Funny Story,
I cauliflowered my ear 2 weeks age and had it fixed, so I had a bandage on my ear. A guy at work asked me what happened to my ear, to avoid trying to explain what happend I simply replied 'I had some fluid on my ear and had to get it drained'. He said.......'you need to let me show you some KARATE and that will not happen again! I almost began laughing uncontrollably, I said 'it actually happend in jiu-jitsu class,' thinking anyone who has not been under a rock in the past 15 years would know what I was talking about he said 'yeah, but let me show you some Karate and that will not happen in class'. It was all I could do to not laugh in his face, so we had a friendly discussion and I informed his that his Karate is useless when he's on the ground flat on his back. He wanted to argue stating that he could prevent someone from taking him to the ground with a front kick, and even better, he could kick a nerve on the inside of my leg and prevent me from taking him down. I just smiled with a smart arse grin and said 'I have 2 tapes you can watch of Karate guys who though the same thing who are still laying unconscious on a jiu-jitsu mat somewhere' (gracies in action video's)
I too have experienced clueless people as the man you are talking about right now. Now don't get me wrong, Karate does have their practicle applications, but head to head theres is just no competition. Jiu Jitsu will deffinately dominate over Karate. It's just sad and funny and annoying to experience a situation with these closed off people.
I know what you mean. Before I started BJJ I was taking Kenpo, Aikido, and after 1 class of BJJ I just stopped the others all together. I would rather have 3 months of BJJ than 3 years of Karate! There are guys I started Karate with who are already 1 or 2 belts away from Black and they have been in it for about a year. I should be getting my blue belt in Feb, I have been training for a little over a year, but I know when I get that belt I have earned it! After all the hard work and sweat it will be a great feeling!
I like it when you tell someone that you are "only" a blue belt or "only" a purple belt and they look at you like you must suck or something if you have been training for many years and aren't at least a black belt with a few stripes by then. Typical response, "Oh, you've been training how long and you aren't a black belt yet? My 14 year old cousin got his black belt in Karate in only three years."
I teach a BJJ program out of the kenpo school where I've been an instructor for years.....I'm slowly converting some of the other kenpo black belts over to alive mma training.
On Monday we had a sparring class just for the black belts. We haven't had one in years. I was doing some light MMA with the instructors who are used to it, and the other guys looked at us like we had three heads. I did some "regular" rounds with some of them (basically pointfighting rules, but without breaks). Finally one of them said he would fight with my rules, "whatever those are." I said "no groin shots....no deliberately hurting the other person. that's about it." he looked at me with this puzzled expression and said "boy, i thought that's what I've been doing." We touched gloves and sparred long range for a minute, until I got a double neck tie and snapped him down. He tried to pick me up and throw me, so I dropped down and rolled him with an elevator. I threw a couple light elbows from side mount, then mounted and slapped him nicely a couple times. I hopped off and we started again from standing. This time I hit the double neck tie, snapped to a front headlock, and started throwing some gentle knees to the head (he's a friend...ya know?). The bell rang with us still in that position. He had a blast and told me he wants to start hitting my standup class.
Slowly, I will pull them over into alive training....yess....they will see the light...
~TT
I find it hard to keep a smile on my face and breathe evenly, when people talk to me about other martial arts.
The last good one was a friend who was telling me about a neighbor who had fourteen black belts and just got inducted into the Martial Arts Hall of Fame. I used to get invitations to get inducted into a Martial Arts Hall of Fame, so I looked on the internet. There's tons of them on the internet. I couldn't afford the near 1000 dollars it took to get inducted, along with the twenty other people that year . . .