Fed up?

[Hokori]

I blame films like karate kid.

[red dawn]

actually more times than not, when I say I do karate most people will say, do something cool, like a back flip and i'll have to explain to them that that's not karate, it's gymnastics. People confuse gymnastics and martial arts. Though, many martial artist can do gymnastic stuff, it's not something you learn through a normal karate dojo..in less your in xma or something.

[Armbar]

I normally get a loud 'hayaaaa' with some knife hand chopping movement when i go to work and called things like 'daniel san'!

[begin rant]

Oh! This irritates me so much!

We train in our local highschool, so often we have sarcastic people flop around with their knifehand imitations, hoping around like an intoxicated monkey, yelling elongated Bruce Lee style "WHAAAA!" noises. If they'd stay around for a few lessons instead of just walking by making a fool of themselves, maybe they'd see that Karate isn't what they've seen in Crouching Tiger, and other "wire-fu" movies........

[end rant]

Wow.....I feel better now .

[Sparkey]

I also blame TV coverage like ESPN that list "karate" on the TV line up and then when you turn into it, it's heavy weight breaking competition. This consists of REALLY big men in Gi's that could be used as emergency shelter after a hurricane. Then men introduce themselves to the judges and thank their lord and savior for their karate abilities and then proceed to smash the heck out of a stack of cinder blocks. Wow. Good TV coverage all about Karate.

Oh boy...I'm not being sarcastic am I?....

[CheekyMusician]

I suppose most martial artists will receive a response like that at least once in their training, but it's really no different to a lot of other things in life.

I'm an archaeology student and whenever I tell people that they ask things like, "What's the most expensive/precious/rare thing you've dug up?" They're not trying to be rude, they just have a misconception about something they've never done before or learned about.

I don't get the animated Kiais as often as I get, "What belt are you?" or "How many competitions have you won?" when I tell people I'm in martial arts, and these questions, of course, can be just as annoying, if not more so, than 'karate chops' and kiais.

But yeah, it's life and you'll experience these kind of responses from people no matter what you tell them you're involved in. Often, the people saying it will know that they know nothing about martial arts or whatever it is you happen to be talking about but they just want to contribute and show they're listening to you and are interested in what you're saying and the only way they know how to show their interest is by dragging up the same old tired, preconceived notions of martial arts that we'll get thrown at us all the time without meaning to offend or annoy us.

[CrazyChild13]

Yea all my friends at school are doing wanna-be Kiai noises ya know "Hiyah" and then they usually do a pretend karate chop its kinda funny how they know nothing about the art

[pineapple]

I receive comments like these all the time but it never bothered me.

I just laugh with them and continue with whatever I was doing........

unless they start asking some serious questions about martial arts.

[Kieran-Lilith]

I feel so blessed reading this....I barely associate with anyone outside my group of close friends. Two of which are in karate, the other joining once summer starts. I feel so lucky....Thank you, God, for not giving me idiotic friends who do karate chops and ask if I can make firewood...

[Sandan]

Yes, try being chatted up in a pub and the guy (I'm a girl) says so what do you do in your spare time.. I used to lie and say in a bimbo sort of way... oh nothing really.. then I said sod it I'm going to say what I mean and now i say that I do Karate which always goes to oh, so what belt are you... I say black belt (you can see where this is going) and you should watch the guys disappear!!!

[mindsedgeblade]

"I say black belt (you can see where this is going) and you should watch the guys disappear!!!"

I'd be impressed, and stick around to learn about hert style.

:edit: Yay! orange belt!