Evolution

Five Hundred Facebook followers.

I waited for a long time to get to that goal. I wrote a lot of posts hoping to add one or two more “likes”. It worked. The likes kept piling up, slowly but surely.

Finally, when I was away at CEP (WKSA’s Continuing Education Program), it happened. I was at 499 for a week or more. Then someone unliked the page for some reason, and I was at 498. But I made some new friends that weekend and it bumped up to 504 overnight! I was elated.

Then, I got back, full of excitement, wanting to share my enthusiasm for the best martial art around, and people weren’t showing up for class. Everyone has perfectly valid reasons, I’m sure. Still, it was frustrating and I made a quick and perhaps emotional post. I posted: If you don’t come to AT LEAST two classes per week between now and the end of April, I will not sign your tournament entry form.

SIXTEEN people unliked the page after that post.

Amazing!

It was certainly uncharacteristically straightforward of me. But I stand by it. If you cannot spend time in class, especially right before a tournament, there is no sense in competing. Most “tournament” schools have much stricter policies, I’m sure.

I push for attendance to one tournament per year. The Midwest Kuk Sool Tournament in St. Louis is a good one for us to attend as a school. It’s close enough that you don’t have to stay the night, but has all sorts of attractions to encourage a weekend getaway should you wish.

Of course, I like to attend the World Championships when they are in Houston in the fall as well, but I don’t expect anyone else to do that. (I would be happy to accommodate anyone who wanted to attend.)

Kuk Sa Nim wants everyone to attend at least one WKSA tournament and one Seminar before they receive their Black Belt. Blackbelts are required to attend one of each every other year. In my opinion, there is no reason to miss a seminar. We have arranged fund-raisers if money was an obstacle for anyone and we always know the date well ahead of time, (it’s been the same weekend in June for the past six years or more). Kuk Sa Nim travels the entire country to make himself accessible to us, and to refuse to take advantage of that is disrespectful.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I believe that I’m evolving as a martial art teacher. I’m expecting more of myself, more of my instructors, and more of my students. If I lose some “likes” along the way, I’m fine with that.

Those who know me know that I try never to speak ill of another person, school, or organization. I take nothing away from other schools in the area when I tell you that, in my opinion, we have access to the finest pool of martial art talent in the world at our tournaments, seminars, and workshops. If you have the chance to attend, you should attend.

I hope that my students feel the same way. And if they don’t, I hope that they trust me enough to take my word and attend anyway. Kuk Sa Nim asks that you give him one time to prove it to you. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Here’s a link to the seminar form. Print it out and bring it in if you want to attend.

Edit

Several people have been kind enough to point out that Facebook is purging “Likes” that came from so-called click farms, and from people who have since deceased. It’s likely that’s where the losses came from. Either way, it doesn’t really change the message in the post.