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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MATA Annual Martial Arts School Business Report 2018: Trump-onomics and 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.

According to CNBC, under President Trump, “the economy has achieved feats most experts thought impossible. GDP is growing at a 3 percent-plus rate and the unemployment rate is near a 50-year low.”

In addition, his tax cuts should help martial arts schools that are set up as S-corporations or LLCs as you will see a significant corporate tax cut with the rate dropping from 35% to 21%.  Here is a calculator to see how it may affect your business.

Each year, we look at the number of martial arts schools listed on InfoUSA.com. Since we started this in 2013, we’ve seen a steady decline in the number of martial arts schools in the USA. This year, however, we’ve seen a modest increase.

2013: 20,234
2016: 15,896 – 4,338
2017: 14,901 – 995
2018: 15,157 + 256

What’s also very interesting is that, according to Sports and Fitness Insurance Corp (SFIC) National Accounts Director, Jennifer Urmston, applications for martial arts schools is steady but not growing while applications for self-defense schools has increased significantly. Specifically, request for coverage of active shooter training has created a new market.

In fact, last week, I was asked to submit a proposal to train a Jewish Family organization with 500 employees and 10 locations in active shooter response. The proposal was for nearly $20,000. Thank you COBRA-Defense!

So how was business in 2018? Please comment and share your experience.

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