i'm nobody...i'm nobody. i'm a tramp, a bum, a hobo... a boxcar and a jug of wine... but i'm a straight razor if you get to close to me.
-Charles Manson
I will punch, kick, choke, throw or joint manipulate any nationality equally without predjudice.
- Shonie Carter
Honorary African American
grandmaster instructor of Wombat Combat The Lost Art of Anal Destruction™®LLC .
Senior Business Director at TEAM ASSHAMMER consulting services ™®LLC
Martial arts should not be taught in public schools. It is impossible to do so without watering it down to the point of worthlessness. Far better off letting them play dodgeball than to have kids who don't want to be there forced to stand in lines doing basics or memorize a form.
Being that I have conducted such a program, I wholeheartedly disagree. I have had kids from schools I taught in come up to me and thank me, who tell me they still practice what I taught them, who say they had no interest in anything physical before training with me, who pursued martial arts further because of my classes. They performed stance training, they did line drills up and down the floor, they did pushups, squats, etc. and as long as you know how to keep a kids attention, they do want to be there.
I have a buddy who successfully ran capoeira classes in the school system here as well. There are also guys (though I don't know them personally) who teach karate and tkd.
Last edited by SevenStar; 11-02-2016 at 06:56 AM.
i'm nobody...i'm nobody. i'm a tramp, a bum, a hobo... a boxcar and a jug of wine... but i'm a straight razor if you get to close to me.
-Charles Manson
I will punch, kick, choke, throw or joint manipulate any nationality equally without predjudice.
- Shonie Carter
I doubt actual "family," but I do see the distinctive lines of divergence happening. And it seems a bit evident even within this thread: Progressive-Modern-TCMA and Traditional-TCMA.
Seems we might need to come up with some updated classification names :P
Yes, "Northwind" is my internet alias used for years that has lots to do with my main style, as well as other lil cool things - it just works. Wanna know my name? Ask me
http://www.pathsatlanta.org
That's how I see the long term survival of TCMA too Jimbo.
I think the best approach for a serious practitioner is to not give a f*** about trying to find commercial success as a martial arts school owner and instead find a profitable day job to support their martial habit.
A lot of commercial success is due to location. If you're in a city with a large population and you teach good sh** and have a visible and nice facility, you'll get students. Keeping them may be an issue - but you'll get them through the door. You need to learn how to teach and it's not simply being good at a martial art or having the best lineage. You also have to have a personality that people want to be around. The white eyebrow guy from Kill Bill made for a nice movie character, but anyone acting like that in real life probably wouldn't attract many students. The thing is to find balance. Personally, I wouldn't want to make a living teaching kids. That would suuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkk balls.
Picked up 5 students in the past couple weeks, which was a big surprise for us.
One of them is Korean and grew up in a martial arts family. His dad was an instructor and trained him from a young age for competition. He got out of martial arts(sucks when your dad is the teacher) for many years but wanted to train again.
The student and his gf joined after he looked at 4 other schools.
He said he could tell from our attention to detail when teaching that we would be the best school for them.
LOL. Kids can be pretty cool. But yeah they can be a handful. Just look at what Gene has to put up with when people pm him throwing tantrums and foul. Having to monitor bullies. And make sure no one crosses the line to far by posting hate **** because we are not totally out of the tissue box ***** period. But when we are.....DOOM.
Really great post as a whole.
Just kidding guys. I think you all are special.
Honorary African American
grandmaster instructor of Wombat Combat The Lost Art of Anal Destruction™®LLC .
Senior Business Director at TEAM ASSHAMMER consulting services ™®LLC
Your Chilese brothers welcome you here.
Good points, MightyB.
Most of the successful MA schools that aren't MMA or BJJ that I see are dominated by kiddie classes. I'm not really certain when that started becoming the norm. The 1990s? Post-2K? I remember when MA was adult-dominated. I don't know if many MA schools, Chinese style or otherwise, still have large, strong adult classes. There are several branch schools of a very visible kung fu franchise in my county that seem very commercially successful. They also have all the bells and whistles in terms of facilities. Many people like that, plus the "professionalism". But personally I would never have trained there, for various personal reasons.
I sometimes see my next-door neighbors' kids in their karate uniforms after school. The dojang they go to is a large one that seems to cater strictly to kids. Nobody in my neighborhood has any idea that I even train MA, much less used to teach it.
Last edited by Jimbo; 11-22-2016 at 08:51 PM.
It may be a bit late to jump in now on this but the topic of TCMA survival is very interesting and important.
I have been teaching CMA since the early 90's and the times have really changed. It is true what MightyB said, personality is very Important. I have seen great martial artist try teaching but they don't really like people. Having a school is completely different than teaching someone personally. You are in the people business when you open a school. I read somewhere that "people don't really care what you know until they know you care." Therefore, you need to have an inviting personality in order to have people keep their interest and keep coming back to class.
I also agree with MightyB that making a living teaching kids suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks! Only adults can understand the amount of effort required in the regular practice of the cma. Therefore, the survival is based on how many adults we can inspirer to commit to the learning and practice. I think that many people try MMA or BJJ because they think it is something they can learn and use immediately, unlike the traditional arts that take a long time. I believe that MMA and BJJ is starting to slowly lose it's momentum. People are starting to realize that to gain any real skills requires hard work, time and effort, regardless of style.
So, back to the question, "how does the TCMA survive for future generations to learn?" It MUST BE TAUGHT. Doesn't matter if it is in the park, a basement, a garage, or a location. Of course a location will require the most work. People ask me all the time that they want to open a school and how should they go about it. My answer is always the same, start small. Start in your garage and then move into a small location once you have a enough "paying" students to afford a place. The problem is most people want to start with a nice big location. They believe that big locations will bring in a lot of students, but that is just not true. Big locations cost big $$$ and require a lot of work. It is a lot easier if you already have a good team of strong supporting students that will help you grow and maintain a big $$$ location. So, start small and grow from there.