Maine Traditional Karate

Sep 2023

I was in this school about a month ago looking to join a martial arts school. My first impressions were awful! For starters the school is a barn! The instructor that night was giving an off putting speech to the children maybe twenty minutes before I started what was my first and would be my last class. He by title was a Sempai and basically was demanding in a rant respect from these kids far exceeding what one might expect, not that the kids were being off putting or wrong in any way he just simply was using this school for little man syndrome and what came across as him using this school as a platform for his personal empowerment. There was no self defense training whatsoever and between both the youth and adult classes way too much emphasis on traditions such as trivial history, Japanese words or commands, and bowing! This guy literally had a couple of small boys knife fighting each other! OMG! Absolute nonsense, could not get out of this joke of a school fast enough! We did more literally nothing to learn and develop technique but they had the time for my money spent to run me through my first Kata. Karate Kata is more a tradition than actual development of technique! I say run for the hills, stay away from this Mickey Mouse Karate club as it's clearly for people fantasizing, maybe sport, but definitely not quality self defense! This school also had way too many Karate weapons, I was truly weirded out! I understand that they have some in general and that's okay but the amount was absolutely just giving me that weird vibe I would think most anybody would get that this school is a complete joke! I am telling you that you will not learn to defend yourself here in this school! You can know there are way better options available and if you give it the basic effort to look you will find it!