Who has read it.

TOPIC STARTER

RMS eran $100,000 a year
Zone directors
up to $450,000 a year

Kancho, club turns over ONE BILLION ANNUALLY.

I can't believe that turnover figure.The other figures are quite well known.

I believe its 2.5 Australian dollars to the English pound so that would mean a turnover of £400million sterling or 700American dollars!If you sit down and work out the figures it dosen't add up.I did a quick calaculation and found the figure to be nearer £10-15 million pounds sterling.A little more modest than £400 million!This was presuming that all regions had 100 plus students.

I read the article.
I thought it was fairly interesting.... and even though it spoke of the money to be made, i also presented the club in a good light.



Perhaps turnover includes stuff like videos, gi's, tournaments, etc, not just class fees?

I think it was it had the potential to turnover 1 billion or at least that was the aim of head Sully babe, at the moment it is $35 million a year.
Its actually a two part article so it will continue. One thing i noticed is in the article it doesnt mention B&W etc it actually talks about Black Belts and the B&W are called assistant instructors, which gives the impression they are helping a BB. Probably news to all the current "Instructors" i think you've just been demoted. It also talked about all instructors earn a percentage of the fees, however it does not mention the $500 cap or the percentage.

It seemed to be written in a advatorial style ie a paid for editorial this is just a advertisement dressed up to look like a story. I have often used this style, usually a magazine or newspaper will offer these stories which you write yourself, they even attach a staff members name to look like a story yet all they normally do is edit for style, spelling etc, these AD's are normally offered to big advertisers or relationship partners.

However i will reserve my judgement untill the second part. The only concern is Sully babe is defended in the actual editorial as well, and it is stated they are friends and used to train together. Always a good sign for a open and fair investigative journalism, only let friends interview you.

I will see if i can scan the article and post? maybe.

cheers
Freek

In any 'artistic' field theres always the association that to make money you have to compromise quality. Bands get accused of 'selling out' when they turn 'commercial', and nothing looks sadder than an actor/sportsman doing a commercial for used cars or hair replacement treatments.

I still prefer music made for quality not money, but the majority of the population listen to commercial pap on the austereo network oblivious to the real quality music being played down the local small venue in front of a few devotees.

Maybe GKR is the Backstreet Boys of the MA world.

meh I need another coffee

Dollars, pounds............or students?

Is there anyone else who finds the amounts of money talked about here a little obscene? I'm not, in principle, against anyone making money out of teaching martial arts, but tens of millions of dollars going to one individual? How can one person spend that much money? Isn't it about time Mr Sullivan started thinking about quality rather than quantity?

Skint and disgusted,

Mike

I guess you could say the same about McDonalds. Their High-ups get big bucks and for years, their product has been absolute junk which lots of people enjoy despite the fact it is bad for them. They probably wouyld not have brought in the salads-plus and those wraps if things like "super-size me" and other programs hadn't made such a point of how bad Maccas can be for you (in large amounts). There is also the growing competition from subway etc.



Is he worth that much or is the club?

Nah,not me!Lovely isn't it?

*rubs hands in glee and thinks of new Ferrari*

I too read this with interest, and found that everything was just so, well, rosy. I was going to reserve my judgement in all this until I read the second installment hoping that there may be a bit of a reality check in all this.

What disturbed me was that there was no mention or recognition of some of the (well founded) criticisms of the club that both members and non members make on a regular basis. I also felt it to be a little bit insulting in the talking up of how the instructors are well supported and well trained when the reality is that the club could do so much more to support/train the instructors.

What shocked me even more was that is an RM chooses to leave the club it can cost them A$20,000 because of the training costs etc. It just seems a bit off to me (ethically speaking).

Like I have said there is another installment to come, lets hope the hard questions get asked without the allegation that criticisms of the club are a result of professional Jealousy etc etc.

Can someone scan it and post it please? (bugger copyright.... ) . Speaking strictly professionally I'd be very interested to learn about that retirement clause - being accountant for a couple of RM's I think I should know about it. I tried to contact gkr's accountant a few years ago to clear up some other issues, but my calls were unreturned.

Maybe some of our SDC (or ex-SDC) members could shed some light on this?

I to had the same feeling about the article that it was way to 'pretty', note at the third page of the magazine there is an editorial headlined 'Professional Jealousy 'written by the editor which goes on about GKR criticism and how it is pure jealousy, may be so but why would the editor of the magazine seek to cover his bases in advance unles he knew critism would come his way.

Note with so many GKR members and Kancho Sullivan on the cover BLITZ will sell alot of this edition and of those who buy it most will buy nexts months as well.

Pretty smart way of selling your magazine by putting the founder of the most popular ( in terms of members) on the cover and putting the article in two parts.

If it smells like Sh@t then it probably is SH*t

Matt here is the editorial and artical, if it takes up to much space feel free to delete it

Click to view attachment
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Warren

Thank you for that Warren.

Wow - where to start.

What I would have liked to have seen is him actually addressing the criticism directly rather than just saying "oh its professional jealousy". There are some legit gripes about the style itself (directed at many other styles also - but being the biggest club you get the biggest share of the complaints).

"basic uncluttered karate' seems to almost read 'watered down' to me. We've all (well, most of us) done it, and how many of us can say we really feel competent to defend ourselves if wrestled to the ground in town this saturday night? Any self defence we do has questionable effectiveness, and simply isnt practiced enough to be truly effective.
Full credit to him for creating a successful tournament style, but I think he needs to take a step back and be a bit more realistic in his assessment of it. Self defence is not solely punching and kicking. I keep hearing the term 'quality karate', but while many point out exactly why they think it isnt, I think what is desperately needed is a full detailed technical opinion of exactly why he thinks it is. Those of us who endure the criticism face to face from members of other styles would certainly appreciate it.

I cant see how demanding 20 grand is anything but buying loyalty. Sure a huge amount of businesses have loyalty agreements, but each has to be assessed on its merits and how draconian or lax the terms of it are is paramount. I guess thats a reaction to the UK split a few years ago.




And.....he worked for amway....

A short time ago while I was an SDC I had the extreme honour of meeting Kancho for a third time while at a combined training in Sydney. After the training the group of us sat for about 2 hours and among the things discussed was money.
I cannot remember exact figures but I do clearly remember that more than half of not only Kancho's yearly income but most of the clubs surplus funds get fed straight back into GKR. This money is being spent all sorts of things ranging from DVD's (lol) and also the spreading of GKR throughout the USA and Europe. They are aiming at having over 1000 regions in the USA alone, all to be managed using the Honbu (Full time dojo) system.

In the end, when all this is said and done, GKR is still a business (and a successful one at that) but its focus still is, and always will be, on giving as many different people throughout the world the opportunity to practice Karate in a strong, family orientated style.

America will be an expensive nut to crack for GKR. Although I think they should have the full-time dojo system over here, one for every region would be a good start.

Oh - by the way, Welcome to the Forum Noakespq


Cheers

Tom.

And if that focus results in increased revenue.. nah that'd just be a cynical viewpoint.

There are plenty of family oriented styles about, most with stronger karate on offer. It's just a marketing spin, implying that other clubs are not.

We had a number of the senior people at today's seminar with Tino Ceberano come up to introduce themselves and make us feel welcome because they hadn't seen us before. I've never seen nor heard of this happening at GKR events.


Mick

Peter!!!!!



Glad to see you're lacking in social life enough to join us here.



Oh come on.
It's a business... businesses have to make money or we'd all have to stop training.

Eeeep...

Rumour has it that Silvio Morelli (apparently) has an exclusive contract to write articles for Shimbun on health and training. So maybe that puts a few things into context, as over the last few months there have been a number of 'mentions' of how good shimbun is (and it is, don't get me wrong) and a few articles etc about professional jealousy etc. I don't think the hard questions are going to get asked, unfortunately. I hate to use the term conflict of interest.........

I personally do not know Silvio Morelli and I have always enjoyed Blitz and the articles within it and had some respect for the magazine (I still do).

The honest truth is that Kancho has built GKR into what it is and made a lot of money from it, he will believe what he believes as he has never really been made to face up to the faults within the the club (or he chooses to ignore them as he is 'the founder' and therefore 'god'). This is because it is first and foremost a money making venture for him, I think somewhere in the acquiring of money, expansion and MA dominance good, sound, knowledgable karate got lost.

I am a member of GKR and love many of the people within the club, I also train regularly and have some fantastic instructors, however a few things have happened to me lately that have opened my eyes a lot. I am not bitter and twisted or anything like that. I am just a realist and have seen a lot of people used and abused by the club representatives (RMs). I think we need to take off our rose coloured glasses and accept the club for what it is warts and all or leave. I think changes will be made eventually to improve the problems, but it will take a while yet.

I apologise for this turning into a rant.

Whether you like the whole business aspect or not there is one thing that GKR can be credited for which is pointed out in the article. And that is getting people off the couch and into a class. Providing a service for those that are interested and giving them something new to be interested in and enjoy.

The negative aspects of the club are there and in a way other clubs should be perhaps thankful to GKR as they are the ultimate beneficiaries of those who chose to leave GKR. (I have nothing against those who chose to go elsewhere btw )

The point is if it wasnt for GKR that sparked the interest many other clubs would not have their students as the cracks in the GKR structure become apparent but the person doesnt want to give up MA completely. Therefore they look for something else.

These are students that these other clubs would potentially not get otherwise due to lack of marketing. (Not to say that GKRs marketing system is 100% foolproof either)

Just a different spin on things

I do like your point me_1986 and have thought of that in the past...

But the "faults within the the club" that leela has pointed out seem to outweigh that.... Especially for those that stick with the club for long periods of time... These faults don't show problems now.... they come up later on in life when it may be too late to do anything about them...


After seeing Hanshi Tino Ceberano yesterday and hearing him talk and hearing of his problems from learning martial arts the "old way" I'm not sure the practises taught to us today are sound enough to warrant so many people learning these so called bad habits.... And the problem is, that there are so many clubs out there from all backgrounds, not just karate, that still teach "traditional martial arts" the old way. Not taking into account the knowledge we have on the human body today.

Especially the children. As stated by Mr Ceberano "The children are he Sensei's of tomorrow", so basically what we teach them will have a massive affect on what they in turn teach their students.... Which would we rather is tauight to the next generation? martial practices that are bad for our bodies or good sound martial arts that will allow us not only to defend ourselves when we are older but allow for our bodies to make it to that age with us?


I don't have any problems with Kancho making money from his karate... They're right, it's a business. But what is the problem in putting some of that money back into the club for all students to attend real instructor training seminars like those soon to be offered through TAFE schools...

I used to do the whole door knocking thing and even worked my way up to a point where I had just been appointed to assistant regional manager. I had signed an agreement that kind of said basicly that I cant teach for anyone else, its called a restrictive covenant. I have had three different lawyers look at it and they all said that it was'nt worth the paper that it was written on, it had nothing about paying them $20,000. maybe they started this after I left. There was also a guy who left and started his own club, gkr took him to court and they lost.

Its true that the doorknocking works very well. the problem that gkr have is that do not train their instructors properly, sometimes it felt like we were filling up a bucket with a hole in it. There are some great instructors amongst gkr that really do care for their students and are doing a great job, from what I have seen Susan is one of these.

Since leaving gkr I have opened up schools for the Ceberanos in Perth, it is awesome. We don't get the students through the door like gkr do which is a bummer, but we refuse to do the door knocking because gkr has a bad name for doing it. We limit our classes to 15 students per class, so in an afternoon I will teach six classes, all classes are structured so that people in each class are a similar age and similar ability. So a new 5 yo kid will start in the first class and as he gets older and more experienced he will then move up into the next class and so on, we use the higher classes as a carrot for the kids to perform well.

Also I have been taaught how to teach, there are three main things that we do when teaching that improve retention hugely. Nobody at gkr no these little secrets, infact they do the opposite which is why their retention sucks as well as their class structure. When I taught at gkr I had up to 55 kids in one class from 5yo up to 15yo sometimes parents as well ranging in grades from white belt up to blue belt. When I asked the regional manager if I split the class into two and have 2 smaller classes he winged about paying for an extra hour of hall hire.

Now I measure my retention and it has been as high as 96% over 1 year. We find that the only reason people leave us is if they die or move away, and if they do move away we do our best to find them a club to train with at their new town.

Now imagine if gkr worked on their instructors like the ceberano's have worked on me. They would no longer have to door knock because they would be inundated by referrals. But they just can't see that they need to invest in their instructors, to me this is very short sighted. This is why they need to door knock, they neeed to get people in the door faster than they are going out.

All valid points.

One simple question though: How do you tell the 'phonies' from the good old quality old school karate???

Is there a manual one could get anywhere? No. And this is simply the nature of the problem.

No style is perfect.

(Just being a devils advocate).

That is a problem, to the untrained eye it would be impossible to tell who is the real deal.

But what I'm saying has nothing to do with styles but with the clubs and instructors. As Tino Hanshi always says "its not the style but the man".

By rights gkr should be an awesome style as it is a blend of two other awesome styles, the problem is they just didn't get all of it. There is a lot more to karate than basics, kata and point fighting which is all that gkr have and they only have about a third of the basics and the kata has been bastardized so that it is barely recognizable. Then they perform kata so that it looks good but ask them for some application to the kata and they havent got a clue.

I'm starting to rant and rave a bit now but I think that anyone with half a brain would know what I am on about.

As far as trying to suss out what is a good school to go too, about the only thing you could do is to have a look at a few different clubs and choose the one that you are most comfortable with. Its like buying a new car, you dont just buy the first one you see. You have a look at a few different ones then you work out which ones look the best, then you start to take a few for a test drive and so on.

Unfortunately gkr wont let you have a test drive, most clubs will give you a couple of free lessons to try it out, I know we do, the last thing I want is for somebody to pay their membership money, train for a couple of nights and then decide that its not for them.

All very interesting. I don't want to go on about the well-documented deficiencies in the club, but I just wanted to make two points about the article.

Firstly, as has been alluded to, the article is biased. Silvio Morelli's editorial actually says "my old friend Robert Sullivan". Starting from this point, I don't think the hard questions are going to get asked of old mate Bob. Its interesting though that they go on about the makiwara being so wonderful and that Bob uses one all the time but actually mention that GKR don't have any.

Second, there are a few references to the magic of karate. I think THIS is what starts many young people in karate in the first place (hell, it started me nearly 20 years ago) and putting it into this article might be another bit of marketing spin.

Im glad GKR does what it does. If i wasnt door knocked 4 years ago, god only knows what i would be doing atm. With the amount I enjoy my training and teaching, i am willing to overlook any shortcomings.

YEs you are right, the door knocking is very good in that respect. It certainly has changed a lot of peoples lives for the better. I guess it just depends on what class you have been sent too.

My two cents worth... I am not all that concerned about the annual turnover GKR, or any martial arts group makes. I mean business is business, and if they are making a good profit it out of it then good on them.

The thing that concerns me, is, are they (and this is only my opinion) forgoing quality in pursuit of profit? It is just that I question the quality of the teaching of SOME sensei's within the club, particularly some RM's. I am not questioning their martial arts skill and experience, but the other qualities a person must possess (communication skills and interpersonal skills) which goes towards making a good sensei.

This may be off on a tangent really to what the article is really talking about... but I guess it came up for me when they were talking about the amount of students they can recruit from door to door marketing... and then always having it reinterated at senior training the rate at which students drop out of GKR.

Hi ya Peter! and Goyle, social life shmocial life...


Cant say anything bout the teaching cause I dont, but to the rest: yuppers! So happy we got door knocked, not just cause it's introduced me to something I find myself really enjoying, but I've met so many people I probably would never have met otherwise, and not just the people I train with here in Canberra, there's Nooms, Tombat, Mick, Susan and Mum - I mean Matt! - and everybody else here


And yes I am in a quirky soppy mood

I'm with her.

If I wasn't pestered by my friend to join GKR all those years ago, my life would be very different to how it is now.
If these forums didn't exist, my life wouldn't have been enriched by you guys.
GKR has a lot to answer for

With all respect Noakes, by overlooking any shortcomings this allows people to be taken advantage of and the quality of the training and karate deteriorates. I was a bit like yourself, I had some great instructors and great students and freinds in the club. I came onto some of these sites looking for information and more education to improve my karate. I found myself like you, I was willing to overlook some of the disadvantages the club had as I loved the people I knew in the club and have some great freindships.

A number of months ago the rot started to set in, I was not getting any feedback from the RM and he was reluctant to answer some bunkai and technique questions I was asking, I also recieved a very nasty reply to a message I sent requesting some information on behalf of a student.

After a final insult from the man I decided that I no longer wanted to teach for the club as I was not getting the level of support/instruction I should have been getting as an instructor. I have just been training as a coloured belt again and it is great. Although my Sensei is fantastic and I learn a lot and get a lot of feedback, knowledge and support, I still feel there is something missing.

I will probably always train with GKR, however I also want to train elsewhere as I am starting to lose respect for some of the heirarchy within the club. I have also found that my thirst for further knowledge - admittedly set of by Shihan and Mark Case - is not being answered. Possibly because too many of us are all to willing to overlook the shortcomings (from naivety) and to not demand more accountability from the RMs and Kancho himself.

It is unfortunate that there are some people in GKR who have attained a higher position in GKR more because of their buisness skills rather than their karate. In any style or buisness the size of GKR it will always be harder to sort out the bad eggs. I do not think that RM's under qualified for their position karate wise are a problem to be overlooked. I mearly was saying, GKR is a family orientated style, it goes out ant finds people who would never build up the courage to get down and try a karate class and gives them the motivation and excitement to do so. Most people who start give up but for some people it changes their life. Anything that enriches someones life is a good thing, reguardless of the politics. I cant speak for anyone else but im glad that GKR knocked on my door.

It's changed my life, to be sure.



I dont really think you can blame these incidents on the head of the organisation. Did Kancho specifically tell whoever it was to send you a nasty reply to your request?

No he did not goyle, however I feel there seems to be a lot of taking from people and not really giving back, also a lot of empty promises seem to be made. Maybe it is from just the one RM, yet I have similar experiences from two, and I have heard this too many times from too many people from too many regions who feel they have had their good nature taken advantage of. I am sure there are a few people on here that will agree with me.

To me, a companys' representatives (management/RMs) are a reflection of the man who founded it and his personal/business beliefs. I am sure Kancho is well aware of the honest criticisms (there are some that are not true) that are made about the club. Many of these criticisms are fixable but instead of adressing them, we read a lecture on professional jealousy.

I think Kancho needs to be upfront and admit there are some issues that need to be adressed and to do something about them. Instead many good people who have voiced valid issues/complaints are made to feel so uncomfortable that they leave the club, something that can be a difficult and painful decision for them, some of these people have many years association with the club and have invested a lot of time and energy into it.

Yes GKR is a great club in so many ways, but it could be much greater.

Im glad to hear he said that, but where is the money going? My instructors have to provide their own focus mitts and kickbags and raise funds for this. NAS teams do their own fundraising. No-one gets paid except a cut out of fees. Everything is on a user pays basis. Where does this money get channelled?

Hi Wanderer

Have you looked at the price of fuel lately, imagine fueling a 130 foot boat and a helicopter, thats where a lot of your training fees are going.

rocket

Doesn't get channelled into dvd's, or the making of.

and even if it did he'd be making a 500% profit off the sales of said dvd's anyway

LOL.
Money gets spent alot of ways. They are going to have 1000 honbu's in the USA, thats 1000's of buildings to buy and/or rent, not to mention renovate. I dont have any definate answers tho.

Wasnt there a plan to get honbu's throughout Australia? Are we being left behind in the effort to conquor the states?

How about really fixing the problems in the UK and Australia before spending all that money in the US. How about putting the so called funds into providing decent training for the Sensei he already has. How about living up to his claims????

SNAP!
great timing and great minds leela

Looking at the magazine articte on the first page of this string, it is obvious that this Coucho Sullyvainity does not have the slighest idea when it comes to posture!
Where did he learn these stances???? No centre of ballance, just a ballancing act.
Get real!

He's good at balancing books though!


The majority of the money is spent on posing.All the UK Zone directors have brand new Ferrari's and other fancy things.Most try and live like Premiership footballers.This worshipping of money put me off GKR.It goes against all traditional values and is obsecene.I have no objection to anyone making a living from martial arts but do they have to behave like some kind of pimp?

These people should hang their heads in shame and undergo spiritual forging to purge these foolish ideas from their souls.They should be l locked in a Zen temple and forced to sit in zazen until they repent for their sins.

And tony will mind the cars. For a modest fee...


Anon

Not too modest....

you boys are so funny

Has anybody read the next installment yet???? Be good to know what else was said.

If somebody can post it on here as it was sold out when I went to get one from the newsagent.