Martial Arts/Combat Sports Fraud Stories

[humble]

[quote]batman730 wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Sentoguy - never saw him work any muscle but his mouth, so not sure how good he was. But the weapons he carried were poor quality and poorly kept, and I tend to believe you can tell a lot about a man by hos weapons. Unless those were part of the act too, in which case this guy was really good, because I wouldn’t consider him more of a threat than any otther average skill pistolero.[/quote]

Fair enough, as I said, I don’t know the individual in question. Just trying to give a word of warning based on an experience that I had of totally underestimating someone based on looks alone, only to find out that I had been dead wrong, and had I been a criminal making those assumptions I may have just been dead.

The Ninja have been using the principles of disguise, deception, and stealth (which doesn’t just mean sneaking around in the dark) for hundreds if not thousands of years. Today’s spies and espionage agents continue to use these same concepts when in the field to avoid detection.

So, someone who is really applying the concepts will not appear special, extraordinary, or intimidating at first sight, they will let the other “tough guys” tell you how tough they are, how many fights they’ve had, how many belts they’ve won/earned and let you keep underestimating them. This might be a good argument against this guy being a Ninjutsu practitioner though (depending on the context of how his Ninjutsu training came up and whether he would broadcast it regularly to random people or only tell those he trusted in private or if pressed/asked).[/quote]

I am actually consciously working on cultivating my “grey man” attributes right now. I am by nature somewhat extroverted and outspoken. This combined with being physically large and tending to “look the part” a little too much makes me a little more conspicuous than I would sometimes like to be.

It’s actually a really interesting challenge to try to blend in and fly under the radar.[/quote]

Become a vegan Wear clothes of hemp 10 sizes too big, put a daisy in your hair and wear a leather braided necklack. She’l be right son

[Pigeonkak]

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
I had a friend (past tense because he’s an idiot) who uses facebook to pump up his image with people. Stupid shit like, “Heavy squats at 5am, followed by Gracie BJJ in the afternoon? Heck yeah!” or “Going to get my Pro Boxing Card in one month time! A warrior is always calm under pressure!” and other assorted bulshido quotes. The guy ALWAYS had this air of superiority and this deep seated belief that he could take anyone. He created this persona that to someone who didn’t know him like I did appeared impressively dangerous. truthfully, beyond his impressive size and weight lifting ability he really was not impressive at all.

Essentially, in real life he is a washed up bodybuilder turned personal trainer who likes to think he is some kind of badass. When he told me he was thinking of getting into the local MMA scene as a heavyweight, with a few years of TKD as his primary source of Martial Arts experience I warned him that there were guys his weight with more experience, more flexibility and much better striking and grappling skills than him currently competing. He actually told me that he could just “use his strength against them”. Then, in a moment of introspection, he suggested he might not actually pursue this budding fight career because “I just don’t want my nose to get fucked up.”

I shut him down a couple times with reality, he didn’t like it and he blocked me on facebook like a bitch. Months later I got a random message from him out of the blue: “I thought you’d want to know, I’m joining the Royal Marines.” He’d changed his profile picture to one of the Royal Commando insignia and was announcing to the world that he was off to become a special operations badass. He got really upset with me when I told him that at the core of it I didn’t care but wished him good luck.

A year or so later, he never went to the UK, hasn’t fought a single ring fight, hasn’t got his pro boxing card, hasn’t done any kind of martial arts training of any significance and hasn’t entered a body building competition since college. Oh, and in his late 20’s he still lives with his mother. However, he often refers to himself as an athlete.

[/quote]

Ye, my stories are all along these lines too. I used to go to a commercial gym briefly, and every time there’d be a bunch of (sloppy) body building types, wearing tapout tshirts, who were doing pullups and getting a mate to throw shitty punches into their guts at the bottom of each rep. Then they’d swagger around the gym giving bad looks to anyone who looked at them. Eventually, I was waiting to use the chinup bar and asked one of them what they trained and where. All I got by way of answer was ‘just don’t fuck with us, that’s all you need to know’. Turns out they were both PTs at the gym. I was chatting to one of the girls who worked at the desk a week or two later, and mentioned the bloke’s bad attitude. Turns out ‘ever since those two started running the boxercise classes, they had been picking fights with everyone.’ Didn’t speak to them again, as I stopped going to that gym a month or so after that, so didn’t have any cause to call them on their bullshit.
[/quote]

Boxercise classes. What a bunch of muppets.

[Sentoguy]

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Sentoguy - never saw him work any muscle but his mouth, so not sure how good he was. But the weapons he carried were poor quality and poorly kept, and I tend to believe you can tell a lot about a man by hos weapons. Unless those were part of the act too, in which case this guy was really good, because I wouldn’t consider him more of a threat than any otther average skill pistolero.[/quote]

Fair enough, as I said, I don’t know the individual in question. Just trying to give a word of warning based on an experience that I had of totally underestimating someone based on looks alone, only to find out that I had been dead wrong, and had I been a criminal making those assumptions I may have just been dead.

The Ninja have been using the principles of disguise, deception, and stealth (which doesn’t just mean sneaking around in the dark) for hundreds if not thousands of years. Today’s spies and espionage agents continue to use these same concepts when in the field to avoid detection.

So, someone who is really applying the concepts will not appear special, extraordinary, or intimidating at first sight, they will let the other “tough guys” tell you how tough they are, how many fights they’ve had, how many belts they’ve won/earned and let you keep underestimating them. This might be a good argument against this guy being a Ninjutsu practitioner though (depending on the context of how his Ninjutsu training came up and whether he would broadcast it regularly to random people or only tell those he trusted in private or if pressed/asked).[/quote]

I am actually consciously working on cultivating my “grey man” attributes right now. I am by nature somewhat extroverted and outspoken. This combined with being physically large and tending to “look the part” a little too much makes me a little more conspicuous than I would sometimes like to be.

It’s actually a really interesting challenge to try to blend in and fly under the radar.[/quote]

To further derail the thread:

I find this idea really interesting. I’ve always believed that ‘real recognises real’, and that you can tell when someone can handle themselves. In my experience, that’s why you rarely see two genuinely dangerous fighters come to blows outside of a sports setting. I see mismatches all the time, where some wanna be tough guy picks a fight with a genuine badass, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve seen two legitimately mean bastards throw down. On those occasions, a whole load of people ended up in the nick or the ER.

To those of us who are familiar with the rougher shades of life, I can’t be alone in recognising clearly when someone is a genuine hard bloke, from the way they carry themselves (not a swaggering poser) and the look in their eyes. It sounds like a cliche, but even the guys on here who are at the top of their game and living life at the sharp end, must have had at least one moment when you’ve looked into someone’s eyes and realised that this was the kind of man you wouldn’t want to have to find out if you were better than. [/quote]

I agree entirely. I reckon it’s all about subconscious body cues that you pick up when you have trained those same instinctual responses to dangerous situations. So if you have been trained to respond effectively to a crisis situation and have the experience doing so, then people with similar or more experience will knowingly or unknowingly pick up on those subtle cues.

The swagger is always an alarm bell for me that an idiot doesn’t have a clue. Chest out, leading with the head. I call it the knockout pose. But if I see someone quietly hunch their back a little, drop their chin a bit, stagger their feet and reach for an ashtray… I bet my money on that guy.

Also, you pronounce it 'Ard Blokes, yeah.
[/quote]

That makes sense. Someone who remains “ruthlessly calm” in the face of danger/a threat is generally not someone who you want to mess with and simply doing so will in some cases deter a would be attacker (as this is not a “normal” response and they are left wondering why).

On the other end of the spectrum, there are some legitimate badasses who will just escalate and beat your head in, should you challenge them, before you ever have a chance to realize what hit you. They don’t bother trying to hide their prowess because of their supreme confidence. This really only works for the real top of the food chain types though IME. The rest of us are better off going with the first strategy.

[Sentoguy]

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Then I walked into a reality martial arts class.
[/quote]

You’re right, that is a ridiculous story.

In all seriousness though, I guess I just hang around actual serious Martial Artists/fighters primarily, so I don’t hear too many of these tall tales or encounter too many frauds. I also don’t broadcast my training history or rank, so people don’t usually feel the need to “wow” me with their accomplishments.

It does get on my nerves a little though when someone does find out and tells me that they/their friend/relative is a black belt too (unless it’s from a known legitimate instructor) because I know their test and belt were/are probably a joke from a fighting skills standpoint. But honestly it’s the fact that people lump my belt and these other belts together into one, and that these other schools aren’t differentiating the skills they are teaching their students between exhibition skills, sport skills, and real world/self defense skills.

But I never directly put down other people’s accomplishments or other styles because I realize that not everyone is training for the same reason I am.

[Kirks]

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:
Ye, my stories are all along these lines too. I used to go to a commercial gym briefly, and every time there’d be a bunch of (sloppy) body building types, wearing tapout tshirts, who were doing pullups and getting a mate to throw shitty punches into their guts at the bottom of each rep. Then they’d swagger around the gym giving bad looks to anyone who looked at them. Eventually, I was waiting to use the chinup bar and asked one of them what they trained and where. All I got by way of answer was ‘just don’t fuck with us, that’s all you need to know’. Turns out they were both PTs at the gym. I was chatting to one of the girls who worked at the desk a week or two later, and mentioned the bloke’s bad attitude. Turns out ‘ever since those two started running the boxercise classes, they had been picking fights with everyone.’ Didn’t speak to them again, as I stopped going to that gym a month or so after that, so didn’t have any cause to call them on their bullshit.
[/quote]

That story ends a bit to early for my liking. Was hoping there would be another paragraph or so.

I don’t have any fraud stories, I have one bloke on facebook who teaches some form of martial arts, not sure which. I know he competes BJJ (pretty sure he does alright though) and teaches some Krav classes, not sure if that’s it but all the video’s he posts on facey of his students seem really shit. One girls was throwing a combo (think it looked like MMA training) and she could have written a letter to her opponent telling them of the uppercut she was about to throw she telegraphed it so badly.

[Pigeonkak]

[quote]Kirks wrote:

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:
Ye, my stories are all along these lines too. I used to go to a commercial gym briefly, and every time there’d be a bunch of (sloppy) body building types, wearing tapout tshirts, who were doing pullups and getting a mate to throw shitty punches into their guts at the bottom of each rep. Then they’d swagger around the gym giving bad looks to anyone who looked at them. Eventually, I was waiting to use the chinup bar and asked one of them what they trained and where. All I got by way of answer was ‘just don’t fuck with us, that’s all you need to know’. Turns out they were both PTs at the gym. I was chatting to one of the girls who worked at the desk a week or two later, and mentioned the bloke’s bad attitude. Turns out ‘ever since those two started running the boxercise classes, they had been picking fights with everyone.’ Didn’t speak to them again, as I stopped going to that gym a month or so after that, so didn’t have any cause to call them on their bullshit.
[/quote]

That story ends a bit to early for my liking. Was hoping there would be another paragraph or so.

I don’t have any fraud stories, I have one bloke on facebook who teaches some form of martial arts, not sure which. I know he competes BJJ (pretty sure he does alright though) and teaches some Krav classes, not sure if that’s it but all the video’s he posts on facey of his students seem really shit. One girls was throwing a combo (think it looked like MMA training) and she could have written a letter to her opponent telling them of the uppercut she was about to throw she telegraphed it so badly. [/quote]

I think we need to make a distinction between people who claim to be something but who are nothing of the sort, and people who do in fact do something but just do it badly. My good ole of a friend I mentioned earlier constantly claims a bunch of things including being a successful bodybuilder, a martial artist, and expert personal trainer and that he can take anyone with a heart beat and being an “athlete”. Truthfully, he hasn’t been in stage shape for BB contest in almost a decade, hasn’t done more than a few weeks of martial arts training a year on average since High School and probably gets most of the current information he offers to personal training clients from TNation. London’s gym bunny buddies run a boxercise class and are claiming they “shouldn’t be messed with”. I’m pretty sure London could mess them up pretty good. As with cases of Stolen Valor, a reasonable option is to name and shame frauds. It ruins their reputation and ability to continue the fraud without changing bars or moving towns

I think your facebook friend may just be bad at his job, but he is still (plausibly at least) an instructor. I don’t believe calling him out on how bad an instructor he is unless his training is placing students in harms way, and or preparing them incorrectly for fights or competition. But honestly, since I’m not an instructor myself I would let other instructors take on that issue.

[batman730]

[quote]humble wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
Sentoguy - never saw him work any muscle but his mouth, so not sure how good he was. But the weapons he carried were poor quality and poorly kept, and I tend to believe you can tell a lot about a man by hos weapons. Unless those were part of the act too, in which case this guy was really good, because I wouldn’t consider him more of a threat than any otther average skill pistolero.[/quote]

Fair enough, as I said, I don’t know the individual in question. Just trying to give a word of warning based on an experience that I had of totally underestimating someone based on looks alone, only to find out that I had been dead wrong, and had I been a criminal making those assumptions I may have just been dead.

The Ninja have been using the principles of disguise, deception, and stealth (which doesn’t just mean sneaking around in the dark) for hundreds if not thousands of years. Today’s spies and espionage agents continue to use these same concepts when in the field to avoid detection.

So, someone who is really applying the concepts will not appear special, extraordinary, or intimidating at first sight, they will let the other “tough guys” tell you how tough they are, how many fights they’ve had, how many belts they’ve won/earned and let you keep underestimating them. This might be a good argument against this guy being a Ninjutsu practitioner though (depending on the context of how his Ninjutsu training came up and whether he would broadcast it regularly to random people or only tell those he trusted in private or if pressed/asked).[/quote]

I am actually consciously working on cultivating my “grey man” attributes right now. I am by nature somewhat extroverted and outspoken. This combined with being physically large and tending to “look the part” a little too much makes me a little more conspicuous than I would sometimes like to be.

It’s actually a really interesting challenge to try to blend in and fly under the radar.[/quote]

Become a vegan Wear clothes of hemp 10 sizes too big, put a daisy in your hair and wear a leather braided necklack. She’l be right son
[/quote]

Solid plan. Putting this into practice immediately. I was thinking skinny jeans, but oversized hemp sounds better.

Cheers.

[Sentoguy]

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:

[quote]Kirks wrote:

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:
Ye, my stories are all along these lines too. I used to go to a commercial gym briefly, and every time there’d be a bunch of (sloppy) body building types, wearing tapout tshirts, who were doing pullups and getting a mate to throw shitty punches into their guts at the bottom of each rep. Then they’d swagger around the gym giving bad looks to anyone who looked at them. Eventually, I was waiting to use the chinup bar and asked one of them what they trained and where. All I got by way of answer was ‘just don’t fuck with us, that’s all you need to know’. Turns out they were both PTs at the gym. I was chatting to one of the girls who worked at the desk a week or two later, and mentioned the bloke’s bad attitude. Turns out ‘ever since those two started running the boxercise classes, they had been picking fights with everyone.’ Didn’t speak to them again, as I stopped going to that gym a month or so after that, so didn’t have any cause to call them on their bullshit.
[/quote]

That story ends a bit to early for my liking. Was hoping there would be another paragraph or so.

I don’t have any fraud stories, I have one bloke on facebook who teaches some form of martial arts, not sure which. I know he competes BJJ (pretty sure he does alright though) and teaches some Krav classes, not sure if that’s it but all the video’s he posts on facey of his students seem really shit. One girls was throwing a combo (think it looked like MMA training) and she could have written a letter to her opponent telling them of the uppercut she was about to throw she telegraphed it so badly. [/quote]

I think we need to make a distinction between people who claim to be something but who are nothing of the sort, and people who do in fact do something but just do it badly. My good ole of a friend I mentioned earlier constantly claims a bunch of things including being a successful bodybuilder, a martial artist, and expert personal trainer and that he can take anyone with a heart beat and being an “athlete”. Truthfully, he hasn’t been in stage shape for BB contest in almost a decade, hasn’t done more than a few weeks of martial arts training a year on average since High School and probably gets most of the current information he offers to personal training clients from TNation. London’s gym bunny buddies run a boxercise class and are claiming they “shouldn’t be messed with”. I’m pretty sure London could mess them up pretty good. As with cases of Stolen Valor, a reasonable option is to name and shame frauds. It ruins their reputation and ability to continue the fraud without changing bars or moving towns

I think your facebook friend may just be bad at his job, but he is still (plausibly at least) an instructor. I don’t believe calling him out on how bad an instructor he is unless his training is placing students in harms way, and or preparing them incorrectly for fights or competition. But honestly, since I’m not an instructor myself I would let other instructors take on that issue.

[/quote]

I tend to agree.

You also have to take into consideration that:

1. the instructor has no real control of their students’ athletic qualities when they come to him (and even after training it will determine their ultimate ceiling in most cases), so you can’t really fault him for one of his students looking sloppy in those Facebook vids. I know we’d all like to be in a place where we could have a room/dojo/etc…full of GSP’s, Rousseys, RJJ’s, etc…but the reality is that we probably aren’t. So you have to take all comers and just do your best to help them improve and develop to the best of their abilities. And if you train kids, this reality becomes even more apparent to you.

2. You don’t know why the woman in the video is training. There is a lot more to the benefits of martial arts than just being able to throw textbook punches. I know I’ve had female students who were the victims of past assaults who are training to attempt to regain some sense of control and self worth in their lives; some that I’ve seen totally come out of their shell and be able to overcome social phobias or anxiety; and some who have transformed their bodies through the fitness component and as a result lead happier, healthier lives.

If the girl in the video wants to fight or compete and your friend lets her before she is ready for it and allows her to go in against someone who is ready, then you can fault him for his coaching/teaching abilities because then he is willingly and knowingly putting his students safety and well being at risk.

[jj_dude]

– So I went to a demo from the local ninjutsu club at our university. This was mostly a bunch of movie moves all strung together. The instructor was something like a 5th degree blackbelt – skinny kid, maybe 20. He assured us that his teacher was a 15th degree or some such.

The best part was this: after explaining how lethal it all was, they did a disarm move against a (fake) assault rifle that started with bracing the barrel (the very end of the thing, I shit you not) against their stomach and levering the butt away from the baddie. Yup, I’d say that’s lethal… (This same move was ripped off of some Aikido technique for pulling a jo (short staff) away from someone. Riiiight.)

– jj

[Ranzo]

Im not good at long gun disarms but the basic would be redirecting the barrel away from the bad guy and turning the hangrip over the thumb. Sounds like the Ninja would get shot.

[jj_dude]

[quote]Ranzo wrote:
Im not good at long gun disarms but the basic would be redirecting the barrel away from the bad guy and turning the hangrip over the thumb. Sounds like the Ninja would get shot.

[/quote]

Yup. They’d help the bad guy pull the trigger in the process of disarming him. I was laughing so hard I had to excuse myself…

[SBGuerrilla]

[quote]Ranzo wrote:
Im not good at long gun disarms but the basic would be redirecting the barrel away from the bad guy and turning the hangrip over the thumb. Sounds like the Ninja would get shot.

[/quote]

Long Gun disarms generally involve taking the barrel towards the attacker.

[SBGuerrilla]

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]Ranzo wrote:
Im not good at long gun disarms but the basic would be redirecting the barrel away from the bad guy and turning the hangrip over the thumb. Sounds like the Ninja would get shot.

[/quote]

Yup. They’d help the bad guy pull the trigger in the process of disarming him. I was laughing so hard I had to excuse myself… [/quote]

These guys have any YouTube vids? I’m in need of a good laugh.

[devildog_jim]

If you’re really good with that long gun disarm you can wrist lock him with it. And yeah, step 1 of any disarm is don’t stand in front of the gun.

[SBGuerrilla]

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
If you’re really good with that long gun disarm you can wrist lock him with it. And yeah, step 1 of any disarm is don’t stand in front of the gun.[/quote]

Wrist lock? Do you have any pics or vids of this? Sounds interesting.

[devildog_jim]

I can’t find any rifle vids at the moment, but it’s very similar to a stick wrist lock where you keep awareness of the end that goes bang: Professor Remy Presas wrist lock come along - YouTube

[idaho]

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
– So I went to a demo from the local ninjutsu club at our university. This was mostly a bunch of movie moves all strung together. The instructor was something like a 5th degree blackbelt – skinny kid, maybe 20. He assured us that his teacher was a 15th degree or some such.

The best part was this: after explaining how lethal it all was, they did a disarm move against a (fake) assault rifle that started with bracing the barrel (the very end of the thing, I shit you not) against their stomach and levering the butt away from the baddie. Yup, I’d say that’s lethal… (This same move was ripped off of some Aikido technique for pulling a jo (short staff) away from someone. Riiiight.)

– jj[/quote]

5th Degree Black belt at age 20? with life experiences? What??? he started training at age 3? and go on to kill 5 men in unarmed combat by age 12? LOL

The sad thing is, someone at that demo actualy believed that crap…

[Sentoguy]

[quote]idaho wrote:

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
– So I went to a demo from the local ninjutsu club at our university. This was mostly a bunch of movie moves all strung together. The instructor was something like a 5th degree blackbelt – skinny kid, maybe 20. He assured us that his teacher was a 15th degree or some such.

The best part was this: after explaining how lethal it all was, they did a disarm move against a (fake) assault rifle that started with bracing the barrel (the very end of the thing, I shit you not) against their stomach and levering the butt away from the baddie. Yup, I’d say that’s lethal… (This same move was ripped off of some Aikido technique for pulling a jo (short staff) away from someone. Riiiight.)

– jj[/quote]

5th Degree Black belt at age 20? with life experiences? What??? he started training at age 3? and go on to kill 5 men in unarmed combat by age 12? LOL

The sad thing is, someone at that demo actualy believed that crap… [/quote]

What’s even sadder is that this guy might have actually been a fifth degree black belt at age 20. There are quite a few 10-12 year old black belts (some multiple degree black belts) walking around in TKD schools (sorry any legit TKD guys; your system has been largely hijacked by people more concerned with making money than creating quality black belts) near me. So, by extension, it’s not impossible to imagine that some of these people would be awarded (I hesitate to say “have earned”, cause, you know…) a fifth degree by age 20.

I do actually know of a couple of guys who literally started training as soon as they could walk, were raised into a family of highly skilled martial artists, had an incredibly tough childhood where they were fighting (both each other, and other people in real fights) and constantly training, and reached that level legitimately by that age. But such people are indeed very rare.

[ThugLifeGoldie]

Back in middle school my brother got into an altercation at the town pool. The kid was threatening my brother with his “knowledge” of TKD, claiming to be a “senior red belt” (which I don’t doubt he is at his McDojo). The situation was escalating and the kid proceeded to kick my brother. My brother is one of the least intimidating people I know, but he’s a pretty good wrestler. My brother caught the kick and held it like a single leg takedown and threw him into a garbage can.

Ironically, a couple years later this same kid tried to rape choke me during an incident in pickup basketball. I simply elbow-passed his choke arm and went right to a blast double. Now had this kid been a legit TKD guy I think my brother and I would have been in trouble. Had he been a legit TKD guy I don’t think his first instinct would have been to attempt to rape choke someone 30 pounds heavier than him. Come to think of it, none of the TKD guys I know are legit (I know there are legit TKD guys out there, I just have yet to meet one), or pretty much any TMA or MMA guys from my hometown (I live in a pretty soft community where lawsuits from mommy and daddy are a bigger threat than anyone’s martial arts skills).

I’ve come to the conclusion that the more shit people talk about their fighting abilities, the bigger the fraud they are. Case in point: last night at a party at my college some guy was talking about how he would kill the starting 184-pounder on our wrestling team in a fight (our 184-pounder is ranked pretty highly in the country and was third in the state in high school). Later he got his ass kicked by a backup 133-pounder.

[Quiet_Warrior]

[quote]devildog_jim wrote:
I can’t find any rifle vids at the moment, but it’s very similar to a stick wrist lock where you keep awareness of the end that goes bang: Professor Remy Presas wrist lock come along - YouTube
The good old fashioned chicken wing ! Very cool video, thanks for sharing.