About Martial Arts Australia

From a Circle of Knowledge to Australia's Largest Martial Arts Organisation in Australia

Martial Arts Australia didn't start as a business plan, it started with one instructor's belief that martial artists are stronger when they share what they know instead of guarding it. Three decades later, that belief has grown into the country's most established peak body, and the single home for everything an Australian instructor needs to run a safer, more professional, more profitable school.

How We Got Here

The idea began in the mid-1980s, when founder and current Chairman Graham Slater (9th Dan) was travelling extensively to martial arts schools around the world, training, teaching, and building relationships wherever he went. Out of those exchanges grew a genuine "circle of knowledge": instructors from different styles and backgrounds sharing techniques and ideas in a deliberately non-political space, where every level of experience had something to contribute and something to gain.

In Australia, that circle became a regular gathering, local instructors meeting monthly to train and share expertise, with some travelling interstate just to be part of it. The idea resonated, and in 1993 it was formalised as the International Karate Alliance, launching simultaneously in England and Japan. It spread fast, reaching fifteen countries within a few years, each with its own Regional Director.

As instructors from styles well beyond karate began joining, the natural next step followed: within four years, the organisation evolved into the International Martial Arts Alliance (IMA) a genuine cross-discipline body, no longer limited to one style. Then, in 2004, Martial Arts Australia (MAA) was established as the primary brand serving the Australian region specifically, built to give local instructors a dedicated home, while remaining connected to the broader international network. Today, MAA is the single front door for membership and services in Australia: wherever you're located, everything runs through MAA.

Solving a Real Problem for Senior Instructors

One issue kept surfacing in those early years: instructors who broke away from their head teacher, or whose teacher passed away, often had no legitimate way to keep advancing their own grade or title, even while students coming up behind them expected exactly that. Instructors are, understandably, reluctant to grade themselves. The IMA built a genuinely credible alternative: a master's panel process for evaluating and grading senior instructors fairly. That system has since become one of the most respected benchmarks in the industry and it's still how we assess senior gradings today, right up to 9th Dan.

What We Focus on Today

That's the history, here's what actually matters to instructors now. Martial Arts Australia exists to give Australian school owners an extensive range of discounted and subsidised services, all in one place. Most instructors first come to us for the credibility, instructor certification, and business support and quickly discover there's a great deal more on offer: the best available deals on software, insurance, equipment, websites, courses, and direct debit fee collection, among much else.

Our group buying power is genuinely unmatched, we're constantly negotiating new deals with preferred providers. The bigger the network gets, the better the rates become, and every member benefits from that scale, not just the newest or largest schools.

Building the Industry's Own Media

In 2006, we launched our own Martial Arts TV Show because television remains one of the most effective ways to showcase instructors and bring martial arts to a wider public audience. The logic is simple: the more popular we make this sport, the more students walk into dojos everywhere. Since then, we've built a run of TV brands such as: Interactive Martial Arts, iMartial Arts TV, Martial Arts TV, and our current series, Kapow TV covering how-to content, fight shows, tournaments, and more.

A Genuine One Stop Shop

We provide some services directly, where we have the in-house expertise and resources to do it properly. Where we don't, we partner with trusted third-party specialists rather than spreading ourselves too thin, always with the same goal: the best possible outcome for members, without instructors having to manage a dozen separate relationships themselves.

As a peak industry body, our job is to grow and protect this industry on every level we can reach. Our scale lets us negotiate on behalf of individual instructors in a way no single school or many other associations could manage alone and that scale keeps compounding: the more schools that use our services, the stronger our negotiating position becomes, and the better the rates get for everyone in the network.

If you're trying to compare us to another association, you won't find a clean fit, there's no other group in the world doing what we do, in one place, at this scale.

How We're Funded, and What That Funds

Martial Arts Australia is funded through membership subscriptions and its commercial services, not government money, which means every dollar of support directly funds what we do for the industry: distributing vital industry news through email, social media, our websites, general meetings and seminars and our own publications and video channels. We operate as an alliance, an industry media provider, a negotiator on members' behalf, a network of companies and school owners, and a genuine library of knowledge, backed by an expert panel of masters, consultants, and staff.

What This Means for the Industry

• Industry needs are met through active, ongoing consultation
• Extensive group services and products are made available to every member
• Educational direction is shaped around what instructors actually need
• A united industry voice, represented across every region
• A position of trust and respect that gives the whole industry greater confidence
• Industry recognised training, created and made available to everyone
• Direct capacity to lobby and work with local and national government
• Genuine relationships with the corporate sector, securing group deals and sponsorship for schools and athletes
• A stronger public profile for the industry, promoted through media including magazines and video channels
• A membership and network base substantial enough to genuinely represent the industry, not just make claims that we do
• Regular, open industry-wide meetings, essential to breaking down the political barriers that hold smaller, divided groups back

Join Us

If you value what we do, we'd genuinely welcome your application to Martial Arts Australia and invite you to feel the real difference dedicated industry support can make to your school. Thank you, in advance, for the energy and financial support your membership represents, it's what makes all of this possible.

Training History in Brief – Graham Slater the Martial Arts Australia Founder started his martial arts training in England 47 years ago in 1973 after being inspired by Bruce Lee movies. There was also a vital need to defend himself from the ever increasing violence by gang warfare on the streets of Liverpool, England. Originally he started by learning from books and soon tracked down a local Goju Karate school to train at. The environment gave Graham the motivation to train and the skills to build a strong foundation to continue his training in Australia. READ THE FULL STORY HERE