Firing your Master

[Balrog]

You didn't leave in a cloud of dust with a giant "F-you."

You approached the chief instructor to discuss a problem, and were summarily dismissed, and told you weren't welcome back.

I'm not impressed by the way he handled it. Not at all. There appears to be every reason to question whether he carried through on implied promises he made to you.

If or when you run into him again, it'll be easy to handle. Be polite and formal. Bow appropriately. Don't seek him out, don't chat with him.

Agreed.

This sounds like one of the "bow to the belt" situations. Sadly, there are too many of them around.

 

[IcemanSK]

Mango,

I'm curious if you've run into your old master & how that's gone since your OP.

 

[terryl965]

Mango,

I'm curious if you've run into your old master & how that's gone since your OP.

Yea me too, what ever happened?

 

[mango.man]

We are still "Homeless" as of right now. And we have not run into the former "Master" yet. This weekend will be our first competition since leaving. I do not think that there is anyone from our former school registered for this weekend's event so it is likely that we will not see him this weekend.

I really don't know when that first time will happen that our paths will cross, but when it does happen I will let you all know how it goes.

 

[shesulsa]

Hang in there - you'll find a new place for training. Good luck in tournament and do keep us posted!

 

[terryl965]

mango.man I'm sure you will find a home please keep searching. Ever inmy area stop by and when I'm out there I will let you know.

 

[IcemanSK]

Mango, it's been awhile. Where is your daughter training now?

 

[terryl965]

I hate to speak for anyone but I believe he is with Master Jimmy Kim out of Southern California.

 

[IcemanSK]

I hate to speak for anyone but I believe he is with Master Jimmy Kim out of Southern California.

Yeah, I s'pose she'd learn a thing or two from him. Excellent!

 

[terryl965]

Yeah, I s'pose she'd learn a thing or two from him. Excellent!

Yes if she is there she will learn, Charlotte Craig has been with him for years and now she is on the Olympic team with all the Lopezs.

 

[mango.man]

Thanks for following up guys.

She is training with Tim Thackrey http://www.usa-taekwondo.us/92_354.htm. She has been taking 2-3 private lessons from him each month for a couple of years.

After leaving our previous school, the 10 year old BB that I spoke of in my original post, opted to leave as well, since her focus is the same and my daughter's. She has joined us with Tim.

We have also found an additional 10-12 competition minded kids in the 9-18 age range that have joined us and Tim spoke with 3 more in Detroit that are interested in joining us as well.

We still do not have a place, so for the past 5 months or so, we have been working on Tim's driveway at his house or at a woman's center in the SF Valley that is nearby his house. The kids that are there on any given day come from as nearby as Burbank (5 miles or so) to as far away as Bakersfield (Nearly 100 miles).

Tim says if he can get 20 players he will open an official place. So we are getting closer. Hopefully within another couple of months.

 

[IcemanSK]

Thanks for following up guys.

She is training with Tim Thackrey http://www.usa-taekwondo.us/92_354.htm. She has been taking 2-3 private lessons from him each month for a couple of years.

After leaving our previous school, the 10 year old BB that I spoke of in my original post, opted to leave as well, since her focus is the same and my daughter's. She has joined us with Tim.

We have also found an additional 10-12 competition minded kids in the 9-18 age range that have joined us and Tim spoke with 3 more in Detroit that are interested in joining us as well.

We still do not have a place, so for the past 5 months or so, we have been working on Tim's driveway at his house or at a woman's center in the SF Valley that is nearby his house. The kids that are there on any given day come from as nearby as Burbank (5 miles or so) to as far away as Bakersfield (Nearly 100 miles).

Tim says if he can get 20 players he will open an official place. So we are getting closer. Hopefully within another couple of months.

You've gotta a good one there, mango man! Here's praying you get enough to open a school soon. All my best!

 

[hong kong fooey]

good luck in getting a school going. I hope the best for you and your daughter. and I understand why you wanted to leave the prev school I would have done the same thing

 

[YoungMan]

You're always free to leave a school if you wish. However, try to make sure that it's for the right reasons. Leaving a school because the instructor won't let you test, doesn't emphasize Olympic competition, or because you have your own ideas about teaching strike me as selfish superficial reasons to leave.
A personality conflict, money issues, physical/sexual abuse, you just don't care for the style, or an instructor who lies to his students are legitimate issues to leave over.

 

[mango.man]

You're always free to leave a school if you wish. However, try to make sure that it's for the right reasons. Leaving a school because the instructor won't let you test, doesn't emphasize Olympic competition, or because you have your own ideas about teaching strike me as selfish superficial reasons to leave.

Excuse me?

If my sole focus in TKD is Olmpic competition and I sign up with a school where the school owner promises that he will provide training that is focused on Olympic competition. Then 15 months or so into the training it becomes obvious that he is no longer living up to his end of the deal (providing Olympic competition training).

How is it selfish and superficial of me to leave, if Olympic competition training is still my only goal in TKD?

TKD training is the same as anything I pay for in life. I was paying him to provide a service to my daughter to reach a specific and predefined goal. At some point he stopped providing those services and changed his stated goals from training future Olympic champions to being a McDojang operator.

I do not see the selfishness or superficiality of taking my money and my daughter to someone else that can meet our stated goals.

 

[terryl965]

Excuse me?

If my sole focus in TKD is Olmpic competition and I sign up with a school where the school owner promises that he will provide training that is focused on Olympic competition. Then 15 months or so into the training it becomes obvious that he is no longer living up to his end of the deal (providing Olympic competition training).

How is it selfish and superficial of me to leave, if Olympic competition training is still my only goal in TKD?

TKD training is the same as anything I pay for in life. I was paying him to provide a service to my daughter to reach a specific and predefined goal. At some point he stopped providing those services and changed his stated goals from training future Olympic champions to being a McDojang operator.

I do not see the selfishness or superficiality of taking my money and my daughter to someone else that can meet our stated goals.

mango.man believe me you did what was best for you and your daughter, no hard felling from any poster. I believe Youngman was speaking from a standpoint of everybody and everything. Remember TKD is a focal point to all of us here whether sport or SD or Mcdojo.

 

[KELLYG]

I think you did the right thing in leaving. I am under the impression that the school that you left was new. Maybe he was drumming up students and was telling everyone what they wanted to hear to get them to come in the doors which is deceitful. But if during the following months his legitimately changed what he wanted to concentrate on then he should have bowed out gracefully.

Having not done so I am more inclined to think that it was a MONEY thing and that your daughter was used as a further draw for his prospective students. This is a good lesson for your daughter. Be respectful to everyone but not to give you respect until know that they deserve it. Anyone can get a black belt but some do not deserve it.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

You're always free to leave a school if you wish. However, try to make sure that it's for the right reasons. Leaving a school because the instructor won't let you test, doesn't emphasize Olympic competition, or because you have your own ideas about teaching strike me as selfish superficial reasons to leave.
A personality conflict, money issues, physical/sexual abuse, you just don't care for the style, or an instructor who lies to his students are legitimate issues to leave over.

Just to throw in my two cents.

I agree to an extent, but there are occasions where a student simply outgrows their school and must seek training elsewhere. In Mango's case, the whole reason his daughter trains is for sport/competition, so if a school either doesn't emphasize it or drops it completely, then that is a perfectly justified reason for leaving.

Daniel

 

[matt.m]

I may be a bit behind. However, this really reflects in all arts. My students are dying to randori in competition. I train my students to death with rep and rep and rep of technique. I told them come tournament time they should be prepared because doing their technique will be 2nd nature. Gotta love it. Anyhow, if you aren't happy then just simply state your case and leave. If you are in a class etc. and you are paying money and miserable then you are wasting your time.

Once some students saw that I taught traditional Korean Yudo some left. However, I am very proud of my students that have stayed and continued. I am always getting new students. But here is the thing.....I don't make money teaching, I don't care about that stuff. Our dojang has an incredible mat for hapkido, yudo, and tae kwon do. Plus, it is all about comfortability, I even let students come and train at my home in my basement. It is incredible, all they want to do is learn and they work very hard.

As an Instructor I feel it my duty to put 110 percent into my group and I only care what they accomplish. I have already done the competition gig.

I am so proud of the intensity of my group of students.

Along the same lines as "Asking a student to leave" how about telling your instructor he is fired.

I have made no attempt to hide the fact, here or anywhere else, that my daughter is simply in TKD, at this point in time, for the Olympic sport nature.

15 months ago when we left the school she had attended for the first 8.5 years of her TKD life, we left for several reasons. They ranged from no competition training to finding out that one of the Master's at a different dojang of our Grand Master's system of dojangs was on a leave of absence due to child molestation charges instead of due to his father's ill health as everyone was told.

When we signed on with our new school, the Master had just opened about 4-6 weeks earlier but he told us that he wanted to produce TKD athletes that could compete at the highest level possible.

My daughter was the first Black Belt in the school but he let us know that 1 other was going to be joining soon. And soon after, the other did show up. He came to 5 or 6 classes right off and in the year or so since, he has maybe been to 5 or 6 more classes.

A few other black belts have come and gone as well for various reasons. There is 1 other black belt that joined us about 10 months ago now, and she is in it primarily for the sport as well. Problem is that she is 10 and my daughter is 15. This other girl is very good and will likely go very far in the sport if she sticks to it. In fact last weekend she won silver at the US Open.

I can't help but believe that a big reason that she won silver was because for the past 10 months or so, her only real sparring partner has been my daughter who is considerably older, stronger, bigger, faster etc. In the meantime, my daughter was eliminated from the US Open in her first fight in large part because for the past 10 months or so, her only real sparring partner has been this 10 year old girl nearly a foot shorter and 25 pounds lighter.

The master also let go, perhaps the best competition minded asst coach my daughter has ever worked with, just 2 months or so into his job. He did not fire him, the assistant quit because the master would not let him teach the athletes the way he felt was proper.

Combine those factors with the fact that at a recent parents meeting the master made clear that he wants to open a dojang in every city in the area and expand, expand, expand and it seems clear to me that he is no longer focused on building a strong competition team and pursuing the sport side, but he would rather be a McDojang operator.

Good for him if he has decided he would rather get rich quick. But he knows why we signed on with him and what our goal is. At the time it was the same as his. To reach an elite level in the sport of TKD. That is no longer his goal and therefore it is time for us to move on.

So I invited him to lunch last week and we discussed these things and that I was removing my daughter from the school for these reasons. I did not call him a McDojang operator or tell him I thought he just wanted to get rich now. But I did say that it appears his goals have changed from what he had told me his goals were 15 months ago.

I really tried to keep things on the best terms possible but when our conversation ended he made it very clear that we would never be welcomed in his dojang again. I was offended that he would do such a thing as to say that we are no longer welcome in his presence. I suspect we will run into each other at various tournaments etc. I suspect those will be uncomfortable moments if he truly turns his back on my daughter as though she has somehow disrespected him.

Any advice for how to deal with those situations, when they do come up?

 

[wade]

Charles, it is too bad we don't live closer together. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be your daughters instructor. I'm not that good and probably can't live up to your expectations. But, on the other hand, I do have a couple of very nice young ladies that do so love to spar and would probably love to get in the ring and dance with Samantha. Ashley and Brittney were at the Nationals and Kara, Arden and Claire will all be at the US Open. I don't think they are in the same weight class as Samantha but, if you and she want to get together and play a little then lets do it. I'm sure my girls could use the experience and maybe give Sam a bit of a warm up if nothing else. BTW, this is not a challenge, I really do mean it as a get together so the girls can have some fun.