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Has a spouse or significant other made a suggestion about
your martial arts school or how you teach? What was your reaction? I know mine
was essentially ‘Who the heck are you to tell me, the black belt, about martial
arts?' The key, though, is:
They don't care about martial arts; they care about you.
They usually represent Market Eyes, and they are almost always right.
In a previous article, I introduced the concept of "Black
Belt Eyes" and how they are based on false assumptions and often get in the way
of our more useful "Market Eyes". Market Eyes could represent the eyes of a potential student who doesn't
know a black belt from a green belt but has a willingness to learn.
Other examples of Black Belt Eyes include:
1. Using your style name as a headline or, worse, a school
name.
This is a huge assumption that the reader or prospect knows
how your style or technique translates to benefits for them.
2. Using a logo that looks like martial arts hieroglyphics.
If your logo contains a fist, a yin-yang, a circle, a
triangle, Asian lettering, or a bug, you may have Black Belt Eyes.
3. Listing techniques instead of benefits in your black belt
marketing.
This may disappoint you, but the odds are miniscule that
someone seeing an ad that touts Hun Gar 3 Step Waza will exclaim to his wife,
"Honey! Hun Gar 3 Step Waza! Just what I've always wanted!" Only your Black
Belt Eyes will know what that means. I don't even know what it means.
4. Confusing your wins as benefits.
Black Belt Eyes assume people want to know that you are an
accomplished black belt. It's not that no one cares, as much as that listing
your tournament wins, hall of fame inductions, or that you trained the military
police simply don't translate into benefits for potential students. Mike Tyson
is a great boxer, but I don't want him teaching my kids. Study the ads for
private schools. They don't list the teachers' résumés. Market Eyes want to
know what you can do for them or their children.
5. Having long classes.
The assumption is that more is better. The truth is that
better is better. If more were better, a four-hour class would be better than a
two-hour class. People are busy, and it's presumptuous to assume that your
class is so important it has to take two hours of their day. Most people have
16 waking hours per day. Two hours is more than 10 percent of that day. Good
instructors can teach a great class and produce outstanding black belts using
one-hour classes. If your classes are longer than this, reduce them to one
hour. Your students will not complain. They will thank you.
6. Keeping archaic exam requirements that are important to
you, not the student.
When I was a student, for part of your brown belt exam you
had to break two boards with a reverse punch, round kick two boards, and do a
running jump side kick over two people to break three boards. This was for the
blue belt to fourth degree (kyu or kup) brown belt and usually occurred about a
year into training. I opened my school with the same requirements.
When the children's invasion began in the mid-1980s, those
requirements became a real problem. Eight- and 10 year olds have no business
doing those types of breaks. So I dropped board breaking as a requirement and
added board-breaking seminars that the students could pay to attend. I turned a
negative element of the belt exam process into a fun profit center. To
accomplish this, I had to overcome my Black Belt Eyes.
7. Conducting marathon exams.
During the days of my marathon Saturday exams, it seemed as though
we measured the quality of an exam by the number of ambulance calls. I thought
it was important for students to deal with the stress of the high-pressure,
marathon exams because it would help them deal with the stress of self
defense... which is just dumb. I also waited until enough people were ready
before I held the exam. This is classic Black Belt Eyes combined with the
Control Factor. In time, I switched to monthly exams (stripes and belts) that
were held in class. This greatly increased retention and student progress – and
reduced stress.
8. Displaying weapons on the wall or in the office.
You may love weapons but, to the market, a wall full of
knives, swords, and spears looks like a weapons cache. Mothers in particular do
not respond well to the prospects of their darling child being exposed to these
instruments of death.
9. Displaying photos of yourself hitting, getting hit, or
breaking.
One school had a photo of the instructor being front kicked,
full power, in the groin. His Black Belt Eyes felt that the photo showed he
could withstand any blow. My Market Eyes made me wince and turn away. There is
nothing interesting, appealing, or tasteful about such a photo. Take down the
1989 photos of you, and replace them with pictures of your happy students. It's
OK to have a shot of yourself; just make sure it's tasteful and professionally
shot. Media coverage, such as magazine covers or newspaper articles, are also
fine. Tip: If you are on a TV show, have someone take a photo that includes the
cameras. This is a good way to get mileage out of a TV appearance. You can't
post a video on your wall, but this type of photo shows you were on a TV show.
Media appearances build confidence in students and prospects. Photos of you
breaking flaming bricks don't.
10. Having a smelly school.
This could be called Black Belt Nose. When prospects walked
into my school, their eyes watered and their faces contorted from the sweaty
stench soaked into our carpet. I used to tell them with pride, "We earned that
smell . . ." Not good.
11. Sparring too soon.
Black Belt Eyes say, "Sparring prepares you for self
defense." Market Eyes say, "That's scary, and it hurts." Few things lead to
high dropouts faster than sparring. Sparring is important, and I love it. But
the smartest curriculum adjustment I ever made was to push back the time when
students had to spar. Rather than after three months, which was how I was
raised, it became eight months. During those eight months, we work on limited
sparring drills and defense and prepare the students how to spar before they
are thrown in the ring.
I made the change after years of having the following
scenario played out too often. Typically, a female student would enroll and
soon become an A student. She was in every class. She was at every function.
She volunteered to help. She changed her work hours or made changes in her life
to make sure she could do karate.
This lasted for three months until she reached the rank
where sparring was required. Then I wouldn't see her again until I ran into her
at the mall or a restaurant. "Sally! Nice to see you. We sure miss you in
class." "Oh, um, hi, Mr. Graden. I've been really busy lately. Gotta go."
If I had a Truth Translator, the real message would be, "I
trusted you. I really trusted you and embraced your school into my life. Then
you put me up against that guy, and I had no idea what to do. He hit me on my
nose, and it hurt. I will not trust you again." When I tell this story in
seminars, the classic Black Belt Eyes vs Market Eyes exchange reveals itself,
as the owners' wives and girlfriends elbow them in the ribs. "I told you!"
Some guys argue that sparring is important. I agree.
However, how can you teach sparring to someone who drops out?
Today, people – especially women – are taught never to hit
someone. We have to be patient and help them get comfortable with the idea of
hitting and getting hit. We have to give them strategies to get out of the way
of a bigger, faster opponent and, most of all, we have to drill them over and
over so they are ready to spar when they reach that level.
12. Setting heavy traditional requirements in the first
year.
If your white belt class consists of traditional stances,
blocks, and forms, you are going to have a tough time keeping students. Give
your students material they can use right away.
We pushed all of our traditional tae kwon do techniques back
to green belt. White, gold, and orange belt were spent on working on pad
drills, practical self defense, sparring, and footwork drills. The students
loved it. They felt a sense of competence right away. As important as they are,
the traditional martial arts are very hard to learn. By front-loading your
curriculum with your core traditional material, you put some of the most
difficult techniques to learn with your most inexperienced students.
This is especially true for children. Forms were created by
highly disciplined adults to be taught to other highly disciplined adults. They
were not designed to be taught to eight-year old kids with ADHD.
Teaching a new student a front stance and then trying to
layer on a down block-lunge punch is not only hard, but you almost have to
apologize for the lack of practicality. We say things like, "You would never
really block this way, but this is a block against a kick to the groin." That,
my friend, are Black Belt Eyes in action.
13. Having too many "shoulds" in your curriculum.
It's natural for a new school owner to have dreams of
creating a great martial arts school. He dreams that his black belts will be
the best, and people will flock to his school. When this enterprising black
belt sits down to design the ultimate curriculum, he thinks to himself, "Hmmm.
My students should learn the traditional basics. They should be able to do a
form or two each belt. They should know the basic traditional stances and
blocks. They should be able to do all the kicks and punches. They should learn some
self defense. They should be able to do one-steps and spar as well."
Do any of these sound like you? Then you may be guilty of black belt eyes.
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