First, this is not the first place The School of Oom Yung Doe (OYD) has been exposed. An Illinois TV station aired a 7 part investigative report by Pam Zeckman on the organization when it was called "Chung Moo Quan" in the early 1990s.
Recently, King5 news in Washington aired an investagive report about Oom Yung Doe in early 2005. OYD's response to this report was, in part, to anonymously post doctored background checks on two of the students in the report on a Yahoo OYD discussion group.
And, of course, there are many places on the internet devoted to exposing OYD for the fraud that it is.
If you do not wish to read this whole report, the best way i can summarize The School of Oom Yung Doe is as follows:
OYD IS AN ORGANIZATION THAT WILL TELL YOU WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET YOU TO SIGN A CONTRACT AND PAY IT OFF AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.
Their techniques to get you to sign these contracts and pay for $200 / hr seminars are replete w / lies, misleading statements, false claims and false promises.
They are all about one thing: money.
The School of Oom Yung Doe has also been known as "Chung Moo Doe" and "Chung Moo Quan". The changed their name from Chung Moo Quan after a large federal tax case sent most of its leadership to prison and nearly destroyed the organization. The founder and "grandmaster" John C. Kim aka "Grandmaster Iron Kim" was sentenced to about 4-5 years in prison.
One of their infamous sayings is "what you see you can achieve". This is usually surrounded by various pictures including the ubiquitous picture of Kim doing a jump side kick. They say this is a picture of him jumping off an 8 story building and landing w/o injury. They also state in their training manual that he also did this jump from an 11 story building and again landed w/o injury.
They claim that Kim was the "Champion of All Asia" when he won a 1956 All Asia Martial Arts competition in Pusan, Korea. There has never been any proof that this competition exists.in fact, many eminent martial artists say no such event ever occurred.
Tons of these aphocrphyal stories are told by the instructors. The general tone is that Kim is the greatest human being alive and we are very fortunate to even learn. 001% of what he knows.
Many students are even encouraged to sign thank-you cards to Kim after visits by his "national" instructors.
They advertise that they teach 8 styles of martial art: "8 complete styles taught as one".in reality, THEY DO NOT TEACH ANY COMPLETE STYLES and at best teach some Korean karate and a mish-mash of hacked forms. They simply use the names of well known styles like Tai Chi, Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Kung Fu, Samuri, Tae Kwon Do, and Bagua to get students in the door. Many students think they could just focus on one style (Tai Chi was common), but what they are taught is not their choice at all, and THEY DEFINATELY DO NOT TEACH *ANY* REAL TAI CHI.
One contract I signed was a 2 year contract for $9,300. It was for an "International" Black Belt Degree. This is often called the "International Degree Course" or "International Training". They claim that this is part of an "International System" and that our black belts would be internationally recognized.in reality, this is not true. We were told there are schools in other countries including Kim's home, Korea. This is not true. THERE ARE NO SCHOOLS IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY.
They also tried to get me to pay off the contract with one payment. I could not afford that so they worked it out to where I would pay for the 2 years in 9 months. My instructor then pressured me to pay it off in less than 6 mo. Why are they so concerned w / students paying off their contracts faster than pro rata? I believe it's because the vast majority of students quit before the end of their contract and OYD knows they have no chance in getting the balance of an unpaid contract back.
But what do they say? They told me that my paying my contract off fast was a way of showing how dedicated I was so then they would in turn show more dedication to me. And in a way, that is true. The more you pay, the more attention you get and the faster you will progress.
Rank is determined by money #1 and time #2.in no way does a person's rank reflect their level of skill.
As a side note, before I quit, former studetns and instructors I met on a Yahoo discussion group warned me that they would try to smear me. Sure enough, they did. Friends of mine who were reluctant to quit (though most eventually did) told me all of the things that were being said about me or implied about me in an indirect way.
Protocol is VERY strict there and the instructors are well trained at controling the students. They inculcate a mentality that makes the students more suseptible to spending more and more money on training.
This mentality could be summarized like so: "My mind and body are so valuable that I can't even put a price on it. Therefore, no matter how much any contract or seminar costs, it is cheap, especially compared to being ill."
It gets to the point of just being plain sad. I saw my fellow students rack up credit card debt and even take out loans to pay for their training.
One thing that can't be disputed is that intense exercise makes you feel really good and OYD provides very intense group lessons.
For people who have never experienced anything like this, they might think it is just because OYD is very special. This is also how they get you to believe that their movements are so unique that your body can not be damaged by it. I was injured because of this.
I was practicing a form called Pal Gae. According to them, this was one of their most powerful forms. They said that if practiced correctly, this can not damage your body. Well I was a very devoted student. I often went to 2 lessons a day! Eventually, my knees started to hurt. Like a good little student, I asked my instructors about it. They told me to put lots of herb ($25/bottle) on it and that i was just "going through"—a phrase they like to use a lot. But my knees just kept getting worse. The last straw was when the highest level instructor, a 6th degree, told me to bounce up and down in a 'T' position (legs twisted w / knees about 2 inches off the ground) because my knees were just weak. Luckily I did not follow his advice but it was too late.
It's been about a year and a half and my right knee is still not 100%.
The main thing that lead to my quiting was because I was getting sick of what I thought was them holding out on me. And this relates to their false advertising.
They claimed to teach Bagua and I was very interested in it after reading about it. So I went and found a bagua master from china to teach me. Well not only was he much cheaper and had no types of contracts (just pay as you go), but his teaching was a immeasurably better and the movements he taught made my body feel so much better than OYD's hard, forced, and awkward movements. I felt like I learned way more about bagua in 1 hour than my entire time in OYD.
SO EVEN THOUGH I HAD SPENT OVER $20,000 AND I WAS PAID UP FOR ALMOST 2 YEARS IN OYD, I QUIT ANYWAY. I realized at that point that OYD movements were only damaging my body and that if I was going to spend any time training, I should be learning from a real teacher.
I know many students lost their faith in OYD but still kept training because they had invested too much money. Well it's funny how their own logic can be used against them. My mind and body are so valuable that even if I spent thousands of dollars on something that was supposed to make them better, if that thing doesn't work, I'm just gonna throw it away.
And to anyone on the fence about OYD, don't take my word or the words of dozens of others you'll find on the net. Just go find a qualified teacher and see what they have to teach. You'll have about a 99% chance that it will be cheaper than OYD and an almost equal chance that it will be better. But at least you'll have a reference for whether or not you're getting your money's worth.
For for information, just search the net. Http://sports. Groups. Yahoo.com/group/oomyungdoe_discuss/
is a good place to start.
0 comments