Women’s Class Coach · Kids Class Coach · Blue Belt · Renzo Gracie Lineage
Hiba Elwany was the first woman to step on the mats at Team Elwany. Now she’s coaching the women’s self-defence class.
Sister of Ahmed and Al-Hakam, she started training in 2020, when the academy was new and she was the only woman in it. Coach Al-Hakam promoted her to blue belt in November 2023. She coaches the same curriculum, the same standards, the same Renzo Gracie affiliation as every other class here — this is BJJ, not a softened version of it.
Her reason for coaching is simple: she wants to bring Iraqi women onto the mats to learn self-defence and to build confidence — on the mats and off them. That work doesn’t stay inside the gym. She led a self-defence workshop for IFMSA Kurdistan, the medical students’ association, and co-led a charity self-defence session with Coach Al-Hakam for Free to Run, an organisation working against gender-based violence.
If you’re nervous about starting, this is what she tells women at the door: “Stepping on the mats is scary, until you step on the mats. It will then be the start of the best journey of your life.”