your professional opinion

[kkeithson]

Review of NEAMA dated 06/05/2006- to the critic who posted this thread:

If i teach a class of 15 people and they go home feeling positive, encouraged, stress relieved, happier and with more friends then when they started; well I believe i have done something good for people. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. By your own addmission my program is good for a hobby and light excercise. I aggree. That is exactly what I intented to give to the public. They like it. I really don't care if you don't like it. I am only interested in positive. How many students do you have? 2, 3 maybe 5? I have over 120. They enjoy my program because I help them and their kids discover positive ways to relieve stress, improve their level of fitness, make friends and most importantly have fun.

If you where interested in hard core combat you should have let me know when you cleverly disguised yourself as a new student. Every Tuesday and Thursday nights we have full contact fighting. You made reference to our team fighter Tom who is now 2-0 . I just took him to California to UFC 65. that is part of what i do, you know help people, something I am sure you are good at. I have the contacts and he has the talent so i helped him. Now a door is open for him. At the fighter weigh ins (behind the scene where I am sure you have been many times) he was offered 2 bigger fights on much larger venues.

But if this does'nt work for you I am certain the US Marines could use a guy like you with as much knowlege of combat that you have. Purhaps you have already served and if you did my sincere thank you for your bravery and service to our country.

Thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to come to my school and write such a critical review of it. Your review of how we agressively market for kids is sure to help even 1 family with the self-esteem of their child.


Have a good day :happy:

[Iscariot]

For the sake of other posters, this person is referring to a Review of a Dojo posted on 06/06/2006 (The Devil's Day!!!). This reviews was done by a member called Kennings and the system says he has a total of 18 posts. I have not seen nor heard of any post by Kennings until this thread was posted.

A copy of the review that caused this response is included below:

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.

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/show...ighlight=NEAMA

[Rock Ape]

I love it when Noobies ask for "opinions" so with that in mind here's mine.

YOU'RE A FUCKING RETARD

And you have a nice day as well

[Askari]

kkeithson,

Are you associated with this school? If so, do you now realize that we at Bullshido are going to start digging about it and your instructor?

We are going to find every skeleton in his closet, we are going to find every crazy ex-girlfriend that he has had and get her to post.

At first glance through http://www.neamausa.com it doesnt look absolutely terrible, though it doesnt tell us who is teaching the various arts, and whether or not they are certified in anything other then Kenpo. So if they are not certified, this will go poorly for you.

And I nominate this picture for the "Pics of Disaster" thread:


Welcome to Bullshido.


..

[Torec_Scrail]

She looks somewhat like Elisha Cuthbert, a zombie version, for some reason.

Women can burn an average of 6000 calories per class.

An AVERAGE per class? Either it's an all day thing with good training, or theres some 7 ft ladies deviating the average.

In less then an hour.

[Stick]

Maybe he meant to say 600 calories, cause no one burns 6,000 calories in an hour without dying, no one.

This thread is silly.

[Torec_Scrail]

Maybe he meant to say 600 calories, cause no one burns 6,000 calories in an hour without dying, no one.

This thread is silly.

No kidding, i think the most are some people with disorders that burn like 8k a day (Or giants like Yao Ming)

Unless they offer free lipo every class, but thats cheating, not burning calories.

Not to mention, this place would be all over the news and ladies would flock to it, but, u know, they might actually have to work..

[LI GUY 1]

Review dosen't seem too bad in my opinion. Maybe the students are new, making mistakes is part of learning. I make lots of mistakes in BJJ every day but I get better still. Kali seems very complicated or unnartural to my untrained eye so its no wonder they make mistakes a lot.

Mat time, mat time, and more mat time. Plus like the OP said, not every one wants to be a killer and more power to you if you can attract and specify training for a broad spectrum of students.

HOWEVER, this site is legit so make sure you can back your **** up, lest you get (over the internet) fucked up.

[TKD Black Belt]

Is it just me or does the website not make any reference to rank in BJJ/GJJ and who exactly he is a student of? I see the link to Gracie Fighter and I see Cesar mentioned but nothing beyond that.

TKD