Three Opinion’s from various social media posts
(A)
For 43 years I have been training and teaching, the only money I made was to cover costs, but It
never actually did ever cover my costs. It seems the current day young student cannot manage to train and dedicate themselves to much more than strapping a mobile phone to their hands and the adults do not have the time to commit to more than an hour a week.
Now could water down my karate and call it something else and teach 5 year old children boxing
type moves, loud shouting lots of game exercises to fill in the time, get the parents to sign up to a
year’s babysitting subscription, but we have standards and I won't drop them.
And yes there might be another club(s) doing all of the above, go to them go training with
them. If when asked what they are teaching, they might reply, it is mixed martial arts !!
This type of stuff, makes my karate all the more precious, because it’s thought out, researched principle and concept based honest training, in applied practical Karate .
(B)
People searching for karate do not know the difference good and bad, right or wrong. They
are innocent. So the first karate that advertises well or knocks on their door they will join,
not knowing the difference.
If they are wise, they will first examine, what is being taught, investigate by asking people
who know about proper karate and then make a commitment. Sometimes people can be
gullible by a good sales talk.
Now in Australia we have 16 and 17 years old 3rd and 4th Dans taking classes. How is that
even possible? No wonder karate is becoming a sloppy joke with some really dreadful
reputations out there .
(C)
We have two types of leaders in the karate world. The first type are the sincere teachers
doing their level best to teach the art. The others are karate instructors today who are either
(a) exploiters, (b) thieves, (c) deceivers, etc. who have no interest in the development of
students.
Their only interest is all ego based, money, fame, glory, and a whats in it for me, mentality. The
sincere ones will hold on, but they are hard to find, by those who want self-defense and life
skills lessons.
Karate has always been, and should continue to be about relationships, knowing your students and them knowing you - this can not be done in large comercial dojo's with students coming and going as fads come and go - unfortunately this will not make us financially wealthy, but I would argue we will be spiritially richer for it
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