About
This didn’t start as a business strategy.
Fifty years of jiu-jitsu doesn’t just build skill. It builds a life — full of adventures, misadventures, friendships forged under pressure, and memories made in training halls from Los Angeles to Cape Town to Tokyo.
That’s what Nic and Brent had. Decades of competing around the world, training under two of the greatest practitioners the art has ever produced, and collecting the kind of relationships that only come from years of shared devotion to something that genuinely matters.
In 2020, over lunch in Los Angeles, Brent said what had probably been true for years.
“We have all these cool people. We need to bring them all together.”
That conversation became the Subconscious Jiu Jitsu Association.
4th Degree Black Belt · Association Director
Professor Nicholas Gregoriades
Gregoriades is a South African grappler recognised as the first jiu-jitsu practitioner to be promoted to black belt by Roger Gracie — widely regarded as the greatest grappler of all time.
He holds national championships in South Africa and England, authored The Black Belt Blueprint and Beyond the Black Belt, and has produced instructional videos and films including Spirit of Jiu-Jitsu and Soul of Jiu-Jitsu.
Over more than 27 years, he has taught thousands of practitioners globally. He is known for a holistic, conceptually-based teaching approach — one that helps advanced students make the kind of progress that technique-first instruction rarely produces.
Beyond the mat: founder of GRADR, academy management software built specifically for BJJ. He now teaches jiu-jitsu in Los Angeles and works with men as a personal development coach.
“Joining the Subconscious Jiu Jitsu Association was one of the best decisions I've made as a jiu-jitsu professional. When I came in as a brown belt I lacked direction — I needed guidance and people who genuinely believed in me. Nic and Brent provided exactly that, and it changed everything.”
4th Degree Black Belt · Founder & HQ Head Instructor
Professor Brent Burniston
Burniston received his black belt from Jean-Jacques Machado and served as one of Machado’s top instructors at the Tarzana academy.
Known for innovation and detailed instruction, he was appointed as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Advisor to the UFAF (founded by Chuck Norris) in 2015, and collaborated with Chief Instructor David Dunn on curriculum development.
Brent is the person who articulated the founding vision of Subconscious Jiu-Jitsu Association. The association exists because of his conviction that what they had — a global network of serious, character-driven people — was worth building around.
If this resonates, apply.
We don’t grow for the sake of growing. Every academy in the Subconscious Jiu Jitsu Association is here because they belong here. If that sounds like you, let’s talk.
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