Total McDojo Scam
I started my son at "karate" here because I wanted him to learn some self-discipline and self-defense. After a few months it became clear to me that this place is nothing but a money mill designed to fleece the gullible.
I'll start off with the good, as there actually is one thing. Most of the instructors are really good with kids. They make the classes very fun and my son loved them. However that ends the positive portion of this review.
The thing that pushed me over the edge was after about two months of training my son "qualified" to test for the yellow belt. I was given a paper informing me of his great accomplishment and then letting me know I had to pay $60 for the test by a certain date. If we paid ahead of time they generously reduced the fee to $50.
I can't say how many things struck me wrong about this. Paying $60 to test a 4yo for a belt is just ludicrous. And what exactly are we paying for? It isn't the instructor's time, as they cancel all classes during testing week, so the classes we paid for aren't being given. It certainly isn't the $2 worth of fabric used to make the belt.
This belt test fee prompted me to google and see if this is an industry standard. To my chagrin, but not surprise, I learned the term "McDojo" and found that Brandon's ATA fits every single criteria for my new vocabulary word. What is a McDojo you ask? Here is the definition off the McDojo FAQ -- A McDojo is a school that teaches a watered-down and impractical form of martial arts in the name of making money. They place the importance of profit well ahead of teaching anything realistic or credible in terms of self-defense, and are dangerous is the aspect that they send unprepared & often over confident students into a world thinking they can fight when in actuality they have no real fighting skills. Often McDojos teach a lot of bullshido, which is a term used to define deception, fraud, and lies in terms of martial arts.
The FAQ also lists Red Flags that your school is a McDojo and "if the school exhibits any of these, even just one, it is a 100% McDojo." Sadly Brandon's ATA squarely hit the first two points on the list as well as #3 and and #4, leaving only #5 in doubt.
They make you sign a contract that locks you into months or even years of payments. They have a ton of belt colors, including the seriously made-up camo belt, as every belt color means more dollars into the belt money-mill.
Ironically, even after reading all this on google I was still happy to pay the $125/month since my kid was enjoying the classes, but was unwilling to pay the testing fee. However they were unwilling to compromise on the belt-testing fee so we quit. In the end it turned out to be for the best -- I describe the new school we found in the last paragraph.
Other incidents and observations about Brandon's ATA--
--My son was rarely if ever corrected on his forms. Even I could tell he wasn't the greatest but he was routinely given a stripe on his belt for the most half-assed form. His effort was good, but his skill was not so stellar.
--A few weeks into our experience we had what the school calls an "evaluation" but I would term a "sales pitch." Essentially I was told my son was doing amazing and we should change to the leadership track. We signed up for the student track which is $125/month for two 30-minute classes a week. Leadership is $175/month for unlimited (during their scheduled times) one hour classes a week. My son was actually enjoying the school enough at the time that I would have been willing to fork out the $175 until we hit the catch. To do "leadership" you are also expected to pony up $700 (!) for a bag of "necessary" equipment. I can't believe people will pay that much for a young child. Children have the attention span of gnats and when they decide they don't want to do karate any more you're left with $700 of crap you'll never use again.
--I met another family there who had been conned into pre-paying for their son for a year. And, of course, the predictable happened and he no longer wanted to do karate. The mom told me how they had to drag him kicking and screaming to each class. "Luckily" for them they had a younger son who wanted to do karate and the school let him finish out the older brother's contract. But this just goes to show why this school forces you into long term contracts. The whole time we were there they had a sign encouraging you to "pay off" your contract for 20% reduction in price.
-- A new child started a couple of weeks before the test week was about to start. He performed the moves of the day in the same uncoordinated and sloppy fashion as my son (actually my son was marginally better) and was awarded not one but TWO stripes on his belt. Did he get two stripes because he was so awesome? I think not. He got two stripes because testing week was nigh and you need three stripes for them to get $60 off you for testing.
More to say but hit 5001 character limit...