Ma Needs More Publicity

J

jjmcc

Guest
I dont know if anyone agrees with me but i dont think there is enough publicity for all martial arts ie: papers TV radio. It is saving peoples lifes every day ie: fitness, self defence. But we will still advertise booze,cigs,fast foods rather than promote something that will contribute to a healthy living or a safer tomorrow. There is so many more people out there that would benefit from MA but dont know the right steps to joining a class I HOPE U ALL AGREE WITH ME AND SUPPORT MY FEELINGS.......THANKS ALL
 

tshadowchaser

Sr. Grandmaster
MT Mentor
Founding Member
MTS Alumni
Joined
Aug 29, 2001
Messages
13,460
Reaction score
733
Location
Athol, Ma. USA
I agree in general but think there would be more self promoting people taking advantage of this. Not everyone who teaches should.

good publicity is one thing but all to often all we hear about is the nut the runs amok with a sword terrorizing some neighbor hood
 

Eldritch Knight

Blue Belt
Joined
Oct 21, 2003
Messages
272
Reaction score
3
Location
Atlanta
I empathize with what you're trying to say, but I would have to differ with you on this point. I don't want to come off as being totally elitist, but I frankly don't feel that everyone is up to the challenge of martial arts. If MA had more publicity, we'd have a lot of people jumping in without the discipline and commitment it takes to succeed in the arts, and as a result, a bunch of McDojos will pop up to accomodate that group and give them the belts they pay for. This, in my opinion, severely cheapens the arts and kills its image. I've met plenty of people who simply blow off martial arts because they know a McDojo 2nd dan who got his butt handed to him in a "street fight", and thus have free reign to say that MA is just a load of trash. These are people who have seen what happens when the arts become commercialized and generalize based on that experience. I see MA as something powerful and beautiful, and not something that everyone can appreciate and understand; something that should be kept to the small group of commited students who can take the heat and come out better for it. Thoughts?
 

Eldritch Knight

Blue Belt
Joined
Oct 21, 2003
Messages
272
Reaction score
3
Location
Atlanta
I'm saying that publicity would be bad for MA. It would lose perceived value and would largely turn into a novelty item.
 

Simon Curran

2nd Black Belt
Joined
Nov 29, 2004
Messages
792
Reaction score
10
Location
Denmark
I'm with you Eldritch Knight,

Pretty much all you ever see of MA in the media over here is when Discovery re-run that infernal "Extreme Martial Arts" dung, that does nothing to develop public awareness of true martial arts, in fact I would go so far as to say that it just further strengthens the commonplace assumption that "That stuff don't really work"
 
OP
J

jjmcc

Guest
Sorry maybe i should word it better SELFDEFENCE should be more readely available to the public how do you feel about this point
 

Brother John

Senior Master
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
2,530
Reaction score
59
Location
Wichita Kansas, USA
jjmcc said:
I dont know if anyone agrees with me but i dont think there is enough publicity for all martial arts ie: papers TV radio. It is saving peoples lifes every day ie: fitness, self defence. But we will still advertise booze,cigs,fast foods rather than promote something that will contribute to a healthy living or a safer tomorrow. There is so many more people out there that would benefit from MA but dont know the right steps to joining a class I HOPE U ALL AGREE WITH ME AND SUPPORT MY FEELINGS.......THANKS ALL

I do agree.
There's a lot of Good to be found in the martial arts (usually), but the most that people know about it is that it's just really good Violence and bad movies.
If people really understood the good effects of being a dedicated martial artist, I believe we'd have MORE martial artists.

Thanks
Your Brother
John
 

Brother John

Senior Master
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
2,530
Reaction score
59
Location
Wichita Kansas, USA
Eldritch Knight said:
I'm saying that publicity would be bad for MA. It would lose perceived value and would largely turn into a novelty item.
I think that that depends on what you "Publicize". Sensationalism??
That's already being done. It does (and has) lead to 'novelty'.

The truth?
That's rarely being done, or just getting Lip service.
Thing is...sensationalism sells, the peace of mind, the centeredness the physical well being, the confidence, the detatched calm....etc.etc...
These aren't as 'eye catching'...but they are Real. The other is window dressing, and once the potential student who comes in because of 'sensationalism' comes further into the dojo than the waiting room and looks past the cool posters and flashy outfits and sees that it's really based on a lot of hard work.... lots will turn away.

Your Brother
John
 

Eldritch Knight

Blue Belt
Joined
Oct 21, 2003
Messages
272
Reaction score
3
Location
Atlanta
jjmcc said:
Sorry maybe i should word it better SELFDEFENCE should be more readely available to the public how do you feel about this point


That's a different animal altogether. I'd agree with you on that point. Everyone deserves the knowledge to defend themselves along with the conident mindset with which to apply that knowledge, and there are organizations and classes everywhere that provide that sort of instruction. I'd hardly say it needs more publicity than it already has.
 

Eldritch Knight

Blue Belt
Joined
Oct 21, 2003
Messages
272
Reaction score
3
Location
Atlanta
Brother John said:
I think that that depends on what you "Publicize". Sensationalism??
That's already being done. It does (and has) lead to 'novelty'.

The truth?
That's rarely being done, or just getting Lip service.
Thing is...sensationalism sells, the peace of mind, the centeredness the physical well being, the confidence, the detatched calm....etc.etc...
These aren't as 'eye catching'...but they are Real. The other is window dressing, and once the potential student who comes in because of 'sensationalism' comes further into the dojo than the waiting room and looks past the cool posters and flashy outfits and sees that it's really based on a lot of hard work.... lots will turn away.

Your Brother
John


Can't disagree with that. I was just talking from a marketing standpoint, though. Unless and until we get a radical shift in the object-centric mentality of the West, it'll be a tough thing to convince the masses that self-understanding is worth their $40 per month. The promise of being able to do a quadruple jump turning hook kick or rip out someone's heart would brings in the dough.
 

Flatlander

Grandmaster
Joined
May 17, 2004
Messages
6,785
Reaction score
70
Location
The Canuckistan Plains
I would go further and say that rather than Martial Arts requiring more good publicity, what would be much more useful is less bad publicity. Hence the usefullness of fora such as these where the truth can be expressed for all to see.

In the same vein, I wholeheartedly agree with what Eldritch Knight stated upthread, in that creating a higher demand may potentially dilute the quality of overall instruction available, thus taking us down a counter productive path. I think that were it possible to clean up some of the bad business practices out there, (read McDojoism), Martial Arts in general may begin to experience a healthy and sustainable period of organic growth, which would benefit all involved in a positive way.
 

Miles

Senior Master
Joined
Oct 10, 2004
Messages
2,254
Reaction score
56
Location
Metro-Detroit
Flatlander said:
I would go further and say that rather than Martial Arts requiring more good publicity, what would be much more useful is less bad publicity.
Totally agree!

Good stuff like Mandy Meloon/Esther Kim with the Olympic TKD team.

Good stuff like the University judo team which subdued a robber.

Less stuff like the karate instructor who molested kids at his dojo.

Miles
 
OP
J

Jaymeister

Guest
Eldritch Knight said:
Unless and until we get a radical shift in the object-centric mentality of the West, it'll be a tough thing to convince the masses that self-understanding is worth their $40 per month. The promise of being able to do a quadruple jump turning hook kick or rip out someone's heart would brings in the dough.
Exactly! I've always wondered why so many people don't get that things like discipline, respect, mental balance etc. Are far more valueable than being able to kick everyone's ***
 

47MartialMan

Master of Arts
Joined
Nov 14, 2004
Messages
1,741
Reaction score
31
Location
Gulf States
Yeah, who wants to enroll in something that is going to give them discipline? :)

I did....er, my mom had enrolled me when I was ten, over 30 years ago. It was her idea (actually via a friend's suggestion) to enroll me in martial arts.

Seems so contradictory for most reasons.
 

jkn75

Blue Belt
Joined
Aug 19, 2002
Messages
224
Reaction score
5
Location
Illinois
The problem with the promotion/advertising of anything in the US, is that it has to enhance the benefits for the consumer. For a lot of us, our own self motivation pushes us to train harder for a number of reasons: self-defense, sport, physical fitness, fun. We have come to the martial artists for some reason and for many of us those reasons are different. It's all about glamorizing the benefits of the particular martial art.

Martial Arts consumers are inundated with information about martial arts, not all of it being good. Martial artists themselves get into squabbling over what is good martial art versus what is bad martial arts. Some of us hate XMA but if it brings people through the door who cares? They are in the door but what happens next? How many instructors will turn someone away if there art isn't what the person is looking for? Very few it seems. We will explain how our art will benefit them and why another art is worse. We need to stop bad mouthing other arts. I don't care where you train, if you want to learn some Kuk sool come learn some kuk sool. If you want to learn TKD, go learn TKD. But when a guy who wants to learn TKD walks into a Kuk Sool school, we will show him why KSW is "better" to get him to stay rather than letting him take his own path or pointing down the street and going that school may be what you're looking for.

Martial arts biggest challenge isn't MMA vs XMA it's MA vs everything else that occupies someone's exercise time. We need to stop the infighting because we need to see how infighting is hurting us all. If people want to get healthy, they can go take yoga, they don't need MA. We as MA sit around and talk about style vs style, technique vs technique, lineage vs lineage. When Bob Consumer comes in the door, he doesn't care about those arguments. He wants value for his dollar, regardless of the reason he walked in the door.

Why are cardio kick boxing classes so full? Why will people pay there gym membership plus extra fees sometimes to take a cardio KB class? Because it's fun and has no politics associated with it, there is no rank, no testing fees just physical activity. It works for the consumer. Are CKB classes the be all end all? No, half the time they are teaching techniques improperly and providing a false sense of security but do we target these people enough? Nope, we sit and talk about how sucky CKB classes are, not about how to get these people out of the CKB but into our dojo/dojang.

Our advertising has to show benfits. I hate to say it but the average person doesn't care what the head instructors rank is. That may get them to call the place but that doesn't make them stay.
 

Latest Discussions

Top