hello everyone,
i was thinking recently about asking Tim on what he thought made his school successful.

Then I thought it would be more interesting to broaden the discussion. Of course I'd like Tim and his students to contribute, but also I'm curious about everyone's opinions.

let me set a little more of a frame, i'd like to know what you think is important in two broad areas.

1. Whether the students progress and learn some of the skills the teacher demonstrates. That can be strictly martial, health, interpersonal, meditational or whatever your school and teachers focus on.

2. The popularity of the school. What makes the students dedicated, willing to invest the time and money to come? Equally what puts people off?

looking forward to reading your thoughts

Ed

Ed,

One of ther biggest turn offs for me is instructors who "peddle" isolated components of a system in order to maximise profits.

Often these isolated teachings are taught at seminars or retreats.The charge is often upwards of a $1000 per week.

Regular students are told these teachings are far too "intensive' to be taught in a regular school setting.Never mind that some who engage in these workshops are not qualified nor prepared.

So basically you have 'hard earned martial art students'sharing floor space with the typical new age GURU U grads.All are being taught this oh so valuable material.No sense of a technique being taught on the basis of merit or hard work.Everybody just lay your money up on the bar and MAYBE the master will give you a taste.

These instructors often speak in glowing terms of the Tung Hai Chuan method of individual tailored instruction.When the rubber meets the road,what they are really infering is "I was taught this way,but no one else gets the real stuff ".Of course there is no shortage of grovellers willing to become one of the "chosen ones ".In all practical terms their own instructional methods are more defined by the lowest common demoninator and how many 'numbers' can be taught in any given week or weekend.At the end of the day it all spells Ka Ching.

In short these are the 'world wide workshop instructors'Rarely do they produce outstsanding individual students.For some instructors it simply is not cost effective to teach in a more step by step and systematically traditional manner.And frankly perhaps not glamorous enough for some of these raving egomaniacs.After all who wants to labor with the day in and day out hard work of developing outstanding practitioners when there are young and sensuality filled kuas to be adjusted on the shores of Greece?

Hmmm...Say would anyone happen to know when the next teacher training workshop is?

Thanks CHL, I agree with what you say. I do find this kind of sale if exercises manipulative.

Here are some other topics I've been thinking of. Every now and then I pass a threshold of annoyance when people come to train, ozzing with enthusiasm, then disappear after a few weeks never to be seen again.

What annoys me most is the time and instruction they steal from dedicated students.

Sometimes I think it's worth testing propsective students. leave them in a uncomfortable posture for a long time, or tell them they can only start in 2 months time, or beat them with a hard object.

I think perhaps in the long term this would build a class of dedicated students. A slower recruitment, but a slower turnover too. I wonder how it would work in this modern hamburger martial arts atmosphere.

Has anyone tried it? What did you, or your teacher do? what happened?

cheers

Ed

As written in a previous post, I don't believe in a secret formula to produce good or competent martial artists, try and get individuals to agree on what constitutes good. In light of my own experiences from both teacher and student perspective, I think you tailor your programme to individual needs/goals, both student and teacher, but you can't satisfy everyone all the time including yourself.

If you teach for a living, in all liklihood you are going to at some stage be forced to make compromises between what is good for the 'business', and what is good for the students. Vetting students is a solution, but what do you vet for, are there hard and fast rules, or are you just drawing a line in the sand? I've been, and no doubt will continue to be, surprised by who has stuck with it and who hasn't (new age hippies included). Who the deserves the credit for the perseverance and the censure for the lack thereof?

I think you find your own niche, as much through experience or trial and error as anything else. Have the courage to develope a form of teaching that suits your personality, experience, the style etc., even if it doesn't match martial norms. Like your own training, I believe you can model yourself on someone but I wouldn't recommend trying to copy them. I believe it was a Chinese painter who said that those who imitate me in an original way will prosper, while those who copy me in a mechanical way will not. If you can develope a rapport with a student and the teaching sticks, well and good, but sometimes it doesn't work out, no matter how sincere the attempts on both sides.

Sorry if this doesn't answer your questions directly. My own style is to tend to pose more questions, rather than answer them, which I believe can be frustrating for some.

Hi Ed,

Do you remember me? Sounds like things are going well with your new family--I'm so glad!

I used to study hung gar, and the hung gar teacher did a lot of long, painful stance-holding and exhausting basics work. He didn't test students before accepting them, but the first class let you know what to expect if you stayed. (He says his own teacher required a lengthy interview before accepting students, but I don't know if that would be useful--talk is cheap.)

I stayed, but, frankly, I was the only "regular"--the other people came and went. The turnover didn't bother me at all as a student, and I didn't really feel that it held me back. But I felt sorry for the teacher because his income from teaching fluctuated wildly.

By the way, you're wondering why I dropped hung gar and that poor teacher. I didn't really--he quit teaching hung gar to study bagua, and I tagged along later. But I do think that if he'd continued, he would have eventually gained a reputation as a hard-core traditionalist and would have gotten more like-minded students.

But I would go the Painful Posture route rather than the Wait for 2 Months route because they'll just find a different school and not try you out, especially as you live in a large city where other schools exist. Or you could try the Beating With a Hard Object route...after the brain damage takes effect, you could build a zombie army.

Hey Ed,
I've found to have a (at least a moderately) successful school you need two things:

1) a teacher that knows his stuff and sincerely wants his students to learn.

2) a systematic method of teaching.

No matter how well you teach or how good your school is, the vast majority of students will quit within a relatively short period of time. It's the nature of the business.

I am also told that to be very successful (monetarily) you need to teach children, have a belt ranking system and advertise (I haven't tried any of the above, but the most commercially successful schools I've seen almost always have).

Hi Beth, thanks for the personal tale. I quite like the idea of the zombie army! And Tim no belts, advertising or children here. I taught my nephews and some other kids for a short time. it was exhausting!

A balance I've been wondering about over the years is the mix of refined movement, such as forms and solo exercises to partner work and sparring.

any comments or suggestions here. If I ran a full time school I might have times specially dedicated to one or the other, but as it is we get to meet 2-3times per week.

Right now I tend to play it by ear, see how people are doing, see if being hit would be a big problem for them, and see how they move in different kinds of situation.

Any other ideas or approaches?

Ed

I think high turnover is normal, and you are actually acomplishing the same goal as hitting the students, or making them stay in one postition for a long time. It is hard, so the people who are not ready quit. Students quit for a lot of reasons, but I think the most common are that it was harder than they thought it would be, and they are not ready to do the work. The reasons they give, are just the excuses that they make to the school, and to themselves to justify this.

I think that a successful school is one that excepts this as its nature, and has a teacher that believes in his program and finds the students that believe as well. Water will always find its level.

If you want the lazy people to stay, you have to make it easy, and give them the symbols that say they are succeeding, regardless of there actual ability. You are much better off measuring your success by the accomplishments of the students you have, and not by those you don't.

A GOOD martial arts school is by definition an elite institution, and normal people should not be allowed to contaminate it with their pathetic inclinations to mediocrity. The major requirement to create such an institution is a good leader who will maintain strict standards of competence regardless of other (ie. financial) considerations. Simply put, it is on the shoulders of the leader to ruthlessly drive out all weakness from the group.

The group itself is where training takes place. In my experience it helps to keep everyone on the same page about realism if the student base is heavily populated with people engaged in an ongoing first-hand relationship with violence, lots of cops, military types and assorted tough guys. So it is in the best interests of a school to recruit these people as students (like give them free lessons and lots of gifts like free seminars and stuff). The training itself has to maintain the edge that keeps everyone getting progressively sharper without serious injury, and it should be flexible enough so that all different kinds of use-of-force professionals can get what they need from the training. When you can pull together a group of motivated, skilled and experienced people and get them all working together on the common goal of refining themselves, the synergy that develops is the life force of a good training environment. The leadership is just there to cultivate this kind of interaction and provide technical information as necessary.

Also having regular opportunities for participation in competitive games is good for esprit de corps and individual motivation. Also it is good to regularly bring in guest teachers to keep the process of creative discovery fertile.

By the way, it is my own opinion that creating a good training environment and making a profit are mutually exclusive goals.

"...it is on the shoulders of the leader to ruthlessly drive out all weakness from the group."

Hey Jeff,
Did you used to train at the Cobra-Kai?

Wow...Vince Lombardi lives!!!

Miyagi,

I never trained at the Cobra-Kai. But since you asked ... how can I pass up the opportunity to give a plug for two good schools in the Taipei area: Gordon Preston's Taipei NHB, and Zhang Enhuang's Concord Martial Academy (for San Da).

Jeff
At our school near L.A. we are told we are going on a field trip and are shoved off in Watts (Ghetto). It's cheaper and weeds out the less skilled students instantly. It's a cheaper than free lessons to cops,Etc.