> I disagree that most of your examples are comparable, with the exception of gyms and [...] You mentioned gyms: tl;dr: Karate dojos are a kind of gym with lo

> I disagree that most of your examples are comparable, with the exception of gyms and [...] You mentioned gyms: tl;dr: Karate dojos are a kind of gym with lots of community -- maybe too much! Original post: Gyms are an interesting one. Most are relatively anonymous, I think. But my (somewhere between first- and second- hand) experience of karate dojos was that they are very tight-knit, almost cultish (though not entirely in a bad way). People's SOs often joined, not really because they were interested in karate per-se, but because it was a way to spend more time together.