 We released the poll last week asking the question of whether or not martial arts instructors should be paid to teach. The results were interesting. The topic of whether or not instructors should be paid to teach the martial arts is one I've been following closely and have been reading a lot of what our viewers have mentioned in the comments over the past few years. Now we'll talk about the results of the poll in a moment, but we left it vague in an attempt to create an open-ended discussion and we weren't disappointed as there were several points mentioned that are worth considering. We asked if teachers should be paid and the answers were yes, they need to make a living too, no, the teaching should be an honor, or if they thought it was a hobby then they shouldn't charge. Those who voted for yes generally said that it is a profession like anything else and that teachers have invested their own finances, time, and skill into training and they are passing on a trade and valued skill set and should be compensated for their expertise. Especially if an instructor teaches full-time and is running a full-time school, there are a lot of expenses that come with running a school. You know besides for the utilities and rent of course there are build-out costs, mirrors are really expensive, signs are expensive, and the prep work to set up a commercial space into a gym or dojo is not a cheap endeavor. Then you have equipment and depending on the discipline taught you could have mats, wave masters, kicking shields, hand targets, practice weapons, or in certain schools wooden dummies, grappling dummies, and other specialized equipment. And then there is insurance. You should not be teaching if you don't have insurance in place. You could be setting yourself up for some serious liability if you don't, especially if you teach children. It takes a lot to keep the doors open. Martial arts schools are one of the harder businesses to keep running and the majority of them go out of business within their first year or two if they don't get a full-told quickly. The consensus for this answer was basically that if a person dedicates themselves full-time running a school and teaches a skill that they worked hard for and invested in themselves then they should be compensated like a teacher, coach, or counselor in any other trade would. And there are those who said, no, that martial arts knowledge is an honor and it should not be traded for a dollar and that a person who is pure in the arts shouldn't even consider money as an objective. This one is a delicate line to walk because there's a lot of gray area here. Some took exception to the martial arts being considered a trade and that it is passing down knowledge for an honorable cause and it shouldn't be an industry. The idea of a commercial school being open in general is often contested with many people feeling that teaching should be a smaller private affair and they shouldn't have all that upfront costs to begin with. I mean, after all, there are cheaper ways to run classes, renting out time from an already established school, utilizing recreation centers, or even for free at the beach or the park. Then there is the middle point of someone who teaches as a hobby or rather part-time. This can apply to somebody who is an assistant instructor and teaches for their instructor or someone who teaches outside of work hours and does it for the love of it. Most people who responded regarding this aspect suggested that someone teaching part-time or for their instructor should not be paid because teaching is a valuable part of training hours for their own training. Some of the comments felt that martial arts instructors who shouldn't be paid to teach did suggest though that it was okay to ask for just enough to cover the expense of teaching but nothing to make a living off of. Okay, a lot of great points have been made here on both sides and I can certainly see and understand both perspectives. But there is gray area here. First, a very important question to ask is, if martial arts instructors are expected to teach for free because it's an honorable skill, the focus should be on improving others' lives and it shouldn't be traded for a dollar, then why don't we apply the same logic to other honorable industries? School teachers, college professors, tutors, physical therapists, counselors, personal trainers, doctors, nurses, or anyone who works in the emergency response. Ideally speaking, medical professionals should keep us healthy. Police officers should keep us safe. Firefighters and paramedics save us from danger. All arguably more honorable than learning martial arts and we don't question them getting paid and in some cases in professions, it's often questioned why they aren't paid more. One counter argument to this point that I heard was that in many areas, EMT and firefighters were volunteer and they don't fall under that umbrella. It's a fair point honestly, but I have two responses to that. First, while in many areas, rescue services are volunteer, there are also many areas where they are still a paid profession so they do still fall under this consideration. And second, people who volunteer as firefighters and EMT workers usually do volunteer outside of work hours and have other professions they live off of. Even if they volunteer, they still have to feed a family and pay the bills. There are also two other trends that came up in this poll. The first is that some comments brought up the fact that in some parts of the world, teaching to martial arts was subsidized by the state and it didn't come out of students' pockets. This one was really interesting to me because that actually cuts a little bit deeper into the issue and it branches off to another question. Which is the bigger concern? Somebody getting paid to teach or students having to incur the cost themselves to learn? A lot of people seem to find subsidies acceptable. I mean in that scenario, the instructor is still getting paid to teach for their knowledge. Another interesting thing that I noticed was that almost everyone I talked to who said that the martial arts is an honor and that the knowledge should not be exchanged for money are almost all in the traditional martial arts. I have not really seen this debate come into play in the more contemporary fighting arts. Most people don't question MMA being a business. The UFC and MMA as we know it is first and foremost a sport. Sports industries are 100% profit driven. I have and do work in professional sports and I have seen this firsthand. The venues, organizations, promoters all make money hand over fist in the MMA industry. Fighters are professionals who train full time and get paid for their fights. Their coaches are paid to train them. People paid to watch it. I haven't really heard many people debate this which I find interesting because the debate seems almost exclusive to traditional martial arts. So what were the poll results? Honestly, they skewed a lot heavier in one direction than we expected. As of the filming of this episode and from almost a thousand votes cast, 93% felt that instructors should be paid for teaching. 2% said no they shouldn't and 5% said that part-time or hobby teachers shouldn't be paid. That's a vast majority who feels like getting paid to teach is not only acceptable but the right thing to do. Yet I see almost an equal divide amongst the comments. So what does this suggest? To me it suggests that it's not always such a clear line to define or perhaps that there are a lot of variables that can change the situation. I personally feel that someone teaching the martial arts should be compensated for their knowledge. We expect it of literally every other industry and this person has likely spent much of their lifetime, effort, literal blood sweat and tears and invested their own tuition into gaining this knowledge. If someone is running a full-time school they should be able to cover the expenses of that school and be able to make a living off of it so that they can support their families and continue devoting their time to teaching and passing that knowledge on. But there is a very, very fine line to walk here, mainly the intent of the individual. There is a huge difference between the instructor who genuinely loves their art and wants to support themselves so they can teach it full-time and the individual who is more concerned with making a profit and prioritizes money over the value of what they are teaching. A school that charges for classes does not automatically become a mcdojo. We've covered the topic of mcdojos a few times and there are often unethical practices in play that push schools into that classification. I invite you to check out those episodes, there are links in the description below. In regards to teaching for your instructor, whether you're an advanced student helping out in class or you're working as an assistant instructor, some feel that if you were teaching for your instructor then you shouldn't charge and that should count towards your teaching hours. I don't disagree, but there is some flexibility in this answer. Are you just assisting in the class while your instructor teaches? Are you jumping in to lead a class once or twice a week? Are you taking a group of underbells off to the side while your instructor teaches higher ranks? Are you trying to meet teaching hour requirements for belt testing? Or are you putting on a regular schedule and expecting to teach 10, 20 hours a week? Or full-time, are you leading classes by yourself? Have you already earned your black belt and met these teaching requirements? Are you still being charged for school tuition while you're teaching? These are all important considerations. If the student is an assistant and is helping out here and there, then I think it's reasonable to expect them to put that time in as a volunteer to gain teaching experience. But if they are put on a full schedule and expected to actually run classes or run the school outside of the normal hours that they'd be attending, then I think it's reasonable to pay them. Especially if they are still paying school tuition themselves. I have experienced both aspects of this. I have volunteered my time in taught, especially when I was younger and helping out with classes, and I have also worked as a part-time instructor. In fact, my first job ever was teaching. I was in high school and I had been training three to four years at this point and I knew it was time to get a job and actually start working. I loved my karate dojo and I asked my instructor if he was hiring. The funny thing though is I was asking in terms of working the front counter, answering the phones, helping register new students, etc. That was what I viewed at the time as a real job and I assumed that that was what I was going to be doing. He agreed to hire me and the next thing I know, I'm being trained for the floor in leading classes. My mind short-circuited a little bit because I wasn't expecting that kind of responsibility but they eased us assistant instructors into it and it wasn't so bad. I didn't go in with the attention of being paid to teach but my instructor set up full schedules for us and we were expected to teach 10 to 20 hours a week outside of our high school hours and we were paid minimum wage, a whole 375 an hour at that time. Later, I taught for my second instructor. He came to me with a job offer to work part-time. He was running the school by himself teaching 6 classes a day and then training MMA fighters after that so he offered me the job to run classes on some days so that he could catch a breather. I was also hired by another school that needed help and needed instructors. So I guess during the time of my martial arts experience I never really questioned being paid to teach because it was always just expected and built in. I could see the concern and I think that every person who commented on this poll gave a valid answer with a reasonable perspective. But there are many variables. Running a school full-time is hard work and most of the time, it doesn't pay that great. You're not going to get rich off of it unless you do have a gimmick or you start to veer into that questionable territory. And like many other topics that we've covered it really does come down to specifics and individual situations. I think martial arts instructors should be compensated for their knowledge as long as the focus is and remains on the passion and quality of the teaching. It really only becomes a problem when money itself becomes a motivation. So as always, I'd love to know where you all stand if you agree with the results of the poll and what your personal experiences are. And for anyone who still thinks it's unethical for a martial arts teacher to be paid, I ask this. Why are you entitled to be taught for free?