Back in October of 1999, I started my first Aikido school in Marietta, GA.
Part of the requirements for our organization was to track student hours spent in
class. These hours were part of the requirements for testing. Also,
the advanced students were required to spend time teaching. Most instructors
in my organization were using paper or electronic spreadsheets to track this information.
Since I am a software developer by trade, I decided it could be done better.
The first generation of the software took form as a Visual Basic application using
an MS Access database. This program tracked contact information, student hours
and even what techniques we worked on on any given class. This helped me not
only track the hours but also make sure I was giving my students a good coverage
of techniques.
As more people in my organization found out about the program, they wanted it.
However, when I tried to distribute the application, there were logistical problems
with operating system versions and conflicting software. As a result, the
first web-based version was created by taking the Visual Basic code, almost line
for line, and reproducing it as a web site. This worked great for a while
and virtually all the instructors were using it.
One day, one of the instructors asked me if other schools could use it as he was
involved with several schools and liked it so much, he wanted to recommend it other
people. At the time, the website was hardcoded to serve the needs of my Aikido,
but not for the martial arts community in general. This was the catalyst for
the site you see today. I took everything I had learned from the first two
attempts and re-wrote the entire application from the ground up. I added several
improvements to make the site more generic and useful to a wider range of schools.
The ranking system is now flexible as well as the ability for the system to store
multiple schools under one organizational umbrella. Also, with the old system,
it was manually administered whereas this system supports people coming in to create
their own organization.
All in all, it has been a fun project over the years. When I decided to make
the application available to the general public, I wanted it to be easy to use,
and very affordable. I decided to make the majority of the application free
for samller schools. As you school grows, you can upgrade your plan for a
nominal charge. I will never sell any of your information. Please see
the pricing page for details. This
site was written by a martial artist for the martial arts community. I hope
you enjoy using it as much as I have enjoyed creating it.
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