MASuccess Magazine

Three-time senior international gold medalist and Martial Arts Success Canadian Correspondent Perry Kelly is a can-ryu jiu-jitsu 5th-dan. He’s also a certified instructor in karate, muay thai, Inosanto kali and Bruce Lee’s jeet kune do and jun fan gung-fu. Kelly is also a fully trained Correctional SWAT operator and a graduate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Centre’s Defensive Tactics Instructor-Trainer program.

At the 50th Battle of Atlanta in June 2018, he took silver in the Over 60+ sparring division and received the Joe Lewis Eternal Warrior Award from Joe Corley, Jeff Smith and Bill Wallace.

Perry Kelly: I was born in Ottawa, Ontario, which is the capital of Canada. Canada’s the only country where the national sport allows fighting without being ejected. They simply give you five minutes to catch your breath before you can “drop the gloves” again.

Herb Borkland: What did your dad do?

PK: My dad was a safety engineer who was one of...

The tradeshow floor has been emptied. The lights in the convention halls have shut off. And the speakers and attendees from the 2018 Martial Arts SuperShow have long returned to their homes and schools by the time you read this latest edition of MASuccess. However, MASS 2018 won’t be forgotten anytime soon. If you were one of the over 2,000 people in attendance, you know that this truly was a Show to remember!

By Sarah Lobban

The Martial Arts SuperShow is the largest event of its kind in our industry, offering a larger variety of seminars, vendors and on-the-mat training than a Las Vegas buffet. As such, its main competition is … the previous year’s show! That’s because Century Martial Arts and the Martial Arts Industry Association (MAIA) try to make every Show better than the one before. 

Each year, the Show kicks off with the Opening Ceremonies. In 2018, the ceremony was held the night of Sunday, July 1st. The ceremony opened with a pre-Show to get the crowd pumped up. Mike Cha...

How To Generate Revenue With A Parents Night Out Glo-Chuk Seminar

Looking for a fun way to bring in extra revenue for your school? MAIA Executive Director, Frank Silverman, gives a step-by-step tutorial on how to hold a Parents Night Out Glo Chuck Seminar.

Step 1: Learn the basics of the nunchaku

• You can learn from a video or YouTube tutorial
• This is meant to be fun not a new curriculum for your school

Step 2: Set price between $35 to $50 depending on length of event and experience you provide

• $35 for just 1 hour seminar (retail price of nunchaku)
• Combine it with another event and food for 2 hour $50 session

Step 3: Order Glo-Chuks 2 weeks in advance

Step 4: Set curriculum for event. Test lighting to make sure it will be dark

• Weapons portion should last an hour
• Don’t let students break the glow sticks until you’re ready to do the weapons
• Make it educational (10 minutes)

* Talk about nunchaku and history of the weapon

• Have a safety talk (5 minutes)

* How t...

Knoxville, Tennessee’s Barry Van Over went from the hills of Appalachia to the forefront of the 21st-century martial arts revolution. Franchising is his dynamic vision for the future of martial arts businesses. 

By Keith D. Yates

 While people have been practicing martial arts for thousands of years, the ancient disciplines have never been more popular than they are today. Statista is an online statistics, market research and business-intelligence portal that provides access to data from market and opinion research institutions. The last time the company conducted a survey, in 2016, into how many people practiced martial arts, it discovered that almost four million people, ages six and older, were practicing martial arts. 

With more than 20,000 martial arts studios operating across the nation and the rise of martial arts in the mainstream, there is reason to believe that those numbers would be even higher today.

One of the reasons why martial arts is so popular is because its pr...

After the murder of both of his parents in childhood, Fred DePalma turned tragedy into triumph when he discovered the martial arts. Today, he and his wife, Robin, own eight thriving schools in Arizona. Through his desire to help his employees become successful school owners, he cultivated a mastery of staff development.

 By Terry L. Wilson

Taking Care of Staff

From the beginning of Fred DePalma’s multi-school martial arts career, his primary goal was to take care of his staff. Even at the young age of 18, when he opened his first location, the fledging school owner realized the importance of taking care of the people who would take care of him.

“From the minute I opened my first school, I was all about developing and training the staff,” DePalma says. “And in return, they take care of the students. All too often, a school owner will take care of the students first, without giving much thought to the needs of their staff.” 

“Of course, the students are very important for the sch...

When you’re teaching a new sparring technique to students, how do you present the form so students will understand and learn it efficiently?

Do you have them just practice it a few times and move on? Or do you have plan for when they’re ready to progress?

In today’s blog, Chris Rappold of Team Paul Mitchell Karate shows you the 3 stages of teaching a new sparring technique to students so you know exactly when the student is ready to move forward.

He calls it “The I Method”.

And he uses this methodology in all of his sparring classes.

This is just one of many instructional videos in Chris's new sparring curriculum, Retention Based Sparring.

So if you want to have better success in your sparring classes and you want your instruction to improve, watch the video today.

[NOTE: If you're struggling to find a sparring formula for classes in your school. Sign up for Retention Based Sparring and get the done-for-you curriculum today. Learn more here]

James Lee of Eagle, Colorado, has developed a unique way to funnel 30-40 public elementary-school kids right into his commercial school. So effective is his program that public-schools come to him year after year to do it again! Check out what he does differently and why it works.

Even though James Lee took his first karate lesson at the age of seven, he didn’t get past yellow belt until he was 13. No, it wasn’t because he was a slow learner. It was because he was moved from city to city as a child due to his parents’ work schedule. In spite of the moving around, he begged his parents to find a new martial arts school in each new city. According to him, he was so enthusiastic that he’d start his new classes before they even unpacked their boxed possessions!

At the age of 19, Lee was a brown belt and, in between enjoying the ski slopes, he continued to practice with the goal of going back to Louisiana to earn his black belt. Then, his plan was to return to the renowned ski resort town...

Last month, we informed our readers about the ™Safe Sport Act,∫ a new federal law enacted to protect minors from sexual abuse in youth-serving organizations and businesses. Pedophiles commonly target their prey in youth-based activities, including the martial arts, where children collectively represent over 50% of our industry's active student body. In this important follow-up article from a past issue of MASuccess, we turned to Dr. Anna Salter, a leading authority on the subject for advice. She teaches us how school owners can protect their young students from pedophilia.

 The numbers don’t lie: According to some of the latest U.S. statistics, 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are victims of child sexual abuse. Headlines and news stories abound about how pedophiles have sought their victims in all aspects of modern society, especially in youth-based activities and organizations. 

The situation erupted into a national crisis with the highly publicized arrest and recent criminal convictio...