Following is an update on the case of Taco Fleur against Valery Fedorenko, has a bit of a ring to it! So after these two open letters here and here, I took things to the Better Business Bureau, you can find the last response below.
I’m pursuing this matter because of the way it was handled, they felt superior, they treated me like crap, since day one in my humble opinion, I put up with it because otherwise it was wasted money, but no more. I truly believe that their course material lacks the superiority they advertise it with, not just by a couple of inches, but by a mile, or several hundred. Further more, it could have all been solved amicably, but they chose to do it the hard way. I say, keep going if you like.
My latest reply to their short generic response on BBB.
Dear WKC,
thank you for your short generic reply.
Again it’s evident that you provide only generic stuff and attack a persons character, as that’s what your reply is —generic and a personal attack, it does not touch upon one of the issues I’ve raised from the get go.
You write as if this is all about the certificate, I couldn’t care less about the certificate, the certificate is a piece of paper, I paid for education, I paid to learn the finer techniques, I paid to have someone explain them to me, but you failed miserably.
You bring up irrelevant things and try to put the blame on my side without touching upon the issues I have brought up. Not once did you try and argue the fact your material is providing what it should, not once did you try and argue that your 13 page booklet contains all the info one needs to learn all the lifts in Kettlebell Sport.
Whether you’ve been in business 10 years, certified nearly 3,000 trainers and millions of views on free material is irrelevant, and just because you’ve not had a complaint with the BBB before, means nothing as well, in my eyes it means that you’ve been lucky and most people are too scared or too lazy to tell you that your material and services lack the ‘surpasses everything else‘. Well, you ain’t scaring me, one of my qualities is persistence as you’ve already found out, aah wait, you said I don’t have that.
In fact, I’m at a point where I see we’re not getting anywhere by trying to settle this with you, as you just keep wasting my time, so please take note that I will now also look into making a complaint for false advertising, in particular the fact that you advertise “top tier courses”, “our rigorus coursework”, “high level instructor certification”, “surpasses everything else” but clearly lack any of this.
Let me touch upon a few points you raised:“students work ethic”
My work ethic has never been the issue, not with other courses, not with this course, I forced myself to work with your low tier course material, I analysed the video provided. Note the word “Analysed’, as analysis is the only way you can learn from this course, unless you pay for additional private training to ask questions and get answers (paid for additionally).“top tier courses”, “our rigorus coursework”, “high level instructor certification”, “surpasses everything else”
Let me define for you what top tier course stands for: top tier is the best, you can’t call your material the best just because you have a world champion who put it together, yes he was the best at lifting one time, but not the best at putting course material together and not at providing a service. I’ve many times explained to you why this is the case, your material lacks, let me prove it to you once again. First, I’m not arguing that your world champion knows his stuff, never have, this is the one reason I came to your company, to learn from him, but if you call your material ‘TOP TIER’ then your manual on all of the lifts in KB sport can’t be 13 pages short, your video can’t be less than an hour short. You can’t say that more material is coming because this was the first part, as you are judging someone on those lifts before they can pass to the next stage of the course, which I assume would be double bell work, working on endurance, putting things into practise, using your electronic contraption etc. I have personally written a book on just the kettlebell swing (not the kettlebell sport swing) which is 20 times longer than your manual is on all the complicated lifts in GS, I’ve made a video on just the swing which is just as long as your video is on the complicated lifts in GS. If you have top tier world class material like you say you do, then you go into DETAILS on; grip, swing, racking, lock-out, the drop, injuries, muscles to activate, common mistakes, cues, and I could go on.“ We urge anyone considering to become a Kettlebell professional to check themselves first”
I’ve not wanted to mention this before as it was irrelevant, but you’re making it relevant now. I’ve participated in many courses during my lifetime, I passed all with flying colours, I passed them with joy, because they were put together well and run by real teachers/coaches. In fact I recently passed the IKFF course where a high percentage of people failed the physical test on, but this should all have been irrelevant if you would just have focussed on the issues raised at hand. Further more, I have passed level 1 and level 2 of kettlebell training with ease, I’ve ran over 1000 kettlebell classes in real life, besides that there are many more courses I passed, MMA Fitness, MMA conditioning, PUNCH, plyometrics, crossfit, etc. etc. As for the youtube channel you’re referring to, you have 8,300 subscribers, my channel has 16,718 and 4 million views, double that of your channel which is even a year older than mine. Again, all this should have been irrelevant because we don’t need to measure our manliness, you need to address my issues with your material and service which I will lay out for you again further in this message. I think I’ve proven that I have checked myself first.Further more, I’d like you to back up your statement in previous message “ as this particular student chose to argue and support their own view on lifting”, please provide supporting material, as this is outrageous, I would never do such a thing, I know (like stated) that your assessor was under the impression that I would come in thinking I know it all, but this has never been the case. Questions I had about rounded back of the world champion lifter just got shut down, never got an answer to it, I did not argue, I asked questions. Teaching is about explaining the WHY behind doing something.
“We would also be glad to provide testimonies of several of our students” you have provided testimonials of students, what I’m interested in is how many private hours did they purchase with the assessor or champion. Because your whole business model is based upon this, provide low level course material, have the student to buy more private training time and push it to them often.
Just to be clear, because you keep mentioning it, I’m not interested in your certificate, it would be a joke to have your certificate, my issue is and always has been with your material, lack of service, false advertising and up selling scheme.
You could have simply solved this matter by providing courteous and professional customer service when I raised my issue with your company, instead it had to go public and now with BBB, I wonder what will be next. I recommend you think carefully, start looking at the issues raised and make wise decisions from here on out, as your world class material and name hinges on it.
The material is extremely outdated and lacks any genuine substance.