Just a quick question. Just say someone is advertising themselves as a Shotokan club, or Wado, or whatever. So they use that styles badge and everything, but what they do is nothing like that style. It is clear they have no idea what that style involves. So they are lying. Who can stop them?
Is there a set style badge with copyright protection? Is there a single recognised body in the system that they claim to be that can make a valid judgement whether they are in fact not teaching that style? So far as I'm aware the answer to those questions is no. If you could get a yes then you might have a case to take to court of fraudulent training, but who's going to fund it?
But that's the point. Why are frauds allowed to get away with it? Where are the governing bodies on this?
There are no recognised governing bodies for Karate in the UK. The term is so broad, and covers so many different systems and association and methods of practise, that no-one can agree enough common aims or guidelines to set up a governing body. There are a number of voluntary governing bodies, but they only have the power to eject their own members.
This is a real issue in the karate world. There is a dojo near me that claims to teach shorin ryu karate but not even close! They have butchered a bunch of the kata (for example, they don't do the nahachi katas, and they make up their own kata). The only kata they have in common with my school that I've seen (passai sho) is performed so poorly by the students it just looks like flailing. There are organizations in karate but most dojos (including many good ones) aren't affiliated.
If a school claims to teach a style, and the instructor(s) cannot show any proof of training or certification of instructor rank, doesn't that make it false advertising?
Yes. As an example I describe DART as karate, and I can illustrate it technically and historically as a Karate system, regardless of the no Japanese, no kata and no gi setup. If however I had no prior grades in Karate prior to getting where I am today, then a person might have a case if they accused me of fraudulently calling it karate. If I had continued to call it Shotokan, my original core style, after making all the changes I had made, they might also have a case against me.
It's really "buyer beware" in martial arts rather than any sort of trading standards. And with forums like this and the internet it should be much easier for a person to spot that what they are doing may not be all it seems.
Erm... no one. As long as they tick all of the boxes in terms of CRB, Insurance, safety and NGB (you name'm I'll shame'm) affiliation -Whoomp there it is!!!
but... Funny thing is that sometimes people use the same name as someone else for a style. You can see Ishinryu JJ here in the UK but I was always familiar with Ishinryu karate and wondered how come no one complained. Even within orgs there are breakaways that either form parallel clubs or create new styles. If you have 3 shotokan clubs in an area, which one knows the true path? Or do they all? I know what you are saying about frauds but that isn't an easy thing to define as one man's fraud is anothers new kid on the block.... Governing bodies?? Fat lot of good most do from my experience (you don't want to hear what I think). This isn't a police state in spite of the actions of some lately. LFD
Yup as pa smith said, buyer beware! Which is ok for people with a bit of experiance moving to a new location or just changing styles for whatever reason . Sadly a noob who knows nothing of martial arts and less about styles, is a lamb to the slaughter! Whilst we can get a bad rep 'bagging people out' it does ( hopefully ) serve a purpose in giving fraudsters little place to hide these days. You would assume most people would google a style or instructor as well as using you instincts, and the bad apples should stand out. That being said, if the individual enjoys that style or particular teacher, that's up to them! But the moral issue is, do you Let them happily prance around, if their happy? Or do you try and educate them, as you know what their doing is tosh, and likely to cause them more harm than good if they ever have to use it?
This is interesting. How did it work? I mean, how did trading standards go about it? I know there are a lot of people that have made their own style up, normally with hardly any experience at all. But if they say that it is their own invention, well, if you are stupid enough to give them your money then it's your fault! But I see so many people say they do a style that they clearly don't do. This is deliberately misleading people and using others achievements to basically con people. It's fraud. Surely this can not be too hard to stop. Just look in to their background, lineage, etc. It isn't too hard to tell a fraud. If all else fails challenge them to a fight!
I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. I've trained in enough Shotokan groups to see differences in kata (performance, number and order), kihon (siginificant differences not just in combinations but in how individual techniques are supposed to be performed) and kumite (different combinations) approaches and pedagogy that makes their sharing the same style name pretty questionable as they're different enough to be different styles IMO and yet they can all legitimately claim to be Shotokan.
It was simple, they were claiming to teach a style and lineage that they had no connection to, therefore they were committing fraud. A quick chat with the genuine people soon made this clear. I can see that with more widespread styles it could be more of an issue though.
