New Normal – going contactless in a karate dojo

Moving from the freedom to gather to a world of screens and isolation is a challenge for many. Contactless karate hasn’t really been a thing! Not many folk are wearing a full Samurai mask, thankfully, just restricting themselves to blue cotton surgical masks. Getting the Covid 19 closedown in context, our experience in JKA Scotland is not that much of a stretch compared to the experiences many people are having right now. But it has been a dislocation. Moving from socialising and meeting three to four times a week face to face, and having a bit of chat before getting moving and training, we’ve gone to no face to face contact at all.

Revenue disappearing, how do we deliver contactless karate?

From a revenue point of view, we’ve gone from a steady revenue stream to nothing at all. For however as long as we’re asked to stay closed. That causes a bit of a moment when you stop to think about it. Dojo rents will still require to be paid, assuming our landlords continue to refuse to adjust our terms and there are bills to pay. At JKA Karate East Lothian, we’ve gone from fully offline to online tuition through Zoom and moved to an online membership solution on a special protected website. I’ve built an e-commerce solution alongside that, using WordPress, WooCommerce, Wordfence and the S2 Members plugin. I’ve worked with colleagues who admit their skillset is punching people to transform the way we work, and it’s not over yet.

Tools for our new normal

Before it disappears from my head, I’m using this blog to track what we’ve changed, how we changed, and how much more we still need to do.

I’ve detailed these observations in another post because this one was getting longer and longer. I’ve got to ten observations/ reflections serendipidously, so here’s my Top Ten Thoughts on going from offline to online. If this interests you, I’ve written the work up as a case study in my portfolio section.