Chapter 43 – The Curriculum
The first and most basic premise of business is to somehow differentiate yourself from the competition. This difference can manifest itself either in product or in customer service. In the martial art world, at the end of the day the way we differentiate our self is through our curriculum. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s the students at Dan Inosanto’s Filipino Kali Academy were on the combat cutting edge for those times. Indeed, I would put that school up against any other school in the world. The reason for this has to do with the title of this weeks column, Curriculum. Dan Inosanto was teaching the very curriculum that he and Bruce developed(Jeet Kune Do). It is important to note that the curriculum by which we are referring is in constant flux. This curriculum evolves with time. As a part of this evolutionary process, Inosanto decided to bring Chai to the Kali Academy and add Thai Boxing to our curriculum. For many years the Kali Academy was the epicenter for sparring in Southern California. We invited folks from every walk of life to come into the school, glove up and at the end of the day test their “curriculum” against ours. These were indeed very fun days ! Our school began getting a reputation and business was good($$).
This curriculum took another leap in the early 80’s as we were the very first school in America to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In those days it was unheard of to do seminars. If you owned a martial art school… and you invited another martial artist to come teach your students how to fight that would be akin to asking someone to fly in town and show you how to bang your wife properly. However, Dan Inosanto had another secret weapon that managed to sneak by their huge ego. The most unique and functional curriculum. Therefore in addition to having a successful school, everyone wanted Inosanto to come do a Seminar with them. Whoever was showing this unique curriculum had the students and had the Money. In the mid 80’s, after much discussion, Dan and I decided that the next logical way to spread this curriculum was in this unique medium called video. Subsequently I made the first Jeet Kune Do Instructional video set. And my career was launched… Not because I was some world champion fighter, or some super man, but simply I had a unique curriculum that people wanted. A few years later some top secret folks in our military got wind of this curriculum. I was then asked to move to Virginia and work with SEAL Team 6. The reason why things were so extraordinary…simply put, this curriculum could turn soldiers into fighters in a matter of days! It was not Paul Vunak that became famous, persay, but Bruce Lee’s curriculum taught by Paul Vunak.
The next evolution involved MMA and the integration of many of Bruce Lee’s and Dan Inosanto’s Techniques, performed out of MMA. Not only does this current contemporary curriculum contain Thai Boxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but also has Wing Chun, Savate, Kali, and Kinomutai. I currently have many government agencies, MMA fighters, and Jiu-Jitsu fighters alike, all very enthusiastically flying to my home every weekend and the top 30 of my instructors are all making 6 figures. I say this in a matter of fact way as a humble person, that is truly gracious that I’ve been given this curriculum. Our latest endeavor with our club, Descendants of the Masters is to help our members create a similar business. Clearly the most efficient/JKD way to go about this is to stream my class to all of our members. And as we do so, I do not dictate, but I can only recommend what to do with my knowledge. If in all of your respective schools, you are teaching your students with your existing curriculum, you will have no way to differentiate yourself from your competition. Please allow me to humbly recommend, that you all empty your cups, so you may taste my cup of Tea !
And try teaching the curriculum that I teach. I promise you by doing so, you will decrease the drop out rate of your schools by roughly 500% and increase the rate of Adults by 100%. Most schools get students, that’s not the problem, however keeping students that is the problem. Not only is this curriculum the best bate to attract all the fish you will ever need, it is done with a functional and fun training method that keeps ones students getting better and better !
Please check the Table of Contents for links to other chapters of this Online Book.
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