Old School vs. Customer Service

 

"You're lucky I even accepted you as a student."

"We guarantee your child will be a black belt in seven months!"

"Aw, are your feelings hurt? I don't get paid enough to talk to people like I'm a Smurf on weed. Get over it."

"Our instructors are all 10th degree black belts and they are happy to give your preschool child private lessons so you can have bragging rights over those parents who don't care about their children's future."

Obviously these are two extremes. And some of you are laughing.

Instructors walk a constant balance. We deal with people whose expectations don't match the reality of what it takes to build a good, solid foundation in a martial art.  No matter how hard we try to be clear in our communication, sometimes folks just don't understand even simple concepts like, "Our policy is instructors invite students to test for their next rank."

Big retail stores can afford to say, "The customer is always right." But quite a few martial arts schools operate on a wing and a prayer.  Not to mention...

We're teaching people some pretty dangerous stuff. We're also teaching discipline and respect.

In the martial arts world, the customer isn't always right. They can't always be right otherwise total chaos would characterize each class, more injuries would happen, and a black belt (or equivalent) wouldn't mean squat.