One should always be proud of his testees.
Today’s post is intended to follow up on How to pick the Best Martial Arts School with the specific intent on giving you warning signs of what is commonly called a “McDojo”. Regrettably, McDojo can be found all across the martial arts world and across all martial arts styles, so it pays to know how to avoid them no matter what you are training in.
But what is a McDojo? In short, a McDojo is a martial arts school that is engaged in a long term scam. These dojo characteristically have shoddy instruction, make false claims, and place the accumulation of money over training, improvement, and the happiness of their students.
Now, fortunately, there are a few simple ways to spot a McDojo and I will be listing them here. However, let me be clear that you must use your best judgement because possession of any one or even a few of these are not proof that a school is a McDojo. Many legitimate martial arts instructors will employ some of these techniques if only for the purpose of keeping their excellent dojo in good financial standing as a business.
And now…The Top 15 Signs of a McDojo
1. Lengthy contracts are required.
2. The sensei never spars with his students for fear of causing them terrible injury.
3. The sensei has far too many dans (degrees) to his black belt for his age. (Such as an 7 dan 30 year old.)
4. The sensei claims to have a black belt in far too many martial arts styles.
5. There are prepubescent black belts.
6. Pressure is placed on students to purchase of additional training products or other goods (patches, DVD’s, practice weapons, etc).
7. The Dojo sells a “Black Belt Fast Track” course.
8. There are far too many belt colors. Or the belts are in strange colors such as pink, gold (in addition to yellow), camouflage, etc
9. The dojo has advancement tests every month, even in higher ranks.
10. The sensei claims to possess secret deadly/supernatural techniques that he can only bestow upon his most trusted students.
11. You see “Little Dragons”, “Tiny Tigers”, or otherwise “pee-wee-esque” oriented classes. (The caveat to this is if the school segregates the very young so not to disturb older students training.)
12. You are in a Self Defense oriented dojo and they teach techniques from “horse stance” or similar.
13.The sensei freaks out if your dues aren’t paid exactly on the first of the month.
14.The sensei is a “Grand Master” of his martial art but will not provide credentials.
15. Anyone who claims to have completed a 100-man kumite. (The number of martial artists who can legitimately claim this is so small that you have almost zero chance of being taught by one at your local strip-mall dojo.)
Did I miss any?
Osu!
Don’t know who the artist is for the McDojo pic. But McDonalds owns the arches and they’ll likely sue your ass. They’ve been known to sue occasionally.
I come from the UK and stumbled upon this blog today. Very interesting blog you have here.
There’s a McDojo in the UK (Mainly where I live in the South). It’s called ‘Karate Leadership UK’ They teach Wado Ryu but change parts of their katas and will give you a black belt if you have plenty of £££s or $$$s in your case.
Hi Nabilkazama, thanks for stopping by and posting. I hope to see more of your comments on future posts.
And to your point, regrettably charlatans know no boundaries when it comes to nations or creeds. The worst part is that there are some places that really do teach valuable techniques, but run their business model like a McDojo!
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Good list – just to put my 2c in on each point:
1. I don’t believe in or use contracts but this is more of a business management issue for schools that do. I don’t think it shows a school is a McDojo – in fact it could show they have high standards. They are essentially saying if you do not make a long term commitment you will not achieve a decent level of proficiency. McDojo are usually happy to give out rank and rewards without any effort on the part of the student.
2. The instructor should certainly be seen to be a participant in the art along with their students but remember they are there to teach, not to train. I would certainly be suspicious about a teacher who was never prepared to take what he dishes out to his students!
3. Fully agree.
4. Fully agree.
5. I have no problem with junior black belts over the age of say 13 provided they are a JUNIOR black belt, not a full first degree. In our system a full first degree can not be awarded until someone is at least 18 and that IMHO is how it should be. Juniors have a different syllabus as the full adult syllabus was never created to be taught to children.
6. Pressure is never good but frankly if a student of ours chooses to not buy a groin protector, let us just say any ‘sales pressure’ from me is going to be the least of their worries!
7. Agreed. This cheapening of the instructor level is the main feature of dogy schools IMHO.
8. Well what is ‘too many’? Some systems, especially for kids, need to be broken down into smaller chunks and different belts are one way to do that – as are different stripes, patches and so forth.
9. Define advancement tests? I agree that giving a whole new rank every month, or even two months, is very dicey. In our school junior students have to pass three stripe tests 4 weeks apart before they qualify to do their next full belt test. This is to ensure they are keeping up with previous material – and in Kenpo you need to learn a LOT of material!
10. Correct. Arrant bosh.
11. I agree with your caveat. The idea that schools should simply not offer and classes AT ALL for kids under 8 is ridiculous. If they have ‘Little Dribbler’ programs in soccer and similar for other activities, why not martial arts?
12. Even in self defense schools you have to work certain basics – however hours spent lined up doing basics into the air is pointless.
13. If the instructor freaks over one student not paying on time that is more an indication of his cash flow problems than anything else!
14.Agreed.
15. Can’t say I have ever heard of anyone claiming this but let us just say outlandish claims in general should be taken with a massive dose of salt.
Sean Fitzpatrick
Head Instructor, Kenpo Karate Wellington
Hi Sean,
Thanks for your input! Now let me reply to a few of your comments:
2. Each of the students spar with our instructor somewhat regularly – particularly when we have an odd number of students.
5. I go back and forth about very young black belts. I can agree with the concept of a “junior” black belt, provided that the distinction is made clear to the youth who attains it.
8. Gotta use best judgement for this kind of thing. If there are “camouflage” belts with 2 gold stripes then that is pretty excessive.
15. 100-man kumite is the “Iron Man” challenge of some styles, Kyokushin Karate being one of them. There are very few people who have completed the challenge, so if you were to run into someone who teaches at your local strip mall who claims to have done this then it is VERY likely a lie. If you’d like some more information, click here.
Hi
thanks – to reply to your replies
2) most decent instructors in our system jump in the technique lines whenever they can. However if one has some brown belts working their techniques in one corner, some purple belts doing theirs in another and a white belt learning their blocking set somewhere else most of the time is spend moving from place to place tweaking where needed.
5) Agree. The distinction must be made.
8) Agree. Yes it can be taken too far however it is hard to generalize just by looking at the number of belts a school uses in isolation. the big picture needs to be considered.
15) I know what the 100 man kumite is – I did Kyokushin for 10 years before I switched to Kenpo. What I am saying is I have never heard of anyone claiming to have done it in order to attract students.
Sean F