Situation

[Reggie1]

Let's say you are an MA instructor (for those of you that are, just go along w/ the situation). The way you learned things was very hard-core, old-school work. You open a school under your branch of the MA, but unfortunately most people who sign up for your school are scared off by how 'hard' it is. It gets to the point where you are going to have to shut down if you can't get more students in the door. Do you change your classes to make them easier, or just close the school and find a different way to teach (out of your house, etc.)?

[Water Dragon]

If you can really teach people how to fight, you should market yourself as a MMA gym. That will draw the type of people that you are looking for.

[EarthDragon]

You change your classes and gear them toward your students i.e
have a begginer class, intermediate, advanced, ground fighting, or whatever, find the need of your students and fill that need, but never change the type of style or method in which you teach, dont sell out.

I used to do gojyu and my sensei would beat us, it was a small school and he learned fom victor vega, father of gojyu in NYC that was the way he taught. You could not run a school like this and not have parents shutting you down.

[MonkeySlap Too]

Is this how you feed your family? Remember, no one owes you a living. And no one owes you a living for doing good MA. A business exists to supply customers with something they want. If you are determined to make a living off of running a MA school you need to:

1. See what you can do to make the environment inviting and interesting to clients.
2. See what you can offer beside 'killer hard school' MA that is also not sacrificing your ideals: i.e. Fitness programs, yoga, basic self-defense, cardio-kickboxing.

Really... MA is a mature industry. Instructors are a dime a dozen, and the public can't tell the difference between the charlatans and the competent. Honestly, I don't think a commercial school is that great of a business that I would bet my family on it.

Perhaps you can focus on self-defense - but how do you ease your students into it so you don't lose them right away. Can you repackage your training without sacrificing what makes it good?

Just because you might be a competent player, are you a good businessperson?

Honestly, if no one is buying, and you intend to do this, you need to look at yourself, look at your customers, and look at your school. Think about each stage of the client life cycle:

Acquisition: (how do you get customers. How much does it cost to get each one?)
Retention: How do I keep them there?
Cross-Sell: What other services/benefits would they pay for?

There is a ton of literature out there on running schools. In a mature market, it is a good idea to see HOW you can speak to the customers you have.

Good luck.

[Reggie1]

MS2--I'm not opening my own school, I just thought I'd spark some conversation. It's a pretty tough situation to be in, so I was just curious what people would do in that type of event.

[MonkeySlap Too]

I would suggest opening a Quizno's instead if you really want to be in retail...

I had a public school once, and pretty much built a dream school... and shut it down like lightening because I just didn't like HAVING to teach people just because they gave me money. Oh, and the idiots I shared the place with...

[Meat Shake]

2 words bro... Kids classes. If you want to run an MA school, its gotta be a daycare too.
Least around here thats how it goes...
You also need to have varying degrees of interaction, with optional harder classes, optional full contact sparring. Getting down to the nitty gritty isnt for most people.

[Reggie1]

"with optional harder classes, optional full contact sparring."

Yeah, Americans really have become sissies these days. Sparring is my favorite part of the training, but a good chunk of people in our school stay away from it like it's the plague...

[red5angel]

If you can really teach people how to fight, you should market yourself as a MMA gym. That will draw the type of people that you are looking for.

yeah but if it's not MMA......


Don't go into running a martial arts school expecting to quit your day job.

I always said if I ever got around to teaching I'd teach a few students, out of my garage, for free as long as they showed up.

either that or do what the guy did who ran the shaolin longfist school I attended for a few months did. He had to shut down but just recently re-opened running classes in a school that has several instructors and several styles. That way costs are spread out.

[Shaolinlueb]

i say stay open, the hobbyist's treat em like it, the serious people you can push harder.

[Reggie1]

Originally posted by Shaolinlueb
i say stay open, the hobbyist's treat em like it, the serious people you can push harder.

Yeah, but then don't you worry about the hobbyist folks running around saying they know your art and bastar dizing it?

[Shaolinlueb]

Originally posted by Reggie1
Yeah, but then don't you worry about the hobbyist folks running around saying they know your art and bastar dizing it?

no, cause your not *******izing it, they're learning the same stuff, but its taking them longer to achieve perfection.
when i say hobbyist's treat em like it, dont push them as hard as the serious people. give them same material but spread out over longer time.

your always going to have hobbyists and serious people at the school. eventually they are gonna want to step up. a hobbyist can still have good kung fu.

[Reggie1]

Originally posted by Shaolinlueb
when i say hobbyist's treat em like it, dont push them as hard as the serious people. give them same material but spread out over longer time.

Good point. That's what my school currently does.

[Meat Shake]

Which school are you at?
Wing Chun?
Ving Tsun?
Eagle Claw?
Praying Mantis?
Shuai Chiao?

Thats all there is in austin besides Shaolin-Do.
Oh yeah, a couple of good MMA schools from what I understand.

[Reggie1]

Jeff Hughes' 7* mantis school. But I'm just about 1 month into my training, so please don't take anything I say as someone who actually has MA experience.;)

[Meat Shake]

No worries, I was just curious.
:)

[EarthDragon]

reggie, welcome to the family, I teach 8 step praying mantis in NY I would like to invite you to chaeck out the mantis cave do a goggle search.... it has all the lineage of every style of prayingmantis including 8 step and seven star. Good luck in your training and again welcome mantis it is fantastic!

[Reggie1]

Originally posted by Meat Shake
No worries, I was just curious.
:)

Cool. Hopefully I'll be in SA in the next month (probably a couple of times in Dec.) so you can show me how a Shuai Chiao guy would kick my azz. I'm chomping at the bit to begin sparring. We do chi sau right off the bat. Not a lot of people show up to those days, and the new guys have to start slow, and don't start kickboxing until about 4-6 months in. Although watching the intermediate + expert guys chi sau was pretty cool, they get into it pretty hardcore.

ED, thanks.

[Yum Cha]

If you don't know exactly how and what to teach, you shouldn't pass yourself off as a teacher.

If you can't follow through teaching exactly what you know you should teach, and how you should teach it, you should reconsider.

If you can't find students that want to learn what you have to teach when you follow the first two principles, than it shouldn't bother you.

....but don't give up the day job.