The Cantal, deep in central France, is not exactly the birthplace of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Yet this is where, in Aurillac, Elite Grapplers Acemat Jiujitsu opened its BJJ program in 2025, becoming the only CFJJB affiliated club in the whole department.
Behind that launch is Lorenzo Contardo, a brown belt who has been training since 2009. He moved to Aurillac in 2023 and discovered what many practitioners find when they change region: there was nowhere to train. So instead of driving for hours, he built the club.
From a discovery day to a program
A club is not born from a social media post. Elite Grapplers started with a series of open discovery days, sessions where anyone could come and try with no commitment, often having never seen ground fighting anywhere but on television.
Those open mats produced a first core of 15 members in year one. That is a small number in absolute terms, and a huge one for a department with no BJJ culture: fifteen people who decided to come back every week, and who form the foundation of the club today.
The program is affiliated with the Acemat Jiu-Jitsu team, which gives it a technical framework and a home beyond the Cantal.
Four months of work to get their own room
The early days happened in a municipal dojo, with everything that implies: shared time slots, imposed hours, no way to open more classes even when demand was there.
The next step was a private space. Four months of renovation, done by the club itself, to turn an empty room into a training facility. The gain is not only symbolic: with its own walls, the club sets its own hours, can add sessions and host open mats without asking anyone’s permission.
That is the step OSS Academy came in to support. The program had already lived through its first year when Lorenzo started looking for a tool to structure what came next.
Why OSS Academy
Lorenzo was looking for a partner more than an app. What convinced him was finding someone on the other side who genuinely wanted to help clubs grow, with a tool he could bend to fit his way of working rather than the opposite.
Two very concrete needs stood out from the start, and they shaped the way he uses the app.
How the club uses OSS Academy
- A capacity cap per class: 8 to 10 spots depending on the session, booked through the app. In a modest private room, knowing in advance how many people are coming prevents overcrowded classes and keeps the teaching quality up.
- Teaching material on the day’s class: Lorenzo attaches documents and videos directly to the session, matching what was drilled that evening. Students find the technique in their own schedule instead of digging through a shared folder.
- Videos linked to the class: a visual reminder that extends the session at home, particularly valuable for beginners learning a whole technical vocabulary at the same time as the movements.
- CFJJB licences: federation licences tracked and centralised with the rest of each member’s file.
- Members and attendance: an up-to-date roster and attendance taken at the start of each session, the essential base for steering the growth of a young program.
One point mattered a lot to Lorenzo: the app slotted in alongside the tools the club already used instead of replacing everything. A launch is not the moment to tear down what works.
Thank you, Elite Grapplers
A big thank-you to Lorenzo and the whole Elite Grapplers team for their trust. Class capacity caps, teaching material attached to each class, federation licences: everything is in place to support the club through this new chapter. Have a great season.
Launching your own club? Create your academy on OSS Academy and build on clean management from the start.
Lorenzo Contardo
Founder, Elite Grapplers Acemat Jiujitsu
Brown belt, training since 2009
