Why do recruits go away? Is this really a Problem?

[Mike Cartier]

this is pretty much a uniform problem across all serious martial arts, thats why most martial arts are not especially serious at all, most people don't want to be that serious, once they realize that the only way to get better at fighting is to take your lumps, toughen up and apply yourself regardless of pain or ego, they quit. Fighting aint a pretty busines and most people are not ready for the type of committed training and application it takes to become a better fighter.

Jeanry i would suggest you use the name freefechter somewhere in your groups name, we are all in a sense freefechter of one sort or another. And we follow in the footsteps of our ancestors when we gather freely to share and learn fighting skills. Many of our ancestors could not get to a master or city and so would gather in the fields to share what little knowldegde they had and work together to improve.

[JeanryChandler]

Many of our ancestors could not get to a master or city and so would gather in the fields to share what little knowldegde they had and work together to improve.

Thanks mike, that is really cool, I didn't know that. I'll bring up the idea to the lads.

JR

[John_Clements]

Shane, this is standard in any serious martial art. The demands of the craft and the discipline we present it with screens out people who are looking just for occasional fun, escapism, role-playing, or something easy to past the time. Our goal is not to make something that everyone can do effortlessly with their grandmother, but to learn real martial skills and reconstruct real fighting arts. You just have to accept that this appears only to a small portion of the population, to people of unique character. For example, in Houston I use to get new classes with as many as 25 students, but six weeks later the subject istelf as well as my selectivity would widdle them down to just 5 or so. We want quality in our classmates not qauntity. Demonstration of sound technical abilities combined with physical fitness and considerable knowledge of the source texts invariably acheives this, and that's what we want even though we have to expend a lot of effort in the process and sometimes see those with potential lose interest.

JC