Am I stupid or what

[Lynne]

Terry,

I understand your frustration. I used to live in Saginaw, TX (my husband and I worked at General Dynamics). The Dallas-Fort Worth Metrolex area is so huge though...how many people live in the area now, around 2 million? So, because of the population it stands to reason that McDojo's would be popping up faster than Tex-Mex restaurants. I can see how that would be disheartening when the instruction is substandard.

I don't understand how a martial artist could sell students short like that. What happened to honor? Or maybe they received their Sam Dan from a junk school, too?

I will admit that we have a large school and we do have an after-school program. But I will tell you, too, that those kids sweat and they do fail - there are no easy belts for anyone, child nor adult.

Both kids and adult classes can be quite large. We have a large Dojang - the first floor is 4500 square feet (the third level is 5,000 square feet but used for testing and sword classes), but tonight the adult class was so large that we were running into each other during hyungs, having to wait to let the other person pass. Most of the time the class isn't that large, thank goodness.

The good news is that we have 4 - 5 black belt instructors on the floor for large classes. We rotate groups/instructors every 10 - 15 minutes.

I was lucky on Tuesday. It was a small class and I got one-on-one training for forms, wrist grips, and one-step sparring. I had time to ask questions! I feel awkward doing that when it's a larger group because I don't want to take away practice time. I would love to be in a small school.

After reading this, I'm happy that I'm enrolled in a rigorous school though.

Keep you chin up, Terry. I can never say enough good things about an honorable person.

 

[rmclain]

Sorry if I gave an impression of, I was not happy. I believe in my training and in my students and they believe in me. Me and the better half try our best to bring some great people every year to our school to help with there training and for them to become a better person and MA'ist. It is just in my area every week some new school opens up with all the bells and whistles and tend to get people to beleive thay are gettting real training and it just makes me sick. Every single person has the right to be where they want to be but I believe alot of them are being taken for what they consider to be a real SD or effective way of training. Thank to everyone for understanding my frustration over this matter an believe me it happens about three times a year and then I go on doing what I do and train those that wish to have proper training in TKD.

Hello Terry,

Yes, this is frustrating. I've operated a dojang in Arlington, Tx. since 1994 and have seen so many schools in our area open and quickly close. I have also seen schools pop up and quickly grow with huge membership number while the head instructor is what I call, "Less than credible."

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Bottom line is: "Do you enjoy what you currently do?"; "Can you sleep at night with a clear
conscious?"; and possibly, "Does it pay the bills?"

You can drive yourself crazy worrying about what other people are doing.

R. McLain

 

[Kreth]

Yes the offer a BB program in 18 months and gaurentees this in writing people just do not understand, 3 times a week 12 classes a month for 18 so 226 classes they recieve what I cannot give them.

You must not be the only moron on this thread, Terry. It took me almost 5 years to earn my shodan.

 

[Touch Of Death]

My school has a great reputation and hopefully so do I, but over the last few years these fly by night clubs pop up and within a few months they have 100-150 students paying $125.00 a month for three days a week, they use all these badges and patches and Waterdown the program so no-one sweats and they are growing. In the mean time I struggle to sign Io 3-5 students a month, that does not care if they sweat and like the hard training we do. My question is why are these school coming over the top of older established schools.

Why don't you include flash, bells, and buzzers to your legit program and call it good?
Sean