Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 02:48:22 +0200 From: the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: The_Dojang digest, Vol 16 #140 - 5 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.13.cisto1 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13.cisto1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net List-Unsubscribe: , List-Id: The Internet's premier discussion forum on Korean Martial Arts. List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: Send The_Dojang mailing list submissions to the_dojang@martialartsresource.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net You can reach the person managing the list at the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of The_Dojang digest..." <<------------------ The_Dojang mailing list ------------------>> Serving the Internet since June 1994. Copyright 1994-2009: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Korean Martial Arts. 2,500 members. See the Korean Martial Arts (KMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of The_Dojang at http://MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! Today's Topics: 1. Honorable vs Dishonorable (Curt McCauley) 2. Re: Honorable vs Dishonorable (Jye nigma) 3. Contracts (David Lieder) 4. RE: Overly Commercialized MA (Jye nigma) 5. Re: Honorable vs Dishonorable (Jye nigma) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: "Curt McCauley" To: Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 11:39:25 -0700 Subject: [The_Dojang] Honorable vs Dishonorable Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net "My family and I are struggling to establish a school in the town we now live. I am working 40 hours a week and my son has a job in the food industry. We have yet to find a venue to teach out of or realized the capital needed to secure a location." Mr. Wood, 40 hours leaves you another 128 hours to teach. Starting a school/ studio can be done many ways. Starting a small program through a local community center, YMCA, Church basement or a Garage is a good way to get started. I live in a small village of 750 people, I found an old barn/milking parlor, dressed it up a little and put in a level floor, started with four students, grew to over 100, then as my students began opening up programs in nearby communities my numbers started falling off. Now I teach mostly Dans, other studio owners, and the few local citizens who want to train. I held another job for many years pulling out of that pocket to keep the studio open. Finally I was able to teach full time. Now as I am reaching what some people call retirement age, I teach less but enjoy it the same or more. I may have to look for a job to support my teaching habit. Been in the same place for 17+ years. A couple of my students, husband and wife, started a program in a local community center, then were able to buy a house in that city. They added space to their garage, put in a floor, mirrors etc. Their income for the classes pays the mortgage on their house, buys groceries, and lets them travel to regional and some national events. This program is also supported by wages from a full time job. So you can go big, or start small. You can grow or not. Taking the first step is the important one. Good luck. Curt McCauley Channel Town Soo Bahk Do --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 12:31:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Jye nigma Subject: Re: [The_Dojang] Honorable vs Dishonorable To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net I know is some martial arts this is true CMAs and African warrior traditions comes to mind. Not so much secrets like stuff no one knows but the intimate details of the art. For instance, a closed door disciple is big amongst CMAs. In African warrior traditions the elders just would die with their knowledge because they didn't find the younger generation worthy/honorable enough to keep the info....in that case they saw the younger generation misusing the knowledge. In that case my people are losing extremely precious knowledge.   Jye  --- On Thu, 5/21/09, Ray wrote: From: Ray Subject: Re: [The_Dojang] Honorable vs Dishonorable To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 12:50 PM I know this is a common thread, or urban legend, frequently heard in the CMAs and in some cases the FMAs, but one wonders how true it is. It makes for an interesting story line, but the cases in which I have seen that claim made one usually finds something else actually occurred. Ray On May 21, 2009, at 5:45 AM, Robert Wood wrote: > The ancient master did not share ALL their > knowledge with ALL their students.  Only the ones that proved > themselves > worthy learned the “secrets” or “whole” art. _______________________________________________ The_Dojang mailing list, 2,500 members The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2009: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers applySubscribe or Unsubscribe: http://the-dojang.net --__--__-- Message: 3 From: "David Lieder" To: Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 15:06:39 -0500 Subject: [The_Dojang] Contracts Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net If you pay for any amount of classes you have formed a contract. If you pay by the month you have entered into a contract that a 5 year old may consider long term. My program has been structured as follows for quite a while: Novice students are in the Basic program and sign 6 month membership agreements. Intermediate & Advanced students are in the Black Belt Club and are committed to achieving Black Belt. They sign 1 year agreements. After a year or more they are intermediates and know if they want to achieve Black Belt. They know what it's going to take to get there and have set their goal to achieve it. By having the longer membership agreements it helps them stay with it in the tough times, which we all know happens to most everyone. It locks them into the price so they don't get any price increases. All students have the option of paying the membership in full (which is the same as paying month-month, just a longer period of time). Anyone that let's their 8 year old Little Johnny make his own decision as to quitting is doing their child a disservice. Who is the parent? In the near future I am changing my agreement structure to: Introductory: 2 weeks Basic: 6 months Black Belt Club (Sparring): 6 months Master's Club (Weapons): 2 years If they are consistent and motivated they can achieve the Black Belt in this 3 years minimum. Many take a little longer though. I have employees and rent to pay. I can't tell my employees and landlord that I am going to take a break from paying them in the summer because half of my students want to take a vacation or 2 during the summer months. I offer most students the ability to take upto 5 classes a week. I recommend 3 times per week. The curriculum is designed on 3 times per week. So they can make up any classes they miss due to vacation. We even allow them, with written notice, to put their agreement on hold for 1 to 2 months. Their autodraft payments continue and we add the time to the end of the agreement. David --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 12:59:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Jye nigma Subject: RE: [The_Dojang] Overly Commercialized MA To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net My answers are below: --- On Thu, 5/21/09, Thomas Gordon wrote: I think this has been beaten up pretty good on both sides.  Everyone is aware of the need of money – problem is the love of money.  Money is what my bank takes for the home for my family.  Money is what the grocery store takes to feed my family.   And I typically see the same argument for doctors, teachers, and pastors.  They are saving lives, educating us, or saving souls...surely they shouldn’t get tempted with money.  To me, it’s a silly argument.    Actually it's not a silly argument using the examples you just gave....what happens when a doctor becomes greedy? They up their prices to a ridiculous amount of money, and in many cases are doing a half assed job. What happens when a teacher is focused on money? You get a teacher like my son had, just showed up for a paycheck instead of good teachers who actually loved to teach. What happens when a pastor becomes greedy? you get churches that dictate to its members how much they should be tithing. I've seen some that require its members to fill out forms stating how much they make and then the church determines how much those people should tithe, and beyond that, they aren't their for their flock when needed which is something all pastors are supposed to do. We have a mega church down here and its pastor owns several homes, but only occupies 1 and their are homeless people in his church giving their last dime to pay an offering to the church....hmmm. So it is not a silly argument at all.   Our pastor makes a very good living and every time I see him he’s studying, preaching, or visiting.  We simply wouldn’t get that from a volunteer pastor or part time pastor.  Same is true with martial arts.   I don’t even want to think about the lack of quality in having a part time school teacher for my kids.  ACK!  If I can’t make a good living and feed my family in XYZ industry, then I’ll move to ABC industry.  And there went the (full time) talented martial artists because they couldn’t live as well as they should. Now you are making assumptions. You're assuming people who volunteer aren't commited to the task at hand, and they don't provide the same quality as a full time person. I think you should give this more thought. What you are overlooking is the fact that those people are volunteers; meaning no one made them participate, they chose to do so themselves. The easiest thing to do is give money, because if you have it it's nothing to just sign a check over... But when you volunteer you are giving your time which is giving yourself. That is more precious then any dollar amount. Now to keep it real some people volunteer just so they can talk about their good works and some do it to help those who need help. I used to work with a church unloading trucks of food and distributing it to families in need, and I can tell you that I gave my all. There was no pay, yet I still gave 110%. I know I'm not unique in this, so they are others with the same attitude. Making a living doing something doesn't make people work harder and the idea that it does is ridiculous; it just increases the potential for them to return to work, doesn't even guarantee quality work. I have come across too many individuals who have excellent careers and take it for granted and do a half assed job to believe in that fairy tale.   With due respect, some of your posts are very interesting.  However, when it comes to business, it’s best to get advice from someone that is successful in that particular industry.    I agree with this wholeheartedly,but at the end of the day business is business and all business though different industries share common principles. So I am more then qualified to speak on the subject. Now if you'd like to ask me my qualifications instead of make assumptions I'll be glad to share.     Jye   --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 13:33:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Jye nigma Subject: Re: [The_Dojang] Honorable vs Dishonorable To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net My thoughts are below: --- On Thu, 5/21/09, Robert Wood wrote: It is NOT dishonorable to earn a comfortable living for your family.  Yes it is dishonorable to teach a watered down MA.    Mr. Wood I think you may have missed my point. My point is not that teaching for a living is dishonorable at all. What I said is dishonorable is how people's focus on money outweighs the product. In every industry this is the case. When you have people who start a business and the focus is on sharing quality knowledge or producing quality service or products for the masses that is honorable. But sometimes that honorable thing can become dishonorable when the focus is shifted from quality to greed. When the focus is primarily money then you'll find people doing dishonorable things to make more money. Examples range from our food supply to electronics to martial arts. In fact if this was a silly argument as Mr. Gordon said then things such as monopolies and oligopolies wouldn't even be an issue amongst large corporations. The fact of the matter is it can be easy to focus primarily on making money and end up focusing solely on money in the martial arts business. Let's face it, the martial arts is a luxury not a necessity and so school owners have to focus on being able to keep the doors open and making a profit...but if they are making a profit and get greedy they begin to focus on how to make even more money and water down the martial arts to get more money...that is dishonorable in my eyes.     I have to ask the question…who’s MA is pure from the source?    Let me explain what I mean by watering down the MA. TKD gets dogged right? People say it's not a real MA and the reason why they say that varies, but the main reason is because of how TKD is trained. Taking a peek in the General's book talks about different conditioning methods to strengthen your body weapons. Now take this challenge and find as many TKD schools in your area as possible and see how many actually utilize these conditioning methods. You'll find very few I would guess. The reason as has been explained on here before is due to time contraints, issues of true dedication by the students, some instructors weren't taught those methods etc. So with that part missing from TKD it has become dilluted. Why? because when you get into a real fight you are going to get hurt, but by properly conditioning your body and body weapons you can lessen the amount of damage you receive. So when I say taking a pure product and cutting it (watering it down) I'm talking about taking a MA system and leaving out some of it's principles, teachings, etc. So in the case of TKD the watering down would be not teaching proper conditioning execises, automatically passing everyone, etc.   The ancient master did not share ALL their knowledge with ALL their students.  Only the ones that proved themselves worthy learned the “secrets” or “whole” art.  So were the ancient masters dishonorable?    To answer this question no the ancient teachers weren't dishonorable. Why? because in CMA you have disciples and closed door disciples. Back then when information was limited (unlike today in the info age) teachers chose their disciples and entrusted in them the whole MA system because they trusted that person(s). Frankly it's common sense, some people are more responsible then others. So would you pass along a family business to the child who isn't dedicated or shows no good sense of direction? or to the one who is dedicated and makes good decisions?   They taught the bulk of their students only a portion or a “watered down” version of their art.    You could look at it like that, but considering the time I think this point of view would be inaccurate. A student of a teacher who wasn't a closed door disciple still learned the art. What the closed door student learns is the intimate details of the system. That is not really watering down. What was viewed as secrets or secret techniques back then are found to not really be so much of a secret now.   On a side note, I noticed you taught TCC. What you might want to consider is teaching outside. Meet some place like a park which should be native to you in TCC and teach classes there. This will allow you to teach and add to your roster, while avoiding overhead, and you can eventually buy your own spot. There are pros and cons of course, some of the benefits are the fresh air necessary for your chi kung sets, the outdoor terrain is ideal for training, never know when you may have to fight outside...lol. Hope that is useful.   Jye  --__--__-- _______________________________________________ The_Dojang mailing list The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://the-dojang.net Old digest issues @ ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com/pub/the_dojang Copyright 1994-2009: Ray Terry and http://MartialArtsResource.com Standard disclaimers apply. Remember September 11. End of The_Dojang Digest