Challenging the dojang instructor

searcher

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I think the big differences I see here in the US are the legal issue of a challenge and the firepower factor.


Here in the KC area in the old days, if you wanted to be sure to win a dojo challenge, you get to be good friends with Jim Harrison. If other guys showed up at your door, you call Jim and he would bring in his boys. It made new instructors have a little easier time of it. One of my instructors used to take the students to workout with the Bushidokan guys and it made our school be dubbed as, "that school of crazy mofos that bangheads with Harrison and his boys." Life was good and we all got a lot tougher. Not just in the head.
 

jarrod

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I think the big differences I see here in the US are the legal issue of a challenge and the firepower factor.


Here in the KC area in the old days, if you wanted to be sure to win a dojo challenge, you get to be good friends with Jim Harrison. If other guys showed up at your door, you call Jim and he would bring in his boys. It made new instructors have a little easier time of it. One of my instructors used to take the students to workout with the Bushidokan guys and it made our school be dubbed as, "that school of crazy mofos that bangheads with Harrison and his boys." Life was good and we all got a lot tougher. Not just in the head.

i used to box some with one of harrison's guys, mike rains i think. tough old dude, but his hips were shot. friendly guy, but just a dirty fighter. really liked to throw, too! i liked training with him. of course dwane used to train with him too but i think that was a long time ago.

i'm glad i missed all that stuff, i really hate fighting.

jf
 

Earl Weiss

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These challenge things just sound crazy to me. I looked up Count Dante, it's like something out of a bad martial arts movie.


You should have seen his school . Wall to wall weapons and floor racks of more. AND not the dulled training kind. If a group walked in for a challenge, the arsenal was easily accessable.
 

suicide

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before he gets to the instructor at least 3 of the top students should step up and offer to show this cat what time it is :shooter:
 

HeisaaReborn

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First - Does "friend" need meds. You may wish to seek psychiatric help for him if you truly care about him.

Second- In Eastern ways it is not uncommon in the more traditional schools for masters to take care of other masters if there is an issue. My understanding of this though is that no junior student is ever supposed to do this on behalf of the master unless they are put into a life or death situation they cannot evade.

Third- There is a great art called Verbal "Judo". Law enforcement uses it all the time. It is literally talking someone into handcuffing themselves. "Master" is not just a title given with rank - it is a mindset. Someone with this mindset should know how to use this tool effectively unless you need to see Point #1.

Budo,
 

jks9199

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Third- There is a great art called Verbal "Judo". Law enforcement uses it all the time. It is literally talking someone into handcuffing themselves. "Master" is not just a title given with rank - it is a mindset. Someone with this mindset should know how to use this tool effectively unless you need to see Point #1.

Budo,
Bull pocky.

Verbal Judo is a specific marketing of communication skills and tactics developed by George Thompson, Ph.D., based on his education as a high school teacher and college professor and his experience as a street officer. It's useful -- especially for people who aren't particularly skilled at communication. It can go a long way towards smoothing encounters and standardizing some sorts of public encounters (and has been adapted to non-LE environments) -- but it won't "talk someone into handcuffs. It MAY get someone to comply with legitimate demands. And, over the last several years, Gerbil Voodoo has increasingly become about the money flowing into Thompson's coffers.
 

HeisaaReborn

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Bull pocky.

Verbal Judo is a specific marketing of communication skills and tactics developed by George Thompson, Ph.D., based on his education as a high school teacher and college professor and his experience as a street officer. It's useful -- especially for people who aren't particularly skilled at communication. It can go a long way towards smoothing encounters and standardizing some sorts of public encounters (and has been adapted to non-LE environments) -- but it won't "talk someone into handcuffs. It MAY get someone to comply with legitimate demands. And, over the last several years, Gerbil Voodoo has increasingly become about the money flowing into Thompson's coffers.

Thank you for the history of the term. Let me restate my point then since I did not realize the specific term was copyrighted. Honestly, I think any master can basically talk an even minded individual down using a cool tone of voice and the right reasoning which is what i was alluding to. And yes that kind of technique is often used to talk people into handcuffs.

Thanks for the information though - I did not know how that was connected to that Doctorate - it is a term that had been thrown around plenty of the LE type classes I have had to go to with the MP BN I have been with for the last five years.
 

jks9199

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Thank you for the history of the term. Let me restate my point then since I did not realize the specific term was copyrighted. Honestly, I think any master can basically talk an even minded individual down using a cool tone of voice and the right reasoning which is what i was alluding to. And yes that kind of technique is often used to talk people into handcuffs.

Thanks for the information though - I did not know how that was connected to that Doctorate - it is a term that had been thrown around plenty of the LE type classes I have had to go to with the MP BN I have been with for the last five years.
Have you ever placed cuffs on even a compliant subject? Let alone tried to talk someone who ain't quite happy with the circumstances down? All the tricks in the world don't always work -- and even George Thompson admits that. In his methodology, there's a "code" that basically says "last chance before we make you do this."

But this is digressing far off topic.

In the US, the days of dojo storming are probably gone. Even "friendly" matches and meet ups between schools are going by the wayside... In the case of this guy... The kid sounds a lot like he's got a big case of teen hormones and ego. It'll probably resolve itself in a few years... Maybe without too many bruises.
 

HeisaaReborn

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I have only placed cuffs in training - I have had to restrain non-compliant terrorists by hand though until the MPs could get there with zip ties as well as follow orders for chemical restraints. Usually though I was the one that seemed to be the most suited to being able to talk someone down. This is especially funny through an interpreter.
 

searcher

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The only thing talking ever did for em in an encounter was give me time to get set or create distance to get my firearm out.

Interpreter or not, loud voice with commanding posture tends to back them up for a very short time. And it was never funny.
 

Gordon Nore

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Whenever I've visited a school -- always on friendly terms having sought the permission of the instructor -- I signed a waiver before I went on the mat. That waiver insulated the school owner in the event that I might be injured. A guy likes this walks in with this as his stated agenda, don't give him the waiver, tell him he's trespassing and ask him to leave.
 

Earl Weiss

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Bull pocky.

Verbal Judo is a specific marketing of communication skills and tactics developed by George Thompson, Ph.D., based on his education as a high school teacher and college professor and his experience as a street officer. It's useful -- especially for people who aren't particularly skilled at communication. It can go a long way towards smoothing encounters and standardizing some sorts of public encounters (and has been adapted to non-LE environments) -- but it won't "talk someone into handcuffs. It MAY get someone to comply with legitimate demands. And, over the last several years, Gerbil Voodoo has increasingly become about the money flowing into Thompson's coffers.

His site shows a 1996 copyright, but I recall the term being thrown around in High School in the1970's, so he did not invent it.
 

Traditionalist

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I am living in asia. I was surpised by the responds some gave me because in my country, challenging instructor is quite common. The answers which many of you people give me is not the culture of martial arts in my country. We have frequent competiton between karate and taekwondo judo etc and challenging instructor is common.

I guess we live in different cultures.


I'm from korea, now live in the U.S) and the same it true there. The only difference is that if you wanted to challenge the master most of the time you had to get through the best student first. Once this guy came in and challanged our instructor and he pointed to my older brother and told him if he could defeat him then he would fight. Now my brother is big for even a Korean. He's 6'3" 265 pounds. Most of the time it ended there but a few times it went a little farther. My instructor never fought. We even had one of the guys join class. It wasn't a sign of disrespect or we didn't look bad on the guy. Most of the time my instructor didn't even look up from his desk when the challenger came in he just pointed him to my brother. And my brother wasn't as good as my instructor.
 

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