Knoxville Martial Arts Academy

10/02/2026

10/01/2026

Are you afraid to start over?

“The Return: What Starting Over Actually Gives You

And now the third story — the one underneath the other two, and the real reason I'm writing this.

Kipling, in the poem every fighter should have memorized, names a test most people never voluntarily take:

"And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss..."

I've read that line for years. It hits different when you're living it — when you're the head coach standing in a beginner line in your own building, hands relearning angles they half-remember from a quarter century ago, being corrected in front of students who've watched you run this academy. Twenty-seven years of rank, reputation, and hard-won mastery, and none of it transfers. The stick doesn't care who I am. The pattern doesn't flow because my name is on the building. In G**o's class, I'm exactly as good as my last repetition — which is the most honest status any of us ever holds anywhere.

And here's what I've discovered, and I mean this without a drop of false humility: I don't mind starting again at my beginnings. I do so better prepared to appreciate all the small things I took for granted before.”

Finish the story- https://knoxmma.com/post/Why-I-Put-a-White-Belt-Back-On

10/01/2026

Meet Coach Taylor. 👑

Mom. Marathon runner. Disney race finisher. World traveler. Wrestling coach. Proud KMAA kid's biggest fan.

And one of the most decorated athletes to ever step on these mats.

Taylor has been at KMAA for over 17 years — Coach Eric's wife, one of the gym's longest active students, and a cornerstone of everything this place has become.

Ask her what she does outside the gym?

"Outside the gym you'll actually find me inside the gym!" 😄

Don't let the joy fool you. Taylor is a Bellator FC veteran, scholarship rowing athlete at the University of Minnesota, professional MMA fighter, and the wrestling coach who helped produced Seymour High School's first and only female state champion — in her very first year.

She doesn't just talk about what's possible. She's already done most of it.

Her superpower as a coach?

"I've been doing this for so long and tried so many different things — I have over 20 years of experience in what works and what doesn't. If there's an issue, I've either been through it or know someone who has. The path is not foreign."

And why she shows up every single day:

"I have personally deeply felt how reaching goals, being physically stronger, and having a supportive community makes this life so much better. Helping others experience that is where I find purpose."

We are so proud to have Coach Taylor on this team. 💙

📚 Kickboxing | BJJ | Strength & Conditioning for Athletes

🏆 BJJ Black Belt | Black Band Wazakishindo | Bellator FC Veteran | Pro MMA Fighter | Head Wrestling Coach Seymour HS | ACE Certified PT — 17 years | Scholarship Rowing — U of Minnesota

DM us to get on the mats →

09/30/2026

Some history behind FMA 📕

"The Receipts: What the Record Actually Says About FMA

Don't take a nostalgic head coach's word for it. The Filipino martial arts carry a set of credentials that almost no other traditional art can match — and most people have never heard any of this.

It's the only martial art I know of that's enshrined in national law. In 2009, the Philippines passed Republic Act No. 9850, legally declaring Arnis (the umbrella term covering Eskrima and Kali) the national martial art and sport of the Philippines — taught in schools, embedded in the country's institutions, protected as living heritage.

The U.S. Army built it into Modern Army Combatives. When Matt Larsen — the man widely called the father of the Modern Army Combatives Program — surveyed the world's fighting systems to build the Army's hand-to-hand curriculum, the Filipino arts made the cut, integrated alongside wrestling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for exactly the qualities I described above: weapons logic, close-quarters efficiency, asymmetric problem-solving.

Elite units train it on purpose. Filipino systems like Pekiti-Tirsia Kali are used to train the Philippine Marine Force Recon, Army Scout Rangers, the police Special Action Force, and the Presidential Security Group, and have been adopted by military and law enforcement units around the world. Stateside, FMA-trained instructors have shaped defensive tactics programs across law enforcement and corrections for decades — because officers carry impact weapons and face blades, and FMA is the world's deepest curriculum on both.

Hollywood is quietly built on it. When fight choreographers need combat that reads as ruthlessly efficient on camera — the Bourne films are the famous example, and the fingerprints run through countless action franchises since — they reach for Kali. The industry whose entire job is making fighting look fast, direct, and real keeps choosing the Filipino arts. That's not proof of street efficacy by itself, but it's a telling verdict from professional students of movement."

Finish the lesson at-- https://knoxmma.com/post/Why-I-Put-a-White-Belt-Back-On

09/29/2026

Meet Coach Dan. 🥊

Camper. Chef. Animal fosterer. Golfer. Spontaneous road tripper.

Life is all about the adventure for Dan — and the mats are where that adventure started.

Here's his story 👇

Dan doesn't coach because it's a job. He coaches because someone once did it for him — and it changed everything.

"Martial arts absolutely changed my life. It helped me to truly find a better way. It has been one of my greatest adventures and continues to bless me every day — so if I can be part of that for someone else, I jump at the opportunity."

That's not a coaching philosophy. That's a debt being paid forward.

And when he steps onto the mat to coach? Everything else disappears.

"For whatever amount of time I am coaching you — thirty seconds or an hour — you are my only priority."

"The student is the end goal."

In a world full of noise and distraction, that kind of presence is rare. Dan brings it every single time — whether he's coaching your first class or your hundredth.

You'll find him everywhere at KMAA — MMA, wrestling, BJJ, kickboxing, kids class. If you train here, Coach Dan has probably already coached you. And if he hasn't yet, he will. 💙

Life is about the adventure. The mat is part of it. Come find out.

📚 His Classes:
🥋 MMA | Wrestling | BJJ | Kickboxing | Kids Class

🏅 Credentials:
BJJ Brown Belt | Purple Band Wazakishindo | Marine Corps Martial Arts Brown Belt (MCMAP)

We are proud to have Coach Dan on this team.

09/29/2026

Ever defanged a snake? 🐍

"The Art: Why Eskrima Thinks Differently Than Everything Else in This Building

Now, the second story, because I need to correct a misunderstanding that even experienced martial artists carry about the Filipino arts.

Most people, including most fighters, file Eskrima under "stick fighting" — a cultural curiosity, cool to watch, not relevant to the cage or the street. That filing is wrong, and here's the cleanest way I can explain why after a lifetime in both worlds.

Every other art in this building answers symmetrically. If you are punched, you punch back. If you are kicked, you kick back. If you are wrestled, you wrestle back. If the fight hits the ground, you groundfight back. Muay Thai answers Muay Thai problems with Muay Thai. BJJ answers grappling problems with grappling. The entire logic of matched competition — same tools, same targets, same game — is symmetry, and we get very, very good at symmetric answers here.

Eskrima refuses the symmetry. It grew up in a world of blades, multiple attackers, and no referees — a world where trading with the other person's strength is how you die — so it built its entire logic around asymmetric answers. Two concepts give you the flavor:

Defanging the snake. Don't fight the attack — destroy its delivery system. The weapon hand, the striking limb, the thing that makes the threat a threat. You don't out-duel the snake. You take its fangs, and the rest of the snake stops being a problem.

Non-engagement.The trained refusal to be where the fight wants you to be. Not blocking —not being there, and making the attacker pay for the space they just committed to. Where symmetric arts teach you to win exchanges, Eskrima teaches you to make the exchange itself a mistake."

Understand Coach Eric's thesis- https://knoxmma.com/post/Why-I-Put-a-White-Belt-Back-On

09/28/2026

Peep a YOUNG Coach Eric (and all his glorious hair) 👀 in the latest blog post: https://knoxmma.com/post/Why-I-Put-a-White-Belt-Back-On

"The Debt: This Isn't My First Time in That Line

Here's the part most of our members don't know. This isn't me picking up a novelty hobby. This is me coming home.

More than 27 years ago — before KMAA existed, before the 25,000 square feet, before any of it — I trained under G**o Klement for years in the Inayan System of Eskrima. He was one of my teachers when I was young and hungry and had no idea what I'd eventually build. And what I learned from him in those years never left me. It went underground, into the foundation of everything I've coached since.

I mean that literally, and I've never said it this publicly before: conceptually and principally, the tools I learned in Eskrima all those years ago made me a better coach in every art I've taught since — and our athletes have absolutely won fights with "Eskrima" ideas and concepts that they would not have won otherwise. Angles instead of exchanges. Limb destruction instead of blocking. Reading intent at the hand instead of waiting on the body. Our fighters have been benefiting from Filipino martial arts thinking for two decades without most of them ever holding a stick.

So when G**o Klement opened the Inayan School of Eskrima inside our walls, it closed a very old loop. My teacher, teaching his art, under the roof his teaching helped me build. And it put a question in front of me that I found I couldn't dodge: was I going to be the head coach who talks about the value of being a lifelong student — or was I going to walk across the building and be one?

So I got back in line. And I'll tell you what I found there: a wonderful teacher at the height of his craft, and a room full of students who are respectful, polite, diligent, serious, and welcoming — the culture every martial arts school claims and few actually build. G**o built it. It's an honor to stand in it as a student again."

09/28/2026

TGIM 😁

See you at your “happy place”!

09/27/2026

A teacher who never stops learning—

Why I Put a White Belt Back On

There's a man in my building who makes me a beginner again, and I want to tell you why that's one of the best things that's happened to me in years.

Some context, for those who don't know the layout: inside our facility, G**o Klement runs the Inayan School of Eskrima — a school teaching the Filipino martial arts, built around blade, stick, and empty hand. And a couple of times a week, the founder and head coach of this academy — a man with 27+ years of coaching across MMA, Muay Thai, kickboxing, and BJJ, who has cornered professional fighters at the highest levels of the sport — walks across his own building, stands in line with the newer students, and gets corrected on his basics.

People find this funny, and it is a little funny. It's also the point of this entire post. Because there are three stories tangled together in that picture — a story about a debt, a story about an art most fighters badly underestimate, and a story about what it does to a person to start again at their beginnings. Let me tell all three.

hit the link: https://knoxmma.com/post/Why-I-Put-a-White-Belt-Back-On

09/25/2026

KMAA fighter Lex dropping some truths about the pursuit of fighting full time. What questions do you want to ask Lex? Drop them ⬇️⬇️⬇️