Thoughts On Building a High-Quality Training Environment As a Teacher/Instructor

"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?" —Benjamin Disraeli

Photo by Nolan Kent on Unsplash

When I tell people that I’ve trained Jiu-Jitsu “everywhere”, this is an exaggeration, but not by much.

I’ve trained from coast to coast in the United States and have also been to a few places in several countries in Europe. I’ve trained pretty much everywhere that I’ve traveled to since I started training back in 2015, and I’ve been on at least 100 trips for Jiu-Jitsu.

I’ve experienced all kinds of gym cultures, as a student of an academy, a visitor, a teacher/employee, and even more recently as a visiting teacher—when I travel for seminars. I’ve been able to experience a lot of different gym cultures, and I’ve learned something very important:

Not all gyms have healthy cultures.

Here are a few thoughts on building gym culture, and why it’s essential to running a good school.