my own dojo

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Senator

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]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

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.

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by booradley

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]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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!

[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]

So this happened tonight.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

So this happened tonight.

Got that board eh? Congratulations!!!

[Edward64]

Conrats. Great accomplishment for her.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

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.