WMA was (and I suppose still is) a martial arts school. During my time, it was located in the back corner of a shopping center at the intersection of William Cannon and West Gate, in south Austin. One of many McDojo's in the US.
--Some history--
WMA has lasted a pretty long time. To my knowledge WMA has gone through two name change, two moves, and four system changes. Right now it is named Black belt school Academy. I find it funny cause on caller ID this just shows up as "Black." Who do I know named "black" and why are they calling me? The school currently follows a poor system called Xtreme Martial Arts (I'm embarassed to even show that link). Yup, some poor guy at discovery channnel got sucked into a marketing sceme ploy. Watch it and you'll "discover" that it's just a 2 hour comercial with no content. Here's another XMA page.
WMA students like to think of things as having a specific point, after which marks the decline of the school from a stable and competent position to blah. From my generation, we liked to think that the name change, from River Ciry Martial arts to World Martial Arts, was that moment. Others point to the arise of aerobic kickboxing as the culprit. Some students think that when the school decided to market itself as "kickboxing" verses the historical "karate" was the decline. Still others think that the loss of a particular instuctor was the decline. Well, point is, this feeling of decline is not unique to just one period and is probably caused by the fact that instructors teach only 2 or 3 years before moving on leaving a time of transition. In fact, I've noticed other schools have the same feeling.
--What was taught?--
I can not speak for what is now. The simple answer is this: punches, kicks, kuk soo won forms, and han mu do wrist techniques. Depending on the time period, how we did punches and kicks changed and we had maybe a cool system or style name to help our marketing. Somewhere along the line I picked up some grappling, learned to do 540s and twirl long sticks. Really things were a big mess: much like the state of martial arts in general.
Take a look at these pics from the old WMA days. I couldn't figure out how best to organize them, so I kept them in groups based on who sent them to me. (If you've got some stuff too, well come find me.)
Follow this link to the very patriotic looking WMA web site (now who would dare go to one of those unpatriotic martial arts school in this day and age?). There you can find out who “is not just an exceptional martial artist,” but “is also one of the best instructors in the United States.” Also see if you can find Greg Silva’s picture mounted in there somewhere (if you can find it, then you know it's an official United Professionals website: all the school in UP are mounted by Greg Silva).
-dec/11/2004-
