my own dojo

[FrogMan]

Didn't want to keep it in its original thread (http://www.osatwork.com/fofc/showthread.php?p=2440790#post2440790) so here goes, it's now official, I'm now the proud owner and head instructor of my very own dojo, as of this May 1st. :)

Long days ahead, but exciting days. Really excited about all this. My wife is with me in this, we got a limited liability company set up as of last week and we're plowing forward.

It was officially announced to the other instructors of our main dojo last evening and we had some great talks with other people offering me their help in exchange of a little bit of mine. I'm feeling blessed to be around the kind of people I'm dealing with, seriously. All of this was all new to me but they have helped me, led me and even though I know I still have a lot to learn, I know the people passing on the dojo to me will be there to help me out when the need will come.

Anyway, not much more to add for now, simply coming to realize that yeah, it's really happening. :)

Wish me luck :)

FM

[DaddyTorgo]

As I said on facebook - hooray and congrats!!!

[jeff061]

Been very cool following your other thread and see it blossom into this one. Congrats and good luck!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Congrats, you're gonna do quite well with this. Your heart is in it, you've used your head, that's usually a pretty good combination for success.

[Young Drachma]

Congrats!

[PilotMan]

Great job, best wishes for success!

[Galaxy]

hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjpFmQtyed8

[FrogMan]

Thanks for the good words and wishes. Very appreciated.

Congrats, you're gonna do quite well with this. Your heart is in it, you've used your head, that's usually a pretty good combination for success.

Yeah, I think you summarized it well. My heart is into this big time, teaching has always been big with me, going back to when I was in college, when I used to be a teacher's assistant, then more recently, as I climbed the ladder of martial arts knowledge and found I was able to relay what I knew to others in a way that they could understand and better their own art. But then, I also pondered the whole move a big deal. Was it gonna be profitable? How much work will it be? (I know now, a lot, but I'm okay with it and as I said, I have my wife's blessing)

Seriously, yeah, there will be long days and long evenings, as I keep my day job, but I'm hoping, betting it'll be worth it in the long run. Heck, who ever got anything without working, huh? ;)

FM

[FrogMan]

hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjpFmQtyed8

that was funny :)

FM

[jeff061]

Edited: Wrong thread!!!!

[FrogMan]

yeah Jeff, I figured :D

meanwhile, I'm looking at very cheap web hosting places, anybody got recommendations. Not looking for anything earth shattering, just something that works and will give me a domain name and especially the emails with that domain name. Not that it's real urgent or anything, but I have plans to use the web to talk with my students, keep them informed. It's something that not been done much with the main dojo, or with any of the other dojo in our style.

Currently the options I'm looking at are:
bluehost, $3.95 a month (2 year minimum, goes to 6.95 or more after that)
fatcow, $3.67 a month (1 year minimum, no clue afterward)
ipage, C$3.50 a month (1 year minimum, money back anytime, they say ;)

all these are in the unlimited bandwidth/disk space type and unlimited email. Anyway, I'm not even sure I plan on having a webpage of my own very soon as our group of schools has one where they host a page for my dojo, but I plan on maybe making some specific pages, sharing pictures of new belts and such. All of these offer some sort of either picture gallery or wordpress capabilities so they could certainly work for a dojo with maybe 60 students in the Fall...

Anybody's got horror stories about these or good/bad reference with these or other really cheap web hosting solutions?

FM

[jeff061]

Hole in the Wall Hosting - Web hosting services starting at $19 a year (http://holeinthewallhosting.com/features.php)

I don't know much about them though, just have seen them mentioned because of their prices.

[Edward64]

Congrats. IMO Kids are where you will make the most impact and difference.

[terpkristin]

You already know how I feel about this, so I'm just going to chip in the good luck here too. :) Wicked awesome.

/tk

[Raiders Army]

Congratulations and good luck!

[Lathum]

Good luck

[Marc Vaughan]

Good luck :D

[BYU 14]

As in our private conversations, let me just reiterate how well I know you will do. You have a genuine love of Martial arts and have been planning this for a while. As the saying goes when you love what you do for a living, you never work a day in your life and I am hoping that day comes for you as soon as possible. Best of luck!!

[Neon_Chaos]

COBRA KAI!!!!

[Eaglesfan27]

Congratulations my friend! Awesome news! I know you will make a big impact on a lot of kids :)

[Senator]

This is great news! Full steam ahead!

[FrogMan]

Thanks for the kind words everyone, really appreciate it. Head is spinning a bit with all I there is to think about. Sure, stuff that still needs to be done in the short term to make sure the transition is smooth from them to me but also ideas of things to improve, things to do differently, classes to offer this August when my own schedule is really put in place. Exciting times. :)

Congrats. IMO Kids are where you will make the most impact and difference.

Congratulations my friend! Awesome news! I know you will make a big impact on a lot of kids


Thanks again. It's been three years now since the first kids class I've given. In that time, I have witnessed the impact I can have on some kids' life. There are still kids I used to give class to three years ago that come back to me on competition days to show me their trophies or medals, all proud. There's often a great bond that happens between a kid and his first karate senseï, I have felt that.

To add to that special bond I think I can create with kids, I am also a parent. In that regards, I have often had parents come to me and be appreciative of the discipline I keep in my classes. I have two sons who are practicing this martial art, one of them being a black belt. When I say he started at the age of 5 and was a black belt when he was 12, parents are usually impressed.

And then, add again the fact I'm also an adult practicioner. I mean, I didn't start practicing when I was 6 and have been doing it for the last 35 years but started only one year after my oldest son had started. This may sound like a negative (only been 8 years since I started) but for many adults, sometimes parents of kids who are just beginning, I can give my own life experience as a perfect example that adults can get fit and have fun while practicing at our dojo. It took me five years to get my shodan and as weird as this may sound, it's a very reasonable time that shows it's not easy (i.e. we're not giving them black belts away in 12 months or so) yet it is achievable by a 40 year old human being (i.e. I survived it and I'm standing right in front of you sir, even better, I still keep on practicing and I'm having fun doing it :)).

All that to say I feel really good about my ability to reach out to new students and keep them with me in the long run. Really looking forward to that part, starting out kids and adults and see them grow and eventually in 4-5 years, see them become black belts.

FM

[Johninja]

Any plans on branching out into martial arts films? JCVD,Seigal and Norris are all getting a bit old to take seriously.

[FrogMan]

As in our private conversations, let me just reiterate how well I know you will do. You have a genuine love of Martial arts and have been planning this for a while. As the saying goes when you love what you do for a living, you never work a day in your life and I am hoping that day comes for you as soon as possible. Best of luck!!

Thanks. I think I mentioned it in the other thread but I have already done some forecasting and budgetting as to how many students I need for this to become my full time job. I did the same computations, trying to figure out how many more students we'd need for my wife to leave her job and be able to come and work the office only a couple hours a day or so but pull the same wage. These are all goals I have for maybe the next 3 to 5 years.

For now, I'll be happy to be breakeven over the first twelve months, as a whole. As you probably know with martial arts schools, the number of students is high around the start of a session, then dwindles down as the months go. I just want to make enough money from September to April in order to be well off during Summer of 2012. All my numbers seem to indicate that it's easily doable. Time will tell if my numbers are right but believe me, I'll spare no energy to make sure they go the right way. :)

FM

[Coffee Warlord]

But the most important question...

Does fear have any place in your dojo?

[molson]

That is so cool. There may be no more awesome answer to the question, "what do you do?" than, "Oh, I own and manage a dojo".

[FrogMan]

But the most important question...

Does fear have any place in your dojo?

of course not! (http://www.retrofactory.com/ac-kk520.html)

FM

[FrogMan]

Any plans on branching out into martial arts films? JCVD,Seigal and Norris are all getting a bit old to take seriously.

hehe, not really. Already wacked myself in the head with a bo staff in a competition (there's certainly still links of that video somewhere on here :p) so not sure I'd do much better doing stunts ;)

FM

[FrogMan]

That is so cool. There may be no more awesome answer to the question, "what do you do?" than, "Oh, I own and manage a dojo".

I guess you could say the same for many other self-started business but really, a dojo? It'd be pretty cool. It's only starting to sink in honestly.

We went there over the weekend, me and my two sons, so they could practice with their bo. It's growing on them too, that WE, as a family, have our own dojo. My youngest, who's 7 and started practicing about a year and a half ago, didn't even know we were working on taking over that dojo up until a week or so ago. Didn't want him to go parading around with his karate friends and brag about how his dad would own a dojo before it was actually made public. When we went there to practice, on Easter Sunday of all days, he walked around the place, asking a few times if the whole place was ours, all the equipment and stuff. We practiced for maybe 45 minutes and finished by kicking and hitting the boxing equipment.

I'll have a few pictures up around lunch time.

FM

[FrogMan]

time for some pictures... the first two are of the outside of the building. I'm leasing the corner office space that once used to a Dunkin' Donuts, then was swicthed to a Quiznos subs. You can still see the drivethrough window on the right side on this pic... :)

[FrogMan]

anothe view of the front of the place

[FrogMan]

view of the entrace from the inside. When you go in, you turn to your left and we reused the little wall that they had left from Quiznos, with the little glass on top. Makes for a neat waiting aread for parents...

[FrogMan]

this is the office area that comes right at the end of the entrance alley/waiting area. Doors on both ends allowing parents and customers to walk in without having to even take off their shoes and for me, barefooted, to come in the office from behind the desk...

[FrogMan]

view of the training area where I usually give class. Here, I'm standing with my back to the office area, right next to the little wall with the glass on top that you can see on my right

[FrogMan]

view of the same training area but a bit more to the left, showing the depth of the room

[FrogMan]

view of the training/class area from the very opposite end. All the equipment in there came with my taking over of the place so I'm all set for at least my first year...

[FrogMan]

another view from that opposite corner. The black corner you see on the left is the windowed entrance that leads to the waiting area mentioned before...

[Honolulu_Blue]

Congrats, Frogman!

This is fantastic news. It always really impresses me when people go out and start their own business. Great stuff!

I look forward to our army of highly skilled and deadly trained Quebecois Ninja Assassins!

[FrogMan]

Congrats, Frogman!

This is fantastic news. It always really impresses me when people go out and start their own business. Great stuff!

I look forward to our army of highly skilled and deadly trained Quebecois Ninja Assassins!

thanks :)

I'm also always impressed by people starting their own business and my grandfather used to have a truck mechanics shop. Gougeon & sons it was called. My dad used to work there in his youth. My whole setup here, with my sons both into karate, is very reminiscent of that. I registered the company under the whole Vision Martial Arts name as Gougeon Martial Arts. Showed my dad the papers the other day and I could see him being proud of that fact... :)

That being said, and quite honestly, if you'd told me 8 years ago, when I started practicing karate, that one day not only I'd be a black belt but that I'd be running my own dojo, I'd have told you to stop smoking that odd stuff. Really.

I told the whole story about how my sensei came to me one Tuesday evening after our instructors class, telling me we "had to talk, upstairs, in private". He dropped that bomb and I was kinda freaked. Me? ME? Running my own dojo? You serious? We left the place about 45 minutes after everybody had gone home and my head was spinning. Broke the news about that offer to my wife that evening and we didn't even talk about it until maybe 4 days later.

That offer was just too good to be true yet I took a good month to go over numbers and such, pondering the time commitment it would take, then garnering support from my wife who realized it really was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to be able to build something around my teaching of something I'm so passionate about.

Now, here we are. I've taken over, yet the students in place are not yet MY students. Well, some are and will remain. It's kinda weird but there are two dojos maybe 15 minutes from one another. One of them is the main dojo that's been in business for maybe 15 years, the other is now mine. They started my location as a sister dojo for the main one only last August and since then, people were allowed to freely take classes at either of the dojos. Some people take classes only at the main dojo but some do take all of their classes at my dojo. In order to not shake things up too much with the clientele, we have decided that some students will be "seen" as mine while the majority will be the main dojo's students but we will allow people the right to take classes at either places. Comes August and our annual open doors registration weekends, we will ask people to make a choice and from there on, they will have to stick with one dojo or the other.

All that to say that yes, it's sinking in, but the next big day will come around the end of August when we will get new people through the door and I will start teaching to white belts. I'm excited simply thinking about it. :)

FM

[Passacaglia]

Congrats, man!!

[FrogMan]

while my 14yo son is a black belt and the current star of our dojo in any type of bo demonstration, I present you our star of the future, his younger brother, Matthew. He's only 7 and has been training with is bo only since last september...

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Lw0vgvL5opI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

FM

[FrogMan]

dang, two months have passed since that last update, how time flies...

Business is coming along nicely, lots of hours have been put into it, lots more to come. Switched to a Summer schedule a couple weeks ago that upped the number of classes given in a week from maybe 9 to 12, I'm basically at the dojo 6 days out of 7 and sometimes also there on Sundays, as I will be tomorrow morning. My schedules of classes for the Fall is ready and I'll be offering 20 different classes. Some of them are 45 minutes classes like specialty classes (touch fighting and bo staff) or initiation to karate classes (for 5-7 year olds) so in all about 18 hours offered at the dojo. I'll be giving about 15 and 3/4 of these hours with a couple people helping out on the rest. Many of my hours will be with an assistant though, either my oldest son or some other people I have helping me out. We'll be offering boxing and kickboxing classes as well as a full array of karate classes for all ages and belt levels. Pretty excited with the schedule I've put together.

As for the time it asks of me, so far so good. We've put together a nice one page ad that will be going out to houses once a week for four weeks in mid august and ever since starting to be more present at the dojo, it seems to me I've been getting a bit more interest from people simply stopping by for information. That's good because I've yet to advertize and Summer is such a slow sleason for us. Some of them are asking for information in order to sign up in the Fall, some might never be back but at least people are stopping by.

Word is getting out to the people already signed up to the main school and I'm being asked about the kind of schedule I'll have in the Fall. Some people are sowing interest there which is good. If I could retain mayb 20 people that were already used to come to the dojo it'd be a pretty big boost. I need about 50-55 students to be breakeven so starting with 20 right from the bat would be pretty neat. I know of abotu 13-15 that are almost sure to sign up with me, the rest are "maybes".

FM

[tarcone]

Sounds great. Keep it up. I worked with a guy that quit teaching about 5 years ago to open his own dojo. He makes a living at it.

[BYU 14]

Sounds like things are going quite well FM and it is great to see your hard work paying dividends!

[FrogMan]

Sounds great. Keep it up. I worked with a guy that quit teaching about 5 years ago to open his own dojo. He makes a living at it.

I have said it before, I have done the numbers to see what the point is in terms of number of students for me to leave my current day job and commit full time to the dojo. It's seriously not that high, despite me having the better of our two salaries in the house. I'm giving myself a couple years to get there, maybe before that. Until then, it's double shift for me but it's not that bad. The evening shift is very energizing and rewarding. :)

Sounds like things are going quite well FM and it is great to see your hard work paying dividends!

Right now, I wouldn't say it's paying dividends to be honest ;) I'm hoping (and am fairly confident) it'll pay off in the Fall. Then, we might be putting in hours and reaping some rewards. Until then, we're losing quite a bit of money every month but since the whole getup didn't cost me a thing, it all balances out.

Baby steps as they say. Every week I learn something new and work on something different with a drive I had almost forgotten I had. That is refreshing. And to think I'm actually working for my own self for once, that is very rewarding.

The whole "teaching to kids" is also quite great. To have kids who really like you and look up to you is neat but to know you are actually havign an impact on their lives is just beyond awesome. To see their face light up when you simply come across them at the grocery store, they wave a goodbye all proud to tell their parents "hey it's senseï Steve", makes me smile every time. :)

FM

[FrogMan]

It's been a busy Summer, a Summer where I took in all, a day and a half of vacation from the craziness that's engulfed my life since diveing into this adventure.

This past Wednesday, ads were distributed in what we call here "Publibags" (loosely translated from Publisac), bags that have the fliers for the week. 9519 doors in all is what my territory is, not too shabby.

Tomorrow is the first big day as we are hosting our first "open door" day where people can come in and sign up for classes. We'll be there from 9 to 4 both days and hoping that people will come.

We already have 30 students signed up before even holding any of these days, putting us about half way to breakeven point.

I'm really, really looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Wish us luck!

FM

[DaddyTorgo]

Awesome - wishing you great look tomorrow FM!!!!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Knock 'em dead kid, knock 'em dead ;)

[FrogMan]

well, those were a couple of draining days. Lots of waiting around, then a few families showing up all of a sudden. We ended up with 16 new registrations which is, in my opinion, quite good. We.re now up to 46 students after just one open doors weekend. We have another one planned out for next weekend and will keep on accepting registrations all week long every evening. We easily could be at 50+ people before next Saturday and push the 60 by next Sunday evening. I'm that hopeful. :)

FM

[DaddyTorgo]

well, those were a couple of draining days. Lots of waiting around, then a few families showing up all of a sudden. We ended up with 16 new registrations which is, in my opinion, quite good. We.re now up to 46 students after just one open doors weekend. We have another one planned out for next weekend and will keep on accepting registrations all week long every evening. We easily could be at 50+ people before next Saturday and push the 60 by next Sunday evening. I'm that hopeful. :)

FM

Great news FM - happy to hear that it seems like it's starting off on a good foot for you all!

[FrogMan]

Great news FM - happy to hear that it seems like it's starting off on a good foot for you all!

Oh, it is. I was anxious to see it would go but I've been getting some very good words from people who are either taking my classes or are parents of kids in my classes. Word of mouth has not even started to kick in and we're this close to breakeven. It's been, and will be a lot of work still, but I'm very happy with how it's going right now. :)

There are a few other schools of our line of dojos and I was told we're the one which got the most registration over the weekend. The second one was a group of 7 dojos all owned by the same senseï, located over a pretty wide area that ended up signing up 70 new students for all of his dojos over the weekend.

To go chronologically, we were at 26 Tuesday evening, the day before the fliers went out, signed up 4 before the weekend, then went up 50% from 30 to 46. I'd call a VERY good start. Our fliers will be going for the next 3 wednesdays so we could probably see new registrations coming in as late as the end of September...

FM

[PilotMan]

got any updates for us?

[FrogMan]

:)

thanks for caring. Didn't realise I had not updated since August. The Fall season was way above my expectations. We went all the way up to some 75 students or so during the Fall session, a session in which I was giving ALL the classes, every evening. Considering I was shooting for 58-60 people to be breakeven, it was a very satisfying session, but also a mentally and physically demanding one, what with me also keeping my day job through all this.

People were and are still quite happy with our service, I get the feeling we are building something very nice.

I survived though the Fall and in January brought in a woman who'd been helping me to come and teach the classes on Mondays, giving me one evening off a week and then every other Thursday. I'm coming to realize that for me teaching on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays would be a schedule I could work with for quite a while, even while keeping my day job.

We got a few people to sign up in January but maybe a bit less than what I would have liked and then we hit a rough spot in the last month. Kids are showing a bit less interest and people who signed up for boxing classes to get in shape, you know "resolutions", well they are cancelling now. We went all the way up to 93 students at one point but have come back down to maybe 80 now. Still a very reasonable number.

Some of you who liked the Dojo's FB page might have seen a couple grading pictures. Nice thing for us compared to other schools of our style is that the interest really is into karate and not really split half and half between karate and boxing/kickboxing. I like that because karate really is where I can speak with passion, keep people interested. They can feel how I love it and they feed off of it.

So far so good. It's still a lot of work but we are beating a trail through this first year. The second year will be immensely easier.

FM

[PilotMan]

Great to hear FM. I'm glad the numbers were good to start with. My boys are hitting some burnout. Going to take a couple months off and start back in the summer. Glad you found a schedule that is working for you.

[FrogMan]

Great to hear FM. I'm glad the numbers were good to start with. My boys are hitting some burnout. Going to take a couple months off and start back in the summer. Glad you found a schedule that is working for you.

yeah, your boys are not the only one. Age group we've lost the most is the 5-7 little dragons group that started last August. At one point that group was our biggest with 16 kids in it and we had to rearrange a bit to move some of the older ones to the regular class but they are now something like 6-7 in the class...

Martial arts are like a marathon and it's ok for kids to take breaks, or sometimes have weeks where they only go once or none...

FM

[FrogMan]

May 1st marked the one year anniversary of us taking over control and management of the dojo. What a year this has been. It's not always been easy and it's a lot of work, especially considering that I still have my day job, but it's very rewarding.

My adult students gave us a thank you card that many of them signed with a little word. That caught me way off guard yesterday evening, got me all misty eyed. People really do seem to appreciate my teaching and that's something pretty special to feel. The relation of a martial arts student to his/her sensei is a very special one and I'm growing into it.

FM

[Senator]

If I was going to get into this; you would be the guy I would go to. Congrats.

[FrogMan]

If I was going to get into this; you would be the guy I would go to. Congrats.

thanks a lot, you don't know how much this means to me. Honestly.

I'm veyr hard on myself, a perfectionist and every time a kid, or an adult, decides to cancel, it hurts me a bit, even though I know not everyone will keep on going in the martial arts training. Just the way I am and why it touched me so much yesterday, that little card.

FM

[Groundhog]

Does your dojo contain any mercy?

[FrogMan]

Mercy is for the weak.


;)

FM

[JonInMiddleGA]

Mercy is for the weak.

FTW

[JPhillips]

My daughter started karate a few weeks ago and today she won the in-house tournament for white belts. It wasn't a big group, but she did great on her basic form one.

[FrogMan]

My daughter started karate a few weeks ago and today she won the in-house tournament for white belts. It wasn't a big group, but she did great on her basic form one.

that is awesome, kudos to her! :)

It doesn't really matter if it was a big group of not, sometimes the biggest and most intimidating group they'll face if the bunch of judges sitting in front of them. I've found over the years that competitions are at least good for one thing, it makes kids want to be better at what they do. If only for a few weeks prior to the tournament, I'm sure she did put a lot of effort into making sure that form was well done and you'll see that if she keeps on training and take part in other tournaments, all the forms she'll work on to present in tournaments will always be sharper than that ones she didn't have to present.

Speaking of tournaments, today is the last or our three tournaments of the season. 18 of my kids will be competing, including my own son, our youngest, and no matter the results, I'm already proud of all of them. My oldest son will be judging with, his first tournament as a judge. Incidentally, he tested and received is Nidan (2nd degree black belt) about 3 weeks ago. Made for one proud daddy. :)

FM

[JPhillips]

Form comes pretty easy to her because she's been dancing for years. She understands movement and body control, so she got the form down much quicker than the other kids that started with her. So far she really enjoys karate, and as long as that continues we'll keep her involved.

Congrats on your sons. That's got to be a great day for a dad.

[JPhillips]

Langley tested and got her orange belt tonight. She's fallen in love with karate over the past three months.

[booradley]

Just caught up with this. Very exciting, and wish you all the best!

[FrogMan]

Langley tested and got her orange belt tonight. She's fallen in love with karate over the past three months.

that's awesome and you wouldn't believe the kind of big smile it put on my face. Teary eyed even, and she's not even my kid. Big thumbs up to Langley from that sensei way up North in Canada. :thumbsup:

FM

[FrogMan]

Just caught up with this. Very exciting, and wish you all the best!

well, thanks, and welcome to my little project. :)

I have not update in a little while but seeing it getting bumped like that kinda forces me to so here goes. We stopped seeing people walk out the door for Summer and have kinda stabilized our membership at around 48 students. That's under breakeven but was expected and is even a bit more that what my forecast was for number of students during the Summer period.

Our Summer schedule is easier on me and I now only teach three evenings during the week, most times only a couple hours instead of the usual three hours in an evening, with a Saturday morning of only two hours instead of the usual four. All in all, less students but more time to recharge the batteries a bit.

It never stops though and sometimes it's a grind. I do the basic accounting myself and next will come our first annual report with the accountant and all.

We did a photoshoot a couple weeks ago for our ad that will go out to houses in our area in mid-August. For four weeks, we'll be distributing our flyer in the house to house bags that get all the weekly flyers. We got a good return from those last year and I'm hoping for more of the same. Here's what the back page looks like. Yeah, it's all in French, sorry about that ;)

On the different pictures, you can see my two sons. With the staffs, my oldest son Andrew is the one in the middle and my youngest son is the other boy. Youngest is also on the picture right under that, with his elbow the the young girl's face. The picture right next to that one is me doing an armbar to my oldest son. All clean family fun, you get to show how you could hurt your kids if they don't listen ;)

Our flyer will be an 8.5 by 11 inches page with printing on both side. The front side will be mostly promotions and lists of offered classes...

The ad was done by one of my friend, actually one of my student, a brown belt, who's helping a lot at the dojo and is also an amateur photographer. We had a lot of fun shooting pictures in front of a green screen. :)

FM

[FrogMan]

also just realized my youngest son is the one of the right on the pic of the three friends with medals. :)

The other kids are all students of our dojos.

FM

[JPhillips]

My daughter tested for her green belt tonight. I'm very proud of her.

[FrogMan]

My daughter tested for her green belt tonight. I'm very proud of her.

and you should be proud of her, that is awesome. Congratulate her on my behalf!

What's the order of belts in her style? And I'm not sure I remember, but what style specifically does she practice? Not that it really matters, just curious.

As for our little dojo, we had a nice Fall session. Registrations were not as good last August as I would have hoped, but we retained more of them throughout up until the Holiday break. I didn't have much money for advertising in January of last year and we went with a local newspaper ad with the other two schools from our style. I felt at the time that it was not good for us so this January, I decided to go our own way, with flyers over 4 weeks reaching some 30k doors and it did pay off. As of today, we have 108 active students, and this is the first time we go over 100. I'm very happy about it.

It's still a lot of work but I've rearranged the schedule a bit, have given a bit more responsibilities to my oldest son so that it frees me a bit and I'm happy with the workload now. We're growing and slowly but surely, from session to session, we always have a few more students than the previous session...

FM

[JPhillips]

Langley does Soo Bahk Do Moo Kwan. Her belts go white, orange, green, red, black. She honestly messed her form up a bit as she gets nervous during testing. She loves going, though, and she's really excited to move up into the red/green class.

Good to hear your dojo is doing well. I never had any experience with martial arts before Langley started. The kids really get a lot out of it and the masters at our studio are incredibly dedicated to the kids.

[JPhillips]

There's a teenage blackbelt that demonstrated a form with a staff that was really impressive. He often helps with classes and he's really dedicated to mastering the forms. He was a treat to watch.

[FrogMan]

Langley does Soo Bahk Do Moo Kwan. Her belts go white, orange, green, red, black. She honestly messed her form up a bit as she gets nervous during testing. She loves going, though, and she's really excited to move up into the red/green class.

Good to hear your dojo is doing well. I never had any experience with martial arts before Langley started. The kids really get a lot out of it and the masters at our studio are incredibly dedicated to the kids.

interesting, never heard of that style before but by the name I guessed it must be korean in origin and most web searches seem to indicate so. Again, interesting. :)

Also, the inclusion of a red belt pointed me toward a korean style :)

It's great that you kid has fun with it and that the instructors are good. Good for you and for her.

FM

[JPhillips]

I don't know the differences between different schools. She is studying a Korean style and it seems heavily focused on form. They spar, but there's no contact at least for the kids. There's also a lot of learning Korean for counting, forms and addressing superior ranks.

[FrogMan]

I don't know the differences between different schools. She is studying a Korean style and it seems heavily focused on form. They spar, but there's no contact at least for the kids. There's also a lot of learning Korean for counting, forms and addressing superior ranks.

I really don't know much about korean martial arts other than a little about Tae Kwan Do but it's interesting that you say it's heavily focused on forms because most of what I've heard about TKD is that while there are some forms, it's mostly sparring, with kicks more than anything else...

FM

[JPhillips]

Testing is done entirely on form,but the masters wouldn't let students test if they weren't ready. The classes switch from form to sparring with a lot of calisthenics and games mixed in.

Langley struggles with sparring as she doesn't like to get close enough to score or be scored upon.

[FrogMan]

Testing is done entirely on form,but the masters wouldn't let students test if they weren't ready. The classes switch from form to sparring with a lot of calisthenics and games mixed in.

Langley struggles with sparring as she doesn't like to get close enough to score or be scored upon.

I know I'm repeating, but that's interesting. :)

No self-defense work?

Our style is a blend of kenpo and shotokan karate and includes a lot of self-defense with forms.

FM

[FrogMan]

and I'm not dissing that style. I've had this thinking that there's not really a good or a bad style, they all have things for and against them. Ours is not perfect, it just happens to be a style that I like.

FM

[JPhillips]

They do some self-defense, but very basic. It certainly isn't the focus. They mostly focus on self-discipline through form mastering. I don't know anything about other styles, so I'm completely in the dark as to how it stacks up. I do know my daughter loves it and I'm impressed with how the masters deal with the kids. Even if Langley were to drop out tomorrow I'd say it was money well spent.

[FrogMan]

They do some self-defense, but very basic. It certainly isn't the focus. They mostly focus on self-discipline through form mastering. I don't know anything about other styles, so I'm completely in the dark as to how it stacks up. I do know my daughter loves it and I'm impressed with how the masters deal with the kids. Even if Langley were to drop out tomorrow I'd say it was money well spent.

oh indeed. Even without being much involved in self-defense, the discipline aspect and working at learning forms are both great for a kid. Glad she likes it.

FM

[JPhillips]

We ended up there because Langley wanted to try karate and her school auction included a free month and uniform at this school. We didn't research at all as I figured she wouldn't like it. It turned out she loved it and I think the owner and the main teacher of the younger kids are great. They are constantly doing events outside of karate for the kids like Christmas and Halloween parties, summer games days and a really cool raptor exhibition with a local bird rescue center. I really trust that they have the best interests of the kids in mind.

[JPhillips]

Langley's dojo offered adults a chance to train for 20$ a month in July and August. I wanted to get a sense of what Langley was doing, so I signed up. After almost three weeks I have a clear sense of how much my ass has been kicked. It's a lot harder than I realized!

[FrogMan]

hehehe, it's usually what parents end up telling me too ;) Glad you get to try out what your kid do, who knows, you might like it enough to graduate up to the black belt ;)

Funny you bump the thread with this kind of update because we are putting families at the forefront in our Summer ad flyer that will be coming out to houses in our area. It's an 8.5x11 double sided ad and the front has the usual info about the school and the back will be pictures of parents and kids who take classes together at our dojo. I'll post a picture on my lunch break...

FM

[JPhillips]

The owner of the studio pulled out his camera tonight. I liked this shot of my daughter. Not much power, but great height!

https://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/11146521_681399258633241_7117278044663722081_n.jpg?oh=c8c6d5d62d64f3d23caef202e47c2f9f&oe=55CAAFEA

[Edward64]

Nice! I used to be able to do that back in the good old days.

[FrogMan]

I just posted it on the Dojo's facebook page, although only in French, but it's been a long time coming, sort of. We are ending all activities at the dojo effective August 9th.

Yeah, this August 9th. I want to feel all sad, and there are parts of it I'll miss but really, it will be a deliverance. The last four years have been really busy and while it started nicely in the first couple years, it stagnated in our third year before finally starting to go down this year.

They had negotiated a five year lease that we took control of after the first year and for which we could pick up a second five year option once the first five were done. The first five years are coming up to an end on September 30th and I couldn't see myself doing this, i.e. day job + teaching in the evening, for another five years hoping it starts doing better.

Starting next Monday, I'm getting my evenings and Saturday mornings back. :)

FM

[Barkeep49]

Congrats on a good run and even bigger congratulations on your reclaimed free time :)

[Kodos]

Now you'll finally have some time to run a bit!

[Honolulu_Blue]

Well done, Sensei La Grenouille-Monsieur!

[JPhillips]

My daughter tested for her black belt a couple of weeks ago and we got the results. She passed everything, except she failed to break the board on her kick. That's a minor part of the test, though, so she can do that at our studio. That means that she should be a black belt by the end of May.

[hoopsguy]

Congrats!

Having gone through that process last spring, I know how much effort was required by the families to support the younger candidates, so kudos to all of you on her reaching that milestone.

[JPhillips]

She was about to give it up late last year and we really had to push her for a bit. I think even she knew that if she stopped she'd never go back and finish. We were expecting a Fall '16 test, so when the instructor said she was ready for the Spring test, she got very excited and buckled down. Now even if she quits in the next year or two she will always have the accomplishment of getting her black belt and will be more likely to go back as an adult.

[JPhillips]

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff514/marsusw1/13524540_10206858348801611_396083518506307901_n.jpg

So this happened tonight.

[BYU 14]

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff514/marsusw1/13524540_10206858348801611_396083518506307901_n.jpg

So this happened tonight.

Got that board eh? Congratulations!!!

[Edward64]

Conrats. Great accomplishment for her.

[JPhillips]

Got that board eh? Congratulations!!!

Yeah, she broke it first try on the retest. She had built it up to such a degree that it psyched her out at testing, but the way her instructor pulled it out without her knowing made it all low pressure. She did it so quickly that I didn't even see it happen.