Go Kan Ryu, the rape of Karate

**buzzbevan** · Posted On: 7/23/2009 3:34am

Originally Posted by syberia

Is this the belief held by the majority of students, i wonder, or a selling pitch?

i used to work with a guy that had started GKR. he was aiming to become a black belt but he had also started to watch UFC and cage rage. he was adamant that what he was learning would be applicable in the ring.

**syberia** · Posted On: 7/23/2009 3:51am

Originally Posted by buzzbevan

i used to work with a guy that had started GKR. he was aiming to become a black belt but he had also started to watch UFC and cage rage. he was adamant that what he was learning would be applicable in the ring.

Oh, well, thats a fail, then. Did you correct the poor guy?

**buzzbevan** · Posted On: 7/23/2009 4:18am

to be brutaly honest, i didn't like the bloke. the thought of him getting GNP'd was quite attractive.

My concern with GKR is that some of the sensei's i've seen are just not fit to be running a class, either physicaly or emotionaly.
my kid did GKR for about a year, at first the instruction appeared to be OK, the sensei was knowledgable and was able to teach. but he left due to sholder injury. the sensei that replaced him was a 20something kid.
he was more interested in flirting with one of the mums and showing off his sparing skills against the older kids.
that is when i decided it was time to look for a new club.

I also remember from when the salesman came calling, that they gaurentee you will pass your first grading or you get your money back.

**colonelpong2** · Posted On: 7/23/2009 5:21am

Originally Posted by DubhGhaill

Go Kan Ryu was founded in 1984, in South Australia, by Robert Sullivan. He was, at the time, a 2nd Dan in Goju. He is now a 7th Dan Kancho and making an awful lot of money.
Go Kan Ryu is big and growing fast. It's primary presence is Aus and UK, but the incursion into the US has begun. It is famous for it's high pressure door to door sales tactics, it's pyramid shaped management structure and it's use of low grades as branch instructors. Intructors who are ranked below 1st Dan wear a black and white belt to conceal their true rank.
Information on grading requirements can be found here:
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscrape...t/1693/id4.htm
but don't let those steep requirements stop you, they also have a direct entry instructor training program. No prior experience required:
http://www.gkrkarate.org/pages/career/careerl.html
GKR focuses on non-contact point fighting and 'self-defense'. One online sensei has argued against full contact training asking 'Which would you prefer, to get beaten up a thousand times in training, or once in the street?'
Oh, yes, one more reason they're famous, Gokan means rape in Japanese.
Visit the official GKR website here:
http://www.gkrkarate.com/default.asp
or visit the forums here:
http://www.gokanryu.info/
registering is required, but I haven't told them you're coming.

Ive had a bump in with these guys. They were selling memberships door to door. Trying to make people sign up to long term contracts without even seeing the place.
So I made contact with some questions. Wont go into the lengthy details, but they were very upset when asked simple, basic questions.

The implied threats were particularly amusing. As was their refusal to let even an out of shape fat **** like me spar with one of their instructors.

Avoid them. Stay the hell away from them. They are the very definition of McDojoism.

**whipping boy** · Posted On: 9/21/2009 3:51pm

i've trained exclusively with GKR for the past 4 years and been an instructor for 2 of those years in London and hold the grade of 1st kyu. I'm looking forward to training in another style as well if i make shodan-ho - anyone got any thoughts ?
1. Could i stick to karate ( trying full contact style or something ) and study the grappling / locks etc to give more all round fighting skills ? ( a la Iain Abernethy )
2. Should i take up a grappling or some other style ? ( ju-jitsu / aikido ?)
3. Am i just a sucker / brainwashed cult-member who doesn't deserve an answer as I've fuelled the monster that is GKR ?
*REI*

**zakthedestroyer** · Posted On: 10/29/2009 2:16am

Originally Posted by whipping boy

i've trained exclusively with GKR for the past 4 years and been an instructor for 2 of those years in London and hold the grade of 1st kyu. I'm looking forward to training in another style as well if i make shodan-ho - anyone got any thoughts ?
1. Could i stick to karate ( trying full contact style or something ) and study the grappling / locks etc to give more all round fighting skills ? ( a la Iain Abernethy )
2. Should i take up a grappling or some other style ? ( ju-jitsu / aikido ?)
3. Am i just a sucker / brainwashed cult-member who doesn't deserve an answer as I've fuelled the monster that is GKR ?
*REI*

1. Don't wait for you shodan-ho. You could use the time learning karate. You're probably not going to learn anything new in the next year with GKR but you will learn plenty if you join another style.
2. A shodan-ho in GKR doesn't mean you've learnt good karate. Just take a look at any full-contact tournament and ask yourself how you would go in this tournament.
3. No.

**Loginfailed** · Posted On: 10/30/2009 5:03am

I'd suggest trying something different. Judo is good. No, Judo is awesome. Or maybe kickboxing or boxing or something that's not karate. Reason being, you're already getting 'karate' (note the quotes) at GKR. If you take up more karate elsewhere, you'll either be doubling up the same thing or you'll discover that your new karate is so much better than GKR that you'll be embarrased about what you've been doing at GKR.

(and it WILL be better. My cat teaches better karate than GKR, and he's 20 years old with possibly a bit of senility creeping in).

Personally, I'd not want anything to do with GKR for all the usual reasons - it's a worst-case McDojo with instructors who are often quite inexperienced, wearing misleading grades to fool people. And it also sucks. But if you're happy there, by all means stick with it. In that case, though, you'll want to try something different rather than more karate. For your own sake too... you'll get more crap from your GKR folks for doing more karate than if you can say you wanted to try something totally different that they don't offer.

**Loginfailed** · Posted On: 10/30/2009 5:09am

The guy who came to my house wanted to talk to me about their 'karate and self defence', and rambled about it being safe etc. When I pointed out that non-contact sparring is lame & I needed contact to make it real, he changed tack. He mentioned that sometimes there IS a bit of contact, know-what-I-mean.

I told him that incompetent noncontact and hardcore are different things, and he went away.

**Diverpirate** · Posted On: 10/27/2010 11:11am

This is my first post on any martial arts forum, so please be gentle with me. From reading quite alot of comments on this and other websites, I am concerned at the level of anger towards GKR Instructors overall as there can be good and poor Instructors in any form of training (although looking at some videos on Youtube about Robert Sullivan I can understand why, I wasn't very inspired but I don't train with him!!). However that said, I have a fantastic instruction from the GKR team that I train with, taking time to explain bunkai, application of technique in self defence and kumite. I have tried to go to other martial arts classes where I live and have felt intimidated or not welcome. Could somebody please explain to me what makes a good Karateka Instructor, how do you check his "credentials" and what style of Karateka is the best? I do love Karate but I am becoming very disillusioned by all the negative comments.

**BackFistMonkey** · Posted On: 10/27/2010 11:24am

Originally Posted by Diverpirate

This is my first post on any martial arts forum, so please be gentle with me. From reading quite alot of comments on this and other websites, I am concerned at the level of anger towards GKR Instructors overall as there can be good and poor Instructors in any form of training (although looking at some videos on Youtube about Robert Sullivan I can understand why, I wasn't very inspired but I don't train with him!!).

However that said, I have a fantastic instruction from the GKR team that I train with, taking time to explain bunkai, application of technique in self defence and kumite.

I have tried to go to other martial arts classes where I live and have felt intimidated or not welcome. Could somebody please explain to me what makes a good Karateka Instructor, how do you check his "credentials" and what style of Karateka is the best? I do love Karate but I am becoming very disillusioned by all the negative comments.

DiverPirate,

You may want to stick to newbie till you get a bit of posting experience under your belt.

I do not understand why so many people who do the styles Bullshido looks into claim to be MADE to feel unwelcome or intimidated by other schools. I read this all the time here.

I often wonder if the people who make such claims are naturally very shy or have other social problems. Every single gym/club/school/kwoon/whatever I have been to has been very nice and respectful. From Hapkido to boxing to BJJ to Judo to TKD to MMA to backyard training groups to 3 different types of Kung Fu.

Could you describe to me what exactly the problem was?