Advice on starting a club...

[JKDawg]

Hey all!
I have the basics down for starting a JKD club(location,certification). But I've only taught JKD on a one on one basis. How do I get the word out? I live in a reasonably small town where there is only Taekwondo. Any tips on getting the word around? What works best on a flyer,a photo or say,an emblem? Should I do some demos? I don't have a web site,will that be a problem? I'm not expecting the world,but a steady 5-8 people would be nice...

[Tim Tackett]

Where do you live? Is there a boxing club there? If it's a small town you might put a notice up in a health club. Offer to teach woman's self defense class for no fee at the local YMCA, etc.

[frankiefuller]

Here's an interesting idea. Try applying to teach at a college recreation center, it's pretty easy to set up, and you can probably get them to give you free advertising by listing you with the other MA classes and even on the website perhaps. If they have brochures with all of their classes listed in the rec center offerings, you can get in there too, hence more freebies about getting the word out. Offer a cheap, flat rate to students (I'm doing $30 per semester for each student for the stuff I do). Let students do a free intro class or two before signing up, and then they can get locked in for the whole semester and feel inclined to train because they would be wasting their money otherwise. What's great is the school may have the free training equipment in storage and you don't have to pay a dime for the space. The school may cover the insurance for you (like where I'm doing it), so that if you're sued from beating someone to a pulp or something (hopefully you're not randomly bludgeoning students for no reason or holding UFC-style events without permission from the school), the person has to actually sue the school instead (God forbid something happens). It's pretty easy and saves money doing it this way to let the school handle the costs, and you just show up and teach. The way they do it for me is they give me 1/2 of every $30 that I charge for the whole semester. Some schools might just pay you a flat rate no matter how many you sign up. I can't believe how easy it was for me to get set up teaching at a major university in town, a huge university with a national reputation. Just emails, go in to talk, show them my dan rank certificate, and start doing the paperwork. Boom, got listed up on the school website within a few weeks, in all the rec center brochures, maybe advertised all over the campus. I just go in and teach, that simple. Don't really need demos unless you want to, but you'll probably get people anyway just because they're curious and might take something not usually offered. Good thing is, everybody has already seen TKD and karate and judo or whatever for MA clubs, but JKD would offer something not usually offered at college rec centers. I don't think you need a black belt to teach (though I have one), just something showing that you are competent and have some knowledge of something. The stuff I'm teaching is mostly a more fluid, TKD-based modern style, but I throw in other elements. In short, I throw in everything I learned and can call it whatever I want, and since you're the boss, you can dictate how you want to conduct the class.

[JKDawg]

Where do you live? Is there a boxing club there? If it's a small town you might put a notice up in a health club. Offer to teach woman's self defense class for no fee at the local YMCA, etc.

I live in central Wi. There's no boxing club,but there's a small MMA group at the same gym I work out at. Every health club here has TKD,mine is the only one with JKD (me).

The self defense class is a good idea though...

The college idea,I'm not so sure about. I'm covered under my gym's insurance as long as I'm teaching there. In this state,it's almost impossible to sue for an injury in a class. Just showing up implies consent...

I wonder if I could do the college thing in addition to the health club? In addition to my JKD instructorship,I have black belts in Olympic and ITF TKD. I have no intention of doing anything other than JKD though. I threw out all my TKD gear! Good riddance!

Thanks!

[frankiefuller]

I'm in Georgia, and GA Tech covers me under their insurance automatically just because I'm teaching a class at their Rec Center. By the way, before actually being in the class, they have waiver forms next to the door for newbies to sign before getting out there (just for the sake of making sure all avenues are covered). It was really easy to do the college thing. Not everybody has to be a student to take the class. You can offer to the general public. If you want to know how to do the details, you can send me a private message.