Waza Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Come support Waza Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Thursday August 13th from 9am-2pm Jamie’s Cafe will be giving 30% of our food sales to our great neighbors. Free bottle o...f wine with purchase of gift card for future service. Located 9101 Laguna Main Street #190 Elk Grove, CA 95758 Derek DiManno biography Derek DiManno is the owner and head instructor of Waza Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He is a long-time resident of Elk Grove, having moved here from Detroit, Michigan, in 1989. After finishing his education at Christian Brothers High School and UC Davis, he became an urban planner. After 13 years working for a private urban planning firm, he decided to pursue his passion of teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a discipline that he has trained and competed extensively in for nearly 25 years. He opened Waza BJJ in the Laguna West community, where he lived for nearly 20 years. Waza Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Waza Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was established in 2010. The name "Waza" was chosen because it means "technique" in Japanese, which is an appropriate name given Jiu Jitsu's subtle, yet highly technical nature. Waza BJJ offers classes for both adults and children (ages 4 through 16). The motto for the adult program is Through the Jiu Jitsu lifestyle, become a better you. The adult program offers many benefits, including getting healthy and fit, losing weight, reducing stress, doing something fun and challenging, testing yourself in competition, learning a practical form of self-defense, and joining a community of like-minded, positive people. The motto for our kids’ program is Happy, Healthy, Smart. The kids’ program is designed to produce confident, well-adjusted, respectful children, who are both mentally and physica

WAZA BJJ REOPENING! We will reopen our doors on Monday, June 15! We have created a new set of safety guidelines and waiver for everyone to review and sign. This will be part of every student's ticket to get through the doors. Also, everyone must sign up for classes through our online scheduling program. Both the guidelines/waiver and the link to the scheduling system can be found on our Programs/Schedule page of our website. The initial schedule for the next two weeks has been posted. Feel free to reach out if you have questions about any of these new guidelines or have issues signing up for a class. I'd like to thank everyone for your overwhelming support. We’ve missed everyone so very much, and we can’t wait to see you!

Our great neighbor, Jamie's Cafe, is kind enough to help support Waza BJJ during the shutdown...see the flier for details.

The godfather of BJJ in Sacramento comes of a sweep and looks for the finish.

WAZA BJJ REOPENING! We will reopen our doors on Monday, June 15! We have created a new set of safety guidelines and waiver for everyone to review and sign. This will be part of every student's ticket to get through the doors. Also, everyone must sign up for classes through our online scheduling program. Both the guidelines/waiver and the link to the scheduling system can be found on our Programs/Schedule page of our website. The initial schedule for the next two weeks has been posted. Feel free to reach out if you have questions about any of these new guidelines or have issues signing up for a class. I'd like to thank everyone for your overwhelming support. We’ve missed everyone so very much, and we can’t wait to see you!

Good look at the benefits of the Jiu JItsu lifestyle.

Chris Wagner of Waza Brazilian Jiu Jitsu makes his Fight2Win debut at F2W 135 in Sacramento, CA, on January 20, 2020.

These are highlights of Kai Renta McKinney from Waza BJJ's kids program taking gold at the Kids Pan Championship in February 2020. Kai showed incredible technique and scrambling ability to win the biggest tournament for kids jiu jitsu. It's hard to believe that these kids are 10 year old grey belts. Amazing!

Congrats to Loren Docena and Chris Wagner for taking 1st and 2nd place, respectively, in the Waza Dang Hang Challenge. Loren's time was an amazing 2:50 and Chris's time was a very impressive 2:30. They both receive a free Waza rash guard. Thanks to everyone that participated in the contest. The next challenge is coming soon.

Congrats to Waza BJJ instructor, John McClean, and his wife, Jasmin, on the birth of their son and future black belt, Leo!

Fight2Win 123: Derek DiManno vs. Marc DeLaCruz

The godfather of Sacramento Jiu Jitsu appears on the Power Project podcast. Waza gets some nice praise at around 58:00. Check it out.

Hello Waza Community, We hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. We would like to thank everyone for the kind words and enormous support. We are truly lucky to be a part of such an amazing community. As of now, our doors will be closed to comply with the State of California’s shelter in place mandate. We will continue to respond and evolve as events unfold, and hope to be open as soon as possible so we can all get back to training together again. ... The doors might be closed, but Waza BJJ is very much open for our students. Although we can’t be on the mats together, it is important for people to continue to advance their BJJ knowledge and stay mentally and physically healthy. We have been designing new and creative ways of achieving that objective. To adapt to these unique times, we have moved our instruction online. For the kids’ program, we are providing Facebook Live classes streamed every Monday through Friday at noon. These will be structured classes with accountability feedback required of the kids. We will also be posting videos of past classes for them to review lessons and techniques. For the adults, we will be providing new techniques on the Waza BJJ Youtube Channel, along with nutrition and fitness advice. We ask that our adult students send us suggestions on things that you would like us to cover. It is more important than ever that we stay connected. To ensure you receive all of our communications, please make sure we have a good working e-mail for you; send us a quick message to [email protected]. Also, if you haven’t already, click Join Group on our Waza BJJ closed group page (for adults) and Waza BJJ Parents’ Group page (for kids). We’ll get through this together. Derek and the Waza Instructors

Really good advice for time away from the mat.