UK renowned coach
Achievements
I have been training in martial arts since I was 14 and teaching since the age of 18. I come from a family of martial artists; and most of the Bajerski’s records found are ex-military, my Grandfather was a Polish Commander who escaped two German death camps and made it to Scotland and then to Huddersfield. My Uncle was a prize fighting champion, my Sister is a Thai Boxing champion, and on my Italian side my Great-Uncle was a world Judo black belt champion, and my Bajerski juniors started training at 2 years old!
I have always been obsessed with martial arts, as a teen I trained in Maui Thai, for 6 years competing at interclub level and semi pro. I also worked as a door to door salesman selling karate memberships for 6 months, as part of the job we trained in urban combat karate three times a week, as I trained at three different Thai boxing clubs and also in combat karate I developed more of a hybrid striking style with a good understanding of how to use my kick boxing for the ring / cage and the street in self defence.
At 18 I had just qualified as a level 3 personal trainer and I started working as a PT at a large fitness centre. In 2011 I set up a kick boxing class at the gym, shortly after I changed the session name to an MMA class as I was adding in some other arts. I then started training in Japanese Jiu Jitsu at the age of 19 to help with the ground game (I trained in JJJ for 18 months grading under Richard Dickinson) achieving the second belt in his system.
Taking it from there I found a local unit and carried on teaching out of there instead so I had my own place. All I had was a piece of carpet and four punch bags to use in the lock up, two of my students followed me from the gym and I set out on my own teaching MMA. I called the club “Citus”, which means rapid in Latin (this represented rapid learning and rapid striking). I advertised my club but hardly any one came.
On a Thursday, Friday evening and Saturday mornings, nobody would turn up except my two initial students and there were many classes where nobody at all turned up. I realised I needed two things to make Citus succeed, I needed much more money than anticipated to do the academy up, and I needed to keep on learning Grappling and MMA to build my profile. I got a job at a local factory where I worked full time, I then joined a BJJ / MMA gym in 2012. I worked all day in the factory, I then would travel to my classes at Citus and then drive all the way to another town three times a week to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Chinese kick boxing and MMA.
Slowly but surely from then on I did the academy up, invested in training mats, and worked my way up to a far better standard in Martial arts. After two years of this I had to leave my day job, I was burning the candle from both ends and it started to take its toll mentally and physically. At this period of time I was promoted to blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (2014), I was competing in BJJ and also entering students into BJJ tournaments and starting to get a name for myself as a good coach. From this point on the academy went from strength to strength rapidly, I carried on at the other academy and was promoted to BJJ purple belt in 2016, I was promoted under the world renowned, four time world champion Leo Negao and two time British champion Coach Harper.
Around this time I also competed at amateur and semi pro level MMA. After this I concentrated on BJJ tournaments and collected over 15 medals at purple belt defeating many well-known high level grapplers and MMA fighters. I was also starting to put my students into MMA fights and higher level grappling tournaments and they were doing really well wining by submissions and knock outs in the cage! I went to Los Angeles to train at Tenth Planet Jiu Jitsu, and I took wrestling privates for a prolonged period of time with the head coach of Manchester wrestling to expand my grappling skills set. I was also travelling regularly around the UK to learn leg locks, and other parts of my game that was not all available under one roof, so I could one day offer every aspect of BJJ and MMA under one roof so students didn’t have to travel around the country.
I was head hunted around this time in my career by two other gyms to teach kick boxing and MMA, at streamline academy and fusion academy. I wanted to gain as much experience as I could as a coach so I agreed and found myself being the Head MMA coach of three gyms simultaneously, teaching many hundreds of people a week, this opportunity gave me some rare experience. While I was coaching at the three gyms I had to come up with systems that were easy for my students to understand, I was able to experiment with many teaching concepts and learn many new ways of teaching that sped up students game faster than others. Once again I found my self-burning the candle from both ends running myself into the ground working 17 hour days on the mats. After an intense six months I made the decision to concentrate solely on my gym Citus. From there I had more time to open extra classes, with vast new experience and energy to put into Citus. The gym of course took a sharp spike in progress, we were competing as a team in BJJ GI and No Gi ranking up there with the best gyms in the country, it was at this period in my career I realised I was entering people into grappling tournament’s after just 6 weeks and they were looking like they had been grappling for 12 months! I knew then that all the hard work in getting to the essence in teaching systems was paying off.
At this period of time I was also authoring the the book – The Art of the Arts, which has been a great success in helping martial artists all over the world progress faster and understand the differences in martial arts. Citus was now attracting the likes of world kick boxing champions, pro MMA fighters and ex head MMA coaches, I was now training twice a week at the BJJ / MMA club and Scramble with some piers for a final year at other academy’s.
I was invited to compete on Pantheon Grappling which is an invitational only event, and the biggest ever in Yorkshire, where I fought J. Hue where heel hooks, slams and cranks were all allowed. I was also around this time awarded my Brown belt In BJJ (2019), again under Leo Negao.
Shortly After receiving my BJJ brown belt I got back in the ring and fought K1 winning via knock out. I also competed in BJJ getting my first two medals at brown belt. Around a year after being promoted to brown belt I decided to affiliate Citus under Leo Negao, the academy was at a stage now where this was the right thing to do, this was a huge honour for me, Leo is one of the most experienced Black belts in the world.
To finish what was a crazy action packed 2019 for me and my academy I entered the British NoGi open and took bronze medal at brown belt.
2021 marked the year I had spent a full decade being a full time student while being a full time coach, something very rare to find in a coach, this gave me a great eye for not only coaching but knowing what it takes to be a great student and relay that knowledge into students.
In 2021 I changed the name of the academy to BMA, short for “Bajerski Martial Arts” we had such wealth of knowledge in martial arts and our own ways of doing things that worked well, it was time to upgrade the name!
With such a strong universal valetudo style Jiu Jitsu from Master Leo Negao, and great knowledge of the new school leg entanglements game, and our striking being from a strong Thai boxing and karate base; both our Jiu Jitsu and striking are brilliantly special.
Our striking is similar to a forward Dutch style kick boxing with heavy use of both stances, unpredictable timing, and stab kicks. Our grappling is a top chain submission sequence game, with heavy use of Darce chokes, second to that triangle chokes, and heel hooks. You can see the similar moment in all BMA students.
2022 was the year we reached unprecedented heights! We became the empire champion BJJ team defeating over 80 other academies, shortly after I was promoted to the rank of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt Under Leo Negao becoming Halifax first ever black belt! Then I started 300 interclub welcoming clubs from all over the north of the UK. Students this year became European IBJJf medalist, grapple fest contenders and competitors and top UK amateur MMA fighters in record breaking time!
The Bajerski brand continues to help of the mats with other affiliated academies and coaches / personal trainers to develop with there business and teachings far and wide!