I just noticed I hadn’t done an update about my Patreon page since May of last year. Oops…

My Patreon page is a membership site with online training on martial arts and self-defense along with a community of like-minded people. The video archive now has over 58 hours of exclusive content not available elsewhere and every month about 75min. is added.  We also do a monthly 1-hour Livestream hangout in our private Facebook group, which is also available for re-viewing afterward. The best part about Patreon is that you get full access to the entire library immediately after joining, so take a few days off and dive in. :-)

The support from my Patrons is what keeps everything I do going:

• It pays for my web host, which was critical for the blog as I was forced to upgrade to a higher plan due to the large volume of visitors. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled that so many of you visit my blog, but to make sure the traffic didn’t slow down the site to a crawl, a big investment was critical. Without my Patrons, that $825 bill would have been too expensive.
• The podcast needs hosting too. I use Libsyn and am very happy with them, but the monthly bill needs to be paid too.
• All equipment is financed by my Patrons: the Yeti microphone I use to record the podcast, the tripod to record videos in class, the software I use to do my analysis videos, the storage solution I very much needed because my laptop was running out of disk space, etc. Together, that boils down to a nice chunk of change…
• Production of my books and instructional videos is also paid with the support of my Patrons: editing, formatting, cover creation, renting equipment for video shoots, renting studio’s, etc.

The bottom line is that I am self-employed and I don’t make anything if I’m not working. so the blog and all my other online activities need to be self-sustaining at the minimum. Otherwise, it is just a very expensive hobby that I can’t afford with one kid already in college and the other one starting later this year. So if you enjoy my work, please consider supporting it on Patreon.

As I don’t think you should do so for free, I give lots of unique content in return, which you can read about here below. The reward tiers start at as low as $3 and you can stop any time you like.

There is way too much to cover for one post, so it is more practical to direct you to where you can find specifics:

• You can view everything we did month-by-month or by reward tier by clicking on the drop-down menu on the “Posts” tab.  Just scroll down the page to see everything, including the posts on my timeline that I didn’t mention here. If you click on the tags (the small thumbnails just underneath that drop-down menu), you get to see everything else, which is quite a bit by now.

• You can also click on the text links below to see all the videos in the main categories:
  • Violence analysis
  • Instructional video
  • Quick Q&A
  • 30min. Q&A
  • Bonus Podcast episodes with Patron questions.
  • Bonus rewards

For a quick visual representation, here are all of them from June to January below in a low-resolution image. You can see the high-res one here.

There is a lot more to come, including an exclusive bonus offer I am working on now: a small ebook that complements my Boxing for Self-Defense book. So stay tuned for more.

If you want to join us there and support my blog and podcast, head on over and sign up at whatever reward tier works for you. Thanks!

Another three months came and went and a lot happened over on my Patreon page. I’ll give you the overview of March until May in a bit but first this:

I’m doing a “Q&A Month” in June and am taking your questions. 

Head on over to this Facebook post to leave your question in the comments or contact me privately there. I’ll then make a selection of which Qs I’ll tackle and make them publicly viewable. The first one is already live and you can watch it here.  So don’t hesitate to ask your questions!

My Patreon page is where I give online training on martial arts and self-defense. The video archive now has over 45 hours of exclusive content not available elsewhere and every month about 75min. is added.  We also do a monthly 1-hour Livestream hangout in our private Facebook group, which is afterward also available for re-viewing. The best part about Patreon is that you get full access immediately after joining, so take a few days off and dive in. :-)

April was “Violence Analysis Month” so I did 7 videos instead of only one. I got a lot of great feedback from my Patrons, which is why I am doing the “Q&A Month” now, to add more of the kind of content you find interesting.

I also did a bonus Stretching Routine video as an addition to my Stretching and Mobility Exercises for Martial Arts and Self-Defense video.

Finally, I started doing Bonus Podcast Episodes. These are exclusive to Patrons and work as additions to the regular podcast episodes. Often, it’s information I wanted to add to an episode but we were already going too long. I have some other things planned for these bonus episodes as well, stay tuned…

As for what we were up to on Patreon, you can see every post by month here: March – April – May. Just scroll down the page to see everything, including the posts on my timeline that I didn’t mention here. Or you can click on the text links below to see all the videos in each category: [Read more…]