McDojo offshoot

[hkfuie]

*Not sure if I should create a new thread for this one. I can't see the other thread going anywhere good, anyway.

Original thread: http://martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70460

I see why some are put off by the original post. I agree. And the second video...I agree as well about belt inflation, etc.

The portion of the thread I think is interesting is Grodon Nore's point: "So why does this all have to happen -- or so it appears to me -- so quickly? That could be a room full of orange and green belts, savouring another moment in a longer journey."

Martial arts training SHOULD take alot of work, require change and growth on the part of the student, it should be demanding. I don't think people are unwilling to work. Do you all think so?

I am new to where I am now, I have only a few very low ranking belts and already I have had to start educating everyone on the value of waiting, the value of progressing slowly, etc.

I think I will bring it up again at next class.

How do you all educate your students about the value of slow progression in martial arts? THIS is what some people come to martial arts training for, imo. Or am I just crazy? Yeah, I guess I AM.

 

[dancingalone]

How do you all educate your students about the value of slow progression in martial arts? THIS is what some people come to martial arts training for, imo. Or am I just crazy? Yeah, I guess I AM.

I run a small noncommercial school out of my home dojo. Since I don't advertise, any new students usually know someone already training or they heard of me from another teacher in the area. So I'm largely insulated already against people who just want a belt.

The students who seek me out know I will be offering a traditional experience. Belt tests occur whenever I decide I have a student ready to test and I've been known to spring the test suddenly in class with the others ready to play uke or act as a sparring partner. I do not have a regular belt test scheduled every 2-3 months like many schools do, so it's a bit of a special occasion that my students are excited for. It's understood that you can fail the test, and that it takes most dedicated students 5-6 years to earn a first dan.

I acknowledge it will be different for a school that needs to make money for its owner. I am perhaps extreme in my opinion, but I think that if you need to make money, then make money. Holding a compromise between financial constraints while trying to keep up a high level of standards will inevitably make you an unhappy person unless you can manage some self-deception.

Again, I know I am in the radical extreme on this.

 

[BrandonLucas]

*Not sure if I should create a new thread for this one. I can't see the other thread going anywhere good, anyway.

Original thread: http://martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70460

I see why some are put off by the original post. I agree. And the second video...I agree as well about belt inflation, etc.

The portion of the thread I think is interesting is Grodon Nore's point: "So why does this all have to happen -- or so it appears to me -- so quickly? That could be a room full of orange and green belts, savouring another moment in a longer journey."

Martial arts training SHOULD take alot of work, require change and growth on the part of the student, it should be demanding. I don't think people are unwilling to work. Do you all think so?

I am new to where I am now, I have only a few very low ranking belts and already I have had to start educating everyone on the value of waiting, the value of progressing slowly, etc.

I think I will bring it up again at next class.

How do you all educate your students about the value of slow progression in martial arts? THIS is what some people come to martial arts training for, imo. Or am I just crazy? Yeah, I guess I AM.

My opinion:

It all depends on the reason the student has started taking the particular MA in question.

For some people, they want to see immediate results, much like people who try these crash diets that become so popular. And, to a degree, we're all guilty of wanting immediate results. Some of us are more patient than others, but there are usually times when we all want to see results quickly.

Parents who enroll their kids who see TKD or other MA's as an afterschool program activity like Boy/Girl Scouts are more than likely going to be the ones who want to see immediate results. They can be used to seeing their child earn merit badges for this achievement or that acheievement, and think that martial arts should reward their child with some sort of badge, or in this case, belts.

And it's not always parents, either...alot of times, it's the student who expects to see immediate results...and not just in rank, but in everything.

Many students don't understand why they can't kick accurately at head level after 1 week of instruction, or why they aren't allowed to break bricks at whitebelt or spar on the first day.

I think the majority of people out there realize that you don't just walk into a dojo/dojang and become blackbelt overnight. Most people recognize that earning a blackbelt is going to take time and effort.

What makes people think that there's an easier way out are the McDojos that provide the easy way out. To me, it's just like Ashida Kim and his overnight ninja book, complete with ninja blackbelt certificate on the last page. If people provide an easier way to achieve quick and easy results, then people looking for that are going to follow the path of least resistance.

The bottom line to McDojoism is money. It always ends up being about money in the end. A McDojo can offer great instruction, and can even have students earn blackbelts over several years time...but the deciding factor of whether the school is a McDojo or not is how many ways is the instructor trying to make a larger profit, and how they go about doing it.

 

[Steve]

I asked a similar question when I first began posting here at Martial Talk in a more general sense (not specific to TKD, but really in reference to martial arts training at large), and it seemed then that the consensus was that it is easier to redefine the meaning and significance of a black belt than to hold students accountable to demonstrable skill along the way.

I personally still believe that this is misleading to the general public, as the common definition of a black belt remains a martial arts expert, while many schools (McDojo or not) have redefined black to mean "serious student," or will say things like a black belt is the beginning of training or some other equivocation.

 

[Nomad]

I personally still believe that this is misleading to the general public, as the common definition of a black belt remains a martial arts expert, while many schools (McDojo or not) have redefined black to mean "serious student," or will say things like a black belt is the beginning of training or some other equivocation.

Personally, I don't really see a conflict between the two bolded statements. A BB is a "martial arts expert" who is now ready "to begin serious training"

Anybody who thinks they know it after spending even 6-7 years training to get a black belt are seriously deluding themselves. Learning only stops if you let it stop. Admittedly, they aren't learning the same things as the newcomers, although they may be learning using identical drills.

 

[jks9199]

"The rice grows quickly and lasts a season. The oak grows slowly and lasts a century."

I seldom do formal belt tests. Often, I'll assess how a student performs at our national tournament or some other similar event as a grading factor, along with their class performance.

 

[Gordon Nore]

The portion of the thread I think is interesting is Grodon Nore's point: "So why does this all have to happen -- or so it appears to me -- so quickly? That could be a room full of orange and green belts, savouring another moment in a longer journey."

...

How do you all educate your students about the value of slow progression in martial arts? THIS is what some people come to martial arts training for, imo. Or am I just crazy? Yeah, I guess I AM.

Presumably everyone who takes a martial lesson expects to get better. I think the key is getting the student to understand that progress comes in fits and spasms. Sometimes it's obvious to the learner, sometimes not. I can think of times when an entire year went by, and I didn't think I was getting any better at all. Those were often the times when I was told it's time to grade. There were a couple of times when I was asked to grade, when I was tempted to say, "Are you out of your cotten-pickin' mind?"

Upon reflection, I see the purpose of those gradings was to push me to do better and to make me see how much I had improved. I was shocked beyond belief when I was asked to grade for brown, after being a blue belt for about eighteen months. Turned out to be the best grading I ever gave. What had really changed was that the more I moved up, the more I had to work on, and the less I thought about the next test. In my head, I was still tweaking stuff I learned as yellow belt, orange belt, etc.

We tell kids basically what we tell adults. In a martial arts class, you're learning -- on a basic level -- to move in ways that you're not used to and in ways that you probably don't move around in day-to-day life. We're trying to make that way of moving more natural, adding more to it, helping the students to be able to do under the pressure of testing, sparring, intense training -- what have you.

To me that takes time. I think the issue is refocusing learners on right now. Right now, a white belt's curriculum might have, say, twenty discreet items that they have to be able to perform at some level to move the next belt rank. At each level of progression, all of that white belt stuff (what was taught the first day) is still critically important, and it should look that much better and come more naturally. To put it simply, a lot of the stuff that a candidate might be expected to do on a yellow belt test might also be expected on a black belt test. Nothing is actually being mastered -- every skill is being remastered over and over.

Slow progress is progress none the less. It's great to be able to tell a student, after months of practice, that the back-fist has got real snap in it, or the breakfall, which they were terrified to do during the first months (I was), now happens easily. Over longer periods of time the gaps in skill level among students close. Give it long enough, and the less-athletic, less-coordinated, chubbier students, do just as well as the more naturally gifted.

It's similarly terrific for white belts to see that a higher kyu is struggling with this or that. We had a great kid years ago -- long-time blue belt who close to brown -- who could do everything, except a shoulder roll on his left side. When tired or over-taxed I still tend to "forget" to stay rooted -- legs straightened, and there I am, standing tall, more easily off-balanced, and more dependent on strength than techniqe. This is one of my weak points that I've worked on for years. Even if something else came easily to me -- I had always have had some beginnerisms to return to.

I think it really sells lower ranks to see higher ranks doing absolutely the same thing that they are doing and seeing teachers pushing them to keep it better than the back rows. There are those classes where everybody lines up and practices one kick for half an hour, and the higher belts have to work hard not to be shown up, and at some point, the lower ranked students are discovering they can keep up.

Very hard for me to tanglibly describe this. However, if somebody goes into a school that I don't care for and feels that he or she is benifitting from it, they are.

 

[GBlues]

As usual I should keep my mouth shut but.... here is my point of view. 5,6 8 years for a black belt? That is a seriously long time. I do not have a blackbelt in any system. I have had to drop out of different schools for one reason or the other, and many I never went back too. However, here is my thing, how many techniques is enough? 20, 30,40, 100, a 1,000? How many ways do you really need to defend against a haymaker? A straight punch, an elbow, a kick, knee, you seeing where I'm going with this? I here people talk about McDojo's all of the time, and how it has to do with all money. The reality is, is that martial arts have been set-up to be this way. You talk about well, they advance them too fast, it's supposed to take 8 years to be a blackbelt. Well, now wait a minute. So if the McDojo, guy is promoting people to blackbelt in 2 years, but the guy down the road, is promoting guys after 8, who's milking who? Is it necassary to learn 4 different techniques for a haymaker, when the only change is the way you strike the opponent? Example, when I went to my first formal Kenpo instructor, I learned a defense against a haymaker attack. It encompassed stepping back into a right neutral, bo. Proceeded by or done in tandem, blocking the strike with my right forearm, to come back to the opponents face, and to be accurate it is a back knuckle to the attackers nose. Now, same attack, same defense, only now for version B I have to go for a tiger claw strike to the face. Version C, a finger jab to the eyes, and version D a chop to the neck. The reality is you probably could get rid of a,b, and c, and learn one good effective technique you can land for sure. As opposed to a, the guy can still fight, and b maybe after 10 years I can rip the guys face off, or c if I have good enough aim I can poke out an eye, or lacerate the eyeball with my finger nails. Come on. Over the years many systems have added techniques. THat's it. Where as perhaps in the original system, they weren't there. Maybe martial arts should be about giving you a core technique base, with the theory, and knowledge of the way it works. And an emphasis more on learning to be spontaneous in combat, so that they can learn to make up there own techniques on the fly. I would imagine people would learn at a far greater pace, and reach there black belt status in a few years, instead, of a decade. Perhaps they'd actually be able to defend themselves, which is what they want, as opposed to getting stomped after 8 years, of studying karate, and just getting there blackbelt. With fewer techniques, progress and skill can be achieved at a far greater pace. THe more stuff you have to learn, the more you have to sort out, to get to, the proper defense you want to use in a given confrontation.

However, almost any art that you study today is going to take you 5-10 years to become a blackbelt. That's it. If having a blackbelt is that important to somebody, and they want to spend that much time to get it, more power to them. I personally don't care if I ever get to black belt, so long as I learn the material given and can perform it. Whether it be 2 years, 5 years, or 10 but at some point I want to feel like I am proficient in it. That is what people want. TO KNOW that when they have reached a certain level when and if the time ever comes that what they have learned will serve them well. Not, get them hurt even more. And the more crap that gets added to every martial art, the more fluff gets added and the longer it takes to get a black belt, or to reach profficiency. I mean just look at all of the arts that have that flamboyant flare, it's for show, not for self-defense. You can find it on you tube all day long that kind of crap, and it is in most martial arts I have seen on youtube. It's not necassary, nor is it in the martial spirit, to be bragadocious. Anyways, I'll stop now. That's my humble opinion.:erg:

 

[Gordon Nore]

However, almost any art that you study today is going to take you 5-10 years to become a blackbelt. That's it. If having a blackbelt is that important to somebody, and they want to spend that much time to get it, more power to them. I personally don't care if I ever get to black belt, so long as I learn the material given and can perform it. Whether it be 2 years, 5 years, or 10 but at some point I want to feel like I am proficient in it. That is what people want. TO KNOW that when they have reached a certain level when and if the time ever comes that what they have learned will serve them well. Not, get them hurt even more. And the more crap that gets added to every martial art, the more fluff gets added and the longer it takes to get a black belt, or to reach profficiency. I mean just look at all of the arts that have that flamboyant flare, it's for show, not for self-defense. You can find it on you tube all day long that kind of crap, and it is in most martial arts I have seen on youtube. It's not necassary, nor is it in the martial spirit, to be bragadocious. Anyways, I'll stop now. That's my humble opinion.:erg:

No need to stop. I tend to agree. People do need to know that they are improving. "Is there another to do that besides a test and a belt?" is the question that I think is being asked here. When you speak of "flamboyant flare," I understand exactly where you're coming from, and I wish I could explain better where I'm coming from. It's not flamboyance I'm seeing or looking for in a dojo. It's more subtle, and thus harder for me to tangibly describe.

When you ask how many defenses are there from a haymaker, that's a really good question. There is a danger of a curriculum of snap-together, this-attack-that-defense items. Over time I see that as fading away as a student comes into her or his own.

Where I likely disagree with others is that I see a lot of that happening before as student gets a dan, and others see it afterward.

By all means, as you say, train for the love of it.

 

[jfarnsworth]

Unfortunately, in the society we live in most want something for nothing & want to put as little effort into it as possible. A lot of people would like to take the 2yr. course, get the black belt then walk around "crowing" about the belt they've achieved. Every now & then I run across one of these people in person. Only to say that they could have just got on asian world's website & ordered the belt if they wanted it that badly.

Then on the flip side, there are those out there who don't mind putting in the time. The sweat. The bruising that comes with it. Those who are reading this post must obviously be one. Don't get in a rush for the belt. Learn, train, practice each day to gain better insight on the art. Devote time to your basics, forms, self defense to better serve you as a person. Eventually, you will be rewarded with the success in which you seek. Lead by example at your studio, whether you are the instructor or the student.

Martial arts training SHOULD take alot of work, require change and growth on the part of the student, it should be demanding. I don't think people are unwilling to work. Do you all think so?

As for the above statement I would say yes.

 

[exile]

Good post, GB, and deserves a fair reply. There are few key points here that really demand a response. So here's my take:

here is my thing, how many techniques is enough? 20, 30,40, 100, a 1,000? How many ways do you really need to defend against a haymaker? A straight punch, an elbow, a kick, knee, you seeing where I'm going with this? I here people talk about McDojo's all of the time, and how it has to do with all money. The reality is, is that martial arts have been set-up to be this way. You talk about well, they advance them too fast, it's supposed to take 8 years to be a blackbelt. Well, now wait a minute. So if the McDojo, guy is promoting people to blackbelt in 2 years, but the guy down the road, is promoting guys after 8, who's milking who?

OK, I see several separate issues in this post. First of all, the issue of the number of techs. Second is the issue of the number of years. Third is the issue (not completely independent of the others) of what the time you spend in training is building toward. So far as the first is concerned: no, you don't need a huge number of techs; and a lot of people in the 'progressive kata-based combat' movement will tell you that. Naihanchi was all that Choki Motobu needed to be one of the most formidable TMA fighters of his day. But I don't read the number of years in training as being about accumulating a zillion different techs, but rather becoming completely, intuitively capable in relating your response to the particular requirements of an SD situation. Acquiring, that is, the ease and confidence to switch gears in mid-technique for whatever reason. Being 'at home' in combat, in a sense. Even with a very sharpened, refined toolkit, a huge amount of training is required to get to that point where the logic of the fight—whether to go inside or outside, what angle to take to close the difference, what the opimal target is—is immediately transparent to your fraction-of-a-second assessment. So now we get to the 'number of years' issue: the fact is, it takes people a long time to get to the point where they are, so to speak, 'autonomous agents' in a combat situation—where they have not just the resources, but control of those resources, understanding of how to use the resources, to defend themselves. Think of chess: how long does it take you to learn the moves? Not all that long. How long does it take you to learn some of the major openings? A good deal longer, but still, not more than few months, if you work hard at it. And then, how long does it take you to develop the tactical abilities to bring your forces to bear on your opponent's (possibly non-obvious) weakness, evade his or her defensive efforts, and break his or her countermoves? This last is how I think of the vast majority of time we spend in learning our craft, and so far as I can tell, for most people it really is a matter of years to get to that point.

But the third point, what you're working toward, seems to me to be something bigger still than this acquired combat instinct. What you're really working toward is an understanding of the body-logic, if I can put it like that, of unarmed combat, and how to boost that understanding by studying and experimenting with new training techniques, including novel ones such as creating your own kata, or training on broken, uneven ground in street clothes, new strategies to decipher the effective techniques concealed in old kata/hyungs/hsings, and so on. To me, reaching black belt simply means you have enough basic knowledge to start seriously experimenting on your own in these areas, and also that you have at least begun to develop a kind of holistic sense of the logic of a real fight situation, and have trained the physical capablity to carry out your solution to the problem posed by every physical attack scenario. And my sense is, you are not gonna get to that point in just a year or two....

 

[Gordon Nore]

"The rice grows quickly and lasts a season. The oak grows slowly and lasts a century."

I seldom do formal belt tests. Often, I'll assess how a student performs at our national tournament or some other similar event as a grading factor, along with their class performance.

I've certainly heard of it being done this way. Teachers decide best how to promote students.

We've always told students they wouldn't be grading if we weren't sure they could pass. I've seen gradings that were below the student's usual abilities. I've had a couple myself.

It's interesting in all of this discussion of what's too easy, too lax, too much, etc., we could easily forget the other direction, where students are beat up and brutalized for rank. It does happen. We're all probably more on the same side of this issue. I think everyone chiming in here and on the other thread would be quite unified in that regard.

 

[terryl965]

I have student that have been with me for two and a half years and they are merely a great orange belt. Belts mean nothing to us except we get to get beaton for a couple of months before we really learn some new stuff.

 

[jks9199]

Regarding time... and I'll have to add this in another thread, too...

When my teacher was first learning, I have it on reliable authority that they trained for several (like close to 8) hours, almost every day of the week. Often more. They lived and breathed martial arts in a way that few of us do today. Even when I compare when I started about 23 years ago... I trained hours, every day. But today, I have a hard time getting students to commit to a single night each week for class. It's clear that some of them don't practice at all outside of class...

If you look at the raw intensity of training hours, you might find a justification for a change in the training duration before 1st black. (Though my system has maintained a minimum of 5 years for 1st black for several decades...)

 

[exile]

Regarding time... and I'll have to add this in another thread, too...

When my teacher was first learning, I have it on reliable authority that they trained for several (like close to 8) hours, almost every day of the week. Often more. They lived and breathed martial arts in a way that few of us do today. Even when I compare when I started about 23 years ago... I trained hours, every day. But today, I have a hard time getting students to commit to a single night each week for class. It's clear that some of them don't practice at all outside of class...

If you look at the raw intensity of training hours, you might find a justification for a change in the training duration before 1st black. (Though my system has maintained a minimum of 5 years for 1st black for several decades...)

Yeah, I think this too is a big part of it. To get to that intuitive level of comfort with a combat situation, you have to put in the time. And also, it takes a certain amount of time for what you learn at the top of your mind, so to speak, to percolate into your muscles and nervous system. Put those two factors together, and add in the very reduced training intensity jks is talking about, and you get... long, long timespans to first dan, eh?

 

[Gordon Nore]

exile,

You nailed it -- what I was stumbling for.

...So now we get to the 'number of years' issue: the fact is, it takes people a long time to get to the point where they are, so to speak, 'autonomous agents' in a combat situation—where they have not just the resources, but control of those resources, understanding of how to use the resources, to defend themselves. Think of chess: how long does it take you to learn the moves? Not all that long. How long does it take you to learn some of the major openings? A good deal longer, but still, not more than few months, if you work hard at it. And then, how long does it take you to develop the tactical abilities to bring your forces to bear on your opponent's (possibly non-obvious) weakness, evade his or her defensive efforts, and break his or her countermoves? This last is how I think of the vast majority of time we spend in learning our craft, and so far as I can tell, for most people it really is a matter of years to get to that point.

Exile, let me take your observations in another direction. If it's a simple question of being able to defend myself, I probably learned (for wont of a better) everything I needed to know quite some time ago. If all we're talking about is some drunk or druggie or evil-doer taking a swing at me -- well, I've been smacked a bunch of times by sober people in the dojo who were my friends -- so I should have come up some kind of strategy by long ago.

If I'm cornered, hopefully, I do the other thing that I was taught, as follows:

Hit him fast
Hit him hard
Run like Hell

So why go back and train more, whether one is a kyu or a dan? However many years it's been. As GB pointed, how many haymaker defenses are there, and how long could they take to learn? Obviously, we go back because we want more, even if it's more of the same. So when we get to the high-end learning you're talking about, that's so we can train or compete against other like-minded people who also come back for more.

One of my teachers often said, "You need to hurt somebody, just stick a fork in them. You want to learn martial arts, stick around for ten years."

 

[Gordon Nore]

If you look at the raw intensity of training hours, you might find a justification for a change in the training duration before 1st black. (Though my system has maintained a minimum of 5 years for 1st black for several decades...)

Excellent point. I met someone who described his regimen back in the days, and it was pretty astonishing. Although I'm in my late forties, I only came into it in the nineties, when you enrolled for classes. There's another era when people, including Westerners, practically lived in the dojo.

 

[Sylo]

I have been doing martial arts since I was 14 years old. I am 27 years old now, and I'm only high rank blue belt. Our ranking system is...

White
Yellow
Green
Blue
Red
Recommended Black
Black

High rank Blue basically just means I have a stripe.
Thats about a 13 year training span. Most "Mcdojo's" and most legit schools... I would have already been at least 1st dan. Due to work, having kids, and other life altering events I haven't been able to train consistently all this time. I'm not in a hurry. I know I will get there eventually. This isn't world of warcraft. I don't train just to reach the "end". There is no end for me. Only new things I can learn.

I am testing this Saturday for my red belt. Its been a long time coming. I've been doing Yul-Gok for close to 2 years now, off and on. I'm excited to see new material and learn new things. I'm not exactly sure how the idea that "faster is better" got into martial arts schools. I guess people just watch too much tv/movies. Where they see some "grandmaster" training some random guy how to be the baddest fighter ever in a matter of a week or two. It just doesn't work this way.

To me, alot of the schools now treat Martial Arts like Boy Scouts. Its all about spending a certain amount of time, or getting a new patch.

my goal in this one day is to become a teacher.. opening a school. I'm worried that I won't be able to keep students. Why? Because I can't bring myself to allow people to move up in the ranks who havent' worked for it. I can't allow someone who has been to every single class in the past year to test if they haven't worked hard during that time. They are in class sure, but their form is sloppy, they exhibit no desire to be there, and its an hr of their time they wish they were doing something else. If you want to move up, you'll do the work required. Bottom Line. Just coming to class for a certain amount of days doesn't qualify you for anything... why can't people understand this? Yes, your paying for a service. Your paying your instructor to teach you to the best of his ability. You are giving him permission to guide you in the way he sees fit. You shouldn't question his judgement if he decides that you need more work.

"Why isn't my kid testing?" --- Is what you often hear. "These other kids are, my kid has been to the same amount of classes or more than they have". They just don't get it.

 

[BrandonLucas]

There is no "set in stone" time that is required to reach blackbelt...although, as jks pointed out, many schools have a minimum requirement that must be reached before testing for the rank is considered.

What I was saying before is that it's not impossible that a student will reach blackbelt before a year or two's time, but it's also not very likely they will, either. There have been students that have earned it in a short amount of time, and deserved the rank that they wear. But, those students are few and far between...much the same as star highschool athletes that go to the majors straight out of highschool. Not that it just doesn't happen, but how many kids have you seen that jump straight out of highschool into the pros? Lebron James comes to mind...and I really can't think of any others...but it's not a usual occurance that this happens.

How does this relate to what McDojo's do?

Everyone of us has buried somewhere inside us the desire to see immediate results of one description or another. McDojos' take advantage of that desire by giving immediate results...and these results can be in many forms...such as more belts that the cirriculum would suggest (and by this, I mean that a student would have to pay for the test, receive the new belt and rank, but would get nothing new from the rank except the belt itself...no new techniques or anything else is learned), rank issued before the student is ready just to keep them interested, techniques taught before the student is ready to learn them, etc.

So, I'm not saying that just because a student has earned a blackbelt in a year or two, they must have come from a McDojo...and I'm trying to stay away from blanket statements here, because each case is different...I'm saying for a student to have earned a high rank in a short amount of time, they should be exceptional in terms of skill and maturity.

Alot of times, people overlook the maturity issue of being a blackbelt...the first thing that generally used to pop into my mind when thinking of a blackbelt is their physicall ability to take care of themselves. Well, the fact is that there is more to a blackbelt than just being able to beat people up. There's also the issue of not having to beat people up, and the ability to get away from a situation that would require physical violence.

Think of it in terms of becoming a boss at work...many bosses have the uncanny ability to do the paperwork exceptionally well...above and beyond many of the co-workers...and they may go above and get to work hours early and work hours late...but they have no people skills. (I happen to have one of those types of managers).

Just because the achievements look good on paper doesn't mean that the person is ready to accept the responsibilty. There's moer diminsion to the rank than just kicking and punching.

Anyway, all of these things are just things that should raise red flag..not that any one of these things are certainly examples of McDojos by themselves.

And, I still maintain that McDojo's main objective is money...not that all Martial Arts are out for money...several people on this forum have said that they instruct for free...but a McDojo will find things to charge the students for.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I am testing this Saturday for my red belt. Its been a long time coming...

Best of luck with that.

Interesting that you mentioned the Boy Sprouts. There is a martial art merit badge system that I've seen advertised online. Some people might find that McDojo-ish, but I think that might be an interesting way of incenting and rewarding younger students as they progress.