What is the first thing you think of in this ?

[Chinwoo-er]

A friend of mine, trains in Hung Gar and is almost completely unbeatable except by the master within the school.

A few days ago, he went to a "Real combat" karate class to "try out". End up beating half a dozen ( one by one ) people who were the top of the class there when sparring.

Now here is a few factors. (1) I really don't see him as being someone who was willing to "jump" to karate. So I think his intention was never to try out the class but to try out fighting. (2) He never cross sparred before. So it is easy to understand his desire to do so. (3) His own master has always discouraged such things so in a sense, he was violating a certain "code".

So tell me, what is the first thing which comes to your mind about this matter. Will it be ........

" well, it wasn't nice of him but I can understand it".

" that was just plain rude and disrespectful to the karatekas "

" Cool, Hung Gar beats Karate Yahoooooooooo "

" Disobeying his own master ? man he absolutely must die for that."

" That guy need alot of work with his interpersonal skills "

" well, since no real damage is done, I guess cross-style sparring is a good way to advance one self "

Any other thoughts ?

[red5angel]

I think it would have been better if he would have asked permission to spar with students there. Often times you can walk into a school and ask to spar with someone, if you are freindly and respectful I cant imagine being turned away.

[fa_jing]

The key factor here is whether he was upfront about his background when he introduced himself to this new school. If not, he pulled a lame manuever but I still give him props for his technical ability. It's hard to comment on him going against his teacher as I don't know the details of their relationship.

-FJ

[wu_de36]

there's always someone bigger stronger faster than you, and there's a chance they might be training with the intent to mess you up.

the karate guys ran into that person. maybe they feel a little burned by it, but I'd be interested to see how they react. Sometimes it's healthy to be on the losing end of a fight, and there's no better place to lose a fight than within the confines of your dojang/dojo/kwoon/garage. If you re-posture yourself with a bunch of lame excuses then you have lost more than you realize.

If you admit "hey, i got my ass handed to me a plate. I need to work harder" then you've won.

That's the real lesson for the karate folks.

As for the Hung Gar fellow, I doubt he was being altruistic and offering to kick their asses for a "learning experience." chances are it was more for satisfying his ego. Taking out easy targets is not the best thing in terms of wu de. It's comparable to those top "real karate" guys not fighting outside their confines, and asserting their superiority over white belts.

One day, this Hung Gar fella will get his ass handed to him. I'll be interested to see if he learns the same lesson, or sticks to easy targets.

[Chinwoo-er]

Yes, he did state his background before sparring

But i get the feeling that if he went up and just said he wanted to spar, no matter how polite he was, they will think of it as a challenge. Not exactly a good thing to do really.

[apoweyn]

i don't see the problem. he presented his background. but even if he hadn't, the teacher allowed him to spar. if he allowed him to spar thinking the hung gar guy had no experience, that was blatantly irresponsible on the part of this sensei. and if he said it was okay for hung gar to spar knowing that he had a background, then game on. he had to know that this was a possibility.

as far as asking to spar and challenges are concerned, i think that would make it more of a challenge. and tempers are more likely to flair. perhaps hung gar sparred hoping to learn something. perhaps he wanted to satisfy his own curiosity. either way, i don't think he was out of line, particularly.

i think many schools would actually refuse offers to spar. too much to lose, really. face, liability issues, etc. many schools just wouldn't consider it worth it. does that reflect a lack of confidence? in some sense, yes. but i don't think that's uncommon. many teachers aren't going to take the chance on putting their students up against an unknown quotient in that setting.

but this one did. no harm, no foul.


stuart b.

[wu_de36]

Anytime two complete strangers from different stlyes cross hands, it's going to be a "challenge" match no matter how you pretty it up with words.

Even a friendly workout will turn to a challenge in one person's mind when his butt is used to re-polish the floor. One party will step it up to defend the integrity of their art.

If both parties are hip to it, fine. It's certainly one's option to turn down such an offer, or cut it short if you feel the person is losing control of their ego. Especially in this age of lawsuits and BS, you should be careful who you offer to spar with.

I would not spar a person I didn't know that walked into my dojang asking for a challenge. It is essentially an assault in my eyes. Sure schools in China did it all the time, but comparing this to modern times is apples to oranges. Let's say in the middle of the match, you lock up and go to the ground, he pulls a knife and guts you. OOPS! Didn't you pat him down first? Or did you expect an honorable fighter?

I will spar and work with people I know from different styles who I trust are there to test their arts and not ambush me. For example, one day Dwid and I are going to get together and work out :) I know dwid personally and am pretty sure he won't stab me in the back and say "BEHOLD THE POWER OF GAO STYLE BAGUA!!!" :)

I treat sparring and fighting a little differently. In a fight (read: assault on me, as I don't engage people in barfights) I will fight dirty, quickly, and use any weapons at my disposal, because I don't take chances.

[shaolinboxer]

How exactly did he beat them? Half a dozen...is that really six...or five....or four?

Did he simply come away feeling like he wasn't dominated, or did he knock people out, or get them to submit?

I am curious as to what counts as a "win".

[Ray Pina]

I've done the same at the local TKD and Kick boxing acadamies ... no one wanted to fight.

I think what he did is necessary. I'm lucky that I have trained a few disciplines and have friends who still train and are willing to test their disciplines against my new one. But if you don't have that advanatge, one must make do with what they have. SO be it if its a Shotokon Karate place.

If its against his master's wishes, that's another story. But if he does it as an individual, not mentioning names or locations, just one man testing against another, don't see the problem. Unless there is a specific order against it. Discouraging one to do something is sort of like saying, "Son, its best to wait till your married to have sex."

Maybe you need to say it for the wifey, but is it what you really want, a panzy a$$ son?

[NPMantis]

I don't think there was any real harm in what he did - I think he wanted to see another style, lets face it if he was beaten by these people he may have seriously considered his choice of art as would anyone else if they were beaten by artists of a similar level.

It also lets the Karate class know that maybe they're not as great as they think they are and that they need to train more, I have a karate friend (just under 3 years training) who saw a picture of my school's SiGung (training over 30 years) doing a kick and made a negative comment on the kick (there was nothing wrong with kick, it was obviously perfect, just not a straight-leg karate style kick) claiming - "sorry, I'm a perfectioninist". That kind of attitude really winds me up, I have attended few karate classes before and the students and instructor alike seem to have a real attitude problem (although obviously that's not applicable to all schools) - everyone needs to realise they are not unbeatable and I'm sure your friend gained a lot ot of the experience, so long as no one got hurt, good on him.

Out of interest how long has he been training?

[shaolinboxer]

I still don't understand how he "beat" anyone.

[myosimka]

People make a number of good points and I'll tell you my take on it.

I teach at a local university. Therefore I am bound by liability concerns/regulations laid down by the administration. I am a resident of the town so I have to maintain a positive relationship with the administration as I am in it for the long haul. I have seen 5 different instructors in one of the other karate clubs in the short time I have run our group.

At the same time the school has been there since back in the day. In fact it's the oldest club sport at the school founded in 1966. It has always been treated by the muckity mucks in the system as a full school on par with any of the dojos that have been run over the years. So I also have traditions from the grandmaster and my instructors about dojo etiquette.

End result: nobody spars my students in that room when our club has it(we share the room) They want to go elsewhere by mutual consent, fine. They want to come in when I am not responsible for it, fine. I even encourage it and sometimes come along to play. I have some of these outside guys whine that other clubs do it. Others want to break the university's liability policies, fine. I choose not to. When I am a Myo Sim Instructor, I will only spar with Myo Sim students.

I used to have a problem with that rule and then I encountered situations that lead me to agree with it.

1) A guy I know (and liked until this incident) was studying some MA and wanted to trade techniques. Sure, what can go wrong? He asked me to feed him a roundhouse to the head. Blocked and grabbed my leg, rotated so I flipped over, and pulled back so I dropped onto my face. On tarmac. Never having told me what he was going to do. Not in a sparring situation where it got out of hand. He asked for the technique so he could show me something and then dropped me with no concern for my safety.

2) Friend of mine was running a kali class. Had a challenger come in. My buddy agreed. Started with disarms but the other guy picked up his stick and made disparaging comments about it not working at full speed. My friend proceeded to beat the guy down but not brutally. 5 weeks later he's served papers. There were tons of witnesses so nothing came of it but the nuisance factor was bad enough.

3) A tort law professor of mine showed me the case law where the Virginia State Supreme Court has ruled that you can't not sign away your bodily injury/health rights. The argument being that as a lay person you are not as cognizant of the risks as the other party to the contract. (At the time it was only applied to medical malpractice cases but the precedent was there and could certainly apply to the waivers we give to students.)

So red5angel not only can I imagine being turned down, I would be disappointed if they didn't. Because in most cases the reason to do it is ego. Trading techniques is one thing. Rolling with friends is one thing. But just walking up and saying, "hey want to spar" is just stupid and so is agreeing.

You never know what sparring means. I have worked in schools that strapped on the pads went all out. I have worked out at schools that use no padding, light contact and minimal to the head. I have done stick sparring without helmets.(only with a few guys I REALLY trust) I have done point sparring.(OK crucify me for that one. I didn't say I liked it just that I'd done it.) I have been hurt by people who didn't respect me as a training partner. I have seen the look of shock on someone's face when I hit them beyond their norms.(I usually clear that up by waiting 10 seconds and asking if it still hurts. If it lasts less than 10 it's not really pain.)

But as to the original question. So long as he was clear with the other instructor, and he was fine with it, cool. My experience is this is rarely the case though. I recently had a guy come in who said he wanted to see what our school was about. Started to show him the elementary form. He wasn't interested. He wanted to spar. We went to another gym and sparred. I had a good time and so did he but he wasn't really interested in learning anything about our style. And since you used the word try out, then I think the guy needs to give some thought to his motivations and be more honest with himself. Plus the one by one match thing definitely sounds more like a challenge frame of mind then learning anything about other styles. Testing yourself is cool but this is not the right way to go about it.

[rogue]

Chinwoo-er, my first reaction is to think your friend is full of beans.
I visit schools when ever I can and only two let me spar, one I had to sign up for the introductory lessons, prove I knew what I said I did (hyungs, techniques, rank certificate and who my instructor was) and the other let me walk in off the street but I had to participate in a complete class and was "supervised".

Now if your friend is on the level he may just be that good since he also beats all of his classmates. Now as stated before how did he "win"? Care to name the karate school and what town it's in?

[NPMantis]

That was really interesting.

I can't believe that guy threw you on the tarmac though, that is really silly - I wouldn't like to spar with people unless I know them well either, so many people get aggressive if they lose and try to take it too far (especially as you said if they have little respect for you).

[joedoe]

As long as no one was hurt, then I don't see anything wrong with what he did, as long as he did it respectfully and for the right reasons. If he was simply testing himself against another style then to me that is a good enough reason. If he did it to beat down a bunch of karatekas, then that is the wrong reason.

Given that his sifu does not encourage this kind of thing, it is probably kind of bad of him, but again I think his sifu would also be reasonable and say that since no one was hurt then there was no harm done.

I personally think it would be a good learning experience.

[Zantesuken]

there's nothing wrong about it. then again there's nothing right.
you can be the top of your style but you never know unless you cross hands with someone else from another style.

it's not bad to fight to test it out and no injury but fighting just for pure hurting someone is really really bad