Are you a Martial Arts Professional?

I feel that unfortunately – very few of those many thousands of martial artists who read this really think of themselves as professionals, even those who do rarely behave that way on a consistent basis.

Although there are a few “Professional Athletes' in our industry they are few and far between. Maybe some of the current fighters are able to make an adequate living using strictly their fighting skills – really thinks haven't changed much since 1980 when I changed my personal view of what professional would mean to me in Martial Arts.

A short story – 1980 and 1981 I was attending Georgetown University and working with Charlie Lee and John Chung – and, a big stable of “Professional” fighters. That stable was part of the Jhoon Rhee Institute and included my teacher, friend, mentor Jeff Smith who was the World Champion as well as Rodney Batiste (U.S. Champion,) Mike Coles (U.S. Champion) and, a bunch of up and comers (and, a few wannabe's)

We were in a unique situation of hosting ESPN televised fights about every other month sanctioned by Joe Corley's PKA and of having a student base of a couple of thousand eager students buying tickets to the fights held in one of Jhoon Rhee's schools (a monstrous 13,000 square foot school, boxing gym, kickboxing training center, and events center wrapped into one.)

I ended up in Washington , D.C. (actually I was living in Jeff Smith's condo across the street from the Pentagon in Crystal City, VA) to train to be a professional fighter and to get a degree in Economics on the way to an MBA.

During my time in Washington I learned some interesting (and, at the time disappointing lessons.)

The first lesson that I learned was the meaning of “Professional” as it applied to athletics. The training regime that was required of Jeff Smith and the other fighters in our stable was truly incredible compared to martial artists that were not professionals. Each of our world-class fighters had a huge regiment of road-work, weight training, time in the Boxing gym with trainer Jimmy Jones, and time in the kickboxing gym working on jump rope, shadow sparring, medicine ball, and bag work. This didn't include the many “rounds” of sparring the proceeded any significant fight. I was soon to discover that it was impossible for me to train as a “Professional fighter” – be a “A” student at a top 10 school like Georgetown , and to be a “Professional martial arts teacher.”

The next difficult lesson that I learned – is that being a professional fighter is a difficult – dangerous – and, unlikely career. At the time Bill Wallace, Jeff Smith, Joe Lewis, Jean Yves-Theriault, and Don Wilson were at the top of their game. I was soon to realize that most “Professional” fighters were earning $100 to $200 per round – and, even the World Champions were unable to make much of a living through fighting alone. Most supplemented their income either through seminars or, by “Professionally” running martial arts schools.

In watching and learning from Jeff Smith – I quickly figured out that he and Jhoon Rhee, and Nick Cokinos were driving nice cars, living in beautiful homes, and generally enjoying an excellent life-style from running martial arts schools. Jeff was carefully to keep his fighting from interfering with his real career of running profitable martial arts schools. I learned in 1980 that a career as a professional martial arts teacher was much more likely than a career as a professional fighter. And, frankly much more lucrative.

Having learned that “Professionalism” was in the preparation and training – not just in the execution. I quickly shifted attention and decided to be a Professional in every way in my career from that day forward.

I decided to move to Denver to open professional martial arts schools. I began training to be a professional school owner. That meant studying everything available about running a professional business and school. For two year's I studied with Jeff Smith, Nick Cokinos, Jhoon Rhee, Ned Muffley and others about how to really run a profitable school.

Next, I “camped out” at the Library of Congress and read everything I could get my hands on about advertising, direct marketing, and sales – as well as general business operations. Then, I learned that the FTC was having hearings on Health Spas – so I spent several months going through the millions of pages of documents on file – and, read the sales manuals, sales manager's manuals, and club operations manuals for every major health club in the country.

For good measure I took every class offered by the Small Business Administration and by SCORE on business operations. Finally, I spent 9 months working with a start-up school to learn the in's and outs of how to start a new school effectively.

Finally, after all that I put together a 200 page business plan and moved to Denver and opened 5 schools in 18 months with $10,000 in capital. In the past 20 years – I have earned a Master's in Business, read 20 to 30 books (sometimes more) on some aspect of running a professional school (ie. Education, sales, marketing, management, etc) per year, often spend $50,000 or more a year training myself and my staff – and, continue to study the best schools in the country – and, model similar businesses in other fields.

My question is this. Do YOU train yourself as a professional as a school operator? If not, why not?