Recently, I was reminded by a student of a post I had made on facebook a while back talking about the importance of our good ‘Gym Culture’. It motivated this student to make a particular change he had been struggling with and I’m happy something I said in passing could help him out. It was also a great reminder of what we ACTUALLY do here at FargoBJJ.
Here is the original FB post:
“When I first moved here to Fargo, ND and opened FargoBJJ my #1 mission, besides teaching great martial arts, was to create a solid goal-oriented community based on real functional achievement and mutual support. I wanted to build a tribe of the kind of people I wanted to be around every day. People that motivated and inspired me to continually strive to be a better version of myself.
We didn’t always accept the best ‘athletes’ with the ‘most potential’ as students if they weren’t a good fit… but rather chose to take the ‘most dedicated and best quality people’… (best decision ever by the way).
We always said we can make anyone great at BJJ and Kickboxing, but it’s the ‘good people’ that make the best gym environment. Over a decade later we’ve proved that true and then some!!
They say in life you’ll only ever be as good as the people you surround yourself with… well, if you hang out in here the sky’s the limit!!”
When someone asks what I do for a living, It’s easy to just assume I say something like ‘I teach Jiu-jitsu or martial arts‘… or maybe ‘I’m a local business owner‘ or something like that, but I don’t believe thats what is really going on here.
What I instead say is ‘We grow, develop and transform children and adults into Strong, Competent and Capable human beings who can go out into the world and Kick its Ass and be successful at whatever it is they choose to do!‘
That is the ‘WHAT’ of FargoBJJ’… Training is the tool, it’s the ‘HOW’.
There are few endeavors in the world outside of things like the military and elite athletics that includes and can produce the community, personal and physical growth & development, and life successes in people as this type of training.
I believe that quality martial arts is one of the truest, proven methods of developing strong, confident people. But to go down that rabbit hole a further, in the spectrum of martial arts it is Jiu-jitsu that achieves this in unparalleled and purist fashion.
When you begin training, at first, it can be very selfish. Of course, you are there for YOUR goals. But soon you’ll realize that you are part of something much bigger than yourself. You have an environment in which you can look to other more advanced and experienced people for help and guidance without judgment then, sooner than you think, you’ll be helping to bring up others in return. This is one of the many ‘Powers of Tribe’!
Your growth is massively accelerated once you realize it is tied into the growth of your teammates. A popular saying is ‘The quickest way to the top is to lift up those around you.’ This is so true I can’t overstate it! And when everyone in the academy knows, understands and implements that method of thinking then we have an awesome place to train, learn and grow as individuals and a team.
This is what the FargoBJJ Academy is about… and it’s ‘what I do for a living‘!
Prof. GEO