Real McDojo Attitude

**RellBound** · Posted On: 8/18/2002 7:32pm

My girlfriend has a pal who just moved back to town. Down the street there is a karate school (kenpo I think). She had obtained a yellow belt in kenpo at her old school before moving. Her instructor believed in street fighting philosophy and encouraged full-contact sparring.
So she goes to this school nearby and guess what? They laughed at her when she told them what she use to do.

"Lady, we practice and teach sportive karate here. That takes many years of practice and learning. Your street fighting crap can be learnt in 6 months."

I think they offered to large size her combo if she took the one free class!

**sicksicksick** · Posted On: 8/18/2002 7:36pm

They called it sportive, are they teaching mcdojo? They aren't claiming to teach any more than the sport.

**RellBound** · Posted On: 8/18/2002 7:38pm

But there sandwich board outside says come learn self defence. Sorry should ahve added that.

The Oldschool is here....and I'm going to Rell in a Randbasket!

**sicksicksick** · Posted On: 8/18/2002 7:39pm

Then it's McDojo.

**Roidie McDouchebag** · Posted On: 8/18/2002 8:51pm

That is truly gay.

**Triangle** · Posted On: 8/19/2002 1:04am

How dumb, street-fighting skills can be learnt with 6 months of intensive cross-training, but sure as hell not by doing any sort of Karate!

**transparent** · Posted On: 8/19/2002 3:55am

Atleast they don't promise her to be a black belt in a couple of years, and immortal in less.

What kind of a fuckhead puts down someones skills without even seeing them anyway?

I have also noticed that many many of the so called teachers seems to automatically assume that women don't know ****, no matter how much or how long they have trained.

**Roidie McDouchebag** · Posted On: 8/19/2002 4:01am

I've found that to be a good assumption in all things, not just MA. <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

**transparent** · Posted On: 8/19/2002 7:09am

True, true.

I have a ladyfriend in the computerbusiness. She's a real tech, knows more than most that I know. She also looks good.
She says it's a constant battle. Whenever she meets up with a new tech who only sees her good looking features they automatically assumes she's inferior.
Man, she's tired of that attitude.

A question to Sam:

Do you ever experience this in any way? Or do the people you train with and your students know you well enough?

**Mercurius** · Posted On: 8/19/2002 5:55pm

"Sport karate" pisses me off. I'm not going to make some valid argument against its existence, or lay out a monologue citing its multiple faults, because whenever I think about it, I get too pissed off to do those things.

Go to a tournament with musical forms on the bill, and you'll see more McDojo students there than there are old people in Florida. The forms competitions are fucking gymnastics with a kick thrown in every 7th back turning cartwheel flip.

They actually judge the forms on "difficulty". Well, ****! If the basic tools of my art with which I will, if need be, use to defend myself and my loved ones from physical harm are so difficult that I deserve a pat on the back if I can go through them without screwing up, then something's wrong.

Sparring is bullshit in these tournaments. TKD continuous sparring is better than "sport karate" crap. Back in my naive youth when I actually participated in this pageantry of weakness like some sort of eight-year-old beauty queen, I actually won a match on warnings because my opponent kicked me in the head.

Weapons competitions look like a Ninja Turtles audition. The people that use swords would probably end up killing themselves if they used real ones (thank God they're iaito or made of wushu "steel") and whenever the katana people tried to put their swords back into the saya, it was a riot to watch them try three times, having obviously never received anything resembling formal instruction from anyone remotely legitimate.

"Sportive karate" doesn't take years of practice. Bull ****! Take two months of ballet, two months gymnastics, two months wushu, and watch ten martial arts movies of your choice (preferrably Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee) and you'll have it completely mastered, with nothing new to explore or discover. "Sportive," god damn! The martial arts have been reduced to soccer, with yuppie women talking on cellphones drinking Starbucks coffee driving around several 8-year old black belts with more patches on their gi than logos on a racecar.

On a final note, I imagine the sensei's statement would be less offensive if he'd represented his way as one more of self-development than combat, and left off that "street-fighting" crack. I'm sure most people here could agree with me that "martial virtue" can be learned as well through a fighting style like Kyokushin the same as a peaceful style like Wado-ryu.

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And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!