Challenges

[Kittan Bachika]

If you read the Bruce Lee Story, Bruce's widow describes the events that occur when some local kung fu masters issued a challenge to Bruce which led to a very amusing incident and gave birth to Jeet Kune Do.

These days if you go to a school and challenge the teacher the first thing they will reach for is their phone to call the cops.

Do these types of situations still occur?

 

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

It sometimes happens.

If you do it, the 2 of you get a video camera and state what rules you both will abide by and state that you are both fighting for training purposses and no one can so anyone.

Film the fight, make copies.

 

[khand50]

im sure challenges still happen, we just never really hear about them. they are probably done in secret.
i have a friend in florida who has been challenged by others in his own school. they come in with a chip on their shoulder and he sets them straight. most of the time they leave and dont come back. sometimes they stay and train. some of our fellow students (we trained in a different school together in 1991) have shown up at his door with a big chip on their shoulder because he was a lower rank in the school we both went to. he proved them wrong and set them straight as well.
people should please check "egos" at the door when they enter any training hall. i do.
john keehan, the infamous counte dante, was another example of a challenge. most of the time these challenges are because of reasons outside of martial arts. there is usually some underlying issue for the fight. tournaments have helped settle some of the issues of school vs school or style vs style. even though the old tournaments were somewhat unrealistic at times.
the wong jack man/bruce lee fight is a center of controversy. according to wong, he could have hurt or killed lee many times during the fight. he said that he didnt come there to fight to the death but lee started the fight with a finger jab to wongs face, attempting to remove his sight. at that point wong says he knew lee meant business. still, he claims that he had to run away from lee to avoid hurting him. he eventually allowed the fight to be stopped because lee was relentless in his pursuit to try to kill or severly injure him. he also claims that the challenge had nothing to do with lee teaching non chinese, as that has been the usual charge. he said that many non chinese were learning chinese martial arts then. apparently there was bad blood between lee and man. that is what is was about...egos.
lee's group claims lee had wong from the beginning. that he chased him around the building for three minutes, slamming him in the back of the head with chain punches. lee got winded and his fists swelled. he supposedly got wong on the ground and forced him to give up.
irregardless of who won or lost, the main point is that lee learned from the fight. he learned that his knowledge of wing chun was limited and that he was out of shape. because of his limited knowledge of wing chun, he had to move out and develop techniques that were more suited to the type of fighting situations he found himself in. and he had to get into shape. that is what stimulated him forward into his continued research into what became jkd. if he won, he was still motivated to go forward. if he lost, he was still motivated to go forward. so the end result was growth, no matter the outcome.
over the years of reading about all these martial art founders and how they studied this art and that art and challenged this guy and got challenged by that guy, it made me realize that martial arts masters dont practice what they preach...non violence through training. or maybe i am just misreading the stories of the past. but in the end, they too learned from their encounters. maybe they learned so we dont have to go fight....something to think about.

 

[sgtmac_46]

If you read the Bruce Lee Story, Bruce's widow describes the events that occur when some local kung fu masters issued a challenge to Bruce which led to a very amusing incident and gave birth to Jeet Kune Do.

These days if you go to a school and challenge the teacher the first thing they will reach for is their phone to call the cops.

Do these types of situations still occur?

It happened to a Judoka (who was also a high school and collegiate wrestler in his younger days) I know not too long ago...............it ended with the challenger leaving uninjured but pretty well humbled.

I think you'd see it more with arts that are more associated with hard sparring, such as BJJ, Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, etc., than say, from Aikido or another art where such free sparring isn't common.

 

[tshadowchaser]

They happen more than most think.
There are many solutions to the problem but I do not think calling the police is the best one. Plus that would you study under an instructor who could figure out no other way of handling a challenge?

 

[SahBumNimRush]

Challenges have happened many times in our dojang since I began training (1985). They were mostly street fighters that wanted to up their street cred, but there were golden gloves and a few other local martial artists that came in the door. Most of them were looking to seriously hurt/knock out our sahbumnim.

He tried to explain to most of them that he did not want to fight, but that he wasn't going to back down from a challenge in his own dojang. And he said that he didn't want to hurt them, but he wasn't going to let them hurt him. All of them left, often times with their entourage, bruised, broken, and humiliated. I believe all instructors must be prepared for situations like this, especially if your school has a reputation of producing great fighters.

It also propagates your reputation of a solid school for self defense. In fact alot of those who came to challenge my sahbumnim actually signed up for our class. Albeit they were only there for a short time, as most of them couldn't cut the discipline aspect of our classes. Humility can be a hard character trait to teach/instill, and for some they will never get it.

 

[wushuguy]

challenges happen, for example when a new school opens up. Not the kiddie oriented schools, but self-defense, traditional schools.

I've got some students by challenging or demonstrating skill, and also lost some.

But not all challenges are physical altercations. Some are tests of skill, technique, knowledge, etc.

When I started teaching classes, an individual came in saying he wanted to study Wing Chun. By looking at him, I could see he had considerable experience in martial arts. Talking with him, I learned he did few types of Wing Chun and other martial arts, for a number years longer than I. We compared each other's skill, no need for a physical altercation. I didn't realize that this was a challenge until we had already started. His size, experience, and technique was better than mine, so clearly he was the winner in the physical and fighting aspect, and took some students away as well. This man's challenge I really respect, because it wasn't an abnoxious I'm gonna kick your *** cuz I know I'm better than you, but rather polite test of skill when he realized the number of years difference in training and that he would win, he let me save a little face.

When challenges happen, intellectual or physical, expect to win and lose some.

 

[searcher]

They happen, but the challenge often goes unanswered. By either the challenger backing down or the instructor being challenged not accepting.

We have had a few at different schools I have trained or taught at. IMO, it is a no win situation.

From the sounds of things over on another website(you know which one), it sounds like challenges happen quite a bit more than they should.

If someone come to my school and challenges me, I am not 100% sure what I will do nowadays. 10-15 years ago, I would have gladly jumped at it. Now, with my CCH at risk, I am not sure what I would do. I refuse to lose anything by stomping someones guts out or getting mine stomped out.

 

[geezer]

challenges happen, for example when a new school opens up. Not the kiddie oriented schools, but self-defense, traditional schools.

I've got some students by challenging or demonstrating skill, and also lost some.

Yeah, not all challenges come from unqualified individuals. What would you do if somone comes in the door who can kick your **** like a young Emin Boztepe did to William Cheung? Well, at my age I'm not asking for challenges, nor taking them. For me, MA is for fitness, for fun and for saving my backside if there is no other way out.

Nearly 30 years ago, I had just started teaching my first class of my own at my sifu's request. I really wasn't ready, but I did it to support my instructor. Well, a guy and his friend walked in the door and wanted to "check me out". He was young, cocky, and it was clear what he meant. He was also bigger, stronger, and more experienced than I. I knew this last part for a fact since he had been my senior and the assistant instructor at our school before we had a big split. And, I had never been able to beat him in sparring then... not by a long shot.

So, I invited him onto the floor, introduced him as my old si-hing (senior) and invited him and his friend to do a demo for us. After a thoughtful pause, he obliged, and it was a pretty interesting class. After he left, my students admired his ability but were a bit put off by his attitude. So I didn't lose any students that night.

And the other guy didn't lose any face either. In fact he went on to promote his own system of combat. I saw that he was on the cover of Black Belt again last year. He also recently directed the fight scenes in the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Hey... I almost got beat up by a famous guy! Pretty cool, eh?

 

[K831]

I have seen it several times. I think it happens more than a lot of people recognize.

The most recent was a BJJ guy wanting to show Kenpo students that Kenpo didn't work against a good grappler. Boy did he get handled. I suppose he thought (like many) that my instructor would be nice and play by the "rules".

In most schools I have been in, we as students accepted challenges on behalf of the instructor. I have done so out of respect for my instructor "I'll handle this" type of thing. It set a precedent too, you can't just come in and challenge the instructor, you're gonna get mopped up by a student, you don't even get to talk to the instructor. Ha.

Most of the time though, instructors call and say, my guys would like to see what others are doing.... we get together for some technique line, sparring, and demonstration to each other of our techniques.
Most of the time it ends with mutual respect and "man-hugs".

 

[Ken Morgan]

Thank god there are no challenges in the Japanese sword arts anymore! You guys can have it!

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Thank god there are no challenges in the Japanese sword arts anymore! You guys can have it!

That would be tragic would it not?

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

I think for any instructor to accept a challenge is fool hardy. It is a lose/lose situation for the instructor. If you win you were supposed to, right? If you lose you shouldn't have. If you seriously hurt someone then their will be a consequence. Of course if you accept you will be letting your ego run rampant and well isn't that a problem against what you are trying to teach? In today's world you would be surprised at how quickly your world could turn on a dime if you accept. Just some 02.

 

[K831]

I think for any instructor to accept a challenge is fool hardy. It is a lose/lose situation for the instructor. If you win you were supposed to, right? If you lose you shouldn't have. If you seriously hurt someone then their will be a consequence. Of course if you accept you will be letting your ego run rampant and well isn't that a problem against what you are trying to teach? In today's world you would be surprised at how quickly your world could turn on a dime if you accept. Just some 02.

I agree, however, in the instances I saw where a challenge was "accepted" a kind "no thank you" wasn't really an option. You are then left calling the fuzz on someone you know you and your students can handle, or just handling it.

Certainly, that type of thing is most often going to end badly. I remember the video that was going around a while back of the "challenge" between the BB and the mentally ill guy... Terrible.

 

[searcher]

I have seen it several times. I think it happens more than a lot of people recognize.

The most recent was a BJJ guy wanting to show Kenpo students that Kenpo didn't work against a good grappler. Boy did he get handled. I suppose he thought (like many) that my instructor would be nice and play by the "rules".

In most schools I have been in, we as students accepted challenges on behalf of the instructor. I have done so out of respect for my instructor "I'll handle this" type of thing. It set a precedent too, you can't just come in and challenge the instructor, you're gonna get mopped up by a student, you don't even get to talk to the instructor. Ha.

Most of the time though, instructors call and say, my guys would like to see what others are doing.... we get together for some technique line, sparring, and demonstration to each other of our techniques.
Most of the time it ends with mutual respect and "man-hugs".

This is what I am talking about. Since when do many of the guys in the world think that most of us have not cross-trained in other styles? I love BJJ and other grappling styles, but I don't get where the guys who study ONLY grappling, think that those of us who teach a primarily standup style, have no ground game. I am not bashing any grappling style, not by a long shot, but I am increasingly amazed at how many guys out there have no idea who any of us are, until they get there butts handed to them.

When will people wake up an realize that we are all crossing over and style boundaries are being blurred as the days go on?

 

[matrixman]

I had a school for years, we never had challenges, but we had what we called the 'Idiot of the Month' Club. Some guy would come in and want to fight. I never let a fight happen, I figured if I couldn't talk my way out of it I had already lost, and, as previous poster pointed out, it is lose-lose. That said, even the Bruce Lee Jack Man(?) fight was lose-lose. There is still opinion to this day that Bruce Lee came out of that the worse. When two tigers fight, one is injured and the other dies.

 

[Kittan Bachika]

Yeah, not all challenges come from unqualified individuals. What would you do if somone comes in the door who can kick your **** like a young Emin Boztepe did to William Cheung? Well, at my age I'm not asking for challenges, nor taking them. For me, MA is for fitness, for fun and for saving my backside if there is no other way out.

Nearly 30 years ago, I had just started teaching my first class of my own at my sifu's request. I really wasn't ready, but I did it to support my instructor. Well, a guy and his friend walked in the door and wanted to "check me out". He was young, cocky, and it was clear what he meant. He was also bigger, stronger, and more experienced than I. I knew this last part for a fact since he had been my senior and the assistant instructor at our school before we had a big split. And, I had never been able to beat him in sparring then... not by a long shot.

So, I invited him onto the floor, introduced him as my old si-hing (senior) and invited him and his friend to do a demo for us. After a thoughtful pause, he obliged, and it was a pretty interesting class. After he left, my students admired his ability but were a bit put off by his attitude. So I didn't lose any students that night.

And the other guy didn't lose any face either. In fact he went on to promote his own system of combat. I saw that he was on the cover of Black Belt again last year. He also recently directed the fight scenes in the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Hey... I almost got beat up by a famous guy! Pretty cool, eh?

Now that is smart thinking. No one loses face and everyone goes home happy.

Awhile back when Roberty Downey Jr. was filming the first Iron Man, I saw a photo of him working out with another guy doing Wing Chung. I assume that was the teacher you spoke of.

I hope for his sake that success has changed him for the better.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

I havent seen any challenges since Ive been training but I doubt my instructor would agree to one. My instructor spends much time telling all students that the only time you fight is if it is life and death situation and is unavoidable , therefore to accept a challenge with some random guy off the street would be very hypocritical.

 

[Twin Fist]

still, he claims that he had to run away from lee to avoid hurting him.

I call BS. I never have believed that story and I never will.

that aside, challenges do still happen, i know that for a fact. So far, it hasnt been an issue for me, but it has in the past. It is pretty much a lose/lose, but sometimes, under some conditions, you have to stand up