Build a Women's Program That Doesn't Stall Out

Beatrice Jin has hosted more than 250 women's open mats since 2023 — every Friday and every Sunday, whether two people show up or thirty. She has taught co-ed classes at Kogaion Academy since 2020, and she also runs the academy's website, email, texts, and social.

In July 2026 she walked us through what actually built that, including the parts that didn't work. The first year, her open mat peaked at seven people and often ran with three. She ran a women's class for three or four years and stopped, because it never hit critical mass and nearly everyone attending already trained co-ed three or four times a week. Her open mat is ten rounds, six minutes each, advertised as competitive so nobody arrives unsure whether they came to train or to talk — and this year she added a $10 door fee for purple belts and down, for reasons she explains.

This checklist is her sequence: get women through the door, keep them, then develop them into leaders and competitors. Her framing was that a women's program is not a six-week project you bolt onto the gym — growing a female leader takes the same five to ten years as growing a male one.