Articles by Andries Pruim

SUCCESSION PLANNING FOR YOUR MARTIAL ARTS SCHOOL New Focus on Business I recently interviewed Jackson Rudolph, during which we discussed a myriad of topics related to Sport Karate. One of the more intriguing comments he made was that his writing is increasingly focused on the new generation of martial arts [Read More]

The Art of Learning by Watching The last time I traveled to Japan, I was still determined to train with my Sensei (Shihan Manabu Murakami) even though I was well past 60 years old and was now the proud owner of an artificial knee. When I arrived in Tokyo, I [Read More]

As an avid follower of martial arts business seminars and courses, I have committed myself to attending as many virtual and in-person events as possible. Upon retiring from my corporate management position, I took a deep dive into the current trends in the martial arts industry. After summarizing numerous seminars [Read More]

My First Naginata Encounter My Naginata Budo experience is a colorful and ongoing journey and while Naginata was a minor part of my martial arts training it had a huge impact on my Budo awareness. I was at the International Budo University when I first encountered Naginata and it immediately [Read More]

Sport Karate Business Benefits I met with Jackson Rudolph to discuss sports karate in the Olympics as I had read his Black Belt Magazine article on the benefits of bringing sports karate into your martial arts business. We were able to collaborate on an excellent article on the merits of [Read More]

How Best to leverage ChatGPT/AI to write a Martial Arts article Is this the Future of Blogs? I decided to follow up on my Martial Arts AI article by demonstrating the quality of the future of AI articles. With this in mind and seeing I am a huge Sumo Fan, [Read More]

  What is Budo in today’s fragmented and jaded Martial Arts world? Lately, I have been watching the various consultants trying to convince hundreds of martial arts school owners via remote ZOOM sessions, webinars, and other mediums from throwing in the towel and looking for another career. While the attempts [Read More]

Favorite Mementos Over the past many decades of Martial Arts involvement, there really haven’t been too many physical items I could point to as something I treasure from my many days of budo training. Memories are one thing, but mementos are something completely separate. For this reason, I would categorize [Read More]

(Budo AI) How Artificial Intelligence will affect The Martial Arts industry Time to Ponder  I have read about the new AI ChatGPT or what is now GPT-4.5 and it is obvious that the quality of the material that comes from this new paradigm will reduce (or even eliminate) the need [Read More]

  From Budo to Chado Bunbu Ryodo – 文武両道 The beginning of a unique Budo Journey It was during my first trip to Japan where I originally met Randy Channell. He was a character larger than life. His intensity, his Japanese martial arts and cultural knowledge, and especially his ‘nominal’ expertise [Read More]

Leveraging Modern Gaming Strategies to Maximize Your School’s Curriculum Gamification of Personal Interactions I attended a Martial Arts seminar where the Lecturer mentioned how he had updated his school’s curriculum to create new Sparring Games or Martial Arts Games to provide more entertainment to the students, or as he put [Read More]

Martial Arts Associations & Legitimacy Formal Introductions I had been training in Shotokan Karate for well over 20 years when I received an invitation to attend a small dojo in the suburbs of Vancouver, Canada. It was the early 1990 ’s and I had just returned from Japan, having trained at [Read More]

From Non-Traditional Karate To Traditional Karate To Business Karate   Corporate Career vs Personal Development I was sitting at my desk at the Main Branch of the Commercial Bank where I was recently promoted to an Assistant to the Commercial Lenders, trying to make sense of the pile of papers [Read More]

I normally write almost exclusively about the business side of the martial arts industry and do so in order to stay out of the many controversies that make up the various styles and “ways” of the genre. I did write about my own personal martial arts evolution, which was not [Read More]

A Frank Discussion with a Karate Dojo still Operating in the Ukraine Dojo training still a priority In one of my recent articles published by Black Belt Magazine, I interviewed the directors of a European based Shotokan Karate association, known as the WJKA, for an article on social media. During [Read More]