Never End the Fight

Junior Claire Tietgen was so close she could hear their heavy panting. Beads of sweat and blood flew right in front of her. 

She had never  been happier. 

She watched intently from the VIP front row of a UFC fight as her idols wrestled around the octagonal ring — something not many 13-year-old gets to do, according to her dad. 

The president of UFC, Ultimate Fighting Championship, invited Tietgen to a fight after noticing a video on her YouTube channel that told her story — a story of how martial arts helped her get through rough childhood years and a suicide attempt. 

It was martial arts that provided an outlet for her frustration and anger. By practicing Jiu Jitsu and learning about a self-assessment test called Kolbe, she was able to come out of a dark place and find herself again.

Knowing what it’s like to feel lost, and not wanting other kids to go through it alone, Claire and her family started a non-profit Jiu Jitsu gym and scholarship program called “E3.” But it took a while for Tietgen to get to this point. 

Lots of her early teenage years were spent behind her locked bedroom door. Missing a social cue led peers to exclude her from normal activities, causing her to feel like she never fit in — which resulted in her attemtping suicide. According to her dad, she had never been acknowledged for anything good outside of the family — and that got to her head.

But then she found Jiu Jitsu. Starting at a studio called Brass, her natural talent and love for the anger-releasing sport was found. No one was telling her she wasn’t good enough or making fun of her tomboy tendencies at the gym. They were praising her natural talents. Tietgen had found her place. 

“I just needed an outlet to get all my frustration and anger out because I’d been bullied my whole life,” Tietgen said. “I felt in control [when doing martial arts] because when you’re bullied you kind of knock down and you don’t really have control of the situation.” 

The summer before her sophomore year, the Tietgen family spent their days completely rebuilding the studio they had bought off of 83rd and Metcalf. For her and her family, it was all going to be worth it when the grey wrestling mat would be filled with kids laughing and the cinderblock wall would be knocked down for more equipment space. 

“We support those kids as much as we can to give them an outlet to build a little self esteem,” Tietgen’s dad Charles said. “So that was E3 — empower, embrace, encourage.” 

E3 stands for three words, but it means more than that. It’s about embracing being different while empowering and encouraging other kids to do the same. They wanted kids to feel accepted and safe when they walked in those glass doors. 

“The kids who come there are mostly kids in elementary school,” Tietgen said. “They just love coming there because it’s one hour that they can just be free. No one’s judging them, no one’s being mean — they can just be a kid and they’re happy and it’s just one hour to get out of their head. And so that’s what I enjoyed of Jiu Jitsu is it’s just my escape.”

The gym has turned out to be much bigger than Claire originally imagined when sitting in their car and daydreaming about owning their own gym. 

Now having fundraised tens of thousands of dollars for people to take classes at discounted prices or for free, E3 has grown into an escape for anyone who can’t afford high-priced martial arts classes. Their class list ranges from kids obstacle course classes to women’s self-defense and fills the gym with around ten people per class Monday through Thursday and Saturday morning. 

They’ve also started offering a program called Kolbe — an assessment that focuses on determining a kid’s natural strengths and helps them to understand how to use them. 

Through 36 questions that start with “If you had your choice would you like to do…,” the test breaks down the taker’s tendencies into four categories — Fact Finder, Follow Thru, Quick Start and Implementer. Each category comes up with a score of 1-10, and the result of the test is those four scores. According to Charles Tietgen, that knowledge of their numbers can help motivate kids to succeed because it tells them what they’re individually talented at. 

Tietgen first took the test when she was 13, and it helped her to realize that her life is meaningful — that her talents can create an organization like E3. For years she had been constantly criticized, turning her into a version of herself that her parents didn’t even recognize.  Kolbe gave her a chance to find her identity again. 

“I took it and I found my identity,” Tietgen said. “I found Claire again. I was me again.” 

Tietgen has her Kolbe result numbers tattooed on her arm — 5833. Her numbers taught her all about how she naturally handles situations, like that she has a talent for organizing and helping others — both of which have been apparent through a couple years of being a young entrepreneur. 

“Claire has always been an overachiever, and the kids couldn’t beat that out of her,” Charles Tietgen said. “But you hit a wall and it’s just not working, so once we addressed the stress in her life in school and with other kids and whatnot she started to blossom . . . her resume is pretty off the charts and it’s all her.” 

Tietgen found ways to help her get out of her lowest point, learn to embrace her talents and help encourage and empower others to do the same. 

“Three things saved my life,” Tietgen said. “My family, Jiu Jitsu and then Kolbe, an assessment that helped me to identify who I am and what I am and that it’s okay to be me.”