An Ironic Reaction

[Ronin74]

:lfao:
If you measure the cost of of you rank in $`s your teacher didn`t make you sweat enough.

well said!

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I would proceed to shin kick our industrial upright fan across the floor...

Ooh-rah. I remember those fans well. Huge, maybe 8 feet tall, with a gigantic wide base that weighed maybe 50 pounds. Nobody picked those things up and moved them, you tilted them on their bases and rolled them around. If you could kick one and make it move at all, I am very impressed. That you could kick it across the floor, well, I would not want to be on the receiving end of one of your kicks.

I was at Camp Foster too, PMO building between the base theater and the field house. I miss the yaki soba from the SNCO club vendor.

 

[redantstyle]

cant blow a decent fireball with the lighters these days...

 

[Zero]

There are obviously plenty of wackos and also self-conceited individuals out there Nolerama but you did well holding in the fire. You would have gained nothing if you'd hurt the guy and he then turned out to be a litigious git to boot.

The principle in itself of visiting differing dojos is a good one if handled correctly, from both the perspective of politeness and also avoiding loosing your front teeth.

I joined my goju club after turning up to various clubs and sparring with numerous practitioners. I was so impressed by the controlled hiding (stress on "controlled") my to-be sensei gave me, after I had out sparred a few of their students, I joined up there and then.

When I was competing in mma and stand-up I would visit other clubs and mix it up with their fighters, as this was a brilliant way of rounding yourself and exposing yourself to different levels and styles of fighter. Although I never went in puffed up or anything like that. Most of the time I will admit I rated myself (but well aware of my own limitations, after numerous batterings) but I was always trained to conceal your "wa", so viewed it as ridiculous to act as if you were the man, even if you thought that was the case.

 

[seasoned]

Bottom line, some time around 1974, I was that guy. I was visiting a friend in Colorado, on a week long vacation. I was young, single, had my black belt about 4 years, was pushing a lot of iron, and held my own, very well. Needless to say, the first thing I did, when I got to my friends house, was ask, hey, any karate schools around here. He said yes, that there was one in Colorado Springs. I will mention the name because it was so long ago that it won’t hurt. The DoJo was run by Sensei Krause, and I think it was Ralph Krause’s karate. I never heard of him, but I couldn’t wait to get there. Some time toward the end of my week vacation, on a week day afternoon my friend and I stopped in. I was greeted by a black belt, could have been Sensei Krause but I’m not sure. I don’t post this because I have anything to be proud of, but because it was a turning point in my martial arts career, that taught me a valuable lesson. I was very rude, and somewhat arrogant, and asked if I could spar. He mentioned workout, but I said no just spar. He tells me to stop back in at 6pm that night, and off I went. At 5:45pm I show up, but there are no students there, and I am greeted by this same person from that afternoon. He was very polite, and points me to the dressing room. On my way there I notice that there are about 10 or 15 chairs against one wall in the DoJo area, looked weird, and they were empty. After changing I come out onto the DoJo floor, that was still empty except now the chairs are almost full. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I began to warm-up, stretch, and hit the heavy bag on my own. It wasn’t long, I noticed a guy come out of a side door with sweats on. This guy began to warm-up on another heavy bag on the other side of the DoJo. It looked interesting because he was using boxing techniques along with kicks. While I’m on the other side working my back fist and my reverse punch combo, with some open hand stuff. Right at 6pm, and without a word I am handed a pair of boxing gloves, and foot pads. This was my first inkling that there was a problem, because I didn’t train with boxing gloves or foot pads. As the story goes we square off and he fakes, and hits me with a full round house kick to my head, and down I go. As I am getting up he comes in with two face punches and another round house kick to the head while I am getting up. Mind you, no referee, no, are you alright, just on your feet, and here he comes again. We mixed it up a little more, with me on the short end of it. I ended up with a split ear from the round house kicks and a black eye with a cut underneath. It seems that kickboxing started in California and was making it’s way across the U.S. but hadn’t made it to NY yet. It seems that this guy was some kickboxing champ, and I was his punching bag for the night. I don’t think he even broke a sweat. J I felt like crap, I was humbled in front of my friend, humiliated, and the worst thing is, I did it all to myself. Lessons learnt. Believe in yourself, but don’t underestimate anyone. Always be respectful, and humble, never rude or arrogant. And above all never walk into a strange DoJo thinking your all it and a bag of chips, because there is always a lesson or two that someone can teach you.

I have a very cool story to tell, I don’t know where it belongs, but it is part of the above story, so lets start here. After posting the above, I got thinking about my long lost, and forgotten friend. I let my wife read the post and she comes up with the idea to plug his name into a search on line, and we come up with a name and phone number. Mind you this is 35 years later, even though I have thought about him over the years. After much prompting from my wife, I call. The phone rings, no answer, I hang up. This is on Friday 7:30 pm my time, and 2-3 hours earlier his time, so he is working, I surmise. I blow it off. Yesterday she bugs me to try again, I tell her to let me handle it. We are out for the day, and get home around 6:30 pm yesterday evening. Well low and behold there is a message on our phone from my buddy, giving me his number and saying to call him. Now, my wife is excited for me to call back. Well I let it go for awhile, and finely I call, and he answers. It is like old home week, with much to talk about. So I say, did you see my name and number on your caller ID, and call me back. He says, he doesn’t have caller ID, and that a week ago he decided, after thinking about me over many years, to call around my home town and get my number. He tells me he has had my number for a week, and yesterday, decided to call. Well after a long conversation I find out he is a 4th dan and has trained for 22years, and was planning a trip back east in September. We made plans, and I will meet my old friend at my house then, after 35 years, is this awesome or what.

 

[Ken Morgan]

In our iaido and jodo classes we never really get these cocky guys wandering in.

People come in, try a class out, realize that there not going to be some Jedi in a few hours, and you never see them again. Drop out rate has to easily be in the 90% range.

The best guys are the karate folks who come in to learn some sword, it takes them a long time to take the karate out of their iaido.

 

[Omar B]

Great self control man. I don't have near the patience to deal with that with the dignity you did, I usually walk away laughing.

Oh, and the guys who say they train themselves are always the best. Out of shape, sloppy stance (everything for that matter), the bravado that seems almost pathological.

I've seen similar stories but non near as funny as any of these.

 

[Bruno@MT]

When I did JJ, it happened one time that we got a student (I was a student too btw) who really didn't get it.
Sure, there are always people of whom you feel that they don't like our style / way of training but this one was different. Usually, such people come for 1 or 2 awkward training sessions, and are then never seen again.

But this one looked like he was LARPing after an overdose of ninja movies.
So for example, instead of sliding his feet over the floor or turning on the balls of his feet, he jumped. all the time.
We corrected him several times, and he would try to do it right one or two times, but then decided he liked his way better.

On top of that, he was rather arrogant, and radiated this 'I am better than you aura'. The final straw was when he snorted and laughed at the sensei when he put on his hakama for conducting an exam (he only wore it for 'official' purposes).

So after the exam the sensei starts us all n sparring. Instead of lining us up randomly and have us rotate every 5 minutes, we are paired up by him. And whaddaya know: Mr. Wiseguy ends up against an experienced blue belt who also had a degree in karate. And we didn't rotate either.
So the kid gets tossed and slapped around for 10 or 15 minutes. Not with malicious intent, and he didn't get hurt. This was my sensei's way of telling him to either accept his incompetence and deflate his ego or get lost because there would be more where that came from.

He ran away after class, and I felt sad because things had ended like that.