Should I Go ProFESSIONAL?

Dear An-shu,

I have been to your seminars and Festivals since the 1990s, and keep dreaming about starting a school, but it is hard to make the final decision. Should I run a club or go pro? I am confused by all the options and conflicting stories I hear. On one hand, my training includes MMA grappling and work with boxers to be more relevant to the 21st Century. On the other hand, I really long to be part of a tradition connected to history. I read where some people criticize you for running your school professionally, and yet I like what I see on your web site and your instruction DVDs. What advice do you have to help me make this important decision?

From An-Shu Stephen K. Hayes:
Our SKH Quest Affiliate Schools are full-time professional schools, operated as career businesses by owners who are committed to offering in their communities the life-transforming power of To-Shin Do, and are dedicated to supporting their families with the dignity that can only come from earned financial stability.

Believe with passion!
I so believe in the importance of what I am teaching, that I have made a promise to draw to my school as many people as possible. I shudder to think of someone looking for personal protection training and going to some other martial arts school, doing some other curriculum, studying some other guy as a life role model. I so believe in the value of what I am offering, that I feel it would be immoral of me to allow someone to go to some other school because I was unwilling to share what I have learned.

Commit to highest excellence!
If you are interested in a full-time professional school, it will take a big commitment on your part. You will have to see yourself as offering the best program from the most professional school in your city. You cannot be comfortable knowing that someone else has a better school with a better program while what you offer is “pretty good, even though there are more high-powered programs in town.” You have to want to know you are the best if you are going to ask people to trust you with their time, energy, spirit, and money to the point of turning down other training opportunities in order to attend your school.

Prepare to make a real investment!
This is a big commitment on your part in terms of your own energy, attention, and money. It takes a lot of work and investment to be so good that others are happy to pay you money to get what you offer. You will need to be trained by my staff in our curriculum and business systems - a $9,000 investment right there - but the real big expense will be building your school and supporting yourself for those months while you are getting started. Are you resourceful enough to raise the money you will need?

Look deep into your heart!
The most important thing that you can do right now is examine why you want to run a martial arts school. What is your real motivation? Why do you really want to have a school?

I believe that the only valid answer is, “I want to assist as many people from my community as possible to become healthier, more self-assured, safer in a sometimes confused world, more at peace with themselves, and closer to their own definition of personal fulfillment in life, and I intend to devote full-time career focus towards that in a way that will allow me to earn a living that supports my family well.”

If you offer any other reason, like needing the ego pleasure of being “the master”, thinking that teaching martial arts is easier than working for a living, or the absolutely worst possible reason for running a school – “I want to help spread and preserve the art” – you are bound for failure and I will do my best to encourage you to do something else for a living and enjoy training for yourself in someone else’s school.

Consider other choices!
Some instructors prefer to teach a small group of training buddies for self-oriented practice. Clubs have a valid place in the scheme of things – I certainly went through the “running a club” stage as part of my own path towards having a full-time school. We do have an SKH Quest Affiliate Training Group program that you could explore if you are not ready for teaching as a profession.

Consider your training future!
It is great to read that you have been exploring boxing and wrestling. You will be very comfortable with what we are doing here. Our curriculum is very progressive and relevant to self-defense in the modern world. We also offer a Shadows of Iga historical training program for those who seek the classical ways I studied in Japan in my apprentice days. I am sure you will find the perfect balance of practicality and inspiration with our program. In fact, I cannot imagine anywhere else you could go to find the breadth and depth we offer.

Study carefully the motivations of those who would talk you out of success!
As for internet critics of my program, it is important to remember that the most severe critics have never actually visited my school to see what I am doing. The way I up-graded the old curriculum when I started my school really shocked and frightened some old friends and students, but I had to change if I wanted to offer the best possible personal protection personal development training to my community. And of course shocked and frightened people tend to over-react in defensiveness. Absurd things appeared on the internet about “watered down training” and “belt factories” and other silly things that scared people make up to protect their beliefs that permit them to justify remaining small and insignificant. Check us out personally and you will see we offer the real deal when it comes to authenticity and results

If you are ready to be the best at bringing out the best in others by means of running a school, you should arrange to visit the SKH Quest Center in Dayton, Ohio . This is an important step at this point, because you have to see what we are doing in order to believe that I can deliver what it is I am saying that you need for success. You need to see proof, and get all your questions answered. I look forward to working with you if you choose to take the path of the martial arts professional.

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