The Shintaro Higashi Show - Q&A with Shintaro - How to Reach Out and Retain Students

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

One of the key elements of the success of Shintaro's gyms, KBI and Kano in Manhattan, is his success in reaching out and retaining students. In this episode, he goes into detail about how he did it and offers advice to other dojos. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show. Today, Peter will not be joining us because he's doing a very important PhD situation, so it's just going to be me and you guys. What I want to talk about today is a question that I got from Chef Robson on my YouTube channel. It's about a month ago, sorry for the delay, but he had a very good question, so I'm going to go right into it and answer it. But before we do, if you're watching this video on my YouTube channel, this is a thing, a video from my podcast, right?

So me and Peter Yu, a buddy of mine, have been doing this Shintaro Higashi Show podcast for a little while now. So you can find it on Spotify, find it on Apple iTunes or whatever it is, everywhere and anywhere. So search Shintaro Higashi, you'll be able to find it, please subscribe to it. And if you haven't done so already, if you're watching this on YouTube, please subscribe to my channel. Uh, all that whole, the whole jazz, right? I don't really like to do the whole, you know, guys follow me and like, and subscribe, but I guess it's kind of necessary because people forget. Um, anyway, chef Robson, thank you for the question that you sent over. I'm just going to read that question first. I think it was in the episode about making in martial arts when you talked about dojo culture and how to create an atmosphere where everyone liked to train.

I want to get more adults into my judo club and don't know how to reach and retain them. Very, very good question. Thank you for the question. First and foremost, when you have a dojo, you have to have a website, right? And it has to rank high on Google because if you cannot get in front of the people who are seeking your product, then it's going to be very, very difficult

to be able to connect with them, right? If I'm searching judo in your neighborhood and you don't come up anywhere on Google and there's no way for me to find you, then it's going to be a problem. And that really is marketing 101, right? What is marketing 101? I have a product to sell. I need to get this product in front of the eyes of the people who want this product technically, right?

So you have to look at your website first and foremost and see if you rank high on the keywords that you want to achieve the results for in Google. If you have a judo club and if someone types in, let's just say you're from Salt Lake City and it's a Salt Lake City judo club and your dojo doesn't show up, that's going to be a problem. So you could either approach that in two ways. You could do search engine optimization, SEO, where you put those keywords sort of in your website and write blogs and do this and that and have the proper key term so Google sort of sends out their crawlers and see that, oh, this is judo relevant. And then now all of a sudden your website goes up in the rankings for that keyword specifically, or you could pay for AdWords, Google AdWords, right? And I think, you know, there's many, many ways to approach marketing like direct mail and Facebook ads, but I think Google really is the gold standard because anytime you're looking for anything,

right? You're going to Google first. You're not going to these other avenues. I took my kids to like a trampoline park situation and I was like, trampoline park near my house. And it's like, Google it. First result, you know, it's three miles away. Called them, phone, hello. Hey, are you guys open? Yes, we are. Done, right?

Something like that has to be similar. You have to be very visible. And I think Google is sort of the way to go, right? Something like that has to be similar. You have to be very visible. And I think Google is sort of the way to go, right? So now that you've sort of have that kind of, let's just say, ranking on Google, then you could sort of manage the different pipelines by saying like, how many people are coming to the site? How many people are reaching out? Now you're talking about conversions, right? If a hundred people come to your site and they say, nah, this club doesn't look like anything. And then they leave the website, that's called a bounce rate and if your bounce rate is really high you're

not going to be able to have these people calling in asking questions you won't be able to connect with them right so you have to sort of look at that i know this is a little complicated you don't have to do all these different things you could take different approaches but you need to know some of these metrics right in order to because you need to know where of these metrics, right? In order to, because you need to know where you are in order to manage yourself and, you know, go in the direction where you want to go. You have to have some of these ideas. You have to have some of these metrics, right? Like I said. So we have a very good optimized website. Maybe you're doing Google AdWords. Now you hear people are coming to the site. Now the conversion rate's pretty high. People are asking questions, sending emails and

making phone calls and stuff like that. I'll give you a tip. When someone calls in, your goal on that call is to get them through the door. That's first and foremost, right? Because it's like they have so many different things pulling at them to do, right? I'm interested in judo. And then you give kind of a yeah, yeah answer. And then, you know, I could go play soccer, go play basketball, take my kid to the park. I could go to the movies. There's just so many different other options. So you have to get them excited. Hey, what's going on? How are you? Why are you interested in judo, right? That's something that I always ask, right? Do you have any experience?

Oh yeah, I did a little jujitsu. I did karate growing up or no, I have no experience, whatever it is. All right. Well, you know, we offer a intro session. Why don't you come on in and try out a class? Oh, how much is the membership? And this is something that I like to do on the phone. I don't really like to just disclose pricing, right? Because people tend to shop around for price. Like, Hey, how much do you cost? Okay. Hey, how much do you cost? Okay. Hey, how much do you cost? Okay. And now all of a sudden they're shopping based on price. That's not what you're trying to get in the game to do, right? You're not trying to win someone over based on price. And you know, that can be an issue if that's your methodology, because it's like, hey, what is the other guy charging? $150? Oh, I'm going to charge 120 then. And then the other guy charging? $150? Oh, I'm going to charge $120 then.

And then the other guy charges $100. Now you charge $80. And now you're just racing to the bottom, right? Cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. No one makes money. That's not a good thing. That's not a good business model. It's not sustainable, right? What you want to do is compete on value. Come on in, check it out. You're going to love it, right? You want to go play soccer? Yeah, sure. You can go play soccer, but this place is even better because we have such a great community i maybe not say better but that's what you want to do you want to sort of compete on value look at this community everyone's like-minded individuals people like getting in shape you know whatever it is that you want we can do for you essentially right and it's true right And you have to kind of have a dojo that supports that, right?

And then when you have a dojo that support that, and then you're pitching that dojo and then showing them your value, right? Why this is a valuable product, then now all of a sudden, right? And then if all those things are aligned, then you're truly authentic and people could really pick up on that, right?

So that's what you want to do. Get him in the dojo first, right? That is the thing. And when they do, welcome them. All the spiel, right? Here's the locker room. Here's the dojo. Let's teach you something, right? And the most important thing I think for adults, right? Is figuring out why they're there first of all. You have to figure out why they're there, right? And then you have to sort of cater to that need, right? That means you have to differentiate your product to each and every individual. If someone doesn't care about self-defense, all they want to do is get in shape and you're teaching them technique after technique after technique and go like this, go like that, go like this, go like that, but they're not getting a workout in, then they're going to leave, right? Because it's not

going to be fulfilled. You know what I mean? If a guy comes in and says, all I care is about self-defense. I don't care judo, karate, jiu-jitsu. I don't care any of that stuff. I just want to be able to defend myself. Okay, great. This is judo and this is how you can defend yourself using judo, right? So now it's clear, right? These are the ways you can train to help yourself defend yourself, right? Using judo, right? If you make that guy do 100 uchikomis and 100 nagakomi and 100 breakfalls and 100 this and 100 that, and now you're just putting him through the grinder and making him work out really, really, really hard, but don't explain to him how this leads to his achievement

of his goals of self-defense, then that person's not going to be fulfilled, right? You never really gave him what he's trying to pay for. You understand? So you kind of have to understand why they're there in the first place and have a dojo that can support that differentiated structure. And that's sort of my method into sort of keeping them and gaining their interest. And like I said, you have to have a product that supports that. You have to have a service that supports that, right? Or you're just lying.

And, you know, you're kind of being, yeah, we do, you know, Krav Maga. Oh, yeah, yeah. Come try it out. It's the same thing. And then you put them in a gi and put them on the mat. And it's like, is this Krav Maga? It's like, yeah, it's Krav Maga. It's essentially the same product, you know? And that's a little bit, you know,

that's not, that's questionable, right? You're in the gray zone. I mean, you're not even in the gray zone. You're doing the wrong thing. You're straight up lying, right? You don't want to be that person. All right. So now you sort of ask them why they're there for in the first place. And now you're trying to teach them judo or cater sort of a differentiated service to what their needs are, right? Within the confines of what you're capable of doing, because you still have to cater to the group class, right? You can't just completely abandon the group and then just focus on this one individual. Maybe you can a little bit before they sign up or if they're doing a trial or whatever situation.

But yeah, you have to do it within those boundaries. And now you're showing them the judo and teaching them the thing. My personal advice is to not let them do Rondori. Okay, that's, you know, and everyone will get crazy about this. Like, how can you do judo without doing Rondori? That's crazy. Yes, it's crazy to you who has survivor bias. You've already done judo for a very long time. You're one of the fortunate people that stayed in the sport and love it.

And you've seen countless people come and go, right? You've seen judo. You've done judo. You're already in judo, and you've probably achieved some sort of a rank. So your opinions are already biased. Someone coming in for the brand new first time, never done it before, whatever their situation is, maybe two years of karate, maybe sitting on the couch his whole life, maybe he's an accountant that sits at a desk six, you know, eight, nine hours a day. He just wants to get in shape.

That person is not going to like getting slammed. Okay. And you don't know the psychological profile of some of these people yet because it's too brand new. So if a person has this psychological profile of like, oh, I'm a, I'm a big guy. I could fight people. You know, I'm a, you know, I could protect myself, defend myself. I got hands, you know, but based on nothing, based on no training, right?

That person has this ego, but he's really a small person on the inside. There's a lot of people like that. And you take that person, put him up against a smaller opponent who has a little bit of judo experience and that person beats him. Sometimes that person can't recover from that, right? And that person leaves. You don't know that, you know, that psychological profile of that person yet. So putting them in that Rondori setting is extremely dangerous, first of all, because maybe they can't handle it

mentally. Maybe they can't handle it emotionally. Maybe they're brittle. You don't know if this person had knee issues. You don't know what the abilities of them are, right? You don't know if this person had knee issues. You don't know what the abilities of them are, right? You don't know their physical after. You don't know anything yet, right? A lot of it is just data gathering, you know? And I kind of have a couple different things that I ask, couple different things that I look for. If I'm putting them through Kemi, I'm already looking to see if this person's capable of taking a fall, right? And as he can learn, it's a learnable skill and everyone should do break falls and this and that, but not everybody's ready for Rundori. And I'll tell you one of the best advices I've ever gotten from a very, very smart guy.

He was a manager of the US team, Chris Skelly. He has a dojo in New Jersey and he's an amazing guy. He's a smart businessman. He's got a laundromat business. He's just a great guy, amazing guy. He was a manager when I was on some of these Team USA tours and all this stuff. He said, if you want to run a successful adult program, don't let the adults do Rondori for six months, at least minimum. months, at least minimum, right? And I was blown away by that because I used to, in my dojo with my father running it back in the day, he would say, hey, this is how you do a break fall. This

is how you do a Sotogari. Okay, Rundori time. Go try it on that guy and do Rundori. And if you get slammed and you leave, my dad's like, ah, it was probably not for him, right? And that really was the consensus across the board every black belt every brown belt would slam some of these new guys you know of course being gentler right a little bit less yeah you're not like smashing them but like throwing them throwing them and like ah they learned how to break fall already let's you know i won't put them on his head but i'll put them down right and then you know nine times out of ten like they get the wind knocked out of them and they don't come back right it's like the worst thing on this planet you know don't ever do that you know and uh yeah it just doesn't

work and especially you know if you have a smart adult that comes in off the street and then they learn asodogari and now they're trying it and they're like, you just told me this thing is going to work. Why doesn't it work? And now you got to get into the explanation of, oh, he's a skilled athlete and you're not really skilled. He knows how to defend. It's like, okay, so what do I do when the person's defending? And there's so many ways that you can approach this what if he's defending question because there's many, many ways to defend an sotagari. A lot of times you don't even need to defend it because the person's not doing it properly, right?

Okay, so what am I doing wrong? And now you're kind of getting into this dissertation situation, which is always and always an avoid. You don't want to be too verbose when you're doing martial arts because when you're talking, you're not doing, right? So I always say, less talking, more judo. That's something that I always like to say in the club, right? Because sometimes people ask a question and now they're just two people standing there talking about the technique, not actually doing the technique. So that's something that I always avoid too. osorigari tries it on this person it doesn't work why would that person come back they won't okay let's look at the flip side of that person learns judo person learns osorigari first class in go do randori with that person they took osorigari on this person the person goes down

right and the person's a black belt now Now, most of the time, two things can happen. That white belt can think to himself, man, I'm a genius. I could already throw a black belt. Like I, why do I need this class for? I'm already good at what I'm doing. Like here, like I don't even need this. I'm, you know, like I've already just sort of

confirmed to myself that I could fight, right? Based on this one thing that I just did. Or you have a smarter person that says, this guy, this person just took a break for me. He just went down for me. Like, what is this? Like, am I like a kid? Like, is he just letting me do stuff now?

Like, what if the person doesn't want to get thrown then? Right? There's too many questions that you cannot directly answer when you throw somebody in the pit to do Rundori for the first time. Too many variables, too many questions, it just doesn't work. Plus, the risk of injury is crazy high. Risk of injury is crazy high, right? So it's like, if you throw them, you as an experienced person dealing with a brand new

person, if you throw them and you hurt them, that can happen. But if they try to throw you, they step a sort of guy and twist their own ankle or twist their own knee, right? That's also on you, right? The person get hurt, like he's not coming back. So Rundori is absolutely the worst thing you could do for retention for new members. The only way I would suggest like someone that can do Rondori, if they come in and they're kind of a new member, if they have other grappling experience, other experience, if they come in and they've done Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for six years,

you know, I want to try out a class. Sure. Because if you tell that person they can't do randori for six months they're not coming back i wrestled in college you know i'm a little bit out of shape i'm 30 now i had a baby you know uh i'm ready to come back into grappling sports like hey can you show me some moves and can i work out with you guys sure here's a sort of gary but you're not going to be able to do any randori for six months that person's out of here right so you kind of have the have the structure um and it's this it's slightly systemized and you know i've done it for long enough to where

i could just kind of like eyeball it and then kind of go into it but it is a skill that i do try to teach some of my staff sort of coming up through the ranks who you know want to sort of substitute or teach first you got to put them in the regular class and then see if they're capable of doing any of this stuff or not, right? And then you have to sort of make that judgment call. You have to ask them the questions and you have to gather as much data as possible, right? The information is really, really crucial here. I will, however, let them do a little nirwaza, right? And a lot of the times, it would be a very situational setting. For instance, we had two brand new white belts all the day on the mat, and it's like, hey, you know, and I told them specifically and explicitly,

live stand-up is probably the most fun and dynamic thing you've ever done. Like, it's just going to be amazing. It's just going to be crazy fun. Anytime you Google or YouTube judo highlights, all that spectacular stuff that you see people getting launched in there, like you're going to be able to do that in a live setting to somebody that doesn't want to get thrown. And that's like the most beautiful thing about judo, but not yet. You have to be able to do these techniques on a cooperating body first, before you could try it on someone that's resisting.? You have to be able to do these techniques on a cooperating body first, before you could try it on someone that's resisting. Now you have to be able to master the shapes

of the technique and master control of someone that's allowing you to throw them before you could throw someone resisting. And we'll get there. And it's the most fun thing you've ever done in your life. So look forward to it, right? And we start them off with that kind of a thing so now there's always something to look forward to hey if i get these techniques down hey if i

can do the breakfalls properly right and then there's sort of a segue uh progression for instance doing nagakomi and taking breakfalls on the crash mat and then we start with the low amplitude throws like ochigari or something like that first and then then little by little, we get them interested into wanting to do this Rondori situation, right? And I explain to them that. And then I say, but today we're going to do a little back attack situation where we're going to try to strangle each other, right? And it's going to be, we're going to start with the back attack with the seatbelt grip. And here's how you do a Hadaka Jimei. And here's how you do this thing. And here's how you do a hadaka jime and here's how you do uh this thing and here's how you defend it right and then you know they'll drill it person a doing the choke person b defending the choke right um if it's like a classic seatbelt setting it's like fighting

the hand off and looping it to the other side or uh seatbelt setting trying to bring your back to the floor um and the person behind obviously is trying to not let the other side or uh seat belt setting trying to bring your back to the floor um and the person behind obviously is trying to not let the other person do it trap an arm create a free arm have two versus one two hands versus one situation try to look for that strangle okay so i taught version a version b position a position b okay so at the end of the class now you're brand new you're going to do something it's going to be this amazing thing where you're going to actually try to strangle this person. Right? It's going to be great.

Here's how you tap. Tap the body, not the floor, because maybe they can't hear it. All right. Let's give it a shot. Okay. We're going to take the reverse of that. Have you ever had someone try to strangle you? It's a very interesting question, right?

It's like, yeah, yeah, you know, I have. It's like, really? By a skilled opponent? Right? No, we'll put you with this person who's going to go and they're going to apply the choke slowly. They're not going to crank on your neck because you don't want to apply too much pressure to the trachea, right? Because everyone has different levels of the threshold of pain, right? So, you know, i might put him through a drill like that and it's semi live it's semi live positional live right so now you're doing the waza the person is thinking oh i'm gonna strangle this person or i'm being strangled and they get that feel of real actual combat for the first time in their life most of the time right everyone's gonna tell you like oh

i got street fights a little kid yeah whatever this is their actual first time in their life most of the time, right? Everyone's going to tell you like, oh, I got street fights as a little kid. Yeah, whatever. This is their actual first time in any sort of conflict situation most of the time. I truly believe this, right? Because the people that are out there getting street fights and doing all this crazy stuff that they say that they're doing, you don't want those people in the dojo in the first place. They should not even ever make it onto the map because that person's going to be a liability for you. And so you almost have to sort of weed that out in the beginning. So now you have this experience that you're given to this person, right? That's a live situation that's going to help them. And now you have a lot of data based on how the person carries himself, conducts himself during that live Nwaza drill, right? So it's really a

great way to keep people interested, people really hooked, right? After that first session of like trying to choke someone, resisting the choke, and now we're going to do a little bit of conditioning. You know, usually for me, it's like one minute of burpees, one minute of pushups, one minute of something. So you could sort of see how hard they push themselves uh are they wheezing are they not wheezing are they in shape not in shape all these different things you could sort of assume from this one exercise at the very end right and now and you know the like i said the over under stuff with the pinning stuff and the choking that's relatively safe compared to a sort of guy where you're chopping at the knees. A lot of these guys will start chopping at the knees in the beginning.

So you have a low-impact, live, combative, non-cooperative sort of semi-rundori in a positional setting. And then you put a little bit of a working out afterwards, and now they're hooked. Now they're like, oh my god, if that's my first class, like what am I going to learn next? And then you could say things like, hey, next class we're going to do the same sort of drill with an armbar. You ever crank on someone's arm before, right? If you ever wanted to break someone's arm, like we're going to show you how to kind of do that, right? And show you how to defend it too, because you never know who's skilled, who's trained, you never know, right? So we're going to teach you that, you know, it's not really about hurting another person, armbar choke, but there's

sort of a gamification thing that makes it very interesting and fun. It's exciting. It'll help you get in shape. These are sort of the conversations that I like to have with my newcomers. Only when I feel good, though. A lot of the time, I don't feel like being bothered, like I'll pawn them off to someone else. But generally, this is sort of the way that I like to approach a lot of my intro sessions. Right? Some kind of a live that is not stand-up Rondori. Never, ever, ever let them do stand-up Rondori unless they're coming in with experience. And even then, you have to watch out for it.

Right? Because you have a Division I wrestler coming in, that person is going to be hard to throw, right? I'm going to say it. That Division I wrestler that has 10 years of grappling experience coming in is not a white belt. They're not truly a white belt, right? So you have to understand that.

And if you let that person just go in there and do live, they might throw a lot of people, right? So you kind of have to shield your club from that too if they're not used to the wrestling style um you also don't want newcomers hurting your main members so a lot of it is like managing that right making it interesting for everybody making it safe because if it's not safe, then no one's going to stick around for it, right? So that I think is sort of the key in the beginning of how to sort of win them over, right? And here's how, you know, this is why it's interesting. This is how it's interesting. What

are your goals? We're going to meet your goals, right? And that's sort of the value proposition that's going to keep everyone coming back. Now, once you have them coming, whatever your situation is, and this is going to be a very unpopular opinion, especially for the consumers of the service. But if you're running a club, you need to have a commitment system, right? You need to have a contract system because I'm committing to teaching you. You have to commit to me to keep coming back because if you're on a month-to-month situation, I teach you for a month and you're gone, that's lost opportunity. Like that's, you're taking time away from all the other students that could have learned from me, right? That's not fair to them.

So there's people in the room that are committed who are going to come, whether there's monthly fees or not, you know, monthly fees or annual dues or whatever it is that you set up in your dojo. There are people that are going to be there day in and day out, no matter what, on a weekly basis, monthly basis, annual basis, whatever, right? And if someone pops in for a month and you're like, oh, you know what? I like this guy. I'm going to teach this guy. And then teaching this person, because we all are human, we're all going to have biases, right? Maybe this person comes in, he's funny, right? I've had that before. Oh, this person's really funny. I like listening to his stories about work and he's an interesting guy. And, you know, let me just hear what he has to say. And now I find myself more drawn to this person. It's like, hey, let me show you more

stuff than usual, right? Let me show you, give you a little bit more attention, right? And I do that for a month. That takes away time from everyone else that's committed, right? Let me show you, give you a little bit more attention, right? And I do that for a month that takes away time from everyone else that's committed, right? And then that person leaves for whatever reason, because he's not bound to the club. He's not committed, right? Maybe he found something else. Maybe that's the type of person he is. I'm into chess this month. I'm going to take chess lessons now, or I'm going to be into rollerblading. Who freaking knows, right? So I think it's very important to have a commitment system and people are like, oh, contract this, contract that. But you know, it protects everybody, right? It really protects everyone because now all of a sudden you only have people in the room who are committed.

Committed people who are invested in the future of that club, right? That community in the club. Could you imagine you have a person who's sort of like a Ronin, right? Just goes around from dojo to dojo. He's not affiliated with anyone. And he's kind of this rebel. He's like a maverick. He's like a maverick judoka, right? He has no care in the world about this person getting injured or that person. That person's like, yo, I want to get better. I want to train. This place looks like a great place to train. There's a couple of people that can beat me. I want to make sure I beat them. And once I'm better than them, I'm out. So that person walks in, he's like, hey, what's your membership structure like? Do you offer a contract? Because I don't like getting locked in for nothing. I'm not sticking

around for six months, one year. I want a month to month situation. Or even worse, I want to do a drop in mat fee every single time I come in. And you're like, okay, yeah, sure. We'd love to have you. You have a great experience. How long have you been doing judo? It's like, oh, I've done judo for five years. Oh, okay. So now you meet the metric. You can just start doing Rundori right away. You know nothing about this person. You put him on the mat and now all of a sudden he's smoking people. People that would have stayed for the rest of the year two years uh all these people who would have kept paying who is bought into the service who care about the community who care about the club now those people at risk and this

person who's there for one month paying a one month due or paying a map fee for that day can potentially take that person out and out of commission, out of your club, man, that is a dangerous, dangerous game to play, right? Because that person's, you know, not selfish. I don't want to say selfish. You never know who you're going to get. And maybe you get people who are transitory, like, oh, I'm here in town for a couple of weeks. Great. Sure.

We'll roll out the red carpet for you, right? And it's sort of a case-by-case basis. But generally speaking, it's a tough thing to do, I think. And you really want to build your club around people who are committed, who are going to be there long-term. You don't want the people who are going to be there for a month, two months, and they're out. Because that's not going to be good for a month, two months, and they're out, right? Because that's not going to be good for the culture. It just never is, you know? And once you have a much bigger club, right, then you can sort of start making exceptions. And I truly believe this. When

our dojo adult program had close to 100 students, of course, we had about, you know, a good 20% of them were higher advanced athletes, right? You have brown and black belts, like maybe 20, 25 brown and black belts. Now, all of a sudden, you can have a guy coming in. It's like, hey, I'm only here for three weeks. I'm visiting from Brazil. We've had that before. I'm visiting from Brazil.

I'm a jujitsu, brown belt, judo, black belt. Can I train with you guys for a month? All right. I'm like, sure, because I know my guys can handle it. You know, I know my guys can handle it and it'll probably be good for them too, you know, but in the beginning, I'll keep a close eye on them and, you know, make sure that they don't hurt anybody or hurt themselves, right? A lot of the times you get an athlete that's coming to New York who's transitory, like they're not full-time training, you know, they're here on vacation, right? Maybe they used to train and maybe now they're trying to get back in shape.

Who knows? You never know the type of person, so you have to ask them explicitly, right? And having that communication skill to know where they're coming from, where they want to go, that really determines a lot of the decisions that I make, whether or not I let them just go out there and, you know, sign up for a short-term situation. Now, if you're listening to this podcast and if you want to visit me at my dojo, you can, 100%. You know, maybe not during corona times because it's kind of nuts right now with corona, but like once corona is resolved, you know, and if we have a dojo that's sort of pre-COVID level, like how it used to be, then yeah, if you're in New York, you walk into the dojo, you're polite, you listen to the dojo etiquette situation, you could follow those rules and guidelines. I would love for you to come on by and say, hey, how are you? And introduce yourself.

I listen to your podcast. May I train? I'm here in New York for X amount of days. Can I train Monday and Wednesday or whatever it is? And nine times out of 10, I'd be like, yes, God bless you. Of course you can. Right. So you have to sort of have a, you know, group of members because if it's just me, I don't know if I'd want to do that.

Right. I don't know if I'm capable of doing that if I'm trying to build a program. So you have to sort of know where you are in your club too. And right now it's like, I can't offer that kind of a service right now specifically because, you know, the Corona, we just max capacity situation. You know, you can't have too many people on the mat. The mats are already full, you know, and it's like, I have a bunch of new students. I have to kind of cater to them and then it might be a little bit difficult, but, It's like I have a bunch of new students. I have to kind of cater to them.

And then it might be a little bit difficult. But, you know, send me an email if you ever want to drop by KBI. You know, we used to take on, we used to, every practice we'd had probably like two or three people that were sort of visitors, right? And, you know, I have a nice little spiel that I give to them too when they're coming in. Kind of give you a guidebook. Like if you walk into the dojo and say, hey, I'm here for my free trial. I'm here for a free class. I'm just going to be like, nothing's free, man. Nothing's free. Well, why are you here for a free class? And I will have that conversation with you. It's like, did you not go to Starbucks and pay $6 for a latte today? Did you not go to SoulCycle last night and pay $45 for a drop-in class? Why would it be different here? I'm trying to pay rent. This is my livelihood.

This is my business too, because I have expenses. Overhead in New York City is crazy expensive. Why are you going to come here and try to take money out of my pocket? Everyone here is paying. Why are you so entitled? Because you have a black belt? There's black belts on the mat all the time. There's people that come in from all over the world who are champions that say hey centaur here this is the mat fee whatever it is i'm willing to pay and then if they do that i would be like no thank you you know you you got you are my guest right so that's first people come in here free this free that entitled attitude get the hell out right so don't do that if you're going to come visit my dojo. Yeah, man, I kind of started ranting a little bit here. Yeah, so come in,

be polite, explain your situation, you know, and then nine times out of 10, I will let you join the group. Man, I completely forgot my train of thought. I just kind of got emotional and angry about this stuff. And the dojo etiquette stuff, like I mentioned, if you haven't already listened to that episode, I follow, this is the guidelines that I follow. And I've been to dojos and I've offered always to pay the mat fee, right? Maybe I did a couple of times where I forgot, but I've always paid because we have to be united and keep the money in the sport. That's what we need to do, right? If we're spending money on certain services that have

nothing to do with judo, we should spend it on our own service and product to keep the money in, right? And then the more money is in the sport, then the more we can be generous with it later down the line. You know, it's a good example that I like to give is when you're on the airplane, it's like, hey, secure your oxygen mask first before you mess with your neighbor's oxygen mask because now the oxygen mask comes down and you're helping your neighbor, but then you pass out and now that person's also helpless. Now you have two helpless people suffering, right? I'll give you another example. I'm going to beat a dead horse here. Persons out there in the ocean drowning. You have no swimming experience, but you're like, I really want to help that person. You go out there, try to help them. And that person

wraps around on you because the person's drowning. Now you have two people drowning, right? That kind of people drowning, right? That kind of thing happens, right? So I know someone walks into the dojo, you want to give them whatever it is and cater to their need and let them do undori and all this stuff. But you can't provide that

unless you yourself are stable, right? Once the dojo's in a great place in terms of profit and loss, P&L, it's a healthy business as well as a dojo in a community, then people can come in and be like, you don't need to pay. Here's a freebie. And you can start giving out things and giving scholarships to kids who can't afford the program. And now you can sort of give back. And now only then and there can you be able to give back after you're first taken care of.

So the business is stable, right? You want a stable business. And the more the money is in that pool, the more you can do things that could give back to the community. For instance, here's another one. There's enough of a healthy profit to pay for a cleaning person. Now the dojo is always clean, right? And you can make an argument like, yeah, your students should be cleaning. And, you know,

I do a lot of cleaning. Every week on Monday when I walk into the dojo, the first thing I do is I clean the whole dojo. I do the mats. I spray it down. I do the vacuum cleaning. Now more than ever because of the corona, but I make sure the entire dojo is clean first. On Monday, that's sort of my ritual. The students do a cleanup job after the class, yes, but it's always not that good, right? Not to the standard of my own personal standard because, yes, it's theirs, but it's not really theirs, right? They've been assigned, hey, man, you're doing the mats or, hey, I'm volunteering to do the bathroom. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're having a conversation most of the time. They just had a judo. They're on a high. hey i'm volunteering to do the bathroom they're like yeah yeah yeah yeah they're having a conversation most of the time they just had a judo they're on a high uh where do you want to go eat dinner afterwards let's grab a beer that kind of thing a lot of it gets

overlooked but if there's a healthy profit at the dojo you could pay someone to clean and yes they can also the students can also still volunteer you can still clean but that extra added staff that is dedicated to cleaning will ensure that your dojo is spick and span and you could only do that if there is money in the business to be spent right so you know we as a judo organization kind of have to get away with like oh free this free that i'm a black belt and I should be able to train anywhere for free. No, the black belts on the other side has to say, you know what? I have a nine to five. I have a job. I'm spending money here, here, here. I should go to a dojo and support them, right? And it's got to go both ways, right? And I think a lot of this stuff, if you're clear with it, it's going to help you build

the adult program because when there is human capital sort of in the dojo, it builds on itself. I walk into the dojo, let's just say I'm going to join the dojo, right? Let's just say, for instance, like I leave New York. I will never leave New York. I'm a New Yorker for life. We start new somewhere fresh. I don't know, maybe on a beach or something.

I walk into a dojo for the first time. Hey, how's it going? You know, I'm looking for a dojo. I used to teach judo. I used to do a little judo, you know. But I really love judo. You know, I would love to join, find a club. You know, tell me about your club right

looking around uh the things i'm going to be looking for first is just type of people on the mat right people on the mat and do they look friendly how many are there am i going to get any attention from the instructor all these different questions are going to be coming up in my mind you know and if you want to grow's program, you have to sort of cater to that person that's coming in here. And then you have to figure out what they want. Hey, Shintaro, what are you interested in? Well, me, I'm looking to get in shape. I'm new on this island, so I want to make friends. Getting in shape, make friends and do judo because I really like judo, right? And now if that person could pitch me on why that dojo

has those things, I'm sold. And then I'm really like, how much does it cost, right? And then for me, I'm willing to pay for a thing that's going to benefit me. Gym memberships, I never worry about gym. I always pay a gym membership because that's something that I care about. There's things that I won't hesitate to pull the trigger on to buy. For instance, buying a book that I'm interested in. Not that I'll end up reading it, but if I'm interested in the cover and the title and I really want to learn this thing,

it's $18, I'll buy it. Like I said, I don't always read and finish the whole thing, but I will. And Judo is one of those things. And if you have a conversation with me about the price of the thing, you'll figure that out really quick. So, person pitching me, trying to get me

into this dungeon. Okay, so you want to get in shape, right? We have a great judo program. We do a little fitness thing afterwards. We always do a little conditioning. We have a nice stretching situation if you're into mobility, right? The person, you know, one of our black belts is a physical therapist. So he really focuses on the stuff. If you get banged up, he'll help you. He'll work on your mobility with you. We have like a little weights area section over there that you can use for free, right? Really catering to that fitness side, right? And you know what, Shintaro? Like if you want to make friends, this is a great place for you. Like, well, you know what? Let me introduce you to one of my black belt. Hey, Peter, come over here. Peter,

this is Shintaro. He's from New York. He's done a little bit of judo. He wants to join the club. And Peter's like, hey, how are you? Nice to meet you. You know, we'd love to have you, blah, blah, blah. Like, hey, I love your hair. Oh, thanks, man. Like, I really take care of it. You know, I shampooed it the other day.

Handshake. Like, all right, now I made a connection with this guy. It's like, hey, what about that guy over there? You know, he's having a nice, friendly conversation with somebody. Like, man, I'm really interested in what that person's talking about. Right? They're not dropping F-bombs. They're not pushing and shoving. It's not a goon fest. Okay. This is somewhere that I see myself being because the people here seem very friendly.

So now you got two out of the three, right? It's like, hey, do you do any judo in this dojo? It's like, yeah, we have a judo class. You want to take part? Right? Like, yeah, sure. Now I'm on the mat doing judo. You know what I mean? And then, you know, after the thing is done, it's like, hey, what is your membership structure like? You know, oh, it's a month-to-month situation. All right, you know, I'll give it a shot, you know. And now after a month, I could go to another dojo and repeat the same situation.

I could decide to take up knitting instead. You know, I could be gone. They want to, you want to lock me in, right? You want to lock me in. And you know, if they're, if it's a great place, I'm going to commit and you have to have that value, right? The value for me right now, coming into this club now, it's like a lot of good friendly people i can do judo i could get in shape like why wouldn't i commit to that you know why wouldn't i commit to that and i should if they're catering to me and if they're helping me reach my goals right i should they commit i commit you know so that's sort of my two cents on member retention and there's a couple different things uh keeping members engaged and all this stuff. That's another portion of it that's very important, another aspect of it, right?

practice and I miss another practice. And, you know, I don't know, maybe I had a bad oysters, I had a stomach ache or something. And then, you know, I don't know, who knows, right? I missed two practices. Now it's hard for me to go back to the third, you know, I gained five pounds, you know, I feel the jelly rolls coming onto my stomach and I'm a little bit embarrassed about it, you know. And then I tell myself, you know what, I'm going to get a couple of runs in this week. And once I lose the five pounds, I'll go back to judo. And before you know it, two weeks goes by. No one calls me. Time's ticking away.

Me not going. I'm still paying my dues because I'm on a commitment situation. And two months goes by, I pay two months worth of dues. And now I'm a little bit like, oh man, I wasted all this money. Should I ask for it back? It's a little bit awkward. No one reached out to me. No one likes me. And I've made this mistake many times before of not reaching out then and there and saying, hey man, we miss you at the club. What happened? Are you okay? We'd love to have you back. And I made this mistake many times over. Sometimes it's not intentional.

Sometimes just forget, right? Because you're running a dojo. You're doing this. You're doing that. You know, I'm podcasting, YouTubing. You know, I have a kid, right? All these different things. You can't keep track of everything and everything, right?

You just can't. But reaching out to members who haven't showed up to practice is a huge one. And it takes the instructor a lot of the time to just send one text like, hey, man, I'm still here for you if you want to get in shape. You know what I mean? And that one text can mean the world to someone. I've been consumer of certain services. For instance, I was really into ballet.

I don't know if you guys know this. I was into ballet for like a year and a half, you know, right before the kids born. And, you know, I got into it because like I had mobility issues and I was like really inflexible. And I was like, maybe ballet knows something that, you know, yoga and stretching don't know. So I went to try it and I ended up loving it. You know, I loved being in a classroom of 40, you know, beautiful, you know, women.

And, you know, I just really enjoyed it. You know, it was something I thought it was a little bit weird in the beginning and I was kind of hesitant, but it was like, I just walked by a dance studio. I was like, yo, let me, you know, I was looking through the window first and I was like, wow, that's a very good looking you know bunch of people who

are limber like i want to be in that room you know so you know i went in and i tried and i loved it and then i got like sucked in you know uh and i was doing a bunch of classes and stuff and then when i stopped showing up at some point you know the instructor would reach out to me send me an email like hey man like you were getting so good what happened you know what I mean like double pirouette like we gotta hit that you know come on now and I was like all right I'm back you know next day I'm back right and it takes that kind of uh these soft touches as they would say in business to keep people sort of engaged because, you know, we get distracted, we all have lives, right? It's easy to get pulled away from something, even if you're very interested in it. And sometimes, you know, it doesn't have to be you,

it could just be someone from the dojo, right? If you have a beginner that's been doing it for three or four months, and they particularly have a uchikomi partner that they really prefer like oh these two are always working together right johnny and jessica right who knows right and then jessica stopped showing up like johnny hey where's jessica you know can you reach out to her see if she's all right you know and now you're sort of like fostering these small micro relationships in the dojo and then trying to kind of community building from the bottom up a little bit you know what i mean and that kind of stuff really goes a long way you know and having uh what i like to call not just me a lot of people use this term uh

accountability buddy all right someone to keep you accountable right uh'm going to Judo. This person relies on my body being in the room to do Uchikomi and Nagakomi because I'm their preferred partner. He likes working with me. She likes working with me. Whenever we do throws, I work with this person. Sensei teaches a Newaza technique. It's like, hey, man, come on. Let's work over here.

Let's go. Let's try this thing. And then we're trying the chokes and the arm bars, we're kind of joking around like haha i'm gonna hit you with this later right having that kind of little banter these little connections and having that person reach out goes a long way because it's like hey man where are you like i miss you at the dojo i mean and so sometimes you know uh when you're standing at the top, you can't have a connection with everybody, you just simply cannot, you know, unless you're, I mean, I guess you can, but sometimes, you know, people have certain cliques, and people clique with certain other types of

people, and, you know, there's people who are completely too shy to really speak around the sensei too. You know, if I had that, you know, and I get that. You know, I've been tongue-tied around certain people who are, you know, way at the top, right? Just because, you know, just like the amount of respect and admiration you have towards somebody. Sometimes, you know, it's a little bit weird, right? And then they reach out and you're like, oh my God. Like it's kind of, you know, not cringy, but it just doesn't feel right, you know, just because. So, you know, in that case, you have to have someone else reach out for you. And you could also always, if you have a member CRM management system, you know, have the, if you take attendance and all that stuff, like have a

automated email that sends out if someone doesn't check into the, this class for X number of days, things like that, you know, you could definitely have one of those guys. Uh, you know, it's not as personal and it's not my favorite. I think I have it set up. Not even sure. You know, the funny thing about it is like when you have these systems like member solutions or membership you know i use mind body and if someone doesn't get checked in for their appointment it automatically sends an email but like i rarely ever i don't manage it very well so it's like someone signs up for a one-to-one and you know i forget to check them in and they get an email the next day like hey man you missed your appointment what happened are you okay and they're like sensei like you saw me

yesterday and i'm like yeah it's just an automated email i'm sorry i forgot that i forgot to confirm that you were in the room sorry you know and uh yeah so you can have that kind of a you know administrative automated situation but any sort of system needs maintenance. And I really don't like the administrative side of stuff. So I try not to rely on those kind of things too much. I know you should, if you want to scale, uh, but right now my goal is not to scale, right? So it is what it is and that's just how it is. Yeah, that. A couple of other thoughts.

How can I help you a little bit more, Mr. Chef Robson? Someone takes a little bit of a hiatus. When they come back, Greenbelt goes away for a month, two months, visits their home country, leaves, gets hurt, whatever it is. And then when they come back, they always want to go full throttle back in the game, thinking how far, how much have I capped, how rusty am I, all this stuff. I tried to put him on a two-week probationary period of like, you can't do Rondori for two weeks because you have to ease into it.

And I try to manage all their Rondori rounds. Like, don't go with that guy or that guy. Or I know you were competitive with that person, but, you know, we can't have you just go button heads because that person's been training for two months, right? You haven't. So I try to say, stay away from that person for a little while. You know, stay away from Rondori for two weeks.

And then first Rondori back, you know what? Adam, you know, Clapper, he's my go-to guy, right? Because he's so gentle and controlled. It's like Clapper, he's my go-to guy, right? Because he's so gentle and controlled. It's like Clapper, can you go with him for the first time? You know, he hasn't worked out in X amount of days. And, you know, Clapper,

big smile on his face. Yeah, of course, man. You know? And then goes in there and works out with the person. So that's another one, you know? Yeah. And yeah, that's,

let me see if I answered your question. Dojo cultureriyatmas everyone like to train right everyone likes to train you know that it's got to be a push yourself as hard as you want situation um i made this mistake too in the beginning push everyone really hard not everyone likes to be pushed. You can argue this thing of, oh, you should push yourself and work out really hard because it's judo, right? You hear combat sports training, training, training, but a lot of the times the people in the room,

their goals aren't to be the best Olympian or this or make a team. Maybe it is for your dojo, not mine. A lot of the times, the dojo and judo is a vehicle for just self-improvement really and being part of a community of like-minded individuals who want to be better in every way. That's sort of the way I like to structure the atmosphere and I'm pretty explicit about it. Therefore, it shapes the atmosphere of the dojo and go at your own pace really makes it so that everyone likes to train because you're not getting pushed, you're not getting yelled at, you're not getting put down, right? It's a very positive

atmosphere. And like I said, the one minute burpee challenge at the end of the class is a very, very good example. You know, you do one minute of burpees at the end of the class is a very, very good example. You know, you do one minute of burpees. It's going to be tough for anybody. And you could go really hard or you could take a break. You know, I see people do 10 burpees and they have their hands on their hips and they're breathing hard and they're looking at the clock and that's okay. You know, they're doing it, but they're going at their own pace. And these light encouragements like, hey, you're doing a great job, man. Hey, get one or two more in if you can. Hey, you're doing amazing. Hey, you're competing.

You told me you wanted to compete. You have to push yourself here. Hey, man, your gas is this and that. That kind of thing that's catered to their goals really, really gonna help. Everyone's gonna like the train, be around that. That positive, fun, go at your own pace, but slightly encouraging in a positive manner. Like that is really the way to make sure everyone likes the train and you have

to, have to, have to feel safe in the room, right? If you don't feel safe, how am I going to enjoy training? I don't want to go with that guy because he's a little bit dangerous. That guy might sit on my knee. Sensei's always yelling at me and telling me I'm not strong enough. That is not a fun environment. And a lot of these isms that get passed along from tradition, it really doesn't fit into this model of a positive, fun environment to be training. So you really have to watch out for this and put your forefront of your mind onto that. And when you have your attention on this, then it's really going to be a fun thing that you can do. And of course, personality of the person standing at the top has a lot to do with this too, right? If you're a very serious guy and now all of a sudden you're

trying to be this fun person, it's inauthentic. So you have to really figure yourself out first and then build the program around that. But everyone I feel like can be more positive, can be more polite. And I think that's the way to make sure everyone likes to train. All right, adults, more adults into the judo club, right? Don't know how to reach them and retain them.

Reach them. You know, we talked a little bit about it. You know, a referral situation is fun. if there's somebody in the room who's you know mid-20s mid-30s and they like the scrap and they're just good people they're probably going to have friends that are similar to them so asking them specifically like hey man if there's more people like you like i like you you're cool More people like you that you have, you're friends with, like bring them into the dojo, man. We'll give them a free trial, you know? Don't like free trial. Don't like free nothing, you know? But free is such a weird thing. Like when someone approaches me and say, hey, I'll give you this for free. I'll give you that for free. I'm always thinking to myself like, what's at the end of that?

You know, why? Right? And I'm always very skeptical about that free. Free is such a scary word for me, you know? Not from me as a business owner giving out, but even as a consumer, someone says, hey, you want something for free? You know, I'm always a little bit like, have my radar like, why is it free? Right? how why is it free and anyway yeah you're a cool person you know or it doesn't have to be you know uh somebody in their 40s that is an enthusiast that loves grappling and loves martial arts and goes to work and it's like hey you must have some colleagues that are kind of like you that you know you you go to uh you know your kid's eighth birthday party and there are other dads there. And there's

a dad that you talk about the Askren Paul fight that you're standing by the barbecue and you guys are both grilling meat and hanging out. And you guys are very like-minded. You have similar interests like that friend of yours will probably be a good fit at the dojo because you're a good fit at the dojo. Why don't you bring him in, man? Invite him. Invite him on a mandate to judo class. Something like that. I don't always do this because you can't do everything, but I've seen this work very, very good. And I've seen people who are sort of referral machines, who are sort of connectors in their community, who have friends and who's just very, very good at that kind of

a thing, bringing in tons of people because they have great friends who's just very, very good at that kind of a thing, you know, bring in tons of people because they have great friends that are just like them. You know, so that's another way to reach and retain. I can't think of anything else. Chef Robson, thank you for the suggestion. If you have any other suggestions for me, you can reach me on all my social, YouTube, Instagram, judoshantarynyc. Send me a message. I can't guarantee I will get back to you because the number of messages that have been piling up is just going up and up the more I do this. But I do try to put my eyes through all of them. And I greatly appreciate everyone reaching out and listening to the content that I put out.

So thank you very much. First and foremost, everybody, thank you. Thank you. Please subscribe. Please reach out. And I'll do my best to keep giving you guys what you want, right? So thank you and have a great day.