ADCC veteran and gym owner Robert Drysdale appeared on the Wash Your Gi podcast this week and dropped what experts are calling “the most expensive self-own in instructional history”: coaches are, at best, responsible for one percent of a student’s development.
“I look at it like this,” Drysdale said, presumably while sitting in the gym he charges $200 per month to attend. “The coach is maybe one percent. The rest is on you.”
A quick calculation by The Porra’s finance desk reveals that this means Drysdale’s coaching services provide approximately $2 of value per month. His instructional library on BJJ Fanatics, which retails for a combined $847, is worth $8.47 by his own assessment.
The timing of the statement has not gone unnoticed. In a week where the BJJ community is reckoning with coaches who abused their positions of authority, Drysdale’s claim that coaches barely matter is either spectacularly tone-deaf or accidentally the most progressive take in the sport’s history.
“He’s either saying coaching is worthless or he’s saying coaches shouldn’t be put on pedestals,” one practitioner observed. “Either way, weird thing to say when you’re literally on a podcast promoting your coaching.”
When contacted for comment, Drysdale’s gym said he was unavailable because he was coaching a class — an activity which, by his own math, accounts for approximately 36 seconds of meaningful instruction per hour.