GKR Karate , An Incident and a Warning

I found this article from the cagewarriors forum:

Intruders order karate club to shut

Apr 6 2006

By Sam Munnery

A FAMILY karate class was left stunned when two men stormed into the room, ripped the belts off the instructors and ordered the club to shut, it has been claimed. Parents and children looked on as two representatives from global karate group GKR walked into the class last Friday to recover equipment they believe belongs to them.

The instructors of the Fire Dragon Karate School, Melissa Cole and Joe Holloway, sent their pupils home and called the police after the men walked into the 7.30pm class 10 minutes after it had started. According to the instructors, GKR representatives "forcibly" stripped them of their karate belts, claimed the 54-member group had no insurance and that its existence was breaking a contractual condition of GKR Karate, for whom Ms Cole and Mr Holloway worked until December 2005.

The two instructors said they were completely surprised at the appearance of the men. Ms Cole, 23, said: "I tried to keep the class going but the students were becoming aware of raised voices. One just strolled up to me in front of the class, at which point I said, 'Good evening sensei'. "But without warning he began to forcibly remove my belt in front of the students. I did not see any point in fighting back. "They wouldn't leave. Their body language was revealing that they wanted to become volatile."

Mother Liz Knight, who takes part in the class with sons Glenn, six and Oliver, 14, said: "I was appalled at the men's behaviour. I wouldn't want to learn karate from them. We were a foot away from Melissa when she was stripped of her belt."

Joe Holloway, 33, from Brockham, joined GKR four years ago as an instructor but left in December. He said: "They (the representatives) have acted like the Mafia. They demanded my training fees, said that I owe them money, that we didn't have insurance and that we are training unlawfully." Mr Holloway said the insurance certificate was clearly displayed at the class's Dorking Rugby Club premises in Kiln Lane, Brockham. He added: "I've trained with GKR and the company is great. It is the actions of the two representatives I'm annoyed about. They are trying to discredit us."

GKR, which runs a karate group at The Ashcombe School, claims that by opening the Fire Dragon karate class in February, Ms Cole and Mr Holloway had broken the terms of a contract which prohibits them from taking part in martial arts for six months after leaving GKR. The Brockham instructors admitted signing up to the clause. The company said Mr Holloway had not complied with its requests so it sent regional managers Simon Burke and Peter Larsson to "recover" equipment. Andrew Ward, of GKR, said he asked the men to go because he had tried to get in touch with Mr Holloway before. He claimed: "He owes us £400 and he has some equipment of ours. Mr Holloway also personally owes Peter Larsson £700.

"The disruption was of their own making. The guys asked Joe to come outside to talk about it away from the class. "He is signing people up using GKR paperwork with the badge cut off. "I've sent statements to our legal department and we are pursuing criminal action." Surrey Police said it is investigating the matter.

and yet she still said "GKR is a great company". Brainwashed or what.

I've read this before on a MA forum ...... heard so many bad things about Go Kan Ryu ..... hard to imagine they're all true .....

GKR sounds like a bunch of idiots to be honest. Im sure there is the occasional decent martial artist among them but mostly id say its "Bull Shido"

Obviously my comment is going to attract a bit of flaming from GKR fans and other sad people so if anybody disagrees me you know who I am and where I am based.

:hihi:

Seriously this is how they operate : They put an advert out "Instructors Wanted" "no experience required as full training will be given". They recruit anybody , give them a black belt with a white stripe , give them a "buddy" to go knocking on doors with. They get put on a seminar and get taught a few techniques to teach. Then they get told just to play a few games with the kids.

As the class learns more then they get the instructors on more seminars so in reality the instructors are possibly not even Yellow belt standard!!!

Its a disgrace

GKR sounds like a bunch of idiots to be honest. Im sure there is the occasional decent martial artist among them but mostly id say its "Bull Shido"

Obviously my comment is going to attract a bit of flaming from GKR fans and other sad people so if anybody disagrees me you know who I am and where I am based.

:hihi:

 

Seriously this is how they operate : They put an advert out "Instructors Wanted" "no experience required as full training will be given". They recruit anybody , give them a black belt with a white stripe , give them a "buddy" to go knocking on doors with. They get put on a seminar and get taught a few techniques to teach. Then they get told just to play a few games with the kids.

 

As the class learns more then they get the instructors on more seminars so in reality the instructors are possibly not even Yellow belt standard!!!

 

Its a disgrace

My god, that means I already qualify as an instructor - and I have not been near a dojo for nearly 15 years (and it shows)

I completely agree about GKR, but you need to stop putting things like, "you know where i'm based if you disagree with me". It's virtually a threat.

I completely agree about GKR, but you need to stop putting things like, "you know where i'm based if you disagree with me". It's virtually a threat.

Sorry if it comes across like that , just that I prefer sorting problems out face to face rather than all these "flame wars" by means of typed text behind the saftey of a keyboard.

Its just the way that I am im afraid.

Thank you once again for pointing out my apparent lack of keyboard ettiquette but I have little time for "keyboard warriors" as they seem to be dubbed these days. Im sure you feel the same way.

Why don't you like chefs?

Tis a joke

The point of the board is for discussion though. If you don't want to discuss then it's probably best not to post an opinion. You can't post one and expect no one to ever disagree with you.

There must be at least one GKR trainee registered amonst the 20 odd thousand on shef forum, why is no one defending them? (That's a general question, not directed at chefkicker).

I have a student that was with them for a time but he is happy he left now.

He told me at time if they didn’t get enough sales they would have to walk down the street doing kicks and think like that.

Maybe that’s where they get there training lol

In a way Cyclone im with chefkicker on this one it’s not good for MA what they are doing but on the other hand we can’t go about looking for trouble.

But how can it be stopped no one has a good answer?????????

Could somebody confirm if GKR is GO-KAN-RYU as they have just started up at a local school and we were thinking of enrolling out kids there. They were recruiting by knocking on doors.