#95: Respect for McDojos [Video + Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #95 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Respect for McDojos.”

Is your martial arts school a “McDojo”? Could that term of derision ever be a good thing?

I say YES! If your school or teacher is helping you reach your goals and improve your life, then keep going! Only you can judge what is worth your time, effort, and money.

The fact is there will always be haters and naysayers no matter HOW you train or WHAT style you practice. So, don’t worry about the critics–just focus on YOU!

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Respect for McDojos

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TRANSCRIPT

Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #95 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

The topic today, McDojos. Now, I’ll tell you right up front, the word McDojo is not one that I really ever use. If you do, if you go around calling out schools and saying that’s a McDojo and that’s a McDojo, I’m not here to stop you. But I do think that if I rant a little bit, I’m hoping that maybe I can shape how you use that term and when you use that term.

The topic has come up when I’ve been a guest on other people’s podcasts. So I thought it was just about time that I formally present the topic here on my own show. So let’s get to it.

Like I said, if you’re going around calling other places McDojos, I’d like to believe that you are a really good person, and your motivation is to be helpful. Okay? I would like to believe that. I believe that you probably love martial arts so much that you fear someone’s gonna go into a school and have a bad experience, and then they’re never gonna come back to being a martial artist, and you want to help avoid that.

So you appoint yourself like a police officer, and you say, Hey, don’t go there, go over here. This place is not safe, this place is. I totally respect that. But I do think sometimes it goes overboard. And then the term McDojo comes up, and it starts being thrown at a bunch of schools that really don’t deserve to be made fun of, or to be mocked. And we’ll get to that.

I do think there’s a range. Calling some place a McDojo is very similar to recommending a movie to someone, or a restaurant to someone. Everyone has different tastes, and at different times of their lives, right? I mean, it’s very tricky to pinpoint what’s going to be great for someone else.

So on some level, you just have to focus on what’s working for you, try to share that, and hope that everyone else is having a good experience, too.

Okay, so again, I’m not here to stop you from saying “McDojo”, but maybe we can help shape how the term is used.

I will say as an aside, it’s always amused me a little bit, because there are so many people out there saying that’s a McDojo and that’s a McDojo, but the numbers are a little off, right? Because when you talk to this person, they say, well, that’s a McDojo. Then you go over to that school and they say, Oh, no, no, it’s not our school. It’s that school and that school and that school.

There’s a lot of people calling out other schools for being a McDojo, but no one ever says, Yeah, I go to a McDojo. So right off the bat, that kind of proves my point. One person’s McDojo is another person’s perfect school.

All right, moving on, so what is a McDojo? Sometimes people, really, there’s a very low bar to be called a McDojo.

What’s that? You have to pay for your belt tests? McDojo.

What’s that? Your instructor drives a fancy car, an expensive car? McDojo.

What’s that? You’re like in a shopping mall with paying a high rent and your instructor actually makes a living teaching martial arts? McDojo.

Hey, what kind of uniform do you wear? You don’t wear silk, do you? McDojo.

Are your uniforms red, white, and blue? McDojo.

Do you guys spar? You don’t spar? McDojo.

Light sparring? McDojo. You have an optional sparring program? McDojo.

Whew, that covers a lot of schools right there. A lot of McDojos right off the bat. Now let’s talk about styles.

Hey, what style do you take? Kung Fu? McDojo.

Taekwondo? Mm-mm. McDojo.

Karate? Probably a McDojo. Boom.

Hey, what about Tai Chi, Bagua, Xing Yi? I’ve never even heard of some of those. Oh, they’re Chinese styles. McDojo.

They’re internal styles. McDojos.

Yikes. That’s a pretty sloppy paintbrush. You’re whipping around town, painting every school as a McDojo there. It sometimes feels like, unless you’re a student of a full contact MMA Academy, and you yourself are competing in the ring or in the cage, then you’re a joke and your school is a McDojo.

I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it can be that black and white when it comes to learning martial arts, where either on this end of the extreme you have no training– you’re not even a martial artist. You don’t even go to a school.– and on the other extreme, full contact MMA and you compete. And that’s it. If you’re not in that full contact situation, then don’t train. No.

I believe the McDojos live here in the middle, in this gray area. And like any gradation, there is going to be, you’re going to get closer and closer to what you think is legit, and you’re going to get farther and farther away from what you think is legit.

But again, it’s really tricky to work around in this gray area to say, that’s a McDojo to you and that is not. But let’s push ahead and see if we can figure out what a McDojo is. Here’s something that it’s not, in my opinion.

This is all my opinion, by the way. You can make your own podcast if you don’t like it.

Some people lump in some practices at schools into this McDojo category that just should not be there, in my opinion. So for instance, have you seen videos where a teacher puts their student up against the wall and then they just start hauling off and just wailing away and just bashing him in the head and the student just sits there and, I guess, learns how to take head shots?

To me, that’s abuse. Someone should call the cops. That is straight up battery, assault and battery, criminal behavior. You call the cops when that kind of thing happens, right? Find a new school. To me, that’s not a McDojo. That’s a criminal enterprise. That’s criminal activity.

Same thing if there’s cameras busted in the locker room. The guy’s a pervert, put cameras in there to watch the girls change. That’s, again, criminal activity. It’s not a McDojo. Leave the McDojos out of it. That’s a criminal. That’s an invasion of privacy.

Same thing for long-term contracts. Oh, you’re tied in for a 10-year contract, paying X dollars. You got to sign away your house as backup. This is an unethical business practice, probably illegal. You should never even have signed this thing. In that case, call a lawyer.

So I really don’t think McDojos should be lumped in with criminal enterprises or places that are practicing straight up fraud.

What if they say, Oh yeah, I’m a black belt in such an art, but it turns out they’ve never trained in that art whatsoever? That’s fraud. That’s not a McDojo. That’s straight up lying.

If they said, Oh, I trained with this famous person, but they never did. Again, fraud.

If they say, Oh, if you learn this one-month program, you’ll never fear any man, you can win any fight. This is all combat, street-ready self-defense. That’s obviously marketing overreach and silly. But again, I would put that just as fraud.

So those two categories, whether it’s a criminal enterprise, straight up fraud, in these cases, you’re calling a cop or you’re calling a lawyer. And there’s one other category, now that I think about it, that also should not be lumped in with McDojos, and that would be mental illness.

You’ve seen these videos, you know what I mean. Some of these people just have a real break with reality. They’ve clearly had some type of brain trauma, or something’s wrong. There’s a deluded nature to the person, and in that case, someone should call a doctor. That’s still not a McDojo. That’s someone operating without all of their mental faculties. And I pity that person, and I hope they can get help.

So I would like to set all of those aside if I can. Any instance where you need to call a cop, call a lawyer, or call a doctor, none of those should be in the McDojo category. So if we can hopefully agree to just push those aside to a separate place, now we can still move forward.

So what is a McDojo?

Now the term itself, McDojo, obviously is modeled after the word McDonald’s, the fast food hamburger chain. But how about a little respect before you start mocking McDonald’s? A little respect for what it is.

In the United States, McDonald’s is the number one fast food franchise. In the world, it’s the number two fast food franchise, after Subway, yeah. That means McDonald’s employs a lot of people. McDonald’s also feeds a lot of people.

You’ve probably seen the sign, Billions and Billions Served. If you’ve ever tried to run a business, you should have some respect for that. They have systems in place to get a specific job done with that level of consistency is really impressive.

Okay, now I don’t want to mix up business success with quality of martial arts program, but I’m just pointing out that the term McDojo is meant as kind of a derisive term, like, Haha, like a McDonald’s. But what McDonald’s has accomplished is pretty impressive, so slow your roll there for a second. To me, they get the job done, and I respect that.

And personally, let me tell you a little bit about McDonald’s in my own life, because it also might color this conversation a little bit…

When I was a baby, let’s say five or six, I didn’t get sick much, but we also didn’t eat out much. My family, we were a stay-at-home kind of family. But every once in a while, I would get sick and have to stay home from school. And I have a couple of memories of on those occasions when I was sick at home, my dad would come home with a McDonald’s milkshake.

This was my medicine. And because we didn’t eat out much, and because I really didn’t have milkshakes that often, to get that milkshake with the golden arches on it, that seemed like the most special gesture of all time.

My dad coming in, snow on his shoulder, handing me a milkshake from McDonald’s. So at that time, McDonald’s to me was almost magical. It was very special, meant something.

Okay, so now I grow up. And like I said, we didn’t eat out much. But once in a while, maybe my birthday, I get a Big Mac. Now, again, I want to be really careful here, because I’m sure some people here, they’re not impressed with a Big Mac on your birthday. But hey, that is still a big deal for some people.

Not everyone’s got money. Not everyone can eat out all the time or choose what they want. A lot of people, billions and billions, look at that Big Mac as dinner with a straight face. And when I was a kid, that was me. I not only took that Big Mac just matter of fact, like, Okay, this is my dinner, I thought it was a luxury, like, Wow, a Big Mac. Look at this. It’s got two patties on it. It’s a big deal.

So it went from being a special place, McDonald’s, to a luxurious place. I’m a kid. I don’t know what else is out there.

Okay, so move up. Now I’m a teenager. I’m starting to work for my own money. I get a job. Paperboy, when I was young. 14, 15, I could finally work legally. First job was in a supermarket, stocking shelves, that kind of stuff. Washing dumpsters. Great, right? Minimum wage jobs.

But that money was mine. I earned that money. And in between the supermarket where I worked and a place that I could bike to, even when I had a paper route, there was a McDonald’s. So for me, it was a journey to get to that McDonald’s, but it was a place where I could buy my own food. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t being fed. I could feed myself.

And at that time, getting the small size Chicken McNuggets represented independence. My money, my decision, didn’t tell anybody I’m coming here. I bike there. I go in, I order my own food at McDonald’s. So again, McDonald’s meant something to me.

A little older now. Okay, I’m in my twenties. Eventually, I meet my wife. We sometimes take road trips. Before the internet, this is right before the internet, at least we didn’t have it, when you’re out on those roads, driving across the country, there are some stretches where there is nothing. If you’ve driven across the United States, you could drive for hours and not see anything. And at some point, you start worrying, hey, am I going to run out of gas? Hey, am I ever going to eat again? Hey, is this car going to make it?

There was more than one occasion where I’d be driving, fatigued, worried. And yep, I’m going there. Romantically, you would see on the horizon the golden arches. And you would feel, I felt, relief. You would say, Oh, thank God, there’s a McDonald’s. And that represented something. That meant I have a safe place.

We can stop, we can pull over, we can eat something, get our bearings, ask some directions, ask where the next gas station is. That meant a lot to find these safety oases along our route.

Now, moving past that, into my 30s and 40s and now into my 50s, I don’t go to McDonald’s anymore. It just doesn’t come up. I live right within walking distance of a McDonald’s for over 20 years. There’s a McDonald’s right there. We never go there, but I never sneer at it when I drive by either. I never make fun of it. I don’t think less of the people who are in the drive-through line or standing inside to get their hamburger and shake or chicken McNuggets or whatever. And that’s because I have a history with them.

I remember starting off there as a baby, as a young guy, as a teen in my 20s. For a long time, McDonald’s meant different things to me. And I still have respect for that.

Okay, so let’s bring it back. You don’t have to go to McDonald’s to respect what they’ve done and what they provide for billions of people for many, many decades. I’m going to have the same attitudes towards martial arts schools.

Not every martial arts school is meant to… you’re not meant to stay there forever. But at different parts of your life, that martial arts school means something to you. It could be just your first step. It’s your baby step into the world of martial arts. It’s that first milkshake. And you think, this is magical. There are moves to learn. There’s conflict I have to overcome. There are new relationships and new challenges to my thinking and my feeling and my body movement.

Martial arts can be really overwhelming to anyone. So you can’t just throw people right into the deep end to full contact, you know, tap out situations, which is probably why most people don’t even go into martial arts.

Wouldn’t we all love all of our friends and family to join martial arts? But they don’t. And one of the big reasons is they’re afraid of getting hurt. Right? But if they knew there were many schools in the gray area where you could step up to something like that, even if you never go there, that’s fine.

If you never end up in a cage fighting– I haven’t– but there’s still so much you can learn about yourself, so much about your life that you can improve. So I respect that. And that’s what McDojos do. McDojos keep you going.

That should be a compliment. Oh, a McDojo. Great. You are a safe place for someone to get started, to start learning things. And if you decide to stay there, I have no judgment about that. Great. Stay there. If you think that’s the best hamburger, if that’s all you’re ever going to afford, then God bless you. Stay there. And get as much out of that as you can. Enjoy it as much as you can.

You don’t have to go to the Four Seasons and get some gold leaf hamburger. You don’t have to. Stay there. It’s nice to know that the Four Seasons is someplace where you can get a good hamburger, let’s say. I haven’t eaten one of the Four Seasons, but I’ve paid over $20 for a hamburger many times, and I know what that tastes like, too. But you don’t have to, to get value out of the less expensive burger, let’s say.

And that’s another issue with these McDojos. I think a lot of times people call out McDojos and the presumption is that everybody in that school is deluded. Like they don’t know what they’re getting in that school. There’s this fake idea that, okay, we all agree that full contact MMA is the gold standard and anything less is a McDojo. And anybody in a McDojo who’s not doing that stuff doesn’t even know how stupid they are. They’re all idiots. They don’t even know what else they could be doing.

But that’s false. That’s totally false. I’ve met a lot of martial artists of a lot of different styles, all kinds of different business models, whether it’s in the park, community center, or high rent. Making a living or it’s a volunteer kind of thing. I’ve met all kinds. I don’t actually run into that many people who are so deluded that they don’t know where they are and what they’re doing.

If you go into a McDonald’s and you ask the employees, Are you guys making the best hamburgers in the world? I don’t think you’re going to find many employees who say, Yeah, these are the best hamburgers in the world. Right?

If you go through a McDonald’s where people are eating, and you say, Is that the best hamburger you could ever imagine eating? I bet you most people would not say, Yes, this is the best hamburger you will ever eat in your whole life.

They’re not deluded, but they go there because it’s functional for them, it’s comfortable for them, it’s affordable for them, and that’s great! I respect that.

So I would just like to eliminate that idea that if you’re in a McDojo, which I don’t think is a bad thing, that’s part of my premise here, if you’re called a McDojo, don’t take that as an insult, because you’re getting some job done there. Some function is being served. It’s not worthless. There is value. It just depends who you are and what you want and how far you’re looking to go.

How good a hamburger do you want? And if you’re honest about what you’re eating and you’re honest about what else is out there, then what’s the problem? Why should I be made fun of for eating a McDonald’s? Leave me alone. Mind your own business. Eat your own food. It’s all relative.

My mother is over 70 years old. She’s never trained in martial arts. If my mom calls me and says, You know what? I finally watched one of your videos. I’ve been interested in martial arts. What should I do?

I’m not going to tell my mother, Okay, Mom, that’s great. Here’s what you got to do. Go into Google and look up local Muay Thai gyms. Okay? And ideally, try to find a Muay Thai school where they have a BJJ program on off nights, somehow incorporated. I need you to get your strikes up, and I need you to get some groundwork, and you can get some rolling in, Mom.

And ideally, listen, Mom, when you walk into this place, it would be great if there’s really loud music playing, and you see a bunch of 20-year-olds yelling, screaming. If you see some people getting knocked out, and some people with bruises and bandages on, stay there, because that’s a hardcore school. That’s legit. Anything else is a McDojo. So either go there or forget it.

I’m not going to tell my 70-plus-year-old mother that. No. But I’m also not going to say, give up. I’m going to say, OK, well, let’s see what you have in the area. How are you feeling? How’s your back? How are your knees? Are you looking to get dirty?

How much you want to sweat? Is your goal to get in shape? Is your goal to punch people? Do you want to get punched? Because everybody’s different.

I don’t want to stereotype 70-plus moms. Moms are different too. Some moms may love that environment of a young stud Muay Thai gym. Okay, good for you. Go for it. I’m just saying my mom would not fit in there.

But if she found a place where she said, Hey, this is really great. It’s a comfortable class. There’s whole families training at the same time. We use our big voices. We practice standing our ground. We get to hit some bags and make a little contact once in a while. We stand really close to each other and practice holding wrists and wrist escapes. I have a sense of enemy and holding my ground and standing up for myself.

I’d say, God bless you, Mom. I’m so happy that you’re in that program. And if that’s all you do, wonderful. And if somebody comes by and says that’s a McDojo, say great, thank you, yeah.

If it’s not for you, well, then great. Go down the street, go to another gym. But there is good work being done here. A function is being served. Needs are being met. Lives are being improved. How about a little respect for that?

We’re all different. We’re all on different journeys. I know you know that, but sometimes you might forget that when we go around presuming that everybody wants what I want. And that if you’re not fighting in the UFC as a professional fighter, it’s no good. You’re wasting your time.

Some people are not athletic. It’s the way it is. Some people have had trauma in their life. They’ve been abused. And the worst thing they could do is get it maybe for some people, to get into an environment where they’re being pinned and trapped and made to feel helpless again, being berated by a hardcore coach, whatever. You’ve got to have this gray area.

If you can lead people to the most extreme forms of training, so that they are the best prepared possible for high-stress, high-danger situations, fantastic. But I would say, however far they can get on that gradation, from no-contact, slow-motion practice, where you never touch anybody, to the hardcore stuff, whatever they can do, I respect it. Whatever program you’re in, I respect that.

Because again, we’re not talking about criminal stuff, we’re not talking about fraud, we’re not talking about abuse– I’m just talking about a martial arts training program.

It makes me think about, before I go, there was a guy, when I was in a Taekwondo school, a school that haters would probably call a McDojo. Did we have multi-colored belts, more than four or five belts? So, McDojo. Did you have to pay for belt tests? McDojo. Was there a grandmaster who sat behind a table in a business suit and lived a pretty good life full-time operating some schools? Yes, McDojo. Were there families working out at the same time? McDojo.

Okay, so you call it a McDojo. And I have a lot of respect for that school because it changed my life and it set me on a path that I’m still on today. So, great. Call it a McDojo. I respect it. I didn’t stay there. I have a different video about that. Just because I felt I kind of outgrew it. It was a great place to start for me. Some people stay. Great.

For me, I started realizing, three years in, you know what, there are some needs of mine that are not being met here. There are some ways of training that are not being practiced here that I would like to do somewhere else.

So I knew that I would not be staying in that school. So that gave me a little bit of a, a little bit of a pretension, a little bit of arrogance, because I already felt myself pulling away from this program. I already saw the limitations of it. Even though it had served me very, very well for those first couple years, like I said, it changed me, changed me drastically as a human being, but I did find myself saying, Yeah, this is not enough.

Now, at that time, after class one night, there was a guy there. He was in his 20s. And I believe, we weren’t friends, and I never really saw him again once I left the school, but my memory is that he had been in a car accident. Young guy in his 20s, good-looking guy, but he suffered some brain injuries as a result of this car accident. And my memory is that half of his body didn’t work very well. He had one arm that wasn’t very functional, one leg that wasn’t really functional, and he definitely had a problem with a lot of the movements. All right?

As I recall, he was wearing like a yellow belt, probably an orange belt at most when I left. First, you know, kind of a year’s worth of ranks. After class, I’m cooling off, doing my thing. He comes shuffling by, okay? And he was on a high, just came out of class, and he says, I love this place. Taekwondo is the best.

And I was a little arrogant, so I’m like, Yeah, it’s cool. I didn’t want to start trouble with the guy, so I’m like, Yeah, it’s cool. And he said, I’m serious. This place has changed my life. And I just, I didn’t quite understand what he was talking about. He said, This place has changed my life. And I said, Yeah, yeah, I hope so. I said it like that, really flippant, not really hearing him. And I’ll never forget how he looked at me.

He got right in front of my face, stared into my soul, and he said, No, I’m telling you. And that’s when I got it. That’s when I realized, Hey, big boy— me– hey, big shot, you think you outgrew this place. Well, that’s good for you. But that has nothing to do with what they’re going through, what this guy is going through.

This guy will probably stay here. And his life will continue to change for the better as long as he keeps training. Who am I to look down on his progress? Who am I to stand outside now and say, Oh yeah, I used to go there. It’s a McDojo. No. That guy made it clear.

I don’t even remember his name. But I’m very thankful because he slapped the arrogance out of a cocky, young dude and forced me to see life from other people’s perspectives, not just my own. All right.

I’ve been blessed. I have a healthy body. I’ve got a pretty good mind. I’ve been able to train with some really incredible teachers and great fellow students to help me get better. Not everybody has that. Not everybody can afford a $20 burger. Not everybody wants a $20 burger or can appreciate a $20 burger.

So if you’re part of a McDojo, be proud of that. If you’re worried that people are going to make fun of you, if you tell them what style you practice or how you guys practice, stop it. If you are a martial artist training in any way, I’m proud of you. I have respect for you.

I only ask that you’re honest about what you’re doing so that you don’t become someone who is deluded or thinks that you’re doing one thing but it’s really something else. And the way you figure that out is by looking outside of your school for other information. Not to debunk your school, but to enforce your knowledge of what you’re doing.

If you are told in your school that, No, we only light spar because hard sparring is dangerous, then it’s good to go check out a school that does some hard sparring and talk to those students and figure out why they’re not all in the hospital all the time. Oh, there is a way to employ some hard sparring. Okay, at least you know it. So that you could be honest about, Well, I’m comfortable here. I don’t want to do hard sparring. I know it exists. I know I could probably move to a city with a pro MMA team and try to pay enough money to get in there and work with the best coaches in the world, even if that’s not my goal, just so people don’t say I’m a joke and I go to a McDojo.

But no, you missed the point there. You have your goals. All you need to do is ask, Am I getting what I paid for? Am I getting the value that I am paying for? Whether you’re only showing up and you’re giving your time, or whether you’re paying a ton of money and your time, that’s between you and your teacher. If you are getting what you wanted out of that exchange, like any business deal, if you’re getting a good deal, then stay.

If you’re honest about what you’re getting and you’re getting what you want, then stay. And don’t worry about what everyone else is saying. That is my big message.

Okay, so to sum that up, I think McDojo is overused, and I think it’s unfair to use McDojo as a term of derision, to mock people. As if it has no value.

McDojos have value. I know because I’ve attended what would be called probably a McDojo. More than once.

You trained in Aikido? Yeah. McDojo.

Taekwondo? McDojo.

I’ve taught kids for 15 years now, solid as a career. McDojo.

Did you ever knock those kids out? No. McDojo.

Did you hand out belts? Yeah. McDojo.

Did you get paid for that? You made a full-time living? McDojo. McTeacher.

I don’t have time for that. If you’re a good person, then you should know what martial arts did for your life. And if you need to take a step back sometimes, like I was forced to take a step back by that guy who told me, no, no, this is changing my life. I’m telling you. If you need that wake up call, well, then let this be the wake up call.

Don’t just look at other schools from your point of view and your needs and your capabilities. What about my 70 year old mom? What about that person who’s been through a really horrific trauma in their life? What about that person who suffered abuse? What about that person whose body just doesn’t work the right way?

I want everyone training. It’s not binary. It can’t be full time, MMA hardcore or nothing. I respect any step someone makes on this path of martial arts. And I know if you’re a person who considers himself a police officer of the martial arts, I know that’s what you want too.

So let’s just be a little more sensitive about how we use that term, so we can welcome more of our friends and more of our families into every dojo.

Again, don’t get it confused. If you’re being abused, call a cop. If you’re being ripped off, call a lawyer. If you’re suffering delusions or you fear someone around you is suffering delusions, call a doctor. Otherwise, train honestly, train hard, and don’t let anyone stop you from fighting for a happy life.

All right, you heard the man. Oh, the man was me, okay, you heard me. Get out there, train hard, train honestly. And until I see you next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.