When I was a KSW student, there was no "franchise", but there was also much more autonomy in running a school. I paid a monthly due for a while, but my wife eventually moved into being "secretary" for the school, answering phones, doing paperwork and all that good stuff. This led to my training being free. There was at least one other student with a similar deal, wherein he cleaned the school (washed windows/mirrors, did the floor, wiped down mats, polished trophies, etc) in exchange for training. Now, it seems like much more of the costs are funneled through Tomball. So of course, at least in Sacramento it seems that cost of KSW training has doubled in the 13 years or so I've been out of the game.
for the same price, you can train with(more like around at best) uriah faber in sac! or the retired kickboxing champ dave marinoble! overhead is a pain, though... problem is, the rent in sac should be cheap. the real estate certainly is.
Oh, I know. My problem is twofold: 1- I no longer live in Sac, at all. In fact, there is no Kuk Sool within a 3 hour drive of where I live, and the one class (I think out of a rec center) that is within that 3 hour window never got back to me on their schedule. 2- I love MMA, and Faber is amazing (and very very humble, according to some of my friends who have met him) but I love Kuk Sool. Until life kicked me in the chops, my sole goal in life was to get my 2nd degree, and open my own school. Now, at best I can get back in shape and relearn (with the help of my book, and youtube) my stuff. But yes, Sac's real estate market, especially for business, is a joke.
Overhead? Other than rent? The electric and Training gear would be your only overhead...and this you can avoid by one of two things...travel to local schools (educational) and find out if they are throwing out their old mats, etc. use them for your start-up. Or, go the traditional route and train on the bare floor...obviously being smart about Nak Bub... -Rent -Electric -Water -Insurance -Equipment
I don't know what you mean about costs being funneled through HQ, can you clarify? AFA the cost of training at the local dojang, is the cost of training at that dojang representative of other MA schools in the area? If the KSW school was twice as expensive as the local TKD school I would question that, but if it was in line with the competition, then I would say that that instructor was being fair.
well, kwanjangnim, the syllabus is twice as amazing as TKD's; why not pay double? @liam: you are totally correct. MA has little overhead. our school in benicia probably has less than any other business in the shopping center. still, to make a decent living in northern california rates are going to be over $100 per month for tuition.
The costs when last I looked into it, 6 years ago or so, were higher than a TKD school (I ended up there for year, but the place was a belt factory and I quit fairly quickly) but slightly lower than a Choi Li Fut place. Of course, the teacher at that school kind of shot herself in the foot in my case, by badmouthing my former instructor (her former instructor as well, at least in part). As for costs being funnelled through HQ, when I was training in the mid-late 90's, I was under the impression that payment of Black Belt testing fee's would be done to the school (thus giving lower income students like myself at the time options to make multiple payments and start testing once the total amount was paid) rather than through HQ. I have been going under the assumption that with the new franchise structure, that prices would be more standardized and thus set by HQ. Is that not the case?
IIRC, although I'm from Scotland that is how it worked over here. KJN Ian (at the time PSBN) could see that I was very keen, so took the risk of fronting the money to the WKSA for me and I paid it back in instalments. I owe a lot to him. ... not in money, that is.
Well there you go, looks like the cost for lessons is inline with the competition. Yes Payment for the BB testing was collected by the individual schools until recent times. In that case the testing fees were being "funneled" through the schools for WKSA, I never like that arrangement as a school owner. At present the testing fees are collected by WKSA through the application process, and multiple payments are accepted. This is much more convenient and cost effective for the individual schools. So to say that is a reason for high tuition rates simply has no basis.
Thank you Obewan, I was unsure of how paying for classes and whatnot worked these days. It has been a long time since I've trained in Kuk Sool, and I got the impression from these boards that pricing and other things of that nature were being set at HQ, and were no longer up to the individual schools discretion. Would suck to be told you had to do a monthly cost of $130 when everyone else around is charging $90 or so. Please note, I'm not bashing Won, I'm just trying to determine how the changes have affected the way a school is run. My only current complaint about the Won is that I never heard back a few years ago when I tried to reach out to them about getting a new brown belt certificate to replace my old one which was lost over the years.
o man! rent in some areas is much higher than others, so fixing a price on lessons would be rough on metropolitan schools. but funny as it is, taco bell(another franchise) sets its prices for its tacos regardless of the franchisees rent.
