Hi all, the more I read about McDojos, the more confused I get. Does "black belt society"/contract make a dojo a Mcdojo? When one's a beginner, how do you judge the quality of instruction? We don't know better! I like my dojo, but it's very expensive. Does expensive make it a McDojo too? This dojo self proclaimed to be a traditional school, and concentrate more on self defense than tournament, but without attending a sports oriented school, I'm can't tell whether this is true or not. Any pointers?
They do not have contracts here at all, and belt testing fee is merely $25, and the belt ranks is the same as other schools, without those second degree yellow pending green, thingy...
Most of this group's member are from UK, if anyone know of a good dojo in the bay area (San Francisco), please let me know!
Honestly.
None of the things we look for that make a "Mcdojo" always defines it as such. For example..
My school...
1. Has contracts
2. Has belt testing fees
3. Has the pending striped belts
4. Has alot of kids
But, 1. the contracts are fine because his prices are extremely low. On top of that we live in an area where its common place for people to stiff you if you don't have a way to guarantee they pay you. He's not stiff on the fees, and if you can't pay directly on the day its due he doesn't tack on late fees. He works with you as much as he can, and He is CHEAP.. probably cheaper than any school I have ever seen. 36.00 a month.
2. Belt testing fees are 30 bucks. However, I get a nice belt.. a nice laminated certificate and usually he has 1-2 special guest judges that come from as far as states away. So to me its totally worth the price.
3. He has the "striped" belts, because its just more official than tape. We don't spend anymore time at the belts than we did before we switched to this method, and it seems to keep the kids more motivated to come to class.. which while this may seem mcdojo.. its something that I don't see taking away from our instruction.
4. He has alot of kids, but only 1 is black belt.. and he's 13-14.. and he's good. He knows his stuff, and he comes all the time. He's respectful, courteus, and helps out the lower ranks. There are some kids who don't reflect their rank.. but the problem with kids.. is they change at the drop of a hat. One day, they may be sloppy and the next day they may not be. In the end, they will know the material before they test for black belt. and thats all that matters IMO.
I went to another school... and it WAS a mcdojo.. let me describe it to give you an idea why <insert reason here> does not always mean mcdojo.
1. He had lots of belts.. there was no black belt, and there were non standard color belts.
2. He taught his own martial art, based off bits and pieces of several other arts. None of it really made sense, or fit together.
3. No contracts. But his prices were extremely high, and you had to pay for everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Even special events.. there would be some sort of fee to get money out of you.
4. He had all sorts of extra stuff for you to do.. Weapons, MMA.. etc. You couldn't opt out of any of it, and you had to pay for all of it to get only what you wanted. You had to pay for the weapons classes even if you never attended them.
5. The classes were not structured, and some of the stuff we did was assinine and made no sense at all. even a beginner would have been able to tell... "why are we doing this again?".
6. Kids and adults were seperated. Kids had their own ranking system and curriculum. The kids class was more "daycare" than actual training.
7. Instructor had all sorts of rank given to him via seminars. He could only legitimately prove one of his certifications. And the one he could prove, was not even what he teaches. Everything he taught was learned at seminars/video tapes.
See the difference?
