It's a struggle keeping those students involved in other sports and activities interested in attending your classes. The ultimate goal should be to keep them training and striving for their martial arts goals. If you’re doing these five things you could be jeopardizing that goal.
- Tell students they should only focus on their martial art training. Be an advocate for their success. Rather than telling your students to choose martial arts before all others, show them consistent year-round martial arts training yields greater results in seasonal sports. Think about what a strong jab means to a baseball player, a powerful round kick to a soccer player, and the agility practiced in sparring drills to a football player. Emphasize the value of the skills you’re offering and your students will continue to come to class regardless of their other activities.
- Don’t show you care. We’ve all heard it before: communication is key! Remind your students about their martial arts goals, and let them know you believe they can reach those goals. It goes beyond pushing them to stay and enjoy class. Students who are considering quitting should be pulled aside by instructors for a one-on-one to review goals and the steps needed to reach those goals. Creating a supportive mindset that will motivate your students to train during the sport season.
- Don’t be flexible. Give your students an opportunity to keep training when their schedules get hectic. A short make-up class, only 10-15 minutes long, will keep your students in a routine of coming to class. Make sure they know you’ll give them individual time to pursue their martial arts goals if they are committed to do so. Schedule these lessons into your day-to-day plan to maintain consistency with the students and your staff.
- Don’t ever ask your students for a referral. If a student of yours is trying to juggle their martial arts training with another sport or activity, ask them to bring their friends on the team to class. Having friends in class is a greater incentive for students to keeping coming to class. The fact is if they have friends training with them they are less likely to quit. Make sure to let parents know about the extra benefit of carpooling! Inviting a friend to class can be the deciding factor between continuing training or taking time off.
- Keep doing the same drills over, and over, and over… again. We all know the importance of repetition in Martial Arts training. As a matter of fact, that’s the key to success. However, if you do the same drills over and over again it becomes monotonous, and you’re likely to lose students because of this. The solution is disguising repetition, to do the same things over and over, while also keeping the students engaged. Consider adding new drills to your routine. If you need guidance in doing so, we have compiled our practiced and proven approaches to disguised repetition in our Instructor Toolbox. Don’t let lack of enthusiasm be the reason your students quit.
Although conflicting activities may always be a challenge in retaining students, maintaining positive communication and engagement with your students will keep them just as motivated to reach their goals as they were at the beginning of their training.
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Quits are tough to see each month. Not only is it hard to lose that student who you’ve invested your spirit into, but it also eats away your time to find new students to replace them as well as lowering your monthly profit.
Guess what? Kovar Systems provides the coaching and resources you need to help keep those students training longer, saving you that money and time you are currently losing. Make an appointment now and let’s execute a plan together!