The Art of the McDojo.

[Alcatraz]

We all 'love' the McDojo phenomenon, but below is an article I wrote a couple of years ago for a British publication.

Your comments would be appreciated.

ARTICLE:

Now, before I start, I just want to make it quite clear that I am not against martial arts instructors making their living out of teaching martial arts. As a matter of fact, I applaud anyone who is willing to take that step, as I’m sure many are aware, there are many pitfalls around numerous corners that the prospective full-time instructor can fall into which can bring the dream to a bitter end.

I have attended many full-time dojo where the training is hard, and people stay because they want the substance over the superficial, and these are the ‘Professional’ instructors I wish to applaud.

In recent years though, as highlighted in publications such as COMBAT and TRADITIONAL KARATE, there has been a leaning here in the UK towards the US model of the ‘Franchise’ martial art school, a model which I find to be disturbing for the ‘grass roots’ instructor who is only interested in teaching Martial Arts for the love of the art/sport.

There is a term which is bandied around in Martial Arts circles which is used to describe these types of schools, ‘McDojo’. I’m not going to deny, that I have used this phrase on numerous occasions myself, but in recent months, I’ve come to the conclusion, that what others do is entirely their own choice. I don’t have time to waste worrying about the dojo which has a ‘seven year old black belt who is excellent at self-defence,’ despite the fact that the school has a policy of non-contact. In fact the phrase Caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware) comes to mind when thinking of students who fall for the shoddy practices of these schools. If someone is gullible enough to fall for the pink and fluffy approach to Martial Arts, then that has to be the potential students decision.

The purpose of this article however is to highlight the practices which are employed by these franchise schools to legitimise themselves.

As I said at the top of this article, I don’t have a problem with people teaching for a living. However those who do teach for a living should not demean those of us who do not. Both my wife and I have well paying jobs, therefore I am in a position where I do not need to make a living out of teaching Karate. I suppose this allows me the option of having a’My way or Highway’ attitude when it comes to teaching.

I recently spoke to an aquaintance who attends a franchise school up here in Ayrshire, and students are basically taught that they are consumers, and the more expensive something is, the better.

Effectivly, if you pay a little you receive little in the way of training. If you pay a lot, you get more. Whilst this can be true for many things, it is not so for martial arts.

The knowledge of the instructor should be the important factor when choosing a school or class, not pseudo-marketing ploys.

Take myself for example. Although I don’t teach at the moment, I have done so in the past. I didn’t charge over the odds, just enough to cover costs.

The reason I taught Karate was because I love the art, self-defence and the sport aspects of Karate, and I wanted to pass my knowledge onto others who were willing to learn.

If we take the argument of the franchise owner to its logical conclussion, this means that what I was teaching was somewhat less than what was being taught at the franchise school, despite the many achievments that my students had attained. That these achievements were somewhat moot because I didn’t charge £XX per month. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the logic in that argument.

I would rather teach five students who were dedicated, than two hundred who were in the class because it’s the next cool activity.

Another bug-bear regarding franchise schools, is the use of contracts as a retention tool.

The argument from the franchise instructor is, ‘I’m dedicating my time to teach, and the contract is the students commitment to being taught.’

It is my argument however that the contract is a lazy method of ensuring income should the student decide to leave the school. The legitimate instructor should have no worries about the student leaving. What is taught is either for the student or it isn’t. It’s a simple as that. Or at least it should be.

If the instructor teaches below par martial arts, and the student eventually sees through the ‘crud’ and wishes to leave to join a more fulfilling school which he/she has seen, she will be financially held hostage and be unable to leave.

Looking at the pro-contract argument, to me it reads like ‘I’m going to teach you, and you’re going to pay regardless of the quality of the instruction.’

The one thing I really love about the franchise school is the ability to make up weird and wonderful rules for your students to follow.

I am reminded of a time when I visited a new class which had opened up in Irvine (Ayrshire) which isn’t too far away from where I live.

Here is a rundown of the rules. (I have arranged the order as it is different on the form).

1. No student shall train at another Karate dojo or any other martial art school. This shows disrespect to your Sensai (sic), and your ryu.

2. Students shall not enter Open Competitions.

3. Students should not enter into correspondence with Martial Art Publications or Internet Forums without the express permission of your Sensai (sic), regardless of topic.

There were others, but these were the ones that stuck out in my mind.

I spoke to the instructor, and she seemed a very amiable lady. She asked if I was interested in joining, and I explained that I had my own class, but I wanted to make myself known, so that if there were any seminars or comps we could work together (which I did with a few other local Karate, TKD, and Kickboxing classes).

She then asked me to leave, because they were having a closed door session, and effectively, she didn't want me to steal her training methods which were "copyrighted" to the franchise to which she belonged.

No-one else was asked to leave, and I believe I was 'ejected' because I may see faults in her system, not that I would be rude enough to point them out.

I also heard from a guy whom I used to go to the gym with, who trains with this lady, that her students MUST call her Sensei at all times, even if they meet her in the street, which is wrong. Respect must be earned, not demanded.

One final ploy of the Franchise is to advertise for instructors, who are in effect ‘door knockers’ trying to drum up numbers for a new class. Quite often these ‘instructors’ are themselves kyu/kup grades, who are teaching what they themselves have just been taught very recently. These instructors may go by the job title of ‘Self-Defence Consultant’ and wear lovely black and white, zebra belts so as to conceal their true level of knowledge.

Out of all the practices of the Franchise, this is the one I find most abhorrent. Now I must point out that this practice is not carried out by all Franchise schools, however it is a method carried out by a couple, and it is a method which I find to be, at best, dishonest, and at worst, dangerous.

What we have to ask now is, are the Franchises, those who may have been labelled McDojos in the past, the model we wish to create as the norm when it comes to students choosing a school?

Does the contract operating school who charges £XX per month really have a better quality of instructor than Sensei Smith who teaches Okinawan Goju-ryu to half a dozen students?

Unless one looks at both schools, one cannot say for sure. However it is the personal opinion of this Karate-ka that once the pound becomes more important than what is being taught; serious alarm bells should start ringing.

I would ask the prospective student to look beyond the slick marketing, and fancy studio dojo, and really look at what is REALLY being offered.

What I mean by ‘being offered’ does not mean quantity of ‘programmes’ available to the student, but rather the quality of what is being taught.

Don’t be conned by ‘Little Monkey’ classes or special ‘Black Belt’ classes where you are fast tracked to the ‘Coveted Black Belt’.

Really look at what is being offered by the instructor in terms of quality instruction. Read between the proverbial lines.

I suppose it comes down to one question

Do you want to STUDY a martial art, or do you want your ego soothed?

The answer to that question will determine your path in martial arts.

Choose well.

[CTTKDKing]

Well said.

I do have to disagree that franchise schools are all bad. If started by a business man to make money then I would stay away, but my school is part of a franchise that was started by a very accredited instructor from South Korea about 15 years ago.

He came to the states and opened a school in Springfield Massachusetts. My personal instructor then came to the states to work as an assistant to Master Kim. He wanted to train to be a teacher under his former master from Korea. After several years of training as an assistant head instructor, Master Kim decided to branch out and start a second school in Manchester, CT. This is the beginning of the U.S. Taekwondo franchise. This same system of obtaining quality instructors now has 2 more schools opened (one in NY, and one in Bristol, CT). I personally know one of these 2 instructors as he trained under My instructor as opposed to Master Kim in Springfield, and I would train under him in a second if I ever needed to move to his area of the state. Not the biggest franchise I know, but I think you can see my point.

I think it all really depends on how the franchise was started and what the ultimate goals are of the people involved. Master Kim just wanted more schools to teach more students because he believes that everyone should be able to study martial arts. He was blessed with the opportunity to share his knowledge with the world, and then it blessed him back so that he could invest it again with other locations. His prices are reasonable and they include a lot of extra stuff (uniforms, pads, etc.). This is why I wont call a school a McDojo just because they have a franchise name. It's all about the instructors and people involved.

[Martialart]

As one who attends a bona fide McDojo (an ITA Taekwondo Plus school), I would like to set the record straight: for every minus there is to a McDojo, there is a plus over a club-dojo.

1. It costs us a lot of money. Everything is bought through the school: sparring gear, patches, doboks (uniforms), belts, monthly contracted tuition, start up fees, books, videos, etc.

But everyone looks the same, the uniforms are high quality, and the dojang is very modern, clean, well lit, lots of AC and has all kinds of training aids and padded floors.

2. Yesterday, I saw an eight-year old whining to her mother and starting to cry about some childish thing--she was a second-degree black belt (the kid, not the mom).

At least I know I don't have to kiss some immigrant sensei’s butt in order to get my belt that I will work for and I will earn. Besides, if they didn’t cater to kids and moms with video cameras, who’d pay for the school? The six or seven of us who really want to do our techniques right? I don’t think so.

And one only has only to keep their eyes open for about ten minutes to get what’s real: Every senior instructor is an older adult, performs their hyung with precision and power, and really seems to care about teaching traditional Taekwondo. There are the many black belts, but there are not very many instructors (the ones with black lapels on their doboks). The black that matters is on the dobok, not on the belt. The little hidden caveat is knowing what to aspire to.

3. Everyone who grades passes, apparently. Because most of the students with colored belts, and many with black belts can’t seem to do proper stances, punch or kick with power or block with snap.

They gave my wife and I green belts based on the training we did to the red belt level ten years ago. We still knew the basics, and as the head instructor said, if you spent a year and a half in Taekwondo, you deserve something for that. No one has ever shown us that respect in any other club we’ve been to.

All our belts are and will be registered by a national organization (the ITA). Everything’s on a computer database. The club-school we went to for a year and a half before doesn’t even have a record of our attendance, and they now use a completely different belt system.

4. Ho-Am Taekwondo is a complete rip off of every Taekwondo system and karate style since 1920.

The upside: we train in a traditional Taekwondo style (not just sport WTF), and every week I learn a new takedown, flip or self-defense move—just like in traditional karate. Every class is very aerobic and sweat- wrenching. The sparring is full-padded, controlled contact, we break boards (the re-usable plastic kind), we kick high, we practice our forms, and learn all the spin kicks; so it’s like the best of all the right stuff. Ho-Am Taekwondo may be a rip off, but they ripped off the right stuff.

My biggest complaint is the expense of it all. But I make good money right now, and there’s no riff-raff in the class. I realize some people believe martial arts training should be for everyone. I disagree. It should be for the right kind of people. The kids are highly respectful, and everyone calls everyone ma’am or sir. I call a fifteen-year-old third-degree sir, and he calls me sir. I actually like the kid—and I don’t typically like kids!

You want to join a crap club-dojo because the guy running it says he studied under a guy who once lived in Japan and claims to be the son of one who studied under Funakoshi, go for it. And when you have to keep changing from one free location to another, no one recognizes your black belt, no one knows what the heck you mean when you say, Whispering Cat Form Karate, or whatever it’s called, and you spend an hour of each class listening to the instructor talk about what you need to know while your stretch goes cold, go for it. Especially, if the only way you can get a belt is to make the sensei feel important, or let him flirt with you or whatever.

I see the deficiencies of a McDojo, but there is no deficiency that affects me if I don’t want it to. They want me to have snap and pop in my forms. I don’t have to be sloppy just because the black belt in front of me is. They want me to be committed and care about my training. They (the senior instructors) care about Taekwondo. But if all you want to do is buy your belt with money and time, you’re probably going to be able to do that, too.

[Alcatraz]

Martialart,

Your post was tongue in cheek, wasn't it??

[bushido_man96]

I tend to agree with CTTKDKing's post when it comes to categorizing McDojos. Its true that there are some out there, but its important to see what is offered in each particular school. I began my training in an ATA school, and we had good instructors, with good technique, and liked to spar. There are some good ones out there, and some bad ones out there.

[username13768]

Congratulations MartialArt! After reading your post about your mcdojo, it really looks as though you've found the perfect school for you and your wife.

[RW]

no one knows what the heck you mean when you say, Whispering Cat Form Karate, or whatever it’s called,

HAHAHAHA this made me laugh so much