We Are A Black Belt School

[Kaygee]

I greatly apologize if this subject has been touched on before, but when I used the search feature, every single post with "black belt" in it comes up and you can imagine how many times that would be.

As I have discovered recently that I do not have what it takes to be a black belt, I have done much soul-searching and I have been going to even more schools in my area, trying to find a new school to attend. I have visited well over 25 schools in my area.....easily.....the number is probably greater than that!

I noticed that most of these schools have "We Are A Black Belt School" somewhere in their school. I did some research to see what this actually means and it looks like it is a clear sign of a "McDojo" or a school that just likes to rip people off by forcing you to buy package after package with more expensive rates and longer contacts, all while using the "carrot on the stick" philosophy.

I read a great article here http://www.tipsonschools.com/ and noticed disturbing trends mentioned in that article in nearly every single school that I have visited. I realize that no school is going to be like you read like it was back in the good ole days, but are the good schools THAT FAR AND IN BETWEEN?

All of these schools anymore have two to three year contracts with different packages that allow you to attend two classes if you pay X-amount and three classes if you pay X-amount, and nearly all of them have a "black belt club", which always makes me think of the Cobrai Kai from Karate Kid.

The traits of a "bad school" (and I put that in quotes because it is just an opinion from an article) were even existent in my former school. I have read in other articles, similiar to the one I linked above, that mentioned things about your instructor's weight, and if his belly is too big than get out of the school, (one of my instructor's had a big ole belly, he couldn't even kick anymore) or if the instructor's cannot even demonstrate the form or technique that they are trying to teach you, get out of the school.

I am about to just call my search for a martial arts school quits. I just want a school that wants to teach students an art and be NOTHING but a teacher/mentor.......not a owner or banker or salesman.

I know different areas have different trends and schools, but I think my area may just be "dried up". I gotta find that one place out in the middle of nowhere where the instructor is smoking a pipe, living in a tent and is looking for a student to teach.

Just kidding, I know that doesn't exist. But does the phrase "We Are A Black Belt School" mean an automatic GTFO sign?

 

[seasoned]

To many dojo are falling into the marketing era of competition, vying for potential student dollars.

Instead they should...
Promise nothing but a well equipped facility with top notch instructors and leave the rest up to the individual to grab hold................... No gimmicks.

 

[pgsmith]

It depends a lot on where you are looking. If you're relying on the internet or yellow pages, then you're only going to find those schools that are competing hardest for student dollars. Judging from your complaint, I would assume that is not what you're looking for. The best place to look for martial art schools is a martial arts forum such as this one, where there are a number of experienced practitioners to help you out. However, you've not said what sort of martial art you are looking for or where you are located, so your best resource is left unused.

Good schools and good instructors are not going to go out of their way to find you since they don't have to.

 

[Kaygee]

It depends a lot on where you are looking. If you're relying on the internet or yellow pages, then you're only going to find those schools that are competing hardest for student dollars. Judging from your complaint, I would assume that is not what you're looking for. The best place to look for martial art schools is a martial arts forum such as this one, where there are a number of experienced practitioners to help you out. However, you've not said what sort of martial art you are looking for or where you are located, so your best resource is left unused.

Good schools and good instructors are not going to go out of their way to find you since they don't have to.

I never thought about it that way. Whenever someone has tried to help me find a school in the past, they have always used the same thing that I used....

www.dojolocator.com

Should I post the sort of information that you speak of above here or in a different forum?

 

[arnisador]

It is a marketing gimmick. I think it started out as a way of saying everyone should plan on achieving that goal but has morphed into buying a "Black Belt Package" in many places that's a gym membership type of idea. When I hear that phrase it's a serious turn-off for me.

But however much we enjoy this hobby, it is a business and marketing can help--esp. since most schools survive by teaching kids, whose parents are paying their tuition. Marketing works.

 

[Aiki Lee]

Plenty of commercial schools teach quality arts but I do agree there are a strong number of them that care little about the skills developed by students. Every school is likely to have a few underachievers but whether or not the students impress you or not might not be reflective of the teachers skill. So look at what the instructor does and if you want to move like him or her then consider enrolling.

 

[Touch Of Death]

They tried, We Are An Orange Belt School, and it just didn't seem to pack the same punch.

 

[Danny T]

I realize that no school is going to be like you read like it was back in the good ole days, but are the good schools THAT FAR AND IN BETWEEN?

Just exactly what does that mean? Just how were martial arts schools run in the good ole days? If you think it was just show up whenever you wanted and didn’t have to pay a lot of money for training and the instructor was there for you, you better think again. I have three different Master instructors one from Hong Kong one from the Philippines one from Thailand

In Hong Kong once being accepted as a student his father paid in advance for a year. To be accepted as a student he had to be recommended by another student and he had to apply. After going through a 3 month waiting period he was finally accepted. If student’s payments were not on time they were not allowed to enter the front door much less allowed to train. He didn’t see any training with the head instructor until he have been training there for almost 2 years and it was for a few seconds at a time to be corrected for something. There was no specific training times you just showed up and trained with who was there, many times he was the only one there other than a senior member there to help out. After the first year of training he had to re-apply and be accepted again and had to commit to 3 years of training. Today he travels the U.S. and Europe instructing Wing Chun as well as has his own school.

The one from the Philippines started at the age of 6 under his grandfather and had no choice if he wanted to train or not. Up at 5 or 5:30 and trained for an hour, then school and training again in the afternoon. When he was 12 he was sent to another instructor for a year who forced him to work and fight for food. If he didn’t fight or when he did fight if he lost he went hungry. Now that is a great martial arts life isn’t it?

My Muay Thai Ajarn started at the age of 7 and started each day with a 3 mile run. Eat, clean up the training area train for an 1 ½ eat, rest and work in the camp until 4 then training started train for 1-2 hours then run. Eat sleep and start all over again in the morning. Most all the money he earned went to the camp and some went to his family. As a teenager the camp started doing some education training and by the time he was 17 he had saved enough money to buy a plane ticket and came to America getting away from the camp.

Yea, let’s train like the good ole days. Today the best martial arts training is in the U.S.: here martial arts schools are a business and smart martial arts business owners will run their schools as a business. Classes are held at the times they are scheduled and you will have to pay for the use of the facility and for the instruction. At my school we use membership agreements. 6 months for beginners, this allows the student and the school to evaluate each other and assure we want to continue the training. This is discussed and from the beginning. Next level 1 year or 2 year memberships and this is also discussed from the beginning. Nothing hidden, no surprises. When fee's are increased it is for new members only not ok we've raised our prices and everyone now pays more. That is what the membership agreement is for. Your cost is locked in and we give a reduced price for signing a membership agreement.

I just want a school that wants to teach students an art and be NOTHING but a teacher/mentor.......not a owner or banker or salesman.

Uh, right. What you will get then is a group, club and you can get some very good training. I started out that way. 10-12 people training when they wanted to but upset if something came up and I couldn’t be there or was sick. So I opened a school, lease payments, insurance, utilities, license fee’s, equipment cost, cleaning supplies, office supplies and safety cost. My basic cost monthly is $8000.00 a month and you want the school to not be run as a business. Then why not ‘you’ open a school and pay an instructor to do the teaching and mentoring. Then you can train what and how you want whenever you want. Good Luck!!

 

[Kaygee]

Wow.....a lot of anger in you, once again, Danny T. I do not believe this is the first time you went off on a rant on me like that. When I referred to the good ole days, I was referring to how difficult it was to attain a blackbelt and how dedicated you had to be in order to even keep up with the studies.

You need to calm down a little bit.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Wow.....a lot of anger in you, once again, Danny T. I do not believe this is the first time you went off on a rant on me like that. When I referred to the good ole days, I was referring to how difficult it was to attain a blackbelt and how dedicated you had to be in order to even keep up with the studies.

You need to calm down a little bit.

I think his point was that you don't have any idea what 'the good old days' were like and that your idea that a commercial school can be operated without worrying about the finances is... silly... ignorant... foolish... and lots of other descriptive terms that will make you upset.

I find it amusing that someone who says they 'don't have what it takes' to be a black belt spends so much time visiting schools, and none training. Upset by a $10 price increase (schools do have bills to pay, so deal with it). And tons of teenage angst about driving an increadible 20 minutes to a school. Upset because the school you left wouldn't let you test without having trained.

Grow up, kid. Pick a school and train. Or take up knitting.

 

[Kaygee]

I think his point was that you don't have any idea what 'the good old days' were like and that your idea that a commercial school can be operated without worrying about the finances is... silly... ignorant... foolish... and lots of other descriptive terms that will make you upset.

I find it amusing that someone who says they 'don't have what it takes' to be a black belt spends so much time visiting schools, and none training. Upset by a $10 price increase (schools do have bills to pay, so deal with it). And tons of teenage angst about driving an increadible 20 minutes to a school. Upset because the school you left wouldn't let you test without having trained.

Grow up, kid. Pick a school and train. Or take up knitting.

And instead of getting the moderators in here again, I will ask you personally to stop your attacks and remind you that you have a choice not to comment on a thread if you do not have anything nice to say.
I really hope I do not grow up to be miserable, spiteful and full of hate as some of you!

 

[Blindside]

And instead of getting the moderators in here again, I will ask you personally to stop your attacks and remind you that you have a choice not to comment on a thread if you do not have anything nice to say.
I really hope I do not grow up to be miserable, spiteful and full of hate as some of you!

I am not seeing "attacks", some rather strongly worded advice maybe, but advice that I would generally agree with.

 

[K-man]

Kaygee, I understand where you're coming from. You have the choice of a commercial school or smaller organisations such as we have. I personally don't like contracts and I won't sign up for direct debit. That costs me a bit more for my aikido training but I've managed to stick at that for six years so far and I have no intention to stop anytime soon. Even business owners recognise who is serious and who is just kicking the tyres.

That said, do you have any friends or associates who train? If so, and they are happy with their training, maybe you could have a couple of lessons to see how their training runs. If you like what you see, give it a shot. If not, then I would start crawling the Internet looking for the style of training you think you would like, in the area that you can get to easily. I run a very small school but still have an Internet presence. Don't be put off by "we are a black belt school" as that means nothing. Except in McDojos where your black belt virtually comes with the sign on package, very few people starting out training stick it long enough to get to black belt anyway, and there are many reasons for that.

Good luck with your search. :asian:

 

[Danny T]

Wow.....a lot of anger in you, once again, Danny T. I do not believe this is the first time you went off on a rant on me like that. When I referred to the good ole days, I was referring to how difficult it was to attain a blackbelt and how dedicated you had to be in order to even keep up with the studies.

You need to calm down a little bit.

Anger? Rant? Wow. Wasn't my intent. Sorry you took it that way. It is Passion.
Just understand, that whether or not is is fair; life isn't fair. I do get opinionated when it comes to the business of martial arts because many people are idealistic and life isn't. One must deal with what is not with what should be. Bills have to be paid and it is a business and the instructor who has taken the time, energy, and effort to develop a business is entitled to make a profit. As to "Black Belt" do you realize there are more martial art systems out there than Do Not have any ranking or belting system associated with them than there is with. The almighty BB came from Judo and is a relatively recent idea compared to the history of fighting systems. Most martial art systems you pay the instructor and you train. No belts, no rank, no testing; just train and fight. Some you pay a lot of money and some it is your life (whether it is what you choose or not). I have been in the martial arts for 40 years, I have tremendous passion for it and want it to grow with excellent practitioners. That is idealistic and I am a realist. 97% of the people in the martial arts are there for the other 3% to train. What is meant by that is I understand people come in and are excited about being there and they want to learn right up until they realize it is hard and it hurts or something else that makes them feel good quickly comes and they are gone. It takes committment, energy, desire, sacrifice, discipline, time, money and so much more to excel. For me Martial Arts is not a hobby or something I do to get into shape, or is something to do. For the 3% it is what we do. You are concerned about learning to be a BB yet you are worried about being in a BB School? Now I'm going to say something that you will probable take as anger. I don't care about the Black Belt. Getting to Black Belt is but a very short time in life and is but a very short part of the journey. You are concerned about traveling 8 miles to attend a school. I know cost is important, I drove 9 hrs one way 8-10 times a year for 10 years to train with one of my instructors while training at another school. I saved my money and traveled when I could. I traveled 1200 miles 4-6 times a year for 8 years to train with an instructor in another system. I have paid tens of thousands of dollars training and so has many of the 3% who train for the love of the martial arts. It is expensive for high quality instruction and training. I love instructing and I do it for the love of the martial arts. I am expensive and worth it; If you want quality training. I have high qualilty equipment and a state of the art facility. I am a professional martial artist and my family deserves to reap the benefits of my time, and professionalism. The students who stay with our programs are excellent martial artists and they are all very good fighters if they need to be. They demand committment of me and our staff; and we give it. However, for those who truly want to be true martial artists I also demand committment, discipline, and loyalty to the martial arts (not to me). That committment is first shown in them making a committment in time and money in the form of a 1 year or 2 year membership agreement. It is not about the money; it is about the commitment to training and following through with what you commit to.

If this comes off as strong it is the passion; no anger, no ranting, it is all about the art. Not the training system but the art; the art is the individual and that takes discipline, committment, desire, love, and more.

 

[dancingalone]

I've never done this before, but I have a sincere offer for you if you can work out the logistics: Move to Texas. You may train free of charge in your choice of Goju-ryu karate or TKD (KKW with a lot of personal bits thrown in) in my studio. The karate class is small, around 6-8 people per session, but with an edge to it. The adult TKD class is plenty tough too, though not competition-oriented, and truthfully it's not as rigorous as the Goju class. But there are enough good adults around to test yourself against if you are so minded.

A warning though: There are lots of 'boring' aspects such as body conditioning & hardening, etc, in my karate class. I'm also very picky about kata as it is the vehicle which drives the effectiveness of the art. This means much, much more than being finicky about the pure performance aspects of forms practice and we can talk about this more if you are serious about learning a bit more about me. You simply won't be allowed to test for higher rank if both your skills and fitness do not meet an established standard. I find that a lot of people come and go because their expectations of learning Okinawan karate simply didn't meet the sometimes numbing reality of it.

 

[James Kovacich]

From what I've seen there is a connection between that phrase and schools that give kids blackbelts and possibly all or most of the blackbelts in the school are kids.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Wow.....a lot of anger in you, once again, Danny T. I do not believe this is the first time you went off on a rant on me like that. When I referred to the good ole days, I was referring to how difficult it was to attain a blackbelt and how dedicated you had to be in order to even keep up with the studies.

You need to calm down a little bit.

You might need to recalibrate your anger sensors there. Danny T was providing some useful information and perspective, but I didn't detect any anger in what he wrote.

Getting back to the original topic, martial arts instructors who want to make a living teaching or even just to maintain nice training facilities will need to ensure a steady cash flow in order to pay the bills. Contracts, fees, and gimmicks such as "black belt clubs" are some of the ways an instructor may try to keep their income steady. This doesn't necessarily mean much of anything one way or another with regards to the quality of instruction.

When it comes to evaluating a martial arts school, you'll want to watch a few classes, get the details of what they are charging ( including any hidden expenses like one-time membership fees or belt fees) and then ask yourself the following:
Are they teaching what I want to learn?
Are they teaching it well?
Is the quality of instruction and the facilities worth what they are charging?
Can I afford it?
Are there any other considerations that would make it wrong for me? (Unworkable schedule, unpleasant atmosphere, etc)

If you don't care for commercial studios, than you might want to keep an eye out for smaller clubs. Sometimes these can be very affordable. The downsides can include:
small, poorly equipped, or even non-existent training facilities
limited or unreliable class times
small number of training partners
can be hard to find without looking around and networking

BTW - I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you don't have what it takes to achieve a black belt. Based on the one video you posted, you definitely have the physical talent to get there. If you mean that you aren't currently willing or able to travel more than x minutes to class or pay more than y dollars for lessons, then that's really just about your current situation and your priorities. If you mean that you don't have the patience to go through whatever your school requires for the rank without getting critical of how the school is run, then probably it's best to just forget about the rank and enjoy your training. Do that and you might find yourself getting to black belt before you know it.

 

[Carol]

We are a black belt school. We are dedicated, we are motivated, we are on a quest to be our best. Or something like that.

There is a whole school pledge that came out from (I think...) United Professionals/Black Belt Schools of America, which offers school owners a number of services for developing, promoting, and running their schools -- including a billing service. If you here that, chances are you are at a school that is associated (past or present) with UP/BBSA. A lot of these schools have a solid business core.

Does that mean automatically run? Not necessarily. As someone who prefers the Malay arts, it is can be difficult to find schools that teach these arts full time. I have seen some schools offer Filipino or Indonesian instruction part-time while also teaching a more popular art that pays the bills.

Some folks prefer looking for the more independent teachers that like teaching out of their garage or basement, and aren't interested in running a business. Nothing wrong with a teacher that doesn't have a retail present but as a student, it can take some intel to make sure you have found someone who is teaching in such a venue by choice...and not because they have poor people skills (or worse...) that are preventing them from operating in a storefront environment.

I hate hate hate hate hate membership contracts and I have the good fortune of living in a state where the consumer protection laws make them difficult (but not impossible) to implement. Other states have no such restrictions and therefore contracts become the norm.

Many schools that work with contracts want to see some sort of financial commitment from the student, especially if the school is not very profitable. Sometimes these can be worked out by making alternative offers. I once talked with someone and proposed that if I trained with him, I would write a check for my first three months tuition up front, and continue to pay him quarterly -- in lieu of signing a contract. He agreed that would be acceptable (I didn't join the school -- too far away) so there are ways of getting around contracts, but sometimes it takes a bit of creativity and a little give-and-take.

Give-and-take is a part of MA training in general. I don't think there is a perfect school out there. I think a big part of training is making the most out of the options that you have available. Training in something that interests you is a big factor. If a person doesn't enjoy what they are doing, they won't stick with it. And...they shouldn't stick with it, IMO. Based on your posts, I'm not sure if you're solidified behind what you are looking for in a school. I'm not saying that as personal dig....I haven't decided on what I am looking for in a school either, which is the main reason why I've been doing a lot more walking in the woods than I have kicking and punching.

 

[Kaygee]

BTW - I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you don't have what it takes to achieve a black belt. Based on the one video you posted, you definitely have the physical talent to get there. If you mean that you aren't currently willing or able to travel more than x minutes to class or pay more than y dollars for lessons, then that's really just about your current situation and your priorities. If you mean that you don't have the patience to go through whatever your school requires for the rank without getting critical of how the school is run, then probably it's best to just forget about the rank and enjoy your training. Do that and you might find yourself getting to black belt before you know it.

What I mean by that I don't have what it takes to achieve a black belt, is that I didn't have the patience to wait for my old school to test me because I felt that I was "getting the shaft" from the instructors there. Also, I was questioning who they were promoting and why they were skipping students ranks, when in reality, it is not my place to do such a thing.

Being a black belt is more than a colored belt, I don't need to tell you that. And it means a lot more to me as well. I showed myself that I did not have the patience, or discipline to wait it out to be tested, to trust my instructor's decisions and to not worry about the students that (I felt) were being unfairly promoted when I should have just been worrying about myself.

 

[Dirty Dog]

And instead of getting the moderators in here again, I will ask you personally to stop your attacks and remind you that you have a choice not to comment on a thread if you do not have anything nice to say.
I really hope I do not grow up to be miserable, spiteful and full of hate as some of you!

There was NO personal attack in that. It was blunt advice.
If people all around you are all saying essentially the same thing, even if it's something you don't want to hear, maybe it's time to consider that it might be correct and that you need to consider what they're saying.

Grow up. Pick a school and train. Or take up knitting.