Building and Protecting Culture in Your Martial Arts Academy

At Easton, we’ve learned that culture doesn’t just happen. It’s created. Whether you’re running a brand-new school or managing an academy with hundreds of students, the culture you build will define how your team, your students, and your community experience martial arts.

In this episode of the Black Belt Business Podcast, Eliot Marshall and Mike Tousignant dive into what culture really means for martial arts academies and why being intentional about it can make or break your business.

Why Culture Matters

Every school already has a culture, whether you’ve defined it or not. Left unchecked, culture grows like a petri dish, often in directions you never intended. Cliques form, standards slip, and negativity spreads. The difference between thriving schools and struggling ones often comes down to one thing: leaders who take ownership of their culture.

At Easton, our journey started like many martial arts academies: scrappy, unstructured, and more like a club than a business. That worked for a while, but it wasn’t sustainable. To grow into a professional, profitable academy that provides opportunity for staff and delivers value to students, we had to define the culture we wanted and commit to protecting it.

Defining Culture Through Values

Culture starts with values. At Easton, we operate by five core values: Excellence, Trust, Compassion, Stewardship, and Adaptability. These values aren’t just words on a wall. They’re the framework for how we make decisions and the standard we expect from staff and students alike.

When values are clear, decision-making becomes easier. Hiring, teaching, promotions, and even difficult conversations all flow from the question: Does this align with our values?

But values only matter if leaders hold the line. That means having hard conversations, removing toxic influences even when those individuals bring other value to the mats, and constantly reinforcing the example of what the culture should look like.

Leadership and Ambassadors

Culture doesn’t only flow from the owners or general managers. Your black belts, senior students, and instructors are ambassadors for your school’s culture every time they step on the mat. If your top people don’t buy in, the rest of the academy won’t either.

That’s why developing leaders who embody your culture, or removing those who don’t, is critical. One high-ranking student undermining your values can do more harm than fifty white belts.

The Bottom Line

Martial arts schools can survive on “club culture” for a while. But if you want to build a sustainable academy that supports your staff, attracts students from all walks of life, and lasts for decades, you need to define, enforce, and protect your culture.

As Mike said, it’s not easy. It requires making tough calls and having uncomfortable conversations. But if you do it right, your culture will become the foundation for everything else in your academy.