West Vancouver Martial Arts

went to this place for about a year for both cardio and adult martial arts kboxing and this is my experience with them cardio classes: nothing special, very demanding, small class of maybe 3 people, overall pretty good actually if you want to lose fat adult martial arts on the other hand is very lackluster for what you pay, they give you 6 month or 1 year deals that cost around $33 per day (1 hour) for 2 day a week deal..this is already ridiculous, just to put this in comparison, there's a kboxing place on Denman with much smaller classes that you pay 30 dollars per month for a whole unlimited month training this is how a day in WVMA for adult martial art looks: regular same everyday warm up 10 mins, pad work (very mediocre combos), some kicks and punches 10 mins (you are actually frowned upon doing kicks and punches out of your belt level), belt specific combos 10 mins (gets very boring very fast over a period of time and overall way too easy), BJJ for like 15 mins (I don't understand this part, why is this part of kboxing?), conditioning (5 mins) then stretches + Master Blake's life lesson which he freestyles horribly or pretty good some days, i love this guy haha (5 mins). this happened everyday for almost over a year, the pace is INCREDIBLY slow and very boring for any decently fast learner, all the other advanced kicks and punches I had to learn by myself, these instructors also don't promote belts on skill level, it's how long you went here for, I would personally pay not even 10 dollars for these classes, it feels like a drop in kboxing rather than a 33 dollar 1 hour kboxing lesson (now I heard they are offering special promotionsof personal training, i wonder why...) the place itself is too small to include all 20 plus ppl so they even decided to put the lower level belts in a later time at 8 PM rather than 7 PM, they quickly reverted that in a week of trial, not sure what they were thinking... that being said the 1 star goes to the personality of Sensei Dean, Master Blake and the ppl there, they are all great ppl, I have actually nothing against them, they treated me perfectly fine as a person, it's just their kboxing business mindset and way of teaching are horrible, ppl go here because it's the only place in West Van that teaches kboxing kboxing skill level of ppl on average is obviously very low due to the slow-to-no teaching here, I know a few ppl who are good, but a majority higher than white belts couldn't even roundhouse kick in good form, this is not because the ppl are naturally bad, this is evident in the instructors' frowning upon ppl trying out of belt level kicks, combos, punches, and their completely ineffective and turtle speed coaching please save your money, go somewhere else

I created this account to write a completely honest review after 2 year experience. First: too expensive. Even if you sign up for 6 month deals they charge you around almost 30 dollars per day and you get to only go 2 days per week (1 hour each day). For cardio i think it is OK, but their martial arts lessons are incredibly boring and stale. Everyday same routine, kicks, punches, cardio. At best you will learn something new after 6 months and you start to wonder if you are in cardio. The instructors actually PREVENT people from LEARNING/DOING/TRYING techniques above their belts. The testing for belts is not strict at all and just moves everyone up even if they are not even remotely ready. If you want to learn kickboxing techniques and move up quickly based on your skill, NEVER EVER go here. Go to the north van one instead. You will actually learn more by watching 5 minute youtube clips than coming here and the worst part is that the instructors still make people do contraindicated exercises that put a ton of pressure on your spine and neck.