More than a hobbyi: Empire Jiu-Jitsu offers variety of classes

Mar. 7—For Empire Jiu-Jitsu owner Dustin Brooks, the martial arts discipline is more than a hobby, it's a means of catharsis.

After practicing Jiu-Jitsu for 20 years, the second-degree black belt decided to open his own martial arts gym at 2843 Indian Hills Rd. in northwest Norman. Between the COVID-19 pandemic and bouts of winter storms, opening the gym on Indian Hills Road in northwest Norman was not without obstacles, but Brooks said the business, now in its third month, is gaining momentum.

"We announced the opening in August, and expected to open in the fall, but COVID-19 put us back, and the ice storms put us back, so we were open several months later, but we knew people were waiting for us," Brooks said.

Brooks said the pandemic not only delayed construction of the gym, it slowed the process of getting permits and required planning to figure out how to have classes and keep students safe.

"I've already had COVID-19 and I know a lot of people who go there have had it too," Brooks said. "We haven't had any outbreaks, but the virus causing people to not want to do things in close quarters. I think some people are waiting to see how the vaccine does. We opened at a horrible time."

Brooks said by the time the business opened, some potential students lost interest or joined other gyms, however as word of the gym spreads and vaccinations for COIVD-19 become more available, the business is picking up more students.

Brooks said he has stuck with the discipline for two decades not only out of love, but for the therapy that it provides him.

"My best friend died my senior year of high school, and I just had a lot of other things like that happen and it gave me purpose and kind of got me off of going down a bad path," Brooks said.

Also a physician associate, Brooks said teaching Jiu-Jitsu is another way to help people achieve better health and impact lives in a beneficial way.

"I've just always really enjoyed teaching and doing training and seeing what positive things it can do for people," Brooks said. "I definitely wouldn't be practicing medicine if I hadn't done Jiu-Jitsu."

Brooks said persistence is a virtue that is implemented in the culture of the gym, because of its importance both in martial arts, and in life.

"If you actually do things, build on yourself and don't quit or rely on others, you can pretty much do anything you want," Brooks said.

Brooks and his partners and coaches have traveled around the world training in Brazil and various regions of the U.S. Now they hope to impart the knowledge they learned onto their students.

"My partners are twins, who have been in fight camps for about seven years of their life," Brooks said. "They trained in Brazil the second time for a year and received their black belts. We just have knowledge to not have a gym, because we've taught for decades, so when the chance came to open our own gym, we said 'let's do it.'"

Brooks said he wanted to take a comprehensive approach to class offerings in hopes of garnering interest from all ages and skill levels.

"We have a kid's class where we do Ju-Jitsu for them, and we incorporate wrestling into the class and we also have kickboxing for them," Brooks said.

For adults, Empire offers Jiu-Jitsu classes with a gi, the traditional garment worn when practicing the discipline, as well as one without the gi. Brooks hopes soon there will be enough interest for women's classes.

"We offer kickboxing and MMA for adults, we are starting to get a little program going, but we wanted to kind of build people up to that," Brooks said. "We have a lot of people who are new, but also have a lot of people who have trained before and followed us here. We kind of offer it all."

To help instruct the students, Brooks said he brought on a team of coaches with a variety of specialties.

"Our Mui Thai kickboxing coach who is in the military got a notice a couple weeks before we opened that had to leave for a year, so we lost him," Brooks said. "Twins Mike and Ken Jackson are my primary MMA guys who teach some Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, but primarily teach the kickboxing class and I teach Jiu-Jitsu."

Brooks said the mission of the gym is to offer efficient instruction that can be built upon with no fluff, ultimately showing people how to "train smarter, not harder."

"We don't show anything that's not going to work just to fill class time, we get to the nitty gritty right off the bat," Brooks said. "I want everyone to get the most out of their time here."

To learn more about Empire Jiu-Jitsu, the coaches, or access the class schedule, visit www.empirebjjok.com.

Jeff Elkins covers business, living and community stories for The Transcript. Reach him at Jelkins@normantranscript.com or at @JeffElkins12 on Twitter.