I must admit that, like many of you I find metaphors in the martial arts that are constantly teaching lessons in every day life and business. It is even more interesting when your life and business is the martial arts.
For example: many of the techniques that are taught In many martial arts schools could never be used in a real life altercation.

Of course the benefits that come with improved eye hand coordination, balance, focus, discipline and the beauty of our sacred arts far out-way the value of being able to hurt someone with a technique in real day to day application for your students. But the fact remains many techniques will not work, for real, against an opponent who is a real threat.

I always think of the cool clever defense against a lapel grab that works great as long as the attacker does not let go of the lapel.

I make this distinction regularly with my students. The guy who is not smart enough to let go of the lapel is not a threat to anyone. There is a phrase that describes when a trained fighter has an altercation with some so inept. You can’t call self-defense or even a fight.  It is called beating them up. We so do not learn in our school how to beat up people who have no business fighting. We learn to defeat the champion.

Or, if your fighting skills were only developed to the point where you could handily beat your best student how would that work against the champion? You know that you can keep your hands down and throw all kinds of flashy techniques against them and they will land. And, if you end up off balance, it’s okay; they are not fast enough to make you pay for it.

But what happens if you have to fight the champ?

If you knew you were going to fight the champion of the world on national TV, how different would your training and techniques be? Or, if you were training to be a commando who will be dropped into Afghanistan and the techniques may have to save your life what would you do differently?  Well I’ll give a short list of things you would probably do differently if you are smart.

1. The first thing you would do is seek out the best master/coach with the most effective techniques, and knowledge of preparation. You have No more time to spend working ok techniques that only work on the unqualified. That master and you would devise a plan for preparing you for the challenge.
2. You would take on the smartest regimen of conditioning
3. Skill training
4. Diet
5. Mental conditioning
6. and Rest
7. You would prepare with people who are as good or better than you and will make you pay for mistakes.
8. You would put together a custom game plan for the specific opponent if possible, with contingencies.
9. Having a systematic method of preparation and execution of a tested effective strategy can not only improve your chances of winning but they can serve a source of confidence when things don’t go perfectly right away.

What does this have to do with life and business? Well if running your school is the metaphorical fight then the economic climate since the mid nineties has been the proverbial easy fight. There has been a population with unparalleled expendable income, that is more fitness and personal development oriented than ever.

And, the prominence of martial arts in the mainstream media have made for pretty smooth sailing for some schools in this country, where a national martial arts day holiday is recognized by nearly every state.
Maybe your reputation or your location was bringing people in at an acceptable rate. Maybe half hearted marketing effort yielded results that satisfied you. This is the equivalent of throwing techniques that only works on easy fighters, who have never trained in anything.

Maybe in the past keeping students was easier with a clientele that was less cynical and frugal than the families who these days that have to justify every dollar spent. Having not focused on retention in the past has been like dropping you hands while fighting an inexperienced opponent. You can get away with it as long as you are not fighting someone good. A really tough fighter will hit you if you have your hands down and he will be hard to hit back. The tougher fighter requires harder training because the stakes are high, this guy could really hurt you.

Well ladies and gentlemen the economy these days is giving us the tough fight.
And one of the key take home personal development lessons in achieving black belt is learning to prepare for the test.
We are going to being tested by the economy people. We need to get prepared.

Reviewing my list of preparation strategies for beating the champ.

1. The first thing you would do is seek out the best master/coach with the most effective techniques, and knowledge of preparation. (joining NAPMA is the best start. The current staff of NAPMA and contributor comprise the most impressive and experienced group of martial arts professionals ever, and we are constantly improving with an endless thirst for higher education).
2. You would take on the smartest regimen of conditioning (working more hours, and improving your ability to stay focused on the challenge at hand).
3. Skill training (education and application on a consistent basis of the core operational methods that have been proven to work under real world circumstances in your school).
4. Diet (the quality and quantity of media and educational materials you consume will directly impact your success).
5. Mental conditioning (maintaining a winning mindset and refusing to allow any negative mental energy to break your stride is as important to the martial arts entrepreneur as it is the for a fighter),
6. Rest (burning out because time has not been devoted to recharging your batteries, makes all of the above impossible to achieve at a high enough level to beat the tough fighter.
7. You would prepare with people who are as good or better than you and will make you pay for mistakes. (Master mind groups are essential for maintaining the cutting edge. In fighting and in life, you will never be pushed and challenged by your students)
8. You would put together a custom game plan for the specific opponent if possible, with contingencies (You use different strategies for different types of opponents in the ring based on commonly held knowledge from experience, and same applies to the systematic approaches to the various systems in your school be it sales, enrollment or testing.)
9. Having a systematic method of preparation and execution of a tested effective strategy can not only improve your chances of winning but they can serve a source of confidence when things don’t go perfectly right away. (Your ability to succeed comes into question in a fight and in your business. Absolute certainty returns when are reminded that your methods are sound and have yielded consistent successes in the past.

Yes the economy has become the tough fighter, but each of you has what I takes to, not just survive but to dominate. The simple yin yang principles mean that every thing negative that happens, is matched with an equal and opposite positive reaction.  This also means that each of the difficulties presented by the tough fighter/economy, can be overcome with the same principles that we teach our students.

Hey there.
I wanted to clue everyone in on the great  content we a releasing in this latest NAPMA package.

This month on the sounds of success, we get to listen to a fascinating discussion on the mind set of an entrepreneur, As Inner circle and peak performer coach Lee Milteer Interviews best selling author Gene Landrum, who among his many accomplishment, created  Chuck E. Cheese.

Also, in one tragic case study we share the shocking but true story of NAPMA member Casey Estees who lost her school when an employee was accused of child molestation.

On the NAPMA Innovations DVD, We bring you a special Science of Sparring session that was conducted at the recent extreme success academy by fighting legend Joe Lewis. In this segment Mister Lewis introduced rhythm sets for teaching effective footwork, body movement and head movement to your students as part of the warm-up portion of class. He also talked at length about his deeply felt philosophies about the martial arts, fighting, and teaching. This segment also features special guest appearances from, 2008 NAPMA lifetime achievement award recipient Jeff Smith, and former recipients Grand Master Jhoon Rhee, and Ernie Reyes Sr.

Then we take you inside a Mile High Karate classroom in Parker Colorado where master of children’s instruction Runolfo Golzolas conducts a class of beginning and intermediate rank children. Just so there is no confusion, some of the students are wearing black belts in this class as a special show of support for the students who are taking their black belt and higher exam later in the week at the Mile High Karate Breckenridge Black Belt retreat. This segment shows a class in progress and teaches many lessons about classroom management, communication, spotlighting, and control of the classroom energy.

At the recent Extreme success academy, In my roll as Director of Martial arts Curriculum I conducted a training session where participant were given 10 minutes each to demonstrate their favorite original classroom training drill. This month we bring you  part 2 of this presentation where NAPMA Inner circle member Joe Walker works creative Karate Block and punch combinations with a partner. Then, Instructor Gaspar of Gainsville Florida works some kicks and foot work from the Brazilian style of Capoeira Author Hearns from Cranford, NJ conducts, partner drills drawn from the Philippine style of Arnis.

And as a bonus edge MMA segment this month, we bring you Friday night Kids MMA Sparring from the Pit. With the one and only John Hackleman. The way mister Hacklman conducts this juniors sparring session may not be the ideal fit for many schools when allowing their kids to spar. For some schools, the intensity and contact will increase to quickly in these matches. It is true these are real MMA matches, but there some other interesting take home points that are important to keep in mind. First, the only time sparring of this kind for kids takes place in the school is in this class, one match at a time under the master instructor’s close supervision. Mister Hackleman himself knows all of the fighter very well and chooses each of the match ups. They wear full sized gloves and head gear, the wrestling flooring they are working on is vary safe. Mister Hacklman controls when the match begins and when it ends. The interesting thing is, the intensity and contact go up quickly but many of the matches are jus a few seconds long, with the longer clashes and matches taking place only among the clearly more experiences students who even still fought for less than a minute, This type of format more closely resembles a real encounter.

So this month it’s Rhythm Sets, a spectacular children’s instructor, the ESA Drill-o-Rama and kids MMA Sparring from the pit. And it’s all on the NAPMA Innovations DVD this month.

Hey there everyone. I just wanted to give the martial arts world a heads up on all the great content appearing on the NAPMA Innovations DVD this month. In case you didn’t know , I put together a DVD full of classroom curriculum, drills and skills that can help introduce unique and exciting elements into your classes and can really keep your class interesting and fun and keep students coming back.

This month on the NAPMA innovations DVD, We wrap up the No More Mister nice guy series as I Speak with Kathy “the punisher” Long about the specifics of teaching a kung first San soo class for self defense. We talk about, among other things, class planning, curriculum and teaching this rough and tumble system to average students. And while we talk you can do a visual review of the last 6 month’s worth of curriculum.

Then, in our Edge MMA segment, we bring you Bjj legend Carlos Machado.
This month he teaches you clever transitions that put you in position to submit your opponent. Learning and teaching these techniques will give your students solid skills they can turn to if they are ever taken to the ground on the cage or in the street.

Tournament Weapons champion Josh Quartin shares with you some of the extreme moves he executes with the sword. These techniques can help take your younger sword students to a new level of excitement using a traditional weapon. These moves help develop a level of agility and control with a bladed weapon that is sure to impress in demos and competition and these moves are also fun to work in class. This will be a great starting place you to introduce extreme sword techniques into your weapons classes.

Then, in our bonus segment we bring you a very well produced promotional video, which highlights average people experiencing extraordinary training and a life changing experience at the Peaceful Dragon Kung Fu academy.
It is used as a lead generation tool for NAPMA Inner circle member, Eric Sbarge’s Peaceful Dragon Kung Fu Academy in Charlotte North Carolina.
He uses very well shot images of ordinary people training in Kung Fu. He uses shots that make the people look good doing the art but, without being overly flashy and impressive. He shows ordinary students training at an attainable level of skill and athleticism.
But’ while the beauty of the kung looks great, the most powerful part of the video is the social proof. He uses testimonials from the people you see training. They effectively eliminate objections and highlight benefits in a very disarming style this makes the entire presentation extremely persuasive and effective as a marketing tool, not just a video calling card for the school.
Eric Sbarge will be attending the Extreme Success Academy in September, so if you have any questions about the video or any part of his very successful organization, you can connect with him there.
So you NAPMA members enjoy the Video and all that Maximum Impact has to offer.
For everyone teaching martial arts classes out there. Remember it is your energy and that of your staff, which is the fuel for your school. The students only have your energy you feed off of. You, and your staff, are the sole renewable energy resource for your school. Knowing that means you know you can never let your energy dip. You can’t leave them in the dark with out energy. Your students are counting on you. And I know I can count on you to be there for your students consistently and enthusiastically. I know you would never leave your student’s on the side of the road out of gas.

Mark Graden