Looking to teach BJJ in a new club? Read this!

rising_phoenix

cowzerp wrote: »

I dont know the geography of the area but if Dave is close to your club and you want to see BJJ grow then i would send people wanting to learn that art at a high level to Dave, As your not an MMA club you dont need it so i think ya should focus on teaching what your good at at a high level and producing some champs..

I'm glad i started this thread, thanks for the comments, I'm going to take everyones advice on board and do what I do best

Tim_Murphy

Liam_B wrote: »

If you can get in an extra session of sparring or drilling ,you do feel set for the day until The 3 O Clock slump kicks in...then you start questioning who's bloody idea was this.

The 3 O Clock slump is a b^tch alright, especially when it starts to kick in at about half 10!

NG-DOC

just out of curiosity, and to completely play devils advocate.

if you offer several martial arts at your club. whatever the combination, TKD, Karate, Wrestling, Judo, BJJ, Muay Thai etc. why are you not a mixed martial arts club? you coach several martial arts, just as a gym with the standard bjj, thai and wrestling do, so why aren't you allowed to call yourself an mma gym?

from what i understand, bens intentions were to get a legitimate bjj coach, to teach bjj. if they then had legitimate bjj at the club, along side whatever other arts ben teaches. what exactly would the problem be?

Tim_Murphy

NG-DOC wrote: »

just out of curiosity, and to completely play devils advocate.

if you offer several martial arts at your club. whatever the combination, TKD, Karate, Wrestling, Judo, BJJ, Muay Thai etc. why are you not a mixed martial arts club? you coach several martial arts, just as a gym with the standard bjj, thai and wrestling do, so why aren't you allowed to call yourself an mma gym?

No. MMA, as the term is commonly used, refers to a very specific thing. It doesn't refer to a general mixture of random martial arts.

SanoVitae

Well it depends what mixture of martial arts you're talking about. Usually what MMA refers to is a mixture of boxing, wrestling, BJJ and Muay Thai/Kickboxing - the martial arts which have generally been found to be the most effective in cage-fighting ala UFC.

If however you were open a MMA gym and offer a mix of akido, tai-chi and monkey kung-fu as the martial arts you use to train your fighters, I don't think your club would be very successful

darced

This post has been deleted.

Doug Cartel

NG-DOC wrote: »

if you offer several martial arts at your club. whatever the combination, TKD, Karate, Wrestling, Judo, BJJ, Muay Thai etc. why are you not a mixed martial arts club? you coach several martial arts, just as a gym with the standard bjj, thai and wrestling do, so why aren't you allowed to call yourself an mma gym?

For me, you have to be coaching these things together as a unified class and you have to be producing some fighters.

Form my own experience of muay thai and judo, there are things in Thai you have to change once more extensive grappling is allowed, and there are things in judo you have to change once the possibility of strikes arises.

As to why you need to be producing fighters - well a tennis club wouldn't be a tennis club unless the members played the odd tennis match.

cowzerp

The problem as i see it is that it looks like its stepping on Dave's toe's-maybe i'm wrong and Dave will say it's not but the area does not seem to need a new BJJ club, also to run MMA it only makes sense you should have fought MMA and ideally at a Pro level at some stage..

My post is all specualtion as Dave might think there is room for 2 MMA clubs in the area.

plus MMA is not just throwing a few arts together, and its not a necessity to set up clubs like it was in the past when there was no other options..

NG-DOC

SanoVitae wrote: »

Well it depends what mixture of martial arts you're talking about. Usually what MMA refers to is a mixture of boxing, wrestling, BJJ and Muay Thai/Kickboxing - the martial arts which have generally been found to be the most effective in cage-fighting ala UFC.

If however you were open a MMA gym and offer a mix of akido, tai-chi and monkey kung-fu as the martial arts you use to train your fighters, I don't think your club would be very successful

ok so, guy opens MMA club teaching kung-fu, karate and bjj. he is teaching a mix of martial arts, albeit not the ones that have "generally been found to be the most effective in cage-fighting". he is not successful. club closes.

i still see no problem here.

cowzerp

NG-DOC wrote: »

ok so, guy opens MMA club teaching kung-fu, karate and bjj. he is teaching a mix of martial arts, albeit not the ones that have "generally been found to be the most effective in cage-fighting". he is not successful. club closes.

i still see no problem here.

The people who join as they no know better are the losers.

NG-DOC

cowzerp wrote: »

The problem as i see it is that it looks like its stepping on Dave's toe's-maybe i'm wrong and Dave will say it's not but the area does not seem to need a new BJJ club, also to run MMA it only makes sense you should have fought MMA and ideally at a Pro level at some stage..

My post is all specualtion as Dave might think there is room for 2 MMA clubs in the area.

well, i now run dave's club. and i can't speak for dave, but he certainly isn't stepping on my toes.

i don't teach tkd karate or whatever else ben can. i teach bjj. if he got a bjj coach, and people believed that training there was better than training with me. then maybe i'm not that good a bjj coach.

as far as i can tell, it's a free market. whoever has the best product wins.

NG-DOC

cowzerp wrote: »

The people who join as they no know better are the losers.

what do they lose? if they want to train for fun, and are having fun. to me that's a win.

if they want to train to compete, and don't have any success competing because of the quality of instruction. then go find somewhere else!

cowzerp

NG-DOC wrote: »

what do they lose? if they want to train for fun, and are having fun. to me that's a win.

if they want to train to compete, and don't have any success competing because of the quality of instruction. then go find somewhere else!

They lose a year or 2 good training with Dave for example, beginners would not even know if the club was good or not and 3 years later will be part of the club and most will not just up and leave in fairness..

Doug Cartel

NG-DOC wrote: »

ok so, guy opens MMA club teaching kung-fu, karate and bjj. he is teaching a mix of martial arts, albeit not the ones that have "generally been found to be the most effective in cage-fighting". he is not successful. club closes.

i still see no problem here.

The free market at work.

I honestly don't see the situation described as any different than if you're running a good restaurant, and someone opens a crap one next to you. Yes it's a pain in the neck, yes it costs you business, yes the customers that choose the inferior restaurant lose out and end up complaining to their friends about the state of dining out in this country in general, but them's the breaks. It does suck, I wouldn't expect you to like it, but you should be able to accept it.

NG-DOC

cowzerp wrote: »

They lose a year or 2 good training with Dave for example, beginners would not even know if the club was good or not and 3 years later will be part of the club and most will not just up and leave in fairness..

ben was looking for a legit bjj teacher so he would have legitimate bjj at the club.

if he got what he wanted, what's the problem?

there is now two legit bjj instructors in the area. anyone looking to train should be able to find both easily thanks to the internet. you find the club, read about the instructors and decide which one you prefer. again, what's the problem with this?

if a blue belt opened up a school beside john kavanagh. do you think john would be worried?

cowzerp

NG-DOC wrote: »

ben was looking for a legit bjj teacher so he would have legitimate bjj at the club.

My last post as im not too bothered about it all!

The area has a BJJ club so its unnecessary and its not like there is too many people and Dave is turning people away, Anyway i don't know all the facts so am bowing out.

NG-DOC

cowzerp wrote: »

My last post as im not too bothered about it all!

The area has a BJJ club so its unnecessary and its not like there is too many people and Dave is turning people away, Anyway i don't know all the facts so am bowing out.

it's a free market and if anyone wants to open a bjj school in the area. who am i to stop them?

if they have better instruction than i do. tough break for me.

whether it's unnecessary or not is for the market to decide.

EnjoyChoke

NG-DOC wrote: »

it's a free market and if anyone wants to open a bjj school in the area. who am i to stop them?

if they have better instruction than i do. tough break for me.

whether it's unnecessary or not is for the market to decide.

Run them out of town. RUN them.

Barry.Oglesby

Well I don't really care either way. The rpmma lad has asked me to take the picture of him carrying a banner that says we are an MMA club down because he isn't running an MMA club now. So that's that for me. I just thought it was a bit funny.

Listen lads I don't think this is actually the same as some lad opening up a "UFC" club he sounds like he's genuine. I'm just a bit miffed when I hear things like "for the community" and so on. I'd respect the lad more if he came on here and said "I reckon BJJ would be a bit of a moneyspinner, anyone want to teach?" I just felt it was a bit dishonest. Maybe I'm wrong though maybe he'll have the mats open for the homeless community at night.

OLDMAN1

i cant understand what the big deal is. alot of bjj clubs bring in striking coaches as in most cases there not qualified to teach striking, whats wrong with a striking club bringing in a wrestling coach(eg:bjj,judo or sambo)? to be honest there seems to be a bit of a anti striking thing going on, if a bjj guy with no striking experience opened a mma club would he have the same hassle?....

EnjoyChoke

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

i cant understand what the big deal is. alot of bjj clubs bring in striking coaches as in most cases there not qualified to teach striking, whats wrong with a striking club bringing in a wrestling coach(eg:bjj,judo or sambo)? to be honest there seems to be a bit of a anti striking thing going on, if a bjj guy with no striking experience opened a mma club would he have the same hassle?....

Striking sucks, BJJ rules. Did you not get the memo?

OLDMAN1

EnjoyChoke wrote: »

Striking sucks, BJJ rules. Did you not get the memo?

You keep living in DREANLAND...

EnjoyChoke

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

You keep living in DREANLAND...

Funny, on so many levels.

da-bres

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

You keep living in DREANLAND...

some one took the blue pill...

Barry.Oglesby

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

i cant understand what the big deal is. alot of bjj clubs bring in striking coaches as in most cases there not qualified to teach striking, whats wrong with a striking club bringing in a wrestling coach(eg:bjj,judo or sambo)? to be honest there seems to be a bit of a anti striking thing going on, if a bjj guy with no striking experience opened a mma club would he have the same hassle?....

Probably not TBH. I think it's a matter of education mind you. In general the BJJ/MMA world are interconnected and a lot of guys in the BJJ world have fought and trained MMA. I don't think it's the same in striking.

Nothing wrong with anyone trying to get anyone in to do anything. As I've said all along if you look back.

David Jones

Its never been an issue of worrying about legitimate clubs setting up near Next Generation. When I set it up, it was a place I could train more regularly than with JK who was always going to be more North / Westside than south and with me living in wicklow that was always going to be an impossibility. Coupled with repeated visits to Chris B in Cali and JK was going the Straight Blast route.

I really never worried whether anyone would set up nearby, Next Generation was never about making money, indeed I remember many times having to cover the rent myself. People who think 50 euro per month is expensive to train have no idea the cost of industrial rents quite clearly.

What I do and would always have a problem with is Charlatans trying to pass themselves off as instructors of this and that just to make a buck. I been through the public Karate phase, the Bruce lee / JKD craze, the ninjitsu craze etc etc. Its now MMA although because it has so much TV coverage it may well last a lot longer than the above. I love the legitmacy of true MMA, limited rules, two athletes competing, so many ways to win. But its popularity is the reason its easy to cash in on.

If a gracie academy had opened near Next Gen, I could have cared less. If people like what you do then they will stay, if not then they wont. However taking peoples money by claiming to teach something that you are not capable of, is different matter.

I havent made many mistakes in the awarding of belts over the years, but when a student gets their blue belt one of two doors lies in wait,

Door A : the realisation that the journey is just beginning door.

Door B : I now know as much as the guy who is teaching me (who may only be one or two belts above me) and I could make money doing what he does door.

Most of my original students went through the former door. One or two as time went on through the latter, and more recently that was on the increase, but I have reconcilled myself to the fact that it was nothing I did wrong, it was their issue/ego that affects all aspects of their life. More recently, the door B group sometimes stay around for awhile, not paying their monthly dues on time or at all, now that they know as much as you, and paying no attention when you teach, because they have 40 different variations of what you just did from youtube. Injuries may have brought retirement on earlier, but the increase in door B group numbers made it an easier decision.

Like I said, Im just lucky NG wasnt a source of income. I wouldnt have slept at night if it had been. So my enquiring nature as to clubs setting up in the same area is only purely from a concern for a sport that I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of.

Ben I hope you find your BJJ coach, and you can call your club whatever you like as far as I'm concerned, but by naming it you imply that it does a certain thing for its paying customer, its up to you to make sure that that is or isnt a lie, because Joe Public is a gullible animal, its why the country is the way it is. Don't use the good of the community as a line, you need to put on classes to attract the most customers so that you can break even on wherever you are renting. If Krav Maga or real combat tested self defence got any bigger and I sincerely hope it doesnt, it could be the next big customer magnet then that is what you would need.

Personally and this is throwaway advice, get a boot camp up and running at your gym, fat people and rich mums are so gullible its not funny. minimal equipment investment and you can charge a fortune.

Snowbound rant over

colinlaird000

A Thai Bo / Boxercise / Cardio Combat / etc etc are definately the way forward in terms of £££££. Like Dave said, what people want to get is maximum feel good factor, minimal effort. Its not so much the getting fit or learning something, but the fact that they dont have to feel guilty about not doing something any more. Hence why there are millions of people paying personal trainers to make them feel like they are getting fit. The majority of people dont like difficult. At the end of the day , 90 % of people who join any health related organisation dont go after the first month (Which is what direct debits / paying in advance are all about! ).
In my extremely limited experience, It's harder than people think to run a class, particularly in this weather, so fair play to whoever does it (And sticks to their guns.). You can't skive classes as the tv looks good or theres a match on, its morale sapping when you get a low turn out due to the above happening, there are always overheads to pay. :mad:
Obviously it would be ideal for a lot of us if there were 50 BJJ black belts in ireland, but sadly that isnt the case yet. And at the ned of the day, all the guys at the top of the tree now started coaching somewhere, and it wasn't at Brown / Black belt. I'm certainly not advocating guys starting "Extreme cage classes" in their garage with no experience, but you can only work with what you have. Surely its better to have 10 gyms run by purple / senior blue belts under another higher grades mentorship than 5 gyms run by brown / black belts? Just my opinion. Also, I'm sure there are plenty of senior belts generally that either dont want to, or dont feel happy teaching? Just my humble opinion..

OLDMAN1

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

Probably not TBH. I think it's a matter of education mind you. In general the BJJ/MMA world are interconnected and a lot of guys in the BJJ world have fought and trained MMA. I don't think it's the same in striking.

Nothing wrong with anyone trying to get anyone in to do anything. As I've said all along if you look back.

Barry i wasn't having ago at you,my message just happened to be after yours, i was just making a general obseversation about the thrend..

Dave, i wouldn't worry about the charlatants out there, in general they get found out.As a fan but a outsider to mma, i think mma has more important things to worry about...

SBG Ireland

I'll just add my 2cents as the thread seems more or less done now

When the original group of guys set up gyms we were learning as we went along, I spent every cent and free weekend I had travelling and training to become the coach I am today.I find the 'new' spate of mma/bjj gyms more surprising than anything else. Because looking back I personally would've felt a bit silly setting up beside such a well established gym run by a blackbelt...in fact the thought of doing it would not have entered my head as I would have been busy training there!

BUT

it doesn't bother me as I just see these guys as producing guys for mine to compete against. Results speak for themselves and the market will dictate who's successful so its all good with me

...I do find it kinda odd that people would rather train at a gym thats not getting results except for the odd mma league win than one consistently producing pro mma and bjj champions...but then again there's nought queerer than folk!

NG-DOC

SBG Ireland wrote: »

it doesn't bother me as I just see these guys as producing guys for mine to compete against. Results speak for themselves and the market will dictate who's successful so its all good with me

this!

paul moran

I was kind of in the OP's position 'in reverse' back when JK was promoting BJJ and MMA and allot of guys were setting of training groups under Johns guidance and then opening up classes as they progressed.

I took over from my Kung Fu teacher around the same time and decided to go full-time teaching not long after that. I accepted Johns invite to a free workshop on the old IRMAC forum and was amazed by the skill level even at that stage and like all strikers I was enlightened to the weaknesses in our style. We started a training group and quickly had two classes per week with 10-20 in the class. This was my hobby outside of my Kung Fu training (which is my hobby turned job;-) and loved it.

At one point Dave hosted a JK workshop in Loughlinstown and rolling with his students showed me the gulf in class between my group and his made me realise that as much fun as it was for me to roll once or twice per week I couldn't justify running classes at a lower skill level than was available within a short bus ride away (Pearse Stokes and Colm O'Reilly were also running classes on the Soutside). As my Kung Fu training was my priority and I wanted to help promote San shou I closed the classes down and pointed my guys towards the Loughlinstown group. I have no doubt had I continued down the BJJ route my game and those in my group would have advanced (how could it not?) but I couldn't offer the same level of skill or dedication at that time.

I think people should play to their own strengths and help deepen the pool within their own arts and skillsets and not shallow the waters of others.

Ug Lee

SBG Ireland wrote: »

I'll just add my 2cents as the thread seems more or less done now

When the original group of guys set up gyms we were learning as we went along, I spent every cent and free weekend I had travelling and training to become the coach I am today.I find the 'new' spate of mma/bjj gyms more surprising than anything else. Because looking back I personally would've felt a bit silly setting up beside such a well established gym run by a blackbelt...in fact the thought of doing it would not have entered my head as I would have been busy training there!

BUT

it doesn't bother me as I just see these guys as producing guys for mine to compete against. Results speak for themselves and the market will dictate who's successful so its all good with me

...I do find it kinda odd that people would rather train at a gym thats not getting results except for the odd mma league win than one consistently producing pro mma and bjj champions...but then again there's nought queerer than folk!

This was exactly my point in a thread a few months ago. Why does someone want to do a particular martial art? Is it that they enjoy it and want to get better at it or they want to be associated with it for status reasons? I think everyone would agree that the first reason is a better one.

With BJJ/MMA, I understand why years ago people had to set up their own training groups and I feel the same is true for some remote training groups today. However why as a blue belt would you want to teach and sacrifice your own training when you could just get your ass to an established BJJ/MMA (or other martial art) gym and train with people who are better than you? (Blue belt and up)

What is the point in having a black belt teacher in another country whom you only see a handful of times in a year when you could have a higher ranking teacher who you see on a nightly, weekly or monthly basis?

rising_phoenix

I think everyones pretty much made their points. I stand by my comments and know that my intentions are honest, anyone else who has read this thread will hopefully see that, along with seeing some peoples true colours. Thanks.

arybvtcw0eolkf

rising_phoenix wrote: »

I think everyones pretty much made their points. I stand by my comments and know that my intentions are honest, anyone else who has read this thread will hopefully see that, along with seeing some peoples true colours. Thanks.

People aren't blind.