Top reasons for quitting

[Spartacus Maximus]

According to an article on fightingarts.com, 85-90% of people who begin training will quit. The most common reasons in order of frequency was given as

Personal & Job Time Constraints 31%

Moved Away From School 23%

Just Lost interest 18%

Injury/Medical Problem 13%

Classes Ran Their Term 8%

Finances/Cost of Classes 7%

Based on experience, are these reasons and frequencies an accurate description of your dojo or are there other reasons which should be considered? As for me, I would probably give loss of interest and boredom higher than moving away. The data given was for adults, so children and teens may have slightly different reasons

[CDraper]

I wonder if people fibbed some and the lost interest might be higher but they don't want to admit it to themselves.

[Lupin1]

I think it's very easy for adults to turn "loss of interest" into "personal & job time constraints". All that really is is a shift in priorities.

When you start out, you're all excited about karate and learning to fight and getting in shape and it's your top priority. As you go along and start losing interest, having dinner with your wife, preparing for that presentation (that you used to be able to prepare for before or after class no problem), or catching up on that new TV show all become higher-priority "personal and job constraints" that stop us from going to class.

Human beings are very good at justifying things like that to ourselves, but honestly, there's nothing wrong with it. Priorities do change for whatever reasons and as adults (and kids, too) those are choices we make every day and there's no use wasting your life at a karate class you're not all that interested in when you could be spending that time doing something else.

For kids, it's usually other activities that take higher priority. In the 30 something years we've ran our program, we've had maybe 4 or 5 kids go all the way to full adult black belt. For us that's a 7 or 8 year commitment. That's a long time for a kid to stay in one activity at the expense of others. For most of them, it's when they hit high school and want to go out for the basketball team or the school play. For me, I quit karate in 8th grade when I joined the US Naval Sea Cadets and then quit that when I got my first job. Kids move through activities as they grow. It's natural.

[bushido_man96]

I would imagine these figures are pretty close. You might have some that try to cover the fact that they got bored and use job/time constraints as a convenient excuse, but by and large, I would guess they are accurate. I know my own training took a hiatus here over the last quarter due to family duties and job time constraints. I work a rotating schedule, and go from day to night shifts throughout the course of the year. I can see where this can affect training time, and those who don't have as much time invested in it might be less willing to try to make it all work out in the end, and its easier to just drop it.

[JR 137]

I think the biggest factor that needs to be considered is age when started and age when quit/left.

I started at 18/19ish. Trained through college, and had to leave when I left for grad school. Couldn't return because I started a career that was a 6 day a week, evenings, weekends and holidays job (college athletic trainer). I trained 1 night a week (the only night I could train), but I was way too tired and spending that evening away from my wife wasn't justifiable to me after about 3 months.

A lot of kids leave for other activities and/or sports. Kids are kids, and there's nothing wrong with that. They leave other activities just as often.

Older kids leave for college. Nothing wrong with that, nothing you can do about it.

Recent college graduate aged people leave due to starting a new career that demands a lot of time.

A few years after that age is having kids age. No shame in dedicating your "free time" to raising kids.

These things are beyond any instructor's control. Life gets in the way.

Adults who've been in their chosen career for a while, raised their kids or don't have any kids, and aren't forced to leave due to relocating or losing their jobs typically stick around for quite a while.

When a dojo owner is competing with the above life situations, is there any wonder why the turnover rate is as high as it is?

My current dojo is full of people like me - started out around college age, life got in the way for a while, then returned when the pace of life calmed down. When I told my current CI my MA experience and why I stopped training, he chuckled and said 90% of his adult students have a similar history.

[IcemanSK]

In my experience, (I'm using a HUGE broad brush here) I've seen that tweens 10-13 tend to change their interest during that time period. At that age they tend to drop their former activity and pick up a new one. So, a child who comes into class at, say, 8, will likely stay until around 11-13 years old. If I get a kid at 13-14, I will probably have them (or at least their interest in MA, if not my program) into adulthood.

[Spodo Komodo]

I wonder if people fibbed some and the lost interest might be higher but they don't want to admit it to themselves.

When talking to someone who has already quit you rarely get a true answer, you get the projected version. This is the myth that the person has already worked out in their head to justify quitting, one that makes the decision seem rational rather than based on emotions. I would bet that if you asked people who trained with them rather than the people who quit you would get answers like:

"he was too out of shape for it"

"he and X were always trying to knock lumps off each other"

"he could only kick chudan when his friends could all kick jodan"

"someone commented that he needed to use some deodourant"

"he couldn't stand being shouted at"

"he had anger issues"

"his mates down the pub found out and were making fun of him"

All of these can quite happily be rationalised as "I haven't got time for this" by the person quitting. I have done this kind of research before and while it is easy to get some results that you can talk about, they do hide a lot of reality under convenient headings.