What Is A McDojo?

[RTKDCMB]

Sword techniques can be retrofitted to broom handles, canes, and pipes as well, but swords are sharp, so you don't generally have to be concerned with someone grabbing the blade. Canes and broomsicks are not sharp, so an unarmed opponent has more options to disarm you.

I think many of us remember the broom stick sword fights we had when we were kids.

 

[TKDTony2179]

I will be back on Wed to add my thought on all of this.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I think many of us remember the broom stick sword fights we had when we were kids.

My brother and I used to fence with old car antennae.

 

[Zero]

My brother and I used to fence with old car antennae.

Yeah, we used to fence with ski poles when we went on Winter holidays, am glad (and kinda amazed) to this day no one copped it in the eye.
As an additional aside, we also used to play frisbie with dinner plates on these ski holidays (not sure why), my "best buddy" threw one as I had turned away one day and I copped it right in the forehead - dinner plate to forehead sure hurts (not sure if I ever quite recovered from that one...)

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Yeah, we did the sword fights with broom sticks, fencing with car antenae, but no ski poles, though we'd have used those if we'd had them.

 

[Koshiki]

Soooooo...

If a school teaches excellent technique, has high training standards, and is full of knowledgeable and effective teachers and students, but uses rigorous salesmanship to extract large amounts of money, is it a McDojo, or a school with poor financial ethics?

Conversely, if a school has both cheap, lax training and a cheap, lax financial plan, is it a McDojo, or just a cheap school with cheap technique.

In other words, does a McDojo need to have both high costs and poor training, or can it just have one or the other?

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Soooooo...

If a school teaches excellent technique, has high training standards, and is full of knowledgeable and effective teachers and students, but uses rigorous salesmanship to extract large amounts of money, is it a McDojo, or a school with poor financial ethics?

Conversely, if a school has both cheap, lax training and a cheap, lax financial plan, is it a McDojo, or just a cheap school with cheap technique.

In other words, does a McDojo need to have both high costs and poor training, or can it just have one or the other?

The answer to that really depends on how one is using the term. Even though Outback Steakhouse, TGI Fridays, Applebees, Chili's, Silver Diner, and Olive Garden all use marketing and presentation ideas based on the McDonald's formula, nobody calls them McRestaurants.

Generally, McDojo is a pejorative and gets applied to schools that provide a quality of training that would be on the McNuggets end of the scale rather than on the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse end of the scale.

What you describe is what I would call a well run school with an owner that has business savvy and charges a premium for premium services. Having good salesmanship isn't a bad thing, and so long as it isn't done unethically, I'm fine with it.

Where people take issue with McDojo type schools is that in while they charge a premium, the quality of what you pay for is anything but.

 

[MJS]

Sorry folks, had some family things to deal with, thus my lack of activity in this thread. Anyways, looks like a lot of great replies. I'll have to sift thru and comment, but I'll toss in my .02 as to what I feel makes a McDojo.

young kids (under the age of 15) wearing a black belt.

young kids with a 2nd, 3rd, 4th degree black belt.

a head inst. with multiple high ranks. Sorry, I just can't see how people can claim upwards of 4+ high ranking dan grades. A low level BB in a few arts, sure I can see that, but 6th, 7th, 8th dan in 4+ arts...unless you do nothing but train, day in/day out, I don't buy it...and even then, I'd still question it.

Passing people (ie handing out rank) for the sake of keeping people happy and keeping students. That tells me that the $$ is more important than the overall quality of your student body.

 

[MJS]

Additionally, a McDojo who's owner hasn't forgotten why (s)he teaches martial arts can sometimes offer a very good school that is also profitable, and thus not as likely to close when times are lean, but such schools are definitely the exception to the rule.

How is that a McDojo? That's just a successful school.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

I can agree with this to a point...sure, it is a successful school, but...if the $$ is more important than the students and how they perform, how well they know the material, etc, then I'd say it'd be a Mcdojo.

 

[MJS]

Soooooo...

If a school teaches excellent technique, has high training standards, and is full of knowledgeable and effective teachers and students, but uses rigorous salesmanship to extract large amounts of money, is it a McDojo, or a school with poor financial ethics?

Conversely, if a school has both cheap, lax training and a cheap, lax financial plan, is it a McDojo, or just a cheap school with cheap technique.

In other words, does a McDojo need to have both high costs and poor training, or can it just have one or the other?

Personally, I can't stand high pressure tactics. Sure, I understand that when you're in a sales type of business, making that sale is key. But, once again, when you're pushing the buyer into something they don't want, that's not right. For example...my wife and I have purchased 3 vehicles, over time, from the same car dealership. I have a particular salesman that I deal with. Not once, during any of those 3 sales, have we ever been pressured...and this man has received numerous awards from the dealership, for his excellent work.

Word of mouth is the best seller IMO. I mean think about it...if the standards are that high, why does high pressure sales tactics have to be used?

 

[seasoned]

[h=2]Re: What Is A McDojo? [/h]A place to drop the kids off at while mom or dad take care of the important things, "shopping, hairdresser, movies, local gym to get in shape".

 

[Koshiki]

Passing people (ie handing out rank) for the sake of keeping people happy and keeping students. That tells me that the $$ is more important than the overall quality of your student body.

Generally, I agree with that. For anyone older than a young child, No, absolutely not acceptable. For anyone above a very low, intro level rank, No, absolutely not acceptable.

In my system, we have had kids who reaaaally want to progress, and have taken classes for a year or more and are still the only one with a plain ol' white belt, while some of their most talented or hardest training friends are already wearing a Yellow Belt. They get discouraged, they get frustrated, they feel like they are hopeless and they want to quit. Obviously, if they don't know and can't perform the required material, they shouldn't get a rank. But if they were sedentary, parked-in-front-of-the-TV kids until they got here, and they're trying but just can't catch up yet? I can see the value of giving them that first kid-rank yellow stripe, with a firm reminder that they were promoted for TRYING, and that they will NOT be promoted again until they reach an acceptable level.

Whenever a situation like this arises, there is generally lively debate, post-test, pre-promotion, between those who fear the kid will disappear and want to get him/her to keep trying, and those who are hard-line against sub-par promotions at any level. So yeah, don't give a kid a green belt to keep him happy, and don't charity promote ANYONE who's at all into double-digit ages, and don't get into the habit of promoting kids to keep them entertained. But in rare cases, I'd rather see a kid with a rank they don't quite live up to grow into it and possibly become a strong student of the martial arts, then see them drop it and not look back, even if it does preserve the complete purity of the ranking system.

Then again, I'd rather get rid of the ranking system entirely, and eliminate any danger of people training for coloured fabric rather than knowledge.

 

[Steve]

Soooooo...

If a school teaches excellent technique, has high training standards, and is full of knowledgeable and effective teachers and students, but uses rigorous salesmanship to extract large amounts of money, is it a McDojo, or a school with poor financial ethics?

It is a mcdojo.

Conversely, if a school has both cheap, lax training and a cheap, lax financial plan, is it a McDojo, or just a cheap school with cheap technique.

I'd call this one "out of business," at least, out of business soon.

In other words, does a McDojo need to have both high costs and poor training, or can it just have one or the other?

High cost is one indicator of a McDojo, but the quality of the training is, IMO, less important than the emphasis on some particular sales techniques to generate profits.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Re: What Is A McDojo?

A place to drop the kids off at while mom or dad take care of the important things, "shopping, hairdresser, movies, local gym to get in shape".

Which is how many of them stay in business. Afterschool programs are lucrative.

 

[Grenadier]

Soooooo...

If a school teaches excellent technique, has high training standards, and is full of knowledgeable and effective teachers and students, but uses rigorous salesmanship to extract large amounts of money, is it a McDojo, or a school with poor financial ethics?

Using that criteria to define a "McDojo" seems to be off the mark.

If that school gives high quality education when it comes to martial arts, then I see nothing wrong with the owner charging what the market can bear. If his students are willing to pay the prices, then his students are of the belief that they're getting their money's worth, even if it is a high price, and even if there's another school in the area that gives just as good of an education at a lower price.

If you think about it this way, someone who lives in the state of Massachusetts, who goes to Harvard University, is going to pay 50,000+ a year in tuition, room and board. That's quite a hefty sum, considering that University of Massachusetts, being a state school, will cost that same Massachusetts resident a lot less money.

For that matter, if I were a betting man, I'd wager dollars to dimes, that someone who goes to U-Mass can get just as good of an education if he takes his schooling seriously.

Still, if you ask the people who decided to go to Harvard, instead of a state school, if it's worth paying the money, I can pretty much guarantee you that the overwhelming majority will give you a resounding "yes" answer. Maybe they have a bit of an inflated view of the place, or perhaps they don't know that you can get just as good of an education elsewhere, but to those people who go to Harvard, they'll certainly perceive a high value on what they're getting.

I don't think that anyone here would call Harvard University a "McCollege..."

 

[lklawson]

I don't think that anyone here would call Harvard University a "McCollege..."

No. You'd call it a McUniversity.

<ducking>

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[MJS]

Generally, I agree with that. For anyone older than a young child, No, absolutely not acceptable. For anyone above a very low, intro level rank, No, absolutely not acceptable.

In my system, we have had kids who reaaaally want to progress, and have taken classes for a year or more and are still the only one with a plain ol' white belt, while some of their most talented or hardest training friends are already wearing a Yellow Belt. They get discouraged, they get frustrated, they feel like they are hopeless and they want to quit. Obviously, if they don't know and can't perform the required material, they shouldn't get a rank. But if they were sedentary, parked-in-front-of-the-TV kids until they got here, and they're trying but just can't catch up yet? I can see the value of giving them that first kid-rank yellow stripe, with a firm reminder that they were promoted for TRYING, and that they will NOT be promoted again until they reach an acceptable level.

Whenever a situation like this arises, there is generally lively debate, post-test, pre-promotion, between those who fear the kid will disappear and want to get him/her to keep trying, and those who are hard-line against sub-par promotions at any level. So yeah, don't give a kid a green belt to keep him happy, and don't charity promote ANYONE who's at all into double-digit ages, and don't get into the habit of promoting kids to keep them entertained. But in rare cases, I'd rather see a kid with a rank they don't quite live up to grow into it and possibly become a strong student of the martial arts, then see them drop it and not look back, even if it does preserve the complete purity of the ranking system.

Then again, I'd rather get rid of the ranking system entirely, and eliminate any danger of people training for coloured fabric rather than knowledge.

In your opinion, by doing what you suggest with the kids, do you feel that that would solve the problem, or just satisfy it for the time being and potentially have the same issue come up again, at a later time?

As for doing away with rank...while seeing some sort of progress is nice, I'd agree with that.

 

[Cirdan]

To me a McDojo is a place that hands out rank for a fee and has pretty lax classes so students are not driven away. Typically also a bit on the flashy side, good with advertising and may function as a support group for those addicted to MA myths like throwing chiballs. Haddokkenn!

 

[Zero]

No. You'd call it a McUniversity.

Ouch, I like it.

 

[Zero]

Then again, I'd rather get rid of the ranking system entirely, and eliminate any danger of people training for coloured fabric rather than knowledge.

There's a lot to be agreed with in that.