Talk:McDojo

Mission
I don't see what this has to do with the site's missions. 23:03, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds a bit like a whiny "purist" to me. My dojo is REAL, there's are only there for the profit!  but i'm snarky beyond belief, so maybe i'm just seeing that.--[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot Iz a sekret Kristian  23:06, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * McDojo fully exploit cranky ideas on Marshal Arts, and its 100% anti-science and New Agey for money, sounds right up our game. --Revolverman (talk) 23:11, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's on mission. If the article were named martial arts woo the content wouldn't be much different and the missionality wouldn't be in question.  Secret Squirrel (talk) 23:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * We already have an article on martial arts which covers related woo. I was thinking the same as WfG: a lot of this article looks like the kind of snobbery that surrounds every subculture & condemns attempts to popularise it as "dumbing down" or "not doing it properly".  23:24, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see it myself. In the martial arts community, McDojos are a real and serious problem. Besides, by your logic, we need to fold all Alt-med pages in because we have an article on Alt-med. --Revolverman (talk) 23:27, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think some of the "watch outs" could be moved to Ninja Woo (especially the one about kids with black belts), but I really don't think the article is all that legit. How quick is "too quick" to give out belts?  Who says you can't have levels of belts for different age groups?  I do like the "there's no fucking thing as a vulcan pinch err um death ray er "hand of death" line.  [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot Iz a sekret Kristian  23:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What about Scrabble clubs that allow players to use abbreviations? In the Scrabble community, these are a real and serious problem.  23:37, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm, yeah, I think I see it. High standards vs low standards doesn't necessarily correlate with the amount of woo.  Secret Squirrel (talk) 23:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And again, who's standards. The standards for kids learning are different from teh standards of a shaulin monk (I'm sure i spelled that wrong).  The standards for a generic "weight loss doing some sparing" are different from "sparing to gain national attention".  I think it's like anything in the consumer world - you go into it with particular needs, expectations and knowledge, and find something that fits. --[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot Iz a sekret Kristian  23:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
 * But its the way its presented. If someone claims your little son/daughter could become a black belt in say, Judo in six months, well thats a scam, is it not? Thats the problem with these kinda places. --Revolverman (talk) 00:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Before anyone saids anything, ya. Black isn't the highest belt in Judo, its Red. Thats part of my point. --Revolverman (talk) 00:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As WfG said, it depends on needs & expectations. If the intention is to gain a black belt that is widely recognised & comparable with black belts awarded to experienced Judo practitioners, then seek out a Judo club that's affiliated with a national or international Judo organisation.  If the intention is to gain a black belt for it's own sake (i.e. fun, fitness & a sense of achievement), then where is the harm?   00:15, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Using said mill Black belt to make money, like opening your own training Gym? Sort of like how people use fake PH.Ds? --Revolverman (talk) 00:18, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Those are not equivalent at all. A PhD has set requirements, a specific amount of time taught in a particular field resulting in a particular level of expertise about something.  To the extent that "anyone can get one", well, I suppose it's a matter of asking 'who did you get your PhD from."  you yourself said there is no body governing most martial arts in a general sense.  There are, however, bodies governing the high end competitions, and placement in japan or china.  And they will ask, as an employer will ask, "where did you get your Belt, and how long did it take".  More importantly, they will say "do this Kata, and let us see how good you are".  IT doesn't make the rest of it a scam.  [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot Iz a sekret Kristian  00:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Cos long sections and mobiles don't
Because 90% of articles would not pass a strict reading of the mission without stretching the defintion of one word or another (the most common seems to be authoritarian) we have to instead ask what does this article contribute to Rationalwiki? I have never heard of this before and after reading it I google McDojo and learnt a lot about the poor standards being used in teaching of martial arts. This is more than most articles on RationalWiki have done for me. I have to disagree with Godot, most people don't know one PhD from another, same as most people wouldn't know one black belt from another, they simply know it is a high level qualification and are trusting of that person as an authority (see what I did there?). You walk in off the street to your first dojo you don't know if the guy is full of shit, but he says he is a.third dan black belt so you truat him and give him money. Same as you attend a course given by Dr Kent Hovind. To the uninformed he has a PhD and you assume that means he knows what he is talking about. Difference is being convinced that scientists have not proven evolution is not going to get you killed where as thinking you can fight will. Pi 3:14 (talk) 02:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * My contention (and in the past year or so I have not really been contradicted) is that most of the time when someone says 'I don't see how this forwards the interests of RationalWiki' what they really mean is 'this does not register on one of my parochial fields of interest yet using my fucking imagination and/or Google would reveal my cultural shelteredness. Therefore it is not on-mission and needs to go away'. Dr. Swordopolis (talk) 00:02, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

People are being convinced they are getting something better than they get. People are being conned out of money for something they think is worth more than it is. Exposing that is on mission. Proxima Centauri (talk) 03:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

"Sources needed" tag
I'm disputing this. I first copied the code into Notepad and did a search; there are no citation needed tags. Next, I zoomed out, took a screenshot (to the left) of the whole article, and compared how much of it is actually body to how much is just that which should be incredibly apparent to anyone with two neurones to rub together. [Sam here] added the tag, and I don't think there's much justification for it. See the screenshot, then comment. Flatworms are fun! Talk to me 23:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

MMA popularity
It seems to me that, since MMA has become a popular sport, more people now know what martial arts are actually supposed to look like. Any evidence of this? The Moose (talk) 10:36, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Boxers and fencers are martial artists too, you know. The same can be said for people who practice every day just to make a show out of different materials breaking on their foreheads and waving weapons around prettily (Shaolin monks). This is of course taking the wider definition of 'martial artist'. Nullahnung (talk) 10:41, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

My two cents
As someone who has being doing a non-competitive self defence orientated martial art for 27 years I have some minor points to add/adjust;

Minor flags - An emphasis on practical applications and its self defence potential - if you are looking for a martial art of self defence then having practical applications and self defence potential is what you WANT and therefore not a sign of a McDojo.

Major flags - The first point on pre-adolescent black belts, one needs to make the distinction between children having adult Dan ranks and junior black belts, which are a far cry from being a first Dan. A 12 year old with a third degree black belt is certainly a red flag but a child with a junior (merely a preliminary step towards first Dan) who is obviously more skilled and knowledgeable than a first grade (last rank before black belt) and can defend themselves against most children their age or older can earn a junior black belt so long as they have to still go through the first Dan test like anyone else when they are older.

8th point - Black Belt does not mean elite martial artist, it just means that the student has learned the basics.

Lack of full-contact sparring - Means absolutely nothing in the context of being a McDojo or not. For one thing there is no such thing as full contact sparring, not unless you are allowed to kick each other in the groin and knife hand each other in the throat. In terms of self defence, full contact sparring has its own set of problems associated with making it more difficult in defending yourself. Not knowing how to, or being able to, apply your techniques in a real attack just because you don't do full-contact sparring is blatantly false. The martial art I study does not do full-contact sparring and plenty of its practitioners have been in real situations and they have had no problems defending themselves.

The best way to determine the quality of a martial art school is to go to the school you are interested in and try it for yourself.

Bulshido - A large portion of what you will find there is people bashing martial arts they no little about. A lot of the people on there seem to have the opinion that if it is not MMA, Muay Thai, BJJ, Boxing or Wrestling then it is useless. The site is guilty of many of the fallacies listed in RationalWiki such as believing that with a few months of MMA training that you can beat any TMA master in 5 seconds without trying or that the UFC 'proved' TMA's are ineffective just because a very small amount of TMA fighters lost one or two fights to a grappler (Hasty generalization)or cherry-picking the worst examples of a particular TMA and thinking they represent all of TMA.

Penn and Tellar's martial arts episode. - While I really like the show and agree with a lot of the stuff they say about many subjects, I could write an entire article about what they got wrong in that episode, such as the study that suggested that you are more likely to get hurt learning self defence that you are getting attacked so you are better off not learning martial arts, I wonder if that studied weighed up spraining your little finger whist sparring against getting your head bashed in with a baseball bat during a home invasion or the odds of getting hurt doing Kickboxing versus Tai Chi--Cmbisme (talk) 15:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC).
 * I have had a few "irks" in my reading of it. I hopefully made it a bit better. I reserve judgement on Bullshido and the Penn & Teller episode because I cannot in-depthly research them right now (expect more on this tomorrow). If you have some specific examples (not asking for a book) that I could look into, they would help me understand your point. I have less than a year of Tae Kwon Do experience (don't ask, the school is closed) with barely more than a white belt in that time. I can tell you our teenage instructors always had black belts with red stripes while the adults were solid black, so I think this is similar to what you were talking about with belt structures earlier. We still welcome any thoughts you might have on these subjects (as it's clear we're not professionals). 16:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I will watch the episode again sometime within the next few weeks as I am usually quite busy working on my PhD and don't always have time to write these things.--Cmbisme (talk) 17:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Nice tweaks! - David Gerard (talk) 12:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Verification of Navy SEAL credentials
According to what the article currently says:

Fortunately for would-be customers, there are reliable and inexpensive veteran-run services out there that verify SpecOps claims. It's easy to check: No matter what kind of badass a guy may have been in the services, if he was (for example) a Navy SEAL he will without exception be listed in the records as having completed SEAL training, and any real Navy SEAL can log into the records and search for a name.

Can anyone confirm if this is sound? 'Cause the sites I saw when I tried Googling "verify Navy SEAL" looked pretty iffy.

Also, whether or not such services exist, should we be endorsing them? I don't know what the USA's data protection laws are like, but it seems like services based on people with privileged access to military records sharing information about other people's military service with the public on request are likely to be pretty dubious. 20:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)