Martial Arts Business. The Path of Least Resistance (Yes? No?)

When to Take The Path of Least Resistance --and When Not To

First a definition (thank you Wikipedia): The “path of least resistance” describes the physical or metaphorical pathway that provides the least resistance to forward motion by a given object or entity, among a set of alternative paths. The path of least resistance is also used to describe certain human behaviors, although with much less specificity than in the strict physical sense. In these cases, resistance is often used as a metaphor for personal effort or confrontation; a person taking the path of least resistance avoids these.

For the martial artist and the martial arts school owner / teacher, the path of least resistance is the path to follow in any form of combat, but not the correct path when it comes to owning, operating, and mastering the art of running a martial arts school.

Example: My son, Keenan Cornelius (who I don’t mind bragging about), recently defeated his formidable purple-belt opponent Joao Myao at the 2012 BJJ Pan Am Games in less than 48 seconds (see it in this video) by following the path of least resistance. That’s good.

But following the path of least resistance as a martial arts school owner is, 98% of the time, exactly the WRONG way to go about the work. The martial arts world is fat-full of school owners who, in marketing, staff training, management, and business strategy in general, are looking for (or already following) the easy path. “Do it for me,” and “We’ve made it so easy for you, all you have to do is follow our system,” and my favorite, “Where can I buy that?” are the bird calls of those schools you can find in every town in the United States --and now this particular bird, an invasive species, has also migrated to the United Kingdom, Canada, and as far away as Australia.

Schools that follow the path of least resistance buy their programs from someone who’s done the work for them, so they don’t have to go through the effort or trouble to think up their own system, philosophy, educational programs (if such a thing exists in the martial arts world), curriculum, or marketing campaigns.

An entire industry has grown up around the school owner's path of least resistance, in that if a new school owner can manage to rent a space, put in some flooring, and hang an open sign, there’s someone who’s ready to provide the name of their school, the curriculum they teach (MMA! MMA!), the philosophy they espouse, and the marketing they "need" to do. Shoot, it’s so easy, we’ve got organizations actually telling us that we don’t have to have black belts to teach what they’re selling, as anyone can do it (a recent MMA curriculum advertisement from one slick and rather slimy “National” association).

Here's all the work you need to do for your bithdays parties, your fitness program, your after-school-care program, your little kids curriculum, and here, here's your martial arts philosophy, all put together by people who KNOW what they're doing. 

No, if you’re going to build a school with great value, with genuine value, and with the stuff that isn't a flash-in-the-pan designed to extract cash from both you and the customers you’ll attract (and then lose), the path of least resistance is exactly the wrong way to go about the work.

While telling you it’s easy and “all you have to do is buy our tried and true system” might sell a product, it hurts the school owner in for the long haul. It hurts a school owner because it shuts down the very part of their brain most needed to build a school with genuine value. It cools the fire that’s supposed to forge the steel a great teacher is made of. If you don’t have to think, if you can buy it all from someone who CAN think, if you don’t have to create, because a creative person saved you the trouble, and if you don’t have to guess, because someone’s taken the guesswork out of it for you, well...then what do you have to do? Sit back and watch the cash roll in? Turn the dials on the machine? Stand at the assembly line?

I wish I could pass on to every martial artist how easy it was for my son to defeat one of the toughest competitors in the world in his division, in less than 48 seconds. But it wasn’t easy. Behind that 48 seconds was 10,000 hours of practice, of training, of sweat, struggle, and blood.

That is why, in my work with school owners and teachers in The 100., I never, EVER, give out easy instructions designed to take the “work” out of the work. The easy path is poison, in most all cases, for the school owner who is looking for a career filled with all the best things about being a martial arts teacher.

The path of least resisitance is for someone seriously lacking in experience --or a fool --that thinks the easy path is the way to make the work come out looking like it's easy to do. The right path is to understand that the outcome that we’re seeking isn’t bought, it’s earned. There's some work that you should never let someone else do for you. You don't buy the work from your Professor in college, do you? Can you buy your Master's Degree in a box? 

Use the work to train yourself. Use it to distinguish yourself from the school owners who mistakenly think they can buy the skills you’ve trained 10,000 hours to develop. They can’t --and you’re not going to be a MASTER TEACHER, if you don’t take the time to do the reading, to do the study, to craft the work, and to test it yourself.

Beware the lure of the path of least resistance. It’s not the right path for the martial arts teacher who wants to be more than an exercise teacher --or the school owner who wants to develop something more than “a business.”

If you get what I'm saying, I would like to invite you to a school, for teachers of the martial arts, where the work is about developing your own work: The 100. If and when you're ready, click this link for a week's visit to our on-line campus. 

Martial Arts Business: A Letter to Prospective Students (My Exercise)

The following letter is part of a (almost) daily practice I engage in --and that I coach members of The 100. to engage in -- where I seek to revist, refresh, and re-engage the core of what it is I teach and WHY, through practicing the language of my work as a Master Teacher. 

This is an imaginary (feel free to borrow from it, if it speaks to you) letter to prospective members contacting my school, "The dojo."

For those of you who own schools, from a marketing perspective, this kind of "work" is, I beleive, 1000 times more important to how you dialog with your community --than ads you can purchase, programs you can buy, and anything that's "made for you." The language you use, the way you view your role, and how you communicate it, endlessly, through words and actions, IS your marketing, IS your curricuum, and all of it helps to define your value to the community you live in. 

---------------------------------

Thank you for contacting my martial arts school, The Dojo.

Before we meet again, I have some promises to make to you:

• First, I promise to be honest in the way we do business together. I will not hide my prices or the methods we use to collect the tuition we require to run our school professionally. I will never send you to a collection agency, I will never refer you to a “billing service” to solve a billing issue, and I will work with you through any crisis, issues, and/or concerns with the utmost care and respect. It is a part of my pledge as a Master Teacher to treat every person in my school and every member of every family involved with us, as if we were going to be friends and neighbors until the end.

• I promise to be more than a teacher of martial arts techniques. While at first glance my school must look like a place where people, essentially, learn hand-to-hand combat, that is only a small part of what I intend to cultivate, encourage, and/or impart as a teacher. Compassion and respect for others, non-violent conflict resolution, personal responsibility, health, a deep appreciation for friendship, for community, for literature, art, music, and family, all of these things --and more --are as important to me and what I teach and encourage, as what is so obvious about the study and practice of the martial arts.

• I promise to you that I will serve as a role model of a Master Teacher. I promise that you will be able to watch how I do business, how I teach, how I learn, what I engage in, what I eat, how I train, how I participate in our community, and how I deal with adversity, and see very clearly what the training I have recieved means, how what I’ve learned on the mats manifests itself in the world. Even when I fail, I promise to use that experience in a way that offers credit to how I have been trained and what it means to be a Master Teacher of the martial arts.

With every new student I take on, I feel it’s important to revisit why I started my school in the first place. I’m here to serve you and your family.

Tom Callos

Martial Arts Business: Mistaking the Basics for Marketing Brilliance

Marketing 101

This last week I reviewed a video of a martial arts business teacher, a friend of mine, teaching a group of school owners about how to market their schools. In the short video my friend stood at a white board and asked the group about the “kinds of marketing they could do.”

Well...out came the usual litany of methods, which included lead boxes, birthday parties, VIP passes, flier distribution, etc.

Now, while there’s nothing criminally wrong with that, it simply and painfully reflects just how far we have not come in the last 20 years, as this is, for all accounts and purposes, the same meeting, with the same content, we were having back in the mid 1980’s.

My thoughts?

My friends, STOP showing up for kindergarten for crying out loud --you’re in COLLEGE! No, in fact, you’ve graduated college and you’re supposed to be changing the fricking world! It’s “your time” --and it shouldn’t be wasted talking about lead boxes, ice-cream socials, pizza parties, referral contests, door hangers, sleep-overs, “ninja-nights,” summer camps, after-school child care, and two-for-one guest passes.

THOSE things are a given. They’re ever-present. They’re the brushing your teeth, washing your clothes, putting on your socks and undies, and putting your keys in the car’s ignition of the martial arts teacher’s life.

Everyone has to tie their shoes, but note: WE DON'T LIVE TO TIE OUR SHOES. We live, (to borrow from Walt Whitman) to sing the body electric.

The basics have to be on automatic. They're made of the things you do, that don't require a lot of thought, they're just a part of your practice. Talking about them, now, today, at this time in your career is, well...a bit of an embarrassment. It’s kind of an insult to your intelligence and, frankly, I think it can’t be making it any easier to focus on the things you could --and should --be focusing on.

The Solution to This Problem

Take a piece of lined paper. Get a plastic sleeve for your day-planner. Sit down one afternoon with your paper and start writing down all (as in ALL) of the things you can think of to promote your school. You know, all the tools under the sun. Here are a few to get you started:

Fliers
Lead-boxes (if you must)
Door hangers
Business cards
Postcard guest passes
Posters
School educational seminars / talks
A-frame signs
T-shirts
Referral contests
Groupon
Websites
Blogs
Youtube videos
and blah, blah, blah...

You will find this list isn’t infinite, but “finite.” Start the list and add to it whenever you hear about or think of another way, another tool to use, to market and promote your school. Keep the list in your plastic sleeve, at the very front of your dayplanner.

Now, that being done, you will NEVER, EVER have to pay to sit in another meeting where someone has to ask you --or remind you of --the ABC’s of how to market your school.

I’m reminding / telling you about this as I want you to take your marketing and promotion plan to a whole new level. I want you to think like a master teacher, like a chess player, like an educator, like a Nobel Prize winning genius. I want you to cultivate programs to promote your school that bring people to tears, that solve social problems, that tackle health issues, that reduce suffering, that inspire and lift, and that reflect a level of thinking, of understanding, and of clarity that is supposed to come with 10, 20, 30, and 40 years + of martial arts training.

If you show up to learn how to manage a school, as a senior, master-level, martial arts educator --and we have to remind you to brush your teeth and tie your shoelaces, we’re in deep fricking kim-chee.

Instructors, school owners, your position in the world is a (potentially) sacred one. You have the opportunity to play a role in the world, an immensely important one --OR, you can be the kind of teacher, the kind of manager and organizer that goes to seminars to be reminded of the most rudimentary, brain-dead aspects of school management.

To market your school in a way that distinguishes you, that’s dignified and intelligent, you need to cultivate your skills as a problem solver, not a flier distributor or party host. To market your school in a way that sets you apart from the tire store, the Curves, the health club, the Popeye’s Chicken, and the 22-year old who’s opening his first karate school, you need to cultivate your ability to pull off organized, multiple-step projects that involve planning, the forming of new relationships, that USE your experience and wisdom, and that transcend the lead box and the VIP pass.

Really, I’m not trying to insult you; I’m trying to direct you to a kind of work that gives credit to your life’s work. There’s a kind of marketing and promotion you can do that causes your brain to light up, that inspires, that builds esteem for our profession and that, in the long run, is far, far more profitable that picking the low lying fruit of basic, tired, formulaic marketing (empty of spirit, empty of meaning, purpose, and vision).

You needn’t forgot all the old tools, as many of them can still serve you, but recognize and rise to the idea that there are other things you can do to promote your work that can cause people to stop, look, and listen in a way that is indicative of the kind of mastery that brought you to the martial art world in the first place.

When you’re ready (as in “When the student is ready..."), reach out to me. I’m a teacher for school owners who are ready to engage in (and/or already doing) master-level work. Don't just promote, promote ingeniously.

You tie your shoe laces while you think about where your shoes are going to take you.

Tom Callos
530-903-0286

Martial Arts Business: Increasing the Perceived Value of Your Lessons

I just had an enlightening conversation with a martial arts teacher friend who told me that the “theme” of some of the business coaching his school is getting from a prominent martial arts “university” is about “increasing the perceived value” of what the school teaches --to the buying public. Essentially, the school is seeking to increase its perceived value so it may charge more money (what the school thinks it’s worth).

More perceived value, more justification for increased tuition (value = cost).

Sounds good, yes?

However, I’d like to point out that perceived value is bullshit. 

Actual value is not.

Why?

Perceived value that's not backed up by real, actual value means we're working on the sizzle, without actually supplying the steak. The martial arts industry (you and me) suffers, in part, because it wants people to think we do things we're not actually doing, for real. We want to charge more money, but we hardly give more than lip-service to the very things that might MAKE us "worth more money."

For example, I asked my friend if his school has ONE legitimate training program in any subject that might prepare teachers to teach something that has actual value, that actually solves a problem in his community.

My questions, his answers:

Do your teachers study or have they been trained in anatomy and physiology? NO.
Injury prevention? NO.
Nutrition or healthy diet training or education? NO.
Anger management? NO.

Bully Prevention Education? NO.

Gender bias, domestic violence, or girl's self-image issues / training? NO.
Non-Violent conflict education? NO.
Hyper-masculinity? NO.
Peace education? NO.

Meditation? NO.
Leadership? NO.
Pedagogy? NO.
ANY form of psychology? NO.

Buddhist principles, Japanese, Korean, Chinese history, or any course involving the principles of budo? NO.
Are the teachers on your team involved in any studies? Sit on any boards? Engaged in any educational projects that require learning, study, and any sort of academic study? NO.
Is anyone on your team involved in anything outside of teaching classes (your school) that brings actual value back to the school? NO.
Is anyone on your team reading books, taking educational courses, and developing curriculum components for the school, based on what they learn/study, to create programs of ACTUAL value for the school? NO.

So you’re saying that you want to affect how the community perceives the value of your training, without actually having any substantive, intelligent actual-value-building training for teachers?

"OK," I said, "let me ask you another question:"

If I were a parent (a consumer interested in your lessons) and I said, “Ok, I perceive that you and your school has great value. Before I pay you, could you show me your course outline and course of study undergone by your teachers? I’d like to see if my perception of your value is backed up with the meat and potatoes of real value. What training do you put your teachers through?

What would you show them?

He did not have an answer I perceived to be intelligent and/or worth the value he would like to have the public to perceive his school has.

And here, my martial arts teacher friends, is why our “industry” struggles. Why our turnover rate is so high. Why we have instructors come and go (as we can’t afford to pay them a wage that keeps them) and why we have martial arts “universities” that are still talking about putting out lead boxes, doing pizza parties, and trying to convince people we’re worth $1 more a day for our lessons.

What we want the public to perceive we know and do, is actually not what we know or do, nor are we doing much to change that, despite the fact that everything we need to do it is right at our fingertips.

I perceive you want to be worth a great deal of money, but that you’re unwilling to go through any sort of training, develop any sort of educational resources, or go through anything authentic to actually be worth that money. That is a problem. That is why we have membership contracts, meant to be enforced. That is why the new guy down the street can buy and advertise all the same programs you already call your own. That’s why he can write “We are a black belt school” on his wall, too. That’s why he can say the same words you do, use the same ads and images, and take the same sales courses, go to the same conventions, and get/do everything you do, AND undercut your prices. His actual value is your actual value. He’s just as shallow, unprepared, negligent, and well-trained as you and your team.

Do you want to affect the “perceived value” of your lessons to your community? Then start by changing your actual value. Start by going beyond a couple of seminars of training, buying the name-brand course and having that be the extent of your training education, start with ACTUALLY studying subjects that HAVE value, that SOLVE REAL problems, and that give your teachers a true foundation in things of value.

When you do that, it will set the course of your marketing, give you things of true, unique value, and you won’t be full of shit.

Tom Callos
www.the100.us

Martial Arts Business. Simple School Owner Success Tips, From Tom Callos

It isn't really complicated, this school and teaching success thing.

It begins with 1 person. You.

What do you really know? Everything you teach, your approach to teaching, the tools you use to teach, the language you use, your intent, and the results you seek to create are all based on what you've done, what you know right now, how you put what you know to work, and how you go about "sharpening your saw."

The reality is that you do not "teach martial arts." What you really seek to do is to inspire people to move, to grow, to be interested, and to be engaged. The martial arts is a great tool for that, as it's reasonably engaging --and in fact, some aspects of what we practice requires full engagement, yes?

Once someone is "engaged," what you really know and think --and your intention --then has a chance to go to work. This is the place where what you know, at this time in your life, shines through --or demonstrates that you are still in need of some significant growth.

It begins with 1 person. You.

What do you really know about the world? What have you studied (enough to make you an "expert"?). How do you describe what your work really is? How do you use words? What is important to you? How self-absorbed are you? How afraid --or unafraid --are you?

My son, Keenan, is currently considered the best competing purple belt in BJJ in the world. He's training, to the point of exhaustion, 4 to 6 hours a day, 5 and 6 days a week. His teammates are also world-class competitors --and so you can imagine that the workouts are intense, yes?

Keenan's efforts to be the best are a perfect example of the effort you need to put into your cultivation of knowledge, Teacher, to be a world-class Sensei. Lot's of people play BJJ, like me for example, but to be a world-class competitor one needs to practice with vigor, intent, and mission.

If you want to have a martial arts school that earns you and your team a world-class income, one that takes care of all financial issues, I'd like to suggest that you get focused --and apply yourself with a world-class effort --Every day for 4 to 6 hours. Intense, focused, passionate, and driven --that's how you become a world class school owner.

It begins with 1 person. You. It happens every single day, day at a time. It's what you eat, what you read, how you practice, what you think, and who you learn from.

It's simple, because it's a one-day-at-a-time thing.

But note: You MUST get on the mat. You won't earn the money or have the happiness you seek to create, to be, if you don't put in the time. You will still "be alive," but chances are you won't be doing what it takes to be a world class teacher, school owner, leader, and value creator. 

At the core of business and personal failure (marriage, money, contentment, wisdom, business, living in the here and now) is the person and his or her belief system, knowledge, and resourcefulness. Leases can be signed, school layouts can be created, signs can be bought, contracts assembled, marketing campaigns initiated, and curriculums documented by people who are not yet great teachers ---people who simply cannot impart enough value to others to create the success they imagine they're worth.

As a teacher myself, the first thing I analyze and ask questions about when I'm helping someone with their business is what the owner's PRACTICE is. What does he or she do as a daily practice? See a person's practice, how aware he or she is of the now, what he or she makes a part of her daily living, and you can begin to get a handle on what kind of value a persons efforts can create.

For real success, deep success, the kind of success that spills out into other people's lives, a sustainable kind of success, the training begins with the owner. You.

That is, in part, what this work, the 100. is about. What we have here is a place for you to study and to practice. What you hear and see here on our campus you typically won't see or hear any where else in the martial arts community. That's due in part because this work isn't a sales platform. We've nothing to sell you here; this is a place of inspiration, of sharing, for thinking, and for honesty-in-practice.

Here's How I Suggest You Begin --or Re-Begin --To Make it Simple, as a Practice

• Work out, at least 5 days a week.
• Read, every day --and don't read trash, read the best books, magazines, blogs, etc.
• Meditate, every day --and study meditation from masters like Thich Nhat Hanh.
• Eat for health --and make food a part of your teaching.
• Do for others, above and beyond, as a daily practice.
• Study some discipline or school of thought that helps you cut thru the BS, that helps you cope with self-dillusion, ego, fear, possessiveness, attachment, self-centerdness, anger, resentment, and right-thinking. If you don't do this, you are destined to suffer unnecessary pain.
• Stop talking about yourself --and start engaging in the stories and lives of others. If your advertising is about you, you're screwed (until you grow up).
• Learn and practice masterful time management.
• Study management and leading others, as you're going to want to do a lot of both.
• Simplify. Simplify and reduce. If you want nothing, if you don't need to buy anything, you greatly reduce your stress. Don't keep up with the Jones's out of ego and consumer consciousness. Buy only what you absolutely need --and find wealth in the simple life. Nobody really gives a hoot about what kind of car you drive.
• Your physical skills have value, but it's your philosophy of life and service to others that, in the long run, will really bring you wealth (that and your self-dicipline / work ethic).

Martial Arts Business: Own a School? Developing Value a Priority?

You Weren't Trained to Apply Yourself to THE WORK

Let's admit it, as we were coming up as students/teachers, most (if not all) of us were NOT "trained" to apply any sort of academic or professional rigor to our methods of community service, community integration, community education, and/or course development. 

We were not guided to develop documentation of our efforts as proof of what the foundation of our efforts / education / and training are about --or what they produce. 

But HAD WE, marketing our schools, gaining credibility with educators and school administrators, and other people  and entities within our communities, AND providing valued services that actually address and/or solve relevant-to-today problems in our communities would be, well ----it would all be very different than what "we" do today as martial arts teachers. 

We came up in a school, most of us, that had a very, VERY narrow focus of effort and curriculum. Some of us came up in a business-education environment where billing services and "consultant" associations were the primary providers of teacher education and school-management-focus ---and those institutions, which in the past I played a significant role in, only just scratched the surface of ANY sort of intelligent approach to teaching, to intent, to mission, to actual education, and to anything but the most rudimentary, simplistic approach to "the work." For the sake of argument, there are/were exceptions, of course, but in general the industry has been absorbed in and propagating a "freshmen year" "dance / health club" approach to the work of the martial arts teacher --for more than two decades now. 

In this work, The 100. and The Ultimate Black Belt Test, which you are part of, we are redesigning HOW we think about who we are to our community. We're rethinking WHAT we are capable of, HOW we "make money" --and from WHAT. We are breaking out of the very narrow box, definition, description, and role of teacher/business owner that the industry has, for all accounts and purposes, accepted as "the standard."

To make your career more profitable and meaningful, I suggest you reject the industry's dominant paradigm of school management, curriculum, and marketing. Unsubscribe from the magazines, for now, that promote a kind of repetitive, brain dead approach to "school success." Disconnect from the sales conferences and conventions and seminars (except for technical) promoted by the industry. Refuse to participate in the idiocy of the franchised, boxed, pizza party, milquetoast world of the billing services and the multitude of "consultants" promoting the same old, tired approach. Refuse to participate in the time-wasting dialogs on Facebook about "overcoming sales objections," and what two-for-one deals and cage-fitness programs schools are jumping on this month; instead, jump into the world of avant garde education and educational technology. Launch yourself out of the current and popular description of what a Sensei does, for a living, and how a martial arts school serves its community. 

In every group there are people who major in minors, people who get stuck, and who are driven by motivations that, in the end, are about the most inane and misguided ambitions. Then there are leaders and people who grow, purposefully; people who break out of the herd. If you and I met every day for 10 minutes or more, for the next 10 years --and I was a part of the team of people you looked to for help --all I would do is encourage you to hang out with the best of the best people, thinkers, and doers in the world; I'm afraid that, at the moment and in my opinion, these people are NOT "martial arts masters" or "industry / business gurus." Changing your peer group, alone, would --or could, if you're present and accounted for --show you, quite clearly, how shallow our training has been. It would also show you exactly how to proceed and how to build an all new level of value in what you/we do as teachers of the martial arts.

The core training we've received has great value (we all know that); it's how we have not been trained to represent that training in the world, that is causing us to run in place as professional teachers and leaders.

I have dedicated the remainder of my career to elevating the profession of "martial arts teacher" to something very different than it is today. Step number 1 is to reject the foolishness of high pressure sales, of "sales formulas," of deceit and unsustainable business practices, of promoting educational concepts without actually studying the subjects, of modeling sales methods promoted by "consultants" who aren't holding themselves to standards that bring dignity and value to our profession. We must elevate the quality of our work, both on the mat --and in the world.

It's not an essay, this work, it's not a seminar, an article, a report, or something learned at "the convention," or from high priced marketeers. This work is a daily on-going dialogue. It's a daily practice. It's a tightening of the screws of mission, intent, purpose, and value-in-today's world ----and it's a loosening of the hold that sales-people, marketers, retailers, franchisers, and profiteers have had on our thinking, career expectations, and the very essence of how we go about our work. 

The farther I move away from the martial arts industry as it is today, the clearer the better path becomes. My goal is to explore better, smarter methods --and lead the industry in a better direction. All of this work depends on you. If I can get you to approach the work from a smarter and more value-driven place --and you manifest that kind of success in your own career, the "industry" will follow. 

Your Budget (Lack of Money) is Not an Excuse to Leave or Not Participate in The 100

Money’s tight, yes?

I understand that. I’d like to help you with that problem, but I have to warn you, it’s just like you’ve come to me and said, “I want to be a martial arts champion.”

If you want to really be a champion, I mean a genuine CHAMPION, it’s going to take about 10-times more work than you are anticipating --or, maybe, than you can even imagine. Most people dream of being that good, but lack the self-discipline and drive to actually make it happen.

We all know this, yes? I know it too; however, the difference between the man or woman who claims to want to be a champion and me, is that I follow through.

I don’t give up --and I can out-work, out-dedicate, out-perform, and out-produce 99% of anyone I teach, coach, or who comes to me hoping that I’ll help them “make money.” Anyone in the industry who can out-perform me, is already on their game in a big way (already a champion).

I charge $300 a month for my services --or $10 a day. My work and all that I cultivate will, if you dedicate yourself to it, if you blend it with what you do, make you millions of dollars over the course of your career. That’s not a guess or hype, that’s a fact, as I’ve done that for an entire generation of teachers. I’ve been doing what I do for so long now that it’s very likely you’re already using things I made up and implemented, whether you know it or not.

However, my work isn’t worth $1 a day to the person who isn’t ready to work the work.

Today, my work has transcended the “freshman” and “sophomore” levels of school management. I now help teachers to do the deep work, the work that changes lives, that affects communities, that makes careers, that redesigns the very roles of the Sensei and the dojo in today’s world.

The reason you’re not a client already --or you’ve decided to leave The 100. so you can “save” $300 a month, is that you really don’t understand what’s taking place. You don’t “get” what the work is doing --or can do for your reputation, for your career, and for your income potential. You either don’t know what I’m doing --or I’ve been coaching you and you’re STILL not engaged in the training at a level that can get the return you’d like to have.

If you want to be a financial and career CHAMPION, in your lifetime, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to, now, tell you the truth:

1. You can’t give up, not without 10,000 tries. Anything less is struggle. You can’t justify the expense of some of the best coaching and help in the world, because you’re either unaware or you lack the self-discipline to apply yourself at a level where return happens. I don’t have to tell this to a champion; he/she is the one telling us/you.

2. People and organization like the one I work in, The 100., don’t thrive and survive on people who are not really willing to GO FOR IT. Ours is a group where the training is hardcore and intense and that requires an all or nothing effort. GO to another organization if you’d like to sit back and whine about money or observe --and move over to make way for the men and women who know that each member has a responsibility to the whole endeavor. Are you committed to turning the info into value (money?). Most people SAY, “yes.” But they fail to act on it in a way that makes it happen.

3. You’ve hired me to be a no bullshit teacher. I’m not here to stroke your ego or take your money. I’m here to push, to pull, and force your hand or guide you --and to cultivate champions. Anything less than that is someone else’s work. I have 40 years in --and 20 years or so left in the industry --and I’m going to go for broke. I’m going to train a new generation of school owners and teachers how to rise above the sales crap the industry so readily endorses: I’m going to coach teachers to embrace a level of education and community involvement that changes the world’s perception of our value. I’m going to turn our strip-mall-franchise-bought-not-a-lick-of-real-master-teacher-training industry mentality into something the world can look at and recognize as absolute and undeniable magic. We have that potential, you know. So do you, but to see it make you money you’re going to have to work for it.

Save your $10 a day --but I have to tell you, you’re missing out. I know, as I’ve been around long enough now to see what creates drudgery and struggle and what brings excitement and passion to the work. I’ve refused to spread mediocrity and deceitful business practices and embraced the hard, but most profitable, kinds of work. Mark my words: The martial arts industry will, in time, do and embrace everything my colleagues and I are doing today. It’s just that most of the “consultants” in the industry are 10 years behind --and already heavily invested in business models that are, right before their eyes, dying out. Change is hard.

I understand how it much easier it is to save $10 a day than it is to go through the pain of what it takes to be a real champion. My only regret is that, somehow, I haven’t yet been able to speak the truth to school owners , who REALLY need help, in a way that gets them “over the hump.”

If you’re reading this and you REALLY want to be a school owner with something different to offer, call me (530-903-0286). The change of your career and income direction won’t happen in a single phone call, a seminar, a workshop, or at a convention --it’s an ongoing training program --and it may be the hardest (but most genuinely profitable) work you ever do.

I work at www.The100.us ----here's how to come in and see the work (you must be or want to be a teaching professional): http://thenewwaynetwork.ning.com/?xgi=3WGEl3HqtHWkTr

Tom Callos

Martial Arts Business: 5 Staff Training Wisdom-Blasts, for Staff Members On The Rise

This is For The Staff Member of a Martial Arts School

Hi, I’m Tom Callos and I fancy myself one of the best martial arts school staff-member trainers in the Known Universe. So, in the following 600 words, I’m going to lay my wisdom upon you. It won’t take long; so here we go:

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No. 1
Make magic. Yes, make magic where ever your feet take you. When you walk in the front door of your dojo, brighten the room. Do it with eye contact and acknowledgment, with smiles, with kind comments, and with a level of attention given to every person that forever sets the example of how it’s done --when it’s done masterfully, perfectly, and with a light that radiates from the center of your being.

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No. 2
Over-fricking-deliver like nobody you’ve ever known. If 10 is the expectation, you show up with 100. Every job is important beyond our ability to comprehend it; treat the work you’re gifted with deep respect and reverence (as work isn’t a labor to the Staff-Member-Master, it’s like a-best-Christmas-ever gift).

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No 3
Act like you already make the money you want to make, times 10. Listen: The money doesn't come first --and then you start acting like you’re worth it. No. FIRST you develop the skills, the aptitude, the attitude, and the portfolio of someone worth the big, big, big bucks ---and THEN you stand a chance of actually getting to lasso the purple pig (I don’t know, exactly, what “lasso the purple pig” means, but I’m using it here as a way to say “make the money that perfectly fits your value to the world.”).

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No 4
Don’t stand under the apple tree waiting for fruit to fall into your waiting hands, climb up there and get what you want (thank you Grandmaster Rhee). In today’s world, with information and almost instant access to just about anyone you might need to connect with, if you wait for the school’s leader/owner/manager to teach you or tell you something, it’s already WAY too late.

Don’t wait for someone to talk to you about “making a job duties list,"bring yours, compiled from your research in the industry (calling / connecting with other people who do what you do), and present it. In fact, use your graphic design skills to make a resource like your teacher has never see before. Blow her/him away with it.

Don’t wait to be “taught” how to affect the school’s bottom line, get online and connect with the information days, weeks, months before the owner has a chance to form the idea in her head.

Don’t wait to be taught how to spot potential drop outs and get them back on track, how to keep the dojo clean, how to use a day-planner, or any (as in: ANY) skill. Be ahead of the game, always, like a chess player.

Staff-Wisdom-Stuff No. 5
Understand that you don’t really “work for” the illustrious guy or gal who owns the school; you work for yourself. You are a one man / woman company and wherever you go you spread good tidings, good ideas, goodwill, harmony, and peace. You do the work of 10 normal people. You serve, serve, serve --and as a result, you are building a portfolio of skills that will, someday in the near future, make you worth the money you want to support the lifestyle you’re hoping to become accustomed to.

Anyone who “hires” your company will say this: “I have never met anyone who works harder and smarter than this person; someone who always brought the best ideas to the table; who set the pace for work; who knew how to both lead and follow in perfect proportion; and who always seemed to be 10 steps ahead of everyone else.”

Martial Arts Business: The Business of Mastery is Our Business

If you're HERE, on The 100. site --and spending your hard earned money on the program, then I'm talking to you (and OK, YOU too). 

I'm seriously counting on you to BE a master teacher like the world has rarely, if ever, seen. I know you're capable of it --and I can't think of a better path to follow.

Mastery of your own thinking.

Mastery of your ability to make change where it's most needed.

Mastery of compassion and connection.

Mastery of the basics of good business.

I'm counting on you, whatever your style of martial arts, to STEP UP as a teacher, a leader, a friend, a student, and a human being.

READ. Read veraciously --and buck the idea that our attention spans are becoming shorter. No, yours is becoming longer.

PARTICIPATE. Don't sit back, don't do nothing, don't do "little," and don't not do something every day that puts you in a league of your own. Make it a practice to create some magic in the world every single day of your life. 

STUDY under real masters (REAL MASTERS). Garbage in, garbage out. Who are your heroes? Why? And what are they teaching you? How good of a student are you? Are you following the Gods of The Ice Cream Social, The Upgrade, and The Giant Whopping Gross? Or are you paying attention to humanity, to the falseness of endless want, to your own thinking and what it contributes, to simplicity, and to the boundless value of being/living in the here and now?

FORGET the Martial Arts Industry, For Now. The industry is sick and crippled by greed, trivial pursuits, questionable integrity, and lack of vision. To lift the martial arts and the profession of being a teacher out of the ditch it's in, we're going to have to get away from the present "leadership" and re-think why we're here, how we're going about the work, and what has got to change. We're not here to be organizers of "ice cream socials," "pizza parties," "sleepovers," "day care centers," and/or rabid dogs chasing the car-fender of membership upgrades and the next big cash-out. We'll come back to fix the industry, but first we have to fix ourselves.

Mastery of a New Kind of Education for MA Teachers.

Mastery of taking the work out of the dojo and into the world. 

CREATE things of beauty and value.

My friends, I'm really counting on you to redesign your role, to redesign what your school does for people, for your community, and for YOU. The money will come when your roots are deep, when your intention is beautiful, when you make the work your PRACTICE. 

I am working to make The 100. a place you feel at home, a place that appreciates your effort and supports it. A place that you can come to and find re-charge, inspiration, and vision. So...help MAKE IT SO. Be here. Contribute, spread the word. 

I'm counting on you to be a master teacher like the world rarely (if ever) sees. Smart, educated, with perfect intention, with amazing work-ethic, with a portfolio of endeavors that say so much about what you do, who you are, and how you use your martial arts ---that the next generation of teachers gets to START where we leave off. 

The 100. isn't here to help you "make money." The 100. is here to help you make history, to make your career, to make all the work something that shines, to help light the fire of your mastery. The money you make will be all the more useful when your head is in exactly the right place.

Martial Arts Business: A Wake Up Call for Staff Members and School Owners

A Letter to The Staff Member Who Could Use a Wake Up Call

My name is Tom Callos and I’m a business consultant to martial arts school owners and master teachers.

When it comes to doing good business, as in smart business, It seems like I am forever advising, encouraging, reprimanding, and even verbally slapping owners upside-the-head for having an attitude, habits, and/or behaviors that are anything but business-healthy --and that lead to unnecessary stress and a less-than-happy business life (and when business isn’t good, it’s hard not to let that stress boil over into one’s personal life).

However, while I often advise owners, I rarely speak directly to staff members, but today I will.

Now I’m sure you (Mr. or Ms. Staff Member) have many fine qualities and do, in general, great work; but I’m not here to talk about the work you do well, I’m here to tell you what needs to change.

First, I'm going to guess that you probably would like to make more money. Most of us do. What I need you to do, starting immediately, is to start acting like you already "make more money." I want/need you to start acting like you already made 6-figures; and if you’re going to make 6-figures, you will know how to do the following:

• Organize your time, using a day-planner, like a master. You will not mistake activity for accomplishment. You’re so good at time management that you could lead a seminar on the topic --worth, Oh say, $500 per person. Do you get my point?

• You know the school’s numbers; that is you know where break-even is (when the school pays its expenses but doesn’t have a profit). If you go a single day without understanding what the school has to make, that day, to meet its overhead, then you are disconnected from what your activities have to do with the profitability of the school --and that makes you ineligible for anything less than survival pay.

• You know how to MAKE MONEY for the school. In fact, you bring in 10-times your salary/pay. Do this and you’re worth every single penny you earn.

• There’s nothing in the school you can’t or won’t do; and typically, you’re never asked to do something, as you’ve already seen the need --and taken the required action (without being prompted).

• You never, ever, EVER say you can’t do something when you most certainly can. You can teach the kids, you can organize marketing campaigns, you can look up the class and take it without being told, you can clean, train, manage, and in fact, you can do anything --and that is why you’re so well paid

• Every single working day of the year, a 6-figure staff member HUNTS DOWN the right info. Good enough is never good enough. You know the best people in the industry you’re in --and you pick their brains 12 months a year; until you are as good, or better, than the best in the world.

• You’re able to bring in a minimum of 1 new student every working day of the month. It doesn’t matter if you’re working a front desk, managing the training floor, or simply assisting, you’re not really a 6-figure employee unless you know how to get business for the school.

The “You’re Still Eating” Theory

I have a very, very famous friend. My friend is at the center of a whirlwind of activity, publicity, and the production of potential income-generating activities. Last year his “crew” filmed and edited a 13 episode TV show. They did it speculatively, with the intention of selling it to a network; it took them hundreds of hours and they spent a good deal of money on the project. I saw some of the shows and they were, indeed, spectacular. About 4 months after they were completed I was talking to my friend’s father and I asked him if the show had been sold yet --and he said, “No, they spent a lot of time and money on it all and it seemed genuinely promising, but they hadn’t yet sold the show or got any viable sponsors for it.”

And I said, “I see. Do you know why they haven’t sold the show yet?”
He said, “No, why?”

“Because they’re still EATING, that’s why.”

Understand that those shows weren’t sold because nobody on the crew was going to go hungry as a result; and there, RIGHT THERE, is the difference between someone who can --and someone who won’t. Someone who is not going to eat FINDS a way to make things happen. Someone whose labors are disconnected from the outcome of the work, does things that can be downright destructive to the business.

INSTRUCTIONS: Get into the school’s “work” deeper than you are; get in so deep and get so clear a grip on what makes the schools wheels turn, that if the business doesn’t do what it needs to meet it’s overhead (plus) on any given day, you simply DON’T EAT.

And when you don't eat, see how long it takes you to find the motivation to do what needs to be done.

Take on this attitude and you start acting like someone who will FIND A WAY to make it happen, whatever “it” is. When you do that, you'll be acting like someone who’s worth 6-figures.

OWNERS
Cultivate the right attitude in yourself --and in your team. If you have an employee who refuses to do some aspect of the work at your school, because it’s not “comfortable” for them, then look to replace him or her as soon as possible. Look, instead, for people who are hungry, so hungry in fact, that they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the business work.

Know that your employees, especially the young and inexperienced ones, have NO IDEA of the financial obligations and risk you take being in business. They don’t know about the leases, the taxes, and the legal liability --as if they did, they’d be knocking on your door all day long asking you how they might better serve the school.

And trust me, you’re not doing your staff any favors by not giving them lessons in the hardcore realities of doing business in today’s world. You’re actually doing them a great disservice by not educating them, as they will never earn the money they want by being disconnected from the realities of business --of ANY business. Keeping them in the dark is not fair to them --and not smart for your school.

A Final Word:

I get questions from school owners about the issues above --all the time. But I have not yet, not in the last 10 years anyway, fielded one smart or business oriented question from a staff member anywhere on the Planet Earth (I take that back, there is one man, Peter Liciaga, in New Jersey, who does all of the above. That’s one staff member among thousands. Go Peter!).

What this means is that YOU, Mr. or MS. Owner are negligent in your duties. It means you aren’t training your team how to ask the right questions --and how to hunt down the information needed to improve. You’re cultivating staff members who live in a bubble --and you’re training them to “do enough to get by.” BIG MISTAKE (this is your wake up call).

The 100. allows staff members of primary members to join, for free. There's a good reason for this; know what it is? Here's a one week free pass to see why The 100. is the sharpest, smartest, and most valuable school owner (and staff member) tool in the international martial arts community. 

Martial Arts Business: Better Business in 2012, Starting Now

Ok, school owners and teachers, what is my job? What do you pay me for? Why are you here? 

You didn't define my job duties, I've done that myself (although I am completely at your service, if you know how to ask questions and present problems I can help you with). 

My Job Duties:

• Get you to do LONG RANGE planning, so that this time next year, you are more profitable, more efficient, more challenged with things WORTH being challenged with, more focused, and one year closer to a kind of mastery, a kind of thinking and being in the world, that sets the mark for what a "Master Teacher" is --and what a "Master of the Martial Arts" does in (and for) the world. I believe these things are not only the things that will make you more profitable, but craft your career into something you find extraordinarily fulfilling. 

• My job is to push you, even when being pushed is uncomfortable --or even damn-right maddening. I was pushed by my best teachers --and I am still benefiting from it today. I pushed my students to try and get out of their comfort zones (where little or no growth takes place) --and that effort represents some of the best work I've ever done. And I believe that if I stay a constant force in your career --pushing for better, for smarter, for richer, that you will --in the end --be better for it. 

•  My job is to get you to think in a way you might not think today; as this time next year you could be playing an all new, highly sophisticated, educationally super-charged game ---that isn't the same old crap being boxed, franchised, packaged, and copied by every guy/gal who invest the $10,000 or less it takes to open a martial arts "school."

I think the industry, in general, caters to the fast turn-around, the easy path, the path that requires the least amount of steps, and whose measurement of success is based upon, "How much can I gross --and how fast?" I don't see or hear many teachers working on programs and projects that couldn't be duplicated by an ambitious and resourceful 1st dan 22-year-old. 

So, this time next year, let's have you somewhere you are not today. Come to The 100. unafraid and willing to stretch. Be here like it's a school for Masters-in-Training, be here to create something, together, that isn't in the reach of any one person. Play full out --and see what happens. 

My job is to be a catalyst in your life --and the life of your staff members (everyone, actually, in your sphere of influence) --for growth, evolution, and good times. I don't know how I'm going to make that happen, exactly, but I do know that pushing myself out of my own comfort zone is Step 1. That makes what's good for me --part of what's good for you. If you will do the same, what's good for you becomes what's good for me --and what's good for your students. 

Push starting now --and this time next year we stand the chance of having done 10 years of work (for the average teacher) in just 12 months. 

Martial Arts Business: How Teaching the Martial Arts Is Changing. The On-Line Campus

Let's look at the (potential) power and influence a "Digital Dojo" --your school's on-line campus, which is now, I believe, an absolute must for the serious master teacher --might have, mathematically on your work.

(NOTE: I am a champion of extremely low-cost technology, of owning your own websites, and of keeping your overhead crazy-low, while your productivity career-making high. That's the coaching you get as a member of the 100.)

In a year's time, if you spend an hour a day, 3 times a week with a student, you will have worked with him/her for 156 hours. Now we all know that we can make a good deal of progress with the average student in a year's time (with good, high quality interaction, yes?). 

Well, if you could ADD the idea of 10 minutes a day on your ON-LINE Campus, 6 days a week (as in you write and/or produce something, the student writes and/or produces something, and/or you post something by someone else that's worth a few minutes of reading/viewing), you increase your time with a student by 52 hours a year. 

That's a lot more time to talk to, interact with, and influence students --and it's all cerebral, giving some real credence to the idea that the education you provide is more than kicking and punching. 

So, if you have 52 more hours to make a difference in someone's life, what do you fill it with?

Martial Arts Business: Better Black Belt Tests, Testers, and Black Belt Test Thinking

This is a concept for the (very) advanced Master Teacher / Martial Arts School Owner. It's not easy to do, it doesn't come in a box, it can't be purchased, and you won't hear about it at "the convention" or in the "millionaires mastermind roundtable" sales meeting. 

The Concept and Cultivation of Your Sphere of Influence

This is the core concept, a foundation, that should affect your thinking about black belt testing, marketing, business, and community involvement. It doesn't cost money to implement or practice, it sumply takes some intelligence, some foresight, self-discipline, and no small amount of vision. 

Step 1

Ask one person to do something for you, something small. 

Click to read more ...

How to Do $20,000 (minimum) in Holiday Sales (Retail Sales Advice).

It’s November 3rd and 52 days to Christmas. Christmas, of course, being the time when people buy gifts for each other for a variety of reasons --and retailers hope to see their sales go up accordingly.

Maybe you already feel some pressure to sell more, to compare past Christmas seasons to this one, or to compare your numbers to the guy/gal you know (or heard about) who makes more retail sales in Nov. and Dec. than you made in all of 2010?

Click to read more ...

Martial Arts Business: Why Your Website Isn't Working

What's wrong with your website?

Technically? Nothing, most likely, that can't be fixed in about 15 minutes. Nothing that has to cost you very much money. Nothing that is outside of the realm of your own ability to do the work, yourself. Nothing that can't be researched and/or answered in hundreds of free articles and/or video tutorials (some of them are actually more than sales pitches designed to find people who can't figure out how to build a site on their own). Nothing that you can't handle, quickly. 

 What's really wrong with your website is it's probably ugly and/or it's confusing (that's my specialty). And (here are the real issues):

1. You expect too much of it. 

2. The site isn't backed up with an army of other tools, actions, and community-based involvement to be much more than yet another 4-color ad for yet another business. 

3. Your "pitch" is indistinguishable from every other "I follow a formula" website out there. Chances are you haven't put even 5 solid hours, in the last month, into what is supposed to be a very dynamic tool for communicating what you do to as big an audience as your OTHER work in your community can cultivate.

4. In that any arse --and I mean ANY --can put up a website, for free, in minutes, using all the right words, images, mailing list requests, formulaic ad copy, video, and everything else that makes something look appealing on the web ------even a school owner whose martial arts background consists of a 5th degree black belt he/she got in 6 years doing little more than showing up for classes and paying for tests; even the school owner whose entire philosophical training consists of "Think and Grow Rich," "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," and Tony Robbins Ultimate Power CD collection, of which they listened to half of. 

NOTE: When anyone can steal your web text, look, images, video, and "pitch" just by going to a site and stealing it, then how much value are we putting on a website?  

Now what's HARD TO RIP-OFF? Real work.
Real, honest-to-God, no bullshit, hands-on, hard fricking work --in your community, doing things that aren't easy, being someone who can be trusted, who puts out more than just the minimum amount of effort, and who has trained him/herself to be a real hero --and to train others to step up and do real work (real, hard, meaningful, complex work). NOBODY steals that, because it's too hard --and fake leaders, opportunists, and the lazy don't do hard, complex, involved, engaged, meaningful work. They try things a few times, look for the easy route, and when things don't go their way, they slide into the closest comfort zone available ----they also tend to despise those who don't.

 5. You think you have to have 1 website. When they're free and they can all point to your main site and they take a few hours to put up right, why would you have just one ad in the phone book?

 6.  You talk a good game, but you offer nothing, nothing at all that anyone else can't talk about too. You say you "teach respect." So does she. You say you teach leadership. So does the other school. You say a lot --and you're very worried about what you say and why it's not converting more "hits" to "leads," but keep in mind everyone SAYS they do things ----and the same things you say you do, too. 

How about you start posting real proof? How about 10 stories of real people making real, measurable, tangible progress? How about 100 stories? You've been in business 10 years? How about 1000 stories? How about going beyond "testimonials" (the sugar water of website sales strategy) --and doing stuff that's really complex, hard, honest, and telling? THAT is what sets you apart.

When everyone buys the same clothes from the same stores and looks almost exactly the same, how do you tell one from another? What distinguishes the lazy poser from the committed Master?

This is part of the reason your website isn't doing what you want it to do. It has to be backed up with real, priceless, blood-and-sweat-and-toil WORK. Do the work, in nice clothes, but do what the lazy won't. 

Note: The real work is, of course, never approached from a "what's in it for me" perspective.

When you are an icon in your community, you will be an icon in your community. 

When you contribute, significantly, to the quality of life in your community, then you will be someone recognized for contributing, significantly, to the quality of life in your community.

When your students become change-agents for genuine change in your community, then you will be recognized for your ability to teach more than "self-defense," "taekwondo," or whatever it is that any business-person can claim to teach by signing a lease, putting up a sign, and setting up a free website.

(And in case you didn't notice, this article doesn't pitch you with a "one time, once-in-a-liftime" offer; a "click this for your FREE REPORT" offer; or any pitch for my services. I respect you more than that --and if this work I do doesn't call your name, I understand that there's little I can do to help you. If this article doesn't make you want to see what The 100. is up to, then your help, your teacher, and your resources reside elswhere). 

Martial Arts Business and Chris Brogan? Is Chris a Master of Martial Arts Thinking (I Say, "Yes)

Chris Brogan might have taken a karate class or two when he was a kid, but I don't think so. He did, a while back, ask me if I knew a martial arts teacher in his area (I didn't), as he was looking to start working out. 

So, I'm going to guess he might, like most people, recognize Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris, but other than that he's probably not familiar with my world ---but let me tell you, I'm all into his world. 

Take, for example, his post from today, The Practice is the Reward. I have been talking to instructors about this very thing, practice --and making their work "a practice." 

And recently Chris wrote Tell Us Your Story, about telling the stories of your work, which is also something I've been coaching teachers to do. 

Chris might not know what a rear naked choke is (and Mr. Brogan, if you happen to read this, trust me, it's not what it sounds like), but the man KNOWS plenty about what a martial arts master teacher needs to think about and, you know, "practice."

I like his work, I respect his attitude, and I pay attention to just about everything he's interested in and writes about. 

Martial Arts Business: Master Teacher Brain Fodder, by Tom Callos

Perhaps, someday, you and/or any one of your students will meet someone very special. 

This person won't be exactly like most people, there will be something in them, something about them, that is very uncommon. 

Click to read more ...

We are NOT a Black Belt School, Part 4. Raising the Standards for Black Belt Testing

Graphic artists do this really cool thing (as do photographers and a lot of other artists), they build a PORTFOLIO of their work.

When an artist shows you his or her portfolio, you can see, quite clearly, what they're capable of, they're specialty, and what kind of talent they have (or do not have).

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We Are NOT a Black Belt School, Part 3. Ways to Make Better Black Belts.

I've been a fairly harsh critic of the black belt testing process, in "the industry" specifically, where selling black belt memberships has become like hawking used Hyundai's, where black belts are earned in 12, 18, or 24 months (especially in taekwondo schools for some reason), where 10 year olds sport 3rd degree black belts but couldn't punch their way out of a wet black belt club contract, and where black belt test requirements and standards have, in general, been gliding down a slip-and-slide towards a real mud-pit of lackluster, unimpressive, near-pitiful mediocrity (ask me sometime, I'll tell you how I really feel about it). 

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We Are NOT a Black Belt School, Part 2. Should children under the age of 18, be able to earn and wear a black belt?

Should children under the age of 18, be able to earn and wear a black belt?

(Oh man, now that's a question --of which I will address one "industry-relevant" aspect of in this not-so-short essay)

Should children under the age of 18, be able to earn and wear a black belt?

That’s a tough one, but today, as the martial arts world is, as the world is, I would cast a definite “No” vote.

Click to read more ...