Community Guidelines

Effective September 2, 2026

This directory answers one question Google Maps does not: is the open mat actually running this Saturday, and what will they charge at the door. Everything below follows from keeping that answer honest.

Why the rules are shaped like this

Every academy has 4.8 stars somewhere. The reviews are written by parents of kids-class students, the schedule on the website is two years old, and nobody can tell you what the drop-in actually costs. The rules here exist to produce something better than that, and each one is aimed at a specific way directories go wrong.

Visit reports

A report says you were there. It is the single most valuable thing on the site, because two of them from different people is what turns a listing green.

File one when

• You trained at an open mat, a drop-in class or a seminar at that academy.
• You turned up and it was not running. That is just as useful — arguably more.

Be accurate about the money

Put what you actually paid, including nothing. If the listing says $0 and you were charged $20, the report is what surfaces that, and the listing shows the gap. This is one of the main reasons people use the site.

Notes

A note is worth writing when it tells the next visitor something the schedule cannot: "text first, the Sunday one moves to the beach", "get there at 10 for a spot", "they charged the drop-in rate, not the open mat rate". Not needed otherwise.

Do not

• File for a visit you did not make. This is the one that gets an account closed.
• File for a friend, or ask anyone to file for you.
• Report on a competing academy to make it look unreliable.

If you run the gym, you can report on it. It counts towards the notes, the typical fee and the cancellations — but never towards the confirmation. Two independent people are the whole point of the badge.

Reviews

You must file a visit report before you can review a gym. There is no way round it and we will not add one. It is the main defence against a rival academy reviewing a mat nobody there has ever set foot on.

What a good review covers

• What the open mat or class was actually like — level, intensity, how rounds were run.
• Whether visitors were made welcome, ignored, or sold a membership at the door.
• The state of the mats, the changing rooms, the parking.
• What it cost and whether that matched what was advertised.
• Who it suits. A hard competition room is a good review for one person and a warning for another.

What gets removed

• Reviews from competitors. If you train at, coach at, or own a nearby academy, you have a conflict — say so or say nothing.
• Anything you know to be untrue. Opinions are fine, invented facts are not.
• Naming individuals who are not the academy's public face. "The head coach was dismissive" is fair. Naming a member of the public who trains there is not.
• Anything about a child, including in a kids class.
• Abuse, slurs, or discrimination on any grounds.
• Accusations of a crime. If something criminal happened, report it to the police, not to a jiu-jitsu directory. We will remove it and we will not be the venue for it.
• Injuries blamed on people. "I got hurt" is a fact about your visit. "The coach let a white belt heel hook me on purpose" is an accusation we cannot verify and will not host.
• Personal contact details, yours or anyone else's.
• Marketing for your own academy, seminar or product.

Grudges

Gyms have politics. People leave badly, teams split, someone gets stripped. A review written the week you left a gym after a falling-out is about the falling-out, not the open mat. It will read that way to everybody, and we will take it down.

If you run a gym

Claim your listing. It costs nothing, and it lets you fix the schedule, put the real prices up, add a logo and photos, and respond to reviews.

What claiming gets you

• Control of the listing's facts: schedule, prices, contact details, images.
• One public response to each review.
• Ownership of your open mat times, so nobody has to guess them.

What it does not

• Deleting reviews or visit reports.
• Editing what a visitor wrote.
• Turning the badge green. Only visitors do that.

Responding well

Answer the fact, once, and stop. "The Saturday mat moved to 11am in June, and the fee has been $10 since we reopened" settles it for every future reader. Arguing does not, and it is the response people screenshot. If a review breaks the rules above, flag it instead — that goes to a person.

If you list private lessons

• Purple belt and up. Blue belts charging for privates is a credibility problem for everyone listed here.
• Your rank is checked before the listing goes public.
• Keep your rates honest — the rate shown is what a student expects to pay.
• Listings here are adults-only. If you teach children, arrange that through your academy — this site does not carry it.
• Reply to enquiries, or take the listing down. An unanswered enquiry is worse than no listing.

What happens when a rule is broken

Flag anything that breaks these rules — there is a flag on every review. It goes to a queue a person reads. Flagged content stays up while that happens, because removing it on the strength of a complaint is exactly the lever a rival would pull.

Think we got it wrong? Reply and say so.