Martial arts company puts focus on healing

Last year was a strong year for Fred and Kelly Johnson's Body Firm. Most of the year's $270,000 in revenues came not from the martial arts instruction they're known for, but from services related to physical therapy.

Between providing physical therapy, personal training and martial arts, the smallest income amount generated was from martial arts, said Kelly Johnson.

"The majority of what we do with physical therapy nowadays is workers' comp," Fred Johnson said. Our fitness program "is based on martial arts (including Tuk Soo Ban), personal training and traditional physical therapy all three combined. Our main referral base is neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons."

Said Kelly Johnson: "We feel the mind and body have to work together to defeat an injury and get healthy again."

Changing business demand

In recent years, the Johnsons have seen an increased need for physical therapy-type treatments, especially in respect to workers' compensation cases.

"In the Orient, a person will go to a master instructor a lot of times before they go to a doctor ... to rehab injuries," Fred Johnson said.

Abandoning traditional physical therapy treatments like hot and cold packs, electrical stimulation and other application methods, Johnson favors weight and flexibility training, massage, working pressure points, shadow boxing and the like.

"I treat (clients) like fighters. When you treat people like fighters, they tend to fight to get better," he said.

For Johnson, 42, relinquishing the "sentimental value" of earning his keep from martial arts came during an epiphany on a recent Colorado ski trip. His classes were bringing in a fraction of what he was paying in rent to provide the space to teach them.

"It just did not make good economic sense" to continue putting the emphasis in martial arts, Fred Johnson said. "I was paying $2,000 a month just to have martial arts bring in less than $300."

New address

The Johnsons' March 1 move into a 6,000-square-foot location at 545 S. Ingram Mill Road was initially based on the idea of retaining their previous focus in teaching martial arts. The couple's business focus has changed, however, as they have turned their group classes over to Mark Haen, a 20-year student of Fred Johnson's.

Fred and Kelly Johnson still teach some classes and private instruction, especially to long-time students.

Haen teaches his classes at the Sunshine Performing Arts Academy.

While the Johnsons' current three-year lease of $3,200 a month for 6,000 square feet is less than the $3,500 they were paying for their previous retail location at the Battlefield Plaza, they'd like to sublease half the space, Kelly Johnson said. They've already spent $20,000 on the location, putting in showers, sauna and a utility room, along with treatment, tanning and dressing rooms, and fresh paint and carpet, she said.

Body Firm is now a unit within Johnson Health Centers; the business has three employees.

Revenues have taken a dip since Sept. 11, Kelly Johnson said, adding that some insurance companies have been slow to pay. "We probably have $40,000 in accounts receivable right now."

Tuk Soo Ban

Tuk Soo Ban was developed by Fred Johnson and integrates elements from various styles: kick-boxing, judo, grappling and knife self-defense. It draws on Japanese, Chinese, Okinawan and Korean cultural traditions.

Johnson began his training in martial arts 30 years ago in Gravette, Ark., at age 12. He earned his black belt at age 15 and continued studying for a number of years by making a nine-hour trip once a week between Arkansas and Shreveport, La. There he trained with Carroll Baker, "the highest-ranked internationally certified American black belt in the world."

Fred Johnson is a master-ranked, fifth-degree black belt. Kelly is a second-degree black belt. Both are schooled in a style called Tuk Soo Ban, a Korean term which translated means "elite system" or special group." Mark Haen is a fourth-degree black belt.