[kasandrasikl]

There I was, eating a pizza for dinner and thumbing through the local newspaper and what do I see but a advertisement for Samurai sword classes taught by some american who lived in Japan for 5 years now teaching in Los Angeles and calling himself "SHIHAN"... what nerve. So I jump upstairs to my computer to look up this dude's co called dojo and look what I find:

"Our main instructor, Peter Steeves, has 20 years of martial arts experience, and is the only licensed Jinenkan instructor in California. He has taught in the public schools in Japan, and helped bring the concept of "Edutainment" to many cities there. Peter moved to Japan to train with the master instructor of the Jinenkan, and is one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold a 4th degree black belt in this system."

So you have some assistant language teacher living in Japan and soaking up all the Japanese culture so he can come back to the US and teach us Americans the true meaning of Japanese culture. Hmmm...

But wait...it gets worse...

"We practice 「古武道」 (Kobudo) or "old martial arts" just as they were practiced by the samurai hundreds of years ago in Japan. Our training is based on the concept of 「心技体」 (Shin Gi Tai) "spirit-technique-body" all developed individually, and working in harmony together."

I really do not think that the Samurai of feudal Japan based their training on the spirit-technique-body... But heck, I cannot wait to take a look at this place...and by such great luck, they have a new class on Thursdays called "Combination: Samurai Sword & Ninjutsu" What a great chance to see what this delightful artform can really offer!!!

Most of the people on this great forum of ours really work hard for our skills. We put a lot of sweat and tears into training over a number of years just to call ourselves "kendo players". It just eats me up that someone trains for 5 years in Japan and comes back to be a "Shihan" of his own McDojo.

Other people like myself have trained a number of years in Japan in kendo and various arts. We are grateful for the experience and came to appreciate the finer points of the arts, but if anyone of us came back from Japan and claimed, as this dojo does that "We train on legitimate, samurai-era traditions and techniques, just as they have been handed down through generations in Japan", we would be excommunicated from all self-respecting dojos.

I am not asking you to hate this McDojo...oh no. I am not asking you to make fun of this McDojo...certainly not. I am just asking that we create an organization to keep our arts clean... It shall be know as the "McDOJO HATERS WORLD ORGANIZATION" ARE YOU WITH ME!!!!!!!?

Ok...now back to my pizza.

Alex

http://www.jinenkan-la.com/index.php