Many people (myself included) dream of being full-time MA instructors. However, most teachers have other jobs and teach part-time. This is true in Okinawa and Japan, as well as the US.

I wonder if there are some fields that attract MA teachers and students more than others? I'm not sure, though. It seems my teachers over the years have been a pretty eclectic bunch.

My teachers have been:

School bus driver

Construction worker

Bartender

Graduate student

Medical doctor

University professor

Police officer (retired)

Full-Time MA teacher

As for me, I'm a high school teacher (and former cop). I'm just a part-time MA teacher, too.

So, is their a career path that attracts MA weirdos like us?

My sensei is a cop.

I was previously a detention officer and part of an immigration task force with homeland security.

Now I'm the milk man

I've been blessed in that I'm a full-time MA instructor; I've done nothing else.

my full time instructor is retired, but he was a welder and before that he owned a small store. My other instructors were govenerment employees, fire fighters and one was a coffee truck driver!

In addition to doing about 19 hours a week of Karate teaching (excluding training), while being an instructor I have in my 'real life' been:

- a student

- a professional in the comms (advertising/marketing/PR) field

- a member of the Army

I install seamless gutter and also work for a small printing company. Those subscription cards in magazines- I print about a million a night.

I've trained under and with a plumber, an owner of a construction company, a law student, a couple cops, a philosophy professor, a chiropractor, a hairdresser/computer repair guy/minister and who knows what else.

I'm an British Literature Ph.D. student/in a few years (hopefully) Literature professor.

I read poems to my students while I make them do pushups. (Not really. But I should.)

I am a Nuclear Medicine Technologist who works as a validation engineer, testing and assisting in the design of PET, PET/CT, PET/MRI, and SPECT imaging equipment.

Well, I'm ex forces, I was a bar manager, then an "office jockey" for a major Telecommunications company.

I dream of being full time but I don't earn anything from from it so would have to change my ethics

I am a government chemical scientist, with a majority of work done in water chemistry and transmission vectors for human and ecological health.

I have trained under Pharmacologists, Construction workers, Structural Engineers and Dentists.

Its amazing that, no matter what the profession or background one comes from, Martial Arts can bring us together on a common ground.