thekuntawman
Purple Belt
yes, i believe in them, because i been running one for 18 years. only three years ago, i added kung fu. not because i just became a black belter in it, i known kung fu all my life, but first i only taughtit privately and then started doing classes a few years ago because my city doesnt have many good schools (we really only have a couple and rest they are kenpo or franchises). but filipino martial arts is been my full time thing since i open my school in 1992.
i know some teachers who been teaching almost as long as me in community centers and they are very, very good arnis men. its hard business. we have to compete against karate people, kids, soccer, now mma, tae bo, stuff like that. but there is enough people who want to study traditional eskrima full time but what can they do if FMA is only one or two days aweek in a TKD school? or 20 minutes of time in a JKD class? anytime you start a business its going to be scary, but what is more scarier, to lose $5000 in money (that you probably going to make in one or two months with a "real" job) or to face another man who wants to beat you up? so we are brave enough to fight a man in hand to hand combat, but scared to lose a wallet in business doing what we love! hmmph!
if you look in any city you will find at least 1000 students learning street self defense of some kind. krav maga, cqc, something. add eskrima / arnis / kali and now we probably have another 1500 - 2000! how many full time FMA schools do you see? probably none. i am lucky, in my city i have two, me and doce pares. its really a thing, do you love the art enough to make a living from it, its not mcdojo just to pay the bills with your art or even to make a good life from it. and you can do it full time without selling dvds and black belt in 8 sessions.
so if we have 3000 students in a city that want serious martial arts and self defense, and you are the only man in town with a FMA school. lets say your lazy and dont do any kind of advertising, you going to get 1% of them, probably, 30 students. charging 100 bucks a month, thats 3000 dollars. a small shopping center is going to cost you about one thousands a month maybe fiften hundred. no employees, you are only teaching one or two hours a day, thats not bad, 2000 bucks huh?
but work a little harder and get that number up to 50, 100 students, and now we are talking a 90 thousand dollar job, and you dont need college, not even good english, to make this kind of money. you dont need a kids class, you dont need afterschool karate, and you dont even need tae bo.
i was on the modern arnis forum and i see that bob hubbard said the site became just announcement for seminar, and i agree so maybe we can talk about how the FMA can grow as a respectedart. it will grow with respect when we have lots of good talented students. the best way to help our students get better is when we have a place they can train every day if they want. YOU will be a better teacher when you dont have to work another job and you can teach 7 days a week with no worry about how you going to pay bills.
i know some teachers who been teaching almost as long as me in community centers and they are very, very good arnis men. its hard business. we have to compete against karate people, kids, soccer, now mma, tae bo, stuff like that. but there is enough people who want to study traditional eskrima full time but what can they do if FMA is only one or two days aweek in a TKD school? or 20 minutes of time in a JKD class? anytime you start a business its going to be scary, but what is more scarier, to lose $5000 in money (that you probably going to make in one or two months with a "real" job) or to face another man who wants to beat you up? so we are brave enough to fight a man in hand to hand combat, but scared to lose a wallet in business doing what we love! hmmph!
if you look in any city you will find at least 1000 students learning street self defense of some kind. krav maga, cqc, something. add eskrima / arnis / kali and now we probably have another 1500 - 2000! how many full time FMA schools do you see? probably none. i am lucky, in my city i have two, me and doce pares. its really a thing, do you love the art enough to make a living from it, its not mcdojo just to pay the bills with your art or even to make a good life from it. and you can do it full time without selling dvds and black belt in 8 sessions.
so if we have 3000 students in a city that want serious martial arts and self defense, and you are the only man in town with a FMA school. lets say your lazy and dont do any kind of advertising, you going to get 1% of them, probably, 30 students. charging 100 bucks a month, thats 3000 dollars. a small shopping center is going to cost you about one thousands a month maybe fiften hundred. no employees, you are only teaching one or two hours a day, thats not bad, 2000 bucks huh?
but work a little harder and get that number up to 50, 100 students, and now we are talking a 90 thousand dollar job, and you dont need college, not even good english, to make this kind of money. you dont need a kids class, you dont need afterschool karate, and you dont even need tae bo.
i was on the modern arnis forum and i see that bob hubbard said the site became just announcement for seminar, and i agree so maybe we can talk about how the FMA can grow as a respectedart. it will grow with respect when we have lots of good talented students. the best way to help our students get better is when we have a place they can train every day if they want. YOU will be a better teacher when you dont have to work another job and you can teach 7 days a week with no worry about how you going to pay bills.