The Story of how we started a Martial Arts School (part one)

Written by Tim Rook

In July of 2011 I had just come out of surgery on my right hand. Two torn ligaments. As I was home recovering a friend from Manassas sent me an invitation to teach martial arts at their daycare. I had been thinking about the opportunity to go into business for myself since high school. I did have a small business when I was 23 years old and now that I was 27 and had a family I thought it might be my last real chance before things get complicated. So I accepted the challenge and dedicated myself completely to the effort of building the best martial arts school in Manassas/ the world. I put in my 2 week notice at the school I was working for and went full steam ahead in planning and preparations. Here is the story of what it took to become successful and make this dream happen. I want to share the sacrifice, hardships, the support of family/ friends, the whole story of how we built our program.

It is easy to start a business. Just head to City Hall with about $200 cash and you can do it! The hard part is making it successful. In mid July of 2011 I got the call about the opportunity. About a day later I made the decision to start up. From that moment I began writing and planning from sun up to way beyond sun down. I listed all the elements of what I wanted my business to be about. I thought through issues and concerns I have heard from parents throughout the years. I wrote and rewrote my plan every day till it started to make sense to me. The most critical decision I made was when I began a list of things that needed to be done IMMEDIATELY. See, I wanted to catch the Back to School craze which starts in August. So my list helped me figure out the most important tasks. When I finished that list I would create a new list of whats next repeating the process and completing the tasks. Step by step things came together quickly. I made about 1000 decisions a day which drove the force of our opening that much faster. Looking back I can't believe how everything just came together. The puzzle pieces just fit and when classes began and I started really truly making a difference in the lives of those kids that is when I knew this was all inspired by a higher power. I truly feel that I was guided in making the right decisions as everything continued to come together through the first year of our business. We are still not wealthy or insanely rich from our business, but the impact on these kids lives is what makes me want to continue improving our program each and every day.

Our program could not have started without the help of Mary's Dad, Mickey. He has let us live here since August of 2011 rent free. I started our business with only $500 to spare. I bought our licenses and a few ninja uniforms to give to the kids. I negotiated a 10% commission for the daycare and convinced them to let me do the collections and run the program as a seperate business. So we had no real expenses starting out. The daycare had some really old shotty mats that we used. It was sad because they were small fold out mats and we literally duck taped them together. Our classroom started off inside of the Kindergarten room where every day we had to move the furniture around like a TETRIS game just to make room for our small mats space. I cannot believe we fit 10 kids on those tiny mats. Even more so I cannot believe people signed up for a program like that. The service was great for daycare kids because their parents really didn't have time to put them in another activity. Those first families put their trust in me and for that I am forever in their debt. As our program grew Mary and I only paid ourselves enough to take care of our insurance and bills. We barely got food on the table but we always seemed to get by each month. It has been a year and some months since we have paid ourselves anything and I think soon we will be at a place where we can move out of her Dads house and become independent again.

Here is how we got started with marketing our program. I began by posting fliers announcing the coming of martial arts to the daycare. I put up a sign up sheet at the front desk and then held a free summer camp for the daycare. We got about 20+ kids before our first class even began. This helped me know I could really grow this thing. In the first month opportunities presented themselves and I began setting up events. We went to a few schools, the Joe Gibbs Country Fair, and Chick-Fil-A family night where we coined the Action Hero Event! Later we started getting a ton of referrals from our students and parents which meant we must be doing something right. More events started to get set up and in about 8 months we had grown to 75 members! Then the critical moment happened when we were told the daycare was sold. That story I will save for another time but with short notice we relocated our business to a church basketball court for about 3 weeks. I then signed a lease to our own facility and took on a whole new exciting chapter to our saga!

With the new space came a ton of expenses. Our parents really rallied behind us to help us raise about $8000 which all went into rent and down payment of the space. We did not go into debt, however we needed to get new memberships and quick. I began a heavy marketing campaign and from July 2012 to the end of October 2012 we reached 150 memberships! With such an huge influx of new students you would think financially things are evening out however I wanted our business to be stable and run smoothly before cashing out. So I took on more expenses and hired employees, set up payroll, made sure our insurance was correct, I also became licensed with an International Chain called Premier Martial Arts. With that decision came a whole lot of knowledge and help in balancing out systems. The premier program has so many details figured out that things started running smoother. Our parents have no idea but behind the scenes over the last month I have been implementing systems to improve our customer service, our classroom experience, our instructor training, our front desk procedures, tons of new event ideas, I worked really hard to learn and become certified in programs through the non-profit group Premier Kidz Foundation, we are still adjusting our curriculum and with the vast amount of new members I am figuring out the logistics and best way to balance out the equation. We are about 50 members shy of being maxed out with our current one-room location and that is awesome! I almost said, lets pay ourselves a bit, but then realized the tiny mats we were using just wouldn't cut it much longer. Our class was filling up. So after investing $4000 in new mats I created a bigger training floor and surprisingly a month later that space is now full too! We will be adding a few more class times and soon will be maxed out for evening classes.

There are so many different angles and perspectives to give you the full view of what was involved in the start up of our business. I will continue the story of our program later with the challenges we faced including the motivational drive of Mary becoming pregnant and life becoming more real for me as I was soon to be a dad. (To Be Continued).

What to do?

Ronan is growing strong all the time. He is getting good at grabbing things, and babbles at us all day long. When he eats, he likes to grab my hair and pull on my shirt. Sometimes, when he's finished, he'll look up at me and smile and I swear my heart can't take how cute and sweet he is!! He's noticing Chloe more, which is funny when we do tricks with her. He will stare and stare at her. And oh my gosh, I've never met a baby so interested in television. The other day, we got a photo of him craning his neck backward so he could watch it.

At the end of the day, he goes down pretty easily and will sleep for a good six hours at least. That has been quite a blessing.

It's been overwhelming, being a mom. Everything that happens I'm wondering if it's normal. Why is he eating so much? Am I drying up? I'm starving him! Why does he keep sneezing? Is he allergic to dogs? Chloe's poisoning him! Why won't he stop crying? He's sick! Get the thermometer! It's not right, check it again! And so on... I've never worried so much in my life. I'm sure I'm driving Tim crazy. Heck, I'm driving myself crazy.

But he is worth it. To see him smile at me in the morning, or when I sing to him, or just to be silly, and to snuggle him when he's tired. He is such a sweet little man. Enjoy the pics below for proof.

Oh, and he's very ticklish.

Rant: The Media and Mood Obstruction

Television tells us how we should react to life situations. How many times have you seen a woman storm out of a room telling a man she never wants to see him again? You don't, except on tv. In real life, whatever the man did, it would be a long drawn out conversation about what happened and why and blah blah blah.

Sometimes I think this is why actors seldom have lasting relationships. Their lives are built around these grandioux scenes with such passion and twists that it's come to be expected in their own lives.

In the meantime, woman dramas show these petty and conniving women who do what it takes to get what they want, or else try to teach others lessons by giving them a slap in the face followed by the silent treatment. Relationships in these shows are doomed to failure because we eat up the drama they dish out. Then, it gets in our heads and everything that used to be insignificant is now some underlying precursor to a potential argument.

Men, on the other hand, watch shows where the macho hero goes through so much trauma he should be being treated for post-traumatic stress, yet at the end of the day, he is making jokes and rolling his eyes good-naturedly at a job well done, ready for another adventure.

So men have this subconscious thought that all will be well in the end, and by golly, let the car crash. I'll be okay, just some cuts and scrapes. Women, on the other hand, are fretting over every minor detail, thinking it is a ploy to destroy her under-appreciated life. This is where I think misunderstandings occur. Women wonder "Why isn't he more worried? Doesn't he care?" While men think, "I wonder what's for dinner?" completely unaware anything is wrong until their woman explodes at them.

I realize I'm generalizing quite a bit, but I do wonder how much these shows and media in general affect the way we are thinking in our day-to-day lives.

Any thoughts from the masses?

Grateful

Fall is here and Ronan will finally stop sweating in his car seat! I love fall. It reminds me of when I lived in Logan and I would drive through the canyon to see family. The valley would open up and I could see all the colors: orange, red and yellow. Blankets of crunchy leaves lay in step on the sidewalks and were carried off in the wind as I drove past. I remember holding Tim's hand waiting to enter a haunted forest, hugging him close for warmth, watching my breath as I laughed with our friends.

Now I'm back in good old Virginia. We have a tiny baby to keep warm, and Tim is still my hero, working so hard every day but Sunday to make his dream a reality. At the end of the night, my baby smiles at me before I put him to bed, and Tim touches his soft little cheek and baby grasps his fingers. He's getting very good at grabbing things now.

I walk around the house, lock the doors, get my ice water for the side of my bed. Chloe walks with me, keeping me company. When I close my eyes to sleep, I think about how grateful I am for my life, for my great loves. I hear their deep breathing and thank Heavenly Father for blessing me so generously. I don't know what I did to deserve my little family, but my heart is so full of gladness and gratefulness to my Father in Heaven, I want to shout. But instead, I pull out my computer and write to the world in silence while I think of my favorite fall memories I've made in my life, and the new ones I'll make with our sweet little man who has never yet jumped in a pile of crunchy leaves.

Two Month Checkup

So my baby is huge, which we already knew, but it's nice to confirm it with numbers:

Height: 25 inches >97%

Weight: 14 lbs. 11oz. >97%

Head size: 38.5 cm 32%

That's right. Big tall baby with a tiny head. And his head is the thing that didn't want to come out at birth...

Two months meant a vaccine trip. I knew he'd be getting a couple shots when we made the appointment back in August. What I wasn't prepared for was how I'd feel about it when the time came. One minute, I'm watching our baby joyfully kick the crunchy paper to smithereens, the next minute I realize, "He's going to be hurting soon, and we're supplying the pain."

I told myself we were preventing deadly diseases and tried to get over it, but when they came in with the needles, I told baby that Mommy had to look away cause she was going to lose it.

I didn't look away, though. I stood afar and watched as Tim held his arms, and he looked up at him with a wondering eye, as if to say, "What new game is this, Daddy?" Then, they stuck him with the first shot. He jerked and it took a moment, but his face turned red and he wailed like I've never heard before.

I've said in previous posts that Ronan doesn't really cry that much. That's still true. We've only heard him truly cry a handful of times. He does get fussy when hungry or gassy, but gut-bust-crying? Fageddabouttit.

So when he cried out in pain like I've never heard him cry before, I cried, too.

Not like he was crying, just enough that tears were falling.

They stuck him two more times, bandaged him up and said, "He's done! You can pick him up!" I rushed in there, grabbed my sweet baby and held him close, resting my head on his, shushing him gently. I could feel my tears wetting his hair, but I didn't care.

The nurses left and Tim wrapped his arms around us. Family snuggle. Ronan cried pretty hard for a minute, then we gave him his binky and he calmed down.

I have read stories of moms who've watched their babies go through so much more than this, and even have friends whose babies were so sick, they couldn't bring them home from the hospital for months. I don't know how these women get through that stuff. Watching your sweet baby hurt is NOT cool.

Ronan is just fine, though. His band-aids have puppies on them and he is kicking his legs as joyfully as he did before the shots ruined our lovely morning. That big ole baby may have a little head, but he is Mommy's little trooper.

Smile

How can you not?

Pics

Ronan is learning how to hold his head up and having so much fun with his cousin, Lincoln. It is so amazing how fast he is growing. He is so TALL. He's already taller than his almost 3 month old cousin and he just keeps getting bigger.