Once again I found myself contemplating the fact that everything comes around in time. These days, MMA is king, yet the MMA crowd is starting to have to deal with fake rank, sham schools, and McGyms. I figure since McDojo is coined, I’d get a head start on attaching the McDonald’s tag to gyms. Last month was Karate Rules month over at Bullshido (caution – if you are easily offended, just don’t go there – you’ll be happier that way) celebrating achievements of Karate exemplars like Lyoto Machida who used his Shotokan to pound BJ Penn, BJJ star extraordinaire into mush a short while back. Who could have seen that coming?
My point isn’t that BJJ is bad and Karate is good. It’s that in the end, good, hard training – the kind where you hit and get hit – wins at the end of the day. There are better and worse ways to go about it, but in the end, it’s more how you do it than what you do.
In an only vaguely related ‘everything comes around again’, I’ve seen a lot of hand wringing about rank, especially in Kenpo / Kempo. Many of the old timers can be heard regretting how quickly and young the new generation gets rank. I stumbled across this character while searching the web earlier today:
Age 9 – takes kempo.
Age 15 – Starts Karate lessons.
Age 17 – 2nd Dan
Age 20 – 4th Dan.
He then trains in Judo for four years – zoom – there’s another fourth dan for you, thank you very much.
Two fourth dan ranks before age 30, after at most 15 years training. Then a short while later, he starts his own style and eventually does flashy demos on TV. Sacreliege!
I expose the charlatan after the jump.
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