Standards Of A Black Belt- Present vs. Past

[Flying Crane]

The price was 13 dollars every ten weeks. The tests cost 5 dollars. We met for 1 1/2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He worked full-time and made no money off the lessons. Many years later, the price had gone up to 20 dollars every 6 weeks. It all went for rent on the building.

Perhaps you have uncovered one big point. In the old days, (I didn't enter the martial arts scene until 1984 at the age of 13 so I am really speculating here) perhaps the martial arts were not viewed as a viable profession, a way to earn a living. They were done for the love of it, and fees were collected to pay any rent on the building, but everyone, including the instructor, had a day job. Once the idea began to sink in to more an more people that you could actually run a school and earn a living from it and not have a day job, the whole picture began to change.

It's certainly a tempting notion: to do what you love and make a living off it. Nothing wrong with that idea. But I think that it really changed the quality of what is taught, and how people train. I still find myself thinking that the whole scene might be better off if everyone kept their day job and only collected enough fees to pay the teaching costs, and nobody had commercial schools with hundreds of students and no way to keep control of quality.

 

[John Bishop]

Perhaps you have uncovered one big point. In the old days, (I didn't enter the martial arts scene until 1984 at the age of 13 so I am really speculating here) perhaps the martial arts were not viewed as a viable profession, a way to earn a living. They were done for the love of it, and fees were collected to pay any rent on the building, but everyone, including the instructor, had a day job. Once the idea began to sink in to more an more people that you could actually run a school and earn a living from it and not have a day job, the whole picture began to change.

It's certainly a tempting notion: to do what you love and make a living off it. Nothing wrong with that idea. But I think that it really changed the quality of what is taught, and how people train. I still find myself thinking that the whole scene might be better off if everyone kept their day job and only collected enough fees to pay the teaching costs, and nobody had commercial schools with hundreds of students and no way to keep control of quality.

There's a lot of arguments for both sides. One thing that is true is that many of the people we consider the "great martial artists" of our time, like: Fumio Demura, Hidetaka Nishiyama, William Chow, Ed Parker, Adriano Emperado, Mike Stone, Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis, and many more got their training in college clubs, YMCA's, military base clubs, community centers, cultural centers, garages, and backyards.
Two things to consider when thinking about making a living by teaching are: the more students you have, the more money you make. So there is a very strong temptation to lower your standards for training and promotions.
And anytime something becomes "your job", it just dosen't seem to be as enjoyable as it was when you did it for the love of it.