I just finished a long but pleasant day doing consulting with my Elite Coaching Clients.  Many of them are doing so amazing.  Husband and Wife team Chuck and Kara Giangreco are still killing it, their schools have continued to grow year in and year out.  They have a high level of retention within their studios and are definitely the people to look toward when using my description of a martial art schools - High Quality, Low Stress and High profit.  They are the model to follow. 

As far as my blog for the day, I am coming off an article I just saw posted by another consultant about uniforms.  I am so glad to see that this individual who is one of the leaders in our industry believes in uniforms and keeping tradition alive.  I have debated another leading consultant who's name I will not mention who has said, tradition is nothing more then something that has been done for a period of time.  While I agree with a definition, when I speak of tradition within the martial arts I have an entirely different point of view.

My thoughts are as follows.

A traditional martial art - holds on to a value system that is quickly being lost within our society.  I spoke about it in one of my other posts.  Respect, honor and Loyalty are slowing being thrown away with commercialism of the martial art business. While as a business person I can see why some would give up on these values to profit and make a living.  I say, they are selling themselves short.  We as martial artists are keepers of thousands of year old philosophies, history, culture and quite frankly a way of life that is so important for our world in modern times.  We can't move forward without holding on to parts of our past that are valuable.  Remember the computer today, is a component of many other inventions.  One thing we haven't throw out yet is electricity. Without it we would not have computers. So you can't eliminate tradition from the martial arts.

If some one tells you a uniform doesn't matter, then I ask why not say that to a professional football or a baseball team.  If it doesn't look like a baseball game it is nothing but throwing the ball around. 

Things like bowing, answering properly and courteously, and taking care of your instructor are all components of tradition.  Tradition is what we hold dear to our hearts and pass on to our future students. It is the blue print for the future.  I look at tradition as an overall esoteric philosophy as well a culture within our school.  Teaching the roots to the tradition are most important because if they are not taught people tend to not appreciate why things are done and not see the lesson.  It is essential for all martial artists to realize the tradition is what separates them from any other activity.

Think about M.M.A - while I am a big fan, I do not see many M.M.A fighters who act like martial artists.  Fighters like Frank Shamrock, Cung Le, George St. Pierre come from a mentality of tradition.  I have interviewed Cung Le and he has said in our interview he believes in teaching tradition in order to develop great fighters. This comes from one of the best fighters pound for pound out there. 

Lets not sell ourselves short and lets continue to teach traditional martial arts no matter what style you teach.