Building a Thriving Jiu-Jitsu School from the Ground Up | The NEO Martial Arts Story

Lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels are omitted because the source recording is not diarised; quotes attributed elsewhere on this page were verified against context.

Music. There's a story. A mission. A spark of passion that started it all. This is Gymdesk Originals. Real owners, real struggles, and the communities they've built from the ground up. What's up? Made it all the way to Canada here. Looking forward to seeing our customer. And today I brought up the big guns. Coming with me is my very own son, 8-year-old Neo. I'm super excited for the class. It's named after me, and I've been in classes before, but I've never been in a class with my father that he's actually meeting a customer.

Just one more. Some right in here. Well, it looks like we made it, buddy. We're here at Neo Martial Arts in Brampton, in Canada. I'm 8 years old. This is my first time at a Gymdesk. What's up, guys? I'm Solana, and welcome to Neo Martial Arts. Let's go in and take a look. What's happening? Coach Patrick. You might know me as Coach B on Instagram. But welcome to our academy. We're so happy to have you guys here. So it's pretty straightforward. So come and take a look.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are like our busiest days. It's a madhouse in here. So typically, this is where all of our students check in. Don't mind the fancy hardware. But oh, Nathan. Nathan's going to look for his name. This could not have worked out any better, Nathan. Yeah, you might get an extra stripe for this. There you go. So he just checks in. He picks up. He picks this class. That one, dude. Yeah. And you can check into that one, too. Yeah. You also checked into Adults Class, but that's okay.

You're forgiving. Awesome. All right. So this is our main foyer entrance. So we do share the space with Red Dawn Taekwondo. Amazing school. We've been working with Red Dawn since 2021. And so you're going to see kind of like a symbiotic relationship all throughout the hallway. So on one side, you're going to see Taekwondo, a more traditional martial art. And then on the other side of the mask and on the other, you're going to see a little bit more street, a little bit more modern. It's BJJ in the Nio way.

All right. So over here, this is our this is kind of our wall of fame over here. Nio's Nio's born and bred and raised by competitors. So my family and I have been competing since we were yay high. And throughout our competitive experiences, we share Jiu Jitsu. We share the discipline and in respect and the passion for martial arts and only the way the way we've experienced it. So come on in. It's our tuck shop. Tuck shop to be. This is our main area. This is our main area.

So, like I said, it's a madhouse here on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have Taekwondo and Jiu Jitsu happening all at the same time. So the Taekwondo space is over here and the BJJ space is over there. You can take your shoes off here when we're this way. So this is our Mighty Mites class right here. So our Mighty Mites class is ages four, four, five and six. It's taught by my son, Coach Quentin and Coach Marcella, both fantastic coaches. The kids have such fun during this class and it ends about now.

So they're probably going to bow out. And this is our Pewies and Juniors. This is our Youth Fundamentals class. They're getting ready for the easy stuff, the easy stuff. So typically I teach the Fundamentals class, but of course Malcolm is going to teach it today. I am the disciplinarian in the group and ages seven, eight and nine is when they need the most discipline. So that's why all the parents bring all their kids here at 545. So kids, consider this your lucky day. I am not teaching today.

Okay. So I guess this is our gym area. That guy's famous. That's Hollywood. That's Hollywood. Norm, Storm and Norman. Super famous. Razor, makeshift gym area. Oh, hi, Neil. That's Neil. Yeah, this is our makeshift gym area. So I'm also a personal trainer on the side. So I do like, I love Olympic lifting. I love powerlifting. So the gym space that we built is really for very functional, powerful, explosive exercises. So it's a small, tiny space, but super efficient. Now let's take you to the grappling room.

The vibe here is like one of my favorite things. It really is. We built such an amazing community here and really, really, really excited to share this with you. It's super exciting. So this here, this is a little viewing area. It's still fairly under construction. We're going to have a little bit of a goat wall over here. I'll show you what I mean by goat wall in a second. But this used to be a closed-out space. So we opened it up so that parents can kind of view their kids from afar.

And it's worked out amazing. This is our grappling room. So fun fact, Neo started here. Actually, fun fact, Neo started in my basement, the basement of my home. And through the years, especially over COVID, we ended up amassing, like, a fairly big clientele to be training in someone's house. So we ended up looking for space. We found this place, Red Non-Martial Arts, on 12 Fisherman Drive in Brampton. And this used to be their after-school program room. So these used to be fully matted in, like, purple 35-year-old mats.

The walls were, it looked kind of like a barn. Like, if you think about modern design 30 years ago, that's what it looked like. And over the years, we ended up coming and making small renovations little by little, culminating in our walls. Well, so, yes, exactly so. That's nice. That's for you, Neo. Yeah. I told him there was going to be a nice way he could see his name written. And, yep, so, this actually stamped, this came out late 20, fall of 2024, and it really stamped our name in the community as more of a brand than an actual martial arts academy.

So we're really, really, really proud of what the wall means to us and what it did for our community and how it brought us together over the last year and a half. We've exploded since, and we're super grateful for all of our members for sticking around and actually, like, just doing what we do. This is our gold wall. This is a gold wall I was talking about. So we're going to be replacing, we're going to be filling the walls on the other side with our favorite athletes.

Here in Neo, we're actually huge on mindset. We're huge on building mindset, building leaders. Leadership development is a huge part of both our culture, our lifestyle, and our community here. So we're big on that. We've got a ton of juvenile, both competitors and recreational students, that we develop into full-blown leaders. They end up coaching classes, they end up teaching classes under our guidance and supervision. We like to teach these guys how to be entrepreneurial, especially in recent times. You know, we really feel it's important for kids to know how to manage themselves, know how to be good business people as well as just great human beings.

We merge those two together here in our leadership development program. And most of all, we teach them how to lead, right? We teach them how to lead from the front, which is why we've got a select group of highly competitive young people between the ages of 14 and 21. Those are, they represent our future. And hopefully, we're going to be successful for years to come. We're going to be successful for years to come. We're going to be successful for years to come. Neo? Hi. Hello. We made it to Neo Martial Arts today.

Got a special guest today on the Gymdesk Originals show. So, welcome. Did you have a good day today? Yes. Did you have fun? Yes. Awesome. Okay, man. A few words today. Coach P, thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys inviting us over to visit the dojo. No, thanks for coming by. Thanks for visiting. This was like crazy energy. You asked me like, you know, what do you think? And I was just, there's so much going on. And I'm basically in awe thinking about, you got programs with kids.

There's so many kids. Two different classes going on in two different arts, both of which I love. So, I'm already like firing on all cylinders, right? I'm seeing this stuff. One thing that stood out to me right from the get is you guys are very organized. Not just organized, but like the kids are like paying attention. There's so many. And like you have these programs or the classes that you're running and you don't have, you know, kids like goofing off over here or whatever. They're just like, boom, boom, boom.

I'd love to just talk about that because I was just amazed at the discipline that it looks like you guys are instilling in the kids here. Well, first off, thank you so much for visiting us. We were so excited when we found out that you wanted to visit us, but make no mistake, like this wasn't a show. Neo is an extension of my family, my wife, our four children. We've been studying jujitsu. We've been practicing jujitsu. I'm going on 19 years now and all of my kids, except for the last one, because she's a bit of a princess, but all of my kids have been started.

So I've started jujitsu, youngest, three and a half years old. So I've taught jujitsu at every age level, like at every age development level through my children. And because we taught in our home, aside from whatever academy we had been a part of, when we opened our doors here, everything you see around you is modeled after what it looked like in our basement. During the most trying times, we taught from our basement. We started off in a basement and we used to welcome people in, right?

So because people used to come into our home to train, we teach as an extension of our home. So our kids have been taught to, my kids in particular, I've been taught to be very disciplined, very focused, and very giving to take care of students. And so my kids have been taking care of kids and adults through jujitsu ever since the start of this. All right. So it has carried on here because now they're older. I've got three, one 19-year-old, one 17-year-old, and one 13-year-old, and one 11-year-old.

And they all take care. They all have learned to lead. And that leadership became very contagious over the years. And now we have such an amazing batch of youth leaders, juveniles under 21, under 18, under 14, and that's what you saw today. You saw the work of our leadership in play, right? So all of the kids know that when coach speaks, nobody speaks, but coach is here to make sure that you're having fun. And there is no fun unless there's discipline first. So that's pretty much how it goes here.

Because when I was, you know, coming up doing the Taekwondo thing, it was very disciplined. You know, there was that, you know, you got some schools, they don't have that. And you can see the drift of the attention spans. But you guys, yeah, very impressive for such a big class to hold everyone's attention. Thank you. Especially at the age, at the age group. So, well, a big part of that is the way we structure our program. Again, leadership development has long been a huge, both huge and contentious part of our brand and our company.

We've had many partnerships fail because of our drive to develop leaders. And we stuck to our guns and look where we are today. The way we structure our program is like ages four, five, and six, they're led by young people, like 16, 17 year olds, people who love children, age seven, eight, nine are led by me. I'm the disciplinarian. So that age group typically, as you would know, Neo is eight years old. Great name, by the way. But that age group needs the most, requires the most discipline, right?

And then age 10, 11, 12, they, those guys are looking towards my eldest son, Malcolm, who they've been learning from since he was 14 and he's 19 now. Yeah. So that growth together as a community has really, really kind of led to this. And that's why we can keep these kids focused because we share in the empowerment of leaders. There isn't a one rule here, right? There are a bunch of rules here, but everybody follows them. Right. So there's not one like supreme leader. That's interesting.

So, you know, cause as an observer, I just see order where I should normally see chaos. And it's like, well, that's impressive, but that's part of your secret. You have like many, you know, leaders that are in the mix. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. That's really cool. It's like, oh, thank you. It's honestly like an ecosystem that trickles down. So I've been at clubs. I think we've all, you've visited most clubs, but we see that hierarchy is not the same at Neo. Like what ends up happening is as each age develops, they learn and they authentically want to empower and lead the people around them, especially new guests, especially new belts that come in.

And they see that if they're amongst that group of ambassadors, then the focus and fun and the more learning that they can have. So to be honest, like these kids empower each other by being disciplined. It's pretty cool. Cause I think at the end of the day, they all love jujitsu so much. And if you notice, they learn a lot in a class. So little Chloe wants to discipline Neo to be like, yo, I want to learn more. So you gotta get with the pick and work with me here, help you and work with you.

But it's pretty cool seeing, honestly, it inspires a lot of us. Two huge parts about our philosophy are number one, not only have we been practicing jujitsu for all of these years, but the main components of this company. So myself and our four children, we've all been competing since for over 10, 12 years. So this academy is led by competitors. It's not mandatory for our students to compete because our competitors lead the way. Our competitors are forcing their teammates to become competitive. They're forcing, they're encouraging the learning and they're taking care of each other.

So our leadership from top down, bottom up is developed by competitors, right? We want to make sure that our students, our future becomes very proficient at jujitsu so that in the event that they're inspired by us to compete, they've already got the tools to play the game, win the game and succeed. And we've been doing this for going on six years now, ever since the basement, right? That's number one. And number two, because I have two daughters, female empowerment is, has long been a huge aspect of my philosophy, which is kind of what led Solana into the company and to become a big part of the brand.

We put such an importance on the females. Like we have female mat enforcers, especially in the kids' classes, right? So, you know, if we have a new kids or visitors, right? Almost immediately we'll put them with super tough females first so that the humility is there, right? So that like it breeds a good culture and good discipline and breeds humility right off the top. Right. And it also builds tough girls, right? And, you know, in a world where we're lacking of tough, everybody, you know, we're most importantly, I think that our, uh, the women in our lives need to be sometimes even tougher than the men, right?

They're the foundation of strength, a lot of families. And it starts here too, like physical and mental. Yeah. And while Neo here was in the class, Solana, you were teaching women's only, is it ladies only jujitsu, self-defense, or tell us about the program. And I mean, I assume this is part of the journey here is to help disempowerment through some of these programs and maybe why women's only, because I've seen that happen or not happen, but I've seen programs like that pop up more and more.

Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, for sure. It's rare to actually find a leader, especially in a male dominant sport that prioritizes women, to be honest. When I first trained, I wasn't at this school right away, but sometimes I'd be the only girl and you would probably be the person I would drill and roll with just average, maybe buck 70, um, man. Right. And I got injured a lot. I wasn't getting a lot of the feedback I needed because we just roll differently.

But women deserve a spot on the mats. And what I really, really, really appreciated about Neo and one of the reasons, there's several reasons why I joined this team, but the emphasis that we have our own space and we can be ourselves while still learning good jujitsu mattered. Because at the end of the day, let's be honest, this can be really intimidating for women. Like you're going into a sweaty room with all these big guys learning how to basically kill each other, choke each other. It's not super attractive.

So my huge goal with the women's program is to make it female friendly, but still learn very high technical jujitsu. There is a mixture of self-defense in there. I think at the end of the day, it's one of the high reasons why women come into the sport, but it's not actually the reason why they stay. Because we all know we need to do self-defense. But what keeps you coming back and back is having a really fun class, one that challenges you, but a really good community of people who support you through it.

Because again, there's a lot of tough movements and stuff. So when you have this amazing group of other women cheering you on and realizing mistakes are okay, just get back up and try again. It just creates this sub-community in the sport. And what we're seeing is more women are starting to venture off to the co-ets. More women are being like tickling the idea of competing. And we're just seeing this confidence build from a ladies program that's not just focused on self-defense, but community, fun, and still really high technical jujitsu.

So that's my passion, to be honest. And again, it's a very important community here at NEO. And a lot of these women in the class are actually jujitsu moms. So I remember one time walking into that gigantic room that you saw, and I'm like, look at how many moms are sitting there on their phone or just waiting for their kids to be done. We value the time of moms and our women in our lives. They've got so much stuff to do. A lot of them are working moms.

They have a lot of the house that they have to take care of. And I'm like, we got to create a space at the same time and utilize the time when NEO's in class. Let's get mom into this class. Get her jujitsu in. You guys are learning more. But the coolest thing amongst that is now they're learning the same game that your kid's learning. So I'm seeing more moms knowing how to cheer, how to coach their kids on. They understand their kids' struggle. So instead of just going to a tournament and saying, get up, up, up, they're like, hey, I know he can't do actually that.

He went through frame, burst, make that space, then get up. So there's a lot of compassion that these parents and moms are learning that I don't think without a ladies program, they would never have the courage to do. So that's why we have it going on at the same time as the kid's class here. Their program is a lot more, her program is a lot more fun than mine. That's for sure. It's a party in here. So obviously he and I can talk about that kind of stuff all day.

But, you know, if he is got someone in the guard, you know, my wife wouldn't know if he's losing or winning, you know, it's like, it's unclear. But this context that you're mentioning right now with the moms being able to basically build on that, work on that stuff together, even at home, you know, let me be the UK or whatever, right? That's cool. But the other thing that just kind of dawned on me as a realization, you know, a woman who's on average, 110 to 140 is always going against guys that are 170, 180, 190.

It's like me going against a 230, 240 guy. Yeah. That sucks, man. Yeah. You know, I just never even, no wonder, like, yeah, it makes sense. I wouldn't want to do that all day. It's just, it's hard to, you know, roll with those people who are that strong. It's just a different game. So awesome perspectives here. One question going back, you said you've been training for 19 years. Started when I was 20. Okay. And you have a 19 year old. Yes. So you started right when your first baby was born.

Is that how that worked out? My wife and I got married and we moved to the city. And this was before the city is downtown Toronto. This was before the good lives and the LA fitnesses boom. And way before like Orange Theory and, you know, all like the chic boutique gyms. So I was looking for an actual bro gym to work out at. And because we were downtown in the core, couldn't find one. I got exposed to the UFC when I was 16. I used to live in California.

Actually, 14. Sorry. I used to live in California. I was kicked out of my house. And believe it or not. And then I got shipped off to California and I learned martial arts there. Okay. Where were you in California? The Bay Area, Union City. Okay. Yeah. San Jose right here. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. I'm going back there in October. When I was there was my school. This was the first time I had been exposed to American high school. So yeah, it was just like the movies, right?

Like at nine o'clock, they would shut the doors. All the guys, you're getting gun checked, your bags, right? You have to go through the alarms, right? All the gangs are everywhere. And I was moved away from that in my own neighborhood here in Canada. And now I'm back here. The people who I lived with at the time were friends of the family, my cousins. They said, nope, you're doing martial arts. So then I started learning Kung Fu and Muay Thai. And then we just started hanging out on weekends and I got exposed to UFC.

That's how I got exposed to Jiu-Jitsu because Hoist Gracie, right? So UFC 1, UFC 2, like Hoist was just ragdolling everyone bigger than he was in the gi. And 14 years later, I finally said, couldn't find a gym near my condo that I can go to regularly. So I said, you know what? There's a Jiu-Jitsu place right here down the street. It's 10 minutes away. So I decided to join it. And I've been hooked ever since. Nice. And that was in Union City? No. 14 years later, we were removed.

Yeah. But I had been introduced to Jiu-Jitsu. I see. Long, long, long before. And I just never, I never gave it a try until I got married. Yeah. And then, yeah. So when my son was born, I was training. And my wife was going back and forth from our, my in-law's house, which is in the suburbs. So sometimes she would spend nights over there with the baby, with Malcolm, the boy you rolled with. Yeah. We should show that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. You must have done real well, didn't you?

Yeah. Amazing. I don't even know what you call that. I mean, I don't know where his legs would come from. Yeah. We don't know what to call him either. So it sounds just great. I mean, I was like, north, south. And then here comes his leg. What is this? Yeah. Come on. But yeah, when he was an infant, he spent a lot of time going back and forth. And I would spend my lonely nights just in the gym, getting beat up. Yeah. Yeah. And then now look where we are.

Yeah. Well, certainly I can tell you that, you know, this kid inspired me to pick up doing martial arts because I had taken some time off from, you know, back in the day. So I was really into it when I was young. Did a taekwondo thing. And the same thing, like, we'll see everybody that, I think it was UFC 2 that, like, changed my life. You know, I was like, oh, we got to get into. In San Jose, we had San Jose State. So I did judo, which was the closest thing.

Cool. And just, I went from undefeated taekwondo guy to every day, I'd just get crushed by a bunch of black drones. So he's getting hammered right and thrown in there. Boom. It's just, you know. But you realize, man, there's so much depth to all of these artists, you know? Yeah. Obviously, you learn so much. Even today was an amazing class. So it was great to see. You had a guest from? My coach, Marcos. Yes. Marcos. From Sacramento. Yep. It was great to see all these things.

I learn something new every day. Y'all have, you mentioned earlier, competitors. You have so many trophies. Let's show some of that to the folks out there. Is that the whole school? I mean, how do you? There's so many on there. 95% of those are Terrell medals. Yeah. So on the left side, next to the big mats, those were all the gold medals that our family have won locally throughout the years, from white to black. And obviously, the kids as well, from whatever color belts they've earned.

We're a big IBGEF competitive school. So a lot of those medals on the wall, the fancy ones, 95% ours. And Selena has started donating her medals and her accomplishments to the wall. I mean, rightfully so. She's a huge part of this. We don't like to hold our medals for too long. But we're happy to display them and hopefully inspire people to do it as well. Leading from the front is just something we do. And the medals are just an example of us going out there and battle testing what we teach.

It's very, very important. One day, my son, Malcolm, he didn't want to compete anymore. And I said, OK, well, you still have to train. And it's mandatory. And you have to train. And then I had him helping children. And then sometimes I'd say, OK, just teach the class. And he was like 14 years old at the time, right? And one day he said to me, Dad, how do I know that the stuff I'm teaching is legit? Those exact words. And I said, well, don't you think you should compete and test it out then?

Then he looked at me like, you son of a... And now he's literally one of the best in the world at what he does, right? Maybe, yeah. This probably came out. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this was locked in here. What is that? And I couldn't... Yeah. Things I had not experienced before. Yeah. And that's what we do, right? Like, I just challenged the kids. Malcolm and Quentin and Robin and Tatum, those are my kids. I challenged them. I said, you know, if you're going to be here helping people, you know, don't you think you should test what you're doing?

Right? And they agreed. So, we got lucky. Yeah. That's great. Awesome. So, let's talk about the name Neo Martial Arts. Tell me, you know, what's the background there? So, I'm a huge fan of the first Matrix movie. Let me specify. All right. The first. Okay. That movie blew my mind. It blew my mind. Everything about that movie was absolutely incredible. It really, really resonated with me. I may have been in my early 20s, maybe 19 or 20 at the time when that movie came out. And I watched it in the theater with my friends and my girlfriend, who's my wife now.

And we watched it. And my mind was blown. So, just the whole concept of being in a program, trapped in a program, controlled by a higher entity, right? A more intelligent species. And then taking yourself out of the program, like an awakening where you're out of the program and then you can come back into the program and then download all this information at the speed of light and then learn it and then apply it. Turn them out. Yes. Plug in and plug out. I know Kung Fu.

Show them that. Right? So, I received my, I was awarded my black belt through my professor and very good friend. His name is Dan Hale. And he was one of Cobrinha. Do you know who Cobrinha is? He is one of Cobrinha's very first Canadian black belts, was Daniel. And I owe Daniel so much. I would not be here. I wouldn't have this teaching style. I wouldn't have this comportment. That's a Marcos word, by the way. But I wouldn't be who I am right now if it wasn't for Dan.

Dan saved me from leaving jujitsu altogether. But anyway, during COVID, unfortunately, our gym, our team shut down. So, I had already been teaching in my basement as a side hustle and I decided to do my own thing. And when I did my own thing, I had to rebrand because the name of the academy that I had named in my studio when I finished my basement, I was, remember, I was teaching from my basement. It was named after our team. So, when I rebranded, I was like, what am I going to do?

Like, what am I going to, you know, I was thinking of all kinds of crazy names. And one day, I read a lot of books and I was reading a lot of like marketing books and it was like, kiss, right? Keep it simple, stupid. And it was like, yeah, maybe three letters that are very meaningful, something like that. And I was just drawing letters on paper and I put Neo for new, right? So, Neo is new. So, I said, okay, that's cool. And then I thought to myself, oh my God, it's the matrix.

And so, Asalana will admit, when people used to come to our home and learn, it was during the worst time. It was during COVID. It was when the COVID visitation, the visitation hours went from zero to five to 10 to 25. And we started training in pods. And when we started training in pods, something interesting happened because we had to maximize the time we had together. I started preparing specific lessons that were not technique based. They were concept based. So, I was like, I'm going to show you this escape and I'm going to pair it with this pass and I'm going to pair it with this take now.

So, an hour and a half class was filled with four, three, four weeks of material. And so, when I conceptualized Neo, it went from new to, oh my God, we are literally exiting the matrix on this. Because that's not how I learned Jiu-Jitsu. I learned Jiu-Jitsu from almost like a textbook, week one, week two, week three, week four. This is the move, so on and so forth, right? Which is kind of, you know, how most of us have learned Jiu-Jitsu until like maybe now, like the 2010s into now, where everything's very conceptual.

But yeah, man, it just fit. So, I started saying, okay, well, what color is the matrix? And it was like the code, the green code. So, I started using that green and then gold and I made it very colorful and zany. And you might be looking at this right now. I see you looking at this. I used to DJ. I DJed for 20 years. Oh, wait. Yep, yep. If you look over there, I put a lot of my records. The vibe of this school is built around music.

It's built around hip hop. So, Neo and hip, my love of hip hop. I used to DJ the club scene and hip hop was my first love, right? Dance. That's where the graffiti came from, right? So, it was kind of like an amalgamation of everything I've done in my life that was entrepreneurial. It was just a collaboration of everything. And now we are here. Yeah. Right? So, that's my goal. I take people. I take them out of the matrix. And I plug all this information into them, right?

I empower them with strength, with courage. And sooner, like over the years, I became we. Like, she joined. He joined. He joined. He joined. And by the time before we left our basement, we had like 62 people literally training out of my basement. Wow. Yeah. And then by the time we found this place, there's all she wrote. And believe it or not, it is only in the last year and a half that we have had white belts come out of the matrix. Right. Because for the first three years since we started, we opened in this location, we were filled with color belts.

Our color belt to white belt ratio was like 12 to 1. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And only now, as we've expanded, have we started attracting, started to attract white belts and kids, right? And again, it's just a combination of good fortune and compassion and empathy and a whole lot of luck. And a lot of learning. And a lot of learning. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to know more about how you guys. I'm going to let her take it away. You guys start working together. Yeah. Patrick explained like COVID in a way, just like a lot of things, it was a blessing in disguise.

Because I didn't know you before COVID. I started Jiu Jitsu in 2018. A little different story than him. I found it at like the worst of times. I think like a lot of humans, just a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, didn't have a big purpose. Just kind of going through the days and I needed something. I needed an outlet. So one of my friends recommended me to Jiu Jitsu and I didn't know what it was. I was like, is it karate? Is it Taekwondo?

And so I started listening into it, learned about it and decided to go to my first class. And from there, just the fact that you get tapped out 10 times, not knowing what you're doing, having to accept failure and be like, you know what? I'll get up and reset, reset, reset. That to me was something I never experienced before. So I was hooked in the sense of, wow, this is such a creative way to learn a skill through failure. Like it never was taught that growing up.

And so that's what kind of kept me going. And I was obsessed from the get go, but got injured a lot. Learned Jiu Jitsu. But like he said, it was kind of a broken Jiu Jitsu in a sense that you're learning techniques. But when you go and try to apply it, that strength, it's hard as a white belt not to try to win and put that strength through. So I won. He calls me, what would you call me? Goon Jitsu or hippo Jiu Jitsu. But I used to win just because I would be a hard ass and try to get through people.

But COVID happened. We stopped training and then we connected online. So I actually think I trained with Patrick for about eight or nine months before I actually met him. So when COVID happened, those 50 people, we were up to like 50 students and then COVID happened, went to zero. Yeah. But because I had designed my basement to be a professional studio, I ended up, I was able to pivot into an online learning immediately, like snap of a finger. Because all of those white mats that you see around here, all of the records, a lot of these picture frames were in my basement.

And all of this design is kind of how my basement looked. And so it looked very professional. So I kind of just put a camera and I started teaching on Zoom. Now, how can we teach you Jiu Jitsu? Right. Taught with grappling dummies and I taught with my kids. So my kids were the faces of online training. So people were like watching me do Jiu Jitsu on Malcolm. Right. He was always the Yuki. And when people who couldn't train Jiu Jitsu because they didn't have a partner, right, they would do solo drills.

So what I did was I ended up learning. So again, I read a lot and I like to learn a lot. So I ended up certifying as a personal trainer and certified in like a mobility class called Animal Flow. And I started teaching Animal Flow online and that's how I met Salander. Yeah. Continued. Yeah. I was one of the first few folks who learned Jiu Jitsu online and I was so skeptical, Alex. I was like, I don't have anyone to train with. I'm in my living room.

How am I going to learn from this guy? But he's like, come. You don't have to pay. Just try it. So I tried it and the first thing I noticed, actually two things I noticed. One, it was the first time I was actually exposed to kids doing Jiu Jitsu. I think a lot of times you see kids in adult classes separated. And at my old school, there just wasn't a lot of parents and kids that trained together. So I didn't even realize that kids could move the way that I saw his kids move.

But I think the thing that impressed me the most was how he explained the concept and system of Jiu Jitsu. And it blew my mind. I was like, this is how my brain's wired, seeing everything flow. Just because I come from a very analytical background, accounting, like operations, workflow. I need to see the why and the different paths of things. So when he taught it, I was like, holy cow, this makes sense. It's not just one broken movement. It's an ecosystem. And that was the first time I ever got exposed to Jiu Jitsu that way.

So I saw that. I saw how fluid he taught. But ultimately, what really made you say this was a special team was just the full on experience. He explained before, it's an extension of his home. It really is. And that even to this day, as you walk in, we really pride on that. So you walk in and first and foremost, we want to make sure you have a good time. Then, we want to show you the great Jiu Jitsu that you deserve because you put time to come into this space.

So from there, I just saw a vision. And I was like, I need to get on board with this and see how I can help grow this. Because I just saw more than just what I saw on the Zoom. I was like, we need to see how we can expand this. And here we are now. She would badger me every other day. She'd be like, oh, you know, you can do it this way and doing that way. Because you should do this. She knew that. I'm like, man, Lista, I'm in a basement right now.

I'm like, that's big for me. You know, I wasn't expecting this. He was doing it on his own. And it was so amazing. But I also saw how manual a lot of the things he was doing, right? It's still manual. And it's getting better. But I was like, wow, we can scale this in ways. And I want to be part of scaling this creativity part. So I believed in the brand. We were there, I think, kind of shortlisting the names of it, too. And Neo definitely had to be on it.

Because when you come in here and the way you learn, you realize, wow. Like, you are out of the matrix and there's so much more to it. And the systematic part of it, I think that's the part that people realize. So my vision and my passion is just scaling this experience so more people can have their hands on it. One thing about the matrix that inspires me, and especially when I teach the students, is everywhere you go around the academy, there's one high-level student that specializes in something.

Like, Malcolm plays with this, the lapel, right? We have Quentin plays with the sleep, spider. We have Connor and my daughter, Robin, who like to go upside down, right? They'll invert their games or inversions. I'm a pressure passer, right? We got a guy who does judo. Two guys who do judo, right? So many different styles, yet we all apply the same system. We all apply the same system of movement. We all have the same lexicon. We use the same lexicon, like, same language, right? So a blue belt can coach a black belt at a tournament, right?

Because we all speak the same language. And that's the thing about the matrix, right? You can dress yourself however you want. When you're in there fighting evil, right? When you're one of the heroes, right? Like, you came in there with your own outfit. You came in there with your own guns, right? Remember? Like, you know, you can customize your ammunition, right? And that's what I like here. That's what I like to do. I like to encourage people to be independent and individual, yet follow an order, follow an order of operations, right?

Do the math the same, but be your own. Be your own self. Yeah. So then as far as your transition from basement to here, did you guys work together on that at that time or did you join, you know? No, I discovered this with the help of Solana. She helped me find the locations, right? Again, all in. When I say all in. She was very instrumental in me finding spaces in and around our home. I ended up partnering with Red Dawn on my own at the time.

And we grew over two or three years. We just grew and we expanded. And through expansion into, like, other cities, other suburbs, we experienced huge success in terms of amassing numbers, but also big failures in terms of, like, you know, the culture being appropriated, not according to our brand standard. So we, through expansion, we also started to shrink. And when we focused our efforts this year in Brampton, I decided to partner Solana into the company, offer shares into the company just to make it official. She deserved it.

So that's kind of how this came to be. She's literally a day zero NEO member. And, yeah, you're one of our longest serving supporters, students, members, and leaders. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So now this space is cohabited, right? Is that you have a separate business? You guys have been working together for some time? Yes, we shared space now officially with Master Elliot. Again, collaboration is a clutch, clutch, not only a skill, but it's something that must be done if we are to survive in this martial arts industry together.

If you find the right people to collaborate with and learn how to work together, it's like having a roommate, right? Yeah. You have crappy roommates and sometimes you have bomb roommates, right? So, you know, in this case, man, we have an amazing roommate. So we're going to go together for sure. Yeah. And I'm curious about how does that work with people who come in? Do they get like, hey, you want to try this? You can, it's this pro, you know, do you guys have a, oh, I want to do everything?

It's a company policy to not talk to our other businesses' members. Should they want to become, should they want to take classes, we'll have a special member's rate for them. However, if they choose to cancel over there, they're canceling here. It doesn't work that way. So we've kind of nipped it in the bud immediately. Taekwondo is also a traditional martial art. And we understand that there is a need still for traditional martial arts and we are non-traditional. So when we're cohabitating, it's actually all good. People, people kind of, you know, see what we're doing.

We see what they're doing. Say hi to each other, you know, and we share the space accordingly. You know, if they want to try our class, we'll write ahead. And I always encourage our students, if they want to try a class. Oh, we have like four or five students at UBO. How did you find us? Yeah, that was me. We needed something. We were scaling and at least for Neo Brampton, a lot of things were done manually. And yeah, it was getting too much. So by the time I joined the team, I just realized, you know what, Patrick's time amongst running the business, running the space, like his family, coaching a lot of classes.

And then I'm not full time in this either. So we had no full admin, right? We were like, there's no time to do all this. And we experienced other platforms in the past and they were good, they were bad, but we were like, we need something that just fits us. So I was doing research and I was like, what are the most important things to us? Simple, service, and just the workflow just makes sense for jiu-jitsu. So I was just doing my research and then jiu-jitsu popped up.

I looked at it and having the conversation with our account executive, Alex, and him actually explaining the story behind jiu-jitsu, how the founder was actually a jiu-jitsu black belt, going through the simplicity and how everything was tailored towards a gym like us. And then, again, it was just, it made everything look seamless on what we needed. I was like, we got to go for it. It's exactly what we need to save that time with where we were spending most of our time, but also we could see a scaling with it.

I was like, it was a no-brainer, right? Yeah. Yeah, and so you guys decided to give it a shot. You spoke to probably Alex Boakai. Yeah, that guy. Come train with us. Yeah, come train with us. I've known that guy for like 10 years now, so. Oh, amazing. And we've done it. We've got at least two of these together. So I still have him out there. He trains a little bit as well. But then you were onboarded some of the folks from the onboarding. You guys talk to them pretty often and how did that go?

Oh, yeah. That was a really good experience, actually, because with onboarding, again, we are so busy and we're not experts in creating a website and putting them together. So our onboarding team was actually Jay and Rachel and they really took the time to understand what we wanted and then help us build it. Now, it took a little bit of back and forth and there was a lot of learning curves with us as well. But I feel that we were supported at least and we were able to get everything up and running for when we started because we actually had a big ask.

When we decided for Gymdesk, it was the trigger point was we were expanding the space. So what you saw in there in the big room, everybody was in this tiny room. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's tight. And so when we say we now collaborate with Red Dawn, we needed to because 35, 40 people in this space. Yeah. We had 52 today in there. That's a lot. Yeah. There's no way it would have happened in here. So imagine trying to do that with that traditional pet, like we weren't even tracking people as they were coming before.

We were like, you know what? With expansion, we need to be able to like manage and organize and just like be able to track what's going on. And so it happened at the same time as the expansion. And thank God we had that team because as we were doing the Gymdesk implementation, we were also doing the brick and mortar like expansion here too. So everything was all at once. And from day one of opening, like our members are just used to checking in on Gymdesk. Everyone has their apps.

That's where we do our announcements. We make video content on them too. So people actually show up. We film on Tuesdays and then we give them a little snippet on it. So they have a record of it. And so everyone's on board and it really helped as we are growing and we're still growing right now. You said over the last few months, you guys have just spiked and you've had new white belts that you hadn't had before and that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, again, we were both skeptical on the website development, not just Gymdesk, But in general, I had designed everything myself through templated web, like Wix or Squarespace, right?

I would put everything together myself and I would just go. I taught myself e-commerce, like, you know, especially during COVID. So I was already familiar with how websites integrate with, say, Stripe, for example, right? So I already had a preference with Stripe because through my experience building my website with Squarespace and then building my website with Wix and integrating it all with Stripe. Like, I taught myself all of that. I ended up, we're so busy with our lives and running the academies and our jobs that I ended up teaching myself how to use Gymdesk even before the orientation.

Yeah, we did. So by the time, by the time the onboarding came, I was like, hey, guys, so I already created this and I have this many and I have that many here. It was funny. Like, Jay and Rachel were like, what? We're excited. What is going on here? But the one thing that we were skeptical about was the website, investment in the website. And, like, what do you mean everything's already SEO generated? What are you talking about, right? Like, we've been used to hearing, like, a lot of jargon and a lot of words that I just don't understand about SEO.

And I was like, you know what? Fine. Just do what you do. And lately, it's like every other day we're getting a lead that's booking a trial and, you know, we're getting calls. And like I told you earlier, since 2021, since we opened these doors, 90% of our clientele and member base have been through word of mouth, social media, or referrals. Just knowing about me. Knowing about who we are, what we do, our accomplishments, both as competitors and coaches of people who have accomplished stuff, like, for themselves.

So that's the strength. 90% of that was based off of the strength of those three. Social media, referral, word of mouth. And now, ever since we started at the Gymdesk, every time I pick up, every time I answer a call, it's like, how did you hear about us? And it's like, through Google. And I'm like, this is awesome. So it's no wonder we're getting so many white belts. What you saw today, there was 52 people in class. And the sea of white belts outnumbered the color belts.

That was the other way around when we opened. Yeah, it's a switch. It's crazy. We had a chance to build our culture and who we are as a community through our color belts who came to us for us. And then now, as our goal is to scale, we're attracting the right people who find us, research us, see us, talk to us. We get to spend time actually talking to them rather than having to go out and create ads ourselves and everything. And now it's just that perfect blend because we have the tools to help us, too.

So, yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. And so definitely on the lead gen, you're feeling good about the new white belts that are coming in. Anything else on the Gymdesk side that you're like, oh, I really like this about it that, you know. I love the ranking system. Easy. Grating to Saturday. Yeah. Yeah. It's easy. Do you use the little stars? Like, do you grade people in there for the skills? Is that what you mean? No. Just a belting system. Just a pure belting. Yeah. It was funny because when I started looking, when I started experimenting with it, again, I became like a blue belt with three stripes at Gymdesk.

Whatever Jay and Rachel called. I think we clicked every button on the platform. Bing, bing, bing. Played around with it. Playing with it. Creating fake accounts. It was crazy. So, I already kind of like was in the know. But what sold me was, I remember I called her and I went to ranking and it was all the jujitsu belts, like white belt, one stripe, four stripe, all the way to like fifth, sixth degree black belt. And I was like, Selena, sold. And then she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We got to still look at this. I don't care. I don't care. We're getting this. Right? So, it was the first time I actually saw like something specific to BJJ. Right? So, you know, again, it could have been luck or maybe there's other platforms that had the same thing. But like, again, it was just one of those things where I hit ranking and I was like, well, all there. So, that's kind of what, as a business owner, head coach, athlete, right? Like, I've got so many things on my plate that, you know, when I have to be the overseer of a program, I can just say click, boom, done.

Add some notes. I also have a lot of background in managing companies, managing retail companies. So, I do know the importance of putting notes on a file when you're selling something. So, like, the notation system is super easy. Man, this is all I needed. And then the numbers, like I was talking to you about. I see the numbers right in front of me. I just see like three numbers. What's due? What's outstanding? What's projected? What's been paid? And I'm like, that's all I need. If I need to look at something else, I'll look at something else.

Then I'll ask her, like, what does this mean? But from a CEO perspective, like, for me, it's like, it's all I want to know. Right? Because, you know, I have people smarter than me that I can ask, well, what is this? Right? That's my level. You know, that's my level of expertise. I know what's coming in, what's coming out. And I know how to rank people. And I know how to make notes on their file. And I know how to convert leads into members. I'm good.

Right? Everything else is gravy. Keeping it simple is so underrated. I think especially for gym owners. Because, again, I've used SaaS all the way up to the most complex, like, technical ones. And I think at the end of the day, when you're running a gym, you just need that simple workflow that catches every KPI that we actually care about. Right? And the fact that, like, you can jump into something, I can jump in, and we can collaborate and be in sync with things without having to kind of go back and forth with each other.

Because everything is kind of in good cadence, workflow, and notes. So, it's just a really good way to organize our flow that we physically do here, but have it there. Because before that, we were, it was just a lot. We had to always kind of talk back and forth. Like, Excel, we outgrew really, really quickly. Right? And so, that part alone is just, again, it's just what we need to keep the business going and then focus our time into our people and the quality that we can be here, the experience that we can get here.

And then as we grow, I'm sure your roadmap is going to grow with what, like, scaling teams need. Right? But for now, like, I don't know if I can really think of something that's missing, per se. Yeah. So, speaking of roadmap, what do you guys got planned? What's your vision for, you know, three, five years? What do you want to, you know? Well, our vision is to get this place up to 500, 600 students first. Right? Our vision is to build on our leadership development program and get these guys sponsored.

Get these guys, you know, help these guys. Jiu-jitsu is expensive, man. And, you know, devote resources, more resources to our touring team, is what we call them. Right? So that they can continue to chase their goals internationally and become the leaders that they were meant to be. You know, because if we develop good leaders, we know that the future of our academy is in good hands. You know, we're always going to be competing. The core of us will always be competing. We're always going to be out there doing our thing and networking and making a lot of friends in the process.

But the immediate future is to get this to 500, 600 students. Who knows? I want to develop good black belts and good human beings from the ground up. And should they want to be entrepreneurial? We're already teaching them these skills through our leadership development program. We're already doing that for them. So should these black belts want to be entrepreneurial, own their own schools, then we can build a roadmap for them through this. Yeah. Yeah. To echo what he said, something that I'm very passionate about is making sure we give back to the youth and let them have the opportunity to learn hands-on the business experience.

Like, during the summer, we had a core group of teams who we actually showed them how to deal with leads. We got them to pick up the phone, talk to you. These are teenagers, by the way. Yeah. How to go through that sales cadence. What you look for in dashboards and give them that excitement. We were doing mock calls with them. Like, I would call them or they would call me and I would pretend to be, like, a prospective customer. Like, these are skills that we're trying to pass on to our leaders, right?

And in return, you know, they train hard, they compete hard, and they learn how to win and lose gracefully and be professional, right? Professionalism is a big thing here for us. Yeah. So, when it comes to roadmaps, I think it's just now creating layers of leadership. As we have more responsibilities that we want the older teenagers to take care of things, everybody just from the younger program, just to have an ownership in it. And they're already in the app helping and everything. But I vision, like, if we can have hierarchies of roles and responsibilities just to give them something to do, to give us more opportunity to think of scaling and growing.

And another thing, I've always told you about this, but I want to be able to find a way to expand, like, giving people what we experience here in the system that we learn on a global scale. But it doesn't have to be just, like, franchises across. So, using an app like Jim Desk, hey, someone across the pond wants to learn the Neo system, and we're already putting content here. Is there a way that we can collaborate through something like an app that we're using? So, that's a vision that I have.

I don't know if that's on your roadmap and all, but scaling through the use of technology would be really cool. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just to speak on that, we're certainly working with a lot of, I would, they're mostly affiliates, right? Associations, but there's a lot of that roll-up that's happening out there. Yeah, there are larger brands that we have, like the Gracie University has a lot of online content, and they basically have affiliates that leverage what's being done at HQ, and they, you know, they're doing similar to what you're saying.

Yeah, so we're experiencing that. I haven't yet seen in the martial arts space, in the jiu-jitsu world anyway, straight up, like, franchises. I've seen affiliations only. You know, the big difference there is, you know, it's a little bit more loose than hard, you know, franchise. But I think we're going to head there. If I had a bet, that's where the market's gone. Amazing. Yeah, your people call our people. See, the cool thing is, yeah, by doing that, you can, I don't want to say can control, but you can systemize the processes and workflows that work, and then give the identity piece to whoever's owning or teaching class, you know?

But at the end of the day, why break something that really works? And I think if you can collaborate a lot of different locations that way and keep everything in sync, I think that's where sky's the limit, because you get to share what works really well, and that each place you visit, you get that same vibe. That's kind of what I see, but we're not there yet. It's just a roadmap vision for a family scale. We'll talk at $5.99. Yeah, yeah, sounds good. I know I've taken a ton of your time tonight, but this has been amazing.

I really appreciate you inviting us. My son, I think it's past his bedtime, please start. Past his bedtime. Thank you for being a customer of ours. Appreciate the invite and your hospitality and hosting us today, and I'm sure we'll be in touch. Please come again. Please, please, please come again. We're not too far. You're always welcome here. Bring that guy, Alex, with you. Yes, Alex, come train. Mr. Bojaka, I'll drag him from Florida. Yeah. That's where he lives now. Yeah, great. Awesome. Hi, I'm Neo, and I'm at Neo Martial Arts. I had a great class. What's up, everybody? If you're in the Brampton area and you want to do some awesome jiu-jitsu, come on down to Neo Martial Arts and train. Great coaches, great culture, amazing time. Us. Us. Us.