Business of the Week: United Martial Arts Center, Carmel
For Paul Melella, co-owner of United Martial Arts Center in Carmel, what makes the school unique is its incorporation of life empowering philosophies and teaching along with the physical training.
“I think that the perception of martial arts for the average person doesn’t do it justice,” Melella said. “With all the UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship] on TV and mixed martial arts, they’re showing so much fighting and beating people up, and for most people that’s what it may be, but not here. We emphasize making champions in life, as opposed to making champions in the ring.”
Melella ran the school under its previous owner for a year before leaving for college. When his younger brother, Anthony, started to lose interest in martial arts, Melella returned home to train him and returned as manager of the school. That year Anthony went on to become an Olympic Junior National Champion and Paul took an offered opportunity to buy the school. Over the years enrollment grew from 20 students to its current 453 enrollees and Paul now co-owns the school with his younger brother.
“We share in the same mission in life — to impact and inspire the children and families of our martial arts school, to help them become successful in all areas of their life,” Melella said. “Our philosophy has evolved tremendously over the last 10, 15 years.”
“When I was a student, all I learned was how to spar, how to fight. It was all competition and fighting,” Melella said. “It was exactly like the Cobra Kai dojo instructor in ‘The Karate Kid.’ He didn’t teach any values, he didn’t teach how to become successful people. He taught people only how to fight, only martial arts. And in the beginning of my teaching that’s all I knew and that’s all I taught, because I didn’t know any better,” Melella said.
“I remember vividly watching ‘The Karate Kid,’ I probably watched it 100 times, and one time I watched it, it just clicked. I said, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m just like this Cobra Kai dojo instructor, and I wanted to be more like Mr. Miyagi. I wanted to teach about life. I wanted to make successful people through the philosophy of martial arts. I started implementing more life skills, more life philosophy,” Melella said. “I got very heavily into personal growth. I became addicted to reading material, going to workshops, going to seminars. And I started implementing those philosophies, not just about martial arts but about life, about health, about attitude, about anything that can improve someone’s overall life. And I started getting immediate results, not just in my personal life, but my students’ growth was expanding.”
This growth soon expanded to the parents of his students. “Parents were listening to what I was saying on and off the floor and they joined in. It became more of a family environment. And then I got parents to say, ‘I lost all this weight and my attitude has shifted and I was asked to become partner in my firm because of this; I’ve been changing my attitude on life and this happened and that happened.’ And it led me to want to help more people,” Melella said.
Melella’s success in empowering the lives of his students outside of the center led to his co-writing You Have Infinite Power. With his co-authors, he created another company called Empowered Mastery Consultants.
“I travel around the country giving seminars and workshops to people that would never have come into my martial arts school and help them become successful in their personal life, their physical life, and their professional life,” Melella said. “Basically, I take the values that I teach in my martial arts school and share them with people in the corporate world and with everyday people.”
“We’re not just teaching people how to punch and kick. We’re teaching how to become successful people in overall life,” Melella said.
United Martial Arts Center is located at 114 Old Route 6 in Carmel For more information, call 84-225-0008 or visit www.umaccarmel.com. Two years ago a second school was opened in Fishkill.
