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Old 08-22-2002, 02:56 PM   #20
akiy
 
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Join Date: Jun 2000
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Hi Daniel,

Thank you for your posts. They're quite enlightening, especially in your thoughts on putting "weights" on certain techniques which you feel ought to be taught more often than others.

It sounds great that you are giving some of your students increased responsibility in helping run the dojo and such. You mention "standardized programs which are easy for computer literate individuals." Are you talking about student tracking programs for attendance, finances, and so on?

As far as people at about the third dan level leaving to establish their own dojo: I currently train at a dojo which has probably 120 members or so, many of whom are third and fourth dan. It just may be the training environment but I really don't get the feeling that any of them want to go out to start their own dojo. Perhaps the training environment itself has something to do with it? Compared to a lot of other dojo where I have trained, this dojo has more of a "just train" feeling like that which Dan (Mongo) mentions above -- in other words, people who train here want to "just train" and not really do things like branch out to establish a dojo.

As far as having many dojo in one area, I, too, will point to the San Francisco Bay Area in which there are 70 dojo listed (in the AikiWeb Dojo Search Engine, at least) within 75 miles of the city. Also, I remember asking a friend of mine who owns several McDonald's franchises about what makes a good location for such a restaurant; his response was that it helped to have other restaurants like his (Burger King, Jack in the Box, etc) close by as it only helped each other's business. He pointed to the huge "auto mall" strips in every town that have several automobile dealerships in a row, too.

In any case, interesting stuff. Thanks!

-- Jun

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