Meet Daniel Hodges | Muay Thai Non Profit Organization International Outreach and Promotion

We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniel Hodges and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I am from a small town called Olivehurst, about an hour north of Sacramento, California. This town is renowned for its high-quality meth and was one of the locations of the first school shootings. Despite its bad reputation, I had a great childhood. Both my parents stayed together until I graduated and had good jobs (truck driver & dental assistant). I owe my whole life to my hometown. When you grow up in a place where the number one goal is to have the means to move away, it really shapes your mindset. Another aspect of my high school (Lindhurst High School) was that it was known as the worst school within a hundred-mile radius. People in my neighborhood would district transfer to other high schools. What people didn’t realize was that they were moving away from the most culturally rich high school. As a white person, I was 33% of the demographic, and unique to Lindhurst, we had a 30% Hmong and Hispanic population. So these two cultures were a part of my upbringing. It’s different growing up in a demographically heterogeneous community rather than a homogeneous one. I know because when I graduated, I went to college in a 90% white area, and it was a culture shock I can talk a lot more about. But what this town did for me is make me comfortable around other cultures, and when I moved away, I missed it.

Not to mention our wrestling team; this is going to be long. My brother and I got involved in the wrestling team, where our journey in martial arts began and the lessons of determination were learned. I was not a popular kid, so the more popular kids whose parents were friends with the coaches would get on varsity. But from my whole life of being awkward at all these sports, I knew wrestling was my calling. So from freshman year, I joined off-season programs and wrestled year-round. My sophomore year, it was undeniable. I swept my whole division. Furthermore, it motivated other people who saw my transformation to be a part of the off-season. It grew a whole culture, gave us all hope, kept us out of trouble, and helped me actually graduate since I was a bad student. I tasted fame being in the newspaper, and I had a purpose. What’s great about wrestling is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a loser, you can become the best. I can say my freshman year was horrible. But when I started getting good at wrestling, I became popular and had a lot of friends. My junior year, our wrestling coaches were twin brothers, the Ramos twins, and the team was a really tight family at this point. One of the twins, a sheriff, took his life in an unexpected tragedy. There’s something about having so much struggle and pain that pushes you harder than you ever thought. We trained harder than ever, and our division 4 school, ranked the lowest and seen as the worst school, won the entire league championship. It’s probably the most influential foundation of my life. Brix forever. The struggle, the determination, and the diversity of my hometown is a priceless piece of my life I am really grateful for. I owe everything to my hometown. I could write like five more paragraphs.

One book I read around the same time my brother and I opened our first business was called ‘Crush It’. It had a great impact on me and shaped my work ethic. It’s a very motivational book and not too long. One quote from the book I will never forget is, “No matter how much coffee is in the cup, the cream will always rise to the top.” This quote really encourages you to become the best. No matter how many people are doing something, if you keep learning, studying, and training, you will become part of the cream of the crop.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Art has been a crucial part of my brother’s and my business. I specialized in graphic design and creating visually appealing flyers. Art had always been a part of my life, and my philosophy was that if you’re already good at something and then you get a formal education in it, the flame burns larger and brighter. I had designed all of our logos, graphics, and flyers for almost eight years. It wasn’t until recently, when we got too busy and I had to take on more of a management position, that I started to outsource flyer design. However, now we have so many photos of our athletes, and those photos are the primary element. We used to make custom flyers that looked like rolled-up Chinese scrolls. A funny joke one of the coaches told us was that when he saw that scroll at his gym, he was nervous because he thought he, as the coach, was being summoned to some Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon tournament. Before we made our rankings, I really felt the artistic element and cultural art of Muay Thai really lured people. They wanted the authentic experience, and the flyers’ artwork had to capture that vibe.

Now I have moved my artistic abilities into our website. The thing about the artist’s brain is that it can function in different mediums. I learned programming in college, and when I connected the dots between our Muay Thai program and data analysis, it blew my mind. Although I still love to do life drawing and painting events, I feel the full use of my abilities is in Full Stack Development. A website has everything: artworks, graphics, visualizing data. Now I have to use all these aspects to make the best website. I remember as a boy, I found this website called 123klan. It was like a graffiti interactive playground website with secret click portals and random things happening. I really want to create something like that, where people can enjoy and lose themselves for a moment.

Now my brother, he is like the best promoter in the world. So anything I create, he is the first one to say, “This is sick!” and starts blasting it all over social media. Sometimes I have to be careful because I’ll send him something that is unfinished, and then he’s blasting it all over. I’m like, “Bro, it’s not done yet!” haha. I see my job as a promoter is to promote my athletes. I have to promote the gyms who come. If a gym comes to one of our events, we are also going to promote that gym and grow their SEO and bring them more students.

As a nonprofit organization, which I learned is the hardest job ever, art is HUGE! You have to create media and content; otherwise, you can’t get people to donate. People have to feel an emotional connection to your photos, drawings, flyers, website, etc. I recently started making documentary-style movies to share some of the stories in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, and India. Because I meet the people and know how amazing they are, I want to help them in any way possible. But without creating content and sharing it with people, nobody will know. Now I have to learn to make movies, motion graphics, and map animations. It’s endless, because I know if I learn this, I can help more people.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Currently, I am living in Bangkok, and flights to Cambodia, Myanmar, and India are really cheap. For the best time ever, I would take you to visit my nonprofit partners since you can google all the party spots. First, we can go to the Isaan area in Thailand to see a Muay Thai show in the countryside and meet some of the kids training there. Then, we can take a bus or flight to Siem Reap, see the temples, and visit our coach who will take us to a boxing show (they call it Khun Khmer there). Also you can teach some english to the village kids at Children Legacy Organization. Next, we can go to Yangon, Myanmar, and meet the gym we have scheduled to renovate. The boxing events aren’t as frequent there at the moment, but I was lucky to see one. If we get the opportunity, you would experience boxing events in three different cultures and notice the similarities and differences. Honestly, if you did this trip in a week, it would be epic. That vlog would go viral, haha.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I owe everything to my brother Ryan. We were really just two crazy kids trying to find ourselves. We had our upbringing in wrestling, and I had won championships in Muay Thai. When I moved from my hometown area to San Diego to live with my brother while he was in the Marines, it was a huge step. I knew I belonged with him. I felt good being with him, and we fed off each other’s energy. He gave me the confidence to pursue anything I wanted, he gave me strength, and he enabled my dreams. When we started our business together and actually started making money, it made our bond even stronger. We understood each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We saw how we could work together and accomplish anything. It goes back to our hometown; we are all we have. You have to team up, swallow your pride and ego, and realize that together we can make something great. My brother is everything to me. If he is unhappy, then I have to work harder and make things right. He is a foundational figure to me that keeps me focused.

Also, my parents sacrificed themselves to raise me, kept me involved in sports, and always got us the latest PlayStation and Xbox, haha. For 18 years in my hometown, my parents worked relentlessly and gave me a great childhood. I always remember that—bringing me to all my practices and wrestling tournaments.

There are a couple more people I want to mention. One of my students when I was coaching Muay Thai, before the business was started, heard me say something about my graphic design class. Her name is Alex Wan. She invited me to a networking event in LA. I’m from Olivehurst; I don’t understand these things. When I went with her, she taught me how to network and introduced me to millionaires. We were in a Prada store in upscale LA with free food and drinks. I had never experienced anything like this. It really opened my eyes to the fact that these people do exist. All these people were there to just meet each other and talk about what they could do to help each other make money. That experience really inspired me.

Website: https://www.nakmuay.foundation/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nakmuay.foundation/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nakmuayfoundation/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrzhEb6RNLdf7w84ZRIH1LQ

Other: our Muay thai tournaments in america page
https://www.pmt-west.app/