I'm starting to thing there's a lot of Martial Art trash out there

[JowGaWolf]

So I'm getting back into teaching martial arts, and I'm taking a look at the competition for online martial arts classes.

Lots of trash out there these days. 3 years to get a black belt. classes $12.99 a month. I know some people are hard up for money, so I'm not knocking it, but 3 years to get a black belt if I take a online class is a rip.

Good news is that I'm able to offer something better in terms of Martial Art instruction so hopefully that will be an advantage for me. But yeah. A lot more trash out there these days.

 

[Flying Crane]

Starting? Just now? Where have you been?

 

[isshinryuronin]

So I'm getting back into teaching martial arts, and I'm taking a look at the competition for online martial arts classes.

Lots of trash out there these days. 3 years to get a black belt. classes $12.99 a month. I know some people are hard up for money, so I'm not knocking it, but 3 years to get a black belt if I take a online class is a rip.

Good news is that I'm able to offer something better in terms of Martial Art instruction so hopefully that will be an advantage for me. But yeah. A lot more trash out there these days.

So, what's your strategy in designing an online instructional program? One of the weaknesses of such is that there is no teacher correction or feedback. I think for you to be different (and more importantly, better) than those others, techniques for the student to self-correct must be provided. How can the student check his position, execution, and know what he is doing is effective? If you can accomplish this, you will have a good quality product.

 

[jobo]

So I'm getting back into teaching martial arts, and I'm taking a look at the competition for online martial arts classes.

Lots of trash out there these days. 3 years to get a black belt. classes $12.99 a month. I know some people are hard up for money, so I'm not knocking it, but 3 years to get a black belt if I take a online class is a rip.

Good news is that I'm able to offer something better in terms of Martial Art instruction so hopefully that will be an advantage for me. But yeah. A lot more trash out there these days.

it would be a rip off if it was 1$ a year

unfortunately if your doing on line tuition, your joining in exploiting people naivity

 

[JowGaWolf]

Starting? Just now? Where have you been?

In my own world either training or recovering from injury lol. I knew some of the schools were back pre-Covid but even then it's nothing close to what I'm seeing for online stuff.

Here's an example. 4:54m for a warm-up. I don't ever remember a 5 minute warm-up in any part of my life during sports or after sports. Warm-ups always served a double purpose. It was like a warm up and conditioning in the same activities and there was always more than one. It was never a warm-up just for the sake of "warming up"

Not sure what Lessons 2 is about, but it takes me about 5 minutes just to cover a horse stance. If I go into the details of horse stance then it's going to take more than 5 and that doesn't include me walking around checking on students horse stance.

I'm assuming that a Long-fist Stance Sequence would take longer than teaching a horse stance. Don't explain the horse stance correctly and people will end up with bad knees. Things like weight distribution, breathing, posture, focus, reference points of how to get into horse stance and tons of other helpful stuff is going to take more than 5 minutes.

So when I see stuff set at this time, then I know a lot of information is missing.

 

[JowGaWolf]

So, what's your strategy in designing an online instructional program? One of the weaknesses of such is that there is no teacher correction or feedback.

This is a must. Online video share, response and communication is a must. Video homework is a must. If someone is standing in a horse stance then I need to ask about where they feel the weight distribution, does it feel like it's more on the knees then the legs, then I take that information and look at the video.

If they feel pain then I need to know so that modifications can be made. To me all of that is important. I can't and won't offer online instruction without giving feedback and requesting videos as well as making correction videos. By default I'm a wordy person, so I shouldn't have too much trouble there lol.

How can the student check his position, execution, and know what he is doing is effective? If you can accomplish this, you will have a good quality product.

That's where I'm heading with my efforts. It's actually the only way I know how really teach martial arts. Anything less is just depressing and a lot of my passion about martial arts and probably more specific teaching makes me want to be as detailed as possible without being boring.

 

[JowGaWolf]

unfortunately if your doing on line tuition, your joining in exploiting people naivity

Coming from a guy who knows nothing about what I'm doing and how I plan on teaching.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

One of the weaknesses of such is that there is no teacher correction or feedback.

This is why a student has to send to his online teacher the video. The teacher can then comment on it.

It's not difficult to learn from a GIF file that repeat over and over.

 

[JowGaWolf]

This is why a student has to send to his online teacher the video. The teacher can then comment on it.

It's not difficult to learn from a GIF file that repeat over and over.

That's a must have. At a minimum a teacher has to see what the student is doing. This is true even for in person training.

 

[jobo]

Coming from a guy who knows nothing about what I'm doing and how I plan on teaching.

i know what youve told us, which is all i need to know to know its bogus

im still waiting for the dojo with the retractable roof you said you were going to build

 

[JowGaWolf]

i know what you've told us, which is all i need to know to know its bogus

And what was bogus?

im still waiting for the dojo with the retractable roof you said you were going to build

I never said I was building that. I was telling you that's something I would like to have someone build.

You can't even get that right.

I've seen a lot of martial arts places either close up or transition to online classes in an effort to retain as many students as possible.
Virtual Martial Arts in Cumming Ga - Choe's HapKiDo

It's not just Martial Arts schools that had to go virtual. The Fact is that many business that didn't have a virtual component didn't survive.

This place had an awesome set up. Not sure about the location, but they were in business for about 3 or 4 years. There 4th year was 2020. Once the Covid-19 hit they took a hard hit. School Shut down, Lockdowns went into effect and that was the end for them.

They also had mma classes here. The gym on the other end of shopping center survived. But they had to drop their gym fees to $10 an month. They still don't get people in there like they used to.

This isn't the only martial arts school that has had to close doors in my area. Martial arts schools aren't the easiest businesses to run, especially if the school doesn't want to serve as a "child care" / "birthday center" Martial Arts schools come and go during the best of time. Covid didn't make that easier.

If I were giving business advice as a web designer. I would tell them to go virtual, build up some clients and wait until the Covid-19 Environment because a safer one to train in, meaning working vaccinations and the majority of the population vaccinated. Until then, I wouldn't do it. I glad I didn't buy the building space that I was looking at pre-covid, when people were dying left in right in China.









.

 

[jobo]

And what was bogus?

I never said I was building that. I was telling you that's something I would like to have someone build.

You can't even get that right.

I've seen a lot of martial arts places either close up or transition to online classes in an effort to retain as many students as possible.
Virtual Martial Arts in Cumming Ga - Choe's HapKiDo

It's not just Martial Arts schools that had to go virtual. The Fact is that many business that didn't have a virtual component didn't survive.

This place had an awesome set up. Not sure about the location, but they were in business for about 3 or 4 years. There 4th year was 2020. Once the Covid-19 hit they took a hard hit. School Shut down, Lockdowns went into effect and that was the end for them.

They also had mma classes here. The gym on the other end of shopping center survived. But they had to drop their gym fees to $10 an month. They still don't get people in there like they used to.

View attachment 23630

This isn't the only martial arts school that has had to close doors in my area. Martial arts schools aren't the easiest businesses to run, especially if the school doesn't want to serve as a "child care" / "birthday center" Martial Arts schools come and go during the best of time. Covid didn't make that easier.

If I were giving business advice as a web designer. I would tell them to go virtual, build up some clients and wait until the Covid-19 Environment because a safer one to train in, meaning working vaccinations and the majority of the population vaccinated. Until then, I wouldn't do it. I glad I didn't buy the building space that I was looking at pre-covid, when people were dying left in right in China.









.

i suppose its how far your prepared to move the defintion of learning a martial art to turn a buck i suppose?

ive seen vids of your classes, you teach people how to fight, you cant do that over zoom, so what ever your doing is less,

if thats dishonest is a suppose how up front you are in pointing out the limitation of what your doing. and if they actually know or care that there is a sizable disconect, if they just want a blackbelt tou will loose out tp those schools that promise to deliver in three years, if they want to be able fight, neither they nor you can deliver that, so what do they get from your that the belt factories arnt providing

im sure there are lots doing it and its all bogus, , im not sure that any of it counts as better than nothing, unless they have a real need for a horse stance

 

[Deleted member 39746]

this entire thing has sort of soldidifed the valdity in distance learning martial arts though. and yes martial arts has been chock full of scams for a while, ever since you remove somones ability to try it on someone in their own time and pace. (sparring pretty much) Kind of hard to teach say, ******** shooting technique down to the amount of applciation of theory you have. You can see it working or not, cant really argue with hitting a target.

 

[jobo]

this entire thing has sort of soldidifed the valdity in distance learning martial arts though. and yes martial arts has been chock full of scams for a while, ever since you remove somones ability to try it on someone in their own time and pace. (sparring pretty much) Kind of hard to teach say, ******** shooting technique down to the amount of applciation of theory you have. You can see it working or not, cant really argue with hitting a target.

no it hasnt rat, it was a bad idea when you were insisting it wasnt, its still a bad idea, the only thing thats changed is people who used to be quite correctly opposed to it, now only have that and so are fooling themsrlves its adequate just as you were.

 

[skribs]

Lots of trash out there these days. 3 years to get a black belt. classes $12.99 a month. I know some people are hard up for money, so I'm not knocking it, but 3 years to get a black belt if I take a online class is a rip.

It depends on what "black belt" means in your system. It also depends on whether that 3 years is minimum or guaranteed. A black belt in TKD is "advanced student who understands the basics", where a black belt in BJJ is "god-tier grappler." Yes, a BJJ black belt is more impressive than a TKD black belt; mainly because it's the equivalent training as someone who is 3rd or 4th dan in TKD.

Mass market online classes are going to be cheap, because there's going to be much less demand on instructor time. There's a lot more time up front to produce and edit the videos, and then it's done. Then, you're just making responses to videos the students send in. You probably even have canned responses. For example, if you notice an error in someone's stance, you might have a response prepared that you can copy+paste that says:

"I notice a problem with your horse stance. Make sure your feet are double shoulder width apart, toes straight forward, and knees out over your feet (not bent inside). See the attached picture with a good horse stance, as well as a few examples of mistakes people make." When you watch the video, you don't need to type all that, you just copy+paste the response and attach the appropriate picture.

You also have the advantages that you're not paying rent on a physical school, so your overhead costs are significantly reduced. Or, if this is a supplement to your physical school, then overhead costs are not increased to increase your student pool.

Here's an example. 4:54m for a warm-up. I don't ever remember a 5 minute warm-up in any part of my life during sports or after sports. Warm-ups always served a double purpose. It was like a warm up and conditioning in the same activities and there was always more than one. It was never a warm-up just for the sake of "warming up"

"Warm-up" can mean whatever it means to the coach. It can be a long session of conditioning and drills, or it can simply mean getting your muscles warmed up and ready for instruction. Lots of people want conditioning in their martial arts training. Others want to keep them separate. Why spend class time on pushups when you can spend class time on technique, drills, and sparring? I can do pushups at home.

That's not to say conditioning is bad. But there are different approaches to training. What you're explaining is an example of a different approach, not a bad one. You can make it sound like a bad one if you're making your advertisement, but to come here and claim it's bad because the warm-up isn't long enough is just silly.

Not sure what Lessons 2 is about, but it takes me about 5 minutes just to cover a horse stance. If I go into the details of horse stance then it's going to take more than 5 and that doesn't include me walking around checking on students horse stance.

It takes you 5 minutes to cover horse stance? How? It takes me literally less than 6 seconds to explain the most important details of the stance for a beginner to follow. Even if I went into the exact posture, chamber position, entry to and exit from, and how to do a proper fist, I could still cover that in under 45 seconds. (I just timed myself going over all of the details). If it takes you 5 minutes "just to cover it" and more to go into detail, then it sounds like you're going into way too much detail or you are way too verbose in what details you provide.

 

[JowGaWolf]

i suppose its how far your prepared to move the defintion of learning a martial art to turn a buck i suppose?

Nah this is way off for me. I'm up front with stuff like that. Teaching people how to fight requires sparring and I wouldn't be able to do that even in person.

Teaching people how to fight is difficult from the start because there is often a lot of things that the person has to get over. The biggest being that the student has to trust the technique to enough to try it and to accept that they may get hit in the face a few times before they get it right. Most people have trouble with that part with in person training, so there's no way I would teach that.

What I can do is train technique, strategies, concepts, entries, exits, how to generate power, how slip punches. I can train all of that. The fighting part is really up to the student and their willingness to make mistakes which may result in them getting hit in the face. In a Covid-19 environment online students need to make that decision on their own and find a partner who they can train safely with, preferably someone who lives in the same house. But that will be up to the student. I just know it won't be me. Not until the U.S. gets things under better control.

My whole thing is to always be honest about the limitations of Martial Arts and the training available. I have a saying "People will buy poop so long as you tell them that's what it is."

I'm always honest about the reality of learning to fight. I always tell of my own experience of how I hat to eat a lot of punches before I got it right. Sparring is a must. I just don't see how someone can learn without doing. People learn the piano by playing the piano. They learn swimming by trying to swim. Along the way they will make a lot of mistakes and swallow a lot of water. Before they get good. That's the reality of it. Learning how to fight, for some reason, is often treated as the exception to the rule and I really dislike that. I don't want to be that instructor.

 

[JowGaWolf]

It takes you 5 minutes to cover horse stance? How? It takes me literally less than 6 seconds to explain the most important details of the stance for a beginner to follow.

Yeah I don't see that happening definitely not at 6 seconds and not at 45 seconds. You are doing what most people aren't able to do when talking about the horse stance.

There is more than 45 seconds of valuable information about a horse stance. If you only saying how to get into one, how your feet should be turned and the weight distribution, then you are leaving out tons of information about the horse stance.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I notice a problem with your horse stance. Make sure your feet are double shoulder width apart, ...

The width of this horse stance is too wide by most MA systems standard. Most MA systems use "shoulder width + 2 fists distance" to define the proper width of a horse stance. Most wrestlers prefer to use "shoulder width" for their horse stance.

It takes you 5 minutes to cover horse stance? How? It takes me literally less than 6 seconds to explain the most important details of the stance for a beginner to follow. Even if I went into the exact posture, chamber position, entry to and exit from, and how to do a proper fist, I could still cover that in under 45 seconds. (I just timed myself going over all of the details). If it takes you 5 minutes "just to cover it" and more to go into detail, then it sounds like you're going into way too much detail or you are way too verbose in what details you provide.

There is a way that you tell your students and they will believe you. This doesn't take too much time to achieve. IMO, the best way is to let your students to test and draw conclusion by themselves.

This is why it takes more time to explain to your students the proper width of the horse stance.

- When your feet are touching, you have weak balance. Any foot sweep from outside can destroy your balance.
- When your feet move apart, your balance will increase.
- There is a point that if you keep moving your feet apart, your balance will get weaker. Any leg spring from inside can destroy your balance.

You have to let your students to go through this kind of testing in order to convince themselves what's the best horse stance width.

A: Dear teacher! What's the proper width for a horse stance?
B: Try to stand in many different width horse stance. let your opponent to sweep your foot from outside, and also to spring your foot from inside, you then draw the conclusion yourself what's the best width for a horse stance.
A: That will require too much testing time.
B: You only have to test it once and you will convince yourself for the rest of your life.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Why spend class time on pushups when you can spend class time on technique, drills, and sparring? I can do pushups at home.

You spend time on it because it's important. There's a right way and a wrong way to do push ups and not everyone does them correctly. Doing push ups the wrong way can cause injury and decrease the benefit of doing push ups.

If it's part of training then that's what we do, regardless of what they can do at home.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

There is more than 45 seconds of valuable information about a horse stance. If you only saying how to get into one, how your feet should be turned and the weight distribution, then you are leaving out tons of information about the horse stance.

How to change a horse stance into a bow-arrow stance, and also how to change it back will require a lot of training time.

Since the bow-arrow stance is wider than the horse stance, how to increase that extra width from the horse stance is the key. Should you adjust that extra distance by your leading foot, or by your back foot? You can hear argument from both sides. Also when you change your bow-arrow stance back into your horse stance, how to decrease that width is also the key.

Can you teach this in 5 minutes? I don't think so.