Sadly the majority of martial arts schools I encounter are McDojos. Finding a good authentic non commercialised martial arts school is becoming increasingly hard.

Having said that, I guess McDojos are kinda like knock offs. Just as people say that so long as KO sellers openly let people know that what they're selling are KOs then there's no harm or foul because then consumers can make an informed choice. It's more of the sellers who don't admit it, or even claim that their KOs are legit that infuriate collectors more because they're actively deceiving collectors.

Likewise I personally get miffed when I see really McDojos who use the words "Self Defence" in their marketing. I understand that different people do martial arts for different reasons, and not everyone is necessarily interested in doing them for learning how to fight or for self defence. Some people just like to do it for the sport, or for fitness... or just as a fun hobby. Whether they can actually defend themselves in a real fight or not isn't terribly important to them. It's not my thing (cos personally if I wanted to play a sport but had no interest in fighting, then I'd play football or tennis etc.) -- but hey, everyone has different opinions.

I've come across ONE martial arts school that didn't use the words "self defence" in their marketing, and when I spoke to the instructor, he admitted that what they were doing was just a sport and advised that I look elsewhere if I wanted to actually learn fighting. And I can respect that -- they're open and honest about where they're coming from and what they're doing. This school happened to be teaching Olympic Judo and they were teaching people aspiring to win competitions (possibly even compete in the Olympics); they didn't really care about practical fighting.

So my objection with most McDojos -- aside from the commercialisation -- is the dishonesty. It must be awful to attend one of these schools, pay loads of money for membership, lessons, uniforms, gradings, belts etc., then one day if you actually get into a real fight (or even a friendly spar with someone from another style/school), realise that everything you've been learning for months/years (and PAID for it with your money) has been a complete WOFTAM in terms of learning practical self defence (being being led to believe that you were learning just that).

There was one time I met a dude who recently returned from overseas after winning a trophy from coming first place in an international tournament. He was boasting and bragging about how great he was and how easily he beat his opponents. So I invited him to a friendly spar at a mutual friend's garage. He threw out a few kicks which I easily blocked, then in my opening move I just grabbed his throat and put him onto the floor where I then placed my knee onto his upper chest (across the pectoral muscle). He was so inept at trying to counter my grapple that he reverted to scratching my hand with his nails (umm... okay). Because it was just a friendly match I only squeezed his throat hard enough to restrict his breathing but not actually choke him (so it would've felt more like an asthma attack - he could still breathe, but it was shallow and uncomfortable). And the entire fight only lasted about 3 seconds tops.

But yeah... it was a bit of a rude reality slap... I could tell he was heartbroken after being defeated so easily (and anyone who's met me knows that I am NOT the most athletic person in the world - so if I can beat you then you know you're in trouble! )