Yes this is also a problem faced in Vancouver
several of the clubs here are noticing a serious decline in numbers and some have shut down.
Personally I see several problems;
1) Culturally people are changing, short attention spans (MTV generation & fast food syndromn), a lot of different things to do now (too many chanels on TV, internet, etc...), and as someone said people are just lazier now...
2) so many different martial arts vying for the same students; Modern Martial Arts, Cardio Kick Boxing, TKD, Capoeira, Freestyle, McDojos, etc... all cut into the same market that CMA is vying for. And CMA is just harder to find, there is maybe fifty active CMA instructors here and only one or two of them can be found in the Yellow Pages or do any advertising, versus all the other forms of Martial Arts that maintain a much higher mainstream profile.
3) the CMA community is so fragmented and spends so much time dealing with it's own internal strife that it can't get it's head out of it's own a s s long enough to look around realize there's a problem and do something collectively about it... Vancouver's CMA community now has three CMA type unions / associations, none of which does very much of anything to promote CMA outside of the Chinatown community (and that they don't even really do much of).
4) Attitude, some (not all) CMA instructors have the most apathetic outdated attitudes when it comes to training & motivating students. Some still cling to extremely old methods of training and don't try absorbing anything new. Some still don't do much in the way of stretching, conditioning, supplementary training. Nothing wrong with trying to maintain your traditional style but keep an open mind and look into new ways of training and motivating students.
5) the image of CMA is not so strong as it was say twenty or thirty years ago. People don't immediately think of CMA when they think of practiical self defense or fighting. Let's face it the truth is not that many CMA clubs produce fighters and this doesn't do much to promote the image of CMA as a practical fighting art. Now certainly there are some schools that are an exception to this.
The good thing about CMA as I see it is they have diversity that typically can't be found in any other Martial Arts. What I have noticed is that the CMA schools that embrace this diversity are the ones that tend to do well and survive the lean times (be they driven by poor economy or changing cultural interests). Many of the CMA schools that I see doing well here in Vancouver will often teach a traditional style or two but will also include programs such as Modern Wushu, San Shou, Lion Dance, women's self defense and so on. Also schools that keep a high public profile tend to do well (advertising and promotions).
Personally the way I see it is that all CMA instructors should want to and try to help build up the mainstream pubic image of CMA and pushing the diversity of CMA is one positive way to do it. If the public image of CMA is strong then all benefit.
Just my two cents :D
Question: How do you get two CMA teachers to agree on something?
Answer: Shoot one of them.
;)
I agree, firepalm.
dig this though: I've had this guy who is a bjj student back home (about 5 hours from here) but is in school here in Asheville come in once before to see what was up. Decent enough dude and decided who wasn't ready to do any crosstraining and was going to keep doing just the bjj for a while yet. He comes in last night while I was giving a test and asked if he could interview me for a journalism project he was doing in school. It was about 'MMA in NC' and he's interviewed some guys I'd never heard of on the MMA scene here and wanted to interview me to get a TMA's perspective. I've asked for a copy of the paper when he's done. :D I got to get on my soapbox a bit. We'll see how it sounds if he uses any of it.