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It used to be the "a-ha" moments. But recently, it was coming to a true understanding of the value that I'm providing these people. How much they love it and value our academy as a part of their identity. When I get comments from parents about how this has changed their children's lives or their own lives, it's amazing to me. It just solidifies that this is what I'm supposed to be doing in life.

This is the response 99% of the time. Many people are too embarrassed by their actions to know how to approach you and apologize. They aren't strong enough to do it. So, by you saying it first, it helps them realize it's ok to admit they were wrong. In the future, I might suggest just talking to a person that acts like that toward you. When they are confrontational over what seems to be a trivial matter, just ask them how they're doing. This has worked for me on at least 50 occasions. Someone was yelling at me and I just stopped and said, "Are you ok? How are things going for you today?" Usually, it's something else entirely that they're upset about.

how can something slower and lighter hit harder? a rear cross uses most of your body weight, and travels really fast, a donkey kick uses very little body weight and travels at a slower speed, how can the donkey kick do more damage in some cases and about the same in other cases? There are a number of other variables that go into damage caused. -Movement of the opponent -Size of the striking surface -Opponent's propensity toward injury -You can probably name 30 others Damage is not a good indicator of force. It simply indicates that force was involved; a huge weakness of striking in general (a topic for another day). All kicks and punches should have your body mass behind them. But what is more important is how much of that mass gets translated directly into the striking surface. The closer striking surface is to the point of origination, the more mass will be transferred into the strike. Since the point of origination on all strikes is the ground and the legs are closer to the ground, there is less energy lost during the transfer. This isn't a really fair comparison, though, because the muscles of the body have the ability to add energy to the system during motion (the energy used during fiber recruitment). They both have rotational elements and just too many movements and intricacies to accurately measure.. a quick internet search will give you a plethora of different results on this topic. A more fair comparison is to simply isolate the specific weapon. A leg vs an arm. The arm usually has far less mass than the leg. So the leg wins in that regard. The velocity of the two can be nearly the same. This is why kicking tends to have more force behind it. If you have a 15kg leg and a 5kg arm, the arm moves at 10m/s and the leg moves at 7m/s you get (15x 7=105N for the kick and 50N for the punch) That's assuming a 30% difference in the velocities. I've seen some people that have kicks as fast as punches. This is where your original question comes in. "Does strength training help?" The answer is, yes, but it would need to be strength training that focuses on becoming fast, not just strong. Powerlifting or Olympic lifting are ideal for this type of goal. But they are not good for endurance. Again, another subject there.

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.

Power is Work over time. The faster the work is done, the more power. An example is lifting a 1000lb weight. A person who can lift that weight in 1 second has more power than a person who can lift that weight in 3 seconds. In general, what we mean when we say "power" actually isn't power at all. What we mean is Force (in physics terms). Force is equal to mass * velocity / time. Strength can aid in two ways: 1. Increase your mass 2. Increase your speed Therefore you increase the Force you produce.

I agree. In fact, I think you have a unique opportunity to show off the important character development traits that are unique to martial arts by approaching and apologizing for the way you said it. This gives her the moment she needs to become more humble and reciprocate with an apology for how she spoke to you. Apologizing first does not make you weak, it means you have a stronger self confidence and are willing to take accountability for your actions.

I think this statement hits the nail on the head. You've been teaching for so long and have developed such rapport in your community over time, that you probably don't need a website. If someone in your town wants to train martial arts, there's probably a local business owner or teacher or parent saying, "Go see Sensei 8." And this SHOULD be the goal of EVERY academy owner. However, for upstarts today, having a website is a great and affordable method of letting people know you exist. The world runs on the web and well over 50% of parents do a preliminary search on the web. For people starting today that want to run a school as a full time job...you should have a web presence. Good article though.

If it's hard on your body, why are you doing it? Doesn't seem to make sense. It sounds like what you're really asking is if you should train just TKD and dabble in JJ sometimes. That's different than training JJ.

Yup. Knee on belly isn't really knee on belly. It's knee on sternum. I remember when Mario Sperry did it to me. I thought he was going to crush my chest. Worst feeling ever.

Thanks, Sensei 8. As I qualified my poll by saying paid in money, the answer you're giving is "No, your instructors/assistant instructors, are not paid employees." I'll update the question to be more clear.

Hmm... This is an interesting question. I really agree with Sensei 8 and Kusotare on this. If we look at something else, say American Football, there are several variations. In the Mid-West, it's not uncommon to see some schools play a variation where each team has only 8 people because the schools are so small. But it's still football. 1 on 1 is still a basketball. I feel the differences that make it "not Shorin Ryu" need to be more conceptual and application than content. If we return to my football example, the goal is still go get the ball across the goal line within the confines of the rules set forth. Same for 1on 1 basket ball. It's not until I start using a different ball or changing the scoring methods that the game really starts to change. My specialty is BJJ. If I start teaching BJJ using Kata and point sparring, it's fair to say it's no longer BJJ. It's something else. But teaching BJJ without a gi on...that's just a no-gi version of BJJ. It's still BJJ. The application and concepts remain largely intact. Just my 2 cents.

Are your instructors/assistant instructors paid employees. For my purposes "paid" indicates they receive a wage...not barter for services. Also, I'm only speaking about those whom you allow to run a class without you present. If little johnny helps run students through warm-ups or kata or techniques while you help someone else on the floor...that's not an instructor for my purposes. I'm talking about that person that comes in and teaches entire classes on their own. Many schools have the habit of not paying instructors. In my opinion, this practice is just wrong and illegal. Here are my thoughts: 1. Instructors do not get to decide what hours they will come and what they will not. This makes them an employee. They have a set schedule they must adhere to. 2. The law states, "Under the FLSA, the pay you receive must be in the form of cash or something that can be readily converted into cash or other legal forms of compensation, such as food and lodging. Your employer cannot, for example, pay you with a coupon or token that can be spent only at a store run by the employer. Employee discounts granted by employers do not count toward the minimum wage requirement." So bartering for free training doesn't fit this mold. My instructors can't take their training to the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread with it. 3. It's the right thing to do. People who help you make money should get paid for their time. Free services should be a benefit or perk, not a form of payment. Here are some websites to help you decide: http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/11/irs-tax-barter-exchange-income-personal-finance-wood.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-rights-book/chapter2-3.html http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html What are your thoughts?

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community. It was a dream that started when I was about 15 years old. I wanted to operate my own martial arts academy as my primary job. So I did what most 15 year olds do. I modeled my design after what I knew. For the next several years, I watched everything that my instructors did. I came back from Iraq in 2004 and started training jiu-jitsu. By 2010, I felt I was ready. I had been instructing and assistant instructing for over 11 years, training martial arts since 1985. I've seen it all, right? No, I hadn't. What I had learned was only a small part of running a martial arts business. In the last 4 and a half years, I have learned much more. I would like to share, with you, some of the things you will need to know in order to run a successful martial arts academy as your full time job. Please note I'm talking about making it your full time job. Not just a side thing. Side gigs are far easier to run. Defining Success You need to know how to define a "successful" martial arts academy. It's easy to decide you want to do it, and many people think they are in one. But if you want to be in a successful academy, you're going to need around 150 or more students. This number will make it possible to earn a decent wage, pay the academy utilities and rent, pay your staff and maintain the facilities you have. Understand Your Market You need to know your market. Because I focus my academy on Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I always felt my market would be primarily adults. However, over time I realized I was way off on that assumption. Retention is the key to running a school (more on that later) and, usually, adults are only willing to train for a few years. Kids, however, tend to pick up an activity and stick with it longer. On average, you will need each student to train for at least 5 or 6 years, preferably longer. If you don't properly target the kids market, you will probably not last very long or just have a small school that can't sustain your personal needs. Keep in mind, too, that parents often join after they see how much their kids love it. Marketing Your Academy You need to understand the big 3 of academy marketing. Word of mouth, internet and direct-to-door marketing. These three things are what drives successful academies. Word of Mouth You really want this to be your biggest draw. The people who come in or contact you, that already know one or more of your students, are far more likely to join your academy than those who don't. Some students will talk about your academy constantly. Others will only do it when you remind them (such as asking them to hand out cards). Others will just never do it for their own reasons. There's a snowball effect to this, however. The more students you have, the better your word of mouth. The next two methods are of equal importance, but a successful school will have 5 to 10 new leads per month from word of mouth. Internet Whether it's social media or your academy website, the internet plays a huge part in marketing these days. The great news is that a lot of it is very inexpensive. It can be costly to start a website, but once it's there, all you need to do is point people to it. Between posts and paid advertisements on Facebook and Google AdWords, this can be done fairly cheaply. The biggest thing is to get over the learning curve and not be afraid to play with it a little. There are companies available to help you with this. My recommendation is to not go with one that builds the website without giving you control over it. This will create an ongoing expense and tends to generate so-so results over time. Also, pick someone to build your site that has a track record of building successful sites in the martial arts industry. I started with a graphic designer buddy of mine. He built a great looking site, but that's all it was. The copywriting (more later) was poor and the search engine optimization (SEO) wasn't that great, either. Plus, there were no lead capture contact forms. In other words, if someone didn't feel like picking up the phone to call me, I missed out. Direct-to-Door Marketing The most effective method of this is door hangers that you put right on the front door handle of each resident in your town. This is a time consuming process, but will pay huge dividends. You can reasonably expect a 0.5% to 1% return on these. If you put out 1,000 each month, that's 10 responses each month. If even half sign up, you should be making your money back easily. A lot of people will tell you that this doesn't work. Chances are good that they didn't do it right. They only did it once or twice or they used a coupon book (big waste). That said, when it comes to distributing door hangers or fliers, there are laws that come into play. Before you distribute anything, you should ensure that what you are doing falls in line with the laws in your area. If you are unsure or don't have the time to do door hangers, use the USPS Every Door Direct Mail service. It lets you do some great targeting and you can expect a 0.5 to 0.75% response rate. Prepare to do this each month. Build a map and be strategic with it. Know Your Worth Understand the value in what you teach. This is often the hardest thing for most academies and the reason why many fail. You undervalue what you do. It has taken me three years to truly value what I do. I always thought of it as a luxury for people. In some ways it is, but that does not make it less valuable. It took several parents coming to me to tell me how what I do has changed their child's life; how it changed their behaviors and their focus. You have all heard the stories. Now it's time you understand you deserve to get paid for them. I used to charge $60/month. I was driving myself bankrupt. Now I charge $109/month and no one bats an eye. In September, the cost will go up to $119/month and that's where I'll keep it for a while. The price you charge tells people what you feel you're worth. Again, if you only want a part time place, then $60/month is fine. But if you want to run a full time school and dedicate your life to it, you need to charge what you're worth. This is something you need to become comfortable with. You can't let others tell you anything about it because they won't pay your bills, and they certainly aren't the ones feeding your children. The same goes for your instructors, who often shun the idea of making money in the martial arts. Making money is not evil, as long as you do so in an ethical manner (more later). With that said, of course you want to be competitive in your area. If you are charging $200/month and the rest of your competitors are in the $100 range, you may find it difficult. But if you're charging something more competitive, say $120 and your quality is very high, you'd be shocked at how many people will choose you. Read about the quality, speed and price triangle. Chose quality and price! Retention Retention is the key. Let's do some math. Let's say you gain an average of 10 students per month. You have a 90% retention rate (you lose 10% of your students each month). If you start in month 1 and have 50 students, you will gain 5, and lose 10 for a total overall gain of 5 students. If you have 101 students, you will lose 10.1 students and gain only 5, this means you have an overall loss of 10 students. It doesn't take rocket science to see this is not good. This leads to two big questions. What's a good retention rate and how do you increase retention? Your Retention Rate What's a good retention rate? First, you should be shooting for more than just 5 new students per month. In fact, your goal should be 15! That's not that hard if you're getting 20 to 30 leads per month. But a good retention rate is around 95%. This number will keep you in great shape. Especially when you consider that, as the number of students in your academy rises, so will the number of leads you get. Improving Your Retention Rate How do I ensure I have great retention? Earlier I said something about running an ethical business: here's where that comes in. If you make a claim, back it up with action! If I tell parents their children's grades will improve with martial arts training, I sure as heck better have a system in place to monitor that so I can back it up! The same goes with any claim you make. This is called "being a trustworthy and honorable person!" Do what you say you will do! Create a community at your academy. Along with being a place of learning, it should be a place your students like to come to for social interaction as well. The stronger this sense of community, the better your retention will be. Social gatherings such as parties and picnics are great ways to assist with this. Use enrollment agreements. Contracts, yes. Again, if you're an ethical person, no one will think twice about going into an agreement with you. But you need to be upfront about what the purpose of an agreement is. There are two: create a culture of commitment and help the business. The culture of commitment is great. I've had so many people come in and say, "Will you be here in a year?" With enrollment agreements you can say, "Yes, without a doubt." This makes a big difference. Be exceptionally organized. When you think things are perfect, start at the beginning and look again. I highly recommend a rotating curriculum. It changed my whole school for the better. Your instructor won't like it at first, but when they see that the black belts are still learning the right stuff, the quality is still there and you're succeeding at the same time, they just may do it, too. Learn to Create Your Own Advertisements Learn about effective copywriting. Educate yourself on how to use a good graphic design program. Advertising can be expensive. If you learn to make your own quality ads, you'll go a long way and save thousands per year. Equity You should research building equity, especially in a business that doesn't have much equipment. This is another huge reason to use enrollment agreements. Black Belt Shouldn't Be Easy A lot of experts would disagree with me on this. But the recent trends demonstrate I'm right. BJJ, Muay Thai, JKD and Krav Maga have shown huge gains recently. Many schools have started up programs with them. Three of those arts don't even have ranks. People aren't concerned about rank, they're concerned about authenticity and effectiveness. In other words, don't be afraid to make your students wait an extra year or two for black belt. Of course, you should be organized and ready to deliver on any promises. Pay Your Staff For one, it may be illegal not to pay them. It's also the right thing to do. Think about it: if you're charging $130 per month, with 150 students, you're pulling a yearly revenue of $234,000. Figure into that about $4000/month in expenses and you're making $186,000. The ethical thing to do here is pay your staff. This won't likely cost you much more than $40,000/year, anyway. Track Your Business Stats At a minimum, you should track leads, lead source, lead Conversions, attendance and retention at a minimum. There are tons of programs out there that will do it for you if you aren't good at this type of thing. Staff Meetings Have weekly or monthly staff meetings: be sure you train them, inform them on upcoming events and ensure they are meeting your expectations. Also, get some training in human resources (HR) so you have a good idea on how to handle HR issues such as dating clients and ethical hiring and firing policies. Develop Systems Everything you do, from beginning to end, should be repeatable. This is the only way you can track the effectiveness of what you did. In the end, that's the measure you care about the most. Hire an Accountant Hire an accountant for consulting. You want to be sure you're paying people, including yourself, and dealing with the money in a legal manner. This is a no-brainer. Have Fun! Finally, have fun with it! If you manage to run an academy for the rest of your life, you're a lot like a professional ball player or other celebrity. You are getting paid to do something you absolutely love. Never see it as a job. You'll spend far more than 40 hours a week at the academy or at events associated with it. Be sure you're having fun. When you're not, take a vacation. Hope this was helpful! Feel free to ask me any questions you wish!

Henry Akins is a master of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Rickson Gracie. Here were his words regarding this same subject. I believe they hold weight here: “What does a belt in Jiu-Jitsu mean? I've been asked some form of this question a lot lately. Like one person told me they did not feel they deserved the belt they were given, another person asked me what is the difference between a blue and purple belt and had someone else say they are a blue belt but should be a purple... I'm sure many of you have heard something similar. The truth is: THERE IS NO UNIVERSAL STANDARD IN JIU-JITSU FOR WHAT ANY BELT IS! It is completely based on your instructor and even with the same instructor, instructors hold different students to different standards. Sometimes these standards are based on performance like placing well in tournaments or if someone is able to submit a certain level of their training partners in training. Sometimes the standards are based on having a certain level of knowledge so a test might be given. Sometimes the standard is based on the amount of classes attended assuming that after a person has attended a certain amount of classes then they should have a certain level of knowledge. One of the experiences I had that really made me start to think about what a belt means and who deserves one was after a brown belt test done by Rickson for 8 guys probably around 2008-2009. Rickson rewarded all 8 guys with their brown belts even though I was there and helping to grade and I felt about half the guys failed the test. Afterward I asked him why he gave the belts to one of the guys that I thought had failed and he told me this. This guy was 50 years old, had been training consistently for years once a week, every Saturday. He would never achieve the level of world champion in any belt but it doesn't mean he does not deserve to get promoted for his persistence and dedication. This was the first time it really dawned on me that the belt is not even based on performance and level or knowledge. This was a guy that was really strong, and tough, was excellent at making tiny adjustments to defend so he was tough to tap out but had almost no offense at all. He didn't have a huge arsenal of techniques and wasn't necessarily smooth at all either, what I thought would kind of be the standards for a brown belt, those were the standards I felt I was held to. Rickson however made me realize not everyone has the potential to reach the same level but everyone has the potential to become a black belt with hard work, persistence and dedication. If you think about it, even within a certain school where everyone was promoted by the same instructor, even among guys with the same belt and stripes no one is ever of equal skill level and training level. Some guys are faster, some guys are stronger, some guys are heavier, some guys have great guards some have great defense, some guys have great mounts or cross-sides, but even with twins their skill level and performance will be different. So my message to you all is do not worry about the color of your belt, focus on learning and growing. The most important thing is you are improving as a person and a martial artist, let go of your ego and focus on becoming more efficient with the techniques of Jiu-Jitsu, if you put the time in the belts will all eventually come.” If anyone wants the source of this quote, I can provide it in a PM.

Practice more. You don't pull the tricep, you hold and allow your body to scoop it out. This is extremely easy after a few years of practice. If your opponent has the tricep against the ground, where you can't pull, you should switch tactic and kneel on the arm.

Well taught. This is the kind of detail I would expect from a Renato Tavares student. Nicely done.

Thanks for sharing. Is one of these you?

Why are you leaning toward Karate? Do you have experience in it? I would recommend, if you're interested in strong self defense, also considering Judo, Jiu-Jitsu and even more modern arts like Krav Maga. Just a suggestion. Edit: This is not to say that Karate isn't a good choice, just curious as to why you're shutting out other options before having background in them. Also...all instructors are going to tell you the basics: "We focus on self defense here. Your kids will learn more discipline and increased respect. yada yada yada" That's not to say it's not true...but it's typically true of many academies. They all feel they focus on self defense.

I find a jiu-jitsu school and train there. If there's no Jiu-Jitsu school... I don't go.

Yeah... this is a great article. For anyone here aspiring to be a martial arts school owner, you would be shocked at how much a pro-shop can bring in. Doing it right is a must. I would also add that most credit card billing companies are making it very easy to set up online stores these days as well. I highly recommend you do it. Additionally, I recommend you have your pro-shop sales set up to go directly into an interest bearing account. This is a great way to keep the money out of sight. It can be used for more inventory, academy upkeep and EOY bonuses.

Tang Soo Do, Shotokan and Chun Kuk Do will all have some similarities. Because TSD is derived from Shotokan and CKD is derived from TSD, they are a family. There will be some huge differences as well. American Tai Karate is an "American Karate" system. Someone put several styles together and called it their own. Hapkido has alot of similarities to Aikido. It also has a Korean sword component. Of what you listed, this would be most interesting to me. In the end, you just need to visit them all and see which you like the most.

Thanks for the update! Good luck in the continued recovery. It's hard to get past the psychological barriers. I've never had to do it, so I can't really give authentic advice. I have several friends that have said similar things, however. It took a while to truly trust the knees again.

Thanks for sharing this information, Brian. I just wrote the instructor training manual (over 100 pages) for my academy and am in the process of proofing and editing now. I might use some of this.

Thanks for the comments! Much appreciated.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing is that you are in an environment where you can learn and do well. Go where you're most comfortable and stay there for a few years. Also, tell your dad that you're 16 and can talk to the instructor yourself. Don't be rude about it. Even thank him for paying for the lessons and caring about your wellbeing. But simply say you want to have control over those types of decisions on your own.