SELLING AIKIDO

Aikido is a consumer good. If we want the art to continue, not only must we make it relevant, but also we need to capture market share. That requires sales. As soon as I hear sales, I hear John Cusack in Say Anything.

But the reality is, Aikido has to be sold. Which means you have to create a Sales Funnel. Ashley Stahl describes how to create your first one.

Although I see the necessity of selling the art, I also know that I am terrible at it. I have the luxury of being my own patron. But for those of you who aspire to making your art a profession, your primary means of sustenance, create your Sales Funnel.

Create Awareness – the clients have to know where you are and what it is you do;

Discovery – get them on the mat;

Evaluation – you have to make it work for them;

Purchase – they gotta come back;

Loyalty – they gotta come back to you!

Part of the sales job is consistency of message. Contradictory information induces confusion, leading to indecision (should I do Aikido or Yoga?). Somehow Aikido needs to become meaningful enough to each individual practitioner that each becomes a loyal customer. Which essentially means, we are selling a lifestyle.

Selling a lifestyle?

Indeed. Like any art, the time commitment necessary from the students is enormous, it is a genuine investment. We only invest in things that matter.

What matters will of course vary from person to person. But ultimately it’s about what matters to the people on the mat. So I leave it as an open question – the key problem to solve: how do you make it relevant, worthy of the consumer’s time and money?

Compounding the challenge is that teaching a martial art is inherently inefficient. Economists point out the cost disease and specifically that the increasing costs of education are largely because of labor-inputs. William Baumol and William Bowen in 1966 (Performing Arts, the Economic Dilemma) illustrate the problem – the total amount of time to perform a work of Beethoven is the same now as it was when written, there have been no improvements in productivity in the performing arts. The same is true of learning and teaching art. Teaching methods are no more productive now than they were in the 1800s and worse still in a martial art the best transmission is often through direct physical contact at a one-to-one teacher to student ratio.

Driving to the dojo each Saturday morning, I see numerous yoga-mats carried by younger urbanites, look through windows and see the spin-classes full of zealous stationary-bikers, and even the cross-fit and boxing boot camps are packed. Clear choices are being made, economic choices, and martial arts suffer from both a “util” deficit as well as from the Baumol effect.

Spending and membership

Channel Signal data suggests the scale – $27B spent on Yoga products with over 20 million Yoga practitioners compared to martial arts product sales of $452M with 3.4 million practitioners. Yoga is just one competitive alternative. And yes, there are any number of individuals who may elect to do both yoga and a martial art, but the very scale of the difference in participation and spending is daunting.

A standard gym membership is even more telling. The entire business model of the national chain gyms is that fully half the members never step into the gym! The ultimate aspirational membership – a low cost of membership combines with the thought that you might show up, so you feel better but do little. The standard martial art model is the opposite – unlimited attendance for a higher entry cost. And your sense of progress and success is not tied just to your individual achievements, but also to the opinions of your training partners. Our training partners become our validation tool. Wait a minute, my journey of self-actualization is subject to validation by some one else? Should we really wonder then:

Where have all the martial artists gone?

Based on the numbers, in the United States approximately 1% of the population practices a martial art – and any given martial art only has access to a fraction of the available pool of practitioners.

The traditional martial arts have a further challenges – hierarchical structures and the time required to ascend the levels.

Practicing a martial art requires a serious time commitment. A time commitment with a delayed gratification of around five years to achieve a black belt in Aikido. A greater time commitment than a undergraduate education.

I am surprised Aikido doesn’t have more cache in liberal Portland. The mealy-mouthed values of “inclusion” and “acceptance” is the original meme Aikido played with its post-war, Way of Peace campaign. But there is a schizophrenic message in selling a peaceful martial art (perhaps best exemplified by Morgan in The Walking Dead). Remember the comment about inducing confusion?

Perhaps acceptance of all isn’t the best marketing campaign?

Alternative strategies to consider.

Selling the exotic, the rituals of Japan and the promise of Zen enlightenment could be a pitch, but active-Zen also creates cognitive dissonance in many people. Again, we lose market share.

Aikdio as an effective martial art is an albatross – let me know when MMA adopts Aikido techniques. I mourn the passing of Mr. Seagal who gave the art some credibility. Sell the hidden budo of Aikido.

Create training cohorts. The general consumer is a herd animal. People are motivated to show up if they know the people they train with and come to rely upon with the expectation of showing up. A cohort can lead to exclusivity and tribalism.

Tribalism I believe could have currency. Create exclusivity and loyalty to make the art more valuable by being more difficult to access. Create obstacles to acceptance to the inclusion, force commitment, create greater ceremonies to demarcate initiation. Like a drug dealer, give away the taste but then guard well the secrets to force students to keep them coming back.

Good luck!

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*Why Are the Prices so D*mn High

Selling Aikido 2

ENTRIES

Closing Skills as described in an earlier post challenges the idea that Aikido is a defensive art. Aikido is not a defensive art because you cannot prevail by defending. Rather we use ABD to place the aggressor in a disadvantageous position – we draw the attack so as to be ahead of the aggressor’s OODA loop. What we need is a set entry.

Suggestions of class outlines:

FIRST

The scenario is a direct confrontation and nage will control the center through the inside line.

Uke as aggressor assumes a ready combative (boxer) stance, both hands up. Nage as defender takes a ‘natural’ (shizentai) stance.

A boxer’s stance with both hands raised is ryotedori in concept. You should recognize this as an indexing opportunity. Unlike a contact drill (ryotedori, ryokatadori, etc.) when uke starts hands-on, uke in a combative stance requires that nage close the gap. Inevitably, uke will present one side slightly forward, which for narrative purposes we establish as the R hand. (But do note: you need to train for both scenarios.)

Nage shoots R with eye spear (atemi) and can use rebound energy to then check RvR.  Simultaneously, nage enters (follows the strike) and with L, wraps uke’s R to control the arm behind and under the elbow. Nage’s R then does an eye rake (moving L to R) to catch uke’s L arm behind the triceps, then pushes it cross uke’s body to feed it to nage’s L arm resulting in a 2 for 1 control.

Uke’s body will be torqued toward his captured arm (R) and nage’s R arm is free. A compound lock at this point is, nage hits uke’s face on the L side to bring the neck to nage’s waiting L hand. Uke is now firmly controlled, arms compromised and nage retains a free R hand.

An attack art – we enter to control the situation, neutralize the opponent’s opportunity to do harm. This pattern is an application of Sinawali. [1]

SECOND

Ai-hanmi katate dori kihon presentation of irimi nage omote is used as a familiar starting point. From the initial grab – nage executes a counter grab (measure for measure), controls uke’s grasping arm, slip irimi and grasps uke’s neck, then drops, breaking the plane of balance.

Goals

Nage (1) measure-for-measure counter grasp [knife retention] (2) neck control [pressure] (3) positional de-stabilization.

Uke (1) grasp strength and connection (2) core stability (3) continuation of action

Narrative Context

Ai-hanmi is a knife stop. Nage thrust and uke counters with a grab of the knife hand to stop the attack. Nage executes a rolling counter cut to extract the knife hand, but nage leaves the hand in stasis. The knife hand therefore is holding the knife point up.

As nage breaks uke’s balance, nage controls uke’s head – the aggressive interpretation is nage pitches uke’s head forward onto the waiting knife point. The take down is an alternative (secondary action) whereby uke manages to avoid the knife to the face, but then has the knife jammed into the chest as nage collapses the structure. Gravity is doing the hard work.

Change the scenario slightly – uke is the aggressor with the knife. Nage can use the same body entry, but the hand work changes. Uke thrusts R, nage back knuckles R while executing the entry. Nage grasps uke’s thrusting hand on the past. Nage’s initial strike may have disarmed uke, or if not, then by grasping uke’s lead (R) hand, thumb up nails down so uke is now holding the knife that will be used against the aggressor. Nothing else changes.

These are two simple outlines to emphasize the need for entry skills to close the gap.

Familiar assumptions should be discouraged. The timing is different. The focal points are different. Nage must enter with superior time and must be closer than typically presented. When Aikido presents a controlling hand (e.g., controlling uke’s neck) we can substitute a palm slap or shyuto strike. The low line strikes (nage knee to uke’s thigh)  and half-beat disruption hits (rebound strikes) are now all added when uke’s balance needs further disruption or his focus broken. Once nage’s sequence of actions start, nage never stops until complete control is confirmed.

Think broadly on the irimi entry. This is an outside line attack. Uke aggresses R. Nage staccato strikes R to uke’s hand and L to uke’s neck. The direct counter for counter image is clear.

Entry Skill
Straight blast

The refinement Aikido makes is the body slip to the shikaku and a blending pivot. Achieving the dead angle puts nage in advanced positional safety. From here options open. Chokes – both rear naked and one-hand lapel are possible – as are any number of strikes; or the traditional irmi-nage throw, but all at nage’s discretion.

These presentations are not part of kihon curriculum, and I am not suggesting that these explorations are to be construed as techniques. Collecting a compendium of techniques is a dangerous game. A certain accumulation is necessary to demonstrate mastery of a system. But every system is nothing more than a single cultural exploration of the range of motion and limited by circumstances when it was founded.

What I am illustrating is that understanding the principles of movement is critical for moving beyond the limits of a system. Making these links outlined above should be understood as eliminating unessential distinctions. Hone your entry skills to close the gap and watch the potential of motion unfold.

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[1] Making the FMA connections – sinawali as the entry skill to understand the applications. To develop the skill you need to drill.

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A simple entry algorithm – the Salute System as demonstrated by James Keating

DO WHAT DOES NOT COME EASY

Read through these posts and a recurring theme, a lietmotiv, should emerge: what is the most effective way to teach, and the corollary, how do we learn?

There are numerous rules of learning. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the metric that it takes 10,000 hours to perfect a skill in Outliers (2011). That magic number implies a huge time commitment: 2 hours per day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year takes almost 14 years to get 10,000 hours. Before getting discouraged, Gladwell is on record that the 10,000 hour rule does not apply to athletic performance – although I have seen others use it as the magic number of repetitions needed to master an athletic skill. And importantly, that is the number to master, i.e., become one of a very elite, high-requisite-skill minority. Of course anytime an idea gets popular – and Gladwell makes his living popularizing ideas – others try to debunk it (qv. Fast Company and the cited study).[1]

I start with Gladwell because his is a simple numerical metric: clearly we need to dedicate time to practice in order to master any skill. Earlier posts have covered the need for time on the mat. If we assume that shodan is the attainment goal – not to mastery, but to be able to replicate and demonstrate the curriculum – the required training hours are between 780 and 1040.

The quality of the hours spent is critical. The easy rubric is deliberate practice. Earlier posts have alluded to the need for mindful and honest practice even in solo training. Developing excellence in a martial art requires the additional quality of grit and perhaps even enduring pain.

While military drill-sergeants can force discipline with brute methods, in the civilian world you need to be self-motivated. It’s all too easy to not show up, or to not train hard, or to assume the teacher will give you the information. A consumer mentality where by paying for it, the art should be packaged for you.

I do believe there are normatively better ways to teach and learn. My teachers have continued to evolve and refine their teaching methods in their pursuit of Aikido. And I too play with different ideas to foster student (and my own) development. I have not found the best way. When I do, I will patent that method.

A recent article by Cal Newport had the brilliantly provocative title “Flow is the Opiate of the Mediocre” [2] and outlined training strategies that are broadly applicable:

  • Strategy #1: Avoid Flow. Do What Does Not Come Easy.
  • Strategy #2: To Master a Skill, Master Something Harder.
  • Strategy #3: Systematically Eliminate Weakness.
  • Strategy #4: Create Beauty, Don’t Avoid Ugliness.

Because the strategies are from a pianist, the clarifying examples need Aikido analogies.

#1 – Avoid Flow: The point in the article is that weaker pianists play through their pieces, while the better ones drill and practice only the more difficult parts. This admonishment is somewhat ironic. I have very rarely seen, and almost never present, Aikido as it is ultimately played. Meaning the true flow of a multi-step encounter with attack, counter, counter-attack is rarely a goal. In general, we do avoid flow and practice only a small segment of an encounter. But the deeper point of drilling the more difficult aspects of the encounter applies. I will often segment lessons to train to the most difficult aspect, for example: a punch to the face requires conditioned mental fortitude to avoid a flinch response.

#2 – Master Something Harder: purposefully make a movement harder in order to master the underlying movement. Ever since beginning this experiment, I have been adding complications – beats, half-beats, staccato rhythms, targeted strikes, etc., – to make kihon movements unfamiliar. I have purposefully avoided Japanese terms to make it cognitively less familiar, to break mental maps and force students to make new (and hopefully deeper) connections.[3]

#3 – Eliminate Weakness: this is the entire goal of training! The strategy here is to isolate skills to develop where you are weak. For example, train gyaku-hanmi not with the idea that it is an end to itself, but rather with the deeper realization that it is a way to develop your response to chudan tsuki. And make sure to train your non-dominant side at least as much as your dominant (“I’m not left handed either…”).

Life is pain
The Dread Pirate Roberts

In The Princess Bride, Westley became a superlative swordsman under the neglectful Dread Pirate Roberts whose only guidance was – “Goodnight, Westley. Good work, sleep well, I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” Westley was a self-motivated student and learned from everyone and anyone who would teach him. The citation may be whimsical but there is a level of seriousness: This (2019) Royal Society published study implies that teacher designated study was less relevant to improved performance than practice alone. In short – keep training!

#4 – Create Beauty: the quote is from a pianist, but is true for every art:

“Weak pianists make music a reactive  task, not a creative task. They start, and react to their performance, fixing problems as they go along. Strong pianists, on the other hand, have an image of what a perfect performance should be like that includes all of the relevant senses. Before we sit down, we know what the piece needs to feel, sound, and even look like in excruciating detail. In performance, weak pianists try to reactively move away from mistakes, while strong pianists move towards a perfect mental image.”

Precisely! Move towards a perfect mental image. The challenge is finding the perfect mental image. Throughout these posts are links and references to those who are my inspirations – and read carefully – they are not limited to just martial artists alone.

Do note that we must balance the distinction between a martial art and the science of movement. What I mean is the artistry of movement must aspire to be beautiful, and because its application is martial, it must also be scientifically efficacious. I believe that the two are inextricably linked. Proper targeting is scientific, and the path of least resistance is physiological, so combining those two aspects is where artistry manifests.

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[1] Malcolm Gladwell covers a wide range of topics – see an earlier reference >here<

[2] A provocative title because it plays off Csikszentmihalyi‘s (2008) Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Performance which I reference >here<

[3] The largest barrier to learning is our experience, what we already know often acts as an impediment to progress.  >Listen to Hidden Brain<