What Makes A Dojo/Dojang Good?

[ZeRo]

i like that to kickchick, the garden thing. luckyly we dont have many "weeds" in our classes.

[karatekid1975]

That is good Kickchick. Fortunately, we don't have many "weeds" either. The ones that are "weeds" don't last past yellow belt in my dojang. There are some egos (with the higher ranks), but I deflated one of them Now she's my friend (or acts like it hehehehe). Other than that, we train hard and seriously.

[Kyle-san]

I agree .... unfortunately some school's cannot "afford" to kick students out --- schools that are in ma strictly for business.

 

This is the kind of dojo I was talking about, where the instructor could be very good, but since they're running it as a business, they can't weed out the bad students.

 

I'm pretty against martial arts being a business, but that's just personal opinion and another story.

[ZeRo]

but it has to be a business to keep its self open. it needs money to stay open and cant afford to kick people out.

[Kyle-san]

but it has to be a business to keep its self open. it needs money to stay open and cant afford to kick people out.

 

Making enough to keep itself open is an entirely different thing than making money for the instructor to live off of. An example I'm fond of is my Aki Jujitsu club; the monthly fee is $20, most of which goes to a fund to get proper mats and other equipment for the club. We work out in a community centre that charges $20 a night for rent, so it's fairly cheap.

 

On the other side of things was the TaeKwon Do club I attended for a few years. The instructor had a job as a teacher during the day and taught TKD for 2-3 hours a night, three nights a week. He had well over a hundred regular students in the club and charged them $35 a pop, got a cut of the testing fees and Black Belt fees ($50 a year 1st degree, $100 a year 2nd degree, $150 a year 3rd degree, etc.). He made enough to pay all his bills and get a new truck just off of the club.

 

That's the kind of business that bugs me.

[kenpo4life]

A dojo that sticks to the traditional values while still maintaing a high degree of practical and intense training.

[JerryLove]

I miss the problem with an instructor making a living teaching. Piano teachers do it for prophet, so do school teachers. Movie martial artists do it as well.

 

Which do you protest? Do you protest that a martial artist can teach and run a school and not have to have a second job to avoid starvation? Or do you just think they should live in cardboard boxes?

 

Why do so many martial artists think there is something magical about this endevour that people should sacrifice to teach others?

 

Did you learn $35 per month woth of material? If yes, I don't think you should begrudge a man making money (unless you work for free and live in a cardboard box). If not, you should (and did) leave and find somewhere that gives you your money's worth.

 

BTW, my local movie theater charges me $8 per ticket. Taking a lady out to a move (not counting dinner) usually tops over $30. They could make their expenses for half the cost. How dare such a craft want to turn a buck.

[omnifinite]

I think the issue with teaching martial arts for money is when the money comes first (i.e. inflated belt test fees, putting filler in classes people could do at home in order to make them pay for more time in the end, making thousands doing seminars when they may barely know what they're talking about, etc). Without experience it's hard to gauge the quality of what you're being taught. At least when the instructor makes it clear that the teaching comes first (there are many ways to do that, teaching cheaply is one of the more convincing), it makes you more comfortable putting your faith in them. When money comes first to an instructor they might get you killed down the line.

 

I personally have no problem with my instructor making a profit (I pay more than most people) as long as my personal advancement is still the first priority.

[Kyle-san]

I miss the problem with an instructor making a living teaching. Piano teachers do it for prophet, so do school teachers. Movie martial artists do it as well.

 

Which do you protest? Do you protest that a martial artist can teach and run a school and not have to have a second job to avoid starvation? Or do you just think they should live in cardboard boxes?

 

Why do so many martial artists think there is something magical about this endevour that people should sacrifice to teach others?

 

Did you learn $35 per month woth of material? If yes, I don't think you should begrudge a man making money (unless you work for free and live in a cardboard box). If not, you should (and did) leave and find somewhere that gives you your money's worth.

 

BTW, my local movie theater charges me $8 per ticket. Taking a lady out to a move (not counting dinner) usually tops over $30. They could make their expenses for half the cost. How dare such a craft want to turn a buck.

 

Again, the situation I had posted was in which the instructor had a decent paying second job and was only putting in 5 or 6 hours a week to the martial art instruction, but had huge payoffs as a result. If all the instructor is doing is running a dojo and making his/her money that way, it's not a big deal to me, but then (I've found) the quality of instruction drops as the flow of money increases.

 

In fact, I didn't get my money's worth each month. As a result, I left the club and found a place where I am getting my money's worth. As for the movie theatre analogy, that's completely different than peddling an art on the side for some quick money.

[JerryLove]

Again, the situation I had posted was in which the instructor had a decent paying second job and was only putting in 5 or 6 hours a week to the martial art instruction, but had huge payoffs as a result.

Good for him! If he is charging more than the material is worth, that's bad (leave). If he is negligent (can't teach today, busy making money elsewhere) that's bad. If he's just generally hiding costs (only $35 per month... plus insurance, uniform, testing every 2 weeks, air-conditioning fees, fees for extra classes...) that's bad.

 

I'd love to make a lot of money working 5-6 hours selling widgets on the internet. I'd love to do the same hosting a for-pay site. And I see no problem making a lot of money in a little time teachin martial arts successfully. If you have a good and honestly sold product and can make money with it, more power to you.

 

I agree with the underlying "out for money is bad" when applied the way I think many people are referring to (ever buy a car?), I don't think that there should be hard "shouldn't make more than X per hour in marital arts" limits imposed to remain good.