# why are people so....Kempo style



## KempoGuy06 (Feb 11, 2009)

Ok so im sure most of you have seen my other thread on this topic regarding less then accepting views of my or any MA training.

Well last night I was over at someones house (my friends cousin) and one of the guys there is a local semi-pro MMA fighter. Awesome guy, great personality. Him and I were talking, trading stories, talking techniques. He agreed to help me with some ground work anytime I wanted to workout, I was stoked. One of his gym partners walks up and he introduces me and tells him that I train SKK...this is where it goes down hill...the other guy goes off, bashing SKK, Kenpo, American basically anything and everything Kem/npo. Bashing the lineage, saying its not legit and all kinds of crap. Even goes as far as to bash my instructor and school which he doesnt know at all.

What the hell? Where does this obvious prejudice towards my system come from? Being an MMA fighter and watching Chuck Lidell I thought he would have more respect. Is this kind of thinking towars Kem/npo common?

and on the retorical side, why the hell do these *******s seem to follow me around?

B


----------



## punisher73 (Feb 11, 2009)

KempoGuy06 said:


> Ok so im sure most of you have seen my other thread on this topic regarding less then accepting views of my or any MA training.
> 
> Well last night I was over at someones house (my friends cousin) and one of the guys there is a local semi-pro MMA fighter. Awesome guy, great personality. Him and I were talking, trading stories, talking techniques. He agreed to help me with some ground work anytime I wanted to workout, I was stoked. One of his gym partners walks up and he introduces me and tells him that I train SKK...this is where it goes down hill...the other guy goes off, bashing SKK, Kenpo, American basically anything and everything Kem/npo. Bashing the lineage, saying its not legit and all kinds of crap. Even goes as far as to bash my instructor and school which he doesnt know at all.
> 
> ...


 
It's not just Kem/npo, it is MANY arts.  I have ranted about this before as well.  Like my old roommate used to say, "Everybody sucks to somebody else".  Meaning that people are going to find SOMETHING to complain about if your art isn't a "traditional" trace it back hundreds of years old.  They always forget that THEIR ART was made up at some point by someone as well.  As long as you benefit by your training and are happy to doing it, don't waste emotional time and energy on the others.


----------



## KempoGuy06 (Feb 11, 2009)

punisher73 said:


> It's not just Kem/npo, it is MANY arts.  I have ranted about this before as well.  Like my old roommate used to say, "Everybody sucks to somebody else".  Meaning that people are going to find SOMETHING to complain about if your art isn't a "traditional" trace it back hundreds of years old.  They always forget that THEIR ART was made up at some point by someone as well.  As long as you benefit by your training and are happy to doing it, don't waste emotional time and energy on the others.


Thanks. I try not to and generally what people says doesnt affect me good or bad but stuff like this kinda stops me in my tracks and it is basically a verbal punch to the face.

again though, thanks

B


----------



## MJS (Feb 11, 2009)

KempoGuy06 said:


> Ok so im sure most of you have seen my other thread on this topic regarding less then accepting views of my or any MA training.
> 
> Well last night I was over at someones house (my friends cousin) and one of the guys there is a local semi-pro MMA fighter. Awesome guy, great personality. Him and I were talking, trading stories, talking techniques. He agreed to help me with some ground work anytime I wanted to workout, I was stoked. One of his gym partners walks up and he introduces me and tells him that I train SKK...this is where it goes down hill...the other guy goes off, bashing SKK, Kenpo, American basically anything and everything Kem/npo. Bashing the lineage, saying its not legit and all kinds of crap. Even goes as far as to bash my instructor and school which he doesnt know at all.
> 
> ...


 
Don't let it get you down man.  Keep training hard and don't let the words of these guys get you down.  As it was said, its not just limited to one art.  IMO, we can all benefit from something in every art out there.  Some people are so blind and feel that what they're doing is the best, yet they fail to see that even their art lacks in certain areas.  Of course, it'd be interesting to know how much research this person did into the Kenpo arts to know whether or not something was legit or not.  Probably another case of an armchair QB, youtube watching expert.


----------



## 14 Kempo (Feb 11, 2009)

I look at it this way, people that emphatically talk down others for whatever reason, are insecure. I have my thoughts on the upside and downside of many things, and I don't mind discussing that intelectually, but I don't talk down on any art. To me they are all good in one way or another. If nothing else they give people a sense of self-confidence, even if a false sense. Self-confidence can keep a person out of danger in many cases.

Even "the best art", whatever that is, can give persons that just don't get it or can't do it, a false sense of confidence in themselves. The art can be a super art, but if the person is weak, the art is weak. The art can be weak, but when applied by a super human, it can crush a person.

What is all comes down to is how an individual looks at life. It's the 'glass half-full/glass half-empty' scenario. I look at it as positive, what does the given art bring to a person and believe me, any art has its good and bad, strengths and weaknesses, positives and negatives, winners and losers, ups and downs.

I try to not let 'idiots' affect me ... although it is very hard at times. I tend to feel sorry for a person that expends so much time and energy trying to knock others down, rather than improving themselves.

JMHO


----------



## kidswarrior (Feb 11, 2009)

14 Kempo said:


> I look at it this way, people that emphatically talk down others for whatever reason, are insecure.


Bingo. The louder and longer their rant goes on, the more threatened they feel by someone else's (your) art. 

I teach teens that as long as an opponent/aggressor is talking, he's still trying to convince himself he's good enough. It's the quiet ones ya gotta be careful of.


----------



## RevIV (Feb 11, 2009)

This is a generalization but when dont you here an MMA guy bashing all other forms of martial arts?  5 of my friends fought in the cage last week.  All of them are Kempo based but also add in the BJJ-- 4 of the 5 won and the guy who lost fought his heart out at 18 yrs old.. I know that a lot of the MMA guys up here in New England some from a kempo background so they are less likely to bash it.  Its the guys who just go straight from the street to the gym who are just listening to the hooplaa.


----------



## RevIV (Feb 11, 2009)

RevIV said:


> This is a generalization but when dont you here an MMA guy bashing all other forms of martial arts? 5 of my friends fought in the cage last week. All of them are Kempo based but also add in the BJJ-- 4 of the 5 won and the guy who lost fought his heart out at 18 yrs old.. I know that a lot of the MMA guys up here in New England some from a kempo background so they are less likely to bash it. Its the guys who just go straight from the street to the gym who are just listening to the hooplaa.


 
wow -- i contradicted myself a lot..  The guy who did all the bashing.. has he ever really been in a MMA fight in the ring?  usually its the ones who never do anything talk the most trash.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Feb 11, 2009)

I'm really lucky.  My sensei will show us techniques he has picked up from other styles that he likes, while still telling us _"Now, what I am about to show you is not Isshinryu, but I learned it from a Shotokan sensei and I think it's pretty useful and it goes like this..."_

At the same time, he will say things from time to time like _"Not so wide on your stance, that's Shotokan, we don't do that.  Let me show you why..."_

So he will show us what he think is good from other styles, he'll tell us why we don't do things the way others do, but he never disses styles.

He's even told us that he admires certain other styles, like Akido and certain styles of Kung fu.  It's very informative and there is never any disrespect for the styles of other martial artists.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that dissing the styles of others, especially if you don't know anything about them, shows not only disrespect, but a certain amount of insecurity about one's own style.

I don't know if my style is 'better' than any others.  I don't know if other styles would be better-suited to my physical, mental, and spiritual attributes or not.  I do know I am happy with what I have found, and I haven't got time to learn them all in what's left of my life, so to each their own, maximum respect to all martial artists, whatever the style, and I'll gladly take advantage of anything I see from another style that works for me, even if it isn't Isshinryu.


----------



## stickarts (Feb 11, 2009)

Don't sweat it.  There is always a critic.


----------



## Brian R. VanCise (Feb 11, 2009)

The one thing you can control is your training.  So make it count and focus on what you do.  I have little to no time to worry about what other people are doing or thinking.  Instead I am concentrating on getting better myself and also helping those who train with me.


----------



## terryl965 (Feb 11, 2009)

If I worried about everybody opinion about my training I would be in a nut house, remember you train for you and you only. People have a tendacy to attrack that which they do not understand or want to try and understand, let it go KG and you will be a better person in the long run.


----------



## Danjo (Feb 11, 2009)

Generalizations. Any time that you belong to an art that has many schools, the quality is going to be uneven. In some of the organizations, the average quality is low when it comes to training and instruction. SKK and TKD are unfortunately two of those arts.

Due to massive expansion franchises, the quality of instruction of SKK and TKD has had a poor batting average. The arts themselves are not the problem and there are many examples of fine martial artists and instructors in both styles. However, you can't erase a bad reputation over night. Hopefully, if enough SKK folk decide to keep their training serious and hard, the reputation that it gained over the past couple of decades can begin to be erased. The fewer "Red Belts" that are really purple belts in an instructor's academy that are put in charge of teaching students, and the less emphasis that is put on pushing students through in order to get those testing fees, the sooner this can be corrected. I know that there are several SKK instructors that have broke away from the larger organizations due to the restrictions that they disagreed with that placed money over quality. Also, there always seem to be the exceptions within the larger organizations that seem to be able to train their students well. 

The problem is that for every one SKK or TKD school that does it right, there are five that don't. That doesn't do the students of the good ones any favors.


----------



## Jdokan (Feb 11, 2009)

*The arts themselves are not the problem* and there are many examples of fine martial artists and instructors in both styles. 


This is a great point...If I can quote a saying that may have been heard a time or two..


"All arts are perfect...it is US that screws things up"...


----------



## Sigung86 (Feb 11, 2009)

It's all good.  Ya can't please everyone.  Insofar as non- or illegitimate systems... That's just so much bull.  If someone attacks you, and you slap 'em down or worse with what you've learned... That sounds pretty legitimate to me.  I guess, it's like... If your dog isn't pedigree then it isn't a dog.  :uhyeah:

But it's all cut throat out there.  I teach in a Christian Church here near Farmer's Mountain.  I don't charge for lessons... Even give 'em a patch when they get around to getting a uniform (that they don't buy from me).  Give them manuals, and on occasion cds or dvds with material on them that I make.  

Anyway... The local Hapkido God was up there last night, apparently thinkjing that I didn't know who he was, sniffing around and asking questions, as if he were trying to discern where I am scamming the money from the students...  He didn't even really have the nerve to come up and talk to me... The point of this whole thing is that the world is full of schlemiels, morons, and skanks... It often times takes too long to sort out just which one s/he is, so kick 'em to the curb, and keep on keepin' on.

Dan


----------



## Thesemindz (Feb 11, 2009)

I went into work the other day and one of my coworkers tried to set me up. He'd heard that I practiced Kenpo and so he says, "You're into martial arts huh?" To which I replied positively. Then he goes, 

"Those MMA guys are real a-holes though right?"

Now I could see this guy coming a mile away. He had a very stereotypical MMA body type, it was obvious to me both by his physical appearance, and now by his question, that he trained MMA. So I answered him truthfully.

"Not in my experience. I've known some great MMA guys. I've also met some a-holes. It doesn't have anything to do with MMA. Some christians are a-holes. Some sci-fi geeks are a-holes. It isn't that stuff makes a person an a-hole, it's that a-holes are into stuff."

So then he went on to tell me all about his training and all the things he likes. But the point is that he opened looking for confrontation, and I didn't want to play. 

Because I meant what I said. MMA or Kenpo or TKD or JKD or Shaolin, that's not what makes you an a-hole. I played D&D in high school, it didn't make me crazy. It isn't that those things make people jerks, it's that jerks have hobbies too.


-Rob


----------



## kidswarrior (Feb 11, 2009)

Thesemindz said:


> It isn't that stuff makes a person an a-hole, it's that a-holes are into stuff.
> 
> It isn't that those things make people jerks, it's that jerks have hobbies too.
> 
> ...


:lfao: 

_And_,that's downright poetic. :bangahead:


----------



## Carol (Feb 12, 2009)

Its comical.  You get these big tough guys that are ruffff tuffff bad-ta-da-bone martial artists....but mention SKK or TKD or blahblablah....whatever may have gotten under their skin at one time or another and...poof!  The supposed tough guy dissolves in to this *****-and-moan factory that could outwhine my 75 year old mother in a heartbeat. :rofl:

Maybe they aren't hitting the mat as often as they should, maybe they aren't getting laid enough...who knows what their issue(s) is(are).  Ignore 'em.  If their life own life was really all good, they'd be too busy enjoying enjoying what they got to bother with giving someone else a hard time.


----------



## Hand Sword (Feb 12, 2009)

:erg:

Wooo!  Miss Kaur!!!!


----------



## Jonny Figgis (Feb 12, 2009)

One of the most important points here is that most if not all martial arts styles were family systems and were created by that family. It all has to start somewhere! People who bash other styles usually know nothing about them and haven't trained in them. Some people may have had bad exposure to an art but that is more to do with the instructor, than the art. If you are getting something from the art you study, then keep doing it. You could diss Kempo, Kajukenbo, Krav Maga, BJJ, JKD etc etc etc but they are all interesting arts/systems and all have something very valid to offer.


----------



## Hand Sword (Feb 12, 2009)

Well Said!


----------



## KenpoDave (Feb 12, 2009)

I believe that some people just simply are not secure enough in their own endeavors or with their own skill and somehow think that tearing others down makes them appear bigger.


----------



## CoryKS (Feb 12, 2009)

Thesemindz said:


> It isn't that those things make people jerks, it's that jerks have hobbies too.


 
I'm stealing that.


----------



## Danjo (Feb 12, 2009)

Carol Kaur said:


> maybe they aren't getting laid enough


 
I'll quote Billy Idol on that one, "Too much is never enough"


----------



## Rabu (Feb 13, 2009)

One of the nicest guys at work is into MMA as a fan.  Always wants to talk to me anyway.  We have a great time.

My experience is that its some kind of mutant strain of trash talk which escaped the ring.  Its like they are trying to intimidate you into losing a fight you werent looking for and never intend to have.

If you can get people talking to each other and sharing, learning, it all seems to work out.

The advice I will give you is simple, but powerful.

"Thats really interesting"

Simply say that when someone is going off like Tyson at a news conference on your art.  Then get them to speak about what they are interested in, or walk away.  Depending on your intestinal fortitude.

Good luck man, 

Rob


----------



## Aefibird (Feb 19, 2009)

You're always going to run into someone who thinks that what you do or what you're into is stupid, whether that's Kempo, Tae Kwon Do, Football, Star Trek, Pool, Stamp Collecting or whatever.

An idiot with an agenda who feels that THEIR martial art or their hobby is the best thing since sliced bread will be an idiot with an agenda regardless of what you say to them. Show you're the better person and smile politely and walk away.


----------



## LawDog (Feb 20, 2009)

Boxers and kickboxers have been saying this sort of thing for decades, who cares, we have survived all or our confrontations. 
These guys claim that they train to fight using few or no rules, this is true especially when it comes to fighting armed or multi opponents, they have rules against that.
In the street, sooner or later, everything is equalized.


----------

