What Makes for a Great Jiu Jitsu Gym – An Opinion from 10th Planet Airlock in Bastrop
Ask 100 jiu jitsu practitioners what makes for a great jiu jitsu gym, and you’ll get 100 completely different answers. Some of their perspectives you’ll vibe with. Others, not so much. Doesn’t make them wrong. Just means that not everyone’s perspective of a great gym is the same.
But this is ours. If you vibe with it, then 10th Planet Airlock in Bastrop might be the greatest gym in the universe (to you) 😉
Side note: Oh boy, of all the world full of vanilla topics we could have written about today, we picked something kinda SPICY! Don’t be mad, we wrote “an opinion” right there in the title. It’s our opinion. Enjoy it, we’ll take a ride together.
Here’s our take on just a few elements that make for a great jiu jitsu gym, and what we strive to be:
- Great philosophy
We think we know what it means to have a great philosophy as a gym. It’s about how you live your values. How you define and live out what is important to your organization.
A great jiu jitsu gym should be dripping with philosophy. Philosophy coming out of its ears.
No, not the self-important kind. No, we’re not modern day warriors with mean, mean pride (apologies to Rush).
We mean the kind of philosophy that SHOWS everyone who you are as an organization. Not the kind that TELLS everyone who you are.
It’s not a poster with a clever acronym about how tough you are and what values you claim to hold.
At a gym with a great philosophy, those values should be evident in everything it does. From the very top-level, most important things you do down to the tiniest details.
It should be evident in how you run your classes, how you communicate with members on a daily basis, how you honor your word, how you compete at high levels. Maybe even how you write things like this. Read on, and hopefully, this one will start to reveal itself.
2. Members-First
A truly great jiu jitsu gym is about putting the members first.
That should really be all we have to say, but to drill down a bit more… Any great jiu jitsu gym should be realistic that it’s essentially a local membership business.
Now, because of the challenging nature of what we all take on together (um, fighting each other, in case that wasn’t clear), a jiu jitsu spot does have the opportunity to be a place where people’s lives can change forever. At a martial arts school, you can redefine yourself, become physically healthy, make lifelong friends, explore challenges that change you in incredible ways.
But it’s also a business, and the members are clients of that business. They deserve great service for being a part of the gym, and that extends to some absolute essentials like:
- Injury prevention: If you train with us at 10th Planet Airlock in Bastrop, you’ll hear us consistently reiterate a fundamental piece of philosophy: Everyone in here is a teammate, and you want to always roll (spar) in a way that means your teammate can train again with you tomorrow. Don’t misunderstand this… A great gym rolls hard with each other. It’s not always a comfortable experience, but every one of our experienced members will always prioritize their training partner’s safety over “winning” a roll, a position, or finishing a submission. Full stop.
- Courtesy: Adults and kids training jiu jitsu at a great gym should be treated with respect. There are rules to keep things safe and respectful to each other and to make sure coaches can do their jobs, and those rules are explained patiently and appropriately to members. You aren’t “punished” for making mistakes. You may be teased, though. That’s a part of growing with the sport as well. No one is perfect.
- Hygiene: A great gym has high standards for hygiene for members and cleanliness of the space. Members should be expected to be showing up clean and infection-free, and coaches have the job of making sure everyone is doing their part to keep nasty things like Staph from spreading. Mats should be cleaned carefully and regularly to avoid the same. It’s part of what a jiu jitsu membership pays for because it’s part of your safety to train.
3. Community
We can’t say enough about how a great gym provides a great community. Because of the intense nature of this sport, we all place a great deal of trust in one another.
That’s what leads to making perhaps some of the most meaningful friendships of your life, with a seriously diverse set of people from all backgrounds, with all types of jobs and interests, all kinds of unique experiences.
At a great jiu jitsu gym, you’ll see true friendships, stronger than you might think. And you shouldn’t see clique-ish behavior. In this sport, people actually get to know each other. Great jiu jitsu coaches really get to know the members, get to know their approach to jiu jitsu, what motivates them and how to help them achieve their goals.
And the community extends beyond the gym doors. A great BJJ gym should be a part of the local community, engaging in the story of the town. As for us, we love Bastrop, and we’ve been proud to be a part of the Bastrop, TX community since 2023.
One more thing, and it’s something we are so proud of at 10th Planet Airlock, it’s that “10th Planet” part of our name. A great jiu jitsu gym has the chance to be a part of a global community of jiu jitsu practitioners.
Ours is with our affiliation to the 10th Planet network of gyms all over the world. Our members have the chance to travel and train and connect with other 10th Planet gyms, and we have the chance to be equally welcoming to our 10P visitors who stop by from all over the world.
When the community gets a chance to be both local and global, some special things happen.
4. Challenge
It might sound obvious, but a great jiu jitsu gym should challenge everyone, from the newest student to the most experienced coaches. You should see a lot of rolling. A lot of tapping out. A lot of learning from everyone.
Improvement should be evident in every member. Because every member should be getting feedback from coaches about what they need to work on, and they should have the chance to always be asking coaches for help. Challenge is scalable to meet you where you’re at.
But improvement doesn’t stop at any level. Even the most experienced black belt at the gym should be cross-training with other gyms, getting their own butt kicked every now and then, competing and failing. Because when they stop improving, everyone will stop improving.
5. Evolving
This one is tricky to achieve for some gyms. As for 10th Planet Airlock in Bastrop, we know we’ve been CONSTANTLY evolving since we opened our doors in 2023.
A great gym that seeks growth should be growing what it offers for the members. The gym doesn’t exist to make the owner rich (lol at that notion). A great gym owner, in fact, should almost be a steward of the growth of the gym, always putting more back into the gym and its offerings for members.
New classes, new disciplines (like Muay Thai and Kickboxing), new class times, better equipment, more coaches bringing more perspectives, and a deeper knowledge of the sport.
Evolution in a jiu jitsu gym should be evident to everyone. There is no such thing as “good enough.” The leaders of the gym should always be seeking to make things better and better. It’s not easy, it’s not perfect, but it’s required.
6. Variety
At a great jiu jitsu gym, you should seek great variety in rolling partners, in experience levels, in challenge. We’re proud of our variety of classes, of coaches, of options. There should be something for everyone.
There should be a strong kids jiu jitsu program, a strong women’s jiu jitsu program, options for brand new beginners and highly experienced practitioners.
If variety is the spice of life, it should play a role in a great jiu jitsu gym too.
7. Embracing Failure
Saving the best (and most challenging) for last, huh?
A great jiu jitsu gym embraces failure for everyone, all the way to the top. There is simply no growth without failure.
We all need to learn to laugh at ourselves more, be willing to fail while trying to learn new things, and find a creative spark within us. In the safe environment of a great jiu jitsu gym, failure is like fuel for growth.
Whether you’re failing at a competition, failing at a specific move, or (how jiu jitsu feels at first) failing at simply everything you try, everyone around you is failing, too.
You can tell a lot about a jiu jitsu gym by how they treat failure. Find one that treats it right. Failure is pre-greatness.
Now, if you’ll indulge us, check back in with point #1. We’re all innately gifted with the ability to assess quality and judge what is right and wrong for ourselves. Don’t forget to hold a high standard for your jiu jitsu gym.
And yea, if we sound like we might be the greatest gym in the world (to you), then come see us at 10th Planet Airlock in Bastrop, TX. Maybe we really are. We think so.
See you in class.
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