Students or Consumers?

When what you do for a living is teaching other human beings everything that encompasses living a winning life, you don't care for recognition. You care for the growth and success of the individual. That is the reward. A reward that what you are doing works and it truly changes peoples lives for the better. However, when you truly give your all in order to ensure the person whom you are teaching succeeds, and what you get in return is a feedback of entitlement, disrespect and negativity, that is, surely, the lowest point of any teaching job. 

People mistaken their position as being consumers, not students. Our best students don't view themselves as customers and they aren't treated as such. They understand they are a product in development who come to us in seek of information. The handful of "consumers" who have made part of our institution (and that is mostly parents) have, at some point, allowed their sense of entitlement take over, causing them to ultimately leave our Academy. The world these days is full of ungrateful individuals who feel that because you provide them a service they are doing you a favor, since they hired you for that service. For some unexplained reason, people rarely take the extra time to commend someone for their doings, their efforts and their achievements. It seem to come more naturally to us human beings to take the extra step mostly to bash, to complain and to denigrate. This is a sad fact in today's society.

Every once in a great while we come across these individuals in our line of work. Parents or other relatives who have no idea what it takes to do what we do and how hard we work in order to help the children function efficiently in any social setting by instilling in them values of respect, discipline, selflessness, perseverance, responsibility, humility and accountability. Values that, if they train long enough, they can carry on for the rest of their lives. Just last week our paths got crossed with someone like that. A grandparent, who didn't agree on how we addressed her grandson's lack of compliance with the disciplinary rules we have in place, thought it was appropriate to confront the Instructor in the waiting area and disrespect the Academy by calling us names in front of everyone else who was present. It is one thing to disagree and civilly talk about why each step of the disciplinary action was taken in order to find out what really happened, but it is another thing to act out disrespectfully in front of dozens of children ranging from 4-12 based of speculative conclusions (and even if facts were known, keeping your class and self-respect should be paramount).

Crosley Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is an institution of self-improvement and has proven over and over to our community and the thousands of students served over the past ten years the value of our product and how we pass it on to our members. We are here to help individuals from all walks of life, including individuals with special needs and learning disabilities, implement the key elements for an improved and healthier lifestyle to maintain an excellent quality of life. We are in no way responsible to discipline the students who refuse to obey the disciplinary rules. By complying with such rules they should understand that will be better prepared to achieve their goals in life. Conveying that to them is just one of the inumerous things we do. However, this is only possible for children who want to learn what is taught, practiced and developed here. At Crosley Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, we provide them a fertile ground for development and application of these teachings as well as the technical preparation of self-defense. The responsibility to fix behavioral issues of any child is not ours, but solely of their dear parents.

Despite this unfortunate incident, our Black Belt teachers continue to use their combined expertise of over 40 years in this field to give our youth students the tools necessary to help them become convinced of their physical security against possible tyranny of other children, growing up without fear at school or wherever they go. And subsequently morally preparing themselves to face the adversities of life to efficiently serve our nation. 

We are grateful to have such a large student body that has given themselves the chance to fairly evaluate our teaching methods over the years, and come to the conclusion that at the end of the day we legitimately care for their well-being and are here to empower them to reach their full potential. We are thankful for the appreciation we receive for the level of dedication we put into our activities daily. Our success is not only the result of our combat sports and athletics expertise. It's not just the result of the high level of respect we have for each and every member who steps on our mats. Not just the the passion we have for what we do. It is ultimately the result of our commitment to excellence.

"Do more for the world than the world does for you."