#15 | From Zero to 120 Martial Arts Students in Less Than A Year! - Black Belt Banter: Martial Arts Business Podcast

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:11):
In this week's episode, we'll discuss the topic
from zero to 120.
How a 24-year-old built athriving martial arts school in
under a year.
Welcome to Black Belt Banter,the best podcast to help your
martial arts school increase inprofits and generate substantial

(01:33):
revenue.
I'm Jimmy Hong, and my co-hostis Master Tony Chung.
We are joined by Master LiamGutmacher, 24 years young with a
fourth degree black belt.
Master Liam's journey has takenhim from the Massachusetts State
Champion to founder of LGMartial Arts, where he disc
focuses on acrobatic taekwondoand high-level gymnastics.

(01:55):
But Master Liam's reach doesn'tstop at the map.
With a thriving online communityof 1 million followers and over
100 million views, he'sinspiring martial artists around
the globe, one viral combo at atime.
Master Liam, Master Tony,welcome to the show.
1 million followers and over 100million views.

(02:18):
Wow, that's some accomplishment.
I don't even have a hundredfriends on my Facebook account.
Master Liam, you've built amassive following.
Thank you, sir.
Over a million fans andcounting.
What do you think clicked forpeople?
What's been the secret sauce?

SPEAKER_02 (02:40):
I think maybe the most important thing is I feel
like I'm relatable.
I'm not some really like abodybuilder, not even super
attractive.
I just create content from myroom and I go to my martial arts
school and I'm making tornadokicks and 540 kicks.
And I feel like any martialartist can relate to that, and
then they can see my progresstoo.

(03:00):
Like the same type of tutorialsand videos I made three years
ago, I'm making now.
And so I think people can justrelate to, you know, just a
everyday martial artist justtrying to, you know, put their
content out there.

SPEAKER_00 (03:11):
And that's really helpful.
Master Tony.
I mean, actually, I'm sorry,let's go back to Master Liam.
With the traction, with all thattraction you've built online,
does that digital momentumtranslate into real-world growth
for your March High School?

SPEAKER_02 (03:28):
I wish it was that simple.
I think it creates a super coolreputation, and anybody who
finds my school through mywebsite or social media might
find it interesting.
But my reach is global.
So unfortunately, it's not, youknow, the local audience that
I'd want to see.
So I think it might help, butthere's so many other things

(03:49):
going on behind the scenes thatI need to do to run my business
that have nothing to do withsocial media.
So yeah, I think it enhances it,but it does it's not make or
break.
It doesn't give me a millionstudents at the school.
I still have to work hard and dowhat any you know martial arts
school owner would do, just likeif they had no social media at
all.

SPEAKER_00 (04:09):
Huh.
So with all that Master Liam'smillion followers, Master Tony,
are you secretly running like aTojon TikTok empire that we
don't know about?

SPEAKER_01 (04:21):
That's how I found I found Liam, you know, because I
was looking online and I've beenfollowing him for years, and I
was like, who's this kid?
He's in this triangular room.
You would know if you GoogleLiam Gumacher, you know what I
mean?
You'll see all of his videos.
You're like, I've seen that kid.
And then over the years, when Ifirst watched, I'm like, okay,
you see a lot of contentcreators online, a lot of them

(04:43):
fizzle out, but this guy keptposting more content, and then
obviously he worked in CobraKai.
So when I saw his Cobra Kaicontent, I'm like, dang.
And you know, it I mainly got achance to watch a lot of his
Cobra Kai content post Cobra Kaibecause I was like, they call it
uh you didn't even you can'teven come up for air, you're so
busy.
And when I finally connectedwith Liam was after he had
posted, I'm going to be openinga martial arts school.

(05:04):
So I reached out to him and I'mpart of a SA.
We we coach schools to help themunlock their potential.
We want you to be an industryleader.
Anything we can do to help you,we'd love to help you.
And you know, I startedresearching and realized he had
over a million followers acrossall of his socials.
And once you get to the level,he's at his 0.1 billion views.
That's it's nuts.
And uh he was just so nice andso respectful.

(05:26):
And I was like, man, how can Ihelp you?
I can tell you a lot of thestuff that I've done that that
that hasn't worked over theyears and some of the stuff that
has worked.
And he's just really smart, he'sincredible.
And I I know because I work withuh a couple of different social
media influencers.
Alex Wong, I've been her coach,and she works for me for the
last eight years.
And uh it's not that easy, it'sa lot of consistency of posting.

(05:49):
But then as I've seen Alex, herchannel grow, Liam's has
exploded even more.
And Liam he does these tutorialsand then he's gotten better as a
martial artist, and now he's aman, he's not a kid, and he's I
think he's sharp, he's likemuscles, he's flipping, he does
MFA stuff, and and then more sohe's a great teacher, and he's
just an awesome guy.
Been working with Liam for justshort of 10 months or so, and

(06:13):
what a rock star! I can't waitfor people to hear his story.

SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
Thank you.
I mean, Master Liam, one of thebig reasons we wanted you on the
show is because you've donesomething pretty remarkable.
Um, you opened your Tekwanoschool less than a year ago, and
you've already grown to over 120students.
I mean, I've known schoolsthat's been around a lot longer
than that and that couldn'tbreak a hundred.

(06:39):
That's just such a huge growthin such a short time.
Walk us through it.
What sparked this journey?
What made you decide to openyour own school?
And and how were you able to dothat at such a young age?

SPEAKER_02 (06:52):
Well, first off, thank you, both of you.
Such kind words and coming fromyou guys, it really means a lot.
I'm still such a beginner whenit comes to this, and you guys
are the experts, so itdefinitely, yeah, it means a
lot.
So I started karate actuallywhen I was five years old, just
at my, you know, home martialarts school, home karate school,
five minutes from my house.
I was there for around 10 years,and it was fun.

(07:14):
It was kind of another justafter-school activity.
I was playing soccer, I wasplaying basketball, so I wasn't
really thinking that could be along-term career.
I took a one-year hiatus um inmy freshman year of high school
to just try other sports likerun track and cross-country.
But I had the yearning to wantto go back, but I wanted to try
something new.
So, my sophomore year of highschool, I started Taekwondo for
the first time.

(07:34):
And I had my karate background,but as you guys probably know,
all the styles are a little bitdifferent, different hand
position, and just from the veryfirst day when I saw what they
were doing, like spin kicks andjumping, it just seemed way more
exciting than what I was used todoing for all those years.
So, yeah, I started Taekwondowhen I was around 17 and I stuck
with it for all the way tillnow.

(07:55):
I think I knew during highschool that it was going to be
my passion.
I wasn't the greatest academicstudent, and I always wanted to
be physical.

(08:58):
So it was a great outlet for meto not only impact young
children because I was not onlytaking classes but teaching, but
a way to stay active too,because being active is a super
important part of my life.
I was at this Taekwondo schoolfor around seven years, and I
really enjoyed it.
It gave me a lot of experience.
I by the end became almost a GMof the school.
I was teaching the classes, wehad an after-school program, I

(09:21):
was running the social media,signing up students.
So anything you would need toknow about how to run the
school, I was doing that by theend.
And we opened up a secondlocation, and I thought it was
gonna be, you know, my school torun, but I had a little
disagreement with the owner, soit was time to part ways and do
my own thing.
And sure enough, my childhoodkarate school's owners asked me

(09:42):
to come take it over.
So that was incredible timing.
I thought I was gonna have to,you know, search far and wide in
Massachusetts or even go toanother state to open up my
school.
But yeah, my childhoodinstructors were during the end
of their tenure, they werelooking to do something else,
and they asked me to take overtheir school.
So yeah, that was pretty muchone year ago.

(10:02):
It was August 15th.
So we're pretty much to the oneyear date.

SPEAKER_01 (10:06):
And then how many students did they have?

SPEAKER_02 (10:07):
I think it was 40 or yeah, so they claimed to have
around 80 students, but when Ifirst came to visit, only around
50 of them showed up.
But during that initial period,none of them knew me.
And then all of them thought Iwas just super young, and they
didn't really know if they couldtrust me or not.
Because you you you go fromhaving almost like an additional

(10:29):
set of parents.
You know, the the masters are intheir 50s and they've been
teaching those students foryears.
And so just for a random kid towalk in and say, Yeah, I'm gonna
take over your school and beyour instructor, I can
definitely tell that's a littlebit overwhelming and a little
bit strange.
So in those first two weeks, itwas like super fast transition.
I found out in August, and thenby September 1st, two weeks

(10:49):
later, I created my business.
I set up my accounting.
Anything I would need to do torun my business legally, I
created in two weeks.
And then I met all the studentsin that time and was able to
convince them that yeah, youshould sign up.
So I was able to retain all the50 students who were who had
been doing karate, who had neverdone Taekwondo before, just
based on the conversations I hadwith the students and the

(11:11):
parents.
Of course, I showed off some ofmy skills, and I think everybody
got hooked after those first twoweeks.

SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
And now you didn't purchase and take over the
contracts, they were allreleased from their commitments
and agreements, and then theyhad to sign new agreements with
you.
So they were free to go.
So you even though you had a nota direct relationship, you had
an opportunity.
You technically started withzero students, is what I would
assume, right?
Because I've done this before.

SPEAKER_02 (11:36):
Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 (11:37):
And uh exactly I mean that's a that's that's a
high closing ratio.

SPEAKER_00 (11:43):
That's great, Master Liam.
I've I've known stories where itthat was not the success rate
that you had when they took overa school, nobody wanted to
continue with the new master.
I mean, that's literallystarting sometimes, it works
against you because they alreadyhave a biased opinion of the
previous master.
They have a relationship withthe previous master, they don't

(12:05):
want a new master coming intaking over their kids'
relationship, and that work thatsometimes works against you.
You can't automatically assumethat they're all gonna join you
because you're the new masterand owner.
They go, they they walk out thedoor because they're not happy
of how you know what happened.
So that's a big testament toyou.
You can't assume that 50, 40,whatever the students that you

(12:27):
had taken over was automaticallyjoined because I've seen it work
the other way.
It was a very low closing rate,not not a lot, majority didn't
join, and it was a terriblesituation for the new.

SPEAKER_01 (12:40):
I just thought about this.
As corny as it sounds, it soundslike Daniel LaRusso taking over
Miyagi Doe from his teacher, andthen also Lawrence taking over
Cobra Kai.
So it's like what you did onsocial media for it happened for
real for you.
It's pretty crazy, except you'relike the opposite.
You're super nice, you're superrespectful.
It's crazy that you say that youweren't the most studious kid at

(13:02):
school because you're so smartand you're so brad.
I assumed you were just a 4.7GPA.
Because I'm telling you, workingwith Liam has been the pleasure
because every time I saysomething, he'll be oh, and I'll
ask questions, and he doesn'tautomatically say yes or yes or
yes or it's almost we talk aboutit, it's a deliberation.
And once he's like, I don'tthink I want to do that, sir.

(13:23):
How about this?
Or sometimes, sir, I thinkthat's a great idea.
How do I go about doing that?
How would you do this?
And then I'll try to be honestand say, I don't know.
But literally every single thingthat Liam has done has been,
he's got the mightest touch.
So I know it sounds great tohave 120 inside of 10 months or
so, but wait till you see wherehe's at in three to five years.

(13:45):
I'm telling you, follow him onsocial media.
Trust me, he doesn't need yourfollowers, but he his students
that are light and yellow belts,they're doing aerials.
And you can sit there and havehad a chance to work in film.
So when I'm telling you thatthese are not trained
professionals, these are kids,right?
Where we might have a demo andyou have your black belts, or

(14:06):
you might import someinstructors from overseas and
they're doing flip kicks.
That's impressive.
It's great.
But uh when he does a demo, hejust did a baseball like the it
was like a baseball game orsomething.
But these kids they're doingcomplicated choreography, and
Liam is playing the role of sixdifferent people holding,

(14:26):
conducting, cheering people on.
These kids are holding backflipjackknife kicks, and it was
incredible.
I I'm impressed when like youknow, when you go see a demo and
then you go to the school, yougo to some halftime show, you
see some cookie one demo, andthen you go to the school and
they're like, one, sir, two,sir, three, sir, students.
You actually go to class and belike, we're doing cartwheels

(14:47):
today, and then we're gonna doone of cartwheels, and we're
gonna do aerials, and then heteaches what he shows you.
And I think that's refreshing.
And it's actually made merethink a lot of my curriculum.
Like, I don't, I stopped havingdemo teams before.
My demo team is what we train inclass.
I believe that.
I believe a curriculum should bedemonstratable, testable, and

(15:08):
modular.
And I want you to tell, I wantto tell you that as much as I've
tried to innovate, what Liam'sdoing is the future.
So I'd like you to speak to thata little bit, Liam, because
you're the boss, you're themaster of the school, you're a
quanjung, you're in charge ofyour quan, your academy.
And what is your curriculumvision?

SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Yes, sir.
So actually it kind of sproutedfrom all of my past experiences
because as much as I enjoyedlearning how to do weapons and
self-defense and you know thebasic hand techniques, I think
those are all definitelyimportant.
But just like you're talkingabout in my social media, I'm
posting my flips, my spin kicks,my acrobatics.
And to me, that's fun andexciting.

(15:49):
And so I don't want my kids tospend their 40-minute classes
just learning how to grab eachother's shoulder and like, no,
you have to do it this way, noswitch hands.
I don't think that's one superrealistic, only because I'm a
I've been doing martial arts mywhole life.
I've never been in a fight, butI've been able to create, you
know, amazing content andinspire students to do amazing
tricks, like how to become aninja.

(16:10):
That's almost like my I'm gonnateach you how to, yeah, I'm
gonna teach you how to do superathletic skills, super amazing
skills that I learned how to domyself from YouTube.
I watched other people do thosetricks.
As much as I want to say I'm soamazing, I only started
gymnastics three years ago.
If you watch my videos from thevery beginning when I did my
first tornado kick tutorial,it's really bad.

(16:31):
But it's kind of inspiring to goback myself to watch my old
videos, but even for mystudents, they'll be like, go
watch my board breaking from2021 and watch it now.
That was the everyday creatingvideos, watching myself using
film to get my to make myselfbetter.
And so that's what I teach mystudents.
I'll just give a very quickexample.
I have a girl who started tolearn 540 hook kick, and she
learned it pretty fast.

(16:52):
But every day she's just like, Iwant to get it, I want to get
it, why can't I get it?
And I keep giving her feedback,but you're in this position, do
it like this.
And I was like, I'll just namedrop.
Rebecca, I was in my room atmidnight recording this 540 kick
over and over again for years tobe able to tell you exactly how
to do it.
So as much as it would be greatto get the instant
gratification, the this point ofthe training is not saying we

(17:14):
need discipline, we needdiscipline, you need patience.
It's just keep doing the kick,realize that if you don't
practice, you can't make it, andthen over that time you'll be
able to learn.
So, as much as it's just flashyand cool, there's a lot of
values that I'm trying toinstill with them through this
type of education withoutjamming it down their throat.
I just want them to learnthrough experience, and that's
way more powerful than how manytimes I say it.

SPEAKER_01 (17:33):
Preach it, preach it, let's go.
He even has adults, he had anadult, he has a bunch of like
crazy high-level trickers at hisschool because he has a spring
floor, but he has regularadults.
You had a 40-some-year-oldadult, he never did martial
arts, and he was doingbackflips.
How long was he been?
How long have he been training?

SPEAKER_02 (17:56):
Sir, we had our grand opening, and at that time
I did my demo team.
We had a whole bunch of supercool trickers, which is
Taekwondo and gymnastics doingflips.
And a week later, he's like,Liam, I saw the trickers, it was
so inspiring.
I want to learn how to do abackflip.
So he had zero experience.
His daughter is one of mystudents, and she's she's
awesome.
But this guy just did backflip,he did a backflip into a pool

(18:18):
once, and then he's like, I wantto learn how to do a real
backflip.
So from that day, zero martialarts experience.
He just comes during Open Gymwhen we work on backflips.

SPEAKER_01 (18:25):
How old was he?
He's 45.
He looked pretty big, he waslike 200 pounds.
He's a big dude.

SPEAKER_02 (18:31):
Yeah, he's a pretty pretty big dude, but his
backflip is awesome.
He has a really awesome time.
Yeah, it's completely true.
So, so your question was aboutcurriculum.
So, my curriculum is umgymnastics, very basic
gymnastics bring your kids.
So, yeah, what we're saying,cartwheels, one-handed
cartwheels, aerials, learninghow to do flips, stuff like
that, and then kicking, and thenthe takeock forms.

(18:54):
But we don't do self-defense, wedon't do sparring.
Minimally, we do basic blocking.
The way we practice blocking isthrough their forms.
So we'll do the first two movesof a form to practice how to do
a low block and punch properly.
So our stripe system is if youwant to go to the next belt
testing, your black stripe isable to demonstrate the board
breaking, which is some advancedkick.
So, for example, I have my whitebelts, my four-year-old white

(19:17):
belts doing a tornado axe kickbecause they can learn how to do
it.
An axe kick just stomp on theboard.
After a month or so, they canalready do it.
So why not give them achallenge?
And I have my yellow belts doinga 360 or 540 hook kick because
they need to be challenged.
And I think I again I learnedthrough my experience that I
don't want to feel suppressedwhen it comes to my skill
development.

(19:38):
Like, why wait until black beltto actually start improving your
skills?
Why not look like a black beltat yellow belts by the time you
reach black belt, you seem likea master?
And I think that I'm soconvinced that my current yellow
belts are gonna be better thanme in three years.

SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
There was like there was an article I read.
It was, I think it wasGrandmaster Greg Silva, I
believe, Grandmaster Silva.
He wrote it a long time ago andit marked me.
It was like he had a bunch ofstats and everything, but it
said instead of having 300students paying$100 a month, can
you get 200 students paying 200a month?
And then you're driving so muchvalue to these people that they

(20:11):
look like 200 demo team members.
It's almost like you have fourdemo teams, you have two A teams
and two B teams.
So we're having a, I think itwas like I have 150 students and
they look like demo teammembers.
And the reason I say that, somepeople that are listening to
this podcast, you you could bebothered by the uh the Instagram
and the twit the social mediaTikTok generation.

(20:31):
But let me tell you, he postssuper consistently, he's very
disciplined, he has cleancontent, he's super respectful
in the comments, even thoughpeople are brutal sometimes,
right?
And maybe he's not wrong.
You're like, no self-defense, noweapons, no sparring.
But you know what?
As school owners, we share andcomment and celebrate America's

(20:54):
Got Talent, Kuki Wan Demo Team,World Taekwondo Demo Team.
And what are they doing?
They're literally doing what youteach in your curriculum.
So I'm not saying we all need todo what Liam's doing, even
though I'm incorporating.
I I recently, my four last hiresare all martial art tricking
stunt men that came from CobraHigh.
And I'm incorporating exactlywhat Liam is talking about into

(21:18):
my curriculum because I want tostart having performance.
I want to teach kids, it's greatthat you're a social media star.
It's great that I've got achance to work on Cobra High,
but how does that affect regularclass?
And I agree with you.
I used to fight in the ring.
I wasn't the best fighter, but Ihad a lot of knockouts.
Never been knocked out.
And I've never been in a streetfight.
I'm the biggest chicken.

(21:38):
People turn up, I'll just callthe cops.
I'm not trying to be in a fight.
I'm not trying to have my peoplefight either.
I want them to be able to defendthemselves.
And let me tell you, if a kidcan do a no-handed cartwheel and
has that body awareness, if anadult can do a backflip at 45
years old with one day of openmat training and just the will
to do and the motivation to belike, I can do this, and the

(21:59):
safety of a$20,000 spring floorthat you put in there and he's
got the equipment, right, andthe training.
If you want to unlock people'spotential, the distance, the
timing, the accuracy, the power,the coordination, the
motivation, it's very similar.
If you look at high-levelperformers that fight fake on
camera, or crickers that flip inthe air and do triple corks and

(22:22):
hit a Nada Bond and bust them,they're thin boards, but then
they can snap an impact.
It's very similar to the commondenominator of people we have at
Asa this year.
We always have Grant Eddie Chacombs, he's a famous UFC
striking coach, was a taekwondoschool owner himself.
And it's all very commondenominators.
And I believe we should havethis not the scarcity mindset of

(22:44):
just dividing and saying, oh,he's doing it wrong, or I don't
agree with this, or I don't, Ican't do backflips, I can't do
that.
I think we should lend from whatwe've done in the past and what
we can do in the future.
And I think that's the future.
This is the golden age ofmartial arts.
You know what I mean?
And how crazy is it that you areable to get the torch from your

(23:05):
teacher and take a school thatwas dwindling down to 50 and
release them on their contractsand basically say, I know I'm
new, I know I'm the Danielson,Johnny Lawrence character.
But if you're willing to go onthis adventure with me, let's
have some fun.
Let's unlock your potential,let's train together.
And within 10 months, boom, youknow what I mean?

(23:29):
And I know I I've never met yourformer teacher.
I know he's super proud of youbecause there's nothing more
after success is succession.
Legacy, right?
That school are you still in thesame facility?

SPEAKER_02 (23:46):
It's the same building I was in when I was
five years old.

SPEAKER_01 (23:49):
It's the same building, and it's super, super
important.
Look, sorry, here's my daughtersaying hi.
Right?
There's my daughter, one of myfour kids.
All right.
Legacy.
When you can create legacy, gamechanger.
That's what I want.
I want my kids.
I'm the fifth generation in myfamily to do martial arts.

(24:09):
My kids are the sixthgeneration.
So for it to keep going, itdoesn't have to be dad's way.
You know, Grandmaster Honk,famous grandmaster.
I got to see him in LA recently.
And Master Jimmy, he's a it'sbeen in his it's in our blood,
right?
And I actually want my kids tobe inspired by people like you.
You've got to actually meet allfour of my kids, and I'm, you

(24:31):
know, and I'm grateful.
And I want people listening tothis podcast to remember that
you could do it on your ownterms, right?
And generational businesses, asMaster Hong knows, they're
tough.
Our dads and moms, they want itdone a certain way, and it's
tough.
And then with Liam, your masterwas able to pass that over, and
now you're able to take it on toa whole nother level.

(24:52):
And the kids that you'reteaching, like Rebecca, I don't
know who she is, she might bethe future.
The greatest black belt has yetto be a black belt at your
school.
And it could be the it could bethe next Bruce Lee or Eddie Cha.

SPEAKER_02 (25:05):
Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 (25:07):
Amazing.
I got so many, I have so manyquestions right now.
It's on my mind, my mind isblown.
Okay, first of all, what istricking?
You guys have been talking abouttricking the last 30 minutes.
I don't even know what thatmeans.
What what is tricking?
I don't what are you tricking?
I I can you explain that, MasterLeon?

SPEAKER_02 (25:29):
So I'm not even an expert really when it comes to
tricking.
I actually met a group of peoplethrough social media,
thankfully.
So I'll give a shout out to SamLincoln.
He created a kind of a crewcalled BBB, which is kind of
like Boston tricking.
And tricking is a combination ofgymnastics, taekwondo,

(25:50):
breakdancing.
It's all different types of artstogether that you can mix in
kind of combinations.
If you can think of a sparringcombo, a roundhouse tornado hook
kick, it's kind of like that,but you're incorporating flips
into it.
And there's just so manydifferent ways you can move your
body.
There's so much variance, it'svery creative, and just it's
just so powerful and inspiringto see people flipping like

(26:10):
that.
And it's super cool, obviouslydangerous, but super cool.
So through my social media, Iwas just posting, you know, my
normal kicking videos, and hewas like, Hey, you're from
Massachusetts, why don't youcome and train with us?
So I started going to open gymswith a bunch of other, you know,
20, 30 year olds and practicingthese moves.
And that's actually what took myskills to the next level because
you know, the Taekwondo kicksare totally incorporated into

(26:35):
this tricking style about how tojump properly, how to have good
air awareness and spin, and justunderstanding how to control my
body in different ways andchanging the accesses instead of
being always upright, you canchange little by little, lean
back.
All those things really helpedme to be a way better kicker.
And then also just develop morepatience and discipline to be
able to realize I don't havethese skills right now, but if I

(26:56):
want to make them better, I'mgonna actually need to put in
the work.
And also starting that as a21-year-old compared to when I
was five, that's totallydifferent.
The karate skills and taekwondoskills I learned was maximum
tornado kick or a bali kick, butI had never done any flips, I
never did multiple kicks in theair or putting it all into a
sequence.
So being able to create thatcommunity and work with people

(27:18):
my own age was so inspiring.
And so I was able to bring thatto my own school.
And so Master Tony was talkingabout my spring floor.
When I took over the building,it was kind of in bad shape.
The paint was blue, the lightswere bad, the floor was just
like a 20-year-old like judomat.
So it wasn't really the greatestspace.
So every month, as I was makingmoney, I was putting it back
into the school.

(27:39):
And we talked, me and MasterTony talked this a lot.
It's like, you know, a springfloor is a really big
investment, but as long as youbudget properly, you can do it.
So after the after the fifthmonth of saving, I was able to,
you know, afford the$20,000spring floor.
But to do that was able to notonly help my students to
improve, not only make myselfimprove, but I've created open
gym on Mondays and Fridays from8 p.m.

(28:00):
onwards.
So last night I was here from 8p.m.
until 1 a.m.
doing open gym.
And it was a crazy session.
And we have people who are alldifferent backgrounds doing
amazing tricks.
We were playing around with thelights, so it looks like we're
having like a like a rave.
It was super cool, and itcreates awesome content.
And also it's free because Irealize that people my age
aren't really doing that wellfinancially.

(28:21):
They're just kind of strugglingfrom mediocre jobs, they're not
really in their full career yet.
So I make my open gyms free, andthey're not even my students.
I'm just like, come in and trainbecause we all have the same
goal.
We all want to improve and havea really strong community.
So open gym has just beenamazing, and that's kind of
where tricking comes from.

SPEAKER_01 (28:36):
Now, as a quick aside, because I do know some
things about Liam because Italked to him and coach him.
Um he had said a lot oftrickers, they he helps a lot of
trickers out because they'reyoung people and it's movement
based and they uh they reallyappreciate the support that he
gives them.
And one of the ways that theyhelp him is they give him a
Google review.

(28:57):
Could you share where inside ofa year, 10 months, how many
Google reviews have you earnedwith your brand new business?

SPEAKER_02 (29:03):
Uh uh we're at 167 five-star reviews on Google.

SPEAKER_01 (29:08):
Now, I think you've actually had actually 70 or 90
more, but they were all realGoogle reviews.
But Google at one point waslike, hey, there's no way these
are all new.
These are there's no way theseare real.
And they throttled you and tooksome off.
It was crazy.
But yeah, he legitimately hadover 200 Google reviews.

SPEAKER_00 (29:28):
And uh do you know how hard it is to get a Google
review from a parent to yourTikwando school, martial arts
school?
Your parent could be supportiveand been with you for years, and
then you ask him to, hey, canyou write a uh Google review or
a Yelp review?
And it would take months if ithappens at all for them to do

(29:48):
it.
They just don't think about it.
It's not like they don't want todo it, they just don't think
about it.
Yeah, and then as soon as theywalk out that your take on their
class, they forget about it.
Yeah, you have to chase themdown and remind them so many
times to make one review, and soyou could work on that for
months and years, and you couldonly get 10 to 15 reviews from
your parents of hundreds andhundreds, and you're able to get

(30:11):
how many, Master Liam?
We have 167 five-star on Google.
You know how what kind of adifference that makes when
people are searching martialarts schools on Google and they
see that type versus otherschools that have three to five
reviews.
That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 (30:28):
That's and our reviews there are reviews with
it's not just a five-starreview, like he's good.
There's paragraphs and pictures,and people they really they
genuinely love, they love it atLG.
It's crazy, it's amazing.
It's uh and I'm not trying tosay anything because I don't
know anything from Adam, butpart of my job as a grandmaster

(30:48):
that has masters and black beltsand instructors.
Could you imagine losing theopportunity to have someone like
Liam?
He is such a great asset.
And uh sometimes when thingsdon't work out, it actually
becomes the best thing ever.
Sometimes when you don't getwhat you want, in the moment it

(31:08):
is hard.
And not to disrespect anyone, ifyou're going through anything
tough now, I've gone throughsome tough times many times.
The more successful you are,sometimes it's the trout that
defines the peak.
So it's not that you're just ontop of a mountain, it's because
you fell down that cliff and youcrawled out of that valley.
And if you're going throughsomething tough, just understand
this.

(31:29):
Life has something big for you.
And that's up to what you dowith your situation.
It's up to how you crawl out ofit.
And when I tell you Liam hasdone everything, he has
literally done everything.
And he has done it, he's selfmade.
Like there's there's this, Ihave this corny statue in my

(31:49):
house, and it's of a guychipping himself out of stone.
And some of you know my story, Iwas supposed to take over my
dad's.
Like my dad has this fivemillion dollar To Jiang on five
acres, five minutes from thebeach.
It's 10,000 square feet, and a20,000 foot plaza in front of
it.
It's like I was supposed to takeone day this will all be yours.
Right after I got married, mydad was supposed to give me the
key, and then I had to go makemy own.

(32:10):
And when I finally, my dad cameon Cobra High and he saw the
success that I had.
And he was like, Aren't you gladI made you you do it yourself?
And I was like, Yes, dad.
And some lessons are 40 years,30 years, 20 years in the
making.
And if you're going throughsomething tough right now, hang
in there.
Reach out to Liam, reach out toMaster Hong, reach reach out to

(32:31):
me.
Come to a sa.
We want you to do well.
And we're not gonna, we're notgonna try to like tell you it's
easy.
We're not gonna tell you thatit's a gimmick.
Unlock your potential, make adifference.
What is your story?
How does your story end?
Is your story a tragedy?
Nobody wants to watch that.
Does it finish well?
Right?
A great movie can have coincredible loss and challenge,

(32:55):
but it can come out great.
When I met Liam, he was at thebeginning of something very
exciting, but he had come out ofsomething very difficult.
He had professional crises, hehad personal crises, he had a
lot of different things.
On the outside, it looks likeyou have.
Let me tell you, when you have amillion followers on socials,
they're brutal.
They're nasty.
And for him to do what he'sdoing, I personally think it's a

(33:18):
God thing.
I think it's an amazing thing.
And if you're listening to this,just hang in there and just know
that in this economy, in thistime, he's in a very expensive
area.
He's in Massachusetts and hedoesn't do contracts.
You don't do contracts, sir.
You don't do paid in fulls.
You're 23.
How old are you?
23?

SPEAKER_02 (33:36):
I also I'm I'm 24.
I also don't do any upgrade.
I don't I don't have upgradefees.
I don't have like I don't evencharge for uniforms.
Stop talking, stop it.

SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
Yeah, you can't stop.

SPEAKER_02 (33:48):
Do whatever you want, man.
Yes.
I have I have when somebodycomes in for the first time,
they take a free class and thenthey see if they like it, and
then I'll say, All right, here'sour membership option.
It's cancel anytime, and then mypayment is automatic.
So the whenever that day of themonth happens, that's it.
And we have belt testing fees,it's not super expensive, and
that's about it.

(34:08):
I don't really charge foranything else.
It's just class membership.

SPEAKER_01 (34:12):
And you grew, if you understand, I'm so sorry, Jimmy
Young.
He grew over the summer.
He grew over the summer.

SPEAKER_02 (34:19):
Yeah, we had we had really good growth this summer.

SPEAKER_00 (34:21):
I was positive this time next year, after working
with Master Tony, you're goingto have an upgraded program.
You are gonna have all thisstuff that's gonna be.
No, he's gonna convert me.

SPEAKER_01 (34:34):
Liam's gonna convert me.
I'm gonna work.
I'm not yeah, I'm gonna work forhim.
I'm gonna be following hisadvice.

SPEAKER_00 (34:40):
Well, just so that our listeners know, Master Liam
is a client with Asa Consulting,where Master Tony has been
working with him and growing hisschool in the past year.
I mean, Master Tony, you'veworked with all kinds of martial
arts school owners over theyears with their own style and
their pace of growth.
From your perspective, what isit about Master Liam, his

(35:01):
approach, mindset, methods thatallow him to grow so quickly and
successfully?

SPEAKER_01 (35:06):
I can just give you examples, right?
I do a crazy stats, right?
So I know a lot of people knowstatistics, but if you ask most
people in the industry, I feellike I'm one of the leading
people as far as metrics andstats.
I have stats on stats.
So when I started going throughall of the KPIs and all of the
Keystone metrics as well, and Istarted getting that with Liam,

(35:27):
you know, I usually startbuilding him a spreadsheet.
That's what I do for all of myclients.
Liam is my only client that hasliterally built his own
spreadsheet, right?
Because I use Excel, he usesGoogle Sheets better than mine.
Because it's like just to giveyou an idea how good his
spreadsheets are, I use billingcompanies, right?
I have five locations.

(35:48):
He created his own Stripeaccount and he handles his own
billing.
He created his own Google uhcheck-in system with it's hard
to explain, but he he built hisown check-in system with Google
Sheets.
He has no fees, and I'm like,don't be cheap.
But when I was telling him, Ilooked at his stuff, it's

(36:09):
actually not about being cheap,it's just he does it because he
figures it out.
And and I'm not trying to getpolitical or anything, but for
him to not get good grades atschool, it just tells you that
school's not for everybody.
He is one of the smartest.
Like, because you have to be alittle lazy too.
You can't just be like somelight turns on, hit the button.

(36:30):
GMC tells me to do this.
I'm gonna incorporate my statsheet.
He thinks, and he's I I don'tbelieve in that, or I think I
can figure something out better.
And he is the American dream.
He is an entrepreneur, he was anemployee making less than my
part-timers, to be honest withyou.
And now he's a like now he's asix-figure earner inside of 10

(36:52):
months.
Life-changing.
When I meet with Liam, we're notjust talking about how to enroll
people.
He's already raised thousands ofdollars for schools with big
checks and did the poster, go tohis website, and then he's
already booked four, those samefour programs again for this
year and next year.
And just to give you an idea, heliterally does everything, but
he doesn't just do what I tellhim to do.

(37:14):
He understands it and heincorporates it and he makes it
his own.
That is that is the ultimate.
It's I feel blessed.
Some of my clients are like,thank you so much.
I'm grateful for Liam because uhI don't know what I'm doing all
the time because I'm like, Idon't wrap off, ABC, one, two,
three, this is how you do itbecause this is what we did 15
years ago.
I share with him some of theways I'm fishing, how I fished

(37:38):
successfully in the past, how Iuse metrics in the future, using
math, and his logic is uh isgreat.
And then he just does everythingthat I say to do, and he does it
super well.
And uh I'm just grateful.
And he's given me a lot ofideas.
Wow.
So he's just he's really smart.
And you're you are highlyintelligent and highly
effective.

(37:58):
And if you just stay on thetrack that you're on, because
I've told him I was like, don'tget sick, don't break.
He has no employees, right?
He has adult black belts, kidblack belts.
He did everything by himself.
Amazing.
Yeah, teaching the feederprograms, marketing.
He has a demo today at a farmersmarket, and I was like, right
before the right before the callis like, Liam, farmers market,

(38:21):
what time is the demo?
He goes, I was like, it'sTuesday, and he goes, It's at
two o'clock, and I'm like, twoo'clock, no kids are gonna be
there.
And he goes, moms are gonna bethere.
And I'm like, Hey, this guy,he's good.

SPEAKER_02 (38:37):
Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 (38:38):
Thank you for that.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
I believe in you.

SPEAKER_00 (38:42):
Well, Master Liam, you is again, you essentially
started with zero students andhad the challenge of convince
convincing and converting the 50existing karate students into
your new Taekwondo program.
I'm curious at what point wasyour break-even income?
What was that the 50 studentmark?
And from that number, you know,how or or was it lower or

(39:05):
higher?
How what did it take to reachthat break-even point?
Did you did you know that numberor did you just go into it?

SPEAKER_02 (39:14):
This is a another important piece to this, which
is when I took over the school,I still had to kind of make a
deal with the old owners, andlike that was a really important
piece because I had saved sinceI was 13 years old, I have saved
everything I've ever made fromall my jobs.
Now it wasn't that much, asMaster Tony said, I kind of was
making less than minimum wage torun very profitable martial arts

(39:34):
school.
But anyway, everything that Isaved, I thought that was gonna
be my down payment on a house.
And so I had saved a lot tothinking that that was gonna be
my future.
And when I, you know, came totake over the school, they asked
for a lot of money.
And so I had to put a pretty bigdown payment down to the owners.
And then I had to figure outokay, if I retain 20 students or
30 students with the currentrent utilities, would I break

(39:57):
even?
And so pretty much without beingable to now also I told you the
space wasn't really in greatshape.
So just to break even and alsonot even to pay myself anything,
was pretty much those 50students.
And then as I was making alittle bit more, I was gaining
two or three students here andthere, it was just going all
back into it.
So the first month we repainted,the next month we fixed the

(40:19):
lights, the next month we fixedthe plumbing.
The month after that, I did asaving and then one more month
of saving, and then I got thespring floor.
So pretty much since February orMarch of this year, I've been
just like making, putting backin, making, putting back in.
And I am now profitable, but I'malways finding something to get.
It's another crash mat or a newmartial arts supply.

(40:40):
So I'm always trying to innovateand figure out how to make the
business better.
And I know one day I'll make itback, but this still feels like
my growth period.
So I'm not really concernedabout paying myself.

SPEAKER_01 (40:49):
It's more about a really good target.
Like when we sat down initially,we had year one target, year
two, year three, and then wefocused on year one.
He's exceeded that we have abilling target.
And it's important to understandthat Liam is in a financial
state where he's got a lot ofdiscipline, right?
We don't just teach discipline,we have to live it.
Liam has the physical and thefinancial discipline.

(41:11):
And then we would go over it.
And I was like, hey man, you'respending a lot of money.
Are you sure you want to dothat?
He goes, Yes, sir, because heunderstands the value of your
business.
A business has value, right?
So you can take that money andhe can go on vacations, he can
buy a nice car, he can go eatdinner and take a girlfriend out
and go pop bottles and go crazy.
But he wants to invest his moneyin asset producing in income

(41:36):
producing assets.
And and I think it's I thinkit's genius.
It's just most people don't havethe discipline.
Literally, I wish I had thatapproach.
And as we know it in business,it's not what you gross, it's
not even what you net, it's whatyou do with your net.
Does your net affect your networth positively or negatively?
And we talk about five things,right?

(41:56):
All my clients, right?
I even talk to my kids aboutthis and my staff, of course.
Steady income.
And then you want to work onincreasing that income, right?
And then there's tax strategiesand stuff, but steady income,
increase it.
Then step two, right?
Which is you need to make surethat you focus on really having
a good budget.
Like a 50-30-20 rule is great,personally.

(42:16):
And then there's some kind ofdifferent strategies for your
business.
And then the third thing is anemergency fund, not only a
personal emergency fund, abusiness emergency fund, which
is to help you get throughthings like COVID, right?
And then obviously you can't doemergency funds unless you're
debt-free, right?
Lien's debt free.
I like to be debt-free.
It's important.
Then the fourth thing istracking your net worth.
How do these three things affectyour net worth, positively or

(42:38):
negatively?
Do you want to get that Lambo?
Do you want to get that hybridthis, that, or do you want to
buy a test?
Whatever you want to buy, is itreally worth it?
Do you need it?
Is it asset?
Is it is it income?
Does it help you?
And then we start talking aboutretirement targets.
Do you want to retire whenyou're 65, 60, 55, or do you
want to do martial arts for therest of your life like me and

(42:58):
have a work less hard retirementlifestyle, which is where it's
at?
And everybody has differentgoals.
But let me be very clear.
Liam, he nobody knows everythingperfectly to a science, but he
has a very clear vision, day today.
He knows what he has to dotoday.
He doesn't live in the sauce.
He knows he's got to do a badassdemo in an hour and a half

(43:21):
because he might get one, two,ten more students that will lead
to more.
And then that's how it notlosing students, getting
students, growing them.
But we're trying to get Liam tocome to a saw.
I'd love to hear him talk topeople because that's the
greatest thing that we do is weshare, because that's why I like
this podcast.
I was actually pretty skepticalabout the podcast, I'll be

(43:43):
honest with you.
What I like about the podcast,it's a conversation and you get
to hear it.
And Master Hong had the visionfor this.
And we've had so many peoplefrom all over the world, new
school owners, people that arethought about closing their
school, people that have decidedto open a school like Liam, and
they've been inspired by theconversations that we've had,
and uh we're grateful for.

(44:04):
And I hope Liam changes yourmind.
Keep your school open or go openthat school.

SPEAKER_00 (44:11):
Yes, sir.
I uh Liam, my I have this imageof you in my head.
As soon as you had the theschool, I from this
conversation, I just I justevery day you're just hustling.
There is no way you would beable to do this if you're
holding down a day job.
You know, from the morning thatyou open the school to the start

(44:33):
of the class through yourclasses, you're hustling.
You're you're you're not justsitting in the office, you're
doing something to improve yourschool, whether it's it's
painting the walls, whether it'sfixing, replacing the lights,
whether it's doing demo, andthat's that's how you succeed in
the business, not just from fouro'clock to eight o'clock
teaching teaching kids.

(44:55):
That's just that that's the funpart is teaching kids.
It's the business part that youhave to put in the effort to
increase your student count, toincrease your business.
And that's the image that'srunning in my head, and and
that's how I know you'll besuccessful moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 (45:13):
Well, sir, I can actually talk about some of the
different things aside fromteaching the classes because
you're right, teachingTaekwondo, that's that's the fun
part.
That's the thing I look forwardto every day when I wake up.
It's not like, oh, I have toteach this.
What when people ask me, Oh, youhave no other instructions?
And I'm like, no, I want toteach the class.
I want to show them the skillsand teach them how to do the
skills.
I get such satisfaction when akid learns how to do a new move

(45:35):
that like they couldn't dobefore.
They saw me do it.
They're like, I saw your video,tell me how to do them.
It was like, how do you do thedragon kit from the new karate
kit?
And I'm like, okay, let's do it.
It's it's it's fun, you know.
But some of the other thingsthat I do, could I hire somebody
to clean?
Sure.
But I like cleaning myself.
I think a clean environment, itsmells nice when people walk in.
There's no dirt or bugs around.
So yeah, I clean the school.

(45:56):
All my emails, I use constantcontact.
So I'll draft an email and I'llsend it to all of my students or
my demo team or my leaderships.
I do that.
I keep track of all mybookkeeping.
I don't really have to talk tomy accountant besides once a
year when she asks for all of mybooks.
But every time I buy somethingfor the business, I track it.
I write how much it was, whichcategory it was.
Social media.
Every time we every time we doan event, I will take a boatload

(46:19):
of photos and videos, put it onour Google page, our Yelp page,
Instagram, Facebook.
I'll post the demo to my YouTubechannel.
I think it's really good to keepup a really solid image.
My mom always says it, she'slike, Liam, you've only been
open for a year, but it lookslike you've been open for 10
years.
You have so much content.
There's so much going on at yourschool.
And I'm like, well, I thinkthat's really important.
And I think one of the one ofthe first questions you asked is

(46:40):
how does social media impactyour school?
Like just help you get morestudents.
I think it really helps createmore of a sense of community.
I've made so many class videosof some of my black belts doing.
I don't know, you guys must knowK-pop demon hunters.
We made a K-pop Demon HuntersTaekwondo edition.
That was almost fun.
We did a Taekwondo Hunger Games.
Now I started a series of chooseyour LG martial arts students.
And now it's black belt versusblack belt showing them.

(47:02):
It's it's my same style ofvideos that I do, but now my
students are doing it.
And they're like, Liam, when areyou gonna post my video?
So I feel like it creates astronger sense of community.
And then also for a random sevenor eight-year-old who's never
made a video before, they seetheir video got 100,000 views
and they're just like, oh mygod, I'm famous.
So I don't know.
I think it's very inspiring, andI feel like I'm using my
platform in the right wayinstead of just showing off my

(47:24):
body or you know, being a toxicinfluencer.
I feel like I'm creatingpositive change.

SPEAKER_01 (47:29):
If you're listening to this, I know I know there's
just some school owners orlisteners who are like, okay,
okay, kid, give it a couple ofyears.
Yeah, all that good energy.
You're gonna get you're gonnaget burnout, instructor burnouts
real, and this and that.
That may make sense.
But for example, for mepersonally, having daughters
changed my life.
Because I always wanted my boysto be like me.
But once I had daughters, I'mlike, ooh, I don't want my

(47:51):
daughters to marry a guy likeme.
I want them to be disciplinedand I want them to be consistent
and stop jumping from one thingto the other.
Work hard, be good, stop tryingto hack the system.
You can't AI is a tool that canembellish, it's not something
that do your work for you.
So, yes, Liam works hard.
He is a good person.
And there's restaurants allaround our schools.

(48:15):
Most are empty, especially on aTuesday afternoon.
Some restaurants as their foodis fire, they don't even have
good seating.
There's a place right here inAtlanta called Heirloom
Barbecue, and it's a Korean ladyand a guy from Texas, and they
made this fusion barbecue.
It's always one of the top 20barbecue places in the country.
It's amazing.
It's a Korean and Texas barbecuemixed.

(48:36):
And it's part of a gas station.
There's no sit-down place, andthey have a line of 20 to 40
people every single day, andthey always sell out.
And if your food at your schoolis that good, that's what you're
gonna have.
So if you're listening to thisand you want to what know what
marketing strategy Liam does nopaid ads.

(48:58):
He does no paid ads.
Nope.

unknown (49:00):
What?

SPEAKER_01 (49:00):
Nope.
He doesn't advertise, he doesn'twaste that money.
He puts I do paid ads.
So there's nothing against paidads.

SPEAKER_00 (49:06):
Everybody, everybody I know does paid ads.
That's not wasting money.

SPEAKER_01 (49:09):
Wait, wait till he will do it at some point, right?
He will do some moreadvertising, but he just
started.
He's only one person.
He will hire people.
He's he has people in a pipelinethat he's we're talking about
building his team, right?
Yes, some of you are listeningto this, you're like, yeah, kid,
yeah, okay.
Anybody can get a hundred andtwenty students in 10 months.
I signed up 60 students in onemonth one time.

(49:33):
Humbly, sir, ma'am, whoever'ssaying that, thinking that to
yourself right now, what do youdo?
What did you do recently?
I didn't have one school thatsigned up 120 people in 10
months, the last 10 months.
Liam did.
So I want to grow.
So I'm not gonna sit on mylaurels and on my past work and
think that I'm all set becauseif you start thinking you've

(49:56):
arrived, you're done.
And I want to grow.
So I'm watching people likeLiam, I'm encouraging him.
I want to learn from him, and Iwant to be around people like
that that bring out the best inme because the economy's tough.

SPEAKER_00 (50:13):
I I I have so many okay.
Last section, and I I mean, wecould talk, I feel like we could
talk about this all day, butthere is a time limit.
Liam's gonna go to a farmersmarket demonstrate.

SPEAKER_01 (50:24):
Well, who's demo who's demonstrating with you?
It's all of my black belts thatstarted a year ago.
Dude, that's awesome.
So, how did you get black?
How old are these kids?

SPEAKER_02 (50:35):
The age range is from eight years old to 13.

SPEAKER_01 (50:39):
But it's two o'clock in the afternoon.
They have to, are they beingtaken out of school?
Like, how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02 (50:45):
So, for most people, school starts tomorrow or next
week, thankfully.
And I think that's why weplanned it in advance like that.
But I've been very I've beenvery thankful to the parents
because it's still like duringwork hours.
So I told them very far inadvance and said, if you can't
make it, I totally understand.
So we only have one girl whocan't make it, but I'm having a
fill-in, like somebody to comein to take her spot.
So we're able to do the samedemo we did last week.

SPEAKER_01 (51:07):
Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 (51:08):
My kids' school started last week or a week and
a half ago.
So I was like, Oh, that's okay,okay.
I'm sorry.
Last subject, and then let'scall it a wrap.
I know Masselium has to go, butwe're definitely heavy back on
Massiliam.
Yes, sir.
I'm thinking okay, so you're theonly school I know that does not
teach sparring.
I mean, that's that's that'smind-blowing, you know.

(51:30):
Anybody listening to this, like,no sparring school.
I'm just thinking the kids thatcome in they're looking at they
were always interested inTaekwondo.
They they come in and they seeall these acrobatic movements
and tricking, whatever that is,you know, and they must have
been mesmerized, but like, oh, Iwant to be a part of that.

(51:50):
Just by seeing your class, theymust have been already because
it's such an aerial highperformance like technique that
they want to be a part of that.
They're not, they're not seeinga classroom where they're doing
a horse riding stance for 15minutes, right?
Like, what seven-year-old wouldwant to be a part of that?

(52:10):
But when they see kidscartwheeling, tumbling, 540s,
they're like, Mom, dad, get meinto that class now.
Yes, is that a right assumptionor or am I totally off-base
there, Messaline?

SPEAKER_02 (52:25):
Well, that is definitely true.
I said this before, but I thinkmy biggest inspiration to create
the program that I have now isone, because it's my passion.
The reason why I create thevideos I do is not because I
think it's viral content, it'sbecause what I like to do.
I don't think that I if I postedsparring tips and tricks or if I
did boom say videos, that notonly it wouldn't do well, but I
would be so bored making thosevideos.

(52:47):
That's the one part.
The other thing is, I mentionedthat I haven't been to Street
Bike before.
I don't personally, many peoplemight like in the comments hate
me for saying this, but I don'tthink children should be
learning how to fight.
I use my martial arts school asan outlet to do physical
activity.
But in truth, the values that Iwant to teach my students, as
we've talked about, are likerespecting your parents,

(53:09):
following the rules at school,having discipline and patience,
having a positive attitude, howto set goals.
All of those values that I wantto teach are done through the
process of learning these supercool, fun tricks.
But if every day when they comein, they're putting on their
gear and being aggressive, Ifeel like that's the person
who's gonna go to their schooland start beating up on kids.
I don't want to create bullies.
I want to be the person who'smature for their age and then is

(53:32):
doing well in school and is aleader in their community.
And I feel like the only way todo that is by instilling the
values that you want thosepeople to emulate.
So one, I have to do thatmyself, lead by example, but
also not put them in a situationwhere it feels like they have to
be aggressive.
So any parent, I haven't reallyhad a lot of complaints, but any
parent who was like, why don'tyou do self-defense?
Why don't you do sparring?
I was like, Okay, we literallyhad this two weeks ago.

(53:54):
One of the moms I've known for awhile is like, why don't you
guys do self-defense?
Can you please teach them whathappens when somebody punches
them?
And I was like, Okay.
So I was like, Eloise, come overhere.
I'm gonna punch you.
I want you to dodge androundhouse kick.
I did a punch, she dodged, andit looked like she was gonna
knock me out, and her mom'slike, whoa.
And I'm like, so ma'am,respectfully, I've taught your
daughter and your son how toprotect themselves.
So if anything did happen,they're gonna see that, respond

(54:16):
to it, and they can kick verypowerfully.
I don't, I don't not teachpower.
Just because we don't spar andwe don't do self-defense doesn't
mean my kids are not strong.
They are very strong.
One of the most fun things we doduring class is we play a
kicking game.
Who can kick the target theloudest?
So we will have lines by lines.
All right, guys, we're gonna dotornado kicks.
It'll be one on one.
All right, one point this team,go back.

(54:37):
Next team up, go.
We'll even play another game.
Maybe you guys can take, maybesomebody in the comments, you
guys can take inspiration.
We play a game called jail.
This is how it works.
You have everybody make astraight line, you choose a kick
like front kick.
If they make, you know, theclap, you know, the clapping
sound, if it's a satisfyingkick.
If they make that sound, they'restill in the game.
If they make a weak sound, theymiss the target, they go to
jail, they go out.
And so if you survive all therounds, you make it such a fun

(55:00):
game.
So I try to make my classes fun.
We could just practice kickingwith each other 10 times.
Go, 10 times go.
But I like to make itinteresting and more
competitive.
But at the same time, they'relearning how to make their kicks
very powerfully.
If I said, all right, guys,we're gonna spar today, I think
they could do well.
It's just not what happens to beteaching them.

SPEAKER_01 (55:16):
How do you win jail?
So if you have 10 kids in aline, they do a right leg Nata
Bond, they all they they all go,then you do the left leg, you
keep changing the kicks untilthere's one kid left.

SPEAKER_02 (55:26):
Yeah, yeah.
Let's say, for example, let'ssay we're doing yeah, let's say
we're doing right, yeah, rightleg front kick.
You have everybody go, let's sayit's four people get out on the
first round, two people get outon the last round, you have one
player left, they get the point.
Everybody back in, now left leg.
And we go all the way up.
We do front kick, jumping, frontkick, round, jumping, round,
double round, tornado, 360, 540.
The hardest part is when you getto 540 kicks and you're like, I

(55:47):
don't know how to do a 540 kick,and I'm like, do it, try it.
And you know, that's that's justhow it goes.

SPEAKER_00 (55:53):
The way I get out of jail is with my get out of free
jail card from the Monopolyportrait.

SPEAKER_02 (55:58):
Someone's gonna give me the get out of 540 kick card.
Someone's gonna get it.
So that's awesome.
Yeah, but but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (56:07):
That is Master Lee.
I'm telling you, you really dohave something there because you
can you can be a traditionalmartial arts school and but not
have to be the way that welearn, Master Tony and I learned
from our fathers of of a longstance and for however long part
of the of the class, it it justdoesn't resonate with kids

(56:30):
nowadays.
And and you are more relatableto them than than Master Tony
and I are and I am.
So you really do have somethingthere.
I think it's gonna it justexplode, and and we're I'm that
Master Tony's gonna be with youevery step of the way.
I'm I'm gonna enjoy the show asyou grow.
And let's wrap there on today'sepisode of Black Belt Banter.

(56:53):
A huge thank you to Master Liamfor sharing his incredible
journey.
Amazing.
Opening a tech owner school lessthan a year ago and already
building a thriving, tight-knitcommunity.
You know, your story is proofthat passion, discipline, and
vision is can create somethingtruly special in just a short
amount of time.
We know that a lot of ourlisteners are young martial

(57:14):
artists, and we hope thathearing Master Liam's path
inspires you to dream big, workhard, work really hard like
Master Liam, and believe inwhat's possible for your own
journey.
Of course, big thanks to MasterTony Chunk for co-hosting with
me, adding his wisdom andkeeping the banter sharp.
Our mission here is very simpleto keep help as many school

(57:37):
owners and martial artprofessionals as possible.
Every time you subscribe, leavea review, or share this episode,
you'll help us reach more peoplewho could benefit from these
conversations.
Until next time, this is BlackBelt Banter signing off.

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#15 | From Zero to 120 Martial Arts Students in Less Than A Year!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#15 | From Zero to 120 Martial Arts Students in Less Than A Year!