How Many Hats Can You Wear?

How many hats does your coach wear?

Have you ever thought how many hats your coach wears?

Probably not.

Running an Academy is a hard thing to do, it's very time consuming and those that take the big step in running something like this full time have very little time for themselves. More often than not athletes or parents of athletes don't give any thought or consideration to these people and what they encounter each day.

Quite often the main person that runs your Academy is not just the head coach but they are also;

• book keeper
• mentor/friend
• cleaner
• maintenance 
• reception
• mediator
• and a whole lot more!

If you're at a good Academy, what you'll find is that the owner is spending in excess of 10 hours a day to ensure that the running of the facility and classes are what the consumer would expect to receive.

But what's a good Academy?

To define what a good Academy you need to ask yourself;

• is it clean
• is it open on time
• are the classes structured
• is it a safe and welcoming environment
• is it comfortable (not just for the athlete)
• does the Academy communicate (not just personally but by newsletters, texts, etc)

If all these boxes are checked then you are in a good place, trust me. I've trained at places where

• the mats were only cleaned once weekly for an hour 
• the head coach asked me after I'd trained for three months one day if this was my first class
• only invited select people to 'functions'

What many Academy owners don't appreciate, is how lazy people are becoming, specifically with regards to information or how poorly they treat the facility (such as furniture). 

With the amount of technology out there, it's not hard to go on the web and look at your Academy's website to see what's going on or even reading their newsletter (if they have one). Some Academies have an app that can provide information as to what's going on, but more often than not the parents or athletes disregard this information claiming they didn't know.

Nothing is more disheartening when cleaning the facility to find shoe prints on furniture, rubbish or food left on the ground or the place left in a real mess. It doesn't happen at home so why let your kids jump on the couch or spill food everywhere? 

It's pretty disrespectful.

Whilst many BJJ Academy owners are typically the main coach, they also have 'normal' jobs outside of the Academy.  Not only does an Academy owner have the stressors of the BJJ school, their lives outside the academy requires attention like;

• immediate family and friends
• mortgage 
• their main job
• home maintenance

Their working week would well and truly exceed 80 hours a week.

Many Academy owners do this whilst they try to get their Academy up and running to a point where they may be able to take a wage. But this takes years as they need a consistent number members for it to be lucrative, and I'm talking over 200, even then they are probably taking a wage cut.

Whilst Academy owners want to share their passion of the sport with the local community, they never look to be a peace keeper or clean up after a child has made a mess whilst the parent/guardian could have cleaned it.

So the next time you see your main coach at the Academy, why not thank them for what they do for you or your child that trains. After all they are just trying to share their passion and make an already tough sport an enjoyable one.

Reg Peters
2nd degree black belt