August 6, 2009
Self Defense-Getting People Through the Door
During our annual training camp, I took the first part of training to become certified in teaching self defense classes. We wasted no time scheduling a couple free sessions at the dojo. I used my email address book and mass mailed to everyone I knew. I posted about it on Facebook for the local people and pretty much everyone who goes to the dojo printed out fliers and hung them up at work.
Last week we had four people show up (one under duress as her black belt parents made her come). This week, we had two people show up.
The head of the program was at a conference this week, so it was up to me and two other black belts to teach it. Through a series of emails and craziness, it was determined that I should take the lead and teach it. It felt like the first time for anything. I was a little nervous and felt kind of stupid and awkward, but I made sure to hand it off to the other black belts plenty and that took some of the pressure off of me.
When all was said and done, we had one married couple that was feeling pretty empowered and thanking all of us for our time and asking if they could come back and do another session. Last week, many of the women there seemed unsure of themselves and you could tell they felt awkward when asked to yell in another person's face and put hands on them. This week, you could just see the one woman in attendance gaining confidence. It was exciting to watch.
We have another free session on Saturday and then it's time to regroup and figure out when the best time is to offer classes, how often we should do it, and how to get more people in the door! I spent time contacting the local newspaper, local TV stations, women's groups, etc. and our attendance was still minimal.
So without spending big bucks on advertising, how can we get more people in the door? Why aren't they coming? Are they afraid? Too intimidated? Not thinking anything will ever happen to them? A combination of everything? If you've taught self defense classes, what have you done to get people in the door?
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BBM,
I’ve had a lot of experience with conducting and promoting WSD classes, and can tell you that invariably, they come down to this ratio:
If 40 people sign up, 20 people will show up. And they are probably not the ones that needed to be there.
The best way to increase that ratio is to charge a small amount to ensure commitment. It may not increase your attendance, but the ratio. In other words, if it’s free more may sign up, but less show. On the other hand, if you charge, a smaller amount may sign up, but a higher percentage show.
I had a problem with charging for a long time, because I saw WSD as a mission and not a business promotion, but got over that by including a free Kubotan as part of the charge.
I have more advice on this, but will post at TDA Training.
Thank you-all good thoughts. Ill be over to read more.
There are an infinite number of reasons as to why women don’t attend. I would say the biggest reasons are probably: 1) Women might be scared to do this alone, and since they can’t find anyone to go with them, they don’t show up. 2) Women might be intimidated going to a martial arts school. 3) The mentality of “if it’s free, there must be some catch” like a high pressure sales pitch to sign a 1 year training contract in order to be taught the “good stuff”. 4) If it’s free then the material being taught must not be very good. 5) The mindset of “I will never be attacked” or if attacked, the belief that they will naturally be able to handle whatever happens.
Nathan, I like your idea of charging a small amount and offering a free kubotan.
I’ve always had success by contacting local colleges or community groups and going on-site. They are looking for things to do and welcome inquiries. I always used to get a student or two that way.
One the same track – I used to enlist students help in running monthly karate demo’s again with the ultimate goal of signing up a few students.
Good luck.
Hmmm–the closest I’ve ever come to “teaching” a self-defense class has been to assist my teacher when he taught one recently.
But he’s been doing it for a long time now, so I’ll tell you a little bit about him.
When he got married, he’d just gotten his shodan in Japanese Goju Ryu, and his wife up and volunteered to be the local “Call Rape” director. In nothing flat, he found that he was teaching self-defense quite frequently. He’s taught it the local college level, via multiple classes and seminars for various women’s groups, even (if I’m not mistaken) conducted some training for various elements of the local police department in times past. He’s got a whole program put together, with Powerpoint and everything, he’s done years of research about crime, what crime levels are like, what sorts of things a person is most likely to encounter, etc.
Due to a degenerating lung condition (he’s got only about 29 percent lung capacity), he’s now a member of a local support group for such people. Not too long ago, they had a local police officer out to talk to them about self-defense and security, and apparently–at least according to my teacher–that individual had little or nothin’ “goin’ on,” as you might say. So he made arrangements to teach one, just to correct the other person’s errors, and I volunteered to assist (which largely meant having the techniques inflicted on me, of course).
Two things interested me: the first was the immediate improvement that some people had in their personal security just by being informed that certain things simply do not make sense. For example, I mentioned that in the course of my job (I deliver and install home medical equipment), I knock on a lot of doors, and that an amazing amount of the time, not only are they unlocked, the poor, defenseless senior citizen on the other side will actually holler, “Come in!” without ever having seen me!
Boy howdy!
The other thing that interested me was how absolutely fascinated those oxygen patients were with what my teacher was doing. He’s a sixty-year-old oxygen patient. I am sure that I outweigh him by at least thirty pounds, and I am much, much stronger–but he has absolutely no trouble moving me around. It seemed to me that actually seeing a physically challenged person successfully perform the techniques on a much larger and stronger person gave them a good deal of confidence that they really could learn how to do that themselves.
So, to sum up, I’d say you might draw from my teacher’s experience and concentrate on making inroads via support groups for people who’ve already suffered a traumatic event, or for people who have reason to believe that they might be at risk, and to make a point of making it very clear that you aren’t teaching anything that requires great athleticism to be successful, that what you are teaching is material that anyone can do.
FWIW. Hope it’s helpful.
Very helpful. Thanks for the insight!
Im working on exactly that this weekend. Thanks for the advice!
How about this? While in disguise, start randomly beating people up in the street, so there becomes a palpable sense in the community that learning some self defense skills is in order!
Call your rape crisis centers and homeless shelters and women’s shelters. These are the people that REALLY need that training! Call churches and let them know to tell their elderly and women about your class.
And a BIG pat on the back for you! Good job!!!
My old TKD school was actually a university club. We had bad luck going public but good luck promoting it on campus and inviting public and the campus community. Check with the rec center at a local college and see if they might be interested. Just be careful because many univ. police departments run similar seminars for women.
I don’t know about charging but I do agree with Nathan. In fact, I’d say if 60 say they’re coming you’ll be lucky if you get 10 or 15. At least this was my experience with recruiting students to our annual TKD membership drive.
Why not post the flyer here and ask for feedback?
BBM,
I have been doing WSD classes for about 12 years. I did them pro bono for the first 10. One way I promote the class is with a “blog as website” presence. Here is my current space I refer people to.
http://ladiesnightouch.blogspot.com/
Some things that work for me…
Promote fun, empowering life change and developing relationships. Promote classes to existing groups of friends. When a woman epresses interest consider her circle of influence. I actually give the lady the challenge of putting a group together. They might say no to me but they are more likely to say yes to an ivitation to a friend. Friendship and community are an important part of SD.
Think PTA
I have been doing return gigs of “Mother daughter” classes in middle schools for years. 20 moms and 20 daughters in each class.
Think teams.
Cheerleading team, Dance schools, Corporate classes and fitness centers.
Thinks small group and private. A small group paying $50 per person can be as luretive as a big group payin $10 a piece.
Set a High price.
I charge I advertise $50.00 per person for a 3.5 hour class that includes padded assailent training. If someone balks at that I can offer them my “Corporate” rate of $30.00 per. Even if I charge $10 per and have 40 people thats still $400 for an afternoon what I would gladly do for free anyway.
I also offer “scholships” and advertise that no one is excluded due to inability to pay. I gve info as to how to contact me privately so any assitance is completely confidential.
You are a bit late to cath the back to school. Always promote to moms of graduating seniors, Varsity dance and cheer teams are heading off to collge and want the info.
One last thing keep in mind that an SD class is like going to the dentist. EVERYONE knows the should go BUT…
Give people an ADVENTURE! give them a right of passage. Give moms and daughters a shared life expeirience. Show them you know how to turn a kitten into a cat and a cat into a tiger.Have them walking through the door on the way out saying.. “OMG I can’t believe we did that! We KICKED ASS!!! I’ve gotta tell….
Thank you! Awesome info here! I really appreciate it!!!
My instructor recently held a self-defense seminar. He had people register as a pair. I think he charged $20 for the first person and the second person came “free” if they brought a canned good for a local food kitchen. This way, people already knew someone and had someone they’d be comfortable grappling with. And I think the canned good drive helped folks feel like they were also doing something good for their community as well as themselves.
A lot of mothers and daughters came, so did co-workers and neighbors. I second the suggestion about advertising through colleges and schools. What about a local girl’s team? Have you thought about contacting the high schools? Convince a coach to make it a mandatory-instead-of-practice one afternoon thing. And then distribute “We Came, We Saw, We Kicked B*tt” tee-shirts (or something else much more clever).
Churches and synagogues offer access to people who need your training. It is usually peanuts to advertise in the newsletter.
BBM-I know we talked about this on the phone the other day, but to be even more specific…don’t just call a college-call the sorority chapters there. Every sorority does personal development/character development sessions montly or quarterly-they would LOVe something like this. Let me know if you need help with this. Hope the weekend went okay.