The McDojo and Bringing Back McDojoLife
McDojoLife is a… I’m not really sure how to define it. To call it a “website” doesn’t even come close to covering what it is. Maybe we should call it a movement. That certainly seems, to me at least, what it’s quickly becoming. Regardless of what else it is, it is growing and deservedly so as it’s becoming known on social media and within martial arts circles for showcasing some of the most bizarre examples of “martial arts” on the internet. Or, as we’ve come to love calling them, the McDojo.
Rob, the person behind McDojoLife, has such an interesting perspective on everything in the martial arts – from the people who run studios (and maybe shouldn’t) to the no-touch knockout masters – that we wanted to invite him back for a second round of interview questions (read the first interview here). And he didn’t disappoint. What started out as an intended 10-15 minute conversation lasted well over an hour and I think both he and I would agree that we could’ve gone on for another hour.
So please enjoy this (admittedly lengthy) second, follow-up interview with McDojoLife as he talks about standards, cults, dangerous practices, and the ever-present McDojo.
The McDojoLife Interview
Martial Journal (MJ): Thanks for doing this interview. Scott asked if one of us would like to interview you and I was like “yeah!” because I’ve been a huge fan of McDojoLife; it’s really funny.
McDojoLife (MDL): Well, thank you.
MJ: I’m on your Facebook group and follow you on Instagram. It’s enjoyable because I’ve encountered a lot of that myself and there are times – I’m sure you know, even doing martial arts for a long time – there are times when no matter how good you think you’re doing you have one of those days when you step into the dojo, you strap on your belt and think “I’m a fraud. Am I really supposed to be at this rank? Am I really supposed to be here?” and then you see some of those videos and I’m like, “yeah, I’m okay.” <laughter>
MDL: I’ve always thought that was interesting – like any dojo I’ve ever been in has typically had photos of the masters and they have all their fighters posters up and stuff like that and one thing that I’ve noticed about every one of those photos is they all look disappointed in you. I look up at them and I’m like hey and they’re looking at me like “oh yeah, yeah”. They always look just so disappointed like you, like you should do better, you should try harder, you should…Except for the only one is O Sensei from Aikido…
MJ: Yes, if anybody’s gonna whip out the finger guns, it’s going to be O Sensei. Actually, 25 years and a <cough><cough> few pounds ago I used to do Aikido. So when we talk about that picture, I know exactly the one you’re talking about because underneath was my sensei who was, at the time, looking rather disappointed in the whole class. So it’s switched around – the picture was happy, Sensei not so much.
MDL: I think it’s like a standard, it’s like psychologically all of these masters got together one day and they were like “for our photos, you’re not going to wear what I’m wearing, are you? Are we going to look disappointed? Yeah, let’s all look disappointed!”
MJ: Oh yeah – and make sure you’re always sitting. Everyone has to stand around you but you get to sit in the center. I think once you hit fourth degree or fifth degree, there’s a little secret note that gets passed around.
MDL: Oh my god yeah! Like an underground Kumite.
About Rob – the Man Behind McDojoLife
MJ: So, before we get to McDojoLife, let’s talk about you – this is your time to brag. Who are you, what’s your background… If this were a job interview, tell me about yourself.
MDL: <laughter>My name is Rob – I don’t give out my last name too often because I do get threats because of this page, so I don’t give that out too much. I am from Jacksonville, Florida. I can say this because Jacksonville is huge, so good luck finding me. So “I’m just Rob from McDojoLife“ is what I always tell people. Or just Rob or whatever the hell you want to call me – I don’t care <laughter>
I’ve been doing martial arts for about 21 years now. I started when I was twelve. I started because I got picked on and beat up in school. I actually got put in the hospital by a group of kids one time. They beat me for about five minutes. Two teachers stood there and watched the whole thing and they didn’t stop it. A friend of mine handed me a card, it was for karate, and said: “you need this.” And I just never stopped.
I love everything about the arts; every art has some value in some way I think, and most of them are beneficial. It’s the people that fuck it up. The people ruin it – it’s not the art itself. It’s the people who use it to take advantage of people. My background has been in karate, I’m a third-degree black belt in karate, a third-degree black belt in weapons called Lissajous-Do, which most people have never heard of, but if you want to see an example, my instructor in that is Master Lee Barden and most people can find his weapons videos all over.
Then I’m a purple belt in Brazilian Jujitsu – I’ve been doing that for about eight years now – and I was on a sport karate team called Full Circle. We traveled doing sport karate tournaments competitively every weekend for about two years. And I’m a 6-and-2 amateur boxer. And that’s me.
The McDojoLife and Enter the Dojo Collab
MJ: You recently did a collaboration with Master Ken. How fun was that?
MDL: That was awesome! It was kind of surreal because I’ve been watching his videos for years now and I actually even remember – which I told him when I met him – his first video which was almost done like a commercial and he wasn’t really that character quite yet. I remember seeing that and thinking it was hilarious. And then, of course, he made a web series and stuff like that. Getting to know him, well he’s like a super cool dude; a genuinely good person. He took me out to lunch the first day I was there he showed me around Albuquerque, we were chit-chatting about our goals and things like that. He’s just a cool guy to work with.
We shot three videos: one we released the day of, because we were kind of playing around like we hated each other a little bit. We thought it’d be funny. Then the other one we did, which just got released, was the Master Ken’s Privates where I got to show some of the nunchuck stuff that I do.
And then the third one is going to be one that which is going to be released soon, and that is me and him doing his skit, Bullshit. He talked about why he charges bullshit and he does this thing where me and him decided that, because that’s pretty much what my page does for real and his page does for fun, as a joke that’d be funny if we did that to each other. So we did this bit what I say a reason why he’s bullshit and does it back and then we just went back and forth and that was really fun. I really hope that one day I get to work with him some more. I talk to him now a little bit more often. He’s a genuinely cool person and he is a martial artist.
MJ: One thing I did recognize is that there’s a very strong similarity between McDojoLife and Enter The Dojo. You’re taking it from a “here are a bunch of real-world examples” of Ameri-Do-Te whereas Enter the Dojo is more a satirical approach, but you’re kind of going after the same thing. You’re trying to point out some of the bullshit that’s in traditional martial arts and even non-traditional martial arts.
MDL: Correct. When I first started the page it was because there was something wrong. I feel like there’s no governing body for the martial arts in general, right? There is no governing body – and I don’t want to be a governing body – I just think that there are certain rules that we should all be able to follow and we should all be able to agree with no matter what the arts are. Because every art has a lot of infighting.
You know when I did karate, karate guys were like, “oh don’t do jujitsu, that’s gay. It’s a bunch of dudes rolling around sweating on each other. And then the jujitsu guys, of course, branched off. They were doing MMA back in the day, so they knew their art was legitimate. Once the UFC hit it kind of, I guess, you could say it made the arts a little bit tighter. And then rather than it being all the different arts like karate, Taekwondo, jujitsu, judo, and fighting, now it’s traditional arts versus MMA. You know we’re still infighting and it doesn’t need to be that way but there should be certain things that we should all be able to come together and unify with and kick our egos aside.
I have five specific rules for McDojoLife – they’re very solid rules and I think that every art should be able to follow because every art should be able to agree that these things are just wrong. Because they have nothing to do really with the martial arts themselves. To have a little bit more to do with the integrity of being good human beings and, you know, I think that if you’re willing to molest a child you shouldn’t be around.
And it’s a shame because it’s kind of a refuge for a lot of people who have been convicted of child molestation but somehow have gotten away with not being on a registry. They open up martial arts studios and then they turn around and they do it again and, as a community, I think we should all be able to agree that they should not be allowed to open up a studio and we should not be where people kind of “end up” with their life.
We should be a choice; if you are a convicted felon and you’ve robbed and murdered and stole and then you get out of prison and no one will hire you so you decide to open up a martial art studio, we shouldn’t be that. Martial arts shouldn’t be where you just wind up because you have no other choice because no one will hire you.
That’s kind of what’s happening and then a lot of more traditional guys, well they always say it’s the arts, they’ll figure it out on their own and nobody should regulate the arts. You know what I say, I see the reason that the arts are kind of slowly backbiting in that way. Today it’s because people are not trying to regulate, people don’t seem to give a shit. And shouldn’t we care? I mean, I care that there’s a dude who owns three martial arts studios in Washington who is such a big pedophile and still owes the debt – I think that that’s fucked up, I don’t think that that’s right and you know we could turn our back but I think the equivalent of turning our back and allowing it to happen is saying that that’s okay and it’s not okay, you know.
What is a McDojo? – the McDojoLife Definition
MJ: Absolutely I think the word regulation, especially in today’s climate, is a hot topic because there are those who think the word ‘regulation’ is bad. That any regulation needs to be set aside but you have to have some kind of regulations. So maybe, instead, let’s use the word ‘standards’. There are standards to martial arts and if you want to break them down, maybe separate them a little bit by style. So there might be some different standards for karate versus Brazilian Jujitsu versus Krav Maga and so forth but I really agree that, underneath all that, there needs to be the common thread about what those standards are.
So that’s actually a good place to step off into the next question which is the word McDojo. You mentioned that you’ve got five things that every martial art studio should have. In a second I’m going to ask what those five are but first I’m going to ask about the word McDojo. In the last three years, McDojo is a word that’s really gained in popularity; I see it in online forums and groups… a lot of people like to drop that word but there’s not a lot of consensus on what a McDojo is. Now whether you choose to believe this or not, I think you are becoming one of the authoritative voices on McDojos, so let’s start with that, how do you define a McDojo?
MDL: Well I’ll start off with what I was told it was when I was a kid because the word mcdojo has been around forever. When I was a kid and I was growing up through the arts, everybody always referred to mcdojos as belt factories. Basically that you just buy your belt and that’s where the term came from – like McDonald’s slogan, “a million served.” You can just pay for it and they’ll give it to you.
But as I get older, I realize that that is a stupid standard to say that that’s a mcdojo because you can’t hold the belt standard to everybody the same way, so it’s not a universal term. So like in jujitsu everybody said, “oh it takes forever to get your black belt” but there’s an exception to that rule. BJ Penn got his black belt in two years. So you can’t say that he was held to that same standard because now we’re holding a standard off of skill rather than time.
Then, in that case, you can’t say the same thing about Taekwondo because their guys would get their belts in two years, too. So you’re saying now, what’s the equivalent standard? Because you can’t truly regulate what that is, then that doesn’t count towards the rule. A rule is a rule. There should be no interpretation. So that goes into what my standards are for a mcdojo. There are five very simple standards and there is no gray area at all.
McDojoLife Standards – What Makes a Martial Arts School a McDojo?
McDojoLife Standard #1
You shouldn’t molest children.! I think that we should all be able to agree with that. Don’t molest kids! There is no gray area there. If you molest a child you shouldn’t own a martial art studio.
McDojoLife Standard #2
Rule number two: don’t lie about your belt rank and your fight record. There is no gray area there: you either got your black belt from so-and-so and it took you this long to do that or you didn’t. There is no gray area. There’s no, “well, you know, I kind of got it but I kinda didn’t.” Then you didn’t get it. Or you lie about your fight record. You know people sacrifice their entire lives in the form of entertainment to become pro fighters just to amuse other people, to become a champion, and to work themselves up a rank to be better than they were the day before.
And they sacrifice time, money, relationships, health… they sacrifice their retirement, they sacrifice a lot of things in the name of being able to be in a fight and then when somebody comes along and goes, “you know what? I was like 35 and 0 back in the day.” Oh really? Where did you fight out of? “I fought the streets.” Bullshit, you didn’t really then. There’s no track records, so basically what you’re saying is this is just monitoring your own version of what that would be. So there’s no gray area there either – these are tracked, monitored things and if you’re willing to lie about your belt rank or your fight record, you’ll probably lie about other things.
McDojoLife Standard #3
Number three is unsafe training practices or cult-like behavior, which we’ll go into in number four. But number three… if I am an instructor and I have a wooden stick and every time you do something wrong I bash you across the face five times with a stick, is that safe? No! I could lose my eye, you could break my nose, you can knock out my teeth… that’s not safe and it’s not conducive to a good learning environment. And, funny enough, I say that because that is an actual true example of somebody who’s actually been filmed doing that. Or I see people who are fighting full-contact on concrete with no headgear. Are you dumb?
Because as soon as the first person gets knocked out and they hit the back of their head on the concrete they’re dead. Congratulations, you killed someone. Or here’s another one that a lot of videos are being posted of guys who are standing there in line, allowing the instructor to wail on their head as hard as they want. What is that supposed to help you with other than give you a concussion? That’s not safe, you know.
So those kind of things are, you know, pretty standard. Now the unsafe thing also goes into cult-like behavior because if you have a room full of people who are, like twenty and thirty, in a line willing to let you stand there and hit you as hard as you can, then you probably are manipulating them mentally in some way. And that’s a little bit more of a cult-like thing than anything else. You’re aware that is not good for you yet, even though you still put so much trust in your instructor, you will allow it to happen to you and that’s very “culty”.
McDojoLife Standard #4
The next thing is no-touch knockouts or techniques that you know, for a fact, are not beneficial. And what I mean by beneficial is not all techniques have to be combat effective. Some people, you know, like stunt people do stunt work and Kung Fu stuff and it looks great and they entertain and if it wasn’t for certain martial arts actors even though they can’t fight worth a lick, most people wouldn’t join the martial arts because they would have never been exposed to it.
So it’s kind of awesome but when it comes to, like, knocking people out with your mind, you’re towing a fine line there. People are giving you this giant responsibility, and they come up to you, “know what? I trust you. I trust what you’re saying in this to keep me safe and make me better at defending myself.” And then you give them “oh, well, knock them out with your mind” and they convince you somehow that this is correct and then you try to apply this in a real-life situation. It’s just going to get you hurt. there’s going to be no gray area there – you will just be hurt.
McDojoLife Standard #5
And the number five is a shady business practice. So, for instance, if I go into a martial arts studio and I sign my contract and I agree to the terms and conditions, because it is a business agreement, then I am agreeing to whatever was written on there. But when I agree to that and I go to my house and then, two days before my tuition’s due, you knock on my door and you walk in and go, or you walk up and you go “hey man, I was wondering if you can knock out that tuition a couple days early?”
Like, what is this? That’s called a shakedown, that’s not business. You know, that’s a Mafioso-style way of doing it and that’s shady. Or holding the money above your rank. Like “oh, well, you can’t get this rank unless you paid this much.” You know, that’s very shady and that has absolutely nothing to do with your skill, time, or any of that – it’s just based off of money and that doesn’t make any sense to what you’re teaching people. And it’s wrong. It really is wrong.
So those are my five standards.
On Deceit, Ignorance, and Belief in a McDojo
MJ: Those really resonate with me because there’s a studio – I won’t mention where it is or the school it is – that a neighbor of mine signed his kid up at. And because he was doing well in that first month, he was “invited” to join the black belt club. So now he can go to all the classes he wants and he can earn his black belt in under a year. I mean, if you can actually earn it and if you can achieve it… if that instructor has developed some kind of curriculum where a student can achieve what he or she needs in order to get that black belt in a year, I’m fine with that. But I have yet to see that actually happen, so I will say that I’m skeptical. I’m calling that one a McDojo.
Anyway, a while ago, one of my adult students asked me how I felt watching videos of people who do bad martial arts. Do I get angry over them? Do I get upset about those guys?
I think there is a difference between the martial artists who are ignorant versus those who are deceitful. Ignorance isn’t stupidity, it’s just ‘I haven’t learned it yet’. Then there’s the deceitful practices. So the no-touch guys, those are people who actually I don’t get angry with because it’s so obvious – it’s not even worth my effort or energy to get upset about them. I get upset with the ones who… well, there’s one video that was circulating on Facebook not that long ago from a well-known magazine. And maybe this also falls under ignorance too, but it’s the people teaching stuff that, if they actually put it into practice, they’re going to get hurt. They’re the ones I get upset with.
So my question to you is, do you have the same visceral reaction to deceitful and ignorance? Do you find one is more problematic than the other?
MDL: I think there’s something missing there, though. There’s a bridge to gap those two things because I do believe that you’re correct about the deceitful and ignorant and typically “deceitful” would be instructor and ignorant would be student. But the gap is delusion. If you look at guys like in China right now, there’s a guy that’s going around and he’s challenging these no-touch masters to MMA fights and they’re agreeing to do them. So you can’t tell me that they’re deceiving anybody because they truly believe what they’re doing. They can’t deceive somebody if they think it’s the truth. It’s only deceitful if they’re lying but, in their head, if they really believe this then it’s delusion.
On Deluding Students in a McDojo
MJ: So that’s how you actually get your students to believe – if you believe it strongly enough as well?
MDL: I never blame the student. I think that a lot of people say that, “well if you’re stupid enough to believe that…” Well, it doesn’t work that way. What a lot of people forget is most people on this planet have never fought or done martial arts in their life. They’ve seen it in movies or videos and they have their own personal beliefs but they’ve never actually taken a class. Most people – the majority of the world – has not. We’re a small community: we’re a much smaller community than people believe. I mean, especially nowadays with the Internet I can reach out and ask any martial artist a question in the world but it’s a small community.
So the first question anybody asks when they go to a martial art studio is always the same: how much does it cost? That’s it. That’s the question. So if these people are like… if these people want them to sign up then they’re going to use the same tactics as somebody who’s legitimate. Oh you’ve got my program? ‘Let me get you to come in for a trial class. Let me get you to try it out’ and then slowly but surely I have to sell you on this program just like anything else.
Just like its selling a coffee mug or anything else, right? And there are people who are good salesmen and there are people who are bad salesmen. Unfortunately, what people are looking for when they go into the martial arts is not martial arts. Nine times out of ten, it’s not arts. They don’t give a shit about martial arts. They don’t like it because of the things that the martial arts will bring them…
MJ: …They want to be the next Karate Kid, they want to be the next Ninja Turtle…
MDL: I don’t even agree with that! I don’t think that’s what they want. The average person when they go into a martial arts studio isn’t looking to be a martial artist. They’re looking for a mentor, they’re looking for friends, they’re looking to lose weight, they’re looking to have an environment that’s healthy for them, they’re looking to get away from their day-to-day life, and that just happens to be a fun and cool outlet.
And then the reason that they stay is because they are being provided those things. So imagine if an instructor who’s charismatic comes up to you and starts talking to you and finds out all the little things that you’re looking for to achieve. And he starts providing those things to you because he’s done it for so many years, he understands how to sell you on the program and now you’re there and then you invest years upon years and then one day, very similar to like the guys who had the cults – who was it, David Koresh or… no, the Jim Jones colony – but very similar to Jim Jones, they don’t start off with negative intentions I don’t think, they start off with nothing but positive intentions. “I want to make you better, I want to be your mentor, I want to be here for you.”
But then they start buying into their own crap and that’s where the delusion is. Constantly, people are always putting them on a pedestal – “You’re the man, thank you so much for helping me! You’re doing God’s work! You’re awesome! You’re the best!” And then eventually they start to believe it and then that’s why what started off as deceit is now delusion – now they really believe it, they really end up thinking they can knock people out with their mind. You can’t tell me that if you met George Dillman that you would ever get another vibe other than he truly, truly believes in his power to do that.
Because they’ve had so many people over the years perpetuate that, you know, it’s a sad delusion but it’s a powerful tool. And it’s really, really scary powerful because these people are able to take that delusion and turn it into a bravado, turn it into a movement, and go, “You know what? Follow me because I have the way.” And then all those people go, “You know what? He’s been always cool to me, he’s always been nice to me – he helped me lose 20 pounds, he helped me get over the loss of my wife… all of these things have nothing to do with martial arts. You know what? I should just believe him.” So it’s a very scary culty thing.
MJ: You nailed it on the head when you use word delusion. You’re right – they absolutely believe themselves which is how they’re able to sell it and that goes back to your fourth standard which is cult-like behavior.
MDL: And that’s sad because then I think the martial arts in general, and cults, draw a fine line. It’s like martial arts, cults, religion… all are this fine line. For instance, if I go to a Catholic (I’m not picking on any religion, I’m just picking this one) but if you ever go to like a Catholic mass, there’s a lot of standing, there’s a lot of sitting, there’s a lot of chanting, and there’s a lot of songs that they sing. There’s a guy who’s standing up on the front in the podium telling us what we should believe…
I think if you look at a martial arts school, the first thing you do is you walk in, you bow, and there’s a guy who’s standing at the front and he’s telling you all these things that you have to believe in order to be able to be good at this. And then if you look at a cult, it’s the exact same thing: there’s a dude who’s appointed the leader, who we would give a title to, and he’s telling us how to think and how to believe. So it’s a scary line, you know? The only difference is intent. One is trying to actually help you, one is trying to save you, and the other one is trying to basically just get your money.
MJ: I have been working on an article for a while that I haven’t been able to get my head around finishing but it’s on the search for ritual. That goes back to, I think, what you just said, too, about people who are looking for what you mentioned when they join a school.
I always like to ask parents of our new white belt students (and most of the students are somewhere between the ages of five and seven) at our first class, “what are you looking for from having your kids come here to learn karate?” Almost it to a person, they all say discipline. And then I press them a bit more and the parents respond that they like it when the kids walk in and bow, they all line-up, and now they practice together… So really what they’re looking for isn’t discipline but rather ritual.
Anyway, I want to get back to McDojoLife. I am a huge fan of McDojoLife; I think it’s great, I love it… but obviously, there’s going to be people who have a different view because they’re the ones who are being featured on McDojoLife. Can you talk a little bit about the reactions you’ve been getting – without revealing anything that might exacerbate any current issues – but just kind of how you deal with it?
MDL: I’ve got some different reactions over the years from different people in different ways. Well, I would say the group that has had the biggest reaction is usually the ninjas: like the Bujinkan guys and stuff like that – they usually have the biggest reactions because 1) that’s one of the toughest arts to really dissect because there’s a lot of gray area when it comes to ninjutsu.
And there’s a lot of opinions on it, like, “is it real” or is it something that was made up? Or is ninjutsu just Hollywood… and of course they have history texts and stuff like that, and it’s a very interesting thing because a lot of people think that the guy who started Bujinkan is just full of himself and full of crap. I personally haven’t done as much research into that because there’s so many arts that I’m having to research all the time that it makes it fairly difficult to really pinpoint that stuff.
But they have a lot of things that are just odd like sitting down crisscross when you go to for your fifth-degree black belt and they a bokken and the guy stands behind them with a bokken and then they’re supposed to move out of the way before he whacks them in the head. I think it might be bamboo – it’s either a bokken or a shinai – but they’re sitting there, they just relax and then hit them on top of the head. You’re supposed to use your senses, sense being hit and it’s supposed to stimulate being able to sense danger, right, and that’s awesome if you’re spider-man but, unfortunately, in your day to day life really what you’re going to be relying on is common sense, not your sense.
Look, if I’m at a bar and I had an argument with the gentleman earlier and he told me earlier that he’s gonna beat me up, I don’t need magic ninja senses to know he’s going to beat me up – he already told me that. I believe you and I will watch out for you throughout the night and I will maybe leave the bar and I’ll go somewhere else, but I don’t need a spidey sense. If you’re out and about and somebody just decided to sucker punch you and you are unaware,
I’m sorry there’s no amount of training you can do to make that happen for you. And, unfortunately, they truly believe in their heart of hearts that they can train these senses up. You can train your common sense by being more aware of your surroundings and things like that but if I wanted to do that test, I would do that test differently. I would let you go about your day to day life and I wouldn’t tell you when I would do it and I will just randomly pop out and crack you over the head with a bokken and then see if you pop out the way in time. And I guarantee you 10 out of 10 times I hit you with the damn bokken because you don’t have magic spidey senses.
But I digress – back to the question. I posted pictures of our videos of guys from ninjutsu and one of the biggest reactions that I got was a ninjutsu practitioner from New York. And in the video it shows his students who are rolling around on each other, cartwheeling on to each other… there’s an audience there so I assumed it’s some type of a presentation or a demonstration or maybe a belt promotion ceremony, but for, just a split second, you see a guy who looks like Sho’nuff from the Last Dragon. He’s got red shoulder pads, a gi on, and all that, right, but you see him just for a second.
On the videos, I only post one-word phrases, or maybe four or five words and that’s it. And for that, I think I said something like “what are they doing?” or something like that and that was it. I have three messages pop up back-to-back-to-back of people who wanted to threaten to kill me because that instructor was in that video for one second. One was “you should come up to New York and fight.” I was like “will that make these techniques any less garbage?” Just because you can beat me up does that mean that these video techniques aren’t good. Fighting is almost never the actual answer to any of these problems, which also goes down that line of proving my point that if you think just beating people up represents your art well, then you probably have a shitty art.
MJ: Yeah, I mean my response to that would have been, “well if he’s that good of a ninja, wouldn’t he have been able to disappear?”
MDL: I had a guy who, I forget his name but I have the text – it’s from like years ago when I first started the page – he had all of these organizations and societies that he made up so he could be the head of them. He gave himself his own ranks for ten different styles that he made up; he is a 10th-degree black belt in, like, seven styles and 12th degrees in two. You know he made up all these styles and then he actually chit-chatted with me online because I posted this article that I found about him.
His English is broken but he said that he had a black belt in Muay Thai and I was like, that’s weird because Muay Thai doesn’t give out belts… We were talking about all that and he just truly believed his delusion and his excuse was behind all of that was, “well hey, I don’t do this for a living so it should be okay.” It’s, like no it doesn’t make it okay. That’d be like me going as a mechanic and opening up a mechanic shop and going, “you know what I don’t really do mechanic work for a living but you should bring your car here anyway let me work on it.” Does this make it okay? People are trusting you!
Then I had a great conversation, to be honest, with CrossFit people. They started their own self-defense auxiliary program and, of course, I still believe that 90% of it is just complete horseshit. They’re basically saying that if you could do a squat you can do a cross and if you can do a press, or do this… they basically take all the exercises of CrossFit and try to justify them into self-defense.
And when one is completely different than the other they try to say the mechanics are the same. Now some of the mechanics I’m sure are the same but most of them are not and there’s a lot more different dynamic to learning martial arts and self-defense than there is learning how to lift weights. You know, for instance, I’ve never had to do a bench press while someone was punching me in the face. That’s a different stress and stimulus, you know? I don’t have to make this technique perfect while I’m having something against me or opposing me.
So in any case, I got to talk with the guy who started that and we had a really long conversation; we had, like, a good solid hour conversation on the phone. He was apologetic about the way that is being presented and perceived. He made the program but he sold it to CrossFit, so CrossFit is taking it and promoting it however they want and he doesn’t really get a say-so in how it is promoted.
So these videos come out and, from what he told me, and I don’t know how much of that I believe because he’s obviously defending himself, but from what he told me is that it wasn’t being represented the way that he truly believes that it should be; that it was being misrepresented. And, if that’s the case, I feel bad for him because of course, the martial arts community will eat you alive if you make some false statements or you mess up or if people think that you’re going to hurt somebody.
So I just got to deal with it like a professional, you know? I didn’t choose to be the be-all-and-end-all – my goal is to make this a community. I would like the community to self-regulate by some simple standards. I don’t want to be the guy that does it, I would hope that after I die, after I get assassinated by ninjas, that people will people will still try to follow closely to the rules and understand that there are certain things that we should tolerate.
You do katas? Awesome! I started in karate, I didn’t do a lot of katas when I was in karate but there’s nothing wrong with that because if you say you don’t like kata then you have to say you don’t like shadowboxing. So if one’s not useful then the other one’s not. Oh wait, you can shadowbox but you can’t do katas? It’s the same shit.
Or if you can say BJJ is the end-all-be-all. Okay, that’s a good thought but what happens when I pull out a knife and start stabbing you? “Oh you know that’s different…” No, it’s not – we’re talking about self-defense, so it’s as a whole. Every art provides something good in some way but, then again, every art provides one thing that’s negative which is their own ego. You know, they can’t be accepting of other arts. I think there’s only a few things that we shouldn’t be accepting of and those are the five standards.
MJ: I’m totally on board that. I try hard to live by the ideal that the only all-encompassing, general statement we have is not to have all-encompassing general statements. You know, I have a friend who I respect a lot as a martial artist but he’ll be the person who says all fights go to the ground. No, all fights have the potential to go to the ground but, as a stand-up guy, I’m going to try and do what I can to avoid going to the ground. I’ll say that I don’t practice ground fighting anywhere near as much as I probably should, but again as that rule that all fights go to the ground, that comes from repeating his friend who does BJJ.
MDL: When it comes to martial arts, everyone thinks that they have the right way. That’s how you can usually spot a bullshit martial artist: every art has an end-all-be-all, right? So in boxing, there’s different ways that I can end the fight – I hit you with a hook to deliver, you go down and that fight is over. I knock you out, fight is over. I hit you in the solar plexus, fight is over. So those are a means to an end. Taekwondo, I’m going to kick you – I’m going to kick the shit out of you, probably kick the same targets that you would when you’re boxing, but I have a way to end the fight by doing so.
You get to arts that don’t have that in it and that is how you can usually spot an art that’s full of crap. In jujitsu, for instance, I submit you, I break your arm, I put you to sleep, I make you verbally say “hey man I’m done because I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want you to kill me…” that kind of thing. But then you have arts that are like “alright, we’re going to do these no touch knockouts. We’re going to do these pressure point knockouts.” And it’s like, whoa, so you’re going to poke me in the arm and it’s going to make me let go? Now what? And when they don’t have an answer, that’s usually a red flag because eventually, unfortunately, combat is a part of martial arts.
I don’t think it’s be-all and end-all of the martial arts and it’s not a standard that we should all live by, not everybody wants to just go around “let me know how to fight people” but it is a part of it and when you look at people who are going “okay, well I’ll touch you here, I’ll touch here, and I’ll touch you here” that knock you unconscious and then I go “well how?” And they reply, “Well just touch there, touch there, touch there…”
Okay, I hear you explaining to me that the energy goes up the arm – this is wood, this is fire, this is oak and you’re giving me all his mysticism but, like, there’s a doctor right there… right there and he’s telling me that that doesn’t work. That doctor, he’s telling me he went to school for a long time to tell me that that wouldn’t work. And then, even if it does, even if I go boom boom boom, then what?
When you learn boxing you can learn that with resistance. Let’s say, for instance, I learn a jab, you learn a jab. I learn a different way to defend a jab, you learn a different way to defend a jab. And then we can spar with just jabs and try to see if we can make it work and even though you know how to get away from a jab my jab will still work and even though you know how to do a jab, the defense to the jab will still work. Not all the time because nothing works that way but that’s the goal. In BJJ, it’s the same way: I get you in a rear naked choke or I get to your back, right? I’m going to start from there. You know how to finish this fight from my back, I know how to escape. Ready? Go!
That’s proof in the pudding but then you have arts that don’t have that and it’s like “well how do I do this?” Oh, you can’t practice this. “Why not?” “It’s too deadly, it’ll kill you.
MJ: I’m a big fan of Iain Abernethy and I like the way he starts off, which is to say that it’s about awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation first. Only then, if that doesn’t work, then it’s ‘fast, brutal, and decisive.’ But it’s got to finish it.
MDL: Yeah, yeah, you know when I first started teaching kids, it took me a while to really figure out the different ways to connect when it comes to teaching children. Because I think if you can teach children you can teach adults. The children are honest, they’ll just tell you… “why? Why? Why?” and adults won’t. They’ll just sit there and make up excuses in their head why something won’t work. They won’t tell you but they’ll say in their head over and over. Or they’ll come up with stupid things. My kids will come up with like legitimately good, honest questions because they’re trying to learn – they’re not trying to fight.
MJ: I used to ride a motorcycle and one of my favorite sayings was “a new biker picks a destination and goes. An old biker picks a direction and goes.” I think the same thing applies in martial arts. The young martial artist chooses a destination – “I want my black belt.” The experienced martial artist says “this is a journey. My black belt gets me to the top of one mountain and that just lets me see all the other mountains I still need to climb.” I would consider you, in a very positive way, as the old biker or the old martial artist. So with that in mind, what do you see as the direction that you’re taking both yourself and McDojoLife? We’re going back to the job interview and ‘where do you see yourself in five years?’ <laughter>
MDL: It’s funny, because, not willfully but it just kind of happens that every five years my goals for everything that I do typically just change. I’m not the same person I was five years ago; I’ve grown in certain ways and that same thing can be said from day to day, from week to week. But I really noticed that every five years I do have, like, big changes that I choose to make in my life. Just because you have always gone by that five-year plan where you go “what’s next? What’s your goals?” Because like those are big leaps in your life.
I’m just happy to be alive after five years but, you know, I’ve always wanted to make an impact in the arts and I never really figured out how I was going to be able to do it until this. This seems like the right path. It’s weird; it’s like an organic thing that I started as just a side project and now it’s starting to turn into a career and it’s allowing me to give back something that I feel has given me so much and I feel like if I can just keep people from making the wrong choice right off the bat they can get a good education in the arts.
And, hopefully, that will breed more good studios and more good instructors and more people who are legitimate and less and less of those people who are taking an end to them or stealing their money or gonna hurt them. Because like I said, a person doesn’t know what to ask when they first start. Well the average person is probably going to Google martial arts studio and I would hope that because of McDojoLife, the first thing that pops up isn’t a studio if it’s a negative studio, but one of these articles that we have posted about shining a light on the things that these people have done that are shady.
And that, in turn, is very similar to like a smoking campaign – the anti-smoking campaigns that have happened – people go into your studio and you beat them up. That’s stupid – why would you do that? I can’t change your mind; you’re crazy. You’re going to continue to be crazy because you’re crazy. But what I can do is I can shine the light for everybody else to see you’re crazy because they’re not crazy, they’re just being taken advantage of.
Or you’re next in line to be taken advantage of. So again I go back to the cigarette smokers thing – if I walked into the CEO of the biggest cigarette company in the world and I punch him in the face, is that going to stop people from smoking cigarettes? No, it’s going to get me thrown in jail. But if I run all these anti-smoking campaigns over years and years and years and years, then slowly but surely people start to see the light and that’s what’s happening in the United States, right?
So I’m in that model – I don’t need to fight you. I don’t need to do that. That doesn’t prove anything. All that proves is either you’re going to beat me or I’m going to beat you. That doesn’t prove that what you’re doing right or wrong, it doesn’t prove anything. But if I can have enough noise made and I can shine the light enough then maybe, just maybe, slowly but surely over the years people will start to be scared to open up martial arts studios if they were convicted pedophiles.
Because they know that there’s somebody watching them going, “this isn’t the place for you. We will bust you, so why even start? Go open up a nightclub, go do something else, but don’t do this. This means something to us.” And if it really means something to us, you could protect it, you know? You try to honor it, you try to do something to not allow these shady fucking people and frauds to come in like cancer and infect and ruin something that we really work for. And it makes it a joke it – makes what we do a joke.
Nobody wants to do it because, “oh you’re wearing pajamas?” Well if they understood if they saw jiu-jitsu and judo, they might not say pajamas. If they saw Michael Page kicking people in the face, they might think a little differently about karate. Or if they look at martial arts movies and they go, “you know that inspires me to be better,” then good!
But what we shouldn’t do is we shouldn’t put these people on pedestals. We shouldn’t go, “you know what, this guy over here is a convicted felon but he’s changing his life around, I swear.” “How many kids did he molest? Oh, three?” He’s changing his life I swear? No. This isn’t where you come to be the guidance for people when you still need guidance yourself. Guidance? Go to the studio, become a student, work on making a better life for yourself or on becoming a being a better human being.
But don’t sit there as somebody who’s going to be up there lying to people and be the person. You’re supposed to be the “guy”. Because we are just human beings. We’re all regular people. We can’t knock people out with our minds, some of us drink, some of them do drugs, just be honest about it and then that would make the arts much better.
You know there are all these people who do drugs. You know, look at guys like Jeff Glover, look at guys like at Eddie Bravo, look at guys like Joe Rogan – all of these people openly admit to doing drugs but the thing is that they’re not lying to you about it. They’re open and honest about it instead of trying to put themselves on some kind of a pedestal going, “oh I would never do that” and then they get busted years later doing it.
Which is where most martial artists fail at. That they just realize that they are people who have a skill like any other job. I don’t care if my mechanic smokes weed. No, I don’t care if my mechanic smokes weed. Because his only job, dammit, is to fix my car. So if my car is cool then you can smoke all the weed you want as long as you fix my car.
MJ: But if the mechanic is charging you by the hour, I’d rather he’d be doing coke instead of weed. <laughter>
MDL: Anyway, when it comes to my personal goals, I want ten blacks belts before I before I die. Because I want to understand as much about the arts as I can – it’s a lifetime journey and there’s so much to learn. With McDojoLife on the other hand, that goal is actually happening a lot faster than I expected with the recent boost. I think it took me four years to get past 10,000 followers and then it took me three months to go to 117,000 followers.
And then every day it steadily notches up. I’m averaging right now about an extra thousand followers a week and people are getting behind it, people are pushing the movement, people respect it, and people want to see it succeed. So I feel like I have no choice but to make it work or I let a lot of people down and that’s a burden. But it’s a burden I made a decision to have a long time ago and I’m not going to let those people down.
And I think that, if I really want to make an impact in the martial arts world the way that it’s made an impact on me, then I have to make those sacrifices; I have to sacrifice my time. I have a full-time job and do this and I do this all the time. I sacrifice time with my family. Everything is 100% funded through me right now. Until recently, I just started getting a sponsor and I just got a Patreon following but that doesn’t happen until the first. I don’t get that first actual money in, until the first. It’s now just happening but I still can’t do it the way I want because I still need to branch off.
I want to show people the real martial artists out there, so I’ve been doing interviews to try to slowly rebrand a little bit to show people that I can’t just tear everything down. You’ve got to build up the good stuff, you know, if there’s nothing left to tear down, then what good am I? I’m only tearing down things that I feel are dangerous and unsafe or wrong. But with McDojoLife, I’m looking at models like, if you look at Barstool Sports – I don’t know if you follow Barstool or not – but Barstool have all these different segments. There’s barstool and then there’s barstool gaming, and Barstool Sports, and Barstool things like that.
Or if you look at Nerdist. Nerdist is another great one I like to follow. Nerdist, which is like the hub, but then you have Nerdist Reviews and you have their Nerdist comedy… So that’s eventually what I’m trying to do with martial arts; rather than having just jiu-jitsu stuff and then jiu-jitsu people only worry about jiu-jitsu. Karate people only worry about karate. Having a nice hub where everybody can be respectful to each other and want to learn more about the arts. Like I want to interview people from all over the arts.
I want to interview Capoeira people, I want to interview Karate people… I want to get to know these people because I think it only makes me grow as a human being and I think we’ll get exposed to the “how, when, why”, you know, the history. If we’re really martial artists then we have to be able to open up our minds a little bit and go, “okay, there’s more than just what I do out there.”
Nachos and Cheese
MJ: Okay, last question that I have to ask. Jeremy loves nachos and, in honor of that love, I have to ask – on your nachos, real cheese or fake cheese sauce?
MDL: I am a real cheese guy. I like real cheese because like, for one, it’s much easier to get access to real cheese than the nacho cheese. I just go to the store and buy a brick of cheese. Plus, it’s just delicious. If you ever go to a bar and you get like the crappy cheese on top of it, it makes me feel like I’m like a high school soccer game. It’s gross and it always makes me feel icky.
MJ: All right we’re on the same page, good. So every interview I do from this point forward on Martial Journal, I’m asking that question because, at some point, I’m going to have enough data points that I can say that the definitive answer for martial arts is that we prefer real cheese.
Rob, thanks so much! This has been a lot of fun – it’s been great talking with you.
MDL: Thank you so much and I really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much; Jeremy’s always been awesome to me and you taking the time to do this interview. I’m just I really humbled by the experience to be able to do and it that people actually even give a shit about what I have to say at all. So I just thank you – I really appreciate it.
MJ: Keep posting all those great videos – every video that you referenced, I was like, “hey I remember watching that one!”
MDL: Thank you, man. Have a good day.
My Final Thoughts on the McDojoLife Interview
Martial arts has a long and storied history and McDojoLife is trying to take a proactive approach in calling out the McDojo wherever it may be found and they that are doing damage to the reputation and credibility of our martial arts. As I got to know Rob through the interview, I discovered how deep his love for martial arts actually runs and the motive for running McDojoLife is to continue to protect is integrity. And if he can do that while making us laugh, more power to him.
Did you enjoy this second interview with McDojoLife? Let me know what you thought in the comments below. Or was there a question you wish I had asked or know of a McDojo yourself? Or maybe you want to discuss real or fake cheese on your nachos! (Heads up, fake cheese is for the McDojo) Drop that in the comments and maybe we can ask Rob to pop in sometime and answer it.
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Thank you so much for that interview. I really enjoyed reading it, and I look forward to checking out some of your McDojo life material.