If you had lots of money

[The Pred]

This is for people who have a martial arts dojo and or run one. If you came into a lot of money, and student tuition wasn't no longer a factor for you to live on. Would you make your classes ten times harder?

[sensei8]

No!!

I wouldn't make it harder than it already is; that would be down right cruel, and down right wrong!! There's no sense in making the MA journey road any more difficult by adding one pothole after another; be true to yourself and most of all, be true to your students. Money shouldn't be the factor for training hard, and then even harder to reach the goal that one has set forward to succeed.

Train hard, and train well...EVERYDAY. Not for me, but for you!! It's your MA journey, just how honest do you want your journey to be?!

[Nidan Melbourne]

I teach students privately outside of the dojo that my sensei runs.

I would never make the path harder than I already make it. Nor would I make it any easier than it either.

One of my students is my fiance and the only thing I have had to change for her is one kata that I had to omit, but I added another kata in for her instead later on to make up for it. And that was for medical reasons that I couldn't ignore and there was no way i was going to put her health at risk for something. Not until she is to a health level that allows it.

And why would you come into a lot of money and the subsequently make it harder? I don't really see the sense in that to be honest. Someone else here might though.

I have seen people who have come into money thought and had become very slack in regards to their standards.

[The Pred]

Thanks for the feed back, just was wondering what some responses would be. With that being said, since you wouldn't make it harder, would you go back to less belts? I.e. White, Green, Brown Black.

[Lupin1]

Depends, I think. I don't own a school, but I'm an assistant instructor in our program. It's a free program run through a non-profit center for kids, so we don't have any monetary motivation for making it easy. We do, however, like to see kids stick with it as long as possible for their own benefit, as we think it's a positive thing for them.

For that reason, we've changed the syllabus around and added more belts to motivate them and keep them showing up (though I know my instructor would love to go back to just white, green, brown and black or even just white and black).

One thing we won't compromise on, though, is the standards for Shodan. So, although we've added more belts (including a youth black belt) to the kids' program to keep them going, it still takes about 7-8 years for your average kid to reach adult black belt. Unsurprisingly, that doesn't happen very often. In over 30 years running the program, our instructor has promoted a grand total of 14 people to black belt, most of them having started as adults.

If we ran the program for money, maybe that would change. Dunno. Probably. That's one of the main reasons my instructor chose to run the program as a non-profit.

[sensei8]

Thanks for the feed back, just was wondering what some responses would be. With that being said, since you wouldn't make it harder, would you go back to less belts? I.e. White, Green, Brown Black.

No!!

That's because I believe in our curriculum, through and through!! More or less belts wouldn't make anything better or worse.

[Nidan Melbourne]

Thanks for the feed back, just was wondering what some responses would be. With that being said, since you wouldn't make it harder, would you go back to less belts? I.e. White, Green, Brown Black.

No!!

That's because I believe in our curriculum, through and through!! More or less belts wouldn't make anything better or worse.

I agree because more or less belts don't really do anything for us.

Money is nothing when it comes to learning a valuable lesson.

[liger]

Thanks for the feed back, just was wondering what some responses would be. With that being said, since you wouldn't make it harder, would you go back to less belts? I.e. White, Green, Brown Black.

No!!

That's because I believe in our curriculum, through and through!! More or less belts wouldn't make anything better or worse.

I agree because more or less belts don't really do anything for us.

Money is nothing when it comes to learning a valuable lesson.

Double solid post!

[GojuRyu Bahrain]

Teaching for free alows me to not care about belts at all, just to share knowledge.

It also allows me to make the class as hard/difficult as I feel it should be to advance my and my students capabilities. If I see the need for speed and stamina drills we do that until exhaustion (often enough until I am totally exhausted 😀).

If I had any commercial interest I would use 9 Kyu ranks and be offering kids classes, for sure, with a junior black belt scheme where kids teach younger kids (i'd probably make teaching juniors a requirement for 3-1 kyu). I'd have special (mandatory) workshops for advanced belts and charge extra for that, too. I'm so happy that I'm free instead!

PS. Typically, my classes are very small (I like to think of it as oldschool Okinawa size😉) as most people seem to vavour the very common expensive-but-easy martial arts.