WHY AFFILIATE?

Dear Martial Art School Owner –

Thank you for your interest in the Jiu Jitsu Foundation International Association (JJFIA). Our goal is to provide school owners with high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Instruction as well as resources that will help your school grow.

I’d like to share with you the story of how we became one of San Diego’s most successful Jiu-Jitsu Schools.

As a lifelong martial artist, I began training Jiu Jitsu with no expectations of becoming an instructor and couldn’t even imagine running my own school. As time went by, my love for BJJ deepened, and I began teaching classes without much guidance on how to grow beyond that.

It took several years of traveling, teaching and competing until I found the right place to settle and build a school with the values Gabi and I believe in.

We currently live in SD, which is the “Mecca” of Jiu-Jitsu. Together with Gabi (my wife and partner), we own and operate the Jiu-Jitsu Foundation. We are one of the areas most successful schools, and we didn’t get there by accident…

When I moved to the US, I was told not to go to California, especially southern Cali, which would be impossible for me to succeed since there were already several established big names in the market. 

I thought to myself, I’ve already traveled all over the world trying to find the right place to settle and open my own school, why should I not go there and see it for myself.

Fast forward 10 years in San Diego and 7 years running a school we now have over 300 active members!

It didn’t happen overnight! We had a HUGE learning curve in the beginning, and we are still actively researching and developing systems to improve our school.

The way I see it is simple, I had to put the same effort as I did to become a black belt and high-level competitor on the business. We had no clue on how to sell a membership or answer the phone, and for a while, we worked in several positions at the school such as front desk receptionist, janitor, head instructor, office manager (sales), taught the orientation classes, handyman.. and the list goes on.

This was actually great for us to learn the process of how to operate each individual position so we could teach people how to cover my position. Then we could focus on the next one and not lose focus on the big picture.

Now, we have a group of team members covering most of these positions. This allows me to focus on what I most love doing: teaching classes and developing projects such as, creating curriculum, recording techniques, improving our systems and finding ways on how we can become a better school.

This leads me to my next point: what is the JJFIA and what do we do?

We want to have a new approach to what an association is and how it can help its associates grow their schools, improve their classes and provide a better service for their students.

JJFIA focuses on 3 areas: