BBB for the martial arts.

[Zepp]

Nightingale, what would this board ever do without you?

 

[miguksaram]

Originally posted by Jay Bell
**Footnote - The group of mine that is putting together the same sort of thing seems to be very different. We're basically uncovering fraudulent claims by martial art instructors with valid, verifiable sources. It will not be an opinion page per say.

We seem to be on the same mission Jay. I am not trying to put together anything based on opinoin. We will be using valid resources as well.

 

[Jay Bell]

Nightingale,

I understand your points. Although...wait and watch is all I can say at this point

 

[NYCRonin]

Though a noble effort it may be - at most, it would be a registry of ranks that are verified by other organizations. Therin lays the problem - who's organizations are the basis for determination.

As I thought about this, one fact came to mind - Sigung Bruce Lee would have been, at best; regarded as a middle level practitioner of Wing Chun under Yip Man (if Yip Man even recognized that description) - lee wouldnt even have been an authorized instructor under WC hierarchy. Granted, there are few stars of Lee's magnitude in the martial sky - a person relying on this registry would probably have bypassed him as less than 'qualified' as a teacher. His students regarded as 'mistaken' in their training and beliefs.

What a loss to MA, in general; that would have been - for us all.

Any catagorization is limited - not only by what one includes but also by what one chooses to leave out.

 

[7starmantis]

I have to agree with Nightingale's thoughts on the subject.
What would make a legitament instructor who runs his own successful school/business, want to come and pay you to say he is legitament, when his 800 students all say he is legitament to begin with.

Can't we allready tell about a business' practices through the BBB, why try and add another organization that no one outside of MA would even know existed?

7sm

 

[miguksaram]

Well we were hoping that through a grant, no one would have to pay anything. However, after much sifting through emails, feedback and other research, I will abandon what seems to a fruitless effort. As much as I would like to pursue such an endevour, it seems the MA community in general just doesn't seem to be too receptive to the idea. Thaank you all for your feed back, it was much appreciated.

On a final note, go to the BBB and ask them how they can measure a martial arts school legitimacy in claims. You may be surprised.

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by Jay Bell
**Footnote - The group of mine that is putting together the same sort of thing seems to be very different. We're basically uncovering fraudulent claims by martial art instructors with valid, verifiable sources. It will not be an opinion page per say.

I will say that I like Jay Bell's idea. Almost like a phonyveterans.com, but for martial artists. That will be nice to be able to get info on fraud martial artists out there, just as long as the site is balanced (meaning that rebuttles are also made public).

Jay's idea seems quite different then a BBB for Martial Artists.

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by Nightingale
1. a new martial artist is not going to know to go check with your organization. new martial artists tend to walk into the local school thinking "karate is karate, right?" They simply don't know that martial arts is something that ought to be researched.

2. people are more likely to call the BBB if they're curious about someone's business practices, because that is standard procedure for someone curious about someone's business practices. the BBB doesn't need to advertize because everyone knows what it is and what it does.

3. the marketing costs for your plan will be astronomical, because your target community isn't martial artists, its joe public who might someday take a martial arts class. reaching the general public generally involves television.

4. Legit instructors don't usually need to pay an organization to say that they are legit. Word of mouth travels. Reputations follow people. Why would they pay for a service they don't need?

5. You're opening yourself up to all kinds of legal trouble if you "legitimize" martial arts schools. If a student feels scammed, they can sue YOU, because you have provided a guarantee that the school is a good school.

6. It makes much more sense to blacklist bad businesses (like the BBB does) than to whitelist good businesses. There are simply too many good businesses to create a comprehensive whitelist. Much more cost effective to blacklist the bad ones... but if you do that, you can't collect money from the good ones.

We already have the BBB to report on bad business practices. If you've had a problem with a MA school, call the BBB and report it. If you're curious about your MA school, or a school you're considering, call the BBB and see what they have to say.

Awesome post! Very intelligently illustrating why I don't think the idea will work either... I agree!

 

[miguksaram]

Originally posted by PAUL
I will say that I like Jay Bell's idea. Almost like a phonyveterans.com, but for martial artists. That will be nice to be able to get info on fraud martial artists out there, just as long as the site is balanced (meaning that rebuttles are also made public).

Jay's idea seems quite different then a BBB for Martial Artists.

Perhaps he worded it better than me but over all I was aiming to do the same thing. No worries though, I have another devious plan cooking in my mind as we speak.

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by miguksaram
Perhaps he worded it better than me but over all I was aiming to do the same thing. No worries though, I have another devious plan cooking in my mind as we speak.

No offense, but you described something like a BBB, where good Martial Arts schools pay and register with the organization so the public will know if a school is legitamite or not.

Jay Bell described more of a blacklist; a website that exposes phonies in the martial arts. With Jay's idea, he doesn't attempt to legitimize, he attempts to expose.

To me these are 2 completely different ideas...one which I think might work, the other not.

I don't mind if you do Jay's idea, but how can you say that you had the same idea in mind?



Sorry...perhaps I am confused.

Respectfully,

PAUL

 

[miguksaram]

Paul,

No offense taken and perhaps I am the one causing the confusion. The org that I was proposing would be doing the same thing. We would be checking the credentials of the instructors who were members and post them on a site for consumers to check. So if you went into John Doe's TKD, he can tell you "I am 6th dan in HKD in the KHF and 8th dan TKD in the KKW. I am a member of the ABC Org and you can verify my information with them." Consumers can then go to the site query our database and see that Mst. John Doe does hold the ranks that he claimed.
(We would be in contact on a bi-weekly basis with the organizations to get their list of instructors of 4th dan and above and would upload that list for the queries.)

Even if the instructor was not a member, consumers could still check our database or email us to find out if the instructor is making false claims. We would keep instructors that we found to be sending out false creditentials on a list for future reference. As for people paying to be a member, the only purpose in that was to offset the cost of puting this together. However, that might have been a moot point as I was given the suggestion of pursuing a grant for this endevour, in which case neither the consumer nor the instructor would have to pay any money for the service.

I hope this cleared it up a bit more. Jay Bell and I both have the same goal in mind, perhaps a slightly different proceedure in getting it accomplished though.

 

[Cruentus]

I fully understand what your trying to do.

Yes, you and Jay have the same goals...gaurding integrety in the martial arts. We are talking about 2 distinctly different ways.

In your way your legitimizing credentials. Jays way, from what I understand, is a process of exposing people with false credentials.

Here...check this site out: http://www.phonyveterans.com/

Although I question some of the facts on this site, this is the idea that I think that Jay was talking about...except for martial artists and not veterans, obviously. The veterans site only exposes people who are making fraudulent claims; it doesn't list everyones credentials, or list those who's claims are true.

What you are talking about is different. You are attempting to list those who are legitamite, and those who are not. The problem lies with trying to list those who are legit.

For one, your expecting organizations to pay you to be listed as legit. They just aren't going to do that. Their arguement will basically be, "Who the heck are you, and why do I need you to legitimize us?!" And, they'd have a valid point.

There are other problems as well. I'll use myself and my credentials as an example. I have a black belt under Grand Master Remy Presas, who passed away a few years ago. I was ranked under the org IMAF. Prior to GM Presas passing, he entrusted a few individuals with the legal rights to run the organization until he was well enough to return. Problem was he never returned....he passed away. One of these individuals with legal rights decided to name himself Grandmaster, and he took over the IMAF organization. This individual was only one rank higher then myself prior to Remys passing. He is NOT a legitamite Grand Master, and he was never given permission to take the organization over, or to suceed the system. However, legally he owns the IMAF Organization...and he requires all IMAF black belts to register with him, and to renew their rank yearly (by paying him $$ of course). Since I haven't renewed my rank with this person, or his IMAF, my black belt has expired, according to him. Keep in mind that I still train, teach, and I am part of a different modern Arnis Org...one more legit but under a different name. However, my 1st black belt in the art came from IMAF. So, this "grandmaster" could legitamitly pay you $$, and list his org. If someone does a check on me, they'll find that through the IMAF, I have no rank, when this is untrue (I was ranked by the founder of the system in the old IMAF). I'll be looked at as illegitamite, when I am a hell of a lot more legitamite then this so called "GrandMaster."

Yet, how would you, or any BBB type organization with no prior knowledge of the mess in Modern Arnis know the difference? You wouldn't.

Also...what if one Org. pays you $$ to be listed, and another doesn't? Will one show up as legit and the other not (because they didn't pay), or will they both show up, making it unfair to the guys who did pay? What if a fake GM pays and signs up, and is found to be fraudulent later? Will they still be listed as legit because they paid? You see how this could turn into, or be constued as a "pay for legitimizing" system, where legitimacy claims go to the highest bidder, fraud or not.

You see...its much easier to debunk frauds then it is to get into the whole legitmizing issue. Debunking frauds won't be profitable, however.

Too bad...

PAUL

 

[miguksaram]

Ok...I almost have you on my wave length...Let me see if I can get you there. The organizations would not pay me anything. One of the stipulations of making my idea work would be the cooperation of the different organizations. You see I would be requesting a simple text file from them that I could upload into a a database. I would not charge the organizations anything for this. Like you said, they would never pay nor should they.

I understand you situation with the IMAF, which by the way I find a bit ridiculous. What happens when your black belt membership expires you suddenly forget everything? My Kempo instructor was also part of the IMAF and had the same problem. He just let his membership run out, but still teaches it. Now back to the point at hand, if I was to call up the IMAF and ask them if you were a black belt, they should be able to check their database and say yes you are but you are not longer "liscenced" to teach the system (Krav maga does the same thing). So it would still work out in your case, however, I found other cases where it wouldn't be easy or almost impossible to check. This is why I decided to just drop this particular project. I was afraid of hurting good instructors which was not my intent at all.

Politics would not come into play because if a consumer was querying for the instructors all they would get is the basic facts not a Instructor A is more recommended than Instructor B. Just Instructor A is under Org B and is ranked 3rd dan. Very basic and simple. I hope this helps.

 

[arnisador]

Originally posted by miguksaram
My Kempo instructor was also part of the IMAF and had the same problem. He just let his membership run out, but still teaches it.

On this point, let me just say that there are many other Modern Arnis organizations that would probably be happy to have him and have no such policies. The organization I am in is the WMAA, but there are plenty of others that would also be welcoming. See:
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1010

 

[Tapps]

Politics would not come into play

Politics ALWAYS comes into play
No matter how noble your intentions.


I like the concept but I think it's a lousy business plan.

What I mean by that is I don't think it's going to be a financially feasable reality to do it the way you envision.

I do admire you sentiment.

 

[miguksaram]

Originally posted by Tapps
I like the concept but I think it's a lousy business plan.

What I mean by that is I don't think it's going to be a financially feasable reality to do it the way you envision.

I do admire you sentiment.

Well I never posted a business plan, just a concept. This was never about the money, if I had to charge anyone anything, it would be the minimal amount to make sure I could keep it running. If I had pursued the idea, it would have been a labor of love not my million dollar idea to financially free me. That being said, I have already decided not to pursue it and will focus on another project that would be a bit more attainable.

With respect,

Jeremy

 

[Tapps]

Jeremy,

I didn't mean to imply that you were doing this as a get rich quick kind of thing.

I just think it would be a colossal undertaking.

Peace

 

[miguksaram]

Originally posted by Tapps
Jeremy,

I didn't mean to imply that you were doing this as a get rich quick kind of thing.

I just think it would be a colossal undertaking.

Peace

Ok...sorry about that, I misunderstood your post and you are right, financially it would be a huge undertaking. I talked to my friend who would be helping me with the software support and we got a small idea on what we would have needed for this and it was quite an eye opener. Oh well, next idea still brewing.

 

[kroh]

When a topic like this comes along we as martial artists usually jump on it because we all want to safegaurd the labors that we worked on( or art or system or whatever you call it).

This should be a case of buyer beware. Anyone who is thinking about jumping into a program should thoroughly check it out. For lack of a better illustration it is like buying a car. you usually don't just jump on the lot and buy a new car. People will usualy check things out first. And if they don't that is on them. My family has been in the automotive industry for 50 years and they always tell their customers to check out new cars BEFORE they buy them so they wouldn't have to see my family LATER to fix them.

on another note...one good thing about shoddy instructors who teach crap and are all about the money is that the people they defraud who stick it out and eventually find a good instructor really appreciate the good intructor. so in that regard the crap heads serve a purpose...

They make the rest of us look good....

and to miguksaram and jay... thanks for the effort...good dedication...and great discussion...

Regards
WalT

 

[Black Bear]

Many people have attempted this at various times, in various places. I recall one guy whose daughter was molested who tried to set one of these up. His criteria were going to be 1) criminal records/child welfare check, 2) current athletic first aid, and 3) what he called "black belt or equivalent", which IIRC he said could be satisfied by X numbers of years of training.

He had a website, I forget what it was.

I personally have come to the conclusion that the martial arts world is by nature ungovernable, and that only common and criminal law can be successfully used to bring a modicum of civilization to it.