Things to look for in a bad school

[PeedeeShaolin]

Another thing.

I've taught ALOT of people man. You DON'T want to bag on all of a beginners mistakes. Thats not correcting him, thats criticizing him. He's not going to want to hear EVERYTHING he's doing wrong. If I did a private kickboxing class(muay thai) with anyone here I could point out a whole shiitload of mistakes. Your NOT going to correct them all that day.

You can remind a beginner a MILLION TIMES not to drop his hands, he's going to do it anyway. The only thing thats going to help him there is TIME and REPETITION.

You can fix small mistakes, like not pivoting your hips on a cross or kicking with the wrong part of your foot. But to develop the strikes he's going to need to use that kick or punch ALOT on focus mitts/kickpads, heavybags etc. Those things will develop distance, accuracy, power, speed and can be used to help out with proper footwork.

Repetition is the mother of skill.

[Rogue]

From my experience warning signs of a potentially bad school...
1. Bruce Lee quotes.
2. Nonsensical absolutes such as an unarmed man can never beat a knife, all fights go to the ground, most fights never go to the ground, etc.
3. Underestimates sport or traditional fighters.
4. Anything with the name Paul Mitchell on it in the dojo.
5. Musical kata.
6. Instructor holds high rank in 6 styles and is only 30 years old.
7. Sloppy kata.
8. Kata without intent.
9. Sensei is clueless to any kihon or bunkai of his kata.
10. Too many women in the class.
11. No blood stains on any of their gi. ;)
12. "Trainer" of any of these: SEALS, DEA, FBI, HRT, SF.
13. Anti-grappling techniques.

[8t88]

7. Sloppy kata.
8. Kata without intent.
9. Sensei is clueless to any kihon or bunkai of his kata.
10. Too many women in the class.
11. No blood stains on any of their gi. ;)
12. "Trainer" of any of these: SEALS, DEA, FBI, HRT, SF.
13. Anti-grappling techniques.

I don't think any of the above are necessarily bad: the points on kata depend on who's performing them, and the rest are kind of subjective.

However I would like to add something to your list:
Any club or instructor that capitalizes by combining two separate words into one, like "Protectercize".

8t88

[PeedeeShaolin]

Too many women in class? Why would you say THAT?

You can't possibly say its because they hold the class back or anything.....your talking about shitty KATA for christ's sake, the most USELESS practice in all of martial arts.....

[Dibble]

*Totally* agree with PDS on teaching. An avalanche of criticism will just overwhelm, frustrate, and ultimately piss off the student to the point of leaving. Permanently.

I've seen this so many times and can't understand why, except maybe it's a 1)lousy teacher 2)lousy teacher who just wants to show off.

Nothing stops stupid objections like a quick, effective demonstration.

To paraphrase an old teacher of mine, "Practice makes perfect? Bah! Practice makes better."

[Rogue]

"Too many women in class? Why would you say THAT?"
Because besides kids nothing turns a good school into a McDojo faster than "too" many women in the class. It's not that they hold the class back it's that they change the focus of the class.

"KATA...the most USELESS practice in all of martial arts....." And so is dry firing my Smith, but I still do that too.

[Rogue]

PeeDee wrote: Repetition is the mother of skill.

You mean like kata, right?

[Dibble]

Rogue, to what do you think women change the focus?

[Rogue]

Let me state I'm not against women in the dojo and my views don't include all women as I've crossed hands with women who have kicked my ass.

It's a basic fact of life that men and women are different. The majority of women along with not enjoying the Three Stooges also do not like getting bruised up, so sparring suffers. Most women I've come across do enjoy things like dance, they also enjoy kata. It's good excercise, challenging, fun and sometimes pretty. What they don't care about are the martial aspects of kata. What you end up with is performance art. So the class moves from martial art to "family fun".

That's digging my grave deep enough for now. :)

[JKDChick]

Oh, okay. Glad you pointed that out.

Then I won't tell you to go fuck yourself.
(sigh)
Actually, you're right about it in many ways. There's this whiny chick at my school -- always complaining about getting bruises. I've started getting all Machiavallian in class, trying not to get stuck being her partner.



"I'm not tense; just terribly, terribly alert."

[Rogue]

"Then I won't tell you to go fuck yourself."

Gave that up when I got married. As a woman do you have an opinion on how many other woman in your class would you see start to see a change?

[PeedeeShaolin]

Rogue
Featherweight



88 Posts
112 Gold
93 Rep. Points Posted - January 15 2003 : 19:07:40
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PeeDee wrote: Repetition is the mother of skill.

You mean like kata, right?

No.

Kata is the repetition of USELESS and OUTDATED MOVEMENTS from stances you would NEVER rely on in a realistic situation.

[Rogue]

Please list the kata, stances and movements that are useless and outdated. Also list the repetitive movements you do that are not useless and outdated.



Edited by - rogue on January 15 2003 21:10:15

[Choke]

My karate school bows and uses forms and its a fine school and its dirt cheap (25 bucks a month). Bowing and forms does not neccesarily ruin a whole fighting system or a school's credibility.

Cast in the name of God. Ye not guilty.

[Thai_Kick]

PeedeeShaolin wrote:
"Kata is the repetition of USELESS and OUTDATED MOVEMENTS from stances you would NEVER rely on in a realistic situation."

I totally agree, without a doubt!
Kata is selective prearranged movements that ONLY teach you to punch, kick, block and step to air (nothing). Your opponent is air, your defending air, your reacting to air, your stepping to air, as a result your dancing and it's a waste of time!
You can realistically teach a person ALOT MORE by doing partner drills and sparring, then knowing every single Kata/form known to man which means it's outdated and useless. Now if you enjoy doing Kata, then that's fine as long as you don't think that you can fight or compete because you can do the perfect kata.




Muay Thai Rule #1 - Knock the mother out!