i used to think i was in a small town, but then the new census happened and apparently my city has 100k people living in it now?! crazy boom.. it used to be 40k max. that was 10 years ago lol

I used to live in a city, but now going back to anything bigger than 10k people gives me massive anxiety!

I am in opposite situation: philadelphia metro area, where there has been an active bjj community for a long time. Half a dozen great gyms within easy distance; seven black belts at my gym alone; not uncommon to see current and former world class competitors at any given open mat. It’s a real luxury. But I am chiming in here because there’s something charming about the idea of a visiting purple belt being a special event. I am fairly deep into purple, and at our weekly open mat I am probably in the bottom ten of thirty folks. Even fast forward four or five years, I will just be an undistinguished black belt around here. Your small town experience is a good reminder that in a lot of places quality bjj instruction is still hard to access, and someone at purple or brown has a lot to offer.

I live in a small county outside Oslo, Norway with maybe 17.000 people. We started here 2-3 guys, but now we are a good gang. Most people from here + some that have moved here.

I just opened my place a few months ago in Covington, Ga, which has a listed population of about 14,000 people. 30,000 if I count the next largest nearby city which is Conyers. I've got 10 or so steady students and we're slowly building up.

How do most people hear about your gym (or jiu-jitsu) in your town? Is it mainly through the ski resort?

in a town of 9000 here pretty rural and me being a purple belt am the most senior guy at our gym other than the instructor (brown) we have about 8 guys currently with zero advertisement we have been renting mat space from a local karate gym for the last year but are moving into our own space in may and hope to grow ! plan on starting a kids program when we open up as the karate school has been poaching everyone that comes in interested in bjjj. We have a ton of great schools in the city about an hour away but out here a purple or brown belt is a rarity.

Lived in Orange County California for my entire life then moved over to Ohio. Big change as far as BJJ goes. People were definitely behind on the times on legs and the style of teaching here was just a bit different than what I had been used to. I taught at a place and helped start a no gi program and crossed trained at a few different places helping out with upper belts willing to learn. Its been pretty cool to see how different people do things in a less populated are with BJJ that is IMO behind and then have them have an "AHA!" moment where they want to grow their game.

I ended up leaving the place I was teaching because I wasnt really vibing with the culture the owners had there and opened my own school. Since opening we have grown to about 100 members in a year and we crush it at competitions. I always encourage people from all over the area to come cross train with me at no cost (something that I dont think people were used to here) so we can all improve. I have a few connections back home and will be making an effort to bring a ton of AAA competitors over for seminars or week long trips. I have ADCC and EBI veteran Keith Krikorian coming over next week and will be having another big name over every two months to help our team and the surrounding areas catch up with the east/west coast scene.

Also, being in OH is the best. No traffic, no stress, money goes further, everyone is super nice and I got to quit my office job to open a successful gym. OH is the best.

I ran a gym as my side hustle in a small town in Minnesota. Population ~10.000, more than 50% over 45 years old. I crested at 10 students with 6 who showed up regularly, never became self sustaining. It may have been more successful if I had started a kids program, but my "real" job didn't provide the time for that. As the younger folks left for college or careers the group fizzled and I sold my mats in 2018.

I train in Steamboat Springs, CO. So super similar situation to the OP, but our coach got his BB a year ago. Town of 10,000 and we probably have like 110 people registered(not nearly that many train regularly though). Same offer as above. Come ski and roll :-)

I’m in a town of 15,000. Lots of kids and dads that work away in the oil fields.
Consistency.
This is our group from last week. Slowly growing

@Kevin Chu - Honestly, word of mouth is #1 and then good old fashion posters seem to draw more people in than facebook or anything else. I should make some more posters now that I think of it!

Founded our club in a city of maybe 7500 ten years ago. I was a purple belt then. After hundreds of classes of just 3-5 students now we have grown to More than 30 adults, have a decent sized kids program and at times there 3 black belts on the mat at once.

My wife lived in Nelson when we met, I trained in trail back then once or twice when I was visiting.... next time I am in the kootneys I’ll come drop in!

@mitchell Kotok - Please do! Pride Gym in Trail is where I started my martial arts journey when I 22 years ago man! Please visit any time, we would love to have you here!

We ebb and flow, we have had 20 adult members at one point but mostly hover around 10-15! We just hit 4 years open so I am hoping to keep growing even though we are so small!

I live in the smallest country in Central America called El Salvador, our academy is located in the city of San Miguel; the BJJ is very little known yet, all the academies (3) were located in the capital; I was part of the first academy in San Miguel, today I belong to Leão Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, we are about 10 active students, growing slowly but surely

We are in a small town in central Wisconsin. We Have about 13,000 people in our town and several small towns around us. We started April 30 of 2019 and we currently have 45 students. Facebook has been good to us and so has word of mouth. Competition in town is a karate school that has about 150 students and has been here for 7-8 years. Our town is also known for wrestling and this last weekend won their third consecutive state championship. So I get a lot of people with some grappling experiences. We are also nonprofit and our tuition is super cheap. That helps.

I opened (rented) my first gym, and then ended up building a new gym on my property in a town of 600... was there for about 4 years and then moved the program to the town I am in... about 33,000 people (mainly due to the University here)... teaching weekly classes at the town Rec Center and we use my home gym for privates, open mats, and seminars... currently looking to find our own space in town so we can offer even more classes!

We live in a small town ~10,000 or so. A few of my friends and I decided to open a place in our town to spread the art. We all used travel an hour to train with Samuel Braga. Now we run our school and go to Samuel's once/week. We have spent very little advertising. We mostly just promote it through our Facebook page. We regularly have about 30 in adult class, 20 little kids and 12 teens...sometimes more in each class.

Great to see all the small town gyms. Our gym is in Petoskey, MI, with a year-round population of 5,808 as of 2020. It triples in the summer with vacationers, as we are right on Lake Michigan and attract second-homers.

Someone else mentioned above that consistency is key. I agree wholeheartedly.

Another thing that helped us quite a bit was creating a Google My Business profile so we come up in local search results better.

I run a small, recreational and family oriented BJJ training group, 10-12 every day guys and girls, part time after duty in our small town Schwerte/NRW/Germany (about 46.000 people). We started as kind of a garage group. I had the luck 10 years ago to rent mat time from a friend, who owns the local Hapkido gym. Our goal is not to strive for lots of members , but to really enjoy mat time (on the weekend together with our families) to shake the stress of and to stay mentally and physically fit.


What do you find the hardest part about it?
- well, we train consistently, but of course our progress is slower, because we don't have access to our blackbelt coaches every week/month.
What do you love about it?
-Our positive training environment! We have a really close family atmosphere and do not have to think about business in relation to our BJJ group. We are globetrotters friendly of course!
What seems to work in attracting new members?
- although we run a facebook page, our new members most of the times are friends of other members or work mates.

We are in a town of 3,000 in Texas. Luckily we have had roots here for over 2 decades but did not have an official membership paying gym until 2018. I focused mostly on the kid market but we have 20 or so adults, a few competitors and some amateur mma fighters. Some of the old school guys with experience help teach and small neighboring towns have people that come over so we have a few higher belts and that really helps.

Our kids program has about 70 though and we just started a wrestling program in December which has really taken off. It’s been a blast.

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Pikeville, Kentucky population 6,389. We got lucky and have two black belts at our gym. They have had a gym going here in one form or another since they were white belts.

Hi Guys

Our club is located in in Broken Hill, NSW, Australia. Stats say there are 17000 people here its mostly a mining town. A lot of shift workers here which can present a bit of a chalenge as numbers can fluctuate a lot. We are also a very tourist geared town and we are lucky enough that we get the odd purple belt or brown belt or black belt through from time to time. Covid has slowed this happening at the moment though with travel restrictions but we were lucky to get Blackbelt - Luke Dixon through for a while there about every 8 weeks as he was here working so we picked up heaps from him.

I think sometimes the Marketing in a small town can be very different to the city and word of mouth seems to be the best for us referals from current members and generally being active in the community.

Hardest for us is for me to get away and spend time on the matts with senior ranks and progression can be slower for our students which can also be advantageous depending on how you look at it as the quality for the rank tends to be very good which is what you want but it can hurt retention a little if people feel they are not progressing.

One of our bigger issues was with a couple of students splitting off and setting up another club 500m or so down the road being such a small town it caused an initial split in the team and numbers suffered in the interim but we ended up with a much stronger group once the dust had settled and a nicer environment to train for everyone but I think being so small you have to stand out in a certain area to attract your own clients find your niche kind of thing.

For us sites like Beltchecker are an awesome way to network and meet new people in the industry we normally would not get the opportunity. So if you are ever in the silver city drop in for a roll.

I think it's super neat to see the small town perspective you guys have. It makes me realize how fortunate I am to train in San Diego CA. World Class level black belts are a dime a dozen here... I think from now on I will make it a point when I travel to drop in to academies in smaller towns.

Small town/island here with 9000 inhabitants. I moved here from my academy with 600-700 members in Copenhagen (spread across other styles than BJJ though). Here, I have 10-15 core students and I love it. Teaching for free as island charity. We have some visitors come by, but most tourists on the island are 50+. Often we have young seasonal workers come train with us for 6 months or so; it's always a bit sad to see them leave again.

Despite small place, we have quite a strong team with two black belts and 4 brown belts. Also some high level Judo and Wrestling guys here. It's probably one of the highest black belt to population ratios in the world :D

Anyone wanna come by St. Barth and train with us are always welcome!