Size of training floor?

[Holliesc3]

I am in the infant stages of starting my school. I plan on teaching at a local church while preparing to open my own location. I have begun to look at space and want 2500-3000 square feet. I am trying to get an idea how much mats are going to cost. With a school that size, about how many square feet should be your training floor? I'd appreciate any ideas or advice on layout.

Thanks!!

[Montana]

Mats? They make mats to fall on in training?

OK..when I joined my instructors class he had 8 adults working out in the living room of his duplex apartment...proably 15' x 12' in size. If nothing else, you learned accuracy with your kicks or you'd kick one of the other people in the class...which wasn't good, because they'd kick back!

Personally, I always liked a cramped, small workout area better than all the room in the world.

Why?

Because if you train with all sorts of room to manuever, then get in a fight in tight quarters and don't have much room to move, it can really upset your fighting ability. However if you're used to no room then all of a sudden have it...wow..this is cool!

[joesteph]

I am trying to get an idea how much mats are going to cost.

When my teacher was preparing her school to be opened, a friend helped her to work on the floor. It was a challenge to get it just right for training, although they did it.

When she agreed to share the space of her school with a friend whose course is JuJitsu, he had many mats, and they spread nicely on the floor. All that hard work could have been done in one shot by the mats. They cover all the training area of what is a small dojang and have been an asset.

The work that went into the floor to save money in the beginning is covered by mats that give good support for standing, takedowns, people like me who fall when overdoing jump kicks, a floor that's never cold in the winter, and the young ones love to grapple, so the mats are a good feature.

You can check out prices at AWMA or at Century.

[sensei8]

Starting your school at your local church is smart. Talk with your pastor, if you haven't already, to get his/hers permission and blessing at the same time.

Mats aren't cheap! Contact Century, for example, or the like and become a wholesaler. This way you'll receive much lower prices. It only takes a phone call to become a wholesaler.

As far as square footage is concerned. This is up to you. This isn't what you wanted to hear, but, preferences, both personal and professional, truely determine what would be appropriate for you and your students. The square footage that you mentioned in your opening post is fine for start-up, and, if over time you outgrow your school, then go to 4,000 - 5,000 square-foot. Besides, commercial rent's not cheap either! Uncontrollables aren't cheap either! Don't get me wrong, everything is doable providing that your budget isn't in the basement. It takes money to make money!

Location, location, location! These words are solid in advise! Can your budget afford that advise?

Good luck!

[ShoriKid]

Depends on the amount of throwing or grappling your going to be doing. If that is the emphasis of your school, you'll want to cover all but about 200-300ft. Work out where you want guests, business to be conducted and a space to store gear etc. That is what you don't want to use money covering in mats. Everything else you want to be good training/teaching space.

If your a primary stand up school and not doing a lot of throws/take downs then you could get away with very inexpensive mats and less space covered in them. Right now we have a couple of folded gymnastics style mats and a lot of 1/2" puzzle mats that we put down. We can do our basic grappling and take downs from there. When we are drilling throws we pull out the folding mats and layer them over the base puzzle mats.

[cathal]

2,000 square feet sounds nce. For me I'm used to smaller dojos where you've got about 500 or 1,000. As long as you've got enough room for one ring (12 metres x 12 metres) then you should be fine with a group of up to 20 to move comfortably. Assuming you've got space around the ring, that is.

My previous dojo was 15 metres wide by about 30 metres long and we had 18-23 adults who'd attend at any given class.

The one before that, we filled an entire elementary gym, and had just enough room for almost 80.