2024
Martial arts are changing. I could feel the change back when Taekwondo was accepted as an Olympic sport. A few of us tried to maintain a semblance of tradition but that was short lived. With the onslaught of UFC, MMA and the BJJ studios all making unreasonable promises. Some quite ridiculous. Like all fights end up on the ground. The uneducated masses flocked to these studios as the hope of becoming a super fighter attracted them. But nothing is for free. The idea of just surrendering your position and falling to the ground just made no sense. Albeit this seems to be a competition tactic. The thing is people still believe this hog wash. I am now seeing great martial art schools, still changing their syllabus to try and attract students. I always held my line; I never changed my product for a fad. In fact, I just dug my heals in even more. I kept a belief always in that I was doing.
Great dojos are created by having a great product. You will attract the right students by your great marketing. If you want to have a thriving business, give more than you get. Don’t just change like the wind every time is there is a new fad. There are so many BJJ studios that I am concerned for those that have parked their long-term syllabus just to try and get a piece of something that they are not.
Taekwondo, Judo and Karate are all now Olympic sports and sports ju jitsu acts like an Olympic sport. I just copied a very old video that has sat in my archives for years. I found this very old school back in 1985. I then ventured to Japan and stayed there learning this very traditional style. I did not want to be a better fighter; I had done enough of that. I wanted some thing real.
One of my peers was in Kyoto training at a full contact karate dojo at the same time. He was trying to encourage me to go to his dojo to fight. But I had no interest. I found a dojo that had so much depth. The etiquette was severe, it resembled a royal court. The martial arts was dynamic, the fundamentals all these years later still so relevant. I believe that integrating the early years of training with the blueprint of the traditional martial arts, into Northstar, really gives the student a wonderful martial arts experience. Not just falling onto the ground and fighting for points on your back.
I must admit, I use social media extensively. I just have so much to share. At the same time, I see so many people driven by the need to be a social media influencer. This new term appeals to the wannabees, that happen to find a strategy that works. They rarely contribute anything of any substance. Most just fluke it and happen to stumble into being an influencer. It just goes to show how desperate people are for success.
Online shopping has been revolutionised. Post covid many people were set up to trade online. I set up my online martial arts academy well before covid ravaged the consumer. What I am seeing now especially in the martial arts space is a complete collapse of online recourses. Earlier in this blog we discussed the changing of business strategy to try and keep up with everyone else. The same happened in the online martial art space. There were so many people, studios and dojo’s teaching on zoom.
Since the end of the lockdowns, there has been an evacuation from the online space, many people going back to what they were teaching before and playing catch up, waiting for someone to spark them with a new fad, or quitting completely.