NaamKyun.com Discussion Forum

good gungfu = worth everything; crap = well, even for free it is not worth it

in my school, the monthly fees are quite high. lessons in a full equipped mou gwun are 2 hours, there is usually no more than a dozen of students at the lesson, they can come 5 time a week, stay in the school before their lesson or another 2 hours after their lesson and train on their own. private lessons i teach are also "expensive". some students learn (for various reasons) for free.

if a student is in a bad financial situation, it does not mean he cannot come and practice - if he is rich, it does not mean he can buy gungfu - if he does not want to pay the fees ("sifu should teach for free, spread the art" etc.) and learn for free, well... i am professional gungfu teacher, i spent all the money on the equipment for the school and trips to Hong Kong/China to learn more (and frankly, nobody can pay me enough to learn what i have to offer - i value the art of my teachers, i also value the art that i teach).

'Why if a school does well, does it labeled Mcdojo? What do you think?"
it is usually labeled a McDojo by people who themselves are failures.
-that is, unless the school is a McDojo!
No matter what kind of school you run, there will always be a small solid core. (you know the line,"Everyone else just pays the rent") But, if you don't make your teaching available to the masses? How will the peole who have the potential, ever going to know you are there?
If you have a large student body, then you will have a larger pool to choose from. It's a numbers thing.
You don't need to compromise your integrity, just alter a few things.
Give more emphasis on conditioning/lien gung to the next level (intermediates)
Have your classes..dare I say it..fun. Fun does not mean games, "Sifu Sez, Sei Ping Ma!"..no.
Fun is hitting pads, kicking shields. People LOVE to hit stuff. It's empowering. It's also great conditioning. They also LOVE to sweat.
Keep it high energy. Zero down time. The best way to do this is to write out your lesson plans in advance. Sure, we can all teach off the top of our heads, but when you write down a lesson plan, your class suddenly becomes very upbeat and intense.
Always give your cardio last. Pump them up at the end.
When your students walk out of your class soaked and invigorated, you have taught a great class.
Divide your curriculum into bite sized portions. If you cut a pizza into six or eight slices, you still have the same amount of pizza. You are not sacrificing ANYTHING.(How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!)
Hey, I just instituted a colored sash ranking system-oh horrors!
Guess what? As soon as I promoted the first student to gold sash, everyone started to work harder. They all wanted to test. And they stayed motivated. Now they push me to teach material.
What the heck was I thinking all these years?!

Here, here TT! I agree, I always hate it when I go to a kwoon and EVERYONE is SO serious.

I feel the main "McDojo" complaint is not a matter of payment method, but of having "green" instructors fulfilling student skill development (and promotion) with a "one-size-fits-all" formula of teaching, where there may actually be a name up on the sign out front, but the man himself is fairly unavailable except at considerable extra expense...



I know instructors who have been managing dues through autopayment for years already, nothing but glowing reports, with their Karma, Buddhism etcetera still very much in place, thank you!

The idea of "autopayment", need not necessarily extend to charity or scholarship situations...

The main thing will be introducing the matter of means-of-payment changeover to your students...

Anyone who objects, you may then enlist to be your "monthly dues-collector"!



Best,

Michael

To PM: As a poor student of yours, I would say, that our monthly fees are not that high. It is payable and as you said, good kung-fu is worth everything. And if you count in everything you do for us outside normal lessons... well lets say, I feel bad for not learning faster and better for all the effort you put in it.
It hurts me, when I see all the equipment you buy for us (well, for you as well) and no one except you and a very few students use it... And in fact it hurts me even more, that I do not have time to train on it as much, as I want : )

Kain

thnx (...and cool, next month i will double the fees )

equipment: yeah, right, still need to buy the power rack when i save some money...

training: as i told you, you are doing well. you train a lot, so make sure you also eat good and rest well. later!

Double? Eeeh, you want me to eat only one slice of bread per day and drink water from rain? O.o And you say "Eat good"... pfff...

To train a lot is not like to be training good, but I am off topic with this one, so I will just end it here...

My opinion on Mcdojo... when I hear this, I imagine something run only for money, without real intention of teaching the students well. You get a lot of students, let them pay and not really care if they learn something. You give them something else, than good kung-fu, maybe a bit of sweat, maybe good feeling, that they are "training kung-fu", yeah, they are cool and they can brag about it to their friends... As in McDonald they give you feeling of eating, not really something tasty or nutricious, in Mcdojo, you get feeling of training. That is what I feel about this term. If you come into some good quality restaurant, obviously doing well, you would not think it is McDonald, so why to think it about good kung-fu gym?