It’s time to talk about fitness, more specifically, martial arts fitness; teaching, marketing and making it work for you. No, fitness kickboxing is not dead. In fact, many schools currently have thriving adult fitness programs. The big difference is there are many people that will teach you how to make an after-school program work, but no one will teach you how to make a fitness kickboxing program work-until now.
Before I start, I want you to know me, and why you might want to listen to what I have to say.
I have made a full circle during my long martial arts career. I started by running a tough, hard-nosed Karate school, with plenty of full-contact kickboxing. I then moved to a thriving, family-oriented martial arts school packed with kids, and finally to my current role, as owner and licensor of Ultimate Bodyshaping Course (UBC) martial arts-fitness studios. All the changes I made had two things in common: I always followed my passion and the market.
When I first started martial arts as a teenager during the ‘70s and early ‘80s, martial arts was very different. At that time, there were few kids in the schools and it was a very rough activity.
When I opened my first school in 1983, at the age of 19, I thought I would become the next Joe Lewis. I focused on becoming, and then became, a world kickboxing champion.
I was fortunate to open my school in 1983, because the following year the hit movie, The Karate Kid, was released. It was my first lesson on adapting to a changing market. I went from a blood-and-guts Karate school to a business helping families.
I jumped into the family martial arts business with both feet. My school grew to nearly 500 active students. I had three full-time and two part-time employees, and I was generating $30,000 to $50,000 a month in revenue.
For more than ten years, I enjoyed teaching children and their parents and being involved with so many families. I felt like I was really making a positive impact in my community; however, after a while, my passion diminished. I wanted to return to training adults. I honestly was tired of having parents expecting so much of me, and sometimes to the point of making me feel as if I were responsible for raising their children.
I also was tired of feeling like I had to provide lifetime career opportunities for my employees. Like most schools, my instructors were older teenagers or young adults that had trained with me as kids. They now wanted me to provide them with well-paying teaching jobs or to open a school with them. I had so much overhead that, even though I generated $30,000 in monthly revenue, I still lose money.
Running a full-time, family Karate school was no longer a passion. I wanted to return to training adults. I was now 33 years old and no longer had the passion for full-contact kickboxing. I had grown to enjoy the fun, friendly atmosphere of my school and had no interest to return to a fighter mindset and atmosphere. Plus, “adult-only” martial arts was a very limited market.
I then created Cardio Karate with NAPMA in 1996. This was my first attempt to attract the adult market back into the Karate schools. With Cardio Karate, the focus has always been on variety: class structures, instructors and class times to attract a variety of prospects from the market. I still use this principle today.
