House of Brass is not only a youth program. Its second arm puts adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities in gloves and on the pads, coached properly, not babysat. This is not a new idea we are announcing. It is a program our head coach has been running quietly, on his own time and at his own cost, for years. Ember House's job is to put a floor under it.
Four years ago Kyle “The Caveman” McLaughlin started training a group nobody else was building a program for (adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities) at his own gym, on his own time. He never stopped. These days he goes to them instead: Tuesdays and Thursdays, gloves and pads in the car, at the program where they already spend their week.
No funding. No grant. No press. Just a professional fighter who decided these athletes deserved the same standard he gives anyone else who walks through his door: the same drills, the same corrections, the same respect, the same expectation that they can get better. Because they can. And they do.
Every combat gym in this country says it builds confidence. He proved it on the people the sport usually leaves outside.
Four years in, the only thing that has ever interrupted it is the calendar. A summer comes, the group thins out, his own week fills up, and two afternoons quietly become one. That gap is not a failure of commitment: it is what happens to any program carried by one person for free.
He has never asked for anything for it. So we are asking on his behalf. Ember House is making this a permanent, funded arm of House of Brass: coaches, insurance, equipment, a floor, and a schedule that does not depend on one man’s free evenings holding out forever.
Fight for those who can't
Non-Contact, By Design
Technique, pad-work, footwork, and conditioning. Nobody gets hit. The sport’s discipline and its ritual (wraps on, gloves on, bell rings) without its risk.
Coached, Not Supervised
Real instruction from certified coaches who correct a jab instead of applauding one. Low coach-to-athlete ratios and one-to-one pairing wherever an athlete needs it.
Built Around The Athlete
Sessions paced for sensory load, communication needs, and mobility, not one rigid format that quietly filters people out. Support workers and family are welcome on the floor.
Never A Fee
Free to the athlete and free to the family, permanently. Gloves, wraps, and pads provided. Cost is never the reason someone does not train here.
Developmental and intellectual disabilities are where this program started and where its expertise is deepest, so that is where it leads. As coaching capacity and certification grow, it widens to physical and sensory disabilities too. The floor is for everyone; we just refuse to promise a standard of coaching before we can actually deliver it.