Why isn't there a gym right now?

Straight answer: the room at 817 E Thompson Blvd has closed and a new space is being built. If you drive down there looking for the sign, it is not there any more.

That room had a hexagon cage, twelve heavy bags and classes most nights: kids, women only, adults, fighters. It was a good room for a long time. Rooms also cost money every month whether anybody walks through the door or not, and downtown Ventura is not cheap. When it was time to go, it was time to go.

So the coaching went in the truck. Mats, gloves, pads and me, at your house, your garage, your backyard or a park. Nothing about the teaching changed. Same coach, same material, one on one instead of twenty people in a line, and a lot of people have ended up preferring it. No drive, no set class times, no waiting for the beginner slot on a Tuesday. If you had a reason you never joined a gym, this probably removes it.

Nothing that was on the old schedule disappeared with the room. Women-only training ran at Thompson Blvd for years and it still runs, wherever you are: what women-only sessions are.

The practical worry is space, and it is smaller than people think. A flat patch about the size of a parking space is enough to start: how much space you need. The cheapest way to find out whether training without a gym suits you is to do one hour and see: booking one session to try it.

The new space is coming. Until it does, the training has not paused for a single week. See where sessions happen and when the new gym opens.