An Expose - Mighty Strong BS

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 12/05/2008 11:22pm

For your viewing pleasure:

http://www.mightystrongkids.com/

This post has been months in suspension.

I was involved in 2001 - 2003 as an instructor to the forerunner of this program. Matter of fact, it was the forerunner of the forerunner of this program.

Safe Kids started as Safe Kids America in IIRC latter 2000. I answered an add for a part time insturctor for the session starting January, 2001. This was a non profit organisation which held MA classes geared to both bully and stranger abduction. Each week there was a safety topic.

Classes were held in 4 states and financial aid was given by some French charitable hospitilization organization.

The program was in Colorado, California, Oklahoma and (I forget). Apparently the headquarters were in California and the organizations helping were not pleased with where/how the money was being spent. The program was suspended.

Oklahoma had, at that time, a good program in the works. The directior decided to make it a local organization and jumped through the hoops of incorporating a new club into Safe Kids Club with non-profit status.

This went well for a couple of years, with the instuctors developing a program from various MA styles. There were concerns about the reality of training, but early escapes taught were at higher levels progressed to joint manifpulations and submissions. Striking to the head was forbidden until blue belt. Blue belt classes were the stage where grappling instruction was taught.

I taught regular classes until 2003. This was with trepidation as I had issues with the time/ranking of the students. Many qualified instructors were involved with this program. Many also dropped out over a period of time due to the time required for rank (we were all TMA).

In 2003 I started teaching as a "subsitute" only. This was due to my concerns stated above and the fact that I travelled out of country frequently.

The program slowly declined as instructors dropped out of the program. There were still some talented MA teachers involved. I think I taught two classes this year with days notice of each.

In 2008 the program collapsed. This was due to several factors. I wish to state that the director was a really good person. She had (IIRC) a brown belt in Kyokushinkai.

This year, knowing the program was in trouble and about to close, the now leader of the MIGHTY STONG KIDS PROGRAM started to work behind the scenes and paved the way to her own proram.

I will note the following:

Brian Mosley is an extremely talented martial artist. He is a good person and I am not sure why he has agreed to participate in this new program. Perhaps it is because he has a dojo to run and it helps to bring money to the coffers. At the most, he can be guilty of assisting in McDojoism. He certainly is not BS.

Debbie's "Street Fighting" consists, to my knowledge, of about 6 months training. This is her passion - you be the judge.

Her sons, Jacob and Joshua I do know as thy are about the same age as my daughter. They are fine young men, but certainly not to the calibre of teaching anyone, no matter what their age.

My daughter is a product of the Safe Kids Club. I originally started her in the program and she wanted to complete before going elsewhere. This did give here a chance to work both striking and grappling games. Now she only wants to "roll with the boys" in judo. (She shames many a young man and they don't feel bad for losing).

Ridicule is welcome (I can still travel to beat your ass).

Joe

It took 1/2 a bottle of good 12yr single malt to finally post this thread. There are some really good people, with good intentions, involved in this drama (troll at your own risk).
yokushinkai

**Sam Browning** · Posted On: 12/05/2008 11:41pm

Debbie claims a background in Street Fighting. Has she been in any street fights to your knowledge?

Hey, I personally wouldn't claim that I was a "street fighter" unless I had dozens of such altercations under my belt. (which I do not) Additionally, someone with such experience often has the arrest record to prove it. Do you know if Debbie has been arrested recently?

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 12/06/2008 12:17am

Originally Posted by Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

Debbie claims a background in Street Fighting. Has she been in any street fights to your knowledge?

Hey, I personally wouldn't claim that I was a "street fighter" unless I had dozens of such altercations under my belt. (which I do not) Additionally, someone with such experience often has the arrest record to prove it. Do you know if Debbie has been arrested recently?

I do not think Debbie has ever been in a "real" fight.

Nor do I think she has ever been arrested.

She is, overall, a good person and has a vey tight family.

I truly like her sons and her husband. Honestly, other than this, I like Debbie. This seems to be "for the money".

Her training is probably around 6 months at most in a "Strategic Streetfighting" class. I can elaborate more on this training and the instructor later if needed.

My posting here is for the main part as a consumer alert for those parents searching about the program on line.

With the BS membership's help, hopefull this thread will supercede the Google search of their own website. This would be of benifit to those parent's whose children are currently enrolled or those conemplating the same.

**A.M.** · Posted On: 12/07/2008 9:21am

What is Debbie doing wrong when she teaches a class?

**Sri Hanuman** · Posted On: 12/07/2008 11:51am

As a parent, my concern would be effective technique. Are they teaching something unrealistic that would get my child hurt if faced with a real confrontation? Is there realistic sparring/ attack scenario?

**Beorn** · Posted On: 12/07/2008 12:10pm

so a few red flags are raised when I go through the instructor list. First, the most prevelant style listed was aikido which while not bullshido, is not trained in an alive manner normally. After that, the main instructor lists her expertise as street fighting, yet you say she has never been arrested or been in a fight on the streets to your knowledge. Also, at least one of her sons are in school still. Even if they are only teaching kids, that still seems like a bad idea. I know when I was still in h.s. I really should not have been teaching kids, and it still stuns me that I caused no permanent damage to their psyches.

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Are they teaching something unrealistic that would get my child hurt if faced with a real confrontation? Is there realistic sparring/ attack scenario?

this too.

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 12/07/2008 12:13pm

AM - Debbie has maybe 30-60 hrs of MA training at most. This should be explanation enough as this is in no way enough time to become proficient, much less teach.

Not all good practioners are good teachers. Not all good teachers are necessarily the best fighters.

BM - no, you probably are not a streetfighter. If you are, you will probably at some point be paying some legal fees or doing some time (-: A couple of fights does not a street fighter make.

Humanzee - Your concern is my sole reason for posting the thread. The time between rank is about 14-15 hours total. While this was my reason for quiting when it was Safe Kids, my understanding is that the program has now been watered down from that which many different people put together in the early years.

The kids will be coming out thinking they are able to defend themselves (Think ATA here people).

While there were some kids that were truly good, they were the exception. With this new program, there is only one true teacher. Two teenagers with maybe 30 hours grappling instruction are hardly proficient to teach a ground game.

There was sparring from stand up when students were blue belt, taking it to the ground if the student was able. This was then, when there were actual teachers with a background in grappling. One of those was a BJJ blue belt who is my friend. His reasons for dropping out of the program pretty closely mirrors my own.

At this time, the most ethical thing is for me to contact the current players and direct them to this site. As much as it pains me, as they are good people, the kids are what come first. Hopefully the trolls will keep the chatter to a reasonable lever as the people involved are overall very fine persons.

**Beorn** · Posted On: 12/07/2008 12:29pm

Originally Posted by hungryjoe

At this time, the most ethical thing is for me to contact the current players and direct them to this site. As much as it pains me, as they are good people, the kids are what come first. Hopefully the trolls will keep the chatter to a reasonable lever as the people involved are overall very fine persons.

They may be good friends, but if they are, as you claim, pulling ATA wool over the eyes of kids and their parents and the main instructors have a combined 100 hrs of training, they are at least irresponsible and at most malevolent martial art instructors. If these people are truly your friends, you need to point out that they are teaching bullshit and tell them to fix it. If they are the good people you say they are, they will take it with grace and fix thier mistakes.

**BudoMonkey** · Posted On: 12/07/2008 12:34pm

Well, maybe you are looking at this the wrong way. Maybe, as in 'street fighter', she means that she actually fights the street itself.

Perhaps she makes pictures of her enemies on it with sidewalk chalk first; I don't know, but I think we should at least consider the possibility that she is reffering to stomping, cursing, and headbutting her driveway or some other arbitrary stretch of asphalt. It would seem silly later if we were jump to conclusions on this matter and we proved to be wrong.

Anyhow, realistically, I think all of this type of teaching is GRAVELY IRRESPONSIBLE and dangerous to the students, and that there should be rules in place specifically for punishing people who push this hollywood bullshit. My issue isn't even strictly with the amount of training she has, and wether or not she is qualified to teach this course, it is wether or not ANYONE is qualified to teach such a thing in such a manner.

No matter who is teaching these classes, there is no way that all of the kids present will be able to benefit from the training in such a way as to remove the very real danger they could face staying to fight an attacker off, and not just running away. These kids will be deluded into thinking they can fend off someone twice their size, and they will get their heads stomped on and put in the hospital. It's fucked up that people would exploit these poor children and endanger them so just to inflate their ego's and wallets.

Pricks. The difference is that a real, legitimate, competing MA practictioner/instructor would not teach a class like this, because they would fucking know better.

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 12/07/2008 10:01pm

The instructors have been contacted.

Sadly, a google search now shows my original post text of "Mighty Strong BS Program". I have edited the original post to reflect "BS", in hopes that it will eventually update.

No need for parents or, potentially the students, to be reading that profanity when there was no need.

Lesson learned. Anyone know if the google will change to reflect the edited text?

edited for language