Switching karate schools

[u/lostsoul14808]

Hello all, I did traditional Japanese karate as a kid when I was a teenager for 3 years. I stopped training when I was in high school because life got busy. I’m in my 20s now and I wanted to go back to that same dojo but when I called and asked to see if I could come back the business person/ assistant to the sensei (not the owner of the dojo) said people who leave are not welcome back. I was also told by others who later tried to join the same dojo say that those who study other forms of martial arts aren’t allowed to study at this dojo. Is this common?

[u/Royal-Shock-352]

I would not trust anything they taught you. It sounds like they are doing their best to keep their students ignorant so they can't recognize that what they are teaching is essentially fake or low quality.

What you described is extremely odd as a business practice and is not normal karate culture. It is normal for schools to welcome back old students unless there was some bad history. It is normal to accept students who have studied other martial arts or other styles before.

Trying to play devil's advocate, I can come up with ideas that don't hit the mark.

As far as not welcoming back old students... If you split on bad terms, if you left without explanation when they thought they needed you, maybe. But as a general policy that if you have to go somewhere, budget more tightly, or fulfill other commitments, you won't be welcome when you're ready to come back... I don't see any good explanation for that.

As for not accepting students with backgrounds from other martial arts...

If they view their students as representatives of their school, and they view other schools as competitors, they might insist on some commitment. It makes sense to say you should train with whoever you're going to represent at tournaments. But this generally wouldn't apply to martial arts that don't compete with one another, like judo and karate. And they wouldn't turn students away because they used to practice another style, they would just tell them that if you want to train with them you would have to commit fully to training there.

They might not want someone picking up habits that interfere with the habits they're trying to instill, but once again, that would only rule out enrolling in multiple schools at the same time, they wouldn't just say that since you aren't a blank slate they can't work with you.