A Martial Arts School's Great Juggling Act

 Old school is the best, You should always be evolving as a martial artist. Reading those two sentences makes me very confused, and I wrote them, to imagine how people reading it for the first time must feel. I know for an old guy like me, I can understand why I liked old-school, attitudes, work ethic, simplicity, and training.  To be honest, I even hear many younger guys talk about old-school, training and attitudes being the best, but then, if you don't evolve, you won't grow, and you'll never get better. Now I am really confused, but I think I can come up with a compromise.

I love old-school training and old-school attitude, but I also love some of the newer training, modalities, evolving, and getting better without getting hurt so often. We learn from our mistakes, we grow from our losses, but we also want to keep our old-school, traditions, values, and toughness. Old school training was definitely harder and tougher, but wasn't necessarily better? Some older guys swear it was better in every sense, and some younger guys think old-school training is antiquated and outdated. Being an old guy myself, I definitely agree with both trains of thought. Old school mentality is definitely my favorite, but then I love doing Tabatas, that's not very old-school is it.  I basically my mindset, the way I like to teach, the way, I like, to make my curriculum, and the way, I personally train, as I love some of the newer techniques and training modalities, but I'll always stay with my old school, attitude, and toughness.  Can you be old-school tough but New Age effective at the same time? I think that's what we have done, I think I started this back in 1985.

When I first opened my gym, calling at The Pit, and with the muscular Grim Reaper as my logo, I think it's pretty obvious I was leaning on old-school rough and tough no nonsense, martial arts. That is 100% correct, that is what I wanted back in 1985, And to be honest here we are 2023, I still think we have a pretty old-school, rough and tough reputation, but a lot has changed. I love having the reputation of being a rough and tough and very efficient and effective martial arts, and fitness system, but I think people also realized that I have changed many of our techniques, curriculum, and even philosophies, balancing the old-school toughness with a New Age effectiveness is no easy task, but it can be done, and I think getting the best of both worlds is the best way to go. Let's dispose of some of the myths that will hold us back from being great martial artists. And let me reinforce. You can have an old-school rough and tough and simplistic system, style, or dojo while evolving to stay effective, efficient and relevant, I'll give you a way to do that by keeping some of your traditions, losing some of your traditions. and when I say, traditions, techniques, curriculum, and philosophies are part of your traditions. Since I've already done complete blogs, just about traditions, good and bad, I'm only gonna touch on it right now, because this is not the main topic, but it definitely has a lot to do with our blog.

Oh first, off as being a martial arts system, and Jim, that is very rough and tough, there's a lot of positives for that, however, there are also negatives. The positives are pretty obvious, if you get attacked, or if your family gets attacked and you're not rough or tough, you will probably not be able to protect yourself or their family. So, while being rough and tough could be two of the main traits that you need to be a successful martial artist, it also gets a bad rap, kind of like masculinity.  I what people don't realize is if you're not tough, you will never win a fight, you will never be able to protect anyone, including yourself, being tough is mandatory in martial arts, just like masculinity, is mandatory physically saving peoples lives and fighting for their rights. I one way I like to explain it is you always have to be a TOUGH guy, without being a "tough guy". “Tough guy” is someone who likes to act, tough, and that's usually around people that he knows are physically inferior to him. Where is a TOUGH guy, is someone that can withstand discomfort and even pain to protect himself or his family, or fight for the rights of people. Being a truly tough guy, and masculinity are very closely linked, one difference is that wall masculinity is connected to manliness, being tough, has no gender attached to it. So embrace your toughness, be proud of it, and teach it to your students. At the same time, while the toughness is shining through, also let everyone know, by actions and words, that while you teach toughness, you also teach kindness, generosity and goodness. That is the combination that you have to embrace, and let everyone know.

So while I am staying with my old school toughness, I'm also adapted, and evolved to practicing, training, and teaching the newer age techniques, curriculum, philosophies, and training routines.  Just like our soldiers are using the latest state of the art weaponry, they also still carry on a lot of the old school, philosophies and rituals, just look at basic training, a lot of that is old traditions. So while everybody that had an old-school tough gym, teaching, martial arts, We're all in for a rude awakening when the attack modalities changed, so our self-defense modalities had to change as well, or we would become not only outdated, but extinct. Basically, we wanted to keep as much of our old school mentality, Yep we realize no matter how hard we trained, we had to also change. To this day I still hear some old school martial arts instructors, who won't except the fact that they have to adapt and evolve, so they just play the game their way, and keep their head in the sand. What people don't realize is like our gym, The Pit, we have evolved to be as relevant as any martial arts school, yeah, we still have been able to keep our tough and very effective reputation. I had to do that we had to market our family friendly, our tough yet very safe training environment. We have to put it out there that we never fight over anger, jealousy, or any other nefarious reasons, we are to only fight if we are defending ourselves or family members. 

 it is a juggling act to say the least. To have a tough yet, effective curriculum, yet cutting edge techniques with the tenants of bushido, including kindness, generosity, and humility. So not only do we have to show that we are old school, tough, yet very relevant and cutting edge.  Fortunately, we have had the privilege to be on the big screen all over the world, so unlike my forefathers in martial arts, Kajukenpo. They had to prove their effectiveness and toughness in the street. So while we've been lucky enough to show that our system is not only very tough, the cutting edge, effective and relevant, but now we still have the difficulty of the balancing act, how can we prove that we're not gonna turn, somebody's child into it the bully himself, And for the adult who wants to train get the notion out of his head that he's going to be thrown into a cage and be pummeled like the people he's seen out of our gym on pay-per-view. That is where the true balancing act happens, because to be honest the majority of people, want a much more family oriented gym then they do a bloody scary cage without get thrown into and the door locked behind them. To be honest one way we've been successful with that, has much more to do with my wife than myself. My wife not only makes the gym, very welcoming for everyone that walks in, she also treats, everyone like family, half the time if you see a picture of us, we're caring, somebody's baby, we have a great reputation for being a family Jim, because of my wife's dedication. We have Christmas parties, Halloween costume contests, Easter egg hunts, classes at the beach, classes at the park, sometimes we even have bouncy houses for a birthday party or some other event.  Basically, it is truly a balancing act, and if you're not good at it, he won't stay open, or in business for very long.

This is the balancing act if you want to be a relevant, successful, and quality martial arts school. You have to be tough, and you have to teach effective techniques. You have to embrace and hold onto old-school techniques, but only if they are effective. Let go of the techniques and traditions that are proven ineffective, and not only waste your students time, but you lose credibility when they realize that some of the things they're learning are ineffective and worthless, but they still made you learn them. So basically, the student wants to be pushed to get better, tougher, fitter, and more skilled. So basically, you have to take a harsh introspective look at yourself, your history, and your traditions, and determine if there worthy of staying consistent part of your martial art. Is keeping this tradition in your martial arts, school Annette gain positive for your students, does the time it takes you to work on this with your student, is it worth taking away from techniques that will save your student's life? I think if you answer that honestly, you will come up with the right decision.