Who has been challenged?

[Wastelander]

I haven't been, although my Sensei was, once, under the guise of "wanting to learn to spar." I also know that Shiroma Jiro Sensei, here in Phoenix, had someone come and "watch classes" and when they shook his hand, tried to sucker punch him.

[IcemanSK]

The closest I had to an experience like this was an inter-school issue. In my gup days in the early 80's, my master invited another Korean master to join us at our dojang. I'm not sure why the younger master was invited. Master #2 spent a few weeks at our dojang training with us.

We had a 3rd Dan who was a ranked fighter, & a hot head. One night, both were sparring before our master had come to the dojang. The rest of us were stretching awaiting our master. One accidental low blow not apologized for turned into another cheap shot. One of the 2 men suggested they "take in outside." (No, I'm not kidding!) We had several BBs who didn't normally come to class there that night. They were able to separate these men. As they did, our master walked through the door.

He called master #2 into his office & chewed him out loudly in Korean. Master #2 left, & never returned. He then called in the 3rd Dan & spoke to him in a controlled tone & told him that he was no longer welcome. The 3rd Dan left in tears. He came back several times & begged to be allowed back. The 3rd time he tried, our master would not even speak to him.

If the tenets of our Arts don't lead us to keep our emotions in check, we need to re-evaluate our training.

Solid post!!

To the bold type above...

If I've lost respect here at KF for how I feel about that CI mentioned in my first post in this topic, I completely understand, and ask for forgiveness.

Please hear me. I was not commenting, even slightly, on your post or your comments, but on the situation I posted entirely. FWIW, my thoughts on your situation: 1) You advocated for yourself in an odd situation. 2) You did even what that CI asked & spoke to his sensei. 3) His sensei was a reasonable man. 4) No one was physically hurt. I'd say it ended well.

My signature says a lot about what I believe about MA training. I know too many great fighters & teachers who cannot manage to be decent human beings off the floor. Sadly, they've taken difficult childhoods or being treated badly at their job or at home & cannot manage to treat others the same way, regardless of the "Integrity" tattoo in Chinese on their bicep. If the tenets of my Art don't sink in, it doesn't matter how good my side kick is....I'm not doing it right.

I respect you greatly, sir.

[Spartacus Maximus]

No firsthand accounts here either. Only three stories from instructors over the years and the most recent ones date from the early to mid 1990's. The first challenge story is one heard from dojo mates returning from a training camp/gathering somewhere in the East Coast. Training was in some kind of public space reserved for the occasion but easily visible from the outside and in a somewhat seedy area.

During a lull in the event when only a few students were there, two street punks decide to walk in and watch. Eventually they start making comments and their attitude gets increasingly annoying and beligerent until one of them decides it would be a good idea to prove to his friend that the diminutive instructor is nothing more than a dancing pansy.

Unfortunately for him, the instructor is a 5dan ex us marine and teaches seminars for the police force. Being at least three kinds of stupid, this guy got angry from being knocked down and decided to attack again with a knife. Now being seriously threatened, the instructor knocks him down and turns the knife against him. During the incident students called the police and when they show up it turned out that the officers were also students of that instructor.

[sensei8]

I haven't been, although my Sensei was, once, under the guise of "wanting to learn to spar." I also know that Shiroma Jiro Sensei, here in Phoenix, had someone come and "watch classes" and when they shook his hand, tried to sucker punch him.

To the bold type above...

What happened?

[sensei8]

The closest I had to an experience like this was an inter-school issue. In my gup days in the early 80's, my master invited another Korean master to join us at our dojang. I'm not sure why the younger master was invited. Master #2 spent a few weeks at our dojang training with us.

We had a 3rd Dan who was a ranked fighter, & a hot head. One night, both were sparring before our master had come to the dojang. The rest of us were stretching awaiting our master. One accidental low blow not apologized for turned into another cheap shot. One of the 2 men suggested they "take in outside." (No, I'm not kidding!) We had several BBs who didn't normally come to class there that night. They were able to separate these men. As they did, our master walked through the door.

He called master #2 into his office & chewed him out loudly in Korean. Master #2 left, & never returned. He then called in the 3rd Dan & spoke to him in a controlled tone & told him that he was no longer welcome. The 3rd Dan left in tears. He came back several times & begged to be allowed back. The 3rd time he tried, our master would not even speak to him.

If the tenets of our Arts don't lead us to keep our emotions in check, we need to re-evaluate our training.

Solid post!!

To the bold type above...

If I've lost respect here at KF for how I feel about that CI mentioned in my first post in this topic, I completely understand, and ask for forgiveness.

Please hear me. I was not commenting, even slightly, on your post or your comments, but on the situation I posted entirely. FWIW, my thoughts on your situation: 1) You advocated for yourself in an odd situation. 2) You did even what that CI asked & spoke to his sensei. 3) His sensei was a reasonable man. 4) No one was physically hurt. I'd say it ended well.

My signature says a lot about what I believe about MA training. I know too many great fighters & teachers who cannot manage to be decent human beings off the floor. Sadly, they've taken difficult childhoods or being treated badly at their job or at home & cannot manage to treat others the same way, regardless of the "Integrity" tattoo in Chinese on their bicep. If the tenets of my Art don't sink in, it doesn't matter how good my side kick is....I'm not doing it right.

I respect you greatly, sir.

I greatly appreciate your kind words; I don't take them lightly!!

I do wish that it had never happened, and more importantly, I wish I hadn't went to visit his dojo with the intent of shutting his mouth. That was wrong of me, and that was not how I was raised in and out of the dojo.

I wholeheartedly agree with what your signature says. In that, just because a person is a human being, it doesn't mean that they know how to act like a human being.

I respect you greatly too, sir!!

[Spartacus Maximus]

Mr Shiroma is quite well known as a gentleman not to be trifled with and the fool who does is indeed worthy of pity. If accounts are to be believed, the man has an interesting experience and had a reputation among his peers and seniors when he still lived in Okinawa. Maybe some of this followed him to the USA.

[Wastelander]

I don't think Shiroma Sensei would appreciate me going into details, but the young man was taught a lesson, very quickly.

[Spartacus Maximus]

Did he just leave embarrassed or did he apaogize and become a student? It is very understandable that Mr Shiroma would rather not discuss incidents like that. All the instructors whose stories are known to me would refuse to talk about them at least until several years afterwards. Sometimes never and the only way to know was from other people who saw what happened.

[ShoriKid]

For an outright challenge, I haven't seen any personally. However, I was a bit of a door keeper. When someone new came into the dojo who had previously trained they would be introduced to class, taken through drills etc. The first night they were cleared to spar I was always the first one paired with them. I was young, able to take a hit and not prone to flying off the handle if the person was overly rough. There were a couple of times that guys were sure they had something to prove. Never amounted to much past a hard sparring session. At least not to me. A couple of times it was very clearly an effort to prove their training was better/our dojo had bad training.

My first instructor did tell about being taken with his instructor to visit a Korean gentleman who had opened a school in town. The gentleman had come by and introduced himself and invited my instructor's teacher to work out with them soon. When the meeting took place, each had some students with them and they faced off to spar. When it was over the Korean gentleman folded up shop and left town, my instructor had new training partners. While never explicitly stated, the story had the air of a thinly veiled challenge. This would have been in the...mid 70's I think.

[MAfreak]

interesting stories here. i thought that stupid stuff just appears in films.

here are many local clubs of different styles, 3x karate, 2x judo, hapkido, tong-il-moo-do, (kick)boxing, mma and more but when they/we meet, then it is for friendly cross training or sparring or public charity show events.