Why should I care what the local McDojo's think?

An instructor I'm friends with, who does't believe in contracts and other types of ruthless business tactics, called and said "You know some of the school business secrets you've posted on your website aren't going to make you very popular with certain other schools, owners, and instructors, in your area."

My response: "Think about what most of them teach adults, how they teach them, what they really stand for. It doesn't have to be that way, especially if someone informs those adults what to lookout for upfront. Many an adult will only try martial arts once, and if a school teaches them the wrong stuff, they can easily become frustrated and give up on the martial arts forever, tainting their image of the martial arts forever."

95% of the schools I've seen in our area teach adults over 30 yrs old unrealistic techniques that are hard on their bodies: jump kicks, head high kicks, etc. Personally, I think I'm being very conservative and kind when I estimate its 95% of them. I'd almost place a bet on-the-table that the actual number is a point or two higher! Lets be kind and say there's a 1-out-of-20 chance an adult will stumble upon the right kind of school, even though industry statistics say an adult will only check on 3 schools before picking 1. But add to that industry statistics which state that over 98% of students will dropout and never make it to black belt, and the numbers prove that on-a-whole there's an industry problem, when it comes to training adults and getting them to stay, so they achieve their dreams!

Nearly 10 yrs ago I started a website called "Martial Arts Video Reviews", which sent a wake-up call to many a video instructor. It was needed and long overdue. There were thousands of martial arts instructional videos on the market, several in well-known magazines implied "buy my video and you'll learn to beat any blackbelt overnight". Due to "Kung Fu" on tv, ninja movies, and saturday afternoon chop-socky movies we've all seen, some people could easily end up wondering if certain aspects of the martial arts might be magical, mystical, or shrowded in secrecy. If there was any possibility of truth to that, why couldn't someone have discovered a better secret, one that could instantly teach anyone how to beat the super blackbelts many of us had seen on TV and dreamed of becoming? I personally believe that certain video instructors preyed upon that curiousity with the way they wrote their ads, appealing to it as strongly as possible. Combine certain promises in those ads to our own human instinct of wanting things the fast-and-easy-way, and anyone that wanted to learn how to defend themself was not only a gullible victim, but a walking dollar sign to those who understood that angle.

In my assessment many video instructors really played that up, and rumors existed within the industry that some became multi-millionaires by misleading and unleashing their implications on the masses. Numerous would sell single videos costing up to $100, with insiders stating certain individuals were selling hundreds/thousands of them a month. They pulled this off by making unbelievable promises, yet hiding behind the industry standard "no refund" policy when a consumer was unhappy. Often this left many a consumer with no buyer remorse recourse if they felt misled or lied too. The magazines weren't doing anything about it, often almost blessing it due to $10,000/page ad revenues, yet the whole situation warranted that consumers be better informed! Once I started sharing on my website what I thought about certain videos, via my reviews, it made quite a few questionable video instructors upset. Lawsuit threats were often sent via email, emails saying "watch your back I'm going to find you one day", even death threats. Well guess what? I'm alive and well!

Does anyone think I really cared what a few dozen questionable video instructors thought of me, or if they were upset, compared to God-only-knows how many consumers they'd likely taken advantage of? What came about from my reviews was a public resource where video consumers could get an opinion from the other-side-of-the-fence. Even more interesting was noticing that the website traffic at times reached 10,000 visitors a month!

Was I crazy to provoke a few video shysters into hating me? Well, throughout those 10 years 1000's of video consumers sent me emails, letting me know they either had lots of the videos I said were garbage, and yet about 99% seemed to agree with my assessments/reviews. These emails basically said the same sort of thing over-and-over again, something to the effect of: "I wish I'd read your review before buying, it would've saved me money, now I'm stuck with this no-refund-garbage. Next time I'm going to read your webpage before buying anything".

Along the way I of course reviewed dozens-and-dozens of videos by instructors that truly did create quality product, and I gave them the great reviews I felt they deserved. This created an after-effect that I hadn't anticipated. Lots of video instructors that I did a glowing review for would get it touch with me, thanking me for the review, and with many we've stayed in-touch over the years sharing tons of ideas and information with one another. This was one of the most incredible benefits from doing the reviews that I hadn't anticipated, never imagining I would be able to classify many high quality video instructors all over the world as friends. That was truly surprising because many dojo instructors I've been around I felt had skewed my perception due to either being a bit on the egotistical side, snobbish, only out for money, or not really wanting a personal connection with their students.

Looking on the opposite end of the spectrum, many video instructors who created a poor quality product ended up practically hating me, and let me know it, over poor reviews they got. Did I learn to live with that? Sure, as it seemed such was the cost of undertaking what I was doing, compared to the larger audience receiving the most benefit by those reviews, the video consumers.

Initially I did the reviews for martial arts consumers, and to get-back at those I'd felt ripped me off too with their no-refund-policies. It just felt like a war that needed to be waged, went too many years unfought, and that someone needed too but no one was willing too. Fast forward numerous years and it almost seems like here we go again, same thing but a different audience. Now its prospective students vs school owners, and revealing hidden agendas/truths, so that doesn't get in the way of adults achieving their dreams, or giving up on them.

Will several articles on my schools website likely anger some local school owners? Sure they will, but think of the type of schools it will anger, and why it will! I've revealed their games and inadequacies to their audience. Why shouldn't those that play games, and/or train adults unrealisticly, have that revealed? Doesn't doing so benefit a much larger audience? Can I live with that and do I think its proper to do so? Does anyone who knows what I've done for the past 10 yrs (the video reviews) really need to ask? ;-)