My thoughts on challenges.

[Richard mantis]

My thoughts on challenges.

I have been giving the "Online Challenges" that were posted here a while back a lot of thought. It seems to me that they are actually a test to see if someone will back down in the public domain. I do not understand why a challenge would be made public. What does the public have to do with it? And who actually will invest the time and money to travel to meet someone to fight because they simply have been insulted? I can see debating a political Kung Fu dispute on a public forum, but there are simply to many complications involved with a challenge. If a person wants a challenge shouldn’t they just go to the person in question and challenge them? Nobody should even know about it but the two in question.


As a teenager I had a friend who out of the blue informed me that his older brother was in prison for murder. When I asked for details he said that his brother was in a bar drinking with some guy he met that night, and over a disagreement he got angry and punched the guy. It turns out that the guy who got punched had a brain tumor that the puncher did not know about, and being hit disturbed it. He simply died. It turns out that the guy with the tumor did not know himself that he had the tumor. What started out as a disagreement ended with over 20 years in prison. I also remember an incident in downtown Minneapolis about 6 years ago when three people were fighting about a traffic dispute. One guy got punched. As I remember it the punch did not even knock the guy out , but when his head hit the ground it was enough to kill him. I cannot see myself explaining a similar situation to my wife and children.
"Well sweetie, daddy has to go to prison for 30 years because someone in the Kung Fu school said naughty things about him and he didn‘t like it." I have heard rumors about what prisoners do to the new inmates when they feel lonely. NO THANKS!! I do not want that much practice fighting.

And then there is the possibility that we do not want to think about, -that the guy you are fighting might not loose. Somebody will loose no matter what. No matter how confident you might be with your skills you might not win. Do you want to loose face in front of all your students? Do you want to make someone else loose face in front of all their students to the extent that they will not teach again? Or do you just want to teach them a lesson? How can you do one without doing the other? What if you are the guy with the unknown brain tumor?

Then there are the political issues. These seem to never end. For every Yin there is a Yang and people can say something no matter what happens. I saw a video taped challenge that ended in a bloody victory but years later people still argue over who won. I remember boxing with a guy once for fun and during the bout I got a punch to the nose. I got angry and went after the guy a little more aggressively. He decided that the situation was getting out of hand and I agreed with him. So he took off the gloves and said " o.k. I have had enough" and he stepped down. About five minutes later I noticed my nose was bleeding a tiny bit. The guy I boxed saw the single drop of blood and ran around the neighborhood telling everyone how he defeated the top student at our Kung Fu school. He said that I had 6 years experience and he beat me with ease. I am anything but the top student and he took off the gloves and quit first. He said I was great and put me on a pedestal just so he could knock me down. When he came back the next day he asked if I wanted to box again. I said yes and he avoided me like the plague. He simply did not want a rematch that would threaten his story of victory.

Then there are legal issues and Liability concerns. I know very little about the judicial system but I have no faith in the legal system after going through jury duty a year ago. Why should someone deal with the legal issues of injury, death or damage in their school? The school was probably opened as a place to teach, not as a place to settle personal disputes. Some folks talk about signing an agreement that says they are not responsible for injuries during the fight and that they will not be held responsible. Honestly now, if you or someone you know got injured or killed in a challenge and a lawsuit was filed, how much trouble do you think a lawyer would have in breaking your signed agreement? Then there is the "Oops it just slipped" issue. This is the protocol that most challenges will follow. Two or more persons will meet for a challenge and say "well lets just play hands a little" and of course it’s anything but play. How will that sound to a judge? "Gee your honor the guy who insulted and challenged me {the one that everyone knows about} traveled to my school to "play friendly hands with me" and he just slipped and smashed his face into my fist and needed to have plastic surgery to put his face back together. But remember, we were just "playing hands" and practicing. And then you might have to explain all the other "friendly hand playing " that took place moments later between the other students that may or may not have showed up to challenge after that.
And what about injury? How bad do you really want to wake up when you are 60 with severe hand and knee pains {or possibly others} because you got into a fight 40 years before? How important will the challenge be to you then? What if you cut your knuckle on you opponents tooth and it draws blood. Does the person you just punched have HIV?

When I first entered into the Martial Arts I remembered a attitude of chivalry. I thought it was understood that one should never use any Martial skill to fight unless there was no other course of action. Like Mr. Miaygee in the Karate Kid said: "fighting is always the last answer." What ever happened to that attitude? It seems as though Kung Fu is treated more like a competitive sport among serious practitioners now days.

Now it’s quite possible that the above things might not happen. "Might not."

It seems to me that there are simply to many "what ifs?" involved with a challenge to make it worth the trouble. It reminds me of the Mt. Everest disaster that happened a few years back. The Mountain climbers involved were quite brave, there is no question about that. But after seeing the documentary film about the expedition I quickly found a simple way in which the disaster {and all future Everest disasters} could be avoided: Simply stay off the mountain.

But those are a few of the down sides of challenging . On the up side you have....... Hmmm.....
Ahhh.... Well, you can always say that you kicked some ones butt! Hopefully someone will think you are really cool for it. But if you actually post a public challenge then you probably think you are pretty cool already.

I love practicing Kung Fu as an art and science. I am even somewhat interested in testing my skills.
But I am not real interested in down and dirty fighting. It’s o.k. but it does not really thrill me. Not as much as simply practicing Kung Fu does. I used to be more aggressive toward this issue but I have mellowed my attitude over the years. I have had a few minor confrontations that taught me that I am not afraid of fighting, but I am not stupid either. I am smart enough to avoid trouble.
So quite simply - I will not accept a challenge. I draw the line at the tips of my toes. If someone wants to fight with me they will have to try crossing that line. I will not fight unless I am physically forced to do so.
You can call me a coward or a fraidy cat if you want to and I am sure that many follow up’s to this post will do just that.
But until you cross my line you will never know. If one does not agree with me then one can always draw their own line somewhere else.

I have studied with Gin Foon Mark for about 12 years. In my first year of study with him I asked "Sifu how do you know when it’s time to fight?" I have heard different theories about this subject but I was interested in his angle. He said something that cut through all the B.S. and got right to the point. He said, "It’s time to fight when the only direction you can go is forward."

At the moment I have every direction open to me.

Rich

[gwendolyn]

You're quoting Mr.Miaygee?

[The Willow Sword]

since I was one of the challenge makers a while back i will say that making the challenge, going through the challenge,,and actually losing the challenge has enriched my life and my training is different,,my mindset is different..and above all i made a friend in the process. I am better martial artist AND teacher for doing it.
Many Respects,,The Willow Sword

[CLOUD ONE]

Congratulations. So you did not really lose but gained from your experience. It seems your on the right track. Yeah you are correct there is only one style!!!
Through your willingness to participate in this challenge you made connection to the other martial artist. which makes the time you spend on this forum worthwhile.

You are an inspiration!

[The Willow Sword]

many repsects to you and what you do. An equal amount of thanks goes to Reemul who was the challenged. i might be a passing thing for him at this point but he is definately not a passing thing for me. this will be remembered ALWAYS as a teacher teaching another and Unclouding the perspective,so to speak.
Many Respects, The Willow Sword

[Starchaser107]

Intresting read richard,
i dont think anyone would say youre a coward though, its your view nobody can take that away from you.
You made some very good points there. I guess it all depends on to what extent the challenge is going to go , be it bare knuckle full contact anything goes grudge match , or just heavy continuous sparring or whatever.

Maybe in some cases people issue challenges to look cool, others might have a big mission behind it to discredit a style or individuals validity.

Look at it this way though, Professional boxing , and Kickboxing are public challenges , people like this sort of violence something abt it appeals to us somewhere. I guess in a sense this is a more respectful way of seeing a challenge mach, if you exclude tyson and the biting incidents.

If a public challenge had more chivalry and less impatience and testosterone would your opinion differ... lets say if all the safety requirements have been taken, physicals etc. and all necessary preperations, and not just a backdoor or rooftop thing. would you view a challenge differently in that case?

[BIU JI]

It seems a cliche but what really are the highest morals of kung fu? Preservation of life yes !

Kung fu was develpoed basically to kill and if you train with that focus then you have to ask yourself what sort of situation warrants killing someone?

I was challenged by a guy on the street once for just looking at his girl, now he wanted me to get up from my seat and I really didnt see the point indoing that over his ego, insecurity of someone checking out his girl.

If I did, 2 things could happen, he gets hurt or I do ! I dont train for sport or just a fisty cuff so if I fight I go for the throat. Not big noting myself but certainly dont want to have that sort of thing to happen over something as pathetic like that.
Home invasion by an armed intruder is a totally different kettle of fish, it's lights out budy