From about 1992 until roughly around 2004 I ran my dojangs as sparring gyms. No Poomsae, grabs, very little breaking. I was in a city that bordered a tough area of Cleveland, parents and students wanted intense training. Eventually that city went down the tubes. I then opened in upper-mid class suburbs. I encountered a very different type of customer, most of which were not into getting hit, at all. So you smarten up. Now I run my general classes for paying customers in 30 minute segments. Example:
6:00pm - 6:30pm Poomsae
6:30pm - 7:00pm Kwonbop
7:00pm - 7:30pm Athletic Development
7:30pm - 8:00pm Kyorugi concepts (not actual sparring, the science of how to spar)
Everyone has an option to skip any class, and take as many as they like.
Also keep in mind that all my classes have become family classes, meaning all ranks, all ages train together. 80% of my students now are together on the floor with their family.
This is radically different from how it was in the 80's and 90's, even early 2000's.
However, when we see a stand out student, one who really wants to train hard, we invite them to special weekend workout sessions that are not on the schedule, invitation only and usually run over two hours and are very intense and is all based around sparring. So we still have a cadre of fighters who train very serious, I just never mix them in with the general student population, I don't want to scare the heck out of my customers.
This is VERY much close to my personal experience.It's ASTOUNDING to me that someone would come to a martial art and NOT expect to be hit or to hit someone.That's like playing American football and NOT expecting to be tackled,or going into a boxing ring and not expecting to be punched.
I live in Long Beach CA,and the areas that I live in are rough and contiguous to other rough areas.I actually like it here...the people (while some of them can get rambunctious and rowdy) are much more straightforward. They want the real deal impact martial arts.Unfortunately,they can't pay that much at all but what they CAN pay? They will.For the most part,anyway.
Right next to my house--I mean a ten minute walk TOPS--is a beautiful artsy area known as East Village or The Village.Lots of artistic types there...musicians,yoga,artists of all stripes and caliber,tony clothing shops,environmental awareness pervades everything from store products to vehicles,antique shops,wonderful schools,the works.
A brace of Villagers came by to my class one time because I participated in a capoeira roda hosted by my capoeira mestre and they loved how I moved,and kept asking me why my movements were sharply different even than my mestre's movements,and my response was:"I actually fight with my techniques.I make contact.I approach capoeira as the martial art it is FIRST,and the artistic cultural expression SECOND." They were all smiles and nods and "Yeah that's COOL" when I verbalized my position to them.
They came by,and one of my students--Vanessa--caught a street kid and gang member named Dino (pronounced "Dean-o") with a hard side kick to his thigh,then feinted low with the lead side kick,popped him across the jaw and stomach with a jumping high side kick-back kick combination (complete with a loup kiyap,you shoulda seen the startle reflex of passersby lolol),and when he hit the ground she stomped on his thigh,front kicked his chest again and when he grabbed her leg with his arms? She spun into an armbar. He tapped.Took maybe 5 seconds top to bottom.Regular stuff,right?
All of The Villagers were like:"OOOHHHHH!!" and 2 of them (a guy and a girl) seemed ready to take the next step and join my class.But one of them--a strawberry blond--looked me dead in the eye and said:"I'd sue your *** if that happened to me." The remaining 5-6 Villagers who weren't the guy and the girl plying me with questions about class fees and schedules were like:"yeeeaaaahhh that looks ****in hardcore,I could get hurt..."
Jesus Christ. What is this...Diary of A Bunch Of Wimpy Adults?
Somebody asked earlier about the proliferation and thriving of contact sports like American football,basketball (lotsa body contact when jockeying for position under the hoop),boxing and the like. The answer is? In THOSE sports, a lot more people are EXPECTING high contact level. In fact? The contact level tends to drive the kinds of people who like contact to them.Same with bjj and judo and Muay Thai kickboxing (NOT cardio kickboxing,I said MUAY THAI) etc. But there's been such a marketing emphasis on "you can do this and not get hit" regarding martial arts like taekwondo,kenpo,shaolin kempo,etc.--the Mcdojangification of TKD in short--that the expectations of parents are NOT AT ALL in accordance with what the martial reality of an art like TKD is.If you think Johnny shouldn't learn boxing because he might get punched in the face? Well hey TKD is gonna KICK Johnny in the face.Maybe you and Johnny need to spray yourselves with a heavy dose of "Wimp Begone" aerosol,buckle down and get in there.
Remember when I said that I could make a killing if I diluted my martial arts training and made it oriented toward money and fitness? I could go from my mere 15-20 or so Gym students to about 120 in 4 months and about 200 in about a year if I emphasized my fitness and noncontact training methods over the contact aspects. Imagine Taebo with alot more Tae in it,along with sport specific drills that get you in good shape fast...and imagine how much confidence you'd have in your newfound fitness.Yaaaayyy you.Then Bad Guy Number Nine sees that you have cool stuff and you're fit but you have VICTIM stamped on your forehead? And you're the next disappeared person we see on TV. Not with me,folks. I know for a fact that every single one of my students can defend themselves AND they're in TERRIFIC shape.They do better in school,socially,at work,and Lord help any BG that rolls on them on the street.This is invaluable to me.It cannot be bought or purchased or bartered.
Remember those news stories of "black belts" being killed in h2h combat by some criminal or the times we've seen on the news "black belts" being killed or badly injured by some knife wielding miscreant? Remember that time a few years back in California that black belt saw a group of guys beating on a guy and his gf and tried to intervene and got badly beaten for it? I recall numerous news shoes of female "black belts" being robbed beaten RAPED and sometimes murdered. Now...how would you like to be the instructor whose methods failed to keep your students safe under those circumstances? What impact do you think it would have on your school,your business' reputation,on YOUR reputation? And just as horrific,what if you go the other way and become some kind of modern day Kobra-Kai Quicksilver dude from Karate Kid 3?
No thanks. I have to sleep at night. I have to look at myself in the morning,and I need to like that guy looking back at me in the mirror because he's everything he says he is and even when he fails? He's trying to do what he thinks is right more times than not. I have children. I swear to God I'd machete chop somebody who sold my kid a bill of goods that got them hurt or killed...and I paid $10,000 dollars for over the years from their progression from white to black and their tournaments and gear and T-shirts and patches and videos and stuff. It'd be machete time too if some fool turned my kid into a brutal fighting machine victimizing others at a whim.(Of course,I teach my kids martial arts,so this doesn't apply to me personally...)
Bottom line? When it's crunch time,your students need to not be the ones getting crunched.The way to span the gap between the "no contact" types and the "full on" self defense practitioners would be to introduce combat drills with light to moderate contact (like mitt work drills and kicking drills and paddle drills that combine kicking and punching and realistic movement) because these drills also tend to foster (as the student participates in it) a more aggressive mindset. Imagine if you took a drill like this:
http://youtu.be/DdF-iHrQuKA
combined it with a drill like this:
http://youtu.be/Dd5B-KBe6eQ
And keep it all through progressive Aliveness,introduction of the tech,isolation of the tech so you can get good with it,then integration of the tech into the rest of your arsenal.Principly something like this in concept:
http://youtu.be/imjmLWj5WCU
and let the person holding the paddle throw a punch and kick back at their partner say at head and body level of their partner kicking the paddles but only at half speed? And you had to block them? I've been doing this for more than a decade now. Even the noncontact people would be able to deal with that. This cultivates a more realistic mindset that in a month or two translates rather easily into stepped up drills and then to sparring and even successfully fighting against the average (untrained) street thug.It's safe,fun,a terrific workout,nobody gets hurt but everybody has o defend against shots coming back at you...and you build their confidence so that they eventually WILL spar.Even when they don't know they're doing it.Lol. Same thing with weapons training. Give them combative drills with hard padded weapons,and after a month or two of gradually stepping it up? They'll be ready for light to moderate contact. About 2 months of light contact and they'll be able to pick it up even more.
But even if they DON'T want to pick it up and want to stay light to moderate contact with stepped up drills? They will have the experience,the conditioning and sparring background to defend themselves vs an attack much better than if they hadn't.They'll also be in 3 times better shape than previously,and their mindsets will be purged of the rampant cowardice that prevents them from looking deeply within their own souls and rooting out this senseless fear of contact...and realize that they're MUCH BETTER FOR THE EXPERIENCE. If you can convert say 5 of the previously "noncontact" crowd into the "contact" crowd? They'll bring over more and more of the "noncontact" butterflies.
This is the approach I'm currently fine tuning as an acceptable alternative,a bridge,between us old skool genuine self-defense oriented,life long martial artists and those newbies who are of the "air jump rope" crowd; the "noncontact" crowd.
