Chief Master Dave Weatherly, World Martial Arts Academy, Fenton, MI: 5th & 8th Dans?

**angel7** · Posted On: 10/25/2008 10:10pm

Originally Posted by Bustardo

Nice find. I'm searching and I can't find anything about Black Belt Security being a company in Michigan, but admittedly my google-fu is a bit weak.

I don't know much about Judo, but I know the academy you're checking out. The thing with the students wearing the wrong belts just comes from them being Hapkido/Tae Kwon Do students who sign up for both kinds of classes and don't want to buy two uniforms. Almost no one there trains primarily in Judo unless they've come from another school. Black Belt Security is a company that Master Weatherly started about twenty some years ago that eventually ended. His Hapkido cred is legit including starting training when he was about four, and he has trained in Judo. But not nearly as high as he claims. He's just been in the business for so long that he fakes it. He doesn't hold a rank in Tae Kwon Do either, but other than the forms and the names of kicks it's close enough to Hapkido that he added it to his list of classes because kids had never heard of Hapkido. Short and sweet--he's trying to run a business and definitely fudges things.

**angel7** · Posted On: 10/25/2008 10:14pm

Originally Posted by andrewa

Good find too. He was also sued in 2001 by AMERITECH PUBLISHING INC,, VS D 001 WEATHERLY,DAVID,JOHN, DBA-KOREAN HAPKIDO ACADEMY. Seems he owned them approx $31,000. His conviction was for Failure to Pay Child Support (about $50,000 in arrears).

The link is here: http://www.co.genesee.mi.us/circuitcourt/index.htm#
On the left side click on the link that says 'Circuit Court Records'.

Let me stress that sometimes ending up in court is the price of doing business but when I see a business owner that has history of being sued it leaves a lot of concerns.

\

Getting sued for business practices is one thing, but that's not going to Jail for child support. That has nothing to martial arts and everything to do with the kind of man.

**angel7** · Posted On: 10/25/2008 10:24pm

Originally Posted by businessjeff

Any update? Im doing some heavy research on CM DW. I think if we establish a time line from what we know to be true we can get some truth revealed. The biggest thing is going to be finding out who this Ji San Jea is.... I havent found anything yet but havent looked much.

That link says that CM DW told him that Ji San Jea was Ji Han Jea's little brother.... That would be easy to confirm to be true or not, however no where on the wmafenton.com website does CM DW say this.

Its very deciving how he words his section about himself. For example he does Say Ji San Jea, then from there on out refers to him as GM Ji... which when you say GM Ji you think of GM Ji Han Jea. In fact up until the 3rd paragraph i though that he was just comparing timelines of his life with GM Ji... but then he stated that GM Ji gave him hi Dojang...?? Acording to his dates listed online. CM DW was 8 when he started this training with GM Ji and in 1972 he was given that Dojang. So that means he was given a Dojang of Judo after only 7 years of schooling and was only 15? How far can one progress in 7 years of training?

So this supposes dojang can be looked up to be true or not. Im not sure if hes saying its his shop in Fenton. But I know that building was not built in the 70's its fairly new. And lets say he accidentally typed San instead of Han, GM Ji Han didnt even come to the states until early 80's... But almost none of this makes sense because he says all this training from GM Ji San Jea was for Korean Judo..... why would the supposed little brother of the creator of Hapkido be teaching Judo? (keep in mind, its just hearsay at this point about Ji San Jea being the little brother of Ji Han Jea)

Im going to go ask him about who he traind under.
Where he holds crudentials with.
How old he is. (He should be 55 acording to his dates listed)
Where this Dojang was that was given to him in 1972.

I also want to add as a side note that, when I first meet CM DW I was impressed with his conduct. As well, its easy to get cought up in pissing matches over crudentials, yes they are important but I feel whats more important is cold hard skill. I always tell people who apoligize to me that talk is cheap, so me your sorry. Kind of the same here, he just under scruteny for his claims. I would also like to add that I have about 1 weeks worth of internet research of MA under my belt and thats it. So if I knew what to look for as far as skill goes then I could properly judge him rather than man hunt down his paper crudentials. Maybe someone in Michigan could do a review of his School. I will eventually im sure call around to other Dojang's asking about CM DW, since I cannot make a proper assesment of him. Take that for how you want, but when I set out to learn something new (like I am with MA) I usually spend countless hours reading and knowing everything there is to all the ins and outs... And I usually dont stop until I find the most confirmable data or truth.

Any suggestions?

OK we need to clarify a typo much earlier in the thread since a lot of debate has been spurred on by it. CM DW says he trained under Jae Sun Ji, so everyone has been researching the wrong master.

**Bustardo** · Posted On: 10/26/2008 2:01am

Thanks for telling us all that Angel. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and how you know this information?

**angel7** · Posted On: 10/26/2008 2:16am

I trained there for many years in Hapkido and kept my ear to the ground. Just give DW a cup of coffee and let him roll. You'll learn a lot. He does mix up his stories, but I think it stems more from his story-teller characteristic. He likes to tell outlandish stories to the kids after class for both lesson and entertainment purposes, and I think he gets carried away with himself. After doing that for decades, maybe he started to believe his own hype.

**angel7** · Posted On: 10/26/2008 2:23am

I'm totally new to this sight. Bustardo, if you're still online. How do I send a message to just you without posting it on this thread?

**Bustardo** · Posted On: 10/26/2008 6:45pm

Originally Posted by angel7

I'm totally new to this sight. Bustardo, if you're still online. How do I send a message to just you without posting it on this thread?

You need to have a minimum number of posts, I think it's 50 before you can send private messages.

**angel7** · Posted On: 10/26/2008 7:05pm

That's lame. I don't think I have fifty different things to say! I guess I could do fifty one-word posts, but that would be annoying to everyone else on the thread.

**colonelpong2** · Posted On: 10/27/2008 12:56am

Interesting. Forgive my inabilty to use multiple qoute boxes and also my lack of knowledge on grappling... but I must make a few comments:

"Hapkido is the original martial art. All martial arts come from Hapkido" Ummm,. WTF??

"Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu- heh. That's just Judo with a new name to trick you and get your money. There's nothing new there, it's just Judo". As stated, I have very little experience with grappling, but from what I have seen there are quite noticable differences. In terms of downing the other guy, BJJ focuses more on takedowns where as Judo focuses more on throws.
A key difference, from what I understand (remember im a stand up not a grappler) is that in Judo a "win" can be achieved by a good throw or a succesful restraint- whereas in BJJ a submission or a goodnight moment is required.

"I'd give demos back in the day. First the karate people would come out and do their forms, then the judo people would come out and do some throws and chokes. Then I'd come out and I'd be throwing 2 or 3 people at once and I'd impress the hell out of them"- Note these are in DEMOS. IE. They are choreographed and compliant

"After armbarring the other kid (A technique which they'd just showed in class.) the same instructor who asked what he'd do in a real fight exclaimed, "If it's not in the Kodokon it doesn't belong in class"- I understood that armbaring was a commonly used method in Judo... just that it was taught slightly differently in that the angle of the target's hand was horizontal (assuming its from the ground with both protagonists facing upwars) as a safety measure, as opposed to the BJJ method in which it was vertical (and way more snappable).

Anyway, just a view from a non grappler.

**Bukow** · Posted On: 10/27/2008 4:38am

While trying to do some research on the veracity of Dave Weatherly's various claims, I found a group of Hapkido enthusiasts referring to him on a Korean martial arts discussion board back in 2006. Apparently, they had serious doubts about the claims he was making as well.

Interesting quotes include:

"DW is teaching at someone else's dojang now and is listed as an 8th dan ("highest non-Korean") with 42 years experience (Google his name).

Funny, a long while back, he noted that he would not be processing through the Kido Hae anymore (his certification as he always carried a wallet card) cause things were getting "wierd" (I believe the word used) and was thinking of joining the Korean Martial Arts Instructors Association (or some such name). This was before I had heard of RH and that group (I'm not trying to get you going). Don't know which Kido he belonged to though.

He gave ($) out three different dan certifcates, two which were suppose to have come from Korea, but all came from the same place in Michigan. It was curious how Jae Sun Ji and Sun Moo Kwan sounded like Jae Han Ji and Sung Mu Kwan."

and

"I can guarantee you that DW is not certified as an 8th dan through the real KidoHwe. As of a month ago, there are five 9th dans living outside of Orient (Dr. Kimm is senior with Cert. # 25), one 8th dan (yours truly), no 7th dans, three 6th dans and three 5th dans (not counting two of mine that are deceased) and two of the remaining fifth dans are no longer active with the organization and have not been promoted in over twenty years."

among others, from http://s2.excoboard.com/exco/thread....=819295&page=2

I readily admit that these are assertions and are by no means conclusive. However, these are people without any connection to Bullshido or the posters in this thread, and had by other means arrived at conclusions doubting the legitimacy of DW's claims.

Subsequently, I searched for some of the names supposedly connected to DW through past associations mentioned in that thread, but could find nothing substantive. I also wrote a polite email to DW asking him if he'd clarify some basic questions regarding his rankings and martial arts lineage.