2011 SuperShow Wrap Up.

Las Vegas - the city hosting the 10 year anniversary of the MAIA SuperShow.  For those of you who don't know the SuperShow is an annual event hosted by MAIA (Martial Arts Industry Association) where school owners from all over the world come to learn and network with other owners.  For others this is a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues.  This multi day event usually has seminar lectures covering various topics mainly how to improve your own school.  There are physical training seminars as well that give you the opportunity to get a taste of a different style of martial arts.  Lastly there are vendors who set up booths that usually have a products or services that can further improve your school. 

Opening Night / Keynote:

We flew in Thursday morning, grabbed some lunch then headed over to the exhibitors hall.  In the halls we ran into Cliff Lenderman one of Master Fariborz's good friends who owns Lenderman Academy of the Arts in Tacoma Washington.  We visit Dave Kovar who has a booth this year, promoting his Instructor Toolbox material.  Lastly as we are exiting the exhibit halls we run into the Father of American Taekwondo Master Jhoon Rhee.  Master Fariborz, Dave Kovar and others always talk about Master Jhoon Rhee.  It was nice to finally meet the living legend.


This years theme for the SuperShow was "Legacy".  Fittingly the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award went to  Bruce Lee.  Bruce changed Martial Arts forever, many started training marital arts because of him.  His daughter Shannon Lee proudly accepted the award and then gave a very touching tribute speech.  She is keeping his spirit and philosophies alive through the Bruce Lee Foundation.
 

The main keynote speaker this year was Aron Ralston.  His extraordinary story of survival and determination showed how an ordinary man pushed to the limits can seize the day.  His story was so incredible the movie 127 Hours starring James Franco was filmed in 2010.  Ralston an experienced climber and avid outdoorsman descended a remote Utah canyon alone when an 800-pound boulder broke loose, crushing his right hand and pinning him against the canyon wall. After nearly five days – without water and with no hope of escape – Ralston made a life or death decision. He chose life by severing his arm below the elbow, rappelling a 65-foot cliff out of the canyon, and trekking seven miles to find his would-be rescuers.  The story he told in person was so real and inspiring. 

Seminars Day 1 & 2:

Lots of very good seminar topics this year.  We had the opportunity to finally meet Steve LaVallee in person and sit in on his seminar, it was great.  The seminars offered many great tips on how to improve your school and how to possibly run a multi school operation.  The speaker we were looking forward to the most was Brandon Beliso, we loved his seminar last year and this year was no different.  His seminar discussed how to create community in your martial arts school.  A lot of his ideas were just so simple and made so much sense to us.  We are hoping to use some of their tips to improve our future school. 

In conclusion the 2011 SuperShow was great.  It was a chance for us to meet a lot of legendary martial artist.  The show was well organized and the sessions were very beneficial.  We look forward to attending next years SuperShow and many more in the years to come.  We want to leave our own "Legacy" in the martial arts world one day. 

Mr. Jason attends Tom Callos Seminar at TKC

Sunday July 17th 2011, Tom Callos held a seminar at Team Karate Centers.  The seminar covered topics such as ingenious marketing, intelligent curriculum design, and the "new role" of the master teacher.  It was a lot of very good helpful information packed into one single day.

Here is a quick bio of Tom Callos.  Tom took his first martial arts lesson in 1969, he is currently a 6th Degree Black Belt under his senior instructor Ernie Reyes Sr.  For 15 years he owned and operated 2 of the largest martial arts schools in the US (at the time), teaching and managing more then 800 students in two locations.  In 1994 he began working exclusively with martial arts associations, school owners, and martial arts teachers,  helping them improve the quality of their materials and curriculum.   He is now involved with programs like the "acts of kindness" program (www.thinkkindness.org), The Ultimate Black Belt Test, and much more.

We have been following Tom's Blog and videos for a while now.  It was nice to officially meet him in person.  We can't write about everything that was discussed at this seminar but we will mention some of the things that really made an impression.  Because Tom does not operate a physical school anymore he has what he calls a digital online school.  This online school school never closes and can be accessed from anywhere.  This gives him the flexibility to continue to train and teach from anywhere he chooses.  We like idea of the cloud and having everything available at all times to our students.  He believes in recording everything and uploading it online to share with others.  Videos get people excited, we have always thought it was a great idea because videos last forever.  If you visit Tom's site, he posts multiple videos and blogs daily for his students.  We would like to follow in his footsteps and be able to communicate to our students effectively by the same means.

Tom said a line Sunday that had a lot meaning, he feels at his age now knowing what he knows, he doesn't think he was qualified to teach back in his 30's.  He believes that great teaching is not how to throw a good cross punch but how to lead others to be better individuals in society.  The best martial arts instructors prepare their students for life in the world, not just life in the studio.  Someone testing for a black belt should change and influence the people around them, their community, and maybe the world.  That is Tom's vision for the Ultimate Black Belt exam.  We have been very fortunate to have him tell us these concepts and much more.  Listening to the views from people who have already trailed the path we are on will help us.  There is no reason to reinvent the wheel.  We must gather all the knowledge from the veterans in this business and pick and choose what would give us the best success in helping our students grow to become an "Ultimate Black Belt".  Evolution Martial Arts Academy will maintain a good relationship with Tom Callos, he is a great asset to the martial arts community and our future.

For more information visit Tom Callos page at www.tomcallos.com

What "Circle" are you going to belong to?

We always try to stay up to date with the latest and greatest in new technologies, which is sometimes really difficult knowing how fast things change.  We have mentioned in a previous news article about our Evo website and what our goals for the site are.  What was not mentioned was that Google and all the tools associated with it play such a vital role in our site's features.  Google has enabled us to communicate more effectively with our students and all other users who follow us.

Google has decided to step up and challenge the social media giant Facebook with Google+.  It has some very similar features as Facebook but one stand out feature we really like is the ability create "Circles" and assign people into specific circles.  This gives us even better channels of communications with our students and users.  Specific circles receive specific information from us which is more efficient.  Imagine the ability for all our students to create Evo circles with classmates.  It will bring the Evo community that much closer together.  Google+ is still in beta and is invite only but shows great potential to legitimately compete with Facebook.

One of the features we were hoping for was allowing our Google Apps profile to be used to create our Google+ profile.  Maybe in a few weeks they will allow this.  Google is currently looking into applying Google+ into businesses, we have signed up to be notified when this feature is available.  We are hoping Google+ can be easily embedded into our website so users can easily add us.

If you get an invite you should register for an account.  They already have a +1 button below this post...Google you get a +1, keep up the good work, it makes life a bit easier for us.