I was having a Facebook discussion about the term “Orientals” as an inappropriate descriptor for human beings, but eventually things went awry as they often tend to, and then before we knew it, it was hijacked by the topic of martial arts Zubaz pants, and jokes about Rex Kwon Do. And whenever I hear about Rex Kwon Do, it makes me think about the farcical business model of overnight Tae Kwon Do schools that emerge out of nowhere, with oft-debatable credentials of those who run them.
I like to call them McDojos. Gimme money, and I’ll feed you bullshit and a black belt after you’ve paid enough.
I’ve endured my share of McDojos as a kid, and I’m fairly confident that two of the three places in which I “learned” martial arts were McDojos in their own right, with the third one actually having a very legit headmaster, although he taught in all of maybe a handful of classes while I was there. So maybe all three were McDojos, after all. Well shit.
Anyway, when I was still living up in Virginia, and still working for the newspaper where I started my graphic design career, I remember this one ad I made for a McDojo that stood out in particular, because out of all the McDojos I’ve ever seen in my life, none had, well, marketed in the paper in the first place, but had boasted as much bullshit as I’d ever seen in my entire life like this one did.
In some capacity, every school’s head teacher is a “Master” of some capacity, because what better way to market your school, than to claim that it’s taught by a real-life martial arts master? But then you get some McDojos that actually have someone of legitimacy at least backing the entire operation, like the third one I went to. That school’s head teacher was a legitimate TKD Grand Master, who had been a high-number ranking black belt, won numerous championships, and was one of the final torch-bearers prior to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Although he seems to have dropped the superlative in his schools today, this particular McDojo’s head teacher went by not only “just” Grand Master, but Super Grand Master. It was kind of a joke within the office, and that we really couldn’t quite figure out what could possibly top a Super Grand Master, and what separated the Super Grand Masters from the just Grand Masters.
However, superficially exemplary head teacher credentials and titles aside, what struck me the most amusing about Super Grand Master’s (henceforth referred to as SGM) McDojo operation was the fact that he did not claim to specifically be teaching Tae Kwon Do, or Karate, or Aikido, or any singular traditional form of martial arts. Instead, SGM claimed that the basis of his school was to teach a new martial art, called HWARDO. Hwardo claims to be a massive combination martial art, consisting of the following:
Taekwondo, Hapkido, Kung Fu, Karate, Kick Boxing, Judo, Jiu Jitsu, and Weapons
I guarantee, back then and even now, that Hwardo is 99% Tae Kwon Do, and maybe a once a week/month segment of a particular class, students get to bring out wooden dowels or Amazon-purchased nunchucks, and call it weapons training. Every single one of the martial arts that supposedly consist of Hwardo all share a massive number of concepts and executions to really blur the lines and claims that each style is represented, and if I had to identify one that stood out the most, it would probably be kung-fu, because it’s vastly differing from the all-in styles of all the other forms referred to.
As far as McDojos went, I do have to give credit to SGM for taking such measures. The fact that he marketed at all said that he was taking very seriously of investing back into his McDojo. And the execution of inflating his own title, as well as making up a completely exclusive name for a martial art discipline that doesn’t technically exist is pretty grandiose.
The thing is, I wouldn’t ever have guessed that SGM’s dojo would have succeeded in the long run. But the discussion of Rex Kwon Do and McDojos reminded me of the once-existence of Hwardo to compel me to google it, and lo and behold, not only has SGM’s operation not closed down, but it has expanded drastically over the last decade. Several other Hwardo schools have opened up, and not just in Virginia anymore, but also expanding into Pennsylvania and New York. From the looks of things, it looks like SGM’s offspring have taken up the mantle of teaching Hwardo to gullible saps as well; they’re not Super Grand Masters, but they certainly have taken up respective Master titles of their own.
So color me surprised that Hwardo has not only survived, but as thrived and expanded over the last decade. I would never have guessed the Hwardo bullshit would survive, much less avalanche into a massive snowball like it has. But I have to say the best part of the success of Hwardo is that they’re creating such awesome marketing materials like the video posted above. Seriously, who needs to show any footage of in-class instruction to people of all ages, when we can just show randomly spliced footage of people in massively high ranks breaking boards with their leg around their head, and then speaking in Korean?
In all fairness, I’m guessing that there are a lot of talented Tae Kwon Do practitioners to have emerged from all these Hwardo schools over the last 10-11 years. I’m betting that SGM, his offspring, and many of students are perfectly good people and fine outstanding citizens. I wouldn’t have nearly the objection to the whole concept if it were just called what it really was, instead of some made up bullshit like Hwardo. It’s a lot like my opinion of why Korean restaurants can’t ever just call themselves a Korean restaurant, and almost always resort to saying that they’re “Korean/Japanese;” they don’t think they’re good enough on their own.
Tae Kwon Do is a strong and respectable discipline in its own right, but in the age of McDojos and unqualified “masters” teaching it to people all over, it’s like SGM felt that his school didn’t stand a chance at survival, unless he completely made up a monument of bullshit and sold it alternatively. But you know, good for him, that it worked out, and that he’s successfully expanded his foothold and created somewhat of a small business empire now.
But as long as he keeps calling it Hwardo, and his people continue to make awesome videos like this one, respect takes a back seat to the hearty amounts of laughter that ensue instead.
