Yay, internet war- Anybody heard of Anibal Lobo

***Omega Supreme*** · Posted On: 2/13/2013 3:34pm

Here's an update. I thought this was a very professional response.

Dear *****,

Hey there I heard you recently tried The Source Academy out. I'm one of the head instructors and the owner of the academy, I just wanted to check in and se how your initial experience was, if you had any feedback I'd love to hear it. I was out of town on vacation the last couple weeks so I'm just following up with a lot of people who stopped by. We always pride ourselves on our community and friendly atmosphere, so please let me know if we achieved that and if there's anything else I can do for you. Thanks for your interest and I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Hey Coach Joe,

Thanks for checking in, I hope you had a great time in Hawaii.
Unfortunately I regret to inform you I did not have the pleasure of experiencing the friendly atmosphere on the mat. However, aside from Mr. Lobo the staff was great. I do not have the desire to see that man again unless my instructor from Santa Barbara is with me.

I never argue with my instructors, I smile and say yes sir or yes ma'am, thank you and so on. This is how I treated Mr. Lobo as well. However despite my best efforts to be 100% present on the mat; he pretty much singled me out for the whole class. I spoke to him prior to training and told him my gi is being mailed to me. He told me it was no problem. However once the class started the insults ranged from; "Once you get your gi you will grow a brain." to him insulting my choice of martial arts in SB of Sambo. I think his words were "Oh Sambo... lazy jiu jitsu". To me that was extremely unprofessional. Furthermore, he interrupted my rolling session twice to show something lame or to insult me. The first time he interrupted me he showed a "no gi" hold to his student. This "no gi' hold was the rape choke. I debated kicking him in the balls, armbar... I decided to just bat his hands away. That is a very insulting move to a female if you are not teaching a woman's self defense class. The blue belt I was rolling with had an injured arm. I was very aware of it, we were even speaking of it while we rolled. Mr. Lobo stopped our roll after I passed his guard. I was blocking his arm with mine being careful not to lean on it or smash it. Mr. Lobo said I was being too rough and I needed to get a gi. I asked my partner if I hurt him. He looked confused and said no. At that point I was irritated an opted to leave.

I understand that Mr. Lobo is a respected member of the BJJ community and he could kick my butt on the mat. However that goes without saying... and it is just that. What he doesn't understand is that my instructor is the webmaster for the Bullshido blog site, a former middle weight belt holder in MMA, and is also very well connected and respected. I have been training with him "Mr. Mike MacDonald" for over 6 years.

I'm moving up here with my family and I was the scout for 2 other potential sign ups. In short Mr. Lobo blew it. I will not send anyone there to be subjected to the unprofessionalism of that man,

My husband will be in town this weekend and I would like to introduce you to him. He is a black belt in our gym back home and a blue belt in BJJ. Maybe we can work this out somehow? He will be available on Saturday after 10am or on Sunday.

Sorry for the intense long e-mail. I wish I had more positive things to say about Mr. lobo. I can say that Bobby and the gal at the front (Victoria?) were very sweet and helpful.

Thank you for listening.

********

******,

Thanks so much for the wonderful reply! I truly am looking for honest feedback and it's so rarely given. I know Anibal very well and I always am careful to schedule people who are new to our studio on different day for their first class. For some reason he treats people completely different once they have joined and he sees them in the class. Still that is far from a reasonable excuse and I will definitely broach the situation of his attitude with him. I think that's unacceptable and personally is not the way we run our academy. I am familiar with Mr. MacDonald and completely respect any prior training you had. Even if I wasn't aware of Bullshido or the great history that it has, I would hope any of our instructors would treat you with respect and I'm sorry we failed to demonstrate that on your first day.

I would definitely like to meet you and your husband and show you around in a much better way. I might be taking our competitors for Muay Thai up to Seattle for a sparring event. I could possibly meet you on Sunday, and now that I'm back I am on floor Monday through Thursday evening.

Also, I know it doesn't help to assauge the situation you went through the other day, but I only have Professor Anibal teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays. The remainder of Jiu Jitsu is taught by myself and one other coach throughout the week, purple and brown belts. If you have any interest in working with me personally and seeing what we're about I'd be happy to do my best. I completely understand if that opportunity has been squandered and I'll take the steps to make sure this doesn't happen again. We certainly don't want to end up on Bulshido for having knowledgeable instructors who are complete jerks at the same time. Thank you so much for sharing and I hope to meet with you and your family soon.

Sincerely,
Coach Joe

**Krijgsman** · Posted On: 2/13/2013 6:50pm

That is a pretty stellar response.

**Mr.Miyagi** · Posted On: 2/13/2013 7:57pm

Very professional reply to honest concerns, shows the guy cares as well.

**PizDoff** · Posted On: 2/13/2013 8:00pm

Great response, I'd check out the gym to train with Coach Joe.

**CoffeeFan** · Posted On: 2/13/2013 9:55pm

Wow, that was a pretty classy response from Coach Joe. I have to give him props for his response when he just as easy could have shrugged his shoulders and moved on. I will see if I can get in there on Sunday, although I have been really sick this last week. Hopefully it will be gone by then.

***battlefields*** · Posted On: 2/13/2013 10:30pm

Props to Coach Joe. I'd be real interested to hear of you meeting and training with him.

**CoffeeFan** · Posted On: 2/19/2013 12:03am

Hey Guys,

Michelle (Mrs. Coffeefan) emailed Coach Joe asking what was a good time to come by. There was an event he had to go to on Saturday so we were hoping to come by Sunday. We never heard back so we decided to stop by today around noon and see if he was there. He wasn't, so we took a quick tour of the facilities.

It was a nice large location; they had a ring, a wrestling mat, and a fair amount of floor space. Oddly enough they also had a wing chun dummy that looked like it was being used as a gi rack. They also seemed to do a lot of Filipino arts, they had a lot of weapon sparring equipment.

I am leaving early tomorrow, looks like I will have to stop by the next time I am in town.