Few people in grappling have opened as many gyms as Casey Halstead. Over his career he has had a hand in eight 10th Planet locations, starting in Orange County, California, and now focused on Las Vegas, including part ownership of 10th Planet Downtown Las Vegas and 10th Planet Tucson, plus a kickboxing gym in California. He has also coached MMA at a high level, retiring from that role to concentrate on running his businesses.
Talking with Red Belt Podcast host Brian "Barn Cat" Debes, Halstead explained how he scaled from one location to four in about three years, why he gave several gyms away, and why parents should be sold on the pursuit of excellence. He admits his approach doesn't fit every school.
Why Two Gyms Is Harder Than Ten
Debes opened with advice he'd heard from another multi-gym owner: don't go from one gym to two, go from one to ten. With two locations, an owner tries to micromanage both and burns out. With ten, micromanaging is impossible, so the owner has to build systems and trust managers.
Halstead agreed. In his Orange County years he saw every member at every location as his personal student and split himself in unrealistic ways. The first thing owners in that position give up, he noted, is sleep, and bad decisions follow.
Debes has often seen an owner with a solid gym hit a plateau and open a second location expecting to double revenue, only to divide their attention and watch one or both gyms suffer. The fix is putting capable people in charge of each location.
Replace Yourself Constantly
Halstead's focus on developing leaders goes back to his corporate career, before he owned a gym. He once lost a promotion, and when he asked why, his boss told him there was no one ready to fill his current position. From then on, replacing himself became his top priority.
In practice, that means spotting future leaders early. He told one student, while still a white belt, that he would run a gym for him one day. That student later earned his black belt under Halstead and was given equity in the company.
His original retirement plan was ambitious and specific: 24 locations, each run by one of his black belts, with his ownership eventually reduced to 10% of each. In his words, he would rather own 10% of 100 businesses than 100% of 10. The head coaches would end up with the majority stake, and Halstead would collect a modest monthly residual from each gym and teach paid seminars across the network. COVID-era restrictions in California disrupted the plan before it was complete.
He is also realistic about what happens when you build entrepreneurs. The black belts who stay as employees long-term, he observed, often lack either the ambition or one key skill needed to open their own school. The best ones eventually leave to start gyms of their own. Halstead treats that as a sign of success and encourages it, as long as they don't open in another gym's backyard. The cost is that he is always backfilling.
Expand Where Your Students Already Live
His expansion method is straightforward. Open a small-footprint gym and grow it until it's almost unmanageable. He described a 2,000-square-foot space with around 450 students and classes of 60 to 70 people. Then run a zip code study of the membership. When a single zip code accounts for 20% or more of students, open a new location there.
Because every location belonged to the same group, the usual radius restrictions between affiliates didn't apply. Clustering four gyms within roughly 20 miles also gave the sales team a strong pitch: sign up at one and you can train at any of them.
When COVID hit, Halstead handed the Orange County gyms to the partners keeping them alive day to day, keeping no equity. People tend to wait for the owner to decide, he reasoned, and stepping aside was the only way to get everyone to take real ownership. He says those gyms are all thriving.
In Las Vegas, he went the other way during the lockdowns. While other owners were panicking, he spent about $80,000 to move and build out a larger gym with showers. He said fewer than 10% of his members cancelled, and that seeing the school invest during a crisis convinced members it wasn't going anywhere.
Sell Parents on the Pursuit of Excellence
The kids discussion came out of a question from Debes: parents spend heavily on youth sports partly because many believe their child could go pro, even though very few will. Should martial arts schools use that same aspiration?
Halstead's answer was yes, framed honestly. A parent himself, with a daughter who wrestled in college and a nine-year-old golfer, he invests heavily in his kids' pursuits. He tells a parent whose five-year-old will "win ADCC" that the odds are slim, but ten years of chasing that goal produce a resilient, independent kid. Individual-sport athletes, he believes, learn there's no one else to blame for a loss.
"Even if we strive for greatness and we fall short," he said, the result is a child loved and supported by adults who dedicated their time to them.
In his gyms, that culture starts with putting the best instructor on the kids' program so children see their coach competing and want to follow. He is candid about the trade-off. Switching to a competitive culture costs a school its casual members at first, and it has to rebuild with people who want that intensity.
Culture First, Jiu-Jitsu Fourth
Halstead ranks what his gyms sell in a clear order: culture first, self-defense second, fitness third and jiu-jitsu fourth, with good jiu-jitsu coming as a result of the first three. He sees his real competition as the couch, the TV and the ballgame, and he takes it personally when a student skips class for a game.
His gyms have no separate beginner classes. New students train with higher ranks from day one, which he considers safer than white belts rolling with white belts, and purple belts are expected to learn to teach. Debes, who runs a structured beginner program, noted that pairing newcomers with upper ranks is a beginner program of its own, and both agreed that keeping more white belts widens the base future black belts come from.
Key Takeaways
- ✓Expanding to multiple locations only works when someone other than the owner is truly in charge at each one.
- ✓Make replacing yourself a priority, and identify future leaders early, even at white belt.
- ✓Expect your best people to want their own schools; plan for it with equity, partnerships or constant backfilling.
- ✓Use a zip code study of your current members to decide where to open your next location.
- ✓With kids, sell the long-term value of pursuing excellence, not just the activity itself.
- ✓Decide deliberately what your gym sells (culture, self-defense, fitness, technique) and build the room around it.
Listen to the Full Episode
Halstead and Debes also discuss the growing prize money in professional grappling and what it means for the sport. Listen on Spotify or watch on YouTube. Whether you're running one location or planning your fifth, Red Belt Software helps gym owners with the systems behind student retention and growth.