Great Post
Very funny post. Thanks.
Ok, since everybody is pulling out their stories I figured I would reminisce for a bit. I was sparring in a McDojang in a own particular fast food martial art. It hurt to say its name still. Anyhow, we were sparring. It was light contact and nobody broke after contact. I remember thinking at one point, I’ll just take this kick…because this guy is waaaaaay bigger than me, and it would allow me to get inside and pound away. I weighed 140, he weighed around 200. I’m five eight, he is over six foot tall. Needless to say, when his foot met my face (it was going a little higher than I had anticipated), the contact was brutal. Sadly, it was still only around medium contact. He doesn’t have the deadly kick or anything, but I’m certain that had we been sparring hard, he would have done more than clean my clock. I told him to hold up a sec, threw my arms up in a, please don’t kick me again fashion, and doubled over. To be honest I think my exact words were. “Stop.” He asked me what was wrong because he though he had kicked me in the forehead. I said, “I’m about to start bleeding.” I had enough time to take off my head gear and my gloves, and to bend over, the it started. Drip…Drip…Drip.Drip.Pour. It was like a blood faucet turned on in my face. There was a steady stream of blood coming out of my now crooked nose. I found out in a hurry that my sparring was shite, and that it wasn’t a chess game where I could sacrifice to get some place. I needed to learn something that wasn’t the geyhe. Sadly the guy who kicked me in the face quit altogether. It was my fault. I had hoped he would find another gym with me so he could kick some people’s arses. Turns out he is a teddy bear and just did it as a hobby and hurting somebody was something he never intended to do.
I’ve never had a Bullshido moment myself but here’s one that I happened to witness in middle school. Some kid was always going on about his Brown belt, (He really had one, which makes this all the more of a bullshido moment.) Anyway, at one point he saw a bully picking on a smaller kid and told him to cut it out. After a few moments of chatter between the two of them, they put up their fists and began a “fight” (If you can call it that). The “brown belt” tried to use some kind of open palm block that resembled a hadoken from street fighter. Since his wrists were so close together, it was easy for the bully to grab them, locking his arms up. The “Brown Belt” was then punched in the face. It was clearly Darwinism in work and a perfect example of the impracticallity of Mcdojo’s
Uh, h2b: what part of “early eighties” didn’t you understand?
I DID say I was a Kyok newb at the time…at time when a lot of the little larvae now shooting their mouths off here weren’t even born yet, let alone out of diapers long enough to fight.
…and what the hell does “any of the kyokushin dojo I know” mean? You know of only one? Fine. Maybe you can get them to teach you a little English…
my momment
2 instances
it was mortal kombat 3( i think), well we were playing and i choose lt stryker i noticed he as a swat officer had more direct attacks and also nonrealistic video gme attacks, now i didn’t know any “button Combos” like my friends and brothers knew but agaisnt all them i kept winning cuase i just came in and elbowed the shit outta them and then threw them(my dad was a cop in the air force and we grappled all the time), which pissed them off cuase i wasn’t using fancy combos, which the momment hit me
i was taking tai chi (for a credit in college) and i only signed up for the health benifits that are real. reduce stress, slightly improved fitness etc. the pp i was with all thought it could cure aids cancer etc, and i just shook me head, sad sad,…we even had one kid bring his cma uniform in , and kept saying his art blah blah…i have no damm idea what he called it, but i know it was an internal art), so after class we sparred…i just took him down…course i didn’t have an endgame (i could never beat my 6 ft step dad but i got really good at getting loose and away) so i got up…but johnaton(sp?) was emotionally defeated and i left it alone.
after that i found a group that trained down the hall itwas RBSD based (though white belts are purposly trained very traditionaly and with little instruction, those that stuck around then had their training amped…some may hate that but as a former math teacher i can appreciate not wasting your time) mix of kenpo, muay thai, bjj, jkd fma etc, one thing i found out is that i’m natural at trapping moves and sensitivty drills, but almost to my disapointment i know its worthless in fights i’ll never use it. but damm i’m good, i tend to use it when i’m grappling though in a sense that i’m better and sensing the opponent without my eyes.
Last year i lmost got so disgusted with the fact i was using aspects of my training on aweekly basis as an inner city math teacher, defending myself, or some poor kid, or other teachers, and having to walk a fine line on the levelof force, but i was thankful i had incorprated level of force built into me and knowledge that i could hold students without risk to me or them. but the fact it was a reality to me left me sick to my stomach. needless to say i didn’t go back. i was there to teach math. not wrestle with hoodlums(the school covered up the discipline problems for years)(and i was new to the area, had i known i would have went elsewhere
but then again my letter to the newspaper editor detailing all the coverups the interuim( principal had been fired) principal was doing to look good and keep the job, probably had something to do with me being unable to get a job teaching in west ky the next year
I don’t know if you can call it a wakeup call, but I had an experience that made me realise why sparring is so important, and why I need a better groundgame.
I’ll just copy what I wrote in another thread on MAP:
From my own experiences, when it really matters, when someone is throwing punches at you, your training usually kicks in, and what you have done hundreds of times at the dojo is repeated but that isn’t always the case. When you are not used to it, it might kick in, it might not. I remember one time when I had a guy attacking me, and I did excactly as I had been thaught, after a few seconds i had it all under control.
But the next time it was the complete opposite of that. I freezed, took a hard hook to the jaw, managed to take him down in panic, not smooth, and then I had to muscle him down until the cops came, exchanging several punches. That experience made me think.
What I realised is that when it really matters, I just lack the control that I wish I had. Even if I did everything just as in training in the first incident, it was still unconcius, it was almost like muscle memory. It’s not the same as you see with for example professional fighters, who always seem to be in control of what they are doing.
I realised my misconception about real fighting when I actually felt emberrased for getting hit, instaed of being happy I managed to protect myself. What I thought is that when I’m not limited to boxing, I should be able to control the range and never get hit. That worked in the first example, but as I realised things aren’t always as easy as we imagine them. And also, the people I fought were about my size, but they didn’t seem like good fighters.
Also, after I took the guy down I had the upper hand for a while, but then he kind of bridged and rolled me over, so we rolled around punching each other until I finally got him locked up by using musle. Made me realise the importance of groundgame, which is the best way to go if you want to stop a fight without hurting the other guy too much or getting hurt yourself(at least in my example).
Next training, I requested more sparring, told my instructor to go full contact and keep going after the takedown. He smiled and introduced me to a world of pain. And I’m still learning to deal with that kind of training 
i was in a fight, and i adopted the chambered fist shitty after school tsd stance.
I did all the shitty mcdojo shit, the ni started training mma. this fight happened about a month after, so i thought i was a bad ass, but didn’t have the skills to back it up.
anyway, instead of going to my boxing stance and set him up for the kicks like i did when we spar, i adopted the tsd stance, and waited for that sinking punch that i would sidestep and turn into an arm-bar.
However, he kept clocking me with the exact same right hook. thats all he ever threw, thats all he knew how to throw, and i didn’t realize if i put my left hand up by my face, it would block it.
I won,and he didn’t do much damage, but fuck, itw as pitiful on my half.
Mine is bad…
At a bujinkan seminar with a fat 15th dan white ‘ninja’. This is the technique we praticed all morning: you hold your wrist out, the other guy grabs it and pulls it back, you run after him until he falls on his ass. Did I mention it’s important to keep your free hand in the air behind you like you’re waving to someone behind your opponent, because apparently that’s important.
Afternoon technique, some guy grabs your wrist and pulls back like before but this time another guy lunge punches you and you get out of the way. Woo, look I can take out two attackers at once!
As if the shitty techniques weren’t bad enough… One guy grabs my wrist and pulls on it, he weighs about as much as I dump so he can’t move me and we’re stuck there holding hands. The third guy comes in to lunge punch me, in fucking slow motion. I sigh and prepare to get out of the way, but I notice he’s not looking at me, he’s still punching though. His fist misses me (and I haven’t moved) by about three feet and he punches over my outstretched arm, which the other guy is still holding.
As he stands there with his arm outstretched, side on to me, waiting for me to do some shitty takedown I started thinking about which judo club I would be training at next week.
I’m just thankful that I was able to get my wake up relatively painlessly.
“…he weighs about as much as I dump…”
Savin’ that one.
My wake up call came the second class (which was the first Kuntao Silat based class) I visited for the FMA school I still attend. I had spent a year in Aikido (although truth be told IMHO it was closer to being a step between Aiki-jutsu and Aikido).
I had spent a year looking for locks and takedowns. “If they throw a straight punch you grab the wrist, circle around, and throw them using kotegaishi”…right?
I watched the way the instructor and senior students moved. Opponent throws straight punch, crash in, attack like a rabid badger on steroids, while incorporating a takedown/sweep. Stay one top of opponent, lock up at least one limb if possible, and proceed to punch until they stop wiggling (in theory…we kind of pull attacks…really we just go slow so that the “attacker” has time to open hand check them…senior students go harder).
I was having some trouble getting into this new mindset so I asked the instructor if he could be more specific, expecting instruction like in Aikido:
“Place left hand here, right elbow to jaw, change grip while kneeing” etc. I was planning to ask something along the lines of “Should I be moving in to elbow or knee first?”
The conversation went like this:
Me: Should I be punching…
Instructor (cutting me off): Yes.
Me: Am I suppossed to be kneeing…
Instructor (cutting me off again): Yes.
Me looking frustrated and obviously a bit confused.
Instructor: You took Aikido right?
Me: Yes.
Instructor: I took Aikido for 2 years, then Wing Chun for about 2 years before I found FMA. Here’s the difference…you aren’t looking for a specific grab, you aren’t going to force a technique. You are going to hit them as much as possible.
I immediately realized that while I respected my Aikido instructors, (and still do…they were/are great guys, that Aikido takes YEARS to maybe become somewhat effective…if you’re good enough. I’m personally certain my old Sensei could handle himself…but that could be Aikido, or the fact he was Airborne for the Army, or a bit of both) that Aikido wasn’t ever going to be effective for me.
I e-mailed my Sensei expalining what I’d been up to, he responded with, “Feel free to drop by class whenever you want, I hope you find what you are looking for.”
My best friend is still in Aikido and sees “holes in my attack” when I’m showing him a technique involving a 28" stick. “I’d just tenken like this and counter with this.” My thought is…“How are you going to do that as I’m hitting you with stick #2?”
Funny story man.
My moment of purity has taken years to arive I fought the idea that my TMA was worthless and that grappling would never work on Teh Str33t. evantually though without telling the whole story I had an appifany and realized grappling is the way…
I have many moments, but these can be broken into (2) basic sections:
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Every time I spa with the more senior grades at the JJ class I go to.
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About a half hour after I’ve posted something here and the response makes me look even more stupid than my ego would ever expect.