Im moving house soon and have been looking into clubs in what will become my new area. One club really jumped out at me for all the wrong reasons and i thought i would share it here and see if any one knows any thing about the organisation. http://www.britishmilitarymartialarts.co.uk The club belongs to 'Lee Mathews British Military Martial Arts' an organisation run by an x para who claims a fairly impressive karate and kickboxing background. For some reason (£££?) Nigel Benn is also involved as an 'ambassador' what ever that means. They run training courses costing between £500 and £1500 (apparently ELCAS approved) and you are then qualified to run your own club through their franchise system. To me it seems a McDojo trying to simultaneously con military leavers out of their ELC, paly on the marketing value of 'mma' and sell the idea of the military being experts in hand to hand combat. Judging by the claimed franchise earnings they will be charging quite a lot for the privilege. Does any one have any personal experience of this group?
Well, there's a few claims which don't ring true, a couple of which are included here: Completely false. My own association has at least two ex-military instructors, the rest of us are therefore civilians. I don't know what made them think that this claim was a sensible one to make, but it's patently absurd. Doesn't impact directly on the training, but it's very exaggerated (to the point of being outright false) and should therefore act as a warning for other claims made on the same site. I'm not sure what a "military flavour" means specific to the arts - presumably a lot of shouting and group exercises - but the fact that they claim to teach a mixture of these styles is a bit odd considering the list of grades that follows below, i.e. sport karate and kickboxing. No grades listed in kung-fu, taekwondo, jujutsu or any record listed in boxing or MMA. In short, it's probably karate almost exclusively, with perhaps some boxing style drills. I can't imagine how much other material could be in given the limited stated experience of the instructors in those other arts. To be honest, this looks like a very standard family martial arts business. As such, it's not right for me, as I prefer to train somewhere where the instructors are doing it for the love of the art and aren't having to cater to hoards of screaming kids to pay their wages.
Military flavor usually means shouting and press ups in my experience. You say it looks like a typical marital arts business but they have quite a lot of schools listed, its a reasonable empire they seem to be building.
I checked the Chester club out as it's the most local to me. It's in a primary school so I'm guessing their empire isn't as large as made out.
Good luck to him, but for me he's another Matt Fides. Good if you understand what you're getting into. I'd find it like a youth club, with press ups, a jab cross and side kick, but for those seeking fitness, a boxing/karate style cardio workout and something social it'll fit their needs.
