E88: Casey Halstead Can Jiu Jitsu Be As Profitable as MMA or UFC?

I’m super excited to announce our guest today, we have the Coach and Owner of the two Las Vegas 10th Planet gyms Casey Halstead. He is a Jiu Jitsu Black Belt and owns a few Eddie Bravo establishments.   In Casey’s words:  I started my martial arts training as a child. My first exposure to Martial Arts was Wrestling. I wrestled for the local youth club, and much like everyone else of my generation Karate and the eastern arts played a big part in my development. I would dabble in various forms of Karate and wrestling on and off for most of my teen years. Later as an adult, I was feeling a little stuck and started to feel the urge to train again. Fast forward many years, my business partner (Ron) and I trained at an academy that was very old school and it was exactly what we needed at the time. The Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fundamentals were second to none and gave us an amazing base that we still use to this day. When it was time to open our own Academy we decided to take all the good experiences that we’ve accumulated from all the instructors we’ve ever had and eliminate what we didn’t like. Our first location was 10th Planet Costa Mesa. The first goal was to create an environment that would be based on five pillars. 1. Family 2. Education 3. Team 4.Health and Fitness 5. Jiu Jitsu. We knew very early that if we wanted to compete in this space we needed to have a different angle. In summary, we are a gym that is Family First, politic free, innovative and encourage growth as a Human and Martial Artist.I started my martial arts training as a child. My first exposure to Martial Arts was Wrestling. I wrestled for the local youth club, and much like everyone else of my generation Karate and the eastern arts played a big part in my development. I would dabble in various forms of Karate and wrestling on and off for most of my teen years. Later as an adult, I was feeling a little stuck and started to feel the urge to train again. Fast forward many years, my business partner (Ron) and I trained at an academy that was very old school and it was exactly what we needed at the time. The Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fundamentals were second to none and gave us an amazing base that we still use to this day. When it was time to open our own Academy we decided to take all the good experiences that we’ve accumulated from all the instructors we’ve ever had and eliminate what we didn’t like. Our first location was 10th Planet Costa Mesa. The first goal was to create an environment that would be based on five pillars. 1. Family 2. Education 3. Team 4.Health and Fitness 5. Jiu Jitsu. We knew very early that if we wanted to compete in this space we needed to have a different angle. In summary, we are a gym that is Family First, politic free, innovative and encourage growth as a Human and Martial Artist.

00:10 - MMA Mixed Martial Arts / Jiu Jitsu

1:30 - Adopting a student?

5:15 - Coaching MMA

11:00 - Becoming irrelevant

15:50 - The Growth of Jiu Jitsu vs UFC

18:00 - Difficult to open a gym

21:20 - What is an ideal jiu jitsu student

26:45 - Philosophy on growth

28:55 - Women in jiu jitsu?

33:55 - What’s in the future pipeline?