Go Kan Ryu is a Pyramid Scheme!!!

**kitkatninja** · Posted On: 8/19/2011 6:33am

I'm kinda surprised that they haven't tried (well at least to my knowledge) recruiting black belts from Shotokan and/or Goju-ryu karate and "cross-ranked" them to up the standards that they appear to be lacking in certain areas (based on threads that I've read).

-Ken

**scipio** · Posted On: 8/19/2011 7:44am

Originally Posted by kitkatninja

I'm kinda surprised that they haven't tried (well at least to my knowledge) recruiting black belts from Shotokan and/or Goju-ryu karate and "cross-ranked" them to up the standards that they appear to be lacking in certain areas (based on threads that I've read).

-Ken

Might have tried but I can't see any half decent black belt wanting anything to do with them and be associated with such an organisation (I'm speaking of the UK here)

**Petter** · Posted On: 8/19/2011 1:17pm

Originally Posted by joshthebest

i spent some time at shotokan and i went to gkr and my sensei at gkr was superior to my old one.

That’s not really saying much. Maybe you just had a shitty Shotokan teacher. It’s a style that’s famous for being uneven in quality and highly commercialised. I know that, while I had some instructors in Shotokan who knew what they were doing and some who could probably fight (at least when they were younger), I did not learn to do so. (I did learn some kata, though, which has left me with an instinctive dislike of anything remotely form-like.)

saying that all the classes are taught by nooby instructors is wrong granted some are but i have 3 different sensei's and 2 of them are 2nd dan and one is 3rd.

The criticism leveraged against them is not that all classes are taught by beginners, but rather that (1) some classes are, which is wrong, and (2) they hide the fact with deceptive terminology and belts, which is very wrong.

It’s also questionable what those dan grades really mean.

**bassai** · Posted On: 8/19/2011 2:50pm

Originally Posted by joshthebest

i spent some time at shotokan and i went to gkr and my sensei at gkr was superior to my old one.

This only proves that you went to a shitty Shotokan class.

**bassai** · Posted On: 8/19/2011 2:56pm

Originally Posted by kitkatninja

I'm kinda surprised that they haven't tried (well at least to my knowledge) recruiting black belts from Shotokan and/or Goju-ryu karate and "cross-ranked" them to up the standards that they appear to be lacking in certain areas (based on threads that I've read).

-Ken

They kind of do , When one of them knocked on my door i told him that i wasn't interested as i already held a dan grade in Shotokan , his responce was "well you should join us , we'll make you better !" , i just laughed in his face and closed my door.

**Ben Grimm** · Posted On: 8/19/2011 10:40pm

How can people buy into this GKR garbage. From my understanding, Robert Sullivan didn't even get a black belt in Karate before formulating his own system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

**kitkatninja** · Posted On: 8/19/2011 11:26pm

Originally Posted by Ben Grimm

How can people buy into this GKR garbage. From my understanding, Robert Sullivan didn't even get a black belt in Karate before formulating his own system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

No idea, there is however a wiki page (the problem with that is that anyone can edit wiki).

-Ken

**bassai** · Posted On: 8/20/2011 1:30pm

Originally Posted by Ben Grimm

How can people buy into this GKR garbage. From my understanding, Robert Sullivan didn't even get a black belt in Karate before formulating his own system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe he got a first dan in Shotokan.

**Ben Grimm** · Posted On: 8/20/2011 2:57pm

Originally Posted by bassai

I believe he got a first dan in Shotokan.

If so, I can at least retract that comment.

**MikeOutWest** · Posted On: 8/21/2011 3:47am

Hi guys - been reading through this thread and thought I'd try and redress the balance.

I've been training with GKR for a year. I had the usual knock on the door by an "SDC". This came at a very fortuitous moment as I was starting to consider getting back into martial arts (i'd studied Kyokushinkai to 5th Kyu many years ago), and was looking for a dojo close to where I live.

I have to admit, I was rather surprised about the "door-to-door" salesman angle to recruitment but in principle I see no problem with it. Now, reading through this thread I can see that a lot of empty promises have been made and possibly things vary from region to region. But I was never promised a black belt in 6 months or anything as stupid as that. The standard time to get black belt - just as it was in Kyokushin - is about 4 years of solid training.

GKR promotes itself as "non-contact" but I can assure you that this isn't really the case. While the tournaments are based on "non-contact" kumite and katas only, we do plenty of hard-hitting sparring (for adults) in the dojo and from red-belt onwards this is actually part of the grading.

Yes, I am an instructor, and no, I'm not a black belt. I know this system irks a lot of you in that there are cases where instructors are lower grades than their students. In my case, I have a couple of students who are a grade higher than me (and yes, they know my grade). However I have gained their trust and their respect in the way I conduct my classes, so that each week they go away having had a good workout and having learnt something. In order to become an instructor I was assessed in my techniques and my ability to teach and explain those techniques over a two month period. We spend a lot of time working on syllabus work but also the real-life self defence applications. We also use kick/strike pads to allow students to really let rip with their techniques. In addition to teaching two classes a week I train with the other instructors in classed with our regional manager (2nd dan) twice a week to further my own training.

in conclusion, I can't really comment much on the business side of GKR. The SCDs working in my area are nice guys and actually follow up on their recruits, turning up to their first lessons to check in on them (they are after all the first face they meet in GKR). However, their job is to get people interested in coming to my dojo - its up to me to provide them with interesting, quality training to keep them coming back-just like any instructor.