Professor
Black belt, fifteen years and counting, and the coach most likely to be the reason a beginner is still training a year later. He also leads the all-ages strength and conditioning class.
Background
Shaun Lawler brings deep competition experience and a technical precision that shows up in how he breaks a position down — the kind of teaching where a movement you have failed at for a month suddenly has three pieces instead of one.
What the academy says about him is that he develops athletes at every level from beginner to elite competitor, and that range is rarer than it sounds. Plenty of high-level black belts are excellent with people who are already good. Being genuinely useful to somebody in their first month, and to somebody preparing for the IBJJF Pan Ams, is a different skill.
He is also the coach behind the all-ages strength and conditioning class that runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:15 PM — the session where a seven-year-old, a fifteen-year-old and a forty-two-year-old work through the same programme at their own load. It is included in every membership, and it exists because technique stops being the limiting factor in a match sooner than most people expect.
He coaches across the timetable and runs the strength and conditioning session twice a week.
Lineage
Shaun Lawler received his black belt from Professor Anthony Curry — and he is the only black belt Anthony has ever promoted, in five years of running the academy.
That is worth pausing on, because it is the kind of fact that is easy to read past. Awarding a black belt is the most consequential thing an instructor does; it is a permanent statement, made in public, that this person is now qualified to promote others. Plenty of academies hand out several a year. This one has produced Pan American champions, eighty-three nationally ranked athletes and 267 gold medals, and exactly one black belt.
It also completes a line that runs entirely through people who are still on these mats: Matt Leighton of Citadel BJJ in Iowa City promoted Anthony, and Anthony promoted Shaun. Whatever standard Leighton set has been passed down twice without leaving the building.
Questions
Professor Shaun Lawler. It runs Tuesday and Thursday at 4:15 PM, it is open to all ages in one session — kids and adults together at their own load — and it is included in every membership at no extra charge.
More than fifteen years, and he is a black belt. In Brazilian jiu-jitsu the black belt typically takes around a decade of consistent training to reach, so fifteen-plus years puts him well past that point.
Professor Anthony Curry, the founder of Labyrinth — and Shaun is the only black belt Anthony has promoted in five years of running the academy. The line runs Matt Leighton of Citadel BJJ in Iowa City, to Anthony, to Shaun.
Yes, and that is worth saying because it is not automatic at his level. The academy's own description of him is that he develops athletes from beginner through to elite competitor, and the beginner half of that is the harder half to do well.
The first class is free — adults into any class on the timetable, kids on a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning. Turn up in a t-shirt and shorts; we will lend you the rest.