400th Class Tomorrow . . . NOT

TL;DR: Tomorrow is my 400th class, but my studio called to make sure I knew that in their eyes, it wasn’t.

After class today, I asked my studio’s manager if he could tell me how many classes I’d been to. I knew I was getting close to a milestone, but wasn’t sure how close. He looked it up and said that today was actually my 399th class and was so excited to tell me tomorrow would be my 400th class! He told me I’d get to sign a milestone board, and was going to tell the head coach to make sure he knew. I was so stoked!

A couple hours later, the studio calls, and it’s the head coach. He wanted to talk to me and make sure I knew that even though tomorrow might be my 400th OTF class “to me”, the studio “needs to be consistent” and make sure milestones represent that specific studio “for the sake of all members” and “to ensure we are benchmarking appropriately”. He said that although he was excited I was hitting a milestone soon, the milestone the studio cares about is the classes I’ve taken at that specific studio, and that I wouldn’t get to sign a milestone board until I hit a certain number of classes there. Here’s the worst part: it’s not just classes TAKEN at that studio. It’s classes taken at that studio WHILE that studio is listed as my “home” studio, so the 90 classes I took there before transferring my membership don’t mean a thing to them. (They said I didn’t need to transfer since the same person owns all studios in my state, but I ended up transferring when I was annoyed about having to call to get put on a wait list.)

A little bit of background: all the OTFs in my state (there are 6 or 7 of them) are owned by the same person. I was a founding member in 2018 at a studio, and in 2019 I moved and started going to a studio closer to my house, about 15 mins away from my previous studio. The coaches at both of these studios host events together, they coach and work at both studios, and nearly everyone in my region goes to multiple studios regularly.

So now I’m bummed. Tomorrow is obviously still a very exciting day for me, it’s my 400th OTF and I’m SO proud of myself. What’s bummed me out is the way the head coach chose to handle it, and his justification didn’t seem logical. If they want to be able to track milestones, wouldn’t it make more sense to consider me based on ALL my classes, instead of with people who are just getting started? I’ve only taken about 50 classes at the studio since transferring my membership.

Anyways, now I’m dreading the day they proudly tell me I’ve hit 100 classes . . . I feel like it doesn’t matter to my home studio that I’ve been committed to OTF for 3 years. I’m a proud OTF member and a regular, and love my studio, but I’m really bummed out now thinking that my studio doesn’t care what I’ve done prior to being “official” in their system. I don’t care about signing a silly board, but what I do care about is the fabulous culture of encouragement that OTF promotes, and I was to be appreciated and congratulated for hitting milestones no matter where I started working towards those milestones at. My head coach called to “lower my expectations” and make sure I understood what’s happening “for the sake of all members”.