Martial Arts in the Chattanooga, Tennessee Area: Project Overview

I live in the Chattanooga area community of southeast Tennessee. I will be writing a series of blog articles about the various Martial Arts Schools available in this region. I figured a good starting point for exploring the Martial Arts via this format would be to write about the schools, instructors, and events that are in close proximity to my home location.

I hope to have opportunities to visit and get some feedback from the instructors and students of these schools. While I am an optimist about the "brotherhood" and comraderie a shared interest in the Martial Arts instills in fellow practitioners I have at times found it difficult to establish contact and interact with the martial artists in this area. I don't know if it's a sense of competition for the market or something else along those lines.

There is no comprehensive consumer shopping guide for Martial Arts schools for the Chattanooga area communities. I thought it would be useful to put together something that features highlights and some details about the type and quality of instruction available.

I believe the challenge will be to balance an honest evaluation of the quality of instruction while trying to avoid repeating press releases and advertisements that are designed to attract customers and spin the business images in a positive light. I do not intend to be a source of free advertising for any businesses or services. I wish to provide a service to people genuinely interested in the Martial Arts by providing them a resource to evaluate the available instruction and choose one that meets their needs.

Selecting a Martial Arts school or instructor can be a cumbersome and difficult task that takes a lot of investment of time. Without a comprehensive guide an individual may have to drive from location to location to meet instructors, observe classes, ask questions, and compare their findings. For a serious inquirey this process could takes weeks of time and many miles of travel. Anything I can do to shorten this process and make it easier for a person to find what they are looking for in Martial Arts instruction would be gratifying for me.

I am going to start by compiling all the available information open to a public search into one location on this Blog. From there I will try to contact each school and see if they would be interested in providing more information to this blog and community martial arts guide project. I anticipate some schools will be open and accomodating to my questions and others will not be cooperative at all.

I will attempt to find current and/or former students of each school and ask them to submit an account of their experience training in those schools. I will start with the schools with which I already have established ties and have a working relationship.

The blog project series will be titled 'Martial Arts Chattanooga: "Subject"'