Home » Jim Graden

Author Archives: Jim Graden

Seminole, Florida's Jim Graden is internationally recognized as a martial arts fitness pioneer. Jim developed Cardio Karate, the NAPMA Fitness Kickboxing Certification, The Ultimate Bodyshaping Course (UBC), and UBC for Kids. He's also the president of the Project ActionFoundation. He can be contacted through NAPMA.com.

Why I Love Martial Arts Fitness

I’ve recently been reflecting on the impact my programming has had on people and the difference between what I hear my students say today as opposed to when I taught only a traditional martial arts program. In the past, the compliments were mostly about how a child improved in school or how much more confident ...

Read More »

Martial Arts Fitness or After-School Care?

Which do you think more adults are looking for, shedding unwanted pounds or after-school programming for their children? The fact that many adults don’t have after-school age children is one clue that fitness is a much bigger market. There has never been more interest in fitness and weight loss than there is today. Everybody wants ...

Read More »

Double Your Revenue-Generating Hours

How many hours a day is your school busy generating revenue? Is it four hours, or maybe six, if you offer an after-school program? Fitness kickboxing can add hours of revenue-generating time to your facility without having to cut or move any of your conventional martial arts classes.  Martial arts schools have a limited amount ...

Read More »

Creating a Long-Term Vision, Part 1

The biggest misconception about martial arts fitness programming is that it’s not possible to retain students or to upgrade them to higher priced programs. The reason is that students’ needs are not being served-and those needs are very different than a martial arts student’s. You must convince fitness students that your program provides many long-term ...

Read More »

Consistency, Simplicity and Intensity

The reason so many martial arts schools have trouble teaching effective fitness kickboxing is because conventional martial arts and fitness kickboxing are two completely different animals. Teaching conventional martial arts has very little to do with teaching martial arts fitness. The elements of a good fitness kickboxing class are not the same as a conventional ...

Read More »