Correction: Zero Stars! Yelp just doesn't have an option for that. Foster's has been blacklisted by the military. Stay away! Our son attended Foster's for a total of about 3 months before being totally disenfranchised. Initially, the "lessons" seemed comprehensive, but once holiday season set in it seemed to be just silly games at every session. Our son finally asked to stop going because he wasn't getting anything out of his sessions. In order to stop the billing and get released from our criminally ridiculous contract, we had to sue. During our court day there were several other people being sued by Foster's for breach of contract. Jay Foster seems to pray on single mothers with his dubious contracts. He also uses these dubious contracts to feed his wife's collection agency business. The whole thing is an outright SCAM! Beware and stay away from Foster's! Note: It seems they have changed their name since we moved away. They are now going by "Martial Arts Academy". Beware! read more

Mr. Jay Joster and Martial Art bussiness ; I have been continuing my word and I have been paying the amount I agreed with you and your business in the contract I innocently signed with you on September 2013. I was believing about the 30 days trial. I signed a contract with you and not with a business on that date but for different personal reason I didn't want to continue going to your place. I just want to ask you if you can stop charging me that amount (180 dollars a month ). I am a school teacher and my budget has been very affected with that. I understand about certain penalization but I just want to ask you nicely if you can stop that payment. After 8 month I truly believed that it is enough money to be penalize and cover your business expenses. Sulemi Velasquez read more

*Do Not waste your money* Not only is the building in disrepair the parking lot will destroy anything lower than a 4X4. My 2 children are " taught" by , in my opinion, teenagers for approximately 15 mins of anything that is related to martial arts and throw a ball around for, in my best guess, 45 remaining minutes. I have had both children crying on different occasions from being bullied from others students in crowded classes without the teenage looking teacher seeing anything. 250 dollars a month to allow this conduct is down right vulgar. We met Jay and he said wonderful things and pressured us to sign up for the free private lesson and the next day we decided the class wasn't for us, he informed us a ocean springs collection agency is financially incharge of billing. Basically in signing up for the free lesson you are obligated to pay a year of martial arts like it or not. Business are made to become successful and take care of their customers. With the dissatisfaction of his customers this success will soon follow... read more

Run! Do not walk away from this place. It's basically a scam. The quality of instruction is poor. The management is crap. Don't even get me started on the billing. The military has deemed this establishment OFF LIMITS due to numerous issues. Also, they have changed their name to Martial arts academy. It's still run by Jay Foster. How sad is it that you have to remove your own name from the business to keep clients coming. Lastly, it has an "F" rating with the BBB. read more

We were sued but we won! The outsde billing department is his wife. The collection agency, his wife. The attorney, him. Get the pinture, nice scam. read more

Do not sign anything! The classes offered for kids ranges from about 4 years to middle school. The only way to really work on advancing is to "sign" up for the Black belt club but oh wait that's an additional fee and contract term that you do not find out about until after you are stuck. Classic Bait and switch , Otherwise your kid is rolling around doing holds and punches and kicks in an over crowded varying age range room. read more

This place is a scam! First of al they make you sign a 12 mo contract just to enroll your kid and BEFORE you realize what a scam is so you're trapped. From day one they train the kids to shoot for getting invites into the "black belt club" which they bill as elite. However, it's really just the class they move up into when they've moved beyond rolling around on the floor. It's not "special" it's just a normal martial arts advancement. The trick is, in order to advance you have to triple your contract to three years AND double your tuition! If you don't want to do that your kid is stuck in the baby class. I pitched a fit and the owner did call me and make nice. He worked with me on the monthly payments and said of course he wouldn't enforce the contract if the child just hated the program. So I let my boy move up. A few months later he busted his ear drum in class. Not their fault- my son has had several operations and has a very delicate ear. His MD said no more martial arts. I explained all of this to the billing company and I informed the studio. A year later they are still trying to bill me every month and threatening litigation!!! RUN FAR FAR AWAY!!! read more

just to make this clear, the services i received while taking lessons with this facility were fantastic, that is not my issue with foster's. my issue is with the billing system. i am active duty military and while i was temporarily assigned to a school in biloxi i sought out fosters as a way to stay in shape during my temdu. the instructor was great and they were very flexible about fitting me in to their schedule but what they don't tell you is that they use an outside service for billing. this service is a trap. it is called membership solutions and they do not let you out of your contract unless you move 60 miles away (which i have done as i am now living in washington state) and when you do want to cancel your service you have to provide proof of relocation (they do not accept active duty orders) and you have to pay a 100$ fee on top of it. i have been paying for lessons here continuously despite the fact that i have not been there since august of 2015. do not let this place trap you the way they trapped me especially if you are military and you are only there for a short period of time. read more

Joining Foster MMA might've been one of the worst decisions of my life! I signed up for the dojo after he agreed to accept weekly payments. I attended the class for about 2 months and noticed that no payments were withdrawn. I then received a prerecorded call saying not to come to class anymore until I paid up. I tried calling and sending e-mails to find out what I owed, but no one answered. Two years later, I started receiving threatening e-mails from the dojo's collections department stating that they would sue me for $3500! Once again, I tried resolving the issue to no avail (no one answered their phones or e-mails), so I let it go again. Fast forward another year, I get a notice for a court appearance from South Collections (Jay Foster's collection agency). I get to court and there are 6 DIFFERENT PEOPLE fighting the exact same case! Because of the tricky wording in the contract, everyone lost their cases and now my wages are being garnished. Do yourself a favor and avoid this man! read more

Jay foster has lied to us from day. He say he is for u but if u dislike the clas classes and he the best they just want yr money and his but want only that. He may like he don't know whts going on wit the contract. He's a lie cause who owns their business and not know about his money. But want to embarrass yr child by put their grades on wall if they got a bad grade. His children gonna stay competition because he teach then at home regularly and his income may provide extra toward there school u may not have all the resources. For those look n for martial art classes plz do yr research cause this is not the place to b not even for the free 30 days since he wants u to sign u up the first day u come through the door. No stars read more

Not good for young children, may be better for older kids/people. Instructors change frequently without notification or introduction. Lesson Learned... we Will Never sign a contract for a kids activity again. Nor will we sign such a One Sided Contract for anything again. Even all the wonderful things they tell you when you sign up don't stand up because the contract can't be changed orally, what a joke. You will get a lot of emails in the beginning and it will seem like a "family" environment but they don't care if you show up or not as long as you pay. My son missed 3 weeks because of illness, not one word. Told Jay we would be missing some over the summer because of nephew having major surgery, not one word or inquiry of his condition. Not caring at all. Save yourself the head ache and keep looking. I suspect now that they have some bad reviews you will see several glowing reviews, no doubt they are affiliated with Foster's MMA. Don't be fooled if you actually get to this review. read more

My son has been training at Foster's Martial Arts for the past couple of years. I wanted my boy to do MMA because he got picked on after we moved to MS and got roughed up a couple of times, as well as for discipline and improving grades at school. I made it very clear to Sensei Jay Foster that I wanted him to compete, since I was spending so much money on it. After the free trial, I signed him up for the year (I think it's a 1-2 year contract). The initial class (after the free trial) may seem like a waste of time, but it's to allow the instructors to evaluate the kid's ability to learn and if they take MMA seriously. Jay stated that my son's grades would go up, bullying would stop, and he would win competitions. After my son proved that he was serious about MMA (took about 6 months), and he could consistently hold an A/B average in school, he was invited to the Blackbelt Club, which is the dojo competition team. I had to sign another contract (3 yrs) to be on the competition team. The competition team practices 1 more day a week for longer times, and for regular competitors there is an extra 'open mat' style training on Saturday mornings, so I thought it was worth it. Sensei Jay had my son train with his son (who is a USA National Judo Champion), and even though my son felt like throwing up everyday after practice (all of Jay's kids are very, very good at MMA), he gained self confidence proved that he was tough enough to compete. So far, he has been to 4 competitions (winning 1st place once, 2nd place several times), increased his grades, hasn't been bullied AT ALL, and seems much more focused. I couldn't be happier with his progress! Jay and other instructors constantly work with my son to help him improve. Jay believes in doing the same MMA moves over and over (reps), which can get boring at times, my kid worked on the same Judo throw for 3-4 weeks straight, but all the work pays off in competitions! This is a great MMA school for kids/parents who are serious about competing and keeps them off video games and TV. It does take a financial/personal commitment to learning with a lot of work, and Sensei Jay is a reasonable guy. Just don't sign any contracts unless you absolutely know that you and your kid can honor them, MMA isn't cheap, but it is far cheaper (and safer) than many other competition sports. read more

Summer Camp fiasco I am going to give no stars. I read some of the reviews about the martial arts aspects, but I decided to give the summer camp a try anyway. I was swayed by the big talk. I called a couple of weeks before the end of school. The person on the phone said that they were running a special wherein they were waiving the registration fee, giving out a free book and a free t-shirt if you signed up prior to the end of school...so only a limited time but I was charged anyway. While doing a walk through, the facility was touted to be state of the art. Oh, "there is a pool on site and they will be swimming a couple of times a week"...that didn't happen. Jay also said that his own "nationally ranked" children would be attending. My child never saw one of the Fosters' kids. So many promises that were unfulfilled. I stopped taking my child when they put him in danger. I hope this helps people not be sucked in by speedy talk. Go somewhere, anywhere else! read more

Stay away. Waste of time. Five or ten minutes of what might be called instruction is mixed in with a whole lot of nothing. The guy is an attorney and will try to trick you into a year long contract even if you do the 30 day free trial. I had one child quit during the free trial. He then sued me for a whole year of lessons without her taking any of them. read more

Mr. Foster likes to brag to potential students/customers how he made my daughter a champion in a short amount of time. That is not entirely true, she just learned to fight to her strengths and not her weaknesses, by me. And relied on her 4 years of training prior to his school to become a champion. What he doesn't brag about is how she was injured. And that she had to have surgery, and will probably never train again. He also will not tell you how he never inquired once about the injury, how she was doing, or returned our calls. He just sent a notice that tuition is due no matter if the student is injured or not. My wife and I just spent thousands in medical bills, and we understand injuries come with the sport. We explained to Mr. Foster that the medical bills plus tuition was not realistic. His solution was to send us to collections for almost $4000., this is the same man who promised the contract would be terminated when she went to college. If he is going to sue me over a career ending injury, can you believe he was going to let me out of that contract when she leaves for college next year ? Do you believe your child will be treated any better than the one he brags about to get people in the door ? Remember his contract states no oral agreements will alter the contract, so he can lie indiscriminately. Also even if you fulfill you're contract you can not train within 60 miles of his gym for 2 more years, making it at least a 5 year contract. These are kids, not professional athletes. My advice is there are other gyms that suspend/terminate contracts due to injury, my daughter went to one for 4 years prior to fosters. What my daughter and I learned from Mr. foster was that you don't have to have morals to teach martial arts, and the true definition of self serving. read more

A frightful experience! I tried to return a uniform my son had used once or twice. He is a bit young for the advanced skills taught at Foster's and I told the owner I would return the uniform that they provided for him. The owner had no issue with the fact that we weren't staying past our free 30 day trial and did not protest when I told him I would return the uniform. The uniform is really sharp, made of quality material and a distinct "Foster's" logo on the back. When I approached a blonde female employee about the return, she gave me a disgusted look, told me she isn't taking it back and instructed me to pay per the agreement I signed. I explained that I didn't sign an agreement and was just using the uniform during our trial period. She aggressively argued with me, said that I wasn't just "given" a uniform to use, insisted that I must have signed something, and told me that she was turning me over to their collections department. I never signed an agreement and have no idea why she behaved in a hostile manner. I intend to have my son return to martial arts when he gets older, but not at Foster's. read more

if I could give this place a zero I... if I could give this place a zero I would. DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING THEY GIVE YOU. They advertise ti you free 30 days and yet they try to scam you to paying them for a year. Sensei Jay Foster is an attorney and tries to bully you with emails requesting you give a copy of a voided check or front and back of your credit card with out telling you exactly the amount you owe. When you refuse or inquire about what you are having to pay for they will spam your email account with emails like this. Hi, Do you want me to garnish your wages? This is what is going to happen if you fail to make payment arrangements within the next 4 days. I will have your wages garnished when we file a lawsuit against you and win the lawsuit. I would rather not do this. You now have 4 days to fax me your voided check or the front and back of your credit card. Our fax number is 228-875-6687. This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose. Foster's Mixed Martial Arts 1019 Legion Lane Ocean Springs, MS 39564 228-875-5425 OR BETTER YET THEY EMAIL YOU THE NEXT DAY WITH THIS: Have you ever seen what a lawsuit looks like? I attached one for you. As you can tell, it's just in draft form and of course, it has not been filed yet. But, it's going to have your name in it in 2 days for your failure to pay your Foster's Martial Arts bill. I'd rather not have to file a lawsuit against you. You're going to make me file it though. The choice is yours. I'd rather not do this to you. I'd rather you pay Foster's Martial Arts a lot less money. But, you're going to have to pay us a lot more money if we file this lawsuit against you. You're going to have to pay attorney's fees, court costs, and interest. It will be a LOT more money. I'd suggest that you pay now. You've got 2 days left. You can fax your voided check or the front and back of your credit card to 228-875-6687 to avoid all of this. The choice is yours. You can see what a proposed Complaint will look like by clicking below on on Complaint for FMMA Fees-001 at the bottom of this email. It's a pdf document so you can use any free pdf reader to look at it. It doesn't have your name in it yet but in 2 days, it will be titled Lawsuit Against ________. This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose. Foster's Mixed Martial Arts 1019 Legion Lane Ocean Springs, MS 39564 228-875-5425 CLICK ON THE PDF FILE AT THE TOP OR BELOW to see what a lawsuit looks like. read more

If you want to your kids to learn from an instructor that has national champions this is the place to go. You will learn the same way those national champions were taught which is to learn and train the basics along with other tactics(more as you progress) over and over and over again. This teaches muscle memory and is what makes you a better student(made me a better student). As Sensei says if you are taught something new every day you become a Jack of all trades and a master of nothing. In a defensive situation would you rather know how to defend yourself by knowing the muscle memory from a few moves or would you rather rely on brainstorming one of the new moves you learned at every practice yet never mastered? Sure it can get boring doing the same thing over and over, but that's how you get great. As time progresses the training will change and you will progress as I did. Everything will begin making more sense, but you have to put the time and repetitions in for this to happen as it just does not magically appear. You cant go to a few classes or even a few months of classes and think you know everything. Everything you learn is a building block for the next progression being taught. Until you rep the heck out of what your being taught and master it what is the point in moving to something new? I think some people, whether kids or adults, just need to realize your not in a movie and this isn't fantasy land. To be GREAT at anything including martial arts it takes dedication and time. If you want to learn or have your kids learn something new every single class this is not the place to go. I guarantee you though if you stick to the program you wont regret it. read more