Open a Knots & Collar in your city
Not a certificate added to a school you already run — a new studio with our name over the door, our curriculum on the mat, the software we built running the desk, and an area that is yours alone. If you already have an academy of your own, this is the wrong page: affiliation is the one you want.
Which of the two is you
We work with people outside Defence Colony in two ways, and they are not versions of the same arrangement. It is worth two minutes to land on the right one — most of the questions we are asked turn out to be someone reading the other page.
Affiliation
You have your own academy, your own name over the door and your own students. What you may not have is a curriculum you trust, a black belt who can promote your students, and someone to call when the room throws you a problem.
- You keep your brand, pricing, instructors and premises
- You keep all of your revenue — no royalty, no share
- A flat fee, the same for every school whatever its size or city
- No exclusive area
Franchise
You want to open a jiu-jitsu studio, and you would rather open one that already works than build one from nothing. You may be a coach. You may equally be someone who has never trained and would hire the coaching — both are normal here.
- You trade as Knots & Collar
- You get the whole operating system, not only the curriculum
- An agreed area is yours for the term
- A fee to open, and a continuing royalty
A school that already exists, run by someone who already teaches.
A new location, opened by you. You need not hold a black belt, or any belt at all.
Yours. Your identity, dress code and uniform colours stay exactly as they are.
Ours. You trade as Knots & Collar, to the same standard as Defence Colony.
No exclusivity. We may affiliate another school nearby.
An agreed area is yours for the term. We will not open or franchise another Knots & Collar inside it.
Curriculum, coach development, a call every fifty days, and promotions under the lineage.
All of that, and the rest of the business with it: the software the studio runs on, the opening plan, staff hiring and training, uniform and equipment supply, brand assets.
You do. Pricing, timetable, hiring and every other business decision stay yours. We check what is taught, never how.
You run the studio day to day. Pricing structure, timetable shape and coaching standards are agreed with us, and audited.
A flat fee, the same for every affiliate whatever their size or city. No royalty, no share of your revenue, no access to your accounts.
A fee to open and a continuing royalty on revenue. Because the studio runs on our platform, we see the numbers.
You carry on under the name you never stopped using. Rank properly issued to your students is permanent.
The name, the systems and the member records come back to us, and you would rebrand. That is why the term is long and the conversation before it is slow.
Our name, and everything that has to be true underneath it
A franchise is not permission to use a logo. It is the whole studio — how a beginner is greeted, what is taught in week one, how the desk answers the phone, what a member gets when they walk in on a bad day — handed over in a form you can actually run.
The brand, and the promise under it
The name, the mark, signage and materials, and the thing they stand for: Kindness Over Toughness. A studio built around the hardest case — the nervous beginner who has never done anything like this. That promise is the asset. Protecting it is most of what the agreement is about.
An area of your own
A franchise carries an exclusive area, agreed with you and written into the agreement before you commit a rupee to a lease. Nobody else opens a Knots & Collar inside it, and referrals from it come to you.
A studio that already runs
The full curriculum — the position roadmap from survival through escapes and transitions to submissions, with class structures and testing criteria — plus the timetable shape, class formats and programme mix worked out here since 2021, seven days a week, Gi and No-Gi, kids from age three, women’s, corporate and forces.
Coaching, whether or not it is you
If you teach, you teach. If you do not, we help you find and train the people who will, and they train here before your doors open. Every coach teaching under our name is certified by us and stays on the instructor pathway. Members are promoted by Professor Sukhija on quarterly testing visits, the same as everywhere else.
The system behind the desk
Most studios that close did not run out of students. They ran out of administration — renewals nobody chased, invoices nobody raised, enquiries that went cold on a phone. We wrote our own platform rather than renting one, and a franchise runs on it.
What you inherit on day one
This is not a prospectus. It is the software this studio has been run on — the same screens the front desk in Defence Colony is using while you read this.
That last line is deliberate, and we would rather write it than imply a proven rollout. The platform was built to hold more than one studio — every member, membership, invoice, payment, order, stock movement and enquiry already carries the studio it belongs to, and a studio can hold its own GST registration and its own invoice series — but nobody has yet opened a second one on it. So the first franchise gets built beside us, slowly, and the first year is a conversation rather than a handover.
A name is worth what its weakest studio is worth
None of this is control for its own sake. A member walking into your studio should get what a member walking into Defence Colony gets — otherwise the name means nothing, to them or to you. We hold ourselves to every line of it.
The room
Matting, mat area, ceiling height, changing and washing facilities to a specification agreed before you sign a lease. We would rather tell you a site is wrong than watch you take it.
Who teaches
Every coach teaching under our name is certified by us, trains here before your doors open, and stays on the instructor pathway. No rank is ever awarded except by Professor Sukhija — no self-promotion, no exceptions.
Teaching & safety
Supervised sparring at appropriate intensity, beginners never in unsafe pairings, age-appropriate children’s classes, and clear hygiene and first-aid standards.
Safeguarding
A direct, confidential channel for your members and parents that reaches us as well as you, and a zero-tolerance line on misconduct — the same line we hold here.
Consistency
Pricing structure, timetable shape and the way members are treated stay recognisably Knots & Collar. Your city, your hours, your team — but a member should never have to ask which kind of Knots & Collar this one is.
Quality assurance
Visits, and a look at what the platform already records. Because everything runs on one system, an audit is mostly reading — not a week of your staff preparing for an inspection.
We do not publish a price
The honest reason is that it depends on the city, the premises and the person, and a figure posted here would be wrong for almost everybody who read it. What we can set out now is the shape of the arrangement, so that nothing in the first conversation is a surprise.
From first conversation to opening day
- Start the conversation. Tell us the city and what you have in mind, and come back with every question. We would far rather talk you out of it now than watch it go wrong in year two.
- Come and stand in it.Days at Defence Colony, not an hour — a weekday morning, a kids’ class, a Saturday. Watch the mat, watch the desk. Then we come to your city and look at your site.
- The numbers, both ways. We show you what a studio costs to build and to run. You show us how you would fund it and carry it while it fills. Terms are agreed here, once we know you and the city.
- Legal review. The agreement is drafted by our advocate; you should have your own advocate read it before signing.
- Build and open. Site, fit-out and matting; the platform configured for your studio; your coaches and desk staff trained here; the opening timetable and the first members through the door.
- And then the long part. Coaches on the instructor pathway, quarterly testing visits, and someone to call — for as long as you are running it.
Tell us about you, and your city
We are not selling franchises; we are looking for the right first one. What matters more than capital is whether you would treat a frightened beginner the way we would. If that is you, we would be glad to hear from you — and if a franchise turns out not to be the right shape, we will say so and point you somewhere better.
What people ask first
What is the difference between a franchise and an affiliation?
Do I need to be a black belt to open a franchise?
What does a franchise cost?
Is the area exclusive?
Which cities are you open to?
Do I have to use your software?
Who promotes members at a franchise?
Already running your own school? Affiliation is the arrangement for you. Just looking to train? See our programmes.