You may be a student or a person looking for another career. When you start a new business you take on a risk, and part of the risk involves idea apathy. This is where you follow a single track and do not open yourself up to new ideas. This article shows you how ideas may be inserted into a business in order to help it succeed. The example given is on starting a martial arts class and after each section is a tip on what you should learn from this study that you can apply to your own efforts.
Structuring your Martial Arts Class
This article assumes that you have just started your martial art business, or that you are going to start. It gives advice regarding how you structure your lessons. It explains how you need a lesson plan, how mixing students with different levels of experience may be a mistake. And, it explains how you may break people into groups if you do not have enough students to arrange different classes for each martial arts level.
When you first start your martial art business, you are going to need some form of structure for your lessons. You may know a lot about martial arts, but knowing and teaching are two very different things.
What you should Learn from This
You have to quickly appreciate that when you start a business you are starting from scratch like when you write an essay, even if you have experience and qualifications in that area.
Make a List of the things you are going to Cover with each Lesson
You may simply be teaching self-defense, or you may be following a curriculum. Whatever the case may be, you need some sort of lesson plan. It is sometimes difficult to create a solid lesson plan, as some aspects are going to require more or less time then you originally planned. That is why you should create a list of the things you wish to cover in the lesson. At least in this way, you will cover at least part of the list, and you will know where to pick up from next week.
What you should Learn from This
Planning is the key to success in all forms of business and it is a skill you learn when you take up full time education.
Mixing Beginners with Advanced Students may be a Mistake
Showing new beginners how good they may one day become is a good thing. But, mixing classes with beginners and advanced martial art students may be a mistake. The beginners may start to feel unconfident about pushing forwards. They may start to feel as if they will never be that good.
You should take your advanced martial art students’ feelings into consideration too. They are going to resent having to go over the same things over and over again. They will resent having to keep going slow and not practicing techniques that are more advanced because the new beginners and less advanced students cannot handle it.
What you should Learn from This
Thinking outside the box is good, but also putting yourself in the shoes of others is a good idea too and may lead to some great inspiration.
Break People into Groups
If you run lessons with a rather small class, then break your class into groups depending upon their experience level. You may then go around the room and set tasks for each group. Show one group something and have them try the techniques with each other as you move around and show the next group something. You should always start and end the lesson with group exercises that include the whole class, as this will help to stop the feeling that one group is moving slower than the others.
What you should Learn from This
Think of how your clients feel and make them feel part of the team or the group. Make your clients feel as if you are on their side, and more importantly that they mean something to you and are part of your team too.
Conclusion
If you were stuck with idea apathy, then when some martial arts students start to fail you may simply work with them more, badger them more, or give up on them. If you open yourself up to new ideas then you can start to approach your business problems from a different angle. For example, you could learn from the story above and try putting yourself in your clients’ shoes, or start by making them feel part of the team, or even start planning extra sessions with the low achievers.
This article uses starting a martial arts class as an example because it puts the business owner in direct contact with his or her clients for an extended period of time. You can learn from this and apply it to your own efforts whilst remembering that success requires more than following the rules. It requires creativity, problem solving and a lot of heart.
