The main event of our 10 year anniversary celebration was the hosting of our two day open mat. Progress athletes and supporters from all over the world flew into Manchester for a weekend of rolling, techniques, laughs and good vibes.

Day 1 we trained in the gi, Steve Cambell, Max Lindbald and Federico Tisi kicked off the weekend by sharing some techniques. Steve, a fourth degree black belt under Carlos Gracie Junior, shared some half guard sweeps, Max who is one of Europe's top competitors right now covered a concept to improve the power behind all your sweeps and to better off balance your opponents. Federico, a legend of Jiu Jitsu in Europe who has played an influential role in growing Jiu Jitsu in Italy shared some powerful pressure passing concepts and techniques. The group then rolled and shared some other ideas on techniques throughout the session. 

Day 2 featured techniques from Owen Livesey, Ffion Davies and Tarik Hopstock.  The no gi session was lead off with Owen covering his approach to making the fireman's carry more effective in no gi. He also answered a wide range of questions from the group on different challenges than encounters from the feet. Ffion Davies, went over a super effective half guard pass she used to help her win ADCC. Tarik had no choice due to popular request to cover his world renowned Tarikoplata.

Stay tuned to our socials and Youtube channel to catch these techniques and for full sparring rounds between our athletes. Big shout out to Taylor, Janis, Marcus, Owen, Ellis, Ollie, Louis and the other athletes for coming ( sorry if we are forgetting anyone!). We also want to give a huge thank you to everyone else who was involved in the weekend, you made our 10 year celebration truly special.

Here are a few words about the 10 year anniversary and weekend from our Founder/CEO James Tighe:

"We wanted to do something really cool to mark the occasion for Progress’s 10 years in Jiu Jitsu, so we thought getting all our athletes together at the same time would be the perfect way to celebrate.  It was an amazing opportunity to see some of the best guys and girls in the world training together and sharing ideas.

We filmed most of the rounds too and there was some electric sparring, make sure you catch it on our Youtube Channel.

We coined the phrase ‘A decade of Passion in all our 10 year anniversary celebrations, because that's exactly what it has been.  We got into this business for the love of the art, and our company mission is to grow Jiu Jitsu by sharing our passion for the sport.

I really believe we have the best athletes, staff and customers in our sport, so I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone that has helped us get to where we are today.  The brand would be nothing without your support."

Thanks from me and the whole team for making our jobs so much fun.

Cheers to the next decade.

Team Progress Jiu Jitsu