Who has been challenged?

[ShoriKid]

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, and more but when they/we meet, then it is for friendly cross training or sparring or public charity show events.

Mostly, and I do mean mostly, that is how things go these days.

I won't say these are more enlightened times, but perhaps more litigious. That does have an affect on what people do. Being willing to take a beating over your principals isn't so common any more either. Those willing to challenge are as rare as those willing to accept these days.

[Wastelander]

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.

Yes, I heard about it from one of his students, otherwise I'm sure I never would have known about it. The man left embarrassed and never came back

[Spartacus Maximus]

A couple of former instructors knew Mr Shiroma back on Okinawa where he seems to have had a certain reputation depending on who one listened to. Okinawa is a small place and back then just as now, karateka knew each other and were all at least aquainted with one another.

Anyway, sometimes young men or US soldiers would try test one of the local sensei. Invariably they would get taught a lesson, which was usually dependent on the mood and character of said sensei. Most did infact leave embarrassed never to return, but some had the courage to come back, apologize for their jackassery and ask for training.

[doublejabbing]

some random guy challenged my instructor but he respectfully declined.

[bushido_man96]

I've never seen an outright "dojo challenge." I've had guys from other schools tell me they "would like to spar" with me, but other than that, never any real challenge.

[Shizentai]

I was fill-in instructing at a college dojo for a few weeks, when it happened to me. We were in the middle of kihon and this woman walks in and announces "I heard you do some kind of shotokan here. I'm an international competitor in SKIF and I want to see if this is the kind of place where I can train."

Naturally, I responded "Oh! Kanazawa sensei's organization! He was my Sensei's roommate in college. Cool! So you are one of his students?"

When I got no response I suspected she was not, so I quickly tried to change topic, saying "You're welcome to watch if you like, we just started" and gesturing to some chairs at the edge of the room.

As we continued on with class, I had them doing partner work when she all of the sudden jumped up, walked into the middle of the room, and started grabbing at one of my students saying something like "No, no, that's not the way it's done. You need to move like this-"

I was admittedly confused by her behavior, and a bit annoyed, though I tried not to show it. I responded "If you'd like to join in, you may, but all students are required to sign a waiver before they spar each other. It's university policy" -which it was. "You can practice kata and kihon with us today, but as you are late, the club president will have to fetch a waiver for the next class." She agreed to these terms, and at first seemed to be normal, but she kept trying to teach the class, and furthermore kept talking about kumite. Finally, she just outright said it:

"You're the only other black belt here so I want to spar you."

My response was, of course "The university has a policy. If you sign a waiver, I'd be glad to spar you, but as I mentioned before, you will have to wait until Thursday. The club president needs to bring a copy." Well, long story short, she never showed up Thursday though I was waiting with a waiver in-hand for her. It turns out after class was over that night one of my green belts fought her without me knowing. I don't know what happened, but the visitor seemed to have lost her taste for bothering us after that. Whoops. Kinda funny really.

**I should add that SKIF is a terrific organization, This person was just being a weirdo, and I have no proof that she even had anything to do with them.

[sensei8]

I was fill-in instructing at a college dojo for a few weeks, when it happened to me. We were in the middle of kihon and this woman walks in and announces "I heard you do some kind of shotokan here. I'm an international competitor in SKIF and I want to see if this is the kind of place where I can train."

Naturally, I responded "Oh! Kanazawa sensei's organization! He was my Sensei's roommate in college. Cool! So you are one of his students?"

When I got no response I suspected she was not, so I quickly tried to change topic, saying "You're welcome to watch if you like, we just started" and gesturing to some chairs at the edge of the room.

As we continued on with class, I had them doing partner work when she all of the sudden jumped up, walked into the middle of the room, and started grabbing at one of my students saying something like "No, no, that's not the way it's done. You need to move like this-"

I was admittedly confused by her behavior, and a bit annoyed, though I tried not to show it. I responded "If you'd like to join in, you may, but all students are required to sign a waiver before they spar each other. It's university policy" -which it was. "You can practice kata and kihon with us today, but as you are late, the club president will have to fetch a waiver for the next class." She agreed to these terms, and at first seemed to be normal, but she kept trying to teach the class, and furthermore kept talking about kumite. Finally, she just outright said it:

"You're the only other black belt here so I want to spar you."

My response was, of course "The university has a policy. If you sign a waiver, I'd be glad to spar you, but as I mentioned before, you will have to wait until Thursday. The club president needs to bring a copy." Well, long story short, she never showed up Thursday though I was waiting with a waiver in-hand for her. It turns out after class was over that night one of my green belts fought her without me knowing. I don't know what happened, but the visitor seemed to have lost her taste for bothering us after that. Whoops. Kinda funny really.

**I should add that SKIF is a terrific organization, This person was just being a weirdo, and I have no proof that she even had anything to do with them.

Solid post!!

If she had anything to do with SKIF, and if the powers that be had got wind of this, someone would be called onto the carpet for some discipline faster than one can blink.

You handled this excellently; way to go!!

[IcemanSK]

I was fill-in instructing at a college dojo for a few weeks, when it happened to me. We were in the middle of kihon and this woman walks in and announces "I heard you do some kind of shotokan here. I'm an international competitor in SKIF and I want to see if this is the kind of place where I can train."

Naturally, I responded "Oh! Kanazawa sensei's organization! He was my Sensei's roommate in college. Cool! So you are one of his students?"

When I got no response I suspected she was not, so I quickly tried to change topic, saying "You're welcome to watch if you like, we just started" and gesturing to some chairs at the edge of the room.

As we continued on with class, I had them doing partner work when she all of the sudden jumped up, walked into the middle of the room, and started grabbing at one of my students saying something like "No, no, that's not the way it's done. You need to move like this-"

I was admittedly confused by her behavior, and a bit annoyed, though I tried not to show it. I responded "If you'd like to join in, you may, but all students are required to sign a waiver before they spar each other. It's university policy" -which it was. "You can practice kata and kihon with us today, but as you are late, the club president will have to fetch a waiver for the next class." She agreed to these terms, and at first seemed to be normal, but she kept trying to teach the class, and furthermore kept talking about kumite. Finally, she just outright said it:

"You're the only other black belt here so I want to spar you."

My response was, of course "The university has a policy. If you sign a waiver, I'd be glad to spar you, but as I mentioned before, you will have to wait until Thursday. The club president needs to bring a copy." Well, long story short, she never showed up Thursday though I was waiting with a waiver in-hand for her. It turns out after class was over that night one of my green belts fought her without me knowing. I don't know what happened, but the visitor seemed to have lost her taste for bothering us after that. Whoops. Kinda funny really.

**I should add that SKIF is a terrific organization, This person was just being a weirdo, and I have no proof that she even had anything to do with them.

That's really odd. I've not really seen women act like that around MA. Plenty of guys, but not women. Weird.

[Shizentai]

If she had anything to do with SKIF, and if the powers that be had got wind of this, someone would be called onto the carpet for some discipline faster than one can blink.

You handled this excellently; way to go!!

Yeah, in years since then I often wondered what was up with that. She had a thick eastern-European-sounding accent. When I mentioned Kanazawa sensei she just looked at me like I had spoken in Latin. Who has a black belt in an organization without knowing the name of the founder? It sounded fishy to me. I know and like all actual SKIF folks I have ever met though.

That's really odd. I've not really seen women act like that around MA. Plenty of guys, but not women. Weird.

While it's true I am accustomed to seeing more men with this attitude, perhaps being a small woman makes me more of a target for girls who try to pull these kinds of stunts. It's pretty funny though, because unless I'm teaching the kids' class, I'm generally the smallest person in the dojo. I'm not sure what kind of rep someone is looking to get by besting someone who looks like me, even if they suspect I am more than meets the eye. I find usually people who want to challenge me are aiming pretty low, and are rather simple to deal with

I got challenged a lot in high school based on this I think. It was just stupid kid-to-kid stuff, nothing seriously calling into question heritage or instruction. Still, at the time it was very personal and unnerving, and it made me think, perhaps very early on, about how I would and would not like to respond to aggressive one-upmanship.

I had the nickname "Danger girl" back then, not because of martial arts but because I had a tendency of tripping and spilling my lunch when I would go to sit in the physics classroom near the robots to eat as a freshman (when I was a white belt). Everyone there was afraid I would fall and ruin their project, hence "Danger girl." In the summer between my junior and senior year, I went to a "welcome incoming students" event for one of the clubs I was in. An older former student who had asked to date me and been turned down the year prior decided to come to this event and publicly embarrassed me. As I was talking with a new student on the front porch of our club president's house, this former student came up behind me, reached around, ran his hand across my breasts, and as he leaned in to -I don't know- kiss me? say something? I hip threw him off the porch into a bush, walked down to the bush, made sure he was subdued, said some choice words to him, then released him before going into the house to find an adult to whom I could report a college student fondling minors. As I walked into the house I heard one of the new students say "Who is that?" to which someone responded "That's Danger Girl" ...though I didn't realize it right then, I should have known that I was going to have a problem the rest of my time in high school. Like I said, the challengers I got after that tended to be young inexperienced fighters looking for an easy win, maybe someone who thought this would be the quickest way to get to touch a girl, I don't know. No one that was hard to take out when they did strike. In any case, I quickly had to come to terms with the fact that by fighting a challenger when and where they challenge me, I am giving them some kind of power. I unfortunately had a lot of practice at evading challenges in a way that would not compromise my integrity, or that of my martial art that year. I made mistakes handling some of these situations, but I like to think that I made better choices next time. Some of the thoughts I arrived at back in those days still ring true today though:

When I was new I thought only about karate protecting me, now I think about protecting my karate, because karate is part of me.

[Alan Armstrong]

I have been unexpectedly challenged while visiting a friend.

My friend's roommate jumped me and started wrestling with me, he was doing OK for the first few seconds then I pinned him down; he submitted.

His excuse was that he was curious if I could really defend myself. Lucky for him that I didn't pound him in to the ground.