Open Letter to the Students/Parents of Steel Dragon Karate
First and foremost, we would like to thank you for continuing your training and support at the dojo.
As you are likely aware, Sensei Nikko is now running the dojo under the new name of Smiling Tiger Karate.
Steel Dragon Karate never got into a position of being viable for a number of reasons. Sad as this was, an incredible positive situation has emerged from the ashes of this defeat.
Nikko has accepted the daunting challenge of taking over a failed business and creating something very special. This is not a small challenge. Nikko is putting his life savings on the line, here.
Full disclosure! I have known Nikko for over twelve years. I am a big fan of his ability as a martial artist, his enthusiasm for teaching and his dedication to bringing the benefits of martial arts to anyone who gives him the opportunity. I consider Nikko one of my very best personal friends.
My initial plan was to spend a couple of weeks helping with the transition from Steel Dragon Karate to Smiling Tiger Karate. After spending some time talking with Nikko about his plans and vision for this venture, I plan to do everything in my power to make this thing work. I am not going anywhere unless/until he gets the locks changed.
There is an expression from the U.S. Marines Corp that has become part of business leadership jargon. “Is this a hill that you are willing to die on?” It has come to mean that you should be careful what you put your time and energy into and to avoid battles that just are not that important. From my warped (unique?) perspective, this also means that sometimes there are hills worth dying over. The success of Smiling Tiger Karate fits that bill for me.
Nikko’s vision for the transition to Smiling Tiger Karate is absolutely inspiring. He is bringing a completely new mindset to this venture. He is working with our current student base. He is assessing where he sees every student’s strengths and areas that need work. He will develop a plan for each and every student to build them into the best that they can be, on a student by student basis. He plans to meet with each student and parent to get feedback on what he can do to make this the most powerful, beneficial program possible. Put another way, the students are the centre of our universe and we will orbit around this group trying our best to do anything and everything that will benefit them.
In our early meetings about this venture, Nikko and I discussed how a proper business is launched. The purpose of this business is not strictly to make profit. The purpose of this business is to provide benefits to our clientele. If we do an exceptional job and provide a great service, profit will be merely a tool that we can use to measure our efforts.
The hard truth is that martial arts training, if executed properly, is unrivaled in its ability to bring physical, mental, social and spiritual growth to its participants. Nikko and I are both adamant in our dedication to this, although we have vastly different perspectives. Nikko started his martial arts as a child with his father having trained extensively. I joined as an adult later to enroll my (now black belt) daughter in it because I believed in it so much.
We would be remiss if we did not take a moment to recognize the efforts of one of our students, Kaz Adams. Kaz is a fellow dedicated martial arts whack job (and I mean that the nicest possible way). When she became aware of the imminent demise of Steel Dragon Karate and the potential birth of Smiling Tiger Karate, she joined our team that plans to make this dream a reality. We've been dedicating time to meeting with each other regularly to implement our plan.
First, we needed to address what caused the failure of Steel Dragon Karate and correct those errors.
We immediately realized that the lack of a website and the use of any other social media was a glaring error. More than one of the Sunday meetings was spent on the development of our website, Facebook page and Instagram account. While we are pleased that we have already launched these, we realize that they are all in their infancy and will require much more work to make them something we can all be proud of. That brings up the topic of getting pictures of our students to show off to the world. Kaz is a professional artist and does some amazing photography. She even claims that she can take a photo of me and make me pretty. That seems like a stretch and I will believe that when I see it.
Our first step will be to enlarge our student base enough to cover our expenses. We are not far away and we appreciate the current students’ efforts to enroll their friends. From there, we plan to expand our student base to the point that Nikko will be able to be freed up from his current employment with the Canadian Navy and dedicate himself full time to the success of Smiling Tiger Karate.
As of April 3, 2023, we will be changing the schedule. The current schedule is poorly constructed with a large gap of time that is rarely/never used by students. Currently, Nikko works from 9.00 a.m. with the Navy until 9.00 or 9.30 p.m. with STK. We can’t afford to have him burn himself out so we are shortening up the schedule. We will expand it back out when the demand builds up.
Thank you to all of you for your continued support!! We plan to make your martial arts experience even better.
