Content warning: This article contains sexually explicit details which may be triggering to some.
The owner and head coach at Zuma Ultimate Martial Arts in Victoria, Adam Zugec, is being publicly called out for inappropriate and sexual misconduct.
To protect the identities of the women who have come forward, Victoria Buzz will refer to them as Jane and Janet.
Jane has been training at Zuma for the last year-and-a-half, and in that time, she says she has dealt with numerous instances of inappropriate sexual behaviour from Zugec.
After a certain incident with Zugec, Jane decided to quit the gym and go public with her experiences on Reddit, to warn other women.
What resulted from this post was a myriad of other women coming forward with similar experiences.
Women’s experiences at Zuma
“I met Adam right away [when I started training at Zuma], immediately it started with leering, with sexual comments, talking about my sex life, telling me about babies,” Jane told Victoria Buzz.
She says that this behaviour then escalated to long hugs that she didn’t ask for, putting his hands on the small of her back for too long. Jane also says he showed her an explicit photo of a half-naked woman with only a blazer on, splaying her legs open to reveal her genitals.
“Shortly thereafter he asked if he could photograph me, and he didn’t say ‘this would be a photoshoot of you in the nude,’ but that was my understanding based on the photograph he had shown me,” Jane explained.
This incident happened in the winter of 2023, but what pushed Jane to quit the gym was a further escalation she says took place last year when she repeatedly had to tell Zugec “no” to his touching, which turned into a physical altercation.
“I think, just him being creepy, showing me porn and talking about me in that way, coupled with him not respecting consent, not taking no for an answer, I thought this doesn’t feel safe,” said Jane.
Since Jane posted her warning to women on the Victoria sub-Reddit, another 11 women have come forward with similar experiences, two of whom have now gone to the police to file reports with VicPD.
Jane added that she believes Zugec was careful about how and when he would engage in inappropriate behaviour.
“I think this was a really well kept secret, like, I think a lot of women thought that he was only doing this to them,” she explained.
“Then as soon as some of these stories started coming out, it was evident how ubiquitous this was.”
Janet says she had been training at Zuma for eight years before she started to see red flags in Zugec’s behaviour.
“I had brought one of my friends with me to class, and he had made a sexual comment to her and that was it, I completely stopped going there,” Janet told Victoria Buzz.
Additionally, in the summer of 2023, Zugec asked her to spar with him, which she said she couldn’t say no to without causing offense.
“He’s 250 pounds and I’m a very small female, and my husband happened to not be there training with me that day,” Janet continued.
“He actually ended up touching me inappropriately that day while we were training. In the eight years that I’ve been training, I’ve never had that happen, so I know it wasn’t an accident.”
Zuma’s response
Since Jane’s post on Reddit had gained significant traction and garnered the attention of the media, Zuma made a post on their Instagram account in response to the accusations.
“Over the past week, we’ve listened, deeply and quietly, as painful stories and concerns have been shared publicly and privately about experiences connected to Zuma Martial Arts,” wrote the Zuma leadership team.
“These stories, and the emotions they carry, matter. Even when details are complex or perspectives differ, we believe one thing above all: every person deserves to feel safe and respected when they walk into our gym.”
Of note, to the best of Jane and Janet’s knowledge, Zugec and his wife are the sole owners and coaches at Zuma.
Zuma added that they recognize that informality, blurred lines and leadership centered on one voice can fail people, so they offered three steps that would be taken to address the situation.
The gym has hired an independent, third-party to review and examine their structure, culture and any concerns that have been brought forward.
Additionally, Zuma said they would form an Advisory Council, composed of respected students, coaches, and community members, with an emphasis on women’s involvement to help shape the future of the gym.
Lastly, Zuma said they would implement formal policies on boundaries, instructor-student contact, private communication and reporting mechanisms.
“We will share more in the coming days as these structures take shape. For now, we’re not here to argue, we’re here to rebuild,” the Zuma leadership team concluded.
“We know trust must be earned, not requested. We are not defending the past. We are defining what comes next, together.”
Jane and Janet both expressed that this post fell short of their expectations.
“We were initially hopeful that this letter would contain some acknowledgment by the Zugecs of the pattern of misconduct that women have reported,” wrote Jane in an email to Victoria Buzz.
“We are disappointed to find none.”
What they hoped was for Zuma to name Zugec in this post, they hoped for an apology of some sort and for a commitment to ensure students Zugec would no longer be coaching at the gym.
“The proposed solutions—such as an external review and the creation of an advisory council—are responses more appropriate for branches of government than for protecting the public from a singular individual whose pattern of misconduct has already been reported by multiple women,” said Jane.
“These measures do not address the immediate risk that comes from allowing the same individual to remain in power.”
She added that this situation is not simply “blurred lines,” it’s about a serious abuse of power and trust that has driven women away from a sport they loved.
Since this post, Jane and the other women who have come forward have penned an open letter to Zuma, calling for meaningful action and for their demands to be met: an apology, Zugec’s removal from coaching and for him to be named.
As of this publication, the open letter has garnered 80 signatures.
