Has anyone trained at the Gracie Academy?

keseki - ***its rorions company,he will look into it.all the girl had to do was listen for 1 min.its the right thing to do,she called him**

You're probably right. But when Rorion hires girls to do this by the numbers kind of telephone thing, he will then have to also specify, "if people start talking about their family members who are dying, you should (choose one) A-listen sympathetically for exactly one minute and then stop B-listen until they stop talking C-use your own discretion".

It is going to be hard to hire people to do this at the prices most businesses are willing to pay.

At minimum, he's going to have to pay more because not many people enjoy listening to other people's, let alone strangers', personal tragedies. Then, I suspect there would eventually be law suits over malpractice (not giving the right amount of listening, not offering appropriate advice, whatever), or counseling without a license. Or whatever a smart lawyer can think of.

The office staff, I guess, is probably paid near minimum wage, to do exactly as she is told to do and has no incentive to do anything more than that, and probably, an incentive to do exactly that, as improvising, if it turns out wrong, would cost her in some way without any compensating benefit (for being a good listener, for example).

Also (might not be the case here) a lot of these types of things are done by outsourced call centers, some based in India, where cultural expectations are different from in America. many people anywhere, for that matter, are at a loss when people start talking about deaths of their family members.

Of course, she could have just said "I'm sorry to hear about your mom. We hope to see you again when you are able to." That would be ok, but raises the possibility that the person would then want to keep talking, and then would have to be cut off, and would then feel slighted and would then complain.

I sympathize with anyone who has lost a mom, but I don't think the office girl or Rorion did anything particularly wrong in this case.





i dont know how they will address it,1 thing is they know about it now.

had 1 of the girls read the post yesterday,she took it to heart.the gm read it and im sure he's giving it some thought.

"I have been training for 18 years and have trained at several of the top BJJ academies in the US, Brazil, Japan, and elsewhere. The Gracie Academy was as good as any (and better than many) academy I have ever been to in terms of both instruction and atmosphere"

Just out of curiousity, which was in your opinion no.1? Phone Post

"Just out of curiousity, which was in your opinion no.1?"

Kind of like ranking universities--someone has to do it, and there is some money in it, but it is kind of BS:) All have different strengths and focus on different things. It really depends on what the student is looking for.

So, IMHO...

Marcelo's was awesome because, well, Marcelo taught both the gi and nogi classes I attended, and also rolled with me a couple of times in each class. He also had a lot of good black and brown belts of his own and visiting from out of town. Everyone was technical and tough, but also very, very welcoming and friendly.

That said, assuming Ryron and Rener were teaching the majority of classes, I would choose the Gracie Academy. Keep in mind I'm 45, have a profession and a family, and though I train just about every day, I compete very infrequently. I am interested in training for another 40 years without serious injury as well as practicing self defense, with punches, gi, no gi, etc.

I have to agree with John Frankl. The Gracie Academy is top notch. Rorian and the boys have done an INCREDIBLE job with the entire program and place. It's refreshing to see that kind of effort and professionalism.

The thing that strikes me the most about it is the way Rener and Ryron, and Rorion as well, manage to generate such a high level of enthusiasm even when showing a white belt how to upa. And when Ive visited and have asked a question, they jump right onto the mat and engage in the position as if there wasnt anything else theyd rather be doing at the moment.

Thanks for answering my question ! Now I want to go there even more! Phone Post