Just signed up my 30th student.

[Chief Fox]

So what was your plan on getting to 30? What worked? What didn't? How are you attracting new students now?

Just curious. And congratulations!

[Royal Dragon]

Yes, I am curious too. I will be starting up a class soon in an art studio (A really cool place). They want a Tai Chi class. I am trying to do what I am calling a "Primordial Tai Chi" class, so I can teach Tai Tzu Changquan. I figure calling it that keeps it honest, gives them the Tai Chi buzz word for the marketing, and I get to work my basics in a really cool setting once a week year round.

I cannot do any self defense stuff though just the form. But once a week of doing the core form really slow and soft will refine my mechanics quite a bit I think.

[Mas Judt]

Good luck OSO. I just got ahold of an old classmate of mine. He has a school in Rockford IL., - great martial artist. But he's part-time too with a commercial location. A hard row to hoe. He's asked me for advice, but other than some obvious stuff, I'm not sure HOW to grow a part-time thing. - I've always run classes, but never with that kind of overhead & expenses.

Best of luck to you. It's a real challenge.

[Oso]

i'm not really sure there is an answer to what has worked and what hasn't.

'old school-no pain no gain-pain is just weakness leaving the body' has definitely not worked. It's been very tough recognizing that a commercial school in this town isn't going to be based on a 'fighting' format.

the funny thing is, i don't know where anyone is going who wants to train for fighting, sport or otherwise, is going. There's a BJJ school about 45 minutes away but from what I understand, they don't do any stand up training. Other than that, there is no 'mma' type thing going on anywhere unless it's underground/basement/backyard.

I went ahead and dropped class time from 2 hours to 1 hour. So, beginners are 6:30-7:30 monday~thursday. Most students say that it works better for them. Driving in this town sucks considering it's relative size. So, a 2 hour class really meant a 3 hour commitment. If they are really gung ho, they can come to 4 classes a week plus a 5 hour run on saturdays.

The saturday schedule has definitely seemed popular with the newest students, mostly male college guys.

10am Strength/Conditioning
11am Open Floor
12noon Weapons
1pm-3pm Sparring

so, there are 4 days that are not real demanding in duration and 1 day a week that the gung ho students can get a long session in.

and finally, I made the curriculum less demanding. which is essentially 'watering it down.' but, to get into the specifics of that would mostly be a debate on a) how many forms does a 'black sash' need b) how many throws.... c) how many kicks... d) how much chin na...

one of the things that people had the hardest time with was the ba shi. the whole set was on the first level along with the first two roads of tan tui (as pong lai does them, with a ling side). so, now they just start with 'er shi': horse and hill climbing. I add in the others once they have those two down. in one way it makes sense to have them spend more overall time on just the two basic stances but, you know, I didn't really think it should be all that hard to get the 8 down.

I've also stopped teaching the ling side of the forms on the same sash level. Only a couple of them are 'folded' so learning the ling side was just like learning a second entire form...and I had like 16 forms on the list for black sash, including weapons. I took weapons out altogether and cut the list down to 8 empty hand sets.

so...basically, made it easier to 'succeed faster'

what I've told the couple of guys that have stated an interest in fighting is that the conditioning and sparring time on saturdays should not be missed. the rest of it will set a foundation for body awareness and then they need to work hard at getting better conditioned and be willing to get hit during sparring.

so, basically, the plan is to keep working on creating a class during the week where the people in love with 'kung fu' can learn forms and drills and basic application so they don't look too shabby at a demo...and gradually build up the group of folks that want to learn to fight...so I don't go nuts in the process.

one thing that is happening now that I have 12+ people on the floor during the main class time and on saturdays is that people walking by will stop and look longer because it looks like more is happening. No matter how hard 3-6 people are working it just doesn't look like much in a 20x60 room.

[Black Jack II]

I wish you luck, running a school seems to be a pretty hard business.

I only know of two in my neck of the woods which make any serious cash.

The first is a massive mcdojo in Carol Stream which my 9 year old niece of all things belongs to. $100 a month to start on a two year contract, then they raked my stupid as dirt sister in law into something called the black belt club which tacks on another $100 a month to that total for a nine year old.

Now they are asking her to put the kid in a weapons class which is guess what....another $100 a month.

The second is a JKD Concepts school which charges pretty high rates, no contract commitment, but and I give the guy credit for this, he is a excellent marketing man. Just gets out on feet and hussles for business.

[Mas Judt]

Who is the JKD guy?

[Royal Dragon]

Black Jack,

There are plenty of schools in the Chicago area that make tall cash. Most are TKD/Karate schools though.

[Oso]

yea, the black belt club thing is a total scam. people are stupid though. I've said before somewhere here that the mcdojo's are marketing the things that have always been a byproduct/side effect of any physical endeavor practiced over time...but without the real attainment of actually getting good at whatever the endeavor is.

in this town, the gymnastics and dance schools are getting on the afterschool pickup/babysitting scheme and taking a little bit more of the pie. it's really a side effect of the society we've created where both parents have to work and $150 a month for afterschool child care is a deal when compared to a real day care. and THAT is what's going to bite them in the ass one day when something bad happens and someone finally points out that they are really running unlicensed day care centers.

[steps off soapbox]

right now i don't intend on charging extra for the weapons or sparring class. they need to buy the arnis sticks or staff/sword/spear or whatever but i'm including those classes as part of the 'package'.


that's something else that i've managed to get up over the last 2 months. My january retail sales have almost hit $500.

[Black Jack II]

There are plenty of schools in the Chicago area that make tall cash. Most are TKD/Karate schools though.-

True, places like Changs and stuff. Forgot to mention those. A few of those TKD places are very well put together in terms of location so I can see some of the above average Naperville rates.

Mas,

Its not Degerberg, though I am sure he makes some good cash, nor Halleck in Libertyville, its EDS in Roselle which also has a small school in Rockford.

Nothing big in terms of size, actually a small sized school, but he markets hard in the old school way, gets out and hits the colleges, hits the police stations, does some black belt articles, does the cd thing and has a good personality which I think goes a long way to some of his success, be it mild maybe to some others point of view.

The teachers name is Matthew Numrich I believe. Student of Paul Vunacks.

[rogue]

Oso, Sounds like you're being realistic about what people are want and how they can work for it. A friend of mine cut his class hours down to an hour and got a nice bump in students showing up. A good number were people who had to drop out because they no longer had 2 hours a night to put into doing any martial art, but they could spare an hour once or twice a week. He did have to restructure how the class had been done for about 10 which means not everything gets done in a single night. Now his problem is cutting the number of classes because it wearing him out even with 4 assistant instructors. To have his troubles, right?

Another thing he's done is that every other Saturday he has a JKD guy come in and teach the regular class. The JKD guy gets some exposure and a real place to train, the karate students get some different material to keep the classes fresh and my friend gets to take a weekend off and be a student. So far it's been a win/win situation.

[Shaolinlueb]

my first sifu makes decent money with black belt and an extra 2-3000 a month on afterschool. is it commercial, yes. but does the training suffer for the adults? no its still a good school.

[Oso]

rogue: i've got two assistants now. both teach the kids class and the women's class. I've still monitor and assist them as they are just a bit over 2 year students themselves. They are only teaching white sash stuff now and can handle conveying the material fine but don't have the experience in other areas. they do fine and I couldn't do it with out them.

One thing I'm still trying to hold on to is a teacher/youth ratio of 1/4. This means that in my space I'd cap the kids class at 12 because there isn't enough room to break out in to more than 4 groups. I could pack 18-20 in there if I were to adopt a different method but I think that the kids benefit and actually learn the information.


SL: Black belt club and kids classes don't mean the training has to be bad or anything. It just does more often than not. I'm trying to figure out a way to work a program in like that that generates more money for the school but has a real honest gain for the student as well. I'm probably going to work a package that includes a private lesson a month and a discount on uniforms and weapons. I don't want to call it something cheesy though...maybe "Package B"

[racerX]

Great job Oso, happy to hear things are turning around for you. For a few extra students try bring a friend night,training with a friend brings motovatation(sp?)
Good luck

[MasterKiller]

Oso,
Since you cut the class times in half, maybe you could offer a Level 1 class and a Level 2 class.

Level 1 would be what you are doing now, and Level 2 would be for people that want more contact. That way, the people who don't want to hit hard can go home after 1 hour, and the people that do want to hit hard can stick around for another hour and train more.

[BoulderDawg]

Pricing

I like a school that's up front with their pricing. You are charged a set amount and there are no other charges. You can participate in all activities at the school at that price.

The school I'm at now charges $25 a month. However, that's just the beginning. There are, on average, two festivals a month costing around $50 each. Also there are always charges for testing. Plus the Shao-lin store which keeps a full supply of weapons available(we've just got in a supply of straight swords..hurry up and get yours today).

I remember as a lower belt moving up though the ranks and being pushed by the Masters to test.

"What? You say You're not ready. Take a pretest and see."

Of course if you passed the pretest (and I know of no one that failed one) you were presented your belt along with a bill for $40, $50, $60 or $75!