Ever look up your old McDojo for laughs?

**Sucka_MC** · Posted On: 2/09/2003 9:56am

Another Indy member? Where do you train at now?

**JKDChick** · Posted On: 2/09/2003 10:26am

When they tried to charge me $1000 bucks for my black belt.

(board breaks with a kick)
"Is that it? I feel like I should bow, or have honor or something."
-- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More, With Feeling"

**Fatality Dragon** · Posted On: 2/09/2003 10:59am

You should have kick your insturctor in the nuts and walk out. That would teach him a serious lesson, especially if he could never have children again. Oop... I shouldn't give IGBJJ some more idea of how to get a man...

"I would rather admit I am a lousy student than say I am the best, because once you think you are the best, there is no reason to continue learning."

**k-diddy** · Posted On: 2/09/2003 4:55pm

Another Indy member? Where do you train at now?

I lived in Indy until about 1999 and then moved to Texas. I didn't take up martial arts again until moving down here. I was happy to hear from someone else that there are some BJJ and Muay Thai places in Indy now. WHen I was a kid all they had was a few crappy McDojo's, which is why I got stuck at the one I went to.

And those goofball 5th Dan or whatever guys in the picture, I started with one of them way back. He couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

It basically was set up where if you learned your dorky "forms" (what a COMPLETE waste of time, pure crap) and your 1-2 new techniques every month, you could test for a stripe or belt every 4 weeks on the dot. Oh, and you also had to come up with the $50 or $100 to pay for the "testing." Basically if you went to class about once a week you should have had your black belt in 2 years, hence the OVER THREE THOUSAND black belts they have given out from that school alone.

As for the meaning of a black belt, I don't even bother testing for belts/stripes in BJJ now, I really couldn't care less since we test ourselves on the mat everyday. What pisses me off is that you can get this seeming symbol of the highest excellence in this style by pretty much just paying a lot of money and minimal real commitment. Now there are all these people running around feeling they have mastered what I now think was a completely worthless self-defense system, and some of these people are going to get into trouble one day when their skills are tested and they are wrongly prepared to defend themselves in the real world IMO.

An additional minor point, I think the fact that TKD gives out black belts like candy also cheapens the achievements of people in other MAs who must work much harder for black belts in the public eye, but I myself could give a crap about belts now that I'm an adult.

Again, just my opinion based on my experiences, I learned more valuable self-defense in ONE CLASS of BJJ and even Krav Maga, and I worry that all these people walk around feeling falsely secure on the street with their crappy training. Someone wrote an excellent article on this site about this same topic, well worth reading and pretty much echoes all my opinions.
http://www.bullshido.us/article_read.asp?id=40