Special event · Sunday, October 18 · 7:30am
Koffee Krew
Open mat & coffee · 7:30am at Edgewater Plaza
The Koffee Krew brings their traveling open mat to Sumo's. Good coffee, good rounds, all levels welcome. Details at the desk or on our Community page.
See the details
Foster City's own jiu jitsu academy, built for the families who live here. Walk in on day one with zero experience and you'll be fine. Kids, parents, and grown grapplers all train here. We teach real jiu jitsu, and we teach it in a way that keeps you healthy enough to still be doing it in twenty years. You'll be coached by IBJJF black belts with decades on the mat between them, coaching kids and adults alike.
On September 5 this room filled up with Foster City. Kids who had never touched a mat took their first class, parents jumped in beside them, and we cut the ribbon alongside Foster City Mayor Art Kiesel, members of the City Council, the Foster City Chamber of Commerce, and the local fire crew. Then we ate, we drew prizes, and we got back on the mat. Thank you to every neighbor who walked through that door and to everyone who helped us build this place. We are open, and we are just getting started.
Karate, kung fu and taekwondo are striking arts: punches, kicks and forms, usually at a distance. Jiu jitsu is a grappling art. Students learn to stay balanced when someone grabs them, fall safely, escape, and calmly control another person without throwing a single punch. The roots are Japanese. Judo master Mitsuyo Maeda carried the art to Brazil in the early 1900s, where it was refined so a smaller person could handle a larger one.
Most of what kids actually run into is a push at recess or someone who will not let go. Our students learn to stay on their feet, keep their distance, and if it goes further, hold the other child safely until an adult steps in. Nothing that escalates, and nothing the school has to sort out afterward. Kids who know they can handle themselves rarely need to.
Every class is watch, listen, do. A kid can't drift off mid-technique because the partner in front of them keeps moving. You'll likely notice it at the homework table before you notice it on the mat.
Grappling covers the part of self defense that happens when someone is already too close to strike: a grab, a shove, both people off balance. That is the range jiu jitsu trains, and there, angles and position matter more than size. It is why first responders and military programs train it.
Forty-five minutes of shrimping, sprawls, games and live rounds. Nobody is counting reps or watching a clock. And none of it happens alone. Every rep needs a partner, including the kid who just tapped you, which is how a room full of six-year-olds learns to take care of each other.
You get the list. Every student knows exactly which techniques their next belt requires, and they get promoted when they can do them, not when the calendar says so. Kids work through grey, yellow, orange and green long before the adult ranks. Black belt usually takes a decade or more, and honestly that's the appeal. Show up, sweat the small details, lose and come back Tuesday. Those habits don't stay on the mat.
What a first class looks like, how we keep it safe, what the belt path really takes, and why grappling instead of striking. Written for parents who have never watched a jiu jitsu class.
Why jiu jitsu →“Highly recommended for families, even those with no prior experience.”
Half of Foster City works from home now. Come train at noon, Monday through Friday. You're eight minutes from the mat, you get an actual workout and an actual conversation, and you're back at your desk before your 1:00. Beats another walk around the lagoon. No experience needed.
Whether it's a four-year-old's first day or a 50-year-old getting back in shape, it's the same jiu jitsu underneath, just taught at the right speed for whoever's on the mat.
Our littlest kids think they're just playing games. They're actually learning to move, listen, and hold their own. That's the jiu jitsu sneaking in.
The next step up. Sharper technique, some live reps against a partner, still plenty of fun. This is where it starts to click for a lot of kids.
Real jiu jitsu for older kids and teens. We hold them to a real standard here: technique, discipline, and knowing how to handle themselves.
You can start any week. The curriculum rotates, so there's no "you missed the beginning." We teach every position from scratch. Never trained? Perfect, this is the class for you.
This one's for older students who still want to train hard without paying for it the next day. Warm up the joints properly, roll controlled instead of wild, leave the ego at the door. The whole point is that you're still on the mat at 70.
First class is free. Come in, tell us who's training, and we'll point you to the right class.
Book a free trial →Saturday mornings, parents get on the mat with their kids. Same class, same drills, everybody learning together. It's our favorite class of the week.
A week to plan around: adult classes at noon Monday through Friday, kids in the afternoon, adults again Monday through Wednesday at 6pm, open mat Friday at 6pm and Saturday at 11am, and family classes Saturday morning. The schedule below is pulled straight from our booking system, so what you see is what's actually running that week, holidays, seminars and all.
First class is free. Tap BOOK on any class below to reserve your Free Trial Class.
One membership, full access: all classes, all programs, open mats. Your first class is always free, so come roll before you commit. We price it so a Foster City family can put more than one person on the mat.
New students pay a one-time $50 sign-up fee, which covers your uniform (Gi) and a Sumo's t-shirt. Every plan is full access: kids, adults, and Longevity. Your first class is free, and we'll set you up at the desk once you've rolled with us.
We're Sumo's Family Jiu Jitsu, so when your family trains together, everyone saves. Add family members to your household and the discount grows with each one.
Applies to immediate family in the same household, on any membership plan. Family pricing doesn't stack with other discounted rates — each membership gets whichever rate is lower, and we'll set it up so you get the better one. Bring the whole crew; just ask at your free trial.
There's good jiu jitsu all over this peninsula. We built this one for Foster City, right next to Osaka Market and across the street from Foster City Elementary, in the plaza you already shop in. A clean room where a kid's first class and a black belt's hardest round get taught with the same care, by two coaches who've spent their lives on the mat.
Matt is a BJJ black belt and 2x IBJJF World Masters champion, promoted under coral belt Marco Nascimento. Before jiu jitsu he earned a black belt in full-contact karate and competed in Japan, and trained Muay Thai at Fairtex in Thailand. Longevity BJJ came out of those years on the mat: a way to keep training hard without the body paying for it as you get older.
Raf grew up in São Paulo and started training under Marco Nascimento in 2007. He's been coaching since 2019 and teaches both the kids and the adults. He's got the patience for a room full of six-year-olds and the technical depth to push a competitor. Kids love him. So do the adults.
Pick a class time that works for you and reserve your spot right now. No card, no commitment, beginners welcome.
Book My Free Trial →Jiu jitsu is bigger than any one gym. These are academies we know and vouch for. If you're outside Foster City, or you just want another good room to roll in, go train with these folks. Tell them we sent you.
Jiu Jitsu for the People.
It's a fair question. Early on, Matt often competed in the Ultra Heavy (aka “Unlimited”) category, usually giving up plenty of size to the bigger competitors out there. Somewhere along the way the nickname “Sumo” stuck, and it's followed him ever since, even though these days he's usually in the Super Heavy bracket.
* And why Sumo “Bill”? Well, that’s a whole other story…
This is the class for older students who want to keep training for the long haul, the ones who plan to still be on the mat years and decades from now.
The older you get, the more you need to keep moving. You also have to change how you train, or the body stops showing up. Longevity BJJ is real jiu jitsu adjusted for that. You still learn everything; you just don't have to destroy yourself to do it.
The idea is to train smart enough that you're still rolling in twenty years. On the mat that means:
No ego, real technique, and training that your knees will still thank you for in twenty years.
Book a free trial
