I am the founder and head coach at Chau Kaizen in Prospect, and I have been teaching martial arts in Adelaide for over 27 years.
Most gym bios are a list of achievements. Mine matters to you for one reason only: it should tell you whether the person teaching you, or teaching your child, actually knows what they are doing and can be trusted with it. So here is the honest version.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt
I was graded to black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on 16 September 2023 by Mick Moloney.
Lineage matters in BJJ, because it tells you the person teaching you was themselves taught by someone accountable to a tradition, rather than someone who awarded themselves a belt. Ours runs:
Grandmaster Carlson Gracie Senior → Professor Olavo Abreu → Bernard Jenkins → Mick Moloney → Suasday Chau
That is a traceable line back to one of BJJ’s founding figures, and it is why our Brazilian Jiu Jitsu program runs on a structured curriculum with formal gradings, rather than whatever happens to come to mind on the night.
A background across five martial arts
Before BJJ I trained and competed in Karate, Muay Thai, Judo and Tang Soo Do, winning gold at an International Tang Soo Do World Martial Arts Championship along with a number of national and local titles in BJJ, Judo and karate.
I mention the range because it shapes how I teach. Mixed Martial Arts is not many separate sports bolted together, and coaching it well means having actually spent years inside striking, wrestling and ground work, rather than learning one and reading about the others.
I have not stopped training and learning. That is the whole point of the name above the door: Chau, my family surname, and Kaizen, meaning continuous improvement.
Competing at the top level in Asia
I competed professionally, including for ONE Championship, the largest mixed martial arts promotion in Asia. My debut for them was at Rise of the Kingdom in Phnom Penh, against Arnaud Lepont.
I did not set out to be a fighter. I started competing because one of my students, Dave Meak, asked me about competing himself. I knew the theory of preparing an athlete to compete. I decided it would be better to find out first hand what it actually asks of a person before I asked it of anyone else.
That turned out to be the most useful decision I have made as a coach. There is a large gap between knowing how to teach a technique and knowing what it feels like to try to apply it when you are exhausted and someone is genuinely trying to stop you. Everything I put on the mats now is filtered through that.
Cambodia, and what my family carried out of it
My family fled Cambodia in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge, sheltered in Thailand, and eventually settled in Australia, where I grew up. We spoke Khmer and English at home. I have never treated that as background detail.
When I signed with ONE Championship, it meant fighting professionally in my ancestral home for the first time. My family travelled back to Cambodia with me for it.
I lost that fight, and I lost it controversially. What I remember is not the result. It is that the Cambodian crowd stood with me afterwards, because of how I carried myself when it went against me. You can take the boy out of Cambodia. You cannot take the spirit of a Khmer warrior out of the boy.
Tenacity, humility and respect are not motivational poster words to me. They are what my family survived on, and they are the three things I try hardest to pass on to the people who train here.
As featured in: Phnom Penh Post, “Suasday Chau set to face ‘The Game’ of his life”, Post Weekend, 23 August 2014. Also covered by VICE Fightland and the Cambodian sports press ahead of ONE Championship: Rise of the Kingdom. See the press page.
Kaizen
Kaizen means continuous improvement, and it is the closest thing I have to a coaching philosophy. It removes the comparison to everyone else in the room and replaces it with a comparison to yourself last month.
The other half of it is simpler: leave your ego and your fear outside the door. Inside, everyone is equal and worth respect, whatever belt they are wearing and whatever they do for a living. Growth does not happen where egos are being defended. That is why I sign off with Namaste. The spirit in me honours the spirit in you.
Coaching and fitness qualifications
Martial arts credentials are only half the picture, particularly for kids classes and personal training, where you want someone who understands bodies and how they develop.
- Institute of Human Performance Certified Coach
- Certificate IV in Fitness with Children and Adolescent Training Specialisation
- Certificate IV in Fitness, Personal Training
- CHEK Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach, Levels I and II
- Senior First Aid
I hold a number of further qualifications across fitness, nutrition, coaching and instruction, and I am always happy to talk through any of them if it is relevant to your training.
I have also presented seminars and coaching clinics internationally and regularly throughout Australia, and spoken as a keynote presenter to fitness trainers on optimal health and lifestyle. Our facility is trusted by the Australian Army for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training.
Train with me
I coach Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, MMA, fitness kickboxing and kids classes for ages 6 to 13 at our gym in Prospect, about ten minutes from the Adelaide CBD. Classes run Monday to Thursday, with Friday Open Gym & Competition Training for members.
I also take a limited number of personal training clients, one to one, for people who want to move faster than a group class allows, are working around an injury, or would simply rather start privately before stepping into a class.
The first class is free, with no obligation or pressure to join. Come and see whether this is a room you want to spend time in. You can book a free trial class, or call me on 0481 859 596.
Namaste.
Suasday Chau
Founder and Head Coach, Chau Kaizen
Rear Building, 80 Churchill Road, Prospect SA 5082