On a Tuesday afternoon, we got a call from a reporter from the San Clemente Times. I, Sensei Paulo Guillobel, was teaching my classes, so Esteban, our Program Director answered the phone.
The reporter congratulated us for winning an award again. He didn’t tell us exactly if we took first or second place, but he asked us “how do we do it?” “How do you get the award of Best Martial Arts Studio in San Clemente every year?”
Esteban answered his question by telling him a couple of things that we do here, but he didn’t tell him the REAL SECRET.
The year before when we won the best martial art school in San Clemente for the sixth time, I was the person that took the reporter’s call and when he asked me the same questions, I mentioned the real secret as the main reason for our success.
Apparently, he didn’t think much of it because he kept asking me what else we were doing at the Dojo.
So, I told him many other things we do at Guillobel Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu such as our work to provide a family-oriented environment, our focus on helping our students achieve their goals, our character development lessons, etc., and that seemed to satisfy him.
Little did he know that all these things I told him about were only possible because of the real secret that he took for granted.
Do you want to know what our real secret is?
Drum roll, please… The real secret is… EXPERIENCE.
Surprised?
Note: When I say experience, I don’t mean doing the same thing over and over for many years, I mean the consistent application of old and newfound knowledge related to our profession and observation of those results for many years.
Other martial art schools can copy everything else from us, but one thing they CAN’T is experience. Either you have it or you don’t. You can’t bypass it.
Why Experience Is The Real Secret Sauce of Guillobel Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
Imagine you need brain surgery. Would you use a new doctor with little experience that will be experimenting and gaining experience with you or a doctor that has been doing it for over 28 years successfully?
Well, I have over 28 years of experience teaching martial arts. Not practicing martial arts, teaching it. This experience reflects on how fast your family will learn martial arts and how enjoyable it will be.
I have made tons of mistakes in the past to get where I’m at today (thank God I’m not a brain surgeon), so, I won’t be using you and your family as my guinea pigs anymore. But new instructors with little experience will.
We don’t become great instructors just because we are black belts in martial arts, great instructors are made through thousands of hours of teaching.
I was fortunate to learn from many great martial arts instructors, such as Saulo and Xande Ribeiro, the Machado Family, Royler and Carlos Gracie Jr. Richard Bustillo, Dan Inosanto, Jorge Pereira, and a few others.
By doing and observing their classes I was able to learn what they were doing that was so special. I tested many things until we got to where we are today (and we are still improving every year).
So experience is the great differentiator and it has been giving us many local awards as the best martial arts school in our Area.
By the way, we won this year again. Now we have SEVEN Best Martial Art School in San Clemente awards in a row, three for the Best Kids Summer Camp, and one for the Best Customer Service.
You Might Be Interested in This Post Also
