Before the mats, before the name, before any of this had a shape, there were a handful of people who shared a passion for a martial art that Belgium had barely heard of.

Different people played their part in what this academy would become, without knowing the impact it would have on so many lives.

This is the story of pioneers. This is the story of BJJ Gent.

THE SEED (2003 — 2006)

On opposite sides of the world and years apart, two stories were already in motion, heading toward the same place.

In 2003, somewhere in Brazil, Stef B. was traveling when a Swedish kickboxer described a martial art built on leverage, patience, and the architecture of the human body under pressure. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. At the time, the idea barely registered. Then it kept surfacing, in capoeira academies, in conversations on the street, in underground Vale Tudo fights where all rules were suspended and one system kept winning. Something was accumulating. It would take years to understand what.

In the early months of 2006, in Bangkok, Nick D. was watching UFC broadcasts and could not stop thinking about what he was seeing. One system kept winning. He looked into it, found Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and immediately wrote to his brother François D. and to Steven B. Years earlier they had trained mixed fighting together for self-defense, until age and injuries made them stop. Nick had found something that made starting again possible, a martial art that still worked on older bodies. He wanted to restart with the original core. François, Steven, and the others said yes.

THE UNDERGROUND YEARS (2006 — 2007)

The summer of 2006. Nick was back in Belgium, and the old group came together again.

Nick, François, Steven, and a handful of others from the original circle picked up their training. No coach, no affiliation, no infrastructure. They trained from photograph sequences of techniques found online or from magazines, reconstructing movements as best they could. Everything was improvised. Nothing was guaranteed.

That autumn, Nick returned to Thailand and found a BJJ gym in Bangkok. He trained through the winter. When he came back to Ghent in 2007, he was a white belt with two stripes, which at the time felt like authority. He brought with him the first real technical foundation the group had seen. They listened to everything he said.

Around the same time, François crossed paths with Stef, who had spent years searching for the right training group through shoot-fight gyms and martial arts circles, without ever finding it. Then suddenly, there was François, with the right group at the right moment.

Later that year, Steven, one of the originals, spotted a flyer for a BJJ introductory session run by two young brothers from Sequana Academy in Brussels (founded in 1998, one of the first BJJ clubs in Belgium). The whole group drove out together. They were the only people who showed up. They asked the brothers to train them weekly. The group trained under their guidance, and this became the technical foundation on which BJJ Gent was built. The brothers were blue belts. Their technical level was exceptional. They would reach black belt before long.

Nobody knew, at that point, what they were actually building.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE DRAGON (2008)

In a city, a name can only be claimed once. The name BJJ Gent was chosen with deliberate logic. Whoever came after could open a BJJ academy in Ghent. But there was only ever going to be one BJJ Gent. Not as a trademark. As a statement. That decision, made before there was much to protect, turned out to be one of the most consequential of all.

The logo followed the same thinking. Designed by Kim Hofmans, a Ghent local who had been part of the journey from early on, it carried two references that needed no explanation to anyone who knew the city: the medieval dragon, and the silhouette of the Belfort tower. These were Ghent's oldest symbols, now embedded into a Jiu-Jitsu academy's logo, a signal of where this was rooted and an intention to stay.

In 2022, Ashkan Joshghani redrew the original logo, a symbolic move that paid tribute to where it began and signaled what it would become. It became the foundation for the next generation of BJJ Gent apparel, designed by Ashkan, where design and culture move as one.

THE BLACK BELT LINEAGE (2018)

Nearly eighteen years have passed since those first sessions. In that time, BJJ Gent became one of the roots of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Belgium. Many of Belgium's active Jiu-Jitsu athletes of today trained here at some point.

Not everyone who walked through the door understood what this place was built on. They did not need to. The ones who did, who embodied the true essence of martial arts, bonds, and culture, became the core naturally. That is how BJJ Gent was built and how it continues to this day.

Four black belts have come from BJJ Gent, each one earned on this ground and promoted by Wim Deputter, head coach of Brasa Belgium.

• Gert-Jan Vergauwen (Black Belt, 2018)
• Denis Schoors (Black Belt, 2022)
• Ben Stroobandt (Black Belt, 2023)
• Ashkan Joshghani (Black Belt, 2023)

THE LEGACY CONTINUES (2023 — PRESENT)

In 2023, the year he earned his black belt, the academy passed into Ashkan Joshghani's hands. At the point when many thought the history would end, he chose to carry it forward to his own highest standards, elevating every aspect on and off the mat and building it into what it is today. Here is that vision, in his own words.

“I have witnessed what happens when culture erodes. When standards bend for convenience. When the art becomes a hollow transaction. My vision is to elevate the technical level and pass on the true essence of martial arts in this academy. Bonds, culture, and growth that goes beyond the mat.” - Ashkan Joshghani (head coach)