Parents Beware! Carefully read your Hiruko agreement before your kids join Master Journey. Master Journey is a very crafty way for Hiruko to have a guaranteed number of students for three years while providing little in the way of benefits to the student!
What do you pay? Students have to pay a hefty initial down payment of $500+ which I found out recently was NON-REFUNDABLE when you leave Hiruko (despite being assured orally by Natalia that a refund would be available if we changed our mind later). If you quit, you are supposed to provide 30 days written notice and pay a cancellation fee of $200 (they waived this fee for us). And then Natalia wanted us to pay the monthly fee for the coming month (when my son will not be there at all). Is Hiruko for real? What do you get for joining the Master Journey?? A Master Journey class once a week and a nice crisp uniform and of course losing money. Want to attend a vaunted Master Journey pep class? - no problem, for an extra $20 per class. My son didn't need to be in Master Journey. However, my son joined because of all the hype and peer pressure generated at the place.
My son has been in Hiruko since they started at Los Altos. Last month, we quit Hiruko. We liked it when they were in Los Altos. The teachers were more involved, intimate, friendly, and provided a personal touch and feedback. The atmosphere was nicer. Hiruko promised a bigger space in the Palo Alto location. However, the bigger space was also conducive to accepting more students, and therefore larger classes. We hardly see Jorge anymore. This is the main reason why we stayed with Hiruko for as long as we did - my son likes Jorge. However, whenever we sign up for private lesson, we got someone else. Moreover, Hiruko has so many holidays. During those days when I need to bring my kids to Hiruko, they're closed. This has become an overriding theme of Hiruko - provide less and less service while adding more and more fees. You are mercilessly nickel-and-dimed to death at this place.
My "favorite" example of the Hiruko business philosophy can be illustrated by their yearly martial arts show. They have their students prepare an extensive demonstration show. Guest performers from other martial arts groups are typically involved in the show also. Then the public is invited to attend. Of course the reason the show is put on is it is an advertising exercise to bring in more business, which I have no problem with. To attend the show, they charge the public an admission fee. Nice touch. But here is the good part. The wide-eyed students who are performing in the show - every one of them is charged a fee to participate in the show. That's right, they charge the public AND THEIR OWN STUDENTS to fund Hiruko's marketing activity. Every time I think about it I want to explode. I should have listened to my husband's warning about Hiruko long ago - this place is not a martial arts school, it's a marketing scheme. read more