Successful Taekwondo school?

[Markku P]

With a successful Taekwondo school I mean that you have 100-200 active members,
Lots of families and students that stay a longer time.

What I have seen, is that many schools who stay around a long time, 10-20 years or more,
are teaching all the aspects of TKD ( Self defense, Poomsae, Sparring step sparring )
on the other hand, if a school is focusing mainly on sparring or any other single area, then most often they won't stay such a long time?

Here is a pretty good illustration of how we train ( Of course the sparring team is training differently )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3piJIx9FvRg&NR=1

Any comments about what is a successfull Taekwondo school?

 

[puunui]

What I have seen, is that many schools who stay around a long time, 10-20 years or more, are teaching all the aspects of TKD ( Self defense, Poomsae, Sparring step sparring ) on the other hand, if a school is focusing mainly on sparring or any other single area, then most often they won't stay such a long time?

I would disagree with that because by far the most successful Taekwondo school in Hawaii, has probably the highest overall retention rate in the state and they focus heavily or even solely on competition. They have students that started as little kids and are now vying for national team spots. The students stay longer because they see that they have a chance to make it to a very high level so they train harder. The senior black belts have been there since the beginning. The head coach was USOC volunteer coach of the year last year. I don't think they teach any self defense stuff. From what I see, the secret of this school, or this instructor, is that he builds strong relationships with himself as well as his athletes and instructors. I walk in there and I always feel welcome. Everyone does.

 

[Markku P]

Of course all it depends on it's instructors, Culture of school etc. But what I have seen here in scandinavia is that the schools who are focusing more on an "all around" training have been more successful in the long run. ( This might change of course )

 

[ralphmcpherson]

I do find that the curriculum has to be very broad if you want to keep students for 20 to 30 years otherwise they just end up cross training at some point to keep motivated. Some clubs also have a very fast paced, difficult curriculum for the coloured belts and then when you reach black belt you just prance around in the black belt giving advice and rarely getting challenged. Coming from a club with 4000 members with a heap of 3rd dan and above and many students that have been in continuous training for over 30 years I can see that new challenges have to always be there to stop students training from going stale. Club camps, bb classes, seminars etc all add to this as well as having very experienced guys up high in the club so there is always someone who knows more than you to keep you hungry to learn more. Trying to eliminate any 'gaps' in the students training helps also. I have met many tkdists who have gone on to try other MA's because they felt they did not do enough punching and hand work for instance. The curriculum has to cover as many bases as possible because students will quickly bore from just standing around throwing roundhouse kicks for a couple of hours a week.