play a central role in the running and fuctioning of a BJJ club doesn’t come along very often, but this is one of those rare opportunities.

We’re looking for an assistant head coach to help teach at Brighton BJJX and to potentially shoulder more and more responsibility, ultimately possibly taking charge of the day-to-day running of the club.

To be considered for the job, you’ll need to be a purple belt or above, and you’ll need to understand, and identify with, the principles on which the club is founded.

Our mission at Brighton BJJX is simple: we want to create the best possible environment in which to learn BJJ, both in terms of teaching and the way the club is run and functions. We’re a gi-based club (though we’d like to offer no-gi in the future), and we offer high-quality, low-cost training.

The low-cost part is important to us. We don’t want people to be excluded from enjoying the wonderful gift that is BJJ by not being able to pay the sorts of high monthly fees some other clubs charge. We will therefore always offer classes on a low-cost, pay-as-you-go basis. We’re not a charity, but we don’t want people to to be priced out of training either.

We train hard and we’re a competition-focused club, but we’re pretty informal and mostly downplay the hierarchical element you can get at martial arts schools. In fact, we see ourselves as a sports club, not a martial arts club.

Our club is participatory: we ask students what they want, actively seek out their feedback, and adjust the teaching and the way the club is run accordingly. In the pedagogical jargon, we follow a student-centred-learning approach, putting students first and treating them like the adults they are.

We’re as legit as a BJJ club can be, being affiliated to Mad Hatters, led by Jack Magee, one of Britain’s foremost black belts, as well as Gordo Jiu Jitsu Europe, headed by Ben Poppleton, a pioneer of BJJ in the UK.

That’s enough about us. What about you? You’ll need to be all the usual stuff that goes along with a job like this: reliable, trustworthy, dependable, personable, patient. We like banter at our club, so having a good sense of humour will help too.

Obviously you’ll need to be passionate about BJJ, and if you’ve already got any sort of teaching experience, that’s going to help, but you will receive plenty of teaching support anyway. You need to be technical, but you also know that a whole lot more goes into coaching and running a club than being able to demonstrate techniques.

This is paid work — modestly paid, but paid — and it’s a part-time job. You won’t get rich, but if you’re the right sort of person, you should find the role incredibly rewarding.

So if you think you might be a good fit for our club, contact me, Marcus, at brightonbjjexchange at gmail dot com, and tell me why.