Author of "The Art of the Arts"
I have been training in martial arts since I was 14 and teaching since the age of 18. I come from a family of martial artists; and most of the Bajerski’s records found are ex-military, my Grandfather was a Polish Commander who escaped two German death camps and made it to Scotland and then to Huddersfield. My Uncle was a prize fighting champion, my Sister is a Thai Boxing champion, and on my Italian side my Great-Uncle was a world Judo black belt champion.
I have always been obsessed with martial arts, as a child I trained in Karate and Taekwondo for a number of years achieving my first few belts in both arts. From there I moved onto the art of Muay Thai. At the age of 14 I started training in Muay Thai, for 6 years competing at interclub level and semi pro. As I trained at three different Thai boxing clubs and also trained in karate and Taekwondo I developed more of a hybrid striking style that worked well for me.
At 18 I had just qualified as a level 3 personal trainer and I started working as a PT at a large fitness centre. In 2011 I set up a kick boxing class at the gym and a family friend Andy asked to get involved with the class as he had experience in teaching. Andy was ex-military and had more experience in teaching a range of martial arts and Combatives rather than just kick boxing, so we changed the session name to an MMA class. I then started training in Japanese Jiu Jitsu at the age of 19 to help with the ground game (I trained in JJJ for 18 months grading under Richard Dickinson). Andy taught me the grappling skills and combative skills he knew and I taught him the striking and Japanese Jiu Jitsu Skills.
Taking it from there I found a local unit to rent and carried on teaching out of there instead I has my own place. All I had was a piece of carpet and four punch bags to use in the lock up, two of my students followed me from the gym and I set out on my own teaching MMA. I called the club “Citus”, which means rapid in Latin (for me this meant rapid learning and rapid striking). I advertised my club but hardly any one came.
On a Thursday and Friday evening and Saturday mornings, nobody would turn up except my two initial students, and there were many classes where nobody at all turned up. I realised I needed two things to make Citus succeed, I needed money to do the academy up, and I needed to keep on learning Grappling and MMA to build my profile. I got a job at a local factory where I worked full time, I then joined AVMA in 2012. I worked all day in the factory, I then would travel to my classes at Citus MMA and then I would drive all the way to Keighley three times a week to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Chinese kick boxing and MMA at AVMA.
Slowly but surely from then on I did the academy up, invested in training mats, and worked my way up to a far better standard in MMA. After two years of this I had to leave my day job, I was burning the candle from both ends and it started to take its toll. At this period of time I was promoted to blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (2014), I was competing in BJJ and also entering students into BJJ tournaments and starting to get a name for myself as a good coach. From this point on the academy went from strength to strength rapidly, I carried on at AVMA and was promoted to BJJ purple belt in 2016, I was promoted under the world renowned, four time world champion Leo Negao and two time British champion Duane Harper.
Around this time I also competed at amateur and semi pro level MMA. After this I concentrated on BJJ tournaments and collected over 15 medals at purple belt defeating many well-known high level grapplers and MMA fighters. I was also starting to put my students into MMA fights and higher level grappling tournaments and they were doing really well wining by submissions and knock outs in the cage! I went to Los Angeles to train at Tenth Planet Jiu Jitsu, and I took wrestling privates with the head coach of Manchester wrestling club to expand my grappling skills set.
I was head hunted around this time in my career by two other gyms to teach kick boxing and MMA, at streamline academy and fusion academy. I wanted to gain as much experience as I could as a coach so I agreed and found myself being the Head MMA coach of three gyms simultaneously, teaching hundreds of people a week, this opportunity gave me some rare experience. While I was coaching at the three gyms I had to come up with systems that were easy for my students to understand, I was able to experiment with many teaching concepts and learn many new ways of teaching that worked best. Once again I found my self-burning the candle from both ends running myself into the ground. After a great six months I made the decision to concentrate solely on my gym Citus MMA. From there I had more time to open extra classes, with new experience and energy to put into Citus MMA. The gym of course took a sharp spike in progress, we were competing as a team in BJJ GI and No Gi ranking up there with the best gyms in the country, it was at this period in my career I realised I was entering people into grappling tournament’s after just 6 weeks and they were looking like they had been grappling for 12 months! I knew then that all the hard work was paying off for Citus MMA.
I authored the book – New school martial arts, as I had a burning desire to write this book because of all the confusion in the martial arts world and con artists; with my experience in traditional martial arts and sports martial arts I could cross bridge the two worlds over in this book. Citus MMA was now attracting the likes of world kick boxing champions, pro MMA fighters and ex head MMA coaches, I was now training twice a week at AVMA again and Scramble with some piers for a year. I was invited to compete on Pantheon Grappling which is an invitational only event, and the biggest ever in Yorkshire, where I fought J. Hue where heel hooks, slams and cranks were all allowed. I was also around this time awarded my Brown belt In BJJ (2019), again under Leo Negao.
Shortly After receiving my BJJ brown belt I got back in the ring and fought K1 winning via knock out. I also competed in BJJ getting my first two medals at brown belt. Around a year after being promoted to brown belt I decided to affiliate Citus MMA directly under Leo Negao, the academy was at a stage now where this was the right thing to do, this was a huge honour for me, Leo is one of the most experienced Black belts in the world. With such a strong universal valetudo style Jiu Jitsu from Master Leo Negao, and great knowledge of the new school leg entanglements game, and our striking being from a strong Thai boxing base, with other striking arts added; both our Jiu Jitsu and striking are brilliantly special. To finish what was a crazy action packed 2019 for me and my academy I entered the British NoGi open and took home a bronze medal at brown belt.
On a weekly basis I teach beginner to high level BJJ, NoGi, kick boxing, MMA, wrestling, and junior BJJ and Kick Boxing. After training six years in Muay Thai and other styles of striking, seven years at BJJ and new school game, a year of wrestling and teaching at three other gyms – all while I was coaching at Citus MMA, it was time to give it all to Citus and my students and the world through my writing, after 14 years of martial arts and almost ten years from 2011 – 2020, I had not just been a coach for ten years, I had been a full time student all while teaching for almost a decade ! It was now time to become a true teacher and influencer. Being a coach is not just about martial arts for me, teaching thousands of people from all walks of life, over the last ten years in 1-1 and group classes, not just helping people with Martial arts, but with mental health and helping guide people in a better direction, is a huge part of why I do what I do.