Firearms Training: Is There A Reason To Disregard It?
"Never bring a knife to a gunfight." -Unknown, often attributed to The Untouchables (1987)
In addition to teaching individuals how to defend themselves with their own body, many martial arts schools teach students to defend themselves with sticks, knives, swords traditional weapons (such as nunchaku and kama) and some even teach self-defense with improvised weapons (like belts, car keys and other household objects). So why, then, are firearms traditionally neglected? Sure, many schools teach students how to take a gun away from an aggressor, but then what? Ask a veteran, a police officer or anyone who has gone through the trouble of obtaining a concealed carry license and they'll tell you that handling a gun takes a considerable amount of training.
Is it really that responsible to teach someone how to take a firearm away from an aggressor, and then not teach them how to handle it once they have it? Martial artists trained in knife fighting know it's more than just flailing the blade around, would you teach a student to take a knife away but not how to properly wield that knife? So why is there such a taboo around guns?
School Image: Your Single Most Important Marketing Tool
There are a million martial arts schools out there. If you don't believe me, flip your phone book open to that section or do an internet search for martial arts schools in your area. The single most important thing distinguishing your school from the sea of competitors is your school image. Your school image, or marketing identity, is what your potential customers see first, it's the basis for all of your advertising, it's a major part of what makes you unique, it heavily influences not only whether or not prospective students sign up but how you approch those potential students in the first place, it even influences how you decorate your school.
So why, with how monumentally important your school image is, does this seem to be the one thing a majority of martial arts schools neglect the most?
Even if you think "image" is some artificial advertising concept or only for huge soulless corporations, the fact remains that it can be the most influential determinant of the success of your school.
"People who don't pay attention to image come across as people who aren't paying attention. That in itself is an image, but not a good one." - Susan Lynn Peterson, Ph.D and co-author of Starting and Running your own Martial Arts School
