If One Man Can do It...

[Martialart]

You know the saying: If one man can do it, another man can do it.

I think this is the perfect forum to ask this question. A question posed to me by my fellow Taekwondoist and wife during a commercial break while watching The Office. Let me lay a little groundwork first:

We train at a McDojo. The Taekwondo is great; the curriculum is great; most of the instructors are great, but they nickle and dime you to death. We can afford it, but tonight we realized, as we looked around at all the suburbanite adolescent black belts, that we were surrounded by the rich.

That is, the kids are rich, but not the instructors. The instructors teach for free. No...that's not true. The instructors have paid through the nose to become instructors and are used for free to babysit the junior classes for the most part. Only a few of the senior instructors are allowed to teach the adult class.

We can start training as instructors at blue belt, but of course there are costs involved.

It's not the money, per se. It's the honor. If one day we will be used to babysit kids in a belt-mill McDojo, shouldn't we be paid for it? And if we are not to be paid, shouldn't our training at least be free? Just for the sake of honor?

But those aren't really my questions. My question is this: what's to stop us from getting our 2nd dan, and starting our own Taekwondo school? Or Karate school for that matter?

The ITA did it. Choi did it. Lee did it. In fact, everyone we revere has done it. I have three grandsons. The youngest is five and he's already taking Taekwondo. What's to stop us from starting our own school, our own style? We'd probably be in our early fifties when we were ready.

Now, I'm not sold on the idea at all. Not at all. But we're not going to be instructors for the ITA country club. I'll just get my black belt and work out for the rest of my life, if we stay with them--I don't care, but what if a dynasty is our destiny? How would I know?

There's senseis in here and students in here. I sure would like to read your opinions.

Edited May 20, 2010 by Martialart

[Toptomcat]

'I don't like my current school and lots of other people have done it' is a bad reason to start a new style. 'I'm certain that I'm technically qualified to teach and have a technical, conceptual, or pedagogical innovation that justifies starting a new style' is a good reason.

Remember that you will be teaching your students to defend themselves, and if you teach them poorly you will bear responsibility if and when they fail to do so, with whatever consequences that may bring. There are no legal, bright-line barriers to doing what you want to do, but that should serve as a potent moral reason not to if you aren't absolutely confident of what you'll be teaching.

[Martialart]

'I don't like my current school and lots of other people have done it' is a bad reason to start a new style. 'I'm certain that I'm technically qualified to teach and have a technical, conceptual, or pedagogical innovation that justifies starting a new style' is a good reason.

Remember that you will be teaching your students to defend themselves, and if you teach them poorly you will bear responsibility if and when they fail to do so, with whatever consequences that may bring. There are no legal, bright-line barriers to doing what you want to do, but that should serve as a potent moral reason not to if you aren't absolutely confident of what you'll be teaching.

Well that's a strong warning, but if you're right then I should. And again, I'm not trying to sell myself on this, but given what you've said:

1. I am technically qualified to teach. I used to train people how to conduct on-the-job training back in my civil service days.

2. I do have a pedagogical innovation to training that I don't want to discuss here, but in truth, unless I start a school, I won't be allowed to use it in the ITA, and it has been a very potent tool for me. I think it would be for others as well.

3. As for teaching people to defend themselves, I'm the poster child for that.

But I lack advanced training. Until I reach a black belt level in an already recognized style, I don't feel I have the technical expertise to teach martial arts. But even more than that, there are basics I really have to master much more than I have right now. I know me, and I know my body and in a couple of years, I think I'll be where I want to be.

Time will tell though, I suppose.

[Toptomcat]

Reaching black belt level is where 'advanced training' is typically understood to start.

[Martialart]

Reaching black belt level is where 'advanced training' is typically understood to start.

Yeah, but they are advanced in the basics of the art they are training in. If I were to start a new style of karate or taekwondo, there would be no point in doing advanced training in the old style. I would need to perfect whatever style I was teaching. Theoretically speaking, of course.

[algernon]

If I were to start a new style of karate or taekwondo, there would be no point in doing advanced training in the old style. I would need to perfect whatever style I was teaching.

How do you expect someone to start a new style without advanced training in their old one?

Einstein's work on relativity did not come to him from the aether (pun intended). He based his work on the ideas of FitzGerald and Lorenz, who were writing about Michelson and Morley, who were researching ideas proposed by other physicists. Those physicists were working in a Newtonian paradigm, which would not have existed without the works of Galileo and Kepler - who never would have penned his laws without Brahe and Copernicus. Indeed, there is no difficulty in tracing a line from Hawking all the way back to Plato. These men shaped history, and they did so not by discarding "old" methods entirely, but by improving them.

Choi, Lee, Parker . . . They did not pull their respective styles out of the air; they added their experiences in other disciplines to arts in which they were already quite advanced. Like science, "new" martial arts are not created in a vacuum. They are created by people who have intimate mastery of the "old" methods, and therefore know where and how to modify them to take them farther.

[GeoGiant]

I certainly do not have the level of ma experience that many folks on this form have so I don’t feel qualified to answer your question however the sentiment that algernon posted makes perfect sense to me.

I guess what puzzles me is why you continue to train at a dojo you seem to have so much distain for. You mock the place you train, the people you train with and the instruction. I in no way intend this to be an attack, I just can’t image wanting to get BB from someone (that your describing as) unqualified to properly assess what skills are required to earn a BB or someone that is more interested in students buying BBs.

Again, I have limited experience and I’ve only been associated with one dojo but my impression of my instructor and the people that he has elevated to BB is at the opposite end of the spectrum from your experiences. Honestly, I feel bad for you.

Why not train somewhere else?

[brokenswordx]

Even at 2nd dan you're still just beginning to understand the true essence of your art and there are still techniques and basics that one still must work one. I know a quite a few black belts (in karate) and they seem to have a specialized interest in one area be it kata, kumite, one of the kobudo weapons, but don't have a well rounded knowledge in all areas needed to run their dojo. Lee made his own style after years of development, sighting specific wide spread problems in martial arts and its practitioners. He not only focused on the physical aspects of training, but also the mental and lifestyle aspects as well.

[Martialart]

If I were to start a new style of karate or taekwondo, there would be no point in doing advanced training in the old style. I would need to perfect whatever style I was teaching.

How do you expect someone to start a new style without advanced training in their old one?

Einstein's work on relativity did not come to him from the aether (pun intended). He based his work on the ideas of FitzGerald and Lorenz, who were writing about Michelson and Morley, who were researching ideas proposed by other physicists. Those physicists were working in a Newtonian paradigm, which would not have existed without the works of Galileo and Kepler - who never would have penned his laws without Brahe and Copernicus. Indeed, there is no difficulty in tracing a line from Hawking all the way back to Plato. These men shaped history, and they did so not by discarding "old" methods entirely, but by improving them.

Choi, Lee, Parker . . . They did not pull their respective styles out of the air; they added their experiences in other disciplines to arts in which they were already quite advanced. Like science, "new" martial arts are not created in a vacuum. They are created by people who have intimate mastery of the "old" methods, and therefore know where and how to modify them to take them farther.

Well, now, I looked up Bruce Lee. He started in Wing Chung Kung Fu, but never completed it. He had no black belt at all and was not at all experienced in fencing or boxing but only read about them and adopted their techniques into his Jeet Kune Do.

I think Choi was a second dan in Shotokan Karate. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not saying that I should, could, or would be successful. I'm just trying to explore the why and why not's of it.

And here's another thing I wonder: are forms copyrighten? I know some are, but what about the basic Taekwondo forms. If one opens a Taekwondo school is there anything prohibiting them from teaching Chong-Ji, Do-San, etc?

Edited May 20, 2010 by Martialart

[Martialart]

I guess what puzzles me is why you continue to train at a dojo you seem to have so much distain for. You mock the place you train, the people you train with and the instruction. I in no way intend this to be an attack, I just can’t image wanting to get BB from someone (that your describing as) unqualified to properly assess what skills are required to earn a BB or someone that is more interested in students buying BBs.

Again, I have limited experience and I’ve only been associated with one dojo but my impression of my instructor and the people that he has elevated to BB is at the opposite end of the spectrum from your experiences. Honestly, I feel bad for you.

Why not train somewhere else?

Why do you feel bad for me? I'm getting what I want. The curriculum is fine. I can train as hard as I want. I've said that the instructors are good at what they do. I'm getting a taekwondo education. That's what I'm paying for, that's what I'm getting. I don't need it to be a cult. I don't need to feel undying loyalty to the owner/masters I write a check to every month. I need to learn taekwondo and work out, and if down the road I want to open a school and do things the way I think they should be done, then I'm going to need a black belt from an established school in order to feel confident in doing that.

Besides, there is nothing else here. There are three other schools, and they are all part of the ITA TKD Puls franchise. But again, I have no complaints about what I'm being taught. It's just that it's a McDojo that nickle and dimes you to death.