No, unfortunately. It would do me good.
Challenge the instructor?
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dvcochran
Grandmaster
Not any more. Mostly friends from 'back in the day' which could be considered the geriatric crew.
It was common and friendly back then to visit each other dojo/dojang. Again, spar is the key word.
It was common and friendly back then to visit each other dojo/dojang. Again, spar is the key word.
Balrog
Master of Arts
Several years ago, I had a guy walk into the school and challenge me to a fight for ownership of the school. I just laughed at him and said something along the lines of, "Dude, you have watched too many bad kung-fu moves. We don't need to fight. Haul out your checkbook and I'll sell you the school on the spot!"
He left.
He left.
That is a classic! How medieval! Love it
Medieval indeed. He just left because of the checkbook part. Now if Balrog had offered to accept visa....
Many years ago, a guy walked into the UT Bellmont Hall room 904, the wrestling room (1984?) before I started my class. He asked, "May I spar with you?" I said ,"Yes!" I then jumped in, and took him down. I started my class after that. Later on I heard that guy complained to the other people that I attacked him while he was not ready yet.
Even today, I still think I was right. He challenged me. I accepted. I attacked him. Whether he was ready or not at that moment should not be my concern.
Even today, I still think I was right. He challenged me. I accepted. I attacked him. Whether he was ready or not at that moment should not be my concern.
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dvcochran
Grandmaster
University of Tennessee, right?
University of Texas at Austin.University of Tennessee, right?
We run open sparring nights every month (like tonight, anybody in my area come and play!) and I regularly have people drop in. The standard precaution is that any new guy has to fight myself or one of my instructors first before they can play with my other students, and he will usually get a series of matches with my instructors to before they can fight lower level students.
It is an invaluable experience, it is great for everyone to fight new fighters, one of the worst thing a school can do is get too inbred on their techniques.
It is an invaluable experience, it is great for everyone to fight new fighters, one of the worst thing a school can do is get too inbred on their techniques.
Dude's still walking around today, muttering something about stone tablets.
dvcochran
Grandmaster
I would love to be there! I am coming from TN so I may be running a little late.
Balrog
Master of Arts
Or MasterCard. Or Amex.
The flip side of this thread question, the Yin Yang of it all, would be "have you ever challenged an Instructor?" I have, but I deemed it necessary at the time. Please allow me to explain.
We had a big, busy dojo in the center of our town. We helped every other dojo around with anything they needed, it's just something we always did. We also had a strong community presence, helping people in need, helping any business that needed it with good word of mouth, fund raisers, demos, whatever.
So.....after class one Saturday I head up the street for lunch. As I'm walking into the restaurant I frequent, one we helped out of a big jam in the past, I see a big poster in his window for another school in the neighboring town. I ask Nick, the proprietor, about it, he says, "Yes, your partners, they said they were business partners of yours."
We take the poster down, I have lunch, get all the details and head back to the dojo with the poster. As I get there I stop dead in my tracks. There, on MY door, where we have our logo - is another one of their posters, only bigger, taped over our logo. No foolin', on my door over our logo. I'm thinking of Count Dante and the old dojo wars in Chicago back in the days before me. I'm also thinking, "Man, there's all kinds of balls". And to think this happened while I was up the street eating......oh, man, was I ticked off.
The dojo they were advertising apparently was new, had just opened a month ago. I make a few calls to a couple of the guys and to some of the cops from their town.....who train at our place for free. I wrap my hands, put on my gi pants and a sweatshirt, and we go down to that dojo. Everyone else stays outside, I walk in during a class they were teaching, walk right across their floor, poster in hand, hand it to their Instructor in front of the class he's teaching, and explain how I came to have that poster. It was quite an uncomfortable moment for him, me, I have a smile on my face. But then I started to feel bad. I know you can't judge a book by it's cover, but this poor man had never been in a fight in his life, wasn't in shape and probably never had been. Just one of those guys that you can tell. And he obviously didn't tell his students to do what they did. I feel kind of bad for him now, but, hey, you don't do that, I felt like I had to do something.
I tell him he has until next Saturday to have the people responsible come to our dojo and personally apologize. They never came. So Saturday I head back to their dojo again.....which is now closed down and empty, the windows soaped over. Very odd. One of the oddest things I can look back on. Never saw or heard from any of them again.
Looking back on it now, I would react differently, been more subtle. Maybe even helped them. They weren't going to last long anyway. My dojo continued for another thirty years.
We had a big, busy dojo in the center of our town. We helped every other dojo around with anything they needed, it's just something we always did. We also had a strong community presence, helping people in need, helping any business that needed it with good word of mouth, fund raisers, demos, whatever.
So.....after class one Saturday I head up the street for lunch. As I'm walking into the restaurant I frequent, one we helped out of a big jam in the past, I see a big poster in his window for another school in the neighboring town. I ask Nick, the proprietor, about it, he says, "Yes, your partners, they said they were business partners of yours."
We take the poster down, I have lunch, get all the details and head back to the dojo with the poster. As I get there I stop dead in my tracks. There, on MY door, where we have our logo - is another one of their posters, only bigger, taped over our logo. No foolin', on my door over our logo. I'm thinking of Count Dante and the old dojo wars in Chicago back in the days before me. I'm also thinking, "Man, there's all kinds of balls". And to think this happened while I was up the street eating......oh, man, was I ticked off.
The dojo they were advertising apparently was new, had just opened a month ago. I make a few calls to a couple of the guys and to some of the cops from their town.....who train at our place for free. I wrap my hands, put on my gi pants and a sweatshirt, and we go down to that dojo. Everyone else stays outside, I walk in during a class they were teaching, walk right across their floor, poster in hand, hand it to their Instructor in front of the class he's teaching, and explain how I came to have that poster. It was quite an uncomfortable moment for him, me, I have a smile on my face. But then I started to feel bad. I know you can't judge a book by it's cover, but this poor man had never been in a fight in his life, wasn't in shape and probably never had been. Just one of those guys that you can tell. And he obviously didn't tell his students to do what they did. I feel kind of bad for him now, but, hey, you don't do that, I felt like I had to do something.
I tell him he has until next Saturday to have the people responsible come to our dojo and personally apologize. They never came. So Saturday I head back to their dojo again.....which is now closed down and empty, the windows soaped over. Very odd. One of the oddest things I can look back on. Never saw or heard from any of them again.
Looking back on it now, I would react differently, been more subtle. Maybe even helped them. They weren't going to last long anyway. My dojo continued for another thirty years.
D
Deleted member 39746
Guest
Not going to lie i thought that this was going to be of those endings from a show copy pasta's. I was mid way reading that and was like "hang on this sounds like a bruce lee film"
That is just weird though.
Back when I was a color belt, or maybe a recent 1st dan, I was helping out with a TKD demonstration at a local town festival, and an obviously inebriated man came up and started demanding that he be allowed to fight someone. We persuaded him to get lost.
