Casting the first stone

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

OK I wanted you guyses’ opinions on something:

what makes a school a McDojo?

If a sensei fights in muay thai or san da or MMA, and passes on to his students what he has found to be effective, does it really matter if he tries to bring new kids into his school via birthday parties?

If he is trying to help improve those kids’ lives and futures, does it really matter what seemingly useless toys (i.e. instructors dice, glochucks) he orders from Century?

Is there anything wrong with having a “Black Belt Club” if that black belt club offers students more lessons in stuff that actually works?

Anyway, like I said, I want to know what you guys consider to be a McDojo…I’d like to stay away from actual names and specific schools or orgs…but I will talk about a school in particular near my house…the guy has 660 people…660 all paying upwards of $100 a month…he has a black belt club, birthday parties, MA toys, they play games, and everything else that screamed MCDOJO to me 5 years ago, when I was a self-righteous little Pr*ck that thought he was tough, which is why I left…fast forward to today, I went back to his school after being away for a while and noticed that out of his huge student body, most of them actually looked pretty good! They were also having fun and learning martial arts etiquette, respect, focus, and of course discipline…no they were not fighting machines, they don’t compete, but aren’t there lives better because of their training? I guess my point is that one can have a large, successful school, while remaining honest and ethical…IMO…

2

One of our black belts has a patch that say “Black Belt Club.”

I never realized until last year that some schools actually have this as a group. I figured it was just a Century patch that looked cool.

3

The school you described is a Mc Dojo. Just like McDonald’s, these schools have their place in the marketplace and can provide their owners with a good profit margin. Not that many people will pay to do what it takes to be effective fighters. Most people, especial kids, just role-play being fighters.

Mc Donald’s is a great business model and has made it’s stockholders and franchisees billions of dollars. However, one wouldn’t expect to get gourmet food at Mc Donald’s. Along the same lines, one shouldn’t expect to become a high level fighter at a Mc Dojo school that employs a variety of motivational and money-making gimmicks.

4

Who cares if there are lots of gimmicks if you are teaching good stuff thats effective who cares as long as what you are teaching is producing good competent students who can handle themselves.
Whats the problem with trying to use business smarts to attract more students and get kids involved in martial arts. As long as your passing on all the core values and passing on a sound reality based system I dont see a problem.

5

Nothing wrong with gimmicks if you want to bring in lots of students to make good money- especially if you want to have a big kids program. However, there are a variety of reasons that a majority of top level fighters come from programs that don’t have gimmicks to motivate the participants.

An owner who is spending significant time and money to bring in and retain students will be overly concerned about getting the most revenue from these hard won custiomers and will have to compromise his program in terms of fighting effectiveness to keep them interested, motivated, and injury free.

Additionally, a Mc Dojo will have a high number of people who only want to role play being figthers and don’t want to sacrifice with the conditioning, injuries, and ego bruising that has to happen along the road to becomming a high level fighter.

These types of schools generally will not attract hard core people and these are the training partners you must have if you are going to become good. It doesn’t matter how good your instructor is if you dont’ have good training partners. You’e got to have other highly talented, motivated, and conditioned athletes to train with and compete against if you are going to get your skill to a high level.

6

A few thoughts…

On the other hand, back in Chicago there is the Degerberg Academy, one of the largest, most sucsessful schools in the country uses all the ‘McDojo’ tricks, yet they are also home to a number of professional and amateur fighters including Oscar Bravo, who god willing, I’ll NEVER have to fight. So-o-o-o-o, it’s a McDojo with birthday parties, black belt clubs, and all that - yet they produce top fighters. In fact some of those top fighters teach kids classes as well.

This certainly seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom.

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MA in America is also possesed by a ‘poverty chic’ - where it’s cool not to make money.

If Fred Degerberg did it, I’m sure there are more examples of people using good business strategy, and still produced good fighters. Seems to me in the 70’s the Tracy Kenpo schools did this on a mass scale. (if you consider full contact karate and ‘point fighting’ fighting)

Why can’t a MA teacher be good at business also? Why does giving people what they want for a few hours a day (kids classes, cardio stuff) prevent your other teaching from being good? Doesn’t this mean if the part-time teacher has another job, he’s no good also? For some fighters, teaching the youth is a way to give back.

It is not the business methods I frown upon, it’s the crap material I usually see taught…

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Just because you activley market your school does not mean that you have to compromise on quality and are just concerned with the dollar. What should you open your school and not take advantage of normal business practices to ensure that it grows and does well :confused:

Quote:
An owner who is spending significant time and money to bring in and retain students will be overly concerned about getting the most revenue from these hard won custiomers and will have to compromise his program in terms of fighting effectiveness to keep them interested, motivated, and injury free.

Who says thats always going to be the case, what a pile of rubbish you are making a pretty massive assumption.

9

Here is a simple rule of thumb:

Most MA schools suck. Therefore most real money making schools suck. But this does not mean everyone who makes money sucks.

It’s just Sturgeons law with a patina of poverty chic.

10

just teach yoga and pilates and qigong.

you will make a killing! and it doesn’t have to be martially effective.

what segment of the population has the burning desire to be “martially effective” from their workout? probably less than 1% of the population could give a whoop about effective/ineffective, ufc useful, dancing, etc etc etc.

If you can be a good business person and sell your martial arts method to the masses and make some bank, good on ya! Teach me how! lol

“poverty chic” - dude, that is so true. I think it has a lot to do with self doubt and the whole “i’m the next best thing to a buddhist monk” attitude that a great deal of martial arts teachers carry around with them.

TKD masters do not have this impedement! lol

My definition of a mcdojo is a school that claims to offer one thing and the method doesn’t work towards what they offer.

The mish mash of asian culture thing isn’t so important, influences are cool and the more varied, the better the body of experience.

Full contact all range fighting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either. Those classes are guaranteed to be filled five 9’swith males with an average age of 25 or so. That’s the nature of guys at that age to want to prove their physical ability.

The classes for kids are games and forms and communication settings.

The classes for older adults are an interesting way to keep in shape and pick up a little self defense.

as far as being a vehicle for producing warriors, the modality of a dojo, kwoon or dojang is obviously obsolete. so in that sense, we’ve come full circle to the question of what is a mcdojo? lol

What is most important about any endeavour you undertake is that you understand clearly what your objective is. What is your goal?

An old Ch’an axiom is: “Move with intention, be still with purpose”

ok, that’s it from me. :smiley:

11

Anyone got a ballpark figure for the median income of Karate/TCMA instructors, or MA instructors as a whole?

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sweet reference.

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I read somewhere that the median figure for a MA instructor in the U.S. was 15k or something. Can’t remember the source. . . . I think it was a Parade article on salaries per occupations in america, so take it for whatever it’s worth.

I know that my teacher can’t afford to teach full time. He has a small school that works out in an old church sanctuary. He fits into that “poverty chic” mold. His brother, on the other hand, is financially independant as a MA instructor in a different city. Of course, my instructor has a wife and two kids so that may have something to do with it. . . .

14

Tae Bo is a prime example of a world class McDojo. Hes making bank and all he is doing is using martial movements for arobics (and of course marketing the U.S. military). The only people that can pull actual martial experience from such types of McDojo’s are people that are truly fond of martial arts and are willing to do what it takes when they are at home alone to ensure they are developing fighting skills.

An idiot who knows very little about punching can show the basic movement to one who knows nothing, and the one who knows nothing can develop an actual punch through dedicated perseverance, and self evalutated elimination.

Granted if he had a better teacher he would have a better punch. This is how you will see people in a McDojo who seem to have skills. They do, but they could be better, with a better teacher.

15

Do they spar, hard, and regularly?

If not, they’re a McDojo.

If so, they’re not.

That’s really the only qualifier.

You can train out of a dirty warehouse with no patches, no belts, no frills, no kids programs, no nothing, but if you don’t spar, you’re a McDojo.

Pat Militech teaches kid’s karate at MFS, but I don’t think anyone here is going to claim he’s a McDojo.

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What’s your definition of “hard” sparring?

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While that’s going to be subjective from school to school (everyone thinks they train harder than everyone else, right), most of us can reasonably assume what he means.

18

Wow…lots of great points to think about…

So it seems like an MA school is really like a powerlifter or an olypmic weightlifter…he wants to increase the amount of weight he can lift as much as possible (revenue) while at the same time increasing his own body weight (bll***) by as little as possible…

I’ll post more on this subject soon, but for now the reason I started this thread and the entitled it as I have, is because I read on another forum where a guy I took a seminar with once called my first sensei’s school a “McDojo”. Now my first sensei has since closed shop and moved far away, and I stopped training with him long ago, so believe me, I wasn’t offended personally or insulted by the “McDojo” accusation…however, I did think to myself, “Who the heck is this guy to call someone else’s school a McDojo, what has he done?” I was also dissappointed that a grown man would bash another’s school…but after all, I guess being a McDojo isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if as KnifeFighter suggested, we compare it to McDonald’s which is great if you don’t want to go to a more “exquisite” establishment…

19

That’s why I asked for his definition. I don’t pressume to know what someone else means until they tell me.

20

I think it’s a question of either:

A) A dojo(or chain thereof) which seeks quantity of students, over quality of instruction. Get them in the door and on contract, no matter what.

or

B) Poor quality instruction. To include fakes and scams.