Shaolinwind
2nd Black Belt
I have serious concerns with my current school. I had just transferred to a different Do Jang within the same organization, and found this new do jang to be far different to the original I attended.
The organization is highly reputable, as is the Grand Master. However I feel I may have gotten a bad egg as far as a do jang. Out of respect for the organization I will not name the org. or any of the instructors.
Firstly, the students in my opinion have very poor spirit. In the old school, everyone bowed to everyone upon entering the do jang. The new one, hardly anyone bows to anyone. Everyone, including senior members arrive at the school in full uniform, belt and all when it's expressly forbidden to wear the belt or upper part of the do bok in public.
Having been paired up with senior belts, few of them have been able to help me much. For instance, a person just 1 rank higher than me was unable to show me the 1 step sparring moves for my new rank as he was instructed to, resulting in me not learning these moves until later when I was chastized for not knowing them. This is not a unique experience. I always felt that I learned a great deal from classmates, or at least should. My fellow students here offer little help in anything, and I get a great deal of contradicting information. During a recent test, we were doing different moves per instruction. When crossing my arms for a low block, a blackbelt hovering around quietly instructed me to switch my arms.. Which were in fact in the proper position.
I can go on about people with weak spirit and weak Tang Soo Do. I am a mere beginner of 7 months, so who am I to judge? One doesn't need a weather report to know it's raining.
As discussed in one of my previous posts, my wife was getting roughed up quite a bit by senior members in sparring. We talked to the instructor, she assured her that she would be more careful when pairing her with people to spar. This has yielded little results as she was still coming home badly bruised by some overzealous green belt with poor control.
Classes start consistently 10 minutes late, and end 5 minutes early. 15 minutes are spent on stretching that in my opinion should be done before class. That leaves me with a half hour of solid training.
There are adult classes, but for some reason they always have kids in them. Kids as young as age 8 in fact. Badly behaved kids who talk and don't follow instruction.
This leads me to ask.. Whose fault is this? The senior instructor? Perhaps. She is a master of the art, but that doesn't mean she's a good teacher. In fact, she barely instructs. I know I am not doing everything right, so why do I never get corrected?
I am an adult of nearly 30 years of age. I am aware of a need to be prepared. But the day we didn't have sparring gear ready to go (it was in the car), there was a lecture to the whole class about being prepared. This is a good thing in my opinion, except then 3 weeks went by where we sparred in class but she didn't instruct us to get our gear on. What kind of person does that?
$50 every 4 months to test wouldn't be so bad, if I thought there was a way to fail the test. During testing, when a person was unable to fullfil the requirements, such as a board break with a running jumping back kick, he was instructed just to do a regular back kick. When a person couldn't break the board at all, they just had them do it after a class later. This shows me that you don't really need to meet the requirements for the next level other than the bare minimum or less. I wasn't fully convinced they were even watching us as we went through the motions of 1-step sparring moves and forms.
No one ever fails tests, ever.
I understand it's a business, but I think the business end is in the way of training. They don't want to fail people in tests, since tests are expensive and it might discourage someone from continuing to pay their membership fees. They allow people to bring their children to adult classes probably because it keeps members in the school and the money rolling in. Money is important, as a business man I know this. But I don't shell out my hard earned just to take the fast train to black belt or endure the antics of noisy and misbehaved children.
I love Tang Soo Do and am proud of my achievements because I worked hard for them. I weigh almost 300 pounds, and just a few minutes of front stretch kicks gets me winded. But I still hold my stances low, move fast, kick high, and never give in to pain. I try to control my breathing, take the pain, and work work work. I have personal goals to meet and subsequently exceed and I know it won't come easy. I take pride in every choon be I execute.
But when I look to my right and see a black belt performing a lazy, half-baked choon be, I want to just give up. That's poor spirit on my part, but it's a result of a cumulative effect. I started to see the problems and I decided not to worry about what other people are doing, just my own training. But then, what other people are doing effects my training, and it reflects the quality of training I can get.
I believe that I should part ways with this school. Am I out of line? Am I acting too fast? How can I talk with the instructor about this, when there are so many problems? I want to just stop going, and send them my membership card. But, part of me says I should handle it in a different way.
I could really use a bit of wisdom right now.. Unfortunately I'm a young man with very little of my own. Any comments or suggestions are most welcome.
kind regards,
G.P.
The organization is highly reputable, as is the Grand Master. However I feel I may have gotten a bad egg as far as a do jang. Out of respect for the organization I will not name the org. or any of the instructors.
Firstly, the students in my opinion have very poor spirit. In the old school, everyone bowed to everyone upon entering the do jang. The new one, hardly anyone bows to anyone. Everyone, including senior members arrive at the school in full uniform, belt and all when it's expressly forbidden to wear the belt or upper part of the do bok in public.
Having been paired up with senior belts, few of them have been able to help me much. For instance, a person just 1 rank higher than me was unable to show me the 1 step sparring moves for my new rank as he was instructed to, resulting in me not learning these moves until later when I was chastized for not knowing them. This is not a unique experience. I always felt that I learned a great deal from classmates, or at least should. My fellow students here offer little help in anything, and I get a great deal of contradicting information. During a recent test, we were doing different moves per instruction. When crossing my arms for a low block, a blackbelt hovering around quietly instructed me to switch my arms.. Which were in fact in the proper position.
I can go on about people with weak spirit and weak Tang Soo Do. I am a mere beginner of 7 months, so who am I to judge? One doesn't need a weather report to know it's raining.
As discussed in one of my previous posts, my wife was getting roughed up quite a bit by senior members in sparring. We talked to the instructor, she assured her that she would be more careful when pairing her with people to spar. This has yielded little results as she was still coming home badly bruised by some overzealous green belt with poor control.
Classes start consistently 10 minutes late, and end 5 minutes early. 15 minutes are spent on stretching that in my opinion should be done before class. That leaves me with a half hour of solid training.
There are adult classes, but for some reason they always have kids in them. Kids as young as age 8 in fact. Badly behaved kids who talk and don't follow instruction.
This leads me to ask.. Whose fault is this? The senior instructor? Perhaps. She is a master of the art, but that doesn't mean she's a good teacher. In fact, she barely instructs. I know I am not doing everything right, so why do I never get corrected?
I am an adult of nearly 30 years of age. I am aware of a need to be prepared. But the day we didn't have sparring gear ready to go (it was in the car), there was a lecture to the whole class about being prepared. This is a good thing in my opinion, except then 3 weeks went by where we sparred in class but she didn't instruct us to get our gear on. What kind of person does that?
$50 every 4 months to test wouldn't be so bad, if I thought there was a way to fail the test. During testing, when a person was unable to fullfil the requirements, such as a board break with a running jumping back kick, he was instructed just to do a regular back kick. When a person couldn't break the board at all, they just had them do it after a class later. This shows me that you don't really need to meet the requirements for the next level other than the bare minimum or less. I wasn't fully convinced they were even watching us as we went through the motions of 1-step sparring moves and forms.
No one ever fails tests, ever.
I understand it's a business, but I think the business end is in the way of training. They don't want to fail people in tests, since tests are expensive and it might discourage someone from continuing to pay their membership fees. They allow people to bring their children to adult classes probably because it keeps members in the school and the money rolling in. Money is important, as a business man I know this. But I don't shell out my hard earned just to take the fast train to black belt or endure the antics of noisy and misbehaved children.
I love Tang Soo Do and am proud of my achievements because I worked hard for them. I weigh almost 300 pounds, and just a few minutes of front stretch kicks gets me winded. But I still hold my stances low, move fast, kick high, and never give in to pain. I try to control my breathing, take the pain, and work work work. I have personal goals to meet and subsequently exceed and I know it won't come easy. I take pride in every choon be I execute.
But when I look to my right and see a black belt performing a lazy, half-baked choon be, I want to just give up. That's poor spirit on my part, but it's a result of a cumulative effect. I started to see the problems and I decided not to worry about what other people are doing, just my own training. But then, what other people are doing effects my training, and it reflects the quality of training I can get.
I believe that I should part ways with this school. Am I out of line? Am I acting too fast? How can I talk with the instructor about this, when there are so many problems? I want to just stop going, and send them my membership card. But, part of me says I should handle it in a different way.
I could really use a bit of wisdom right now.. Unfortunately I'm a young man with very little of my own. Any comments or suggestions are most welcome.
kind regards,
G.P.
