Unity Jiu-Jitsu is a new academy in New York city that is home to Paulo & Joao Miyao, Leandro Lo, Luiza Monteiro, Yago De Souza as well as Murilo Santana from Barbosa (head instructor).

BJJ Eastern Europe spoke to one of the founders of Unity Jiu-Jitsu, BJJ brown belt Ana Lowry:

What was the whole idea behind unity jiu jitsu?

The idea behind Unity Jiu Jitsu, and I don’t want to speak for the other guys, you can look on the website for the “official” idea, but the whole idea from my understanding of it, is to have a place where all of us can come together, despite what teams we want to be affiliated with, and get the best training possible. Doing that, we want to create a jiu jitsu hub for our students, and for friends visiting, with the best possible training. Murilo Santana is the head instructor, because yeah, we just all understood from the beginning that he was the one for the job. The Miyaos are resident athletes, along with Yago De Souza, so they will be there to train with our students. Leandro Lo has commitments in Sao Paulo, so he will be coming up just for training camps, and to visit. And we hope a lot of our other friends who can’t make it up for the first week will be coming up to visit shortly afterwards!
The idea is to take what has been working for us in Sao Paulo, and a few new ideas that we think will make everything work even better, and bring it all to New York City to share with our (hopefully numerous) students/new training partners.

Tell us more about the Unity Jiu-Jitsu project and how you plan to make it work

The project is what it is, we have put a lot of thought into it and everybody has roles that fit their personalities and goals. We’re going to have the Pro Training sessions, morning classes, kids classes, self-defense classes, no gi classes, a truly innovative introduction program that takes a more inclusive approach to a beginners program, in addition to awesome just straight up Jiu Jitsu classes. We have a women’s program that is totally different, designed to integrate women into regular classes, and prevent any of the common problems associated with them being a minority in the sport. We are also hoping to add Homeschooler Classes for the kids as soon as we can get it set up. All around I think we’re different enough, inclusive and integrative enough, to where we will appeal to a lot of people just by being ourselves. What we want in and from jiu jitsu seems to be what a lot of people want in and from jiu jitsu.

Jesse Bell visits Unity Jiu Jitsu’s grand opening in New York City and introduces the academies instructors: