The Legacy Martial Arts Business Podcast

Nick Castiglia (00:01.099)
What's up everybody? Nick Castiglia here, Legacy Martial Arts of Business podcast here with my great friend, Dana Dickerson from Absolute BJJ. What's up Dana, how you doing man?

Dana Dickeson (00:15.784)
Hey Nick, I'm doing great man, glad to be here. Thank you very much.

Nick Castiglia (00:20.065)
Yeah, it's our pleasure. And for people just tuning in, if you're interested in more of these amazing stories, you can check us out, martialartsgymownersunited .com. We've got an amazing free group with tons of free tools for martial arts school owners to help their business reach the next level. You can check us out there. So Dana, we're gonna get started here.

Dana Dickeson (00:45.768)
Cool.

Nick Castiglia (00:46.615)
Give us the origin story. did like, how did martial arts get started in your life? What was the inspiration?

Dana Dickeson (00:52.621)
That's a great question. well, I will tell you this that I am a child of the 80s. You know, I was born in 1977. So I grew up in the 80s and 90s. So to me, martial arts growing up was Jean -Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris. And that was my view of, you know, kind of what martial arts was all about.

And I thought it was pretty bad ass to be honest with you. I like went to the local keto schools here and I went to, yeah, I'm from Frederickton, New Brunswick by the way. So I went to like, you know, the karate schools, Chi -Tu, Ryu or something like that. And I just could never really make it stick, you know, I just didn't, wasn't super interested in it. It wasn't until I was in kind of my late teens that I got involved.

is somewhat in Judo and I thought, man, this is really cool. So I've kind of started to enjoy that. then, know, life kind of fast forwarded. And I'd love to say, you I was a lifelong martial artist, but the truth is I wasn't. So kind of fast forward to my first exposure into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is what I do today in a third degree black belt in Jiu Jitsu. My first exposure is kind of a funny story.

I was a police officer in Toronto, the RCMP and working in Mississauga in a plain clothes unit. And I was kickboxing at Combat Arts in Mississauga. And it's really funny because there were jujitsu classes. I was never hip to like, I didn't get exposed to the Gracies in the 90s. I didn't even know what the UFC was until probably like 2003 or four. So

I was training at Combat Arts and Mark Bocek was in there doing no -gi classes a couple of times a week. And I just remember watching Nick honestly and being like, dude, what are these guys doing? Like rolling around in tights, man. I don't get it. You know, I just don't get it. But fast forward to, I guess it was 2003 or four, maybe early four.

Dana Dickeson (03:14.621)
I was working now with Toronto City Police and was in the neighbourhood in my detachment of Toronto BJJ. And that was back in the days when it was Cesar Rezek, a Novo now black belt Brazilian guy, still run by Josh Rapport. And I went in there and sort of dipped my toe in the water. And I kind of remember the first class just getting murked by some like.

tiny brown belt in a mucky dirty old gi. And you know, I was like a pretty rugged police officer and thought I was pretty badass. So I thought maybe for the first couple of weeks, this jujitsu thing really is dumb. I'm not going back. But one of my partners at work egged me on and egged me on. so, know, if you, if you really think it's, you know, that it's, it's nothing, then go back and figure it out. So I did. And the rest was history.

So, you know, that's kind of how I got started training Jiu -Jitsu. So I started at Toronto BJJ and I trained there. I just was a relatively new blue belt and life circumstances changed. I left the police service and moved back home to Frederickton, New Brunswick and that was in 2007. So just a relatively new blue belt at that time. And that's kind of when I got involved in teaching Jiu -Jitsu, just

by happenstance.

Nick Castiglia (04:39.479)
That's, that's, that's wild. You know, I, I almost want to check out when was the first ultimate fighter because we've had a lot of guys on here and you see the timeline is always kind of the same, you know,

Dana Dickeson (04:54.667)
Maybe. You know, I think like I got involved in jujitsu first and then I really got exposed to the UFC and MMA because the team would go watch fights at like a local pub. And I was like, this is this pretty good. But by that time it was like, I think it was Dana White era, you know, and it was like an actual thing. You know, it wasn't it wasn't what what you knew in the 90s. Yeah.

Nick Castiglia (05:19.789)
Yeah. so your 2007, you're a blue belt, you know, you, you move back out East. So, so what's like, what's the plan? What's the plan from there? To be honest, so back in that day, like a blue belt was like the same as a black belt, you know, like

Dana Dickeson (05:32.251)
Yeah

Dana Dickeson (05:39.158)
Especially here, you know, I was I think only the second blue belt in this this area in Fredericton and there was maybe a half a dozen blue belts in the whole province of New Brunswick and I was training like in a basement with a couple of guys and but you know once you get jujitsu in your blood and and especially I was kind of like recovering from some traumatic stress and things that

Nick Castiglia (05:52.075)
Yeah, exactly.

Dana Dickeson (06:06.415)
come along with police work and just getting back on my feet and going back to university and changing careers, I needed an outlet. So I started kind of trying to coordinate groups of people training and then eventually we rented a small spot and threw some mats down on the ground and we started having a group. And I kind of became a coach of Jiu Jitsu, even though...

I knew so little and I didn't realize how little I knew at the time, but I knew so little, but really just out of necessity, there was nowhere to train and we needed a spot and I was the guy that was gonna make that happen. So I did, I did and I did it.

Nick Castiglia (06:51.821)
I find you're not giving yourself enough credit because you're like, I knew so little, but you knew so much more than everybody else at that time, right?

Dana Dickeson (06:59.835)
Right, right. No, no, you're right. 100%. And I guess I say that relative to kind of what I know now. And like even the journey that I see my blue belts going through now, you know, where I didn't have that benefit. So I ended up striking up an affiliation first a friendship and then affiliation with Fabio Honda out of BTT Canada. Again, just more because you know, well, I love Fabio.

Nick Castiglia (07:24.151)
Nice.

Dana Dickeson (07:28.952)
But at the time, at the beginning, it was the most convenient place to be able to go and get expert level instruction and have like black belts to train with on the mats and to learn from. So I started traveling up there regularly and kind of just doing this distance education thing as we grew and as jujitsu kind of grew around us in the New Brunswick and around the Maritimes. So, you know, but at

at that time and for a long time, jujitsu and coaching jujitsu and running a jujitsu business was always a part time kind of gig for me. For one, you know, we're in a small area like New Brunswick is small. It's not densely populated. We only have three cities and only one of them is over 100 ,000 people. It's small, you know, so there's in and we're always kind of like 10 years behind Quebec and Ontario in

popularity. really, just in the last maybe five years has jujitsu grown into something that, you know, is pretty mainstream here in New Brunswick. So we were going at for a long time, you know, kind of in obscurity, right out of the eye of the mainstream.

Nick Castiglia (08:49.773)
Okay, we're talking, we went in 2007. What year was it you met a Fabio Holland?

Dana Dickeson (08:58.786)
That would have been just in 2007 or eight. I was a blue belt. And he told me, I went up, I called him first, because that's what you kind of had to still do at that point, was call people. So I called him and I talked to him and he said, well, we're having a tournament at Gamma. He was at Gamma at the time, Phil Jelena's old gym. And he said, come up and compete in the tournament and I'll kind of...

Nick Castiglia (09:02.922)
Awesome.

Dana Dickeson (09:25.469)
Sizing out, but he didn't say those words, but that was kind of the gist of it, right? So I went compete in the tournament. I maybe lost one and won one I've never been a prolific competitor by any stretch, but I had fun and showed myself pretty well and He we kind of had that discussion So I'll tell you what if you keep traveling up here if you can earn your purple belt then you can become an affiliate so I worked hard and pushed and and eventually

got my purple belt and became a BTT Canada affiliate, which was pretty awesome. I was pretty proud of to fly the flag, know, the BTT flag.

Nick Castiglia (09:59.757)
That's it.

Nick Castiglia (10:03.925)
Yeah, that is awesome. So, okay, so you get your purple belt.

Dana Dickeson (10:06.271)
Yeah.

Dana Dickeson (10:11.274)
Mm -hmm.

Nick Castiglia (10:13.101)
Do you have like a rented location at this time or are you just, and you know, what was it? Was it like a part -time thing, shared space? tell me more about like where you're at at that Purple Belt time.

Dana Dickeson (10:26.568)
Yeah, so at that time, like I was pretty involved in mixed martial arts myself. Like I ended up, you know, I had seven MMA fights and so that I was pretty involved in MMA. And for most of that period of time, we rented a space out of a kickboxing club that was here in Fredericton. So we had a little kind of side room that was matted and and we did jiu -jitsu there, you know, like three times a week type of thing. It's

You know, it wasn't even every day we would have our three classes a week. It was kind of adults only and man if we got 12 people out to class we would be like, holy smokes like jujitsu is blowing up. It's blowing up, you know? So it was pretty cool, you know? And then eventually I partnered up, well, I got an offer, guy, geez, now I'm getting ahead of myself. So.

Nick Castiglia (11:05.421)
Hacks. Yes, hacks.

Dana Dickeson (11:23.016)
To tell the story properly, a strength and conditioning coach named Chris Snarin, huge shout out to Chris, he really helped me a lot getting ready for fights. He worked out at the base in base Gagetown and he always said, man, someday I'm gonna open up my own facility and it would be really cool. Imagine like you can have jujitsu there and we could do strength and conditioning and it would be wicked. And that was kind of it. And then we kind of maybe fell out of touch for a couple of years and...

then all of a sudden I get a message. He's like, I'm doing it. I'm like, you're doing what? And he's like, I'm starting a place and there's a spot for you if you want to teach Jiu -Jitsu and run your Jiu -Jitsu club. So he called his strength and conditioning gym Synergy, strength and conditioning or strength, Synergy athletics or something like that. So we ended up calling our Jiu -Jitsu team Synergy BJJ. And

That's really where like we started to kind of form a team, a jujitsu team of people, you know, it's, you know, I had learned a lot. I think I was at the tail end of brown belt at that point and moving towards my black belt. So I had a little more awareness of what I was doing. I had more experienced students around me that could help fill in the gap. And that's sort of when we started, now we're kind of having jujitsu.

Most every day we you know started running a kids program and we we did all of this this stuff to you know kind of help to grow and promote jujitsu in in the city so that that took us up to like 2017 or so and Eventually, I made the decision to step aside. I sold that Academy to its current owner Melissa Hutchinson who was one of my black belt students

And they continue to run today. Now I stayed involved in the academy, but just not as an owner and not really in a main leadership role. Yeah, I had a young family at the time. We were trying to bring the boys up and my focus was just elsewhere. And then the pandemic hit and that just derailed everything, right? So all of a sudden jujitsu was like gone from life. So it was, you know, impossible to train.

Dana Dickeson (13:46.715)
There was nowhere to train. People were terrified. So...

Nick Castiglia (13:52.801)
How was it out there? How was it out east? Like what was the mentality? Was it like very brutal? Like people were like, stay in your home and like people, you know, just calling the police on each other and all that type of thing or.

Dana Dickeson (14:05.89)
Yeah, yeah, dude, I mean, the Nova Scotian premier is like famous for saying, stay the fuck home, you know, like that was his big slogan. and although we're in New Brunswick, but like, yeah, man, it was just like, you know, how rah rah people got about that. And it and I guess like, you know, politics aside, whatever it was what it was.

They were mistaken, I think, in a lot of ways, but it had the consequence that it had. There was nowhere to train. They didn't want people together that way. So we started training in a basement, you know, like a few people at a time. And then as things started to lax, the the synergy gym was still not really back to running normally. So I started training with a small group in the back of a

of a health club, like of a gym, and we had some mats back there.

Nick Castiglia (15:02.061)
So what are we like 2022 at this

Dana Dickeson (15:03.897)
Yeah, like we're like 20, 21 basically, you know, so we're getting close to present day. And it was just like, yeah, I started to get that fire again. Like, man, you know, I'm enjoying this and people were hearing about what we were doing. They're like, hey, you know, I'm interested in kind of checking what are you guys doing? you know, so we started building a little bit of a culture again, you know. So once all the conditions relaxed,

I just made the decision that, I'm gonna step aside from my affiliation with Synergy altogether, and I'm gonna start my own little team called Absolute, and it was just in the back of this gym. that's just like less, well, that's three years ago now or so. But then it became apparent that the back of the little gym was just not gonna do the trick. Like all of a sudden people were starting to beat down the door.

Like, what's going on? You know, you guys are doing jujitsu and we're all over social media. And I worked in my career after police work was all in sales and marketing for technology companies. So I have a really good understanding of like how to promote and how to build, you know, collateral that excites people. So we started getting people excited. So we made the decision in September of 2022. Well, no, we made the decision.

before that, but in September of 2022, we started officially running the business out of a retail location on two nations crossing on the north side of our city, like an actual commercial Academy. So, you know, and I guess kind of like what led up to that decision was I saw that I thought finally jujitsu was prime to become mainstream.

and it just needed the right person to take it to that level. And I thought, well, who better than me? So I jumped on the opportunity and we started a commercial gym.

Nick Castiglia (17:10.317)
Yeah, I kind of want to circle back to one thing as reading my notes here, because you just kind of like set it very nonchalantly, know, like, yeah, have seven professional MMA fights like listen, like, like, like, that's a lot of fights for this, this day and age. Okay, not to mention that time, like the 2007, you know, seven era of like,

Dana Dickeson (17:31.435)
Yeah.

Nick Castiglia (17:36.759)
You know, you'd be lucky if you fought two times a year. like, you know,

Dana Dickeson (17:39.926)
Yeah. I think my first fight was in 2009 and you know I fought for about three years or so.

Nick Castiglia (17:47.981)
In which organization did you fight in? First.

Dana Dickeson (17:50.453)
So mostly in Elite One, it was called here in New Brunswick. It started out small, at agricultural centers or rinks. But they struck a contract with the casino in New Brunswick in Moncton. And my last fight I fought for a sold out casino was like 2 ,500, 3 ,000 people, lights and all that. It was hype, man. It was pretty cool.

I did fight, what was the name of the promotion? It was in God know I lost to Craig Brown, Farmer Brown. Remember Craig Brown?

Nick Castiglia (18:27.841)
Yeah, was it WW1 maybe? Yeah, yeah, W1, yeah.

Dana Dickeson (18:30.674)
Yeah, Warrior One, is that what it was called? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I mean, I'm not happy I lost, but yeah, just a fond memory at this point, know. But I will say, not because I'm taking away from its value, but MMA was very immature here in New Brunswick, and Jiu Jitsu was very mature.

Nick Castiglia (18:42.764)
Yeah.

Dana Dickeson (18:57.21)
So there's there's two things I never really had a strong interest in fighting MMA, but there was zero opportunity to compete. And like in jujitsu, there was very few competitions. There were like a few kind of crappy like competitions, you know, the rules weren't very structured. It wasn't great. But so when I saw MMA taking off, I was like, okay, well, there's an opportunity to compete scratch that itch. Also, let's show people what jujitsu is all about. So

You know, I had the benefit of kind of coming up in a time where I had jujitsu and a lot of these guys didn't, you know, so it was, it was amazing to me and really made for a powerful statement, almost like on a tiny scale, like what the Gracies did, you know, we showed people that, man, if you know, jujitsu, you can dominate people, you know, so we'd have big strikers, big muscular guys that would like, you know, people would be betting on me to lose and, and, and

You know, you come out, double leg them and pass their guard and hold them down and punch them out. You know, and that's how I won every fight was just pin them down and ground and pound them. I got one submission win, but it was because the guy tapped out from ground and pound. So I never actually submitted anybody.

Nick Castiglia (20:08.973)
BLEH

that, yeah, that's hilarious. I I wanted to, I wanted to touch on that because I, I grew up in, that time, you know, and in that era and being a part of, rec MMA freedom fight, W one, you know, all of these, organizations that a lot of like us, at that time, because I think a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of us,

Dana Dickeson (20:23.74)
Yeah.

Nick Castiglia (20:37.323)
went to MMA just because there wasn't a whole lot of anything else. There wasn't a lot of Jiu -Jitsu tournaments at the time. you know, and we were always looking to like test ourselves further. Right. So it's like, well, you know, you know, there's like, Jocelyn's Jiu -Jitsu tournament, which is like the only Jiu -Jitsu tournament at that time. And, before Ontario started really, you know, really catching on. then.

Dana Dickeson (20:41.807)
Right. Right.

Dana Dickeson (20:56.507)
Yeah, I did. Absolutely.

Nick Castiglia (21:04.439)
You know, there was MMA. was almost like MMA was the head of Jiu -Jitsu at that time, you know.

Dana Dickeson (21:08.229)
Yep. it was for sure. Yeah. Well, and I think it's so much easier to sell to the fans, you know, and I don't know, like I noticed where, you know, maybe the UFC, the jujitsu people were like leading the charge on MMA. That's not the case in Canada. It was more like the strikers were kind of pushing MMA. It was an easier transition from boxing or kickboxing that was already controlled by the commissions to now start to sanction MMA.

Right? Where Jiu Jitsu, just didn't even understand it. Right? People didn't understand it. Now, I think actually, and you probably don't remember this, but I think the first time we ever crossed paths is when a young guy that I used to train with all the time, John Williams, came up to Rack MMA and he fought Steph, his name was Stefan something, man, but Stefan head kicked John and knocked him out. It was, he was a good, really good striker, this kid.

Nick Castiglia (21:40.737)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Castiglia (22:04.215)
Was it Staf La Marsh maybe?

Dana Dickeson (22:06.262)
Maybe Lamar, Lamarish, I don't know. Yes, that's exactly who it was, Stefan Bernadale. Yeah, yeah. So we came up there and I think it was in Gatineau the show, right? Or somewhere like that. In Gatineau, yeah, that was years and years ago, but yeah.

Nick Castiglia (22:08.573)
Stefan Bernadel. Stefan Bernadel, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Castiglia (22:18.635)
Yeah. Yeah. Eugene Gatineau. Yeah, that's right.

Nick Castiglia (22:24.737)
Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back. Now that you're saying it, I remember because I remember Stefan, you know.

Dana Dickeson (22:32.291)
Yeah, he was good, man. He was a good striker and John Lake was more of a ground guy, you know, more of a jujitsu guy. But yeah, Stefan caught him with a good head kick and knocked him out fair and square.

Nick Castiglia (22:45.109)
Yeah, I'm gonna have to look that video back up.

Dana Dickeson (22:47.343)
But John was a young guy and he got to bare facts and that's all that mattered, dude. He got to bare facts and that's all that mattered. He was happy as a pig in shit.

Nick Castiglia (22:53.645)
my god.

Nick Castiglia (22:59.789)
Okay, so we're at... We're at... We're at...

Dana Dickeson (23:03.704)
We're at Bear Facts right now.

Nick Castiglia (23:07.722)
Now everybody who's watching is gonna be googling what is this place? What is this?

Dana Dickeson (23:12.878)
It was a class, a classy joint.

Nick Castiglia (23:19.053)
Okay, so we're at 2021. We're back up 2021. You you got the gym. 2022, absolute BJJ.

Dana Dickeson (23:21.805)
Yeah, 20. Yeah, yeah, we're at 2022. Yeah. Yeah. So so. So June 2022, assign the lease on on on our facility. And we did did our fit up and and put put some like real money into getting this place up up and going. And and yeah, by September, we were going we were operating and

I'll tell you, it's funny. I know I've told you this story before because, spoiler alert, that, you know, I am a part of your consulting firm as a customer and you guys mentored me through a lot of this journey, which I do want to touch on because I think it's an important part of the puzzle when you're trying to figure out how to navigate running a business. But we started with about 40 students.

So it was pretty friggin scary that we literally and I say we like I have a business partner TJ Burke and he's a great guy. He's a lawyer here in town, a very savvy business guy. So he and I are partners and also my wife, Tricia, who I always shout out because although she says the pay is terrible, she is like the operations manager for the club. So.

When I talk about the club, do really think of it as a team of people that make it happen. We knew that. No, no, 100%. And that's, you know, one thing I know we're going to touch on, but that is one of my biggest lessons that I've had to learn is to find the help that you need. But we didn't have enough members to pay the rent. You know, we kind of like when we came up with the investment and what we were going to put in, we

Nick Castiglia (24:51.297)
Nobody makes it there by themselves. Nobody makes it by themselves.

Dana Dickeson (25:13.749)
built in, okay, we're gonna give ourselves a few months buffer. And then, like we were really trusting in the plan, you know, the fact that this was gonna work and we were gonna make it happen. And you know, I'm happy to say that last year, last season, which you know, I kind of look at martial arts Academy business as in seasons, like we kind of have a season from middle of August until the end of May. And then, you know, we kind of it ebbs and flows through the summer. But we peeked out at

you know, 300 members. So we went in in such a short amount of time. mean, within within the first year we had we were over 200 members. So we went from 40 members and that's probably being like pretty gracious on the number to having 200 plus members. So it was it was insane, you know, and and I guess I

Nick Castiglia (25:45.389)
Which is amazing. Which is amazing.

Dana Dickeson (26:07.782)
I had hoped that that would be the case, that we would have that kind of success, but I never imagined that it would happen so quickly and then also kind of so organically,

Nick Castiglia (26:17.825)
Yeah, think, you know, thinking back, I remember, I remember our first conversation. I released my BJJ fanatics Black Friday. Yeah. Yeah, the Black Friday crusher. And if you, if you did, if you bought that instructional, you got to call with me. So.

Dana Dickeson (26:30.536)
ramp up course or the Black Friday course.

Nick Castiglia (26:44.141)
you bought the instruction, you watch it, say, okay, I'm hit this guy up. And I remember we were talking and you asked me a couple of questions on like how to like, you know, tweak some of the things on the sales and stuff like that. And if I don't remember correctly, it was something like insane. Like you signed up like 40 people in one month or something like that. was something crazy.

Dana Dickeson (27:08.65)
yeah, yeah. The first time we did, so we did the Black Friday Crusher Course, which is what it was called, and you know, it still exists and it's sick. you know, if you wanted to do something to like really improve your business, that's a small investment to like, to make it happen. But you told me on the call, and the word stuck with me.

Nick Castiglia (27:18.059)
Yeah, it still exists.

Dana Dickeson (27:35.192)
And know you talk a lot, you say a lot of things. So you might not remember how profound some of the things you say are, but you told me that there is no secret. You just have to execute. Just do it. Like don't overthink it. Cause we talked about that. I'm like, man, I sometimes have these great ideas and I just can't make them happen because of, you know, whether it's like analysis paralysis or fear of failure or whatever.

Nick Castiglia (28:02.242)
both.

Dana Dickeson (28:02.895)
Or both or that and plus plus plus whatever gets in our own way. And so I walked away from that and I remember talking to Trish and I was like, I'm going to try this. I'm going to buy this course. And even at that time, like, you know, spending the couple of hundred bucks or whatever it was on the course, I don't even think it was that much was like, you're like, man, you know, it's it's not nothing right. And this shit better work. I'm dumping some serious money into this thing.

Nick Castiglia (28:25.591)
This shit better work.

Dana Dickeson (28:30.544)
But I said, if I'm going to do it, I need to just really like execute on it. So I really did. I took the ideas that were in the course. I did what you suggested, which was kind of make them my own, you know, like make them sound like me and come from my heart. But I executed and even when I had doubt, even when I was confused, I just went for it. And yeah, man, I think in that season, like from say, I think it was

I think I was even late getting started into October or late September and through to November, I think we had added like 60 members overall. So it was a game changer. It was like, holy smokes, you know? And it introduced me to the ideas of, you know, how to properly manage billings and how to, you know, like that stuff was just so foreign because Jiu -Jitsu had always been a passion.

you know, a passion business and, I always sort of limited myself because I thought that you couldn't have a passion business and a successful business and not be a hypocrite, you know, and now I've realized with maturity and experience that you can't have one without the other because how can you fully invest yourself into your passion?

Nick Castiglia (29:52.983)
That's right.

Dana Dickeson (29:58.632)
if it leaves you drained in other ways. So if it leaves you financially drained or emotionally drained or it strains your marriage or your family, then is that how to best express passion? And then of course not, right? So it was a valuable lesson. And needless to say that I joined the Legacy Consulting Group shortly after that success and it has been

You know, honestly, one of the best things that I could have done was just, you know, always felt like I'm so independent and self -sufficient and taking a step back and realizing that, hey, it's okay to like get some help and to not know it all and to accept others' ideas, then, you know, that's been, that's kind of been a refreshing approach for me.

Nick Castiglia (30:49.675)
Yeah, I definitely, you know, like I talked to your coach, Steve, you know, Steve Poole. So I need to give a shout out to Steve because he's been your, your main coach, you know, since the beginning, you know, super solid dude and one of the best guys that a legacy ever, you know, yeah, I can't say enough amazing, great things about Steve.

However, Steve has told me that like, it is just your level of implementation, you know, and you know, it ties back, you know, kind of the story you're saying like just execute and a lot of people don't execute or like they execute half ass. put in a one, you know, we talk about this in legacy all the time. You put in a one energy, but you want a nine result like buddy doesn't work that way. You know what I mean?

Dana Dickeson (31:40.802)
Right. 100%.

Nick Castiglia (31:42.685)
And you know, I I've taught you that through like even just a black crusher course. It's like if you if you go all in on this. You know, and I'm having this discussion right now with clients because of back to school and because I, you know, had like onboarded a bunch of gyms just in the last couple of weeks. And it's like, guys, listen, if you go all in right now. We could change the game for you right now, but I need you all in.

And you got to be all in for you, not me, you know? And if you do, like you're gonna like, you're gonna crush it. So, you know, and thanks and thank you for, you know, I appreciate like, the kind words and everything, but more about you, you know, so you, go, you know, you're working with Steve, you're just crushing the business, you know, approaching 300 students. And then you launch your first tournament. I want you to talk about.

I kind of want, I want you to talk about that because like it's in for successful gym owners. It's a really great natural progression. You know, you run your in -house tournament and then your in -house tournament piggybacks onto your, know, your local tournament. You're growing the jujitsu scene. You know, you're doing well financially. Your competitors are proud that it's your tournament. your community, you're retaining your students because they're helping.

work at the tournament and they feel a deeper sense of purpose. why don't tell us how that came about and yeah, and how it worked your first time.

Dana Dickeson (33:20.212)
Yeah, so that's great. I think like I've always been driven to try and improve, you know, scene, jujitsu scene in general. And the fact is, that with your academy, you can have like reach into your own community. But with a tournament, you can have reach into a province or a whole region, right? So that was really important to me.

I saw an opportunity there, you know, and I'll give full credit to to Rogue Grappling who has been the the stalwart of tournaments here in the community in in in New Brunswick and and submission arts who are in they have submission arts Atlantic who are in Halifax and they've done an amazing job so but but I still think thought there was an opportunity there to gap fill a little bit and so we threw our name in the

in the ring, you know, with a tournament. we made an investment in some mats and we worked with Hattashida. I got to give a shout out to Hattashida and Danielle specifically who's moved on, but she was such a big help. They sponsored the tournament and we wanted to make a setup that was really professional that you would expect to see when you went to a large center and competed in a large event. And when I kind of came up with the business plan of how I would do it,

I was like, I'm not accepting anything less. Like I'm putting full size fighting surfaces together. I'm getting the best quality metals. I'm going to have, you know, the best operation that I could possibly have. Running tournaments wasn't new to me, but on this scale, it really was. Cause when I ran tournaments, they were small tournaments and man, we were making brackets on paper and pen. You know, now at least we have smooth comp. That's been a game changer for sure.

right? And not only from the administrative, but even the user experience is just just so much better. but we also saw an opportunity to build a brand, you know, and that's, I think, where sometimes jujitsu people miss the boat. you know, it's like, it's not, we're not just creating a tournament, we're creating a brand. So we created East Coast grappling. and when we

Dana Dickeson (35:41.092)
release the first tournament, we came out with everything. We had shorts, had rash guards, we had the medals that all matched, custom designed logos, everything was in unison. So people could not only come to the tournament and have a great competition experience, but they could pick up a rash guard, they got a competitor t -shirt, their medal matched their rash guard. Now on the back, you know, it says I'm an East Coast grappler. That's something that people identify with.

So when you help people like identify with the brand, then it builds that loyalty and that return business. So they feel now like invested in what we're doing. So that was really important that we now started building this community at large of the competitors, know, the people that want to come and challenge for the belts that they can win at the tournament or get these sick medals that look so great. Right. So I love that. That was really, really key.

And now we've started to grow into, you we've had two events and our last event we did an ADCC style rules. So that's another area where I felt like we had room to grow, where traditionally the rule sets followed here in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have been like IBJJF style events. Let's do something different because we're seeing people from the Maritimes, they wanna go to the Montreal ADCC Open, they wanna go to the Toronto Open, they want someday maybe,

if they're teenagers or kids, they have that dream of going and competing in the ADCC itself or maybe competing in a trials. So how do we then start to build the experience that our grapplers from our community are going to need to thrive? Right. So we started doing ADCC rule sets and it's been a learning curve for us, you know, because we're trying to referee these events and, you know, create a consistent experience from an officiating standpoint. But

I think that's the direction that that organization process is going to go. We're going to continue to explore these rule sets that we think are becoming more and more popular because at the end of the day, yes, it's cool to run tournaments and have a couple of hundred competitors and but I would love nothing more than to see some of these young guys and young girls that are competing today on East Coast grappling go on and have success at ADCC or that's how we're going to really grow the

Dana Dickeson (38:06.605)
the scene and the value that people see in grapplers from Atlanta, Canada, because we're always sort of at a little disadvantage. We're geographically, we're away from everything. Population wise, we don't have it like you guys do in Ontario or Quebec or through the States. So we need to work really hard to build ourselves up so that we can be a force on the big stage.

Nick Castiglia (38:29.761)
Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks for breaking all that down. I think it's really important for people to hear.

because I have people that I coach and you've only really been at this hard the last three years. We're like three years right now.

Dana Dickeson (38:53.08)
Yeah, yeah.

Dana Dickeson (38:57.27)
It's been seven months with no other job. Like I had a full career up until seven months ago, but it's been seven months and you know, every month.

Nick Castiglia (39:06.359)
So let's even say this, let's say two and a half years. And I've tried to tell people this, because I did it for myself. You know, when I separated from the organization I was a part of, you know, and I would tell this to people in one year, I changed my life. I said a year after that, I had the best year of my life. And really, you know, I think it's really important for people listening who are like starting the martial arts school or it's just starting out.

or they're having a tough go because they're working full time managing a family and trying to run the gym a couple days a week. It's like, listen, we're bro, we're, two years from where you want to be.

Dana Dickeson (39:39.639)
Thank

Dana Dickeson (39:49.387)
Yes. And you just have to you have to do it. You need to make a plan and have a vision of where you want to end up and go for it. You know, I never thought I did see myself eventually not having a full -time job, but I didn't think it would be so quick. But I will tell you that today. I don't make as much money as I made when I worked full -time. You know, I had a great career. I worked for a technology company. I made

a lot of money. mean, a really healthy income. guess by some people's standards, not a lot of money, but a healthy income. But I had no passion for it. I didn't care on a day to day basis, whether, you know, the company was successful or not. And that's not, you know, demeaning the value of it. It's just, wasn't important to me. So, you know, I still, I, I'm, we live comfortably and

I am the happiest and sort of most liberated that I've felt in a long, time. And that's really allowed me to then become more creative, you know, and creativity is really what's going to drive the business at the end of the day.

Nick Castiglia (41:01.843)
And the life is on your own terms, right? You know, so like, and I've had this, I've had this discussion with several different people where they're like, man, you know, I could do this, but like literally the job was a thief of joy in my life, you know? So now you're living life on your terms, you know, you want to go in, you go in, you can't go in, that's okay. You know, you get, stay at home today or do whatever you need to do. And you have the, you have the freedom to decide, you know?

Dana Dickeson (41:14.217)
Yeah, that's right.

Dana Dickeson (41:26.741)
That's right.

Dana Dickeson (41:30.911)
Yeah, and I won't delude people by saying like there are months where, know, man, I'm kind of like crossing my fingers that this or that comes through and you know, so we're going to hit our targets and, and, or, you know, like I'm stressing sometimes about the, the memberships or the, the, the bills or, know, that that's all true, man. But I had all those stresses and more working for someone else, you know, and, I'm building some

So I know like I'm so happy with where I've where I am today, but I'm not in the end state, right? I'm on the path and it's encouraging, you know, to hear like you say your first year you changed your life and then the next year you had the best year ever. Like that's where I'm that's what I'm envisioning, you know, and I'm still in that first year of kind of being a full time school owner. So there are for sure like

adaptations that I'm having to make and sacrifices that I have to make. And even sometimes it just means like coming in to teach a class because one of the coaches is out or whatever. And maybe you don't always feel like doing that. But at the end of the day, like the alternative for me just was not livable anymore. I didn't, that's not what I wanted for my life. So, you know, a bad day on the mats is truly better than the best day working for someone else.

Nick Castiglia (42:55.469)
Okay, so as we're heading towards like the end here, you know, and, some, some amazing, like just nuggets of inspiration and, knowledge for people three, give me your three, you know, pieces of advice. You know, you're, you're talking to the young you, you're talking to the you in 2007, talking to the person who's listening, who, you know, opened up a jam, working the full -time job, doesn't know what they're doing.

your three best pieces of advice, like three things you wish you knew then, you know, to help them.

Dana Dickeson (43:30.521)
Yeah, no, that's really good. for one and for sure, one of the things I've had a hard time with over my life was to be open for help, be open to help from other people and accept the fact that you don't know what you don't know. So engage the people that do know and it doesn't have to be in a by hiring someone sometimes just

finding the right groups of people, finding the right communities online where you can learn from other people in your weaknesses, right? So a lot of times as martial arts school owners, like we're good at martial arts, right? And maybe we're good at program delivery or even curriculum design, which I'm not saying that that's even a natural thing for a lot of school owners, but it's what about, you got to think about the finances, about the logistics, about the management, all of that stuff. So,

engage people around you for help. And you will find that people are more than willing to help, especially when you're passionate about something, it's easy to get people to buy into your belief and your vision. So find people that believe in your vision and engage them for help and let them help you let them help you let go of some of the parts of the job for sure. The other thing is like to have a plan. You know, I know for years, I just

Like I kind of looked at it like I ran a club, you know, like as long as we had a place to train and that's all that mattered. And now I look back on those years, not as wasted years because the experience was great. but I think, man, if I had have gone at that with a vision and a plan then that could foresee where we are today. I mean, it would be, it would be really cool to see.

kind of how things may have evolved differently or faster or where I might be today, as opposed to just sort of into the first couple of years. I've been doing Jiu Jitsu for 20 plus years and coaching since 2007 and only for the last couple of years have I really made this a viable, feasible business. And then that segues into my last speech, which is don't give up belief in yourself in what you're doing.

Dana Dickeson (45:56.654)
because just because the time isn't right, whether it's not right for your outside circumstances or right for you at the time, it's never too late. I'm 47 years old, so I'm not young, but I'm finally like after 45 years, I'm really living my dream. When I say that, I don't know in Ontario, living the dream is the answer to when someone asks you how you're doing or what you're doing.

But I truly tell people that now and I believe it. I am living the dream. So you can do it. You just have to have a plan. Don't be scared to execute. if the time isn't right today, that's okay. Continue to dream, continue to believe. And when the opportunity is right, if you can seize on it, you can make it happen.

Nick Castiglia (46:46.285)
And I think to your story speaks to that so much because a lot of people after the point of like selling synergy in your life would have just packed it in. They would have just said, you know what? It's not for me. Maybe, you know, maybe another time, maybe another life, maybe in another, you know, but you came back to it and you just, crush it. You're crushing it now, you know, like you're doing amazing.

Dana Dickeson (47:02.616)
Yeah? Yeah?

Dana Dickeson (47:10.206)
And some of that was just like, was the years of just grinding, you know, and it was exhausting, right? And just kind of surviving having a small club where you're just kind of making ends meet and keeping it going. it was a relief to be done with that at the time. but I don't know when you're, when you're called to be a coach and that's, that's what you care the most about. And the sport is what you care the most about. Then, then, you get, you get pulled back in pretty easy, think.

Nick Castiglia (47:40.135)
okay. So that, you know, that's always the first half of the, you know, the questions, the, next half is like, you know, the three biggest cautions or three biggest mistakes or three biggest things you would say like, listen, like, you know, here's the things I would do. You know, here's definitely some things you shouldn't do. and, they don't always mirror each other. Like we were talking before.

Dana Dickeson (48:05.845)
Mm -hmm.

Nick Castiglia (48:07.904)
They don't always marry each other exactly from the pieces of advice to mistakes. So what are your three biggest cautions for people again in this position that they're trying to get ahead, know, running their school and what advice would you give them?

Dana Dickeson (48:25.995)
So one is don't ignore the government. Put your tax money aside. You know, always make sure that you set that money aside. you have the... That's somewhere where if you're not an accountant, then you need to invest in someone who knows what they're doing. you know, we were guilty of that for a while and it takes a lot of cleanup to get sort of that sorted out. So you can dig yourself in a hole really quickly that way.

and it can add a lot of stress. It's one of those things you just don't even realize as a business owner, a new business owner, what that's all about. I think the other thing is like, you know, not going in too deep on all the gear, all the things that you can have in your gym. Like it's so easy, especially when you start making a little bit of money, you're like, man, I can order all this. I can put this equipment in, I can do all that. But really like, man,

Plan for a rainy day. You're going to have months that just stink. You're going to have things that come up like that's the one thing I've realized as a business owner just the stuff that comes up that you just weren't planning on, know, and and So leave yourself a little bit of slush fund, you know for a rainy day and just kind of take it easy I'll tell you like we do all you can see some of the gear behind me We do all of our own custom gear and it's it's a really great way to

not only add some revenue to the gym, like to build some brand and some loyalty within your team and a sense of team. But when I first started buying stuff, I would buy so much. way overestimate. I would spend a pile of money and I got left. I still have stuff in my garage from my first iterations of gear that is like, God, you know, what was that? For one, the design stinks. Like, what was I thinking? You know, so.

Just remember, maybe because you think it cool, not everybody else is gonna think it's cool. So dip your toe into the gear market, but definitely diversify with the gear and all that stuff. Not even for the financial reasons, just for what it does to your team and kind of your brand. It's really powerful. And the third thing is, I guess the mistake that I made for a long time, and it does overlap with what I would do is,

Dana Dickeson (50:48.525)
is seek help, find the right people. And I'm giving you another plug Nick, because you know, like, for me, it was engaging with legacy that that was it leveled me up. And just like, why do we have jiu jitsu seminars? Why do we go seek out the best in the world to train with? Like, I think nothing of traveling to Lucas LaPree's I think nothing of

bringing in a high level Jiu Jitsu guy to train and investing thousands of dollars into that. But often we scoff at investing in leveling up our abilities to run a successful business. So whether that looks like martial arts consulting or hiring an accountant or whatever you need to do, wherever you're weak and see an opportunity to grow, take some of your money, invest it in that, and that will make a difference for you.

Nick Castiglia (51:44.801)
Yeah, that's awesome. Just touching on your number one. Countless people on the taxes. I have seen countless people suffer. It's something you know, that through my experience through the years, like we're on monthly, we pay our taxes monthly. Some people think, why don't you do it quarterly? No, I pay monthly because I know what's in the account. That's ours. That's ours.

Dana Dickeson (52:11.929)
Yeah. Out of sight, out of mind, Yeah.

Nick Castiglia (52:14.493)
Yeah, you know, it's done. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. lot of a lot of great, you know, tips there. So in, you know, in closing, you know, like what would be like your closing remarks for other gym owners? know, like you kind of you kind of nailed it in like the three pieces of advice, the three biggest mistakes. Is there anything else?

You like to add to like the gym owner is just like, man, I'm just, having a tough time. Nobody understands like, you know, like, like what, would be your words of encouragement, you know, for them.

Dana Dickeson (52:55.936)
For sure. So for for sure Somebody does understand there's lots of people that understand we all get it like Nick you get it I get it

Like we're at different stages of getting it for sure. but we do understand each other. So you're not alone if you're out there and you're like confused and wondering what to do. So I think I'll go back to the day one advice that you gave me is execute. Come up with your ideas. That's great. Ideas are wonderful, man. Ideas are sometimes really easy to come by. It's execution. That's can be a challenge.

Don't use the excuse. I can't afford to do it. I can't like, know, because there's ways to find Workarounds for all of that stuff. You can find ways to promote you can find ways to draw in customers and so just just execute find a way to execute and It's okay to be scared, you know, but I think about a saying that I learned when I was fighting and One of my buddies Mike Fitz. I'll give him the credit. I don't think he made it up But he's the person I heard it from he said that

You only have an opportunity to be brave when you're scared and I thought that that was pretty profound and that stuck with me not only through my Like competitive experience, but also just through like going through business. It is scary. It's daunting. It's intimidating But it's so Worth it if this is truly what you want. So it's okay to be scared. Just be brave and go for it

Nick Castiglia (54:29.249)
Yeah, thanks, Dana. Dana, you have a podcast, right?

Dana Dickeson (54:32.482)
I do, I do. It's on the Absolute Jujitsu channel on YouTube. We have a podcast. Although there's only one episode of it right now, Nick, but I meet with my business partner and we talk about grappling over 50, which I'm not quite over 50, but he is, poke, poke, I'll just say that. But there's gonna be a lot more content coming out. if, man, if anybody wants to give us a follow, if I can take two seconds to plug my socials.

We're absolute dot BJJ on Instagram and East Coast grappling championships on Easter Instagram We post lots of good content instructional and stuff like that and YouTube the absolute BJJ channel

Nick Castiglia (55:14.445)
All right, thanks so much, Dana. Really appreciate you, really appreciate all the kind words and everything. And just an amazing podcast. The thing I always get blown away every time I do one of these podcasts with the people that we have on is usually people that I know and know fairly well. I had no idea you're a police officer. And just to, I forgot, completely forgot about that memory of like John Williams fighting Steph Bernadal. there's...

Dana Dickeson (55:33.655)
Yeah.

Nick Castiglia (55:43.361)
There's always like a ton of great things that you know, you find out about your friends through doing the podcast. I just want to thank you from the Legacy Martial Arts Business Podcast. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Again, martialartsgymownersunited .com will take you to our free group where we teach awesome specials like we showed Dana back in the day to Ram his gym. So that's where you get the info.

Dana Dickeson (56:07.796)
Right.

Nick Castiglia (56:08.129)
You can check us out there. Guys. Thank you so much for tuning in today and I'll see you on the next one.

Dana Dickeson (56:13.856)
Thank you, brother.