Self Defense-Getting People Through the Door

August 6, 2009 by Black Belt Mama · 16 Comments
Filed under: Tales from the dojo

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?