Our April Fool's Day prank this year was to launch a quiz where you could find out if your school is a "McDojo" or not, just to poke fun at the idea and understandable sensitivities around it.

It was actually possible to be told that your school was not a McDojo, and that happened in 2 of 13 results. The quiz remains online at the moment, and will be for the foreseeable future, so please feel free to play with it.

But for the sake of posterity, please find the questions and answers from the quiz, and how they informed whether or not you were told that you were in a McDojo. The answers generally led you to the opposite of what you would have assumed. Thank you to @bushido_man96 for question ideas.

Thanks for all of your good natured replies, as always. The quiz was not anyone saying that any of the traits mentioned is definitively a "McDojo" or not because while some traits may be more common in schools where training quality may not be good compared to the cost, there are plenty of exceptions where the opposite can be true. 

Hope you had a great day! 

Patrick

Introduction: Do You Train at a McDojo? Answer these questions to see whether your school leans more toward quality training or has questionable “belt factory” vibes.

1. How many colored belt ranks does your school have?

• Less than 5 (this answer indicates your school is a McDojo)
• 5-10 (McDojo)
• More than 10 (neutral; I did this so that ties would always go to your school being a McDojo)

2. Does your school train only on hardwood floors?

• Yes (McDojo)
• No (Not a McDojo)

3. Does your instructor display his certifications in the dojo?

• Yes (Not a McDojo)
• No (McDojo)

4. Does your instructor use a curriculum that starts simple and gets more complex as ranks increase?

• Yes (McDojo)
• No (Not a McDojo)

5. What happens when a student makes mistakes or struggles?

• They get coached with specifics, patience, and realistic feedback (McDojo)
• Students are praised no matter what, and standard feel unclear or lowered to avoid discomfort (Not a McDojo)

6. How does the school handle cross-training or visiting other gyms/schools?

• They're supportive or neutral (McDojo)
• Cross-training is treated like betrayal (Not a McDojo)

Outcome #1: Not a McDojo (Solid School). Your school shows strong signs of legit instruction. No school is perfect, but yours looks focused on growth over gimmicks.

Outcome #2: Full McDojo (Belt Factory Alert). Sorry to say that it appears you are training at a McDojo.

We're adding a new feature to the site: Quizzes.

Our first one is now available, drawing on nearly 25 years of conversations here in the community to help you determine whether or not the school you are currently training at is a McDojo. Take the quiz and find out!

Quiz: Is Your Martial Arts School a McDojo?

We'll be adding a new quiz every week through the summer, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

Patrick

May 21 will mark 25 years since KarateForums.com launched. I know. That's pretty wild. Thank you for being a part of it.

Obviously, I want to mark the occasion. Amongst the staff, we're kicking around some ideas. For example: We'll dig into the stats a bit and come up with some interesting lists and data. Maybe we could open up a submission form for members to talk about what the community means to them and publish those stories. And the ideas build from there!

But I wanted to put out a public call, too, because I'd love to hear from you and any ideas that you might have. If you'd prefer it be private, please send me a private message. Obviously, I can't make any guarantees on any particular idea, just because it's based on the time I have available, but it would still be wonderful to hear more about anything that comes to mind for you.

Thank you for reading this.

Patrick

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com.

We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community.

Our honoree this time is... @Zaine for the fourth time!

Last August, Zaine marked 20 years of being a member here at KarateForums.com! That's an incredible period of time, but it is easily exceeded by the quality of your contributions over the years, John. Thank you for being such a big part of our community!

Patrick

I just wanted to call out an upcoming change to our login system here at KarateForums.com. I am not setting a date for the change yet. It will occur during normal updates of our community software, and I will follow up on this thread with a date when I know it.

Previously, you have been able to login to your account using your username and password. But as best practices have changed over the years, many sites have shifted to login using your email address and password.

The simple reason is that your username is clearly visible on the site - so everyone has it. For example, you know that my username is Patrick. If someone was trying to access my account, they would just need to guess my password. Hopefully, you have a complex one. But even if you do, the email address you use on KarateForums.com is not publicly visible on the site. If someone was trying to access your account, they would need to guess what email address you have on file.

I should add that we haven't had any issues with accounts being breached or anything like that, this isn't in response to any particular concern. It's happening now because the new version of the community software that we use has it as a standard feature. So, when we update to the next version, the feature will be automatically applied, and I just wanted to give you a heads up.

You should always keep a current email address on file with us, just in case you ever lose access to your account, but if you are worried about this change, now would be a good time to verify the email address you have on your account, which you can do at karateforums.com/settings/email/. 

If you have any questions, please feel free. Thanks for reading.

Patrick

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com.

We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community.

Our honoree this time is... @KarateKen for the second time!

Thank you for all of your continued contributions over the years, KarateKen! You have made an impact, and I'm grateful to have you as a member of our community.

Patrick

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com.

We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community.

Our honoree this time is... @Furinkazan!

So glad to have you join us in October, Furinkazan. Thank you for the contributions that you have made thus far. Excited to continue to get to know you through this community.

Patrick

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com.  

After a month and a half of nominating and voting, the 24th edition of the KarateForums.com Awards have come to an end. It is now time for us to announce the winners!

Before I do so, I wanted to once again congratulate everyone who was nominated. Regardless of whether or not you won the award, the fact that you were nominated means that, when asked to identify a member who really stood out in the past year, your fellow community members thought of you. In the history of this community, only 169 members have ever been nominated for an award.

To be nominated is pretty cool, and you should be proud. If you did not win or were not nominated, please don't take it badly. These awards do have meaning, but they are also for fun and not everyone can win or be nominated. Please join me in congratulating our winners.  

I would like to specifically thank everyone who participated in the process by nominating and voting. It is the community that selected the nominees and decided the winners. There are no KarateForums.com Awards without you.

In fact, a majority of our nominees took the time to vote in categories where they were nominated. Since you can't vote for yourself, your choice is to vote for someone else or not vote at all. Though I can't reveal who voted for whom, please know that I appreciate everyone who thoughtfully voted in the categories where they were nominated. It says a lot about you, and I love to see it.

Without further ado, here are our winners:

1. Member of the Year: @KarateKen

2. Community Spirit Award: (tie) @bushido_man96 (for the 9th year and 2nd consecutive!) and @DarthPenguin

3. Staff Member of the Year: (tie) @bushido_man96 (for the 9th year and 2nd consecutive!) and @Wastelander (for the 3rd year and 2nd consecutive!)

4. Funniest Member of the Year: @KarateKen

5. Karate Contributor of the Year: @Spartacus Maximus

6. Health and Fitness Contributor of the Year: @bushido_man96 (for the 5th year!)

7. Instructors and School Owners Contributor of the Year: @Wastelander (for the 4th year!)

Congratulations to bushido_man96 (3 wins!), KarateKen (2 wins!), Wastelander (2 wins!), DarthPenguin, and Spartacus Maximus!

bushido_man96 has now hit the milestone of 25 wins over the history of the KarateForums.com Awards, currently with 27, which is 2nd all-time. Wastelander reached and surpassed the 10 win mark, now with 11, good for 5th all-time. Finally, DarthPenguin now has 5 wins, T8th all-time. Congrats all around.

For past winners and all of the awards historical data, please check out: http://www.karateforums.com/awards.php

Thank you for reading and for supporting the KarateForums.com Awards.

Sincerely,

Patrick

I wanted to take a moment to wish you a happy holiday season. Thank you for being a part of KarateForums.com. I hope 2026 finds you in a happy, healthy, and safe place.

Patrick

Welcome to the voting period for the 24th annual KarateForums.com Awards!

Through these awards, we recognize just a few of the individuals who have made outstanding contributions to KarateForums.com in the past year.

You submitted your nominations and, from those, we have our KarateForums.com Awards 2025 nominees. In all, 11 different members have been nominated in the various categories that make up this year's awards. They are @KarateKen, @Nidan Melbourne, @Zaine, @Spartacus Maximus, @aurik, @DarthPenguin, @bushido_man96, @sensei8, @Wastelander, @crash, and @Himokiri Karate!

KarateKen was nominated in 4 categories, the most of any member, followed by Spartacus Maximus, bushido_man96, sensei8, and Wastelander with 3. Our historical award numbers have been updated and new milestones have been reached!

Congratulations to Spartacus Maximus on reaching 20 nominations (now with 22, 6th all-time) and KarateKen on hitting 5 (now with 7, T17th all-time)! I also wanted to highlight Wastelander for reaching the top 5 all-time. Previously, Wastelander was T5th (technically in the top 6), and now is T4th.

With the ballots crafted, it is now time to vote.

What You Should Know Before Voting

1. These awards take into consideration all community activity between October 19, 2024 and October 18, 2025. You should vote based upon activity during this period - not activity before or after.
2. To vote, you must have a KarateForums.com account with at least 10 posts made on or before October 18, 2025.
3. You cannot vote for yourself. If you do, it will be removed.
4. Your votes will be kept private. We do not publicly reveal who voted for whom.
5. Please do not attempt to artificially inflate our vote totals in any way. This includes, but is not limited to: Trading votes, encouraging people to vote indiscriminately (publicly or privately), sending spam and any other behavior that could lead to results being artificially skewed. Members found to be participating in these activities will be disqualified from nomination in any category.
6. Please note that you do not have to vote in every category. You can vote in as many or as few as you would like - please go for as many as you feel comfortable with. The more valid votes we receive, the better!

Categories

The categories are listed below. For each category, you will find a link to the ballot where you can vote.

Member of the Year
https://karateforums.com/topic/52457-awards-25-member-of-the-year/

Community Spirit Award
https://karateforums.com/topic/52456-awards-25-community-spirit-award/

Staff Member of the Year
https://karateforums.com/topic/52455-awards-25-staff-member-of-the-year/

Funniest Member of the Year
https://karateforums.com/topic/52454-awards-25-funniest-member-of-the-year/

Karate Contributor of the Year
https://karateforums.com/topic/52453-awards-25-karate-contributor-of-the-year/

Health and Fitness Contributor of the Year
https://karateforums.com/topic/52452-awards-25-health-and-fitness-contributor-of-the-year/

Instructors and School Owners Contributor of the Year
https://karateforums.com/topic/52451-awards-25-instructors-and-school-owners-contributor-of-the-year/

Vote Now

Please vote. 

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5). Please do not post your votes in any thread.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to private message me or reply here.

Thank you for reading and for visiting KarateForums.com. Your participation in these awards is what makes them meaningful. I can't wait to see who you vote for this year.

Sincerely,

Patrick

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com.

We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community.

Our honoree this time is... @wagnerk (for the 4th time)!

Thank you for being a part of this community for so long, Ken! 2026 will mark your 20th year here, which is just incredible.

Patrick

Upon first glance at our community, it would appear that martial arts brought us all here, and one would think that martial arts is what binds us all together. I think it’s much more than that. Martial artists are who we are, and who we are is why we are martial artists. The drive, the determination, the perseverance of sticking with something and making it not just a hobby, but a lifestyle, says something about who we are. And that “something” is also what continues to build this community.

All martial artists experience the highs and lows, positives and negatives that come with a lifetime of training in the martial arts. This community, KarateForums.com, has been a pillar of support for those of us who continue along this journey, because community members come here to laugh, cry, exclaim, and gripe about our training, knowing we are coming to an open and honest community that will back each other, guide each other through, and support each other as we navigate “the way.”

Whether one has been a student for 30+ years or is a brand new white belt just donning the gi for the first time, KarateForums.com is a collection of like-minded individuals that all share a common set of interests, and I truly see that each and every one of us genuinely cares about everyone else here and the goals that we have.

KarateForums.com isn’t just another website; it’s as much a part of my martial arts journey as practicing the martial arts is. I truly believe I am not alone in this. The longevity of KarateForums.com is good proof that this is the case for many others as well.

Happy half-birthday, KarateForums.com! Let’s keep it rolling!

Award Description: This award is intended to acknowledge the member who you feel best exemplifies the qualities that KarateForums.com puts a premium on. Knowledge is valuable, but most valuable is a kind and helpful nature. You don't need to be a martial arts expert to be nominated for this award - you need to be someone who is kind and who shares what they know in a productive fashion that helps others.

Here are the nominees:

• @KarateKen
• @Nidan Melbourne
• @Zaine
• @Spartacus Maximus

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5).

If you have any questions, please contact me via our contact us page or private message.

Thank you for voting.

Award Description: This award should go to a person whom you feel has a strong passion for this community. A person who is all about the home team - in this case, KarateForums.com.

Here are the nominees:

• @Zaine
• @aurik
• @DarthPenguin
• @bushido_man96
• @Nidan Melbourne

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5).

If you have any questions, please contact me via our contact us page or private message.

Thank you for voting.

Award Description: This award is the same as the Member of the Year award, except that this award is for current staff members only (except Patrick).

Here are the nominees:

• @bushido_man96
• @sensei8
• @Wastelander

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5).

If you have any questions, please contact me via our contact us page or private message.

Thank you for voting.

Award Description: Humor is an important aspect of the forums, and this award recognizes the member who has brought a smile to your face many times.

Here are the nominees:

• @KarateKen
• @crash
• @Himokiri Karate

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5).

If you have any questions, please contact me via our contact us page or private message.

Thank you for voting.

Award Description: This award is for your favorite contributor within the Karate forum - a member who has added substantial value to that section in the past year.

Here are the nominees:

• @Spartacus Maximus
• @Wastelander
• @sensei8
• @aurik

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5).

If you have any questions, please contact me via our contact us page or private message.

Thank you for voting.

Award Description: This award is for your favorite contributor within the Health and Fitness forum - a member who has added substantial value to that section in the past year.

Here are the nominees:

• @KarateKen
• @DarthPenguin
• @bushido_man96

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5).

If you have any questions, please contact me via our contact us page or private message.

Thank you for voting.

Award Description: This award is for your favorite contributor within the Instructors and School Owners forum - a member who has added substantial value to that section in the past year.

Here are the nominees:

• @Spartacus Maximus
• @Wastelander
• @KarateKen
• @sensei8

Voting will be closed on December 6, 2025 at 8pm Eastern (UTC -5).

If you have any questions, please contact me via our contact us page or private message.

Thank you for voting.

Welcome to the 24th annual KarateForums.com Awards!  

Through these awards, we recognize just a few of the individuals who have made outstanding contributions to KarateForums.com in the past year. Over the last 23 years, we have honored 169 different members with a nomination and 69 with an award.

Your participation is vital. It is the members of this community who select the nominees and vote for the winners.

What You Should Know Before Nominating

1. Review the KarateForums.com Awards 2025 Nominations Guide, which can serve as a starting point in filling out your ballot.

2. These awards take into consideration all community activity between October 19, 2024 and October 18, 2025. Members must be nominated based upon their activity in this period.

3. To nominate, you must have a KarateForums.com account with at least 25 posts made on or before October 18, 2025.

4. Only one member can be nominated for each award. In other words, you cannot nominate two members for Member of the Year. You have to pick one person. One person can be nominated for more than one award, however.

5. A nominated member must have contributed to KarateForums.com or to the specific section recognized by an award within the above date period.

6. You cannot nominate yourself for any of the awards.

7. Your nominations will be kept private. We do not publicly reveal who nominated whom.

8. Please do not attempt to artificially inflate our nomination totals in any way. This includes, but is not limited to: Trading nominations, encouraging people to nominate indiscriminately (publicly or privately), sending spam and any other behavior that could lead to results being artificially skewed. Members found to be participating in these activities will be disqualified from nomination in any category.

9. Though it is unlikely to occur, a banned member cannot be nominated.

10. Please note that you do not have to nominate in every category. You can nominate for as many or as few as you would like. Please go for as many as you feel comfortable with. The more valid nominations we receive, the better!

From these nominations, the ballot for each award will be chosen, consisting of the top 4 nominees plus ties. Through the poll system available on these forums, you will be able to vote for the winners!

Categories

Important note: All members (including Sempais and Senseis) are eligible for nomination in any category, except where otherwise noted. However, I (Patrick) am ineligible for nomination in any category.

1. Member of the Year

This award is intended to acknowledge the member who you feel best exemplifies the qualities that KarateForums.com puts a premium on. Knowledge is valuable, but most valuable is a kind and helpful nature. You don't need to be a martial arts expert to be nominated for this award - you need to be someone who is kind and who shares what they know in a productive fashion that helps others. Current staff members (Sempais, Senseis, and Patrick) cannot be nominated for this award.

2. Community Spirit Award

This award should go to a person whom you feel has a strong passion for this community. A person who is all about the home team - in this case, KarateForums.com.

3. Staff Member of the Year

This award is the same as the Member of the Year award, except that this award is for current staff members only (except Patrick). If you are unsure of who is on staff, please visit https://karateforums.com/staff/ for a complete listing.

4. Funniest Member of the Year

Humor is an important aspect of the forums, and this award recognizes the member who has brought a smile to your face many times.

5. Karate Contributor of the Year

This award is for your favorite contributor within the Karate forum - a member who has added substantial value to that section in the past year.

6. Health and Fitness Contributor of the Year

This award is for your favorite contributor within the Health and Fitness forum - a member who has added substantial value to that section in the past year.

7. Instructors and School Owners Contributor of the Year

This award is for your favorite contributor within the Instructors and School Owners forum - a member who has added substantial value to that section in the past year.

Ready to Nominate?

Please nominate. You will find a blank ballot at the bottom of this message that you can copy and paste.

You nominate by sending a private message to the account with the username Awards through this link: https://karateforums.com/messenger/compose/?to=2685 - nominations will be closed on November 11, 2025 at 8pm Eastern. Please do not post your nominations publicly in this thread or elsewhere in the forums.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to private message me or reply here.

Thank you for reading and for visiting KarateForums.com. Your participation in these awards is what makes them meaningful. I can't wait to see who you choose to honor this year.

Here is a blank ballot that you can use:

Quote

1. Member of the Year:

2. Community Spirit Award:

3. Staff Member of the Year:

4. Funniest Member of the Year:

5. Karate Contributor of the Year:

6. Health and Fitness Contributor of the Year:

7. Instructors and School Owners Contributor of the Year:

Thank you for your interest in participating in the 2025 edition of the KarateForums.com Awards!

To aide you in doing so, we publish this guide, where we list members who have made the most posts in the sections that are represented within our KarateForums.com Awards categories. We recognize that it can sometimes be difficult to choose nominees and hope that this guide will be helpful.

How to Use This Guide

Post count is not necessarily what you should look at when deciding who should be honored. Perhaps someone doesn't post as much as others, but when they do, their posts are amazing. Maybe they made a post this year that really stood out to you, and you want to recognize them for it. Maybe someone makes a lot of short posts in that section.

For this reason, we are going to list the top 10 posting members from the last 12 months, plus ties, but without the actual number of posts and in alphabetical order. Our goal here is to provide a useful guide, but also to not prejudice the nominations toward only those with the highest quantities of posts.

We hope this will provide you with a reasonable starting point for your nominations. However, you can nominate members who are not listed here at all, and I encourage you to conduct your own research by viewing and thinking about a member's posts within a given section as you put together your ballot.

Nominations Guide

With that said, here are the top 10 contributors to award-eligible forums, plus ties, in alphabetical order:

Karate Contributor of the Year

• aurik
• bushido_man96
• DarthPenguin
• KarateKen
• Nidan Melbourne
• Revario
• sensei8
• Spartacus Maximus
• Wastelander
• Zayd_Nofal

Health and Fitness Contributor of the Year

• aurik
• bushido_man96
• crash
• DarthPenguin
• Himokiri Karate
• JazzKicker
• KarateKen
• Nidan Melbourne
• pandaGIRL
• ryanryu
• sensei8
• Wastelander
• Zaine

Instructors and School Owners Contributor of the Year

• aurik
• bushido_man96
• crash
• DarthPenguin
• KarateKen
• Nidan Melbourne
• ryanryu
• sensei8
• Spartacus Maximus
• Wastelander
• Zaine

For the full details on submitting your nominations, please see our nominations announcement. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly or ask in that thread.

Thanks,

Patrick

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com.

We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community.

Our honoree this time is... @Revario!

I really appreciate all of the contributions that you have made to our community, Revario. Thank you for being a part of it!

Patrick

It was on this day, 24 years ago, that we launched this community. Last year, at this time, I opened up public testing for a new version of KarateForums.com on modern software. We were still on our (very) old software that eventually would have led to this community breaking and simply ceasing to exist. After months of testing (between the staff and member testing periods) and years of testing behind the scenes that I had completed with @Chrispian, we migrated to our new platform over an intense 4 days culminating in an opening on September 9, 2024.

Over 8 months later, it's clear to me that our combined efforts were a big success. Our slowly breaking platform is no longer breaking and, in fact, updates to the latest version of our software have been installed multiple times, helping to ensure our platform remains online and secure. All the work that @Chrispian and the folks at Invision Community did (along with my annoying insistence, ha) to ensure that passwords would work paid off. Whether you registered in 2001 or 2021, your password worked when our new site launched. It has all worked so well, and I'm grateful for your help and support.

24 years is such a long-time, and with it, there are so many people that have made a mark on this community over the years. I'd like to extend a thanks to all the members who made amazing contributions since our migration. This includes @ashworth, @aurik, @Bradlee, @bushido_man96, @Chuck, @crash, @DarthPenguin, @Drew, @Fat Cobra, @Himokiri Karate, @JazzKicker, @KarateKen, @Luther unleashed, @Montana, @Nidan Melbourne, @pandaGIRL, @Revario, @RJCKarate, @ryanryu, @sensei8, @Spartacus Maximus, @Wado Heretic, @Wastelander, @Wayofaswede, @Zaine, and others! Thank you!

I celebrated today by uploading an avatar for the first time in several years, since I tried to change my old Yankees logo into something else and realized avatars were 100% broken on the old site!  On that note, I'll continue to bring enhancements (mostly small, occasionally bigger than that) to this community, but the main thing I wanted to do was to get us on modern software that would be up-to-date, because that will naturally introduce new features over time, too! My ability to do things here always rests on the time I can squirrel away from chasing my toddler and other pursuits.

Thank you to everyone who has made KarateForums.com a special place to be and, if you're reading this, that's probably you! 

This also means that next year will mark 25 years! Which is a massive milestone. Which means we now need to think about ideas to celebrate that! Please feel free to let me know if you have any.  

Thanks again,

Patrick

Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com.

We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community.

Our honoree for February is... @ryanryu for the second time!

Thank you for all of the contributions that you have made to our community over the last 15+(!) years, ryanryu. I appreciate you being a part of this community.

Thanks,

Patrick

I know there will be broken links, issues, things that are missing, etc. I have my own list, ha. But if you come across anything, please use this thread. It may take me a while to review each one, just in full disclosure, but this will give me a good place to look, and I'll address them as soon as I am able. Don't be shy, even if you think it could just be an error on your end, I'd like to hear about it.

Thank you for your time and help.