AikiWeb Poll for the week of November 3, 2002:

How did you find your first aikido school?

• I don't do aikido
• Word of mouth
• Flyers
• Telephone book
• Website
• Demonstration
• Newspaper ad/article
• Magazine ad/article
• University information
• Dojo "storefront"
• Other
  

Here are the current results.

Wonderful poll Jun,

I think this will be extremely helpful to many of us, myself included!

Thank you

I think this is a very useful poll, but I do expect that there are in reality huge geographical differences.

I've always been interested in martial arts. A coworker of mine, asked me about Aikido. I didn't know much about it at the time, but I told him I'd find out about it (he doesn't like computers, so the tip of using Internet was not an option). I searched the web, and found this place. The more I read about Aikido, the more interested I became.

I found out that there was a dojo not far from the office, and decided to go there to watch a class. After that, I was hooked. My coworker decided to spend more time with his family, so he quit and started working somewhere else. No Aikido for him, but I made a great discovery thanks to him. :)

/Patrik

"Word of mouth" lead me to the Aikikai Hombu in early '66. Joe Stewart, a Kodokan Judo kenshusei took me there and his brother Alan later took me to Tomiki sensei's dojo not far away at Waseda University to train with the faculty club.

I had seen K. Tohei in '64 and then the founder, M. Ueshiba and then K. Tomiki, so I feel very fortunate indeed to have these seeds planted in my mind. I was a young shodan in judo, karate, and jujitsu at the time and very hungry for more...

Lots of water under the bridge since then and now...Great memories and more Practice.

Thanks,

I found my Dojo using AikiWeb, thanks

Marty

Heh -- should've made that into one of the options, huh?

-- Jun

A local martial arts supply store. The card was on display and the owner recommended Phong Sensei.

Until again,

Lynn

I met my first teacher via a Police Defense Tactics course he teaches at a local community college. The rest is history.

...

I found it by word of mouth
 

Being an foreiger in Taiwan with limited Chinese I can say that finding a Dojo was difficult. Evenually though word of mouth someone recommended the Aikido Center of Tainan. Really Great school, but the Sensei doesn't speak 3 words of english and about 4 words in Japanese (since most Aikido moves are described using Kinji the Taiwanese don't seem to see the point in learning the Japanese.. go figure... still a great teacher)

ryan

I signed up through a beginner's class offered at a community "free" university. I signed up with a friend who had also been jumped in the street -- we were looking for something affordable & liked the program description.

Currently reading an excellent book from Nolo Press, Marketing Without Advertising. I'd like to see the responses to ads versus articles in newspapers & magazines separated, as a premise of the book is that advertising doesn't work (they differentiate display advertising from yellow pages listings, flyers, and such).

Thanks for these surveys!

Sharon

"There is more to balance than not falling over"

gee, all that advertising is going nowhere? Doing a demo on Saturday, and noticed that virtually no one started off a demo either.

oh well,....

word of mouth. Went to the local ASU dojo, realized that there are two 6th dan instructors and a host of highly skilled yudansha. Looked no further.

Sometimes fate wins
 

I am a science fiction fan so reading a good story might start me doing a lot of things.

The sequence of events was:

- Read the book "Helm", by Steven Gould. I like his other books, too.

- Looked in the aikido section of the local public library and found a few technique-related books. I left them alone.

- Also found "Aikido in America" by John Stone at the library. I read this book because it looked (and was) interesting.

- Noticed after finishing the book that the author (at publication time) was in Madison, Wisconsin where I still live.

- Did a web search and found that John Stone Sensei has an active dojo in Madison (Aikido of Madison) and that it was about two blocks from my house.

- Found that the dojo was starting a beginner course in the next month.

At this point I figured out that perhaps fate was guiding me. It has been about 9 months now and I am preparing for my first test.

Whee!

I walked downtown to get a pizza one night. As I was walking back, I noticed an aikido class taking place through the dojo window. I sat on a park bench outside the dojo, ate my pizza and watched the class.

Everyone was having a good time, laughing, and smiling. It dispelled many of my preconceptions regarding martial arts, so I tried the class. I was hooked.

My best mate turned up at my house one day and said "do you fancy starting a martial art? I hear aikido is good"

the next week we went to our local dojo together and we are both still on the mat, we both now instruct aswell.

and to Rachel Massey:

yes, we have found that demo's dont work either... we once did a demo infront of over 800 people. they enjoyed watching, we got alot of enquiries... 3 people actually joined, none of them are now training. I think they lasted a month.

Jun:

Thanks for the recent Polls, they have been very useful me (and I imagine many others) as I am trying to get statistics together that will help show how to get and keep new members.

Thanks again