This month, on the Easton Community Podcast, our host, Mike Tousignant, sits down with Kate Eischen – Muay Thai brown shirt and the first female to become GM of an Easton academy.

Kate, who up until recently held a role as the Department Head of Muay Thai at Easton Centennial (and before that the Kids Department Head), started with Easton almost 12 years ago when she felt a mysterious pull to walk through Centennial’s doors. 

For the story and to learn more about Kate’s journey and unique perspective, listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

Prior to joining Easton, Kate had done other things to stay in shape, like boot camps and fitness training programs, but none of them could keep her engaged for long. She needed something to stimulate her mind as well as her body. Training with Easton, she jumped in right away to both Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu.

As anyone who trains knows, martial arts is taxing on both the body and the mind. As Kate points out, you have to be so focused on what’s being said that literally nothing else is going on while you’re in the training room. 

When Kate first came to Easton, she tells us that it was as though something drew her in. She’d driven by a bunch and even looked into the window a couple of times, but when she finally made the leap to walk through the door, it was the kindness of the staff and community that kept her. 

Kate, who was 40 when she joined Easton, tells us that at that point in her life, feeling welcome made a big difference. 

At Easton, if somebody doesn’t sign up immediately, we follow up the next day to see if they’ve made up their minds and give them another chance to take advantage of the academy’s trial month. 

Even if you love your first class, it’s easy to get back home and fall into a million hesitations like, “I don’t have the extra time or the extra money for this right now,” and prevent yourself from pursuing something that could change your life.

Though Kate loved both the striking and the Jiu Jitsu class she tried, she tells us that if she hadn’t gotten the call back the next day, and people hadn’t talked to her in a way that made her feel seen, she may not have stuck around.

In many ways, Kate’s experience exemplifies the reason why we’re so big on excellent customer service at Easton. These sports are not easy; your ego will break on the mat. Class is hard. Your partner might suck (or smell.) We can’t always control what happens on the mats, so we want to make everything leading up to that enjoyable. 

We want you to have such a good experience in all the ways we can affect that you at least give it a shot. Most of the time, you find out that you’re capable of a lot more than you initially thought you were. 

For Kate, who began coaching Kickboxing as an orange shirt, and then later became a kids coach, her favorite part of striking is the release of punching and kicking! (Isn’t it always?) She finds it a more effective therapy than almost anything else. 

Kate tells us that the multi-faceted nature of martial arts is also extremely valuable as you grow older as a focus exercise. It’s cathartic to let your brain stop thinking about all the other things going on around you in life, and the classes force you to focus deeply on the present. 

“If you lose focus for even a second,” Kate says, “you get a cross to the face or ankle-locked.”

[Improve at Any Age with Better Diet, Sleep and Exercise]

Making a space for yourself

Even when you walk in and see athletes on the mats and think, “This is definitely not me,” you may just have to reframe your perspective. Just because you’re not at the same level as some of these people yet doesn’t mean you can’t get there. Our door is open to anyone, and we’re not just trying to bring in the “perfect” mold; anyone can do it. 

“It’s not going to be easy,” says Kate, “but if you have the stuff inside, we’ll help you build that.”

Eventually, you’ll see a shift – the athlete that first comes in and crushes it may do well for a few years but eventually fall off as their ego gets the best of them, whereas the average person who stuck around and improved gets tougher and tougher. Eventually, they can overcome that athletic person.  

Natural athletic ability will only carry you so far unless you’re willing to drop the ego.

The same goes for coaching. A lot of times, the people who insist they want to coach and think they’d make phenomenal coaches bring the most ego to the job and don’t last long (if at all.) Instead, the people who love the sport, treat others kindly and care about the community make the best fits: consistency, connection, and love for the technique.

In Kate’s experience, some of the best athletes can also fall flat as instructors because maybe the sport came too easy for them. They never had to struggle through reps or find unique ways to learn things. 

It’s the ones who had to do a thousand reps, who had the grit to keep doing it over and over again that know how to use smart teaching cues and know how to describe the techniques to different students. \

If you have a passion for Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu and want to share what you know to help others along their journey, coaching very well could be in your future. You may not even know you want to coach until someone asks you to. If you continue to show up and put in the work, we see it. You may not get rewarded right away but the right opportunities will come when the time is right.

For Kate, the lifecycle of the Easton process has been one of the most rewarding parts of her journey, and the thing that stands out most as she steps into her new GM position.

As people move through life and positions open up, like the Muay Thai Department Head position did when Kate moved up to the GM role, new windows of opportunity will open for others as well. Someone will step into that Department Head position, and this means that a coaching role will become available for someone new to step in.

From the start of her walking into the academy to gaining confidence through training, to working towards competition and eventually coaching, she now gets the honor of watching others go through this entire process. 

“Someday, somebody will walk through that door,” says Kate, “who will one day become the next GM.”

For Kate, it has become about getting to see the potential in everybody, and never underestimating what they can bring to the table. The beauty of the journey rests in knowing that it can extend to anybody.

Kate inspires us in that not only can anybody step into the martial arts world and truly succeed, but you also don’t have to be a man or a BJJ black belt to run an academy. 

We hope that through Kate’s lead, we can pave the way for other women in the future to step in and become GMs in the future!

[Crossfit Coach + BJJ Purple Belt Jason Ackerman: Aligning with Growth]