If I had a nickel for every time I heard that someone wanted to go to X gym to learn directly from X grappler, id have… at least a few meals from Chipotle (SHOUTOUT CHIPOTLE!). I’m not writing this article to say your instructor must suck because they compete. I’m writing this for you to remember that prioritization is the only way we can see success in our life’s endeavors.

Let’s think about a top-level athlete in anything. How much time do you think they have to invest in daily/weekly/monthly/yearly to stay at their peak and pushing past that? I don’t care what the sport is, there is a significant requirement on them – they must appear to be obsessed.

The Question: if I took grappler X who is working to ascend to the top of the sport and said, “hey X, you need to teach classes now”, is this helping them succeed to the top or impose on their time? Let’s walk through it…

You see, the top-level athlete must be selfish with their time. They need every hour they can to stay on the grind because somewhere, every time they are not working on themselves (smartly), their competition is. They need to keep working on their ability, their mindset, study, etc. Everything must be centered around their growth because this is their ambition! (good for them for chasing what they want).

Most BJJ schools want to attract these types to their gym. In fact, they recognize that camps and competitions are expensive and typically offer to alleviate that burden by paying them to come on as a head instructor.

To the ascending athlete, this sounds great – work on and teach their passion all day every day, right? Hell, they need the money too 99% of the time since they haven’t “made it” yet. To the gym, this is great because it can raise the bar for the students in competition scenes with someone that is current in the “meta” of the day, which will elevate the gyms name.

DON’T DO IT!

The problem starts when grappler X must come to terms with the loss of time that now must be dedicated to developing others. Hours a day are now lost teaching techniques that feel so elementary for grappler X; this is wasting their time. To rectify this time loss, grappler X begins pushing what they need to work on at their level into the classes and teaching it.

Now we solved the issue, right?

Now the students come in that are new and are learning spider guard and lasso and all this shit that grappler X has the class doing. Grappler X is picking up some things in the class from seeing some of their upper belts doing the moves and rolling. Now X is benefitting.

(Those new students are missing fundamentals and the root of self-defense for what works in competitions scenes – not going into why this is atrocious again.)

Grappler X goes to some competitions and starts killing the scene and starts becoming someone. The gym, as a result, has other students coming from other gyms to train with this successful competitor. This makes the gym happy – they are getting more money. To grappler X, this means they are gaining clout, and their name commands more money with more classes they need to teach to keep the student base happy – eating more of their time. Grappler X needs the money to live but needs to compete to continue chasing ambitions and commanding more income. It’s a catch-22.

This is the common scenario I have seen multiple times in some fashion:

• Gyms want competitors to develop their students. This benefits the gym because the competition scene is where the big community is, keeping people connected to the sport the gym focuses on. So, they bring in an ambitious competitor to teach to increase profits.
• Ambitious competitor needs to focus on their development above all else to reach those high levels, which begins to detract from instructing what students need for their ideal development (not just a sport).
• If the competitor/instructor begin to reach notoriety, they must teach less to continue refining their ability, putting the gym they teach at in an unhappy position since they market the instructor. The competitor/instructor will leave the gym to chase their ambitions, typically pulling many gym members with them.
• If the competitor/instructor is failing in competition, they will leave the gym to find somewhere else to realize their ambitions. They will bring members with them who developed personal relationships with the instructor.

The easy win for the gym up front comes with a big loss usually in less than 2 years (anecdote).

TL;DR Summary

If your instructor is trying to be a high-level competitor, they must put their development high above yours.

An active, ambitions competitor/instructor is probably not the best for your development because they are more worried about their own (for good reason). Stop chasing names.

If you are a gym owner who wants to bring in a high-level competitor to be your head instructor, either the quality of instruction for student development will fall over time, or they will become disgruntled with the loss of time to develop themselves. Either way, you have about two years until they leave and take students with them.

My Recommendations: 

1. If you are trying to be the best you can be as a grappler/hobbyist, not a competitor, find somewhere where the head instructor doesn’t have current ambitions as a competitor and just wants to see students succeed. How to find: There probably isn’t stuff all over the gym about competitions and medals and they don’t try to sell you on competition.
2. If you have ambitions to be the best grappler in a specific skillset, find a gym dedicated to that. There are plenty of competitions gyms. How to find: They will tell you up front and usually talk names that they expect you have heard of and have their medals everywhere.
3. If you are a gym owner that wants to continue succeeding, make sure the person you hire as your head instructor wouldn’t be torn between their ambitions and yours. You will always lose in the end and so will the students.

Mathematical Jiu-Jitsu does not believe in putting ambitious competitors as primary instructors of classes to ensure students have someone primarily dedicated to their success above all else. This also ensure those competitors can prioritize their ambitions for their future.