Where BJJ Recon is today, and where we’re headed.
BJJ Recon started with a simple observation: finding a place to train while traveling shouldn’t be this hard. You’d think with thousands of academies across the country, a quick search would do the trick, but anyone who’s tried to find a legit drop-in spot on short notice knows the reality is scattered reviews, outdated listings, and a lot of guesswork.
We built BJJ Recon to fix that. And while the platform is live and growing, we’re just getting started. This page exists to give you full transparency into what’s available today, what’s rolling out next, and where we’re taking this long-term.
What’s Live Now
These are the features available to every BJJ Recon user today at bjjrecon.com.
Academy Discovery
Over 6,000 verified academies across all 50 U.S. states, displayed on an interactive map with state-level clustering. Click into any state to see individual gym pins, or search by academy name, city, or affiliation from the sidebar. Every gym card includes name, affiliation, location, community ratings, gym intel, and one-tap directions.
Community Ratings
Rate any academy across four dimensions; Cleanliness, Visitor-Friendly, Female-Friendly, and Vibe. Ratings from the community are aggregated and displayed directly on each gym’s info card, so you can get a feel for a place before you walk through the door.
Gym Intel & Filters
See owner-provided details on each gym; drop-in fees, class types (Gi, No-Gi, Kids, Open Mat, Competition Team, Women’s), and amenities like changing rooms, showers, parking, A/C, gear shop, and public transport access. Filter academies from the sidebar to find exactly what fits your training style.
Training Tracker
Log every session with detailed tracking across eight session types: Gi Class, No-Gi Class, Open Mat, Private, Comp Prep, Muay Thai, MMA, and Strength. Each type has its own icon and color. View your stats at a glance; total sessions, current streak, sessions this week, and a breakdown by type. Navigate quickly through your training history with a compact week strip.
Competition Tracker
Log competition results separately from training, including event name, division type (Gi, No-Gi, or Both), result (Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Did Not Place), and weight class. Competition entries are always private and never shared with gym owners.
Training Community
See recent check-ins at your gym and give hi5s (emoji reactions) to other athletes’ sessions. Toggle between “Recent Training” and “Received” tabs to stay connected with your training community. Control your visibility from your profile settings.
Daily Motivational Quotes
Start each day with a fresh motivational quote on your home dashboard, drawn from a rotating bank of 384 quotes, one for each day of the year.
Belt Promotion Celebration
Update your belt rank or stripes and get a celebration moment, confetti, a popup overlay themed in your new belt color, and automatic dismissal so you can get back to business.
Family Profiles
Parents can create dependent profiles for their kids, each with their own belt rank and stripe count. Log training sessions and competition results under any dependent’s profile. At check-in, select multiple family members to check in simultaneously, each one logs as an individual attendance record.
Bucket List
Save any academy to your personal bucket list and mark gyms as visited with date tracking. Whether you’re chasing a goal of training in every state or just keeping a record of where you’ve rolled, your bucket list is shareable via a unique URL, send it to your training partners or post it on social.
Road Trip Planner
Plan up to two separate road trips with custom names. Add gyms as stops, drag to reorder, set a starting point, and launch your route directly in Apple Maps or Google Maps. Each trip is shareable via URL, so you can coordinate with your crew before hitting the road.
Fly Feature
Planning a trip to train somewhere new? Use the Fly feature on any gym’s info card to search for flights. Enter your origin city and BJJ Recon hands you off to Google Flights with the destination already filled in.
QR Check-In
Gym owners can generate a QR code for their academy. Athletes scan it to check in, the app handles everything, including prompting you to log in if needed and automatically completing the check-in afterward. There’s a 50-minute cooldown between check-ins at the same gym to keep things clean.
Sharing
Share individual gyms, your bucket list, road trips, or the app itself. BJJ Recon supports native share sheets, direct links, and sharing to Twitter, Facebook, iMessage, WhatsApp, and email.
Installable App (PWA)
BJJ Recon is a progressive web app, install it directly to your phone’s home screen for a full-screen, app-like experience. Access install instructions from the menu. The app automatically checks for updates and prompts you when a new version is available.
Gym Ownership Claims
If you own or manage an academy listed on BJJ Recon, you can claim your gym directly from its listing. We personally verify every claim to ensure accuracy and protect the integrity of the platform. Once verified, your gym receives a verified badge visible to all users.
Owner Dashboard
Verified gym owners get access to a full management dashboard. View and export check-in attendance data (PDF and CSV), manage your gym’s photo gallery and video embed, write a custom greeting message shown on your info card, and update your gym intel, drop-in fees, class types, amenities, and more. Dedicated bottom sheets keep each feature organized and easy to access.
User Accounts
Create a free account with email and password. Gym owners can identify themselves during signup to access ownership features. Your account syncs your bucket list, road trips, training log, and everything else across all your devices.
Map Customization
Choose from three map styles, Light, Streets, and Dark, to match your preference. The full experience is optimized for both desktop and mobile, with a dedicated mobile dashboard, bottom navigation, and touch-friendly controls.
Feedback & Issue Reporting
Something not working right, or have an idea for a feature? Submit feedback directly from the app, choose from Bug Report, Feature Request, or General Feedback. You can also report data issues on any gym listing (moved locations, incorrect info, permanently closed). Bug reports automatically include device information to help us diagnose issues faster.
Onboarding Tour
New to BJJ Recon? A guided spotlight tour walks you through the key features after you sign up. Want to revisit it? Hit “Take the Tour” from the menu anytime.
For Gym Owners
BJJ Recon offers two tiers for gym owners, a free tier and a paid subscription.
Free (Claim & Verify)
Every gym owner can claim and verify their academy at no cost. Once verified, you can update your gym intel (drop-in fees, class types, amenities), add your hours of operation, phone number, and website link, and manage your listing’s presence on the platform.
Owner Subscription — $199/year
For gym owners who want the full toolkit, the annual subscription unlocks QR check-in codes for your academy, a real-time attendance dashboard with date range filtering, PDF and CSV export of attendance data, student tracking and retention tools, and a custom gym greeting on your info card. It’s a single annual payment, no tiers, no monthly option. Interested? Reach out through the subscription form in the app or email us directly.
What’s Coming Next
These are the features actively in development or being prepared for release.
Native Mobile App
We’re planning a migration to native iOS and Android apps using Capacitor, bringing push notifications for release announcements, barcode scanning for faster QR check-ins, and a smoother overall mobile experience.
Stripe Payment Integration
Automated subscription billing is on the way, gym owners will be able to sign up and manage their subscription directly through the platform without any manual back-and-forth.
Owner Outreach
We’re beginning direct outreach to the thousands of gym owners already listed on BJJ Recon, letting them know their academy is on the platform and inviting them to claim, verify, and unlock the full owner toolkit.
On the Horizon
These are the bigger moves we’re working toward. They represent our long-term commitment to making BJJ Recon the definitive platform for the jiu-jitsu community.
Performance & Scale
As the user base grows, we’re planning infrastructure improvements to ensure the map stays fast and responsive regardless of how many people are using it. This includes smarter data loading, faster search, and an optimized experience across all devices.
Advanced Search
We’re exploring deeper search capabilities, filtering by affiliation, class schedule, gi/no-gi availability, and more, so you can find exactly the right academy for your training style.
Enhanced Owner Listings
Class schedules and promo/offer banners are on the roadmap as high-value additions for gym owners looking to attract more drop-in visitors.
Analytics for Gym Owners
Future subscription features will include visibility into how practitioners are discovering and interacting with your listing, impressions, clicks, direction requests, and more.
Self-Serve Advertising Portal
Rather than managing advertising through our team, gym owners will eventually be able to set up, customize, and manage their own campaigns directly through a self-serve portal with integrated billing.
International Expansion
BJJ is global, and BJJ Recon should be too. We’re laying the groundwork for expanding beyond the U.S., starting with countries that have the strongest BJJ communities. This includes localized academy data, multi-currency support, and region-aware map defaults.
Additional Sign-In Options
We plan to add Google and Apple sign-in to make account creation even faster and more convenient.
A Note from the Founder
BJJ Recon is a product of the community, built by someone who’s been on the mat and knows what it’s like to land in a new city and wonder where to train. Every feature on this page, whether it’s live today or still in development, exists because it solves a real problem for practitioners and gym owners alike.
If you have ideas, feedback, or just want to say what’s up, reach out at support@bjjrecon.com. This platform gets better when the community is involved.
Train everywhere. Track everything.
– Jensen, Founder of BJJ Recon BJJ Recon