Training with Martial Jerks!

geezer

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On another thread, Rich Parsons posted an interesting anecdote about some training experiences when visiting another school. Stevebjj responded that if you get stuck training with jerks, "it will go poorly". I'm fortunate in that the guys I train with now have been in the MA a long time, have a lot of experience, but not a lot of ego. Nobody is out to prove anything. But over the years, I've had a few bad experiences training with martial jerks myself. How about you guys?
 

Drac

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Every so often I run into one of the Martial Jerks at a police training seminar..If they try to get smart I usually drop them on their keester once or twice...
 

MBuzzy

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I've run into plenty of them. Unfortunately, the ones that I've run in to are normally higher ranking and have let their martial arts ranks go to their heads. Kind of sad actually.
 

Rich Parsons

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Every so often I run into one of the Martial Jerks at a police training seminar..If they try to get smart I usually drop them on their keester once or twice...

Drac et al,

When I am just at a seminar, I do the same thing. When I am at an open event as I stated in another thread, I did what I knew how to from my training.

But if I am visiting a school I try to hold back and not show anyone up, as the instructor may be going slow to show and teach people.

But, I have dropped some. I even had one case where I went to drop someone (* The host *) and the Seminar instructor GM Remy A Presas checked my hand. I did not see him there on my blind side. He just smiled and said he was not ready. So, I went back to train with one of his students. His students looked at me and said "please, I am not him. Do not hurt me." I trained with him and tried to help him as much as possible, as he understood, that I was going to hurt his instructor if I had not been checked.

I do like to to show people up with superior skill and timing as well. It is good to see their reaction when the realize you were playing the whole time. ;) :D
 

Pacificshore

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I can't recall having trained with many if any jerks during my years in MA. However, when someone walks into the dojo, and starts rattling off their rank, experience, or how something should be done after observing a class, then I know well enough not to take a chance in having that person train on the floor with myself or the students.
 

MJS

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On another thread, Rich Parsons posted an interesting anecdote about some training experiences when visiting another school. Stevebjj responded that if you get stuck training with jerks, "it will go poorly". I'm fortunate in that the guys I train with now have been in the MA a long time, have a lot of experience, but not a lot of ego. Nobody is out to prove anything. But over the years, I've had a few bad experiences training with martial jerks myself. How about you guys?

I've been fortunate that the majority of seminars/camps that I've gone to, my training partners have all been great. However, there is one person, who unfortunately I've been stuck working with a few times, that really does make the training suck. He tends to show off, drifting at times from the lesson, and going off on a tangent of 'his' way of doing things. He will intentionally do what he can to make your tech. not work. Now, this isn't bad per se, but when you're initially learning something, it needs to be done as taught in the beginning, and then, once the fine points are worked, you can resist.

I hate working with this person, and I feel for anyone else that has too, as I'm afraid that his antics will injure someone or steer them away from working with him or lose interest in the art.
 

Guardian

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I've had my share of jerks as it's put here. I dealt with it so I could learn and when the learning was no long productive, I left the jerks to themselves and moved on. As time went along and I didn't need to train with such people for my experience and knowledge were sufficient enough, I didn't train with them I sought out other instructors or classes that suited my personality and didn't make me want to stomp them into the ground LOL.
 

terryl965

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I have meet a few jerks in my time. That is just part of training .
 

Brian R. VanCise

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I have meet a few jerks in my time. That is just part of training .

Yes absolutely it is part of the training experience. Recently a few months back I was at a seminar and was having an absolutely great time training with a couple of guy's and then the head instructor paired me up with a jerk. It made the last hour or so almost unbearable but I gritted my teeth and trained and kept going. In this particular instance I could not change partners or else I would have immediately. That is usually the best course either to change partners or stop and take a break and then move on.
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YoungMan

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I've only trained with one person who you'd call a jerk, and he's out of the picture at this point. Everyone else I've trained with has always been a good person or partner, as I've always tried to be.
As I've told students, in a martial art like Taekwondo, where the acquired physical abilities can easily tempt one to "jerkdom", do not go down that road. You will eventually meet someone who won't take it.
 
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Usually when I travel to seminars I try to take someone I know with me because I have a tendency to be the odd man out, and I get stuck with the guy that no one wants to work with for the various reasons already listed.

At the last 2 seminars I attended under an instructor who shall remain nameless to protect the feelings of anyone involved, I was paired up with the same guy. At the first one he was a little hyper-critical, but I didn't think much of it and let it slide. Then the second time around he was more or less talking down on me and saying that my teachnique wouldn't work. (To put this one in perspective earlier in the day he was saying he hoped to do more stick or knife work because he was only had a little trainin with it, on the otherhand I had been doing FMAs for 7yrs at this point and the technique we were doing was a stick technique.) He proceeded to show me the "right" way to do the technique at full speed none the less. I just kinda' went "Oh." and continued to do it my way. His way wasn't really any different from mine, just sloppier and I fought the urge to disarm him in the middle of the his demonstration, but refrained out of respect for the instructor on the floor cuz the attitude this boy had I don't think he would have taken being shown up by a "nobody" very well.

I'm going to try to avoid this guy at the next event however.
 

Xue Sheng

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I have run into a few, generally I can just walk away from them. One however was persistent and after terrorizing as many beginners as he possible could with his claims of great push hands prowess and basically punching them as hard as he could when he would get someone to do push hands with him I took his challenge (after multiples I was able to avoid) and bounced him a few times. He calmed down and stopped hitting people after that but he is still a master, just ask him :rolleyes:.

Coincidentally I recently read a story form Chen Xiaowang who was doing a seminar in Europe and a person that was at the seminar (a Martial Jerk) decided to test his skill by attacking him and Chen Xiaowang responded naturally (after years of training things become automatic) and Chen Xiaowang felt incredibly guilty about the result, but they ended up calling an ambulance for the attacker.
 

hogstooth

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I have to say I have been rather fortunate to have trained with good, egoless instructors. Most of my experience has been in traditional settings but there has been the occasional time or two that a new student would enter class and after acting like billy bad a$$ get dumped on his butt a few times. Thats all it usually takes to calm down a jerk.
I have had a student a few years back that let his new black belt ranking go to his head. It worked it's self out when he was humbled by a brown belt in kumite. He returned to earth and started re-applying himself to his studies and worried less about his ego.
 

Lynne

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During my short time in Judo, I ran into a few jerks. One was the instructor who shall not be named. I had only been training a short while and he asked me to spar with him. He threw me in the air and over his head (a cartwheel in the air). I landed so hard and so fast that I didn't have time to "slap the floor" to absorb the impact. My knees hit together hard and there was nothing I could do to prevent that from happening. I didn't come back after that as my knees were injured. I went to a sports medicine specialist where I was entertained by a move on arthroscopic (sp?) surgery. Luckily, I didn't have to have the surgery. At any rate, this instructor was supposedly a 3rd degree black belt and had trained in Japan with the Japanese police force. I don't know. My female classmates were weird, too. They resented other females coming in. They were openly hostile. A strange group they were. Kind of cultish/clannish.

I haven't been to enough competitions or seminars as of yet to encounter the jerk factor.

In my own school, one teenage boy has endeavored to take advantage of lower belts (especially females - he kicks them when no contact is allowed) but I think he is maturing a bit (I hope). One of the instructors caught him kicking a female. The instructor came over and punched the kid so hard in the shoulder he almost fell down (they would have done this if he'd been kicking a male - my point is the guy is a jerk/coward and picks on females, shorter younger males, etc.)

I know there is one black belt fellow who punches other black belts in the face and hard. The guy is huge, strong. I know you all will say we need to learn to get hit, especially women, at least from a self-defense standpoint. I'm not so sure that's even legal in competitions though. Should that be legal in class?

I told one lower belt to be sure to tap out if I hurt him during wrist grips. He told me he wasn't going to tap out. I never quite understood that. It's stupid.
 
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YoungMan

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One of my Instructors told me stories in the past of black belts from other organizations who came to class to fight the students. Most of them had big heads and egos, and terrible manners. They didn't bow, didn't care about basics or forms, and basically just wanted to spar to prove how good they were.
So they would line up with 25 black belts, and 25 black belts would knock them to the ground with various technques-side kick being a favorite one. A lot of the students contacted hard anyway, but put extra effort in for these guys.
To my knowledge, none ever returned.
 

Lynne

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One of my Instructors told me stories in the past of black belts from other organizations who came to class to fight the students. Most of them had big heads and egos, and terrible manners. They didn't bow, didn't care about basics or forms, and basically just wanted to spar to prove how good they were.
So they would line up with 25 black belts, and 25 black belts would knock them to the ground with various technques-side kick being a favorite one. A lot of the students contacted hard anyway, but put extra effort in for these guys.
To my knowledge, none ever returned.
I recall only one rude person during our annual competition last year. We do Tang Soo Do but the competition was open to anyone interested. We do have weapons competitions yearly - shimgundo, nunchukas, fans, whatever. There was one fellow who had on garb I've not seen before. It was pretty flashy with embroidery and kind of glittery. He had a scabbard on his back with a long katana type sword inside. He was bumping into people over and over. He never said, "Pardon me," nor did he bow to anyone. I wondered if he was actually a martial artist. We kind of thought he'd been watching Ninja Turtles or something, lol.

I don't understand the lack of respect you encountered with the black belts guests. I guess they didn't comprehend the martial arts spirit, eh?
 

Cirdan

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I once had a yellow belt back kick me full force in the stomach when we were doing drills supposed to be light touch, focusing on control. Fortunately I tensed my stomach a split second before the impact, realizing what he was doing. Still hurt for a few days but no injury. When I told him he was not supposed to kick that hard he replied that I should have moved away, essentialy the same as saying "I am a moron, deal with me". After this I did not offer him advice and just focused on doing my thing while not letting him make contact.

Thankfully most of the martial jerks quit pretty fast. When I run into one I will try to steer him in the right direction once, then if he does not shape up I will ignore him. If I instruct I will pair him with someone who is able to "take care" of him or perhaps demonstrate some nice locks on him :EG:. They either wise up or leave.
 

kidswarrior

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Yes, unfortunately, I've encountered a few arrogant and/or bullying types in training. I have no time or patience for bullies, especially among those who have been in the MA's long enough to know how fragile we all can be (no one builds muscle tissue to cover their throat, eyes, or groin ;)). So a decent MAist understands that working with a partner is a dance where both parties agree--either verbally, through the instructor's direct instructions before starting, or implicitly just out of common decency--to the level and force of contact to be used in the workout. If one person deliberately goes harder than is *agreed upon* or was directed by the instructor, then he is taking advantage of the situation, while the other is holding back out of adherence to the guidelines set, or just common decency. I've found that there are only two options open to me if this happens (other than walking away): I can just put up with his foolishness and let him continue to be a legend in his own mind (have done this quite a bit), basically taking what he can dish out knowing how weak it really is; or, I can check him--hard--once, but I'm always leery that might really injure him, so I usually hold back. I don't want to have to live with what my ego might cause me to do to someone just to prove they're ignorant. Everyone around them already knows that, and life will beat him up soon enough anyway so that I don't have to take on the job. :D
 

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