Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast

#4 | The Retention Game: How to Keep Students Fired Up and Showing Up!

• Jimmy Hong • Season 1 • Episode 4

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What does it take to transform martial arts students from casual participants into dedicated lifelong practitioners? Master Lee, who oversees schools with over 2,100 active students, shares his revolutionary approach to student retention and engagement.

The secret lies in creating a paradigm shift in how families perceive martial arts training. Rather than allowing parents to view classes as "just another activity" alongside soccer or baseball, Master Lee positions the black belt journey as an essential component of childhood development—akin to education itself. This philosophical foundation changes everything about how students approach their training.

"Getting a black belt will do two magical things in your child's life," Master Lee explains. "You're going to develop a level of confidence that you won't get anywhere else, and it develops discipline." This experiential learning system allows children to discover perseverance, grit, and determination through challenges they face on the training floor. With a critical developmental window between ages 5-12, martial arts provides the perfect vehicle for character formation before teenagers begin asserting more independence.

The practical application of this philosophy comes through in Master Lee's class structure, which balances energy with focus. From the moment students enter, they experience dynamic warm-ups, meditation for mental clarity, and skill development guided by enthusiastic instructors and student leaders. Music energizes the training environment while consistent routines create comfort and predictability. Each class concludes with fun activities and five-minute life lessons connecting martial arts tenets to everyday situations.

What truly distinguishes Master Lee's approach is his method of teaching different student types. For shy children, he applies "confidence dust"—catching them doing well and celebrating their successes. For energetic children who struggle with focus, he strategically recognizes moments of concentration and frames it as evidence of their "strong brain." This praise-correct-praise methodology creates an upward spiral of improvement while maintaining enthusiasm.

The proof is in the results: an astounding 30% of Master Lee's student base consists of black belts, with recent testing events featuring over 160 black belt candidates. By creating purpose, direction, and transformation, he's built not just a successful business but a community where martial arts becomes a life-changing journey rather than a passing interest.

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Speaker 1:

In our fourth episode, we'll discuss how to keep your Marshara students fired up and focused in your classes. Welcome to Black Belt Banter the best podcast to help your Marshara school increase in profits and generate substantial revenue. I'm Jimmy Hong and my co-host is Master Chan Lee. Master Chan has over 2,100 active students with multiple locations. He is well-renowned and highly respected by his fellow peers for his business acumen in operating martial arts schools. Master Chan, how do you keep your students fired up and focused so they are with you most of their life, if not all?

Speaker 2:

Before we get into the actual class part, I want to talk about something called paradigm, and what I mean by that is this If we all had kids, if you had a kid and you and I both have children graduating high school is one of those non-negotiables. If your son came up to you and said, dad, I'm gonna quit school and I'm 16 and I wanna tour with Taylor Swift for a year, you're gonna be like, no, that's a non-negotiable, it's never gonna happen. So high school is one of these paradigms we have in our head that our kid has to do College. College is also one of those things where we go. Eh, maybe 50% of the country is like I want my kid to go to college and the other 50% is, eh, it's not a big deal. So making sure that there's a philosophical paradigm, that martial arts is part of the education that helps this child become a better person, and there is many things like that. I think you and I, being Asian American, did you play a musical instrument, jimmy Hong?

Speaker 1:

I did, but very poorly. Okay, what'd you play? French horn and percussion.

Speaker 2:

I did the violin and piano. If you ask every Asian kid in the country and you go, what musical instrument have you done, more than 95% of the kids will be like, yeah, my mom made I could have done it or not done it.

Speaker 1:

I prefer not to have done it, but it had no bearing and made nothing in my career.

Speaker 2:

I just want to say, unlike you, I appreciate music like classical. I can listen to country. Beyonce is the number one country artist in the country. So anyway, I'm just saying these are paradigms that are out there. Certain families, it's a non-negotiable for college. If you talk to some of my Indian friends and their kids, they're like no undergrad, yeah, that's just, it's high school, they gotta go get their master's or they gotta get a PhD. It's just whatever paradigm you believe in. And so a lot of parents that bring their kids to martial art classes they think it's just another activity. So they bring their kids to class and it's just, oh, it's just another activity, like soccer or baseball or whatever. So we're on the same plane as these other activities.

Speaker 2:

And I'll give you another non-negotiable that I did with all my kids and then my dad did to me when I was growing up, middle school and high school. It was a non-negotiable. I was part of the forensics and debate team and he said hey, listen, you could be the smartest guy in the room. If you don't know how to communicate, how smart and brilliant you are, it doesn't matter. And so that was the beginning parts of my foundational knowledge of being able to talk in public and so forth, even though I hated it. I absolutely hated it. But as an adult, oh yeah, that was a really cool idea. I'm glad my dad made me do it.

Speaker 2:

As I say, all these paradigms, we need to make sure that we let the kid and the parent know that getting a martial art black belt is a paradigm that's a must for this kid and that by getting a black belt, magical things happen. And martial art you have to understand that martial arts is an experiential system. In other words, you have to experience some of those trials and tribulations of life. How do you learn about perseverance until you do something really hard and you don't think you can do it? How do you know that if you have grit and determination until you get knocked down in a sparring match and you need to pack up to free spar again? These are all life lessons that happen on our floor, and so I tell every parent that enrolls their kids in my academy listen.

Speaker 2:

Getting a black belt will do two magical things in your child's life. One you're going to develop a certain level of confidence that you won't get anywhere else, being able to stand and deliver your martial art technique in front of your peers or demonstrate at a testing or go to a tournament and be able to compete in front of others and deal with your nervousness. This is something you can't explain. You got to experience it and that's one of the things that martial arts will do. The other thing that it does is that it develops discipline. If you want to kick high, you got to stretch every day. If you want to punch hard or jump high, you got to do your squats and your pushups Martial arts. Or if you want to learn these intricate moves in a kata or form, you got to practice it. And this really sets the bar for kids to understand that practice and discipline, practice and perfect practice makes me better, and we do this at an early age.

Speaker 2:

You enroll a kid at five. By eight or nine, 10, they can get a junior black belt and really cements that lesson. So I tell parents, is that we have a finite window. We have a really small window and that window is until the kids turn 12. And I say that is because by the time they turn 13, 14, 15, they have a mind of their own. So we have a window that we can really help the children understand these really positive habits and so forth. So I tell parents is that take advantage of this window. Take advantage of this window that you want your child to grow in this. So that's the construct, that's the construct that I build in my organization and that's the construct that I build in every one of my students is that this experience of getting a black belt and training in martial arts is going to change your child forever. So please do not quit right Now. That's the overview.

Speaker 2:

You have to make sure as a teacher, what does this kid need? And there are only two types of kids that come on your martial art floor. The first kid that comes on your floor is a kid that's probably shy, quiet, doesn't raise his hand, not very energetic and so forth. You guys get the kid. We all know that kid that's in the class. The second kid that comes on your floor twirls around in a circle, can't sit, stand straight or sit straight, has trouble focusing. I think 20 years ago there was a in a medical journal that basically wrote that ADHD if you have it, martial arts is one of the best things you can do. That is why we have a flood of kids with ADHD. It was recommended by their pediatrician or their psychologist that this is one of the things that's going to help ground your kids. So, making sure that you understand who those players are in your floor.

Speaker 2:

Don't just teach a general class. You can teach whatever curriculum you want kicks, punches and whatever but you are really sprinkling what I call the two dusts. The first dust is what I call confidence dust, where you look at the kid and you go okay, show me that move, that was awesome, holy cow, all right, can you do a little bit later or louder, great. That is the confidence dust that you are always jazzing up that kid Every time that they do something good. You're catching them when they're doing really well and you really want to propagate this positive momentum of being confident. That is number one. You should be a cheerleader and all your staff should be doing that as well. They shouldn't be saying no, no, other foot, okay, all right, they should be doing what we call PC, pc, praise, correct praise. And then you challenge them. You go hey, that was a great attempt. You praise the effort, you correct them and say, okay, switch feet, do with the other leg. Great, praise, correct praise. And the challenge would be can you do that 10 more times. Great, and you challenge them to do it that way. So just making sure that you have a floor that is a little bit more positive, that is really encouraging these kids and getting them out of their shell, and you're just high-fiving them and so forth. That is one, okay, number two.

Speaker 2:

Number two is a very important thing is catch the kid. That screws up and I caught this with my staff is that every time there's a kid named Johnny, johnny obviously has issues. He has probably taken some medication and he can't and the medication is wearing off. When he comes in my class and he can't stand straight, he's bouncing up the walls and whatever, and his chemistry and his brain makeup is off a little bit. So how do we get him to really get him to comply and do that? So one of the things is that one I'm going to catch Johnny when he does good.

Speaker 2:

Johnny, I like how straight you are. That just tells me how strong your brain is, and strong brain kids are able to stand straight. Oh yeah, you are a super smart, strong brain kid. Okay, I can tell. All right, keep going. And I want to keep catching him when he's doing good. I don't want to catch. I don't want to catch him If he's messing up or whatever. I, strategically will pick out a kid that's doing best. Everybody see how this Elena here, who's not moving, and she's a man, look at how focused she is. That's black belt level focus. And as I do that I noticed the kid will take notice and say you know what I want to impress masterly in the instructors here, and then we've got to praise him. So I really work on positive motivation, catching kids when they're doing well, making sure that they are extremely keen on doing those things. So that is number one. Yes, sir, what do you say to?

Speaker 1:

people who criticize as hey, you're just over praising them and they're not learning, because they're just always constantly saying getting reinforcement. So let me just say this this is the way your beginner classes should feel like oh so, this is just for beginners, Master John. Oh so when you get this is not your black belt club, this is not your intermediate. This is just beginners. This is beginners. We're just talking about beginners. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, beginners, this is beginners.

Speaker 2:

We're just talking about beginners Makes a lot of sense, yeah, so you want to make sure and remember everybody. That's the first three belts in your system white belt, yellow belt if you're orange or purple or whatever belt is the third belt, those first three people in the three ranks that I just talked. They're not students yet. They're not your students. You know what they are. They're customers, your students. You know what they are. They're customers.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and what I mean by that is that if you have a white belt student, break their toe in the first class, I'm telling you they may not come back on second or third class. Your red belts break a toe, they tape it up and they finish up the class. So they've not been indoctrinated into the world of martial arts. They are not martial artists yet. They are not in that type of toughness and grittiness and so forth. So it's incredibly important that you are making sure that they feel they're good enough, okay, and that's very important because in everybody's mind and in everybody's narrative, if they think about what they're doing, they are thinking that they're doing the best they can and you need to praise them for their effort. That's the best they can do right now. Praise the effort that they're trying.

Speaker 1:

But you don't teach this way to your black belt club. Black belt your advanced level. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 2:

Are you kidding me? Yes, I just won. I'll get into that at a different podcast, but a different part of our show. I will totally talk about how to build your black belts and so forth, and I'm very proud. If you look at my organization, 30% of the people that train with this are black belts. So I have a high number of black belts and that's a whole nother topic that we can talk about later.

Speaker 1:

But just so that they know, just so that they how many on your last black belt exam, how many black belts were testing sir.

Speaker 2:

It was a little bit light. We had 162 candidates test for black belt.

Speaker 1:

We're usually. Many of the schools don't even have 160 students, much less 160 students testing for black belts or black belt testing.

Speaker 2:

You know what it is. It goes back to the first phrase I was talking about is paradigm and construct. So you have to know why they're there and then they have to buy in. You know what I mean. And you have to. Also you have to produce.

Speaker 2:

You can't be doing fluff and if you're producing and it's like this I'm a weight loss coach and I go, yeah, I'll help you lose weight, and six months in you're not losing weight, I'm not producing the result. You keep at it, you can do it. You know it's not working. After six months to a year there's been no progress. I guarantee that person is going to be dip out. So it's the same thing If you promise that kid's going to be more confident, he better be more confident. If you promise that kid's going to be a little bit more disciplined, you better make sure that kid is disciplined. And that's my point is that promise, do what you promised. And it's incredibly important that that is what we. That's what we do for a living.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I teach Taekwondo. I teach the forms and the breaking and all that stuff, but it's just a delivery method to produce what? An enlightened human being, a human being that becomes better than they would without doing martial arts. That's what you have to look at your martial arts school at. You know what I mean and I just don't want to. We just sent some kids to AAU States. I think out of the 20 kids, 15 of them meddled. They did well. I can produce high level athletes too. It's not for all. Back in the day I'm flexing. Back in the day I used to be the state coach and I produced a couple national champions and whatever. I can do that. But really I believe my focus and goal in life is to make sure that the kids that I teach turn into better human beings, better than they would have been without working with me, and that's really what I want to work on as I'm teaching classes Master.

Speaker 1:

Hong. Great point, master Chan, is because when you have, let's say, 100 students and I mean making to state or national, or even a state champion, high performance, competitive student what is that one, one to 3% of your school is going to make it. So do you want to focus your energy, majority of your energy, to one to three students, or the 99 to 97 students that are not going to make it to states or national competition team, but you're going to produce them to be a better human being when they are finished or ongoing at your school? So what kind of school do you want to be? You can do both.

Speaker 2:

But once again, we talked in a previous show that where you spend your attention is where you're going to get the result. I said that 40% of your time should be spent on marketing and that you should devote time to grow your schools and so forth should be spent on marketing and that you should devote time to grow your schools and so forth. But if you're also providing high-level athletes, you know how much time that takes. So you've got to either farm that out to someone else or someone can help you with it, and so forth, but someone's got to do it. If you want to do a high-performance school and you want to also provide a high-level, profitable school, both can be done. I know people that have done it. But it's hard to divide that attention unless you start farming some of that stuff out to a staff member or someone like that. But let's go back to the original topic, which is how to run a great school.

Speaker 2:

And I live in Milwaukee, so I am a huge Milwaukee Bucks fan. And if you ever go to any professional NBA game holy cow, or even a football game there's the introduction oh, from the University of Texas, from Greece, giannis Antetokounmpo, whatever. I butchered his name, but anyway, you see, the fireballs are coming out. They're all hyping each other, giving them a high five, getting them ready for the game, and so forth. And, as a fan, you're sitting there going, yeah, I can't wait till the game starts, and so forth. Everybody's cheering, going nuts. I want a little bit of that when I start class, okay. And so one of the things that I do is I have everybody sit down and before class starts, I do a preview. I go hey, listen, today's day is forms day. We're gonna learn your new form. Today we're gonna learn elements of the form. It's gonna be super exciting and it's really important that I have your 100% of your attention. So I give them a preview of the class and then, before we line up, okay, I call out the individual belt groups. All the orange belts stand up. Yes, sir, all right. You guys set the tone for the class. Everybody line up. Yes, sir, all right. And everybody gives them a cheering thing and they go to their spots and so forth. So I want to make sure they're hyped up for class, okay. And then I call another group. I said can you guys be louder than the belts that just came out? Ready, light up. Yes, sir, they'll all run to their spots. And then the white belts same thing. Can you be the louder? And then the white belts inevitably beat everybody. Oh my gosh, the white belts were amazing and they're standard attention. So then we bow in and I'm an old school, martial arts school.

Speaker 2:

I meditate All right, I don't, we don't pray to anything, we meditate and it's a minute meditation. So having these kids kneel, sit down, and then I do a little talk and I just basically say listen, part of becoming a student of martial arts is calming your brain and emptying your cup, your brain and all the things that happen so you can accept new knowledge. So empty your cup, empty your mind, and then, once again, I say this phrase being still is a very difficult thing at your age and one of the things that you need to do is develop a strong brain. So all the kids that are sitting still, I know who you are. So all the kids that are sitting still, I know who you are. You guys are developing a very strong brain. So be still. And I'll tell you, having 30, 40 kids meditate, sitting down, quiet, I still get chills. I think it's a really cool part of what we do. So just making sure that you bring this pomp and circumstance and energy to the classes and so forth.

Speaker 2:

And then I have one of my leaders and junior leaders run the stretching. We have just a canned stretching quick 10 minutes of stretching their bodies to get ready for class. And when they do it I wanna make sure that they're louder than the students and they're more enthusiastic than the students. They have to be super loud yelling the numbers and so forth. And I'll tell you, it's my leadership team. It's these kids that are learning how to project their voice and be loud and command and have a commanding presence. That's a very important key point in my classes. So I have a lot of helpers in the class and after warmups or after stretching, then we do warmups and you can do any types of things. You can do the horse riding stance I call it lecture style, that's one way of doing it. You can do line drills, making sure that each of your leaders are in charge of the little kids line drills and they can do that. Okay, and so that's how I run my classes and that's the first 25 minutes or so, and after they do the line drills and plyometric type stuff and so forth, in the beginning part of class.

Speaker 2:

Then we get into what I call curriculum, and that's when most classes fall apart because they don't have a lot of instructors or leaders. One of my leaders will work on the form with one of the kids. Let's just use it's a form day, we're working on forms, or poomsae or kata or whatever you want to call it and that instructor will work with that group Another group, what I call. We work on skills and drills. I can just work on general stuff like kicking a wave master and doing a lecture style on how to do a proper kick or a proper block, and this is where I can single-handedly just run the class and then, as that instructor, 10 minutes in, we rotate another belt group that they can work with.

Speaker 2:

Oh, by the way, after they do forms, they do striping. So they'll stripe the kids with either a full stripe for learning the form or a half stripe for just attempting the form, and so I'm really centric on making sure the kids get striped up. In our system you have to get four different stripes in order to qualify to test, and so the classes are really focused on. What is the goal? Why are you here today? And every eight weeks, we offer a test, and our goal is to try to get them ready for testing. If they're not ready to test, guess what? They just wait another eight weeks. Okay, so that's how we run our schools in the nutshell.

Speaker 2:

And then, at the end of the class, there's two things that are super important that you need to do. One you need to do a fun ending drill, whether that's the high block game where you circle them up and touch the kid in the head and so forth. That's one thing you can do. Another thing you can do besides the high block game is that you can also do a flying high five. You run and do a flying high five to the target. You can have them jump over shields, you can do a little obstacle course, whatever, just something fun for the kids to do. And then, right after the end of that, the most critical thing you do is I always do a five minute lecture, and that lecture has to do with something that's important. It could be your tenants.

Speaker 2:

Hey, being a martial artist means you're courteous, so that's why we bow and we say hello to our instructors and so forth, and we bow to the flags, but also do you say hi to your parents' friends when they come into the house. Do you say hi to your friends' parents Right when you hi? Mrs Jones, nice to see you today. How many seven-year-old kids say hi to the parents of their friends without the parents saying it first? So, and saying it first, so I just make sure that they do a proper greeting and knowing how to look someone in the eye and so forth, so you can work on whatever you feel is a very important life skill that you want your black belts to look like, and that's kind of our courteous one. So that is a very important part. And then at the end of the class, let them know that we're going to be working on this all week and if you didn't get a stripe, that's okay, you can also gain it the next time you come in, and so forth, and they're just really focused on that.

Speaker 1:

That you mentioned your beginning of the class and then the end of the class. In the middle. Do you have high energy drills or are they more of the same tone?

Speaker 2:

What do you recommend on that in the core, middle, super high energy, we crank the music. Oh, you have music going in your class as well. I'm a big proponent of music. I never used to be, but I'm telling you it makes a huge difference and just having good music for the kids to work and train and jump over stuff and so forth just a really cool aspect of what we do so, I'm assuming, with music.

Speaker 1:

you have high energy drills then with either bags or targets.

Speaker 2:

Correct, correct. The other thing which is critically important, I make all my students. So we're talking about how do you get a kid to be loud, and so forth. We do our oath and tenets over old school. Did you do that? Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, yes, sir, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I have one of the kids lead, so usually a small five-year-old and the five-year-old goes yes, sir, they turn around. I said even deeper bow, bow to your parents. So they bowed to their parents at the end of our classes and then we dismissed them and I said give your parents a big hug at the end of class and thank them for bringing you to Taekwondo class. So that's kind of how I keep a rockstar class. And the thing is that if students do not know why they're training, what's the goal, why am I here, then you're going to lose them. I have a six-month testing cycle for red to high red and I always remind them hey, you're testing in June or you're going to be testing in September. So this is what we're working on this week. Your job as a teacher is to always remind them why they're there that day and what you're working on to get them closer to their goal.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Master Chan. As always, let's wrap it up here. If you enjoyed today's show or any of our previous shows, go ahead and subscribe to our podcast or YouTube channel. You'll get notified when a new episode drops. Thanks for listening and see you guys on the next episode.