The time I found out martial arts are bullshit
Published on HivePostify by @beelzebubba · Thu Aug 13 2026
The title of this is a little bit clickbait I will admit. Obviously real martial arts are not BS. Someone that really knows any of the disciplines is going to have a massive advantage in a fight over someone that doesn't, but this is not what I am talking about.
I'm talking about the "Foot Fist Way" sort of strip mall martial arts places that kind of cater to children and even though I didn't realize it at the time, was a way for my parents to probably get me out of their hair for a couple of hours while they went shopping.
I now understand why almost always, these dojos are positioned in the same strip mall that a large grocery store and general merchandise store is located in. My parent or parents could drop me off at my karate classes where I thought I was going to become Johnny from Karate Kid, and go grocery shopping or just walk around Target for 90 minutes without their kid nagging them.
I was around 8 years old at the time but it took me about 6 months to realize that this stuff was full of crap.
[src](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5a/7f/81/5a7f81a3ae1406dd3d0c2bf0155a9259.jpg)
They are all about the same. They occupy the same amount of space that a Subway, liquor store, or some other store that is always in strip malls and there is a mirror going down one side and a small office in the back.
Me and a bunch of other kids were given an outfit and a belt and we had to work our way up. All the while the instructor was constantly trying to get us to subscribe to "Black Belt" magazine because if we did he would get a cut of it I'm sure.
There was a dozen or so kids in my class and most of them were new. One of the kids was a teenager and he, I think, was being used as free employment. They must have it built into the belt system that in order to advance further you must first teach some classes so that the instructor can sit in the back watching TV or whatever. The instructor never did this when the parents were dropping us off, but after taking us through the discipline-inducing start-up, he would frequently disappear for most of the rest of the lesson and Kyle, the teenager, would take over.
They did a good job of keeping us entertained but this was because we all had these grand notions of becoming a ninja or something and perhaps our kicks and punches did in fact become stronger rather than having no training, but these classes I don't think are actually meant to make you better at self-defense.
[src](https://thekaratekid.fandom.com/wiki/CobraKaiDojo?file=TheKarateKid-CobraKaiDojo.png)
I know that in the Karate Kid we are supposed to root for Daniel-san and hate Cobra Kai but in my mind Cobra Kai was far more cool and I wanted to be just like Johnny.
My dojo instructor, I don't even remember his name because Kyle did most of the work. He would demonstrate some stuff every now and then but aside from that I would later wonder if this guy even had the credentials necessary to have this job. The movie "Foot Fist Way" puts a nice showcase on how full of crap these stripmall dojos are. I"m not trying to insult anyone that got real Karate training. I'm sure there are some really deadly trained people out there... none of them were in my classroom though. I'm pretty sure my untrained by work-hardened and quite large father could have taken on everyone in that place including the instructor with very little difficulty.
Anyway, the real eye-opener to me was the day that they do every month to showcase what the students have learned and we all line up outside the back of the dojo and split boards.
[src](https://centurymartialarts.com/cdn/shop/collections/break-boards-451750.jpg?v=1732197933)
You've probably seen break boards before and guess what they are designed to do? There's a trick though, that you can probably see just from the picture above. If the instructor were to hold that board 90 degrees to the right or left, none of the kids in the class and probably not even he would be able to split them. It's a trick, nothing more. The person holding the board can easily split these boards just by slightly bending their hands towards them and this is exactly what they do when the weaker students took their turn to show their parents how much they have learned.
Even as an 8 year old I could see that this was bullshit. I'm sure most of the not completely idiotic parents could see it as well and it was almost like parents pretending about Santa Claus the way that they would all be congratulated for being so tough!
Every now and then there was a ceremony for someone moving up in belt colors. I think this is awarded not on merit but so the owner of the dojo can dupe you into sticking around. Is it a coincidence that right around the time that I had mentioned to Kyle and the instructor that I don't think I was going to sign up again that I was suddenly promoted from white to yellow belt?
I don't think so. Joke's on them though, I quit anyway and my parents weren't even upset with me about this. They quickly found some other thing for me to do during shopping day. The dojo just eliminated another stop along the way.
I don't really even know if having karate in a strip mall is still a thing but when you think about it, unless the rent is just astronomical, it is a pretty fantastic way of having a babysitting service without calling it that.
Tags: #youth#life#martial-arts#memories#karate#mylife#parenting