Should I join the dojo?

[pepipox]

Hello fellow martial arts fans Thank you for your time in advance. I am considering joining a certain dojo but have some doubts. I practiced before shito-ryu for a year, and I am starting again. I am about to join a dojo, and the following are the pros and cons:

Pros:

*Convenient schedule

*The sensei is 5 times national champion, has been trainer of the national karate selection. She is cool and explains very well, she KNOWS her stuff.

*Fellow karatekas in the dojo are nice and welcoming. Has not been the case in other places I have tried.

*Good combination combat, kihon, kata

*Sensei is 5th dan. The dojo has a long tradition of training karate champions and it has been in business 42 years. Current sensei 'inherited' the dojo when the old sensei passed away on 2013.

However, there are some things that have me doubting.

*The sensei has modified the 'official' katas of the style. She 'mixed' some parts of pinan shodan, with pinan nidan and so. Seems like a little bit she is diverging from the official style.

*I have heard the sensei bad mouthing other senseis of the same style. Seems she does not like the local community of the style. I asked her about going to some weekend short courses organized by the community and she said 'I can not forbid you to go if you want', but it is more up to individual initiative and the club does not participate.

*Is somewhat expensive. Starting september the sensei wants a year paid in advance. Is a lot of money and I told her, 'I can pay half a year' and she said 'I have to consult with my business partner, we can see how to fix it', but still the cost is steep.

What has really doubting me is the feeling I have the sensei does not want to be part of the shito ryu community, and I am afraid of 'consequences' down the road. The dojo is fully accredited with the local national martial arts association, so it is legit, but it is the reluctance of the sensei to follow the official shito ryu lines that has me doubting.

What do you think? Should I join or not? Thank you again, OSU

[sensei8]

What's your gut feeling??

The pros seem great!

The cons aren't so great!

Go with your gut feeling, and don't second guess yourself!!

This is my short answer.

[Nidan Melbourne]

I like the pros but the cons not so much.

Obviously the sensei wants to have a little bit more creativity to it to what they want to teach.

Like Sensei8 said go with your gut feeling.

What 'consequences' do you feel like are going to occur if they are to come about?

Also do you know if the business partner is active in running classes etc or are they are strictly behind the scenes?

Also payments made a year in advance sounds fishy to me. purely because schools that i know and have a good relationship with have multiple membership types. So people are paying at different times of year etc.

[Shotokannon]

I don't even think this comes down to what's good and what's bad, it sounds to me like you want to do strictly traditional shito-ryu and if this club doesn't do that, then there are plenty of other clubs who do, and at a cheaper or at least more flexible pricing structure than the one described, so i would recommend you shop around as it were, go to a few other places and see what you think

[Kanku65]

All answers above are great.

Yes, it is a pro, but don't ever join a dojo based on # of champions alone.

[The Pred]

Now is this dojo more of a sport dojo or streetfighting?

[pepipox]

Thank you very much for your answers! To nidan melbourne, I don't know how her business partnership works, I believe it is someone behind the scene. Also, the 'consequences' I think about is down the line being too out of sync with the main shito ryu school, so if I change dojos for some reason then I would have to start from zero.

This dojo teaches is more 'sports dojo', but the sensei emphasizes on real applications, which I really also like. In general I believe I will join the club. Besides some of the remarks, the PROs outweigh greatly the CONs. Thank you again.

[sensei8]

I hope everything works out for you!!

[Nidan Melbourne]

the 'consequences' I think about is down the line being too out of sync with the main shito ryu school, so if I change dojos for some reason then I would have to start from zero.

I can understand your concern in regards to this. Although when you look at the worldwide scene in regards to major schools there is the Hiyashiha (Potentially Incorrect Spelling; therefore my apologies) lineage and then the shito-ryu lineage.

Although I wouldn't think that you would have to start from scratch if you went to this school then left to go to another. As every school has some differences to things, but if this sensei is modifying kata a lot then it may just take you longer to grade to the next rank if you were to change.

I have trained with a few people that have trained at 1 goju-ryu school for years then for some reason transferred to our dojo and since there were some slight differences in syllabus and they spent a little bit longer on that rank to ensure they learnt the differences.

[Spartacus Maximus]

The choice depends on whether or not one wishes to remain involved with the "official" shitoryu school. If this is not important, the choice of dojo should be made based on the qualities of the instructor. Even within the same style no two sensei teach exactly the same. There are also different approaches within the same organization.