Evolution Athletix

Saco

Biddeford

Augusta

Brewer

Falmouth

Farmington

Farmingdale

Gray

Harpswell

Lewiston

Oakland

Portland

Pittsfield

South Portland

Sanford

Wells

Topsham

Westbrook

Winslow

Ellsworth

Caribou

When Jay Jack and Amanda Buckner opened The Academy on Riverside Street in Portland in 2003, they were carrying a specific line of jiu jitsu into Maine: both had trained under Amal Easton, a Renzo Gracie black belt, and Buckner had already logged years as a professional MMA competitor. That combination — competitive pedigree, direct Gracie lineage, and a facility serious enough to produce its own black belts — made The Academy the state's anchor gym. The instructors it has promoted since then, including Beau DeCourcy and Shaun Durfee (who later founded Portland's kids-only Stonecoast BJJ), form a tree that accounts for a significant share of the active practitioners in southern Maine today.

The Portland metro area is where the density is highest. South Portland has Southern Maine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, run by Rodrigo Ranieri de Faria, a Checkmat black belt under a Carlson Gracie lineage who won the Pan American No-Gi Championship in 2009 and the World Cup in 2006. Faria moved to the United States in 2007 and had started coaching in Maine by 2008, adding a competitive Brazilian black belt to a corner of the state that was just beginning to support multiple academies. Centerpoint Martial Arts operates out of Falmouth, just north of Portland, and Dragon Fire Martial Arts in South Portland runs a mixed program that includes BJJ classes. For anyone in greater Portland looking for options, MatMade lists 25 gyms across Maine and is the most complete directory for the state.

Outside the Portland corridor, the picture fragments geographically but doesn't disappear. In western Maine, Foundry BJJ in Farmington has been open since 2001, making it the oldest documented school in that part of the state, with a second location in Rangeley serving the more rural western lakes region. Up in Bangor, Gracie Barra established a school at Gold's Gym in October 2006 under head instructor Eduardo Benjamin, who trained under Carlos Gracie Jr. and Mauricio Robbe — bringing a formally affiliated Gracie Barra presence to central Maine well before the sport became widely visible nationally. Acadia BJJ in Ellsworth fills the gap between Portland and the Canadian border for practitioners in the mid-coast and downeast regions, while Aroostook Grappling Club in Houlton, run by purple belt Sam Holmes under Joe Moreira lineage, serves the state's far northern tip.

Maine's training culture trends technical and no-frills. The state is small enough that competitors from Bangor and Portland regularly see each other at regional tournaments, and the American Grappling Federation has run Maine-specific events drawing academies from Biddeford to the coast. There is no dominant affiliation — Gracie Barra, Checkmat, and independent Renzo-lineage schools coexist without much friction, and the lack of a single flagship organization means most academies develop their own internal competition pipelines rather than feeding into a shared team structure. Newcomers should expect smaller class sizes than in Boston or New York, rolling that is generally thoughtful rather than ego-driven, and instructors who have been at their specific school for ten years or more.

Maine

BJJ & Martial Arts in Saco, Maine