9 N Main St, Bellingham
Tue 1:00 - 9:30 PM
3.8
★★★★☆
24 reviews
“Master Souza is not a bad teacher, not a bad person either. I see a lot of anti Souza in the reviews, and I dont think its necessarily deserved. Hes a good guy, hes just different. It sounds like It would be a great thing to have the greatest teacher ever's teacher teach you, but it's not the same. There were a lot of changes made to the school and what we were learning after Mr. Wallace left, not a lot of them welcome, and some of them very unwelcome, but I dont feel as though the heart of the school has changed at all. It's just one minute you were learning mostly taekwondo with a little bit of boxing and a tiny bit of jujitsu, and the teacher was kind, funny, down to earth, and relatable. Now it feels like we are doing just as much boxing as we are kicking, most aspects of traditional taekwondo went straight out the window (forms, one-steps, certain blocks and strikes, etc), and the teacher feels a bit more far removed from the class. I feel like we as students connected to Mr. Wallace more because he was still a student in many aspects. He was extremely wize for his age, he was skilled and physically able, but he was young enough where us as students could have shared interests and experiences with him, the connection with Mr. Wallace was deep, and compelled me to keep persuing martial arts, and I dont think I'm the only one. As of now the only thing that is keeping me in Franklin Martial Arts is the friends that are still there from the "Mr. Wallace Era", but I DO NOT think that FMA is a bad school. They are honest, well trained, and good teachers. You really get an amazing value for your money, it's not what a lot of martial artists would call a "belt factory", you have to earn your rank, and you have to keep progressing to keep it. FMA is good to learn self defense, self offense, self control, self discipline, respect for yourself and others, and just useful life skills, for young kids or older adults, I highly recommend this school.”
