About Us

History

Club founder - Tony Morris - began his martial arts career back in 1982, studying Karate, Tae kwon-do, Kickboxing and Boxing.

In 1995 Tony became aware of the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) and the domination of the sport by a small Brazilian named Royce Gracie. Royce' superior technique of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu enabled him to defeat often much bigger and stronger opponents.

Tony decided to go to the USA to find out more about Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and the UFC. He trained in Texas with various training partners, some of whom later went on to do well in the UFC.

After training in Los Angeles with the Machado brothers, Tony returned to Australia and began regular instruction in Melbourne with the Australian Machado representative - John Will.

Tony continues to train with the Will / Machado BJJ organization, and in 2008 was awarded the rank of Black belt.

Present Day

The Albury / Wodonga based club has grown in strength over the years and now has a very solid base and depth of knowledge with club members skilled in many different martial arts.

BJJ training is run three times a week all year round, which keeps us ready for the many tournaments the club participates in during the year.

We feel competition is an important component of our training as it allows us to compare our standard against other clubs in the capital cities.

Since 2002 we have enjoyed a very successful competition record with a high percentage of the club members competing and taking out places at most club and national competitions.

The people that we train with have been our greatest asset. Without good training partners it would be impossible to achieve the level that we are now at.

You will find Luke Gooding helping out with instruction on the syllabus, Len Palmer - whos father is a former Commonwealth team wrestling coach - showing us the most effective takedowns, Gary Helwig and John Mee teaching MMA and with a few competition tips from Nick Brew, we look forward to a bright future training at the purpose built MMA Synergy gym run by John Mee.