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Do You Dojo?
Finding the Right Martial Arts School for Your Child
By Tenna Perry
Black belts are issued a certificate for each degree they earn. Tomaselli recommends finding out who the Sensei of the school's main instructor is or was, then call for verification of the degree and teaching credentials. Find out what belt ranks the school's instructor is qualified to promote students to. A first-degree black belt sounds impressive until a student works his or her way up through the ranks and then finds out the goal, a black belt, is actually out of reach.
Shirley Epperson of Crosby, Texas, had her son in a martial arts program for several years. He reached brown belt (the rank right under black) but continued to be put off for his black belt test. Instead, she paid two years' tuition for her son to go into the school and teach the lower belts but received no further training of his own.
"Jesse finally got tired of being told it was his attitude and had enough and quit," says Epperson. "It wasn't until I was speaking to my brother (who knew the instructor and his rank) that I found out first-degree black belts can't advance a student to the same rank. The instructor has to be at least two degrees above the one being tested."
The qualifications of the instructor are just one aspect of investigating a possible martial arts school for your child. A parent's best bet is to shop around, observe several styles, schools and instructors and then find the one that best fits the child's needs. The best schools may not be the prettiest in an expensive shopping center. Instead, it may be the smallest, most unadvertised dojo where the students and instructors make the school, not money.