something I wanted to share....

[spaced]

...with my fellow gong fu'ers. My Head Instructor has chosen me and one other person in the club to work towards being his Assistant Instructors. Training will be hard and we are going to be pushed more in class, but i feel extremely humbled and proud. I was speechless.

Could this be a career path for me in a few years?

Anyone else have some similar stories?

[David Jamieson]

this could go the other way as well.

be aware

[CLFNole]

Do it as a secondary job not your primary source of income. KF schools are a tough business. If that is your only option then by all means go for it but if you have other options I would make it a hobby or secondary job to supplement your primary income source.

[jigahus]

Do it as a secondary job not your primary source of income. KF schools are a tough business. If that is your only option then by all means go for it but if you have other options I would make it a hobby or secondary job to supplement your primary income source.

he speeks da truf

[David Jamieson]

There are literally hundreds of thousands of martial arts schools around the world.

very few of them are there for the full income.

very, very, very few generate enough revenue to produce incomes for the chief instructor and staff.

many of the sifu i know do not have martial arts as their primary source of income.

There are a few, but what do you want to invest your energy into? Being a salesman or doing your kungfu? It's hard to do both...without assistants. :)

[Lama Pai Sifu]

It would all depend on the type of school you are working for. Some schools only make enough for the head instructor to make a average to below-average living. Some schools earn a large income, enough for more than one instructor. Additionally, some schools have plans for expansion that might work into your lifestyle.

But I agree with the rest of the posters here; not many KF schools can afford to pay you a fulltime salary (at least one that you could live on).

A bit of advice, before taking a job with ANYONE, ask some questions as to their financial situation, and it is not unusual to ask for the past years financial statements as it pertains to the company ability to pay you.

And DJ is right again, in a good school, instructors are sales-people as well. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of us, who love KF are always selling it. That is when it is a joy to be a salesperson. It's when you are selling a B.S. product that you KNOW sucks - that's when being a salesperson is a stinky job.

Good Luck with your decision.

DJ - there are NOT that many schools in the world though. The USA is way above other countries as far as the number of martial arts schools, and there are currently/approximatly 25,000 schools in the country. Just a tid-bit of info for ya...

[lunghushan]

Martial arts schools the way they are run a lot of places are like multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes.

So the newbie comes in, gets taught by the junior instructors, who often receive no pay, the junior instructors are taught by senior instructors, and then there's the person who really runs the school.

This provides two things, less instruction for the senior instructor and/or the capability of teaching more students (with less time).

The really successful schools I've seen were run this way, and then the founding instructor runs a big chain of schools run by senior instructors, and receives $$$ from each.

So think about it this way. If you're running a low margin business, then it behooves you to start numerous branches. So if your overhead is $9k each month, and your income $12k, then you net $3k a month. That's just $36k a year.

But if you run 10 schools you just bumped up to $30k a month. (Not bad).

So it behooves the money-making instructor to train assistant instructors, and eventually start a big chain. Otherwise you're just not making that much cash unless you come up with another business plan.

Suffice it to say that most assistant instructors wind up putting in a ton of time to enrich the main instructor. Kindof like a grad student.

[lunghushan]

Also, at one karate place I was at, most of the BBs had been there a long time, so how do you get a BB to stick around??

Get them in the business. Say they can be assistant instructors ... let them teach classes ... (less work for you) ... say they can work to being a senior instructor in which case they can teach privates and make $$$ (you get free labor until they're senior and tuition) ... the senior instructors teach privates, but of course still need to pay tuition to keep up with their techniques, etc.

See ??? it's a classic MLM scheme. Most kids after a few years automatically think they'll want to be big-shotty instructors so you feed off of their egos and make them think they'll be making big bucks.

Of course, unless they are at the top they won't make much at all, but you don't tell them that.

There are big chain schools (won't name any names) that really worked their assistant instructors who were teaching for free to the point of financial insolvency.

It's kindof sick in a way.

Then, at a lot of places, the ass-istant instructor will get tired of not making the dough, and will split, start their own chain, and on and on.

Look at the Tracys, the first big chain school. That's how it was run. And look at all the different branches of that and Ed Parker.