It's official we have signed a lease. Big 2012 ahead.

We are proud to say we have officially signed a lease to a building in Chatsworth.  The building is located on Plummer near the corner of Plummer and Desoto.  We needed something large to split between Crossfit and martial arts, so the unit is a massive 7702 sq ft.  (The Crossfit space will be nothing you have ever seen before, all we can say for now is PIT)  This building satisfied many of the criteria we were looking for, size, price, location, and parking.  We went full circle and finally got back to this building.  Looking back on all the other potential spots we are glad none of them accepted our offers.    

We should be receiving keys very soon but we can't officially move in until January 1st.  Our next step is to build up the unit to our needs and specifications.  Hopefully this process does not take too long.  We want to get in and start training ASAP.  We are very excited and looking forward to a very important first year.  

As always thank you all for the support.  Its going to get crazy in the next few weeks.  Check our blog or Facebook page regularly to stay current with the latest news.  Be sure to tell all your friends the good news.   

We had the vision, we have the strategy, now its time to execute.  

We are close to signing a deal, barring any major setbacks.

We are closing in on a 3 year, potentially 5 year deal for a spot in Chatsworth.  Hopefully we finalize this in the next few days.  We and others have looked over the pages and pages of the lease making sure all of our bases are covered.  There are a few minor things that we need to resolve but they should not be major issues.  We have aggressively fought for a deal that we feel is fair enough that will help our start-up survive.

We will keep you all posted.  Again thank you for all the support during this long, sometimes dreadful process.             

Google has finally done it. Blogger App on iOS.

Google has finally answered a wish we have been hoping for since the beginning of the year. They have officially released a blogger app for iOS today. This message was written on an iPhone while waiting for lunch and it's great.

How does this help us? This little app allows us to update the news feed on our website anywhere anytime we have signal. Because everything we have is linked together it updates our Facebook page with the same article.

What does this mean for you? All news can be updated as fast as we can think of it. As long as you follow any one of our news sources you should be updated.

With the technology we have today it enables us to effectively communicate to all of our followers. As always thanks for following us and supporting us through this tough journey.

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.

Quick Updates and "Way Beyond the White Board"

Its been a long time since we have updated our news feed.  Here is a quick run down of what has been going on.  We were very close in almost signing a spot in Chatsworth but ran into a few issues,  so we decided to part ways with the building.  Ever since then we have just been continuing our search to find the future home of Evolution Martial Arts Academy.  We have expanded our search to the Agoura Hills and Westlake Village area.  The selection that way west is much slimmer and the cost per sq foot is much higher, but zoning regulations are a bit easier in Ventura county.  Like any good business owner we will not settle on just any building and rush this process.  Doing all our due diligence and running the numbers will help us in the long run. 

We have officially affiliated with Crossfit.  It was a bit of a process but we can now mark that off of our to do list.  

Had a great meeting with Mr. Omid this morning, we discussed some back end database schema designs. We have a vision that is somewhat complex but will hopefully benefit all of our future students.  Any crossfitter knows the two most important values in their workouts are Power and Time.  Most crossfitters use "Beyond the White Board" which is a website where you can record, and track your measurements and slowly view your progression over time.  It is a wonderful idea but the site can be somewhat lacking at times.  So we have something in the works which is similar but hopefully a bit more user friendly and understandable.  We believe this can be "Way Beyond the White Board" for both our crossfitters and our Martial Art students as well.  One of the keys is to make it simple and easy to use and understand,  students are more unlikely to use it if to complicated and takes too much time. We cannot specify any more details at the moment but we are very excited of the possibilities.  iPhone and iPad app anyone?

We want to thank all the people on our Facebook page for still liking us and supporting us.  We are all still very excited about this project and wont let anything discourage us from doing what we love.  It is taking a bit more time to get started than we would like but as Mr. Alex said "Good things don't come easy otherwise everyone would be doing it."  We will try to update our news more regularly to keep everyone in the loop.

Ever wondered why Crossfit workouts are named after people?

Ever wondered why Crossfit workouts are named after people? Here's a great example of a WOD named "Murph" that Sensei Brandon completed on St. Patricks Day at Dogtown Crossfit.

For those of you who went to the MAIA show in Vegas this past year, and had the honor to meet ex-Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell, this was his best friend and fellow SEAL TEAM 10 member that was K.I.A during Operation Redwing.

Heroes DO exist!

 http://www.navy.mil/moh/mpmurphy/soa.html

Tell us what you think. Potential Hoodie and T-Shirt design.

So we got lot of positive feedback from our fans on Facebook that they would be interested in purchasing and wearing some of the original Evolution Martial Arts Academy clothing to support us.  We got a lot of responses for hoodies, so this could be a potential hoodie design.  Evolution Crest logo on the front left side and normal Evolution logo down the back right shoulder.  The logo has a grunge look to it. 

We also designed a t-shirt similar to the hoodie with the Evolution logo going down the front and a big crest logo on the back.

Our last prototype shirt we have is a very basic clean "Classic" Evolution Martial Arts Academy shirt.  Because simple is cool.

Please let us know what you think, comment on this blog or on Facebook.  None of these designs are finalized yet.  Any ideas are always welcome, love it or hate it, we are always looking to improve.  Again thank you all for supporting us, it means a lot during this time.  Continue to follow us on this blog or Facebook for updated news. Special Thanks to Mr. James our mad scientist when it comes to design.

Microsoft IE 9 has caused a bit of problem for our site. Not Cool.

The beta version of our site has been working fine up until last night when Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 to the general public.  Everything was working great on IE8, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, the big four internet browsers.  Because each browser operates a bit differently our code has been modified so all four would see our site relatively the same.  So just when we think everything is cool, Microsoft throws this curve ball out there affecting a few of the Java Scripts running on some of the pages.  So back to the drawing board and its time to change some of the code again.  Some of the issues are related to Google and we are pretty sure the Google developers are working on their end to fix their issues as well.  Luckily our site has not gone live yet so we have some time to workout some of these issues.  We know sometime down the road this same issue will happen to all the other browsers as new releases come out.  Its all part of that Evolution process. 

This has been a quick update to our website.  We are still working hard at it and our vision remains the same.  We can't wait to write a blog that says the site is live so please check it out.  Until then thanks for following the blog, hope to have more updates soon.

UPDATE: Firefox 4.0 released on 3-22-11 is working great with our site.  Thank you Mozilla for not messing anything up.

Mr. Jason attends Dave Kovar's Instructor Seminar held at TKC.

March 6th, 2011 Dave Kovar made a stop in Southern California to hold one his Martial Arts Instructor Boot-camp seminar.  More than fifty school owners and instructors attended this seminar held at Team Karate Centers in Woodland Hills.  This seminar was for senior and beginner instructors helping them become even better and more effective martial arts instructors.

Here's a little information about Dave Kovar.  Shihan Kovar is the head instructor of Kovars Family Martial Arts Centers Inc. He has been teaching karate since he was 15 years old and currently holds Black Belts in 6 different styles of Martial Arts. In 1982 he was rated "California Competitor of the Year," and in 1988 he won the United States Martial Arts Championships Men's Heavyweight Division in Reno, Nevada. He has operated his own Martial Arts School in the Sacramento area since 1978, making Kovars Family Martial Arts Centers one of the oldest and most respected Martial Arts schools in Sacramento. With over 1,900 students, Kovars is ranked as one of the top schools in the nation.
Over the years Dave has developed a unique method of teaching that has earned him the distinction of being the Instructor of the Year in 1992 from the United States Martial Arts Centers (an association of over 1,300 schools in the United States and Canada). Dave's teaching techniques give the instructor the unique ability to help students improve their existing skills while increasing their confidence, discipline and respect. In fact, so many other Martial Arts instructors have inquired about these techniques that the Kovar brothers have developed a series of "How to Teach Martial Arts..." videos. These videos have had phenomenal sales both nationally and internationally.*

With this wealth of knowledge and experience it was great he was able to come and share with other school owners who are following the same path he is leading.  This 7 hour seminar covered topics such as

• Ways to retain current students
• Using focus anchors to control the most uncontrolable classes
• Disguising repetition
• PCP - Praise Correct Praise
• Optimizing classes for Zero Downtime
• Preframing
• How to better social with parents

So much information covered that it is difficult to list them all.  This was a great seminar because as instructors we do most of these techniques anyways but just really breaking them down and working on the techniques that are a bit lacking is all part of the evolution of an instructor.  He truly made it very simple giving plenty of realistic examples that we run into on a weekly basis. 

The best part about teaching martial arts is watching students progress and succeed.  We at Evolution Martial Arts Academy want to empower our students to be successful in whatever they do in their life. Teaching is definitely not a walk in the park, but this seminar will really help us help our students achieve their goals.

If you are school owner or instructor we highly suggest this seminar. 


*Courtesy of www.martialinfo.com

We've been working hard on our site and its looking good. Read on for a Sneak Peak.

Mr. James has been spending long nights and days working on this site and it is coming together very nicely.  It's still a bit rough around the edges but should be all good very soon.  Mr. Brandon's quote "I'm so impressed, I LOVE the look".  Our vision for our website was pretty simple, lots of data while keeping the look very clean, keeping everything looking uniform from our blogger to our twitter page, and even our youtube channel.  Our goal was to keep everything talking and playing nicely together, where information meets functionality.

We not only wanted new visitors to visit the page for information but also current students.  We needed to give them a reason to check the page often.  So the home page has plenty of things students can view that are constantly changing.

Now its time to fill it with some good data.  Follow this blog for more information on when the site actually goes live.  If you have ideas for the site leave a comment on this blog, we'll look into it.  Special Thanks to Mr. James visit his site for his other projects.  http://www.jlaudesigns.com/

p.s. There is no event scheduled to happen in 81 Days 9 Hrs. 43 Mins. 27 Secs. Sorry.

UFC 126 Quick Results

For all you MMA fans here are the quick results of UFC 126: Silva vs. Belfort

Anderson Silva Def. Vitor Belfort					Round 1 (3:25) KO/TKO
Forrest Griffin Def. Rich Franklin					Round 3 Decision - Unanimous
Jon Jones Def. Ryan Bader					Round 2 (4:20) Submission
Jake Ellenberger Def. Carlos Eduardo Rocha					Round 3 Decision - Split
Miguel Torres Def. Antonio Banuelos					Round 3 Decision - Unanimous
Donald Cerrone Def. Paul Kelly					Round 2 (3:48) Submission
Chad Mendes Def Michihiro Omigawa					Round 3 Decision - Unanimous
Demetrious Johnson Def. Norifumi Yamamoto					Round 3 Decision - Unanimous
Paul Taylor Def. Gabe Ruediger					Round 2 (1:42) KO/TKO
Kyle Kingsbury Def. Ricardo Romero					Round 1 (0:21) KO/TKO
Mike Pierce Def.  Kenny Robertson					Round 2 (0:29) KO/TKO

Mr. Brandon's Awesome Photoshoot.

Here are some of the awesome pics from Mr. Brandon's photoshoot.

More pics can be viewed from his Bio page on the Evolution Martial Arts Academy website.

Healthier Lifestyles May Prevent 340,000 U.S. Cancers a Year: Study

When you hear the word cancer it can never be a good thing. This article sheds a little positive light on the fact that healthier lifestyles can help prevent cancer cases. So get out there and be ACTIVE!


Healthier Lifestyles May Prevent 340,000 U.S. Cancers a Year: Study

Our First Post!

Evolution Martial Arts Academy has finally created a Blogger Account.  The cool thing about this we can embed Blogger into our website =] and I think into Facebook as well (If we set it up properly).  So what that means is less work for us =] and more connections to you.  All news, photos, stories, links, videos, and anything else we think is cool and important we will blog and all of you can find it any way you are connected to us.  RSS feed, Facebook, website, blogger, newsletter...etc.

So thanks everyone for all your support during this start up process, it really means a lot.  Just continue to follow us as we continue to work to get this project on its feet.  I promise you, you will not be disappointed.