Text: Avi Nardia & Chris Cotter

Photos by: Aleksandar Jovkovic

Marketing and Martial art
A man once visited his friend, who was very
wealthy, and noticed that he had an elephant in
his yard. Stunned, he asked his friend “what are
you doing with that elephant?” “Oh him?” the
wealthy man responded, “That’s the best deal I
ever got! I initially got him as a pet, but turns out,
he’s saved me so much money. He eats the
grass, so I don’t need to hire anyone to do it.
The kids can climb up and ride him and play all
day and he’s so much fun to watch, I hardly
even watch TV anymore. When my wife goes
out shopping, she’s so happy because he can
carry all the groceries no problem.”
“Wow, that’s amazing” responds the friend,
“you need to sell him to me, please!” “No way
that I can sell him, he’s part of the family
now.” “Please…” begged his friend. After a
while thinking about it, the wealthy friend
finally responded, “Alright, alright… I can
sell him, but I’ll need $300,000.” His friend
enthusiastically agreed and took the ele-
phant home that very day.
After a few weeks, the two met again and
the wealthy man asked, “How is everything
going with the new elephant?” His friend,
despondent, responded, “Horrible. My
wife and kids are scared of him and he
knocked over all the trees in my yard and
trampled the garden. It was a huge mista-
ke to buy him from you.” The wealthy man
replied, “Well, with that attitude, you’ll
never be able to sell this elephant.”
Marketing and sales are essential
nowadays, especially in Martial Arts.
It reminds me of a story about a guy
name Eyal who moved into a village and
decided to buy a donkey. Since he was
a city boy, they sold him an old donkey
which died the moment he brought it
home. He then posted a raffle, for just
one dollar you can have a chance
 “New Israeli Federations that you
send money to and they promote you
to blackbelt or give you instructor of
the year and any other title is a
great marketing strategy, but I
refuse to be a part of this”
to win a donkey. People in the town flocked to purchase tic-
kets and he made thousands, way more than he initially
paid for the donkey. When the winner came to claim his
prize, he found a dead donkey and complained to Eyal, to
which he replied, “You’re right, it’s not fair. Here’s a full
refund on your purchase”, to which he returned the winne-
r’s 1 dollar. Every day I see ‘masters’ from Israel who have
only a basic understanding of Kali or a green belt in Karate
who recycle bad material and try to sell it using marketing
and video editing. People buy into their system because it
looks nice on the outside, but they don’t realize that they
were sold a dead donkey until it’s too late.
People with a talent for sales and marketing can be found
in all fields, dead donkey dealers are now using the internet
to extend their reach and finding victims who are happy to
buy in to something that has no substance behind it, but
that has a good appearance. Don’t be a victim.
I’ve been asked a lot lately about Israeli Martial Arts
ads and what is it that makes them so popular. My ans-
wer is that they have great marketing and there’s low
demand from students and instructors to become mas-
ters. I’ve seen instructors who have yellow belts in Karate
and all of a sudden they are listed as experts in Krav
Maga and are Mossad secret service who can’t post on
Facebook because they are undercover secret agents
without having been a soldier for a single day. They teach
Police forces without a single day of being a Police offi-
cer or functioning in any law enforcement capacity. In
Israel there are so many Martial Artists who have their
Doctorate degree, yet when the news contacts them to
ask what university they received their degree
from, they suddenly can’t remember and curiously,
they never received a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree
either. In order to cut down on the corruption, the Israeli
government no longer recognizes PhD degrees unless it
has been certified, which many of these fake degree holders
will never do, lest they be exposed. Yet still they promote
themselves using this degree outside of Israel and dozens of
people fall for this.
New Israeli Federations that you send money to and they
promote you to blackbelt or give you instructor of the year
and any other title is a great marketing strategy, but I refu-
se to be a part of this. Maybe it’s bad marketing on my part,
but I’ve dedicated more than 50 years of my life to Martial
Arts, traveled the world and studied under real masters, not
through YouTube or TikTok. Unfortunately, I see many falling
victim to dead donkey salesmen, giving them an easy way
to advance with titles and certificates but with no substan-
ce behind it.
When dealing with this, each of us needs look in the
mirror and decide whether we began this journey for the
love of martial arts or to try and gain profit as a salesman.
As the stoic Epictetus once said, “Consider at what price
you sell your integrity; but please, for God's sake, don't
sell it cheap.” While marketing is important to spread the
word and make a name for yourself, understand to what
lengths you are going and who you choose to associate
with. Focus on the substance of your martial arts, not
what empty titles you can get and never, never compro-
mise your integrity in the pursuit of marketing.