In the 20 years, we’ve been in business, we have moved into five different locations to house MPUSA and Vibravision.
Our first day of business was January 3rd, 2001, and here we are, coming up on our 20 year anniversary. As I think back to these five locations, I think about how amazing they have been, how lucky and fortunate we’ve been to be able to find them (especially some in such short notice). But also how allowing and how understanding our students have been at some of these places where we’ve had them train. The first place was in the old Ogden City Mall. It’s now been demolished and where our school was is now a flow rider, a rock-climbing wall, it’s an indoor skydiving place, and it’s an arcade.
We were only there for about five months when we had to abruptly get out because Ogden City blighted the area and was going to build these new developments. And so, we moved over to the Ben Lomond Hotel, which is well known throughout the country as one of the most haunted places in the nation. Underneath it, so I’m told, are catacombs where railroad workers are buried from years and years ago when they were building the railroad that eventually joined at the Golden Spike in Northern Utah. We were only able to stay there for about four months and then we found an amazing space that used to be an auto parts warehouse. It still had a number of auto parts stored in their shelves, so an amazing group of people volunteered their time to come in and strip the place. We painted it, put carpet down. We made it look so nice. Thank you to everybody who made that such an amazing home. We were there for five years, but it was also in a blighted area. And once again, Ogden City came in and said, “You gotta get out.”
“Ah, crap.”
We moved to a temporary location for five years.
It was supposed to be temporary, but truthfully, it grew on us like a rash.
This place… I am so grateful for it, but it was less than optimal at the time. We used to have to go up three flights of stairs to get to the class. No elevator, and the floor- oh, the floor! It was painted with wall paint on top of what’s called ashcrete. Not concrete, ashcrete. It has powder and it just keeps on producing. More paint cannot stick to it. You cannot really seal it. So every single night we would have to go and spot paint it by hand with a paintbrush with this forest green color that the landlords had originally put down and said, “You can’t change it.”
That was very interesting. There are a lot of people from back in those days who remember having paint chips, large paint chips, stuck to their feet on pretty much a constant basis. Then the building was sold so we had to get out pretty quickly. We’re so grateful for the place that we found now. It was a warehouse, and it had dirt literally a half-inch thick on every beam, on the floor, on every single light fixture, hanging off the walls. I’ve never seen a place as dirty. And again, we had a gracious army of volunteers come in and we spent 57 days pretty much non-stop, a lot of the time in the middle of winter without heat, turning it into what it is today. My heartfelt thanks to every single person who volunteered their time, their knowledge, every single drop of sweat, every single drop of blood that went into making our school what it is today. And it is without a doubt one of the nicest martial arts schools in the state of Utah, and we’re looking forward to many more years.
COVID has been pretty difficult on us. The martial arts industry has taken a tremendous blow because of COVID. But now with transitioning from in-person martial arts to online martial arts, as well as Vibravision classes, the future’s never looked as bright as it is right now.