My first MA school was Temple Kung Fu. I think you can figure it out from there.
First day: “OMG!! YOU EXCEL AT EVERYTHING YOU DO!”
One year later: “Yeah… we’ll need 5 years payment up front. Guaranteed Black Belt in two years, though.”
All I was shown were some stances, 2 or so punches, some blocks, and a low roundhouse. Over the course of a year.
PL
For me, it wasn’t so much a “WTF this is ghey” moment as it was a long process. I guess I have to begin at the beginning…
When I was 8-ish we moved to the area, and having trained TKD for a year or two we looked for a school. We found a place run by a nice Korean family, a father and two sons. The dad was an ex-world chamion, and the younger son would later go on to compete in the Pan-Am games and take home either a silver or gold (I don’t remember, truthfully). Needless to say, these guys knew their business.
I have trouble remembering these early classes, but they seemed OK. There were a few 20-ish guys who were in good shape, and we had medium-to-hard sparring. However, gradually they stopped sparring for some reason. It also went from me being one of the few little kids there to being one of many. Without the sparring, class got boring, so I quit. This might have been when I was 12.
Fast-forward to my Sophomore year of high school. I for some reason decided to get back into the martial arts, so I look up the school where I trained at before. They are now located in a strip mall, with many more students. Since I’m naturally pretty flexible I managed to pick it back up OK, and they let me start back up with my black belt that I had from before. I was kind of annoyed by the no-contact sparring (when there was sparring), and the kiai’s the little kids did when they did hyung pissed me off to no end (they weren’t even functional kiai’s, just loud yelling), but no real alarm bells went off.
But then I pulled my head out of my ass (this coincided with my registration on Bullshido). During sparring, I used to do punches to the face; since it was no-contact, no one really cared. Then, I noticed that no one else did this. I thought, “that’s dumb, they should know how to deal with punches to the face.” I started teaching lower belts and younger black belts to hit to the face; they looked at me like I was from another planet. Then, when we were doing our cooperative “hapkido” drills, I started trying to do them at full force. I started asking the attacker to actually try to hit me, and then actually trying to throw them like it was a fight. Again, they thought I was a freaking alien.
Then I realized that I was dreading the classes before I went to them, not wanting to put up with that kind of horseshit for another hour. One day, I just stopped going.
A couple weeks later, I went to watch a class at a BJJ school. The asst. instructor told me, “I’m not gonna lie to you man, we teach you to fuck people up.” I was pretty much sold after that.
blindgod
I suspect that in the end, you’ll be happier with everything in general, if you can simply leave on good terms. Your old school may in fact be filled with problems, but it’s probably also filled with a lot of good people, a lot of friends that have offered you plenty of support and help over the years. And as you said, it may very well be meeting their needs, just not yours.
You could go out with a bang, you could tell everyone that they’re shit and that you’ve recognized that they suck, but what’s the point in that. Leaving that way will not change things, leaving that way will only end things between you and them. I believe in education through example, other people will see that you’ve left and still managed to remained friends, thus the door will be open for them to also think about leaving, when their time comes.
And your explanation is a good one, its not a lie and its not a direct criticism. Telling people that you’ve simply decided to concentrate your focus elsewhere is true.
Good luck!
I believe in educating people, not simply tearing them down and destroying with the truth of their failures. I have to believe in that, it’s my job.
I understand what you’re trying to say, so let me explain my feelings this way:
I believe in educating people, not in simply tearing them down and destroying them with the truth of their failures. I have to believe in that, it’s my job. So if I do offer a person the red pill, if I do struggle and fight with someone until they see the truth, until they see that they actually have nothing, then I also feel that I should offer them a solution, a strategy to rebuild themselves, and be there to help them succeed. But that takes a lot of effort, a lot of time and committment that I may or may not have to offer, at any given moment in time.
This might not make any sense to you now, but it might, one day, if you end up in Academia.
Patfromlogan
I’m really sorry to hear about your Son’s experience, that really makes me sad. I hope that I never become so confused about life that I suddenly find myself yelling at someone’s 13 year old Son.
People come and go for many different reasons, that’s just the way things works. And when someone leaves because they’ve found something else that works better for them, I’m happy for their success. And I’m really honored when they return, even if its only for a brief visit, because that means that even though they’ve found something else that works better for them, even though life has taken them elsewhere, they still see something of value in returning and keeping a connection alive.
That Sensei should have recognized that your Son was showing him great deal of respect by returning, that Sensei should treated your Son like a returning King, a Prodigal Son.
I’ve often wondered how many memberships have been suddenly ‘terminated’ after someone logs on to this website for the first time. I have a feeling that ol’ Phrost and Co. are opening a lot of eyes out there to the truth. I can just picture the conversation:
McDojo Instructor: “What, you’re leaving to train kickboxing and BJJ? Why?”
Enlightened Student: “Well sir, I was reading this thread on Bullshido.com entitled ‘Yer a FAG if yu liek Wang Chung!!!11’ and it made me start thinking about things. . .”
we should have a special counter just to keep track …
The last TKD instructor I had was this old Korean dude. Thick accent and everything. He used to brag about the time he kicked a guy out of his school for repeatedly calling him “Master” instead of “Grand Master” or “Dojunim”. Even at the time, unawakened to bullshido as I was, I just thought, “what an asshole.” He thought he was impressing me by telling that story.
Sad. And though I didn’t leave at that time, I look back on the stuff like that and remember how much bullshido there still is out there.
Matt,
Hey, at least on the bright side, he obviously wasn’t running a McDojang because something had priority over money and enrollment 
I’ve always thought that an intructor that DEMANDS (and I mean demanding it in a loud voice and all that) that you use some sort of title when addressing said person should be a red flag. Not necessarily of bullshido or a McDojo, but just that the person might be a control freak.
At my first TKD school, all the head instructors were called Mr. __ or Ms. __. Some people preferred calling them Master ___, and that was fine too, but it was never required or expected. Respect for an instructor (or anyone else) should come from them and their ability, first and foremost. Not from some title.
Of course, if you’re at a TKD school and you call a Korean instructor “Sensei”, I think you should expect any sort of beating or berating you receive.
From now on, I insist, no, DEMAND, that everyone here at Bullshido.com address me as “Major Vargas”. If you’re into the whole brevity thing, then a simple ‘Sir’ will suffice.
And that’s an order, mister! 
I think that the martial arts attracts a lot of people with psychological problems, which is why we have so many mental McDojo ego teachers.
If I were you CT I’d simply consider finding a different place to live that would let me keep heavybags. At least get one of the big wavemasters, which requires almost no space other than a few feet around it.
Then I’d write a letter to the school, explaining your grievances and informing them that you’re going somewhere else. Maybe this will spur them to get their shit in order.
Wow. Really interesting stories!
I’ve left a few gyms in my time…
Tang Soo Do: Simply, an instructor and I had a bit of a falling out. He and I were friends and he introduced me to martial arts. However, after a time he and I had a very petty (on both of our parts) falling out. Its never been repaired, unfortunately. Obviously things became rather uncomfortable and I moved on to other training opportunities.
Ninjutsu: Believe it or not, this was NOT a McDojo in any context! This was HARDCORE OLDSKOOL training! The problem was that our instructor was a great fighter, but a lousy instructor. After training there for a little over a year, I had begun to become disillusioned with my training and had started training Muay Thai. My last class in Ninjutsu was after taking Muay Thai for about 2 months. The Ninjutsu instructor invited me to spar in order to “see what I had learned”. He proceeded to beat the living shit out of me. I mean, he REALLY BEAT ME BADLY! It was totally an ego-driven thing on his part. I was starting to go somewhere else and learn something that was much more fun to do, but equally (if not more!) effective. I had to have someone drive me home because I was too fucked up to drive my own car. I never returned.
Three different boxing gyms: The reason is the same for the first two gyms. The first two coaches took very little interest in teaching, or even MONITORING the workout. They would sit at their desks and read, eat, talk on the phone, etc. They had very little to do with the boxers. I stopped going to the last boxing gym after sparring one day. I punched my sparring partner in the head and hurt my hand… BADLY! I didn’t know how bad at the time, I just knew that something was definately WRONG! I stopped sparring and told my coach that I hurt my hand. He made me keep sparring, and insisted that I keep punching with that hand. He then made me fight an extra round after that, despite my protests. Yeah, I could have simply refused, but I try my best to respect my instructors/coaches. Turns out I had fractured my hand. Classic boxers break. I pretty much stopped going to train there after that.
gives sloppy salute
Yes, Cur! 
That is why my style isn’t named. I was told not to look at forums because everyone lies. That I should spend my time training. I had to laugh. I’m sorry, I don’t care how good you are, you aren’t training 24hrs a day. That is what my instructors tried to imply.
No I couldn’t have taken it the wrong way. I got a huge list of all the stuff they practice “everyday”. The Irony is they were online answering emails. So, the time it takes me to write a post they take in answering email. That is one of my new red flags. If a teacher says anything about forums and internet I go look and see what is up.
:stop:
Yeah, most instructors aren’t big fans of the internet, from what I’ve heard. I think it’s a reputation thing, mostly (example: You have a legitimate MA school that gets slandered on the internet. The charges are false, but they are still out there on Google.com, just waiting to taint your reputation. . .)
As for the internet, I would certainly be leery of someone telling me to do something that was, frankly, none of their damn business. My old instructor in Albuquerque didn't care much for internet MA forums, but he didn't tell anyone not to look at them, he figured we were grown men/women, we could decide something like that for ourselves. Sadly, most martial arts instructors seem to be control freaks and really get off on telling people how to run their lives. Even worse, they have people lining up and paying good money to be treated like that.
Uh, Khun Kao, no offense meant, but if I’d gotten my ass beat by a guy who teaches people to be ninjas, I think I’d take that little secret with me to the grave. Either that or spend a whole lot more time on MT, then go back there for some payback. . .
That’s all? Should we call the Dojo to attention when you enter and leave? How about a couple of Gold Oak Leaf Clusters on your Gi Lapels as well?
:icon_bigg
I like this thread. I come to this site to learn and I think I’ve passed on a few things that have helped others as well. If I can be a part of keeping someone from wasting their money or getting hurt I’m happy. Lots of good “warning signals” and “red flags” here - and I’m not talking about the 2-week Red Flag exercise at Nellis.
The thing about people leaving the dojo or wanting to train someplace else as well - I can’t help but think of how some countries will do everything they can to keep people from leaving, while other countries have no shortage of people who risk their lives trying to enter.