Martial Arts - Creativity And Innovation Is King

That’s right; creativity and innovation are two words that are closely connected to your school’s future profitability –and to your personal sanity. To create a unique niche in your community –a unique selling proposition for your business –that keeps you far ahead of your competitors, you need to apply creativity to your methods and innovate like a man or woman-on-a-mission. To stay sane in a industry-gone-mad and to keep your wits about you through the mind-numbing repetitive nature of both the material and those damned business seminars the guys in the suits keep jamming down our collective throats, you have to be black-belt-creative and ingeniously-innovative.

Want some help in revving up your creative engines? May I start the process by pointing out an example of what I’m writing about? Good. Allow me to introduce you to the UBBT. Afterwards, since I made mention of “sanity,” I’m going to offer my opinion about the martial arts industry in general –and why I think the UK and Europe may very well be ahead –not behind --of the U.S. when it comes to the business of the martial arts.

The Ultimate Black Belt Test (UBBT)

The UBBT is way, way out in left field. It’s almost a complete redesign of the what, where, how, when, and why of black belt testing –and it’s not meant only for black belts, it’s meant to crack the ice on all levels of belt testing, as I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in everything to do with martial arts training, intent, mission, and method. The program’s chock full of innovative new ideas; here are few you may find interesting (a partial list):

1. Belt testing should transpire over a longer period of time. Instead of taking a belt test on a given day, a student could take a test everyday for a month –or, preferably, longer. Instead of an instructor pointing to a well done kata, he or she now tells the story of the 500 repetitions of the kata the student did to achieve his or her rank. The story is now the journey –instead of the destination.

Embrace the idea that your test is today! Every day! Why wait to peak? Why wait for some date in the future to live with absolute intensity and passion and drive and awareness? For that matter, why isn’t today as meaningful or important or vital as the day you test for your black belt? That’s the new concept –and one you can embrace and implement, like, now!

2. Accomplishments are meant to be quantified. Students do hundreds and sometimes thousands of repetitive behaviors and techniques as a part their training and testing process. Why not take credit for the reps? Why not make a certain number of reps a requirement? If a student did a kata five times a day for 90 days, that would be 450 repetitions! Why not make 450 reps of a kata a requirement for testing? Why not give the student a journal to record their reps, something they can also use to document the journey they take --as they labor to learn the lessons that practice so willingly instructs them in?

Participants in the UBBT do 50,000 push-ups and 1000 reps of a single kata as a part of their test. Which, at first glance sounds like a lot, but ends up being just 150 push ups a day and three measly reps of a kata a day for a year. No big deal! But hey, 50,000 and 1000 reps of a kata --bragging rights! But beyond the physical attainment of it, do you know what this teaches the average student about accomplishment? It teaches them the power of incremental steps toward big, big goals. Why not quantify your student’s accomplishments? It’s an idea whose time has come.

3. Half to two-thirds of a student’s belt testing requirements should occur outside of your school. If you’re requiring your students to quantify their training as a part of their test, then why not bring other behaviors –outside of your dojo --into the process too? Five “acts of kindness” a day adds up to 450 in 90 days. What if you required 100 home-chores between tests for kids under 18-years of age? Parents would love you. If you required “ten personal victories” (another UBBT requirement) for adults, or any number for that matter that would be practical between belt tests, imagine what accomplishments you could take partial credit for.

4. Journaling is the bomb. If you visit the UBBT website and visit the JOURNAL pages. There are currently more than 3000 journal entries made by participants in this project. This is how people have gotten to know each other. This is how people who aren’t in the test have been able to follow the progress and journey of participants. This is how the media has kept an eye on the test.

The new viewpoint of the testing process, and for that matter martial arts school membership in general, is that your students aren’t signing up for a course or a membership or a class –they’re on a heroic journey. The hero’s journey, as described by author Joseph Campbell, is The Exodus, The Epiphany, and The Return. Haven’t read Joseph Campbell? Time to hit the book store.

What would happen if your black belt candidates each made an on-line journal entry once a week, for six-months to a year prior to their black belt test? How many of their classmates or co-workers would read them? It’s the perfect way to pull all sorts of people into the testing process, by sharing the experience with them. Before this journaling process began in the UBBT, a lot of family, friends, classmates, and co-workers were left in the dark about what a black belt candidate goes thru when preparing for a test. Not any more! And another bonus to journaling; after their year of training, many of the UBBT participants have expressed appreciation for being left with an entire year of their life documented in weekly –and sometimes daily –journal entries.

The UBBT’s website details many other creative concepts for belt testing (and subsequently training, teaching, and school promotion). My recommendation is to study it carefully –with an open mind. While you may not embrace every aspect of the program, there are many concepts in it you can use to improve your testing process and your school. Oh, and did I mention, all these ideas are free!

My next UBBT is going to feature 30 black belts from around the world, armed with 30 video cameras. We’ll be filming our training for a whole year –and creating a documentary film with an Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker. Sweet!

My Opinion about the Martial Arts Industry and Martial Arts in the U.K.

Well, let me try to put this delicately, without stepping on anyone’s toes: I think the martial arts business world ought to get its butt kicked, without mercy. Of course, I’m speaking figuratively, as I’m a non-violent type, but really –this industry is in need of a good thrashing. We’ve got masters who are anything but, over-controlling associations; un-sustainable and unhealthy business methods; inadequate instructor education; unreasonably high student attrition; and an emphasis on contract amount, gross income, and money that’s completely out-of-balance with any sort of emotional or spiritual “martial arts” development. In my opinion, as an industry, we promise a boat load of benefits, but more often that not we end up delivering a thimble full of our potential.

There’s no better example of what’s wrong with the martial arts industry than taking any popular martial arts publication and opening it side-by-side with any popular yoga magazine. In one, every article discusses some aspect of spirituality and consciousness training, in the other the word “spiritual” is, for the most part, non-existent. What happened to us? How did we let the yoga industry steal our unique selling proposition? Since when did yoga capture the market on spiritual and emotional growth? And when did the martial arts world become all about cage-fighting, physical techniques and/or ways to throw birthday parties, run after-school programs, and upgrade students to “leadership courses?”

I have often heard it said that schools in the UK are 10 to 20 years behind schools in the U.S. Well, that’s just not true. Why don’t you all just skip the crass commercialism, skip the stupidity of high-pressure sales, skip the cheesy promotional ideas, skip the lame collection policies, and skip the great American pastime of chasing the dollar and thinking that bigger is always better. We don’t, in general, know how to do it over here in the States and better that any other country. What puts you ahead of the game is that you can learn from our mistakes --and then you won’t have to go through this demeaning period of selling out for profit that’s causing more than a good deal of damage to our image. In fact, many of us are rapidly moving away from the “business” aspects of school management and seeking, once again, to find a kind of mastery and enlightenment in our martial arts journey.

The systems and the business of our industry are important and essential, as is brushing one’s teeth. You have to brush your teeth to stay healthy; but we all know that we don’t LIVE to clean our teeth. We live for purpose and meaning and intent and passion.

I would like to suggest that you skip a lot of the martial arts industry’s standard methods of operation, even if they seem attractive at first glance, and use your creativity to craft methods that you feel are sound. Go with your gut instincts, not necessarily what’s working for some bloke in a suit half-way around the world. If you innovate now, instead of following the pack, I predict it wouldn’t be long before folks in the States are coming to your seminars to learn the art of martial arts business.

Interview with Tom Callos taken from martial arts school owner magazine.