Imagine that you wanted to learn English. You find a language school and speak with the instructor who promises to teach you English. Eager and excited to learn you enroll.
In the first lesson he begins to teach you Latin. Confused, you ask him why he’s teaching you Latin when you enrolled to learn English. The instructor seemingly irritated that his methods are being questioned answers, “English can be used to harm and hurt people. In order for you to truly respect the power of English, you must first learn Latin. Now, you’d never really speak in Latin, but this is the traditional way.”
The above scenario is exactly how many martial arts schools are run. They advertise fitness, self-defense, and that their program is easy to learn and fun for the entire family. Yet when the students begin, they have to learn front stance, down block – lunge punch and countless other techniques that have nothing to do with self-defense, fitness or fun.
Over time as student after student drops out, the instructor complains that people are lazy and not dedicated when in truth, he sold them something they didn’t want.
Tradition is whatever you are raised with. When I was a student, it was tradition that you got a key to the school when you earned your blue belt. Mind you, this was in the mid-1970s so you can imagine how that was abused. It was tradition that your instructors pounded you in the first class after each belt exam. It was tradition that you learned 17 forms for black belt.
Two decades later, my students had a completely different set of traditions far removed from the ones I was raised with. Using the language analogy, you could say I started to teach English much sooner than my instructor taught me.
Even when the instructor begins to realize that he needs to teach a curriculum that matches the needs of his students, he is often at loss at how to do so. This is exactly why we created Pro-Star Mixed Martial Arts. Pro-Star provides instructors with class-by-class lesson plans from white to black belt.
Many schools have joined Pro-Star and most of them have little kickboxing or MMA experience. However, they are learning and teaching the Pro-Star system in their schools and their students love it. Pro-Star is designed to give students “instant value” and it works.
In other words, they are speaking English after the first class.
Note: Pro-Star is not a franchise. You don’t change your school name to Pro-Star, nor are you required to use our curriculum verbatim.
