My family moved from Chicago to Northbrook over the summer so we needed to find my two boys a new taekwondo school. After some initial research we decided to give KH Kim a try. Their website looked nice, they had relatively positive Yelp reviews, the kids there can compete in taekwondo tournaments (something my older son is interested in doing), it's not too far from our house, the facilities were nice enough, and Justin (the office manager and part time instructor) was very nice both before and after we joined. He had a great rapport with the kids and I expect he will have a great school of his own some day. My boys' old school, Hyun's Hapkido and Taekwondo in the city, they didn't follow the Kukkiwon standards, they even have a different belt system (slightly), so Justin did a quick evaluation and guessed at what belts my kids should have by counting back from black. My older son was 2 away, so red in KH Kims, my younger son was 4 away, so dark blue. I signed up for a month-by-month membership and all was fine for about a month. One thing I thought was odd is though is they sparred at several of the classes at KH Kim and my boys were mopping the floor with the kids there. My older son was pretty good at his old school so I expected him to shine, but even my younger son who was towards the bottom of the class when it comes to sparring at his old school, he was easily getting the better of nearly everyone he faced. Even most black belts. Then the wheels completely fell off. First, the lead instructor came back from vacation and my kids HATED him. I made them give it a try a few more times then they finally made me watch a class. I try not to do that as it can make the kids more self conscious but agreed. From the one class I watched he has no rapport with the kids and doesn't attempt to make any. He just showed off his skills (without breaking anything down explaining how to do any of it), while berating the kids to go "FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!". The result was a sea of disinterested kids with sloppy technique. No wonder my kids mopped the floor with them in sparring. At their old school, they actually focused on technique, even in sparring. Then after one class, the Grand master (different guy) pulled me aside since he wanted to talk to the new parent, meet the kids, etc. He found out my kids didn't follow the kukkiwon standard curriculum and I don't recall everything he said, but it was in essence that KH Kim is a serious school, where we came from isn't, and my kids will need to start at a significantly lower rank. All because they didn't know the names of the few poomsaes they learned (they knew them as form #1, form #2, etc, and not by their Korean names). Justin was of the opinion they should keep their rank as my kids will need to learn all the poomsaes anyway. The Grand master didn't agree. I thought that was complete bullshit especially the "serious school" part when my boys were two of the best in class in everything other than poomsaes which they can easily learn. There are online tutorials for them for goodness sake! Anyway, we quit and I found the boys a much better school in Glenview. They kept their ranks, have an instructor who actually teaches, and my kids are progressing nicely. KH Kim was behind us. Yay! Or so we thought. Then KH Kim billed me for an extea month. I complained. It turns out in the fine print they have a 60 day cancellation policy, on the MONTH. BY. MONTH. MEMBERSHIP!!! No, they didn't tell me that up front. So they billed me for 3 months even though we quit after one. Not cool. I wouldn't recommend anyone to KH Kim. Sloppy instruction, sleazy contract/billing practices. read more