🎸 Tennessee

Nashville carries the state's highest-profile instruction. Shawn Williams — the fifth American to earn a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and one of Renzo Gracie's first black belts, promoted on the same night as John Danaher in 2002 — opened Renzo Gracie Nashville and brought a direct New York competition lineage into Tennessee. Williams also invented the Williams Guard, a positional innovation that shows up in instructional content worldwide. Nashville MMA Training Camp runs a separate program with a third-degree black belt as head BJJ coach, and the city also has a 10th Planet affiliate under double black belt Tim Freeman for those who train exclusively no-gi. Shawn Hammonds runs his own academy in town as well, so Nashville newcomers have genuine options across different affiliations and training philosophies.

Knoxville has built a quieter but respectable scene anchored for years by a Lucas Lepri affiliate — Lepri himself is a nine-time IBJJF world champion, and his association brought a competition-focused Alliance lineage to the eastern part of the state. In Chattanooga, Kioto BJJ and Lógica Jiu-Jitsu have added to what the Chattanooga Jiu-Jitsu Academy started, with Lógica leaning heavily into no-gi and science-driven training methodology. Memphis, beyond its founding gym, now includes Midtown Grappling Academy — opened by Alexandre Meadows, the first Memphis grappler to win an IBJJF World Championship at brown belt — and a GFTeam Tennessee affiliate in Cordova that connects local practitioners to one of the largest international BJJ organizations out of Rio.

The training culture in Tennessee tends toward practicality over politics. The state sits at the intersection of strong wrestling traditions from rural and suburban high school programs and the MMA gym boom of the early 2000s, which means a lot of Tennessee grapplers arrive with some grappling background and a no-nonsense attitude about what works. Gi and no-gi programs often run side by side rather than in competing camps, and cross-training between schools is common, especially in the smaller cities where the overall community is tight enough that everyone knows each other through open mats and in-state tournaments.

If you are new to BJJ and landing in Tennessee, the 158 gyms listed on MatMade cover every major metro and many smaller cities — from Clarksville and the Tennessee Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Spring Hill to the Tri-Cities region in the northeast, where Absolute Jiu-Jitsu has operated as the area's oldest and largest academy. The state rewards some exploration: the best fit is rarely just the closest gym, and Tennessee has enough variety in affiliation, training style, and schedule that most people can find both a serious competitive track and a strong recreational community depending on what they are actually looking for.