The Blackbelt Business Podcast is for martial arts school owners and managers.
Each episode features guests with stories, strategies and resources which can help you establish or enhance your business with best practices.
Most importantly, we'll help you get back to doing what you love.
Visit Easton.Online for more.
Creating a Competition Culture in you Jiu Jitsu School - Alex Huddleston (E64)
Competition isn't just about winning medals. It's about developing better martial artists, stronger instructors, and maintaining high standards at your academy.
Competition is essential to Easton's approach to Jiu Jitsu. Competition tests techniques against real resistance, improves instruction, and develops confidence and resilience in students.
Easton builds a competition culture without making competition the focus of the entire academy. We've implemented dedicated competition classes, encourage beginners to compete, and prepare students for tournaments.
For martial arts school owners, the takeaway is simple: Not every student needs to compete, but competition should play a role in keeping your Jiu Jitsu effective and your academy's standards high.
Watch or listen to the full podcast on our blog: https://www.easton.online/blog/
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19 Sept 2026
Developing and Training Jiu Jitsu Coaches - Alex Huddleston (E63)
Great Jiu Jitsu instructors aren't just great practitioners. Teaching is a skill that has to be developed.
In this episode, Eliot and Alex break down how Easton trains its instructors, from identifying future coaches and onboarding them to shadowing, assisting, leading classes, and receiving feedback.
They also discuss how a structured curriculum creates consistency across instructors and why coaches need different skills for fundamentals, intermediate, and advanced classes.
For school owners, the takeaway is simple: if the quality of your classes depends entirely on you, it's going to be difficult to grow. Developing a repeatable system for training instructors allows you to build a deeper coaching team while maintaining the standards that made your academy successful in the first place.
Watch or listen to the full podcast on our blog:
https://www.easton.online/blog/ Visit https://www.easton.online to sign up for our mailing list!
19 Aug 2026
Jiu Jitsu Curriculum and Class Structure - Alex Huddleston (E62)
In this episode of the Black Belt Business Podcast, Eliot Marshall sits down with Alex Huddleston to break down Easton's approach to building Jiu Jitsu curricula that helps students understand the art as a complete system instead of a disconnected collection of moves.
The conversation covers why beginners often struggle in unstructured classes, how curriculum improves retention, and why students need different levels of instruction as they progress.
From fundamentals, intermediate, and advanced class structures, this episode explains why a strong fundamentals program focuses heavily on self-defense and positional understanding, when live training should be introduced, and how intermediate students begin learning the broader game of sport Jiu Jitsu.
Eliot and Alex also explain why teaching students to move instead of simply memorizing moves creates a deeper understanding of Jiu Jitsu, how all-levels-only schedules can fail both beginners and advanced students, and why advanced instructors need enough freedom to help students develop their own games rather than simply creating copies of themselves.
Most importantly, they discuss why a curriculum should never become a dead document. Jiu Jitsu continues to evolve through competition, experimentation, and new ideas, which means instructors and curriculum must continue evolving with it.
If you want to improve student retention, create more consistent classes, develop better instructors, and give students a clearer path from their first day through advanced Jiu Jitsu, this episode breaks down the systems that make it possible.
Watch or listen to the full podcast on our blog:
https://www.easton.online/blog/ Visit https://www.easton.online to sign up for our mailing list!
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
18 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 46 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
59
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
82
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