F
FasterthanDeath
Guest
Over the weekend a friend of mine asked me to attend a Belt testing by an organization of four people. One was a man who created his own art and his two highest belts with him, the last one was of a man who invented Tenjindo. Now for those of you who dont wonder to the other parts of the Forum , Tenjindo is a Ninjitsu based art and the original post caused for the thread to be locked. But thats neither here nor there, there was a group of men who were testing the individuals, and the first three, really good. Explained every step in everything that they did, gave the reason why they did it and variations on the "what if" factor. Now the last guy. Now before you think that I had posted this in the wrong thread let me just say that my concern is that of self-defense. He started his test and immediately they began to grill him on "wasted movements" and uneccesary movements. He didnt explain anything at all very well, I dont think he knew what he was doing. But in the area of self-defense, it was horrible. I mean we all know that noone is going to stand there and let me throw them. You have to distract them or strike first, even then it has to have some type of stunning effect or you just wont get the throw off. I would say all but 3 of his techniques had throws with no strikes or distractions or physical dynamics in them at all. So the test continued and it moved to board breaking. Oh yeah by the way he was going for his 5th dan. He could not break four boards, so he took one off and he broke three. He could not do a jumping spinning side kick to break two boards. And he did a flying jump kick to break 2 boards over three people kneeling. Now what does that have to do with self-defense? I have no idea. So it moved on to 3 vs 1 sparring. He couldnt handle it at all. Two of the people he was sparring was his students and one his wife, and he still could not handle it. Then it was 4 vs 1 and in the end he was made to tap 3 times and could not even stand up. This was 2 mins of sparring. But in the end he did recieve the promotion. Of course by a group of men headed by a good friend of his. Now here is my question to the great people of this forum, actually its multiple questions, 1. If you created an art, would you or would you not automatically be 10th dan grandmaster and founder? 2. If you are a 4th dan in your system and you cannot pass the tests that you created, should you be promoted, let alone credited? 3. If it was a fair and just group of individuals who were judging you, and they were all Grandmasters themselves, do you actually think they would promote you on your failure? It really doesnt make any sense to me. Why two "Grandmasters" would then go to a board and have themselves demoted and then recongnized by people who have never seen their art before, and if they were also Grandmasters who gave that title/rank to them? I am guessing themselves. I think in the MA world you have two types. Those who play together, and those who dont. You stick together and you can make more money and have more people supporting you than if you just stray out and teach your own art byyourself. But in that process alot of true Self-defense is lost. Please, your opinions.