Easton Arvada’s new General Manager, Professor Kyle Wright, has been passionate about martial arts for nearly his entire life. He received his black belt under Eliot Marshall and Amal Easton in 2021, but Kyle began coaching Jiu Jitsu full-time in 2013 before he found Easton and has devoted himself to competing, studying and teaching the art.

Like most little boys, Kyle always loved wrestling and roughhousing – he just never outgrew it. Kyle’s family had friends with kids his age, and their older son was a boxer, which he thought was the coolest thing. He tried little kids’ boxing classes and dabbled in karate, but it wasn’t until third grade when he started wrestling that martial arts became a big part of his life. In 2009, Kyle fully dedicated himself to it.

He had always liked the UFC growing up and especially enjoyed Pride Fighting Championships in Japan. When the UFC bought Pride in 2007, Kyle loved that he could see his favorite Japanese fighters competing in the U.S. He had just finished college and decided it was time to give martial arts everything he had. 

“It was the point of no return,” says Kyle. At the time, he lived in Boone, North Carolina. 

While visiting Wilmington, NC, Kyle walked by a Jiu Jitsu academy; he popped his head in and met Renato “Charuto” Verissimo, the Brazilian 5th-degree black belt who owned it and happened to be visiting from Hawaii doing a seminar. Charuto told him he needed Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. 

Charuto also introduced Kyle to a student of his, John Barns, a purple belt under Amal Easton who ran Evolution MMA in Winston-Salem. Evolution became Kyle’s north star, and he used his job in Charlotte to drive through Winston-Salem and train on his way home three to four days a week, going about an hour out of the way. John told Kyle that if he ever headed out west, he needed to check out Easton. 

A few years later, Lowe’s Home Improvement, where he worked in the corporate office, opened a center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Kyle used this as his excuse to get out west and joined Jackson Wink MMA. However, he got introduced to 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu in Albuquerque through a tournament and as he began traveling to Denver for more tournaments, he began meeting people from Easton. 

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Interestingly, his connection to Easton’s community also found its way unexpectedly through a completely different hobby – miniature painting. During his trips to Colorado for coaching classes, he frequented a local hobby shop where the owner, an Easton member, noticed his cauliflower ears and insisted he meet his friend, Ian Lieberman. 

The two connected and by the time Kyle moved to Denver eight months later in 2017, he was certain of where he wanted to train. He had already left his job in 2013 to shift full-time into competing and working in 10th Planet as a coach as well as in the school’s coffee shop.

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Sharpening life through challenge

Kyle’s fire to give his all to martial arts back in 2009 came on the heels of a life-changing medical emergency. At the end of his first year of training, he ended up in intensive care, having lost a lot of blood and 1.5” of intestines. 

All he could think about in his time in the ICU was how if he could make it through, he wanted to give everything to martial arts. He did, and he used this fire to push him through his recovery. He lost a bunch of weight, got in shape and continued to use it as his goal.

When you’re passionate about something, you don’t always think in balance. You make sacrifices others wouldn’t dream of, such as with finances or family time, and often struggle through challenges along the way to make your dream come true. 

Kyle jokes that you have to be a bit crazy if you want to make a full-time career out of something that’s not meant to be a full time career.

Like any pursuit of excellence, martial arts comes with challenges, and one of the biggest being injuries. With his all-in nature, Kyle has had his own fair share of injuries along his martial arts journey, including shoulder tears and dislocations, torn knee ligaments and severe neck injuries.

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“You can do martial arts your entire life and never get injured,” says Kyle, “but if you want to be great, you’ll end up injured – even if it’s just wear and tear.”

In 2022, a major neck injury kept him off the mats for nine months. While he could still teach, it proved one of the toughest years of his life in his own martial arts journey. 

To combat those tough moments, Kyle leaned into being a student. He’d watch Jiu Jitsu matches or fights, come to class even when he couldn’t hit the mats, and always ask the coaches their thought process on moves. While bittersweet, he’d spend 45 minutes getting through a 10-minute match because he’d watch it over and over, breaking it down. In that way, he could still experience growth, even if he couldn’t see it directly.

But injuries are just one part of the sacrifice. Most people don’t see the financial struggles early on that athletes and fighters take on just to stay in the game — paying for travel, tournament fees, medical expenses. They only see the end result. 

In reality, most fighters aren’t making millions; many barely scrape by, risking brain damage for a few hundred dollars a fight. Even the athletes who make it to the top may have families who sacrificed — parents driving them from city to city, finding ways to afford plane tickets and other expenses.

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Helping expand Easton’s experience

Today, Kyle has been coaching at Easton for nearly five years, beginning in 2020 by co-teaching with Professor Eliot Marshall when Easton Denver opened back up with a modified schedule. He has also worked for Eason’s affiliate online educational platform, Easton Online for the last few years.

Though initially he just wanted to be a student when he first moved to Colorado, having experienced his first neck injury that discouraged him from really training for several years, Professor Ian got him back on the mats by helping him feel safe, even picking his partners.

A year after, he began teaching intermediate level no-gi with Eliot, he became the Jiu Jitsu Department Head, where he stayed for three and a half years until becoming Arvada’s new GM at the start of 2025.

Being with Easton full time means sharing all of its challenges and successes along the way. The main challenge Kyle faced as he stepped into his role of Department Head for one of Easton’s biggest academies, with the busiest schedule and largest coaching staff, included learning how to run a legitimate Jiu Jitsu Program.

Kyle’s coaching experience at 10th Planet in Albuquerque looked very different from Easton’s approach. With two instructors managing 10 to 12 classes a week and a client base of about 60 members, he had never experienced an academy structure which had a real goal of creating careers for people, having curriculum and continuously making updates to that curriculum.

Though he no longer teaches 16 to 18 classes a week like he did as a Department Head, Kyle feels fortunate that in his full-time role in the academy, he can dedicate himself fully to growth, training and mentorship. Because he doesn’t have the added responsibility of marriage or children, he can enjoy the flexibility to fully immerse himself in his role, leading a handful of randoris and catching classes when he can.

[Training for Competition: A Breakdown]

While Kyle has had his share of successes in the competitive realm, having won tournaments, trophies and plaques, his professional successes at Easton stand out above all to him. His biggest accomplishment by far has been making martial arts his full-time job and helping others hone their potential so that maybe they can do the thing he was never able to do.

Today, the same goal that drove him in competition still drives him – just in a different way. While his days of becoming the best in the world at competing may have passed, he can still work towards becoming the best coach. He knows he may never meet that goal, but he has decades to work toward it.

“I don’t like to push toward my goals,” says Kyle. “If you have to push, you will get tired and it will feel too much like work and not passion.”

Instead, he is pulled by them. 

“Even when I’m exhausted or unmotivated,” says Kyle, “I’m still moving toward them because they pull me. When you’re being pulled, you won’t ever stop moving. And right now I’m being pulled toward the goal of being the best coach of all time.”

[Why You Talk to Your Coach in Martial Arts]

Our goals are never 100 percent guaranteed, and often they play out differently than we initially see them. However, the definition of success to Kyle is “the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

As he steps more fully into his new role as Arvada’s GM, Kyle’s most excited at revisiting the competitive aspect of Jiu Jitsu. 

Easton Arvada already has a fantastic, welcoming family environment for people of all ages and skill levels. Now Kyle gets to infuse his love for the competitive side deeper to the academy through sharing his nerdiness about Jiu Jitsu – not just looking at the moves but helping students understand systems. 

By breaking down ideas at play that go deeper than any singular technique, Arvada’s entire student base can level up their game and experience an even deeper connection to martial arts!