Part Two: Instructors: Buy or Build (Second of a Three-Part Series)

Wait a minute! Buy or build, what do you mean? I can imagine some people are saying just that right about now. I promise, I’ll explain!

Part one talked about the differences between the two main types of instructional staff and even touched on the term sensei. Part two’s only talking about instructors and how you get them. You can hire them from outside sources (Buy) or you can train them yourself (Build) from your own students. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages; it’s up to you to decide which you want. I’ll talk about just a few.

First, if you don’t run a martial arts school and you’re not a martial artist and you don’t know any martial artists, you need to learn a martial art first. If you do run a martial arts school or you are a martial artist, this is decision time. Do you really want to run a martial arts business or will it just be a club where a bunch of people get together, hangout, and do some martial arts? If you want a social club, this can help. If you want a business, pay attention.

Instructor qualifications are critical. Decide on the goals of your business, layout what you need, and fill that instructor position to further your business goals. So, what are good qualifications for a martial arts instructor? Simply put, the instructor has to be at level where he or she can teach, usually a black belt but some arts (like Brazilian Jiujitsu) have instructors as low as Blue Belt; he or she has to be able to successfully transfer knowledge form instructor to students, yes plural you don’t want a private instructor as your primary instructor for a business; he or she has to be able to develop lessons and use standards to guide the program. In other blog posts (here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.), I’ve talked about some of the ways to develop lessons and program schedules.

Now, how can you evaluate an alleged instructor to know if they’re telling you the truth or if they’re sunshine salesmen? The truth is, like any employee you don’t know in advance, it’s very difficult. I suggest having them tryout and run a class to show you their instructional style. When you interview them, ask them to bring sample lesson plans or training programs they’ve developed, especially if they’ve implemented them and can tell you about how well the plans actually worked. Question them about their philosophy of instruction for youth and adults (a hint: if they say they’re the same, they’re the wrong people to hire!). Of course, check their credentials with the right sources (national or international governing bodies, previous schools, even martial arts fora like Bullshido, JudoForum, and others).

So, the meat of the post is buying or building, what is best? What is the difference? Buying is basically hiring someone you didn’t teach at all and having them teach your martial arts classes. Building is training someone to be an instructor for you and hiring them to teach your martial arts classes. Let’s talk about those a bit more in depth.

Buying an instructor is an ideal solution for the first time martial arts school owner who doesn’t know much or can’t teach but has the money to start a business. In this case, you can hire a qualified and competent instructor to teach the classes while you handle the background aspects. Unfortunately, if you hire an instructor like John Kreese from The Karate Kid (that’s the bad sensei), you’ll end up with a lot of injuries and probably some lawsuits. Or, perhaps you hire someone who’s made up their own martial art (this happens a lot in the U.S.). Either way, eventually your reputation will be ruined. Sometimes, you’ll need to buy an instructor to teach something you can’t, say a competitive class for national and international level competitors or maybe to add a martial art (like adding Brazilian Jiujitsu or Karate if you don’t teach them) to your school’s offerings.

Building an instructor takes a long time. Even if they started somewhere else and are almost ready to teach. The biggest reason it takes so long is because you have to know how to teach people how to teach (that looks repetitive, but it’s not). If you can teach people to teach, you also have to teach them the way things need to be done in your school and, most importantly, WHY! I’m a big believer in understanding why things are done a certain way because, if you know why, you can modify everything to accomplish the task without sacrificing the underlying character of the school or yourself and the student learns what they are supposed to learn. If your school has been around long enough, you should be building your own instructors pretty easily, but if it’s newer, it’s hard.

Again, building or buying is your choice. Think about what you need, whether you can provide it, and whether what you want is available at a price you’re willing to pay. Then make your decision.

Part One: Instructional Staff

Part three: Coaches: What do you need?

Let me know what you think of this idea, post in the comments below or e-mail! Don’t forget to like the Roswell and New Mexico Military Institute Judo Clubs on Facebook!