Academy Hunting Homework #4: Paragon Austin BJJ

The BJJ community is growing bigger and bigger all the time.  Lets face it, Bjj is kind of trendy and on it's way to being mainstreamed.  I feel lucky that I was slightly ahead of the curve and can now observe this explosion of popularity.  Despite  all this growth, I was recently reminded of how small and tight knit this community still remains. I am also surprised that there are so many more academies in North Austin and only a handful in the South Austin area.  So I decided to visit an academy in South Austin called Paragon, that I had never trained at before.

At Paragon, I instantly I felt comfortable and relaxed.  The atmosphere was structured and easy going.  The warmups had some exercises I'd never done before, but for the most part everything was familiar.  The next portion of class consisted of two technical sequences.  The moves were effective and easy to duplicate.  Everyone I met was welcoming, respectful and had a good vibe.  The last portion of class was timed rolling rounds.  I had some tough matches with a few girls and guys.  It was nice to be exposed to a different style and types of movement.

Robert and Darrin make a great team.  You can feel the effort that has gone into building this academy and it reflects in the determination of their students.  Robert looked familiar to me, but I couldn't place where.  After talking for a while ,he said that he thought he had a video of one of my matches. Our mutual friend Angie had filmed it two years ago in L.A. at the Pans.

Small world...

I took a gi and no-gi class at Paragon Austin. After both classes I left a little wiser.  I liked that the class wasn't overloaded with information.  It was simple and easy to playback later.  Darrin is a great teacher and very technical.  Both guys are not large guys and their style made sense for my body type.  I also ran into a familiar face, Richard who was a student when I helped with the kid's classes.  He was always talented and has lots of potential. I was glad to see he's still at it and in good hands at Paragon.

Check them out of you're looking for a fun, supportive, fierce competition team.  They have plenty of talented people, great instruction and are in a good location for south folks.  This academy has a lot of good characteristics; clean facilities for both sexes, good location, parking, clean mats and a nice family style atmosphere.  Try them out for one free week!