Wow. Its one of those things you don’t really think about until it comes up. And when you do think about it your mind starts to twitch a little at the vastness…
The dojang that I have the privilege of being a student and instructor at celebrated its 20th anniversary this week. Twenty. Years. In the three and a half years that I’ve been with them I’ve seen three martial arts schools come and vanish in my home town alone. Our current enrollment is around 250 students ranging between the ages of 2 and 60+. Another highly impressive number.
I can’t speak to why the other schools failed while we’ve been going strong all this time, but having never stepped foot in one of these other schools it is hard for me to say. I know what we are doing right though. Some of this will be a repeat of things I’ve said in previous posts, but as this is a special time for the school I’ll risk it. Also these aren’t necessarily the order of importance (certainly not in my mind anyway) and rereading this part of me wants to reorder them, but I’ll let it stand the way it is.
First – the mantra we hear over and over again from Mr. M. The Mission Statement if you will. We do not teach karate. We teach people how to become better people. Karate is just the tool and benchmark we use to do this. And this isn’t something that shows up later in the curriculum. Honestly you see it at work more often in the Power Turtles (2-3 year olds) and the Tiny Tigers (4-5). The curriculum contains a primary focus on a mental or social goal and a secondary physical one. As an example, this month is humility. And it gets broken down so that even the little ones can understand the concept. What are you good at? Is it okay to be proud of yourself for this? Is it okay to make someone else feel bad by saying “I’m awesome and you’ll never be as good”?
But it goes a little bit further than that. As instructors we are expected to drop the curriculum if a situation arises that needs to be dealt with immediately, and this is something you see regularly – especially in the kids classes. Class has a lack of focus today? Run these drills until they start showing focus. Someone not showing respect on the floor or to their parents? Mat chat about the importance of respect and why you can’t teach karate to someone who doesn’t show respect. The karate can wait, these things are more important.
Second, we listen to the parents and deal with their concerns. A week doesn’t go by that a parent will pull one of us a side and say their child is having difficulty with x, and we have a few ways of helping out with that. Usually its a simple matter of changing up the mat chat or focusing on a specific part of the form. Sometimes its taking the child aside and having a serious discussion with them. Either way we don’t let it slide, and we make sure the parents know that we are dealing with it. The parents are putting a lot on the line by allowing us to be such a huge part of their children’s lives and we want them to know that not only are the children in a safe place, but that we’ve got the parents’ backs when they need us. There are no closed classes. The parents are always welcome (and encouraged) to watch the classes and we do everything loudly enough that they can hear exactly what we’re saying to the kids. We try to take the time between classes to explain what we were doing during the class and the why of it to the parents.
Finally, and in my opinion most importantly, we are a family. I’m not just talking about the staff either. We do everything we can to make a connection with everyone who walks in our doors. Its not about the numbers and the tuitions, its about the people. Its about genuinely caring about them and what they need to achieve any goals they may have.
So in closing, I’d like to say congratulations to the M’s on their 20 years of service, thank you for letting me being part of it, and here’s to the next 20 and beyond.
Tang Soo!
tippingthevessel 