East Bridgewater, MA: The Town Where the Training Started
Most of the towns on this list are places our members drive in from. East Bridgewater is not that. East Bridgewater is where Joe Lauzon learned to train.
He moved here from Brockton with his brother Dan, and he was sixteen when he started. That is the whole reason this town gets its own page: not a gym, because there was no gym yet, but the years that made one. A kid from the next town over, a borrowed room, a training session that turned into a life. If you are a parent reading this because your own kid wants to try jiu-jitsu, that part matters more than anything else on the page. The gym Joe Lauzon runs today started with a sixteen-year-old in this town going to class when he could have been doing almost anything else.
The East Bridgewater group that started with him
Chris Palmquist was training at the same time, along with a group of other people from East Bridgewater, so the first room was partly an East Bridgewater room. Chris has stayed in the sport since. The names behind the gym’s growing years came out of the same town ever since, and JL names three of them: Rich McLaughlin, Pat Gilbride and Dean Lucier. Pat teaches here now, on the same timetable as everyone else, and Rich has been a member long enough that he is part of the furniture. When people ask why a Raynham gym has a page for a town eleven miles away, this is the answer. The gym did not find East Bridgewater. East Bridgewater helped build the gym.
How far is the gym from East Bridgewater?
Raynham is the gym that serves this town: 11.9 miles and about 21 minutes from East Bridgewater Town Hall on Central Street, measured on the actual roads in clear traffic. The drive leaves the centre on Plymouth Street and Whitman Street, works across to Bedford Street and Pleasant Street, joins Route 24 and takes it south to the Route 44 exit.
Canton is the second option at 14.6 miles and about 28 minutes, and it is close enough to say out loud instead of pretending Raynham is the only door. For most of the town, Raynham wins. Canton wins if your week already takes you toward Boston.
What actually runs on the mat
Kids start at three and stay in age-built classes: Tiny Ninjas for the 3 to 5 year olds, Vipers for 6 to 9, Cobras for 10 to 13. Nobody gets moved up into a room they cannot handle. Adults get jiu-jitsu most mornings and evenings, kickboxing with a basics class for people who have never thrown a punch, and no-gi grappling for the ones who like it faster. Sunday morning at nine belongs to the women’s class. Open mat runs twice on a Sunday.
The whole thing is members-only, which is why the room feels like a room and not a turnstile. Everybody on the mat came in through the same free intro appointment.
East Bridgewater itself
The town was the East Parish of Olde Bridgewater from 1723 and only became its own town on 14 June 1823, which is why the town’s nickname is still The Bridge. Route 18 runs north to south through the centre, Route 106 crosses the southern end, and Route 104 clips the bottom corner before it runs out at the Halifax line. Robbins Pond is the largest body of water in town and the Matfield River arrives from Bridgewater and splits into the Satucket River and Poor Meadow Brook.
Three public schools cover the town: the Central School just west of the town hall for pre-kindergarten to grade two, the Gordon W. Mitchell School, and East Bridgewater Junior/Senior High, where the teams are the Vikings. High school students can also attend Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical in South Easton at no cost, which is worth knowing if your teenager is already thinking about a trade.
There is no commuter rail station in East Bridgewater. The line runs through the western edge of town and the nearest stops are in Bridgewater and Brockton, which is worth knowing if your week is built around a train rather than a car.
How to start
Call 508-219-0418 and ask for a free intro appointment. It takes about fifteen minutes: a look around, how the classes and the membership work, what you are hoping to get out of it, then a short lesson on the mat so you are not guessing. Bring shorts and a T-shirt. You do not need experience, you do not need to be fit first, and you do not need to buy anything before you walk in.
Contact the Raynham gym
500 South Street West, Raynham, MA 02767, on Route 44 just off Route 24. Phone 508-219-0418. Doors are open 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Wednesday, from 6:00 AM on Tuesday and Thursday, 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM on Friday, 9:00 AM to noon on Saturday and 8:00 AM to noon on Sunday. The full timetable is on the Raynham adult schedule and the Raynham kids schedule, and classes move around holidays, so check the date you are coming.