Head Coach

Professor THOMAS

Thomas Leading Avant garde Bjj Team as the ONLY MALTESE Team to win an international tournament by team !!!

BJJ JOURNEY

Thomas Vander Eecken is from Belgium but speaks fluently French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and speaks aswell Italian and some Dutch

He was interested since a young age in martial arts doing kickboxing and karate during his childhood in Brussels.

Later on after watching MMA with Pride/UFC and especially the first UFC for some years, Thomas began his jiu-jitsu journey in 2009 with grappling with the cousin of his best friend.

He then began to train Brazilian Jiu-jitsu consistently for 5x a week almost never stopping, it became an obsession.

While being based in Brussels, Thomas travelled all over Europe and Trained in a lot of European Academies developing his own style.

His home club was the famous RENAISSANCE,where he trained the most, Renaissance is famous to be an hardcore training paced and is the best club in Belgium , a powerhouse associated with CICERO COSTHA PSLPB where many champions are created (Alan Ciku, Oualid Sbai, Abdel zehknini)
Lived for four years in Barcelona and trained with the prestigious Aranha Association with former UFC fighter YAN CABRAL
Lived 1 year in Lisbon and trained with Team ALEXANDER MACHADO (former Gracie Barra Benfica) the most winning team in Portugal
Lived 2 years in Thailand in Team Quest under BRUNO CARVALHO and others instructors

Thomas created Avant-Garde first as a place to learn every kind of Jiujitsu, Gi BJJ, NOGI BJJ, Wrestling , Combat BJJ , MMA with a focus on community and having an healthy ambient with no ego , the focus was never competition but Avant-Garde Thrived as well everytime it goes competing Abroad