Touching a raw nerve
Published: Tue, 05/06/14
There was a post on the Primal Combatives group on Facebook
yesterday which got me thinking. Well, to be honest it touched a
bit of raw nerve. The post carried a link to an article exhorting
Martial Arts instructors to charge more for their teaching. You
can read it here
http://theselfdefenceexpert.com/martial-arts-cost-90-per-month/ it
is an interesting article. It struck a raw nerve because it is a
common problem for many, perhaps most instructors One of the main
reasons why Stav is taught in such few places, well as far as I
know, in Crewkerne and that is about it, is that even those who can
teach Stav cannot afford to pay for a hall which needs four regular
students to cover the cost but only one or two will turn up on any
one evening. Getting properly insured has an upfront cost of
around £370 rising to well over £400 if you are going
to get the equivalent of CRB checking and safeguarding training
needed if you are going to teach anyone under the age of 18. The
block student insurance is £120, instructor insurance will be
about £100 a year and £150 every three years for first
aid training. These are pretty much statuary requirements which
you would be irresponsible to teach without complying with. Then
there is the cost of training over the years to get to the level of
instructor, it will have been a pretty huge investment in time,
effort and money to get to the stage of being able to teach.
Okay, it isn't something you should do for the money and anyone
who teaches Martial Arts and thinks they are going to make anything
out of it needs to think of it more like being a novelist, yes,
there are the J K Rowlings and Clive Cusslers who have become
seriously rich from writing fiction but authors, even published
ones, are lucky to make £5k a year. So for every Geoff
Thompson there are hundreds of instructors who are just relieved
when enough students turn up to cover the cost of renting the
church or community hall that week.
Of course it isn't just money that students need to contribute,
there also needs to be a willingness to train enough to make some
progress. An instructor is looking to see his or her students get
the same benefit out of learning their art that they have gained.
That is the real reward they are looking for, but if the time and
effort students put in is sporadic then they will actually learn
very little. It is very tempting to put the difference between
achievement and lack of progress down to luck or natural talent.
There is always an element of these factors of course but they are
pretty much irrelevant without commitment and effort. It is in making
that example of commitment and effort that the instructor tries to
lead the way for his or her students.
The real danger for a teacher is in just deciding that the world
just doesn't want what you have to offer. People's lives
have so many contradictory demands on their time, energy and
resources that sometimes it seems unfair to create an extra one by
suggesting that they add Stav training (or any other training
system) into their already crowded lives. Maybe it is unfair, but
if no one strives to add value to their lives with new knowledge
and skills then there is no personal growth and society as a whole
eventually declines into ignorance and despair. So those who have
something to offer continue to do so.
So, even though it might put extra pressure on your life, I would
like to remind you that there is a day course on Saturday in
Crewkerne when we will look at training with the cudgel. More
details at http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html and if you are
within reach of Crewkerne foundation classes are on Tuesday
evenings.