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The business world is full of self-made prophecies that are seldom adhered too. ‘Don’t work with family’; that’s one of them. ‘Be weary of mixing business with pleasure’; that’s another one. Married East Midlands couple Sean and Julie Hutton are guilty on both counts, but they really don’t seem to care. “We love working with each other,” they say, with a natural confidence that exudes not only pride in their work, but also great success.

Not that it hasn’t been hard work, of course. Like all successful start-up schools they had to overcome the pitfalls, like disenfranchised instructors and mentors that didn’t seem to follow their distinct family ethic. “That’s the reason why we left our original instructor,” Sean says, “we were pulling in different directions. For him it was all about getting in as much money within the first few months as he possibly could, and making them sign contracts that they couldn’t get out of. That’s not fair.” Such integrity spurred the couple on to go independent, and set up their own schools in their East Midlands home, with numbers increasing at such a rate that they currently operate three different schools in Loughborough, Coalville and Shepshed. Not bad for a couple who’ve only been teaching for four years, and have only been running their own organisation for a year and a half.

The couple run East Midlands Karate, but the name is slightly ambiguous, as the club doesn’t restrict itself to just the Japanese arts. “Our roots are in Taekwondo,” says Sean, “but we wanted to teach a more varied curriculum, so we’ve introduced elements of kickboxing, traditional Taekwondo, Ju Jitsu, and recently we’ve enrolled a Judo instructor.” Sean likes the aspect of creating the ‘well-rounded’ martial artist, fluent in all trades: “Taekwondo and Karate are very stand-up martial arts, but what happens when you go on the floor? With us we’re addressing that by learning Ju Jitsu and Judo as well, and its more fun,” a concept that certainly appeals to the many families that enrol in their schools.

By creating such a family-friendly atmosphere, the couple’s intention to ‘have fun’ is cemented by refusing to take the arts too seriously, preferring a less regimented style of teaching that young children can relate to - “less philosophy, more practical,” as Julie puts it. “We don’t teach the foreign languages,” says Sean, “there’s too many for a start!” he jokes, referring to their credentials as a multi-style school teaching martial arts from Japan, Korea and China. The couple love the fact that their organisation appeals to so many families, with their students’ ages ranging from 5 to 60, with regular competitions and a demonstration team for the pupils to get involved in. Julie, particularly, feels that their work transcends the martial boundaries and has a positive social effect on the community. “We’re enhancing and developing children, teaching them courtesy, respect, and discipline,” she says, “I think that’s the qualities that our school brings to families in the community.” “We teach them leadership and communication skills, simple things like meeting and greeting people,” says Sean, on how their style of teaching is having a positive affect on the next generation.

“As a family school,” Sean adds, “we make sure that the parents get involved. Even if it’s just making them hold a shield or bag. They feel like they’re doing their bit, and the parent’s get a real buzz out of it. Once they get into it…” Sean pauses as Julie says “…they put their hand up again and again,” in that endearing way that married couples have of finishing each other’s sentences. This parental demand for more adult lessons has stemmed into a regular regime of quite varied classes for beginners and advanced, from adult self-defence to children’s fitness, with regular gradings and weapons training.

Such ethical, humble family values could only come from a couple that have a close-knit family of their own. Sean and Julie have been married for twenty years and have a son and a daughter. Not too surprisingly, both of their children are black belts. They even lead the demo team. “We go as a family, we train as a family, and we teach as a family,” says Sean, “yes, it’s work, but ultimately, we’re all together.” They know precisely how children behave and families react because they’ve been there themselves. Julie’s love for the martial arts was even given to her by a member of her own family, her young nephew, who first showed her the ways of the mat and since then she’s never looked back, coaxing the rest of her family to get involved, including her husband Sean. When the couple were heading towards their black belts, they were asked if they would like to run their former instructor’s satellite school. They both enrolled in the same Instructor’s Career Course, and soon went independent and started doing things their own way. Worries concerning how to manage a viable business as a married couple have never entered their minds, after all, who could either of them trust any more than each other?

Julie calls herself a full-time martial artist. She takes care of the admin during the day, and teaches at night. Sean is just as multi-skilled, so the two are well balanced at switching roles. “To be successful you have to work as a team,” Julie says, “you have to both make sure that you’ve got the same qualities, to be able to meet and greet, to be able to enroll, and also to be able to teach. Because we did our training together we’re on the same wavelength, we know exactly the line in which we want our business to take.” This integral body of trust has made them a great asset to the pupils that train there, developing a great communication with the students who feel that they have become a part of the Hutton family philosophy. I ask them how the pupils respond to their teachers’ being married, to which Sean replies, “I think it works well. There’s a greater element of trust because you’re a family. People are more comfortable and relaxed knowing that it’s a family run school.”

But how does Sean feel about the widely held belief that teaching the martial arts is a predominantly male-dominated role? “That’s precisely what’s different about us,” he says, “with most couples it’s the guy who does the teaching and he gets his wife to help out doing administration. Here, we have the advantage that Julie is almost as good an instructor as I am!” Endearingly, they both laugh. “We can change roles,” he says, “it’s not a problem.”

Such flexibility in their teaching makes them quite a unique concept, and has made them particularly popular in the eyes of their officials, receiving sponsorship from their governing body, the UKASKO (the United Kingdom All Styles Karate Organisation). The couple are keen to point out that the association don’t have any influence over their curriculum, and are utilised mostly when grading, and invitations to nationwide events, plus for insurance and licensing purposes. “We came to them as a ready-made package,” Sean says, “we needed a little bit of backup, to add some… what’s the word?” Julie interjects. “Clout?” Sean continues. “Yes, a little bit of clout, really.” UKASKO help to nationally recognise the achievements of those who obtain their black belts through Sean and Julie’s East Midlands Karate schools, but aside from their overseeing input, the couple are pretty much self-made, and have achieved all of this completely on their own.

“We do everything ourselves,” says Julie, “from the advertising, the promotion, the administration, the enrolling, the teaching, we do everything.” They are the epitome of hard work and hard graft, with a sincere, unselfish and solid family spirit. Just like The Waltons. They even get members of the family to take over when they’re away on holidays, someone that they can trust almost as explicably as each other, which must be a difficult prospect to measure up against. “We love working together, and because our children are involved, the two combine,” Julie says, “we find time during the day to train together, when the children are at school, then in the evenings we’re training anyway. We’re all into the martial arts so we’ve never found it a problem balancing work with pleasure. The kids have never suffered as a result of us working at night, because they also see it as a social thing as they’ve made so many friends at martial arts. They love it, its part of their lives because it’s all they’ve ever known.”

So who will take over when, and if, they ever stop teaching? The kids? “That’s a nice thought, but it’s entirely up to them. They’ve got to want to do it.” In the meantime, though, the couple are keen to look beyond their three East Midlands schools (which they refer to as just one school; the flexibility of teaching is such that if you miss one lesson in Loughborough, its easy to catch up in Coalville, or even Shepshed). They’re optimistic enough to see that as the club grows and more and more students decide to join, they will ultimately have to branch out and expand their business.

But where to next? “I don’t think we’ll leave the East Midlands,” Julie says assuredly, “you face further complications keeping hold of your administration if you go out too far.” After all, there are still a few major cities just up the road that the two haven’t yet ventured their business into, like Derby, Leicester, Burton and Nottingham. As Sean puts it, “there’s more than enough to keep us busy”. Julie doesn’t hold back on her long term plans, she tells me that they hope to eventually train up students who can run their own satellite schools under the family-patented East Midlands name, which sounds logical enough, but she insists that whoever they pass the mantel onto, they will have to meet the tried-and-tested Hutton family values. “That’s why we tend to do everything ourselves,” she says, “there are so many people who wouldn’t even consider working with their husband or wife. So we realise that who ever we put in these instructor positions in the future, they will have to be likeminded and share the same values as us.”

These values encompass the edification of youth, through confidence-training, discipline and dedication, while promoting a fun, family-friendly atmosphere that enables the students to learn, develop and progress in a lively, easy-going environment. “We tend not to attract the real hardcore ‘fight school’ type students,” Sean admits, “we tend to attract families because we’re not that sort of hardcore martial arts school.” This isn’t offering them a disservice, as their many pupils are clearly happy with how Sean and Julie manage to balance things. As someone who has worked with children all her life, Julie sees her teaching as more of an important step in the development of youth, whether they’re learning ‘hardcore’ martial arts or not.

And what advice would they offer to any budding young enthusiast who wants to settle down and start up their own business? “It depends on their own background of teaching and what support they’ve had from their instructor,” says Julie, “but if anyone has the desire to do what we’ve done, I think it’s a gut feeling that you get that you just have to take. As long as you work together, and you can trust each other, and make sure that you share everything to balance out the pressure.” Judging from the sought-after business that the couple have managed to achieve, and in such a short space of time, those who claim that working with family doesn’t work would do well to take a leaf out of Sean and Julie’s book. After all, they’ve pretty much rewritten the rules.

Lee Mainprize is a martial arts business and marketing expert visit http://www.MAinstructor.com for martial arts teachers and instructors resource.

Tags: grappling, instructor, karate, kickboxing, kung fu, mixed martial arts, mma, taekwondo, martial arts

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