Can you make a lot of money being a blackbelt?

Question

I heard as a black belt you can make a lot of money. Is this true?

Answer 1

I thnk this all depends more on your entrepenurial spirit than your belt.  I know of a few black belts that are making some money, just teaching martial arts.  I know of a couple of genuine masters that make ok money teaching and giving seminars and one sifu that makes teaching a very lucrative full time career.  I have one friend that has been nagging at me for years to either start a school or go join a South African CSO to do something to put my skills to use.  I also know a lot of black belts who make no money in the field as they are paid better in other fields.

Me, I work as a personal trainer, I teach a Krav Maga class but it is not a way to get rich in my area, maybe where you live it is, I don't know.  People are somewhat interested in combat arts, but they like the cool t-shirts as well.  We have a very high market saturation here, so something more than martial arts has to be offered.

Some arts in demand don't have black belts, in Muay Thai you reach "Kru" and you can teach, I know of one very smart Kru who does well as he runs probably the best MMA gym in our area, he has a couple of BJJ Black Belts (Brazilians, Gracie lineage) on staff.    I mention the Gracie lineage because unlike some arts they don't hand out black belts like halloween candy.

The man who runs Boston Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a high black belt holder (Gracie lineage) makes a very good living, he does have Kenny "kenflo" Florian in his stable.  He is a very skilled man, charges very high prices and has a good number of students.

Look, what you can do with a black belt depends entirely on you, what you have to offer and what separates you from the next Joe with a black belt.  It's not the belt, it's the person wearing it.

Answer 2

I hope you don't want to be a black belt just to make money. I don't want to be responsible in inspiring someone to run a McDojo.

Answer 3

ummm depends what you did, say shows or somthing

Answer 4

yeah, join a mcdojo, learn their tricks in selling membership and the kind of trophies that you should order from store to look good.

Then when you 'bought' your black belt you can open your own school using the same trick you saw there, or work for a night club or something like that.

Answer 5

Not really, it depends on how well you can coach.  Just because your an expert at something, that doesn't mean you can teach your skills.

This is where McDojos come from, the have someone who bought/kissed a*s to gain their belt.  They start up a club and just hand out the belts to gain money.  The public see them as experts, when in reality the are w*nk :-)

Answer 6

If you do business in an unscrupulous way, tie people into long term contracts, have progressive testing fees and test them every forty-five days for another tip on their belt or another belt, promote them irregardless of their skill and ability, and have enough such students then you can make a lot of money.  There is such a person in my area who has done that but the quality of his students is poor and I don't mind saying that several of his better students have come to my school and paid for private lessons with me so they can go back to their school and be better.  His reputation is not very good and people who have signed those contracts have very little good to say about him or the quality of their own skills after paying several thousand dollars over the course of three years for a black-belt.  He used have a year contract for black-belt but finally stopped that but does guarantee a black-belt in two years and has a contract for that now as well as a three year contract.

Answer 7

REAL Black Belts don't make much if any money teaching the art.  Fake Black Belts running a McDojo can make some money, but they aren't really teaching martial arts.

Answer 8

Probably not, slim chances, as there are many people with the same idea. I myself would have liked to have my own studio, but I learned from just taking lessons for yrs. that you have to put up w/ people and peoples families. I never enjoyed they I was forced to do tournaments and all the rah rah stuff. I could have cared less for all that. However the bottom line is can you put up w/ peoples c**p to get some money, it won't be much after expenses. opening up a school in these times your chances are 99 to 1 you will not succeed. Good luck anyway.

Answer 9

If you get youre master black in about 10yrs or more you could open your own school then and charg to teach them!!!

Answer 10

I assume you are asking can you use your MA training to make money.  Of course you can.  However, you can also make a lot of money without being a blackbelt.  Being a "real" blackbelt - defined as someone trained and tested by a legit school - will not by itself pave the way to fortune and glory.  If you are interested in opening your own school, you must have business sense and surround yourself by competent advisors.  You will need an attorney, bookkeeper/accountant, pay roll / office manager, etc. etc.

Plus you'll need help.  Even if you are agreat Martial Artist and have the ablility to teach, you can't teach every class by yourself.

Answer 11

This tends to be a very western line of thinking. The blackbelt isn't an indication of achievement of some great skill, it's an indication of proficiency in basics, after which you're prepared to begin learning the art itself.

Following a Japanese schema, the Kyu ranks are the ranks in which you work kihon, and perhaps are exposed to the shoden level of training. From shodan through a few ranks is generally chuden level training. Above that you begin look at okuden, hiden, and other advanced teachings of the art.

Simply having a black belt does not mean anything. Sure, there are some people who will throw money at you to learn if they hear you have a black belt, but what do you have to teach them? The very basics upon which the system is built and nothing else.