A while back several reports surfaced about a Carlson Gracie black belt from the Chicago area behaving badly. Most notably this reddit account:

I just moved to chicago, and started training at carlson HQ there. I took a trial class there, and enjoyed training there, so I signed up a few days ago. That said, tonight I had the worst experience of my entire jiu jitsu journey when one of the black belts struck me in the face during rolling.

A little about myself: I’ve been training jiu jitsu for about 5 years. Im a solid blue belt.

So I go to train tonight, and something seems off. Junior is not there, and the class is being taught by two black belts, one named jeff who was extremely kind to me and seemed like a nice guy. The other black belt, named antoine evans, seemed to acting very aggressively and almost bullying to me, in a way im not used to encountering in a jiu jitsu academy. During the drilling when I tried to ask him a question he basically told me to shut up (“you are trying to tell me something, but thats not how that works, I tell YOU something”) and then when it came to sparring he called me out for starting from the feet with a purple belt, despite the fact that people at this academy seem to regularily start from the feet.

So the next round, im about to roll with someone else, and I hear antoine evans yell at me from across the gym to come roll with him. I’m getting a really bad feeling at this point, this guy just gives off bad vibes, but im like ok and we go roll and I try and keep it respectful. About midway through the roll he starts going pretty hard, putting his knee on my head, putting his foot on my stomach, etc, but im like ok whatever this guy is trying to make a point. At one point I put him in slx and ask, to be respectful, “hey do you guys do leg locks?”

He looks at me, and goes “if you kneebar me, I will punch you in the face” I then go to underhook his leg to bring it onto my shoulder for a proper SLX to stand up sweep, and he goes “no heel hooks!” and shoves me away and then restarts the roll with him passing. Again, he comes at me surprisingly hard, but definitely not going 100 percent. At the end of the round, I manage to get the lockdown, and go for the electric chair. He basically lets me take the electric chair, but as I start to stretch him out, he HITS ME IN THE FACE!

I’m in shock. I instantly let go. I go “what the hell?” and he starts yelling “no knee bars!” “but… its ibjjf legal for white belts!” I manage to stammer. probably the smarter thing to do would just to have been to leave at this point, but I was genuinely in shock. He keeps yelling at me, and gets in my face, and screams for me to get off the mat. Needless to say I gtfo of there really quick.

So now im really not sure what to do. They have my money for the rest of the month, but obviously im never going to train there again. In any normal circumstance of my life, I would call the cops on someone who punched me in the face, but I get the sense that it might be hard to press assault charges for something that happened during jiu jitsu sparring. Anyone have any experience? im goddamn lost here. I have had such a positive experience with jiu jitsu and all the people I have met through it, that this is shocking to me

UPDATE!: The gym have gotten in contact with me and were extremely apologetic and professional and are refunding my tuition for the month. I’m bummed out to have had this experience, but at the same time it was a really eye opening experience in finding out that not everyone with a black belt is a good person. I’m definitely going to be more aware next time. Thanks for the support everybody. I really appreciate the kind stuff a lot of you have said, and the advice people gave. Honestly this experience really shook me up, but I’m gonna go check out a few other gyms in the area and definitely make sure electric chairs are cool to do in sparring before we train.

awful experience with carlsons hq in chicago with black belt antoine evans from bjj

And now we’ve gotten an update on the situation. As per Evans’ own facebook page he’s moving on from Carlson Gracie Team saying;

On to the next chapter of Jiu Jitsu!! Where Black Belts are supported and respected.

Dropped my CGT banner. Hope all my previous family understands.

when hardwork, work ethic and real family are taken for granted you move on.

Money over respect is the new way????

This is the reason all Carlson Gracie Black belts are at other academies.

Fumaca Jiu Jitsu coming soon!!!

Carlson Gracie black belt Antoine Evans kicked out of CG from bjj