Achievements
Martial Arts Family
I come from a family of martial artists, Italian, Polish and English martial lineage. Most of the Bajerski’s records found are ex-military, my Grandfather Stan Bajerski was a WW2 Polish Commander in charge of 100 battalion, who escaped two German death camps, escaping to Scotland and then to Huddersfield where he met my Italian grandmother Marissa. My Uncle was a prize fighting champion and Karateka, my Sister China Bajerski is a former pro Thai Boxer, my cousin Marissa Bajerski is kick-boxing black belt and in the military, and on my Italian side my Great-Uncle was a world Judo black belt champion, my three sons all started training BJJ and Kick boxing at 2 years old.
Junior days
I was self-martial from a very young age. At the age of 14 I wanted to do boxing, I didn’t have anyone to go with me so I bought a punch bag and put it in my room and every night I would go on the bag, I was self-taught studying boxing tutorials. I was also a competitive runner competing for Yorkshire and Humberside cross country competitions, this is where I developed my relentless mindset. I heard Thai boxing was a strong standup art, so I eventually joined a Thai boxing gym just before turning 15, I fell in love with martial arts then and there.
Pre academy days –
Karate membership door sales / level 3 pt student
Two years into Thai boxing I started my course to become a level 3 personal trainer. I also found a job as a cold call door to door salesman selling karate memberships, (having no idea what it was all about, I just wanted to be part of the martial arts world) while we trained karate three times a week, followed by communication lessons in the day times, then door-to-door work in the evenings, 5 days a week. This year of my life was the most valuable year in my career, at the time I barely earned any money, but little did I know the lessons I were learning were simply invaluable. I was taught by psychology professor, the communication skills learned have helped my coaching career to this day no end. The karate skills learned went on to help me and my students win some k1 fights by KO. It was here I mastered the stab kick and learned higher level martial arts body language. We also learned self-defence karate, doing lots of blueprint training and multiple attack sparring, this has been added into the BMA kick boxing system since. Door-to-door sales is the hardest form of sales going, coupled with this selling karate memberships in Bradford; the memberships being a piece of cardboard with my signature on and an address for a club, and in exchange for their cash the same night! As much as I believed in what I was selling, it’s a hard of a sell as it ever gets. I found myself on more than one occasion watching my back in many hostile situations rather than selling. On more than one occasion I would find myself lost in Bradford at the end of my shift, dark, raining or snowing, cold, 8:30 pm on the street between houses, no charge on my phone, not enough fuel to drive the 1 hour commute home, I would need to sell a membership at the next house in order to get the money for fuel to get home; this level of hardness gave the rest of my career a great marker for hard work . Again, the lessons learned were invaluable. Throughout this time, I kept training in Thai boxing and competing at interclubs
The building of the academy—
Opening the academy, personal trainer / factory jobs / almost falling asleep on the motorway between shifts.
After getting qualified as a level 3 PT, I left the karate memberships job. At this time, I was training in Thai boxing and Japanese jiu jitsu now at another gym. I found a job as personal trainer, but then realised the PTs actually paid the gym. A few months in I asked to teach some MMA classes, they agreed but the whole thing wasn’t making ends meet. Just before turning 19, I looked for a local lock up unit to open my own gym. After finding one, I moved in with nothing more than a piece of carpet to put on top of the concrete floor, 4 punch bags, two students and no money. Some could call this stupid, but sometimes carelessness of youth is a superpower.
I called the gym, Citus MMA. Citus means rapid in Latin, as I was known for having rapid hands in boxing. Other than my two students, no one else came. Class after class I would sit there with no one on the carpet but me. I realised I needed a few things to make this work, I needed money, and I needed to get better at martial arts, and fast. I had 6 years Thai boxing experience, competed semi pro, and 2 years Japanese jiu jitsu experience, earning my second belt, and my karate experience. But this wasn’t enough if some decent fighter was to walk in, which they would from time to time, and I’d have to fight everyone.
I went to a recruitment agency and signed up; they would call me often with a few hours’ notice for a night shift or day shift in a factory here or there. I’d leave my class early or take me and my girlfriend home once from a day at the seaside with immediate effect (I was that desperate) go and do the shift I was offered. These jobs were called sweat jobs, they were hard, and I would realise often everyone there was Polish, and I got these jobs because of my surname. I must give it to the polish, they were the only ones who lasted, they are tough fxxxxx’s. I had a little more money coming in, but I also had some money just come through from compensation, from when I was almost killed on my motorbike in Sowerby bridge 2 years prior. I spent the whole £5000 on a show cage and moved into a bigger but old unit. It was simply a cage in a mill, and that was my gym.
On one of my shifts in a factory, they asked me if I wanted a permanent job, it was a full-time day job in a factory and the timing was perfect. I also at this time joined a MMA k1 and BJJ gym in Keighley; it was there on my first session I realised the difference between Brazilian and Japanese jiu jitsu, it was when BJJ was far less well known, and to put it bluntly taking JJJ to a BJJ grapple is like taking a feather duster into a sword fight. I learned my judo throws from JJJ, but little to no ground game. I would work all day in the factory and then go to work in my gym to teach/coach and then drive to Keighley to train for another two hours. I was working 15-hour days including sparring with professional fighters and grappling with BJJ black belts 5 nights a week. I was competing in BJJ also at this time and earned my BJJ blue belt in 2014, but after 2 years I was burning the candle from both ends and I left the day job to pursue running my own gym full time.
As the gym was still quiet, and I still needed hundreds of expensive mats, plus much more equipment I realised I needed another job again fast.
I ended up getting two jobs at the same time (I don’t do things by halves), I was working as a picker in a factory 5 am – 2 pm, then two days a week part time as a fitness instructor in a gym from 3 – 9:30 pm, on more than one occasion I almost fell asleep on the motorway between jobs. As the academy was now slowly growing, I left the factory job, all the while still working part time as a fitness instructor at the other gym and still training and competing in BJJ. At this time I was entering my students into many interclubs and some MMA events, they were starting to do very well. In 2017 I earned my BJJ purple belt and was competing in MMA semi pro level and BJJ, having over 15 tournaments at purple belt, beating many well-known grapplers.
Head MMA coach of 3 gyms simultaneously.
Shortly after I was headhunted by fusion kick boxing to teach MMA, I started to teach MMA at streamline where I was a fitness instructor, and of course MMA at Citus. I decided to take the opportunity, I knew it would be a hell of a workload, but I knew I was going to gain some valuable coaching experience, and in those 6 months I gained about 5 years coaching experience.
In 2018 I went full time as a martial arts coach at Citus MMA, and in 2019 I earned my BJJ brown belt, competing at brown belt in BJJ and I also competed in k1 winning by KO. I continued to train at Keighley MMA and compete throughout these years until 2022. Throughout this time my students were winning in spectacular fashion in the cage and on the mats champions were starting to be made. I taught the Ultra MMA in Halifax and Bradford group on three occasions, and this was fun, a test to see how good I could get someone at MMA in 8 weeks. At this time other than that I was now fully at Citus MMA.
The 10-year apprentice
Full time coach / student and competitor for 10 years.
2022 marked the 10 years I had been training in other academies a minimum of 3 times a week, teaching in the evenings in my academy, and competing continuously, this is something very rare to find in a Martial arts / grappling coach.
You will find a coach who has spent ten years as a student in a gym then starts teaching, or you may find a coach who I call seminar instructors who start teaching on their own at a lower level, then attend seminars in every 4 months and earn their belts that way. You will be hard pressed to find a coach who did the whole thing simultaneously, but it was because of this unique experience that I was able to gain a unique insight into how best teach. Furthermore, I started teaching the ground game as a white belt, not even a stripe. I developed my coaching over 10 years as I developed my own art with it, my coaching and my art are very much connected.
10 years coaching at BMA Halifax.
Then as a student the first three years I trained in Thai boxing and Japanese jiu jitsu, then for 7 years I trained in Keighley doing BJJ MMA and kick boxing.
I had also visited tenth planet Los Angeles to train for 2 weeks, training 3 times a day there. I had also spent 6 months doing weekly 2 hour 1-1 sessions at Manchester wrestling with their head coach Oleg, and on weekends I would then be at other academies such as next gen Liverpool to factory BJJ, and most of the clubs in the north adding to the leg lock game at my gym that’s if I wasn’t competing or cornering a student through their own competitions. I lived, ate and breathed Martial arts. I also authored the book “the Art of the Arts.
In 2014 I got my BJJ blue belt, in 2017 I received my purple belt, in 2019 I received my BJJ brown belt and 2022 I received my BJJ black belt under Leo Negao former 4 x world champion, born in Rio. I became the first BJJ black belt to come out of Halifax.
Throughout this time, I had competed every year, collectively I had now competed in Thai boxing, k1, MMA, BJJ and NoGi. With over 50 grappling matches, multiple gold medallist at elite level division and competed on Pantheon and the British Open at brown belt. For many years the only person competing in BJJ in the whole of Halifax.
I had been entering students into competitions every year throughout this time, MMA, many grappling tournaments to k1, and the results just kept getting better and better.
Students making big wins on Fightstar championships, almighty FC, combat challenge, and all the local BJJ tournaments to the biggest grappling shows in the UK.
Throughout these 10 years of going from white to black belt while teaching I developed many systems, that year on year I revised. The decade of coaching was compounding in interest, making champions in record breaking time. An example, 2 students of mine that I trained from scratch. after 3.5 years were awarded their purple belt, went to Polaris contenders and were beating brown and elite level black belts 15 years in, and were undefeated on grapple fest, these are two of the most renowned grappling shows in Europe, and the world. Students were winning in K1 and winning by KO and submission in MMA. There is a difference in personal ability and coaching, just because you’re a black belt doesn’t make you a black belt in coaching; let’s say it takes ten years to get your black belt, it takes about the same to get to the black belt level in coaching. In 2021 I affiliated directly under Leo Nagao.
The year of 2022
We became UK renowned and went into multiple avenues.
It all came together in the year of 2022; I had many international competitive students and international clients. We had built one of the largest independent martial arts gyms in the UK from scratch and went into multiple businesses. We changed the name of the academy from Citus MMA to BMA Halifax, meaning Bajerski Martial arts. I was awarded my BJJ black belt under Leo Nagao, I took my team to empire grappling, and we won the champion team trophy, 18 out of 19 athletes got a gold medal, beating 80 other gyms, there has never been a gym before or since winning with one coach, with that gold medal ratio, and from a small town. This quite frankly shocked all the other gyms in the larger surrounding cities. We were undefeated on grapple fest plus many more invitational competitions. The MMA team and K1 team were also flying, and this is the year it came together. Since then, we have been flying.
The running of the martial arts academy.
How do we run the academy day to day.
The first 5 years BMA, it was a ghetto gym as noted by Raj (the founder of fight star championships) we had a cage in a unit, with a wooden floor, smoke fights on a Saturday morning, it was a dog-eat-dog environment, where only power and violence garnered respect and made the pecking order. Many fights would start from the sparring, and the list goes on.
At the ten year mark I sussed it and we became UK renowned, so the students came with a fitting attitude. I now understood every character who walked through my doors. I was grateful for the 2000 people who had walked through my doors over the last 10 years, the good the bad and ugly and whatever personality trait you can think of, they had taught me everything I needed to know, there was now no one who I hadn’t seen become.
I love the martial arts mats because you get to see the widest range of human psychology.
These lessons only come from experience, and with this experience comes people knowledge. I’ve been able to take these lessons off the mats into life, I knew what every character was going to offer within their first session, what they were about, and often knew who needed to be kicked out within minutes. I never failed to do this, and because of this we made a safe place where the students realised their coach gives a sxxxx and felt safe, and because of this the academy flew even more.
I was finally now able to concentrate on the important work in the martial arts game. My systems were producing champions in record breaking time, after my ten-year apprentice I was bringing in top UK black belts at my choosing for seminars to show us their gold, moulding and crafting beautiful systems now 13 years in the making. We were now able to work closely with the public security personnel, and the important work with the juniors.
Training the juniors has become a big focus of mine.
The first things we work on with the juniors in the martial arts and coaching game is their emotional control, anger, discipline and patience, in other words, becoming more centred and aligned. Most people have two enemies in this world, themselves and the outside world, turning yourself into a true allies will make you a winner. We connect losing with persistence, to winning, we connect getting things wrong with being part of getting things right. Juniors who previously got bullied now don’t, this is often just because of their confidence alone.
We now have systems in place to deal with children bullying, adults abusing our art, younger men turning to the drug game, we do our bit for the community.
We know a thing or two about coaching and running a martial arts academy, clubs that last and clubs that don’t, from coaches who need to work on their art, how they treat a class, what they claim to be, see affiliation page.