Business & Tech

For Port Jeff Gym Owners, Journey Was Anything But Straight

Owners came together at the right time in the right place.

For the owners of and in Port Jefferson, the journey to opening a combined studio that offers traditional martial arts classes and uniquely designed fusion fitness training was full of twists and turns.

Master instructor Clayton C. Johnson–a Mount Sinai resident–said that he didn’t start out his career as a martial arts trainer or as a business owner. He took up martial arts as a child but unfortunately the school closed down before he could finish. Years later, he received an engineering degree in college and took a job in the field. That path was interrupted when he started doing a little judo for exercise.

“While I was working for the engineering company I started training at a martial arts school and going seven days a week,” Johnson said.

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He got so good at it that the instructor in the gym asked him to teach.

“Before I knew it, I was full time,” he said.

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Fate stepped in when the instructor’s appendix burst and he couldn’t teach anymore. Johnson came in to substitute for six weeks but the instructor decided not to continue.

“The owner asked if I wanted a job,” Johnson said. “At first I said no but then I decided I’d try it.”

Martial arts didn’t just provide Johnson with a way to make a living, it also provided him with a spouse. His wife Debbie came in to take some courses one day.

“She was a paramedic and wanted to take classes,” he said. “We got married a couple of years later.”

Martial arts turned into marital arts and the couple now have two boys who are, of course, also into martial arts.

Some years later, in 2003 Johnson purchased the business when it was called Valaris – a part of a chain of martial arts studios – from its owner, Dave Bois. In January, 2010 he made a break and changed the name to Journey Martial Arts.

“The individuality of my school made me decide to go my own way,” he said.

The journey didn’t end there. As fate would also have it, the changes at Journey Martial Arts were not complete.

“I was driving down Hallock Avenue and I though about him,” said fitness instructor Kristy Bohne–also a Mount Sinai resident–who used to own Ultimate Body Studio in Selden and took cardio kick boxing classes with Johnson over the years. “On a whim I came in and said to him ‘remember me?’”

Though business was good at her former place, and her clients were “fantastic,” she felt that she was in the wrong location. Bohne said when she saw Journey Fitness she “loved everything about his studio.”

The two spoke about business and decided that they might make a perfect combination of their two fitness programs.

“I looked her dead in the eye and knew she was serious,” said Johnson. “I knew it would work.”

Bohne has a “great respect” for her business partner and said that the dynamic just works for both of them.

They both attribute good timing and their mutual respect for being able to put the idea together in a matter of only a few weeks.

Johnson, who is a 5th degree black belt runs the full time martial arts studio including classes in Kempo, Tai Chi, Ju Jutsi and Cardio Karate. Bohne ‘s classes include Kickboxing and Power Tai Chi. She’s also starting suspension training where straps are used to work out.

Bohne calls their combined businesses a “cure for the common workout.”

“We combine fitness and nutrition in a private setting without the coldness of the typical gym,” she said. “Basically I knew that there was a market for it–for myself included. People want to get fit. They’re bored with the gym.”


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