About Us
The Genesis of Arrowhead Martial Arts
While in high school, Ryan Wheaton started taking karate lessons in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the areas largest Tae Kwon Do Dojo.
A good friend had been training there for a couple of years and convinced him to give it a try. He always had interest in taking the martial arts and this was a good opportunity to try things out.
Ryan signed up to take two trial lessons and began training the following week. He was very excited to begin his martial arts journey.
However, he quickly encountered a few surprises:
- There wasn’t any limit on how many students were in each class. He quickly felt like a number and that he got lost in the shuffle.
- There were too many belt levels in each class. This made it difficult to get the time and attention he needed in each class.
- There was only one black belt instructor in each class. They were spread too thin across all the various belt levels in class. Many quit as a result.
- Each belt test cost a lot of money. As a high school student with limited income, this wasn’t even discussed when he first started.
- Plus, there were kids mixed into same class. Not only was this distracting, it became awkward when the kids were asked to help teach the adults.
- And more.
After deciding to stick it out, Ryan vowed that if he ever had his own martial arts studio, he would do things differently and make it so this all never happened to his students.
Further, throughout the last 20 years, Ryan had the opportunity to teach and train at several martial arts schools and learned what worked, what didn’t, and what was missing in their programs.
He combined all of those experiences into making his Salt Lake City Utah martial arts school what it is today – the premier martial arts facility in Salt Lake City, Utah to learn the martial arts as an adult!