King Charles visits Roger Gracie BJJ academy, awards black belt to military veteran
The King watched sweeps and submissions in Hammersmith, received his own honorary white belt, and personally awarded a black belt to a REORG trustee whose cancer recovery he said had been “transformed” by Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
His Majesty was also awarded his own honorary white belt (Source: PA)
King Charles III visited the Roger Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy in Hammersmith on Wednesday, marking the most prominent mainstream endorsement Brazilian jiu-jitsu has received in the United Kingdom and pairing it, deliberately, with a charity built around the sport’s rehabilitative reach.
The engagement was structured around REORG, an Armed Forces charity founded in 2017 by former Royal Marine and BJJ black belt Sam Sheriff MBE. REORG uses Brazilian jiu-jitsu training to support military personnel, veterans, and emergency service workers facing physical, mental, and social challenges, operating through a national network of more than 200 partner academies. The Roger Gracie Academy in west London hosted the visit and served as the focal point for the day.
The King watched sweeps, submissions, takedowns, and live training rounds from the mat-side, wearing his customary suit with blue disposable shoe covers, and spoke at length with members of the academy and REORG community. Among those he met were former Royal Marine commando Mark Ormrod MBE, who described how BJJ had given him and other veterans “a new lease of life” after their service. When introduced to a group of serving and former military personnel, firefighters, and others who credited the charity with helping them through severe difficulties, Charles joked: “I’m too old to learn these things.”
The ceremonial moments did the heavier work.
The King received his own honorary white belt, the first rank in BJJ, holding it aloft and waving it as the assembled crowd applauded. He then awarded a ceremonial black belt to a REORG trustee who has trained in BJJ for more than a decade and credits the sport with playing a pivotal role in his recovery from cancer. Black belt in BJJ is widely considered one of the longest paths in any martial art, typically requiring between 10 and 15 years of consistent training. Sheriff, speaking at the event, praised the trustee’s dedication and framed the moment as the visible payoff of a long, private climb.
Roger Gracie himself, who founded the academy in 2004 alongside his father Mauricio Gomes, described the visit as historic for the wider community. “This was a very historical day, not just for us here but for all of Jiu Jitsu,” Gracie said. “For our community and for everybody who has ever trained to better themselves. To have the King attend our academy was a great honour. Our sport embodies everything about the community. People come here to train and to celebrate the human spirit and it reflects in everyone around them.”
Gracie is a 10-time BJJ world champion and the grandson of Carlos Gracie, who, along with his brother Helio Gracie, codified Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the early twentieth century from the Japanese jiu-jitsu they had been exposed to via Mitsuyo Maeda. Roger remains one of the most decorated practitioners in the discipline’s history, and his academy has become one of the more visible institutional homes for the sport in Europe.
The visit also drew a notable celebrity presence in British rapper Tinie Tempah, who trains at the academy at purple belt rank, two levels below black. Tempah told reporters he had taken up BJJ seven years ago after actor Tom Hardy, whom he had met at a separate royal event, invited him to Hardy’s own jiu-jitsu club. The martial art, in his telling, had “changed my life” by giving him discipline, a community of father-figure role models, and an activity his two young daughters had since adopted themselves. He also recounted that Charles had raised, unprompted, the possibility of using BJJ in programmes aimed at children. “He was basically saying that he’s been wanting to champion this in some capacity for ages, and that he has been talking to Idris [Elba] about it, and maybe I could be of service in some capacity,” Tempah said.
That detail, the Idris Elba connection and a potential royal-backed initiative around BJJ and children, is the part most likely to have downstream consequences. Charles has form on selecting causes and pushing them visibly. Whether the Hammersmith visit produces a structured programme or sits as a single high-profile endorsement is the open question. Neither Buckingham Palace nor REORG indicated what comes next.
The King is currently undergoing ongoing cancer treatment and has maintained a full schedule of public engagements through it. Buckingham Palace has said he is responding positively. Charles, drawing on his own naval service aboard HMS Bronington from 1971 to 1976, said at one point that the demonstrations on the mat reminded him of tug-of-war exercises during his time in the Navy.
The Hammersmith visit also doubled as the King’s morning engagement on what became the United Kingdom’s hottest June day on record. Temperatures climbed to 96.44 degrees Fahrenheit, surpassing the previous mark set during the summer of 1976. Charles continued to a London Climate Week reception at St James’s Palace later in the day. By that point, his Master of the Household was holding a small battery-powered fan to help him through the heat.
For Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the UK, the day was a marketing event of a kind the sport rarely gets. A reigning monarch, a serving and former military audience, a celebrity practitioner in Tinie Tempah, a 10-time world champion as host, and a charity whose entire model is built on the discipline’s rehabilitative potential. The visibility is unusual. The institutional credibility, particularly when paired with the cancer-recovery story and the explicit military rehabilitation angle, is harder to come by through any other route.
REORG, for its part, did not need the royal endorsement to operate. It has been doing the work for nearly nine years. What it now has is national visibility, and a public conversation about whether full-contact martial arts deserve a structured role in supporting people working through severe physical and mental health challenges. The case the charity has been making quietly, the King made loudly on Wednesday.