the spirit of a fighter
Business
What Taekwondo can learn from Software
2Just food for thought: I watched this talk by Kathy Sierra today and had a lot of ideas run through my head about how the same principles – helping people overcome the ‘suck’ factor of trying new things, and helping people be awesome – could be applied to Taekwondo and Martial Arts. As I’ve said before, just because everybody does things one way doesn’t mean there isn’t a better solution.
Taekwondo as sport, or Taekwondo as self-defense, either way these principles apply. Make the first 30 minutes fun, and teach them how to do something awesome. Give newbies a way to feel included. Make the experience about what the students will learn that helps them, not about teaching them how to master the system. Reframe our expectations in terms of how students become awesome through the art, not how students become awesome at the art.
It’s an awesome presentation for anyone – the principles apply to selling products and services, but also to interacting with people on a daily basis…If you do nothing else today, you should watch this.
(link via Business of Software Blog and my brother)
Thoughts?
Update: Cinco de I Have Gotten Nothing Done
0It was pointed out to me that I have been slacking on updates, and I have. Apparently deciding to uproot my entire life by quitting my job to freelance, and the planning leading up to that, was a leeetle distracting. As in, holy crap my life is a crazy crazy circus and I don’t know which way is up and who has time for anything else. But I haven’t forgotten Taekwondo! I’ve actually been thinking about it a lot lately, but I’m very conflicted about a lot of my feelings on the subject and it doesn’t help my planning much.
I still don’t know where to pursue teaching. I visited another school in town that’s interested in letting me train and possibly teach…and again I’m not sure that the style of Taekwondo is a good fit. The downside to being trained in a very practical, non-traditional, self-defense oriented school is that there aren’t many other places that come close to the style I like and I’m used to. Also the old-style forms are a real stumbling block for me…I don’t like traditional forms. Say what you will about the ATA, at least their forms make some kind of sense, and are interesting. I probably already said that at some point, but it’s late and I don’t remember. Anyway, as much as it’s tempting to go to another school that’s already established, and not have to worry about any of the business stuff and just teach, I really don’t think I’d be happy there.
Short term, it would be a good solution. Long term, I don’t really know where it would get me. It would get me ITA certification, but I don’t know what I think about certifications at this point. At any rate: at the moment I’m leaning back towards the Y – things with my life are unstable enough with freelancing that I don’t think trying to pay rent to hold classes anywhere is a good idea. It also makes more sense for me to start teaching and figure out a curriculum while building credibility at a location with a built-in student base before I strike out on my own. All in all, I think it’s the smarter, more practical thing to do. Definitely not my original plan, but as the saying goes, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Or in this case, with the real world. And bills.
The next step before I apply at the Y and start working with them to figure out classes is CPR and First Aid certification, and the next class I can find is the week of the 17th. Until then, I will keep trying to make myself practice, keep working on freelance like mad, and try not to hyperventilate when I think about what I’ve just done with my life. I really am excited, but lots of things are exciting. Like skydiving. Roller coasters. Or bungee jumping. Exciting, but they don’t stop you from thinking you might die on the way down :)
Taekwondo is not a good business model
0The business model of a martial arts school is very, very difficult to really make successful – it doesn’t scale well, and it requires a huge amount of time and work for what is comparatively little return. Since I don’t want to be forced to charge ridiculous prices, or to have understaffed classes, I want to figure out an alternative business model that would pull income from other sources (beyond just merchandising, etc). If you look at any really successful sport, spectators are the source of most of the income, not students or training fees. Find a way to really draw spectators into Taekwondo and other martial arts, and we may find a way to make schools into workable businesses without sacrificing quality.
I have a lot of thoughts and theories about how to do this, but everything will be difficult to implement, and take a lot of cooperation between schools. I don’t like it, but until I can figure out a better business model, I think my school plans may have to sit on the shelf. I want a school that will do more than just survive, and right now I don’t see any good way to do that without sacrificing my core values in the process. Have you ever seen a martial arts school that’s truly thriving, without charging students extreme prices or overcrowding classes (or sacrificing quality)? What are they doing differently than other schools?
What can Taekwondo do Better?
2I’ve been training for Taekwondo 6 years and obviously I love it, but it’s not all perfect – if it was, I would still be at my old school. People leave Taekwondo and other martial arts schools all the time, and many people never consider going at all. I know what bothers me – things that are high on my list are schools that are run like hobbies and not businesses, overinflated tough-guy egos, overreliance on ‘tradition,’ and high pricetags without good teaching to go with it (I’m not implying that my old school had all these problems, they’re just my pet peeves from various places I’ve seen). But what I really want to know is what bothers you?
I know, I know, I sound grumpy. But I really want the sport to improve and push forward, and if I start out on my own I want to do it right. I think there’s so much room to do better, but I want more than my own opinion on this. Do you take Taekwondo, or any other martial art? Did you ever? What do you like about it, and what drives you nuts? Weigh in, tell me your stories, and tell me why you still go, or why you quit. If you’ve never gone, but have thought about it, what’s holding you back? Here’s your chance to vent – I’ll listen.
Update
0ohhhhkay. So today: almost back to square one on the location search, down a potential student…not the greatest day. But not the end of the world. I have one spot that I could use, though it’s not my favorite, and a few more to ask.
I also checked out another Taekwondo school – I haven’t quite given up on the idea of training somewhere. It wasn’t a bad school, just a little too traditional for my taste. I don’t have any problem with very traditional schools, but the old-school approach has never been mine. It’s also hard to walk into a school as a third degree, outranking most of the school and with 6 years of training a certain way and developing a certain mindset about how to teach and what to teach…and I’m not out to be a jerk who won’t train the way an instructor teaches.
Taekwondo is not a coherent art – it still surprises me how much schools vary. From traditional to modern, application style or Olympic style, it’s a collection of completely different systems. Maybe every martial art is this way, I don’t know. But I guess we find what works for us, and go to that style, and that’s not at all a bad thing.
Are Black Belts Even A Good Idea?
0Well, there’s not much to tell on the update front – I’m still waiting to hear on locations, so I think I’ll have to go track people down on monday. I’m finding that most church offices close up at 4 or earlier, so even though I get off work at 4 I tend to be too late to talk to anyone.
I’ve spent a lot of time the last few months thinking about what is good and bad about martial arts schools, and what can be thrown out the window. It’s not that I plan to scrap everything, but I think that there’s too much dependence on tradition, and not enough progress being made in the sport. So I’ve been thinking about things like – should Taekwondo be taught to kids as a martial art, or as a sport? Should we be making schools that are more similar in structure to a dance studio, or a gymnastics gym? What is unique to martial arts that is good, and what is bad? Are we rooted in tradition, or stuck in the dark ages?
I’m also looking at what makes people quit martial arts – are we giving students enough to work towards? Is holding a black belt up as the ultimate goal really good for us? Think about it – the drop-out rate for any school is usually astronomical once a students hits black belt level. There’s not enough to do, not enough goals for them to achieve. I know I struggled with it myself, and most of what got me through was planning ahead and having goals before I got to that point, and the fact that I was inclined to teach. What are we doing for students who don’t want to teach? Are we giving them more to learn? Are we articulating well enough that there IS more to learn? Pop culture is a strong force, and pop culture tells us that black belt is the END. The ultimate. The place where you’re an expert and know everything.
Getting my black belt was definitely a huge deal for me – it’s still one of the accomplishments that I’m most proud of. But really, I’ve learned so much more since then and that knowledge is really the knowledge I value. Getting my black belt was a step on the road, but it was just the beginning of the real lessons I learned, and so many students never get to that point. So yes, in my mental musings, even the value and existence of black belts is up for debate.
I haven’t figured out what I think about all of this yet, but I think there’s an opportunity to do martial arts better than it’s being done, and I don’t want to blindly do something just because it’s the way everyone else does it. This is a business, and a sport, and a martial art, and the formula as we know it is not good enough. It makes me think of Fiddler on the Roof – trying to figure out what traditions are good and helpful, and which are just, well, traditions for their own sake. (Never seen it? It’s brilliant. Go hit up your library or netflix or something…fair warning: it involves music. And dancing. I hear some people don’t go for that sort of thing, which I think is cutting out about half of the world’s great movies, but that’s just me ;)
So what’s everyone else think? What aspects of martial arts do you think are good, and what doesn’t matter – and what is bad, and holding us back? If you don’t take martial arts, are there perceptions or things you’ve seen that keep you from wanting to try them?
