About Organizations
Page 4 of 5
Things to consider before joining an organization
- Who runs it, the rank and experience of the owners, the reputation of the organization, its owners, its instructors, and its students in the martial arts community, and who do they report to (such as to a larger organization)?
- Where is the organization located?
- Does the organization exist as a business in a building or does it only exist on a computer hard drive in someone’s home computer?
- Does the organization have a good record with its local Better Business Bureau?
- Does the organization have a web site? If an organization is large enough to consider itself a state, national, or international organization, then it should have its own domain name and not be a sub domain in some internet provider such as AOL, GeoCities, or Yahoo. A legitimate national or international organization should have a professionally designed web site, or at least appear professionally designed.
- A local organization should have more schools than just those belonging to the owner of the organization. A state organization should have a school in more than one city in the state. A national organization should have a school in more than one state, province, commonwealth, etc. of the nation. An international organization should have a school in more than one nation.
- The organization should not issue rank or instructor certificates to anyone other than students of member schools after a proper testing.
- All schools in the organization should be listed.
- Organization should have reasonable testing fees. If testing costs are the same for all rank tests, then high rank tests should not cost more.