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Vince Salvatore
discusses how to motivate your students in becoming Aikido Ambassadors in his September 9th teleconference. Did you miss the call? No problem! Listen to it at your leisure on the AIO member’s audio page.
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AI Journal is published by Aikido Instructors Organization. All editorial material, including comments, opinion, statements appearing in this publication, represents the views of the respective authors and does not necessarily carry the endorsement of Aikido Instructors Organization or its officers. Information in AI Journal is gathered from sources considered to be reliable, but the accuracy of all information cannot be guaranteed. The publication of any advertisements is not to be construed as an endorsement of the product or service offered unless it is specifically stated in the ad that there is such approval or endorsement.
AI Journal
Editorial BY AIO PRESIDENT, SKIP CHAPMAN
S E P T / O C T 2 0 0 9 ‐ a i k i d o i n t r u c t o r s . c o m
Success Starts with PMA stages of having temporary One of the many honors I have is the opportunity to locations, all the way to leaswork with dojocho of various Aikido Associations ing my own full time space, located around the world through Aikido Instructors my mindset changed very Organization. When talking with clients there are little. After almost 5 years I stood in my dojo and common issues and concerns that surface fresaw, at most, 45 students who paid when they felt quently. Some of the most obvious discussions relike it. If the students were not paying for lessons, volve around marketing ideas, managements sysmany of them bartered for dues by detailing my tems, and ways to retain students. The less obvicar, mowing my lawn, etc. Yes, the dojo had ous discussions focus on the professional structure grown, but it wasn’t paying the dojo’s bills or contribof the dojo. Dojocho who run a part-time dojo or uting to the household income. In fact, with travelclub, share spaces with other arts, or struggle with ing and training at Aikido seminars, the dojo was limited help have legitimate concerns regarding the quickly sinking into a hole. At this point my wife and amount of time they can dedicate towards growing I sat down and had to seriously look at the future of the dojo. Because of these challenges, occasionally the dojo and the very real possibility of closing the a dojo owner may hesitate to make any changes in dojo. This was the moment. This was when I realtheir dojo. It is easy to feel overwhelmed with just ized that, if I was going to end up closing the dojo, I the responsibility of teaching class. I can certainly would go out fighting. Before changing relate to those feelings because I have the dojo's business plan, the first thing I felt them myself. When my wife and I “He that makes had to address was my mental state. I first opened our dojo, Jersey Shore Aikiexcuses is seldom had to let go of the negative feeling of "I kai, in 1997, we started out the same can't" and give the positive possibilities way most aspiring dojocho begin their good for anything of "I can" a chance. From that moment own dojos. Because we had just a else.” - Benjamin on, all of the success that JSA experihandful of students and little start up enced would have been impossible capital, we had to sublet space at variFranklin without believing and making a full effort ous locations in order to hold classes. One of our locations was two with a Positive Mental Attitude. Now, I am certainly not saying to sit in the middle of your nights a week at a firehouse. A second location dojo and think good thoughts to make a change. I was 20 minutes away in an aerobics studio. Our am saying that real positive change starts from inthird location was 45 minutes away in a karate side and works its way out. If you make an honest school. Because we did not have a permanent attempt at whatever it is you are trying to do to imdojo, we used to trailer mats around from location to prove the dojo, then something positive will come location. All of this work happened after I finished out of it. Today, if you visit my dojo and enter my my 9-5 job, for a maximum of 10-15 students after office, there is a sign over my desk that reads: “He being open for just over a year. Many of you may that makes excuses is seldom good for anything be able to relate to this kind of beginning or perhaps else.” - Benjamin Franklin. Most of my students you are experiencing it now. Either way, I can tell may think that this quote is for their benefit you that the process from 10 students to 220 has and I hope that it does help them in their training been very educational. Not just from a business and in facing life's challenges. That sign, however, perspective but also from a personal one. My is not for my students, but to remind myself everythought process in the first few years was simple; it day that positive change in my dojo and in my life consisted of the basic themes: “I can’t do that” and are possible if I have the correct attitude and the “That won’t work in Aikido”. Looking back at my necessary commitment. I hope that my story helps business plan and the negative feelings I had reyou to take the first steps towards positive change garding change, I must have been crazy to leave my in your own dojo. 9-5 job and run a full-time dojo. From the beginning
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AIO: On behalf of Aikido Instructors Organization, AIO, I’m Ted Banta and I have the pleasure and privilege of interviewing Michael Veltri Sensei, Chief Instructor of Okinawa Aikikai, a dojo in Washington, DC. Veltri Sensei, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, as I find your personal professional circumstances quite engaging and compelling, and I’m certain AIO’s membership will find the same. Again, thank you. Essentially, AIO’s intention objective is to evaluate, determine, and illustrate the success of your dojo and to discuss your intentions, plans, and strategies for fostering greater success in your dojo’s future. So, again, thank you very much.
Veltri Sensei, would you please share with us your history of training with Aikido? As I understand, you began your Aikido training while you were in the Marines. Veltri Sensei: That’s correct. I started training in southern California in 1987, where I was stationed while in the Marine Corps, and trained there for three years before being sent to Okinawa, Japan in 1990. While I was stationed on Okinawa, Japan, I met my teacher, whose name is Yamaguchi. That is, his last name is Yamaguchi and his first name is Iwao. Not to be confused with the other Yamaguchi Sensei, who is at Hombu Dojo. Well, he was at Hombu Dojo until he passed away. My last three
years in the Marine Corps, Ted, were my first three years in Japan. At that time in 1993, I was a second degree black belt and had developed a close personal relationship with my teacher, who then sponsored me on a cultural visa to do primarily Aikido full-time for a year, in a sort of classical uchideshi situation. In addition to a full day of Aikido training, I would study the Japanese language and Zen meditation. AIO: Very interesting. Was it difficult to get a cultural visa? Veltri Sensei: To get the cultural visa, you have to provide the Japanese government with a twelve month schedule broken down by each month, each month broken down by each week, each week broken down by each day, each day broken down by each hour; 365 days for the entire year. After 9/11 immigration issues became hard in America, but compared to trying to get a visa in Japan (laughing); they are the masters of red tape. I’m very good at doing what I’m told, so I was able to get all of the necessary paperwork together. Cultural visas are very difficult to acquire. A lot of times they’ll be given out for artistic endeavors such as pottery or painting or the Noh theatre; and occasionally they are given out for martial arts.
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AIO: Wow, that’s extraordinary that you were able to get a cultural visa. Veltri Sensei: Yes, I was very fortunate and it was not cheap, but I saved in anticipation of spending a year over there with him. And then, in 1994, I was a big fish in a little pond; Okinawa being a small island in the southern most part of Japan. I then moved on to mainland Japan where I finished my undergraduate degree at a university in Tokyo, and then continued to supplement my studies at Hombu Dojo with the current Doshu now.
Cover Story - Veltri Sensei
AIO: And what year did you come back to the states? Veltri Sensei: I returned to the states in 2000. So I basically spent 1990 to 2000 over in Japan and it was over in the blink of an eye. AIO: When you came back in 2000, did you start your dojo in Washington, DC at that time? Veltri Sensei: Correct. I came back in 2000, and with the blessing of my teacher and Doshu, to start to open up a branch dojo of the Okinawa Aikikai here in Washington, DC. It can be a little confusing, even among Aikido circles. When they hear Okinawa Aikikai, it refers to the branch dojo, but I just go by DC Aikido. Obviously no one, outside of Aikido people, is going to have any idea what the hell Okinawa Aikikai is, or what it means. AIO: Were you originally from Washington, DC? Veltri Sensei: No, I’m originally from Pennsylvania. AIO: And how did you make your way to Washington, DC? How did you make that choice?
here? AIO: Yes, I have infrequently. Veltri Sensei: It’s a great area and, like I said, one of the few places that had jobs, so I was able to come back here, get re-established, and go from there. AIO: How did your teaching begin? Did you start a part-time dojo or did you just immerse yourself into a full-time space? Veltri Sensei: Well, my background had been in business. My undergraduate degree is in Japanese and international business. After I graduated from university in Tokyo, I remained in Japan for an additional five years working as a business consultant setting up non-Japanese companies in Japan, basically US and European. I had some business background and I’ve always been a very patient person, so I wasn’t going to overextend myself or rush right into anything. So when I came back into the country, I started teaching at a variety of places that didn’t require me to spend any overhead. I had rented space in community centers, church basements, in health clubs, and so on and so forth, as I grew the program. And the challenge here, as in any type of major metropolitan city, is getting enough space to handle an Aikido class with space for rolls, falls, and throws. I kept outgrowing the places I was in and then, eventually had the dojo to a size that I could then take out a commercial lease at a more permanent location. Even after signing a commercial lease, I aimed at working full-time for a year to ensure all the finances were in place. I continued working to build the program and, after a year I cut the ties to my other career and ran it full-time. Although, unfortunately, in between that, I was stricken with a little thing called cancer and it sort of put my plans back a step. But sometimes you have
Veltri Sensei: I had spent time here in DC before for various short assignments. We had military training in DC, and it was also one of the few places that I had secured a job when I left Japan after living abroad for ten years. I liked the area. It is a savvy area. Have you ever been
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to take a step back to take six or seven forward. AIO: Yes, absolutely. It must have an almost impossible task to work full-time, run a dojo and successfully battle cancer. It speaks volumes about your resolve and dedication to Aikido. Was the process going from a part-time dojocho to a fulltime dojocho a long one considering all of the challenges you were facing? Veltri Sensei: I got back in 2000 and started teaching. I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in April of 2003 and, by May of 2004, I took up the commercial lease and moved into the spot that I’m at now. I continued to work for an additional year for a couple of reasons. One to make sure of the financial stability of the dojo, and also to ensure all of my health care costs were continuously covered by my present employer. I was getting quarterly CAT-scans and blood tests, things which can be quite expensive, so I wanted to make sure that, again, the cancer part was taken care of for me. Only after that did I leave my job to run the dojo full-time. It was March of ’05, I believe. Had I not been stricken with cancer, I probably would have left the job a year to eighteen months sooner.
Okinawa Aikikai Before
AIO: Did you follow any steps in locating and choosing your current space? Veltri Sensei: Again, it’s all about location. I’m familiar with the area. I was also in sales. My job here in DC was outside sales, so I had a couple of things that allowed me an advantage, Ted. Basically, before leaving my sales career, I had two fulltime jobs: my full-time sales job and then running the dojo. I am not married, and I'll tell you what, if you are married or have kids, that balance act is a hard one to manage. There’s just no way I would be able to pull that off. (laughs) I was able to spend a lot of time dedicated to both my jobs, but my sales career did not require me to be stuck tethered to a desk for eight hours a day. I was in outside sales so, if I was sitting at my desk, I wasn’t doing my job. It gave me the possibility to be out and about doing things. In addition, I had a lot of seniority at my company, so, as long as I made my sales quota, I had the flexibility needed to get the dojo up and running. I was able to take my business and sales training and apply it to finding a space. I knew where I AIKIDOINSTRUCTORS.COM
Okinawa Aikikai After
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AI Journal Cover Story- Veltri Sensei 8
“I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in April of 2003 and, by May of 2004, I took up the commercial lease and moved into the spot that I’m at now.” wanted the dojo to be and with commercial real estate, much like looking for a house, you can contact your realtor. Or if you want to bypass the realtor, you can beat the streets and do it yourself. Basically that’s what I did. I went up and down these two major commercial fairs that I wanted to be located on and went into every building and looked for space. I talked to building managers because often space availability is not advertised. So I went through all of these buildings and actually found a spot that I was interested in, but it turned out to be too small. I was looking for a space close to 2500 square feet. The woman I was speaking to about the space that was too small saw an opportunity and told me about another space that used to be a martial arts dojo. It was 2300 square feet and right across from the metro. This particular property management company had just purchased ten new properties in DC and they were still getting familiar with their inventory. The company was actually unaware that the previous marital art tenant vacated his property. They didn't know that he left until they went through and found the empty space. It was a lot of hard work, but, as with anything, there’s was a lot of luck involved with getting the space. If you’re familiar with the DC area, the metro, the subway system, is very important. I have a prime spot directly across from a major metro. People just come off the metro and walk across the street to my dojo. I also have underground parking, which is a premium in DC, so there is an underground parking garage students can use as well
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as street parking. Most of my students, I would say 75%, take public transportation, either by using the metro, riding their bicycle, or walking to the dojo. And then 25% of the students, possibly less, drive either parking on the street or underground. AIO: Excellent. Obviously you work in the area so you knew the general demographics, the makeup of the neighborhood, and how people commuted, so you were able to use that type of criteria in order to base your choice. Did you also do some research? Veltri Sensei: Yes. A lot of my students were already living in the area, so I was familiar with the cost per square foot and I knew what my budget would allow. Just think of it like you’re house hunting. If you can afford a $50,000 house and the monthly payments that go along with that mortgage, you don’t want to buy a $500,000 house. So in addition to wanting the great location, I was able to look for a space that met my financial needs. I found the location and it fit my budget. I am also, Ted, in what’s called a concourse area, which means I’m not underground. I have a window that leads outside but I’m not at street level, which is probably twice the cost of what I’m paying. I have outside signage for the studio, so this location was a marrying of the best criteria for the spot. Now what I did do that is very important is: I found a spot and started the negotiations on the commercial lease. Once I did that, I knew right away that I was in over my head. So I hired a lease consultant who negotiated my entire commercial lease from A-Z. The money that I paid him returned to me fourfold in reduced rent, increased build out costs and other concessions. Not that I couldn’t have done it myself, but I just didn’t know what I could do. I know about Aikido, but I’m not going to try and teach volleyball. I don’t play a lot of volleyball, so it’s the same thing regarding a commercial lease. I know how to ne-
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gotiate business contracts with my telecommunications experience, but when it comes to a commercial lease, a commercial real-estate lease makes residential real-estate look like child’s play. AIO: Yes, it can be quite extensive and thank you for making that analogy. Veltri Sensei: So getting the lease consultant was a huge, huge, help. If I realize that there’s something that I cannot do, I am not going to waste my time and energy trying to figure it out when there are experts out there that can handle it for me. AIO: And was your lease consultant an attorney, or did you have to hire an attorney? Veltri Sensei: No, he was actually based out of Canada. He’s called The Lease Coach. His name is Dale Willerton, and I found him by going to a bookstore and buying a book called How to Negotiate Your Commercial Lease! (Both laugh) And I was reading it and I realized, “You know, I’m going to get so screwed here! I have no idea what I’m up against.” AIO: (laughs) Yes. Veltri Sensei: And I went to his website and I realized that he offered several services: from reviewing a commercial lease to providing you with consulting services. In other words, you can go back and forth with the business owner and then you can go back and tell him and he tells you what to say. Or you can hire him to do the whole doggone thing, and that’s what I did. I called and talked to him and hired him on the spot to do soupto-nuts everything for me, and I was extremely pleased. I signed a five-and-a-five, a standard five year contract with option to renew for five years. Within those five years I can call him up, send him an email, and ask him any questions on my commercial lease. So, that was very important and he did a great job. If I have any problems or questions about anything, I call him. It’s been a AIKIDOINSTRUCTORS.COM
great help. That’s really important in trying to get a commercial space. Unless you’re a professional commercial real-estate agent, I would definitely look at getting a consultant. AIO: Very interesting. Switching gears slightly, can you describe the makeup of your class schedule? Veltri Sensei: I teach classes every day except Sunday. Classes are held in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. AIO: Adults and children? Veltri Sensei: No. I do not teach any kids. Now, I did used to have a very successful youth program but I put it on hiatus for a couple of reasons. One, it was getting ready to go from thirty kids to three hundred kids, and I just didn’t have the infrastructure and support to deal with it. And second, I also realized, although I think martial arts in general is fabulous for kids, I just don’t like teaching
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AI Journal Cover Story - Veltri Sensei 10
“After implementing what I learned from Skip for about six months on the kids program, I was getting ready to go from my thirty current kids to around three hundred kids. “ kids. You gotta be honest with yourself (laughing). AIO: And I am sure that there are other Aikidoka that have similar sentiments. Some enjoy teaching children and some prefer to teach only adults. Veltri Sensei: Yes, and it’s not that I have anything against it. For me, it just does not fit my temperament. I ran a youth program, a very successful youth program, for a year. When I was running it, I found it difficult to find full-time assistant instructors. I was relying on adult volunteers to help with the classes and often they were not able to come in early enough to assist because of their full-time job. So I put it on hiatus. Perhaps there might be a chance to revisit it in the future. AIO: Yes, and prior to Skip starting AIO and you putting your children's program on hiatus, you and Skip discussed implementing parts of his kids program. Veltri Sensei: I always ran a very successful adult program and, like I mentioned with the lease and the lease consultant I used, I am not going to waste my time reinventing the wheel. Instead I found someone who had a very successful kids program in Aikido, which was Skip. I called him up and I said, “I want to come up and see how you do it, is that cool?” I never met him, never knew the guy, and instantly we clicked right away. I loved what Skip was doing with the kids program. And, I sort of laugh, but because of what I learned from Skip’s kids programs, well, that is what made me ultimately stop teaching kids! After implementing what I learned from Skip for about six months on the kids program, I was getting ready to go from my thirty current kids to around three hundred kids. I just couldn’t deal with that amount of kids in my program. But also I realized that I after run-
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ning my youth program for a year I wasn’t passionate about teaching kids. To teach kids you should be passionate about it. That was something I had to really look at within myself. Would I love to have additional two hundred to two hundred fifty kids? Sure, that is a lot of revenue. Yet again, I am not going to do it wrong. So, Skip was very helpful. I think it was a lot of his trial and error that got him going in the right direction, and I’ve got nothing but great things to say about him. AIO: Thank you. You mentioned your volunteer administrators. They are not paid? Veltri Sensei: I have some assistants, but I also follow the KISS principle. I have things very, very, clean and streamlined. I have very little overhead and very little administrative operations to handle, so I do a lot of the work. But I also have some student assistants that help out with some portions of running the dojo. AIO: Do you have an advanced training program? An Uchideshi program or Sotodeshi program? Veltri Sensei: No, but we do have a Kenshusei program where students who want more intense training have that option of becoming a Kenshusei. I also hold special weekly black belt classes for all my black belts, and for students that are first kyu preparing for black belt. AIO: And how has that been received in the dojo? Is that quite popular? Veltri Sensei: Yes. Extremely popular. AIO: And the Kenshusei program? Veltri Sensei: It is also a popular program in the dojo. It’s for those students who
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want a bigger challenge in Aikido training and more responsibility within the dojo, whether it's just mentoring new students or junior students, helping in our test procedures, or just attending special seminars and classes that I hold for them. AIO: Great. What’s the average age of your students? Veltri Sensei: DC has a very large young professional population here. I teach several hundred students and I have some college kids, eighteen, nineteen, and some students as old as sixty to sixtyfive. I would say the average age would probably be around early thirties, late twenties to early thirties. AIO: How do you market the dojo? Veltri Sensei: I have several ways. I have a web presence, of course, with my website. I advertise on Google and Yahoo in their ads, and then I do a lot of grassroots advertising. DC is a tight little area with sixty public bulletin boards, coffee shops, restaurants, so on and so forth. Some of my students that are administrators visit those sixty places once every two weeks to put up my marketing material. My marketing material consists of a couple of things. I have regular flyers with little tear tags that people can rip off with the information regarding our program. I have double-sided postcards that also go up, which are a little easier. People can just grab the big postcards. I also have students hand out these postcards at the metro stop near the dojo that’s called the Red Line. The Red Line is what my dojo’s on and that’s what most people would travel to and from to come to my area. The passengers on the Red Line are excellent for targeting potential customers. The third primary piece I use is a door hanger. Door hangers work well because people have to look at your name and offer before entering. I do not just hang them on doors, either. We’ll hang them in public places, such as newspaper stands. Every major metropolitan city has those little clusters of newspapers vending machines where people can drop their quarters in to purchase their newspapers. We hang them on the doors of retail stores, such as Starbucks. Door hangers have been a real big AIKIDOINSTRUCTORS.COM
success as far as getting someone’s attention and generating interest in our program. AIO: That’s great. You had mentioned just before that you have about a couple of hundred students, and that’s quite extensive, especially for being open only seven or eight years. Was there any one specific thing that you could attribute to that growth or did it happen with multiple means of criteria? Veltri Sensei: Well, you know, at best marketing is an elusive science. AIO: Yes. Veltri Sensei: Regarding securing a commercial space, you do not want to have a great beautiful space in a really lousy location because all you will end up with is a beautiful space that no one’s coming to because it’s in a horrible location. You would rather have a decent space in a fabulous location and be very successful. I was lucky that I found a very good space at a great location and I would like to say, Ted, that I had a really grand plan and I’m a genius, but I’m not. It’s just by luck of the draw that Aikido marries well with DC. I would like to think that Aikido attracts a different type of person, more of a thinking person. Again, I’m not being condescending or looking my nose down at any other martial arts. In my opinion, Aikido attracts a more well-educated per-
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“Door hangers have been a real big success as far as getting someone’s attention and generating interest in our program.” son; and DC, has a population with not only undergraduate degrees, but graduate degrees, is upwards of 60-65%. DC is an excellent market for Aikido. Having an excellent market, great location, and the right marketing material will draw people to come to the dojo. Being able to retain them is where I’ve added some different training tools to my program. Very well-educated people are used to graduate programs and very intricate processes. By acknowledging this fact and teaching to that type of student, I am able to keep them enrolled, keep them challenged, and keep them coming back. I have a very low turnover rate. Once I get someone to join, the only time I’ll get people that really stop is if their job changes, or if they move on. I rarely get people who quit for other reasons because they are challenged. AIO: And that’s very difficult to do, to hold an attrition rate at bay. And what would you attribute that to? Veltri Sensei: Well, a couple of things. The first thing I do is when people contact me to schedule an initial appointment. Again, most of my clientele are very web savvy, so I would say that 85% of my initial contacts come via email through our website. The other 15% might be phone calls and then very, very small percentage just walk in. When I get that initial email, I have a regular script that goes back to them and explains the process, and it’s also on my website. It’s very simple. It’s very clean. If you’re interested in starting, this is what you need to do: A, B, and C. I will schedule an initial appointment to meet the prospect in person. I schedule them for thirty minutes before the start of one of my beginner classes. Then, for those thirty minutes, the prospect gets a chance to meet me. I give them a tour of the facility, explain about the different training programs and answer all of their questions. Like I said, it takes thirty min-
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utes. After that, they stay and watch the class for one hour. After watching the class, they can then schedule a trial lesson, which I keep semi-private, two to four people in a special private lesson; a trial lesson that is not involved with the regular curriculum. First, if someone’s going to contact me and schedule an appointment, I’m already weeding out people that are not that interested. Of the people that come and actually visit and watch the class, according to my records and my statistics, 90% come back for the trial lesson. Of the people that take the trial lesson, 90% sign up. I set expectations from the get go. All of the prospects are used to following complicated processes for applying to grad school and so on and so forth, so they appreciate the structure of my program. That’s the process that the new student goes through. Then my classes are broken down by specific rank, including a beginners and basic class, mixed level classes, intermediate classes, and black belt classes. AIO: Okay. Would you mind elaborating on your curriculum? Veltri Sensei: I use a system called a rotating curriculum which, over a four-and-a-half to five month rotation, we go through our basic curriculum to introduce foundational core Aikido techniques. That curriculum is followed whether you are a beginner student or an advanced student. We just do more advanced techniques at the advanced level. In addition to the rotating curriculum that we use, I also use in my intermediate and mixed level classes something called a flex schedule. The flex schedule alternates open hand and weapons on a monthly basis. So those students are getting, not only the empty hand material that they need, but also the weapons knowledge that they also need. The flex schedule not only provides that, but it also ensures that the three main weapons that we use: the staff, the sword, the knife (the jo, the bokken, and the tanto) are rotated in also. So
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not failure. I’ve taken lessons I’ve learned in the business world and in my college career, time in the Marine Corps, dealing with cancer, and I just put it to use in the dojo. AIO: Wow. And you have drawn successfully from your successes and challenges to see what your students need and meeting that need from day one. Sticking with the topic of the new student, how do you process your dues, fees, etc?
we’re covering all of the basics, making sure the students are learning the material that they need and providing structure for them, which basically sets the people up to succeed. It’s easier for me to teach and it’s easier for the students to learn. AIO: Yes, I heard you were a meticulous planner and that’s great. I think that most dojos and most dojochos can use that information very well, and very wisely. Veltri Sensei: Yes, and again, I’m not reinventing the wheel. When I was in college for four years, I didn’t have professors walk in and say, “Hey, I think I’m going to teach this today.” I had a syllabus; I knew what I was going to be taught. Having a syllabus makes the professor’s job that much easier. They’re busy people. They can’t be guessing what they need to teach. It also makes the student’s life that much easier. They know what they’re going to be learning. What I tried to do is try to be objective. We’re close to the art. We love it and we try to get that passion across but sometimes it comes across not as objective as it should. If we are not careful, people will not see the bigger picture, they will have no idea what we’re talking about, and they will lose interest. We need to be sure we are setting up our students for success and AIKIDOINSTRUCTORS.COM
Veltri Sensei: Yes. I do everything by electronic funds transfer on the 15th of the month. Students can either use a checking account or a credit card. Those are the only options they have. And that’s all, again, that my student’s want to do. Again, my market which tends to be a very well-educated, web savvy group who pay their bills online and probably haven’t written a check in five years. I also do a three month minimum enrollment. When students sign up, they sign the enrollment form, which lets them know they are signing up for the initial three month period. Almost all of my transactions come through Electronic Funds Transfer. AIO: Given your traditional training, traditional background, and the success that you’ve had with your business, has it been a challenge to keep the two, marry the two, or has it been easy for you? Veltri Sensei: Ah, no. For me, it’s been pretty easy. Every other year, I take a group back to Japan, so we went back to Japan this past August. We visit my teacher down in Okinawa and then we take a group to Hombu Dojo to meet Doshu and the other masters there. It’s definitely a fine line. I mean, I’m running a business. I have to keep the doors open. I would be doing a disservice to my students if I ran it into the ground; if I was not financially and fiscally responsible. I run a completely transparent program. Everyone gets copies of their enrollment SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2009
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AI Journal - Cover Story - Veltri Sensei
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
forms. For every electronic transfer charge, they get an email receipt. Again, it’s about education and demonstration. I educate them as to what’s going to happen, demonstrate to them what’s going to happen, whether it’s an Aikido technique, or a monthly payment, or a payment for a testing fee, or anything else. I haven’t had any conflict with running a traditional, fun and challenging program, and also running a successful business. AIO: Your website talks a little bit about the practical applications of self-defense, Aikido. You also talk a lot about proper mental training and focus in regards to your own personal challenge overcoming cancer. Could you speak more about that and how you teach? Veltri Sensei: Sure. Going through the Marine Corps boot camp was physically demanding. I was in great shape, so the physical aspect wasn't the biggest challenge. The toughest thing about the Marine Corps boot camp and in my opinion, being in the Marine Corps period, was the mental aspect. You could be a great physical specimen, have great physical ability, but if you didn't have that mental fortitude, the intestinal fortitude, you were not going to be successful. Whether it was dealing with cancer, dealing with my time in the Marine Corps, graduating from college, living overseas for ten years, coming back to the States, or leaving my job, even if I was prepared physically, financially, etc., I had to have the correct mental attitude. Having the correct mental attitude is so important, and it translates, of course, to training in the martial arts. I always try to use examples that everyone can relate to. I use sports analogies. Anything from Tiger Woods, who is a gifted physical athlete but mentally he’s just as sharp. The exceptional athletes are not only physically gifted, but they’re mentally focused as well. At the end of every class, I read a little passage, whether it’s a motivational quote or some other type of passage that takes literally tenseconds to read, and I draw a relationship of how that passage affects you on the mat and how it can affect you into your outside life also. AIO: As we wrap up the interview, what other
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SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2009
advice might you have for dojocho? Veltri Sensei: I think the most important thing is that you have to be passionate. It’s not easy. I spent a lot of hours teaching Aikido, and the only way I am able to do it is because I am passionate for my art. It can take several years of sacrifice and building up the program and personal sacrifice to become successful. So that passion is very important in surviving the difficult times. Another big problem is when you have all the passion in the world but limited knowledge on how to keep a dojo afloat and growing. What Skip is doing with AIO and what all of you are growing with this organization is going to help those dojocho who are passionate about Aikido, but might not have the knowledge needed to make it a sustainable and successful business. AIO can help people take that passion and put it into proper focus. AIO: Veltri Sensei, I certainly appreciate the interview and the time you spent with me and the AI Journal readers. Your personal and professional experiences are extraordinary. I know they will help inspire dojocho worldwide to find focus within themselves and within their own dojo. So, thank you very much Ted Banta III - AIO Journalist: Ted has been training in Aikido for 15 years under Y. Yamada, Shihan and Skip Chapman Sensei, and holds the rank of Yondan. Ted is a licensed Realtor, Real Estate Instructor and investor, as well as devoted father and husband. In his spare time, Ted is AIO’s roving reporter supplying AIO members with enlightening and entertaining interviews with aikidoka across the US.
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