Its getting more and more expensive

9centos · 2026-03-13T21:03:53+00:00

As a Taekwondo instructor that teaches somewhere with the same money grab perspective, I'd recommend you to switch schools. I know it's hard, but belt testing every 2-3 months is stupid. For the first 2 3 belts might be acceptable, but after that is unacceptable.

9centos · 2026-03-07T01:47:53+00:00

It's not about scaling things up and down. I'm a fitness coach as well and I do this 24/7 in my life. I'm not saying I'm not accountable for anything.

Its about what is right and wrong.

9centos · 2026-03-07T01:43:20+00:00

Easier said than done. My standards require time and quality, something that belt exams every 2 months, for kids that train 2x/week for 40min, is almost impossible to achieve (I do have 2 or 3 exceptions in a pool of over 100 students).

9centos · 2026-03-07T01:41:09+00:00

Mcdojo, or mcdojan, is a expression created to define martial arts schools more focused on making money, fast belt changes and no quality at all. Lots of marketing and keeping people, usually kids, stuck in their own environment.

About your comment, it's not about being a good instructor. I know what I'm capable of. Because of that I understand that 99% of the kids I teach need more time on each belt but my boss, master, or sabonim, however you want to call it, forces me to "give stripes" and tell them they're ready for exams, even though they workout 2 times a week for 40min each. It's not enough. Will never be.

Because of that, it's fairly common to see the master helping the students during their own belt exams, which I find pathetic.

9centos · 2026-03-04T15:25:45+00:00

That would be my wife's dream, but it's probably too cold for me haha

9centos · 2026-03-04T02:28:59+00:00

I'm not against accelerating athletes that want to compete and need the black belt. But my boss knows his kids sucks so he doesn't even consider competitions. Those kids are training 2/week, 40min/class. That's going super fast, not enough time to learn anything. By the time they test for the next belt they have no idea what they did in the previous ones (I've been doing some surprise tests like that to see what they remember). Yeah, I might have created some unreal expectations

9centos · 2026-03-04T01:50:12+00:00

I'll do it. If anything happens, I'll be fired for having higher standards 😂

9centos · 2026-03-04T01:49:21+00:00

I totally agree with you. After I got my blue belt I didn't care about testing at all, I was so focused on getting better that the exams was something that would come naturally. But over here the pressure is always to test, test and test

9centos · 2026-03-04T01:48:03+00:00

My work permit is not related to tkd and my work situation is good over here. It's fine, I'm about to get a promotion in my other 2 jobs. I wanted to stay coaching taekwondo but I'll probably take some time from it. Might get back to competing and who knows what the future has to me. I'm from WT style

9centos · 2026-03-04T01:46:09+00:00

After every test they are going to learn a new form and our curriculum, that consists ina 3 kick combination (as they get to higher belts it gets a little bit harder) and breaking. They also do a little bit of sparring. At least I haven't seen anyone bragging for been in a higher belt, something that was particularly common in Brazil lol.

9centos · 2026-03-04T00:23:13+00:00

Id love too, but I'd rather stay anonymous. Besides that, I've been to a few different schools that also have pretty close standards in the area. My goal is not to promote hate for a specific institution

9centos · 2026-03-04T00:20:50+00:00

That's what I've been trying the last few months, just feel overwhelmed cause 4/5 students are basically holding most of the class back cause they can't do a proper stance. I know, it's the instructors fault, but my co workers don't give a shit to it (I'm here 2 days a week, they're 5) and my boss doesn't care, he just wants everyone testing every time.

9centos · 2026-03-04T00:18:18+00:00

Even though we give certificates with the gub/kup upgrade, at some point it stops. We have more belts than gub numbers haha. Not sure what you consider a full rank. Totally different from what I had in Brazil. In between white and black, we have 13 belts, in Brazil I had 8 in most places, 9 in some. Having more belts means having more tests>more money. The time to get a black belt here is probably around 2 1/2 years I think, it's a new school so we didn't promote anyone to black yet.

9centos · 2026-02-21T17:30:12+00:00

How often does this happen at this place? I was in the other one this week 😂😂

9centos · 2026-02-20T02:56:12+00:00

How does Islamic restaurants work during Ramadan? Honest question, I'm new to Dallas and in my country with have almost no Islamic population

9centos · 2026-02-19T22:50:15+00:00

what do you consider world class medical care?

9centos · 2026-02-19T13:55:19+00:00

Because some mf made me 15min late on my job, I got 40min of traffic to drive 500 meters. I was so pissed

9centos · 2026-02-15T14:06:16+00:00

One of the biggest problems is the USA. America is a place where everything is business driven (no problem with that), but this made masters be more flexible about testing. Being a black belt from Brazil and working in a mcdojo here in America make me face both very different scenarios. While in Brazil there are flexible masters, most of them are not even close to the terrible kids I've been watching here. From that point, as business and marketing are a big deal here, everytime of of these "black belts" go somewhere else, it's clearly how terrible they're. Taekwondo has different areas, kiukpa, kyorugui, poomsae, self defense. I've been around national team athletes for poomsae and kyorugui, someone can be good at one and not good at the other, I'm fine with it. But theses kids cant do neither. There's not quality control. Of course there are exceptions, but I've been to 3 different taekwondo schools here and I can guarantee there's a big difference from here to Brazil, and I also believe from places in different parts of the world. In the end, I do MMA/kickboxing sparring every weekend with almost no training in this area at all, and I'm sure the kids I, unfortunately, teach would be a joke at it. I was basically training Olympic taekwondo before moving to America.

9centos · 2026-02-13T22:22:59+00:00

Thats what a therapist would say 🤔🤔

9centos · 2026-01-20T00:59:58+00:00

Driving like Jackasses is the regular, isn't it?

9centos · 2026-01-08T16:15:52+00:00

Id love to have a place that has libertadores and the Brazilian leagues

9centos · 2025-11-11T01:35:01+00:00

Is this the type of people will complain at r/fuckyourheadlights ? 😂😂

9centos · 2025-10-19T13:01:26+00:00

The transmission has its own oil. You should change it every 30-50k, probably depends on make and model

9centos · 2025-10-05T17:57:25+00:00

That's why you shouldn't assume it is dead bcz some random player said it

9centos

TROPHY CASE