for the past few months there have been no new commers that have stayed longer then the introductary lession, the lowest grade person that turns up on a regular basis is an orange belt and the class is getting increasingly top heavy, with few low ranking people, not that im that senior being only a green senior (im the 4th most junior in the class) im new-ish to martial arts, and have not weathered the years that some of you have (tryed to put that as nicly as possible) is this just a spring thing, or do new students only flock in when there is a new class started, is this happening all accorss choi, or just localy, hopefully the demmonstration at the town fate new weekend will attract some new members, am damn scared about performing in frount of all those people though. your thoughts ?
Getting new students always happens in peaks and troths; you'll go through a stage when your getting a new guy join every other week and then you'll go for 2 months without even a phone call to enquire about lessons. Its just the way it is, it'll pick up again. Your right, it does tend to be harder to get new students in spring/summer especially kids, cos it doesn't get dark until its late the just wanna stay out and play and not do martial arts.
Peaks 'n' Troughs Thanks to our esteemed CI's opening new schools in the area we just had a grading with 50 students taking part. Of that 50, there were about 20 white belts grading. If all the new white belts in the area had decided to grade we would have had over 60 which would have resulted in 90 odd students grading. Don't worry, as has been pointed out these things tend to come in waves, and I'm sure that your demonstration will pull in a few more students. Good luck!
Looking back at past threads, you'll see that I had a similar worry earlier this year...our school was getting pretty top heavy. I've also asked for advice on how to attract more students. All said, I think the best method of getting new students in has been word of mouth and recommendations. This has certainly worked for us and in the past 5 or so months we've had about ten newbies who are all staying and really enjoying what we do. Just goes that way sometimes. The Kids' classes tend to look after themselves as kids talk to each other at school, but the adult numbers come and go. If you're getting lots of peopleleaving after a few weeks, it might be worth trying to find out why - sure, there will be a proportion who just don't enjoy it or who are looking for something else - fair enough. But if it's something wider and deeper that your school is doing then maybe you need to look at your lesson structure. Good luck with your demo.
it gets like that. we have had a massive gap in the middle ranks for a few years which is slowly starting to close. People would start, and after a couple of years (at the most) would lose interest. Sometimes we have university students who are only around for term times and then move away when they finish their degrees. This can lead to problems with the higher grades not developing because the class is always 'bottom-heavy', and as such, more advanced material can only be practiced sporadically. The solution? answers on a postcard please...
Yep - What the others said...there have been months(even up to a year) perhaps where not one new student has enrolled, but things tend to even out as in a matter of weeks you can get anything between 5 & 25 suddenly signing up - word of mouth seems to be a good source of new students, with the internet bringing a few in too.
Typically this time of year is a slow time for schools picking up new students. There are always exceptions of course. Things come around and the student ratio will adjust itself as the Fall season comes around.
I've noticed that new students always appear at certain times of the year. IE> just after xmas, you may get an influx of students taking up MA as part of their "get fit" new years resolution. Also, across the summer holidays you may get many new young students join as a way to keep themselves occupied while away from school.
