Martial Arts Education

I was speaking to a school owner from a pretty typical suburb the other day, it was really entertaining, and I thought you might find it interesting as well (which he gave me permission to share with you). So, this gentleman, a nice, sharp guy, has been running his school for 14 years, and has been “stuck” at about $26,000 a month gross for the last seven years.

Somewhere in the middle of rushing between activities, places and people, somewhere in the crevices of our wall-to-wall work schedules, there is the time we take for ourselves. This is when we do something a little extra for ourselves—perhaps a hobby or simply to relax and focus our minds to reorganize our thoughts. A little ...

In the daily routine of running a business, it can become easy to look for patterns that make our lives easier. In fact, looking for patterns is built into the human psyche. So many strange photographs and ghost sightings can be explained merely by the fact that the human eye is predetermined to find the ...

Most of us know Joe Corley as the man who started the famous “Battle of Atlanta” martial arts tournament. He also runs several very successful martial arts schools, and shares his knowledge with other NAPMA members about how to “get there” and how to “do it.” When I talked with Mr. Corley recently, we didn’t ...

  As with many of you older martial artists, I trained intensely as a young man, and tested my skills and myself many times. I believe this to be a natural process for anyone wanting to be serious about martial arts. We all want to have knowledge, and we all want to know if this ...

I’ve recently been reflecting on the impact my programming has had on people and the difference between what I hear my students say today as opposed to when I taught only a traditional martial arts program. In the past, the compliments were mostly about how a child improved in school or how much more confident ...

Sometimes you learn things in the strangest places. Being a writer, I’m always looking for story angles and tidbits of information to pass onto MAPro readers. I recently ran across a fascinating article I believe relates directly to most of the instructors in this industry. The article was bout, of all things, fishing, and the ...

In last month’s column, I addressed the importance of teaching a kickboxing introductory class and why the introductory instructor should focus on three primary objectives: safety, building rapport and making sure students have fun. These three objectives are most important, but don’t treat your fitness kickboxing student like second-class martial arts students. Take the time ...

Staying focused on fitness for a long period of time is difficult. The fact is most people stop working out consistently because they are easily distracted or bored. Most people are drawn to fitness because they want to look better. Unfortunately, that kind of motivation is usually short-lived. It lasts long enough to convince people ...

Which do you think more adults are looking for, shedding unwanted pounds or after-school programming for their children? The fact that many adults don’t have after-school age children is one clue that fitness is a much bigger market. There has never been more interest in fitness and weight loss than there is today. Everybody wants ...