Lardy wrote: If someone is a charlatan, what bodies are there in the professed area of MA to prevent them from holding themselves out as a suitable teacher?
A timely appearance by Lawdy.
Moreover, what constitutes 'fraud' in MA?
If MA fraud can be proven, then surely there are criteria that can be used to define the 'genuine' article?
What would they be?
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As you travel to the mountain, there may be people ahead of you. You may pass some of these people on the way, and some of them may pass you. You are all going to the same place, so it is as well to be civil to each other on the journey!
Good luck on your journey, I hope that our paths cross, and we may travel together for a time!
If you touch my Llama, I WILL kill you!
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O.k. let you sweat long enough. G.K.R. Karate.
Go to your jobcentre look for security work they will pop up and will tell you, you need no pervious M.A. experience they will train you to black belt in under a year, O.T.E. £30,000p.a.
Basically you go door to door and sign people up before you even have a training hall or any teaching experience or M.A. experience or a hope in hell of any pride in the martial world. These con men should be brought down they are bringing a bad name to us all and selling a product not giving people the world of martial arts. Aaaarrrrggggghhh!
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Unfortunately, in the U.S. anyone can hang out a shingle, claim to be an ultra-cosmic super great grandmaster and charge $500 a week and there's no legal recourse anyone can take...
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As you travel to the mountain, there may be people ahead of you. You may pass some of these people on the way, and some of them may pass you. You are all going to the same place, so it is as well to be civil to each other on the journey!
Good luck on your journey, I hope that our paths cross, and we may travel together for a time!
If you touch my Llama, I WILL kill you!
The administrator has disabled public write access.
pstarr wrote: Unfortunately, in the U.S. anyone can hang out a shingle, claim to be an ultra-cosmic super great grandmaster and charge $500 a week and there's no legal recourse anyone can take...
In the United States, there is no federal governmental regulation of martial arts instruction, and only very rarely state or local regulation. The same holds true for personal training and most other forms of fitness instruction. Some of these industries attempt to self-regulate (in particular personal trainers), but most organizations are commercial in nature and, especially with martial arts organizations, often more focused on generating income than regulating true standards.
Generally, the only recourse is a civil lawsuit or filing with state and federal business bureaus for contractual disagreements or cases of negligence.
Martial arts is also very underrepresented in academia. Less than half a dozen accredited universities in the U.S. offer degrees related to martial arts.
In the case of G.K.R. Karate, if this were in the U.S., one could only stop them if they were committing business fraud or criminal negligence, but nothing if they're just teaching bogus martial arts. Unfortunately, we have more than our share of schools and businesses doing just this.
Yes, there are no regulatory bodies in the U.S. concerning martial arts schools...no licensing, certification of any kind, and so on. It's strictly a "buyer beware" market-
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So, if you were really concerned, what would be the logical course of action?
Lobbying your states political representative to try and generate some legislation?
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As you travel to the mountain, there may be people ahead of you. You may pass some of these people on the way, and some of them may pass you. You are all going to the same place, so it is as well to be civil to each other on the journey!
Good luck on your journey, I hope that our paths cross, and we may travel together for a time!
If you touch my Llama, I WILL kill you!
The administrator has disabled public write access.
mule wrote: So, if you were really concerned, what would be the logical course of action?
Lobbying your states political representative to try and generate some legislation?
You could. The problem with MA, though, is that it seems to me that in general (in the UK at least), the uninformed populace considers them to be a sport that kids do, that they're little different from dance / gymnastics, and that they are all quite similar - so really there's no need for formal regulation. Moreover, given that different teachers have different methods and styles, even within a specific MA, it's extremely difficult to say what should or should not be taught.
To fight out a fraud / negligence / breach of contract claim in court you'd need an expert to explain what should or should not be taught and how as it's unlikely that a judge would know the detail of what is involved in any one martial art. How, though, are you going to be able to find an appropriate expert if, e.g. this instructor says a particular MA should be fought one way, and another says it should be fought in a different manner?
In order to regulate any one MA, therefore, it seems that a detailed set of rules would need to be drawn up for that sport (e.g. the Queensbury Rules in boxing) and deviation or teaching by different methods could result in a Claim if something goes wrong.
As for GKR Karate, that simply sounds like a scam and should be reported to trading standards (and to the job centre who shouldn't be promoting scams!).
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