Part Three: Coaches: What do you need? (Third of a Three-Part Series)

I’ve talked about the instructional staff in general and instructors, specifically, so far. Now it’s time to cover coaches.

Coaches are different than instructors. Even if your coaches are instructors as well, in their role as a coach the outcome is different. A coach is not there to teach a student how to perform a technique; the coach is there to help the student perform their techniques better.

Better is kind of a nebulous term so let me clarify with respect to judo. Judo teaches students how to use physics effectively to vanquish a partner through a variety of techniques. Competitive judo requires less breadth and more depth with regard to the amount of judo a competitor knows. The competitor must have a family of techniques that works together smoothly and the competitor must be able to apply these techniques at will with speed and power.

The coach of any judo student, whether the student is a competitor or not, aids the student in developing smoothness, speed, and power using a variety of drills and supplemental skill development tools. In a novice student, this may include concentrating on repetitions for basic skills development or movement drills to encourage application against a moving partner. Advanced student should have chained drills that flow from the seven components of a technique (Approach, Grip, Set-up, Entry/Attack, Execution, Combination, and Transition to Ne-waza).

SIDE NOTE: I actively discourage novice students from competing in most tournaments because I want my students to be prepared for the variety of negative aspects that come from trying to win at all costs that can occur in some tournaments. I actively encourage novice students to compete in tournaments/divisions that are designed for novice students.

So, with all that said, what should a dojo owner look for in a prospective coach?

I look for a few things in a coach. Obviously, you want reliability and other basic elements of a dedicated employee. Above that, however, I look for someone who has a competitive bent and works well with students. I want someone who understands that people are different and working with each person is a unique exercise. As for judo skills, I push people to take courses in coaching no matter who gives the course. I especially encourage USJA coaching courses. I also won’t let anyone who’s not a certified brown belt or above (USJA, USJF, USA Judo) coach judo for me.

Now, those are the basic qualifiers. Is that it? Absolutely not, unfortunately some of the other elements are less tangible for me to describe right now. I like to get an idea of the person who wants to coach. Mostly, like any employment situation, my concern is how well they fit with the environment of my dojo. Does their personality complement the personality of the dojo or will discord arise. A dojo should be harmonious; clashes create discord and that brings the whole thing down.

Why do I emphasize certified brown belts or above? The simple reason for that qualifier is because the students who get their coaching compete. Their coach needs to be able to sit matside (even if they don’t actively coach during a match). If the coach is barred from sitting matside because they aren’t credentialed, the competitor is disserved. I’m not going to go into whether the Big Three are right, wrong, not the only place to learn judo, or whatever in this post because it’s a subject for a different place.

Remember the goal of the coach is the refinement and enhancement of performance not the instruction of new skills. The coach’s success shows by improved results not by new skills. That means that a coach should monitor, track, and analyze performance results over the course of a competitor’s career. Data gathering is a necessary component for the coach!

Part one: Instructional Staff

Part two: Instructors: Buy or Build?

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!

Fast Food and the Martial Arts

Last time, I mentioned fast food and consistency. This time I’ll go into a little more depth.

The fast food industry is amazing. In most cases it’s decent food and ultra-simplistic service yet it is huge! Their brand recognition is amazing and they are a $160 billion dollar industry. Most martial arts schools, and especially judo schools, are making barely enough to keep the doors open, just like a lot of the small restaurants.

So, what is the difference between mom-and-pop operations and franchises? At the core, they both perform the same functions. The individual restaurant has recipes, staff, and so forth. If the restaurant has good food, charges accordingly, and manages their expenses correctly, profit comes about. The biggest difference is scale.

With only one location, a restaurant can only profit one time. If a restaurant has two locations, the profit is double. With three, triple and so forth. Of course, this all assumes everything works smoothly and we all know that is an ideal situation. The other aspect of this scale is suppliers and how much less they cost you if you have a stable relationship with them. Credit terms become better and, perhaps, even less expensive.

Let’s recap, a single location that is run well can be just as profitable or more than a franchise operation’s single location but, because of scale, collectively it will be less profitable.

I know what I’ve thought, “Sure, franchise is great, but that only works in retail.” Today I think, “I want to franchise but how?” Simply put, it’s hard work, but if you do it right, profitable. Here’s the way I’m looking to make this work:

The first step for me was actually getting involved with teaching judo. I started at the local recreation center with a very low price-point. Over the past 7 years the price has been steady as has the growth. The biggest issue is student retention, especially through the summer.

My next step is the new storefront location. This will give me full access anytime I want and I’ll have no restrictions for when I can hold classes, clinics, birthday parties, and whatnot. This provides a chance to host classes as many days of the weeks I want and at times I want to have them. I plan to broadly expand my schedule once I have my own location.

The following step comes by stepping back and allowing my assistants to begin being lead instructors. This develops new instructors and helps me to enjoy the programs and develop newer ones to build the growth. It also begins to generate the possible franchisees for the expansion to a second, third, or more locations.

When it’s time to expand, I’ve multiple people, marketing plans, capital, and the next location all lined up. With everything in order, the new location opens, the best lead and a few assistants go there and begin operations. As a wholly owned franchise, I now have two revenue streams for judo flowing to the business. Eventually, following this cycle, the expansion can exponentially expand or by a trickle, whichever is best for the business.

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!

Judo as Business

The title’s combination of words were anathema to my dad and many of the students that learned under him. For a long time I felt the two were irreconcilable. One of the last things my dad told me about judo was, in essence, “it is good to teach judo, but don’t pay for the privilege.”

That’s a very odd sentence construction for an English teacher, as far as I’m concerned. Parsing it, prima facie, implies that teaching judo is good and it shouldn’t cost you to teach, but nor should you make money off it. Originally, I took this to mean that running a judo school should be a zero sum game where everything pays for itself and I end up doing this great charitable work and feeling good while holding down another job to pay for all my other expenses. Unfortunately, even this plan is expensive and doing it right involves dedicating a lot of time to developing a lot of background and doing a lot of work; it is running a “business” even if it is a non-profit.

A few years ago, I pursued a Master of Business Administration degree to help me understand how to run a business. During the course of that program, I learned a lot about business administration and a little about what I would need to do to build a business. I also learned that if I was to do a judo business, my best bet was to run it like a for-profit business and follow the lead of other martial arts and even the fast-food industry if I wanted to enjoy doing judo. By the end of my MBA program, the idea of running a non-profit judo school had almost completely faded away. Today that idea is gone.

 Everyone in the martial arts community has heard the term “McDojo.” If you haven’t yet, a McDojo is a “school” that offers a martial art and “teaches” to generate income rather than develop solid martial arts skills. Frequently McDojos are called “belt factories” because their students are over-ranked or earn their promotions because they’ve been at the school a long time and their payment checks keep clearing. I think McDojos are one of the worst things to happen to martial arts ever because they convince their customers that they are learning martial arts when they are just a source of cash flow.

My personal belief is that franchising, if you want to make money and build a good reputation, is the best way to do it. To lead on from the fast-food industry, let me talk about a few things that they have going for them. The first and most important thing to think about with fast food is consistency. I don’t care if you live in the United States or the United Kingdom or China or anywhere in the world where beef is available; if you order a Big Mac, it’s going to be the same. That’s consistency. In the world of martial arts, consistency is king.

 Judo has been extremely lucky that the names for the major techniques are consistent around the world, i.e. a seoi nage in Japan is basically the same as one in the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, etc. Unfortunately, the teaching of these techniques is not consistent. I’m not suggesting that biomechanical differences are unimportant. I am saying that every technique should be taught the same way when introducing it. For example, the first time a class is presented with seoi nage the general form and shape of the technique should be the same, in every class! As students learn more and become more comfortable, adjustments need making, but in the beginning, they should be taught the same.