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Old 04-11-2003, 01:37 AM   #126
JJF
 
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Dojo: Vestfyn Aikikai Denmark
Location: Vissenbjerg
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 803
Denmark
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Quote:
Garrett Fuller (fullerfury) wrote:
Yep...I have been struggling for years to find ways to get to the dojo on a more regular basis...I have 5 kids... 3 daughters aged 1,2,3...so it is difficult for me to skip away more than 2 to 3 nights a week to train...so...I am building the dojo on the house...
So the pictures. I looks very nice. It's pretty much exactly what I want to do some day, but it's really expensive to build a dojo around these parts. Also it's really hard to find a nice place with that kind of view which is close to work AND close to a potential number of students. Oh year - and I ought to get a LOT bette before I open a dojo

- Jørgen Jakob Friis

Inspiration - Aspiration - Perspiration
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Old 04-11-2003, 05:41 AM   #127
fullerfury
Dojo: North County Aikikai
Location: San Marcos, CA
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 72
United_States
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Ahhh the dojo was free...but somehow my mortgage payment went up by 30%
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Old 04-11-2003, 06:23 AM   #128
JJF
 
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Dojo: Vestfyn Aikikai Denmark
Location: Vissenbjerg
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 803
Denmark
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Quote:
Garrett Fuller (fullerfury) wrote:
Ahhh the dojo was free...but somehow my mortgage payment went up by 30%
.... which would pretty much crush my allready crumbling financial situation. I hardly think my wife would agree that a dojo is a better usage of square meters than an extra bathroom, a hothouse or perhaps a hobby room for her sewing machine..... However it does make a lovely guest-room (except they have to be up and out before morning-iaido

Good luck on the project

- Jørgen Jakob Friis

Inspiration - Aspiration - Perspiration
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Old 04-11-2003, 06:27 AM   #129
rachmass
Dojo: Aikido of Cincinnati/Huron Valley Aikikai
Location: Somerset Michigan
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 794
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Actually Garrett, your post (and beautiful dojo) set me thinking about the cost of buying some land, building a house, and building a dojo. It is higher than our current housing cost, but is definately worth considering further (unfortunately, land in our area costs a small fortune). What did you do about zoning restrictions? Did you check with the governing bodies beforehand, or do you run the dojo in such a way that specific zoning wasn't necessary? You can write me back privately if you wish at rachmass@provide.net

thanks in advance,

Rachel
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Old 04-13-2003, 01:11 AM   #130
Kelly Allen
Dojo: Friends Dojo
Location: Winnipeg
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 190
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Lightbulb Duel use!

Rachel If your thinking about buying land to build house and Dojo. Why not build a very larg 4 season gazibo that can double as a dojo. a 30x30 gazibo would make an excellent dojo. Just make sure you don't fill it with lawn furnature that is hard to move out of the way all the time. You can have room for 10 ppl to throw each other around, then after class it would be available for those family BBQs. Because its a Gazibo the city can't bug you about having a building of business in an area zoned residential.

Just a thought.
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Old 04-14-2003, 12:19 PM   #131
John Boswell
 
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Dojo: Aikido of Midland
Location: Midland, Texas
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 597
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Kelly, that's a good idea with the gazebo, but there is also parking to consider. And when you get 5 to 10 cars parked in front/back of your house, the neighbors WILL notice... and thus zoning is still a consideration.

Its a bummer, the gazebo has possibilities, but parking is a factor to seriously consider.

Rachel, being in real estate right now I know land cost is very prohibitive. You might want to look around for a "fixer-upper" of some kind. Many people have taken over abandoned buildings and done wonders with them or just demo old stuff and start over on that land.

Whenever you DO start looking around... consider ALL options. You'd be surprised the ideas that can come to mind with a little imagination... and a good gazebo.

Good luck!

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Old 04-14-2003, 12:30 PM   #132
rachmass
Dojo: Aikido of Cincinnati/Huron Valley Aikikai
Location: Somerset Michigan
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 794
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Hi John,

yes, you make good points. I've been active in our real estate market (an appraiser) for close to 19 years now, so I know how expensive the land is. The cost to fix something up is prohibitive here due to land prices. Also, I was thinking that the only way to really make it viable is to have it on a semi-busy to busy road, and therefore not something that would be nice for building a house. Of course, if a house on a busy stretch of road, with proper zoning came up for sale, the least expensive part of it would be building the dojo! Yikes, I think I'll just keep renting for the moment, but Garretts dojo did look soooo very nice!

best!

Rachel
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Old 04-25-2003, 03:28 AM   #133
Kelly Allen
Dojo: Friends Dojo
Location: Winnipeg
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 190
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Confused Zoning for parking spots?

How can the city zone for parking spots? It's not uncommon for me to have enough guests at my place to warrent 5 to 10 cars parked out front, and they're ususally there for more than two hours. If any one asks, your entertaining friends. If they ask why they're all in white uniforms just tell them it's a pajama party.
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Old 05-05-2003, 08:58 AM   #134
George S. Ledyard
 
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Dojo: Aikido Eastside
Location: Bellevue, WA
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 2,670
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Promo

Quote:
Rachel Massey (rachmass) wrote:
Hi Kev,

Word of mouth seems to be the absolute best way to get anyone into the dojo. I have been trying, but without much sucess. I've tried flyers, ads in the paper, the website, small phone book ad...so far it isn't working. On the other hand, the dojo has only been open for one month, so it is hard to expect much at this point. I will most certainly share anything I do that works!!!! Everyone in this web community has been so helpful with suggestions and comments, and I most assuredly will give back what I can, especially with what I learn in starting a dojo, completely from scratch (the build it, they will come attitude).
A month is just way too short. This is a long term effort. We found that the average person who came in to our dojo , if he had seen Aikido before, had done so two yaers or so earlier. That meant that the demos we were doing gad no immediate effect. In fact, given how people move around these days, it was ususally someone else's demo that they had seen. So doing demos are a long trem solution.

The web should be strong for most dojos but you have to make sure that people see the site. Do a search on the internet under Search Engines. There are whole sites about how saech engines rank their sites. A few tips are:

get your keywords into your meta tags; make sure you use those keywords in the first paragraph of the text on your main pages; if you have hyperlinks that are graphics make sure that you also put a text link because the web spiders will not follow a graphic link; if your website uses frames, make sure that all of your links appear on each main page because the web spiders don't deal with frames and won't go through your site. It is best to avoid frames if possible;many search engines give you preference if you have lots of links to other related sites; many search engines give you prefernce if there are many sites that link to you, so submit your site to as many of the meta sites like Aikiweb, Aikido Journal, Aikido Today magazine, and as many of the general martial arts meta sites as you have patience for. Manually submit your site to the major search engines.

These are just a few of the tricks to get your site recognized by the engines and given a decent position. Once again, the results of these efforts are not immediate. It takes esveral months for these things to start having an effect. You can check it out by doing your own searches usuing what you think would be the keywords that a propsective student who knew nothing might use to find you. See if you show up in the fisrt page or two of search results. If you are in a small city where there isn't too much competition you should be on the first page of the search resuults or something is wrong somehwhere.

George S. Ledyard
Aikido Eastside
Bellevue, WA
Aikido Eastside
AikidoDvds.Com
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