Obviously I agree with the assumption that the profitability of martial arts schools, factor into this. Also it is an extremely “easy” “career” to get into. Walk into a TKD school, walk out with a black belt. Study a few years at your normal kung fu school from age 16 to 20, and suddenly you’re a qualified teacher.
Jack Dempsey is the most recent person in my mind, as I sit here reading his book on Boxing, who made this claim that the popularity of boxing(this is in the 1950’s, when he wrote this, mind you) created a large number of so-called “Instructors” and so-called “experts” who didn’t really know anything.
The problem is that, regardless of instructor or school, the expectation from a normal practictioner who does not compete actively, is far below that of one who does.
As for LA being one of the best spots.. it’s also one of the worst. We’ve got Hawkins Cheung, Robert Chu, Gary Lam, Tom Wong for Wing Chun, they’re amazing. But then we’ve got Todd Tei in burbank. ugh. Lets see, cruise along Ventura blvd from studio city to woodland hills and you’ve got… a TKD/Capoeira school, a failing Traditional Wing Chun school, Billy Blanks Tae Bo, another TKD school, a United Studios of Self-Defense School(GAH), Wutang mountain(korean tai chi FTW??), a decent Kenpo school, and a few boxing clubs.
I’ve been to all of those, met with all of their instructors and seen what they’ve had to offer. I’ve been friends with students of those schools and seen their usual level of training and understanding and honestly, I would be embarrassed to say I was a student of theirs.
Unfortunately the good places are really hard to find out here because the bad places outnumber them 30 or 40 to 1.
My original point though, was that even among the best Kung Fu schools out here… they don’t train like fighters. Thats not to say that they NEED to, everyone goes into it with different goals, and putting everyone through hardcore fight training would leave only the people who have the willpower to withstand that. Most of these people never even get into fights. I’ve seen people who train Wing chun like a professional fighter, just haven’t been to a Wing chun school that does.
And like I said, thats okay. It’s good enough to find an instructor who knows what they’re talking about… and to truly be trained properly there needs to be constant one-on-one interaction. A Fighter needs to be personally developed by his mentor(sifu) and himself. Group classes don’t cut it. It doesn’t make logical sense that a group of people can train at the same pace that a single person can, because each individual has their own level that they need to constantly build on.