After having my son take classes for about 4 months and watching numerous classes from beginner to advanced I can not in good faith recommend this school. I have thought hard about wether or not to even review this school, but having studied this particular style for a good number of years and achieving and advanced rank, I feel that my input regarding the technique and skill at this school will be helpful to people who are searching for a martial arts school and don't know what to look for.
While I can't recommend this school, to be fair, this school did have some good things going for them. The staff is very friendly, they work really well with the kids and have a great philosophy when it comes to moral and behavioral ethics. In addition the atmosphere is fun, engaging and upbeat.
Unfortunately the skill and technique taught here is severely lacking. This school is what is commonly referred to as a "belt factory" where you show up a certain number of classes to "earn" your belt, vs a school that prides itself in proper technique where you test to prove you have learned and mastered a skill at a certain level to move forward. I was horrified watching advanced classes (brown & black belts) and seeing what a complete lack of skill they have. With my background, I am completely qualified and understand exactly what each technique I witnessed should look like. I have never seen a school with such poor technique across a majority of its students. Technique was sloppy, unfocused, not consistent and just down right bad.
I was also unimpressed with the lack of respect the school has for the art. Martial arts are generally very focused on respect of the art, the belt, the dojo and people. This school showed none of that. Things such as bowing onto the mats, going down on one knee to remove your belt, not wearing belts outside of the dojo are not practiced here. Nor is how to properly tie a belt. I was shocked to hear the main instructor brag about how many black belts (of the same rank) she owns for reasons such as she doesn't like the feel of one she earned. This shows no respect for the belt she worked hard to earn and was awarded upon her last testing. I find it heartbreaking that anyone would disrespect their belt that much and give up the opportunity to show the physical wear and tear on your earned belt as you work toward the next rank.
The teaching was atrocious. Proper technique was rarely ever explained. Numerous times I witnessed advanced belts helping younger belts and approving of how techniques were performed when they were no where near correct (in one case a flow consisting of 4 basic movements was watched by 3 different people, praise was given to the student by each teacher, even though only 2 of the 4 movements were actually performed).
The last thing that I wasn't happy to see was the lack of time management skills the school demonstrated. The class prior to my son's class almost always ran 5-10 minutes late. This wouldn't bother me so much if his class also ran late. But it never did. My son's class ALWAYS ended on time, shorting a majority of his classes from the instruction time we had paid for. Very frustrating. read more
