WVMark wrote:
No one seriously teaching quality martial arts will ever make a lot of money from it.
-Tim Cartmel comes to mind. (BJJ +IMA)
-Fairtex has some pretty damn nice looking schools out there. (Muay Thai)
-Chris Chan drives a BMW and he doesn't keep a day job. (Wing Chun, direct disciple of Yip Man)
-Dino Salvatera owns a home in SF and his only job is teaching martial arts. (Head of SF Hung Sing Choi Li Fut)
-Coach Ross has a highly successful Sanda team. (Lama Pai, Chen Tai San disciple)
Your argument implies that none of these folks seriously teach quality martial arts and those are just the names that came off the top of my head. Furthermore:
A. It means keeping teacher to student ratio way down.
B. It means students doing it *your* way and there is no other.
C. It means finding specific people who fit a specific model.
D. It means not having to do quite a bit of things in the article like newsletters, motivate clients, set goals with clients, pamper clients, making customer feel like they were right, feedback, etc.
A. Or cultivating a pool of talented assistants. If you are truly teaching quality martial arts, over time you should be able to train qualified instructors to teach under your authority.
B. That is just poor teaching and not indicitive of quality instruction. Confucious say "adjust the teaching to the student" (因材施教). There are always multiple ways.
C. If you truly provide the best example of that model, there will always be students. You can find just as many people by narrowing your focus as you can by broadening it. It just requires a different kind of marketing. You can be a specialists and attract people based on your specialty.
D. You don't have to do those things but for most of them, you are just being an idiot not to. Pampering students and making the "customer" feel they are always right may be innapropriate for martial arts training but motivation and goal setting is not only appropriate, it's almost a prerequisite or good teaching. I would not necessarily want to put out a newsletter but periodically presenting students with relevant articles or other tidbits of teachings that don't come from me would be, IMO, an excellent ideas. It's one that most of my favorite teachers have all incorporated. An inspirational New Yorker story about a struggling boxer? A book reccomendation? An article on human physiology that is relevant or maybe something historical? How about a mention of the style you teach that was in the news?