Go along to get along or else!

[Bulltahr]

I notice in the video that beardy disrespected the demo guy quite rudely. When introduced he replied "Whatever". So demo guy decided to dig his heels in.

Looks like that type of dojo with a LOT of testosterone flowing....

[Alan Armstrong]

In the video, it was just assumed that the assistant will be happy to fall victim to the wishes of another martial artist.

My mindset is also "Never allow oneself to be a victim, no matter the circumstances" in or out of a dojo.

Had enough of being a punching bag in karate, wasn't allowing it in TKD neither; unless under very special circumstances in self defense classes, given to the public; which I have gladly been playing the part as the bad guy.

So were you being a punching bag or being demoed on so the other class could see what technique they were supposed to be doing? There's a difference, in most cases. One hard style I trained in one was kinda like the other, but there was a purpose.

I'm not sure which you're talking about now in this illustration, as to what happened with you, not in the video.

Regarding being a punching bag in karate.

Before karate, living in a rough neighborhood, with tough friends and always bullies floating around, eventually constantly belonging to gangs and fighting in the streets with rival gangs, in the early 1970's.

By time the late 1970,s came around, I joined karate. Being beaten up or fighting didn't bother me.

The black belts in the club just took it that I can fight and had a killer instinct, that they understood and accepted.

So as a white belt and onwards I was hanging out with all the black belts socially.

As I was skinny and only 5'7" but an experienced street fighter and fearless.

Sparring with me the higher belts could try out techniques that would send me flying or hit me full force with spinning hook kicks and punches, they were bigger, stronger, faster and more experienced.

As I would still get up to take more punishment, I never backed down. The Sensei sold the dojo and that was the end of the club, that many students help to build, with free time.

This is when my respect for black belts ended. In the short time of just till the club closed, I changed significantly.

My sparring changed with it, my kicks and punches now contained emotional content; just like Bruce Lee preached.

I floored my Sensei, to his surprise and the surprise of the other black belts in the club, I was at a green belt level by then.

So to have or allow a TKD 4th degree black belt to knock my arm down, with a crescent kick, then to proceed with a technique, without me resisting; not likely.

The head TKD instructor never once sparred with me! Reason being many of the black belts there were embarrassed, from sparring with me earlier, as I was a white belt in their style, sparring with them as if they were black belts in karate, like the old days for me but with EMOTIONAL CONTENT not anger.

[JR 137]

It's pretty easy to resist something when you know exactly what's coming, let alone something that's being shown slowly while the instructor is explaining it. It doesn't matter what it is. Resisting it while the teacher is teaching it/demonstrating it to the class is pretty disrespectful. Unless the teacher tells you to resist.

Let's take something everyone knows can work - a lead hand jab to the chin. If the instructor is teaching it and using a student to demonstrate it, how absurd would it be if the student moved and countered it? If I'm throwing it slow and saying what I'm doing before and while I'm doing it (and have no intention to throw it fast and land it with any force), even people who've never seen it before could easily get out of the way and punch back. Just like anything else in MA, a jab doesn't land every single time. If it did, it would be the only thing anyone would ever have to know. Proving it doesn't work every time is asinine. Taking up the teacher's time by proving it when he's trying to teach the class the technique is extremely disrespectful to not only the teacher but the entire class. Substitute jab with ANY other technique here, and the scenario is exactly the same. If it's not set up, you know it's coming, and it's coming slowly while the teacher is talking about it, whatever it is, it'll never work against resistance.

Students need to be taught a new technique without resistance before resistance is added. This is common sense. A wrestling coach can't properly teach a fireman's carry without going slow and saying what he's doing while he's doing it against another person. He should go very slowly the first few times, then gradually speed it up. Then have his students do it slowly, gradually speed it up once they've got the basics of it down, then have them try to use it an an actual full resistance scrimmage situation. Skip a step, and it'll never work. Trust me, the fireman's carry is very effective when set up properly. And it can be countered. And it's very easy to counter when someone's telling you it's coming and going slow enough to show it and explain it to the crowd.

I don't like the crescent kick to the hands. I'm also not much of a kicker, so my crescent kick to the hands would most likely be caught pretty easily. But that doesn't mean the technique is of zero value to anyone nor everyone else in the dojo. If I knew exactly when a crescent kick was coming at my hands, it would never be effective against me. If it was the last thing on my mind and the attacker set it up properly, it could easily work (I've never had anyone try it on me that I'm aware of).

One thing I really like to do - knock down their rear hand with my lead hand, and step in with an overhand right. Or knock the hand down and throw a back spin kick (spinning hook kick in other schools) to the back of the head. Both of those have a pretty high success rate for me when my opponent isn't expecting it. I did it to a guy about 4 times one day and he laughed "why can't I stop this!" If I can consistently knock down someone's hand with my arm during resistance sparring, I'm sure people out there can make a crescent kick work the same way. Not everyone, and not every time. It's all about setup, timing, and knowing when it's a viable option.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself if you're not going to let the teacher teach, why are you there in the first place? All you're doing is wasting your time and money. And everyone else's. Let the teacher teach. If you don't like what he's teaching, leave. Simple as that.

[tallgeese]

In the video, it was just assumed that the assistant will be happy to fall victim to the wishes of another martial artist.

My mindset is also "Never allow oneself to be a victim, no matter the circumstances" in or out of a dojo.

Had enough of being a punching bag in karate, wasn't allowing it in TKD neither; unless under very special circumstances in self defense classes, given to the public; which I have gladly been playing the part as the bad guy.

So were you being a punching bag or being demoed on so the other class could see what technique they were supposed to be doing? There's a difference, in most cases. One hard style I trained in one was kinda like the other, but there was a purpose.

I'm not sure which you're talking about now in this illustration, as to what happened with you, not in the video.

Regarding being a punching bag in karate.

Before karate, living in a rough neighborhood, with tough friends and always bullies floating around, eventually constantly belonging to gangs and fighting in the streets with rival gangs, in the early 1970's.

By time the late 1970,s came around, I joined karate. Being beaten up or fighting didn't bother me.

The black belts in the club just took it that I can fight and had a killer instinct, that they understood and accepted.

So as a white belt and onwards I was hanging out with all the black belts socially.

As I was skinny and only 5'7" but an experienced street fighter and fearless.

Sparring with me the higher belts could try out techniques that would send me flying or hit me full force with spinning hook kicks and punches, they were bigger, stronger, faster and more experienced.

As I would still get up to take more punishment, I never backed down. The Sensei sold the dojo and that was the end of the club, that many students help to build, with free time.

This is when my respect for black belts ended. In the short time of just till the club closed, I changed significantly.

My sparring changed with it, my kicks and punches now contained emotional content; just like Bruce Lee preached.

I floored my Sensei, to his surprise and the surprise of the other black belts in the club, I was at a green belt level by then.

So to have or allow a TKD 4th degree black belt to knock my arm down, with a crescent kick, then to proceed with a technique, without me resisting; not likely.

The head TKD instructor never once sparred with me! Reason being many of the black belts there were embarrassed, from sparring with me earlier, as I was a white belt in their style, sparring with them as if they were black belts in karate, like the old days for me but with EMOTIONAL CONTENT not anger.

Okay, your club closed. you learned a lot prior to this. That actually a normal thing in martial arts. I can get all that. None of us like it when these things happen, but they do.

It's the first bold statement I go back to. It was a demonstration of technique to teach others. Not a fight. The difference is real, I laid this out in my first post. It's neither here nor there if I like that tactic, it's the class you elected to go to. If you don't like those tactics...change systems, but I think it's shortsighted to go along the lines of resisting during technical training and not only get the specifics yourself, but to also make it more difficult for the rest of the class.

To the second line, maybe this is the case. Maybe it's an ego thing. Those guys are out there. But also consider it might not be. There are a lot of reasons that BBs won't work with lower ranks sometimes. Sometimes it's technical (they are working on something you're not good at yet), sometimes it's making a point (the lower rank in question needs to straighten up his training attitude), it can be a lot of things. I'd suggest doing some serious self reflection on this- and the art you've chosen to peruse. Maybe your needs and the style you've picked aren't' meshing. This is a common source of issues.

Here's a bit of an illustration from my history, as embarrassing as it is. I came into gi jiu jitsu after years of no-gi work in the MMA and shootfighting arena. I was younger then, stronger, faster, and more athletic than I am now. I grappled as such with little formal training in the gi.

I was relatively successful early on, not because I was good at jiu jitsu, but because I could be athletic. Because of this, I'd often roll with some of the higher ranked (blue belt) guys. I thought I was pretty good.

Then I noticed that the guys I really wanted time with, the guys that were really technically sound, purple belts and up, kept passing on rolling with me. I got a comment about "rolling like you're in the Worlds," I thought, in my naiveté that this was a compliment. I started to get salty, to think that they were ducking me.

Then one of them got fed up. He put me in my place hard one night. Embarrassingly hard. Don't get me wrong, he worked, but it was very clear who was in charge. I though: Finally!

I went back the next class night to roll with him. I thought I had finally found someone who would bang with me and take me to the next level. I go over during open mat and ask him to roll. Jason, who I'll never forget or thank enough for this moment, just looked at me and tells me "I'll pass. You've gotta learn jiu jitsu." That was it.

It was a rock dropped on me. Here's a guy who had just that very week cleaned me up. He and I both knew he could take me. And he just didn't want to. I fretted about this a bit. Whined to one of my blue belt buddies, Chris- who I will always be equally indebted to- offered to roll with me.

I ended up fighting hard for an omo plata. We get done and he tells me good job (I'm a few stripe while belt at the time) and explains I could have got the sub way easier by simply transitioning to the armbar I had access to.

I say thanks, blow it off, and drive home. The whole drive I'm go back and forth between "he's right" and "why does it matter, I got the sub."

Then it hit me. Because by using athleticism to crank out the one sub I knew from there I was keeping myself from learning jiu jitsu. Then Jason's words hit me. I need to learn jiu jitsu.

Why is an advanced guy, with a wife, kids, job, etc. going to get elbowed, banged up, and potentially hurt by some guy who's just running on emotion and lacking technical finesse to make him better. The cost/ benefit analysis just didn't work out.

It was an awakening moment for me. Those incidents made me change my attitude toward learning. I opened up, lost rolls because I would try things, took my athleticism out of the equation, lost some more. But I learned to flow, I learned technique.

After I had served up about 8 months of actual learning, Jason asked me to roll. I flowed, just like I'd been doing. I still lost. Badly. I didn't try to muscle out of anything or emotionally invest in tapping.

By mid roll Jason looks up and says "Now that's what I'm talking about!"

I never looked back. My jiu jitsu exploded.

See, we've all been a places where we assumed that people weren't working with us because of x or y, when in reality that may not be the case at all. Sometimes we're just not far enough along in a given art to understand that. In my case, I was 20+ years into martial arts when this happened. It's not just a new guy problem.

Take it for what it's worth. It might change how you look at and perform the arts.

[tallgeese]

It's pretty easy to resist something when you know exactly what's coming, let alone something that's being shown slowly while the instructor is explaining it. It doesn't matter what it is. Resisting it while the teacher is teaching it/demonstrating it to the class is pretty disrespectful. Unless the teacher tells you to resist.

Let's take something everyone knows can work - a lead hand jab to the chin. If the instructor is teaching it and using a student to demonstrate it, how absurd would it be if the student moved and countered it? If I'm throwing it slow and saying what I'm doing before and while I'm doing it (and have no intention to throw it fast and land it with any force), even people who've never seen it before could easily get out of the way and punch back. Just like anything else in MA, a jab doesn't land every single time. If it did, it would be the only thing anyone would ever have to know. Proving it doesn't work every time is asinine. Taking up the teacher's time by proving it when he's trying to teach the class the technique is extremely disrespectful to not only the teacher but the entire class. Substitute jab with ANY other technique here, and the scenario is exactly the same. If it's not set up, you know it's coming, and it's coming slowly while the teacher is talking about it, whatever it is, it'll never work against resistance.

Students need to be taught a new technique without resistance before resistance is added. This is common sense. A wrestling coach can't properly teach a fireman's carry without going slow and saying what he's doing while he's doing it against another person. He should go very slowly the first few times, then gradually speed it up. Then have his students do it slowly, gradually speed it up once they've got the basics of it down, then have them try to use it an an actual full resistance scrimmage situation. Skip a step, and it'll never work. Trust me, the fireman's carry is very effective when set up properly. And it can be countered. And it's very easy to counter when someone's telling you it's coming and going slow enough to show it and explain it to the crowd.

I don't like the crescent kick to the hands. I'm also not much of a kicker, so my crescent kick to the hands would most likely be caught pretty easily. But that doesn't mean the technique is of zero value to anyone nor everyone else in the dojo. If I knew exactly when a crescent kick was coming at my hands, it would never be effective against me. If it was the last thing on my mind and the attacker set it up properly, it could easily work (I've never had anyone try it on me that I'm aware of).

One thing I really like to do - knock down their rear hand with my lead hand, and step in with an overhand right. Or knock the hand down and throw a back spin kick (spinning hook kick in other schools) to the back of the head. Both of those have a pretty high success rate for me when my opponent isn't expecting it. I did it to a guy about 4 times one day and he laughed "why can't I stop this!" If I can consistently knock down someone's hand with my arm during resistance sparring, I'm sure people out there can make a crescent kick work the same way. Not everyone, and not every time. It's all about setup, timing, and knowing when it's a viable option.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself if you're not going to let the teacher teach, why are you there in the first place? All you're doing is wasting your time and money. And everyone else's. Let the teacher teach. If you don't like what he's teaching, leave. Simple as that.

Yup. This.

[DWx]

Okay, your club closed. you learned a lot prior to this. That actually a normal thing in martial arts. I can get all that. None of us like it when these things happen, but they do.

It's the first bold statement I go back to. It was a demonstration of technique to teach others. Not a fight. The difference is real, I laid this out in my first post. It's neither here nor there if I like that tactic, it's the class you elected to go to. If you don't like those tactics...change systems, but I think it's shortsighted to go along the lines of resisting during technical training and not only get the specifics yourself, but to also make it more difficult for the rest of the class.

To the second line, maybe this is the case. Maybe it's an ego thing. Those guys are out there. But also consider it might not be. There are a lot of reasons that BBs won't work with lower ranks sometimes. Sometimes it's technical (they are working on something you're not good at yet), sometimes it's making a point (the lower rank in question needs to straighten up his training attitude), it can be a lot of things. I'd suggest doing some serious self reflection on this- and the art you've chosen to peruse. Maybe your needs and the style you've picked aren't' meshing. This is a common source of issues.

Here's a bit of an illustration from my history, as embarrassing as it is. I came into gi jiu jitsu after years of no-gi work in the MMA and shootfighting arena. I was younger then, stronger, faster, and more athletic than I am now. I grappled as such with little formal training in the gi.

I was relatively successful early on, not because I was good at jiu jitsu, but because I could be athletic. Because of this, I'd often roll with some of the higher ranked (blue belt) guys. I thought I was pretty good.

Then I noticed that the guys I really wanted time with, the guys that were really technically sound, purple belts and up, kept passing on rolling with me. I got a comment about "rolling like you're in the Worlds," I thought, in my naiveté that this was a compliment. I started to get salty, to think that they were ducking me.

Then one of them got fed up. He put me in my place hard one night. Embarrassingly hard. Don't get me wrong, he worked, but it was very clear who was in charge. I though: Finally!

I went back the next class night to roll with him. I thought I had finally found someone who would bang with me and take me to the next level. I go over during open mat and ask him to roll. Jason, who I'll never forget or thank enough for this moment, just looked at me and tells me "I'll pass. You've gotta learn jiu jitsu." That was it.

It was a rock dropped on me. Here's a guy who had just that very week cleaned me up. He and I both knew he could take me. And he just didn't want to. I fretted about this a bit. Whined to one of my blue belt buddies, Chris- who I will always be equally indebted to- offered to roll with me.

I ended up fighting hard for an omo plata. We get done and he tells me good job (I'm a few stripe while belt at the time) and explains I could have got the sub way easier by simply transitioning to the armbar I had access to.

I say thanks, blow it off, and drive home. The whole drive I'm go back and forth between "he's right" and "why does it matter, I got the sub."

Then it hit me. Because by using athleticism to crank out the one sub I knew from there I was keeping myself from learning jiu jitsu. Then Jason's words hit me. I need to learn jiu jitsu.

Why is an advanced guy, with a wife, kids, job, etc. going to get elbowed, banged up, and potentially hurt by some guy who's just running on emotion and lacking technical finesse to make him better. The cost/ benefit analysis just didn't work out.

It was an awakening moment for me. Those incidents made me change my attitude toward learning. I opened up, lost rolls because I would try things, took my athleticism out of the equation, lost some more. But I learned to flow, I learned technique.

After I had served up about 8 months of actual learning, Jason asked me to roll. I flowed, just like I'd been doing. I still lost. Badly. I didn't try to muscle out of anything or emotionally invest in tapping.

By mid roll Jason looks up and says "Now that's what I'm talking about!"

I never looked back. My jiu jitsu exploded.

See, we've all been a places where we assumed that people weren't working with us because of x or y, when in reality that may not be the case at all. Sometimes we're just not far enough along in a given art to understand that. In my case, I was 20+ years into martial arts when this happened. It's not just a new guy problem.

Take it for what it's worth. It might change how you look at and perform the arts.

Great post and great story tallgeese.

Ego can get in the way all too often. I actively avoid sparring people who just want to take my head off. I don't have anything to prove and can't be going home with injuries every day.

[Alan Armstrong]

Resisting to technical training, how about when earlier in the same class, another student hit me in the back of the neck with a hook kick, when he should have done a round house kick, as the CI asked.

What the CI said about the incident "You need to protect yourself at all times"

[bushido_man96]

In the video, it was just assumed that the assistant will be happy to fall victim to the wishes of another martial artist.

My mindset is also "Never allow oneself to be a victim, no matter the circumstances" in or out of a dojo.

Had enough of being a punching bag in karate, wasn't allowing it in TKD neither; unless under very special circumstances in self defense classes, given to the public; which I have gladly been playing the part as the bad guy.

Was this TKD instructor trying to use you as a punching bag at the time, or just trying to demonstrate a technique? I don't know how this school worked, but when we teach one-steps (which this sounds like), we don't try to beat each other up. Block the attack, and proceed to apply the counter attacks to the proper open targets. Its a learning tool. I'm guessing that this instructor decided to not target a fully-powered crescent kick to your wrist to prove he could move it, so moved on to using a different student.

Now, the discussion as to whether a crescent kick is an appropriate technique for blocking a punch is a viable technique is a different discussion for a different time. The idea in class though, when practicing with partners, is to not get hurt. Resistance at the point of demonstration can get people hurt. If you don't like the technique, or think it doesn't work, or whatever, then the more respectful way to approach the problem is to grab some private time with the instructor after class and talk it over then. But trying to show up an instructor usually doesn't end well.

[Alan Armstrong]

In the video, it was just assumed that the assistant will be happy to fall victim to the wishes of another martial artist.

My mindset is also "Never allow oneself to be a victim, no matter the circumstances" in or out of a dojo.

Had enough of being a punching bag in karate, wasn't allowing it in TKD neither; unless under very special circumstances in self defense classes, given to the public; which I have gladly been playing the part as the bad guy.

Was this TKD instructor trying to use you as a punching bag at the time, or just trying to demonstrate a technique? I don't know how this school worked, but when we teach one-steps (which this sounds like), we don't try to beat each other up. Block the attack, and proceed to apply the counter attacks to the proper open targets. Its a learning tool. I'm guessing that this instructor decided to not target a fully-powered crescent kick to your wrist to prove he could move it, so moved on to using a different student.

Now, the discussion as to whether a crescent kick is an appropriate technique for blocking a punch is a viable technique is a different discussion for a different time. The idea in class though, when practicing with partners, is to not get hurt. Resistance at the point of demonstration can get people hurt. If you don't like the technique, or think it doesn't work, or whatever, then the more respectful way to approach the problem is to grab some private time with the instructor after class and talk it over then. But trying to show up an instructor usually doesn't end well.

The instructor was trying to demonstrate a technique on me.

Yes moved on to a second student to demonstrate on.

My intent was never to embarrass the CI, in the TKD class, even if it is interpreted as such; just like the bald fellow in the video; my mentality is very much like his.

Fine, demonstrate a technique on me, if it works then great, we learn something, but if it doesn't work on me, find someone else in the class that it works on or willing to humor the CI.

Take downs are not allowed in TKD, I did a little move that caught the CI's foot in my hand, with a little twist of my wrist, the CI fell to the ground; I payed for that later with a side kick to my ribs

Had another incident in a different school in JKD, when the CI was demonstrating wrist locks. As the student I was partnered up with couldn't do the technique on me to make it work.

The CI showed him how to do it on me, but he had trouble making it work also, I explained that I have Aikido experience, finally the CI did the technique correctly.

The CI was also teaching the local police, he invited me to train along side him but due to knee injuries, incurred in his class, I couldn't assist him.

The JKD instructor was far stronger than myself, he didn't take offense to not being able to do a wrist lock on me, without difficulty.

Actually it brought to the forefront one aspect of what JKD is about "Use what works and discard the rest"

[Alan Armstrong]

Back to the original issue of the TKD CI to knock my arm down, then to follow up with a technique.

The CI did not expect my arm to pop back up; I was expected to keep my arm down as if once it goes down it stays down.

Insects move limbs independently from each other, something I learned from my Wing Chun sifu.

There are many avenues to take with this post, one other issue could be that students have prior knowledge from other martial art styles, that can raise contradiction issues, something that will become more evident, with the passing of time.