Martial Arts as a Full Time Job

Hey Guys,

Something has been on my mind for quite a long time and I thought this would be the perfect place to get feedback on it.

I am curious about the possibility of being a martial arts teacher and running a gym as a full time job... for years I had thought about it and wondered what it would be like. I am a landscape architect working over in China at the moment... I went to school and got my degree and I do enjoy my work sometimes... but I do often think about quitting and opening up my own gym some time in the not too distant future... most likely back home in Canada.

As far as I can gather here are some obvious pros and cons

Pros
- Being you own boss
- Doing what you love
- You can focus far more of your time and energy on training and improving your skill in a big way


Cons
- Perhaps not as lucrative or stable as other professional careers
- A big risk in being an entrepreneur
- Turning what you love into a "business" and potentially draining the love you have for that thing


I'm not to far along on the grapplers path... just have 2 years nogi training.. and just barely scatching the surface on the 10th planet stuff... But I do have 10 years martial arts training with my main base being wing chun.

What my feeling is now, that it would be great if I could maintain my main job on as a part time or even doing freelance.. so that would keep a steady stream of income coming in and would not put huge pressure on myself and the gym... while still allowing me to put a lot more time into training.

So what do you guys think?

Is there a lot of full time 10th planet guys out there?

Does running a gym on your own put food on the table?

What kind of risks and back up plans do you have?

Thanks and happy holidays from Shanghai


Tyler

Hi! To start off, I am NOT running a full time gym, but that is a goal of mine, and I have some thoughts on the subject. I'll spit them out before the more experienced guys are coming to answer.

- First off, if you want to run a 10P school, you need to put in some serious time in the system, and as far as I can recall, you need to be at least a purple belt.

- How is the market for wing chun? Would you want to coach that as you continue working on your grappling? And do you have a degree in wing chun that merits you opening up a school?

- For me, I am not quitting my day job until I have saved up 3-6 months of expenses, and have my martial arts gym making a good amount of money part-time. Then I will transition to working part-time while building the gym, and when the income from the gym reaches an amount I can make a living on, I will transition to that full time.

Just some thoughts from a guy in Norway running a small gym pursuing his passions.

Start small and go from there you'll be surprised if you keep showing up how things happen. It's a choice you make to put something you really want in front of everything else. You'll need to sacrifice but if it's what you want then you're not really sacrificing anything. Don't have a plan B If my school don't pop off I'll be broke forever I'm not building myself a way out just in case fuck that noise I'm riding it til the wheels fall off

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JorgenBore

Hi! To start off, I am NOT running a full time gym, but that is a goal of mine, and I have some thoughts on the subject. I'll spit them out before the more experienced guys are coming to answer.

- First off, if you want to run a 10P school, you need to put in some serious time in the system, and as far as I can recall, you need to be at least a purple belt.

- How is the market for wing chun? Would you want to coach that as you continue working on your grappling? And do you have a degree in wing chun that merits you opening up a school?

- For me, I am not quitting my day job until I have saved up 3-6 months of expenses, and have my martial arts gym making a good amount of money part-time. Then I will transition to working part-time while building the gym, and when the income from the gym reaches an amount I can make a living on, I will transition to that full time.

Just some thoughts from a guy in Norway running a small gym pursuing his passions.

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Hey Joe,

I'm pretty sure you are right about the purple belt.

I think the market for Wing Chun is actually pretty good. It has been popular since Bruce Lee exploded on the scene and people found out that that is what he trained in before creating JKD. There is a huge variety out there in terms of lineages and quality... I'm about 6 or 7 years deep in wing chun... but I have moved a bunch of times and changed teachers and lineages... I would say I have a wide knowledge but still not so deep yet.
However, once I save up enough money I am planning on quitting work and going to Germany train full time in wing chun with my Sifu there for a half year or year, and hopefully get my first level master level (first degree black belt more or less).
I know there is alot of wing chun haters out there and I can totally understand that... so much of the stuff I see on YouTube is just ridiculous... but I really feel like the stuff I am doing now is really top notch self defense.

I would absolutely keep on with grappling while I am doing my wing chun stuff... ideally I would have both offered and be able to transition and use the two interchangeably.

I have about a years worth of savings in the bank right now.. but I know how quickly that can be burned through... and travelling is expensive... I figure another half year or year of work and I'll have enough saved to jump ship.

How long have you been running your gym over there?

How big is the space you guys use?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jon-Michael Holland

Don't have a plan B If my school don't pop off I'll be broke forever I'm not building myself a way out just in case fuck that noise I'm riding it til the wheels fall off

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I dig it man... just that old saying... dont leave yourself a plan B...

"Burn the boats"

... its all or nothing

Respect

This is also something I daydream about at work quite a bit. Eventually I'd love to have my own gym. I train at 2 schools, one, the gym is the owner's livelihood. He does pretty well, he has a nice house, a couple cars, 2 kids in private school. We have good programs for adults boxing, muay thai, and grappling, but one thing he told me is that the kids classes are where he makes the real money. I also heard Steve Maxwell say something similar to that on Joe Rogan's podcast. My second gym, the owner is a cop who runs the school at night, it's a really nice facility with great equipment because he just charges us enough to keep the lights on and keep us all training. Whether you have another career or not, I think the idea of running a gym is an exciting one and is definitely worth going for. If you don't at least try you'll always have regret

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hespectnogi

the kids classes are where he makes the real money. I also heard Steve Maxwell say something similar to that on Joe Rogan's podcast.

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Yeah man,

I've heard that several times before as well... At my first kung fu gym the Sifu there taught the kids Shaolin (a more old school type of kung fu kind of similar to karate) because it is hard for the kids to grasp the small details and techniques within wing chun...

It is an amazing thing to start learning martial arts when you are young... I was pretty poor growing up and didn't start anything until I was 20 and away at University.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tyler_Casselman

Hey Joe,

I'm pretty sure you are right about the purple belt.

I think the market for Wing Chun is actually pretty good. It has been popular since Bruce Lee exploded on the scene and people found out that that is what he trained in before creating JKD. There is a huge variety out there in terms of lineages and quality... I'm about 6 or 7 years deep in wing chun... but I have moved a bunch of times and changed teachers and lineages... I would say I have a wide knowledge but still not so deep yet.
However, once I save up enough money I am planning on quitting work and going to Germany train full time in wing chun with my Sifu there for a half year or year, and hopefully get my first level master level (first degree black belt more or less).
I know there is alot of wing chun haters out there and I can totally understand that... so much of the stuff I see on YouTube is just ridiculous... but I really feel like the stuff I am doing now is really top notch self defense.

I would absolutely keep on with grappling while I am doing my wing chun stuff... ideally I would have both offered and be able to transition and use the two interchangeably.

I have about a years worth of savings in the bank right now.. but I know how quickly that can be burned through... and travelling is expensive... I figure another half year or year of work and I'll have enough saved to jump ship.

How long have you been running your gym over there?

How big is the space you guys use?

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Where in Germany are you probably heading too? I am usually in Germany once a year, so if I am nearby it would be cool to do some traning.

And for now I am renting at a local greco wrestling gym 5 days a week, around 100 square meters in mat space, and have been running it for two years, while also working and going to school. So it is a slow and steady grind to build it up, and sometimes tough to deal with the humans involved, but I am surely loving every step of the process.

And about the issue of having to appeal to kids, that may not be for everybody. I'd recommend reading this book, as it gives another route, focusing on coaching adults, as it is not everyone who wants to focus on coaching kids. It is mye main coach Rodney King that is the author, and even the book is a little outdated to how he runs his school now, it still has a lot of valid points and things to take into consideration. There might be better places to buy it, I didn't check any further. http://smile.amazon.com/Martial-Arts...me+rodney+king

Thanks for the info man!

The reviews sound really impressive... I'll check it out for sure.

I was looking at the 10th planet location map the other day and I was really shocked about how few 10P gyms there are in Europe... I grappling just not as popular over there?

As for Germany My Sifu lives about 3 hours north of Munich in a city called Ingolstad...

We still need to talk out the details... but what I am hoping is that he will let me live in the school to keep my costs low and then just train like a mad man 7 days a week. A couple of the other students there are into grappling so I would have training partners for my ground game as well.

The whole thing just has me crazy pumped and really motivated to cut all my costs and pinch every penny.

But yeah man, if you are ever over there would be awesome to tag up and do some rolling. Or maybe I can even come by your school sometime! I do plan on doing travelling while I am there... although that is a far distant second in terms of priority to training.

If you are in Germany and you don't go to Berlin to train with Ralf you are doing yourself a huge disservice. Ralf is a savage!

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Originally Posted by Josh Passini

If you are in Germany and you don't go to Berlin to train with Ralf you are doing yourself a huge disservice. Ralf is a savage!

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Nice man, will do!

I was looking at the 10th Planet members map and didn't see anybody in Berlin.. but there are a couple other people in Germany though.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...w.ke0mUqVd6hT0

I think I will try to make a trip over to Korea for a week or two of intensive training....

I'm not an instructor, I'd like to own a gym one day and possibly include jiu jitsu in there, but I'll point out a couple things I've learned, and you can see if it's helpful at all:

1) You have to develop a way to transition people into Jiu Jitsu. You're not always going to have readily-dedicated people coming in who will just persist from Day 1, so you need to know how to help the person who may just be curious, or just looking to train as a hobby, to get involved in your school. I can't remember who it was, but a pretty prominent MMA instructor said in an interview once that while his passion is working with and training pros, it's the kids and weekend warriors that help keep his doors open. This might look like offering 2 complementary classes, and then having a discussion about what is expected if they want to continue. This is the reason, I think, that a place like CrossFit has their on-ramp programs, so people can gradually get into training, instead of just jumping in the deep end.

2) You have to be passionate about your school, and training in general. If you look like you're not all that thrilled about being there, and maybe only really want to improve yourself, it's going to trickle down to your students. Students, current and prospective, need to feel that you give a shit about them and their development.

3) You have to develop ways to keep students accountable. Accountable for showing up to class consistently, paying their dues consistently, keeping their teammates accountable for training consistently, or at least accountable for communicating why they aren't doing these things. Obviously things come up in life and sometimes people have to step away for a bit, but you can't complain that students aren't training consistently if you don't develop that culture in your school.

4) If you want to train kids, and get the money that comes from having kids' classes, then you also need to foster a family friendly environment. That might mean having rules about the kind of language that's allowed, or if music is allowed and what kind, etc. Students who are parents are more likely to be able to see their school as their kids' school if they feel it's a safe environment for all people.

5) Regularly acknowledge your students' improvement, or provide constructive criticism of mistakes. People just like knowing where they stand.

6) Keep your space clean and in order, and be consistent and punctual as much as possible. Respect what's your's, and what is your students', including property and time.

Anyway, these are just things I've noticed in my years training around different academies and talking to friends who train at other schools/gyms. I've noticed pretty consistently that the people who's gyms/school aren't as successful as they'd like, aren't doing these things and doing them consistently. Good luck.