Our new membership pricing is designed solely to reward students who show up for class regularly. The more classes you attend, the less you pay.
William Tuman, Head Instructor
While our dojang was closed during the COVID pandemic, we had a lot of time to think about what we value and how to make our school better. The most important insight was: nobody in our leadership group depends on profits from the school for income, so wouldn’t it be great if we could offer Taekwondo training for free?
We can’t just offer free classes to everybody, because we have to pay rent, insurance, and other operating costs. But the idea was so tantalizing, we kept thinking about it, and we realized we could make this offer even better. Our new membership plan offers discounts for dedicated students who come to most or all classes. It’s that simple: the more you give to the school, by showing up and working hard, the more we give back to you. We’ve found that students who attend the most classes are also the ones who become the best martial artists, so everyone benefits.
The problem with offering free things, especially in the US, is that people often don’t value what they don’t pay for. Offer free classes to people, and they’ll show up now and then, whenever they feel like it, and they’ll skip class whenever they feel like it. It seems like people who get something for free often appreciate it less than people getting exactly the same thing but paying for it. Sometimes people are convinced there’s a hidden catch with free things that will come back to bite them eventually, or that it’s all a scam. Thanks, capitalism!
The most important factor that leads to both skilled practitioners and a strong school is good attendance from all our members. Therefore, our new membership pricing is designed solely to reward students who show up for class regularly. The more classes you attend, the less you pay. Once you pay your first month of tuition, as long as you continue to attend class with dedication, you can earn free or discounted classes as long as you’re a member of the dojang.
If you’re a single parent, an artist, a recent graduate with student debt, a student still in school—or someone experiencing financial uncertainty for any reason—you might be an outstanding student in our dojang, but we understand that the $100/month membership dues may make it hard for you to come. We developed this program for you. Hard work is now the only qualification that anyone needs to train with us. In addition to receiving free or discounted classes, these hard-working students will likely become excellent practitioners of Taekwondo, which is always our true purpose.
See our “How It Works” section on this page and our FAQ/Terms page for details about earning free classes.
- New students pay $100 for the first month of classes. After a few weeks of regular training, students are eligible to buy a dobok (uniform), tti (belt), and Jidokwan school patch at wholesale cost.
- To be eligible to earn free classes, students must give us a credit/debit card number to store on our payment processor’s secure server. Students authorize us to charge each month’s tuition to that card as necessary.
- Students who have perfect attendance for a month get the following month’s training for free. Anyone without perfect attendance pays $20 for each class they miss, up to a maximum of five missed classes.
- At the beginning of each month, we charge your card $20 for each missed class, but never more than $100 in membership dues for that month.
EXAMPLE: A student has perfect attendance in April, so that student pays no membership dues for the month of May. In May this student misses three classes, so they pay $60 for June classes (3 x $20). In June they have perfect attendance again, so in July they pay nothing for classes. However in July, they go on a three-week vacation (nice!) which means they miss nine classes. This means they’ll pay the $100 monthly maximum for August. If they come back from vacation refreshed and ready to train, and they come to every class in September, they get October for free, and so forth. . .
Each month the cycle starts over again with a blank slate. Once a student pays for their initial month of training (with free uniform, belt, and patch) they can attend our school forever without paying for another class, as long as they come to every class on time and train with diligence.