Are McDojo's Contradicting the TKD Tenets ???

General Choi is credited with founding and organizing TKD, and providing the original direction of what TKD was meant to be. Decades ago he wrote the 15 volume "Taekwondo Encyclopedia", which was very expensive to acquire. It was the earliest and most comprehensive work on TKD. Not only did that Encyclopedia set cover all the forms and techniques, but it went into the character and morality aspects of what TKD should be, and gave a fairly clear direction of what everyone should avoid and not get caught-up-in! I was looking at the website that markets that Encyclopedia set now-on-CD for like $100, and was reading excerpts. The following from it got me to thinking:

General Choi says: "An instructor who teaches and promotes his art for materialistic gains (lacks integrity)." For some reason I don't think General Choi had in mind that we all train in $120-$200/month schools that require a mandatory contract, have 100-300 students per school, the owner has multiple schools doing that, along with a $500K+ house his McDojo's bought and paid for? And you can't tell me that McDojo's that run around saying "we create blackbelts in 18-24 months...come over here you can get it faster", that won't likely attract more students and add to his financial windfall! Look for what Choi says about this under "Integrity" and #6 here: http://www.itf-information.com/information06.htm

While we're on the money topic, lets move to another part of the Encyclopedia where General Choi touches upon what he expects the "moral culture" to be. Choi has a whole paragraph titled "Greed is Insatiable" that is a very interesting read. Maybe General Choi was right about the things he discusses in that paragraph. There are lots of TKD businessmen running large and multiple schools that charge top dollar, who have become millionaires, and who once they build one big school, can't wait to start the next one and fill it up with students under contract. Smells like McDojo greed to me! Checkout that "Greed" paragraph and what Choi said here: http://www.itf-information.com/information19.htm about half way down the page, under "Part Two" and then item "B"

General Choi also says on the Tenet page under Integrity: "The instructor who camouflages bad technique with luxurious training halls and false flattery to his students (lacks integrity)." Did General Choi possibly have enough foresight to say instructors may lack integrity who focus on creating beautiful expensive schools, with their own prime retail location and wonderful interiors/amenities? Could he have possibly envisioned what countries like ours might do to attract people to TKD, in an effort to commercialize and profit from it?

But let's take the last few words from that sentence of Choi's above. Could an instructor possibly be providing "false flattery" to his students by promoting them to blackbelt too soon? Especially if he knows that students from schools all around him require twice the amount of time he does to create real blackbelts? You can't tell me that instructor doesn't know "the more time you put-in, the better you'll perform"! So how does he keep that a secret? Hmm...lets make sure all of our tournaments are "closed" to those schools that take longer to make someone a quality blackbelt, because we can't have our students figuring that out, and jumping ship on us! Look under "Integrity" on # 3 here: http://www.itf-information.com/information06.htm

What's interesting is that many American TKD schools still have their students begin class by quoting the following 5 TKD Tenets: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, indomitable spirit...implying "live and practice with this in mind". So does that mean students should practice General Choi's version of "integrity" but school owners don't have too? Unless I'm interpreting something wrong, seems to me if a TKD school owner is focused primarily on making a $20K-$30K/month income from his school, or has multiple schools doing that well, that the founder of TKD, General Choi, is implying that owner/instructor may lack integrity!

Seems General Choi has given us a very detailed definition of "integrity" along with other moral qualities anyone who practices or instructs TKD should live by. He even said at the beginning of describing integrity: "One must be able to define right and wrong and have a conscience, if wrong, to feel guilt. " I've never heard of a McDojo or any "large corporate entity whose focus was money", feeling guilty about making too much money, or about putting money first, have you?

At times I wonder if I'm a little too vocal about what I think TKD has become, until I kept thinking about the things General Choi said and stumbled across this: "Confucius declared, It is an act of cowardice to fail to speak out against injustice." General Choi points that out on this page: http://www.itf-information.com/information06.htm under "Indomitable Spirit".

Personally, I think "injustice" is being served up with a smile at many TKD McDojo's all around us!

So who are the McDojo's? I'm sure you've likely heard enough ranting from me, that if I said who I thought they were, you might not believe me. Maybe it would be best if we let others voice their opinion! How could we do that? Hmm...maybe if you went to www.google.com and typed in "taekwondo mcdojo" (no quotes) you might get some ideas ;-)