You stop the class and start describing the next activity but there are a few children that continue talking. You know the ones, the usual suspects that find it almost impossible to keep their mouths closed. Although you probably would not call their behaviour naughty, it can still be immensely frustrating.  This problem is of course not unique to coaching children in martial arts classes and school teachers experience this problem more frequently than anyone else. It’s can be really frustrating when you have gone to the trouble of planning a great class only for a few to make it chal ..read more

It is now two decades since Kimber Hill (now Tyree) released her young kids martial arts programme (Lil Dragons) into the martial arts world. This programme was different to many others around at the time as it was written specifically for children. The Lil Dragon brand is still popular with kids martial arts programmes today, though most tend to just use the branding and deliver their own programme based on their particular martial arts style. In 2008 I launched my own young children’s programme. Using the Lil Dragon structure as a reference model, I created something that would be a little ..read more

What the hell are queue busters? Let me explain………. When I first started martial arts back in 1990 at 16 (yep, I’m getting on a bit), we all performed quite a chunk of our training in ‘class lines’. You will recognise the familiar-looking matrix with the higher grades at the front and the lowest at the back. I am not sure about the logic of placing the new students the furthest away from the instructor but to be honest, we still use this configuration in our Taekwondo and Ju Jitsu classes. Happily, we never really adopted this practice for our 3-4 and 5-6 year old classes. Yes, we start the ..read more

You may have heard the term rotating curriculum thrown around in martial arts circles before but what about a nested rotating curriculum? For years I have been using the traditional linear curriculum delivery model to teach our members but a few years ago I came across something called a rotating curriculum. This made me reflect on the way we currently do things and wonder if we could be more efficient in the way we deliver our martial arts content to our students. More often than not, the delivery of a club’s syllabus is based on how the other instructors in that organisation deliver t ..read more

When you taught your first martial arts class, I am guessing that you didn’t know if coaching would become a lifestyle martial arts business or just stay a hobby. This article gives you some starting points to help you balance the demands of your business, your health and your family.  While some martial arts coaches are happy teaching as a hobby, others want to combine earning a reasonable living with doing what they love. You usually also have a few who want to take over the world and have a super centre franchise in every town and city. If you are looking for information on how to ..read more

I know this article is looking at the question ‘Are games for martial arts classes a good idea?’ but you should know that I was going to name it ‘Here come the fun police: why are so many children’s martial arts instructors against games?’ Before we get started, I just want to reiterate a statement that you have probably heard me say many times before – ‘Children and not mini adults’. I thought I would take this opportunity to remind everyone to keep this quote front and centre whenever we are talking about coaching children. When it comes to developing students physically, psychologically ..read more

‘Confidence’ is often one of the main benefits listed in children’s martial arts ads alongside discipline and other such trigger words we think parents want to hear. While I don’t doubt many martial arts clubs do build confidence in their young participants, I am not sure how many coaches could tell you the strategies and tactics they use to achieve this goal. When we talk about confidence, we generally mean self-confidence. You can have confidence that a certain process will produce a specific result but when we are talking about our belief that our own actions or behaviours will result i ..read more

OK, I admit it, the title ‘Marketing or retention’ is a little clickbaity and most people running a martial arts club will probably have realised that they need great marketing AND retention to grow efficiently. That said, what I see out there in the wild is often a different story.  If I asked you when you last did any marketing, you would probably be able to rattle off dates that you ran specific campaigns (or at least ads), tweaked your website or nudged your current members to refer new members. If I asked you ‘What was the last element of your club you reviewed and changed to imp ..read more

In the developed world, most children are in school full time for 12-13 years, but you don’t emerge from school as a teacher. If you have bad teeth and you need to see a dentist on a regular basis, no matter how much contact you have with them, it does not make you a dentist. If you have students that pass their black belt test (based on their ability to perform the martial art), it does not automatically endow them with the skills required to coach. If you want to build great martial arts coaches, you need great coach education. If you want to produce great coaches on a consistent basis ..read more

Your club has a culture. You may not have constructed it consciously or even have any guiding documents describing it, but it’s there. Documenting your mission vision and values will not only help you lay the foundations for your culture but also serve as a guiding light for all the decisions you make in your martial arts club.    Think of your club as a boat. Your mission is where you want to get to and your vision is what it will look like once you are there. Your values are the moral compass you will use to identify what you are unwilling to sacrifice to achieve your mission and ..read more