Lyle Laizure

I was once told a story about Lua, the Hawaiian martial art. An instructor of Lua, also an instructor of Aikido, said in Hawaii if someone hangs a shingle out stating they teach Lua and their name doesn't show in the Lua folks records as being a Lua instructor a group of Lua instructors would visit the individual and explain that he could teach whatever he wanted but could not call it Lua and if he persisted in doing so they would take the matter into thier own hands. I believe they would too. But as it was mentioned earlier...being able to trace the authenticity of an instructor is difficult these days. Documents can be forged etc. If they are a blackbelt with Aikikai then they should have a Japanese certificate stating name, rank etc, but it will be in Japanese.

Moreover, if the person is new to martial arts they have only movies as a basis for what they expect. It is up to the community as a whole to help maintain the integrity of martial arts as a whole. That does not mean dojo storming or anything like that, but word of mouth is powerful.