Question here

[RCastillo]

If a person has tried several times to teach a certain MA, but failed due to people's ignorance, or lack of populartiy, should that person try to open up another club teaching a different MA that's more popular?

Thanks

 

[KanoLives]

Originally posted by RCastillo
If a person has tried several times to teach a certain MA, but failed due to people's ignorance, or lack of populartiy, should that person try to open up another club teaching a different MA that's more popular?

Thanks

I think it depends on this person's motive for teaching. Is he/she in it for the money or is he teaching for the love of teaching and sharing his art?

If it's for the money then he/she has to do what he/she has to do and teach a more popular art.

If it's for the love then he/she should just find a handful of dedicated students and teach what ever he/she feels necessary to teach.

Just my opinion though. :asian:

 

[Touch Of Death]

I'm a little hazy on your reasons for faliure. The school I was most recently involved with before the one I am now never even advertises which martial art it teaches. Push the confidence, self dicipline, and physical fitness angle and you should do fine. That school is the largest in Spokane and there are plenty of big name martial arts with which it competes.

some tips:
1. push the benefits of your system not your system.
2. Use thank you notes, even for people that tell you "no"
3. target kids, they will sell the program to their parents, not you.

 

[Touch Of Death]

By the way the arts you listed in your profile seem pretty popular to me. Are you refering to someone else?

 

[tshadowchaser]

I never taught another art other than Sikaran . I have had to close few of my schools beause people prefered to go places where rank was obtained easier or the practice sessions where not as difficult.
I think if you are teaching to pass on an art you stay with it even if you end up with just one student
If your in it for money or fame teach whatever is popular or easy

 

[RCastillo]

Originally posted by Touch'O'Death
By the way the arts you listed in your profile seem pretty popular to me. Are you refering to someone else?

Yikes, you found me out!

 

[RCastillo]

Originally posted by tshadowchaser
I never taught another art other than Sikaran . I have had to close few of my schools beause people prefered to go places where rank was obtained easier or the practice sessions where not as difficult.
I think if you are teaching to pass on an art you stay with it even if you end up with just one student
If your in it for money or fame teach whatever is popular or easy

Thanks, you've got some great advice!:asian:

 

[Disco]

As tshadowchaser said, passing on an art, even if there's only one student. The other side of that is you pass on nothing if you have no student(s). I would suggest, based upon what has been voiced, that to save what you want to teach, adjust........ Teach another more popular style and start to intertwine your art into it. I'm sure that you could use the more popular style to setup a foundation for what you want to teach. Unless what you teach is totally foreign to general acceptance. Hope this can be of some help.:asian:

 

[don bohrer]

Castillo,
Is it a tough area for martial arts in general? What other arts are prospering in that area? There's nothing in the books that say multiple arts couldn't be taught out of one school. Is it possible to move the school to another location but keep the same corriculum?

We moved the school I trained out of a couple years back. My instructor has around 50 students. He uses contracts and a hefty tuition. The new location also has a cheaper rent. He pushes a more family oriented program geared for children. Guess it works.



don

 

[RCastillo]

Originally posted by don bohrer
Castillo,
Is it a tough area for martial arts in general? What other arts are prospering in that area? There's nothing in the books that say multiple arts couldn't be taught out of one school. Is it possible to move the school to another location but keep the same corriculum?

We moved the school I trained out of a couple years back. My instructor has around 50 students. He uses contracts and a hefty tuition. The new location also has a cheaper rent. He pushes a more family oriented program geared for children. Guess it works.



don

TKD flourishes here, especially teching kids, which I will not do. I plan to reopen, but not sure what I'll teach, though, I want to do Kenpo.:asian:

 

[don bohrer]

TKD flourishes here, especially teching kids, which I will not do. I plan to reopen, but not sure what I'll teach, though, I want to do Kenpo.

TKD is popular here too. A friend of mine and his entire family have been in TKD a number of years now. They did the junior olympics last or early this year. It's not my thing but a lot of people sure like it. Be cool and don't worry... things will work out.

don

 

[Seig]

Originally posted by RCastillo
TKD flourishes here, especially teching kids, which I will not do. I plan to reopen, but not sure what I'll teach, though, I want to do Kenpo.:asian:

If you want any real degree of commercial success, you have to teach children. Keep in mind, most of them will come and go. By refusing to teach children, and here you must define your age brackets, you are cutting yourself off from approximately 70% of the market. You and i have talked about this before, you are setting yourself up for failure. I do not like teaching children, fortunatley, I have upper belts that do. I teach the adults, they teach the children, but it took time to get to that point. As has been pointed out, parents will spend time and money on their children they will not spend on themselves. Rethink your business stratagey.

 

[arnisador]

Originally posted by Seig
If you want any real degree of commercial success, you have to teach children. Keep in mind, most of them will come and go. By refusing to teach children, and here you must define your age brackets, you are cutting yourself off from approximately 70% of the market. You and i have talked about this before, you are setting yourself up for failure. I do not like teaching children, fortunatley, I have upper belts that do. I teach the adults, they teach the children, but it took time to get to that point. As has been pointed out, parents will spend time and money on their children they will not spend on themselves. Rethink your business stratagey.

I think there's a lot of great advice here. I train at a school in my small town that's adult only (incl. a couple of high schoolers). It has perhaps 20-30 students and the instructor teaches at another site two hours away to even things out. It's BJJ, so the prices are high, which must help--but it's still tough doing it on adults only.

The TKD school a few hundred feet away has well over a hundred students, its own building, and so on--because it's largely kids. It's clearly a commercial success.

I've seen it time and time again--if you want to teach full-time, you will very likely have to teach kids. It may be different if you have a particularly wanted art in a larger area--but outside of NYC, it's hard going.

 

[Kempo Guy]

should that person try to open up another club teaching a different MA that's more popular?

HUH?!? You've got to be kiddin' me!
What exactly do you mean? Is this person qualified to teach a different art? It would be extremely dishonest to portray oneself as a teacher of another art unless he/she would have considerable amount of training in this other more "popular" art, whatever that means. They would be doing the students injustice / disservice!

BTW, why would you switch arts because something else is more popular than what you're practicing? I would question the motivations of anyone switching and teaching another art because one is more "popular" than another! What's the motivation for teaching, to make money or to teach because you want to grow as a practitioner and share what you have learned so far in your journey? If you truly love what you do it shouldn't matter whether you have one or twenty students...

Why not use the Mcdojo tactic and advertise "ninjutsu / kung fu / karate / jiu jitsu / escrima / shootfighting / weapons etc etc etc"!!! At least they'd have their bases covered.

KG

 

[RCastillo]

Originally posted by Kempo Guy
HUH?!? You've got to be kiddin' me!
What exactly do you mean? Is this person qualified to teach a different art? It would be extremely dishonest to portray oneself as a teacher of another art unless he/she would have considerable amount of training in this other more "popular" art, whatever that means. They would be doing the students injustice / disservice!

BTW, why would you switch arts because something else is more popular than what you're practicing? I would question the motivations of anyone switching and teaching another art because one is more "popular" than another! What's the motivation for teaching, to make money or to teach because you want to grow as a practitioner and share what you have learned so far in your journey? If you truly love what you do it shouldn't matter whether you have one or twenty students...

Why not use the Mcdojo tactic and advertise "ninjutsu / kung fu / karate / jiu jitsu / escrima / shootfighting / weapons etc etc etc"!!! At least they'd have their bases covered.

KG

Well, this is about me, and yes, I'm more than qualified to teach both art forms.

I only considerd switching simply because I want to teach more than anything else, no matter what art it is. An active Black belt to me is nothing w/o students. If I can't teach, I'm incomplete. I want to be able to share, and help people. Is it about money? Sure, just to make a few dollars. I'm not into charity, but just to make some lunch money I don't have any plans to make a killing there. I don't believe in the 'McDojo" ethic, as I worked to hard not to be an entertainer, or baby sitter. I just want a few students to teach, and keep going, that's all.:asian:

 

[arnisador]

Originally posted by Kempo Guy
BTW, why would you switch arts because something else is more popular than what you're practicing? I would question the motivations of anyone switching and teaching another art because one is more "popular" than another!

Why?

Assuming the person is or becomes qualified in the art, I see it as not different than someone who majors in business even though he'd really like to be an artist. There's no money in art.

There aren't enough jobs for English professsors in colleges now for everyone who wants such a job to get one. If a person trained in Linguistics instead in hopes ofgetting a teaching job, is that hypocritical?

How much money is there in teaching iaido? Probably not a lot, if that's all you're offering. How many kyudo schools are there out there? It requires a lot of space and equipment, but how many people want to learn Japanese archery?

If a person really wants to teach the martial arts for a living, TKD is a good bet. If you like something else, practice it on the side or with a few students--whether that something else is another martial art, or some other hobby!

If a person really feels that there's only one true martial art, then teaching something else might be hypocritical. If a person feels it's how it's trained that matters most, I don't see the issue.

Of course, if someone believes that then they should be able to convince people of it through better marketing--but Karate has name recognition, so if you're teaching Shorinji Kempo you may have an uphill battle if you refuse to label it Karate.