Family and impact are some words to characterize the environment at Eudora’s martial arts business.

As what many know as Forge Martial Arts celebrates its 10 year anniversary, they’re also rebranding with a new name – Impact.

Owner Tonya Bolte said this name is exactly what they want to be known for and it makes the school feel even more like their own. She pondered a new name for a while because she wanted something that better served their mission.

“I know it sounds cliche, but it literally just came to me, and then I just couldn’t let it go,” she said.

Over the last 10 years, Eudora and the surrounding communities have shown up for them even when she was not an owner. She took over ownership three years ago.

“We’re really looking at continuing to grow, continue to impact all of the communities around us, and our students and their families, too,” she said.

As the school celebrates the decade anniversary, there are also plans to expand offerings. In the near future, they hope to add homeschool classes since that community is big in the area.

Bolte said they are also looking into getting in the schools more. New summer camps to help with child care needs in the area may also be on the horizon, she said.

This will be the fourth year of their March tournament, but this year they’re drawing students from even more states across the U.S. The event, hosted at the Rec Center, will have students from Las Vegas, Minnesota, Texas and others. Many are returning from last year, which shows they enjoyed the venue and event enough to come back, she said. There will be between 75 and 100 competitors.

“It’s fun to bring people here, because normally when we go to tournaments, they’re big cities. So to bring it here, it’s really fun,” she said.

It all started because her son started attending Forge when he was 4, but soon the whole family fell in love with it.

Bolte didn’t start training right away, though. The previous owners encouraged Bolte to get involved, but she was not convinced. Bolte was doing fitness kickboxing at the time, and she said she just liked to workout and didn’t want to wear a uniform and didn’t care about belts.

For Christmas that year, she was given a uniform and a free month of training, and that’s when she decided she’d try it.

“I did my first class and absolutely loved it, and have been training ever since,” she said.

She soon offered to lend a hand with the little kids’ classes.

“Well, then I started falling in love with the teaching aspect of it. Had never taught a thing in my life, but really enjoyed it, and then that just kind of continued to grow,” she said.

When she got her first degree, she also got her instructor certification with Forge’s affiliation. She started teaching more classes and even taught virtually during the pandemic.

The original owners decided to move to Florida, leaving Bolte as the full-time instructor.

After a year, they decided they wanted Bolte to take over the school. Now it’s been three years since the Bolte family took over.

She had little knowledge of how to run a successful small business, and she credits a lot of her success to asking questions, reaching out to the local Chamber of Commerce and creating relationships with other small business owners.

Being in a small town enabled her to openly talk to other business owners and be honest when she didn’t know what she was doing, she said.

“Ever since people found out that we had taken over ownership of the school, it’s been nothing but love and support. All different aspects of the community support us,” she said.

Families also come from all the surrounding communities, like De Soto, Bonner Springs, Tonganoxie, Linwood, Baldwin and Lawrence.

Cat Monroe from De Soto bought her then-5 year-old son classes at Forge for Christmas seven years ago. Since then, the school and the Boltes have become a family, and Orion got hooked after his first class.

“Every once in a while, I find myself thinking about that, and there’s been not just an effect on him, but on our family as well,” she said.

The Boltes have been supportive of their whole family.

“I thought I was signing up for him to learn some self defense, but instead, we got this huge extended family that’s even nationwide through all the other schools in our organization,” she said.

Orion is now 12 and he said he and his mom have seen how classes have impacted him positively – not only from a skill perspective but also his personal growth.

Trying new things can be overwhelming for him, she said, but it’s something she’s seen change a lot over the course of his classes.

“Meeting new people could be overwhelming, and being here in both taekwondo from the values that you learned from taekwondo, and also being at Impact his confidence in himself and in others and his trust in himself has grown exponentially,” Cat Monroe said.

Orion said it taught him perseverance but also thinks Bolte has made the experience much more than just taekwondo.

“My favorite part about being a student here is the aspect of having, like, it feels like a family,” he said. “They care about you and it just feels like I belong here.”

It’s taught him to keep going even when it gets hard.

“If you get injured, you can always come back, and so it’s just helped me through a lot,” he said.

Impact has become his second home.

“She makes the classes fun, and she kind of feels like – this place feels like a home away from home, even if she’s not here,” he said.

Reach reporter Sara Maloney at [email protected].