Need your opinions

[Elz]

I have been thinking about starting some training and am having a tough time deciding on where to start! I was hoping some more experienced people here can take a look at a few of the options I have and voice their opinions. I am 34 and completely new to martial arts(minus some minor training when I was a kid).

I don't have lots of extra money to spend so really am trying to pick one place I can go and stick with for a while... all these talks about McDojos get me worried that I may spend $100's of dollars somewhere and realize I made the wrong choice. So let me know what you guys think of these places and if there are any obvious things about them that I should watch out for. Or if you happen to be in the Colorado Springs area and have some experience with them.. even better! Any advice would be great!!

http://www.selfcarearts.com/

http://allokinawakarate.com/

http://www.shorinkungfu.com/

 

[Xue Sheng]

I do not know any of them but based on teh websites only

http://www.selfcarearts.com/

Too many certifications in too many different styles for me to take too seriously in any one of them

[URL="http://www.shorinkungfu.com/"]http://www.shorinkungfu.com/[/URL]

IMO, not Kung Fu (which is a generic term for Chinese Martial Arts) and Not Taijiquan either

 

[Master Dan]

I have been thinking about starting some training and am having a tough time deciding on where to start! I was hoping some more experienced people here can take a look at a few of the options I have and voice their opinions. I am 34 and completely new to martial arts(minus some minor training when I was a kid).

I don't have lots of extra money to spend so really am trying to pick one place I can go and stick with for a while... all these talks about McDojos get me worried that I may spend $100's of dollars somewhere and realize I made the wrong choice. So let me know what you guys think of these places and if there are any obvious things about them that I should watch out for. Or if you happen to be in the Colorado Springs area and have some experience with them.. even better! Any advice would be great!!

You need to be a bit more specific on what your needs and goals are.

1. What is your current health?
2. What are your training goals? just overall health, sport competition, self defense only, want to be a teacher some day, do you have a religous preference or concerns, do you have family and kids to consider, do you have a 10 year 20 year training plan?

Think about all those then come up with how much time you have per week and money?

After that do you have anyone you trust with any experience or they have a freind in your area based on your needs will make a recomendation?

Even after that go and watch classes do they have quality training facility with good quality warm up and safe training practices. Are you going to be the only guy your age? are you going to be a punching bag for the next year fresh meat so to speak. Do not sign a long term bb contract that they get paid wether you train or not!!!!!

I have bias certainly to indivduals and styles I would recomend but I will not do it publicly on here you can PM me I will send that info but you need to do your home work. Hate to see anyone wast time and money I had friends that litterally got tortured for two years before comming to our GM. Good luck

 

[Elz]

Thanks for the opinion Xue. I did wonder about all those certs posted on that one page.. as a lot of them list 10 hours etc.. Im not sure how much value that holds. In my industry I can spend a 10 hour day and get a cert and to be honest may not remember what we even talked about 1 year later, but it could be different in the martial arts world as I wouldn't know..

and to answer some of the questions posed

1. What is your current health?

I could probably lose 10lbs, otherwise healthy.

2. What are your training goals? just overall health, sport competition, self defense only, want to be a teacher some day, do you have a religous preference or concerns, do you have family and kids to consider, do you have a 10 year 20 year training plan?

My goals are to keep active and healthy. I feel this could be a more interesting and fulfilling way of doing it, while also learning something. Self defense is always a plus. I dont really have any desire to compete, this is more for myself. I do not plan on being a teacher. No concerns over religion.. in fact I enjoy learning about other cultures/religions. Yes I have family/kids and my son may be interested as well at some point. I do not have a training plan.

Think about all those then come up with how much time you have per week and money?

I probably have a few hours twice a week at minimum. Im hoping to keep it under $100/month. I see most places around me charge anywhere from 60-100 per month it seems.

After that do you have anyone you trust with any experience or they have a freind in your area based on your needs will make a recomendation?

No unfortunately I dont.

Even after that go and watch classes do they have quality training facility with good quality warm up and safe training practices. Are you going to be the only guy your age? are you going to be a punching bag for the next year fresh meat so to speak. Do not sign a long term bb contract that they get paid wether you train or not!!!!!

Yes I plan on doing that as well. Im just more trying to weed out some of the choices if there are any obvious flaws. I definately dont want to be the only old fart at the dojo.

 

[Carol]

All three web sites have red flags for me.

This is going on their web sites alone. They could be great teachers, they could have a wonderful environment, they could have fantastic students.

First one, many of the certifications are from seminars. The paper that you are seeing is what anyone, including you, could receive. Show up at the seminar, pay the admission, at the end of the seminar you get a cert saying you trained for 4 hours. Whether you learned anything, understood the material, or performed well is irrelevant.

The second school is making some questionable lineage claims, and other high ranking members of their association are a bit blatant at resume padding. One member for example claims to be a regional President of a company traded on the NYSE, a bit of googling revealed that he's regional president of a spinoff division of company that is not publicly traded, fell deeply in debt, and had to be re-absorbed by their parent company to stay solvent.

Third school....the guy made up his own art, with no mention of who he trained under.

Food for thought.

 

[Elz]

All three web sites have red flags for me.

This is going on their web sites alone. They could be great teachers, they could have a wonderful environment, they could have fantastic students.

First one, many of the certifications are from seminars. The paper that you are seeing is what anyone, including you, could receive. Show up at the seminar, pay the admission, at the end of the seminar you get a cert saying you trained for 4 hours. Whether you learned anything, understood the material, or performed well is irrelevant.

The second school is making some questionable lineage claims, and other high ranking members of their association are a bit blatant at resume padding. One member for example claims to be a regional President of a company traded on the NYSE, a bit of googling revealed that he's regional president of a spinoff division of company that is not publicly traded, fell deeply in debt, and had to be re-absorbed by their parent company to stay solvent.

Third school....the guy made up his own art, with no mention of who he trained under.

Food for thought.

Yes I noticed that on the shorin kung fu there was no mention of specific past training. Also when I looked up awards received(the ones listed on the site) I couldnt really find anything about the school or the grand master. Maybe I didnt look good enough, but seemed odd to me.

Interesting what you noticed about the okinawa one, I will have to look at that closer.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Thanks for the opinion Xue. I did wonder about all those certs posted on that one page.. as a lot of them list 10 hours etc.. Im not sure how much value that holds. In my industry I can spend a 10 hour day and get a cert and to be honest may not remember what we even talked about 1 year later, but it could be different in the martial arts world as I wouldn't know..

In CMA certs mean little and a plethora of certs means less.

What you need to look for in CMA is lineage, who they trained with and for how long and in what capacity. And for something like Xingyiquan that is very important.

And when some one says Kung Fu they are talking about this. There is no specific style called Kung Fu, that is a generic term.

 

[clfsean]

I do not know any of them but based on teh websites only



Too many certifications in too many different styles for me to take too seriously in any one of them



IMO, not Kung Fu (which is a generic term for Chinese Martial Arts) and Not Taijiquan either

What you said!

 

[Elz]

Thanks everyone for all the responses. Of course the deeper I dig the more schools I find..lol It's definitely helping having some sort of a basis to go by. I notice there are lots of TKD and Karate schools locally, little "Kung Fu" any style(which is unfortunate as I was curious about some of the chinese arts), and some MMA.

I do appreciate all the info and opinions being shared.

 

[clfsean]

Where are you, not street level, but city level?
How far is too far to drive?
Why CMA's? No wrong answer, just it might help fill in blanks.

Get me those & I'll see what I can help you with.

 

[Carol]

The OP mentioned Colorado Springs.

I'll post up what I know about the Okinawan school in a bit, perhaps someone can make more sense of it.

 

[Elz]

Yes Colorado Springs.

45 min away will probably put me at a safe time after work.

I couldn't pinpoint why CMA's specifically and in no way bound to studying that particular range of art's. If I had to try to explain I would probably say when I used to live back east I wandered by a CMA style dojo(I dont know the style I just know they claimed Kung Fu..lol) and was always intrigued when I was able to see people train. So it sort of imprinted something in my head. So really I dont have a good reason I am open to most of the arts as long as the school is good.


and thanks Carol I appreciate it.

 

[Josh Oakley]

So, there's a guy in Colorado springs I can recommend: Jo Oberdier. Good fighter. Great person. He'd be the guy I recommend. He's a little more pricey, but you get what you pay for and more.

 

[Perrin]

http://rmryute.com/default.aspx

Here is a guy in Colorado Spings also.

 

[Gemini]

Devil's advocate here offering an opinion on what you refer to as McDojo's.

McDojo's get their reputation by advancing students before they're ready, based on a necessity or a primary goal to generate income and student quality is a distant second. Got it. That said, my experience with McDojo's is that more often than not, it's the owners and their policies that are the cause. The instructors themselves are actually quite capable and therby capable of producing quality students IF the student is self motivated and truly has a strong desire to excel. Just because the majority of students choose the easy path doesn't mean you have to. What you get out of any school is primarily based on what you bring in with you and that will be true regardless of where you go.

I'm not advising you to run and join one of these schools, just to look a little deeper and not to dismiss any school for superficial reasons. No one can give you an honest assesment based on a website. Go watch the instructors. Watch the students. Watch their interaction. Watch their attention to detail.

Choose your art based on what appeals to you and offers the criteria of what you want to accomplish. If you choose an excellent school in an art that doesn't motivate you, more likely than not, you'll end up quitting anyway. Once you become more familiar with the arts and their likes and differences, you'll find yourself in much better place to make an educated decision that right for you. My only advise is just don't get caught up in one of these dreadful (money saving) long term contracts. Acknowledge the need, and allow yourself the time, to become educated.

 

[Elz]

Devil's advocate here offering an opinion on what you refer to as McDojo's.

McDojo's get their reputation by advancing students before they're ready, based on a necessity or a primary goal to generate income and student quality is a distant second. Got it. That said, my experience with McDojo's is that more often than not, it's the owners and their policies that are the cause. The instructors themselves are actually quite capable and therby capable of producing quality students IF the student is self motivated and truly has a strong desire to excel. Just because the majority of students choose the easy path doesn't mean you have to. What you get out of any school is primarily based on what you bring in with you and that will be true regardless of where you go.

I'm not advising you to run and join one of these schools, just to look a little deeper and not to dismiss any school for superficial reasons. No one can give you an honest assesment based on a website. Go watch the instructors. Watch the students. Watch their interaction. Watch their attention to detail.

Choose your art based on what appeals to you and offers the criteria of what you want to accomplish. If you choose an excellent school in an art that doesn't motivate you, more likely than not, you'll end up quitting anyway. Once you become more familiar with the arts and their likes and differences, you'll find yourself in much better place to make an educated decision that right for you. My only advise is just don't get caught up in one of these dreadful (money saving) long term contracts. Acknowledge the need, and allow yourself the time, to become educated.

I don't disagree with you. I do know no matter what school is recommended I will go watch a class or two to get a feel, "McDojo" or not. I was more picking a few schools that stood out initially and seeing if there was any of them obviously flying red flags that could be pointed out by those with much more experience then myself on the matter.

I also appreciate some of the recommendations I am getting since it seems even hours of internet searching didn't bring up some of the people/schools mentioned here and in pm's.

Thanks again everyone, I appreciate all the help I am getting.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I also appreciate some of the recommendations I am getting since it seems even hours of internet searching didn't bring up some of the people/schools mentioned here and in pm's.

Something to consider

Some very good MA teachers do not advertise much, if at all, which makes them hard to find and that tends the issue for a lot of CMA.

 

[Josh Oakley]

For Jo Oberdier, you have to type the name exactly. "Sensei Jo Oberdier" might work.