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Top 10 Signs of Good Martial Art Schools |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 22 May 2007 |
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This article is written to guide you with the process of finding a good martial art school for yourself or your children. Having been in situation to look for martial art schools due to relocating to other city, and/or having heard of experiences from family and friends who have gone to bad martial art schools, it is definitely not an easy task to find a good martial art school that suits you the best.
We've compiled the following Top 10 signs you need to pay attention to in finding good school: - Instructor's quality and qualification: In our experience, this is by far the most critical part of the school. If you are new to martial art, your priority is to find the "right" teacher and you will love the style the teacher does:
- Positive signs: A good instructor will motivate you and will make you good about what you are doing. He/she will help you stay healthy and pay attention to as to why you come to exercise
- Negative signs: An instructor will often have inflated or self-awarded black belt rankings or will belong to an organization that cannot be traced to a known legitimate school or organization of recognized good standing
- Staff: It is often the case that martial art schools are run by head and assistant instructors. Pay close attention to how they run classes:
- Positive signs: Motivated assistant instructors, in most cases, assistant instructors teach classes as part of the requirements to advance to higher level belts. They usually don't do this for living, mostly because they love martial art. This is also a strong reflection of how good and qualified the head instructor is
- Negative signs: High attritions among assistant instructors, as mentioved above, assistant instructors help at school motivated by their passion in martial art. You might wonder how the head instructor really is if he/she can even keep motivated assistant instructors at school
- Students: It is a common norm that the number of students at beginner levels are higher intermediate and higher or advanced levels that forms some kind of pyramid:
- Positive Signs: Lot of intermediate or advanced students at school. This is a very good sign for the school. That also means that students find value and something useful in practising at that school
- Negative Signs: Empty school ? This does not mean that the school is bad. It might be that the school is new in the business (less than a year). If you know that the school has been in business for several years and still empty, you'd better advised to ask more questions before you join
- Service: Running a martial art school is a business as in any other business, the school provides service to customers (students) and they need to make sure that they provide the best possible services to you as customers:
- Positive Signs: You feel better after your exercise and martial art pratice
- Negative Signs: You don't get the right service you deserve or you almost have to beg for information or instructions how to practise correctly
- Fees/Tuition/Financial Arrangement: It is a business, owners and instructors have to earn a living from martial art. Tuition starts from as low as several tens of dollars for martial art classes in community centers up to hundreds of dollars. The tuition does not always directly correlate with the quality of schools as some schools running in community centers have much lower operating budget or requirements imposed by the community to pass on the savings onto consumers (students).
- Positive Signs: Most martial art schools offer free trial period or discounted trial period with or without uniforms for several weeks. In addition to this, at many martial art schools, you don't have to lock yourselves in a long term contract (1 year or longer). They do sometime offer discount for 1 year contract which you should seriously consider if you plan to go to the school.
- Negative Signs: Schools who don't give any flexibility in term of financial arrangement. They would like to lock you in long term without any possibility for you to leave
- Black Belt Clubs: A lot of schools offer now special contract or Black Belt Club as vechicle to motivate students to stay and achieve their black belt. This should not necessarily be viewed as a negative sign. It should be noted though that in most cases, it is most useful to intemediate level students who have trained for a long period of time (more than a year)
- Testing fees: It is common for schools to change a fee for belt testing and promotion to cover expenses for new belts, higher level instructors to come and attend the testing. Good schools charge reasonable fees for testing compared to the tuition, and they have consistent belt ranks in the martial art styles. Bad schools might use inconsistent belt ranks to take advantage of testing fees. It is also common to charge much higher fees for black belt testing to pay for certificates issued either nationally or internationally to students passed the test.
- Equipment: Some schools require that students purchase equipment for the martial art excercise. This is common as long as the equipment is used for safety reasons during training, e.g. sparing or self-defense:
- Positive Signs: Instructors do their best to provide equipment for new students while they still don't have equipment of their own. Schools might sell equipment for profit at reasonable price compared to martial art equipment stores
- Negative Signs: Schools require students to purchase completely new training gear when they may already have high-quality gear from prior study in other schools for unexplainable reasons. Note that good schools might impose this requirement due to valid insurance reasons against serious injury
- Facility: martial art school is a business and provides students a place and environment where you can practise and learn the art. It should also be noted that the facility should be large enough for students to practise as martial art is a sport and it requires large enough facility for the number of students in each class. The facility does not have to be luxurious however it does have to be clean, tidy and safe so that students practise in safely:
- Positive Signs: clean, well organized and safe facility
- Negative Signs: cluttered, small and unsafe facility
- Unverified claims: You should always take on the side of caution should you hear claims that an instructor have trained with some secretive masters in Asia or that the instructor can teach you styles that are superior than any other style:
- Positive Signs: qualification from reputable organization or world or country federation
- Negative Signs: very high ranks from many sources sometimes cannot be verified. Note that it takes years of practice and dedication to achieve higher ranks within reputable organization, so it is highly unlikely that one can attain many higher ranks from so many martial art styles
- School rating and review: Read ratings and reviews on-line in martialartreview.com and please share your experiences (reviews and ratings) with others
- Attitude/Atmosphere: This is something you have to feel this yourself. Most schools offer you a trial period for two weeks or a month either for fees or no fees. Try it out and feel the attitude and atmosphere:
- Positive Signs: Serious martial artists not only practise kicking and punching but most importantly live by the tenets of their martial arts: Respect, Courtesy and Integrity. You should be able to feel these at school
- Negative Signs: Should you have an uneasy feeling at school, the chances are that you are right !
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 05 June 2007 )
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