Anna Mayne

Anna Mayne's path to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu stands among the more distinctive in UK grappling — shaped by a rigorous academic career in the hard sciences before the sport became her professional focus. Mayne holds a PhD in Particle Physics from the University of Sheffield, where she also completed her undergraduate studies. In a 2015 interview with Jiu-Jitsu Style, she noted that she earned her doctorate before receiving her BJJ black belt, a sequence she found worth remarking upon.

Mayne began her martial arts training at the end of 2004 at Sheffield Shootfighters under a coach known as 'Peps'. The environment there was notably welcoming and community-oriented — the group surrounding her during those early years later went on to form The Forge in Sheffield, which continues to offer BJJ. Among her regular training partners during that formative period was Rosi Sexton. Mayne also noted that a BJJ black belt trained at the gym for a time, though she was unable to recall their name in the interview. By her own account, her early focus leaned toward MMA rather than BJJ specifically.

To access higher-level competition training in both disciplines, Mayne relocated to Manchester while continuing to commute to Sheffield to complete her doctoral research. As of the July 2015 interview, she had stepped away from active scientific work to concentrate on coaching.

Mayne credits coach David Onuma as the central influence in her development as a BJJ practitioner. His mentorship extended beyond technical instruction, shaping her broader philosophy on the relationship between athletes and their gyms. A principle she absorbed from Onuma — and carries into her own coaching — is that loyalty runs in both directions: gyms bear a responsibility to support their athletes in accessing the best training available, while athletes commit fully to their team in return.

By the time of the July 2015 interview, Mayne had earned her BJJ black belt, with the distinction — which she highlighted herself — that her PhD had come first. Her competitive background also includes an MMA record that, as she self-reported in the 2015 Jiu-Jitsu Style interview, stood at undefeated across two professional fights and three amateur bouts, though no dates or opponents were specified for those contests.

A defining moment in Mayne's competitive career came at the IBJJF European Championships in Lisbon — most likely the 2015 edition, based on the temporal context of the interview — where she entered both her weight division and the Absolute at the black belt level. In her weight division, she earned a silver medal.

Mayne described her mental approach to the event as a series of escalating personal benchmarks: her initial goal was simply not to be dominated; from there, she aimed to win on points, then to secure a submission, then to win a medal, and finally to claim the championship outright. By her own account, she surpassed her expectations across the event.

Her performance in the Absolute division added further weight to that assessment. After winning her opening match, she faced Gabi Garcia — an encounter she admitted approaching with real concern about the significant size and strength differential. She reported the bout went well and that she came through it without injury. The Absolute bracket also featured Angelica Galvão among the notable competitors, underscoring the caliber of the field Mayne navigated.

The Scientific Method as a Framework for BJJ

Mayne's background in particle physics informs her approach to teaching jiu-jitsu in concrete and deliberate ways. In the 2015 Jiu-Jitsu Style interview, she drew explicit parallels between the scientific method and the process of developing a BJJ game — emphasizing experimentation, pressure-testing ideas, and refusing to present techniques that have not been proven through live application. For Mayne, competition serves as the primary mechanism for that testing: tournament experience exposes the holes in a practitioner's game in ways that training alone cannot replicate, and she advocates strongly for learning through competition exposure over online instructionals or technique videos.

Adapting to Injury and Avoiding Early Specialization

Mayne's coaching outlook reflects an openness to the unexpected directions a grappler's development can take. She frames injuries not purely as setbacks but as potential catalysts for adaptation — citing the example of a guard player who, forced to protect an injured area, develops their passing game and broadens their overall skill set as a result. In keeping with this, she advises students — particularly those early in their training — against rigidly self-identifying as a fixed type of player, given how rapidly the sport evolves and how expansive its technical landscape remains.

Building Team Standards and Individual Pathways

Mayne runs a competition class in Manchester in which participation in competition is not mandatory for all attendees. Her emphasis falls on building team standards and a genuinely supportive gym environment across the board. She adapts her instruction to how individual students learn: some benefit from precise, step-by-step technical breakdown, while others respond better to conceptual framing and self-directed exploration. She also encourages students to seek out the best personal training environment available to them, including cross-training at other gyms when her own cannot fully meet a student's needs — citing, as a specific example from the interview, a 47 kg student named Fran whom she directed to train elsewhere due to size constraints at her gym.

As of the July 2015 interview, Mayne was recognized as a leading figure in UK women's BJJ. Her perspective on growing the sport for women reflects both pragmatism and a community-first orientation. Because the pool of female practitioners in the UK remains smaller relative to the overall BJJ population, she argues that inter-gym rivalry among women's programs is counterproductive. Instead, she advocates for local cooperation between gyms, with the shared goal of expanding access and opportunity for women across the country.

On the training floor, Mayne holds clear standards for both her own development and that of her students. She noted in the 2015 Jiu-Jitsu Style interview that her training partners treat women equally in sparring and do not ease up on female athletes — a dynamic she frames positively, as essential to genuine progression rather than a comfortable but limiting accommodation.

As of the July 2015 interview, Mayne was sponsored by Scramble, whom she credited for their support throughout her competitive career.