McDojo? Against people making a living?

[hobbitbob]

I'd like to know somthing, if u dont want to say for whatever reason then dont. Now i do Karate, i've never seen TKD in action so i dont know anything about it, but can someone clear this up for me. What is it that ppl hate about TKD i dont have a clue, i just keep seeing posts about it and ppl who say they've had experiences with TKD and dont want to say, i dont understand whats goin on can someone clear this up for me.

 

Thanks

TKD in the 70s and 80s was frequently exploited by people who had studied in Korea and granted themselves "airplane promotions (leave Korea a firstdan, get off the flight a sixth dan). THese people saw a niche in the after school activity market, like gymnastics had been, and filled it. The emphasis was on turning out people who could kick and spin and jump, who payed extravagant amounts of money for rank,and who had large egos related to their black belts. These students opened schools and taught the way they had been taught.

 

Some of the blame can be placed on Jhoon Rhee (who was definitlyl NOT an airplane promotion!) who introduced the "Blackbelt Club" concept in the mid 1960s. From people I know who trained with him then, it was something that one joined at 3d gup, not something one was forced into at their second lesson.

 

The other phenomenon that contributed to TKD being associated with McDojos was the explosion of the tournament scene in the early 1980s. Budweiser, etc... sponsored Karate "teams." Tournament competitors decided to teach Karate for a living,and "chains" of Karate schools began to open, in the Tracy model. These chains employed young, agile tournament competitors, most of whom had no experience or skill with instruction. The emphasis was not on instruction anyway, but on keeping and finding more students. Smaller schools, seeing that "Mile High Kuruddy" down the road was raking in the money, began to imitate the methods of the larger schools.

 

One of the methods adapted was the use of the Chang Hon form set. It was standard, and easy to learn by anyone who came from a generic Okinawan/Japanese/Korean background. By default the schools became "TKD" schools, thanks to the curriculum being based on those forms.

 

Another contribution to the decline of TKD as a serious art has been the growth of "Olympic" TKD. Whatever its original intentions, Olympic TKD has degenerated into a form of slap boxing with the feet for all but the highest level competitors. ther is no power in the techniqes of most of the "players," and no concept of self defence.

 

Perhaps the major stumbling block for TKD has been the reluctance of any of its practitioners to do any serius scholarship on the art's background,and the efforts by many of them to block any serious scholarship. The "2 000 yr. old TKD" myth is one example. This originated in the early 1960s when bitter memories of the Japanese occupation were more fresh. Unfortunately, this story has become dogma and efforts to delve into actual hisotrical origins of Korean MA have been blocked by the Korean Government, which wants TKD to be known as Korea's ONLY martial art/sport. Because of this little has been done on the idigenous Korean weapon arts.

 

Lastly, the incorporation of TKD into the secondary school curriculum in Korea means that there are thousands of Third Dans out there who see opening up a TKD school in American Suburbia as a way to prosperity. These instructors, probably with good intentions at first, follow the McDojo model and are soon turning out eight year old first dans and other such loathesome creatures.

 

Having said all of this, there are good TKD schools out there. Chuck Serreff in Broomfield CO, is an examples. Though his students do the "bouncy-bouncy" thing in basics, they are solid martial artists. Chung Moon Gil in New York is another good example of a serious martial artist, as is Pham Phuc Ky in Baltimore.

 

Hope this helped.

[ninjanurse]

Hobbitbob, I agree with you fully. There are many serious martial arts schools out there that appear on the outside to be "Mc Dojo=ish" but teach solid martial arts. I myself am a product of one such school, Ernie Reyes West Coast TKD. Master Reyes runs one of the most successful "chains" of schools-each one teaches the same curriculum, the same way exactly so that you can go into any of his schools and you will see the same quality, etc. He leads the industry in innovative marketing, including BB CLubs, Masters Clubs, etc. While there is A LOT of flashy kicking and demos he demands a very high quality of technique as well as character and produces some of the finest martial artists around. Schools should be judged by the fruits of their labors, not how much they charge, etc.

 

Just my opinion-but I am biased!!!