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Old 7 Apr 11, 09:38 PM  
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DisneyBlonde
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Hi,

I feel like in doing a virtual eavesdrop here but it was fascinating reading about setting up a business.

When I was married before we both did martial arts and set up our own club, ok it was on a much smaller scale than what you guys are talking here, but i can fully appreciate what you are saying.

We belonged to an organisation to Choi Kwang Do and it was set up by a Tae Kwon Do master in the Korean army who developed his own style. He had moved to Atlanta to get medical treatment and loved the USA so much he stayed there and developed his own martial art style. He had established clubs in various parts of the world and we came across it in London. Husband had done TKD for 20 years, I had done it for 7 and we left to train in CKD.

We were able to fast track through the training and gradings because of our experience and after a few years we set up our own club in Birmingham. After a while, the plan was to have classes every day and nights and make it our business. We were both in well paid jobs and it was going to be a huge change and risk for us. There was no help as such from the CKD organisation, apart from cost price equipment and suits, so it would have come down to us completely.

We looked at business loans, hiring vs purchasing premises, marketing and sales etc and were all set to go for it. We were going to start with one of us still working (me) and him doing the clubs and then me joining the business full time.

Problem was we split up!

We carried on the classes we had set up as we had a responsibility to the students but it just became completely impractical so in the end I left. He carried on doing the 3 nights a week but eventually moved away.

The worst of it was, the organisation had a training and demonstration seminar in London and the main man came over which was such a privilege. After the seminar he came up to me and asked for a meeting, which frightened the life out of me as I thought I'd done something wrong!

Turned out, he was looking for a woman to go out to America to start clubs in various places, get them established and train experienced students, hand the club over and then move on to the next place to start another club. He wanted to promote the style as self defence rather than a martial art and wanted a woman to head it up.

Cool, I was so up for that. The Board of Directors of the CKD organisation had to sign off on it as it was quite a radical plan - guess the one who wouldn't sign? Yep, hubby. So that never happened.

I always regreted not being able to set up a business doing something I loved and wonder what would have happened if we hadn't have split up. If you think it is something you can do I think you should, but it is a huge commitment. Apart from the financial side there is the sales and marketing which makes or breaks it.

We had no experience of doing anything like being instructors, so we started doing a couple of classes in the week evenings. We hired a local church hall, borrowed equipment where we could and when we had experience we bought our own.

If Alex has no experience of being a PT then this might be a route to go. Are there any gyms nearby that would take him as a consultant? He could get some experience under his belt and then go it alone. If you could hire a hall of some type and advertise a group personal training session (ok, that sounds like a double negative but I'm sure you know what I mean!) it would give some experience too, and you could see what the take up is like.

That might lead to people wanting individual session which you could then do if you can hire a hall. We went from 2 sessions a week to 2 sessions every night (Mon-Thur) and also an extra kids Saturday session and advanced black belts session on a Sunday. The weekly sessions were a mix of a kids session, beginners sessions and advanced sessions and general training for all abilities. We had people in the beginners session come for the general training, and the advanced students too. They all trained together which was brilliant for the beginners and gave the advanced students a sense of achievement to help the others.

We also ended up doing extra 1-2-1 sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. This was whilst we were both still working! The next step was weekday classes for kids, shift workers, Mom's etc and unfortunately that was the step we didn't take.

Whatever you decide to do i really wish you all the best with it x
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Edited at 09:45 PM.
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