Athens Yoshukai recently finished creating a video to promote our school. The project was run by one of our students, Krystina Francis, who has experience with video making and editing, but this was her first promotional video.
Making a video for your dojo is easier than you think, and is a great way to highlight how your school is different from others out there.
In synopsis, you need to make a script, film it, edit it, and find music to overlay it. The cost varies depending on how much you want to do personally versus hire out to others. For the Athens Yoshukai dojo, we did everything ourselves (mostly Ms. Francis). This included students practicing timing their kata together, coming up with some quick weapons combinations, and having a semi-choreographed semi-knockdown fight.
My student, Dala Griffeth, said this about making the video, “I thought the whole experience was a lot of fun. It was interesting to work with each other to find a way to show Yoshukai in an effective and entertaining way, while still showing the traditional technique we pride ourselves on. I thought the end result was really cool and am extremely proud of it.”
Another student, Hali Serrian, said, "Working on the video was a lot of fun. It was good experience in coordinating weapons against weapons realistically and without anyone getting hurt. ... The video turned out great and my overall impression was quite positive."
Other students who helped were Robert Bishop, Ben Dawkins, Daniel Williams, Susan Elrod, Ludo R, Timothy Pierce-Tomlin, and Craig Cheesborough.
In less than a month, the video has over 170 views. For a small dojo without financial promotion, that’s not bad! I send a link to the video to all prospective students who email me, since I think it represents the school and WYKKO well.
Having a social marketing presence, including YouTube, is important for getting people interested in karate. Making a video is fun and productive - I’d encourage everyone to give it a go! Osu!
