Door to door recruitment!!!!!!!

"Are you joking? Please explain, hitting anything with my shin tends to hurt ++++. Wing Chun and Karate both taught me to kick with my foot and that never seemed to hurt (me)."

in MT we hit with our shin and if any one backs away i usually hit with my foot/ankle and it hurts like crazy then my foot swells up and its no fun to walk on :cry:

thats why i cant imagin you guys hitting with the top of your foot bc when i do it(probably doing it the wrong way) it hurts like hell

 

Hitting with your shin or your foot is like hitting with your forearm or a ridgehand. Ridgehand strikes have more accuracy and more penetration, but are far less sturdy and are prone to cause injury to the striker. Hitting with the forearm is less acurate, but the forearm can take much more punishment than the sensitive ridgehand area.

Also, you're supposed to turn the foot COMPLETELY over when you hit with a shin kick. Failure to do so can cause you to strike with the inside of your shin, which is EXTREMELY sensitive and fragile. That might be why you had such pain when you hit with your shin.

May you achieve
Satori

 

^^ is that directed at me? i didnt have a problem wiht shin kicks i have a problem with foot kicks

 

Coming back to the point,

I haven't visited this Forum for a while because to be honest I prefer to concentrate on my teachings, and quite frankly I haven't got much time to spend responding to brainwashed Sullivanistas like "Viking", whom BTW disappeared, when the discussion turned into something he/she knows nothing about huh?
Just to let you know that, I have just finished reading the 2 volume "autobiography" of Pancho Sullivan in the Blitz Magazine here in Australia, and one could only describe the experience as mind boggling!
Now that he's got the money, he can easily buy whatever he wants, and portraying himself as the savior of the MA's is no longer difficult, being that his "best" friend is none other than the Editor of this so called - unbiased magazine!
Here is a guy whom I have known for a number of years (the editor) and who once told me he absolutely hated the GKR machinery, how bad this guy was (Pancho) and so on, because they were "invading" his turf as it were, and business was going really bad.
A few years later and I guess a lot of money and pressure in between, here he is talking about the relationship between him and wait a minute, - "his best friend"!!! give me a break!
We all knew something was cooking when we discovered that GKR didn't have any dojos setup around where this Editor guy lives, plus the fact that for years now, every magazine has some crap written about the success of GKR at the NAS (even the Tournament's application form has pictures of GKR exponents in them!)
Anyway, the truth of the matter is that as you read, yo don't find anything enlightening about Pancho or his Great Karate Ripoff, except to the fact that now he admits as having a helicopter, a million dollar ocean cruiser, a Rolls Royce and a couple of Ferraris, plus taking those who sell heaps on ocean trips to the tropical islands of North Queensland in Australia etc.
Does it sound like martial arts spirit to you? Or you rather hear the sounds of Amways coming on?
"I used to be a neurosurgeon on 1.5 million a year until I discovered Amways, and now my life has changed forever!"
More and more people leaves GKR sad and sorry, and especially more after they join other more qualified Karate or MA's schools. What a sense of discovery. What a sense of loss.
All those months or even years of time wasting. Not being recognised by any legal authority in the field, not having been taught anything of value, being part of a scam that took them nowhere etc. etc.
To continuously being blasted in every single MA's Forum that ever existed does not make a Karate group any better, regardless of their numbers.
It only proves the fact they are bad, really bad.

 

I have attended 3 National All Styles events, and quite frankly I was DISGUSTED at how it was run, not too mention the skill of the GKR Practioners.

NAS has colur belts refereeing matches. WHAT??? The refereeing was poor and biased. There is no points awarded for techniques in sparring, just who ever the ref FEELS was better. The centre ref also judges, how can he accurately score a match and watch for a fair fight at the same time. I have seen fight where the ref couldn't make up his mind what was going on, changing his descion to favour the GKR competitor

A ref (and a colour belt at that) actually had the cheek to come up to my instructor afterwards and say "You need to learn how to control your techniques!" My instructor is a 5th Degree, International Instructor, whom Grandmaster Leong has described as 'easily one of the best in Australia.'

Also, GKR represents about 99% of competitors, with their rules, if you werent winning most of them, there would be something majorly wrong.
Also the GKR cronies are in with the Blitz people who promote it endlessly in the magazine, making it seem like it is bigger than it is.

The greatest technique GKR seems to have is the ability to fake injuries. I saw so many people get tapped, and then lie on the ground whinging! Note to those actors, if you are going to fake an injury, at least make sure it is in the same place as where you actually got hit!
Also their fitness in general was very poor. The majority were overweight and 1 minute of continuous sparring left them looking like they were about to collapse.

Vyking, please accept my heartfelt invitation to come to my taekwondo club any time you like so you can show us what GKR is doing right, because I just can see it.

 

I put this somewhere else but thought I would post it here too, as it would probably compliment what falcore has to say.

Let me start by saying I am an ex GKR member/instructor and as time goes on I will let you guys know why I left.

I have read a few things on this thread that are possibly misunderstandings. I would also like to state that I no longeer support GKR and I do not like their practises at all. I do feel though that it is better to hear the truth than a lot of rumour and innuendo. Better to know the ugly truth....yes?

Firstly the Black Belt issue.

Black belts are not awarded at GKR after 1 year of training. It takes many years to acquire a BB at GKR. A lot of this is wrapped up in politics and money. Basically if you play your cards right you may get to BB within 4-5 years. To be more blunt - you need to have the right face to get BB. As many people leave MA once thay have achievd BB it is better to keep them paying and training for years. Giving out BBs after 1 year would send them broke.

I must add here that after a GKR student achieves BB they no lnger pay for training.

Fluffy has stated that SDCs get a BB in 12 months - total bulshido, An SDC can achieve BB in 2 years if they are an ARM (assistant regional Manager) and are in a position to be taking over or starting up a new region.

From what I have learned from other karate clubs, a student can achieve BB after three years average of consistant training.

Instructors

Many Instructors start at lower kyu grades, the average is Blue/Red belt (approx 12 months training) though many are green and there are some orange belts (3 months). These people wear a black belt with a white stripe down the centre. This may be the BB grading at 12 months you heard about, it is not a BB and any instructor who tells you it is is talking Bulshido.

There are Black Belt instructors who are very good and they have many years of training behind them BUT they are few and far between. I had a fantastic Nidan instructor who I have the greatest respect for, I was one of the fortunate ones.

These people are not paid by the club except for a small percentage of the fees they collect at the end of the year. It does not even cover petrol costs.

Instructors are not kids off the street. The youngest age a student can start to teach is 18. In the past there have been 16yo. I do not agree with this at all.

The SDC - Self Defense Consultant

The door to door sellers (SDC) talk a lot of ****e - the standard joining fee is $50.00, even if you ask them to come back another night. DO NOT BE CONNED into forking out the $160.00 - If you want to join up with a dojo instructor it should be no more than $90.00 (this goes into the instructors pocket)

I know some people who are great who do this job and have a lot of time for them. Others are just.......idiots

One thing though, the door to door people rely on this money to survive. They are not paid a cent from the club. I have heard stories of people getting into serious financial difficulties working for GKR.

I do not know a lot about this area as I an not and have never been an SDC.

Management

GKR is split into Regions that are run by Region Managers(RM), some are nice, some are not so nice. Most are a part of the 'Robert Sullivan (RS) is a demi god' cult. I heard my RM talk about RS and this was just weird. It is part of what made me a bit suss about things. (that and actually meeting the man)

Basically they are out to make money, and karate takes a second seat to this. There are a few RMs who are the exception, but these guys actually come with a MA background that does not start with GKR. They tend to have smaller regions and a higher standard of instructors and students.


The standard of Karate

This really depends on where and with whom you train.There is no 'standard' to use a word. I was fortunate enough to have a very good instructor. He trained under Stacey Karetsian and some of the awesome original members of GKR from nearly twenty years ago. He passed on a lot of knowledge and experience to his students who later became instructors. He was also very demanding and has high expectations of his students. I have done classes with him in which I was convinced I was going to die before the end. However he cross trained elsewhere (without the club knowing).

Cross training with another style or club by instructors is frowned upon, I was never told but it was an understanding that instructors did not do this. My RM was not as strict as some on this matter but he preferred it was not done.

Unfortunately GKR loses a lot of their good instructors and those with potential as many are treated like **** by the RMs.

GKR is very good at teaching basic technique. If you want anything more than that look elsewhere. There is no real understanding of what you are being taught (unless you have an instructor who has bothered to do their best to learn) and this includes kata applications etc. When I moved on to my new club I was lucky enough to have a good enough technique that I had an idea of what I was doing.

Self Defense is what the club uses as its main selling point and many instructors do their best to teach what they can. Though some RMs do not teach good Self defense for the instructors to pass on to the students.

Insurance, police checks, instructor accreditation, first aid certificate

In my region this was a joke. The RM is supposed to do this for all new instructors. It never happened in 3.5 years that I was instructing. Some RMs are more on top of this but it comes down to when and if they can be bothered. Instructors pay for their own first aid certificate if and when the RM arranges for the course to be done. GKR would be stuffed if an allegation of child abuse was made.

Robert Sullivan

I have met this man on a number of occasions and he seems like a nice guy BUT there is something about him that just does not feel right to me. He claims to be a born again christian, but the way GKR is structured is very unchristian like. RS is also not afraid to take people to court. He has done this with another company that he started up in Adelaide before he founded GKR. It was an irrigation company that he basically tried to do the same with as he has done with GKR. He ended up in court with people stating they tried to steal his company. If this sounds familiar, he did the same thing a few years back when another group tried to break away from the club. He nearly financially ruined them and it got very nasty.

He may not be a con man - but he is very dodgy.


I hope this helps you all.

I have to end this by saying that I met some fantastic people in my time at GKR and made some great freinds. They are still great friends, I have had their full support in my decision to leave, but then I was lucky.

 

To add to the above, I need to say that falcore is not alone when he says that he was an orange belt, I was too, though I was a green belt when I went into my own dojo. It is uncommon in aussie, but it does still happen.

I agree with him about some of the SDCs and ARMs. We had one SDC who became ARM and he was a crap instructor. Whenever we had students fail a grading, they generally came from his dojo. This guy is now in the uk running a region :Alien: as far as I know he is not yet a BB.

I can tell lots of other stop but it may identify me and get me into trouble. My brother is still involved in GKR and I do not want to hurt him as RMs have nasty ways of taking things out on other people because they cannot get at you directly, as falcore will agree with me.

 

It really does sound like a cult. This behaviour by RM's is tolerated????? I can't believe it.
It actually sounds like this is an organisation that can do people harm. Maybe it is up to legitimate martial artists to stamp out this kind of thing

 

Have you never played football? Or does it hurt too much. There are a lot of people who complain about the physical pain that martial arts sometimes gives. Your muscles will ache, you will get bruises, you will be mentally frustrated. We are doing martial arts!! Not poker!! We are training our body to adapt. If you're saying that you can't kick someone with a certain part of your foot, you should quit

 

Depends what the reasons for him not being able to hit with it??
Also I'd say adapt your training before telling him to quit.

 

...or even in Oz?
You used NAS as the yardstick for how capable the GKR guys are in MA, but NAS is a spin off of GKR. They are sister organisations in UK and Oz.
NAS and GKR stroke each others' egos....and make loads of cash!

 

gkr island

GKR island
I saw that in one of the posts, ha ha ha, where did you get that one. Is it going to be like Thunderbirds with lots of machinery. Sullibird 1 and 2
You guys crack me up with the rubbish you make up. Maybe they are planning to take over the world like Orwell's 1984.
I bet the reason the GKR people don't post on here is because you guy's beast them if they try to defend their clubs.
How do you guys know what their clubs and classes are like if you have never been to one? What also makes me laugh is you all seem to be such experts on everything and nothing.
I thought MA people were supposed to be humble and full of wisdom but all I have seen here is arrogance and rudeness which is why most people do not bother with MA.
Good luck to GKR if they are more friendly than you guy's at getting the paying people in through the doors and are more family orientated. if it gives people self confidence I am all for it.
By the way you all go on about self defence, how many of you have really, really had to use it outside your dojo, I bet not that many of you!
Anyway as Spock always says in Star Trek
Live long and prosper
PS wanted a saying at the bottom like some of you dudes.

 

So how long you been doing GKR tiger6?

 

What rubbish would that be? Could you please show what you think is rubbish?

I’ve witnessed a GKR class a number of times, I was not impressed, I also have had a chat with one of their “instructors” about the sword training they do

How so could you please expand on that?

Have you thought that bad self defence gives people false confidence which is dangerous.

How about actually debating the points in this thread and refuting what you see as inaccuracies?

Oh and FYI there are a fair few people on here who have had to use their training not only whilst out and about but also in their day to day working life.

 

Didn't take long for you to bite did it, hee hee.

 

So you going to answer the questions or are you just here to troll?

 

So which banned member has made another account this time?

 

here to troll like every one else that has posted
Byee

 

Can't say. Since giving up my mod powers I'm somewhat restricted in finding out but the plus side is I don't have to be so diplomatic anymore

 

Great that means we can disregard the drivel you posted above. Good bye and enjoy your no contact sparring.