A Questionable Business Practice Adventure- TSK

[babo78]

Email is ok though. That's how I made 40 million dollars, by working with this guy from Nigeria.

I made same amount via fax from Nigeria.

[Fitz]

As part of my plan to visit every martial arts class currently meeting in NYC (note: not an actual plan) I have decided to visit Tiger Schulmann's Karate. .

Honestly I think it is a good plan. Been meaning to do a school review for Brooklyn for a long time.

[MadeOfOlives]

Well, I went and had my introductory class. I'd done my research- I had looked at threads, checked out the court opinions, gotten a sense of the pricing scheme... I was ready to fight the hard sell with all of my might.

I show up, I tell them that I would like my money refunded, and to just pay for the intro class. They had indeed charged me a hundred bucks without any representation on my part that I wanted them to, but they also immediately granted my request for a refund. And seemed very nice.

I waited around 10 minutes for my intro class, and spent the time watching their "basic core" class. People were hitting kick shields, and seemed to be sweating and all.

Finally I was led into a downstairs back room, with padded floors and such, and had my intro lesson. It lasted around 40 minutes, during which we went over totally normal and not crazy techniques- jab, jabcross, and some knees.

They seem to favor the "turn your hand inwards as you connect with your punch" school of boxing strikes. The only even slightly weird thing was that he did not want me to lean back when throwing a knee. From my limited mt experience youlean back a bit to get out of range of the jab. I asked "is this a clinch knee or something?" and was told yes, though when i hit the shield I was not explictly told to hold on to anything.

Following this, we went over some of their basic self defense techniques. This was a defense for a wrist grab (pullyour arm in and then up) and one for the crazy man choke. The basic movements seemed quite practical, though apparently there is like a 3-step process you eventually do with each defense. Can't fault anyone for a little "you do this, then this, then this" with the white belts.

I had mentioned my BJJ experience. For around 4 minutes following my push-up and situp in a minute test, I rolled with the dude. We were essentially in a closet and this was a strange experience. He was tense, but did not seem to be crazy or spazzing, and was following a normal BJJ type strategy.

At the end I got changed, said thank you, and left. No hard sell. They were nice. The training seemed good to me, and involved sweatting and working against a resisting opponent. So color me embarressed- they were not that questionable after all.