Fred Villari Torrington CT Review : BAD Karate - Good Workout

I was a member of Fred Astaire - er I mean Fred Villari school, Torrington CT 06790, for 5 months. This review is based upon my personal experience.

The One Good Point: you will get a very good workout at Fred Villari classes that are an hour long and fairly intense. If you are not in shape you WILL get in shape.

The Bad Point: you most likely will NOT learn an effective method of defending yourself in a dangerous street situation and here all the reasons why:

[1] Many of the people there have belts they DO NOT deserve and DID NOT earn, and this includes the female teacher Miss Moore. These people make a complete mockery out of martial arts as a whole. Miss Moore, who is suppose to be a 3rd degree black belt, is dorkey, unbalanced, uncoordinated and extremely sloppy and amateurish with her form. I can tell Miss Moore must have serously been picked on in school because she is a class A dork. I seriously wonder who she had to suck off to get her Black Belt. There is a student there with a green/blue belt who bocks around like a chicken when doing his forms. He can't even throw a proper punch!!! There is another student, logain, who is a black belt, and his form, kicking and punching technique is also seriously qualifiyable for an episode of the Three Stooges.

[2] The teachers, Horan and Miss Moore are bother overly sensitive, overly rigid and not open to input regarding the teachings of other well known marital artists like Claude Van Damne, Steven Segal, etc. Every time I tried to show Horan a video showing something I though was good, his response was always a negative and dismissing one saying things like "yea thats fake" or "well his opponent sure helped make him look good" etc. Its as is the teachers think the Fred Villari method is the only good self defense system in the world, and my viewpoint from my experience is that is is one of THE WORST. If you search online you will see I am by no means the only one with that viewpoint. EGO EGO EGO.

[3] Another example of too much ego - Horan and Moore insist you call them MASTER or MISS. Why do they not allow you to related to them as regular people?? To me, this was and is a real turn off and a sign of immaturaty on an emotional level.

[4] The female teacher, MISS Moore, is serious bitch with a serious attitude. Again, low self esteem, big ego.

[5] Belts are just given to people based upon length of time there only. Every 2 - 3 months there is another graduation and just because you showed up during those 2 - 3 months, you will get the next belt. The belts are NOT earned in any way shape or form and are NOT based upon skills, abilities or talent.

[6] There are only 2 adult classes per week!! This is not enough and makes the $200 a month membership ways too much. At accession mixed martial arts in Bristol ct, there are 4 classes per week at less than $200. This is a school I WOULD recommend if you really want to learn how to defend yourself in a real street situation.

One thing I think these teachers at Fred villari's are disillusioned about is they think because they have a black belt they know how to fight. There's a huge difference between knowing karate and knowing how to fight and these people don't know the difference. I'm pretty sure I can kick this s*** out of any of the 'black belts' in there. The main instructor, Matt Horan actually believes and stated that mixed martial arts is not applicable to real fighting LOL! I guarantee anyone who trains in MMA for just 1 year would beat the hell out of ANYONE at villaries who has been there 5 years. Anyway, the main moral of this review IF YOU WANT A GOOD WORKOUT, JOIN VILLARIES, IF YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO FIGHT, GO ANYWHERE ELSE.