McDojo

From RationalWiki
(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
(Warning signs of McDojos)
(Warning signs of McDojos)
Line 32: Line 32:
 
* Claims that the school’s training program is “so intense” that it allows children to acquire Black Belts, and adults to acquire them within a very short period of time. See above; there is no training program in the world that can turn a child into an elite martial artist.
 
* Claims that the school’s training program is “so intense” that it allows children to acquire Black Belts, and adults to acquire them within a very short period of time. See above; there is no training program in the world that can turn a child into an elite martial artist.
 
* Any mention of a “touch of death”<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi3t1yVE-gk An example of such nonsense]</ref> or “exploding heart technique”. '''''There is no such fucking thing!''''' You cannot kill a person by poking or tapping them with a fingertip!
 
* Any mention of a “touch of death”<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi3t1yVE-gk An example of such nonsense]</ref> or “exploding heart technique”. '''''There is no such fucking thing!''''' You cannot kill a person by poking or tapping them with a fingertip!
* Any claim that you can disarm a gun user. A real martial artist will give you the best advice in this scenario: Don't. Just give up your wallet and/or quickly run away! Even in Krav Maga. A style '''''built''''' around dealing with armed attackers, it is always advised that if there is nothing stopping you from escaping, and its safer to, you should find safety rather then engaging.
+
* Any claim that you can disarm a gun user. A real martial artist will give you the best advice in this scenario: Don't. Just give up your wallet and/or quickly run away! Even in Krav Maga. A style '''''built''''' around dealing with armed attackers, it is always advised that if there is nothing stopping you from escaping, you should rather then engaging.
  
 
Make sure to "shop around". A few "minor" flags and you should be fine, just find the school that fits best with your interests and abilities, and ask questions on anything you find strange. Wearing the karate gi in karate may be unnecessary, but for some styles (like Judo) it might be an absolute requirement.
 
Make sure to "shop around". A few "minor" flags and you should be fine, just find the school that fits best with your interests and abilities, and ask questions on anything you find strange. Wearing the karate gi in karate may be unnecessary, but for some styles (like Judo) it might be an absolute requirement.

Revision as of 09:31, 23 November 2013

McDojo is a pejorative term (in the same vein as “McMansion” and "McChurch") referring to martial arts academies (generally located in the Western world) which, rather than being honestly committed to teaching students, are instead concerned primarily with amassing a profit. The means by which they do this is by pandering to Westerners’ stereotypes of martial arts and teaching a form thereof which, while usually highly visually impressive, is watered-down, impractical, and quick & easy to acquire a “Black Belt” in. These schools are effectively diploma mills for martial arts, with unearned Black Belts taking the place of unearned Ph.D.s; unsurprisingly, they are sometimes referred to as "belt mills". A McDojo may teach a bowdlerized form of an actual martial art, such as Karate or Taekwondo, or it may teach one that is partially or entirely made up, such as "ninjutsu" or Dim Mak. Either way, the all-but-functionally-useless fighting methodology taught may be dubbed Bullshido.

The McDojo phenomenon began in the 1970s as a result of the West’s collective enamouration with Bruce Lee and Hong Kong martial arts films. During the '80s and '90s, media such as G.I. Joe, The Karate Kid, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Street Fighter, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Dragon Ball Z gave it legs.

Contents

Dangers

McDojos are not merely scandalous by virtue of conning students out of their money. The consequences of graduating one of them can be physically dangerous. The great majority of both teachers and students at McDojos have never been in a real fight in their lives, and probably never will be in one, meaning that they don’t have any idea as to what it’s actually like. If, by chance, they do get into a fight, their training may very likely have rendered them vastly overconfident about their abilities, which are in fact non-existent.[1]

How they work

McDojos largely prey on insecure "alpha male" types, the kids of soccer moms, and others who want to learn how to "kick some ass". They generally operate using a 50/50 blend of broscience and orientalist woo, the better to produce the ideal mall ninja. Despite the fact that most modern martial arts are either primarily sports (such as taekwondo and judo, both Olympic events) or physical fitness regimes (such as tai chi), McDojos that teach these forms claim that they are legitimate self-defense techniques. McDojos that are more broscience-oriented either teach made-up martial arts (such as ninjutsu) or the owner's "personal variant" of a well-known military/law enforcement self-defense system like Krav Maga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or CQB.

A part of the problem stems from the fact that there are very few accrediting bodies, national or international, for martial arts schools.[2] As is the case with any number of alternative medical practices, effectively anyone, anywhere, can claim to be a grandmaster of some magical 5,000 year old art which, in reality, they just pulled out of their ass and set up a “school” that “teaches” it without any auditing, wherein the uninformed, not knowing anything about martial arts beyond what they’ve seen in the movies, will uncritically swallow their claims. Ranks and Belts in martial arts are not awarded according to any universally-accepted set of standards, but according to each individual teacher's subjective whims, in which case often, all that is needed to get a teacher to fork over a Black Belt is for the student to pay them a large sum of money[3].

Warning signs of McDojos

Minor flags:

  • An emphasis on the "practical applications" of the martial art being taught, or an over-emphasis of its self-defense potential.
  • An overly stereotypical atmosphere - i.e.; talk about a “code of honor”, an insistence on the wearing of karategi[wp] at all times, an insistence on calling the teacher “master” or “sensei”, shōji[wp] walls, etc. If the stereotypes don't match the supposed origin of the art, e.g. Chinese or Japanese characters in Krav Maga, then it's a major flag.
  • An overemphasis on breaking wooden boards with various strikes. This might look cool, but is not usually as hard as it is made out to be.[4]

Moderate flags:

  • An insistence that students sign long-term contracts.
  • Use of a colored belt system, especially when the art being taught is Chinese, such as Kung Fu.
  • Claims on the part of the teacher that they possess an extremely high rank.
  • Expensive monthly dues. If you're pushing $100 a month, you're probably paying too much.
  • Sensationalist advertising, such as claims about the art being thousands of years old or "the best in the world", or pictures of ninjas sheathed in black cloth flying through the air cracking blocks of ice in half with a kick.

Major flags:

  • Guarantees that one will receive a Black Belt within a certain (usually very brief) amount of time. A martial arts school cannot "guarantee" that you will receive a Black Belt any more than a medical school can guarantee that you will receive an M.D. You either pass the tests and earn it on your own merits, or you don't.
  • Claims that the art being taught is the teacher's "personal variant" on a real martial arts system. This is a warning that not even the teacher recognizes what he or she is teaching as legitimate, and is covering up his or her own inadequacies by claiming that they're "innovations".
  • Excessively frequent promotions, such as a new Belt every month. This keeps students on board by creating the illusion that they are making progress.
  • A refusal on the part of the teacher to demonstrate their abilities on the grounds that they are “too deadly”.
  • Pre-adolescent children with Black Belts. This is one of the most glaring warning signs there is. A ten-year-old boy is simply not physically capable of acquiring a legitimate Black Belt. It takes years.
  • Claims that the school’s training program is “so intense” that it allows children to acquire Black Belts, and adults to acquire them within a very short period of time. See above; there is no training program in the world that can turn a child into an elite martial artist.
  • Any mention of a “touch of death”[5] or “exploding heart technique”. There is no such fucking thing! You cannot kill a person by poking or tapping them with a fingertip!
  • Any claim that you can disarm a gun user. A real martial artist will give you the best advice in this scenario: Don't. Just give up your wallet and/or quickly run away! Even in Krav Maga. A style built around dealing with armed attackers, it is always advised that if there is nothing stopping you from escaping, you should rather then engaging.

Make sure to "shop around". A few "minor" flags and you should be fine, just find the school that fits best with your interests and abilities, and ask questions on anything you find strange. Wearing the karate gi in karate may be unnecessary, but for some styles (like Judo) it might be an absolute requirement.

External links

  • Bullshido – a website in which legitimate martial arts practitioners attempt to identify phony schools & instructors and call them out on it.
  • This video of Penn & Teller tackling the martial arts
  • This guy, featured in the above video, who has "McDojo" written all over him.

See also

Footnotes

  1. Here is a man recounting his experience with a McDojo. He reached "third-degree black belt" until a friend who attended the same school, thinking he was a skilled martial artist, got seriously injured in a fight not knowing how unprepared he actually was.
  2. Some countries, such as Japan, do have accrediting bodies, and many large organizations provide accreditation for their instructors, but the quality of this accreditation varies widely.
  3. Again, some styles do have criteria that go above the individual instructor's head
  4. Rist, Curtis. "The Physics of... Karate." Discover, 1 May 2000.
  5. An example of such nonsense
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support