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![]() John Graden - ArticlesWidely recognized as the man who revolutionized the martial arts industry, John Graden launched organizations such as NAPMA (National Association of Professional Martial Artists), ACMA (American Council on Martial Arts), and MATA (Martial Arts Teachers Association). Graden also introduced the first trade magazine for the martial arts business, Martial Arts Professional. John Graden’s latest book, The Truth about the Martial Arts Business looks into key strategies involved in launching a martial arts business and includes Graden’s own experience as a student, a leader and a business owner. Graden is the author of six books including The Truth about the Martial Arts Business, The Impostor Syndrome: How to Replace Self-Doubt with Self-Confidence and Train Your Brain for Success, Mr. Graden has been profiled by hundreds of international publications including over 20 magazine cover stories and a comprehensive profile in the Wall Street Journal.
http://MartialArtsTeachers.com http://MartialArtsSchoolOwners.com Would You Make a Good Martial Arts Professional? Take a Quiz and Find Out!How can you find out where you stand? I’ve created a measuring tool to help you, whether you are considering opening a school or you own a school and need perspective on your role. You will discover if owning a school is for you, or if you are the right person to own a school. Curriculum Design: The Recipe Book for Your Martial Arts SchoolI had lunch recently with a fourth dan in Uechi Ryu. We talked about how the Eastern mind-set is so different from the Western, and the confusion that creates for many instructors. Culturally, the East is more about conformity, or as I call it, cloning, than the West, where rugged individualism and innovation are instilled. The Martial Arts Enrollment ProcessIn the 1980s, Educational Funding Company (EFC) was the first to have success creating systems to support an agreement-based school. Our industry owes a debt of gratitude to Nick Cokinos and his ability to teach, motivate, and inspire some of the most successful school owners today. Guys like Dave Kovar, Steve Lavallee, and Keith Hafner all learned the business from being clients of Nick Cokinos. Is Owning a Martial Arts School Right For You?I knew from my first night in white belt class on February 12, 1974, at age 13, that I was going to do martial arts for the rest of my life. I was teaching professionally by age 16 and have been teaching ever since. However, I never wanted to own a school, at least until the mid-1980s when I was in my twenties. Fine-turning Your Martial Arts CurriculumLet me walk you through the processes that I went through to change the recipe of my curriculum. At first, it’s not easy to make wholesale changes to your program. We have a strong connection to many of these techniques and forms. However, once you begin the process of improving the recipes, it becomes exciting. A Tale of Two CurriculumsWhen I opened my school, I presented the exact curriculum that I was raised on. Among the many problems that created for me was that I had a lot more kids in my school than my instructors did. Martial arts forms, hyungs, or kata were designed by highly disciplined adults to be taught to other highly disciplined adults in a military atmosphere. They were not designed to be taught to an eight-year-old kid. Masters on ChangeDespite my roots in tae kwon do, my responsibility is to my students, not tae kwon do, kickboxing, Joe Lewis Fighting Systems, or any other source of information. My job is to create the best black belts possible in a school that authentically represents what I believe in. In large part, that responsibility is expressed through my curriculum. How to Make Cash Outs Work to Your School’s AdvantageIf you can keep a steady flow of new students coming in, an ideal situation is high cash outs and high monthly billing. This is being accomplished by some schools that take a somewhat unconventional approach to their cash out and upgrade strategies. Can You Really Teach Confidence?Schools today talk a lot about teaching confidence. They have words of the week and life skills training, which is great. I wish my instructors had taught me about goal setting when I was a kid. Tuition Strategies: EasyPay and Electric Fund TransfersLarry Dokes’s EasyPay billing company pioneered the electronic funds transfer (EFT) in the early 1990s. Larry was an early mentor of mine and has helped me a great deal. Based in Belton, Texas, EasyPay specializes in smaller schools in smaller markets. EasyPay offered a non-contract solution that automatically withdrew students’ tuition from their bank accounts.
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