Making a living from Jiu-Jitsu in the United States: the two myths, according to Michele Freitas
A black belt, a nurse and co-owner of a California academy with more than 500 students, she tells VF Comunica what almost nobody sees before moving
Opening an academy in the United States and making a living from Jiu-Jitsu has become a career plan for many Brazilian black belts. Michele Freitas took that road about 16 years ago. Today she and her husband, professor Rodrigo Freitas, run Inspirit Academy in Redondo Beach, California, with more than 500 students. In an interview with Vitor Freitas for VF Comunica, she picked the two myths she hears most from people thinking about making the same move.
Myth 1: you arrive and it works out
The first mistake, for Michele, is thinking success comes with the plane ticket. “One of the myths is thinking you will get here and naturally be successful. The grind is different, the work is heavier,” she said. “I say this is the land of the strong. In the United States, only those who can take the grind stay.”
Part of the weight is off the mats. She points out that most people move without their family and without the support they had in Brazil, and end up handling the house, the cooking and everything else on their own, on top of work. “That financial freedom comes at a high cost,” she said.
Michele speaks from experience. A trained nurse with a hospital job in Brazil, she had to start over. “That’s an illusion people have when they move to the United States, thinking you will arrive at the same level you were at in Brazil,” she said. “I worked as a nanny, I worked as a bartender, I did what had to be done to keep going.”
Myth 2: just open an academy
The second myth shows up when someone looks at a business that is already running. “People sometimes see you with an academy and go: ‘Oh, you just open an academy, get an instructor, and it will blow up and work out.’ That’s a myth, because there is a lot going on behind the scenes,” she said.
At Inspirit, behind the scenes means both owners doing everything. According to her, if someone needs to clean, teach or run the front desk, the couple does it. Michele also argues that an academy only grows when the instructor invests in communication and in showing his own work, a subject she handles as the school’s marketing director.
A medal alone doesn’t pay the bills
The conversation reached another sensitive point for competitors. “It’s not just going there, winning a tournament and getting a medal that makes you successful,” she said. She notes that the trip alone is expensive for someone leaving Brazil to compete at Pans, and that a title by itself rarely comes back as money.
What worked for the couple was organizing their finances and combining both careers. “If you don’t have your finances organized, your dreams are much harder to reach,” she said. She added: “Being a good instructor, having an academy, has to line up with being an athlete.”
“Don’t skip steps”
Michele’s final advice for people who just arrived is to respect the timing of things. “When you skip steps, you miss the lessons that come with the steps you live through,” she said. She uses her own story as an example: she validated her nursing degree but took a while before she could work in the field, and today she understands that the period helped her become fluent in English before stepping into a hospital.
Full video on YouTube
The full interview with Michele Freitas, recorded at Inspirit Academy, is on the VF Comunica YouTube channel (in Portuguese).
Which of these myths do you hear most from people who dream of making a living from Jiu-Jitsu abroad? Leave your opinion in the comments.
