Parent’s Corner
by Sije Veronica Sas
Fu For You Summer 2026
Lately, some of my social media videos have been about the ‘McDojo”. In this article, I talk about what that means and how the Waterloo Kung Fu Academy is different from those schools. Each family has their own reasons for joining WKFA. When your child first wanted to start their martial arts journey, one of the biggest decisions you, as a parent, needed to make was where to sign your child up. However you came to your decision, you’ve picked a school that’s well respected and gives quality, in depth martial arts instruction.
Sometimes, a martial artist might refer to a rival club as a McDojo, but what does that mean? A McDojo can be thought of as a club that prioritizes profit over quality of teaching. These schools usually have rapid, guaranteed belt promotions and sometimes won’t even tell you the style they teach or who they studied under. At WKFA, we only teach 5 Animal Shaolin Kung Fu, but I’ve seen club websites that will teach 4-5 different martial arts styles. How can the instructor be proficient in all those styles to teach others?
There are no rapid rank promotions at WKFA. Your child works hard to earn each rank. However, these rapid promotion schools really do exist and promote many young students to black belt in a short amount of time. A black belt earned this way is meaningless. When my son was young, he had a friend that went to one of these schools. One day, I was talking to his mother, and she told me her son was going to test for this black belt soon. When I wondered how that could be, as he was only 8 years old at the time. Her response was “he’s been in karate for 3 years now! He’s earned it”. This was my first introduction to the McDojo. This would never happen at our school! First, there is a time requirement that must be met for each rank. When a student moves into the Adult program, the highest they can possibly achieve is Adult Blue Sash. All the black sash instructors at WKFA have trained at our school for many years. Look at the instructor bios the average time it takes to get a black sash is 9-10 years, even if they’ve had previous martial arts experience. And nobody under the age of 16 (this is often closer to 18) can test for black.
Many Martial Art schools value the idea of giving back to their art. Our instructors volunteer their time each week, they are not paid to teach! Instructors love passing on their Kung Fu knowledge. Out of all the clubs in Waterloo Region, you picked the best one for your child to train at. Our instructors are proud to help your child on their Kung Fu journey!
