Wow! What a year! This year brought over 800 new members, 17 new blackbelts, 12 events, 120 blog posts, 11 podcast episodes, 2 new GMs and 1 new academy!
Our Easton family has grown into a sprawling garden of different beds, blooms and biomes. Every single one of them contributes to the overall health of our martial arts ecosystem.
As a company, we like to think about our Mission and our Vision in terms of something we can all relate to. Our vision is our North Star, and our missions are the mountains we climb on our way to the North Star.
Our mission is ever-changing so that we never stop raising the bar and forging forward. There’s no limit to what we can achieve together when we tap into the unique gifts and skill sets of each person involved. We’re so much stronger together than alone.
Amid our daily classes, gatherings and events, we grew together through joy, pain and change. We had parties, competitions, seminars with Marcus “Buchecha” and Jason Rau, and Pe de Chumbo taught two classes. We welcomed a new Kids BJJ Program Director, a new GM as Professor Phil Lietz stepped in to lead Longmont when Coach Jordan became Easton’s Kids BJJ Program Director, and a whole new school with Easton Lowry led by Daniel Groom as its GM.
By joining Easton, you continue to give us the opportunity to build the greatest Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academies through an unrelenting dedication to the students and staff – our Vision.
When you believe in us, you also find for yourself the opportunity to create an irreplaceable spot within both the community and the company. Just as we help you grow into better martial artists, you help us evolve so that we never stagnate.
Thank you to everyone who has made our community a little better this year. We guarantee that that bit will go a lot further than you’d ever guess.
Let’s look back and see what 2023 brought us!
January
Easton Training Center’s Belt Promotion Ceremony, January 2023
Twice a year, all of Easton gets together to celebrate our collective growth and achievement with our All-Easton BJJ Belt Promotion. On January 21, 2023, over 200 people joined our ceremonial Randori to train before the Easton Winter BJJ Promotion Ceremony and more than 100 belts were awarded.
Belt Promotion 2023
February
This February brought our second Easton Open, which houses both our BJJ tournament and Muay Thai scrimmage. Over the years, both our annual tournaments and scrimmages have grown so large that even our Denver academy didn’t provide enough space to facilitate them. Leaning into the importance of events and the power of community, we decided to hold them on the same weekend in the same facility!
Easton Open Day 2 Highlight Video, February 2023
February also saw President and CEO Mike Tousignant get an Instagram! Follow his running blog and family adventures and catch the latest episodes of the Easton Staff Podcast which he hosts monthly on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
March
We love creating new merch collections for you each season, and now we have an Online Pro Shop open 24/7! We have a ton of products there, from hoodies and t-shirts to crops and kids gear – and there’s no deadline for ordering them. The shop is different from our pre-orders, and we’re always updating it with new products that you can order at any time and have delivered directly to you within a week. Get your competition gear and support your Easton fam!
Easton’s Online Pro Shop hit the web in 2023!
April
This year, Coach Allie Readmond from Easton Boulder earned a spot on USA’s Muay Thai World Team and got to compete in Thailand at the International Federation of Muay Thai Associations (IFMA) world championships! The IFMA has crowned the best fighters in the world since 1993 and consists of 140 member countries. The IFMA World Championship is essentially the Olympics of Muay Thai, and making the world team marks a huge accomplishment for Allie! Thanks to everyone who came out and joined the seminar she hosted to raise travel funds!
Allie Readmond
May
May saw dozens of Easton students compete at the IBJJF Denver Open, a tournament hosted by the International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation (IBJJF.) IBJJF is the most prestigious Brazilian Jiu Jitsu organization whose tournaments are considered to be the highest level (IBJJF Worlds, IBJJF Masters, IBJJF Pans, IBJJF Kids Pans, etc.) Their Open only comes to Colorado once a year, and it’s a big deal. Students have the opportunity to test themselves against the top competitors within Colorado and nearby states, and we put a lot of effort in getting everyone ready to perform so that we can win it. This year, Team Easton dominated!
June
Every June, Des Moines, Iowa plays host to one of the biggest Muay Thai tournaments in the world. The Thai Boxing Association (TBA) World Expo is a four day tournament that features some of the best Muay Thai athletes from the US, Canada, and surrounding countries. In all, 1000+ competitors travel to Iowa to compete for division titles. This year we had nine athletes from Easton travel to the TBAs, and over the course of the tournament, Easton Muay Thai fought to a record of 14-6 overall and crowned three new champions.
[Experience Muay Thai: TBA 2023 Recap]
July
On July 8th, we celebrated Easton’s 25th Anniversary with an annual all-Easton picnic at Boulder Reservoir! When you live in Colorado, there’s no better time to celebrate a quarter of a century of teaching martial arts than spending a day outside. The weather was perfect, the food was bomb and the vibes were immaculate. Thank you for an amazing quarter of a century!
Traveling together for competition is a tradition in our Kids BJJ department. July 21-23 took our Tigers to Kids Pans in Kissimmee, Florida! Our competitive students frequently go together to other cities and states for tournaments, but this annual trip is one we can always count on to bring the kids together and make the whole team closer. In the end, it’s not about winning or losing, but the experience and the feeling of unity in being part of something greater.
[Team Easton Takes On Kids PANs 2023 With Flying Colors]
August
August 19th saw our Muay Thai program’s first All-Easton Sparring Session, with over 90 people in attendance! All-academy gatherings help us tap into the strength of the entire Easton community by bringing the schools together to share ideas, techniques, skills and just hang out. This session was a massive hit as almost 100 students showed up to train and spar with people who they don’t always get to train with.
September
Our Fall 2023 Belt Promotion Ceremony took place at Easton Denver on September 9th, promoting roughly 90 people, including 10 students to their black belts! You never cease to amaze us with your drive, commitment and resilience to overcome life’s odds and complications – and also with your generosity. Amid the tragedy of September’s Maui fires, our friends at Aloha Rolls Academy in Lahaina lost their academy completely. Thanks to your contributions to Randori Rolls for Lahaina, Easton was able to contribute to the school’s rebuilding.
October
October brought the opening of our 9th academy with Easton Lowry! Headed up by Daniel Groom and guided by head coaches Amy and Junior Fidelis, ETC Lowry has made BJJ accessible to even more people in the eastern side of Denver and those living in aurora. If you’re in the area, drop by and say hi!
We held our Fall Easton Open this October, making it our third off-site weekend of competition, community and camaraderie. This year saw 367 registrants for the Jiu Jitsu competition and 80 Muay Thai students school-wide in the Sunday Scrimmage. In our latest blog post, we chat with some competitors and find out what it’s like behind the scenes!
This October also marked our first ever Vault Merch Release! As a continued celebration of 25 years of martial arts, Easton takes pride in its creative team and one-of-a-kind limited edition merchandise. A peek into some of our most popular pieces from the past, brought back temporarily for a limited time, we brought back some of our most-loved designs for an encore. Catch us sporting them around the academy, and next time, make sure to snag your own!
November
November saw the release of our first zine, a downloadable short-form publication called EASTON. We love creating a space for your unique thoughts and voices, and our zine offers a bite of our editorial collection and a window into the culture of Easton Training Center! Our Fall 2023, Vol.1 edition of EASTON covers fitness, fasting, nutrition and more, with stories featuring Amal and Easton gems Allie Readmond and Professor Ben Roy.
December
While we count our blessings this season and reflect on where we’ve come from, we end the year by paying it forward with our annual Easton Holiday Gift Drive. We know the power of a collective coming together and it’s here where we can make the biggest impact. This year marks our 9th annual toy drive, first started in 2014. All donations are brought to Children’s Hospital at the end of our collection period.
