Our Own Neighbourhood
Jiu-Jitsu in Maillardville
True North Jiu-Jitsu is at 814 Brunette Avenue, on the strip that runs through the middle of Maillardville. This is the one neighbourhood where we are not the gym down the road. We are the gym on the street, a short walk from Mackin Park and Place des Arts, in the part of Coquitlam that French-Canadian mill workers built starting in 1909.
Most of our students live within a few minutes of the front door. Some of them walk.
Where We Sit
On the Brunette Avenue Strip
If you know Maillardville, you know the shape of it: Laval Square with Our Lady of Lourdes at its centre, Mackin Park filling up in March for Festival du Bois, Place des Arts running its classes out of the old houses on Brunette. The old Fraser Mills site sits below, down toward the river.
We are part of that strip. Being a neighbourhood gym changes what the place is like day to day. Parents drop off and stay, and the ones who stay tend to end up on the mats themselves within a year. Kids arrive from school in the same clothes they wore all day. People run into each other in the parking lot and in the line at the coffee shop the next morning.
It also means there is no trip to plan. Nothing gets skipped because of traffic on the Lougheed. You come, you train, you are home.
For Local Families
The Kids Who Come Straight From School
Our Kids Jiu-Jitsu program takes ages five to twelve, and the class times are built around the school day rather than around us. Monday 5:00 to 5:45pm, Tuesday 4:15 to 5:00 and 5:00 to 5:45pm, Wednesday 5:00 to 5:45pm, and Thursday 4:15 to 5:00 and 5:00 to 5:45pm.
The 4:15 classes exist because plenty of families in this neighbourhood finish the school pickup and want the whole thing done before dinner. The 5:00 classes suit the parent who comes straight from work.
What the kids actually learn is how to fall without panicking, how to hold their ground when someone bigger is leaning on them, and how to lose a round and come back for the next one. Jiu-jitsu handles the physical part of being pushed around better than most things a child can sign up for, and it does it without teaching them to hit anyone. That distinction matters to a lot of the parents we talk to.
For Adults on These Streets
An Hour That Belongs to You
Adult Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is for ages thirteen and up and covers both gi and no-gi. Evenings run Monday to Thursday finishing at 8pm, with 1 to 2pm sessions midweek for people who work from home or on shift.
A fair number of our adult members started because their child was already training here and sitting on the bench for forty-five minutes twice a week got boring. That is a perfectly good reason to start, and it turns into something else quickly enough.
We also run wrestling, kickboxing for ages thirteen and up, and women's self-defense. Everything here is taught as its own discipline by instructors who have spent a long time in it: Professor Khatib Ahmad is a fourth degree black belt, with Professor Mahan Salimian and Professor Ash "Smash" Mashreghi also at black belt, and Coach Igor Vavi and Coach Kim rounding out the staff.
The Rest of It
More Than a Class Timetable
Birthday parties
We host birthday parties on the mats. For a local family it is a straightforward option: a room the kids can safely run around in, five minutes from home, and somebody else cleaning up afterwards.
Sauna and cold plunge
There is a sauna and cold plunge on site, along with meal prep. These started as things our own members wanted after class rather than as an attempt to become a wellness centre, and that is still roughly how they are used.
Reading before you visit
If you would rather get a feel for the place first, our blog covers what beginners run into, how the belt system works, and what actually happens in a first class. Our about page introduces the instructors.
Come By
The First Class Is Free
For adults and for kids, the first class costs nothing. If you have walked past the door on Brunette a few times and wondered, that is what it is for. Turn up ten minutes early in clothes you can move in and we will sort out the rest.
True North Jiu-Jitsu holds a 5.0 rating from 116 Google reviews, the highest of any dedicated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym in Coquitlam. Most of those reviews were written by people who live within a couple of kilometres of here.
Call 604-777-0396
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions From the Neighbourhood
What Maillardville families ask us most often. For anything else, get in touch or call in when you are passing.
814 Brunette Avenue, Unit B, on the commercial strip through Maillardville and a short walk from Mackin Park. There is parking on site, and if you are coming on foot from the streets above Brunette it is a few minutes downhill.
That is exactly who the 4:15pm Tuesday and Thursday kids classes are for. They can change here. Plenty of local families do the school pickup, come straight to the mats and are home for dinner by six.
Parents are welcome to watch, and many do. Adult classes do not overlap exactly with the kids block, but a good number of our adult members are parents who started after watching from the side for a few months. Ask us and we will help you find the nights that work for the whole family.
Classes are taught in English. Given where we are, it is a fair question, and the neighbourhood's francophone history is real. On the mats the vocabulary is mostly Portuguese and Japanese anyway, and beginners pick it up by watching rather than by listening.
Kids Jiu-Jitsu runs from five to twelve. From thirteen up, students train in the adult jiu-jitsu classes, and kickboxing and women's self-defense are also open from thirteen. Wrestling and private lessons are available across the age range. There is no upper limit; our adult classes include people well into their forties and fifties.