Coming soon

Just a couple more days until our open house for Silent Warrior Martial Arts.  We're going to have our classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings 6-730pm. John and I have been working out, meeting twice a week to get me back up to speed, and the training has been going well.  The last time we trained, John and I had a frank discussion about what we can expect. If all goes well, good. If the program itself bombs, John still wants to train with me. And I'd be happy with that too. It's been pretty awesome got get back into Ninpo Chuan Fa again after nearly 8 years.

At best, we have a few people interested. That's fine to start out, and word of the program can build from there. Most people that have trained with John have been impressed with his style and way of teaching. I'm hoping for 3-6 regular students to start. As it is, Jack's Aikido program in Conway has only three of us regularly, and that's after being available for 14 months.

John ultimately wants to open up the old school again. He's become unhappy with the career he's been working in since he closed the school, and is in the process of looking for a new career; daunting for anyone in their 50's. So all the while looking for a new full time job for him, we'll run this program and look for other spaces that could potentially be used as a new permanent dojo if our program is able to generate enough interest.

One issue I keep running into is our demographic for interest. We've only heard of a few adults interested in taking the program  I've also had quite a few people ask me about a kids program for our martial art; quite a bit more actually. It's kind of tough for me to explain to parents that our program is just starting up, and teaching kids is a whole different approach than adults. Best I can tell them is that it's an option we may visit next year depending on how well our adult program goes. I hate having to tell people this, considering how good martial arts were for me as a kid.

I asked one friend who wanted to enroll her kids, "What about the other school in town?"
The other school in town is a Kenpo dojo that opened up a couple years after Silent Warrior closed its doors. I've heard very mixed reviews of this dojo. My friend simply said "Have you ever actually been there?"  She suggested I take a friend's kid there and try to enroll them to see how the school is run. She was not impressed. And no, I'm not going to take a friend's kid to pretend enroll :)
Kind of a shame to hear that some people aren't happy with that school. However, I'm cautious of people's criticisms of a school I've never trained in. I thought of going to that particular dojo a few years back, but they have a very "McDojo" type of name for the school which is a big turnoff for me, plus the stuff I heard from people that trained there saying  that they didn't learn much, and that is was more of a wannabe MMA place.

I'd like to have a kids program, but not right now. Besides, the thing I have to keep telling people is that John and I both work full time. Well, in a couple days we'll see how our part time endeavor will start...