 In the past few decades, martial arts schools have exploded and spread across the world. However, it also remains one of the hardest businesses to keep open. Many schools have to make business decisions and tactics to keep the doors open while still providing students with martial arts skills. So what is a McDowjoe? A McDowjoe is a derogatory term used to describe a school who so focuses on the quantity of students and making money rather than the quality of what they're teaching. They are often franchised and offer little in the way of actual meaningful training. So in this video, we're going to give you some several things to look for so that you too can tell the difference between a McDowjoe and a legitimate school. I want to preface this following list by saying that just because a school has some of these items and a couple of these traits on the list does not automatically make them a McDowjoe. A school is still a business and it has to employ ways to stay open so if you notice some of these on your school, don't panic because there are going to be some good reasons. However, if you find yourself identifying and checking off all or most of the things on this list, then you might want to take some time to re-evaluate whether or not you're in the right school. First and foremost, one of the big tell-tale signs of a McDowjoe or at least something that all McDowjoes seem to do is long-term contracts and upfront payments. Just because your school has a contract doesn't mean anything, but if you find that the school is trying to make you pay a large sum of money unless you pay everything all upfront or they want to commit you to a one-year, two-year, three-year, a lot of people kind of shy away from that. Again, it doesn't mean it's a McDowjoe, but that's definitely something you'll find at just about all of them. Also, check their lineage. Their instructor is not clear about their background or their training or the lineage and there could be something there. I mean, most schools will have a head instructor and assistant instructors, but you can usually find information on their background, who they trained under, what they teach, where they trained, their history, because you want to know who you're learning from. So if you're talking to a school or if you have a school who's got an instructor who's kind of shady or vague about their background, it's a little bit of a red flag. Also, you might want to watch some classes. If this is a school that you haven't joined yet, observe. What are the class sizes? You know, do you have a handful of students per instructor, 10, 20, or do you see like 30, 40, 50 kids or 50 students in one class with a couple instructors? Remember, McDougos focus on quantity of students. So if the room is packed and full, then you can kind of deduct that there might not be as much attention dedicated to each student as there should be. Also, take a look at the class. If a student's doing something wrong, if they're not standing properly, straight lay, they're not paying attention, the instructors correct them. Again, going back to the class size, if you've got 50 kids in the class, it's really hard unless you've got a whole bunch of instructors working with them. It's kind of hard to correct each kid and make sure each person is doing the proper form. So pay attention to see what is being corrected, what isn't. Merchandise is another one. It's okay to have a school that's got branding patches and all that, but if it's required that you buy patch XYZ and you've got your uniform, but before you can promote, you have to join the Blackout Club and that's X amount more per month and you get this uniform that you have to pay for. And then you've got the elite club that's this uniform. And if you find that they're constantly making you pay for stuff in order to advance or they're requiring a whole series of patches and garments and shirts and all that, that's kind of a red flag as well because that's where they make a lot of their money by pushing their merchandise. It's okay if your school has merchandise and it's even normal to pay for things like sparring gear, your initial uniform, even school shirts. Because some schools will, especially during summers in some of the warmer states, their kids will let them wear T-shirts instead of the Geetops, but it's usually school shirts. That's nothing to really be worried about, but if they're constantly making you buy this, buy this, buy this, buy this, it's a little bit of a red flag. Now here's another thing mainly for adult classes. You have your instructor. Does the instructor engage in class, especially in a school like a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school or a heavy competitive school? Do they roll with their students? They spar with the students. They actually interact and engage with their students. An instructor who just bought their black belt won't do that. They'll keep their distance. They'll be like, oh no, they'll either act like it's beneath them or they'll find a reason not to do it. A good instructor will want to get hands on with his students. I've been fortunate enough that the structures I've trained under love sparring us and it actually helps students learn. So if you have an instructor going back to their lineage, if they're vague about what their background is and they don't take any part in class and they refuse to roll, especially in the competitive school, that's something to look at right there. That could be another warning sign. Watch the belt test. In the McDojo, nobody fails because it's all about promotion. It's all about making them pay for their new belts, their new levels. Look at your school. Does anybody ever get held back on a test? At the very beginning of my training, I was part of McDojo or at least partially and nobody failed tests. Even kids who could barely do the material always got promoted. Fortunately, that changed later. But at the beginning, you know, it's kind of a warning sign. You're like, wait a minute, I busted my butt off to do this. He didn't. He's just standing there. There's no half his techniques. Why is he promoting? So kind of keep a look at that. In a McDojo, they're all about quantity of students pushing them through the system, more belt fees, more testing fees. So if nobody ever fails, that's kind of suspicious because, you know, not everybody is going to get their best at every test. Another warning sign of McDojo is if they discourage cross-training. You know, you have a lot of schools out there that they are the elite. They are the exclusive. You join us. You have to learn our system. Leave everything else out the door. That's not really the way it should be. You know, by training in the martial arts, you're trying to better yourself. So a lot of schools will encourage cross-training because it only makes you stronger. So if you have an instructor who is absolutely forbidding cross-training, won't let you look at other schools, won't even acknowledge anything you've learned before and is telling you to leave it all outside the door. That's kind of suspect as well because why? You know, it's only to your own benefit as a student to learn as much as you can. The only real reason they would try to discourage that is if they're trying to keep you from finding something better. So if you have an instructor who is too tries to forbid cross-training, keep that as a warning sign. Also, are students getting black belts in like a year or two years? You do have every once in a while a prodigy or somebody who spends hours and hours and hours a day working on an art. Yeah, someone like that could possibly get a black belt in a year or two, but that's not the norm. So look at the schools. Are they promoting super fast? Does the kid join in like three months from that? They're like two or three belts above where they started from? That's kind of suspect. Again, that's part of pushing the students through the system more belt fees, more testing fees. Is the head instructor of the school a grandmaster, but only like 30 years old? Lots of grandmasters out there, lots of arts. People put in the time and effort. But to become a grandmaster or a 10th degree black belt or whatever the highest rank is, usually takes a lifetime to achieve. If you have someone who barely looks like they're out of college, claim to be a grandmaster, big red flag. Put a big check mark on that one because that is a warning sign. You cannot master an art that quickly, not to that degree. Look at the class. You have a lot of child black belts. Now, disclosure, I'm not considering junior black belts here. A lot of schools have a junior black belt system, which is kind of a partial rank, part of a children's curriculum. But if you have a school who's got a 10 year old and they've got a second, third, fourth degree adult black belt, again, big warning sign. We've seen it before. That's just way too early. And even at that point, that kid hasn't even been alive long enough to achieve a rank of that stature. So something to consider if there's a lot of black belts in the class that are young children and they're claimed to be adult black belts. Does the instructor date students? This in itself does not point to a McDojo, but it's kind of a line that really shouldn't be crossed because that only can raise questions and cause other problems. So an instructor, going back to things to look at the instructor, how engaged are they in class? How much do they participate? What is their attitude towards your training? What is their attitude and behavior towards other students? Okay, do they exert themselves in an overly dominant manner to say female students or do they behave inappropriately? Big warning sign, watch out for that. Marketing is a normal part of a dojo. It's natural, especially if it's your business, you want to mark it. But there's also a line there you don't want to cross. You know, a McDojo, again, all about pushing students through the system. Quantity, quantity. Do they make you go out and they fly your parking lots? They make you go door to door. Do they do nothing but advertise? Do they spend commercial, commercial, commercial and make you buy branding, branding, branding? There's marketing and then there's overdoing it where you can tell, all right, what's the actual product here? Is the product what you're teaching or is the product of students coming in? Check out a school. Usually you know kind of what you want to train, at least an idea of the type of art. Does the school actually tell you in art? I find it highly suspect if you go to a dojo that won't tell you what style it is. Now, a lot of them out there are mixtures and hybrids. That's cool, that's fine. They'll usually tell you what they're a mix of. But they're just some weird name that you've never heard of and you can't find any information of or it's named after themselves and they won't actually tell you the style of the art, the name of the art that is a big warning sign. At least know what the school teaches. And playing off of that, do they let you watch a class? If they do not let you watch any classes, leave. You know that they kick you out when they're going to start? Don't even come back because why? You want to be able to do your research. You want to check a school out, see how they interact, see what the material is like. If they tell you you can't watch and you can't check it out before signing up, it's not even worth joining them. Here's another one. And this seems to be a hot topic on the internet right now, but the whole throwing the Chi energy, no touch knockouts. If you come across a school that teaches students how to knock each other out by throwing their Chi across the room, again, find a door. That is not a legitimate school. And there's a big push right now to expose a lot of these martial artists who do that. So if you go to a school that teaches this, that is probably one of the biggest warning signs on this list. Overall, basically if you ask questions or if you try to get information and everything is a vague answer, they won't answer you directly or they divert your question. You need to question that in itself, because again, you want to know what you're training. You want to know who you're training with. You want to understand the background. If they won't answer anything, then how can you know you're actually getting the education you want? These are just some of the main things to look for to tell if a school is a McDowjo. And again, just because you might find some of these traits on the list of the school doesn't mean they're a McDowjo. They could still be completely legitimate. It's really when you start checking off most of all of the items that you really should start to question whether or not it's a legitimate school. So what are some other signs that you should look for? Do you have experience with a McDowjo? Tell us about it in the comment section and please share this video and subscribe and be sure to buy all of our merchandise that we offer. Just kidding, thanks for watching.