Subforce JiuJitsu & Muay Thai: He Bought the School He Trained At
Starring
About the Gym
Subforce Jiujitsu & Muay Thai is a martial arts academy at 718 Ridge Road in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. It teaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the gi and no-gi, Muay Thai, MMA, and judo, with wrestling some days and a kids program. In Marcos's words, "we teach ages three years old to 82 and everything in between."
Abe Awad owns the school. He bought it from its founder after years as a student and then an instructor there. Marcos Duarte, Abe's instructor since his teens, is the head coach, and Steven Santos leads the judo program, which the school added once it could hire someone dedicated to teaching it.
New students get a free week to try every program. Beginners then start in an intro class for their first three months, and competing is optional. Abe moved the school onto Gymdesk after he took over.
📍 Address: 718 Ridge Road, Lyndhurst, NJ 07071
📞 Phone: (201) 470-0509
🌐 Website: subforcebjj.com
📸 Instagram: @subforcebjj
✉️ Email: subforcejiujitsu@gmail.com
Summary
Alex Cuevas visits Subforce Jiujitsu & Muay Thai in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. The owner, Abe Awad, didn't open the school. He followed his instructor, Marcos Duarte, there as a teenager, took his classes, taught the kids' classes, and learned customer service and how to talk to parents from the founder. When the founder retired, he offered Abe the school. Marcos, offered the same chance, told him to "give it to this man."
Abe ran the sale as business as usual and didn't announce it. What members did notice was a fresh coat of paint and a new check-in system, which was Abe replacing the school's outdated software with Gymdesk. He also walks through the zero-to-three-month intro class, the road map he uses to teach beginners, and why judo and Muay Thai bring in people who were searching for something else. Head judo instructor Steven Santos talks about what judo adds to a jiu-jitsu game.
What Abe and Marcos Told Us
Abe Awad owns Subforce Jiujitsu & Muay Thai in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. He didn't open it. He bought it from its retiring founder after years of training and teaching there under Marcos Duarte, who has been his instructor since Abe was a teenager and is still the school's head coach. Here is what came up about the sale, the software, and new students.
The offer, and the coach who passed on it
When the founder decided to retire, he offered to sell the school to Abe. As Abe tells it, the founder wanted it to go to someone the members already knew, not a stranger. Abe said yes.
"I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to be the dreamer. I wanted to be the guy who freaking gets it done. And I did it."
—Abe Awad, owner
Marcos had been offered the same chance and turned it down.
"The opportunity was offered to me. I passed up on it. I'm like, give it to this man. … I didn't want to carry a building over my head of however many students at night at this age."
—Marcos Duarte, head coach
A sale the members barely noticed
Abe didn't announce the change.
"No one even notices. Like, I didn't make a big deal about it. People asked and I eventually told them. … Whoa! You got the check-in system now. Whoa! You know, there's a fresh coat of paint on the wall. That kind of stuff. … But I wanted it to feel like business as usual. Everything's the same."
—Abe Awad
And if an outside black belt had bought the place instead? "We'd probably be out of a job, to be honest."
The software came first
That check-in system was the visible end of a software switch. When Abe took over, the school was running on an old system.
"We were using an old software. That was outdated. The customer service was terrible. They weren't updating their system. So, it looked like it was 10 years old."
—Abe Awad
He shopped around and picked Gymdesk. He wanted belt ranks, check-ins, memberships, class passes, and waivers in one place, plus marketing email and texting without paying for a second tool. His test for all of it was short.
"If I can't figure it out in five minutes, it's too complicated, right? … If I can't do that on day one, if I can't figure it out on my own, it's probably too complicated. And with Gymdesk, I felt like I was able to figure a lot of that stuff out on my own."
—Abe Awad
An intro class for the first three months
New students start in an intro class for their first zero to three months. Abe explains why with what people told him about schools that skip it.
"other schools that didn't have intro classes, they felt scared, they felt nervous, they felt like getting thrown into the deep end when they can't swim … it's not about fighting today … It's about showing you what jujitsu is all about"
—Abe Awad
The side effect is that the students who finish it start doing some of the welcoming.
"the three-month white belt that's been in the intro class for a while is like a big brother when a new person comes in."
—Abe Awad
A map of a new town
Abe teaches beginners with a road-map comparison. Drop someone in a strange town with no phone and no map, and they get tense and hyper-aware.
"So like your mind is racing and everything's foreign. That's how people feel their first day in Jiu-Jitsu."
—Abe Awad
So the first lessons are landmarks: where the house is, where the job is. Other routes come later.
"But I can't show you multiple routes until you kind of have this broad, general understanding of the map. … And now the student can start to improvise on their own. And they're not going to feel lost anymore"
—Abe Awad
Several arts, several front doors
Judo is the newest program, added once the school could hire a dedicated instructor in Steven Santos. Abe says the choice to teach several arts was about martial arts, not business. The business case turned up anyway.
"I could have multiple businesses running out of one facility, right? … Same thing with the judo. Our, you know, our school will come up on their radar, on their Google searches."
—Abe Awad
A free week lets new people try every program, and some who come in for one art sign up for another.
