Taking over a gym

[McGlinko]

I've been training under my coach for 5 years now and won a few mma tournaments, but i done this without his coaching as he is rarely there and gets myself or the other dedicated students to take the classes. We have just moved location and he hasn't really helped we are considering offering to take it off his hands and run the gym as a beginners mma gym. While we train we will still check other gyms out for more drills to use and good techniques, as we are friendly with other gyms but they are just too far away for regular training. In my location there is many young people looking to go and the students from the other gym have all said they are willing to stay and train even without the coach. The rent is 400 pound a month and electric is cheap as well. I myself am a qualified personal trainer and booked in for doing a level 4 nutrition and mma coaching qualification.
We have bags, mats, an 18foot cage, pads, spare gloves, and loads of weights.
Our coach has seemed to just have lost the passion and advice on running this would be great help from both a coaching and business end.

 

[makedansure]

Good luck on your endeavor! I took over a boxing gym after the head coach left. I didn't have to pay as the gym was funded through our city. A couple things that would be good for a gym:

1. establish a set of rules that cannot be broken. Whether it's no cursing, or a general attitude to sparring. The gym I go to now has a few rules but only one that is very strictly enforced, and that is for other coaches to NEVER advise or coach another's fighters. Another good one for the boxing gym is making it mandatory to have your mouth guard / headgear to spar, though I've broken that a few times.

2. It's best if you have hierarchy. You need to have a leader in the gym - I'm assuming that's you. I tried this bullshit thing where I wanted to run the advanced session with two parents, but it didn't work out because they had a different style. You need to establish hierarchy with one boss. Not saying it's impossible to have two heads or even three, but I didn't have anyone that had my level of experience and I should've just taken the helm.

That's about it. Running a gym can be a headache, but I enjoyed my time. Good luck!

 

[dembones22]

No one take's over gym's like Chong Li . And no, he aint cleaning no goddamn matts.