Over 30 years in martial arts, Coach Rodney has watched the same pattern play out dozens of times.
A talented kid starts young. They train five days a week. They win competitions. Their parents are proud, their coaches are proud, everyone's excited. Then somewhere around 13 or 14, it happens — they're done. Burned out. They quit, and they never come back.
You see it in every sport. Swimming is the most obvious example — how many elite junior swimmers are still competing in their 20s? The ones who burn brightest earliest often burn out first. The ones who build slowly, who never fall out of love with the sport, who train because they genuinely want to — those are the ones still on the mat decades later.
Rodney trained once a week when he started at 12. Once a week. When he finished school and had more time, he naturally upped it to five times a week — because by then he wanted to, not because someone made him. The kids who were training five days a week while he was training one? Many of them had quit by the time he was competing at black belt level.
He went on to win the Pan Pacific Championships twice, compete in Japan professionally, and qualify for the ADCC World Championships — the most prestigious submission wrestling event on the planet. None of that came from burning out as a teenager. It came from building a genuine love of the sport over time.
That's the philosophy behind our programme. Two quality sessions a week, taught properly, will build a better foundation than five rushed sessions where technique gets lost in the volume. It keeps jiu-jitsu special. It keeps it something your child looks forward to, not something they're exhausted by.
We don't run classes in school holidays for the same reason — rest matters. It gives kids time to be kids, to miss training a little, and to come back fresh and keen in the new term.
We're not trying to maximise how many hours your child spends in our gym. We're trying to maximise how many years they spend in jiu-jitsu. Those are very different goals.
If you're looking for a programme that will have your child training every day of the week — there are plenty of options in the Shire for that. If you want your child to still be training at 25, we'd love to meet them.
