The weird ones

[Bujingodai]

I met the gauntlet Aussie when we were down, nice guy. Big dude.
It's too bad that we'd be looked at like this by alot of other arts eh. I wonder if they are having a conversation about it. Likely unfortunatly.

However for me it was a guy who came in 21 and an expert in the military arts, but at high speed. Developed his own program, sort of looked like some of what we do, but on a turntable speed of 78. Just nuts, and funny looking.
He was covered in brandings and told me he got off on pain. He lived out of town and would only be by every now and then. Which he never was, which is too bad that relieved stress to watch.

 

[Whitebelt]

I've been lucky in the field of Complete-And-Utter-Weirdos (or unlucky, depending on wheather you find them funny or not). I have only met one, but he made me laugh (while out of earshot I assure you). He told me he had been training himself in "a sword art". After a long discussion I decided that this training consisted of: 1) Buying a poor quality decorative katana, 2) Breaking it in half on a table...and thats all. At this point I left the shop and almost swallowed the part of my shirt I had stuffed into my mouth to stop me laughing!

 

[Fu_Bag]

Came in wearing 'the costume' - hood and all.
Shidoshi said, "We won't be needing the hoods today."

LOL!!! Wow. OK. I admit it. That was me.

You should've seen the looks I received driving there! It was good to see people appreciating the presence of a true ninja keeping the roads safe for everyone.


p.s. (kidding).....
If your instructor was able to say that with a straight face, kudos!!!

 

[exile]

All I can say is, I'm very glad no one made any badly computer-animated cartoons about teenage mutant Song Moo Kwan turtles (or giraffes or prawns or wombats)... that's where the rot really began to set in, I'd bet!

 

[Fu_Bag]

All I can say is, I'm very glad no one made any badly computer-animated cartoons about teenage mutant Song Moo Kwan turtles (or giraffes or prawns or wombats)... that's where the rot really began to set in, I'd bet!

LOL!!! I'd LOVE to see Teenage Mutant Song Moo Kwan Giraffes kicking butts!

 

[exile]

LOL!!! I'd LOVE to see Teenage Mutant Song Moo Kwan Giraffes kicking butts!

Hey, Fu_B---well, it's hard for them to kick butt... their butts are so high up, and even so, under WTF rules that would count as a foul... and head-kicks??? Eighteen feet?? Any giraffe that could score under Olympic TDK rules is gonna be one tough mutha' !!

Of course, it's even harder for the teenage mutant Song Moo Kwan brontosauruses... way harder... higher heads even than the giraffes, and shorter legs... why did they get into TKD in the first place??...:wink1:

 

[Fu_Bag]

Hi exile

"Any giraffe that could score under Olympic TDK rules is gonna be one tough mutha' !! "

My point exactly!!!

"Of course, it's even harder for the teenage mutant Song Moo Kwan brontosauruses... way harder... higher heads even than the giraffes, and shorter legs... why did they get into TKD in the first place??...:wink1:"

They were sick of be oppressed and persecuted at Mr. Rubble's Rock Quarry or being turned into orders of ribs at the drive thru!!! (Flintstones reference for the old farts around here )

 

[exile]

Hi exile

"Any giraffe that could score under Olympic TDK rules is gonna be one tough mutha' !! "

My point exactly!!!

"Of course, it's even harder for the teenage mutant Song Moo Kwan brontosauruses... way harder... higher heads even than the giraffes, and shorter legs... why did they get into TKD in the first place??...:wink1:"

They were sick of be oppressed and persecuted at Mr. Rubble's Rock Quarry or being turned into orders of ribs at the drive thru!!! (Flintstones reference for the old farts around here )

Hey, I remember that!! (Probably shouldn't admit it... gives my age away, eh?)

 

[Don Roley]

I live in Japan and most of the nuts seem to give up before they get here.

Note that I said most of the nuts.

Some advice to people that want to train in the Bujinkan in Japan. First of all, become part of the Bujinkan dojo and show up to class with a card, or at least a teacher you train under and will vouch for you.

Show up before class and talk to the teacher. Do not show up to training with Hatsumi or the Japanese halfway through class and expect to jump in without saying anything to the guy teaching.

If you are wearing a quasi- Chinese uniform, this will only attract attention.

And if the teacher tells you flat out to sit back and wait until after class to talk to him about training, do not walk over to another group of students and ask if you can join them.

And after this, and being told a second time to sit down, I might be tempted to slink out as well. But if you do, don't expect to come back again.

Who was that guy?

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Note that I said most of the nuts.

Some advice to people that want to train in the Bujinkan in Japan. First of all, become part of the Bujinkan dojo and show up to class with a card, or at least a teacher you train under and will vouch for you.

Show up before class and talk to the teacher. Do not show up to training with Hatsumi or the Japanese halfway through class and expect to jump in without saying anything to the guy teaching.

If you are wearing a quasi- Chinese uniform, this will only attract attention.

And if the teacher tells you flat out to sit back and wait until after class to talk to him about training, do not walk over to another group of students and ask if you can join them.

And after this, and being told a second time to sit down, I might be tempted to slink out as well. But if you do, don't expect to come back again.

Who was that guy?

Sounds like you had an interesting time there Don?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Not to go off post but it happens in CMA too; you should have seen the floppy handed circle dancing self proclaimed Bagua master wearing the enter the Dragon T-shirt under his unbuttoned Chinese Wushu jacket I once watched. I was not sure if I should laugh or cry.

OK I'm done I shall post only Ninja related stuff here from now on.

 

[Drac]

One of the local coppers decided to seek some MA training on his own after talking with me (seems I got him all fired up about training)..He stopped by a local school and asked the Instructor what he taught.."Kung-Fu", the man answered..."What style?", the cop asked..."Kung-fu", this idiot said louder..The cop left..

 

[Xue Sheng]

One of the local coppers decided to seek some MA training on his own after talking with me (seems I got him all fired up about training)..He stopped by a local school and asked the Instructor what he taught.."Kung-Fu", the man answered..."What style?", the cop asked..."Kung-fu", this idiot said louder..The cop left..

Kung Fu?

The series, The hustle, the magazine, any of various Chinese martial arts, pick one

 

[Cryozombie]

If you are wearing a quasi- Chinese uniform, this will only attract attention.

Can I come in an old Shadows of Iga Gi?

 

[Drac]

Can I come in an old Shadows of Iga Gi?

He probably has no clue who they were either..

 

[Sui]

I find it terribly amusing when the testosterone-wreaking macho men show up to look at our training. The come in walking like the Hulk with the tight jeans, spiked (but thinning) hair and having a slightly angry, slightly constipated expression on their face and just generally giving off an image of kind of being last living neanderthals that evolution abandoned that are desperately trying to be "in".

Anyway you see them at the beginning of training sitting all cocky with the "I can do that with my arms tied behind my back" aura around them, which slowly decreases as training proceeds and by the time we're doing the ending shinzen rei the cockiness is replaced by nervousness . It just makes me giggle so much when i see them all fidgetty in front of the shidoshi. He always asks "So are you going to be back next training?" and these guys always make some lame excuse like "yeah uh..i dont know...uh i gotta...work, yeah i have work at this time usually and uh...yeah." I dont know about you guys but i cant help laughing at guys like that

 

[Don Roley]

Sounds like you had an interesting time there Don?

Well, I have been told that he actually was a Bujinkan member from overseas. But the way he came off and acted set off alarms around the room.

Let me set this up. Tuesday was the last night of training for the year. There will be no more training anywhere I know of for about two weeks. So for someone to have never shown up to do so now is a bit of a waste of money. But this guy did.

And he did speak to someone about training, but not the teacher. (Hatsumi was supposed to teach, Noguchi ended up filling in.) So when he comes in really, really late he kind of stood out. He walked over to a group of three and asked if he could join up with someone.

Well, Noguchi picks up on this and comes over to ask who he is and such. There seems to be a bit of a problem with communication and according to some of the people in the group, Noguchi told this guy straight out not to bother people trying to train and to sit down for now. I guess it did not get through to the guy and he hovers for a couple minutes before going over to another group of two people and ask if he can join them in training. That set off alarms in just about everyone in the area.

It ended up with Noguchi coming over to the new group raising his voice a bit to the guy, Dame! Dame! And that is pretty rare in Japan.

The guy probably did nothing wrong except to not comunicate very well and not think about how he might appear. But there is a lesson in this for all of us. If you think about how you look showing up late, unannounced, in a different uniform and with no one knowing you it seems natural to be a little paranoid about how you will come off. How you appear may be far worse than you think. I think we should all remember that. It retrospect, it seems a shame what happened to him and how easily it could have been avoided.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I am not sure if this qualifies for this post but I was reading through the responses and I remembered this little incident from about 20 years ago when I was in Worcester Mass.

A guy was standing on the corner (near the mall area - downtown) waiting for the light to change to cross the street. It changed I stopped and a guy in the full movie Ninja regalia hood face mask arm bands and all, (no sword) walked across the street in front of my car and then proceeded up the street.

And no it was not Halloween.

 

[Drac]

A guy was standing on the corner (near the mall area - downtown) waiting for the light to change to cross the street. It changed I stopped and a guy in the full movie Ninja regalia hood face mask arm bands and all, (no sword) walked across the street in front of my car and then proceeded up the street.

And no it was not Halloween.

Now THAT'S scary....

 

[jks9199]

The guy probably did nothing wrong except to not comunicate very well and not think about how he might appear. But there is a lesson in this for all of us. If you think about how you look showing up late, unannounced, in a different uniform and with no one knowing you it seems natural to be a little paranoid about how you will come off. How you appear may be far worse than you think. I think we should all remember that. It retrospect, it seems a shame what happened to him and how easily it could have been avoided.

Seems more like he didn't make very good plans from the get-go. If I'm doing something like travelling all the way to Japan, I'm going to make sure that the training I'm going for is available before I leave -- and I'll know when it starts. And I'm going to know what the dress code is for the event. And I'll make arrangements to be sure that there'll be a translator if language will be an issue. In short -- I'll do all I can to be prepared before I get there.

Now, I can see making the plans, knowing the times and being prepared and still getting screwed up because of unforeseen traffic or something like that... In fact, I've been there. There's an etiquette to joining a class in progress - or not doing so, as may be appropriate. It seems like this guy didn't get that... Nothing is more disruptive, in my opinion as both a student and teacher, than to have someone pop in late, and try to jump in with everyone else. Wait for a break or pause, and ask to join the class... Or watch quietly from the side.