Thread: Hey all! Sponsorship please.

Why not just do it the old fashion way, earn the money yourself, and practice katas in your sleep. Martial Arts is too expensive these days. I can't afford a heavy bag, I punch trees lol. Darn McDojos.

Loor I hate to be the one to point this out, but you're a 14 year old BLUE belt. You cannot teach other people martial arts. TKD is not BJJ. There has been belt inflation. So a blue belt doesn't mean squat. It doesn't even matter if your school is hardcore and traditional and it took 3 years for you to get a blue belt. Because of belt inflation by McDojo schools, TKD belts are worthless currency until you get into the black belt range. This is not a dis on you, its just a fact of the martial arts world.

Another fact of the martial arts world is that people are unlikely to sponsor a blue belt. For all of the aforementioned reasons. It might suck, but its just life. There is a long road between blue belt and black belt. The percentage of people who make it from blue to black is generally not large. This is the first obstacle to sponsorship. Why sponsor someone who is likely to never make it to black belt? I'm not saying you won't--you probably will. But when you're spending money, you go by the numbers. Those numbers say few people stick with it long enough, even at mcdojos, to make it black belt. The other consideration is your profile. Are you going to get your sposors enough exposure that YOU are going to sell their product? That is, are you going to state and national tournaments and routinely winning your divisions? That is what you need for sponsorship. You've got to be the very best. You can't just be an average martial artist, especially since there isn't a tremendous amount of money in martial arts supplies. Also, such companies tend to sponsor events more than individuals. Most martial artists are not household names. They've got no brand power.

Now that may be discouraging, however, you've mentioned one advantage you might have. You live in a "village". So probably everyone there knows you, or knows of you. So maybe you can be the hometown hero or whatever and get local companies to sponsor you. They might be willing to just because you're a good kid from the town trying to make a name for himself. That is how it works in the movies anyway, I don't know much about those small towns from personal experience.

Lastly, if you are really desperate, do like chicks do on the internet. So all these cute girls set up websites were pedos can buy them gifts and donate money for their school and all that. Maybe you've seen them. It has some picture of this really cute almost legal girl and some sob story about how she is so poor and it would be just swell if you'd open up your wallet and donate just $5 to her paypal account. Well the same thing can work for you. Get a picture with your top off and just your gi pants (lets keep this PG-13 and all...) and then all these pedos will drool over your picture. Then you write this sob story about how you can't go to tournaments and do all those high kicks because you don't have money. Then pedos donate money to you. Of course, you have to live with the thought that random strangers are jerking it to your picture somewhere. Not everyone can stomach that. But, hey, if it gets you the $$, I say go for it.