Is Jiu Jitsu “Expensive” ?

I’ve heard from non-practitioners and people who don’t know any better that:
Jiu Jitsu is “expensive”.

As a jiu jitsu practitioner myself and a self-admitted biased party, I vehemently disagree. But I’d like to analyze this a bit more and see if there is a grain of truth in that proclamation.

Depending on where you go, Jiu Jitsu is $50- $240 USD per month. This analysis comes from my own personal experience training in different jiu jitsu gyms all over the world.

Adults Class

For the sake of discussion, I’ll use our current price for Adults which is $160 per month no contract for a single adult who isn’t on a family plan.

Let’s say you come to 3 sessions per week and stay for rolling, or you factor in Saturday rolling, a lunch class and an MMA class into those sessions. So that’s about 6 hours of training per week which is what most of you do. 4 weeks X 6 hours per week = 24 hours of training per month. $160/ 24 = $6.60 per hour of training. I would say about half of our students consistently train MORE than that so you guys are getting it down to about $5 per hour of training.

Alright, now I need you to stay with me for the next few points:

A lot of us, myself included, are dealing with something mentally: PTSD, mommy issues, daddy issues, work stress, financial stress, a tough childhood, depression, an abusive relationship, etc. The cost of therapy to deal with these things is $65-$250 PER HOUR and at minimum, you go about once a week or 4x per month, so you could be paying $1000 per month for therapy. And most of us don’t do it because we “try to deal with it ourselves”.

Would we all agree that hanging out with friends is an overall net positive for our health? After two years of covid lockdowns and social distancing, I think we’ve all come to realize how essential social interaction is for our wellbeing. Humans are social creatures.

Who are your friends and how did you meet them? Outside of work, raising a family, doing chores and sleeping…How often do you get to hang out with people you consider friends? Maybe once a week? And when you hang out with them, you guys are probably doing some sort of activity: Eating out, drinking, watching a show, attending an event etc. Let’s conservatively put it at $30 per person for a 2-hour “hangout”, which would be $15 per hour. Heck, let’s lowball even more. Say you meet your friend for a cup of coffee and a chat. I went to Starbucks recently and my Apple Crisp Oatmilk Macchiato Venti Hot cost me $6.93.

You like to exercise right? Eh, honestly, you probably don’t…but you know you should and you know it’s good for you so you buy a Planet Fitness Membership for $10 a month with a $40 sign up fee. Let’s say you go 5x the first month, so $10 for each hour of training. Not bad. But check this statistic: According to CNN, Planet Fitness members typically visit the gym five or six times a month, with about 60% of members not visiting in 30 days.

And you know why they don’t stick with it? Because it’s BORING. You’re on a machine or lifting weights doing the same thing over and over again. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it takes a certain kind of person to grind like that…and a majority of people aren’t that kind of person. There’s also no accountability. You’re generally going alone and if you want to quit 10 mins into your workout, you can do that and no one will say anything, but you’re not going to get results that way.

If you want to learn jiu jitsu in a personal setting, a Private Lesson with Professor Jose is $100 per hour. If you split that hour with another person (which is encouraged), that’s $50 per person. He figures out your personal strengths/ weaknesses/ preferences and caters a lesson to improving your game. Some schools will give you the most basic, watered down curriculum and save their best techniques for privates. Not here! The Professors at The War Room don’t “save” any of the “good stuff” for privates. You get all the best techniques, tricks, details and sequences during regular class.

So, for just SOME of the things we’re able to quantify: taking care of your mental health, hanging out with friends, getting physically fit, learning quality jiu jitsu…on the ABSOULTE LOW end, you’d be paying $132 per hour to experience all of those things at once.

And you’re getting ALL of that at The War Room for about $5 per hour (if not lower on a family plan) at The War Room.  

Kids Class

Let’s break down the cost/benefit for the kids class as well. You’re looking at about $150 per month no contract for the Big Kids Class without a family plan.

If you take your kid to The War Room five days a week, you’re looking at about $7.50 per hour. If you’re on a family plan with multiple kids, you’re paying even less than that.

Now I want you to look at this: In New Mexico, the cost of a childcare provider is $14-16 per hour. And that’s for the bare minimum…an adult in the room making sure your child stays alive until you come back.

But for HALF that cost, you get five glorious hours per week to drop your kid off while you do WHATEVER you want! You can go grocery shopping, go for a walk outside, workout, watch YouTube videos, take a nap, or just sit back and watch the Professors + Coaches take care of your kid for a while. Parenting is WORK and you absolutely deserve a break.

Your kids aren’t just sitting there twiddling their thumbs for an hour. They’re learning valuable life skills such as self-defense, facing their fears, social networking, conflict resolution, cooperating with their peers, goal setting and anger management. They are learning from two First Degree Black Belt Professors who have a combined lifetime’s worth of wisdom and Martial Arts experience; people who have had humble, hard beginnings and have become successful people of impeccable character.

Your kids are surrounded by friends and role models. They have a support system of people who have their backs in class and outside in the real world. There have been real incidents where we’ve had students being bullied at their school/playground and another War Room Student steps in and protects them.

Professor Jose occasionally has “mat chats” where he discusses certain topics so the kids will have a foundation of good character, morals, ethics, respect, honor, kindness, hard work, loyalty, optimism, humility and self-worth, which are characteristics not easily obtained in other extracurricular activities.

Family Plan

Gosh, when we break it down like that, we probably should be charging more…But Professor Jose, from the beginning, has been adamant in his belief that jiu jitsu should be affordable and accessible for everyone.

Our Family Plan is $350 per month for a family of 3 or more people (*For this plan, we define “family” as parents/ guardians and their kids…not you, your second cousin twice removed and your great uncle Marty =P). We know of a corporate school locally which charges $200 per person with a 5% discount for each additional person. So a family of 4 would be paying close to $800 per month!! That’s…ridiculous and unrealistic for most to afford.

If breaking down the value in dollars and cents isn’t doing it for you, I want you to consider this: What is the cost of NOT doing jiu jitsu?

How much would you be spending on other activities to achieve the same result and obtain the same intangibles? What’s the worth of a good friend- if you can even find/meet one?!  Can you quantify confidence, self-esteem, work ethic, family, security, and happiness? Can you really put a price on that warm fuzzy feeling of going to a place that feels like home, surrounded by people you love who also love you back?

And if you could put a price on that stuff…don’t you think $7.50 per hour is fair, if not a downright STEAL?

For all of our students, I want to say thank you for investing in yourself, your peers, your family and the school. The War Room is a humble operation of a few people making a modest living doing what we love and trying to make our community a better place. Your tuition keeps it all going. We aim to give back more than we get.

Some words I live by every day: “You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time.”

We are truly grateful that you choose to spend both at The War Room.