MESA, AZ — In a mass email sent at 6:04 AM Friday with the subject line "BIG NEWS FROM YOUR FAMILY AT ELEVATION 🔺🎉🥋," local gym owner Ricky Taggart announced that Elevation Jiu-Jitsu is "investing in YOUR training experience" by relocating to a 1,400-square-foot unit in the Dove Palms Retail Center, wedged between Vape Galaxy and Pampered Nails & Spa and sharing a 14-car parking lot with a Little Caesars. The email, which opened with a stock photo of a sunrise over a mountain none of the members had ever climbed, described the move as "the beginning of an exciting new chapter." It did not mention the ceiling. The ceiling is 9 feet 2 inches high. "That's not bad," said Taggart, 41, a third-degree black belt and certified life coach who recently rebranded his Instagram to "Ricky T. | Movement Architect | Dad | Ephesians 3:20." "Judo is more of a concept. Nobody needs to literally throw anybody. That's an ego thing, honestly." The new space, which Taggart referred to five times in the email as "elevated," has no locker room. Members will change in one of two employee bathrooms labeled "MATS" (for the gym) or "ENERGY" (for the vape shop), with the former accessible only through a shared hallway that also contains the Little Caesars' ice machine. "The Circle K is literally right there," Taggart said, gesturing vaguely eastward. "You can walk across the parking lot. Changing in a gym bathroom is actually a very old-school, traditional thing. It's how we did it at my academy in Brazil in 2003." Taggart has never trained in Brazil. <figure style="float: right; width: 40%; max-width: 280px; margin: 0.2em 0 1em 1.5em; border-radius: 4px;"><img src="/images/articles/gym-investing-training-experience-strip-mall-vape-shop-nail-salon-1.jpg" alt="" style="width:100%; height:auto;" /><figcaption style="font-size:0.75em; color:#888; margin-top:0.3em; font-style:italic; ">Wikimedia Commons / Plaza 205, Portland OR / CC BY-SA</figcaption></figure> The mat room is L-shaped. One arm of the L measures 22 by 14 feet. The other arm is 8 by 30 feet and shares a wall with Pampered Nails & Spa, which means that during any 6 PM class, the sound of a wet buffer is audible through roughly half of the instructional portion and all of the live rolling. The warm-up area, located at the front of the space where the previous tenant operated a check-cashing store, is carpeted. The carpet is brown, commercial-grade, and already contains what Taggart has described as "some staining from the previous occupant that's actually kind of a conversation piece." Members will learn about the $47 monthly dues increase — from $149 to $196 — when autopay runs on Sunday, May 3. The email did not reference pricing. A single line on page four of the attached PDF, titled "A Note On Sustainable Growth," states that "pricing may reflect the realities of our expansion." "I genuinely thought this email was about new mats," said Brendan Ochoa, 34, a blue belt and regional sales manager for a medical software company. "I was excited. I told my wife. I said, 'We're getting new mats.' Now she thinks I'm lying about where the money goes, and honestly I don't know what to tell her." Ochoa is one of seven members who started a group chat titled "Does Anyone Actually Know What Our Gym Used To Pay In Rent." As of Saturday afternoon, the chat contained 340 messages. Among the threads: an attempt to calculate square-footage-per-dollar against commercial lease data pulled from Zillow; a series of screenshots of Taggart's Instagram stories over the past eight months, which collectively show 23 separate posts about "building a vision" and "stewarding the dream"; a long tangent about whether the old location's bathroom had a window; and a photo, posted at 2:17 AM, of the For Lease sign now hanging in the window of the former gym. The sign was handwritten. At the bottom, in Sharpie, was Taggart's personal Venmo. Reached for comment at his chiropractor, who also operates out of the Dove Palms Retail Center and offers "aligned pricing" for Elevation members, Taggart acknowledged some of the concerns but characterized them as "growth pains." "Look, I hear the feedback. I welcome it. I am a lifelong student," said Taggart, who was in that moment face-down on a traction table. "But I have to ask the people complaining: when was the last time you were actually uncomfortable? Because growth is uncomfortable. That's the tagline of the new location. 'Growth Is Uncomfortable.' We're putting it on the T-shirts." The T-shirts cost $45 and are required for admission to Saturday's launch party, which begins at 6 PM and is being catered by Little Caesars. <figure style="float: left; width: 38%; max-width: 260px; margin: 0.2em 1.5em 1em 0; border-radius: 4px;"><img src="/images/articles/gym-investing-training-experience-strip-mall-vape-shop-nail-salon-2.jpg" alt="" style="width:100%; height:auto;" /><figcaption style="font-size:0.75em; color:#888; margin-top:0.3em; font-style:italic; ">Wikimedia Commons / Kirkman Oaks Plaza / CC BY-SA</figcaption></figure> Three members have confirmed attendance. Two of those three confirmed specifically to acquire the launch-party T-shirt. The third, purple belt Dennis Lerwill, 38, has informed the group chat that he plans to cancel his membership in person so that Taggart has to look him in the eye. "I told my wife I'd be home by 7:15," Lerwill wrote in the chat. "I need this to be efficient." Adjacent business owners have remained diplomatic. "They seem nice," said Raul Mendez, 52, who owns Vape Galaxy. "One of them came in yesterday and asked if the wall was load-bearing. I don't know how to answer that. I rent." Pampered Nails owner Linh Tran said she had spoken to Taggart once, briefly, about the possibility of cross-promotion: Elevation members would receive 10% off a manicure; Pampered Nails customers would receive a free week of jiu-jitsu. "He asked if we could share a mailing list," Tran said. "I said no." Asked about the ceiling height, the carpet, the locker room, the parking, the L-shape, the pricing, the email timing, the Venmo on the For Lease sign, and whether he had considered simply staying in the original 2,800-square-foot space, Taggart paused, exhaled slowly, and smiled. "Brother," he said, "a gym is not a room. A gym is a feeling." At press time, Lerwill was composing a 612-word message to the group chat regarding what specifically that feeling is.