John Graden, Founder of NAPMA and Martial Arts Professional
John Graden founded the National Association of Professional Martial Artists (NAPMA) in 1993 and, through it, launched Martial Arts Professional, the industry’s trade journal, in 1996. He turned business education for martial arts school owners from something passed on at seminars and conventions into a national membership association with a magazine, marketing materials and instructor certification. This page records his place in the history of this publication and of the industry.
- Known for
- Founding NAPMA (1993) and Martial Arts Professional magazine (1996)
- Based
- Tampa Bay, Florida
- Martial arts
- Black belt under Joe Lewis; member of U.S. kickboxing teams; fighter, coach and official for WAKO USA
- Also founded
- USA Karate (1986); American Council on Martial Arts certification (1997); Martial Arts Teachers’ Association (2004)
- Books
- Black Belt Management; How to Open and Operate a Successful Martial Arts School; The Truth About the Martial Arts Business (2003); The Impostor Syndrome (2008); The Art of Marketing Without Marketing (2011)
What did John Graden build?
Graden opened his school, USA Karate, in the Tampa Bay area in 1986 and hosted a local karate television program. As a competitor he trained under Joe Lewis, one of the great fighters of American karate, and fought on and coached U.S. kickboxing teams.
In 1993 he founded NAPMA. Until then, business training for school owners came mainly from Educational Funding Company’s conventions and seminars, a few operators and word of mouth. NAPMA sold business education, marketing systems and support to school owners by membership, nationally, and grew to more than 2,000 members. In 1996 it launched Martial Arts Professional; Volume 1, Number 1 was the Winter 1996 issue, and the magazine was monthly by July 1996. In 1997 Graden added the American Council on Martial Arts, an instructor-certification program.
NAPMA and the magazine were sold to Century Martial Arts in the mid-2000s, and in August 2007 Grand Master Stephen Oliver acquired NAPMA from Century. He is today NAPMA’s CEO and Chairman and Publisher of Martial Arts Professional. Graden went on to found the Martial Arts Teachers’ Association in 2004 and to write several books on the martial arts business.
Where does Graden fit in the history of the martial arts business?
He opened the association era. The methods NAPMA taught descend from the lineage that ran from the dance studios through J. Pat Burleson, Jhoon Rhee, Nick Cokinos’s Educational Funding Company and Grand Master Jeff Smith; NAPMA’s contribution was to package and distribute them nationally, with a magazine as the delivery system. Stephen Oliver’s recollection: Graden was an EFC member school owner who learned much of his early business model from EFC’s teaching, including seminars given by Oliver and Jeff Smith. Graden, for his part, credited Oliver with writing the industry’s first how-to manual on marketing a school on the internet. The full account is in The History of the Martial Arts School Business in the United States.
Sources, and what we could not confirm
Sources: USAdojo’s biography of John Graden; Graden’s published books; NAPMA’s published history and this magazine’s masthead record; the Martial Arts Professional archive.
Where accounts differ: Graden’s USAdojo biography dates the magazine to 1995 and the sale of NAPMA to 2004. NAPMA’s records give Winter 1996 for Volume 1, Number 1 and date Century’s ownership from 2005. Some secondary sources give 1994 for NAPMA’s founding; NAPMA’s own history says 1993. We follow NAPMA’s records and print the difference.
Not established here: Graden’s rank, competition record and date of birth are not stated because we have not verified them against a primary source. Corrections from Mr. Graden are welcome and will be published with attribution.