Why do you have to fight for a black belt??

[Emei89]

So you mean you put together a set or combo? Something like that?

[alevensalor]

I believe he is saying he built his own style, an amalgam of various styles he had studied and learned over his career. This is not uncommon for the highest ranks among martial artists.

 

Testing for Rokkudan (sixth black) in my dojo means creating a new form as a kind of thesis, a capstone of your education.

 

I am impressed but not surprised that you created a style in your career. Congratulations on achieving what so many aspire to.

 

~A!

[Master Jules]

Thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Working in law enforcement, as well as security and bodyguard work, I have had way too much "real life" experience. Of course, I did fight for 15 years at all the tournaments and such, but thats a big difference. I tried to incorporate all of the most "brutal" techniques centered around very close quarter fighting, since that is what I generally have to deal with in what I do. Theres a whole lot of knife and baton work, as well as weapon disarming. There are no "locks", just breaks and throws...The strikes are mostly all open hand stuff, as well as fingertip strikes. No fancy kicks, just below the waist stuff. Its not about getting someone to "comply" with you, its about thoroughly annhilating the attacker so he is no longer an issue as fast and hard as possible. It sounds brutal, and it is. As far as legal ramifications, you may be dealing with an unnecessary use of force charge unless your talking about being in the military fighting hand to hand in some jungle or desert somewhere. Id rather be judged by 12 then carried by 6, cause these days you may incapacitate someone with a knife, and as you turn to leave he gets enough wits about him to pull the gun he had hidden and shoot you in the back......sorry.....not for me.....if we engage....my switch gets flipped and Im going 0-60 before you can blink.

[Emei89]

dude as a bodygaurd what type of action did u see?

[Master Jules]

Fortunately, most times are uneventful, but we did have an incident outside of a casino ( I was bodyguarding a "high roller" ). My primary won a shedload of money and there were 2 guys who wanted to take it from him. I knocked the first guy out cold, and the second guy went to pull a gun......I always wear a vest, and carry a weapon, but I didnt have time to go for my gun, as it all happened so fast. After knocking out the first guy, I threw him at the 2nd guy who was drawing his gun. The impact caused him to drop the gun, I kicked it away, grabbed his arm which was reaching out and broke his elbow. He went down hard, I dove on my primary, shoved him in the car, and we got outta there......no time for any paperwork as they say. There have been a few times that have been scary like that.......but thats what I get paid for......gotta pay the bills ya know......I got an ex-wife who killed me in a divorce.

[Infrazael]

Why is this tread in the Kung Fu section???

 

In MOST traditional schools, Kung Fu do not even use belts.

 

In CLF,

 

Infraz.

[SevenStar]

all of you guys are lucky... when I was training longfist, I had to spar everyone in the class TWICE, then spar the instructor, THEN grapple them and then grapple the teacher... and that was for my yellow sash. He would vary the testing from student to student so it was never predictable. The lower level tests weren't meant to test your skill (as someone mentioned above) they were will power tests. at yellow sash (which was the second rank) you could have sucky technique and pass, provided you didn't give up.

[delli04]

Who don't you have to fight? I had to fight so many people that i thought for a second that my shihan might go and start pullin in people from the street.

[thebarkingdog]

I remember backs years ago when my husband got his first degree black belt... eons... the fighting was the easy part! There were 6 fights plus a multiple opponent fight. But then beside all the katas and forms (we trained in both Shaolin Kung Fu and Koeikan) There were essays, "The Social Influence on the Individual in Our Culture" "The Difference between Koeikan Ken Do Gaku and other styles" Plus there were 5 books that had to be read with reports and tests. And I think it was for the 2nd degree you have to also learn Yang Tai-Chi Chuan long form, 2 weapons fights, and a huge paper on human anatomy including all the different structures and systems, bone, muscle, lymphatic, nervous, circulatory, and demonstrate techniques for attacking different systems. Then i don't remember at which level he had to design his own system as Master Jules mentioned. This was where the master was preparing the student to become a master of his own school. Many years later after we had moved across the state, he did start his own school. The reason I had found this message board, I googled my husbands name and someone on the board was asking about him. There were also age requirements and time requirements between each belt, although I think the rules were bent a bit on that seeings how my husband practically grew up there, helped build the dojo itself and his master even married us. 5th degree the age requirement was 30, but we moved away at 27, so I know that rule was bent! I know in our school you can't even get a black belt until age 18, the kids all have white belt with colored stripes when white with a black stripe is reached and they are at least 12 they can test for a yellow and join the adult class at 13.

[delli04]

Sounds very much like the school I came up through, as far as the rank requirements.