My McDojo's "Point of No Return"

[PoleFighter]

My last straw with my old kung-fu school came when the new promised sparring nights where actually, uh.. forms night. I also had an epiphany when I did a kick blocking drill with one of the senior students and he started limping around and had to stop the drill because of the *intense* pain after I, very lightly, blocked one of his roundhouses with my shin. I realized that this school just didn't have tough people in it, so I left.

In only slightly related, but somewhat amusing, news, I actually ran into my old sifu at a party last saturday. It was three in the morning, and I was getting ready to leave. Then I see the guy lying in a couch, roaring drunk, decked out in an old jeans jacket, looking like an 80's metal head. He shouted at me to come over and started badgering me for quitting his school. I just said I was tired of pretending to be a crane, and that I did BJJ now. He just said "fair enough," and almost looked a little hurt. I would have loved to have had a drunken debate about training methods, but sadly I had to catch the buss home.

[Deadpan Scientist]

Time to join a bjj school and quit all that nonsense about bags and whatnot.

[Ronin]

I warned you about Yamanaka and Japanese Goju but,
NNNOOOO !!
Jou no lisen !!
Luke at jou now eh?

[Chronomorte]

In my old school, the instructor was moving in a few months. So miraculously this student who was pretty good at forms got promoted 2 belts (over a few months) to where it was the minimum to teach a class, with the understanding that she would be on the fast track to black belt since she would be training us. This woman was very very small, and nowhere near skilled enough to do anything to me when we sparred, except get the 'little tappy shots' that score points but never hurt.

So that was it for me. The old instructor was very skilled and had a thirst for learning 'outside the system' that we shared. Several others in the style were very good and we could spar to the point where I felt like I was learning something (just not at my school, since others were leaving also)

I was interested in learning to fight as if a full-sized guy or more was trying to beat my head in, not to 'perfect my form' and dance around sparring. I could not respect this student at all, and lost some respect for my old instructor and the whole system for valuing keeping a location open more than keeping standards.

[WingChun Lawyer]

Praying Mantis Kwoon. After about 5 months of stupid forms and wrist grab defenses and too little bagwork and no questions answered, while we are doing a stupid form for the tenth time, the instructor says

"Scream when you move! Add value your form!"

And that made me sick. So I left.

ITF TKD Dojang. After a month of traning with the 15-16 years old kids, mostly under the instruction of a blue belt (the master was too busy reading his emails most of the time), the master gets his fat ass off the chair and tells me to spar the aforementioned blue belt who had been teaching me.

We put on a shitload of protective gear.

I beat the hell out of him with about six months of wing chun under my belt. So I left.

Wing Chun Kwoon. After a bit more than two years of training, I ask my sifu if we could now do some sparring, as I didn´t feel like I could fight with the techniques he taught me unless I put them into practice. He looks at me as if I had suddenly turned into an alien and says "You want to learn how to FIGHT!?"

So I left.

[patfromlogan]

First time I should have quit a school was when we got a new instructor and about ten minutes into class he started to explain something to a n00b. The rest of us just stood there cooling off. I asked if I/we could work out and he got annoyed and made me stay in line. I didn't last very long, but I should have walked out then.

The first time I did walk out was when the same instructor told my son, who was training for brown, to spar a bb. The bb wouldn't fight, just pushed and taunted. After a while my son said that he wouldn't continue because the bb wasn't fighting, he was just being a bully. The instructor told him to continue. He refused. The instructor said then he couldn't test for brown because he had a bad attitude. The test had been planed for months and we both thought that this was complete bs. We left and he was still talking about testing when his attitude improved. We walked down the hall and my kid said, "Well, that's the end of that." Later the instructor tried to justify it saying it was a test of behaviour, to see how my kid would respond. I felt he responded just fine, bs is bs, and his idiotic "testing" meant my kid shoud obey mindlessly and continue to try to attack a larger stronger older bb? The bb had hurt him before and he knew if he unloaded on him that that would be considered loosing control. My kid didn't whine, freak out, or behave poorly. The instructor was and is a moron. And now one of the schools I'm in wants to unite with this idiot. Great. The school's sensei gave clownfuck his black belt years ago and explained to me that this sparring test is designed to show how a student handles it. Does he get angry or cry or whatever. So I said my kid did fine then, he maintained and was reasonable.

Next school (same system in a nearby town) he got his brown under a good instructor (and his ok wife, another bb). Then they got conned by a TKD bb who started teaching them TKD, and had an affair and did drugs with the wife. That school died.

Last time I walked out of a school was when the instructor had been acting odd, then one day I and two teen green belts were doing a kata in front of the class. The instructor waved his hand and said, "OK." We thought he meant to start over and we started to go from stance to the attention/starting position and he freaked out, "I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO MOVE!!!! I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO MOVE!!!!" So I went to the side of the room, caught his eye, bowed and never looked back. I did email him about it and he said with my attitude I wasn't welcome in his class ever again. Gee, like I'm dying to go, man. Several months later he showed up in Kosho Shorei Ryu Kempo as a student and took me outside and said, "I've been thinking about what happened for months and all I can say is I'm sorry." I told him no problem, apology accepted, but I didn't add that I'd never work out in a class of his again.

Thanks to this site, my age and experience, and having trained in good Kyokushin and Kempo, I'm less happy with most martial arts schools now. Like last night we did a little warm up and then wasted ten or fifteen minutes doing static stretches and other worthless crap. It was somewhat redeemed as the instructor (an ass't, sensei was working) then asked me to lead us in punching drills. I didn't do what they expected, karate punches from horse stance, but had them in fighting stance, left jabs, right reverse, then combo'd the same, then other side, then left hook/right upper cut, then the other side, then put it all together as a routine and drilled it both sides with ducking (me punching their faces). Then he led us in takedowns/pins/wrestling and I got to do some arm bars. So the class wasn't all bad, just the beginning. I emailed the sensei stuff from here @ static stretching. I hope he isn't too attached to TRADITIONAL DUMB METHODS.

[patfromlogan]

Time to join a bjj school and quit all that nonsense about bags and whatnot.

You think striking bags is nonsense?

How about pad work?


*edit* Oh, and CT, the school sounds like it's gone downhill, you'll find something better, I'm sure. Good luck. As the Quakers say, "A way will open." One looks like it's opening for me and my son; last nite in class (once a week rec/gym thing) he said we should check out the new school opened by a local (eclectic american karate) champion. If I, being asshole fatherperson had brought it up he'd probably refuse to go. I happened to run into the sensei of a trad Okinawan hard style in the store a couple days ago and he said he thought the style kind of sucked but that that guy could fight (highest compliment he ever makes). Since the Kempo class is off, maybe this will work out.

[Deadpan Scientist]

You think striking bags is nonsense?

How about pad work?

Are you retarded? How can you practice bjj on a hanging heavy bag?

[Beatdown Richie]

You can put a heavy bag in your garage if you feel like it, or go to any of a gazillion gyms that have one. No reason to continue to go to a place you disdain.

[patfromlogan]

Are you retarded? How can you practice bjj on a hanging heavy bag?

No I am not retarded. I just wanted to be certain that you think that boxing, kickboxing, karate, kungfu,kempo, shidokan, and every and all striking arts are worthless, and that there is absolutely no point in doing bag work.