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Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture
Sustaining a Home/Private Dojo

Hi all, but of a conundrum with my dojo long term, I'm wondering if anyone has experience in the long term running a home/private Dojo type setup.

Covid sort of pushed me into doing things this way, previously I have had my class meet at both more and less public locations. I am able to do this only because I already have students, because the same people have been around for 5 years plus. So, now the Dojo is at home, I have a room for kata and partner work, and the garage has a few different punching bags, some strength training equipment, eventually a makiwara, etc. I have both puzzle mats and full mats for falls.

However, Covid dropped half my students. I was at eight to ten people, now I am down to four.

What I am wondering is how/if it's possible to sustain interest long term in a situation like this, such that you occasionally bring in new people to replace those that leave. I had one new person before and partially during the pandemic (we would do distanced stuff in a park during that time) and I think he mainly left due to feeling behind - he really wasn't, but it's almost unavoidable that people go through a period of feeling that way when everyone else has been around so long.

I suspect it may be a less noticeable feeling for new people now that we usually aren't wearing full Gi's or belts, but it's still there.

Beyond that, I face the issue of screening new people trying to join, which basically means I have to conduct an interview enough that I know I can let them in my house for this. I have up a very basic website, but in my past experience those don't draw in much unless you are really a more public figure. Lots of bites, but hardly anyone actually wants to meet or come to a class. I presented my class as a "study group" or training group now, because that's more accurate, but I'm not sure this will bring any interest.

So, I'm wondering what advice people who have been in similar situations might have.

Frazatto
Frazatto's picture

Hey Zach  o/

I have experience on half of it, never had a dojo but I organized a studying group in a public park for 3 years, maybe my "failure" can help you with ideas.

The people where I live are.....difficult.......so in the end the lack of new practitioners coming (or even interested) made the overall morale plunged and we decided to stop it.

I had two main problems based on some very few feedback.

The idea of a studying group is hard to sell, you need fairly advanced practitioners so they bring content too and things they want to experiment end evolve. If most people are just there waiting for your input, they feel unmotivated and quit. Specially when they compare themselves with other participants that are already flowing, they don't understand the process and don't trust themselves yet.

A "less professional" environment makes people question your capabilities personally as a instructor. What exactly looks professional to someone varies immensely and I never found a way around it.

Here, most people find gyms using Google Maps, if it's close and have nice pictures, they give a try.

Like gnus, most newcomers feel threatened in small groups, there is no place to hide hahahaha

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Frazatto wrote:

Hey Zach  o/

I have experience on half of it, never had a dojo but I organized a studying group in a public park for 3 years, maybe my "failure" can help you with ideas.

The people where I live are.....difficult.......so in the end the lack of new practitioners coming (or even interested) made the overall morale plunged and we decided to stop it.

I had two main problems based on some very few feedback.

The idea of a studying group is hard to sell, you need fairly advanced practitioners so they bring content too and things they want to experiment end evolve. If most people are just there waiting for your input, they feel unmotivated and quit. Specially when they compare themselves with other participants that are already flowing, they don't understand the process and don't trust themselves yet.

I have found that even my long term students mostly just wait for me to organize things. They are rarely interested in givign feedback on class. I have tried to encourage it, but I feel like it's just a rare quality that really has to be specifically cultivated in people, and I have not figured out the key. Newer people are this way to an even larger degree of course.

e wrote:
A "less professional" environment makes people question your capabilities personally as a instructor. What exactly looks professional to someone varies immensely and I never found a way around it.

Here, most people find gyms using Google Maps, if it's close and have nice pictures, they give a try.

Like gnus, most newcomers feel threatened in small groups, there is no place to hide hahahaha

Interesting point, I have no room for much larger classes, and I actually like the format of the home dojo, with my decent impact gear, etc. setup. What I worry about most is replacing the people who eventually leave. As far as looking professional, the only thing I can imagine doing is listing my rank on my site. My sandan rank actually comes from someone with a little name recognition in the Karate world, if I added it to my site I imagine I would be a little more likely to bring in people looking for a Dojo like mine.

Frazatto
Frazatto's picture

Zach Zinn wrote:
I have found that even my long term students mostly just wait for me to organize things. They are rarely interested in givign feedback on class. I have tried to encourage it, but I feel like it's just a rare quality that really has to be specifically cultivated in people, and I have not figured out the key. Newer people are this way to an even larger degree of course.

Most educational systems try very hard to destroy that kind of impulse and traditional professional environments will punish you one way or another for this sort of creative initiative.

I'm involved with formal education in general for a few years now, the greatest challenge in creating a prosperous makerspace is exactly that, re-training people to have personal interests and to remember how to express themselves in a free way.

But that is a lesson that doesn't serve us very well, we already do most, if not all, of the the solution proposed. It involves creating small groups, socially safe groups, and try to develop increasingly more complex problems till the point they feel confident in using their own experiences as guide.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

I should also mention here, I am not professional, and I don't try to look like it.....lol. I ended up taking over from my instructor years ago because if there was no Karate class, there was nowhere else to train. There are other dojo in town, but they are 3k, and I'm not interested in that again. My only option was to keep going, that was 14 years ago or so.

I've come to enjoy teaching more and more over the years, I get alot out of it. Howver, the dojo is still a thing where I am invested also for myself and my own learning, which is why I thought "study group" is an appropriate term, even if it's not an exciting one. People become more like peers than just students fairly quickly if they stick around and halfway apply themselves, and that is the kind of environment I prefer.

So, if someone is looking for "professional" in the first place, they probably don't wanna come hang out in my living groom and garage punching, kicking, throwing in (usually) t shirts, etc. These days we don't have much in the way of trappings, though I've thought about bringing some of that back.

So, I'm expecting that people looking for slickness would steer clear of me, I'm just wondering how others mantain a crop of students in their home Dojo setups long term.

Frazatto
Frazatto's picture

Oh c'mon, of cource you are a professional instructor....14 years?!

Maybe if we considered professional in the sense of "making a living of it" in comparison to amateur as in "making for the love of it", but even so.

Any way, what if you created one special class just to bring in new people?

Something more traditional, very focused on training the basics, with all the bells and whistles people are expecting??

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

That's a great idea, thanks. Maybe I will add something like this to the site, making it clear that I am willing to prepare people with focus on the basics.