Info for Martial Arts School Owners and Instructors

The Martial Arts Teachers’ Association (MATA) is a professional organization that helps martial arts school owners and instructors improve their teaching skills and grow their schools with proven marketing, management, and curriculum design.

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Reopen Strategy for Your Martial Arts School

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Get Certified as a Martial Arts Instructor Online

MATA Martial Arts Instructor Certification Course

Module 21-The Proper Use of Student Instructors

by Scot Conway, Esquire

The $25,000 Volunteers

Excerpt from the Martial Arts Instructor Certification Course:

Using upper ranks to teach classes has been a long-standing martial arts tradition. But, is it legal?

A California instructor had his black belts teaching under-rank classes at his studio. In exchange, he no longer charged them tuition.

This continued until one fateful day when the owner and a black belt student had a disagreement.

The vindictive student contacted the California Labor Board and reported that his instructor had been employing assistants by requiring that they teach classes each week.

This can constitute an Employer – Worker relationship. The only thing missing was payment for the workers and the taxes the government would collect if they were being paid.

The State of California investigators concluded that the owner, over the years, had a total of 25 black belts teach classes.

They defined them as uncompensated employees, which is illegal under the laws of California, and fined the instructor $1,000 per incident.

The final bill: $25,000 for the volunteers.

Lesson: Know your state laws regarding utilizing assistant instructors.

How to Use Video to Invite Your Students Back to Class

How to structure and deliver a motivating invitation to get your students back in class.

Craft a Video Message for Your Students

Martial arts is visual so use video to engage and motivate your students to return to classes when you reopen.

This is not where you want to promise tuition discounts for families hard hit. While that is a good idea, you don’t want to be locked into any perceived promises on video. Make those offers one-on-one.

Your video should:
1. Reassure that student and family safety is number one and CDC guidelines will be followed.
2. Demonstrate how that will happen.
3. Energize them with the exciting upgrades in the curriculum you’ve made as a result of evaluating your programs during the downtime. Show them how YOU turned a negative into a positive.

Here is an example video message.

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