Recently, on an episode of the Easton Community Podcast, host Mike Tousignant sat down with Easton’s Director of Martial Arts, Alex Huddleston. Together, they dove into what’s happening behind the scenes to elevate martial arts across all of Easton’s academies, including curriculum, competition, events and culture.
Tune into the podcast here! You can also find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Leading from excellence
As a martial arts academy with eight schools under its umbrella, staying aligned is not only necessary for the health of the organization, but also for all the individuals who count themselves part of its community. For this reason, tight structure and crystal clear communication are critical to move everything forward and grow together.
Professor Alex Huddleston oversees all Martial Arts programs, manages communications with other program directors and academy GMs and spearheads initiatives that put Easton at the forefront of martial arts education, athlete development, and community leadership.
This year, Alex has largely focused his efforts on refining Easton’s martial arts through the Denver Open Training Camp, the newest iteration of the Easton Open, and continuing to promote inclusive training spaces such as the Women’s Randori and teen-only sessions.
The Denver Open Training Camp allows students to work with peers across all eight academies, training with the best of the best to prepare themselves for competition. While nothing can take the place of actual competition experience, a commitment to dedicated focus on the art takes a practitioner’s game to a whole new level when paired with consistent, high-quality coaching and a supportive training environment.
Emphasizing the importance of competition isn’t incidental; it’s an intentional and integral part of Easton’s mission to build battle-tested martial arts and produce talented, fearless martial artists. As Mike Tousignant points out in this episode, having something to shoot for gives people a reason to show up.
“If I have a deadline, I’m going to get the job done,” Mike says. “If there’s a peak to get to, I’m going to get to that peak.”
As an external event, the Denver Open is particularly a good goal for those looking to compete because, as an IBJJF event, it brings lots of athletes traveling from all over the country and the world. In Alex’s words, the Denver Open is like the Colorado Jiu Jitsu Superbowl.
This year, Easton took 125 individuals to the tournament, including 15 black belts, with over 100 registrations in the gi and 65 in no-gi. The turnout marked the largest number of participants in the last four years that Easton has attended, with the most points scored, the most matches won, and the most medalists we’ve ever had
“Something I really appreciate about Easton,” Alex says, “with our core values, it’s just so obvious what the next step is. If we’re chasing excellence, how do we keep improving? How do we keep this iterative process going?”
With the goal of continuous improvement and adaptation, the payoff is cumulative, and as Alex points out, this year we really got to see all of the hard work of the last several years pay off and come to fruition. While competing at such a prestigious event may not always work out in your favor, since you’re fighting some of the best in the world, just going in, you come out better.
[Training for Competition: A Breakdown]
Creating a space for everyone
As Easton continues to grow in excellence, graduating 19 black belts this June along with 23 purple belts and 25 brown belts, expanding both in-house and out-of-house events becomes even more important.
With the most recent change to the event formerly known as the Easton Open, Easton aims to welcome more and more competitors from other academies and even other states. This is a critical part of our unwillingness to stagnate and our goal of perpetual growth. While many people may join our Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai or Kids programs for reasons other than competition or athletic pursuits, we also believe that one of the most important things to developing as a whole person includes doing hard things.
You may not like to compete or the day of the competition, but the feeling you get the next day after having challenged yourself and tested your limits, both physically and psychologically, is irreplaceable – even more so than any medal you may get.
To continue to encourage students to step outside their comfort zones, the Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai departments have also prioritized creating more inclusive events for everybody – including women and teens.
“If there’s not a space on the mat for everyone,” says Alex, “then there’s not a space on the mat for anyone.”
A huge part of Easton’s goal to make BJJ and Muay Thai accessible to all comes down to advocating for groups who have a harder time getting in and being comfortable. It’s important to not just give them space to exist, as Alex says, but to flourish.
For more of the discussion, tune into the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
