Hi everyone,

I don't know the subject will interest people but maybe can we take this post to tell a little bit about our academy and where they came from and develop in time....

So i will do it first.

Hi everyone,
I gonna present myself, so my name is Benoit Zenthner, founder of Sequana Jiu Jitsu Academy on February 98, actually 3rd degree black belt under Franck Beels.

When I started, there were not many of us, the highest ranking officer were blue belt, like Patrick Chaput(actualy 5th degree BB under GM Flavio Behring), Juan Grizzo and less know Jean-Paul Demeester. So I created a club to train and at the same time, I became a teacher. Initially, a few friends and finally, the growing success, we became a major academy in Belgium, currently one of the oldest in activity, having never changed teacher or location. Throughout his years, many people have passed through our home, especially because I made the decision to broadcast jiu jitsu in cities other than Brussels, at that time, to my knowledge, there was outside Brussels only Antwerp and Leuven which were managed by Ken Van Gilbergen and the Goffart brothers, founders of Exit BJJ and at that time students of Kazeka Muniz.


On my side, I introduced bjj in Gent, in 2005, forming a good competition team, which still exists led by Gert-Jan Vergauwen, who came from judo background and started bjj as a white belt with at Sequana Jiu Jitsu

I also introduced the BJJ in Louvain-la-Neuve, university town in Wallonia, in 2006, quickly our club became an association recognized by the university and we became a free activity for students from all over the world, over a period of eleven years hundreds of people discovered the bjj, sometimes we had seventy practitioners on the mat. The bjj course still exists and is provided by my former students Matthias Janssens, Khalid Belhaloumi and Alfonso Ruiz, who started as white belts with me.

In 2010, I started supervising an academy of BJJ in Liege, then finally I invested myself more seriously by creating a company, Martial Square, open every day of the week and with classes all day, the structure still exists today and it still belongs to my former student and partner on the project Florent Minguet, black belt and competitor of international level, the daily courses are provided by Valère, now black belt who was also my pupil. They were purple belts when I left. After that they follow Jordy Peutie BJJ Black belt from Gracie Barra Maastricht and the academy become Gracie Barra Liege.

In 2015, I was contacted by Yoann Coulon, brown belt from De La Riva, to take over the technical direction and supervise the graduation of the TFA, Total Fightng Academy. Yoann is still my student, currently black belt 2nd degree. It is always a pleasure to visit his club in Angoulême, in the South-West of France.


I had also an partnership with a few college to teach bjj after school for teenager, I did this for six years at the Athénée des Pagodes and the Institut Paul-Henri Spaak.

I have directed seminars in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France and taught courses in the United States and the Dominican Republic

Finally, these twenty-four years of existence have seen the colors of Sequana Jiu Jitsu in many cities in Belgium, we have opened courses in the following cities:
Strombeek-Bever
Neder-over-Heembeek
Ixelles
Berchem St-Agathe
Auderghem
Liege
Seraing
Gent Sint-Denijs
Gent Mariakerke
Louvain-la-Neuve
Ottignies
Wavre
Jodoigne
Aalst
Antwerp

I always did my best to promote BJJ, giving access to everyone and to bring it to place were everything must be done.

Thanks to every person who read this until the end, and remember if you want to roll our gym will always received you with smile on the face and a choke from your back !