I'm a full-time martial arts instructor so keep in mind I may be biased. I think the fact that there's still a debate whether instructors should be able to make a living is absolutely insane. I loved you bringing up doctors because it's the same thing in my opinion. Why should every other profession on Earth get paid and be able to support their family but for some reason martial arts is something that you should teach purely for the sake of the art. I love martial arts more than just about anyting but I can't dedicate nearly as much time and effort into it if I have a full/part-time job just to pay my bills.
OSU! I humbly, feel that one must find his/her Dō (Way) as Dōjōs are not entities to make money in unless one has a name like Soshu Oyama, Kaichō Nakumura, and Sosai, to name a few or if one purely desires monetary gains, then one can make money (McDōjōs). Juxtaposed are the Professional fighters who win in tournaments that then can use their name for schools as most of them are contract, which makes them Professionals. Plus, many of them are sponsored as well, which is a HUGE benefit for/to one's training. Suffice it to say, the rest of us have to find our own Way, which is very hard and at times and can be frustration or disheartening, but if one's Spirit is strong, then one preserves. Seishin no Seishin!!! OSU!!!
I think martial arts instructors should be able to make a living ny teaching, but there is a fine a line between a successful and honest martial arts school and a McDojo. That difference is the will to maintain standards despite financial pressures. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the schools who manage to be successful and maintain standards.
You got a point I enjoy training my style since I was 14 years old chinese boxing But every now and then I don't mind teaching or coaching Is in my sistem so I can care less for that money$$$ If I need money there's always a side job.....
*Me:* goes into a dojo, sees a 10 year old 5th dan black belt sitting down. *Me:* "Ok, this is definitely a McDojo, who's the sensei?" *The 10 year old:* "I am"
Lol I got into an internet argument recently supposedly this guy is saying a 12 year old girl can kick my ass (she is a 5 tine world champion in kickboxing) im a 19 year old guy who trained in boxing, judo, and wrestling even if I didnt train im pretty sure i cam beat a 12 year old
@@rusty7984: %100 the accolades of a child can not compare to the strength of an adult in almost all cases. Of coarse there are outliers like Tyson smashing people at 13, but that is extremely rare and not typically what people are talking about.
My sensei is a 4th degree kyokushin black belt and branch chief. He is also a purple belt in bjj. So hes merged parts of bjj into his kyokushin syllabus eg throws, take towns and submissions. He blends the 2 styles nicely.
My Sensei showed us Shotokan kata, and Kyokushin techniques. He teaches us in a Judo school, so sometimes the Judo Sensei shows us some takedowns and throws
@@chickenfeeet my sensei teaches in an old and used taekwondo dojang but we do kickboxing, boxing, mma, submission grappling and wrestling in that dojang i mean at least he is teaching all of this and he's doing it very well
One of my pet peeves is people thinking that you have to have some sort of official looking establishment to be considered a legit school. For example, my master had been training since the mid 50s and we train in his back porch and yard where he has a mat, wooden dummy, arnis sticks and some old beat up staves. But people look at me like I’m crazy training there instead of some school on a business plot.
2 years ago I opened a very small little Dojo here in Nashville I just have 30 kids the kids that I have all kids that are under privilege they have all been in trouble they was all about to completely flunk out of school in the past 2 years I have worked with them teach them wado ryu karate. After each class we have a set down and talk Time. I want to be involved and help them in our lives because that is the future majority are these kids does not have a man in my life they need to know what a man is like a man that will be there for them and love them and care for them and supports them every one of my kids grades have now gone up after each class we sat down and do homework my love for the martial arts has been there since I was 8 years old and it is still there now.. martial arts are just not about punching and kicking it's about helping people and changing their lives and making them a better person thank you Mr Dan I really wish you was my Shihan
keith sir you are a great person helping people learn a martial art at a young age and improve their lives. Mentors are important at a young age for young men . I study Uechi Ryu but had a shaolin Kempo teacher mentor me the same way you are those kids when I was little and that experience kept me studying martial arts it means so much to me . Great job Keith and if you have any literature on wado ryu or a school website let me know I'd value reading about your style karate culture is a passion of mine
First video of yours I've watched and I agree with nearly all points. I teach at my dojo for my club for the passion and privilege to teach, not to profit. I travel 30 minutes there and 30 back. I don't get paid for my time. I pay rent on the school gym. I get there early to sweep the floor, then do my own training. It is my core belief to pass on the knowledge and not turn that knowledge into a business. It's a recipe/ethic my club has used for 40 years (I've been there for 27, instructing for 7). We have always been small (10-12 students), but have dedicated students. I invite my students to question anything I teach them. We "pressure test" what I teach them. They will always come back to genuineness, with confidence they are getting genuine skills. Straight after COVID restrictions were lifted here in Australia, I had all 10 students present on the first night. Keep it real and we'll continue for another 40 years+
-Sensei says: “I have to register my fists as lethal weapons.” -There are asinine items being used for training equipment such as but not limited to: Hulk Hands, Light Sabre, etc. -No sparring allowed -No cross learning/training allowed -You must specifically purchase THEIR uniforms/merchandise/apparel -Their uniforms have the address and phone number printed on them -More money/fees required to “advance”, tuition increases frequently -Strict sign on contracts -Over sized classes -No privacy (big glass windows enabling people on the street to look in on lessons). -Sensei/Teacher is out of shape and doesn’t participate -Older students are often stuck training new students -No (or too much) tournament participation -Too easy to earn a black belt (child or adult). -Questioning the techniques or the teacher is prohibited. -Techniques taught are based on 5 to 10 [complicated] movements and require your opponent to hold still. -You’re taught how to disarm someone with a knife or a gun via a “wheel/crescent kick”. -They claim to be a “No Contact” school -No resistance allowed during self self defense drills because you are told “if you resist, you could break your arm”. -Your “Sensei” has never been in a fight before. -Nobody fails a test -You are told the techniques taught by the school guarantee you “invincibility”, and “you will never be hurt in a fight if you learn our moves”.
I agree with some of these, not others. I see no problem with the school wanting students to wear the school's standard uniform. It doesn't have to be this way, but IMO, if you are trying to create a sense of cohesion among students, it is odd for some folks to be wearing odd colored uniforms, or no uniforms at all. Expense of a Karate or Tae Kwon do Uniform is pretty minimal. They usually don't cost any more than a technical shirt and workout pants, so it doesn't bother me and certainly isn't a sign a school is a McDojo. Older or more experienced students assisting with teaching is IMO, a good sign. Because to teach a technique, you have to know it. Now, if the head instructor sits in his office while the top student teaches the class, now that is a problem. But for the teacher to ask a black belt student to take some lower belts and work with them on a technique or form, not a problem at all. Tournaments - This is an interesting one. Because I can see where you might want to test your technique against other martial arts students. But on the other hand, not everybody has the time or the money to be competing in tournaments every couple of weeks. Years ago, one of the reasons I quit my martial art was too much focus on tournaments. Like every other week, we had to train to prepare for a tournament. The thing was, I was getting on with my high school years and only had so much time to train. So if I knew I wasn't going to a tournament, I got cheated out of any instruction, and yet, I still wanted to train and get better, but wasn't improving since I wasn't competing.
Martin Tanz oh that’s cool, I like your perspective on this. Thanks for not attacking me and swearing or calling me names. Glad that UA-cam still has some civil people in the comments.
I agree with everything on your list, I have personally seen all of these things. I remember when it took 8-10 years to get a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. What I couldn't stomach was having to bow to an 11 year old 4th degree black belt, and that's when I decided to begin doing what I know needs to be done with my training on my own. I don't depend on any teachers or schools any more but I participate in formal school training. Thank goodness for YT.
*Over sized classes* A class size has no relation to it's quality. Big classes don't equal bad/McDojo classes. *-No privacy (big glass windows enabling people on the street to look in on lessons).* WTF? Privacy has nothing to do with the quality of what is being taught. *-Sensei/Teacher is out of shape and doesn’t participate* Yes, they _should_ be in shape... but not being so does not mean they can't remember what is what and pass that information on.. As for taking part, an instructor needs to concetrate on making sure the _student_ is training correctly, not on doing so in class themselves. Everything else: Yes.
Matt Mosley personally every large class I’ve ever been in was very poor quality. As for privacy, it can attract people from off the street who want to join just to meet girls. Every place I trained that had big windows would attract these pervy guys looking to pick up a date so they would join and make a nuisance of themselves in class. As for the sensei, I believe that being in shape and participation sets a positive example for students, especially since I took dance classes (yes I know there is a difference between dance and martial arts). But those are my opinions based on my experiences.
Also, I attend a "no touch knockout" school, it is called "Ka-chunk," and you get roughly six to thirty attempts to knock your opponent out. It is highly effective and practiced by every military around the world. God bless the USA and the second amendment. Jokes aside, I got my black belt (in Simmundo TKD) after nine years of highly focused training (sometimes 5 days a week, three hours a day). Shortly after that, I had to move away...and thus began my journey through McDojo land. My old school was a "you get it when you get it" school, and my nine years to black belt was actually relatively short. Everywhere else, it was "three years, black belt guaranteed!" I have only once seen a "real" school where a student was just given a belt. That student was me. I had bounced around BJJ schools for about two years after getting my black belt (my TKD school encouraged cross-training), so I moved again for work and went to a new BJJ school. Out of respect, I wore my old white belt again. I went to a group testing as a dummy/grappling partner for other students. At the end of the day, the instructor tossed me a one-stripe blue belt and everyone applauded. I was not on the schedule and was thus confused. It turns out the instructor had been testing me for the last three months of training and live grappling since I showed up, and determined I hit all the criteria. I was hesitant to accept and insisted that I go through proper testing until he stated that I was submitting blue belts in live grappling then threatened to throw me out if I did not accept. That is how belts should be rewarded. You get it when you get it.
"If the school teaches you no touch knock outs, or throwing chi across the room, leave." As someone who spent nearly a year in a DKI school before realizing it was bullshit, I can confirm. Leave. If you already signed a contract by then, tell them you want out of it. If they refuse, make too much noise for the McDojo instructor to not terminate the contract. I seriously can't believe why that above quote generated controversy.
Yeah, I was told I need to keep an open mind. When I said that there is no such thing is projecting invisible energy across the room to affect another person, they responded with something along the lines of "there are forces out there that we don't know about" or some junk. Sorry, no. I try to be objective in the Martial Arts, but I don't consider those martial arts, they are performance theater.
@@ArtofOneDojo this might seem like a pop-off but it is not. I've been studying sciences nearly my whole life, currently trying to earn my PhD in nanotech. In physics the idea of "no contact forces" are frowned upon. There are some that argue about the centrifugal force as being a no-direct contact force and other such topics, but that's mostly nuances on how certain theories approach certain subjects. To my knowledge, there is nothing in any branch of science that supports the idea of "a hadouken" or any such thing. Some people, with which I happen to agree, argue that martial arts should be approached with a sort of scientific mind-set where you keep what's useful and discard what is not. If a technique or set of techniques look super cool but are basically useless, then chances are that they aren't worth practicing. In physics, one of my favorite examples of a theory getting dropped is the caloric theory, which was useful in explaining some aspects of thermodynamics, but was still superseded by a better theory. In short, your position of "chi powers are junk" is correct. Nothing supports the idea that they are real, but there are many examples online of it failing spectacularly.
@空手道 You have a lot of hate in you, and that is really sad. And judging by your attitude I wouldn't be surprised if you are one of those 5- 8 year olds. I have a couple of questions for you: 1. In a previous message you said I was scamming parents with my belt system. You never answered when I asked you to clarify exactly what my "scam" was, especially since I don't have a belt system and I don't run a school? 2. How exactly do I give Karate a bad name? I work extremely hard, I've earned my achievements and I'm always striving to learn more. I don't go on other UA-cam channels to bash people and their work and say they give their art a bad name. I am at least making an effort, putting myself out there, and providing a show. Can you show me your contribution to the arts? 3. What narrative am I changing exactly? 4. Aikdo and Kenpo are arts. Arts cannot be McDojos, only individual schools can. So that doesn't even make sense. What are do you train? In my experience, someone who bashes other arts usually has an art they are attached to and feel is the best of all, so which art do you think is the best then? As for no one caring about what I think? Well, as of now 23,000 people disagree with you and if you look through the comments of the channel you will see some really good conversations going. I'm very proud of the viewer base we have and the productive information that comes out of it. We're achieving a lot of good things, and we have a lot of great comments. Naturally, once in a while we're going to get a troll like you but that's ok. It's like having a bright white uniform, occasionally you're going to get a little dirt on it but that's fine. You'll wash off.
Art of One Dojo how the hell can someone call karate a mcdojo art when karate is one of the most well known and practices martial arts in the world. If it was a mcdojo art, it definitely wouldn’t be as popular and well known
One issue that I have run across was that at a local school (I won't mention it by name because the issue has long since been resolved) there was a time when students were awarded their belt rankings (other than black belt) based solely on how long they had been at the school. 3 months here's your orange belt. 6 months...yellow and so forth. No testing and it didn't matter if the student came to every class, or once a month. Black belts still had to test, but no one else. This was happening at a time when the original owner of the school had sold it to someone else, but allowed them to keep the name, after he found out what was happening he re-acquired the school and resolved the issue. But the idea of belt ranking by time in grade with no testing and no attendance certainly sounds like Mc Dojo territory to me.
I grew up in the club system (non-commercial!) in the 1970s, 80's and 90s in Germany. NOBODY tried to get to black belt as fast as possible! We saw it as a lot of responsibility to reach 1st Dan. It took us 8 to 11 years until we felt we might be ready to take the test, and we could fail. When I moved to the US in 1992 (commuting for a year) and encountered the US martial arts culture as a business model, it was quite a culture shock to me!
8:20 Jesse "Karate Nerd" Enkamp refers to what he teaches as simply "karate". His family's original art was "Yui Shin Kai Karate Jutsu". Its a blend of goju-ryu, shotokan, shito-ryu, ninjutsu, aikido, kobudo and motobu-ryu. He's also trained with masters of various other Okinawan and Japanese systems as well as jiu-jitsu and his family longer accepts Dan ranking from the Yui Shin Kai Karate Jutsu hombu dojo. Because of all that cross training he can't really refer to what he does as "Yui Shin Kai Karate Jutsu" anymore, but also doesn't want to say he or they "created" his own art.
I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but Jesse's Combat Academy school in Sweden is basically an MMA gym. The karate style they teach is Shito Ryu, along with BJJ, thai boxing, and specific MMA classes taught by Jesse's brother Oliver. Shito ryu has nothing to do with goofy ninjutsu or aikido., but does have elements of goju ryu, shotokan, shorin ryu and uechi ryu.
Great Video : I like the fact you revisit topics like this . I agree with your assessment. Recently I had my grand kids leaning Tae Kwon do in their area and I noticed their training was not the same as my son’s TKD school training. I figured it was different school so it is logical to believe that they would train differently. However when I visited the school I noticed they weren’t really trying to instruct the kids on how to spar correctly using movement or how to kick and block effectively. My son and I hold TKD black belts and we noticed that the instructors didn’t really spend too much times with the kids to prefect their techniques. Later my grand daughter asked me to teach her some more advance kicks : I taught her a simple counter attack; font kick ,move to lead round house kick. The next week she used the counter I taught her and was scoring really well. However the instructor was not to happy with her because she told him that I taught her . He told her that she should not learn from anyone else but him. I told her mom to watch out he might be a McDojo school
Yeah, "Don't learn from anyone else but me"....generally a red flag. However, to be fair an instructor doesn't know who may be teaching stuff to his students and can't guarantee they are getting good information or teaching bad habits. I've seen that too. But if they are adamant about not learning from anyone else, that's a bit suspect.
very good video! I'm 16 years old, I practice goju ryu karate for about 8 years now and I'm a brown belt. there is another dojo in my city and the belt system there is so stupid. I see kids that came 2 years ago with black belts and I can beat them without using my hands...
Im looking forward to seeing more history based videos like shotokan or tang soo do I hope a few of them will drop soon. But I agree with the mcDojo idea the sad thing that I've seen over the years is that many dojos have good self defence in there art but there instructor won't modernise to include it in curriculum. I see that your channel has educated many people on the arts. There are people out there who say this art is rubbish or this doesn't work but thanks to this channel they have been educated and it builds a greater respect for the martial arts within our community. Salutations Mr Dan.
I don't believe one Martial Art is better than another! I believe that it's more important to understand the different strategies and techniques that Martial Art uses, and I further believe that finding a Martial Art that works for the student as well as the student enjoys training in that Martial Art! I would like to learn more about the history of different styles and different Martial Arts! I would love to learn the history of Shudokan Karatedo! The Dojo I train at, the Sensei's in the Dojo work to make certain changes to present curriculum that is better for the students training!
Thanks for the legit content keep martial arts safe and legit and I've had to close my own school cause I couldn't pay insurance and rent so I respect any school that can keep there doors open
I just watched the original video a couple of days ago. None of the schools I've trained at (with the exception of taking a martial arts class at my university doesn't apply in this situation) were McDojos. They had some vary small similarities or McDojos, but definitely not a McDojo. The point of lineage. I have to say that when I trained with my second Tae Kwon Do instructor, he actually sat me down one day and talked about his lineage of training, it surprised me. He went into detail about who his instructor was and where he taught at the time my instructor was training and his instructor's instructor to how it leads back to being in the Chung Do Kwan lineage we practice. The reason I say it surprised me was because of the fact in and of itself that he felt I would be interested in know all of that, and In was. The reason why was because for the first four or five months I started training at the school, it was one-on-one with my instructor. The reason why was because at the time I was in college with classes Monday-Thursday in the mornings and the afternoons and evening I had a workstudy job on-campus. So, we would met every Saturday morning at the school to train. To jump ahead, my instructor wanted me to do that because he wanted to see how serious I was about training at the school. It was intense because since I had a green belt from taking a martial arts class at my university (The college I was going to when I started at the TKD school was a different school from the university and I had transferred from two years before), my TKD instructor honored that. That meant that I had to learn everything from White to Green for when I would have my first belt testing. It was a lot to learn; But, I did. It was a very important accomplishment in my martial arts training up to that point. After that and when my class and work schedule eased up some when I graduated from the college I was at and went back to the university I was going to before it, I was able to join the adult class. All of my instructors were very engaged with working with students, especially with sparring. My second TKD school was a small school. The childrens' class was a little bit bigger than the adult class, but not by much. In the adult class, there were 4 young teenagers and then the 5 of us adults. Out of the 9 of us, I had the most martial arts experience, so when it was testing time, I would be the one my classmates would spar with for testing. me, I had no choice but to spar with my instructor. But, in later testings, I was able to spar with students from our sister school who were either my belt or higher. The fail/passing of testing. In my situation, as far as with my second martial arts instructor (not my Chung Do Kwan instructor), I didn't get to train with him long enough to see how testing fully went with him because he retired from teaching after my first year of training with him. But, it is safe to say that he didn't just granted rank out. My third martial arts instructor (My second TKD instructor) when we tested, how he would do testing one of two ways. The first way was "pass fully", meaning that you basically pass all parts of the testing. The other thing was "pass conditionally", meaning that if there was there something that you still needed to work on for the next testing. I just you can say that this is the equivalent of holding up the next belt. That definitely happened to me at my very last testing before i had to put training on hold because of my class and work schedule getting crazy again. I think belt testing that way, "passing fully" or "passing conditionally", is a less harsher way for promotion. it's not saying that you did terrible, only that there are still things to work on so you can be confident and know what you are supposed to know in having that next belt. To me, it encourages not giving, which Perseverance is one of the 5 Tenets of TKD. I can see how this might be seen as a McDojo trait, to string a student along to get more money out of them. But, it really isn't.
“The truth shall make you free!” Thank you and God bless you & yours Mr. Dan!!! Stay awesome, safe and sane during this crisis! We shall overcome! (Full Salute)👊🏽🙏🏽🤙🏽
My sensei is awesome because outside of karate he does gun training, some form of Navy training, sword training, and some police training that works with detaining someone without cuffs. So on top of learning Shaolin kempo I am learning all these other cool things. The only bad parts is when he's demonstrating a technique on me, it always feels like he's about to break my arm.
On the subject of "no touch knockouts," there's a big difference between a school or instructor that teaches confidence, self-esteem, environmental awareness and the ability to diffuse a conflict without fighting and someone teaching you a Hadouken or Dim Mak. I recently was walking with a friend at night when a street person came up really close and seemed like he was going to grab or punch my friend. I stepped right in front of him, looked him in the eyes and said "Yo, we don't got it, mayne!" (Translation: we have no money to give you, sir) He shuffled away and we got home safe. That moment, in my opinion, encompassed my martial arts training more than if I had tried to engage in a physical fight. I felt that I had made my Sensei and Soke proud with my decisions. TL;DR The "aura" of the martial artist is a real thing and it is powerful, but it isn't a superpower, just the maximum effort of your confidence within. Giichin Funakoshi tells many stories about this.
I agree with you 100% but this is more "no touch self defense" and not "no touch KNOCKOUT". Dim Mak or claiming to be able to physically hurt another person by throwing chi at them is not a real thing.
"Just because its something that you aren't looking for does not make it a McDojo." THANK YOU. I am a American Kenpo green belt and I hear it all the time that "You couldn't beat a white belt in BJJ with that" Which, regardless the statement's claim, does not take into account the fact the Kenpo is primarily a self-defense and non tournament art (or my school is at least), I take Kenpo because I wish to defend myself against attacks in the moment from untrained opponents. I don't anticipate ever starting a fight of my own will, and I don't think many martial artists would outside of tournaments or friendly sparring. The idea that I would ever fight a BJJ practitioner is very slim in general, so it is of little consequence whether I could hold my own against one.
Agree completely with with the kids. We have a couple of kids in our class that Kiyoshi lovingly refers to as The Mighty Mites. They put in all the work the time and effort and won't be able to receive their black belt until they reach 14
Side not on this. During my yellow/actually blue belt test we would move to different people to be doing partners so everyone would practice with someone if different size and level. One of our Green Belt Mighty Mites testing for her purple. Because of my height advantage I was using kicks to keep her away. The little one suddenly let out a loud "Kiya!"and suddenly my stomach felt pain as she had time my kicks the entire time. And before I could move she was out of my reach. Needles to say there was a bit of laughter from the black belt board behind me followed by, "she got ya"from my Kiyoshi
Good example from my life, there is an Aikido dojo 30 minutes from me. Aikido gets the bad rap however this dojo advertises itself not as a school of self-defense. But rather as a Do center school focused on cultivating the self. They simply use Aikido to do so and they are massively popular in the local martial arts community. Especially by a lot of M.M.A. fighters and police some who train there.
When the lockdown hit, my school adapted by developing Zoom classes that deliver a sense of the dojo despite the separation. They are able to engage with the students to teach, coach and critique them while delivering a good workout in a limited space. Definitely NOT a McDojo.
I went to a McDojo once, a generic chain business of nondescript taekwondo and kungfu styles. They accepted payments per class/session so I wouldn’t have to save up money for paying for a whole semester worth. I think I did 3 classes but there were too many red flags in the dojo, the style, the equipment, the moves, etc. it was all in English and no Japanese or Korean or Cantonese words for any moves or stances. No katas or pre rehearsed sequences, no choreography, no preset drills. It was spontaneous in the moment workouts like an aerobics or Zumba class, but in a gi with a yellow belt they started me with. The dudes running the show dismissed my prior experience in ShitoRyu and GojuRyu, telling me not to use any of my muscle memory from those styles. After the 3rd time I decided not to continue as I didn’t like them dissing on other styles, plus they didn’t even have a style to call their own. I felt it was factory for profit, a kids program without any commitments or strings attached,an easy program for parents to sign their kids up for and then yank them out without regrets at any given moment. Like it was a calendar filler for school age kids inbetween fall soccer and summer baseball, gotta get those kids over scheduled in the winter for an indoor program. I hated it.
I didn't think this topic needed to be revised but then I watched this video and enjoyed it :) It covers any Grey areas or statements that could be misconstrued. There is nothing I didn't agree with and it any one guilty mark, as you've said doesn't automatically mean mcdojo. But boy, at least three should make you give some side eye. Kids being 4thbdegrees and what not, tends to cheapen the experience. Why the sugar frosted fist f*** would I see the art as a skill and mastery rank as prestige if an 8 year old can accomplish it? Perception is also important. You can totally cater to teaching kids, but if they merit seems simple and everyone wins and advancement is a trivial chore, then the satisfying drip of accomplishment is DEAD. The everyone passing thing is on point. My teacher will give you three chances and a sort of improve last chance during testing. I know what he's trying to do and I've learn to dig it but eventually, he is going to have to learn that failing is a part of life. If a person is woefully unprepared, then it is what it is. If they can't accept a failure, then they aren't focusing on the right thing. There were two times I was prepared to fail because I didn't show mastery, at least from my point of view. But I guess strictly speaking, I've seen places where the student doesn't even practice and still advance. That is a disservice to the student as well as to integrity. And if you teach "self defense," you really screw them over with a pretentious and I'll gained idea of competency. Cult like thinking is another one... It permeates some circles and that is a major NO. If you believe your system is all. That is required to be competent and complete, you are deluding yourself. From wing chun(common) to even BJJ (COMMON), if you do not take care of your weaknesses, you risk harboring a crippling overspecialization or worse.
Great video as usual and once again I like that you clarify your points . On another subject , I hope for future videos that you can strictly cover combat sports /martial arts. For example Sumo, Nippon Kempo/Kenpo, Sport Karate ,Olympic Taekwondo, Kickboxing ( American 70s style just fist and feet) Savate, etc. Also if you can cover less popular off the beaten path arts like Indian martial arts ( slowly creeping up in America like Silambam) Mexican style traditional wrestling ( Porrazo de Tigres from Guerro state) and some Caribbean/South American arts as well. Just some ideas if you are thinking of new vid posts. Thank you again.
Thank you for revisiting the topic. I have followed the mcdojo and bull shido topics for a long time. As a traditional artist, I think that we should not even entertain these topics. I feel like this because not everyone is a great instructor. Good instructors are hard to find even when you are in a good school. Let’s spend more time acknowledging the really good stuff instructors. We are passing on a negative message by using those terms.
Great to see you revisit this topic of the McDojos or alternatively known Bullshido, martial arts schools out there. I definitely agree that just because a martial arts school, might not be one to our personal liking, philosophical beliefs and general appeal, compared to say the UFC MMA Lion's Dan for example, that it does not make them a McDojo, if their focus is fitness, meditation and general health! What generally rings alarm bells on my radar of a Bullshido school, is when as you mentioned here Sensei Dan, the likes of no touch, chi and internal, mystical super feats schools of combat, like a deranged cult, preach that they can lethally obliterate an opponent before they even manage to approach them within striking range! Generally another good indicator of a McDojo, are those schools where the instructor bad mouths everyone else, saying that they or their school would destroy the other schools down the road, that the teachers of other arts are frauds, that their masters were nothing more than charlatans. Yet when you ask these same narcissistic, trash talking instructors, where or how they have proved the effectiveness of their so called skills, also against whom and to provide actual proof, they start back paddling, coming up with either convenient excuses to side step things, or are not willing to provide actual proof. A real martial arts master and their school does not brag about their achievements, nor lies, exaggerates and belittles other martial arts styles or practitioners, in order to try and sign up as many students as possible, to make their bank account grow numerically. My Cambodian high school best friend, used to be a sports prodigy at school, yet humble and kept his mouth shut. Whenever they used to ask him "Voeun how good are you really at the long jump, high jump, at the running competitions, swimming, soccer?" His response was "I like to let my work and my abilities do the talking for me"! To this day Sensei Dan that quote resonates for me immensely, whereby I live by it myself and I have used it as a measure of stick, against other martial artists. A real master of the combat arts, would allow others to see for themselves and judge them on their own skills, as opposed to their self boasting. Oh my goodness how prophetic, my first Kyokushinkaikan Karate master, back here in Australia, from my time in Japan, was precisely as you said one to side step the question about their training lineage. I recall once someone asking "Shihan B who was your Kyokushin Karate teacher "? To which his insolent, narcissistic response to the student was "You don't need to know who my teacher was, all you need to know is that I'm your teacher, my boy!" To which I then told them and everyone else privately, that Shihan B's master was none other than Shihan Eddie Emin, one of the original pioneers of Kyokushinkaikan Karate in Australia, let alone in Melbourne, of which our founder Sosai Oyama Masutatsu himself graded personally for the vast majority of his dans, up until his death. Simply put a non Bullshido school has no reason to hide such information from their students. If you are no longer under a master or an instructor, you should be able to tell your students if they ask you, who has mentored you along the way, be it good or bad. I myself have had three teachers in my Kyokushin Karate journey and currently a new Brazilian jiu-jitsu teacher, since our new dojo has expanded into incorporating Brazilian jiu-jitsu along with kickboxing, pilates, as well as personal training and women's self defense classes. To me my general indicator of a MacDojo or Bullshido martial arts establishment, is when their main focus is about money and no quality, when as you mentioned they wily nilly give away ranks, like hot cakes, the instructors boast about themselves, while trash talking others in the industry, also when they refuse to be honest and transparent, when asked general questions or proof of something. I hope all is well with you and your loved ones Sensei Dan, I would indeed welcome your idea of a possible live chat and interaction, with us all here on your channel. Greetings as always from Melbourne, Australia 🇲🇽🇦🇺🥋😊👊👍✌Osu!
So, I kind of laughed a little when you mentioned the "fast track" deal... A few years back, my son and I were taking TKD together (school promo was Parents train free, so it was like a 2 for one). At 36 years old, I had a pretty rough time with a lot of the more limber techniques. My thought was "train more!", so that's what I (and my son following suit) did- roughly 4 to 6 classes a week. I like the way they tested... They would always give you things you did well and things they would like to see you work on- you got that feedback whether pass or fail. Anyway, after a couple of belt tests, the head instructor of the school pitched me on the idea of a fast track to black (basically skipping the striped belts in between the solid colors up to probationary black belt). I told him that it might be something beneficial for his students who train hard and care about that but that for me it was more important to be the best I could be at each rank- that I could either be a REALLY GOOD [insert belt] or a REALLY BAD [insert next belt]. Then I asked him "which would you rather have representing your school?" I think he was a little disheartened by my lack of enthusiasm for it, but he respected it. He did still offer the program to students who trained hard and I think he had a few takers. In this particular circumstance, I don't think it was any indication of becoming a McDojo it was genuinely him recognizing dedication and effort and wanting to reward that in some way. Would you agree?
I teach Gunfu you start with our Colt 38'program before you move on to our M1911 training, and when you become a master after completing the Madeuce you get to have a Brass Belt.
just a quick note on the "gifted students" (and i know this is an exeptional case) i myself have founded a karate dojo in 2018, and for me the most important group of people to teach are those who can't find their place anywhere else because of who they are. because i teach children at school with autism, behaviour disabilities, learning disabilities, extreme fears, psychological trauma's and on and on, these children are also the groups of children i aim to HELP the most with dojo. by help i mean giving them a suitable place, situation and teacher (myself in this case) to practice a sport/martial art (depending on their own goals). now on to the gifted part; the groups i teach and guide the most at schools are highly gifted children. they are my absolute specialty. therefore, for example, my group i teach on fridays has at the moment 5 children of who 2 are highly gifted and 1 is extremely highly gifted (8yrs and already has psychological insight surpassing educated adults). add to that 1 "regular" child who is just very talented. so out of this group of 5 i have 4 very gifted students to clarify: - i am aware this is not a normal situation, but this is to show it is possible for a group to be (almost) all gifted. - everyone is welcome in my dojo, i just take extra measures to be able to facilitate the mentioned groups of children
I know a few clubs over the years who broke away from organisations like the JKA to "do their own thing" (essentially breaking off any lineage to Japan). But, in reality, they simply wanted to "relabel" themselves to increase profits and re-invent their own grading syllabus to flood their dojo with 120 black belts.
I spent 15 years in the army where i learned macp. (modern army combatives program) there are levels not belts. it consist of muay thai, boxing, wrestling, judo, karate and bjj. i went though the levels and eventually became an instructor. I trained thousands of soldiers, i cross trained with other branches of the military, i cross trained with other countries, I competed in the militay combatives compatitions, for 15 years several of which i was an instructor. when im training, or sparring/rolling someone always ask, "hey man, what belt are you?" and i say "im not." I wish people would stop putting such a big deal on belts. its just a way for an instructor to organize his class. I teach kids mma now (for free, i volenteer) I gave them belts for 2 reasons, and I made sure they know these reasons. 1, to organize the class. 2, to give them a sence of achievement. and the belts are only for my class. i dont wear a belt. Iv been told thats mcdojo. well, i guess ill have to eat them fries.
I think there are 2 good ways to know the quality of an art. Their lineage, regardless of what idiots say it matters for a good reason. and the second is, reputation. If they are good they can prove it and they have that reputation of being able to. Anyone who does not recognize their lineage of give credit where it is due is not someone i would want to learn from. Obviously, a good lineage is based of the reputations of its founders.
Awesome video Mr. Dan! Subscribed to your channel a while back and it’s always a pleasure to hear what you have to say. You brought up a lot of valid points. Some schools do have to make money to keep the lights on but having said that if the quality of instruction is good and the teachers are legit and have the students best interests at heart, then chances are your school is ok 👌
Honestly, I wish we could go back to the OG Shaw Bros. days when you could roll up on a janky McDojo school and challenge their instructor or senior students and if they lost, they would have to take down their sign and be shamed in the community.
I think our school started out like that still is but the higher belt you got they stopped and helped a lot and it’s really fun now and people fail test quite a lot.
I began training in Shindo Ryu when I was 7yrs old and I reached 1st Dan at 14 1/2 but I was 12 when I reached my Yellow belt first. My old Sensei would also do pre-tests to see if students would qualify to take a test. With this a student would be given an evaluation and told what needed to fix and also what they lacked. If a student failed their tests they would be given a punishment of Push ups and extended pose stand. They would also have to practice for months over and see if they could again pass their pre-tests before being re-tested. For the actual test itself it would take about 3 or 4 months after the pre test, and days before the actual test the student was re-evaluated. Tests included Kata, Bunkai Kumite (actual attackers for the specific Kata) and always it would start with the basics even for the Kuro Obi. Scaling on belts took time, especially for beginners, no matter how much one was a prodigy or not. Actual Kumite was the last part of the test, and even that could affect the outcome of the test itself... Some would even fail their test because of that. Each belt was harder than the previous one and more complex and it took time to achieve a higher level, but it was always important to still perform the basics. When I reached my 3rd Kyu Brown the test was actually given by the then Shihan of the school who visited at the time... And he took it upon himself to inspect the dojo before and allowed the students from the other 2 extensions to take their tests with ours. It was a total of 200 students that day from all of the different levels taking tests which began at 8am and I was told they ended at 12am (I had to leave after my test) ....only 2 students passed levels that day, a girl that was taking her Green Belt test, and me taking my 3rd Kyu Brown belt. All 3 Sensei from their respective Dojo where reprimanded and disciplined/punished with knuckle push ups and a week's closure of their Dojo... That obviously included the girl's and my Sensei and Dojo. On the next week at our Dojo, we all had to do push ups as punishment for the shame brought to our Sensei and while he had to do 200 knuckle push ups, the students with high ranks had to do 150 and the lowest rank (including white) had to do 50. In Japan and even in other Countries where certain Martial Arts originate from, their training is hard and knowledge is clear. Especially on the concepts of Ki and Chi which these McDojo's have soiled with their nonsense. Ki is the strength a person develops/possesses and reflects, their internal force that pushes them forward and the way that they perform a hit or move, you can see this in some performers, it's not the stupidity of telekinesis that had been wrongly popularized. The Kiai is the force expression of the Ki or force the performer expresses in tandem with the force. The sad thing about all this is that these "schools" exist for the gullible and it just take credibility of actual Dojo that may have been genuine... As paraphrasing "If many Dojo are fake, then all Dojo are fake" so the question is... Is it on purpose, for a purpose??
I think the wind from Mr Parker’s elbows or strikes could’ve knocked someone over lol JK I totally agree with the no touch knockout thing. Run from that lol
After 30+ years in martial arts, and having owned and operated 3 schools, here is my own personal criteria of what qualifies as a McDojo: - Profit over progress and quality of skill and knowledge - Underqualified instruction or poorly qualified instruction but charging high prices - If the schools sole intention is to make more money on testing, belts, gear, merchandise and everything else other than the student bases tuition. - If the school is exploiting the belt system for monetary benefit - If the quality of the skill of the majority of students are worse than an average PE program, but they are being ranked and promoted and not actually getting better. - If the school is primarily a day care under the guise of a martial art school - If the school never pays it's instructors and merely convinces them that teaching is a priveledge and honor - If the school has non paid, underqualified teenage black belts running the school and teaching - If the instructors and staff are not trained in CPR and First Aid every two years - If the instructors have a black belt but have yellow belt skills and knowledge The criteria above should give you a good idea of what a McDojo would be. As long as the public is in control of a martial art business, there will always be room for a dojo to become a McDojo. Constantly giving people what they want in a martial arts business, instead of actually teaching high quality martial arts will eventaully turn you into a McDojo. In order for a dojo to be completely immune from ever becoming a McDojo, you would have to never make it a business and only take students worth teaching, and i'm here to tell you they are not all worth teaching. Making martial arts a business automatically makes it a service, one in which the customer comes first and not necessarily the quality of training they recieve. Many school eventually become a dojo due to not having the money to become anything else, or they don't take the money and reinvest it to not become a McDojo. If your school runs primarily off your after school program, and your instructors are not qualified in any way, shape or form other than having a belt around their waist, then you're probobaly a McDojo too. If you're lying, cheating and stealing from the general public because you know they won't ask informed questions about what you are actually doing, you're also a McDojo. I traveled the untited states for almost 2 years and visited more than 200 schools in an effort to write a book on martial arts which will help more people understand why martial arts falters as a business and why so many McDojos somehow got pole position over the other schools. I visted everything from traditional to modern and everything inbetween. There are somewhere between 17,500 and 18,500 schools in the U.S. at any time and that number is likely to drop as a result of CVD19 pandemic. More than 90% of the schools I persoanlly visited would easily qualify as a McDojo, mainly because of the extremely low quallity of instruction and obvious lack of skill of the students all the way from white belt to black. You don't have to know anything about martial arts to know when somone is all about the money and not quality of learning and progress. As soon as someone about 80 years ago had the bright idea of turning martial arts into a business, that is when the McDojo essentially started. It's just taken that long for most people to finally notice. Martial arts was already a failing business until someone started the after school program business model, and then there was a huge flux of schools which opened up in the mid 90's to the 2000's and are even still growing today. The other thing which has nearly destroyed martial arts is how many schools have monetized on the side benefits or the derivitives of martial arts training and made that their new business model. Basically turning their schools into occupational therapy centers under the guise of martial arts. Its very hard in the U.S. to get people to buy into martial arts. In fact, less than 3% of the entire population in America participates in martial arts on any level. More than half of that 3% are children. It is very hard to make martial arts relevent enough to daily life to convince people to do it and stick with it. Because so many school owners out there have become obsessed witht he idea of making a doctors salary off of martial arts, we have had a large number of schools who have had to go way outside of what martial arts was intended to be in order to make that kind of money. Hospitals and medicine are 100X more relevent than martial arts, period. There are still people out there who think martial arts is only associated with violence, and there are still schools out there who refuse to teach the truth about what martial arts is in the first place; which is the study, practice and understanding of violence and how to prevent it, prepare for it or stop it. As long as martial arts is a business to profit from, there will alwayd be charlotons and crooks among us who take advantage.
This is an extremely well thought out and very intelligent perspective to have on the matter. Thank you for this feedback and insight and I agree with pretty much all of it. There ARE a lot of good schools out there, but they can be hard to find sometimes among all the commercial and profit focuses schools.
@@ArtofOneDojo Correct. When someone says to me "well, all you can do is do your own thing and not pay attention to all the bad schools and be the right school". My response to that is "and you can clearly see how well that is working out can't you?". Everyone thinks, in some way that they are all the "right" dojo or the "right" school and so forth. If everyone truly was thinking in this manner and actually were a great school, we would see more than a 3% participation rate and we would see more owners making a great living off of martial arts instead of having a school and writing off a loss every year and using their primary income to keep it open out of passion. Every school i visted acorss the U.S. honestly thought THEY were the right school, or the best school, etc. Unfortunately they were not looking into the industry to see just how much the number of bad schools were influencing the population at large to already have an established perception on martial arts. If the majority of the population has already been trained to believe that martial arts is only for LARP'ers or just something that kids do, it doesn't matter how many great schoos there are becuase they have aready been drowned out by what so many bad schools and bad instructors have already done over the last 60-80 years. Its perceptual and mental conditioning. There is already established and wide perception which the public believes is that "everything is karate". Everytime I tell people I do martial arts they react with "yea i used to do karate" and the truth is that I've never actually done karate. I have trained in more than 15 different systems and styles but not formal or traditional karate. The reason for this is because the martial arts industry has spent more than 60+ years advertising Karate to the public. Now today, we advertise karate as a keyword and not actually an art. Do you know how many schools i have seen that use the word Karate and are not teaching karate? There reason is "well, that's easy for people". My response is "no, your just a lazy asshole who is treating the public like they are a bunch of 4th grade idiots and you don't want to actually put the work in". We don't call every car a Ford do we? No because we understand that there are different types of vehicles out there that have different purposes to them. Why didn't we do that with martial arts? The more and more we continue to advertise martial arts as karate, the more and more people will believe that everything is just karate. And the more and more we use the belt system with everything the more association we bring to karate. The overall umbrealla term for martial arts is.....martial arts. The fact that we are still using a belt system shows a severe lack of evolvement and creative thinking and education. We just keep regurgitating whats been done, so its no surprise that the public doesn't take martial arts seriously when we live in an age of self driving cars. Its time for the martial arts industry at learge to wake up and see our own failure with the public due to ego and our incesent need to pass down tradition which was never ours to begin with.
I agree not everyone has the same goals . Some prefer to focus on just katas, or sparing, or self defense. My favorite area of focus is kata for the exercise and spirituality i feel when im focusing in the moment performing a kata!
I knew guys who got black belts in four years or less because Mom and Dad forked over money every month to a school. Their form and technique was to say the least, terrible To me there has never been a time frame to accuire a belt, and no one martial art is better than all the others.
It disturbs me a little that, in the year 2020, you'd get pushback for being dismissive of "no touch knockouts" and that people should be asking you to "keep an open mind" on the matter. Having an open mind means that you're willing to be convinced. It doesn't mean that you're willing to buy into impossible nonsense that has already been shown to be fraudulent.
"My style is the best and it counters everything (paraphrasing)" Yeah that's the one thing I've liked about most MMA coaches I've trained under, that they don't believe what they are trying fills all the gaps or even if it kind of does, it's a Jack of all master of none. So they'll actively encourage students to try other styles so long as it's going to help the fighter or even to train under a different MMA coach (so long as it's not a rival gym for understandable reasons) to learn a different perspective from someone who may have specialised in a different back ground. A good gym puts their students training first. Which is what gets those students coming back and paying.
If there are people that have an issue with training with kids around, they have tohumble themself. I train around kids, teens, and adults, and i have no issues.
What i noticed in my area, most of the mcdojos were tae kwon do schools. Im not talking about the whole martail art but what im saying is its more common for that style
One thing I will say about the "this style beats everything" McDojo sign is that a martial art which is designed as a 'jack of all trades' martial art (see: MMA) is often not a McDojo.
I agree with you completely! when i comes to the dojo i train at, i do have a BIG pet peeve. it is very very VERY rare to see a student fail a testing. their attitude may be poor and their skill may be even more so at the desired rank, but they will still pass the testing. I personally hate this because i am very competitive and i believe hard work is what promotes you. but even though i hate that we do this, it does have a reason behind it. so our instructor does not promote much, we dont have merch, we don't fund raise, sadly. the money we get from students goes back into the dojo for rent, utilities, equipment, and ex. teaching is not his full time job, our dojo basically a non profit because the extra money goes to the association fund for future dojo openings. so a lot of the income we get is from kids class. so when testing rolls around, if he makes a student wait to test or fails a student, they may quit and we loose students. ive trained for 5 years and im a black belt now and i have noticed that a lot of the students, especially the kids, have taken advantage of this flaw. ive had soooo many ideas to help motivate the kids to give more effort and even award those who go that extra mile (because we don't have that) but its so difficult because our main instructor, and all of our other instructors work full time, they have families, they dont always have that time to change things or even meet up to talk about improvement. i still push my ideas, i change them, i work with my instructors, and i even see more and more black belts giving their voice as well, but nothing has been able to change yet. the main challenge is we would need the grand master of the association's word in a lot of it but he is in another state at his dojo. the communication is very limited due to our main instructor's busy work schedule. we try to tell him we are here to help, but it makes him nervous when he cant be there to supervise. the C-19 break has not helped his schedule, even though i feel like this would be the perfect opportunity to at least discuss improvement. ugh! our style is fantastic, but our quality is fading.
i study a system of kung fu .under a very skilled very old school master over the years of training the more I pushed for information the less I got. 1 principle one te mastering my own self notion of entitlement and ego has been my greatest fight. however once learning the principle of stop looking for the answers and start training the system letting go of expectations letting go of the fight to win the battle.
i really want to open a McDojo with drive thru and everything and basically be like Master Ken and see how many people i can troll and how long i can keep trolling them. would be a funny reality show or something.
The biggest issue I have with McDojo are serious and regular injuries, especially to beginners. Every day bruising and scratch is no big deal, that's not what I'm talking about. What I mean is that every time the dojo meets a new person, breaks a bone or gets a concussion. That is not good, those instructors do not give a damn about your health, they do not give a damn if you can keep yourself safe. Hell, they probably do not care if you live or die.
I absolutely HATE when someone says one art is superior to the others. The effectiveness of martial artists is dependent on the individual practitioner and the quality of the instructor. I hold a Yellow Belt in Shotokan (yes, still technically a beginner) and have beaten supposed black belts in fights that came from Bullshido schools. Conversely, I have both defeated and lost to grapplers. Those skills also helped me in the military. Also, skill is not the only factor in a fight, though it is a major one. Luck plays a role as well.
When I was a kid my mom sent me to preforming arts dance classes. A kid I knew in school went to a mcdojo around the same time. At the end of the year him and I got into a fight and I kicked his ass.
@@ArtofOneDojo Because I was dancing all the time I had higher stamina than the kid. Plus keeping my distance hopping up and down, back and forth. I remember the kid got tired fast a 1, 2 to the face and a knee to the stomach ended the fight. He was pretty much tired at that point and I don't think the kid ever got punched in the face before. That's when I realized I could hit hard and got into boxing the next year. Learning dance helped improve my form in the boxing hall.
Thank you mr dan.. I can be honest and tell you I really wish you was my Shihan. I do truly enjoy your videos so much you motivate me and I really appreciate that
I have 11 years of wrestling experience and I’m 15 I started wrestling when I was 4 and I’m going to start tang soo do is that a good art for me with my past skill
bielive that since you are an experienced wrestler, what you need is a full contact striking system. Kickboxing, muay tai or even some style of karate would be perfect
A question about jr black belts: In BJJ there are no black belts for kids. Period. But when a kid turns of age they usually get a adult white belt or a blue belt depending on skill. When a jr. Black belt becomes an adult do they just get a adult black belt?
11:37 does it count if your master says that you don't need to learn other styles beacuse his style is complete enough and then they never do most of those techniques in sparring?
I do find that a red flag. There no style that is fully complete in all aspects. Some do a well rounded mix, but that's being average as many aspects and not great at all of them. This CAN be a warning sign, but not necessarily unless the school has a bunch of other bad signs as well.
The last school I walked out of met ~70% of these criteria. I took one introductory class, heard the instructor say that anyone who disagrees with his techniques has never been in a fight. He doesn't like training students who have previous training because he wants to work with a blank slate and he doesn't want to waste his time ( his actual words) answering questions about why techniques aren't done a different way. It was all $$$, every single item in the whole building was branded with the school logo, down to the kickpads.
"He doesn't like training students who have previous training because he wants to work with a blank slate and he doesn't want to waste his time" TRANSLATION... He doesn't want people who know what they are doing so he can feed them his material without being questioned. Wow, yeah those are bad and definitely sounds like it was McDojo. A place like that just wants profit and won't care about the quality of training you get.
The Mcdojo term is thrown around alot by keyboard experts and jealous people to throw shade. Teaching martial arts is incredibly difficult. The difficulty lies in finding a student that actually wants to learn something. Many concessions have to be made from time to time just to stay open. Then, once in a great while, a student comes along that has the heart of a martial artist and it makes it all worth it. I have trained 100s over the years but only had a handful of success stories.
6:51 So in the last video I just commented on the 3 child black sashes that I've seen in the time I've been at my Kung Fu school.. You mentioned different curriculums.. There is no other curriculum at my Kung Fu School (well there is but, it's "art" curriculum, not age.. traditional kung fu, wushu and tai chi and now full contact fighting) .. so if someone's 5 they learn the same exact thing an adult learns. Granted you have to make it age appropriate for them but they generally get it right and getting the black sash really just means you're a beginner. These kids grow up to be phenomenal practitioners WAAAY better than those who started later.. Similar to a musician anything else.
So it could be said that you're handicapping children by having a "junior curriculum" .. Kids are just as capable of learning martial arts as adults are.. And I never saw any kids at my school have a problem learning the forms or doing things correctly.. In fact some of those kids are more mature and way better behaved than some adults. This isn't about saying a kid can beat an adult.. This is about saying that kid has earned his black sash and he's going to be insanely good when he is an adult.
About not knowing the lineage and being a McDojo. We were a Kung Fu School in Honduras, Central America: At that time I only practiced about 7-8 months (1982); but most of the old students were my friends, nobody knew the lineage, we didn't even know that lineage was important, we only knew that we practiced Kung Fu and we only cared to win all the tournaments in which we participated, and whenever somebody asked what was your style, we answered Kung Fu and that was it. Our school was very successful, winning a lot of fighting tournaments, even some of our students participated in international karate tournaments (even though it wasn't our style). Now, that we are older (I'm practicing again), we've checked our history. We found out that the first teacher we had was a chinese national who run out of the people´s republic in the 70's. He started teaching honduran nationals against the will of the chinese colony in Honduras and he had problems with both (chinese and honduran), latter on he immigrated to the USA (we believe he was living in LA). But most of the SiFu he left in our country were young and only interested in fighting and winning not in style and lineages, although some guarded his history. We have found that he practiced Hung Gar style of the Lai San Wing lineage; but at the time (80's), we were so ignorant that if you had told us that we were a McDojo, just because we didn't know our style, we would've kicked your a..., and believe me we could do it. In our old school (JapSin) we didn't practice a lot of dances; but we fought all days, two or three times a day, that was our specialty, fighting. Warning: The beginners didn't fight until three months have passed. Now we laugh, when we ask each other what style we practice; we jokingly answer Kung Fu and that's it, remembering our naivete. Of course, if you ask, I will answer Hung Gar style. I told you this history so you can weight that criteria from a McDojo (not knowing the style). PD: My first SiFu also recommended, in 1982, to study JuDo as a way to complete the curriculum. Our actual SiFu still recommend JuDo to complete the curriculum.
Well, I mentioned this in the first video as well that just ONE thing on the list doesn't make a school a McDojo. Not knowing a lineage isn't a warning sign, especially if you never asked him. It gets a little shady when you ask and they won't tell you, or they try to cover something up. What you described does not sound like a McDojo at all.
Sensei Dan, I love your channel! If you don't mind me asking, what did you mean with your reference to Bushido? To my knowledge Bushido is not a Martial Art, it is a code of ethics that the Samurai live by. Bushi, the root word, that is a Japanese synonym for warrior, and do means 'the way'! In gramaticly correct English, it means, "The way of the warrior." Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated. This is kind of an odd ball question, did you mention Shudokan Karatedo or Shotokan Karatedo? I've studied Shudokan Karatedo for years, and, yes I'm not a Blackbelt, I'm an Ichi-kyu, and I don't hear much about Shudokan Karate, I'm wondering if that is because it is a lesser known style? I do remember you mention something about cross training in the first time you talked on this subject, I remember that you said if it is a legit Martial Art Dojo it would allow you to cross train in other styles or even other types of Martial Arts! A Mcdojo would say this Martial Art is best. As a Karate student, I've learned that there is always something new to learn, that's why I appreciate my Karate dojo I train at, is more about quality than rank/belt level. The Sensei's work to make it efficient for all students to learn the best way possible! I believe that a Blackbelt has to be earned by practice, good feedback from instructors, and a willingness to learn what you need to work on, and be willing student who applies it to their training! Honestly I don't want to have a Blackbelt handed to me, because it is a statement that I didn't quit and I earned it by putting time and effort, if I didn't train hard, it wouldn't have any real meaning!Sensei Dan, I appreciate your time and effort with your UA-cam channels! Keep up the good work!
Oh, no you are correct with "Bushido". The word I said was "BULLShido", and I didn't pronounce is very clearly. Bullshido is a word used to describe a martial art that is considered fake, poor, or "Bullsh**). It's a derogatory term but a lot of people use it interchangeably with "McDojo".
Here's one I've experienced: The grand master doesn't teach the lessons. Thoughts? In this particular school's case, the masters teaching lessons were legit, 5th dan or higher with university degrees in physical education, as well as military experience. But the grand master was mostly a salesperson.
Signs of a McDojo 1. Claims to be too dangerous for the ring 2. Palm strike to nose that's supposed to push your nose into your brain and kill you 3. Kata 4. Standing wrist locks which are supposed to flip your opponent or break their wrist 5. Spinning back fist 6. Axe kicks 7. When they ground fight the positions don't resemble anything from wrestling or Brazilian jiu-jitsu 8. Claims an elbow to the spine or knee to the face is how you prevent a double leg takedown 9. No sparring 10. The katana is the best sword ever 11. Claims to be able to defend against multiple attackers yet is unable to defeat one attacker 12. Board breaking 13. Mentions the fact that they're a former Navy SEAL, Green Beret, Army Ranger, etc. 14. Thinks Bruce Lee was a real fighter 15. Thinks karambits are useful knives 16. Tries to make a distinction between "self defense" and "sport fighting" 17. Ear slapping 18. Pressure points 19. Dim mak 20. Shaolin 21. Moves that are supposed to "take your opponent's knee out" 22. Moves that are supposed to "snap your opponent's neck" 23. Back flips 24. "If someone threatens you with a knife give them your wallet" 25. Children, people in wheelchairs, and fat people with black belts
I like to not even grade, just stay a white belt for ever. But sometimes I get a talk from Sensi, that I am making new white belts feel bad. I wish most belts were stopped.
I wished I had seen this video a long time ago I was also in a mcdojo and the teacher had a problem with the women and he just couldn't help himself to the point that it got out of hand he and the woman got into a fight she had bruises on her face she reported that incident to the peoples at the center and they didn't want him there no more I was so hurt and angry at them to the point it affected me because my goal was to get that first degree black belt but that's water under the bridge now because I'm in to Qigong and Tai chi and I learned to overcome I was hurt by it but it made me strong and also it made me not to trust him and other people like him
A. There’s a surprising amount of people who still (after many corrections. I’m not bitter) think I practice karate (nope, Ninpo), B. Most Americans think martial arts are karate or tae kwan do, or kung fu, C. Too many parents couldn’t tell you what kind of karate their kid does (I asked a parent once what kind of karate their kids practice, she said the “regular kind”). Aside from the general lack of knowledge on the martial arts, and the ability to make informed choices (Thanks for this video!), my biggest worry these days about dojos in America is the amount of sexual abuse and predatory behavior I hear about. Do you think the McDojo phenom and the abuse factors are linked?
I assume you have your notes to both your right and left. Gotta admit, sometimes it was a bit too obvious and your quick head movement made me think you where expecting to get "surprised-birthday-party" at any second. Great video. Thanks!
So if I want to one day open a school, once I finish mastering my art and get permission from my master to you know use the art to teach, if I use these guidelines, I will do ok?
There is a LOT into running a school. It's a lot more than just knowing the material and teaching it, there is a lot of business concepts, marketing, and organization that goes into it. It's also not cheap to open a school. I would recommend teaching at a smaller area first, a recreation hall or community center, or teaching at an after school program or as an instructor with your master first. You definitely want to have a lot of teaching experience before you open your own school.
I'm a full-time martial arts instructor so keep in mind I may be biased. I think the fact that there's still a debate whether instructors should be able to make a living is absolutely insane. I loved you bringing up doctors because it's the same thing in my opinion. Why should every other profession on Earth get paid and be able to support their family but for some reason martial arts is something that you should teach purely for the sake of the art. I love martial arts more than just about anyting but I can't dedicate nearly as much time and effort into it if I have a full/part-time job just to pay my bills.
OSU! I humbly, feel that one must find his/her Dō (Way) as Dōjōs are not entities to make money in unless one has a name like Soshu Oyama, Kaichō Nakumura, and Sosai, to name a few or if one purely desires monetary gains, then one can make money (McDōjōs). Juxtaposed are the Professional fighters who win in tournaments that then can use their name for schools as most of them are contract, which makes them Professionals. Plus, many of them are sponsored as well, which is a HUGE benefit for/to one's training. Suffice it to say, the rest of us have to find our own Way, which is very hard and at times and can be frustration or disheartening, but if one's Spirit is strong, then one preserves. Seishin no Seishin!!! OSU!!!
I think martial arts instructors should be able to make a living ny teaching, but there is a fine a line between a successful and honest martial arts school and a McDojo. That difference is the will to maintain standards despite financial pressures. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the schools who manage to be successful and maintain standards.
You got a point
I enjoy training my style since I was 14 years old chinese boxing
But every now and then I don't mind teaching or coaching
Is in my sistem so I can care less for that money$$$
If I need money there's always a side job.....
I agree. If actual artists and musical artists can make a living teaching their skills, then so can we.
@Will iam 🤔🤔🤔
*Me:* goes into a dojo, sees a 10 year old 5th dan black belt sitting down.
*Me:* "Ok, this is definitely a McDojo, who's the sensei?"
*The 10 year old:* "I am"
Haha nice one
And he's a disciple of Shaolin bc he paid for the certificate!
@@FilmaticProductions yes he said that himself as mutch your bringing a good point he did actually train his last year with real shaolin warrior monks
Lol I got into an internet argument recently supposedly this guy is saying a 12 year old girl can kick my ass (she is a 5 tine world champion in kickboxing) im a 19 year old guy who trained in boxing, judo, and wrestling even if I didnt train im pretty sure i cam beat a 12 year old
@@rusty7984: %100 the accolades of a child can not compare to the strength of an adult in almost all cases. Of coarse there are outliers like Tyson smashing people at 13, but that is extremely rare and not typically what people are talking about.
My sensei is a 4th degree kyokushin black belt and branch chief. He is also a purple belt in bjj. So hes merged parts of bjj into his kyokushin syllabus eg throws, take towns and submissions. He blends the 2 styles nicely.
My Sensei showed us Shotokan kata, and Kyokushin techniques.
He teaches us in a Judo school, so sometimes the Judo Sensei shows us some takedowns and throws
@@chickenfeeet my sensei teaches in an old and used taekwondo dojang but we do kickboxing, boxing, mma, submission grappling and wrestling in that dojang i mean at least he is teaching all of this and he's doing it very well
That Kobra Kai shirt is awesome. You sir, have good taste
I like the shirt too! I'm ready for Cobra Kai season 3.
@@chadwassemiller3360 saaaaaame
I am getting a Miyagi Do one 🥋
One of my pet peeves is people thinking that you have to have some sort of official looking establishment to be considered a legit school. For example, my master had been training since the mid 50s and we train in his back porch and yard where he has a mat, wooden dummy, arnis sticks and some old beat up staves.
But people look at me like I’m crazy training there instead of some school on a business plot.
People are probably missing out on some very awesome lessons!! You do you. Trust me, what you have there is pure gold
Larry Bird learned to play basketball throwing balls into a milk crate. Do you bro... if it's legit lessons its legit.
@@anthonyhutchins2300 Wow, Larry learned by throwing balls in a milk crate? Dude, that's cool beyond words! :)
2 years ago I opened a very small little Dojo here in Nashville I just have 30 kids the kids that I have all kids that are under privilege they have all been in trouble they was all about to completely flunk out of school in the past 2 years I have worked with them teach them wado ryu karate. After each class we have a set down and talk Time. I want to be involved and help them in our lives because that is the future majority are these kids does not have a man in my life they need to know what a man is like a man that will be there for them and love them and care for them and supports them every one of my kids grades have now gone up after each class we sat down and do homework my love for the martial arts has been there since I was 8 years old and it is still there now.. martial arts are just not about punching and kicking it's about helping people and changing their lives and making them a better person thank you Mr Dan I really wish you was my Shihan
@Mojo Mosher thank you so much I truly do appreciate that I hope you and your family are doing good doing this pandemic
That's awesome.i'm green(2nd stripe in shotokan).
keith sir you are a great person helping people learn a martial art at a young age and improve their lives. Mentors are important at a young age for young men . I study Uechi Ryu but had a shaolin Kempo teacher mentor me the same way you are those kids when I was little and that experience kept me studying martial arts it means so much to me . Great job Keith and if you have any literature on wado ryu or a school website let me know I'd value reading about your style karate culture is a passion of mine
First video of yours I've watched and I agree with nearly all points. I teach at my dojo for my club for the passion and privilege to teach, not to profit. I travel 30 minutes there and 30 back. I don't get paid for my time. I pay rent on the school gym. I get there early to sweep the floor, then do my own training. It is my core belief to pass on the knowledge and not turn that knowledge into a business. It's a recipe/ethic my club has used for 40 years (I've been there for 27, instructing for 7). We have always been small (10-12 students), but have dedicated students. I invite my students to question anything I teach them. We "pressure test" what I teach them. They will always come back to genuineness, with confidence they are getting genuine skills. Straight after COVID restrictions were lifted here in Australia, I had all 10 students present on the first night. Keep it real and we'll continue for another 40 years+
-Sensei says: “I have to register my fists as lethal weapons.”
-There are asinine items being used for training equipment such as but not limited to: Hulk Hands, Light Sabre, etc.
-No sparring allowed
-No cross learning/training allowed
-You must specifically purchase THEIR uniforms/merchandise/apparel
-Their uniforms have the address and phone number printed on them
-More money/fees required to “advance”, tuition increases frequently
-Strict sign on contracts
-Over sized classes
-No privacy (big glass windows enabling people on the street to look in on lessons).
-Sensei/Teacher is out of shape and doesn’t participate
-Older students are often stuck training new students
-No (or too much) tournament participation
-Too easy to earn a black belt (child or adult).
-Questioning the techniques or the teacher is prohibited.
-Techniques taught are based on 5 to 10 [complicated] movements and require your opponent to hold still.
-You’re taught how to disarm someone with a knife or a gun via a “wheel/crescent kick”.
-They claim to be a “No Contact” school
-No resistance allowed during self self defense drills because you are told “if you resist, you could break your arm”.
-Your “Sensei” has never been in a fight before.
-Nobody fails a test
-You are told the techniques taught by the school guarantee you “invincibility”, and “you will never be hurt in a fight if you learn our moves”.
I agree with some of these, not others. I see no problem with the school wanting students to wear the school's standard uniform. It doesn't have to be this way, but IMO, if you are trying to create a sense of cohesion among students, it is odd for some folks to be wearing odd colored uniforms, or no uniforms at all. Expense of a Karate or Tae Kwon do Uniform is pretty minimal. They usually don't cost any more than a technical shirt and workout pants, so it doesn't bother me and certainly isn't a sign a school is a McDojo.
Older or more experienced students assisting with teaching is IMO, a good sign. Because to teach a technique, you have to know it. Now, if the head instructor sits in his office while the top student teaches the class, now that is a problem. But for the teacher to ask a black belt student to take some lower belts and work with them on a technique or form, not a problem at all.
Tournaments - This is an interesting one. Because I can see where you might want to test your technique against other martial arts students. But on the other hand, not everybody has the time or the money to be competing in tournaments every couple of weeks.
Years ago, one of the reasons I quit my martial art was too much focus on tournaments. Like every other week, we had to train to prepare for a tournament. The thing was, I was getting on with my high school years and only had so much time to train. So if I knew I wasn't going to a tournament, I got cheated out of any instruction, and yet, I still wanted to train and get better, but wasn't improving since I wasn't competing.
Martin Tanz oh that’s cool, I like your perspective on this. Thanks for not attacking me and swearing or calling me names. Glad that UA-cam still has some civil people in the comments.
I agree with everything on your list, I have personally seen all of these things. I remember when it took 8-10 years to get a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. What I couldn't stomach was having to bow to an 11 year old 4th degree black belt,
and that's when I decided to begin doing what I know needs to be done with my training on my own. I don't depend on any teachers or schools any more but I participate in formal school training. Thank goodness for YT.
*Over sized classes*
A class size has no relation to it's quality. Big classes don't equal bad/McDojo classes.
*-No privacy (big glass windows enabling people on the street to look in on lessons).*
WTF? Privacy has nothing to do with the quality of what is being taught.
*-Sensei/Teacher is out of shape and doesn’t participate*
Yes, they _should_ be in shape... but not being so does not mean they can't remember what is what and pass that information on.. As for taking part, an instructor needs to concetrate on making sure the _student_ is training correctly, not on doing so in class themselves.
Everything else: Yes.
Matt Mosley personally every large class I’ve ever been in was very poor quality. As for privacy, it can attract people from off the street who want to join just to meet girls. Every place I trained that had big windows would attract these pervy guys looking to pick up a date so they would join and make a nuisance of themselves in class. As for the sensei, I believe that being in shape and participation sets a positive example for students, especially since I took dance classes (yes I know there is a difference between dance and martial arts). But those are my opinions based on my experiences.
I love how a minor controversy arose over you saying you should leave a dojo that claims to be able to teach you f***ing MAGIC.
Also, I attend a "no touch knockout" school, it is called "Ka-chunk," and you get roughly six to thirty attempts to knock your opponent out. It is highly effective and practiced by every military around the world. God bless the USA and the second amendment.
Jokes aside, I got my black belt (in Simmundo TKD) after nine years of highly focused training (sometimes 5 days a week, three hours a day). Shortly after that, I had to move away...and thus began my journey through McDojo land. My old school was a "you get it when you get it" school, and my nine years to black belt was actually relatively short. Everywhere else, it was "three years, black belt guaranteed!"
I have only once seen a "real" school where a student was just given a belt. That student was me. I had bounced around BJJ schools for about two years after getting my black belt (my TKD school encouraged cross-training), so I moved again for work and went to a new BJJ school. Out of respect, I wore my old white belt again. I went to a group testing as a dummy/grappling partner for other students. At the end of the day, the instructor tossed me a one-stripe blue belt and everyone applauded. I was not on the schedule and was thus confused. It turns out the instructor had been testing me for the last three months of training and live grappling since I showed up, and determined I hit all the criteria. I was hesitant to accept and insisted that I go through proper testing until he stated that I was submitting blue belts in live grappling then threatened to throw me out if I did not accept. That is how belts should be rewarded. You get it when you get it.
"If the school teaches you no touch knock outs, or throwing chi across the room, leave."
As someone who spent nearly a year in a DKI school before realizing it was bullshit, I can confirm. Leave. If you already signed a contract by then, tell them you want out of it. If they refuse, make too much noise for the McDojo instructor to not terminate the contract.
I seriously can't believe why that above quote generated controversy.
Yeah, I was told I need to keep an open mind. When I said that there is no such thing is projecting invisible energy across the room to affect another person, they responded with something along the lines of "there are forces out there that we don't know about" or some junk. Sorry, no. I try to be objective in the Martial Arts, but I don't consider those martial arts, they are performance theater.
@@ArtofOneDojo this might seem like a pop-off but it is not. I've been studying sciences nearly my whole life, currently trying to earn my PhD in nanotech. In physics the idea of "no contact forces" are frowned upon. There are some that argue about the centrifugal force as being a no-direct contact force and other such topics, but that's mostly nuances on how certain theories approach certain subjects. To my knowledge, there is nothing in any branch of science that supports the idea of "a hadouken" or any such thing. Some people, with which I happen to agree, argue that martial arts should be approached with a sort of scientific mind-set where you keep what's useful and discard what is not. If a technique or set of techniques look super cool but are basically useless, then chances are that they aren't worth practicing. In physics, one of my favorite examples of a theory getting dropped is the caloric theory, which was useful in explaining some aspects of thermodynamics, but was still superseded by a better theory.
In short, your position of "chi powers are junk" is correct. Nothing supports the idea that they are real, but there are many examples online of it failing spectacularly.
@@agsiar Whoa now...I never said anything about Hadukens not being real! :P
@空手道 You have a lot of hate in you, and that is really sad. And judging by your attitude I wouldn't be surprised if you are one of those 5- 8 year olds.
I have a couple of questions for you:
1. In a previous message you said I was scamming parents with my belt system. You never answered when I asked you to clarify exactly what my "scam" was, especially since I don't have a belt system and I don't run a school?
2. How exactly do I give Karate a bad name? I work extremely hard, I've earned my achievements and I'm always striving to learn more. I don't go on other UA-cam channels to bash people and their work and say they give their art a bad name. I am at least making an effort, putting myself out there, and providing a show. Can you show me your contribution to the arts?
3. What narrative am I changing exactly?
4. Aikdo and Kenpo are arts. Arts cannot be McDojos, only individual schools can. So that doesn't even make sense. What are do you train? In my experience, someone who bashes other arts usually has an art they are attached to and feel is the best of all, so which art do you think is the best then?
As for no one caring about what I think? Well, as of now 23,000 people disagree with you and if you look through the comments of the channel you will see some really good conversations going. I'm very proud of the viewer base we have and the productive information that comes out of it.
We're achieving a lot of good things, and we have a lot of great comments. Naturally, once in a while we're going to get a troll like you but that's ok. It's like having a bright white uniform, occasionally you're going to get a little dirt on it but that's fine. You'll wash off.
Art of One Dojo how the hell can someone call karate a mcdojo art when karate is one of the most well known and practices martial arts in the world. If it was a mcdojo art, it definitely wouldn’t be as popular and well known
One issue that I have run across was that at a local school (I won't mention it by name because the issue has long since been resolved) there was a time when students were awarded their belt rankings (other than black belt) based solely on how long they had been at the school. 3 months here's your orange belt. 6 months...yellow and so forth. No testing and it didn't matter if the student came to every class, or once a month. Black belts still had to test, but no one else. This was happening at a time when the original owner of the school had sold it to someone else, but allowed them to keep the name, after he found out what was happening he re-acquired the school and resolved the issue. But the idea of belt ranking by time in grade with no testing and no attendance certainly sounds like Mc Dojo territory to me.
I grew up in the club system (non-commercial!) in the 1970s, 80's and 90s in Germany. NOBODY tried to get to black belt as fast as possible! We saw it as a lot of responsibility to reach 1st Dan. It took us 8 to 11 years until we felt we might be ready to take the test, and we could fail.
When I moved to the US in 1992 (commuting for a year) and encountered the US martial arts culture as a business model, it was quite a culture shock to me!
8:20 Jesse "Karate Nerd" Enkamp refers to what he teaches as simply "karate". His family's original art was "Yui Shin Kai Karate Jutsu". Its a blend of goju-ryu, shotokan, shito-ryu, ninjutsu, aikido, kobudo and motobu-ryu. He's also trained with masters of various other Okinawan and Japanese systems as well as jiu-jitsu and his family longer accepts Dan ranking from the Yui Shin Kai Karate Jutsu hombu dojo. Because of all that cross training he can't really refer to what he does as "Yui Shin Kai Karate Jutsu" anymore, but also doesn't want to say he or they "created" his own art.
I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but Jesse's Combat Academy school in Sweden is basically an MMA gym. The karate style they teach is Shito Ryu, along with BJJ, thai boxing, and specific MMA classes taught by Jesse's brother Oliver. Shito ryu has nothing to do with goofy ninjutsu or aikido., but does have elements of goju ryu, shotokan, shorin ryu and uechi ryu.
Did you learn the hadoken yet. 😅
Great Video : I like the fact you revisit topics like this . I agree with your assessment. Recently I had my grand kids leaning Tae Kwon do in their area and I noticed their training was not the same as my son’s TKD school training. I figured it was different school so it is logical to believe that they would train differently. However when I visited the school I noticed they weren’t really trying to instruct the kids on how to spar correctly using movement or how to kick and block effectively. My son and I hold TKD black belts and we noticed that the instructors didn’t really spend too much times with the kids to prefect their techniques. Later my grand daughter asked me to teach her some more advance kicks : I taught her a simple counter attack; font kick ,move to lead round house kick. The next week she used the counter I taught her and was scoring really well. However the instructor was not to happy with her because she told him that I taught her . He told her that she should not learn from anyone else but him. I told her mom to watch out he might be a McDojo school
Yeah, "Don't learn from anyone else but me"....generally a red flag. However, to be fair an instructor doesn't know who may be teaching stuff to his students and can't guarantee they are getting good information or teaching bad habits. I've seen that too. But if they are adamant about not learning from anyone else, that's a bit suspect.
Even the gifted students need time at their ranks. There is regurgitation and coordination and then there is understanding.
Perfect quote "when everyones a prodigy, nobody is"
SYNDRONE!
Be careful of any school that claims their beats all? Apparently, you haven't studied Ameridote.
Yes but how does Ameridote fare against...Rex Kwan Do?
very good video!
I'm 16 years old, I practice goju ryu karate for about 8 years now and I'm a brown belt. there is another dojo in my city and the belt system there is so stupid. I see kids that came 2 years ago with black belts and I can beat them without using my hands...
Im looking forward to seeing more history based videos like shotokan or tang soo do I hope a few of them will drop soon. But I agree with the mcDojo idea the sad thing that I've seen over the years is that many dojos have good self defence in there art but there instructor won't modernise to include it in curriculum.
I see that your channel has educated many people on the arts. There are people out there who say this art is rubbish or this doesn't work but thanks to this channel they have been educated and it builds a greater respect for the martial arts within our community. Salutations Mr Dan.
I don't believe one Martial Art is better than another! I believe that it's more important to understand the different strategies and techniques that Martial Art uses, and I further believe that finding a Martial Art that works for the student as well as the student enjoys training in that Martial Art!
I would like to learn more about the history of different styles and different Martial Arts! I would love to learn the history of Shudokan Karatedo! The Dojo I train at, the Sensei's in the Dojo work to make certain changes to present curriculum that is better for the students training!
Thanks for the legit content keep martial arts safe and legit and I've had to close my own school cause I couldn't pay insurance and rent so I respect any school that can keep there doors open
I just watched the original video a couple of days ago. None of the schools I've trained at (with the exception of taking a martial arts class at my university doesn't apply in this situation) were McDojos. They had some vary small similarities or McDojos, but definitely not a McDojo. The point of lineage. I have to say that when I trained with my second Tae Kwon Do instructor, he actually sat me down one day and talked about his lineage of training, it surprised me. He went into detail about who his instructor was and where he taught at the time my instructor was training and his instructor's instructor to how it leads back to being in the Chung Do Kwan lineage we practice. The reason I say it surprised me was because of the fact in and of itself that he felt I would be interested in know all of that, and In was. The reason why was because for the first four or five months I started training at the school, it was one-on-one with my instructor.
The reason why was because at the time I was in college with classes Monday-Thursday in the mornings and the afternoons and evening I had a workstudy job on-campus. So, we would met every Saturday morning at the school to train. To jump ahead, my instructor wanted me to do that because he wanted to see how serious I was about training at the school. It was intense because since I had a green belt from taking a martial arts class at my university (The college I was going to when I started at the TKD school was a different school from the university and I had transferred from two years before), my TKD instructor honored that. That meant that I had to learn everything from White to Green for when I would have my first belt testing. It was a lot to learn; But, I did. It was a very important accomplishment in my martial arts training up to that point. After that and when my class and work schedule eased up some when I graduated from the college I was at and went back to the university I was going to before it, I was able to join the adult class.
All of my instructors were very engaged with working with students, especially with sparring. My second TKD school was a small school. The childrens' class was a little bit bigger than the adult class, but not by much. In the adult class, there were 4 young teenagers and then the 5 of us adults. Out of the 9 of us, I had the most martial arts experience, so when it was testing time, I would be the one my classmates would spar with for testing. me, I had no choice but to spar with my instructor. But, in later testings, I was able to spar with students from our sister school who were either my belt or higher.
The fail/passing of testing. In my situation, as far as with my second martial arts instructor (not my Chung Do Kwan instructor), I didn't get to train with him long enough to see how testing fully went with him because he retired from teaching after my first year of training with him. But, it is safe to say that he didn't just granted rank out. My third martial arts instructor (My second TKD instructor) when we tested, how he would do testing one of two ways. The first way was "pass fully", meaning that you basically pass all parts of the testing. The other thing was "pass conditionally", meaning that if there was there something that you still needed to work on for the next testing. I just you can say that this is the equivalent of holding up the next belt. That definitely happened to me at my very last testing before i had to put training on hold because of my class and work schedule getting crazy again. I think belt testing that way, "passing fully" or "passing conditionally", is a less harsher way for promotion. it's not saying that you did terrible, only that there are still things to work on so you can be confident and know what you are supposed to know in having that next belt. To me, it encourages not giving, which Perseverance is one of the 5 Tenets of TKD. I can see how this might be seen as a McDojo trait, to string a student along to get more money out of them. But, it really isn't.
“The truth shall make you free!” Thank you and God bless you & yours Mr. Dan!!! Stay awesome, safe and sane during this crisis! We shall overcome! (Full Salute)👊🏽🙏🏽🤙🏽
My sensei is awesome because outside of karate he does gun training, some form of Navy training, sword training, and some police training that works with detaining someone without cuffs. So on top of learning Shaolin kempo I am learning all these other cool things. The only bad parts is when he's demonstrating a technique on me, it always feels like he's about to break my arm.
On the subject of "no touch knockouts," there's a big difference between a school or instructor that teaches confidence, self-esteem, environmental awareness and the ability to diffuse a conflict without fighting and someone teaching you a Hadouken or Dim Mak. I recently was walking with a friend at night when a street person came up really close and seemed like he was going to grab or punch my friend. I stepped right in front of him, looked him in the eyes and said "Yo, we don't got it, mayne!" (Translation: we have no money to give you, sir) He shuffled away and we got home safe. That moment, in my opinion, encompassed my martial arts training more than if I had tried to engage in a physical fight. I felt that I had made my Sensei and Soke proud with my decisions.
TL;DR The "aura" of the martial artist is a real thing and it is powerful, but it isn't a superpower, just the maximum effort of your confidence within. Giichin Funakoshi tells many stories about this.
I agree with you 100% but this is more "no touch self defense" and not "no touch KNOCKOUT". Dim Mak or claiming to be able to physically hurt another person by throwing chi at them is not a real thing.
"Just because its something that you aren't looking for does not make it a McDojo." THANK YOU. I am a American Kenpo green belt and I hear it all the time that "You couldn't beat a white belt in BJJ with that" Which, regardless the statement's claim, does not take into account the fact the Kenpo is primarily a self-defense and non tournament art (or my school is at least), I take Kenpo because I wish to defend myself against attacks in the moment from untrained opponents. I don't anticipate ever starting a fight of my own will, and I don't think many martial artists would outside of tournaments or friendly sparring. The idea that I would ever fight a BJJ practitioner is very slim in general, so it is of little consequence whether I could hold my own against one.
Agree completely with with the kids. We have a couple of kids in our class that Kiyoshi lovingly refers to as The Mighty Mites. They put in all the work the time and effort and won't be able to receive their black belt until they reach 14
Side not on this. During my yellow/actually blue belt test we would move to different people to be doing partners so everyone would practice with someone if different size and level. One of our Green Belt Mighty Mites testing for her purple. Because of my height advantage I was using kicks to keep her away. The little one suddenly let out a loud "Kiya!"and suddenly my stomach felt pain as she had time my kicks the entire time. And before I could move she was out of my reach. Needles to say there was a bit of laughter from the black belt board behind me followed by, "she got ya"from my Kiyoshi
Good example from my life, there is an Aikido dojo 30 minutes from me. Aikido gets the bad rap however this dojo advertises itself not as a school of self-defense. But rather as a Do center school focused on cultivating the self. They simply use Aikido to do so and they are massively popular in the local martial arts community. Especially by a lot of M.M.A. fighters and police some who train there.
The classiest martial arts commentator on UA-cam! I rock with this brother heavily.
Thank you!
When the lockdown hit, my school adapted by developing Zoom classes that deliver a sense of the dojo despite the separation. They are able to engage with the students to teach, coach and critique them while delivering a good workout in a limited space. Definitely NOT a McDojo.
I am a 15th Dan bullshido master. I am glad you can distinguish the difference between bullshido and mcdojo. Osu 🙏
I went to a McDojo once, a generic chain business of nondescript taekwondo and kungfu styles. They accepted payments per class/session so I wouldn’t have to save up money for paying for a whole semester worth. I think I did 3 classes but there were too many red flags in the dojo, the style, the equipment, the moves, etc. it was all in English and no Japanese or Korean or Cantonese words for any moves or stances. No katas or pre rehearsed sequences, no choreography, no preset drills. It was spontaneous in the moment workouts like an aerobics or Zumba class, but in a gi with a yellow belt they started me with. The dudes running the show dismissed my prior experience in ShitoRyu and GojuRyu, telling me not to use any of my muscle memory from those styles. After the 3rd time I decided not to continue as I didn’t like them dissing on other styles, plus they didn’t even have a style to call their own. I felt it was factory for profit, a kids program without any commitments or strings attached,an easy program for parents to sign their kids up for and then yank them out without regrets at any given moment. Like it was a calendar filler for school age kids inbetween fall soccer and summer baseball, gotta get those kids over scheduled in the winter for an indoor program. I hated it.
per session that is really a mcdojo
I didn't think this topic needed to be revised but then I watched this video and enjoyed it :)
It covers any Grey areas or statements that could be misconstrued. There is nothing I didn't agree with and it any one guilty mark, as you've said doesn't automatically mean mcdojo. But boy, at least three should make you give some side eye.
Kids being 4thbdegrees and what not, tends to cheapen the experience. Why the sugar frosted fist f*** would I see the art as a skill and mastery rank as prestige if an 8 year old can accomplish it? Perception is also important. You can totally cater to teaching kids, but if they merit seems simple and everyone wins and advancement is a trivial chore, then the satisfying drip of accomplishment is DEAD.
The everyone passing thing is on point. My teacher will give you three chances and a sort of improve last chance during testing. I know what he's trying to do and I've learn to dig it but eventually, he is going to have to learn that failing is a part of life. If a person is woefully unprepared, then it is what it is. If they can't accept a failure, then they aren't focusing on the right thing. There were two times I was prepared to fail because I didn't show mastery, at least from my point of view. But I guess strictly speaking, I've seen places where the student doesn't even practice and still advance. That is a disservice to the student as well as to integrity. And if you teach "self defense," you really screw them over with a pretentious and I'll gained idea of competency.
Cult like thinking is another one... It permeates some circles and that is a major NO. If you believe your system is all. That is required to be competent and complete, you are deluding yourself. From wing chun(common) to even BJJ (COMMON), if you do not take care of your weaknesses, you risk harboring a crippling overspecialization or worse.
Great video as usual and once again I like that you clarify your points . On another subject , I hope for future videos that you can strictly cover combat sports /martial arts. For example Sumo, Nippon Kempo/Kenpo, Sport Karate ,Olympic Taekwondo, Kickboxing ( American 70s style just fist and feet) Savate, etc. Also if you can cover less popular off the beaten path arts like Indian martial arts ( slowly creeping up in America like Silambam) Mexican style traditional wrestling ( Porrazo de Tigres from Guerro state) and some Caribbean/South American arts as well. Just some ideas if you are thinking of new vid posts. Thank you again.
8:20 yeah I lucked out. My Sensei was trained under GM Tosten who trained under SGM Parker.
Thank you for revisiting the topic. I have followed the mcdojo and bull shido topics for a long time. As a traditional artist, I think that we should not even entertain these topics. I feel like this because not everyone is a great instructor. Good instructors are hard to find even when you are in a good school. Let’s spend more time acknowledging the really good stuff instructors. We are passing on a negative message by using those terms.
I agree and that's something we're working on here for future video topics as well.
Great to see you revisit this topic of the McDojos or alternatively known Bullshido, martial arts schools out there. I definitely agree that just because a martial arts school, might not be one to our personal liking, philosophical beliefs and general appeal, compared to say the UFC MMA Lion's Dan for example, that it does not make them a McDojo, if their focus is fitness, meditation and general health! What generally rings alarm bells on my radar of a Bullshido school, is when as you mentioned here Sensei Dan, the likes of no touch, chi and internal, mystical super feats schools of combat, like a deranged cult, preach that they can lethally obliterate an opponent before they even manage to approach them within striking range!
Generally another good indicator of a McDojo, are those schools where the instructor bad mouths everyone else, saying that they or their school would destroy the other schools down the road, that the teachers of other arts are frauds, that their masters were nothing more than charlatans. Yet when you ask these same narcissistic, trash talking instructors, where or how they have proved the effectiveness of their so called skills, also against whom and to provide actual proof, they start back paddling, coming up with either convenient excuses to side step things, or are not willing to provide actual proof.
A real martial arts master and their school does not brag about their achievements, nor lies, exaggerates and belittles other martial arts styles or practitioners, in order to try and sign up as many students as possible, to make their bank account grow numerically. My Cambodian high school best friend, used to be a sports prodigy at school, yet humble and kept his mouth shut. Whenever they used to ask him "Voeun how good are you really at the long jump, high jump, at the running competitions, swimming, soccer?" His response was "I like to let my work and my abilities do the talking for me"! To this day Sensei Dan that quote resonates for me immensely, whereby I live by it myself and I have used it as a measure of stick, against other martial artists. A real master of the combat arts, would allow others to see for themselves and judge them on their own skills, as opposed to their self boasting. Oh my goodness how prophetic, my first Kyokushinkaikan Karate master, back here in Australia, from my time in Japan, was precisely as you said one to side step the question about their training lineage.
I recall once someone asking "Shihan B who was your Kyokushin Karate teacher "? To which his insolent, narcissistic response to the student was "You don't need to know who my teacher was, all you need to know is that I'm your teacher, my boy!" To which I then told them and everyone else privately, that Shihan B's master was none other than Shihan Eddie Emin, one of the original pioneers of Kyokushinkaikan Karate in Australia, let alone in Melbourne, of which our founder Sosai Oyama Masutatsu himself graded personally for the vast majority of his dans, up until his death. Simply put a non Bullshido school has no reason to hide such information from their students. If you are no longer under a master or an instructor, you should be able to tell your students if they ask you, who has mentored you along the way, be it good or bad. I myself have had three teachers in my Kyokushin Karate journey and currently a new Brazilian jiu-jitsu teacher, since our new dojo has expanded into incorporating Brazilian jiu-jitsu along with kickboxing, pilates, as well as personal training and women's self defense classes.
To me my general indicator of a MacDojo or Bullshido martial arts establishment, is when their main focus is about money and no quality, when as you mentioned they wily nilly give away ranks, like hot cakes, the instructors boast about themselves, while trash talking others in the industry, also when they refuse to be honest and transparent, when asked general questions or proof of something. I hope all is well with you and your loved ones Sensei Dan, I would indeed welcome your idea of a possible live chat and interaction, with us all here on your channel. Greetings as always from Melbourne, Australia 🇲🇽🇦🇺🥋😊👊👍✌Osu!
It's a business!!! All dojo are a business! The instructor deserves to make a living
So, I kind of laughed a little when you mentioned the "fast track" deal... A few years back, my son and I were taking TKD together (school promo was Parents train free, so it was like a 2 for one). At 36 years old, I had a pretty rough time with a lot of the more limber techniques. My thought was "train more!", so that's what I (and my son following suit) did- roughly 4 to 6 classes a week. I like the way they tested... They would always give you things you did well and things they would like to see you work on- you got that feedback whether pass or fail. Anyway, after a couple of belt tests, the head instructor of the school pitched me on the idea of a fast track to black (basically skipping the striped belts in between the solid colors up to probationary black belt). I told him that it might be something beneficial for his students who train hard and care about that but that for me it was more important to be the best I could be at each rank- that I could either be a REALLY GOOD [insert belt] or a REALLY BAD [insert next belt]. Then I asked him "which would you rather have representing your school?" I think he was a little disheartened by my lack of enthusiasm for it, but he respected it. He did still offer the program to students who trained hard and I think he had a few takers. In this particular circumstance, I don't think it was any indication of becoming a McDojo it was genuinely him recognizing dedication and effort and wanting to reward that in some way. Would you agree?
I teach Gunfu you start with our Colt 38'program before you move on to our M1911 training, and when you become a master after completing the Madeuce you get to have a Brass Belt.
just a quick note on the "gifted students" (and i know this is an exeptional case)
i myself have founded a karate dojo in 2018, and for me the most important group of people to teach are those who can't find their place anywhere else because of who they are.
because i teach children at school with autism, behaviour disabilities, learning disabilities, extreme fears, psychological trauma's and on and on, these children are also the groups of children i aim to HELP the most with dojo. by help i mean giving them a suitable place, situation and teacher (myself in this case) to practice a sport/martial art (depending on their own goals).
now on to the gifted part;
the groups i teach and guide the most at schools are highly gifted children. they are my absolute specialty.
therefore, for example, my group i teach on fridays has at the moment 5 children of who 2 are highly gifted and 1 is extremely highly gifted (8yrs and already has psychological insight surpassing educated adults). add to that 1 "regular" child who is just very talented.
so out of this group of 5 i have 4 very gifted students
to clarify:
- i am aware this is not a normal situation, but this is to show it is possible for a group to be (almost) all gifted.
- everyone is welcome in my dojo, i just take extra measures to be able to facilitate the mentioned groups of children
I know a few clubs over the years who broke away from organisations like the JKA to "do their own thing" (essentially breaking off any lineage to Japan). But, in reality, they simply wanted to "relabel" themselves to increase profits and re-invent their own grading syllabus to flood their dojo with 120 black belts.
I spent 15 years in the army where i learned macp. (modern army combatives program) there are levels not belts. it consist of muay thai, boxing, wrestling, judo, karate and bjj. i went though the levels and eventually became an instructor. I trained thousands of soldiers, i cross trained with other branches of the military, i cross trained with other countries, I competed in the militay combatives compatitions, for 15 years several of which i was an instructor. when im training, or sparring/rolling someone always ask, "hey man, what belt are you?" and i say "im not." I wish people would stop putting such a big deal on belts. its just a way for an instructor to organize his class. I teach kids mma now (for free, i volenteer) I gave them belts for 2 reasons, and I made sure they know these reasons. 1, to organize the class. 2, to give them a sence of achievement. and the belts are only for my class. i dont wear a belt. Iv been told thats mcdojo. well, i guess ill have to eat them fries.
I think there are 2 good ways to know the quality of an art. Their lineage, regardless of what idiots say it matters for a good reason. and the second is, reputation. If they are good they can prove it and they have that reputation of being able to. Anyone who does not recognize their lineage of give credit where it is due is not someone i would want to learn from. Obviously, a good lineage is based of the reputations of its founders.
Awesome video Mr. Dan! Subscribed to your channel a while back and it’s always a pleasure to hear what you have to say. You brought up a lot of valid points. Some schools do have to make money to keep the lights on but having said that if the quality of instruction is good and the teachers are legit and have the students best interests at heart, then chances are your school is ok 👌
Honestly, I wish we could go back to the OG Shaw Bros. days when you could roll up on a janky McDojo school and challenge their instructor or senior students and if they lost, they would have to take down their sign and be shamed in the community.
I think our school started out like that still is but the higher belt you got they stopped and helped a lot and it’s really fun now and people fail test quite a lot.
I know people who sold insurance and one line was to Martial ART schools. They said allot closed before paying off their yearly premium.
Awesome 👍 excellent video topic. Great idea to revisit some of these ideas and to elaborate on particular points. Nicely done Dan! 😊👍
I began training in Shindo Ryu when I was 7yrs old and I reached 1st Dan at 14 1/2 but I was 12 when I reached my Yellow belt first. My old Sensei would also do pre-tests to see if students would qualify to take a test. With this a student would be given an evaluation and told what needed to fix and also what they lacked. If a student failed their tests they would be given a punishment of Push ups and extended pose stand. They would also have to practice for months over and see if they could again pass their pre-tests before being re-tested.
For the actual test itself it would take about 3 or 4 months after the pre test, and days before the actual test the student was re-evaluated. Tests included Kata, Bunkai Kumite (actual attackers for the specific Kata) and always it would start with the basics even for the Kuro Obi. Scaling on belts took time, especially for beginners, no matter how much one was a prodigy or not. Actual Kumite was the last part of the test, and even that could affect the outcome of the test itself... Some would even fail their test because of that.
Each belt was harder than the previous one and more complex and it took time to achieve a higher level, but it was always important to still perform the basics.
When I reached my 3rd Kyu Brown the test was actually given by the then Shihan of the school who visited at the time... And he took it upon himself to inspect the dojo before and allowed the students from the other 2 extensions to take their tests with ours. It was a total of 200 students that day from all of the different levels taking tests which began at 8am and I was told they ended at 12am (I had to leave after my test) ....only 2 students passed levels that day, a girl that was taking her Green Belt test, and me taking my 3rd Kyu Brown belt. All 3 Sensei from their respective Dojo where reprimanded and disciplined/punished with knuckle push ups and a week's closure of their Dojo... That obviously included the girl's and my Sensei and Dojo. On the next week at our Dojo, we all had to do push ups as punishment for the shame brought to our Sensei and while he had to do 200 knuckle push ups, the students with high ranks had to do 150 and the lowest rank (including white) had to do 50.
In Japan and even in other Countries where certain Martial Arts originate from, their training is hard and knowledge is clear. Especially on the concepts of Ki and Chi which these McDojo's have soiled with their nonsense. Ki is the strength a person develops/possesses and reflects, their internal force that pushes them forward and the way that they perform a hit or move, you can see this in some performers, it's not the stupidity of telekinesis that had been wrongly popularized. The Kiai is the force expression of the Ki or force the performer expresses in tandem with the force. The sad thing about all this is that these "schools" exist for the gullible and it just take credibility of actual Dojo that may have been genuine... As paraphrasing "If many Dojo are fake, then all Dojo are fake" so the question is... Is it on purpose, for a purpose??
I think the wind from Mr Parker’s elbows or strikes could’ve knocked someone over lol JK I totally agree with the no touch knockout thing. Run from that lol
After 30+ years in martial arts, and having owned and operated 3 schools, here is my own personal criteria of what qualifies as a McDojo:
- Profit over progress and quality of skill and knowledge
- Underqualified instruction or poorly qualified instruction but charging high prices
- If the schools sole intention is to make more money on testing, belts, gear, merchandise and everything else other than the student bases tuition.
- If the school is exploiting the belt system for monetary benefit
- If the quality of the skill of the majority of students are worse than an average PE program, but they are being ranked and promoted and not actually getting better.
- If the school is primarily a day care under the guise of a martial art school
- If the school never pays it's instructors and merely convinces them that teaching is a priveledge and honor
- If the school has non paid, underqualified teenage black belts running the school and teaching
- If the instructors and staff are not trained in CPR and First Aid every two years
- If the instructors have a black belt but have yellow belt skills and knowledge
The criteria above should give you a good idea of what a McDojo would be. As long as the public is in control of a martial art business, there will always be room for a dojo to become a McDojo. Constantly giving people what they want in a martial arts business, instead of actually teaching high quality martial arts will eventaully turn you into a McDojo. In order for a dojo to be completely immune from ever becoming a McDojo, you would have to never make it a business and only take students worth teaching, and i'm here to tell you they are not all worth teaching. Making martial arts a business automatically makes it a service, one in which the customer comes first and not necessarily the quality of training they recieve. Many school eventually become a dojo due to not having the money to become anything else, or they don't take the money and reinvest it to not become a McDojo. If your school runs primarily off your after school program, and your instructors are not qualified in any way, shape or form other than having a belt around their waist, then you're probobaly a McDojo too. If you're lying, cheating and stealing from the general public because you know they won't ask informed questions about what you are actually doing, you're also a McDojo.
I traveled the untited states for almost 2 years and visited more than 200 schools in an effort to write a book on martial arts which will help more people understand why martial arts falters as a business and why so many McDojos somehow got pole position over the other schools. I visted everything from traditional to modern and everything inbetween. There are somewhere between 17,500 and 18,500 schools in the U.S. at any time and that number is likely to drop as a result of CVD19 pandemic. More than 90% of the schools I persoanlly visited would easily qualify as a McDojo, mainly because of the extremely low quallity of instruction and obvious lack of skill of the students all the way from white belt to black. You don't have to know anything about martial arts to know when somone is all about the money and not quality of learning and progress.
As soon as someone about 80 years ago had the bright idea of turning martial arts into a business, that is when the McDojo essentially started. It's just taken that long for most people to finally notice. Martial arts was already a failing business until someone started the after school program business model, and then there was a huge flux of schools which opened up in the mid 90's to the 2000's and are even still growing today. The other thing which has nearly destroyed martial arts is how many schools have monetized on the side benefits or the derivitives of martial arts training and made that their new business model. Basically turning their schools into occupational therapy centers under the guise of martial arts.
Its very hard in the U.S. to get people to buy into martial arts. In fact, less than 3% of the entire population in America participates in martial arts on any level. More than half of that 3% are children. It is very hard to make martial arts relevent enough to daily life to convince people to do it and stick with it. Because so many school owners out there have become obsessed witht he idea of making a doctors salary off of martial arts, we have had a large number of schools who have had to go way outside of what martial arts was intended to be in order to make that kind of money. Hospitals and medicine are 100X more relevent than martial arts, period.
There are still people out there who think martial arts is only associated with violence, and there are still schools out there who refuse to teach the truth about what martial arts is in the first place; which is the study, practice and understanding of violence and how to prevent it, prepare for it or stop it. As long as martial arts is a business to profit from, there will alwayd be charlotons and crooks among us who take advantage.
This is an extremely well thought out and very intelligent perspective to have on the matter. Thank you for this feedback and insight and I agree with pretty much all of it. There ARE a lot of good schools out there, but they can be hard to find sometimes among all the commercial and profit focuses schools.
@@ArtofOneDojo Correct. When someone says to me "well, all you can do is do your own thing and not pay attention to all the bad schools and be the right school". My response to that is "and you can clearly see how well that is working out can't you?".
Everyone thinks, in some way that they are all the "right" dojo or the "right" school and so forth. If everyone truly was thinking in this manner and actually were a great school, we would see more than a 3% participation rate and we would see more owners making a great living off of martial arts instead of having a school and writing off a loss every year and using their primary income to keep it open out of passion.
Every school i visted acorss the U.S. honestly thought THEY were the right school, or the best school, etc. Unfortunately they were not looking into the industry to see just how much the number of bad schools were influencing the population at large to already have an established perception on martial arts.
If the majority of the population has already been trained to believe that martial arts is only for LARP'ers or just something that kids do, it doesn't matter how many great schoos there are becuase they have aready been drowned out by what so many bad schools and bad instructors have already done over the last 60-80 years. Its perceptual and mental conditioning.
There is already established and wide perception which the public believes is that "everything is karate". Everytime I tell people I do martial arts they react with "yea i used to do karate" and the truth is that I've never actually done karate. I have trained in more than 15 different systems and styles but not formal or traditional karate.
The reason for this is because the martial arts industry has spent more than 60+ years advertising Karate to the public. Now today, we advertise karate as a keyword and not actually an art. Do you know how many schools i have seen that use the word Karate and are not teaching karate? There reason is "well, that's easy for people". My response is "no, your just a lazy asshole who is treating the public like they are a bunch of 4th grade idiots and you don't want to actually put the work in". We don't call every car a Ford do we? No because we understand that there are different types of vehicles out there that have different purposes to them. Why didn't we do that with martial arts?
The more and more we continue to advertise martial arts as karate, the more and more people will believe that everything is just karate. And the more and more we use the belt system with everything the more association we bring to karate.
The overall umbrealla term for martial arts is.....martial arts. The fact that we are still using a belt system shows a severe lack of evolvement and creative thinking and education. We just keep regurgitating whats been done, so its no surprise that the public doesn't take martial arts seriously when we live in an age of self driving cars. Its time for the martial arts industry at learge to wake up and see our own failure with the public due to ego and our incesent need to pass down tradition which was never ours to begin with.
I agree not everyone has the same goals . Some prefer to focus on just katas, or sparing, or self defense. My favorite area of focus is kata for the exercise and spirituality i feel when im focusing in the moment performing a kata!
Very few instructors can’t do it full time. Karate schools used to try & keep going till the next Karate Kid movie came out.
I knew guys who got black belts in four years or less because Mom and Dad forked over money every month to a school.
Their form and technique was to say the least, terrible
To me there has never been a time frame to accuire a belt, and no one martial art is better than all the others.
Mr. Dan great video and it’s been awhile how’s the family good I hope you have a good day
We're hanging in there! I hope you and yours are well too!
It disturbs me a little that, in the year 2020, you'd get pushback for being dismissive of "no touch knockouts" and that people should be asking you to "keep an open mind" on the matter.
Having an open mind means that you're willing to be convinced. It doesn't mean that you're willing to buy into impossible nonsense that has already been shown to be fraudulent.
"My style is the best and it counters everything (paraphrasing)"
Yeah that's the one thing I've liked about most MMA coaches I've trained under, that they don't believe what they are trying fills all the gaps or even if it kind of does, it's a Jack of all master of none. So they'll actively encourage students to try other styles so long as it's going to help the fighter or even to train under a different MMA coach (so long as it's not a rival gym for understandable reasons) to learn a different perspective from someone who may have specialised in a different back ground.
A good gym puts their students training first. Which is what gets those students coming back and paying.
If there are people that have an issue with training with kids around, they have tohumble themself. I train around kids, teens, and adults, and i have no issues.
I recall somebody who said that if an instructor wont teach kids, THAT is a warning sign, that he/she is not very good.
What i noticed in my area, most of the mcdojos were tae kwon do schools. Im not talking about the whole martail art but what im saying is its more common for that style
Yes, TKD is unfortunately one of the more common McDojos. Shamefully, so is Kenpo.
One thing I will say about the "this style beats everything" McDojo sign is that a martial art which is designed as a 'jack of all trades' martial art (see: MMA) is often not a McDojo.
I agree with you completely! when i comes to the dojo i train at, i do have a BIG pet peeve. it is very very VERY rare to see a student fail a testing. their attitude may be poor and their skill may be even more so at the desired rank, but they will still pass the testing. I personally hate this because i am very competitive and i believe hard work is what promotes you. but even though i hate that we do this, it does have a reason behind it. so our instructor does not promote much, we dont have merch, we don't fund raise, sadly. the money we get from students goes back into the dojo for rent, utilities, equipment, and ex. teaching is not his full time job, our dojo basically a non profit because the extra money goes to the association fund for future dojo openings. so a lot of the income we get is from kids class. so when testing rolls around, if he makes a student wait to test or fails a student, they may quit and we loose students. ive trained for 5 years and im a black belt now and i have noticed that a lot of the students, especially the kids, have taken advantage of this flaw. ive had soooo many ideas to help motivate the kids to give more effort and even award those who go that extra mile (because we don't have that) but its so difficult because our main instructor, and all of our other instructors work full time, they have families, they dont always have that time to change things or even meet up to talk about improvement. i still push my ideas, i change them, i work with my instructors, and i even see more and more black belts giving their voice as well, but nothing has been able to change yet. the main challenge is we would need the grand master of the association's word in a lot of it but he is in another state at his dojo. the communication is very limited due to our main instructor's busy work schedule. we try to tell him we are here to help, but it makes him nervous when he cant be there to supervise. the C-19 break has not helped his schedule, even though i feel like this would be the perfect opportunity to at least discuss improvement. ugh! our style is fantastic, but our quality is fading.
Great revision of the subject. Thanks.
i study a system of kung fu .under a very skilled very old school master over the years of training the more I pushed for information the less I got. 1 principle one te mastering my own self notion of entitlement and ego has been my greatest fight. however once learning the principle of stop looking for the answers and start training the system letting go of expectations letting go of the fight to win the battle.
I'm in the process of looking for a school. As an older student I really appreciate these videos. Thanks so much!
I like the shirt that you are wearing their Dan sama. Good references. Lol
LOL thanks!
Thank you Sensei. Great video with excellent information. Osu...!!!👊
You don't Have to apologise Mr Dan And I agree with you 💯% Magic does Not exist It's Not humanly possible To knock Someone Out without Touching them
i really want to open a McDojo with drive thru and everything and basically be like Master Ken and see how many people i can troll and how long i can keep trolling them. would be a funny reality show or something.
6:09 Holy crap. I feel bad for any poor soul trying to bully that kid at school. His flying roundhouse is nasty!
The biggest issue I have with McDojo are serious and regular injuries, especially to beginners. Every day bruising and scratch is no big deal, that's not what I'm talking about. What I mean is that every time the dojo meets a new person, breaks a bone or gets a concussion. That is not good, those instructors do not give a damn about your health, they do not give a damn if you can keep yourself safe. Hell, they probably do not care if you live or die.
It is good to talk about the difference between a Mcdojo and Bullshito!
Yes,a place can be both, or one or the other or neither!
I absolutely HATE when someone says one art is superior to the others. The effectiveness of martial artists is dependent on the individual practitioner and the quality of the instructor. I hold a Yellow Belt in Shotokan (yes, still technically a beginner) and have beaten supposed black belts in fights that came from Bullshido schools. Conversely, I have both defeated and lost to grapplers. Those skills also helped me in the military.
Also, skill is not the only factor in a fight, though it is a major one. Luck plays a role as well.
When I was a kid my mom sent me to preforming arts dance classes. A kid I knew in school went to a mcdojo around the same time. At the end of the year him and I got into a fight and I kicked his ass.
Please tell me it was a literal kick with a spinning dance move!
@@ArtofOneDojo Because I was dancing all the time I had higher stamina than the kid. Plus keeping my distance hopping up and down, back and forth. I remember the kid got tired fast a 1, 2 to the face and a knee to the stomach ended the fight. He was pretty much tired at that point and I don't think the kid ever got punched in the face before.
That's when I realized I could hit hard and got into boxing the next year. Learning dance helped improve my form in the boxing hall.
How did you get into the fight in the first place
You may practice "bullshido" at a "McDojo". That's the best explanation of the terms (I reckon).
Thank you mr dan.. I can be honest and tell you I really wish you was my Shihan. I do truly enjoy your videos so much you motivate me and I really appreciate that
I have 11 years of wrestling experience and I’m 15 I started wrestling when I was 4 and I’m going to start tang soo do is that a good art for me with my past skill
jiu jitsu would be perfect. you would do very well with your back ground.
Yes do BJJ or Judo
bielive that since you are an experienced wrestler, what you need is a full contact striking system. Kickboxing, muay tai or even some style of karate would be perfect
Preach brother preach!!!!!!🙌🏽
A question about jr black belts: In BJJ there are no black belts for kids. Period. But when a kid turns of age they usually get a adult white belt or a blue belt depending on skill. When a jr. Black belt becomes an adult do they just get a adult black belt?
11:37 does it count if your master says that you don't need to learn other styles beacuse his style is complete enough and then they never do most of those techniques in sparring?
I do find that a red flag. There no style that is fully complete in all aspects. Some do a well rounded mix, but that's being average as many aspects and not great at all of them. This CAN be a warning sign, but not necessarily unless the school has a bunch of other bad signs as well.
I train myself, like Clubber Lang..
I like the tying of the black belt in the picture.
The last school I walked out of met ~70% of these criteria. I took one introductory class, heard the instructor say that anyone who disagrees with his techniques has never been in a fight. He doesn't like training students who have previous training because he wants to work with a blank slate and he doesn't want to waste his time ( his actual words) answering questions about why techniques aren't done a different way. It was all $$$, every single item in the whole building was branded with the school logo, down to the kickpads.
"He doesn't like training students who have previous training because he wants to work with a blank slate and he doesn't want to waste his time" TRANSLATION... He doesn't want people who know what they are doing so he can feed them his material without being questioned.
Wow, yeah those are bad and definitely sounds like it was McDojo. A place like that just wants profit and won't care about the quality of training you get.
@@ArtofOneDojo Honestly I could probably write a lenghty paper on all the red flags that were screaming at me during that one class.
The Mcdojo term is thrown around alot by keyboard experts and jealous people to throw shade. Teaching martial arts is incredibly difficult. The difficulty lies in finding a student that actually wants to learn something. Many concessions have to be made from time to time just to stay open. Then, once in a great while, a student comes along that has the heart of a martial artist and it makes it all worth it. I have trained 100s over the years but only had a handful of success stories.
Hahahaha I swear to god I was just talking about fred villari I opened up youtube and this was the first video that popped up hahhaha
6:51 So in the last video I just commented on the 3 child black sashes that I've seen in the time I've been at my Kung Fu school.. You mentioned different curriculums.. There is no other curriculum at my Kung Fu School (well there is but, it's "art" curriculum, not age.. traditional kung fu, wushu and tai chi and now full contact fighting) .. so if someone's 5 they learn the same exact thing an adult learns. Granted you have to make it age appropriate for them but they generally get it right and getting the black sash really just means you're a beginner. These kids grow up to be phenomenal practitioners WAAAY better than those who started later.. Similar to a musician anything else.
So it could be said that you're handicapping children by having a "junior curriculum" .. Kids are just as capable of learning martial arts as adults are.. And I never saw any kids at my school have a problem learning the forms or doing things correctly.. In fact some of those kids are more mature and way better behaved than some adults. This isn't about saying a kid can beat an adult.. This is about saying that kid has earned his black sash and he's going to be insanely good when he is an adult.
About not knowing the lineage and being a McDojo. We were a Kung Fu School in Honduras, Central America: At that time I only practiced about 7-8 months (1982); but most of the old students were my friends, nobody knew the lineage, we didn't even know that lineage was important, we only knew that we practiced Kung Fu and we only cared to win all the tournaments in which we participated, and whenever somebody asked what was your style, we answered Kung Fu and that was it.
Our school was very successful, winning a lot of fighting tournaments, even some of our students participated in international karate tournaments (even though it wasn't our style).
Now, that we are older (I'm practicing again), we've checked our history. We found out that the first teacher we had was a chinese national who run out of the people´s republic in the 70's. He started teaching honduran nationals against the will of the chinese colony in Honduras and he had problems with both (chinese and honduran), latter on he immigrated to the USA (we believe he was living in LA). But most of the SiFu he left in our country were young and only interested in fighting and winning not in style and lineages, although some guarded his history.
We have found that he practiced Hung Gar style of the Lai San Wing lineage; but at the time (80's), we were so ignorant that if you had told us that we were a McDojo, just because we didn't know our style, we would've kicked your a..., and believe me we could do it. In our old school (JapSin) we didn't practice a lot of dances; but we fought all days, two or three times a day, that was our specialty, fighting. Warning: The beginners didn't fight until three months have passed.
Now we laugh, when we ask each other what style we practice; we jokingly answer Kung Fu and that's it, remembering our naivete. Of course, if you ask, I will answer Hung Gar style.
I told you this history so you can weight that criteria from a McDojo (not knowing the style).
PD: My first SiFu also recommended, in 1982, to study JuDo as a way to complete the curriculum. Our actual SiFu still recommend JuDo to complete the curriculum.
Well, I mentioned this in the first video as well that just ONE thing on the list doesn't make a school a McDojo. Not knowing a lineage isn't a warning sign, especially if you never asked him. It gets a little shady when you ask and they won't tell you, or they try to cover something up.
What you described does not sound like a McDojo at all.
Sensei Dan, I love your channel! If you don't mind me asking, what did you mean with your reference to Bushido? To my knowledge Bushido is not a Martial Art, it is a code of ethics that the Samurai live by. Bushi, the root word, that is a Japanese synonym for warrior, and do means 'the way'! In gramaticly correct English, it means, "The way of the warrior." Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.
This is kind of an odd ball question, did you mention Shudokan Karatedo or Shotokan Karatedo? I've studied Shudokan Karatedo for years, and, yes I'm not a Blackbelt, I'm an Ichi-kyu, and I don't hear much about Shudokan Karate, I'm wondering if that is because it is a lesser known style?
I do remember you mention something about cross training in the first time you talked on this subject, I remember that you said if it is a legit Martial Art Dojo it would allow you to cross train in other styles or even other types of Martial Arts! A Mcdojo would say this Martial Art is best. As a Karate student, I've learned that there is always something new to learn, that's why I appreciate my Karate dojo I train at, is more about quality than rank/belt level. The Sensei's work to make it efficient for all students to learn the best way possible! I believe that a Blackbelt has to be earned by practice, good feedback from instructors, and a willingness to learn what you need to work on, and be willing student who applies it to their training! Honestly I don't want to have a Blackbelt handed to me, because it is a statement that I didn't quit and I earned it by putting time and effort, if I didn't train hard, it wouldn't have any real meaning!Sensei Dan, I appreciate your time and effort with your UA-cam channels! Keep up the good work!
Oh, no you are correct with "Bushido". The word I said was "BULLShido", and I didn't pronounce is very clearly. Bullshido is a word used to describe a martial art that is considered fake, poor, or "Bullsh**). It's a derogatory term but a lot of people use it interchangeably with "McDojo".
To art of one Dojo thanks for the explanation! Keep up your good work!
Here's one I've experienced: The grand master doesn't teach the lessons. Thoughts? In this particular school's case, the masters teaching lessons were legit, 5th dan or higher with university degrees in physical education, as well as military experience. But the grand master was mostly a salesperson.
Yeah, that shows that their interesting is more in running a business than actually teaching. I would look at that sign with a wary eye.
Signs of a McDojo
1. Claims to be too dangerous for the ring
2. Palm strike to nose that's supposed to push your nose into your brain and kill you
3. Kata
4. Standing wrist locks which are supposed to flip your opponent or break their wrist
5. Spinning back fist
6. Axe kicks
7. When they ground fight the positions don't resemble anything from wrestling or Brazilian jiu-jitsu
8. Claims an elbow to the spine or knee to the face is how you prevent a double leg takedown
9. No sparring
10. The katana is the best sword ever
11. Claims to be able to defend against multiple attackers yet is unable to defeat one attacker
12. Board breaking
13. Mentions the fact that they're a former Navy SEAL, Green Beret, Army Ranger, etc.
14. Thinks Bruce Lee was a real fighter
15. Thinks karambits are useful knives
16. Tries to make a distinction between "self defense" and "sport fighting"
17. Ear slapping
18. Pressure points
19. Dim mak
20. Shaolin
21. Moves that are supposed to "take your opponent's knee out"
22. Moves that are supposed to "snap your opponent's neck"
23. Back flips
24. "If someone threatens you with a knife give them your wallet"
25. Children, people in wheelchairs, and fat people with black belts
Lineages matter. An instructor can create an art from multiple lineages, but they better have lineage(s).
I like to not even grade, just stay a white belt for ever. But sometimes I get a talk from Sensi, that I am making new white belts feel bad. I wish most belts were stopped.
I wished I had seen this video a long time ago I was also in a mcdojo and the teacher had a problem with the women and he just couldn't help himself to the point that it got out of hand he and the woman got into a fight she had bruises on her face she reported that incident to the peoples at the center and they didn't want him there no more I was so hurt and angry at them to the point it affected me because my goal was to get that first degree black belt but that's water under the bridge now because I'm in to Qigong and Tai chi and I learned to overcome I was hurt by it but it made me strong and also it made me not to trust him and other people like him
If Ronald Mcdonald is your sensei. Then that's probably a McDojo.
But he told me he had all the ancient secrets!
@@ArtofOneDojo 😆😆😆
A. There’s a surprising amount of people who still (after many corrections. I’m not bitter) think I practice karate (nope, Ninpo),
B. Most Americans think martial arts are karate or tae kwan do, or kung fu,
C. Too many parents couldn’t tell you what kind of karate their kid does (I asked a parent once what kind of karate their kids practice, she said the “regular kind”).
Aside from the general lack of knowledge on the martial arts, and the ability to make informed choices (Thanks for this video!), my biggest worry these days about dojos in America is the amount of sexual abuse and predatory behavior I hear about.
Do you think the McDojo phenom and the abuse factors are linked?
Yes, it happens D core.
Yes it happens. It's actually the reason my first instructor left. Inappropriate relationship with a severely underage student.
Xen Do School of martial arts is the biggest McDojo in England
I assume you have your notes to both your right and left. Gotta admit, sometimes it was a bit too obvious and your quick head movement made me think you where expecting to get "surprised-birthday-party" at any second.
Great video. Thanks!
They were only to my left :P
@@ArtofOneDojo Shoot! That was my first guess D: Gonna kick myself in the rear for doubting.
Another awesome video, but what about online training videos. What teaching ADD or ADHD or other such illnesses.
Those are totally separate topics than McDojo, but great topics to cover. We did do one last year on Online Martial Arts.
So if I want to one day open a school, once I finish mastering my art and get permission from my master to you know use the art to teach, if I use these guidelines, I will do ok?
There is a LOT into running a school. It's a lot more than just knowing the material and teaching it, there is a lot of business concepts, marketing, and organization that goes into it. It's also not cheap to open a school. I would recommend teaching at a smaller area first, a recreation hall or community center, or teaching at an after school program or as an instructor with your master first. You definitely want to have a lot of teaching experience before you open your own school.
@@ArtofOneDojo I see. Thanks a ton. Osh!
👀👂view classes; ask of lineage(s) 🌳; inquire several schools; do ask in-depth ?s of instructor of philosophy & study ☯