From World Champion to Gym Owner: The Story Behind Fit and Fight Gym

Lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels are omitted because the source recording is not diarised; quotes attributed elsewhere on this page were verified against context.

I want to become world champion twice. I defeated it. As soon as I was ready, I opened it right away. And the first thing I was thinking, it's kids, helping them, mentality, courage. Is your goal to grow to multiple gyms, want one bigger gym? What's up? Here we are with another episode in Chicago today. And we're at the Fit and Fight Club, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, and Wrestling all-in-one. Can't wait to check out what this place is all about. But I'm not alone today. For the record here, I got Brian.

What's going on, guys? Head of Marketing for Gymdesk, who's going to join me on today's class. What are we doing today? We're doing wrestling today. Were you expected to do wrestling? No, I was not expected to do wrestling. All right. I don't know how to feel about this. So, have you ever done wrestling? High school. In high school. In high school, I did. It's been a long time. Well, it's going to be a new experience for us both. So, looking forward to it. Let's go check it out.

Let's go. Alex, how you doing? Nice to meet you. We're going to sign ourselves up on Gymdesk. On Gymdesk right now. Hey, my name is Artur Gassanov. I'm a CEO of Fit and Fight Gym. I'm a Muay Thai world champion. And everybody, welcome to Fit and Fight. Well, after a little bit of a mix-up, we actually found a little Muay Thai class that we're going to jump into instead. Let's do it. You feel better about it? You feel relief? I don't know. I don't know. How you feeling right now, buddy?

I'm sorry. That's a warm-up, I think. We just finished my first Muay Thai class in my life here at Fit and Fight in Chicago. I loved it. It was fun. It reminded me of Taekwondo when I was a kid. But way more hands. I loved the way you trained. Like, if you would come like 10 years earlier, maybe you could fight more and more. You still have a good energy, man. I can tell it. And you have some background, yeah. Yeah. It's a set, yeah. We'd love to know more about what inspired your gym.

I guess, first, where are you from? I'm from Dagestan. So, like, everybody, maybe who's watching, they know. It's like Khabib Nurmagomedo is one of the undefeated fighters. So, I'm from there. So, I moved to US in 2007. So, when I became world champion twice, I defeated. And then, that's how I moved to US. I was trying to find something new for my life and something. That's how we moved with my girlfriend that time. Yeah. And then, we're married. We moved to here. And my dream was always, because I've been doing Muay Thai, like, boxing, Muay Thai, boxing.

Since I was, like, five. Oh, wow. And I finished my career at 19 years old. So, I've been fighting, like, I did 25 pro fights. And I lost five of them, maybe. I don't remember exactly how many fights I lost. Around five. And then, a lot of amateur fights. Like, around 100 fights. And that's how I moved here. And then, because my dad, my uncles. I have two uncles who's, like, one of the best fighters, best coaches, actually, in Russia. And that's how I, they inspired me to be coached since I was young.

So, my sibling brother, also coached. And also, he's a world champion. And he's a world champion in amateur. And I'm a world champion and professional. Okay. So, that's inspired me from beginning to be coached. My uncles, my dad. And I was dreaming. One day, I'm going to open the gym. And help the people who want to fight. Who need some kind of other goals. And I'm going to help. This was the reason to open the gym. So, your original inspiration is, I want to spread Muay Thai.

Yeah. And get people into the, it's okay to call it a sport? Or is it more of an art? What do you consider Muay Thai? I would call it like art, yeah. Okay. It's a martial art. Yeah. Especially Muay Thai, like one of the best arts, I would say, for me. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not super familiar with that side of the world. And to know that Muay Thai is, it's global, right? Yeah. It's everywhere. And so, your original idea was, I want to open up a school for Muay Thai.

And then, it morphed into, you guys have so many disciplines here. Yeah. That's how I started. We started only Muay Thai at the beginning. And then, we opened the gym. And we ran in the gym. So, it was like martial arts school, like Taekwondo school. Yeah. And then, we find like, they have some hours that are available. Because after COVID, at that time, it was like four years ago, it was hard for those gyms because a lot of gyms closed. And then, these guys survived, but like, they had some rooms that are available like that.

And then, through my friends, I found out they have some hours. They can give it to some gyms, some people. That's how I started with my community, with my friends' kids. My friends started training. And after six months, we found out this place is too small. And we're ready to open and to go another level. And that's how we start. And from the beginning, like, before I opened a gym, like three, four years before I started opening a gym and started doing this business, I was thinking to have something I got.

Because I watch a lot of videos about marketing, about softwares. So, I found out that the best thing, first thing you have to do, have a good software. So, you can collect the money from the people. Yeah. How are you going to, because the old system with the paper and the pen, it's hard. Like, some people, they lay, they don't come. And I said, if I want to be successful in this business, I have to have some software. And I had some friend who has a gym.

And somehow, they used to also have some, like, through the bank, not, like, software. Yeah. I think they're still using the same. I don't know why they don't use the, and then. Just for payments, maybe. Yeah, yeah. And then they told me, hey, there's some company. As soon as I opened here, this place, like, maybe one month after, I was looking for that. I was asking people, Colin, anything about that. And that's how they recommend me, my studio. I'm good. I'm okay to start. At that time, my studio was good.

I worked almost two years with them. More than two years. Yeah. And then, it started bothering me. One day, I'm like, we need to do something. It takes some time to download, especially to load this process. Just go back with the profile. It takes, like, those, like, 10 seconds, 5 seconds, maybe, 3 seconds. And it's like, you bother. And then, you know, one day, we talked, when I hired, like, first month, Dimitri, he said, I don't know, somehow, you just check on YouTube or somewhere. You find out doing this.

I said, let's see. And then, soon I opened it, right away, I saw the interface. First interface, got. And then, when I click forward, back, and go fast, I said, bro, this is the one we need. And let's see more deep. And then, I started analyzing on this stuff. I said, why not? Let's go. The problem was, like, to move those. Yeah. And with this, even with this, just thanks for Alex and for your team. It was easier to move them from my studio. And then, I tried, by the way, I tried another software before we moved to Jimdesk.

I figured, which one is, like, main ones? Like, my studio, and then. A big one? Like, a MindBody? I'm seeing, like, Spark. Oh, Spark, yeah. Spark. Yeah. It's, like, it's too much option. Not simple. Too much things, like, even to sign up, you have to process, like, maybe you guys know better than you guys analyzed already. And I didn't like it. I tried to move there, and then I canceled the membership, like, after two months. And then, I went to Jimdesk. And I'm very happy with Jimdesk.

Yeah, and how long have you been with us now? From October. Okay. Something September, October we started. And then, I love it. It's not advertised. I'm really honest, like, we were happy with Dimitri. You can tell by Dimitri. You can tell by my face. By my always happy work with Jimdesk. Sit down, analyze. Need some to do, like I told you, some things we can maybe improve. But rather than that, everything is good. So, this is a little story about my gym and our stuff and what's going on in our gym.

Awesome. If you could think about how you would help yourself when you were first starting, what advice would you give yourself if you wanted to start a gym next month, knowing what you know now? First of all, start with the Jimdesk. 100%. Like I said, at the beginning, remember I told you, first thing I was looking for, software or something. I don't know, like, it calls even software. Like, I've been calling, like, some different names to find something that's going to start, like, the way I did it.

First thing, you have to focus on the payments. Like, how are you going to collect the money? That made me, like, it helped me to do, to improve, to get more money in processing these payments. That's what I would suggest to myself. But I would suggest myself for sure that Jimdesk. And research. That's what I would say to myself. Research. Look at more. Keep looking. Because I was busy, you know, I was doing another job, Jim, and also that was so hard. I have a big family.

But that's what I would suggest myself. Jimdesk and keep research on this. Yeah. You guys have done an incredible job here. You have a huge space that you're already outgrowing. Yeah, yeah. You have multiple classes in different disciplines. Lots of kids. You know, that's not all gyms focus on kids. And I think that's probably a, that's a big opportunity that they can take advantage of. Because the kids got to be paying the bills, a big part of what you guys do. You know, and you're helping them when they're small and you can help mold them into champions.

Yeah. That's our goal. To be honest, the beginning was started with like 10 kids, maybe from my friends' kids, my friends' kids. That's how we started. And that's where I, like, before I had opened, so how long? Almost 14 years. I live here and I didn't open a gym yet. I was doing some different jobs, trying to work on other stuff in my life. As soon as I was ready, I opened it right away. And the first thing I was thinking, it's kids, helping them, mentality, those, I don't know, courage, discipline, confidence.

Mostly, like, kids, especially during this time with the phone and this stuff. So I see my friends, my kids, even my kids, holding the phone. Yeah. How are they going to survive if tomorrow is going to be something happening? I don't know, like, you have to help defend your family. And that's what I thought, like, because the way I grew up, the way we grew up, it was different time. And see, even you, really, right now, like, you're almost 50 and you're hitting, like, 25 years old.

Yes. See, because you have background. So that's why I was thinking, like, as much as I can, as much as I can, I want to be useful for the people. So people can, and you know how many people they come in these three years, like, three and a half years, people come in and appreciate me. Hey, I see that my kid, maybe he's not champion. Maybe he didn't beat anyone. At least he is. He has a self-defense now, he has more confidence, more just a goal.

I don't have a goal to make a champion. If it's goals, it's okay. If this guy, this kid want to be, like, champion, he want to compete, we're here, we help you. I can do it because our champion, my friends, I know this stuff, and we already made many champions, like wrestling, like jujitsu already, Muay Thai. Most kids, they come just, most parents, they want to teach them self-defense and all this stuff, and we help a lot of people already. And I'm happy for that. That's my goal first, to help people, not to be champions.

It's not our goal. Because a lot of gyms, they want to, some gyms here in Chicago, they just focus on the tournaments, and they just focus on the people to compete, to make UC champions or UC fighters. And MMA fighters, we're not focusing on that. We're here to help. We want to do this, but most of our goal is to help people. Help. That's the goal. Maybe God see that, and helping us to, like, almost full, and then we need more gyms to go to the next level.

And we hope it's going to work, inshallah. Yeah, it feels like you guys are on the way, for sure. And I think from where your heart is and how you're approaching the business, I think it's very inspirational. And it's a very nice goal that you have. And it makes sense, too, if you just think about from a business perspective, the more you can reach out and help build confidence in your students, then you're achieving your success. And the business will, because, like, for example, we're computer guys, right?

Yeah. We can't, we're not trying to win championships. We want to have a good workout, maybe have a good self-defense. Yeah. And that's where it is. And, yeah, I think this is a really good approach to what you're doing. And is your goal to grow to multiple gyms, or you just want one bigger gym? I would love, yeah, a lot of people approach us to do, I would say, franchise, those things. When you do this, I'm not going to be able to control all gyms. Yeah.

When you have multiple gyms. And I want to keep this right now, first, focused on my team. And that's why I'm trying, maybe, open something around here so I can work on, like, maybe two gyms or one big gym. Unfortunately, I love this place that I open. And I hope I'm going to keep this place for all my life. But still, we need another place, like, so we can have, maybe, move some disciplines to another place so we can work. It's too little. It looks, like, big, but because we have, like, same time, couple, like, disciplines, same time.

At the beginning, we didn't want to, we didn't even plan to open MMA classes. Yeah. So, we started MMA, like, six, seven months. So, we're at full. Like, it's a whole more, like, 40 students training. Today is, like, not much. But sometimes, like, they train here. There's no space even here. So, right now, after Ramadan, people, like, start, starting coming back. So, I hope we're going to open something and improve it. But I'm not planning to open, multiply it right now. I'm not ready for that.

Yeah. It doesn't need time. So, we need, I want to, I don't want to just make money. Yeah. I'm not looking only money. I'm looking, like I said, to help people, not just money. Money, if it comes, it's okay. They will come. When you focus on your job, on your goal, they will come. So, I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about first team. So, I make sure my coaches, the right people, my team is the right people. And then, we can go. That's what I'm looking for.

Yeah. We're grateful for your business. Thank you so much for asking us today. It's a pleasure. My pleasure to see you. My owner, like, I hope we'll see you more. Yeah. Every time you're in Chicago. Yeah. Come. I would love to. Next time, we'll go and drink tea. That sounds like a plan, man. Thank you, Alex. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I just want to invite you to our gym. We have Muay Thai discipline, MMA, Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, and more. And if you're interested, join us. And we're here to help you with any goals you have. And let's fight, train hard.