Martial Arts World News Magazine - Volume 21 | Issue 1

MartialArtsWorldNews.com 

The #1 Business Resource for the Martial Arts Industry 

VOLUME 20 21 | ISSUE 21 

GRANDMASTER 

ZULFI 

AHMED 

The Secrets to 

Building 40+ Locations 

What to Expect with 

Round 2 of PPP Loans 

Can Badass 

Have The Kind of Impact 

‘The Karate Kid’ Did?

\ 

WORK 

HARDer 

> 

Smarter! 

CUTTING-EDGE ATLAS SOFTWARE • LEAD GENERATING WEBSITES 

• ENGAGING SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS • PROVEN-SUCCESSFUL 

MARKETING TOOLS • DONE-FOR-YOU AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM 

CALL 1-800-275-1600 

TO SPEAK WITH A SCHOOL SPECIALIST 

Get a FREE DEMO at AtlasMartialArtsSoftware.com

CONTENTS 

FEATURES 

26 AMAA Chuck Norris Martial Arts 

Masters & Pioneers 2nd Edition 

Released 

28 Can Badass ‘Cobra Kai’ Have The 

Kind of Impact ‘The Karate Kid’ 

Did? 

34 The Secrets to Building 

40+ Schools 

44 What to Expect with Round 2 of 

PPP Loans 

101 FREE Tool of the Month 

DEPARTMENTS 

14 Industry Insights 

15 Birthdays 

18 Social 411 

20 Industry Innovations 

52 School Profile 

63 Classified Ads 

99 Advertiser Index 

YOUR INPUT 

13 Tell Us Your Story 

76 Feature Your School, 

Organization, Accomplishment, 

or Event 

COLUMNS 

6 Editorial 

The 5 Things Top School Owners Are Doing to Set 

Their Schools Up for BIG Success in 2021! 

Master Toby Milroy 

8 Martial Arts World News Faculty 

12 The Warrior Way 

Managing the Krav Maga Curriculum, Part 3 

Grandmaster Bill Clark 

56 Teamwork 

Guidelines for Keeping Your Team In Sync, Part 1 

Hanshi Dave Kovar 

58 Next Level Strategy 

Put the Right Person in the Right Job 

Shihan Allie Alberigo 

60 Growth Hacks 

3 Rock-Solid Marketing Strategies to Increase 

Your Enrollment 

Mr. Sean Lee 

62 Ninja Business Tactics 

Is Poverty Mentality Hurting Your School? 

An-Shu Stephen Hayes 

66 Pillars of Success 

Create Physical Success, Part 2 

Supreme Grandmaster Y. K. Kim 

70 The Way of the Samurai 

Street Wise Knife Fighting 

Shihan Dana Abbott 

72 Extraordinary Marketing 

Don’t Confuse Activity with Accomplishment, Part 2 

Grandmaster Stephen Oliver 

74 After School Excellence 

What Goes In: Grading Your School’s Snacks 

Chief Master Mike Bugg 

78 Tactical Self-Defense 

Look Left To Right and See All In Sight 

Grandmaster Tom Patire 

4 MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 1

STAFF 

80 Complete Martial Arts Concepts 

Branding: From the Ring to the Screen, and All 

Things in Between, Part 1 

Professor Willie “the Bam” Johnson 

82 The Millionaire Smarts Coach 

Be in Charge of Your Destiny, Part 2 

Ms. Lee Milteer 

86 Budo Philosophy 

A Garden is Just an “Until Then,” Part 1 

Shidoshi Alfredo Tucci 

88 Pro Shop Power 

Make Your Students Proud with a Bulletin Board 

Mr. Sun Kang 

90 Mind Mastery 

Got Problems? 

Grandmaster Jessie Bowen 

92 Master the Basics 

Bend, Don’t Break, Your Students 

Master Tina Bane 

94 Instructional Excellence 

Our Martial Arts Classes Develop Confidence! 

Grandmaster Tim McCarthy 

96 Tools & Tactics 

The Elements of a Business Plan 

Ms. Lee Peele 

98 Martial Arts Philosophy 

There is Meaning to Rank in the Martial Arts, Part 1 

Sensei Gary Lee 

100 Thoughts ‘n Things 

Reflections, Gratitude, Goal Setting, and Legacy 

Grandmaster Joe Corley 

102 Management Excellence 

Are You an Amateur or a Pro? 

Chief Master Kirk Pelt 

104 Business Buzz 

How to Plan for Success, Part 1 

Grandmaster Lawrence Arthur 

VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 1 

PUBLISHER 


EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

Mr. Sean Lee 

MANAGING EDITOR 

Ms. Sandra Mirocha 

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR 

Mr. Jeff Reulbach 

ART DIRECTOR 

Mr. Frank Meyer 

GRAPHIC DESIGNER 

Mr. Amen Blue 

WEB DEVELOPERS 

Ms. Erin Pham 

COLUMNISTS & CONTRIBUTORS 



Mr. Sean Lee 


Supreme Grandmaster Y. K. Kim 




Chief Master Mike Bugg 

Professor Willie Johnson 

Ms. Lee Peele 


Mr. Sun Kang 








The mission of Martial Arts World 

News Magazine is to be the definitive 

source for information, news, education, 

ethical business practices, 

product reviews and innovative 

developments in the world of martial 

arts business. 

Martial Arts World 

News does not accept 

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Our preferred method of 

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com. Paper manuscripts 

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we expressly disclaim 

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MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 1 5

Editorial 

The 5 Things Top School Owners Are 

Doing to Set Their Schools Up for BIG 

Success in 2021! 

MASTER 

TOBY MILROY 

is a 5th degree 

black belt. Known 

as “The Master 

Systemizer,” 


has positively 

influenced more 

martial arts schools 

than anyone in our 

industry. He has 

built a successful 

multi-school 

organization, 

lead the national 

trade association 

for the martial 

arts industry, and 

coached some of 

the most successful 

martial arts school 

operators in the 

world. 

PPP Round 2 

For MANY small business owners (school owners 

alike), the PPP program was an essential lifeline that provided 

much needed relief and support. In round 2 of the 

program, the application requirements for businesses who 

want to access less than 150,000 are significantly simpler. 

If you’re interested in getting in on the new round of 

PPP funding visit our colleague Chris Hurn’s company 

“Fountainhead Commercial Capital” at his site: 

www.FountainheadCC.com/ppp2 

Post COVID Marketing/ 

Messaging 

One of the fundamental 

lessons in effective marketing 

strategy is, “Entering the 

conversation your prospects 

are already having in their 

mind”. So it’s critical that we 

deeply empathize with our 

prospective member and their 

family. 

What are they worried 

about? 

What are they concerned 

about? 

What are they interested in? 

Right now, people are not only concerned about the 

virus, but also DEEPLY concerned about the impact of 

the lockdowns and social isolation on their children and 

themselves! 

We’ve prepared a HUGE toolkit of marketing tools, 

videos, reports (lead magnets), ads and MORE to help you 

answer these concerns for your community. 

Download them Here for FREE: 

AtlasMartialArtsSoftware.com/covid19 

Summer Camp/Summer Activity Promotions 

Smart school owners are looking ahead to the HUGE 

demand we’ll be seeing for summer programs in 2021. 

Parents who are concerned about how the COVID crisis 

We’ve prepared a HUGE toolkit of marketing tools 

and associated lockdowns, school closures, and social isolation 

is affecting their children will be taking action to help 

bridge any gap that’s been created. 

Investing in high quality summer programs, will be a 

high priority for them, and we’re ALREADY seeing significant 

demand for these programs! NOW IS THE TIME 

to be promoting and enrolling for your summer programs. 

If you need help or resources, call my team at 

1-800-275-1600 or visit: www.MaBizAcademy.com 

Get “Online” Funnels Set Up 

and Optimized 

You NEED to have the ability to 

DRIVE traffic to a well crafted, effective 

“Lead Funnel” website, using 

attractive lead magnets, organic social 

media content, paid social media ads, 

effective SEO, Google ads, and others. 

Then you must create effective 

and beautiful online (and offline) lead 

CONVERSION systems. 

We can help you focus on what’s 

important, and ‘ignore’ what isn’t! In 

fact, for many of our clients, we do 

much of the work for them. 

If you need help with any of this 

visit: AtlasMartialArtsSoftware.com 

Family Add On/Referral and Database Focus! 

Your students’ family are already familiar with you, 

they (hopefully) like you, and they are likely to want/need 

your help, now, more than ever, so we’re putting a huge 

focus on our ‘family add ons’. 

We’re building events, classes, and seminars to get the 

parents off the sidelines, and into classes, and I’d suggest 

you do that same. 

I’ve had my team prepare a HUGE toolkit for our 

Martial Arts World News readers to help you through this 

challenging time! 

To Request these FREE Resources - Visit: 

AtlasMartialArtsSoftware.com/covid19 


Check out our new 

MARTIAL ARTS BUSINESS 

DISCUSSION GROUP 

No Egos – No Politics – No Trolls 

Just News, Tips, Strategies, and Tools to Help You Grow Your School! 

facebook.com/groups/MartialArtsWorldNews

OUR EXPERT FACULTY 

6 


Is a 5th degree Black Belt, the CEO and 

Publisher of Martial Arts World News 

Magazine, and the Executive Vice 

President for AMS. In addition to building 

a successful multi-school organization, 

Master Milroy has positively influenced 

more martial arts schools than virtually 

anyone in our industry. 

12 


is a 9th degree black belt and a former 

PKA Fighter of the year. He is widely considered 

one of the top experts in martial 

arts business with over 30 years of 

leadership and innovation, having been 

inducted into almost every Hall of Fame 

in the industry. He is one of the largest 

multi-school owners in the world. 

56 


is an 8th degree black belt and recognized 

as the “Trainer of Trainers.” Hanshi 

Kovar is an internationally acclaimed 

instructor with black belt degrees in ten 

different martial arts styles. His systems 

have been implemented in hundreds of 

schools around the US. 

58 


is a 7th degree black belt, the founder 

of the L.I. Ninjutsu Centers, one of the 

largest Ninjutsu schools on the planet, 

the author of 4 books, and an entrepreneur 

with one of the first online coaching 

companies (TakingItToTheNextLevel.com). 

60 

Mr. Sean Lee 

is the Executive Director of Sales and 

Marketing for hundreds of martial arts 

schools and specializes in online and social 

media marketing using his extensive 

professional experience in sports and 

martial arts marketing, contract negotiation, 

and investment. 

62 


has authored more than 20 books, 

worked as a bodyguard for the Dalai 

Lama, supervised over 30 school locations 

worldwide, and was named, "One of 

the 10 Most Influential Living Martial Artists 

in the World" by Black Belt Magazine. 

66 

Grandmaster Y. K. Kim 

is the most successful martial arts business 

leader in the US, having written 

over 30 books on martial arts, business, 

leadership, and success. He has won 

numerous public service awards and is 

the founder of the leading martial arts 

marketing and management company in 

the US. 

70 


Is a 7th degree black belt in Kenjutsu, 

starting his 14-year education in Tokyo. 

He has published five books and designed 

a US Patent. Abbott has also 

conducted seminars in over 30 countries 

and obtained his black belt at the Hombu 

dojo in Yokohama. He currently offers 

online classes on LearntheSword.com. 



72 


is a 9th degree black belt and is the 

founder and CEO of Mile High Karate 

schools, and founder of the Martial Arts 

Wealth Mastery Program. 

74 

Master Mike Bugg 

is an 8th degree black belt and the 

owner of a 1.5 million-per-year location, 

with one of the largest after school and 

summer camp programs in the country. 

78 


is known as “America’s Leading Personal 

Safety Expert” and has appeared on 

Good Morning America, The CBS Morning 

Show, The Colbert Report, Montel, 

plus in mainstream publications such as 

Family Circle, Redbook, Fortune Magazine, 

and The Wall Street Journal. 

82 


is an Intuitive Business Coach, awardwinning 

professional speaker, and TV 

personality who has counseled and 

trained over a million people throughout 

her career. Lee is Stephen Oliver’s 

Martial Arts Wealth Mastery’s Millionaire 

Smarts Coach and is also a best-selling 

author of educational resources. 

86 


is the CEO and General Manager of the 

Budo International Publishing Company, 

a leading publisher in the martial arts 

with over 35 years in the industry. He 

is also author of several books: The 

Immaterial Dimension, The Way of the 

Warrior, and The Spirit. He currently lives 

in Valencia, Spain. 

88 

Mr. Sun Kang 

is the President of Vision Martial Arts 

Supply who helps school owners all over 

the US maximize their retail sales and 

drive more revenue into their schools. 

80 

Professor Willie “The BAM” Johnson 

is a 7th degree black belt and seven-time 

sport karate and Kung-Fu world champion. 

He has appeared in four movies, 

16 plays, and 11 television shows. He is 

also the national spokesperson for the 

Stronger than Drugs Foundation and the 

Champions Against Drugs. 

90 


is President of Karate International of Durham, 

Inc., a member of the American Martial 

Arts Association Sport Karate League 

and Hall of Fame, and has been a member 

of the Duke University PE Staff for over 25 

years. He is the author of Zen Mind-Body 

Mindfulness Meditation and Zen Mind-Body 

Mindfulness Meditation for Martial Arts. 



92 


is a 6th degree master instructor and 

owner of a Top Ten martial arts school 

with successful after school and summer 

camp programs. 

94 


is a 9th degree black belt and is a martial 

arts educator with a master’s degree in 

education. He has been instrumental 

in developing two industry-changing 

programs, and has directed and been 

featured in hundreds of martial arts videos 

and webinars. 

100 

Grandmaster Joe Corley 

is a 10th degree black belt, hall of famer, 

top national point fighter, was the Number 

1 Middleweight Contender in PKA Kickboxing, 

founder of the Battle of Atlanta 

World Karate Championships, executive 

producer for PKA fights on NBC, CBS, 

ESPN, SHOWTIME, USA, and recipient of 

the Joe Lewis Eternal Warrior award. 

102 


is an 8th degree black belt and is the 

President of a multimillion-dollar, multischool 

organization, has a 30-year track 

record of success, and is currently on the 

leading edge of martial arts curriculum 

and business innovation. 

96 

Ms. Lee Peele 

is a martial arts business development 

consultant with a background in online 

and social media marketing. 

98 


the American Samurai, is a 9th Dan black 

belt, a USA Karate Federation gold medalist, 

winner of five Super Grand National 

Titles, a featured actor in the movie Sidekicks, 

and is the founder of the National 

Sport Karate Museum. 

104 

Grandmaster Lawrence Arthur 

is a martial artist specializing in Karate, 

Kung Fu, Kenpo, Shoto-kan, and Gojurue, 

with 40 Super Kick Karate locations, 

and founder of AFKA. World champion 

Lawrence also runs the Black Belt Success 

Systems consulting firm, training 

martial arts instructors on proper business 

practices in schools all over the country. 

We’re Seeking Contributors! 

Do you have something to share? 

We’d love to hear about it! 

CONTACT US: 

407-895-1996 Editor@MartialArtsWorldNews.com 

MartialArtsWorldNews.com/Ureport 


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The Warrior Way 

Managing the Krav Maga 

Curriculum, Part 3 

GRANDMASTER 

BILL CLARK is a 

9th degree black 

belt and a former 

PKA Fighter of 

the Year. He is 

widely considered 

one of the top 

experts in martial 

arts business with 

over 30 years of 

leadership and 

innovation, having 

been inducted 

into almost every 

Hall of Fame in the 

industry. He is one 

of the largest multischool 

owners in 

the world. 

➽Before someone comes to the Evolution of 

Krav Maga certification, when someone registers 

online or comes and registers in our office, 

we send them language homework first. First, 

you’ve got to learn all the commands and what 

each command means. That alone takes you 

from a good instructor to a fantastic instructor, 

because you’re able to articulate why you’re 

doing things, not just what you’re doing. 

A student knows why they’re doing this and that 

drill. It’s very short and brief; it’s the most professional 

language I’ve ever seen in a martial art. Not because my 

guys all got together and we wrote it together, but because 

it wasn’t easy to transmit the information except through 

technique. For adults, they really want to know what and 

why they’re doing it, not just what technique. I want to 

know why. I don’t just want to down block, down block, 

down block, down block, kick the pad, kick the pad. Adults 

really want to have an intellectual knowledge without a 

bunch of talk; I’m not talking about a long lecture, I’m 

talking about brief language skills that they can repeat 

back and now they know why you’re doing everything in 

class. That’s one of the components of the certification. 

The other is something called a “knowledge domain.” 

Every week for 36 weeks we’ll cover a small part of the 

knowledge you need to defend yourself on the street. Very 

concisely we’ll go through questions. It’s almost like a mat 

chat, except that it only deals with self-defense. We’re 

not trying to be Tony Robbins and 

do any of that stuff. We’re saying, 

“This is what happens before 

contact is made.” Next week 

it might be, “This is what 

happens after contact. This 

is what happens if you’re 

knocked to the ground, 

how you feel. How do you 

act? Any questions?” What 

you should do. Every element 

of self-defense is covered 

and you become an actual 

expert. We just give you all 

the scripts, you write them on your mirror, you read 

them, and you ask questions on it. It’s designed where each 

knowledge domain lasts a week. Nobody else has anything 

like it. 

Any Krav in any organization in the world can come 

and learn from us and make their Krav organization better. 

That’s what the Evolution of Krav is for. It’s not for 

an association I’m creating; I’m just trying to help other 

instructors, because nobody practices teaching. All they 

do is practice techniques. They train, they get good kicks, 

or they don’t. They get old. Nobody practices teaching and 

how to teach; that’s the missing element. 

I mean, anybody can sound like a coach, but to be a real 

instructor you have to understand the essence of selfdefense. 

The essence of what really happens emotionally 

when someone gets into your car with a gun. You have to 

talk about these things and ask questions long before it 

happens. The technique is one thing, but it’s a small part 

of the Krav we teach. Most of the Krav techniques and all 

the associations—you look at the video and it all looks the 

same—but the application of what happens in the middle 

of it when you get hit is something none of them address. 

You’re in the middle of defending against a knife and the 

guy hits you in the back of the head. You’re in the middle 

of defending against a choke or a side headlock and somebody 

kicks you in the face. None of them address that, and 

they’re not prepared for the real streets today. The streets 

today are so different than when I was a kid. When I was 

a kid, it was two guys. Now there’s never going to 

be one person hitting you. Everybody is hitting 

you at the same time, and they don’t have 

any feeling at all about hurting you. 

While you may be civilized, if you 

don’t know how to respond in 

that environment, you’ve got a 

big problem coming. Go to the 

Evolution of Krav, sign up for 30 

days free, and you’ll say, “Wow, 

I’ve never heard of this before.” 

For more information, 

visit TheEvolutionOfKrav.com 

12 MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 1 

Photograph by OSTILL

BE RECOGNIZED in future editions of 

Martial Arts World News Magazine. 

Our goal at Martial Arts World News Magazine is to 

support our industry and help you grow your martial 

arts school. It’s incredibly useful for our readers to hear 

about YOUR specific experiences and results. 

You are part of a wonderful industry and community with 

Martial Arts World News Magazine, and now, you’ll be 

able to share and contribute to that community in a more 

rich and meaningful way than ever before! 

You could Share Stories About: 

• Achieving a New Rank 

• Opening a New Location 

• Winning an Award 

• Discovering a Successful Marketing Strategy 

• Building a Retention System that Works Well 

• Tournament Results 

• Anything else that our readers might find valuable! 


Or send your story ideas to Editor@MartialArtsWorldNews.com

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 

Martial Arts History Museum Reaches 

Out to Local Community for Help 

The businesses across the US that have been hit the 

hardest by COVID-19 lockdowns have been gyms, martial 

arts schools, yoga studios, and museums, which have 

widely been forced to stay shuttered. According to a 

recent analysis, nearly 90% of all martial arts schools in CA 

will close their doors as a result of the continual lockdown. 

To prevent the closure of the museum, they’ve launched 

their biggest fundraising campaign yet. The museum, 

which has been operating for the past 21 years, is the only 

one of its kind in the world, providing an insight into the 

Asian-American experience through the history of the martial 

arts. To combat their financial hardship, the Martial Arts 

History Museum has launched a Facebook giving campaign 

to raise $30,000. “Over the years, we’ve set aside 

funds in case of a tragedy, and that tragedy is here. Since 

April, we haven’t received any income, 

so we’ve been drawing on those 

reserve funds. All of our staff is 

volunteers, so we don’t qualify 

for government grants. So, to 

avoid draining our reserve, 

we have decided to launch 

a crowdfunding campaign,” 

says museum president and 

founder Michael Matsuda. On 

Dec. 1, Facebook matched the 

The museum shares the values and benefits of the martial arts with tens of 

thousands of people each year. 

donations the museum received during the campaign. “I 

simply ask this,” says Matsuda, “If you love museums, if 

you love history, then make a donation to keep that history 

alive for the following generations. If you have benefitted 

from the martial arts; it helped you from being bullied, 

helped you become a movie star, helped you defend 

yourself, helped give you confidence, helped you establish 

a school; if the martial arts has helped you, then what better 

way to give back to the martial arts than by saving the 

Martial Arts History Museum?” To make a donation to the 

museum, visit their Facebook page at bit.ly/3nJyfLa 

The museum is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, so 

financial donations are tax deductible. 

ISKA US Open Announces 

New Dates 

The ISKA US Open, held annually in Orlando, FL, has released the newest 

dates for the rescheduled tournament. The event will be held at Disney’s 

Coronado Springs Resort on July 1–3, 2021. Registration has not yet 

opened. For the latest updates on the US Open, follow the event on Facebook 

at Facebook.com/usopenkarate 

Coronado Springs Resort 

July 1–3, 2021 


Martial Arts 

Celebrity Birthdays 


February 

February 1, 1965 ................ Brandon Lee* 

February 5, 1976 .................... Tony Jaa 

February 12, 1983 ...................Iko Uwais 

February 14, 1959 ...............Matthias Hues 

February 15, 1951 ..................Corey Yuen 

February 16, 1974 ............. Johnny Nguyen 

March 

March 1, 1963 ................... Russell Wong 

March 7, 1944 .......................Joe Lewis 

March 8, 1957 ................Cynthia Rothrock 

March 10, 1940 ...................Chuck Norris 

March 20, 1946 ................Kurata Yasuaki 

March 31, 1984 ....................JeeJa Yanin 

February 26, 1964 ..............Mark Dacascos 

*Deceased 



Our Very Own Master Toby 

Milroy to Be Included in the 

‘World’s Greatest Martial 

Artists’ Collection 

The “World’s Greatest Martial Artists” collection, produced by world-renowned 

martial artist, publisher, and author Ted Gambordella, is a tome featuring hundreds 

of the best martial artists across the globe, published yearly. Editor and featured 

columnist Master Toby Milroy is being honored in the 2020 edition, set for release 

in early 2021, alongside other martial artists industry titans. You can purchase previous 

editions of the “World’s Greatest Martial Artists” collection from Amazon.com. 

Grandmaster Joe Corley & Grandmaster 

Chuck Norris Team Up to Raise Funds for 

Kickstart Kids 

The American 

Martial Arts Alliance 

Foundation (AMAAF) 

is proudly supporting 

Chuck Norris’ foundation 

for children in the 

martial arts, Kickstart 

Kids, and is offering an 

opportunity for martial 

artists all over the country 

to aid in their efforts. 

Grandmasters Norris and Corley join 

forces to support Kickstart Kids. Founded in 1990 by 

Norris and President George H.W. Bush, Kickstart Kids 

is an award-winning, in-school character development 

program that uses Karate to teach life-changing values to 

middle school and high school students. Thanks to Kickstart 

Kids, today, approximately 8,000 students are enrolled in 60 

schools across Texas. Since its inception, Kickstart Kids has 

impacted the lives of more than 105,000 students. AMAAF’s 

goal is to raise over $2 million in donations to Norris’ charity. 

To reach this goal, AMAAF is offering a special incentive 

to donors: donate just $49 and receive a free 500+ page 

copy of the 2020 edition of “Who’s Who in the Martial Arts,” 

which features Norris on the cover. For more information, 

please visit Chuck Norris’ official Facebook page. You can 

also purchase martial arts gear and merchandise from Shop. 

kickstartkids.org to benefit the charity. 


Finally, Get Rid of Your 

BIGGEST Headache 

You didn’t open a martial 

arts school so you could 

waste your time being a 

bill collector…right? 

Put Our 30 Years of Tuition Management Experience to Work for You! 

Call one of our friendly Tuition 

Management experts to discuss 

your specific situation. 

(800) 275-1600 

OurAMS.com/headache

SOCIAL 411 

TikTok Launches 

New Small Business 

Resource Center for 

Marketers 

If you’re not using TikTok to market your martial arts 

school, now is the best time to start! In late December, Tik- 

Tok launched their Small Business Resource Center, which 

offers an array of tools and guides for small business owners 

aiming to expand their reach with the app. According 

to TikTok, “From success stories to creative tools and free 

webinars, it has everything you need to grow your small 

business on our platform.” If you’re a new TikTok user, the 

Resource Center also includes tutorials for incorporating 

music and premade templates, as well as transforming 

your assets, in a TikTok. To visit the Resource Center, click 

here: tiktok.com/business/en-US/smbcenter 

Facebook Warns 

Business Owners 

That iOS 14 Privacy 

Features Will Affect 

Marketing Ability 

Facebook is publicly campaigning against Apple’s latest 

iOS update, claiming that iOS 14 could “significantly 

impact” marketing and advertising campaigns. In a move 

that’s causing mass frustration with users, many martial arts 

school Facebook pages have received a pop-up on the site 

explaining that “Apple has announced product and policy 

changes that may significantly impact the way you can run 

ads, measure performance and engage your customers.” 

Earlier in 2020, Facebook estimated that ad revenue could 

drop between 50% and 60% because of the new privacy 

features. The privacy feature affects the Identifier for Advertiser 

(IDFA), which allows advertisers to collect data across 

apps and platforms. Though the new changes were slated 

to take effect back in October, Apple has delayed the 

launch of the anti-tracking features until “early 2021” to give 

app developers time to catch up. It still remains to be seen 

whether Apple’s anti-tracking features will be as devastating 

to marketing efforts as Facebook claims. 

Instagram’s Controversial, New Terms of 

Service Cause Site-wide Outrage 

Facebook-owned Instagram’s new terms of service are 

leaving many users wondering whether the company’s 

practices are even legal. Legal or not, the site’s terms of 

service (TOS) are certainly cause for concern. Instagram 

updated their terms and conditions back in late December 

with new clauses that allow the company to check your call 

logs and SMS history, and give them the ability to do live 

analyses on your camera, copy your address book, and 

more due to vague language in the TOS. The new TOS also 

allow Instagram to lock accounts with a domain name in the 

display name if the user hasn’t obtained “prior written consent” 

to use the domain name. If your martial arts school’s 

website is also your school account’s display name, 

Instagram may lock you out of your account without notice. 

Furthermore, the new rules also state that if someone’s 

account has been disabled before, Instagram is allowed to 

disable it again without providing a reason or notice. Instagram 

users have flocked to Twitter to 

complain about the site’s new policies, 

and even singer Madonna 

expressed her outrage on 

her Instagram account. 

To read Instagram’s 

new terms of service, 

visit 

tinyurl.com/ybkxl7yv 


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INDUSTRY INNOVATIONS 

The Latest Guide All Martial Arts School 

Owners Need to Read 

Grandmaster Zulfi Ahmed’s newest book, “The Science and Secrets of Becoming 

a Master Martial Arts Instructor,” is the latest must-have industry guide for 

martial arts school owners and instructors. 

The world of martial arts is a very complicated one, where you can soar to 

the heights of the profession or hit rock bottom quickly, all depending on your 

mindset, discipline, and skills. “The Science and Secrets of Becoming a Master 

Martial Arts Instructor” is dedicated to teaching you everything you’ll need to 

know to avoid the pitfalls and succeed as an instructor in the modern era. 

Featuring contributions from some of the best martial arts minds, including 

Grandmaster Ernie Reyes, Grandmaster Stephen Hayes, and Hanshi Dave Kovar, 

“The Science and Secrets of Becoming a Master Martial Arts Instructor” will no 

doubt help you take your career to the next level! 

To get your copy today for $29.95, simply go to Lulu.com and search by author. 

New “Harry & 

Friends” Book 

Available for 

Purchase on Amazon 

The Black Belt Principles martial 

arts curriculum for children has 

published the latest story in its 

“Harry & Friends” character education 

program. The book, titled “I’m 

Not Afraid! A Lesson in Overcoming 

Fear,” features high-quality, fullpage 

illustrations bound in a sturdy 

hardcover binding. The picture book stars Harry the lizard, 

who becomes frightened at a sleepover when his friends 

begin telling scary tales, and his imagination runs wild. 

Harry decides he needs to use his martial arts skills to help 

him conquer his fears. Will he succeed? “I’m Not Afraid!” 

is the fifth installment in the heartwarming “The Adventure 

of Harry & Friends” series, based on the award-winning 

Harry & Friends Black Belt Principles Character Education 

Program. You can purchase “I’m Not Afraid” for $18.99 

on Amazon by clicking here: Amazon.com/Im-Not-Afraid- 

Overcoming-Adventures/dp/1953979033 

Coming Soon: 

The Official, FREE 

MAWN App! 

Martial Arts World News Magazine has a new app on 

the horizon. Our app will make it even more convenient 

to read the latest news in the martial arts school industry! 

The app will instantly connect you to live updates from our 

website, MartialArtsWorldNews.com, and provide users 

with other features exclusive only to members of the app. 

You’ll be able to download the Martial Arts World News 

Magazine App for FREE from Google Play and The App 

Store. Check out our website and Facebook page for the 

latest updates on the official release date! 


INDUSTRY INNOVATIONS 

MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 1 21

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Events 

AMAA Chuck Norris Martial 

Arts Masters & Pioneers 2nd 

Edition Released 

The American Martial Arts 

Alliance Foundation (AMAAF) 

held its Who’s Who in the 

Martial Arts Hall of Fame Award 

Ceremony and Leadership 

Conference on December 5th, 

2020 as a virtual event. 

The latest edition of Martial Arts Masters & Pioneers 

This year’s event was a special tribute to the legendary 

Chuck Norris, featuring the unveiling of the Chuck 

Norris edition of Martial Arts Masters & Pioneers, 

which is published annually to induct martial artists 

into the Who’s Who Hall of Fame. You can preorder the 

special edition of Martial Arts Masters & Pioneers at 

whoswhointhemartialarts.com. 

The virtual event also included the AMAAF Emerging 

Leadership Online Conference, hosted this year 

by Laura Silva Quesada. Quesada’s father Jose Silva 

founded the Silva Method, which is the original and 

most imitated meditation program in the US. The Silva 

Method teaches students specialized guided imagery 

techniques to rewire their subconscious and negative 

programming, tap into their true potential, and achieve 

their goals. 

The conference featured many illustrious guest 

speakers such as Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Cynthia 

Rothrock, Michael Jai White, John Chung, and our very 

own Master Toby Milroy. 

Participants nominated their Martial Arts Hero to 

be featured in the next Emerging Leaders in the Martial 

Arts, honoring the men and women of the martial arts 

for their dedication and commitment to preserving the 

martial arts business. 

Please visit whoswhointhemartialarts.com 

for more information. 


February 9th 

March 9th

Entertainment 

Can Badass ‘Cobra Kai’ 

Have The Kind of Impact 

‘The Karate Kid’ Did? 

When the first episode of “Cobra Kai” came out on May 2, 2018 on YouTube Premium, 

it was the first breakout hit for the service. The episode was free and garnered over 

60 million views. The show ran for two seasons with 20 episodes on YouTube. Then, 

in June 2020, when Netflix acquired the series and aired the first two seasons, the 

program exploded into a pop culture hit. Can “Cobra Kai” have a huge impact on the 

martial arts industry like “The Karate Kid” movies? 

The “Cobra Kai” series as a spinoff of 

“The Karate Kid” movies is currently very 

popular, but it has a long way to go to achieve 

the impact of its predecessor. So much of 

“The Karate Kid” movie’s quotes are etched 

into our nostalgic memories, like: “wax on, 

wax off,” “paint the fence,” “fear does not exist 

in this dojo,” and “no mercy.” Now these 

iconic lines are being introduced to a whole 

new generation in our current social mediadriven 

age through a new series. 

The “Karate Kid” movies were the classic 

underdog stories of victory in which 

martial arts, combined with life philosophy, 

triumphed. At every turn, there are deeper 

lessons than what lies on the surface, and 

the overarching idea of finding strength 

to rise above adversity is invariably bound 

to surface. In addition, another theme in 

the forefront of the movies is that there is 

a right way of Karate, and bullies are dealt 

with in that way. 

Of course, the original “The Karate Kid” 

is the primary link between the movies and 

Cobra Kai has captured the attention of Millions of People 


Entertainment 

Will the breakout hit, “Cobra Kai” ingnite a resurgence of interest in the martial arts? 

the streaming series. As you’ll remember, 

Miyagi-do Karate, with the teenage Daniel 

LaRusso, clash with Cobra Kai Karate and its 

lead student, Johnny Lawrence. Mr. Miyagi 

and Daniel are underdogs representing 

the true way of Karate, while John Kreese, 

Johnny, and Cobra Kai’s philosophy typify 

bullies and a dark path. At the end of the 

movie, good wins over the evil at the All- 

Valley Karate Tournament. 

Back then, two more “The Karate Kid” 

movies came out with Mr. Miyagi and Daniel 

teaming up to rise above the odds. From an 

industry standpoint, the movies aided in 

that they presented an average Joe, Daniel, 

learning martial arts, which inspired others. 

In addition, the kids market for martial 

arts soared as result of the films’ impact by 

rebranding the martial arts to parents as a 

means for appropriate ways for handling 

bullying. The movies played a large part in 

the growth of our industry. 

That’s history, end of story! 

Actually, no one would have known it 

back then, but now we know it was more like 

to be continued... 

In the event that you haven’t seen any of 

“Cobra Kai,” in a nutshell, the original story 

continues in the present time, which is 34 

years later relative to “The Karate Kid.” Daniel 

LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence are now in 

their 50s with lives carved out by the impact 

of their past. Daniel is successful as a car 

salesman with, what most would consider, a 

good family. Johnny is on his own, struggling 

as a handyman with a broken family he 

abandoned. One on top, the other down and 

out on luck. 

Basically, Johnny’s life seems trapped 

in a cycle of losing, just as the first episode 

begins with him being kicked in the face at 

the end of that fateful All-Valley Tournament 

34 years earlier. He drinks excessively, 

can’t keep a job, and has a family that neither 

he nor they want anything to do with each 

other initially. As fate would have it, Daniel 

and Johnny, in a sense, crash into one another 

and the two meet again, and the rivalry 

is revived as Johnny opens up a new Cobra 

Kai Karate Dojo. 

Without spoiling the whole series, 

although Daniel knows he must face Johnny 

and Cobra Kai with his own Miyagi-do 

Karate school, some things are different 

this time. To begin with, Johnny’s students 

are kids who have been bullied, and are even 

considered losers, to which he’s attempting 

to pass along the Cobra Kai way of Karate. 

Now, on the surface, it appears to be the 

same old, negative “no mercy” philosophy, 

but Johnny actually is trying to show that 

you can be badass with Karate without 

becoming a jerk at the same time. Sensei 

Lawrence is changing, but there are bumps 

along the way. 

Remember the lesson from “The Karate 

Kid” about the roots of one’s Karate? And so 

Cobra Kai’s roots sprout in some of Johnny’s 

students, even if it’s unintentional. Inevitably, 

by having teenagers as students who 

are gaining martial abilities while he’s going 

through his own transformation leads to 

clashes with their Miyagi-do counterparts. 

But while it has always been clear that the 

Miyagi-do philosophy is good, it also appears 


Entertainment 

Johnny Lawrence (Wiliam Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) face off to settle their differences 

that Cobra Kai, at least in Johnny’s transformational 

stage, is also having a positive 

impact on his students. 

Of course, there is to be found nuggets of 

life philosophy and valuable lessons for facing 

the challenges that life hands out. Once 

again, the martial arts are portrayed in a 

favorable light, although at times the violent 

side and abuse of martial arts is also prevalent. 

This struggle is inevitable, even if what 

Mr. Miyagi stated (“no such thing as bad 

student, only bad teacher”) has merit. But 

what Cobra Kai shows is that the students 

still have responsibility, and they sometimes 

lead the teachers to grow too. 

Now that the much-anticipated season 

three is out on Netflix, and there are already 

whispers about what will happen in season 

four, there’s still a question about the 

show’s impact. While there’s foul language, 

Robby (Tanner Buchanan) and other students training at the Miyagi dojo 

violence, and drinking, none of it is actually 

glorified. There is still the connection of 

martial arts and its philosophy with being 

able to face challenges successfully. Maybe 

even more importantly what’s brought out 

in the series is the idea that martial arts 

can be transformative personally and in 

relationships. 

You’ll have to judge for yourself, and 

once again, history will show the effect that 

“Cobra Kai” may or may not have on the 

martial arts industry. Today, many practitioners 

can attest to getting their start in the 

martial arts as a result of the “ The Karate 

Kid” phenomena, but will “Cobra Kai” have 

the same effect? One thing is certain: there 

is entertainment value in the program, and 

it’s obviously well liked, as it has been on 

the Top 10 list for Netflix from almost the 

beginning of its availability to the present. 

In closing, if you haven’t seen any of “Cobra 

Kai” yet, rest assured the season finale 

for each season (episode ten), will leave you 

hanging on a cliff. Fortunately, you don’t 

have to wait if you’re in the midst of watching 

season one through three, but when you 

reach the end of season three, you’ll be left 

hanging in anticipation of what will come 

next in season four. Hopefully, the series 

will have more than just an entertainment 

value, but may lead many people looking to 

become badass—in a good martial arts way. 


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Cover Story 

GRANDMASTER 

ZULFI 

AHMED 

THE SECRETS 

TO BUILDING 

40+ 

LOCATIONS 


Cover Story 

MAWN: You’re one of the folks in our industry who truly does walk his talk. 

You’re someone I’ve watched very carefully over the last 15, maybe 20 

years, and you’ve created a really interesting model for building multiple 

schools. Let’s start at the beginning. Give us a quick overview on your martial 

arts background because it’s relevant to our conversation today. It’s a little 

different, a little unique. 


Cover Story 

ZA: I was born in a Pakistan and I grew up 

there. Just like in the US, you have baseball 

and football. We have many national sports 

like field hockey and cricket. You also have 

wrestling, which historically comes from India. 

India and Pakistan used to be one nation, 

until 1947 when they divided, so wrestling 

is basically a national sport. I grew up getting 

beaten up by my cousins, brothers, and 

neighbors, in wrestling and boxing matches. 

Because of Muhammad Ali Boxing is very 

big. I remember we used to wake up at 6:00 

in the morning to watch Muhammad Ali 

boxing matches. In the afternoon, if it was a 

holiday weekend, all the kids in the neighborhood 

would gear up and box the heck out 

of each other. That was a boxing initiation. 

And one of my brother’s friends was a Judo 

black belt and we started teaching the kids 

in the neighborhood and imitated Karate. 

And then a Karate gentleman opened a little 

Karate school. 

In 1975, I started Bando, a Burmese 

martial art. My current Grandmaster moved 

from Burma, Myanmar to Pakistan. He 

started teaching Bando. Bando is a martial 

art that is very, very traditional; not in the 

way that you think of Japanese Shotokan or 

Okinawan Southeast Asian martial arts. And 

it’s very eclectic. With the Burmese boxing, 

Burmese grappling, Burmese weapons, and 

Burmese animal system, one started learning 

officially as an enrolled student apart 

from the wrestling, the boxing, and judo. 

That was my structure. The rest, as we say, is 

we have to 

address the wants 

and needs of our 

students 

history. I became the youngest black belt in 

Southeast Asia in Burmese Bando in several 

Southeast Asian martial arts tournaments 

and championships, ranging from bareknuckled 

boxing to point Karate, which was 

not our forte, and then kickboxing, and just 

fell in love with the martial arts. 

In those days, younger people would not 

be allowed. Traditionally, in martial arts 

schools, I was one of the youngest out of two 

or three kids who my teacher accepted in his 

Burmese martial arts school. And today he’s 

my teacher and I still train and meet him 

under him, and receive guidance. In 1985, I 

migrated to the United States, and through 

my teacher’s recommendation, I met a great 

Grandmaster named Dr. G. I started training 

under him and he became my mentor and 

teacher here in America. 

MAWN: Us human beings, we have 

an excuse mechanism hardwired into our 

brain, and that excuse mechanism is that 

when anything happens to us, anything that 

we want to accomplish, our brain goes to 

work at finding all the reasons why it won’t 

work, and there’s another part of our brain 

that also goes to work trying to solve the 

problem. But some people pay attention to 

Part A more than they pay attention to Part 

B, so many folks could make an excuse like, 

“Grandmaster Ahmed, I teach Bando and 

it’s too difficult; it’s a hard martial art, and 

it’s challenging and very technical, and it’s 

not Taekwondo or Shotokan, so I can’t run a 

successful school because I teach a different 

type of a martial art.” What would you say 

about that, and what would you say you’ve 

done curriculum-development-wise that has 

helped you expand to so many locations? 

ZA: First, every martial art is good. If 

it weren’t, it wouldn’t be around for so 

long. Most traditional martial arts are time 

proven and they’ve been around for many, 

many years—hundreds of years. So there 

are no bad martial arts, only bad teachers. If 

you believe in something strongly enough, 

then it’ll work. Second, we have to address 

the wants and needs of our students, and 

their perception of the martial arts. It all 

has to make sense. If it doesn’t make sense 

logically, ethically, and technically, then it’s 

Grandmaster Ahmed successfully teaches an intricate & eclectic style to students of all ages. 

obsolete. Everything needs to make sense 

in the present where we are. So, if I start 

teaching a philosophy that is obsolete and 

outdated, my student will follow, but they 

will know in their heart, in their mind, that 

it is not relevant. It is a waste of time, money, 

and effort, so they will move on. We have 

to be current; we have to be conscious of the 

needs, wants of our students. 

And the student of today is not like the 

student of 30, 40 years ago. Their maturity 

and understanding of martial arts is much 

higher and much different. With a click of 

a button they can research you. They can 

find out about everything in the world about 

any martial art. They’re exposed to martial 

arts much more than we were when we were 

training. And there are no secrets anymore 

and no lies anymore. Everything is practical. 

Everything is: if it works, if it’s effective, 

then it’ll be a success. My recommendation 

is we need to address the needs and wants in 

the practicality of the martial arts and see 

what is needed. 


Cover Story 

MAWN: Let’s talk about your program 

specifically. You have both children’s programs 

and adult programs. What typically 

pops into mind when you think of running 

successful martial arts schools? You have an 

incredibly successful chain of schools. This is 

a relatively eclectic style in the grand scheme 

of things. How have you molded the curriculum 

to make it relevant today to make it 

appealing to students in the children’s and 

adult markets? How does all that add up to 

good student retention and student results? 

ZA: I call it ‘the tradition of the future.’ 

That means our focus is on the needs and 

wants of the student based on philosophy 

and the values of the past, both Eastern and 

Western values, which have relevance from 

the past, combined with the new techniques 

for the student of now. We are also ever 

evolving. We’re not a stagnant or static 

system. We are a dynamic and ever-evolving 

system with a solid core curriculum and 

foundation. The curriculum is based on 

‘multidimensionalism.’ Now, you might 

think that’s a lot of technical jargon, but 

then you sit down and put pen to paper and 

you develop a martial arts system, it’s not a 

program, it’s not a technique. It’s a system 

and it’s a style. 

We are also ever 

evolving. We’re 

not a stagnant or 

static system. 

There’s a lot that goes into developing 

a modern martial arts system—what we 

believe, or I believe, will be the tradition of tomorrow. 

That means we have to be conscious 

of the past, present, and future. We have to 

develop and learn from the past, the present, 

and be futuristic in the curriculum. So, yes, 

we have a separate kids curriculum, and adult 

curriculum. We have professional fighters, 

amateur fighters, and internal martial artists. 

We do internal martial arts for health 

and wellness, and then phase it in when it’s 

age appropriate. For example, you can’t teach 

a little Tiny Tiger or Little Warrior Tai-Chi in 

the beginning. They will grow into that phase 

Grandmaster Ahmed’s multidimensionalism curriculum with a touch of outdoor training 

and stage in time, so the system has to be ever 

evolving and it has to meet the needs and 

wants of the age and phase of the student. 

If I just have a teenage-based system like 

the XMA and all the other cool stuff out 

there, then I will only attract and keep teenagers 

up until they can’t jump anymore. If I 

have a Little Warriors curriculum, then I’ll 

attract Little Warriors. So, to be the modern 

martial arts, we must have an age-phasecentric 

curriculum, which meets the needs 

and wants of all ages and phases. And we 

have to create the system where the student 

grows with the system, not out of the system. 

The system provides age, maturity, and skill 

technically for the student and also intellectually—not 

that a student comes to a full 

stop at a certain point and cannot benefit 

from anything else. If I have adults who 

are 50 plus, they can’t do XMA. Growth is 

based on your interest. If I’m a teenager, my 

interest might be MMA or XMA, but if I’m a 

mature adult, aged 50, 60, my interest might 

continued on page 40 


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Cover Story 

continued from page 37 

be internal martial arts or more traditional 

arts. We have to meet the needs and wants 

while keeping the essence at the core at the 

same time; the integrity of what the martial 

art represents. But, at the end of the day, it’s 

all about the student, not the system or the 

founder. It’s all about the students; all about 

the people we are teaching, serving, and 

becoming a community with. 

MAWN: Many of us in this industry, 

and as martial artists, get tied up in, ‘Well, 

you know, it’s always been taught this way, 

so we need to teach it this way.’ That, as you 

just described, is a product-centric way to 

think about it. You should put the customer 

at the beginning or the middle of all decision 

making. What’s the most appropriate way 

to deliver this product to that customer? 

What’s the most appropriate and palatable 

way that I can create a program that gets the 

result the customer really wants? Talk to me 

about retention. How focused are you on 

retention, and what kinds of systems do you 

have in place to manage and maintain such 

an eclectic curriculum across such a large 

organization? 

ZA: The curriculum in the system is by 

itself a unique system and curriculum; it’s 

not pieces, it’s a like whole all by itself. It’s 

difficult to express. Bushi Ban isn’t described 

my goal is to 

make students for 

life, not students 

for a program. 

as kicking and punching; it’s a collective system. 

Going back to retention, I just did this 

with my directors, so it’s very fresh in my 

mind: how to make your school a five-star 

school. Let’s just say I’m giving you advice 

on how to make your martial arts school a 

five-star school, which will provide you with 

retention, and financial success at the same 

time as integrity-based martial arts teaching. 

If we take the first star, the first star 

is people; it’s all about your leaders, your 

personnel, your prospects, your population, 

Grandmaster Ahmed’s curriculum feeds the mind, body, and spirit. 

and your students. Leadership has to be ever 

evolving. It takes responsibility to lead, but 

when you lead, lead for their benefit, not 

yours. The personnel have to have the same 

vision, mission, and thought process as the 

leader. The prospects must connect to your 

system. The population is all about how we’re 

catering and servicing populations of people. 

Then, you go into your second tier, the 

second star, which is your product. What we 

talk about in the martial arts, Taekwondo 

for example, that’s the product. That’s what 

we give and it’s always going to be needed. 

Product is always there. Martial arts are not 

going out of style or out of need. It’s one of 

the best things. I tell my students ‘you found 

the fountain of youth. You found a lifestyle 

that will make you healthier, happier, and 

just give you life within your life.’ So, the second 

star is your product. The product is what 

you teach on the floor, how you teach, when 

you teach, why you teach what you teach. 

Then, the third star is your business 

model. What type of business model do you 


Cover Story 

have? Are you in a sprint or in a marathon? 

Are you there for the long term? Is your 

student growing with you and expanding? 

Or is the student there for only six months, 

six weeks, three years? Are they going to go 

or grow old with you? You are in a lifelong 

relationship. You are in America. You and 

your student grow together, and evolve, and 

learn together, and share together. 

Your fourth star is your culture. What 

culture are you providing? Are you providing 

a militaristic culture like I’m the Grandmaster 

and you’re my humble student, or I 

am equal to you and we are friends? We care 

about each other. We want to benefit each 

other. We have to have a win-win situation. 

Is your culture friendly? Is it dry? Is it warm? 

Welcoming? Is the atmosphere genuine? 

The fifth star, I believe, is very important: 

you can have all of the above four, but if you 

don’t have the fifth star, then you only have 

limited success. The fifth star is becoming 

a community. Does your school, does your 

organization, represent a community, a 

brand within a brand—a community-based 

brand? I’ll give you two different examples: 

Hell’s Angels, the motorcycle gang, that’s 

also community. They are based on their 

philosophy and principles. People who 

drive a Porsche, they also have a community. 

There’s a community at ATLAS. Your 

organization is a community. Your martial 

arts school or organization, do people feel 

it’s a community or is it a business? Does the 

community have a culture, or do people just 

come for a business transaction and then 

they’re out? 

Is it business centric or people centric? 

People, product—at the end of the day we 

can have all of the above. But if the product 

is poor or weak, you can only keep people 

connected for so long because, originally, 

when people come to you, they don’t come 

to you because of who you are or what kind 

of culture or community you have—they 

come to you for the product; they want to 

Developing strong traditions and a strong culture is essential for multi school success. 

We see the need 

of developing 

communicators 

and good leaders 

learn something from you, and they’re assuming 

that you can fulfill their wants and 

needs and address their challenges; you are a 

problem solver for them. The balancing act 

of a successful business is to put people first, 

then your product, your business model, 

your culture, and then your community. Is 

it a community or is it just a transactional 

process? It’s actually a seven-star process. But 

I give you the five-star model. Anybody running 

any type of business, regardless whether 

it’s martial arts, if they keep the five stars in 

mind, I think they will be very successful. 

MAWN: Let’s talk about your business 

model. Can you describe what your model 

looks like? How do your membership programs 

work? Are students on a membership 

or are they month to month? Do they 

have an ascension model or do they stay 

kind of linear? 

ZA: It’s simple: the simpler the better. 

That’s what I’ve learned: simple entry, 

simple exit. If they’re doing martial arts and 

not the fitness portion, they come in for a 

12-month program, which is a beginner, 

basic-level program. And after the first 12 

months, we have a contractual agreement 

with them. We encourage them to be on a 

12-month contract. And we are very upfront 

and clear that when you do this, it shows us 

that you are serious about us and serious 

about your child or your learning. And 

we appreciate you respecting our business 

model, and that’s how we do business. That 

doesn’t mean that once in a while, based on 

the circumstances and situation, we will 

block payments as long as it’s reasonable. 

We have a black belt club, but we don’t 

push it as much. They are eligible to join 

the black belt club even as early as gold belt. 

We never push. We don’t do pressure sales, 

we want them to make a commitment and 

to have an educated involvement based on 

their desire, not on a sale. And I understand 

that if you’re not selling, you’re dying. You 

know, I’ve been doing this for 32 years. I’m 

blessed. Yes, we have good and bad days just 

like any other school. Yes, we have students 

drop out. Today I have 21 appointments. 

From Saturday to today we have 110 appointments 

set. So we’ve got the traffic coming 

in and we have people who leave, one or 

two every day. And we get two or three, four, 

five, six, depending on what campaign we’re 

running. It’s always going to be up and down, 


Cover Story 

then you might not be as successful at this 

thing as if you had that level of passion. Fundamentally, 

running a school, certainly running 

multi schools, is not easy. There are lots 

of challenges along the way. Especially multi 

schools, you’re going to have lots of staff 

challenges, lots of legal challenges, liability 

issues, and you have to be able to learn very 

quickly and acquire new skills fast. But we’re 

not in this business because it’s easy. We’re 

in this business because of what it’s done 

for us personally and the impact that it can 

and does make, and that we can make in our 

society, in our community, and in the world. 

Grandmaster Ahmed leads his mastermind group with schools from all over the world. 

so my goal is to make students for life, not 

students for a program. They need to continue 

to enjoy what they fell in love with at 

one point or another. And they need to continue 

to receive benefits. The day they stop 

feeling that they’re receiving benefits they 

don’t need to be there. And they shouldn’t 

be there because then I’m not doing a good 

job. I’m not keeping them relationship-wise 

and community-wise great, but they need to 

continuously be benefited. That should be 

our goal. Our pains are the same as anybody 

else in the industry. There’s no magic bullet. 

It’s hard work and constant grind. 

MAWN: Let’s drill into your multischool 

expansion. What did that look like? 

What were your objectives when you decided 

to do multi schools and how have you facilitated 

that growth? One of the fundamental 

challenges that you have in multi-scale 

development is you have to have a constant 

process of training new staff. But also, just 

like students, you have staff turnover. Sometimes 

your chief instructor at one location 

gets married and has to move to California, 

or whatever the case might be, so one of the 

fundamental challenges in running multi 

schools is keeping the pipeline filled with 

good, quality staff candidates. 

ZA: Sure, starting with my life purpose, 

mission, and calling. Apart from my family 

and my faith, Bushi Ban is my life, mission, 

work, and a passion. I have to continue to improve 

and spread the message of Bushi Ban. 

That’s what I believe in. That’s what I live for 

a majority of my working hours and that’s 

what I’m passionate about. You have to 

develop people, and you have to have people 

who will benefit from it, and you have to 

grow people. Development of staff is a constant 

and never-ending process where you’re 

constantly keeping people in the pipeline. 

You’re constantly ready to overcome any 

staff challenges. A few years ago, my head 

instructor, a young man—now he’s no longer 

a young man—we groomed to be the head 

instructor of the headquarters, chose to go 

It’s not just the 

content; again, 

it’s the culture 

that is developed 

in the room. 

a different route and a different profession. 

He’s still training. He still comes, he’s still 

part of Bushi Ban, but he was just passionate 

all his life about a different profession. So, 

we wished him well and filled his spot within 

a couple of months. 

MAWN: And the lesson is if you’re not 

the evangelist for your style, your art, and 

if you’re not out there every day lifting up 

rocks, solving problems, and meeting people, 

ZA: Yeah, definitely. You bet that’s 

what my role in my life is as far as Bushi 

Ban is concerned, apart from taking care 

of my family and loving them, and being a 

good citizen, and setting an example for my 

students, and living my life the way I choose 

to live. Bushi Ban is my lifestyle. Going back 

constant and never-ending staff development, 

your staff must believe in what you 

do. I look at my staff and my students as 

my lifelong friends; these are my lifelong 

community. And we are here because, in 

life, relationships are very important. And 

yes, I have lost friends and I’ve had some bad 

business relationships, but that’s part of life. 

We learn lessons and grow from it and try 

to improve every time, and we try to make 

intelligent lessons from it and not make the 

same mistakes. At the end of the day, it’s all 

about the people and the relationships going 

together and enjoying what we love together. 

MAWN: If you’re going to run your 

organization, you have to predict that you’re 

going to have to replace people, right? The 

business has to go on, the schools have to 

grow. We need to impact our community. 

And some of the people who are your righthand 

men today might have a life change, so 

you’ve got to plan for that. Your organization 

has a robust staff development track 

that happens inside the schools so that 

you’re constantly preparing these people to 

take that leadership role. My point is you’ve 

got to have a system built in that develops 

people for the future, for the next expansion, 

even if it’s just maintaining. 

ZA: Definitely, one hundred percent. 

And yes, we do have it. We have up to 


Cover Story 

senior-master level training. We are training 

students constantly for rank, which is the 

martial arts curriculum status—the title 

‘master,’ ‘senior master chief,’ ‘grandmaster,’ 

‘position instructor,’ ‘head instructor,’ 

‘manager,’ ‘director,’ ‘chief director.’ So, 

we’re developing our students on the threepronged 

principle. We try, in principle, 

developing them technically, mentally, 

developing them emotionally to fit in the 

role within the martial arts realm, either as 

a practitioner, or as a teacher, or as a leader. 

A leader might not be a staff member, but 

might have a leadership position. 

MAWN: What you’re describing is a 

relatively sophisticated way to look at developing 

schools, martial arts businesses, and an 

organization. Many, many organizations fail 

radically at this. I think what you’re describing 

is separating a couple of key functions. 

One is your progression as a martial artist. 

You are a black belt, blue belt, green belt, 

whatever the case might be. You have your 

martial arts curriculum, your martial arts 

rank, or whatever the case might be. Separate 

from that you have the level of instructor, so 

to speak. Instruction skills are very different 

from having good martial artist skills. And 

then you have this career path. There are a 

few of organizations that do that very well 

and yours is definitely one of them. But there 

are so many organizations that fail at that; 

they think that being a great black belt and 

being an instructor are somehow intrinsically 

connected. They haven’t yet understood that 

teaching skills are very different than kicking, 

punching, competing skills. I’m really 

interested that you’ve solved that in that way. 

ZA: Thank you. One is practice, the 

other is communication, and the third is 

leadership—a position or responsibility. 

Now, we have these three tiers separated as 

well as intertwined in curriculum. We see 

the need of developing communicators and 

good leaders, which any martial arts should 

be able to do, but also to have curriculum in a 

separate, focused base where that individual 

chooses, and has the potential, and shows the 

aptitude of becoming a leader or a business 

person. So, it has to be intertwined as well as 

separate. They can do a separate course while 

they’ve already been grown internally based 

on the curriculum. 

MAWN: To anybody thinking about 

multi-school development, about organizational 

development, this is a critical and 

fundamental truth and reality. I know that 

it’s been incredibly important in my own 

life knowing there’s no reason to reinvent 

the wheel yourself. It’s just so much easier, 

so much faster, saves so much more time, 

energy, and effort to find people who are 

already doing what it is you want to do and 

see what they’re doing, find out the mistakes 

they’ve made so that you can save all that 

energy and just expand. You’ve had, for 

many years, the Zulfi Ahmed Executive Network, 

and you’ve got a group of clients that 

you work with one on one in small group 

environments. Describe how that works and 

if that’s something that I might be a good fit 

for, what I would look at. 

ZA: It is very important for anybody 

looking to open another location or be a multistate 

operator to understand that whomever 

they partner up with in a community, that 

individual must be in harmony with that 

community. For example, if it’s a retirement 

community, opening a school where you 

already knew the demographic is a majority 

of retiring adults, you want to open up a 

martial arts program for health and wellness. 

You don’t want to put a teenager or a young 

adult there. You want to put a mature person 

there. If it is a very athletic sport-centric 

community with soccer, baseball, and football, 

I’d rather put a much younger, more dynamic, 

more physically active person. That’s 

the physicality. Then, also the temperament, 

maturity level, and personality have to be fitting 

for the community. That community’s 

just mindful of that. 

Going back to the questions you asked, 

my very first martial arts success seminar 

was in 1994. I used to have a company 

called IMANNA: International Martial Arts 

Network Association, which came to be in 

’96 or ’97, somewhere around there. We used 

to have the best of the best school operators 

around the country form a brainstorm. It was 

like a focus group brainstorm mastermind. 

I got so focused on my organizations and 

school, and I’m very fortunate and humbled 

that people from all over the world asked for 

advice. Canada to Australia, to England, to 

Thailand, to all over the world. I don’t have all 

the answers. I just know my answers. 

We host a mastermind group twice a 

year. We have a mastermind meeting. It’s a 

private mastermind meeting, very exclusive, 

and you know, anybody who would like to 

Bushi Ban benefits students of all ages and abilities. 


Cover Story 

Grandmaster Ahmed conducting outdoor rank examinations during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

join us, I welcome them. Just email me and 

introduce yourself to me. If I feel it’s going 

to help you out, I’d love for you to be there. I 

want to help as many people as I can. I want 

to share as much as I can to help anybody. 

MAWN: I intently remember attending 

a high level Mastermind Meeting a couple 

of decades ago. At the time, we had a little 

multi-school organization. We thought we 

were doing fine. The schools were doing 

maybe $18, $20, $22,000 a month, something 

like that; just traditional lessons, no 

after school or anything. I got into this group 

and, and the table was Dave Kovar, Bill 

Clark, Steve Oliver, Steve Lavalle. Tommy 

Lee and a bunch of folks that I had been 

watching very closely. And something happened 

that I’m sure happens all the time in 

your group, Master Ahmed. More than any 

of the strategies that I took away from the 

group, although I took a lot of them, was a 

mindset? Here was a guy who had schools in 

very similar demographics to my schools, 

who had very similar customer makeups, 

and really it was substantially the same, yet 

his schools were performing at two, three, 

four times what my schools were doing. 

What occurred to me is that, more than just 

any set of strategies, was the realization that 

he’s a smart guy, but he’s not four or five 

times smarter than me. Why is it that he can 

accomplish four, five, six times the results? 

Maybe it’s not an IQ problem. Maybe it’s not 

a demographic problem. Maybe it’s something 

else. That sort of self-realization or 

self-actualization is incredibly valuable. I’m 

sure you see that all the time in your groups. 

Would that be an accurate statement? 

ZA: That’s a very accurate statement. 

First of all, all those names you mentioned, 

those are icons. Those guys are legends and 

we all should pay attention to their models 

in their words and teachings. It’s not just 

the content; again, it’s the culture that is 

developed in the room. And it’s not just the 

things that are said on PowerPoint, it’s the 

things you just said to the person sitting next 

to you. Mastermind groups are not like big 

seminars. These are very exclusive, intimate, 

small gatherings. We can really open up and 

share, and ask, and vent, and grow, and explore, 

and discover, and learn firsthand. It’s 

not like somebody’s doing a seminar for 400 

people. There’s a lot of personal touch, trust, 

openness, and lots of comfort. Any mastermind 

group is worth its weight in gold and 

it’s invaluable just being in any mastermind 

group. It takes two or three times going and 

being part of a mastermind group to really 

get the full essence of it. Some people are so 

overwhelmed with the external information 

that it’s plenty for them because we mature 

as we grow in their group, and we really see 

things at a different level. The first time we 

might have gained a lot of information, and 

then next time, more knowledge, the next 

time, more wisdom, and then next time, it 

becomes experience. 

I want to share the model of learning. 

What I understand is that people learn by 

being taught. People learn by research, development, 

and observation. People learn by 

their experiences and what they learn from 

their experience. A mastermind group is a 

conglomerate of all those, a situation where 

we are being taught by somebody. We are 

observing, researching, learning by asking 

questions and researching, and also creating 

an experience in an experiential environment. 

Then, when the day is over, when 

Tuesday comes, what we gain from that 

experience sets in. You have four-pronged 

learning process, so it takes a little while to 

really get the full essence of a mastermind 

group. Some people mature enough to get 

it right away, but you will never leave a 

mastermind group empty-handed. People 

will leave with so much wealth of knowledge 

and information. But what you do with that 

is another story. 

MAWN: For many years I ran very 

high-level mastermind groups with an 

organization and with our coaching groups. 

One of the big benefits that our members 

got from that was if they told us about a plan 

that they were going to be implementing in 

the spring, by the summertime meeting, if 

they hadn’t done it, they had some positive 

social pressure. It’s also a really good sense 

of accountability, where you’re going to see 

these folks again and the things that you 

had on your list before, you better have accomplished 

a bunch of them. It’s one of the 

challenges we have as small business owners, 

that usually there isn’t somebody looking 

over our shoulder holding us accountable for 

what we said we were going to do, or promised 

we were going to get done. This type of 

collaborative experience and environment 

helps give us that sense of accountability. 

Getting in a room with other smart people 

who are on the same mission that you are, or 

a similar mission, and learning about their 

failures, their successes, seeing what they’ve 

done that’s worked well, seeing what they’ve 

done that hasn’t worked at all are incredibly 

valuable experiences. There is no faster way 

to expand your learning curve and to create 

new opportunities in the business. 

Thank you so much for your time. I really 

appreciate it. 

ZA: Thank you very, very much for 

giving me this opportunity. I really, truly appreciate 

the time and it was great. I enjoyed 

it and let’s do it again sometime. And again, 

make it a habit to invest time in developing 

your business every month. Thanks 

everybody. 


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COVID-19 

What to Expect with Round 2 

of PPP Loans 

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced on April 9 that the PPP loan 

program had depleted its allotted funds, shut down its application process, and 

ceased enrolling new lenders. In early October, the SBA issued a press release 

stating that they’ve implemented a simpler PPP loan forgiveness program for loans of 

$50,000 or less. 

Then, on December 27th, President Trump signed into law 

the Emergency Coronavirus Relief Act of 2020. While the SBA, 

Treasury, and lending community won’t launch Second Draw PPP 

loans (and restart First Draw PPP loans) until January 11th (or later), 

there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Many small business owners 

will be able to access much-needed funds “soon” to continue operating 

in 2021 and beyond, says Chris Hurn, CEO of Fountainhead—a 

national, non-bank, direct commercial lender that has worked with 

the martial arts school industry for years, and specializes in helping 

owners of small to midsize businesses finance their growth and 

create wealth. 

Below are the portions of the law that relate to small businesses. 

Hurn’s team has spent significant time over the last few weeks of 

2020 working on this legislation and what it will mean to the small 

business community. 

Here’s what we know so far: 

• Small businesses with 300 or fewer employees that have 

sustained a 25% (or more) revenue loss in any quarter of 2020 

are eligible to apply for a Second Draw PPP loan. $284.45B is 

available for this. 

• The maximum Second Draw PPP loan will be $2MM or 2.5x average 

monthly payroll, as with the initial First Draw PPP loans 

(3.5x if a business is in NAICS Code 72). 

• For Second Draw PPP loan applicants seeking up to $150K, 

there will be a simple certification process attesting to the 

qualifying, quarterly revenue reductions, thus expediting these 

submissions. 

• It provides full tax deductibility of business expenses on forgiven 

PPP loans (on both First and Second Draw loans). 

• It expands forgivable expenses (beyond the original eligibility) 

to include supplier costs (such as accounting and IT expenses) 

and investments in software, facility modifications, and personal 

protective equipment. 

• The loan forgiveness process for First Draw and Second Draw PPP 

loans lower than $150K will be simplified to a one-page certification 

(business owners will still need to provide the number of employees 

retained, amount spent on payroll, and total loan amount). 


Photograph by golibtolibov

COVID-19 

• If you’d like to apply, borrowers can apply for a Second Draw 

PPP loan until March 31, 2021, through any existing SBA 7(a) 

lender or through any federally insured depository institution, 

federally insured credit union, eligible non-bank lender, or 

Farm Credit System institution that is participating in PPP. All 

Second Draw PPP Loans will have the same terms regardless of 

lender or borrower. 

Major Changes to the SBA 504 Loan 

The 504 loan is provided by the SBA to for-profit, non-publicly 

traded businesses whose tangible business net worth (including 

affiliates) does not exceed $15 million. In the newest round of PPP 

loans, the 504 loan now includes an additional three months of 

payment assistance to borrowers, starting in February, capping out 

at $9,000 per borrower per month. After February, borrowers in 

industries hit the hardest by the pandemic (food service and accommodation; 

arts, entertainment, and recreation; education; laundry 

and personal care services, according to the SBA) will receive an additional 

five months of payment subsidies capped at $9,000 per borrower 

per month. Payment subsidies for six months will resume for 

new loans approved from Feb. 1 to Sept. 30, 2021, capped at $9,000 

per borrower per month. 

The CARES act is also repealing limitations on SBA 504 debt 

refinancing, enacted in 2016, including the 50% cap on a CDC’s 

refinance loan volume. 504 debt refinancing with expansion by increasing 

the debt refinance amount from 50% to 100% of expansion 

costs has been strengthened. The new 504 loan also allows for the 

refinancing of a Qualified Debt that is six months old (down from 

two years), and dropping the requirement that the business must be 

current on all payments due for 12 months by converting this to a 

credit underwriting consideration rather than an eligibility barrier 

to the program. In addition, the new version of the loan allows the 

refinance of Third-Party Lender loans in an existing 504 project 

to include cash-out for business-operating expenses to assist small 

businesses in leveraging existing equity capital to fund business 

operating and recovery expenses. 

Furthermore, all jobs may now be counted as jobs retained (full 

time and full-time equivalent jobs). A CDC can also now process a 

cash-out subordination to re-leverage the Third-Party Lender loan 

to a total 90% loan to value (LTV) when combined with the outstanding 

balance on the existing 504 loan. 

The CARES act also grants CDCs approved under the SBA’s 

Accredited Lenders Program (ALP) with express loan authority 

to approve, authorize, close, and service 504 loans up to $500,000 

through Sept. 30, 2023 to speed up critical access to capital for small 

businesses. 

The 0.5% SBA Participation Fee and the 1.5% CDC Processing Fee 

in debenture pricing for all loans approved from the date of enactment 

of the act (Dec. 27, 2020), and ending on Sept. 30, 2021, have 

been eliminated. The CDC fee is offset with an appropriation to pay 

the CDC for the waived fee. 

The current SBA 504 Loan Program provides up to 90% financing 

at below-market, fixed interest rates and long amortization 

terms up to 25 years for the purchase of major fixed assets, such as 

owner-occupied commercial real estate, renovations, new construction, 

energy efficient “green” initiatives and/or fixed heavy duty 

machinery and equipment, as well as the refinance of commercial 

mortgage and other business debt with or without a cash-out option. 

So, if you added a new room to your martial arts school, it would be 

covered by the 504 loan under the latest stipulations. 

Finally, The U.S. Small Business Administration announced the 

updated interest rates for the 504 Loan Program offered by Certified 

Development Companies (CDC). The program now allows for 

10-, 20-, and 25-year interest rates at 2.231%, 2.364%, and 2.399% 

respectively. Small businesses can now apply for a 504 loan at these 

low-interest rates. 

Fountainhead has been processing SBA loans for martial arts 

schools all over the country. For more information about the PPP 

loan program and how Fountainhead can assist your school, vist 

fountainheadcc.com/ppp. 

Chris Hurn, CEO of Fountainhead 

fountainheadcc.com/ppp 

Photograph by antoniohugo 


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Martial 

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AMS prides itself on its deep roots in the martial arts with its more than 40 years 

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ATLAS sprang into action to support it’s clients and it’s industry! 

The ATLAS Martial Arts Software team has been working around the clock to create 

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elementary school Facebook groups, online fitness programs, letters and emails for current 

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In addition to these free tools and services, ATLAS is also still providing resources 

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Arts Software 

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School Profile 

‘It’s the Best Thing That Ever 

Happened to My Business!’ 

Master Robert Aubrey, WA school owner and martial artist of over 40 years, tells 

MAWN about the one service his school can’t live without. 

Master Robert Aubrey has dedicated 

more than 40 years to the martial arts. 

MAWN: How many active 

students do you currently 

teach? 

RA: I have 108 students in 

Tang Soo Do and close to 80 

students of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 

and Judo. They’re not really my 

students directly. I’m a white 

belt in that class, but I brought 

in other instructors from other 

disciplines. We have a symbiotic 

relationship going on and our 

school is stronger for it. We have 

many people cross-training in the 

different arts and we’ve established 

one big family. I love it. I 

wouldn’t do anything else. My 

only regret in teaching martial 

arts is having waited so late in 

my life. I was in my 50s when I 

started teaching professionally. 

MAWN: Is there any professional organization that has 

been of benefit to your school? 

RA: I have been a member of AMS since 2006 and it’s been 

tremendous. I don’t have to wear two hats. I like the thought of not 

having to collect tuition or go after somebody who’s late. It also 

increases the percentage of collection. If I were collecting my tuition 

myself, I’d be taking in about 25 percent, maybe 30 percent less, so in 

that alone it’s worth it. But when you guys came out with the Amazing 

Martials Arts Website, my school flourished. I cannot say enough 

about that website. I market exclusively on Facebook with the exception 

of a booth in town. We march in parades, go to events in town, 

and everybody knows us on a first-name basis—I mean everybody. 

I’m not the only martial arts school here, but we are the biggest. I’m 

not bragging about it—it doesn’t make me the best by any means. It’s 

just that my name is out there. We’ve branded ourselves well. 

MAWN: Has the website helped you relative to enrollment? 

RA: Oh, yeah. If you take a look at my website right now, you’ll see 

how many leads that’s brought in and how many have been converted 

into memberships. I’ve had times when I’d run an ad on Facebook and 

get so many responses from it that I’d spend three days making phone 

calls, responding to the inquiries that came in from the website. It’s 

worth it. It’s the best thing that ever happened to my business. 

MAWN: Do you use ATLAS Martial Arts Software? 

RA: I do. Every day. 

MAWN: How has that helped your school as far as organization? 

RA: I’ve used the MA Times. That keeps everybody together and 

informed. I give copies to new prospects when they come in, including 

a couple of old copies if I have them laying around, so they can see 

that we’re an active school; that the month prior we had this or that 

going on. The articles on nutrition and study habits are a tremendous 

help and coincides with everything we’re doing in here. It does 

quite a bit, but what I’m using right now keeps me very busy. If I used 

any more I’d probably have to look for a 20,000-square-foot school! 

MAWN: That would be something! What are some of your 

biggest successes and breakthroughs in growing your school? 

RA: One of the things AMS put out a couple years ago was E-Cards 

(Enrollment Cards); that was a tremendous success. I use them 

for Christmas stocking stuffers. When the local schools here do 

fundraisers and booster clubs, things like that, I hand them 10 or 15 

E-Cards. Almost all the time they sell them out and I’ll get a phone 

call the day before the program ends and they ask if I have any more, 

and I do every time. I also work heavily with first responders and 

police officers too. 

MAWN: What might be some of the biggest challenges 

you face in trying to grow your school? 

RA: My biggest challenge is definitely staff. Developing and keeping 

a well-trained staff has been the most difficult for me. I have a big 

pool of potential instructors that I can teach, but to find somebody 

that can greet a prospect coming in, set them up with a sponsor (my 

system has black or upper belts as sponsors, and I’ll assign a new 

student to them). If I can only get somebody that’s not afraid to close 

a sale I’d be on Easy Street. 

MAWN: What kind of advice would you give to school 

operators that might be struggling to break through to 

the next level? 

RA: Find somebody that is where you want to be and make 

friends. Pick their brains. Spend time with them. Find out what 

works and what doesn’t work and duplicate it. Stay informed. Read 

publications. Listen to motivational tapes. Go to seminars; anything 

that you can do to surround yourself with likeminded people with 

common goals—that’s the best thing in the world to get you motivated 

and learning. 


School Profile 

Forget the ‘Magic Formula’ 

Master Jason Zakrajsek describes how he successfully integrates kids and adult 

classes in his OH-based Kuk Sul Do academy. 

Master Zakrajsek focuses on quality and 

service, leading to great retention. 

MAWN: What markets 

do you teach to and 

why? 

JZ: Teaching kids brings 

in about 80 percent of 

our revenue. I teach kids 

because I think you have 

the greatest potential for 

longevity. When we get 

kids in at kindergarten age, 

if not younger, they have a 

potential to stay at the academy for quite some time. Most parents 

in our area have disposable income and kids love activities, so it’s a 

great market to hit. I do have an adult program that is driving some 

decent numbers in that program, but it just seems like there are less 

of those people to draw from in a suburban area like ours, so I’d say 

80-20 kid-adult. 

MAWN: Do you have additional schools or just additional 

programs? 

JZ: No, we just kept it growing in the program. We opened up 

more space at our academy to accommodate an MMA gym, where 

we could keep the UFC-style octagon at one point and different 

types of thai bags. We had a separate area where you could do MMA 

and full-contact fighting, and then you had a separate area that was 

a traditional dojo where it could be more family friendly. And those 

two cultures really did not mix—I think for good reasons—at our 

academy. I started to teach martial arts in 1995, I opened up my own 

academy in ’96. So, I’ve been teaching nonstop professionally since 

1996 with my own academy, and before that in another school. I 

was a junior student at an academy and I was teaching classes before 

that too. 

MAWN: What is the square footage of your school and 

how many students do you currently have? 

JZ: Just so we understand, at the height of all my campuses going 

on, we had about 6,000 square feet and an active enrollment of like 

300. I had fitness programs as well; I do a lot of neat things at my 

school. Since the fight gym annex of my business—we moved out 

of it for financial reasons, it wasn’t making as much money as it 

should’ve—so we’re back down to about 3,000 square feet and currently 

keeping 150–200 at this point. 

MAWN: Are you currently an active member of any profession 

organization and how has it helped your school? 

JZ: The original reason I joined AMS almost 20 years ago was so I 

could focus on being the martial arts instructor and doing what I do 

best, and AMS takes care of making sure that I get a check monthly 

or whatever it may be. In the beginning, when I was a young instructor 

and I didn’t really have a lot of information available to me, this 

was like pre-internet, AMS provided some great information as far 

as how to market the school and some things that were trending. 

As a young instructor, as a person who was newer in the industry, 

I think it was nothing but helpful to learn what other people were 

doing in the martial arts that had even more experience and success 

than I had at that time, and to be able to pool in with those people 

and learn some new tricks. I think it was very, very powerful and 

helpful. I think the software is very nice, updated to where you can 

track where things are coming from with graphs. 

MAWN: Do you have an after school program for the kids too? 

JZ: I really don’t. It’s just that we have classes directly after 

school. I’m not picking them up in a bus or anything, but my first 

classes start as soon as school gets out and parents are like, lined up 

at my place ready to go as soon as school gets out. 

MAWN: What advice would you give a school operator 

that may be struggling to break through to another level? 

JZ: I’ve been approached by many young instructors over the 

years with this question. You know, honestly, so many young 

instructors that I’ve talked to over the years in our area seem to 

sometimes focus on the wrong things, putting the cart before 

the horse. They’re focused on the financial success, they’re 

focused on getting rich quick; they think there’s some kind of 

a magic you-do-this formula and that’s it, it’s going to blow up. 

I’ve always just focused on putting out the best product you can 

possibly put out, which means you’re the product or your instructors 

are the product. Know your stuff, give incredible customer 

service like any other business, treat every student like they’re 

absolute gold because they are, and just focus on the quality. 

This is what I followed years ago: if I put out the best product in 

my area and treat everyone like gold, the success will come. But 

if you chase the dollar first and lose sight of the quality, I think 

you’re going to be a flash in the pan. You’re not going to have the 

same reputation in your community. You can be dethroned by 

someone else who comes along that is hungrier than you are and 

puts out a better product. I just focused on treating people right, 

having the best product, and trying to be the best representative 

of what I teach. 

MAWN: That’s a fantastic answer. By putting out a great 

product, people want to come after you. Anything else that you 

would like to share to the industry, please feel free to share. 

JZ: Thank you so much. And, by the way, [AMS employee] Sophia 

has been wonderful. She always tries to reach out to make sure we’re 

doing stuff right and if she can be of any assistance, so it’s been so 

wonderful to have one particular person to work with. I’ve been very 

pleased with how she’s handled stuff, so thank you guys. 


We provide integrity-based coaching and 

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VISIT WWW.KOVARSYSTEMS.COM/SUCCESS

Teamwork 

Guidelines for Keeping Your 

Team In Sync, Part 1 

HANSHI 

DAVE KOVAR 

is an 8th degree 

black belt and 

recognized as the 

“Trainer of Trainers.” 


is an internationally 

acclaimed instructor 

with black belt 

degrees in ten 

different martial 

arts styles. His 

systems have been 

implemented in 

hundreds of schools 

around the US. 

➽Without a doubt, one of the most important 

ingredients to having long-term success in the 

martial arts industry is having a cohesive team. As 

you know, the total is always more than the sum 

of its parts. When a team is working well together, 

more gets done and the process is more enjoyable. 

In essence, everybody benefits. Following 

are some simple guidelines that we have found 

helpful in keeping our team in sync. 

Be Loyal To Those Not Present. Stick up for your teammates. 

No one likes to be talked about behind their back and 

we should not tolerate people talking badly about others in 

our presence. 

Do More Than Your Fair Share. No one appreciates 

working with someone that says, “That’s not my job.” 

Develop a reputation for being someone that will do whatever 

it takes to get the job done. 

Be Dependable. Get in the habit of being where you’re 

supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there and ready to 

do the job. 

Anticipate Your Teammate’s Next Move. Good 

teammates rarely need to tell someone what to do next 

because their partner is already doing it. 

Don’t Vent Out or Down…Only Up. Then, Don’t 

Vent…Explain. Nothing is worse for morale than whining or 

venting to people who aren’t in a position to solve the problem. 

Go to the source and explain your viewpoint in a logical, 

unemotional manner. 

Be Flexible. Sometimes it’s okay to do a task someone 

else’s way. 

When Giving an Assignment, “Ask, Don’t Tell.” 

No one likes to be told what to do, but most everyone is glad to 

help out when asked. 

When Getting an Assignment, Have an “I’ll Be 

Glad To” Attitude. Be open to input. 

Practice Non-Judgment. We are all different, with 

varied strengths and weaknesses. Being judgmental undermines 

individuals. 

Pick Your Battles. Pope John XXIII once said, “See 

everything, overlook a lot, correct a little.” If you always have 

to be right, people will tend to resent you and be resistant to 

your ideas. 


Photograph by oatawa

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the world of martial arts business. 

We are always on the look out for notable, engaging and 

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Next Level Strategy 

Put the Right Person in the 

Right Job 

SHIHAN 

ALLIE ALBERIGO 


black belt, the 

founder of the L.I. 

Ninjutsu Centers, 

one of the largest 

Ninjutsu schools 

on the planet, the 

author of 4 books, 

and an entrepreneur 

with one of the 

first online coaching 

companies (TakingIt- 

ToTheNextLevel. 

com). 

➽Years ago, a guy was standing 

in my lobby. He’s an exbiker, 

a single dad, his wife left 

him, his hair is really long, it’s 

greasy. He’s leaning against the 

wall and says, “I’m depressed. 

I’m out of work. I can’t handle 

life. I’m nearly going to commit 

suicide.” 

And I said, “Hey, do you need a job?” 

and I hire the guy. 

If he’d had a resume that said all that 

stuff, I would shred it as fast as I could 

and run from it. But, as instructors, 

we tend to hire people because we’re 

compassionate for them . . . or we want 

to fill seats. We’re not like a CEO or a 

company that’s looking for a great manager. They look at 

the resume, the qualifications, and their experience. We 

need to do better vetting of our people. 

I hired a program manager just recently. He’s 25 

years old, has his own house (25 is young to own your 

own house), owns his car, seems successful, and from the 

minute I hired him, he’s been a workhorse. By the way, my 

schools are doing so well that people have come up to me 

and said, “Wow, you’ve got yourself a winner right here,” 

when normally they wouldn’t say anything. And afterwards, 

when they quit or I’ve fired them, they’d say, “Well, 

that person was terrible.” 

So, it’s about hiring correctly for the job. We can always 

take a kid who wants to learn martial arts and eventually 

turn him into an instructor, and then eventually try to 

turn him into a manger, when in reality he just doesn’t 

have that personality trait. We have to be really careful 

about what position we put people in. We don’t want to 

overburden them as well, because they may be a great 

instructor, but they might not be good at recordkeeping, 

organization, or sales, so we have to make sure we take that 

quality and put them in there. For instance, a sniper in the 

military is good at shooting things really far away, but he 

might not be the best public speaker, so we don’t want him 

to come back. He’s killing people for a living, right? That’s 

what he’s good at. Keep him in that position. 

My good friend John Gaysten trains with the Gracies. 

One of the Gracie brothers, I think it was Royce, said to 

him, “When I teach you the choke, or you teach the choke, 

do you do it once? Do you do it five times? No, we keep 

on working on it. And do you correct him along the way? 

Yes. And how many times have you done this choke? Oh, 

maybe a thousand times, ten thousand times?” Well, why 

don’t you do that with your staff? Why aren’t we correcting 

and teaching them, and recorrecting them? If they’re 

the type of person that doesn’t listen, and they don’t want 

to listen, no matter what you say to them, they can’t be 

corrected. I got rid of a few people because they just didn’t 

have what it takes to be the program manager. I’d rather 

have no one than have someone that’s doing a bad job. It’s 

scaring away more people than anything. 

It’s also about storytelling. You could learn the systems 

and go through the drills and teach it, but you still need to 

also have a certain charisma and personality. Not everyone 

is born with that, and it can’t always be taught. My only 

recommendation is to hire an instructor that’s twice as dynamic 

as you. You can still be the owner and teach the high 

ranks, but you’re not going to be able to grow your school 

because if you don’t have that personality, that attitude, 

people are not going to be drawn to you. 


Photograph by tadamichi

Growth Hacks 

3 Rock-Solid Marketing 

Strategies to Increase 

Your Enrollment 

SEAN LEE is 

the Executive 

Director of Sales 

and Marketing 

for hundreds of 

martial arts schools 

and specializes in 

online and social 

media marketing 

using his extensive 

professional 

experience 

in sports and 

martial arts 

marketing, contract 

negotiation, and 

investment. 

➽In speaking with hundreds of martial arts 

schools on a weekly basis, I’ve discovered with 

three marketing strategies that all martial arts 

schools need to use on an ongoing basis: 

1. Timely Promotions 

2. Anytime Promotions 

3. Social Media Promotions 

1. Timely Promotions. 

Timely promotions are promotions 

that relate to calendar 

events. For example, back to 

school is a big calendar event that 

affects martial arts schools. That’s 

a great time for back-to-school 

specials, Stop the Bully Seminars, 

PTA fundraisers, and open 

house promotions. In the coming 

months, you’d shift to Halloween 

promotions, and then Christmas/ 

holiday promotions. These promotions 

are timely because it’s too 

late to do a Halloween promotion 

in November. 

2. Anytime Promotions. Anytime promotions are 

exactly what they sound like: they can be used any time 

and aren’t limited by calendar events. Some of the most 

popular are birthday parties, movie nights, special seminars, 

demos, and the king of anytime promotions: the enrollment 

card. I like the enrollment card the best because 

on any day a school owner or staff member can go out for 

an hour or two, sell a few cards, and bring at least one new 

student into class. It gives you control of your enrollment 

because new students are not limited by your budget, but 

by the amount of effort you’re willing to put forth. 

3. Social Media Promotions. Everyone knows that 

advertising has moved online. School websites used to be 

the “new” way of gaining students, but now social media 

still has the spotlight. Martial arts schools not only need 

to have a Facebook Page and Instagram account, but 

they also have to know how to use those resources, like 

creating Facebook events that their students and fans can 

share with their networks of friends. Schools need to post 

pictures and news about the school, 

special events, and students that can 

be shared with everyone, and regularly 

send out Tweets that are interesting 

enough to be retweeted. 

It doesn’t matter if you teach 

Karate, Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Judo, 

Hapkido, Jiu-Jitsu, or any other art, 

the principles are the same. So are the 

challenges, and the main challenge is 

finding time to think up the events, 

make the posters, flyers, and emails to 

promote the event, and then organize 

the event to not only run smoothly, but 

to also enroll new students. Even large 

schools with years of experience tend 

to use the same stale ideas with the 

same stale materials. 

AMS is the only company that supplies 

a winning combination of innovative, proven promotions 

and professionally designed materials in all three of 

these areas for martial arts schools. Big school or small, just 

add your name, address, number, and website to readymade 

materials and follow the simple instructions for how 

to operate special events that’ll enroll new students. 

You don’t have to create new ideas. You don’t have to design 

new materials. It’s all done for you for less than you’d 

pay a graphic designer to create a single professional poster. 

To find out how you can take advantage of all of these 

promotions on a monthly basis, call me at 1-800-275-1600. 

If you need students, I can help you get them! 

Visit OurAms.com for more information. 


Photograph by jjovanotti

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Ninja Business Tactics 

Is Poverty Mentality 

Hurting Your School? 

AN-SHU 

STEPHEN HAYES 

has authored 

more than 20 

books, worked 

as a body guard 

for the Dali Lama, 

supervised over 30 

school locations 

worldwide, and 

was named “A 

legend; one of the 

10 most influential 

living martial artists 

in the world” 

by Black Belt 

Magazine 

➽Tennis and golf—these are considered upper 

class activities. Generally speaking, the martial 

arts are not usually considered high class. I had 

a person point out to me one time, “Well, take a 

look through the golf magazine and martial arts 

magazine and look at who advertises.” In the 

golf magazine you’ve got Porsche advertising, 

Breitling watches, and great scotches… and you 

look through martial arts magazines and it’s all 

these companies with animal names on it. 

It’s kind of embarrassing to me, but I think maybe a 

lot of us came in with this poverty mentality: An idea that 

some people are lucky and they have a great lifestyle, but 

I’m not so lucky. But you can create luck! It’s a skill you can 

learn if you’re willing to set aside an emotional bias against 

prosperity, and you’re willing to empty your cup and just 

look at the guys who are successful. What do they do? In 

fact (be honest), have these 

guys who are successful 

given up? Are they teaching 

watered down martial arts? 

Are they teaching thrown 

together systems? I don’t 

think so, personally. 

Yeah, maybe we have that background, but isn’t that 

quite the challenge to give that up? To say I spent 28 years 

believing in luck and other people have it made, and we 

can even find find proof of that on social media -- look 

at the Kardashians: They just created this multi million 

dollar thing, or look at Nicki Minaj. We can find rare 

examples of people who came from nothing and became 

multi-millionaires with negligible stuff to offer, and that 

seals it in. See, it’s all luck! 

But we don’t look around at the millionaire next door. 

Pizza! I just saw yesterday: There’s a person who has a small 

chain of pizza restaurants (like 9) in Dayton and earned 

$21 million last year with just these pizza restaurants. Talk 

to that guy. He’s the guy who just started with some dough 

and cheese, and he’s going to tell you about luck. Just finding 

those stories that we overlook can become a habit. 

“Oh yeah, I’m a poverty case, and therefore I attract 

poverty people, so I put poverty prices on my service.” 

“Oh yeah, I’m a poverty case, and therefore 

I attract poverty people, so I put poverty 

prices on my service.” 

I understand this 

poverty mentality: I don’t 

know, I think that possibly 

it’s an excuse. Maybe I’m not as good an instructor as 

I thought I was. Maybe my martial art doesn’t have as 

much to offer as I thought it did -- I’m just dogged in my 

pursuit and I’m just real loyal, and I don’t have many 

students because I’m not that good of an instructor and 

my martial art isn’t that impressive. I’m not going to 

take responsibility! 

I run into nobody who says, “Well, you know, I’m a 

pretty mediocre teacher.” Everybody thinks they’re a 

great teacher. Nobody says, “I’m pretty mediocre, but I 

just do what I like to do.” Maybe it’s an excuse. I turn it 

around and say, “Oh, I’m not interested in commercialism. 

I WANT a few students. I don’t’ care about the money.” It 

sounds so noble, but is it the truth? 

I mean, seriously, it 

really haunts so many 

people’s operation. They 

get in their mind, “Oh, we 

shouldn’t charge money . . . 

this is martial arts!” 

I would very patiently 

advise them, “Well, that’s interesting. Martial arts is so important 

and so crucial to people that you shouldn’t charge 

any money or just charge a little teeny money?” 

I say, “Well, how about if you needed a heart operation, 

and you were going to go to the best possible hospital for 

heart care (wherever that would be), do you think they’d 

be charging you $25.00?” No, you’d have to pay for the 

best healthcare. And if you wanted to go to a university, 

let’s say, oh maybe you set your sights on the top university 

– you want to go to Harvard – would you pay $25.00 

to go to Harvard? And ironically, with health concerns in 

mind, you know to buy the best quality food -- organically 

raised vegetables and meats -- that’s actually more expensive 

than the conventional food, so there again you’re 

spending more money. 

We could go on and on with this, the point being that 

it’s recognized in every situation you have to spend to get 

the best. Except for the martial arts??? 


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Pillars of Success 

Create Physical Success, 

Part 2 

GRANDMASTER 

Y. K. KIM is the 

most successful 

martial arts 

business leader 

in the US, having 

written over 30 

books on martial 

arts, business, 

leadership, and 

success. He has 

won numerous 

public service 

awards and is the 

founder of the 

leading martial 

arts marketing 

and management 

company in the US. 

➽I couldn’t do anything for myself. My wife 

had to feed me, wash me, and change my 

bedpans. I was no longer Y. K. Kim, a Master 

Instructor of the Martial Arts. I was a baby. 

However, I refused to panic. I thought I would 

be OK after a few days, and while I rested I 

could do some paperwork, just like before. My 

only worry for the moment was that my wife 

had to take care of me while she worked a fulltime 

job. I was so sorry that I was putting her 

through this ordeal. 

After a week, my body still refused to move. I got 

worried, very worried. I wondered if I would ever be able 

to move again. This thought made me take stock in the 

things I’ve done in my life. At first I was proud of my 

accomplishments, but then it dawned on me that I was 

doing way too much. I wondered if I was going anywhere 

at all. I realized that if I stayed bedridden for the rest of 

my life, all my achievements would become meaningless. 

None of my dreams would come true if I didn’t make the 

effort to recover. I told myself I would do whatever it took 

to be healthy and move my body again. At first, even the 

smallest movement of my body was excruciating. Pain 

weighed my body down, but I kept fighting through it to 

move in any way that I could. I started by turning my body 

from side to side in bed. It was incredibly painful at first, 

but I slowly, surely saw and felt the improvements. Once I 

was able to move my body, I started getting myself out of 

bed to move around the house. My upper body and lower 

back were still unable to support my entire weight, so I had 

to crawl to get anywhere. One of my greatest accomplishments 

was the fact that I could actually go to the bathroom 

in a bathroom and not in a bedpan: a sign of being one step 

closer to being independent again. 

Eventually, I carefully forced myself to stand upright, 

using whatever I had to support me at first. Once I finally got 

used to standing again, I had to reteach myself to walk. Right 

off the bat, each step was excruciating because my body 

wanted to give up and get back into that bed so badly, but my 

mind wouldn’t allow me to give into the pain, and my spirit 

gave me the strength to keep going. I had to walk again. As I 

relearned how to walk, I looked at how I lived to determine 

what needed to be done to stop my body from ever doing this 

to me again. After months and months of rehabilitation, I 

was finally able to walk normally again, and I felt very lucky 

to be able to do the things we all take for granted like standing, 

walking in the park, playing with my kids, even just 

going up and down stairs. During this painful experience 

and after I recovered, I conducted extensive research because 

I didn’t want to go through it again. I realized that my 

lifestyle was totally wrong: I lacked harmony and balance 

because of the ways I abused my body. I deserved the mental 

and physical suffering I inflicted upon myself because of my 

self-destructive lifestyle. I was my own worst enemy because 

I did what I thought was right and never followed any other 

advice. Ignoring the body is a recipe for disaster. 


Photograph by CassielMx

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The Way of the Samurai 

Street Wise Knife Fighting 

SHIHAN DANNA 

ABBOTT Is a 


belt in Kenjutsu, 

starting his 14-year 

education in Tokyo. 

He has published 

five books and 

designed a US 

Patent. Abbott has 

also conducted 

seminars in over 

30 countries and 

obtained his black 

belt at the Hombu 

dojo in Yokohama. 

He currently offers 

online classes on 

LearntheSword. 

com, his unique 

swordsmanship 

academy. 

➽In the world of knife fighting, there is an unspoken 

rule: go in, cut, and get out unscathed. 

It’s that simple, but we often run into knife 

techniques that show excessive movements, 

grandiose flourishes, and pomp. This doesn’t 

imply that these techniques are weak; it merely 

suggests that many employ techniques that are 

more or less theatrical and impractical. 

Knife fighting is callous and uncaring. Unfortunately, 

there are dangerous individuals on the street who would 

not give a second thought to kill you with a knife. Their 

mission is to attack you, receive payment (money, sex, 

valuables), and get out of there as quickly as possible. In 

this type of scenario, these knife-wielding individuals are 

not going to impress you with any fancy techniques. Just 

a quick jab to the midsection or a slash to the head or neck 

will get the job done. It’s over that fast! 

Throughout the martial arts community, it’s well 

known and documented that the best block is no block at 

all. Get out of harm’s way by using deflection 

and evasion. Remember, when the scenario is 

flesh against a sharp object, the sharp object 

will always prevail, resulting in injury or 

death. This is called the “law of the blade.” 

For thousands of years, mankind has adhered 

to that law resulting in the development of 

countless knife fighting methods. 

Time-honored techniques have always 

remained the same, but modern or esoteric 

techniques now offer vast amounts of verbiage 

and methods in their instructions for 

defense against an attacker: talk, talk, talk, 

and no action! It is puzzling how ancient man 

survived all these centuries without this verbiage 

and “new” methods. Many self-defense 

instructors spew out commands, creating a 

scenario like this: “If you were in this position, 

and the knife was in that position, what 

would you do?” He might instruct you to grab 

the hand wielding the knife and tug, twist, 

or pull. 

This type of training is very popular 

and works extremely well in a martial arts 

environment. But, in the real world, out on 

the street, one would definitely be put into a 

very compromising situation in a matter of 

seconds. The professional criminal/attacker would go in 

for the kill, as the defender would apply a subtle semicircular 

technique under the knife-wielding hand to disarm the 

attacker, resulting in hundreds of stitches. 

The student listened well, read the materials 

over and over, and practiced the technique several 

times with confidence within the confines 

of the school. The instructor explained well and 

even executed the technique several times on 

the student. Although confidence is good, it 

does breed invincibility. The seasoned street 

fighter unfortunately just sees another “victim 

of their own confidence” and easily disrupts 

their knife-fighting system by attacking at full 

speed and power. While the attacker cuts and 

runs, the defendant is wondering what happened, 

and is still thinking of which stance they 

should have been in. 


Photograph by IJdema

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Extraordinary Marketing 

Don’t Confuse Activity with 

Accomplishment, Part 2 

GRANDMASTER 

STEPHEN OLIVER, 


black belt and is 

the founder and 

CEO of Mile High 

Karate schools, 

and founder of the 

Martial Arts Wealth 

Mastery Program. 

➽Don’t be “Busy 

being Busy.” Productivity 

= Enrolling, 

Renewing, Retaining 

This is simple but 

important: looking at a 

computer screen during 

“prime time” is 

wasting time. 

I’ve always had a 

policy of NO ONE sits 

at a computer and does 

anything when there are 

students in the school. 

Now, there are small 

exceptions. Opt-ins from 

your website should 

receive a call quickly, and 

you’ve got to know about 

them. Maybe you need 

to look at a list of leads to 

make outbound phone 

calls or to confirm appointments. 

But, other than that, returning business calls, 

working on data entry, dealing with ANY administrative 

issue during “prime time” is wasting time. 

Stay out of the office and talk to people. Once EVERY 

possible issue on the floor has been dealt with, such as 

fixing a possible dropout or prepping a renewal, then you 

should be on the phone calling inactive students, confirming 

introductory or renewal appointments, or calling 

leads. 

I might add something else here. Be VERY careful 

about how you organize your time. Generally I think of 

running a single school as looking like this: 

Morning until first class in afternoon (Monday– 

Friday) 

Marketing: visiting businesses, schools, etc. to line up 

programs, talk to potential joint ventures, or just out talking 

to potential enrollments. 

Prime Time: 

Enrollments, Renewals, Retention 

Closing Process: 

1. All cleaning done 

2. All new enrollment and renewal processed 

a. New ID cards complete 

b. Billing set up 

c. Contract scanned or filed 

d. Data entry as required 

3. All paperwork filed, deposits made, batches sent, etc. 

4. Plan for enrollments and renewals the next day. 

5. Review marketing activities for the next morning. 

Don’t let the various administrative “close of day” stuff 

move over to daytime the next day. It can chew up all day 

and is the wrong point of focus at that time. Focus on marketing, 

NOT administrative stuff during those important 

hours. 

Oh, and one more thing…automate anywhere 

you can automate, and eliminate anything you can 

eliminate. 


Photograph by max-kegfire

After School Excellence 

What Goes In: Grading Your 

School’s Snacks 

CHIEF MASTER 

MIKE BUGG is an 


belt and the owner 

of a $1.52 millionper-year 

location, 

with one of the 

largest after school 

and summer camp 

programs in the 

country. 

➽Any after school program 

worth its salt will provide some 

kind of snacks for its students 

(some states even require this 

by law). You may be providing 

snacks out of the kindness of 

your heart, or you may be making 

a modest profit from selling 

Snickers after your intense 

workouts are over. Either way, 

what you stock is important for 

a few reasons: 1) Showing parents 

you have the right kind 

of snacks at your school is just 

another smart way to win them 

over to joining (or staying in) 

your program. 2) The proper 

snacks can give your students 

the energy they need to 

perform harder and longer in 

your program. This raises your 

school’s performance and increases the quality 

of your school. Both of these are desirable outcomes. 

So, what are the “right snacks” for your 

little munchers? See if you can determine which 

of the following items are good and which are 

bad for your students. 

Water: Starting off with a freebie. Make sure your students 

drink it regularly and often. It’s essential to healthy 

and hydrated students. Yes, yes, yes! 

Candy: This one is so easy that you might be wondering 

why it’s even on the list. Well, in spite of themselves, 

most people who work with kids give them a lot of candy 

without even realizing it. Candy is always prepackaged and 

kids are always asking for it, so before you know it, you 

might be feeding your kids two or three candy snacks a 

day. Avoid this problem by not having them at your school 

at all. No way, Jose! 

Sports drinks: It’s easy to get it slightly wrong when 

it comes to sports drinks. Due to their use as vitamin and 

mineral replenishment for athletes, we associate them 

with health. However, they’re also loaded with sugars and 

salt. Because of this, sports drinks are no good for drinking 

with meals or during breaks. The electrolytes and carbohydrates 

make them great for intense exercise, however, and 

are highly recommended for use during intense workouts 

to keep kids hydrated. Yes, at the right time. 

High-energy bars: These “healthy” snacks usually 

have a picture of active, healthy people on the packaging. 

Must be healthy, right? Not so fast. “Energy” doesn’t 

always mean “healthy.” In fact, energy often means it 

contains a lot of calories, fat, and sugar. If you’re going 

to give these snacks to your students, read the packages 

before you buy and recognize the right time and place to 

eat them: give your kids these energy bars only before an 

intense workout, not after. Yes, in moderation. 

Fruits: These are nature’s candy, full of unprocessed, 

natural sugar, loaded with vitamins A, B6, and C. Not so 

fast! This is a trick question! Always give your students 

prepackaged foods. It’s unsafe for you and your students 

to give them anything for a snack that isn’t prepackaged 

and sealed. If students bring their own fruits, great, but 

unfortunately, they’re off-limits for you. No. 


Photograph by FotoDuets

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Have Your School, Organization, 

Accomplishment, or Event Featured in 

Martial Arts World News Magazine! 

As professional martial arts school owners and instructors, 

it’s important that we stay up to date with the latest tools, 

tactics, and strategies for operating a successful martial arts 

school or organization. 

We here at Martial Arts World News Magazine are on an 

unstoppable mission to help our industry grow, and one of 

the best ways to do that is by sharing “what’s working” and 

what’s not. 

So, we want to feature schools, school owners, instructors, 

organizations, students, and industry contributors that might 

have a story our readers would find valuable! 

No story is too small or too big for consideration so long as 

there is value to our readers. 

• One of your students overcame 

great obstacles to achieve 

their black belt? Awesome! 

• You’ve opened a new location? 

We’d love to hear about it! 

• Your martial arts association 

just set a new record? Great! 

Send us some information! 


Send your Story Idea to us Email Editor@MartialArtsWorldNews.com 

Or Contact us at: 407-895-1996

the 

like a champ 

experience 

breaking 

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training 

leadership 

C H I P T O W N S E N D 

14x ISKA World Champion, Multiple World Record Holder 

"I knew Break Like a Champ could really help our school. We 

had been doing several things incorrectly in regards to 

breaking, with material selection and holding techniques. 

BLAC has made such a huge difference in our school! In a few 

months, we will have made back what we spent just by being 

associated with BLAC! I really believe BLAC will add 

tremendous value to any school!" 

-Chance Burleson, owner Chance Legends Dojo 

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"It doesn't matter the size of your school, the demographics or 

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of running a successful martial arts school!" 

-Justin Cuellar, Owner of Atalla County Martial Arts

Tactical Self-Defense 

Look Left To Right 

and See All In Sight 

GRANDMASTER 

TOM PATIRE, 

is known as 

“America’s Leading 

Personal Safety 

Expert” and has 

appeared on Good 

Morning America, 

The CBS Morning 

Show, The Colbert 

Report, Montel, 

plus in mainstream 

publications such 

as Family Circle, 

Redbook, Fortune 

Magazine, and The 

Wall Street Journal. 

He has written 

several books 

and has personal 

safety programs 

that can be 

incorporated into 

your martial arts 

school, available at 

TomPatire.com. 

➽When we speak about training, especially 

the training that is involved in executive protection, 

we tend to think it is more physical than 

mental. By physical we think of tactical defense, 

physical intervention, defensive shooting 

or other movement skills like cover and evacuations 

techniques. But the true fact is one of 

the key points in training relies in the training 

of your senses. Your eyes for example! I’m sure 

many of you have heard people talk about a 

sixth sense. The ability to know something is 

about to happen – moments before it happens! 

Now the sixth sense isn’t magical or mystical, 

it’s just the body and mind working together as 

a team with everything in total sync. 

One of the keys to the sixth sense as many call it is the 

proper training of the eyes. Eyes can play tricks on your 

mind and make you react wrong or over react because of 

what you thought you saw. In other cases you may under 

react on what you didn’t see! The proper scanning pattern 

of the eyes to pick up the most information are done in a 

pattern of left to right. At least here in the United States 

it is. The reason I say that is because we are taught to read 

from left to right in this country (other countries read 

right to left or down to up) so the relay system of information 

between the eyes and the brain are developed for a 

much quicker process of information than right to left. 

Here’s an everyday example of what I’m talking about: 

I am sure you heard the story were a person went to a 

mall and parked their vehicle, and when they came out 

it wasn’t there. They lost their vehicle? Then when the 

police/security responded and spoke with the person, they 

reconstructed their steps to find the vehicle located in 

another part of the mall. So how did this happen? Was the 

vehicle stolen, used, and then returned to the wrong place. 

Absolutely not! What happened was the person that was 

driving the vehicle was preoccupied on what he or she had 

to do at the mall, and when they exited the vehicle they did 

it against the grain of the way they are taught to process 

information. In other words they exited right to left, with 

their thought process pre-occupied, their subconscious did 

not pick a thorough view of their immediate surroundings. 

So what does that have to do with being a bodyguard? 

Simple! When we enter into an area we as protection 

agents’ use a slow scan from left to right so we can process 

the entire room in our heads. Now what are we looking 

for? First we are looking for escape routes – exits that we 

may need to get the client to if there was a emergency or 

physical threat. By reading the room, as we call it, we already 

know where to go and how far to the exit points. The 

next thing we look at is obstacles that can get in our way if 

something goes down. In certain cases we clear a specific 

area if the owner of the establishment allows it. If not then 

it’s the job of the point man leading the way to clear out a 

clean safe path for our client. Time is of the essence during 

an evacuation and the clearest route is usually the safest! 

Even if that means you have to make the route clear!! 

The third thing we scan for is for condensed zones. A 

condensed zone is a cluster of people and items like chairs, 

tables and such that will mount up causing a jam, thus 

causing problems for the protection detail and in certain 

cases may even form a deadly trap. When this occurs, and 

it will in mass chaos situations, you are dealing with many 

variables like yelling and screaming and mass hysteria. So 

reading a room as we say it – is very important in our line 

of work - when seconds count and lives depend of sound 

judgment and pre-planned movement. 

Now knowing this about your sight is very important 

should you be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Think 

about it. If some act of terrorism or some mishap unfolded 

when you were out and about, would you know what to 

do? What it your loved one’s life was at stake? Would you 

know where to go? Many times the safest route is the one 

that many do not know about. The history of ‘Human 

Stampedes’ prove that most people go to the exit they 

came in, when the truth being many of the other exits are 

easier to get to and much safer to reach. 

So become your own bodyguard and train your senses 

to work with you not against you. Read your environment 

from left to right and process information, so if the day 

ever comes and you need to get you, your loved one, or your 

child out of a bad situation – you will know where to go! 

Until next time – Be Safe Always! 

TomPatire.com 


Photograph by Tomwang112

CUTTING-EDGE 

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That Bring New Students Into Your School–Fast 

Finally, a Beautiful, High-Quality, Lead Generating Website for Your Martial Arts School 

Visit AmazingMartialArtsWebsites.com or Call (800) 275-6900

Complete Martial Arts Concepts 

Branding: From the Ring to 

the Screen, and All Things in 

Between, Part 1 

PROFESSOR 

WILLIE “THE 

BAM” JOHNSON 



seven-time 

sport karate and 

Kung-Fu world 

champion. He has 

appeared in four 

movies, 16 plays, 

and 11 television 

shows. He is 

also the national 

spokesperson for 

the Stronger than 

Drugs Foundation 

and the Champions 

Against Drugs. 

➽As a six-year-old kid, I knew 

nothing about branding. I just 

had a burning desire for more 

in life, and a passion for kids 

like me to escape the pain I 

was feeling. 

As I earned the nickname “Bam 

Bam” because of my high energy, I 

still never thought much of it. People 

even called me names to make fun 

of my desire for martial arts, like 

“Willie Wushu” and “The Black Bruce Lee.” But they were 

all my fans and future customers—they just didn’t know 

it. During these times, a dream like mine was unrealistic 

because the American people had not yet discovered the 

benefits of martial arts on any level. There was no proof 

of the character development, academics, entertainment, 

and entrepreneurship, or even as a sport because it was 

just starting out in America. Remember, chopsocky films 

became hits in the urban city, along with the dojos. So, you 

can see what I was up against, but none of it stopped me 

because everything people were saying was defining my 

brand for me, even though I didn’t know it at the time. 

Regardless of my adversity, I stayed true and consistent 

with communicating what my brand was. People knew that 

I was not going to give up on martial arts. In the ’70s, during 

the chopsocky boom, everybody was into martial arts, 

music, street acrobatics, and skateboarding, but they all 

moved on. But not me; I stayed committed to my martial 

arts dream. At one point, I was selling drugs, but also competing 

around the country. The big-time drug dealer that 

I was working for gave me an ultimatum: to make a choice 

between selling drugs or competing in martial arts, because 

he was no longer going to allow me to do both. At that time, 

we were making so much money and were feared by just 

about everyone. The choice must have seemed obvious 

to everyone, but I chose the martial arts and chose to quit 

dealing drugs. The martial arts was my love, it came first. 

This made me stand out and became 

the talk of the streets. Because of this 

choice, many people started to put value 

on what I was doing, and I became a 

hero and inspiration to many—but was 

also hated by others. After making my 

position clear, I began to zero in on solutions 

I could manifest for myself and 

worked on helping kids along the way. 

I was engaging people from all walks of 

life with my character and results. I was 

becoming very accomplished too. I remember how it got 

to a point that every time I returned home from an event, 

kids would follow me and adults would cheer as I would 

walk through the projects with big, six-foot-tall trophies, 

sometimes three or four of them. I knew that the people 

needed a hero, someone that would inspire them during 

their adversity. I even learned how to deal with the haters 

peacefully. This became even more evident when I got a 

chance to open my first full-time business at age 18, as the 

first professional Kung Fu school in East Baltimore under 

the banner of my instructor Dennis Brown’s Shaolin 

Wushu. The school did well. With the systems of the first 

martial arts business consulting company, the Educational 

Funding Company, we were thriving. I never stopped 

listening and responding to the needs of the people and I 

learned to apply my hustling skills by engaging the customers 

in person, by phone, in writing, in demonstrations 

and competitions. I was young and a black man teaching 

Kung Fu, so I had to make a lasting impression. There were 

times that people would come in and ask for the teacher. 

When they found out that I was the teacher, they would 

walk out. I was working hard at succeeding and wowing 

the customers along with strengthening my community 

ties. I was building an authentic brand, and I worked hard 

to make that known with a lot of self-promotion the way 

I had done my whole life: by creatively customizing my 

teaching methods. 


Photograph by natasaadzic

The Millionaire Smarts Coach 

Be in Charge of Your 

Destiny, Part 2 

MS. LEE MILTEER 

is an Intuitive 

Business Coach, 

award-winning 

professional 

speaker, and TV 

personality who 

has counseled 

and trained over 

a million people 

throughout her 

career. Lee is 

Stephen Oliver’s 


Wealth Mastery’s 

Millionaire Smarts 

Coach and is also a 

best-selling author 

of educational 

resources. 

➽These types of statements are negative 

reinforcements that only create a picture for 

yourself with unproductive behaviors or past 

habits, instead of creating the new image you 

want in your life. We were not taught that we 

are a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the truth is 

that we are. 

In other words, what you say and think about yourself 

does come true. It is as if we unconsciously believe that 

we can say negative things about ourselves, and those 

negative thoughts would have no effect on our future or 

ourselves. But the truth is all those thoughts, self talk, 

and labels keep us stuck with old behavior patterns. The 

bottom line is that you are now the sum total of all the 

programming others have given you and that you have 

reinforced through the thoughts you have had about 

yourself. 

The end result is that all those past images, thoughts, 

and directions will influence your attitudes and every action 

you take today. If you do not take personal responsibility 

for the nurturing, caring, and feeding of your own 

mind, you will be manipulated and controlled by past 

programming and your current environment. For most 

people, that is going to cost you time, self-esteem, confidence, 

money, success, and peace of mind. 

You have the power to train your mind to choose what 

you think instead of allowing random thoughts to hold 

you hostage. Your goal is to become inner-directed and 

focused so that you decide what you want to think, rather 

than have your thoughts and emotions determined by the 

world around you. The untrained mind has more emotional 

ups and downs because it is reacting to random thoughts. 

Focus on what you want with joy and enthusiasm. 

Remember, just like the earth, your brain does not 

discern what you plant. It will work just as hard to grow 

weeds as it will to grow beautiful flowers. You determine 

the seeds that are planted by what you say to yourself over 

and over. 

Your homework assignment is to take a notebook 

around with you this month and jot down all the negative 

things you say and believe about yourself. If you are not 

making the money or having the success or life you want, 

it’s because you are hurting your own chances for success 

with your self-talk. 

If you want to move to the next level of success you 

must take responsibility for the caliber of information 

that you feed your computer daily. 

Yes, I know it’s a pain to do this exercise and you will 

want to put it off, but if you do, you’ll only be postponing 

your ability to change the way you think. 


Photograph by Rawpixel

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Budo Philosophy 

A Garden is Just an 

“Until Then,” Part 1 

SHIDOSHI 

ALFREDO TUCCI 

is the CEO and 

General Manager 

of the Budo 

International 

Publishing 

Company, a 

leading publisher 

in the martial arts 

with over 35 years 

in the industry. 

He is also author 

of several books: 

The Immaterial 

Dimension, The 

Way of the Warrior, 

and The Spirit. He 

currently lives in 

Valencia, Spain. 

➽In this material world there’s only one order 

in which nature is its highest expression. 

Perhaps that’s why I find the metaphor of the 

jungle and the garden so suggestive. It was 

the great historian Arnold J. Toynbee who first 

spoke in the West about the interaction of two 

opposing and complementary forces, Yin and 

Yang, in history. Without such dialectic, it would 

be simply impossible to lean into the contradictory 

post-modern scenario without falling into 

any of its extremes and easy-peasy slogans. 

The Western world is a garden with a well-mowed 

lawn with flowers and rockery here and there, and 

where, despite the numerous complaints of many of 

its spoiled and unlearned inhabitants, you can live like 

in no other place on earth. But maintaining a garden 

has a high cost, because trying to improve upon Mrs. 

Nature’s efforts takes a lot of work and it’s certainly not 

something that you can do overnight or easily. It takes 

diligence, hard work, and using the brain. A garden 

needs to be taken care of every day because if maintenance 

failures occur, nature—which, unlike us gardeners, 

acts effortlessly—takes control of the situation to 

recompose its own order, which emerges permanently 

from Chaos. 

Actually, each garden is only a proposal, 

a dream in the middle of the forest, the laws 

of which, even if we rearrange them with our 

efforts, never cease to act, even in our little 

winding paths. Therefore, striving to ignore the 

great forces that act and condition our environment 

is just an expression of arrogance, which, 

as Osawa said, is the only disease for which 

there is no cure. Globalization is just one more 

phenomenon coherent within the moment 

in which the dominant fire energy reaches its 

peak. The barriers tend to break depending on 

consumer society, which, in its search for new 

markets, decides that the time has come to open 

the spigot that separates the garden from the 

jungle. 

The phenomenon coincides with the fall of 

the Berlin Wall, and with the new order, two systems/one 

country, with which Deng Xiaoping opens a door to the 

dead-end of communism in his country. Capitalism was 

left without a counterpart, and as movements can only 

justify themselves and grow before an enemy, it reached 

its maximum expression culminating in a beautiful swan 

song, which, intense as it was, proved to be short-lived. 

Capitalism, based on that pipe dream that is money, was 

already limping since Nixon, in a boast of pride, decided to 

end the gold standard as a reference. The reference would 

be exclusively virtual, confidence in the dollar, which nobody 

knows what it is beyond an entelechy. Money is still 

wallpaper. At least before, you went to central banks and 

could theoretically change that paper for a certain amount 

of gold. There was no need to adjust to any measure; we 

were arriving at what is so normal and modern today: the 

virtual world. Meanwhile, with the floodgates open, the 

communicating vessels began to act, and where there was 

a lot, it necessarily began to be less, and where there was 

hardly any, there began to be more. The relocation of companies 

in search of cheap labor, driven by the drop in tariffs, 

encouraged the world to some economic absurdities, 

such as the fact that a car produced on the other side of the 

world, whose energy cost of production and transport cost 

was enormous, nevertheless turned out to be “a good deal.” 


Photograph by m_blum

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Pro Shop Power 

How to Make Your Students 

Proud with a Bulletin Board 

MR. SUN KANG 

is the President 

of Vision Martial 

Arts Supply, Los 

Angeles Branch, 

who helps school 

owners all over the 

US maximize their 

retail sales and 

drive more revenue 

into their schools. 

➽Having a school bulletin board is a great 

idea in both large and small schools, and is 

exceptionally beneficial. Here are some things 

to consider in order for your bulletin boards to 

work for you and your school. 

Attractive, organized, and colorful bulletin boards can 

serve a variety of valuable uses in your school 

Bulletin boards convey information. There’s a 

lesser chance of your students 

not knowing a testing date or 

school event if it’s posted on 

your school bulletin board. 

Bulletin boards prevent 

confusion and let your students 

know where to look for 

important information. 

A bulletin board 

brightens up your school. 

It makes your school look 

appealing and colorful, especially 

if it’s decorated for the 

season, has plenty of pictures, 

and a list of upcoming events. 

A bulletin board 

makes your students feel 

proud. Make your students 

feel proud by hanging their 

pictures and recognizing 

their accomplishments. If 

you give the students the responsibility of keeping the bulletin 

board updated, they’ll feel even prouder. A bulletin 

board is made to increase retention. 

A bulletin board helps create a great first impression. 

The bulletin board lets visitors know the school 

is an exciting and well-organized place to be! 

There are many great ways you can use your 

bulletin board. Here are a few: 

• Display your students’ pictures. 

• Show pictures from your last event, like an exhibition 

or camp. 

• Display upcoming events. 

• Display a list of your students’ birthdays. 

• Put up your monthly calendar. 

• Display your student of the month. 

• Post your referral system. 

• Display your posters from AMS. 

• Tell about any pro shop sales. 

• Have students post their business cards. 

Here are some tips to make your bulletin board 

easy, beneficial, fun, and colorful: 

• Decide on the background color of each month’s bulletin 

boards at the beginning of the year. 

• Assign a member of your leadership team or staff to 

be responsible for updating your bulletin board. 

• Dress up the bulletin board by attaching giant plastic 

glasses and the title “At a Glance” to point out upcoming 

events. 

• Create bulletin boards that are not only attractive, but 

also interactive. 

We at Vision hope you take the time to put up a bulletin 

board at your school. Supplies can be purchased at your 

local office supply store. For more ideas and information, 

call the AMS marketing team at (1-800) 275-1600! 


Photograph by

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MIND MASTERY 

Got Problems? 

GRANDMASTER 

JESSIE BOWEN 

is president of 

Karate International 

of Durham, Inc., 

a member of the 

American Martial 

Arts Association 

Sport Karate 

League and Hall 

of Fame, and has 

been a member of 

the Duke University 

PE Staff for over 

25 years. He is the 

author of Zen Mind- 

Body Mindfulness 

Meditation and 

Zen Mind-Body 

Mindfulness 

Meditation for 

Martial Arts, as well 

as several other 

books, programs, 

and audio CDs on 

meditation and 

success training. 

➽Problems, problems, problems. Have you 

ever been in a conflict with a coworker, close 

friend, or even a relationship that was all centered 

on what was wrong? I want to take this 

column to explore problems and look at some 

of the remedies. 

First of all, problems allow you to grow. You could 

look at problems as growth opportunities, and in many 

cases, learning the skillset to solve problems can help 

you advance toward success in our lives. Where did we 

develop the idea that a problem means that something 

is bad, wrong, or harmful? It’s the complete opposite: 

a problem allows you to research and find solutions. 

Webster’s Dictionary defines a problem 

as “a question raised for inquiry, consideration, 

or solution.” The other word I want to 

use is troubles. Let’s look at the definition 

of troubles: “difficulty, problems, issues, 

bother, inconvenience, worry, anxiety, 

distress, concerns, etc.” Does that sound like 

something you’ve experienced before? It’s 

almost impossible to avoid troubles in dayto-day 

life. When we don’t have troubles, the 

human mind has a propensity to produce 

additional issues. To deal with troubles that 

come up, we shouldn’t seek to quash them. 

We have to look at them as a chance to better 

our nature. By defeating problems, we may 

beef up our will and learn useful lessons. Here are a few 

hints for addressing troubles: 

1. Do not feel misfortunate. The existence of an 

issue doesn’t mean we ought to feel misfortunate or 

shamed. True, the trouble might be the consequence of our 

previous errors, but regretting the past won’t help us deal 

with the subject. In addition to that, rather often troubles 

come up through no fault of our own. To feel shame for 

issues produced by other people is to make a double error. 

2. It’s a chance, not a trouble. Often what we see 

as trouble is genuinely a chance to learn something or get 

over a particular weakness. We’ll never ask issues into our 

lives, but if we can have the correct mental attitude, we 

recognize that we may learn something rather useful by 

defeating them. 

3. Remain resolute. If the issue stems from others, 

we must be staunch in not allowing the problem to enter 

us. We ought to attempt to build up an invisible roadblock 

to stop the negativity from getting into us. For instance, 

if other people are very strained, they’ll subconsciously 

try to pass their anxieties onto us. If we’re not stable, 

these anxieties will move into us. All the same, if we may 

detach ourselves from their concerns and stress, we’ll stay 

untouched. 

4. Envisage the resolution. If we center on the issues 

facing us, we’ll become dejected, and our focus will be 

on the magnitude of the trouble. In that frame of mind, it 

gets to be an uphill battle to work out the issue. To subdue 

a problem, we have to center on the resolution. Consequently, 

we have to retain a positive mental attitude and 

take pragmatic steps to figure out a bit-by-bit solution. 

5. Alter our mental attitude. Rather often particular 

issues keep duplicating themselves. These troubles are 

the result of our inner and outer mental attitudes. For 

these recurrent issues, we have to produce a new view. It’s 

insufficient to attempt to prevent these issues or react 

with our habitual response. If it’s advantageous, take the 

advice of others. This will help you step back and view the 

issue from another angle. The crucial thing is to alter our 

mindset. Issues only go away when we subdue the problem 

at the root. The root cause is our idea and position. 

6. Use humor. Humor may be an effective counter 

poison to many issues of the mind if we have little 

concerns and headaches and attempt to smile and laugh. It 

might just be the most useful answer. 

Problems and troubles are a natural part of our lives. 

They are the doorways to breaking down the barriers that 

keep us on track for what we want to do, be, have, or achieve. 

Visit WhosWhoInTheMartialArts.com. 


Illustration by Dilok Klaisataporn

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Master the Basics 

Bend, Don’t Break, Your 

Students 

MASTER 

TINA BANE 


master instructor 

and owner of a 

Top Ten martial 

arts school with 

successful after 

school and summer 

camp programs. 

➽A muscle is designed to be both strong and 

flexible. It has to support a lot of weight, even 

if the task is simply moving the bones in your 

body. At the same time, muscles work best 

when they have a full range of motion. So, 

muscles can be strengthened and stretched 

to maximize their power, but what happens if 

a muscle is stretched too far? You can tear the 

muscle fibers, which damages the muscle’s 

elasticity and reduces its strength. A severely 

damaged muscle can atrophy, wither, and die. 

Now consider your young, impressionable 

students. They’re like muscles: able to grow if 

pushed, but fragile enough to be permanently 

damaged if handled aggressively with too 

much pressure and force. As the instructor of 

your students, it’s your job to push them to 

perform their best. You may know that certain 

students aren’t performing to their potential 

and are capable of much more—from a martial 

arts perspective. 

However, as a business owner, your students are your 

customers, and we all know how the old saying goes: the 

customer is always right. Does that apply when your students 

are underperforming on tests, failing to meet weight 

loss goals, and showing a lack of effort during drills? 

Of course not, but getting the most out of your 

students without breaking them and watching them quit 

requires some finesse. Here are some tips for walking that 

delicate line. 

Set expectations at the outset. At the beginning of 

every new class, explain to your students what the rules of 

your school are. Every child’s household is different, but 

they’re all predisposed to following rules established by 

their caregivers. Let them know what you expect and have 

them agree to adhere to those expectations. 

Be firm but not mean. Children need rules. They 

actually crave discipline; so don’t take a student’s efforts 

pushing back against you to be a sign of their desire for 

anarchy. Children push back to see how sturdy the rules 

around them are. Yield on the rules, children will feel 

less safe and push harder. To combat this, be firm when 

students try to break the rules. Make no exceptions for bad 

behavior. However, don’t be Dirty Harry. Stay calm when 

disciplining your students and remind them of the rules 

they agreed to follow at the beginning of class. 

When you push your students, explain why you’re 

doing it. Children don’t like discomfort, and they’re sometimes 

impatient to receive the desired results. When you 

need to push your students to try harder, explain to them 

how overcoming the challenge will allow them to fulfill 

the goals they’ve set for themselves. 


Illustration by AnnaStills

Instructional Excellence 

Our Martial Arts Classes 

Develop Confidence! 

GRANDMASTER 

TIM MCCARTHY 



is a martial arts 

educator with a 

master’s degree in 

education. He has 

been instrumental 

in developing two 

industry-changing 

programs, plus 

has directed and 

been featured in 

hundreds of martial 

arts videos and 

webinars. 

➽Really? How? 

One of the staples of martial arts marketing is that the 

martial arts develop confidence in children, teens, and 

adults. We put it in the ads we use, and if we are smart, we 

put it in most of our sales presentations. But exactly how 

do we do it? 

One of the basic ways we develop confidence is through 

the belt ranking system, especially for children. Every few 

months they have a little sign around their waist that says, 

“I’m better than I was.” That simple explanation during a 

sales presentation for a child will usually be enough for the 

average parent. However, I want to dive a little deeper into 

how we can incorporate confidence in most, if not all, of 

our classes. 

Where Does Confidence Come From? 

Confidence comes from empowerment. There are two 

basic personality types: victims and victors. In psychological 

terms, victims have an external locus of control. They 

don’t believe they have control of their lives, but someone 

or something else does. They blame their parents, a 

divorce, their coaches, the President, the top 1%, or anyone 

but themselves for the things that have gone wrong in 

their lives. They believe they are helpless. 

Victors have an internal locus of control. They accept 

the responsibility for their own actions and consequences. 

They know that their future depends on their present 

actions, so they act in a way that will bring about their 

desired results. We need to develop that internal locus of 

control in our students. 

Most of your child students and many of the adults 

will not come to you with a feeling of empowerment. For 

whatever reason, they’ve given up control to someone 

else and not themselves for the things they need. Now, 

I’m not advocating that six year olds get a job to pay their 

fair share of the mortgage and grocery bills. They can still 

depend on their parents for those things. I am advocating 

that they start taking responsibility for some of the things 

they can do to contribute, like keeping their rooms clean, 

helping with the dishes, or other chores around the house. 

People only appreciate the things they earn. A teenager 

who is given a brand-new Mercedes-Benz for her 16th 

birthday will probably not appreciate it as much as the 

teen who mowed lawns for two years to earn enough to 

buy a used Honda Civic. If you want your children to grow 

up with a feeling of entitlement, give them everything 

they want with no sense of earning it. If you want them 

to grow up with confidence, teach them how to earn what 

they want. 

So, in our martial arts classes, we need to help empower 

our students by helping them earn confidence through 

achievement. Your curriculum should be designed to present 

a series of challenges that are difficult but achievable 

by your students. A white belt isn’t expected to pass the 

black belt test. However, with training, the white belt can 

pass the yellow belt test, and that accomplishment can 

help him feel empowered. Step by step, test by test, his 

confidence will grow. But there are other things you can do 

on a daily basis. 

During the action part of class, every so often ask a 

question like, “Who’s responsible for your future?” (“I am, 

Sir!”) Later, “Who’s responsible for your happiness?” (I 

am, Sir!”). Then, during “mat chats” or meditation at the 

end of class, discuss taking responsibility for your life and 

explain why and how to become responsible for your future 

happiness with specific examples. Use the Citizenship 

Rewards Program for children (from AMS) to encourage 

taking responsibility at home. 

During belt tests, ask questions like, “Johnny, who 

cleans up your room?” “Mary, if you want a promotion 

at work, what should you do?” When students 

know you will be asking a set series of questions like 

these, they’ll rehearse the answers, internalize them, 

and even make sure they can tell the truth (by cleaning 

their room regularly). If you tell your students 

and prospective students that your classes develop 

confidence, then you must understand how confidence 

is developed and include exercises and activities every 

day in your curriculum. 

I have pointed you in a few directions here, but if you 

are the kind of person who takes responsibility for your 

classes and the outcomes your students will achieve, you’ll 

think of many more ways to help your students become 

empowered and confident in themselves. 


Photograph by ra2studio

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Tools & Tactics 

The Elements of a Business Plan 

MS. LEE PEELE 

is a martial 

arts business 

development 

consultant with 

a background in 

online and social 

media marketing. 

➽Whether you’re creating a general plan 

for your entire school, or a smaller plan for a 

specific project you’d like to operate at your 

school, a business plan will help you take action 

the right way. Here are the basic elements 

of a business plan that will get you started: 

Executive summary: Have you ever been asked, 

“So, what do you do?” and struggled for a brief answer 

that truly explains what running a martial arts school is 

all about? An executive summary is a brief description 

(no more than one page) that summarizes your entire 

business plan. It’s intended to be a nontechnical summary 

of your business. Think of it as the Cliff’s Notes to 

your business. 

Product or service: What makes you unique? This 

is where you highlight what makes your school stand out 

from all the other martial arts schools in your area. 

Management team: TV’s “A-Team” had just the right 

personnel to always get the job done. Your management 

team should do the same. This is where you’re going to 

explain the skills that your team brings to the table and 

how their credentials make them the right personnel to 

implement your plans. 

The market and competition: In any contest you 

want to win, you must size up your competition. This is 

where you’re going to research the martial arts market in 

your area and identify your biggest competitors. Thinking 

outside the box is crucial: your competition includes 

fitness gyms and childcare centers as well as other martial 

arts schools. 

Marketing and sales: If a tree falls in the forest… 

Marketing is what lets people know how great your school 

is. This is where you spell out your strategy. 

Business system and organization: This is your 

flowchart of leadership. It’s important that you have a 

clear chain of command in place for your school. This is a 

good place to get it sorted out. 

Implementation schedule: Take action! This is 

where you describe when you’re going to roll out the different 

elements of your business. 

Opportunities and risk: Here’s where you list your 

pros and cons. What areas are great opportunities to make 

money and where do you see your biggest risks? 

Financial planning and financing: Saving the best 

for last. It’s critical that you determine how much things 

will cost and where you plan to get the funds. 

If you need assistance creating a business plan for your 

school, give me a call. My colleagues at AMS and I can 

point you toward some great marketing products to help 

you make the most out of your advertising efforts. To get 

in touch with me and AMS’ other trusted consultants, 

give us a call at 1-800-275-1600. 


Photograph by ronstik

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Visit: MartialArtsWorldNews.com or Call Jeff @ 407-895-1996

Martial Arts Philosophy 

There is Meaning to Rank in 

the Martial Arts, Part 1 

SENSEI 

GARY LEE, 

the American 

Samurai, is a 9th 

Dan black belt, 

a USA Karate 

Federation gold 

medalist, winner 

of five Super 

Grand National 

Titles, a featured 

actor in the movie 

Sidekicks, and 

is the founder of 

the National Sport 

Karate Museum. 

➽I don’t understand why someone would fake 

their history and rank in the martial arts. It is 

their lineage, the lessons received and learned. 

I made Black Belt at 14 years old in Hawaii in 

1969 after studying for eight years. I failed my 

first black belt test because I had an attitude 

problem. I retested six months later, passed, 

and was given a one-way ticket to the mainland. 

I was adopted by a great family and then 

went back to Hawaii two years later in 1982 to 

test for Nidan. I passed and came back to the 

mainland. I waited ten years and John Townsley 

set up my third dan test. I got knocked out, 

had to retest in Chicago at the LAMA Nationals, 

and was passed. I was blessed to have 

Jack Farr’s, Rick Fowler’s, Dan Anderson’s, and 

Mako’s signed endorsement. 

In 1987, I tested for fourth dan and passed the first time. 

In 1995, I tested for Godan, fifth dan, and passed. 

In 1999 the First Living Legends in Houston promoted 

me to sixth dan through the Texas Legends. These 

included Jim Tony, Ed Daniel, Fred Wren, Matsbushi 

Ward, Linda Denley, Ishmael Rolbes, Stacy Mejia, Tim 

Kirby, Dan Anderson and Jim Harrison. In 2002, I went 

back to Hawaii and received professorship and Judan from 

40 grandmasters including Ming Lum, Seng Au, Harry 

Young, Joesph St. Ives, Professor Dann Baker, Dr.Maung 

Gyi, Tony Tourshe, Kenn Firestone, and Jack Wheat. 

In 2004, I was promoted to seventh dan, cross-ranked 

with Jim Harrison, John Chung, Bernard Bravermman, 

Kyoshi Matsbushi Ward, Dr. Maung Gyi, Dr. Patrick 

Price, Pat Burleson, James Stevens, Daryl Stewart, and 

George Minshew. 

In 2005, at Arnold’s Banquet, I was promoted to ninth 

Kyoshi, cross-ranked with Michael Depasquale Sr., Jim 

Harrison, Tokey Hill, Steve Sanders, Wesley Snipes, Ken 

Knudsen, Dennis Wilson, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, 

Chuck Vito, Bill Wallace, and Michael Depasquale Jr. 

In 2008, Hanshi Sid Campbell, Sifu Mark Gerry, Hanshi 

Dan Tosh, Eric Lee, and Sifu Jimmy Willis awarded my 

professorship in the World Martial Art Masters Association. 

Sam Lonewolf, pioneer of Hawaiian Kenpo, awarded 

me another professorship and Judan in Hawaiian Kosho 

ryu Kenpo Ju-jitsu Karate. 

In 2010, I was inducted into the Masters Hall of Fame as 

a founder because of my work on the Museum of Sport Karate. 

Hanshi Patrick McCarthy and the International Ryuku 

Karatejutsu Reseach Society inducted me to the Honor Roll 

Hall of Fame for my work in collecting, interpreting, and 

attempting to present the history of Sport Martial Arts. 

With all that being said, not every journey is planned, 

and the ones that are not are the adventures that often 

teach us what we most need to learn. Rank hadn’t been 

important to me. Making rank became important to me 

as I began to understand that it’s about honor and respect 

and the Ohana learned along the way. Those who have 

signed my certificates have each been some sort of teacher 

to me, either personally or through their achievements in 

the arts. My rank honors them and their hard work and 

willingness to teach those of us who wish to learn. 


Photograph by robertcicchetti

Thoughts ‘n Things 

Reflections, Gratitude, Goal 

Setting, and Legacy 

Grandmaster 

Joe Corley is a 


belt, a Black Belt 

Magazine and 

Taekwondo Hall 

of Famer, former 

top 10 national 

point fighter who 

retired as Number 

1 Middleweight 

Contender in 

PKA Kickboxing, 

founder of the 

Battle of Atlanta 

World Karate 

Championships, 

executive producer 

for PKA televised 

fights on NBC, CBS, 

ESPN, SHOWTIME, 

USA Network, was 

Official Karate’s 

Man of the Decade, 

and recipient of the 

Joe Lewis Eternal 

Warrior award. 

➽As I was running today, I was thinking about 

the new edition of the Who’s Who in Martial 

Arts: Masters and Pioneers, produced by my 

friend, Jessie Bowen. It has a great backstory 

and can be appreciated by—and instructive 

for—all of us in the martial arts. 

In my own backstory, on my 

first trip to fight in Madison 

Square Garden in 1968, Chuck 

Norris had invited me to California 

to train. When I finally made 

it out there in 1972, that experience 

changed the trajectory of 

my competition career and the 

direction of my professional 

life. Jumping forward to 2020, 

I had the pleasure of collaborating 

with Jessie Bowen and 

Reggie Cochran on the concepts 

of the book’s historic, inspirational 

cover, as well as writing 

the forward and stories on Chuck 

with Jeff Smith, Chuck’s beautiful wife Gena, brother 

Aaron, president of his United Fighting Arts Federation 

Ken Gallacher, and his business partner Reggie Cochran 

around the subtitle of “GIVING BACK for a LIFETIME.” 

Readers around the world will see how giving and generous 

Chuck Norris has been to others all of his life, and now 

how generous he, Gena, and his UFAF organization are to 

his lifelong project, Kickstart Kids, which has impacted 

110,000 kids in Texas since Chuck kicked it off years ago. 

Our lifetime friend Jeff Smith had been involved with the 

initial startup with Chuck and President George HW Bush 

in Texas (originally called Kick Drugs Out of America). 

Grandmaster Jessie Bowen’s story has been a great one, 

and now, four decades later, he’s on a roll to making 

some significant donations to Chuck’s efforts over this 

next year. This first offering of my column centers on 

the power of the mind of Jessie Bowen and how a central 

thought can lead to ends not even contemplated… 

As a young man he had been bullied, and as an early 

20-something, he found himself in his small North 

Carolina hometown of Pantego. As he was exiting a 

You, too, could be honored at the next AMAA Awards. 

convenience store, passing the magazine stand, he saw a 

Black Belt Magazine on the shelf. He reflexively reached 

for it and opened to a Century Martial Arts ad with Chuck 

Norris standing with a trophy, and said to himself, “I want 

to have one of those, and I want to be like him.” And here 

we are four decades later. GM Bowen has the pleasure and 

privilege of putting Chuck Norris 

on the cover of his Who’s Who in 

the Martial Arts 2020 edition and 

producing a professional video 

dedicating the work to Grandmaster 

Norris, making it available 

to martial arts people all over the 

world. One of my favorite books 

over these past few years has been 

called Godwinks: When God Winks 

at You, and it just turned out that, 

as I was writing these words today, 

Jessie Bowen called me to tell me 

that he is doing a third update of 

the edit after the first of 2021. It occurred 

to me that all of MAWN’s subscribers 

may want to—like Jeff, and me, and Don Wilson, 

and Mike Stone, and so many others wanted to—be in this 

historic edition with Chuck on the cover, a true 500-page 

coffee table martial arts legacy book. 

And so, any of you who’d like to be involved in this 

third edition that can connect with the title of this column 

(Reflections, Gratitude, Goal Setting, and Legacy), email 

GM Jessie Bowen at AMAAWHOsWho@gmail.com. As 

for me, I look forward to your thoughts and reactions to 

this opening column. 

Reflections: Think back on your martial arts story 

and write it down. 

Gratitude: Include the people you are grateful to for 

helping you become the person you are. 

Goal Setting: Include goals you have set and reached, 

and goals you have set for the future. 

Legacy: Think of what you see as your future legacy 

and determine if part of that legacy is to be featured with 

Chuck Norris in this Masters and Pioneers edition of 

Who’s Who in the Martial Arts 2020, and added to the 

Chuck Norris Legacy Video receiving your award. 


TOOL 

OF THE MONTH 

Attract Students BACK to Your School 

with the COVID-19 Safety Toolkit! 

Since you own a martial arts school, you believe that 

what you have to offer to your community is of great value— 

or at least you should. If you have an amazing program 

that changes people’s lives for the better, wouldn’t you do 

everything you need to protect it? Don’t let COVID-19 steal 

it from you! Your business is on the line, so demonstrate that 

indomitable spirit we try instilling in our students. 

If your school is suffering from a hemorrhage of students, 

why not try to clearly communicate the safety measures 

your school is undertaking? 

In the present circumstances, you need to convince your 

students and prospects that the martial arts are supremely 

beneficial to them and that they’ll be safe training in your 

school. Remind students and prospects that the martial 

arts strengthen the body, mind, and spirit so they see the 

tremendous value of what you do. 

If you’re looking to—or need to—improve your student 

retention and enrollment numbers, download the absolutely 

FREE COVID-19 Safety Toolkit from ATLAS. 

Just fill out the form at 

AtlasMartialArtsSoftware.com/Covid19 

and get started today!

Management Excellence 

Are You an Amateur or a Pro? 

CHIEF MASTER 

KIRK PELT 

is an 8th degree 


is the President 

of a multi-million 

dollar, multi-school 

organization, has 

a 30-year track 

record of success, 

and is currently 

on the leading 

edge of martial 

arts curriculum 

and business 

innovation. 

➽The difference between pros and amateurs 

is obvious: professionals get paid. Amateurs 

enjoy what they do, so they teach as a hobby. 

Pros have three things in common: 

1. They are greedy. 

2. They know their field. 

3. They love what they do. 

Pros are positively greedy, not negatively greedy. Greed 

makes them hungry . . . hungry for new knowledge and 

ideas to achieve their goals so that they never stop improving 

themselves to be more competitive. It motivates them 

to maximize their potential. 

Pros know their field. They invest time and energy for 

self-education to improve themselves in order to dominate 

their field, as that they know what to do and how to do it. In 

the martial arts business, pros have to know both instruction 

and business. Having a great deal of instructional knowledge 

is fine for an amateur, but a pro also has to become an expert 

in business in order to have a successful school. 

Pros love what they do. They have a passion for the 

martial arts, so they do their best to break their own 

limitations. They have no fear, no matter what obstacles 

are in front of them. Amateurs also love the martial arts, 

but they do not have the same level of commitment. When 

problems arise, an amateur can easily give up because 

there is less at stake. A pro has to be tough. He has to be 

able to face an economic crisis and overcome it to protect 

his school and his family. An amateur can move his hobby 

to his garage and still accomplish his goals. 

So, are you an amateur, or are you a pro? 

Have you made the commitment to open a professional 

martial arts school, or do you just teach as a hobby? 

I’m sure you’re an expert in instruction. You know 

your art and how to teach it. But are you also an expert in 

business? Have you made a commitment to your students 

and family to provide a successful school? 

If you’re hungry for new business knowledge; if you 

want to break your own limitations and continue to be 

competitive in any economic environment, then let me 

introduce you to some other professionals: the martial arts 

business experts at AMS. 

AMS was founded by martial arts professionals for 

martial arts professionals. They can help you with whatever 

you need. They gave me essential advice when I was an 

amateur trying to make the jump from a part-time hobby 

school to a full-time professional school. They gave me 

advice on how to break the $10,000 a month mark, and 

then the $20,000 a month mark. They gave me advice on 

opening branch schools. They still give me great advice 

today, helping me continue to break my own limitations 

and increase my knowledge. 


Illustration by Maria Vonotna

59 

A Touch of Zen 

ATouchofZen.com 

ADVERTISER INDEX 

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2, 38, Atlas Pro 

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99 

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LearnTheSword.com 

83 Action Mega Weekend 

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7, 21, Martial Arts World News 

91, 97 MartialArtsWorldNews.com 

17, 68, AMS Billing 

106 OurAMS.com 

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22 Black Belt Principles 

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77 Break Like a Champ 

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81 Budo International Magazine 

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73 Extraordinary Marketing 

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15 Karen Eden 

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93 Lee Milteer 

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25, 33 Stephen K. Hayes - To-Shin Do 

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19 Tom Patire 

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3 Vision 

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24 Warrior Defence Lab 

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32, 67 Grandmaster Y. K. Kim 

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64 Kick Start Kids 

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Business Buzz 

How to Plan for Success, Part 1 

Grandmaster 

Lawrence Arthur 

has been a martial 

artist, specializing 

in Karate, Kung Fu, 

Kenpo, Shotokan, 

and Goja Ryu, since 

1968. He owns 

40 Super Kick 

Karate locations 

and is founder 

of the American 

Freestyle Karate 

Association (AFKA). 

A world champion 

and hall of famer, 

Lawrence also 

runs the Black Belt 

Success Systems 

consulting firm, 

which trains martial 

arts instructors on 

proper business 

practices and is 

used by schools all 

over the country. 

➽Success isn’t something 

that just happens. It’s something 

that you make happen 

by carefully planning what 

you are going to do each and 

every day. Your daily goals 

start with a monthly plan of 

action that every staff member 

has a part in creating and 

is therefore keenly aware 

of, signs off on it, and takes 

responsibility for part of it. 

Since new enrollments are the 

lifeblood of any school, we start 

our plan with a projection of how 

many new enrollments we need 

this month. For the sake of easy 

numbers, let’s say it’s ten new memberships. 

The next number should 

be how many introductory lessons 

you will need to teach to enroll ten, based on your average 

closing ratio over the past two or three months. 

Let’s say your closing ratio is 50% so you need to give 

20 introductory lessons (or one per day) to enroll ten 

members. To give 20 intros, how many appointments do 

you need based on your show ratio? 

Again, let’s say it’s 50%; so, you need 40 appointments 

to give 20 intros and enroll ten members. 

Goals need to be broken down into smaller, shorterterm 

goals so you know if you are on track to hitting 

your end of the month goals. Break down your monthly 

goals into ten-day goals. Where do you want to be on 

the 10th, 20th, and 30th for appointments, intros, and 

enrollments? 

Marketing is the key to getting the number of appointments 

necessary to hit your goals. There are lots of different 

ways of getting those appointments and you need to 

identify which ones you are going to use this month. Start 

with internal marketing, which could include events that 

your staff put on such as birthday parties, camps, seminars, 

buddy days, special parties, or movie nights, referral 

programs, or a ton of other ideas that would encourage 

your students to bring their friends. Try to have at least 

three or four internal marketing events per month. External 

marketing also must be planned, and could include 

Facebook offers, website offers, or community events 

such as food drives, Breast Cancer Awareness, Wounded 

Warriors, or blood drives that you participate in or set 

up and offer a free trial program. Check with your local 

community calendar, Parks and Recreation department, 

and other groups such as churches to see what you can 

be involved in. Don’t give up just because someone said 

they’d need to get back with you about it. Be willing to let 

your persistence overcome their resistance. Follow up on 

potential events until you get a firm no. 

Enrolling students in your Leadership or Black Belt 

Club should be 50% of your new students within the first 

month of training. Be sure to let new students know that 

they will be evaluated after a couple of weeks to see if it 

makes sense for them to set their goal to become a Black 

Belt. Put all new students’ names on your list of potential 

upgrades and start your process of encouraging them 

with post cards and phone calls, and sponsoring them to 

participate in your Black Belt Club-only seminars and 

events so they can experience what it’s like to be part of 

the club. After two or three weeks of basic classes, set an 

appointment with the student and parents to go over a 

progress check and show them what it takes to make the 

commitment to become a black belt. Tell them they have 

what it takes and ask them to make the commitment and 

enroll. The upgrade price should be an enrollment fee of 

$300 to $500, and $50 to $100 additional per month with 

an optional paid-in-full price of 20% off. 


Illustration by rudall30

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Martial Arts World News Magazine - Volume 21 | Issue 1

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