What's It Like To Open A New Jiujitsu Gym?

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I’m two months into opening my own gym. I knew it would be a fun challenge, but I didn’t realize how rewarding making the switch would be. My friend, Chris Wojcik, interviewed me about the process so we’re going to touch on that and some updates for Open Note Grappling.

It was (is?) very nerve racking to open a gym with some of the best coaches & competitors in the world within driving distance.

But, I mean, Marcelo’s and Renzo’s are literally less than half a mile away from one another and they both thrived. Plus there's jiujitsu everywhere in San Diego and they're doing okay. If it can work there, why not Austin?

We figured if we make something unique we're not really competing with other jiujitsu gyms. We have separate memberships for different programs and classes so we can accommodate more types of people. We're closer to a health club than a jiujitsu gym.

One positive is we're really the only gym on the East Side. A lot of our members live walking/biking distance from us.

My partners and I have all lived in Austin for ~ 10 years off and on so we wanted to keep the East Austin vibe alive. It was either East Side or nowhere.

The gym looks kind of industrial with exposed brick and concrete floors but overall it's incredibly well thought out. My partner, Dave, is a handyman and in a previous life he built gyms/family fun centers. He really helped funnel the vision into an unique experience.

We have 3000 square feet of mats, a full weight room, a PT office onsite, 4 showers, and we're building a steam room. All in all it's a perfect place to train and stay healthy. That's really the goal. We want to make jiujitsu fun and accessible so more people can come here and train safely.

That theme is a part of our gear too. We wanted to make stuff that was comfortable, fun, and not too aggressive nor in your face. You can check it out here.

Jiujitsu is a uniquely valuable activity but it can be delivered in a way that is intimidating or turns people off. That means they don't come back to train. That's bad. We want to do the opposite so we're doing everything we can to make it fun and easy to join and keep training.

You have to figure out what your priority is. Do you want to run a gym? Focus on videos, photos, and social media? Or teach/do jiujitsu all the time?

Those really are all separate things and it's important to know what you want before you jump into it full force. It's really really really hard to do multiple things at the same time and be successful so pick one priority and work towards that. You can always do more/other stuff later, but start with one priority and work towards that. Maybe don't leap into anything. Take a small step in to test the waters.

If you want to be a jiujitsu coach but you don't have much professional experience, partner with someone that wants to own a gym but isn't skilled enough to instruct. They can be the manager and you can be the coach. Pretty ideal division of labor if you ask me.

Doing too many things at once is really a recipe for failure, or burnout, but that leads to failure eventually.

We have some really cool partnerships, events, and media features coming out. Some are local to Austin, but we actually have a real cool feature with FloGrappling on the way. They want to shine a light on local jiujitsu spots and they’re starting with ours. You’re going to be really impressed with what we put out.

We’re also working on some great instructional content. We’re not trying to rehash what’s already out there but we do think there are a couple of things that would be really helpful for beginners, hobbyists, and people that want to structure their teaching and training.

My partner, Sean, the physical therapist, has built a comprehensive training program to improve strength and reduce the likelihood of injury. So far, our members are loving it. They’re saying they have less back pain from playing guard and they just feel better overall. We’re going to work on putting something together so everyone can have a good, straightforward program to improve their fitness while not burning out on the mats.

Because my team is producing a lot of written curriculum for our lesson plans, I’m going to be exploring how my website can host it. It will be an awesome way to give people a method of building their own lessons, note taking systems, and training plans. It’ll be a must have for new teachers and students looking to excel faster.

As for me and my newsletter, I’m going to be changing how and when I write. I’ve started including a premium section in my Tuesday articles. Below is a sample from this Tuesday’s article.

In short, writing this way works better for my articles. It allows me to go deeper on relevant topics and continue exploring the themes and trends we’re discussing. If you want to access those sections in future articles, click here.

I’ll still be sending the occasional Friday newsletter out depending on the news cycle and any interesting updates that come from my world. But, for now, we’re moving all of my premium content to specific sections on the pre-existing Tuesday article.

To read the full interview in it’s original format, click here.