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.
