The cost of living and Martial Arts classes

 You hear it everywhere currently, the cost of living is going up so people are having to budget their spending patterns. There is no doubt about that, and it applies to us too. 

I've heard others comment that their membership has dropped and I see the same. However truth be told, that actually happened due to the pandemic. For some reason or another, since the pandemic people seem to have evaluated their lives and moved to do different things, sometimes in different places.. 

This means that your audience has moved, and whilst your classes might previously have had 20-30 attendees, you're now closer to 10-15 perhaps, or worse.  

Its a bad thing if you previously earned a living from teaching, if you didn't then it's not too bad as long as you can pay for venue rent, insurances etc.. 

But what about from a student point of view. Well for them not much has changed. In my case I didn't increase my prices since 2017, and unless there is a huge increase in venue hire cost, I won't do so either. 

I don't teach to earn a living, I teach because I like to share my passion for the art and hope by teaching that the art is safe for the next generation. What people take from it themselves is something only they can judge.  But anyway as far as costs is concerned: taking inflation into account, my prices have actually dropped over the past 5 years.  

So my question to all of you out there that haven't started training yet but want to, there are some choices to make.  Do you want to spend the money on the latest and greatest phone? Do you want to buy it for extra beers in the pub, or that weekly (or more often) take away meal? Or do you want to train in martial arts, it's up to you, the choice is yours. I'd know which one I'd take!

Walk On!