AKF Martial Arts Academy - New Richmond, WI

[Panda General]

Located right on main street so it's easily accessible, NR AKF is a smaller school with about 120-150 students. They offer classes Monday-Thursday and Saturday. The head instructor is a 5th degree, but he is usually nowhere to be found, except on Tuesdays. The other instructors are 1st or 2nd degrees, some teach excellently, and some not so much, but they are all very nice people.

There are separate classes for beginners, advanced, black belts, and kids, but if they notice you're above average skill level they will let you come to higher level classes. They teach Kyuki-do, which is supposed to be a mixture of Taekwondo, Hakpi-do, and Judo, but it is mostly TKD, with a few hold downs and escapes from various chokes and arm grabs thrown in. The floor is a very squishy Judo mat up on foam blocks to make falls softer.

Enrollment is divided between "basic" and "leadership". Basic enrollment gets you to yellow belt and is a bit cheaper, and leadership brings you to black belt. There are 12 belts before black belt, and the promotion fees are $50 for yellow stripe, yellow belt, and green stripe. Then, for green belt, blue stripe, and blue belt they bump it up to $60. Brown stripe, brown belt, and red stripe are $70, and red belt and black stripe are $80. Then, for the black belt test, there are 3 installments of $125 to get your promotion, adding up to a staggering amount of $1075 for your black belt, not counting the 3 years of tuition it will take you to get the experience needed.

Overall, the instructors are nice, after a few months you will know enough to defend yourself a little bit, and most of the students, even the younger ones, are very helpful, but there is a hefty price tag on learning here.

[CobraKaiGuy]

As a student of the academy, there is some truth to the above commentary. We are all entitled to our opinions.

The Master of the NR school has 3 academies, which tend to split his time (as one would expect). The level of instruction in the Leadership classes has improved with continued staff training and experience. Comments are welcomed at the academy to ensure students needs are being met.

Hopefully the original poster was able to find adequate training.

[Cyberhongi]

Having also attended this school for a couple years I thought I'd toss in a few things. The comments welcome thing isn't as helpful as it should have been and did not prevent the lowering of standards for Belt requirements. But lower standards mean you can test sooner right? I could also go many more unflattering places with the "comments welcome" but i'm trying to stay kind of nice.

As for running 3 schools when Panda General posted this it was still 2 schools. With the price of tuition I do expect a bit more than being trained by people with less than 5 years in the art. Come to think of it their website even says "The instructors at AKF Martial Arts Academy have been teaching martial arts for over 20 years."

Sadly after the first year my level of respect for the "master" and his business practices had slowly went downhill. I have no respect left for him now and can not in good concience recommend one of his schools.