Well helloooo there!
Last we talked, I had just opened Kindred Protective Arts at the start of September.
As of today, we've been open almost a full month.
If you've never done it, the quantity of details that go into spinning up a martial arts school - or any small business, really - is, well, GARGANTUAN.
Every big detail has smaller details supporting it. You think you've anticipated everything, but invariably, you'll think of something you missed and add it to your to-do list.
My to-do list, as of this morning on 9/29/21, has 34 active tasks for me to do through the next week and a half, and 102 tasks checked off since mid-August.
Now you know why I haven't been blogging, because YIKES there's so much to do.
However, the pure satisfaction of having our own place just can't be described. Every day I walk into that place and I'm all like...
Awwww yisssss!
But... opening the school has not been without its challenges.
Yeah, I'm looking at you, Google (if you search for Kindred Protective Arts on Google Maps, the address is NOT RIGHT and getting it fixed has been a bureaucratic nightmare of epic proportions).
You expect to get hassled or to have over-complication from government, but guess what? I was able to get set up with my state, the IRS, my county, and my city literally without a single hitch in the process. But when I set up our business on Google... OH NO, WE CAN'T JUST FIX A DAMN ADDRESS MISTAKE! Especially if you don't have a permanent sign up - never mind you have a lease, legal documents, and an obviously functioning martial arts school. No permanent sign? NO VERIFICATION.
*takes a deep breath*
OK, I'm better now.
Another problem we're struggling with is that here in the US, pricing and availability of things like uniforms and equipment is highly volatile right now, for a lot of reasons. Prices change (upward) literally every day, IF you can find what you're looking for in stock.
So yeah, those two problems are super annoying.
What I'm NOT annoyed with is how well classes are going. Most of our active Meetup folks have signed up for the school, which is really, really gratifying.
If you're looking to start your own school teaching adults someday, I highly recommend the Meetup route. It gave us a great base to get started with. By the way, we still have our Meetup - it's just on hiatus until November, where it changes day/time/location and purpose.
So our classes are fun and interesting, I'm so very happy with how the school physically turned out, and all in all, I'm super busy but happily so.
Things ARE settling into a routine, so the blog is back starting in October.
Missed y'all!