For those of you who studied/taught martial arts "full time"..?

I taught full time most of the years between 1973 and late 1997. It was not until the last 3-4 years of that time that I began to make a living at teaching. I sacrificed for many years just to keep the dojo open and do what I love to do. As such my wife carried most of the bills for those years. I at times had jobs on the side to make ends meet. Being an instructor is harder to do financially now than it has ever been in the history of commercial martial arts schools in the U.S.A. What people may not know is that there are more martial arts schools opening now than ever before. but at the same time many are going out of business. Many McDojo open as intended Mcdojo just for making money. What is sad is many of the Mcdojo now started as legitimate dojo teaching realistic martial arts to mature adults. Because of the economy and competition, they slowly changed their way of operating. One friend I used to respect has gone from teaching a brutal effective art to running birthday parties on Saturdays for 5 year olds..... He is a good martial artist who is a legitimate master. Yet he surrounds himself now with parties and martial arts classes for tots that are not old enough to tie their own shoes.

Bottom line here is that I recommend that anyone wanting to become an instructor do it in a rec center, YMCA or other venue that will not strap them to a large overhead to keep classes open. Otherwise they will likely end up starving or running a Mcdojo for the money it brings. Teach for the love of the art, not for rewards of money. I have never met a person that allowed themselves to be seduced by or pressured by business to stay true to themselves and teach as they should.

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Note: these are the reasons why i closed my commercial dojo in late 1997 and now being retired teach only a few hand picked personal students. I'm about one month away from finishing construction of a small dojo in my back yard. Small, paid for, and all mine. Just the place to do serious training and teach only mature serious martial arts students.....

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I don't get payed for teaching. I teach part time, I train part time. MY Master does on the other-hand full time and so does his wife. I volunteer at their school because I owe them in a sense my good health. It is my way of paying back. In return I continue also to train for free.

Between the tow of them they make a living; a very modest living. From time to time the business has been through cycles where they have had to work either one of them or both full and part time at other jobs to keep a roof over their heads. I know very few rich martial arts instructors. Even some of the famous ones I know are only moderately well off. There are very few multimillionaires in the business. Those who make a lot of money are usually managing franchises or working in the movie industry. I know one who is not very "famous" doing stunt coordination in California he made six figures last year. He doesn't know when his next gig will be though.

I have been teaching since 1975 and full time since 1990. I am still trying to figure out how to pay the bills and do gardening for food and cut wood for my heating. I do have a business of producing instructional dvds on Tai-chi-Chuan and other martial arts but putting all things together, it still is not a profitable business.

I do it to keep up proper training. Much of the martial arts is diluted these days and so there is an obligation for anyone traditionally trained to maintain their art. That usually gets in the way of earning a living and that is why other teachers dilute their art, to get more students.

Another reason I do this full time is so that I can have people to practice with. I don't want my own skills to deteriorate over the years.

I have not and do not teach as a career - in fact, I don't get paid at all.

But I have two current and many former instructors, and I can give you insight to most:

1) my first instructor's primary income was from two chung do kwan taekwondo schools he founded; between he and his wife, he was the primary breadwinner. his school was located in a wealthy neighborhood, and his rates then (30 years ago) are more than what average schools charge today ($130/mo back then, to $100/mo today - same area and style of martial art). I don't know what he charges today, although I do know he personally does not teach anymore.

2) my next instructor's income came from his sole taekwondo school, and his wife also worked (not sure where). I don't know how he managed to pay the bills, the school was in a very expensive business district and it seemed that his income and rent alone were a wash.

3) my next few instructors income were supplementary - each had a stable job unrelated to martial arts. Bills and rent came directly from student tuition, but it didn't seem that there was much profit.

4) my next instructor's income came from his wife and from the tkd school. He barely made ends meet, and occasionally borrowed money from students or made deals about them paying for a year or two in advance in exchange for a discount.

4) my next (and previous) instructor's primary income came from stipends he earned as a winning olympic coach in korea. he had money, but little came from the schools.

5) my current tkd instructor's income comes from the tkd school and his wife. I don't know how he pays the bills, nor do I know the rent. but he's not making much of a profit.

6) my current aikido instructor's income seems to come from his schools, seminars, and books. I am unaware of his financial affairs in detail, but it is likely it all comes from martial arts.

From my experience, most do not - and cannot - make a decent living in teaching martial arts. Very few can do it successfully and comfortably. All but 2 of my current and former TKD instructors had NO experience outside of martial arts, so they were forced to succeed or fail no matter how pittiful the income was.

Most MA instructors who try to make a living out of it fail because they have little or no business experience, little or no capital, no ability to borrow, and little other income.

Were I to give advice to would-be instructors, it would be this: do it only as a hobby.

EDIT:

Great advice from pugpaws. I wish I had the ability to build a dojang in my yard. Nice!

Others have said it better, but I'd like to offer my own opinion. It's a generalisation, and it's not entirely accurate, but this is what my sensei once told me:

Looking at historical Japan, the greatest swordsmen were never rich. They lived and died for the sword, not for the money they made. They earned enough to get by, and that was all they needed.

i ended up doing both teaching and working full time and it became too much for me, now i only teach part time.

teaching full time its hard to make money to pay all the bills. what you needs to be done in many cases is you need to host seminars and tournaments to bring in extra, nice size tournament can be very profitable.

but you cant just go out and host a tournament or seminar and invite a thousand schools thinking they will show up, you need to build up to this and that takes time. it doesn't matter who you have for the seminar either. my friend did one with a very famous martial artist but because he didn't have a following for seminars it cost him money in the end as only 15 people showed up out of 150 schools. and considering the person teaching the seminar was a famous author and martial artist it was very surprising that so few showed up

Hi there

For me teaching full time means one of two things and thats selling yourself out or baby sitting. Unless you are well known for whatever reason good or bad you wont pull in enough adults to pay the bills alone. The average adult that works full time or studies doesnt have the spare time left to commit to classes. Most adults prefer the gym or classes run at gyms because they can pop in and out to suit their busy time scheduals. Martial arts classes requires committment and thats where the problem lies for most adults. The poplularity contest of which art is in changes with the times. At present its MMA and BJJ. A few years back it was kick boxing. So unless your in the fad art gang you wont attract many adults either. The big market these days is children. I chringe when i say it but sadly thats where the money is. Lots of ledgit schools see childrens classes as a way to fund their own adults classes so that they can carry on with their own personal training. The best instructors dont want to teach the masses they just want a good group of guys that want to train for the right reasons. The way around it is to widen the services that you can provide.

Teaching more than one art, selling equipment online, having good facilities such as on site gym, learning alternative medicine that goes hand in hand with the arts such as shiatsu, anma, amatsu massage, running additional courses such as self defense and ladies self defense classes etc. You wont attract the masses unless youve famous for competitions or nortorious for something else. In the ideal world good instructors would have the most students but it doesnt work that way. Why is that? Its because they refuse to sell out the art that they love and have spent most of their lives training in.

The only time i would ever consider full time teaching would be to keep the wolf from the door!

I have two dan grades, trained in Japan, qualifications in amatsu medicine and could teach full time but i choose to do a 9 to 5 job because i dont want to turn something i love into something i would hate! Plus i dont want to walk around playing the big i am or suffer from big fish in little pond syndrome! Thats something else i cant stand!

The only honest way that i took a liking to was working for the police full time teaching training police officers but that paid far less than what i currently earn as an engineer. :(

Theres far more profitable ways of making a living! Keep your kicks and giggles to yourself :)

Best wishes

idai

it honestly depends on location, marketing strategies, popularity, etc.

Many places eschew substance for style and utilize contracts to bind students in for months and years. They make a lot of money by doing that.

A lot of other places settle for being "night jobs" where the full-time teacher works another job as his base occupation and either sinks money or barely supplements his income.

Even fewer places manage to utilize great marketing strategies while maintaining reputable status to balance income versus selling out.

I'm a full time instructor (lowly ranked as I may be). My teacher employed me to keep the Dojo running full time while he opens and runs his econd school part time while working his full-time job.

He's finally making a profit, especially as enrollment begins to rise the moment summer ends.

But it's not the same for everyone and expecting to pay your bills without expending a lot of time and effort is a bit naive.

I'm a college student living at home with my folks, what I make is equatable to working at Walmart part time, for now. I'll definitely have a chance to earn more as my ranks improve and I have a couple of certifications under my belt.

But for someone with no other skills, this is really all I have at the moment.