Fed up?

[kenttiensankari]

But crushing bricks is fun, atleast those roofbricks (dont know the excat english word). Does it really matters what other people think, since the real karate doesnt need any advertaising. Though in Finland people doesnt think karate is just smashing bricks, it is also kicking in head

[Mith]

My brother-in-law used to give grief and say Sensei every time he saw me.

Unfortunately for him he plays tennis and me calling him Arthur Ashe put a stop to the Sensei stuff

[Grenadier]

Being Asian, I get the two pronged attack. The hecklers' attempts at imitating Bruce Lee, plus a high pitched attempt at speaking Japlish, Chinglish, etc., is all part of the usual ritual.

I'll extend an invitation to train with us, so that they can see what it's all about. Well over 99% of the time, I just get a "no thanks. That stuff don't really work." or "nah. Not interested."

I know it's a high rate of failure, but in all of these years that I've been training, I did manage to bring two hecklers / ignorant ones into the martial arts world, and one of them did end up becoming a Yudansha. The other one is still a work in progress.

To Sandan:

Too bad for those guys who run away! At least you're able to weed out those that are irrationally afraid, or lack a spine.

[shotochem]

While washing and waxing the car.......

My Wife, " no honey your doing it wrong, it's WAX ON WAX OFF!!!!"

I won't even mention about the neighbors when I was actually painting the fence......

[cathal]

Most often I'll have people ask me how many boards I can break. I tell them "I've never broken a board yet...but I have broken a few peoples arms, legs and cracked a back once."

That usually shuts them up.

Then of course, I explain to them that I was kidding. I don't want people thinking I'm someone they have to be afraid of.

I am going to use that one! LOL

[Samurai Shotokan]

Yeah im really fed up with it as well. one of my friends likes to pretend hes a MA he practised holding a REALLY Lousy side kick by a wall and asks me about pressure point stuff. At least he knows when I spar in class with pads it Does hurt. He likes to practise real bad moves when im around it gets on my nerves cus he likes movies like Bloodsport which dont help any of Us

[greyhound]

I haven't been taking karate long, but I've already gotten a "Have you kicked anyone's butt yet?"

I also tend to get idiot responses while running. If I hear one more person scream out, "Run, Forrest, run," I'm seriously going to have to hurt somebody.

Brenda

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I haven't been taking karate long, but I've already gotten a "Have you kicked anyone's butt yet?"

I've gotten this also many times. My response is usually "I don't know of any technique besides putting my size 13 tennis shoe up their *** that would cause me to want to kick somebody in the butt."

[cathal]

[scottnshelly]

Martial Arts are not widely practiced (this can be a good thing or a bad thing) and that causes ignorance and stereotyping. When someone from up-North comes down to Oklahoma, they start making assumptions that all rednecks dip, hunt and drive a big, loud trucks. I don’t do any of that. They don’t know any better, because there are no text books on what rednecks are like, they’ve only seen movies like Joe Dirt that gives us real rednecks a bad name.

Think about all of the stereotypes for law enforcement officers. I’ve never met a cop that sat around eating donuts all day, in fact, quite the opposite is true of most that I know.

The fact remains that everyone is ignorant in most subjects and people will make (wrong) assumptions about everything until they are learned in it. I think that in general, everyone learning Martial Arts, even just a little, would be a bad thing. We are an elite, select few that are able to train. People don’t want to do Martial Arts for the simple reason that it’s not easy, not because ‘it don’t work’. I do think that people should have a little more knowledge about what we do and don’t do, but then again, that’s part of what makes us so mysterious. If I have to take a little stereotyping to remain in an elite group, so be it.

But in answer to your question, yes it does get annoying. My wife’s cousin used to always call me ‘Kung Fu Master’ in that annoying fake Chinese accent – you know the one I’m talking about. One time he even yelled it out of his truck window out on the busiest street in this little town. For some reason, he doesn’t do that any more.

I also don’t understand the whole ‘knife hand’ thing that everyone so commonly associates with Martial Arts. Is there a popular movie featuring a Karateka that only does open hand techniques?

When someone asks me how many boards I can break I give them Bruce Lee’s answer “boards don’t hit back.” I usually try to downplay my experience and knowledge to little more than reading a book and watching a class or video. I’ve found that once the cat is out of the bag, people will talk your head off about it.