Creating a long-term fitness program in your martial arts school is not as hard as you think. Most likely, you already have one in your conventional martial arts program. All you must do is sell it differently to the adult fitness market than you would to typical prospects looking for conventional martial arts. Fitness students ...
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Learn From Your Students
What I have learned during more than 30 years of teaching is the value of paying close attention to my students, with an eye toward learning from them. If you keep your eyes open, then you will invariably have that occasional situation that will cause you to pause and reflect on what you just experienced ...
Read More »The Need for Intensity…Somewhere…in Your Program, Part 2
Last month, I cited our need, as instructors, to help our students discover their weaknesses or failings that we can then help them eliminate. That makes what we do valuable-and worth whatever we charge for it. Allow me to relate an example, knowing that it might upset a few music fans, but I feel it ...
Read More »You'll Like the Results, when you Give your Students Exactly what they Need and Want
By Sang Koo Kang and Earl S. Bagan All of you who are reading this column most likely have been teaching martial arts for a number of years. Doubtless, you have also been studying martial arts and training for many years; most since you were young, and many for more than 20 years, or more. ...
Read More »The Need for Intensity in Your Program, Part 1
We work in an industry that continues to change from year to year and decade to decade. Since we teach arts that are supposedly timeless, being ancient in origin, one would think that there would be less change. Of course, the goals that we set for our schools and ourselves drive that change. Many older ...
Read More »My Secrect of Success, Part 2, With Chuck Norris
The legendary martial artist, movie and TV star and founder of the World Combat League and th Kick-Start Program shares the secret of this success. In part 2 of his interview with Stephen Oliver, Chuck Norris discusses his early martial arts training. As with many martial arts great of his decade, Chuck was first exposed ...
Read More »That Do Factor—As in Karate-Do, Taekwondo and Judo
Letter from a loving fatherDear Sons, You have learned your martial arts history from me as children, and now from your own study. You often teach me. You have learned how a man, Jigoro Kano, who was a member of the Japanese educational system, changed Jiujitsu into Judo. He took a Japanese martial art, modified ...
Read More »How Not to Burn Bridges: An Open Letter to My Four Sons
Dear sons, now that you have decided to make teaching martial arts a career, instead of a pastime, please consider these words of experience. As you know, most traditional groups have an unwritten policy on how to handle their life-long relationships between students and teachers. I have often felt that traditional groups seem to be ...
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