Today we’d like to introduce you to Cameron Shayne.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Cameron. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born in 1971 in North Carolina during an era in which Bruce Lee was alive and innovating the first modern mixed martial arts system.
Calisthenics were required in school as part of Ronald Reagan’s’ physical education initiative, and the Beatles were popularizing yoga. I am from the generation born in the middle of the tech and social media boom, which makes me somehow a contemporary thinker with an old school attitude. I am a perfectionist with a critical eye for inconsistency. I have only had two professions in my entire life. One as a movement teacher, and the second as a bodyguard.
My family wasn’t well off so I didn’t have access to much as a kid other than the woods around our house. There were no modern electronic devices, no social media, nothing you could disappear into other than books or your imagination. We climbed trees, leaped across creeks, and swam in the lakes. I found martial arts at the age of twelve mostly because I had an angry father who was a notorious street fighter, and I found myself surrounded by rather rough men. He started slap boxing with me when I was about 8 until I started formal martial arts training at twelve. In my early twenties I moved to LA and found Yoga. In my late twenties I found Yoshukai Karate while at the same time I found my first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teacher Rickson Gracie. Ironically, he shared a studio with my Karate teacher and my love for MMA began.
From that I founded Budokon University in 2001.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Yes for sure. Trying to penetrate different movement communities with a hybrid system Budokon, is was a difficult road.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Budokon University story. Tell us more about the business.
Budokon University is an international education institute devoted to the development of both professional teachers and inspired movers in the areas of life science, martial arts, yoga, animal locomotion and calisthenics. We educate teachers worldwide to share the art form and are represented almost everywhere on the globe creating and pioneering the mixed movement arts culture.
In Miami we opened our first local Headquarter – The BDK Mixed Movement Arts Academy. It is an educational institute that serves the local community by o ering the BDK mixed movement arts black belt curriculum. The basic di erence is that one is focused on educating teachers to share the work, and the other on developing inspired practitioners who simply want to live it.
It all began as a personal practice that other people were drawn to and in a way convinced me to share it on a larger scale. I don’t see the work or myself as important, but I do see us both making a difference on a larger scale then I did in the beginning.
Initially I thought I would be offering a highly specialized training practice to a small number of serious movement students. I had no idea that the work would become a new style or linage art form taught worldwide. Its evolution is a reflection of how people responded to it.
When you create something, you have to realize that society inevitably influences your art as much as your art in turn shapes society. So it has evolved in a way that accommodates more people who are interested in it.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I don’t believe in luck. I see opportunities and take action.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1601 N Miami Ave.,
Miami, FL 33136 - Website: www.budokon.com
- Phone: 7866226863
- Email: BDKmiami@budokon.com
- Instagram: @budokonuniversity
- Other: @cameronshayne, @melayneshayne
Image Credit:
@ysaperez
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