Jorge talks about his 20-plus professional MMA fights, including a broken arm mid-fight that got no insurance and no follow-up call from the promoter. He also breaks down NextGen, the tournament he grew from hand-drawn brackets into a sold-out, 1,000-plus person event now celebrating its 10th anniversary, and why he still tracks every missed class and promotion himself.

Sarah talks about starting in Jeet Kune Do as a 15-year-old in 1996, getting knocked out by future UFC star Miesha Tate in 2009, and why she walked away from fighting to focus on coaching. Twenty-one years later, G.I.R.L.S. Gym trains over 150 students with five homegrown black belts on staff, and Sarah is still the one checking class cameras on her anniversary dinner.

In this episode, Alex visits Unicorn Jiu-Jitsu in Portland, Oregon—a gym Hilary and her husband Brian built deliberately around a culture filter: the name alone weeds out the people they don't want. 

The result is a gym where noon classes run 80% women, world-class competitors like Dominika Stranková show up to coach and paint murals on the walls, and purple belts teach classes because they're better at certain things than the black belts are.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• How Hilary went from competitive equestrian to college basketball walk-on at TCU to training alongside active UFC fighters at Team Quest, and why jiu-jitsu is the one that stuck
• Why she named the gym Unicorn, what it means to her personally, and how it became the most effective self-filtering tool the gym has
• The "think street, train sport, practice art" philosophy she built the gym around, and why she believes more women leading at the front of the class changes the culture of the sport
• How a supportive landlord who waived rent during COVID shutdowns is the reason Unicorn survived, and what happened when he sold the building
• Why she lets a purple belt teach the no-gi class, and what that says about how she thinks about ego, expertise, and building a team
• What she's learned watching kids transform on the mat — and why one shy, homeschooled kid who's now leading the line makes all of it worth it

If you've ever thought about what kind of gym you're actually trying to build—and who you want walking through the door—this one's for you.

Unicorn Jiu-Jitsu is based in Portland, Oregon. Hilary is one of Oregon's first female BJJ black belts and has been competing and coaching for over 15 years.

In this episode, Alex visits St. John's Boxing in Portland, Oregon, where Lisa—a former roller derby athlete and community justice worker with no business background—built an inclusive, mixed-level boxing gym from scratch out of a closed dance studio, a rented hourly space, and eventually a neighborhood landmark that had been a men's clothing shop since 1940.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• How a year of training on a concrete playground during COVID turned into an accidental gym — and why Lisa was the last person who expected to open one
• Why she built St. John's around the middle ground between fitness boxing and competitive boxing — and why that niche is almost completely underserved
• Her "social entrepreneur" philosophy: how boxing creates bridging capital by pairing strangers who'd never otherwise meet
• The real cost of rising rents for small gym owners — and why being in a neighborhood for 30 years doesn't protect you from a building sale
• How she inherited a community from a closed gym and has kept those coaches, members, and relationships alive four years later
• What she's still figuring out with Gymdesk — and what she's found most useful for managing a growing, diverse membership

If you've ever wondered whether you could build a gym around community first and competition second, Lisa's story proves it can happen.

St. John's Boxing is based in Portland, Oregon, and has been operating for four years. Lisa trained at Sweet Science Boxing and coaches alongside a team of six independent contractor coaches.

In this episode, Alex sits down with Adrian, owner of Gracie University Amsterdam, who moved from Cape Town to the Netherlands and built the city's only Gracie University location from scratch, starting with three one-hour classes a week and growing to 14 classes running daily.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Why his first impression of Jiu-Jitsu nearly drove him away, and what a stack of flyers and a YouTube wormhole changed his mind
• How a move to Amsterdam for an unrelated job became the opportunity to build the city's first Gracie University location
• His deliberate choice to build the gym around working professionals and self-defense, not competition — and why that's the right call for his community
• How "you learn to fight so you never have to fight" shapes everything about how he teaches
• Why he chose Gymdesk from day one, and what changed when Gracie University HQ standardized on the platform across all locations
• His take on jiu-jitsu as a kind of moving meditation, and why that resonates so strongly with adult students juggling jobs and family

If you've ever debated whether to build your gym around competitors or around your actual community, this one will get you thinking.

Gracie University Amsterdam has been operating in the Netherlands for several years and is one of Gracie University's certified training centers worldwide. Adrian trained under James Smart in Cape Town before relocating to Amsterdam.

In this episode, Alex sits down with Marcos, owner of Carlson Gracie Amsterdam, who trained directly under Carlson Gracie and was one of the last black belts Gracie personally promoted before his passing. Marcos spent nine years as a blue belt under Carlson's notoriously strict promotion system, lived without a home of his own at the academy, and eventually built a life and a gym thousands of miles from where he started.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• What it actually took to train under Carlson Gracie — including nine years at blue belt because the weight class above him was full
• Sleeping on the academy mats, cleaning them every morning, and what that year taught him before he ever opened his own door
• How a chance trip to Germany turned into 25 years of building Jiu-Jitsu in Amsterdam from scratch — starting with a single mat laid out in a public park
• The role Carlson Gracie played in opening up Jiu-Jitsu to the world, and what it means to be one of his last black belts
• His path from a park mat, to a borrowed Capoeira space, to a university sports center, to finally opening his own academy
• Why he made the switch to Gymdesk after struggling with per-check-in pricing on his old software

If you've ever wondered what real lineage and patience looks like in this sport, don't sleep on this one.

Carlson Gracie Amsterdam has been training students in the Netherlands for over two decades. Marcos Flecha received his black belt directly from Carlson Gracie in 1997.

In this episode, Alex visits Real Movement Martial Arts (RMMA) in Chicago, a 13,000-square-foot facility that started in 2021 as a tiny sublet space inside someone else's gym. Joey walks through how the school grew from three people in a class to over 300 students in five years—and why he built the business around "movement" instead of just martial arts from day one.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• How RMMA grew from a sublet corner of another gym to taking over an entire 13,000-square-foot building in under five years
• Why Joey, a 35-fight pro MMA veteran, built his program around yoga and mindfulness instead of just hard training
• His take on "real"—why he built the brand around authenticity instead of fitness fads, and what that means for how he runs classes
• How Gymdesk's scheduling and check-in kiosk became essential once RMMA's class load got too complex to run any other way
• What changed when he started using Gymdesk's POS for merchandise and saved-card billing
• His philosophy on longevity, and why daily movement matters more than intensity as you get older

If you've ever wondered whether you can build a serious martial arts program without abandoning recovery and balance, check this one out.

Real Movement Martial Arts is based in Chicago, Illinois, and opened in 2021. Joey trained under Jeff Curran in the Pedro Sauer BJJ lineage and has competed professionally in MMA.

In this episode, Alex sits down with Bambu, founder of Axé Capoeira in Chicago, and his wife Jennifer, who together have spent over two decades building something far bigger than a single school. Bambu's capoeira journey started with a 55-hour bus ride to Canada in 1998 and turned into a 28-year teaching career. But the real story isn't the founding—it's what came after, when years of personally funding a struggling academy led to the lights getting cut off, and Jennifer stepping in to keep the doors open.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• How a 55-hour bus ride turned into a lifelong calling—and a school that almost didn't make it
• The moment everything turned: the lights went out, and Jennifer paid the bill
• How "no Plan B" became Bambu's actual business philosophy, and why it works for him
• Running two academies, two programs (Axé Capoeira and its sister School of Samba), and a marriage where business and home don't have clean lines
• How COVID brought them closer together while pushing other partnerships apart, and how they kept their students through it
• Their advice for anyone chasing a passion: "Educate yourself, ask for help, and go for it with both feet!"

If you've ever wondered what it actually takes to keep a gym alive through the years nobody sees on Instagram, this one's for you.

Axé Capoeira is based in Chicago, Illinois, with a second location in Rolling Meadows. Bambu has been teaching capoeira since 1998 and holds the rank of Mestrando.

In this episode, Alex sits down with Chris, owner of Cast Iron Jiu-Jitsu in Kansas City, Missouri. Chris spent 15 years as a union floor installer before getting laid off, getting two offers to open gyms, and taking them both. He sold his tools a year later and never looked back.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Why Chris got into jiu-jitsu in the first place — and the promise he was made that he absolutely was not going to have to do it
• How he built Cast Iron around one clear mission: pure, high-level jiu-jitsu — not MMA, not McDojo, not a little of everything
• His take on the "friendly, competitive" model — why pros and beginners training together makes a stronger community than keeping them separate
• What he's learned from 12 years of watching kids grow up on the mats, and why that's the part that humbles him most
• His plan for expansion: grow to a certain size, open a second location nearby, and send 20–30 members with them on day one

If you've ever wrestled with what kind of gym you're building—and whether you can hold your standards without limiting who walks through the door—this one's for you.

Cast Iron Jiu-Jitsu is based in Kansas City, Missouri, and has been running since 2014. Chris trains under Hinato Tavares and competes in the Masters division at PANS.

In this episode, Alex sits down with his longtime friend Misho Colo, co-owner of Chicago MMA in the South Loop. Misho's story doesn't follow the usual path. He's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Ralph Gracie, a Muay Thai practitioner trained under one of the best coaches in the country, and—by day—the COO and Dean at the University of Chicago. He didn't open his gym to escape a day job. He opened it because the mats are where he's always belonged.

They trace it all the way back to 1998, when Misho moved from Chicago to the Bay Area and stumbled into Ralph Gracie's academy—where his very first class ended in a ten-on-ten battle royal and a humbling armbar from Dan Camarillo. He never left. Over the next three decades, he trained across San Francisco, Boston, and even Mozambique, where he ended up running an impromptu jiu-jitsu school out of his spare bedroom for 20 sweaty Mozambicans after losing their mat space.

Chicago MMA opened in 2010. Sixteen years later, Misho and his team just opened their second location—still running on the same philosophy that drew him to the arts in the first place: this is a place people come to learn, not just to train hard.

You'll hear how he thinks about the shift from competitor to coach, why he's built a culture that balances building a fight team with welcoming total beginners, and what finally pushed him to make the switch to Gymdesk.

In this episode:

• Training alongside BJ Penn, the Camarillos, and Carlson Gracie Sr.—and what that era taught him about building a real martial arts culture
• The Mozambique chapter: finding jiu-jitsu in a country with no martial arts scene and accidentally becoming the head instructor
• Why competitive training environments and community schools require completely different approaches—and how to know which one you're building
• The moment he decided to open a second location, and how that decision finally pushed him to switch gym management software
• What he looks for in a gym that puts the art first

Chicago MMA is a Gymdesk customer based in Chicago, Illinois.

The gym runs lean: Greg owns and teaches, son Mark manages and teaches, his older brother helps lead the judo program, and every other instructor is a world-class fighter brought in to teach a specific discipline. Mark believes ITC was the first NYC gym to combine Muay Thai and Judo under one roof, though he's careful to add there's no official record keeping to back the claim.