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Alex Wheeler
30th December 2015, 07:30
I am twenty-three years old and I have only trained Takamura ha Shindo Yoshin Ryu for four years. Recently our dojo has seen a decline in attendance, so I was wondering if anyone had any helpful advice for advertising for new members.

Cady Goldfield
30th December 2015, 19:44
Hello, and welcome to E-Budo, Alex.

While I don't have any fast answers for increasing attendance, sometimes it is helpful to see if your can bring back members who have gone missing. So, you could try to contact members who were once active and see what their reasons are for not training. Often, life -- job, family, etc. -- throws up some obstacles or changes that can sideline an otherwise-dedicated student.

Sometimes, just a friendly and concerned call or e-mail/note from a dojo member can be enough to get a person to come back to training. Koryu arts tend to attract people with a special kind of discipline and focus, so sometimes people who were on the fence about their training will drift away... it wasn't for them, and the training was too demanding for their level of interest. By the same reasoning, those who truly love the art but were called away by other pressing matters, may realize that they miss the training and want to return.

For attracting new members, I'm assuming that yours is not a commercial dojo? Some of the "marketing" avenues that might work for you could be some presentations and demonstrations at cultural events (especially Japanese-themed ones), an open-house event at your dojo (which would bring curious people in the door), or offering a demo as part of a charity fund-raiser. You could produce a tasteful, informational flyer for people to take home with them, as well.

In a sense, attracting new members to a historic and specialized art such as SYR, is kind of like missionary work. ;) Anyway, good luck, and we hope you will enjoy participating in the forums.