Attracting adults

All commercial Taekwondo instructors know that children are where the money is. You cannot have a successful Taekwondo business without children, lots of children. They love to train and beg their parents to take them to class, they want to go to tournaments, camps, clinics, etc, and they buy lots of Taekwondo equipment and accessories. Children get fewer injuries and, when they do, they heal quickly. Children tend to stay as students for many years, and they where most of a school's instructor trainees come from. Therefore, most commercial instructors have an extensive advertising program to reach children, such as demonstrations in malls, ads, school visits, bring a friend to class, etc.

However, children grow up, start dating, start college, and move on to other aspects of their lives. This means there is a dearth of wisdom and experience in many Taekwondo schools. To feel this void, instructors need adult students. They have a lot of expertise in many areas that may be useful to the school, such as carpenters, electricians, doctors, etc. and most are willing to help the school in these areas. They have the wisdom and experience to guide younger students. They are stable in their lives so they are not moving locations as much and are not trying to "find themselves."

However, adults have different needs than those of younger students and, if these needs are no fulfilled, they will quit or find a school that does fulfill their needs. Therefore, instructors must be aware of the needs of adult students and seek to fulfill these needs to attract, and keep, adult students in the schools.

Children accept anything you tell them. They knew nothing about Taekwondo until you became their instructor, so they are similar to little "clones" of the instructor. Adults have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things, especially about life in general. They are not as accepting of everything the instructor says; they want to know why and why not. They want to be stimulated. Most are not satisfied being mindless robots that perform the same techniques over-and-over on command for no apparent reason, and usually no reason is provided.

Most young adults have active lives with a lot of things happening. They multi-task daily, both at their jobs and in their lives, so, to get the most out of their time, they want to multi-task at Taekwondo class. They want to learn Taekwondo, get an aerobic workout, built strength, learn self-defense, get fit, meet new friends, and socialize with the friends.

Traditional Taekwondo is boring. Stretch, drill, practice forms, spar, go home. After a few years of this, even a monk would get bored. If you have the patience of Job, you will become an expert technician, but you would also become a mindless robot, repeating the same thing over and over. Young adults need to be stimulated and challenged. Oh, there are always the mindless few, but they are few. You cannot build a business catering to the few; you must appeal to the masses.