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| Senseis say the silliest things |
I have been around instructors that have said things and I have to do a double take to see if they are joking or possibly have a head injury causing them to spew such things…I have trained with instructors and had conversations with probably hundreds of instructors, both face to face and online and often have to throw things back at them and ask for clarity…normally it sounds something like “are you for real….you just said that?”
Most of the time the infractions are not so bad, but here are some that kind of get my blood pressure up and cause me fits……
I would spar with you but I am far too deadly to spar with a simple white belt!
Really, so what you are really saying is A) you suck so bad and are in such bad shape that a white belt will make you look bad…or B) you have no control and learned nothing about how to use a technique in a way that shows control!
Any black belt should be able to train with lower ranks without fear of hurting them. Karate and most martial arts is about control and use of techniques. If your skills are set for just blasting people then you are not doing a martial art, you are doing a combat sport. If you cannot control yourself enough to train with a junior, how do you expect to run a club? LAME!!!
You cannot teach my martial art without a license because it is far to deadly!
Have two things to say about this…first off what the hell are you teaching that is so Deadly…sure is not Karate or a martial art! Secondly, The real translation should read “you cannot teach my martial art without a very expensive license because I need to make a crap load of money of you morons before you catch on that I am just teaching watered down Tae Kwon do in fancy uniforms…that I make money off of as well”.
I love this one, it normally is said by those that have late night commercials that make me laugh so hard I gag on my coffee! Anyone that says this probably just moved out of their parents basement and now run 12 schools…..filled with children wearing silly gis and paying WAY to much to learn this deadly art!
My 21st Dan masters level is recognized around the world!
Not so much really. First off the Dan ranking system was set up to teach humility as much as it was to show rank for others. It was set up to recognize skill and progress, then what people are giving to the organization at specific ranks. The thing is there is a specific “years between and age” requirement for most organizations. This keeps it real, like you wont get a 13 year old Yondan in a legit organization or a 25 year old Judan!
The other thing is that the original dan rankings were limited to Judan, or 10th Dan. Anything above is a “modern creation” or also known as BS! I have met one guy that said he was an 11th Dan in Shotokan Karate, not JKA mind you. He was horrible….but he had a nice Dojo and Car. It is also important to point out that this self-made man (rank and financially) self-appointed himself all ranks after Shodan!...alsmost one a year! Yup, he only had 15 years in the arts and at the time I had 19 years under my Shodan belt. Point being….Rank is often not all its cracked up to be. Don’t go buy the guys rank..go by what he can offer as an instructor.
You need to learn a weapon to be proficient in street fighting!
I call BS on this one right away. Learning to use weapons is fun, but it has NOTHING to do with real fighting and anyone that tells you it does…does not know much about the subject and should be avoided. First off you cannot carry them in the street….old tired argument but you get the point. Secondly knowing the mechanics of working with weapons, which mostly is a form of manipulating leavers and such…its NOTHING LIKE REAL STREET FIGHTING!
Do not get me wrong, there is a lot to be learned and tones of benefits from learning to use and work with a weapon. It teaches a deep level of respect for the dangers, it teaches a new form of physical skill that can benefit you in lots of ways, but you don’t NEED to learn a weapon to be a good street fighter, mostly you need to unlearn most of what martial arts teach you to be a street fighter.
All street fights (or a quoted number) go to the ground!
So not true! Many years ago a grappling teacher started saying that between 60-80% of all fights end up on the ground. But that was a personal assertion he made and not a real number that was researched. Hell, I don’t think that there is any real research on street fights…how can their be!
Personal experience probably has a lot to do with it. If you took a kick boxer, a jiu Jitsu guy, a wrestler and a boxer and put them in 100 Street fights I think you will find that the Kick boxer and boxers street fights stayed standing 90% of the time and the grapplers both end up on the ground 80% of the time….so, what does this prove, well it proves that grapplers like to fight on the ground and strikers like to fight on their feet! But it does not give the kind of numbers we are getting quotes on.
Karate is useless!
Karate is a tool that can be used in many ways. It can be used to help bring discipline to the undisciplined, it can be used for fitness, self-defense, it’s a great way to get rid of stress, it’s a great way to express yourself and a great way to get rid of extra energy. Karate can only be useless for specific things, like yes…knowing karate will not directly affect your ability to make the perfect omelet or to speak French! But it has many uses, and as a fighting art, which is what I think they were getting at in the first place, its only as good as the person that is using it.
Over the years we have seen examples of “KILLERS” in the ring, cage and even octagon. Those that are so dangerous that they have shown they can use Karate to blast people to the point that they lose contact with their faculties and go to sleep…Lyoto Machida started a renaissance of sorts with his use of Shotokan Karate in the MMA cage. Others however have shown that skills in Karate can be translated into the combat arts of MMA and used to remove people from consciousness, but more important to me it has be used by millions of people for other reasons.
So, “Karate is useless” well that just shows how ignorant and one minded people can be. If your definition of Karate and the needs you are looking to fill are not meeting up, then perhaps you need to review where you are training and with whom, then figure out if you want to travel else were to get what you are missing.
I have trained under (add instructors name).
I love this one. If you have to tell me your resume with in ten minutes of meeting you…you lack confidence in yourself…or you are selling me something! Both are not good. I don’t care if you spent hours training with some guy in a seminar where he wont remember your face in a week because you were part of 100 other faces, the fact is that I have trained with countless instructors in this fashion and yes I have taken something away from their classes, but I would NEVER say I trained with them and infer that I was some kind of special student…any more special than the 100 others. I do respect when people say “I train with (XYZ Sensei) as my main instructor every day…not I train with ZYX instructor once every 3 months and see him for a total of 3-5 hours during that period!
I am less interested in who you have trained with than I am with what you learned! Show me, don’t tell me.
My instructor was descended from Samurai!
a)Probably not….B) who cares? During the Meiji period many business men “purchased” their Samurai heritage from a money hungry government. Basically meaning that the business men could now claim being Samurai when in fact they did not have the blood line. This confused the situation greatly when they also suddenly “found” that they had this samurai blood line they purchased and it went back multiple generations…in other words they created a history that was not real.
Nothing wrong with someone claiming Samurai heritage if they have it, but it would be the same as me suddenly saying I was royalty and 16th in line to the thrown of England….when in fact all of England would need to perish and only a few million others before I get my hands on that thrown and crown!
It was a fun and interesting sales pitch to say you were a great great grandchild of a samurai back in the 70’s and 80’s and I even thought it was cool, till I figured out that it basically meant that you were the decedent of someone in the army….then I realized that my grandfather served in WWII and my great grand father was in WWI…so, by that case…I am the decedent of someone that was in the army…ergo…I am samurai!
Really though…what does a Samurai and Karate have to do with each other? Its not like the samurai did Karate!
My master killed a bull with his own hands!
You don’t have to live in Texas to call BS on this one. First off we need to look at this from two different angles, what kind of bull and what condition was the bull in! The master in question did Knock the horn off a bull, but it had been loosened by a hammer before hand and the bull in question, was a smaller Japanese bull, sick and pretty much ready to die…it was after all at a glue factory!
Killing a north American bull with your bare hands would be a sight and you would earn “master bull killer” creds anywhere you go! The difference, well the instructor in question Ko’d a staggering 190 pound bull that probably would have fallen over on its own given time, the North American Bulls we see are measured in the TONES not pounds to make it easier, It just sounds way cooler to say they KO”d a bull or took it horn with a Shuto over they beat on a dying and sick bull. And for those interested…the footage is available on YouTube.
You MUST respect me, I am your teacher!
Not true! Hell I don’t respect anyone right off the bat, I also don’t disrespect anyone right off the bat. Show me respect, work with me and I will respect you. Stand around demanding respect and acting like an A-Hole and you get what you get!
Just because I teach Karate to a group of people does not mean I have the right to demand things of them and bully them. Those that demand respect often get fear and not respect! I would rather be respected for respecting others and treating them the way that I want to be treated than pushing someone into respecting me.
I had a person that I trained with, and sometimes took class from who was a major D-Bag and basically ordered people around and “COMMANDED” Respect. Truth is he gave no respect to anyone and got very upset when he did not get it back. To bad Charlie, you need to give to get in this case!
I hate mouth warriors, they don’t get real Kratty!
One of my old seniors who is not training anymore used to use this term a lot. “mouth warriors” was supposed to mean those that pay lip service to Karate but do not really “live” Karate. I happen to agree with him…..but his definition of living Karate is what I don’t agree with. Obviously he took it and ran with it for a short time, running around teaching it and spreading Karate, great. But when the chips were down he left Karate and proved he was a “mouth warrior” for sure.
To me a mouth warrior is someone that talks a lot of smack and does not back it up. They say how great karate is but they fail to live the Dojo Kun, they don’t remember why and who created Karate. Not a bunch of sports jocks looking for medals, praise and trophies, but sincere people looking to promote an art that can be used by anyone to be healthy and push themselves physically and mentally to be better people.
I am your Sensei, that means I am a master!
I have said it in the past, and I will say it again…I hate the term MASTER! If you are a teacher (sensei) you are not the master, you are the instructor…teacher…grand poo bah and owner of a Dojo/Club/Gym…but you are NOT a master.
The term master denotes mastery over someone/something and as we know you don’t master Karate, you practice it. And you are not a master over someone…you instruct them.
This is a short list of stupid stuff