I
believe Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965) was maybe onto
something when he stated “Once
in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick
ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened”
This was definitely the
case when my ‘mixed’ martial arts training was questioned by the chief
instructor of the Taekwondo (TKD) group back in the late 90’s. I was already
blending my TKD, Hapkido, Judo and Jiu Jitsu with a little Muay Thai, Luta
Livre and wrestling being inspired by Ruas Vale Tudo after training with Marco Ruas a few times.
I had gone training with
the intention of joining in the TKD class as was the case on those Saturday
afternoons before I had any life obstacles, sorry I mean family :0) but once I
got there I didn’t want to do the usual training, I was getting bored with it
to be honest, so found an empty room at the sports centre and started working
out on my own.
10 minutes in and the TKD
instructor walked into the room, I greeted him as is the tradition but he
walked straight by me and started pulling some mats onto the floor. He then
said he wanted to spar to see what all the fuss was about with this ‘new’ type
of modern martial arts.
I mistakenly thought that
he was genuinely interested in doing some extra curricular training to round
out his 25 years of TKD so was glad to share the meager knowledge I had.
As we started sparring, I flicked
out a couple of little kicks and open hand strikes a la Royce Gracie circa UFC1 before he launched a kick at
me that made me re-evaluate his motivation for doing this. Damn, he wanted to
prove a point, maybe he didn’t want to think that he had spent 20+ years
training something that was less than the ultimate fighting style and was going
to beat me like one of those step-children with a particular hair colour that
is neither blond nor brunette.
Ok, game on. I faked a
slap, slipped in to clinch, simple body lock and hook put him onto his back and
I took full mount. He thrashed around a little and I managed to lightly slap
him a little whilst maintaining my mount on this bucking bronco, isolating an
arm then sitting back for an armlock. He was stuck so I let go, stood up,
pulled him back up and was going to explain what I had done when he just said
“again”
We went again, he went
harder this time but the same outcome.
“Again”
Ok, time to make my point.
As he threw a strike, I level changed shot a ‘baiana’ straight to side control,
took his back and started to tighten my ‘mata leao’. I held it a little longer
than usual then let go and stood up.
He stood up a little
groggily then walked straight out without a word, never mentioned it again and
went back to teaching his class.
Sad really that something
had been proved conclusively but he chose to ignore. When I started TKD I got
smashed so had to learn it. Then I went to Judo and got smashed so I had to
learn it. Then I started Jiu Jitsu and got smashed so I had to learn it. See
where I’m going with this?
I don’t think there are bad
styles, everything has something to offer, and maybe not even bad practitioners
of those styles, maybe just bad attitudes towards other styles.
So in conclusion, I refer once
again to Sir Winston “the truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is”.
DC
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