Episode 981- Are Breaks Hurting Martial Arts Schools?
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew discuss whether taking a break for the holidays (or any vacation) will hurt a martial arts school.
Are Breaks Hurting Martial Arts Schools - Episode 981
SUMMARY
In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy discuss the implications of school breaks in martial arts, exploring the balance between business needs and student engagement. They delve into the cultural significance of maintaining classes during holidays, the economic impact of cancellations, and the importance of fostering a supportive training environment. The conversation emphasizes the need for martial arts schools to remain steadfast and consider the long-term effects of their operational decisions on students and the overall culture of their schools.
TAKEAWAYS
School breaks can impact student engagement and retention.
Cultural concerns are as important as economic ones in martial arts schools.
Maintaining classes during holidays can strengthen community ties.
Students may feel deprived if classes are frequently canceled.
A strong training culture can help students prioritize their practice.
Instructors should find balance to avoid burnout and maintain passion.
Open mat sessions can provide training opportunities without formal classes.
Communication with students about closures is crucial for transparency.
Schools should consider alternative arrangements during breaks.
The relationship between instructors and students is mutually beneficial.
CHAPTERS
00:00 The Importance of School Breaks in Martial Arts
10:51 Balancing Business and Student Needs
18:19 Maintaining Steadfastness During Breaks
28:26 Encouraging Thoughtful School Closures
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.
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Show Transcript
Jeremy (04:34.21)
What is going on everybody? Welcome back. It's another episode of Whistlekick martial arts radio and on today's episode Andrew and I are posing the question and talking through are….
Andrew (04:46.375)
breaks.
Jeremy (04:47.054)
breaks hurting martial arts schools. We just iterated on a bunch of different titles and the wrong one lodged in my brain. Are breaks hurting martial arts schools? We're gonna talk about that because some of you out there, you close your schools or you attend the school that closes for a period of time through the year. Some of you, your school is always open. Hmm, what do we do with this information? We're gonna talk about it in just a moment here. If you're new to what we do, please check out whistlekick.com for all of the things that we do to serve
you, the traditional martial artists of the world, to connect, to educate, to entertain, to get everyone in the world to train for six months, no matter the style, because martial arts brings out the best in us and helps us become better versions of ourselves. And wouldn't the world benefit from that? If you want to go deeper on this or any episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, because they're all available and we're coming up on episode 1000. So there's plenty for you to catch up on if you haven't been around since the beginning.
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at no extra cost. So patreon.com slash Wilson Kik. Already Andrew, let's go. How do we want to set this up? It's not quite a debate because that's not really how you and I do things.
Andrew (06:20.637)
Okay, so... No, no, no, no, no, but...
But how, I wanna quickly, talk about how I came up with this idea for an episode. So my, the school that I used to train at most recently, always closed for at least a week, usually two weeks around the Christmas and New Year's holiday. Christmas and New Year's are always exactly a week apart. And so,
Jeremy (06:30.574)
Yeah. Sure.
Andrew (06:54.929)
There's usually at least a week in there, but usually it was two weeks and there would be no classes whatsoever. And I was like, I still want to train. And, you know, certainly I can train my, you know, train by myself. I have my own dojo in the backyard. But it's nice and fun to train with other people. And so I started making it a yearly adventure, quote unquote adventure to go see past guests of the show.
Jeremy (07:04.281)
Hmm.
Andrew (07:24.775)
Sensei Eric Johnstone, who at the time was my teacher's teacher. So I would always go down because he did not cancel classes. his class was the day of Christmas, he would cancel. like, know, day after, a couple days after Christmas, he's still going to have class. So I would always make a trip down to see him. And I would then start to ask around to some of my other friends to see,
Jeremy (07:26.104)
Hmm.
Jeremy (07:34.458)
Mmm.
Andrew (07:52.901)
you know, are you holding class next week because I don't have anything going on and I'd love to stop in for just a drop in class. And it got me thinking that there are a lot of schools that do close for extended periods of time, but there are schools that don't as well. And I thought, that might be a fun thing to talk about.
Jeremy (08:07.77)
Yeah, so, you know, for us, we run classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in two different locations. And we're recording this in 2024. And the way those dates hit this year, Christmas Eve day is a Tuesday, Christmas day is a Wednesday, New Year's Eve is a Tuesday, New Year's Day is a Wednesday. And I'm taking a look at this and I'm going, you know, nobody's going to fault me.
Andrew (08:26.909)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (08:36.78)
if we close for those four days, which makes us closed for two weeks. But I don't want to be closed for two weeks. And here's what I think. There are a couple of things that I think of, and I think about this from a more from a business standpoint, you know, because really, what are the concerns that we're laying in here? There's a business concern, which includes some economics, depending on how
Andrew (09:02.491)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Jeremy (09:06.178)
your business operates. There are staffing concerns, which are under business concerns. There are
Jeremy (09:17.932)
let's call it cultural concerns, giving people a break, especially if you train, you know, if most of your students are training often, you know, is it good to give them a break so they, you know, because if you don't give them a break, they're not going to take one, right? A forced rest day, if you will. So those are all in the mix. But when I took a look at the culture that we had built in our school and the idea of taking two straight weeks off, that would mean that between
The last day and then their next day training, was almost three weeks without seeing people. And the first place I went for this had nothing to do with technique or memory. It had to do with culture and it had to do with the fact that I know some of our students don't have a lot else in their lives that they truly love. And to take away three weeks of a thing that they truly love did not feel appropriate to me.
Andrew (10:06.267)
Hmm.
Jeremy (10:15.096)
So as a staff, we decided how we were gonna handle that. We're closing Christmas day and we're closing New Year's Eve. So we're open Christmas Eve and we're open New Year's Day. Do we expect to have the same number of students? No. Do we expect to, does it change our economics? No, because our students pay a monthly fee. So it doesn't change anything.
Andrew (10:25.263)
Mmm, okay.
Andrew (10:37.201)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (10:40.878)
what I think tends to happen. And, and you know what? I want to hold that because I want, I want you to respond and cause this is your topic because what I'm going to say might derail us.
Andrew (10:51.665)
Here. So that's interesting. know, the first place my mind goes to was that economic part and not so much the economic of the instructor, but more from the student point. Like, you know, hey, I'm paying X number of dollars per month. I mean, I'm assuming most schools have a monthly tuition. You know, I'm paying X dollars per month and there's now two classes in the month of December that are getting canceled. so like,
Like how do I as the student feel about that? So, I mean, that's the first thing. you are, you're in, again, this is 2024 where Tuesday and Wednesday just happened to line up with your school. But you are still allowing students at least instead of offering two classes a week, you're still offering one class a week. So, I mean, yes, they're in two different locations, but they're close enough that you could certainly go to either.
Jeremy (11:26.786)
It... It... Yeah.
Jeremy (11:34.979)
Right, right.
Jeremy (11:48.526)
Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that we do, you know, just to let the audience know, we charge, you can come to either location. We don't make, we don't make people commit to a certain location, but they do. They come to one versus the other. Most of our students train one day a week. Some train two days a week. We charge a little bit more for two days a week. But what we did for December, which also made this easier was, you know what? For December, you can come to both regardless of what.
what membership plan you're on. So if you're used to only coming to one, right? And we did that for a number of reasons, but one of them was so they felt comfortable, you know, jumping ship, right? Coming to the other location at once. And are most of them gonna do it? No, and that's fine. But yeah, there is absolutely a value decision there that because it's two days a week and it's just the way they hit this year, I didn't want my students to go, so you've taken away half my month.
Andrew (12:24.145)
Hmm. Yep.
Jeremy (12:45.336)
Are you gonna prorate my membership? Now, if you have a full-time school in a single location or your days of the week are different, this is less of an issue, but it is still an issue. And I think acknowledging that issue is really important. If you tell people you are paying for this and then you do not give them that and you do not give them anything else, I think that that...
Andrew (12:45.457)
Yep. Yep. Sure.
Andrew (12:53.981)
Absolutely.
Jeremy (13:12.142)
to at least a small degree compromises their understanding of what they are paying for. It doesn't make them say, I'm getting more for my money. You are at best, they're ignoring that fact. Not very many people are going to ignore that fact. People tend to be very aware of what they spend their money on. They might not be good at how they spend their money, but they know I pay this, I get that, right? So depriving them of those classes.
Andrew (13:36.773)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (13:39.908)
Hopefully you would put something in its place and that's what we tried to do.
Andrew (13:43.613)
Yeah. And it affects your school a little bit differently than a school that has classes. I mean, there are schools out there have class Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, like every day of the week, there are classes. And are they choosing to do as you're doing, which is no class Tuesday, Wednesday, and that's it, but there's still class, Monday, Thursday, Friday, or are they choosing to just cancel the whole week, which I know some schools that do that.
Jeremy (13:54.958)
Yep. Yep.
Andrew (14:11.389)
there's nothing wrong with that. You need to find what works for you. But it definitely affects your students differently if you only operate one day a week and there's no other option to get a class in and you're gone for two and a half to three weeks. Or you have a school that has multiple days that you offer classes and you're canceling all of them. That affects your students in a very different way.
Jeremy (14:12.932)
Yep. Right.
Jeremy (14:34.742)
Mm-hmm. It does. And one of the things that I find that is really important if you want to retain membership in a school, it has to do with habit, right? Classes obviously need to be in the same place at the same times, but the more frequently you cancel a class, right? And there are schools out there that are operated by a single person who, you know, if that person gets sick,
Andrew (14:46.417)
Consistency.
Andrew (14:54.653)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (15:03.438)
they may have to cancel class. I understand that. And I'm not faulting them for being a single person and I'm not faulting them for contracting an illness. But if that happens frequently, students are less likely to prioritize that decision to come to class because what if something gets in the way? What if they've said no to other things they want to do and now the thing that they said no in order to accommodate doesn't happen?
Andrew (15:11.47)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (15:34.202)
And I've watched schools go out of business because of this. You probably have too, that the instructor doesn't make it a priority.
Andrew (15:37.553)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Jeremy (15:43.714)
Depending on how many classes you have available in a week you have
there are certain number that you can get away with with canceling. But let's be honest, if you are a full time professional school, classes should never be canceled for staffing concerns. You should have by the time you've built up to that, you should have enough assistant instructors or friends across town that you can recruit. You know, if you're a solo person, there's nothing that says you can't build a group.
of like-minded martial arts friends and cover for each other and you have a substitute teacher. That's better than closing the school, right? And your students would probably love it. But when we get into this time of year, here's what I hear. And this is the part where, I don't know if I'm quite gonna go so far as say, you are wrong for closing your school. But here's the part that I become concerned.
I hear people say, we need a break. I hear people say, you know, well, not a lot of people show up. So this is a good time for us to take a break. What I hear in those words is our staff are overworked. Our staff don't have balance in their lives. Our staff don't love what they do.
Andrew (16:51.569)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew (17:04.091)
Yep. Yep. And what I hear as well is, yes, those classes may be not attended as heavily as your other classes, but if there are students that are showing up, they're showing up because they want to be there. Correct. Yep.
Jeremy (17:21.752)
And you're taking that away from them. Every single, when you close every single student who would show up, you have signaled something non-positive to them. I'm not going to call it go so far as to say it's negative. could be neutral, but it is not a positive signal. And one of the things that we know is that people want to be part of something that is successful. They want to know what success looks like. They want to contribute, participate, understand what the right decisions are. These are all very
Andrew (17:37.553)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (17:49.818)
primal human nature elements. And if you go back, if you go back to that period of time that was displeasurable for all of us, and I'm intentionally not using certain words so YouTube doesn't pick up on this, but that period of time that, you know, a couple of years where things, some things happened, we released a couple of bonus episodes and I continue to underscore this because I believe that my advice was the, the,
I believe I got it the most right. I don't consider myself an oracle and I don't usually toot my own horn. But back during that time I said, the number one thing you can do as a school is remain steadfast. That was the word that I chose. It was the word I used with schools that I consulted with to keep things as close to normal, to not close, even if you have to lose some money, even if you have to provide additional value, to show the world that you are not going to compromise what you offer and who you are.
as much as possible anyway, will pay dividends in the future.
Andrew (18:53.499)
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy (18:55.32)
When we talk about closing for a period of time, it is counter to that advice that has been shown to be correct advice. The more you close, the less steadfast you are, the less your students feel they can depend on you and the culture and the training, and the less likely they are to make it a priority in their lives.
Andrew (19:04.977)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew (19:18.577)
Yep, yep. And I want to be really clear for the audience. Jeremy and I are not saying you need to be open for class on Christmas day. You need to be open Christmas Eve. You need to be there with a... That's not what we're saying. But I think just be aware that the amount that you close can affect the culture of your school. And if you're only closing because...
Jeremy (19:40.868)
Yes.
Andrew (19:44.569)
I need a vacation. Like, I need some time off. OK, I get that. But is there a way that you can still have that and not have to cancel your school for close your school for two weeks? And and there are schools that do that for two weeks. we're not saying you can't do that. You're certainly welcome to do that. But recognize that it may change the culture of your school and the way your students see that.
Jeremy (20:11.704)
And it doesn't change it by a lot, but it changes it. And, and your culture is either improving or diminishing. And we need to make sure that we prioritize things that improve the culture. Now there are, I don't want this to turn into here are all the re all the ways you could keep your school school open and you not be there, but there are a whole bunch of them. We mentioned a couple. There are, if you have a student.
Andrew (20:20.337)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew (20:34.301)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (20:40.622)
that you trust to open a door and turn off an alarm and hold people accountable to not do the things like maybe sparring or whatever that you don't want them to do, people could still show up. You could still be away, fly away for your family stuff and your school can still be open. That this myth, there's a myth out there that you have to have this fully qualified.
high ranking adult black belt. We've unpacked this on the show.
Andrew (21:10.993)
Yeah, time and time again.
Jeremy (21:15.77)
The problem is the solution. One of my core business philosophies. So if you have a school that cannot operate with its high ranking instructors, okay, so how do you do it differently? What if it's more collaborative? What if it's people are going to take turns standing on the side and making sure nobody's doing anything dumb and unsafe and everybody and it's open mat, open floor and people are training on their own and it's more social, right? Like there's so many ways to do this.
Andrew (21:40.088)
Yeah, and that's what I was coming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The open mat is what I was going to bring up that, you know, you don't have to have it. There's going to be a class on this day and this is the teacher. know, there's a school here in town that that I visit occasionally. And they will they have in their schedule, specifically regular open mat time. But they sometimes they will just cancel for whatever reason. You're like, there's no
There's no regularly scheduled class today, but there's going to be open mat and anybody that wants to show up can show up as long as there's someone there that can unlock the place. Obviously, that will be there and be at least responsible in case there's an issue, but it doesn't have to be a black belt. It could just be up, you know, three, four, five, six, seven people hanging out. Like, Hey, you want to work on this thing? I've been, yeah, I know how that goes. Like, and
They just cooperatively learn and work together. There's nothing wrong with that.
Jeremy (22:49.125)
and
I think the next thing that I want to comment on, we mentioned it, when someone says, need a break, I need this time off, there are a few things that I hear in there. And the primary thing that I'm hearing is you are not operating with balance in your life.
Jeremy (23:12.698)
people see, I'm gonna guess that I have more broad context for what this aspect of the industry looks like than most people because of the work that I do, that we do. And when I imagine this statement or when I hear this statement, there are a couple things that come to mind. The first is the person saying that the majority, the vast majority of their time training is them in the front of the room.
instructing the same material that they've been instructing for a period of time. They are bored. They are
Not challenged and they're not spending enough time training on their own learning new things and getting better at the things that they enjoy To those of you out there if your school ever wanted to work with me the first thing that I have to solve is getting you To love training again. I have found that to be the first barrier if you do not love your training Nothing else that I ever consult with schools on works
Andrew (24:09.746)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (24:20.376)
Because if you don't love martial arts, then I can give you all the marketing advice in the world. I can do all the things. can rebuild your website. I can turn it into an absolute referral monster. And then people come in and they do their trials and they pick up on the fact that you don't love martial arts and they don't sign. It happens, unfortunately, often.
Andrew (24:39.121)
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy (24:44.568)
So if you get to this time of year and you are someone who needs that break, needs that break, I would say, all right, how often are you taking a break the rest of the year?
I take breaks at my own school. I will not be at my own school tomorrow.
Andrew (25:03.389)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (25:04.44)
Something something came up. I need to get my snow tires on. That is not a super big deal. But you know what? I've built a structure where my students know I'm not at every class. It's okay. I still did the lesson plan. I have a wonderful group of people that run the classes. We are slowly bringing on more of those people. And that allows me when I have something coming up.
My students, we never promise who is leading the class. It's not this class with Sensei Jeremy. It's just classes.
Andrew (25:39.771)
Yep. Yep.
Yeah. mean, have a backup in place for the, even if, and again, if you have a large school with lots of other instructors, then you understand that this isn't for you. This isn't necessarily a concern, right? And this is more of an issue typically with smaller schools, with less student body, with only one, and I'm putting this in quotes, instructor. Because that person,
that person teaching may get sick, the car breakdown the day before and can't get to class, right? So have the ability to have someone that can teach a class for you or run or lead a class, you know, and work towards being able to do that. Or you and your family are gonna go on vacation. Just because you own a business doesn't mean you're not allowed to take a vacation.
You
Jeremy (26:42.426)
So I would encourage you to take a look there. Now, if you're a student...
Should you take a break? Right? That starts to veer a little bit from the subject here. The context is really about should the school close? But what if you're responsible for your own training? We have people who are people in the audience who do not formally attend another school. You are your own school in that case. Should you take a break? Maybe, probably not. If you are faced with the option to train and say, don't want to train.
There is something off in your training. Your reason for training has become disconnected from what is important to you. Your why is critical. Why are you training? If your only reason you're training is to keep up your self-defense skills and you feel you are competent at that, well, you're probably not going to feel pressure to train until your self-defense skills have degraded to a point where you know you need to bring them back up, right?
Andrew (27:46.557)
Yeah, exactly.
Jeremy (27:48.132)
That's a terrible cycle to be in. To vacillate from, feel competent to I feel incompetent. Ugh, I don't want to be on that training cycle. That sounds awful. Do something fun. Do something different. Put on a Santa hat and kick the bag. I don't care what it is. Find a way to make it enjoyable. If it's enjoyable, you're going to learn more. So have we missed anything?
Andrew (27:57.125)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Andrew (28:13.917)
I mean, if we did, then I would ask our listeners to let us know.
Jeremy (28:16.526)
Yeah, please, please. But I think overall, when we add all of this together,
Jeremy (28:26.69)
We are discouraging closing the school, not telling you you're wrong for doing it. We're discouraging it. And we are encouraging that if you feel strongly called to do so, that you have a very good understanding of why and how, excuse me, and how it will impact your students and the others that are involved and make sure that anything you take away and let's be...
honest, you closing class, closing, closing the school, you canceling class, even once is depriving your students of value. How are you compensating for that value deprivation? What are you giving them on the other side to make sure they feel like they are not being shortchanged?
because they don't need you. They can go elsewhere. They can stop training, but you need them because without students, an instructor in a school doesn't work. I had a math teacher in college who taught to an empty room. He was crazy. Genuinely, I've witnessed this with my own eyes. Nobody wants to train at a school that doesn't have any students, right?
Andrew (29:33.371)
You
Jeremy (29:45.022)
Just keep that in mind and remember that our relationship between instructors and students is mutually beneficial. It's not one.
Anything to add Andrew before we close? All right. Fab tabulous. Thank you everyone. I appreciate you being here. Thanks for watching or listening. Please help us grow the show by sharing the show, review us wherever seems appropriate. Subscribe on YouTube. And if you really want to give back, if you want more, if you find value in these episodes, excuse me, Patreon is the place to go. Patreon.com slash whistle kick. You can sign up for as little as $5 a month. We've got tiers that go up to a hundred and we are
Andrew (29:55.973)
No, think that's good.
Jeremy (30:24.73)
Heck bent on delivering overwhelming value at every tier. So go check those out. The retention on that is through the roof. Why? Because we prioritize value exchange. Whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, whistlekick.com, at Whistlekick Everywhere, Andrew at, Jeremy at, whistlekick.com. We make it pretty easy. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you again next time. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.
Andrew (30:49.757)
Train hard, smile, and have a great day.
Jeremy (30:54.692)
High five.