When I first opened up Immortals, I told myself that I wanted to create the most elite competition team in the world. My instructor, John Danaher, had done the same, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. But as time went by, more and more I realized that this type of thinking meant that I was only catering to 0.001% of the population. Most people don't want to compete. Most people don't want to become world champions.
I still love competing, and I still love training competitors. But I've taken a strong shift to make sure that everybody is getting an equal amount of attention. You can change people's lives through Jiu Jitsu in many, many ways, and it doesn't have to just be by making them compete. I know people who have stopped drinking because of Jiu Jitsu, people who have lost over 50 pounds, and people who have completely changed their lives.
My goal is still to create competitors, but I've put so much more energy into just making people's lives better, and this has had a dramatic effect on the growth of the gym.
When I run the kids class, I don't just try to promote skill development anymore. I try to promote integrity and being a better person. In addition to the white stripes for skills, we also do blue integrity stripes now, and I see kids going out of their way to do nice things for each other.
This is the new culture that I'm trying to cultivate here.