Being humble ?

[Taikudo-ka]

My flatmate is always boasting about how great the chidokan or something he did 10 years ago was, and how crap my own karate training is, even though he hasn't done a single move for 10 years.

 

He demonstrated what little of the one kata learnt he remembered, and he had NO technique...not bad, none... it was like a weak dance or something.

 

I doubt he could still do a roundhouse to save his life, but he keeps saying how he's going to spar me "once I reach his rank..."

[monkeygirl]

While I think an instructor showing humbleness may help prevent a hothead, there are some people who will always start off that way, until someone gives them a reason (that is, a good solid "reason" in the head if you get my meaning) to believe otherwise. Usually, if I'm teaching or taking a class and we have a hothead who thinks he's just SO great, I try to beat that out of him If I can't, I know one of the others can. Which is the point. There's always someone bigger and better than you, and it's dangerous to think otherwise. If you do beat the ****iness out of someone and they're down in the dumps afterwards, try to use some positive reinforcement. Confidence brings your ability level so far up, and can be good to a point, but past that point it's straight-out carelessness, which is dangerous.

 

Every now and then, however, you have to lay the smack-down.

 

For instance, this one 18-year-old guy (Let's call him J) came to my Demo Team's first demonstration. Afterwards he called the dojo and asked to spar our advanced class. He also said that if that was the caliber of our blackbelts, he was not impressed.

 

Now, J was somewhere in the market of 6 feet tall, but he was scrawny. He came into our dojo with a kung fu uniform, no belt/sash, but acting like he owned the place. He told us he had been training for years. So, expecting a good fight with some "Fresh meat", we cautiously approached, assessing the fighter.

 

J had never had a day of formal training in his life. When it was my turn to fight him, he just stood there and wouldn't fight me, presumably because I'm small (at the time I was still under 5 feet tall). Finally, I beckoned him to fight and he began throwing some moves. I threw a few series of kicks to his head and flurried him a bit otherwise. Afterwards he admitted to underestimating me because of my size.

 

This is the worst case of ****iness I've ever come across...

 

 

[Ti-Kwon-Leap]

 

 

Let them be as ****y as they wanna be....right up until they learn their place in the food chain.

 

 

[Bitseach]

A fellow in my old dojo graded one time when I couldn't make the grading due to a prior appointment, overtook my grade as a consequence and immediately became the most arrogant arse-wipe I'd ever met. He could no longer stand to ask my advice on katas that I knew and he didn't, and couldn't stomach when I slipped past his guard with a punch! He'd also try to teach me things he'd only just learned and that I'd done for years and tried to correct my technique - badly - just to show that he was my superior. Well you have to laugh, bemusedly, but it was sort of pathetic!

 

 

[CTpizzaboy]

Everyone has an ego, but there is a difference between begin humble and confident, and boastful and arrogrant. If you're confident about your abilities, you have no need to show off. You let your actions do the talking. Arrogrant people have a need to push thier accomplishments in everyone's face, and have an illusion that they are the best. In doing so, they tend to piss people off.

 

"Do not judge other people or you will be judged and get a foot up your as$."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Taikudo-ka]

Fortunately I haven't actually run into any ego problems or maniacs or anything at my dojo. Everyone has a pretty good sportsman-like attitude to sparring and whatnot and black belts still treat a white belt like a human being.