It has been one year.
One year since my coach dropped my old academy from the team association.
We have been trying to pull our broken family back together after it was torn apart by their (old academy) bad business and management practices. It used to be my sanctuary, and now I can’t even think about it without feeling sad for how many students have tried training and left with a bad taste in their mouths.
That academy was my coach’s legacy. He poured decades of dedication into making it a respectable powerhouse name in the community. They decided my coach’s teachings were out of date and threw away his curriculum in favor of teaching flashy moves to people who didn’t know the basics of self-protection. I am angry that I hear stories on the regular of bigotry, racism, and harassment going on – with the issues never getting addressed, just silenced and swept under the rug.
It took me so long to have to give up on them fixing those problems. I was one of the last hold outs to leave before coach finally dropped them from the team. I wrote a carefully worded blog post (When The Vibe Changes) when I left with the intent of getting people talking openly about things that they tried to constantly just sweep under the rug. My hope was that if people talked about things, they could have a chance to be repaired. Instead, I received manipulative messages from people who I thought had my back, trying to guilt trip me into retracting what I had written.
Many of my long term team mates who left kept silent out of respect for my coach’s name being attached to the academy still. We didn’t want to burn a bridge that was still connected to us. When we all finally started sharing stories about what was going on, my coach realized how serious everything was and that was the final straw. He doesn’t give up easily on people, but it was just too much and I was honestly concerned that it would eventually tarnish his good name in the community.
I believed in their inherent goodness and ability to be better. I figured they would eventually learn from their experiences and maybe grow out of this phase of their existence, like teenagers learning to live independently from their parents. Even a year later though the same exact type of stories on repeat are coming out of there from students and instructors alike, no lessons have been learned and no progress made.
Every person who left or was driven out was immediately demonized and scapegoated as the cause of all the problems. I witnessed the pattern for years. The first one or two I could nod along with the reasonableness, but when you’re starting to hit double digits of long term (10+ years) committed people leaving, my autistic pattern recognition starts buzzing a bit.
They didn’t care about keeping their proven instructors, because they could just replace them with someone with less experienced or who didn’t know any better and would just go along with what they wanted. Good instructors will go through a lot and let themselves be driven into the ground mentally for the sake of their students – I know several who are still recovering from being bled dry, who I wonder if they will ever even be able to step back on the mats again even just for training. When I was laid up for months after my knee surgery, I got calls and visits from old friends I hadn’t spoken with in years. Only one message from them a week or two after surgery, and they had to be prodded harshly to do that much. They made it very easy for me to leave – the students are what made it hard.
I did my very best with a ladies program to build a micro-culture of support, and shield them from the issues I was trying my best to weather, while they kept promising to “fix it”. The day they told me I couldn’t even warn my students about potential problem individuals to avoid (claiming it was character defamation), was the day I really realized that it wasn’t going to get better. I gave an ultimatum to either give me tangible results, not more words, or I was walking. My name was attached to the program and I had no real power to do anything to protect them… not that I should have had to protect them to begin with. They made their usual action of pretending to do something but no changes happened.
I started going to therapy, because I assumed I was the problem and needed outside help with my “rotten attitude” so I could just live and train in peace again. “It’s not that bad” or “but look at this one good thing” became my focus. The day I told my therapist I turned in my notice she practically did a backflip and proceeded to let me know what she really thought (but couldn’t professionally say beforehand).
There is no one person who is at fault even if there are just a few at the forefront that people can blame – a gym culture and community is the responsibility of everyone who is in a decision-making position. I thought I could make a difference and hoodwinked myself into being part of some scenarios where good people were hurt, and I have to live with that. Thankfully those people were willing to talk things out, forgive and rebuild relationships – but that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been willing to have those hard confrontations with the intent to heal.
I want them to do better and be a safe respectful training spot for everyone again – not so I can return, that ship has sailed, but so all that potential doesn’t go to waste for so many people. I can’t completely move on and forget them because the community is small, and there are still people there who I care about. Best I can do now is focus on our new academy and my new ladies program that we formed to give people an alternative option for training. We are almost 6 months into operation and it feels like coming home every time I step on that mat and together we are healing and rebuilding.