Selecting students...

[jks9199]

Here's an interesting article about trainers and gyms being selective about who they work with or who joins. I think there's a lot of applicability to martial arts programs, too. Your club may not be the right fit for everyone, and maybe by being selective up front, you can be more likely to ensure a good outcome in those who do come to your club.

"Let me have a think about it."
"I would like to do a tour."
"Can I come in and chat with you about it all?"
"I want to try out a few classes before I commit to anything."

These are all questions and comments that we, as coaches and business people, hear on the phone and via e-mail inquiries. Frequently, these are precursors to a potential customer booking an appointment with us and seeing if what we do is a good fit. A lot of the time people say these things because they are unsure of what useful things to ask and how to progress the situation from curiosity to action.

At my gym, we work hard to help people make an informed decision around whether this is a good option for them based on their needs and expectations. If you own a facility and you are not helping people figure out if what you do is a good fit for them, then you are doing a pretty crappy job of helping people out. It should be noted that clients of ours have occasionally suggested the initial enquiry was difficult for them in terms of the questions asked and the answers sought by me and my team. This for a good reason. You - meaning, you trainers - cannot work with everyone, and if the culture of your facility is important to you, you will be selective about who you work with.

 

[WaterGal]

You definitely will have people coming in that are not a good fit for the school, or possibly any school. Sometimes it's just that what they want to do isn't what you do - maybe you teach a traditional style in a formal way and they want a modern gym where they can learn cage-fighting. And sometimes it's because they have an awful attitude. I remember we had one guy come by when we first opened that bragged about how many bones he'd broken doing TKD sparring. We did not let him join.

 

[CK1980]

I remember a funny story I was told by an old instructor of mine... A guy had called and said "I'm a brown belt with 1 tip, I'd like to come to your school and train." The instructors reply was "that's great! we have classes on these days at these times." The guy showed up and after about 10 minutes of demonstrating the same arrogance he did on the phone, the instructor had him spar with a green belt (difference between a green belt and brown 1st tip in this system was about 2 years) mainly because that was the highest rank in the class at the time. The green belt mopped up with him. The guy left the school and never returned. The instructor did this to give this guy a much needed attitude adjustment.

I can tell you that adjustment never truly happened... About a year later, I was hanging out with the woman I call my wife and her boyfriend (at the time). He bragged about how great he was and asked where I trained and when I told him, he got a look like someone smacked him in the face with a bag of poo. I didn't get it until the woman heard my instructor tell that story one day and she smiled and said "I thought I knew you- that was my boyfriend at the time."

 

[donald1]

What type of selection, will this be of upper belts, age/maturity, discipline of students, or how vary

 

[CK1980]

For an upper belt in the SAME style or system of styles- I would say testing into the school would be good. You have the prospective upper belt test- maybe not all the way from white, but at least from 3-4 belts below where they expect to come in at all the way to the belt they claim to have. They fail to meet the standard for any of the ranks they are tested in, the test concludes and they are awarded the appropriate color belt. BEFORE such testing is granted, they should have to attend probably 5-10 classes "non-ranked" just to give the instructor an idea of their maturity level and discipline. This is as much a test as the belt testing. The reasoning is- this new upper belt will reflect the quality of your school to others outside the school AND will be an example for students that already attend.

For a ranked student from a DIFFERENT system or style (and having been there), they should start as a WHITE BELT. No ifs, ands or buts about it. They should pick things up quickly, but the fact is- a belt in one system simply does not equate to a belt in another system. One school I went to wanted me to enroll "non-ranked" and basically be fast tracked into a belt position because of coming into the school experienced in another system. I declined-flat out. Stating that I wanted the opportunity to learn the system as it is designed and that the differences between this new system and what I previously knew were so vast that I would be a sloppy whatever-belt and thats not what I was after.

 

[WaterGal]

For us, if someone comes from the same style but a different school, we'll honor their rank. If they're not up to our standard, they'll just have to get up to it before they test again.

If they're coming from a different but related style.... it depends. We teach TKD, and our competitors teach (watered-down) TSD. If one of their students wants to leave them and join us, it would be bad business for us to make them start again at white belt. So we have them take a couple of months to learn some Taegeuk forms and WTF sparring, and then test them for a TKD rank. It's never been as high as their TSD rank, but they always have the same experience as that brown belt guy you mentioned, so they get it.

 

[terryl965]

For me and my school we ask they do a free week to see if they are truely there or just a casual customer. I want only people that are positive and trying to better them self. I always try to find them what they are looking for.