I worked my first paid freelance martial arts gig yesterday.  It went so well; I’m actually pretty shocked at how smoothly it went.  Bear in mind I was teaching girl scouts and their and moms, so the likelihood of a mutiny was pretty slim, even if they did out-number me 24:1.

why yus, yu CAN haz a marshall artz, hehe

We started by ducking, then we combo’d with a palm strike, and moved onto the first self defense move I learned when I started training.  I asked if they had questions, and the moms had plenty of “what if” scenarios to pick my brain about.  One of the moms was nice enough to occupy the girls while the women circled up and I gave them the best advice I could about getting pinned to the ground, getting lifted from behind, being attacked while entering the car, etc.  At some point I reminded them that “you’re probably not going to be attacked… ever.  I hate to break it to you, but you’re just not that popular.  Chances are, you’ll never need to use these skills in a fight situation.  The point of classes like this is to give you the confidence to ask that person standing too close in line if they could back up a little; day-to-day stuff to make yourself feel more comfortable and confident.”  That seemed to resonate with them.

They asked about pricing (yikes!  Should’ve crunched some numbers before I got there), so I said $15 an hour per person for a group of five or more, $20 an hour per person for fewer than that, and “I usually charge between $60 and $70 an hour for private lessons,” meaning that’s what I would be charging if I ever did any paid private lessons.  Ever.  Regardless, they seemed enthused.  Fingers crossed!

Most of my friends work freelance, so booking a job, then doing the job, then getting paid for said job is literally an everyday thing for them.  This was a new experience for me, so I’m pretty thrilled with the result.  And a couple friends helped me design business cards that I got to pass out to the moms when they asked if I taught adults!  And I got some girl scout cookies out of it (they went straight to my friends)!  Overall, WIN.