Serious Questions from a Newbie.

[cloudy]

Hello,

The names Chuck. New to the board.... anyways..

There's a Kenpo Karate class/school thing not to far from me.. There's not to many in south mississippi.... I was wondering what things I need to know or ask the instructor. I've heard about these "McDojos"(rip off dojos) and I just want to make sure i'm not getting ripped off or learn the wrong way or learn from a bad instructor.. (How much does a class usually run? extra hidden fees??) I just turned 19 and never had a martial arts class in my life but I'm very interested in starting.. just not at a "McDojo". Here's a link to their website I luckily found. They have some videos.. If you can determine if they are good by a couple of their videos that would be great.

http://host215.ipowerweb.com/~ihmafcom/home/home.htm

Thank you.

Edited May 26, 2005 by cloudy

[Tyrant General]

my friend paid 74$ twice a week at Karate USA.

I think i paid around 40$ once a week at the same dojo.

to me evrything was all basic. reason i went was because it was a good place to spar against people plus they had equipment for training. pads, heavy bag and all that.

why don't you just do house training if you already know the basic kicks and punches. That and get friend to go sparring with you once a week.

[karate_woman]

This thread talks about different views of a McDojo:

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=2396&highlight=mcdojo

Btw, I couldn't get your link to work.

[italian_guy]

I'm not an expert in kempo, some techniques look just too fancy, but maybe it's the art.

Anyway it doesn't look bad, but you have to try or at least watch at least one lesson to get the feeling of the school.

How much do they charge?

[cloudy]

Well, I went down to the 'studio' place. And met with Rick Grumby who runs the place. He's very nice. He told me they have American Kenpo Karate and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He said BJJ was more of a conditioning and contact sport more than karate and would take alot of working out.. and he gets older guys that just start that class and they get tired and quit pretty quickly.. i was like "yeah, that's what i want".. He said on saturdays they have "Fight Night" where they have sparring n such... I wish I could have stuck around more and watched some stuff but I had Burger King sitting in the car..... oh yea, and my g/f.. But the classes are $65 a month and there's no contracts... Does that sound good or reasonable? I forgot to ask him if I have to buy a Gi thing or sparring apparel.. Thanks.

http://www.ihmaf.com/

[Sam]

surprised no ones mentioned its from ed parker lineage stuff - maybe a person to ask about this is parkeylineage - dunno...

[Tyrant General]

yeah scratch what i said.

yeah so i checked the site and yeah i guess its legit. couldn't say much for the videos. have more people check in to it just to make sure

[parkerlineage]

Well, the guy trained with Master Planas...but I'm not so sure I'm terribly fond of this "evolutionary Kenpo". The movies were mostly board breaking - who gives a darn? Did you ever see a brick start a fight with anyone?* The Five Swords demo looked like a little Five Swords, and a lot of flailing. The takedown broke a major rule of Kenpo - he took the guy forward, then backward - economy of motion. He was fast, yes...but I'm not entirely sure. The additional thing about Brazilian JuJitsu...it seems like everybody claims to be a black belt in that now. I'm no authority on it, of course...

As I've never actually attended this class, I can't tell you exactly what to think of this. You're probably not going to get a terribly consistent style to Grand Master Parker's, but it should be good enough, if you can't find anything closer. His studio is on the Kenponet, but under Paul Mills's style, not Master Parker's.

Is it Parker? No. Is it better? Matter of opinion.

My own personal feelings: Paul Mills's Kenpo, while not GM Parker's, is still Kenpo, which, of course, I unbiasedly (ha!) reccomend. I would say you should go, but keep me posted on how things are. If they start to get fishy...I'll give more of my lovely opinions.

btw, just so you know I'm fairly credible, I've been in a very strict Parker dojo for the last 11 years (no, not as long as some people, but I've essentially lived Kenpo - I can barely remember not being in it). I've been a black belt for the last four and a half, five years. I'm, essentially, the right-hand man of my Professor's dojo, and will be opening my own dojo when I go to college. So you can trust me.

Peace;

Parkerlineage

*Bruce Lee