Incidental Review: NEAMA (Long Read)

[Kennings]

Mmmkay, now that I'm sitting down with a nice bowl of Frosted Flakes, here's the deal. The place where I trained Kali is gone. I've been out of commission since November and though I'm now up and moving the trinity of Guros (Guri?) left and took the puke-bucket with them, so I have to look elsewhere. First stop: New England Academy of Martial Arts, or NEAMA for short, or sometimes NEAMMA (why?) in the MMA circuits.


Review of NEAMA (www.neamausa.com):

Date: 5 June 2006
Level of Participation: Observation (did not bring gear because of miscommunication)
Quantity of Participation: Two one-hour classes

Owner/Primary Instructor: Chris Konelas
Known Fighters: Tom Moreau (1-0-0)

Why I chose to look at this school: First and foremost, besides where I used to go, it is the only place I know of in a drivable distance (ie. ~1 hr.) that teaches Kali. Second, it has one MMA fighter I am aware of, suggesting aggressive training methods.

Facilities: NEAMA is an office complex turned into a training studio and that is how it feels. The layout is awkward. There appeared to be enough space for eight to ten pairs to train comfortably. The premises were clean and in order, but felt vacant—the primary training equipment were mirrors and four stand-up heavy bags. One office was converted into a children’s playroom and another, oddly enough, into a classroom.

Atmosphere: Everybody was both friendly and energetic—it was clear they wanted to be there. Chris is playful both on and off the mats, though I didn’t spend a lot of time talking with him. Tom is amazingly down to earth and approachable for someone with a fight record… or maybe I’ve just had the luck to talking to fighters (*cough*Team Pedro*cough*) whom really wish to inform me that I “train at a health club.”

-----
Time for a brief tangent. I think when my dear friend Doug gets to two days before his debut fight, I’ll bust his kneecaps. That ought to set us about even for that comment. Maybe I’ll follow it up by not kicking his ass at Halo while he’s recovering so there are no hard feelings. Yeah. I like that plan. Okay, back to the review.
-----

Pricing/Benefits: Beyond a beginner’s discount of nine weeks for ninety-nine dollars, I wasn’t informed of the costs of attending and didn’t think to ask. There’s testing with a twenty-dollar fee, but I wasn’t informed where testing applies. There are no benefits to training at NEAMA besides martial arts instruction that I was made aware of.



Notes from Attendance:

First Class: one-hour class instructed by Chris Konelas. Listed as Krav Maga/Jiu-Jitsu. Twelve to fifteen students.

The class opened with Chris addressing the class about testing sessions.

First was two minutes of shadow boxing and led into ten minutes of practicing jabs and crosses (both to air) with a focus on keeping hands up. Chris insisted people punch slowly. I saw a lot of low hands, resting on heels, and terrible body action. Lunge punching and front leg rotation were notable. Chris prowled the class, but didn’t correct these problems. Heavy bags were not used. He used coins to force people to keep hands up (hand to temple) during the drilling of the jab and cross.

Next the class paired off with pads and practiced a walking front stomp kick as well as back-kicks. The drills were five minutes each and depending upon the participants varied wildly in intensity. Many students lost balance and stumbled after executing the stomp kick and didn’t appear to know the appropriate footwork to recover. Again Chris prowled but didn’t make many corrections, though he did give encouragement. He stated the back-kicks were meant to break the sternum.

Stick-work comprised the remainder of the class. The drill was a back-step to forward spring with disarm (variant from TD 1) against a downward cut to backhand combo. In itself it was a good, if moderate percentile, disarm setup. During drilling most of the students appeared to have little experience with stick fighting: quite a few winged the stick back and forth and almost everybody attacked from the incorrect angles. After correcting several pairs, Chris showed the setup to the whole class again. Despite this, more than one person still dashed in and turned his partner’s arm until the stick was released. Variants of this drill that practiced takedowns (wristlocks and breaking the elbow on the chest?) were often not followed through, but terminated at the disarm.

The class ended with a game: the stick was placed between each pair of partners and whoever reached twenty pushups first took the stick and attacked. Chris stated this was to exhaust people before they left. This became a randori-style session of stick-wielding students surrounding unarmed ones and running the prior drill from angles. More often than not attacks were so unbalanced that the attacker was dragged to his or her knees. Two kids that came in to pick up their father were humored enough by this display that they wanted to join in. There was no discernable Jiu-jitsu. There was no sparring.


Second Class: one-hour class instructed by Chris Konelas. Listed as Kali (Atienza style) Three students.

The students began with a very light warm up of footwork with bladework. The two more experienced students had a good sense of timing strikes. The cuts struck me as off, but I’m not sure if that was due to a difference between my training and the style offered. When Chris warmed up (more of flourished) he flowed very well.

The first part was from a sword kata. They drilled the first five steps at least thirty times, which consisted of primary cuts and blocks. Drilling was aggressive, but had a choreographed appearance—cuts were pulled for the sake of the next step. Space between partners was not controlled well during the drill, suggesting footwork issues.

After twenty minutes, the class turned to a knife versus knife tapping routine. Chris stated that a stab to the middle thyroid was instantly fatal. Sloppy recoveries from cuts, clumsy footwork, and, most of all, bad checking were rampant. Chris did not attempt to correct any mistakes. When I spoke to one of the students in the attempt to correct one issue (open checking with the same-side hand) he interrupted and promptly told me “she is fine.” After the class I apologized for the interruption.

As a rule, there was as much idle chatter as there was drilling. The knife drills devolved into random fiddling and play. There seemed to be a lack of awareness that they were training to work with blades. They did seem to be enjoying themselves, though. Class ended with a conversation. There was no sparring.


Final Thoughts:

Is this school aggressive or alive in it’s training: Nope. No sparring and mostly compliant partners. It’s dead, Jim.

Is this school fantastic or unrealistic in its material: I’d say no. A few details withstanding, the material appeared to be out and out credible. The level of mistakes, however, rendered every effective element impotent.

Did the instructor appear competent and knowledgeable: It was clear to me that Chris was fluent in what he was teaching. He seemed to have difficulty teaching basic information to his students and difficulty keeping his students focused.

Is this school aggressively for profit: Yes. It had some elements that made me wonder, such as a nebulous belt system, frequent testing with fees, and a beginner’s discount, but what seals the deal is how NEAMA aggressively markets kid karate programs.

Would I recommend this school: Nope.

This School is Suitable For: People looking for a hobby or a light workout.

What I learned from this experience: A variant of a TD 1 disarm. A nifty use for the umbrella block. Why Tom Moreau’s fight from CZ sixteen is a giant splotch of blankness in my head despite witnessing it in person.

What this experience makes me wonder: Can a McDojo produce a winning MMA fighter? Did I miss something? Is that possible? Shouldn’t just the thought of that implode my brain? Is this why fighters pass by obvious submissions and opportunities in the middle of a match?



Someone wish me luck with Team Woo at Tokyo Joe’s Studio of Self-Defense….who comes up with the names for these martial arts places? I thought NEAMA was tacky, but this one makes me want to light my hair on fire. Then again, Bujinkan did too—I mean, why, for the love of God, why do I end up looking at places with names like these? Why are all the schools with the cool names in Boston? I mean, why can’t New Hampshire seem to have a Baddy McBad-Ass Studio of Bad-Assery or, better yet, to recall a plaque, a Lizzie Borden School of Etiquette.

Anyways, I’m to bed. Kennings out.

[Matsufubu]

Am I the only one seeing the text all in black?

If so, that's bizarre. If not, then you are evil.

[Locu5]

As a hint, if you are copying and pasting from a WYSIWYG editor, you may want to paste the text into Notepad and then copy/paste from there, to remove any formatting that could cause people to have to highlight your text to read it. Thank you for the review.

[Kennings]

Gah! It's black-- when did I do that? Is there a way to fix it?

Black on grey... I have the sudden urge to light candles, listen to the Cure, and blabber on about how the lyrics are so relevant to my life. Kill me.

[Bry]

Mmmkay, now that I'm sitting down with a nice bowl of Frosted Flakes, here's the deal. The place where I trained Kali is gone. I've been out of commission since November and though I'm now up and moving the trinity of Guros (Guri?) left and took the puke-bucket with them, so I have to look elsewhere. First stop: New England Academy of Martial Arts, or NEAMA for short, or sometimes NEAMMA (why?) in the MMA circuits.


Review of NEAMA (www.neamausa.com):

Date: 5 June 2006
Level of Participation: Observation (did not bring gear because of miscommunication)
Quantity of Participation: Two one-hour classes

Owner/Primary Instructor: Chris Konelas
Known Fighters: Tom Moreau (1-0-0)

Why I chose to look at this school: First and foremost, besides where I used to go, it is the only place I know of in a drivable distance (ie. ~1 hr.) that teaches Kali. Second, it has one MMA fighter I am aware of, suggesting aggressive training methods.

Facilities: NEAMA is an office complex turned into a training studio and that is how it feels. The layout is awkward. There appeared to be enough space for eight to ten pairs to train comfortably. The premises were clean and in order, but felt vacant—the primary training equipment were mirrors and four stand-up heavy bags. One office was converted into a children’s playroom and another, oddly enough, into a classroom.

Atmosphere: Everybody was both friendly and energetic—it was clear they wanted to be there. Chris is playful both on and off the mats, though I didn’t spend a lot of time talking with him. Tom is amazingly down to earth and approachable for someone with a fight record… or maybe I’ve just had the luck to talking to fighters (*cough*Team Pedro*cough*) whom really wish to inform me that I “train at a health club.”

-----
Time for a brief tangent. I think when my dear friend Doug gets to two days before his debut fight, I’ll bust his kneecaps. That ought to set us about even for that comment. Maybe I’ll follow it up by not kicking his ass at Halo while he’s recovering so there are no hard feelings. Yeah. I like that plan. Okay, back to the review.
-----

Pricing/Benefits: Beyond a beginner’s discount of nine weeks for ninety-nine dollars, I wasn’t informed of the costs of attending and didn’t think to ask. There’s testing with a twenty-dollar fee, but I wasn’t informed where testing applies. There are no benefits to training at NEAMA besides martial arts instruction that I was made aware of.



Notes from Attendance:

First Class: one-hour class instructed by Chris Konelas. Listed as Krav Maga/Jiu-Jitsu. Twelve to fifteen students.

The class opened with Chris addressing the class about testing sessions.

First was two minutes of shadow boxing and led into ten minutes of practicing jabs and crosses (both to air) with a focus on keeping hands up. Chris insisted people punch slowly. I saw a lot of low hands, resting on heels, and terrible body action. Lunge punching and front leg rotation were notable. Chris prowled the class, but didn’t correct these problems. Heavy bags were not used. He used coins to force people to keep hands up (hand to temple) during the drilling of the jab and cross.

Next the class paired off with pads and practiced a walking front stomp kick as well as back-kicks. The drills were five minutes each and depending upon the participants varied wildly in intensity. Many students lost balance and stumbled after executing the stomp kick and didn’t appear to know the appropriate footwork to recover. Again Chris prowled but didn’t make many corrections, though he did give encouragement. He stated the back-kicks were meant to break the sternum.

Stick-work comprised the remainder of the class. The drill was a back-step to forward spring with disarm (variant from TD 1) against a downward cut to backhand combo. In itself it was a good, if moderate percentile, disarm setup. During drilling most of the students appeared to have little experience with stick fighting: quite a few winged the stick back and forth and almost everybody attacked from the incorrect angles. After correcting several pairs, Chris showed the setup to the whole class again. Despite this, more than one person still dashed in and turned his partner’s arm until the stick was released. Variants of this drill that practiced takedowns (wristlocks and breaking the elbow on the chest?) were often not followed through, but terminated at the disarm.

The class ended with a game: the stick was placed between each pair of partners and whoever reached twenty pushups first took the stick and attacked. Chris stated this was to exhaust people before they left. This became a randori-style session of stick-wielding students surrounding unarmed ones and running the prior drill from angles. More often than not attacks were so unbalanced that the attacker was dragged to his or her knees. Two kids that came in to pick up their father were humored enough by this display that they wanted to join in. There was no discernable Jiu-jitsu. There was no sparring.


Second Class: one-hour class instructed by Chris Konelas. Listed as Kali (Atienza style) Three students.

The students began with a very light warm up of footwork with bladework. The two more experienced students had a good sense of timing strikes. The cuts struck me as off, but I’m not sure if that was due to a difference between my training and the style offered. When Chris warmed up (more of flourished) he flowed very well.

The first part was from a sword kata. They drilled the first five steps at least thirty times, which consisted of primary cuts and blocks. Drilling was aggressive, but had a choreographed appearance—cuts were pulled for the sake of the next step. Space between partners was not controlled well during the drill, suggesting footwork issues.

After twenty minutes, the class turned to a knife versus knife tapping routine. Chris stated that a stab to the middle thyroid was instantly fatal. Sloppy recoveries from cuts, clumsy footwork, and, most of all, bad checking were rampant. Chris did not attempt to correct any mistakes. When I spoke to one of the students in the attempt to correct one issue (open checking with the same-side hand) he interrupted and promptly told me “she is fine.” After the class I apologized for the interruption.

As a rule, there was as much idle chatter as there was drilling. The knife drills devolved into random fiddling and play. There seemed to be a lack of awareness that they were training to work with blades. They did seem to be enjoying themselves, though. Class ended with a conversation. There was no sparring.


Final Thoughts:

Is this school aggressive or alive in it’s training: Nope. No sparring and mostly compliant partners. It’s dead, Jim.

Is this school fantastic or unrealistic in its material: I’d say no. A few details withstanding, the material appeared to be out and out credible. The level of mistakes, however, rendered every effective element impotent.

Did the instructor appear competent and knowledgeable: It was clear to me that Chris was fluent in what he was teaching. He seemed to have difficulty teaching basic information to his students and difficulty keeping his students focused.

Is this school aggressively for profit: Yes. It had some elements that made me wonder, such as a nebulous belt system, frequent testing with fees, and a beginner’s discount, but what seals the deal is how NEAMA aggressively markets kid karate programs.

Would I recommend this school: Nope.

This School is Suitable For: People looking for a hobby or a light workout.

What I learned from this experience: A variant of a TD 1 disarm. A nifty use for the umbrella block. Why Tom Moreau’s fight from CZ sixteen is a giant splotch of blankness in my head despite witnessing it in person.

What this experience makes me wonder: Can a McDojo produce a winning MMA fighter? Did I miss something? Is that possible? Shouldn’t just the thought of that implode my brain? Is this why fighters pass by obvious submissions and opportunities in the middle of a match?



Someone wish me luck with Team Woo at Tokyo Joe’s Studio of Self-Defense….who comes up with the names for these martial arts places? I thought NEAMA was tacky, but this one makes me want to light my hair on fire. Then again, Bujinkan did too—I mean, why, for the love of God, why do I end up looking at places with names like these? Why are all the schools with the cool names in Boston? I mean, why can’t New Hampshire seem to have a Baddy McBad-Ass Studio of Bad-Assery or, better yet, to recall a plaque, a Lizzie Borden School of Etiquette.

Anyways, I’m to bed. Kennings out.

There you go!

Bry

[Stick]

/kills kennings

Not a bad write up.

From the name alone, I think you might be better off at NEAMA than at Tokyo Joe's place....

[FictionPimp]

Everytime I see NEAMA I see NAMBLA

[Kennings]

From the name alone, I think you might be better off at NEAMA than at Tokyo Joe's place....

The name's on par with the region, depressingly. Here's the listings from the Nashua (2006) and Manchester (2001) phonebooks with any internet addresses I could find... Don't make me scan in the display ads...


Abaku Karate

Academy of Martial Arts *www.academymartialarts.com* (Unsure about address-- keeps crashing my browser.)

Aikido (Well. That's direct.)

Al Lima's Studio Of Self Defense *www.alssd.com* (Like the bean. Check the student of the month and tell me what's wrong.)

American Dragon Shaolin Kempo Karate (Site defunct.)

American Hap Ki Do-Tae Kwon Do *www.americanhapkidoacademy.com*

American International Training Center

Anctil's Martial Arts & Fitness Centers *www.anctilsmartialarts.com* (Had MMA interview in the Telegraph)

Black Sword Aikido-Shaolin Chin Na

Blue Dragon Arts (Lots of sites for Blue Dragon schools, but there doesn't seem to be anything for this one.)
Bob Meserve's Health & Defense Inc

Bujinkan Dojo *www.bujinkandojo.net* (Much like ninja, they have disappeared.)

Cameron's Uechiryu Karate *www.nhkarate.com* (Actually looks like it might be decent, but Laconia's a hike.)

Chung's Tae Kwon Do Academy (Site for one in IL, but not in NH.)

Cole Martial Arts Center

Dan Dovido's Uechi Karate School

Goffstown Kenpo Karate (Closed 2004 according to site.)

Granite State American Kempo LLC

House Of The Samurai *www.house-of-the-samurai.net* (I **** you not. Samurai.)

Hudson Kenpo Karate Studio *www.hudsonkenpo.com*

Independent Karate School *www.independentkarateschools.com* *www.enshudo.com*(Ad-- teaches Kenpo and... Jyu Jitsu? WTF?)

Karate for Kids *www.atabbanh.com* (They advertise for XMA. Joys.)

Karate International Martial Arts Center *www.kimacnh.com*

Lamy's Black Belt Academy (Well, at least Lamy's up front.)

Lee's Martial Arts & Fitness Center (No site, though, for amusement, I did find www.tarzankarate.com. Van Damme buys a book.)

Luth's Family Karate *www.luthskarate.com* (A family karate place with no high-kicking photos? Freaks.)

Manchester's Karate Studio

Mark J Lawrence Martial Arts Academy *www.marklawrencemartialarts.com* (Their front office has an arbor.)

Martial Art Center For Personal Development *www.kungfutaichi.com* (Buddha Palm? Like Kung-Fu Hustle? Hot Damn!)

Master An's Tae Kwon Do *www.masteranstkd.com*

Masters Self Defense Centers *www.masterscenters.com* (Low budget site for a Kenpo place. Weird.)

Matey Martial Arts (ARRR!):qbluepira :5arg:

Merrimack Karate Studio

Mont Vernon Karate Studio *www.mvkarate.com*

Morning Star Martial Arts *www.morningstarma.com*

Mr. Gelo's Kenpo Karate

Murphy's Kickboxing & Boxing (I thought I remeber reading that they also had an MMA thing going.)

Myo-Fu An Ninjutsu Dojo *www.myo-fu-an.com* (Ninja mysticism crap and MMA classes at the same place. Le boggle.)

Riverside Taekwondo Hapkido *www.nhkick.com*

Shaolin Kempo Karate (Why go to the school when Fred Villari will give me a black belt in nine dvds?)

Sidekick Taekwondo Inc

Stalking Wolf Studio of Self Protection *www.swskenpokarate.com* (Of all the bad names, I give this one the award!)

Strikeback Dynamic Defense Systems (euphimism for T3h anti-rape.)

TaeKwonDo USA Family Fitness Center

Terry Dow's Academy of Martial Arts *www.jujutsu.org* (this one teaches jujutsu... mmmkay... Jiu-Jitsu players advert your eyes...)

Tokyo Joe's Studio of Self Defense *www.tokyojoes.net* (For the love of God don't check the site or the annexes! How can this place have an
MMA team? Is this an NH thing or does every team belong to a craptastic school?)

Tumbleweeds Activities For Children (Is this in the right section?)

Everytime I see NEAMA I see NAMBLA

Now that you mention it, that Krav Maga/Jiu-Jitsu/"MMA Class" (Chris's description) had a lot of twelve to sixteen year olds in it...



The place claimed Kali, which from my experience is fiercely drilled, BJJ, which has a reputation of being fiercely drilled, and a fighter, which by associations suggests that training would be fierce. The whole matter was a blind-side, really, and if I knew the overall lack of quality at NEAMA, I would've grabbed a camera. Maybe I need to take this as a sign that instead of training I should spend my summer being witness to the greatest travesties of martial arts that I can find. I can be the Rick James of McDojos... or was it Rick Steves-- whichever one wrote a travelogue.

[mkogav]

If u r looking for serious MMA schools then there are two places that I know of.

Renzo Gracie Training Academy, Derry NH

http://www.renzogracienh.com/

Large Brazilian population in NH. I just wish someone would open a Gracie Academy in Nashua.


Murphy's Boxing Gymnasium, Manchester, NH

http://www.murphysboxing-mma.com/

- Mk