Is your school's traning BS? Take the test

Is your school good for self defense or fighting? Take the test

EDIT: Due to the help of some people on this thread, as well as over on BS, I will be editing a few questions to reclarify their intent. Those numbers are: 2, 3, and 12. Thanks to all who pointed those out.

How to tell if your school is BS or not for the untrained eye.
This is a list of red flags that should go up when training at or viewing a school. Add up the points with the numbers you've experienced to see where your school falls.

Keep in mind that some questions may not apply to your school (eg. boxing gym isn't expected to teach grappling) BUT if your school does attempt to teach something they are not focused on, then holding them to these standards applies. Be as honest as possible with yourself, and then take a long hard look at what you're actually spending your time and money on, as opposed to what you could be doing.

1. There are Black Belts under the age of 13 (+3pts)

2. You ARE OFFERED to spar/roll medium to hard contact:
Every Session (+0 pts)
Once a Week (+1pts)
Once a Month (+3 pts)
Never (+5 pts)

3. You're told MMA isn't like real fighting. This implies that MMA is nothing like a real fight because >insert excuse<. Saying it is the closest thing to a real fight, but not the same thing, does not count. (+1pts)

4. The majority of the techniques you learn you can't pull off live in sparring, and you've never seen your instructor nor anyone else use them successfully either. (+2pts)

5. If #4 applied to you, then when questioning your instructor about that issue, you get the response that this is because the moves are too "dangerous" or "deadly" to be used within sparring or rolling. Usually this is followed up by a quick reminder about "how we all want to get to work" the next day, and how we aren't out to hurt each other. (+4 pts)

6. You ever hear the words "anti-grappling" being used to describe what you are learning (+2pts)

7. You're told sparring builds bad habits (+4pts)

8. You are never shown to cover properly to protect from strikes, but rather were shown a plethora of intricate blocks and parries. (+2pts)

9. Belief in "No-Touch Knockouts" (+3pts)

10. Belief in the practical use of mystical "chi" energy in every day combat. (+2pts)

11. You spend time learning how to utilize pressure points to control or incapacitate your opponent (+1 pts)

12. Your instructor pronounces Royce Gracie's name with an "R" (should be with an H, like "Hoyce") (+1pts)

13. Testing for rank requires only repeating moves in the air or on mostly compliant partners/uke's. (+2pts)

14. You spend more classtime watching your instructor demonstrate techniques on compliant dummies, than you do actually trying to apply those techniques live. (+2pts)

15. For every adult student there is 15 child students (+1pts)

16. You're taught kata is to a martial artist as shadowboxing or heavybag work is to a boxer (+1pts)

17. Grappling being taught but there being no certification of the instructor having formal training or competition experience. (+3pts)

18. You've never seen your instructors spar or roll with anyone but compliant uke's (+2pts)

19. You're told that ANY strike whatever it may be (groin kick, shin kick, eye gouge etc...) will stop any attacker in their tracks. (+2pts)

20. Everyone's uniform is clean pressed and neat, in good condition and perhaps even has pretty little sew on patches that don't look faded or worn in the least. (+2pts)

21. You simply look at the higher ranks, and can plainly see that they are unfit/can't spar/or just plain suck. (+4pts)




SCORING:
0-2 Your school is an awesome place to train. Good find!
3-5 Some fishy stuff, but still sounds pretty good.
6-10 There's a few red flags here, but perhaps you or they can explain themselves.
11-15 I'm not liking your explanation
16+ Your school is undoubtedly a bullshido ridden mess. Get out while you still can! Don't drink the Kool-Aid!

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50490

 

My current school scores a 1
My old Kempo place is running roughly a 31-39 average depending on which instructor's we're talking about.

 

Got a 4 for my school! At least we are scrubbing hard to lose the McDojang monicur!

 

how do you pronounce royce gracie's name?

i've only ever seen it in print.

 

Silent "R"....

 

Almost, the "R" is pronouced like an "H." I.e. "Hoyce Gracie."

 

Did this on Bullshido yesterday, my sons old TKD school got 26 points. His present Muay Thai gym got 0 and his Judo got 1, but as they seperate kids from adults the result should be another 0.

 

ahhhhhhhh. thanks.

 

Currently hitting a 1 and thats only because we dont train every single day of the week so sparring with myself is bit silly.

 

0-12 depending on the count.

My dojo awarded junior black belts to those under 16. To get a real black belt one had to re-test again at that age. (Might have been 18, I forget) The junior black belt test consisted of about 3-4hrs of katas and drills followed by another hour of breaks and sparring.

It was not part of the main cirriculum (Being a karate dojo), but we were showed a few basic defenses against being taken down.

The only PPs we were taught to use are the ones that work. I have used an Eagle Claw IRL to drag a person accross a room.

Adults and children trained seperatly at different times. The higher belts had seperate classes as well.

We learned a few basic locks, throws, and take downs so that we would have an option other than beating someone senseless should we need get in a fight, or have to control an opponent.

We were expected to come clean and presentable. Belts, however, were never washed or allowed to touch the floor (Unless we were wearing them). This was more of a traditional thing then anything else.

Because of that I beleive it was more of a 0-2 then a 12.

 

Formal training or competition experience in what?

 

You're the second person to say this! damn I meant every session, not every day. If you train twice a week, and spar sometime twice a week then that counts

 

My old school is a 19, while my new school is a 0.

 

Well this is just my opinion based on what you've said.

Ya know I didn't really account for this, and I don't know the value your schoo l places on a Junior BB so I'll leave that call up to you if you think they deserved it based on its worth. I'll give it a 0 for now.

Nope, you didn't hear the words. Doesn't count.

This is why I made this worth so little. A school could still teach pressure points, as long as the rest of the stuff was more "solid" or "high percentage" then that's fine. 1 point so far.

This question meant overall student count. ie: You have 4 adult students in the whole school and 60 child students. This is kind of a sign of the direction your school focuses. 0 pts till you know the answer to those #'s

Eh, I wouldn't count that. I didn't clarify, but I meant grappling as rolling on the mat showing different escapes and such from typical grappling positions (ie: Mount, side control, guard, etc...)

This didn't imply washing, it was more of a sign of use. My Judo gi is washed after every session, but the material is now worn (been training for 10-11 months) and there's a few blood stains that just won't come out. There's a big difference between "clean" and "formal enough to be comparable to a generals formal garb, medals/patches and all" 0pts here.

Based on what I know, I give you 1pt. Nice.

 

Who the hell is Royce Gracie? Why does anyone give a rat's posterior how his name is pronounced?

 

Your system is a bit biased to be honest and messes up pretty much every JJJ and Karate school even legit ones. It's the tradition to demonstrate techniques on a compliant partner (how do you mark someone to achieve a grade from flailing about on the floor?) and do you mean to say that you can instaneously learn a technique from a partener who is resisting to the max? Alive training and struggling to understand what the hell you are doing are different things...

 

It aint my fault you worded the question wrong.......bloody incompetance

*giggles*

 

That's not exactly true - my JJJ dojo scores a three on this test (we only spar or roll once a week but we only get to train once a week at the moment due to location problems, we have a bigger kids class than adults class [not exactly as bad as 15 to 1 though] and we have a play with pressure points now and then mainly for fun rather than actually believing that they work in a fight)
The way we use techniques "alive" is to drill them a few times in a compliant manner to get the gist of it, then drill with varying degrees of resistance and then try to use them in sparring or rolling, the same as most places that use live training

 

While I see that there's an emphasis towards sparring in every class, I don't see how you go from "You spar/roll medium to hard contact:
Every day (+0 pts)
Once a week (+1pts)
Once a month (+3 pts)
Never (+5 pts)" To you only spar all class long.

I see this: "You spend more classtime watching your instructor demonstrate techniques on compliant dummies, than you do actually trying to apply those techniques live. (+2pts)" But there's a big difference between this and being shown a technique, drilling it on an increasingly resistant partner, and then ultimately incorporating it into sparring.

As for marking someone for promotion when they "flail" around the floor, it seems to me that the quality of the flailing would be critical.

 

It even catches most Judo and BJJ schools as well. How about the elbow to the inside of the knee trick for passing guard or grinding the forearm on the jaw while crossfacing someone? Yup, they're using pressure points.