MA Business Success 63: The Importance Of Physical Staff Training

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Phil: Hey, team, welcome to Martial Arts Business Success from the Institute of Martial Arts. My name is Phil Britten.

Graham: I'm Graham McDonnell.

Phil: And we're coming at you with another fantastic topic to help you build, grow, and monetize your business, because, at the end of the day, we wanna make you build a business that you can leave a legacy. Something where you can go from being in the engine room, to sailing the ship, to then, you know, on the beach while your business runs. That's the idea, you know, that's what we wanna achieve. You may be the same, maybe you wanna be in your business a bit longer than that, I don't know. But we're gonna give you as much strategy as we can to help you live the life that you were born to live.

Graham: Phil, we've got a really, really...I guess a great one today, but one that continually shocks me. We deal with a lot of clients all around the world, and I guess the trap that martial arts instructors fall into is, "I'm going to train twice as much when I become a professional instructor." Or, "I'm an instructor, so I'm gonna get to train twice as much, more than twice." It never happens. So today we'll talk about the importance of physical training with your staff. And so, let's hit the nail here. Why is it important to train physically with your staff?

Phil: Well, not in the obvious, well, maybe you don't know the obvious. One, we have a saying that instructors have to train harder than your students. This is an example. We've had instructors that have been instructors for quite some time, for whatever reason, they couldn't train for a while. Now, they got off their training sort of bandwagon and stopped training for quite a period of time. And what happened is their level of instruction, the way they were teaching, would also decline. So they just didn't have the knack, they just weren't, you know, sweating it out, they weren't honing their skills, getting sharper, they weren't learning new ways of doing techniques.

There's just so many things, apart from the obvious, getting fit, staying sharp, staying healthy, improving your skills consistently as a student. But at the end of the day, as far as I'm concerned, if you're not training, you shouldn't be teaching. You should not be teaching if you're not training. It's a contradiction, you know, that you're now an instructor so you don't need to teach, you don't need to train. So in my point of view, honestly, if you're not training, stop freaking teaching. Because you are no use to anyone long-term, you're no use to yourself as well.

Graham: It's a tough one, and I know that depending on your life journey where you're at in your life, sometimes injuries hold you a while. We certainly will get our guys to come and be a fly on the wall, sit and watch. Sometimes I know that we've learned twice as much sometimes watching. Adjust your training. I know you've had back injuries, geez, I've had knee injuries, there's things you can and can't do. That's just an excuse. There's always something that you can do if you're willing to put yourself in a position as a student.

Phil: I'm gonna cut in there. And I don't wanna put a poop on anyone who's got injuries. Go for a swim, go for a walk, like, do something, just train. The whole purpose of doing it is that you're being active. Now, however active you are, some are gonna be way more active than others, but by not doing anything, man, you're just gonna fade away like mental stimulation, physical side. There's so many reasons to train both in martial arts and in external. I'll go to the gym, I've done CrossFit, you go the swimming. It just depends on where I'm at with my injuries, where and how I'm feeling. I always keep training martial arts, I always will, but, you know, there might come a time when, geez, I can't do MMA, or I can't do Muay Thai, or I can't do jiu-jitsu. Maybe I'll take up the sword or whatever to keep my mind sharp.

Graham: Look, it's important to also understand that where we stand is we just want you guys to stay physically active in some way, shape, or form. I know we have the luxury of living in a sort of a beach community, so there's a time of year when the sun is shining. Instead of training the dojo, we go to the beach. Is it martial arts style training? Not a lot, there is some sort of physical activity, there's even some crazy stuff we've done with the fit balls in the sand, and we learn to flip, and you look quite like you're 12 again, having a great time. That may appeal to some, it may not. But again, it's just breaking the norm. Because if you look at the guys who are long-term martial artists, guys that we had the pleasure of training with and seen with all around the world, they are all about longevity.

And you don't just have to grind and kick the bags every single day. It's more about just getting into the habit of training, sharing, continually evolving, and putting yourself as a student. So my challenge to you guys that the viewers and the listeners, if you do not have structured, scheduled training for your staff, you really need to have a good look at yourself and really make that happen. And I sort of said two words there, structured and scheduled. So when do we do our training with our staff?

Phil: So that physical training for us, in particular, are Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m to 12. So we train for two hours. Generally, you know, chilled out, warm up. And Monday is more about traditional martial arts style, mixed in with grading requirements and everything, so we're gonna gaze. Wednesdays, we do either a bit more Krav and slash BJJ as well. So one minute we're gonna Krav stuff, and the last to second hour we'll do BJJ in our gaze and stuff like that, which we just did today in actual fact.

So I think that it's important that...and even if you don't have the time to do it, [inaudible 00:05:36] once a week, whatever. And we've also even said to our staff that you come train with us, and then also, why don't we have a training session that you are being a student in the classes as well. Because you miss that sort of class environment, class structure, and it's also a chance for your instructors to be taught by you in a class environment and still be ahead of everyone, but still be treated as a student. It's a really good thing to have in your school.

Graham: Phil, there's gonna be a couple of people out there that [inaudible 00:06:08] do we make it compulsory, do we pay our staff to come and do that training?

Phil: Well, you know, we have our staff on a salary, which basically means they do whatever we tell them to do whenever we want. To some degree, it's a bit of a joke for us, but we have guys on a salary, they are paid to come and train, so to speak, but they don't visit, they don't actually start working until 12 on those days. So we train from 10 to 12, they start work at 12 and go on through. So you can argue whether we pay them or not, yes, we do, because they are on a salary.

Graham: Guys, look, it is compulsory, and we have it in our employee contract agreements, if you're training, you don't have a job. That's just our opinion, that's our view. So we've seen it happen before, we were lenient on it, you may have heard us say this before, you get what you tolerate. So flu and injury is one thing, but just simply being lazy and, "I got bored, I got tired," is not an excuse. And that's something you need to be hard on, is if you wanna progress as a professional organization or school and have instructors that are continually growing and evolving, you've gotta make sure that you set that precedent and that standard straight out, okay? Really important. Now, mate, guest instructors, yes or no? This is something that some people get a little bit antsy about. "No, no, no, closed doors, it's all about me, I'm the lead guy, no one is allowed to train with anyone else." Or, "Let's just open ourselves up and be a student." What's your thoughts on it?

Phile: Open the arms up. Experience anything and everyone in martial arts. In saying that, you also wanna bring in the right people. If you're gonna bring someone into your school, we've had that experience in the past, we've had instructors come in and we'll train with for a while, but deep down, their intentions were to steal some students. We've been there, we've been through highs and lows of that. And you pretty much soon work out who you can trust, who is the right fit to be brought into your school. We have [inaudible 00:08:09] who is our state head, critical martial artist, one of the most respected martial artist here in Australia and if not the world. And he comes in, he trains with our guys once a week on a Monday and comes in on our training day every fortnight on a Wednesday. And we just have a roll, we can do some Brazilian jiu-jitsu, there's no issues, no worries. And you know what? I get to be a student, and so do my instructors, and my instructors get to see me as a student, which is fantastic as well.

Graham: You've covered a few things here, mate, that some of the guys may have never [inaudible 00:08:40]. I think the big thing that we do by having these guest instructors, you [inaudible 00:08:45] cost. It's not a cost, it's an investment in their long-term development, but also us. The big thing that was underlined in there is you really put yourself as being a student, therefore our staff are starting to see the boss is not afraid to be a beginner and not afraid to be the bottom of the [inaudible 00:09:02] pole, not just king of the castle. Now, I've seen some instructors on our travels around the world that are afraid to look bad or show that they don't know everything.

And that's just the wrong ego to have. And I'm sure that our listeners probably wouldn't be in that sort of boat, but look back at yourself and think, "When was the last time I was a beginner?" And hey, I've been in class, and I'm sure you've had this experience, too, that some of their instructors are young, they're 20, they're fit, and they sometimes do things better than you do it. That's okay, that's not an issue at all. It's important to make sure that don't be afraid to look like a beginner, because, man, martial arts is a lifelong journey, not just a get-to-one goal and that's it, I'm the king of the castle. So, you know, the importance of staff training, and I'm not saying brain, physical training is paramount. If you're not doing it, you better make sure you start making that part of your routine, your habit, your daily ritual, your weekly ritual, whatever it may be for you, guys, get onto it.

Phil: Well, if you're not training, hopefully, we have guilted you into doing some training. So get out of your car, you know, go for a run, go for a jog, do some martial arts training, whatever it may be, but show your instructors, show your students that you're always a student. Hope you've enjoyed today's podcast topic about the reasons behind training. We are definitely sticklers for it in our business and I hope you are, too. If you have any other questions about what we do and how we do, send them through, gang, that's why we're here. So we really wanna give you the tips, tools, and strategies to build your business to the level that you want. So please, reach out, we'd love to help you out. Hope you have a fantastic week, guys, go get them.

Graham: Take care.