Dojo Challenges

[ShoriKid]

Like a lot of things in the martial arts, I'm of two minds about this matter. While I was the first student up to spar with anyone that came in new, that was often for the safety of lower ranks. Given that I have a hard head, and not enough sense to know when I'm hit, I was a good canidate to see if someone had come just to try to beat up people at our dojo. Not saying I was a great fighter able to take on all comers, but I would give a good representation of our school. And there were one or two people who wanted to come in and prove that their training was superior to what we were doing and that our dojo couldn't turn out fighters. One of the other local schools circulated that rumor around, that none of us could fight. The man who took over teaching when their head instructor took over ended up a good friend of mine. We trained together for a year, at which point he was a Ni Dan and I was about 5th kyu. He complimented me on my ability, saying I did well for my rank when we sparred. He eventual came to train with us and ended up making it to 1st kyu before he had to stop due to life happening. After sparring the instructor he laughingly confessed that all the things he'd heard about our instructor were wrong.

That is how our 'challenges' seemed to happen. People came in to train, but most had prior training and had heard we were a soft school that just did kata and basics. They came to train for a bit, fight and go away with bragging rights that they had beat up our people. That is how a lot of modern 'challenges happen. They aren't as often walking into the door and calling a show down with the ehad instructor. It's a safer way for the challenger really. If they get beat up/lose the fight, they just say they were there to learn. If they dominate any of the sparring, they claim victory and superiority in style/ability. Going to others schools and trying them out is great. Don't go into a long term commitment on a contract, but sample things to see what they have to offer. Go and test yourself, not the other people if you think they are reputable.

On the old school challenge where you come in and put it to an instructor, fight or be labled inferior. It just doesn't seeme to work any more. Not really. The instructor has a lot more riding on the line than the challenger. Not just losing, but winning. If they win in this legtious society, what are the odds, if it's a dominating win, especially by someone in a striking style, they face being put out of business financially. It's some of the same reasoning why sparring contact levels are curtailed so much in a lot of schools. There is also the facing of differing rules sets, which inevitably favor one fighter or the other. This is due to their familiarity with the rules and having trained with them. If you fight a certain way, your better at it than someone who doesn't. Put a judoka up against a karateka and have the rules not allow throws on the hard floor and only a single follow up strike after an opponent is downed and the rules tilt in the favor of the karateka. Doesn't mean he will win, but it makes things easier for him. The same can be reversed as well.

Do the old school challenges have their uses? Philisophically, yes they do. They unmask the people who don't have the skills that they claim to have, when they are done correctly. I'm all for getting the low quality instructors, or the charletains out of martial arts. However, as often as not it's a 25 year old from a grappling school or mma gym heading down to take on the 35/40 year old guy who teaches karate at the local dojo 2 nights a week. That is as much a match of physical attributes, if not more so, than style. And a lot of these types of challenges aren't really done to expose fraud. Not a lot of the ones bragged about across the internet, or filmed for YouTube. It's more about the ego of going out and beating someone for the bragging rights than proving that a teaching is inferior. It's personal gratification. That is where it goes wrong and missed the point that established the tradition or challenges, and yes it's a long tradition in both the Eastern and Western martial arts.

So me, I'm for old school challenges, and mordern methods too. And, I'm against them too. In this case, I want to have my cake and eat it too.

[bushido_man96]

Nice post, Shorikid. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I wish that I had more schools available here, not to challenge, but to go experience and learn from, and make new MA friends.

[ironsifu]

when i was young, i heard stories about teachers going around challenging each other to sparring matches, and couldnt wait to do it myself. i was living in the philippines after spending my teenage years in the US, and did point tournaments almost every weekend about 6 months a year, and finally some full contact matches before moving back. anyway, i had a new teacher (boggs lao) who built his reputation by fighting matches. his specialty was sparring, and i felt like i was ready to represent him, so i starting making my rounds. well i saw a tae kwon do school run by a korean church priest, and decided to go in, and the old man was drinking tea alone. one thing led to another and we were having a "friendly" match...

well let's say his floor was very clean when i left, and my uniform was very *dirty* lol. this happened to me a few times, but i was never told to stop. i won some lost some but it was a great experience.

a bigger surprise when i came to class one day and saw my master having lunch with that same master, and they had a good time laughing at my expense. i found out later, that these two use to be rivals years before i came along and now they were friends. and that was more than 20 years ago.

i guess my point is, that matches are very good for establishing a reputation, and keeping one that is already established. as long as the matches dont result in bitter enemies and bad feelings. if you read many stories of filipino masters who were rivals, sometimes they refer to each other as "old sparring partners". but they keep everyone on their toes, and is much more better than sparring with classmates, and many years later, two opponents who might had a huge fight when they were young will respect each other as old friends.

[ironsifu]

oh, shorikid, that was good post btw.

i would like to add something i saw this weekend. there is a school in the Bay area where the students are not very good at tournament fighting. two weeks ago i watched a student of one school (black belter) go through 4 students of that traditional school. it was embarassing. well last saturday, the master of this school who was about late 40s early 50s came to the tournament and smashed everyone in his division (there was no senior division). he did not fight grand champion, but no doubt he would of won it.

every once in a while, we will all see a traditional guy who will really kick some serious butt. many times this guy is pass his prime, and the one losing is younger, sometimes sophisticated with the "new school" technique, and almost always, unexpected. the challenge match is good for both the winner and the loser. in the case of this rec-center karate guy, everyone left out of there with a lot of respect for his school, style and his students, where last week some people actually felt bad for them.

[ShoriKid]

ironsifu,

It happens that way. Back when I still competed, which has been quite a few years due to life and expense, my favorite tournaments were the Sport Jujitsu ones that were just coming into there own. Continous contact, I could hit the head, take downs and a few seconds of ground work. A very nice mix. I always fought well, but ran into problems with the guys who trained with the US nationals team. I would get out pointed on the take downs as I hadn't intergrated my sprawl work from wrestling into my stand up work. Familiarity with the rules and time sparring under them hurt my preformance. Same could have been the case with the traditional karateka who didn't do well at the tourny you were at. By your account the instructor was very solid and if he is, I can't see him turning out inferior students without knowing what he was doing.

Any way, but to the US Sport Jujitsu tournaments. The last one I attended my instructor came to as well since one of the main sponsers, and one of the US team members had trained with him years ago. My sensei is there, speaking with some of the other older black belts, people he knew and hadn't seen in years when one of the younger competitors starts running his mouth. He's going on about how the seniors division, 35+(I'm almost there! ) was only there to protect the older guys from the young ones who could realy fight. He kept running his mouth, sensei, who hadn't planned to compete signed up. When asked what division he's enter he says sparring, 35 and under. There are enough smiles from grey haired judges that it doesn't take a genius to figure out who he got to fight in his first match. The match starts and sensei is getting the better of the guy so he starts shooting a sloppy double leg and dumping sensei pretty hard to the mats. Getting both feet off the floor in a take down scores twice the points as a head kick(this was meant to reward diffuclt and technical throws, but ended up rewarding heave and dump take downs). As long as it wasn't the pro-am, full contact division, you just walked through a couple of hand strikes or body kicks and dumped the person for the take down and won on points. The young guy is making up ground points wise with the take downs and is trying to slam sensei hard enough to rattle him and win. About the third take down sensei told him as he got up and they were seperated, "Do that again, and I'll break your nose." Sure enough, the kid dumped him after charging through more well placed, but legal level of contact, shots. Again they come up and as the boy closes for yet another take down the pair of shots he ran into weren't moderately powered hits, but hard and solid punches. His head jacked back and there was an injury time out so he could stop the bleeding. That was the end of the take downs against sensei, and the young man lost that match in the end. Sensei went home with second place, finishing behind the man who took top honors for the day in pretty well all of the divisions. Moral of the story, if there is one? Young pups should bark less around the old dogs. Grey whiskers and battle scars down come from sitting idle on the porch.

[bushido_man96]

Nice story, Shorikid. Thanks for sharing that.

[ironsifu]

hey!

i didnt mean to say that the teacher from the tournament had bad students. they were good traditionally skilled students, its just that i believe they were not familiar with the rules. so the one that beat them was using point fighting techniques, like blitzing and things like that to outpoint them. i hope i didnt mean to say they were no good... just didnt do well in the tournament.

you know the saying that tournaments are not like streetfights. in a way they are fights, but in a way they are games too.

[ironsifu]

by the way, that was a good story. i have seen this kind of thing happen many times, and now i am at the age that i'm the "old guy" in the story lol

[pittbullJudoka]

Them old dawgs got a mean bit. That was by far the most enjoyable match to watch at the tourney. If I remember correctly Sensei was cheered when he brought blood.

[Tiger1962]

I have never seen this or witnessed these "dojo challenges" you speak of.

I seriously thought this kind of stuff only happens in the movies! I'll be darned.