#20 | What Martial Arts School Owners Can Learn from High-Level Athletes

What if the habits that create Olympians could also build a school that runs on rhythm instead of adrenaline? We sit down with Coach Tim Thackeray—seven-time U.S. national team member, Pan Am Games gold medalist, and USA Taekwondo’s Director of Education—to map elite performance onto everyday school ownership. Coach Tim shows how to turn competitive fire into a repeatable operating system.

We explore culture as a competitive advantage, the role of respect in preventing staff split-offs, and how to scale without diluting what makes your dojang special. If you’ve ever tried to outwork burnout, his periodization approach for owners—planned rest, calendar peaks, and energy management—will feel like a breath of fresh air.

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Transcript

Athlete Mindset Meets School Ownership

SPEAKER_00 2:47

In this week's episode, we'll discuss the topic what school owners can learn from high-level athletes, engagement, growth, and retention. Welcome to Blackville Fancks, the best podcast to help bear market schools, increase profits, and generate substantial revenue. I'm Jimmy Hall, and my co-host is Master Jay Lee. We are joined by Coach Tim Thackeray, a seven-time U.S. national team member of Taekwondo, Pan American Games Gold Medalist, and World Championship Brown Medalist, a former resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. Tim was named USA Taekwondo's male athlete of the year in 2006. Beyond his own competitive career, he's become a sought-after strength and conditioning coach, guiding Olympians and professional athletes across multiple sports, including those who competed in the 2016 Summer Games. From the math to the weight room, Tim's journey is about resilience, reinvention, and helping others reach their peak performance. Master Jay, Coach Tim, welcome to the show. Let's start with you, Coach Tim. You've competed at an elite level for many years. Most of our audience are school owners, head instructors, and pick one of professionals. Do you see any similarities between your journey as an athlete and how school owners run their schools or teach their students today?

SPEAKER_03 4:13

Yeah, absolutely. When I actually retired from competing, I had a meeting with my coach, Scott Fuji, and we talked, and he goes, I think you're going to do really well in business. I was opening up a gym at the time, and I was like, why do you say that? And he goes, It's the same. He goes, That same competitive fire that you have, the same drive, the same way to want to get up every day and make things better. I think you see the successful school owners really have that and they embody it. You're so obsessed in a healthy way, sometimes maybe borderlines, right, on what healthy is to someone, but it's obsessive. It makes you want to make every little piece of the mat work good, right? Every instructor training program. It was all those same things. And we ran our gym very much like a martial arts school. It was a CrossFit gym at the time, but it was that idea that no one had this structure. And we saw it because we grew up in martial arts schools. And we thought, we know how to do this. This is missing, and this is missing, and on the floor, piece is missing, and all these other parts. So we came in and it was very different industry, but it felt the same. It was that same drive. So you go, oh, you're doing good. And I think in business it's easy to say, okay, I'm making some profit. That's fine. That's kind of the equivalent of someone as a fighter, say, or competitor, saying, I want a few fights. And for some people, that might be fine. Most school owners, the reason you get up to that level is because that's the buy-in level. You I think I can do more. I think I can have a bigger school. I think I can train staff up. These are all kind of audacious things for people who maybe are just getting started or getting by, thinking, how am I going to pay rent this month? How am I going to do these kind of things? Where can competing, you still might win a couple fights, but in my head I'd go, I think I can make the national team. And you go, that's a crazy thought. So for me, that those were really congruent, if that makes sense, of the drive it took personally, that belief, even without facts. We talk about facts. Sometimes you don't have facts at all to support it. I just go, I think I'm going to be good at this. You open a gym and you're broke or a sport school and you're broke, and you spend every last penny on maths and consulting and every step of the way. But you go, I think I'm going to have five of these. And people think you're insane, but then years later you go, Hey, I was wrong. I have six. And so that part to me has always really been a competitive, a through line of this stuff. And I think it's why I probably work with so many martial arts school owners. That mindset's the same. It was never about competition, right? The competitions with yourself. You two could have taekwondo schools next to each other, and you're not in competition because you're just obsessed. Master J's just obsessed with making his so good. So that's what do you guys think about that? I know you've been doing taekwondo a long time and this stuff too. So I'm interested to hear also.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

But I just to be clear, I wouldn't want to put him out of business if I was next to him, though.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Fair. I'll try not to give it yes. Not in the next.

Goal Setting And Reverse Engineering

SPEAKER_01 7:13

I think what you said is so impactful, right? People are so driven and disciplined. But I think one of the things that people often forget about is the importance of goal setting. And you doing that as an elite athlete, you had to set up a number of goals as you went through your journey. How important do you see that as, whether it's just your own training regimen or running a martial arts school or any other business?

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Yeah, that's something that I feel personally I had to get really good at because I wasn't one of the naturally, I'm just great at Taekwondo. I wasn't. I was passionate about it and I was your family was obsessed, but we weren't particularly, oh, let's go watch what they're doing with Taekwondo. We're more the ones that wanted to learn everything from you and do it. And so with that, I had to really learn about training. I had to really learn about program design. It was because that was my only advantage I had to survive. Right. And you could take that same analogy and say, maybe some people have a thriving business because they're in the right part of town, they ended up becoming the popular spot. And you can that can happen for sure, but is that a systematic way to now develop a business and again run multiple schools or a training program? Maybe, right? People can make stuff work, but if I was gonna put my money somewhere, I'd probably want to invest on someone with really good systems and a strategy. So I went to that with that idea, not of just the goals, but to reverse engineer of what type of training I was doing in different weeks and stuff, building up the same way we do for seasons and black belt testings and holidays, the same idea there, down to I knew that if we had our national team selection, say the first week of January, which was always really horrible, right? Everyone's cutting weight over Christmas, not super fun, but I told myself, if I could be dialed here and I could be good on January 6th, you can beat me every other day of the year. On January 6th, I'm gonna be better than you. I can put that together. So as far as that, then with a business, you go, okay, we have back to school thing. It was the same thing. What are the assets we need to get ready for these timelines and do it? And then it's September or August, and it's go. So it really fed that competitive part of me to doing that. And I don't know if I would have been able to retire one and done and not come back and oh, wait, we have this big emptiness when that part of ourselves that we love so much goes away. Right? Competition for a decade was everything for me. And so luckily, owning a gym, which we thought was gonna be a martial arts school at first, and the gym still, I had a little competition taekwondo team, was how we opened the gym and had a little extra time. I thought I'll teach some CrossFit. So it was just not by design. I thought I was gonna have a little crew while I went through graduate school, but that part fueled me, and I thought I know how to do this, right? Even though I didn't have any business experience. I thought, okay, I can take this through line, I can follow the goals, I can be there on this day when I have to.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

That was my question is when you say gym, yeah, do you mean uh Marshall Taekwondo gym studio, or do you mean a gym did you open?

From Driveway Team To 330-Member Gym

SPEAKER_03 10:12

So, like most of the things that I've done in my life, there wasn't really a plan to do it. I just start doing something and something will catch on. That's just like Master J. There's no plan. I I just got lucky. Sure, I doubt that. I doubt that. But it maybe I don't know the story. I'm excited to hear how you got there. But for me, it's been as part I just get really obsessed with something and I just follow it, and eventually somehow it turns into something bigger, and then I go into there. So my plan was this, and this is how the 30-second, maybe 45 second rundown. I was done fighting, and I got the USOC was paying for my college, which was really neat. So I thought, okay, I'll go to school when I was at UCLA. I got into graduate school and I didn't want to, and I was done fighting. And what's the opposite of sports? Political science. I thought I'm gonna go the other direction. I'm so done with everything. I you know, you get that part where you're broke, like a bad breakup, and you're like, I'm never dating again. That was me in sports. I'm done with this. I'll go be a professor, right? And I'm done. No one will see me again. But I didn't want to have to become a TA and get the stipend you get. I thought I'd not make my own money. I've been doing seminars and supporting myself the whole time doing this. So instead of that, I'll train some kids in Taekwondo. And I ended up with this really cool small competition team of a dozen kids, 10 to 14 years old, that were the top and all of SoCal, really. They were really good driving three hours to train on my driveway with no mats and van eyes to give you how how much these kids wanted. It was a crew. Uh, they fall on the on the cement and no one touched them. They'll get up. So it becomes winter, and I'm gonna lose the people. I'm gonna make it enough just to get through. Grad school is my only focus, and I'll have this little team. So, all bad business ideas. I thought, okay, I'll get a retail spot to support the small team. Like it was it was the crazy thing. I was okay, so we have a little extra time. I'll have the team here. What should I do? And I didn't necessarily want to have a martial arts school just because I was focused on grad school. We'll teach CrossFit one night a week or one hour a night the days under Taekwondo. And that was the plan, right? The plan, and to give you an idea how bad at numbers I was for being a numbers guy. Uh my wife was uh bartender and a cocktail waitress at a at BJ's brewer brewery, right? And pizza place. And she goes, What if we get 30 members? I'm like, if we get 30 people for CrossFit, hey, I think we'll cover all of this and it'll all work. And she goes, What if we get 60? And I was a little cocky. I go, if we get 60, you can quit your job. That's how this is you look at it now, it's crazy. But I'm 28. Again, I'm just going and I do the math. I don't I don't know the numbers. I just think that seems like a lot of money to me at 28. Yeah. So the CrossFit Gym took off. We started to bring some Taekwondo in. Eventually, I had to move that out. And my good friend Joseph Salim, who was uh Olympic coach for Great Britain in 2012, we he had a school, so we combined forces there and did that. And then within 18 months, I think our CrossFit gym had 330 members. Whoa. And yeah, and I I quit grad school and I went all in on, I guess I'm gonna have gyms. And that was like I stopped coaching the UC, I was coaching the UCLA Taekwondo team. I stopped that. I gave it to one of my other buddies, Richard Lee, who has a school down in LA. He's one of my teammates there. So I thought I was all in, and our plan was this we know the martial art people, all my friends. You guys all own dojongs and multiple dojongs, and I grew up in a dojong. My parents owned the dojong, so it all made sense. And we thought, we know instructor training, we know all these other parts of running the business from talking to friends, not like I knew it. And we're gonna have a dozen CrossFit gyms, was the plan.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

But then the plan changed.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

The plan changed for two reasons. The plan changed again for two reasons. This you'll just be like, this guy got here this way. It's again, it makes sense now, but at the time we're you're just in go mode. So we're going, we do that, and the crossfit model is very similar. It was at the time. The difference is it lacks two things of why at the core, uh, three things really. The core, my wife and I, we ran it together. I met my wife doing Taekwondo. She was on Scott Fuji's team when I first moved to LA. So she was really a good fighter in her own right and stuff. Uh, so we've always had that common connection of speaking in Taekwondo terms and what it means to train and to beat one, the lack of respect in that area is a massive disconnect for us. Massive, to the level of if you go, oh, yes, I get that Tim started the gym, he writes all the stuff, he does everything, I can lift more than him. And you go, okay. They somehow that's or whatever aspect there they do, and not, oh, I'm grateful for you teaching me how to do this. It's oh, I'm this fit, I'm gonna have my own gym now. So we through our instructor training program, instead of the goal was to grow it up, create instructors, which we did, satellite gyms, etc. It's they view it like this that the leading cause of new marriage is divorce. Does that make sense? So every time someone gets divorced, there's two new marriages. Does that mean there's really no new marriages? But no, that means people are getting divorced and your marriages suck.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

What about the younger ones getting married? That's not yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

That's also bad too. But they were getting, they're like, oh, look at these new gyms, but they were all just split-offs and split-offs. So we had through our instructor training program, had trained 12 different gym owners there, but it was easier for them, they thought, to break off and do their own. Almost all of them failed, of course. We we know the reason why we try and take care and development in the long run of the things we wanted to do were there. So those really are too. That's similar to yoga channels. I'm sure yes. They lack that respect there, and not that I'm I'm here and you're there, but there's a way we can do this that everybody wins together. And that's why this is being set up that way. It's stronger when we do it this way. Otherwise, it is okay. I guess I have to put you out of business now. That's a really crappy way to go, but you talk about that competitive fire again. It's here we go. So that was hard. The second part was just we had all those people break off that taekwondo wise things happen where at the end of the day, if someone's oh, I'm gonna do more burpees than you, I we always come back to all right, you want to fight? We can fight about this too. That's how my wife and I think. Like, that's wonderful. Great job swinging the kettlebell. Cool. Can you kick my butt? No, so those parts are very were hard. I love martial arts very much. But at the same time, that was the first, I'll dovetail it back over here and then stop rambling. Uh Stephen Lambden.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Can I add sorry, sir? But I think what you said was so fascinating and so impactful is that you are an elite athlete, and obviously Tekwondo is an Olympic sport. It's one of the only martial arts a full Olympic sport. But yes, what makes Tekwondo school owners successful and businesses successful is not only focusing just the sport, but to understand the traditions, the martial art of Tekwondo, because the culture, the respect, the discipline is so critical. You found that. If I'm reading you, that's what you found in running across the gym, that it's not just about the physical stuff, it's the cultural, the discipline, the traditions of martial arts that is really important.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Sir, that's 100% dead on. And when it was early we had that, we had community, we had a really thriving instructor training program. Even the person we sold our gym to was someone we started essentially as a white belt who was coming in for weight loss and whatever, and then became someone who could run the gym on his own and a very successful person in Hollywood already. It was not a, hey, I'm down on my luck, can I take this over? But very qualified individual in his own right and stuff. So again, those ideas that we had, we loved, and it felt like there was a period where we go, yes, we see this. We see the path, we know the path that everyone, again, everyone of my friends for the most part, outside of childhood, are almost all business owners and martial arts school owners, right? Yeah, that that that's our crew. So those pieces, when they started to miss a line, we're going, this isn't right.

Culture, Respect, And Instructor Pathways

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Attention, all martial arts school owners. Are you ready to make next year your biggest year yet? Introducing ASA Live, monthly interactive coaching designed to help you grow, lead, and scale your school like never before. Our next live session kicks off with a powerful topic at the end. And month two marketing events to explode your school in 2026. Learn exactly how to plan, promote, and execute the 10 events that will consistently attract new students, boost retention, and drive steady revenue. Every single month, join MasterCon Lead, Master Tony Town, and the team behind Black Belt Banner Podcast. Proven leaders who have helped schools nationwide go through strategy, structure, and systems to actually work. Don't miss the opportunity to start your next year with a couple of game plan. Sign up for Asta Live today. It's only$97 a month and you could cancel any time. Visit Asta MartiArts.com forward slash live to join today and let's explode your martial arts school's marketing growth. I have a question. Can you explain why uh some athletes that just can perform at the highest level, whether it's Olympics or their national team and so forth? From my experience, and this is not just USA, I'm talking about Koreans as well. They can compete at the highest level, but when they're after their career ends and they're opening their own Taekwondo studio or Marshall's gym, they're just so horrible at it. It's it's and then you have average above average physicality school owners who they competed, but never at the highest level. But their school and their systems is just the top notch. And I don't understand the disconnect there. Do you have any insight on that? Or am I off base? You're always off base, but right.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

But in this case, you have some validity to what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Yeah, it's correct. Yeah, yeah. We'll try and support them here. We'll be good. But I think it does for a couple reasons. One, if you look at I look at Taekwondo like language, and I would go and train in Korea, especially the late 90s before I made the national team, and then obviously right after it, for that period from 99 through 2002, I spent a good amount of time there, uh, overall training. And what I learned was the way that the athletes and teams communicated was different than how I needed to learn Taekwondo. I had to learn Taekwondo almost like how do you conjugate every verb in Spanish? How do you do it? What's it very like again? Where if you learn Spanish growing up, what do you do? You just speak Spanish. So they learned it at such a level growing up and going through the ages where every elementary team has a team, every junior high has a team, every high school, where it was more like they were speaking a fluent language to each other, and the adjustments they made were different. It was more innate. Where I had to, and that's part of why I got into all the stuff I do, I had to obsess over every single piece of your right toe does this, and at 15 seconds of the fight, you got to do this. And so I had to really become procedural around that. It's a different type of learning. So for some athletes that are so good and so talented, it doesn't mean they don't work hard. They work very hard. But some of those parts, they almost, and just how it is, then what system do you fall back on to get good at it? So to support your idea that maybe some school owners that maybe weren't the top, and I you're winning the Olympics rules. I don't consider myself the top. I consider myself someone who did well. I learned that I had to learn a lot, and I wasn't fulfilled at the end, meaning I didn't accomplish the big thing I wanted to do. So now I have systems. I'm someone who has to follow every step and be dialed to make sure I have a chance at anything. I have to do that. I can't just show up and play. I've got to be systems and process oriented. And then two, I'm still fighting from that. Oh my gosh, I did all this stuff and it wasn't good enough. I better go even harder here. So I think a lot of school owners may have that of they made it far, they did something and it wasn't there. And now you have this fire inside you versus being, ah, I did great, the next thing will come, next thing will come, and maybe it will, and maybe they still do. I'm not saying that there's plenty of Olympic champions that have great schools, I'd love to have, but with that idea that sometimes we get satiated so much and we're like, there's no chip on our shoulder anymore. Now, I don't need a whole monster behind me, but a little bit of something that's that's not quite good enough, I think that drives us if we can channel it. I don't know. Does that make any sense? Or do you have thoughts on that too?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

No, absolutely, absolutely. 100% that makes sense. I don't know, maybe because I know a lot of high-level athletes from Korea, they just when they come here, they have all this aspiration to open up a school in this huge American market. But whether they don't understand the American consumers, the American students, or and they're just so different than a Korean consumer base, or they're just not business savvy at all because they're just focused on their own personal training and development. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

But I think I think some of the things that I've seen is that some of the high-level athletes, they are they have this standard, right, of excellence. And they expect excellence of themselves. And so when they try to teach their students who are not aspiring to be national athletes, Olympic athletes, they expect those kind of standards. And that's perhaps where some of the disconnect is because they have these elite athlete expectations, but yet their students are doing it, their kids, their families, they're doing this recreationally just for stress relief exercise. And so maybe that plays into part of why some of they have a challenge running a regular doja.

Why Great Athletes Struggle As Owners

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yeah, master, yeah. I I think there's a lot to that. I think that idea that if you just make the Taekwondo better, that everything else will follow. And a lot of times as athletes, we can just go, I'll just get better. And that works there, where there's one that's one part. It's an important part of the business. You have to get the on-the-floor stuff right. The curriculum, the technique has to be right. But there's so much more than that. Right. And as you ascend up, if you can't delegate, if you can't train staff, if you're just good at doing you, and a lot of athletes are good at doing them and not asking for help, right? And not doing the other parts. So they do it. How do you grow then? It's hard to grow if you can't go, hey, I'll pass this off to you, and it's okay if it's 85%. I'll come in and add the 15% and fill that in. That was hard for me to learn at the start because it was I'll do it all. And then I delegate and it'd fall apart. Oh god, this poster stinks. And it's like, no, this poster stinks, and my job is to tweak it here and then retrain. Once I saw that, I thought, okay, here's where my new avenue is. So I think with athletes and coaches, all the floor is everything, it's just better. I'm just a better coach. That's subjective. That's me saying my Taekwondo is better than yours. And that's a pretty bad way to mark it because it's so easy to counter. You go, guess what? You don't know what you're looking for, and I say mine's better. And I go, he said he won the 1987 Olympics. And we're there was no 87 Olympics. No, he said so.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

There's a lot of Olympians out there.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

There's a lot of a lot of our joke is our joke anytime we want to mess with someone, we say we won the cruiser weight of whatever tournament. Oh, I think he fought cruiser weight there.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

I know that this is not just in in Teku, but all sports. Professional athletes at high level where they're used to are that attention. And then able to communicate and teach that to regular students is they just they can't. They have they don't have the ability to communicate and share what they've learned in their training to others, but they can do it themselves really well. Correct. But they just can't teach it well. Yeah, and if you can't teach it, if you can't teach Taekwondo after you open up a Taekwondo studio and taekwondo school, it doesn't matter what systems that you have, you're not gonna.

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, and that's back to that idea, I feel like, of the language that if you don't know how to really do it and break, because you're just it just becomes watch me kick, isn't it great? And I go, yeah, I can't, that's awesome. But it's not about you. It's can you teach them to do that? Can you communicate that effectively at the core part? And yeah, they then they opening up the school just because they don't know what else to do. That's that's not a great way to do it. You should open up any business because I feel like you have some sort of burning desire to do it. You want to impact your community for a certain way, these things you want to accomplish and help. And then the systems all support that. But if it's backwards, let's make some money. There's a lot simpler ways to make money than running a taekwondo school if it's just that. But if you want impact and this stuff and legacy, okay, now it's actually a lot harder to find something better than a taekwondo school or a martial arts school to do that, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Right. 100% agree. Absolutely. These top-level athletes they train for how many years that longevity, like singular focus.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Do you have any tips to school owners in terms of how those athletes keep their focus and retention versus how to explain to the school owners, hey, you gotta use this to keep your students retention longer, keep them in the school longer. Is there any similarities in that, or is that just completely different? Because their singular purpose is to individually themselves to get to the highest level. The school owners is for a less selfish reason. Hey, I want my students to become three years, five years, seven years training in Taekwondo, or am I off base there?

SPEAKER_03 29:14

No, no, you're on base. It's the same, I think. And part of what I love coming to Asa and I sit in the seminars too, that the ones I feel that are really doing great have such a wonderful client journey for their students. Every road mark, every little thing, and not just the road mark, you're gonna be here, we're going from LA to San Francisco, or we're gonna stop off in Bakersfield and get some Starbucks. We're gonna get here's a every little piece. There's the birthday party, here's your hundred-day celebration, you've been at all those things are thought through. It's the same for athletes. But again, it's like I have to know that not just I need to be at the team trials on this day, I need to be here. Worlds are at this time, and here's the trip. And I have these roadmarks there throughout the year that athletes they know their schedule there. So when we get buy-in or we get intent, I'm a big believer that our purpose has to align with our intent.

unknown 30:07

Right?

SPEAKER_03 30:07

When we get those two, now it becomes who you are, and it's very effortless. The first part of my career, I didn't have that all lined up, and there was a lot of friction for me. It was hard to get up early, right? It was hard to be consistent in training. Making it through a six-week training block was really hard. And I struggled with a lot of that stuff psychologically. Once I got it there, it was all the friction in the world was gone, and I could just go through for years at a time, it felt like. Look at the school owners that have maybe no staff and they're barely getting by and you're on every weekend. I remember being there in our gym where you're you're in survival, it's hard to do. I was there as a fighter, too. You're just okay, I better you finish the tournament, and what do you do? This is this is a bad athlete habit. It seems good, we give it praise, but it's maladaptive. They finish the tournament and maybe they get third at nationals or quarterfinal loss. They don't even medal, so they can't go to team trials. Uh uh athlete with a not long-term view does this. They get up tomorrow morning and they try and train for four hours. Seems like a good thing, right? Oh, they want it, they just you have to have some space to grow against. We need to create that space to come back. And actually, over the long term, it was that those athletes that do it for a long time do take time off. They do go here. I know I need to rest now. I'm not resting because I'm lazy. I'm resting because if I don't stay off my legs today, this next six-week block is gonna be really torturous. Or if I don't chill on Sunday, it's like my dad would always tell me, he goes, I can't believe for how lazy you are, you're so consistent in training. But what he meant was I had to sit. I wasn't sitting or being doing that because whatever. I knew that was for me, that was training. Right. And if you ask me to do something like, sorry, I can't do it on Sunday, because my training is me sitting on this couch here. So I think back with then with school owners, their longevity, how can they ebb and flow? And not because they're lazy, not because they waited too long, now they gotta go totally burn out, but date night's planned, right? Coach time off is planned.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Coach Tim, if I knew that, if I knew being on the couch was part of the training, I would have been an Olympian back in the day. I mean, exactly. I would have been a little bit more than a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

A champion in that way, yeah.

Retention Through Clear Journeys And Rest

SPEAKER_03 32:35

Yeah, he's going for a record. He's a three weeks straight. Yeah, the part of the thing is we do have to get off the couch at some stage and train. But it's like that with students. They do good and they get off a little bit. What happens? They thought they're messing up. Can I come back in? And that those pieces are normal for them. And it should be because taekwondo is probably not their only thing. For some it is, and at some stage, like for us all, it eventually becomes our only thing, but they're juggling stuff. And so, how do they understand that focus and value of Taekwondo? I see that part as the same in the schools. When I hear the talks and I talk to the school owners at the events, and they understand how to communicate that and their staff can communicate that. I think personally retention is because it's who you are now. Taekwondo is not an activity. This is, I wrestled more than I did Taekwondo growing up, but I was a Taekwondo student. But that's who I was.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Cook Coach Tim, I think what you said was very impactful. I think it's that's an evolution of Taekwondo and training and education. Twenty years ago, people said you have to train every single day, but through education, they found that your body needs rest and recovery. And I kind of equate it to Um running a tech owner school. I'm a second generation school owner. My my father came with nothing. And their philosophy was always hey, we're going to work seven days a week. We're going to be there from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. And I think that definitely worked. And but I think over time that school owners nowadays they're realizing that you don't have to do it that way to still be successful. There has to be a balance between personal work. And I've just noticed there's a trend. A lot of martial arts school owners are closing uh two days a week now. Like it used to be six, seven days a week, but people are finding that hey, I can give my team and myself recovery or students some time for themselves. We can operate five days a week and still be highly successful. So I think that's kind of the evolution as people get educated and understand things better. There's efficient ways to do things.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Yes, Master J couldn't agree more. If you're gonna if I'm gonna choose one side, the part where you talk about your dad coming over and going seven days a week, I think that's at the core. You have to have I'd rather someone have that and then pull them back than like I really maybe twice a week, and this is hard, right? So if we're gonna have one, it's that part where you're a dog. You're gonna go do it. We can channel that, right? I can teach a fighter strategy, but it's a lot harder to teach a strategy person how to fight. Both are possible. One's just a little easier, my experience. So we we do need that. And yeah, you look at the ones their staff is fresh, that they're coming in, they're excited, that everyone's ready to have good purpose, good intent of their classes, and not just getting through. I know when our volume was too high in training. What happens is every athlete downshifts. So we're gonna go here. It's my fourth practice of the day. I'm not gonna bring that. And now it's junk volume, right? I I look at activities for my daughter. Daughters are nine and four. And yeah, we because we love Taekwondo so much, we want them to do stuff all the time. They're at the off-wheel. It's come all the time. I'd pay more for some activities for her to come less. How much I'll pay you double for once a week. I don't want to be here four times. But like, but eventually they get there and it's fine. But in the start, I didn't want to do this all the time. It was just I thought it'd be a fun thing to learn to paint coffee cups once in a while. I don't need to be on your unlimited coffee painting plan, the value there.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Coaching, what's your role with USA Taekwondo?

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Yeah, so I'm the director of education there with USA Taekwondo. And then I do a lot of other stuff with specific athlete groups. I'm the strength and conditioning coach for the Paralympic team. I'm the strength and conditioning coach for the under-21 team for the World Championships. So I do that and kind of some one-off special, hey, with this group, I'm going to work with them in a certain way. But my main role is doing education and creating courses around both supporting the coaching staff. They have courses on, hey, here's how the modern sport game is, here's how uh modern Pumsei is, and creating that into educational content for two populations. One for direct to consumer. The second one would be things that would work with the schools as far as staff development. Not every school owner is gonna learn every new aspect to Taekwondo, but your staff might need it to implement a new drill or a new piece there, and not that you're gonna go full 2028 Olympic training center there, but hey, we want to be able to do some of this too, or add a new hip drill in for some mobility or some piece. So I do a lot of that side of stuff, which again for me is fun because I like the education and thought side.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

For our audience, the USA Taekwondo, which is responsible for organizing and overseeing the Olympic style taekwondo in the US, meaning the world taekwondo rule set that's used in the Olympics. So it manages every and correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it manage everything from national competitions and rankings, athlete development programs, national team selection for international events, for world championships, pan Ams, and the Olympics, and the coach and referee certifications under the World Taekwondo standards. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Yeah, 100%. It's the MGB, it's big, and there's there's all sorts of avenues to get to get my fingers in there without really what I like about it is without having to step on toes of me saying, Oh, I think here's how you should kick in your dojong. Like that's for you to decide. That's for you to do. And I don't want to be because then again, we can't work together. We battle. You say, no, my way is right. I want to talk about it and say, hey, here is a way to fuel your students, or here's a way to work on mobility around this, and then we can all work together on stuff because you can take what you need and you can leave the rest there. And the umbrella is big to have those avenues to work with other people.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

And then in the vein of education, and I know Master Hong, you touched on what the national governing body is, but just for our listeners, can you just, without obviously getting political, but just to educate our listeners, what is the difference between USAT, AAU, all these different organizations that exist throughout Tekwano? They all obviously want to grow Tekwano, but maybe for some people they don't know what the difference is between these things.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

That's a great question, sir. I'll try and be as you know uh broad but clear as I can that USA Taekwondo is the national governing body that works directly with the US OPC, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee works directly with the IOC, right? With the International Olympic Committee. So this is the group with the main task of selecting our Olympic team and then selecting different teams for, say, like the world championships happening right now in China for sparring or world championships for PUMSA, the official ones. So that's the main part. There's a lot of other things that they do, grassroots, state championships, etc. There other groups like Seiu are a governing body as well. The EU initially used to be the national governing body way back up in the 70s and before I think Dr. Ken Man started that group in the early 70s, who obviously was the founder of the UC Berkeley program out there, and then did a million things for us to not have to mention through here, but a legend in that area to it. But the with the Ted Stevens Act of 1978, I believe, they said that EU cannot be the national governing body of sport, just from not this current administration stuff. But back then, if you watch movies without limits with about Steve Prefontaine, the runner. I watched that, and they had track and field dealing with AU stuff and these issues, and so those issues were broad, so they had to come and bring in athlete representation. So that's about as far down the rabbit hole as I'll get on that part. So they are a governing body, they can have every group can have their own national championships, every group can have a state, a local, a thing. You have there. We were last weekend with uh Master Amitus in Sacramento, and she has the Mudo group. So they have their national championship, they have their organization for their schools and things. So everyone's welcome to build whatever thing you want, right? There's no, you can still be a plenty of people there were USA te members. Plenty of people weren't. So it's not a blood-in, blood-out thing. Say you grew up in Jito Kwan or Mudo Kwan, where you're, hey, this is my this is my click, and we're gonna show you why our way is the best. It's the big group, you can be a member, you cannot be a member, but if you do want to play on the official groups, that's the one that the USOC works directly with. So does that make that clear and not hopefully too too involved?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

I think it's very uh very clear, but what we really want to know is the political way how you really feel about the organization. Of course not. I think that'll be the next episode, right, Master Hogs?

SPEAKER_03 41:07

Perfect. Next episode, he'll tell us what he's doing. I had all my notes on Israel and Palestine. I wanted to get into also. Uh, if you guys have a few minutes, I want to make sure we get fully canceled on both sides.

Role At USA Taekwondo And Education

SPEAKER_00 41:19

This is a podcast we go for hours. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

So can can I ask you one last question?

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Oh, I'm I'm sorry, Master Jay. Let's do the last question and we gotta wrap up there. So Master Jay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Okay, so um we we talk about the training program, the mindset, but I think that and the rest and recovery. But I think what you bring to the table, correct me if I'm wrong, but you also help people with nutrition, right? And I think that's one of the things that people don't understand the value and importance of that. Like when we were growing up, we didn't realize all the crap we're eating, right? We ate a lot of fast food, but now 2025, people understand how bad sugars are and things like that. And so when we teach our kids in our schools, we talk about, hey, you respecting your body is not just you have to respect is not just respecting yourself and your parents and your teachers, but also your body by what you put in your body. So nutrition is important. So can you just speak a little bit about nutrition, not just for kids, but for families and for high-level athletes, how valuable and important that is as a part of the whole, the whole part of the training program.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

It's massive, and it's one of those that you're so right. When we're younger, I thought that we thought that's real life is the difference. When I was living at the training center, we know the dorm's there and there's that taco bell. It's not a taco bell anymore, but across the street. So I'm talking about. I remember the taco bell. I used to right. I used to hop the fence there all the time and go get Taco Bell daily. Like daily. We had free food at the calf, but I'd go there and jump the fence, and I thought I was magic. I thought, I literally thought I was Wolverine. Like, I'll just heal and I'll be good and I'll eat Taco Bell and it'll be great. But it was, I was 20, right? And I had no job. They paid me to train, I had three medical, I could, it was all good, so I could recover from a better side, I could process things. As we age, that doesn't really work that well. And was that optimal? Not at all. So we look at those pieces you're talking about there. That if training is breaking our body down, it's the nutrition that helps send a signal to grow back stronger. Taekwondo part of why I again I never planned on focusing on that too much. Taekwondo, but just it's become the thing that strength and conditioning is a little more procedural. The nutrition part still wraps everyone's mind a little hard to wrap around some of those, but it can be a lot more simple there. I'll give you an example for school owners, right? There, how do we navigate evening fueling? Right. And this is one of the biggest ones because you have class when four to eight, three to eight, three to nine, something like that. It's hard to eat a sandwich in the middle of class while you're doing that stuff. So, what are fueling strategies we can use that give people the optimal energy that gives us the right mind focus? Means we have mental clarity. We're not up, we're not down and starving and snappy and whatever. We don't come home at 11 at night exhausted, having to stuff our face. So some of these things there from a nutritional standpoint really do have a big effect on our recovery, our drive, the way our bodies feel. And back to the tenants like you're talking about, I really think that stuff is one of the expressions of self-control. And I don't mean self-control, you're not gonna eat the cookie. I eat cookies all the time, but it's can I eat the right, can I give myself the right fueling at the right time? Can I have this meal I'm training in 90 minutes as a high-level athlete? There are certain things that most likely you should eat more of, right? You probably need some complex carbohydrates there. Protein intake at that time of day is probably lower because protein is not a fuel source, right? Protein is for recovery. So now we can get into timing and can I get myself to eat the right meal during this time, during the workout. Do I need intra-workout carbohydrates or fuel during it to keep my levels up? Once I'm done, do I have my protein shake afterwards so I can help build the repair? So those pieces, as far as being consistent, I think are really great things to model for our students and show them with nutrition. I feel like more is caught than taught. So they when they see school owners trying again, doesn't mean we're perfect. I eat ice cream every single night there, and it's by design. I it's in my plan. I'm building this for the long one, but every night I have ice cream because I have with my daughters. I want to show them that I'm not a psychopath. I'm not like, sorry because I know this. I'm measuring every little all. I'm like, how many is this into here? That's a crappy way to look. That's Master J. That's what he does. Do you eat eating ice cream every day?

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Is that what you're talking about? No, he does uh calorie.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Can I have one more and take it off? And he has that work, he hasn't had carbs in five years. Yeah, they look great. You gotta talk to him.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

No, so go ahead and that's very helpful, and I think that's something that I would definitely want to improve on as well is understanding a better nutrition plan. So I do think it's very valuable. But I know, Master Hong, we're running out of time, but I am curious back in the day when you had those 49 said tacos from Taco Bell, how many could you eat in your heyday in one sitting?

SPEAKER_03 46:11

Gosh, I was never a big eater, I was a real consistent eater. So my go-to order was this cheese yogurt. I was a vegetarian at the time. I'm not anymore, but this is my order. Cheese yogurita crunch with beans instead of beef, Mexican pizza when they had it, they didn't have it, they brought it back now as wonderful beans instead of beef, and a bean burrito with no onions that I normally didn't eat, but it was always in there just as a safety in case I needed it or one of the other things was messed up. That was my go-to order.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

I hope we're getting sponsorship money from Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_03 46:41

We gotta get Taco Bell to sponsor us. No joke. So back when I was competing, this is how deep in the game I was on that that didn't matter. I could just out train everything. Was remember that movie about Supersize Me about the McDonald's? So I wanted to do a Taco Bell one, run for the border or something. I was gonna eat Taco Bell, nothing for a month, make wait and win nationals. That was a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

I think Master Hung wants to volunteer to still be a part of that experience.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

We've been doing it.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

The biggest thing I got takeaway is you're saying I could eat at 11:30 at night and I'll be okay. That's what I got.

SPEAKER_03 47:19

You'll be just fine. Yeah. That's definitely the takeaway of this call, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

All right, Coach Tim Thackeray. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your incredible insight into high performance coaching, athlete mindset, and how those same principles apply to running a successful Mortar school. A big shout out to Master Cailey for co-hosting with me. And for everyone listening, I hope you picked up some valuable lessons on how to build a winning culture, keep your students engaged long term, and sustain your own passion as a school owner. You can learn more about Coach Tim and his work by checking out the links in our show notes or YouTube description below. As always, thanks for tuning in to Black Belt Panther, where we bring you conversations that help you grow your school, sharpen your leadership, and stay inspired on and off the mat. Until next time, keep training hard and leading with purpose. Bye, everybody.