Go Kan Ryu ?

[Autocrat]

So, I'm visiting my mother, and the doorbell goes.
As I'm nearest, I'm politely (yeah - polite my left foot!), asked to get the door.

Lo and behold, a little chap with a folder is stood there, staring at me....

"Hello there sir, My name is ?????, and I'm doing the rounds on finding people likely to enjoy learning a martial art.......are you interested in karate at all?....I'm from Go Kan Ryu..... we practice a mix of Shotokan and GoJu Ryu.... we take the strength and power of Shotokan and mix it with the acrobatics of GoJu.....blah blah...boring ten minutes....we can make you an offer of £80 for you licence and insurance.... alternatively, as a special offer, for £25 you can train and if you get your first belt (yellow) in four months, we pay the rest, (£55)..... that would be good, yes...(positive sales technique! huh!)......


So... anyone else had these folk.... heard of them, trained with them, are them?

Opinions or information welcome!

 

[RRouuselot]

So, I'm visiting my mother, and the doorbell goes.
As I'm nearest, I'm politely (yeah - polite my left foot!), asked to get the door.

Lo and behold, a little chap with a folder is stood there, staring at me....

"Hello there sir, My name is ?????, and I'm doing the rounds on finding people likely to enjoy learning a martial art.......are you interested in karate at all?....I'm from Go Kan Ryu..... we practice a mix of Shotokan and GoJu Ryu.... we take the strength and power of Shotokan and mix it with the acrobatics of GoJu.....blah blah...boring ten minutes....we can make you an offer of £80 for you licence and insurance.... alternatively, as a special offer, for £25 you can train and if you get your first belt (yellow) in four months, we pay the rest, (£55)..... that would be good, yes...(positive sales technique! huh!)......


So... anyone else had these folk.... heard of them, trained with them, are them?

Opinions or information welcome!

That style is mentioned in this thread:

http://martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=87715#post87715


Look for comments made by RyuShikan.......post # 143

 

[Autocrat]

Thanks for that... limited, but offered some info!

So I take it there are no Go Kan Ryu practitioners or advocates here?
No one has attended any clubs for this style or teaches it?

(Do more than a handful of peple actually respond rather than just read other post? No offence, just asking, 1/12th of readers posted on this, and the reference was limited... though had some important bearing!)

 

[auzziegreg59]

You are now on their territory hit list,you and your family may look forward to many more exciting chats about what they can do for you in such a small time frame and how it is imperative that you join the organization. You will be promised advancement through the ranks as long as you will teach for them.You will be offered many different coloured rainbows by these estranged people.There was a column in an Australian magazine called "BLITZ" on them and a few problems they had internally.It is there for all to see so you should surf till you find all the answers that you require.

 

[Colin_Linz]

I’ve had a number of conversations with these guys. What I don’t understand is why they send people around selling their product, when they don’t know what it is. I’m genuinely interested in all martial arts so I don’t mind talking to them, but whenever I ask a question outside the sale aspect they say, oh I don’t know, I’ve only just started. My son was interested in learning Karate and last time they came around he asked if he could watch their training. They replied no, not until you sign the contract. This raises a number of red flags just on its own.

 

[samuri-man]

any club that makes you sign a contract is dodgy, my friend told my he had an expirienc like that

 

[Autocrat]

Thank goodness.... looks like there are no Go kan ryu here.... just wanted to kind of make suure before I warned those who haven't encountered them yet!

DON'T BOTHER WITH THEM!

There, thats the warning.....
I wasn't really interested... yet am always willing to look into other styles to see if they compliment how I fight.... they contacted my sister and her B/F took my little 5 yr old nephew to have a go.... Her B/F came back and said several offonsive things... and even darling Hayden, (my nephew) said they looked silly!

Apparently, it's merely kata and basics... no serious stuff or things that could be used for real situations...... how the hell can p[epole be allowed to obtain license and insurance for something like that ????????

Flaming acrobatics of GoJu Ryu my foot.... hell, I tend to flick/roll out of a technique, but thats due to gymnastics, not my MA training!

And you can get a Black belt in 1 YEAR!
All you have to do is go twice a week, for 5 weeks, paying £5 per session, (that = £500), and perform there silly kata, and you have a black belt!
MY GOD!!

It's wrong!

Oh, if there are any GKR people here, please answer the above as best you can.... it's not meant as an attack, but letting others know what I have found... if you can explain or correct, I'd be more than willing to listen.

 

[RoadHog]

Hi all,

I’m with GKR and have been for a number of years so I’m going to have a crack at answering your queries as best I can.

First off can I just say that some of what has been stated on numerous forums regarding GKR has been wildly inaccurate (black in 1 year, grades based on class size! Come on). There are more than enough bad practices within GKR to not need to make up any more.

Personally I heavily disagree with the business practices of gkr as being very lame (door knocking – come on!) and the rate of expansion being to fast for them to adequately sustain quality within there new regions. However training within established dojos is in my opinion of a high stand and the etiquette, respect and willingness to work hard has been present throughout. As with any MA all is in the eye of the beholder. Not everyone expects the same thing from a style they undertake and what they expect and require changes as they develop in MA.

For info – here is the minimum grading criteria. Please note this is minimum, from my experience the time and classes targets for anything past yellow are almost impossible. In my case I was on yellow for around five months training four times a week and these intervals only increased as I progressed through the ranks. As you can figure out for yourself (he says trying to add up) minimum time to black looks like four - five years.

GRADE LEVEL​

BELT​

KATA TO BE PERFORMED​

MINIMUM NO. OF CLASSES​

MINIMUM TIME REQUIREMENT​

From 10th Kyu to 9th Kyu

Yellow tip​

N/A​

6​

3 Weeks​

From 9th Kyu to 8th Kyu

Yellow​

Taigyoku Sho-Dan​

10​

5 Weeks​

From 8th Kyu to 7th Kyu Ho

Orange tip​

N/A​

12​

6 Weeks​

From 7th Kyu Ho to 7th Kyu

Orange​

Taigyoku Ni-Dan​

12​

6 Weeks​

From 7th Kyu to 6th Kyu

Green​

Saifa​

32​

4 Months​

From 6th Kyu to 5th Kyu

Blue​

Saifa​

40​

5 Months​

From 5th Kyu to 4th Kyu

Red​

Bassai-Dai​

40​

5 Months​

From 4th Kyu to 3rd Kyu

Brown​

Bassai-Dai​

50​

6 Months​

From 3rd Kyu to 2nd Kyu

Brown​

Seiunchin​

50​

6 Months​

From 2nd Kyu to 1st Kyu

Brown​

Empi​

50​

6 Months​

From 1st Kyu to Shodan-ho

Black (Prov.)​

Sepai & Senseru​

50​

6 Months​

From Shodan-ho to Shodan

Black​

Sepai & Hangetsu​

100​

12 Months​

The format of the classes I attend fluctuate on a weekly basis depending on what was done the previous week. Some weeks its all basics, all kata, all kumite or whatever hasn’t been worked on for a week or two but generally they go along the lines of warm up, combos, basics, partner work, kata, kumite.

All my instructors are Shodan or above and the number of kyu grade lead instructors are diminishing due to how long GKR have been in the area.

Please note guys this is not a counter attack or anything like that but I am trying to give a balanced view from my experience.

Cheers all and I’ll answer any follow up questions as best I can.

 

[RoadHog]

lol - okay the table didnt post correctly - my bad

 

[Cirdan]

A fitting name for the style I must say. Very appropriate.

 

[twendkata71]

first off let me say that I have never seen a karate school go door to door here in the US. I have seen them send out a bulk mailer, where they send school advertisements to everyone in a certain area. This gets costly and rarely works. The door to door thing sounds a bit like the Jahova's witness.. Can't argue with them either, they just keep coming.
I have heard bad and good things about this Gokan ryu. But, since in my 25 years of karate here in the USA, I have not met any practicitioners ,and if I have ever competed against any internationally they did not mention it. I can't say either way. I There are several anti GKR groups in Yahoo and one pro group.

 

[RoadHog]

GKR in the US is very different to other areas. They use full time dojos and don't do door-to-door canvasing. If my memory is correct they only went over a few years ago and are only in Huston - Texas.

 

[thetruth]

They are OK at sports karate but they are essentially just a means by which to make their founder Robert Sullivan rich. I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. I also heard that the kanji literally translates as the school of rape as bobby apparently didn't do his research very well. The name kinda suits what they do as far as representing the martial arts goes i think
Cheers
Sam:asian:

 

[twendkata71]

I looked at the kanji and it says hard -completion- style. So, that doesn't really make sense altogether. This happens a lot when a non Japanese/Okinawan names their new style. They put a few Japanese words togther with a basic explanation of what these words mean, but not what they mean in Japanese together.

 

[Icarius]

Hey everyone. I've come to tell you about the wonderful style that is Go Kan Ryu as someone who has actually worked for them briefly as a *cough*"self defence consultant"

My story is somewhat long, and interesting, and is roughly about 3-4 years old, but it should still open your eyes to how awesome GKR is.

Please bear in mind the following. I was young (17), reasonably stupid, needed the money and I actually liked the idea of giving people the oppertunity to learn Karate by any means, while actually learning it.

Anyway, story begins, I'm still visiting the Job Center in my local area and I'm pretty desperate to find a quick and easy fix for a Job. (probably my first big mistake) One week I go down there, I am confronted by this guy wearing the GKR tracksuit coat and he grabs my attention. Firstly, why is the man outside the JobCenter... simple, he's probably not allowed inside and can headhunt people for free instead of putting a Job Offer in the system. He can also meet the people first hand and things. He seemed very nice and quiet charasmatic anyway and I took the bait quiet easily. I give him my name and phone number and I end up getting an interview at the end of the day.

Good, I think? I then go to an interview. Interview asks me some general questions. I can't remember what was being asked, but I actually believe now that they would take me in, based on how gullible and easily brainwashed I am. The tell me the general purpose of my Job, as well as all the things that entail it.

I go home, generally unpleased with how the interview went (because I thought I wasn't going to get it) and then take a few days to recover from it. I get a phonecall later in the week and they tell me I earned the job and that "there was one other person they was considering, but they was being somewhat hesitant about it, and if I made my mind up faster, I'd get the Job"

Mistake number 2, I took the job, pretty much immediatly and didn't even think about what I was doing.

Let me tell you the wonders of the GKR system of door to door selling.

You are now on their territory hit list,you and your family may look forward to many more exciting chats about what they can do for you in such a small time frame and how it is imperative that you join the organization.

This is so unbelivably true, that it's quiet scary that you could hit the nail so hard and so accuratly. I guess thats the power of Real Karate. Anyway, yeah... in the conference room (or more like the boss' dining room as it were) there is a map of the city your in, the locations of the dojo's and then a circle around each one of the maps. Obviously you can see what happens inside those circles. Selling! They plot out each day, where and when they will go and sell these crummy memberships to you. Oh yeah, the memberships are £20 a pop.

Imagine going round to people's houses, asking them to buy some "self defence" for £20, which they had to give you there and then. Now you're probably wondering where that money goes exactly. Do the sellers get any of the money back? Do they get paid a minimum wage? Well, they actually take that £20 and put it straight in thier pockets. Oh, and to be able to sell those Memberships, you actually have to make enough money to even be allowed to sell it. Yeah, that right, some of money DOES go directly to GKR. Roughly £20 if I remember... I'm not so sure of that though, but I do remember having to borrow money from my mom at least one week because I didn't even get a sale.

The most i've earned in a week was £100. I think. I then went on to not earning anything for the next two weeks.

I was there, working for them for roughly 2-3 months. Each day was fairly interesting, and the hours were kind of random. On some days, I would have to be up at 10am to go to a Karate Lesson, then at 1, have a meeting. From the Boss' house, I then went to the destination we was selling memberships. These places were as far as being 10-12 miles away on some occassions, so I had to get a ride from one of the people there. Some times, I came back as late as 12pm.

Now, a standard day out, selling these membership was kind of simple. For the first few hours, we would walk around to people's doors, with our little folder and our script (unless you could remember it ) and we stood at this person's door, arranging a time to meet later into the day so that we could sit down and talk about getting the person a membership. Let me just point out to you by the way that the way in which they tell you to explain things is somewhat... leading. Even when I was sitting there, being trained, they was even saying that the majority of the thing is set up to bait people into it. A standard salesman tactic... and a somewhat evil ploy. I'm throughly convinced that the staff do not give an ounce of care to the people they suck in. This is probably the reason as to why didn't like what I was doing, because I actually had a concious. The majority of the time, I felt like I was pick-pocketing people, and I also didn't want to get people involved that genuinly didn't want to do this. Sometimes though, I didn't give a rat's-*** and I needed the money (espically during the time where I didn't actually get any money for 2 weeks)

In the 2-3 months I was there, I managed to only go up one belt. ONE. The first time I actually sparred, the person I was fighting ATTEMPTED TO BREAK MY LEG. I've consulted a friend about the way I was kicked and she suggests that. She's a Black Belt in Tae-Kwon-Doe and a teacher, so I somewhat trust her ability to tell whether or not this guy was trying to break my leg, based on my description.

As I mentioned before, there was a lot of backstabbing and bitching about people within the organisation. Though I'm fairly paranoid sometimes, I truly believe that this kick he did was to try and at least hurt me seriously.

This was pretty much the final straw at this point anyway, with a crap run of luck with selling "memberships", and with this guy trying to break my leg in half, I wanted to at least have a day off and consider if doing this was even good for me, let alone right. As soon as I tried to request a day off, I was fired on the spot, in the comfort of my own home too. Actually, I was given the choice as to whether I wanted to quit there and then, or carry on. I just choose to quit, it was definatly what I wanted at the time.

Story over, though there is probably a lot more I could tell you about GKR's system of doing things. Personally, the reason I'm here on this forum right now was because I wanted to see what people were saying about GKR's style. Since I now I find that it's the Scammers Style of Martial Art (rape-your-wallet fu?) I felt like I could give you guys more insight into this terrible beast.

Long story short: GKR is a scam, I have worked for them and can back up what people are saying on here.

Kick them in the bollocks.

 

[RoadHog]

Hi all,
Sorry to hear you had such a cr@p time with GKR Icarius and I really hope your experience with GKR hasn’t made you give up on martial arts – there’s loads of styles out there and I really hope you’ve found a style that makes you happy. If you visit this forum again I’d really like to hear the next chapter of your martial arts journey as I really hope it didn’t end like this.
I can’t really argue with anything you’ve said regarding GKR business practices or the role of there so called Self Defence Consultant (SDC). Like I started in my first post I don’t like there business practices and feel that the majority of people they get to become SDCs are suckered into it with promises of wealth and a region of there own in the years to come.
Having stayed miles away from this element of GKR I’d love to know if the underhanded tactics of gaining membership were done under instruction from on high or if they were how the SDCs chose to sell the product? And be honest J
A few points that I would like to raise in GKRs defence:
[1] You having trained with them for 2-3 months I would have been outraged if you had gone up more than 1 belt. As a side point doesn’t this acknowledgment fly in the face of the person that stated in this style you can get black in a year???
[2] In the years I have been with this style I have not come across any backstabbing or bitching in the area that I train. I train at open dojos and seniors and find the people to be kind, humble and respectful of each other. Whilst I openly acknowledge I have never trained with the SDCs and if you are adamant that this is what it’s like in those training sessions then I have no first hand experience to argue against this point.
[3] I would like to point out here that there is a world of difference between the shady world of the GKR business practices and the training itself. I’ll quite happily stand up for the karate element of GKR as from my experience it has been hard work, thought provoking and very enjoyable however I have no intention of standing up for how they run the business side.
Cheers all and look forward to continuing this discussion. Ow and the “Kick them in the bollocks” line is hilarious – can just picture the SDC walking to the door “hi im a self defence consultant from gkr” – wack – “defend that”

 

[Rhys]

Hi there, let me introduce myself, I’m an Instructor with GKR, in Australia.

What people are saying about GKR is just crap; sure we do go around knocking on doors; however we are NOT trying to suck people into doing something they don't want to do. I'm sure SDC's in the past have tried to do this (by signing up disabled people etc) however most people are just letting people know what is available.

Let me take you back before I started, I was assaulted and was looking at starting something that might help me better defend myself. I did not know where to go, where to look, so I just did nothing about it. Then one day a guy came knocking on my door, he just told me that there were different locations around running karate classes. I was interested, and said so. He took my details and came back later and sat down with myself and parents. He did not try and push me into enrolling but just told me the benefits of doing karate. If not for self defense but maybe fitness, confidence among other things.

I attended my first class and loved it, 7 years later I’m still here.

I must admit, I was a SDC for a short while, and did not quit because I hated it, only because I started studying at the UNI and had no time to do both. But during that time I did not feel like I was sucking people into something, I was just letting them know what was out there. LOTS of people I enrolled are still doing it to this day, and when I signed them up they told me they have wanted to do something, but did not know where to go to start. Also, i used to make well over $700 a week, so Icarius, just because you made a small amount does not mean that is what happens everywhere, some weeks i made crap money, but others make up for the bad weeks. It depends on how well you can explain your product, some people sell heaps of vaccum cleaners and some sell none, just depends on the person. GKR sells a sport, and they are not saying its a expensive sport, i signed people up for $48 for 3 months and a free upgrade if they acheive their yellow belt within 3 month.

I can tell you, i have joined a guym paid the $100 joining fee, plus the monthly fee and hated it, and lost my joining fee, and paid a few months. GKR says, give it a go, $48 dollars and if you don't like it then its not a big loss.

I signed a 73 year old up one day, i knocked on his door, and though, probably to old, i was suprises that he said he was interested, he just lost his wife, had bad circulation in his feet and wanted to try something. I told him that if he did not like it i would refund his money no questions asked. He tried it and called me and said his feet just did not agree with him, i sent a cheque in the mail straight away.


About the classes that are run, different instructors run different types of classes. I personally like to run a hard class, where people get a good workout, and have fun at the same time. Some focus on different areas. I do like to include street self defense into my classes, as I also take Krav Maga classes, and include a bit of that into my GKR class.

I don't know what people think a karate class looks like, what just all fighting. I CAN tell you, GKR focus largely on the basics and its great they do, I remember when I was a yellow belt, I was attacked by a guy that was after my friend, he did not get even one punch in, I instinctively went into a fighting stance with my hands in a defensive position.

So as you can see GKR is not all evil, like every style, business there is people that will do the wrong thing, which does not mean its all bad

So before you judge a style, learn a bit about it before making a decision.

Of course there is people here that hate GKR, and thats fine, its not everyone's cuppa tea, some people have tried it and found it to be bad, but remember that is a small percentage of GKR, there is thousands of instructors, you might have just went to a class with a instructor that does not suit you. I know i have


Rhys

 

[cstanley]

Just another BS made up modern style. There seems to be a lot of that here.

 

[bignick]

Mod. Note.
Please, keep the conversation polite and respectful. This forum is not to be used for fraud busting or personal attacks.

-Nick Olson
-MT Moderator-

 

[thetruth]

My view on any art is as follows. As long as the practitioners get what they need to out of it the door knocking and the fact that the founder was a bown belt before he started doesn't really matter. If you are getting fit and what not just enjoy it. As long as no false claims are made who really cares
Cheers
Sam:asian: