Martial Arts Supershow 2017

What is the Martial Arts Super Show you might ask?

Well, every year, the Martial Arts Industry Association (MAIA,) and Century Martial Arts put on one of the largest training and networking events for martial arts instructors & school owners.... and it just so happens to be in Vegas! :)

We first heard about the Martial Arts Super Show (MASS17) at the beginning of this year, and we instantly thought to ourselves: "WE HAVE TO GO TO THIS EVENT!"

Our motivation was to learn how to help take our Kids program to the next level. But, we also felt like it would be a great venue to meet talented martial artists and help share inspiring stories through our eMagazine.

With so much action, one of our concerns was how to organize everything in order to maximize our experience... Luckily, there was an app for that! Actually. All we had to do was download the MASS17 app, then organize our day by events. It was like having an assistant that puts together an agenda for you! Very helpful.

It was also an honor to be part of the opening ceremonies where Benny "The Jet" Urquidez received the MAIA Lifetime Achievement Award. 

At a young age, Benny "The Jet" Urquidez blazed a trail and a became 12-time world champion in full contact kick-boxing. His achievements made waves around the martial arts world and placed the sport in the spotlight. His Ukidokan system of Karate is now practiced in schools across North America. 

During the ceremony, a video reel was played that highlighted his long list of accomplishments. We were both astonished by how much "The Jet" was able to accomplish so early on in his career. Very inspirational!

It was an even bigger honor to meet the legend in person :)

t's no secret that Vegas is known for being over the top. As we soon learned, the city's reputation is warranted. After a few days of focused immersion in the show, we decided to go explore and see what the legendary city of sin was all about:

Watch this video:

There was so much to do, so much  to see, and so much food to eat. More specifically, we were on the hunt for some top shelf sushi restaurants. One evening while strolling through our hotel (the MGM Grand,) we stumbled upon a beautiful sushi restaurant called Morimotto Sushi. The place was so aesthetically pleasing, we we just had to bust out the camera and document the experience. Our wallets took a karate chop to the throat, but it was worth it!

Watch this video:

"Work Hard / Play Hard" is one of our mantras, and we definitely worked HARD this trip... So it only made sense to buy tickets to the Calvin Harris concert at Wet Republic in order to balance things out (we're good at justifying these kind of things.)

We have never seen anything like it! Thousands of people, one pool. 

Now, we're by no means experts in waterborne diseases, but we felt like there was a strong likelihood of new strain of super-bug being spawned inside the pool with "Patient-Zero" emerging from the insanity. 

Needless to say we did our best to not go in the water, but it was certainly hard to avoid getting splashed. Every time the beat would drop, everyone would go nuts tossing water around like they were are on fire!

You have to see it to believe it:

Even though we were only down in Vegas for 5 days, there is absolutely no way we could have crammed in more fun.

The Martial Arts Super Show was an event for the books, and we've already booked round-2 at MASS18. Given how time seems to fly by when you're having fun, MASS18 will arrive before we know it :)

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures we have planned this year!