ok, the situation is as follows

our club was to do a small 1/2 hour demonstration at a school fete/fair (i dont know what other countries call it, basically school is open on the weekend, and people sell traditional and homecooked food, watch performances by community bands and youth groups etc)

so we are doing a half hour demonstration for our MA school with no mats. we couldnt do judo and we couldnt do throws in ju-jutsu
due to insurance and public liability laws we were not allowed to do contact sparring (i think legally we shouldnt even be doing contact sparring in regular training)

so there we are. standing in front of 50+ kiddies and soccer moms expecting to see what krotty is all about.

things we did
ju-jutsu
- lots of bowing and saying the names of techniques in japanese
- a few standing jointlocks from set positions (eg, escape from a front choke, escape from a lapel grab and punch to the head etc etc, compliant so the untrained people can see whats happening)
- all finishing techniques were supposed to end with a loud kiai
- a bit of weapons kata

karate
- a bit of tag (continious point sparring, no contact)
- one person holding a pad, the other person demonstrating kicking techniques
- 2 people doing light karate sparring & another 2 people doing light (compliant) ju-jitsu sparring so that the people could see the difference between the arts easily
- tile breaking, now this was impressive, i'd never had a chance to see this before. but i think a lot of the soccer moms were turned off this when a few shards of one of the broken tiles opened up a cut on my instructors hand & it started to bleed quite visibly (he did not realise he was cut until some blood dropped onto his foot)



the point i'm trying to make is that if there was no bullshido in our demonstration, it would have been either terribly boring or unsiutable for out audience.

although if we did the demonstration stuff at normal class with no real training, it would be really boring and i think 90% of the class would leave

Indeed. It's doubtful that you'll appeal the the layman, anyway. If they want to learn how to do it, they'll find you.

PL

I probably would'nt have even started MA if it werent for the Karate kid and Power rangers.

I cannot stand watching them now...

except for the Karate kid ending, not for the tournament, but for that JAM.

(singing) "YOUR THE BEST.... AROUND..... NOTHIN'S GONNA EVA TAKE YA DOWN"

Advertising is generally bullshit regardless of the industry.
how do you suggest we advertise? the junior class is getting ok numbers, but i'm sure more would be most welcome.
the senior class is probably a bit small, this is good and its bad
good- more time with 1 on 1 teaching
bad- not as much competivive randori (i'm either WAY better or WAY worse than many of my training partners) only a couple of people are at a similar level as me

i have been thinking about putting up flyers at the local train station/ video store.
but a big problem is that when people come in off the street for a look we are usually doing boring/ bullshido stuff
eg, everyone is stretching/rolling/breakfalling during judo

compliant drills during ju-jutsu (many white belts at the moment, so a lot of technique work, not so much sparring in recent months)

karate (borderline bullshido karate a lot of nights) a lot of kia's, kata, and point sparring, but we do proper sparring and pad training when people arent preparing for gradings.


the setup of the hall where we train puts the karate closest to the door where the public can see, a LOT of people walk in and see the kids class doing silly stuff or the adults reverse punching and a loud KIAAAA then they turn around and walk back out again.
any suggestions?

Out of curiosity Os are you referring to Martial Arts or ANYTHING? That was a rather large blanket statement you gave and I'd be interested in hearing the rationalization for it...because you know, like the first UFC's were a big advertisement for BJJ.

Gringo Grande

I have actually done a non-bullshido demonstration at a high school about a year ago when my academy was trying to get some teenage students.

What we did:

Brought a small section of mats to a couple of high schools in our immediate area
Did a short demonstration:
- Throws
- Acrobatic submissions, etc

Then we took on all comers in the best tradition of BJJ.

Funnily enough, we had teachers and students standing around cheering us on. Apparently, we found out later, the first kids game enough to take us on were the school bullies. Then, after we destroyed them, much to the glee of teachers who couldn't do the same themselves, everyone else was eager to jump in. It was fantastic.

Whilst this may have had Health and Safety implications, we ended up taking more in the way of injuries than the kids in order to prevent them from taking hard falls off the section of mats, etc.

NSLightsOut
we didnt have mats available. unfortunately :(

but that sounds good, getting some of the school kids to have a wressle. i'll have to suggest that

Then we took on all comers in the best tradition of BJJ.


Very cool! That's great marketing!

The problem with public displays is just that. Theyre basically attention whoring to an audience. Think about the kind of crowd one attracts though doing something like this, esp. breakin tiles. you don't get people who take it on account of wanting either spiritual betterment or to learn a valuble skill/ fighting method. public demos like this prove bullshido to a degree, because its pretty blatant advertising. (no offence, I dont know enough about your school to make a judgement, its just my general experience)

Not saying its black and white. As an example, I was watching a taping of my dad giving a demo when he trained in Kei Shin Kan at his university. The sensei (Masayuki Takasaka for anyone interested) was this old japanese dude who was really traditional, so there was no board breaking, it was just basic techniques. Heres the thing: the sensei took it as if it was a normal lesson. He'd regularly and at random strike his students to make sure they were steady in their stances. They followed that with a couple of katas. Even though there was nothing too flashy, there was a decent influx of students, however, due to the extreme nature of his training (not my words) all but about 3 students had left by the end of first semester.

The example shows that even though the actual demo may not be bullshido per se, it attracts people who expect something. What Im kinda getting at is that demos like that generally don;t attract people who would do the MA for a long period.