Am I paying too much? Is this the norm?

[granfire]

Thank you for all the feedback, I really appreciate it. Yes, I realize that she is only 7 but I would rather get her started in the right direction then keep switching disciplines. I'm obviously not looking for her to be defending herself right now, it's the skills she's developing now that will improve and assist her as she gets older.

I did consider Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I'm just not convinced in a real world altercation that it's going to the ground. I always thought it was more advantageous to get upon on your feet as fast as possible. So I was leaning more towards standing disciplines. I think people are really on the grappling, etc band wagon because of MMA (IMO no offenses) but I've have yet to see UFC - Street Edition.

The ones I'm really interested in she will have to be older. So other options are Wing Chun, Aikido - they offer children's classes.

If those with experience feel TKD is a good base, I'll suck up the cost. I just want to make sure that after 5 years of doing forms she's not in an altercation (school bully, etc) and can only think of what form will work.

The prices seem not too bad.
The school I trained in charged onward of 55 a month, but the school was open 6 days a week (although the instructor did not want to see students more than three times), tests, every 2 month, 50 for color belts, 95 for BBs.
The school the old man ran (my instructor's instructor) was quiet a bit higher in cost over all. Same program, same schedule....

However, we had a minimum attendance for tests. Higher up in rank you had to participate more often in the two to four month ahead of time. Which I seem to see was a bit of a problem over the summer. Which is ok, you don't want the kid to burn out. Matter of fact I heard a parent complain about TKD being an ongoing thing, not seasonal like the rest of the kid's activities (but he also brouht his daughter in every single day, had her burned out by the time she reached her BB)
I am a bit concerned about the 'she'll pass' having sat in on many tests. Yes, most every kid did pass. Unless you really could not get your form together in three tries, you passed. Unless you could not break the board (red belt on up for us) you passed. A lot of kids got their next belt basically for not sucking too badly.
However, we had the policy, if you should unexpectedly not pass, the next test was on the house, until you did pass.
We actually got a couple of freebies when the kid did not break boards a couple of times. I found that to be the biggest learning experience, to tell you the truth!


As to what style, MMA is probably best: If you fight standing up, you are toast when you go to ground. Note: When, not if.
When you grapple, you get your head kicked in by a standing up fighter, until you get him/her down to your playing field.

Several years ago the organization instituted what they called at that time 'Minor Fields of Study', a series of classes supposedly supplementing TKD. One was Hanmudo, a mix of Hapkido and another traditional Korean art, including a lot of joint locks and work with pressure points and throws. Much fun, but rather painful after an evening of practice
the other was 'ground escapes' which then morphed into BJJ. The initial idea being that as TKDs our strength is on our feet, but poop happens and we need to be able to get quickly and fast back on our feet to our game. "It makes us better fighters" as my instructor put it back then.

I think the real self defense benefits girls get from Martial Arts is that they will be fit, self aware and confident. I have seen a few little girls come through the doors, having a bit of a hard time to do the things they otherwise do not get to do: Be loud and assertive, forceful even. There is not much most anybody can do when the bad guy is much larger, or carries a weapon.
But being self confident makes everybody much less of a target.

 

[Tai Mantis Warrior]

OP, I tend to agree with you I think the BJJ/MMA bandwagon is based much on the success of UFC type submission matches and not very accurate in terms of real life fights in the street. But that being said, neither is a taekwondo dojo.

I started training in taekwondo almost 20 years ago, and love it although my main art now is tai chi praying mantis, which I have been practising for the last 8 or 9 years. Taekwondo is a great art if you are into sports competition, conditioning, and superior flexibility. However, for practical self defense there are better systems.

I think all those expenses you listed are too much. I pay $100 per month at my tai mantis school, with unlimited classes (up to 9 per week, each one is 1.5 to 2 hours long) and I still thought that was a bit too much. But I did a lot of shopping around in terms of what the arts in my area offered and their cost.. I could have found less expensive places but the mantis system seemed to provide everything I looked for, such as trapping, joint locks, high kicking, grappling, throwing, etc. At my school there are only five levels and you test once every one to three years depending on how much effort you put in.

In short, taekwondo is a great art - still my second favorite after mantis - but its focus is on flexibility, conditioning, and beautiful high spinning kicks. Overall, in my opinion not the most practical self defense system in the way it is presently taught in most western schools. There are other systems that are more suited and that still involve high kicking, such as krav maga, jun fan jeet kune do, kickboxing, muay thai, and the various substyles of northern praying mantis. These arts all offer everything taekwondo does, plus more.

And I personally would not recommend wing chun, i think their punches tend to be the softest unless of course you've been training for many years.

And before the BJJ/MMA guys start hating on my comment here, I think these systems have their uses for self defense but based on my experiences with my best friend and training partner who is a 15 year veteran of BJJ, these are more suited to submission type sport matches than real life self defense. But that being said, at their highest levels any art can be extremely effective.

For a young girl, I would think taekwondo would be a good introduction but she may get more out of other more well rounded arts. In terms of self defense efficiency and short term training, I would suggest jeet kune do or krav maga.

 

[Instructor]

OP I agree with others here. It's a free country, shop around.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Hi there, I'm hoping to get some insight from those of you with experience in the industry. Background: I have a 7 year old daughter who loves martial arts. In March I started her with WTTU Taekwondo. I paid an upfront down payment of $210 (I'm assuming this was for the outfit??), in addition I pay $137 a month regardless of how many sessions she attends a week (only 3 days a week are offered), and I have recently discovered belt testing is every 6 weeks at $79/test - note Canadian $. Is this normal? For the first 2 belt tests I was fine with it because she had the forms down well. But this summer I had her in it mainly to keep her busy, so we missed some weeks with holidays and to be honest I didn't think they would be doing testing. Next thing I know the teacher is telling me to register her for the test coming up - which she clearly wasn't ready for. "She'll pass", he tells me. This got me thinking. I understand the concept at this age to gain confidence, etc, but I'm not going to register her for the test if she hasn't been practising and knows it. Apparently they want all the kids doing the tests regardless if they have the moves done correctly or not. I have a bit of an issue with this.

Just a note, I'm not looking for an association that trains students for sport sparing, etc. I'm looking for strictly real life self defense that will actually work. I am now under the impression that this may not be the right fit for her and I should look at ITF Taekwondo? or another discipline.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Everything you describe is fairly normative in my area (sadly) regardless of the art. That goes for pretty much any art, from ninjutsu to karate to all manner of Korean arts. Commericialism is rampant. As Dancingalone said, look at the actual school and instructor rather than the brand or art.