Squawman

This is interesting because with in the last couple months I have been asked to do private self-defense lessons for two women that had to goto prison. The first one was sentenced to 6 years for vehicular manslaughter, killing her husband and the driver of the other car. The other lady was in the process of waiting to be sentenced and on partial house arrest. She was accused of sexually attacking a minor and after talking to her it sounds like she is very falsely accused (long story). Anyway, before teaching them I had to kind of search my own ethics and came to the conclusion that the first lady is pretty much paying the price for what she did and the second one is getting screwed by the system, even though she was in the wrong at one point. Both of these women are your typical middle aged mom with kids and jobs and even though I taught them very basic self-defense skills the biggest thing I gave them was sefl-confidence because they were scared to death to be going to prison.

When a student signs up at our school they sign about 4 different documents stating that there is risk in martial arts so they need to train at their own risk and the school owner has massive amounts of liability insurance but I have never heard of a school offering or telling someone that they should have supplemental insurance just in case they get hurt. It is a good idea to get extra insurance to cover lost wages in case you do lose time from work and have to support a family. I have this and have used it because I got hurt training. Plus with the way America is these days no matter how much insurance you get and no matter how many waivers you sign people are always looking to make the quick buck by suing someone.

Ovine King I don't get what you were saying about insurance. Do you mean the studio having insurance or paying for your own insurance when you sign up?

Anybody going to the MAIA convention in Vegas at the end of April?

We charge $109.00 a month for 2-4 classes a week. There is the owner then me, a full time instructor. A full time program director and then 3 paid part time instructors. No, I don't make a lot of money teaching but there is the potential to depending on how hard we work to make the school grow just like any other business.

That is way to specialized. It is basically just self defense with a bike helmet on. You could use some of it for a self defense class but if you teach the class right then it works if you are in a car or on a bike or in a plane. I can't see making a whole self defense class just around riding a bike.

Thats one of the oddest questions that I've seen here. It just sounds like your saying that if they just don't get it then I'm not going to try and teach them. As an instructor we have weekly meetings trying to make sure that nobody is left behind. One because yes they are paying our salary but also it's our job to show them that you have to keep trying even if it's hard. Think of yourself as a math teacher, if a kid doesn't get it are you going to just let them quit?

The Olympic commitee is thinking about getting rid of TKD because the TKD president and officals are so corrupt.

Does anyone know of some BJJ tournaments coming up in the Oregon, Washington area. I really don't want MMA just a good BJJ tournament.

I have seen alot of MA school owners that drive nice cars. It's all a status symbol they just want to look good in front of all their instructor friends. The funny part is that they have a nice car and that's it. They probably live in a little apartment and are paying a huge monthy payment on the car, which to afford that they have to screw their students over by getting as much money as possible out of them.

From teaching TKD for 6 years I can tell you that forms shouldn't even be thought about when fighting. The only reason we teach them is because the WTF requires them for certification. I tell students that forms are the art portion of martial arts then there is the practical side of martial arts.

I've read everyone's comments and the question I have is "what's a black belt?" What do you have to show and prove. The way we look at it when we promote to black belt is that the person has mastered the "basics", now they are ready to learn and I think a 9 year old can do that. No they can't teach a class (they can help) and I don't expect them to recite some ancient Asain philosophy about being some warrior. Sorry to say I love teahing kids MA and we do have 10 year old black belts that are great kids and yes they can defend themselves or more important know when to walk away from a fight with their head up. If you think kids are ruining MA then you have no idea what MA does for a child. This world is one big sh.. hole and the only way to turn it around is to teach kids some good values which is what the MA is all about. Fu.. belts, its there to keep your pants up. Let's have some great martial artists who are also great people that are going to do some great things in this world. And yes I've seen kids who are black belts that don't have a clue as to what they are doing and I think that is a big disservice to them. Man it's late so I hope I made some kind of sense.

Kids respond to imitating animals. Say things like cheetah and then run really fast in place. Squat down and ask them what does a frog sound like, then have them jump and sound like a frog. Make them pretend they are swimming across a river so they warm up there arms. Just remember that when warming up kids that it shouldn't be anymore than 5 - 7 min. Kids get bored and really don't need that much stretching. I've been to other studios and actually watched 15 - 20 min warm-ups. I almost fell asleep in the chair.

You also have to look at it this way. If you are paying your instructor money to teach you martial arts then he has the obligation to do that. If you are not getting what you want then you need to look elsewhere. It sounds like you are not being taught certain things either because your instructor doesn't know how to teach them or he could care less about running a good class and having great students.

If you do pushups with just your body weight then you should be just fine doing them everyday because your body gets used to it. When you start adding weight, like bench press then you are trearing the muscle down. Then you need to skip a day while the muscle takes time to rebuild itself.

https://www.centuryma.com has custom uniforms. Also a company called Bold Look which is were we got our demo team uniforms.

We have around 230 active students.

We have about 50 black belts at our school now mostly 1st dan, about 8-10 2nd dan and 2 3rd dan. They range in age from 10 - 30 years of age and all of them took at least 3 years to get their black belt. Out of all of these only a few are assistant instructors and just a couple are allowed to run a class. This is mostly because of age (very few parents want a 15 year old teaching there child) and because they don't have the expirence. I have heard of alot of schools that lose their black belts because they are forced to teach and also the instructor doesn't give them any new stuff to work on after their 1st dan. Our black belt retention is good because we have black belt only classes and are actually thinking of putting in 2nd and 3rd dan only classes. https://www.mafc.net

I just rolled with a guy that taught at Straight Blast. I really didn't take any formal calss. He was a good blue belt. They are very informal at their schools.

I trained with some of the guys at the Straight Blast gym in Portland. They are good guys and pretty much know what they are talking about. There is also Randy Coture's gym in Rockwood (east Portland) if you want some good ground and pound.

There could be a few reasons why he doesn't want to teach full contact fighting. 1. He might have not trained that way himself and doesn't know how to teach it. 2. He might be looking at it from a school owners perspective and thinking about the liability issue. We were pretty much a Olympic style TKD school until we decided that we do need more realistic training, plus I get kind of bored teaching just TKD and really want my students to be well rounded.

I don't understand how a valid instructor would need help with their cirriculum. Even though John Graden was a money hungery dork he had alot of good people around him giving seminars and showing other instructors and business owners how to make their schools better. If an instructor thinks that they don't need to know anymore about how to run a class then they are very closed minded. It's just like getting a black belt, you aren't done with martial arts, you are just beginning to learn.

We have belonged to NAPMA for at least 5 years or more. My instructor and owner of the school actually was a regional director. NAPMA is an organization that any style can belong to and they give you help on running a school whether it is business or curriculum. It actually gives you a whole lot of good resources and they had a convention every year with some big name people giving seminars. Now for the dirt. Century MA and NAPMA used to be one but because the president of NAPMA was an A-Hole and only cared about money he went back on his word to Century so Century sued him. NAPMA lost so the president was kicked out and everyone started to jump ship. NAPMA is barely holding on and will probably be gone in a few years since Century has MAIA (Martial Arts Industry Association) which is the same thing. If you are a school owner and looking for resources to help your business then I would look at MAIA. masuccess.com

It really doesn't matter what style you choose just as long as you like the school and instructor and think you are learning something worth while. If you are a wrestler then I would go with TKD or TSD then you would really work on some good kicks and distance control in fighting. On a side note I was just wondering how you could be still in high school and also in the Army going to Ranger school or Special Forces?

There is a TKD guy in our area who has the mullet but braided. If thats not bad enough he has his kids hair the same way. Along the same lines, when you get around alot of martial artists like at a tournament, sometimes you can't help but laugh at some of them. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones that just try too hard looking the part. Plus one more thing and I'll shut up but why are alot of Karate guys I see sporting a big ol' gut. No offense to Karate guys it's just an observation.