Thoughts on training at more than one facility

Anyone train at more than one facility? I absolutely love the gym I train at. Close to my house, dedicated people, belts of all levels, super cool and friendly people. Plus its where my kids go as well. The only issue I have is that my classes are always at night starting at either 8pm or 845pm depending on the day. Sometimes its a real PITA to work all day, then go home and take care of the fam, and THEN get enough energy to train for 2 hours. There are other local facilities that offer classes during the day that I could attend. Thoughts??

 

Guess I'm pretty lucky. I train at 2 places. My home gym and an affiliated gym run by my close bud. It's great- one gym is very established and another one is getting bigger and better by the day due to my bud and his solid blue belt students. I live by a big city so I'm sure that helps.

 

Two seperate gyms for me, but they are only about 10 miles apart, so people from both places know each other.

 

I wish large cities could have some sort of "trainpass" management company. You pay a flat fee to the management company, they handle training insurance, you can go to any participating academy, they get a slice of the fee based on attendance. There has to be a more economical way to train multiple places than just mat fees or paying full memberships to two places you'll only go part time

 

It's very expensive. You need to make sure both places are cool with it.

That being said, the situation you described is one of those where you might get some benefit out of it.

 

I drive down to San Diego to train with Atos team once a month. It's boring to train with the same people who know your game day in and day out.

 

I used to trian at two different BJJ academies, one in Baltimore that I started at, and one in Arlington that was more competition oriented. Eventually I became a full time member at the latter. Currently I box in Maryland, and still train BJJ in Va. I also stopped by a judo club in MD, but didn't like it very much

 

I do, if you count my BJJ and judo clubs.

I don't know how I'd feel about asking for BJJ, even if I wanted to. It's practically encouraged in judo, but seems like a mixed bag for BJJ.

I was wondering what happened with that.

What didn't you like about it?

 

Just train wherever is best for you. You don't owe any gym or person any loyalty, or even an explanation. You pay them to train you; it's a transaction - they're not doing you a favor.

 

BJJ is so weird like that. Like a jealous lover. Judoka seem more open to sharing and cross training at different locations.

 

bjj is so funny in this. i dont believe in loyalty to a team but to a person. alot of people will end up at different places then they started and thats perfectly fine.

i recently started travelling between 2 countries to pursue my dream of opening my own gym in 2/3 years.

i would always let people train regardless where they are from

i train at 4 places or so here

 

I train at 2 gyms.

It's the way to go. Constant feedback from different viewpoints and training experiences.

If anyone discourages cross training... find a new main gym. You aren't property.

 

My last coach was a bit funny about it and said whenever I enter competitions I had to put that club down as my home club. Obviously I would have done that anyway but my new coach encourages it. You have to think about what's best for you, if it upsets them then fuck them; it's your life and training with different guys helps you tremendously.

I'm loyal as hell to my club and travel over an hour and a half from work most nights because it's a great club so it pissed me off a little to have it inferred that I wasn't supporting the club.

 

Prob going to be tuff. Is there any open mats in your area?

 

We seemingly always have people from other judo clubs visiting, and I haven't asked yet, but I'm sure my sensei wouldn't give a shit if I went to another club just to get work against other guys.

I don't know how my current BJJ instructor would take me visiting another BJJ club, however. He seems like he's cool, but my old instructor didn't like us working with any school that wasn't an affiliate of his, so I'm kinda just thinking of not training anywhere else unless he brings it up.

 

not that I know of. Really what I am hoping to find is some place that lets me train once or twice a week during the day. Im 43 years old and am focused only on making my jits better. My thought process is similar to what someone else posted here. Learning from different people.

 

As long as you are open with both instructors and neither has a problem with it, I don't see the issue. Just be clear with them as to your reasons for training both places and also try to be clear about which you consider to be your home school for promotion/competition. I trained at a different school for a while because of pretty much the exact same issue (I could really only make morning/noon classes consistently and the one gym only has night classes).

 

Completely understand. It might get pricey and I would for sure be front with your current gym. It might get hairy though if you choose to compete. Good Luck it's a tuff situation.

 

I do find it interesting that it seems that BJJ has a bit of a "loyal to your school" only culture.

Yet I definitely think $ is part of it. They don't want to lose out on paying customers/students training at other gyms.

I personally have no issue visiting other schools for open mat or for a class or two but I consistently go back to mine, I chose it because I like the atmosphere