Studying martial arts is great. It can be one of the most productive and meaningful ways for someone to develop themselves both mentally and physically. The skills an effective martial arts training program can impart to someone’s life can not only save your life in the long term; by keeping someone physically active and fit, but also in the unfortunate scenario that you are found having to defend yourself from some sort of attacker. Be it a guy at the bar who won’t take no for an answer, or your drunk uncle Joe who’s had one too many beers at the family BBQ and wants to “wrestle”. Martial arts has served as a valuable tool for centuries.

Unfortunately, in more recent years it’s also become an avenue for scam artists. Be it a collection of good intentions executed poorly, or a person or organization down right attempting to make a fortune off capitalizing on the insecurities of others, martial arts frauds have been here before Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris first dueled it out in a Roman colosseum, and they don’t show any signs of going anywhere any time soon. it’s better to learn the signs of a bad school now with your wallet and wellbeing intact then having to learn the hard way.

#1. Self-defense martial arts schools that don’t spar.

This must be the number one sign of a bad or fraudulent school. If you see a martial arts school that advocates its curriculum for self-defense or protection yet they do not spar, do not spar often, or with any real contact then steer clear at all costs. The Reason is simple: If your school does not spar or take sparring somewhat seriously then you won’t have any actual self-defense or fighting skills. End of story. When beginning martial arts, the idea of sparring can be quite alarming. envisioning having to deal with someone who’s actively trying to hurt you may want you to head for the hills. However, this is exactly why you need to do it. If self-defense skills are your goal or even a large part of your goal, you will ONLY gain those skills by sparring and sparring with some hard contact.

Now don’t mistake sparring with hard contact for meaning you must go home with black eyes and bloody noses every week to know how to fight. Hard contact does not mean sustain consistent injuries(On the contrary, school where people are injured often shows that the people running it have little control over their training environment and is also a bad sign.) It means you’re going to actually get used to doing something by doing it. A good school be it a school that does striking, grappling or both will ease you into sparring with drills, then some contact or limited force, and eventually free sparring. Hard contact is also not something that must be or should be done every single day. It just needs to be done often. A good rule of thumb is at least once a week. If the art happens to be a grappling art like Judo, Sambo, or Brazilian Jiujitsu, this[sparring] can actually be done almost every class without any significant risk of serious injury.

This is the only way to for your brain to shift into reactionary mindset and muscle memory, should an actual violent encounter occur. You’re only going to react to physical violence in a defensive manner if you’re body and mind are already drilled into doing this. Martial arts schools can sometimes be like cults in that people can get away with practices that have major logical holes simply due to the inherent mysticism of the arts. Would you believe in getting a surgery done from someone who’s never actually done in any type of medical work other than reading books? How about a pilot who’s only played flight video games?  However owners of scam artist schools ( Mcdojo’s as their collectively called in the martial arts world.) Are not concerned with that. They are not concerned with you have pragmatic testable self defense skills that have a high percentage of working. They’re concerned only with you paying them and doing whatever poses, parlor tricks, demos and “Kiya” sounds they have to make to give the illusion of security instead.

If you gain nothing else from this list, remember that above all else you must fight to learn how to fight.  To sum it up with something an old mentor told me ” You’re going to have to get hit one way or another. Better to have it happen in your dojo and become used to how to deal with, then having to figure it out in a crisis when someone actually wants to hurt you. “

#2. Lists of extremely dangerous and deadly techniques

This goes hand and hand with number #1. Often times fraud schools will seek to give a semblance of legitimacy and reason for their lack of sparring as ” they’d kill maim or seriously injure all their training partners.” This is usually accomplished by doing partner drills (compliant drills) where they demonstrate their treasure trove of lethal techniques against a stationary or virtually compliant person. Ranging from series of eye and throat strikes, to maneuvers that are supposed to “stop the heart” All the way to claims of being able to “rip out organs”. Some schools even claim to use techniques that use “chi” and other scientifically unverifiable energy sources as methods of attacking people. Look folks This can all be cleared up with a simple solution – The Verification Principle. without getting too deep into the philosophy, It states that It makes the most since logically to assume something is false until can be proving without reasonable doubt it is true. This is why you’re innocent until proven guilty in court. Except for demonstration by partners and students, none of these extraordinarily lethal and dangerous life stopping techniques have ever been proven to be true. 

When it comes to the more pragmatic techniques like throat and eye gouging techniques, these can and should be used in a self-defense situation. However, any training program that bases its effectiveness solely off of those few maneuvers being usable; and as such cannot spar due to this alone, has virtually 0% chance of success. Your self-defense plan is essentially gone the second those techniques are not in reach or usable and you essentially have no answer for the plethora of instances where something else happens. Once more, why do you need to pay somebody X amount of money per month to know to use the same tactics you’ve known to use against a stranger since you were a child? If all your academy/dojo can offer you is the knowledge “kick-em where it counts” ; The same thing your dad told you in 3rd grade, you need to be training elsewhere.

#3. Little to no physical conditioning

Do you need to be thin to do martial arts? Absolutely not! For example, a quick look at famous Judo and Sumo champions will show an overabundance of men and women who range in all shapes and sizes. I’ve known Muay Thai fighters who weighed upwards of 260 who could kick like a mule on steroids. I know many Brazilian Jiujitsu practitioners who people would consider puny at first glance able to throw around and twist large people like pretzels. Somebodies body is not an indicator of martial arts aptitude. 

The issues come when schools have absolutely no regard or even contempt towards physical conditioning and fitness. Being able to hit, kick, throw, and attack with strength is not 100% dependent on your physical fitness ability as much as it is on proper execution of techniques, however strength is still necessary. The phrase strength doesn’t matter is not totally accurate. Strength doesn’t matter as much as good technique, and you shouldn’t become reliant upon it in the place of good technique, but it most certainly still matters, and a serious program should develop it through conditioning directly along with any martial skills.

#4  Child Blackbelts and masters

This practice is most common with Tae Kwon Do and Karate due to how long these arts have been staples in western culture, and how well they are known to the general public. For example think of your favorite sitcom or TV show. There is more than likely some episode dedicated to Karate, or where a Karate scene takes place. This is most notably impressionable to kids. Kids grow up seeing Power Rangers, ninja turtles, and other heroes and they want to be cool like them. I know I did. Heck, a large part of my reasoning for initially getting into martial arts was due to power rangers. There is nothing wrong about this, and it should be encouraged to have kids learn to defend themselves at young age and start reaping all the benefits a lifetime of martial arts can bring.

However, a false sense of security helps nobody. You’re child does not deserve a black belt. nor do they need one. Most legitimate schools make a black belt unattainable to anyone under the age of 16 for good reason. With the very rare exception of child prodigies, all a black belt does for children is give them bragging rights to their buddies on the playground. A kid hasn’t been a sentient being long enough to claim any sort of mastery of martial arts skills or much of any skills for that matter. Most parents do not care about this because they want to see their child happy, and many see martial arts classes as nothing more than a glorified daycare. Many may even wonder; ” Why does it matter, if the kid can finish the program, shouldn’t they get the belt?” If the kid can finish the program, then it’s obviously too easy to be worth much of anything. A black belt is not the be all end all of martial arts. As a matter of fact many legitimate schools of training don’t even use the belt ranking system. If your school does however, and rank is supposed to mean something in your organization, it should be reserved for those[adults] who have achieved the highest level, not because someone’s parents needed a break from the kids.

#5. Long and expensive contacts.

 Its no secret that times are tough. Especially when you own your own business. As an entrepreneur it makes since to do what you must do to keep yourself afloat and make sure you get your bills paid on time. Even if you’re a sensai nobody has stronger Kung-fu than uncle Sam and the IRS.

However, from a consumer perspective – long term contracts are something you should be Leary of. Martial arts for a lot of people is nothing more than a side hobby. Something to do on a weeknight besides playing video games, and watching more Netflix. As such you have the right to try out new activities to determine if its something you want to pursue and not be penalized for it. Most legitimate schools will not even use contracts or at worst make them short term (1-3 months.) If your new school is requiring a 12 month commitment after zero or few intro classes it’s something to be skeptical of. Now to be fair there are many legitimate schools; especially pro level MMA and boxing gyms that will require a full year contract. The issue with contracts is more so that its a gamble with your wallet. signing up for a gym full of pro UFC fighters when you yourself also want to be a pro fighter is a safe bet. Signing up for a year commitment on an idea you’ve been passively nursing for a couple days to weeks at a random strip mall dojo is another. When in doubt think of it like dating. It usually takes a couple of dates before you determine whether you want to continue seeing someone and/or escalate your relationship to higher level. Imagine instead if you met someone and then had to determine essentially at face value or if  you wanted to marry them right then and there, with absolutely zero knowledge of them, their family, their current life, past etc. That’s essentially what you’re doing with a contract commitment. Determining after at best a workout or so if this is place you want to have a mandatory monthly charge on your credit card to for the next year or longer. They’re not always a bad sign but many bad schools know they’re bad schools and use these to their advantage.

#6. Mandatory school purchases

like mandatory contracts are mandatory product purchases. It makes since that schools want to generate an additional source of income by selling their own products. If you’re school is competitive in martial arts tournaments or MMA/kickboxing matches its even encouraged to inspire comradery, new team member acquisition, and support for the team on the big stage. It’s when buying your schools products becomes a obligation rather than a choice is it a bad sign.

Most legitimate schools will have decently lax dress requirement as long as it falls in line with the needs of the art. For example, studying Judo requires a Judo gi. A karate gi or taekwondo top simply is not made of strong enough material for you to accurately study judo. Studying Muay Thai requires good strong Thai-boxing gloves. Every activity will require some “cost of admission” in terms of equipment.

The problem comes when everything; right down to men’s athletic cups must be purchased from the school’s store. There is no reason why you should have to forgo equipment that meets all the requirements of the training just to increase the wallet size of an instructor. Any material that falls in line with the usable dress code and is of good quality should be usable. Once more you shouldn’t have to buy brand new versions of perfectly usable items, just so your school has more cash. From a personal note I once had a brief stint a martial arts academy that required I buy handwraps, T-shirt, Thai shorts, boxing gloves, and mouth piece. All from them. When I stated politely to the instructor I only really needed the shirt and shorts as I had done Muay Thai before and still had almost brand new gear, he smiled a condescending look and said ” yes, but you don’t have OUR gear”. Don’t waste your money.

#7. Questionable lineage

There are quite literally hundreds of martial arts out there. Some are as recent as the past twenty or so years. Others span more ancient times where historical documents weren’t as delicately preserved. As such some genuine martial arts have a murky history. This is most notable with ancient Jiujitsu styles of feudal japan, and many Chinese martial arts( Kung-fu). This is more so a symptom of deceit when your sensei tells conflicting accounts of the art, or there is no real source or evidence of the arts history or even existence outside your school and their training. Often asking about the art and its history will prompt them to become defensive. This is not as prominent an occurrence as it once was before the internet was invented, but there are many people who – to cash in on the Karate and Kung-Fu craze of the late 80’s and early 90’s made up entire arts out of thin air. They at best took a couple lessons at some other dojos, watched some movies and passively read a few books by real martial artists and viola: They’ve claim to have come up with this art. An art which they of course are now a super ultra-mega grandmaster, or whatever other asinine title they’ve given themselves.

 As mentioned, this is not as common as it was a couple decades ago but some people will instead of claiming to create a new art claim they are real masters of an already established art. This is most notable in Martial Arts organizations that have little to no governing bodies over the arts, such as in many Chinese martial arts or arts that have so many splinter versions of the art such as the case with Karate( Shorin-ryu, Wado-ryu, Kenpo, kyokushin, to name a few.) that its easy for fakes to hide amongst the ranks of legitimate schools by never divulging into their history too deeply.

To discourage this some arts police the organization very aggressively, and black-belts must have an easily verifiable lineage to a source or creator. If you suspect someone of coming from a fraudulent lineage, first do your research on the web to see if their info comes up under searches for practitioner of that system or if it comes up under any scandals or controversies. Ask them in a private and non-hostile manor about what is the system of martial arts they are teaching and for a clear history of its origin. Nobody with anything to hide would have issue explaining this. On the contrary, most legitimate teachers are happy to expand upon an arts rich history. Should they discourage or become hostile with this, or the information they give you is wrong, contradictory, or unverifiable then you have your answer.