My two cents...I can appreciate people hesitating on any subscription these days and I cannot spend other people's money. However, I can share my experience/decision. I simply took it as a opportunity to review ALL my expenses/subs and I 'found' the money...easily. Where? My 'lifestyle creep' expenses- those that were impulsive, emotional, unplanned spends is where I found the upgrade money. I cut back on expenses that were not doing me any good in a substantive way [ for me it was Amazon, Starbucks, ChatGPT, Netflix etc.- and some silly impulsive daily expenses ] then I made the decision to upgrade. It was literally like less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day [sadly]- $1/day ish? As for the training? I find 'gold' every time I watch a lesson and I don't even know what I am seeing some times! I am a newbie, but I old enough to recognize fundamental principals that I know will open up a host of methods- when I see it and -- I can feel it but it relies on banking more time and exposure into it. Lastly, I am not a fanboy. I am not an instructor--[ if I was, this is a no brainer- since you would spend 10x on seminars meant to upkeep skills, build business etc] . I am a senior. I am a beginner, I am Canadian, I have 'dabbled' in martial arts and seen dozens of schools, seminar programs so, in my opinion, I think I know value and ROI when I see it. I am Canadian so that $1/day is more like almost $2 in our currency. Lastly, on a personal note, I don't want to lose out on affordable classes in the only format that works for me, as I cannot attend classes in person. Again, it's your money but I would encourage everyone to take a good look at their expenses and allocate according to value...start a 'study group' if you can, be bold and get your own students on board, show them that learning mentality. Anyway, apologies for long comment but this is essential life skill training in my opinion, so I chose to assign some essential spending to it by eliminating some non-essential spending. Simple.

Hey folks, I've been super busy, so I haven't had a chance to post last week's online class video. I will, and soon. On another front, I have been thinking about discontinuing the so-called "Freemium" thing with Skool. We now have nearly 100 members but only a handful of members have upgraded. The online group class has had only a few attendees, making it tough to ask my own students to make time for it. I still think it could work but right now, there seems to be zero motivation for people to upgrade. From my perspective, I would like to commit enough time each week to not only have more online classes but also to fill up a library of lessons that members can access. But I'm not interested in doing that for free. This is how I make my living... The 4th of July is coming – the 250th birthday of our nation . I remember the 200th back in 1976. It was great. Anyway... should be a relatively easy date to remember. On July 1st, I will end the whole freemium thing and switch to a paid-only model. And on July 4th, I will remove any community member who has not upgraded If it turns out that basically no one upgrades, that's fine. I'll gradually wind things down with the community aspect and leave it in place as a portal for my courses. And for those members who have paid in advance for a year, we'll arrange private lessons to compensate you for your much-appreciated support. If you want this thing to work, speak up! Talk to each other. Get more members to upgrade. It's only $37 a month. If we can get two thirds or more of the current free-tier members to upgrade, I can dedicate time to online classes and recording lessons and make it worth everyone's support. It's up to you.

We're getting the Online Class dialed in. Tomorrow, we be doing it slightly differently - using the Skool "call" option as opposed to the Skool "webinar." Fingers crossed that this different option makes it more organic. Also, as pretty much everyone agreed, it's important to keep your microphone muted unless you're needing to respond to a question or ask one yourself. That should minimize or eliminate any feedback issues. Beyond the Online Classes, though, what can I be doing/providing to incentivize the community members who are presently on the free Standard tier to upgrade to Premium? As you might imagine, I ask for a very simple and pragmatic reason –– If this platform can serve as a source of income for me, that incentivizes me to turn more time and attention to it. And I would not have started this community if I didn't want to do that. So, with the understanding that I do, indeed, want to bring more value and benefits to you, the community member, please let me know exactly how I might best do that. I added the option of taking private online lessons the other day and I'll teach the first on Thursday. Again, I have the school space 24/7/365 and I can have a student or two present to demonstrate with, so if you're halfway around the world from me and you want to learn, get a training partner and share the cost of doing privates with them. Joe Hyams - the author of Zen In The Martial Arts and a former private student of Bruce Lee – trained privately with me (exclusively) for 20 years.

Hello Community. I thought it would be nice to know who is in Premium or VIP Tier. Like this we could share ideas, questions and shedule for the online Sessions. If you like just reply to this topic. Happy Training. Miguel

In thinking about it, I don't want to exclude any Premiun-Tier Member from being able to partake of my online classes simply because their respective time zone may put the live-stream in the middle of the night or right smack in the middle of their work day. So, what I'm going to do – the "adjustment" – is leave the recorded class available for access by Premium -Tier Members for 24 hours after it live-streams. After 24 hours, it will go into the library where only VIP-Tier Members will have access.