Has a spouse or significant other made a suggestion about your martial arts school or how you teach? What was your reaction? I know mine was essentially ‘Who the heck are you to tell me, the black belt, about martial arts?’ The key is: They don’t care about martial arts; they care about you.
In a previous article, I introduced the concept of “Black Belt Eyes” and how they are based on false assumptions and often get in the way of our more useful “Market Eyes”.
Market Eyes could represent the eyes of a potential student who doesn’t know a black belt from a green belt but has a willingness to learn.
If your logo contains a fist, a yin-yang, a circle, a triangle, Asian lettering, or a bug, you may have Black Belt Eyes.
Listing techniques instead of benefits in your black belt marketing.
This may disappoint you, but the odds are minuscule that someone seeing an ad that touts Hun Gar 3 Step Waza will exclaim to his wife, “Honey! Hun Gar 3 Step Waza! Just what I’ve always wanted!” Only your Black Belt Eyes will know what that means.
Black Belt Eyes assume people want to know that you are an accomplished black belt.
Good instructors can teach a great class and produce outstanding black belts using one-hour classes.
This was for the blue belt to fourth degree brown belt and usually occurred about a year into training.
I turned a negative element of the belt exam process into a fun profit center.
To accomplish this, I had to overcome my Black Belt Eyes.
This is classic Black Belt Eyes combined with the Control Factor.
His Black Belt Eyes felt that the photo showed he could withstand any blow.
Black Belt Eyes say, “Sparring prepares you for self defense.” Market Eyes say, “That’s scary, and it hurts.” Few things lead to high dropouts faster than sparring.
“Sally! Nice to see you. We sure miss you in class.” “Oh, um, hi, Mr. Graden. I’ve been really busy lately. Gotta go.” If I had a Truth Translator, the real message would be, “I trusted you. I really trusted you and embraced your school into my life. Then you put me up against that guy, and I had no idea what to do. He hit me on my nose, and it hurt. I will not trust you again.” When I tell this story in seminars, the classic Black Belt Eyes vs Market Eyes exchange reveals itself, as the owners’ wives and girlfriends elbow them in the ribs.
If your white belt class consists of traditional stances, blocks, and forms, you are going to have a tough time keeping students.
We pushed all of our traditional tae kwon do techniques back to green belt.
White, gold, and orange belt were spent on working on pad drills, practical self defense, sparring, and footwork drills.
We say things like, “You would never really block this way, but this is a block against a kick to the groin.” That, my friend, are Black Belt Eyes in action.
When this enterprising black belt sits down to design the ultimate curriculum, he thinks to himself, “Hmmm. My students should learn the traditional basics. They should be able to do a form or two each belt. They should know the basic traditional stances and blocks. They should be able to do all the kicks and punches. They should learn some self defense. They should be able to do one-steps and spar as well.” Do any of these sound like you? Then you may be guilty of black belt eyes.
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