In Defense of the McDojo

[Flying Crane]

I would have to disagree. I don't think that using a billing agency or any other profit making venture makes your Martial Arts bad.
Sean

It may not automatically mean that it's terrible. But it probably means that the quality is not as high as it should and could be. Given enough time, it's likely that it will drop further.

 

[Touch Of Death]

It may not automatically mean that it's terrible. But it probably means that the quality is not as high as it should and could be. Given enough time, it's likely that it will drop further.

As long as you are teaching real concepts it will be sound. Would you rather have 10 core students or 300, when you are dealing with three hundred people, of course, it will be a slower process. Newbies hate to get hurt; so: the sink or swim approach will not work. However if you can get these three hundred kids to a point where they can handle more and more situations as they go, you are teaching real martial arts at a slower pace.
sean

 

[Flying Crane]

As long as you are teaching real concepts it will be sound. Would you rather have 10 core students or 300, when you are dealing with three hundred people, of course, it will be a slower process. Newbies hate to get hurt; so: the sink or swim approach will not work. However if you can get these three hundred kids to a point where they can handle more and more situations as they go, you are teaching real martial arts at a slower pace.
sean

When you are working with 300 students, you cannot give each of them enough attention to make sure they are learning the concepts and material properly. Each student needs an interactive relationship with the teacher and you cannot develop that with this number of students. Quality suffers, with a large number of students. It's not just that it's at a slower pace. Rather, you are limiting what you can teach to the superficial, you are accepting that you cannot bring the students to a deeper level of understanding, and you are forced to accept "good enough" as, well, good enough. It's all you are gonna get in that situation.

When you are working with 10, you can probably give them the attention needed.

I'd rather work with five.

 

[Blade96]

Objective: Team A was the most successful, because they won the pennant.

Objective is what can be proven outside of the realm of personal opinion and feelings.

you said money was the only objective way that exists to measure success. and you said this. I still dont understand it though. what does it mean? I'm still confused. I never heard subjective and objective before.

 

[Touch Of Death]

When you are working with 300 students, you cannot give each of them enough attention to make sure they are learning the concepts and material properly. Each student needs an interactive relationship with the teacher and you cannot develop that with this number of students. Quality suffers, with a large number of students. It's not just that it's at a slower pace. Rather, you are limiting what you can teach to the superficial, you are accepting that you cannot bring the students to a deeper level of understanding, and you are forced to accept "good enough" as, well, good enough. It's all you are gonna get in that situation.

When you are working with 10, you can probably give them the attention needed.

I'd rather work with five.

As long as you teach out of a basement that is fine. You can still be the judge of whom gets promoted. I don't think the broader generalized priciples of motion are superficial. The students still need to work, and they have three hundred different body types to discover on their own. What deeper understandings are you refering to specificly?
Sean

 

[Touch Of Death]

you said money was the only objective way that exists to measure success. and you said this. I still dont understand it though. what does it mean? I'm still confused. I never heard subjective and objective before.

The Objective is the task, the subjective is off task.
Sean

 

[JWLuiza]

you said money was the only objective way that exists to measure success. and you said this. I still dont understand it though. what does it mean? I'm still confused. I never heard subjective and objective before.

Objective: Something that can be measured (time to complete a ski course).
Subjective: Something based on personal interpretation, opinion, etc. (Gymnastics scores)

He was saying from a business perspective, $$$ is THE main objective measure. Pennants won by a baseball team might be an objective measure from a team/franchise perspective, but not necessarily a business perspective (i.e., it may/may not result in greater ticket sales and profit).

 

[Flying Crane]

As long as you teach out of a basement that is fine. You can still be the judge of whom gets promoted. I don't think the broader generalized priciples of motion are superficial. The students still need to work, and they have three hundred different body types to discover on their own. What deeper understandings are you refering to specificly?
Sean

Students need A LOT of correction, over and over, to really get things right. There needs to be a very interactive relationship between the student and teacher, to ensure the student really understands it and makes necessary corrections. With a large group, that just does not happen.

Things get taught on a superficial level like this:

Teacher throws a kick: "see how I do this? Now you do it."

300 students mimick the teacher, and get little or no direct feedback and interaction. They do this for 10 minutes, all of them are sloppy, but it's time to move on to something else.

Teacher teaches "Delayed Sword": "See how this is done? Grab a partner and practice"

So 300 students partner into 150 partner pairings and struggle thru the technique. Teacher tries to make the rounds and make corrections, but it just isn't possible. Students never get Delayed Sword right, because they never got the interaction with the teacher needed to do so. It sort of looks like Delayed Sword, but it's completely ineffectual and nobody can really use it, and nobody really learns anything from the exercise.

Even if they drill it for two hours, they just drill the slop. They don't get the interaction needed to really fix the errors and make any of it right.

So they've learned something on a superficial level, but they can't really do it and don't really understand it.

Personally, I think martial arts ought to be taught out of a basement, or in a back yard, with a dozen or fewer students.

 

[AlanE]

In a business model, success is determined as cash flow, balance sheet, financial robustness, not by idealogy, corporate environment. Businesses can use these subjective things as both an internal motivator for employees and as a branding mechanism in support of the business of ANY business: making money.

...
The more productive argument/discussion is what practices do not act at cross purposes to teaching a high quality product.

Good idea. What crosses purposes, and what furthers business success (defined alternately as making $ and making good students)? This thread may still be able to answer.

Both are results of motivation from consistent, outstanding ethical examples. Quality content....uh, how can a student know? They know if they're being treated right and becoming more capable within themselves. Eventually schools compete, and more notes are taken. The process continues. Skill is improved, retained, or lost. Will the first school you attended still be open? If ethically run, probably yes. If they ran out of money...no. If they got trounced at every competition...no.

Business.

Please define what we're selling! Dreams, confidence, friendship, movement, getting out of the apartment, God's gift to martial arts, or good instruction and a step in the right direction? Do we all start at the top? How do we know? Looks like a temple?

What is being sold is more complex than the best fighter, best self defense, most trophies, most flexibility, most traditional, most (whew, I'm out). Yes, there are risks to not trapping a weapon based on bad instruction. This is highly valid.

Awesome Blade96! I agree with much of what you say and sorry to hear about those thieves. I'm not sure they support a fact of strip mall Black Belts being frauds, but they do support your argument that frauds can do a lot of harm. My still-there wisdom teeth are starting to hurt

Objective: There exists a standard to match performance against.

Subjective: There is no standard (actually called an objective standard ) to match performance against. This concept often arises with employee performance appraisals. What standard is their performance being measured against? Opinions? How well they get along with others? Energizing their team from within? Looking the part of company man/woman? Deliver a specific number of items/reports/contracts/sales/inspections/solutions within a specific timeframe? (highly objective and appreciated by employees, businesses, shareholders).

Business performance may not be the instructor's goal. Barely surviving financially to provide great instruction is very likely the instructor's goal. If so, the school's performance will not use business metrics such of growth and profit (objective), and instead use their clear knowledge of making lives better (clear enough, but still subjective, because how are better lives measured?)

 

[Blade96]

Ah, ok! Objective there is a standard and subjective is more based on opinion.

so bill says if a business meets a standard (like a mcdojo making lots of money) then it is successful.

Gotcha! I think. lol.

 

[Drac]

My experience with a McDojo came from a female officer that I worked..She would show up for duty wearing a satin jacket with the name embrodered on the back and various patches signifying that she had reached instructor level..When she told me what she paid for lessons I could not believe it, I didnt pay that much for my first car..

I had the oppertunity to spar with her on duty once out of the eyes of the prying public..Despite all the patches showing here at instructor level of training she failed to block 90% of what I threw..She still believed that her skill level was good enough for the Police Olympics and signed up for the black belt division..She never made it past the peliminaries...

 

[Steve]

Enron made a lot of money. Was their business model sound?

 

[JWLuiza]

Enron made a lot of money. Was their business model sound?

They made up profit and were fraudlent in their business practices (accounting). They weren't successful because they could no longer make money. If McDojos get to the point where they lose their ability to consistently make money, they will then be "unsuccessful", but that clearly isn't happening.

 

[Steve]

Enron made a ton of money. By the definition of success in this thread, their business model was sound. We're looking at their business practice with the benefit of hindsight. BEFORE the collapse and the subsequent legislation making much of how they did business illegal, according to the prevailing definition of business success in this thread, their business model was among the best because they made the most money.

So, are you suggesting that there are other things we might consider when determining whether a business model is sound or not?

 

[JWLuiza]

Enron made a ton of money. By the definition of success in this thread, their business model was sound. We're looking at their business practice with the benefit of hindsight. BEFORE the collapse and the subsequent legislation making much of how they did business illegal, according to the prevailing definition of business success in this thread, their business model was among the best because they made the most money.

So, are you suggesting that there are other things we might consider when determining whether a business model is sound or not?

I'm saying providing profit to shareholders legally and consistently is success. They screwed their shareholders and did so illegally. I would add legality as a condition of the success.

 

[Steve]

I'm saying providing profit to shareholders legally and consistently is success. They screwed their shareholders and did so illegally. I would add legality as a condition of the success.

Okay. So, now we've got legal and consistent added to the list, in addition to profitable.

What about AIG? Can we add sustainable to this list, as well? AIG generated incredible profits until September, 2008 when their credit rating was dropped and they had a liquidity crisis. Can we all agree that, in spite of staggering profits, their business model is questionable (at least)? In spite of record setting profits, their business model was auto-cannabilizing. Their business practices were legal, at least at the time.

Or is "too big to fail" is a dependable business strategy?

 

[JWLuiza]

LOL. I thought consistently covered the sustainable part... but yes.

We probably have the same thoughts as to WHAT we want in a MA business, but I am saying the subjective markers are neither necessary nor sufficient for success. However, the traits you are talking about are often integral in increasing profit, sustainability, etc. If you look at a business book like "From Good to Great' success is in financial terms, but it is often the subjective that leads to the success, yet the goal posts remain in $$$ terms.

 

[Steve]

LOL. I thought consistently covered the sustainable part... but yes.

We probably have the same thoughts as to WHAT we want in a MA business, but I am saying the subjective markers are neither necessary nor sufficient for success. However, the traits you are talking about are often integral in increasing profit, sustainability, etc. If you look at a business book like "From Good to Great' success is in financial terms, but it is often the subjective that leads to the success, yet the goal posts remain in $$$ terms.

I'm going to cry tears of joy. Thank you. Just looking at a snapshot of a business, and lasering in on the profit as the barometer of success can be very misleading. There are other things that must, IMO, be considered and at least you and I agree on a few of these things.

I was getting pretty frustrated yesterday. These traits/practices are really where the discussion is here. I mean, we don't have to agree about whether a particular trait is inherent to a sound business practice, but to dismiss it out of hand by saying, "Nope. Profit. That's the gauge," is contrary to the spirit of the discussion. Profit is one important ingredient, but sustainability is another, as is legality. There are others that can be discussed as well.

This is what I've been trying to get across for several posts now and gets back to the two schools I mentioned. And returning to my original posts, even where you are dealing within the law and your business model is sustainable, there are business practices common among mcdojos that are unscrupulous. Or, getting more specifically to the point, given that there are other ingredients in a sound business model, is it possible that between two businesses, the one turning less profit in the short term might be operating under a healthier business model over time?

Ultimately, I believe that many of the McDojo business practices, much like the AIG comparison, are auto-cannabilistic and depend too much on turnover and an unending supply of ignorant customers. Where I think that the mcdojo plan fails is sustainability. So, of the two BJJ schools I described, which one is operating under a sound business model?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I'm going to cry tears of joy. Thank you.

This is what I've been trying to get across for several posts now and gets back to the two schools I mentioned. And returning to my original posts, even where you are dealing within the law and your business model is sustainable, there are business practices common among mcdojos that are unscrupulous.

Ultimately, I believe that many of the McDojo business practices, much like the AIG comparison, are auto-cannabilistic and depend too much on turnover and an unending supply of ignorant customers. Where I think that the mcdojo plan fails is sustainability.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/02/23/

 

[celtic_crippler]

I'm going to cry tears of joy. Thank you. Just looking at a snapshot of a business, and lasering in on the profit as the barometer of success can be very misleading. There are other things that must, IMO, be considered and at least you and I agree on a few of these things.

I was getting pretty frustrated yesterday. These traits/practices are really where the discussion is here. I mean, we don't have to agree about whether a particular trait is inherent to a sound business practice, but to dismiss it out of hand by saying, "Nope. Profit. That's the gauge," is contrary to the spirit of the discussion. Profit is one important ingredient, but sustainability is another, as is legality. There are others that can be discussed as well.

This is what I've been trying to get across for several posts now and gets back to the two schools I mentioned. And returning to my original posts, even where you are dealing within the law and your business model is sustainable, there are business practices common among mcdojos that are unscrupulous. Or, getting more specifically to the point, given that there are other ingredients in a sound business model, is it possible that between two businesses, the one turning less profit in the short term might be operating under a healthier business model over time?

Ultimately, I believe that many of the McDojo business practices, much like the AIG comparison, are auto-cannabilistic and depend too much on turnover and an unending supply of ignorant customers. Where I think that the mcdojo plan fails is sustainability. So, of the two BJJ schools I described, which one is operating under a sound business model?

Go prove your theory.

Open up and run a "successful" school without making any profit where that school is your only source of income. Perhaps your students could pay you in chips and sandwiches because it's hard to get groceries with no money and a man's gotta eat.

I'm not sure how you'll take care of your other expenses; like insurance, utilities, equipment, etc... But hey, it's your theory so prove us wrong.