reply to Vortexx
HI Vortexx, Nice reply (no sarcasm). It is obvious that you have heard only one side of things. I can tell you from being there (in multiple provinces) that what you have heard is definitely a spin on things. It may not be completely incorrect, but it is certainly not the whole truth. For instance: Piercy paying his instructors next to nothing - that was status quo before Piercy. Not so curiously, a few months after Piercy was kicked out (read from Grasshopper, Piercy did not leave on his own), he would have owned the whole franchise with no more licensing fees to Simon. As my post stated, with so much licensing fees etc going to Simon (around 30% conservatively) of course no one could pay instructors very much. And of course peope could spin it against Piercy. Root cause though, money was being drained from the studios. The other chiefs/masters would have had made a lot of money once Piercy owned the studios outright and they had their share. As stated many times, how could anything happend great financially when there were all the licensing fees to spend, and paying for the franchise on top of that. It is no coincidence that the drive by Simon, with the other masters, happened right before Piercy would have owned the franchise outright. You say you do not see evidence. People like grasshopper were there and have stated what they saw and happened, yet you continue to disregard this evidence. What evidence would you believe? Simon admitting to what he did in an online forum or in person???? I think you would be waiting a long time. Do you still not see the similarity in the stories between what supposedly happened to Webber, Piercy, Sparrow etc they stole money, they can't pay their bills etc. I heard the rumors about Piercy stealing money or taking it out, absolutely not true. Simon's loyal followers out East attempted the same rumors about Sparrow but the majority of the students would not buy any of it. And no, Simon was not obligated to support his loyal followers out East, I never stated that he was obligated. I simply stated that it shows a lack of loyalty on his part. Piercy and autocratic rule: I can't comment because I was not a chief or instructor etc. I know that pay scale was very similar to what happened before him. However, I could argue that his firm control is also what allowed him to build up the studios. Certainly the decline of the studios did not happen out east until well after Piercy lost control. And yes it had to do with money again....odd that, root cause again: licensing fees etc were draining the available cash that the business had. Again, a onservative estimate is that 30% was going directly out of the studios to HO. re DJ Geoff being able to say no to Simon: well there were signed agreements in place before that allowed the Simon's to control many of the decisions that you feel the past 'owners' were responsible for. Again, knowing that Sparrow has apologised to both Weber and Piercy, same for Sparrow and Jones to Piercy, and they all attribute manipulation by the Simon's?? Don't you even begin to question anything? What more evidence do you want than the letter Sparrow sent out to at least question things. Just cast aside Sparrow's letter outright? Again, about the only evidence left after that is the Simon's admitting to what they did!! Cynically speaking, I could suggest that the reason DJ Geoff (sorry they get that name due to the ridiculous spamming they are doing on the other site, it just makes them look really childish) were able to say no to Simon would be the following (highly paraphrased) discussion: DJ Geoff: Look Olaf, we want to set up the studios but we need to change a few things like your licensing fees so we can keep the prices low and avoid another collapse SImon: huh not likely DJ Geoff: Well the alternative is having no studios Simon: ok And I would point out that your own comment points to this (in spirit anyway) when you stated that there were things Simon wanted to do, but DJ Geoff said no. Why was Simon telling them anything if he is not meddling or involved? You can't have it both ways. You can't argue that Simon was not involved and it was all the past owners but then state what you did about DJ Geoff having to say no to Simon. Either Simon is not involved or he is. Don't forget, Sparrow tried to change things at the Studios, but June overruled him. Can you really just pretend that Sparrow is completely making that up to cover his ass? I can accept the possibility that he made it up, but I was exposed enough to too many things that heavily suggest otherwise. As far as who drove the studios into the ground. I can see that you have obviously gotten a very complete one-side of the story. I have obvioulys been exposed to the other side of it. I have also been exposed for many years to the studios and you have to be very close-minded to not start questioning why the story keeps repeating. If the studios had taken off after Piercy was kicked out then I could accept what you say, but they did not. Calgary/Edmonton seem to only be doing ok/better (??) after Simon relented on some policies. Think about it. I agree that the past owners should have been able to change things, since they owned the studios, and they tried to change things. So that makes you wonder why they were not able to change..... As far as the students left in Toronto.... what a joke that has become. Infighting, and having to rent out a school gym. And they are a prime example of why a lot of students became disenchanted. (this is something that may somewhat reasonably be attributed to Sparrow ignoring the studios as the ran into financial trouble and his ongoing distractions with the Simon's). There were certain senior students/former instructors who got into what somebody named talk-fu. This is where the students stand around and listen while the person leading the class (usually PHS but I heard it was happening in skills as well) would demonstrate a technique and then go on about the wonders of Simon for the next 15 minutes. There were times where a particular two of them (they now 'lead' the ragtag fugitive fleet :) ) would tagteam this wonderous awe of Simon. There were times were we would have a good warmup, and then we would be shown a technique and we would get the chance to repeat this 1-2 times in the next 30 minutes. Who would want to come out for that. And then to keep hearing how we need to pay for this wonderful knowledge. Just ridiculous. We saw Simon once in the last three years, and it was to hear a tired rehash of the same old discussion I heard several times before. With about 1 -2 two techniques shown in that time of over an hour standing listening to him. Wait a sec.... that sounds familiar.... I have questioned both sides of what I have heard. I will never believe that the past owners/masters were blameless or angels. But I certainly can never be convinced that Simon and co were out there and supporting the Studios and had the best interests of everyone else at heart. Again, HO and SImon's loyalty to the students left in Toronto speaks for itself! later

rainmann: "Piercy paying his instructors next to nothing - that was status quo before Piercy." I know it was. It still doesn't make it right. "Not so curiously, a few months after Piercy was kicked out (read from Grasshopper, Piercy did not leave on his own), he would have owned the whole franchise with no more licensing fees to Simon." Ok, now that statement makes no sense to me. GMS promoted Piercey to 9th (according to you) degree black belt, which is the highest any of his masters have ever achieved. He declared Piercey his successor. He bought a property in Grand Forks across from his own and gave it to Piercey as a gift because he considered Piercey as family! Under Piercey TKF prospered and expanded, which would also keep GMS happy. And after this you tell me that GMS kicked him out? C'm on... As for owning the franchise, that also makes no sense. It sounds like you're saying that Piercey was making payments on the franchise, and was very close (say, 90%) to owning all of it. If that was the case, he would be the major shareholder of the franchise, and would be receiving 90% of the licensing fees himself. Nobody would have had the right to kick him out of a business where he's the major share holder. If anything, he might have been able to kick Simon out with only 10% holdings. And you can be sure that with 90% Piercey would be the one to control TKF, licensing agreements, etc., so that he could make absolutely any change he wanted regardless of what GMS said. When Piercey did leave, you can be sure his payments didn't just disappear. Either he still controls 90% of TKF and collects 90% of the licensing fees (I'm quite positive that's not the case), or he sold his share back to Simon, leaving him with a whole pile of money. Furthermore, that is just about the ownership of the franchise. As for the ownership of the studios, they were totally owned by Piercey. The business was entirely his, and Simon could not take it away from him any more than he could from Weber. At most Simon could have withdrawn the franchise license (provided Piercey didn't own 90% of it), but the studios would still remain under Piercey's control and he could continue operating them in the same way that Weber did, and Simon would simply lose his license fees. So even if Simon had wanted to kick Piercey out (which I highly doubt), he wouldn't have been able to. "As my post stated, with so much licensing fees etc going to Simon (around 30% conservatively) of course no one could pay instructors very much." First of all I don't agree with your numbers. You say that the licensing fees are $2000 per studio. Not so long ago they were $500 per city (according to instructors that I spoke to). I'm guessing they weren't much higher than that in Piercey's time. If there were on average 10 PHS per studio, even if GMS got all of it (which he didn't) that would add up to approximately another $400 a month (considering this was even counted in the studio's income). You say the studios made $10,000 per month. That would be on a bad month. In Edmonton the average was closer to $15,000, with near $20,000 on a good month. So, with about $900 going to Simon (about 6%, not 30%), there was still plenty of money left over to pay the instructors. Secondly, you contradict yourself. You say that Piercey was very close to buying out GMS's franchise. I'm sure that wasn't cheap. Where did he get that kind of money? From his studios, of course. So if he had this money, he could have used it more wisely by raising his instructors' salaries. And if he didn't have that money because he had invested it into the franchise itself, than he would be collecting 90% of the licensing fees to do whatever he wanted with. You've mentioned Simon's millions. I don't know what he has, but I have heard of Piercey's millions. You can be sure he got quite rich off his business. So don't tell me that poor Piercey didn't have enough money to pay his instructors so that they could afford an apartment. Thirdly, your reasoning is wrong from a business sense. Instructors are by far the greatest asset to any martial arts studio. If you pay your instructors enough so that they stick around, and if you train them properly, then they'll become very good, the quality of training would go up, and in turn the studios would attract and keep more students, increasing your profits. If you lower the instructors' salaries instead, then the good ones quit, the quality of training goes down, the students leave, your income goes down, so you lower your instructors' salaries even more, and so on until bankruptcy.

"People like grasshopper were there and have stated what they saw and happened" I've spoken to other instructors that presented a very different story. I think that grasshopper's conclusions were drawn from half-truths and incomplete info. Of course, my info isn't complete either. So I draw my evidence of what I think is most logical and plausible. To me, for the reasons I stated above, I think it's much more plausible that Piercey left by his own choice, rather than being kicked out by Simon. "Do you still not see the similarity in the stories between what supposedly happened to Webber, Piercy, Sparrow etc they stole money, they can't pay their bills etc." What similarities? Piercey was successful, and I didn't hear anything about him not paying his bills. I haven't heard anything about Piercey or Sparrow stealing money. As for Weber, he didn't need Simon to bring him down. He completely neglected his studios, and I'm only surprised that they lasted as long as they did. "I heard the rumors about Piercy stealing money or taking it out, absolutely not true." I haven't heard this. I heard that Piercey withdrew all the money out of his business before abandoning it (which left the instructors without pay just before Christmas), but the business was his, and the money was his, so he had every right to take that money. "Simon's loyal followers out East attempted the same rumors about Sparrow" We never heard anything like that in Alberta. It's certainly a shame on whoever tried to start those rumours.

"And no, Simon was not obligated to support his loyal followers out East, I never stated that he was obligated. I simply stated that it shows a lack of loyalty on his part." Or maybe he was just tired of bailing everybody out. As I said, he gave about $700,000 to keep the studios operational after Piercey abandoned them. In any case, money wouldn't have done much out East, because there was nobody ready to take the reigns after Sparrow went bankrupt. From a business side that is also not such a good practice. The Alberta owners invested many tens of thousands of dollars setting up their new studios. You can be sure they won't neglect them and run them to the ground as Weber had, who paid nothing to inherit Piercey's studios. Similarly, whoever starts up a another studio out East will care about it more if he invests his own money into it than if all the money comes from GMS. "Certainly the decline of the studios did not happen out east until well after Piercy lost control." Not sure about out East, but it did in Edmonton. Demetrius, Smith, Hanly, Sigfuson, Martel... Anybody who had been any good was gone before Piercey left. Of course, the decline took a sharp turn with Weber, but it certainly did start under Piercey. "well there were signed agreements in place before that allowed the Simon's to control many of the decisions that you feel the past 'owners' were responsible for." Yes, I can just picture the kinds of agreements Simon had with Weber: "thou shalt not pay thy instructors more than minimum wage", "thou shalt not train thy instructors or travel around to take care of thy studios", "thou shalt do no advertising", "thou shalt assign a green belt instructor to teach brown and black belts", "thou shalt combine 5 people from all different belt levels into one private class", "thou shalt use pushy sales tactics", "thou shalt prohibit thy instructors from doing their paperwork on a computer", "thou shalt not supply thy studios with equipment", "thou shalt lie to thy instructors and students, defrauding them of money", "thou shalt not fix the lights in the studio so that thy students can train in darkness"... And of course, Weber decided to keep to all of these agreements even after he split from TKF and became KFFL.

"Again, knowing that Sparrow has apologised to both Weber and Piercy, same for Sparrow and Jones to Piercy, and they all attribute manipulation by the Simon's??" If Sparrow and Jones have apologized to Weber, it was for trying to do a hostile takeover of his studios (changing locks), which they had absolutely no right to do. As for pulling Weber's license agreement and allowing the new studios to be set up, it's without doubt the best thing that has happened to TKF in Alberta since I've been around. Not sure who witnessed the apology to Piercey, or what that was about. But Simon is a very convenient scapegoat to blame all the bad things on. I'll never say that Simon hasn't made mistakes in the past (who hasn't?), but all the real evidence points to his involvement being much less than what some people try to make it out to be. "Don't you even begin to question anything?" I question everything. Do you? "Just cast aside Sparrow's letter outright?" I didn't cast it aside outright. I examined it very carefully, and concluded that his statement about blaming his bankruptcy on Mrs. Simon makes no sense.

"And I would point out that your own comment points to this (in spirit anyway) when you stated that there were things Simon wanted to do, but DJ Geoff said no." You got it backwards. It's DJ and Geof that have done a few things which Simon was not entirely happy with. "Why was Simon telling them anything if he is not meddling or involved?" He was simply stating his opinion. Just the same as I do myself. Everybody has a right to their opinion, and I never denied that GMS gave his. But that's a whole lot different than saying he forced them to do things his way. "Don't forget, Sparrow tried to change things at the Studios, but June overruled him." Like what? Can you name some change he might have tried to make and was overruled? I know he certainly did make some changes, and so did Jones. Whatever Jones did obviously worked better. Besides, if Sparrow was going bankrupt, he should have done whatever he thought might save his studios. The worst that could have possibly happened if Mrs. Simon was unhappy about it was that he'd lose his franchise license. But that's still better than going bankrupt, and in any case Sparrow and Jones controlled the licensing company (TKI) at the time, so it wouldn't have happened. Grasshopper also said that the reason Jones succeeded was because he usually didn't implement Mrs. Simon's suggestions. If Jones got away with it, Sparrow (or Weber for that matter) would have been able to as well. "have to be very close-minded to not start questioning why the story keeps repeating." What you don't understand is that the story is different in every case. Piercey made a bunch of money, maybe had some disagreements or misunderstandings with the Simons or someone else up high, and decided to bale out (BTW, I'm still waiting to hear about all the drastic changes that Piercey has made with KFFL which he wasn't allowed to do under Simon). Weber maintained the business model that was in place before him, neglected his studios, and then left together with his studios, which didn't stop most of them from going bankrupt in half a year. Sparrow, unlike Weber, did make some changes, but they were too little too late (or weren't the right ones), and he went bankrupt as well. Jones made a bunch of changes, was successful, and left with his studios (perhaps so that he wouldn't have to pay license fees anymore). The current owners are doing great because they are all very experienced businessmen and are not content to maintain the status quo. "There were certain senior students/former instructors who got into what somebody named talk-fu." Don't blame this on the Simons. We have none of that in Alberta. If you want to chat after class, great, but during the class you train.

for CS and Vortexx
Both of you made numberous comments about (a) how much previous instructors were paid and (b) how they were treated: I don't even care what the truth is, lets assume you are 100% correct (and you only know things from one side) (a) who cares! If they didn't like the pay they should leave. I am sure that there are lots of martial arts studios out there willing to pay their instructors 6 figures. (b) yes, Piercy I am sure pushed people, however, I doubt he pushed anyone as hard as he pushed himself. He supervised 15 studios, and they prospered while he was there. "People like grasshopper were there and have stated what they saw and happened" I've spoken to other instructors that presented a very different story. I think that grasshopper's conclusions were drawn from half-truths and incomplete info. Vortexx, please reread: Grasshopper was there. Secondly, you contradict yourself. You say that Piercey was very close to buying out GMS's franchise. I'm sure that wasn't cheap. Where did he get that kind of money? From his studios, of course. So if he had this money, he could have used it more wisely by raising his instructors' salaries. And if he didn't have that money because he had invested it into the franchise itself, than he would be collecting 90% of the licensing fees to do whatever he wanted with. You've mentioned Simon's ... If you buy a million dollar house and are making hefty mortgage payments to pay it off quick, then you don't have much extra cash. Once the mortgage is paid off, then things get good. That would have been the situation soon after the time when Piercy was kicked out. However, Simon used Weber, Sparrow etal (this is why they apologised to Piercy later, as Simon did the same thing to them) to oust Piercy. So no one, other than Simon got to enjoy this. Again, you even state that Piercy was successful, then why would he leave? Why did Jones leave? He bought a property in Grand Forks across from his own and gave it to Piercey as a gift because he considered Piercey as family! Ok, that's funny! I doubt if Simon ever gave anything away. Remember the pebbles that Simon was selling from his property for $100!!!! What was the slogan: have a piece of the holy land or something like that? I am sure that the owners went to Simon and asked him to setup a program like that. Why did people get into bad contracts and situations with Simon? Because they all trusted and revered him. No, not a good business decision. CS wrote As for the students continuing to run an amateur club in Toronto, I think it's quite noble. Not only to them but also them that do it in Vacouver. It's not an easy thing to do, it takes dedication. It's far from a joke in my eyes. Hats off to them. Don't mistake me. Trying to setup an amateur club was not the part that was laughable. What was laughable is that (a) the leaders of this first tried to force everyone to sign a letter of loyalty and (b) these same 'leaders' were the main culprits behind talk-fu. And no, I would not blame the talk-fu on Sparrow since he never did that. I only remarked on how similar it was to what I have seen from SImon over the years. I had not even noticed the similarity until I had written the post. Vortexx, it is amazing how you have taken facts and twisted them when you have obviously only heard one side. Talk with Piercy, talk with Grasshopper or anyone else that has seen both sides, or at least the other side. I have seen and heard both sides. I heard the one from Simon too often about too many people to believe it anymore. After Terlecki and Shergold it just became old hat. Look at your comment about Simon putting $700 000 into the studios. Now why would he need to do that? Piercy certainly didn't take the money - he went bankrupt - check the records. With a very active student base, why would 15 studios need $700 000????? Did they not get any income for a whole year? Wow. Your claim was that the studios were taking in around $14000 a month. Why would that change if Piercy left? It would be far easier to respond to things that actually happened, rather than a supposition you draw based on lies you have been told. later

I'm sorry if i missed it somewhere, but how wasd it you said Piercy was forced into signing the contract and then how was it he was forced out afterwards?

thanks grasshopper
Hey Grasshopper, thanks for the information you posted on the 'personal guarntee'. Somehow I am sure the TKF supporters will still be blinded against these facts. But at least other people will have visibility to this and avoid sending more money to the Simons.

RD

RD and loyalty
Ok so I'm going to state the obvious: people should read documents before signing them. Perhaps even ask a lawyer. RD and RD further wrote I will stand up and support my grand master until my dieing breath. So RD, what would you do when DJ Geoff get kicked out, and GMS comes to you and says, 'here, trust me and sign this'? I think that all of the owners trusted Simon as much as you claim to, until Simon betrayed that trust. Then Jones got smart, and DJ Geoff had seen enough on the internet and elsewhere to avoid at least some of the same pitfalls. Which is worse: someone who blindly trusts someone and then gets abused, or someone who tells people to trust him and then he abuses that trust? Are you guys starting to see how this scam works?