Quote Originally Posted by Hot Rodimus View Post
Gok I am truly suprised, hence my first post in such a long time. I would have thought that someone so experienced in martial arts like yourself would have heard of the reputation GKR has?

GKR in martial arts circles is commony referred to as 'Amway Karate' and derives very little respect from all outside it's braiwashing like influence. Google it and you will see what I refer to, its all a pyramid scheme to make money for those at the top of the organisation (hence poor classes, sub par sensei's or sensei's who are only green belt etc but get fast tracked to black so the can open a dojo or start teaching). Even the syllabus is to be laughed at (though I think you are finding this out).

In the past I have trained in Shito ryu and Goju Karate for many years, when I bought a new house and moved to a new area and looked for places to train the only place remotely close was GKR, it was never a consideration and I opted to travel 30 - 40 mins each way to a decent school.

If recognised for what it is, GKR can have some benefits, mostly for kids I think as the fitness, coordination and discipline can be good for them but that is all. Google and you shall see.
Damnit, you sound like my conscience! I must say that I am inclined to agree with you. But at the time I signed up I was feeling...

1) Desperate for any sort of MA training, as my Yang Tai Chi classes only run once a week, and since last Sept/Oct it's clashed w/ my work schedule, so I haven't really done much training since then.

2) I told the GKR sales rep about my reservations about GKR and I told her that I was solely interested in learning GKR for self defence. She repeatedly and vehemently assured me that GKR is geared for self def, and convinced me to try it out for 3 months and judge for myself. So I agreed.

...perhaps I should get a Gi and sew a Chupa-Chups logo onto it. Ah well... at least I can say that I gave GKR a go, and that my opinions about it come from more substantial first hand experience and not based solely on reputation. But I must say that so far, my GKR Dojo is absolutely living up to its reputation as a McDojo.

KalEl: perhaps your Dojo isn't like this... but Dojos like mine are giving your school/style a bad reputation.

Quote Originally Posted by Bartrim View Post
One of the few times I felt dissapointed with a lesson last night. It was freezing cold. We got warmed up and pushed pretty hard by Sensei who kept us warm by constantly having us on the move doing stuff. So I was looking forward to a real challenging lesson as I thought it would be a fast paced lesson to keep us warm and prevent injuries. It was the exact opposite. After the warm we worked on de-escalating volatile situations for the rest of the lesson. It was the first lesson when I haven't used my rehydration formula at the end as I felt fine.
+1; climate should be taken into account when preparing lessons.

I also don't like having much down time during lessons. My Chen Tai Chi teacher said that we should always be doing something physically productive in class... so for example, when all students are demonstrating forms, once you've done all you know, rather than just sitting down and watching the more senior students do their form, you either go back and practice your forms again, or if you want to watch, stand in a stance or sit down and stretch while you're watching. In GKR they sometimes get us all to do kata, and they get us to sit down while the higher belts finish off their katas, but in the mean time you can feel yourself cooling down. So I just keep stretching to keep myself warm -- cos later when everyone's told to get up and resume training, I hear all the non-brown belts moan because they feel stiff... whereas I'm ready to jump right into it.

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*Yeah, I don't know why they spelt "defence" as a verb instead of a noun.