Craig Jones gave the first tour of the new B-Team academy
In a new video from B-Team's channel, Craig Jones walks the half-built Zamaya academy in Tulum: a 20-meter mat floor, an on-site black belt, nine massage rooms, and a first camp set for early October.
Craig Jones and Dave Foran at the half-built Zamaya resort. AI-generated image.
Two days after B-Team announced its new Tulum home, Craig Jones walked the site on camera. The B-Team channel posted a full construction tour, and Jones spends about 24 minutes in hard-hat territory with founder Dave Foran, threading through half-finished bamboo pavilions to the mat floor that will be his headquarters.
The reel on July 1 told you the partnership existed. The video shows you what you would actually train in.
What the B-Team academy looks like
The jiu-jitsu academy sits on the top floor of its own building. Foran puts the mat space at 20 meters by 20 meters, with a central AC system Jones jokes was built for people who would otherwise die in the jungle heat. The room looks out over the resort's main pool and pavilions, and a multi-purpose seminar room downstairs seats around 70 for classes and presentations.
Jones calls it a strong candidate for the best-looking jiu-jitsu room he has trained in, and he has trained in a lot of them. He also credits the lighting rig, installed, he says, to make everyone look jacked.
Craig Jones is moving in
The headline for practitioners: Jones says he plans to live on site. There will be a full-time B-Team black belt based at the academy, and Jones says he expects to be around constantly through the opening stretch, running his own camps and coordinating seminars.
He targets his first camp for early October, with a chance of something sooner if the mat floor is ready. On the seminar side he name-checks B-Team's Jozef Chen, and says he intends to rotate other B-Team names through the venue between competition commitments.
Foran's build
Foran, a former professional rugby player from Ireland, has spent eight years on the project. In the video he says he cut the 600-meter access road through the jungle himself before anything else went up. Around 200 workers are on site now, racing a September 17 opening, the date Zamaya confirmed to Open Mat Locator by email last week.
The academy is one room inside a much larger machine. Foran counts seven separate training areas: a boxing and Muay Thai pavilion with a ring, an octagon, and roughly 16 heavy bags; a weights and calisthenics gym; and a running track that loops the central bamboo pavilion Jones keeps calling the money shot. The recovery block is stacked: three always-on ice baths, a sauna, a jacuzzi, nine massage rooms, a flotation chamber, and a temazcal, the traditional Mayan sweat lodge.
Foran says the resort will hold 48 hotel suites and 48 three-bedroom villas, a total capacity near 300, and that the bamboo work alone may be the largest such project in Mexico. The villas are nearly sold out, with four left when the tour was filmed.
What it means if you train
The pitch has not changed since the announcement, but now you can see it. A destination camp inside a resort turns a beach week into a training block: fly in, stay on site, roll two or three times a day, then walk to the ice baths. And per Zamaya, you can skip the resort part entirely and drop in for a session while you are in Tulum.
For the full backstory on the partnership, the pass options, and what a permanent venue means for the Craig Jones Invitational, see our original report. Planning a trip with a gi in the bag? Check the gym directory before you fly, or find an open mat wherever you land.