“There are Any Number of Reasons NOT to Join The One Hundred —-and for some unknown reason, some character flaw in me, I feel compelled to list some of them here.”

—Tom Callos

DO NOT JOIN THE 100 if: 

• You consider yourself too busy to read the posts here, regardless of their number (If you don’t come here to practice, what’s the use of joining the school?).

• You won’t get your own team involved, so you’re the only conduit into your school for ideas/methods explored here (Your staff get to join for free. If you don’t get them involved, your chances of successfully implementing a lot of the ideas here goes down, Oh, I’d guess about 50%).  

• When you read or watch the work here, you don’t understand you are in-training, that this is the equivalent of a master-level of study, that you can’t get these ideas, at the depth they are delivered here, or in the frequency, anywhere else in the martial arts community (If you don’t get how valuable and special the work is here, go join _______ [name your favorite purveyor of yesterdays ideas and methods here]). 

• Furthermore, you don’t realize that this work is creating an entirely new field of practice and purpose in the industry —and for serious teachers of martial arts. 

• You don’t respect me enough to pay attention —and in that case, my e-mails, the coaching, the messages, and the seemingly un-ending stream of material that comes to you through my effort is an annoyance, an intrusion, something you “can’t keep up with” (Don’t sweat it, I’m just not your teacher. My suggestion: Go find someone you DO respect enough to listen to). 

• You aren’t a person of action. You read a lot, you join, you have every intent of improving your lot, but at the end of each week your “action list” doesn’t reflect the level of involvement that brings about the change you are looking for (You can read 1000 posts here, but if you can’t DO, you’re wasting my time and your money). 

• You play on-line video games, but you don’t have the time to go to a Chamber of Commerce Meeting. You buy coffee at Starbucks, but when you see our tuition price you think you’re over-spending. You make posts on Facebook, but you won’t take 10 minutes to post something that might help others here in the association (I want people who do the work here, not people “paying dues”). 

• You don’t keep (or are unwilling to keep) stats for your business (Which means you will almost never get to the core reasons you’re not making enough income in your school). 

• You’re looking for quick money, a quick “fix,” an easier path, or something that’s “cunningly clever.” This work takes work, it takes intelligence, management skills, and foresight. If you lack self-discipline, you’re going to hate me, so don’t join in the first place.

This film about the UBBT and, partly, about our yearly Alabama House Build Project, was assembled by Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Nancy Walzog (also a UBBT alumni and member of The 100). 

We are headed to Alabama April 7 to 10, 2011 —We’re building a home, in 3 days, for someone in need.

Tom Callos

I’ve been in the martial arts school business, in one form or another, since my first instructor had me helping him teach his classes —starting in 1977.

I’ve owned large schools, worked with hundreds of other schools, and made it my business to know THE business of martial arts school success. I’ve also worked closely with the old-school creators of the stuff that too many school owners still use as guides on how to sell, how to craft curriculum, and how to manage, promote and “run” their schools. 

Back in the day, some of that stuff was downright revolutionary. Today some of it (a lot of it) is as stale as last year’s bread. Actually, some of the stuff is WORSE than that, in today’s world some of the attitudes, gimmicks, strategies, and widely accepted forms of marketing and management are flat out destructive. 

The playing field has changed. 

In the old days you could keep your students within the walls of your school, so if the black belts you were churning out were junk, who would know? Today, with Youtube, it doesn’t take anyone very long to figure out that Johnny’s really NOT very good, is he?

In the old days gimmicks passed down from dance studios and health club salesmen sort of worked, but today most consumers are so burned out on being mislead, tricked, and hustled, that we can’t get away with the crud we were taught in 1990. 

The playing field has changed. 

The box services? The ones that packaged up a bunch of stuff and sent it to you each month, hoping some of it met your needs? They’re dead and gone. 

The conventions? The seminars? The classes? Who wants to go to Las Vegas to sit in meetings with 500 other people? Who wants to go to some hotel, anywhere, and be “up-sold” to the big ticket sale and the next scam? 

Anyone (any teacher and any smart consumer)  who has their $(@*& together has already taken command of his/her own information —and it’s coming to you/them, in brilliant color,  right on your laptop. If I’m going blow a couple of grand on a trip, I’m not going to go sit in a canned presentation by some speaker trying to shotgun me information with the 499 other sheep sitting in the pasture. Today I expect a completely different level of customer service. 

Oh man, how the playing field has changed. 

What used to cost hundreds —and even thousands of dollars? It’s FREE now.

Video? Free. Websites? Free. Photos? FREE or almost free. The best teachers in the world teaching you what they know? FREE. Marketing? Free. Advice? Free. Networking? FREE. Graphic design? FREE. Billing? Do it yourself -or negotiate those sons-of-guns down to the lowest possible percentage in the known universe. 

You can have your own web-based “TV-channel” for FREE. Your own on-line magazine, for FREE. You can distribute press about yourself all fricking day long, for FREE. 

The playing field has changed. 

So has my work, as a result, with the martial arts industry —and people like you.

The old school has a death grip on the old ways —and they won’t be letting go until they’ve squeezed every penny they can from the pig. The smart ones, the ones that aren’t encumbered by last years “model” for producing income, have already cut themselves loose from the old methods.

The pendulum, in my opinion, has swung from “make it easy for me,” to “make it smart.” Easy doesn’t carry the weight of effort, the legitimacy of content, and the smell of something smart like what I’m teaching instructors to create today.  

Today I’m showing teachers how to shed the baggage of all that billing-service brain-washing. How to get rid of the “make it easy for me” attitude. Today we think, we create, we build, we build upon, and we work long and hard to distinguish ourselves from the franchisee, from the 3-year black belt, and from the kid in the suit. 

Some people will always gravitate towards the gimmick, just the way people still flock to McDonald’s and Burger King, despite the obvious downside of stuffing garbage in your gullet. But slowly a more educated crowd is coming up through the ranks. They’re not cynical about the work. They’re not attracted to the bling that manipulators used to flash —to try and get our attention. They recognize the tired sales trash-talk and the canned sales letters. 

That’s the group I attract; I’m looking for the instructors and school owners who will NEVER return to the nonsense of 1980 to 2008. 

The playing field has changed. 

The new school will be made up of programs like the one I’m managing now, a school for discerning teachers: like The One Hundred (www.The100.us).

I’m so certain this is the right path that I invite ANY school owner to come in and see EVERYTHING —to see exactly what we’re doing —and how my friends and I are working a new field of play that embarrasses what we used to think was smart. 

Here’s your pass for 7 days of the new way to manage, promote, and build your school into something that has NOTHING to do with the old school of the box, the billing service, the Rolls Royce, the Rolex, The Ferrari, Las Vegas, “marketing guru” sales gimmicks, or any of that old, embarrassing, out-dated garbage that’s tarnished the integrity of the martial arts world: http://thenewwaynetwork.ning.com/?xgi=04sroNy9FR08jV

You know what a black belt test is, yes? You’ve had one —or many. You understand that on that day (your black belt test) you are going to be tested —and that your test is going to challenge you.

 
If you do well, you will “pass” to a new level of rank.
 
You know what anger and misunderstanding is, yes? You know what hatred, bitterness, accusation, sarcasm, and cynicism is too, yes?
 
Whenever you have conflict with another human being, right or wrong, you are being tested. It’s not the kind of test that comes every few years; no, it’s a gift given to you often, sometimes every day.
 
In this test, someone behaves poorly. Someone insults you. Someone takes liberties with your sense of self-importance, values, objectives, and/or property.

Someone hurts you in some way.  

In this kind of test, you have chance to tap into a kind of wisdom, emotional maturity, insight, and awareness that represents the clearest of thinking, the most evolved of spirits.

 
Or, you have the opportunity to fail.

To fail is to degrade, to blame, to attack, to demean, to ridicule, to dehumanize, to objectify, to dismiss, to invalidate, to be mean and ugly and angry and bitter and resentful and hateful.

Do you think self-defense is simply the block of the punch, the kick, and the escape from the grab? It is not, although all of that is one small slice of the pie that is self-defense. The most valuable, useful, and relevant kind of self-defense is the kind you get to apply, sometimes every day, to the test of your clarity, your wisdom, your viewpoint, your character, and your education about what mastery is —or is not.

Do not fail to recognize how much more important it is to deal with conflict as a master, than it is to wear the belt that says, “Master.” 

Refection 1

If you marry someone just to “get your green card,” or for money, then you’re not in the relationship for love and companionship.

If you run your business just to make a profit and support your “lifestyle” (whatever that is?), then you’re not “in the relationship” with your career —for love and what your business can do for you and others —beyond the dollar bill. 

I respect that you are where you are in your life, but I do hope that someday you find deep and unconditional love and that whatever you do “for a living” feeds your soul and helps you reach your potential as a human being. 

Refection 2

My perspective on what it is to be “a master” of the martial arts has changed as I’ve grown up. I imagine that my understanding of martial arts mastery will follow a similar path to my understanding of life and why I might be here. 

When I was a kid,  I didn’t hardly think about “life,” but, of course, later I started to —and I thought it would be endless, but have since learned it isn’t.

There was a time when I thought it was all about making money and collecting toys and other things I wanted that somehow had come to represent “success” and “fulfillment.” But I learned that most of that stuff was just ego and attachments, good marketing hype, and sometimes a substitute for me having to actually engage the world in a meaningful way.

I’m embarrassed today by the things I put so much importance on when I was younger, but then that’s why so many people say, “If I knew then what I know today.”

I’m pretty sure, after living through the deaths of parents and other loved ones, that when I get there, too, I’ll have a different opinion about what life was (or should have been) about.

At the moment, I think that martial arts mastery isn’t (can’t possibly be) simply about technique and all the ego-issues of status, rank, and other peculiar martial arts “stuff” that seems to be so prevalent in the martial arts community.  

I think it’s about being a higher-functioning human being, a contributing member of “the” community, and someone who’s working on connecting —and connections, as opposed to separating, making distinctions about us and them, and working independently.  I think a master defines him/herself by what he/she practices —and that goes for physical practice, kinds of education, spiritual practices, family, and so on. 

As far as mastery and what it is, I’m much more inclined to take direction and advice from a practitioner of sound spiritual practices, like Thich Nhat Hanh for example, than I am from the head of an association dedicated to sport or the perpetuation of a style of martial art, or someone dedicated to business “success.” It seems to me that spiritual issues are higher up the food chain of thinking and practice than tournaments, what forms we do or what we call our method, and/or being in the “millionaires club.” 

Refection 3

To be a champion in a highly competitive sport, an athlete has to be in tip-top shape —and then some. I think it usually takes an extraordinary level of discipline, effort, and focus to get to the winner’s circle. Within the guidelines of what it takes to win in any particular sport, an athlete  has to push —and push hard. 

Likewise, to be a great teacher —and maybe even one who has a large following —the martial artist has to push him or herself harder, and not just physically harder, but mentally, educationally, and spiritually harder.

I think that a lot of the struggle that school owners go through, struggles that keep their schools from growing to a place that supports the needs of the school, come from instructors who don’t push themselves hard enough. I see school owners/teachers who just get fat and lazy, not just physically, but on many other levels as well. 

To transcend the common difficulties of successful school promotion and management, I think the school owner has to push herself physically, as that develops a competitive (and capable) mindset. I think he has to push himself mentally and educationally; and I do see a large percentage of instructors who have simply stopped doing anything that pertains to education, beyond pop-culture and the superficial coverage of news by the mainstream media.

Spiritually, there seems to me to be far more discussion of the UFC and who has the largest gross income in the martial arts community, than there does about issues that reflect anything I can identify as spiritual/healthy in nature. 

I would like to see more martial arts teachers bringing the champion’s mindset to their schools and career, not to mention to their daily practice/living. 

So, with the three issues above, I work with my community (my friends, students, classmates, and peers):

1. To practice looking more deeply at why we teach the martial arts —and to focus on being “in the business” for the (spiritually) right reasons. I think that when the heart and mind are in the right place, the other stuff follows close behind. 
2. To seek “mastery” as a martial arts teacher in the broadest and healthiest definition of the idea. 
3. To practice the art of looking deeply at how we are learning, growing, and expanding our awareness.

Any martial arts teacher who happens to stumble / tumble across this blog, my latest —-should know that the coolest, most functional, least dysfunctional, most progressive school management, curriculum, and —well, EVERYTHING that’s now and valuable and fresh, is happening on the Member’s Only section of The One Hundred. 

Here is a link that will give you 7 days to check out what’s happening there (have to be a school owner —or one in the works). http://thenewwaynetwork.ning.com/?xgi=04sroNy9FR08jV

Say a big fat goodbye to the box, to the franchise, to the GD billing services, to the consultants, the useless sales meetings and seminars, to wasting money, time, and your mental energy. 

Say hello to smart, to at your fingertips, to “we’re not trying to up-sell you,” to NO, we don’t have a contract. Say hello to service, innovation, creativity, and a group of instructors who can, indeed, think on their own (and who don’t care for the crass commercialization of the martial arts). 

Tom Callos

Ultimate Black Belt Test