sensei8

Great posts, all; thank you for them!! Please keep them coming!! I'll answer my own questions sometime this weekend, schedule permitting, that is.

Your booth at a local town fair... Did the school do any demo's at all? Did anyone from the school wear a gi or a school t-shirt? What marketing things did the school do at that this local town fair? Was it mainly a meet and greet type booth? Did your school do any follow-up calls on any of the leads?

After all...the elbow's connected to the...

Got to understand the basics of boxing; that's what I believe your instructor was trying to instill.

Hhhhmmmm...of the styles? No practitioner, no style!!

For the fear of him closing again, and as hard as it would be, and no matter how loyal I am to him, I'd seek out another qualified MA instructor that's more secure in his/her location. MA betterment, is tantamount!! Let the search begin!!

After all, trying to hold unto an unwilling opponent is kind of like trying to wrestle a fish; quite slippery at times.

Oh boy....I get to use one of my favorite sayings...Not all black belts can teach nor should they try.

... not sure I agree, 100%! Some good points views on FC, like I call out I'm not 100% on all of them. No matter where you learn or what you learn in the street the other guy side of the argument is not about to go gentle or wait for you to pad up or get the mats out ... to them its game time! Yes it is true that much of the MA that is taught today tends to be sport biased, to fight for points, as traditionalist I agree with you when you make that point, its a point that needs to be made clear to everyone that walks through the door 'to learn to fight!'. ... and that's the true real point and so problem, people walk in form the street to learn to fight and the guy at the front of the hall doesn't correct them he lets them join, lets them learn to fight and ... it would seem ... not care that they now feel like superman and are ready to take on the world. The guy at the front in the problem here, they need to find out why the newbie walked in at all! many of us here are parents, many of us will become parents, and without doubt we were all once children and victims to various degrees of bullying, name calling, play ground taunting and so on and so on .... Sit back in your place of work, office or shop floor ... notice any familiarity in some of the actions of the people around you? What happened at school is still happening, now today as you watch, heck you may even be the victim .... that newbie that walked in form the street has what story to tell and what reasoning to give to want 'to learn how to fight!'? Until they walked in, be that to karate, kung Fu, judo, Ju Jitsu, Nin Jitsu, Krav Magar, Thai boxing etc they new nothing about MA, what it really means, how to walk in what to say, who to talk to..something else drove them to this place. Something that hurts them, worries them enough to want to 'learn how to fight ' and do something about it. To learn MA is to be taught how to fight. To learn MA is to be taught how to defend yourself. To learn MA is to be taught how to walk away, to not fight. Martial Arts teaches self belief,self confidence more than anything to trust in you and your new ability to be able to sum up the situation and know ! Martial Arts - defense only, a contradiction in terms ... well maybe not, any conflict is only the result of the actions that brought you to that place, that point. How you got there is important. If you are pushed/pulled into the conflict, makes no difference, you were bullied into a situation that the other side constructed, you were setup to fail. MA teaches you self confidence, and by that lesson you are not easily bullied into a situation and to that I'll add not easily bullied into a situation you cannot deal with ... however that pans out. Sport karate, full contact or knockdown, it is fighting, the differences between are all in the mind and how the same skills are applied. Solid post!!

I suppose it's normal. Isn't the MA just a wonderful thing?! Yes...it is!! Aches and pains are normal for everyone, and not just for MAists. As we get older, our body starts letting you know that it's time to PAY ATTENTION to it because it's no longer that young woman or man. Welcome to growing old.

You ever get a thought in your head, and you can't type as fast as the thought comes into your head? Well, and this has nothing to do with anything, and please forgive me my ranting on myself, but, when I read the post right above this one, I have no grammatical flow; it's disjointed. That destroys the meaning I might've been trying to make. So, to all who read my posts, and if you ever encounter a passage that doesn't quite make any sense, then, please, forgive me for my mistakes with the written pen...or keyboard, as it is in this case.

I just wanted to mention that I said most, not all. Most of your new students should be under 40, right? Unless your program is targeting older adults. LOL!! And you're right, most of my new students are under 40. When I replied, my pea-brain thought that you were inferring that my dojo was a "for kids only" dojo. Again, LOL...my bad, sorry for that. **Bag over my face** Let me share some numbers with you. Back in 2010, Harris Interactive conducted a survey. They found that 70% of U.S. adults "rarely or never" used the phone book. That's not just young people, but all ages. And that was back in 2010 - the number can only be higher now. More recently - February of 2013 - a website called RingCentral surveyed 1,800 U.S. adults aged 18 to 65. Their survey showed that 70% of people older than 40 still used a physical phone book, but 63 percent of people under 40 never did. Over the last 18+ months, this number probably didn't go down. This is just to say that if a martial arts school expects people to find them through the phone book, they'll be missing a lot of potential people. Maybe those numbers will be helpful in convincing people in your organization, maybe not. Very interesting stats!! Good to see that I'm not the only one who still uses the phone book; 70% puts a smile on my old tattered face. I will share these stats with the interested parties when I'm at the Hombu next week. Maybe you should share this website with them http://clientsfromhell.net/. It might break the tension... or offend them. Some of it is a little smug from the designer, some of it is a little inside baseball, but there are some stories of unreasonable clients that might be applicable. Like these: http://clientsfromhell.net/post/98548378950/i-designed-some-coins-for-a-client-who-specified http://clientsfromhell.net/post/96873041649/black-is-the-new-black http://clientsfromhell.net/post/96703139549/after-sending-five-different-layouts-of-a-clients I just wanted to know...just how did they bug the Hombu's conference room?? Those provided links of yours made me laugh AND they made me cry because the thickheadness shown in these links is EXACTLY what I deal with each and every time we confer over this very subject. If one looks hard enough, one could see where I've been hitting my head on the conference table in frustration. I WILL share these links with interested parties when I'm at the Hombu next week. However, I don't expect them to have an "Aha" moment. Great MAists, each of them, but more stubborn than a pin full of pigs. I get this, and it makes sense with some things. But it's a difficult measure when you are talking about change. Because you are profitable until you aren't, and when you get there, it's too late. Blockbuster is an easy example of this. They had a ton of revenue ($6 billion in 2004)... until they didn't (2010, negative $1.1 billion). 6 years isn't even a long time, really. Netflix offered themselves to Blockbuster multiple times in the early 2000s for as little as $50 million. To put this into context, Blockbuster actually offered to buy Circuit City for a billion in 2008 (later that year, Circuit City went bankrupt!). Blockbuster was too stuck on the way it was, and the way it had worked before. By the time they wanted to change, it was too late. Now that's a big dramatic story and martial arts schools are different than Blockbuster video. But this happens all the time to businesses in all industries, and I know you treat your dojo as a business. That's a good analogy, through and through. I sincerely believe that the biggest reason for these once retail giants to fail was that they couldn't support their infrastructure any longer!! I believe they wanted to change, but they couldn't change because their failing infrastructure was already crumbling right from under their feet. All of the change in the world wasn't going to save them. Same thing for Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery; there infrastructure failed as well!! With those giants, they tried to get bigger, and by acquiring others into their P&L, they couldn't support them. Hollywood Video's biggest boo boo in business was when they tried to lie to consumers and tell them that there's no more "late fees", when in reality, all Hollywood Video "changed" was the name to disguise the late fees. Losing consumer trust, and with Netflix and Red Box taking big chunks out of Hollywood's revenue, the infrastructure was even more weakened; failure was eminent. My grace is that I'm not one of the retail giants, and yet, I remain solvent because I live within my means. I'm not trying to be bigger than my britches than Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Movie Gallery, or Circuit City. No. I'm a small dojo/retail business that is content with being the little guy who CAN support his own infrastructure quite comfort. Yes, I would like to have a website; it seems to be the rage of the page. Yes, again, the Hombu is "hamstrung by politics and in-fighting", but imho, I believe that it's more in-fighting than anything else, as we've talked about..."Clients From Hell", and for me, it's hierarchy from hell. Your two paragraphs above are sweet to my sweet tooth because if I can't get to them and our Legal Team can't get to them, then possibly, YOU and many KF members CAN...it's something to hope for. But, knowing them as well as I do, they are the horse that I can't lead to water...while they're standing right next to the biggest water deposit known to man, woman, and child. Lord help me!! As with me, the Kyuodan Dojo is content with NOT having a website and the like...for now. I'll keep an eye open and an ear turned and an open mind on this, and if appropriate, then it's possible that I might change my mind.

To the bold type above... Well, at my dojo/retail store...I speak to them face to face. I've an open-door policy!! I have a very large bulletin board hung up in the lobby with latest news, information, and the like that's dojo related. At the Hombu, well...I do the very same thing, for in-house students and parents. The Hombu sends out monthly newsletters to all affiliated Shindokan dojo's. Quarterly conference calls to those aforementioned dojo's. You know, things like that.

I understand what all of you are saying when you speak about maturity, and often times, the governing bodies By-Laws have no flexibility, nor do they have any ambiguity when it comes to certain concerns. Is this fair? Depends; some will favor while others will not. Without rules, By-Laws, then I suppose that their would be anarchy of an untold proportions.

Congrats...well deserved!!

For the Chief Instructor (CI): How many CI's meet and greet their students and visitors before and/or after each class with a smile and a hand shake?? Is that important to you, the CI?? Do you, the CI, insist OR encourage your assistant instructors to meet and greet, either at the door or on the floor before and/or after classes? For the Assistant Instructor: Does your CI require you to meet and greet? Does your CI conduct training on how this should be conducted? Does your CI discipline or counsel you if the meet and greet isn't provided as required? For the Student: Does the CI meet and greet you? Does any Assistant Instructor meet and greet you? Is this important to you? For the Visitor: Does the CI and/or any Assistant Instructor meet and greet you at anytime while you're visiting? Does this matter to you?

Solid post!! If I may add...Pivot ALL THE WAY THROUGH, and imho, if the supporting foot ISN'T 180 degrees away from the target, power has suffered. And so I can beat this horse to death...POSTURE is crucial. If the target is moving you, and you're not moving the target, then your technique is lacking quite a lot.

Fantastic posts...ALL; thank you for them. While ones MA journey is the long and winding road, it's great to see that others, from time to time, have allowed others on partake of their journey.

I agree with this statement 100%. Your business P&L sheet should do your talking in terms of business decisions. With that being said, I wouldn't be so quick to tell one of your student's the same thing. Let's supposed you have a qualified student that is moving away and wants to open a school under your umbrella (we'll assume he/she follows all the bylaws of your org and qualifies). He has "X" amount in start-up money and needs to hit 70 students in 60 days otherwise he'll have to work a second job. Of course, he would need to do demos and have amazing classes, but a website with good lead capture forms and automailing would greatly assist in the process. Most people do not even have phone books anymore. Sad, but true. Just some food for thought. Solid post!! Delicious food...indeed! I would never tell a student of mine, directly or indirectly, that they should or shouldn't ever have a website; it's a personal/professional choice, one that I'm content with...for myself. If a student of mine were to decide for themselves to have or not to have a website, and that I had influenced them one way or another, I'd remind them that while I appreciate their kind words, their decisions must be free of my influences. What has worked for me, might not work for others.

Btw, which Shotokan governing body are you associated with?

We're either our best friend or our worse enemy....our mouth gets us in trouble that we hadn't planned upon, and our mouth gets us out of trouble, if we're fortunate enough. I'd like to muzzle myself!!

Thank you for your post!! It's quite true..."Absence makes the heart grow fonder!!" I believe this is what you're speaking about, and I agree wholeheartedly. You liked it, but never loved it, and this I can complete respect and understand. But, in time, you fell in love with the MA; you never gave up on it in any shape, way, and/or form.

Welcome to KF; glad that you're here!! Congrats on your recent promotion!!

I will get a website for my dojo if the P&L, Profit/Loss Statement, shows me that I can't do without a website. According to my accountant, my P&L shows me that I'm quite financially solvent without a website.

I hear what you're saying in this regard. Word of mouth, again, has served me quite well. And, no, lol, my new students aren't all under 40; age ranges varies. Yes, Danielle did a good job of explaining that. I understand what you're saying and hopefully you understand that I know a lot of dojo owners who don't have a website, and they're still doing quite well, and they're younger than I am. Also, I depend on the phonebook a lot...let my fingers do the walking often. I respect what you're saying here. Our Hombu lets the experts do their job; we value their experience. We do have our input and the like, as would anyone else that's paying for ones service. Our biggest problem is whenever the company we have hired brings us a draft, we'll sit there, looking it over, then many in the room will nitpick the newest draft to death until I'm ready to jump out of the nearest window. We're getting in our own way, and it's not productive. I've stated this more than I can remember in behind closed doors discussions, some more heated than others..."How dare we slap Dai-Soke in the face. He wanted this [website] completed in a timely manner, and we've not valued his wishes. If we're not going to honor him, then lets table this FOREVER" I wish the next Kaicho the best...good luck, he/she will need it!!