Affiliations

Sensei & I often discuss the pros & (mostly) cons of having our dojo on the university campus.
The biggest frustration we have, of course, is the constant turnover in students.
That we give them a good foundation for them to go on with is nice, but the fact that we produce so few yudansha can be a letdown.
Were we to move our dojo off campus into town, I believe that our numbers would go up, & that we would have more long term students.

That gets to the part that is frustrating for me, personally.
The way we are structured under T. Shihan, it seems very difficult for anyone to go beyond Sandan in the American schools.
Our only Yondan, who is now not training due to health problems, received his promotion after an extended trip to Japan to train at the xyz hombu. And since T. Shihan does all yudansha promotions himself, unlike a fair number of other organizations, there seems very little long term room for growth.

I don't worry about this for myself, but I do feel that if we start gaining students who stay at the dojo for 10 or 12 years (as I have now), that they will feel frustrated when they hit the tatami ceiling, and look for somwhere else to train.