October Newsletter
Hi all! First off, again, a massive thank you from all of the team at Kraken! It’s been a long (emotional! 😉 ) year, but we’re over the moon with how far we’ve all come!
There’s quite a few events and changes coming up so we figured what better way to inform you than to put it all into a newsletter that we know you all read thoroughly! So without further ado…
Upcoming Events
Don’t forget that our Autumn IntrAclub is now just around the corner on the 2nd November. Due to the sheer volume of members that we have competing there will be no other classes on this day but if you’re not competing yourself then please feel free to come and support!
Now that the winter is setting in and the daylight dissapears quite early, it’s time for another one of our popular FightClub Nights! This will be on Friday 8th November, starting at 20:00-21:00. We usually fill the entire mat and we have resident DJs Mikey & Liam in with all of their equipment. Therefore the first three Fighting Fits of the day will be on as usual but this will replace the last one, S&C & Submission Grappling. This is totally free for members and £7.50 for non-members.
Lastly, we have a massive Battle Arena event coming up on the 23rd Novemeber with both coaches Mark & Gabe fighting. Tickets have just come in and are behind reception but are going fast (especially tables)! Come join all of the Kraken guys for an enteraining night and to support our two warriors.
Please see our Events page for all details!
NS Brotherhood Affiliation
We are excited to announce that we are about to become officially affliated 
with NS Brotherhood Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu team! This was the team founded by one of the biggest ever stars and multiple time world champion, Leandro Lo! Darren’s coach, Raphael Busgaib’s gym in Spain is also a member of the same team.
Kraken will be the first and only gym in the UK to be part of NS Brotherhood. Gi patches to follow!
Junior BJJ Grading
If you haven’t already spotted some of our younger students sporting them – we now have all of our junior Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gi and belts in (as well as adults). As such, all students regularly attending will be eligible for grading.
Our coach Darren is an IBJJF registered brown belt, therefore any grades that the Kraken students are awarded will be recognised worldwide! Please note that any stripes/grades will be awarded on the basis of ability, attendence, behaviour in class and competition, although the latter is not compulsary.
Any children attending the BJJ classes will be required to have a gi within a month of beginning class. This is due to the fact that there are many Jiu-Jitsu techniques that involve gripping clothes and a t-shirt would stretch/tear in no time.
Membership Prices
Over a year into the Kraken journey we have had to make a hard decision to increase our membership prices and options, as can be seen on our website. This is for many reasons, such as now having to pay VAT 🙁 , classes becoming ever busier, and the urgency to have an adequate stream of cashflow to ensure a healthy gym, improvement and maintenance of equipment and to ensure that Kraken survives in 2020 and for many years to come.
We have still tried to keep the prices as low as we can afford and are still by far the best value MMA and BJJ gym in Bedford, being cheaper than our nearest competitor and offering far more in terms of classes, facilities and experienced coaches.
Although we have no choice but to impliment these increases to all of our customers, we have done our best to keep any increase to a minimum for those that have been with us on our first years journey. This means that all existing memberships will remain the same but with the inclusion of VAT. They will not be increased to the prices on the website. Also, we won’t be implimating these changes for our original members until 1st January 2020. We have no plans of ever profiting more from you guys. The only increases, if any, would be inline with inflation.
There also may be some positives for many of you out of these changes. Please see ‘Timetable’ below.
For our existing members only, from 1st January the membership inclusive of VAT will be: Adult Unlimited – £68, Adult Fitness – £58, Off-Peak – £47, Junior MMA (Core/Cadets) – £55, Junior BJJ – £55, Junior Unlimited – £65, Junior MMA (Fundamentals) – £43.
Timetable
Lastly, we have decided to impliment a few changes to the timetable which we believe will be an improvement going forward. This timetable will be in effect as of Monday 21st October:
- There will now be an additional Submission Grappling (nogi BJJ) on Mondays at 12:00-13:30.
- An additional Fighting Fit class has been added at 16:30 on Thursdays.
- Due to popular demand, Friday’s kickboxing class has now been extended to 1.5hrs.
- We have added an additional two Cadets MMA classes (Tuesday & Friday) as these have become increasingly busy. We always have enough coaches but we do not want to be limited by space. There is now an hours Cadet class every day Monday-Saturday!
- We have also made the decision to promote a large number of students from our Fundamentals program to the ‘Core’ classes as they have reached a level where we feel that they should be progressed onto slightly more detailed techniques and harder rolling/sparring partners. These parents will be contacted in the next few days if they haven’t been done so already. As a result of this the ‘Fundamentals’ class will be a lot smaller allowing the coaches to spend more time with those students, which should also equal more time for fun! This will now run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Saturdays. We will also be reducing the membership of the Fundamental students to £43 per month with immediate effect.
- Junior sparring has been moved forward and reduced to 30 mins as this is what the adults do! There will also be a lot more sparring incorported into the normal junior MMA classes so please ensure that all of those students with sparring gear brings it with them.
- All of our 1.5hr MMA & BJJ/Nogi classes that involve rolling/sparring will now have optional sparring/rolling. We will be pausing class after the initial hours drilling allowing anybody not wishing to spar to leave. We feel this will also help any beginners who may wish to get a few sessions under their belt before starting to spar. Please note that you will only be allowed to spar if you have been involved in the previous hour.
- A few classes have been jigged back or forward 30 minutes or so to enable as many sparring sessions as possible to have use of the full mat!
- Following on from the previous point, Friday’s S&C session has now been made into possibly our hardest class on our timetable: Advanced S&C! This is not for the faint hearted! If you want the challenge or to push yourself, then this is the perfect 30min beasting, giving you the weekend to recover!
Christmas Shenanigans
Watch this space!!!
