What I learned in our first year of existence

As The Clinic Muay Thai Gym celebrates its one year anniversary, I wanted to write about my experience over the past year as the head coach and owner. I had zero experience or education in running a business, and I jumped into this endeavor head first. And while I always believed in myself, I was simultaneously filled with doubt. I honestly wasn’t sure if I could make it to one year.

For those who don’t know, I learned to be a Muay Thai coach (Kru) in the state of Washington. I left PA when I was 23 and didn’t move back until I was just about 39. So, when Meg and I decided to move back to PA to open this gym, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Most coaches who open gyms have coached in a nearby gym, so they already have a reputation in the region when they decide to branch out on their own. That means they usually have a few experienced students they’ve worked with join them right when they open. I didn’t have that, so I very much felt like I had to prove myself.

We advertised hard on social media while I built the gym out, getting ready for opening day. I know it doesn’t look like it sometimes, but I spent hours building that gym out. I upgraded every light fixture in the working spaces from fluorescent to LED. I had to move/install shelving. I had to lay out the mats, which involved cutting a lot to shape. There was hours and hours of painting, cleaning, and junk removal from the previous tenant. I won’t even tell you the horror stories of getting that Assault treadmill up to the second floor. Just know that Meg and I are lucky to still be alive! There were a million other things like installing the squat rack, hanging heavy bags, making mounts for the pads, etc. I worked 8-12 hours a day every day in August except for one weekend where I drove out to Delaware to support a prior student of mine from Washington compete in WKA Nationals. I was doing all of this worried no one would show up when we opened.

When opening night occurred I was blown away. I guess the first thing I learned is that advertising can work. Our first night we had a pretty decent turnout. Far more than I was expecting. We were able to sign some people up that first night, too. Oh what a good feeling that was!

It certainly wasn’t all smooth sailing. After opening day, there were certainly nights of only two students. Advertising helped some, but I still had to learn better systems to make people willing to try something new. I had to learn what offers enticed people to sign up, and I’m still learning new ways in this regard as the only constant in business is change.

There were a lot of other lessons learned. I learned to do more investigating when looking for real estate. In just the first year I had to deal with a leaky roof, a failed AC unit, wasps (don’t ask and it’s been resolved), and I found out AFTER I signed the lease that I had two electrical meters for my space and two gas meters for my space meaning I have to pay two electric bills and two gas bills. I learned Uncle Sam gets paid far more than I have ever been paid in my life.

The most important lesson I learned, though, is that the juice is worth the squeeze. For every rough day there has been a wildly fun class full of laughter, dancing, and of course beautiful violence. For every night I feel like I failed, there are five nights where I see a student nail a technique for the first time. I regularly host events at the gym and feel like they are too over the top and people will hate them only for the night to arrive and the turnout and attitudes are fantastic.

I won’t lie, I'm exhausted 90% of the time. Running a business is far more time consuming than I thought it would be. Tasks that I thought would only take me five minutes take hours sometimes. It is what it is. I’m trying to practice more time management skills, and I’m slowly learning to lean on others for help. This first year has taught me that’s the way to go because other people are willing and excited to help.

The community at The Clinic Muay Thai Gym is better than I could ever have imagined. I keep calling this my gym but I learned that’s the furthest from the truth. I could not and did not do this alone by any means. This is our gym. Every student is part of its success in ways I didn’t anticipate. I want to say thank you for that but I think showing and receiving gratitude is the one thing I haven’t properly learned how to do yet. 😁

I’m so excited to say that we’re now one year old, and I’m super pumped for some of the things we have planned for year two. I won’t lie…it’s a lot of what we did in year one just a little bit bigger and better with the addition of students fighting. But if that doesn’t get you pumped up then I didn’t learn yet what does pump you up. Here’s to year two!!!