Does mixing belts in a gym tend to create drama?

[geezer]

From how you explain it, it sounds as if you were a class and you didn't advertise yourself as a school. If you advertised as a school then what was the name of your Wing Chun School?

We called our school Ving Tsun Arizona (you can still see the old web address in my signature below). About a year ago, I finally let that go. Now I just coach a couple of guys semi-privately, strictly word of mouth.

Anyway, we never had any conflict with the boxing classes. Barely saw them. We just used the studio space for an hour and a half, three nights a week, plus Saturday Wing Chun and Escrima classes at a nearby park ...and a few other venues over about a dozen years.

If you were really trying to make your living off teaching full time, I can see how you could have problems. But that was never my objective.

 

[ap Oweyn]

I think part of this is that it was the same instructors. I would most likely be trying to find an upper belt in BJJ to run that class at my school.

I do think the BJJ folks I've met in person have been respectful of my TKD training. Most people online are not. I don't know how much of that is BJJ folks vs. online folks.

Well yeah, it's exactly that, isn't it.

Still, overall, the idea is sound. Attitude generally flows from the top. If the person teaching each style can respect the contributions of the other..

I didn't say it the first time around, and should have: I've seen this run the other way around as well. Where BJJ/MMA are simply dismissed as mere "cagefighters" who've missed the point of martial arts entirely. An attitude that--to be clear--I think is absolute nonsense. Despite having zero interest in BJJ myself.

The advantage of two styles taught side by side is the crossover student. If you have examples of folks who see the value in both programs of study, that tends to set a tone too. In my experience, anyway.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Instead, I just rented space at a neighborhood boxing gym to run my Wing Chun class. I paid rent, got a key, paid my own insurance, association dues, etc. and ran my own classes during my allotted time. We had nothing to do with the boxing and grappling classes there. So, even though we were a very small group, I'd say we were a separate "school".

By your description, I assume you would call the first set up "having a class at your gym" and the second situation "running a school at your gym". In my own experience, the second set up worked a whole lot better for everyone involved. I continued that class for several years until the pandemic shut everybody down and I decided to pretty much retire from teaching publicly.

This set up sounds like "Rented space" which is not the same as starting a gym where you are providing training for 2 different systems as the OP described. It sounds more like how some gyms will rent the time slot that aren't being used. For example, If I own a gym that does Jow Ga from 5pm to 8pm, Then I would rent out the time morning and afternoon time slots. In this scenario I'm not adding another system to my own program.

If I was starting a gym where I wanted to provide 2 different systems in which students can train in, then I would want both of those systems to be under the same name. I would want to have enough space where two systems could train during, the same time slot but in a different part of the gym. This way I can offer services that in a way that would benefit both systems so that one doesn't cannibalize the other. The gym would be able to also get both of the classes on the same page and with the same customer standards on martial arts services provided to the gym. Customer standards and operating standards are things I would want to have some say over. If you say you are going to have class, then either you or an instructor from your system will need to show up. If another person from the system is not available then martial arts time can then turn into conditioning time in which another training can train students through some conditioning exercises for that day, be it strength training or cardio.

I would want this type of arrangement so that I lower my legal risk, being that whatever happens in those classes on "your property" will have the potential to come back and affect you in a negative way. If I'm the one offering two systems, then I can't have instructors having their own sets of guidelines that may increase my risk as the owner or put my gym in a negative light because some martial arts school under my roof believed that abusing students equate to making them tough. I also wouldn't want some outside school to be cannibalizing gym membership by actively trying to "take customers from me." to benefit only them.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Where BJJ/MMA are simply dismissed as mere "cagefighters" who've missed the point of martial arts entirely. An attitude that--to be clear--I think is absolute nonsense. Despite having zero interest in BJJ myself.

This happens in environments where two systems do not interact. When System A competes against System B, it becomes difficult to keep a negative view of the opposing system. When both individuals train under the same gym name, it becomes difficult to keep negative perspectives, and there's a natural desire to support each other's efforts.

 

[geezer]

I also wouldn't want some outside school to be cannibalizing gym membership by actively trying to "take customers from me." to benefit only them.

I agree. Cannibalism is bad.

 

[HighKick]

Might seem like a silly question, but it's one that I think might be worth bringing up. Currently I'm 30 minutes away from my BJJ gym and 30 hours away from my TKD gym. There isn't much in the way of martial arts in my current town. I'd like to build a TKD gym here, also looking at bringing BJJ here. I'm thinking about the viability of both being under one roof.

One worry I have is that the faster black belts on the TKD side might be looked down on by the BJJ side and create some tension between the two. I love both arts. I wouldn't want to create a place where there's disrespect or bullying between the classes.

Have you been in a gym where there are wildly different ranking systems in the different classes? Did that create any drama? How were the tensions resolved?

Yes.
At one of our Dojangs we also teach Kali. Completely different animal with little a (3) belt system and longer time to BB. As far as the training goes, TKD and Kali never interact. The people who train in both styles understand the belt systems. The (few) people who are chasing rank either don't stay around very long, or stay with TKD.

Think of it this way. You or me or anyone else on the forum did not create the standard belt system for the various styles. They were created a long time ago, over time, based on the training and curriculum. Of course over time, some people have changed the belt system for their own purposes, but that would be an outlier and I would not give it much weight. As long as each style is kept as a singular entity and not mixed together, I see no issue. Honor each style as its own.

I years past, I sublet my space out to other MA's instructors, Aerobics, gymnastics, and as venue space.
Money is money.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I years past, I sublet my space out to other MA's instructors, Aerobics, gymnastics, and as venue space.
Money is money.

I think some martial school owners is have a difficult time with taking on a business perspective instead of an instructor perspective.

 

[ap Oweyn]

This happens in environments where two systems do not interact. When System A competes against System B, it becomes difficult to keep a negative view of the opposing system. When both individuals train under the same gym name, it becomes difficult to keep negative perspectives, and there's a natural desire to support each other's efforts.

By "interact," do you mean "compete"? You used both words, so I'm trying to tease that out.

I think it happens less in situations where people interact, whether styles do or not. In my example (and High Kick's too, as it happens), there's a combination of taekwondo and FMA. There wasn't disrespect between those two "channels" because people crossed over. Not because the styles competed. Kickers gonna kick and stickers gonna stick.

I'm being slightly facetious. We did sometimes have the two groups come together to train empty hand sparring, which was a fun but not frequent situation. But people interacting are capable of respecting one another's thought processes and choices, regardless of whether the styles involved compete with one another.

I think that's true even without training under the same gym name. That's part of why the internet is so fraught. The perceived distance between people "permits" them to interact with one another in ways they wouldn't in person. (A bit like road rage in a way.) A shared gym is an obvious way to put people within close enough proximity for sustained enough a timeline that they come to understand and respect one another. But it's certainly not the only way.

Mostly it comes down to time and the absence of a deep commitment to being oppositional.

 

[JowGaWolf]

By "interact," do you mean "compete"? You used both words, so I'm trying to tease that out.

Interact meaning talk to each other, spar with each other or have a healthy gym relationship with each other that isn't summed up as "that group over there." Competing is fine rules of the completion can be set. For example, The rule can be defend against the take down. Bjj has 1 minute to take TKD down. Tkd has to survive for a minute. If TKD takes down BJJ without BJJ being able to take control then then TKD gets bonus points. IF BJJ is able to counter TKD strikes and get a take down then BJJ gets bonus points create rules where TKD can only use TKD BJJ can only use BJJ. This will help both to gain valuable insight about their system and about which techniques are better suited for a particular scenario.

Keep in mind that the focus should be on learning and not winning. It may be necessary to restrict the effort to new techniques and not the ones that they already know how to do. All of that is up to the instructors. The spirit of the competition should be to provide a worthy opponent in which to train one's skills. At the end discuss the successes and failures and give tips. Tips don't have to be "you should do this" it could be, when attack 1 happens watch for, or be aware of what they are trying to accomplish or set up.

Alot of times it could be as talking to each other about strategies and responses. One thing my sparring partner learn from me is to watch how I react. This is something I've shared with him. Now he uses it against me and now I have to keep in mind that he's taking note of my reactions to plan his attack. So now I have to be more stealthy about my approach. It's forcing me to be better and forcing me to rethink Jow Ga strategies that I used to depend on. Most of this is discussed outside of sparring.

Two nights ago, I told him that I don't like what he's telling me and that's probably because what he is saying is true. We learn from each other like that even though we are using different fighting systems.

 

[ap Oweyn]

Interact meaning talk to each other, spar with each other or have a healthy gym relationship with each other that isn't summed up as "that group over there." Competing is fine rules of the completion can be set. For example, The rule can be defend against the take down. Bjj has 1 minute to take TKD down. Tkd has to survive for a minute. If TKD takes down BJJ without BJJ being able to take control then then TKD gets bonus points. IF BJJ is able to counter TKD strikes and get a take down then BJJ gets bonus points create rules where TKD can only use TKD BJJ can only use BJJ. This will help both to gain valuable insight about their system and about which techniques are better suited for a particular scenario.

Keep in mind that the focus should be on learning and not winning. It may be necessary to restrict the effort to new techniques and not the ones that they already know how to do. All of that is up to the instructors. The spirit of the competition should be to provide a worthy opponent in which to train one's skills. At the end discuss the successes and failures and give tips. Tips don't have to be "you should do this" it could be, when attack 1 happens watch for, or be aware of what they are trying to accomplish or set up.

Alot of times it could be as talking to each other about strategies and responses. One thing my sparring partner learn from me is to watch how I react. This is something I've shared with him. Now he uses it against me and now I have to keep in mind that he's taking note of my reactions to plan his attack. So now I have to be more stealthy about my approach. It's forcing me to be better and forcing me to rethink Jow Ga strategies that I used to depend on. Most of this is discussed outside of sparring.

Two nights ago, I told him that I don't like what he's telling me and that's probably because what he is saying is true. We learn from each other like that even though we are using different fighting systems.

Yeah, I don't think we're arguing. Agree with this wholeheartedly.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I think that's true even without training under the same gym name.

I think this as well so long as the other school has their place and my school has a place thst is only Jow Ga. Much of that requires school leaders to have a high level of trust and friendship to help students to be good with what they do. Much of the tone has to be set by the school leaders to ensure that they don't get too competitive where it becomes toxic.

When my school was invited to a Sanda school to spar with their students, things at my school was toxic. This was before I became an instructor.

The two instructors had in mind that they were going to show the Sanda students how tough we were. My only focus was to defend the take down. The toxic part was that they did hard sparring with me and not the Sanda students. They later told me. "We hit you harder because we knew you could take it and we wanted to show them how tough we were." The other toxic part part was that one instructor was so disappointed in his performance that he wanted to train Sanda instead of Jow Ga. The problem wasn't the system but the practitioner who didn't understand how the Sanda students were going to attack him.

This is when the interaction gets toxic. When it becomes an issue of them vs me. Instead of focusing on skill development.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Yeah, I don't think we're arguing. Agree with this wholeheartedly.

Lol. Nope not even close lol. But training with other systems will definitely test one's ego .

 

[JowGaWolf]

A shared gym is an obvious way to put people within close enough proximity for sustained enough a timeline that they come to understand and respect one another. But it's certainly not the only way.

The last meetup was a good opportunity to interact with people from other systems. I personally enjoyed the in-person interaction. My only regret was that I had to leave earlier.

Now that I attend the first trip, I hope I'll be able to attend future meetups. Hopefully people overseas will be able to do similar events.

 

[drop bear]

Easy answer shootboxing

 

[TKD Jonsey]

About 13 years ago my TKD school covered BJJ on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They were after the black belt taekwondo class at the time. Instructor was a brown belt (Troy Davis) and the school owner was a purple belt (6th Dan Kukkiwon at the time). Lots of the TKD black belts would change after their class into BJJ gis and white belts. Never any issues. Mutual respect was shown for all.

 

[HighKick]

Might seem like a silly question, but it's one that I think might be worth bringing up. Currently I'm 30 minutes away from my BJJ gym and 30 hours away from my TKD gym. There isn't much in the way of martial arts in my current town. I'd like to build a TKD gym here, also looking at bringing BJJ here. I'm thinking about the viability of both being under one roof.

One worry I have is that the faster black belts on the TKD side might be looked down on by the BJJ side and create some tension between the two. I love both arts. I wouldn't want to create a place where there's disrespect or bullying between the classes.

Have you been in a gym where there are wildly different ranking systems in the different classes? Did that create any drama? How were the tensions resolved?

It should not as long as the narrative is controlled.

If you think of it as a business model, diversification is usually a very good thing.
In the MA's environment I think a key element is to keep the two completely separate as far as the training is concerned, and decorum is a very, very close second. Mutual respect is paramount. If the instructors cannot get along that is a Big issue. This alone should mitigate a lot of 'issue' with belting and the way each style handles promotion. Such as knowing/explaining neither way is explicitly wrong, just different for many reasons, which an instructor should be ready to explain
.
We have sublet to a Shotokan school who myself and many students cross-trained with. Occasionally a student may comment that a certain movement, block, or strike is better in one style or another (is happens both ways). This is when the instructor has to be seasoned enough to either simply agree and explain it as a difference in styles or explain why the comment is incorrect.

Over the years, we have sublet space (think time slice of a day) to a dance studio, gymnastics, Shotokan, and boxing. We have had private lessons in Kali for some time and have self-defense & SA specific class for LEO and private citizens in the security business. There were several who would cross train in the MA's and gymnastics. They tended to attract business each way so it was a win-win.

 

[KenpoMaster805]

So why dont you do both TKD and BJJ in studio so you dont have 2 studio so your student can learn TKD and BJJ at the same time

 

[drop bear]

It should not as long as the narrative is controlled.

If you think of it as a business model, diversification is usually a very good thing.
In the MA's environment I think a key element is to keep the two completely separate as far as the training is concerned, and decorum is a very, very close second. Mutual respect is paramount. If the instructors cannot get along that is a Big issue. This alone should mitigate a lot of 'issue' with belting and the way each style handles promotion. Such as knowing/explaining neither way is explicitly wrong, just different for many reasons, which an instructor should be ready to explain
.
We have sublet to a Shotokan school who myself and many students cross-trained with. Occasionally a student may comment that a certain movement, block, or strike is better in one style or another (is happens both ways). This is when the instructor has to be seasoned enough to either simply agree and explain it as a difference in styles or explain why the comment is incorrect.

Over the years, we have sublet space (think time slice of a day) to a dance studio, gymnastics, Shotokan, and boxing. We have had private lessons in Kali for some time and have self-defense & SA specific class for LEO and private citizens in the security business. There were several who would cross train in the MA's and gymnastics. They tended to attract business each way so it was a win-win.

The thing is that bjj and TKD are so different. That the styles will be fundamentally better at the very rare points they cross over.

I mean if you were in TKD class and you were for some reason escaping mount or something.

 

[HighKick]

The thing is that bjj and TKD are so different. That the styles will be fundamentally better at the very rare points they cross over.

I mean if you were in TKD class and you were for some reason escaping mount or something.

They are about as far apart as you can get, an out-fighting style and a grappling style.
I suppose you could add boxing and truly have a complete system!

The main variable however is there are several different flavors of TKD. For example, the very common but rather limited and rigid WT/KKW style, Kwan styles, ITF, and variants that add in Hapkido elements. We are Moo Duk Kwan with a heavy does of Hap, and over the years I have added limited grappling from my college wrestling experience. In a nutshell, we finish some of the one/three-steps that take a person to the ground with a finishing submission.
Good times.

 

[drop bear]

They are about as far apart as you can get, an out-fighting style and a grappling style.
I suppose you could add boxing and truly have a complete system!

The main variable however is there are several different flavors of TKD. For example, the very common but rather limited and rigid WT/KKW style, Kwan styles, ITF, and variants that add in Hapkido elements. We are Moo Duk Kwan with a heavy does of Hap, and over the years I have added limited grappling from my college wrestling experience. In a nutshell, we finish some of the one/three-steps that take a person to the ground with a finishing submission.
Good times.

But that's the thing. If a bjj adjusts your TKD submission. He is probably going to ajust it for the better