The Only Gracie University Academy in Amsterdam: How a Cape Town Transplant Built Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Amsterdam

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.

Music playing Behind every gym, there's a story, a mission, a spark of passion that started it all This is Gymdesk Originals, real owners, real struggles, and the communities they've built from the ground up This is Gymdesk Originals, real people, and the community they've built from the ground up This is Gymdesk Originals, real players, real individuals, and the community they've built from the ground up This is Gymdesk Originals, real players, and the community they've built from the ground up All right, so I just did two classes back-to-back I started with the Gracie Combatives,

and that class was a basic class I've been doing jiu-jitsu for a while, but I got gifts to take home, which is really fun We broke down the trap and roll, and I'm used to when someone has me on mount And has their hand behind my neck, trap the foot, and, you know, basically eliminate the bases One base is already behind my neck, trap the foot, and roll I learned two new ones, which was grab the arm, reach across underneath the other arm, and then that's your anchor And then I learned the other one,

where you kind of wrap around and make sure the person's hand doesn't get crushed when you roll, or the wrist So, two gifts, but then for my son, he was at a tournament, it was probably like three months ago And the kid had his arms pacing like this on the mat He tried his best to get out of there, and he ended up exposing his back and getting choked out And afterward, I tried to coach him, and he said, hey, dad, what do I do to get out of this?

And I was like, I have no idea, son, sorry Like, I didn't have good advice And today we learned a move, and I'm so excited to go back to tell my son And when the hands are this way, we just basically bridge and at the same time do the snow angel move And it was really effective, because I had a pretty big guy that was holding me down Did the bump, and I just brought my arms down, and guy goes flying Basically, it's almost like you're chopping the wood,

and the legs of the table just falls over So, it was great, I mean, the basics also feel much more, like, less pressure It was easier for me to follow, so it was good, I'm glad Then we did the master cycle, and that was a little bit more advanced Had some blue belts in there, and we were covering one of my greatest fears Anyone touches my feet, I just tap, because I'm afraid that something will blow up But it's good, I found that doing things that are very uncomfortable for me are still good And learning what the threshold is of where I'm in danger,

where I'm not in danger And even some ways to combat when someone's trying to do a heel hook on me Putting the foot flat, and doing it in a space of trust A really good culture here, everyone's trying to take care of each other So, I don't know, I had a great time It was a blast, and I can't wait to come back First, I want to apologize for the weather, because I think I brought it from Buffalo It's been raining like this back home in New York No,

it's, you're in Amsterdam, which is widely regarded as the Seattle of Europe Oh, yeah So, it's raining 70% of the time over here, so you're good But I appreciate the apology Adrian, pleasure to meet you, sir Thank you for being here, I appreciate it Yeah, thanks for hosting me, and yeah, I just want to, here I am This is Gracie University, or Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, in Amsterdam It took me about 25 minutes from the, like the, where the train Central station? Central station You were walking? No, I took a cab A cab?

Okay, cool So, yeah, no, but I'm really excited I love the space here Thank you It feels very, the green and the bamboo back here Yeah It's very pleasing Appreciate it So, yeah, I just want to start, maybe we can get going Maybe with your history, you're from, originally, South Africa I'm from Cape Town, originally, yes And, yeah, so, we spoke about this a little bit earlier About my background in martial arts And I started as, I think, maybe 12 years old Doing stand-up, kickboxing, and traditional karate And then that kind of evolved into MMA And then,

you know, I think in my late 20s Mid to late 20s Started falling out of love with it a little bit And discovering other things And girls, and fun, and social life, and stuff like that But, I've always wanted to do martial arts I've always, like, considered myself as, like I like the idea of martial arts I like the idea of doing something difficult I like the idea of it not being a team sport Most of the time, where it's all on you So, I enjoyed that So,

after a while, I kind of left the kickboxing And, one day, I was just at my apartment at home And I thought about, man, let me just take a drive Get into the car and just drive around Because I moved to this new neighborhood Got in my car, drove around And I saw this bullboard that said, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu And, never had an idea about it Went in, I thought, I'll go check out the class I went to check out the class And, looking around, and everybody seems to be like You know,

it's like a fun kind of group But, not quite for me Funny enough, at the time When I went there The guy who was teaching It was my instructor, James Smart He was a purple belt at the time And, with me, like I had, like, this little bit of an ego You know, you're doing martial arts for so long Like, what's a purple belt going to throw me, you know? And then, so I checked it out And I left I said, nah, it's not for me I left, I walked out And then, as I walked out The lady at reception gave me, like, a bunch of flyers Like, check this out Think about it before you make a decision Went home that day And I went into, like, a YouTube wormhole of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu The very next day I went back Signed up immediately And then never left So, I started at, like, maybe doing Jiu-Jitsu in Cape Town Around about the year 2010 or so And,

yeah, that's how I got started Did Gracie Jiu-Jitsu there And just fell in love with everything The philosophy of it How most of the Jiu-Jitsu that we do Or at least what I do Is off of the mat You know, it's like a problem-solving philosophy Right, where most of the problems that you require Or rather acquire It won't always be on the mat But Jiu-Jitsu teaches us how to be patient How to kind of understand the difference between Being uncomfortable and being in danger You know So,

those kind of philosophies Was really nice for me to learn And to kind of adapt and adopt to my outside life So, when you're You went down the wormhole And then Was it Like a Level of appreciation for a purple belt? Because now you realize Well, that's actually pretty high rank You know And Yeah And it's hard to get that You know Is that kind of what you went through? No, actually, no It took me a while to realize that The ranks in Jiu-Jitsu Are a lot harder to attain Than other martial arts Of course, I'm not knocking Any other martial arts right now But it's just The longest progression That you have to go through I remember hearing once That you could become a doctor Sooner than becoming a black belt That's right Right?

So, that kind of Leveled things out for me In how it became No, it's not really Even that it was a purple belt I mean The second time I went back I rolled with a friend of mine Who's a great friend of mine right now He was like 13 or 14 at the time And I was 30 So, this kid just mopped the floor with me Right? And I was like Man, I need to know What these guys are doing over here And that's how I started That's how I became friends With everybody there That academy became my second home Basically So, yeah Jiu-Jitsu Cape Town Is where it started for me There are big kids In the world There's a kid that I rolled with Two years ago I think he was a blue belt And he was a bigger kid I think he was like 12 or 13 Yeah And he wiped the floor with me I was like Oh man,

I just lost To like a 12-year-old You know And like you can It's easy for you To kind of almost Let your ego take over And then start muscling Yeah On a 13-year-old But then you feel bad After You know what His technique won Yeah He should win today And this particular kid Was also a bigger So it didn't matter Even if I wanted to So it happened So tell me about The reason for the pivot You know You did the MMA thing You had the kicking And then the Jiu-Jitsu thing In particular What was it about it That was a little bit more Captivating for you?

It was something That I wasn't used to It was like I did the MMA thing And we did like A little bit of grappling But You know At the time My understanding Of grappling Was very limited And only once I stepped onto the mat On a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school Did I really understand How deep This really goes You know I mean I was To think about You could possibly finish A lot of fights standing And I mean If the rule set For that allows it Then yeah You know There's a ref And there's a time limit And there's a certain set of rules But In a street fight Or in a self-defense situation All rules go out to the window There's a very large possibility That this fight Ends up

on the ground And I quickly realized That I didn't know enough About what happens On the ground With that So in terms of The understanding And Most of the time You think Okay the fight Gets onto the ground I just didn't understand How multidimensional That would be Does that make sense? It does I mean Even Now that I've been Doing Jiu-Jitsu For a while I just saw It was Henner's video Of A guy On mount With a knife And You know He kind of pushes him Then he Shrimps out And grabs the knife Heron Heron did the video Oh is it Heron?

Heron and Zach Yeah okay Yeah I thought it was Henner that did it But So But the video was It's just like Oh I didn't even think About a knife You know Like You're right I mean at that point The rules are The rules are out the window You can't just Like bridge You can stand In the chest You know Exactly Yeah and luckily I think for me I think of Mostly when I think of Jiu-Jitsu I don't mean it Like in a disparaging way I like to think of it As a sport Because I'm not a guy Who's ever going to want To fight anybody anyway But there's always The actual martial element Yes And I think this is what You guys really Start to emphasize Yeah In your

program Yeah Definitely That You want to learn To fight So you never have to fight I think that's Basically the idea Yeah I mean Most of the times I think the hardest Thing to do In a confrontation Or in a fight Is to walk away from it Yeah And to say like You know what This is not worth it But Sometimes egos get in the way Now understanding If you have your family Behind you Or somebody else Is in danger You're trying to protect You might have to intervene And it's always a good idea To be able to do that Confidently And kind of feeling like I've been in this type Of situation before Where I practice These things on the mat Being able to intervene Being able to grab

someone And put them onto the ground Or even being grabbed And being put onto the ground Myself Against my will sometimes That's good things To kind of know And to know how to deal with So In terms of martial arts And Gracie Jiu Jitsu Doing those things Prepares you for The unwanted situation Out there Let's talk about Your experience You're at Gracie University In Cape Town Right And then How'd you get here Tell me about that Good question Super cool question When I was in Cape Town For a long time And then got the opportunity To move to Amsterdam With my family and work And then One of the first things Because I was so Into Gracie Jiu Jitsu One of the first things That I did When I knew

That we were moving To Amsterdam One of the first things That I did was like Alright When am I going to do Jiu Jitsu Let me try and find A Jiu Jitsu school And then Quickly realized That there's no Crazy Jiu Jitsu school Like I'm used to Yeah And yeah I think It was like A perfect Kind of junction Of opportunity And preparation Because it is something That I always wanted To do Was to teach Jiu Jitsu And it wasn't always Viable or possible In South Africa And then Moving to Amsterdam That It became like A very clear Very possible Opportunity to do it And then Yeah I immediately spoke To James And the guys At headquarters And then Here on And set it up I joined the Instructor certification

Program Reserved the territory In Amsterdam Which was For me It was so amazing Like it was hard To believe That nobody else Had done this In Amsterdam before Like Amsterdam Is such a huge city In Europe So I was very fortunate And I feel very fortunate To be able to do this here So I booked The Booked the Space Booked the course Did the course And then started teaching Almost immediately And like Started off Very small Three classes a week For one hour each And now We're doing Like 14 Classes a week Wow Every day Morning classes And evening classes And we're obviously Going to be expanding Some more on that So for me It was really Really cool That I was able To I think Understand What it takes

To Be a good Jiu-Jitsu school Because I was I experienced A good Jiu-Jitsu school As a student And I wanted to Provide that same Experience for Other people Who are starting Jiu-Jitsu Who are maybe Not obviously Looking to be Competitors But everybody Wants to learn How to solve Problems physically Everybody wants To be part Of a community Everybody wants To be part Of this thing Where you know You can come here For an hour or two And as soon as You walk in the door You take your shoes Off You walk on the mat It's almost like You're leaving Everything else behind So for the one hour Two hours You don't have to Think about your job You don't have to Think about this thing That's stressing you out Or

I need to I still have to Review these Insurance papers You know what I mean This is like Everyday life things It's very hard To think about Something else When somebody's Trying to break Your arm right now You know what I mean So I think I like that I'm able to Provide that And I'm also I like that I've been taught How to provide it Safely In a structured Manner You know And yeah Having people Be street ready So to say Yeah I like the point About the Mind Being able to Focus on one thing Quiet from everything else Because how can you Right to your point Yeah How often Someone's trying to Choke me You know Yeah So it's almost a form Of active meditation I would say so

Yeah Yeah So then Tell me Tell me the story Then So you're here And how often Are you getting Like over to LA To HQ Generally I try to go To LA Like at least Every 24 to 18 months 18 to 24 months I try to go there Usually when I go there I stay for like a week Or 10 days at a time Which was also Really really nice It's always very inspiring To go there Yeah Right To see the other guys Hannah Heron And all the other Instructors over there And it's always nice To see like What they're doing For two things One It kind of inspires me To say Okay This is something new Maybe let me try this At my school The other thing That it

does Is it kind of Makes me see that This is something That happens At other CTCs as well At the certified Training centers As well Where Like you told me earlier on That you've been to HQ And you've been to San Diego Yeah Right And I'm sure you also noticed That the teaching methodology Is the same Like it's like you Drag and drop From one class to another Yeah So yeah I try to get out there At least Every 18 months or so And I usually stay for like 10 days to 2 weeks If I can And yeah It's always Always really good For me to go out there Yeah I used to go in June But then I realized Like June It's summer here Yeah And it's probably better

To go in January When it's really winter here And it's great over there So now I usually go in January Sometimes Yeah Nice So when you first got here You said you came here for a job Mm-hmm So you had a job And you were doing this Is that kind of No Actually no My ex-partner Had the job Oh And I'd always come here To think I was immediately Going to jump into this Okay I got it Yeah Got it How has life been For a transplant For you know Coming from another country Different culture And all that It's been a ride There's a lot of learning And there's a lot of unlearning That you have to do Right In terms of learning You have to For me In terms

of jiu-jitsu The jiu-jitsu is great Because for me It's like the same That I learn in Cape Town That I get to do here Like I often like to tell the students Everything that you get from me I got from James in Cape Town Everything that the guys Get in Cape Town They got James got from Here on In LA So those Kind of just In terms of the unlearning It's like a different Culture Here Different people here It's I would say that it's a little In terms of safety It's a little bit safer here Than it is in Cape Town So A lot of the students Who come here A lot of them are coming For self-defense But It's not like a major need Almost You know what I'm

saying It's more like a I just want to be able To defend myself Which is also Really really good In terms of The transplant It's been five years now I still miss Cape Town I go back Twice a year as well As often as I can But I love it here Amsterdam is It's home now It's another home now Home is still in Cape Town But home is here now As well I gotta imagine That's a gnarly Long ride Twelve hours man Yeah Twelve hours Well that's not too bad It's not like I've had to go To Australia A couple times From where I live In upstate New York That's crazy That's 24 hours 24 hours right On a plane yeah 15 hours It takes me like Six hours to

get to Like Texas or California And then another 15 So yeah So you fly like From LAX directly Yeah San Francisco LAX or Texas Usually somewhere Like Dallas That's a long ride Yeah I mean When I think about it often I was having a conversation With a friend of mine The other day And it's clear Why people in Australia Don't get a lot of visitors Like if you move To Australia You should almost Be okay with the fact Like if I want to see people I'm going to have to Visit them Instead of them Having to make the trip to me Yeah yeah It's I've also been Like the time zone thing Is really weird too You know like You land and it's like I forget It's one day In

the future But yeah You'll be going Into the future Yeah And then you come back You come back to the past Yeah It's like I don't know I'm coming back I'm leaving on Saturday But I get home on Saturday I leave on Saturday Yes Okay That's usually the same for me When I fly from here To LA I kind of leave on Saturday Oh yeah And then I That's right On Saturday morning Yeah Which is So what's next You said you want to Kind of grow Yeah So I think next For us would be To I think I really want to First fill out this space This is a really cool space It's very central to the city As you know But I want to Get it to a point

Where it's Not enough space for us And then We will expand Hopefully Start launching The kids classes soon Then we're going to start Doing Home and only classes As well And then hopefully In the Future Future We'll be looking at Doing some kind of Jiu-jitsu Kind of like a jiu-jitsu For law enforcement As well Oh Like GST I'm sure you know But the GST That they're offering In HQ So that'll be a great Kind of step forward But for now Civilians Keeping it as it is Keeping the current people happy Expanding to kids And then Home and only And then Later on LEOs Giving support to LEOs Got it And you're In business now In this location For how many years?

Oh Three years now Three years Three or four years I want to say four years Yeah You've had How many students Do you have now? Just around about The hundred mark Okay And so Since you've had That amount of time Have you Been able to witness Change in people They come in A little time One hundred percent Any cool stories One hundred percent Probably the coolest story That I have Is a story That we kind of Touched on earlier On about Like this One of my students Came into me Came to me And he said I got into A fight He said It was a fight I got into A fight With somebody And he was Walking with his Friend in the park And I think His friend was In a wheelchair Or something And he was Like pushing his Friend in the wheelchair And someone Came with a bike Like really Really fast And kind

of Cut him off Words got exchanged And he felt Confident enough To step in Between this guy And his friend Who was in the wheelchair And had like Good posture Was able to Look the guy Straight in the eyes And say like Please don't do this again Step back right now Or I don't think We're both gonna like What's gonna happen next So just the fact That this person Had the confidence To step in And then kind of Had it in his mind Like if something Should happen I will be okay So that was a great story I've also had another story About somebody who Got into an actual Situation And then all he could do All he had to do Was just clinch On the person No takedown Required

Just holding the person Staying safe from punches Best case scenario right Where everybody Hooks home safely Nobody feels like They have had to Hurt somebody And then you know You get into a fight You hurt somebody Maybe more than You intended to Because the adrenaline Kicks in You got home You feel really bad You feel like You start playing it Back in your mind You feel like I could have done This differently I could have done That differently And then maybe Even possibly It goes further away The next After a week or so You get a letter In your mailbox To say Listen you have to Come to court This and this and this Right So just the fact That I have students Who are confident Enough to intervene And

kind of have A very measured Response when they Do intervene That is cool enough For me So even if you Tell me You tell me You got into a fight Obviously Please record it So I can see it But like If you got into a fight Without ever having to fight That's the best case scenario I feel Yeah I mean I'll tell you That story It hits home for me Because When I was younger I felt like I was Maybe still working on it I was kind of a hothead A little bit Like And maybe it's because Where I grew up Or whatever And Someone cuts me off You know Like How dare you Disrespect I'm like Come on They don't even know you man What if there's an emergency

Exactly So I've reasoned With my mind To like Not allow Me to interpret Something As a disrespect Someone cuts me off I'm like I hope that person Is safe You know I just Reframed Very different It's a very good mindset To have But the other level Where someone's Really really In your face And they see a threat And if you can stay calm And diffuse That's like Mastery of the self Right Yes So that's beautiful That you're able Yeah And it's not always easy To achieve You know Everybody As much as we don't Want to admit it Everybody has some Level of ego I feel like you said Like you were a hothead But maybe it's not Being a hothead Maybe you just have A level of ego That you

said You're working on Yeah I think it's the same For everybody I think it's the same Whether you were Martial artist or not Like Even if you are Martial artist I still feel like You have some level Of ego But you kind of Know bitter Because you've been Around people Who are bitter than you Yeah You know what I mean Who can Who will be able To handle you More than you think You can be handled A little bit I feel like The True Like Real Fighters That are Very very skilled They're very hard To get them To do something Yeah You know They're like They're like Hey come on I'm gonna beat you up Like oh okay You wanna do Ground only They're like So calm And it's like

How should we start this Can you shake And tap and bump Or what Can you imagine Like oh my goodness That's like the level That would be scary Yeah That would be scary Just kidding man Have a great day Yeah Somebody responds That way Yeah No And I have I have one One story I don't think Probably But going back To the Like trying to control I think I learned it Maybe the hard way Just with little Dumb things that I did I have several Examples like this But one of them Was My brother had this dog And he had It was one of these Shelter dogs Yeah Came out And he was not Very well behaved Okay And I was doing my best To help my brother Because he

was really frustrated And so I took the dog For a walk in the park And the dog was just Pairing You know Doing the Going crazy Right And I'm trying to make him heal And I'm like Yeah And then A guy drives by And I'm in the middle of stress And I'm embarrassed a little bit Because the dog's going crazy And the guy says I don't know what he said My girlfriend was behind me And I You know Give him an expletive I'm like You know Screw you Whatever right And I kept going And then My girlfriend catches up She's like Hey why'd you say that To that guy And I'm like Because you know The dog He was telling me Something about the dog He's like She said The

guy The guy just said You have a very nice dog But I didn't hear that So I gave him like What you heard What you thought you heard Yeah You know Because I'm in a stress point I thought I heard You know Hey Leave that dog alone Or whatever I'm like You know what I mean And so it's like Oh Anytime I have ever responded Like aggressively Yes It's always been like Oh I'm the I look in the mirror I'm like It's on you It's on you right Yeah And to your point When I say that Because I didn't strike the guy But I could imagine Like you said earlier If you have the opportunity To think first And diffuse It's always way better Because you could regret You can't

take back You can't take it back Yeah Once you Once you throw that first punch It's already thrown Yeah Whereas what I What I love about Jiu Jitsu is You could Put somebody in a submission Like in America now Yeah And you have full control About how much damage You want to do Yeah When I When I teach I like to think of it As a volume knob You can turn the volume up On the submission And get somebody To comply with you And you can do As much as you feel That they need At the time And then also To your point about This thing about Being stressed And then responding In a stressed manner I think it's very Comparable to Like you've been doing Jiu Jitsu for a

while So you understand this When Let's say you Somebody You end up on your back On the fight It's your first time It's your first time Doing Jiu Jitsu You're on your back And somebody Mounts on you Immediately Like all the lights On the dashboard Are on You know And you feel like You feel like Fighting and punching Is the only Logical response Right now Right But now you've been Doing Jiu Jitsu For a few months Or a few years now And now somebody Mounts on you And you're like This is actually okay Yeah Now I can respond Better I remember Listening to a podcast One day I can't remember Which one it was But I think we're More or less The same age You know The Terminator movies Of

course Right Yes So you know You're 30 right Close So there's this part In the movie Where the Terminator Schwarzenegger Walks around And he sees this guy And this guy Poses a threat to him And then In the It's like the UI Of the Terminator That you see on the screen And then you see These options run by Should I do this Should I do that Should I do that I feel like That's what Jiu Jitsu Gives us It gives us The possibility Or the ability To scroll through These options That we have now In terms of How to respond To a situation And I think That's probably One of the biggest Best things That Jiu Jitsu Gives you Right You have an option To decide How to respond And

You can go with that And if you didn't Go with that You have a different option To decide Whereas it's better Than just having One response Because if you have Only one response Now you have to deal With the follow ups Of that one response Only Maybe we could Transition to Gymdesk You were telling me The story earlier You have to know How you found us How I found you Was very interesting I Like I said I came here With the idea Of opening my Martial arts school And there was A couple of other Products Out there That I knew Some friends of mine Were using And I just decided To first do My own research Instead of just Going by what Other people do Because something New for me

So I did My own research And at the time It was martial arts And rails And I found this And how old Is martial arts And rails? Ten years Really? Yeah It was I mean The business Really started Picking up Right before COVID Yes And then COVID Glammed it A little bit And then right After it Really So that's Around the time When I started And that's Around the time When I found And I mean When I found Martial arts And rails It seemed like It was a new Product It seemed like It was like A new release Or a new Kid on the block Type of thing And I checked It out I think I got a free demo I think they did Free demos at the time They still do Yeah So I got a free demo And it was exactly Everything that I needed And I think It was exactly Everything that I needed In terms of There

wasn't a lot Of extra fluff Around it was exactly What I needed For my function As a small gym At the time Like I mentioned To you earlier On the UI Was amazing I really liked The UI It's very Visual And there's some Like There's great data mining That I can do on it Based on the attendance Tracking And which classes Are doing great And what the demographic Is of each class Those are great And the support I think for me The biggest thing And I've watched Some of the other videos Too Everybody seems to say That the support Is really really great And yeah I love that I could Send an email message And like Within a couple of minutes I think it's like Seven minutes I'll get an

email response back When an actual person So like Yeah Try doing this Or they'll look At the person's profile For me And say Yeah This is why This is happening In your academy So right now We have a student services manager Who does a lot of the work On Gymdesk as well And sometimes She will raise an issue With me To say like Listen This isn't working My first response Is always like Speak to Gymdesk They'll look it up for you They'll be able To give you The answers That I don't have Right now So that's very Very cool And also I like the fact That the business Kind of grows with you Gymdesk Kind of grows With my gym So the more Students I have The more functionalities Become

available Or the more The bigger It's just Yeah I can't say enough Good things about it's been Yeah I'd be lost without it Actually I'd seriously Be lost without it Luckily enough I didn't start My gym With a different program And I didn't also Start with Pen and paper I was the Gymdesk Customer From the start From the start Before It got adopted By Gracie University HQ And when It got adopted By Gracie University I was like Amazing Finally Everybody else Is going to be On the same page As I am And we're going to Start moving on With this thing Right now And yeah I mean the collaboration That you've done With Hannah and Heron In making it GU specific Adding like The GU flavor To all of the

setups Really couldn't ask For a better partner Yeah That's awesome And to your point About getting started It's always easier If you start fresh With Gymdesk Because you're starting From a blank slate Right We do have now We've expanded a team To help people Who are on other systems To transition over to us Okay Integration team Yeah Integration team The migration team Onboarding team There's a whole team Of people to help You know Bring people over Luckily we're getting A lot of new people Who are interested And have You know Could have 100 students They want to move From an inferior To Gymdesk And we're happy To have them And we're really Focused obviously In martial arts These days We have a lot Of disciplines That are part Of the

Gymdesk But our heart Is in the martial arts Got it So Yeah I think that makes A big difference Right Having somebody Who shares the same passion Yeah Right Well and it's also I can serve you better Because I know What you need You know what it's like To run a martial arts gym Besides being a martial artist Yourself You kind of Have A view of Other gym owners That's right And you kind of know What they want to do So Yeah And I think I have done Interviews like this We're over 60 now Globally And so I've talked To a lot of owners But also I was You When I was 17 Which makes a huge difference In how you approach The customer And how you See When a

customer says Listen I really need This feature Yeah You kind of see it from The owner's perspective Yeah Because you've been an owner Before you and me A few years ago Yeah Yeah Competitions You guys I don't really Focus on competitions Too much A lot of I mean I feel like There are other schools Around here I mean jujitsu is big Right So there are other schools In Amsterdam That have a heavy Competition focus Yeah I feel like people Who come here to me They're professionals They have to go to work The next day So it's going to be hard If they go To broken wrists Right Or black eye Or I feel like competition Yeah There's for sure There's space for competitors But I feel like Most of the

people Who come here Are the people We discussed earlier They are hobbyists Yeah They just want to get out Of the house For a little bit Or have something else To occupy their mind For a little bit So yeah People who come here Are like moms Dads Professionals People who Just want to learn How to handle the situation Want to be part of a community And want to learn A really cool Problem solving skill That gives you a workout And like you mentioned Is active meditation as well Yeah Maybe if you go To competition focus It's a competition focus There's not going to be time For that active meditation Really Or for like Learning self-defense fully Or like being part Of a community So yeah In terms of competition Of

course Very welcome I'm very happy To teach people Who want to compete But it's not the sole focus Of our school Well I'm looking forward To the classes today Perfect Me too Thank you very much Thank you very much Alex Alright Thank you very much