Howdy maps:hat: Can any of you very nice Ladys and gents from the Karate section give me the low down on the GKR karate group?
My opinion, GKR are not a style of Karate, but a sales organisation selling poor quality instruction at over inflated prices. To me they are the definition of 'Mcdojo'.
Closest I've come is watching a class and training with some of their students in other settings. I've not been impressed.
thanks for the feedback guys, I think I will decline the defence consultant job then http://www.gkrkarate.com/
I think the majority of those are unaware of how much of a ride they're being taken for. They have to more or less pyramid-sell karate to people for little to no pay, assured that those new students are getting decent quality instruction, while the GKR higher-ups are happy to stick someone with 6 months experience into a black and white belt after putting them through a "Sensei Training Programme" and getting them to lead classes as a junior grade. It's always sounded utterly disgraceful to me.
I believe that the defence consultant job is a door-to-door sales role, paid by commission on the people you sign up to classes. That's my understanding.
I went looking for a GKR sparring video to show how bad it is and....erm...I don't know how to say this but...I found one that's not half bad. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfCFW6NnX9g&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfCFW6NnX9g&feature=related[/ame] Have they been reading internet forums and realised how badly they are thought of? Have pigs started flying? Is a blue moon?
I've heard rumors of people with legitimate training joining up as teachers for the money , maybe the video shows one of these groups ?
Not sure...it's just clearly a much more robust sort of sparring than the tippee-tappee stuff I've seen in most GKR vids.
That video was taken by advanced instructors. I guarantee you, you will not see anything like that in a public class. Two years since I left the group and I'm still working on ironing out the things that are plain wrong. You'd be better not training at all than training with these guys.
Theres some good training in GKR. Their national fighting team from AUS are world class competition kumite and kata peeps. thats 20 people or so out of hundreds of mcdojos who showed natural ability and were pushed through the system. odds are there is better training around you.
thanx all, it raised my eyebrows when the guy said all there SDC (self defense consultants) where extensively trained and fast tracked to BB in 2 years, I did 12 years for mine.
