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Belt EssayBlack
Belt EssayEasy! Yeah right!
I always wanted to have my own club to instruct at, I would say to myself it can not be that hard, turning up to club had always been easy “turn up, train hard and then go home” could not see it would be any different, could it?
Following are my own thoughts on opening and running your own Martial Arts club, I am involved with Taekwon - Do, however I believe the things I write about mostly covers really any type of club be it Martial Arts or other interests one might have that involve a group of people with a common interest be it physical or relaxed.
The answer to the opening statement is yes, it is very different.
My club is coming up four years old and I have made some mistakes and had some good ideas that really worked well for the club and it‘s members. Would I like to turn the clock back and start again to change anything? The answer is no! To me having ideas and putting them into practise and finding that they do not always work are the same, we all grow much better if we have the odd mistake which should make you as an individual be humbled by them and become a better person.
Before I go into any great detail of setting up and running your own club I believe you should know I am married to “Wendy” and have two children “Xian and Brook”. These three wonderful people made a big difference how the club evolved to what it is now.
· Starting your own club, you will need to have the following;
1 - A willingness to be operating long term.
2 - Training area.
3 - Banking account facilities, Society club.
4 - Basic administrative skills.
5 - Students.
6 - Funding and Sponsors.
7 - Computer.
8 - Good people skills.
1 - A willingness to be operating long term: This I believe is very important
and should be one of the first questions you ask yourself before you go any
further “Courtesy and Integrity” fit here very well. From the moment
your first student joins you make a commitment to them to be for them long
term.
2 - Training area: Selecting a good training location should be top of mind
as this will determine right from the start as to how things progress from
here, I also recommend you look at schools first as this will give you a ready
available student base. Once you have selected a location and hall to train
in put together a good plan as to how you will present yourself and Taekwon
- Do to the person or person’s who own or manage the hall. This will
help present you to them in good light and possibly gain a reasonable rent
on the hall. With my situation I had to present to the school board, principal
and hall manager, Pre - planning does pay off. Things to note when looking
at a hall, will it suit your training, what is the floor like, what is the
roof like when it rains wet floors are dangerous the deafening sound of rain
on a iron roof can be a menace. Storage room for equipment and is it secure
from other users of the hall. With my hall “Dojang” we came to
an arrangement with the school board for me to organise a carpenter to add
more doors to the stage of the hall made some roll - in roll - out trolleys
for the chairs to go on under the stage and we gained the storage area for
our training gear, a lot easier than carting things from home and back again.
Also please ensure you advise other instructors in the boundary areas of your
intentions “Courtesy”.
3 - Banking account facilities, Society club: You may wish to use your own household banking facilities for fees and other incoming monies. I recommend you open a separate club account and there are many choices to choose from we opened a “Society account” which is none interest bearing. This form of bank account and being none profit plus good administrative skills makes it easier to fund through the charity organisations out there for equipment. While on this matter my club is also what I term as an “Open book club”. What I mean by this is at anytime a student or parent of students would like to go through the clubs finances they can. Also with the society account it is possible for students to have there fees automatically transferred of which we do have some students do this.
4 - Basic administrative skills: It is very important that you put in place
at least basic administrative practises to ensure some sort of tracking for
student fees and any other incoming monies are kept in order. This certainly
pays off when organising funding through the charity organisations. With my
club we use an exercise book to record active students and fees paid, also
this book has a record of other monies paid in via funding or sponsorship plus
monies paid out for hall rent, grading or hosting costs and other…
This is then all entered into the computer at home with a monthly running total.
Copies can be run off for audit or up date for club committee meetings. Also
for the students we have a training card which acts as a record of their monthly
fees plus a record of how often they have trained leading up to a grading round;
they have to bring the card to each training session for the branch or assistant
instructors to sign each training session. As another track of student fees
we also receipt all fee payments.
5 - Students: Not everybody is cut out to train children due to the short
attention span children have. Hey! It is part of being a kid we were all that
age once, “Perseverance” applies here. Why did I mention this?
Well when I started the Hurupaki club my student membership was four (My family),
also it is not so easy to start a club with adults. You could but the extra
expence of mailers and going around all the local streets, it is much easier
to ask around the schools. So as part of my planning I had already presented
to the school a flyer I would like to go home with each child aged 8 years
and older, this worked a treat as the membership grew quickly and before long
the club was twenty students strong. The pay off was some of the parents joined
up this then gave me a good mix of students. I believe this is a good way to
start your student role.
I also recommend you approach other schools in your area. Currently the active
student role for Hurupaki TKD Club is fifty five covering all grades and degrees
up to Second Dan, not bad for four years. Student’s ages range from six
to fifty two. We also train over four days which includes a separate children’s
class set up nearly eighteen months ago, also we train one of these days at
another school for safety reasons due to the large numbers training in one
session, on this night we practise sparring techniques which includes step
sparring, free sparring and tournament sparring the hall is about a third bigger
which is great. These are things you will have to think about when opening
your club it starts off easy with most likely only one or two grades to teach,
then before long you have all grades standing in front of you that you have
to teach with still the same time frame to work in otherwise you have to open
on other days to fit things in. Planning around students is a long term goal.
Other things you need to consider is why people join, it could be for “Fitness,
self defence, companionship, confidence and to learn Taekwon - Do” and
you should also allow for the different learning levels of each student and
how they take knowledge on, “Auditory, visually and kinaesthetically” all
this needs to be taken on board when starting students.
Something else the instructor should head is “Integrity” toward
each student.
These skills I have learned over the four years of instructing and I believe
other people can do the same provided they do there homework, also do not be
afraid to ask for help from the large ITFNZ family.
6 - Funding and Sponsors: This part of running a club really depends on how
large your club is and whether your students are more children or adult and
if they wish to compete in tournaments and be apart of seminars and camps.
It all costs money.
Generally as a rule all your fees that come in should cover the running costs
of your training centre, this could be “Rent, First - Aid bag, phone
accounts and on line charges also petrol costs travelling to regional meetings” that’s
probably about it.
So why funding and sponsorship, well this comes down to what training aids
you would like to have available for your students to work with and maybe having
your sparring mat plus sparring gear for your students train in. Sure they
could just buy their own sparring gear that’s fine for adults but for
children this becomes very expensive. I personally believe the club should
have gear available.
Funding can come from one of many charity organisations in your area such as
Lions Foundation or Pub Charity. These organisations will help out provided
you or your committee do follow procedure in filling out the forms. If you
need help with this you can check out the ITFNZ Website or get a hold of your
regional marketing person. Do not expect every time you will get a favourable
answer back, you will get declined sometimes if there is no funds available
at the time you apply. Simply prepare it all over again “Perseverance” will
win out. Our club rate is about 30% with favourable applications being paid
out. Another avenue is sponsorship through local businesses that have a keen
interest in what there community is up to, especially the children of the area.
A lot of our equipment is through local business sponsorship “Specialty
machine, board breaker machine and upright kick and punch bags”. The
last way is for your students to organise raffles and sausage sizzles these
are more labour intensive but create good comradeship with students by putting
something back into their club. Sausage sizzles and raffles go very well along
side other community events such as triathlons or community cultural events
where by you apply to be part of the event with a Taekwon - Do demonstration
and have along side your stand or area raffles and sausage sizzle this makes
it more enjoyable too.
7 - Computer: In this day and age I recommend you acquire a computer for your club. It does not necessarily need to belong to the club it can be your own home computer. In the beginning this maybe an expense outside your income, simply ask one of your students who has a computer to take care of everyday items such as checking the ITFNZ Website “News and Calender” of events coming up and maybe type a monthly newsletter up for you and your students. You may wave some of the student fee to help offset them doing this for you. These days companies such as Noel Leeming’s have very good plans available for you to purchase whereby you could charge your club the cost of the monthly payments plus you’re on line charges, ink and paper. This would also depend on how big your club was and how much your student fee rate was. It is possible as this is what we do for Hurupaki TKD Club.
8 - Good people skills: Having good people skills is very essential these
days. People are so diverse in how they function as the instructor needs to
be able to mediate with them and between them. What I have noticed over the
last four years and was not noticeable to me before opening the club how people
change when they come up through the grades. Their opinion of how things should
be in class can be quite different and what can be very difficult if not kept
in check, and you must, also remembering each person believes outright they
are right. What I have found works very well is to put different students together
sometimes they are the same grade or I mix them up. I also make sure that students
of 4th Gup up take part of the class and instruct there particular part of
the blue booklet syllabus. This works two ways, firstly it puts them in my
shoes and secondly it checks just where they are at regarding an up coming
grading, it keeps them quite and less opinionated.
Well that covers the students off then there are the parents. Lucky I have
a great bunch of parents what I especially like about them is nearly all of
them stay and get involved with there children, be it just being down the back
giving them encouragement fantastic. The only time I have had to discuss young
Johnny or Jill is when they become disruptive in class and they affect other
children wanting to learn. A quick word in the ear of mum or dad generally
does the job, if not they are sent down the back of class to sit for awhile
this calms them down especially just after they have been sent down the back
we start some fun session and they want to get back up they are less likely
to play up again.
Oh! Did I mention “Indomitable Spirit” in there somewhere, oh well
the club goes on.
If at the end of the day be they adult or child and there behaviour does not
change and gets worse then it is time for them to part company for the betterment
of the club harsh but sensible.
Summary: I have covered off a lot in a short space but believe it is enough
to ensure that any student wishing to go down the path of being an instructor,
not just an instructor but a very good instructor. Then, I believe you will
not go wrong following some of what I have mentioned above.
In writing this it has opened my eyes as to how much my family has put into
the club over the last four years, so saying that I would like to add something
else and that is every so often take sometime out with your family. Go to the
beach, visit family and friends, hhhmmmmmm……
Now where did I see a free weekend?
Aspects of this thesis maybe different to other instructors and how they operate, I would be grateful for any feedback.
Thank you.
George Konia. (Second Dan).
Branch instructor of Hurupaki TKD Club.
ITFNZ Sales.
Whangarei, Northland.
NEW ZEALAND.