American Taekwondo Association

[White_Tiger]

I spent my first 2 years at an ATA, and earned my 1st Black Belt there. You can learn decent basics at ATA, but not real self defense. During the 2 years of sparring at ATA I never once saw a hand come at my head, because it was not allowed in the sparring. The first time I sparred outside the ATA I ate a backfist like it was my last meal! My problem with them is signing people to long term contracts, and selling tournament style point sparring techniques as self defense.

[Allenv]

I recently joined a local ATA and enjoy the training and I get a good workout, but I agree that as long as you pay your money you will get promoted to the next belt regardless of your performance. I think they believe that if you don't promote someone to the next level they will quit and there goes the $. I was very excited when I started training, but after I started it was very clear that the main vocus was on something different that learning martail art. Let me explain, I was a white belt training on whitebelt form, self defense and weapons, but one person was a orange belt and another a yellow belt and we were all learning the same thing? The shocking thing was that they could barely perform the basic moves. We all three tested on white belt requirements at the last promotion even though they where orange and yellow. We were all three promoted, orange belt for me, yellow belt and camo for the other two and even though they are high rank we all now training on orange belt requirements, can someone help me understand this?

[SloMo]

I'm not one to bad mouth any school. I think ATA is just like any other place. You are going to have good schools and bad schools. I am suprised at the difference of opinion that I get from people who tried ATA. SOme love it, some hate it. Very few in between.

 

Maybe the contract thing colors peoples opinion. If I signed a long term contract and realized that the instructor stunk, I would be a little peeved.

 

And, regardless, it's people like Bill Clark that help to increase the interest in martial arts. Maybe he has gotten too commercial. But I would judge each school on it's own merits.

 

Mo

[Thruhiker]

Unfortunately it sounds like your school is more concerned about the bottom line that the quality of the students.

 

Maybe those students that are performing at the white belt level could care less if they are training or not and their performance shows. So the owner may have decided to pull them along and take the $$ while he/she can.

 

If it were me I would be looking for a different school. One that will work with you on a more personal level and promote you when you are ready rather than a time schedule.

 

Best wishes

[azn tiger]

i have noticed from many sources that the majority of people that bash on the ATA do so because of most make you pay for everything, it has to be their uniform, their sparring equip, they make you sign contracts, they charge for belt testing, they charge for stripe testing, they charge for board breaking, basically that they charge for everything. I think that it is a shame when a martial arts school is interested more in making money than teaching. Of course it is a bussiness and I can see why you'd want to make money but sometimes you can get a little too ridiculous. On the other hand I go to an ATA school. There are no contracts It is $45 a month which I have found out to be pretty good, I got a free dobak, I had the instructor for self defense and he said if any of his self defense students joined his tkd class that he would give them a free uniform, it is usually $35. Belt testing is $25. Basically when you are a lower belt you always pass but once you get to higher belts, brown and up you can, and will fail if you don't know your stuff. There is no charge for stripe testing. There is no charge for breaking boards, you can use your own sparring equipment as long as it meets requirements, i.e. no big boxing gloves etc. if you want you can buy it through our master for $135 which I have found to be a good price. The first two times I was ready to test in which sparring was a requirement I did not have the money to buy the sparring equipment. So instead of sparing the other students, i got to spar my master. The problem with ATA is that they can charge whatever they like or basically do whatever they want since each school is indiviually owned. It is sad that too many people take advantage of this and give ata a bad name.

[rmclain]

I don't understand the point of having a "test" if there is no chance that someone will get a flunking grade.

 

R. McLain