Step Up

Time for some tedious prognostication.

Our local club is going through some turmoil right now. Our main instructor, Shawn, spends about half of each year living down in Mexico. This has been no difficulty, as we had a couple of other certified Gracie instructors to take up the slack for the rest of the time.

However, one of them moved away about a month ago, and the other will also be leaving in a few weeks. We will be instructor-less for half of the time.

There has been a huge question mark over who would take up the running of things.

Luckily, one of our students had agreed to take on a big part of the load. Than is a businessman, and has all the skills necessary to run the operational side of things. He is also willing to do the coursework necessary, and to head down to Los Angeles, in order to become a certified instructor.

However, he doesn’t want to invest every weekday evening of his life teaching all the myriad classes. He is willing to do a share.

I am the most logical choice for an instructor role, but also fall short. I have no interest or willingness in teaching any part of the children’s program, and although I would be happy to teach the adult classes, I am away a lot of the time.

Another good thing is that another person has turned out to be interested in teaching kids, and is thinking about earning instructor certification as well.

A very good aspect of what we’ve got figured out so far is how so many different people are willing to step into the void. No one person can take on everything, but perhaps together we can do it.

Another good thing is that everybody is pretty much assuming that whatever is done by anybody, it will be done without any thought of financial compensation. In Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, the norm is that instructors be paid for their time. We will be paid merely by having the club survive.

This takes a lot of pressure off of things like the kid program. It is usually a net generator of revenue. We are trying to accommodate one, but there will be less necessity to do so.