This month on the Easton Community Podcast, our host Mike sits down with Boulder Academy Operations Director and comic book aficionado, Viola Burlew – or Vi, as we know her.

Vi has been with Easton for 17 years, having started training at the age of 8 back in 2007, nearly the same year as Mike Tousignant himself.

Today, Vi helps run Easton Boulder with General Manager Matt Bloss, and serves as our regional go-to point of contact, along with Sarah Rochniak, for anything related to our new CRM, Wellness Living. She also gets to work daily with her younger brother, Flynn, Boulder’s Jiu Jitsu Department Head – and the reason she came to Easton (and stayed with it) in the first place.

Before she helped run the academy, however, Vi first spent years on the mat coaching kids as well as behind the front desk, as a First Impressions Specialist. Later, she would run the front desk as the Director of First Impressions. This experience on the frontlines gave her a unique, first-hand perspective in understanding what people need and when.

You can think of it like a performance. From the moment the academy doors open, the coaches, GM and front desk are working to create a dynamic atmosphere where students feel inspired and welcome, all while carefully managing pacing, flow and energy level. Vi had to think on her feet, command the surrounding space and solve problems under pressure. 

Today, Vi’s role puts her more into the space of a producer. It allows her to take a look at those same problems under a microscope, analyze them in her own space and test solutions. This analytical approach to problem-solving allows her to not just fix something in the moment for one person but to potentially eliminate the problem altogether for everyone.

[Operating From a School and Program-Wide Perspective]

Endless puzzles to solve

We designed the General Manager (GM) and Academy Operations Director (AOD) positions to compliment one another, an ergonomic fit that streamlines operations and acts as a hivemind. 

The AOD can manage the more analytical aspects of operations while alleviating some of the GM’s administrative duties, freeing up their time to to be the face of the school. 

After 3 PM, the GM’s role has them out in the crowd, greeting students, interacting with parents and overseeing the academy activities from within. The AOD provides on-hand support to anyone who needs it while making sure everything runs smoothly backstage. 

“Matt is people and I’m numbers,” Vi jokes about the way they’ve played into their strengths. 

What can she do to make operations flow more easily? How can we optimize our organizational systems? Where are the persistent loose threads?

Do we need more paper goods? Snacks? Bath mats? Would the academy flow benefit from a new shelf? Do we need to rework how we handle a certain process?

Vi’s analytical mind makes her powerful at creating problems and solving puzzles out of almost anything – as long as she can shut the door and put in her headphones for a couple hours. 

Seeing the behind the scenes from a less performative and truly data-driven, analytic perspective, has in turn helped her with the people side of the job as well. 

The Heroine’s Journey

Vi loves research, teaching and her life outside of Easton is deeply entrenched in academia. 

As a PHD Candidate in the history department, Vi’s work focuses on gender representation and censorship in 20th century media. In layman’s terms, she gets to study graphic novels and write about the badass women who defy traditional roles and push boundaries. 

As part of this study, Vi has spent a lot of time dissecting the Heroine’s Journey. Whereas the Hero’s Journey in literature traditionally involves the main character called to a quest, the Heroine’s Journey represents all that must shift around, during and after that quest.The hero must go through trials, often dangerous, to bring back the elixir and save the day; the journey of the heroine implies that the story does not actually end with the hero’s return.

Upon return, the hero has inevitably changed – or the world around him has – and this new reality necessitates a reconciliation, a reckoning of the old and integration of the new.

How do you move forward and find success after winning gold in your division at nationals? What do you do with those feelings of emptiness from having hit your highest goal? How can you continue to move forward and find new heights? Why do you do what you do?

For the full hour and a deeper dive into Vi and Mike’s discussion on comics and literature, Jiu Jitsu, family and life, listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

[What Can Be Achieved Through Force That Cannot Be More Adequately Reached Through Flow?]